Mini 500 - Cult Mafia - Game Over!

[Tarhalindur]

Mod Edit:

Still 0 votes

Tar, when tuesday comes about, I would like to know why you have managed to make 32 mostly content based posts in other games since your last post here a week ago.

Unlike in those games, I need to do a full PBPA this game. I can answer questions, but I cannot build a proper case until Tuesday at the earliest.

I will say that at this time my top suspects are Vollkan and MoS, in that order , but I do not have the time to write up why.

[Trojan Horse]

Tuesday's gone. Wednesday's here. Still awaiting Tar's opinions.

[Mastermind of Sin]

I realize that it is possible that you turned up last on a random list. I don't, however know if the "dice roll" function is forge-able through font tags and such. I experimented a bit prior to my claim, but found nothing (the quote boxes seem to be the problem), so I didn't mention it.

If you quote my list, you'll see that they were created with actual dice tags. They will have a slightly different code in order to keep the same numbers when you quote it. However, if you repost said "fixed" dice rolls, it will tell you that they are fixed. Those were genuine rolls.

[Tarhalindur]

Finally have some time here. Thanksgiving travel is a pain.

I'm going to provide full analysis on all other players in the game, time permitting. First, here's the Cliffs' Cliffs' Notes version (for future reference):

Vollkan: probably scum
MoS: leaning scum
Pwayne: not sure
Trojan Horse: leaning town
Tar: judge for yourself

Now, let's start off with an analysis of my top scum candidate:

*gasp* I do not approve of this.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the "edit" quoted by Pwayne part of Blackstrike's signature.

This is kind of obvious when you consider that blackstrike posted at:

Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:14 am Post subject: 13

But the signature edit thing reads:

Last edited by Dr. Blackstrike on Sat Sep 01, 2007 12:45 am; edited 1 times in total

Unless blackstrike has a TARDIS, there is nothing odd about it...

Information? Yes. Analysis? No. Scumhunting? Definitely not. Scum trying to use information instead of analysis to give the perception that they are participating? Quite possibly.

How many townies are in the game?

Can't help you there.

I would say that in this game, a townie lynch is almost as good as a scum lynch.

Why? Townies are the lifeblood of the cult. No townies= no recruits, No recruits= good.

Therefore, any townie claim should be punishable by lynch.

Interesting. It is true that any claimed vanilla will almost certainly be cultised but a townie lynch is not "almost as good" as a scum lynch. If we get into the situation where someone is forced to claim vanilla, then we are basically forced to lynch a townie. It is not a good thing; it is a situation best avoided.

Plus, remember that even if the vanilla lynches hurt the cult, they help the mafia. There are two enemies we need to consider.

In short, if someone does claim vanilla they really force our hand. But that just demonstrates that the vanillas should do all they can to avoid having to claim.

Other things:

a) How much of an effect would it have on balance if the cult leader was the day one lynch?
b) How many townies are likely in the game? There need to be enough to give the cult a chance along with power roles to help us get the cult/mafia.

a) Depends on the set-up
b) I've never been in a cult game before, so I can't really say.

Therefore:

I think that townies should try get killed by the mafia. It hurts the cult.

This is so wrong!
IF every vanilla began to try and get killed by the scum (I assume that you mean that the vanillas should play very well and draw attention to themselves) then the logical response for the scum would be to target quieter players and for the cult to target the loudest. This ends up in WIFOM, of course, but the point is that imposing some sort of uniform strategy will only serve to sort power roles from vanillas. In short, your strategy does the very OPPOSITE of what you suggest its purpose is.

Once again - lots of information and discussion (this time mostly about mafia theory), but very little scumhunting.

Cross-posted.

Well my point is that townies are the lifeblood of the cult and if all the townies die than the cult is nuetralized.

Read my post above. This logic is utterly pro-scum. (I say pro-scum to distinguish it from anti-town that also helps the cult)

So, you're saying that a player's logic is pro-scum, but you don't draw the logical conclusion and suggest that he *is* scum (or provide reasons why you think he is town despite his bad logic)? I can't see a good reason for town to fail to point out these conclusions, but I can think of at least three good reasons for scum to do so (bussing, giving the appearance of bussing to cast doubt on a townie, and scum not wanting to step on toes).

I just read the rules again and we have exactly 4-6 recruitable people.

Reading from the front page:
12 players: 1 Cult. 2 Scum. 2-4 power roles.
Therefore, 5-7 are vanilla.

More information, still no scumhunting. A pattern is emerging here, and it's one that suggests that Vollkan is scum himself.

I had a thought: how on earth are we going to handle claims at the start of the game? Once we've reached a consensus on who is scummy, should we demand a claim from that person? If we do, and that person says "townie", we're in a bit of a pickle. It may well be best to lynch them; they may be lying, and even if they're not, it'll deny the cult a possible recruit.

I said this back in post #34.

At this stage of the game, I think the only real difference the cult makes to play strategy is that it provides a good reason for lynching claimed vanillas. A vanilla lynch is still very bad, because it helps the scum, but it is better than the cult gaining members.

I don't think lynching vanillas is a good idea. Period. Lets get the cult recruiter D1 so we don't even have to worry bout it. Kk?

Easier said than done.

I'm gonna have to agree with this post entirely. Everything I've heard from you has been from a 'culty' point of view. You just really seem like you don't want to help the town that much and are more worried about eliminating the amount of recruitable townies...aka...the vanilla ones...

I'm not a fan of your play...and I think pressure would be a nice discussion starter right now...Unvote, Vote: Dr. Blackstrike

Hang on. You are saying that BS sounds 'culty' because he wants to eliminate the vanillas? And you voted on the basis of this.

While there may be instances where lynching vanilla is of benefit, I think those instances are rare. But yes, we are better of we dead vanillas then recruited vanillas.

To me, this strategy just seems like the cult is all that matters here. THERE IS STILL A MAFIA, AND THEY DO HAVE A WIN CONDITION. Lynching vanillas fights back against the cultists, but is basically helping the mafia get closer to a win.

You're misrepresenting what was said. Pwayne was clearly not calling for the lynch of vanillas, he was saying (as I have been also) that a dead vanilla is better than a claimed and therefore recruited vanilla.

I'm not advocating lynching townies as much as I'm advocating them trying to be killed in the night by the mafia. Why? I repeat, because it's another night that has gone by without a power role dying and one less potential cultist.

Wouldn't a townie want the mafia to kill the CULTISTS...so the town could, I dunno. Win?

There are real problems with vanillas trying to be NKed, I addressed those earlier. Of course, ideally the mafia will NK the cultists, but second to that the best thing is for the mafia to NK vanillas. It means we don't lose our power roles and it makes the cult's job more difficult.

Flame's voting basis is ridiculous. His subsequent attempts to justify it on the basis of pressure ignore the fact that discussion was happening anyway. Plus, he seems adamantly against the lynching of vanillas. "Period".

Unvote, Vote: Flameaxe

Cool, a vote with a reason on it. Of course, that reason is total BS. Vollkan said two posts earlier that Dr. Blackstrike's logic was anti-town, failed to act on it, then votes Flameaxe for making the pro-town play that he failed to act on earlier? The rest of his attack is even worse - it basically consists of attacking Flameaxe for advocating pro-town play. That's scummy as all hell.

(Aside: Pwayne's quoted comments about vanilla lynching are pinging my scumdar. I'll need to examine closely when I get time for the Pwayne PBPA.)

Tell me right now, what is the fucking problem with not wanting to lynch vanillas? Nothing wrong with trying to lynch the goddamn scum.

Nobody is calling for the lynch of all vanillas; that's a strawman you have raised.

Let me make this perfectly clear to you: A lynch of a mafia or cult leader is great. That is what we want. However, if someone claims vanilla then it makes sense to lynch them, since they will in all likelihood be culted. It is not that vanilla lynches are good, nobody except the mafia will want a vanilla lynch, but it is a practical necessity in a cult game.

The way he (and alot of people so far) have been viewing this game is that it is Town Vs. Cult. I don't really like repeating myself so many times like this, but what the hell. Mafia. That should be all I have to say.

Way back in #34 I even said:

Plus, remember that even if the vanilla lynches hurt the cult, they help the mafia. There are two enemies we need to consider.

And you know what, in BS's next post he admitted I was correct. His plan was anti-town, sure, but he abandoned it once it was pointed out and it really just looks like a honest mistake.

Since then, nobody has said "Vanilla lynches are good" and ignored the mafia. The point, which you evidently miss, is that a dead vanilla is better than a claimed vanilla who will get recruited.

Get rid of the cult recruiter early, get rid of the scum later, win.

Your logic is just so wrong. You seem to be saying that we should not lynch claimed vanillas but we should lynch the cult recruiter. Fine. Let's say person X is the recruiter. If X is put at L-1, I wonder what role X will claim....vanilla most likely.

If you can explain to me how we go about lynching the recruiter (or Mafia) and being certain that they are the recruiter/mafia then I would love to hear it.

If you still think my vote was entirely baseless, please go back to pages 1 and 2 and read some of the things he had to say. They all look necessarily
anti-town to me. (Not from the culty perspective exactly, but anti-town.)

You've admitted the culty label was wrong.

His plan was anti-town, but he abandoned it once I pointed out how flawed it was. That said, he was correct about lynching claimed vanillas and he was right to suggest that vanillas being NKed is a good way for the cult to be weakened (though his plan was deeply flawed in terms of execution).

More craplogic. Vollkan once again states that my predecessor's logic was anti-town, yet he still won't bring up the obvious (albeit incorrect) possible explanation. The rest of his post effectively consists of attacking Flameaxe for attempting to get the town to scumhunt instead of discuss theory about the cult. That's not pro-town in my books.

There is one way around all the controversy: Nobody claim vanilla townie until the recruiter is dead. I think that is at the root of everything. If nobody claims, nobody gets lynched and nobody appears scummy for going after townies.

Well, there are two circumstances where people might claim:
1) My randomly mentioning it in discussion (I have seen this in other games, people just saying "I'm vanilla")
or;
2) At L-1 if they are forced to claim

1) is always a bad idea even in a regular game and here it provides a good case for being lynched.

2) is slightly more complicated. If a vanilla is at L-1 and is asked to claim, they basically have 3 choices:
a) Claim vanilla = Lynched
b) Don't claim anything = By not claiming they are indicating they are vanilla (or potentially scum/cult leader who does not want to risk claiming a power role). Hence, they are effectively doing the same thing as a).
c) Claim a power role. This gives rise to another 3:
i) They claim a role which nobody else has. No counter-claim & probably NKed
ii) They get counter-claimed. They will be lynched and counter-claimer gets NKed. Not good, obviously.
iii) They claim a role someone else has, but that person does not counter-claim. This should cause the power-claiming vanilla to be NKed. If not, then things get confusing.

All in all, things are messy...

Another Vollkan post that gives information/game theory instead of scumhunting.

Cross-posted.

That being said, I DO NOT THINK ANYONE SHOULD CLAIM Day 1. There has been a lot of talk about claiming or when to claim, but I do not think it is a good idea.

See my post above for how messy the claiming thing is. The only circumstance where claiming today will be pro-town is if you are a power role at L-1, other than that a claim will likely be of no help.

More of the tell that I will henceforth call Information Instead of Scumhunting (IIoS).

Just for the record, my vote on Flameaxe was and is totally random.

Then unvote.

Why is everyone voting Flameaxe?

I don't know about this bandwagon on Flameaxe; to me, he hasn't acted any scummier than anyone else.

I'll give my reasons:
1) Making a serious vote for BS on the basis of BS being 'culty'. A nonsensical justification (and possibly a freudian one)
2) Justifying the vote on the basis of pressure and discussion. BS was already talking and discussion was already happening
3) Misrepresenting the case for lynching claimed vanillas, presumably to legitimise his vote on BS

1) That's funny, I thought that voting someone because you think that they look scummy (and, by Occam's Razor, probably are scum) was good play for town. Is there a reason that you disagree, Vollkan?
2) Um, that seems like a blatant misrepresentation of Flameaxe's case to me. "Player X's actions are scummy IMO and I'm calling him out on it" seems like a much more accurate summary to me.
3) Not necessarily incorrect (though it's possible that Flameaxe simply misunderstood your arguments), but given Vollkan's misrepresentation of Flameaxe's case it is hypocritical.

Yeah, I don't know what's going to make me look scummy or not. (That probably made me look scummy, but I wouldn't know.)

Its not your problem IF you're town. Your problem is finding scum, not getting out squeaky clean.

For the record, I said almost exactly the same thing as Rump is saying now in my first game of mafia. The "everything I say can be turned against me" fear is something I had and which a lot of newbies whinge about.

Cool information, now where's the scumhunting?

<snip mod edit>

I'll try to kickstart this:

Rump explaining

Mostly because he seemed to misinterpret BS's post to, as vollkan said, legitimize his post . However, looking back, I can understand how anyone would misinterpret that.

This doesn't explain anything really.
The reasons in brief given by me were:

1) Making a serious vote for BS on the basis of BS being 'culty'. A nonsensical justification (and possibly a freudian one)
2) Justifying the vote on the basis of pressure and discussion. BS was already talking and discussion was already happening
3) Misrepresenting the case for lynching claimed vanillas, presumably to legitimise his vote on BS

Fine, you think 3) is possibly understandable; but what about the rest of these?

Also, Tyhess respond to CKD and Pwayne.

Vollkan wants other people's reactions to his points, which is pro-town. First time I've said that in this PBPA. Asking another player to respond to another person's comments, however... feels like scum trying to blend in by encouraging discussion.

Mainly because he jumped to the Doctor's defence - I can see scum doing this if Doctor's town - he was incredibly scummy first three or so pages and doesn't want us to assert pressure and bullying tactics to catch scum - I see that as very anti-town whatever the method of game. Seperately I've seen a lot of scum do them list things, ppl think they look great, so scum do the odd one liners to impress. Anyways all for now.

Well, I also said that BS looked like he had simply made an "honest mistake" and Oman said that

I think our good doctor has tried (and phailed!) to come up with a good plan.

So, in terms of "defending" BS, Pwayne is hardly singular.

Something else,

Mainly because he jumped to the Doctor's defence

and now,

I don't like pwayne more for his suggestion to not use pressure votes and bully players etc. Plus his recent list doesn't sit too well with me.

Subtle shift. People criticise you for voting on the basis of Pwayne defending BS, so you shift you main reason to being the opposition to bullying, which was a minor factor from before.

Does this mean that your basis for suspecting Pwayne is that he is opposed to bullying tactics? If so, why does that make him more likely to be scum? I personally have no problem with bullying tactics, but I have encountered many players that oppose them.

Points out flaws in Theo's logic, asks for explanation. I've seen this kind of behavior from town and scum in the past, so I'd call it a null tell. The bigger question is, what will Vollkan do if/when Theo explains?

It's more the tone of your post that I find an over-reaction.

The post, I presume:

I don't like that vote on Pwayne at all. I think the defence of a play whos alignment is unknown should not factor into the concept at all. We have three factions here, only one of them knows who the others in their faction are (there is only one cultist now, scum know eachother). I don't like the idea of Pwayne being scum because BS looks scummy, but you say Pwayne is scummy is BS is town as well...hmmm.

I don't like it really.

I don't see any "tone" beyond a slight hint of Oman being suspicious of you. Given the basis for your vote, however, I think that is wholly reasonable.

FoS: Theo

So, when Theo elaborates, Vollkan's response (to an explanation that is, in my eyes, far scummier than Flameaxe's early play) is a FoS. There are two likely explanations here:

1) Vollkan genuinely thought that Flameaxe was scummy and delayed moving his vote onto Theo because of this.
2) Theo was Vollkan's scumbuddy, and this post is a textbook example of the Friend of Scum (FoS) tell.

Ok looking back the tone doesn't seem all that bad, it did originally jump out at me that Oman commented on nothinge else and I found it puzzling that he (Oman) doesn't express any outright suspicion on me, it's more a defence of Pwanye if that makes sense - probably not. I guess if anything I over-reacted to Oman's original post

Wait, hang on. You accused him over-reaction but now you are saying you were actually puzzled he did not suspect you outright?

And no, don't try to turn this into a game of people defending Pwayne, the issue is people attacking your vote.

I've got my eye on pwayne because I found him defending Blackstrike more than anyone, asking Curious/Flame in 45 to not bully him, not use pressure votes to extract information.

Way to go and dodge the shifting I just pointed out:
[quote="Vollkan]
Something else,

Mainly because he jumped to the Doctor's defence

and now,

I don't like pwayne more for his suggestion to not use pressure votes and bully players etc. Plus his recent list doesn't sit too well with me.

Subtle shift. People criticise you for voting on the basis of Pwayne defending BS, so you shift you main reason to being the opposition to bullying, which was a minor factor from before.

Now what you have just done is to combine them all together as salient factors, but it is yet another shift from your previous positions.

As far as pwayne not being the only one to defend Blackstrike again I'm being overly attacking towards him, I will say he was more defensive than anyone else but Oman, Volkan do both show support for him only after Tyhess votes Blackstrike for acting oddly. Oman then shows support, Trojan follows up straight after - more a following kinda post - similar to his one above, Volkan you then do so.

I find it interesting that you represent several people taking a common position (which happens to be against your view or your vote) as "following".

Hence perhaps I'm being severly misguided on Pwayne's defensive nature, defensive players could just as likely be town/scum and without having any prior knowledge of meta-gaming of Pwayne unvote - after all I only re-read properly a couple of hours ago.

I don't see why you only recently re-reading affects your ability to vote for sensible reasons.

For that very slippery response, you've been upgraded to first class:

Unvote, Vote: Theo

[/quote]

Theo's next response is enough to convince Vollkan to vote Theo, with solid reasoning. Whoa, a pro-town action.

NOTE: Vollkan's reasoning here seems far more sincere than his reasoning on Flameaxe (a preliminary readthrough suggests it is also more sincere than many of Vollkan's later cases, too). This, to me, suggests that if Vollkan is scum, then MoS (Theo's replacement) is likely to be his buddy - from scum play I've seen in the past (including my own play as scum in games such as Mini 462 and Stargate SG-1), scum find it much, much easier to bring up a case on a fellow scum than to fabricate a case on a player they know is not Mafia. Something to keep in mind for later.

Ok to finish early good list - Flameaxe, Curious, Volkan. Not really any vibe - MoS, Oman, ac1983fan, Trojan Horse. Not liking a lot probably due to newbishness/scummyness - RumpWat, Tyhess. Not liking even less - pwayne66, Dr.B.

Does anyone else see the odd thing I notice about this list?

The fact that Theo says he doesn't like one group due to "scummyness" but then lists Pwayne and BS as "even less" initially looked a little odd to me, but not after I thought about it. It looks like he is just saying that you two are the top of his suspect list.

Unless, as I suspect, you are talking about something else.

That's some awfully wishy-washy (and therefore scummy) analysis there...

I do not have time to finish this PBPA tonight (will do ASAP), but here's a good start.

[vollkan]

I'll respond to the points you have made now, though I expect you have more as well.

*gasp* I do not approve of this.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the "edit" quoted by Pwayne part of Blackstrike's signature.

This is kind of obvious when you consider that blackstrike posted at:

Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:14 am Post subject: 13

But the signature edit thing reads:

Last edited by Dr. Blackstrike on Sat Sep 01, 2007 12:45 am; edited 1 times in total

Unless blackstrike has a TARDIS, there is nothing odd about it...

Information? Yes. Analysis? No. Scumhunting? Definitely not. Scum trying to use information instead of analysis to give the perception that they are participating? Quite possibly.

First up, that was my second post in this game, and it was in the random voting stage.

At that point in time, people were confused about BS's signature. Pwayne had voted BS and flameaxe had gone "*gasp*". I was just pointing out that there was nothing wrong.

Okay, so yes, I was not engaging in detailed analysis in my second post.

How many townies are in the game?

Can't help you there.

I would say that in this game, a townie lynch is almost as good as a scum lynch.

Why? Townies are the lifeblood of the cult. No townies= no recruits, No recruits= good.

Therefore, any townie claim should be punishable by lynch.

Interesting. It is true that any claimed vanilla will almost certainly be cultised but a townie lynch is not "almost as good" as a scum lynch. If we get into the situation where someone is forced to claim vanilla, then we are basically forced to lynch a townie. It is not a good thing; it is a situation best avoided.

Plus, remember that even if the vanilla lynches hurt the cult, they help the mafia. There are two enemies we need to consider.

In short, if someone does claim vanilla they really force our hand. But that just demonstrates that the vanillas should do all they can to avoid having to claim.

Other things:

a) How much of an effect would it have on balance if the cult leader was the day one lynch?
b) How many townies are likely in the game? There need to be enough to give the cult a chance along with power roles to help us get the cult/mafia.

a) Depends on the set-up
b) I've never been in a cult game before, so I can't really say.

Therefore:

I think that townies should try get killed by the mafia. It hurts the cult.

This is so wrong!
IF every vanilla began to try and get killed by the scum (I assume that you mean that the vanillas should play very well and draw attention to themselves) then the logical response for the scum would be to target quieter players and for the cult to target the loudest. This ends up in WIFOM, of course, but the point is that imposing some sort of uniform strategy will only serve to sort power roles from vanillas. In short, your strategy does the very OPPOSITE of what you suggest its purpose is.

Once again - lots of information and discussion (this time mostly about mafia theory), but very little scumhunting.

Rather than snipping my post in isolation, it might pay to look at it in context. Page 2 of the thread. Almost that entire page was just theory discussion.

Well my point is that townies are the lifeblood of the cult and if all the townies die than the cult is nuetralized.

Read my post above. This logic is utterly pro-scum. (I say pro-scum to distinguish it from anti-town that also helps the cult)[/quote]

So, you're saying that a player's logic is pro-scum, but you don't draw the logical conclusion and suggest that he *is* scum (or provide reasons why you think he is town despite his bad logic)? I can't see a good reason for town to fail to point out these conclusions, but I can think of at least three good reasons for scum to do so (bussing, giving the appearance of bussing to cast doubt on a townie, and scum not wanting to step on toes). [/quote]

The read I got from BS was that he was a newb who was just questioning things. I knew that the cult situation presented a novel scenario and, thus, that people would be more likely to make errors in reasoning. Thus, I wasn't going to attack an apparent newb when I could see that his logic might well just be a product of the situation.

I just read the rules again and we have exactly 4-6 recruitable people.

Reading from the front page:
12 players: 1 Cult. 2 Scum. 2-4 power roles.
Therefore, 5-7 are vanilla.

More information, still no scumhunting. A pattern is emerging here, and it's one that suggests that Vollkan is scum himself.

That was on the same page and in the same context and continuing my response to BS's questions.

I had a thought: how on earth are we going to handle claims at the start of the game? Once we've reached a consensus on who is scummy, should we demand a claim from that person? If we do, and that person says "townie", we're in a bit of a pickle. It may well be best to lynch them; they may be lying, and even if they're not, it'll deny the cult a possible recruit.

I said this back in post #34.

At this stage of the game, I think the only real difference the cult makes to play strategy is that it provides a good reason for lynching claimed vanillas. A vanilla lynch is still very bad, because it helps the scum, but it is better than the cult gaining members.

I don't think lynching vanillas is a good idea. Period. Lets get the cult recruiter D1 so we don't even have to worry bout it. Kk?

Easier said than done.

I'm gonna have to agree with this post entirely. Everything I've heard from you has been from a 'culty' point of view. You just really seem like you don't want to help the town that much and are more worried about eliminating the amount of recruitable townies...aka...the vanilla ones...

I'm not a fan of your play...and I think pressure would be a nice discussion starter right now...Unvote, Vote: Dr. Blackstrike

Hang on. You are saying that BS sounds 'culty' because he wants to eliminate the vanillas? And you voted on the basis of this.

While there may be instances where lynching vanilla is of benefit, I think those instances are rare. But yes, we are better of we dead vanillas then recruited vanillas.

To me, this strategy just seems like the cult is all that matters here. THERE IS STILL A MAFIA, AND THEY DO HAVE A WIN CONDITION. Lynching vanillas fights back against the cultists, but is basically helping the mafia get closer to a win.

You're misrepresenting what was said. Pwayne was clearly not calling for the lynch of vanillas, he was saying (as I have been also) that a dead vanilla is better than a claimed and therefore recruited vanilla.

I'm not advocating lynching townies as much as I'm advocating them trying to be killed in the night by the mafia. Why? I repeat, because it's another night that has gone by without a power role dying and one less potential cultist.

Wouldn't a townie want the mafia to kill the CULTISTS...so the town could, I dunno. Win?

There are real problems with vanillas trying to be NKed, I addressed those earlier. Of course, ideally the mafia will NK the cultists, but second to that the best thing is for the mafia to NK vanillas. It means we don't lose our power roles and it makes the cult's job more difficult.

Flame's voting basis is ridiculous. His subsequent attempts to justify it on the basis of pressure ignore the fact that discussion was happening anyway. Plus, he seems adamantly against the lynching of vanillas. "Period".

Unvote, Vote: Flameaxe

Cool, a vote with a reason on it. Of course, that reason is total BS. Vollkan said two posts earlier that Dr. Blackstrike's logic was anti-town, failed to act on it, then votes Flameaxe for making the pro-town play that he failed to act on earlier? The rest of his attack is even worse - it basically consists of attacking Flameaxe for advocating pro-town play. That's scummy as all hell.

(Aside: Pwayne's quoted comments about vanilla lynching are pinging my scumdar. I'll need to examine closely when I get time for the Pwayne PBPA.)

My points that I voted on were:
1) Him just suggesting we lynch the CL D1. As I said, "easier said than done". At the time, I saw it as stifling the discussion on how to deal with vanillas.
2) Calling BS "culty" despite the fact that BS was pushing vanilla lynches
3) Misrepresenting the discussion on how to deal with vanillas

The point you seem to be criticising on, namely the BS "pro-scum" thing, wasn't actually one of the reasons I was suspicious of flame. I don't mention the "pro-scum" as an attack on flameaxe. I simply commented on it in terms of what the best scenario was.

Tell me right now, what is the fucking problem with not wanting to lynch vanillas? Nothing wrong with trying to lynch the goddamn scum.

Nobody is calling for the lynch of all vanillas; that's a strawman you have raised.

Let me make this perfectly clear to you: A lynch of a mafia or cult leader is great. That is what we want. However, if someone claims vanilla then it makes sense to lynch them, since they will in all likelihood be culted. It is not that vanilla lynches are good, nobody except the mafia will want a vanilla lynch, but it is a practical necessity in a cult game.

The way he (and alot of people so far) have been viewing this game is that it is Town Vs. Cult. I don't really like repeating myself so many times like this, but what the hell. Mafia. That should be all I have to say.

Way back in #34 I even said:

Plus, remember that even if the vanilla lynches hurt the cult, they help the mafia. There are two enemies we need to consider.

And you know what, in BS's next post he admitted I was correct. His plan was anti-town, sure, but he abandoned it once it was pointed out and it really just looks like a honest mistake.

Since then, nobody has said "Vanilla lynches are good" and ignored the mafia. The point, which you evidently miss, is that a dead vanilla is better than a claimed vanilla who will get recruited.

Get rid of the cult recruiter early, get rid of the scum later, win.

Your logic is just so wrong. You seem to be saying that we should not lynch claimed vanillas but we should lynch the cult recruiter. Fine. Let's say person X is the recruiter. If X is put at L-1, I wonder what role X will claim....vanilla most likely.

If you can explain to me how we go about lynching the recruiter (or Mafia) and being certain that they are the recruiter/mafia then I would love to hear it.

If you still think my vote was entirely baseless, please go back to pages 1 and 2 and read some of the things he had to say. They all look necessarily
anti-town to me. (Not from the culty perspective exactly, but anti-town.)

You've admitted the culty label was wrong.

His plan was anti-town, but he abandoned it once I pointed out how flawed it was. That said, he was correct about lynching claimed vanillas and he was right to suggest that vanillas being NKed is a good way for the cult to be weakened (though his plan was deeply flawed in terms of execution).

More craplogic. Vollkan once again states that my predecessor's logic was anti-town, yet he still won't bring up the obvious (albeit incorrect) possible explanation. The rest of his post effectively consists of attacking Flameaxe for attempting to get the town to scumhunt instead of discuss theory about the cult. That's not pro-town in my books.

I've already explained why I didn't attack BS.

As for FA, maybe I am missing something, but I seem to be arguing against him on points that he is raising in argument. It's hardly that I am disrupting scum-hunting.

There is one way around all the controversy: Nobody claim vanilla townie until the recruiter is dead. I think that is at the root of everything. If nobody claims, nobody gets lynched and nobody appears scummy for going after townies.

Well, there are two circumstances where people might claim:
1) My randomly mentioning it in discussion (I have seen this in other games, people just saying "I'm vanilla")
or;
2) At L-1 if they are forced to claim

1) is always a bad idea even in a regular game and here it provides a good case for being lynched.

2) is slightly more complicated. If a vanilla is at L-1 and is asked to claim, they basically have 3 choices:
a) Claim vanilla = Lynched
b) Don't claim anything = By not claiming they are indicating they are vanilla (or potentially scum/cult leader who does not want to risk claiming a power role). Hence, they are effectively doing the same thing as a).
c) Claim a power role. This gives rise to another 3:
i) They claim a role which nobody else has. No counter-claim & probably NKed
ii) They get counter-claimed. They will be lynched and counter-claimer gets NKed. Not good, obviously.
iii) They claim a role someone else has, but that person does not counter-claim. This should cause the power-claiming vanilla to be NKed. If not, then things get confusing.

All in all, things are messy...

Another Vollkan post that gives information/game theory instead of scumhunting.

Again, it was the discussion of the time. I don't pretend that it was scumhunting, but I was responding to the points that people had raised.

Just for the record, my vote on Flameaxe was and is totally random.

Then unvote.

Why is everyone voting Flameaxe?

I don't know about this bandwagon on Flameaxe; to me, he hasn't acted any scummier than anyone else.

I'll give my reasons:
1) Making a serious vote for BS on the basis of BS being 'culty'. A nonsensical justification (and possibly a freudian one)
2) Justifying the vote on the basis of pressure and discussion. BS was already talking and discussion was already happening
3) Misrepresenting the case for lynching claimed vanillas, presumably to legitimise his vote on BS

1) That's funny, I thought that voting someone because you think that they look scummy (and, by Occam's Razor, probably are scum) was good play for town. Is there a reason that you disagree, Vollkan?
2) Um, that seems like a blatant misrepresentation of Flameaxe's case to me. "Player X's actions are scummy IMO and I'm calling him out on it" seems like a much more accurate summary to me.
3) Not necessarily incorrect (though it's possible that Flameaxe simply misunderstood your arguments), but given Vollkan's misrepresentation of Flameaxe's case it is hypocritical.

1) Yes. As was made clear from my post above. My problem was that he was calling BS "culty" for wanting to lynch vanillas.
2) Actually, flame said:

I'm not a fan of your play...and I think pressure would be a nice discussion starter right now...Unvote, Vote: Dr. Blackstrike

I found this a superfluous justification, since he had presented a "case", despite my problems with it. The reference to discussion just seemed to be a way of making additional justification to cover himself.
3) I didn't misrepresent him. What you say is a misrepresentation (me attacking the discussion point) was me simply attacking something he had said as a poor factor in his justification, which I had broader problems with.

Yeah, I don't know what's going to make me look scummy or not. (That probably made me look scummy, but I wouldn't know.)

Its not your problem IF you're town. Your problem is finding scum, not getting out squeaky clean.

For the record, I said almost exactly the same thing as Rump is saying now in my first game of mafia. The "everything I say can be turned against me" fear is something I had and which a lot of newbies whinge about.

I don't see how this can be dismissed as mere information. Here I am saying that his behaviour fits with that of a newbie. That's completely on target in terms of scum-hunting. I am providing my own view on an issue regarding BS.

<snip mod edit>

I'll try to kickstart this:

Rump explaining

Mostly because he seemed to misinterpret BS's post to, as vollkan said, legitimize his post . However, looking back, I can understand how anyone would misinterpret that.

This doesn't explain anything really.
The reasons in brief given by me were:

1) Making a serious vote for BS on the basis of BS being 'culty'. A nonsensical justification (and possibly a freudian one)
2) Justifying the vote on the basis of pressure and discussion. BS was already talking and discussion was already happening
3) Misrepresenting the case for lynching claimed vanillas, presumably to legitimise his vote on BS

Fine, you think 3) is possibly understandable; but what about the rest of these?

Also, Tyhess respond to CKD and Pwayne.

Vollkan wants other people's reactions to his points, which is pro-town. First time I've said that in this PBPA. Asking another player to respond to another person's comments, however... feels like scum trying to blend in by encouraging discussion.

This seems to be a matter of playstyle more than anything else. Avoidance of questions is a major peeve of mine. When I told him to respond to CKD and Pwayne, I was trying to ensure he responded to those questions, that I wanted answered. You say it "feels like scum trying to blend in by encouraging discussion", but you don't explain any further as to what makes that explanation the most plausible.

Mainly because he jumped to the Doctor's defence - I can see scum doing this if Doctor's town - he was incredibly scummy first three or so pages and doesn't want us to assert pressure and bullying tactics to catch scum - I see that as very anti-town whatever the method of game. Seperately I've seen a lot of scum do them list things, ppl think they look great, so scum do the odd one liners to impress. Anyways all for now.

Well, I also said that BS looked like he had simply made an "honest mistake" and Oman said that

I think our good doctor has tried (and phailed!) to come up with a good plan.

So, in terms of "defending" BS, Pwayne is hardly singular.

Something else,

Mainly because he jumped to the Doctor's defence

and now,

I don't like pwayne more for his suggestion to not use pressure votes and bully players etc. Plus his recent list doesn't sit too well with me.

Subtle shift. People criticise you for voting on the basis of Pwayne defending BS, so you shift you main reason to being the opposition to bullying, which was a minor factor from before.

Does this mean that your basis for suspecting Pwayne is that he is opposed to bullying tactics? If so, why does that make him more likely to be scum? I personally have no problem with bullying tactics, but I have encountered many players that oppose them.

Points out flaws in Theo's logic, asks for explanation. I've seen this kind of

behavior

from town and scum in the past, so I'd call it a null tell. The bigger question is, what will Vollkan do if/when Theo explains?

Could you clarify what you mean here?

I'll do my best to explain that anyway. My two paragraphs ("Subtle shift..." and "Does this mean....") are independent points, hence the paragraphing. The criticism of his logic with the shift was separate from the question about the bullying tactics. What I wanted to know was why bullying tactics was a scumtell at all.

It's more the tone of your post that I find an over-reaction.

The post, I presume:

I don't like that vote on Pwayne at all. I think the defence of a play whos alignment is unknown should not factor into the concept at all. We have three factions here, only one of them knows who the others in their faction are (there is only one cultist now, scum know eachother). I don't like the idea of Pwayne being scum because BS looks scummy, but you say Pwayne is scummy is BS is town as well...hmmm.

I don't like it really.

I don't see any "tone" beyond a slight hint of Oman being suspicious of you. Given the basis for your vote, however, I think that is wholly reasonable.

FoS: Theo

So, when Theo elaborates, Vollkan's response (to an explanation that is, in my eyes, far scummier than Flameaxe's early play) is a FoS. There are two likely explanations here:

1) Vollkan genuinely thought that Flameaxe was scummy and delayed moving his vote onto Theo because of this.
2) Theo was Vollkan's scumbuddy, and this post is a textbook example of the Friend of Scum (FoS) tell.

Well, theo didn't actually respond to my points (just to make that clear, because it isn't from what you have quoted). He said that it was the tone of Oman's post that he found suspect. As I pointed out, no such tone existed, other than rightful suspicion. I thought flame was scummier and, moreover, I thought I may have missed something in Oman's post. They were the reasons I did not vote.

Ok looking back the tone doesn't seem all that bad, it did originally jump out at me that Oman commented on nothinge else and I found it puzzling that he (Oman) doesn't express any outright suspicion on me, it's more a defence of Pwanye if that makes sense - probably not. I guess if anything I over-reacted to Oman's original post

Wait, hang on. You accused him over-reaction but now you are saying you were actually puzzled he did not suspect you outright?

And no, don't try to turn this into a game of people defending Pwayne, the issue is people attacking your vote.

I've got my eye on pwayne because I found him defending Blackstrike more than anyone, asking Curious/Flame in 45 to not bully him, not use pressure votes to extract information.

Way to go and dodge the shifting I just pointed out:

Something else,

Mainly because he jumped to the Doctor's defence

and now,

I don't like pwayne more for his suggestion to not use pressure votes and bully players etc. Plus his recent list doesn't sit too well with me.

Subtle shift. People criticise you for voting on the basis of Pwayne defending BS, so you shift you main reason to being the opposition to bullying, which was a minor factor from before.

Now what you have just done is to combine them all together as salient factors, but it is yet another shift from your previous positions.

As far as pwayne not being the only one to defend Blackstrike again I'm being overly attacking towards him, I will say he was more defensive than anyone else but Oman, Volkan do both show support for him only after Tyhess votes Blackstrike for acting oddly. Oman then shows support, Trojan follows up straight after - more a following kinda post - similar to his one above, Volkan you then do so.

I find it interesting that you represent several people taking a common position (which happens to be against your view or your vote) as "following".

Hence perhaps I'm being severly misguided on Pwayne's defensive nature, defensive players could just as likely be town/scum and without having any prior knowledge of meta-gaming of Pwayne unvote - after all I only re-read properly a couple of hours ago.

I don't see why you only recently re-reading affects your ability to vote for sensible reasons.

For that very slippery response, you've been upgraded to first class:

Unvote, Vote: Theo

Theo's next response is enough to convince Vollkan to vote Theo, with solid reasoning. Whoa, a pro-town action.

NOTE: Vollkan's reasoning here seems far more sincere than his reasoning on Flameaxe (a preliminary readthrough suggests it is also more sincere than many of Vollkan's later cases, too). This, to me, suggests that if Vollkan is scum, then MoS (Theo's replacement) is likely to be his buddy - from scum play I've seen in the past (including my own play as scum in games such as Mini 462 and Stargate SG-1), scum find it much, much easier to bring up a case on a fellow scum than to fabricate a case on a player they know is not Mafia. Something to keep in mind for later.

The case on Theo was stronger, I don't deny that, but only because he had made a number of fairly significant scumtells.

Ok to finish early good list - Flameaxe, Curious, Volkan. Not really any vibe - MoS, Oman, ac1983fan, Trojan Horse. Not liking a lot probably due to newbishness/scummyness - RumpWat, Tyhess. Not liking even less - pwayne66, Dr.B.

Does anyone else see the odd thing I notice about this list?

The fact that Theo says he doesn't like one group due to "scummyness" but then lists Pwayne and BS as "even less" initially looked a little odd to me, but not after I thought about it. It looks like he is just saying that you two are the top of his suspect list.

Unless, as I suspect, you are talking about something else.

That's some awfully wishy-washy (and therefore scummy) analysis there...

I do not have time to finish this PBPA tonight (will do ASAP), but here's a good start.

It isn't wishy-washy. I am simply saying that it initially looked odd to me, but that I had interpreted it in one way. However, since it was a matter of interpretation, I figured I could be wrong so I noted at the end that I could have misunderstood.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Tar's case seems like smoke and flames to me.

[Trojan Horse]

Vollkan: probably scum
MoS: leaning scum
Pwayne: not sure
Trojan Horse: leaning town
Tar: judge for yourself

I like Tar's ultimate conclusions, but I definitely don't like how he got there.

Another Vollkan post that gives information/game theory instead of scumhunting.

So you quote a bunch of vollkan's posts where various kinds of information are given, and then because those particular posts weren't focused on scumhunting, vollkan is probably scum? Bah. Vollkan has done plenty of scumhunting, if my memory serves me right. (I certainly remember the scumhunting he has done against ME.) I'll take another look through vollkan's posts to see what he has done, but I'm sure I'll find a reasonable share of scumhunting.

[Trojan Horse]

*bump* to get this thread above the ones that MeMe just locked.

Thanksgiving weekend is drawing to a close; maybe now we can get back to work. I'm interested in hearing pwayne's reactions to these last several posts.

[vollkan]

Tar's case seems like smoke and flames to me.

Similarly to his previous attack over alleged "shifting" in relation to No Lynch, which he still hasn't explained...

I like Tar's ultimate conclusions, but I definitely don't like how he got there.

I find it interesting that you have and, I shall presume, continue to argue so firmly that Tar must be pro-town. Even here, you aren't taking the next logical step and analysing the implications of the fact that Tar is adopting a similar position to your own, though with a case that you admit is dodgy.

Additionally, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the crux of your case against myself and MoS revolving around the No Lynch issue, which I think has already been dealt with.

The point which strikes me here is that both TH and Tar have professed suspicion, but neither has presented a proper case (TH's was on the No Lynch and got dealt with by MoS, and Tar's was flimsy).

So you quote a bunch of vollkan's posts where various kinds of information are given, and then because those particular posts weren't focused on scumhunting, vollkan is probably scum? Bah. Vollkan has done plenty of scumhunting, if my memory serves me right. (I certainly remember the scumhunting he has done against ME.) I'll take another look through vollkan's posts to see what he has done, but I'm sure I'll find a reasonable share of scumhunting.

Those posts where he does cite me as not scum-hunting were in context. You'll find that this game has a number of points where it breaks into theory discussion (the latest No Lynch debate as a good example). Tar's case revolves a lot around snipping my posts out of those points and then using them to accuse me of not scumhunting.

[Trojan Horse]

I find it interesting that you have and, I shall presume, continue to argue so firmly that Tar must be pro-town.

You'd presume wrong. Still think he's more likely protown than not, but after he made such a flimsy case against you, I'm now having my doubts.

Additionally, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the crux of your case against myself and MoS revolving around the No Lynch issue, which I think has already been dealt with.

True, that was the crux of the case, but it was more of a case against MoS than against you. The only thing I had against you is that you decided that MoS's arguments for No Lynch were good, and so you voted No Lynch. Not much of a case against you, considering Oman did the same thing, and he was protown.

[pwayne66]

Tar's effort is impressive but does somehow warrant some suspicion given his previous inactivity. I am waiting for him to unveil the rest of his conclusions before I comment on them.

[vollkan]

True, that was the crux of the case, but it was more of a case against MoS than against you. The only thing I had against you is that you decided that MoS's arguments for No Lynch were good, and so you voted No Lynch. Not much of a case against you, considering Oman did the same thing, and he was protown.

Again, I reiterate that No Lynch was the better option. I know this has been debated extensively already, but the point is that any suspicion grounded on the premise No Lynch = anti-town is fundamentally flawed.

Also, I just reread this:

So, who's MoS's partner? Less certain. As I've said before, I really doubt it's Tar, since I don't think a scum would do the kind of antics Tar did day 1. Because vollkan joined in the voting for no lynch, I think vollkan is more likely than pwayne. But that's weak evidence. I'm not prepared to vote for vollkan just based on that (I'm still looking for harder evidence). But I'm DEFINITELY ready to vote for MoS.

(Incidentally, even though I think vollkan is scum, I believe vollkan when he says he didn't realize he was hammering no lynch. I'm sure he honestly missed the 50% rule; otherwise, he wouldn't have voted so quickly after Oman did. I think he was just trying to be #3 on the bandwagon, and have someone else be the hammering vote.)

In your most recent post, you said it doesn't mean much, and you say even in this older post that you were "looking for harder evidence", although you still say that you think I am scum, with no explanation. And you take this to the extent of inferring that I voted No Lynch to avoid being the hammerer (can you explain what you mean by this?)

What I am saying is that I am noticing that both you and Tar have suspected me (though you have been attacking MoS significantly more) but neither of you has presented any substantial case (Tar's being poor).

Tar's effort is impressive but does somehow warrant some suspicion given his previous inactivity. I am waiting for him to unveil the rest of his conclusions before I comment on them.

What about Tar's post is impressive? His case wasn't actually lengthy (when you remove all of the quotes by me), nor did it have any substance. Also, you seem to just be echoing the negative sentiment that Tar has received (by attacking him for...making a large post after being inactive?) without actually commenting on the substance of the case. I know you have said you want to wait to comment, but I can't see why (particularly given how long this may take)

[Mastermind of Sin]

I'd like pwayne to weigh in sooner.

[pwayne66]

Tar is trying, he is posting and that pleases me. He did some research and tried to come to a conclusion. I think he failed to come to that conclusion.

Echoing negative sentiment? That's a weird thing to say. The only negative sentiment seems to be from you. TH agrees with the conclusion. MoS hasn't been overly outspoken about it. I stated what came to mind. The fact that he has managed to coast to the endgame, but then decides it is time to roll up his sleeves and help guide the town, makes me suspicious. Who's sentiment am I echoing?

As far as why I want to wait, Tar has trouble keeping up. Allowing for him to say everything that he would like to say before giving him a punch list of challenges and questions seems to be the best play. You are right, it might be awhile, but I think a lot can be learned by his posts. TH and Tar both seem intent on making a case. I say: Let them, you don't have anything to fear do you? The fact that they seem to be targeting you on weak logic isn't significant until Tar finishes his case.

BTW

MOD

can we prod Tar?

[Mastermind of Sin]

I'm letting them. I'm just getting bored waiting.

[Trojan Horse]

Also, I just reread this:

So, who's MoS's partner? Less certain. As I've said before, I really doubt it's Tar, since I don't think a scum would do the kind of antics Tar did day 1. Because vollkan joined in the voting for no lynch, I think vollkan is more likely than pwayne. But that's weak evidence. I'm not prepared to vote for vollkan just based on that (I'm still looking for harder evidence). But I'm DEFINITELY ready to vote for MoS.

(Incidentally, even though I think vollkan is scum, I believe vollkan when he says he didn't realize he was hammering no lynch. I'm sure he honestly missed the 50% rule; otherwise, he wouldn't have voted so quickly after Oman did. I think he was just trying to be #3 on the bandwagon, and have someone else be the hammering vote.)

In your most recent post, you said it doesn't mean much, and you say even in this older post that you were "looking for harder evidence", although you still say that you think I am scum, with no explanation. And you take this to the extent of inferring that I voted No Lynch to avoid being the hammerer (can you explain what you mean by this?)

When I said "I think vollkan is scum", I said that because you're #2 on my list, vollkan. I think pwayne is slightly less scummy than you (because he didn't vote no lynch yesterday), and I think Tar is slightly less scummy than pwayne. Yes, only slightly now. That weak case Tar made against you has given me second thoughts.

I know, I know, we've discussed whether or not no lynch was the right move yesterday, and a few of you have concluded that it was. I'll reread your arguments, but I doubt I'll be convinced. Had there been no chance of a cultie still being alive, perhaps you could've convinced me that no lynch was the right move. But if there is a cultie out there, then we've just given up our chance to lynch all 3 baddies. Now we need some luck. So I still think no lynch was the wrong move.

As for my comment about the hammering vote: if a lynch goes bad (as our no lynch definitely did, given that the vig got killed), whoever is the hammering vote is naturally going to be under suspicion. Whether that suspicion is warranted or not. So naturally, a scum wouldn't want to be the hammering vote. But let me make it clear: I dont think that the fact that you were SPECIFICALLY the hammering vote makes you any scummier.

[Trojan Horse]

Incidentally, I'd like everyone's take on my other point against MoS:

Also, mafia would want to lynch today, because that gives them the best chance of winning. There is no way to prevent the vig from killing tonight if we mislynch, because it's the obvious thing.

However, by lynching today, the scum have a chance of smoking the vig out in the open with a bandwagon, which means they can kill the vig and hope that the vig misses his 50% chance of hitting scum.

Even if the vig hits scum, 2:1 with a dead vig is decent odds for the mafia. Right now our odds are 4:2, and I'd prefer to have chances at scum at 3:2 and 2:1 than just hope that we'll reach 2:1 through a lucky vig kill.

This was a post from day 3; I added in the bolding for emphasis. I would like to point out that if we had gone ahead and tried to lynch someone during day 3, then we most likely would've forced Oman to claim. So indeed, the vig would've been "smoked out in the open".

Makes me think MoS had some inside information.

[vollkan]

I know, I know, we've discussed whether or not no lynch was the right move yesterday, and a few of you have concluded that it was. I'll reread your arguments, but I doubt I'll be convinced. Had there been no chance of a cultie still being alive, perhaps you could've convinced me that no lynch was the right move. But if there is a cultie out there, then we've just given up our chance to lynch all 3 baddies. Now we need some luck. So I still think no lynch was the wrong move.

This is the biggest problem with the No Lynch as things have arisen. If there is a cultist, we do stand a possibility of not being able to win from here, no matter what happens today.

Maflynch D4 = 2:1:1 (P=0.4)
-MafNK town = 1:1:1 (we can't win) (P=0.267)
-MafNK CR = 2:1:0 (P=0.133)

Now, what if we had chosen to lynch?
Well, let's assume D3 was 3:2:1

Mislynch = 2:2:1
-MafNK town = 1:2:1 LOSS. Even if the vig succeeded in hitting mafia, we still couldn't win, since that would still make it 1:1:1.
Maflynch = 3:1:1
-MafNK town = 2:1:1. Now, obviously, if the vig succeeded, we would end up in 2:0:1 or 2:1:0, both of which are LYLO. If the vig failed, we would hit 1:1:1. If we assume no vigging, then we lose if we do not lynch mafia (unless we were to No Lynch and the mafia NKed the CR)
Cultlynch = 3:2:0
-MafNK town = 2:2:0 LOSS

As we can see, the situation would still be bad even if we did lynch. Since we can't rely on a successful vigging in this sort of analysis (I shall assume No Vigging) the only scenario from where we could win is if we lynched mafia (P=0.333) and then either lynched mafia again (P=0.25) and then lynched the CR (P=0.333) or No Lynched and had the mafia NK the CR (P=0.333) and then lynch the cult (P=0.333).

Our sole crutch to rely upon now is succeeding today and then having mafia NK a cultist.

As for my comment about the hammering vote: if a lynch goes bad (as our no lynch definitely did, given that the vig got killed), whoever is the hammering vote is naturally going to be under suspicion. Whether that suspicion is warranted or not. So naturally, a scum wouldn't want to be the hammering vote. But let me make it clear: I dont think that the fact that you were SPECIFICALLY the hammering vote makes you any scummier.

This is more a matter of opinion than anything else. I take the view that the whole wagon is equally culpable. Every person has an opportunity to remove their vote. Any unique stigma about hammering is unjustified. The issue is, and should always be, whether the person genuinely had good justification for their vote.

Incidentally, I'd like everyone's take on my other point against MoS:

Also, mafia would want to lynch today, because that gives them the best chance of winning. There is no way to prevent the vig from killing tonight if we mislynch, because it's the obvious thing.

However, by lynching today, the scum have a chance of smoking the vig out in the open with a bandwagon, which means they can kill the vig and hope that the vig misses his 50% chance of hitting scum.

Even if the vig hits scum, 2:1 with a dead vig is decent odds for the mafia. Right now our odds are 4:2, and I'd prefer to have chances at scum at 3:2 and 2:1 than just hope that we'll reach 2:1 through a lucky vig kill.

This was a post from day 3; I added in the bolding for emphasis. I would like to point out that if we had gone ahead and tried to lynch someone during day 3, then we most likely would've forced Oman to claim. So indeed, the vig would've been "smoked out in the open".

Makes me think MoS had some inside information.

It is certainly plausible, but remember that you are basically inferring the intention of somebody. I don't see how this is actual evidence though. It is just that MoS said something about the game's situation, which could be taken to suggest inside knowledge, but is equally apparent objectively.

[Tarhalindur]

People have asked for me to be prodded.

People should really check my sig and realize that I'm still not able to contribute effectively (and not just in this game).

[pwayne66]

...its hard to read your sig when you won't post. A better option would be to tell us yourself.

[Mastermind of Sin]

I'd like to refer you all back to this post for a more extensive case against Trojan, on top of what I already said.

[Trojan Horse]

I'd like to refer you all back to this post for a more extensive case against theo/Mos, on top of what I already said.

(Okay, this PBPA of theo isn't completely a case against him. But I figured I better put a link to it anyway. Turnabout is fair play, MoS. )

[Mastermind of Sin]

And here TH tries to turn back to his old antics. Clever, but it's not going to work with me.

[vollkan]

I'd like to refer you all back to this post for a more extensive case against Trojan, on top of what I already said.

There was a significant stream of rebuttal and counter-rebuttal following that PBPA, so it can't really be considered on its own.

I'd like to refer you all back to this post for a more extensive case against theo/Mos, on top of what I already said.

(Okay, this PBPA of theo isn't completely a case against him. But I figured I better put a link to it anyway. Turnabout is fair play, MoS.)

First up, I don't see why you need to counter a case on yourself with a case on MoS. Turnabout is not unfair (Why on earth did you cal it "fair play", like that is a justification?), but that doesn't explain why you just reciprocated.

Also, that PBPA was not a case, at all.

My conclusions there:

A definite shift towards becoming more helpful over time. The early blind focus on ac1983 is strange, but not "scummy". Just weird. There are a few other oddities which are suspicious in aggregate, but nothing that I would be prepared to vote on. His latter content is definitely very helpful. I'll say 55%, mainly just for the early stuff.

55%. And 50% is where people start at. In contrast, at that same point in time I had you at 75%.

[Mastermind of Sin]

I'd like to refer you all back to this post for a more extensive case against Trojan, on top of what I already said.

There was a significant stream of rebuttal and counter-rebuttal following that PBPA, so it can't really be considered on its own.

Of course not, but referring you back to that post allows you to read from there and see the responses and following discussion.