The best word I can put to some of the behaviors I've seen so far is "bizarre".
The first are Nacho's mechanical suggestions. Nacho acknowledges that sparing is good at times, but is adamant that we spill some blood, and in another post advocates doing it early. He is opposed to sparing Day 1, but is open to sparing townreads/the neighbor as becomes convenient. It is unclear how many total spares he has in mind, but the number is not 4. There's a coherent thesis in the center here: Town needs information and motivation to be successful and engaged. The best way to get both of these things is not through strictly townhunting but through scumhunting. I agree with the thesis. The implementation of this thesis, though, is incredibly bizarre.
The reason is this principal:
The odds of correctly sparing and the odds of correctly lynching are inversely proportional.
Pick one of two scenarios:
1) Lynch when we have a 2/11 chance of hitting scum, spare when we have a 5/7 chance of sparing correctly.
2) Lynch when we have a 2/5 chance of hitting scum, spare when we have a 9/11 chance of sparing correctly.
There are a few confounding factors (ie. IF we spare incorrectly, IF we do lynch correctly, I don't factor neighbor) but it's pretty clear what time is the best to lynch. Nacho's suggesting more than we lynch despite it being mechanically worse, he's suggesting we do it at
the absolute worst possible time.
There's an argument for weight of a Day 1 flip vs. a Day 4 flip-If we're talking info/engagement, how useful is it to only start your engine Day 4?-but I adamantly oppose lynching Day 1. I believe it is only slightly better than throwing the lynch in the garbage. Smart players are not above advocating mechanical garbage as scum, either, so don't give me that.
In post 122, Nachomamma8 wrote:Skim Hectic's posting in
this game and compare it to his posting in
this game. There are some stark differences (some more obvious than others), but in particular, I want you to focus on the difference in tone. How free and willing to take crazy swings in one game versus the other? Can you see where he seems very focused on his self-image in one versus the other?
Second is this meta. These appear to be taken from Hectic's very first two games onsite. Checking Hectic's wiki, the scumgame you linked isn't listed, so I'm not really sure how you chose that scumgame to compare against. The first scumgame I found from checking his posts is
this.
Here is a quote from his very first post in that game, in reply to the question "Are you town or scum?":
Hectic wrote:
1) Scum. My strategy this game will be to start off strong and post often. I will make allies while dropping the occasional joke, and will focus on pushing 1 or 2 people who are likely to be newbie townies that are simply apprehensive. After a few days of this, I am likely to peter my activity and start lurking, avoiding any attention and allowing the town to follow the predetermined path of chaos I have set them on. If someone points to this post and accuses me of being transparent scum, I will retort that they simply do not understand the humour.
Here is an example:
MamaTort: "Isn't Hectic doing exactly what he said he would do as scum? Isn't he just... scum here?"
Hectic: "I pity you. You are oblivious to my dangerously high level of humour and wall-breaking meta play, and as a result, I will now affectionately call you 'Torty'."
I'll save the space quoting, but the counterexample completely demolishes your meta argument. This is a sample, but it was not a one-off for the game. Poor meta work by town is so common as to be null, but how you got here in selecting the games, and how readily you drew on it despite the glaringly obvious red flags-first scumgame onsite?-is extremely questionable.