Kingmaker II-Game Over

[petroleumjelly]

Gah! What kind of smart-alec would make me King on Day One in this game?! Seriously: not only is that cruel and unusual punishment for

me

, but it's cruel and unusual punishment for the

town

.

In any case! I will do my best to be a good King. So let's catch us some scum.

First, though, I guess I get to (or have to) "direct" discussion here a little bit, and as it happens, there were a few things I say ought to be discussed. I would like input from everybody: even if you share an opinion with somebody else,

do not

simply quote them: I want to see your own thoughts in your own words.

Discussion Topic #1

:

Talking of discussion, are people happy with the "List of Execution" system that was used in the last game?

That's a

really

weird thing for me to think about, actually, since I was scum in the original Kingmaker game. The fact is, I spent pretty much an entire day trying to think of a system so that scum could manipulate the voting to

some

degree, while trying to present such an idea so that it would sound pro-town. And that system was the best idea I could think up.

The system itself, I came to realize, is a double-edged sword. It influences the potential of manipulation by scum, yes, but it

also

allows the town to have more influence on the King's choice of execution, which should (theoretically) keep the town's interest level in the game. Nevertheless, I have yet to think of a

better

system, so go figure.

I agree with Thok's comment that the town should not be able to

force

a King's execution choice. If a King strays from public opinion, they had better have a good reason for doing so (since doing such a thing would guarantee that that King would be looked at with a careful eye immediately afterwards). I only pushed that agenda last game because I happened to be scum, so I wanted to be sure that in the case the scum could secure a majority (or a fixed percentage of votes) on a townie, we could force the King to execute them. I frankly will not listen to arguments in favor of such a policy, because I flat out disagree with it.

In all reality, I think every King will simply act as they see fit, but I will restrain myself to a few principles:

1.) I will be using a List of Execution (LoE)
2.) I will only execute persons while they are on my LoE, and I will give them 48 hours notice if I am planning on Executing them, from which time they may make final pleas, and the town (obviously) should chip in their opinion.
3.) A person may be added to the LoE in two ways:
--> A.) My own discretion
--> B.) If somebody reaches a majority of votes (which should encourage people to vote!)
4.) A person may be dropped from the LoE in only one way, which is my own discretion. If the town disagrees with one of my choices for the List, then they are probably not seeing the same case as I am, and should either convince me to change my opinion or deal with it.
5.) I will be voting people in addition to adding people to the LoE. Simply because I think somebody is suspicious doesn't mean I will put them automatically on the List, since I still like being able to use my vote to poke at people.

Discussion Topic(s) #2A-D

:

Although it shouldn't be very much of an issue this game, here are some things I don't want to see if you can avoid them (I'm grouping them as one topic for efficiency's sake):

A.) "I do not agree with the choice for King"; or "I heartily agree with the choice for King"; or "given the choice for King, I think it is more/less likely that the Kingmaker is X". Believe it or not, when I was scum last game, this helped me narrow down the Kingmaker down to a very short list of people. I might as well make things hard for scum this game, since I at least know what they'll probably be looking for come night-time. Don't give scum information to work with if you can help it.

B.) Putting somebody on the LoE does not mean I am going to automatically execute you: what it

means

is that I (or the town) find you suspicious, so you need to

defend

yourself, or that you are suspicious despite an attempt at defense. DO NOT claim prematurely. If you need to claim anything (at least for today), I will be the first person to tell you to do so with my 48-hour rule.

C.) "I don't need to vote because my vote doesn't matter anyways." I

hate

this. Hate, hate, hate. Why would you sign up for a game if you aren't going to

play

? Votes are an essential tool in scum-hunting: refusing to use that tool is

not

helping the town. I want everybody participating and voting, no questions asked.

D.) There is a point when I stop listening to people's suspicions if they have their vote on

too many

people, because this makes it difficult for me to assess who somebody is most/actually suspicious of. Try to keep your collective number of votes at any one time to around four or less (possibly five, but all five of your votes in that situation should be fairly serious).

Discussion Topic #3

:

Is it worthwhile to speculate on the size of the scum group?

This doesn't need as much discussion, but I don't think there's any harm. We had 19 players in the original game with 5 scum, and this game we have 24 players. The original game had a few power roles (2 confirmed innocent Masons, 2 Cops), where as this game we have none (although we

may

have a Hero this game). I would speculate on a 5-6 person scum-group. The lack of the confirmable roles (excepting for the Hero, and a Kingmaker claim) makes it

possible

we're dealing with a 5 person scum group, but I would rather err on the side of caution and simply assume this game has 6 scum.

*****

My very early suspicions (not in order of scumminess, just as they occur to me):

1.) Bird1111. He voted Glork for voting me (took it as a joke), but then unvoted Glork to vote for Pablito for protecting Glork, and then upon realizing he had multiple votes, voted Glork again (which makes me believe the vote was not really a joke to start with). I just don't really like the progression of these votes, I guess, hard to be more concrete right now.

2.) Pablito. Obvious reasons: protecting Glork without a game-based reason to do so, but simply on a meta-game based reason. I really dislike putting trust into people for no discernable reason other than "they're a good player", especially since good players can be scum, too. You can trust I would not execute Glork without a

really

good reason to do so, so being overly protective of him only make me think he is trying to be buddy-buddy (which, if true, has backfired already, hehe).

However, I

have

seen quite a few pro-town players who hold and advocate such philosophies (I believe I have said similar things in other games, although I am not recalling off-hand if I have tendency to say them as town or as scum), so although I think it is noteworthy, it is not necessarily voteworthy.

3.) I'm getting a slight ping from MBL. I don't care if he is still advocating his stupid "I'll purposely look a little scummy so I don't get night-killed" strategy, because it really doesn't help him or the town. Glork already hit my thoughts: MBL is essentially making it easier for scum to possibly narrow down potential Kingmakers. Even if his remarks are innocent, it is more than easy to have somebody respond to such statements, and accidentally let slip they are less or more likely to be the Kingmaker.

4.) Vaughn, for Post 31, which not only buddies with Glork, but sets himself up for randomly jumping on bandwagons in the near future.

Vote: Bird111, MrBuddyLee, Vaughn

.

[petroleumjelly]

Dear Glork and PJ,

Why are you "worried" about protecting the Kingmaker at this point? They're a vanilla townie who passes the role of Kingmaker on to another vanilla townie upon their death. What makes the vanilla townie who selected PJ as king any more worth saving from nightkill than the next vanilla townie down the line? PARTICULARLY this early in the game... Your tears for the lurking Kingmaker taste crocodile-flavored to me and thus your accusations reek of an attempt to cast wrongful aspersions upon a player with a better-than-average record of hunting scum.

That's a fair point actually: I was more thinking about the importance of the town protecting the Kingmaker from

last

game, and figuring the same principles ought to apply to this game. Still, the Kingmaker

is

a confirmed innocent (and the only one we're likely to have in the game, unless there is a failed attempt to execute the Hero), so obviating the Kingmaker seems like a silly thing to do in the first place when it is completely unneccessary for the town to know who the Kingmaker is. As others said against

me

in the original game, our priority should be to look for scum,

not

to narrow down the Kingmaker.

Dear PJ,

Why are you "outing" a strategy of mine which has proven helpful in nailing scum but which doesn't really work once it's broadcast to the members of a game?

I don't know that your

strategy

of purposely acting scummy has helped you nail scum: it's more your ability to catch scum that helps you catch scum. I doubt you acting 'purposely scummy' is not a very big factor in whether or not you get nightkilled in the first place. What

I'm

saying is that when townspeople (if you are town) purposely act scummy, it throws off

my

scumdar (and probably everybody else's), and can

distract

from finding actual scum. And of course, purposely acting scummy as town allows you to get away with acting scummy as scum. If me "outing" your strategy will get you to stop doing it, then I have no regreats. It might minimally help

you

, but it makes things much more difficult for everybody else.

***

That said, I actually agree with MBL's points on Post 58, and I am honestly surprised he is the

only

person mentioning this post at all so far.

A.) CBB latches onto the possible Glork/Pablito theory
B.) MrBuddyLee had voted for nobody, and there's nothing inherently

wrong

with asking others' opinions without giving your own (which was a false statement to begin with), although it is a little unorthodox
C.) I haven't decided what to think about the comment about Shadowlurker, but I really don't see a problem with voting multiple people (even randomly), especially early on in the game. Votes will not lynch anybody, so it does not put anybody in more danger than they otherwise were beforehand, although it likely would draw my attention to whoever is being voted.
D.) I tried to determine if the comment was made in jest, but the request to execute Pablito seems genuine. That post was only made on Page Three, and everybody hasn't even checked in yet. There's an extent to which people can be overeager, but this example I'm not exactly liking.

Unvote: MrBuddyLee, Vote: Cardb0ardb0x

.

[petroleumjelly]

Had a few spare moments to read the thread at the Philosophy Department, and *ugh*. Please don't claim so quickly, people: the game

just started

. Try to keep this point in mind (and remember that I made it for a reason):

B.) Putting somebody on the LoE does not mean I am going to automatically execute you: what it means is that I (or the town) find you suspicious, so you need to defend yourself, or that you are suspicious despite an attempt at defense.

DO NOT claim prematurely. If you need to claim anything (at least for today), I will be the first person to tell you to do so with my 48-hour rule

.

There is no reason to claim if there is no imminent threat of execution, which I will always be sure to tell the town about in advance. Votes do not equate to a lynch in this game, since the King has the ultimate say in who is executed.

And that also brings me back to the point about Kingmakers (which Yos and Thok correctly pointed out a few reasons as to why it is still probably in the town's best interests to keep the Kingmaker hidden, if possible. Another point is that if the scum can determine who the Kingmaker is, they may specifically have a scum player who tries to buddy with that Kingmaker (however subtly) in order to become King (which of course allows scum to very much manipulate and direct a given day's execution). The Kingmaker has a large (indirect) say in any given execution, since they determine who will do the executing, and that often correlates to choosing a King who has thoughts similar to the Kingmaker (and as I noted, if scum can slip into that category, bad things can happen for the town).

Going back to the original game, I tried this tactic to a degree (although I pretty much gave up after I had realized there were going to be confirmed townies to choose over me in that game), and since I thought the Kingmaker was Thok in that game, I tried [and failed miserably] to keep on Thok's good side (until about Day Four, when I instead tried to out him as Kingmaker to see the reactions). If the scum can convince the Kingmaker that they are town, then the Kingmaker will probably be more prone to either choose that scum as King, or to choose another person who will be more lenient towards that certain scum. It's actually kinda nice knowing the strategies scum will probably try in this game, because I already spent

last

game trying to think of them. It's pretty interesting being on the other side of the fence this time, I will be curious to see the strategies scum try to use after the game is over.

Sorry this post doesn't go much into direct suspicions, I'm a bit pressed for time and thought I would clarify those points as soon as possibile. I will have to review the cbox situation, since his claim and giving up simply struck me as frustrated... whether it was frustrated town or frustrated scum I have yet to decide. Hopefully more on that tonight.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, I reread cb0x's posts and the reactions to his posts about five times, and I dunno. He's striking me as townie, even though he was scummy with his logic for his votes and analyses on players. As has been mentioned, this is almost

eerily

reminescent of RandomActs in the original game (although cb0x at least has not threatened the town with being a power role).

Cb0x, have you read the original Kingmaker? I am interested to know.

Normally, I don't care for such WIFOM comments as:

Please just realize I'm just playing like an idiot. A scum probably wouldn't say something blatantly false, for whatever reasons.

But bah. I'm not so quick to dismiss such statements on that basis alone. The thing with WIFOM statements is that they are often founded in a grain of truth. Why

would

scum offer themselves to be lynched on Day One, even newbie scum so readily? In my experience, players usually don't give up so quickly unless they are town-aligned or self-aligned: being mafia aligned often gives players an incentive to not let their team down. His actions, as scum, are just not making sense mentally. I am definitely getting a "townie giving-up" vibe at the moment.

fine. lynch me. if, after you lynch me, i'm a townie, just please, like, examine mrbuddylee. he's kind of obnoxious. if town wins, i'll count it as a win for me even if i'm lynched in the first round.

I've seen a few townie melt-downs and a few scum melt-downs like this in my day, but the self-righteousness (not the exact feeling I mean, but that's the closest word I can think of) jives with me.

Unvote: Cardb0ardb0x

for now, and

Unvote: Vaughn

, I might have been reading your opening post too literally. Cb0x, please continue to give your suspicions and keep voting throughout the game. If you are suspicious of somebody, I want to know who, why, and I would like to be able to look over your votes later in the game so I can determine what you were thinking as the game progressed.

*****

MoS, although I suppose I am forced to respect your right not to vote, you need to realize that (however subconscious it is) I tend to listen to arguments and cases against players more when the player making the case actually

votes

. Votes tend to signify a certain confidence. If you make a case and don't vote, the feeling I come away with is "well, that's a fair case, but apparently not strong enough to base a vote on", and it implicitly makes me think the argument is weaker, since the person making the argument must not fully believe what they're saying. Votes create action, action creates discussion, discussion finds scum. Simply discussing, although nice from a philosophical standpoint, gets nowhere unless there are votes for pressure. I don't think refusing to vote is indicative of being town or scum (as shown by Fuldu in Kingmaker I), but it

does

make you significantly less helpful than other players, which could be a deciding factor on whether or not you are executed later in the game.

Do you have a

reason

which explains why not voting is

better

than voting? If not, I don't see how you can consistently try to uphold such a strategy.

[petroleumjelly]

...I feel that PJ should've answered to our suspicions...

There is really not much to answer to. The fact is, I was scum in the original game, and I am town in this game. That's it. There's nothing to 'defend' in that statement. I am most certainly not going to

avoid

saying "I am town" (or equivalent statements) on the basis that a few people might take the opportunity to jump on me for it. The

purpose

of my statement was not to "trick" people into thinking I am town, but to point out that I am playing this game with a completely new state of mind, with the experience of having

been

scum in a game with similar mechanics. And

from

that experience, I hope I will be able to stop scum strategies in their tracks by either pre-empting them or calling them out as I see them happening, which in turn (I hope) will make me valuable to the town.

Also, Glork, you

know

that that link to the Kingmaker discussion thread is not even close all of my "thoughts on last game". Those were simply my thoughts on

specific issues

brought up by BMQ in dealing with the

mechanics

of the game. I never really went into strategies I pursued as scum (excepting for dealing with the confirmed innocents problem, and the scum's perspective on Hero claims). In fact,

FoS: Glork

, for that and:

1.) I was not making a "huuuuuuuge deal" of being town, it only became "huge" after about four or five people jumped on it.
2.) If you really wanted people to know what I was thinking as scum last game, you would also have included a link to the night discussion I posted at the end of the the original game. For those interested, here is a LINK to that. It becomes pretty clear that I was the most central scum in that game, and that my being executed pretty much led to the annihilation of the rest of the scum that game. It also becomes clear that I had set strategies on how to deal with

every

person in the game: to even compare the Kingmaker discussion thread to how I strategized is almost insulting.
3.) Glork has shown practically no interest in actually hunting for scum in this game. I agree with him that there should not be a "high bar" placed on him because of his performance in the original game, but I

am

going to place the "average bar" for him.
4.) I am not the most thick-skinned mafia player around, and I am actually becoming upset with Glork's continual comments along the lines of:

Let's hope he's [PJ's] not scum this time. <.<

Heh... at this point, I'm just trying to decide which n00b didn't make *ME* the king.

Bastard. If I could kill you, I would.

Hey, PJ. Laces out. I gots my eyeballs on you, buddy boy.

So next time you're going to say nothing, don't waste valuable pixel space, just say it and be proud damnit. No need to hide the fact that you're brave enough to stand up to King PJ and his attackdog Glork and not willing to knuckle under to their unreasonable demands.

How dare you insinuate that I am a subordinate of PJ. I've been cutting PJ's head off for six years. He's my play-toy, and he knows it.

Glork saying how he has been catching me for six years, how I am his play toy, how he should be King and not me, and his apparent attempt at intimidating me by saying he has his eyeballs on me, is all playing on me emotionally. Glork

knows

that I become emotionally attached to Kingmaker I, and his continual references to him having executed me in that game are only distracting me from

this

game, because I honestly get depressed thinking about the original game.

I can't tell if Glork is purposely trying to make me become emotional, but I will ask him to stop making snide comments at my expense.

As it is, I am amused to see I am not the only person who claims to be seeing this game through a new set of eyes:

On PJ: Pretty much I'm in the same position as he is, I'm having to think about things from a different angle, because as he said " I spent pretty much an entire day trying to think of a system so that scum could manipulate the voting to some degree, while trying to present such an idea so that it would sound pro-town."

I mainly just thought this funny.. twasn't trying to reinforce the idea.. but it did kinda niggle in the back of my mind, but again I see where PJ's coming from and so I don't really doubt his sincerity.....

*****

In fact, here is possible scum strategy #1:

like one thing I don't get, is that if we wanted a confirmed innocent to make the choice everytime, wouldn't we just have the KingMaker claim and direct the king? even if they kill the KMer, it's not like we're going to lose anything since we'd just get a new one.

And if scum counterclaim KMer, all we'd have to do is get the KMer a list of 2 people to appoint as King/Backup and the CounterClaimer a list of 2 other people to appoint and when the next day dawns we'll know which side was lying and be able to execuete accordingly.

It's not like we can run out of Kingmakers!

Hey, are there even any Pros to outing the kingmaker? How does it help the town? Just curious.

People who ask for immature claims, for whatever reason, are more likely to be scum. In the original, Broomhead asked for a confirmed Mason to come out to direct the King's execution (since it would be a guaranteed innocent directing the execution). Broomhead was scum. Everything would just be easier if nobody asked for Kingmaker or Hero claims unless there is a set strategical advantage: there is no point in "narrowing down" possible scum in such a manner, because if the Kingmaker is under threat of execution, they will claim, the threat will go away, and the town will be able to analyze who pushed on the wagon in the first place.

*****

Vote: Phoebus

, I am not liking the coincidental nature of his votes.

Urgh.

Vote: MBL, box, pablito

I have not read the first kingmaker.
I do not have cases against these people.
I do not know whether I will be building cases.
I play by gut.

Wake me up when September ends.

As it happens, this was the sixth vote on MBL, the seventh vote on Cb0x, and the sixth vote on Pablito. This post was simply jumping on the three people with the biggest wagons, on the basis of "gut".

vote: Mert

And this post was the fourth vote on Mert, which was the largest wagon that Phoebus was not on. Right now, Phoebus' vote is on all four of the largest bandwagons, and all of it on "gut". I would like to hear more explanations for his votes.

[petroleumjelly]

Pressuring people is fair enough, and I know that is part of your playstyle. What

I

was saying is that your comments simply struck as

mean

. You basically said "I can't believe PJ was made King over me", which implies that "I would be a much better King than PJ", and the underlying reason that strikes me is "After all, I executed PJscum

last

game, and pretty much pwned scum". I can read between the lines very well, as you know. I was willing to take that as a joke, but after you later said that I "was your playtoy", all you managed to do was put me in a mixture of anger and depression, and make me consider replacing out of this game because:

1.) I already have emotional problems with Kingmaker I
2.) I hate Mountainous set-ups, and this is extraordinarily close to being a Mountainous set-up
3.) I am already strapped for time in games and real life, and I am seriously questioning why I signed up for this in the first place because this game will clearly require quite a bit of dedication
4.) Being King on Day One is an extraordinary amount of pressure to put on me, since now I feel obligated to:
--> A.) Keep discussion fairly focused
--> B.) Make sure my opinion is known on practically

everything

, moreso than usual
--> C.) Not try to "abuse" my power by unneccessarily throwing people on my LoE
--> D.) An overwhelming self-imposed need to execute scum today, since failing in doing so will probably doom me to a similar fate of TSS in Kingmaker I
4.) As soon as the game begins, your comments have been pretty much directed towards how awesome you must be for having executing me in Kingmaker I (which circles back to Reason 1)

I already feel as if I am under an undue burden of stress, and your toying with my emotions makes me want to throw up my hands and just leave and let somebody else play.

So far as your comment that I was "overstating" the fact that I am town, could you please point out any game where I

have not

mentioned (perhaps overly so) that "I am town"? I am positive you have read Most Mountainousest, which is a prime example of me stating that I am town. I was attacked pretty heavily by multiple people in that game for saying that I was town... and surprise, surprise... I was town. This is almost paralleling the attacks on me for being "Too Townie". I can assure you that me saying "I am town" is not a scumtell on me, because I will say it pretty much every game I ever play in.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, just read what has gone down since my last post. I'll try to comment on the largest issues in the town, although I should answer this question first:

One question though: did you know this was mountainous when you signed up?

Yes, I was very much aware this game was practically Mountainous when I signed up. Truth be told, I have only played in one mountainous forum game (the one I linked to earlier, as it happens). I am simply counting on the difference of possibilities in this game to allow it to deviate from the norm.

Simply the addition of the Kingmaker is a great help, since it is a role which scum will always fail in lynching (barring special circumstances). Kings which control lynches are extremely powerful positions, who scum will be forced to dance around (in a

true

Mountainous game, every role is just as equal as the next, whereas in this game, the King is very much where each given days' power lies). A possible Hero role will pretty much force both town and scum to be careful in

who

they choose to execute, lest they die instead. In short, although there are no town investigative or protective roles in the game, there is enough power in the town for me not to strictly consider this game as mountainous.

*****

I've read over the Yos2/MoS debate about three times, and for the time being, I am thinking they are both town. I still disagree with MoS on whether or not voting serves a purpose that is worthwhile in this game from his position, but he has not really attempted to blow the argument out of proportion

or

sweep it under a carpet, and I can at least see where he is coming from. And since I obviously agree with Yos2's stance, I find nothing wrong with his pursual, since I can see myself doing the exact same thing.

*****

WRONG!!! Always assume they [everybody] are mafia unless you have reason to assume otherwise.

Eh, so long as this subject is being brought up, I play under a different mindset (and I think it's the most rational). I pretty much begin with everybody being "neutral", and they move up and down a laddered rung as I catch things which make me think people are more likely to be town or more likely to be scum. If you came into the game assuming everybody was scum, you would have to vote everybody (to be consistent, anyways). If you came into the game assuming everybody was town, you could not vote anybody consistently. Just assume everybody is a grey blob, who might be town, and who might be scum, and you're set. Depending on what happens when you poke at them (deflation, popping, inflation, a *squoosh* sound, etc.) you should better be able to place them on the ladder.

*****

Cb0x, have you read the Kingmaker discussion thread? And if so, precisely

when

did you read it? I am interested to know if your flash of inspiration came from thinking about the mechanics of the game, or if it was actually just taken from that particular thread.

*****

Okay, I

still

think Pablito is more likely to be town than not. His play is seriously weird (I honestly cannot recall a single game where he has acted like this, though I have only seen him in about three or four games), but if he was actually trying to get into Glork's good graces for the future, I am positive such a tactic has been quashed rather effectively by now. Also, I understand Pablito's response to MBL concerning the cb0x issue, although my advice to Pablito is to read more games which have MBL in them. MBL (in my experience) can make posts look like dripping gobs of ooze when he feels like it. I have yet to see how those sorts of posts correlate to his alignment.

I'm still liking my votes on Bird1111 and Phoebus.

[petroleumjelly]

Sorry I didn't post earlier, had a very busy week of school.

Again, I only read the engame report, so my flash of inspiration seemed innovative to me at the time. What post did the idea appear in in kingmaker 1? Now I kind of want to read it.

Actually, I don't believe anybody in the original Kingmaker game proposed the "Kingmaker make a list" strategy, although it

was

discussed in the Kingmaker discussion thread (which very likely led to the change of the Kingmaker mechanic in this game). That was why I asked if you had read the discussion thread in particular.

*****

For those asking for a List of Execution: no. I will take as long as I need to make my LoE, and I never planned on just throwing one together at once: I would rather place people onto it one by one as I see necessary. Please refer back to my original rule I placed upon myself:

3.) A person may be added to the LoE in two ways:
--> A.) My own discretion
--> B.) If somebody reaches a majority of votes (which should encourage people to vote!)

I will place people onto the list at

my

discretion, and I will not do so unless I am comfortable with doing so. I actually dislike focusing on just one or two or three people at a time, since such makes it easier to not review other people's posts. A good example of how that strategy actually works against the town can be seen in Verbose II, where every day, a certain number of people were placed on the "lynching block".

That lynching block essentially meant that all the scum

not

on the lynching block were

scot free

for the rest of that day, and if one of their partners was on the lynching block, they would be sure to divert attention onto somebody else. Granted, there is certainly nothing stopping me from simply swapping around a LoE when I feel like it, but I would rather leave everybody open for discussion instead of a select few, especially this early in the game.

In fact, this is not a bad topic of discussion. Is it better to focus on a set number of players, or is it better to leave everybody open to discussion?

*****

To respond to Mert, I certainly will not hold back from attacking people if I think it is necessary for me to go on the attack, but I try not to attack people unless I think they're scum (or if I want reactions, often because I can't read somebody otherwise). If somebody fits the bill, I will feel no remorse in running them through a meatgrinder.

[petroleumjelly]

What? I never said anything about having keyboard problems.

FoS: SpectrumVoid

. Care to explain that statement?

[petroleumjelly]

Just read that last couple pages, here are my (few) thoughts, I'll try to be brief (since I am trying to post in all of my games tonight):

1.) I am feeling better about Glork after reading through his interaction with Mert and after rereading his posts from an attempted more objective point of view. I will admit I have fantasized about executing him today and watching him come up scum (I think that would be ironically apropos), but I haven't managed to convince myself he's scum. ><

2.) Since it's pretty clear I'm not the Kingmaker, I think I will advocate a Glork-King tomorrow, although I think I would personally prefer a Thok-King (simply because Thok almost seems to be matching my brainwaves this game), both strong players (who are attentive to the game), and who I am currently thinking are likely to be town.

3.) If a deadline is imposed which cannot be retracted (to respond to Twomz), I will clearly be forced into making a premature LoE and executing from that List whether I wish to or not. Until that time, I will play as I see fit, and not try to rush things.

To respond about the "who I am suspicious" of comments, it really is not too difficult to read back on my posts and determine who I have voted or expressed suspicions of. My current suspicions are primarily Bird1111 (which began for very weak reasons, but there has been absolutely no content from Bird which leads me to want to change my opinion on him) and Phoebus (for his voting record on the largest bandwagons on the basis of 'gut', which I simply have a hard time 'digesting').

I haven't had many 'strong' feelings about other players, but I am becoming worried about Pablito and cb0x (still thinking they are both town, however), and more recently, a

slight

pinging on Twomz for his continual sense of urgency in me making a LoE (although since such an attitude seems to be consistent with his normal playstyle, I am probably making this comment more in general annoyance rather than from actual suspicion). I am really not confident enough to threaten anybody with a pending execution at this time.

[petroleumjelly]

Argh, deadlines! We dang well better have that retracted, I am

so

not ready for an execution.

Regardless, I suppose it falls on me to kick this game up a notch, so despite the fact that I did not want to do this, I will place four people on the LoE (four for the sake of variety). This

does not

mean you should hold back on other players, but we might as well get opinions on these players from everybody.

Add to the List of Execution: Bird1111, Phoebus, ChannelDelibird, Pablito

.

I am currently already suspicions of Bird1111 and Phoebus, and my votes pretty much explain that. ChannelDelibird seems to have snuck right under my radar until I isolated his posts. I would like to hear his reasoning for keeping his vote on cb0x, and I also did not agree with the way he went about voting for Mert, and he seems to have since disappeared. Although I am currently thinking Pablito is town, he has somehow accumulated eight votes, so I might as well force you people to talk about him in more detail (I am of the opinion that suspicion of him will drop as a result of me putting him on the list). I think these four should give at least some variety of opinions.

Also,

mod

, can we prods on players who have not posted in over a week? Specifically:

UberTimmy (last post Sep. 17)
PookytheMagicalBear (last post Sep. 18)
Bird1111 (last post Sep. 19)
CrashTextDummie (last post Sep. 19)
AmeliaSlay (last post Sep. 20)
Vaughn (last post Sep. 21)
ChannelDelibird (last post Sep. 23)
Machiavellian-Mafia (last post Sep. 24)

MOD SAYS: Prods sent.

It's really no wonder this game has been stalling with all the recent inactivity.

[petroleumjelly]

Well, I was practically forced into giving a LoE whether I wanted to our not, considering:

Retractable deadline set for Sunday, October 8th. Sooo sloooow....

And that deadline has yet to be retracted. Since I am

trying

to stick with my own guidelines, I felt compelled to construct a list so I could at least make a more informed decision (while also giving ample notice) if the deadline was not retracted and I was forced to make an execution.

As it is, I will have to toss aside my own 48-hour "grace period" for final pleas with the current deadline, although I still have not found anybody I would actually be

willing

to execute other than Bird1111 and Phoebus. Although I really,

really

hate the "I purposely act scummy" schtick, I still think Pabs is town, and I will not execute somebody I think is town (unless there is a distinct strategical advantage, or some extraordinary factor). I frankly only threw CDB on the list to see if it would give me some interesting reactions (i.e. would people suddenly start 'suspecting' him because I 'suspected' him, or would people disagree and look elsewhere? etc.). I still have to think over the comments, but I was intrigued by the people who voted for CDB (as well as Bird1111 and Phoebus) seemingly on the basis that I had 'voted' for him. I am wondering if that was a subtle way of trying to gain preference in my opinion. I will try to focus my next reread on that if I have time this weekend.

[petroleumjelly]

Oh, thank goodness, at least I have three more days to think about this. I'm pretty busy tonight, so I can't post much...

MoS, could you please explain what makes you think Phoebus is town? I don't recall ever having played with Phoebus, and I frankly cannot set aside time to look over all of his games to determine his 'normal playstyle'. I only vaguely recall one game I have read with him in it (Gotham City) where he was generally unhelpful (until it came time to lynch the unnightkillable townie), and pressed people almost primarily on 'scum-tells'. He was scum in that game, and I am really not seeing what differentiates his play in this game from that game (granted, I have not read Gotham City for quite a while, so my memory may be skewed).

My main bone with Phoebus is that his "gut votes" just happened to be done while hopping on the largest bandwagons. Gut votes, in my experience, are often used to strike out in an odd direction (such as, if I were to vote somebody who has not been under much suspicion [say, Thok] on the basis of 'gut'). Gut votes which simply add to somebody who has already been suspicious (and against people who

already

have cases presented against them) do not sit with me, especially when the same person does it on

four people

. I am more than willing to consider what you are saying, but I am going to need more basis than "I will regret it" and "he is always unhelpful" (severely paraphrased).

[petroleumjelly]

Ugh. I certainly wish these analyses had been done earlier, so I don't only have one real life day to consider them. I will be finished with my chemistry laboratory tomorrow hopefully around 6:00 pm PST.

Mod

, what time zone is the deadline in? Can I have until 11:59 pm

my

time?

Also, I think I am going to have to do away with my LoE. I suppose it served a purpose, but many of the newest suggestions for execution are not players on my LoE at all, and include things I hadn't really noticed (or at least did not saw the possible significance of) originally, but are things I feel I need to consider.

I can no longer guarantee that my choice of execution will be somebody from my current List. This would not have been the case if I was not under a deadline, where I would simply have revised my List and worked from there, so hopefully nobody holds that against me. I still think the system works as a general guideline, but under a deadline I feel like it is unraveling and might restrict my options.

I will try to gather my thoughts at the moment (although I will try to spend all the time possible to review the game tomorrow after chemistry). As you can tell, there are still a number of people I have not reviewed in great detail, and they will be categorized in the middle section. I

may

execute one of them if I see a compelling case against one of them, but I do already have a few people I think would make better choices of an execution.

People I Will Not Execute

Thok
Glork
Mastermind of Sin
Fritzler
MrBuddyLee
Cardb0ardb0x
Pablito

People I Do Not Strongly Consider for Execution

AmeliaSlay
ChannelDelibird
Dead Rikimaru
Machiavellian-Mafia
Mert
Nightson
PookytheMagicalBear
spectrumvoid
Twomz
UberTimmy
Vaughn
Yosarian2

People I Strongly Consider for Execution

Phoebus
Bird1111
Rosso Carne

I also think I should detail my thoughts on Bird1111 a little bit more, since people either seem to not get my case or do not feel it has much merit. Simply put:

Bird1111 began the game with something like a "projected" OMGUS, voting Glork because he voted for

me

. I just took it as a way for him to endear himself into my good graces, or something. Maybe I was reading too much into it at first, but then Bird1111 votes Pablito here:

Unvote, Vote pablito, partly because he asked for it, partly because he's defending Glork

And this vote seems to have a somewhat legitimate basis. Later, Bird1111 comes back with a revote on Glork (which tells me that his vote

should

express at least some actual suspicion, else he should not replace a random vote when he already has a reasoned vote). When I asked him about this strange ordering of votes, and after minimal pressure, we have:

Come to think of it, I did go too far with my joke votes Unvote Glork Unvote Pablito

Which I am not feeling is completely true (given the vote on Pablito), and even if this

is

true, I think it is rather scummy. Coming to the thread simply to unvote without offering anything more to the game does nothing to make me believe somebody is more likely to be town. I am also getting a vibe of "don't pay attention to me", especially considering the fact that Bird1111 has not posted for

over twenty days

, but has posted elsewhere on Mafia Scum. I have a hard time reading lurkers, so if worse comes to worse, I have no problem in having them replaced, or culling them off. Lurkers who I also consider to be scummy (and by way of lurking have avoided recent detection) only strengthens my general policy.

Mod

,

if

I do not execute Bird1111 today, can he be replaced by somebody more active?

[petroleumjelly]

Jeez, that was silly. Thought I had included everybody.

People I Will Not Execute

Thok
Glork
Mastermind of Sin
Fritzler
MrBuddyLee
Cardb0ardb0x
Pablito

People I Do Not Strongly Consider for Execution

AmeliaSlay
ChannelDelibird

CrashTextDummie

Dead Rikimaru
Machiavellian-Mafia
Mert
Nightson
PookytheMagicalBear
spectrumvoid
Twomz
UberTimmy
Vaughn
Yosarian2

People I Strongly Consider for Execution

Phoebus
Bird1111
Rosso Carne

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, I got way-laid by a study session I had forgotten that I had planned for my Civil Liberties class. I will be rereading the thread now. After skimming the latest posts, I will simply admit I am confused about what to do concerning the MoS/Phoebus issue (even though I have thought about this at random intervals while in classes for the past week or so).

I personally think Phoebus has been pretty scummy, and nothing he has said or done today has made me think otherwise. I don't think his votes were on "gut" whatsoever, but were rather bandwagon votes which were made under the pretense of them being "gut". When there were already specific

reasons

be suspicious of the people Phoebus voted for, Phoebs instead cited absolutely no reasons. His recent apathy tells me nothing of his alignment: I have seen both lazy town and lazy scum. I do not think he would be a bad execution at all,

except

for the fact that MoS is continually defending him (and although I have tried to understand his reasoning, I simply do not agree with his stance).

My problem is that I am trying to understand

why

MoS would defend Phoebus for reasons I don't even understand, and for reasons I think do absolutely nothing in making me think Phoebus is pro-town. If MoS is scum, I seriously doubt he would defend his partner so blatantly and so poorly (WIFOM, blah blah, I know). If MoS is town, then he might actually be on to something, and I am just plain not understanding what he is getting at. (Of course, he could easily be town and completely wrong, in which case I will have to thwack him over the head later).

Either way, I don't think I have enough time to think about this dilemma as much as I would like to, and I think this issue might become clearer if I simply left it alone for now and let nature take its course, so to say. Despite the fact that I

really

do not approve of MoS refusing to vote, I am simply not getting a scum-vibe from him.

Any input right now would be appreciated.

[petroleumjelly]

I'm intrigued by PJ's extremely sudden inclusion of Rosso. I like it, but I have to wonder what the thought process for PJ was. At the same time, if we're wrong about Rosso, there's nearly no evidence for us to go on from there. The only people who have voiced concerns on Rosso are Glork and me. And both of us are fairly visible enough that a Rosso execution (which turns up with Rosso as town) won't necessarily change people's minds on us. It might cause some to tip over the edge. But the progression of the Rosso wagon was so quick and so out of nowhere that if there was scum intervention, it's so obvious it hurts. And Glork and I are already so visible, so there would be no significant information on us, but it would give us info on PJ and possibly some other info.

A few things to note here:

1.) I am under a deadline, and therefore I am rather forced to make "sudden inclusions". It was either that or restrict my own options, which I do not believe is a wise course of action. To have only stuck to my own precedent would have been quite headstrong of me.

2.) I am trying to mull things over for myself while considering comments from others. I have wondered about Rosso a few times in this game (especially concerning his stance towards me), so I am not putting him on my list solely because others have mentioned suspicions on him, but also because I have been a bit suspicious of him myself.

3.) I am trying to execute scum, and seeing as I am under a deadline, any scum will do. I am really not concerned with how much "information" we can derive in the future at the moment from a given lynch.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, I’m just going to read everybody’s posts in isolation by the “view all posts” button, so I might refer to things out of context without meaning to do so. I will jot down some of my “spark notes” exactly as I think of them. This will probably be an unbearably long post, unfortunately, so apologies in advance.

AmeliaSlay

:
I have played a number of games with Amelia by now, and I have seen her as scum at least once off the top of my head. Although she has a few votes that I can recall, I am noticing that her comments are actually rather good, and I don’t see anything in her posts that looks overly fabricated (although the “my sentiments precisely” post was somewhat strange). I am thinking middle-of-the-pack, pro-townish.

Bird1111

:
See my previous comments. The recent non-posting almost makes me want to execute him simply to get rid of a lurker who I consider moderately scummy, but replacement might be the best option here. I really do not approve of lurkers whatsoever, but I still think replacement is more effective than lynching in the long run. Bird will probably be my default execution at this point, unless I find somebody I want to execute more as I go along.

BrianMcQueso

:
He can live… for now

cardb0ardb0x

:
Yes, his posts still strike me as a newbie-townsperson who was at first considering giving up. His original suspicions on MBL seemed genuine enough, so I am apt to believe his original “final words” to the town. He responds to direct questions, which is at least more helpful than some other players.

Just noticed that he seems to be copying my votes lately (Phoebus/Bird1111), and this comment:

If only I were scum, I would be a genius

makes me grimace slightly, but I currently don’t think he is scum.

ChannelDelibird

:
Hmm, his posts don’t seem as bad as I remembered them to be. His dialogue with cb0x actually looks fairly reasonable (i.e. it does not read to me like scum attacking an easy target), although I personally did not agree with his Mert vote. Considering he said he would “cover his thoughts ASAP” over a week ago, I certainly wish he had gotten to that so I might have a better general read, but right now he is on my neutral list. I can’t really place his alignment.

CrashTextDummie

:
Hunh, I never really realized how few posts CTD has this game. I am actually more used to having CTD present cases against people in particular, and he doesn’t seem to have done that this game. I haven’t caught anything from him that strikes me as scummy, but he also does not strike me as town as he usually does. I will slide him into the neutral category, with a note to myself to poke at him later.

Dead Rikimaru

:
Wow, almost absolutely nothing of substance posted. His entrance post doesn’t seem that bad, but his other two posts are pretty much saying “I will post soon” and “sorry I haven’t posted soon”. Not sure how I am supposed to read somebody who never posts. This is another person I would ask the

Mod

to possibly replace. Gonna have to be another neutral.

Fritzler

:
Really no reason to think he is scum at this point, although I would certainly like to know

why

he is so adamant in thinking CTD is scum. I don’t listen to arguments when they are simply forms of argumentum ad nauseum (repeating the same thing over and over). Fritz is actually still in my neutral category, since I generally can’t read Fritz enough to determine if he is town or scum this early.

Glork

:
I won’t bother looking over these posts, I am thinking Glork is town for today.

Machiavellian-Mafia

:
ARGH. These lurkers are annoying me.

Mod

, another person you might think about replacing right here. I have absolutely no read on him. Neutral.

Mastermind of Sin

:
Pretty much discussed him rather thoroughly in my last few posts, and I don’t think he is the right execution for today.

Mert

:
I’ve played a full game with Mert once before (in the now semi-infamous newbie game), and I am seeing a lot of similarities in his play. He is not afraid to go after connections or say things against the grain in general, and I think his views are definitely good for discussion in general. I want to keep him around, although I can’t really read him (I am thinking he would make awfully tricksy scum).

MrBuddyLee

:
Ugh, MBL, what am I going to do with you? I think I just have to give up on trying to read you, because you have this annoying habit of always striking me as somewhat scummy, but hardly ever scummy enough to pursue a lynch (or there always seems to be a better alternative). I am still a bit sore over WoT, so I think I will just keep my eye on you. Neutral.

Nightson (replacing Vikingfan)

:
Nothing much I can say about Vikingfan’s play, and the same pretty much goes for Nightson. Today really seems like it has just been about seven people talking, and everybody else throwing two pennies into the well and then promptly leaving before listening to them hit bottom. Yet

another

neutral (this is getting annoying).

Pablito

:
For as much as I thought Pabs was simply being strange town originally, his latest play (in the past week or so) has struck a very bad chord with me. Using a variant of “I was purposely acting scummy, so I could find scum by looking at who jumped on me” is an insanely old scum excuse, one which I myself employed in Back to Gambits II. My problem is:

If you are purposely acting scummy, how can you possibly find the people who find you scummy suspicious?

That pretty much makes no sense to me: you should

expect

people to find you scummy if you are going to purposely be scummy. His latest hint that I am acting “suddenly” also left a sour aftertaste, enough so that although I do not think I will execute him today, I will want to look at him tomorrow.

Phoebus

:
See my other posts.

PookytheMagicalBear

:
Hrm, Pooky really does seem to have a thing with lurking in all of his games lately. Although I certainly appreciated his defense of me (really, it was a defense), I suppose I shouldn’t be so quick to set him aside as being huggly ol’ Pooks, who is obviously never scum-scum. I honestly have never been able to have a consistent read on Pooky, so this’ll have to be another neutral. I would certainly like to see more participation from him.

Rosso Carne

:
Came into the game attacking me with circular logic (which was essentially “PJ is scum because PJ is scum”), and then repeated it over and over, with the caveat that “he would hammer Glork” (which doesn’t even make sense in a Kingmaker game). He seems to imply that both Glork and I are scum (see: “goodposting” to Pooky’s statement, which is inconsistent with Rosso’s own stance on myself), and although he promised to “get his shit together” over two weeks ago, he has not posted since. I am actually thinking this is probably my best bet at a scum execution, but I will finish making this post to see if I don’t find a better candidate I had not previously considered.

Spectrumvoid

:
I don’t know exactly when SV made her posts this game in relation to mine, but wow, I am catching too many similarities between SV’s thoughts and my thoughts. I am thinking most of her reasoning in this game has come almost primarily from myself, which I find rather disturbing (this has happened to me with other players in other games, and it never fails to freak me out). She also seems to be slightly fawning (“I really should start learning from PJ”), although this could have been made in tandem from another game we were just in (Leper Mafia), where SV also mentioned that she had learned something about why longer days are better for towns (although she

was

scum in that game) due to my extending Day One in that game to roughly 30 pages.

I am actually thinking SV is being slightly scummish, or at the very least, too sheeplike. I will be taking this into consideration.

Thok

:
This seems to be another game where Thok’s brainwaves seem to coincide with mine for much of the game, although not on all issues. The fact that he is hanging around at deadline makes me feel better about him as well (I suppose the same can be said of Glork and Pablito, although Pabs’ comments have disturbed me more than anything). I know I have trouble catching Thok-scum in the first place, but I’m thinking Thok is town.

Twomz

:
I still have not played in a game where Twomz is scum, and he is actually participating

more

than I am used to. I think this is a fairly welcome change, although he needs to learn to take things slower sometimes. Surprisingly, I haven’t found Twomz very scummy in this game at all. Hmm… wonder if that is a scumtell?

UberTimmy

:
WOW, what the hell. I honestly do not know how I have missed UT’s posts, that is absolutely bizarre. He has got away with saying practically

nothing

today, instead only voting. Jebus. I will definitely want to poke at him tomorrow, but there is absolutely no way I can get a read from those posts whatsoever.

Vaughn

:
I have to agree with Thok: Vaughn’s latest lurking is simply too reminiscent of Kingmaker I for me right now. I never found him exceptionally scummy today, but he should not be allowed to continue with his non-posting. He also seems to be trying (ever so carefully) to set me up for an execution later in the game, which makes me feel uneasy about him, but I think I would rather have him explain himself tomorrow than execute him today. Neutral-scummy, on account of the fact that I

know

from experience that he purposely lurks as scum, and may be doing the same thing this game.

Yosarian2

:
(Finally at the end, *phew*). In general, I find absolutely nothing wrong with his attack on MoS for refusing to vote, and in many ways, I whole-heartedly agree with him (I have discussed this in earlier posts). His posts seem pretty genuine in general, and he seems to be in absolutely the same boat as me in concerns to the Phoebus/MoS issue (i.e. thinking Phoebus is scummy, and not having a clue what MoS is trying to show through his defense of Phoebus). I’m thinking town.

Now to see if I can’t gather my thoughts.

[petroleumjelly]

Hmm.

*goes to look over Glork's posts*

[petroleumjelly]

While you're here, Nightson, would you mind sharing your suspicions, please?

[petroleumjelly]

Oookay. Well, I just saw Nightson sign off, so I am going to guess I won' be hearing back about those suspicions anytime soon.

I doubt another fifteen minutes of thinking is going to change my mind at this point. Let's end this day.

Do not post after this post, in accordance to the rules.

Execute: Rosso Carne

[petroleumjelly]

Aww, the ball-kicking discussion was deleted. That was the best part of this whole game.

In any case, my opinion is that MBL's theory is more than plausible, and in reality, likely. Apparently the people agreeing with this theory are somehow "scummy", but I was wondering about that

before

MBL proposed it, so it's not as if I was simply hopping on his idea.

The fact is, I fail to see when the "change of heart" could have occured. Bird1111 failed to post for

three weeks

, and during those three weeks, he was very clearly prodded at least once by BMQ, after which he still did not post. I am not understanding what could compel Bird1111 to make a large analysis post

during the night

without some sort of nudging from

somebody

. BMQ seemed to make it pretty clear that he was going to replace Bird1111 (which I think would have been the correct action), but Bird1111, from what I understand, asked to

not

be replaced so that he could post. I suppose that could possibly be classified as a 'nudge', and that my execution of Rosso could be seen as a 'wake up call', but I am more prone to believe his decision was influenced by external factors.

He should have gotten the 'nudge' from the prod I had sent to him, and the 'wake up call' when I put him on my List of Execution in the first place. His reaction is simply of such an untimely manner that I seriously doubt it's sincerity.

I don't exactly recall if I had any other of my opinions on other players deleted at this point, and I will hopefully be able to review the thread sometime during the weekend to regather my thoughts, although I suspect my analysis post of Day One will be highly consistent with my thoughts on today.

[petroleumjelly]

Vote: Pooky

.

I just reread your posts in isolation, and I am catching a few things I'm not liking. Please explain:

1.)

like one thing I don't get, is that if we wanted a confirmed innocent to make the choice everytime, wouldn't we just have the KingMaker claim and direct the king? even if they kill the KMer, it's not like we're going to lose anything since we'd just get a new one.

And if scum counterclaim KMer, all we'd have to do is get the KMer a list of 2 people to appoint as King/Backup and the CounterClaimer a list of 2 other people to appoint and when the next day dawns we'll know which side was lying and be able to execuete accordingly.

It's not like we can run out of Kingmakers!

...and...

Pj

just pass the buck to me.

i'll get things done

Just not liking these when put together. Pooks presents a plan that I don't agree with (outing the Kingmaker as a confirmed innocent to make decisions), then later suggests I should trust him to execute correctly (even though he he had already made a giant defense of how I am "the most qualified to catch scum"). I'm not seeing how these can all be consistent with each other.

2.) Your attack on Twomz for "saying nothing" seemed disproportionate to whatever offense he may have committed. Also, could you elaborate on this quote in particular:

No need to hide the fact that you're brave enough to stand up to King PJ and his attackdog Glork and not willing to knuckle under to their unreasonable demands.

How much of this was sarcasm? I seriously have a hard time reading sarcasm. Do you really think my demands on D1 were "unreasonable", or that Glork is my "attackdog"? This quote actually reminds me of mathcam-scum in Invitational #5, who called somebody a "lapdog du jour" or something along those lines in order to connect two people together.

3.) Although I can't say I didn't appreciate your blatant defense of me, you certainly must know it sparked many memories from Goofball Mafia, where you essentially called me town by a "guilty investigation". I am thinking this is because you know I have a semi-Achilles Heel when it comes to town reciprocity (i.e. I often find people who call me town to be more town than I would normally consider them, even though I have tried to beat that inclination down).

4.) Today, Pooky has seemed too sarcastic and defeatist for my liking.

I got tired of people not listening to me and went to pout in the corner.

What exactly do you want me to respond to?

cuz bandwagoning is so tech in a kingmaker game.

*eye roll*

Cuz context CLEARLY doesn't matter at all(Sarcasm Warning)

Pooks, m'dear, I am starting to think you're scum. Who do you think is scum and why?

Also, I think I will note that I do not really find Twomz all that scummy. His play seems rather consistent with what I know to be his play. His bandwagoning does not really concern me that much, especially after having played a seperate large game with Twomz to the end where we were both town (No Use For a Title). I may not have seen Twomz as scum very often, but I think I can read him fairly well, and I am thinking he is town so far.

[petroleumjelly]

My bird vote seems to have poofed during the crash.

Vote: Bird1111

.

Also, I do not agree with Glork's case against Yosarian2. At the time Yos made his post about his thoughts on those four players you mentioned (Pablito, Bird1111, Phoebus, and ChannelDelibird), I was trying to get the town to comment on those players in particular so that I could review the responses (and this context is quite relevant as to why he would talk about people he was not suspicious of). My stance on his posts were that he was not too convinced with any of the people on my List at the time, but later he thought it was necessary to differentiate who (if any) of those four he would be most comfortable in seeing an execution on so that he could have a more direct say in the Execution if I was to limit my boundaries to only those four. I also am not seeing the contradiction you seem to think is there.

Also,

Vote: UberTimmy

, although he has apparently not posted since October 5th, and likely needs a prodding and/or replacement. I would like to hear more about actual thoughts, rather than him simply adding to the vote counts.

[petroleumjelly]

PJ:

Go read over Yos's posts from Day One. Explain to me what, in your opinion, Yos contributed to scumhunting in the game. Then explain how you feel this compares to what you would expect from Yosarian.

I will have to read the posts in isolation instead of in context (don't have time to read the entire thread tonight), but here we go:

K... just read through approximately D1, and I suppose Yos2 did not do very much

direct

scum-hunting. He has given some thoughts about game theory, which are at least helping to advance discussion. However, he did push quite a bit on Mastermind of Sin (and on sound reasoning, so far as I am concerned) which at least helped me to form my opinions on MoS. He also scolded cardb0ardb0x a couple times for his posts, although he did not press the issue very much. He poked once at ShadowLurker, Pablito, and slightly Phoebus during D1.

I suppose Yos2 seems like he was playing slightly "safe" (i.e. trying to not to get into debates unless he could handily hold his own, and not being overly provacative), but I would frankly have to review games with Yos2 in order to decide whether or not this is consistent with his normal style (and whether or not I would hence expect that of him), so I am going to find the original Kingmaker (I can't think offhand of another game I've played with Yos2)...

In the original on D1, Yos2 again made a lot of theoretical comments (so I do expect that much). In that game, he narrowed pretty quickly down onto RandomActs after he had claimed Townie (seems like Yos2 might have a thing for D1 targets in particular: RandomActs in KM1, MoS in KM2). He asked a few questions to a few people without pressing the envelop too far. He also voted and confirm-voted Broomhead, which admittedly was actual direct scumhunting (which also pointed to scum), and was well-reasoned.

Comparing the two games, I would say that Yos2's behavior overall is not overly inconsistent. I would also say that (at least early in games) he is rather conservative with his vote(s), so him doing the same in this game is not a problem for me. Yos2 seems to traditionally ask questions generally and comment on current discussions, while only going after one or two people at a time, which is also consistent with this game.

Discussion catches scum in general, however, and I didn't find any of Yos2's posts very scummy (if at all) or contradictory. So, I still think Yos2 is town, although I agree I would have liked to see him present more direct cases.

[petroleumjelly]

I'm still here. I will try to get myself back into this game (hopefully) by Friday, but I will be rather busy up until that time.

[petroleumjelly]

!!!

*steals LuckayLuck*

Indeed, I quite enjoyed reading those posts. I got a

very

good vibe from LuckayLuck just now, and I am liking his analysis on the players of the game. I was originally a little worried that he seems to call so many townies, but I don't see much a problem with that, seeing as most of the players in this game

are

townies (and that I often have the same tendency, especially early in games).

I will have to review CDB, Dead Rikimaru (does he need to be replaced?, I can't recall his last post), SpectrumVoid, and Vaughn, since that appears to be where the two of us have the greatest disagreement. In particular, I thought CDB looked rather townish in the manner he prodded at cardb0ardb0x, whereas LuckayLuck seems to think the opposite. I also think SpectrumVoid and Vaughn are scummier than LuckayLuck presents, I will try to remind myself to go into more detail for my reasoning there when I have more time (hopefully sometime this weekend). In any case, welcome to the game.

[petroleumjelly]

I am squeezed for time at the moment, but it seems like I definitely need to address this post.

1.) I advocated

either

a Thok-King

or

a Glork-King. My preference between the two was Thok, since it seems like for the whole of Day One, Thok and I were pretty much kindred spirits. When other players have the same thought processes as myself, I have a good reason to believe they are not fabricating suspicions, and if people aren't fabricating suspicions, they are very likely to be town. Despite my early run-in with Glork, after I had time to (calmly) read his posts, I could better understand what type of scum-hunting he was doing on Day One. Reactions from multiple players might not catch scum

immediately

, but it

will

make catching scum later in the game much easier. After the first scum falls, catching the others is only a matter of reevaluating the thread.

2.) If you haven't noticed, my reasons for voting Bird1111

were

weak. Multiple people said they didn't even understand the reasons

why

I was voting Bird1111. I was under the impression that he was purposely lurking for most of the game. After I asked him to be prodded and he did not respond, I began wondering if lurking was not the problem so much as the problem was that he

needed a replacement

. MBL knows that I

always

favor replacement over lynching if that the is the main problem with a player. I think I made that pretty clear in my posts. Bird's two offenses on Day One were his strange "joke vote" sequence (which I latched onto) and his subsequent absence upon being attacked for it. If the absence was not purposeful, that cuts my reasoning to only his "joke vote". That alone was not (and is not) enough to make me think somebody is scum. His re-entrance into the game tells me he probably

was

purposely avoiding the thread, which is (along with the "nut-kicking" theory) why I am voting for him today.

3.) MBL still does not seem to understand the fact that I was

under a deadline

and had to do something drastic. My only two "big" suspicions were Bird1111 and Phoebus, but I had a reason not to execute either of them. I have explained my doubts on Bird above, and MoS's defense of Phoebus was weighing on my mind. I

needed

an alternative. After reading through the thread, I picked a suspicion I could agree with: Rosso Carne. Of note: even though Pablito had 9 votes, or whatever,

I never really bought the Pablito-scum case

. I agreed that his behavior was peculiar, but that did not make his behavior scummy. Rosso Carne replaced ShadowLurker, who

also

was acting very different from his usual self. ShadowLurker (as town) has a habit of getting in people's faces, and being a good person to spur discussion (even though I often find about 90% of his theories completely half-baked). This is also the only game I have seen ShadowLurker ask for replacement. Rosso Carne, upon entering, talked about "hammering" people (which is impossible in a Kingmaker game) and did little to nothing but attack me. Then he just disappeared from the thread. The difference between Rosso and Bird here is that I

know

Rosso was actively reading the thread, because I remember seeing him in ScumChat and posting in other games. This was enough to tip the scales when it came down to the wire on Day One.

4.) I don't even understand your attack on Glork in that post. What was he supposed to do? He had already given his opinions on the game at that time, and I had considered them. I was asking for any input from anybody who happened to be reading the thread. I like as much information as possibile if I am in a position to drastically influence a game (such as being the deciding factor in a lynch - or an execution, in this case).

As it is, I think I will also have to scourge some games to see whether or not MBL makes connections posts as town or scum. I don't distinctly remember him doing anything of that sort in Simon Mafia (where he was town). I'm skimming Newbie #254 quickly... still reading, but I think this is noteworthy:

On the surface it looks like an attempt to provide an alternative to Fletcher.

But I know PJ is clevererer than that.

I find it interesting that in

that

game, MBL considers me very clever, whereas all of his arguments in

this

game basically rely on me being incredibly dumb scum. MBL, could you please clear this up for me? It may be the case that your opinion on my cleverness has decreased dramatically since last we played.

It looks like MBL made a grouping of people he thought was scum in that game, but didn't really draw any connections between the three. This game, MBL also seems to be doing a grouping, but

is

drawing connections between the three, so that we become less separable. I am willing to wager that people are starting to think of Glork/PJ/Pablito as a threesome by this point, which I don't believe is too healthy a mindset. I also recall that as scum in Jelly Mafia, MBL was more than willing to draw connections between people on

Day One

... I remember having a long discussion with Ibby after she was replaced about MBL's playstyle in general. Namely, his prefence towards connecting one of his scum-partners with a townsperson very early in the game. I will have to do some more research to see if this is a consistent playstyle of MBL however. I don't think Himalayan or Goofball Mafia can really be used here, since he replaced later than Day One into both of those games, which changes the circumstances.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, MBL, a few comments for you. These questions

will

involve WIFOM, but sometimes that is simply the only way I can gauge what people are thinking.

1.) You apparently think I am clever (which I suppose is true enough: I tend to plan a day or two in advance as scum, but that is neither here nor there). However, you also hold that, as scum-King, I would not be clever enough to just make a pool of, say, 5-6 people to execute so that I could never be backed into a corner into executing a partner. Please explain

exactly

how "clever" you think I am, and whether or not I would be stupid enough into limiting my own options in such a way that it would become glaringly obvious if I had to make a change in direction. I am actually quite interested in seeing you answer this in detail.

2.) You said Glork gave a "good defense" just earlier concerning the "scum are more likely to use the term assassins". Here is your quote:

Fuldu was town. His observation was valid and even made sense. Just because it didn't hold there doesn't mean it can't be a general scumtell that scum is more likely to know their rolename and use it. It's a valid point to raise, and you've come up with a reasonable defense.

But Glork didn't really give a "defense": he just pointed out that Fuldu was

completely wrong

. And if Glork hadn't pointed that out, I most certainly would have. I actually told my scum partners in KM1 to keep Fuldu alive for the sole purpose of attacking n_lich under that string of reasoning as long as possible. The fact that you dropped this issue as soon you had counter-evidence pushed against you makes me wonder if you just hoping nobody would

mention

the fact that Fuldu was wrong in the first place.

3.) You said Glork not going "hammah hammah!" is unusual for him. I disagree.

If Glork is not CONVINCED that somebody is scum, WHY would he insist on 'hammering' anybody!?

Furthermore, Glork was town in Kingmaker 1, and he most certainly did NOT display that kind of behavior. Explain why you think it is necessary for Glork to go berserk at the end of every day in order for him to be town.

4.) You admit this is a Mountainous game, and that Mountainous games call for different styles of play. But you then turn around and say I am using a different style of play, and that I am more likely to be scum because of it. I only attack people full-steam if I

really

think there is a good chance of them being scum; I have not had that feeling in this game yet.

I have played in one other Mountainous Game, and I

lost

that game. This tells me that I need to do something different if I want to win. As such, there are some debates I would rather watch play out instead of stepping into each and every one. Instead, I tried to sit back and watch a few develop, and then after they appeared to finish, I would give my comments on those events. I tried to do this consistently throughout Day One, so that my opinion was expressed on all the main issues.

5.) I am interested: your last post seemed to try to lay some groundwork of you "suspecting" MoS, without actually coming out and saying so.

Glork was there watching the thread and posting. Three or four other people were as well. Thok gave advice on who to lynch, and Thok turned up protown. pablito did.

MoS didn't. I see giving PJ advice in that situation as the townish thing to do.

You have two premises here:
1.) Pro-town people would give advice to PJ
2.) MoS did not give advice when he could have

And you fail to actually state your conclusion, that "MoS was not being pro-town". Why are you suddenly only half-hinting at things, instead of saying them outright?

Mastermind of Sin: He is NEVER the right execution. Keep him around.

Hmm. This is wrong on so many levels.

Another small jab at MoS without actually saying anything. Why this inclusion? Since when have you become suspicious of MoS, and why?

PPE:

And now you are trying to point the finger at "good" players, here:

While I think Thok is never a bad pick for scum to execute N1, I'll note that the longer Glork, PJ and Pooky are left around the closer they should be watched. Glork in particular is a prime N1 scum target. Particularly in a game where it'd make sense to off someone who'd make an excellent pro-town king.

Do you consider MoS a "good" player? What about Yosarian2? CrashtextDummie?

Yourself

? Should any of

them

be watched, or only the people you finger?

[petroleumjelly]

Concerning the Fuldu - N_Lich debate, check out my Post 1105, where I detail night discussion. Here are the relevant portions from Night One:

*Fuldu – May push lynch towards N_Lich for us (for saying assassin), and pushed RA pretty hard [keep alive]

...

*N_Lich – No role hints, but an easy lynching target, especially with Fuldu alive [keep alive]

...

Possible Lynching Targets (tomorrow):

-N_Lich (for saying assassin, hopefully Fuldu will lead the charge)

So, yeah... Jelly knows what he's talking about.

Why didn't you accuse me of defending MoS when I approved of his decision not to vote?

You're calling

me

selective? There is nothing wrong with supporting people you think to be pro-town, or supporting general ideas or theories. But trying to cast suspicion on people

without saying that's what you are doing

is something that definitely catches my eye. I do not see the comparison.

Also, concerning your "browbeating lurkers" comment, I don't really do that in large games anyways. Wheel of Time, Verbose II, Kingmaker 1, No Use For a Title, whatever you wish to look at... I

will

ask for prods (which I actually did do as King in this game), but I am not the sort of person to threaten lurkers by placing them on Execution lists, especially early in games.

Also, I am rather unnerved about your "if an experienced player lives near endgame, they are more likely to be scum" mentality. I have survived through quite a few games, as evidenced by statistics. For example, No Use For a Title (20 player game), despite the fact that I was a claimed Mason, I survived to endgame and ultimately helped lynch scum. In Wheel of Time Mafia (31 player game), where I had openly claimed Vigilante and had helped catch

multiple

scum and was in fact leading the town, I still survived to endgame. I also survived to endgame as a claimed Mason in Verbose II (another 20 player game).

Survival does not a scum make.

[petroleumjelly]

Whoo, that's quite a bit of reading I missed out on. I'll read it with more scrunity, and try post my thoughts in an hour or so. One case in particular caught my eye, and I will also be isolating that person's posts after I'm finished to see what I think.

[petroleumjelly]

I’ll just make a running commentary as I read from after my last post on page 31…

Although I am noticing how I seem to automatically like any post that is long and talks about multiple players, I especially liked Zindie’s post 771, moreso than LuckayLuck’s. Bird1111’s analysis really pales in comparison in particular, seeing as it doesn’t bring many new things to the table. I have a couple questions for him, however, on the points where we most clearly disagree:

1.) What are your reasons for thinking Bird1111 is town? I don’t really see an explanation I can grasp (although I am going to take a ‘wild’ guess that MBL’s nut-kicking theory on Bird1111 is your motivating factor).

2.) It could be the case that I am just continually not seeing the Yos2 “case”, but could you go into more detail on why you think Yos2 is so scummy? If you could try to tailor comments towards my analysis of Yos2 found here, that would be appreciated (and

yes

, I have read your post 780

and

Glork’s post 783).

3.) I actually want you to read MBL’s posts again. I don’t like his play-style either (and I have told him as much before), but he does manage to draw lots of reactions from many people, and oftentimes, it’s pretty clear that’s his intent. Do you think he is

scum

, or just

scummy

?

As it is, I will need to do a reread on SpectrumVoid. I remember I felt rather uncomfortable with her by the end of Day One, and I don’t recall anything happening to sway me away from that. In particular, I also found her to be much too agreeable towards myself, and throughout the course of Day Two, Glork (even though I believe she voted for Glork at one point in time today).

I have probably expressed these thoughts earlier, but I am still thinking Glork is pro-town. He seems genuinely exasperated, and I feel we have both been suffering from the disease of people expecting perfection from the two of us. His posts have been jiving with me, although (as I will get when I go over my thoughts of his LOE) I don’t necessarily agree with his suspicions this game.

I am actually surprised that MBL seems to think he is the person with his head under the guillotine blade. From reading Glork’s posts, I actually had the feeling he was leaning in a completely different direction. This is noted, although I am not sure what to think of it as of yet.

On that note, I

really

hope Glork was not being serious when he said he “knew who he was going to execute today”. I really don’t think that is optimal play. I can certainly understand his point about not giving prior warning (it worked well in KM1), but I think trying to keep a fairly open mind is preferable to already having a decision made.

Actually, special note (which I think is important):

I will seriously do a jig if you turn up scum. You're trying harder to look good than you are trying to play well.

This is

exactly

what I was talking about earlier (and of course, that post was lost in the crash, if my memory serves). MBL has some sort of affinity when it comes to people he likes: he attacks people like Glork and myself for the sake of attacking us. I’m no psychiatrist, but I still think this is because he

really

wants to catch us as scum: and of course, if he attacks us every game he plays with us, he’s bound to be right eventually. This sentence alone makes me think MBL is likely to be town. A real pain in the ass, assuredly; but town.

If

Glork is considering BuddyLee as his execution target, I would also ask that he really sit down and consider other players.

Still reading…

SpectrumVoid’s compilation post does nothing special for me. It seems very heavy on recapping the game, and that (for me, at least) drowns out the opinions tossed in at the end of the post.

Let me start off with a fun exercise: here are the people that I would NOT have on the LOE today (key word is today). Also: I think that at most, there are 2 scum in this list. Maybe 1. I'd pat myself on the back for genius if I managed to get away with 0 scum in this list.

cardb0ardb0x
CrashTextDummie
Dead Rikimaru
Glork
LuckayLuck
Mastermind of Sin
MrBuddyLee
Nightson
Pablito
Petroleumjelly
Yosarian2
Zindaras

LuckayLuck, your list is so frighteningly in-line with my thoughts this game, I almost want to FoS you for good measure. The only points of disagreement I have with this list are Dead Rikimaru, Nightson, and to a lesser extent, CrashTextDummie (all three of whom are running more middle of the pack, instead of in the ‘town’ area). I would also move Mert, Fritzler, and Twomz

out

of the ‘consider for execution’ list. Twomz and Fritz in particular are players you will probably get more used to as your mafia career expands.

My next post will go over my thoughts of Glork’s LOE, and I will see if I can’t make a case for SpectrumVoid afterwards if I’m not too tired.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, comments on Glork’s list.

1.) MrBuddyLee. I think I covered this fairly well in my last post. I would discourage an MBL execution. See above.

2.) Mert. FRICK! The “view all posts” function is gone! Ugh. I am going to have to wait until I do a full reread before I can answer this question. My last thoughts on him were leaning towards town, but I would like to see all of his posts in isolation before I go giving a second opinion on him for the moment.

3.) Yosarian2. As I linked in my last post, I am really just not seeing the ‘case’ against Yos2. I think he’s town. I can’t really explain any further than the post I have already mentioned.

4.) Pooky. I recall being rather annoyed with Pooky before the constant crashing, and I wasn’t all too impressed with our interaction found here. On the whole, I don’t know what to think of him. I’ve seen him as scum and as town, and what is lacking this game is

effort

. As much as I <3 Pooks, I wouldn’t be terribly disappointed if he was executed today, especially if he intends on keeping with his current level of participation.

Since the “view all posts” function is missing, I will have to hold back on SpectrumVoid (and Mert), since I really don’t feel like skimming through 35 pages of material tonight.

[petroleumjelly]

Although I don't think it is correct to talk about games which are not finished, I am actually getting the same impression. I am seeing two similarities in play:

1.) Bird1111 began both games with a vote, and immediately retracted them as silently as possible
2.) Bird1111 disappeared (and presumably went into lurking mode) as soon as the slightest bit of pressure was put on him for doing so

The difference lies in the fact that he has said things Day Two in this game. I don't think my vote will be moving off of him today, at this point.

[petroleumjelly]

Well, now that the "display posts" function is back, I can isolate Mert's and spectrumvoid's posts, like I had wanted to do earlier.

Mert:

I’ve played a full game with Mert once before (in the now semi-infamous newbie game), and I am seeing a lot of similarities in his play. He is not afraid to go after connections or say things against the grain in general, and I think his views are definitely good for discussion in general. I want to keep him around, although I can’t really read him (I am thinking he would make awfully tricksy scum).

Rereading... first off, Mert definitely veered towards introducing theoretical discussion early in the game, which for me has slowly become a

slight

townie tell (I have noticed a pattern of townspeople introducing topics, and

then

scum trying to twist them).

Man, I'm starting to hate the woe is me approach to these things.

This (for me) was a direct reference to Newbie #254, the aforementioned newbie game I have played with Mert. For those who have not had the pleasure of reading, Fletcherscum tried the same tactic on Day One throughout the process of being lynched, and quite frankly, I don't much care for the "woe as me" response either. Mert's complaint rings true to me.

So we have MoS saying he won't vote, but his suspicions will be laid out in full and we should take note of his words rather than his voting pattern. Then, on the other hand, we have Phoebus saying he plays by gut and may not bother making cases against people, leaving only his votes to indicate his thoughts.

That's quite a tag-team.

As I noted before, Mert has no problem going after experienced players, such as MoS and Phoebus. The only minus points here is the fact that he didn't really pursue this line, but instead just mentions it seemingly off-hand.

Mert has demonstrated that he has read through Kingmaker I, by comparing cb0x to Random Acts. His responses to Glork's questions were fine by my eye...

And Mert doesn't seem to have posted very much throughout Day Two, but I think I am going to account that more to bad timing of how often Mafia Scum kept crashing and the amount of time Mert could give to the game.

So overall, I still find Mert to be fairly townie, although I do think he ought to post more of thoughts before today is through.

Now, on to spectrumvoid. I think I will split this in to two posts, though.

[petroleumjelly]

Spectrumvoid:

I don’t know exactly when SV made her posts this game in relation to mine, but wow, I am catching too many similarities between SV’s thoughts and my thoughts. I am thinking most of her reasoning in this game has come almost primarily from myself, which I find rather disturbing (this has happened to me with other players in other games, and it never fails to freak me out). She also seems to be slightly fawning (“I really should start learning from PJ”), although this could have been made in tandem from another game we were just in (Leper Mafia), where SV also mentioned that she had learned something about why longer days are better for towns (although she was scum in that game) due to my extending Day One in that game to roughly 30 pages.

I am actually thinking SV is being slightly scummish, or at the very least, too sheeplike. I will be taking this into consideration.

Wow. I really should start learning from PJ. In most games, after page 10 or so I usually make some big mistake. I finally went to read Kingmaker I, and I admire his analysis.

MMOS: Everyone is assumed to be protown until he/she does something that makes him look scummy. That's the way mafia works. Or else I could jsut go around randomly accusing anyone for the entire game. So the onus is on you to explain why he's scummy, not for me to show why he's town.

Argh... I didn't realise Fritz was here. He's on my blacklist of weird players.

This is more of a mental note to myself... two interesting things here. First, the compliment on my play, and second I am interested in since I want to compare what SV says to MoS, and then what SV says to LuckayLuck, who essentially "shows why people are town" instead of why people are scum. And, as I thought:

You find a very large number of people pro-town. I'm not saying I disagree with any specific person on your list, but a lot of how what you use to judge people on is based on your feelings. I agree with MBL on that you generally think people who post analytically are pro-town. But thanks for jumping in so quickly.

SV seems to take a lenient stance on LL when it comes to searching for townspeople, but a rougher stance on MoS for the same type of thing early-game. This is simply noted for a possible connection later, even though I don't really think LL is scum at this point in time.

I am still getting the feeling that at least through Day One, spectrumvoid was trying to appease me. SV has actually resisted Glork more than I remembered through Day Two (by openly voting for him, and disagreeing with a number of people on the LoE). I still get a slightly more scummish vibe from spectrumvoid than the average player, however, enough so that I think I will:

Vote: spectrumvoid

.

[petroleumjelly]

I'm also intrigued by PJ's analysis of Mert. Apparently, he wasn't at all bothered by some of the things I've picked up on upon rereading, which reassures me that something's amiss with him. I'd expect town-PJ to be more vigilant. Or he's just not seeing what I'm seeing, in which case I'd like him to comment.

I don't set out to write novels every time I do an analysis on somebody: I only write down what I think is necessary to get my points across. I think Mert was townish Day One (as I stated), and I don't have a clear read from him for Day Two (hence why I said he needs to post more). That was the thrust of my analysis, and that's what people should get when reading it.

From what I can tell in your analysis, what I "missed" was the fact that he changed his voting targets from Day One and Day Two. Frankly, that doesn't concern me a whole lot: many people change their minds once they've had an entire night to think over the game, and after the town (in this case) knows the alignment of two more people than it did previously. It is often scum who picks one or two people and continually pushes on them (unless it is specifically one's playing style), because it is too much of a chore to look around for new targets. The fact that he is willing to change his mind is more of a town tell, so far as I'm concerned.

So far as Post 239 goes, I didn't catch the same sort of vibe. Once again, I should point out that

I have played a game with Mert before

, and you have not. Some things you (and I) might find scummy of

other

players don't necessarily apply to Mert: you have to able to adjust your analysis to the player. In my Newbie game with him, I became very paranoid that he was trying to constantly get on my good side by "doppelganging" me, and by posting "encouragement". He was town in that game. I got the same sort of vibes in Post 239, like a general "don't give up!" post, which

also

showed to me that he had read the original Kingmaker and was trying to use it as a basis for comparison.

If you want to know what Mert thinks about Bird1111, Phoebus, and cardb0ardb0x, there is a way to alleviate that:

@ Mert: What do you think of Bird1111, Phoebus, and cardb0ardb0x?

[petroleumjelly]

This is tiresome.

I'm also intrigued by PJ's analysis of Mert. Apparently, he wasn't at all bothered by some of the things I've picked up on upon rereading, which reassures me that something's amiss with him. I'd expect town-PJ to be more vigilant. Or he's just not seeing what I'm seeing, in which case I'd like him to comment.

1.) No, I wasn't as bothered on some of the things you "picked up on"
2.) No, there is nothing "amiss" with me
3.) I am vigilante, but I don't read the same meanings from things as you do. If I did, the two of us would agree on everything, and that will never happen in a game of mafia

PJ - I didn't say I expected you to write a novel, I expected you to be more vigilant. You played one game with Mert before in which you were paranoid of him because he was constantly encouraging you and now that he does it again it's a-okay? You seem to think very highly of him (with good reason, as far as I can tell), yet you believe his game to be so one-dimensional that you have figured him out after playing with him once? Do you think he wouldn't encourage you if he were scum?

Firstly, enough with the "vigilance". I am not Superman. I post what I see, and I post what I think.

As for your question: Yes, I do think it's a-okay. He does it [encourages] as town, therefore I do not see it as a scumtell on him. What's your point? I clearly saw it, but I did not find it scummy coming from Mert, based on my past experience with Mert. Of course he

could

be scum, but

not for that reason.

I'm also not getting a particularly good vibe from your spectrumvoid vote, because what you find scummy about her (being "sheeplike" and "appeasing" you) is roughly the same thing you find townie about Mert ("complimenting" you). They were both buddying up to you.

I don't care what you think of my vote on spectrumvoid at this point in time, frankly. I have reasons for why I view them differently, and I have explained them. I have played a game with Mert, and I have played at least one game with spectrumvoid. Of course I can't read them "perfectly", but those games

do

influence my opinion of them in other games. I can and do meta-game. I think spectrumvoid is significantly scummier than Mert. To understand my view on this, you can try reading my posts again, and then you need to read their posts in context, as opposed to simply in isolation. I have explained my reasons more than adequately.

[petroleumjelly]

Reading Mert's posts in isolation in Newbie 254 won't do very much for you. You need to look at them in relation to my posts.

Here is a post I made in that game which gives a few examples of way I became wary of Mert, in particular because of what I dubbed the "shadow effect". Simply skip down to where I give my analysis on Mert.

However, I don't think that you can compare his behaviour in that game with his Post 239, which had more of a "don't worry if you execute a townie, I won't feel bad about it as long as you don't admit that you did it knowingly" undertone in my view.

The vibe I got was "don't worry if you execute a townie, I doubt the town will react the same way towards you as it did to TSS in Kingmaker 1". I did not get an "I don't care if you execute a townie" vibe whatsoever.

Also, I'm sure you'll agree with me that being knowledgable of Kingmaker I is not a townie-tell.

I do not necessarily agree with this. Newer players who

make

themselves knowledgeable in similar games as basis for comparison do receive slight pro-town points from me. When I first came to the site, as town, I read many other games in order to get backgrounds on players in general as well as similar games when I was town. When I was scum, I tended to not put as much effort in outside research. It's by no means a perfect tell, but I do take it into consideration.

[petroleumjelly]

Actually, I just thought of how I should be doing this.

Spectrumvoid is scummy becuase of "gut".
Mert is townish because of "gut".

Problem solved. I don't need to post an epic saga every time I want to express an opinion on somebody.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, so while re-reading, I want to hit on one thing that really stood out to me. When CTD was posting his thoughts on Mert, he said this:

People he voted for on D1: cardboardbox, MoS, bird1111, Phoebus
Not a bad track record, although the reasoning behind most of his votes was based on the way these people chose to use their votes, which is a tad narrow minded.

Interestingly enough, he says that Mert's reasons for placing his votes (based on the

way

people choose their votes) is narrow-minded.

I don't think this can be verified by anybody in the game (except

possibly

PJ), but Ibby told me a few months ago that what CTD just questioned is actually her biggest

pro-town

tell on me. According to her, when I'm pro-town, I'm analyzing WHY people place their votes because I'm searching for MOTIVE or INTENT. I have to say, I agree completely. I think it's a damned good effective way of finding scum.

When did Ibby tell you about that? *sigh* I thought we were going to keep that as our secret Glork-tell.

And to be honest, that tell only works (or worked, anyways) when you looked at motivations for votes

early

in the game (at least according to Ibs). The tell itself was actually pretty effective: I tested Ibby on it a couple of times by having her read Glork's posts in isolation in random games, and then asking if she thought Glork was town or scum, and she was fairly accurate -- certainly better than 50/50.

Nevertheless, I agree: looking at motivations behind votes are often just as (if not more) telling than the vote itself when it comes to scum-hunting. I suppose one might consider it narrow-minded, but I see no fault in narrowing in on a strategy that (so far as I'm concerned) has merit.

Mod

, since we still need a number of replacements, wouldn't you agree that you can hold off the deadline until the game is stabilized?

I would also like Pooky to finish his analysis. I can't recall the last game where I've seen Pooky hunt for scum, so I'm interested to see him in action.

[petroleumjelly]

Yos in three sentences:
Several of the people I consider very very townie argue specifically against a Yos execution. You can say that this is a slippery slope, but I am willing to go down this path. Also, Yos's arguments while on your LOE while being one of your top suspects don't quite make sense as scum: he pushes for Twomz and Phoebus, two people that aren't/weren't even on the execution list, and his defense style is just one that is townie.

Mert in three sentences:
Similarly, a lot of people I consider very very townie argue specifically for a Mert execution. Reading his posts, in day1, Mert did not accuse anyone of scummy behavior but rather for "unhelpfulness" - which is something I consider scummy. In day2, he similarly conveniently chose two easy picks: Twomz and Pooky.

This seems wrong on a couple counts. I will try to be succinct.

1.) The people you think are pro-town (call them A's) may not be pro-town
2.) The A's might be (and have a good chance to be) wrong about others

There are two completely separate levels of reasoning you are trying to work off of. Firstly, that your read on A's is correct, and secondly, that the A's are correct in who

they

think are townies and scum. This is a large game with quite a lot of very tricksy players, and I certainly expect that

at least

one scum is somebody I consider to be very pro-town right now, and that

at least

one person I think is scummy is is town. If you make for this allowance in

all

players (even if you only consider the room for error +1/-1 for each player), it is entirely possible that the A's errors are who you are defending/attacking based off of their opinions.

That still came off as somewhat convoluted, but it should be understandable.

As for the latest happenings, I am fairly pleased with Lowell's entrance into the game, and it's nice to see a different angle on things I have already seen and thought about before. I am still neutral on Pooky, I don't feel like I am getting a good read off of his latest posts. His last post made me roll my eyes, as:

I'm curious Glork, did my post strike you as a post designed to save my own hide?

... was then

followed

by a post which seemed designed to save his own hide. Of course, I would expect both scum and townspeople to "try and save their own hide" if they could, but his post seems to go over the top.

[petroleumjelly]

It's raining replacements. *ducks*

In any case, I am noticing a distinct trend in this game. Instead of advocating for executions, people seem to be tending towards saying things like "I disagree with an execution on X". I know I've done the same for several times, but those types of things really do muddy the waters when it comes down to making a decision at the end of the day. I still think people

should

say who they don't want executed, but they should definitely advocate one or two players they

want

executed at the same time. Or at the very least, show a preference for executions (for example: "I don't want either X or Y executed, but of the two, I would rather X be executed"). I still don't believe everybody has even talked about Glork's original LoE yet, which I definitely thought (and still think) was/is a good idea, even if all four of those players are no longer on his LoE.

A few questions for Scope:

1.) What do you think of LuckayLuck?
2.) What do you think of Glork?
3.) What do you think of MrBuddyLee?
4.) What do you think of Zindaras?

I am only narrowing down on these four players, since they have all been fairly active posters with opinions in the open, so they should not be difficult to give an opinion on, seeing as they should be people that have stuck in your mind even after only one read-through.

[petroleumjelly]

Thanks. By the way, tags for quotes are (note that there should be no actual spaces when you do a quote):

[quote = "Name of player" ]Quote needing to be quoted.[/quote]

[petroleumjelly]

I'm here, I'm replacing UberTimmy.

I'll try hard to do a decent skim of what has happend this monday (2 days time).
I cant possibly go over everything today.

I don't suppose we're going to get another post from you before Glork executes anybody?

[petroleumjelly]

Not surprised that Pooky was scum and MBL was town. I'll read through the thread later (hopefully before this weekend, since I will be traveling back to school at that time) to see if I can't find scum connected to Pooks. But first:

Vote: SpectrumVoid

. Good to know I had already voted you yesterday, as that makes me feel that much better about this vote. I look forward to your "reasons".

[petroleumjelly]

Well, I just finished a reread of the thread, even though I must admit my eyes were glazing over by about Page 30. In any case:

Vote: Phoebus

, I still haven't seen a reason (other than MoS's constant say-so) to have backed off of Phoebus. Reading over my own posts and his, I wish I had executed him over Rosso on Day One by this point, especially after reading his posts on Day Two, which (rather than contributing) simply asked for the day to end, and that Glork should "kill anybody".

I thought Twomz was fairly townish originally, but with the knowledge that Pooky was scum, I'm reading some undercurrents in his (and Pooky's) posts. He has apparently been replaced by Samus, so

Vote: Samus

. The posts in particular that made me double-think were:

vote: Crashtextdummie

to satiate (?) Fritzes violent tendencies. (and because I saw no reason not to vote him from his posts... although I didn't see anything specific that made me want to vote him by itself)

This only pinged slightly; voting with Fritz for the sake of voting with Fritz. The problem with this is that Twomz acted exceedingly similarly reverent towards Fritz in Kingmaker 1, so this may just be a playstyle quirk. Noted nonetheless.

Hey, are there even any Pros to outing the kingmaker? How does it help the town? Just curious.

I pointed out before in Post 194 that this tactic strikes me as a scum-tactic (it is in the middle of my post). Seeing as Twomz + Pooky both did the same thing draws a fair connection to me. The other connection is coming from the Pooky/Twomz conversation found starting with Post 67 continuing down to Post 72.

In addition, Twomz begins pushing for a premature List of Execution (so as to focus on fewer people):

PJ, could we have at least a preliminary LoE up by this coming Friday? I think it would help move the discussion along, and focus the analysis of the town, instead of spreading it out amounst 10 or so players.

Although, i still think we need to combine our efforts and

concentrate on 3-5 people...

I think it would help if PJ posted a LoE and we moved on from there. Hopefully that will boost discussion.

PJ... if there's no conversation at all and BMQ is forced to impose a deadline, then what are you going to do? I the last post I made (or maybe second to last) I asked for a LoE, because no one had posted at all... and since then, no real content has been posted...

Now, note:

Randomly accusing people is good, especially on day 1. You don't want to let them slip through the cracks,

you have to check everyone.

Posts 199 (and others) combined with 217 read together make me scratch my head. Twomz advocates narrowing down on 3-5 people, while also saying we "need to check everyone". I'm thinking Twomz (in post 217) was trying to fill up space with what I will deem as "townie rhetoric", or a post made intentionally containing words that generally seem "pro-town". The problem is that this stance directly conflicts with his constant call for a narrowed List of Execution. This looks like a pretty severe slip to me. Naturally, Twomz has been replaced so he can't explain it, but I would still like to see Samus' thoughts on it.

[petroleumjelly]

Not surprised that Pooky was scum...

What exactly do you mean by this? It seems to me that it's a bit inconsist with your stance on Pooky earlier, when you said this:

I would also like Pooky to finish his analysis. I can't recall the last game where I've seen Pooky hunt for scum, so I'm interested to see him in action.

Saying that you want to see Pooky hunt scum says, to me, that you at least trust that he's genuinely hunting scum (which would, in turn, imply that you believe him to be pro-town). I realize that in a later post, you called your stance on him "netural," but I still want to know why you find PookyScum "not surprising."

I meant exactly what I said: I am not surprised that Pooky was scum. I considered him middle-of-the pack for much of the game simply because of his non-postingness, but on Day Two he started leaning towards scummy (hence the vote). If you want a quick summary of "why I wasn't surprised":

1.) Pooky suggested to out the Kingmaker as a confirmed innocent to direct lynches, something scum also tried in K1
2.) Pooky defended me very early in D1 (which I had been wondering about for a while), a tactic I am finding he does as scum to get on my good side
3.) Pooky jumped immediately on the Bird-nutkicking theory, even though he had not expressed suspicion of Bird beforehand
4.) Pooky asked on a number of occasions that he be able to direct executions
5.) On D2, Pooky made a large string of defeatist (and overly sarcastic) posts, which I got a bad vibe from, as they seemed more designed to WIFOM Glork out of an execution more than anything

As for your other question, of course I wanted to see Pooky hunt for scum: I honestly cannot remember the last game where I have seen him make posts like that. All he's done in games I've been in recently is bandwagon with little explanation and lurk. Hence, I was intrigued to see what Pooky was thinking: I would like to think he didn't get his "best player" award for nothing. My thinking was that even if Pooky was scum (which he turned out to be), a finished "analysis" by a confirmed scum would be a good place to poke at later in the game (even though I myself have not read those particular posts in great detail as of yet). And of course, if he was town, there is all the more reason for him to finish his analysis. If I thought he was town, I would have unvoted him, instead of simply asking for him to finish his analysis.

Could you clarify your stance on spectrumvoid? She voted me and said she'd have reasons for it soon. You put your vote back on her in response (which is not inconsistent with your stance towards her yesterday), but you add this:

that makes me feel that much better about this vote.

What makes "Spectrumvoid votes Glork" make you feel better about my vote. Did my execution of Pooky convince you that I'm pro-town... or did you slip-up and admit that you know I'm pro-town?

No, I don't "know" if you are pro-town. I only strongly suspect it. As for the SV vote, two things occured to me with her vote:

1.) After I misexecuted D1, spectrumvoid said I was town (and this was still

after

SV had said things like "I should learn from PJ" and "I admire his analysis in K1")
2.) After you correctly executed D2, spectrumvoid said you were scum

Now, I checked to see why SV would think I was town and Glork scum, and reading through her posts, I noticed her last two posts which mention me are:

I have no clear read on PJ other than the RC issue, no read on Mert, CTD, SC and whoever else is lurking.

PJ: I don't like how you're disagreeing with CTD on the basis on you having played with Mert. That's blatent meta-gaming. And you've only played one game, I don't think it's sufficient to get a good grasp on a person's playstyle.

Overall, I just not understanding why SV has been going after you, and seemingly shying away from me. It has crossed my mind a couple times that since SV's last experience with me ended up being complete routing of scum (see: Leper Mafia) while she was scum herself, that she is therefore trying to continually stay on my good side

this

game. Seeing her go again after you at the start of D3 - immediately after you executed scum - while largely ignoring my misexecution on D1 just seems (for lack of a better word) wrong. It was a post that just made me scrunch up my face and go "wha?".

I mentioned yesterday that when both Twomz and Pooky bandwagoned bird1111 (now K-Scope, I believe?), several people voted for Twomz, and only a couple of people voted for Pooky. I also expressed that I felt this was a double-standard of sorts, and that I felt that the Twomzwagon would be used to distract us (or push through a bad lynch) and to protect Pooky. Now that Pooky has turned up scum, what do you think of my analysis of the counterwagon situation? Have you taken it into account, or are you basing your suspicions solely on the fact that they behaved similarly?

I only vaguely remember that post, so I am going to have to find it.

And... I can't find it. Your post was probably deleted in the first crash, as well as the Pooky/Twomz wagon. My notes on votes do not have the missing posts, so the only voters I see (not including unvotes) are:

On Pooky: Glork, Mert, Bird1111, PJ, Stallingchamp, Pablito
On Twomz: Bird1111, Nightson, Yosarian2, CTD, Glork

The Pablito vote on Pooky came rather late, but even not counting that vote, the "counterwagon" does not look too substantial with a peak 5 votes when 22 players were alive. If there was a counterwagon at all, my notes indicate that there may have been one on Ubertimmy: he received four votes in a row immediately after the crash. I do not remember who voted Twomz during the crash, so I can't tell if anybody was trying to protect Pooky, to be honest. To directly answer your question, however, no: I did not take that into consideration while making my post.

[petroleumjelly]

Hmm. I would still like Samus to answer my thoughts about him, but I am wondering enough about Glork's theory enough that I will

Unvote: Samus

. Does anybody know the original voters on Twomz (i.e. was anybody taking notes during that time)? This was during the deleted nut-kicking discussion. I unfortunately was not updating my voting pattern notes at that time of the game.

I don't expect to get a large amount of information from Pooky's analysis, since he was very likely trying to spread a few false connections, but a couple things I am finding noteworthy.

Firstly, Pooky's stance on lurkers.

Dead Rikimaru

Didn’t say much, wants Pab dead, provides logic reasoning, look to Pab section for further thoughts.

Der Hammer (rep. Vaughn)
Doesn’t say much, replacement player.

Nightfall (rep. UberTimmy)
Has 1 post, the guy who he’s replacing didn’t do much better. Solid lurker.

I am interested that Pooky called Nightfall (rep. Ubertimmy) a "solid lurker", but not Dead Riki or Der Hammer. Perhaps an unconscious attempt to make Nightfall look worse, even though he did not do the same for the other lurkers. This is actually making me double-think my earlier comment that if there was a "protection" wagon for Pooky, Ubertimmy is just as likely a possibility as Twomz. I'm gonna take a look at the Ubertimmy wagon, starting from D2...

Glork votes Pooky (1), MBL (1), Pablito (1)
Pablito votes Bird1111 (1)
Bird1111 votes Mert (1), Phoebus (1),

Twomz (1)

Pablito unvotes Bird1111 (0)
{Nut-Kicking Theories Lost}
Yosarian2 votes

Twomz (2)

Phoebus votes Bird1111 (1)
Bird1111 unvotes Phoebus (0)
Dead Rikimaru votes Pablito (2)
Nightson votes

Twomz (3)

CTD votes PJ (1), StallingChamp (1),

Twomz (4)

,

Ubertimmy (1)

Pablito votes

Ubertimmy (2)

and CTD (1)

MBL votes

Ubertimmy (3)

and Fritzler (1)

SpectrumVoid votes StallingChamp (2) and

Ubertimmy (4)

Mert votes

Twomz (5)

and Pooky (2)
Glork votes Pooky (x),

Twomz (6)

, MBL (x)
Bird1111 votes Pooky (3)

PJ votes Pooky (4)

Hrm. I'll be honest in saying the Twomz counterwagon seems the more likely than the Ubertimmy counterwagon. I also had Twomz as having five votes earlier, but he had six. So change my earlier note to:

Twomz: Bird1111, Yos2, Nightson, CTD,

Mert

, Glork
Pooky: Glork, Mert, Bird1111, PJ, Stallingchamp, Pablito

Back to Pooky's analysis...

The only confirmed townsperson on Pooky's list is MBL:

MrBuddyLee
I like MBL a whole lot in this game, probably because his ideas are so like mine. I could analyze every post over again but I’m short on time and u guys probly won’t read it anyway.

He’s right, Glork, stop putting yourself under so much damn pressure and accept the fact that you need the help of the rest of the bloody town to win this game.

Plus I don’t think the ideal scum strategy is to poke at the King a lot. Could be mega wifom but I highly doubt it.

The most similar analysis to MBL (to me) was that on Pablito:

pablito

Unlike most players, I like pab, I understand the point of his argumentation and his logic.

He seems to make a real effort in terms of actually playing the game, and there are cute tidbits like Post 67.

I like his posts in 43 61 74 and 84.

But here’s the biggest reason I think Pab=protown, he starts the game by putting enormous pressure on Glork, even more pressure than if some1 had voted Glork. He put confidence into the fact that Glork would catch scum, that’s stronger pressure because it puts the onus of catching scumbags on Glork.(He’s pretty susceptible to unreasonable expectations) A Glork with unreasonable expectations of himself is a dangerous thing I don’t see Pab trying to create that with a move that also draws attention to himself, it’d be like a doubleshot against himself.

Different approaches for WIFOM defenses, I am thinking Pablito is also town (besides my earlier thoughts) based on Pooky's explanation for thinking he is town. It is starting to look to me as if Pooky was trying to play up his "buddy" card on the experienced players who directly influence games, by finding whatever reasons possible to say they were town (see: Glork, MoS, MBL, PJ, Pablito) when he saw that he might be executed. I really wish he had gotten to analyzing Yos2, personally; I think it might have been telling.

I don't want to draw many other conclusions from his analysis posts, though, since he was probably very aware his neck was being measured for the noose, and thus may have gone out of his way to spread a few red herrings.

[petroleumjelly]

^ Ditto to above, although I could have said it more eloquently.

Furthermore, I don't necessarily think putting lurkers (I have considered Dead Riki a lurker, or at least a non-contributor) as King is all

too

outlandish a strategy, though I won't go so far as to suggest it in the future, since I would rather have somebody I think is protown as a King instead of somebody I had little to no prior read on.

As it happens, this is probably the most effective way possible to get a lurker to read the thread and become involved in the game, other than placing them under the threat of an imminent execution. You should have a bit more confidence that the Kingmaker has reasons for his/her choices.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, I feel like I need to comment on this discussion, because it starting to sound like Yos is presenting an either/or scenario: either Glork is scum, or scum left Glork alive to attack Yos today specifically. I don't really like it when people get themselves stuck into such narrow-minded thinking, so I gave it about a half an hours thought.

Either Glork is scum, or Glork is town. That much is obvious. If Glork is scum, he could not be nightkilled.

If Glork is town, here is a list of possible reasons MBL was nightkilled instead of Glork (a few of these have already been covered):

Possible Long-Term Plans

1.) The scum intend to leave Glork alive in hopes of an eventual execution on the exact notion of "if Glork were town he would have been night-killed by now"
2.) Glork may indeed be off on some (if not all) of his suspicions, and scum hope for him to lead one or more misexecutions
3.) The scum don't even really

care

whether or not Glork is alive, and might be playing the game as it comes, and killing people for whatever reasons (which would imply to me a fairly unorganized scum group, but *shrug*)
4.) The scum might be afraid to set an example of killing people directly after they execute scum, since this would (I imagine) make it difficult to explain not getting night-killed if scum ever bus one of their partners later in the game

Possible Short-Term Plans

1.) The scum were afraid that MBL may have been crowned King on D3, and killed him to prevent such
2.) The scum were not afraid that MBL may have been crowned King on D3, but may have wanted to kill MBL specifically because many people thought he was town by the end of yesterday (whereas there may have been signifant doubters for Glork)
3.) The scum figured that killing MBL might lead people to read his posts more closely in order to lay false trails for those people who thought #1
4.) The scum are trying to play more of a day-by-day strategy: since they know Glork could not be King D3, they might have decided to wait (probably until tonight, if this is where they are going) in order to kill somebody who could potentially become King instead
5.) The scum may have thought that MBL was one of the game's "power roles" (i.e. Kingmaker or Hero)

In other words, I would consider all nine of these (at least) as possible alternate reasons why Glork was not killed other than "he is scum". Other than Yos's focus in this particular issue, I have generally liked Yos's responses to Glork, and still think he is more likely to be town than not.

I honestly haven't formed a solid stance on MoS from the latest discussion, since I still think he has looked fairly town to me, and it may just be annoyance (at his refusal to vote, and his refusal to explain votes, and at his defense of "Phoebus" which he never really explained to me in a way I could understand) that is making me think he is scummier than he is. I don't much care for his chosen style of play this game, and that might be what is affecting me more than anything, so I will try to set aside some time later to devote in reading his posts in particular.

[petroleumjelly]

I've got to say, though, that most of your other suggestions seem to have a fairly low probability to me.

I'll bite. Why?

[petroleumjelly]

Hrm.

In your short term plans list, I could see them executing MBL if for some reason they didn't want him to become king; say, he was onto something; and so #3 is also possible,

although if they were trying to lay false trails killing Glork might still be a better bet.

Please clarify for me if you agree with these statements:

1.) Suppose Glork does not die N2 (which happened). Would you believe this is because scum left him alive specifically to attack you?
2.) Suppose Glork dies on N2. Would you then believe this was done specifically so people would follow the "false trail" and hence suspect you?

It seems to me like whether or not Glork was killed, you were going to slip into the "I was framed" mentality.

[petroleumjelly]

I would like every player to list the three players they suspect the most (or if they do not suspect anybody the three they would mind less to see executed) and why.

1.) spectrumvoid - I have generally been getting a bad vibe from her the entire game. I am not personally understanding her supposed disparity of opinions towards Glork and myself, and she seems to try to push subtly on things (as if to plant seeds) more than anything. For example, check her latest posts, where I am getting the impression that she is trying to both suggest (if only implicitly) a connection between Glork-Yosarian2, as well as a connection between MoS-LuckayLuck. I have tried to make a case against her earlier, but it didn't come off nearly as forceful as I had hoped. Her posts just seem too slippery for my taste. I don't like them.

2.) Phoebus - I think I have explained this in a fair amount of detail by this point. Going into detail would pretty much be repetitive by this point.

3.) I don't really have any solid suspicions, but if I had to take a stab at it, I would think there is

at least

one scum who has been tactically lurking (apart from Pooky), or had attempted to lurk before replacement.

*** Now that I think on it, scum may have killed MBL in the fear that he would not only possibly become King, but also be extremely aggressive in forcing lurkers to post, seeing as he was the loudest voice advocating such a tactic.

I am still getting a sour feeling from Bird1111 (now K-Scope), but I am trying to decide what I think about Pooky immediately hopping on him when the opportunity came by on D2, and I admitedly have not had many qualms with K-Scopes post since entering in the game.

For now, however, after looking at the player list, I will put both Nightfall (was Ubertimmy) and Der Hammer (was Vaughn) as my most likely bets on being a tactical lurker.

[petroleumjelly]

Definitive post from me here.....

I will post all my thoughts so far on Sunday. I have had exams all this week and another tomorrow which I am revising for now. By sunday I would have had a good chance to look things over and I still am interested and want to play in this game.

Sorry for the annoyance my lack of posting has been but in my defence I was a replacement then immediately after the two crashes came and since then things have been rather busy for me. I know this is no excuse so I will plug away and give you something to read on sunday.

Vote: Der Hammer

. I'm getting tired of this.

[petroleumjelly]

My three votes:

Vote: Mert

Vote: StallingChamp

Vote: Ubertimmy

I'm finding it extremely difficult to actually find people to "want" to lynch as much as having certain people I don't want to lynch and leading to a process of elimination to a gruop of people who I want to lynch. Those three basically are part of that group.

It has not passed by me that the three people you just voted today are all people that are replaced (Nightfall replaced Ubertimmy, and Olio replaced Stallingchamp), or need replacing (Mert). You clearly haven't been reading the thread all too carefully lately, or else you would have noticed the two replacements. The fact that you are going after people who weren't going to respond any time soon.

How did you not notice the replacements? Also:

My targets are lame. I admit it! I'll leave the aggression to you, mason-buddy!
I'll just keep defending people like MBL.

I liked your playstyle at first for it's originality (I still get a certain enjoyment from reading your posts), but admitting that your votes are weak (and even weaker in that you won't be getting any sort of reaction from them), then buddying up to Glork, while finishing up that you will spend your time defending people (without mentioning your defense of Pooky, but only your defense of MBL) all in three lines has forced an eyebrow lifting. Please explain.

Vote: LuckayLuck

.

[petroleumjelly]

I don't think Glork was under significant pressure to execute scum yesterday.

Also I noticed that quite a few people wanted to execute non-scum

, and Glork could have very well not chosen to execute his 'scum-buddy'. So I'm removing Glork from my list.

How many of these "non-scum" were people pushing on yesterday? And, more importantly, how did you

know

they were "non-scum"?

[petroleumjelly]

Who did RafK replaced?

Oh yeah. Mert. I'm that much more confident he's town. His analysis on SV seems pretty spot-on, and it's nice to know that I wasn't the only person who got fawning/sucking up vibes from SV in my direction.

On a related note, I'll bet one or two people who were pushing the case on Mert are rotten. Let me check my voting records...

-

D1 Mert Voters

- 5 - Pablito, Twomz [(Samus) Cogito Ergo Sum],

ShadowLurker [Rosso Carne]

, ChannelDelibird [(StallingChamp) Olio], Phoebus
-

D2 Mert Voters

- 5 - Bird1111 [K-Scope], Pablito,

MrBuddyLee

, LuckayLuck, Zindaras
-

D3 Mert Voters

- 2 - LuckayLuck, Pablito

My cursory guess at the moment is one/two of {Phoebus, LuckayLuck, Pablito}. Seriously doubt all three would be scumbags. Leaning most towards Phoebus-scum, most away from Pablito-scum.

I am quite happy with my votes.

[petroleumjelly]

It feels like I am saying the same thing in all of my games lately.

CTD has not been posting on the Mafia Scum site in general. He has just been replaced in Lights Out Mafia. I am fairly sure the fact that he has not been posting lately is

not

an indicator of his alignment. As I think just typed elsewhere:

He may well be scum, but not for that reason.

[petroleumjelly]

Mod

, can we get prods on the following (don't recall if somebody has done this recently):

1.) CTD: Last two posts on Jan. 18 and Dec. 20
2.) Der Hammer: Last two posts on Jan. 11 and Dec. 6
3.) LuckayLuck: Last two posts on Jan. 12 and Jan. 12
4.) Nightfall: Dec. 16 (does he even know he is

in

this game?)
5.) Nightson: Last two posts Jan. 10 and Jan. 3

And also, would you please change the first post to show that RafK has replaced Mert?

[petroleumjelly]

Um. I don't think the Hero is the most decisive reason as to why scum would want the Kingmaker outed.

Here's why:

If the scum know who the Kingmaker is (especially by this time in the game), they can effectively gauge how suspicious the Kingmaker is of them, or if the Kingmaker thinks they (collectively and individually) are town. If the Kingmaker is pursuing a largely bad set of suspicions, the scum will leave him/her alive, since the Kingmaker will likely be choosing Kings in such a way that will further their agenda. If the Kingmaker is spot-on, "close enough", or choosing good Kings (even through happenstance), they will probably kill them. And this will likely continue until the scum find a Kingmaker who either thinks a particular scum is town (and might even bestow Kingship on scum), or who is pursuing multiple people who are actually town.

Outing the Kingmaker might help today (if Dead Rikimaru is a scum-King), but after that point the scum will only have even more control and influence over how the rest of the game is played.

[petroleumjelly]

^ All right, but you would please explain this, then:

Post 1246.

1.) If you claim to be "piggybacking", why you are actually going after and voting people who have been replaced or needed replaced?

At the time of your post, two of the people you voted had already been replaced, and the third needed replacement (and has in fact been replaced).

2.) Explain how that is consistent with your claimed playstyle
3.) Explain how you expected your votes to do anything while sitting on people who needed replacement or were, in fact, already replaced
4.) Explain how you seemed to have missed the replacements (even if you looked at the first post and picked who you thought were the people who posted the least, you would have noticed the replacements' names next to those players).

[petroleumjelly]

...

That post made no sense to me, MoS. How is it you conclude that no matter what, the scum are "better off killing the Kingmaker"?

[petroleumjelly]

Limited to no access this Friday/Saturday.

[petroleumjelly]

The whole point of that post was to confuse the scum and make them assume that they WERE better off killing the kingmaker, even if that wasn't entirely the case. I figured an intelligent protown player would realize this and go along.

Okay, that is stupid. I tried to follow your logic on how you came to the conclusion that "no matter what, the scum should kill the Kingmaker". It seemed really dumb to me and made no sense, and I wanted to see you explain it.

It also doesn't make sense how you're saying a pro-town person would have "realized you were trying to confused the scum". This makes a number of bad assumptions.

1.) That the scum would listen to your explanation even though you didn't even give reasons (read: unlikely)
2.) The the scum are stupid enough to not think about things on their own, and instead listen to you (read: unlikely)
3.) That all pro-town people with intelligence would somehow realize what you were trying to do as you claim, while

also

somehow thinking #1 and #2 are the case (read: highly unlikely)
4.) That not only would pro-town people with intelligence see #3, but that they would further help you push your 'agenda' (read: highly unlikely)

I don't make a habit of assuming I am playing against stupid scum. I also don't make a habit of pushing stupid agendas ("the scum should kill the Kingmaker no matter what!") when I know they are stupid. Even if I thought you were purposely trying to get scum to follow you (which sounds hokey to me), I would not be somebody to fit into #4. And furthermore:

5.) It doesn't make sense to say I'm suspicious for saying your post made no sense. Hypothetically, if I am scum, all I would have to do is

point out the exact same thing to my scum-partners at night

. Why try to "signal" things (especially about something so inconsequential) during the day when I could say the exact same thing at nighttime?

What an awful post.

FoS: Mastermind of Sin

. I'll have to review your analysis posts later.

[petroleumjelly]

*nonchalantly munches on Toaster Strudel* Mmm. It's Hershey's chocolate flavor.

[petroleumjelly]

How far had you read when making that post, TS?

[petroleumjelly]

O.o

I almost feel like Dead Riki should put on a top hat, carnie clothes, while swirling around a cane. "Come one, come all! Come and see the Bearded Lady, the Hideous Ogre-Man, the 600-lb Blob from Knob, etc..." His posts almost seem to give off the impression that he is trying to make us wait in suspense for something magical. I haven't even decided if I think that is actually

scummy

or just unusual. Think I'll reserve judgment for when he actually posts his LoE and reasoning behind it.

I will say that I am losing my confidence in Mert/RafK being town. I have not agreed with a number of RafK's latest posts, nor the manner in which he has been poking at Yos2 (I still find Yos2's responses more than agreeable).

I trust Yos and I will go along with his gut feelings.

unvote all: vote DragonsofSummer

- with apologies to the brave newcomer.

TS, what do you think of LuckayLuck's playstyle? I am curious.

[petroleumjelly]

I trust Yos and I will go along with his gut feelings.

unvote all: vote DragonsofSummer

- with apologies to the brave newcomer.

TS, what do you think of LuckayLuck's playstyle? I am curious.

This question took me by surprise, and made me uneasy. Why LuckayLuck, I wondered, since this player was not part of the immediate discussion?

Very odd.

One think is certain is that LL has been active in other games, but not this one, for some 8 days now. His latest posts hinge on his following other players he feels are pro-Town and admits to skimming the game. He appears to be Mason with Glork? Did I get that correctly? He seems Townie enough, but along the lines of extreme wishy-washiness, buddying up to the more aggressive players, to the point of appearing completely subservient. I can see how this would look scummy, but together with the Mason claim... is the scum trying to pass as a Mason group? I doubt it, as there would be a chance of the existence of a legitimate Mason group. I'll keep LL in mind.

TS, the reason I asked you to give an opinion explicitly on LuckayLuck was because of your first vote in the game:

I trust Yos and I will go along with his gut feelings.

unvote all: vote DragonsofSummer

- with apologies to the brave newcomer.

The logic I see in

your

vote is that "Yos2 looks town", therefore "you trust Yos2", therefore "you will follow his feelings and vote DoS". Considering LuckayLuck plays

exactly

like that, I was interested to see whether or not you found his playstyle scummy or not.

So now; for what reasons are you voting him? Playstyle? Skimming? Buddying? Subservience? A combination of these?

[petroleumjelly]

<might end up being a duplicate post>

So long as you're asking, sure, I'll take a vote count.

And a Strawberry Bellini, if you serve them. I think jelly needs a drink.

[petroleumjelly]

Mod

: I will have limited to no access from this Thursday to Sunday, Feb. 8 - 11.

I like RafK's Post 1455.

Didn't much care for SV's response.

a. b. c. are classic scum tells. Therefore I concluded at that point in time Glork = scum.

Since I thought Glork = scum, the people on his LOS were obviously town (or so I assumed anyway.)

That's where the defending of Yos and Pooky came in.

This sounds pretty phony to me, in all honesty. By your logic, you would have disagreed with anybody Glork ever put on his LoE yesterday, simply because you thought Glork was scum.

I backed down on Glork after I realised that he was under no pressure to bus a scum buddy.

Call it stupid, but I forgot this was kingmaker.

And it's undeniable that Glork did make the scum tells I mentioned above.

Also, I seriously doubt the underlined sentence. I have been under the impression that SV has been acutely aware that this game is Kingmaker, which has in turn affected her attitude towards those people who are Kings.

[petroleumjelly]

Shanba's entrance post looks fairly legit, though I do want to ask:

- Can you compare/contrast your thoughts on RafK and SV? Particularly, how much do you agree with RafK's posts on SV - and if you think SV is scum based mainly on those posts, do you think RafK is thereby bussing her?

[petroleumjelly]

Yeah, today feels like it is going to be wasted - I would be surprised if we end up with a dead scum today. The worst kind of Carnie is the one who talks big, but has nothing behind the curtain. Though the compilation effort was impressive, the lack of insight

on

that compilation (while asking the town to comment) is disturbing.

Vote: DR

, though I will be keeping all of my previous votes. As much as I normally don't care for them, I would not be opposed to a deadline at this point.

[petroleumjelly]

Because I was the person advocating trying to generally keep 4 or fewer votes at all times. DR is my fifth vote, but I don't really want to unvote any of my other four.

[petroleumjelly]

This probably isn't worth responding to, but I'm procrastinating on studying,

and

(as sad as this is) this is probably the most interesting thing in the game that has happened in a while, so:

I keep voting records at almost all times (I try to update them at least once a week). I know exactly who I am voting for (I tend to remember who I think is scummy in any given game and hence where my votes are), and I furthermore have a tendency to remember stances I've taken in games (such as my general rule of "people should keep votes below 5 so that their votes can be taken reasonably seriously"), and this is because I've put thought into those stances and agree with them.

I further tend not to like smarmy comments being directed at me, and while I was making me DR vote-post, I had a mental image of somebody going:

HAY! Weren't you the guy saying we should vote for LESS than 5 people? Way to contradict yourself.

Vote: PJ

.

And to save myself the exasperation of having to explain why I was making an exception in this case, I figured I would counteract it by explaining that I was

aware

that DR was my fifth vote and that I was not going to retract any of my other four votes.

And yes, I do see the irony of me going out of my way to explain this.

[petroleumjelly]

Hehe, silly Zindie. These Assassins are probably pretty sick bastards. We already know Pooky was one of them: how much more concentrated evil can you get into one stuffed animal?

I

heard that the scum in this game eat kittens for breakfast.

[petroleumjelly]

Ooh, replacement. An LoE sounds like a good idea.

[petroleumjelly]

Bleah. I hate it when people offer themselves up for lynches.

Also, Luckay, I will agree with most everybody else. I doubt your ability to read me (as well as Glork or Pablito) would be in any way consistent; I am fairly sure I could get onto your "townie" list as scum fairly easily with little to no effort. I am an experienced player, and I know how to make agendas which favor scum seem to favor town (see: the last two days of 2-Headed Mafia as an example). And I would expect much the same from both Glork and Pablito. As interesting as I find your playstyle, I honestly don't think it is an effective way to play.

That said, I

do

often-times find it helpful to work backwards if I am at a loss; by starting with who I think is town, and then trying to determine the most likely scums based on that information. But the jumps you are taking here -- by calling three very experienced players town [without really explaining in a way

I

understand] and basing all of your 'opinions' based solely on our suspicions -- looks like a strategy doomed to failure as town, and an awfully easy way to shield yourself as scum.

Regardless, your martyr-ish post struck me as being fairly sincere. >< So...

Unvote: LuckayLuck

for now. I'll try to read your posts collectively soon and decide whether or not I think you've been apathetic as you've claimed to be, since I had personally thought you were one of the more "excited" players in the game up until this point.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, just skimmed your posts. You certainly

came

into the game very excited while posting (which is probably what was stuck in my mind), but I agree that you seem to have drifted off towards being 'inattentive' (which you even used to describe yourself a couple of times) and 'lazy'. And I think everybody has pretty much been doing the same: I've probably been disinterested in this game for about a month, so I don't think that's something anybody can hold against you.

While I'm thinking about it, could you link me to any finished games where you were mafia? I probably won't be able to read any of them for a while given real life, but even if I don't, others will be able to.

Also, I'm interested (noticed this while skimming your posts). In your original list of townies, you said (edited for focus):

~spectrumvoid: [9.5/10 Town] STRONG townie tell

[...]

~Yosarian2: [9/10 Town] A LOT!!! Of Townie tells, not WIFOM

Over a month later (where I would expect suspicions to have changed slightly in any case), we have (edited for focus):

unvote all

~ Proxy opinion to PJ + Glork + Pablito combo.
Strange that all three share no same target. I'll pick the one I like best from each of them. Don't put too much stock in my choice,

these match my outdated beliefs from a while ago.

[...]

Vote: Mert, Spectrumvoid, Yosarian

~ Proxy Spectrumvoid vote, as well as reasons to vote Spectrumvoid to PJ
~ Proxy Yosarian vote, RELUCTANTLY, from Glork's list which I must say I don't like very much. Two months ago(?) I stated that I like MoS and nightson both. I have not had the opportunity to re-evaluate if I still like them yet so my belief here is actually very dangerous since I really don't have much against Yos especially after the Pooky-Yos thing which I only briefly skimmed over. But still, I trust Glork a great deal. So I go with Yos.

1.) Did SV lose "townie tells" after you had made that particular post? If so, when did this happen, and why didn't you mention it up until your SV vote? Was this particular vote based solely on the fact that I myself suspect SV?

2.) This makes me wonder at your "order of operations" when deciding who to vote, so to speak, especially since you claim that these votes "match your outdated beliefs" (which does not seem to be true, since both SV and Yos2 were deemed as "town" in your excel post).

I'll keep my question hypothetical, though.

Suppose you think X, Y, and Z are "strong townie". But then X and Y turn around and suspect Z. Does this in turn make you vote Z? Or do your "townie tells" still hold up? Or is this dealth with on a case-by-case basis?

[petroleumjelly]

If it weren't for salmonella destroying the entire panhandle and making the jerseys new, you know?

What is it with you and coming up with completely nonsensical sentences?

I'd unvote, and all, but PJ's unvote just isn't putting me at complete ease and I'd rather wait things out, first.

Would you mind explaining this?

[petroleumjelly]

And you unvoting LL, well, it just feels off to me.

It either means you're actually pro-town or you're actually scum trying to look really townie. But unvoting LL at this particular juncture, well, it makes you look townie.

And your logic makes sense and all. But it also looks like it progressed unnaturally.

Also, I just realized that I have the order of events wrong. You unvoted and then skimmed LL and then asked questions. I remembered wrong. I thought you had skimmed, unvoted, then asked questions.

Oh, not the "too townie" arguments again. Two things struck me in your post (other than that), though.

1.) This post almost seems to entirely gloss over the possibility of LuckayLuck being scum. And if he

is

scum, I can guarantee you I won't look "townie" for having unvoted him directly before a looming deadline. Even besides that, your mindset just reads wrong in that post... you seem to be more concerned over whether I "look town" over whether or not you think I "am scum".

2.) What are the differences between {unvoting, skimming, questions} and {skimming, unvoting, questions}? I'll admit I'm not immediately seeing how one would be any less "natural" than the other, as I could easily see myself doing either.

[petroleumjelly]

LL, why are you more suspicious of Yos? You explained somewhat why SV went from very townie to getting your vote, but so did Yos. Why did that happen?

Well, here's my vote on Yos:

Proxy Yosarian vote, RELUCTANTLY, from Glork's list which I must say I don't like very much. Two months ago(?) I stated that I like MoS and nightson both. I have not had the opportunity to re-evaluate if I still like them yet so my belief here is actually very dangerous since I really don't have much against Yos especially after the Pooky-Yos thing which I only briefly skimmed over. But still, I trust Glork a great deal. So I go with Yos.

what I'm trying to say is that

I didn't like PJ's list at all

, but the best of the bunch was Yos. Looks like he has a better list now.

Unvote Yosarian

Vote Der Hammer

I assume you mean you didn't like

Glork's

list (which you state in the very thing you are quoting)? I have thought Yos2 was pro-town for much of the game, and I don't recall a time I have voted him in this game (though I don't exactly have my voting records out right now, so I'm not going to bother to verify this at the moment).

Now that I think on it, I should probably read over his posts again to see if I still think he is town. But then again I feel the same about most of the players in the game. I'll do it Day Four, assuming I'm still around by that time. I've been ready for this day to be over with for too long already.

[petroleumjelly]

Also, Luckay, did you think Yos2 was town at the town you made your vote on Yos2? And if so, why didn't you just defer back to your " I would tell Glork and Yos2 that they are both town and should work together" response?

It seems to me like you were (at the time) trying to place an obligation on yourself to vote for exactly one person from each of {Glork, Pablito, and myself}'s respective suspicions... and that is

definitely

not a good way to play. If you don't think X is scum, you shouldn't vote for X simply because somebody you think is town thinks X is scum (especially since there is the possibility that the person you think is town is in fact scum). Seems like an easy rut to get yourself stuck in with your particular playstyle.

In fact, I will make a suggestion for your playstyle, which may help you in the future.

Instead of voting for who 'townspeople' X, Y, and Z vote for, you should vote for people you think are the

least likely to be townspeople

based off of your "townie tells" style. Your most telling post in this entire game was really where you made that excel post with people you thought "most likely to be town" and "least likely to be town" based off of your tells. In this way, you still have suspicions of you own - it's simply that you don't have direct 'scum tells' but instead a lack of 'town tells'.

[petroleumjelly]

Mmf.

I would personally like to keep LL around for at least another day; once he adjusts his playstyle (presumably to using his 'townie tells' for how he votes instead of "X thinks Y is scum, so I'll vote Y") I think we will be better able to read him. I think SV is the preferable execution here.

[petroleumjelly]

What? I want SV executed today. I thought my posts kinda made that point already.

MoS, considering you're always asking for us to read

your

posts intead of just looking at who people vote for, I would suggest you look at who is voting for SV, and

then

look back at their posts for seeing why they are voting SV.

[petroleumjelly]

Hrmf.

Well, I'll update my notes and reread the game as soon as possible.

Note: But this will (in all reality) probably have to wait until next week. I will be focusing my attention on a different forum game for today in particular, tomorrow is a day out with friends, Thursday I will be finishing an essay, and Friday through Monday will be at Mock Trial. After that, I will hopefully have time to get reacquainted with this game and the new information.

I'll figure out where my votes will go after the reread. If Yos2 would like to give my any fairly short "assignments" though, I could probably do that.

[petroleumjelly]

I mentioned it earlier, but I'll make it more official:

Mod

, I will be gone this Friday to next Monday. Hopefully I will be able to do my reread sometime after that.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, I think I have my other games under some control, so I will try to get reacquainted with this one.

My

first

reaction to your list is to answer:

MoS

: Leaning no; I remember him being annoying, but probably town

VitaminR

: Leaning slight yes (based off Phoebus and DoS)

SV

: Yes; I think she should have been dead yesterday

Smashy

: Neutral, but leaning better than an average execution (was not impressed with DR whatsoever)

But I'll update this after I read their posts in particular - my opinions could change at that time, and I will give reasons for my positions. I will probably also take a look into both mnowax and Zindaras, since they each have 5 votes and give my opinions on then. After that, I will try to get back my reads on the other players in the game, though that could take a while considering my gameload elsewhere on the site.

[petroleumjelly]

I haven't forgotten about this game - I

do

plan on doing my reread soon. I am currently trying to focus my energies on a few other games which are either very close to a possible LyLo situation, or at a deadline with requires my attention. I will get to this game as soon as I can find time.

Also, welcome Thesp! <3

[petroleumjelly]

Shoot shoot shoot.

I know this is taking forever, but I

do

intend to do my reread and give more updated thoughts on players in the game. I

do not

want this day to pass by without first having given more opinions, in case I bite the bullet tonight.

In fact, I'll make sure I do a read on two people before going to bed tonight, but I don't think I'll be able to do one on everybody I want to as of yet. I've been rather caught up in other games, so this one always seems to be pushed into the wayside as of late.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, I'll do two people tonight on Yos2's list. I'll read up on Mastermind of Sin and VitaminR [rep. DragonsofSummer, rep. Phoebus], since they are the first two. I plan on (at the very least) also reading up on SpectrumVoid again, Smashy (now Battle Mage), mnowax, and Zindaras, but those will have to wait for when I have more time.

1.) Mastermind of Sin

He starts off the game by announcing he will not be voting. I still think that's a stupid strategy, but it's not necessarily scummy. Much of his early game interactions seem to be mostly within this realm, so not very much to comment on here...

There's a lot of posts which are clearly not in context and I cannot tell what many of them are referring to. I will probably have to read the entire game in one sitting in order to make better comments, but let's see...

Hmm, this catches my eye:

Also, anyone who is voting a lot of people but has no one voting them is suspect in my book. That means they're spreading suspicion around while laying low enough that no one is really watching them.

Does this hold true in all contexts? Because I remember that both myself and Pablito have been voting for 4-5 people at one time without having very many votes on either of us, and I don't recall you bringing this up. Or is this meant to be more of an early-game thing?

I still don't understand MoS's defense of Phoebus. I really am not sure what to think of it, either. I still wish I had executed Phoebus on D1, and I will definitely whap MoS over the head if MoS is town and Phoebus is scum (though I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before).

SV, you missed that I was willing to see Pooky die, just thought Yos deserved it a little more.

Currently, however, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Glork is a good execution for today.

Just noting this for my own sake. It could very well be that Yos2 is scum and MoS's 'dar was just very on at this point, but it still stood out to me.

Noted something which I may point out later after MoS answers questions in this post.

MoS starts his more detailed analysis in his Post 66. His analysis on CTD, Dead Rikimaru, Der Hammer, and Fritzler look pretty good (though I do find how different people view the CTD/Fritzler dilemma from completely different standpoints rather interesting, as a sidenote – could be telling later in the game).

Unless someone was replaced recently, I'm not going to judge people by the actions of their predecessor. It's next to impossible for them to defend against, and since they have no idea what that person was thinking, there isn't a real way to figure out the motives for their actions, since we have no reactions to read when we analyze them.

This is quoted just in case he contradicts himself later. I don't remember if he does, to be frank.

Another analysis in his Post 74. MoS is consistent with his "won't analyze previous players much" for K-Scope. I agree with his stance on Lowell (I've thought that role was pro-town since the cb0x meltdown early game). I agree with his stance on Mert (who I recall thinking was town for much of the game). Nightfall/Nightson/Samus/Phoebus indeed all needed replacing, and I frankly don't remember much about Olio myself. Another analysis I can generally agree with, in other words, I don't think MoS is stretching to defend or attack anybody here, looks rather natural.

Ooh, I still don't agree with the "scum would be better off killing the Kingmaker" interaction with me. Saying MoS's strategy was to "confuse the scum" makes no sense to me, since that pretty much assumes completely brainless scum being in the game. Probably MoS's biggest mark against him that I've read so far, and I'm not even that worried about it (since I don't see what MoS would gain making that type of statement as scum either – the entire statement itself just strikes me as silly).

I agree with MoS's comments on Dead Rikimaru in his Post 99 – recapping what has already happened without offering opinions is an easy scum-tactic.

I think I like his recent pursual of mnowax, but I'll hold off judgment until after I read mnowax's posts for myself and decide if I think he is scummy.

Overall... I still lean

against

a MoS execution. I don't really appreciate his chosen playstyle for the game, but his analyses look pretty clean to me, and although he isn't voting, he is making who he wants executed fairly clear. Not many things I can find which I find which strike me as

scummy

. I will have to read the cases against him to see if there is something I have missed, but I'm thinking he is more likely to be town than scum at this point.

[petroleumjelly]

2.) VitaminR

, [rep. DragonsofSummer (rep. Phoebus)]

Okay, starting from the beginning, going with Phoebus.

Really

not much to comment on here. Pretty much all of his votes are based completely on "gut" with minimal explanation, and this makes it very difficult to tell what he was actually thinking at the time he made his votes. I am still noting that most (if not all) of his "gut" votes have directly correlated to whoever was the soup du jour in terms of voting – he is joining all the bandwagons.

He then falls into "kill anybody" mode, which I am having a difficult time deciding if it is scummy or not. I have actually come to that very same conclusion a few times in this game (mostly on D3 – the Neverending Day), but it is clear Phoebus took this stance on D2, which seems rather premature to me. Of course, he was replaced immediately afterwards.

I still get a scummy feel from Phoebus. I don't like the timing or explanations for his votes, and I don't like how quickly he reverted to the 'kill anybody' attitude, which I can sympathize with,

but

I think his timing of that was also too premature. He also said he would be more willing to participate on D3 when there were "more results", but this doesn't seem to have ever happened.

In comes DragonofSummer...

MoS- I can't figure out how someone who doesn't care whether they live or die and as such don't really care about the game will help the town at all, and Glork raised a few good points about him a few pages back.

Noting this just because I find this especially humorous, seeing as he replaced Phoebus, who seemed to care about the game

must

less than MoS ever did. Not very impressed with his post here, actually – I'll have to check to see if CTD, MoS, and LL were the top vote-getters at the time, and if that is the case, I will be

especially

unhappy that two people in a row occupying this role are simply voting for the largest bandwagons.

[Self: Check on possible bandwagons for DoS near Jan. 31]

And then he gets replaced after promising multiple times to read the game and come up with new thoughts. Bah. This really did nothing to change my opinion on Phoebus so far, so I still say this role is scummy.

And now for VitaminR.

Can't tell where he's getting most of his opinions for his first few posts... hmm, I'm especially interested in this:

As for the current execution list, I have a slight scum vibe off Dead Rikimaru listed (he was trying to make too much out of pablito and Glork's jokey actions around page 2, I thought), but I haven't got anywhere near far enough into the thread to comment.

Followed by this:

On the List of Execution:
MoS: Nope. Town.
VitaminR: Nope. I think he may be town too.
SV: Yes.
Smashy: Leaning towards no.

Is there a reason Dead Rikimaru (now Smashy, now Battle Mage) changes here?

To be honest, this strikes me as being

very

similar to VitaminR's entrance into Space Monkeys, where he

begins

upon first entering the game by saying (very watered down) "I think Glork is scummy", and later changes fairly quickly "I think Glork is town" when he decides he 'no longer likes the case against Glork', or some such thing. Note that both Glork and VitaminR were the final scum in that game. I would like to see an explanation for this one.

Hunh, VitR is taking the same stance on Phoebus as MoS did. And I was –just– about to say that maybe I should be willing to reread Phoebus after this until I remembered that VitaminR is

replacing

Phoebus, so I would expect him to say something self-serving like that regardless.

I

do

, however, agree with his attacks on SV – but this in itself does not exactly do anything to redeem VitR in my eyes. I at first did not really pay much attention to SV at the start of the game, so I agree that it's the "lots of little things" which have added up which have led me to believe that SV is scum – though I admittedly still need to reread her posts and see if I still think this is the case.

Altogether, I still think VitR is a decent execution – there is nothing from any of Phoebus', DoS', or VitR's posts which strike me as particularly 'town', and there are few things which have struck me as scummish (for what little there is to read between these three players). There are probably better executions I would rather see go through at this point, but I would not be opposed to his execution today.

[petroleumjelly]

Whoop, meant to look to see if DoS was bandwagoning.

The last vote count before DoS replaced in and made his votes on {LL, MoS, and CTD} was found in Post 1358. The largest wagons were:

4 votes:

LL

and SV
3 votes:

MoS

, Phoebus [himself], Nightson
2 votes:

CTD

, Der Hammer, Pablito, Yos2

I suppose DoS wasn't strictly going off the largest bandwagons for his votes, so go ahead and scratch that possibilty from my analysis. However, I am interested in how he failed to comment on SV, despite the fact that she was a leading vote-getter at the time (though I do realize that he pretty much failed to comment on about everybody except for who he voted). There could be some selective voting going on here... if VitR turns up scum, I will definitely want to look at SV, and possibly Nightson (who has been replaced by TS).

[petroleumjelly]

What did you think of Dead Rikimaru's reign as king on D3? This is mostly what I was angling at.

To answer to you, however:

1.) I agree: p2 means nothing in such a large thread. I was more interested in exactly what

in

the rest of the thread makes you lean away from a Smashy execution.
2/3/4.) Yes, Space Monkeys

was

endgame. Endgames call for more wishy-washiness upon replacing, but with so many players alive here, I would expect you to take solid stance on at least a few players, lest you draw undue attention to yourself. I am interested in

what

changed your mind.

PJ, your post is long and you seem fairly definitive,

but this was the only thing in there that touches on my behaviour

and it seems fairly trivial...

Firstly, you don't have much behavior on which to touch on, so this wording strikes me as overly dismissive. Secondly, as you remember, I

do

consider behavior from the past players relevant: so everything I found scummy about Phoebus and DoS still applies to you. And seeing as we're on the subject of Space Monkeys, explain to me if you narrowing down my post on you to solely yourself is any different than you trying to downplay Nightson's posts in Space Monkeys. Is this something your normally do when replacing?

[petroleumjelly]

Again, I will point out:

...you don't have much behavior on which to touch on, so this wording strikes me as overly dismissive.

Here are the posts where you talk about other players:

1.) Post 1829, you mention Dead Rikimaru off-hand as an early-game suspicion.
2.) Post 1830, you mention a few people you think are town/scum, but with absolutely no reasoning (read: nothing

I

can comment on).
3.) Post 1831, you are calling people who found Pooky suspicious on D2 suspicious.
4.) Post 1832, you further this line of thought. You again call somebody pro-town with no reasoning whatsoever.

Note

: I also find it silly how anybody who started poking at Pooky on D2 suspicious. I'm not sure what you expect - what would you have thought if

nobody

picked up on the Pooky suspicion? Though I cannot speak for others, I didn't poke at Pooky until D2 because I didn't find him overly

suspicious

until D2.
5.) Post 1837, again a post with very little reasoning, even though it is accompanied with three votes.

Really, the only post where you go into detail on

anything

is your Post 1865, followed by a few other interactive posts with SV.

And since I am

also

suspicious of SV, I wasn't going to start poking you about that. Given what little you have actually talked about

besides that

in the game, I'm afraid I don't understand how else I'm supposed to do anything but "pick out a rather small part of my posts so far to consider". Fact is, there isn't much to consider in your posts as they are currently, so I figured I'd start by asking about your change in opinion on DR/Smashy. It will be possible for me to have more pointed questions once you start giving explanations.

[petroleumjelly]

PJ, it was meant to be an early-game determinant, since there really wasn't enough material to work with to make me think that anyone without any votes was there because they truly looked protown.

Noted something which I may point out later after MoS answers questions in this post.

For those interested, this is consistent with MoS's answer in his 60th post (when you look at his posts in isolation), which was what I noted here, but I figured I would ask him the question to see if MoS stuck to his guns. I'll just find it and quote it real quick:

I thought I already explained the voting tell. Out of context (using just the vote count), someone who has placed a lot of votes without receiving many themselves seems to be flying under the radar or not really garnering much attention, in part because they have spread their suspicions around so much that they aren't really committing to making concerted attacks on any particular people.

I figured that early game, that was as good a tell as I was going to get.

Emphasis mine. Still leaning against a MoS execution.

[petroleumjelly]

well a quick reread (as requested) of Smashy doesnt reveal alot. It doesnt look like he was particularly active, nor did he fully explain his reasons behind the execution. I disagree with many of his player analyses but to be honest i dont think he looks scummy. I just think he looks like someone who didnt really care about playing the game after he had enjoyed his moment of glory.
Still, I am not Smashy, and i will continue rereading to try and find out who is scum.
BM

Um... I have to ask: How well have you read the game so far?

If your answer is in any way synonymous to "not very well", please explain to me how you can possibly "disagree with many of his player analyses"?

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, on to the next two players in my list, which are spectrumvoid and Battle Mage (rep. Smashy [rep. Dead Rikimaru]).

3.) spectrumvoid

Okay, starting off.

Playing on emotion is a scum-tell. Claiming when not under pressure is a scum-tell. Giving up is a scum-tell.

^ Quoting to check for consistently as I continue reading.

Right away, I get the fawning vibe from SV in her posts.

I believe PJ is protown. His frustration sounds genuine. One question though: did you know this was mountainous when you signed up? (I sympathise with you over points 3-4. *pats*)

Wow. I really should start learning from PJ. In most games, after page 10 or so I usually make some big mistake. I finally went to read Kingmaker I, and I admire his analysis.

^ These comments will probably be continued as I read, but there are things to comment on besides this.

SV was one of the people who pushed for a fairly early LoE, something I don't particularly care for. This could just be a pet peeve talking, but it certainly doesn't make me think anybody is more likely to be town. Town should be able to glance at last posts, whereas I would argue scum are more likely to try to base their play off whatever the latest posts are, and less likely to actually read back in the game (since they aren't the ones who are actually having to search for scum).

I asked for a LOE because I wanted to know who you thought were scummy. And also because I thought we might end up being deadlined like what Twomz said.

But then again, I've changed my mind because of what PJ said, that people who weren't on it evade suspicion. Also because I realised that I tend to overly focus on just a few people each game, which has led to horrible consequences in my other games, so I'm trying to change that.

^ Changing mind entirely because

I

didn't want a LoE. Sheesh.

A couple times SV uses my analysis as reasoning to keep her vote on Phoebus.

Note:

Actually (I might have mentioned this earlier), I just realized what SV's play reminds me of. If anybody has read Most Mountainousest Mafia (Mini Regular #319), her play reminds me an awful lot of Stikey-scum. She is continually defending me and/or using my reasoning, which has a tendency to make me think somebody is pro-town (though I have been actively trying to shuffle this weakness off) – something Stikey successfully did with me. She also constantly talks about how she will do rereads, but I see very little evidence of this actually occurring (much like Stikey – scum like to

say

they will reread soon so that they look like they have an excuse to not talk for a while, and then they start commenting on the latest posts without mentioning anything from early on).

And eh, Post 45 technically looks like she's done some rereading, so perhaps she's not as bad as Stikey when it comes to saying "I'll reread soon!" and then offering nothing concerning a reread. And this actually tells me I should check which

other

players have been doing this – this type of play usually slides right under my nose unless I make a note to myself to look for it. But I digress (goes back to reading...)

In her Post 45, I see:

1.) Subscription to the "Bird1111 was nutkicked" theory (which I myself agreed with)
2.) She compares the interactions between "Glork v Pooky" and "Glork v MBL". Of the two, she decides MBL comes off looking scummy, but that Glork pushed Pooky too much. Definitely note-worthy. And as I continue reading, I can't really tell SV's position on Pooky. Example:

... I think Pooky was trying to deflect PJ's accusations and not responding to them properly. The shaming response is wrong because he was obviously attacking Twomz, his consistency response doesn't make sense because only he knows whether he's town or not, and it's true he was defeatist, bringing up 1 post does not show his overall attitude and tone. Pooky also did not adequetely respond to Glork (It's true he criticised PJ).

Noting this:

Summary as of page 25 (+ my HW assignment):
I think mbl, pablito, bird, phoebus, pooky, glork is scummy (in no particular order). They are currently scummy individuals, I haven't picked out pairs yet.
I think Twomz is slightly scummy for disappearing once the spotlight is off him + the wagon issue.
I think Yos isn't scummy, based on the reasons people have brought up against him.
I have no clear read on PJ other than the RC issue, no read on Mert, CTD, SC and whoever else is lurking.

^ Not sure I particularly believe the "I have no clear read on PJ". Up until this point, she certainly makes it sound like she thinks I am town. Also, I guess she decides to lump Pooky in the 'scummy' category in the end.

Some more talk in Post 55, after talking about how she doesn't like metagaming. Only thing that hit me here was:

I don't want either Yos or Pooky to get executed, but I don't have a better candidate to recommend.

Noted weak Pooky/Yos defense. Also, this next post strikes an inconsistent chord:

As I promised, here are my reasons for voting Glork.

- already 'deciding' who he was going to lynch.
- choosing Yos without a reason. (Glork chose pooky with a reason.) I elaborated about this in post 1030. But as of post 1037, he still didn't provide a reason.

Earlier, I'm pretty sure SV said she had "lots of reasons" to vote for Glork. Neither of these even seem particularly strong.

I must admit that Glork executing Pooky yesterday brings him a little lower down my LOS, but I still find his behaviour regarding Yos scummy.

Noting continual push on Glork. Self-note to look at Yos-SV connection later if one comes up scum.

Ooh, just found a good nugget, but they're a bit large to quote. I suggest isolating SV's posts and looking at her Posts {61, 62, 63, and 65}. After not having talked about either LL or MoS very much in the game (in fact, she has been vaguely defending each of them up until this point), she quickly comes to a "possible scum-pairing: LL + MoS" [65]. In conjunction with her [62], if SV comes up scum, I will want to a good look at the following (in addition to Yos, aforementioned): {CTD, DR, and Lowell}, for being in the same groupings as MoS/LL, but not being mentioned as possible scum.

MoS: Doesn't giving up = scum tell? I don't like this defeatist attitude.

Noting for consistency with early quoted post. This is followed by some direct responses to a few questions/accusations, and then lots of 1-liners, followed by more direct responses (basically rehashing things SV has already said, so I don't need to double-comment on those). Lots of these posts were made during the "Waiting for

Godot

Dead Rikimaru" Era, so not sure how much to read into them – I'm positive most players were bored out of their minds by that point in the game.

Noting her Post 130 about VitR for later, but nothing much to read into at the moment – I disagree with most of her assessment regardless, though this should already be clear from my posting.

Overall, I still think SV is scummy. She began the game way too subserviently towards the King (me), such that I didn't really notice this trend until the end of Day 1 when I decided to isolate everybody's posts. Also (though I haven't read her posts in context to check for this), it seems to be the case that SV only started thinking Glork was scummy

after

he started pushing on Pooky/Yos, though she started off with the same attitude towards Glork. Her suspicions seem fairly selective (see: MoS + LL pairing in the 60's posting as well as Pooky/Yos/Glork/MBL interactions section). In general, I just don't get a very good feeling from her posts, though there is little wrong with her posts when taken one at a time – the overall picture is what I'm looking at.

I would still like a spectrumvoid execution.

[petroleumjelly]

Have you read RafK's posts against SV, Yos? I remembered agreeing with them quite a bit when I read them way back when.

[petroleumjelly]

Fleh, I'm here. I'll point out right now that I'm not

completely

sure how soon I can finish my analyses, seeing as I have a number of important essays to write over the weekend, finals coming up, etc and so forth. I will try to set aside time for this game specifically, however, since I have recently died in another large game where I had previously been trying to focus my spare time.

[petroleumjelly]

I have an hour or so (which I should probably be using to do something else), so I'll see what I think of Battle Mage.

4.) Battle Mage

[rep. Smashy (rep. Dead Rikimaru)]

Okey doke. DR starts off the game very slowly, but by trying to draw a connection between Glork and Pablito. I remember a few people saying this made him look 'town', but I never really understood those sentiments – drawing connections is easy to do, and the fact that he labels the distancing technique as 'extreme' seems to indicate he knows it will be seen as unlikely, but thought he would throw it out there anyways. Slightly scummier than townie, so far as I'm concerned, but not a big indicator either way.

Guess he kinds of explains it here:

I don't think I promoted a pablito/Glork pairing. I think pablito tryed hard to be paired with him.

Which I suppose is more fair, but I don't consider that so much of a "distancing technique" as it is a "connection" technique. He then goes on to vote Pablito (from what I assume is this reasoning).

DR constantly talks about how little time he has, and does things like *fainting* at 39 pages without offering commentary. Lazy/preoccupied at best, scummy at worst.

Eh, I'll give him

minimal

town points for his Post 8, where he contrasts and compares Yos2 and Pooky, and leans towards the Pooky execution – explaining why he thought Yos2 was likely to be town (based on past games, though the actual explanation for why seems thin) and how he can't read Pooky.

And then (I believe) he is made King – where he begins by stating he 'has a strategy', and saying the town should discuss while he's away. At this point, I can't tell if DR was just

really

busy, or if he was thinking "Oh jeez, I better make it sound like what I'm doing – I'll just post as little as often until I can think of something to do". I actually don't think his "everybody list their top 3 scum suspects" was all

too

bad of an idea, though he clearly should have been more attentive to the game to make sure this was actually going to happen.

Neutral points for his resistance to lynching lurkers – I was originally going to give him slight pro-town points for this, but on reflection, it could be just as easy for this to have been a way to subtly push forcing his execution onto a scum-buddy. If this role dies, I will want to take a more critical look at the following players, since these were the lurkers in question:

{RafK [Mert], Cogito Ergo Sum [Samus/Twomz], Mnowax [CrashTextDummie], Der Hammer [Vaughn], Shanba [Nightfall/Ubertimmy], VitaminR [DragonsofSummer/Phoebus]}

DR asks a few direct questions in very short posts for a while, which I suppose shows he was paying some attention, but on the other hand, it makes me wonder why he didn't really bother to comment on much himself. His 'strategy' seems very self-serving. He does go out of his way a couple times to explain why he doesn't want people saying who they think are 'town', which is a gameplay stance I partially agree with, although I often find myself doing analyses on multiple players and calling others' town regardless.

When he lists the "top 3" for all the players who participated, he doesn't really go into asking questions (which is something he seemed to infer he would be doing for much of the day).

Heehee, I still agree with this comment I made:

His posts almost seem to give off the impression that he is trying to make us wait in suspense for something magical. I haven't even decided if I think that is actually scummy or just unusual.

... and DR keeps talking about how he doesn't have time, coworkers fired, he has a plan, etc etc. He makes a "map" in his Post 32. Impressive compilation, but I honestly don't care for it if he's not going to make

comments

on it. Anybody could summarize a game – what I would rather have seen were some actual opinions. The feeling I'm getting is that he kept asking others' for their opinions without actually giving any of his own, which strikes me as entirely hypocritical and a good way to stay in the shadows while technically being in the "spotlight". And then he is replaced.

So, onto Smashy. His Post 3 includes opinions. His thoughts on LuckayLuck look fairly legit. His thoughts on MoS seem to be walking-the-line, but for somebody just replacing into the game and seeing MoS's strategy of not voting, I can also see where he got that impression and decided not to put him on the LoE.

Very short comments on everybody else, so those are difficult to analyze for the moment without looking at context. He makes his list between LL and SV; which I find a little odd, given that his comment on SV was:

spectrumvoid: I don't find SV's lack of voting Pooky that scummy given her explaination, except that Glork did give reasons, so out that point goes. There's also been a couple of slips.

Very vague, no explanation of 'slips', no big reason for why she was on the LoE at all. Granted, I still would have liked for her to be executed, but his explanations leave something to be desired. I (obviously) did not agree with the LL execution.

And then we get another replacement... Battle Mage.

Question: BM, why did you specifically FoS: Post 371, by Pablito? Of all the posts in the game up until that point, I'm surprised

that's

the one you comment on, especially since I am not seeing anything wrong with it.

I see I already asked about how BM could possibly have "disagreed with Smashy's analysis" when BM was not even done reading the game. And I'm not fully satisfied with his response to that, so negative points there – looks to me like he was trying to say something that made it sound like he was putting in thought without having to do so. "I disagree" tells me nothing if you aren't going to point out why or about what.

Not really understanding his positions on SV or VitR, or why he is "against" a Mnowax execution (though I still need to read up on him), and then he suddenly says he prefers a MoS execution over a Mnowax execution. Not much reasoning.

BM, have you finished reading the game? Could you go into more detail?

So, overall. Dead Rikimaru's constant lurking (to the point where his posts weren't even about what he was thinking, but instead explaining why he wasn't posting) is more scummy than townish. His 'strategy' which allowed him to not need to take stances while having everybody else commit to thinks was more scummy than townie, and I'm not overly impressed with his Carnie act. Smashy just looks like he was thrown to the lions – it's difficult to really analyze his posts since he was only in the game for a short while, while in the position of having to make an execution. I would have liked more comments from him. BM has very little I can relate with, since he mostly seems to be taking positions as he deems necessary without really explaining how he came to those positions.

I can easily see him as scum – I wouldn't mind seeing him executed whatsoever.

[petroleumjelly]

T_T

Well, I have a criminology essay due tomorrow

and

a debate I need to be prepared for by tomorrow, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to stuff a CTD/Mnowax analysis in before your deadline. I remember trying to get something done on CTD a day or two ago, but isolating his posts (in particular) doesn't seem to be particularly helpful, because I am getting the impression many of his posts are responses to other people. Also, considering the whole Fritzler-CTD interaction that has been mentioned, I feel like in order to do a fair analysis on him, I would have to read his posts

in context

instead of simply isolation, which would (in effect) require rereading much of the game, which I simply do not have time for.

I'll see what I can do, however, but I can't promise I'll be able to have something done by tomorrow.

[petroleumjelly]

All right, starting analysis on CTD/Mnowax, however much I would rather be going out with a few friends right now... this will probably take 1-2 hours, since I think I will need to reread about the first 25 pages of the game (and by reread I mean quickly skim focusing on CTD), and then I'll isolate CTD's posts, then I'll isolate Mnowax's posts, and I'll come to a decision on whether I think he's a good execution today.

[petroleumjelly]

5.) Mnowax

(rep. CrashTextDummie)

Good god, that's a lot of reading. This post will probably be a bit rushed as I'm writing it, since I don't exactly know when Yos2 will be dropping the hammer.

5.) Mnowax

(replacing CrashTextDummie)

Okay, some random votes, voting people for associating with Glork. [Note: This might actually take longer than I expected; I am finding that I tend to stop and read my posts even though I'm looking for CTD's in particular.]

Okay, small bandwagon starting on CTD, from Glork + Fritz + Twomz. And CTD isn't around to react to it, it looks like. Feh. Fritz makes another post asking me to kill CTD.

Post 256 (where he returns after a few pages of being gone) gives no mention to those votes, but his suspicions also seem to be following mine. I was also thinking (and still think as I'm reading) that cb0x was townish, and that Pablito was just plain odd. Returns again in Post 372 after I make my initial LoE, makes no comments on game. And Fritz asks to kill CTD again.

Upon returning again [441], suggests an ultimatum for Bird1111, unvotes Pablito, and votes Ubertimmy for lack of posting (which I find slightly ironic), and once again makes no comments about Fritzler. I'm actually starting to agree that I find it strange he never once asks anything along the lines "so

why

do you want me dead?" by this point. Perhaps he was thinking by ignoring it, it would go away (ala Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal). This particular post looks somewhat lazy. Think I'll give it a slight negative point, but there's nothing outright scummy about it. He also says he will make a more substantive post come deadline.

Oh, man, I'm so brilliant sometimes. *slaps forehead*

CrashTextDummie:

Hunh, I never really realized how few posts CTD has this game. I am actually more used to having CTD present cases against people in particular, and he doesn’t seem to have done that this game. I haven’t caught anything from him that strikes me as scummy, but he also does not strike me as town as he usually does. I will slide him into the neutral category, with a note to myself to poke at him later.

This is actually completely true. I

am

very used to seeing CTD present cases against people, and he oftentimes goes out of his way to attack people who aren't currently under scrutiny. Definitely a discrepancy from his normal playstyle here. However, I think "neutral" would have to be changed to "slightly scummy" at this point, since at that time I had not really considered the Fritzler-CTD in the terms of him purposely ignoring Fritz.

And CTD never did get in that substantive post before deadline. =/ That seems to have been the case with many people, however, so I'll just keep that as neutral – he may have been having a busy week, or something.

Day Two starts off with a Glork/Fritz brining CTD out again. Posts in [557]. Hrm, it's hard to judge these votes in particular – two of them were based off things apparently lost in the crash, the third was on me, and the fourth was on Ubertimmy for lurking. And actually, while reading his response to Pablito, I'm finding him being slightly hypocritical; talking about how I should have been reserving more time for the game than I already was, when CTD himself was hardly ever posting, much less commenting. I agree that I'm too pleased with D1 as a whole, but the fact that he isn't considering the circumstances irks me. [Note: Pablito also freaks me out. Reading his posts makes me feel like a kid who accidentally broke something in a china shop and having my parents explain to the storekeeper that I was trying to be careful. Anyhow...]

Next post appears to be [671], where he only answers a question directed at him from Glork and does not comment on anything else that has happened. And even though he is willing to answer questions put to him, he still doesn't acknowledge Fritz. =/

[726], CTD is again

only

directed at Glork. He seems to be developing a pattern of only actually holding a conversation with Glork, who was the King. Fritz immediately pops in and demands CTD be killed.

[821] just explains all of his votes from [557] again after being poked at by MBL. His comments on other players pretty much look focused on LuckayLuck, who he says he is "not impressed with" (which I find somewhat surprising, since I was

very

impressed with LL's entrance into the game).

I asked him [Twomz] if he had any real reason to vote me other than to satisfy Fritz, to which he responded by asking me if I had given him any reason NOT to vote me. Burden of Proof.

Now this

is

strange. I do now recall him asking that to Twomz – and this is about the most roundabout way you can ignore somebody who is calling for you to die. It appears CTD indeed acknowledges that Fritz wants him dead, but still does not respond to it.

[846] includes a "what do you expect me to do?", which I am seriously considering adding to my list of scum-tells by now. Granted, I can recall plenty of games where townspeople have asked that exact question, but it's usually out of great frustration or to really hit home a point. I'll leave this as neutral, however, though I might have to conduct studies one day on these types of statements. This post is pretty much rehashing why he was voting me at the time.

Okay, I'm at page 35, so I'm just going to isolate posts now – think I've been doing this for an hour and a half. Another post about voting me... when commenting on Mert, he decides he is "reasonably scummy", and he actually provides some sufficient reasoning (although once again, what I may have considered most compelling seems to have been lost in the crash, so I can't judge it's accuracy). Note: attacks Mert, defends SV. Then says neither Pooks nor Yos2 should be executed. Last post of the game makes a comment towards MoS/Olio, which I might have to look at later. I'll have to give this section neutral points overall, but I'm not impressed how he managed to stay out of current discussions, while instead always managing to bring it back to the same topics whenever he posted (while also not responding to Fritz).

Now onto Mnowax.

Votes Smashy [DR], MoS, and Pablito (which looks like a joke suspicion? – can't tell). Nothing too original here, though I find it ironic that he calls MoS 'wagoning' when MoS has not voted the entire game.

Says DoS is scummiest on the list. *Goes to look at list* List was apparently [LL, SV, DoS, CES]. Wish he had provided some reasoning, there's nothing much to comment on here.

Day 4 starts out with voting Smashy again, MoS again, and Toaster Strudel (looks like another joke suspicion, but who knows). Decides to focus on MoS in particular, promising a post to 'prove' it. O.O Oh, and he actually makes a post about MoS (I'll admit I was just figuring it would never happen). Starts off by hitting on the 'not voting' (what I consider a null tell), then the Phoebus defense (I actually agree with him here), quotes a post from Yos2 about MoS saying people are town/scum without backing it up, and seems to see MoS's thinking Yos2 is scummy as OMGUSy. I'm actually going to give this post pro-town points. Although I do not think MoS is scum, Mnowax actually presents a few clear reasons for why he would be suspicious of MoS.

Bah, then he goes into Martyr-mode. I hate it when people do this. Somewhat hypocritical that he calls MoS out for not explaining why he thinks people are town, and yet Mnowax does the same thing when saying VitR and SV "look town", with no substance.

there is nothing that i can say that would change your mind one way or another

. I am Town. That is the only defense that I need.

>< Defeatist attitudes are, so far as I'm concerned, more likely to come from scum. On the other hand, I am modding a number of other games, and I keep seeing things contrary to this. There are probably other factors on whether this is a scumtell, I suppose – like urgency, if they are complaining about other things, etc, but I don't want to sit and think about it right now. I'll call this neutral-slightly-slightly.

There is no case against me. People have pointed out that i have not given out many reasons of why i vote. I really don't have much on anyone, other than MoS. I have already given my reasons on that. I am not speaking much because i am having such a hard time getting a read on anyone.

Is there any thing else you would like to know?

And slowly getting worse. "There is no case against me" is clearly silly, and overly dismissive. "I really don't have much on anyone" (for somebody who has been here for about 4 months) is either incredibly lazy, scummy, or both. This is

almost

to the point of saying "I don't find anybody scummy", but that tell doesn't exactly apply here because he

is

at the very least taking a stance on MoS. Continues to talk about the fact that he has 'nothing to say', and that he is beating a dead horse.

Okay, thought-collecting time.

Mnowax is striking me as somewhat scummy – I don't particularly like his level of participation, nor do I like his defeatist attitude and lack of substantive comments. His claimed suspicion on MoS seems a bit convenient in the sense that MoS is attacking him, and his first response seems to be reciprocation. His post explaining his vote on MoS, however, strikes me as legit. I'm actually fairly conflicted so far as his posts go.

CTD's posts are in fact not really in accordance with what I would normally expect from him. I do know that in other games he was not posting as much as usual either, but in those games I am still fairly confident when he did post it was more substance than what he offered for much of this game. I don't feel like I can accurately comment on a number of his votes, because many of them were based on things lost in the crash, which I have forgotten much of by this point. I agree with others that his worst feature by far is his strange constant dismissal of Fritz, which I am going to have to label as slightly scummy to just plain scummy considering this was going on for well over 30 pages.

Overall, I don't think he would be a bad execution.

*drops dead from exhaustion*

[petroleumjelly]

Now that school is officially over, I will probably have more time to devote to this game, so I can finish what I couldn't get done yesterday at the very least. I remember in particular I wanted to do a Zindaras analysis, so I'll set a self-deadline to work on that within the next week or so. I don't recall him posting as much in this game as other players, but him being King should give us plenty to analyze. Given that, I think this would optimally be a 2-part analysis... one at the start of day, and one near the end of day (after we've seen him sit on the throne, but before night hits).

However (hopefully I'm remembering correctly), I decided yesterday there were a few people I would not mind seeing executed. In alphabetical order:

Vote: mnowax, spectrumvoid, VitaminR

. Of the three, I'm

still

the most keen on a SV execution. I would have to do some extra research to decide who gets second place between VitaminR and mnowax at this point.

[petroleumjelly]

Hmm. "Thok" should be "Thesp", MoS - and I agree that I would like to see exactly where all those X's came from. If he has notes (inferred, but not definitely so), he shouldn't have much trouble relocating what he found scummy.

However, this:

As you can see, I've been attacked many times in the past, and to date, I've responded adequately to every reason brought against me.

Had I not, I would not be living right now

, so if there's anything you don't think has been covered yet, feel free to bring it up.

Doesn't follow. All it means is that none of the Kings we've had so far has executed you. Otherwise everybody could claim "I must have responded adequately to everything brought against me, because I haven't been executed".

[petroleumjelly]

I've read the Yos2/RafK/Lowell/MoS/CES thing about five times now. My thoughts after mulling it over:

I probably would have done much the same thing in Yos's position - I would have been more concerned with Lowell's agreement over ThAdmiral's, and asked for clarification on that particular sentiment over ThAdmiral's. But I

don't

agree when he said his action was not OMGUS - because deep down, I think it pretty much is. You find somebody suspicious for hopping on

yourself

without comment but not when somebody does it to

others

. I tend to do it as well - and although I agree it has some basis in that you can argue you "know I'm innocent, whereas I don't know if X is innocent" - it certainly can't be used to persuade anybody else.

In other words, I don't think Yos2 was particularly scummy for his action, and the only thing that slightly concerned me was his denial of it being OMGUS - but that's not enough for the present to dissuade me in the least from my current votes, or to make me think he is scum. I also think both RafK and CES were fairly justified in pointing out that Yos2 was not also applying his logic to ThAdmiral.

I will have to reread MoS given Thesp's appraisal, but I think I would like to have Thesp comment on

my

analysis of MoS I posted the other day before I get to that (though I believe my feeling on MoS has been based more on gut than any solid indicators).

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, what number am I on? Looks like I'm on six.

6.) Zindaras

, (rep. Pariah [rep. Machiavellian-Mafia])

M-M does very little – a couple jabs at MoS, and then a promise to post more, followed by replacement. No read on these.

Pariah then replaces. And has one post. Then he gets replaced. This is exciting so far.

Then we get to Zindie, which must have been on Day Two since he addresses Glork as King in his first posts. During his reread, he says he has a total of 9 pages on word (mostly quotes from the game). He quotes 7 of them – which 'jumped out the most' – in his tenth game post. A couple comments here directed towards MBL, one on CTD, two on SV, and town vibe on LL. The most interesting thing about this is actually that when he had read 19 pages of the game, he says that Yos2 and Vaughn [Der Hammer] were most suspicious, but none of those 7 quotes were on either of those players. Of course, this may simply be because neither of those players had a specific post which jumped out, but I wouldn't mind this being explained.

Opinions in his 13th post. For a post with opinions on everybody, it's pretty detailed with post numbers included in most of the analysis. I obviously don't agree with all of it, but then, this is also much later in the game and I don't quite remember what I was thinking that early in the game any longer. Looks fairly substantiated, and Zindie actually does a better job explaining his Yos2 suspicions in this post. He ends with a list {Yos2, MBL, Mert, SV, CTD}, for reference. It doesn't strike me as fabricated after a second read-through, so townie points here.

Eh, slight negative vibes for the "Oh, by the way, pablito, aren't you in any way disliking how MBL's linking you to Glork and PJ?" (his 16th post) – it's too suggestive for my taste. I think Zindie could have achieved the same goal here by saying "What do you think of MBL connecting you to Glork and PJ?", instead of the 'idea-implantation' vibe I am seeing here.

Has a good number of posts with back-and-forth with Pablito and Yos2. I think he holds his own, and by looking at the time-posts of the stamps, it looks like he must have had a good running knowledge of the game at the time he was making these posts, instead of simply relying on the latest posts to come to opinions (which I think scum are more likely to do). Small town vibes for these exchanges, though I fully recognize scum who keep up with the game could have done the same.

Has a very long posting exchange with MBL. I need to read that one again, actually. Okay, looks a little overly hostile towards MBL on the whole, but for a player who I am assuming is not used to playing with MBL (at least at the time of that particular post), I doubt Zindie knew that he is often purposely annoying and antagonistic. I'll label this post neutral overall, I could see it coming from either alignment.

Keeps different responses to different people... I'm fine with his response to CTD, and actually his 27th post gets straight town vibe for two reasons: all of his responses here a short and effective, and although I don't think that is townish in

itself

, when it is joined with his response to the comment of us 'getting no real information from Day One', Zindie immediately lists quite a few people who had taken stances on Rosso and vice versa – a very detailed response when he

needed

to be detailed – it just shows how on top of the game Zindie was at the time as well as the fact that he was using the information we had and was keeping it in mind.

Eh, reading that last paragraph over, it comes across as rather confusing, but meh.

Note: His responses to MBL, CTD, and myself in the next few posts remind me of another game. But I can't go into detail here. ><

After that, Zindie's posting appears to drop off in length in general (though there are still some scattered quote-response-quote-response posts during this time).

I've actually noticed that Zindie says he finds Mert scummy a number of times in-thread, but doesn't have many posts about that (as opposed to having many posts concerning Yos2, MBL, CTD, and such – though this is probably because Mert wasn't posting very often if I remember correctly, so there was nothing for Zindie to respond to). I would like to know what Zindie currently thinks of Mert, and why.

Ah, votes Yos2 over Pooky and would be 'disappointed' with Pooky execution, though I do remember Zindie saying that he simply hadn't played very much with Pooky at the time and hence thought Pooky's analysis on players made him more likely to be town.

Posts drop off quite a by Day Three after the Pooky execution. Could be related, but I know Zindie has been having problems with participation for quite some time, and I also am willing to wager posting dropped for most people during Dead Rikimaru's reign anyways. Exceptionally small amount of posting from December up to now (early May).

Overall: no read on M-M and Pariah. Zindie early in the game struck me as very townish, in that he was clearly keeping up with the game, clearly involved in discussion, not afraid to stick his neck out with accusations, and quick with his responses a number of times according to time-stamps in such a way that it is clear he wasn't simply reading the latest posts and going with the flow. Interested in how a few of his suspicions morphed over time – he seems to be consistent with Yos2 and SV – but interested in what has happened with Mert, Phoebus, early Der Hammer [Vaughn], MoS and how they got where they are. His latest posting has not been inspirational whatsoever, but there is nothing inherently

scummy

in those posts. I would like to see more participation from him (which should be happening since he has been Kinged regardless), but overall I'm thinking he is more likely than the average player to be town.

[petroleumjelly]

MoS...did I ever say I thought MoS was scum?

Answer:

As for who I'm looking at, I'm looking mostly at voidybuns (though I know she has problems now, which saddens me greatly), Yossy and Mossy.

[petroleumjelly]

Oh, actually, scratch that. I was taking "I'm looking at X" to mean "I think these people are most suspicious", but looking more in context, I think it just means you have been

looking

at them.

[petroleumjelly]

Jelly, I want you to scratch my ear in the absence of my ear-scratcher.

Hey, now

there's

something I can do.

*merrily scratches Zindie's ears*

[petroleumjelly]

The point is that although you looked back on Lowell to see if you would vote him (after you FoS'd him, mind you), you did not do the same for ThAdmiral who did the exact same thing the post before. That shows that your reaction changes when you are the person the comment is directed towards... hence why it

was

sparked by OMGUS.

[petroleumjelly]

I don't think either post was a scumtell, per se. They were both posts agreeing with other people - everybody has them. It may be scummier if taken in context of that players usual posting style or the posting they have displayed throughout the course of the game, but you did not (at the time) look over ThAdmiral's posts, but you did look at Lowell's posts. It appears (as is implied by your last post) that you have since looked at ThAdmiral's posts, but the thing people are pointing out is that at the time your first reaction was to only look at Lowell.

And I have

also

said I don't think that's a scumtell - I also tend to be warier of people who say they agree with a case on me or claim to find me scummy, and that is probably true of most players. But denying that OMGUS doesn't play a part in that does not strike me as truthful.

Yes, Lowell

could

have gone into more detail about where and why he agreed with RafK and did not agree with you: but ThAdmiral

also

could have explained where and why he did not agree with RafK, and why he agreed with you. However, you did not ask ThAdmiral these questions - as you did for Lowell.

[petroleumjelly]

Dead Rikimaru/Smashy/BM/mnowax: He still strikes me as town. As I've said, his helplessness as king seemed more sincere than scummy.

PJ: I don't trust PJ in this game. I disagree with his analysis.

In general, I think the people he's suspicious of are pro-town

* and his Day 1 foray into kingdom led to a bad execution. Also don't like his Pooky switch. As a matter of fact, Vote: petroleumjelly.

A.) *Bolded for emphasis

The people I am most suspicious of:

1.) spectrumvoid, who VitaminR is voting
2.) VitaminR (replacing DoS/Phoebus)
3.) mnowax (replacing Dead Rikimaru)

Clearly, VitaminR, you are not going to agree with my on my suspicions of you - which leaves two people for you to disagree with: spectrumvoid and mnowax. As is indicated by your vote, you agree with my suspicions on spectrumvoid. The only place you can disagree with here is mnowax.

And as far as your explanation, I don't find much 'sincere' in his Dead Rikimaru's posting whatsoever. He completely held back from giving opinions of his own while he was king - instead, he asked everybody to supply him with things, and then he made a giant list

without commenting on it

(something I have considered a scumtell for quite some time, and I still think it a very telling one).

There is nothing "helpless" about the situation - he had the time, he had the power, and he kept teasing us along with the "I have a plan, I have a plan, give me time, I know what I'm doing"-attitude. In the end he did nothing. The "inability" to analyze a game is

not

being helpless. He

had

the ability, and chose not to use it, so far as I'm concerned. He threw out excuse after excuse, and

when he had the chance

to make comments, he instead draw up a giant post detailing everything that happened in the game. He was basically just a secretary compiling things, and making as few personal comments as possible.

You also say you disagree with my analysis. Which one? I've posted several. In the past two days, I have posted

six

separate analyses on six separate players, and there are still analyses which predate those. I am quite interested to hear the specifics.

-----

I am also fine with Yos2's response, though I don't think it's an incredibly strong 'tell' either way - for example, I can more than easily see scum being in either position C or position D (or positions A/B, for that matter). Buddying up, lowering your guard, having something to point back to later ("hey look, I was right!"), etc. could all be motivations for position C. In addition, there are plenty of townspeople who are just going to pop in and say "I agree with so-and-so", regardless of whether or not this is a personal attack against somebody else, a defense, a theoretical points, etc.

Furthermore, I also have Lowell marked in light green in my notes from what appears to be very early on in the game - when cardb0ardb0x had his role and had the meltdown which ended with a townie claim. I have also had some past experience with Lowell (Wheel of Time Mafia and 2-Headed Mafia come immediately to mind), both games where he was town and both games his play did not impress me in the least. I am more willing to give him a wider scope than other players due to this personal background, as well as the game-related history of cb0x.

[petroleumjelly]

PJ, I discounted myself. That leaves mnowax, spectrumvoid and Battle Mage as the people you were suspicious of in your analysis. 2 out of 3 doesn't seem unfair.[/quite]

Battle Mage

is

mnowax.

If you're going to say "I think mnowax1 (from yesterday) is town and PJ's analysis is wrong", you're being rather unfair - he has already been executed and shown to be town. You're free to point to where you don't agree in my analysis (there is undoubtedly things which are clearly wrong, since he was town), but saying "you think mnowax1 is town" is not saying much of anything. Hence, you really

are

only saying "I think 1/2 of PJ's suspicions is wrong".

Just skimmed your posts, and the only mention you have of mnowax1:

I am here. Not particularly enthused by a mnowax lynch. He mostly seems incompetent, but not too scummy.

Which is nice, but doesn't take CTD's posts and reactions (or lack of them) into consideration at all.

On DR: It is exactly the fact that he had the time and the power, yet did absolutely nothing that makes him seem helpless. He had so many chances to comment, to do more than he did, that I think it was genuine.

I can't understand this at all. When people have the time and purposely don't do anything with it, that does not strike me as "helpless"

whatsoever

. That might just be me, but I don't think it is.

[petroleumjelly]

You certainly like to throw around the word "fallacy" a lot. A fallacy is drawing a conclusion which cannot be drawn from a set of premises. An informal fallacy often addresses something other than the actual argument being made (such as attacking the person [ad hominem], appealing to authority, etc).

Every scumtell is based purely on inductive reasoning. There is no sure-fire scumtell - but there are tells which make people more likely to be town, and more likely to be scum. People are also not going to agree that the same thing is a scumtell. What you are calling fallacies are not fallacies. I'll address each "fallacy" in turn.

1.) "Laziness = Scumminess fallacy". My post explicitly mentions how DR simply *faints* about there being 39 pages and leaving it at that. He makes one of his few appearances to the thread, and the best contribution he has is to faint. We call that active lurking. That is lazy

at best

or scummy

at worst

. It certainly doesn't

make

him scum, but it does increase the chances, so far as I'm concerned.

2.) "Inactivity = Scumminess fallacy". Here I don't even believe you are fairly addressing my post. My point was that

as King

, he continually talked about "having a plan" and yet did not act on it. This looks like a prime example of stalling to me. I can accept that people at times cannot post as much as they would like, but he has no excuse for only coming by to say "I have a plan" and saying nothing of his suspicions.

3.) If somebody is a scumKing and

resistant

to executing lurkers, chances are at least one scum is going to turn out to be a lurker. If you want to dispute this one, be my guest, but I don't agree with you and I doubt many others would either.

And I actually think that is a fairly

small

conclusion, not a "large" conclusion. Saying at least 1 of 6 people are probably scum isn't exactly drastic.

4.) "Self-serving = Scumminess fallacy". This actually needs VitR's quote.

Why could a pro-town player not want to stay in the shadows, for instance?

Yes, participating is the pro-town thing to do, but for the individual player selfishness can be a lot more effective.

No,

no,

no

. When you are King, and entrusted with a day's execution, I don't give a flying flip if you "want to stay in the shadows". There is

no excuse

for somebody to be King, and for people to not know what they think. Especially when

he

is claiming to get everybody

else

giving opinions, he cannot sit idly by without sharing his

own

.

5.) What I meant was that if you read Smashy's Post 3 into the game, his comments on other players are short - meaning it's difficult to tell where he would have gotten a basis for any of his positions. The point here was that he put SV on the list, but in his only paragraph in the game mentioning her, he lists two reasons. The first he throws out the window ("out that point goes" is what he says), and the second only says there were a "few slips", which is completely noncommittal and I have no clue what he is referring to in particular. This is something which could easily serve as a "fill-in-the-blank" reasoning, so that if he had executed SV, he could come up with his "justification" for it later. I do

not

like it when people are overly vague, and in my experience, being overly vague

is

a scumtell, and a very reliable one at that (although moreso reliable when it comes to vague role-claims).

6.) "One Big Poor Contribution = Scumminess fallacy". You are mischaracterizing my post. When people try to make it look as if they are making a big contribution, when in fact they are saying nothing - that's a scumtell. DR's post looked

very

contributive, and helpful. But there was not a scrap of personal opinion in it. Those types of posts

are

scumtells in my opinion, and when it is compounded by the fact that DR also had not given much personal opinion throughout the course of the

entire game

, I certainly don't see this as an isolated incident (as is suggested by your specifying "one" big poor contribution), it is all the worse.

[petroleumjelly]

Um. Who are you quoting in those quotes?

[petroleumjelly]

The day is drawing to a close (and I'll be asking for claims pretty soon), but that's about it.

Seriously? Could you at least tell me why I am on the LoE then?

Seriously? How is it you keep acting like you -

and

the people you replaced - are God's gift on Earth?

[petroleumjelly]

Try reading Space Monkeys before calling my reaction 'surprising'. I really don't much care for when VitaminR tries to imply there is "no case against him", which is the impression I got from his post. Considering he is in my top 3 and I have explained

why

he is in my top 3, I don't find it surprising that he is on the LoE whatsoever, and yet he acts insulted that he is on it in the first place.

[petroleumjelly]

There's a large difference, Thesp. MoS has answered the complaints against him. I've read his answers, and although I agree he is in no position to be saying there's "nothing on him", I've read his responses and I still think he's town.

When

I

made my analysis on VitaminR (and the people he replaced),

his

response was this. He basically tries to trivialize the points against him as much as possible, and then says there are few comments about

him

in particular, to which I respond that that's because at that point in the game, VitaminR didn't have very many posts, so asking for a larger analysis on him in particular was rather undoable. He completely dismisses everything against Phoebus/DoS.

Coupled with his "disagreement" posts on DR - which he tries to overstate by using the word "fallacy" as many times as possible for things which are not fallacies - he has done nothing to make me want to keep him alive. He strikes me as a replacement for scum.

[petroleumjelly]

However, I reiterate that SV is my #1 choice from the LOE. SV can't be allowed to skate by another day.

My name is Jelly and I endorse this message.

My preferred order of operations is as follows:

1.) SV
2.) VitR
3.) mnowax2

I can't read Fritz for beans. If he

had

to put on the list, he would be on the bottom, simply because I would consider him an essentially "random" execution, whereas these three I think are significantly more likely than the average player to be scum.

[petroleumjelly]

Oh frabjous day. *deadpan*

Pleased that SV was executed yesterday, but not so pleased that I'm King again. I'll think for a day or two about what I want to do. Preliminary idea is to get the lurkers/noncontributors into contributing. I'll also very likely have to give the game - the

entire

game - a reread now that we have a second confirmed scum.

Also, YARR!

[petroleumjelly]

Did some light reading for the reactions after Zindie posted his LoE yesterday, which as Post 2211. The most noteworthy reactions I found were as follows:

1.) Post 2212 by Yosarian2, in which he goes after the two people on the list who are not SV – and it is especially noteworthy to me because it is one post directly after Zindaras made his LoE (such that it could have the effect of discrediting the SV execution). I haven't been very suspicious of Yos2 throughout the course of the game, so this is more of an indicator that I should definitely read his posts more carefully with the knowledge that SV is scum in my reread to come. Yossy, any explanations for this post would be appreciated.
2.) Post 2229 by spectrumvoid (followed by other posts) shows that SV favored killing Fritz over VitaminR. Noted.
3.) Post 2239 by mnowax2 is another person putting SV on the bottom. I want explanations. (Note: says he's "up for SV" in post 2233 with no explanation).
4.) Post 2241 by ThAdmiral and

another

person putting SV on the bottom. Explain.
5.) Post 2275 by Toaster Strudel is another of the "kill somebody" posts, which I am becoming quite tired of. TS has been blatantly grabbing at coattails all game, and I want to hear some of her own reasoning instead of snatching at others'.
6.) Post 2276 by K-Scope shows another person inexplicably preferring Fritzler over SV. Further noted in post [2294], when Fritzler was taken off the list, K-Scope switches to "hammer

someone

" without giving a preference. Explain.

---

As a complete side-note, I want to formally ask MoS to stop quoting gigantic blocs of text. Try

linking

to the posts you want to quote – I hate having to scroll through your posts simply because they tend to be quotes of things you have already said.

Also, I am under the impression that VitR 'disagreed' with more than simply my analysis on DR, since I recall a phrase of something like "I disagree with most of your suspicions", which should be more than DR. VitR, please go into detail about what

else

you have disagreed with me about. I want it out in the open.

Be forewarned that I am entirely tempted to do a voting analysis now that the game has gone on this long and there are two confirmed, dead scum (and alternately, eight objectively confirmed dead townspeople).

[petroleumjelly]

Before I forget: Fritz, who's the play today?

[petroleumjelly]

Responses for VitR.

1.)

PJ, the main problem I had with your pieces of analysis is that you didn't really have all that much evidence for the people you found scummy (SV, DR, mnowax and me).

How about I address this in a roundabout fashion. Please show me a few examples of analysis in the game which had

more

"evidence" for somebody than one of my analyses. Games without true pro-town roles (such as Cop, Doc, Vig, etc) are inherently not going to have 'strong' evidence unless somebody is playing particularly bad.

2.) Lack of contribution/participation is something I put as 'at best, lazy town, at worst scummy', and this is consistent for me across the site (although this can change to being more scummy depending on the knowledge I have of the player). Defeatist attitude also tends to come more from scum, because

they

are the ones who is going to have the frame of mind "the jig is up", whereas a townsperson will

never

have that frame of mind. Townspeople pretty much give up when they are frustrated, often emotionally – and since that was not the case, it did not apply. Also, the defeatist attitude tell has worked in this game already: try reading over the Pooky-execution again. I'm not "trying to make up scumtells", I'm applying those which I already believe to be scumtells.

3.) Concerning CTD,

his

lack of contribution was worse than the average person's, and this is specifically because I am familiar with him. If you've ever played with CTD, he often presents a few clear cases against players – something which was very absent from this game. Seeing as this was an anomaly from his playstyle, it struck me as significant.

4.) "Fawning" is the absolute best word I can come up for what SV was doing. I'm not blind, and I had an inkling of what SV was trying to do with me on D1. She was basically sucking up to me, and I think it's because she wanted a favor – i.e., to not be executed. She then did the same thing with Glork on D2. In fact, I'll read over for some examples, and then you can decide if my reasons are "contrived" or if

you

were just missing them.

spectrumvoid: Fawning towards PJ on D1

a.

Post 209 is the beginning, and very small. Hardly noteworthy excepting for that it continues.

b.

Post 216 here is the main thrust of the "fawning" argument. "I really should start learning from PJ" and "I admire his analysis". When somebody says this about you

in a mafia game

, you are

going

to notice it. This is complete suck-uppery, and although I can't recreate my frame of mind at the time, it probably subconsciously affected me into thinking SV was town.

c.

As I point out in [516], when I did my first isolated reread on SV, her explanations for people were largely mirroring my own – in that she constantly commented solely on people I brought up, and often used parallel reasoning. She also had a few comments of "like PJ has already said" which isn't too substantial excepting for that she constantly did this (and I didn't mark these posts, but reading through hers in isolation should obviate this anyways).

{Side-note: Vaughn appeared to suck up to me in [231], but he used my 'great' scumplay last game

against

me more than

for

me.}

Clearly,

b.

is the most significant, and I don't think "everybody has does

this

at points". This was out-and-out an attempt at flattery, from where I'm standing.

Too definitive, it doesn't ring true.

Jesus criminy. So now I'm not allowed to say I think somebody is scum in definitive terms? I've been suspicious of her since about Day 2; when she continually lives until D5, and I'm forced to think she's scum for what was probably about

six months

, my opinion tends to solidify. I've been wrong plenty of times in this game so far, but trying to say I'm "too sure" when I turn out to be right is just stupid.

-----

I'd be happy with an execution of Fritzler or VitaminR, because SV distanced herself from one with suspicion, perhaps to protect the other. Of the two, my preference would actually be VitaminR, now that I think about it.

Question: So if scum were in a list of 3, and preferred one over the other, does that make one of the other two scum? It could be there case that the other two were town and the scum decided they better have a preference out of the two. You make it seem like simply because Fritz/VitR happened to be on the same list one of them must be scum because SV gave a preference of executing Fritz over VitR.

[petroleumjelly]

Newsflash:

I'm

the King, not you. It's only been D6 for like two or three real life days. I'm going not going to make a list of people (basically a LoE) until I've given the game a reread with the newest information. You don't get to make any "demands" of me - or at least none you can expect me to take seriously. I didn't let people push me around on D1, and it's not going to happen today either.

[petroleumjelly]

Mod

, ThAdmiral is voting mnowax2, VitaminR, and

Fritzler

, not Yosarian2. Please adjust the vote count.

Still deciding what I want to do here. As an advance warning, I'll be leaving for summer vacation either this Friday or Saturday, and I don't know if I'll have internet access.

I hope to leave some sort of assignments for people before I leave, but I've yet to determine what it will be. I'm strongly considering the following:

Creating a list of all the players in the game, and having everybody analyze the two people below them (and for those people at the bottom of the list, they just look back to the top). Still, I would want said list to be arranged in such a way that I don't get somebody doing an analysis they've already done, so this would still require me to reread the game so that we'll get new standpoints instead of rehashed ones. As an obvious side-effect, this should force the lesser participants into participating as well as making sure somebody (two people at least, if I use that plan) is watching them.

After having each person analyze both persons under them, they must then answer which of those two they would

rather

have executed

if

they were forced to choose.

So that's what's on my mind. If anybody would like to make tweaks or suggestions, I'm open to them, but that doesn't mean I'll incorporate them.

[petroleumjelly]

I've been randomly staying up late and felt like reminiscing (mostly because I just finished a book and couldn't go to bed afterwards). I'll be the first to admit I've been procrastinating reading this game, but on the other hand it

is

99 pages long. However, I want VitaminR to clarify his position on "summary posts" in light of an example in action.

I was reading through Simon Mafia [Mini 318] and I was reminded exactly why I don't like summary posts. There were two such posts in this game that caught my eye:

1.) Post 288, by MikeBurnFire. He posts some fluff afterwards, but none of it pertaining to the summary.
2.) Post 587, by VitaminR himself. A summarization post without any opinions attached. And why? Because he hasn't been posting lately, and wanted to look like he was contributing. Later (about

five days

later, to be precise) VitaminR claims to have forgotten about the game, and then throws out a few 'conclusions' in [605] of Simon, which certainly don't seem worth the wait for such a large summary.

Here's the fun part: MBF was the Mafia Godfather. And VitaminR was the Serial Killer. Those were the only two summarization posts without personal comments on them, and both were made for the purposes of looking as if they were 'contributing'. I haven't really read over old games in a while (should probably do more of that to keep me sharp), but I think it says quite a bit about a scumtell being effective when I decide to read a

single

game, and see

two

instances of a scumtell I firmly believe in committed, and having

both

of this instances come from scum. I'm positive if I were to review old games specifically for the purposes of corroborating this tell, it would stand the test of percentages.

I want to hear what VitaminR now thinks about Dead Rikimaru's giant summary post (which he at one point said suspicion of was a 'fallacy' of some sort, but I don't want to search for it). Also, Vitty, if you can find a game (or happen to recall one) where you've done summarization posts like that when you were

town

, I would be much obliged.

---

In response to Cavane, I limited it specifically to 2 players because the game is so monstrously long and I don't want to give people anything more than they can chew.

In response to MoS, I'll think about it.

[petroleumjelly]

Pretty sure I

am

considering context.

1.) Dead Rikimaru was clearly not contributing while he was King. His summarization made it seem as if he was making a very large contribution to the game whilst saying absolutely nothing. Everybody was

waiting

for him to do

something

, and instead of giving any of his own opinions he decided to post a giant post of fluff. And this was while he was continually trying to bait us along with his great plan, telling us to constantly just wait a little longer.

2.) This particular scum-tell is not entirely relevant whether or not you are trying to find scum - it is indicative of somebody who feels they have to

look like they are contributing without actually doing so

. Your post does exactly that. MBF's did exactly that. And DR in this game certainly looks like exactly that. The context of people wanting DR to contribute

something

is what I am focusing on.

3.)

Similarly, lurking could be considered a tell, but in a large game with this many pages and this many lurkers, it shouldn't really be viewed as indicative of anything.

This is striking me as terribly wrong. More people lurking than usual (which I'm not sure is even entirely true for a large game such as this) doesn't excuse those who are lurking. Anything that increases the chances of somebody being scum is something I consider to be a scumtell.

There are, I figure, either 5 or 6 scum in this game. I am personally playing as if there are 6 scum, simply because that's the safest way to play. So:

6/24 = 1/4 = 25%

Basically so long as a fraction more 25% of the lurkers are scum, it still stands as a scumtell. It's by no means

definitive

, but it is definitely something

to take note of

.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay – the Jelly Circle begins now. Each person has to make an analysis of the two people below them, and then decide which of those two players they would execute if they were absolutely

forced

to. If you are one of the two bottom people on the list, revert to the top until you find the two players "after" you.

Those who do not comply will be put directly onto the LoE. I did a narrowed reading of the game, and tried to arrange the list in such a way so that people are commenting on people they haven't really talked about in detail for a few days. There were a few people hard to stick in this category (like MoS, who everybody seems to have commented on), but for the most part I think this should work fairly well. Note that I

do

expect analyses to cover any and all replacements.

Jelly Circle

1.) petroleumjelly
2.) Thesp

3.) Lowell
4.) Zindaras

5.) ThAdmiral
6.) VitaminR

7.) RafK
8.) Fritzler

9.) Mastermind of Sin
10.) Toaster Strudel

11.) Cavane
12.) mnowax2

13.)K-Scope
14.) Yosarian2

I felt like making it rainbow colored. So sue me. Hopefully everybody will have this done before I come back from vacation.

Mod Edit: Fixed

[petroleumjelly]

Mod

, if you could switch K-Scope to being on

Slot 13

and mnowax2 to being on

Slot 12

, 'twould be much appreciated. I already know what K-Scope thinks of mnowax2, don't need him to say it again.

[petroleumjelly]

*slaps forehead*

Except I talked about that if you're on the bottom of the list go back to the top. But I can see how one might read it that way. I only ordered it for the sake of neatness and to personally make sure I included all 14 players. If you are #10, you are supposed to have analyzed #11 and #12... the two people physically below you.

Your next analysis can be your second analysis, however.

[petroleumjelly]

Bleah. Got back from vacation Saturday, and just haven't been up to reading through the game yet (it's quite nice not thinking about mafia for 10 or so days!). I plan on getting to my two analyses soon, and I've asked Thok to extend the deadline as long as possible, obviously. I'll be gone tomorrow, though (celebrating the 4th with family), and will probably be busy on the 5th as well (friends from school in the area, planning on meeting up, but plans are still up in the air).

Skimming over the latest, I'm quite glad I decided to run the day this way. More compact posts with more substance than usual (except for the latest spam concerning mnowax2, which I am finding highly annoying). I'll try set down time to read the analyses themselves, since they could easily give me leads, blah blah blah, I won't bother explaining benefits.

Players who have not finished their assignment will not be in my good graces. Get them done - I will be checking up to see who's done what hopefully around Friday/Saturday.

*cracks whip*

[petroleumjelly]

Off with friends yesterday to the beach, and probably will be again today since they won't be in town long. Nevertheless:

Add to LoE: Zindaras, ThAdmiral, RafK, Fritzler, Cavane, Yosarian2

. These players need to hop to their analyses post-haste. Or else. (Note: Yos2 gave an 'analysis' without reading through the thread, which is

not

fulfilling the assignment).

The following players still need to finish theirs:

mnowax2, K-Scope

.

Mine will probably need to be held off until tomorrow.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay. I need to get this done – so I won't leave for Thespival until I do. First is Thesp.

7.) Thesp

(

rep. Pablito

)

Isolating posts, so I'll put the isolated post number in brackets. I'll try to put aside my current feelings and read as freshly as possible and see where I end up.

[0/1/3] Starting with Pablito. As everybody knows, he started off the game unequivocally defending Glork on the basis that "he's going to try to live up to last Kingmaker so he's got a tough image to beat" (with the added note that he would rather "sniff" at less visible players). This probably wouldn't be the best way to get into Glork's good graces, so if this is scum play it is certainly not optimal – and I know from experience in College Mafia that Pablito

usually

tries to lie somewhat low as scum, which is contrary to his debut in this game.

[4] Pablito says that "more structure is better than less structure", which was the attitude I kept in KM1 as scum – I'm thinking having a foundation is fine, but flexibility is the key. Nothing against Pablito though, I think it would be reasonable to take this stance as town as well, just felt like mentioning it. His comment sounds right about DR, but the MBL vote with "MBL's comments on cb0x make me feel awkward" doesn't read right. I remember catching something that looked scummy on cb0x at the time as well. In conjunction with [5], defends cb0x, which I ultimately agree with though Pablito came to the conclusion in a manner that looks premature to me. Neutral overall... there are obviously people who get reads faster than I do, but defending somebody with weak reasoning is an easy thing for scum to do as well.

Eh... [7] saying "I was waiting and delaying[...] to see if you'd persist" seems overly convenient a response – if MBL hadn't persisted, Pablito gets off without responding. I'm not crazy about these types of responses. Negative points. Things which have the general structure of "of

course

I did [

X

scummy thing]! I did it for [

Y

tiny possible pro-town reason]!" I tend to not like. I can understand the vote on Mert, however from the explanation Pablito gives, though I think that's more of a testament that Pablito hadn't had the experience of playing with Mert at that time like I had.

...

And I just realized Pablito has 167 posts, not including Thesp's, so I'm gonna try to hold back thoughts unless it's something noteworthy.

Some good prod-like posts – slight pro-town points. Has explanations for actions. There are a few comments I don't like, primarily [31] "You gotta think though, why would I become even more suspicious at this time of the day? especially after people began to stop suspecting me?", which is a rather silly riposte, especially when he tries to end with the last word of "yeah, but you're still a fool" [32]. O'course, I often have a similar mentality when I see people vote me: 'you're either stupid or scum', which is pretty much what Pablito's comment here boils down to.

Strange note – Pablito largely defended Glork on D1 when I was King, and largely defended me on D2 while Glork was King. I'm not really seeing a malicious significance in this, however.

Very nice explanations for some things, such as [59]. Either way, a lot of effort being put in. Another nice post in [61]. Good stuff. Feels very pro-town, or exceptionally smooth scum (which strikes me as less probable).

Note: Seems to play the 'waiting game' more than a few times (such as waiting to explain votes), so this actually helps to neutralize my earlier comment about him purposely not responding to MBL – that simply appears to be the way Pablito was playing this game. I'll retract those negative points unless I see something which looks contradictory.

Pablito seems to have been paralleling many of my thoughts early-game (not in a 'following' manner, though) and explaining them in his own way, which means we were probably reading many of the same things in the same posts – which means it is makes it less likely to be fabricated. Pro-town points. I almost want to give him pro-town points just for saying "I think the LoE sucks" in [79], but that's under the tenet that people who are willing to fly in the face of a King are more likely to be town, which I know is incorrect since SV did the same thing. Don't like [80] where he unvotes everybody but Mert.

Don't much care for his vote on me (obviously), but I suppose it's good to know he didn't have a strategy to try to stay in my good graces all game. I don't remember that stage of the game too much (beginning of D3), but I don't recall a bandwagon on me so I wouldn't call it very opportunistic from memory. Could just be poking around.

[105] his top 3 were Mert, olio, and LL. His suspicions of Mert and olio are consistent with his posts throughout the entire game, and he seems to have gone down a similar path I had with LL (first thinking he was very original and pro-town, and slowly thinking his posts were relying too much on other players he said were town). He also seems to veer back towards thinking LL was town just I was as day was petering down (as evidenced by [113]). Again, another uncanny parallel of my thinking at that stage – pro-town points.

Note to Self

: [117]. I'll have to read this one again later in context, because it involves a defense of SV. Hard to comment on without knowing what SV was doing at the time, however. Has some dancing between me/LL near the end, seemed more inquisitive than nefarious (additionally so since he was clearly bothering to read back in the game).

[162] has another defense of SV, probably worth reading over again.

Now, on to Thesp.

[4] starts off against MoS, SV, DH. I was about to ask what Thesp's "twice as many X's" referred to, but I apparently did that back when that post was made (gives self pat on back). Some back-and-forth with MoS... looks very Thesp-like is all I can say of it, really. Surprising amount of explanation in [8], I'm used to shorter posts from him. Thesp seems much more confident and confrontational in this game than the last time I saw him as scum [which was when he was a SK in Old Maid], so a few meta-game town points there.

Thesp, could you explain your post [29] more, please? You said you would "clarify later", and I would like to see this happen.

Yeesh, short analysis for Thesp. Overall thoughts:

Pablito was pretty clearly dabbling in some WIFOM, but it really doesn't look like scummy dabbling – just somebody experimenting. He was very much into prodding and making sure people were talking/posting/explaining, and although he defended people they were all appear to be fair and explained defenses, and he had no qualms in going against the same people he was defending (main example being me). Thoughts seemed to coincide largely with my early-game thoughts, suggests lack of falseness. Seemed quick in responding to complaints against him, and was clearly trying out a few ways to test things (such as not explaining votes immediately).

Thesp looks very much like Thesp. *shrug* All I would really have to do is requote what I've already said. Both players come off as pro-town to me individually, so together I also consider them pro-town. If this role is scum, Pablito put a

lot

of effort into the game, which doesn't strike me as something Pablito normally does early in the game (instead keeping under the radar, which I mentioned earlier concerning College Mafia).

I'll get to Lowell in a bit.

[petroleumjelly]

8.) Lowell

(

rep. carb0ardb0x

)

Mario:

Here-a we go! *sound of Mario going in a tube*

Flag comes up with the proposing a Pablito/Glork/MBL scum-group, but then not voting Glork. He then votes Glork after this is mentioned with the caveat "for pressure, and then take it off" (which of course applies to pressure whatsoever, especially in a game where votes do not lynch). Between [5/7/8/9/10], I definitely get the vibe of a townie going up in flames. He comes back with some content [12], all in the course of a few days. [16] seems pretty genuine. He starts sticking to his guns with bird1111 and Phoebus, which shows he was at least taking the hint at how the game is played. His posting peters off until we get...

Lowell. [1] he clearly shows he's taking notes on post numbers – I probably shouldn't be giving this pro-town points, but people clearly showing that they are reading through the game tends to act as a plus for me. He explains who he thinks is town, who he thinks is scum, and suggests a couple topics for discussion. Very nice.

Seems willing to read posts and agree with them. [4] has "Those are good reasons. I'm convinced", [9] has him voting CTD with "why the Hell not?".

A few unhelpful one-liners... prodded multiple times, comes back with lots of "nothing to say"s, which is annoying to say the least. Lowell was giving good reasons and discussion when he first entered, but he has definitely dropped off in terms of that. Negative points for rolling his eyes when people vote for Dead Rikimaru when he was King, but then voting for Zindaras when Zindie was King – appears to be rather contradictory.

Also, when Lowell entered the game he said Zindaras was the most town person, but votes him when Zindie was King. In [32] there is an implication that he was suspicious of Zindaras, which I have not caught a whiff of prior to in the thread, nor do I see any explanations. Lowell, could you go into detail about this? (I see that you call Zindie town again in [34], but I'm interested in what was going on between your first post saying Zindie was town to your vote on him while he was King).

Read through [37] twice now. Looks legit to me, so hopefully he gets to the second half of his assignment soon.

So – overall I still think the cb0x situation looks like a townie meltdown. I think this has consistently been my feeling the entire game, and I feel the same way each time I read through that series of posts. His revelations he had (about changing his mind over whether the Kingmaker should out themselves) look real and nonmalicious. Lowell's entrance was very good, and his suggestions for discussion looked townish. His biggest black mark is his continual comment that he has "nothing to add" after being prodded multiple times – I will also need an explanation for how his thoughts towards Zindaras have progressed through the game, because at the moment I don't understand them. His first half of his assignment looks good.

Mostly based on cb0x, I think Lowell is also town.

If I had to choose between executing Thesp or Lowell. Hmm. I would personally rather not execute either, clearly, but if I had to choose who was more likely to be

scum

, I would execute Thesp – simply because I know Pablito has the ability to play a fantastic game as scum (which is what his play would require in this game), whereas I have a hard time seeing cb0x's meltdown coming from scum.

I don't know how much time I'll have for the game during Thespival, but we'll see what happens. Everybody

really

needs to finish their assignments ASAP.

[petroleumjelly]

Jelly is back! *celebratory music falters and peters out* So you can stash the party hats.

I see the page

really

hasn't moved since last I left - I thought MoS was exaggerating at Thespival about how little has been posted. I'll be frank in saying I don't feel reading anything to do with this game at the moment, but seeing as deadline is coming I'll try to wrap everything up tomorrow with final prods/pokes/questions.

[petroleumjelly]

Ugh, sorry. Today turned out to be busier than I anticipated - had to have my leg looked at (doctors decided it was a spider bite), and then got caught up in a few games of on-line Settlers. I'll work double-time tomorrow. *sigh*

[petroleumjelly]

Okay. I'm not sure what I'm going to do at the moment, so I suspect I'll be writing up a few posts in succession.

I'll start with results from assignment.

Execute Y > X

1.) petroleumjelly (Thesp > Lowell)
2.) Thesp (Zindie > Lowell)
3.) Lowell (ThAdmiral > Zindie)
4.) Zindaras (ThAdmiral > VitaminR)
5.) ThAdmiral

missing both assigments

6.) VitaminR (RafK > Fritz)
7.) RafK (Fritz > MoS)
8.) Fritzler (TS > MoS) [from post 2554]

missing both assignments

9.) Mastermind of Sin (TS > Cavane)
10.) Toaster Strudel (Fritz, mnowax2)

no preference given,

also nothing on Cavane
11.) Cavane (mnowax2)

missing second assignment

12.) mnowax2 (KScope)

missing second assignment

13.) K-Scope (Yos2 > PJ)
14.) Yosarian2 (Thesp > PJ)

[petroleumjelly]

Actually, now that I'm starting to compile results in a few different manners so I can interpret them, I like this assignment less than before. I can see it being a litmus test for who the scum think they will not be able to push executions on, and conversely who they can easily push executions on (the catch being that scum would only know the opinions from only two people, which is not representative of the entire town). The lack of some people finishing their assignments (as well as Toaster Strudel doing an analysis on Fritzler when she wasn't supposed to) also makes coming up a firm graph difficult.

If anybody's on-line and wants to make suggestions, I'll listen to them, but in the meanwhile I'm going to read over the analyses.

[petroleumjelly]

Well, I won't be using that LoE. I'm gonna switch it up once I read over everything. That list was only to get people to finish their assignments.

[petroleumjelly]

Twice preferred execution

1.) ThAdmiral (by Lowell and Zindaras)
2.) Toaster Strudel (by Fritzler and MoS)
3.) mnowax2 (by TS and Cavane)
4.) Thesp (by Yos2

***

and PJ

***

)

Once preferred execution

1.) Zindaras (by Thesp

***

, not by Lowell)
2.) RafK (by VitaminR)

***

3.) Yos2 (by K-Scope)

***

4.) Fritz (by RafK, not VitaminR)

Zero preferred execution

1.) PJ (by K-Scope and Yos2)
2.) Lowell (by PJ and Thesp)
3.) MoS (by RafK and Fritz)
4.) Cavane (by MoS)

***

5.) VitaminR (by Zindaras)

***

6.) K-Scope

***

***

Only as a preference; little/no actual suspicion

***

Was only analyzed once

***

Was not analyzed

I would like somebody to analyze K-Scope, if neither of he assigned people are going to do so.

For starters, I will:

Remove all from the LoE.

Now add ThAdmiral, Toaster Strudel, and mnowax2 to the LoE

.

This might change, we'll see where I end up. If there is a mistake, please point it out and I will ask Thok to edit it. I used my own judgment by putting mnowax2 as being preferred by both, even though it's somewhat ambiguous when reading the analyses.

[petroleumjelly]

I'll try to give condensed commentary/questions. Please answer/respond ASAP. I am looking for two things in general – firstly, whether or not I think people's analysis look legitimate or fabricated, and secondly whether or not there are points on other players I hadn't considered. Noting them as I go along.

Note: "No commentary" means that I personally have no comments, not that the player making the analysis did not have commentary.

1.) Yos2 on PJ/Thesp. No commentary.
2.) Lowell on Zindaras. I actually like this analysis – sure, it's a little WIFOM on what SV-scum would do, but it does strike me as being a legitimate thought-process, and I actually agree with Lowell here. If we were dealing with Zindie-SV-scumpair, it

does

seem more likely they would have taken the opportunity to distance. Plus points for Lowell and Zindaras.
3.) TS on Fritzler. No commentary. PPE: See #7.
4.) TS on mnowax2. No commentary (although this post is very confusing for me, and I would like it clarified). Minus points for repeating points on Fritzler on an analysis meant for another player.
5.) MoS on TS. Very succinct and to the point. His questions are very nice and make sense from his analysis. Plus points for MoS, I'll reserve judgment on TS until after I read her responses.
6.) Thesp on Lowell and Zindaras. No commentary.
7.) TS response to MoS. I liked the response to [5], but I don't like the response to [9], as that implies that TS's analysis was just a compilation of who Fritz was suspicious of, and not posts TS was suspicious of Fritz for. Can I get clarification on this, TS?
8.) Yos2 on Thesp. No commentary.
9.) K-Scope on Yos2. This looks like a fairly good analysis, to the point where I feel like I should read back on Yos2 again because from the information in this particular post, it

does

make me wonder. His progression of thoughts looks natural and unforced. Plus points for K-Scope.
10.) VitaminR on RafK. This post actually looks good (and notably better than his posts in Space Monkeys by far). Plus points for VitaminR.
11.) VitaminR on Fritz. Question. I will note that Fritzler calling scumbuddies his scumbuddy is not "too obvious" – he really

has

done that before as scum. I've seen it at least three times, but the most relevant one (in a finished game) is in a newbie game where he was scum with Ibby – Post 195 in Newbie 207, which VitaminR actually played in. Do you remember this game, VitaminR? If so, do you really think it's "too obvious" for Fritzler to call a scum-buddy his scum-buddy?
12.) MoS on Cavane. Looks consistent with prior analysis.
13.) mnowax2. This isn't an analysis, but it pisses me off.
14.) mnowax2 on Yos2. I don't even really consider this an analysis – I cannot tell if mnowax2 even bothered to read through the game, or he figured he better just say something. Worst one so far. Minus points.
15.) mnowax2 on K-Scope (note: guess somebody technically analyzed K-Scope, but it's not a good one). I can't even get a grasp of a real thought process.
16.) Lowell on ThAdmiral. I liked Lowell's first analysis over this one, but nothing scummy here that I see.
17.) RafK on Fritzler. Question: what does "plays the man, not the ball" mean? I can't recall off the top of my head if RafK was actually pro-Fritz earlier, but if so (and I don't see a reason for him to lie about that), then this post looks legit.
18.) RafK on MoS part 1. Biggest note is actually that RafK continually slips comment about Yos2 in this analysis. Almost his entire analysis on MoS hinges on Yos2's alignment, which is rather contradictory to the purpose of having him analyze MoS in particular.
19.) RafK on MoS partr 2. No commentary.
20.) Zindaras on ThAdmiral. The post was a big unorganized (in that it was more of a small game summary than a straight analysis on ThAdmiral), but considering it was all to make points I have nothing against it. I really like the thought-process/explanation in this post. Plus points. My only question is why Zindaras does not want ThAdmiral executed today – his only vote is on Yos2, who I really don't think I'll be executing.
21.) Zindaras on VitaminR. Question: Zindie, what don't you like about my list? Objectively, I think I'm batting better than average, which is pretty much my goal in any given game. Considering there were only three people I was willing to execute, it's a given that there are going to be scum in either the "not strongly considering" and "will not" groups – I would like more explanation on this. This post also makes me want to read over VitR's posts again... blah.
22.) Cavane on mnowax2. Short but looks good.
23.) K-Scope on PJ. I don't particularly enjoy being called scummy, but the reasoning is present, and like before it seems his thoughts changed as he read.

[petroleumjelly]

Hmm. Well, I got distracted by looking at pictures from Thespival on facebook, so I don't expect I'll be doing much more reading tonight (and notably, I probably won't be doing

any

after the HP arrives).

I'll also

Add Fritzler and VitaminR to the LoE

, and will not execute anybody who is not on my LoE, which now has 5 players. Feel free to comment on these 5 (or others) as you wish - I will probably decide on an execution 6 hours before deadline so I avoid computer problems and have time to relocate should they occur.

[petroleumjelly]

You've accumulated a lot of townie points with me by joining the campaign against SV early and consistently, but this day is sapping them much as my reading of your day 1 kingship did- you've put off and put off giving final opinions and establishing an LoE, the deadline was announced weeks ago and now the LoE finally comes in, explanation-free and Yos-free.

This almost makes me want to find you and

slap

you. I've put a hell of a lot of effort into this game – certainly more than I think this game deserves. I didn't ask to be King, and in fact, I would rather that I was not. I was made King at a

very

inconvenient time for me. I was on

vacation

in Canada three weeks ago. This last week I was gone at

Thespival

. That is two weeks I was away without time to put towards this game. During the one week in between those two absences, I made sure to finish my assignment. Since coming back, I've had to spend a half day at the hospital getting my leg looked for what is apparently a spider bite, and I've been very up-front about this. And you are accusing

me

of "stalling"? I asked people to do their assignments on

June 21st

,

one month ago today

, and there are

still

people who have not done it.

So my list is explanation free? How about you try looking through my posts before accusing me of lacking explanations. I feel like I've given more commentary than

any

other player in this entire game, and yet people are saying I am "lacking in commentary".

So my list is Yos-free? Have you been

reading

my posts? I've reread Yos2 at least twice in this game to my recollection, and both times, he did not look like somebody I thought would turn up scum. In other words,

I

think he is town. And I

will not

execute somebody I think is town. Period. It's not my job to execute the person

you

have been going after all game. How do you think I would "look" if I say I think Yos2 is town practically all game, then "last minute" I decide to add him to the list because

you

want me to, then I execute him and he turns up town? Have you even bothered to

think

of that?

In

fact

. I want you to answer that question in your next post. What would you "think" of me if I suddenly added Yos2 to the execution list one day before deadline even after calling him town all game, then I executed him and he turned up town? It seems to me that no matter I do,

if

Yos2 is indeed town, putting him on the list and executing him damns me in your eyes (or at least I would assume this much), putting him on the list and

not

executing him damns me, and

not

putting him on the list damns me. If you're going to think that way, there's something wrong with your thinking and it needs to be altered.

FoS: RafK

, that was an absolutely horrid post.

*breathes out*

Now.

LoE: ThAdmiral, Toaster Strudel, mnowax2, Fritzler, VitaminR

1.) ThAdmiral, Toaster Strudel, and mnowax2 were added because all three of them were the preferred execution by all six people analyzing them. In addition, there was at least one analysis on each of those three players that looked completely legitimate to me – in order, they were Zindaras' analysis on ThAdmiral, Mastermind of Sin's analysis on Toaster Strudel, and Cavane's on mnowax2. In addition, I cannot recall any thoughts which made me think any of the three of these players looked particularly

town

. As such, I plan to read through them all individually before making an execution.

2.) Fritzler is a player I can almost barely get a read on. I pretty much decided to let him do his thing for the first few days. Now that's Day 6, he doesn't look particularly good in my eyes. He pushed CTD for much of the game, and his comments were more unhelpful than usual (often referring back to CTD or how he would end the day faster as King). The biggest thing for me is actually his early claim that he was scum with Pooky, which Fritzler actually

does

do as scum (read: Fritzler does call his scumbuddies his scumbuddies in games).

3.) VitaminR is the person I am

personally

most suspicious of, and this should be clear from my posts throughout the game. You are more than free to read them, because I'm not going to repeat them.

[petroleumjelly]

Status update: page 446 of HP. Decided I could check scum.

1.) I had two options when I realized my vacations where going to interfere with this game while I was King.

A.

Not ask for an extension; or

B.

Ask for an extension

Which do you prefer me to do? I did what appears to me to have been the better choice - asking for an extension. And not just any extension - I even asked Thok to extend the deadline a

second

time so I could be sure to give maximum thought to my choice. I gave the town warnings of my absence, and during that time I left assignments which I had figured would be

done

after my first vacation (and this did not happen). Are you really going to try to accuse me of planning my Kingship around myvacations, or vice versa? I've done all reasonably possible with the time I've had.

2.) I don't

care

if you "don't understand why" I think Yos2 is town. I've tried to explain myself on this multiple times - I have done at least two separate analyses on him. This is a feeling on him that has persisted throughout the game. As King, my job is to try to execute scum -

not

to convince

you

why I think somebody is town.

3.)

1) I don't think he'll turn up town. I don't think there's a chance.

And no, I wouldn't think less of you if you executed Yos and turned up town. I said a couple of days ago that the battle lines have been drawn- no-one's being killed which would give away which "side" is scum, until Zindaras executed SV. I accepted that if SV or Yos died and came up town, I would be a very likely execution target.

Considering "what will happen if I execute him and he comes up town?" is dangerous. One of my main issues with the Yos kingship was that he did not execute anyone who he'd been attacking previously, who's death and reveal as town would have made him look bad.

He took a target of convenience, and you are drifitng in that direction.

Does that answer your question?

A.

You don't think there's a chance Yos2 will come up scum? That's pretty damned confident. When did that happen?

B.

I am

insanely

interested that you are painting me as "drifting towards a target of convenience" (which I have highlighted in red). Have you considered what you're trying to get me to do

right now

? Read down to #4 for continued thoughts on this doozie.

C.

No, that does not answer my question.

4.)

And no, I wouldn't think less of you if you executed Yos and turned up town... </snip>

... That's an attempt to paint a false dischotomy on me. I never said you executing Yos and him coming up town would damn you in my eyes, and you know it.

DING DING DING.

Oh really? Sure you technically haven't "said" it

yet

, but

please

do not insult my intelligence. I don't consider myself an overly stupid person.

Here is

exactly

what would go down if I decided to throw Yos2 on my list right now, and execute him, and he turns up town:

1.) PJ threw Rosso on the LoE last minute D1
2.) PJ then misexecuted Rosso on D1
3.) PJ threw Yos2 on the LoE last minute D6
4.) PJ then misexecuted Yos2 D6

I could quill it up and make it look fancy, but that's what it would look like. Repetition of this kind tends to have a powerful effect. But you know what would make it worse?

5.) Not only that, PJ has been calling Yos2 town pretty much all game, but decided to execute Yos2 on a whim of one player

Oh, and guess what that means?

6.) The fact that he did it so last minute makes it look like he "drifting to a target of convenience". He added somebody last minute when it was convenient to do so after being accused of "drifting to a target of convenience."

So you know what? Go soak your head in cabbage water. Your words make it so that whatever I do I'll look bad to you, even if

you

aren't making the connections yet.

1.) RafK says I have been using my vacations as a shield from contributing or allowing people to respond to my LoE. But he does not consider that I have asked Thok to extend the deadline as far as possible (at least twice), nor that I left assignments which were

supposed

to finished by the time I was finished with my first vacation. Had I not done this, there would likely would not have even been an LoE, much less time to respond to one if there were.

2.) RafK agrees that I should not execute somebody if I think they are town. I think Yos2 is town. Nevertheless, RafK wants me to execute Yos2.

There is no way out of this.

3.) RafK is insinuating that I am "drifting towards a target of convenience". He is not realizing that if I were to add Yos2 at this point and to execute him, it would be the ultimate "target of convenience". In other words, no matter who I execute, they will be deemed as "convenient".

There is no way out of this

.

Furthermore, I have made it clear that I am most suspicious of VitaminR, and that is very likely who I will execute - and he has had

plenty

of time to respond to my accusations. My other option is mnowax2, who I have also detailed my complaints about throughout the course of the game. The reason VitaminR is comes before mnowax2 an execution choice is his defense of Dead Rikimaru, which leads to me to believe that VitaminR could be scum both

with

DR/mnowax2 and

without

DR/mnowax2.

All of ThAdmiral, Toaster Strudel, and Fritzler were added because I saw merit in the analyses against them, and I wanted to gauge more than two people's reactions - by placing them on the LoE, the whole town would (supposedly) be able to have their say on them. Which, last I checked, is rather one of the

points

of having an LoE.

[petroleumjelly]

I am confident that anybody reading your posts will see the same things I'm seeing. It's

not

putting "words in your mouth" - it's using the next logical step of the

words you've already said

. I like how you don't bother to actually

respond

to any of the three colored things I've mentioned, and you instead try to wave it away as "putting words in your mouth".

Regardless, your comment of "if he turns out to be Kingmaker" is showing me that you either haven't been reading the game as closely as you claim, or that you are just trying to jab at me. VitaminR claimed to think I was scum yesterday, so there is no way he would have made me King today if he were the Kingmaker.

Execute: VitaminR

.

[petroleumjelly]

As for PJ: He continues to use the tactic "last-second-hammer", which allows him to switch his opinion during the last minute so everything turns out the wrong way. Rosso was hammered because of a last thought change. Vitty died, when PJ very little eleborated on his thoughts on his LoE. He could've picked anyone to his liking. Both have turned up town. Also, his sudden 'connection' with SV is something that doesn't sit comfortable with me as well.

My hammers aren't used "last-second" so that "everything turns out the wrong way". I've made it quite clear that I like to use time that is available to me – if I have more time to think about something, I'll use it. I don't like deadlines, and I don't like fast games, specifically because I'm the type of person who needs to sit down and think. Acting on impulse tends to get things screwed up. I will, however, concede that Day One was some of my more unfortunate playing on mafia scum – if I were to do it again, I would have executed Phoebus over MoS's appeals (and yes, in hindsight this would not have been an execution on scum, but read further) instead of switching to Rosso by the prodding of Pablito and Glork.

Pretty much leaving Phoebus alive made me think about Phoebus for however long the game has been going. For about eight – nine months, I've thought he has been scum. Everything about his posts looked like scum trying to subtly push along the biggest wagons of the times, and when VitaminR replaced in I got flashbacks of him replacing into Space Monkeys as scum. I think it's pretty clear from anybody who has read my posts that I've pretty much wanted that role dead since Day One. I've been "elaborating" on my reasons practically

all game

– you're more than free to actually bother to read my posts.

Except the problem is, you already

do

claim to have read my posts because I

assigned

you to do so. And if you did read them, it shouldn't be hard to miss me talking with VitaminR. It was rather difficult to talk to Phoebus since he never answered anything, and when DoS replaced in I gave him space to see if he could change my mind. Basically yesterday's execution was the culmination of approximately

nine months of suspicion

. I've been wanting him dead

all game

. "Elaborating" on somebody I've been talking about for what feels like half the thread just seems like a waste of time. If I had "elaborated" it would have been strictly for show, because I've already given my reasons for suspecting him, and I've said the same things in multiple ways.

The other people on my LoE were mostly there for the purposes of discussion – and I also made this clear yesterday. My first LoE was made under MoS's suggestion, to 'threaten' the players who did not finish their assignments (even though I had no intent on executing any of them). I

wanted

to be able to make my official LoE earlier, but

people did not finish their assignments during the entire week I gave them

, and even during the week I was back from vacation, people did not finish their assignments. I tried to get people back into the game, and not only that, but doing so in a way that also got people to reread the early days where there is undoubtedly lots of information to be had. One of the problems of games which are this long is that nobody ever bothers to reread – they just respond to the latest posts. This essentially lets all of the scum interactions early-game (which are always easier to see after pretty much half the town is dead) go unnoticed.

I also don't think I had a 'sudden connection' with SV – I first had suspicions of her at the end of Day One, when I reread the entire game and gave my thoughts on all living players. I don't think I was the first person to notice things about SV, and I certainly wasn't the last, but what mostly made me suspicious of her was her fawning over me, which I

have

explained probably at least five times over the course of the thread. If you could explain this 'sudden connection', it would be appreciated.

PJ is scum. Execute him. PJ complained and whined about being king and used the apathy of the town to wait until deadline to execute, where he could easily just make a decision without much reasoning behind it.

*slaps*

Same as above. I complained because I

didn't want to be King

. And I absolutely was not "using" the "apathy of the town". Coming from the person who's catch-phrase is "go read my posts", you really should go read

my

posts.

I

tried to get the town

out of their apathy

by having

everybody

go back and reread

two separate people in detail

. This would in theory get people back into delving back into the depths of the game instead skimming the top (responding to only the latest posts and not early posts). It would get people into the habit of making substantial posts instead of spamming useless "I think x is scum" without explanation. I had planned on making my LoE in the week between my two vacations (to Canada and Thespival), but five or so people still had not finished their assignments by that time, so I was forced to simply to do my own assignments and prod those that did not finish. When I came back people still had not finished. I made a new LoE hoping there would be discussion, but it ended up just being me and RafK talking for about three days and nobody else doing anything. I don't know what miracles you expect out of me, but I thought I went beyond what is reasonable in trying to get people back into a long and boring game.

[petroleumjelly]

New postPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:13 pm Post subject: 2641 Reply with quote
petroleumjelly wrote:

I had planned on making my LoE in the week between my two vacations (to Canada and Thespival), but five or so people still had not finished their assignments by that time, so I was forced to simply to do my own assignments and prod those that did not finish. When I came back people still had not finished. I made a new LoE hoping there would be discussion, but it ended up just being me and RafK talking for about three days and nobody else doing anything. I don't know what miracles you expect out of me, but I thought I went beyond what is reasonable in trying to get people back into a long and boring game.


No-one forced you to do anything.

People's failure to do their assignments (which I'd argue you could have expected in any game, let alone one as lurkery as this) gave you an excuse to put off making your own LoE, but you knew the deadline well in advance and CHOSE to put it off due to people not doing their assignments. You were not FORCED.

All things considered, I

was

forced. I don't give the town an assignment just to say "Oh well, I guess it's okay half the town didn't do their assignment. Sucks to be me". And before you forget, I was the person who asked the deadline to be

extended

multiple times - people keep acting like I was "hiding" behind the deadline, but (and I hate using WIFOM, but it seems so obvious to me) if I was doing that, why would I keep asking for it to be

extended

? If anything, I want a

quicker

day so I would have even less time to make a LoE, and so forth.

And actually, you even admit I "stretched the day out forever". Why do you think I did that, RafK?

[petroleumjelly]

If anything,

if I was "hiding behind a deadline"

I

would

want a quicker day so I would have even less time to make a LoE, and so forth.

Fixed.

[petroleumjelly]

This is getting really stupid.

RafK - did

Glork

let Pooky make a "final defense"? Did Dead Rikimaru / Smashy let LuckayLuck make a "final defense"? Did Yos2 let mnowax have a "final defense"? Pretty much the only person who has gotten a "final defense" was spectrumvoid, and she was scum.

If I had been right about VitR, I very much doubt you would give a rats ass whether or not I gave VitaminR a "final defense". I executed him because I thought he was scum, and I've been thinking that for the pretty much the entire game. I pretty much had

my

mind fairly set on who I was going to execute, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to let the town laze around and not comment on anything. As such, I tried to get the town into the habit of reading back in the game.

Yes I turned out to be wrong, but I don't think my kingship was as "horrible" as you are trying to portray it.

[petroleumjelly]

"Putting words in your mouth" my tush.

I am going to ask people to read Post 2598, and say whether or not I was "putting words in RafK's mouth". Because what I was doing was

connecting the dots

for the words RafK has

already said

.

If somebody says the following:

1.) All cats are mammals
2.) All mammals are warm-blooded

Concluding that that person believes "all cats are warm-blooded" is not putting words in their mouth - it making the

obvious connection

from what they've put out on the table.

My current point is that pretty much nobody has been: "I'm thinking about executing X, so I'll give them a week to respond." I've also given plenty of time for people to give opinions, and I was rather under the impression that

everybody kinda knew

I was primarily suspicious of VitaminR. If you haven't gotten that from my posts you haven't been reading them very carefully. VitaminR responded to arguments directly from me

multiple times

- so as far as I'm concerned, he had his "last words and attempts at explanation", and I read them and still didn't think he was town. I shouldn't have to make a big whoop-de-doo in saying "This is my official LoE! Cringe and bow before it! Comment on you think is scum! Those on the LoE - defend yourselves or die!". I made my LoE after I came back from vacation in all reasonable time, and gave people time to comment - they simply didn't. There's nothing I can do about that.

For MoS, I'm wondering how you resolve this paradox:

I ask people to do assignments, but I should "know" they aren't going to finish. However, I should make an earlier LoE - but wouldn't I then "know" people aren't going to comment on it? You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. I should "give people time to comment" but "know that people won't comment". How do I solve that? Should I have not bothered making an assignment at all? I left the assignment because I

knew I was going to be gone for 1-2 weeks

, and therefore figured I had best come up with something for the town.

It's getting really freakin' annoying how I tried to run yesterday in such a way as to get people talking and reading back in the game, and I'm getting attacked because I should "know people won't do it", and that giving an assignment is "playing on the town's apathy" (when I was trying to get the town into being

un

-apathetic. I want to know what you think would have been a "good" way to run yesterday, on the preconditions that:

1.) I thought VitaminR was scum
2.) I thought Yos2 was town
3.) I will not execute somebody I think is town
4.) I knew ahead of time that I was going to be on vacation for two weeks

... because I'm interested in seeing it. I personally think I played yesterday about as well as I can expect of myself. I don't think "giving an LoE earlier" would have been much help, because I'm fairly certain I would have executed VitaminR even if I had given people a

month's

worth of advance notice.

[petroleumjelly]

...it seemed like the whole point of your mass analysis assignment was to consider EVERYONE. Giving out that assignment didn't send the message that you already had only one target in mind.

In trying to undermine me, you actually make my point here. If I made it clear I was pretty much focusing on one person, I doubt the town would have bothered to discuss much of anything. We would likely have gotten comments like "It doesn't matter what I say, because the King already knows who he's going to execute". By not making it an open fact that I was considering executing VitaminR, people had an

incentive

to actually read back into the game instead of sitting around waiting for something to happen.

To respond to K-Scope, I had to reread spectrumvoid at that time, but the "view all posts function" had not been working earlier.

In post 860 I was commenting on Glork's list, and found that I couldn't recall very much about either spectrumvoid or Mert at the time. After the "view all posts" function returned, I made Post 948, which you have linked to. I feel like I've explained this a billion times - I couldn't think of why a townsperson would throw in a comment like "I really need to start learning from PJ" - it's so blatantly fawning that I am confident she did it simply to flatter me so I wouldn't consider executing her D1. People didn't seem to

understand

this reasoning, so in frustration I used the explanation of "gut" because that's what seemingly half the town was using to describe their suspicions at the time, and I don't see why everybody else should be able to use that as a divining rod for suspicion and not myself. Reading my posts in context ought to make the wording of those posts clearer, instead of in isolation.

[petroleumjelly]

You are so frustrating.

Yes - anybody reading my posts should realize that VitaminR was my primary suspect. As far as I'm concerned, through my

constant questioning

of him, he had

plenty

of time to change my mind, and he failed to do so.

However

- I purposely did not go and say "I think I will be executing VitaminR today"

specifically because

this would take away all incentive for people to bother doing any rereading of the game, which was the point of my assignments to the town.

This is so freaking obvious I'm starting to wonder if you're purposely trying to act like you "don't understand".

[petroleumjelly]

Uh. I think Thesp is referring to the fact that MoS is seemingly showing confidence in multiple people's alignments who Thesp suspects by saying "you'll be surprised" - instead of a qualifier like "I expect you'll be surprised [since I think X, Y, Z are town]". It also has the extra quality of "when they show up dead", which implies he at least partially expects them to turn up dead to begin with. And as you correctly point out, it also has the implicit assumption that Thesp himself is town.

[petroleumjelly]

All right. Been thinking about the game more than usual tonight / this morning (since it is now officially the only game I'm in), and here is where I'm currently at. I've been debating whether or not to make a full "list" from "Town -> Scum" (because those seem to bite me in the ass later), and decided that I will because that tends to be how

I

think and categorize people when I'm playing.

Really

Think They are Town

Lowell
Thesp

Leaning Town

Yosarian2
Mastermind of Sin

Want to Give a Swift Kick in the Pants

RafK

Middle Ground / Difficult to Read (More Likely Scum at Bottom)

K-Scope
Toaster Strudel
Cavane
-> Cannot Read (50/50): Fritzler

Leaning Scum

ThAdmiral
mnowax2

General (and Condensed) Explanations of Above

• Lowell
  - the early meltdown by cb0x looks town. Both of the analyses he did yesterday looked 100% legitimately made from a townsperson.
  
• Thesp
  - the way Pablito played early-game is much more "gambiteering" than I would ever expect Pablito to play as scum - I know from experience that he is more prone to laying back and in the shadows for the first few days. After analyzing Thesp's posts yesterday (game day), I don't think I was disturbed by anything except a few cases of unexplained reasoning (in fact, I can't recall if he ever explained his immediate votes after CES' death?), which is certainly not unusual for him.
  
• Yosarian2
  - I haven't been getting any sinister vibes from him the entire game, and I've certainly done
  at least
  three isolated rereads on him to date, and I don't think I've walked away from any of those thinking he was scum.
  However
  , I will caveat this with that I
  also
  did not get very scummy vibes from him in "24 Mafia", which has just recently finished and he won as scum, so I am not prone to trusting him fully.
  
• Mastermind of Sin
  - In a way MoS's game has paralleled Pablito's - I've rather been thinking his playstyle choices (especially that of refusing to vote) make him considerably less likely to be scum (even though I more than realize this could be deemed as WIFOM). The only thing nagging at me lately is that I'm noticing a trend of "You should execute so-and-so...
  but not today
  ". On the surface, I think that is a fairly scummy thing to say - if you think somebody is scum, they ought to be executed, regardless of how much "information" you think you will gain in the process. We've had plenty of "information" by now with
  half the players being dead
  , so I'm really not too concerned if we happen to execute scum which doesn't itself "lead to a next logical scum". Fact is, executing scum
  gives the town more executions
  because then the scum have to work harder to get however many misexecutions they need in order to win.
  
  Special Note: Yos2 and MoS are very prone to swinging onto the scummy side of my list, but at the moment (especially when I consider the

  other

  players in the game), they are leaning town.
  
  
• RafK
  - Sorely tempted to call him scummy for the hell of it, but I know for much of the game I have felt on the same wave-length with him (primarily when trying to explain my early suspicions of spectrumvoid, which he seemed to understand and complement my explanations). Right now, I'm getting the feeling that RafK is just a stubborn (and frustrating) townsperson who is like a freaking bulldog and does let go of people until they are lifeless in his jaws. I do not think he is right about Yos2, and I know he is wrong about me - I think he is a dangerous townsperson because his suspicions seem very wrong to me,
  but
  (and I know this is me wading off into the WIFOM pool again) as scum, he would seriously have some easier targets given the player-list in this game, instead going after experienced players like myself and Yos2. He was originally in my "middle ground" while I was writing this, but after putting my thoughts on paper I have to concede I think he is more likely town than scum, but not quite in the same category as Yos2/MoS.
  
  Special Note: I have tried to arrange my list so that I could be induced to bet that all the people I've labeled with "town" are indeed town - I'm trying not to throw around the term loosely, in other words. I specifically did not label RafK as "town" because I want to kick him in the pants regardless of what alignment he turns out to be, and I find it more probable that he could turn up scum than the four players above him in the list.
  
  
• K-Scope
  - Off the top of the head, I am remembering him as being one of the players who tends to be in the "hurry up and kill somebody" camp (which seems to be growing as the game continues). His biggest pluses are the two analyses he did yesterday on myself and Yos2 - I have just read them through once more, and both times I am really getting the impression that he is showing his thought process as he reads, and that he is writing his post without knowing where he will end up (in other words he is not manipulating what he sees to fit a pre-ordained bias or necessity). However, I also feel like he has had enough "fluff" posts and one-liners (while managing to generally stay under the radar) that I am not confident enough to label him as town, and I also think he is
  slightly
  more likely to be scum than RafK.
  
• Toaster Strudel
  - Yet another member of the "hurry up and kill somebody" camp. I very well
  could
  be working off of an outdated metagaming system for Toaster Strudel, but from past experience (from both playing with her and possible alternate accounts she may or may not control), I tend to think scum-TS would be
  much
  more likely to give off of a vibe "scum mastermind" with "plans within plans" (even if they do not exist). She tends to be a bit wackier as scum, and certainly outwardly seems to be having more fun than she appears to be having in this game. My metagame on TS specifically is coming from Evolution Mafia and Lights Out 2, for anybody with knowledge of those games (and other games where I might possibly be getting this impression are Covert-Ops and Bastard Mod).
  
• Cavane
  – After skimming over Cavane's posts before writing this one, I've placed him lower on my list (closer to the scum side of the spectrum) than before. I
  thought
  he had contributed more than he actually has, but he only has 23 posts over the course of about two and a half months, and a good number of them are contentless in terms of expressing suspicion or even getting people to comment on the game. This indicates to me that he has managed to slip under my radar without much scrutiny. Der Hammer has been completely useless as a player in the game to my memory, and I don't even remember Vaughn doing anything (although I also believe he was replaced D1 or D2). I had actually forgotten that Der Hammer
  was
  Cavane at all when reading Thesp's post where he voted both of them. I would not be at all surprised to see him turn up scum.
  
• Fritzler
  – I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I cannot read Fritz – I think his alignment is a complete coinflip. 'nuff said.
  
• ThAdmiral
  – After reading through his recent posts as well, he as actually contributed even less than Cavane (if that is possible). I really thought I remembered more coming from his mouth. He has only 26 posts over the course of six months, and has really managed to not get much thought or attention from me for much of the game during his time here. His entrance to the game leads up to an expectation that he is going to read through the game, which he states will take 'more like a day', and then votes without giving any explanations. Probably the biggest thing I've noted during my read is that he primarily sticks to responding to Shanba (who has since died and he has not really had to respond to people since). He also did not really give an explanation at all when I asked him to elaborate earlier suspicions. Olio (after reskimming his posts) did nothing to make me think he is town, and CDB I seem to recall was the person who got cardb0ardb0x to melt down at the beginning of the game, and then he was promptly replaced. In other words, he has also done nothing to make me think he was town.
  
• mnowax2
  – Finally, mnowax2. Starting with Dead Rikimaru, I've made it crystal clear that everything about his Kingship looked like a carnie entertaining a crowd – he constantly kept talking about what he had just behind his curtains, but in the end the sprinkler system went off and he whisked everybody out of the building without giving refunds. His Kingship seemed designed in such a way that he could lurk
  while
  being the supposed center of attention. Smashy came into the game, decided to choose between 'spectrumvoid and LL', and executed LuckayLuck, one of the people I remember thinking was very likely to be town. Then he was replaced. Battle Mage continued the legacy with statements like "I don't really think an SV execution is appropriate". Then he was replaced. Perhaps the biggest (current) bolt against him (which I have just noticed from skimming his posts) is that in his first appearance (as town) he was
  against
  a VitaminR execution. When he replaced back in (to his current role), he "could go for his head – his tactics are a little shady when it comes to defense'. Mind explaining this for me?

*phew*

Vote: mnowax2, ThAdmiral, Fritzler, Cavane

, my top four picks for scum, and in order.

[petroleumjelly]

Hey! You aren't walking off

that

easily.

What do you agree with in my last analysis? What do you disagree with? Since you agree with only "most of it" (instead of "all of it"), there must be some points where you are not on the same page. Explain the differences. I think one of the mistakes I made with you in 24 was not having you explain your suspicions in detail.

[petroleumjelly]

You didn't explicitly say it, but I certainly read this:

Well done. You've convinced me that you are not the play for today.

To include an asterisk of "but maybe tomorrow", especially since your posts immediatley before that were unambiguously calling for my death.

[petroleumjelly]

Also (had to search for it), I was remembering a quote slightly out of context (I remembered the wording correctly, but the circumstance around it makes it less of a pattern):

As for calling Der Hammer for tomorrow, that's merely because I am pretty convinced right now that Mnowax is scum, so Der Hammer is going on my suspicion list, but not as a possible execution for today. Fritzler, Smashy, and Der Hammer will have to wait for tomorrow, because we already have a scum today.

I feel like I'm missing at least one example of this, but eh, I pretty much don't want to scour your posts to look for examples of a pattern I noticed off-hand.

[petroleumjelly]

*rubs temples*

RafK, you're post is assuming that:

1.) Yos2 will execute a townie; and
2.) That the Kingmaker shares K-Scope's sentiments, which is rather unlikely seeing as... y'know... both myself and Yossy have been made Kings the last two days in a row. You need to think about statements like that before you make them - your "fear" seems entirely unfounded and unlikely.

I am primarily waiting on Cavane to finish his analysis on me.

[petroleumjelly]

Limited post - school has been surprisingly fast and furious, and I haven't had very much time to make it to a computer lately.

Latest stuff:

1.) I'm confused about K-Scope. I'm not going to bother reading over his posts to verify this at the moment, but I recall that I had him analyze both myself and Yos2 yesterday, and I thought I remember him saying we both came off as looking townish. Now today he is saying he has "made it clear" he has been going after Yos2, which I was not really under the impression of.

2.) I was also not impressed with the Russian Roulette - if you're going to execute somebody, execute them; if you are wrong and subsequently blame it on the dice function, I would not have been happy in the least. You also did not specify beforehand what number would have resulted in death. I would expect you would have made it "Chamber 1" or "Chamber 6", but seeing as you could name the chamber after you rolled that looks like a good way to give yourself a 1/3 chance excuse to execute somebody. Granted, K-Scope is on the bubble for my top four suspicions so I wouldn't mind knowing his alignment for sure, but the way you went about that did not seem optimal (and yes, I can completely see how I might look somewhat hypocritical here, but at the same time I don't have something else to take "responsibility" for my actions).

3.) There seems to be less people posting than there are players; would somebody mind checking that and having the relevant people?

[petroleumjelly]

EBWODP:

3.) There seems to be less people posting than there are players; would somebody mind checking that and having the relevant people

prodded

?

[petroleumjelly]

*posting in-between classes*

I have to agree - I was under the impression this was going to be a 'short' day. I'm pretty sure everybody knows you're going to execute K-Scope by now, so let's just be done with it so we can

know

his alignment.

Also, now that it appears we're going to be going to night soon and I figure I better get it out here while I can, I think now is a good time to propose the following:

If there is a Hero in this game, they

should not claim under any circumstances

. It

does not

help the town, but it has the potential to

significantly

help the scum. In short detail:

A.)

If there is a Hero claim, only the scum know if it is real (unless a townsperson is lying, or some such thing, which I advise against)

B.)

A Hero claim tends to lead to mass WIFOM - see KM1 for reference

C.)

If the actual Hero claims, the scum know

everybody

who can be 'safely' executed

Point

C

is what I think is most critical - in the event we have a scum-King, I would rather them have a

chance

at accidentally killing themselves than by giving them 'safe' targets.

Based on this, I think the

only

town role that should

ever

claim is the Kingmaker - and this is

only

in the event that claiming this would stop them being executed, since this is the one "confirmable" claim in the game.

[petroleumjelly]

Vote: mnowax2, Fritzler, Cavane, ThAdmiral

. I'll reread some stuff (in particular K-Scope's posts) later to see if I can't find any connections, and I may also be switching some of my votes around.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay – I was highlighting my notes with the latest alignments earlier today, and I was surprised at how often spectrumvoid-scum and bird1111/K-Scope-scum seemed to be voting the same people.

Day One

spectrumvoid votes

:

Glork

, cb0x [Lowell],

Phoebus [VitaminR], Pablito [Thesp]

bird1111 votes

:

Glork, Pablito [Thesp]

->

Shared Votes:

Glork, Pablito

Day Two

spectrumvoid votes

: SC [CDB, Olio, ThAdmiral],

ubertimmy [Nightson, Shanba, Skruffs], Glork, Phoebus [VitaminR]

bird1111 votes

: Mert [RafK],

Phoebus [VitaminR], Twomz [Samus, CES]

,

Pooky

, Yos2

K-Scope votes

:

Pablito [Thesp]

, cb0x,

Pooky

->

Shared Votes:

Phoebus

Day Three

spectrumvoid votes

:

Glork

, DR [Smashy, BM, mnowax2]

K-Scope votes

:

Pablito [Thesp]

, DR [Smashy, BM, mnowax2]

->

Shared Votes: DR

Day Four

spectrumvoid votes

: Smashy [DR, BM, mnowax2], MoS

K-Scope votes

: Smashy [DR, BM, mnowax2], Fritz

->

Shared Votes: DR

Day Five

spectrumvoid votes

: MoS, Fritz

K-Scope votes

: mnowax2 [DR, BM, Smashy], Fritz,

Zindaras

->

Shared Votes: Fritz

Day Six

K-Scope votes

: mnowax2 [DR, BM, Smashy], Fritz

Day Seven

K-Scope votes

: mnowax2 [DR, BM, Smashy], Fritz, Yos2,

PJ

~~~

I am actually becoming disconcerted at how both spectrumvoid and K-Scope went so heavily after DR/BM/Smashy/mnowax2 and Fritzler. As you can see from their votes, spectrumvoid never once voted for either K-Scope/bird1111-scum or Pooky-scum – which indicates that she (at the very least) either did not bus very vocally this game, such that if spectrumvoid did any distancing at all (which I think is a fairly safe assumption), the most likely candidate appears to be ThAdmiral - she voted his predecessor (StallingChamp) on Day Two when he was under little to no pressure, and then never brought him up again afterwards in terms of a vote. A case could be made for her busing cb0x/Lowell, but Lowell happens to occupy my "most likely to be town" slot at the moment, so I personally don't think that is the case. To be complete, MoS on the surface appears to be a candidate for distancing purposes (given that he never really shows up as a vote until SV comes under more and more pressure), but I know I've reread MoS fairly recently and he didn't strike me as being very scummy.

K-Scope also did not really ever mention spectrumvoid unless a question was posed directly at him about her. For now, I am going to

Unvote: mnowax2 and Fritzler

so I can reread their posts in relation to K-Scope's, because I am really starting to wonder if I am just completely ass-backwards this game. I will probably reread most of the players left alive at this point; I feel that I have to do some rethinking now that K-Scope has turned out to be scum.

A thought just occurred to me, as well, while skimming K-Scope's posts (I am trying to discern patterns in his play to see if I can find a scum-buddy; I should have some conclusions by the weekend, if things go as planned).

I am starting to wonder if K-Scope was trying to play in such a way as to suggest he was a "Hero" without actually claiming it. He was constantly badgering Kings, and instigating them into executing faster, and voting them if they took to long for his tastes. His post of "Yos2 should be totally hammering me right now" near the end of yesterday does not seem to have any purpose

except

to make Yos2 wonder if K-Scope was a Hero, in fact. The nature of the exchange between Yos2 and K-Scope

really

does not look like scum busing each other.

Given this, I will want to reread others' posts to see if anybody

else

was implicitly trying to

suggest

K-Scope was a Hero without actually saying so, because this is striking me as a strategy an entire scum-team would likely be "revolving" around, and could easily accidentally/subliminally reference during the day because it is on their collective mind(s).

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, done reading K-Scope's posts.

• 1.)
  He seemed to not want people to listen to Glork during Day Two (in the sense that he showed 'discomfort' when players such as Pablito – who turned out to be town – agreed with Glork). Glork was largely going after Pooky (which would then cause K-Scope to shift his 'suspicions' to people who
  agree
  with Glork, since he probably didn't want to bring scrutiny on himself by opposing Glork
  directly
  ), which suggests K-Scope was willing to (indirectly) defend his partner(s).
  
  
• 2.)
  I think Post 1044 could be fairly telling. I had directly forced him to give opinions on some of the more experienced players in the game who he had been ignoring / not talking about. His response were:
  • LuckayLuck [Townie] 'undecided; he "looks good" but he's 'unconvinced'
    
  • Glork [Townie] is 'undecided'
    
  • MrBuddyLee [Townie] is leaning towards town (and note MBL was attacking Glork)
    
  • Zindaras [Townie] is 'town for now'
  This suggests that K-Scope was playing a very "hedge my bets"-type strategy; he doesn't want to step on any large toes this early in the game, although he does become more aggressive as the players dwindle, as I would expect scum to do as victory was probably closer to his grasp.
  
  
• 3.) He was very reluctant to talk about or express suspicion on spectrumvoid [Scum] in general throughout all of his posts, though he did vote for Pooky fairly early upon replacing in, and left it at that. His only votes which seemed 'serious' early on were on cb0x/Lowell [alive] and Pablito [Townie]. I would bet his 'serious' posts are indicative of scum trying to get a townsperson lynched. I will say that so far, K-Scope's comments on cb0x/Lowell bolster my thoughts that Lowell is probably town.
  
  
• 4.) He also went out of his way to say 'he is not convinced MoS is scum' in Post 1248;, when it seems most of his other statements have been along the lines of 'I'm not convinced so-and-so is
  town
  '. This could easily be happenstance of the manner in which questions were posed to him, though.
  
  -->
  However, I will note that this seems to be a response to
  Glork's
  case on MoS, Post 1282 which suggests that K-Scope's main objective at this point in time was to undermine Glork. Seeing as Pooky was dead at this time, if he is indirectly defending somebody here it is most likely to be one of MoS (the person he wanted "smited") or possibly Nightson (now Toaster Strudel).
  
  -->
  Sidenote: He does use the same terminology when talking of me in Post 1318, though. It is noted in this post that he is propounding a very similar view of Fritz ("Fritz is just being Fritz") instead of taking a firmer stance on him – I can understand the position coming from a townsperson (obviously) but now that he's come up scum it might mean he was simply trying to avoid talking about Fritz in the first place (in the same manner he avoided talking about spectrumvoid).
  
  
• 5.) He goes after Dead Rikimaru/Smashy almost his whole Kingship. Hmm. I will have to read through Day Four again, because this is
  awfully
  reminiscent of how he treated Yosarian2 on Day Seven – and it seems K-Scope's main 'strategy' (if I can call it that) was to 'set up' lynches for later, by subtly keeping his doors open ("I'm unconvinced") and then kicking people when they were down, as evidenced by his attack on DR-King, his attack on Zindie-King and his current attack on Yos2-King/me. He never really let go of his mnowax2 vote when DR/Smashy was replaced – reminiscent of his early Pablito vote (which he meekly dropped once Thesp replaced in, I have noticed).
  
  
• 6.) Keeping with tradition, when K-Scope analyzed Yos2 when I gave everybody assignments, he says Yos2 "leans towards scum", and he hedges his bets with "mixed feelings" about
  me
  . As soon as I misexecuted, he jumped on me, and immediately took up the "Yos2 + PJ" chant (see Point #5 above). His interactions with Yos2 from yesterday does
  not
  look like a scum being bused by his partner – it looks like scum trying to stir trouble and then realizing he slipped up, so he tries to gloss over things by being as vague as possible.
  
  
• 7.) Overall, it appears that K-Scope had a particular order of calling for executions. The general pattern seems to be:
  

  1.) Go

  most

  strongly after a townsperson (Pablito, and perhaps cb0x/Lowell and perhaps mnowax2).
  2.) Leave doors open to attack/defend other townspeople as the situation warrants by making vague comments about 'suspicions'
  3.) Keep a few 'non-lynch' votes on periodically, most likely to inflate the vote count on certain players without having to actually "push" on them.
  4.) Try to be vague when talking about scum-partners
  5.) Attack people who are attacking his scum-partners (as evidenced by attacking people who agreed with Glork-King when he went after Pooky, and he attacked Zindaras-King when he was going after spectrumvoid. This could also mean that when he attacked Yos-King, it was because Yos was on-track to execute some other scum-partner, but since Yos started by putting five people on his LoE it's hard to tell who K-Scope might have been trying to distract Yos away from).

  His "non-lynch" votes have mostly been mnowax2 and Fritzler – he doesn't really "push" for them per se, but rather seems to go through the motions of saying, "yeah, you ought to execute these people". This could either be for 'soft' distancing or for trying to fluff a bandwagon so it looks more substantial.

--

Overall, my reread of K-Scope has brought me to think the following of other players:

More Likely to be Town than Before

cb0x/Lowell (early attack target)
mnowax2 (late attack target)
Yos2 (attack target on final day; interaction do not look fake)

More Likely to be Scum than Before

MoS
Fritzler
Toaster Strudel

No Big Connections One Way or the Other

ThAdmiral
Cavane
RafK

--

Of course, as I noted before, K-Scope tried to largely not talk about either Pooky or spectrumvoid, so the people without connections could in fact be more appropriate to be within the "more likely to be scum" category. Point #2, however, shows that not talking about somebody unless asked directly does not mean they are scum with K-Scope, so I won't make a firm conclusion on that.

After my reread, I will re

vote: Fritzler

. The person I am most interested in doing a reread on is MoS, at the moment – I shouldn't be forgetting that he has a knack for surviving very late into games as scum, though I obviously don't that in itself is a reason to suspect him.

[petroleumjelly]

Huzzuh! One year anniversary!

Hogwart's March plays in background... and then dies away. And there was much rejoicing.

[petroleumjelly]

Received prod. I know MoS seems to be the grand inquisitor today, but I have a couple requests.

->

Cavane, please get to your K-Scope analysis, preferably before today ends.

->

ThAdmiral, when you commented on K-Scope, you said "sometimes he can contradict himself with his own arguments". Can you show me a few examples of this?

And I'm actually going to

Unvote: Fritzler

after doing some rereading in the game (I might explain it later). I'm still good with my other two votes, however (the two people I'm requesting things of, as it happens). Basically trying to decide which of the two of them I prefer (even though I realize Cavane is not currently on the LoE).

[petroleumjelly]

Joy.

Let's take today slow and steady. I don't think we can afford any mistakes.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, I'll just execute somebody, then.

I'll flip a coin to decide.

Execute: Lowell

.

[petroleumjelly]

I will the first to say I think there were too many scum in this game. There should have been 5 scum, not 6 scum. There ended being a Scum-King

four

times in this game, which means if the scum have a mind to (and I certainly did), there is no way a scum was going to be executed on our watch (although I did decide on D8 that I would execute mnowax2 if I were King). Which means the town itself can only afford very few misexecutions; and given that this is effectively a mountainous game (excepting for Kingmaker and Hero), asking them to hit with that high of an accuracy is rather unreasonable.

Thanks to all the brave replacements and those who stuck it out to the end.

[petroleumjelly]

Congrats to PJ for looking studiously townish and fooling the pants off MoS.

I

do

have a habit of getting people to take off their pants around me. I think it's more of a curse than a blessing, though.

[petroleumjelly]

Aha.

This

is how MoS gets such a giant post count. He posts

after

the game is over!