TM2012: Scummies 2011.5 - Let the credits roll!

[Lost Butterfly]

Day 1, Votecount 2

Two in a row!

Kublai Khan (1) - theamatuer

Captain Ajax (3) - xRECKONERx, MagnaofIllusion, hitogoroshi

Quilford (1) - BBmolla
hitogoroshi (2) - DeasVail, Quilford
theamatuer (1) - Kublai Khan
BBmolla (1) - Zar
Zar (1) - The Fonz

Not voting

(3) : Gaoth, T-Bone, Captain Ajax

With 13 players alive, it takes 7 to lynch.

Deadline:

21st of May at 11:50pm (EDT)

Countdown to deadline

: (expired on 2012-05-21 23:50:00)

Countdown to the end of First Half Judging

: (expired on 2012-05-13 23:50:00)

[BBmolla]

Vote BBMolla

That's not a town post.

You sure showed me with your mega town post.

[BBmolla]

Unvote, Vote: Zar

Same reason I gave for DV, but DV has ponied up an argument that might actually lead to a wagon (and done so in a way that does not, to me, seem to indicate he just made it up on the spot).

BBMolla gets the joke?

Unvote, Vote: Zar

Same reason I gave for DV, but DV has ponied up an argument that might actually lead to a wagon (and done so in a way that does not, to me, seem to indicate he just made it up on the spot).

BBMolla gets the joke?

You're saying it was a joke?

I am.

Didn't read it that way, probably has to do with "you can't read sarcasm."

[MagnaofIllusion]

So BB - nothing to comment on other than posts about you specifically?

[BBmolla]

So BB - nothing to comment on other than posts about you specifically?

I'll have more tonight, just checking in real quick between classes.

[Captain Ajax]

Ajax, do you believe DeasVail is sincere but wrong, or scummy?

I've played against a "too townie" scum before. Fooled me the whole game. (It was vollkan, to be exact.) So I understand where DeasVail is coming from.

EBWOP: And what about Quilford piggybacking on the same?

Hmm. He was awfully quick to change his mind about hito. Yeah. I think Quilford's scummier than DeasVail.

Unvote

Now I need to ponder a bit.

Unvote, Vote: Captain Ajax

(L-4)

We're still in the low pressure phase, and the idea of 'needing to ponder' instead of just instinctively switching (you would have put Quilford at what, L-5?), suggests a level of extreme fear about voting 'wrong'. Given that votes are very weak in terms of lynch power at this stage of the game, I'd only really expect to see that in a scumbag who's terrified of being outed.

Check out

<link removed>

, where I just got killed (and I was town). I spent a good amount of day 1 scumhunting while voting for no one. If you think that's bad play, let's talk about it.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Mod you should probably edit out that reference to an ongoing game by Ajax.

[Lost Butterfly]

Please don't link to ongoing games - talking about ongoing games is prohibited by the site wide rules. Consider this a friendly reminder by your friendly neighbourhood Faramod.

[T-Bone]

I'm checking in. Where to start. I don't know where to start to be honest. I've honestly sat here with the reply box for two hours. I kinda feel like I just replaced into a huge game.

I don't see anywhere to jump in yet. How we handle the judging in thread doesn't matter to me. I don't think discussing or not discussing the behind the scenes judging in thread is going to make that much of a difference. I have no idea how I'd use the discussion to catch scum, but that's just me.

No one really stands out as scum or town to me. So that's that I suppose.

[xRECKONERx]

Dealing with massive bullshit regarding me being gay today. Might get to this tonight/tomorrow.

[Captain Ajax]

My apologies. I guess this means I have no admissible evidence that I sometimes (as town) spend time during day 1 without voting.

Anyway, a couple of quick questions for Quilford:

1. Is the conversation you had with DeasVail (turning the forum into a bit of a chat room) a normal playstyle for you?

2. Right now, do you have a second highest suspect in mind (below hito)?

I'll wait for the answers before I do anything else.

[Gaoth]

Wow, three pages before I even know the game is up. Terrific.

Reads so far as pretty much all set-up/mechanics speculation, and I thank you all for doing all that heavy lifting for me.

My one question so far is the scum read on Ajax. Seems premature. Are some of these still RVS that haven't moved?

And Fonz, which argument of DV's are you referring to?

[Zar]

UNVOTE

VOTE GAOTH

[Zar]

Gaoth's post rubs me the wrong way... it feels over-explanatory.

[T-Bone]

Actually, I completely agree there. It's the 'townie' thing to do to question the first bandwagon for "town cred". It just...it's forced to me.

Vote: Goeth

[xRECKONERx]

i just multiquoted and then it blew up and i didn't have it anymore so FUCK ITTTTTTTTT!

Giving out judging groups is a bad idea because scum that aren't a part of one group can deduce who that group had to give their award to and figure out who optimal kill/block/dicksuck/whatever targets are

the first page exchange between DV & Quil is really fucking gay

Gaoth's post is p bad, but

Quil's out of nowhere vote on hito then declaring DV is town is FUCKING BULLSHIT so

Vote: Quilford

ALL WITH ME

[BBmolla]

By the way Hito, if you are town, I don't mean to say what you said wasn't good. I just think you're be scum because of it.

Wat

Quilford why did my first post make me town?

T-Bone's entry post is wierd. Why the hell would people stand out clearly this early? It's like you suggest the norm is to have solid reads on page 3... which it's not.

Ajax, scumhunting without voting is like digging a hole without a shovel. It's not needed, but it definitely helps you and it'd be dumb not to use it.

I doubt Gaoth read any of the game at all.

the first page exchange between DV & Quil is really fucking gay

lol

Keeping my vote where it is to sheep Reck.

[Quilford]

Quote wall incoming; I haven't felt this confident in a read in a while.

Okay so I took a cursory glance over the thread whilst breakfasting this morning and vaguely noted Captain Ajax/Trojan Horse's "suspicion" of me. Get home, read up and it turns out he's scum. Jackpot.

Vote: Reckoner

Obligatory, given what happened the last time we played together.

Hito: let's keep the judging groups secret. Not sure if it makes a difference, but the less the scum knows, the better.

First post links a previous game where Reck won as mafia over CA/TH, I regard this as a form of buddying. Consciously or not (and I don't think this makes a difference to his proposed alignment), by posting a link to that game and basing a vote off of it, CA/TH is flattering Reck.

who are you

Trojan Horse. And lord almighty, can the man hold a grudge.

Yep, Trojan Horse here. I should've clarified that in my first post.

Do DeasVail and Quilford normally interact like this when they're together in a game? (Serious question. I've never played with either.) They're being awfully chatroom-y here.

His first post gives me the impression of scum trying too hard to look town. This is because the first paragraph is really just stating the obvious, as I'm pretty sure the players here are competent. It's like saying, "Now remember kids, always get a claim before lynching" at the very start of a non-newbie game. Sure, I've played games where this doesn't happen, but

I'm assuming that people won't do anything stupid this game

and it wouldn't cross my mind to tell people not to. So yeah, I think he was leaping onto the opportunity to look town.

That's a really bad assumption to make. I think somebody has done something really stupid in pretty much every game I've played here. (As often as not, it's me.) I have no problem with hito's first post.

This content is worthless, methinks. A clarification on his identity is harmless enough, but an ineffectual question (which I will nevertheless answer below) and a defence of Hito both strike me the wrong way. Mainly because they really remind me of how I play scum. :P The question is the perfect one for scum to either mount an attack off of or let drop quietly, depending on the response. The use of 'awfully' particularly reinforces this idea. If he does decide to press the point, players assume that he meant it seriously; if he lets it drop, players assume it was just a bit of harmless hyperbole. I don't like it.

I also really don't like the defence of Hito. As I'm sure everyone's aware, scum LOVE to defend -- it gives them yummy brownie points from their defendant and to other players it makes them look like they're doing something. Nahhhh. Anyone can take sides, but town tend to be the ones that bring up the point in the first place. Self-depreciation (seen here in "(As often as not, it's me.)") is a subtle sympathy-inducing tool. Used in the context of a defence, the overall effect is to dissuade people with dissimilar opinions from attacking you for yours. (The defence "Well, it didn't work on you!" is not legit here, because I was looking for it. Most people haven't given it a second thought.)

Ajax, do you believe DeasVail is sincere but wrong, or scummy?

I've played against a "too townie" scum before. Fooled me the whole game. (It was vollkan, to be exact.) So I understand where DeasVail is coming from.

EBWOP: And what about Quilford piggybacking on the same?

Hmm. He was awfully quick to change his mind about hito. Yeah. I think Quilford's scummier than DeasVail.

Unvote

Now I need to ponder a bit.

Except, DeasVail wasn't referencing "too townie" scum at all. The "too townie" idea is that a player is acting so town (and, generally, surviving too long into the game) that your brain starts to trick you into thinking that they're scum -- they're just doing everything so correctly and/or going unpunished for it. Often, it's valid. But DeasVail was talking about scum trying

too hard

to look town; in Hito's case, by stating the obvious. CA/TH doesn't just completely dodge the original question "is DeasVail sincere but wrong, or scummy?", he also brings up irrelevant anecdotal evidence (why mention the player's name if you're not going to even link the game) that shows (as I have demonstrated) that he has failed to comprehend DeasVail's post. Also, he comes in again with the subtle buddying / sympathy tactics: "I understand where DeasVail is coming from." I don't like it one bit.

In the second part of his post he mentions that I was 'awfully quick to change [my] mind about hito.' Well, duh. This is RVS, and I formed my opinion on hito's alignment based off of three posts. Of course it wasn't a solid read. DeasVail presented what I considered a good argument against hito, and considering my vote was, again, based off CA/TH's one post that game, I changed it. That such a fuss should be made out of it is fantastic.

The unvote irks me for the same reasons that hito pointed out at the bottom of this post. That CA/TH tries to justify his actions with a lone game of self-meta -- and one which was ongoing at that -- shows that he's desperate. A quick search through his old posts reveals that he's been on other games on-site in the past. (I'm willing to cede the point about quantity if there's evidence of a playstyle change / another abnormality.)

To be continued.

[Quilford]

snip

EBWOP: And what about Quilford piggybacking on the same?

Hmm. He was awfully quick to change his mind about hito. Yeah. I think Quilford's scummier than DeasVail.

Unvote

Now I need to ponder a bit.

Unvote, Vote: Captain Ajax

(L-4)

We're still in the low pressure phase, and the idea of 'needing to ponder' instead of just instinctively switching (you would have put Quilford at what, L-5?), suggests a level of extreme fear about voting 'wrong'. Given that votes are very weak in terms of lynch power at this stage of the game, I'd only really expect to see that in a scumbag who's terrified of being outed.

Check out

<link removed>

, where I just got killed (and I was town). I spent a good amount of day 1 scumhunting while voting for no one. If you think that's bad play, let's talk about it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I agree with hito here. Additionally, even if we ignore the self-meta I still think there are a few oddities here. Your careful phrasing of 'while voting for no one' is very interesting. I don't think the fact that you would be voting for nobody is the issue here. The issue is that you

unvoted

directly after expressing a read on someone as scummier (which was your strongest read at that point) and directly before saying you 'need[ed] to ponder a bit.' This

heavily implies

you have an intent to vote that person, or are developing an intent to vote that person. I think you worded your sentence very carefully so that players who might examine the game you attempted to link could, at first glance, find no fault with what you said, when in reality you had done something wrong and were trying to cover it up.

Also your 'if you think that's best play, let's talk about it' is a textbook scum manouvre to get embroiled in theory debates and look like you're doing something whilst other people actually put in the hard yards. Not gonna work.

My apologies. I guess this means I have no admissible evidence that I sometimes (as town) spend time during day 1 without voting.

Anyway, a couple of quick questions for Quilford:

1. Is the conversation you had with DeasVail (turning the forum into a bit of a chat room) a normal playstyle for you?

2. Right now, do you have a second highest suspect in mind (below hito)?

I'll wait for the answers before I do anything else.

It's immediately noticeable that you've changed your claim from 'I spent a good amount of Day 1

scumhunting

while voting for no one' to 'I sometimes (as town)

spend time

during day 1 without voting.' You've attempted to take the burden of having to fake-scumhunt off your shoulders. Your first question is basically the same question you asked back in your second post, but rehashed so that you're addressing me. (Did you honestly expect anyone apart from DeasVail or I to volunteer information about the way we talk to each other? I think not.) Needless to say, it's as airy a question as it was to begin with. Your second question is standard scum fare: ask for reads. Yadda yadda yadda. And you'll 'wait for the answers before [you] do anything else'? I don't think so.

It's relevant to point out that ~60 posts (5 of which of were his) into the game, CA/TH has failed to generate any convincingly original content of his own. Any meaningful content has only arisen in response to another player's enquiries. The rest is fluffy and weak. He's scum, and we're going to lynch him.

VOTE: Captain Ajax

[Quilford]

snip

Hito: let's keep the judging groups secret. Not sure if it makes a difference, but the less the scum knows, the better.

Oh and I'd also like to point out that this is a super-scummy response and is totally informed scum trying to appear as uninformed town.

I'll answer the questions and etc directed at me in my next post.

[Quilford]

@Quilford and Deas

– please indicate where this game was on your personal list of preferences BEFORE the role PMs from Zoraster! Thank you.

Scummies was third.

My apologies. I guess this means I have no admissible evidence that I sometimes (as town) spend time during day 1 without voting.

Anyway, a couple of quick questions for Quilford:

1. Is the conversation you had with DeasVail (turning the forum into a bit of a chat room) a normal playstyle for you?

2. Right now, do you have a second highest suspect in mind (below hito)?

I'll wait for the answers before I do anything else.

1. In previous games, I have indeed tried to spark up discussions with whoever I saw listed at the bottom of the page as browsing the forums. I think informal, friendly talk is a good way to get reads on players at the start of the game, and it certainly worked with DeasVail there. I don't do it much other than that.

2. Well, obviously, you're my top suspect now. (To be honest, I'm unusually sure that you're scum, and I'm taking such a strong read from such a small set of posts as a sign of my being right.) I think the way hito voted you makes him town, so I don't think he's a suspect any more. I'll probably have to look over the game a bit more before I come to a decision on a second-scummiest, you're occupying my thoughts at the moment, heh.

Quilford why did my first post make me town?

Because gut. A while back I did the same thing in Animal Rescue: PetsPick (giving a gut read off of everyone's first post/s). Rather awesomely I got all my reads right (Lew and Sotty were town, Jason and VPB were scum, KK was the SK), so I've been trying to reproduce it in games since with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, they may have ended up victim to the crash. Needless to say, I attempted something similar here.

i just multiquoted and then it blew up and i didn't have it anymore so FUCK ITTTTTTTTT!

Giving out judging groups is a bad idea because scum that aren't a part of one group can deduce who that group had to give their award to and figure out who optimal kill/block/dicksuck/whatever targets are

the first page exchange between DV & Quil is really fucking gay

Gaoth's post is p bad, but

Quil's out of nowhere vote on hito then declaring DV is town is FUCKING BULLSHIT so

Vote: Quilford

ALL WITH ME

Don't be terrible.

[DeasVail]

Fonz:

I don't see why I have to say it straight away either. Why did you not delete your vote for me?

Ajax:

This is my second time playing with Quilford, and no, we didn't act like this last time. My assumption isn't actually important to why I thought hito was scum. I didn't see town thinking to warn everyone about it. (Past tense used because my read on hito may be changing)

MoI:

Scummies was first.

Hito:

I did read Psychic Mafia, but there was nothing wrong with a quicklynch that game.

Reck:

What was wrong with the exchange? If nothing, why mention it?

BBmolla:

What is your read on Quil? (excluding influence from Reck) Also, explain the "wat".

Tentative Townreads:

MoI
KK
Fonz
Quilford (I didn't find him as town as this in our last game together, (we were both town) which worries me)
T-bone (may think more about this one)

A teammate said he read hito as town and I am dropping the scumread based on this and looking at his posting (except not comfortable with a townread right now)

I'm reading Reck as scum because I find his recent post quite fake and his vote on Quil is pretty bad in my opinion.

I agree with the person who said it was interesting that Zar didn't comment on anything that had been posted yet (particularly my suspicion of hito), though I don't read him either way yet.

UNVOTE: Hitogoroshi
VOTE: Captain Ajax

[Quilford]

DeasVail to be clear, are you saying that you are finding me more town in this game than in our last game together (and which game was that?)

[DeasVail]

I think I've only played with you before in Harry Potter mafia (lost in crash I think?) and I only really had a weak town read on you throughout that game as far as I recall.

[Quilford]

k