Mini #893 - Dollhouse Mafia (Game Over!)

[SerialClergyman]

Hey everybody.

Last time I played in an iamausername game I had a great time, so lets keep with the fun times.

Big waves to elvis

imprint elvis_knits

imprint SerialClergyman

vote Pug

[SerialClergyman]

So we have to be careful about handing out the imprints.

We have to be careful about a player getting to a majority - just a simple imprint can be unvoted.

Just thinking about that - what's the thought about imprinting everyone? That way we'll have 8 power roles to 4.

I'm trying to think about how we can cut down on the bad ratio. I don't know if one or two roles that may or may not go to scum (and therefore keep going to scum) is better than all of us being guranteed a role every night.

Thoughts?

[SerialClergyman]

Hi SC!

Last time I played in a username game I got killed N0.

The very game that I had a lot of fun in and ended up winning as scum, actually

[SerialClergyman]

I personally like the power root,

at least for tonight,

as scum hunting can become difficult for me with so many players I do not know. If we are to imprint tonight, we should imprint everyone as town would have twice as many night actions available to them compared to town. We can then claim some results, assuming they help us find scum or confirmed town, and imprint off that. For example, if we imprint everyone and I get a cop/investigative ability that I use on Elvis_knits that flips her town, then we can give her an imprint the next day.

Are you trying to pull a fast one?

If scum EVER get a majority of imprints, they will forever keep those imprints - meaning if we give a role to everyone today, all the scum players will have a role for the rest of the game.

Elvis - I doubt that scum would get additional powers, but it's worth checking with iam.

Iam, if scum gets a majority on two days, will they get 2 role actions? (keep the first imprint and get a second?) Or can they only ever have a max of one?

The major problem with the plan is the clusterfuck of info we'll have.

One possible boon with thep lan is that the roles might be more advantageous to town than to scum. So a doctor or a cop - those would both be great for town and useless for mafia.

That only applies to some roles though - blocker, vig, watcher, tracker - they'd all be equally useful to mafia (or useless) I suppose.

[SerialClergyman]

Hmm. Not ideal.

That means they'll essentially get the best night actions possible to perform each night.

The problem with imprinting a few people and hoping their town is that people are notoriously bad at picking town early. Scum don't have to make any sacrifice to appear town early, so it's easier.

Perhaps we try a day without imprints and see how we go? Ugh.. that means we're in lylo if we mislynch.

This will be somewhat difficult.

[SerialClergyman]

Meh, I PM'd iam about this thinking it might be boringly breaking the game, but if you vote nl and imprint one person say 100 times, till they hve a cop result on everyone, then you lynch them. If they are scum, rinse and repeat with a different townie, if they are town follow the cop.

I think that breaks it, theoretically even with naive/paranoid cops if you did it enough.

But yeah, it would be boring as batshit.

[SerialClergyman]

You didn't have the step where you lynched the person with the power. And I PM'd the mod a while ago about it. And I don't think you have considered naive or paranoid results.

And it doesn't lead to a worthwhile game.

Having said that, voting you for trying to break the setup is scummy as.

[SerialClergyman]

If you wanted to be sneaky with the new rule, we could neveri mprint someone, scum hunt as normal, and if we ever looked in trouble just vote No Lynch 3 timesi na a row to get out of it with a draw.

0% chance of loss

But again, boring as batshit etc.

[SerialClergyman]

Sorry mate, will stop searching for cheesy workarounds. Go to bed

[SerialClergyman]

Button. There is a rule that comes into force called the 'do not kill the game law'. It states that no matter what the offiial game rules are, if you kill the game, no one has fun and the very entity you were trying to win dies. Because you killed it.

So whatever the rule that stops that loophole will eventually be, let's just assume it's there now and for our own good rock the kasbah mafia style.

Sound good?

[SerialClergyman]

Good man. I sympathise with your devious mind, as you can see by my own musings I share it, but in the end forcing a win to either side means noone gets to play the actual game, and that defeats the purpose.

[SerialClergyman]

Go to bed, grumpy man.

<3

[SerialClergyman]

I'm personally thinking we should lynch without giving away imprints.

Giving away imprints without knowing any flips or having anything concrete to go off is not ideal, to my mind.

[SerialClergyman]

Sorry EK, I thought the answer was obvious when iam posted in thread that the mafia didn't have a night kill. I didn't realise this. Normally 4/12 means 2 mislynches and lose. With no NK, it's 4 mislynches and lose.

[SerialClergyman]

@SerialClergyman Why did you inprint elvis_knits in your very first post? Especially since you have then said that you feel it's best to lynch without imprinting.

When we started I knew a lot lss about imprinting other than it would be useful in the hands of good protown players. I have limited experience with the people here, I know I've played with Plum but only briefly. But I've played one long and great game with EK and know her to be an excellent player and also feel I have an edge in reading her.

Plus me wanting to imprint myself is obvious.

It is possibly unfortunate given EK's theory that it worked out like that, but so it goes. I'd either be immensely stupid or playing some serious double WIFOM games if we were buddies and had worked out that we'd pull a gambit about understanding night kills and yet BEFORE that gambit I just tossed an imprint her way.

As for why I haven't removed them - I just haven't thought about it. No one is in danger of being 'imprint hammered' and we're still thinking about what's the best way to use it. Remember I was the one who initially also suggested imprinting everyone, which has since been all but ruled out as an option.

I'm down with EK's plan. I doubt she came up with the gambit, waited for a town player to do the same thing she was planning to do, asked the question twice before TRAP SPRUNG and then claimed herself in the rush. I think she's genuine.

Ground rules for imprinting could be a good idea. Should we use our abilities (track or cop or whatever else) on each other, given we are both in positions of power? Should we take a vig kill if we get a killing power? etc.

[SerialClergyman]

Again, when we started I thought that giving the scum an imprint wasn't particularly bad - all you had to do was keep imprinting the same person and whether scum or town they'd have a permanent ability.

It was only after Iam clarified that there was an advantage to scum being imprinted twice that I realised we had to be more careful with it.

You're correct about day communication, I didn't realise. But if it was an elaborate day planned gambit, elvis could have picked any other scum buddy that hadn't already imprinted her and do it with them, she didn'th ave to pick me.

As for my reasons for picking elvis - that's it I'm afraid, that' just why I chose her. And it's not just that I could read her better than most, (hopefully) it's also that I know she's a good player and would use it well.

[SerialClergyman]

.. I will probably never have a way of knowing anotherp layer's alignment, so any time I vote to imprint I'm hoping they are town. But them being a good player is also a necessary condition to them being imprinted. Because a bad townie with an imprint isnot very good for the town, but a bad scum with an imprint is still very bad for the town. So the ability level of the player imprinted makes a difference.

Ok, so you're saying the scheme was cooked up in the 40 minutes between Iam making that qualification and elvis asking me why I thought we would be in lylo after 1 night? It's possible, i guess, but I'd still say unlikely.

Essentially you are saying:

1) Elvis and I are scumbuddies.
2) I decided to obviously imprint my scumbuddy in my first posto f the game (the same one who happens to be the player I've played with most extensively on site.)
3) elvis and I seperately make comments that indicate we don't realise the scum has no night kill but in completely different ways. (This isn't an arranged plan yet, because if it was then elvis could have picked a buddy that didn't decide to imprint her first post to make comments that show the aren't aware of a NK.)
4) Iam clarifies this in thread.
5) Within 40 minutes of that post, elvis realises she could use this to our advantage and asks me why I thought we were in lylo.
6) I

ignore the question for plenty of posts and a day or two

, then elvis pushes the point and asks again, at which point I answer and she reveals her thoughts.

Now - all of that is possible, but I think obviously unlikely.

[SerialClergyman]

Well, that's a different argument, but yes, this is possible.

I actually checked because her question to the mod where she implies her lack of knowledge about a scum NK was AFTER my question, and I thought she might have just used the opportunity to ask a redundant question so she could get that little tidbit in.

But actually it was a simulpost, her post was 4 mins after mine and quite long.

I can't rule it out, but to be honest, it's more concrete than most other reads you're likely to get on D1.

[SerialClergyman]

I've reached the point of dimished returns talking about this I think.

To clarify for Vala - I meant that since there are no flips, it's very hard to get a solid read on D1. Information like strong ignorance or strong knowledge of setup is more concrete than someone who 'looks' town, in my opinion.

[SerialClergyman]

<--- is calling right now Starbuck scum with Deathnote. Write that down, keep it safe, check it on reveal.

At that time, he seemed to be suggesting that we give everyone a power on D1 and then possibly not give everyone a power on subsequent days. I didn't realise (noone did AFAIK) that scum benefited from multiple imprints. Hence the idea to imprint everyone D1 and then possibly less than everyone D2 looked like a way of making sure every scum got a power and the town lost theirs afterwards.

But more importantly, that is a manufactured case that focuses overly on Deathnote, who then gets the 'scummy but not that scummy' summary directly afterwards. First strong read of the day leads to the following likely alignments -

town:
elvis
serial
limerick
button

scum:
starbuck
deathnote

Neutral:
All else.

[SerialClergyman]

unvote, vote starbuck

[SerialClergyman]

It's not that he's in a positive light - it's that he's in a negative-but-not-that-negative light. It's textbook.

And it's not an overreaction, it's just a read. I think you're scum. *waves*.

When you posted your first summary up there, had you only read pages 1-5? Or had you skimmed the whole thing and were doing an in-depth reread?

[SerialClergyman]

You know elvis, all of what you say is coming from someone who's trying to pass herself and SC off as confirmed because you misunderstood a rule.

That's a terrible post. ANYTHING elvis says is coming from that position - do you feel it's enough to discredit any argument she makes about anythign from now to the end of the game?

For the record, would you go over exactly how you think elvis and my scheme went down if we were scum? Why didn't elvis choose a scum mate who hadn't imprinted her in his first post of the day? When was the plan hatched? Why didn't I imprint more than just one of my scumbuddies? Why didn't I answer her question the first time?

[SerialClergyman]

Yes, I do. She is trying to pass YOU BOTH off as CONFIRMED now because of that and she has yet to rescind it.

She is scummiest person to me right now and that's why my vote is placed on her.

I didn't say does that make her scummy, I said does that mean any argument she makes will be coloured by that viewpoint? Right now you're ignoring very legitimate questions from her and I don't like it.

Those remaining questions are heading into WIFOM territory.

Zzz. You guys are the ones coming up with a theory, you should have an idea in your mind about how it went down. Dismissing a line of enquiry due to some WIFOM is a terrible idea, as I've argued in just about every game ever. To assume that I would imprint my scumbuddy in my first post is not the best, to assume that elvis cooked up a scheme with that person continues to disappoint.

Elvis trying to clear me is a good start, but elvis trying to clear anyone with info like that is definitely a positive. She's not the sort of scum that gambits D1, she tends to prefer to back her playing. I have the advantage of knowing that if she was scum she'd be working hard ot clear a townie, so that's one solid reason that you guys can't share. But if you work through the questions I asked above and earlier in the thread you'll realise that if she was scum there would have been better ways of doing this gambit (primarily not using the person who imprinted her first page). She said she was prepared to die before the end of the game if she needed to, I believe her.

It's like defending you for breaking the game, I think elvis is doing her version of that.

As for Starbuck, I'm as confident as I can be for a D1 scum tell, don't let me make you think I'm sure she's going to flip scum. But at this stage it's a good prediction, better than most.

A fair bit of it is gut but I'll try to key you into my thinking.

She is discrediting elvis constantly. There's nothing inherently scummy about trying to clear yourself, there's certainly nothing inherently scummy about trying to clear someone else (doubly especially if that person is town). Yet Starbuck uses that as an argument against her constantly. It's purely done to discredit the finding. There's a natural distrust of people who speak about clearing themselves, as I learnt in my first game of mafia, but that should lead you to doubt the conclusion, not incriminate the person suggesting the theory. I say again, just because elvis suggested it doesn't mean it's not a good idea, nor does it mean she's scummy, nor does it mean it can be dismissed. Her actions have town motivations as well as scum motivations.

Then look at Starbucks' first post. In her 1-5 pages post, she mentions Deathnote in every point against elvis. She talks a lot about 'overreactions' to his play. This is a slightly odd way ot reviewing the game. Maybe putting it out there once, that's OK, but...

(SC note: These are all quotes from Starbucks' first summary post, the one that I decided she was scum with Deathnote after reading.)

On Elvis & SC

SC seems to get a bit overaggressive over DeathNote's suggested idea

to imprint everyone in Post 13,

as did Elvis when she voted DeathNote

in Post 14. He was just throwing out an idea, and you both overreacted quite a bit. Then Elvis turns around just a few posts later in Post 17 that she likes fast, exciting games and that it really isn't that bad of an idea, but only after SC alluded that it could be okay. This feels like a

contradiction to me of her vote of DeathNote

.

I'm getting the feeling of elvis and SC buddying a bit. My reasons here are that for one SC voted to imprint both himself and elvis and in Post 119, elvis does the same thing. It just seems like they are trying to work together,

as they did when they both shot down DeathNote's idea.

Post 119 does nothing but add to my theory.

I also am not a fan of someone who just comes out Day 1 saying that "so&so and so&so are scum" just because you don't like their ideas. Elvis does this in Post 47. (SC note: Guess who? Deathnote!)

The last thing I'm not a fan of

is how overly insulting and condescending elvis has been to quite a few of players. (SC note: Also deathnote, but I grant you this is more ambiguous)

It seems right now that if we don't go with elvis's way, it's the highway. Remember that this is a mafia game and it does get heated, but it doesn't give you a reason to sit and fling ad hom at everyone that you disagree with.

So you can see how focused on Deathnote she is. And don't forget this is IN THE ELVIS AND SC SECTION of her review.

Then there's the actual section on Deathnote himself:

On DeathNote
I definitely don't like his pressure of trying to make everyone choose between either one of his plans.

I've played with DeathNote before and it very much seems like he was just trying to get ideas out there. I'm not getting a completely scummy feeling from him.

If she'd come out and said he was town I could have perhaps understood her obsession with him in the first section, but she didn't. She did the classic can't-say-my-buddy-is-town-can't-say-he's-scum thing and said he was kinda scummy, but there's nonetheless reason not to vote him. This is perhaps more gut, but this is EXACTLY what scum talking about their buddy look like.

On VMD
I think VMD's vote on TheButtonmen is a little opportunistic because he wasn't the only one discussing that theory/idea. I don't think he is being against the spirit of the game. Again, here is someone who just happened to bring up an idea that someone else didn't like.

It's like the same thing as elvis voting DeathNote because she didn't like his idea.

Keeps pushing the Deathnote's idea was the problem, not that he's scummy.

On the theories/ideas

I can see where DeathNote was coming from, especially prior to mod clarifications,

but there is just too much that we don't know. Also, with all 4 of the rogues receiving an imprint, it's like we'd be setting ourselves up for failure.

Was that the hottest issue at the time? It heads her section on ideas and theories and again subtly defends him. It ignores that many of his suggestions were made AFTER mod clarifications and that fact that this is someone she apparantly is not getting a 'completely scummy feeling from', which to me suggests she's at least getting a partially scummy feeling form him, yet is constantly mentioning him, defending him and attacking his accusors.

You get my point. Starbuck looks to me to clearly be scum with deathnote.

[SerialClergyman]

town:
elvis
serial
button
pug

scum:
messiah
starbuck
deathnote

Neutral:
All else.

(I have added pug and messiah in accordingly. None of this makes any sense if Starbuck is town, or is elvis is scum, so ignore in either case. I took limerick out because I thought starbuck said more about him when I read the first post, but in my more in depth case above I decided it wasn't enough to go on.)

[SerialClergyman]

Plenty of people in the gave have criticised me, or knocked down elvis' theory, or questioned my alignment. Not too many have made their way onto the SC scum list. You're there because your vote had very little supporting it, it was an unoriginal criticism and because I think Starbuck is scum and you are pushing the discredit line. As I said, if she's town, that whole list is meaningless.

Did you have any thoughts on my case against her? Did you read it?

[SerialClergyman]

Buttonman - thoughts on Starbuck case?

[SerialClergyman]

Not true. In fact, I never accused DN of being scum. The only time I even insinuated it was very early in the game when I couldn't believe he'd suggest imprinting everyone on D1 and then not everyone D2, which at that point in the game (before the mod confirmed an advantage ot multiple scum imprints) sounded like the most anti-town thing ever.

But the issue isn't DN's scumminess of non-scumminess - it's about

Starbuck's

obsession with him. I think DN is scummy because of Starbuck's constant underhanded defence of him, not the other way around.

Every point she made aobut me and elvis was related back to DN in a way that was intended to make him look town and us look scum. In fact every point full stop in that post is related back to Deathnote in one way or another, and all of it is dismissing criticism of him except for when she directly says what she thinks which is along the lines of 'he's scummy, but not that scummy'.

It's inconsistent, it's an obvious subtext that runs throughout her post and it's scummy as hell.

[SerialClergyman]

Also - what questions still stand? Could you grab them for me and I'll answer them?

[SerialClergyman]

I'm not surprised you haven't addressed the content, but it's all there Starbuck. Obsession and underhanded are perfectly fair words for that post. Every section talked about DN. It had nothing to do with having to mention his name - you literally defended him in every section. Look at how much of your post mentions it, it's all there in my post. You CONSTANTLY defend him. If you thought he was town, I'd say it was at least consistent, but you originally said he wasn't completely scummy and now say you think he's null - that's not consistent with your defence. Nor is it consistent with thinking elvis and I are scum together.

And you refute your own point:

Quite easy for you to go after someone who has pointed out so many faults of yours and Elvis's already.

I am not the only person who has dismissed your questions as WIFOM and as distraction from the game.

I'm not an OMGUS-y player. I've been criticised before. But your post was scummy, so you're the one who gets my vote.

How is it not scummy to try and clear yourself or someone else based on the same thing on Day 1???

Because there are both scum and town motivations to clearing oneself. Why can't town try to clear themselves and others based on game information?

[SerialClergyman]

Sorry buttonman, I must have missed the post number.

I'll try to answer your criticisms.

1) You defended Elvis, why can't Starbuck defend DN?

Because I am both up front about it and actively think elvis is town. Starbuck apparantly think's DN is null read yet defends him constantly. There's a disconnect between her view of him and her defence of him. And she never sets out ot defend him, it just seems to get worked into every facet of her post.

She also continues to say he's null despite her two biggest scumreads being scummy for attacking him. This is not a logically consistent world view.

2) That post is elvis-centric, not DN centric.

Well, I can only disagree. I've bolded all the parts where she mentions him in defence and I think it shows just how much of it concerns him.

But even if you didn't agree, I'd still say that the elvis parts are where she is attacking someone. I find lots of references to someone you think is scummy to be fine. What I don't like is lots of references defending someone you apparantly don't think is town.

3) Why is DN scum?

Because in this theory of the game, Starbuck is defending a buddy. I totally admit my case is absolutely dependent on Starbuck being scum. But mafia is about finding the informed minority, and I'm telling you that is part of it.

[SerialClergyman]

Oh, I totally answered the 212 questions already. Zzz.

Here's some questions I'd rather answered, do you have any town tells on Elvis you want to share (seeing as your defending her and imprinting her)?

Elvis trying to clear me is a good start, but elvis trying to clear anyone with info like that is definitely a positive. She's not the sort of scum that gambits D1, she tends to prefer to back her playing. I have the advantage of knowing that if she was scum she'd be working hard ot clear a townie, so that's one solid reason that you guys can't share. But if you work through the questions I asked above and earlier in the thread you'll realise that if she was scum there would have been better ways of doing this gambit (primarily not using the person who imprinted her first page). She said she was prepared to die before the end of the game if she needed to, I believe her.

It's like defending you for breaking the game, I think elvis is doing her version of that.

Why are so confident that Starbuck is scum and could you explain what the Starbuck&Deathnote connection is?

Insert huge wall of text answering this here in post 215

[SerialClergyman]

That was a good post, Messiah.

You say there's nothing inherently scummy about trying to confirm yourself, which is true, but you're ignoring the reasons why in this particular
case some people feel it was. You are correct as far as everything that ek says shouldn't be discredited automatically, though.

OK, so what are the reasons why in this particular case it's bad?

The Starbuck tell is that she is defending DN in an underhanded fashion. I guess I'm not being clear in why it's scummy. I'll try to be as clear as possible. Starbuck SHOULD think DN is town. She defends him constantly and her two biggest scummy suspects attacked him. But yet she doesn't, if anything she regards him on the scummy side of neutral. (She says he's not completely scummy)
So then go back and have a look at her posts. She's defending him, but she doesn't want to be SEEN to be defending him. And she's doing it A LOT. This to me is the definition of an informed minority tell.

Your characterisation of my case as I've made it is fair, but there are some other gut-related things. I always look for players who discredit town reads, for example. But essentially, yes, it's about the SB->DN stuff.

@Button - what about my play makes you think I am scum? In what ways did my quoted reasons for thinking elvis was town and my long case explaining SB's scumminess not answer your questions?

[SerialClergyman]

Look at it this way - why would town defend someone she thinks is at BEST null? Why would she do it so often? Why wouldn't she think he is town if her two biggest scum reads are attacking him?

Doesn't make sense.

[SerialClergyman]

I'm going to leave that, I don't quite agree but it's irrelevent.

What I will say is that you did FoS me, and haven't explained why the answers to your questions were inadequate. So presumably you think there's something about my play that is scummy.

[SerialClergyman]

Because I ACTIVELY THINK SHE IS TOWN.

I don't know how I can explain this further.

Serial

Is openly and consistently defending someone he thinks is town. Acknowledges both the defence of that person and the read of that person as town.

Starbuck

Is defending someone she is not prepared to say is town. Does not acknowledge the defence at all.

[SerialClergyman]

The above is easily verifyable. That's just what's happening in the thread.

The only way I can see to interpret that data is to say that SB is subtly defending a scumbuddy - that would explain why she inserts the defences throughout her post rather than being up front about it. It would also explain why she isn't prepared to actively create a link between them by saying outright that he is town, instead prefering to sit on the fence with him.

[SerialClergyman]

My theory suggestion:

lynching is less dangerous to the town than imprinting. If we were to lynch without imprinting, the worst that happens is we're down to 7 townies and 4 scum and have a wagon's worth of information.
If we imprint without lynching, we get all sorts of random bits of information that will be genuinely hard to piece together, and worse case scenario is that we permanently give scum abilities.

Thus I'm in favour of a lynch and very few if any at all imprints.

I hate it when my scum cases get dismissed as town vs town but I've talked enough. If I can't convince you yet, I can't convince you. I'm standing by my prediction, but I think lewarcher isn't the worst vote in the world. I'll join that wagon if it gets up.

[SerialClergyman]

I disagree with your analysis, but keep up that style, I like people who look at the voting patterns of a town on the whole. You've got to go with what works for you.

I personally feel that generally in a town vs town argument, the zeitgeist turns to an 'one of these two people must be scum inevitably' attitude. The scum don't push aprticularly hard one way or another, they just contribute to the idea that a lynch of one is inevitable and that one of them being scum is inevitable.

The one conclusion of yours that I find suspicious and inaccurate is the one that says a lewarcher scumflip is more damning to starbuck than a DN flip. How do you come to this conclusion?

[SerialClergyman]

Not at all, in my opinion.

Starbuck actively chose to defend Deathnote in that manner. She had no choice about what lew did.

Lew being scum shows that he picked a side between two arguing parties.

Deathnote being scum means that Starbuck was defending scum while trying not to be seen to be defending scum.

[SerialClergyman]

Seriously good posting. Despite calling my ideas crazy. Or perhaps because of that . Crazy but true is my speciality.

To be honest, my case against DN dies if Starbuck is scum and vice versa. My main point about Starbuck is that she's acting bizarrey towards Deathnote. Can't see much reason for scum --> town unless it's a weird way of buddying, so I'm sticking with scum --> scum.

[SerialClergyman]

Zzz..

EBWOP: My case against DN dies if starbuck is

scum

town.

[SerialClergyman]

Welcome farside.

[SerialClergyman]

Having said that, voting you for trying to break the setup is scummy as.

Read that bit again, farside - I'm saying the VOTE ON buttonman for trying to break the game is scummy. I'm agreeing with you - button isn't scummy for trying to break the game but the vote on him is.


To anyone who uses the term OMGUS and WIFOM again - I hate you. We have 1/3 of the group here as mafia. They will group together and defend each other. If someone defends someone you think is mafia and attacks you when you're town, this is immediately something to be suspicious of. IF YOU ARE WRONG about the first person being mafia, it is not and you must drop all suspicion due to their defence of that person. But you need to have the right to attack people even if they've just attacked you.

So go ahead and note if I attack someone who just attacked me, and even call it OMGUS if you like, but note that the argument behind it is not based on a knee-jerk personal reaction and it is testable with a lynch of the defended scummy party, unlike a genuine OMGUS vote would be. It is not a one word answer to a case, it doesn't make the argument less likely to be true, just perhaps more likely to be hasty or ill-concieved, whether deliberately or not.

You can find my rant about bad usage of the term WIFOM here.

Either way - XRECX's catchup post is interesting in he's one of the few not to go along party lines. If you think DN is scum, why is SB town?

I have a suggestion. Lynch DN, imprint me. If I'm wrong, and he's town, I'll be the next lynch, and I'll tell you all what my power was and where I used it and what I found. If I'm right, we lynch Starbuck and imprint me and elvis.

Thoughts?

[SerialClergyman]

Plum, probably. But that's about it. Having said that, I think three is too many. I'd also like some insurance with the imprint - like the plan I outlined above about lynchin DN. What did you think of that?

[SerialClergyman]

You wouldn't agree to imprint me knowing I'd only have the chance to use it once if dn is town, even if I was scum?

[SerialClergyman]

Because I'm suggesting that if DN is town then I am lynched the next day.

[SerialClergyman]

*dies a little inside*

If you think the whole me + elvis vs SB + DN thing is an elaborate bus, you are so skeptical that you will never be able to come to a decision on anything, in my opinion. This automatic distrust of anyone who suggests anythign to advance the game - how does that work out in the long run? Do you think people suggesting radical action are more likely to be scum gambiting or town ruminating?

If I put my own arse on the line and make this deal, I deserve some credit for being right about DN and I am cashing that credit in by asking for a second bite at an imprint, an imprint for the person I think is most likely town and a lynch for the person I think is scum with DN. You should want this stuff too if DN is indeed scum, because it'd be very unlikely I was scum, very unliekly elvis is scum and strongly likely SB is scum.

But aside from all that, the biggest criticisms of elvis I can see is her 'overreaction' to DN, which of course she can be clared of if he's scum, and her buddying/clearing of me, which again is supported by a DN scumflip.

[SerialClergyman]

Making a snap decision to bus deathnote - that may have been possible.

But having been against Deathnote and SB with massive walls, being the forerunner in the push against SB and him - what sort of scum team goes out of it's way to push a case heavily on one of it's members from the start of the day?

Ok - different plan. Lynch me, imprint elvis. If I flip scum, lynch elvis. That would only cost you 1 day with imprinted scum. If I flip town, lynch Starbuck or Deathnote and imprint elvis again.

How does that one sound?

[SerialClergyman]

What has changed since you supported the idea that imprinting was more dangerous than lynching?

[SerialClergyman]

And while I'm at it, why do none of your proposed plans involve lynching the person you feel is most likely scum?

[SerialClergyman]

Wow, disregard both of those. I'm posting from my phone and didn't realise that came from reck instead of button. My bad.

[SerialClergyman]

Who would you mprint if we lynched DN?

[SerialClergyman]

Farside - reactions to my suggestion that you lynch me and if I flip town imprint elvis and vote DN?

[SerialClergyman]

M'okay.

The town feeling around here is what I'd regard as pro-scum but it's too hard to tell who is paranoid and who is scum. I'm pretty sure it's because we are starting with such a large group of scum.

I disgree with a multitude of theory stuff from a lot of players, but particularly the arguments:
a) That an argument should be judged based on who broughti t up,
b) That one should not defend someone one thinks is town
c) That we can't afford to group players.
d) Use of WIFOM and OMGUS.

For anyone thinking I'm scummy for defending elvis, defending my town reads is a BIG part of my game. That's easily evidenced by most if not all of the games you can check out in my wiki. I don't know what the point of having a town read is if you aren't prepared to back it.

Doubly so given I know I am town, so for elvis to be scum involves her undertaking all of this to clear a townie. I know that this doesn't help you guys as much because you DON'T know I'm town, but it might help explain why I feel as strongly as I do that she is town.

I don't understand the reasoning that says it's likely one of elvis and me are town. I actually think those that feel we are scum togeher have a more cogent and logical view of the game. I also particularly don't like it when people say that they hate pairing alignments (what makes elvis scum if you're town etc) but at the same time are prepared to say that one of us are scum (so presumably, it's ok to say if you're town she is scum.) It's not logically consistent.

SO we're left with not enough nooses, but this is not a bad thing given how many scum are around.

I would like everyone to reply to my suggestion about lynching me and then having a course of action after that - whether you think it's a good idea, a bad idea, whether you're prepared to do it or not.

[SerialClergyman]

EK has primarily been attacked for trying to confirm the two of us as town. I'm telling you I have a read of her as town. If I am killed and confirmed town myself, that means she went to a lot of effort to try to confirm a townie and you can be sure that my read of her is well-intentioned - both of these things make her more likely to be town.

Similar arguments can be made about Starbuck and DN - if I'm town and elvis is likely town based on that flip, the attack against DN and SB is properly intentioned and their attack is against a confirmed town and a likely town. This makes them more likely to be scum.

I TOTALLY think like this. More importantly, it brings results. I get irritated that more people DON'T think like this.

But what's disengenuous is people like farside and reckoner who have both suggested that EITHER elvis or I are scum. This logic says that if I were to flip town, they would think that elvis is likely SCUM. Not only is this the opposite of what is more likely based on actions, it's also exactly the same logic they are rejected when I suggest things like me town = elvis likely town.

[SerialClergyman]

So what do you mean when you say one of us is likely to be scum and the other town?

'buddying' and 'distancing' are reasons why it's just more likely, not certain. If you find player A attacking player B when player B is scum, it is POSSIBLE that there is distancing there but it is nonetheless more likely player A is town. This is why the term 'WIFOM is so abused - people think anythign that has an element of WIFOM must be 50/50 by nature when that is absolutely not the case.

[SerialClergyman]

Elvis - not one person feeling out whether any of my lynch DN then me type plans is a good idea and all of them being rejected out of hand suggests to me that DN is scum for the same reason you just came to your elvis and sc are town conclusion.

[SerialClergyman]

Lol.

Ok, new course of action. Let's get a lynch going. Who is up for a good old fashioned dn lynch? No one killing anyone necessarily the next day. Any takers?

[SerialClergyman]

Also messiah, I'm not talking about individuals, I'm talking about the group. There are 4 scum amongst us, yes? So if I'm wrong and dn is town as well as me, I'd expect the scum to at least feel out the possibility of my plan working, even if as town they would find such a plan distasteful for whatever reason. If I'm town and dn is town, I'm handing them a double mislynch on a platter. But not one person expressed the slightest bit of enthusiasm.

Same deal if I were scum for Elvis - she would expect my scum mates to approve of her attempting to clear me but she's getting no support. So from her perspective it doesn't look like I have a scum team.

Does this make sense?

[SerialClergyman]

I'm not in favour of imprints for this lynch.

[SerialClergyman]

@ farside:

My theory suggestion:

lynching is less dangerous to the town than imprinting. If we were to lynch without imprinting, the worst that happens is we're down to 7 townies and 4 scum and have a wagon's worth of information.
If we imprint without lynching, we get all sorts of random bits of information that will be genuinely hard to piece together, and worse case scenario is that we permanently give scum abilities.

Thus I'm in favour of a lynch and very few if any at all imprints.

If I was going to imprint someone, I'd like it to be someone who is affected by the result of the lynch. So if we imprint someone who are are pretty sure is scum or town depending on the DN flip, I'd be for that. But randomly imprinting 3 people who we jsut kinda reckon are town WILL lead to scum PRs that they will have for the rest of the game and as such is a bad idea, in my humble opinion.

[SerialClergyman]

lynching is less dangerous to the town than imprinting. If we were to lynch without imprinting, the worst that happens is we're down to 7 townies and 4 scum and have a wagon's worth of information.
If we imprint without lynching, we get all sorts of random bits of information that will be genuinely hard to piece together, and worse case scenario is that we permanently give scum abilities.

Thus I'm in favour of a lynch and very few if any at all imprints.

This about perfectly sums up my thoughts on how to proceed at this point in the game.

Interesting. Why the complete turnaround since the above post?

Flips give you concrete facts. They dramatically impact on who is scum and who isn't. DN's town flip makes Starbuck less likely to be scum, for example, and elvis and I more likely to be scum. This is essentially a truism. If you think flips aren't indicative of the alignment of others, then how on earth do you scum hunt? Why would you even care what the flip was?

We have 8 town votes to use and 4 scum votes, you need 7 votes to imprint. I garuantee you the scum won't let 3 town and no scum get imprinted. It is a lot easier to hide your motivation for an imprinting record than it is a voting record. An imprint that lasts till the end of the day is very powerful and I'm not at all in favour of handing them out until we have a more concrete idea on who is who. I'm notign the amount of people who think it's outrageous that I think alvis is likely town btu are prepared to hand out imprints to whoever is around town as if they were candy.

[SerialClergyman]

I've answered and you refuse to accept it because you have, in my opinion, a flawed notion of WIFOM.

It does not confirm me or elvis.

It does suggest both of us are MORE LIKELY to be town.

It does this because although it is POSSIBLE we are both scum bussing our partner, it is statistically and motivationally MORE LIKELY that we are town pushing a case on scum.

To rule it out as null either way because there is a WIFOM possibility of either is TERRIBLY BAD PLAY in my opinion.

[SerialClergyman]

How many scum if any do you think are imprinting you?

[SerialClergyman]

I want to get a feel for your understanding of the game.

[SerialClergyman]

..

That's not what I asked you.

I'm asking you how many scum, if any, do you think are imprinting you right now.

[SerialClergyman]

I want to get a feel for your understanding of the game.

[SerialClergyman]

This game is certainly unusual.

@SC: Clearly I'm getting the impression you have never seen a scum buss another scum day 1.

Nope, that's not even close. I know I can explain this. Say scum bus their partners roughly 1/4 of the time on D1. I think this is high, but I'm making a point. So one out of every four times the scumbag will bus, 3 out of every 4 times they will not.

That means that purely statistically, the liklihood of someone pressing hard for a scum lynch D1 is 75%. This does not clear them (and will never clear them totally) but IT DOES MAKE IT SIGNIFICANTLY MORE LIKELY that this person is town.

Now in real life, you can look at other motivations - scum are less likely to bus early, and to push hard against their partner. They are more likely to jump on the wagon when it looks inevitable that that person will be lynched. So you can factor in those variables.

But the key point here is that although there is WIFOM, there is a conclusion you can draw as to what is more likely. It is clearly possible that your conclusion will be false, but it is also clearly more likely that the conclusion is correct, and in a game of limited information this is crucial. Saying it's 50/50 because scum could bus or not bus is naive and incorrect, in my opinion.

@elvis - don't lose sight of the goal. I get into these positions more than most, I have a slightly odd playstyle that often means I have little political capital. But remember that you have the ultimate tool - you can be confirmed upon death. When your targets start flipping scum and you flip town the town can check out what you said and you'll have done your part to win the game.

@farside - if buttonman gets credit for trying to break the game in the town's favour, why don't I?

@ buttonman thank you for answering. we as a group do indeed need to have the right to ask questions, and often explaining their motivation fully may cancel out the reason for asking them. If I said 'why do you support a lynch of person A' and when asked why replied 'because you never supported a lynch of person A and I want to try and trip you up' the question isn't going to work.

As it was, this is a question designed to get you and the group thinking about who is voting to imprint you and why. If you think there are likely to be no scum on your imprint list, as well as you not being scum yourself, you suddenly have 6 people of which 4 are scum. It's possible, but unlikely.

Also, DeathNote is imprinting all of you. This is surely somewhat suspicious given apparantly everyone now seems in the mood to lynch him. Why did you think 0 scum on your imprint list was an option when your biggest suspect was on there? Are you reasonably happy thinking that if he's scum the other 4 are town?

In all - Ohio (5) - Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Colorado
Colorado (5) - Nevada, Ohio, Colorado, Iowa, Florida
Hawaii (5) - Nevada, Arizona, Kansas, Colorado, Hawaii

Deathnote, Starbuck, Limerick, Vala Del M, Messiah, XRECX farside and Buttonman are the unique individual members who are voting to imprint these three people.

Plum, Serial, elvis and Pug are not on this list.

I know for sure that there is scum on this list because I know my alignment, but surely most of you can see that with that many unique people there's almost certainly a heavy scum presence.

For me, I'll add to that that the four people off the wagon are perhaps the four people that I have the largest town read on.

Add to THAT the fact that the FIRST THREE PEOPLE on the DeathNote wagon are Plum, elvis and Pug. I would be on that list too were it not for the fact that I am voting Starbuck.

So of the people who found and started pushing the wagon that we all now think is scummy and have all jumped on, NONE of them are imprinting ANY of the 3 major imprint candidates.

There is definitely scum amongst those three, possibly 2/3 of them. I remain heavily not in favour of an imprint.

[SerialClergyman]

I concede all points. Not everyone has jumped on the wagon - rather mostly everyone (except DN and Starbuck, I believe) have expressed a willingness to see him lynched.

He is not your biggest suspect, but is it fair to say he's one of your biggest suspects? top 3?

So the language was slightly hyperbolic, now go back and read the content and tell me what you think.

[SerialClergyman]

Farside there are eight unique people voting to imprint the three top imprint candidates. I am town and not one of them. That makes at least one scum amongst the eight.

[SerialClergyman]

Now I can wifom tomato free!

I'm on my mobile so I'll find my game breaking later.

[SerialClergyman]

unvote, vote deathnote

executive decision. Let's continue this after a flip.

[SerialClergyman]

Boom, headshot.

Now, Starbuck should be next. Her post where she constantly defends DeathNote is SIGNIFICANTLY more scummy now.

I understand there is a big negative reaction to quickhammering, but guess what - scum getting imprint powers is a BAD THING and it was going to happen if I'd let that continue.

For all you townies out there - you might not like me or my methods but dammit, listen up. My analysis of the imprinting is IMPORTANT.

If you feel you have to lynch me to be sure I'm telling the truth, then go ahead and do it, just DO NOT IMPRINT ANYONE. Just lynch me, look at the town flip, then look at who you should lynch D2 (cough starbuck cough).

More good options for lynches are anyone who said SC and elvis are scum but DN is MORE scum, because that attitude doesn't make sense and is a clear bus attempt.

[SerialClergyman]

Also, PLEASE take this as a lesson - scum WILL try to hurt town reads, they will try to increase paranoia. If you start making solid reads nad putting people into categories, the scum HAVE to try to shake that up.

Just because it's possible does NOT make it more likely. Think how many games you've seen where scum has bussed another scum from early day 1 unflinchingly to their lynch. It just does NOT happen regularly enough to make it a decent possibility.

I think it's a fair bet to say that me, elvis, plum and pug are all town. In fact, I'm so confident of this I would lynch the rest of you one by one without ever imptinting anyone till we won. Remember this if I die.

Without kills, the scum have much less power. DO NOT GIVE THEM THAT POWER. You have enough to lynch all the scum without any roles, almost certainly.

[SerialClergyman]

Elvis, pug, plum - vote me.

I need to flip to convince the remaining town members that my pleas are real, and we're in serious danger of letting the scum get a quick imprint.

[SerialClergyman]

If you think it's classic scum play, that I am SCUMMY!!! for doing something without town permission then vote me. I'm here and totally expecting it.

[SerialClergyman]

Also -

IF Starbuck THEN Vala.

More general thoughts on the Starbuck vs SC/Elvis thing: The overall fight looks to me like a town vs town squabble more than it does a scum vs town or scum vs scum distancing squabble.

Starbuck otherwise seems fairly town to me so I want her to be guilty by association first. If lewarcher flips scum, then their buddying with each other looks suspect.

If DN flips scum, it's not as strong a read imo

but still implicates her enough for me to take a second look at her. I want DN alive as long as we have overtly scummy people like lewarcher around because if he's scum, he seems the type to accidentally out his scumbuddies.

<--- is calling right now Starbuck scum with Deathnote. Write that down, keep it safe, check it on reveal.

...Really? When she's only made one post (not counting her "I'll post later" post)? I had a firmly neutral read on 183.

And on that note, if I didn't already know DN's meta is to post very curtly and anti-townly like this, I would have buried him ages ago. If you can prove to me that you always sit back like this no matter your alignment, lewarcher, then I will cut you some slack, otherwise post moar or die.

I want to get it out there that I'm also giving DN the benefit of the doubt for now due to meta reasons; I have read bits and pieces of many games on this website, including a couple that DN was in, and it seems that he always acts like this, and almost always gets lynched for it early on in the game. That said, I certainly don't want to give him an imprint any time soon. People with anti-town metas are far too much of a wildcard to risk something like that.

[SerialClergyman]

Also, although I think that pic was unfairly applied farside, given that my 'next sentence' didn't contain ANY wifom at all, I loved it Thanks for the effort

[SerialClergyman]

Luckily by then I'll be dead so I won't have to think of the next plan

Seriously though - in that case we re-assess. I always said that my case on Starbuck was to be totally dropped if DN was town. I remain completley committed to doing that. If I'm wrong along the way, we discard the remaining theory and make a new theory.

Look - it's just how I play and unfortunatley it's effective. In /inv I picked rofl was fake softclaiming and was called a role fisher (by elvis amongst others) and was told i was anti town and I was a major part of busting open the scum team and winning that game. In commie mafia I used a case FULL of assertion and wifom to say that 2 of the 3 most townie people were the reamining scum and was lynched for it, but I was right and we won the next day.

I know this sounds like a 7 from 7 defence, but really what i'm saying to you is that your criticisms are noted, and i understand I sound more sure than I have a right to be, but this is how I roll and until it starts not working, I'm not going to change.

So vote me, then vote Starbuck.

[SerialClergyman]

IF Starbuck THEN Vala.

Starbuck first.

Speaking of which,

vote Starbuck

[SerialClergyman]

While I appreciate the sentiment, I think a good deal of my suspicion of Vala comes from her attempted linking of lewarcher to Starbuck over DN to Starbuck. It's important to know SB's alignment, I think.

Why aren't you voting me?

[SerialClergyman]

Stubborn perhaps, misguided no.

It's worse when we're in a 1/3 of the group is scum situation, so I know if people disagree with me unanimously i'm probably on the right track

EK certianly has not blinded me. There are two people who would do that to me on MS and that's because of personal relationships i have with them. I like EK but not in a way that I'd flinch if I thought she was scum.

Also - in the last game we had she spent most of it calling me scum and I spent a good deal of it calling her scum as well, so it's not like we're incapable of the thought.

[SerialClergyman]

Definitely a bad idea to imprint buttonman. Any person who actually came up with a game breaking suggestion owuld obviously have the rules modified, so although it's a town tell too many people are taking it on face value.

Which reminds me - the times I did it for farside:

All quotes are mine.

Meh, I PM'd iam about this thinking it might be boringly breaking the game, but if you vote nl and imprint one person say 100 times, till they hve a cop result on everyone, then you lynch them. If they are scum, rinse and repeat with a different townie, if they are town follow the cop.

I think that breaks it, theoretically even with naive/paranoid cops if you did it enough.

But yeah, it would be boring as batshit.

Buttonman said this was essentially the same plan being talked about but I replied:

You didn't have the step where you lynched the person with the power. And I PM'd the mod a while ago about it. And I don't think you have considered naive or paranoid results.

And then when Iam had a fleeting and poorly-considered role change, I pointed out a new break the game scenario with the new system here:

If you wanted to be sneaky with the new rule, we could neveri mprint someone, scum hunt as normal, and if we ever looked in trouble just vote No Lynch 3 timesi na a row to get out of it with a draw.

0% chance of loss Very Happy

[SerialClergyman]

I was actually about to get to that when SC quick lynched.

This is exactly why I quick lynched. Imprints were only going to go to at least one of the scum. We don't need them, old fashoined scumhunting was fine for that lynch and for the next 1 or 2 lynches at least.

[SerialClergyman]

5 imprints on someone not voting deathnote. Bad times.

Starbuck was imprinting vdm and none of the other top three. More and more likely they are scum together.

I know there are at least two and probably more townies on that imprint wagon. What's so wrong with lynching me or starbuck first? Why do you need to rely on hoping button is town and he gets a useful print when there is more than enough info for more lynches, if not an outright win?

[SerialClergyman]

Then vote me.

[SerialClergyman]

It was totally tterly cool.

The fact that you hadn't imprinted anyone was irrelevent, it was yet another likely townie who was NOT imprinting the three top imprinters.

Imprinting buttonman continues to be a bad idea. If he is town for game breaking so am I, and I actually voted scum yesterday. But in reality, imprint neither of us, it is an unnecessary risk.

It's not a 7 for 7 argument because that's not why i'm asking you to follow me, it's why my playstyle allows me to buddy as strongly to Elvis as I have or declare starbuck and dn scum after one content post.

The reason you should agree with me is all laid out, a solid case on starbucks subtle defence of a now confirmed scum. Every reason to vote her dead for that.

[SerialClergyman]

Or we could not imprint and lynch 3 times.

[SerialClergyman]

If by 3, I meant 5.

8 townies now. There are 3 scum. So if we never imprint, we could have 5 lynches before we're even, whereupon I'm not sure what happens.

Given I'm pretty sure of the towniness of 4 players, I'm so into that plan.

Things that make me uneasy: VDM asking what happens if Starbuck is town.
XRECX continuing to find me amongst the most likely to be scum in the game but nonetheless voting my scum targets (first DN, now possibly SB).

[SerialClergyman]

when you're on the receiving end it is rather irksome.

ORLY?

Yes, the site is failing hard. Lucky I hammered DeathNote when I had the chance

What do you think of Starbuck, Vala? Do you agree she is more likely to be scum now that there's a DN scumflip?

[SerialClergyman]

when you're on the receiving end it is rather irksome.

ORLY?

Yes, the site is failing hard. Lucky I hammered DeathNote when I had the chance

What do you think of Starbuck, Vala? Do you agree she is more likely to be scum now that there's a DN scumflip?

[SerialClergyman]

Looks like some of the stuff I tried ot post when the site was flooded is all coming back. Some of the posts might be not in order or whatever.

Like with any associative case, it gets dropped when one of the people you're tlaking about isn't scum. If Starbuck is town, then all of my posts which mention you being tied to her are null and void, including where you tie a lew flip to her alignement and her supporting you. That leaves a much smaller case. Given you were one of the group looking to be imprinted on D1, and I'm pretty confident in the four townies of plum, elvis, sc and pug, so naturally I'm going to be more suspicious of the rest, but that's little reason to vote you specifically.

[SerialClergyman]

Say we imprint 3 people, of which 2 are scum. Say everybody gets kills. We mislynch twice and it's game over without us realising.

And we'll never know what roles they have. They come back the next day and say they got a doc or something and we have no way of knowing that they're lying.

Every person we imprint is a possible night kill against us. Each unique person we imprint is another unique kill that's possibly out there.

Whereas, we have 4 lynches till lylo if we don't imprint anyone. We have a scum flip and from the initial wagon and the imprint wagons of yesterday we have some serious info.

I am genuinely perplexed why people think imprinting anyone is a good idea from this position.

[SerialClergyman]

@farside

Say you imprint someone. They are scum and get the ability to kill. They don't use it that night and claim they got doc power and it did nothing.

Now they have a NK. They can use it another night to frame someone, or just use it when we thought we had some lynches up our sleeves.

[SerialClergyman]

@ Rec - specifically to stop people I thought were scum getting imprinted. See my analysis of the imprint wagons and then the huge disagreement I got with that analysis.

[SerialClergyman]

farside - if town get imprinted, they get an ability for that night and that night only.

If scum get imprinted, they get an ability that they can use any night. If they get multiple imprints, they get new abilities that they may use, but they cannot ever use more than 1 per night.

So my point was every time you imprint someone, you risk that that person is scum who gets the ability to kill. They may not use it that night, and it may be easy for them to lie about it.

If Town A, Scum B and Scum C all get imprinted and get the ability to kill, the next day noone will be killed and they'll report back. Town A will say he could kill but chose not to, Scum B could say the same or make up any other claim - say the ability to be a doc for the night and he used it without result. Scum C says the same thing.

Now we have a situation where the town loses 2 mislynches and we don't even know it. There's no way of knowing if any of A, B and C were lying about their imprints. A loses his ability but B and C keep it. As soon as we get 2 town deaths from losing, they both use their kill and even though we were expecting being able to have 2 more lynches, we've suddenly lost overnight.

This is the sort of thing I'm worried about.

[SerialClergyman]

Well, you could have 2 scum players who then build up an excessive amount of powers, including the ability to kill. You'd be risking two full lynches.

It just doesn't make sense to me to do that when we have a lot of info and a scum flip. It's game on. Let's imprint if we run into trouble.

[SerialClergyman]

Reading the 2 buttonman was looking for something that more favorable to town where you found the reason it wouldn't work by sending a PM to the mod. TheButton still had the idea first reading the read. Anyone reading that just will go into the well he asked the mod what would happen in this case which isnt' really game breaking in my view.

farside, this is slightly frustrating because I DID send the PM before that post but you guys have no way of knowing that. So I'll drop the first attempt (although it was more sophisticated than buttonman's). But what about the second attempt - Iam created a 'if noone dies in three days it's a draw' rule and I suggest being able to never imprint anyone and if things look like we're in lylo and going to lose we just vote to no kill 3 times and it's a draw, giving us either a win or a draw with no chance of loss. That's breaking it isn't it?

Even if there weren't 3 posts defending DeathNote, you don't need them. That first content post was enough to make me think Starbuck was scum even before I knew DN was scum. I could still be wrong and I accept that, but sometimes it just seems to be there.

@SC: Did it ever occur to you in your arrogance that maybe people aren't disagreeing with you because they're scum, and instead they're disagreeing with you because you keep trying to control town's actions?

Vala, firstly I'm sorry because I've been referring to you as Vala Del Moran or something not your actual name, I'll try to make sure I do it properly.

As for your criticism, I can only say I'm playing the game to the best of my ability. If that means aggressively pushing a lynch or hammering someone without necessarily consensus, it was only because I truly believe those actions to be the right choice for my team. Sorry to be irritating, I'm not always like this but when you get a strong read you can't ignore it.

Obviously everyone who disagrees with me isn't scum. The point I was making before is that people are influenced by those around them. If four people find someone scummy, you'll guarantee that others will find him scummy, even if there's nothing to the case. The more consensus you have when there are 4/12 scum in the game, the worse the idea - speaking in very general terms.

@all I find the term mouthpiece a little offensive to be honest. I think everybody is contributing their unique voice, elvis' differs from mine in certain ways and farside's certainly does, so lets cut out the insinuation that anyone isn't thinking for themselves.

Also imprinting later in the game is bad.

3 scum vs 8 town right now.

This is a good point, but I don't agree because I think we're more likely to put them in the right places once we have a few flips. On D1, VMD was one of the most likely to recieve an imprint. If Starbuck and DN flip scum, she almost certainly should not. We just have much more concrete information after the game has gone on for a while.

I could make a case on the top two imprinters but I think it'd be a little facetious. It's more the process by which they are imprinted that I have my doubts. My analysis for D1 imprinting explains what I mean - none of the 4 people I thought were probably town had imprinted these people yet they had 5 votes each. This point was somewhat misunderstood - I'm not having a go at any one imprinted or imprintee, just looking at patterns. Without 4 town votes, it seems to me it should be very difficult to get a town imprinted. It just looked scum-fuelled to me for sure. Top that off with the fact I don't see the point as yet and consider it an unnecessary risk and here we are.

[SerialClergyman]

Counterintuitive - almost certainly.
Incorrect - almost certainly not, at least in my experience.

[SerialClergyman]

*dusts off Messiah's place on the wagon*

Sir, your seat is ready and waiting.

[SerialClergyman]

He said he was ready to hammer and was waiting for Starbuck to post a catchup post.

Catchup post is done, plenty to analyse if there's a town flip, now it's time to hammer and hopefully grab another scumbag.

If you want to sneak in and get it done before he comes I'm happy with that outcome too.

[SerialClergyman]

SerialClergyman loves your balls, Messiah.

You also joined on my birthday, I see. Good man.

Care to spill the beans now you've been hammered, Starbuck?

[SerialClergyman]

Hmm, this is less than ideal.

Starbuck - you seem to really take this hard and to be honest, I thought a lot of your catchup post was AtE from someone desperate.

This is a game of limited information and we're all just trying to do our best, I never meant anything personally and you certainly haven't offended me in any way, I just thought you were scum, that's all.

[SerialClergyman]

Appeal to Emotion.

[SerialClergyman]

I agree.

[SerialClergyman]

To be honest, Starbuck, I'll learn that we were right about one scum and wrong about another and that's better than random chance.

You need to allow people to be wrong.

[SerialClergyman]

Because I've been railing about farside scum and button scum all day?

Imprinting people after Starbuck's flip is better than doing it before her flip.

[SerialClergyman]

2 votes does not a lynch make. The 10 other people in the game decided via a majority that the cases elvis and I were pushing were the right ones. If we'd been so offensive to the group then they wouldn't have. (Certainly not the lynch on scum, anyway.) There were 6 opinions besides mine on the DN lynch and 5 on the SB lynch. If you had felt the lynch would be better directed elsewhere, make a better case.

I remain perplexed at the attitude towards backing a town read, but so it goes.

Either way, this is the last message I'm writing about hurt feelings. Nothing in this game has been personal, I'm just trying to do my best from a position of limited information. I've always accepted I could be wrong and this, it seems, is one of those cases. I apologise for getting it wrong in your case, Starbuck.

[SerialClergyman]

One final thing to say about the issues - I'll also replace out if a significant group of people desire it.

Now - onto the game, we actually have a pretty good situation ot be in. I agree with the suggestion that today should include some imprints and probably a no-lynch.

Nevada (7) - Virginia, Georgia, Montana, Iowa, Colorado, Florida, Alaska
Virginia (2) - Arizona, Kansas
Alaska (1) - Hawaii

Not Voting (2) - Nevada, Ohio

Arizona (6) - Alaska, Georgia, Virginia, Kansas, Iowa, Colorado
Alaska (3) - Hawaii, Ohio, Arizona

Not Voting (2) - Florida, Montana

Florida was on the Deathnote wagon but not the Starbuck wagon.
Montana was on the Deathnote wagon but not the Starbuck wagon.
Kansas was on the Starbuck wagon but not the Deathnote wagon.
Ohio was on neither
Hawaii was on neither


Montana was third on the Deathnote wagon which suggests a bus is unlikely. Florida was second last on the Deathnote wagon, which suggests a bus is entirely possible. Kansas looks like the vote on the second wagon was influenced by the result of the first. Hawaii was on the Alaska wagon both times, null result there. Ohio was noto n the Deathnote wagon (although willingness was expressed IIRC) but was not on the Stabuck wagon.

The question I'm wondering is what scum do with an absolute gift. I was pushing the Starbuck wagon hard, they didn't have to do any work to get a mislynch. Knowing that, and knowing I'd soon be next, they could afford to place themselves where they wanted on the wagon.

I think Limerickx's spot is the most suspicious. Second last on the Deathnote wagon and not voting on D2.
Second up is probably VMD's, although it's possible her frustration at me and my play is colouring her voting patterns and she didn't adjust based on DN's flip. The other red flag for VMD is when she asked what happens if Starbuck flips town. It's one of those questions that looks like planning her position in advance and felt weird at the time.

They'd be my top two based on voting patterns.

[SerialClergyman]

So, I am MOST suspicious as of that post, because I voted for scum and didn't vote for townie?

Yes. I think with most townies, the DeathNote flip was a pretty big factor in getting Starbuck lynched. I certainly felt they were heavily connected and pointed it out several times. From a townie's point of view, if you were prepared to push DeathNote and be on his wagon but you

weren't

prepared to be on the Starbuck wagon then there's some serious disconnect in the thinking.

Someone like Buttonmen doesn't come away looking as suspicious because he's always thought I was scummy and wanted nothing to do with the cases I was pushing. But someone who was behind the DeathNote lynch but not the Starbuck lynch seems odd to me.

[SerialClergyman]

imprint pug

[SerialClergyman]

If you did I would have found some of Brad Pitt to keep you here too <3

No, I've been genuinely busy as well as trying to respond to criticism.

[SerialClergyman]

Crap, I'm at work, can't go trawling for images of a young Brad Pitt - I'll ahve to owe you..

[SerialClergyman]

Limerickx's style reads town to me and his V/LAs might account for some of what I noted. He also had some interactions with DeathNote early that read as town to me.

VMD, IIRC, called me vs Starbuck a town v town battle. Since this was correct (even if now she doesn't believe it), this is a definite point in her favour.

XRECX - thoughts on the game so far? Who's scum?

@all I'm in favour of say 2-3 imprints and no lynch. Can we agree on that approach or does anyone want a lynch?

[SerialClergyman]

Limerick's points:

1) You only want to imprint not lynch now your head is on the chopping block!

SC, if starbuck does not flip town, I think the best bet is to imprint some town people and hope they either find scum or investigate us innocent. Then we go from there.

I agree.

This happened before Starbuck's flip (clearly). If I was wrong about Starbuck, I was always in favour of turning to imprints. It was only when we had a good lead on scum that I thought imprinting was a bad idea.

2) You now think I'm town! Worried you're oging to be LYNCHED??

I am conflicted about you. You remain the most suspicious spot on wagon analysis. Your play has been quite townie though. I'm in favour of listing thoughts as they come to me and being honest about my reads. So I don't think your town now nor did I think you were scum yesterday. I'm struggling to determine what your alignment is.

Aside from that, I think a charge of self-preservation is a pretty weak one against me and my play this game. Were I scum, I'd have known that Starbuck's lynch would bring a metric shit-ton of suspicion on me, not to mention my various pleas to lynch me to prove my towniness.

3) I was right about Starbuck, how does that make me suspicious?

The problem comes about from the situation. There are 3 scum, they all know Starbuck is town and can daytalk. They are presented with an absolute gift, a townie pushing hard the lynch of another townie.

So the question one must attempt to answer is what they would do with themselves. A lynch of Starbuck (or even myself) would be easy to manufacture and they could essentially choose to be on it or not.

Deathnote's wagon was different, it really spring up. So yes, it's definitely odd to me that you would be on DN's wagon and not on SBs.

Were you not around for much of D2?

[SerialClergyman]

Much to reply to but I lose the motivation every time I start a post. Farside, your point aobut the difference = stating as fact rather than assumption is a bad one. Either way you're using WIFOMic reasoning, and either way you're making an action based on incomplete information. But that's the point of the game. Stating it as fact is a measure of how strongly you feel about the result, not one that changes how you came to that conclusion. It's WIFOM either way but it's a useful tool.

Add to that my posts are littered with things like 'likely', 'almost certainly' and 'probably' to get around this argument and yet it never seems to matter.

@Limerick - I think we've reached the point of diminished returns in this argument. If you disagree and would like me to post in more detail, let me know.

As it is, I think we have one counterbalanced point - my pushing of Starbuck. Either I didn't push her very hard and therefore my push to imprint rather than lynch is not scummy, or I did push her very hard and you'd have to recognise that that's semi-suicidal as scum.

If you really do feel that strongly about the imprint point, you can look at my reasoning throughout the start of D2 that always stated as long as we had good reasoning to go on and a good idea of who scum is, we shouldn't imprint. As it is, we no longer do since the Starbuck lynch was on town and thus I turn my view back to imprinting. I think you can see that that's a logical progression.

And finally, even if you didn't agree with any of that, how does changing to a no-lynch imprint help me out if I'm scum? There's still a lynch required tomorrow, it's not likely to lead to a mislynch. I personally will not get an imprint any time soon. So why does it benefit me to see power roles assigned?

@SC: Why did you wait until the end of the wagon to hammer DN?

Vote: SerialClergyman

His ploy was that if he was town, then so was elvis... and if DeathNote was scum, so was Starbuck. IMO, it was a bus. He knew DeathNote would flip scum, therefore incriminating Starbuck and seemingly clearing both himself and elvis.

Yeah, the site is super-fucked right now. Also, unvote.

I want to figure out the imprinting thing first.

Vote: Starbuck

On second thought, lynching Starbuck is a better plan. Passively defending someone who flips scum is a no-no.

These are RECK's contributions to D2. I don't like them at all. This goes with the earlier posting on D1, some highlights of which are:

SC calling elvis town? What the hell has she done that really warrants a town read, especially this early on? I agree with the Deathnote scum read, but I'm not sure I'd so willingly place Starbuck into scum territory. Hmph.

In fact, by the end of page eight, I'd be willing to upgrade Starbuck to leaning-town.

Messiah's 236 is a strong post: SC says Starbuck is "obsessed with" and "defending" DN, but someone could just as easily say that he is doing the same with elvis (and vice versa). If it's a scumtell for Starbuck, then it's a scumtell for either elvis or SC. Just because you openly defend someone you read as town (which, way to give NO reasoning behind your unbelievably strong town-read on elvis, SC) doesn't mean that it's more acceptable just because someone thinks the attacks on another null-read are bullshit.

And... ugh, my predecessor failed. Holy shit, bad play, bad posts, apathy. I just remembered... he said nothing of any interest on pages 1-5. I've noticed that Starbuck gets a lot of scum attention in practically every single game I play with her... and the one game I actively remember he being scum in, I think I saw it coming. Therefore, I'm not willing to accept the Starbuck hate simply because I've seen it happen too many times before. I honestly don't see anything scummy about what she's done so far.

Ignoring all further posts by lewarcher. Plum's epic post on page twelve made me fall in love with her. Not enough to remove my imprint on VMD, but definitely make me question it.

DeathNote seems to be just rolling over and giving up right now. I don't get it, nor do I understand it. I think it's a null-tell at this point. Probably just tired of defending himself. I think he's an appropriate D1 lynch.

On D1 he said that I was scum with DeathNote and that Starbuck was neutral leaning town. I don't get where the Starbuck vote came from.

[SerialClergyman]

Why was this never thought of when starbuck was being lynched? Why did this thought never come out especially when I stated the 8 vs 3 in town favor.

Because there was no reason to risk it when we had an excellent read on scum. Of course - with hindsight the read was less than excellent, but so it goes. Are you pretty sure you've found scum? Good! Lynch them. Are you not that sure? Good! Imprint. That has been my argument all through D2 and D3.

Why is it bad? You and SC have been shoving the whole scum would read their role there fore we are town BS at the start and the whole if DN flip is scum we are town BS as fact. So tell me how your point is more valid?

Regardless of the fact that we don't know whether either of those two conclusions are truthful or not, it's not the point I was making. The point i was making is that no one is claiming you can be 100% sure of anything using reasoning with WIFOM in it, but we are claiming that you can use it to help guide your decisions. We've used it to guide the opinion of each other that we're town. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure.

But you know all this because you use WIFOM to make assumptions too. What elvis quoted was an example of you using WIFOMic argument to come to a conclusion, and that's the key issue - you do it, I do it, elvis does it and there's nothing wrong with that.

[SerialClergyman]

I was looking back at the end of D2 and found this from Sarbuck:

And just where were his votes placed?

Day 1

Lynch
DeathNote, Post 82 - This is the post that he parrots Pug
SC, Post 214 - "for the ridiculous way he's overreacted towards starbuck and the above scummy line of questioning."
DeathNote, Post 383 - For reasons in previous posts and the "just policy lynch me and get it over with" thing

Imprint
Messiah, VMD and Buttonmen



Day 2

Lynch
SC, Post 480 - No reason
Starbuck, Post 615 - Her "I don't see where I defended him" defense isn't very persuasive.

Normally I would give town points to Messiah for haivng the guts to hammer SB. (This goes back to the scum knowing she was town - why would he put himself under that kind of pressure?)

But his voting record is surprisingly similar to RECK's - the same 'vote SC then switch to SC's suspicion at the end of the day' stylings.

It's certainly unusual to go with the case one of your scum suspects is pushing, and for both players to do it both days is odd and worth noting, I think.

[SerialClergyman]

Because there's literally no down side.

Imprint + lynch means that we can't use the information of the flip for our imprints today.

There is zero reason then to imprint and lynch over imprint and no lynch, then lynch the next day or lynch then imprint. If you do them both in the one day, you're unable to use one to help the other. If you do them seperately, you CAN use the lynch to influence the imprint and vice versa.

The harm yesterday was the chance of getting it wrong. There was no point taking that chance when we had a good lead on scum. Today it's much more up in the air, thus it's better to imprint to try to find some solid direction.

Yesterday you were saying lynch me don't imprint then lynch starbuck.

This is true. Did you believe I was serious when I made that suggestion?

Now, in regards to your voting me, were you always going to vote me on a SB townflip? Am I the most likely in your eyes to flip scum or just the suspect with the biggest wagon? Do you still think elvis and VMD are scum?

[SerialClergyman]

<--- keeps his word.



I'm waiting to hear farside's answers to my questions at the bottom of my above post.

[SerialClergyman]

I gotta go to work in a sec, I'll try to post at some point but before I do...

The blatant buddying is making me nauseous.

Why do you have that reaction? Is it game-related or on a personal level? What is the problem that you are seeing?

[SerialClergyman]

Reck, could you go into that a but more? In what way is farside digging herself into a hole?

[SerialClergyman]

Reck -

Reck, could you go into that a but more? In what way is farside digging herself into a hole?

Yea to imprint + nolynch. <3 would be my preferred imprint state.

[SerialClergyman]

lol - I obviously meant less than three imprints abnove, rather than heart.

Damn you, EMOTICONS!!!

[SerialClergyman]

Limerick, was that becuase you're unsure about your vote or simply because you agree with the no lynch/imprint plan?

[SerialClergyman]

Unrequired snarkiness too :/

I think the 'being sure' thing is such a red herring. *sigh*.

Maybe I should explain it by saying I'm

sure

that the person I'm voting is most likely to be scum in my mind and I'm

sure

that going after the person most likely to be scum is the right way to play, so I'm

sure

about pushing the lynch.

That red herring aside, are you still thinking I'm most likely to be mafia?

[SerialClergyman]

Limerick, do you agree? What do you think about farside and ek?

[SerialClergyman]

I have thoughts but Christmas and another game eatign my time. Either way, it's probably best to not go into them too much till after the imprint.

[SerialClergyman]

Only if people agreed with them

[SerialClergyman]

I honestly need too much time and it's just a theory at the moment. I'm OK with the people likely to be imprinted so I'm not too worried.

[SerialClergyman]

THE SECOND COMING OF THE MESSSIAH!

[SerialClergyman]

I'm curious to hear the end of CTD's analysis. I'm totally up for lynching one of your suspects, but I'll wait till you finish your analysis to expand.

[SerialClergyman]

By the by, elvis, I don't agree, I think farside is likier to be town than scum. Her case on me is actually quite good. If you had to accept she was town, who would you look at next?

[SerialClergyman]

CTD - you very verbosely managed to come up with the usual argument against the way I play. There are some good points and bad, so I'll try to settle some of it.

a) I apologise in no way for my reads. It doesn't take most people just one post to form a scum team, but that's all it takes me. I read the game via patterns and that post by Starbuck was subtly and continuously defending someone. When that person turned out to be scum, I was 95% sure she was as well. Of course - I was wwrong before, wrong then and will be wrongl ater on, but on the whole my reads are decent.

b) Manic theories and changing opinions are standard. Can't apologise for them either. That's simply a function of me having little information. Sometimes they come off and sometimes they don't, but meh.

c) I am a good actor when I'm scum. But I don't put myself in as much jeapordy as I've been in this game. I have good awareness of my perception in the town and there's little reason for me as scum to be as much of a presence in this game as I have been.

d) What is the motivation for me as scum pushign that heavily to kill Starbuck? I've never played with her, I know for a fact she doesn't have a power role. A 1-1 exchange is a bad idea for scum. It's not enough to say that since scum want townies lynched you pushed for her lynch - if I were scum, that action cost me a buddy and put myself in a category of top suspicion all for one townie who I knew was not a PR.

e) Even if having Starbuck flip town wasn't a good reason in your mind to switch from lynching to imprinting, what's the advantage to that switch if I'm scum? For what reason did I make it? There's no way I'm getting an imprint, and any information the town gets from imprints is only likely to further convince them I'm scum. Wouldn't I do what I did on D1? Get myself lynched and deny the town information?

If there's something big I haven't addressed, let me know.

I think I made a mistake in not outlining my theory earlier, but I had no idea you'd try to link me with VMD.

I'll spend my next post giving everyone an up to date view of my position.

[SerialClergyman]

Actually, I've changed my mind. I want to hear yoru case on Reck first.

[SerialClergyman]

When I said earlier that I wanted to lynch one of your suspects, Reck was that one. I want to hear your arguments because they relate to my theory of the game at the moment.

The very fact that people feel they are able to 'call WIFOM' makes me want to tear out my eyeballs. And I

like

my eyeballs.

If you are saying something is scummy, you also have a responsibility to explain

why

it's scummy. Calling me scummy for trying to push a lynch on Starbuck makes no sense. If I were scum, it cost me a buddy and put me in a position where I signed my name blatantly to a townie lynch.

I never lied about my opinion. When thinking Starbuck was scum, I was quite prepared to just lynch after lynch. Her town flip threw out my reads and as I said to elvis before the start of D3, if she flipped town I would prefer to no lynch and imprint. No lies, quite logical.

Your point about DeathNote makes some kind of sense but you aren't looking at my mindset. I was almost sure that Starbuck was scum. Her lynch was the immediate obvious choice. There was no reason to imprint because we didn't need any information.

Your top suspect was dead (actually, your only real suspect). You hadn't established any suspicion on any living players. You took the easy way out.

This is a bad, bad argument. You are saying here that I as scum hadn't established any suspicion so rather than try I just decided to let people imprint. Well that only would give the town more information, were I scum. Why on earth couldn't I manufacture other suspects? There would be plenty around. This is probably the worst out of the lot of them.

--

Arg, gettign messy. If there's something big after you've had some sleep, let me know.

[SerialClergyman]

Mcslixacwfepvbatlpalau.

For future reference.

[SerialClergyman]

Oh Buttonman.. your threat didn't stop me from hamering DN, it didn't stop me from pushing Starbuck, what makes you think that your threat of leaving your vote on me (where it has resided almost all game) would make me explain that?

It'll come in due time.

[SerialClergyman]

CTD - quick answers to whatever struck me -

a) Your list of motivations is missing the point. You are claiming an action I've taken is scummy. I can definitely show you my motivation for doing it as town - I really, really thought Starbuck was scum and I was prepared to push it as hard as possible. You're now claiming I'm scum, and the reason you give for them otivation is that list, filled with really pretty weak reasons. Unless you can tell me why I would be more likely to push a Starbuck case that hard as scum compared to town, I don't see how it's a scum tell.

In fact - no lists, here's the easiest way to explain it. I am a townie who was convinced that Starbuck was scum with DN. Now find an action that isn't consistent with that world view. I'm sure you won't, because that's what I was. Yes - Starbuck's mislych really, really threw me.

You'll note I also said lynch DN and if he's not scum then there's no case on Starbuck. I also offered to trade my life for his, as I did Starbuck's.

Re-read the start of D2 and tell me that I'm scum urging people to lynch me while betting that they won't. Because you now know that Starbuck is town, so all of the start of D2, if I'd died and scumflipped then Starbuck would be as good as confirmed town. So please, look at that again, quite seriously.

I do have an opinion on VMD but I'm waiting for yoru reck case first. I should have done my little code before you posted, but I didn't know who you'd suspect and why. You're also obviously a good player and your posts have been great, so I am back in doubt. But I'll explain where I'm at and my thinking after you talk about reck, if that's ok.

Buttonman - your level of abject horror at my play continues to amuse. Could you explain for me exactly what dsatardly plan I've cooked up? Also, while we're on the subject, you never answered what was wrong with my obvious buddying with elvis.

[SerialClergyman]

Yes, I did read that. What I'm asking is which magical bullshit codes have I pulled before?

You'll also note that elvis moved to clear me, not vice versa.

[SerialClergyman]

OK, if you're going to be irritating:

Also, while we're on the subject, you never answered what was wrong with my obvious buddying with elvis.

[SerialClergyman]

Answer?

[SerialClergyman]

Yes.

[SerialClergyman]

Yes.

[SerialClergyman]

This game has me really struggling at the moment. I think it's the high presence of scum + daytalking. That and the constant hatin'.

Why do people keep suspecting me but lynching people I push a case against?

Deathnote, SB and now Reck I've attacked only to have people like Messiah/CTD, Farside and reck (although obviously he's not self-voting) get on the wagon while also thinking I'm scum.

imprint/nolynch imo.

[SerialClergyman]

if you're torn on me, why vote for DN, who I was pushing, Starbuck, who I was pushing, and now Reck, who I've been pushing?

[SerialClergyman]

Yes.

[SerialClergyman]

Firstly, I'm asking you to explain why obvious buddying to people you think are town is bad.

[SerialClergyman]

Mcslixacwfepvbatlpalau.

For future reference.

my current suspect list is xreck and ctd with farside, elvis, pug, vmd, buttonman all town leaving plum and limerick as undecideds.

I'm coming off two massive nights on NY day so forgive me if I'm not up for typing much - even the tapping of the keys is waaaay too loud.

Here's how I came up with this theory. You don't have to like it or agree with it, but this is how I work.

a) I remain convinced there's at least one scum between the three top imprint targets D1. Those are VMD, Buttonmen and Messiah (CTD). These were the votes, for reference:

In all - Ohio (5) -

Nevada

,

Florida

,

Arizona

, Ohio,

Colorado

Colorado

(5) -

Nevada

, Ohio,

Colorado

,

Iowa,

Florida

Hawaii (5) -

Nevada

,

Arizona

, Kansas,

Colorado

, Hawaii

That's coloured according to the suspect above. red for flipped scum, orange for suspected scum, cyan for undecided, black for leaning town and green for town.

b) I think I have to roll with my most favourite town tell of all and go with a read that says VMD is town. This is why I'm particularly irritated I didn't crumb this before you linked me and her together.

More general thoughts on the Starbuck vs SC/Elvis thing: The overall fight looks to me like a town vs town squabble more than it does a scum vs town or scum vs scum distancing squabble. If there were scum involved I'm fairly certain I'd be smelling a rat from someone involved right now, and instead all I smell is a lot of righteous indignation all around. Try not to tunnel too much, guys, it could be bad news for all of us. >_<

Scum almost invariably never do this. If she was scum, there's no point in calling my aggressive attack against Starbuck a town vs town squabble. There's no point in trying to ensure we look elsewhere. Especially with 4 scum in the game, it's outright dangerous to try to discourage two townies from going at each other's throats. This essentially makes me think she's town pretty damn strongly, actually.

c) elvis is town. I'm yet to find an answer from anyone as to why 'buddying' with someone you think is town is a bad thing but I don't even care any more tbh. She reads as obv town to me and if she's scum I'll take my hat off to her because she had me utterly fooled.

d) farside being town is constantly being challenged for me this game. I know she's a veteren and probably an excellent player and I find it hard to meld her play with someone who's seen it all. I can't tell if it's an act. What made me think she was town is her case on me is just about the first time where I felt that someone had a legitimate point on me. I read through it and thought yep, fair enough, that's a decent attempt to find scum. I get a LOT of suspicion in almost every game, but that doesn't happen so often. Since then, of course, she's gone and voted Reck, who I think is probably scum, which is again siding with her top suspect's decision. Given that last time this happened it ended with her and the lynchee arm in arm wailing on elvis and I, I'm hardly thrilled. She's certainly less certain but due to the good case on me, the seemingly genuine confusion, I'm going to try to give her the benefit of the doubt for a while.

e) buttonmen has been regarded as obvtown for little reason, as far as I can tell. Breaking the setup is not as much of a town tell as some might regard, and he's done very little scumhunting. The majority of his suspicions have been with me, which are unforunately wrong, and he will almost certainly continue to vote me until I die. Having said that, he's probably town. I attributed his top suspect as DeathNote towards the end of D1. He attacked me for misrepresenting him and pointed out that I was his top suspect. No scum would have done that, with Deathnote's lynch on the cards. I think he genuinely believes he's right.

I won't go through all the others, I think that's enough. If there's some glaringly obvious thing I'm missing explaining, let me know.

Nevada

(7) - Virginia,

Georgia

, Montana,

Iowa

,

Colorado

,

Florida

, Alaska
Virginia (2) -

Arizona

, Kansas
Alaska (1) - Hawaii

Not Voting (2) -

Nevada

, Ohio

Alaska (4) - Hawaii,

Colorado

, Ohio,

Iowa

Arizona

(3) - Alaska,

Georgia

, Virginia
Ohio (1) - Kansas

Not Voting (3) -

Arizona

,

Florida

, Montana

6 to lynch.

Arizona

(6) - Alaska,

Georgia,

Virginia, Kansas,

Iowa

,

Colorado

Alaska (3) - Hawaii, Ohio,

Arizona

Not Voting (2) -

Florida

, Montana

6 to lynch.

Next post coming is a brief bit on CTD.

[SerialClergyman]

CTD's posts are truly excellent and an indication of a great player. I think he's definitely wrong on one count, probably wrong on another (VMD) and probably right about Reck.

The reason why I wanted to hear his case against Reck was that it was important that the case had more than Reck's D2 actions. The slips he found were convincing. But Reck's voting pattern mimicks Messiah's almost exactly. If you have a look above, you'll see they're on each major wagon and they're very close to each other, which means they made their movement at around the same time. So if your case had just been concerned with voting patterns it would have at the least been utterly hypocritical.

I won't lie - CTD's posts have given me some cause for concern and some reason to doubt my theory. I don't doubt that he is a strong enough player to make those posts as scum with reck, but it certainly seems less likely. And then farside joining the case against Rec seemed to come out of the blue and throw me as well. 3 day-talking scum really screw with my usual way of catching scum I think.

Anyways - CTD, if you're up for a Reck lynch, I'll be down with that. If you want to lynch me, it's inevitable it'll happen at some point for some reason, so consider this my ringing endorsement of VMD as prob-town.

[SerialClergyman]

farside - I odn't have that opinion of you at all. I think you're a strong player who is dilligent and concerned with the game. The problem is I don't know how youp lay as scum, and I don't know what changes of mind are spontaenous and what might be manufactured. I don't mean to ignore you, and I could probably be more in depth in my analysis of what you say, I just don't necessarily agree with you much. We also seem to come from different directions - you cautiously come to shaky conclusions, I quickly jump to solid conclusions and then re-assess as new evidence comes to hand. This gives me the frustrating opinion that you aren't prepared to go with everything and are constantly going back on your thought process, and gives you the frustrating feeling that I have no right to be as sure as I am about where my position is.

CTD - Pug never seems to do anything I find scummy. He could be lurker scum archetype, but doesn't really seem to fit it to me. He's been on the right wagons (clarification - the sort of wagons I'd expect a townie to be on), hasn't imprinted the wrong people. I've just never had my scumdar really raised by him. I could be missing something, but I haven't seen much to fear yet.

XrecX hammering buttonman might give me pause a little, given I think button is town and reck is scum, but it's not that strong an indication until alignments are confirmed. And even then - we all know who button man would use any ability on. It's not really a risk to the scum team because when button gets his ability it'll be me he targets. In fact, pushing strongly for a no lynch with just buttonman imprinted is not a half bad option for scum at this point.

[SerialClergyman]

The fact that you're so keenly aware of it makes me feel that it's probably because you're involved in said daytalking.

*shrug*. It bothers me. My playstyle depends on them not having the level of communication I think they have. It's hard to look for patterns when the scum can react to everything you say and go through how they should stage their place on the wagons. It's a constant thorn in my side this game.

What about the quote of VMD's with me vs starbuck town v town? I really think that's a particularly strong town tell.

Buttonmen - you even specifically said if you had vig powers you'd shoot me. Maybe you'll pull out some crazy stunt, but you've been gunning for me all game and I can't see an imprint likely to be used in any other manner other than to bring me down.

[SerialClergyman]

I seriously wonder why some people strung up Starbuck because she supposedly defended DN and yet pretty much ignored the fact that Vala actually defended DN, based on weak reasoning to boot.

This sums up our difference in positions. I don't see overtly defending someone as scummy most of the time. It depends on the situation, but I felt Starbuck's was much less likely to come from scum because she referred to him while talking about other people's actions, and held up the idea that he was being attacked for his ideas, not for him being scummy, yet when asked she was much more reserved and unwilling to commit (even to the 'not completely scummy' read in that first post, he got reeled back to neutral as soon as I linked them together.)

Now - I was wrong about that, and I'll put my hand up for that, but I continue to think that sort of defence is MUCH more likely to come from scum than an overt declaration. I could be wrong again, but in general I don't have much problems with overt stuff. She looked to me like she was genuinely warning others of DN's meta.

Also - this:

Note also that in this post, she wants to allow for Starbuck to "become guilty by association" to DN and lewarcher. And she also re-states that she wants to keep around DN not because she doesn't find him scummy, but because she finds someone else more scummy. This is the kind of stuff that makes me very suspicious (note also that her behavior towards lewarcher at this stage made me lean towards town on him, this is for future reference once I analyze xRECKONERx).

Doesn't make sense. She ties Starbuck to lewarcher MORE STORNGLY than she ties SB to DN. If that's the case, lew should be scum or SB should be scum. If VMD is scum with DN, then she should be letting me tie SB with DN, not interjecting and saying the tie with lew (town in this scenario) is more important.

[SerialClergyman]

Has anybody gotten back to me with why they think 'buddying' with someone you view to be town is problematic? I'm still awaiting any form of answer..

[SerialClergyman]

Button, your PR list answer makes a lot of sense coming from your position. It's also why I was never really in favour of you being imprinted, because I don't see much joy coming out of those choices (zero joy out of vig! ><) but I can see how you'd come to those conclusions from your position.

[SerialClergyman]

Button, I rely on memory to play this game so I naturally assume everyone else just remembers the quote I make. I don't remove the name, I type out the quote tags, then copy paste the bit I need. The reason I don't type the name is it makes typing the quote tags more tricky.

If you ever need to work out who said it, but the above is pretty obvious from context.

[SerialClergyman]

CTD - that is a proper case. I don't do 'scumtells', I think they're too easy to avoid as scum and rarely provide good results. I hunt by looking for patterns and behaviour from an informed minority. Hence my distaste at the daytalking.

It's not that you (your slot) was on the wagons, it's that you were on them in a suspicious manner.

This is a list of his suspicions and votes. Notice the constant suspicion of me yet continual voting of my suspects with my reasoning.

For the record, would you go over exactly how you think elvis and my scheme went down if we were scum? Why didn't elvis choose a scum mate who hadn't imprinted her in his first post of the day? When was the plan hatched? Why didn't I imprint more than just one of my scumbuddies? Why didn't I answer her question the first time?

This line of questioning doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to make starbuck appear scummy through no fault of her own.

unvote, vote serialclergyman

for the ridiculous way he's overreacted towards
starbuck and the above scummy line of questioning.

@Starbuck: Do you really get a town read on lewarcher from his one post?

OBV you should go by your own reads too, but if SC died and was town, that wouldn't influence you at all?

Of course it would, but not to the extent that I would ever agree to lynch his two top suspects and imprint who he thinks is town just because he was confirmed, which is the way I interpreted those plans.

Ok, new course of action. Let's get a lynch going. Who is up for a good old fashioned dn lynch? No one killing anyone necessarily the next day. Any takers?

See, that's a much better plan. I'm down.

unvote, vote: DeathNote

for the reasons stated in these posts, and the "Just policy lynch me and get it over with " thing.

Does this make sense?

The first paragraph is re: lynching deathnote if you're town, correct? If so, yes, that makes a lot of sense. And the second would make sense from town-ek's perspective as well, but again I feel strongly that her perspective is heavily flawed.

Really? Because continuing the conversation we're all in the middle of would be nice.

That was @SC

vote: SerialClergyman

I'm down for a Starbuck lynch. I believe I said that I would find her defense of DN scummy if he flipped scum, and I stand by that. I'm going to allow her the opportunity to post before hammering since she hasn't gotten a chance to respond to anything yet.

unvote, vote: Starbuck

Her "I don't see where I defended him" defense isn't very persuasive.

Because I didn't defend him. I was attacking SC and Elvis, but apparently you are too easily blinded by them to think for yourself.

Heh, maybe.

I've wanted SC lynched since day 1

, but his posts following DN's flip felt sincere to me at the time and that was enough to temporarily
"blind" me, I guess. I don't plan on making that mistake again.

She did quite a few things to defend him that no one else did, such as referring to ek's original DN vote as opportunistic, calling SC's reaction overaggressive or stating "I could see where deathnote was coming from".(The former two being chainsaw defense as opposed to simply defending him)

Do you still think only scum defend or is it possible for them to buss and ignore?

When did I say scum could only defend? Of course it's possible for them to buss and ignore.

Do you think SC pushing more on star over DN for most of the day 1 is scummy in retrospect?

Yes, I think it is. Not only did he push SB more than DN on D1, he even said that his case on DN would disappear is SB was town. Which reminds me, can we lynch SC now?

vote: SC

I actually think it's quite spurious you'd even suggest that me being on the wagons or even 'approving of my lynch' D2 is in any way the same. I clearly did a LOT of the leg work for those wagons, and I was following my gut. Messaiah did bugger all leg work, bugger all scum hunting and followed the reasoning of someone who he voted in D1, D2 and D3. The first quote is where he votes me for my theory about Starbuck D1, the quotes on D2 are where he hammers Starbuck

for that same reasoning

So yes, him and Reck are almost identical in their voting actions as well as in their reasoning for their voting actions. They both have been suspicious of me all game and yet both used my reasoning to lynch Starbuck, even after both voting me at the start of D2. They also both move their votes and roughly the same time, they take up rtoughly the same spot on the wagon, which means they feel compelled to have this change of heart and roughly the same time (like when the D2 SC wagon runs out of steam?)

Like with much of this game, this will probably be more interesting when you guys know I'm town, which is why I'm a little philosophical about things. But it's not easy to dismiss I think.

[SerialClergyman]

Has anybody gotten back to me with why they think 'buddying' with someone you view to be town is problematic? I'm still awaiting any form of answer..

Short Form: It's scummy.

Slightly Longer Form: There's no advantage to doing it as town, while there is an advantage to doing it as scum.

Long Form: We aren't here to teach you to play mafia, if your so curious at to why people dislike blatant buddying D1 I'd direct you to MD Forum or the Wiki.

You might want to check your sample size there. I know many, many excellent players who have no problem with this at all. I'm not going to get into a bigger dick contest with you about who knows more about mafia, what I'd like is a more concrete analysis on why you find it scummy.

It has a lot of benefits to town - it gives you an ally, someone who you can bounce ideas off of and start to form a picture of the game. It also means you aren't throwing shit on a townie that the scum can capitalise on. Whereas as scum, all you're doing is obviously linking yourself to someone and making the tie between the two of you very clear.

I've played entire games where my sole purpose was to find scum by process of elimination, finding town tells and lynching other people. All you need to do is have 1 more confirmed town than scum and you'll win the game.

[SerialClergyman]

As you may have figured out, I am entertaining the idea that DN, VMD and Lew are all scum together. And you are currently proposing the idea that Lew is scum as well. So why then do you make an argument that's based on a scenario where he is town?

See bolded.

Also - this:

Note also that in this post, she wants to allow for Starbuck to "become guilty by association" to DN and lewarcher. And she also re-states that she wants to keep around DN not because she doesn't find him scummy, but because she finds someone else more scummy. This is the kind of stuff that makes me very suspicious

(note also that her behavior towards lewarcher at this stage made me lean towards town on him, this is for future reference once I analyze xRECKONERx)

.

Doesn't make sense....[blah blah]

[SerialClergyman]

Voting analysis is a tool, and only part of the story. But even then - being at the ends of wagons is different to being at the front of them. The thrust of my case against you is the same as my case against Reck - defending Starbuck then voting starbuck, all the while saying SC is scum, then not then scum then not.

(I understand when I say 'you' i often mean 'your slot'.)

Even with the emphasis on 'at this stage', I don't know how you could EVER come to think that lew is likely to be town in that scenario after knowing SB's alignemnt is town.

Button - I have to run right now but for startes look at Xyl, kmd and Spyrex in this game: http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11656

They almost won they game based purely on backing their town reads, it's incredibly frustrating to face as scum.

[SerialClergyman]

Lacing my arguments with hypotheticals is what clergymen do best. I need to sig some of this stuff.

More seriously, VMD specifically stated that lew's flip was a GREATER INDICATION of Starbuck's scumminess than DeathNote's flip.

I remember this specifically because I thought she was scummy for suggesting it, especially when DN flipped scum. I thought SB was scum with VMD and lew was town that VMD was trying to tie to Starbuck's alignment more so than DN.

Now - that's untrue, SB wasn't scum. So if VMD was scum, she was trying to say that lew was more indicative of starbuck's alignment than deathnote was. There is no way to spin this to suggest that if you think vmd is scum it makes it more likely lew is town. It means you're suggesting that a scum player was trying to suggest that a town player's flip should clear a town player more so than a scum player's flip. Zero motivation.

Now - I grant you that all of them scum is a possibility but a) I don't think it's likely and b) that's not what you originally wrote - I don't know how you ever came to the lew=town conclusion from that piece of play.

So your theory is that the scum are using their capacity to daytalk, which keeps you from being able to get a proper read, to facilitate obvious tandem moves onto bad wagons? Is that about the gist of it?

They aren't as intimately related in my mind. Scum's ability to daytalk could be an indication that yours and reck's moves from me to DN to me to starbuck to me were planned moves as you reacted to the viability of the wagons or a need to bus dn or whatever, or you could argue the ability to coordinate makes this unlikely to happen. That's one of the few wifom sandwichs I'm not too keen to touch.

I'm keenly aware of the scum's ability to day talk and it makes my style of scumhunting harder. My current theory of the game is looking for people with disingenuous motives for their actions. your predecessor and reck have spent much of this game moving from my wagon to the lynch wagons and back again. They seem to do it at similar times, often against their originally stated views.

Would you admit your voting record/suspicion record looks much the same as Reck's, the record you brought up as a point against him in your case?

Would you be prepared to vote for reck after a no lynch?

[SerialClergyman]

Limerick, I don't like your reasoning but I'm reluctatnt to jump on you because it's NYE and maybe a little boisterous. Come explain it a bit further when you're sober

[SerialClergyman]

The only question remaining is why would she push Lew if she was scum with him. The answer is distancing.

This irks me. It's the popular tactic of saying 'if you defend them you're defending a buddy, if you attack them you're distancing a buddy'. You need a theory to explain the relationship or else any time anyone has a relationship with someone else you can claim it's scummy, no matter what the content of the relationship.

Still - this event seems to further point towards a reck lynch. If you know reck's alignment, you'll have more info about VMD's push of reck = starbuck. Plus he's in your top three. Looks like a good lynch to me (after a no lynch).

[SerialClergyman]

Lol. My questions aren't intended to pin you down in some logical trap, they're intended to try to get townies to reconsider their positions. When I ask why would scum work so hard to clear a townie, it's not so that I can 'beat' your argument, it's because it's a good question that I'd expect a townie to at least acknowledge within themselves. Even if your answer is 'I have no idea' - you definitely SHOULD care. It's important. And that's because it SHOULD be affecting your read. Even if it doesn't CHANGE the read, you need to at least acknowledge that there's a piece out of place.

SerialClergyman wrote:

Now - I grant you that all of them scum is a possibility but a) I don't think it's likely and b) that's not what you originally wrote - I don't know how you ever came to the lew=town conclusion from that piece of play.

I'll say this once again, as clearly as I can:
DN was scum. VMD tried to push another wagon ahead of him based on crap reasoning. That makes me suspicious of VMD, irregardless of anything else.

Did that totally not answer the question?

But never mind, to address yours - VMD tried to link a townie to an unknown rather than a scum. This is, even if not a town tell, not a scum tell. Her more general actions of regarding Deathnote as neutral is a reasonable way to deal with people with anti-town metas and was open enough that I don't consider it a likely scum tell.

In my mind, the biggest scum tell for VMD was her asking what would happen if Starbuck was town. That looked like fishing for town points on a town flip. But I don't think that's strong enough to outweigh my read.

I'm back on the scent peoples. I'm feeling good about CTD scum.

[SerialClergyman]

To be honest, and this is just me, but it'll take a lot to get over the town tell I suggested earlier. It's THE tell that I use as an example of a near-infallible tell. Of course, once I say all this it's open to abuse, but I doubt VMD meta'd enough of my theory discussions to construct it. But especially in this context, with lots of scum around and they're vulnerable to lynches - it doesn't make sense to not take a side in a town v town argument, you know? So that's where I'm coming from, I had to think about it because when the day started I was suspicious due to the tell I mentioned earlier about asking about Starbuck's flip but came around to trusting this town tell.

As for what you wrote, I didn't like the vote on buttonman at the time and said so. The QT point is one of those language tells that sounds good but I find are rarely accurate. Think kmd in /inv 4. I'm not saying it can't be true, and possibly might make me raise an eyebrow, but language tells < action tells in my opinion. Plus it's not an unreasonable assumption that scum have QTs. Might be worth checking to see if VMD has been scum before actually - will post after this.

Replacing out under suspicion as you say seemed legitimate, but who knows.

Well - let me turn this back on you - what's your top reads for scum and how convinced are you?

[SerialClergyman]

Also, do you think I'm onto something with reck/ctd or am I tilting at windmills?

[SerialClergyman]

A quick meta shows her replacing out of a different game with the exact same replacing out message. I think thatp robably rules out point 3.

However I see no evidence of her playing as scum, although she replaced out of one ongoing and her profile suggests that she's played one game as a different name. This is significant in that I'm not sure how she knew QTs were the norm, so you might have something with that second point.

[SerialClergyman]

I just searched her posts for QT for context and found she actually had a conversation with you significantly earlier about it in this post here It made me feel that what you quote is less likely to be a slip, although rereading some of her early posts is a little affronting.

Maybe we could hear more from KoC on current events?

[SerialClergyman]

Ask and ye shall receive in the same minute you ask.

I'll go find said question.

(By the way, I'm ostensibly defending on you, not picking on you. Making me read your case against me which contains such thrilling reads as DN was obvscum, SB was obvtown isn't helping).

Ok, so your question was:

= VMD asks this very question and SC replies... OH WAIT, he doesn't. ¬_¬ So now I'M asking it: Why, if Starbuck-scum would have equalled VMD/me-scum, is the opposite not true?

This is because it's not either or. If a claimed cop has a guilty on a player and you lynch the claimed cop, if they are a cop that player is guilty, but if they are mafia that player

is neither guilty or innocent necessarily

.

It's the same with VMD's relationship with Starbuck. There was enough there that if Starbuck was scum I'd have thought it was evidence that VMD was partners with Starbuck. But if Starbuck was a townie,I could see wither VMDtown or VMD scum having that relationship with her.

Now I'll turn around the question and say what was the point of linking you to Starbuck if I were scum and knew Starbuck to be town?

[SerialClergyman]

Speculating heavily is something I wholeheartedly approve of, so no complaints here, but I can't really share your convictions. I think speculating over his input into the scum QT is perfectly natural when discussing whether he would have been bussed. If the point was how did she know about a QT, then there was some merit to it, but if it was obvious that a QT existed and she'd talked about it before, I don't think it's unnatural.

Crazy no, convincing not really. That's my take on it, anyway.

As for the town tell, yes, I totally get what you're saying, and it wasn't them ost in depth effort and tearing us away from each other's throats, but in a scenario that is so scum-rich, I thought it was at least unlikely. I've just re-read KoC's opening content post though, so I don't know any more. Ugh.

[SerialClergyman]

Sup farside.

What you thinking about things?

[SerialClergyman]

elvis - while I am frustrated that buttonman has spent the entire game attacking me and that has to colour my opinion, I have a gut feeling that he's town. I looked around for other postings on site and I don't see his play here as particularly unusual or scummy. He also specifically said to me while deathnote was about to be lynched that DN wasn't his top suspect, I was. I see no real reason to strongly make that correction if he's scum. I know it's another of those chimpy little town tells, but it's there and shouldn't be ignored.

Essentially, I really believe buttonmen just dislikes me and my play. I think it's unjustified, but then I would, and it's not like I haven't antagonised him. The quickhammer was a perfect example where he made it clear to the whole group he didn't want one and I ignored him. That is the sort of thing that might piss a brother off.

I don't know if he has the ability to separate that feeling from scumhunting. He's showing signs of it just now with the vig/investigate thing, I think. I think the reason he'd vig me but investigate someone else would be he's quite happy to have me out of the game, whereas if reck or someone else was innocent he'd like them to remain IN the game. So although it sounds weird and scummy on the surface, I think I actually understand his actions perfectly well.

I'm glad that you and farside agree on something, however. Convince each other you're town and we can get this party started. Farside's been a bit quiet recently (well, not interms of the shooting vs investigating thing) - but none of that, fire up with the suspicions!

Your theory is quite good on the whole though elvis. It's enough for me to go back to doubting VMD, which I do hanging my head in frustration. I think I feel like on D3 I should be able to really push my PoE type of scumhunting, but we've only had two flips so I've just got to be a bit more patient I think.

CTD is definitely posting up a storm of awesome - the problem is that he is a strong player and I don't doubt he'd do this as scum or town. I meta'd him to make sure and, from what I've gathered, he replaces in quite a bit and as town or scum posts a long post filled with reasons and suspicions.

Buttonmen - I obviously wouldn't like you to use the kill, but I'm telling you now if it were D2 after I'd been imprinted I'd have used the kill on Starbuck, so *shrug*. If I had an investigation I would use it on CTD. This is because I think messiah was scummy, and CTD is making good strong posts. He's the sort of guy I REALLY want to know if he's town or scum, because he'd be very useful to the town if he's confirmed innocent and would be very difficult to get lynched if he was scum.

As for my suspects - at the moment they are CTD/Messiah and Reckoner. They have a similar voting/suspicion pattern of suspecting me then voting DN then back to me then both change their minds without much reasoning D2 and then both are back to me on D3. They also do this at roughly the same time, and take up similar positions on the wagon.

Reck's iso on messiah is quite interesting as well. Has imprinted him or suggested imprinting him every day, and on D3 said that he should be imprinted because it would give us information about him.

[SerialClergyman]

Sorry farside - I just meant you haven't posted as much about your suspicions recently. I've had a blurry 4 days over NYE in Sydney so I don't know up from down and it was just my impression - I really don't mean to be having a go at you.

Limerick - good man - hopefully I'll come up with something else we can agree on and we'll go from there

Who are your suspects at the moment, mate?

[SerialClergyman]

I did.

What about scumReck makes you think scumpug?

[SerialClergyman]

Hi Socrates. Good to see you again. I'm beginning to think you're stalking me because you're a drama-junkie.

Florida and Montana are the two next in line for an imprint and noone is on both.

Limerick's imprinters are Limerick, KoC, farside22 and Plum/Socrates
Pug's imprinters are Pug, SerialClergyman and Reck.

Reck is also imprinting 5 people, none of which are Limerick.

[SerialClergyman]

Don't give me this knight in shining armour act - you've been there, applying the blowtorch to me before. Mind you - I live in hot water, so it's just another day at the office.

To answer your questions:

1. Deathnote died because he suggested some poor game theory options, made a couple of scummy dichotomies and I felt there was a connection to him and Starbuck. He was voted to L-1 with great support for his lynch. I hammered when others weren't ready specifically to stop imprinting, which I felt at that stage was likely to help scum rather than town.

2. Starbuck died because I was convinced that she was defending him passively and I convinced enough people to lynch her. I was adamant that this was the case directly after her first post. A number of people were upset about my hammering, and voted me. Nonetheless, some switched and some stayed, but enough voted her to lynch her and it was primarily my case that led to the lynch.

3. Yes, partially. Many people feel that is a major town tell in his favour. He also didn't get involved in the DeathNote/Starbuck issue and has instead spent all game voting me. While I don't exactly find this protown, it is arguably less scummy than others around. I personally think it's quitep ossibly town but his status in the town is overrated.

4. General decent and reasonable posts would be my guess. To me he has made some choices I don't understand which is why I'm not keen on his election, but I think that's why he's there.

There was some important questions to the mod about impriting early in the game but that's about it. We haven't asked if negative effects can happen. I persaonlly assume passive abilities are more likely than roles such as cops (although vigs are possibly more likely due to the mafia not having a kill.)

The key thing is that scum may keep their imprints and may gain additional DIFFERENT powers if they are imprinted more than once. So even with a moratorium on vigging, scum may still have that power, ready to be utilised at a later date - say the night before lylo or after a more varied sample of people have imprints. Thus they are dangerous, and they are dangerous even if you swear not to vig. However, as the only suggested current vig is my own, I'm totally up for swearing that

CTD replaces Messiah. Both Messiah and Reck were against my reasoning implicating the guilt of Starbuck early, and both of them ended up voting her on D2. A few of the juiciest contradictions:

SC wrote:

For the record, would you go over exactly how you think elvis and my scheme went down if we were scum? Why didn't elvis choose a scum mate who hadn't imprinted her in his first post of the day? When was the plan hatched? Why didn't I imprint more than just one of my scumbuddies? Why didn't I answer her question the first time?

This line of questioning doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to make starbuck appear scummy through no fault of her own.

unvote, vote serialclergyman for the ridiculous way he's overreacted towards
starbuck and the above scummy line of questioning.

unvote, vote: Starbuck

Her "I don't see where I defended him" defense isn't very persuasive.

Heh, maybe. I've wanted SC lynched since day 1, but his posts following DN's flip felt sincere to me at the time and that was enough to temporarily
"blind" me, I guess. I don't plan on making that mistake again.

(This quote is all from his catchup post, so it's been edited but it's lal from the same post on D1)

SC calling elvis town? What the hell has she done that really warrants a town read, especially this early on? I agree with the Deathnote scum read, but I'm not sure I'd so willingly place Starbuck into scum territory. Hmph.

In fact, by the end of page eight, I'd be willing to upgrade Starbuck to leaning-town.

---

Messiah's 236 is a strong post: SC says Starbuck is "obsessed with" and "defending" DN, but someone could just as easily say that he is doing the same with elvis (and vice versa). If it's a scumtell for Starbuck, then it's a scumtell for either elvis or SC. Just because you openly defend someone you read as town (which, way to give NO reasoning behind your unbelievably strong town-read on elvis, SC) doesn't mean that it's more acceptable just because someone thinks the attacks on another null-read are bullshit.

---

And... ugh, my predecessor failed. Holy shit, bad play, bad posts, apathy. I just remembered... he said nothing of any interest on pages 1-5. I've noticed that Starbuck gets a lot of scum attention in practically every single game I play with her... and the one game I actively remember he being scum in, I think I saw it coming. Therefore, I'm not willing to accept the Starbuck hate simply because I've seen it happen too many times before. I honestly don't see anything scummy about what she's done so far.

Vote: Starbuck

On second thought, lynching Starbuck is a better plan. Passively defending someone who flips scum is a no-no.

That's all for right now, though I'm dying to hear further thoughts on me. Gut instinct says to Vote: SC for now, though we MIGHT wanna consider NO LYNCHING today and just imprinting because it's 3:7.

For the full quotes, check out my 782 for Reck and my 974 for Messiah

And just for good measure, the closest outlining of my current theory of the game (which isn't actually that current, a few things have changed) and a bit of analysis about Messiah and Reck's places on the various wagons can be found here at post 947. Messiah and Reck are in orange.

[SerialClergyman]

Err.. I tried to be concise. ><

KoC - I disagree with pretty much all of what you're writing, and I persoanlly find your style of using 'AMIRITEPLSPLSSAYIAM' type stuff pretty grating. I'll try to answer the direct questions and if there's anythign else let me know.

SC: what makes Limerick's place on DN's wagon (one you yourself endorsed, remember) and non-place on Starbuck's wagon (a townie) which he at no point said "lol, told you, I are townie now k" make him scummy?

I answered this to him, I think, but essentially my theory was that since I was pushing SB and taking essentially all the repsonsibility for the lynch, scum didn't need to be on the wagon. Thus I found (well, I guess find but I've gone cool on the theory a little) it scummy that he would want to lynch Deathnote but NOT want to lynch Starbuck. It seemed a little artificial in getting him off the wagon. I accept that his VLAness over the holidays mighth ave coloured that a little. I guess I'm saying town doesn't equal right, but it usually equals consistent thinking. I found him being on DN's but not on Starbuck's to be inconsistent, possibly because I don't know how you could look at Starbuck's posts and not see what I saw, especially after DN flipping scum.

I utterly disagree that wagon analysis is useless. I think it's a particularly useful tool. It's not foolproof and should only be used as a guide but it's certainly not a useless ball of WIFOM.

You're the nth player to echo how nauseating elvis and my actions towards each other has been and the nth to do so without a single specific or theory argument as to why it's a bad thing.

[SerialClergyman]

elvis, I don't doubt some of that is true, but that's not the point. The point is that attitude is costing the town by creating suspicion where suspicion shouldn't be created. I know that it's maddening for scum because I've BEEN scum when this sort of thing has happened and it IS maddening. I keep asking because I want those who are town who are going along with the general feeling to question it, and actually think about what the issue is and whether you or I are actually likelier to be scum because of it. Not everyone who is frustrated or unhappy about the behaviour are scum.

[SerialClergyman]

His contributions in other forums lead me to think he's a brusque person of few words who I disagree with a lot. His play in this game hasn't deviated from that perception at all. I am frustrated at how he is viewed within the town, and especially find it odd that breaking the game is regarded as that strong a town tell (except when I do it ) but I sort of understand the processes behind the actions, I think.

What are your thoughts about the subject? Can you not see him sticking to those opinions unless he has scummy motives?

[SerialClergyman]

Read the first sentence of my last post and rephrase away from the very carefully chosen words and you've got the side I'm on, at least for now

But I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the situation.

[SerialClergyman]

When are you going to get a bit of time to post, Reck? Feels like we're talking about you, not to you.

[SerialClergyman]

farside - there' nothing even remotely not nice about that. I'll say now I was genuinely hurt to learn you were thinking of replacing out due to martyr-like behaviour from me and her, provided that was true - I thought that was really quite harsh and upsetting. But that above was totally fine and the sort of discussion I'd long to have about the issue.

1) I can't speak for elvis but there are things she could do that would make me immediately drop it. Just because I sound sure doesn't mean I am, and it doens't make it unflappable.
2) I feel at the moment there are plenty of town tells being ignored or unmentioned because it's put down to more nauseating buddying. There are plenty of reasons to think elvis (and myself) town besides from the one WIFOMic statement.
3) Everyone has opinions on everyone's alignment all the time. Up front opinions are generally the good ones to have. It's much more protown to be open about it rather than defend without trying to give the impression of defending.
4) What else can one do? Say 'I think elvis MAY be town but there are possible hypothetical actions she may take in the future that would devalue this read?' I think this comes back to what I said earlier about our different playstyles - I'm perfectly happy to jump to a conclusion and go with it until it doesn't make sense. You're the opposite in a way, you prefer to play with a constant reminder that everything is uncertain.

In short, when asked the question 'What do you do when you have a strong read on someone as town', the answer 'Say so loudly and clearly and point out why' doesn't seem like such an unreasonable response.

[SerialClergyman]

I already do.

Mind you he's a good player and I wouldn't put coming in here and saying those things beyond his scum play.

I think the mod is referring to things like giving someone a kill, which could be negative for your team but essentially could have positive results.

I think it's no surprise that the people who are less interested in thinking I'm scum have played with me before. Socrates question of asking what you'd expect a town SC to do on the start of D2 is dead on the money and what I said to CTD - I'm sure that every action he's posted has the motivation of a town SC being convinced DN and SB were scum together *shrug*.

I'm surprised anyone can read parts of this game (say the start of D2) and not think that.

I'm thinking we should possibly look to no lynch sooner rather than later. I'm worried knowing we won't lynch today is messing our information up.

[SerialClergyman]

Zzz simulposting.

The comment 'I already do' was directed to this:

I think I like this socrates dude.

[SerialClergyman]

Ugh x many.

KoC's play plus some good points around the shop makes me move VMD/KoC down past neutral.

I think a second imprint is in order. Unlike what's been said, I am currently voting to imprint pug.

I'm going to see if we can get *gulp* a farside imprint up. I've never had a scum read on her except for a few dicey things, and usually in games I have many more town reads than I do in this game, so why on earth not?

imprint farside[

I use invisible punctuation in my votes and imprints.

Also, because she's obvtown whether people like me saying it or not,

imprint elvis

[SerialClergyman]

Sorry, I realised the above was ambiguous. KoC's play has been terrible, in my eyes, and there have been some good comments made about him by other pople I agree with, off the top of my head CTD elvis and farside.

[SerialClergyman]

Needs more flips. I think you show elements of being town but I'm not picking up what you're putting down most of the time. You are one of the ones who were undecided (along with Plum's slot - Socrates) in my theory of the game a while back (which has changed somewhat but not markedly.

When you and Pug were the top two imprint candidates (after Button who had been imprint hammered) you shared not one imprinter. This is not a good thing.

Your play is fine but uninteresting. I only vaguely know who you suspect, and it's that same pattern that has plagued my reads this game.

Let me flip it on you - what have you done that's so obv town that you should be imprinted?

[SerialClergyman]

Farside, look back through my big, massive iso and find all the times I've called you scum, or said you were likely to be scum. Or even something where I've said I don't like you or don't want you imprinted.

I get the distinct impression you a) dislike me, b) think I have a fundamental difference to you and c) have trouble thinking that I can compartmentalise different opinions.

[SerialClergyman]

farside, the above (1118) was to limerick.

1120 was to you.

[SerialClergyman]

The reason why Soc said that is he's implying you have never done anything controversial. Townies tend to, you know, be loudly wrong every now and then (*ahem*). It's somewhat of a scumtell to play an entire game without ever accusing someone innocent or getting under anyone's skin.

The (possible) reason why you're that high on the imprint list (exlcusing even the possibility you are scum and have scummates on your imprint wagon) is that since you've done nothing controversial and never accused an innocent, noone has something that sticks in their mind about you being scummy.

I think that's Soc's thinking, he can correct me if I'm wrong, and to a degree it's mine as well. Why I aksed you about what you've done to be obv town is trying to give you a sense of why you aren't getting my imprint, you haven't put yourself or your theories on the line much at all.

And your answer is really pretty lacking. It applies to both town and scum. It's a good reason to want to be imprinted in some general sense, but a bad reason to ask for votes, since no other town player knows your role. If you want to earn an imprint, tell us why we, as an uninformed majority who are unsure about your alignment, should risk imprinting you.

[SerialClergyman]

Farside - To be honest, a lot of your joke-y posts only really irritate me, and maybe that's where I'm getting it. When you say stuff like hell is freezing over, or please can the mod give you an aspirin or all of that stuff, I get the feeling like I'm trying to have a conversation with you and you keep turning around and appealing to the audience in a theatrical manner going 'Hey, can you BELIEVE this guy??'

Do you know what I mean? It makes it hard for me to try to connect with you.

I actually listen to your opinion a lot. I'm not sure what I'm not doing that you want me to be doing to feel like your opinion is noted. I'm obviously only going to use it as part of a tapestry of opinion from everyone else in the game, but even something like my opinion on VMD has changed purely from other people's points, including your own.

I think you're town, I want you to have an imprint. This is not actually a gigantic departure from anything I've written the entire game, and shouldn't be particularly unexpected.

Limerick - Yes, but as you can see, I'm a bit of a natural exception to most rulesi n this game . Also, Socrates, I suppose called you on it. Suspecting XreckX is not exactly an unusual thing these days. The support for his lynch has grown dramatically since the start of the day.

Out of curiosity, why turn to me at all then? If it wasn't to solicit my vote, why does my opinion on the subject matter?

[SerialClergyman]

Rrggh ambiguity. That was supposed to be (only really) irritate me, not only (really irritate) me.

If I were to reprhase, I'd say "they only serve to slightly irritate me"\

@all - I've raised my own curiosity. Who here would be not voting Reck if we were voting right now?

[SerialClergyman]

I think you were, from memory, but I also could be wrong. Also, how late is late?

I asked for your opinion because if there is ONE thing which I could count on, it was a 'real' answer.

Why?

[SerialClergyman]

Ok, so I'm looking at D3 because IIRC most people's argument is Reck's weird D2 switch.

716 Messiah says Reck reminded him about imprints.
718 Button calls Messiah on not paying attn to thread given button had specifically mentioned it at the end of D2.

698 elvis says Reck is an alternate choice for scum. (lists 3 others she thinks are actual scum.
763 farside says that she doens't care for reck's turnaround.
782 SC posts case on Reck based on turnaround of opinion
801 Plum says my summary of Reck is disheartening and sees how similar Messiah and Reck are in their voting patterns.
847 CTD replaces Messiah and adds Reck to his scumlist as third behind VMD and SC.
856 Limerick says he doesn't like Reck, and links to pug.

So I count the first three to suspect were elvis, farside and myself (three of my biggest town reads coincidentally), then there were Plum and CTD, then finally yourself. So you were 6th, which isn't exactly that early, tbh.

[SerialClergyman]

Arg. I really actually don't like this bit.

First of all, this:

I asked for your opinion because if there is ONE thing which I could count on, it was a 'real' answer.

is an odd thing to say to someone who is (unless things have changed) your second highest suspect for scum. It's a vaugely odd thing to say to anyone who you aren't sure of their alignment, but it's REALLY odd to say to someone you suspect as being scum, because that's the LAST thing you can expect from scum.

But then when answering why, saying this:

Because as I told Soc, if I agreed with your crazy logic half the time, Id be a lot more comfortable with you.

You aren't here to make friends, you're here to tell people your reads, and why you think they are right.

What does that second half describe, town or scum? I understand that you are saying you are town who doens't know my alignment but disagrees with me enough that you are worried I'm scum, but disagreement over most things shouldn't lead to thinking someone is scum, and your description of me as someone who gives real opinions, isn't here to make friends and instead pushes his reads and reasoning for those reads REALLY DO NOT DESCRIBE SCUM.

*uneasy*.

[SerialClergyman]

Also, the Reck list was done not to disprove your assertion but more because it is good info, I don't think being incorrect about your place on the suspicion line is a scum or town tell. It wasn't meant to be a gotcha moment.

[SerialClergyman]

lol OK.

And you're right, the aspirin comment was, my bad.

Teasing I'm good with, but it doesn't seem directed at me, it seems directed at 'everyone who is watching and agreeing'. Do you get what I mean by that?

Anyways - you're in my top 3 town list. How does it feel to be on top of that particular mountain?

[SerialClergyman]

It's not that you're interested in my opinion - it's WHY you are interested in my opinion. Why do you think someone who you think is likely scum will answer your question honestly?

[SerialClergyman]

Nope, I'm saying it's odd that you would expect an honest answer from someone you think is scum.