Simpsons Mafia GAME OVER - TOWN WIN

[Strago]

RARGLEFUCK

Work is a nightmare this week, everything is a load of rubbishy bollocks; this weekend is my birthday celebration and apparently my friends are organizing a weekend of events for me; I think I ought to be replaced. Soppy?

ARGH ARG ARRRR

[Sierra]

Well, this vote seems pretty pointless now.

##Unvote: Strago

Digesting Xanth vs. Tom stuff right now, figured I'd get this out of the way first.

[Hunter Sopko]

I'll try to find a replacement, but do please keep playing until I do.

Votecount:
Strago (0): Cid
Ryogo (1): Alex
EvilTom (1): Xanth

There are 36 hours left in Day Two.

With 11 alive, it takes 6 to lynch.

[Xanth]

Tom, I appreciate that being tired is going to hamper how much you're able to do, but please don't just cherry pick random points and ignore the rest. I trust that when you do return in the morning you won't have the same trouble, but if you read 'A => B => C => D' but only actually read 'C => D' and reply with 'but C doesn't necessarily follow. What if notB?' there's not really much I can do but point you back to the start.

Rat had everything to gain and nothing to lose from being silent for an extra half hour or so. Once I'd flipped it would be impossible to unflip me, so at worst Meeple would be flipped in addition to me, and without knowing the rulings I'd say at best Meeple may have got to live on.

The bit on Snow works from the basis of townXanth, at which point a theoretical scumSnow would be looking at 'scummate with a cop claim backing him up' and sacrificial townsman to choose between, and he didn't jump on the latter. Meeple/Xanth/Snow all scum is a mess and a half.

Don't wave away my logic for last night as 'who knows what scum could have been doing' when I'm demonstrating how nonsensical it would be for those actions. "Anything's possible" is just a good blanket justification for attacking any position. I patently did not expect to survive (who other than me could have hammered Meeple under those claim circumstances and not been strung up themselves the next day? Unless you are making a ridiculous claim of Meeple/Xanth/Rat all scum, there's no way this position was orchestrated), in which case you should be arguing that I was theoretically trying to sacrifice myself to save Meeple, but my case is that if I was scum then I wouldn't have saved anything and would have gained nothing for it, with really obvious better alternatives available.

Deal with it head on and find an actual hole in it (there could be one! As much as I'd love this to convince people, my logic may easily have faltered somewhere), because so far you're just implying that you think I'm stupid as well as scum.


.

With Strago's position changing again, I'm neatly down to Ryogo, Andy and Excal.

Andy's pretty simple - I had a relatively positive read on him from early on, after which he's just not been around. Go figure I disagree with the strength he calls to me 'drawing a lot of attention to [his] very limited post time' (I haven't and simply won't let anything justify me not posting enough), but otherwise mostly find myself in agreement with his lines of thought. Just with little in total, the concern is simple.

A reread of Ryogo does just seem to generate a weak 'gut' case on me, which was raised above other concerns, in particular those on Meeple. Minor bonus points for being the first on me rather than being a train, but the shallowness of his presence and direction puts him second on my list. Funny how little there is to say there.

Excal just seemed to flip-flop his way through the first day. Checking his posts I was surprised when it went straight from 'I don't have opinions to clarify, it's too early' (here) to 'lower the hammer' (here), as his position by the time of the former was a little bit of metagaming and more gut. Had his final post of content (here) gone out without the edits (in this case, had he posted before I got back) then I'd be far more suspicious on the grounds of it matching expected scum behaviour of trying to get the hammer to fall on me before I could get back to hammer Meeple. Posting it anyway with the edit tagged on at the very least confuses me, if not actually reassure me.

Would really like to hear from all three of them.

So yeah, my train involved three light prods and a nuke. I guess all of the normal arguing [on my case] I remember came from people who didn't actually vote for me.

That's me done for now, I think. Will be around for quite some time if someone needs me. Do tell if I'm steering too close to walls of text.

[Sierra]

Random stuff first:

-Alex! How does Meeple's flip clear Snowfire? I'm just not seeing it, and it weirds me out a little considering that you found Snowfire a major suspect yesterday.

-Fully agree with Alex on Ryogo/Excal. I actually thought Ryogo started out well in the first twenty-four hours or so, but his vanishing act in the second half of day one doesn't do him any favors. He also characterized his reason to vote for Xanth as "mostly gut," and while he did provide a few reasons (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?action=post;quote=52458;topic=3003.25;num_replies=102;sesc=1c9f87e5114829a3a19a2bda5b398055) he also follows these up with some silliness about someone "sneaking in a mislynch" at a time when nobody had more than two votes on them.

~

Xanth vs. Tom stuff (just highlights; they've produced a lot of text between them). Xanth first:

-Everything I've said about his day one posting still stands. In the interest of minimizing wall o' textness, I'll not repeat it all here.

-Still trying to present his willingness to die yesterday as evidence that he's town. I don't buy this. A) It's customary in DL Mafia to let the accused roleclaim before being lynched. Anybody hammering another player before they've had a chance to do this is going to suffer some serious backlash the next day. B) Blithely hammering someone making a copclaim, against the wishes of almost the entire body of players, will incur the same onus regardless of how the copclaim turns out. Your defense that you could've hammered Meeple at any time in the name of survival doesn't fly for these reasons.

Now Tom:

-Hey kid, I'm a computah! Stop all the metagamin'! Seriously Tom, it's alarming how much of your anti-Xanth posting stems from metagaming. I obviously share suspicion of Xanth, but this isn't the way to support it. The following example is particularly egregious:

'Har har, I totally meant to do that!' = sounding pretty lame.
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

I think Meeple's flip should demonstrate why we can't give anyone a free pass for talking nonsense in Mafia. Excusing someone now demonstrated to be scum on such shoddy grounds = doubleplusungood.

-Random quote that bugged me:

[Long quote of Xanth talking about late yesterday stuff.]

That's one possibility, but we're in the dark about what scum was trying to do. Scum could have had a plan to pull you out of the mess - a doublevoter to hammer Meeple after all your heroic theatrics. Anything's possible, so to say that scumXanth wouldn't have acted in such a manner is pretty dicey and gets into WIFOM. I'm not prepared to make such assumptions.

See bolded sentence. I fully agree that Xanth's behavior late yesterday gives a null read, but invoking the possibility of crazy roles being present to debunk him? Don't do this.

-Monomania. It would be awesome if you could analyze a case other than just the first guy to lay a serious vote against you.

Summary: In spite of my misgivings about how Tom's presented his attacks on Xanth, I'm not really getting a scum vibe from him. My primary conclusion from rereading all this stuff is this: in a scenario where both Meeple and Xanth are scum, it would make sense for the scum team to try and push a Xanth lynch through at the last minute in order to save their power role instead (minimizing losses in a lose-lose scenario), but it would not make sense for the scum team to have started the Xanth train in the first place. Thus, I'm inclined to consider that if Xanth is scum then the early votes for him likely aren't; and vice versa. The fact that the first votes on Xanth were by people I'm starting to suspect by virtue of their coasting hardcore (Ryogo/Excal) makes this very interesting indeed, so I believe I'll follow Alex's lead for now. Thus:

##Vote: Ryogo

[Ranmilia]

-Alex! How does Meeple's flip clear Snowfire? I'm just not seeing it, and it weirds me out a little considering that you found Snowfire a major suspect yesterday.

If Meeple+Snowfire were scum, Snow would have no reason to refrain from hammering Xanth in sudden death, and would have had every reason earlier to get a vote down somewhere and try to roll with a train that wasn't Meeple.  OR be on or "mistakenly" hammer Meeple for town cred.  What he did do strikes me as the least likely course of action if he were Meeple's scum buddy.  Unless we're dealing with the least coordinated scum team ever...

.... which is a possibility I would ascribe only if Delta is somehow involved.  The possibilities Xanth points out as clearing Delta are exactly why I remain uneasy about Delta.

But I'm not so hot on Xanth either.  I don't buy him being cleared by day 1 at all, and his pressing the case that he is and trying to wrap all his arguments around that make me less comfortable with him.  It remains entirely possible to me that BOTH Meeple and Xanth are scum and just dropped the ball day 1.  When we're talking about two scum in sudden death, where one of them has to die, I wouldn't put any sort of gambit past them.

That said I agree with Cid re: Tom's arguments.  Tom, buddy, pour some chill sauce on it and look around.

[Excal]

Alright, quick post.

Xanth, my reasons for wanting sudden death over quickly was because we had a cop claim on the table, and because if you were scum, you'd want to hit that hard, lie or not.  Granted...  the way things turned out horribly screwed up my expectations, but you showing up and not hammering while I posted that really did throw me for a loop.

As for outlook...  honestly, I have a hard time seeing a vote on Meeple being a bus vote, so I'm going to ignore those folks for right now.  Especially since one of those votes is probably the person I have the strongest pro-town feeling for right now.  Sadly, Strago, after a good re-read, felt very solid to me as well, but he's out of the loop at present.

Xanth...  Rereading him and going over the sudden death, my worries have receeded a bit, and there are definatly better folks to go after now.

Sadly, since getting up, I've been other work, so not sure where I sit on Ryogo/Tom, and which one makes a better target.  But, the only other folks who didn't vote Meep were Alex, Snowfire, myself.  Alex has been playing a good game for town, and I've got nothing on him.  Case on self is haha no.  And snow...  the only case in which he's scum and it makes sense is if he's scumbuddies with Meep/Xanth.  In which case, not only does the attempt to deflect from either make sense, but also there's the fact that he could sit back, let Alex hammer as he claimed he intended to, and not get called overmuch on it, cause hey, we got scum!  I don't think that's likely, but it's there.

Though, one question, Snow.  Who would you have wanted us to switch to instead of those two?

I have other things to do right now that require thought, so...  yeah.  Especially since the difference between the two is Ryogo's less solid points (which I admit are kind of like mine), or Tom's sudden attack.

[AndrewRogue]

Ryogo: Well. Everything that needs be said here has been said here. Posted a little bit and has since fallen off the face of the earth.

Xanth: The theatrics yesterday were fairly nice, but... yeah. They really weren't so grand. When you are in that situation, it is a pretty forgone conclusion that you are going to die and hammering a copclaim like that, especially without town support, would look pretty damn bad even if Meeple flipped scum. Your end day actions also confuse me slightly. You don't swing a vote onto Meeple even as time wears down, you don't make a faint gesture at a claim and you don't... really do much to make it look like you intend to try and survive at all, even before we got to Sudden Death.  I realize there were a few hours in there but, even anticipating that you wouldn't be back in time, you really didn't do anything to try and preserve yourself, which sends up all sorts of red flags to me.

EvilTom: Is absolutely dogged in his pursuit of Xanth. Like, we're only paying attention to one suspect and occasionally defending ourselves dogged. Combine with a lot of metagaming and some slightly... out there... theories and I'm not really sold on him at all. This sort of single-minded assault, at the very least, is not very good for us in general.

##Vote: EvilTom

While there is merit in making sure your case gets heard and argued and addressed... you're putting on blinders here. You've barely addressed anyone else in game, aside from a few words here or there. So yeah. It feels like a way to give yourself a lot of posting cred and look like a strong scumhunter without actually doing much of either. Let's see you branch out a bit.

[SnowFire]

From Xanth: Likewise for unbelievable scum plays, Rat is now all but cleared in my head, for bringing the extra vote to light not long before someone (probably SnowFire or Alex) would have had to drop the extra vote on me, when staying silent would have served him.

I have to agree with EvilTom on this one - this was a housekeeping issue that I can see not lying on regardless, lying about the earlier vote would be a horrible risk if somebody ever reread the thread especially if Meeple was later proven scum, and furthermore theoretical-scum-Rat might have thought that his switch to Xanth after the cop-claim would go through since the way Sopko would adjudicate was not obvious in advance.  Which is not to say I suspect Rat that much - he still gets some minor credit for being on the Meeple train - but I don't think much can be read from his sudden death post, which made sense for both scumRat and townRat.

From Excal: Though, one question, Snow.  Who would you have wanted us to switch to instead of those two?

Stepping back into Day1 mode... I wanted to lynch EvilTom then, too.  By the time I read up, Meeple had copclaimed, and I didn't find the earlier case against him very persuasive anyway.  Xanth's train struck me as artificial and weird (though this is admittedly influenced by the fact that I don't buy the arguments), which was more suspicious; Meeple's train struck me at the time as well-intentioned but likely wrong, even if it hit paydirt.  Why EvilTom specifically?  Because he already had a vote on him from Xanth, and I wanted to pick somebody who we could theoretically get votes moved to fast.  Though it ended up being futile.  (And, in retrospect, luckily so.)

Anyway.  Continuing on this train of thought, I agree with Sir Alex and El Cideon's suspicions...  it seems pretty likely that at least some scum would want in on the Xanth train.  One of which was obviously Meeple himself.  So that means Ryogo and Excal get the lurking gaze of suspicion with EvilTom.  Will probably drop a vote on one of those three depending on what they have to say.

[Deltaflyer]

Yay. Weekend. Feelings of joy.

*cough*

The way I see things now.

Ryogo, post or I do believe Sopko will modkill you. No point voting for him because a modkill will do just that.

Eviltom seems to have the same problem that Snow had against ET. He is obsessed with Xanth. Although, with that said, Andrew made a valid point.

Xanth, why did you not attempt to preserve your life at the end of day one? You seemed to have logged on, seen sudden death and just given up hope? Shed some light on this for us, can you?

Eviltom, can you please explain why you persist on Xanth, with more metagaming points than actual ones?

##VOTE:Eviltom

Ryogo, as I said, can and most likely will be dealt with via modkill unless he shows up soon.

Excal needs to post more. I haven't seen much from him yet, same goes for Rat.

I am mostly getting nice, towny vibes from other players. El Cid and Alex appear most likely townies in my opinion right now.

[Hunter Sopko]

Yoshiken has agreed to take Strago's place in the game.

Votecount:
Strago (0): Cid
Ryogo (2): Alex, Cid
EvilTom (3): Xanth, Andy, Delta

There are 29 hours left in Day Two.

With 11 alive, it takes 6 to lynch.

[EvilTom]

Uh, I'm not obsessed with Xanth. I pointed out that Rat isn't cleared - despite what Xanth would have us believe. I pointed out that Xanth isn't cleared despite Meeple flipping scum.
I pointed out massive holes in Xanth's logic. I didn't even vote him, as I'm not done looking around at other people yet :\

Andrew - 'dogged in my pursuit' - does it look that way? More that he said a bunch of things I disagreed with at the start of day 2, right before I went to sleep, so I didn't have time to look at other people.


Delta - you seem pretty eager to leap onto the back of Andrew's post, without providing anything other than "Yeah, Eviltom! WHY!?"
Delta, I've explained my problems with Xanth's logic, but it looks like you're all too intent to just follow what other people are saying, and throw down a vote so easily.

Eviltom, can you please explain why you persist on Xanth, with more metagaming points than actual ones?

Why shouldn't I point out problems in Xanth's logic? He tried to clear Rat based on metagame (which was wrong) - the only way to counter that is with metagame.
Delta's blanket generalised statement and eagerness to throw down a vote here is really concerning.
Especially since he acknowledges there are problems with Xanth (but only after Andrew says it :|, the only difference is that I said it with metagame, Andrew said it with DL metagame.)

##Vote: Delta, what's your reasoning here Delta?

[Carthrat]

Meeple's flip DID give Xanth town points to me, if only because it is so very unlikely that both trains were scum. What I don't like about him right now is..

Very briefly on Delta:
scumDelta + townXanth => Delta pushed teammate crucially ahead when he had free rein to drop it on a townsman instead.
And in the likely case that people won't let me off easily:
scumDelta + scumXanth => hilariously poor teamwork that gets in each other's way all over the place and seemingly no effort made into railing on to a townsman, other than Xanth re:Tom.

Making sure to clear someone under the assumption that they're you're scumbuddy as well as if you're town boggles the mind. Not sure why you point that out, please explain.

<->

DT's style of posting seems to be out to remind us that anyone could be scum. He spends more time telling us that people aren't confirmed town than who he thinks is likely on the scum side. There are plenty of other people who have come up with a few people they think are very likely town, and given less reason beside- why does Xanth garner more attention?

Why shouldn't I point out problems in Xanth's logic? He tried to clear Rat based on metagame (which was wrong) - the only way to counter that is with metagame.

Actually that wasn't metagaming you were pointing out, even given the circumstances. That is going 'hmm if Rat was scum, what is the best possible action for him here?', which is a question people should ask themselves about others fairly constantly (even if I am totally an upright citizen and would never try and cheat through the rules like that.) It is also worth noting that you outright cleared Meeple on day 1 based on metagaming yourself.

The OMGUS is also ridiculously strong with DT.

<->

Agreed that Snowfire is probably town, yada yada. Most other people, anything is possible. Too much respect for most players here to think they can't talk a good day one and be on either side. Strago's replacement is obviously a mystery. Most other people are hovering around some middle ground.

I am pretty anti-Ryogo right now, since the last major post he made before vanishing tagged Xanth whilst pseudo-FOSing Meeple, highlighting him as a case whilst going 'but I don't really believe it'. The amount he had to say on lurking mid-day-one is also pretty suspect, since it seemed to me like he was padding out his posts with anti-lurk ranting. (It is ironic that I'm going to vote him now in part because he isn't around, yes.)

##Vote: Ryogo

[Yoshiken]

Seeing as I'm the new guy in this, I guess I'll start by posting my views on things as they stand...
Oh, and I'll say now - I started writing this at around 2am here, so forgive anything I might've missed or any spelling/grammar errors.

Rat - Hard to say... Looking over the past few pages, there seem to have been no accusations against you past the first page of "Hasn't posted much". I'd be interested in knowing why everyone else has kinda brushed past as though there's nothing to look at here. Neutral until further notice.
Cid/Xanth - Easily the two most aggressive players, from what I can see. Instinct says Town for both, but I'm not gonna just trust that. I'm gonna watch things a little more here, but so far, staying neutral. (Although, for Xanth, I have to agree with Andy in that doing nothing about nearly being killed almost seems a little too friendly, if that makes sense.)
Delta - Instinct says Scum, but, as said before, not relying on that. Attacked both Meeple & Xanth in Day1, and seem to be attacking anyone who focuses on one particular person, seemingly regardless of whether it's justified or not. Neutral, ignoring instinct.
Ryogo - ...Nothing of relevance said, really. Can't say much unless we have a sudden return.
Tom - You seem very much against Xanth, that much can't be denied. But, outside of focusing on him, I can't really see much to say Scum here... I'm leaning Town, but only slightly.
Alex - I'm somewhat suspicious of your Day1 voting... You quite actively defended Meeple repeatedly, trying to shift the blame onto Xanth during this whole time. It's a little shaky, but probably most likely at this stage, in my eyes. Leaning Scum.
Andy - First few pages give no bad impressions. Current vote seems like it's almost through sheer lack of anything else - do you actually think Tom's Scum or is it just that he's not helping Town either way?
Excal - Hmm, nothing really solid either way, but I'm leaning towards Town.
Snow - Tough. The first few pages seem quite suspicious, but that slowly fades over the last few...  Overall, I'm pretty neutral at the moment.

With all that said, I'm gonna have to say:
##Vote: Alex
Seems the most likely to be Scum in my eyes so far. I'll have to see if/how that changes, though.

[AndrewRogue]

Tom: All things considered, you've devoted far more time to attacking Xanth then... well. Anything else thus far. Even your explanation for how you aren't obsessing over Xanth... seems to mention Xanth an awful lot. While I realize you say you aren't through looking at everyone yet... well. I'd like to see some delivery on that.

Yoshi: I'm actually inclined to say I'm thinking Tom is potential scum. The thing about Tom that is blowing me away right now is that almost his entire body of text is devoted to Xanth and Xanth related topics. He has an odd or an end here or there, but that's all. It makes the amount of stuff he's put out there look solid and certainly paints him as a good little townie... until you realize that he's not really done that much at all. It could be single-minded scum hunting, but there is definitely scum potential there.

Delta: Kinda piggybacking onto everyone else right now. Between Xanth and Tom, who do you feel is more likely to be scum at this point? What about Alex strikes you as particularly townie at the moment? Add a little more, if you could.

[Deltaflyer]

Grrr. I spent 45 minutes on the post I was going to make here. Twice. I'll post later when I am less pissed off at the stupid internet.

[Xanth]

Hey there Yoshiken, major kudos for filling the slot.

Your defense that you could've hammered Meeple at any time in the name of survival doesn't fly for these reasons.

I made no such defence, or at least did not rely on this (later thought: hmm, Andy later makes a similar argument about the hammer, so there seems to be something to people starting there). That I had the power to hammer Meeple (well, that it looked like I had the power) was key to why I would expect scum to have wanted me offed quickly, which is unrelated. My defence is that the actions I took would have been strictly worse than other actions had I been scum. If I was scum and Meeple was town, then there would be absolutely no point in me turning up and docilely accepting my death - at worst I hammer to kill the cop claim (who in this scenario probably is the cop), look incredibly guilty and waste the next day of the game dealing with me. Sitting back gives town an extra day and ties scum down for at least one night worrying about the cop. Yes? Okay, now get back to the premise of both myself and Meeple being scum. I show up, docilely accept my death and flip scum. People boggle, go through the above thought process and wonder why I didn't hammer the cop claim. Given that Meeple actually isn't the cop, he goes back under the grill far worse than he would have otherwise. No gain, very likely two down very quickly, or at least tied.

Consider this next to the plan of me simply not showing up again, one of the standard scum damage control plans. I inevitably get the hammer vote anyway, and make no more connection to Meeple. Sure, Meeple would still have a lot to answer for and wouldn't just magically get away, but it would have been strictly better than me making a song and dance about it. Also yes, I would claim that me showing up and immediately hammering Meeple would also have been a better plan if we were scumbuddies than what I did, but it's of less interest.


Alex: I see convincing evidence that supports me, so see no reason not to push it. I'm unsurprised that people are skeptical and naturally assume there must be holes, but until someone actually finds one (as I say, it's entirely possible) instead of just waves it off, I will stand by it. I just don't care so much at the moment because I'm not getting the heat I was expecting, so something else has already served its purpose for now.

Xanth, why did you not attempt to preserve your life at the end of day one? You seemed to have logged on, seen sudden death and just given up hope? Shed some light on this for us, can you?

I point you back to the start of the chain. My rival for the chopping block blurted out a cop claim. I had no way of matching that, and as the good little townie boy that I am decided to play in town's best interests rather than my own and weighed it was better to keep the cop claim, who probably actually was the cop, or would be lying scum getting tied down otherwise. Especially when I was taking a lot of flak already as well, where saving my own hide would just waste lots more flak on me the next day as well.

Making sure to clear someone under the assumption that they're you're scumbuddy as well as if you're town boggles the mind. Not sure why you point that out, please explain.

Just because I can disregard that case doesn't mean everyone else will. If I think Delta is town and can argue it independent of my position then that's surely more likely to sway people than covering what is to them just some of the possibilities. I'm not trying to convince myself, after all.


That's quite enough about myself now. Separate post for actually productive stuff.

[Deltaflyer]

Okay, now that I am suitably calm again, lets do this.

ET, your metagaming and your single-minded endeavour to get Xanth lynched worries me. You do not appear to have given serious consideration to anyone else yet. Examples of your behaviour:
(Important parts bolded)

...That's a really odd thing to say, considering previous track record, both overall here at the DL, and on this very page. Posting 3 times in the first 21 posts of the game - 1/7, a lot more than others. The evidence contradicts what you say. This is only important in that you could be setting yourself up with an excuse for lurking later, but I don't see it as a big thing...

On the first bolded piece, you attempt to use meta-gaming knowledge against Xanth, this set alarm bells ringing in my mind, but Meeple was more important at that time. In the second piece, you seem to appear to try and state that he is lurking or setting himself up for lurking later, however, in the same sentence you state that it is no big problem.

Quote 2:

...I agree with both these positions, but I go a step further and combine them. Xanth is usually pretty pro-town...

This was in the same post, your third point. Again, you use examples from other games to state that Xanth is town, however your entire post appears to be centered around accusation, not defense.

Delta - you seem pretty eager to leap onto the back of Andrew's post, without providing anything other than "Yeah, Eviltom! WHY!?"

The reason I agreed with Andrew is because when I looked at his post, it swayed me and I saw things from that perspective, I do agree. I voted for you, since at the moment you are not helping us very much, and I wanted to give you a wake-up call. I will keep my vote there for the time being, since I have seen nothing much of true analysis from you about other players. It is rather annoying, when instead of being single-minded, all you have to do is put some thoughts in on the other players.

Okay then.

Other people:

Xanth - Has made some mistakes during day one, but appears to have become more active and helpful over the last page or so. Mostly neutral on him.

Alex - Somewhat alarming, with his defense of Meeple in Day one:

...I'm not in support of a Meeple lynch at all.  The whole discussion about him still seems to revolve around him voting Delta, which is something I can actually see as more likely to come from town than scum...

Although it may have simply been town feeling sorry somewhat for Meeple, there are possibilities. On the fence for this one.

Rat - Seems to be pro-town, even with a bit of inactivity, but is making good points.

Andrew - Again, mostly pro-town, however seems to be a bit peeved with me for agreeing with him.

Yoshiken - Welcome to the game, seems to have done just a little bit of analysis first off, would like some more substantial arguements however, quotes, examples etc.

Snow - A few cock-ups in Day one lowered most people's beliefs of him, I can't really comment on Snow. Seems to be neutral in the ET / Xanth discussion, making points for both players.

El Cid - Contributing positively, appears most likely town right now to me.

Excal - Post more. NAO. Has made a few quick little posts, but appears to have no real stance as of yet. Maybe scummy lurker. Leaning to scum side of the fence on him.

Ryogo - Don't get me started. I want his views on Day one, never mind Day two right now. Just post. Please?

Okay, I've said my piece now. Peace.

Ninja'd by Xanth.

I can see why you didn't defend yourself now, but being so defeatist does still leave a mark on your rep for this game. Thanks for the explanation though.

[Xanth]

Nothing new can really be said on Ryogo given the continued absence other than hoping that he's all right. It has now been notably over two whole days since his last post here, so I'm really looking to see if we're going to get a ruling on the matter. Having said that, there are no explicit deadlines for lurking in the first post in the thread.


Tom and I continue to point fingers strongly at each other without actually listening to the other. I've already said my bit on him more than once, so I'm not going to do this one man tango again. If you have any particular questions ask and I will reply. Seconding that his vote on Delta reads as almost entirely OMGUS.


Now that Strago->Yoshiken has become relevant, a review on Strago: before context comes into play, I'm not seeing him nearly as positive as a few others were. A grand total of one post of note, which was very late into the day. I'm liking what I see there, with bonus points for ragging on Meeple at a point where momentum was ripe for attacking me instead, but negatives for coasting until quite so late on in the first place. Given the context of being busy and all it does now read in retrospect as a well-meaning townsman who just didn't have the time to flex his might as we would have liked.

No real read on Yoshiken so far, but happy with the effort put in to catch up quickly. No prodding required there at all, by the looks of it, so long as he doesn't try to outlast any grace period.


Excal's doing a good job of reducing my suspicions of him, as he's doing a good job of painting himself into a corner otherwise. Logic generally agreed with, and I should apologise - just because I would expect scum to act in that way at that time doesn't mean it would be out of the question for town, and while I knew that at the time I didn't make it clear and say it. Whilst I would have been paying incredibly close attention to you had you posted the warning earlier and unadulterated, posting it with 'edit: okay, there goes that theory' is more likely town than scum in my head anyway.

Has responded positively today, unlike Tom (negatively) and Ryogo (not at all), so is at least on the back burner for now.


Snow: you don't have a vote down, with only mega-lurker Ryogo matching that feat. I'm feeling pretty damn good about you so far, but you should be comparing what your suspects have already done rather than losing half of a game day waiting for more information. In any case, you have more information now anyway, so I hope that's your last stumbling block.


Andy has removed my worry over low presence. Only possible concern is that he's only talked about a fraction of the player base today. I realise that this is probably because you have nothing earth-shattering to say about anyone else, but can I ask for at least a surface sweep on the others? (Oh, and I seem to have missed out responding to your concerns in my previous post, despite referencing it. My lack of a vote for Meeple before I left a handful of hours before the end of the game was a poor calculation caused by underestimating just how turgidly slow that day one was, resulting in a rather optimistic hope that I'd be stimulating discussion if I didn't close options off quite so 'early'.)


I think everyone else has otherwise maintained my views in them. I think the push from this point is really dependent on the conclusion of the whole absence of Ryogo thing, so I want to see that happen soon.


Delta ninja: I wouldn't call it defeatist. Greater good and all that. But never mind.

[EvilTom]

So is Ryogo getting replaced/modkilled? Anyway.
It looks like I may have been wrong about Xanth. I was initially suspicious because he hadn't been doing a lot, but he's clearly trying a lot harder now, and earning some town cred. And I decided to stop pointing fingers and start listening >.>
Delta - fair enough. Answers my question. ##unovte Delta

Scanning for other possible scum... I notice Excal has posted freakishly little content. His recent post http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=3003.100 is really the first one that has content. So on closer inspection, it's mostly full of meta, but one bit:

Sadly, since getting up, I've been other work, so not sure where I sit on Ryogo/Tom, and which one makes a better target.  But, the only other folks who didn't vote Meep were Alex, Snowfire, myself.

Why am I paired with Ryogo? Why is Ryogo even a lynch candidate for you Excal? AFAIK there hasn't been word of mod.
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.
It seems really really weird to say "who should be lynched, EvilTom or the guy who isn't here and might be replaced/modkilled?"

So yeah, that's pretty scummy, looking for explanation there. And also scummyness for low presence, low content.

##Vote Excal

[Sierra]

First off: Ryogo's been idle for over twenty-four hours now. This is beginning to exceed lurker territory. Mod: any idea on Ryogo's status?

~

Your defense that you could've hammered Meeple at any time in the name of survival doesn't fly for these reasons.

I made no such defence, or at least did not rely on this (later thought: hmm, Andy later makes a similar argument about the hammer, so there seems to be something to people starting there).

Actually, you've used this in your defense several times. You're right in that you've never outright said, "I didn't hammer Meeple, therefore I am Town," but based on the increasingly convoluted logic you've been using to try and exonerate yourself on account of your final day one posts, it is very easy to come away with this impression. Notable selections:

As much as some people are reading yesterday's last minute circumstances as at best neutral for me, I will at least try to argue for my sake that if I was scum looking for damage control then that was a really bad course of action for me, because if I was lynched (and I hope everyone at least agrees I was expecting to get lynched) and flipped scum then people would boggle as to why I didn't just hammer Meeple and at worst get lynched the next day instead, which would lead to people working out Meeple's fake claim much quicker (and wouldn't risk the actual cop). No gain anywhere. The correct course of action in that case would have been for me to remain silent and just naturally gain the next vote, as really would have happened with the cop claim. My own farewells make no sense if I then flipped scum, but I won't make a big deal out of that.

Which brings me to the rather interesting time frame of the 'sudden death' last night. Given that my vote wasn't down on Meeple, I'm surprised that team scum would not be more afraid about my ability to invoke survivalism to kill their teammate regardless of the claim, especially when I'd made it pretty clear that I'd be returning quite shortly after the deadline. I'd expect scum with the power to do so to have used the perfectly reasonable excuse of 'putting the hammer down before Xanth gets the time to hammer the copclaim', so I'm inclined to believe more in those who could but didn't, which mostly throws up the people already covered one way or another - Bardiche, Snowfire and Cid. Alex also gains some credit even though he announced an intent to hammer, because again he could have just said that the rest could wait until the start of day two if he was scum worried about my impending return (it's not like he would have taken flak for making Snowfire wait).

Don't wave away my logic for last night as 'who knows what scum could have been doing' when I'm demonstrating how nonsensical it would be for those actions. "Anything's possible" is just a good blanket justification for attacking any position. I patently did not expect to survive (who other than me could have hammered Meeple under those claim circumstances and not been strung up themselves the next day? Unless you are making a ridiculous claim of Meeple/Xanth/Rat all scum, there's no way this position was orchestrated), in which case you should be arguing that I was theoretically trying to sacrifice myself to save Meeple, but my case is that if I was scum then I wouldn't have saved anything and would have gained nothing for it, with really obvious better alternatives available.

Throughout all of these posts is a frustrating willingness to ignore a simple fact of DL Mafia: hammering someone when there's still lively discussion going on looks bad regardless of who's doing it, and this alone is simple enough to explain why the various theories posited in the above paragraphs didn't actually happen. You repeatedly suggest that the simple fact of you or someone else not doing something impulsive means that you're town. That's not what it means it all. It just demonstrates a working knowledge of the dynamics of DL mafia and a lack of suicidal impulses, which are not exactly alignment-specific traits. You overlook this time and again in order to paint yourself in the best possible light. This defense has become very tiresome and I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't meant in part to distract from your posting prior to sudden death (as this was mostly fluff).

Andy also raises a very good point: you never made a roleclaim or even offered to do so despite giving every outward appearance of being ready to die. Given that it's almost an accident that Meeple got lynched yesterday instead of you, this seems very odd to me. Explanation, please?

~

Need to look at recent posts from Delta and Yoshi since I don't have a strong impression of them at present. So, more to come.

[Sierra]

Meeple's flip DID give Xanth town points to me, if only because it is so very unlikely that both trains were scum.

Invoking probability, Rat? I must point out that statistically unlikely =/= impossible. It's also not really relevant because we don't pick lynches by drawing lots

Nevertheless, I agree with your observations immediately following the above quote. Xanth spends an alarming amount of time saying "If I was scum, I would/wouldn't do this."

~

Note for Tom: I should reiterate that it was the singlemindedness with which you pursued Xanth that bothered me, not the simple fact that you were attacking him; wasn't demanding that you drop the matter altogether, just pointing out that it would be more constructive to diversify. I say this now because it bothers me how easily people are letting Xanth slide for a lackluster day one and his rather tortuous self-defense posts from today. In fact--

Note for Snowfire: You've been an opponent of any case against Xanth since day one, but I can't recall seeing any justification more involved than "I just don't buy it." I continue to be bothered by this much trust being placed in another player from early on in the game. Can you please explain your reasoning?

~

Casual read of Yoshipost mostly leaves me wondering if he has more on Alex than just his stance on Meeple vs. Xanth yesterday. Elaborate, Yoshi?

~

Breakdown of where I see people right now:

Xanth/Ryogo/Excal: Most notable suspects.

Snowfire/Delta/Andy: Not really a concern at present. I buy AlexRat's explanations for Snowfire and for now at least I'm inclined to overlook Delta and Andy for their early Meeple votes.

Yoshi/Tom: No strong read either way. Some misgivings about their logic but not enough to make them read as scum. Case against Tom in particular seems overblown and not enough for a lynch today; he has excesses worth chiding him for but not ones that read as scum to me.

Rat/Alex: Pretty towny, haven't found much I can hold against them.

[Hunter Sopko]

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.

Votecount:
Strago (0): Cid
Ryogo (3): Alex, Cid, Rat
EvilTom (3): Xanth, Andy, Delta
Delta (0): EvilTom
Alex (1): Yoshiken
Excal (1): EvilTom

There are 12 hours left in Day Two.

With 11 alive, it takes 6 to lynch.

[SnowFire]

General maintenance note: I guess it is the weekend.  I hate to be the extension guy, but any thoughts on an extension to give our missing players time to catch up (or the same for their replacements)?  (An extension not for my sake this time!)

Delta: I most certainly am not neutral in the Xanth / EvilTom debate; as noted before, I buy Xanth's towniness and am suspicious of EvilTom for, if for no other reason, him ringleading the "not-Meeple" train on Day1.  You're probably referring to one point on which I agreed with Tom over Xanth, that of how "towny" Carthrat is.

El Cideon: Yeah, my apologies, you needled me about that before and I missed adding it to my reply.  To clarify: Xanth is not "cleared" in my book, like he would if a confirmed cop said so or he'd done something like, well, what you did in Mai-Hime mafia (lead a train from nowhere against the Godfather when plenty of other cases existed).  However he's certainly in the top 3 towniest list for me.  I suppose grilling him is all well and good, but I certainly would be quite opposed to spending a valuable lynch on such a candidate.

I mostly agree with logic that Xanth and others have put forward on this, but I suppose you want to hear it in my own words.  The initial train against Xanth had one of its main salient points "Xanth said he can't post that much, but we know that can't be true!"  This is just silly.  Times change, and attacking him for something like that strikes me as the bad kind of metagaming.  I'm not sure it's even effective metagaming either since it's so likely it could be legitimate.  And when the lynch time came - basically see Xanth's logic.  Xanth sits there claiming town and going down for the greater good and OMG he flipped scum and did not hammer the cop when he could have?!  Why on earth would mafia pass up the chance to, at worst, trade one of their own for the cop (since Xanth would surely have been lynched round 2)?  Assuming that Meeple was not a COMPLETE newbie who was a townie doing the false copclaim, the possibilities are basically only: Meeple was scum.

Xanth: I was hoping that Excal / Ryogo would show up so I could assess them better and knew I could get online today to vote.   Since dropping a vote on a lurker would be questionably productive...

## VOTE: EvilTom

[Yoshiken]

The main problem wasn't merely his stance of pro-Meeple, anti-Xanth, but more the approach he took to these stances. For example:

Rant goes here about how Meeple and Snowfire did the exact same thing today, except Meeple admitted he was wrong and tried to get away while Snowfire just walked off whistling and everyone ignored it.  What in the heck, people.

I'm simply seeing this as trying to draw attention from Meep to Snow which, assuming scumAlex, would be beneficial regardless of Snow's alignment due to Rolecop, and if townAlex, would have been a really blind move - too much trust for Day1, especially with us now knowing Meep was scum.

Excal, Ryogo and to some extent Delta are giving me bad vibes right now.  The first two obviously were on the not-Meeple trains early and didn't want to switch.  In less tangible terms, I went "Wait, Excal's in this game?" when he posted in sudden death, and am still going "Wait, Ryogo's in this game?" right now.  That's enough for me to lay one down on him here.

##Vote: Ryogo

Delta, well, straight up, Delta is Delta, day 1 scum lynches are pretty weird, and Delta on a scum team is one of the ways I can see them happening.  We aren't really likely to get much out of him no matter what, though.  So hm.

This seems very odd to me indeed. This sort of voting is the exact reason Meeple went in Day1, yet he then goes on to do the exact same? This either strikes me as a huge mistake or a double bluff. I'm also interested in knowing why Delta being scum would mean scum gets lynched.

If Meeple+Snowfire were scum, Snow would have no reason to refrain from hammering Xanth in sudden death, and would have had every reason earlier to get a vote down somewhere and try to roll with a train that wasn't Meeple.  OR be on or "mistakenly" hammer Meeple for town cred.  What he did do strikes me as the least likely course of action if he were Meeple's scum buddy.  Unless we're dealing with the least coordinated scum team ever...

.... which is a possibility I would ascribe only if Delta is somehow involved.  The possibilities Xanth points out as clearing Delta are exactly why I remain uneasy about Delta.

Now this is interesting. Let's see... Looking over Snow's posts from Pages 2 & 3, there is not even a single mention of the Meeple/Xanth situation. So, if he were scum and then suddenly hammers Xanth, wouldn't that just raise suspicion? But then, if he hammers Meeple, he risks taking out an ally when there's a chance of townXanth going. If scumXanth, we aren't certain if Xanth has a role, which could be more helpful for scum. So, overall, seems like suspicion on Snow is still possible by this logic, which makes me wonder again why you suddenly turned to the inactives.
Same as above quote with the Delta thing, too. Something I've missed?

And, just to finish off...

- 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.

tl;dr - Alex's logic for townSnow is majorly flawed, and he seems to be doing the same thing Meeple did. Double bluff?

ninja'd by Snow: I'm interested in knowing where you stood on Xanth/Meeple at Day1. I know you say townXanth now, but did you think that then, and did you think townMeeple?