Newbie 1289 - Game Over!

[buldermar]

I'm sorry that I havn't been on after the game resumed. I'm going to bed now, but I'll catch up tomorrow.

UNVOTE:
Need to catch up before voting.

[Tierce]

But jumping off Deltabacon's wagon and trying to push buldermar's wagon makes perfect sense if one is paired with Deltabacon and

the player did not want to bus on D1

.

Noob question Tierce; What does the bolded bit mean?

"Bussing" or "to bus" is how we mangle the concept "throwing under the bus", which in this case refers to participating actively in the lynch of your own scumbuddy to give you a measure of town points. Scum know that if they defend each other throughout the game they will attract too much attention and, should one be lynched, the other is a visible culprit; that's why they will distance (express scumreads about the other one) and bus. Bussing is the extreme version of distancing, in which you actually get your partner(s) lynched to make it look like you are town.

Sometimes it work, sometimes it doesn't. It's a kind of interaction to watch for, though nowadays people are aware that scum can and will bus, so it is always a bit of a wildcard to see how the interactions make sense.

[RedRabbit]

But jumping off Deltabacon's wagon and trying to push buldermar's wagon makes perfect sense if one is paired with Deltabacon and

the player did not want to bus on D1

.

Noob question Tierce; What does the bolded bit mean?

"Bussing" or "to bus" is how we mangle the concept "throwing under the bus", which in this case refers to participating actively in the lynch of your own scumbuddy to give you a measure of town points. Scum know that if they defend each other throughout the game they will attract too much attention and, should one be lynched, the other is a visible culprit; that's why they will distance (express scumreads about the other one) and bus. Bussing is the extreme version of distancing, in which you actually get your partner(s) lynched to make it look like you are town.

Sometimes it work, sometimes it doesn't. It's a kind of interaction to watch for, though nowadays people are aware that scum can and will bus, so it is always a bit of a wildcard to see how the interactions make sense.

Oh right. Thanks for that.

Those sneaky Hobbitsessss.

[Cheery Dog]

My strong townreads so far include Tierce, Jason and buldermar,

So if JasonWazza is a strong town read of yours now, why were you pushing Tierce to explain why they had an obvtown read on that slot for most of the game?

[Airick10]

Delta just said he tried to play it scummy. He admitted this. So it comes down to two things: 1. He's lying and actually is scum, or, 2. he's town and has tried to play a very strange fake.

I can't see how you think it's 2 and if it is 2 then he should be lynched for even trying something so audacious.

So call me naive, but I think I understand what he is trying to do. It is a different style/strategy, which I think is why most of the town is balking at it. Let's say he is town. Since it takes 5 to lynch, the numbers say at least one of those five will be scum. It is reasonable to expect the town to look at those five who voted him as possible scum. If he is scum, then you are correct with option 1. It's a hail mary pass, and he's at L-1 at this point. Sure, he has shown scummy signs (scumhunting only Tierce, calling for activity when he himself didn't show much at all) but in a game where there has not been a whole lot of scumhunting, I am willing to buy the fact he is town and not place a vote on him. If he is lynched, that's fine and we will get the information I am looking for. Yes, I'm playing cautious because I am not convinced he is scum.

My question to Delta is why play in this 'sacrifice' manner? As you mentioned, is this game really a strategy experiment for future games?

[RedRabbit]

Let's say he is town. Since it takes 5 to lynch, the numbers say at least one of those five will be scum. It is reasonable to expect the town to look at those five who voted him as possible scum.

I think this bit is where we're going to disagree.

I agree that if he flips town, then under normal circumstances town would have to look at his wagon for scum, but in this circumstance he has admitted that he is playing scummy deliberately in order to push scum on to another wagon, which means that if his plan has worked none of the players on his wagon are scum. What confuses the issue is that scum would realise this too, (he's told them as much), and would jump on to look town. The problem though is that no one has done that since he revealed his ploy. Buldemar in fact unvoted so that no one could hammer, giving me a strong town read tbh. You had a chance to move but were reluctant because you don't get a scum read from him, (this after he admits trying to give off a scum read, which people have picked up on and mentioned and you say that you seen those scummy signs). That's what looks scummy to me. I don't think you're being naive, I think you're being clever.

If he's town then we can say that his ploy failed in one respect (he died) but might be true in others (that scum didn't jump on his lynch in order not to look scummy). That could be good info for town.

The only way we are going to know for sure is to lynch him.

[buldermar]

Some crucial points has been omitted regarding the impact of the recent replacements in this game.

Sorry for the wait, guys - we're having to replace several players for reasons I cannot go into currently. I'll get the thread open again ASAP.

Cheery Dog will be replacing Natural_river
JasonWazza will be replacing fish-riding-a-bike-2000
Leonshade will be replacing MrJamesWatson

(speaking to the players) I understand this decision of not revealing the reasons for each of these replacements, as this information will influence the relative distribution of alignments in this game. However, that does not mean we shouldn't talk about it.

Starting with the obvious,

MrJamesWatson and Natural_river were alias used by the same person

. I think we can all agree on this, but if you can't, tell me, and I'll show why this with a high amount of certainty is the case.
fish-riding-a-bike-2000 replaced out, either forcefully or voluntarily. From reading his posts, I initially found it unlikely that he'd take his time asking the mod to get replaced out. He seemed young and he was a new player. However, seaching for his name I found some useful information. On Sat Oct 06 he wrote "/in for the next game" in "Topic: Mini Normal List (Players & Moderators)". On Mon Oct 08 he wrote "/i'm out" in the same topic. He wrote his first post in this game on Tue Oct 09, suggesting that he wanted to be removed from the game queue because he had just been placed in this game. Most importantly, on Sun Oct 14 he wrote "/in for the next game" in "Topic: Newbie Game Queue (Players and Mods)", suggesting that he has not been banned from the site.

From this I conclude that he had nothing to do with the MrJamesWatson and Natural_river incident!

This is important because it does not challenge this point. However, I still think "obvtown" is stretching it, but I don't have your history of games to base it on.

MrJamesWatson never wrote a message after Thu Oct 11, suggesting that he was banned.
Natural_river never wrote a message after Fri Oct 12, suggesting that he was banned.

Given the opportunistic nature of how they voted me, I'm inclined to think at least one of them is scum (i.e. one or both of Cheery Dog and Leonshade is scum).

So. We're lynching Deltabacon, and if he flips scum, tomorrow we're going for one of Cheery Dog/Leonshade. Should

that

one flip town, we lynch the other. Sorry for that, replacement folks--it's not your fault at all, but it's pretty evident that one of you is scum and it's not JasonWazza.

Let's make this as painless as possible. This is pretty much assured a town win, so we should get that out of the way and on to other games.

Tierce, I know you're feel certain about Delta flipping scum, as do I, but do you have a plan too if he flips town? Why do you advocate lynching him before either of Cheery Dog and Leonshade?

I like to look for scum one by one. I do not like to group them together, because scum typically won't like to be seen tied to each other. It's too obvious. If buldermar is lynched, you are correct in saying at least one of those who votes buldermar is indeed scum (majority vote).

Which is why I don't think Natural_river/Cheery Dog and MrJamesWatson/Leonshade are

both

scum. But jumping off Deltabacon's wagon and trying to push buldermar's wagon makes perfect sense if one is paired with Deltabacon and the player did not want to bus on D1.
Relationship tells on D1 are hard to analyze, and you should very rarely use them to judge a lynch's full worth. However, don't shy away from noting them down (not necessarily in the thread), because what feels like town/town, scum/town and scum/scum interactions on D1 may become important for analyzing the game later once there are flips and known alignments.

I agree with this, but I'm also convinced that one or both of Cheery Dog and Leonshade is scum. Why can you not see MrJamesWatson and Natural_river do as they did without Delta being scum? I can see them switch target like they did even if Delta is town, but maybe I'm giving them too much credit.

To conclude: I currently tend to agree that Delta is the best lynch today, but I don't see an advantage in not debating the consequences of a town-flip a bit more first, so I'm going to postpone voting for now.

[Tierce]

That was the kind of post I was trying to avoid. It's not your fault, and no one (mod included) will blame you for posting it, as you are only using information that is freely available to you. However, I would really not like this discussion to take place during the game since it affects the experience you should be getting. I am open to discuss it with everyone post-game (and I believe we will be informed of what happened to some measure or another), but during the game it becomes somewhat of a distraction. This is not how games are meant to go, and I am so sorry for all of you, for izak and for singersigner. People breaking the rules is never fun, and I'd hate to be in Cheery Dog/Leonshade's position because

I

know how that feels--in one of izak's previous games, a player broke the rules and pretty much outed me as scum. Anyway, that's for later.

The way that Natural_river-Cheery Dog jumped off Deltabacon feels like someone trying to save a buddy, which is why I believe they (or, more unlikely but possible, MrJamesWatson-Leonshade/Deltabacon) are scumbuddies. I find it very unlikely that Natural_river would jump off from a L-2 wagon to build a L-1 wagon on you (buldermar) if Deltabacon was town, because he could have created a L-1 wagon on Deltabacon with only half the effort: by simply having MrJamesWatson vote Deltabacon. That would mean there was a L-1 (on Deltabacon) AND a L-3 (on buldermar) wagon on town (in this hypothesis, Deltabacon AND buldermar are both town). It is simply a matter of effort applied to it--why bother to move two votes to create the same situation (or equivalent, since the wagons are both on town in this hypothesis) when you can create it with a single vote move? It's far more elaborate than necessary when you are already juggling two accounts.

tl;dr: For both buldermar and Deltabacon to be town, the Natural_river/MrJamesWatson accounts' holder would be taking several steps to create a situation he could create with only one step. It makes far more sense, from a practical perspective, if he is protecting a buddy, and that buddy can only logically be the wagon he jumps off of to wagon buldermar: and that is Deltabacon.


In the unlikely situation that Deltabacon flips Town, I'd rather explain my plan Tomorrow, not Today. (If I die, lynch one of Cheery Dog/Leonshade; should that one flip Town, lynch the other on D3; then you're on your own to find the last scum.)

[Cheery Dog]

I would say the best course of action is to continue with that plan of lynching one of me or leonshade, however since there would be some chance that's one of us isn't scum, we would have to think about it tomorrow some more if delta were to flip town.

I am confused about his ploy, since I don't see both scum avoiding the wagon of the scummiest town player during day 1, possibly one of them would, but I don't see his ploy working to get both scum disinterested for a day.
Up until the request for more activity and let disappearing, I probably wouldn't even have thought of deltabacon as scummy had I been playing this game from the start.
- but then I haven't read everyone else, just delta's ISO to try and work out why he was the choice for the lynch today.

I am happy to go along with Tierce's plan.
VOTE: deltabacon

and now I see that I was ninja'd, my post still stands except for this extra line here saying that I aware that Tierce has almost said the same thing as me before I could say it.

[Leonshade]

I'm now caught up. I'm not buying Delta's supposed gambit at all. There's no way he tunneled Tierce to "appear scummy". This is scum flailing around trying to not get lynched.

PEDIT:

@Buldermar:

I was going to vote for Delta, but this changes a lot. That explains why Tierce has her autopilot plan, it does look like one of us is scum with Delta. I think the plan, as is, makes the most sense. We're most likely going to hit at least one, if not both scum that way.

PEDIT2: Was gonna vote for Delta, but now he's at L-1. He's already claimed, but I still want to hear Jason's thoughts on this new development (and everyone else's, in case they didn't know about this already).

[Tierce]

Honestly, if there's something I'm relieved about in this game, it's that the two of you (Cheery Dog and Leonshade) already have experience and know games don't often turn out like this. I would be very sad if replacing into a game in this situation was your first experience in MS (and for the others, seriously, rest assured this is a huge abnormality, please don't assume this happens all the time, our players are usually quite good re: the honor system and general ethics).

I'd like to hear from those who haven't commented yet, but don't wait on me to hammer, I'm done with this day phase.

[JasonWazza]

That plan seems solid to find if not one both scum imo, i'd bet on 2 scum over 1 though.

Not sure who i would bank on for the second of the scum tbh, but i am nearly 100% convinced delta is scum, the rest need only be continued on tomorrow in my opinion so i am happy for someone to hammer

[Leonshade]

Yeah, I hope no one will feel sour about mafia because of what happened. Mafia can be great, but I'm afraid this game won't turn out to be all that fun.

[Deltabacon]

Edit before post: Phone posting, hence the incomplete post. I'll EBWOP when I get home.

Experiences on other sites have shown me that a method like this can work. I had no reason to believe that it was foolproof, yet I did trust myself (to a greater extent than I should have) that I could genuinely perform a strategy of this kind on forum-based mafia. I wanted to try a new method of hunting scum, (since after about 5 years of off-and-on playing, I'm still rather poor at it) I felt comfier this game playing in this way rather than forcing myself to read inbetween lines and play in a way that I have always felt is unnatural and almost annoying to an extent.

I am acutely aware of the tactic I've played not being successful to as great an extent as I'd hoped, especially with the revelation that River and Watson were potentially the same person. However I stand by what I have done, and I stand by the townreads I have, and the probable scun that

[Tierce]

It still does not explain why you were tunneling on a townread and making demands for that townread to show evidence that another player is Town. As purposefully scummy you might be making your play, this is deliberately getting in the way and hampering others' play (namely, mine). Do you not realize that "I was playing scummy on purpose, guyz!" is a call that will almost invariably get you lynched regardless of alignment, especially when all you have to offer for it are four scumreads that aren't even minimally developed and three townreads that are as safe as can be in this environment (since good luck ever lynching me, JasonWazza and buldermar)? You are offering nothing new, no new opinions, no change in visible attitude. That really feels like caught scum clutching at straws to explain his behavior.

[Deltabacon]

I've explained my reasoning behind my biggest two scumreads, my other two are borderline scum/null, as a matter of deduction from whom I think is an obvious townread. Rabbit is also null-ish, but I'm erring on the side of town in line with what I think scum will be doing/have done based on previous experience at this strategy in other games. My strategy didn't seem to stop you from making arguments against other players, as I recall, and invariably any reads you can garner from today's lynch based on reactions to the day's events will assist you in seeing where I am coming from. I realize that I am the probable lynch for today, but if it means you hitting scum D2, leaving you with 6 townies and 1 mafioso, then I believe that to be a good deal. I'm more than happy with a Leonshade lynch today, but if it comes tommorow after a Delta lynch, I think that's (although not optimal) a decent salvaging of the situation, and in all honesty I am

more

than convinced of Leon's scumhood.

[Deltabacon]

And surely scum would want to try and help out a 'useful distraction' possibly lead a lynch on town's arguably most productive member?

[Tierce]

And surely scum would want to try and help out a 'useful distraction' possibly lead a lynch on town's arguably most productive member?

After playing mafia on and off for five years, I don't really see how you can 'surely' see that. I'm not easily lynchable, the last time I was mislynched was ten months ago in my second game on the site. This one is my 36th, so... Scum won't necessarily bother to try and get the IC when they can just off the player at night and focus on pushing lynches that are

actually viable

. You know, like lynches on

scummy townies

, which is what you claim to have been playing as. If you are town, there will be words of advice after the game, because honestly unless you have some pull in terms of capable scumhunting skills, that is a deplorable strategy and will neither get people to like you as a player nor get scum lynched in your watch.

That said, you are most likely to be scum, so... carry on wayward scummer, see you when you flip a nice shade of red, etc.

[Deltabacon]

Yeah, to be honest the strategy doesn't lend itself to forum mafia. I won't be using it again in a hurry.

Announcing intent to Self-Hammer.

[Cheery Dog]

Sorry but how do you have a good case on your biggest scumreads?

I believe that the lack of desire to lynch yet, shown by both Leonshade and Cheery Dog are the largest indicators of scum I have seen thus far in the game, and I am inclined to pursue a lynch on one of them today. A lynch on me will flip Vanilla Townie, so no great loss, however I think it would be a travesty to not get scum at this stage of the game, in such certain circumstances.

Do tell me when you find someone who has just replaced into a game without reading it beforehand wanting a lynch straight away.

[Cheery Dog]

You've practically just claimed your reads to be the game as Tierce minus yourself.

[buldermar]

That was the kind of post I was trying to avoid. It's not your fault, and no one (mod included) will blame you for posting it, as you are only using information that is freely available to you. However, I would really not like this discussion to take place during the game since it affects the experience you should be getting. I am open to discuss it with everyone post-game (and I believe we will be informed of what happened to some measure or another), but during the game it becomes somewhat of a distraction. This is not how games are meant to go, and I am so sorry for all of you, for izak and for singersigner. People breaking the rules is never fun, and I'd hate to be in Cheery Dog/Leonshade's position because I know how that feels--in one of izak's previous games, a player broke the rules and pretty much outed me as scum. Anyway, that's for later.

I'm aware that you wanted to avoid this - you neatly omitted pointing to the fact that the rule breaking affects alignments. Neglecting taking into account information obtained this way in my eyes boils down to not playing to ones win condition and instead attempt to imitate a "normal" game (to the extent that this isn't one, or what you refer to as "the experience you should be getting"), because the information

does

influence alignments. I don't see how that's conducive to a healthy game experience relative to simply "face facts" and adjusting accordingly, nor do I see how it becomes somewhat of a distraction aside from what you define as "how the game should have been".

I too am sorry about what happened and how this affects the experience of this game, but I'd rather face the elephant in the room now and then play it out with this information taken into consideration. A part of me was hoping that the game would simply be cancelled, because it's never going to resemble methodology of a conventional game anyway, but now that it has not, the appropriate action to take in my opinion is to simply continue playing to ones win condition, which means taking into account information that affects alignments.

Tierce, I know that you don't share my opinion on this matter, but I'm not going to deviate from playing to my win condition for the sake of artificially tweaking the game experience so it resembles that of a conventional game. I'm sorry that we disagree, but I don't think you'll easily be able to change my mind, so please save yourself the trouble of trying to (feel free to blame me, though).

I find it very unlikely that Natural_river would jump off from a L-2 wagon to build a L-1 wagon on you (buldermar) if Deltabacon was town, because he could have created a L-1 wagon on Deltabacon with only half the effort: by simply having MrJamesWatson vote Deltabacon. That would mean there was a L-1 (on Deltabacon) AND a L-3 (on buldermar) wagon on town (in this hypothesis, Deltabacon AND buldermar are both town). It is simply a matter of effort applied to it--why bother to move two votes to create the same situation (or equivalent, since the wagons are both on town in this hypothesis) when you can create it with a single vote move? It's far more elaborate than necessary when you are already juggling two accounts.

Based on the fact that the Natural_river/MrJamesWatson-person wasn't elegantly adjusting his posting style to resemble two distinct and different personalities, I tend to agree that he'd most likely go with the easy solution. However, it still boils down to a WIFOM scenario, and I don't feel comfortable ruling out the possibility that only one of Natural_river and MrJamesWatson is scum whilst Deltabacon is not for this reason. All this is obviously going with the assumption that Natural_river/MrJamesWatson-person did not intentionally try to get banned, which seems like a reasonable assumption to go with.

In the unlikely situation that Deltabacon flips Town, I'd rather explain my plan Tomorrow, not Today. (If I die, lynch one of Cheery Dog/Leonshade; should that one flip Town, lynch the other on D3; then you're on your own to find the last scum.)

I'm still not sure I fully understand why you'd rather lynch Delta first when you advocate lynching Cheery Dog/Leonshade

regardless

of the alignment of Delta.

and for the others, seriously, rest assured this is a huge abnormality, please don't assume this happens all the time, our players are usually quite good re: the honor system and general ethics

I don't have much experience, but based on the people I've played with thus far (with this one exception, obviously) I'm under this impression as well.

[buldermar]

Yeah, to be honest the strategy doesn't lend itself to forum mafia. I won't be using it again in a hurry.

Announcing intent to Self-Hammer.

As much as I'd get much satisfaction from having you prove that discussing self-hammering isn't just corner case theory talk, I'd hate to see it actually happen, because it

is

suboptimal regardless of your alignment. You don't even have to look outside this game to figure out why.

[Deltabacon]

You offered to replace into the game, at which point you could have been reading. Leonshade was posting frequently when I said that, and he could have skimmed over the important points, formed reads and gone through with what he believed to be the case. I find recklessness to be pro-town, since scum don't like being overtly 'out-there'. Scum is likely to be cautious, and as such it makes a convienient crutch to be too busy to read the game, yet still contribute to it. I do not see why it was nessessary to unvote, when there had clearly been at least 12-18 hours of time, if not longer for people to read the game.

Ninja'd: I agree with Buldermar's analysis of Tierce's 282, if only because it directs attention to my two preferred targets.

Ninja'd twice: I truly, truly cannot describe just how certain I am of Leon's and Dog's scumhood. I realise that a self-hammer is suboptimal, however I see it as bringing a mafia lynch that much closer, and since there is two mafiosos in this setup, I think trading 2 townies for a mafioso (barring a doc save) is acceptable.

[Cheery Dog]

When I offered I had seen what had been happening, and I was expecting a restart of the game so I never bothered reading it, also in case I was too slow to offer.

Cautiousness is a playstyle choice and is not a true indicator of one's alignment, unless they're meta is always cautious as scum and crazy as town.

I unvoted when the game was reopened, because I do not want to be on a possible mislynch wagon when I don't know the reasons that the vote was originally placed there.
I know I had a predecessor that may have had good reason to place votes where they want to, however I can't read their mind and therefore I need to work out for myself who I would like to see lynched.