Composer Battle Is Go! THE TREBLE CLEF IS YOUR DOOM!

[Otter]

I don't have all that much to add, but I feel obliged to check in because I haven't for a while.  Say I'm post-padding if you want, but I don't want to drop off the face of the earth.

I could basically quote Alex's entire list right there and agree with all of it.  As I intimated already, the drawn-out debate over the final minutes of the first day, in which Keeshi didn't really do anything wrong, has masked all the stuff she has done wrong, and I don't think I can put the case against her any better than Alex just has.  Everything he's said on her looks rock-solid to me.

I'm not 100% on Keeshi because the cop claim gives me a bit of a pause, and the Tom vote right off the bat in day 2 shows that at least this claim isn't coming totally out of nowhere and being made up on the spot.  There's been bad logic, unnecessary tangents, and way too much self-focus with a rather complete lack of aggressive play, but I guess I can vaguely see it if she really is a cop and felt it'd be easier just to trust in her results rather than find scum the normal way ("Why not save my accusations for when I'm sure?").  It's certainly not how I'd play cop (your sanity usually isn't assured anyway, and it's usually a pretty good idea to play like an effective townie regardless of what other abilities you may have) but it's an explanation I could see.

But I'd still vote for her, except that Excal has still done absolutely nothing to defend himself from any of my charges against him, he's been perpetually evasive (laughing off my arguments and calling them "fascinating" rather than give an actual response), and his one post all day so far was to level a very weak counter-case against me, full of points which I quickly addressed in detail here: http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=673.msg13766#msg13766  Basically the whole thing hinged on "Otter didn't hammer OK," which was because I interpreted "deadlock" as a tie in the opening post (understandably, I believe); there was no other substance to the argument and the post was filled with fluff like "Hey, Otter knew time was running out, here let me quote a post which shows this!"  The only other thing he's done all day, in that same post, was to defend Keeshi on the grounds that her actions at the end of the day were fine, which... wasn't the aspect of Keeshi under dispute.

I think Excal's actions have been more damning, overall, to the point where I'm having a really hard time imagining an explanation for his actions if he were actually innocent.  Keeshi looks bad herself, and would be my second choice to lynch right now, but I can still sort of see how it could happen if she had good intentions; not so for Excal.  I'm leaving my vote on the player that seems most likely to turn up scum.

EDIT for Alex post:

With a modkill and a no-lynch, we're already behind quite a bit and really can't afford mislynching OK or Excal if there's a way to avoid it.  Like, say, clearing/condemning one of them with a cop investigation.

Just so we're clear, are you suggesting here that cops should investigate OK/Excal and then claim with results?

EDIT for Tom post:

Nothing really unexpected here.  "I'm town so nuh uh" and then a countervote is pretty much the basic reaction to a cop fingering in any case.

[AndrewRogue]

To try and explain what was wrong with what you did Keeshi: You were counting on two people (only of whom was demonstratably paying attention) to move over to OK. Given that you were there and that you, assuredly, had the ability to move your vote... I just don't understand why you didn't put your vote to a more useful position WHILE trying to get Carth and Otter to move their vote. That's my problem. You had the ability to hedge your bets, and instead tried to argue with two people, one of whom wasn't appearing and one of whom wasn't moving. There was nothing stopping you from moving to Excal (giving a -1 to hammer for any miracle appearences) while trying to get the other two to move. As it ended up, only one of them was physically paying attention to the game.

What particular bothers me about Keeshi's investigative choice is that... well. Tom doesn't stand out to me at all as a good investigative choice. We had OK and Excal as the near lynches, we had Carth refusing to switch, we had Otter potentially there and not voting... could you please explain why Tom's commentary was more suspicious to you than... any of that?

At this point... I'm really inclined to believe that Keeshi is scum either trying to cause one more mislynch or scum bussing the loving hell out of an ally. Either way though... I'm more comfortable with a Tom lynch first, as it reduces the chances that, somehow, she really is a cop. Either its a mislynch and we can declare her (in most cases) expendable, or she's being honest about his alignment and we get scum.

I'm still feeling Excal and Keeshi as scum.

Gut side... distant thirds, at the moment, feel like Otter or Tom. Tom has felt fairly... non-present this game, while Otter comfortably rounds out my endgame day 1 theory. Please note though, those are just gut feelings. Reading back through.

[Hunter Sopko]

Mrrrrg. Stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Keeshi's claim does all add up at the end of the day. It's not out of nowhere and despite her poor play, going with my gut is my final call for today.
It's TOO random, I think. If she did investigate OK or Excal and hit scum, we'd be accusing her of the claim being too convenient. Also, if someone had been lynched yesterday, I don't even think we'd be having this argument.

Andrew is right in that we don't have much to lose lynching him. Easiest, quickest way to see if she's telling the truth, and we don't lose her if she's right.

##Vote: EvilTom

[Ranmilia]

Just so we're clear, are you suggesting here that cops should investigate OK/Excal and then claim with results?

I'm saying that cop power(s), LAST NIGHT, should have investigated OK/Excal, and used the result they got to inform their behavior with regards to whom they argued heavily for/against today.  Or, barring OK/Excal, someone else they had solid reason to believe was scummy or needed their alignment checked/confirmed.  I'm not saying cops should claim day 2, that's just silly.  But cops do need to choose their targets wisely and use their results in intelligent, protown ways.  This claim has done neither and I don't find it believable. 

Given all that, I still can't really stand in the way of a Tom lynch today.  In the unlikely scenario Keeshi is town, she's the luckiest cop ever and Tom needs rope, and if she's scum I can easily see her selling out a buddy for credibility.  I don't think she's trustworthy at all, though, so... it doesn't really make much of a difference to me what order the lynches go in, unless she's scum trying for a free mislynch before she goes.

And yes, I'm still feeling Excal, too, but with cop claim/counterclaim I don't see how voting for anyone but Keeshi or Tom is productive right now. 

[AndrewRogue]

Ahem. It occurs to me that I didn't actually vote.

Yeah. I stand by my logic. Tom is the best choice today.

##Vote: Tom

[Ranmilia]

Current votecount, since there's been two pages without one:

EvilTom (5): Keeshi, Corwin, Ryogo, Sopko, Andrew
Excal (3): Shale, OblivionKnight, Sir Alex, Otter, EvilTom
Keeshi (2): Ryogo, Sir Alex, Sir Alex, Andrew Rogue, Hunter Sopko, EvilTom
OblivionKnight (0): Corwin
Otter (1): Excal


With 11 eleven alive, it takes 6 to lynch.

Tom's at -1.

[Ranmilia]

Annnd that count makes it clear what's going to happen, and I don't see anything more productive happening today, so I'm grudgingly going to hammer.

##Unvote: Keeshi
##Vote: EvilTom

[Veryslightlymad]

Hammer. Stop talking.

[Veryslightlymad]

El Cid will come in whenever he sees this and do his flavor text thang.

Evil Tom, AKA John Cage, 1912-1992 **SCUM ROLEBLOCKER** was lynched.

[Sierra]

Irritated by the previous day's lack of progress, on the the second morning the most vocal composers quickly took to berating one of those most involved in the bickering of the previous day's end--who suddenly arose with the fury of a thunderstorm. "You think to question ME? I am the illustrious Richard Wagner, and my penetrating gaze can discern all your filthy little secrets. There may be a malign menace lurking among us, but it is not I! I say that your real suspect should be...THAT MAN!" And with this, Wagner turned and struck a dramatic pose, finger pointing at a gangly figure lurking unobtrusively in a corner.

"What, me?" the accused stammered. "Why, I'm none other than your friendly neighborhood Henry Purcell. I'm speaking english, so it mut be true, right?"

"Don't listen to his lies!" Wagner interrupted. "He's just wearing a wig to LOOK like he's from the seventeenth century! Last night I turned my attention to one I thought suspicious, and do you know what I found him capable of? Nothing. Nothing at all! Total silence! Look, the only thing written on this sheet of music is 'Tacet.' I ask you all, is this the conduct of a respectable composer? And I say no! This disingenuous charlatan must be EXPELLED, for the sake of all that is good and righteous in this world! Or afterlife! Or whatever! Well, stop looking at me like that and let's give this accursed mountebank what for, eh?"

Roused into action, the crowd seized the struggling "Englishman," then hurled him past the border of Composer's Heaven and into a lower, more brutish plane of existence.

"Fooooooollllllllls!" screamed the American abstract composer John Cage as he plummeted towards his unenviable fate. "We are the future! You will be assimilated or kill--er, ignored or something! Oh god not Hank Williaaaaaaaams!"

Only a forlorn Chopin hung back. "Look what he's done to the piano," he complained, pressing a key and producing a muted *thunk*. "Clearly the next Eternal Sonata has found its FRUE VILLAIN."

EvilTom, AKA John Cage, 1912-1992 (Scum, Roleblocker), was lynched!

And with that, night two dawn--er, dusks? Whatever, just send me your night actions already.

[Sierra]

Patting themselves for disposing of one foul abstract composer, everyone went to bed that night secure in the knowledge that they had made the afterlive a better place to, uh, afterlive. Or whatever.

However, they once again found their numbers diminished upon waking--although this time there was a note from the vanished composer, recognizably his own writing:

"Dear fellows: Hate to desert you all in your hour of need, but I have received an invitation to festivities in Valhalla that I smply cannot miss. It seems they're throwing a party in celebration of, well, myself! Can you imagine that? Not that it should come as any sort of surprise, but it seems a dinner party is being held in commemoration of my extensive efforts to immortalize mythology through song. Naturally, it would be most uncouth of me to snub those from whom I drew so much inspiration, so I'm afraid I must bid you all farewell. I know it will be difficult, but you must soldier on without me. May the luck of the opera gods be with you!

Best wishes, Richard Wagner xoxo"

Assuming that this message was in fact written in the composer's own hand...Odd, nothing unusual seems to have befallen anyone over night.

Keeshi, AKA Richard Wagner, 1813-1883 (Town, Cop) disappeared overnight.

Mod's note: Keeshi has dropped out due to a family emergency. The lack of an actual kill overnight is something I leave you lot to discuss amongst yourselves; just note that Keeshi was not nightkilled.

It is now day three. With 9 alive it takes 5 to lynch.

There are 72 hours remaining.

[Hunter Sopko]

Huh. Well... we know she wasn't bussing now, I guess. At least we're not losing two townies.

[Otter]

Gah.  She couldn't have given us her result before she left?

Well, it's awesome that we hit scum, but the info we got from Tom=scum (being that Keeshi seems reliable, though she still could have been bussing) is immediately rendered useless, and we've lost a cop.  With no NK, there's not much more to go on, and even that's not much of a puzzle (seems very likely that scum targeted Keeshi, who was defended in some way and thereby avoided a kill, but had to withdraw anyhow).

I'm starting to feel like a broken record, but Excal only posted once in day 2, and he still hasn't made a valid defense for himself in my eyes.

##VOTE: Excal

EDIT: Oh, Soppy!  While you're here, wanna say more than one line at us?  In particular:

Andrew is right in that we don't have much to lose lynching him.

(Soppy was referring to Tom.)

What'd you mean by that?  We always have a lot to lose by mislynching anyone.  Turns out it was a good lynch, but does your attitude imply that you'll always be okay with testing cop claims by lynching whoever they finger?

[Shale]

Well....that clears up that little dilemma. So. Suspicion of those who advocated lynching Keeshi over Tom is up, of course, as Tom was pretty much doomed after her flip and scum would want her gone before she could get another result. That means Alex, Andrew and Sopko. Excal, interestingly, spoke in her favor but declined to back that up with a vote, keeping his on Otter despite the obvious fact that Otter wasn't on the table (and yes, I'm aware that can apply to me keeping my vote on Excal; however, I think I had a somewhat better reason to think Excal might be lynched).

As for today's topics of discussion, well, let's try this again:

Where you seem to be tripping up is that you're taking my acceptance of one part, the agreeing with our not needing to always have a scum read on someone, and reading into that a blanket acceptance for Keeshi's reasoning, even as I vote for Keeshi because I disagree with that reasoning.

I can understand where Keeshi is coming from, given that I don't find anyone overly scummy at the moment either, and the decision to go with lynching the lurkers when nothing else concrete is at hand is a sensable and acceptable alternative.

...

However, Keeshi, Alex has raised an excellent point in his first post against you, and it is one which you haven't addressed to any length yet.  Why do you suggest letting Andy swing in the same post where you admit that you will indefinatly share the same flaw he has until Saturday?

So...uh, no, you agreed with her logic, but then called her on the hypocrisy angle. Which you seem to have dropped completely now, and are instead saying that you disagree with her logic. I'm inclined to agree with much of what Otter's said here (except the part about Mafia being on the decline, but like you said, that's best discussed outside the game topic). So, let's finally get a serious vote down:

##Vote Excal

Well?

[AndrewRogue]

Welp. So much for that theory. Fun while it lasted, though.

With this turn of events though, I'm inclined to go look back at people Tom has talked about. For example, it occurs to me to wonder why he picked myself, Sopko and Alex as the folks to group together as likely to be painted scum by her (and, similarly, why he skipped Excal or OK).

Today I think we really need to hear from the lurkers. Ryogo was pretty fast on the train, and then gone for most of the day with very little commentary. Sopko has similarly lacked presence. Shale, similarly, has had a weak feeling presence.

OK has stepped up massively, which is a good thing!

For anyone who didn't swing Keeshi or Tom last night... why?

NinjaEdit: Speaking of Shale, he calls to voice that magic trio of me, Sopko and Alex as well. Except, I do have to ask, why do you list us as people who were advocating Keeshi over Tom as a lynch? Both Sopko and I switched off pretty quick after her claim (and, I, in fact, advocated Tom first). Alex was the only one who hung on her, really.

[Shale]

...yes you did. Sorry, I was looking purely at the vote record and forgot to do something intelligent like check who unvoted when.

To answer your question, I didn't like letting a no-paper-trail cop claim decide the lynch, one way or the other. The person who'd acted scummiest was Excal, so I kept my vote there.

[Hunter Sopko]

Andrew is right in that we don't have much to lose lynching him.

(Soppy was referring to Tom.)

What'd you mean by that?  We always have a lot to lose by mislynching anyone.  Turns out it was a good lynch, but does your attitude imply that you'll always be okay with testing cop claims by lynching whoever they finger?

We were going to lynch either Keeshi or Tom at that point. Excal and OK were shuffled to the background after the claim and Keeshi had made her breadcrumbing sufficiently apparant. Mislynching always sucks, and you're attempting to put words in my mouth with that.

Between Keeshi and Tom we have one claiming cop. We're not running on very great arguments due to lack of information, so on which do you stand to lose LESS when all is said and done? Barring a significant role, it's on Tom. Of course we couldn't be sure on her alignment at that point, but even if it's scum bussing scum, we still have more days to discern that and should chance on it. It would basically come down to these four.

If we lynched Tom and Keeshi was right, then we've gotten a scum and come out ahead due to no lynch on Day 1 plus verified our cop.
If we lynched Tom and he flipped town, the barring Keeshi flat out lying about coppitude, Keeshi is more than likely scum
If we lynched Keeshi and she flipped town, we lose cop and lose another townie on night kill just to speed through the next day on Tom.
If we lynched Keeshi and she flipped scum, then we've gotten scum.

Two end well, and there's always the possibility we she could have been bussing Tom to protect herself, but honestly, I went with the choice where I felt it was best for the time and place. It wasn't foolproof by far, but a choice had to be made and stuck with.

[Otter]

For anyone who didn't swing Keeshi or Tom last night... why?

See Shale, really.  I didn't trust Keeshi, but I thought Excal was more likely to be scum.

Today I think we really need to hear from the lurkers. Ryogo was pretty fast on the train, and then gone for most of the day with very little commentary. Sopko has similarly lacked presence. Shale, similarly, has had a weak feeling presence.

I'm curious about the fact that you call out lurkers specifically, yet ignore Excal, who had exactly one post for the entirety of day 2.

---

We were going to lynch either Keeshi or Tom at that point. Excal and OK were shuffled to the background after the claim and Keeshi had made her breadcrumbing sufficiently apparant. Mislynching always sucks, and you're attempting to put words in my mouth with that.

I disagree.  Keeshi's breadcrumbing couldn't be clearly-established at all.  Also, you say "Excal and OK were shuffled to the background after the claim," but let's look at where the votes stood when you made that post:

EvilTom (3): Keeshi, Corwin, Ryogo
Excal (3): Shale, OblivionKnight, Sir Alex, Otter, EvilTom
Keeshi (2): Ryogo, Sir Alex, Sir Alex, Andrew Rogue, Hunter Sopko, EvilTom
OblivionKnight (0): Corwin
Otter (1): Excal

[Note: Alex's votecount happened after Soppy and Andy voted Tom, so I removed those votes to look at where the standings were when Soppy was posting.  All that happened after this was Soppy's vote for Tom, Andy's vote for Tom, and finally Alex's vote for Tom.]

Well!  I don't know what you meant; OK wasn't on the table here at all, and Excal wasn't "shuffled to the background," he still had as many votes as Tom did (and more than Keeshi!) when you were making that post.  I'm not sure what you mean by your explanation, here.

As for me putting words in your mouth: that wasn't my intention at all.  I'm not trying to misrepresent you.  I'm just asking: what did you mean by "We don't have much to lose lynching him"?

As for the rest of your reasoning, all of that applies to any time that somebody claims cops and fingers someone else.  Your logic would dictate that you've always got more to lose by accidentally lynching the cop, so you should lynch the one they fingered to test their claim.  What you're ignoring here is that there was a very large case on Keeshi already (which is why she was forced into making the claim to begin with), while there wasn't one on Tom.  This is like an invitation for cornered scum to grab a free mislynch before they die by claiming cop and fingering somebody; fortunately, it's not what happened here.

Two end well, and there's always the possibility we she could have been bussing Tom to protect herself, but honestly, I went with the choice where I felt it was best for the time and place. It wasn't foolproof by far, but a choice had to be made and stuck with.

And you justify your decision with... "I went with the choice where I felt it was best for the time and place."  If that means something more than "I chose arbitrarily and don't have any reasons to tell you about," then please explain what it does mean.

[Ranmilia]

So, I was wrong on Keeshi/Tom.  Not much I can say in my own defense there, save that I thought the Keeshi case was quite valid and did not believe her to be trustworthy.

For today, rereading all of Tom's posts reveals that while he was mostly opinionless, he came down with voting for Excal in a pretty serious press, at a time when it seemed that would be the day's debate.  I consider this sufficient clearing of Excal at the moment - and of OK, too, since I think Tom would have been on Excal day 1 if OK was scum and in serious trouble. 

At a glance my suspicions are leaning towards Otter specifically, and generally towards those who seconded suspicions of Excal. 

Otter has not posted much in general, even admitting as much.  What he has posted has mostly been quoting and agreeing with other people.  He was and remains heavily on the Excal wagon, even at the expense of not voting Keeshi/Tom.  Failing to vote on a duality like that is, IMO, a definite scumtell, and <xtreme metagaming alert> especially for Otter since I've seen him give himself away in an IRC game by doing exactly that. </xtreme metagaming, note that Otter having done it before is not integral to the case here and is cited only as slim circumstantial supporting evidence>

Despite this, he quoted my case on Keeshi a lot and agreed heavily with it - while keeping his vote on Excal.

More posts I find worrying:
http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=673.msg13712#msg13712 - brief Otterpost, confirm-votes Excal
http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=673.msg13766#msg13766 - quotes my case on Keeshi, confirm-votes Excal
http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=673.msg13876#msg13876 - sure, I'll say it, you're post-padding, quoting my case on Keeshi and confirm-voting Excal. 

[Ranmilia]

Forgot the part where I back that up with
##Vote: Otter

[Otter]

Despite this, he quoted my case on Keeshi a lot and agreed heavily with it - while keeping his vote on Excal.

As I said, Keeshi looked bad to me, for many of the reasons you mentioned; this was why I wasn't leaping to believe her cop claim and lynch Tom.  It seemed natural to explain why I wasn't onboard with the Tom train, and that was why.  You seem to be making a large point out of the fact that I shared your suspicions on Keeshi but didn't vote for her; why should I have, when I consistently found Excal looking scummier?

Otter has not posted much in general, even admitting as much.  What he has posted has mostly been quoting and agreeing with other people.  He was and remains heavily on the Excal wagon

Correction: I was the origin of the Excal wagon.  That wasn't me agreeing with other people; I made a case against Excal on my own, and nobody's done anything (least of all Excal himself) to provide any defense against it.

even at the expense of not voting Keeshi/Tom.  Failing to vote on a duality like that is, IMO, a definite scumtell

Really?  Let's look at the day 1 final votecount.

Final votecount:

AndrewRogue (0): Otter, Excal, Keeshi
Carthrat (0): Ryogo, Shale, AndrewRogue
Corwin (0): Ryogo
EvilTom (0): Keeshi, AndrewRogue
Excal (5): Hunter Sopko, Sir Alex, Otter, Hunter Sopko, Keeshi, Shale, ObliviongKnight, Carthrat
Hunter Sopko (0): Ryogo, Corwin
Keeshi (1): Otter, OblivionKnight, Sir Alex, Excal
Otter (0): OblivionKnight, Hunter Sopko
OblivionKnight (5): Corwin, Carthrat, Corwin, Ryogo, AndrewRogue, Excal, Keeshi
Ryogo (0): AndrewRogue, Carthrat, Excal
Shale (0): EvilTom, Sir Alex
Smodge (0): Hunter Sopko, Ryogo, Excal, Corwin

(not bothering with the rest of the formatting, look it up if you prefer)

Two players with five quotes would constitute a duality, wouldn't you say?  And the only other vote on the table, not going for either OK or Excal, is yours.

At a glance my suspicions are leaning towards Otter specifically, and generally towards those who seconded suspicions of Excal.

Right off the bat, actually, hang on.  Why are you suspicious of people who've been suspicious of Excal?  Because you think he's been confirmed by Tom's vote for him?  Not only is "Excal's cleared by Tom's vote" a WIFOM argument (Tom voted for him when he was leading in votes; are you really ignoring the possibility of a bus?), but Alex is completely ignoring Excal's actual behavior, which seems weird.  And besides, is it scummy to be suspicious of someone who later turns out to have been confirmed as a townie?  (Note: Excal hasn't been.)  It looks like you've been extremely suspicious of Keeshi from the start, even ignoring a duality to leave a vote on her on the first day and continuing to make your case on her throughout the second.  Does that make you scummy now that Keeshi's flipped town?  If you think everybody's suspicious who's seconded any suspicions on Excal, then it seems like that's your logic.

Lots of weird contradictory logic, especially for an Alex post.

[OblivionKnight]

Huh.  Ok.  Dead scum, kind of dead town (and cop). 

To answer the question posed as to why I stuck on Excal?  I wanted Keeshi to arrive (as she said she would later in the day) and explain a few things.  I found the jump out saying, "I am cop!" as very, very surprising, and really wanted some more information first.  Excal I found scummy, though now...now I'm wondering a bit.  Suffice to say, I'm doubting myself enough to keep a vote off of him for now, while I go and examine Tom a bit (tomorrow, likely, at this rate - fuck double shifts at work on weekends). 

I would not have supported lynching Keeshi had she answered my questions (unless she answered something blatantly scummy or bad or we had some type of claim of some sort to counter her...then we'd go to hell), due to the cop claim - since she never returned (and the day ended much faster than expected), my vote stayed on Excal because I saw him scummy with the logic he used.  Granted, the flips make me rethink this some more.

So, Keeshi must have come out with the open claim due to knowing she had something that might come up and prevent her from playing, but was either protected by a doc or scum wanted to confuse us and targetted someone else protected by a doc or someone who was bullet-proof.  I lean towards a doc, personally, but I'm not going to look too far into this as that's a whole can of idiotic worms to focus on that probably will cause more bad than good.  Still wish we got her investigation - I assume there's no way we can get any investigation information?  Damn shame to lose the cop after a success, but...at least it helped us. 

Anyway, Excal comes back in to the picture, mostly as a re-evaluation.  Time to jump on lurkers, otherwise.  Tom's people he talked about on day 1 (since day 2 was all Keeshi) also deserve some evaluation as well.  1 down, some more to go!   

[Ranmilia]

As I said, Keeshi looked bad to me, for many of the reasons you mentioned; this was why I wasn't leaping to believe her cop claim and lynch Tom.  It seemed natural to explain why I wasn't onboard with the Tom train, and that was why.  You seem to be making a large point out of the fact that I shared your suspicions on Keeshi but didn't vote for her; why should I have, when I consistently found Excal looking scummier?

Because when you have someone claiming cop with a guilty result on someone else, at least one of them is guaranteed scum (barring screwy roles like paranoid cop or Tom being a miller but not told about it etc etc, stuff that we have no reason to believe is in this game), and it's obviously guaranteed that one or the other of them is going to be the day's lynch?

Correction: I was the origin of the Excal wagon.  That wasn't me agreeing with other people; I made a case against Excal on my own, and nobody's done anything (least of all Excal himself) to provide any defense against it.

...

Right off the bat, actually, hang on.  Why are you suspicious of people who've been suspicious of Excal?  Because you think he's been confirmed by Tom's vote for him?  Not only is "Excal's cleared by Tom's vote" a WIFOM argument (Tom voted for him when he was leading in votes; are you really ignoring the possibility of a bus?), but Alex is completely ignoring Excal's actual behavior, which seems weird.  And besides, is it scummy to be suspicious of someone who later turns out to have been confirmed as a townie?  (Note: Excal hasn't been.)  It looks like you've been extremely suspicious of Keeshi from the start, even ignoring a duality to leave a vote on her on the first day and continuing to make your case on her throughout the second.  Does that make you scummy now that Keeshi's flipped town?  If you think everybody's suspicious who's seconded any suspicions on Excal, then it seems like that's your logic.

I've had problems with Excal's behavior, yes (he definitely does need to post more!), but now that we've got a scum flip everything changes.  I consider Tom voting for him, that early in the game, a valid enough defense, and am working on the assumption that Excal is town.

I can't really see scum going "Oh well, let's cut Excal off day 1, Tom, help bus him so you can get cred and handle the late game!"  There's certainly some metagaming in favor of that, but in the general case, people that scum support lynching in close votes early on are likely to be town.  This is just good play, no more WIFOM than anything.

The Excal/OK split day 1 is a completely different issue.  There was no cop claim involved, no virtual guarantee that one of them was scum.  I'm astonished you'd equate the two situations.  Admittedly, I should have gone to one of them on day 1 and missing the day's end was a mistake on my part, but it isn't anywhere near the same thing. 

Card flips are the best information town has, especially scum flips, and now that we have one we should be working on that.  <xtreme metagaming which is tangential to main case>I find it highly odd that Otter, for all his talk about good gameplay theory, is glossing over this.</xtreme tangential metagaming>

[Shale]

So. Tom leapt on Excal with such force as to convince you that, since Tom was scum, Excal must be town. That would be...uh...this?

You withdrew your vote and said you'd be back with a vote, probably on Excal and then...disappeared.  Your thoughts and comments are requested.

I'm really sorry about this, I felt so bad; I woke up extra early in order to place my vote well before deadline and... no connection. Net had died >.< I was so frustrated, especially as it came back up 20 minutes after the day ended. Though, my vote wouldn't have reached majority anyway, so it's not like it was my fault.

Anyway, as Shale says, let's continue.

##Vote: Excal - for all the reasons mentioned yesterday.

That's the extent of his argument for an Excal lynch on Day 2, and it's nothing but a bandwagon jump, no actual argument whatsoever. He makes one other post before the cop claim and it's entirely dedicated to attacking Keeshi, and then he's not around until the "I'm not scum" post afterward. The only weight he put on the Excal train was the vote itself, and within an hour he was making noise about switching that to Keeshi. If anything, the fact that the only one he actually made a full-throated attack on was Keeshi makes me more suspicious of Excal than before - if they were both town, and you're going to tie yourself to both cases anyway (arguing for Keeshi's lynch and voting for Excal's), why would you only try to convince people of the case on one of them?

Before that, there was this post, which is too long to quote in its entirety but mainly defends himself and attacks Keeshi. All he has to say about Excal is this:

Ugh, now to try and make something of this Otter/Excal thing. From what I can see on a first read-through, Otter is jumping on Excal's flip-flopping, saying that he's contradicting himself (again) and Excal is saying Otter scares away new players (?) and is misrepresenting him, and then refusing to defend himself from Otter's accusations. I'm going to have to read through this some more first to make sense of it.

And the only other post he makes concerning Excal (other than mentioning "the Excal/Shale thing") is this, as part of a much larger and fairly early post:

Excal -
Ryogo didn't do anything especially scummy. Not that I can see anyway. Then you blame Rat, Shale, Otter and Sopko for not picking up on what you said? What? So basically they're scummy for not pointing out that you were scummy first? Can you please explain what happened there, I'm confused and concerned.

In fact, he's doing the same thing on Day 1 that he did on Day 2 - he names Excal as one of the most suspicious players, but doesn't give a real reason for it, and uses most of his post for arguments against other people, prominently including someone who's now flipped town. Remember that being publicly suspicious of your scumbuddies is very definitely good scum strategy - you and Rat were certainly careful to accuse each other (though not to the point of voting, granted) early in the Clue game.

[Otter]

Because when you have someone claiming cop with a guilty result on someone else, at least one of them is guaranteed scum (barring screwy roles like paranoid cop or Tom being a miller but not told about it etc etc, stuff that we have no reason to believe is in this game), and it's obviously guaranteed that one or the other of them is going to be the day's lynch?

Except I'm not as willing as you are to dismiss the possibility of a paranoid cop (or an insane cop, which you seem to be forgetting about; an insane cop is actually very plausible in a decently large non-role madness setting, because their results are still useful once you know they're insane), and I was already very confident about Excal being scum.  Rather than gamble on there not being any paranoid or insane cops, and then make a difficult decision between the two of them, I thought it made more sense to stick with the player who seemed overwhelmingly scummier than either of them.  I still do.

I can't really see scum going "Oh well, let's cut Excal off day 1, Tom, help bus him so you can get cred and handle the late game!"

What?  Now I'm not sure what you're talking about at all, because Tom wasn't going after Excal on day 1.  Look at that day 1 final votecount again; Tom's vote never went to Excal, and in fact it wound up on nobody at all.  Tom only voted for Shale on day 1, and he retracted that.  You seem to be mixed up.

Tom didn't vote Excal until day 2, and only then after Excal had already gotten more votes than anyone else (leading with 3; Tom cast the fourth).  The case against Excal was already large; giving him up as a lost cause wouldn't surprise me much.  After all, we're on day 3, and my charges on Excal from day 1 haven't just not been resolved, he hasn't even addressed them.  He posted once on day 2 (launching a case on me without dealing with my case on him at all) and not even once yet on day 3.

Note also that Tom's vote didn't actually stay on Excal; as soon as he got an excuse to (being Keeshi's cop claim), he got rid of that vote and tossed one on her instead.  In the end, he'd dropped a vote on Excal within the first three hours of the day, and only left it there until it became convenient to move it.  This doesn't even come close to proving Excal as a townie (or even come close to negating his many, many scumtells so far), and your decision to operate under that assumption is extremely questionable.

I notice Alex hasn't explained or even acknowledged the contradictions I observed in his post.  The mistakes he's making are piling up and he's evasively ignoring the serious objections I'm raising.  The fact that he's talking at all probably makes him more likely to be town than Excal, still.