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On the subject of the 'easy lynch' argument:
What do we mean by easy lynch? Since scum will often support, oppose, or ignore, a wagon based on whatever they deem to be in their interest, the answer seems to be to be a wagon of which it is fairly easy to persuade town players of the correctness. To my mind, in order to convince town players to support a wagon, one has to come up with arguments for that player's scumminess that pass scrutiny by other players. Fabricated or trumped-up arguments can, and should, lead to the lynch of the pusher before they lead to the lynch of the target.
Things about which valid arguments can be made asserting that player's scumminess are generally called 'scumtells.' Scumtells are things which are more often done by scum than town, or seem to benefit scum, and therefore make a player more likely to be scum.
All things being equal, it is always in the town's interests to lynch the scummiest player (claims aside). But are all things equal? In my view, no. It is my contention that newer and lesser-known players will get more of the 'benefit of the doubt' than veterans for a similar number/gravity of scumtells. Therefore, a newbie lynch is actually 'harder' than a vet lynch (so even if it were possible there were such a thing as an easy lynch, new players would not be it). Yes, it is true that new players get lynched early on more often than not. But this is simply a result of newbies producing more scumtells.
It is not in the town's interests to ignore the player who is the scummiest just because (s)he is comparatively new. For starters, it doesn't help that player become a better player. Also, if you're going to throw a 'newbie' blanket' over the newer players in a game, you end up lynching vet players based on much weaker evidence of scumminess, and giving newbie scum an excuse to pursue their objectives in plain sight.
Most mafia arguments relate to a) whether or not something is a valid scumtell and b) whether there are mitigating circumstances that make it not apply in this circumstance. If the answer to a) is no, the player pushing the lynch is guilty of making bad arguments. If you think it's b), other players can then look at your own argument for mitigating circumstances. It is, in my opinion, on the strength of the arguments presented that the case for lynching someone should be assessed.
I'm afraid I can't offer you particularly good meta on this, since a couple of games where it's come up are ongoing, and in the one where it really mattered, I was scum. I will describe this to you briefly, since it goes to the heart of what i think is the flaw in the easy lynch argument:
In Pablito's Ultimatum Mafia (in this forum), there were two scumgroups. Conservatives (ABR, Yos2, and myself) and Liberals, which included Vandamien and Sparks. Town included Stoofer, and a player called Dylan.
Day one, Sparks (a new player) stood out as the scummiest, dropping scumtells right and left. Just behind him was Dylan, another n00b. (This game had a challenge method). Sparks was nominated, and challenged Dylan. Sparks lost, just, and was lynched. One scum down.
Next day, (after Sparks' buddy carrotcake had been modkilled) VanDamien, the third liberal, gave up and outed himself. Battle Mage then replaces in, and makes a hugely antitown challenge of VD, who the town as a whole had decided should be allowed to live for now. He's voted off (unanimously minus Yos). Then Dylan challenges Stewie, by consensus the towniest player in the game, and loses, unanimously.
The next day, the consensus, including me (bussing) is that ABR is the scummiest. Stoofer, however, defends him on the grounds that he is an 'easy lynch' and that pursuing easy lynches the previous few days has got us nowhere. This is despite the fact that in each of the previous two days, lynching the 'harder' wouldn't have benefitted the town, and the 'easy lynch' on day one netted a scum. ABR challenges mneme, who's fairly town-looking, and Stoofer's is the deciding vote in getting mneme lynched. Next day, I challenge stoofer, and win the challenge in a landslide, giving the game to my scumgroup.
Stoofer's use of the 'easy lynch' argument here costs town the game. He voted a vet town player, who's not really done that much wrong, over a very scummy new player, for the sake of avoiding the easy lynch, and lo and behold, the very scummy player was actually scum.
I hate the newbie card in general, and will always assume a player is scum rather than dumb. Have I lynched a fair few antitown looking newbies along the way? Of course. But I don't think my methods are any less efficient than anyone else's. When I defend newbies, I tend to do it from the perspective that action X or Y just doesn't have much utility for scum, however bad it may look.
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shaft.ed wrote:OK so before I postulated that last nights killer had to be one of CES, DGB, or The Fonz. Would the three of you be kind enough to comment on the other two players on this list?
And I've made it clear in no uncertain terms that I reject this as a false dichotomy. I've shown that Yvonne's claim does not clear her at all. If
either
Adele or CKD is scum, then cicero or yourself isn't cleared either. And the chance of one or more of Adele and CKD being scum, at this point, is better than half.
Though, whilst we're on the subject, I don't like CES' pushing of no-lynch. I don't feel it benefits the town.
DrippingGoofball wrote:
shafted: if your calculations are correct, from my perspective, I'd say CES and the Fonz have a 50-50 chance! TSQ's behaviour early in the game was pretty distracting, and the Fonz has remained rational and calm, but I'm not liking his vote on CKD.
DGB, how can you 'not like' my CKD vote? I've never voted CKD! In fact, I've argued for the Yvonne lynch over his, on the grounds that it's hard to see a viable CKD scumgroup, especially one not also featuring Yvonne.
cicero wrote:No they cant watch her. And what's worse, if the watchers decided to watch TSQ/CES, what DG did last night would preclude them from seeing anything TSQ/CES might try to do. (By which I of course mean shoot somebody).
Which means she's a rockin' choice for a jail cell if she lives through the day.
DGB is a rockin' choice for a jail cell for another reason- if she's town, she can be killed off with no possibility of watching or doc protect. The possibility of her being jailed is the only thing that can prevent this. CKD, do as you see fit if we no-lynch, but I suggest you assign a decent probability to a DGB jailing, at least, should we go to night (more on this to come...)
cicero wrote:Unvote. Vote No Lynch
I'm back here now and think it's a great idea again.
We've had a bunch of great discussion now (no sleepwalking!) Lots of stuff is on the table. No one is under the radar or above suspicion and it's time to improve the town's odds. We get one more night of investigation and pay pretty much no price for it. We'll increase our %chance of hitting scum with all these being equal, but things won't be all that equal cuz of all the superpowered information we'll get in the night. Frankly, if it all goes down correctly we can up our chances of hitting scum to over 50% I think. Do eet. It's the right thing to do and a tasty way to do it. I still think one big drawback exists obviously - that scum will just need to twist one townie. I understand that. But with all the other things going for us, including info, I think it's outweighed. I don't want to say more on it, really, because
I'm not sure we will improve our percentage chance of hitting scum, with scum having a greater proportion of the vote.
More to the point, there remains the DGB issue. If DGB is town, then scum can take a shot at her, with no possibility of detection. The worst case scenario for them there is DGB gets jailed, which leaves us back at the status quo with the marginal benefit that I or shaft.ed MAY choose to pass our powers to Adele. The best case scenario is a town player down, and no additional info.
So really, in order for no-lynching to have any conceivable benefit, DGB has to be scum. And if we're voting anything based on the notion that DGB is scum, it should be a DGB lynch.
cicero wrote:Adele wrote:Assuming the scum kill overnight, we drop a pro-town suspect, reducing the field - which is good - but we also lose that pro-town player's thoughts and ideas and suspicions, and their vote. Which is bad.
Yeah, I know. I made the argument myself the first time. There is an incentive for scum to kill. Which is good. I like how there's a possible advantage to changing the state of the game for both sides.
The important point though, is that the decision as to whether or not changing the game state is favourable is
left to the scum
. IE, there will only be a change in gamestate if the scum deem it in their interests to do so.
cicero wrote:
Do you think CES was scummy for suggesting the move in the first place? We can all agree he's pretty damn smart, yes?
Yes, though it's not an open and shut case. I think the no-lynch is less obviously scummy than the tie-up-the-jailkeeper plan.
cicero wrote:I think the watchers should have no idea about claim order until tomorrow. I think it should be decided by diceroll. The popcorn thing is just that whoever claims does the diceroll for the next person to claim. Under no circumstances should anyone be able to strategise their order placement today. Particularly since no one finds either watcher to be super obv-townie.
Cool with this,
if
we decide to no-lynch, but i'm still currently against that. I don't really feel my concerns have been adequately addressed.
My personal suggestion, which, I admit, involves significantly more variance than a random chain, is to appoint a listmaker come morrow. (The idea is that the listmaker makes a list, capiche?) Obviously this plan relies quite a bit on our ability to find a town dude, but, frankly, if we are incapable of that, we don't really stand much of a chance of winning.
Here's a possibility. How about everyone make a list NOW? I'm not committed to this plan, but it has benefits, I'd like to hear what people.
Then, if the scum choose to nightkill, whoever dies has their list used. There seems to be the obvious objection that scum could just kill whoever has the best order for them, but OTOH there's a number of factors weighing into possible nightkill choices, like possibility of lynching 'em tomorrow, possibility of getting caught, etc. If the scum no-kill, we go to randomness.
cicero wrote:
Fonz is scum. I'd bet my left arm.
Cicero, this is poor. I didn't feel I had the energy to get caught up with all my games in one day. Hence, I did the normals (and newbie game) yesterday, and am dealing with the minis (which are fewer, but all at fairly advanced stages, requiring some pretty serious analysis) from me, today. I didn't even check Coney Island yesterday. For your argument that my absence makes me scum, I'd have to be scum in all my minis, one of which was at deadline and in which I'd received a prod, making it a priority above this one. In the same way that you claimed I 'started posting more' because you'd accused me of being likely scum for being measured and saying just enough. So, uh, it had nothing to do with me getting a couple days off, and other games going to night then?
Also, at various points today, you have stated that your 'gut instinct is that Adele and Yvonne are scum,' voted CKD, voted DGB, and said that you'd 'bet your left arm' that I'm scum. And supported no-lynch. I find that a rather worrying range of suspicions.
Paraphrasing a role PM takes seconds, fabricating a good fakeclaim takes an eternity.
