Simpsons Mafia GAME OVER - TOWN WIN

[Xanth]

All re: Cid:

Great, you have now forced out of me something I've tried not to draw attention to. My claim was irrelevant at the time after I decided my life was worth less than a cop claim's, but no, I don't want to claim now that I'm not immediately under fire as I am not vanilla. I did not wish to broadcast as much, but hey, it's entirely possible you just missed the connection. I'd still very much like to leave the specifics in the grey, unless you're going to push this unreasonably hard.

You keep on missing the point of my defence, as well, which is really, really frustrating. I keep on repeating myself because people keep on skipping the start and finding problems with later content. Of your three quoted sections (not including the intro one):

The third one is actually irrelevant. If we add your clause then this actually gets stronger, as it means that it was strictly even harder for anyone to vote for Meeple. The only conclusion from this section was that if there was a scum plot involving me at the end, then it must have involved me trying to die there, not survive.

The second one is granted, but not related to the defence at all. The only conclusion dependent on that section is ironically in fact my support for you (okay, and on Alex as well).

The first one is the important one. Please. Listen.

1) Imagine a mythical alternate game where I am scum and Meeple is town, but everything else that's happened is somehow the same. In this theoretical game it is strictly pointless for me not to hammer Meeple. If I do hammer, yes, I agree, I almost certainly take a hell of a lot of flak and go down in fire the next day. Let's assume that does happen. In that case, the cop claim (in this world probably the cop, and so a big town loss) gets lynched day one, and town then has to waste another day putting me away. Compare this to accepting my death: mafia either have to spend a night tapping the cop claim or worry about the power of an open cop, and town don't lose the second day dealing with me. Scum lose a night and a guaranteed [probable-]cop kill and town gain a day by me sitting there and taking the hammer - major loss. The fact that my lynching may be nearly inevitable does not change it being considerably better for me to hammer Meeple in this situation.

Yes? Agree with this game theory or not?

2) Right, now let's assume that both Meeple and I are scum, and I give up to protect Meeple. I then flip scum for all to see. People then think through case 1) and wonder why I didn't kill the cop claim for massive gain. Meeple thus takes additional flak.

Now yes, Meeple would be under a big spotlight and a lot of heat regardless. This would still generate more, and quickly. I would have thought a hell of a lot more, but I'm less convinced by people's reactions. This is without even worrying about whether an/the actual cop has to risk their own life to take him down or other flangy elements that effect gain and loss for the sides.

3) Now assume that we're both scum, but instead of making a song and dance about it at the end, I simply do not return and wait for the hammer, which would come. We're now in the same position as before, except that Meeple's not taking extra heat from applying case 1) to case 2). Still weighed down, for sure, but still better off.

From this we conclude that case 3) is trivially better for scum than case 2), right? I think there are other cases that are more beneficial for the theoretical scum team to go with, but this one has the same aim (damage control) but is strictly better whilst involving no changes until right near the end, which are obvious.

By now comparing cases 2) and 3) against what actually happened, we conclude that I really shouldn't be scum unless I'm stupid.


Right. There I go again. Please let that be the last. As I say, I freely believe that there may be holes in there somewhere to be resolved or debunk it, but I'm just hearing unrelated issues. It's annoying that I'm now getting slapped with pulling the same thing over and over again when I'm only doing so for this reason.

Now to look for new stuff to talk about.

[Xanth]

Checking his profile, last time he was active was March 5th, around the time of his last post. Given the amount of turnover we've had both before the game and during, I'm gonna delay dealing with Ryogo until the day ends, though. At night I'll either find a replacement or modkill him.

I see your intentions, Sopko, but this isn't helpful.

If I expect him to be modkilled, then I'll definitely leave him and pursue a different target, which at this point leaves Tom head and shoulders above the rest. If I expect him to survive, I may want to lynch him ahead of Tom.

What should the people already on Ryogo be doing?

[Sierra]

First off: ##Unvote: Ryogo. No need to spend a lynch on him if he stands a chance of being modkilled tonight.

Snowfire: It's not the simple fact of Xanth making excuses, it's the amount of posts he spent day one talking about himself, his schedule and his playstyle in general. I suppose this stuff is nice to know and all, but it'd be a lot better to use that time for actually hunting scum. It read to me like an evasion of genuine scumhunting and still does.

~

Yoshi: Voting for Delta yesterday is not comparable to voting Ryogo today. Ryogo is a genuine lurker--he was here yesterday, fairly active for the first half of the day, but disappeared once things got hairy. Delta for most of day one was genuinely not in the game--he hadn't posted, there was nothing people voting on him could ask him to answer because he had no material on the record. This is a significant difference to me. I must also point out that Alex's vote for Ryogo happened just as this game-day began. At that time, it was not unreasonable to assume that Ryogo would be back. If Alex keeps pushing for Ryogo's lynch in light of the looming modkill, then I'll grant that there's a parallel. As it stands, though, I don't believe the comparison is accurate.

I'd also like to point out a flaw in the following comparison:

- Everything I said about Snowfire earlier still holds, and is amplified by his unvoting, not talking about anyone he finds scummy and leaving a note that he may not even be back or have a vote down at deadline.  Whaaaaat?  Snow, who do you think is scum?  Everyone else, why do I see him getting a free pass for this?

Xanth, quick rundown on who you think is scummy and why while we're waiting?

To refer to Tom's argument against Excal earlier...

I've noticed that scum like to dichotomise lynch candidates - so that's been a scumtell I watch for. Ie: 'If I had to pick from X/Y' or 'Which of X/Y would you lynch' etc.

I don't believe that the Alex quotes you selected represent precisely the sort of behavior that Tom described. Alex outright asked people "Who do you find scummy?" Not "Out of these options, pick one," no attempts to nudge people down one of two paths.

~

Alright, we've got half a day left here. I'm not climbing on the Tom train because I think that there are better cases around.

Given that a Xanth lynch seems unlikely to happen (given the amount of people voting Tom precisely because of his fight with Xanth) I'm going to act ony my earlier notion that either Xanth or his first voters are likely scum. Since Ryogo might be eating a modkill soon, this means I'm going after Excal. I'll get to him in a minute, but...

...blurgh, major Xanth ninja. Moment while I read this.

[Ranmilia]

Mmmmrf.  Yeah, I've kinda been waiting for Ryogo to come back and respond, but it seems like that isn't going to happen. 

Thing is, with the way Meeple got hung out yesterday, I'm thinking his scumbuddy(ies?) are most likely to be found among people who dropped off the face of the earth yesterday without doing much to save him.  I mean, *I* was one of the most if not the most vocal people saying don't lynch Meeple, and I know I'm town and was wrong, so... yes, I kinda DO want to keep pushing Ryogo, and Strago/Yoshiken getting a pass for replacing doesn't sit well with me either even though I agreed with the few things Strago did come around and say. 

But even though I think the odds are >50% that scum are among the people dropping out, Yoshi and Cid and etc are directly saying they're off the table for today.  So... well, fine, I guess.  Lurkers kill Mafia.

The person who looks the next scummiest to me is Excal.  He was on Xanth instead of Meeple, encouraged a Xanth hammer, so forth, and additionally has come off to me as keeping a low profile this game, although there isn't anything in particular I can quote to back that up - by its very nature.  One thing that does stand out, though, is his passing up the case on myself and saying I've played a good game for town.  This is weird.  When I saw Meeple's flip, I expected to come under heavy fire today for having been wrong about him, such as Yoshiken is putting forth.  That fire is obviously erroneous, but at least it's understandable.  Ignoring me to focus on Tom, Xanth, etc is also understandable.  "Oh yeah he's totally townie guys," given the situation, is... not so much.

Not sure what to do with my vote right now. 

[Sierra]

Xanth, the existence of the Scenario 1 you outline is exactly why I'm having problems with you this game. I'm not concerned with mythical alternate games. Even when employed for the sake of analogy, I don't find this approach very useful. Scenarios 2 and 3 attempt to posit the ideal actions for a Meeple/Xanth scumteam to take, but this is also irrelevant. If you and Meeple are both scum this game, then Scum was in a lose/lose situation yesterday and all they could do was try and cut their losses; there was no ideal outcome and they were going to get burned no matter what. While scenarios 2 and 3 are reasonable on many points, they also assume time and again that scum will always do what's best for them. This is a fallacy. Scum can panic and screw up just like everybody else. This is my problem with elaborate theoretical scenarios like those you've outlined. They presume far too much and I'd rather see people examining the record and using it to interrogate others (this is where I note that your last post on page five is a step in the right direction).

The bottom line is that your actions late yesterday make just as much sense to me for Panicked Scum Xanth as they do for Worried Town Xanth. I stated this a long time ago and I'm rather amazed that we're still talking about it. I'm officially dropping the topic since I don't think it's very helpful for either of us at this point. This isn't fiat, this isn't me saying "I won" and walking away, it's acknowledgement that all we're doing is talking in circles and there are better ways to spend our time.

(Slightly off-topic: it strikes me as odd that you value the possibility of a power role (Meeple's stated copclaim) over one that you know exists (I.E., whatever it is that you have). Was Meeple really that convincing?)

With all that out of the way, I'll ask a question directly which will hopefully steer us down a more productive avenue of discussion: Xanth, concisely tell us who you think are the three most likely candidates for scum right now, and why?

~

Anyway! Excal stuff, next post. Yes.

[Sierra]

First off: ##Vote: Excal

Because Alex just summed up my thoughts exactly. Low presence, on the Xanth train yesterday and I've stated that likely Xanth or his early voters were scum...

But Alex, who exactly are the people "dropping out," as you say? Most of the living players were on either Meeple or Xanth by the end of yesterday. Four people weren't: Xanth, Strago/Yoshi, Snowfire (whom you yourself have stopped looking at,) and yourself (I assume you are not presenting yourself as a candidate, of course, just noting this for completeness). Who would you have us pursue?

I must confess that I'm a little amused at your confusion over you not garnering much suspicion for speaking out against Meeplelynching yesterday. Do you think this makes any player in particular look odd or is it just a general impression?

~

Commencing archive digging to see if Excal posts contain material that corroborates my suspicion of him (currently based mostly on lurking and my notion of either Xanth vs. his day 1 voters being scum).

[Excal]

At work.  Can  post in 1.5 h.

[Sierra]

Right, Excal posts include the following:

Page 1: Joke vote. Everybody has one of those, moving along.

Page 2: Some agreement with other people; Xanth vote, mostly stems from Excal finding Xanth's attack on me insubstantial.

Page 3: Nothing else until sudden death. Says he's fine with a Xanth hammer, doesn't elaborate. Laments the suckiness of us being in sudden death with a copclaim in the mix, worries about ninjahammers based on survivalism.

Page 4: Hammer, stop talking. Moving along.

Page 5: Talks about yesterday's flip casting things in a new light, and so on. This is the most substantial post he's had and he still doesn't come out of it accusing anyone or voting.

Yeah, I'm happy with my vote for now, sounds like a good bet. Will be interesting to see what Excal says when he gets back.

[SnowFire]

Responses:
El Cid: A fair enough point about why you were suspicious of Xanth.  As for your anti-Xanth logic...  oh, I absolutely agree, scum do screw up.  But think of it this way: the argument against Meeple was that a 2nd vote on Delta was a mistake.  And mistakes come either from players (town or Mafia) who don't think things through enough, or from mafia intentionally trying to guide the lynch in the wrong way.  So there's some logic to hitting on players making unhelpful points.  So if people making townie mistakes are more likely to be scum, people who made scum "mistakes" are less likely to be scum.

Yoshiken: As others have noted, thanks for filling in, first.  Re your question about my earlier stance on Meeple/Xanth... Day1 was a scheduling disaster for me, as you'll note in my posts.  I had time in the morning for a quick defense of my earlier post but not to evaluate others for votes, and when I arrived home we were already in sudden death (when I thought I would be arriving to the last hour of discussion).  The most I got out was that I didn't buy either train and would advocate any other option, but I had no time for much elaboration.

As for what I thought then...  I've actually already covered this in my earlier posts on Day 2, but sure.  Meeple struck me as a random lynch - we were lynching him for a Meeple mistake, not necessarily a scum mistake (i.e. if Meeple had been town, he might well have done the same thing).  That still might be true - we'll have to ask him afterward - but whatever, as Day1 lynches tend to be close to random anyway.  That said, once I had actually gotten home, Meeple had copclaimed and a Meeple lynch went from meh idea -> horrible idea.  Xanth struck me as set upon purely for warning people about his posting style.  Having seen El Cid's comments, I suppose he was also being attacked for not providing enough good content in his posts, but then again that was true of lots of other people.  In general it felt like people were jumping on it for either A) Bad reasons or B) Scummy reasons, i.e. there's a train going so let's lynch Xanth.
---

As for in general....  well, nothing's really developed from the people I'm interested in hearing from in the past few hours, so my suspicions toward the Day1 lynch-Xanth train remain.

[Ranmilia]

"People dropping out" = Ryogo and Strago/Yoshi, as I mentioned, and to a somewhat lesser extent Delta and Snowfire.  I'm virtually certain that at least one of these four is scum, based on Meeple getting lynched.

I think specifically saying I look townie at this point makes Excal look very odd.  Sorry if that was unclear.

[Excal]

Yeesh, Alex, have you already forgotten the conversations we've had about how I think completely at cross directions from you?  The stuff you thrive on puts me to sleep, while my methods of getting stuff done used to be called useless bs back in the less civil days.

Anyways, almost done getting what I need to decide if I'm actually on to something worth posting.

[Excal]

Alright...  let's do this thing.  Not sure how coherant I'll be, but I'm not gonna go down without at least something what looks like a fight.

Starters, I agree with the idea that there was at least one scum member besides Meeple on the Xanth train.  Not sure I believe they were all there, but at least one was.  Tom, if you're listening, that's a large part of the reason why I went with two people, with you as one of them.

So, since who voted for Meeple and Xanth, and when they did it, I drew up a list of post number and person, with a quick summary of why.

Meep vs. Xanth vote counts/timing

Meeple - #4, El Cid - Joke
Xanth - #13, Ryogo - Joke
UnMeep - #20, El Cid - Starting Andy case
Meeple - #25, Bard - Be decisive!
Meeple - #32, Andy - Why did you waffle?
Xanth - #36, Excal - Uncomfortable
Meeple - #39, Rat - Finds him odd
Meeple - #44, El Cid - Break Deadlock
Xanth - #51, Dread Thomas - Xanth must die!
Meeple - #55, Delta - Bad feeling worse for Meeple than Xanth
Xanth - #60, Meeple - I want to live!

The fun thing here is, these votes are spread throughout the day.  And while there's a three hour difference between Andy's vote and my own that tie Xanth and Meep, Meeple doesn't truly wind up in danger until Cid votes, several hours behind that.  After all, there were plenty of people at two votes, and it was possible someone else could have slipped.  Or that there would be a sudden reversal.  It's happened before, and Snowfire was looking like a possible candidate for a time (so much so that I'm actually kind of curious why no votes went his way.  It must have either been because he is scum, or because Xanth looked a better target)

Cid's vote comes with about a day left, which is plenty of time for things to happen.  And which also means that I have a hard time buying the panicking scum theory.  They had time to all be awake and discuss what to do.  At this point, Meeple starts looking for new targets, and then Tom helps push Xanth into a position to stand out with his directed attack.  That's the point where Xanth stands out and we get our stalemate.

Let's face it, Xanth wasn't actually a rival to Meeple until that point.  You also had Snowfire realistically in the running.  However, Xanth had a few advantages Snowfire didn't.  His misfortune was a lot less under his control, as it seems to mostly be a series of misunderstandings and overly aggressive behaviour between him and Cid.  Not only that, but he had two people on him that had given practically nothing in terms of solid argumentation on him, which would serve as good cover.

Finally, there is one more point I'd like to bring forward.

I've noticed that scum like to dichotomise lynch candidates - so that's been a scumtell I watch for. Ie: 'If I had to pick from X/Y' or 'Which of X/Y would you lynch' etc.

However, taking into account how Meep has played previous games, Xanth's actions look a lot worse. So choosing between the two of them, I go with:
##Vote: Xanth

Of course, in that same post he refers to Snow as an unknown despite being in roughly the same position.  But, it certainly wasn't a race between Xanth and Meeple until Tom made it one.  And, in that same post, he showed that he was thinking in that dichotemy he uses as a scum tell when deciding in favour of the non-Meeple candidate, at a crucial point.

[Excal]

Oh, by the by, since I completely forgot to do this.

##Vote: Dread Thomas

[Ranmilia]

Tch.  Unless my count is mistaken, that puts Tom at -1.  Please unvote and do not lynch Tom.  Didn't want to have to do this yet, but I can affirm that he is town for role-related reasons.

[Excal]

.....  well that was a waste of an hour then.

##Unvote: Lucky Tom

[Xanth]

##Unvote: Tom
##Vote: Ryogo

Unless there's another plan, this is the quickest way to put him out of the lead.

[Xanth]

Also yes, I'm around, but doing other stuff with housemates, hence emergency call out but not engaging otherwise.

Not sure why Alex is quite so sure, but shan't push at this point.

[Sierra]

Meeple struck me as a random lynch - we were lynching him for a Meeple mistake, not necessarily a scum mistake (i.e. if Meeple had been town, he might well have done the same thing).

Let me again express my distaste for anyone getting a free pass for "mistakes" just because of who they are. The simple fact that Meeple did turn out to be scum should demonstrate the risk in doing this. Beyond that, however, I find it very worrisome to see the definition of "mistakes" (misunderstandings, misreading something, mixing up who voted for who, forgetting something, little things that anyone can do) expanded to cover genuinely scummy behavior. Meeple's infraction was bad logic--trying to build on a case that didn't really exist. This is why I went after him in the first place, and if this kind of play can get passed off as simple mistakes then I don't know what criteria we have to judge scumminess at all.

As for the "town mistakes" vs. "scum mistakes" section: I do not comprehend. I don't know what else to say to that.

~

Alright, Alex, as for your four suspects? I'm still inclined to discount Delta. His vote put Meeple in the lead at a time when there was seemingly still a tie ("seemingly" because of the Carthrat vote that no one noticed,) so I'm not inclined to think of him as scum right now. If you have a more concrete reason for suspecting him, I'll listen, but I feel he's the least suspicious of your selections. Ryogo has the whole looming-modkill thing going, so I'd rather not use our lynch for him. Yoshi and Snowfire are more viable. I need to reread Strago/Yoshi stuff to have a strong opinion, but statements like the one quoted above are making me a little leery of Snowfire in spite of the fact that him being scum would make yesterday awkward to interpret.

~

Man, we need a fresh voice in this dialogue. Rat-chan, where are you?

[Ranmilia]

Reason?  It's Delta.  Call it metagaming if you will, I guess that's what it is, but "his behavior would be stupid if he was scum" does not clear Delta to me.  SOMETHING dumb went down on the scum side, that much is clear.  I agree he's the least or second least suspicious, though.

It should be noted that I won't be around much later tonight or tomorrow.

I'd still prefer Ryogo lynched, but looming modkill complicates matters.  Gwargh.

[Deltaflyer]

I still fail to see why you see me as a suspicious candidate, Alex, when you have no real evidence to back up the claim you just made.

Reason?  It's Delta.

Honestly, what? I would like to know how you know Eviltom is supposedly town. Role-related reasons does not make you insta-town, and has opened you up to the scum.

...but I can affirm that he is town for role-related reasons...

This 'snippet' of a role-claim should be interesting to watch over the next few days. I want you to give some actual evidence that makes me scum, then I will find you serious enough for a proper debate, instead of metagaming, and trying to draw attention to me. In all honesty, the simple fact is that I have improved enough as a player to actually contribute, instead of sit back and learn how to play.

In my eyes, this has not had a nice effect on Alex's alignment. Personally, I am staying on Eviltom for now, but ##FoS:Sir Alex for now.

[Sierra]

Did some rereading, focusing on the people Alex singled out.

Delta thoughts: Contributions are light given the delayed entry, but I can't find anything to hold against him. And again, pushing Meeple in the lead yesterday speaks in his favor.

Snowfire thoughts: I still can't make heads or tails of him. Mrph.

Strago/Yoshi thoughts: Strago made only one truly substantial post the first day (here: http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?action=post;quote=52528;topic=3003.50;num_replies=144;sesc=ed705112e055e3ea9ad58bf40ae98c77). It's rather noncommittal, agreeing with criticism of Meeple but not going so far as to cast a vote for him. Strago did not have a vote down at the end of the day, making him the only player with this distinction. Possible scum. Yoshiken mainly has the Alex case going for him, which I disagree with but can see coming from a townie.

Right, so, Ryogo. Among his limited material is extremely tentative support for the Meeple train, taking a backseat to Xanth voting. "Defiantly not my #1 lynch candidate right now, but keep a pair of eyes (Or trio, in the case of Blinky) on the man to be safe." In other words, he was ready to vote Meeple later if he had to but would've preferred not to. I find it real easy to read this as scum setting up an insurance policy just in case the tide of the game later made a Meeple lynch unavoidable--if that happened, he could follow through on his earlier "suspicions" and at least get some townie cred out of the situation.

I think it quite likely that Ryogo is scum, but still don't favor using our lynch on someone who might be getting modkilled tonight. Strongly believe that Excal is our best option for today and request everyone's input. There are only four hours or so left in the day and Tom's still in the lead votewise. There are some people we haven't heard from in a while. Aaaaandy, what's up man~

[Xanth]

I really ought to chip in before I head off to sleep, but I'm mostly frustrated at the stagnation but don't have the energy to do anything about it.

On one hand, I believe strongly that town shouldn't waste the lynch on someone who's about to get modkilled anyway (not that that's guaranteed yet anyway).

On the other, I don't buy into any of the others at the moment at this point enough to make it anything better than another crapshoot. Sorry Cid, but Excal keeps on chipping away at my desire to get him lynched (for now, at least). Worse than that, it's for flangey reasons that you won't like, like how his logic would just be writing himself into a corner if he were scum.

A quick check would seem to put it at Tom and Ryogo both on three (please recheck if you want to actually do something), so I'm unwilling to drop my vote on Ryogo to safeguard against Tom getting screwed by inactivity. If there is a good push otherwise, I only hope this doesn't get in the way.

[EvilTom]

Am I supposed to roleclaim now, or are you guys content with Alex's word? Because it seems Delta isn't.

I'll roleclaim if need be, but I'd rather not give scum anything if we don't need to.


I'll post this before I catch up.

[Sierra]

Xanth: Ah, you're correct. I'd miscounted by one. Anyway, things running into sudden death again would be various shades of asdfghjkl, but still better than us limping towards a Tom lynch with only three votes on him, in my opinion. I'd say leave the vote where it is for now.

Tom: Ehhh...I don't think roleclaiming is absolutely necessary just yet (I have a pretty good idea what you'd say anyway). Up to you if you think it's the only way to convince people, though.

[EvilTom]

Cid: Well ok I'll try and avoid it for as long as possible then.
##Unvote Excal
##Vote Ryogo
(For obvious reasons)