Zachtown in the mountains (Game over TOWN WINS!)

[Locke Lamora]

Town. With that said:

Vote: Nikanor

Focus on the setup and a random vote whilst ignoring the IAI/Sotty situation completely. Incidentally, I think Sotty isn't scummy for asking why IAI hasn't voted, and I would instinctively say IAI not voting for Benmage after calling him scummy wins mild scum points, but I'd have to look at other games to see if that's consistent with IAI's general early game play.

[Locke Lamora]

I've played with IAI as scum, and he seemed quite calm and collected. He was much more antagonistic here than I expected before his meltdown and I don't really see where the impetus for it came from, given that there were all of three votes on him at the time, which really isn't that much pressure. I'm treating it as a null tell and I think he needs some time to cool down.

Sotty: what do you think of Nik's Jason vote?

[Locke Lamora]

Unvote; Vote: Dry-fit

I think Jason's 'slip' is being blown way out of proportion and Dry-fit is trying to capitalise on that.

[Locke Lamora]

Jason just comes across to me as a bit clueless and lost. His votes and accusations thus far seem like someone who hasn't got a handle on the game at all.

My top three right now: Dry-fit, Nikanor and...I'd say Benmage, but that's largely gut. Need to reread RC to see if I'm missing something as I haven't really been convinced by the arguments against him thus far.

[Locke Lamora]

Oso: in reference to Nik, do you mean the daycop stunt? Where else could there be to go with it?

[Locke Lamora]

Looked back at RC, and I still don't really see it. He missed one of IAI's posts and admitted as much; I've certainly done the same as town and I don't think it's as much of a scumtell as some are indicating.

On the Jason topic: can anyone tell me why Jason would have known Nikanor was lying as town, but he wouldn't have done as scum? Surely he has the same knowledge of the set-up from either perspective, so it's not relevant to his alignment. I have seen scum-Jason flail and get things wrong in the past (see The Wire Mafia, when he bungled a fakeclaim by combining two of the scum fakeclaims into one and thus making the flavour wholly unbelievable) but I'm not sure why he would have been any less likely to react like this as town. Furthermore, once he realised Nik was lying, why does it make him more likely scum that he continued to push on Nik rather than laugh it off? He has no reason to be paranoid and threatened at that stage, so surely the easy way out for scum would have been to do exactly that. I guess I can see where people are coming from with the paranoia thing, but I personally think Jason would have put a little bit more effort into thinking about the 'investigation' as scum (like, you know, looking at the setup or at least taking the time to realise that his scum team is actually all goons and a daycop would be a bit overpowered for town) than just saying 'NO YOU'RE SCUM NIK!'

[Locke Lamora]

I'm a bit behind on this game, but based on a quick glance through Percy's ISO, it's quite clear he's a good candidate for Dry-fit's buddy. The first time he mentions him, he includes him in his scumreads with no other explanation, which I find to be a good tell. He then moves from saying he's scummy but he prefers his own wagons more to casting doubt on the wagon because of the people on it. There are several attempts to derail the wagon without ever really making an extensive effort to analyse it or Dry-fit's play.

Vote: Percy

Could also go for a Nikanor lynch. Jason is clearly town.

[Locke Lamora]

Looked over Red and I actually get a town read from the way he went about setting up a counter-wagon on Furcolow. I can understand his motivation there and I know I've done the same as town, with exactly the same results (the person who I tried to set up a counter-wagon to got lynched and flipped scum). My gut says he's town who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I feel like he put himself out there more than Percy. I know Percy voted Furcolow when Dry-fit was L-1, but I don't think Percy would have gained any towncred for hammering at that stage.

Also read back over IAI, and I'm more bothered about him than I am about Red. This comment to Oso in particular pings my scumdar:

Went from 2/3 of the scum team to only Dry-Fit.

I thought the whole Dry-Fit argument was based on his FOS'ing a scumbuddy

.

It reads as though he's trying to make light of the Dry-fit case, making it sound less substantial. His play here seems less assured than what I've seen of him as scum, but his attitude towards Dry-fit strikes me as scummy.

Will read back some more now.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, I agree with RC. I think Percy is the better lynch. I'll hammer in a few hours if no-one else drops it, though.

[Locke Lamora]

Isn't Percy just the most sensible lynch for Phase 1 of today? Once we know his alignment, then we can have a much more informed look at the people backing the RC wagon and whether they were doing so to save a buddy.

[Locke Lamora]

Mina: you're right, I haven't been contributing anywhere near enough. Thankfully my number of games has reduced to 2 now so I'll have a lot more time for this one.

I'll get to some other points this evening, including the subject of Percy being the logical lynch.

[Locke Lamora]

I had quite a big post written up looking at Baby Spice, Lrdwhyt and Percy, then MS logged me out when I went to preview it and I lost the whole lot, so now I want to break my computer. The crux of it was that Lrd is the scummiest on a reread, particularly for focussing on someone he didn't think was that scummy in his first post (Jason) and then saying that RC was scummy for trying to paint Jason's daycop response as a slip when he totally ignored the likes of Dry-fit making a big deal of it at the time.

Vote: Lrdwhyt

Incidentally, I don't think we should scumhunt just by association. I think we could get some useful voting behaviour information from Percy's lynch either way; it's still informative to look at how people justified their votes on any wagon and we do have plenty of voting data on Percy's slot. I threw the over-simplistic comment about it being the logical lynch out there because I wanted to see if anyone would take the bait and try to piggyback the easy lynch reason with a vote.

[Locke Lamora]

This post was made after Dry-fit had already been lynched, so there's not really much point in saying that he was slightly scummy.

That was one of the posts I was referring to. There's another comment that refers to it before RC gets lynched, where you say:

RC's going after jason's slip doesn't make him look any better.

My point is, at the time of your first catch-up post where you talk about Jason, you say you've read the game. You've obviously familiarised yourself with Jason's posts, and you know enough to say that he's not that scummy and that there are better lynches out there, mentioning a DF vote without saying why you'd want to vote him. You don't vote, you don't focus on players who you think are scummy, and you don't comment on the players who jumped on Jason for supposedly making a slip - you just say it's 'dumb'. By the time we're nearing the RC lynch, this 'dumb' attack on Jason has turned into one of your reasons for backing his lynch. If that's your attitude to those who jumped on the slip, and DF was one of the most blatant attackers of Jason for this reason, why did you neither spend your first post looking at DF's play, nor vote him for doing something that you later state is scummy, yet still felt the need to include him in a brief passing note?

[Locke Lamora]

Unless Zach's VC is wrong, Lrdwhyt has 5 votes on him, IAI. That is L-2.

[Locke Lamora]

This post was made after Dry-fit had already been lynched, so there's not really much point in saying that he was slightly scummy.

That was one of the posts I was referring to. There's another comment that refers to it before RC gets lynched, where you say:

RC's going after jason's slip doesn't make him look any better.

My point is, at the time of your first catch-up post where you talk about Jason, you say you've read the game. You've obviously familiarised yourself with Jason's posts, and you know enough to say that he's not that scummy and that there are better lynches out there, mentioning a DF vote without saying why you'd want to vote him. You don't vote, you don't focus on players who you think are scummy, and you don't comment on the players who jumped on Jason for supposedly making a slip - you just say it's 'dumb'. By the time we're nearing the RC lynch, this 'dumb' attack on Jason has turned into one of your reasons for backing his lynch. If that's your attitude to those who jumped on the slip, and DF was one of the most blatant attackers of Jason for this reason, why did you neither spend your first post looking at DF's play, nor vote him for doing something that you later state is scummy, yet still felt the need to include him in a brief passing note?

I didn't vote him because, as I had stated, I wanted to give him a chance to get on and respond to the accusations before doing such a thing. And I don't necessarily feel that those who thought jason had scumslipped were suspicious - just that they were wrong. It is more likely for scum to jump on such a thing than town. Also, I wasn't really backing his lynch - I thought him a better lynch than Percy.
[/quote]

But you quite clearly use RC going after Jason's 'slip' as a point against him. Are you saying that you don't think Dry-fit doing it was scummy? Was Dry-fit your leading suspect at the time you made that first post?

So we have both Benmage and Sotty starting wagons, on different people, and then jumping off when they reached L-1.

I have no idea what to make of that

, though it is hinky to then see Ben asking why the Percy wagon stalled.

Bolded for emphasis. What is this doing in here? You clearly do know what to make of it; you think either Sotty or Benmage has started a wagon on their buddy and hopped off it late on (which is quite the leap, by the way). Why did you say this and then follow it up with a vote for Sotty doing exactly that? Why are you scumhunting based on links with players who haven't flipped yet? Is there a reason you repeatedly give yourself either-or scenarios for scum without delving into much analysis? The following examples are apt: Jason or Nikanor must be scum, either Sotty or Mina is scum, now Sotty/Lrdwhyt or Benmage/Percy are scum.

[Locke Lamora]

Hey, Baby Spice. Still waiting for your answers to these:

So we have both Benmage and Sotty starting wagons, on different people, and then jumping off when they reached L-1.

I have no idea what to make of that

, though it is hinky to then see Ben asking why the Percy wagon stalled.

Bolded for emphasis. What is this doing in here? You clearly do know what to make of it; you think either Sotty or Benmage has started a wagon on their buddy and hopped off it late on (which is quite the leap, by the way). Why did you say this and then follow it up with a vote for Sotty doing exactly that? Why are you scumhunting based on links with players who haven't flipped yet? Is there a reason you repeatedly give yourself either-or scenarios for scum without delving into much analysis? The following examples are apt: Jason or Nikanor must be scum, either Sotty or Mina is scum, now Sotty/Lrdwhyt or Benmage/Percy are scum.

Mina: one of the main things that I don't like about BS is not that her arguments are stupid, but that she keeps offering these 'either X or Y' is scum scenarios with very little analysis behind it. She's hedging her bets repeatedly; even when she goes after someone and calls them scum (like saying Sotty's hop off Lrd reeks of being Lrd's buddy or going hard after Jason's slip but saying if Jason's not scum, Nik is) she's pre-emptively selected an alternative target in case her first pick is town.

[Locke Lamora]

I'm wavering on Percy, basically because I don't think he's trying to manipulate us enough. WIFOM, I know, but in my experience good scum still play like they have an agenda, and I don't see that from Percy's play.

Lrdwhyt requesting replacement bothers me. I don't think Lrd was doing a great job of dealing with the questions aimed in his direction and his last posts before he replaced out were basically about dodging them rather than defending his position and doing some original scumhunting. My vote stays for now.

[Locke Lamora]

Forgot to answer Percy's question: I felt that the players who were backing it were the players who were always going to back it (ie. the likes of Benmage and K-Scope), so they were somewhat null. I find that cautious scum often wait for a certain level of support behind a player's lynch before they are willing to back it themselves. My hope was that someone who had previously been indifferent to your lynch would try to capitalise on the pressure and hop on.

[Locke Lamora]

Baby Spice, can you point to some specific statements that make you think think that argument was fake?

[Locke Lamora]

Percy. I thought his interactions with Dry-fit were scummy, but I'm not reading him as scum since then. I think I've made my views clear on BS, but to summarise, it feels to me like she's trying to keep her pool of suspects wide and there's a lack of substance to many of her accusations (hence my question about the fake argument).

[Locke Lamora]

I know Mina is going to hate this, but these all really need to be pointed out. Here are many things I don't like about Mina in relation to our two flipped scum:

1. The complete failure to comment on the Dry-fit situation. Yes, I'm aware that she was struggling to catch up and was V/LA and maybe she was just unlucky in selecting other people to look at when she did post, but it's hard to ignore the likes of the below:

@Red: I need time to sit down in front of a computer and reread, but off the top of my head, my other suspects are Furcolow and imkingdavid (I noticed some iffy stuff in their ISO, although that sadly might not be a scumtell with the former). I haven't taken a close enough look at Dry-fit to see if I like the case on him.

2. This wishy-washy vote on BS when Percy has 6 votes and BS has 2. The scumminess of this is enhanced through later posts.

Ack. Um...of the viable wagons...

VOTE: Baby Spice

I'll be honest. I'm not super-confident in this vote (BS is mostly on my suspect list by process of elimination), and don't think the "town" slip was that meaningful. I don't have strong scumreads yet. Elmo preempted me to the point that Red's defence that his play is scummier than normal

because it's a sixteen player mountainous game

is utterly ludicrous, but Red has said stuff recently that looks townish. Part of it is that since I'm behind, I'm playing more by general impressions, so maybe I'm missing the nuances of just what Red is misrepping in his back-and-forth with Sotty.

But I'll move my vote to Red tomorrow if a Baby Spice wagon doesn't take off. Red has given off a mix of towntells and scumtells, while Percy is giving me a strong gut town read.

3. This change of heart after ISO-ing BS. Guess how many BS posts there were between Mina's vote and Mina reconsidering her position? That's right, none. In short, Mina makes a deadline vote on a player she hasn't bothered to properly ISO and then backs up and tries to sell the 'not the brightest bulb' argument. This returns in BS-defence later on.

But I'll probably vote LrdWhyt tomorrow, either way. I'm ISO-ing BS, and to be honest, I don't find her scummy so much as hard to read and not the brightest bulb. LrdWhyt, on the other hand...seriously, just ISO him. His only content is 1) saying that the slip on, and 2) a huge list of opinions that seem to come from nowhere and consist of wishy-washy and vague one-liners. He doesn't have any solid opinions. On the off-chance I die tonight (stranger kills have been made), my last request is that you put serious pressure on him. Get him to explain those reads.

4. The multiple references to BS not being particularly smart and having the kind of thought process other players don't get. Part of why I don't like this is I felt like Mina was approaching Furcolow in particular like his VI-ness was potentially scummy, but it's often used as a defence of BS. Granted, she treats Furc differently because she claims he seems more like he cares what other people think, but then once BS votes Lrdwhyt, who she has expressed little suspicion of but is clearly a favoured lynch of other players, Mina doesn't seem to think BS is any more scummy. Below is a good example.

Sotty, I was tempted to join the Baby Spice wagon (although eek, BS and LW probably aren't buddies now--which raises the stakes of my decision) after that terrible vote, but hang on. That explanation from Baby Spice is very, um, unique, but her reasoning is much more of the town variety of special snowflake than the scum variety. Right now, I'd be much happier with a Lrdwhyt lynch than a BS one.

5. Attempting to derail the BS wagon, here by suggesting that there is scum on it.

I was about to do another one of my last minute vote swings again (I'm happy with how my Lrdwhyt and Elmo votes turned out), but since someone might hammer any minute.

VOTE: Lrdwhyt

I much prefer this. Baby Spice is hard to read, but 80% of the case on her that her arguments for her suspects are stupid. Um...

duh

. At least she seems to have her own theories about the game. Has no one noticed

Furcolow's

cognitive dissonance today (which looks much more calculated and less emotional than usual for him as town)? On a gut level, I don't think she's scum. Benmage, don't be an idiot, unvote, and help lynch someone you think has a chance of being guilty. This is the second time in a row you actually HARM your suspect's chance of getting lynched simply by throwing a tantrum. Not one person's read of Percy will change if Baby Spice flips town.

Seriously, guys. Look at how this wagon developed. Half the players on it don't even seem to suspect her. There is scum on it.

6. Her 'not really feeling it' attitude towards the BS lynch, despite repeatedly saying she agrees with points made about BS and endeavouring to not seem too bothered if BS does get lynched. In the below two quotes, she acknowledges that she somewhat agrees with Sotty, Percy and myself on points we've made about BS, but drops back on this semi-gut read based on BS's play not feeling opportunistic enough and just being the kind of play that draws suspicion.

@Sotty: My reason was that Baby Spice put the third vote on LrdWhyt I

suppose

I could concoct a conspiracy theory in which she was bussing LrdWhyt and preemptively setting one of us up as his buddy, but it just looked really weird and convoluted for a scum gambit. I wouldn't die of shock if she flipped guilty, and I kind of see Locke's point that setting contingencies based on the lynch is scummy (it's so much fun as scum to link your partner to every group suspect in existence). But meh. I guess I'm not really feeling it. She doesn't seem to be opportunistically tailoring her opinions to suit the masses.

It doesn't seem like anyone is interested in a non-BS lynch, but I still prefer LW's lynch to BS's. I read Sotty's and Percy's arguments on Baby Spice, and I actually found myself nodding along and agreeing with them...but then Baby Spice posted, and it all seemed to make sense in her own little universe. She reminds me a lot of this player from another site who also had these weird theories and gaps in logic as town that drew her a lot of suspicion. Baby is still in the "eh, I don't suppose I'd miss her

too

much, but...." category for me. I dunno, maybe I'll try to find "VI" quotes for Sotty.

7. The conscious effort to point out that despite pressure from several angles, she's standing firm (or not) in her uncertain opinion on BS. I think she makes a point of this enough times that it looks like scum trying to buy credit because she isn't bussing or calling BS super-town. I think this displays a contradictory thought process because it's quite evident from every Mina post after her BS vote that she doesn't see BS as scum. She's always saying that she agrees with this point or that, or that she wouldn't miss BS too much, but when it comes down to it, she consistently takes the position that BS is a mislynch. I think by this point she's stated this view so often, she can't join the BS wagon because it would look too much like a bus and quite possibly draw more attention.

Maybe for self-preservation's sake, I should pretend to be either super-suspicious of Baby Spice or utterly convinced she's town. But I'm sorry. I'm just kind of lukewarm on her. You say that your experience has taught you how to sense when things feel off. Well, my experience has taught me that I should not trust my own ability to read players like Baby Spice, because I consistently misread them (either as town when they're scum or scum when they're town). Occasionally she sounds sincere, but in all honesty, her posts just make my head hurt. Every time I think I've found a nugget of towniness there, she says something that makes me go, "But...but...didn't you just say that you thought...how does that make any...." There are players I have something concrete against, so the "side" I'm picking is to vote for them over her.

8. BS's ridiculous 'fake' argument statements about Sotty and Mina that were never backed up. BS made this statement several times and completely failed to offer any definitive evidence for it. I think this was BS's attempt to toss some soft suspicion in Mina's direction without taking the risk of going full-on for it; the fact that she chose Sotty to attack rather than Mina, despite being unable to pinpoint which player sounded fake, indicates to me that Mina is likely scum.

Vote: Mina

[Locke Lamora]

Mina: I see where you're coming from with the idea that if you were actually scum, you'd never have treated Dry-fit and BS the way you did. The problem I have is to do with the likes of your 'genuine' comments to Sotty. When I was defending RC, there was a small part of me that was aware that if he flipped scum, I was going to look bad, but I didn't feel the need to make reference to that in the thread because it had nothing to do with my read. I just saw townie motivation in some of the actions that were perceived as scummy and stated as much. I know you like to get paranoid, but the fact that you were making reference to how it was going to make you look bad if BS did flip scum completely detracted from the town-cred you might otherwise have won from your interactions. In short, it made me think that one of your primary concerns was how you looked in relation to BS. As scum, I have done things that at face value, would be highly detrimental to my chances of winning, but the WIFOM and the implausibility of my actions matching with me actually being scum helped me to survive (in Grimmy's PR Madness this actually got to a ludicrous point where I made a couple of bad choices and eventually just decided to run with it, using an argument against Iecy pointing out how stupid all my NKs and target selections were if I was scum). I'm not really someone who can be convinced that scum wouldn't do a particular thing, because I know from experience that scum can use all kinds of situations to say 'I wouldn't have done X if Y was my buddy' and get themselves towncred.

I did think your response to my case was on the whole townish, though. Offering yourself as part of a lynch plan certainly seems a little too risky to be scum.

More to come on Percy and Empking later.

[Locke Lamora]

Oh, and I think Empking is L-1.

[Locke Lamora]

On Percy: I got a little uneasy about Percy again right when he started talking up how good my case on Mina was. I remember from ACoK that he made some positive (although far less positive than here) comments about my Macavity suspicion that pinged my scumdar slightly and drew me towards investigating him. I think I felt like I was being buddied up to a bit, and I'm feeling that more now.

That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with him pointing out that Mina's plan is a bad (and unnecessary) one; at 11-1, we ought to be able to continue to scumhunt properly and lynch the remaining scum well before endgame without having to resort to a strict lynch plan (and personally I want to win with 11 townies left alive). I do also see where he's coming from about scum-Mina hoping the plan would get derailed at a later stage, as it did cross my mind as a plausible gambit. I do think we probably will hit scum in that list, but that doesn't mean we should get lazy and do it. Even if we do lynch those 5 candidates first, we should do it properly, hearing from everyone and seeing where and how they decide to place their votes. The large majority of accusations here are going to be town on town, so it's not going to be hard for the last scum to make people look bad for pushing for a townie lynch. If there was some heavy bussing going on and one of the 'town' players does turn out to be scum, they've got a breathing period of 4 or 5 easy lynches before anyone even

starts

to think they're scum. Let's not forget that we have people playing who can bus both their partners D1 and D2 and still win games as scum. That's why we should make them work hard and not end up on D5 or D6 saying 'hey, we haven't got anything out of Sotty for a while' or 'has anyone seen IAI?'. The vehemence with which Percy tries to push it on Mina as a scumtell does give me pause; it's certainly a possible scum play, but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near the most obvious, nor do I think it's anywhere near the best scumtell we have on Mina.

Conclusion: aside from the buddying, I still feel ok about Percy. I perceive town-concern in his reaction to the plan, with my only concern being that it felt like he was trying a little bit too hard to make Mina look bad.

On Empking: I don't know if I've ever seen a town/scum list from Empking before. It seems off to me, like he's actually trying not to get lynched. His point about Percy being protected by scum is nonsense, as DF was our first lynch and it's ludicrous to think that any single player could possibly have protected Percy from 13 townies. Having played with Emp before, I have to say the briefness and vote-hopping is a null-tell. All in all, I think the main reason I feel bad about Emp (aside from being Lrd's replacement) is that he actually seems to be trying to offer more of a detailed explanation for his suspicions, which isn't usually something he seems bothered about.

One other thing I'd like to say after reading back: I've got my eye on Elmo. Something I've spotted has pinged my scumdar, but I'd like to hear from him on this situation first before I ask him about it.

[Locke Lamora]

It's two things, really. The fact that he says this...

Attacking mongoose's #62 feels like shooting fish in a barrel...but

eww

. I'm curious as to why all those who accused IAI of IIoA said nothing about this post.

I'd have to agree with this.

...when he clearly missed Mongoose 62 himself despite posting in 65 and quoting IAI's 63, in which IAI himself quotes the previous Mongoose post. Seems like he's trying to use Mina's point to make others look scummy rather than actually considering the game fully, either at the time Mongoose made the post or when Mina picked up on it later.

Then there's his next suspicion of Mongoose, which doesn't come until the next phase:

I already disliked mongoose - I'm not sure what to make of Baby Spice, but it hasn't improved my view of that slot. Red still seems worse to me, broadly for the reasons already stated, which is the point.

Here, a complete lack of analysis and definitive read on the Mongoose slot: he apparently thought Mongoose was scummy, despite the above quote replying to Mina being the only possible indication of that, he doesn't know what to make of Baby Spice (interesting similarity to BS's choice of words that I picked up on earlier with her Sotty/Lrdwhyt suspicion), and he keeps his options open regarding the slot whilst maintaining the push on Red.

That and his Dry-Fit suspicion came very late and again with very little analysis of his actual play.

[Locke Lamora]

EBWOP: the 'I have to agree with this' is obviously Elmo's comment, but I didn't get all the tags in.

[Locke Lamora]

Good game, nicely modded, thanks to Zach and VP for creating and running it and to Sotty for the invite! I think it was fairly well balanced and scum just got really hurt by Dry-fit's lynch, which was made a whole lot more likely by the failure to defend himself. Thor had a pretty hard job once BS was lynched and town had so many mislynches remaining, as I don't think many people thought Jason, Benmage or IAI was scum, so credit to him for keeping it going.