433: Dry, bland, generic mafia: Game Over

[petroleumjelly]

I guess I can see how PJ would think that way, but I think he took a theory that was based on very little and kept looking for things to confirm it, rather than objectively evaluating all the evidence on its own. Basically he ended up making a mountain out of a molehill. Also, he never commented on my belated analysis of kilm's post, which I thought was a bit suspicious at the time, since it addressed one of his earlier suspicions directly.

Please read post [727] to see where I start off. While I was just starting to read the game, I was given a small tidbit of information by Dasquain, which subsequently affected my entire read on the game. Objectively, with the information I had, kilmenator's role looked entirely unlikely - and I explained why. As I was reading, kilmenator kept making comments like "the scum will likely kill MBL tonight"... but if a Vig thinks

scum

is going to kill somebody, they should not waste their time vigging them - especially if they only have a 1-Shot ability.

I could not think about the game "objectively evaluating all the evidence" because I didn't

have

all the evidence. I posted my thoughts

as I received evidence while reading

. In other words:

• I read Day One with the luxury of knowing five roles, instead of one (the four dead and my own).
  
• I read Day One with the knowledge that kilmenator had claimed a 1-Shot Vig who had killed a Doctor on Night One... a Doctor claim
  I believed
  while I was reading.
  
• I read Day One
  without
  the knowledge that the town had mass-claimed and that kilmenator was the only person who could possibly be responsible for explaining a third death.

So in that regard, I could not take all the evidence into account because I didn't have all the evidence you have while I was reading. I

will

concede, however, that I was very likely being affected by "confirmation bias" - I kept convincing myself more and more that kilmenator was scum, and I explained my reasoning for this. As such, I also began looking for partners for kilmenator.

Also, he never commented on my belated analysis of kilm's post, which I thought was a bit suspicious at the time, since it addressed one of his earlier suspicions directly.

Link, please? Replacing into a 30-page game means I'm inevitably not going to be able to respond to everything.

[Off the Mark]

I read Day One with the knowledge that kilmenator had claimed a 1-Shot Vig who had killed a Doctor on Night One... a Doctor claim I believed while I was reading.

I read Day One without the knowledge that the town had mass-claimed and that kilmenator was the only person who could possibly be responsible for explaining a third death.

Good points, I see how that looked bad. Kilm later explained that she wanted to avoid the WIFOM pretzel of "why didn't the scum kill MBL?" but I agree 100% with you, it was a very weird decision by Kilm to use her one vig kill on taking out the semi-claimed doc. I asked her about that earlier and she never answered me.

Link, please? Replacing into a 30-page game means I'm inevitably not going to be able to respond to everything.

It was somewhere near the end of Day 1, I'm not going to bother looking it up now, it's not key for you to respond to it or anything. If I was more suspicious of you at this point, I'd push it, but I am feeling pretty good about you. Your analysis, plus Nanook's statement that he thought Pie was probably the doc makes me much less suspicious of Nanook/you.

[Pie_is_good]

First off, HUGE FRIGGIN FOS: OTM and PETED for lurkerlynching. What the hell, people? We're pretty much at LYLO here. Why would you ever, ever vote for a lurker, unless you want to hit an easy target?

[*]Pie_is_good, post 318 [don't like] – CES is a player who pretty much posts 1-liners, and I'm fairly sure Pie oughta know that. Calling him scummy

because

he is posting 1-liners seems to be ignoring that. Furthermore, nobody has in any way counterclaimed the Doctor claim, so why the hell would you go voting the claimed Doctor? I just don't understand these votes. I suppose I have to concede that it's possible to hold this position as town, given that both Nanook and IH also both voted CES upon replacing in. *sigh*

It wasn't the 1-liners I had a problem with, it was the infrequency and lack of substance of the 1-liners I didn't like. CES was in the hotseat; he needed to change something to help the town out a little.

In closed setups, Counterclaims are not neccesarily effective.

Sometimes, the real doctor will be an idiot and remain hidden. Sometimes, there just isn't a doctor. Plus, doctor is a very weak role, and there's not much to lose by lynching one. Plus, I mostly subscribe to the BabyJesus Doctorlynch philosophy.

I mean, I'm not trying to make excuses here, because whatever the case, I was wrong. I'm just trying to say it's not abnormal for someone to think that.

re: inHim's claim

I did think inHim should claim. I just thought CES should claim first.

[petroleumjelly]

Metagame question:

From my own experience, when CES is actually helpful, he turns out to be scum, and when he is being completely useless, he is often town. Do you agree or disagree with this? I just want to gauge how you read CES, since I probably do it differently than most people.

Also, I will note that it's not

necessarily

the case we are in LyLo - most likely, we're dealing with a scum-group of 3 and a SK. So long as we get scum to crosskill, the town should have a reasonable shot at pulling this out (despite our lack of power). If the scum would like to obviate themselves by quicklynching, I'm all for it. Then the SK (so long as that person is not the lurker) can kill off one of the quicklynchers, and we can lynch a second quicklyncher-scum tomorrow. Regardless, we

know

there are three killing groups, and one of them was the 1-Shot Vig, leaving 2 scum-groups who are more than free to kill each other.

[petroleumjelly]

To clarify by way of example:

Worst case (if scum continually hits townies):

• Lynch townie, scum-group (say two people) quicklynches = 7 alive
  
• SK kills quicklynching scum, scum kills townie = 5 alive
  
• Lynch quicklynching scum = 4 alive

After that, it's in the air. If scum cross-kill, town wins. If scum double-kill the same person, the town can No-Lynch, and the scum have a higher chance of cross-killing. If scum kill the last two townies, we lose. If one cross-kills and the other does not, town loses. Frankly, I already think we're in a bad position as it is -

and

I'm quite positive we have to rely on crosskilling anyways. So in a way, having the scum out themselves (even for the process of killing a townie) really isn't

so

bad all things considered, since it guarantees that

at least

one scum will be crosskilled.

And for those who would like to paint this as directing kills: yes, I am. The scum-groups need to realize that their biggest threat

right now

is the other scum-group, so they oughta be trying to kill each other at night. Just sayin'.

[Off the Mark]

First off, HUGE FRIGGIN FOS: OTM and PETED for lurkerlynching. What the hell, people? We're pretty much at LYLO here. Why would you ever, ever vote for a lurker, unless you want to hit an easy target?

So he can just lurk his way to victory? Maybe he's lurking because he sees that everyone thinks he is scummy and he's figured, "Well frig that game then." Who knows? But we certainly can't NOT vote for him just because he is lurking. My vote was based on his D1 behavior, it was not a vote because he was lurking on Day2, but the lurking has not helped my opinion of him.

[pete d]

First off, HUGE FRIGGIN FOS: OTM and PETED for lurkerlynching. What the hell, people? We're pretty much at LYLO here. Why would you ever, ever vote for a lurker, unless you want to hit an easy target?

My vote was based on his D1 behavior, it was not a vote because he was lurking on Day2, but the lurking has not helped my opinion of him.

QFT. OtM and I had already voiced our suspicions of superstring.

[Dasquian]

My read-through of most of Day 1 also reaffirmed that superstring was scummy as anything even before the start of Day 2. I feel bad for flea because although he's done us a favour by replacing in, I'm still not inclined to remove that vote unless he starts posting something that makes me think I was wrong about superstring.

Til then, he's still my top suspect.

pj - surely the worst case is that we have 3 scum and a SK, and we lynch a townie today, the mafia kill the SK, and the SK kills a townie. That leaves us with two townies and three scum, which is a scum win. Hoping that the scum make it easy to cross-kill each other by obviously quick-lynching a townie seems more than a little optimistic to me.

[gorckat]

kilm hasn't posted in the last week. Why not?

As for flea- the game's on. Two people have voted you, and I also had you as my #1 recently.

[somestrangeflea]

Wow, SS's really screwed me over with some awful play regarding pressuring gorckat and his "long post" he said he'd do and then didn't. With the evidence given, and from a NPOV, a vote for SS is probably a safe option.

I can't defend myself from what SS has done, the best I can do is attempt to help you with the scumhunt now.

[Off the Mark]

OK ssf, so who do you think is scum?

[kilmenator]

I am here, but like I said, I am pretty busy.

PJ- my whole kill was based on how MBL played in another game I was in, he was scum, total scum and I called him day 1, yet he is so good at stretching the truth and getting people to believe him, I was not going to allow scum to play with us, if scum didnt kill him, I would. Maybe that doesnt make much sense to you, but after thinking it through, I still think I did the right thing. MBL would have had nothing to prove his innocence since it doesnt look like he made a successful heal, or we as the town would be majorly screwed being that there are then 3 evil killing groups.

I see the case for a no lynch though and think that may be our best bet, as the killing groups need to take each other out, and if the do not, I highly doubt come morning I will be around.

vote: no lynch

[Off the Mark]

No lynch is not the way to go. With two killing groups still out there, the game could end fast for town. We have to lynch.

Can you let me know a little more about why you think that is a good idea, Kilm?

[gorckat]

most likely, we're dealing with a scum-group of 3 and a SK

To clarify by way of example:

Worst case (if scum continually hits townies):

* Lynch townie,

scum-group (say two people)

quicklynches = 7 alive
* SK kills quicklynching scum, scum kills townie = 5 alive
* Lynch quicklynching scum = 4 alive

Why the distinction between 2 and 3 scum here?

[petroleumjelly]

You're reading my post wrong, gorkcat. I'm saying that

of

the scum-group, for that example, two of them out themselves for the purpose of quicklynching somebody. That's why my example has both "quicklynching scum" being killed - on by SK, the second by lynching. Then (as should be clear when reading my post) it's going to be a toss-up with whether or not scum are going to cross-kill each other.

pj - surely the worst case is that we have 3 scum and a SK, and we lynch a townie today, the mafia kill the SK, and the SK kills a townie. That leaves us with two townies and three scum, which is a scum win. Hoping that the scum make it easy to cross-kill each other by obviously quick-lynching a townie seems more than a little optimistic to me.

The point of my post was that if scum tried to

quicklynch

there is

no way

a SK should miss killing one of those scum - because it would be obvious who was scum if they tried to quicklynch. In that regard, it's not as "dangerous" for OTM and pete d to vote specifically

because

it obviates scum if they try to take advantage of it, making themselves targets for immediate death.

[gorckat]

That's how I read and understood it. Just looking to see if it was a slip of some sort.

[petroleumjelly]

Okay, reading the game anew with the precondition that kilmenator is likely town. I'll try to only point things I don't believe I have pointed out (or if I do, because I see some extra significance in it).

1.)

I think it might be notable that some players seem to be ignoring certain lurkers and not others. For example, at the time this post by Superstring91 was made, I believe gorkcat had far fewer posts than thorgot. In fact, at this point in time (May 1st), gorkcat only had

two

posts, neither of which expressed any suspicions whatsoever. Noting possible connection between Superstring91 and gorkcat here.

2.)

Similarly, I don't understand this post by gorkcat... he lists the latest activity of the town, and then votes thorgot (despite Southpaw and Sweenytodd [who was replaced as InHim and actually did have more recent posts]) without explanation, although it would make more sense to vote Southpaw in this context. Connection noted.

3.)

Not sure if I noted this before, but I don't like this post by Superstring91 – he talks about echoing, but his post here is a complete echo of what has just been happening. Gorkcat follows suit in his next post. This is a second connecting between Gorkcat and Superstring91.

4.)

Of the counter-CES wagon (to the InHim wagon), the worst vote to me looks to be this vote by OTM. In particular, voting somebody because "they're a dead man anyways" isn't a reason at all to vote somebody.

To elaborate (although this is less true in a game with multiple killing groups), the own only has a set number of lynch attempts they get in order to lynch scum. For the sake of argument, let's freeze this at 4 lynches maximum for this particular game. If you think somebody is going to die

at night

, there is no point in lynching them

during the day

– because that takes a town lynch, and since that person was 'going to die anyways', it makes it so the scum now get to kill a townsperson who was actually

helping

the town. It's really equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot.

5.)

Don't like 527 by gorkcat – "say, I agree with looking at OTM, cuz remember I said I was suspicious of thorgot

LOL

". The post just isn't reading "innocently" to me. I also don't like that it is closely followed by Post 540, which is basically saying "I agree with these two people even though I'm not specifying what I'm agreeing with". This looks like a "wagon-solidifier vote", and near a deadline that usually means death.

6.)

Post 541 by OTM I'm noting for this: "Nanook (been getting pro-town vibes from him lately, so he is almost off the list)". My mind is saying that OTM takes a different stance on this later – if I find it I'll quote it when I get to it. If not feel free to ignore this.

7.)

Post 625 by Superstring91 is saying a whole lot of nothing. Speculating on what scum would/should claim while the town is mass-claiming also seems like a dunderheaded thing to do.

8.)

Right-o, OTM says he suspects Nanook in Post 650, a different tune than in Post 541. Can I have an explanation for this change? Did you only think Nanook was scummy after MBL turned out to be town? [In fact, OTM votes Nanook in 660]. Preferably I'd like to see the thought process that occurred between these two posts.

---

I'm most suspicious of {gorkcat, Superstring91}, and I think there a reasonable number of connections which indicate they are fair candidates to both being in the same scum-group (such that I doubt either is SK).

Vote: gorkcat

. I will be more than happy to lynch

either

gorkcat

or

Superstring91, however, but of the two I think gorkcat has a better shot of coming up scum. His posts – although he seems to deny it – have a tendency of

insinuating

somebody is scum without saying so. Most recently, we have such gems as "just looking to see if it was a slip", "why'd you duck pj's question, OTM?", and "OTM has jumped quite a bit of late", which seems a hypocritical way to express suspicion coming from the person who had a like a series of 4 votes and unvotes (from thorgot to Sweenytodd to InHimShallIBe to thorgot) all in succession during mid-D1. I will probably go into more detail later when I have more time.

[Off the Mark]

points 6 and 8 - keep reading. I was called out for that already and I explained it. Basically, I did get pro-town vibes from Nanook but after MBL turned up to be doc and not scum, I questioned those vibes and went back to my earlier suspicion of Eletriar.

Later Nanook explained that he thought Pie had to be the doc, which makes sense to me, so I became less suspicious of him. Your analysis has seemed pro-town too, so I am continuing to not be very suspicious. I think if we lynch superstring or gorckat, and possibly Pete D, we have a very high probability of finding scum or the SK.

Your paragraph about gorckat is almost exactly what I almost posted the other day, but I didn't have time to explain it fully. Gorckat has been making posts that subtly throw suspicion on others, as if he is hoping a townie will take his ideas and run with them, without Gorckat himself needing to lead the charge. I know I have used this tactic myself as scum, it's a good one.

I don't want to switch my vote right now though, let's see how this discussion continues a bit first.

[gorckat]

I haven't been trying to find someone to run with my ideas, I'm fishing for ideas to run with. I did acknowledge the hypocrisy of me calling OTM's recent moves scummy. At this point, we're in a more tenuous situation, so I've held back a bit compared to Day 1.

I'm most skeptical of flea- he has to carry string's pedigree, and hasn't done anything of his own to advance any scum hunting.

OTM: You

almost

posted the

almost

exact same thing pj just posted? Do you mean when you voted me and didn't feel good about it?

[Off the Mark]

OTM: You almost posted the almost exact same thing pj just posted? Do you mean when you voted me and didn't feel good about it?

Yes and No, it was more recent than that. Here are the lines that gave me the feeling you have been trying to cast subtle suspicion without ever building a case:

Second- OTM has jumped quite a bit of late. He tried (or did, depending on your opinion of me) to lay out a case against me when he voted, but then says he never felt good about it.

They don't have to be together if they're on competing scum teams.

Why'd you duck pj's question, OTM?

kilm hasn't posted in the last week. Why not?

Why the distinction between 2 and 3 scum here?

See the pattern here? These questions never went anywhere. It's like you wanted to make others look bad without actually making arguments. Certainly this could be honest investigation, but it gives me a bad feeling about you.

[gorckat]

Certainly this could be honest investigation...

You've hedged like this every time you cast any suspicion on me. How is that any different than you saying I'm implying suspicion?

I haven't wanted to, because I'm stubborn and cling to earlier ideas that made sense at the time, but perhaps I was wrong about putting you with the town, OTM.

I think flea is our best bet for a lynch today. string was scummy, and flea hasn't added anything to change that opinion.

vote:somestrangeflea

[Off the Mark]

I hedge like that because I want to make it clear that I am only considering possibilities. When I have a conviction about something (which is rare in this game, that I am sure of something) I will say so. Whenever players seem to be sure of something based on sketchy evidence, I immediately think scum. I know I tend to speculate a lot, so I'm making it clear that's that it is: speculation.

[Off the Mark]

You've hedged like this every time you cast any suspicion on me. How is that any different than you saying I'm implying suspicion?

You're right about that, it is similar.

[gorckat]

Being sure of things based on sketchiness is scummy to you. Is probing and not being sure scummy as well?

If so, what is not scummy, then?

[Off the Mark]

You're doing it again.

When you keep asking probing/accusatory questions, but you don't ever follow them up by stating suspicions/opions, then it seems you must have an alternate motive.