Mini 566: Justice League Mafia Game Over

[WhoMe?]

If I were scum I would not go after superman over aquaman. I would be quite clueless about what to do. Mods are intelligent, they always like to throw twists in.

Very happy with my vote. This is just disingenuous, I accept that the game dosn't have to parallel the comic books exactly, but in this situation you would off superman in a trice, and to claim you wouldn't just makes me think you are reaching for excuses to continue your mass claim quest.

[roffman]

@Capricious: Yes, i have been lurking for a lot of this game, mainly because i have this to be going on a one track debate since page 3. The question of mass claiming which you are still in favor for just strikes me as stupid and pointless, as i cannot imagine how anyone cannot see that the times mass claiming benefit scum far outweigh the times they benefit town.

On a second note, the only reason i voted now is because deadline is approaching and i want to avoid a potential scum saved tie.

[Sierra]

How did we get from

I've already dropped the mass claim issue.

to

There doesn't have to be a bulletproof town or any sort of role for mass claim to work. We could be all vanillas, all power, or anything in between and mass claim could still be viable.

again?

I unvoted Cap earlier because he finally dropped the massclaim discussion only to find him pushing it again a few pages later. That won't do.

Unvote Khelvaster - still think he's scummy though.
Vote Capricious

[ooba]

The bottom line is, mass claim isn't going to happen today, so none of you have to worry about it. Me and Khel were speaking our minds, you don't have to agree,

you

just have to find scum.

The italicization in the above post is mine.
So we have to find scum?
What will you do then?
Or do you think your scum hunting is already over for the day since you're so sure of roffman?

I would like to agree with you here and say that i think Zoneace is town.

"Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant"

We should narrow it down to a few people and make sure we lynch on Day 1 ..

Mirth , you've unvoted zoneace and still have your doubts about Capricious - who else do you think are possible scum candidates?

Thesp, Lets say we lynch WhoMe? and
a) He turns out scum - who do you think his partner(s) are?
b) He turns out town - who do you think is scum then?

"Voting is the first duty of democracy."

Infact i'd like everyone to chip in before the deadline with their suspicions and who they think should be lynched - it will help us day 2 ..

[Mirth]

Capricious: could you please condense your posts?

Ooba: I'm indecisive. I don't know about scum candidates, but here is what I find even mildly suspicious, so far, in no particular order, just things I'll be watching:
Zoneace: pushing a bandwagon too strongly too early. If Capricious is scum, I'd be more suspicious of him. I'm laying off for now though because I'm more interested in figuring out whether Khelvester or Capricious is where my vote if going.
Roffman: admits to lurking because the discussion is not productive. Why not make try to turn the conversation in a manner that he does like?
Ooba: still watching your restriction. I'm not just going to trust on blind faith that you're town because you seem to have one.
Cicero: the whole long debate with me.
everyone else I don't have much of a read on yet. Whether its because theyre not posting very much or because theyve yet to say anything worth watching.

The main thing I'm thinking right now is this:
While Capricious is obviously pushing the issue way more than Khelvester, he may just be genuinely dense. I don't know. (See, Hascel, I learned ^___^) But he is pushing awfully hard. Khelvester is kind of egging this whole thing on from the sidelines. I very much would like to vote Capricious for the blatantness, but part of me thinks that Khelvester would probably have a bigger chance of being scum because of the lack of originality and the subtleness of what he is pushing.

[Capricious]

This is just a debate for lack of anything better to do right now. I believe the debate has been very helpful in that I've already crossed off a list of likely town. I have already said that mass claim is not happening anyway no matter how much we speak. Scum are using this schism to their advantage e.g.

How did we get from
Capricious wrote:
I've already dropped the mass claim issue.

to
Capricious wrote:
There doesn't have to be a bulletproof town or any sort of role for mass claim to work. We could be all vanillas, all power, or anything in between and mass claim could still be viable.

again?

I unvoted Cap earlier because he finally dropped the massclaim discussion only to find him pushing it again a few pages later. That won't do.

Unvote Khelvaster - still think he's scummy though.
Vote Capricious

If he were truly town and believed both of us were scum, he would not be flip flopping like this, lynching either scum would be good in a town's mind. He is just, again, siding with the majority opinion to get a easy lynch

Top two for scum: roffman, Sierra, probably cicero as a #3.

[Capricious]

If I were scum I would not go after superman over aquaman. I would be quite clueless about what to do. Mods are intelligent, they always like to throw twists in.

Very happy with my vote. This is just disingenuous, I accept that the game dosn't have to parallel the comic books exactly, but in this situation you would off superman in a trice, and to claim you wouldn't just makes me think you are reaching for excuses to continue your mass claim quest.

How can you know this to be disingenuous? Even if you believe that superman has a power role over aquaman, who is vanilla. You have to factor in protection powers.

mass claim quest- I have long ago given up hope to mass claim, it's not a quest, just a debate.

[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.

[roffman]

Personally my scum choices are:
1# cap or khelv, one or the other, i doubt both
2# Thesp, because of his single mindedness after WhoMe?
3# Mirth, because i had to pick a third, and the vibe i get from reading him makes me think he's more likely to be scum then town.

[Singing Librarian]

Hello all,

I have replaced in, due to an unhealthy fondness for the DC Comics universe of characters. I have been half following this thread, and have to say that calling for a mass claim (name or otherwise) this early is blooming stupid - it's not as though the JLA doesn't have a million shape-shifting enemies and the like with potential scum safeclaims, and do we really want to out potential healing and investigative roles this early? No, we do not.

I will do a full read by the end of the day, trying to avoid that debate and get to the important job of scum-hunting. I know there's a deadline!

[ZONEACE]

Hello all,

I have replaced in, due to an unhealthy fondness for the DC Comics universe of characters. I have been half following this thread, and have to say that calling for a mass claim (name or otherwise) this early is blooming stupid - it's not as though the JLA doesn't have a million shape-shifting enemies and the like with potential scum safeclaims, and do we really want to out potential healing and investigative roles this early? No, we do not.

I will do a full read by the end of the day, trying to avoid that debate and get to the important job of scum-hunting. I know there's a deadline!

who are you replacing?

[Thesp]

WhoMe?, who are your partners?

Still waiting for some actual case on me to be presented by you. All I'm seeing so far is you randomly saying that I am scum and need to be lynched. Lets see some facts!

I could have sworn I'd said something about you, at the least:

Re-reading, I like WhoMe? as scum here much more. He seems to say, "Well, the last time it ended badly...but here's how we should do it!" I liked what we had to say about Capricious (even though I disagreed entirely with his conclusion for different reasons), but in the context of his earlier posts, he appears hypocritical in accusing Capricious of being wishy-washy on massclaiming.

I've thought your responses have also been more likely to come from scum than town. I also don't like your last attack on Capricious, as it feels disingenuous to me (in a stroke of irony).

I'm increasingly not fond of ZONEACE, for his insistence on voting people he disagrees with rather than doing scumhunting.

roffman, who else do you think is scum? (I like Capricious's line of thought here on roffman.)

I also want to stab Sierra.

I would like to agree with you here and say that i think Zoneace is town.

Why? I'm more inclined to think the opposite lately.

Thesp, Lets say we lynch WhoMe? and
a) He turns out scum - who do you think his partner(s) are?
b) He turns out town - who do you think is scum then?

See above for some of my leanings. I think the night's results will hold more information for us as well.

The main thing I'm thinking right now is this:
While Capricious is obviously pushing the issue way more than Khelvester, he may just be genuinely dense. I don't know. (See, Hascel, I learned ^___^) But he is pushing awfully hard. Khelvester is kind of egging this whole thing on from the sidelines. I very much would like to vote Capricious for the blatantness, but part of me thinks that Khelvester would probably have a bigger chance of being scum because of the lack of originality and the subtleness of what he is pushing.

WE HAVE A WINNAR!!!

I'm not terribly convinced of Khelvaster's scumminess, but the manner in which he pushed massnameclaim is far more consistent with how scum would operate such a maneuver. (Also, see my vote on WhoMe?.)

I'm happy with my vote, but will switch at a deadline to ensure a lynch.

[Mr_Gnome_It_All]

Singing Librarian replaces cicero

[Capricious]

Hello all,

I have replaced in, due to an unhealthy fondness for the DC Comics universe of characters. I have been half following this thread, and have to say that calling for a mass claim (name or otherwise) this early is blooming stupid - it's not as though the JLA doesn't have a million shape-shifting enemies and the like with potential scum safeclaims, and do we really want to out potential healing and investigative roles this early? No, we do not.

I will do a full read by the end of the day, trying to avoid that debate and get to the important job of scum-hunting. I know there's a deadline!

I would like you to answer why, in your position, you have denounced mass claiming, while cicero brought up the question himself. You two have the same roles.

[Singing Librarian]

Sorry guys for not making it clear who I was replacing. Serious breach of helpfulness there, and probably mafiascum.net ettiquette. *hangs head in shame*

I am indeed replacing Cicero. I probably won't match his verbosity, though. That's a lot of posting!

My views of the game so far...

First, we have the random voting and a strange back and forth about anti-Americanism which diverts the thread for a while. In with that, we have riktus' speech, which prompts quite some discussion, with some people trying to get to the bottom of it, others thinking it's best to leave it alone. To me, it seems like a genuine post restriction, though it's odd that nobody else seems to have one. I agree we shouldn't push for more details at the moment.

Then, for much of the rest of the thread, we get the merits or otherwise of a massclaim.

I would like you to answer why, in your position, you have denounced mass claiming, while cicero brought up the question himself. You two have the same roles.

In answer to Capcricious, I think Cicero geneuinely brought the idea up to spark discussion (though possibly not expecting quite so much discussion) in a slow thread. He didn't say he thought it was a good idea. There is no reason specifically connected with role to think it's a good idea or a bad idea. I just think it's a bad idea, and reading between the lines, I think Cicero did as well. Note: I don't actually know, because I'm not privy to his thought process.

Along the way, as a mass claim is debated, Haschel Cedricson says Aquaman is guaranteed vanilla, and that annoys me as a comics fan - surely the (for a long time) king of Atlantis could have mafia-game-related powers which don't rely on the ability to speak to fish. But that's by the by.

From time to time it looks like the debate will die down, but it seems to be unstoppable like Solomon Grundy, to use a flavourful example - just comes back in a new body every page or so. Capricious promises to drop it at least once, but never does.

Other things that cause discussion along the way
- is Zoneace scummy for causing an L-2 vote? (probably not, I think)
- why is actr posting so little?
- what is up with riktus/ooba? (keeps re-appearing every so often)

I found it more useful to look at each player. Because I'm a librarian, and thus essentially a robot, my thoughts on you all in alphabetical order:

actr - has done nothing except say he's reading the game thus far. I'm not sure whether I see this as likely newbie confusion or scummy lurking to stay under the radar. I suspect the latter.

Capricious - seems awfully sure that riktus has a post restriction from only 2 posts; seems to agree with the negatives of a massclaim, but supports it, and goes on supporting it even after saying he'll drop it

Cicero - is now me.

Haschel Cedricson - has mostly made joke posts that do not contribute to the game

Khelvaster - hasn't posted much more than actr, and has been continuing to push for a mass claim. He argues for it better than Capricious does to be fair. Looks like he's using the claim debate as a way to get out of scumhunting.

mirth - starts by putting a lot of pressure on riktus for his strange opening post, but she soon gets sucked into the claiming thing like everyone else

ooba/riktus - riktus starts off with the weird post that got people talking for the first couple of pages and sort-of-claims a post restriction. ooba's posts do support a restriction, so I'm inclined to believe it. Someone suggested riktus was soft-claiming Superman - the restriction makes me think of someone much more obscure, personally, but it's best to drop it for now. I'd need to see more to be sure.

roffman - started out with a lot of lurking, or at least non-posting, but gradually starts making more useful posts, with a pretty credible scumlist.

Sierra - another one who started out with major non-posting disease, but has begun to contribute, but I'm not getting any particular 'read' from him yet

Thesp - worryingly single-minded about pursuing WhoMe?. Thinks Capricious is town and is quite persuasive about this even as he disagrees with Capricious' ideas.

WhoMe? - almost certainly town due to his semi-outing himself, otherwise pretty much unremarkable pro- or anti- which makes Thesp's pursuit rather odd

Zoneace - quite aggressively anti-Capricious, but reading strongly as town to me.

I would say the most likely scum are:
* One of Capricious and Khelvaster. Surely not both. The whole claiming thing ties up the entire thread, making other discussion difficult, and is not helpful.
* actr and/or Haschel Cedricson for general lurking unhelpfulness
* Thesp, for an unfounded, as far as I can see, vendetta against WhoMe?

With all that in mind, I am going to

unvote; vote: Capricious

It was a close call between him and Khelvaster, but Khelvaster is more coherent in his arguments (though I disagree with them). That said, if we're in danger of a no lynch as we approach the deadline, I would be happy to switch my vote to one of the others on my list of five.

[Mr_Gnome_It_All]

Vote Count:

roffman

(1) : Capricious

WhoMe?

(2) : actr, Thesp

Khelvaster

(3) : Haschel Cedricson, roffman, ZONEACE

Capricious

(3) : WhoMe?, Sierra, Singing Librarian

actr

(1) : ooba

Not Voting:

Khelvaster, Mirth

With 12 alive, it's 7 to lynch.

[ZONEACE]

I'm increasingly not fond of ZONEACE, for his insistence on voting people he disagrees with rather than doing scumhunting.

That would make sense, IF THE PEOPLE THAT I DSAGREE WITH WEREN'T SCUMMY. But they are. The people i disagree with are suggesting, agressively pushing and/or defending those who are suggesting and agressively pushing SCUMMY and ANTI-TOWN IDEAS.

remove head from sphincter then analyze the game and my play.

[Mirth]

I would like you to answer why, in your position, you have denounced mass claiming, while cicero brought up the question himself. You two have the same roles.

Thought I'd throw my two cents in here, but role doesn't always have anything to do with it. I personally am very anticlaim everywhere, be it vanilla or nonvanilla.

Roffman, any reason why you think I'm scum besides vibes?

I'm also going to

vote:Khelvaster

because its getting close to deadline, and while I really don't like how Capricious is playing, I think Khelvaster is more likely to be scum because hes not very contributive on top of spouting not very protown strategies.

[Haschel Cedricson]

Okay, I'm done with Dead Week and Finals Week, so I should be able to become participatory again.

Here's what I don't like about Khelvaster. He asks somebody to "prove him wrong by claiming a generic, unnamed townie." Let's pretend somebody took him up on that offer and claimed something delightfully generic. Now we have one person that is certainly not a powerrole, so the odds of an actual powerrole being targeted increase. In addition, if a generic townie proves Khelvaster wrong, then it would imply that Khel is NOT a generic townie, which would imply a powerrole, which potentially leads to the town losing a powerrole right away just so Khelvaster can confirm-or-deny a theory about mass-claiming.

If you are town, the above scenario is not a good one, so you don't propose it.

If you are scum, the above scenario can lead to an increase of finding powerroles, along with the possibility of a WIFOM game the next day.

Khelvaster's offer of

someone can prove this proposition utterly worthless right now by claiming a vanilla, nameless townie.

is scummy.

In addition, when told about the disadvantages of massnameclaiming, Khelvaster comes up with a possible scenario on why it

might

be a good idea after all, ignoring the fact that the odds of having a bulletproof townie who can claim are not very good, or that the scum might actually have safeclaims. At some point Occam's Razor applies; sure, nameclaiming might help us 5% of the time, but it will fuck us over the remaining 95%.

Khelvaster is the best choice for a lynch today.

As for Thesp, I understand your case on WhoMe?, but I'm surprised that you find it to be the best case possible. Is WhoMe? really scummier than Khelvaster? I'm also wary of how when asked why you were happy with your vote, your answer was a simple "I think WhoMe? is scum," instead of a more-detailed "WhoMe? has done x, y, and z, making me think WhoMe? is scum."

[Sierra]

This is just a debate for lack of anything better to do right now. I believe the debate has been very helpful in that I've already crossed off a list of likely town. I have already said that mass claim is not happening anyway no matter how much we speak. Scum are using this schism to their advantage e.g.

How did we get from
Capricious wrote:
I've already dropped the mass claim issue.

to
Capricious wrote:
There doesn't have to be a bulletproof town or any sort of role for mass claim to work. We could be all vanillas, all power, or anything in between and mass claim could still be viable.

again?

I unvoted Cap earlier because he finally dropped the massclaim discussion only to find him pushing it again a few pages later. That won't do.

Unvote Khelvaster - still think he's scummy though.
Vote Capricious

If he were truly town and believed both of us were scum, he would not be flip flopping like this, lynching either scum would be good in a town's mind. He is just, again, siding with the majority opinion to get a easy lynch

Top two for scum: roffman, Sierra, probably cicero as a #3.

When I suspect two people of being scum, I will place my vote on the one I am most suspicious of. When the other starts acting even more scummy, I will change my vote to him. I see nothing wrong with me flip flopping my vote like this, as you called it. You make it sound like I think you are both scum, but in fact I agree with the general consensus that only one of you is scum. Therefore, your argument about a townie wanting to lynch either scum is void.

Talking about me agreeing with the general consensus and your arguments being void: where do you get the idea from that I've been siding with the majority this game? When I voted Khelvaster, I was the first to do so. I think I've always given proper explanations in my posts. If anything, I like to think the majority has been siding with me.

I also don't like your scum top 3. Roffman, I can understand. I don't like seeing myself on a list like that ofcourse, but I can see why you would want to put me there after I voted you. Cicero didn't strike me as scum at all: he sparked a lot of discussion which - although the massclaim argument was tiring - I think has helped in the end.

[Capricious]

purely from an outsider's view, Khelvaster should look more pro-town than me. He advocated for mass claim after I came under fire for doing so.

[Thesp]

I'm increasingly not fond of ZONEACE, for his insistence on voting people he disagrees with rather than doing scumhunting.

That would make sense, IF THE PEOPLE THAT I DSAGREE WITH WEREN'T SCUMMY. But they are. The people i disagree with are suggesting, agressively pushing and/or defending those who are suggesting and agressively pushing SCUMMY and ANTI-TOWN IDEAS.

remove head from sphincter then analyze the game and my play.

NO. How often does scum lead a push on an agenda that's conceivably openly anti-town, that's unlikely to succeed? I'm trying to remember a time I've

ever

seen that. (If you've seen it happen, can you show me examples?) They instead, when seeing a plan that benefits them, tend to either vehemently argue against it for town brownie points, or subtly push it from the sidelines, hoping it will go through. That's why I think Capricious is one of the least likely to be scum here, because he'd certainly get attention and flak here, which is uncommon from scum.

You said it yourself - he continued to suggest massnameclaim was best, even after you told him it was a bad idea. How often do scum do that? It suggests to me his thoughts were genuine, even if you disagree with him. You voting for him in light of that suggests to me you're looking for someone to vote for, rather than looking for scum.

(Also, a point of semantics which will help me understand you - what do you mean when you say scummy?)

[ZONEACE]

nice nice WIFOM thesp.

[Capricious]

On WIFOM: the game of mafia, when reduced and dissected into its finest elements, is WIFOM and probability. Nothing is 100% sure, a cop may be insane, a doc may be a quack, a vig may be firing blanks, and of course, scum do bus. Now, some events are more logical and more likely to happen than other events. This is your role as a mafia player, to deduce the likeliest and most logical outcome. Calling out an argument as WIFOM is counterproductive.

[ZONEACE]

basing a defense of someone ENTIRELY on BS wifom is counterporductive as well. Thesp's entire post is craplogic. thats not productive.