American Gods Mafia - Game over

[Locke Lamora]

I agree with Llama; discussing the possibilities of who to sacrifice/resurrect is pointless when we don't have any flips. If there's someone we want to resurrect then we should sacrifice a scumread, not specifically keep someone around for a policy sacrifice. With that in mind:

Vote: Agar

[Locke Lamora]

I just want to add that I'm primarily a 9-5 PST poster on the weekdays and mostly offline on the weekends.

Is there a particular reason you mentioned this?

[Locke Lamora]

Ghostlin:

Vote ani

policy

Elect LlamaFluff, Ythill, OGML

Inverse policy.

There is no real point to get into resurect at this point since no one is dead.

For the backstage thing, its imperative to elect people who know what they are doing at this point. This means not anyone from the VI group.

Also im V/LA from the 5th to 9th. Zero chance of getting a post in until late wednesday

The italicised is what I was agreeing with in the first sentence. The second sentence is my view on the optimal way to approach the sacrifice mechanic. I believe what Llama said is he doesn't want to be backstage with VIs, not that he wants to keep VIs to sacrifice (which is what AGar suggested with Furc).

WrathChild: that's basically saying the same thing twice. Is it normal practice for you to declare your schedule at the start of the game?

SGR: I'll answer you once WC answers.

[Locke Lamora]

First of all,

Unvote; Vote: SGR

...for this change of tune on Ythill in the space of 36 hours:

1. Tells Farside Ythill would make much more sense as a suspect than WC:

If you have to suspect someone, it should be Ythill, for:

1) Suspecting WraithChild under no basis (Cause he didn't RV? Doesn't matter. Cause he said "First Post"? Means jackshit. Cause he joked "OMGUS", doesn't mean crap either

2) Thanking WraithChild for a confirmation on being scum, where in the last post he didn't say absolutely anything that would confirm or even slightly give a scum tell (For saying he is inactive at certain parts of the day? Nope, and ythill suspected Locke based on him quoting that. For saying he has victories as Mafia on another game? WIFOM at best, WTH at worst.

So, yeah, I know I sound like I'm buddying, but I have no idea what part of the answer turned you from "What's the pro..." to "WOW, yeah, I see it".

2. States people should nominate those they trust to go backstage:

Nominating people for backstage should be dealt out now, I see no disadvantage in voting for people you trust and putting them in the backstage, so that they can discuss whatever.

3. Nominates Ythill:

And I think I can decide on my election as of now:

Elect: farside22, Seacore, ythill

SGR: I asked WC about his schedule statement because for him to declare it unprompted, particularly when he wasn't actually about to go on V/LA, hinted at a concern that people might call him out on his schedule otherwise. I think that's more likely to be a scum concern than town. Having looked back at his first game, it seems that he did draw a lot of heat for being more concerned about how others perceive him than he was with scumhunting, so I'm putting less stock in it as a scumtell as he did it as town. Why did you think it was a) weird and b) lynch-worthy for me to ask that?

Seacore: do you disagree with my line of reasoning there?

Ghostlin: you seem to have completely glossed over this - when you 'read' Llama's ISO, what did you actually do?

Apok goes onto my scumlist for that last post, which features a whole lot of fence sitting and tentative finger-pointing at Ani, Wrath, and even taking the opportunity to fit Ghostlin in after 'not seeing the Ghost-hate' moments earlier.

Elect Farside, LlamaFluff, Gaggle of Geese

.

[Locke Lamora]

What are you talking about? You've disagreed with Ythill's logic throughout the game. I don't think you trust Ythill, I think you're electing him because you're just going with the crowd. It's totally inconsistent with your attitude to him.

[Locke Lamora]

You can disagree with someone and still have a town-read on them. My point is you specifically outlined why people should find Ythill scummy (yet somehow abstract yourself from this situation as though you personally don't find these things scummy, but some people might, which is scummy in itself), you've stated on more than one occasion that you don't understand his reasoning, you specifically said people should elect based on logic and trust, then you elect someone whose logic you've disagreed with on multiple occasions. The inconsistency is mindboggling. Let's have a look:

To continue on from the quote I included at number 1 last time, here you imply that Ythill's suspicion of WC is highly dubious:

I'm still more curious on the beginning of this shitstorm instead of its current state.
What exactly, did Ythill see that could lead to a lynch on WrathChild.
Not only that, but he's not the only one thinking this, this isn't a insane idea in his mind, people are agreeing with him.

I just want to know:

What's so scummy about the first three posts from WrathChild?

You're telling me that you're not strongly disagreeing with his logic there?

Here, you address his clarification:

Hi there, SGR. The answer is quite simple.

Elucidate me

In Wrath's second post he changed his behavior in order to fit in.

Completely far-fetched, to say the least

In his third post he eluded to the fact that he wouldn't have failed to random vote at all but he'd forgotten it was considered scummy here, thereby confirming that his top priority is avoiding suspicion.

That's a good point, I think its still a little bit far-fetched, but I see where you're getting at

Finally you half-agree with ONE of Ythill's points, and even that's a stretch; how can it be a 'good point' and 'far-fetched' at the same time?

Then, Ythill helps to build the wagon on you, even saying that "Wagoning townreads iz fun" and I'm assuming you don't agree with that logic.

[Locke Lamora]

SGR: so you don't think Ythill coming up with 'far-fetched' reasons to vote WC is scummy? Also, you never answered my question about me talking about WC's schedule.

WC: have you got some kind of paranoia about your schedule? It's not like you've been away a week. It hasn't even been 24 hours. This is why I picked up on that first post; if you were more concerned with hunting scum than with your own appearance to others, that would not be your first thought upon returning to the game.

[Locke Lamora]

I answered in the post where I voted you.

[Locke Lamora]

SGR: Of course there's nothing inherently scummy about declaring V/LA. That's not what I said. I said that the way WC offered the information up unprompted suggested he had concerns about people calling him out on it and to me that concern is something that is more likely to come from scum. Sure, townies can do it, but I think scum are more likely to be thinking about it. Evidently you disagree with that, but I don't think it's hard to see why scum would be more concerned.

Ythill: I don't think your point was particularly far-fetched, nor do I think you should have had a rock-solid case at that stage, and I never said either. My problem is with SGR spending a lot of time criticising your logic and talking about how far you were reaching, but that not being at all consistent with him electing you. He appears to have little comprehension of much of your logic, so I fail to see how he is quite happy to put trust in you to go backstage.

WC: can you tell me when I tried to push a lynch on you based on your schedule announcement?

[Locke Lamora]

SGR: Fine, we get that you think Ythill is town now. I still haven't really got a straight answer out of you over whether you thought the WC attack was scummy - and that's not at the present moment, I mean earlier in the game when you spent ages talking about how it made no sense to you.

OhGodMyLife is tunneling, and trying to set up chain lynches, while not actually scumhunting whatsoever
Even though there are some wall posts I need to take the time to read *looks at Ghostlin*,

I doubt they will make me change my vote.

I would be happy voting SGR, but I like this wagon more:

vote: OGML

How can you make this assertion when you haven't read everything? This implies your reads are disingenuous. Your indication of readiness to drop your suspicion if Ythill comes up with something on OGML is also scummy.

AGar: what exactly do you think was wrong with Ani's logic about WC? As far as I can see, that's a pretty accurate description of what he was doing.

[Locke Lamora]

I find it interesting that SGR went to great lengths to make farside look as town as possible, then just went meh yeah don't care about AGar.

Vote: AGar

How does this line of reasoning lead you to an AGar vote?

AGar: what exactly do you think was wrong with Ani's logic about WC? As far as I can see, that's a pretty accurate description of what he was doing.

My issue was with his "It's cool I'm not worried about the OMGUS vote on me," which has no purpose being said in the first place then his weak reasoning to re-inforce is random vote on the guy he said he isn't worried about the OMGUS vote coming from.

That totally makes sense in my head.

Your posts prior to this indicated that the vote was for the weak reasoning behind his vote, not the shrugging off of the OMGUS vote prior to that. I'll reiterate my first question, though; what's weak about Ani's reasons for voting WC? To reiterate:

All Wraith has done so far is explain how many games he's been in, defend himself and give us a very tiny amount of meta.

SGR: do you rate scumminess on some kind of points-based system?

[Locke Lamora]

OGML is obviously ignoring both my question and others pointing out that his vote for AGar is not the natural conclusion to his reasoning. Earlier I just thought he wasn't paying attention (saying SGR was trying to avoid confrontation and attention indicated a total lack of awareness of the thread) but I now think it's much more deliberate and he's just trying to avoid answering difficult questions and only commenting on very specific things as it suits him.

Unvote; Vote: OGML

SGR: to me, you seem to be totting up town and scum points based on how many posts you find townie and how many you find scummy. Your '6 out of 22' did give me this impression, but this also matches your attitude to Ythill, in that although you suggested he was scummy early on for his WC case (although you STILL haven't been fully committal on that) and he never explained this to your satisfaction, 'far-fetched' being the most positive thing you said about it', you still gave the indication that he'd made enough town posts since for you to dismiss this as a town 'mistake' rather than a scumtell. It seems mathematical to me.

AGar: can you answer the question I asked (again) in my last post?

On Farside vs GG: GG's vote on Farside seems town-motivated to me as a genuine attempt to elicit a reaction. I think Farside's reaction is what I'd expect from town-Farside too, it's a little hostile, but it looks like a reasonable reaction from a townie being voted for no case, especially by someone who Farside had already indicated she had mild suspicions of. After that I think most of it is just pointless arguing over things like whether not making cases is scummy. If it goes on for a lot longer to the detriment of them scumhunting elsewhere, I'll be more concerned, but right now I think they're both town.

Magna: who would you lynch first out of Apok, Nexus and Werewolf, and why?

[Locke Lamora]

Ok I'm not willing to hammer OGML at the minute. He just strikes me as a bit of an idiot, rather than scummy. That's just from a brief ISO and reading. I mean,

the lynch will be good for VCA if he flips town, and we see who took advantage of the idiot to get a mislynch

. I'm happy to hammer just before the deadline, but I'd rather not do it at this specific time.

nominate: Seacore, Gaggle, Ythill

not that it really makes much difference.

Also, OGML has declared that he won't be here until Thursday. Do you want to give him a chance to respond, or are you wanting people to hammer immediately?

I don't even know where to begin with this post. First of all, why do you think OGML is a town idiot and not scum? The italicised makes it seem like you're fairly certain that OGML is a mislynch; why are you only talking about what happens if he's town? I'm sure you can also see the hypocrisy of saying you're happy to hammer but also that if he flips town you're going to see 'who took advantage of the idiot'. Why do you care what other people are wanting if you don't want to hammer until the deadline? You seem eager to please and far too ready to treat the lynch as set in stone for someone who apparently doesn't even think OGML is scum. You're already planning the next day, not scumhunting now.

Unvote; Vote: Nexus

[Locke Lamora]

ani: can you clarify why you thought the reasons you listed were worthy of leaving your vote on WC at that time?

Magna: on the topic of those three players I picked, it was exclusively a selection of players who had posted 5 times or less. I was interested in your opinion on our least frequent contributors, and I thought it would be a less effective source of information with a wider pool. I actually found Apok the scummiest when I asked you because it seemed like the AGar vote was very forced and it took a lot of effort for her to work up a reason to vote for anyone at all. Then Nexus came up with his scum-tastic OGML post and went up my rankings.

Nexus: your reasons for OGML being a town idiot actually indicate you think he's a null idiot. Nothing you've explained there is indicative of a town read. Also, any particular reason that you thought the deadline was soon given that the game's only been going for what, 5 days?

[Locke Lamora]

Hey Nexus, you pretty much just ignored my other point in my last post, so I'll ask more directly: why do you have a town-read on OGML when you have nothing to back that up?

[Locke Lamora]

Saint: do you think I'm scum too?

[Locke Lamora]

Saint: do you think I'm scum too?

You are my strongest town read. Why?

You said that Ythill and Nexus were scummy for deterring the OGML lynch, but although you were later told that I also unvoted OGML, you haven't treated me in the same way. Seems inconsistent.

[Locke Lamora]

I've fallen a bit behind with things the last couple of days so I'll be doing my best to catch up over this weekend.

[Locke Lamora]

My thoughts on things since my last proper post:

Agree strongly with LMP 496. I'm sure Ythill is aware that switching his vote can change the momentum of a wagon. If he genuinely wants Ghostlin lynched, he should switch himself.

Would love to know why OGML has a town read on Apok. I've seen the occasional forced vote and a desire to keep options wide open. Not exactly worthy of town-cred.

WC:

My most recent suspicion on SGR is that he is pushing for a quick end to the Day with the weight of the wagon on OGML. I think an OGML flip would tell us a ton about SGR.

This may be the biggest slip so far. Wrath is suspecting SGR based on the assumption of an OGML townflip while supposedly suspecting OGML. Double scumpoints.

Umm did I say townflip. Nope. I said flip. So if OGML flips town it will tell us one thing and if he flips scum it will tell us another thing. I have no idea where you got that I think OGML is town. I've been supporting his lynch this whole game.

(Commenting as I go)

Before I comment on this whole situation, I'd like to know the answer to one question: what do you think an OGML scum-flip tells us about SGR?

Saint 517 hints at dissonance - he still wants to vote for OGML, but he implies that OGML contributing makes him think OGML is town.

Apok 527 calls out Vezo for not providing analysis and then makes two statements that are utterly devoid of analysis. More scumpoints.

Ghostlin replacing out has reminded me that I don't think I've seen anything from Ghostlin for quite some time, which makes sense since his last proper post was almost a week ago. I found the Ghostlin early push on me followed by the question dodging to be scummy but to be honest I've found other candidates much scummier since and haven't really looked at him in detail. I'll ISO him later tonight.

MoI 560 strikes me as unnecessary speculation and information overload at this stage, particularly as Ythill says he's not going to put too much stock in this theory without flips.

'Underwhelming' is definitely the feeling I get from Llama so far. I haven't found much of what he's done to be particularly driven scumhunting, more of it seems to be shooting other cases down.

LMP is aggressively scumhunting, I think he's made a number of accurate points and I know he has experience of a similar backstage role from ACoK, so:

Unelect: Llama; Elect: LMP

[Locke Lamora]

Ghostlin ISO:

-His vote on SGR in 3 seems like an attempt to over-explain the vote, particularly "your second post reads like a scummy player". Well, duh.

-Town points from the unelect of Ythill in 6; his doubts about Ythill's motives seem genuine, and I think he's bucking a trend and drawing attention when it would have been easy to follow others and elect Ythill.

-The response to werewolf in 10 is strange, not least because I don't see why Ghostlin has responded to it at all. It's almost 'it doesn't count if it's an RVS vote, so there'; surely the logical town response would be either to ignore it or ask werewolf what his case is.

-Really don't like the Tasky vote in 15, particularly for this sentence "Tasky's worth susspecting and it's worth applying pressure for his replacement to find out if the the tactics continue. The only people who have posted less are werewolf, who's sorta infamous for it, and vezok, who is all but a confirmed VI regardless of which game he plays." So first off, he tells Tasky's replacement exactly what he has to avoid to remove the pressure, then he pre-emptively explains away the bigger lurking of werewolf and vezo through meta (despite the fact this isn't actually the crux of his case), which indicates that he's thinking about making sure he doesn't draw suspicion.

-Admitting he got distracted and defensive in 16 is mildly pro-town to me. I think being overly focused on defence can indicate anti-town focus on self-preservation, but admitting it means he's not trying to take attention away from it.

-One of his main reasons for backing the OGML wagon in 20 seem to basically boil down to not posting much content over a lot of posts, which does beg a couple of questions: first, why wasn't OGML higher on his scumlist if he was more obviously posting without content than the likes of Tasky; and second, why is he only 'OK' with the vote when he seems to draw the conclusion that OGML is pretty scummy? The post itself seems more like a close-to-deadline justification vote than anything based on scumhunting.

-Farside then challenges him on OGML and he admits he hadn't really noticed what OGML was posting at all before that point; fine, but why the eagerness to back the wagon if he's not your top lynch choice? He also says that SGR doesn't apply scumtells evenly to people, which is incredibly hypocritical in a post where he admits he barely noticed what OGML had posted for most of the game, and then later indicated that OGML had done some of the things he voted Tasky for, like sheeping wagons with no reason. This whole OGML vote situation seems to have parallels with Nexus' OGML reaction; both acted like it was close to the deadline and they wanted to be seen that they were willing to back the wagon despite not previously finding him scummy (and in Nexus' case, apparently not finding him scummy at all).

In short, I would back a Ghostlin lynch. I find a couple of town tells in the way he has reacted to things, but a lot of his vote explanations seem forced and awkward and the OGML-hop seems jumpy and lacking in conviction for no apparent reason.

That said, I still think Nexus is scum and I think his willingness to hammer OGML was much worse. Now he's admitted he has no reasons to actually believe OGML is town, he's fallen back to just stating he just thinks OGML is an idiot, not a town-idiot. I think that first explanation of the desire to hammer is very revealing - there inclination to set up lynches is quite clearly based on an underlying thought process based on OGML being town, and I think that's why Nexus implied he was a town-idiot.

GG: yes. Does that change your read at all?

[Locke Lamora]

I'm wavering in my Nexus scum-read with Ythill's flip, will reread to see how genuine those interactions look. OGML is definitely the top candidate after that conveniently timed wagon-hopping and Wrath seems pretty unlikely to be scum now.

Farside: are you saying Ythill acknowledged that Llama's play was scummy but didn't want to do anything about it?

[Locke Lamora]

So I looked back at Ythill and Nexus to see how genuine Ythill's approach to the Nexus-wagon was and the reaction of Nexus to it. The Nexus post that initially gets him heat is this:

Ok I'm not willing to hammer OGML at the minute. He just strikes me as a bit of an idiot, rather than scummy. That's just from a brief ISO and reading. I mean, the lynch will be good for VCA if he flips town, and we see who took advantage of the idiot to get a mislynch. I'm happy to hammer just before the deadline, but I'd rather not do it at this specific time.

nominate: Seacore, Gaggle, Ythill

not that it really makes much difference.

Also, OGML has declared that he won't be here until Thursday. Do you want to give him a chance to respond, or are you wanting people to hammer immediately?

Which is followed in 383 by this:

Nexus' #379 contained two scumtells. Just sayin.

I find it slightly incriminating that Ythill is pointing this out but not pressurising Nexus for this. Is he waiting to see how scummy other people find it before he really pushes Nexus on it? That's certainly how the situation plays out - I call Nexus out on 379 and vote for him, after which Ythill congratulates me for finding one of the scumtells - the second he quotes as the last line of 379. If Nexus is scum, Ythill pointing out the scumtells without naming them could also be an attempt to incriminate those who didn't react to it.

The below is Nexus' response to what he thinks Ythill is calling him scummy for:

Ythill: If you read captain rattata's posts (SGR), he's pretty insistent on lynching now. So, I wanted to see what the general opinion of everyone else was. Didn't realise that was scummy. My bad.

This is slightly apologetic in tone and I can certainly see this as being consistent with a scumbuddy, especially a nervous Nexus getting jumped on by aggressive, town-running Ythill and not wanting to cause too much of a stir or dig himself further into a hole.

Following that Ythill hops off the AGar on the Nexus wagon, and parks there while it builds up steam. Meanwhile he tries to tie Nexus to MoI by asking him if he's upset that he caught MoI's buddy Nexus, so if Nexus does flip scum, MoI goes up the town list. Ythill then finally tells Nexus why he thinks 379 was scummy.

@Nexus:

That's not actually the crux of why #379 was scummy. You tried to play both sides of the lynch and you asked for permission to hammer.

To me, it seems more likely that by not explaining the scumtell initially, Ythill is giving Nexus the rope to hang himself by letting him interpret what he thinks is scummy about his post, which I think is probably a point against them being scum together. After that, Ythill does no further analysis or any real pressuring on Nexus' slot and simply includes him in the odd scumlist until he moves his vote.

Here's the votecount when Ythill jumps off Nexus and on to Ghostlin:

Lynch Vote Count

Nexus (6) – Locke Lamora, Ythill, farside22, A Gaggle of Geese, Saint, AGar
OhGodMyLife (4) – MagnaofIllusion, WrathChild, SGRaaize, Ghostlin
Ghostlin (4) – Llamafluff, LynchMePls, OhGodMyLife, Seacore
SGRaaize (2) - animorpherv1, Nexus
AGar (1) – vezokpiraka
Vezokpiraka (1) - Apokalyptika

It's actually not dissimilar to the OGML situation; the Nexus wagon isn't as close to the lynch threshold and we're a few days closer to the deadline, but that's about it. It's certainly the start of another successful wagon derailing by Ythill. Ghostlin obviously then picks up support and becomes the lynch.

On closer inspection, I think Ythill's attitude towards Nexus is fairly likely to be that of a buddy. Although he points out his major scumtell and hops on the wagon, it's after I pressure and vote Nexus first and there's no substantial pressure or analysis of Nexus' play throughout. In addition, he gets off this wagon pretty soon after it becomes the clear leading wagon and moves to Ghostlin. Nexus has precious little interaction with Ythill, but what there is seems very conservative and aimed at defusing the situation.

Vote: Fate

On the topic of Ythill and OGML, I've been thinking about how much Ythill's WC case was based on WC chaining suspicion on OGML flipping town. An OGML scum-flip would pretty much collapse this reasoning, so I'm not all that confident in OGML being scum right now. That said, the 'please sacrifice me now' play doesn't sit well with me, especially when he knows he has Fate ready to shout OGML IS TOWN all day long to dissuade people.

SGR: can you explain why you think it makes a difference that Ythill died before OGML? What do you think would have happened with people's reads of Ythill if OGML had died first?

[Locke Lamora]

On the topic of resurrection:

I'm inclined to agree that we should wait until later to resurrect. Vezo can't track tonight if he's resurrected as it doesn't happen until the next day, so chances are all will happen is what Seacore said above. I think the more choice we have and the more information we've got about the setup, the better we can use the resurrect mechanic to decide who and when to resurrect. There's also the fact that Vezo can't be fully put out of the game while he's still 'dreaming' so waiting prevents the scum from eliminating the tracker from the game and gives us the potential to bring him back in a later-game situation where if he does get to use his ability, he'll have a much higher chance of catching scum than he does now.

To me, the most valuable part of this is having confirmed townies when there are fewer players about. From a PoE standpoint, this gets ever more valuable the longer the game goes on. Depending on how well we're doing, I'd rather wait until at least tomorrow to use the first sacrifice. From this perspective, I also agree that competent scumhunters are best to bring back; if we could bring back a confirmed-town player with strong scumhunting skills on D4 or D5 then it's going to be a double boost. If we get to a situation where it's obvious that Vezo could come back and have a realistic chance to use his ability on a relatively small pool of players, I think it's a good move. Right now I don't think we know enough to say it's worth using on Vezo.

Preview edit: Um...Farside? How would scum know if Vezo has info?

[Locke Lamora]

I already explained that. You're thinking about it as simply bringing back a tracker. I'm thinking about it as bringing back a 100% mod-confirmed townie. It's pretty simple to see why a confirmed townie is more useful later in the game. If you want to talk exclusively about the tracking ability, I still think it's more valuable later in the game. For example, if Vezo gets one more night to track in the game, I'd rather it was N4 than N3, simply because he would have at least a couple fewer targets to choose from, and more information to go on. I don't think he's going to come back as a 100% confirmed town tracker and survive for very long. If he stays dead and the situation arises where he has a good chance of using his ability AND he only has a handful of people to track, that's a far better trade than it is right now.

[Locke Lamora]

Farside: if three townies die each day/night phase and there's only one mafia faction, yes, we might be in MyLo D4. The first relies on us not lynching correctly and whoever killed Ythill to keep hitting townies, and the second is based on an assumption about the setup that we can't be sure of, particularly as it seems pretty likely that it was an anti-town player who killed Ythill.

As for the Apok case, I find Apok scummy. I already brought up the early votes sounding forced and the posts reading like they're taking a lot of effort to make. I still think that's the case, and 810 is a good example of that. That said, I think Fate is scummier, so my vote's staying there for now.

Will get caught up on the game tonight.

[Locke Lamora]

Need to do a bit of catching up here. I was pretty convinced Nexus/Fate was scum so I need to review my reads. Watcher seems like a pretty obvious choice for resurrection and MoI's hammer was pretty damn scummy.

Sacrifice: MoI
Resurrect: Apokalyptica

I'm not convinced that the backstage-thread interactions are entirely helpful the way they're playing out. Those who have been backstage are bringing this understanding back into thread with them which completely lacks context and it frequently seems to be getting used as a way to make votes without a whole lot of reasoning behind them. Llama's not exactly helping either right now, and to be quite honest I'm having a hard time working out who's genuine because of all these hidden interactions. I feel like I'm playing half a game of mafia. I definitely think we ought to rotate the membership a little to counteract the effects of this. With that in mind:

Elect Locke Lamora, Kublai Khan, Seacore

[Locke Lamora]

Unsacrifice

So half of us complain that there's too much going on in this game based on information we're not privy to and we get two more softclaims? This is nuts. I want a full-claim from MoI.

[Locke Lamora]

Sorry about the absence, hopefully will get to this tomorrow.

[Locke Lamora]

Right, read back over everything I've missed. My thoughts:

-I think I half-understand what Saint's claim is, but the way he's claimed it reeks of changing his mind about what his role is halfway through the claim, which speaks for itself. It's so ill-defined that I'm sure it's not his real role.

-MoI's claim seems more plausible, but I do have concerns over its compatibility with the rest of the setup. Thus far we've seen fairly ordinary roles (tracker, watcher) so a limited universal backup sounds out of place. I also agree with GG's point about it not seeming to fit in with a setup where PRs can be revived. The things that give me pause are that his result on Fate looks legitimate and the role fits very nicely flavour-wise. His hammer yesterday was still damn scummy and I think Farside's question in 1218 is an excellent one. Unless he can justify that, I think he's the best lynch.

-KK's insistence that we don't resurrect today seems ill-conceived to me. As far as I'm concerned, this is an optimal time for the first resurrect and it means we'll have a confirmed town power role alive relatively far into the game. Watcher is a great role to have back and if we do need a second resurrect then we have one available. The chances that two more roles die that we desperately want back AND we are able to double-lynch safely on D4 and D5 (which is what he's proposing would most likely require) are very slim. If we only had one resurrect then I could see why he'd want to wait a bit more, but I don't think it's such a valid concern with two.

-OGML has managed to scum up the thread again with his vote-hopping and lack of attention being paid to the game. He definitely seems to have dropped his effort levels since he stopped being a main lynch candidate and now he's shown up to jump on a couple of wagons with no other contribution to the game. Would be happy with this lynch if the MoI one is not happening.

-Llama's Seacore case makes some valid points, particularly his insistence in parking his vote on me and then not really being interested in my response, but I don't think it makes him anywhere near as scummy as MoI or OGML. I definitely think we have far better lynch candidates today.

-If Llama and I are going backstage then I'm satisfied that at least some of the membership is getting rotated. Would like to see continued rotation of these spots as the game continues.

To conclude:

Sacrifice: Saint
Vote: MoI
Unelect: Seacore; Elect: Farside
Unelect: Kublai Khan; Elect: LlamaFluff

[Locke Lamora]

Llama: I think it's a possibility that they're scum on the same team, although I agree that it would be a very risky play and the only real reason to do it as buddies would be for exactly that reaction, that people thought it was so unlikely scum-MoI would make a play that risky to throw scum-Saint under the bus that they were deterred from an MoI lynch. My more favoured theory links to what Farside stated at one point: that they're both anti-town but Saint is SK/scum of another faction and MoI has a scum role that has given him the information that Saint killed Fate. That, plus the points that the complexity and nature of MoI's claim seem incongruous with simpler roles and a revive mechanic, and that you were a more obvious watch target than Fate, give me a lot of doubt about the claim. We all seem to agree it's pretty likely that Ythill's killer was not town, so this seems like an entirely plausible scenario to me. If MoI can satisfactorily explain why he thought Fate was a better protect target when you were dropping huge hints that you were a PR, I'll probably be more inclined to believe him.

As for your point about MoI's role being unlikely as a scum role because picking up an extra kill would be unbalanced, isn't it possible that his role only backs up particular abilities? I see where you're coming from, but we have no evidence that MoI would gain an extra kill if another killing role was lynched. Which leads me to:

MoI: do you know whether you can gain any role in the game, or if there are any limitations to which roles you can pick up?

[Locke Lamora]

Saint: were you told someone targeted you?

[Locke Lamora]

Unvote

Need to think about this.

MoI: did you think Fate's softclaiming was any more genuine than usual (ie. not very)? Can you explain again why Apok's flip made you think Fate was town? I'm not sure I understand the reasoning the first time round.

[Locke Lamora]

I know nothing about flavor, so no idea what the prime number buisness is.

1. Please explain what about my claim changed between 79 and 86 that took if from a fine claim to a convoluted one.
2. Please explain how you find my claim to be convoluted in light of your own claim which operates based of Prime Numbers? Given the ‘cool little twist’ you had in your role-pm why is the twist to my role suddenly convoluted.

x2. I'm not buying the claim.

Seacore: I can't get past this at the moment. Can you clarify whether or not you believe MoI's claim (not alignment, just the role) and why?

[Locke Lamora]

That's pretty much why I asked. You clarified that you thought the flavour fit, which I have no problem with, I agree there. I just couldn't see whether you a) actually believed his claim in its entirety and b) whether you thought that made him more likely town/scum. It's clear now that you're leaning away from believing it, and if it is true you think it's more likely to be a scum power, which leads me to: why would a Limited Universal Backup be more likely to be a scum power than town?

So your role would flip as 'Commuter' rather than any variant thereof? I'm thinking about this because I made the assumption that Tracker and Watcher were simply the normal roles in their standard definition, but we have no way of actually telling that until Apok comes back.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, call it that if you want. If it's a scum Backup, it's still a Backup. The primary reward for scum mislynching PRs is that they've lynched a PR. My inclination is that a Backup is more likely to be a town power. My concern is that he's making it up entirely. Him telling the truth and being scum seems like the most unlikely scenario of all.

I don't think your Commuter claim is much of a variant on a basic Commuter, and I agree that MoI's claim is more complex than yours. However, I now have two main reasons to question the assumption that MoI's claim is overly complex for the setup:
1. The more I think about variations even within standard role names, the more I think it's entirely possible that 'Tracker' and 'Watcher' don't just mean the Normal game definitions. Apok's return will tell us more about this.
2. Saint's claim is still relatively complex and he has no reason to lie. So either he has claimed SK who has multiple percentage-based abilities just because he wants to screw with us a bit, or his claim is legit. The latter indicates that the complexity of the roles might be greater than I was assuming when I originally judged MoI's claim.

Tell me this: assuming that Limited Universal Backup is a 'standard' role, what about the variation that MoI has claimed do you think is particularly convoluted?

[Locke Lamora]

Seacore's claim seems fairly easy to test and I think it makes sense to do that. I find myself leaning towards believing MoI's claim but I remain unconvinced about its place in a setup with a revive mechanic; it certainly seems like the combination gives town a major advantage and I would expect a strong scum counterbalance to that power if it were to be true. Again, it is something that can be tested, albeit not quite so easily.

Would prefer an OGML lynch to a KK one. Other than the insistence that we delay the sacrifice, I don't really find much scummy about KK's play. Since he stopped being a prime lynch target, OGML has basically fallen back on hopping on the convenient bandwagons and really hasn't shown any interest in doing anything else. The last time he did anything of substance was pushing the Apok mislynch, so I'm happy with a:

Vote: OGML

[Locke Lamora]

That's L-1 with only GG and ooba not on the wagons. Looking back, GG has maintained a town-read on Seacore and I can't tell what their recent thoughts on OGML are because they don't seem to have stated any. ooba needs to state which lynch he prefers and why asap. I don't want that slot going to tonight without having taken a stance.

Those voting Seacore: is your main concern that Seacore is a scum commuter?

I have no problem with OGML's 'Spirit of the Old World' claim; in fact, I believe Seacore claimed 'Human' as a category, so that now makes 4 we have out there. I'd still rather lynch OGML over Seacore, although a Seacore lynch could potentially verify whether MoI is telling the truth. I think OGML has been scummier and the main thing that gives me pause about Seacore is his reaction to MoI's claim. I'm going to be reading back over his ISO to see how everything matches up.

[Locke Lamora]

Apologies, completely forgot to declare V/LA for the weekend. Will be catching up asap.

[Locke Lamora]

Apok: I'm guessing that MoI's claim of 1-shot watcher ability gained accurately matches your role, then?

Kublai: to respond to your case on me, I'll admit I haven't been as active here (or on MS in general) as I'd like. Any lack of proactivity is due to time constraints. I think I've been far more engaged in the game than your case makes out. I don't think I have a particular tendency to bandwagon-lead in general, and I've been prodding and pushing players I suspect all game. Yes, my interactions with Ythill were fairly low; I was taking a similar approach to that mentioned by someone else, which was treating him with an air of caution and waiting to see how effective his town-leading was. Can you explain how 'posts unprompted agreements' is a scumtell, and where I have a tendency to IIoA? Can you also explain why you made a case on me when you did, and whether you genuinely believed you were going to start up a new wagon on me? Thus far today you've seemed to focus almost entirely on bickering with GG, so I'd also like to know why you didn't return to this case at the start of the day.

WC: MoI has claimed he only gets his ability for the night after the lynch. Do you still think OGML is the better lynch?

My take on GG: I think the town-tells on OGML are being way overstated, I think the sniping and MoI-baiting is unhelpful, but I think they're town. I think they've prodded and pushed people to get reactions in a manner that suggests they're genuinely trying to judge alignment. The rhetoric and the refusal to respond to questions is just causing more arguments, but I don't see scum motivation behind the play.

Elect: Apokalyptika

[Locke Lamora]

Pending a few responses, OGML, MoI, KK are my top 3. I'll elaborate some more on my reads once I've received answers to my questions.

[Locke Lamora]

I meant are you a watcher exactly as MoI claimed it (ie. you can watch every night, you get results as 'x visited y' etc.). I suspected you probably were but I wanted confirmation. Apparently MoI is scum anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter now.

[Locke Lamora]

Apok's result does not sound like she was blocked. I think now is definitely the time for an amnesiac to claim. By my reckoning we've got an incredibly high chance of winning the game if there is.

[Locke Lamora]

Apologies all, busy Easter weekend, will get to this in detail tomorrow.

[Locke Lamora]

So here's the thing. It's got to the point now where it's hard to accurately assess Llama's claim because he's apparently been gambiting for the entire game. If WC wasn't amnesiac I was pretty sure Llama was scum, but now every time I read back something that doesn't fit with gunsmith, it can be put down to 'oh that was part of the gambit'. It basically leads to WIFOM circles when you read every one of Llama's posts relating to the claim (which would be half the point if Llama is scum). The choice of targets is about the only aspect that can really be taken at face value, and there's one thing that really does not make sense to me if Llama is gunsmith, based on how he claims he's been selecting targets:

Llama: why haven't you 'solidified' your OGML town-read?

I'm actually thinking a lot about a Seacore rez. He should live through N6, unless scum use both a kill and a block on him AND the night action resolution places block before hide (which NAR doesn't), and thus we'd be guaranteed to have a confirmed town player alive on D7, making PoE a real nightmare for any remaining scum. Either Fate or Vezo would be likely to die on N6 anyway, given how dangerous a confirmed townie would be, and I agree with WC's analysis that it'd be better to have Fate caps lock raging his way through tomorrow than Vezo not doing much at all. I actually think Vezo is the worst of the three options.

Sacrifice: MoI

Resurrect: Seacore

Elect: Apok, GG, Locke

[Locke Lamora]

Llama:

Llama: why haven't you 'solidified' your OGML town-read?

Farside: I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to resurrect Vezo. I just think the other options are better. The way I see it, scum are either going to have to kill confirmed town N6 or take the gamble that they can survive an endgame/near endgame situation with confirmed town around. There's no reason to believe we have a protective role at this stage so consequently there's no reason to believe scum are going to leave confirmed town alive for an endgame situation. Vezo's only really useful if he makes it through N6 without being killed or blocked, which I find incredibly unlikely. Seacore, on the other hand, is guaranteed to be alive through to D7 and he'll be a stronger pro-town force who I'd much rather have around in that kind of situation. Fate will be a lot more useful in a single-day situation than Vezo and that's something that we know we'll get, not something we have a slim chance of getting.

I've been thinking about Farside's points and the one that's a sticking point for me is Llama faking a town result on SGR as gunsmith. Having a town read on someone is one thing, but Llama actively told us Backstage to claim his SGR result if SGR got run up while he was V/LA. And yes, I'm sure this can be claimed to be important for the gambit, which is why this whole softclaim-amnesiac claim-gunsmith gambit bothers me.

Apok: I think Jesse James was referred to in the book but I don't remember him being an actual character. I don't currently have my copy and I can't find anything about him in the book on Google. Anyone else know anything on this?

[Locke Lamora]

Yeah, I don't see why scum would have to fake claim when the characters have been randomised, and I don't see why Llama would pick Jesse James even if he was fake-claiming. It's just a bit strange that his character doesn't feature much in the book, and if your PDF search is accurate, not at all. Perhaps it's in the original author's text version. Can you find any references to Daniel Boone in that PDF?

Those Backstage N1: was it Ythill who originally brought up the idea of Llama being a PR? And have I missed something where the old QTs were shared, or is this something that happened last night?

[Locke Lamora]

Farside: I think 4 remaining is more likely. I don't see MoI outing himself so readily to become obv-sacrifice target if he only had two buddies remaining. I'd rather assume more than less in any case. And no, I wasn't given links. I assume others posted the links for Fate during the N2 QT? I see that Jahudo says links can be posted, but neither you, GG nor Llama posted any N3. I can't have them now, apparently.

[Locke Lamora]

Hey Llama, how about you answer my question this time around?

Apok: are you arguing that Farside gave away a connection to Ythill by saying 'you and me'? I'm not sure why you think this phrasing is lynch-worthy.

[Locke Lamora]

Guess you're right, Magna.

Vote: Farside

[Locke Lamora]

Wow. Hats off to WC and Llama for pulling it off from that situation. I'll comment more when I've read back in a bit more detail.

MoI: not your fault any more than it was mine. I was thinking exactly the same thing and was just waiting for you to post.

Ythill: yep, I think that's a pretty good assessment . I think when I realised the hammer wasn't real is the the most frustrated I've ever been at mafia. I've never seen so much work go down the pan in such a short amount of time. Still, the win helps.