Mini 489: Short and Sweet Mafia - Game Over

[trumpezia]

To the people who have asked me to clarify why I thought Xdaamno's first post was "too careful":

I was mainly referring to his comment about random posting. He said

Also, I think skipping the random voting stage would obviously be the ost beneficial... but then we have nothing to go on.

which seems much to reserved to me, it seems that he was kind of taking a stance in both directions, (even though the statement that we ought to skip random voting was rather weak to begin with)

To Guardian who asked me to clarify why I thought Xdaamno's second post was more towny:

Well, to be honest, it was mostly because he hold the same reservations about some lines of your argument as I did; and it seemed like he was genuinely analyzing your post assuming neither you innocens nor your guilt, (I believe that whilst mafia and town both try to find flaws in the others' arguments, mafia will most likely know that the person making the argument is innocent, and it tends to show through as more nit-picking rather than thinking about what play would be better for the town). Xdaamno seemed to do the latter.

In general, I feel that I agree that we should not spam, nor random-vote, and we should take the theme of the game rather seriously.

Classic case of pretending to be the helpful guy. I thought it was be quite obvious we take a mafia game seriously.

Grasping; or, more specifically, pretending to be helpful.

Well, to me my statement wasn't really intending to be grasping, it was a summary of my feelings that I agree with Guardian about posting as condensed as possible, and specifically, the part about takeing the theme rather seriously was meant to disgree with Sarcastro's "I think some people are going a bit overboard with the theme.".

Xdaamno, you say that I was posting only for the sake of agreeing with everyone else, well first of all I was disagreeing with Sarcastro, secondly, would it have been less scummy if I made a post without saying a word about my opinion regarding the random voting / spamming?

To Guardian re: whether we should set ourselves a deadline:

Well, I just don't think that a firm deadline, which we all make public in the thread are good. I think we should get more lynch-happy as the day progresses; but everyone may decide for themselves how mucher quicker they are going to get lynch-happy. In the end, I think the problem will solve itself without need for any organised and firm deadlining. I might reconsider this later if I think day 1 has progressed too long (but I won't tell you what I think is too long)

Why do you find people scummy for voting Sarcastro if you think he is only middle of the road? The quickness of it only? Do you think they had valid reasons for finding him suspicious?

Albert B. Rampage's vote was more clear-cut bandwagoning I think, hence why I think he is more scummy; He seemed to be throwing a vote in, advocating a quick lynch, and then hiding behind your reasoning, trying to make it sound like you wanted Sarcastro quickly lynched.

As for CTD, I said about Sarcastro's post was really too scummy to be scummy, and I think a town would have more reservations about Sarcastro than to throw a vote on that quickly.

VitaminR says he is inclined to see Albert as town because of the latter throwing his vote around; while I can see where VitaminR is coming from, I think there is a lot of danger of WIFOM here, but I tihnk in the end it is still beneficial for the town if we consider it scummy to vote without reason. (If everyone voted without justification, we would get nowhere fast.) Albert even admits to not justify his vote; to me, this seems like scum trying to save his skin (by hinting that he was only prodding for reactions) after realising that the previous attempt at bandwagoning had failed.

So, in short I'm still happy with my Albert vote.

Mastermind of Sin is very much ignoring the calls for him to stop spamming, I think. I would like to consider him a little more scummy.

Why is it scummy when he does it but townlike when I do it?

I never questioned your vote. I simply questioned your reasoning on your own defence.

Could you clarify what you are referring to by this? Maybe I'm being thick, but I can make neither head nor tail of this.

I very much like VitaminR's last posts. He and Guardian seem to be questioning everyone, genuinely trying to find scum.

Xdaamno seems to be a little defensive, (it is only me who thinks his vote on me smells OMGUS?), so he is gaining a little more scumminess in my book.

Pooky's posts are still too opaque for me, I think he always plays like this.

Page 2 Vote Count

Sarcastro (3): VitaminR, CTD, Albert
Albert (3): MoS, Pooky, trumpezia
Pooky (1): Guardian
Guardian (1): Sarcastro
trumpezia (1): Xdaamno

Not voting (2): Coron, Rishi

11 living, 6 to lynch

[Mastermind of Sin]

HOW THE FUCK AM I SPAMMING? EVEN *IF* I WAS SPAMMING BEFORE, AND THAT'S DEBATABLE, I AM CERTAINLY ONLY POSTING WHEN I NEED TO RESPOND TO SOMEONE ELSE. I AM FUCKING TIRED OF YOUR BULLSHIT, SO STOP NOW. I DON'T PLAY THIS GAME TO READ RETARDED SHIT, THAT'S WHAT I HAVE TEXTBOOKS FOR.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Its a massive overstatement to say that I am trying to quicklynch Sarcastro. I saw valid arguments and had nothing to add, end of story.

What's up with MoS losing his nerve like that ? Seems like all he's been doing is posting why he isn't spamming(+ the post where he says he's back), which are starting to sound like spam a lot.

I have a very neutral image of Xdaamno and VitaminR right now. Sarc still looking scummy, Pooky too for his unreasonable defense of himself(referring to the LmL statement) and Sarc .

[Rishi]

Hey folks. Sorry I haven't posted in this thread yet. I was at Gen Con when the game started and had very limited Internet access. Also, I didn't have much to say and didn't want to waste a post without having anything of substance.

First of all, in the other games that I've been in with Guardian, he uses the "assume I'm town" defense. And, in both those games, he ended up being pro-town. I still don't like his strategy, but I'll take what he says at face value for now. I already made the mistake before.

I think trumpezia seems to be a fairly good player for a n00b. Probably someone's alt?

I also want to look at why LoudMoudLee was killed in Night One. I don't really know the relationship between people on this site. It does not seem like a random kill to me, and so I would want to know who would have motivation to kill him. Anyone who has a better handle on the friendships on this site want to comment? I'll state I've never played in a game with LML.

[Mastermind of Sin]

If trumpezia is someone's alt, I hope I never find out who it is, because I will go strangle them. If that was a vet, they should know me well enough to not have said the things they've said.

Albert, why do you think Sarc is scummy enough to keep your vote on him? How do you feel about Trumpezia and Guardian? Guardian has been a rather high profile player, yet you didn't mention him in your last post, even though you stated your opinion of most of the other active players.

Rishi, why don't you think LmL was a random kill? Do you have any evidence that suggests this, or is it just because someone else already mentioned it, so you thought it would look protown to become interested in who killed him?

Coron has been prodded.

[Coron]

There is no room for a random phase here. Don't post without posting content, period. The first posts should be game theory mixed with random/less random votes, and as the game goes on there is even less room for jokey stuff.

unfortunately the random stage of the game is actually here for a reason.

We need to self deadline here. I recommend a 7 page 3 week deadline for day one, by guesstimation. Assuming we use all reasonable days, this setup isn't weird besides the post restrictions, there is no vig/sk/third faction, and that we get to lylo and then lynch scum from then on out, I would guess that we are in store for something like four or five days. As such, we simply cannot afford to use much more than three weeks or seven pages on the first day. If we are near using more than that, we need to lynch someone -- plain and simple.

this I could agree with.

comment on all previous posts

as far as I'm concerned this is a waste of space. I'm guessing there will be posts in this game not worth commenting on.

Something of a joke, something of the truth -- assume I am town. If people assumed that I was town and made decent reads, I would have won like 75% of my pro-town games instead of 0%. I am town here. I will probably not explain something well, or mess up somewhere, or something like that, and you will think I'm scummy, and even consider lynching me. Some will probably even find this bullet in and of itself scummy. Don't do it. So far, I have either been killed N1 or mislynched/been forced into a mislynch at endgame as town. I'd prefer neither happen here, but I especially would like to not be mislynched in this game. I would love for this to be my first pro-town win (assuming an ongoing game I'm in doesn't result in one beforehand).... I will attempt to not get mislynched, but helping me out there would be great.

don't think I don't understand the feeling, but assuming that you're town is just plain stupid, sorry.

The three players above, possibly with Xdaamno as an exception, maybe disagree with me -- but when you consider that we really don't want to use more than 7 pages for day one, 1.5 for random voting with no content seems silly to me.

1.5 for random voting? I think you're crazy, with 12 people the random voting stage should last no more than 12 posts.

she made it because games these days take way longer than they used to. Take a look at the mini archives - most games from as recently as a couple of years ago took under 20 pages. There's no need to do anything foolish like skip random voting and such - we just need to not take as long. If there's a good wagon, finish it rather than waiting around for pages and pages discussing inane things.

I agree

Classic case of pretending to be the helpful guy. I thought it was be quite obvious we take a mafia game seriously.

Grasping; or, more specifically, pretending to be helpful.

FOS: Trumpezia

Actually, we need to kick start this game as soon as possible:

Vote: Trumpeiza

can't do any harm.

This appears to be a questionable action to me.

I'm not spamming. The fact that you would make such an accusation just means that you aren't willing to take my posts seriously. I could've written those posts in a more serious manner and said the exact same thing, and you wouldn't have called it spamming, I bet. Excuse me if I think a light-hearted tone is a better way to start off a game.

I think he's referring more to the fact that they are very short posts. Your first three posts could have easily been condensed into one and this one does not have enough content to justify a post (never mind the fact that it wouldn't even have been necessary if you had adjusted your playstyle from the start). You haven't commented on the Sarc - Albert wagon or any of the budding discussions that matter to the game. Right now, you're not really helping us.

I agree.

Also, I'd like to ask Guardian to be a bit more economical. You don't need to quote every post you're responding to, you don't need to respond to every post and you can lump some of your responses together. Long, content-filled posts are not any more conducive to a short game than short, contentless ones.

I agree but disagree, I think long posts are good for getting a lot of content in a short game but in moderation, if one person posts a super long post by the end you're just skimming, and that is anti-town and a potential scum tactic.

HOW THE FUCK AM I SPAMMING? EVEN *IF* I WAS SPAMMING BEFORE, AND THAT'S DEBATABLE, I AM CERTAINLY ONLY POSTING WHEN I NEED TO RESPOND TO SOMEONE ELSE. I AM FUCKING TIRED OF YOUR BULLSHIT, SO STOP NOW. I DON'T PLAY THIS GAME TO READ RETARDED SHIT, THAT'S WHAT I HAVE TEXTBOOKS FOR.

flaming in NOT the answer. Flaming to me is about as bad as an appeal to emotion. In other words: really really terrible.

If trumpezia is someone's alt, I hope I never find out who it is, because I will go strangle them. If that was a vet, they should know me well enough to not have said the things they've said.

Honestly I agree with the spirit of much that he says, while nothing you say is particularly off topic, none of it really *needed* to be said, and easily several of these comments could have been condensed to one post.

Rishi, why don't you think LmL was a random kill? Do you have any evidence that suggests this, or is it just because someone else already mentioned it, so you thought it would look protown to become interested in who killed him?

honestly, it's possible that LmL was a random kill, but since he was a good player it is quite possible that it was a planned kill by one of the vets in this game. Honestly, with the number of veterans in this game I would be supprised if none of them were scum, seeing as there are about 5 alive I would consider veterans.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Coron, why are you answering a question that I specifically posed to Rishi? Is your name Rishi? I think not. Next time try to let people answer for themselves instead of feeding them an answer so that they can't get caught having made a reasonless assertion. I never claimed that I disagreed with LmL being a planned kill, but I wanted to see if Rishi was actually trying to contribute or just riding the coattails of other players' comments. Now, he can just reword your answer and feed it back to me, and I have no way of knowing whether or not it's genuine. Please think about these things beforfe you do something stupid.

[VitaminR]

I see no reason to change my Sarc vote.

Hm. I see your reasoning, but I have to ask you: Would it have been less suspicious if I simply

provided a random vote?

Random votes get almost no flak, I was in the RV state of mind, and I elaborated slightly (Without repeating anything).

Well yes, because what you also provided seemed a bit insincere. Just a random vote wouldn't have conveyed that.

I like MoS's questions. I agree that Rishi's statements about nightkills were a bit strange and I'd still like him to answer the question. The comment about trumpezia being an alt also initially struck me as rather weird, but I can see where he gets the impression from. However, I don't think it's relevant to the game.

I'd like to see Coron respond to a bit more than the general strategy points. He seems to be sticking to the safe topics.

[Rishi]

Sure... I'll respond to the question. The only way I would think that LoudMouthLee's death is purely random is if all the members of the Mafia were completely unfamiliar with all the rest of the players. I find that highly unlikely.

If I were Mafia and got to kill someone on the first night, with absolutely nothing in the game thread to base my decision on, I would base my decision on previous games I have had with the other players. I would probably want to get rid of someone I knew rather than a stranger, because you have no idea how that stranger is going to play the game. I just always assume that Mafia kills have SOME motivation behind them.

So that's all I meant. Take it for what you will.

[Coron]

Coron, why are you answering a question that I specifically posed to Rishi? Is your name Rishi? I think not. Next time try to let people answer for themselves instead of feeding them an answer so that they can't get caught having made a reasonless assertion. I never claimed that I disagreed with LmL being a planned kill, but I wanted to see if Rishi was actually trying to contribute or just riding the coattails of other players' comments. Now, he can just reword your answer and feed it back to me, and I have no way of knowing whether or not it's genuine. Please think about these things beforfe you do something stupid.

Sorry, but I felt I need to answer a stupid question. If you're going to ask questions make them reasonable. That was just a really stupid question.

I'd like to see Coron respond to a bit more than the general strategy points. He seems to be sticking to the safe topics.

Did you read my post?

[CrashTextDummie]

As for CTD, I said about Sarcastro's post was really too scummy to be scummy, and I think a town would have more reservations about Sarcastro than to throw a vote on that quickly.

Are you two scum together?

• First of all "too scummy to be scum" is a horribly fallacious argument (refer to this wiki article).
  
• Secondly, if you acknowledge that the post
  was
  indeed scummy, why do you question me voting him for it?
  
• Thirdly, I
  really
  don't like your assumption that a "town would have more reservations" in this context. My vote on Sarcastro was only the second, so hell no, there's nothing to be reserved about.
  
• Fourthly, we are on a tight schedule in this game due to the particular mechanics, and it is in the town's best interest to investigate leads swiftly. I find it
  highly
  uncharacteristic of a pro-town player to call for cautiousness in this set-up after only 3 votes have been accumulated out of the random voting stage.
  
• Fifthly, why the hell are you jumping to Sarcastro's defense so readily, before he himself has answered to the accusations?
  
• Sixthly, where is your belief that his post was "too scummy to be scummy" coming from when you haven't even heard his justification for it?

As for the LML kill:
Speculating on the reason behind his kill is utterly pointless, and a detriment to the town in my opinion. It amounts to pure WIFOM, and we won't know the answer until the scum tells us in post-game. Use our limited amount of posts doing something that will actually help us catch scum, kthxbai.

[Guardian]

Why is it scummy when he does it but townlike when I do it?

I never questioned your vote. I simply questioned your reasoning on your own defence.

You said my post was mostly pro-town, and liked my game theory. Trump agreed with the same game theory, now it is scummy to do so?

Xdaamno - Some inconsistencies...

Despite making a post you mostly agreed with, I have a heightened suspiscion? And

only

because I was in a good mood at the time of writing my last post? If you wish to confirm my aggresive behaviour as universal, ther'll be evidence in a few other of my games where I made aggresive and usually logical posts at the same time.

I disagreed with 3 things -- your inconsistent FOS of me, you finding trumpieza scummy and me not, and you asking for more elaboration on trumpieza's part when I didn't see a need for any. That is hardly "mostly agreeing".

---

I think I agree with Vitr and Coron that not all posts are worth quoting, but few should be ignored all together.

---

Xdaamno explains his FOS of trumpieza somewhat adequately, but he still seems to be squirming.

---

trumpieza is definitely an alt (no newbies can quote that well), and his post was very reasonable. I don't understand MoS's dislike of him.

---

I am not sure what I feel about Rishi's 28. His positive (and accurate) metagaming of me makes me want to scream that he is definitely town (scum positive metagaming like that seems silly, I don't think he'd have been so obvious about it if he were scum), but something sits wrong with me, for some reason.

---

Coron's entry to the game was reasonable, though I really dislike how he answered the question posed to Rishi.

---

VitaminR also seems to be pretty townlike

---

MoS, I have serious issues with your play. Your posts could have been thirded, and there is no need for the anger and flaming that went on in them. A good part of me really thinks it is faked. Posting short, spammy posts is not going to fly with me in this game, nor is stating things without justification (that you want to strangle trump for example -- or that if your posts had the same content and were longer that I'd be OK with them -- if you had the same number of posts and just as much content, I'd still be very suspicious.)

unvote vote: MoS

I want to hear more from the bear, and more

content

from Albert.

[Mastermind of Sin]

Sure... I'll respond to the question. The only way I would think that LoudMouthLee's death is purely random is if all the members of the Mafia were completely unfamiliar with all the rest of the players. I find that highly unlikely.

If I were Mafia and got to kill someone on the first night, with absolutely nothing in the game thread to base my decision on, I would base my decision on previous games I have had with the other players. I would probably want to get rid of someone I knew rather than a stranger, because you have no idea how that stranger is going to play the game. I just always assume that Mafia kills have SOME motivation behind them.

So that's all I meant. Take it for what you will.

I'm glad you didn't let Coron ruin the question. Even though he thinks it was a stupid question, your answer has outlined the very point I wanted to make.

You, a relative newbie (ie, you wouldn't be counted as one of the 5 or so Veteran players Coron mentioned), said that if you were mafia and got to kill on the first night, you would kill someone that you know something about. However, I, a "veteran", would not do this at all. In fact, because I *know* that people try to metagame night 1 kills, I always randomly kill on N1. I do a dice roll in my notes and kill that person, just like I do a dice roll to random vote in every game I play (except this one, because I was trying to avoid the random voting period altogether, for obvious reasons). So my point is, this isn't a blanket rule, but at least one veteran in this game thinks ahead of the theory Rishi suggested and does a random kill so that this exact theory wouldn't find them out as scum. I believe most of the veterans in this game capable of coming up with such a strategy, so I would actually look at some of the middle-ground players not unlike Rishi himself. However, even this is not even remotely evidence worth acting upon.

Hence, I agree with CTD on how to treat the LML kill.

I think I agree with Vitr and Coron that not all posts are worth quoting, but few should be ignored all together.

What types of posts do you believe should be ignored altogether?

trumpieza is definitely an alt (no newbies can quote that well), and his post was very reasonable. I don't understand MoS's dislike of him.

Why am I not surprised? Unfortunately for me, explaining further would merely be brushed off as a WIFOM argument coming from me. It would require someone else to actually understand it and point it out on their own for it to not be WIFOM, and you'd probably accuse them of being my scumbuddy.

I am not sure what I feel about Rishi's 28. His positive (and accurate) metagaming of me makes me want to scream that he is definitely town (scum positive metagaming like that seems silly, I don't think he'd have been so obvious about it if he were scum), but something sits wrong with me, for some reason.

What doesn't feel right about it?

Does anyone else feel like the statement "and accurate" is pushing it a little bit? He made his point once, it seems that he's going out of his way to remind us that he is protown.

Coron's entry to the game was reasonable, though I really dislike how he answered the question posed to Rishi.

What do you think of his defense justification that he felt it "was just a really stupid question"?

VitaminR also seems to be pretty townlike

What do you find protown about him?

MoS, I have serious issues with your play. Your posts could have been thirded

Thirded? What do you mean by this?

, and there is no need for the anger and flaming that went on in them.

You don't know me very well, do you? One would think that after seeing how I reacted to Battle Mage joining Mafiascum, you would realize that I hate playing with people who use idiotic reasoning,

especially

when they try to attack me with it.

A good part of me really thinks it is faked.

Make of it what you will. All this proves is that you don't know how I operate.

Posting short, spammy posts is not going to fly with me in this game, nor is stating things without justification (that you want to strangle trump for example -- or that if your posts had the same content and were longer that I'd be OK with them -- if you had the same number of posts and just as much content, I'd still be very suspicious.)

unvote vote: MoS

Actually, you pretty much just proved my point for me. You admit that Albert has not posted much content, yet you do not attack him for it. You merely ask him to contribute more. So therefore, if I posted the same amount of content in less post, you would definitely not be attacking me for it.

As for wanting to strangle trump, it's not really something I *need* to justify. It justifies itself if you actually know anything about me. Nothing more needs to be said.

[Xdaamno]

Xdaamno explains his FOS of trumpieza somewhat adequately, but he still seems to be squirming.

Grasping. Go find some quotes if you want that to have any force at all...

[Xdaamno]

Why is it scummy when he does it but townlike when I do it?

I never questioned your vote. I simply questioned your reasoning on your own defence.

You said my post was mostly pro-town, and liked my game theory. Trump agreed with the same game theory, now it is scummy to do so?

Guardian, I don't know what world you live in, but I don't scumhunt based on what the aim of people's arguments are. Scum players are often able to replicate a pro-town players views, so it's moot. I look for the way people say it, and the force they say it with. I didn't simply vote trumpezia based on 'You're Wrong'.

Xdaamno - Some inconsistencies...

Despite making a post you mostly agreed with, I have a heightened suspiscion? And

only

because I was in a good mood at the time of writing my last post? If you wish to confirm my aggresive behaviour as universal, ther'll be evidence in a few other of my games where I made aggresive and usually logical posts at the same time.

I disagreed with 3 things -- your inconsistent FOS of me, you finding trumpieza scummy and me not, and you asking for more elaboration on trumpieza's part when I didn't see a need for any. That is hardly "mostly agreeing".

I know you're supposed to find contradictions and whatnot, but

really

. What exactly are you proposing? If you wish for me to change it to 'partly agreeing with', that's no big deal, ya know?

Pooky and Sarcastro will be prodded on Friday if they do not post before then.

[VitaminR]

I'd like to see Coron respond to a bit more than the general strategy points. He seems to be sticking to the safe topics.

Did you read my post?

Yes, and, in the future, you can just assume that I have and drop the condescension. You highlighted one post of Xdaamno's as scummy and the rest is strategy talk.

I like CTD's scrutiny of trumpezia. I agree that trumpezia seems a bit too quick in defending Sarcastro. I have to say I do think "too scummy to be scum" can be valid (like all WIFOM can be) so I'm not too worried about that bit of it, though.

I don't like Guardian's MoS vote. It carries on in the same direction that I highlighted earlier (FOSing Pooky and MoS for things that are a part of their playstyle) and it doesn't exactly give MoS much of a chance. To be honest, at the moment (even disregarding his last post), I feel like he is seriously contributing.

FOS: Guardian

As for the LML kill:
Speculating on the reason behind his kill is utterly pointless, and a detriment to the town in my opinion. It amounts to pure WIFOM, and we won't know the answer until the scum tells us in post-game. Use our limited amount of posts doing something that will actually help us catch scum, kthxbai.

:goodposting:

[Coron]

Sure... I'll respond to the question. The only way I would think that LoudMouthLee's death is purely random is if all the members of the Mafia were completely unfamiliar with all the rest of the players. I find that highly unlikely.

If I were Mafia and got to kill someone on the first night, with absolutely nothing in the game thread to base my decision on, I would base my decision on previous games I have had with the other players. I would probably want to get rid of someone I knew rather than a stranger, because you have no idea how that stranger is going to play the game. I just always assume that Mafia kills have SOME motivation behind them.

So that's all I meant. Take it for what you will.

I'm glad you didn't let Coron ruin the question. Even though he thinks it was a stupid question, your answer has outlined the very point I wanted to make.

You, a relative newbie (ie, you wouldn't be counted as one of the 5 or so Veteran players Coron mentioned), said that if you were mafia and got to kill on the first night, you would kill someone that you know something about. However, I, a "veteran", would not do this at all. In fact, because I *know* that people try to metagame night 1 kills, I always randomly kill on N1. I do a dice roll in my notes and kill that person, just like I do a dice roll to random vote in every game I play (except this one, because I was trying to avoid the random voting period altogether, for obvious reasons). So my point is, this isn't a blanket rule, but at least one veteran in this game thinks ahead of the theory Rishi suggested and does a random kill so that this exact theory wouldn't find them out as scum. I believe most of the veterans in this game capable of coming up with such a strategy, so I would actually look at some of the middle-ground players not unlike Rishi himself. However, even this is not even remotely evidence worth acting upon.

Hence, I agree with CTD on how to treat the LML kill.

I'm going to have to disagree with this, while I agree that killing someone you have a grudge against or who has a history of finding you scum is a bad idea, but that doesn't mean that it isn't important to take a player's skill into account when deciding who to kill. For instance let's say LML is much better than Bob, so in order to win the game as scum you say "well, I should probably kill LML more often, but it might be suspicious for me to kill him all the time, and the doctors will start to catch on". Thus it is apropriate to put a weight on people who are better as town/catch you more often, but not to do it every time.

Coron's entry to the game was reasonable, though I really dislike how he answered the question posed to Rishi.

What do you think of his defense justification that he felt it "was just a really stupid question"?

I think my defense was just fine.

MoS, I have serious issues with your play. Your posts could have been thirded

Thirded? What do you mean by this?

you could have posted 1/3rd as many times

, and there is no need for the anger and flaming that went on in them.

You don't know me very well, do you? One would think that after seeing how I reacted to Battle Mage joining Mafiascum, you would realize that I hate playing with people who use idiotic reasoning,

especially

when they try to attack me with it.

his reasoning is not idiotic, as far as I can tell you just think that because he disagrees with you.

[trumpezia]

As for CTD, I said about Sarcastro's post was really too scummy to be scummy, and I think a town would have more reservations about Sarcastro than to throw a vote on that quickly.

Are you two scum together?

• First of all "too scummy to be scum" is a horribly fallacious argument (refer to this wiki article).
  
• Secondly, if you acknowledge that the post
  was
  indeed scummy, why do you question me voting him for it?
  
• Thirdly, I
  really
  don't like your assumption that a "town would have more reservations" in this context. My vote on Sarcastro was only the second, so hell no, there's nothing to be reserved about.
  
• Fourthly, we are on a tight schedule in this game due to the particular mechanics, and it is in the town's best interest to investigate leads swiftly. I find it
  highly
  uncharacteristic of a pro-town player to call for cautiousness in this set-up after only 3 votes have been accumulated out of the random voting stage.
  
• Fifthly, why the hell are you jumping to Sarcastro's defense so readily, before he himself has answered to the accusations?
  
• Sixthly, where is your belief that his post was "too scummy to be scummy" coming from when you haven't even heard his justification for it?

As for the LML kill:
Speculating on the reason behind his kill is utterly pointless, and a detriment to the town in my opinion. It amounts to pure WIFOM, and we won't know the answer until the scum tells us in post-game. Use our limited amount of posts doing something that will actually help us catch scum, kthxbai.

I do not in principle agree that the "too scummy to be scum" argument is entirely without merit; the wiki article's argument assumes that 'scummy', by definition, is how scum will act; only then can a contradiction be drawn from "too scummy to be scum". But when I said 'scummy', I had in mind a slightly different meaning, namely, the actions that people on mafiascum in general

find

indicative of scum(not providing reasons of vote, bandwagoning everyone else left, right and centre, etc), and there's a very significant difference here. And yes I do think that under some circumstances is actually my meaning of 'scummy' the polar opposite of the wiki's meaning.

Besides, if my argument is WIFOM, then the argument "he's scummy (using my meaning of the word scummy), therefore he's scum" is WIFOM as well. In fact, all the arguments are WIFOM.

That being said, I liked the above quoted post of yours very much, and after 4 I can see where you're coming from, so I now consider you probably pro-town.

I wish to point out though that I do find Sarcastro's post indicative of scum, only though the "too scummy to be scum" part makes me perhaps less sure of this than A. B. Rampage and CTD seemed to convey that they were in their posts.


Rishi seems to come across as town to me, I'm not sure exactly what in his posts makes me believe that, but I think it has to do with his seemingly very sincere and open "If I were mafia" part, I find that scum generally have a more careful tone in their "If I were mafia" statements. This is kinda WIFOM to, but that's my hunch.

MoS wants to strangle me, I don't know why, but he seems to have posted more content now, and his previous rants do come across as playstyle. So I'm not very suspicious of him any more.

I don't see why Coron answering MoS' question for Rishi is suspicious, I mean, surely it is better if everyone provided their opinion, and I often find that it is more illuminating to hear what a player says on a topic after somebody else already made a stance.

I don't think I objectively deserve the amount of defense I have been reserving from Guardian. And his vote on MoS seems to have a character of a lurker-hunt (I realise that lurker-hunting and spammer-hunting are rather different in this game becase of the restriction, it was merely an analogy to show that the fundamental reason why I don't like them are the same: namely, that they don't actually contribute much information much needed in later stages of the game) which does not seem like the best play in a game themed like this, this far into the game.

Albert: What do you think of Guardian? Pro-town/scum? Reasons?

In particular, what do you think of his first post?

(And yes, everyone else is free to answer the questions as well )

[Albert B. Rampage]

Guardian I am giving him the benefit of the doubt for now. I think that if he is scum it will show.

Right now I am suspicious of trump, because he involves me in some craplogic loopholes.

Sarcastro also wins the vote because of reasons previously stated.

Coron, I find is an interesting character. Will get more on him when I can, but for now his chiding of MoS hits me funny.

I don't think MoS is scummy much now...we'll see. I don't have much to add.

Usually I would immediately link myself to players I think are pro-town and strongly go after my best guess of the scum, but I'd rather bide my time this game.

Pooky, MoS, and Sarcastro all have limited or no internet access currently.

[ibaesha]

You can't play mafia without posting. If you don't, I will. Get it?

[Sarcastro]

Oh, come on. It’s been more than a week, and you guys still haven’t lynched CTD? He’s practically confessed to being scum. I admit that I could have pointed you in the right direction by voting him, but I didn’t see his post until I got back. Besides, do I have to spell everything out for you? This is just amateur.

So, Sarcastro.

So anyway, who wants to see if we can lynch Guardian before we get to the second page?

I take it you are joking, considering you just spent a whole paragraph explaining why there's no need to do "anything foolish".

On the other hand, it appears like your vote is

not

your usual, run-off-the-mill random vote.

That sends quite the conflicting message.

If LML were still alive, he'd say that "joking is scummy", and for once, I'm gonna subscribe to his newsletter:

Vote: Sarcastro

I’m sorry, what?

Okay, let’s start at the beginning. You understand that I’m joking. Good start. That’s a lot better than a lot of people get. After that it gets hazier. My vote is not the usual run-of-the-mill vote? Well, no, it isn’t, but why precisely is that a revelation? I think I made it pretty clear that I was voting Guardian because of his random vote on Pooky, which I didn’t like, considering the other random vote on Pooky, especially considering how he advocating skipping the random-voting stage. Oh, and because I like Pooky. Now, I don’t exactly consider this game-breaking evidence, but it was the scummiest thing I’d seen so far.

Now we get the real scummy bit: the dreaded conflicting message. Now, explain to me why it creates a “conflicting message” to make a joke about a non-random vote. Did I miss some memo about that? As I understood it, it was okay to make jokes about whatever I want. So yeah, that kind of falls apart. In fact, it makes you look kind of like scum trying to conjure a reason for voting for me based on a superficial but substance-lacking “conflicting message”. Funny, that.

Onwards! Now you apparently forget about what you just said and declare that I’m scummy simply for joking. Or is that joking about something partially-serious? You don’t seem to feel like clarifying. Putting words into the mouths of the dead is a nice touch, by the way. Regardless, though, you think that my joking was scummy. This is even despite the implication that you give that you wouldn’t normally support the view that joking is inherently scummy. So, if I’ve understood this correctly, you don’t think that joking is inherently scummy, you just think that

my

joke is scummy. Presumably, this is because of the other evidence presented in your case.

Except that I just explained why the other evidence makes no sense. In addition, even if it did, it actually seems to contradict your new evidence. In the one case you seem to imply that I’m secretly not joking, and in the other you say that I’m scummy for joking. Intriguing.

In conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious that your entire case is based on incredibly superficial reasoning. Rather scummy superficial reasoning, to be honest.

I’m obviously not a huge fan of VitaminR’s or Albert’s votes, either, but VitaminR’s is similar to mine, I suppose. Albert’s is worse, but it’s kind of what I’ve started expecting.

Now, to quickly address a couple of things. First, the rather minor issue VitaminR and later Trumpezia mention about the two FoSes on Guardian when I voted for him. To be frank, I didn’t even notice them, but I probably wouldn’t have cared had I, and I don’t really see why it’s all that scummy.

More importantly, there’s the joke – the whole reason CTD voted for me in the first place. Honestly, I don’t know why I have to keep explaining this. Is it just that I haven’t gained the reputation for it that some people have? I like making facetious statements about how sure I am that someone is scum and how quickly we should lynch them. That’s it. It does have some roots in the fact that I tend to get bored early in the game and so like fast Day Ones, but seriously, I’m just being hyperbolic. Posts like this bug me:

So anyway, who wants to see if we can lynch Guardian before we get to the second page?

Vote: Guardian

That second vote on Pooky was lame.

How serious were you being here? If you were being at all serious, this was complete bullshit. How was the second vote on Pooky lame? What is with the Pooky defense...?

Honestly, why do you feel the need to ask me how serious I’m being? I try not to get angry about stuff like this, but you’re absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid if you think that I was actually being serious about trying to lynch you that fast, especially considering you’ve been in other games in which I’ve had to explain this to people.

Even if you want to read something into my jokes and exaggerations, at least do so in a logical way, pointing out exactly why they are scummy.

As for CTD, I said about Sarcastro's post was really too scummy to be scummy, and I think a town would have more reservations about Sarcastro than to throw a vote on that quickly.

Are you two scum together?

• First of all "too scummy to be scum" is a horribly fallacious argument (refer to this wiki article).
  
• Secondly, if you acknowledge that the post
  was
  indeed scummy, why do you question me voting him for it?
  
• Thirdly, I
  really
  don't like your assumption that a "town would have more reservations" in this context. My vote on Sarcastro was only the second, so hell no, there's nothing to be reserved about.
  
• Fourthly, we are on a tight schedule in this game due to the particular mechanics, and it is in the town's best interest to investigate leads swiftly. I find it
  highly
  uncharacteristic of a pro-town player to call for cautiousness in this set-up after only 3 votes have been accumulated out of the random voting stage.
  
• Fifthly, why the hell are you jumping to Sarcastro's defense so readily, before he himself has answered to the accusations?
  
• Sixthly, where is your belief that his post was "too scummy to be scummy" coming from when you haven't even heard his justification for it?

As for the LML kill:
Speculating on the reason behind his kill is utterly pointless, and a detriment to the town in my opinion. It amounts to pure WIFOM, and we won't know the answer until the scum tells us in post-game. Use our limited amount of posts doing something that will actually help us catch scum, kthxbai.

Hurrah, another CTD post to tear apart.

1. What Trumpezia said is not at all equivalent to the “Too Townie” fallacy, for multiple reasons. First of all, Trumpezia did not say “too scummy to be scum” but “too scummy to be scummy” – that is, while the statement being scummy if taken seriously (which it obviously shouldn’t be) is not indicative of my being scum, neither is it indicative of my being town. Trumpezia, as far as I can tell, was merely stating that that specific statement can’t really be construed as scummy, because it was obviously too scummy to be anything but a joke. In addition, there’s the fact that Trumpezia was only referring to one line, not to my play throughout a game. There’s no such thing as a “Too Townie Line” fallacy.
2. Though this is addressed to Trumpezia (and may have already been answered), I’d like to point out that Trumpezia is quite clearly saying that the post was

not

scummy, and simply looks superficially scummy.
3&4. Nothing really to say about these.
5. Maybe because Trumpezia actually realised that I wasn’t scummy and that you’re trying to pretend that I am?
6. This makes no sense. What does my justification have to do with anything?

You are entirely right about speculating about the LML kill, however. There’s really no good reason to try to analyse nightkills, especially Night One kills.

So once again, we see CTD putting words into other people’s mouths and somehow deciding that my post was very scummy without actually providing any reasoning to that effect.

Sarcastro also wins the vote because of reasons previously stated.

What reasons? You haven’t given any reasons. CTD’s “reasons” are absolute rubbish and VitaminR’s is rather weak (speaking of which, I don’t know why he’s kept his vote on me, despite obviously more concrete reasons coming along).

So anyway, to sum up, anyone attacking Sarc is obviously scum of the most scumtastic sort. Specifically CTD, who’s using absolutely crap reasoning to push an attack on someone who no doubt looked like an easy target at the time.

Unvote, Vote: CrashTextDummie

[VitaminR]

Sarc, I kept my vote on you because I wanted your response and because the reasons that have come along have not been that substantial. In fact, the only other player I'd feel confident voting at this point is Guardian (Xdaamno and trumpezia are maybes).

I think your assessment of CTD isn't that strong. The main point behind his first vote seems, to me, to be that that kind of joking is scummy.

I do sort of agree with your analysis of CTD's scrutiny of trumpezia. There are some weak points in there. However, I agree with CTD that trumpezia seemed very quick to defend you and it is strange that he made assumptions about your intentions before you even responded.

I'm not entirely comfortable with how many players trumpezia seems to call "probably pro-town" on hunches. I think a conclusion like that requires a lot more justification.

I will

Unvote: Sarcastro, Vote: Guardian

for now.

[Guardian]

I think I agree with Vitr and Coron that not all posts are worth quoting, but few should be ignored all together.

What types of posts do you believe should be ignored altogether?

I haven't seen any in this game, nor can I think of any -- Coron and VitaminR seemed to imply that some posts were like this, no?

trumpieza is definitely an alt (no newbies can quote that well), and his post was very reasonable. I don't understand MoS's dislike of him.

Why am I not surprised? Unfortunately for me, explaining further would merely be brushed off as a WIFOM argument coming from me. It would require someone else to actually understand it and point it out on their own for it to not be WIFOM, and you'd probably accuse them of being my scumbuddy.

. I can't brush off (or agree with!) an argument if you don't present it.

I am not sure what I feel about Rishi's 28. His positive (and accurate) metagaming of me makes me want to scream that he is definitely town (scum positive metagaming like that seems silly, I don't think he'd have been so obvious about it if he were scum), but something sits wrong with me, for some reason.

What doesn't feel right about it?

I don't know -- I just find it odd that Rishi-town would be that quick to let it go, he policy lynched me for it in the endgame of C9+2....

Does anyone else feel like the statement "and accurate" is pushing it a little bit? He made his point once, it seems that he's going out of his way to remind us that he is protown.

Why should it? I desperately would like to not be mislynched this game. I was just mislynched for the 5th time at endgame (sadly, due to mod error... hmm, hi MoS... sadly due to mod error, I didn't identify the scum pairing at endgame for the first time) and I'd very much like for a Guardian-mislynch to not occur in this game.

Coron's entry to the game was reasonable, though I really dislike how he answered the question posed to Rishi.

What do you think of his defense justification that he felt it "was just a really stupid question"?

I think that's a bad reason to answer a question posed to someone else.

VitaminR also seems to be pretty townlike

What do you find protown about him?

His suspicions up to the point where I made that post made sense to me and I agreed with.

MoS, I have serious issues with your play. Your posts could have been thirded

Thirded? What do you mean by this?

You could have posted 1/3 as many posts as you did and been just as effective.

A good part of me really thinks it is faked.

Make of it what you will. All this proves is that you don't know how I operate.

Is this true, anyone, from your experience with MoS? He is asking us to positively metagame him (as I am asking everyone to positively metagame me ) -- I would love knowing if there is substance behind this.

Posting short, spammy posts is not going to fly with me in this game, nor is stating things without justification (that you want to strangle trump for example -- or that if your posts had the same content and were longer that I'd be OK with them -- if you had the same number of posts and just as much content, I'd still be very suspicious.)

unvote vote: MoS

Actually, you pretty much just proved my point for me. You admit that Albert has not posted much content, yet you do not attack him for it. You merely ask him to contribute more. So therefore, if I posted the same amount of content in less post, you would definitely not be attacking me for it.

No -- you proved my point. Your posts up until this one basically wasted our posting space for the whole game. Make posts like this one and I'll have much less of an issue with you. Albert needed to post more -- you needed to post less.

As for wanting to strangle trump, it's not really something I *need* to justify. It justifies itself if you actually know anything about me. Nothing more needs to be said.

Like I said, I can't understand your reasoning if you never present any reasoning.

I really liked this post by MoS, he seemed genuinely suspicious of me -- and I think I have a better place for my vote...

---

I know you're supposed to find contradictions and whatnot, but

really

. What exactly are you proposing? If you wish for me to change it to 'partly agreeing with', that's no big deal, ya know?[/b]

How about instead of "mostly agreeing with" you wrote "mostly NOT agreeing with"? That would have been more accurate. You were making it seem like except for a little bit of your argument I was with you, whereas in reality I didn't like a lot of what you were saying.

Your EBWOP is very anti-town, for the record. Bad taste in my mouth.

---

I don't like Guardian's MoS vote. It carries on in the same direction that I highlighted earlier (FOSing Pooky and MoS for things that are a part of their playstyle) and it doesn't exactly give MoS much of a chance. To be honest, at the moment (

even disregarding his last post), I feel like he is seriously contributing

.

I categorically disagree with that statement. Before his last post, he had been hurting the town by wasting posting space.

I don't comprehend this position and the MoS-defense, honestly. I highly disagree that your reasons for finding me suspicious are plausible ones.

---

I liked Sarcastro's post a lot.

FOS: ABR

unvote: MoS vote: CTD

For the record, I have been reading consistently and will continue to do so, but I am trying to not post too soon and waste space .

Also, for the record, classes start tomorrow -- and they are my #1 priority -- so my activity may slip, or it may not.

[CrashTextDummie]

Wow, Sarc, what a load of OMGUSy crap.

Now we get the real scummy bit: the dreaded conflicting message. Now, explain to me why it creates a “conflicting message” to make a joke about a non-random vote. Did I miss some memo about that? As I understood it, it was okay to make jokes about whatever I want. So yeah, that kind of falls apart.

In general, I have no problem with jokes during the random voting stage. People make them because there is no basis for serious, insightful posts and votes yet. You on the other hand, seemed to have a basis for a serious vote, which makes joking already redundant.

As for the conflicting message:
Seeing as your vote had reasoning behind it, it is implied that you were actually suspicious of Guardian, and hence were interested in seeing some real pressure on him. Yet by suggesting to quicklynch him, even in jest, you seemed to be trying to achieve the exact opposite. Most people, when seeing such a suggestion, disregard it as entirely silly, and will look at a forming bandwagon with scrutiny.

By making this particular joke, you took whatever punch there was behind your vote away, which clearly can't be in the interest of a pro-town player. It's great for scum though.

So, if I’ve understood this correctly, you don’t think that joking is inherently scummy, you just think that

my

joke is scummy.

That is correct. By the way, LML's stance on joking is well documented, so the suggestion that I'm "putting words in his mouth" is quite preposterous.

Except that I just explained why the other evidence makes no sense. In addition, even if it did, it actually seems to contradict your new evidence. In the one case you seem to imply that I’m secretly not joking, and in the other you say that I’m scummy for joking. Intriguing.

I am implying that you were purposefully ambiguous in your intentions, hence using a joke in a scummy manner. Bye the way, for someone who's accusing me of putting words into other people's mouths, you're doing an awful lot of it yourself.

In conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious that your entire case is based on incredibly superficial reasoning. Rather scummy superficial reasoning, to be honest.

Well, duh. When there's no material to base profound reasoning on, which is the case on page 1 of virtually every game, you have to go for something comparatively superficial. That's the nature of the game.

But seeing your hyper-defensive and OMGUSy reaction, I'm feeling pretty good about this early suspicion.

Moving on:

1. What Trumpezia said is not at all equivalent to the “Too Townie” fallacy, for multiple reasons. First of all, Trumpezia did not say “too scummy to be scum” but “too scummy to be scummy” – that is, while the statement being scummy if taken seriously (which it obviously shouldn’t be) is not indicative of my being scum, neither is it indicative of my being town. Trumpezia, as far as I can tell, was merely stating that that specific statement can’t really be construed as scummy, because it was obviously too scummy to be anything but a joke.

There seems to be some mind-reading going on here. Talk about putting words into people's mouths. I interpreted his post differently, but I sure appreciate another take on it (even though it differs from his own...).

2. Though this is addressed to Trumpezia (and may have already been answered), I’d like to point out that Trumpezia is quite clearly saying that the post was

not

scummy, and simply looks superficially scummy.

You're really going out of your way to defend Trumpezia. Even more so than he did for you.

3&4. Nothing really to say about these.

That's a damn shame, because they're pretty damn important.

5. Maybe because Trumpezia actually realised that I wasn’t scummy and that you’re trying to pretend that I am?

I'll get back to this in a moment.

6. This makes no sense. What does my justification have to do with anything?

Everything. The single most efficient way to get a read on someone, in my opinion, is to analyze their reaction to being attacked. To torpedo an attack before the attacked person has reacted to it is therefore completely counter-productive, even if you don't agree with the attack.

If Trumpezia is town, he should have had an interest in seeing your own justification for your post. By sticking his neck out for you because he interpreted your one single post differently, he put quite a lot of blind faith into a player based on very little. Quite an unorthodox approach to a game where everyone is generally supposed to be suspicious of everyone.

So anyway, to sum up, anyone attacking Sarc is obviously scum of the most scumtastic sort. Specifically CTD, who’s using absolutely crap reasoning to push an attack on someone who no doubt looked like an easy target at the time.

You seem to operate under the mindset that everyone attacking you is scum, and everyone defending you is town, which is exceptionally and inexplicably naive for a player of your caliber. And the amount of word-twisting and spin-doctoring you've done on my posts is remarkable.

Happy with my vote.

I liked Sarcastro's post a lot. FOS: ABR

unvote: MoS vote: CTD

[VitaminR]

I haven't seen any in this game, nor can I think of any -- Coron and VitaminR seemed to imply that some posts were like this, no?

I said that you needn't respond to every post. That doesn't mean you should ignore them. It was mostly about quoting less, anyway.

A good part of me really thinks it is faked.

Make of it what you will. All this proves is that you don't know how I operate.

Is this true, anyone, from your experience with MoS? He is asking us to positively metagame him (as I am asking everyone to positively metagame me ) -- I would love knowing if there is substance behind this.

From what I've seen of him in other games, I don't think it's fake.

I don't like Guardian's MoS vote. It carries on in the same direction that I highlighted earlier (FOSing Pooky and MoS for things that are a part of their playstyle) and it doesn't exactly give MoS much of a chance. To be honest, at the moment (

even disregarding his last post), I feel like he is seriously contributing

.

I categorically disagree with that statement. Before his last post, he had been hurting the town by wasting posting space.

I don't comprehend this position and the MoS-defense, honestly. I highly disagree that your reasons for finding me suspicious are plausible ones.

I admit that that statement is debatable. It doesn't really matter, though. What mostly bothered me is that I didn't get the MoS vote. I see the need to ask him to condense his posts a bit, but I don't see where they were scummy.

I also don't like the CTD vote. You agree with Sarc without elaborating and seem to copy his suspicions to the letter.

CTD's defence pretty much confirms my impression of him. I'm definitely keeping an eye on Sarcastro.