Mafiascum.net

Also, why is everybody criticizing Jerry's vote on Lortaku when I voted him too?

ROFL. really? I'm pretty sure discussing it with his wife who doesn't play any mafia is fine. It would be silly if you couldn't discuss in real life with someone who will never have anything to do with the game or anyone in it.

And I'm singling you out for content because I feel like you are coasting... your content really isn't all that useful... at least most everyone else is either posting or lurking. You post 2-4 likes and then you're done.

In post 249, pitoli wrote:Jon, I think this may count as cheating. You're technically not allowed to discuss an ongoing mafia game with anyone.

She was reading it while we were in bed! I think it might be taking the rules a little too seriously. She never ever speaks with ANYONE on this site.

Maybe consider her a part time hydra!

I think it's clear the two lynches I'd go for at the point are lortaku and xiao, with pitoli at a close 3rd... Just so that you guys know where I'm at.

In post 240, pitoli wrote:I don't think the Fear/Kattaze slot is scum.

Agreed. Right now it looks like just a superficial read.

In post 242, notquitethere wrote:Regarding the hypothetical stuff-- it might be worth point out that most of my Mafia experience is on another site (Bay12) where discussing game style and hypothetical situations is the normal way for starting a game. This isn't some weird NQT-specific tic (I recall it frustrated Mafiascum regular Edosurist when he came and played on Bay12). Any given site will have their institutional habits, and it's possible it's a bad habit to have picked up. The general motivation for it is sound: ask questions until someone slips up. In my eyes, Xiao's complete and utter refusal to engage counts as a slip up.

While I'm willing to extend you site-meta credit, I'd like to see more of your train of thought on this. Why is not answering hypotheticals scummy? What do you hope to catch from hypotheticals, other than possible roleclaim shenanigans later? Can you give a good example of another way hypotheticals have caught scum than 'not answering'? Seems like hypotheticals favor experience rather than towniness, as you would know all the 'right answers'.

Oops, hit the Submit button too soon.

In post 242, notquitethere wrote:Six days is a long time-- what's wrong with a pressure vote with six days left? (To be honest, I'm more used to to 4-day long days-- I don't really get the rationale for these super-long days.)

Six days left means six (or less, grrrr) posts from some people. It means the closer we get to deadline, the shoddier the reasoning has to be for a wagon or a lynching vote. We've already got buy-in from pretty much everybody that No Lynch does No Favors for Town, so we're going to lynch SOMEBODY. If we do it of our own volition before the deadline breathes down our neck, so much the better. But if we go down to the wire, scum or anybody can start throwing a lot of vote changes around and then disclaim them tomorrow as "better than nothing".

In post 243, lortaku wrote:even though Xiao doesn't seem like scum

Why doesn't Xiao seem like scum to you? You can't just make a statement like that and not back it up.

In post 246, Xiao Long wrote:People keep saying I've changed my posting style, but I haven't tried to change it at all. I'm still posting from the same mind-set as I have been, but I've do have more information now to work with.

Eh, you're a LOT less combative now. You haven't insulted anybody in days that I can remember. It's possible this is just your evolution as you get more to work with... can you point to a previous (completed) game where your posting got better as the early game went on?

Xiao wrote:As far as scum with a strong partner, just to play devil's advocate, if I'm scum and playing like that, the only scum partner I would trust to be able to back me up with that sort of play would be you, or one of the SE's like Jon or Pitoli.

Eh. Fear could do it. pitoli's not been active enough. jon probably could. I could, but I'm not scum.

In post 249, pitoli wrote:

In post 248, jon_h61 wrote:

In post 246, Xiao Long wrote:Terrible, terrible move here. You've been a bit inactive lately and this vote seems extremely reactionary. I had you as town before, but with this you're down to null-scum.

LOL, I blame this one on my wife, she wanted me to word it this way. She doesn't play Mafia AT ALL. But I'll go ahead and take the heat. It got reactions at least.

Jon, I think this may count as cheating. You're technically not allowed to discuss an ongoing mafia game with anyone.

pitoli is quite correct. Please don't discuss the game with anybody, even RL folks. It gives you an additional "set of eyes" that the rest of us don't have. And hydra aren't allowed in Newbie Games.

:pedit: Wow those wagons changed fast. See what I mean, nqt? More tomorrow, gotta go to work early.

If possible, can you ignore my suspicion of you and jon of being scumbuddies and tell me what your thoughts are of jon? Do you think his behaviour warrants my (and a few others') suspicion? In your opinion as an IC, would he be worth lynching today?

In post 256, Mr. Flay wrote:pitoli is quite correct. Please don't discuss the game with anybody, even RL folks. It gives you an additional "set of eyes" that the rest of us don't have. And hydra aren't allowed in Newbie Games.

Last time I'll mention this, I was writing the post, she was getting into bed. I started to change the way it was worded, and she said no, leave it that way.
She hates Mafia, wishes I didn't play it, says it take too much of my time. BUT she has twice said "he scum" from reading one post "over my shoulder" and nailed it. It would be really rude, not to mention suspicious if I started shutting down my browser every time she entered the room. She'd think I was at worse sites than Mafiascum.


ATM Jerry and lortaku are my favorites for scum. This is based off of who I don't want to vote most to the least. Right now I'm not seeing any obvious scum slips to grab on to. Just

Jerry's post 244 is just generic reads, with no real meat to them. The associative tells between him and Kattaze don't mean anything really, without a flip. But if I had to bet on it right now, I'd say Kattaze Town, Jerry scum. I just can't get over how strongly Kattaze wants to defend Jerry. From his first reads post

In post 232, Kattaze wrote:JerryArr
So far he strikes me as pretty clean. I don't like the fact that he has three votes already (until I unvoted him) because I'm not sure what he's done wrong, other than putting Xiao into L-1 which I think was an innocent mistake.

and this

In post 232, Kattaze wrote:Also look at Flay's comments about Jerry at the end of #212. It looks to me like he's trying to get a lynch moving, but he doesn't provide any info which supports his assertion that Jerry is scum other than this:

Post212for interested parties.

In post 236, Kattaze wrote:

That's a fair point, maybe I was too hasty in saying that he was defending a scumbuddy. I still think it's worth noting though

, and remember this is a newbie game so players will probably make some mistakes, also I think jon mentioned that he was pretty inexperienced.

Back at ya with the bolded. I just can't get over how you're acting like a mother hen protecting Jerry.

In post 236, Kattaze wrote:I also would like to hear more from Jerry, do you have any thoughts about who we should lynch?

A little coaching on the side? And don't say it never happens, I've seen it done.

The last thing I don't like is Kattaze seems to want all my stronger Town reads strung up. It could be just a difference of reads Day 1, or attempting to get rid of threats early. Hard to tell.

I'm moving my vote back to Jerry. I'm going to keep an eye on Kattaze, who I think is probably a strong player who could pull off scum play.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Jerry Arr

EBWOP I noticed I didn't get around to mentioning Lortaku. I'll have to do it later.

In post 255, Mr. Flay wrote:While I'm willing to extend you site-meta credit, I'd like to see more of your train of thought on this. Why is not answering hypotheticals scummy? What do you hope to catch from hypotheticals, other than possible roleclaim shenanigans later? Can you give a good example of another way hypotheticals have caught scum than 'not answering'? Seems like hypotheticals favor experience rather than towniness, as you would know all the 'right answers'.

To be honest, I can see exactly where you're coming from so far as favouring experience over towniness. I'm not wedded to the technique, but you've got to start the game . The fact that I'm struggling to think of a solid example of hypotheticals specifically catching out scum is perhaps telling

Okay-- UNVOTE: Xiao Long-- it's plausible that you're just normally uncooperative and I'm reading too much into it at this particular instance.

Still, we've got a three-way tie and of the three, VOTE: Lortaku is the most suspicious (mostly for his earlier lurking).

lortaku wrote:Like I said earlier, I think that one of the people voting for Xiao are scum.

It's an interesting theory: do you find that scum usually favour an early bandwagon? What do you think now that Xiao has no votes on him?

Of the 3 I would also lynch lortaku but i'm not voting him right now because we have time.

Okay, we do have time, but realise that if you're not doing anything with your vote you're playing into scum hands. If you're not pressuring someone with it now or voting for someone you think is scummy, then what are you doing?

In post 262, notquitethere wrote:Okay, we do have time, but realise that if you're not doing anything with your vote you're playing into scum hands. If you're not pressuring someone with it now or voting for someone you think is scummy, then what are you doing?

Good posting. rmpeacoc we're getting close to the wire here. If somebody is going to be pushed to L-1 it's important they have time to claim AND we have some time to evaluate it.

In post 257, Kattaze wrote:

@Mr. Flay:

If possible, can you ignore my suspicion of you and jon of being scumbuddies and tell me what your thoughts are of jon? Do you think his behaviour warrants my (and a few others') suspicion? In your opinion as an IC, would he be worth lynching today?

Sure, though I only have a few minutes right now. I think jon has been fairly lazy most of D1, but he's semi-experienced enough not to be drawing suspicion on balance. Obviously I don't agree with your associative scumtells, but I definitely will want to hear more out of him as D1 winds down and in D2 once we have some flips. His posts on this page are promising, for example, while about half of his early game posts are nigh-contentless. And I REALLY don't like the way he backed off Xiao before Xiao actually changed/became helpful, with the explanation "I'll take a little of the heat of him and see where he goes from here." How does that EVER help in Mafia?

: What makes you think Kattaze is a 'strong player who could pull off scum play' this page? 20 posts ago you were pretty disparaging of his scumhunting (233, 248, etc).

After ISOing Lortaku the amazing thing is that there is so little to comment on. He plays the newbie card, makes excuses for not having any reads, or time. He apologizes for his play, and sheeps other people.

In post 204, lortaku wrote:I'd say that one of the people who are currently voting for Xiao is probably scum, since it's the largest bandwagon at this point, and it hasn't really changed much throughout the day.

I get the feeling Lortaku wants to take the path of least resistance, and try to hide in the middle of the herd. A classic scum tactic.

In post 243, lortaku wrote:Like I said earlier, I think that one of the people voting for Xiao are scum. Because rmp seemed genuine town for me from the heated exchange before, and Kattaze seems to be contributing as town, I'm gonna go with VOTE: Mr. Flay
His vote has been on Xiao for some time, even though Xiao doesn't seem like scum. Also, it would provide some information on jon_h61, whether he's town or scum. Since they're defending each other.

I think he's just parroting reads he read earlier, and not attempting to come up with his own. If he makes it to Day 2, I'm definitely going to be pressing him for more substantial reads.

In post 263, Mr. Flay wrote:And I REALLY don't like the way he backed off Xiao before Xiao actually changed/became helpful, with the explanation "I'll take a little of the heat of him and see where he goes from here." How does that EVER help in Mafia?

In post 114, jon_h61 wrote:Xiao didn't try to give any reads to my accusation, not even weak reads. He has spent most of the game offering rebuttals to all the attacks on him. That can be a tough place to scum hunt from. If he'd offered up weak reads, or reads I completely disagreed with, I'd keep my vote here til the end of the Day(or something better came up). I'll take a little of the heat off him and see where he goes from here.

My suspicion of his slot was lessening, so I decided to give him some breathing room.

In post 263, Mr. Flay wrote:jon: What makes you think Kattaze is a 'strong player who could pull off scum play' this page? 20 posts ago you were pretty disparaging of his scumhunting (233, 248, etc).

The way his posts are formatted and worded. It makes me feel this isn't his first rodeo. But I'm doubting he's scum, I just don't want to not "turn over all stones". I'm not ready to put him in my Town pile just yet, though.

Something's been bothering me about you(Mr. Flay), I can't put a finger on it ATM. I guess it's what people call gut. I feel like I should be voting you, but I don't know why, and it's driving me crazy. I'll ISO you to see if I can either quell or verify this odd feeling.

fine.

VOTE: lortaku

my biggest suspicion is the way that he voted me and then later town read me for the same thing that he voted me for...

Sorry this took awhile, I did individual ISOs after reading through the last couple of pages.


. I don't agree with his read on Flay, but I'm pegging him town. I'm also going off the strong read I had on Fear, particularly after his reasons for immediately townreading me seemed genuine.

. I already explained what I liked about his previous posts/logic. I want to trust him, but it's not always easy to trust an IC...

. Like other people have already said, got better for me as time went on. Probably because his posts contained less abrasive self-defenses and more analysis of the current game. I like #219 in regards to my "slip", even if it's not useful it shows town motivation.

. I townread her after her tantrum. Interesting that she said she wouldn't mind lynching me today. I'm glad she brought up Lortaku's vote then unvote on her. I skimmed a couple of her past games where she was under fire Day 1 as town, and she isn't reacting differently right now. Null town I guess?

-

. What I meant by "general scumminess" was just a hesitance to vote/take a stand on much of anything. Seems to have a very leveled playstyle but I just get the sense that he's not being open, or at least, not showing the full extent of his ability. Nothing outstanding, just a feeling I have. Hoping he'll offer more to work with as the game goes on.

. Doesn't read towny to me like he did at day start (which was gut). He said in #28 his favorite role was VT so he could go "all out" when he's found scum but he hasn't at all been living up to that - doesn't seem to be trying that hard? Then the promise to follow up a Jerry vote with an ISO in #177 that he never made good on. Then that vote in #233 that pinged six ways from Sunday. I think that vote was likely a slip. And then when Xiao calls him out on it, we get "I blame my wife" like that's supposed to explain everything. He's been popping in and out often enough for me to know he's reading the game, but before the last page or so I couldn't get a clear sense of his reads.

. I'm still not sure what he learned from his questions but I hope he can share them at some point. I don't mind that Bay12 has different tradition than MS but I mind that he seems to be content sitting on a lot of theory. Recent Lortaku vote just seems to be following trend. Definitely not trying to find scum.

. With the grand total of 9 posts. Honestly, most of the things he says/does could make a lot of sense given that he's new, but he simply hasn't posted enough for me to get a sense of his consistency. I don't like that he votes players who seem to be at the current center of discussion, without a whole ton of explanation on how he came to the conclusion they're scum. Also he has entirely neglected to say anything about notquitethere, Jerry, or me; so he either has town reads on all of us or one of us is a possible partner. I can't say I'm sure he's scum, but I'm not entirely unhappy with my vote parked on him either. Does this feel like a policy lynch to anyone?

After Rmpeacoc's vote,

I am doing a write up about lynching lortaku and would like people's opinion before we actually lynch him. It will take a little while to do properly and I'm about to go out so can't start yet, but I will put it up in the next 3-4 hours. If anyone hammers (right word?) lortaku before I finish it will look pretty suspicious so just be patient please! We still have over 3 days at the time of this post.

Considering changing my vote to NQT... I don't know. ><
Gonna sleep on it.

In post 267, pitoli wrote:Jon. Doesn't read towny to me like he did at day start (which was gut). He said in #28 his favorite role was VT so he could go "all out" when he's found scum but he hasn't at all been living up to that - doesn't seem to be trying that hard? Then the promise to follow up a Jerry vote with an ISO in #177 that he never made good on. Then that vote in #233 that pinged six ways from Sunday. I think that vote was likely a slip. And then when Xiao calls him out on it, we get "I blame my wife" like that's supposed to explain everything. He's been popping in and out often enough for me to know he's reading the game, but before the last page or so I couldn't get a clear sense of his reads.

Honest question, are you just voting Lortaku because the day is getting close to deadline? It really sounds like you're voting him to "go with the crowd". If I'm "scum slipping" I think I'd be talking hard to get me lynched. Sorry that I'm not "trying hard enough" for you. If I think I find something suspicious I'm going to bring it forward and make sure everyone sees it whether they agree or not. Again I'm sorry you don't like my "excuse", but I'm not going to shut my laptop everytime my wife enters the room. I'll quit playing before I break trust with Deb. And I'd like an explanation of how I should be trying "harder". Yes I have been reading the game, almost every day. I have three games ongoing now, I was NKd in one recently, and it was taking up a Lot of my Mafia time as it was going to deadline. I have went from very small suspicions to bigger suspicions on too many for scum now, and I'll have to sort that out. Maybe I just need to try harder.

pitoli wrote:

Lortaku

. With the grand total of 9 posts. Honestly, most of the things he says/does could make a lot of sense given that he's new, but he simply hasn't posted enough for me to get a sense of his consistency. I don't like that he votes players who seem to be at the current center of discussion, without a whole ton of explanation on how he came to the conclusion they're scum. Also he has entirely neglected to say anything about notquitethere, Jerry, or me; so he either has town reads on all of us or one of us is a possible partner. I can't say I'm sure he's scum, but I'm not entirely unhappy with my vote parked on him either. Does this feel like a policy lynch to anyone?

.
This doesn't read like it should be at the bottom of your scum list, others higher (me included) sound like they're scummier according to your reads. So yeah, maybe I'd say you're just policy lynching someone you percieve as a VI.

Guys I don't really support this lortaku lynch. Firstly, the case against him is completely unconvincing. Here are the reasons for the votes on him so far:


The basic reasons seem to be because of his lurking and to put pressure on him to contribute more. These don't really seem like compelling reasons to lynch someone who has only made 9 posts, and only the last 3 (maybe 4) of them have something that you might actually call content (please ISO him and see for yourself). In #264, jon said:

In post 264, jon_h61 wrote:After ISOing Lortaku the amazing thing is that there is so little to comment on. He plays the newbie card, makes excuses for not having any reads, or time. He apologizes for his play, and sheeps other people.

In post 204, lortaku wrote:I'd say that one of the people who are currently voting for Xiao is probably scum, since it's the largest bandwagon at this point, and it hasn't really changed much throughout the day.

I get the feeling Lortaku wants to take the path of least resistance, and try to hide in the middle of the herd. A classic scum tactic

.

I don't agree with this. To me, lortaku just seems like a new player trying to figure out how to play. He's certainly done some sheeping and has copied some arguments of other people, but I'd say this makes him look more noob town than noob scum. He has also told us how he has never played forum mafia before and I'd say his actions so far are consistent with that.

I think we should ask ourselves what we have to gain from lynching lortaku. As far as I can tell that main benefits of removing him would be: eliminating/confirming him as being mafia (we get this benefit from any lynch), removing the player who has probably contributed the least to finding scum, removing the biggest lurker from the game.

In terms of what his status (town/mafia) could tell us about other players, here's what I can come up with (there might be more):

the people who most strongly contributed to his lynch will look slightly more suspicious. I would exclude pitoli and Jerry from this because they were the first to vote for him, and did so for pretty transparent reasons and obviously intended to help the town by getting him to talk more. Xiao, NQT, rmpeacoc and jon would come under more scrutiny. Xiao mainly because of his strange reason for voting lortaku:

In post 246, Xiao Long wrote:

UNVOTE

Lortaku

I think NQT is scummier than Lortaku, but it seems a Lortaku lynch is more likely.

I don't get why Xiao would vote for someone he considers less scummy than someone else. NQT put him into L-2 and cited lurking for his reason. This is pretty much sheeping the others who had voted for him but I would have like NQT to build the case a bit more to justify L-2. This goes even more for rmpeacoc who put him into L-1. As for jon, I didn't really like his post in #264 about lortaku:


This just seems like an exaggeration to me, I think he's got a bit of tunnel vision on lortaku, maybe trying to manufacture a lynch without actually participating himself to take the heat off if/when lortaku flips town. (I'm aware that I'm influenced here by jon being my primary scum suspect)


If lortaku flips scum, then jon, rmpeacoc and NQT will be a lot less suspicious. It would remove a lot of my suspicion for jon, because I think he has excited the case against lortaku to a degree, and I doubt he would do that if lortaku was his scumbuddy. I will add that if lortaku flipped scum, I would probably look a lot more scummy, since I am trying to stop his lynch.


I don't think those reasons justify lynching a guy who has hardly posted anything. I know he hasn't contributed much but you can't honestly tell me that he looks overtly scummy. It would be a big waste to lynch him since he looks town (IMO) and we would waste a good chance to catch a mafioso.

I'm think there are much more scummy people who should be lynched, and determining their status will shed more light about the remaining players than if we lynch lortaku. For me, the list would be (in order) jon, Mr. Flay, Xiao then maybe lortaku. Jon looks the most scummy to me as I've mentioned before and has overtaken Flay as my number 1 suspect. For that reason I will UNVOTE:

VOTE: jon_h61

@ Kattaze At least I can see your reasons for voting me, if I ever flip I'd strongly suggest looking over the people who've seen me as scummie and take a close look at their reasons. I'm pretty sure one of them are scum.

This is the only time I've taken on more than two games at once, and is something I'm not doing again. Maybe I've exaggerated a few things to try and provoke responses, but if you want to "Lynch all Liars" that's cool. Just know I'll be looking for scum all the way to the hammer. That may not lend more credence to my reads, but you'll see I was trying to find scum.

I know there's been no real scum hunting my last few posts, but I'm refuting scum reads against me and that's what I'm supposed to do! I've been lynched before and I've hammered Townies before so I know it's not the end of the world. I'll bet the next thing that'll be said is I'm running scared or some such. That's OK, it's all part of the game!

As for Jerry's ISO, yeah I did forget it, I was responding in more than one game. The proof's in my posts for anyone who cares to look. I did read it yesterday, but honestly I don't remember anything from it ATM.

tl;dr if you think I'm scum you're being remiss if your vote is anywhere else!

@ Kattaze Are you an alt, or new to Mafiascum? It doesn't really matter, and if you don't want to answer, that's OK too. I'm just curious, but if I was a betting man I say you were an alt.