Mini 566: Justice League Mafia Game Over

[cicero]

Vote Zoneace

For denying his inner "F"

[cicero]

Why would riktus soft-claim superman in his very first post?

Unvote. Vote Riktus

Try to look townie much, evildoer?

[cicero]

mmm... I think I see where you guys might be coming from. Maybe not. Anyway, it looks like a rather blatant breadcrumb to me. Which is weird. I've been known to breadcrumb but it's usually a bit more subtle than that. :p

[cicero]

A propos of nothing, by the way, Seanbaby's Superfriends page may make you laugh until you cry, Justice League. Apologies if you know about it already.

[cicero]

It hasn't stalled, we are waiting for J-man's replacement.

Or an answer from Riktus.

...who is being breathtakingly silent.

[cicero]

Welcome to the game, Thesp. Good to have someone else in here with the gift of the gab.

Actr - I note that you have 3 posts on the site. Have you played mafia before? Are you in this game for the long run or are you planning on getting bored and needing to be replaced in the next few days?

Sierra - I note you are a very new player as well. The concern is about role fishing. Probing the reasons for the speech worries people because it might let scum hunt for the power roles in the game. That's why capricious is trying to hush the chat.

That having been said, there's little else to talk about. It raised my eyebrows because, well, it was out of the ordinary. I mean... who does that? Why do that? Was it just a justice league joke or is it a post restriction? Is it an incredibly obvious breadcrumb? And if so, is it real? Mirth is right in suggesting that if its a post restriction we should know about it now and watch it to see if it's real. The reason being that mafia barely ever get post restrictions. So it can be used to look like a townie.

@Riktus - are you someone's alt? I find it odd that someone would have joined the site in 2006 and have less than 300 game posts. Assuming that you are not an alt, are you in this game for the long haul and up for doing serious posting? or can we expect a very low output of posts from you?

@Hershel - if you could answer Riktus's question? Your anti-America speech in a justice league game troubles me greatly. Particularly given what Riktus just hinted. (or were you just mocking Roffman?)

@Roffman - do you hate America in this Justice league game? Why shouldnt I vote you for that?

[cicero]

Why do you keep answering for Riktus, Capricious? How can you be so dense as to ask "who am I defending"? It's patently obvious what Mirth is saying.

and Mirth, same thing. I'm not interested in your answers to the motives of the anti-americans. Let them answer for themselves. There are lots of Mirth posts in this game already. It's time to get other people's fingers on the keypad.

[cicero]

cool? Who is scum?

[cicero]

OK, we need something to talk about. So here's a big one:

Should we mass claim?

[cicero]

Definitely popcorn fashion.

[cicero]

Should we mass claim?

generally no.


not generally, no.

Why not? (I thought of typing why or why not in my initial question but figured it was implicit. That'll teach me.)

[cicero]

Why would anyone?

I am not: Anyone fun.

[cicero]

haha. Zoneace meet Mirth. Mirth meet Zoneace.

This should be fun.

[cicero]

Read Mirth's post right above mine.

I'm thinking of that other game we were in with Shea following you around screaming at you to answer his questions which you refused to do on principle. And also that you pointedly refused to answer my "why not" question earlier in the game.

You vs. Mirth could prove entertaining. That's all.

[cicero]

I like WhoMe's thinking. It's a good start. I'd like to hear more from Capricious.

Vote Capricious

@Thesp - Justify why you think he's more likely to be town other than raw numbers (i.e. we're all "more likely" to be town).

[cicero]

Capricious, You seem to be interpreting a mass claim as a flavor claim not a role claim. Am I right? A full mass claim would include the character name as well as their power.

What does everyone else think of doing just a flavor claim? Nail people down to what superhero they are? We have Capricious' opinion.

What else would people like to talk about? I started talking mass claim because the game was dead and needed someone to kickstart it. I'm happy to go on to something else but if the game is going to die, we may as well do something with it.

[cicero]

Hard to believe I know. But apparently one of the many people he hates is Zoneace. So he followed Zoneace around yelling at him for a while.

Request that the mod replace actr

[cicero]

I'm still waiting to hear from everyone.

Khelvester has yet to post in this thread at all, for example.

Mod, need to replace Khelvester

?

[cicero]

Ladies and gentlemen. I give you: BATMNAN!

[cicero]

Sweet.

Unvote. Vote Haschel

[cicero]

I thought you'd never ask!

Hmm. cicero brought up the idea of a massclaim

Yes!

and after that, he has expressed no opinions of his own about whether or not it is a good idea.

Yes indeedy!

My gut feeling suggests that he's trying to suggest things in a way that allows him to later claim that he was only "starting discussion" if things don't go how he intended.

Your "gut" makes you "suspect" the patently obvious?

My starting a conversation, to you, is a nefarious underhanded attempt to float a mass claim, because I want one, while avoiding responsibility for it? You think I

might

say that?? What the hell else would I say?

Tell me... how was the game going before I suggested talking about a mass claim? You were here, not talking, right?

Who on earth, reading honestly, could think I was doing anything BUT starting a conversation? And staying neutral on it so I didnt kill that conversation myself? That's why people pressured capricious over it and not me.

It's not worth a vote yet, and I need to reread, but right now I think that cicero is a better lynch than Capricious.

But then you don't go ahead with the full vote. The thread is SIX... (6)...SIX!!!! pages long.

A truly epic re-read those 6 whole pages and my, what, 2 posts on the subject.

But instead of doing it, you decided to avoid the obvious and float your own tentative lynch trial balloon in which you are deliberately and wilfully obtuse.

That sir is disingenuity.

And disingenuity gets Cicero votes.

[cicero]

Capricious, lets say there was a justice league cop, who did investigations, let's call him, saaaaay, a detective. Maybe even the world's greatest detective. What would that detective/cop's name be?

Click this link for a hint

[cicero]

Mirth, either lighten up or change your name.

[cicero]

mmm, bit of a chin for my tastes. But you have fun.

[cicero]

It's ok. I'm into 'em enough for all of us.

So back to business. How about that Hershel? Scum, or scum?

Capricious: Scum or misguided townie?

[cicero]

Jeebs. Just to make sure the vote count is right.

Unvote Hershell, whoever that is, VOTE: Haschel... Cedricson

[cicero]

Avoiding talking about Haschell. Noted.

[cicero]

I have no opinion of him. Based on previous experience I'm going to wait until he does something more than quite rightly harass you to form an opinion. And even then I probably would have problems forming one.

Interesting. Is that what you took from my comment on his post? I'm fairly certain I was a trifle more precise than that. Your comment reads like you read his comment and my vote for him, but not my subsequent reasoning. I dont require you to agree with me. I find it interesting though that you act as though those points don't exist.

Can you expand on your Capricious point as well for me, please? Why did you unvote him exactly and what is making you re-think it?

[cicero]

I did read your comment. Don't think its necessarily obvious that you're pushing for conversation. Took me a while to figure it out myself

OK, we need something to talk about. So here's a big one:

Should we mass claim?

Based on the above quote, I find it hard to believe that you are being truthful and that your vote is an honest vote.

[cicero]

No response to my opinion that you're being too OMGUSy at Haschel?

The word OMGUS is as much a weapon for scum as it is for town. Particularly in a mini. It can be used to dismiss reasonable criticisms. Allowing that to happen is an error for town.

You'll note that you voted for me over mass claim and you heard nary a peep of complaint from me, Mirth. Here's your post, Mirth:

I'm still sort of V/LA, but I managed to snag a few minutes to check my games.

unvote: whoever I'm voting right now
vote: whoever suggested mass-claiming on day 1...cicero?

I do not believe in claiming unless absolutely necessary. I.E. not out of the blue on page 3. Don't need to go int the glaringly obviou reasons for why. Maybe you could provide me with a reason for asking? Looks like role fishing to me. Role fishing with a stick of dynamite.

Now I'm going back to being V/LA.

This vote registered an objection to the idea and was obviously when you were busy. You barely knew who you were voting for. It was more of an objection to the idea. You certainly hadn't digested what was going on completely, but frankly in a game like this I appreciated your vote as something that could continue discussion.

The trouble I have with Haschel's vote is also in it's nuance. If I chased around everyone who voted for me in an OMGUS way, I'd be a very tired and annoying Cicero.

It was the way Haschel did it that I found disingenuous. I would have done exactly the same vote for him if I wasn't the person being voted for.

He's done very little in the thread. Less than half a dozen posts. One of them drunk. And that post was a very scummy one.

The truth is that I've obviously heard of OMGUS and I'm a smart enough guy to take into consideration that someone (I expected it would be Haschell, but you're being his proxy because he doesnt really post much) would raise the whole OMGUS thing. It's a knee jerk reaction that happens whenever you vote for the person who has voted you.

But as a player you have a responsibility to go beyond OMGUS. You need to decide whether the criticism has merit or it doesnt.

In this case, in my view, Haschell is either scum or lazy townie. Either way he requires scrutiny.

Which is not to say we should forget about Capricious.

Nor should we forget about you, because, again, re-reading 6 pages is not too much too ask so that someone has a grasp of the nuances of the posts. You WERE V/LA but then later you weren't. So a re-read of my posts prior to deciding what I meant by them certainly wouldnt have been too much to ask at this game length.

[cicero]

Did you ever read the Fountainhead, Thesp? To paraphrase my favorite line: I don't think of WhoMe. I'll start thinking about him and get back to you.

[cicero]

Sure. Here's the question, actr. Why aren't you asking more questions.

Right now you are just lurking through. Look at your posts - seriously, use the dropdown menus at the bottom of the page and look at them all - and compare them to my posts. What do you see?

So why don't you write a good long post. Somewhere between 100 and 1000 words outlining what you think of the game so far, and telling us your suspicions.

[cicero]

Heya capricious. Let me respond to your points concerning me:

Cicero's point was alright: that he was trying to get actr to contribute more. His delivery though, appears to be trying to give a newbie the impression that post length= pro-townness. It's not hard to see how the newbie might be swayed that way.

Interesting point. The underlying point here is that I'm trying to sway actr to think of me as town. Trust me when I tell you I dont think he'll be around long enough for that to matter. But more importantly, I've already been fairly abrasive with the chap, which in my experience makes newbs

more

willing to vote for me, not less. The real reasoning for me to say what I said to him is obvious on an honest reading. It is to make him post more. He's come in and written one line posts with no capitalisation or punctuation. Then he floats away again. He's clearly not engaged in the game and that makes actr, essentially, an empty seat. He may be worse because if he just quit we could replace him. If everytime we prod him he comes in and says something like:

again guys i am here this is my first forum only mafia game and i am trying to keep up if there are any questions for me just ask

We're stuck with that empty seat forever. I'm goading him into playing the game. Harshly. And people I'm rude to tend to be more inclined to vote for me not less. So your accusation here feels forced and therefore a bit dishonest. I'm also probably being grouchy with him because people who type on forums with no punctuation or caps kinda piss me off. It's disrespectful to your readers. This isn't an instant messenger, Actr. Please demonstrate your intelligence and engagement in the game by doing what I asked. Put some effort into this game please. That goes for everyone else floating by as well.

Why would riktus soft-claim superman in his very first post? Unvote. Vote Riktus

Try to look townie much, evildoer?

subtle attempt to fish

This is a very fair thing to say. But the thing you're missing (wilfully ignoring?) is that at that point in the game there was nothing else to talk about. We came out of random and that was the only "remarkable" thing I saw. So I talked about it. In truth, I didn't figure for a second it would catch him out because what he had said was so blatant, and what I said was so blatant that he could easily shield himself as a power role. I also figured anyone being that brazen in random was probably vanilla. Scum and power don't really

tend

to jump up and down and make a lot of noise at that point. The game is more to say something completely innocuous and get the fuck out of the random votes unquestioned.

So really, I was more looking for who would take up the bait and how. I guess I don't see how you could see any subtlety in what I wrote. I was very clearly grabbing what Riktus threw up to be grabbed. And I'm too experienced to have done it with the end result being "durrrh, maybe he'll break down and admit he's the [___insert Power Role___]. I figured I might take some heat for asking but I sort of wanted to.

Look, the things you mention above were done for one reason and one reason

only

. To get people talking. There's no rolefish subterfuge and no attempts to make my play seem more townie to a newbie. In fact, I'm taking a scummy hit for doing it. Quite deliberately. Either people talk or the game fucking dies. It really is that simple. I can't scumhunt until people say stuff. So I've had my poking stick out. Now we finally have some stuff to work with. Yaaaaay!

[cicero]

Cicero: why do you say you don't think actr will be around very long? Planning to kill him or something?

I'd like it if people stopped asking blatantly dishonest questions. Actually no. Keep asking them. It gives me a bead on who the scum is. At this point I'm leaning toward you, Mirth. This is strike two on your dishonest posts meter.

In order to ask that question you need to assume that I am so profoundly stupid that I would announce my intention to kill him in the thread, thereby yelling out either "I'm a vigilante" or "Hi, I'm a member of scum" and wilfully ignore the context in which I said it.

The context of the post is obvious. I think he's not interested in the game and will eventually stop coming back to the board. As newbies often do. And I am challenging him to prove me wrong. How is that hard to see?

[cicero]

The context of the post is obvious. I think he's not interested in the game and will eventually stop coming back to the board. As newbies often do. And I am challenging him to prove me wrong. How is that hard to see?

It's not so obvious if I have to ask. So you're saying its okay to be abrasive, just not in your general direction?

But the question is: Did you really have to ask? Saying you had to is a restatement not an answer. Others will have to answer that. After all, what else would you say at this point?

Also, how is your point about my abrasiveness a paraphrasing of what exists in that quote box, Mirth, (or in any way implied by anything I wrote)?

[cicero]

Now you've switched to word games.

You

used the phrase that you "had to ask" it was equivalent to insisting that clarification was needed.

On abrasiveness, obviously I'm not going to say "yes, I get to be abrasive to others and no one should be abrasive to me" so what are you trying to achieve? Your question was still a purely false paraphrase because it implies I'd been exercising a double standard, and there was no double standard for miles. I am abrasive when abrasiveness seems useful and polite as a general starting point. Actr's play rubs me the wrong way so he got my abrasiveness as an attempt to engage him in the game. Maybe you could play good cop and ask him nicely?

[cicero]

No,you're the one playing word... ahh, nevermind.

It does worry me, however, that when I question you, and when Haschel questioned your motives before, you respond only with attacks.

First, I havent only attacked. I've answered the questions.

But I attack wherever and whenever I see people doing things that need attention. Especially at this point in the game. Once again, I'm not going to let the word OMGUS tie my hands. People should decide whether either your points against me or yours against you make sense. I

try

to avoid attacking people who attack me. But if the accusations seem blatantly disingenuous like yours and Haschel's I have a

responsibility

to point that out. Frankly of the three of you, Capricious's question about why I called out on Riktus seemed the most reasonable.

I also didn't have to make an issue of your question as I did. Safe play if I was scum would be to be non-confrontational. Unfortunately my job isn't survival it's scumhunting. So yeah - if I think you are full of shit prepare for a full blown OMGUSSING. But if I think your points are fairball, I'll be happy to concede points and explain things. Honestly, I have no problem with people suspecting me of things. Townies are in the dark. I'm just attacking when I think there are problems with the original questions. And I think that is fair.
Now - on the subject of clarification: You cant have it both ways. Were you asking a question for clarification? You clearly didnt need clarified that which you said you did. The question "are you planning to kill actr" presumed its answer. The answer was going to obviously be "no". Both because if I was going to kill actr, I wouldn't have answered yes to your question AND more importantly

if I was going to kill Actr I sure as shit would not have announced it in the thread.

So I called you on a provocative dumb question. And rightly so.

This is a small mini on Day one. Scum dont have the luxury of honestly scumhunting like they might in a large game with two or three factions. They (you?) have to throw crap and see what sticks. Therefore it is completely appropriate to point it out whenever I see someone throwing crap around.

Maybe I'm being abrasive to you because...

I didn't think you were being abrasive to me nor did I accuse you of it. Again you have a way of switching the subject ever so slightly.

I also have no opinion of actr yet. I am quite decidedly not accusing him of being scum. I am merely trying to get him and others to contribute to the game. I will say though that I have been called "Captain Anti-Lurker" on this site so the longer people try to float under the radar on day one, the more likely I am to turn my cannon on them.

[cicero]

The only, and I stress only, good thing about mass name claiming is that it would be fun because then we'd picture the game in terms of superheros. I don't really think that outweighs the dangers.

[cicero]

Heya Ooba. Welcome to the game.

[cicero]

Hey all. I'm not V/LA but work and life are hectic for the next bit so my posting frequency, and specifically, depth - are going to be a little un-cicero. Enjoy the breathing room?

[cicero]

Ooba, my general rule on massclaiming of any kind is that it's a very good late game manouvre, after some of the power rules you wanted hidden have gotten killed, and after you have a read on people's general scumminess.

Done at the beginning of a game it leaves your power roles more vulnerable than necessary. I also think that it can adversely affect scumhunting as players play more to the role than the player's play. (implicit premises like "that was scummy of cicero but since he's Jangablocks Man he probably is our _____" or "Cicero's our roleblocker he's probably pulling a gambit, not being scummy.")

I realise the second stuff there is more controversial than the first but basically I think it assigns differential values to player's lives at a time when each player should be treated as being of equal value, for the best looks.

There are times to sway from my formula but I dont really think this is it. Like I said, it was a nice juicy topic to get people talking and interacting. But I wouldnt ultimately support it.

[cicero]

I've been prodded.

Imagine... I,

Cicero

, have been prodded. This is a historic occasion.

I'll try to post content soon but dont sit there waiting. Keep playing and I shall do my duty. Hopefully this evening.

[cicero]

Capricious, stop being annoying.

Zoneace is this just you. You seem profoundly rconfident about this. What will you do if Capricious comes up town? or do you care? Are you voting him because he's scum or because he's annoying?

[cicero]

I fel like there is some unspoken role-based motive going on with capricious and/or khelvester. They want this too badly and are far too thick about it. :/

[cicero]

Life is getting hectic and I dont have the time to devote to thinking about the game that I think a game deserves.

I'm not V/LA and will stay in the game until Gnome can find a replacement. If he can't I'll stick in and do the best I can.