Mafia 105 - Caught in the Crossfire (Game Over)

[hitogoroshi]

/confirm

[hitogoroshi]

I personally want to discover whether or not it is possible to lynch something that can fly.

vote:roflcoptor

[hitogoroshi]

But how else will you earn HF$? You are ill-equipped for the dog-eat-dog environment of Hoopla Street.

[hitogoroshi]

Hoopla, he said he thinks Sigma will die, not that he agrees with it.

[hitogoroshi]

Yeah, I just noticed now the no-unvoting rule was eliminated. For a second I was thinking "Did CSL's unvote really count...?"

I'm going to have to agree with Maemuki re:sigma's comment:

elvis_knits: only one game post at this time, voting vi for a dodgy reason. keeping an eye on her.

This was the reason, for the record:

Sigma is not the first person to use the "I'm voting for someone I don't know" reason. I have seen it before. It is not novel. It is not wild and crazy. Haven't you seen it before, Vi?

vote Vi

This does sound a bit like a non-random vote but it was snugly inside the RVS. This kind of puts me in the line of thought that it's an incredibly poor bus or something - elvis makes a post more or less defending sigma and sigma rushes in to distance himself. Conversely, if E_K and sigma were scumbuddies I wouldn't think e_k would do such a blatant defense of sigma so I'm not quite sure what to think there.

[hitogoroshi]

Holy crap, this game is fast. I mean, I expected as much with twenty-five people, but still, can't a guy make a Let's Play video in peace?

I love the call to OMGUS, too. But, lets just keep on keeping on and look at some of the delectable plays we have goin up ins:

- Budja 146. Just, seriously. Not one, two, three but FOUR reasons to jump on this train?
- Hiphop the cheerleader.
- Anon the snipa'

I'd put more than even money on one of those three being scum. This wagon is too good to, even at this point, keep the fingers off of.

I disagree with that. Remember, this is plurality voting, if scum try to rush-hammer there will be a long, lonely 24 hours where they sit with targets on their heads. Quite frankly I wouldn't be too surprised if there were NO scum on your wagon.

And thank you for the intermission, Vi. I'll try to comb this all over again and take notes about the wagons in general. (Tempted to put them in an excel spreadsheet, so I can graph them as functions of time. Apparently we *are* allowed to post images here?)

[hitogoroshi]

Mkay, so here's the graph of the vote counts of anyone who had three or more votes on them in any vote count. While it's very helpful for me to have on hand to use interpolate instead of manually checking each vote count, this graph doesn't seem to impart any particular insight (at least to me.) I'm gonna update this locally but I won't post other graphs after this one unless someone requests it.

Also, I'm gonna just post the URL instead of embedding because that strikes me as more polite. Here it is.

Pops:

The sprinkler system "scumhunting" looks pretty bad to me. You're posting things that have happened, not even in reason form, and then indicating suspicion towards several people for insubstantial reasons. It looks like scum that wants someone else to follow it up, wants several different angles to go to get a mislynch, and overall wants more bodies on the floor. I'm pretty surprised no one else is upset by this.

You *seriously* think these are points he intends to follow up on? As though he was laying the groundwork for mislynching later? And yet at the same time they're insubstantial? I agree they're stupid points, but that seems to be more or less the point, and to say this is a 'sprinkler system scumhunt' is kind of silly. Do you think he's going to post D2 saying, "Remember the suspicion I raised earlier regarding hito's joke about hoopla fun dollars? I think we should follow up on that."

[hitogoroshi]

Vote Count, Day 1

hiphop ( 0 )
Budja ( 1 ) SpyreX
charter ( 1 ) popsofctown
ConfidAnon ( 7 ) - sigma - CSL - roflcopter - elvis_knits - Pads - Vi - Sotty7
crypto ( 1 ) Hoopla
CSL ( 1 ) - RedCoyote
elvis_knits ( 0 )
Energetic Penguin ( 0 )
hitogoroshi ( 0 )
Hoopla ( 1 ) - Energetic Penguin
Idiotking ( 0 )
imaginality ( 0 )
Infinis ( 0 )
Juls ( 0 )
Maemuki ( 1 ) - crypto
Pads ( 0 )
popsofctown ( 1 ) - charter
Psychologic ( 0 )
RayFrost ( 0 )
RedCoyote ( 0 )
roflcopter ( 0 )
sigma ( 1 ) - infinis
Sotty7 ( 0 )
SpyreX ( 4 ) - RayFrost - Budja - hiphop - ConfidAnon
Vi ( 0 )
Unvote ( 6 ) - Idiotking - Juls - imaginality - Psychologic Maemuki - hitogoroshi
Total Votes ( 25 )

With 25 alive, 13 needed to reach a majority.
Deadline is at December 1st, 11am EST

It's called keeping your options open as scum, and being able to vote anyone and pretend you were there all along actually works if no one notices.

Then

notice

if and when it happens. There are enough real accusations flying around to avoid 'I bet x will' ones.

I'm reading crypto and maemuki as two townies attacking each other. Both have shown enough independence in their games that them being scum doesn't fit at the moment.

Could you please define 'independence in their games?'

Mae, I think those questions (post 348, two above me) are a little unfair in terms of information density/length. You should try to make your questions to crypto as long as the responses you expect (e.g, put supporting examples with your question if you want supporting examples in his answer.) This is doubly true with the word count limit - we should try to respect the other players here.

Also I may as well take off my random vote here.

unvote

.

[hitogoroshi]

Just "hito" will be fine, I know it's not the easiest thing to type out the whole name.

And what can I say? I'm not a big fan of voting on early bandwagons (I can appreciate the concept of pressuring but imho it more proves whether or not the player has good nerves than anything about alignment when done so early in the game) and there's no one else who I could justify a case against so my vote would be more or less shouting into the wind. I mean I could vote for who I think is scummiest right now but my 'case' would basicially just be an angry face and unlikely to attract others to my cause. :p

[hitogoroshi]

Who do you think is scummiest?

I was struggling to pick a top candidate when pops and ep made the decision much easier! (debolding the votes in the quotes so there's no confusion.)

This day DOES need to be shorter so I will unvote, vote: ConfidAnon. To be honest what he did was soooo far back now it's fuzzy, but I remember he sheeped onto Spyrex's wagon merely calling him "defensive".

I don't think Hoopla wants to be taken seriously guys. "we're wagonning X now?" is at least somewhat tongue in cheek. I hope. She later posts actual game content.

Eh, feel like i should dig through more and post more to match everyone else but I guess I'll let this umpteen page game get some mercy.

Condemning Hoopla for saying 'we're wagoning x now?' when, in the previous paragraph, he decided to wagon x without, as he admitted, really knowing why. And then as a nice touch, decided to look as though he was being magnanimous by not posting content!

And then of course this gem:

I currently find confianon scummy for the things already brought up and if Pops insists that hoopola will actually post content then I'm gonna,
Unvote, Vote: Confidanon

'For the things already brought up' is my trigger phrase.

vote: Energetic Penguin

. I'll go dig up more of his stuff in a bit but honestly I think he kind of makes the case against himself here. I doubt this will get a bandwagon going (early vote only as strong as it's justification and all that) but this is more of a meta-crusade to end 'for the things already brought up.'

[hitogoroshi]

Is this a policy lynch, then?

Depends on what sense you mean. I do think that it's a very scummy and anti-town thing to say "voting x for reasons already mentioned" so it's not a policy thing in that sense. However, I suppose if someone showed something akin to 'That's what ep always does', that wouldn't sway me, and in that sense it is a policy lynch. I think it's either a scumtell or terrible play that should be punished. Either one is reason enough to throw down a vote.

And guys, please, if you're responding to posts that are more that a few away from yours, make the numbers hyperlinks if you're not doing quotes for wc constraints.

[hitogoroshi]

Double posting, my two posts are still less than 750wc combined so whatever.

When I said I'd look at ep's other stuff, turns out there wasn't really anything else! There was an FOS and vote that was apparently 'not entirely serious', and then there was this:

I'm quite suspicous of Hoopola, His continuing wagon hopping and following the crowd like a lemming is scummy.

Spelling and gender errors aside, this was one post before he wagon hopped and followed the crowd.

...

Like a lemming.

He said he was new here and quite frankly I'm not so sure ep belongs in a large game.

[hitogoroshi]

To elaborate on this point yesterday, I'd much rather have a little less information by pushing out an earlier than usual lynch, if it means D1 will become easier to analyse. Games with 40+ page D1's tend to require another 20 just to sift through it all, and a lot of people won't read the thread in that situation, resorting to the out of context, watered down tactic of iso-reading. More information is better is not always true, when towns aren't capable of analysing it properly.

This is a point I hadn't thought of yet. With such large numbers I might have to cast off my usual aversion to quick-wagoning before we all drown in a pool of data. Regardless, at the moment unless everyone wants to join me on penguin there's no one else I'm quite up for lynching yet. I'll lower my standards if this creeps along too much longer, though.

Also, let me be the first in thread to say happy birthday, Hoopla!

[hitogoroshi]

This is a hyper-rushed post but:

hito, 353: This sounds like an excuse not to get your hands dirty. elvis was good to call you out, and even in this post, your response to her attack, you still didn't vote anyone. You say you can't justify a vote on anyone, I call that bs.

I don't like to vote for someone early unless a). I think I can gather a wagon in support of my cause or b.) I think the offending action is so grievous no case needs to be made. There still isn't anyone in my case that I could get an a-wagon on (I usually don't get a nice solid scumread D1), and that was the case when I responded to e_k. A little bit down that same page ep made a post that I b-voted him for.

And I don't see how it's so scummy that I didn't vote for someone in my response post. After all, if I had a reason for not voting up to that point, that's hardly going to change just because e_k pointed it out!

[hitogoroshi]

blah blah blah I didn't hyperlink the post numbers

:<

blah blah blah I didn't hyperlink the post numbers

:<

***

How do you figure? I'm impatiently waiting people to subscribe to my "CSL is the best D1 lynch we could ask for" theme. I've made it in no way unclear that sigma holds a welcome place amongst my scum predictions for the time being. crypto is not far behind, although I'm liking his latest, more collected exchanges.

In addition to all of that, I am not as skeptical of the EP wagon as I was to the Confid wagon, although, for the life of me, I have no idea why EP is more of vote magnet then half the other people on the Confid wagon.

After sorting the thread to only display CSL's posts, I'm inclined to agree - he hasn't really done a thing yet. EP magnets my vote because of the magic words "for reasons already said" but CSL did something similar in 208 and so as of now I think I would be happy with a CSL wagon and would hop right on if I ever decide to stop voting ep.

This is a fair point; I didn't look at it that way. Regardless, I'm still not buying you're "playstyle" argument as to your lack of a vote. Players have used this argument against Idiotking, and I hope they intend to use it against you as well.

Day 1 in a game with 25 players, and you're preaching caution when using your vote? I just don't understand that philosophy, even on a principled level.

It's not about caution, it's about usefulness. I vote mostly when I like the bandwagon or when I think I can get one (or, as said before, if someone just does something so disgusting I vote without qualifiers). Otherwise, I don't like to throw it around because it devalues it as a pressuring tool - if I've voted for five people in a day the sixth isn't exactly concerned when I vote them. (Though admittedly, in a 25 person game, votes don't have too much pressuring power anyway!) So if I don't think my vote will serve any real purpose I don't use it.

**

I'm gonna have to side with crypto in his argument with e_k re: Maemuki. I'm having a really hard time buying the idea that he first professed suspicion because he was scum and just

so worried

that everyone would unquestioningly accept maemuki as obvtown without question that he had to rush in and say negative things.

**

This is the part where I respond to the post e_penguin didn't make.

**

A little note - I am keeping up with the bandwagon graphs, but with the increasing number of people and days it's getting useless as a whole. While I actually think the graphs are getting more useful as we get more data, and will gladly post on request, try to pick 2-3 people max to display on one graph - otherwise it becomes all but impossible to discern any sort of trend.

[hitogoroshi]

@hito: I don't think the bandwagon graphs are that effective tbh.

How

do

you intend to pressure people anyway, if not with a vote? People could just ignore you.

@mod: Please prod/replace Psychologic

That's the point, Vi. I want to pressure with my vote, which means that I can't overuse it because the pressuring power is directly linked to how much I'm going to follow up on it. I try not to move around as much as, say, BM, because when I vote someone I want it to send the message that it's going to stay until you respond to point x. (I don't have BM's magical ability to create pressure out of thin air like he did to Jason in zachtown.)

Also, protip for ep: saying 'I'm sorry' is not responding to point x.

[hitogoroshi]

So you've played five games on your 'main' and yet have two alts? What's that all about? :/

[hitogoroshi]

No, I'm curious as to what that is all about. Hence the question "What's that all about?". With a :/ face to express my general puzzlement at the idea.

[hitogoroshi]

I don't have the time to do supporting quotes right now - and likely won't until late tonight, if at all today - but this game has been flying recently so let me get a few thoughts out here. AioI, if you will.

I understand what Redcoyote is saying - what makes one little/no content player (infinis) better than any other (CSL, EP, etc.)? I haven't seen a convincing answer to that, and I REALLY don't like Vi's turnaround vote on Red for bringing this up. In fact, going off of coyote's post, why IS it that rofl got such quick support for an infinis lynch among previously bickering players? I want that question answered as well.

Why are we more or less ignoring CSL and ep? My vote stays.

I agree with Hoopla that what could have been an innocent slip (crypto's two scum comment) does gain a lot more ill will when used as a rebuttal. But I also think he's incredibly flustered right now and, as he said,

This has been an abortion of a game for me, so by God I'm going to abuse every chance at ill temper I get.

so there's that mitigating factor.

Sotty, I did miss your post 480 (at least, that section directed at me). It's the specific phrase 'reasons already said' that is my trigger word, and I don't jump on it quite as fast when it's paraphrased - but that's just because I'm not seeing it, and logically they're the same problem. So if a CSL wagon gets going above EP, I'll gladly switch.

[hitogoroshi]

Vi, you said:

RedCoyote 616's Texan exaggeration and rabble-rousing style gives me terrible flashbacks to this game (not surprisingly, so does pops - although this was one of pops' better games, and he was Town). Add on what roflcopter said and there's nothing to doubt. (Besides, it's no fun pressuring people who don't respond.)

but that doesn't make any sense with your votes. Red was saying there are other players who aren't posting content that deserve to be looked at besides infinis, and obviously you agree since you sandwiched your vote for him between EP votes. So what exactly was he exaggerating about? The idea that we should look at the confid wagon? And why is the town in general tripping over themselves to agree with rofl?

(in before 7for7)

And Mae, just asking questions isn't content.

[hitogoroshi]

Looking over the vote counts as I put them into my graph, I noticed something.

Mod: Is the vote count for Maemuki on the top of pages 23,24 correct? Or should those be '2's?

Also I obviously agree about what people are saying re:CSL but why aren't we saying these things about penguin? He is doing the same thing, and he's been doing it for longer.

Apologies for the rather sparse content here. Just a nice gristly lump of projects right now. Rest assured I'm not replacing out and I'm following along more or less with the game - I'm just not too up for digging right now. Hopefully this will resolve itself in a couple of days.

[hitogoroshi]

You can't 'defend' anything, because

you haven't done a goddamn thing

. You jump in, vote with the prevailing bandwagon for a reason someone else said, and then leave. Consistency has nothing to do with it and I don't know why you think it does. The only inconsistent thing you could do right now is participate. I could quote every post you've made (including the posts you quoted in those posts) and it wouldn't be over the word count limit.

[hitogoroshi]

Ordinarily I'm not a fan of bandwagoning the defenseless - even on someone so righteously deserving as CSL - but here I'm more swayed by Hoopla's length argument than anything. If we can put this monster to bed it won't be quite so daunting to Shotty (who impressively still seemed to have a pretty good read in such a short time!) and Pyscho's replacement.

I think more voting at this point is defunct but if the CSL wagon loses steam for some reason I can jump on. Otherwise I want to keep my vote on e-penguin because I don't want to move this until he posts content.

And Vi, of frikkin course it's more fluff than substance. We are on page 33 and his post is two hours after his replacing-in was announced.

[hitogoroshi]

I haven't posted too much so I'm once again go throw down some AioI. Basically like roflcopter except complete sentences. :p

**

I'm not so sure I think the CSL wagon has a lot of scum on it. He more or less made the case against himself, and while that makes it a safe wagon to be on it's also a very safe wagon to NOT be on and still be confident it'll happen.

**

I agree with Spyrex 916 (two posts up) that the kills are pretty odd. I wouldn't be so quick to assume there aren't two vigs, though (or a double-kill vig? Do those exist?). This doesn't seem like a system we can game all that much. (And no mafia # on imaginality. Does that just mean they don't distinguish the two mafia's when dead, or...?)

**

I've suddenly got this little feeling that there could be a good number of scum not on any wagon - the long game-day was very short in terms of real-life days and I could see scum intimidated by the pace and just trying to stay out of the crossfire (see what I did there?). Either that, or just voting on the noncontroversial wagons like EP or CSL. Of course the former would implicate me as scum and the latter clashes with what I said earlier - but I'm just trying to get ideas down right now.

**

I really don't like Pad's 888. I think part of it is that it read so similar to 619 - with the same stand-offish self defense and pretty damn similar lists. With the sheer insane pace of this game I'm inclined to think of certainty and consistency as somewhat scummy. Of course, most of what I don't like about that post is more subconscious than that, but apparently we're voting with our guts now, so

vote: pads

.

**

That previous vote should be in no way construed as me accepting the existence of EP in any way. But with the start of the new day he gets a few posts to actually try to contribute.

**

Preview-edit: Looking at rofl's post made me realize I should sort by imaginality and see what comes up. I'll try to keep my analysis slightly shorter I will say that that post makes me like rofl much more, but I want to view it all again myself before I pass judgment on rofl's list.

[hitogoroshi]

I suspect certain people of being scum, and then less than 48 hours later, I still suspect many of them. Thus, I am scum. I'm going to assume that no one mistakes this for real scum hunting. That I consistently pointed at Hito as scum yesterday surely has nothing to do with it.

It's not about simply holding the same scum reads. It's about twice in quick succession making multi-tiered lists, and

in addition

having those lists be similar. Scum are the ones who have their minds made up before the day starts, and to me the quick pair of lists strikes me as really scummy. I mean, I don't know about you, but I certainty can't neatly categorize who I want lynched and even if I could, I certainty wouldn't to continually re-post my thoughts in a nice bundle and give the scum a big old "HEY - PICK A TOWNIE FROM THIS LIST AND EARN MY MISLYNCH" sign.

I also doubt this vote would be here unless SpyreX had dropped a far more reasoned vote (at least, I think it's more reasoned) first, but that's neither here nor there.

No, this is pretty much correct. This is my first game of this size and so I figured I should play against my meta and actually throw down a vote right at the start of the day. But starting the day by continuing to gun for EP rings a bit hollow, and so I'm leaving that one in my pocket in case he continues to not do anything. So in the end I just picked someone who's posts gave me a bad feeling and that someone else had a more rational case against.

***

I really really like Charter 949's thoughts against Vi.. Especially the line of thought re: confirmed townies. Wasn't Elvis another big supporter of that idea?

[hitogoroshi]

vote: hitogoroshi

says he likes charter's points against Vi yet doesn't change his vote from pads who I believe he has a weaker case against (it's opinionated... town know who they suspect as much as scum know who they want dead).

Thus, I feel he's trying to leave his vote on a "safe" target and thus not contribute to any lynches.

As I said before, I know it's opinionated. That was just what set my gut off, and I voted more or less because of that opinion. But no matter how arbitrary the reason for the vote, once it's placed I give it a certain amount of inertia. I don't like to hop wagons every time someone makes a good point because, as I've said before, I think that devalues my vote as a pressuring tool.

Though, that being said, if none of you agree with my gut re: listmaking, then I'm probably in the wrong here, so I guess I'll

unvote

.

***

Wait. Why are scum the only people to have made up their minds before day starts? Are you saying townies don't think the game over at night or something? I don't see how this is scummy.

What I'm saying is that scum only ever pretend to change their minds if they do at all, because they never receive information that makes them question someone else's alignment (obviously there's rolefishing and the ilk for PR's, but that's not important for this point), because they know the people they DON'T want lynched from the get-go. Of course, this line of thought makes sense to me, but I can understand if it's not true in practice because I'm mostly just speculating on how I think I would play if I was scum and looking for that in other people. (fun fact: hito has never been scum on mafiascum.) As such my gut reads are hunting down a style of mafioso that may sadly not actually exist.

***

I'm not so sure I'm comfortable starting up the next wagon with so many absent from the festivities. I also don't like Mae-scum. I don't think she would spend so much time defending e_k, especially since a kill request was given out to the dayvig more or less right at the start of the day. Rofl, you in particular said:

believe me when i tell you that scum are absolutely loathe to commit to an opinion about their scumpartners, to the point where they often ignore them altogether.

So what makes Mae<--->E_K so different? My money is on E_K's scumbuddy being one of those who've cowered out of the limelight D2.


***

My poor vote is lonely now. But I'm gonna hold on to it a little bit because I REALLY don't like all of the players laying low. It's taking all of the mental fortitude I possess not to vote EP again.

[hitogoroshi]

Vote Count, Day 2, Post Day Kill

hiphop ( 1 ) - Xylthixlm
shotty to the body ( 0 )
charter ( 0 )
Energetic Penguin ( 0 )
hitogoroshi ( 1 ) - RayFrost
Idiotking ( 1 ) - RedCoyote
Infinis ( 0 )
Xylthixlm ( 0 )
Maemuki ( 4 ) - Infinis - Vi - roflcopter - charter
Pads ( 1 ) - SpyreX
popsofctown ( 0 )
Zakeri ( 0 )
RayFrost ( 1 ) - Idiotking
RedCoyote ( 1 ) - hiphop
roflcopter ( 0 )
sigma ( 2 ) - shotty to the body - sotty7
Sotty7 ( 0 )
SpyreX ( 0 )
Vi ( 0 )
Unvote ( 7 ) - shotty to the body - Energetic Penguin - Maemuki - popsofctown - Zakeri - sigma - Pads - sotty7 - hitogoroshi
Total Votes ( 19 )

With 19 alive, 10 needed to reach a majority.
Deadline is at December 12th, 10am EST

You may have noticed that I didn't unvote because of what was being said against me, but what wasn't said about the vote. To quote my last post:

Though, that being said, if none of you agree with my gut re: listmaking, then I'm probably in the wrong here, so I guess I'll unvote.

Is it so scummy to think that maybe your gut can be wrong if no one agrees?

[hitogoroshi]

Vi and Red also said it was weak. Regardless, I was looking for positive evidence: I thought it seemed like a scumtell and I offered up my best guess as to what was setting off my gut. Having multiple people who know what they're talking about say no without anyone saying yes really suggests that I'm just wrong about it, rather than it being some higher-level scumtell only I can comprehend. Perhaps I'm a bit too quick to abandon my reads but I think via the whole 'first rule of catching those who stick out from the crowd: be a crowd' principle, it's better to do so than to overly tunnel and put too much faith into my own instincts.

[hitogoroshi]

hitogoroshi, has anyone ever told you that you picked a bad username? Seriously, "murderer"? I'm going to expect you to be scum in every game...

Yeah, I picked it when I was a weaboo 13 year old at a different forum, and now I kinda use it separate of it's Japanese origin because it's just my net handle and I've grown in to it as my identity. I've actually been trying to just get "hito" (or failing that, "flaminghito") on sites I register for now because I kind of hate the kind of person who takes words in a language they don't know and uses them and so this username makes me a hypocrite. :/

[hitogoroshi]

I'd like to bring up something I said before here:

I'm not so sure I'm comfortable starting up the next wagon with so many absent from the festivities. I also don't like Mae-scum. I don't think she would spend so much time defending e_k, especially since a kill request was given out to the dayvig more or less right at the start of the day. Rofl, you in particular said:

believe me when i tell you that scum are absolutely loathe to commit to an opinion about their scumpartners, to the point where they often ignore them altogether.

So what makes Mae<--->E_K so different? My money is on E_K's scumbuddy being one of those who've cowered out of the limelight D2.

Correct me if I'm wrong but rofl's case on charter kind of seems like a pretty similar argument to the one that was made against Mae.

***

Also if something gets janitored it would show up as no role/alignment rather than VT right? I've just felt like we've seen a lot of vanilla flips...

I think this is a good point. It makes me wonder about the 3 nks to 2 nks drop - maybe we've got two vigs and scant else on Team Town? It's a little much to hope for (unless I'm personally over-valuing vigs) but it seems to fit the idea of crossfire fairly well.

***

So I was looking back on stuff charter said and there was this...thing I missed.

And, we've already been over crypto was clearly not a mafia kill. There are like a dozen other people who are more of a threat to scum than him.

I apparently missed the 'already been over' and 'clearly' parts because this makes absolutely zero sense to me. Please elaborate?

***

If anyone has the time to do a D2 post count thinger that would be just peachy. I have this feeling there were a couple of people we more or less didn't see. (Myself included, granted!)

[hitogoroshi]

Correct me if I'm wrong but rofl's case on charter kind of seems like a pretty similar argument to the one that was made against Mae.

this is worthless fearmongering.

It's not fear, it's caution. Yes, the case on Elvis was based off of connections, but so was the case on Mae. The fact that we're calling charter as scum with elvis seems a whole lot to me like how we called Mae as scum with elvis. As I said before, correct me if I'm wrong, but as it stands they are looking too close for comfort. I didn't push the ideas from 1047 yesterday when doing so could have saved a townie, so you'll forgive me for being worried I may commit the same mistake of inaction again.

[hitogoroshi]

Ugh, bad time for me to go away. I had an eight-hour car ride back to college on Sunday and I returned with homework to do so that took precedence.

You'll forgive me for focusing on the posts regarding me first.

hito has been playing very cautiously, which can been seen as a good or a bad thing. Every post he makes it seems as though he is walking on eggshells, trying not to cause too much of a fuss but trying to make sure he has a post every couple of days.

I am playing cautiously. The simple truth is that there is no one I really really want lynched. That leaves me with two options: vote with a bandwagon or try to start a new one on a player I semi-dislike. But the second doesn't work if I don't have good reason to tunnel a single player, and I don't. You saw what happened with Pads D2 - I voted with my gut and it didn't hold up to scrutiny. But the only useful alternative to that (I say useful because while I've kind of ended up shoving my vote up my ass this game it's not my intention) is to follow a bandwagon, and I simply don't like the extreme turnover of wagons in this game. Part of it is the vig craziness that in essences creates half-day wagons. You only really have a day to consider whether or not you want to vote with a wagon, and then they're either lynched, vigged, or left in the dust for a new conquest.

I also think most players put a little bit too much stock in their own reads, and there is a general over-confidence among most players, but that's a discussion for another time and place.

Again, I want to point out, that on Day 1, you had nothing to say to me when I attacked you. But on Day 2, after SpyreX threw a vote on me, you immediatley vocalized. You are shrinking away from conflict, you are attacking those who state their opinions (and by association, defending those who don't state their opinions), and you have but two votes in this whole game, both for highly dubious reasons.

I don't even understand any consensus point that anyone could gather from this. Day 1 you never 'attacked' me; you put me on a list with no real reasoning whatsoever. Of course I had nothing to say to that, because there was nothing to respond to. In fact, you are illustrating my point about lists pretty beautifully! There is a big difference between bringing up your thoughts and making a list categorizing people you're willing to lynch with literally no additional comment (except a single comment that you didn't like my post on why I hadn't voted yet). Do you seriously not see a difference between a legitimate expression of opinion/case and a list?

Also, this point Pads made in particular makes me laugh:

Post 388
Reminds me of Bill Clinton's impeachment testimony.

Those who read the post will see that it was clarifying on whether or not my vote on EP was a policy vote. Like Bill Clinton? What the hell does that even mean, in terms of alignment? Is policy lynching some office intern I'm trying to equivocate about my association with? If that was a policy vote what possible reasoning would I have to be intermediate about it as scum?

As awesome as that one was, I have a REAL hard time stomaching that the charter shot was done by town. Just a fyi

Yes yes yes. Why has no one else brought this up? Who the hell kills an un-CC'd vig out of the blue like that? I don't even know what the implications of that are - either an investigative/vig combo or a really cocky vig who got lucky, maybe?

And rofl, if you're willing to lynch me off of one post, please take a look at my response to your fearmongering comment. I still agree with that 100% - despite the fact that charter ended up being scum, the connections with E_k you cited were still similar to the connections on Mae and were not a valid reason to push for a charter lynch.

[hitogoroshi]

750 wc here. I'll try to make the most of it.

Only I'm in a perpetual wait for you to say something concrete, something business related...What do you do in other games though? Has anyone else ever accused you of flying under the radar? Haven't we had this conversation before?

In other games I generally don't start wagons, but instead take the time to consider them as they progress. I have been accused of flying under the radar, but I can't link a specific post off of the top of my head. And no, I don't believe so.

And is that seriously what's considered townie? To just throw out your thoughts on many players, often? That strikes me as helpful to scum (you know my thoughts on lists already) but if that's what you guys want, sure.

I was leaning rofl-scum at first but he's stuck his neck out enough that he's floating in the null-to-townie range for me. IK's whiny defensiveness makes me angry but I don't think it means much in terms of alignment. I remember thinking pops was scummy for a while but he's been pretty town lately. People that spyrex find to be townies have an extreme propensity to die - this strikes me as scummy, but of course there's some WIFOM in there as well (being that it would be so blatantly obvious as scum.) fgads is fulfilling the destiny of the EP slot - how long before catchup isn't an excuse? :p and hiphop is asking too many questions.

Despite the simple yes or no question, you never actually came out with a yes or no answer. Instead, you concluded with the equivalent of: If he wasn't scum, then yes it was a policy lynch.

This doesn't make any sense. That post was making the point that I think it's a scummy action even if it's a part of his history. It wasn't a pre-emptive apology in the event of an EP townflip, it was saying that I would be unapologetic if he flipped town!

I never liked how day 1 he said "my vote is like a giant axe of iron that i shall rarely use lest it go dull", then he uses it to get on a policy lynch he could have gotten on much earlier. That doesn't really make sense.

It's not that I want to rarely use my vote, it's that I want to leave it where it is when I place it so it will have a bit more weight as a pressuring tool. I didn't vote EP because he was lurking, I voted him because he was so brazen about just throwing his vote on a wagon he had to be scum or a townie who needs to squirm a little and take this seriously.

My only issue with him is how quickly he dropped the point that only scum make up their minds over night and then abandoned his Pads vote. TownHito would argue his point more strongly than that I would think.

Yeah, this player list has left me a bit hesitant about my logic. I could very well be the only player in this game who hasn't ever been scum. I know there's a certain bluster behind claims like "X is scum" and "Y is a clear scumtell", but regardless it's hard for me to argue against that confidence with "I haven't been scum but I bet they would do this thing you don't think is a scumtell." This is more or less what happens with Pads.

See, it's a funny catch-22. If I take responsibility, I'm doomed. If I don't take responsibility, I'm equally doomed. So if I'm to be doomed no matter what I do, I might as well be honest and have a clear conscience.

You're doomed if you take responsibility? What the hell is this garbage? Do you realize how many ****in people were on the CSL wagon? (hint: enough to lynch him!) Do you see them tripping over themselves trying to blame someone else for the bandwagon? No - in fact, I don't think there is a single person who is apologetic for that lynch, and for good reason. I don't even know if this is indicative of being scum or not, but it certainly shows that you've got a weird sense of reality in your head.

[hitogoroshi]

hiphop is scummy for the reasons others have stated that I cba to remember

ಠ_ಠ

Normally I would like the IK attack on ray, but not in this context. IK was doing the defeated townie thing for a while there, but then at 1363 it was like a switch was flipped.

I really get the feel that IK-scum was like, "I'm just gonna act like a defeated townie would - oh wait! I can bus my scum partner instead! 1363!"

And ray was like "aw **** it, I'm bored of this game anyway. I guess I'll just say the most throwaway, lackadaisical things I can to piss everyone the hell off, get me out of this game on the Necktie Express, and give some townie credit to my scum partner."

Of course it could also be IK-town acting like a defeated townie because he WAS a defeated townie, and then saying, "Oh wait! I could try

actually contributing

instead of moping and whining at everyone! 1363!" But the first seems to make more sense to me in this context.

Since there's no danger of a quick-hammer in plurality, I'm gonna join the party and

vote: Rayfrost

. And if he flips scum we should consider an IK lynch next for such quality reasons as

Never did I say "woe is me". I didn't give up, as you seem to indicate. To me an appeal to emotion involves a sort of "you're gonna feel sorry for lynching a townie" sort of thing going on, or "everybody's picking on me, I didn't do anything wrong".

because that kind of throws a wrench in the idea that he was a defeatist townie who tried to save himself via activity. That explanation only works if you are cognizant of the idea that you were, in fact, being defeatist and not contributing and saying woe is me.

[hitogoroshi]

I have a chem test to go to in like five minutes, so I don't have the time to figure this all out.

unvote

for now I guess. I still don't like IK's bipolar shift and I haven't thrown out IK/Ray scumteam quite yet, but I don't have the time to look over the possibilities and the implications of a lying Ray right now.

[hitogoroshi]

I still think Ray could be scum - after all, if the IK/Ray scumteam I brought up earlier was true, this would be exactly in line (Ray tries to live longer, and IK STILL gets townie cred.) More importantly, I can't think of anyone else I want to lynch in 24 hours. So let's ignore that unvote of mine and

vote: Rayfrost

once more.

[hitogoroshi]

Hito, your IK/RF is a ridiculous pipe dream. IK would get just as much townie cred, hypathetically, if RF didn't claim SK and flipped scum. (there's any number of ways he could have exploded if he wanted to be lynched). There's not really a motivation for RayFrost to claim SK as scum here. If he wanted to last one more night, he'd claim some power role, not something that has a 80% chance to get him lynched anyway.

I'm not saying SK affirms it. My main reason for suspecting that scumteam is IK 1363 and Ray's subsequent super-scummy give up flumph. Claiming SK seems to be something no scum would do (to some at least; I don't see why not personally) but the funny thing is that the whole SK thing can be seen as a digression. If we lynch RF and it turns out he's scum, whether or not he flips SK makes no difference in terms of the boost to IK's town cred (as this quoted post suggests). I'm not saying an SK claim proves RF/IK scumteam, but it doesn't disprove my reason for originally thinking so and I don't think having a pet SK is worth trying to rush a quicklynch on someone else when an RF lynch is by his own admission eventually necessary and I'd really like find out if he's telling the truth.

[hitogoroshi]

At IK: My post 1412 (which was 10 am TODAY - jesus, that's a lot of posts):

hiphop is scummy for the reasons others have stated that I cba to remember

ಠ_ಠ

Normally I would like the IK attack on ray, but not in this context. IK was doing the defeated townie thing for a while there, but then at 1363 it was like a switch was flipped.

I really get the feel that IK-scum was like, "I'm just gonna act like a defeated townie would - oh wait! I can bus my scum partner instead! 1363!"

And ray was like "aw **** it, I'm bored of this game anyway. I guess I'll just say the most throwaway, lackadaisical things I can to piss everyone the hell off, get me out of this game on the Necktie Express, and give some townie credit to my scum partner."

Of course it could also be IK-town acting like a defeated townie because he WAS a defeated townie, and then saying, "Oh wait! I could try

actually contributing

instead of moping and whining at everyone! 1363!" But the first seems to make more sense to me in this context.

Since there's no danger of a quick-hammer in plurality, I'm gonna join the party and

vote: Rayfrost

. And if he flips scum we should consider an IK lynch next for such quality reasons as

Never did I say "woe is me". I didn't give up, as you seem to indicate. To me an appeal to emotion involves a sort of "you're gonna feel sorry for lynching a townie" sort of thing going on, or "everybody's picking on me, I didn't do anything wrong".

because that kind of throws a wrench in the idea that he was a defeatist townie who tried to save himself via activity. That explanation only works if you are cognizant of the idea that you were, in fact, being defeatist and not contributing and saying woe is me.

This was before Ray's claim. I would fine-tune it but the core principle is essentially the same - I find your bi-polar hop extremely scummy, and the fact that it started with a single pointed argument on ray suggests he's your scum partner and his throw away statements were...before I would have said, painting an obvious target on himself because he wanted to leave and this way it would be a good tactic for him to do so. But now I'd have to tweak it to, painting an obvious target on himself because his plan was to claim sk anyway.

[hitogoroshi]

IK, are you denying that you were passive and defeatist earlier today? And that post 1363 marked the beginning of a significant play-style shift on your part? I don't like to ask questions instead of posting analysis because I think it's scummy, but this is a big one.

[hitogoroshi]

I'm also gonna ISO-read rofl here. I do agree that I'm getting the feeling of EP/fhq being the investigation, but I also think he might have tried to leave results a bit more subtlety.

[hitogoroshi]

I dunno, to me that reads as not investigating RC OR charter and believe charter's vig claim until he was daykilled. Wasn't that post rofl's first one after the charter daykill?

[hitogoroshi]

What? That does not make sense at all. So you are voting RC primarily because you think rofl got an

innocent

result on him? Do you have any other reasons you think RC is an SK?

[hitogoroshi]

Okay, thanks for providing the full reasoning. However, if we're going to accept the idea of two sk's, they are both anti-town and presumably both afraid of a vig. RC would have a reason to shoot charter, yes, but so would any sk who believed in the vig claim.

As for who I believe is scum: I haven't abandoned my line of thought on scum-IK, but it goes briefly into remission until the day begins proper. (I don't like actively going for people at the start of the day; I'd rather see how they act when there's not so much pressure.) Zakeri needs to post. I'm going to iso-read Sotty now as well; I have a neutralish read on her but it's the same read I had in our last game where she was scum, so it's worth prying a bit. I really like town-xyl right now as well, so I'm probably going to look into whoever he aims for.

[hitogoroshi]

Vote Count, Day 4

hiphop ( 2 ) - fhqwhgads - zakeri
shotty to the body ( 0 )
fhqwhgads ( 0 )
hitogoroshi ( 0 )
Idiotking ( 0 )
Xylthixlm ( 0 )
Pads ( 0 )
popsofctown ( 0 )
Zakeri ( 0 )
RedCoyote ( 1 ) - hiphop
Sotty7 ( 0 )
SpyreX ( 0 )
Unvote ( 9 ) - hitogoroshi - Xylthixlm - Shotty to the Body - RedCoyote - idiotking - SpyreX - Pads - popsofctown - Sotty7
Total Votes ( 12 )

With 12 alive, 7 needed to reach a majority.
Deadline is December 18th at 4:30pm EST

Now, hiphop is unquestionably crazy in his logic for voting RC but I'm not seeing how that makes him more likely to be scum. In fact, his whole PLAY this day sans that vote is the most townie I've seen him this game.

Enough that, duh, I am not down with a hiphop lynch today OR an RC lynch.

This.

I encourage everyone to ISO-read Sotty. It's only 23 posts so it won't be a huge time commitment. I didn't really find anything that seemed too scummy, but it was also only 23 posts and when you trim off the opening and such I've got this worry that if Sotty were scum she would want to do exactly what she's doing.

And I didn't realize exactly HOW much Zakeri was lurking. For reference here is all of the content Zakeri ever posted.

Vote: Maemuki

I have a Mason reading between him/her and Elvis_Knits.

Zakeri is IN this game? Woosh.

I know, right?

Don't worry, if someone pisses me off, I'd be in this game harder than a Gáe Bolg in winter.

Reading through Hito's posts gives me a townie feeling. He's been very active in his posts and there's clear evidence of scum hunting, so he's by no stretch any sort of obvious scum.

I also read through the vote on EP, and I thought it was fairly justified. It's at least something I would have voted for at that stage of the game. The whole issue of "it's like a policy lynch if this happens: blah blah blah" Also seems like Pads is trying to turn a thoughtful answer into a gotcha. I don't see where the problem with Hito is here.

Reading Pads now:

Alright, that wagon was fun, but we have plenty of other leads now, and I see no reason good enough to stay on it (it was my random vote anyway). That's not to say I think SpyreX has been particularly pro-town. His responses have had components of both self righteous bristling (town) and dismissive, redirecting (scum).

What?

Okay, I had to switch out of Iso view to see if this made sense in context. since it was about 12 pages later despite only being two days later and there was a bandwagon on spy in the absence, I suppose it's something that could be let go, but it's just too disgruntled in iso read seeing this explanation right after said random vote.

I've tried reading the rest of her posts, but nothing's convinced me of her alignment either way. This giant list of who to vote makes me suspicious though, since imaginality and E_K both had similar looking lists that were filled to the brim with townie lynch galore. Looking at pads' list, the only one on there that actually had a semblance of a reason attached to why she put that person on the list was tacked onto the only currently flipped scum on her list. This looks a little too cleanly cut. I think the add on about E_K might be a bus attempt.

My eyes are starting to fail me right now though, being so late after whatever curfew my biological system has declared for this week (It varies wildly, you know). I'll try to get on again tomorrow.

If you were an sk and rofl had told charter that you are to be killed tonight, what would you do?

If you were an SK and rofl had told charter that someone else is to be killed tonight, what would you do?

You're voting for a cop confirmed innocent because between the cop's innocent and guilty, the guilty died instead.

Vote: Hiphop

On SK vs. Vig: In my experience in these games, there should be 6 scum. four are down, so there's either two mafia and a vig, or one mafia and one SK. If there's seven scum this game, then there's no real alternative to two scum and an SK.

I don't see why we should assume the non-mafia shooter is a vig. All signs around Charter's death points to scum-based shooting. More importantly, if we're talking about double roles, why would vigilante be more likely than SK?

And guess what! I'm still inside the word count limit!

[hitogoroshi]

extra value: I'm glad I didn't start the day going for IK, because now I feel safe saying that D3 pre-1363 IK, D3 post-1363 IK, and d4 IK are all acting very very differently. I'll get together quotes and all that jazz sometime soon but in the meantime you can look for yourself.

[hitogoroshi]

For the record guys, that is a Shotty ISO. It took me a moment to figure that out.

Also spyrex, when you say scotty, did you misspell Sotty or Shotty? :p

[hitogoroshi]

At least we can agree on that if Zak gets lynched versus shot anyone claiming vig dies? Deal? Deal.

Also not voting for Zak is deserving of capital punishment. BUS AWAY YOUNG BUCKS.

I pledge my support to the first paragraph initiative.

As for the second, Zakeri said he'd be 'on this game harder than a Gae Bolg in winter' if he was attacked, so I'm willing to give him 24 hours before I vote. Gives me time to write up my IK case.

[hitogoroshi]

Here's that IK thing I promised.

IK D3, Pre-1363:

"You want I should strangle myself?" Waaah can't defend my vote on CSL wagon either way. Pops calls it AtE. Spy calls it (the one before it actually, but the content is more or less the same) puppy dog whining. Thinks there are two scum left for some reason. And his ISO 54 contains the damning phrase before I die.

But fair enough, he's a townie feeling defeated, and at least he stayed true to--

IK D3, 1363 and on

I encourage you all to ISO-view IK for the full effect (1363 is IK-ISO 59). Suddenly he's going after RF hard core. Completely unlike he was before. It's good to be agressive in most situations, don't get me wrong, but not only did he change he

completely denied his earlier defeatism.

ISO 77 is a dramatic example. "Never did I say woe is me" and "if I was a defeatist" - for example, someone who complains about their 'undefensibility' and saying 'when I die'?

As for the play-style shift, I don't think it's as big a leap as you think.

Oh rry.

And now for the real kicker:

IK D4

Entirely short, content-neutral posts (clarifications and such.) What happened to the insane aggression of D3? This is my favorite D3 post to contrast with D4:

If there really is less than 24 hours left, I suppose you're right, it should be back on Ray.

Unvote

Vote RayFrost

Though don't think I'm going to forget your little meltdown, fqwoiupoiashdgzxcvkmn.

Really? Because it sure looks like you did just as soon as you could get away with it. :3

Vote: Idiotking

(Although for the record I have nothing against a Zak policy lynch when push comes to shove.)

[hitogoroshi]

Vote Count, Day 4

hiphop ( 2 ) - fhqwhgads - zakeri
shotty to the body ( 0 )
fhqwhgads ( 0 )
hitogoroshi ( 0 )
Idiotking ( 1 ) - hitogoroshi
Xylthixlm ( 0 )
Pads ( 0 )
popsofctown ( 0 )
Zakeri ( 6 ) - SpyreX - Xylthixlm - idiotking - Shotty to the Body - Sotty7 - RedCoyote
RedCoyote ( 0 )
Sotty7 ( 0 )
SpyreX ( 0 )
Unvote ( 3 ) - Pads - popsofctown - hiphop
Total Votes ( 12 )

With 12 alive, 7 needed to reach a majority.
Deadline is December 18th at 4:30pm EST

Well if nothing else, I want a few days to pass in case we have a majority-limited vig or something. For our vig test on Zakeri to be effective we HAVE to give the vig a few non-majority days to carry out the kill. If we have a few days pass with no vig kill and no defense from Zak (to be fair it would need to be one hell of a defense, but hey, we'll see just how hard Zak can be on us) then I'll be all over a Zak wagon. For now I'm assuming he does get vigged and getting pre-season tickets to IKwagon2009.

[hitogoroshi]

he has been here since D1 (admittedly right at the end of d1) and he has six posts. Only three of them are content posts (and that's if you count "vote mae because I has mason read" as a content post.) That is simply inexcusable. A neutral policy lynch has become a slam dunk case by sheer scale. I don't believe we're in LYLO yet (I could easily see 8 anti-town, but eight unified scum is a lot harder to swallow) and as said before, I don't want to be making this decision when it really is the last chance.

As such, I'm not looking for a 'non-scum' read on Zak. I'd need an absolute townie read that I'm willing to take into LYLO with me despite his complete lack of post history.

[hitogoroshi]

Zak, we're not lynching you now because we're waiting to see if we have a pro-town killer left yet.

While you're alive, neglect defense, get a little bit of scumhunting to your name before you go! For starters, what do you think about IK?

[hitogoroshi]

Yeah, I really enjoyed this game. While the player list kind of cowed me in the game itself, I think I learned a lot about mafia from you guys. Thanks a lot.