Open 20 - Pie E7 (Game over) - before 453

[Ripley]

This is outrageous. I turn by back for half an hour, the game starts and two people have voted Jordan before I get the chance to. It's not fair.

Not voting. Sulking.

[Ripley]

Fascinating to see Patrick in this amount of trouble at such an early stage. I'll be amazed if he manages to talk his way out of this one.

[Ripley]

Jordan is pretty much confirmed as scum by now, with Simenon or Teffc for partner (I'd say Simenon, because of the distancing).

Also, Ripley and Teffc both have rabbit type avatars.

Ironic that mine's the psychopath, when you consider the two of them together. Oh, and my branch of the family never have droopy left ears.

You can add that to your notes Ripley, and congratulate me after the game.

This will definitely not be happening.

[Ripley]

Just letting you know I won't be around much until Thursday.

[Ripley]

The rate this game started off, I fully expected you lot to have lynched Jordan and be halfway through Day 2 by now.

Unfortunately I have to confirm that in all the games I've completed with him Patrick has been pro-town. I'm not quite sure how he manages this. These games include the previous Pie C9, where we managed to have a Day 1 that lasted for 2 months and contained almost no useful content. The whole of the game really happened on Day 2. I believe Patrick was in another Pie C9 before that one, too, so if anyone has anything useful to say about the setup it's probably him.

[Ripley]

Open 1 - Pie C9
Open 11 - Pie C9

I remember I read through Open 1 at some stage during Day 1 of Open 11, but didn't find it of any help at all.

[Ripley]

One thing in Jordan's favor in all this is that if he were scum he'd have been more likely to be aware that the game didn't start with night. I mean, wouldn't you remember that you hadn't tried to kill anybody yet? I keep wondering whether there's some flaw in this argument, since nobody else (including Jordan) has mentioned it. Hmmm - maybe you might forget, especially if you were in a few games that had started around the same time; it's very easy to confuse them in the first pages.

Your average protown player doesn't assume that a cop will have a guilty on them. I feel such an assumption is more likely to come from jumpy scum.

I can see this argument, and at the same time, trying to put myself in the position of the jumpy scum (obviously difficult for someone who has led such a life of virtue as myself, but anyway)... if you thought there might be a player with a guilty result on you, would you actually

post that in the thread

? What would you gain from that?

One more thing: the second half of Jordan's post seems to have been forgotten:

I really hope that wasn't a badly premature cop claim.

That, or he may be the roleblocker we're looking for.

How does the roleblocker comment fit in with the "jumpy scum fearing a cop result" theory? Maybe I'm trying too hard here to find logical reasoning behind a panicky post. I really don't know.

[Ripley]

How does it not fit in? It's not as though scum would never dream of accusing a player who they know is protown.

I think I've probably missed some link in the chain of argument here. I can't get from Jordan being scum trying to fish out a cop in one sentence, to Jordan calling the same player a roleblocker in the next. It just confuses me. Why a roleblocker? Sorry if I'm being dumb. It happens.

[Ripley]

I think why this whole Jordan business seems complicated to me is that the same remark:

I really hope that wasn't a badly premature cop claim.

... is being used as evidence for two separate charges:

1. The very fact that Jordan thought "cop" implies a guilty conscience and
2. The actual post is, either accidentally or deliberately, fishing for information about Simenon's role.

There are further complications brought about by the fact that there hadn't been a night yet. Jordan claims not to have realised this, or to know that the cop is sane in this setup. And the roleblocker comment that followed still puzzles me somewhat. What exactly did you mean by it, Jordan? Did you mean that if Simenon were the Mafia roleblocker, in the hypothetical Night 1 that never actually happened, that this would be an alternative explanation for his conviction you were scum? If not, what?

My difficulties with all this are really those I've said already: (a) that I have doubts whether a guilty person would react as Jordan did to the idea of a cop with a result on them, and (b) that if Jordan were scum he'd surely be aware there had been no night and therefore no possibility of a cop result on anyone.

It would be far simpler, by comparison, if there had been a night and a

different

player had made Jordan's comment about a premature cop claim.

I'm aware I may be overthinking this and Jordan's a scum who just blurted out his remarks without any real thought or plan. I'm still on the fence with this one.

Aimee, where are you? What do you make of all this?

[Ripley]

Ripley - got any thoughts yet on who is scum?

Nothing concrete at this stage. I'm hoping for a lot more discussion once Aimee gets back and for the deadline to be removed.

I am mildly suspicious of Aimee for steering so clear of the whole Jordan business, which blew up well before her departure. She comments on the "Simenon hiding information" issue, which was surely a much lesser issue, and asks Jordan a question ("Jordan, are you saying your mistake is that you forgot that this game started in day? "not a very useful question IMO, since I thought we already knew the answer to it was "yes") - and that's it. I found that strange.

I wasn't sure whether or not to mention his post 25, which caught my eye first time round, because it may be too nitpicky, but he claims that Simenon could only be sure of him being scum if Simenon was a cop, or if Simenon himself was scum. Jordan seems to allow for the possibility that he is scum with Simenon here, which just seemed odd.

I was wondering if anybody would comment on this post. It seemed that I was the only one interested in Jordan's earlier comment that Simenon might also be "the roleblocker we're looking for." I asked him to explain it, and I thought his explanation was weird for the very reason Patrick gives here. Has Jordan forgotten what he was thinking when he made the roleblocker remark, or has he tied himself up into a scummy knot? I didn't say any of this because by then I had reached the sort of stage you get to when nobody other than yourself is interested in pursuing something; eventually you start doubting your own reasoning.

Simenon - I know from experience that he and I have very different styles and opinions. I almost invariably disagree with most of what he says, on Day 1 especially, and yet as far as I can recall I haven't played with him when he's been scum. For these reasons I find it really hard to give an opinion of Simenon. If I hadn't met him before I'd be much more suspicious.

Paradoxombie seems to agree with Aimee's (implied) opinion that the Simenon Refusal to Divulge Scumtell Scandal is a bigger deal than the Jordan Dual RoleFish Outrage, and I disagree with that. I find it irritating that Simenon, if protown, wouldn't just put the issue to rest since it's in danger of becoming a serious distraction, but I don't find it in any way out of character. Paradoxombie's lack of posting is starting to become suspicious in itself, though Aimee's not been much better and can't blame it all on her recent absence.

No time now to consider the posts that have been made since I started writing (109-111).

[Ripley]

Paradoxombie continues to focus exclusively on Simenon's refusal to divulge his original scumtell on Jordan. I don't understand why this is such a huge issue. Simenon originally voted Jordan when all Jordan had done was random vote with a dice roll. He's probably prolonging the whole thing because it amuses him to be awkward.

Seriously struggling to keep up with my gameload at present, but I'll try and post more soon.

[Ripley]

I'm sorry I haven't had more to say. A reread might spark some new thoughts; I maybe should have done this already but it's not a bad idea to get some input from Aimee first. Also, 3 other games I'm in have been really eventful over the last couple of days (Patrick can vouch for 2 out of the 3) and it's been natural and necessary to put those first, with so little happening here.

In the meantime:

I would like to hear the answers to the questions Patrick asked Paradoxombie in p 139.

I just realised I had no clue what teffc thought about anything, so did a quick look at her posts in isolation. Seems very much the kind of player who likes to be seen to examine all viewpoints and be fair to everybody, find alternative reasons why people might have done stuff. Still has her original vote for Patrick in place, and I don't find her reasoning terribly good. She claims not to get his sense of humor in the early posts, but she was joining in the jokes about pie just like anybody, right up to post28, after which she abruptly seems to lose it when Patrick makes an obvious joke about always being protown in the very next post.

Another reason she gives for suspicion of Patrick is "trying to prove you are right" - um, don't we all do that? In this post (82) she actually seems to have more reason to suspect Jordan than Patrick, but all Jordan gets is a FOS.

Her only comment on the Simenon. Jordan exchanges is "And Jordan! the more you say the more tangled in your affirmations you get.", implying she thinks Simenon has the better of the argument, though subsequently she brushes this aside with "It's possible Jordan made a mistake or something. " keeping her vote on Patrick, who she now describes with Simenon as "the dream team". Hmmm.....

[Ripley]

Somthing doesn't make sense about Simenon and you just want to drop it? What possible reason could you have to want that? You think it's distracting?

How about you convince Simenon to just come clean and explain himself?

Wouldn't that be a more

protown

resolution than me just stopping, regardless of the significance of the issue?

Paradoxombie, I can't speak for Patrick but I am entirely confident of my own total inability to convince Simenon to do anything he doesn't want to. If he does actually want to tell us, and this is all a coquettish act waiting for someone to find the right words of persuasion, well, that someone is not going to be me.

For me, the question long ago ceased to be "what is Simenon on about" - really, it is not a wise idea to ponder the working of Simenon's mind too deeply - but more "is it being blown out of proportion?" " and "why is Paradoxombie continuing to focus exclusively on this issue, and so contrastingly reluctant to be drawn on the whole Jordan affair?"

Look. OK. Let's throw caution to the winds, and take a peek at the possible scenarios that could be playing out in Simenon's inscrutable head. There are any number of reasons why Simenon might be withholding this early tell on Jordan that don't mean he's scum. Here are a handful:

1. He's enjoying being awkward for the sake of it.
2. There never actually was a tell, but he doesn't want to admit that.
3. He can't remember what it was, and he doesn't want to admit that.
4. He's just being a tool for his own entertainment.
5. It's a super-secret tell that he doesn't want to divulge because wider knowledge of it would render it useless.
6. He's enjoying watching you fixate on something entirely meaningless or nonexistent.
7. He thinks you may be scum and that he's getting useful information from your behavior.
8. He thinks you may be a misguided but fixated townie but that he's getting useful information from other's reactions to your behavior.
9. He doesn't know what you are but he likes to see a newbie banging their head against a brick wall.
10. He's a cantankerous so-and-so who just likes to be stubborn.

Or any combination of the above.

And now for something completely different.

Lynch -1 after only 4 pages. Are you aiming for a quick lynch or something? I have my doubts on puting my vote on jordan although he seems tangled.

That's actually a fair enough point. I hadn't taken into account that Jordan was at L-2. I sometimes forget that a game only has 7 players if it's in Little Italy.

You are saying you have taken my posts out of context. And that helps you how? Most things lose or change their meaning. thus, you are misreading my posts.

Sorry, I don't understand this. I don't believe I said I've taken your posts out of context. Where did you think I said that?

[Ripley]

Ah, that sorry was becasue we know eachother from another game, and I think he's a good player.

I felt you would make a response along those lines.
That's part of why I strayed away from just blurting it out. It's so easy to respond to, it really doesn't make much of an effect.

I'll confirm that when this game started another game had just finished in which Jordan and I were on opposing sides, and which resulted in a crushing victory for ... um... oh well, let's skip that irrelevant detail - and this was why I greeted Jordan as I did.

Paradoxombie. I assure you keeping myself in a position to hammer is the very last thing on my mind. I am not one of nature's hammerers. I strongly dispute your assertion that a high posting/voting ratio makes a person scummy, and that therefore Aimee, who hasn't posted

or

voted, is a relative innocent by comparison.

[Ripley]

People, We have a deadline on Sunday. We need to get moving.

Still thinking things through, but at present I'm leaning towards Jordan as the best lynch. 2 experienced players - they could both be scum, obviously, but the odds are against it - think he made a slipup, which is better evidence than we have on anyone else. We would learn a reasonable amount of information from his lynch. And if his cop remarks to Simenon are taken at face value, he can't be the cop, which halves our chances of outing a power role. Also, Simenon's comment "If Jordan was town, I think there would be much more enthusiasm for his lynch by now." has some value. Unless Simenon and Patrick are the scum, there would have been at least one scum out there who passed on the chance of making a move on an innocent caught in a slip. For all these reasons, I think Jordan would make a practical deadline lynch. I'm not wildly confident, but we have to lynch

somebody

.

I think Teffc's policy of "trying to see stuff from more than one point of view" could be an effective cover for avoiding taking a position on anything. In post 82 she finds Jordan suspicious, and in Post 97 she says: "And Jordan! the more you say the more tangled in your affirmations you get." but she continues to vote Patrick for "insisting on voting Jordan and trying to prove he's right". See post 140 for more details of my thoughts about Teffc.

And Aimee, even taking into account her holiday, hasn't posted anything like enough content. I said in post 113:

I am mildly suspicious of Aimee for steering so clear of the whole Jordan business, which blew up well before her departure.

... and she continued to avoid it completely upon her return, focusing solely on Paradoxombie. Aimee would probably be my second choice right now.

So - I have an open mind, and would look closely at a case against anybody, but am closest to voting Jordan.

[Ripley]

I read Aimee's post in a hurry earlier and remember thinking afterwards - well, so who does Aimee actually suspect? It seemed like a substantial post but yet - somehow there was nothing much there to really get your teeth into (though it seemed ungrateful to grumble, when the post contained so many words, all sounding more or less sensible). Coming back to the thread now, I find both Patrick and Simenon have made remarks that confirm this impression.

One thing I have noticed is that Ripley hasn't really made a firm stance on anything yet - though his points seem logical enough.

Really? I stated who I thought was the best deadline lynch, which seemed like a pretty solid stance to me (I hate deadlines, and I hate lynching anybody when I have so little idea of who the scum are as in this present game.) I've shared what opinions I've had, I've reread several times, and I've pointed out anything I could find that I thought was vaguely noteworthy. I'm not sure what else you want from me, Aimee. To point a finger at someone and say "you're scum?" Why should I be able to do that, if you can't? Would you say that you yourself have taken a firm stance on anything?

I am suspicious of his lack of opinion on Simenon - even though you have played with him before, an opinion, whether positive or negative should have formed by this stage.

Why? I think, if a player is acting the way you've come to expect them to act, you won't necessarily have a read on them by this stage. Both Patrick and Simenon, who I'm used to being town, are acting the way they usually do. You yourself, in your summary of Simenon, emphasise precisely this point about Simenon:

Despite this, we all know Simenon - he is always like this whether town or scum (or mod).

I am sure that Simenon is just acting like his playstyle. Nothing more, nothing less.

You

give no opinion, positive or negative, yet you think I "should" have formed one and claim to find it suspicious that I haven't?

[Ripley]

I knew I'd see that other rabbit out of here eventually.

Hai Patrick and Ripley!

IH!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Ripley]

Patrick has summed up pretty well what I'm thinking myself. I suppose with a new player joining it was inevitable that this whole Paradoxombie/Simenon thing would be dissected yet again, but honestly, I think way too much time and energy has been devoted to it. Increasingly, I'm struggling to pay attention, and it feels like the same ground is being covered over and over again. Reading back a bit, I find something Paradoxombie said in post 165 really ironic:

I think you guys are making a bigger deal of Jordan than you have to, dwelling on one issue isn't doing anything but slowing down the game. No one has anything new to add about the situation. Maybe Jordan is scum, maybe not. Sitting on this one thing is about as bad as not posting.

What he says about us making a big deal of the Jordan issue here is pretty much exactly what I think about him and his own pet issue.

Where he does make an attempt to talk about something else, say Post 160, it comes across as a sop to keep the rest of us happy until he can find a way to divert back to his preferred topic.

This was really why I wanted Simenon to come out and tell us right away, because I could see it becoming a distraction, though I didn't anticipate quite how much of a distraction, or how long it would drag on.

I'll aim to reread the last few pages tomorrow and hope to find something new to say.

[Ripley]

Mod

can you clarify asap what will happen with the deadline in light of IH's absence? Because what I do next will be heavily influenced by that.

I will soon be absent for approximately 8-9 hours when I get some sleep. I demand an extension in light of this.

Well dammit. The sheer excitement of waiting to see what Patrick actually did do next, with the added frisson of the deadline decision leading to two possible outcomes, has had me biting my nails here for hours, and now it turns out his plan is to go to sleep.

[Ripley]

Ugh. So we're all lurking.

I haven't been lurking. I've been maintaining an enigmatic silence.

I owe this game a reread of the least few pages at least, and I'll try and do that tonight, but I don't recall anything changing my earlier opinion that Jordan was the best lynch available. Paradoxombie looks like the best alternative and like Patrick I'd vote him if it avoided a no-lynch.

[Ripley]

With the deadline approaching, I felt it was a good time to affirm my stance on each player, starting with Paradoxombie, the person I am voting for

This was followed by a lengthy analysis of Paradoxombie, but no others followed, and this was in fact Aimee's last post. Aimee, I'd like to hear from you in particular with regard to your voting intentions as the revised deadline approaches. Would you switch to Jordan? To anybody?

Same question to IH, who should have been back in town for a couple of days by now.

[Ripley]

I notice IH has been nice and busy in other threads since his return, but has ignored this one despite the approaching deadline.

[Ripley]

The deadline seems to be Thursday July 5th, midnight GMT + 1. (Can we get this confirmed please?). So we still have this evening and all of tomorrow. I think that is 31 hours, though time zones have never been my strong point. Unless "midnight" belongs to the day at which it starts, in which case we only have this evening. Damn, I've managed to confuse myself now.

Mod

: in your next post please would you say how many hours it is from then till deadline, for the benefit of the chronologically challenged.

[Ripley]

Patrick, would you be up for lynching IH or Aimee if the votes could be got together in time? You said a while back you thought you were more suspicious of Aimee than of Paradoxombie.

Everybody else: can you please specify who you would be willing to lynch?

[Ripley]

What actually

happens

in scumchat? Is it just a chatroom, or do people actually play Mafia games there (and if so, does that work well)?

[Ripley]

I'd like to get confirmations from everyone that they're not going to counterclaim before figuring out what I want to do next. I'm not convinced Paradoxombie is the obvious move, if Jordan is innocent. If this is the case, it's really hard to believe

two

scum completely passed by the chance to make a move on an innocent being attacked by two experienced players. Which means at least one of Patrick and Simenon would be scum.

I wonder if Simenon's rapid switch to vote Paradoxombie before Patrick, IH, Paradoxombie or I had even checked in, means he didn't need to wait for counterclaims because he already knew Jordan was innocent?

I have this feeling Paradoxombie is going to be speedlynched before discussion goes much further. Oh well. We'll see.

[Ripley]

It just seemed very surprising to me that Simenon would simply

believe

the claim of Jordan, his prime suspect for virtually the entire game. Scum are going to claim doc in this position a lot of the time (and there are two of them). Regardless of the deadline, which is more than a day away anyway, I'd have expected Simenon to be pretty suspicious of the claim. His switch of vote without even a mention of possible counterclaims... it felt odd. Unless Simenon couldn't get back online before deadline, which is clearly not the case, it seemed like a somewhat precipitate move on his part. And that did make me wonder if he already knew there wouldn't be a counterclaim, and was just saving time by making the move he knew he'd be making once everyone had checked in.

Patrick, do your computer problems mean you aren't going to be around at deadline?

[Ripley]

Mod

: taking into account the recent activity, the fact that Patrick will have computer problems tomorrow and the failure of the proddee's to respond yet, would you consider a brief extension? Just another 48 hours? Please?

[Ripley]

OK, well, one of the reasons I'd have been willing to vote Jordan in the first place was that it would have been an informative lynch. We know now that he's innocent, and armed with that info we should be able to do better than just moving on to lynch Paradoxombie because he was next on the list.

Really hoping for that deadline extension.

My largest suspects at the moment are Aimee and IH. If jordan really is town, it's suitable they should avoid going after him and lock in on me.

Are you saying you think that IH and Aimee are suspicious for not going after Jordan, who was protown? I don't understand this.

[Ripley]

If he is protown this would make sense because they'd want to avoid going after a protown player that directly, because it makes them prime suspects when he turns up town.

Sorry, I'm still baffled. You say that they would want to avoid going after a protown player that directly. But they went after you that directly. Would that not make them prime suspects when you turn up town?

[Ripley]

I'd give 90% odds I will be able to get on for deadline now.

If not, will this be the last we hear from you? Hmm, stupid question. I'm going to assume Patrick just posted from the library and if he doesn't post again by mid-evening he's back home and computerless.

One thing about Paradoxombie is that he didn't vote Jordan, someone we now know is protown, in an attempt to better his position. I'd previously speculated on a possible connection, but now it's probably a point in favour. I don't really get much of a case against IH either, except that he hasn't been around. He's mainly been on my meh pile.

Since Jordan turned up town I've felt considerably less cheerful about lynching Paradoxombie. Your argument here to a large extent overlaps with my own thoughts: as you say, he didn't vote Jordan. He didn't actually seem much interested in Jordan at all, and the charge of distraction seems less meaningful if Jordan is known to be innocent.

I will definitely be around at deadline if necessary, and I'm going to reread before then.

Will try to catch up. A lot of stuff has happened, and mafia isn't the only thing I have to catch up on, and this also isn't the only game.

But I bet it's the only one with a deadline in 6 hours. So, are we going to get anything from you before then?

[Ripley]

One thing that's struck me is that if Paradoxombie is scum with anybody excfept Patrick they've done a thorough job of distancing.

Paradoxombie focused on Simenon all day, virtually to the exclusion of everybody else, and Simenon just put him on 3 votes.

Aimee's focused pretty much exclusively on Paradoxombie. He's the only player she actually did an in-depth analysis of and the only player she's voted.

IH voted Paradoxombie as soon as he arrived and Paradoxombie has just picked IH to vote (saying he's equally suspicious of IH and Aimee).

[Ripley]

Vote: Paradoxombie

. No other option but a no lynch.

[Ripley]

It was six minutes before deadline when I voted. I didn't like the situation one bit. I'd pretty much ruled Paradoxombie out from being scum with anyone but you (Patrick). So not only was he the most innocent-looking person, but also I would learn very little if he was town. But with nobody else around at deadline (and I suspect in some cases this was quite deliberate) and only 1 post in the previous 4 hours, I felt I had no real choice.

My general impression is that Patrick and Simenon basically fixated on Jordan all day, while Aimee and IH weren't interested in the Jordan situation and fixated pretty much exclusively on Paradoxombie. I'll need to think some more about what this means.

Patrick has picked up on my own misgivings yesterday about Simenon's immediate switch of vote to Paradoxombie following Jordan's claim. Simenon then is conveniently absent until deadline. Of course, Patrick knows I think at least one of him and Simenon is scum, so he might be doing a smart job of encouraging suspicions I'm already known to hold. But Simenon probably tops my suspicion list right now. Though any of you could be scum. Really.

[Ripley]

I had no back up plan after jordan.

I find that suspicious in itself.

I'm actually afraid it might be Ripley. His actions around the pardox lynch made me uncomfy.

Why? I had already said what I would do in that position:

I don't recall anything changing my earlier opinion that Jordan was the best lynch available. Paradoxombie looks like the best alternative and like Patrick I'd vote him if it avoided a no-lynch.

Ripley's original fear of -1 on jordan strikes me as scum more than town. But then again, it was early in the game.

Jordan is pretty much confirmed as scum by now, with Simenon or Teffc for partner (I'd say Simenon, because of the distancing).

This is meh to me. I don't like the mention of Teffc.

Simenon, pay attention. We were all joking around back then. What you just quoted was a joke post.

His attack on Teffc in his eleventh post looks weak to me.

As I recall it was the strongest and longest attack made on Teffc by anybody. Certainly up to that point, and quite possibly after.

You seem to be scrabbling around in a pretty halfhearted way for stuff to incriminate me. If this is the best you've found, maybe that's a hint that you need to look elsewhere? Especially if you're trying to link me to a player you actually think is town. This kind of confused thinking seems like somebody generally trying to throw mud around and hope something sticks.

And of course, maybe your efforts are halfhearted because you're actually scum, and you know there's nothing there to find. Just like you seemed to know Jordan wouldn't get counterclaimed yesterday.

[Ripley]

Of course, Patrick knows I think at least one of him and Simenon is scum, so he might be doing a smart job of encouraging suspicions I'm already known to hold.

I commented on this in post 284. I don't think this is necessarily true.

Yes, I know you don't think it's true, but the point is not what you think, but what you think I think.

On a note seperate to that I feel odd about Simenon's last posts, but I don't know why.

I think there's been a great deal that's very odd about Simenon's posts.

Yesterday he focused from start to finish on a player who turned out to be the doc, to such an extent that when this player claimed the day before deadline, Simenon had "no backup plan" and simply transferred his vote to a player he had apparently thought innocent, citing the approaching deadline as his reason, and then disappearing. Oh, and his pointless refusal to reveal an early scum tell he believed (wrongly) to have found caused a massive distraction that created a situation where it was very easy for people to vote the (innocent) Paradoxombie. I start to wonder if it actually suited Simenon rather well to keep stringing Para along, fixated on the issue to the point where he was attracting serious negative attention for it.

Really, having got yesterday so entirely wrong, surely the normal reaction of a protown player would be to start again by rereading the thread carefully and looking for clues to find the scum? Simenon in the other hand has appeared to start off by picking his fixation for today (me) and my scum partner (IH) and then searching the thread for evidence to support the theory. (This searching appears to be restricted to looking for evidence against me specifically - IH seems to be a bit of an afterthought for some reason.)

Anyhow, so far he's produced: 1 joke post, a critical examination of Teffc that I made which he cites as evidence since it's "too wishy-washy", and his own general sense of nervousness about my lynching Paradoxombie.

Simenon continues to post in a confused and somewhat incoherent way. In post 307, for example, he says the following two things in successive paragraphs:

The fact that he's scum with you means I must change my general opinion in this game.

I'm trying to find who the scum are.

It seems pretty clear from the evidence so far that the first comment is the truth. Simenon isn't making any effort to find out who the scum are, only to find evidence against the people he's already decided are the scum.

I'm highly suspicious of Simenon at this stage for all the reasons given above.

[Ripley]

Simenon just seems to have become hysterically aggressive, and is rapidly ruining what was previously a perfectly pleasant game, for no discernible reason.

I did not ignore your post 307; in fact I quoted from it twice. Much of it was frankly incomprehensible, irrelevant or pointless, and I chose to leave it alone.

There are precisely two questions in the entire post, and none in 308 or 309.

1. Why do I find it suspicious that you had no backup plan? Because as town, Day 1, I have never, ever been in a situation where I was so sure I was right about someone that I'd have failed to consider who else I thought a possible candidate. I'm constantly looking at everyone and reevaluating people as the day progresses. Obviously, as scum, people don't think that way, so maybe they'd just forget to line up a replacement suspect should the first fall through.

2. Where do I recommend you look? I really don't know who the scum are; nobody claims to except you, apparently. I had already said this. Seriously, you're getting into this outraged state because I failed to recommend where you look?

Simenon, please, take some time to stand back from the game and calm down. It's just becoming unpleasant. I'm not going to respond to taunts or jibes. If there are more questions you'd like to me answer, please state them civilly and I'll respond in the same way.

[Ripley]

There's a vote on me one day into a lylo situation where we've hardly even started yet. If Simenon's protown as well the game could be over by the morning, and I don't know what I can do about it. Simenon seemed to have made up his mind virtually from day start.

He claims to have reread the thread before deciding I was scum, but you can see from his posts that it's not true. Post 301, he says he has to reread because he had no backup plan, but he's already singling me out in that post (with IH at that stage). We know he hasn't reread at that point because he says so. 9 minutes and 4 posts later, he's elaborating, with a reference to my eleventh post that makes it clear, even if we couldn't tell it anyway from the elapsed time, that the only reread he's done is filtered by user to the person he's already decided is scum. He prefers to examine my previous games in search of evidence to back up the conclusion he's already reached, than to reread this game with anything approaching an open mind. At no time does he examine the posts of IH/Teffc, my supposed partner. Or of Patrick, my new supposed partner, It's just me. If it's genuine, it's an obsession.

And it's pretty hard to defend against an obsession. Simenon, if you're protown you're just chucking the game away right here, out of obstinacy and pride and your fantastic gut which I have

never

known to be right, before we've even had a chance to play. There's another protown player whose chances you just ruined. Is it really worth it?

[Ripley]

Ripley, please address the first paragraph of post 316.

Sorry I overlooked that with all that was going on at the time.

The reasons I think the Jordan bandwagon would have been tempting for scum to join, over and above the Paradoxombie one are:

1. It was created and supported by two of the most experienced players in the game at that time.
2. The basis of it was "catching a player in a slip-up" which is in my opinion a more convincing excuse to join the bandwagon than the Paradoxombie wagon, which was based on his fixating on Simenon over a long period of time.
3. The Jordan bandwagon came first, so joining it would not have meant abandoning an existing one. For you or Simenon, especially, to have changed to the Paradoxombie wagon prior to the roleclaim would have been difficult because it would require a certain amount of backtracking and justification.
4. The sheer amount of time that passed since you and Simenon initially picked up on the Jordan "slip" and voted him, without a single other player looking to build on it or move the case forward. Yes, people did say in passing, that Jordan looked a bit suspicious, but seemed more interested in putting the actual work into building a case against someone else altogether, and I think it's surprising that such a promising beginning as that (two experienced protown players wrongly thinking that they'd caught a third protown player in a basic error) would have been consistently passed over for so long by both real scum.

I started out here by explaining why I distinguidhed between the two wagons, but in point 4 I've gone beyond that to explain in more depth why I still feel there's some validity in my original comment. I'm not saying I'm certain of it, though, or indeed of anything else.

[Ripley]

But you did state Jordan as your top suspect, and would have been prepared to lynch him at deadline as a practical lynch,

I still think that given the situation at the time Jordan was the best practical lynch. I had not expected him to be the doc, for the same reason I gave earlier for not thinking he was scum; that he wouldn't have made the mistake of thinking there had been a night, had he been a power role. I can't remember thinking of him as my top suspect at all, though I guess it's possible I did briefly. It was a long day.

I was looking back at post 200 earlier today. This is IH's long recap post. At this stage Jordan has the same 2 votes he's always had, and Aimee has voted Paradoxombie. Jordan had voted Teffc (now converted to a vote on IH) and IH has just removed Teffc's vote on Patrick.

If IH and Aimee are scum, IH did something here I think was quite odd: he has plenty negative to say about Jordan, including a Major FOS (rolefishing, trying to unsubstantiate a player for no reason, loaded question, WIFOM, it hurts him to read Jordan's responses to Simenon..), but chooses nonetheless to align himself with his scum partner in voting Paradoxombie for the whole Simenon thing. And he says this just before voting:

Also, the biggest flaw in your reasoning is that you WON'T LOOK AT ANYONE ELSE. While jordan scum scrambles, you unsubstantiate another player.

The "jordan scum" comment makes it even odder that he votes Paradoxombie. If you were so convinced that Player X was scum as to attack Player Y for distracting from them, surely Player X is the logical vote? Player Y

might

, as happened here, be an innocent with a fixation. OK, I know Jordan was at L-2, but I think a confident protown IH would at that stage have been willing to put a player he believed scum at L-1. Or at the very least, to issue a warning that a vote was likely forthcoming. But thereafter he goes after Para pretty much exclusively,

From my POV the players left divide into 2 camps, the Jordan voters and the Para voters, and I'm not convinced that the scum would have been seen to pair up together so obviously. That means that one scum and one innocent in each pair is the most likely scenario. Well, obviously it's more likely anyway from simple probability, but you see what I mean.

It's probably worth taking a look at Teffc's other games to see how much there is in Jordan's theory of her leaving games as scum when she comes under pressure. It did happen just 3 posts after she got her first vote. And as I already said, she avoided taking a position on anything much while she was here. As for IH, I have the impression that since he joined the game most of what we've had from him is a series of absences and excuses. And I agree about Aimee staying under the radar, and that we need to hear from both her and IH very soon.

I've been bouncing around an IH/Simenon pairing in my head, but Simenon's outburst makes me less certain because it seems genuine frustration. I suppose I can see whether he has a history of doing it in other games as town or scum. Teffc tried to connect me to Simenon on the weakest of reasoning, calling us "the dream team", and Simenon briefly tried to connect Ripley to IH.

I don't think Simenon's brief interest in IH at the start of today counts for a thing. It was pretty noticeable how fast he moved on from suspecting us as a pair (post 301) to just me. He looked at my posts, looked at an old game of mine. If he did the same for IH (and/or Teffc) there's no trace of it, and IH is rapidly dropped from the frame. Maybe IH did the smart thing in staying well out of the way, but it's tough to see lurkers prosper from their crimes like that.

I need to reread the whole game in sequence, rather than the chunks I've been dipping in and out of. Tomorrow. Probably.

You didn't comment on Simenon/Aimee that I can see. Any thoughts on that one?

[Ripley]

Do you see some link between them?

No, it's just that you commented (I think) on every other possible pairing.

The failure of both Aimee and IH to post (and they're both around) is starting to ring alarm bells with me. It's all too easy to imagine scum unable to believe their luck with the way the day started out, and despite Simenon having unvoted, being reluctant to post and risk changing the climate when it looked like delivering them the game without their having to lift a finger. I find it harder to imagine how someone could be protown and have absolutely nothing to say about an early vote in a lylo situation. Even if the vote was removed. It's an intrinsically worrisome situation, especially since Simenon said he removed it only because he wouldn't be around for a while. But IH and Aimee have posted not a word of concern.

[Ripley]

I see Ripley as unreadable at this point, which is obviously concerning. One thing he said interested me - post 300, where he says "Patrick knows I think at least one of him and Simenon is scum". Could you explain what you meant here?

In post 300 I'm referring back to Post 268, the post I made directly following Jordan's claim, where I said this:

it's really hard to believe two scum completely passed by the chance to make a move on an innocent being attacked by two experienced players. Which means at least one of Patrick and Simenon would be scum.

The only person who responded to this was Patrick (Post 284) so I knew he was aware I was thinking this way.

From what I gather from your post, it seems as though you suspect this because they "basically fixated" on Jordan. You later seem to suggest the Jordan bandwagon would be "tempting" for scum to join, implying it was a better than the Paradoxombie wagon. Does this mean you are suspicious of them because they were "fixated" on Jordan? Further, you say as well that IH and myself were fixated on Paradox - does this mean one of IH/Aimee is scum, or does it mean we are less likely to be scum than Patrick and Simenon.

I thought I'd been through this pretty thoroughly already. It's the failure of anyone else to join the bandwagon or advance the case against Jordan that I was commenting on, rather than the fixation of those already on it. And I've explained in some detail (Post 340) why I don't think the failure of others to join the Paradoxombie wagon can be viewed in the same way. Also, in Post 342 I explained that I thought that one scum in each pair (IH/Aimee, Simenon/Patrick) was actually quite likely from my point of view.

Can I suggest you reread those posts? If you still don't think they answer your questions come back to me and I'll have a go at writing new answers.

I do have a couple more thoughts about this. It was suggested, after Jordan had been on 2 votes for a while, that the longer this situation remained unchanged, the scummier he looked. Jordan didn't understand this so Simenon elaborated:

The scum win by mislynching. That's the only way they can possibly win the game by mafia with a reasonable town. Hence, if you were town, my thoughts are that the scum would be much more enthusiastic then they seem now, because are the only players in this game that benefit from seeing a pro town player lynched.
If you are scum, which I believe, the other scum does not want to see you lynched, because that would equal a bad position tomorrow. Therefore, the scum aren't going to as enthusiastic around a townie lynch than a scum lynch.
These players aren't really jumping to wagon you, are they

This argument was a factor in my thinking when I said I thought Jordan the best deadline lynch. So when Jordan turned up town, all this had to be revised: my thoughts naturally went back to the lack of enthusiasm for getting him lynched referred to by Simenon above. And it seemed that the other obvious explanation was that the scum were already voting for him. Patrick and I have been, on and off, debating how valid this is. I still think at least one scum was voting him already.

Another argument that only occurred to me recently is that Jordan didn't recover well from the initial mistake. He refers constantly to how badly he's playing. I think there was ample material there for scum to build on the original case made by Simenon/Patrick, had they chosen to. Which makes it even less likely that both scum would have passed up the opportunity.

If IH is town we have a real problem because he's making it easy for the scum to get him lynched. His last post with any content was on June 20th. Since then, nothing but absences and excuses, even around the deadline (a deadline he must have known about since he posted an excuse post the day before).

[Ripley]

When I say "a player who turned out to be the doc", I don't intend to imply there's any special significance in the fact that it was a power role. I'm really just saying "the doc, and therefore town", but treating the last three words as redundant.

I think maybe Jordan should claim. If he's a protown powerole, the last thing we want is to have a claim at the last minute that leaves us wondering whether to switch or not.

This was interesting and out of the blue.... probably if I would have been posting I would have said something....

Why do you think it was suspicious of Patrick to ask Jordan for a claim? Isn't it usual to ask for a claim from someone who looks like being lynched? And actually, if Jordan had responded sooner (two days passed between Patrick's original request and Jordan's claim) we might be in a better position now. We

were

rushed at the end of the day, which is just what he said he was trying to avoid in asking for the claim at that stage (3 days before deadline).

Looking back, I don't think Aimee responded to the questions in Ripley's post 184. I think there might be some worth in that.

Still kind of meh on the IH/Paradox debate, but I'll tentatively say Simenon is probably town for now, and hope he is as easy to read as he seems to be =P

Post 230 mod post

post 231, Aimee post, answers questions.

Coincedence much?

I don't understand your point. Patrick reminds Aimee of some questions she overlooked, Aimee replies and answers them. What's the coincidence you refer to?

Patrick, would you be up for lynching IH or Aimee if the votes could be got together in time? You said a while back you thought you were more suspicious of Aimee than of Paradoxombie.

Everybody else: can you please specify who you would be willing to lynch?

Curious..... just wondering why you seemed so certain that Para and Jordan were town? Eh, perhaps I'm stretching it but.... a moot lynch to keep the suspects alive? Just wondering why me and Aimee were your two other choices....

I can't see anything in this that could be interpreted as meaning I'm certain that Para and Jordan were town. What do you mean? I'm trying to find out what alternative lynches are available in the case of Jordan claiming a power role, as in fact happened. Patrick had earlier specified Paradoxombie as someone he'd switch to. The only other person I didn't include in my question was Simenon, and I can't now precisely remember why that was; probably because Patrick had never expressed any suspicion of him and they'd voted the same way all day. I don't understand what you mean by "moot lynch to keep the suspects alive".

I continue to wonder why Ripley was so keen on keeping paradoxombie alive, that was twice he tried to switch the vote....

You had another option...... nolynching. The tone in your earlier posts seemed as if you had already semi confirmed him.

So.... lynch for lynches sake? It didn't seem to be for information (bolded part)

Prior to Jordan's claim I was, as already explained, trying to find out which lynches would be possible, not "trying to switch the vote". Following the claim I liked the Para lynch less and less the more I thought about it, I said so and I said why. He was indeed protown, so it turned out my reservations were valid.

I believe that in this setup a no lynch is the worst outcome on Day 1, and there were no other lynches available to me. The fact that I didn't much like the lynch doesn't change the fact that, in the lack of a claim from Paradoxombie, it was the right thing to do.

I had no back up plan after jordan.

find that suspicious in itself.

May I ask why you find that suspicious?

Already answered. (Post 325).

Where do I recommend you look? I really don't know who the scum are; nobody claims to except you, apparently. I had already said this. Seriously, you're getting into this outraged state because I failed to recommend where you look?

......So you accuse him of not having a plan.....

but you don't know where to look for scum....

in other words you also have no suspicions?

This is a ludicrous misinterpretation of what I said. Let's trace this back to its origins. Simenon first decides I'm scum, then looks for evidence. He finds so little that I suggest that might be an indication that he's looking in the wrong place. He, and now you, keep repeating "so where should I look then!" as if the fact that I don't feel able to name the scum with confidence - and note, nor does anybody else feel able to do this - somehow invalidates my response. I'm suspicious of everyone, and looking everywhere. And it increases my suspicion level of you no end, IH, when you pick up and on parrot responses of this quality by Simenon, and repeat questions from him that I've already answered, while glibly dismissing all his behavior, including trying to use an obvious joke post against me and placing a quick vote in lylo, as a"slight over reaction".

Incidentally, it is impossible for you to have read post 342 and still claim that I "have no suspicions". There's actually quite a bit about you in that post, all of which you have chosen to ignore. I'd like to hear your reply.

1.Clearly.... you do know that LFR/Simenon is very experienced in Mafia? I am unsure as to how many games he has, but he has been playing for quite a while I believe (Wifom/MTGS)

No idea what you mean by LFR or what the point is you're trying to make. My point was that Patrick and Simenon were two of the most experienced players in the game at that point; you seem to be arguing with me with evidence that supports what I was saying.

3.So do you believe he predictied a doc claim?

Again, no idea what you're trying to say here. My argument you're replying to is that it would have been more difficult for Patrick and Simenon, if scum, to switch to the Para wagon because of their existing wagon, than for scum to join their Jordan wagon. Nothing to do with predicting a doc claim at all.

It was like you guys posted, then lurked as I replaced in and posted, and then when I left you posted while I lurked.

When you said on Jun 23rd you'd be gone for a week, we pretty much stopped posting for that week.

I also find it strange that Ripley thought it more important to try and cast suspicion on Simenon, who was voting for the other alternative from the unclaimed doc, and did not instead look at Patrick who had pressed for a power role claim.....

Your wording here is extraordinarily skewed. I didnt "think it important to try and cast suspicion on Simenon". I simply

was suspicious of Simenon

. I thought it was strange that he immediately unvoted his prime suspect without waiting for counterclaims, especially when the claim was doc (much favored as a fake claim by scum). I still think so.

Incidentally, I think it's perfectly reasonable to reconsider my thoughts about Simenon's play regarding his supposed scum tell, in the light of his subsequent actions and the knowledge that both Jordan and Para were protown.

I have already commented on the Patrick bit, and again your wording "Patrick who had pressed for a power role claim" is just weird, twisting a routine roleclaim suggestion into something sinister. Have you been to spin doctor summer school? Oh, and here it is again:

Patrick seemed to press the claim (as if urging someone to come out).

Am I missing something? Patrick repeats that

Jordan

, who's pretty obviously going to be deadline lynched otherwise, should claim. What do you mean by "urging someone to come out"? Are you implying he was trying to do anything other than have Jordan, specifically, to claim a power role if he had one? If so, exactly what are you suggesting he was doing? If not, exactly what are you suggesting he was doing wrong?

All my toes seem OK. Maybe I haven't been kicking hard enough.

[Ripley]

I was a bit surprised not to get more from Patrick last week following Post 355 (The Notification of the Throbbing Toenail). Partly because the wording "May not post much today" rather implied that we might expect something the next day or the day after, when the agony had subsided. And partly because one of the topics coming repeatedly under discussion following IH's post 353 was Patrick's asking for a role claim Day 1. But we don't hear anything more from Patrick till he welcomes Skruffs.

While Patrick always manages to come across to me as more protown than not, I'm not getting quite the same level of confidence in him as I have in other games. We usually think very much alike, so the very fact of his early suspicion of Jordan, which I didn't really share, has given this game a different feel. Plus the not-posting I just referred to, which can be a sign of being content to sit back and let the townies tear each other to pieces.

I wouldn't say I'm particularly suspicious of Patrick, it's more that I'm not as confident in him as usual. And I have to take notice of that. He has however said lots of things I do agree with. For example, his recent remarks about Aimee (lack of curiosity, needing to be pressed to contribute) seem true to me.

And now back to IH, and the whole business of Patrick asking Jordan to claim. Aimee says she dislikes the way IH is focusing on this, because she doesn't see it as anti-town at all, and IH replies:

Focused? There wasn't that many things that happened yesterday, and I consider that something major that just went unadressed.

How major can it have been, if nobody even thought it worthy of comment? Your argument seems to be that the wording Patrick used was strange and sounded like a scumbuddy coaching, and that even when this turns out not to have been true, you're suspicious of me for not commenting on it at the time. But

nobody

found it strange except you, either at the time or later when you've pointed it out. And you single me out repeatedly for this "ignoring Patrick pressing for a claim", as if this is a crime for me, but just fine for everyone else. The only difference I can see is that you believe that because I said I found Simenon's behavior following the claim a bit suspicious, I was somehow also obligated to find Patrick suspicious as well. Which doesn't really make sense. It's as if you've declared you're For Simenon, which means you have to be Against Ripley. You really seemed to be doing much the same as Simenon did, starting off from the assumption "Ripley is scum" and then scouring my posts for evidence to support it.

However, I have to say here that this game has in some ways reminded me of a newbie game I played with Simenon into which IH also replaced. The roles have been reversed to an extent, in as much as in the previous game it was IH who, immediately following his arrival, was making what I thought of as - let's say excitable, and not very coherent posts, with which I disagreed thoroughly. And Simenon was supporting him. Both turned out to be town. (I was town too.) So I do have to take into account that there's some history of these two genuinely agreeing with each other even when I disagree with every word of it.

Even taking that into account, I still find IH's almost complete assumption of Simenon's innocence bizarre. I think Simenon's case against me was incredibly weak, and I tend to be more suspicious of someone who supports a weak case than of the person who made it in the first place. So IH is at least as suspicious to me as Simenon/Skruffs, and maybe more so.

Oh, and there's this, which I addressed to IH in post 357, but which he ignored:

Incidentally, it is impossible for you to have read post 342 and still claim that I "have no suspicions". There's actually quite a bit about you in that post, all of which you have chosen to ignore. I'd like to hear your reply.

I'd still like you to respond to this, IH.

[Ripley]

Happy birthday, Patrick!

I hope the additional wisdom that you acquire with such great age will illuminate my innocence, and, if you are town, assist you in the task of hunting down the scummy ratbags who have brought us to this sorry state. If not, I suggest you start the year afresh with a clear conscience, and confess.

[Ripley]

To be honest, Patrick, you are probably the most at risk - as scum - in this game, because we have the exact same setup with you as scum AND as town. So looking at you is a good place to start.

I'm finding Skruff's approach a bit eccentric. I don't mind metagaming along the lines of "X has been more likely to do such-and-such in games where he's been scum", but Skruffs seems to be limiting his research to this particular setup (Pie C9), which is in my view far too narrow a field to be of any use whatever, considering that there are only 2 previous games using this setup in existence. Moreover, only two of us have even played in one (and only one of us has been scum in one). I doubt that anyone has a detectable style as scum or town

within a particular setup

, and even if they did it would take a much larger sample of games using that setup to form any meaningful theories about it.

IH's lurking has become ridiculous. There's a ton of stuff he needs to reply to.

[Ripley]

Limiting? No. I am taking it one step at a time. I'm starting with Patrick. I'll branch out from there... Have I voted or fossed him? No. If I had a lot more free time I could afford to do a giant post all at once, I don't. I'm not going to scrutinize only patrick, or scrutinize him more than any others, but i can compare things with him versus both other games - if he was helpful in teh beginning, for example, if he pushed strongly for a lynch on someone who was town in either/both, etc etc etc.

Still don't see why you're focusing on the 2 previous Pie C9's so closely and exclusively. I just don't think the precise setup is all that relevant.

I will note that you are quick to discredit me before I'm even half way through lookign at one person in particular, Ripley. Why? Would you prefer I analyze someone who has the least amount of information available first - Aimee, for example?

Well, since you ask, I'd probably prefer that to start off with, at any rate, you actually read the game right through once and gave us your thoughts - which don't need to be a giant post - rather than analysing individual people in turn. At least that way we'd have something to work with while you did your individual studies. Your current approach seems to be taking you an awfully long time. And your only paragraph of analysis so far - Post 374 - deals with Patrick

and

me, so you don't seem in fact to be starting with Patrick exclusively.

Anyhow, if you're going to stick with your declared approach, then as long as you pay equal attention to everyone I don't care in the least which order you do them.

[Ripley]

OK, OK. I'll change it back.

Skruffs, that's twice now, in the 2 paragraphs of analysis you've offered so far, that you've managed to imply that my querying of the Simenon/Patrick case against Jordan was less than genuine.

Riply (at the end of page 3) is kind of playing the foil - but i don't think ripley has voted him at this point.

Ripley helped it along without actually voting for it.

Both these comments hint quite heavily, without actually stating openly, that I was up to something dubious and that my misgivings weren't genuine. I can state quite categorically that I had no intention of "helping it along", or of doing anything other than expressing my reservations. If you believe you have found evidence to the contrary, please state it so that I can reply.

what started as a decent scum tell seemed to be being exploited into an unnecessary case,

Can you explain what you mean here? Where and how did it change from a decent scum tell to an exploited, unnecessary case?

and Simenon is, ugh, Simenon.

and can you clarify this?

[Ripley]

I'm talking about the way he (and ripley, in a more hidden way) pushed the jordan's tell about simenon (me).

And that makes a third time you've made this or a similar comment about me without at any stage offering any evidence, although I pointed this out after the second time and asked you to justify it. Repeating it in slightly different words is not justifying it.

A case that was made against Jordan by Patrick and Simenon, has, in Skruff's retelling, become a case pushed by Patrick (openly) and Ripley (in a hidden way). I'm finding this increasingly strange.

I kind of feel like he's being ambushed before he's really got into his stride.

Well, I do try to be patient with replacements. And I think if Skruffs had said "I'm going to post my thoughts as I go; let me get to the end, then I'll deal with all your questions" - well, OK, we'd know where we were. But what he's done is to repeat more or less the same things several times, while ignoring comments and questions about the things he's repeating. I don't think those questions or comments could be said to constitute an ambush.

[Ripley]

Skruffs, it's impossible for me to answer all of your post because you refer to things in vague terms without providing quotes or even a post number.

After simenon points out this peculiar relationship (and I noticed it in Pie 2 so I don't want to say it's a full-out meta tell) Simenon makes a very slight comment about how Patrick *could* be manipulating his suspicions to make him suspicious of Patrick.

Patrick did notice this - questioned it - Ripley ignored it - and Patrick brought it to his attention again.but Ripley's response doesn't make ANY sense. Patrick seems to buy it though, and I wonder if this was some slight British distancing or something.

I have no idea what you're referring to here. Please be specific.

That is a dramatization but you get the point. Patrick asked a question about Simenon and Ripley and Aimee jumped on it.

So - your problem is, when you strip away the prejudicial language, that Patrick made a point that Aimee and I both agreed with?

This is your only reference to Aimee in the main body of your post, which otherwise deals pretty much exclusively with me and Patrick - and yet you think Aimee is scum? This doesn't ring true. You harp on and on, not only in this post but in your previous ones too, about me and Patrick, then despite all the harping you pick one of us as scum with somebody you've barely mentioned.

If someone I thought was scum put a vote on me, and I was town, I would either A) freak out and try to tell everyone he was scum don't let me get hammered oh god, or B) Show him that I'm not afraid because as long as townie doesn't vote, you're okay, while meanwhile building a case against him.

Ripley chose C - act afraid of being quick lynched (by two scum, presumably) while building a case against the person on you. Anyways, that is a weak argument that only makes sense to me, I guess.

I don't get this at all. It's not really relevant how you, personally, would act in a given situation unless maybe you have previous evidence of how I thought and acted like you when I was protown. My own experience is that we don't play anything like each other. I

think

your other argument here is that if I thought Simenon was scum I wouldn't have needed to worry about this vote, whereas if I didn't think he was scum I should have been freaking out. The obvious, and true, reply is that, as stated several times today, I don't know who the scum are. It seems perfectly reasonable to say, as I did: for heaven's sake Simenon, if you're protown, remove your vote. As for freaking out: this is not what I do. It's not helpful. Emotional players, like emotional people IRL, have a habit of thinking they are somehow more real, and their opinions more valid, because of the emotion that accompanies them. I simply disagree with this and find these reactions tiresome.

And that leads to something odd: Skruffs attacks me for

not

freaking out in post 332, while he earlier used that precise term, "freaking out", to describe my post 385, which is in fact entirely calm and rational:

Stop freaking out, Ripley, even if I figure out that you and Patrick are scum, you'll be able to get a mislynch on me. It's cool.

As for your constant linkage of me and Patrick, I feel you approached this game with a preconceived idea about us and, as people often do, looked to find what you expected to see. I disagree that there's anything unusual in our treatment of each other. Patrick generally makes sense; that's the only reason I generally agree with him. As a recent example, you've talked complete nonsense about power roles and claims in this game, to which Patrick has just posted a completely sensible reply. The more nonsense talked by other players, well, yes, the more I'm likely to be speaking out in support of Patrick. Obviously Paradoxombie should have claimed, simply to avoid being lynched. We would have lynched somebody else, who might have been scum. If they'd been the roleblocker, we'd also have got in a cop investigation.

Aimee - you are suspicious of Simenon today but I don't remember you really pushing for him the day before, not in your player post or anything else. Why the change, and are you basing it on the same reasoning you used to think that Paradoxombie was probably scum?

With IH, it's the converse situation. He is treating Simenon/Skruffs practically as cleared today, claiming this is on the basis of his posts yesterday, though, as pointed out by Aimee, he didn't appear to think so at the time:

I checked Day 1 posts, and IH made no reference to finding him so pro-town, something he has stated so vehemently today. If anything, you found him scummy - you FoSed him and called him "slightly suspicious" (although it was in the context of something much greater for Jordan).

IH still hasn't replied to this, and I'm starting to think we'll need to get him replaced if we're to finish this game in our lifetimes. However: Skruffs finds nothing at all to comment on in IH's play, or that of Teffc, nor can he find a single question to ask him in his "things I would really like to know:" section at the end of his post.

Skruffs, you still haven't replied to questions about statements you repeated without offering evidence for them in your earlier posts. There are 3 questions addressed to you in Post 390, all of which you have repeatedly ignored. Please reply.

This is turning into another stream-of-consciousness post, so, I am going to submit it now, like this, and if you want I can edit and post the other one, too, in the morning.

I don't think that would be helpful unless you back up your stream-of-consciousness thoughts with quotes and actual references. I'd much prefer you to put your energies into answering the existing outstanding questions at this stage.

One final point, going back to IH. I found Patrick's post about IH (Post 393, paragraph 1) interesting, and I've thought about it quite a bit. Does anybody else have anything to say about this? I'll repeat it here, for convenience:

One reservation I have about a Skruffs/IH pairing is that IH's first significant post today would be very bold in that case. He states that he pretty strongly feels Simenon is protown, and that's after every other player has expressed suspicion of Simenon, albeit varying levels. It creates a link to Simenon that would be difficult for him to deny later if Simenon was ever lynched as scum. I suppose I could take the opposite direction and wonder why IH didn't jump onto the convenient Simenon "bandwagon" if IH is scum and Simenon/Skruffs town. But maybe that would look too obvious and I'm getting close to the realms of wifom with this.

[Ripley]

I noticed while I was writing this, Ripley's statement about Patrick. I think Patrick suggested a nice thing to mull over - more importantly, what is Your opinion of it, Ripley - and why do you think Patrick suggested it? I'm getting the impression you want to see if this is a possible way to link patrick and IH together. But that's all subliminally based.

You mean the quote at the end of my post? Well, I thought it was interesting because there's a basic argument there, even allowing for all the WIFOM stuff, that IH would be unlikely to have taken the stance he did if he were scum with Simenon, and that he'd also have been unlikely to have taken it if he were scum and Simenon town, and that therefore IH is unlikely to be scum.

It's the second of these cases, where IH is scum and Simenon town, that I was thinking about in particular.

The situation was that 3 players (me, Patrick, Aimee) had all indicated we were suspicious of Simenon. All IH has to do is go with the flow. Why would he not do that? It's not as if IH has anything to gain by being seen to defend the (innocent, in this scenario) Simenon, because we wouldn't know he was innocent till we lynched him, and if we did that the game would be over. The only way he could ever get any credit for it would be if we lynched his scum partner instead. OK, if IH talked us out of lynching Simenon and into lynching his scum partner, he'd probably win the game, but to me that just seems like forgoing a quick and easy win for a protracted and difficult one. Why bother? Also, the person he was trying to put in the frame was me, another protown player (you don't know this, obviously, but I do). He could have expected support from Simenon, but I don't think there was any indication he'd have expected support from the other two. So, why would IH bother to try and switch suspicion from one protown player to another? What would be the point? For his own amusement? He just doesn't seem sufficiently involved to be doing stuff like that.

Or to make himself look good, because somebody would be bound to point out how IH-as-scum would never defend Simenon in that position, and if not he could always point it out himself? Would it be worth rocking the boat to make himself look good, when he wasn't the one under suspicion? Well, maybe. But again, I'm not just convinced that he was sufficiently engaged with this game to bother. And maybe that's the point - I'm thinking about this a lot, whereas he hardly thought about it all, and it's a mistake to assume he had any coherent or rational plan.

But if there is some validity in the theory, then from my POV the Aimee/IH and Patrick/IH combos would move down the list a bit. Though I wasn't keen on Aimee/IH anyway, and the very fact of Patrick raising the point in the first place seems to an extent to cancel out any change in the Patrick/IH likelihood (though I'm not sure that's strictly logical).

I'm less convinced of the other argument, that IH wouldn't have risked jumping in to defend Simenon like that if they were both scum. In the first place, he might manage to switch suspicion and get someone else lynched (which would be game over). Failing that, if we lynched Simenon he has the WIFOM argument to fall back on.

Anyway, I'm not putting too much weight on this theory, but I thought it was worth discussing.

Are you going to answer my questions now?

[Ripley]

These seem like reasonable arguments. Tell me, did your suspicion level of IH decrease at all as a result of your discussion about him in Post 393, or did you decide there was so much WIFOM involved that the argument was fundamentally meaningless? Or has your suspicion of the IH as a scum partner for Simenon decreased, but not otherwise? Who is your current top suspect?

I'm slightly curious that you yourself said that yesterday scum wouldn't have aligned themselves with each other (as in, scum were unlikely to both jump on Paradoxombie, or both be on Jordan) but today you haven't said the same for IH and Simenon aligning themselves pretty majorly by defending each other, and both attacking the same target (you).

It's a bit different on Day 1, when they know there will be consequences. Here in lylo on Day 2, all they have to do is get a townie lynched and their behavior on Day 2 will never come under scrutiny. But I accept your argument to a point. Actually, it made me think of the possibility that IH himself could have thought "Ripley doesn't think scum would join the same bandwagon, so if I support Simenon's stance Ripley will argue that we're not likely to be a scum pair". Though yet again I suspect I'm overthinking, and that IH wasn't approaching the game in such a complex way.

Incidentally, two weeks now since IH posted any content.

[Ripley]

Who is your top suspect?

I find this difficult too, but at the moment it's Simenon/Skruffs. I've explained my suspicion of Simenon before. Skruffs is making me increasingly uneasy with his persistent ignoring of questions. He's been asked three or four times to explain his comments about how Jordan bandwagon, and Patrick's contribution to it, somehow changed their nature from initially OK to not OK, and also his repeated statement that I was helping it along in a hidden way. He really can't have missed these questions. And further, he now has ignored a request from two different players to explain what he's referring to here:

Simenon makes a very slight comment about how Patrick *could* be manipulating his suspicions to make him suspicious of Patrick.

Patrick did notice this - questioned it - Ripley ignored it - and Patrick brought it to his attention again.but Ripley's response doesn't make ANY sense. Patrick seems to buy it though, and I wonder if this was some slight British distancing or something.

Skruffs has consistently refused to provide backing or evidence for his remarks, or even to explain what response of mine he is referring to here; he's therefore slung a fair amount of mud around, and especially at me, in such a way that I can't reply. And I do find this scummy. While replacement players should obviously be granted a period of grace, I think that period is finite and when it expires they should be held to the same standards as an original player. And I think we've reached that stage with Skruffs now.

I'm actually surprised by Patrick's not even mentioning Skruffs when I asked him his top suspect, given all the above, and given also how Skruffs made attacks on Patrick for suggesting Paradoxombie should have claimed, and for acting suspiciously around deadline. Patrick seems to show no reaction - he repeats or drops the questions, and is willing to absorb the attacks, however unreasonable, responding only with polite explanations.

And Skruff's treatment of Patrick doesn't feel quite right either: despite all the stuff he had to say about Patrick, including - as well as everything I've mentioned in this post already - a whole lot of suspicion about a perceived connection with me, when it comes to picking scum Skruffs prefers the Ripley/Aimee pairing, although he has had practically nothing to say about Aimee. My suspicion of Patrick/Skruffs has definitely gone up a notch as a result of these recent posts.

Mod

: what's the situation with IH? This is his second extended absence. He appears to have lost interest in the game.

[Ripley]

What do you mean when you say that I'm willing to absorb all his attacks? I've responded to everything he's said to my knowledge, and pretty much shot it all down. I haven't just rolled over and done nothing. Apologies if you thought I was too polite in my responses. Do you actually expect that I should punch him back?

Not exactly. Incidentally, that whole paragraph in my post was actually something that only came to my consciousness while I was writing the preceding paragraphs, though it had probably been simmering at a lower level beforehand. So it's not something I'd previously considered in any detail.

It sounds as if you think I was complaining you weren't more aggressive, which wasn't what I meant at all. By absorbing, what I meant was that you seem more inclined to accept unreasonable, unjustified or unsubstantiated attacks, without yourself seeming to complain much about these things, or to find them suspicious, than I would have expected.

It's not just that you weren't considering him as a candidate for your top suspect, and perhaps it was misleading of me to mention that, but as I said I was pretty much thinking this out as I went along.

I can best describe it as being mildly - no more than mildly - surprised at your general level of acceptance of Skruffs' play over quite a sustained period. I really can't put it any better than that. You know that in Mafia it's usually right to mention things that feel even a small bit off.

[Ripley]

My own memories of Skruffs from that game, where he was town, are that he was very active and busy, and posted microanalyses of every possible outcome to the point where I was begging him to stop because I was convinced he was actually helping the scum more than he was helping us. LOL - maybe my memory's being somewhat selective here, but it's quite possible for there to be a lot of truth in both our memories. I'm certainly finding him very different in this game, though I do realise that people's initial levels of enthusiasm and activity almost invariably start to dwindle as they accustom themselves to the - erm - let's call it the leisurely pace at which things happen here (though I've heard less kind terms used).

As for the attempts to link us together, I've actually been much more aware of that in this game than the previous one. In that game there might, actually, have been some linkage there to observe, since for the whole of Day 2, when everything actually happened, I had a successful protect on you. Whereas in this game I know there's no possible linkage, and I actually think I've disagreed with you far more in this game than in the other one. As I said earlier, it just seemed to me he arrived with a preconceived idea that he hasn't really been willing to let go.

I've played 1 more game with him, but he was a replacement as usual and I got NK'ed night 1 so we didn't overlap by much. I'll dig it out and take a look though.

[Ripley]

As I said earlier, it just seemed to me he arrived with a preconceived idea that he hasn't really been willing to let go.

Would you class it as letting go when he says that he thinks the scumgroup is Ripley/Aimee?

I'll believe he's let it go if he accepts your explanation and doesn't bring it up again after that.

I had a look at that game I mentioned and found I'd actually spent the end of Day 1 arguing vehemently with Skruffs, who'd replaced in a deadline situation and was posting a lot of excuses and generally finding reasons not to actually read the game, although he found the time to make lengthy posts about how he didn't have time to read the game, and for this and other reasons I thought he was scummy as hell. Skruffs would probably dispute this account of his behavior, but actually it does show that like you, I've previously found Skruffs to be very scummy when he was actually town (although not for the same reasons as in this game).

IH, your post doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence that you're going to properly rejoin the game any time soon. You've posted no content since July 18th. Are you willing to make any sort of commitment as to when you'll start playing again?

[Ripley]

Which game was this, out of interest?

Open 18.

[Ripley]

No it was more, you noticed something similar in nature, I'd assume you would have noticed this as well.

Of course I noticed Patrick asking for a roleclaim, but, like everyone except you apparently, I didn't think there was anything noteworthy about it. I still fail to see what was "similar in nature" between Patrick's requesting a roleclaim from a player facing a deadline lynch, and Simenon's moving his vote from his prime suspect to a player he'd said he thought was town, without waiting for counterclaims. If I've misunderstood, and these are not the things you believe were similar in nature, please explain. Unless you can do this, and explain, more convincingly than you have managed so far, why Patrick's actions should have stood out as suspicious, I don't think it's reasonable for you to keep singling me out for criticism for not commenting on an issue that nobody but yourself has found worthy of comment at any stage.

As I stated, Simenon is sticking to his suspicions, as I stated, and not just jumping onto someone else. Of course this is invalid if I am scum, but the fact of the matter is I find it to be protown that he didn't just shift onto me, which he could have easily done.

So is this the reason that you're treating Simenon as cleared today? If so, I'd like more details about this. Please specify, with quotes or post numbers or both, where it was that you thought Simenon passed over an opportunity to shift his vote to you, and also explain why this is so significant to you. Simenon's only votes were for Jordan and Paradoxombie (both town) - why is it such a big deal to you, if you're town, that he chose to vote those particular protown players and not you? Also: Nobody still alive voted you. In fact, if you exclude your predecessor's vote on Patrick, nobody still alive ever voted anybody other than Jordan/Paradoxombie, either. So why are you singling Simenon out at all, let alone to the extent of clearing him?

If there's more to it (your belief in Simenon's innocence) than that, please explain precisely what it was about his play at the end of Day 1 that has so convinced you.

The only thing I feel like I need to respond to in 342 is about the para/Jordan here. While it could be that he was trying to defend Jordan, I saw it as more trying to steer the conversation away from anything and everything.

This doesn't begin to explain what I asked about, which is: why, after all the negative things you had to say about Jordan, including (to Para) "While jordan scum scrambles, you unsubstantiate another player." you proceeded to completely ignore your own case against "Jordan scum" and go exclusively after Paradoxombie.

I haven't disagreed with Skruffs so far....

LOL - well, there's a surprise. Did you agree with what he said to Patrick (Post 403, paragraph 3) about Paradoxombie claiming being useless?

Ripley, why were you pushing Skruffs about "focusing on those two games exclusively"?

This has already been done to death while you were lurking. See posts 382 and 385, where I explained my views in detail already.

Patrick did notice this - questioned it - Ripley ignored it - and Patrick brought it to his attention again.but Ripley's response doesn't make ANY sense. Patrick seems to buy it though, and I wonder if this was some slight British distancing or something.

Skruffs wins this game

Until and unless Skruffs explains these comments of his, which he's been asked to do, the "game" is one to which he alone knows the rules. Do

you

understand what he meant? Or did this just strike you as a promising remark by Skruffs that quite probably meant something or other, so you just decided to throw a cheer in its direction, in line with your policy of blindly supporting everything said or done by Simenon/Skruffs, most especially if it attacks Ripley?

I'm just wondering what the point of this is. To admonish Skruffs? Just general information? Letting us know? Throwing off on Skruffs post?

If I don't explain any occasion where I fail to answer every word of a post it gets used against me. Skruffs' tendency to describe events with his interpretation of behavior, rather than description of the actual events, combined with his decision not to use quotes or post numbers, made it impossible for me to reply to all of his post. I therefore stated this at the start of my reply.

What's interesting is that it was a slight fos referring to not revealing his reasons, that you should know about, as i believe you commented on it. Then, when on a massive lurk fest, Simenon gave off what I believed to be a giant sign of a townie.

Sorry, don't understand this, though the end seems to refer back to the reason for your belief in Simenon's innocence. So, please elaborate.

You try doing a reread with these long ass posts. Seriously.

Really, you make life difficult for yourself by disappearing for long periods. I don't think this is a difficult game to keep up with.

OK, on to other things.

Patrick, you mentioned Tapioca Mafia earlier. In a way that game was the converse of Pie C9 2, where I thought Skruffs was innocent, and am thus having more trouble with his behavior in this game than you. You thought he was scum in that game and say that's caused to to recalibrate your expectations of him. In Tapioca, you had Aimee pegged as town but I was suspicious of her. And now in this game you're finding her suspicious. Maybe because I didn't get the strong protown vibe you did from her in Tapioca, I'm not noticing the same difference as you are.

Aimee has agreed with me on almost everything today, which perhaps explains why I'm struggling to see the scumminess everyone else seems to. Because apparently at this stage everyone but me would place her in their top two suspects, and two of you (Patrick, IH) have her as their top candidate for a lynch. (Though I don't think anybody has made much of a case against her. IH in particular seems to have picked her out by a process of elimination.) Anyhow, I need to think about this.

[Ripley]

I agree it's possible Aimee's been using me.

You've had a ton to say about everyone else, and very little about Aimee, other than agreeing with me about a few things like under the radar, lacking in curiosity etc.

You've been looking a bit more closely at Aimee lately, but prior to that

nobody's

really had much to say about her, and yet everyone but me has her as a leading suspect. I think my position's actually more consistent. I do agree she's been under the radar and I'll reread thoroughly this weekend.

Another is you're scum with her and favouring her (generally little commentary or opinion on her, not much on scumpairings with her in other than saying you think IH/Aimee is unlikely).

I don't think that's fair. My doubts about Patrick/Simenon and Aimee/IH arose from the voting yesterday. My other comments about pairings (post 407) arose from your theorising about IH and are all about IH pairings. It happens that the same Aimee pairing arises in both. I don't think I've talked about pairings anywhere else in the thread, though I'm keeping notes all the time.

Incidentally: you said early in Day2 that you thought Ripley/Simenon highly unlikely following our early disagreements. You've since noted that Aimee has been attacking Simenon/Skruffs today in a way you find "a tad opportunistic". Do you now think these two now also make an unlikely scum pair?

Most of the rest of your post should be answered by Aimee, so I'll leave it at that. I think there needs to be a lot more posting from people other than us two.

One more thing, and IH,

I would really like you to read this

. I made a note following your posts of July 17/18. that from your POV it lmust look like I could only be scum with Patrick. Now you've popped up and said you think I'm scum with Aimee, I clearly needed to take another look at this. My reasoning: I assumed you'd rule me out as scum with Simenon/Skruffs for the same reason as Patrick did, even if you weren't treating Simenon as innocent. Meanwhile, you kept repeating as part of your case against me that I was trying to shift the vote away from Jordan/Paradoxombie at the end of Day 1. You quote this post:

Patrick, would you be up for lynching IH or Aimee if the votes could be got together in time? You said a while back you thought you were more suspicious of Aimee than of Paradoxombie.

If you believe, as you say you do, I was actively trying to shift the lynch here, you must surely see how wildly unlikely it is that I'm scum with Aimee. If so I'd be trying to shift the vote from a townie towards my scum partner, shortly before deadline.

Skruffs, you also have Aimee/Ripley as your first choice, and Patrick thinks it's a good possibility. Whether or not you believe I was actively trying to shift the vote here, don't you think that's a pretty unlikely post for me to have made if I were scum with Aimee? (Incidentally, IH has never managed to explain convincingly how he thought it was scummy of me to be shifting the vote away from Jordan and Para, but that's another question...)

[Ripley]

Skruffs has been

summarily executed

prodded.

Vote: summary execution

I'm starting to wonder if the scum are hoping to force a deadline by posting no more than the bare minimum necessary to avoid replacement, and hoping everyone else will become too fed up to carry on posting in their absence. Mod: please don't fall for it.

[Ripley]

So, is Simenon replacing back in? I don't mind if he does if it helps solve the inactivity problem. Our biggest problem seems to be lack of continuity -- the only person I can have a normal exchange with seems to be Ripley. Everyone else takes about a week in between each post.

Agreed.

Requesting prods on IH and Aimee.

Aimee told us she would be able to post during her month's absence, but has not done so.

IH made a single post under pressure 5 days ago, having posted no content for over a fortnight before that, and has not yet followed through by dealing with the responses. There was a previous period where his announced 1 week of absence stretched on into 2 and beyond, this unannounced extension covering the deadline period on Day 1. I think he needs to consider, honestly, his level of commitment to this game, and whether there's any realistic prospect of his making regular useful contributions in future.

[Ripley]

IH, please can I get your response to the second half of Post 428, starting where it says "One more thing". This was addressed to you.

Simenon was a winner here. He didn't join in on everyone saying that I was lurking while posting elsewhere....

Also I don't believe I see the motive in a scum mentioning this. perhaps there is an extremely wifom one, which I just don't think is plausible. Possible, but not plausible. Especially by Simenon.

Are you using "winner" here in the same sense as "Skruffs wins this game"? Because I didn't understand your explanation of that.

You are completely wrong to say that "everyone" said you were lurking while posting elsewhere. Of the 6 players alive at that time other than yourself, precisely one player (me) said this (in Post 254). And btw, it was true. Are you seriously telling us you've cleared Simenon on the basis of his making an excuse for you not posting in this game? Have you never, in all the games you've played here, seen a scum try to get on somebody's good side before? I really find that hard to believe. And if he is scum and you are town, look how well it's worked! One brief aside excusing your lurking, which cost him absolutely nothing, and he's cleared, to the extent that you're apparently willing to excuse or attempt to explain away absolutely anything else said or done by him or his successor. I find it really strange that in that situation you would not even be looking at that possibility.

While it is important to claim, it is then only on the realms of guesswork we go along, because if they claim, and there is no counterclaim, we procede to lynch someone else, presumably and hopefully scum. Though, the power role claiming to save himself is pointless, since they will be killed that night.

So
Power role claiming to save himself for the night-Useless
Power role claiming to stop a mislynch-useful

This is just rambling. There was a clear reason for him to have claimed: to try to avoid the mislynch. Moreover, the doc had already been outed, so Para, the cop, would

not

be killed that night and, if we managed to lynch the roleblocker instead, would also have an invcestigation result. Is there any part of that you disagree with? Or are you just trying to muddy the waters?

What's interesting is that it was a slight fos referring to not revealing his reasons, that you should know about, as i believe you commented on it. Then, when on a massive lurk fest, Simenon gave off what I believed to be a giant sign of a townie.

Please be careful with your quotes. You have quoted me here as saying something that was actually said by you.

IH comes across to me at this stage as willing to bend over backwards to the point of dislocatiing vital joints, in order to defend or explain away anything said by Simenon/Skruffs, whereas with me it's the precise opposite; he bangs away and away at the same few points, no matter how often I reply, repeating "I don't understand it" or, in the case of his ongoing Patrick/Jordan/claim fixation, that it was strange, and that I alone should have noted it as such, and am therefore suspcious for not doing so. Jordan was innocent and IH claims to believe Patrick is innocent too; it's completely bizarre how he's continuing to try and single me out as somehow implicated by this. For not commenting on an interaction between two presumed innocents that turned out to be nothing and that nobody else thought was anything at any time. Bizarre.

nothing specific, just some vibes you're throwing off, and just how some of your ideas come out. I'd say you were town.

This is just impossibly vague. IH, this is a lylo situation; you have to do better than that. Please try and give at least one example of Patrick's posting that has led you to the belief that he's town.

[Ripley]

Skruffs, can you please give me a quote explaining what you're referring to here? It's clearly nothing to do with the post I just made, unless you've completely misunderstood something. With the speed at which this game is crawling along, it's getting even more necessary to use quotes unless you're referring to very recent material.

[Ripley]

Fairly strong words here. If I am to accept that logic then that would also make it "wildly unlikely" for you to be scum with IH, and I don't think you're scum with Skruffs, and I know I'm not scum, so...

I was talking mainly to IH, who had repeatedly argued that I was trying to shift the vote away from Paradoxombie/Jordan, which he for some reason considered evidence against me. And my post asking you if you'd be willing to vote for IH/Aimee was part of his case. I still don't see how he can consistently claim to believe that, and have Aimee and me as his top scum pair. You can't just dismiss any inconsistencies in your position by crying "clearly WIFOM". IH has not come up with any logical reason why I, if I were scum, would consider bussing my scum partner in that position, because there is no logical reason. In fact he hasn't provided any logical reason, or at least not one that I could understand, why scum would have wanted to shift the vote at all.

I did think it was something for you and Skruffs to consider as well, if only because both of you had been supportive of the Ripley/Aimee theory. But since neither of you had claimed to believe I was trying to shift the vote, I downgraded it to "pretty unlikely" when addressing you two. See final paragraph of that post (428).

[Ripley]

Skruffs, the two remarks you've bolded in two quotes at the end of your post referred to different games.

I'm not replying in detail to your post. Much of it has already been covered, and I've spent endless hours already replying in minute detail to previous posts from you and from IH, those replies, and questions of my own contained in them, being more often than not ignored. You continue to repeat arguments which have been challenged, without addressing the replies. I'll state in general terms that I completely disagree with your characterisations of my play; with your constant linkage of me with Patrick; and with your repeated attempts to portray me as upset, jittery, cracking under pressure and, now, irritable. If you or anybody else has a particular question you'd like me to respond to, go ahead.

Both Simenon/Skruffs and IH seemed to start off today absolutely determined to do everything possible to find evidence of my guilt. Neither of them seems really interested in listening to my replies. They're only interested in finding ammunition to use against me, in mudslinging and insinuations and repeating accusations that they've failed to justify, or that I've replied to. It's impossible for me to understand how anybody protown, who should be trying to find scum, would approach a game like that. I'm looking at everybody with an open mind. Why aren't they? I have to wonder if the real reason is that this was the plan agreed to on Night 1, and neither of them can be bothered to change it. We know from Skruffs' first post that Simenon contacted him about the game before the replacement:

Oh, so I *have* replaced.
Hi everyone.
What do I need to know?
Simenon said I Was on the chopping block.

Simenon, incidentally, didn't have a single vote, the only vote of the day having been made by himself, and any suspicion he was under was entirely of his own making as a result of how he started off Day 2. However, the accuracy of his comment isn't really the point; the point is, would he have bothered to contact his replacement just to complain about his situation? Hmm... possibly. But if he were scum he would

definitely

have contacted him, because he'd have a night's worth of scum discussion to pass on.

As for IH, it's become almost impossible to have any kind of reasoned discussion with him. It's not just the long intervals between posts; his writing style is increasingly careless and hard to follow, and in a game which is entirely dependent on communication by the written word, it's becoming a nuisance. Like Aimee, I have no idea what he meant by post 455, a single sentence which has been his only contribution since the 11th. There have been many other examples. Like Skruffs, he continues to repeat points that have been answered, over and over. Also, his apparent inability to disagree with Simenon/Skruffs about

anything

would make it pretty difficult to discuss things with him even if he were posting regularly and in flawless English. He gives the impression these are both players he admires, and that he is actually quite pleased to be in a situation where he can offer unqualified support.

IH, we're still waiting to hear from you what it is about Patrick's posts that has caused you to think he's innocent. Surely you can do better than "gut feeling", which is IMO usually shorthand for "I can't be bothered to wade through all his posts right now and try to find out what, if anything, made me think this way".

[Ripley]

You've messed up your quotes, but anyway:

The first reference, as you say, states the game title:

Patrick, you mentioned Tapioca Mafia earlier. In a way that game was the converse of Pie C9 2, where I thought Skruffs was innocent...

Pie C9 2, which was Open 11. Agreed so far?

The second reference:

I had a look at that game I mentioned...

is to C9 + 2, Open 18, confirmed by the link I provided (Post 424) when Patrick asked me which game I was referring to. When I say "that game I mentioned", I'm referring back to the last sentence of Post 418:

I've played 1 more game with him, but he was a replacement as usual and I got NK'ed night 1 so we didn't overlap by much. I'll dig it out and take a look though.

1. Pie 9 C2, Open 11.
2. C9 + 2, Open 18.

Different games. OK?

[Ripley]

My apologies. I associate one game by C9 and the other by "the game where SV was scum".

Accepted.

So I was town in all three games - and I'm sure if you had lived in the other one, you would have disagreed with me, because, well, frankly, you are scared by my brawny intellect. *flex* don't worry though, it's okay.

You know, nothing illustrates so clearly the turn this game has taken as the fact that I'm reluctant to do what I would normally do here, and crack a joke about my fear of your brawny intellect. Both you and your predecessor Simenon have used obvious jokes as evidence against me. It's taken a lot of the fun out of the game.

Moving on, did you want to comment on my indication of Patrick as a swing vote?

Not really. I guess it could turn out that way. I'm usually more than happy to chat openly and think aloud about this kind of stuff, but again, Skruffs, I don't think you've treated me at all fairly up to this point, and eventually a certain amount of inhibition is bound to set in with my dealings with you. On previous form, you'd quite likely respond to anything I said by ignoring the content and describing the tone as "increasingly desperate" or "obviously panicking". If your approach has changed, well, when I see that I'll probably be chattier.

Do you think it's more likely that patrick is scum, or town?

Town, marginally, but I'm still very unsure. About everybody.

[Ripley]

Aimee returns on Sep 1st 1 week from now. Presumably this means we can at that time start playing normally again.

IH is like the Mafia equivalent of an NHS bedblocker. He's been a major obstacle to progress in this game. He's been asked several times to stand down if he's not prepared to post regularly. Invariably he responds with a post or two followed by another long absence. I think this game has suffered him long enough and we should now be looking to replace him. Now would be a very good time so that the replacement could catch up by Aimee's return.

Skruffs: you can't really need me to explain why I'm not finding this game exciting. Surely.

[Ripley]

Total posts made by IH in Mafiascum since Aug 11th: 311.
Total posts made by IH in this game since Aug 11th: 1. (1 sentence, incomprehensible).

Enough is enough.

[Ripley]

The game really IS dying, now.
So we should probably get some one lynched to either continue it or end it. I don't like the idea of abandoning it, though.

The game's certainly suffered a serious loss of momentum, and probably the quality of play won't be so good as a result. I've lost my grasp of the detail of what's happened and would need a seriously thorough reread, which feels like a real chore at this stage. But with Aimee due back in a couple of days it should be possible to kickstart things again. I think Patrick and I have pretty much been around throughout, and though it did seem to take you a long time to catch up properly, you've done that now.

I suppose it might be a problem getting a replacement for IH. We could always lynch him, I suppose. Or lynch the empty space where he used to be. That gaping, unfillable void. It would be a bit unsatisfactory lynching someone that wasn't here to defend themselves, but given his attendance record I don't know that we'd have seen much defense from him even if he'd still been playing. And abandoning the game wouldn't exactly be satisfactory either.

Anyway, let's see what happens with a replacement, and hear what Aimee has to say.

[Ripley]

Welcome! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts when you've had a chance to catch up.

[Ripley]

If there any other questions or specific things people want me to look for during my reread, I'd be happy to indulge you.

Definitely not. If someone asks you to look out for something specific, I think that would automatically devalue any observations you made on that topic. I'd much rather you read the game with a completely open mind. I'm mildly surprised that you wouldn't rather do that too.

[Ripley]

If it is so important, why didn't you mention it at the time? As Simenon does argue, “Why didn’t you mention it as distracting when it actually occurred...?”

As you say, this has been mentioned previously. And I had already responded:

I think it's perfectly reasonable to reconsider my thoughts about Simenon's play regarding his supposed scum tell, in the light of his subsequent actions and the knowledge that both Jordan and Para were protown.

And of course, maybe your efforts are halfhearted because you're actually scum, and you know there's nothing there to find.

Just like you seemed to know Jordan wouldn't get counterclaimed yesterday.

This was about Simenon. Yet even as scum, he wouldn't know Jordan was a power-role. As a result, I'm not quite sure of Ripley's point here. Maybe I'm over-emphasising the importance of semantics here, but it seems Ripley is over-accusing Simenon, as also voiced by my point above.

Huh? If Simenon was scum he'd have known Jordan was town, and therefore telling the truth.

I've really lost interest in this game now. I'll play on if that's what the majority want, but my own preference would be to abandon it.

[Ripley]

OK. There are 20 pages for Zindaras to read, and he has indicated he won't have time to start for a while. Patrick and I prefer to abandon it. Aimee? Skruffs? Is it really worth carrying on with this?

[Ripley]

Nice to see you both! (As always.)

Skruffs, you said "this is the only way I see it moving forward." Does this mean you've given up on Zindaras bringing anything to the game? Not an unreasonable conclusion, given his contribution so far, though I dispute the wisdom of your choice of action. As you would expect.

I'm increasingly dreading the prospect of having to go back and remaster the minutiae of the events of this game, which I now only remember in a very vague and general way. I'm almost willing to take a punt at lynching Zindaras. Either the game would end then and there, and I can't say at this stage that I'd view that loss as a tragedy or indeed as any great shame, or else the success of lynching a scum would serve as an incentive to regroup and revise for the final battle.

Patrick said something earlier about Aimee not being curious about who the scum were. I recognise that that comment was a comparison of Aimee's play in this game with her play in other games, but I think IH was also massively uncurious in this game. Patrick also made a comment that he thought IH wasn't much interested in Mafia generally at this time, but he's still active here and I've seen him sign up for new games in past weeks. Yet he was, over a long period, unable to summon up the faintest interest in this particular game. (And with all of us delightful people in it too!) Such interest as I had myself, as often happens, was sustained largely by curiosity to solve a puzzle. While no two people are the same, I can't help but wonder if the lack of anything to solve, in conjunction with the need to post without tripping up or contradicting himself, might just not have been enough

fun

. And, though I've never played with Zindaras, it might be possible that the same sort of of reasons are deterring him from getting started. Skruffs, you're a serial replacer of the first rank. What do you think? Is it more of a chore taking over a scum role?

Hmm - I only meant this to be a quick two-liner when I started writing it. I must have been missing you guys.

Anyway, any thoughts?

[Ripley]

Of course IH was a replacement too, and Jordan made a comment that Teffc, who he replaced, had dropped out of another game as scum and so maybe didn't like playing scum roles. So I just took a look at Teffc's other games to see if there was any evidence for this. It's qute a weird list, with not a single example of a normal completed game in it.

Newbie 375: replaced in, townie, lynched D1, self-voted Jun 3rd.
Newbie 368: Doctor, game mod abandoned Jul 2nd (D1).
Mini 453: requested replacement Jun 16th, mod abandoned, roles not known.
Mini 457: requested replacement Jul 3rd, game closed, roles not revealed.
Mini 442: requested replacement, presumably by PM circa May 22, Mafia Godfather. This is the game Jordan referred to.
Pie E7 (Us): requested replacement Jun 16th.

Not really a great deal of use, except maybe for the fact that she dropped out of another game as the same day as this one (Jun 16th) which might indicate that the exam pressure was genuine, rather than a selective desire to avoid completing games as Mafia. However, a certain amount of selection

was

involved since Newbie 368 was still going on Jun 16th and she chose to stay in that one (and was protown in it). I really wish we had the roles for Mini 453, the other game she left on Jun 16th. All we know is that of the 4/12 players dead, 3 were townies and 1 SK. Which does actually leave a reasonably high probability that Teffc was Mafia in that game (3/8, I guess.)

Skruffs, you used the fact of my not having been quicklynched at the start of the day as a reason for choosing me to vote for, and have just now again described that choice as "safer, due to precedent", yet when Patrick gave the opinion that the lack of a quicklynch was meaningless you promptly agreed, and even gave the reasons why. I don't see how you can hold both these beliefs simultaneously.

[Ripley]

I'm amused to see Ripley state that Patrick is always town, then link to a game where he was scum.

I said Patrick had always been town

in games I'd completed with him

. Aimee asked for links to both previous Pie C9 games, so I provided them, including the one in which he was scum and in which I did not play.

[Ripley]

Note the use of the word "amused".

I did note that, but it's not really relevant. You edited my remark, removing the crucial "in all the games I've completed with him", and thereby giving a misleading impression that I had been inconsistent, or (at worst) untruthful, or (at best) amusingly self-contradictory. If my remark is quoted correctly there is no contradiction or inconsistency. Obviously in those circumstances I'm going to put the record straight.

Mod:

I'm also requesting that the deadline be removed. Aimee is away or without access for some other reason, and Zindaras hasn't read the game yet. With only 5 of us alive in a lylo situation, a deadline gives the scum a massive advantage in these circumstances. If Aimee is town, and unable to get online to vote, it's effectively impossible for the town to win from here.

[Ripley]

Surely it's time for this game to be scrapped. It's 28 days since IH was replaced and the replacement has so far found the time to read just 3 pages - pages which contain mostly very brief posts, many of which are just jokes. As for the rest of us, even Skruffs, the main voice in favor of pushing on regardless, has now given up on scum hunting. The game has been rendered virtually meaningless by time, indifference and neglect. The players aren't interested any more. Unless anybody can explain the logic behind forcing a game to a conclusion under these circumstances, I suggest we politely decline to continue playing.

[Ripley]

OK, so I got a very nicely worded PM from the mod requesting that I do my best to get the game finished despite my own lack of interest at this stage. I respond well to nicely worded PMs. So...

Can I point out that there were long periods in Day 2 particularly where I worked hard at this game (providing lengthy, detailed responses to Skruffs and to IH), but others were not willing to do so and effectively stalled it for weeks that turned into months. As a result my own interest eventually dwindled. I've accepted I'll never get those lost hours back that I put into the game, and moved on. The game now means nothing to me and I'm not willing to lose more hours of my life to it.

I am, though, willing to help on a limited basis. I'll answer questions provided that I can do so immediately and without the need to re-research old pages. I won't answer questions I've answered already.

I see Patrick/Aimee/Zindaras have been doing the dance of ruling thselves out in all possible pairings due to being online at the same time and not lynching me. However, any of these posts could just as well be a message to a scum partner: "I'm still here... Skruffs isn't around, let's go for it." Though nobody did, maybe too cautious, maybe uncertain if Skruffs was actually there and waiting to pounce. (Does Skruffs' name appear in the registered users list when he's online?) Though I think the possibility of Skruffs being scum has increased; it's quite likely that the remaining scum is waiting to see if a townie will vote for me, which would explain the lack of action.

I had seen Zindaras's early attacks on me as paving the way for getting me lynched, since Skruffs was clearly willing to vote for me and now done so twice. My theory was that Zindaras (scum) was using Skruffs (misguided innocent) and playing up my guilt to keep Skruffs as anti-Ripley as possible. Well, sure enough another Ripley vote appeared from Skruffs, but if my theory had been right Zindaras and his scum partner would likely have taken an opportunity to lynch me now.

[Ripley]

I see Patrick/Aimee/Zindaras have been doing the dance of ruling thselves out in all possible pairings due to being online at the same time and not lynching me. However, any of these posts could just as well be a message to a scum partner: "I'm still here... Skruffs isn't around, let's go for it."

I don't know why I'm being accused of this (if I am being). It's mainly Patrick who is (and I'm not really seeing why it would discount you anyway.)

Accusation's a bit of a strong word. I wasn't accusing anybody of anything, just pointing out that the claims that "X and I can't be scum together" aren't necessarily proved. You are right to say that you didn't make any of these claims, it was Zindaras (once) and Patrick (three times) - wow, he really was keen. I think there's actually a case to be made against the Patrick/Zindaras pairing, because after the posts made by you that cause Patrick and Zindaras to pop up and call "Not scum with Aimee!" you don't post again for some hours, so you might not have been available to pick up on the cue to go for the lynch, if cue there was. Patrick and Zindaras however clearly know they are online together and posting in the thread together.

I don't understand your final comment. I hadn't claimed that it discounted me.

[Ripley]

I was basing it more on a reason I gave a long time ago: Simenon showed obvious favouritism for IH around yesterday's deadline. He voted Paradoxombie who he claimed to find townish, over IH who he hadn't given any opinion of, when both were at 2 votes. His claimed reasoning was, "Gotta lynch someone" which didn't explain why he picked Paradox over IH. He later claimed he found IH even more townish than Paradox, which I'm not sure I buy.

Which reminds me of something I remember noticing during a reread some time ago; they weren't both on 2 votes. IH was only on one vote when Simenon voted Paradoxombie. You'd better double check this but I'm fairly sure.

[Ripley]

Unless people plan to leap into action at the last minute, which I would guess is unlikely on a Saturday evening/night, this game is drifting towards (a) an automatic scum win by failure to get enough votes together for a lynch, or (b) a scum win by my lynch as the only way to avoid (a), no other candidate being available. Anybody who's protown and doubts my guilt needs to be willing to act. Doing nothing won't work. Quite probably, leaving it till tomorrow won't work.

Aimee, you said (Post 558) that you were unlikely to vote for anybody but Zindaras today. Is this still the case, and when can we expect your vote?

Patrick, you still, as far as I'm aware, consider Aimee and Zindaras as more suspicious than myself and Skruffs. With deadline looming tomorrow, can you give some indication of your voting intentions?

Zindaras, is there any possibility of your finding the time to read the game tonight? Regardless of the answer to that, can you give any idea of who you're willing to vote for?

Skruffs, is your vote on me now set in stone?

[Ripley]

I thought it was 25 hours from now, so I'll second the request for a confirmation of the exact time.

[Ripley]

My thoughts on our predicament (a bit rushed)....

Patrick is clearly not going to be lynched today. The only way we can win if Patrick is scum is to lynch his partner today and lynch Patrick tomorrow. I believe whoever Patrick was scum with he would easily survive tomorrow in that situation. Players' opinions of other players are entrenched and well known. For example, Skruffs would clearly vote either Aimee or myself rather than Patrick. Zindaras and Aimee would vote each other rather than Patrick. So I'm thinking if Patrick is scum we're probably screwed whatever we do, so I may as well assume he's town.

Also, I've checked that period where Zindaras and Patrick clearly both knew they were posting together (around 12.09 pm Wednesday) and Skruffs didn't post anything that day until 1.46 pm. So they had a clear run at it and I can see no reason why they wouldn't just have lynched me then to win the game. It's not possible to rule out Aimee combinations by the same logic though.

Aimee and Zindaras are according to recent statements only willing to vote for each other. Obviously there's a difference between saying something and actually doing it, but it seems reasonable to assume they're unlikely to be scum together (the possibility of their having co-ordinated sufficiently well to lynch me by now, if they were, is confirming evidence for this). If they're both town we're screwed; all three townies must vote together to win. So assume one is town and one is scum. Since I'm already assuming Patrick is town, if those two do go on and vote for each other I think my best play is to vote with Patrick, although if he votes for Aimee we're likely to lose regardless of her alignment, since her scum partner, if she's scum, has done such a good job of encouraging the Aimee/Ripley scum pair theory that I won't survive for five minutes tomorrow.

Slightly complicating this is Skruffs, currently voting for me. If Skruffs is town and leaves that vote in place we are, yet again, screwed. I can do nothing other than hope he's scum, but even so, assuming Aimee and Zindaras vote for each other I still have to vote with Patrick.

I just hit Preview and so for the first time have seen Patrick's post and vote. If there's any flaw in my reasoning above (highly possible, as I said it was done in a rush) please feel free to point it out.

[Ripley]

I think Zindaras has gone for the night. If you're seriously concerned about the buddying up why would you not unvote until you get a reply from him? You say he's got form... and I agree the post of yours he picked out for praise is entirely unremarkable.

[Ripley]

Skruffs is looking very much like scum to me. It's not just that if we were both innocent the scum would have surely have managed to lynch me at

some

point in the last howevermany days that I've had Skruffs' vote. Even now with deadline approaching, nobody has made any kind of preparatory case against me so they could vote for me without it looking odd. I thought that's what Zindaras was building up towards but it seems now not to be so. If two of Aimee/Zindaras/Patrick were scum, surely they'd take advantage of or be intending to take advantage of an innocent-on-innocent vote? Zindaras/Patrick could easily have lynched me on Wednesday. If Aimee/Patrick are scum, they are targeting Zindaras. But Patrick has already voted for Aimee. It doesn't add up. Aimee/Zindaras? How could that be? They're going after each other.

Patrick, you said (Post 593) that you don't think Aimee and Zindaras are scum together, yet you are only considering those two for your vote, a choice you're finding tough. And you've said consistently you don't believe Skruffs and I could be scum, which I think is pretty obvious to all. So really you're looking at one scum in each pair. Does it matter which pair you choose from? I feel bound at least to ask if there's a chance you'd vote Skruffs, because from my POV he's by far the most likely scum. A lot more so than Aimee or Zindaras, which I'd find very hard to call (and you say you're not finding it easy.)

Aimee, Zindaras, would either of you consider voting Skruffs? He seems to be the second choice for both of you.

Oh, and Skruffs, please don't start yelping "there goes Ripley treating Patrick as if he's cleared again" because I already explained at some length why I'm doing that. And I still believe I have to vote with Patrick to give us any chance of a town win. If Patrick/Skruffs are scum we're pretty much doomed to lose whatever I do.

[Ripley]

Absolutely.

[Ripley]

I thought I had a clear preference for Zindaras as well from the way he started off the day. I thought he was going to be following the line of "let's fling as much mud as possible at Ripley", so favored by Simenon, Skruffs and IH. (And also that whoever had that role seemed very disposed to find reasons not to post anything.) But what we've heard from him since, though not much in quantity, has been more balanced. Also, remember I'm looking at this from a "Skruffs is scum" viewpoint and Skruffs/Aimee is more convincing. Aimee has attacked Skruffs all day but when deadline comes she finds herself only able to vote for Zindaras. Same thing with Skruffs, who votes Ripley rather than his supposed prime suspect Aimee. And Aimee's contributions of late have dwindled to almost nothing and have been poor quality, and I do suspect the fact of her agreeing with almost everything I said for almost all Day 2 may have caused me to judge her more favorably than her play deserved.

So - not so clearcut for me any more.

I think your decision really has to be; is the gulf in your view between Ripley/Skruffs wider than between Zindaras/IH? If so your logical position is surely to vote Ripley/Skruffs, and I have to hope the gulf would be in my favor. I don't see how I could be doing any more at this stage to do my absolute darnedest to maximise the chance of the town winning, and approaching the position with the clear-eyed logic of a townie, whereas Skruffs is largely floundering and churning out nuggets of wisdom like "Please let it be ripley".

Of course, even if you did decide to vote Skruffs it would need one of Aimee/Zindaras to be willing to do that as well.

Out for a couple of hours then I should be around all day.

[Ripley]

Please take a look back at the crucial page 11.

Post 263, Jordan claims doctor.

Simenon immediately unvotes and votes Paradoxombie. This struck me as strange immediately, and I said so:

I wonder if Simenon's rapid switch to vote Paradoxombie before Patrick, IH, Paradoxombie or I had even checked in, means he didn't need to wait for counterclaims because he already knew Jordan was innocent?

I'm now more than ever convinced that this was the case and that this was the single biggest blunder made by Simenon or Skruffs in this game. His prime suspect has just claimed doctor, surely an almost routine move for scum in that position. Does he ask for counterclaims? He does not. It's as if he knows Jordan is innocent and that therefore no counterclaim will be forthcoming. He unvotes and votes Paradoxombie, a player he has previously claimed to think protown, putting that player at L-1.

Interestingly, Aimee, who posted after Jordan but before Simenon, seems to have the same blind spot:

Well obviously Jordan is off the cards for today. Lynching a claimed doctor would be stupid.

I think Paradoxombie would be the best alternative. I made a massive case against him on the last page, to which he basically had no defence to. He is my preferred choice.

Not until I post (Post 268) is the possibility of counterclaims even mentioned.

Aimee and Simenon react basically in the same way: ok, that's Jordan out of the picture, let's move on to Paradoxombie. Aimee's reaction didn't really catch my attention until I reread now because she was already voting Paradoxombie and therefore didn't have to take any action following the claim. Simenon's reaction was much more noticeable because of the immediate change of vote and because, as Patrick has pointed out, he had claimed to find Paradoxombie protown.

One more thing I'd like to point in support of a Skruffs lynch is that both days I've made a commitment to be around at deadline, said in advance what I intend to do and stuck to it. Scum would absolutely hate to be trapped by any such commitment, and Simenon was very much absent at deadline on Day 1. There is no evidence of concern about this vote of his which he claimed was forced by the deadline. There is not a word of "oh, IH is now on 2 votes. I could switch. Ripley, Patrick, you're not voting currently. Which do you think is scummier, IH or Para?" Nothing. He votes, provides a very weak defence of his action in Post 278 - and leaves.

I think Patrick is right that Simenon's behavior here is a small nudge in favor of a Simenon/IH scum pair. But you can't attach too much weight to it. The problem is, if Simenon was scum with Aimee he wouldn't care which of IH or Paradoxombie was lynched, and quite likely couldn't be bothered to pretend that he did.

Oh, hello there, Skruffs. Just saw your post.

Ripley, if I am scum with someone, why is nobody else (ie scumpartner) trying to overtly or non overtly.rise more suspicion of you to help out?

Well, if it's Aimee, she'd come way too far down the road of supporting me to be able to do such a complete turnaround without attracting massive suspicion. She's established that I'm not high on Patrick's suspect list, so whose vote is she going to work on.

Zindaras

? Her prime suspect? You can't seriously be suggesting that Aimee could, with any credibility at all, have started to try and work on Zindaras to vote for me? Her obvious play would have been to wait very quietly and hope he did that all by himself.

Zindaras I thought for a while was doing precisely what you suggest, with all that harping on some tiny thing on page 2 or 3 where I linked to a game where Patrick was scum in response to a request from Aimee. If he's your scum partner I would guess that he saw that neither Patrick or Aimee looked in any way as if they could be leaned on to vote for me and that Aimee would clearly be a much easier target for today's lynch.

If Patrick is your partner I think I'm going to cry because all this effort has been for nothing. But basically he had the same problem as Aimee; he couldn't suddenly start attempting to undermine me at that stage without it looking very obvious.

[Ripley]

Skruffs/Aimee does seem, increasingly, to be clicking into place as the most likely combination. The only voting that has taken place today was Simenon/Skruffs, voting for me, three times. Simenon's vote could be dismissed as some kind of over-emotional response to something or other - that is to say, it was impulsive, so there's no need to expect any rational motivation. Skruffs however has voted for me twice, calmly, and so it's reasonable to look at his motivation for doing so.

Choice of target: why me? Why not Aimee, for one thing? He claims to have been more suspicious of Aimee, but always picks me to vote for. The obvious reason is that they're scum together.

Also, if he was scum with IH/Zindaras, what would be the point in voting for me? Where was the third vote going to come from? If he's scum with Aimee this problem disappears, because IH, and then, initially, Zindaras, came across as very promising Ripley voters. Zindaras's subsequent suspect list where he has me listed only third, and his statement that he's only comfortable voting Aimee, is not what you'd have expected from his early posts, and has left Skruffs' vote effectively stranded and useless.

(Again, if he's scum with Patrick I don't think we can win, so no use dwelling on that one.)

Not also how Skruffs doesn't seem to realise this - that his vote is useless. If he were town he'd know that all three townies need to vote together and be thinking the way I was last night when I went through the logic that ended up with me needing to vote with Patrick. But Skruffs doesn't appear to be thinking this way at all. Instead we get "I really hope all townies put a vote on someone by deadline... " and "Please let it be ripley", more spurious logic and some very incoherent material - the sentence in post 610 that I replied to was pretty much the only one I understood - that sounds to me a whole lot like a scum who's floundering badly.

[Ripley]

I definitely think it's a bit overdone to say that Skruffs is my second, it's pretty close there.

I was going entirely by your own list in post 591, from which I think anyone would assume that it was indeed close but that you were more suspicious of Skruffs/Simenon than of me.

Jordan claimed about 28 and a half hrs before deadline. Simenon changed his vote about 26 hrs before deadline. He posted again twice after that, both on the same day (Weds July 4th). He did not post at all on the day of the deadline. If he "knew he wouldn't be around at deadline and thus took measures to help protect a claimed doctor while he could", he should have said so. It's normal for protown players who know they can't make a deadline, or even if they're in doubt. to say so, as Patrick did for example.

Claimed doctors don't get lynched, period.

Uncounterclaimed doctors probably don't get lynched, though I bet it's happened if they sounded scummy and desperate enough. I don't think I've ever been in a game with a counterclaimed doctor but I bet they get lynched all right.

Why would a real doctor counterclaim?

Um, to get the fake claimant, with in this game also the 50% chance that they're the roleblocker, lynched?

Ripley, weren't you all mad at me earlier in the day for analyzing your game-personality instead of scum tells?
Did you miss patrick's vote on aimee and aimee's vote on zindaras?

Sorry, I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

[Ripley]

It was Post 610 I said was incomprehensible. The stuff I replied to was in post 614. Really, Skruffs, is this the best you can do?

Where's Aimee? I'm not sure we're going to hear anything more from her or Zindaras, actually. In which case, there's no use my pursuing the case against Skruffs. There wouldn't be the votes to lynch him whatever Patrick did.

[Ripley]

Fabulous. Skruffs' last post takes my previous post, where I noted that if Aimee and Zindaras are done, we can no longer lynch Skruffs, and reverses it. I think he's conceded that the best way for him to try and sound protown is to repeat the observations of someone in a similar position to himself and who he knows to be protown.

Skruffs, it didn't really work too well, because your grief at the realisation that "Ripley can't be lynched" would only ring true if there had been any reason to believe up until that point that I might be lynched, which there wasn't. If you were town you would have grasped that yesterday, known your vote was wasted, and done what I did; figure out that you needed to vote with the two other townies in order for us to stand any chance, and work out the best chance of that happening. None of which you did, because you're scum.

I've assumed that you won't be lynched, because unless Zindaras or Aimee were willing to vote for anyone but the other (and they'd said they weren't) there wouldn't be enough votes, but since I know you're a better lynch than either of them I had to give it my best shot. So, if Aimee and Zindaras are done, we're now in the expected position. Patrick has to choose and I have to vote with him. Why didn't

you

see this coming until now?

I see no reason why you would expect the mod to prod two players who have posted and voted today. This request strikes me as more histrionics.

[Ripley]

OK. Skruffs/Aimee is looking to me like the most likely pairing now, and with Skruffs not available I think this would have been my choice too between Aimee and Zindaras. As you say, if it's over nobody's going to be exactly heartbroken. If you're scum, well played.

Vote: Aimee

[Ripley]

I will say that an aimee/ih+zin scumpair did have the chance to vote ripley all day. Was there ever a time you were both on at once?

You said just a few posts back that you were willing to consider Zindaras cleared.

I'm inclined to think that despite Zindaras and Aimee both having a fairly sketchy participation level, they'd have had a go at lynching me while they could, to win the game yesterday.

Zindaras, this is probably going to end up with you having to decide. I spent quite a lot of time setting out the case against Skruffs at the end of yesterday, so I won't repeat it ; it's there to read. Any questions you have, just go ahead and ask.

[Ripley]

Patsy was the obvious kill for any scum last night.

I agree with this.

And in your very first post of the day, Skruffs, you said this:

That's not surprising...
I don't think any of us doubted this was coming.

I assumed you were referring to Patrick's death. What else could it mean? But just a few posts later you seem not to understand that Patrick was the obvious nightkill. This is just the latest example of your being inconsistent and contradictory, and the most likely reason for a player having such difficulty with consistency is that, unlike a townie with a clear mind, they're constantly confusing themselves with trying to remember what they're supposed to know and not to know, fabricating reasons for suspicion and posting what they think will advance their position, rather than just posting the simple truth.

THe other thing is that Ripley set the case out against me at the end of yesterday, whereas my case against him was during mostly the whole day. WAs it because Ripley had decided he was going to bus Aimee and thus wanted to lay some seed on the ground to go off of the next day?

I don't remember you making any kind of valid and coherent case, though you certainly kept sniping away with little digs. I remember a lot of "Ripley and Patrick always give me a bad feeling" kind of stuff. I remember a lot of repetition of assumptions which I asked you to back up with facts or evidence, and you would simply never respond. I remember you treating obvious jokes I had made as if they were serious and trying to use them against me, and I remember you making a big fuss about two games I had commented on where you didn't understand they were different games and insisted I'd made a slip.

You are correct, however, that I mostly made my case against you at the end of the day. I made it crystal clear at the time why this was so, and you can hardly have missed it: it was only with the continued failure of any two of Aimee/Zindaras/Patrick to lynch me that you became, from my POV, by far the most likely scum.

[Ripley]

Zindaras, if I was scum, I would have killed you. You know that. It's in my track record.
Barring killing you, I would probably kill Ripley

And he was the obvious kill, but from my perspective, he's' not necessarily the person I Would kill.

All this stuff is pure WIFOM, though if you insist on it, if anyone had a case for keeping Patrick alive it would have been me, since according to you we almost always agree on everything, and I would have had no trouble at all talking him round to my point of view.

IH pulled a lot of flak for defending me when you and Aimee were ready to lynch me in the beginning of the day, though.

And here you go again, stating falsehoods as fact without quotes or evidence to back them up. Nobody, other than Simenon, was ready to lynch at the beginning of the day. There was a lot of criticism directed at Simenon by me, Aimee

and Patrick

following his bizarre start to the day. Patrick was in fact more vocal than Aimee. "Ready to lynch" is a fabrication of yours. I am a very cautious player, especially in a lylo situation. And for most of Day 2, though I had suspicions, I remained uncertain. I can't even remember seriously considering a vote, let alone being ready to lynch.

However: words are cheap, actions can be costly. What is interesting is how Aimee, who was willing to echo criticisms of Simenon early in Day 2 (while adding little or nothing in the way of new observations), and to say that he was her main suspect at that stage, was completely unwilling, when it came to it, to vote for anybody but Zindaras. And how Skruffs, despite his alleged difficulty in choosing a target:

I would really like to vote Aimee or Ripley right now. Prolly Aimee though. IT's what I want, but it's not responsible to do so.

... is nonetheless able in his next post to vote for Ripley, finding a feeble way to justify the change of heart:

Ripley, it's either you or Aimee, and Aimee has more people against her right now, which makes me second guses myself about her.

He unvotes, and despite a FOS by him against Aimee in the following posts, when it comes to actually

voting

, guess what? Ripley again. Despite all their alleged mutual suspicion, it's striking how Aimee and Skruffs can never somehow bring themselves to vote for each other.

And although I am pretty sure I stated I Would hammer her, you made a point of saying that I wouldn't, when you did.

When I did what? When I voted her myself? Read the post. I said nothing of the sort. Please in future Skruffs, if you're stating that I said or did things, will you use quotes to illustrate/clarify your point. You've been doing this all game, stating things without being willing or able to back them up, and it's gone far enough now.

Zindaras, I think you said you'd finished reading Day 1 - are you going to read Day 2? If not, there doesn't seem to be much point in Skruffs and me raising issues from that period (start of Day 2 to the point where you replaced in).

[Ripley]

This had become a two-way conversation. Zindaras has posted a total of 3 sentences all day, hasn't answered direct questions addressed to him, and given that there's no evidence that he's even read the game past post 223, I'm not expending a load more effort writing detailed posts which he also may not read.