1.)
He enters the game asking others to summarize it for him, despite it only being 11 pages long. The only other player to have shown no real signs of having actively read the game (allowing them to get away with not giving opinions) was DR.
2.)
He has preemptively painted himself as a player who does not contribute, which allows him an easy defense for when he is actually called out for not contributing. He is likely being truthful about his claim, but starting off the game warning us three separate times (quoted in an earlier post of mine) about it was unnecessary. This has essentially given him the fodder to lurk in plain sight, while hardly ever offering up an opinion (so that he can never be contradicted or questioned about them).
3.)
Arakorn is clearly not a "new" player
; the game I linked to at TWCenter began
last summer
, and he had played games even
previous
to that one. He also began this game by denying being a newbie player.
And yet
, he has still appealed to his inexperience
twice
upon being pressured, with the lines " I am not nearly as skilled as you.
" and "I'd rather trust in your votes, (the more experienced player's) than in my own "feelings"". This is basically playing a "soft" newbie card; he is not claiming to be a newbie outright, but he is still trying to
reap the benefits
of being given the "benefit of the doubt".
Experience has nothing to do with alignment.
4.)
Tied in with the above, Arakorn is making claims that clearly few experienced players would make (which is essentially a way to make somebody think "he is a newb" without that person having to actually claim to be one). Not only does his list of {gorckat > neko2086 > Javert} not make sense, but even after being asked to explain his list multiple times, he has
failed to do so
. Additionally, his mixing of names is downright
bad
("why would neko vote for me if we were both scum?").
His strategy appears to me to try for the "I am so pathetic I could not possibly be scum". And in order to keep up this facade, he needs to give off the "poor ol' me" aura as much as possible, and act as if he is "uninterested" in the game despite being so close to winning (which would be true
regardless
of his alignment, although it is clearly scum in this case). Asking to be "sacrificed" is by far the sealer of the deal...
if he was really going to sacrifice himself, he would have voted for himself
. The
only
reason he mentioned the word "sacrifice" was to evoke pity.
If you think this strategy is far-fetched, look no further than Toaster Strudel's play in
Evolution Mafia (although reading the whole game is clearly not recommended). To quote from her wiki page:
Toaster Strudel's Wiki Page wrote:Mysterious yet prolific player who plays dumb to survive and be more persuasive. Really, really dumb.
Toaster Strudel suffers not from shame and there is no limit to how dumb she is willing to look to fool people. Doesn't appear to ever pay attention, does not read special game instructions, and logic is almost always faulty.
Paradoxically endowed with a brilliant scumdar. An idiot savant. Almost as funny as DrippingGoofball, which is perhaps not a coincidence.
^ Bolded for emphasis ^
5.)
Post 517 is almost a contradiction in itself. He acts incredulous that gorckat narrowed his list down to {Arakorn, Javert} while he
himself
has narrowed his list down to {gorckat, Javert} – both players clearly used process of elimination, so calling gorckat's post "useless" while he does the exact same thing is hypocritical at best.
6.)
Despite claiming to believe he was reentering the game under deadline, Arakorn still made no effort to read the game, and in fact claimed to have "no suspects at the moment", which effectively leaves his voting options as wide as possible. He suggests that he might read the game "in a week" – basically after the deadline hits.
7.)
He has reverted to WIFOM as a defense multiple times, often boiling down to "would MeMe vote me if we were partners?". The answer, of course, is
yes
. At the time, she was the
first
vote on Arakorn, and after looking back in the game, she actually
did not even present a case on him
(unlike her prior votes, although she held off on her RTB explanation for a while). As a scum partner, this holds little risk, and potentially big rewards.
8.)
Arakorn [and the person he replaced, McStab] managed get past Day One without giving a single weighty opinion. The same goes for Day Two – he votes MeMe, and then acts surprised about her self-voting. On Day Three he just follows Tarhalindur's plan. Day Four, he finally
has
to give an opinion, and it doesn't even make sense. He has been actively lurking this whole game – posting without actually posting content.
9.)
He contradicted himself in actions and deeds when he voted for MeMe while essentially asking players not to lynch MeMe yet. If he had truly not wanted MeMe lynched yet, he would have simply unvoted.
10.)
And
now
he is appealing directly to pity. "I guess I'm going to die now", "the town is doomed now". These are completely unnecessary – they add nothing to the game other than emotional appeal. And he still does not offer any reasoning. He was even so brazen as to double-check whether or not I would be willing to vote for you (neko).
It is fairly clear that Arakorn cannot
consistently
try to "fight tooth and nail" at this point, because that would flatly contradict his earlier behavior in the game. His best bet is to act useless, confused, inexperienced, and depressed, and he is currently playing up
all
of this.
~~~~~
Any questions or concerns, ask them and I will answer them at my next reasonable opportunity. We are in no hurry.
