I can easily say this is my worst game ever, and I definitely should have given a second thought to joining the game on my schedule, but now isn't the time to get emo or make excuses. Lets see if I can't work some magic.
I've been giving this a lot of thought, but I'm more convinced than ever in this line of reasoning. I've hesitated on it, but it follows something I think people have kind of been missing:
Lurking is not scum's only strategy.
If all scum are active, LAL becomes one of their best options.
Scum can make completely reasonable and legitimate arguments too, especially when it's following as simple a logic and hallowed Mafia rule as LAL.
With Houllihan gone, that leaves myself as the only person who's generally been considered a lurker left in the game. Since I know I'm not scum, I know it has to be one of the active people. Who has been pushing LAL the hardest? Well, obvious answer there is Mai. In this situation, who benefits the most from LAL? Scum. The utter confidence always present in Mai's tone belies the results she's achieved so far. Are their methods sound? Yes. So apart from bad/unlucky play, what else can you really attribute it to at this point? She's targeting townies on purpose, since she's scum. That said, I don't know what to make of her Day 1 vote, but considering how long before the clusterfuck happened she laid it, it could be anything so I can't really hold it over her one way or another. Just adding again that she did leave for the rest of the day.
Pretty much been directing town all game. This first post from Day 2
wails on me for a bit, then demands to know why I hadn't considered Leia as a lurker poster, setting her next post:
where she jumps easily onto the LAL case for Leia.
As for a partner, leaning Tanaka. An inactive town allows scum to end the day in the interest of promoting discussion the next day. I can't fault the reasoning, but Tanaka ending the day when he did while things were starting to swing towards Mai didn't sit well with me. Mai did the same thing yesterday, but things were more cut and dry, and I can't fault the reasoning on that one. However, given the results I have to consider this.
I haven't really been able to get a solid handle on Li since I dropped my case on him Day 2. (And yes, Li, you're right in that it was supposed to be Tanaka instead of Tohsaka in that post. Got them confused). The only thing I can say is about the last post he made... YOU were one of those two votes on Mai at the time Tanaka hammered. If you think that Leia was a forgone conclusion at that point and thought she was a better lynch than Leia at the time... why weren't YOU more concerned about the timing of Tanaka's hammer, especially when Maya had ALSO just voted Mai before you and there WAS momentum shifting? This makes your own accusation:
No answer was given by Tanaka, no 'crap wrong name' from Helga, making this look like a by-the-motions effort to accuse a buddy. Plus she calls him out for the D2 hammer saying 'WHY DID YOU LYNCH LEIA MAI WAS ONLY AT TWO VOTES oh by the way vote mai', when really there wasn't much chance of a non-Leia lynch happening anyway. No-one would have held it against him, so it feels forced.
look bad for YOU, not me. Why vote if you don't care? Why not cast the hammer yourself if you're not going to be concerned with how it ends? On second thought, he's starting to rise over Tanaka...
Tron... I can't say anything bad about. I DID go over Maya's case on her like I said I would (which I still maintain is just doing your duty as a townie), but I agree that Maya was offbase on it.
Mai >> Li >= Tanaka >>> Tron for me at the moment.
Forgive the bad link tags in the Mai case. I forgot how to do the url links.