Mafia V: The Cult of Sekham

[Idle Thoughts]

But first I need some sleep. :)

Man, I hear ya. *yawns*

Have a nice night everyone. I'll go back to post 1491 or so and start from there tomorrow. My eyelids feel like they have weights on them.

[Captain Klutz]

In post #1264 Captain Klutz says that he wants to give a sub a chance to play. This was Kat, who replaced ArizonaTeach - who had voted for Zeriel when Zeriel voted for Captain Klutz. Is this a case of Cult trying to help out Cult?
What happened is:

#536 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=536) is my post where I gave some rather minimal minimal requirements

#549 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724867&postcount=549) by Zeriel included a response to my post.

#555 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724927&postcount=555) by ArizonaTeach, where he took issue with Zeriel's interpretation and then voted for him. I thought this vote was a bit of an overreaction on AzTeach's part (as did several others) and his susbsequent quick unvoting is what led to him attracting some suspicion.

Incidentally, I didn't immediately respond to Zeriel's post, as I explained in #671 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8727854&postcount=671)

When it came to yesterday's vote I didn't want to vote for Malacandra (as I explained in my vote post #1264 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8754275&postcount=1264) ) and I didn't want to vote for a just subbed in player. Basically, the evidence in favour of AzTeach/Kat's scumminess was not great enough to override my feeling that a sub should be given a chance to play.

[Captain Klutz]

Kyrie Eleison's ...<snip>. And then his insinuation that Idle Thoughts was posting about playing games to kill time during the Night because he was trying too hard not to look like scum. (To be fair, Captain Klutz did this as well.) It was a pretty innocuous out-of-game remark, and anyway, I doubt scum would call attention to themselves in such a heavy-handed manner.
The remark may be intended as inocuous and out-of-game, but when someone basically says "I'm not doing anything in this game during the Night phase", they can expect some comment.

Note that I accepted Idle Thought's explanation in #1419 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8767162&postcount=1419)

[Hal Briston]

Kat's list of FOSs in post 1020 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8740328&postcount=1020) is interesting. I am thinking that there has to be at least one other scum in there. Note the hesitant FOS for Pleonast.One person who comes out of that with increased credibility (at least in my eyes) is sachertorte. Going back to M3, it was noted that known scum had twice "suspected" the same player on their "suspicion" lists, and in both cases, that player appeared in the third position on the list. That third position is a classic psychological hiding spot (it doesn't even have to be done consciously).

If you look at the scum board in M4, there was active discussion about creating these lists, but special mention was made not to put fellow scum in the third slot. I'd say there is an excellent chance that same strategy carried over here, thus acquitting sachertorte.

[Hal Briston]

Just for curiosity sake, I looked back at the timing of Kat joining the game. Blaster Master announced her as ArizonaTeach's replacement in the same post he announced he had received all of Night One's instructions.

Kat's first post was immediately following Day Two Dawn (as noted above by HazelNutCoffee) and included some analysis of Day One goings on.

Unless I'm mistaken, she never had the opportunity to converse with her fellow scum before she was lynched at the end of Day Two.

I'm not sure of the significance of this because I'm sure she was told who her fellow Cultists were. But if there was a particular strategy formed in that first Night, she wouldn't have been a part of it.She may not have been a part of the formulation of a plan, but she still would have been aware of it. She would've been given access to the scum board and been able to read back and see what her fellow scum would've been concocting.

I still hope there was some other reason AZ left the game, because a flameout like that being used as strategy is not a valid style of play, IMHO.

[Zeriel]

Can't agree more. I know I'm personally making a conscious decision to accept all real-life excuses for lurking or for substitutions at face value, and I'd be disappointed to find out people were using things like "oh, work was hell this week" as a contrived excuse not to post.

[Scuba_Ben]

I've spent the last two days trying to come up with a response to Queueing's hostility that could not possibly be seen as retaliatory.

I got nothing. So I'm going to let it go for now.

I've been doing my best to follow the rest of the discussions in the meantime. I'm fairly sure that some of the active posters are scum, but for the life of me I can't figure out who. What I definitely want to cross-check is who storyteller discussed and why, following up on an idea I touched on briefly during (I think) Day one.

[sachertorte]

sachertorte Day Two Summary
994 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8739190&postcount=994) puzzled by scum kill of zuma; reminder that Blaster Master's death scenes mean nothing regarding who did the night kill; agree that zuma's could have been picked to reveal little information; confused that zuma was picked despite getting three votes for dunking.
1048 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741685&postcount=1048) response to Queuing response of my day one accusations; statement that understanding 'who killed' zuma is an important step towards understanding 'why zuma'
1051 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741858&postcount=1051) note that Nava was the only player not to vote on day one; supposition that Nava is in Europe; note suspicion in Nava including herself on a list of players she's noticed
1085 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742883&postcount=1085) Support for storyteller's notion that Mtgman vote pile helps AZTeach, Autolycus, and Kyrie; note that DiggitCamara shifted from Autolycus; note that Zeriel shifted from Kyrie; List of singleton votes; Note that Fretful's singleton on Nava looks most suspicious
1086 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742891&postcount=1086) identity correction; clarification on the current argument against Malacandra
1119 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8745526&postcount=1119) accusations for Malacandra; vote for Malacandra
1129 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8747652&postcount=1129) rebuttal of Kat's reasons for voting for me
1158 statement that a replacement sooner rather than later is preferred
1162 observation that if Mad doesn't rejoin until Sunday, he will have missed yet another dunking; ask for extension of day
1177 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8749400&postcount=1177) response to Kat's response to my rebuttal of her vote for me; clarification that my suspicion of Queuing is due to the inconsistent application of standards between him and DiggitCamara, not for support of the idea itself; statement that Kat quoted my statement of reasoning on Malacandra so she shouldn't have missed it.
1182 Explain to Queuing that I'm not continuing to accuse him at this point; my posts are in response to Kat. (I'm still suspicious, but not actively pursing BTW)
1265 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8754821&postcount=1265) response to Nava and MHaye votes for me; observation that reasoning is lacking so I can't respond; offer to answer any direct questions or reasonings.
1274 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8755480&postcount=1274)Day Two Post Counts (up to post 1273)

[MadTheSwine]

You know what? I completely forgot about my initial suspicions regarding MadTheSwine and his over-reaction to Clockwork Jackal's post. (Mad said that CJ's saying "no one looks scummy yet" was a scum tell, along with Hal's concern about player distribution; CJ pointed out that she had said "no one looks scummy EXCEPT this one person" and said that she "would FOS" Mad for saying player distribution is unimportant; Mad said that he didn't like revenge votes nor did he like people twisting his words and promptly voted CJ. When it was pointed out that CJ had not voted for him at all (and it was also argued that her interpretation of his words was not necessarily twisting them but an arguably reasonable reading), Mad conceded his mistake but kept the vote.)

You never explained this, Mad, and both storyteller and I voted for you but withdrew our votes simply because you were not around to defend yourself. Mind explaining the reasons you kept that vote?


Sure,the mistake I conceded was calling the FOS that CJ placed on me(or hinted at) a vote,in my eyes it is the same thing,I just misworded my post.CJ's post was still a scum tell,no matter how boneheaded my response to it was.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Still no sign of the cat. :( We're deflecting our grief into completely spoiling our newest kitten (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kate-and-shay/sets/72157600614420631/) .

No improvement on the internet angle either. We may have blown the wireless antennae or our wireless router. It may be down through Saturday. I will try to summarize my Day 2 posts, but my success depends on whatever falls in my lap at work.

[Queuing]

I've spent the last two days trying to come up with a response to Queueing's hostility that could not possibly be seen as retaliatory..

Feel free to be retaliatory :). Its just a gut feeling that I may or may not be able to back up with any sort of proof.

[Blaster Master]

As Nairu spoke in the Book of Rude Things, Chapter threeve verse A: "Thou shall substitute from slaying cultists if thou hast a prior engagement and does not have time to fulfill ems duties"

In plain words, I apologize, but I must drop out. I'll be out of the country and much too busy to play, even at my slow pace. At least I helped greatly in getting a scum though ^_^

Good luck town!

DiggitCamara has requested to take take Autolycus's spot. On consideration, even though he was a power role, I don't think his knowledge of his actions will damage the game in anyway.

In the player list, his previous incarnation will be listed as DiggitCamara [ver. 1]

[fluiddruid]

One person who comes out of that with increased credibility (at least in my eyes) is sachertorte. Going back to M3, it was noted that known scum had twice "suspected" the same player on their "suspicion" lists, and in both cases, that player appeared in the third position on the list. That third position is a classic psychological hiding spot (it doesn't even have to be done consciously).

If you look at the scum board in M4, there was active discussion about creating these lists, but special mention was made not to put fellow scum in the third slot. I'd say there is an excellent chance that same strategy carried over here, thus acquitting sachertorte.Though, after pointing this out, it's quite possible for the strategy to change.

I can see exactly why though. Post first or even second and you fear the risk of actually creating a bandwagon against the person. You want your "suspicion" noted but not pushed (unless the person is very safe or very likely to die).

I don't believe NAF is scum, unless he's playing way too brilliantly for me. Primarily this is coming from my perspective that I know I'm confirmed town, but suspecting me, withdrawing, then suspecting again strongly just doesn't make sense otherwise -- considering that on Day Two I was a significant suspect. Just my opinion. I also think sachertorte is contributing too much relevant suspicion, and is posting so clearly and concisely as to the reasons for suspicion that I'm willing to trust him/her. If these guys are scum, they're playing incredibly aggressively. Worth watching but probably not our best option.

I'm still suspicious of Hockey Monkey for the one-off vote on Fretful Porpentine; I think she has now retracted her suspicions, which is very convenient. A good way to vote but not have it really mean anything.I tend to agree. As the day goes on I'm getting a scummy vibe from Hockey Monkey.

Further, see Hockey Monkey's post #1405:

To sum up:
FOS Zeriel
FOS Pleonast
lighter FOS sachertorte
lighter FOS ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
A list of 4, relatively early in the day. Curious. Pleonast is also on my scumdar list (felt like he jumped on my post re: Mal rather quickly, given that I was not the most credible figure at the time, and, I wonder about that) but given that sachertorte is among my more trusted, this looks to me like a scum list. In fact this post reminds me a great deal of my own "defense" posts from MIII. An attempt to provide lengthy commentary and then post a list of suspects without really taking a serious stand.

Plus, this:
Yes, I was exceedingly wrong in my logic. I didn't vote for Fluiddruid because I felt that one of the askers of the "why zuma" question was genuine, and I thought that it might be fluid. Yep, I made a one off vote. Heh, I think that was the first in about seven lynches (from M4 and this game) that I did not participate. (I was a crew member on the Pirate ship who somehow managed to have a lynching vote every single time!) I really thought that Fretful was where my vote should go, and I knew that it would look bad to some people if it ended up being the only vote for him/her. I don't recall that I suspected Fluiddruid at all. I think I said I was suspicious of Fretful and sachertorte (who at the time didn't have any votes either.) And now that we have information to gather from Kat's lynching, I don't suspect Fretful anymore.The problem with this statement is that, honestly, Hockey Monkey gives no real reason for not suspecting me (remember, I got a fair amount of suspicion in Day Two but little so far in Day Three. Revisionist history?), no real reason for suspecting Fretful instead, and is a lengthy justification for a fairly common 'scum tell'. (One of the things scum tries to avoid much is getting blood on their hands, and unless you hold your vote until the end of the day - which looks bad - you want to get some early low-hazard votes out most of the time.) This statement basically seems to me to say, boiled down: "I voted for Fretful and not for Fluiddruid because I suspected Fretful and not Fluiddruid". Well, no kidding. It's a lengthy "explanation" that doesn't explain anything to me.

It's not a smoking gun, but just my best feeling for this round at the present time.

vote Hockey Monkey

[Blaster Master]

Alive
2 USCDiver
3 Idle Thoughts
5 Hockey Monkey
7 NAF1138
8 sachertorte
9 SnakesCatLady
10 Malacandra
12 Kyrie Eleison
13 Hal Briston
14 Pleonast
16 Fretful Porpentine
17 Nava
18 Pasta
19 FlyingCowOfDoom
20 Scuba_Ben
21 Queuing
22 Zeriel
23 MonkeyMensch
24 ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
25 DiggitCamara [Ver. 2]
26 HazelNutCoffee
27 MHaye
28 fluiddruid
29 MadTheSwine
30 Captain Klutz

Dead
11 Mtgman - Non-Believer - Day One
4 zuma - Citizen - Night One
1 Kat - Cultist - Day Two
6 storyteller0910 - Monk - Night Two
15 DiggitCamara [Ver. 1] - Crusader - Night Two

[Blaster Master]

A little over 3 days left. A total of 6 votes have been cast.

Hockey Monkey (1) - fluiddruid
Malacandra (1) - Pleonast
MHaye (1) - USCDiver
MonkeyMensch (1) - Queuing
Pleonast (1) - FlyingCowOfDoom
Zeriel (1) - NAF1138

[NAF1138]

Ok, here is my homework.

985 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8739085#post8739085) – Toast “to zuma”

995 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8739197#post8739197) - sachertorte’s logic is making me dizzy

997 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8739204#post8739204)- typo correction post

1002 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8739294#post8739294) - Agree with Kyrie that the color from Blaster is meaningless

1077 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8742687#post8742687) (long) - Attempt an Idle thoughts style mega post because work had been keeping me from following along. Respond to HM’s possible death options. Say that I didn’t like the Mal/zuma situation. Something was off, but I still think it was too obviously scummy for Mal to be scum. Suspicious of SCL comments. Agree with Fretful about the likely mode of death for zuma, but am not sure what good it will do us. Scuba_Ben is trying to play both sides of the fence. SCL posts what looks like analysis, but doesn’t actually say much. Mention to Nava that we really don’t have much new information after zuma’s death. Nava’s list is unhelpful at best.

1098 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8743400#post8743400) – Based on my recap in 1077 SCL looks most suspicious to me.

1101 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8743544#post8743544)- Respond to SCL that even though she may think she is not being fluffy, up to this point she has only posted 1 useful post out of 27 total posts.

1138 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8747946#post8747946) – Try once again to explain my list, this time to Queuing. Point out where Queuing is misrepresenting me and then note surprise at this “soft analysis”.

1148 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8748372#post8748372) – Started with the intention of posting about Mal, but in doing the research noticed fluid for the first time. Present my argument against her and vote.

1155 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8748504#post8748504) – Tell Blaster that I would like Mad subbed out if he hasn’t posted before the start of D3

1157 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8748534#post8748534)- Talk about my not voting for subs on the first day because everyone should get the chance to play the game a little.

1164 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8748666#post8748666) – Explain to Diggit that I understand that Kat/AZ are the same person and that I am not saying we should judge them separately, but that we should let folks have the chance to play a full day before dunking them.

1175 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8749372#post8749372) – Respond to kyrie mentioning that my argument against fluid is still very WIFOM. I unvote her and put a “HUGE FREAKIN FOS” on her instead, because I didn’t have good evidence to dunk her and needed to reexamine my thought process.

1194 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8749868#post8749868) – Talk about my knowledge of the 3rd vote tell and mention that scum tells (in reference to the 3rd vote thing) are no good once the scum are aware of them.

1208 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8752419#post8752419) – SCL and fluid seem most scummy to me. My gut says fluid is scum. Vote fluid.

1210 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8752461#post8752461) – Comment about people not being around.

1214 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8752572#post8752572) – Reminder that I can’t really post much on the weekends.

1241 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8753040#post8753040) – I do not care if Blaster extends the day or not.

[Zeriel]

I gotta admit, I've got a lot of little suspicions but damn, I have no idea who I should be voting for here.

[DiggitCamara]

As Nairu spoke in the Book of Rude Things, Chapter threeve verse A: "Thou shall substitute from slaying cultists if thou hast a prior engagement and does not have time to fulfill ems duties"

And lo! in a flash of blinding light Autolycus was transformed! And his visage changeth to resemble one of Nairu's most ardent followers! Yet, his true substance remained unchanged!

And the village rejoyced!

[Zeriel]

...y'all are so wack, Diggit.

[Pleonast]

Pleonast's Posts to date

Day 1
221 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8718947&postcount=221): Advocates dunk on Day 1. Randomly votes for USCDiver.
234 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719013&postcount=234): Suggests hearing arguments against random votes. Says not convinced by them in the past.
240 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719077&postcount=240): Argues for random votes at beginning of Day 1.
248 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719217&postcount=248): More arguments for random votes. Unvotes USCDiver.
249 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719237&postcount=249): Realizes confusion between USCDiver and Scuba_Ben.
303 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719719&postcount=303): Criticizes Mtgman's random vote strategy. Wonders about Autolycus' absence.
387 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721550&postcount=387): Re-explains confusion between diving folk. Differentiates random vote from poke vote. Vote for MadTheSwine for being most suspicious at the moment.
392 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721606&postcount=392): Threatens anyone who keeps talking about power roles.
400 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721687&postcount=400): Explaining again the difference between a poke vote and a random vote.
405 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721723&postcount=405): Carries out threat by voting Sachertorte.
415 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721893&postcount=415): Tries to discourage continued discussion on power roles. Threatens FlyingCowOfDoom.
421 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721977&postcount=421): Defends voting to shut people up and to encourage discussion. :D Encourages easy voting.
447 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722343&postcount=447): Enumerates reasons to not discuss power roles.
573 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725200&postcount=573): Smudges storyteller for not telling suspicions. Calls out Malacandra's strange zuma vote. List of Suspicion. Encourages more voting.
588 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725490&postcount=588): Rant/defense prompted by ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies.
596 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725642&postcount=596): Defends easy votes.
605 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725736&postcount=605): Argues with Mtgman, defending dunking discussion as priority.
610 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725811&postcount=610): Brushes off reasons to not vote.
632 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8726308&postcount=632): Questions Hockey Monkey's vote for Pleonast.
764 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8730450&postcount=764): Keeping vote on Malacandra but considers changing to another on List of Suspicion if Mal doesn't get attention.
823 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8731428&postcount=823): Calls out Mtgman's statements. List of Suspicion.
871 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8734229&postcount=871): Gives up on getting Mal lynched, switches to Mtgman.

Day 2
1004 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8739345&postcount=1004): Calls out and votes Malacandra for additional suspicious statements.
1036 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741326&postcount=1036): Defends votes, suspicions and aggressive play as pro Town.
1205 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8751408&postcount=1205): Still voting Mal.

Day 3
1442 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768524&postcount=1442): Still doesn't like and votes Malacandra. Calls out MonkeyMensch for few posts, no initiative.
1457 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768981&postcount=1457): Ignores FOS, looks at arguments.
1520 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768981&postcount=1520): Helpfully summarizes posts to data.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Sure,the mistake I conceded was calling the FOS that CJ placed on me(or hinted at) a vote,in my eyes it is the same thing,I just misworded my post.CJ's post was still a scum tell,no matter how boneheaded my response to it was.
Why didn't you follow through with your suspicion of Hal's scum tell, then? Why only CJ?

I find it odd that you rate an implied FOS the same as a vote.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Already explained here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8751824&postcount=1207). The poster directly in question was ArizonaTeach. I wouldn't characterize myself as inconsistent; rather, I failed to fully explain what I considered a relatively minor point regarding my vote at the time I cast it. Storyteller0910 asked about it, somewhat obliquely, and I responded. He seemed satisfied with my response; might I ask why you are not?
So now that I've had some sleep, I actually can't remember why I wasn't satisfied with your response. At the time I think I found your reasons for why "voting for effect" is sometimes a scum tell and sometimes isn't rather vague. Now I'm thinking it must have been the lack of sleep that clouded my brain.

So I'll concede that point. I still stand by my other two, although I'm far from ready to cast a vote or point a finger at anyone as of yet.

[NAF1138]

BLASTER CAN YOU POKE MONKEY, AND MAYBE GET US A SUB IF HE DOESN'T RESPOND?

I would say give him 24 hours? Seems fair to me.

[Captain Klutz]

DiggitCamara has requested to take take Autolycus's spot. On consideration, even though he was a power role, I don't think his knowledge of his actions will damage the game in anyway.

In the player list, his previous incarnation will be listed as DiggitCamara [ver. 1]
Interesting. While it's highly likely that the Crusader killed storyteller, I suppose that DiggitCamara [ver. 2] is not allowed to tell us why DiggitCamara [ver. 1] targetted storyteller (or even if he did).

[DiggitCamara]

Interesting. While it's highly likely that the Crusader killed storyteller, I suppose that DiggitCamara [ver. 2] is not allowed to tell us why DiggitCamara [ver. 1] targetted storyteller (or even if he did).
I'm going to overlook any and all speculation regarding my former role.

[Blaster Master]

Interesting. While it's highly likely that the Crusader killed storyteller, I suppose that DiggitCamara [ver. 2] is not allowed to tell us why DiggitCamara [ver. 1] targetted storyteller (or even if he did).

Though I would consider it somewhat poor form, DiggitCamara is at liberty to discuss his previous role; however, you will receive no guarantee one way or the other as to it's accuracy from me. As much as I'd like to work out the possibilities, I'll leave that up to you all.

I will say that he (or any other sub that may have read the Forbidden Thread) does not have any knowledge that I think will give an unfair advantage to his team.

[Blaster Master]

BLASTER CAN YOU POKE MONKEY, AND MAYBE GET US A SUB IF HE DOESN'T RESPOND?

I would say give him 24 hours? Seems fair to me.

I have poked him again. I will start looking for a sub if I don't hear back from him by tomorrow.

[MadTheSwine]

Why didn't you follow through with your suspicion of Hal's scum tell, then? Why only CJ?

I find it odd that you rate an implied FOS the same as a vote.

I can't vote for both of them Nut.Call it meta-gaming if ya want,but the reason I picked CJ over Hal on that very early Day1 vote was that I had been responsible for Hals death twice previously,don't wanna seem like I am picking on him(yet).Besides Day1's are hard to judge and I meant to get some discussion flowing,which I did obviously.
I rate FOS's, implied or straight up,as important as a vote.They can be very revealing.

[MadTheSwine]

Blaster,could you also note on the living players list who was subbed in and who they replaced?

[USCDiver]

She may not have been a part of the formulation of a plan, but she still would have been aware of it. She would've been given access to the scum board and been able to read back and see what her fellow scum would've been concocting.


Righto, forgot they could still read the scum board during the day.

[USCDiver]

Sorry about being unclear; I was indeed referring to DarkCookies and not Kat with that pronoun.

Indeed, I'm kind of embarasssed it took me reading that quote 4 times before it made sense. I've still got my eye on you though.

unvote MHaye
FOS MHaye

[Blaster Master]

Blaster,could you also note on the living players list who was subbed in and who they replaced?

Sure, I have been maintaining a substitution list, but with the exception of DiggitCamara [Ver. 2], the rest didn't seem worth noting because they barely had a contribution and it was making the player list sloppy. Anyway, FWIW here's the Substition list below, and I'll post it at the end of the next update to the player list (as opposed to combining it like I was before).


Substitutions
Kyrie Eleison (Repl. Clockwork Jackal )
Nava (Repl. Captain Carrot )
Kat (Repl. ArizonaTeach )
DiggitCamara [Ver. 2] (Repl. Autolycus )

[fluiddruid]

DAY ONE

Post 285 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=426256&page=6&pp=50): Response to sacher, re: lack of consensus

Post 459 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722487&postcount=459): FOS FlyingCowOfDoom, re: accusing NAF based on defending another player

Post 469 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722652&postcount=469): Withdraw FOS based on clarification of argument

Post 491 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8723199&postcount=491): Response to storyteller, re: defense of NAF / mafia tells

Post 702 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729095&postcount=702): Vote sacher, Apprentice/Oracle extended discussion

DAY TWO

Post 924 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8737682&postcount=924): Re: lower post count

Post 992 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8739125&postcount=992): Zuma night kill

Post 1031 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741148&postcount=1031): Vote Malancdra, overly defensive play style

Post 1039 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741428&postcount=1039): Re: FCOD / mafia bandwagon refutation

Post 1041 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741442&postcount=1041): Re: Malacandra's defense

Post 1078 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742691&postcount=1078): Re: Fretful, Mafia voting pattern in Mtgman / Arizona Teach vote totals

Post 1222 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752715&postcount=1222): Long catch up post, responding to Idle, Hockey, Queuing, Pasta, and NAF, re: accusations of me, optimal scum strategy discussion, strategy discussion

Post 1224 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752730&postcount=1224): Clarification of post

Post 1227 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752772&postcount=1227): Re: Mhaye, Mafia targeted randomly refutation

Post 1250 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8753445&postcount=1250): Re: Hockey Monkey's snarky response to post 1222

Post 1251 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8753474&postcount=1251): Re: day extension

Post 1266 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8754882&postcount=1266): Re: Pasta's accusation and vote for me

Post 1291 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8755975&postcount=1291): Re: Pasta's accusation that I "did not address [his] concerns and has actually increased her scum-dar reading for me" being wrong

[MHaye]

I've still got my eye on you though.No problem. I welcome scrutiny. After all, if I'm not making sense then any point I may have is getting lost.

I really ought to list my posts - I'm sorry I haven't tackled it. I've actually been home sick today. I lost the morning to a headache. Maybe I can stay awake enough to tackle it tonight.

Good thig Search works here... I'd never manage anything.

Back soon.

[Hockey Monkey]

Regarding all the "Homework posts". Personally, I don't find these to be helpful in the least. They don't hold any substance and for me contribute to the fluffiness of the thread. I've skipped right on over all of them, because a player that summarizes their own posts can paint them in any way they want. If you guys are going to be relying on these summaries there is no help for the town. I have to question why sachertorte would want everyone wasting their time reading and summarizing their own posts rather than analyzing the posts of the other players. If I want to do a search for someone's posts, it is easy enough to do with the board's search function. Why would I want to skim through the thread looking for a post of post history for any single player? Especially since the summaries are being done by the poster themselves. Is anybody going to go back and check for accuracy? Gah, this seems like a giant time waster and wild goose chase of epic proportion. It seems like a good idea on the surface, but think about it townspeople! Why does he want everyone to do this? Has anyone found this to be a helpful excercise? I would much rather, if someone is going to assign homework, have everyone do a different player. Then at least there is some objectivity, and I have a chance to learn something about the game.

SnakesCatLady said in post 1494 It will be interesting to see who "does their homework" in regards to sachertorte's list. I guess this will be another reason for her to be suspicious of me. I'm not going to do one on myself. I'll be happy to do any other player.

I've been debating all day over who to vote for between Zeriel and Pleonast for the reasons I posted upthread. Zeriel is edging out front in my mind, so I'll go ahead and place my vote there, subject to change before the end of the day as events warrant.

Vote Zeriel

[Queuing]

I'm not going to do one on myself. I'll be happy to do any other player.

I agree with this, and don't think I will be doing mine either. I agree with pretty much everything said. When I asked for, and assigned, players to do this in M2 it was people doing others. I don't know how useful it was, but I do see a benefit. I for one found monkeymensch very suspicious from my review of his posts in M2.

I also notice one without active links. That is more then just useless, its completely useless.

I would rather dedicate my time to doing a review of another player, and I still hope to do so (scuba ben is my target).

Next week I will be in Vancouver setting up a server/office and therefore my participation may go down. I am also refinishing the floors in my GF house this weekend. Just so you all know.

Due to this I will do Scuba Ben before Friday evening, I promise.

[FlyingCowOfDoom]

Regarding all the "Homework posts". Personally, I don't find these to be helpful in the least. They don't hold any substance and for me contribute to the fluffiness of the thread. I've skipped right on over all of them, because a player that summarizes their own posts can paint them in any way they want. If you guys are going to be relying on these summaries there is no help for the town. I have to question why sachertorte would want everyone wasting their time reading and summarizing their own posts rather than analyzing the posts of the other players. If I want to do a search for someone's posts, it is easy enough to do with the board's search function. Why would I want to skim through the thread looking for a post of post history for any single player? Especially since the summaries are being done by the poster themselves. Is anybody going to go back and check for accuracy? Gah, this seems like a giant time waster and wild goose chase of epic proportion. It seems like a good idea on the surface, but think about it townspeople! Why does he want everyone to do this? Has anyone found this to be a helpful excercise? I would much rather, if someone is going to assign homework, have everyone do a different player. Then at least there is some objectivity, and I have a chance to learn something about the game.I agree with this 110%. It's a bad idea!

--FCOD

[HazelNutCoffee]

I found it helpful doing my own, if for no other reason than to review the thread and refresh my memory as to who I found suspicious before and why. I haven't really looked at the others' yet, but I agree that if there are no links it's not very helpful. No one is going to represent their own posts completely objectively.

[SnakesCatLady]

Yes, the "homework" was rather tedious, but it has already helped me. I probably wouldn't have noticed if the post hadn't been about me, but when NAF1138 posted his summary of his posts one of the entries jumped out at me. In the summary he reports having accused me of having a 1:27 content to fluff ratio. Interesting, but the post referenced accused me of a 1:25 content to fluff ratio. Only a slight difference, but I find it indicative of someone who might play just a bit fast and loose with the truth. It is intended to make me look bad, and I don't like it. I don't think he can blow it off as a mistake, because he had to be looking at the post in question to link to it.

So the "homework" might just come in handy to see how honest other players are being. Ar

Heavy suspicion on NAF1138.

[Hockey Monkey]

<snipped>

I tend to agree. As the day goes on I'm getting a scummy vibe from Hockey Monkey.

Further, see Hockey Monkey's post #1405:


A list of 4, relatively early in the day. Curious. Pleonast is also on my scumdar list (felt like he jumped on my post re: Mal rather quickly, given that I was not the most credible figure at the time, and, I wonder about that) but given that sachertorte is among my more trusted, this looks to me like a scum list. In fact this post reminds me a great deal of my own "defense" posts from MIII. An attempt to provide lengthy commentary and then post a list of suspects without really taking a serious stand.

Plus, this:
The problem with this statement is that, honestly, Hockey Monkey gives no real reason for not suspecting me (remember, I got a fair amount of suspicion in Day Two but little so far in Day Three. Revisionist history?), no real reason for suspecting Fretful instead, and is a lengthy justification for a fairly common 'scum tell'. (One of the things scum tries to avoid much is getting blood on their hands, and unless you hold your vote until the end of the day - which looks bad - you want to get some early low-hazard votes out most of the time.) This statement basically seems to me to say, boiled down: "I voted for Fretful and not for Fluiddruid because I suspected Fretful and not Fluiddruid". Well, no kidding. It's a lengthy "explanation" that doesn't explain anything to me.

It's not a smoking gun, but just my best feeling for this round at the present time.

vote Hockey Monkey

I don't know how to respond to this vote, but I do want to respond if only to note that I see your vote for me. "I voted for Fretful and not for Fluiddruid because I suspected Fretful and not Fluiddruid". This is exactly what I meant. Sorry that it doesn't explain anything for you. I had reasons to vote for Fretful at the time, and not you. You were the lowest on my list. If I hadn't voted for Fretful at the time, it would have been for sachertorte. (I swear, in these games I get in trouble when I'm too succinct AND when I'm too verbose.) Am I getting a vote from you because I didn't vote for you? :confused: That's a first for me. :p

[Zeriel]

My real problem is that I'm bouncing between the following votes:
NAF1138, for the issues discussed earlier concerning his list.
Pleonast, for RAPIDLY fading into the background, surfacing only to vote for Mal twice and post about MonkeyMensch fading into the background.
Hockey Monkey, for his suspicion of sachertorte, whom I and IIRC at least two others find one of the most pro-town players on the thread to date. Not to mention his pooh-poohing of the post summaries, which I personally found helpful for organizing my own thoughts as well as helpful for, as SCL said, finding people who'll summarize unfairly or deceptively to tilt suspicion.

Personally, I think Hockey Monkey's grounds for his two strongest FOS are ridiculous--scum vote for a lot of reasons, one of which is to confuse analysis. If I were scum, I'd spread my scum attacks on townies out over a few days of random votes too--so that you couldn't link up scum bandwagons easily, but you could still form 'em in just this manner. It also happens to look a hell of a lot like innocuous one-off voting until someone gets rightly lynched.

So far your only stated suspicion of the people you're considering is "Kat/AZTeach unvoted them at some point" which strikes me as really poor. You got any other reasons for voting for me, or should I just put up my retaliatory vote now for pushing me over the one-off vote threshold for no good reason?

[sachertorte]

Regarding all the "Homework posts". Personally, I don't find these to be helpful in the least. They don't hold any substance and for me contribute to the fluffiness of the thread. I've skipped right on over all of them, because a player that summarizes their own posts can paint them in any way they want. If you guys are going to be relying on these summaries there is no help for the town. I have to question why sachertorte would want everyone wasting their time reading and summarizing their own posts rather than analyzing the posts of the other players. If I want to do a search for someone's posts, it is easy enough to do with the board's search function. Why would I want to skim through the thread looking for a post of post history for any single player? Especially since the summaries are being done by the poster themselves. Is anybody going to go back and check for accuracy? Gah, this seems like a giant time waster and wild goose chase of epic proportion. It seems like a good idea on the surface, but think about it townspeople! Why does he want everyone to do this? Has anyone found this to be a helpful excercise? I would much rather, if someone is going to assign homework, have everyone do a different player. Then at least there is some objectivity, and I have a chance to learn something about the game.
Meh. Then don't do it. I posted post numbers because I had the information and felt it could be useful for people interested in investigating others. There was no homework. Nava summarized her contributions before I even posted the post number list. The phrase 'homework' is just something someone cooked up. You have your own way of investigating others. Fine. But just because you don't find the information useful, doesn't mean everyone will feel the same way.
Also, I'd like to point out that my motivation for wanting summaries was to get people who weren't posting enough a look at their posting history. Hopefully, some players will look at their day two summary and think, 'Gee, I really didn't say much. Half my posts were pretty useless. I should contribute more.' We also can look at the summaries and call players out for being to fluffy or silent.

The utility of such summaries (even individual) is not going to help today, but could be a useful record in September when half of us are dead. I post my summary for review after I'm dead. Linkage goodness only helps more. Four weeks from now, when I'm wondering what it was that happened early in the game, a summary is a very good place to start.

[Scuba_Ben]

Alright, Queueing, you've said you have a gut feeling about me. Care to explain beyond that? It seems to me that you started this Day by taking offense to what little technique ideas I had, and you won't let go. I've freely (and possibly excessively) admitted that this is my rookie game, and I'm probably making most of the rookie mistakes. Beyond that, why have you made me your designated target du Jour?

It's one thing to show how my attempts at analysis are not good ideas, and show what's better. It's another thing to keep coming after someone. For that persistence, Vote Queueing.

Meanwhile I'm continuing to work through the whole thread and see who else has an unrelenting persistence in pursuit of whom.

[Idle Thoughts]

One person who comes out of that with increased credibility (at least in my eyes) is sachertorte. Going back to M3, it was noted that known scum had twice "suspected" the same player on their "suspicion" lists, and in both cases, that player appeared in the third position on the list. That third position is a classic psychological hiding spot (it doesn't even have to be done consciously).

If you look at the scum board in M4, there was active discussion about creating these lists, but special mention was made not to put fellow scum in the third slot. I'd say there is an excellent chance that same strategy carried over here, thus acquitting sachertorte.

I dunno, but methinks this whole placement and order of votes is starting to get a bit out there. I have no doubt that given enough patterns that a viable one can be established and found over time given human nature and all that :p but the thing is, you and others are talking about it and all of putting it out there with how it works. So what makes you think that any scum (in this game and after) will follow and hold true to these theories? It just seems like it's a reach.

Sure,the mistake I conceded was calling the FOS that CJ placed on me(or hinted at) a vote,in my eyes it is the same thing,I just misworded my post.CJ's post was still a scum tell,no matter how boneheaded my response to it was.

Spacebar not working there? :p

Yeah, that's my thoughts a bit. Like I said earlier when people were talking about the difference between "suspicion" and "FOS", I see things being two ways. Saying who you're suspicious of and voting for them (often based on those suspicions--so really they go hand in hand as one usually leads to the other in most cases).

BLASTER CAN YOU POKE MONKEY, AND MAYBE GET US A SUB IF HE DOESN'T RESPOND?

I would say give him 24 hours? Seems fair to me.

24 hours? I'd say that was being very generous. MM hasn't said a thing in here since the start-middle of Day Two.

Interesting. While it's highly likely that the Crusader killed storyteller, I suppose that DiggitCamara [ver. 2] is not allowed to tell us why DiggitCamara [ver. 1] targetted storyteller (or even if he did).

Aside from being a way to seemingly cheat a bit, another flaw here is "what if Auto now Diggit is scum?" I'm sure, if he could answer those questions, the answers would be remarkably different depending on what team he was playing for.

Regarding all the "Homework posts". Personally, I don't find these to be helpful in the least. They don't hold any substance and for me contribute to the fluffiness of the thread. I've skipped right on over all of them, because a player that summarizes their own posts can paint them in any way they want. If you guys are going to be relying on these summaries there is no help for the town. I have to question why sachertorte would want everyone wasting their time reading and summarizing their own posts rather than analyzing the posts of the other players.

Huh. Go figure.

While I questioned it myself, I certainly don't see what it hurts or what anyone has to lose with it. But seriously? Questioning someone who just asks everyone to do something based on a spreadsheet? As long as I've played this game, people have done a summeration of other's posts to help them get a better understanding with them all there in one place, especially dead players.

It seems like a good idea on the surface, but think about it townspeople! Why does he want everyone to do this?

I dunno, I can only speak for myself, but like you said, if anyone wants to do it, they could just look it up themselves...so in EITHER case, the info is there and public for those who want it. Therefore each person doing it doesn't give anything away that couldn't already be found.

I found it helpful doing my own, if for no other reason than to review the thread and refresh my memory as to who I found suspicious before and why. I haven't really looked at the others' yet, but I agree that if there are no links it's not very helpful. No one is going to represent their own posts completely objectively.

Speaking as one of those who didn't embed links to the posts, this WOULD be and take too long, at least for me whose computer is often as slow as molasses. The posts are all there. They are named. If anyone wishes to go back and take a look at a specific one, it will take considerably less time to look for and over that one post then it will for me to link to them. Sorry if you think it's/I'm not being helpful in that regard or that mine (and other's like it) is thus pointless, but when you're on a computer as slow as this one, the frustration and time one saves is more than worth it.



Anyway, to sum up: I'm suspicious of Hockey Monkey now. At least she's certainly raised her head on my radar. It just seems, even though Queuing and FCOD agreed with her, that she's subtly showing casting of suspicion by question why sach would ask for everyone to do that. This boggles my mind since, as I said above, the info is all already out there. What more could someone gain from it? And this is coming from someone who had some pretty strong suspicions of sach himself for a long time. My two cents? I just don't see it. And while I don't regard you as suspicious for not wanting to do a list, I do for seemingly coloring those who have asked for it or think it would help as shadylike.

Regarding Zeriel/NAF I have no idea what to think there. I've had early suspicions of NAF on Day One and say it here and there but it's since faded. Zeriel on the other hand, I haven't really noticed much, although it's been pointed out he's casted death blows in the past. I've tried rereading his posts but nothing really jumps out at me.

Mal isn't completely clear either in my book; I had just noticed/was tripped by someone more so than him at the end of Day Two.

But no matter how I look at it, there is only one person who, not only have I been suspicious of from Day One but who has always stayed at the top of the list and nay, even has done nothing but keep growing more and more suspicious as time went by as seen in many, many, many of my other posts (which I just did a recap of in post 1500. See? Not entirely unhelpful having to do it after all).

So for all of those past stated and explained reasons, I'm going to cast a vote for Pleonast

[Hockey Monkey]

<snipped> Bolding by me

Personally, I think Hockey Monkey's grounds for his two strongest FOS are ridiculous--scum vote for a lot of reasons, one of which is to confuse analysis. If I were scum, I'd spread my scum attacks on townies out over a few days of random votes too--so that you couldn't link up scum bandwagons easily, but you could still form 'em in just this manner. It also happens to look a hell of a lot like innocuous one-off voting until someone gets rightly lynched.

So far your only stated suspicion of the people you're considering is "Kat/AZTeach unvoted them at some point" which strikes me as really poor. You got any other reasons for voting for me, or should I just put up my retaliatory vote now for pushing me over the one-off vote threshold for no good reason?

The bolded part of your statement is flat out wrong. I didn't make a list of my suspicions, but they were in this post (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8765889&postcount=1405). The reason I am considering and now voting for you are two-fold - the AZTeach vote/unvote, AND the timing of your vote for Mtgman that saved his heiney. Since AZTeach/Kat did not vote for Pleonast, I can't be suspicious of him for that reason. :rolleyes: I am suspicious of him for the timing of his vote for Mtgman, and because he came right out of the gate on day two with a vote for Mal, (you know the one who was tied with Kat for a dunking). Sorry you don't like my reasons, but I don't think they are either poor or ridiculous. I acknowledge that I could be wrong, but the logic is sound. If you wish to place a retalitory vote (your words) for me, I can't stop you, but you would be wrong.

[sachertorte]

Hockey Monkey
987 - fluff
1003 - list of night kill possibilities
1016 - night kill list clarification
1195 - been busy; not feeling the Mal thing; reasons for voting mtgman
1215 - suspicious of people asking 'why zuma' (fluiddruid, sachertorte, Fretful); does not suspect Malacandra; supports FCOD's suspicion of Pleonast; 'highly suspicious' of one-off votes; suspicious of Cookies for not thinking there was a scum driven Mtgman bandwagon; suspicions of one-off voting and 'why zuma' to narrow list to sachertorte and Fretful; quotes Fretful supporting sachertorte; votes Fretful Porpentine.
1220 - defends her one-off vote in response to storyteller
1221 - disagrees with Scuba_Ben regarding the existence of a Queuing meltdown
1234 - defends her 'why zuma' theory in response to fluiddruid; defends his one-off vote in response to SnakesCatLady
1253 - defends her 'why zuma' theory again in response to fluiddruid; Explains her vote for Fretful Porpentine; disagrees with the Malacandra vote; concerned that Kat inherited a scum role from ArizonaTeach; adopts the give the sub a day technique; states that she doesn't think other players with votes are scum so won't vote for them.

Sorry, no linkage goodness. But I am more suspicious of Hockey Monkey now. Post 1253 is most troubling to me:
- Her "concern" that Kat inherited a scum role from ArizonaTeach strikes me as having a bit too much extra knowledge.
- Her stance on Malacandra strikes me as someone who knows Malacandra's alignment
- Her adoption of the give the sub a day policy conveniently lets him off the hook for voting for Kat (confirmed scum).

[Hockey Monkey]

Meh. Then don't do it. I posted post numbers because I had the information and felt it could be useful for people interested in investigating others. There was no homework. Nava summarized her contributions before I even posted the post number list. The phrase 'homework' is just something someone cooked up. You have your own way of investigating others. Fine. But just because you don't find the information useful, doesn't mean everyone will feel the same way.
Also, I'd like to point out that my motivation for wanting summaries was to get people who weren't posting enough a look at their posting history. Hopefully, some players will look at their day two summary and think, 'Gee, I really didn't say much. Half my posts were pretty useless. I should contribute more.' We also can look at the summaries and call players out for being to fluffy or silent.The utility of such summaries (even individual) is not going to help today, but could be a useful record in September when half of us are dead. I post my summary for review after I'm dead. Linkage goodness only helps more. Four weeks from now, when I'm wondering what it was that happened early in the game, a summary is a very good place to start.

Bolding/sizing by me.

This part makes sense, and I can see where that would be helpful to some. As far as using it as a record weeks from now...well maybe, but finding it could be a bitch. You still have to do a search. The summaries themselves are still not going to be a useful tool for me later because of the question of validity of the summary.

[Hockey Monkey]

Hockey Monkey
987 - fluff
1003 - list of night kill possibilities
1016 - night kill list clarification
1195 - been busy; not feeling the Mal thing; reasons for voting mtgman
1215 - suspicious of people asking 'why zuma' (fluiddruid, sachertorte, Fretful); does not suspect Malacandra; supports FCOD's suspicion of Pleonast; 'highly suspicious' of one-off votes; suspicious of Cookies for not thinking there was a scum driven Mtgman bandwagon; suspicions of one-off voting and 'why zuma' to narrow list to sachertorte and Fretful; quotes Fretful supporting sachertorte; votes Fretful Porpentine.
1220 - defends her one-off vote in response to storyteller
1221 - disagrees with Scuba_Ben regarding the existence of a Queuing meltdown
1234 - defends her 'why zuma' theory in response to fluiddruid; defends his one-off vote in response to SnakesCatLady
1253 - defends her 'why zuma' theory again in response to fluiddruid; Explains her vote for Fretful Porpentine; disagrees with the Malacandra vote; concerned that Kat inherited a scum role from ArizonaTeach; adopts the give the sub a day technique; states that she doesn't think other players with votes are scum so won't vote for them.

Sorry, no linkage goodness. But I am more suspicious of Hockey Monkey now. Post 1253 is most troubling to me:
- Her "concern" that Kat inherited a scum role from ArizonaTeach strikes me as having a bit too much extra knowledge.
- Her stance on Malacandra strikes me as someone who knows Malacandra's alignment
- Her adoption of the give the sub a day policy conveniently lets him off the hook for voting for Kat (confirmed scum).


Oh for God's sake! I don't know shit! My concern that Kat inherited a scum role was because ArizonaTeach was acting scummy. I don' t know if Mal is cult or non-cult, but I explained that if both Mal and Kat were scum, I thought that she would have just let the vote go to a tie and let the chips fall where they may. I ALWAYS want a sub-in to have a chance to play. I'm a nice person like that.

[MHaye]

Here's my posting list. I've split it into Days. I have not included pregame posts (all one of it) or Night posts (four in Night 1 and 1 in Night 2).

Day 1.
210 : My trademark opening post.
258 : In which I express my dislike of the tactic of pressure voting.
309 : In which I answer a rule question.
452 : In which I discuss my main objection to Sachertorte's plan.
473 : In which I acknowledge that my objections have logical holes the size of a Challenger II.
477 : In which I further expound on my dislike of pressure voting.
709 : In which I answer a rule question.
713 : In which I respond to a supplementary.
778 : In which I answer a rule question.
787 : In which I expound on my rl limitations.
851 : In which I discuss what has made me suspicious in the first half of Day 1.
859 : In which I acknowledge not having placed a vote.
865 : In which I choose sleep over incoherent posting.
874 : In which I discuss my suspicions from the second half of Day 1.
877 : In which I raise a point with Fretful Porpentine about her vote for ArizonaTeach.

Day 2.
988 : Fluff.
996 : In which I explain to Malacandra why my suspicion of him has not wholly disappeared.
998 : In which I explain why I put zuma above Malacandra on my suspect list.
1156 : In which I am prepared to wait for MadTheSwine to return.
1225 : In which I upset a lot of people.
1232 : In which I defend the unpopular assertion.
1238 : In which I am not keen on extending the Day by 24 hours because of 4th July.
1258 : In which I defend myself from Pasta's vote.
1260 : In which I acknowledge Pasta's response.
1261 : In which I discuss the evolution of my suspicions on Day 2.
1262 : In which I correct an omission in my suspicion list.
1263 : In which I reluctantly vote.
1277 : In which I respond to a few points.
1300 : In which I try to answer a question, and learn a new technique.

Day 3.
1378 : In which I answer a rule question. After some others, but hopefully in more detail.
1402 : In which I give my opinion on shifting Day endings.
1403 : In which I promise a breakdown of posts by period. (An idea now on hold until Nightfall, as it's more important to spend the next day or so analysing and voting.)
1481 : In which I respond to USCDiver.
1500 : In which I confirm a statement by USCDiver.
1534 : In which I promise to do this post.

That pretty much covers my participation up to now. In the next day or so I'll reread the thread (again) and maybe research a poster or two.

[Queuing]

Alright, Queueing, you've said you have a gut feeling about me. Care to explain beyond that? It seems to me that you started this Day by taking offense to what little technique ideas I had, and you won't let go. I've freely (and possibly excessively) admitted that this is my rookie game, and I'm probably making most of the rookie mistakes. Beyond that, why have you made me your designated target du Jour?

It's one thing to show how my attempts at analysis are not good ideas, and show what's better. It's another thing to keep coming after someone. For that persistence, Vote Queueing.

Meanwhile I'm continuing to work through the whole thread and see who else has an unrelenting persistence in pursuit of whom.

Tad bit sensitive are we?

Persistence? In not voting for you? Ok, for your sake I hope that kind of persistence continues :). As I said, I will look over your posts, in context, and see if anything jumps out at me. I do not think that I have taken any offense at what you have done what-so-ever, but if you feel that way, meh not much I can do about it. Hard to be a target when I haven't even voted for you isn't it?

While I questioned it myself, I certainly don't see what it hurts or what anyone has to lose with it. But seriously? Questioning someone who just asks everyone to do something based on a spreadsheet? As long as I've played this game, people have done a summeration of other's posts to help them get a better understanding with them all there in one place, especially dead players.

snip

It just seems, even though Queuing and FCOD agreed with her, that she's subtly showing casting of suspicion by question why sach would ask for everyone to do tha

For the record I see nothing wrong in asking people to do so. I see nothing wrong in people doing so. I just see little benefit in doing yourself, hence I will not do so. Personally I would rather not do so, and will instead dedicate my time to looking at others.

[Zeriel]

The bolded part of your statement is flat out wrong. I didn't make a list of my suspicions, but they were in this post (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8765889&postcount=1405). The reason I am considering and now voting for you are two-fold - the AZTeach vote/unvote, AND the timing of your vote for Mtgman that saved his heiney. Since AZTeach/Kat did not vote for Pleonast, I can't be suspicious of him for that reason. :rolleyes: I am suspicious of him for the timing of his vote for Mtgman, and because he came right out of the gate on day two with a vote for Mal, (you know the one who was tied with Kat for a dunking). Sorry you don't like my reasons, but I don't think they are either poor or ridiculous. I acknowledge that I could be wrong, but the logic is sound. If you wish to place a retalitory vote (your words) for me, I can't stop you, but you would be wrong.

I had no suspicions of Kat/AZTeach at that point, because the only thing *I* had to go on was their bizarre behavior with me. If I may offer an alternate explanation of my vote for mtgman, it was actually the following--at the time I voted, the vote leaders were
Kat/ArizonaTeach 4
Mtgman 4
sachertorte 3
zuma 3
Kyrie Eleison 3

As I said when I placed my vote, Kyrie was looking less scummy than the Jackal he replaced. The voting against zuma was all pretty throwaway. That left me with looking at, realistically, deciding between Mtgman, AZTeach, and sachertorte. I've gone on the record already about how I thought sachertorte has been getting a bad rap for analysis that helped the game whereas I've been getting a huge town vibe from the discussion, and so I wanted to cast a vote for either AZTeach or Mtgman to push him further behind the pack. Furthermore, the other people voting for AZTeach were (and mostly are) all on my suspicion list--Kyrie, NAF1138, Autolycus, and Mtgman himself; while by contrast the people voting for mtgman didn't seem scummy at all.

At the time, I think it made perfect sense. Of course, a scum would also say that, so take it as you will.

I'm not going to vote until tomorrow. I need to step back from the impulse to counter-vote from a solely retaliatory standpoint and reevaluate/re-read the thread.

[Zeriel]

not edited to add: Hell, at the time you thought Mtgman was suspicious enough to put a capstone vote on him when he was already three votes in the lead.

[Idle Thoughts]

For the record I see nothing wrong in asking people to do so. I see nothing wrong in people doing so. I just see little benefit in doing yourself, hence I will not do so. Personally I would rather not do so, and will instead dedicate my time to looking at others.

Snipped.

Oh, no worries, I didn't get a read from your post at least, that you were questioning people doing it and actually trying to convince real town not to....that's why I was saying "while [you guys] were agreeing with her", I didn't see you taking concern and shady behavior painting over it like she appeared to.

Haha, thought that I was being clear in my post, but I guess not...

...unless, you HAVE something to be defensive over? Heh.

[Idle Thoughts]

Wow, slow topic.
Where is everyone? It's not the weekend yet!

[Zeriel]

This is kinda eerie at that.

Well, having re-read the thread, and noticing precious little new I can call anyone out for, I'm going to hold off on my vote.

I WANT to suspect Hockey Monkey but I can't rationalize it in the face of his bandwagon-following but game-unaffecting mtgman vote--if he were scum, he'd KNOW mtgman wasn't, and was going to die anyway, so why would he attach his name to a townie lynch unnecessarily?

Same with NAF1138 -- there's part of me that wants to suspect him, but really, I can't at this time. If he's scum he's playing it very cool with the first-day ArizonaTeach vote. I'm going to wait and see if the lists turn up anything when we get more information on their members.

Dammit. This is going to be a hard day to pick someone.

[Queuing]

Fluff/nothing/night/prior to game beginning/questions about prior games/rules posts:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8714975&postcount=47
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8715359&postcount=85
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8718684&postcount=183
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8718715&postcount=186
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719335&postcount=261
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719413&postcount=267
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722041&postcount=429
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722065&postcount=431
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729288&postcount=711
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729393&postcount=719
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8730682&postcount=785
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8735635&postcount=897
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8737674&postcount=923
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8738467&postcount=936
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8738586&postcount=940
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8744022&postcount=1109
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8758667&postcount=1329
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764766&postcount=1379

207 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8718845&postcount=207) talks about non-believers going for a win, this is during day 1 when so much discussion of rules was happening
229 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8718991&postcount=229) suspects pleonast for voting for USC diver as both Diver and Scuba enjoy water. That is the only reason given (day1 vote)
243 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719108&postcount=243) Mentions M3, talking about how many bad guys there were.
250 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719250&postcount=250) unsuspects Pleonast, thanks for advice as he is a noob
380 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721272&postcount=380) talks about first day voting options and what he sees as the option (joining a bandwagon/random/none)
426 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722028&postcount=426) I had called pleonast on his quick vote/unvote on day 1 of USC Diver. Pleonast had said that he got scuba and diver confused. I did not (and still do not) buy this as an answer (further reasons are in this linked post). USC had said that I misinterpreted what pleonast had said. Scuba quotes me for unknown reasons here as far as I can tell. Perhaps its because both Scuba and Diver are noobs? so Scuba says at least
516 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8723794&postcount=516) quotes fretful about sachertorte, scuba expresses some suspicion of sach, and worries about auto, mentions M3 and the forbidden thread
561 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724968&postcount=561) mentions me again, says something stinks about my analysis re: O/A but never says what, and makes rule correction point
615 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725879&postcount=615) worries about the NAF/AZ argument says he thinks one is scum, but doesn't know what one, mentions checking out other top targets
617 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725913&postcount=617) mentions Mal, why all know why
623 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725998&postcount=623) quotes AZ, and talks about dust ups being the problem, also mentions sach and USCDiver as a "concern"
625 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8726136&postcount=625) quotes sachertorte, who asked why is a dustup a bad thing, says its because they became personal, mentions the problem is how to read it, and how many confrontations in M3 were town v town
674 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8727948&postcount=674) mentions he will give his analysis, but all it is is a rehash of what the roles are and discussion of the role, including what the secret role might be. Not exactly analysis. First mention (I believe) of secret role being an attack role
699 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8728882&postcount=699)Quotes hockeymonkey who had asked him why he believed the secret role is an attack one. Scuba says he didn't say that, even though he clearly did. Also admits that he thinks this is useless. So why post about it?
706 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729225&postcount=706) Corrects himself, that he did write the secret role may be an attack role, and says it was just a mistake between the psychopath and the secret role, also talks about apprentice/avatar
751 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8730093&postcount=751) quotes BM vote count, and says he will have to vote. has some inclinations:
Autolycus hasn't said anything useful that I'm aware of.
Kyrie Eleison subbed in mid-Day, I don't have an opinion on him or Clockwork Jackal. So I'm unlikely to vote for him.
Hal, Mad, and NAF I need to review.
Zuma took a vote and I don't think has defended emself. I think I should be concerned about that
is from the linked post.
783 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8730666&postcount=783) Now decides to vote for mtgman
Where did this vote come from? he was not mentioned by Scuba prior. However this was the dust-up between mtgman and storyteller. Scuba was the 1st person to vote for mtgman.

796 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8730726&postcount=796) says at least he didn't join a bandwagon---he did start it though
1014 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8739938&postcount=1014) Finds pleonast jumping on Mal right off teh bat suspicious but does say it is for good reasons. Huh? He goes on, but I still say huh. Ends up FOSing them both.
1030 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741104&postcount=1030) quotes story, and says analysis is good. Talks about looking at people who post more fluff then content, mentions getting post counts again
1040 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741431&postcount=1040) a post count, suspects both low and high posters as well as the ones in the middle. Basically everyone I suppose is what he means
post 1042 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741453&postcount=1042) Un-FOS pleonast as pleonast had answered him, and said aggressive play is not a tell either way. Also says must consider FCOD's point
1053 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741899&postcount=1053) quotes sach, who had thought it was odd that Nava had included herself, says why yes we should keep an eye on her. AS well cookies needs discussing
1058 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742116&postcount=1058) says auto hasn't been around, but said he was drunk, says Idle thoughts is off his list for now, and then there is the Nava thing, makes a joke about BM
1066 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742464&postcount=1066) says he is wary of Fretful for not wanting to go after Kat basically
1067 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742468&postcount=1067) clarifies his post as saying he wants to hear more from Kat before FOSing her
1071 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742569&postcount=1071) Fretful had FOS's diggit camara for his apparent bandwagoning to death mtgman. He completely neglects to mention who voted first for mtgman (it was scuba)
1073 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742601&postcount=1073) says he needs to go back and look AZ
1083 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742876&postcount=1083) removes all FOSes as he admits to being all over the place. He does FOS Kat though, for AZ's work. Also mentions Mal in connection with Mtgman. Huh? It was with Zuma. NO correction is made. Uses it to try say Mal is clean.
1197 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8750492&postcount=1197) -defends Mal once again. Threatens me with a vote as I had called him out for his weak reasoning of mtgman. Also says that me saying to Hal that I had no idea if he is scum is in itself a scum tell. Also brings up post counts and stats again.
1198 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8750500&postcount=1198) correct his logic, but still thinks what I said to Hal was a scum tell.
1216 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752586&postcount=1216) I get another mention, comparing me to AZ's freakout. I have no idea where he gets this from. He says I was drawing fire, but I don't recall this at all. The only thing that was happening was Hal did not like my vote for him.
1233 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752847&postcount=1233) Votes for Kat due to AZ's defensiveness
1364 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764567&postcount=1364) says its time to figure out who paid attention to diggitcamara (it was me btw) and find the scum in the kat/Mal mob. Says its should be 40% of the mob due to stats.
1372 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764696&postcount=1372) quotes fretful who had said the 40% was not even close to the truth, mentions he has read the thread again. Also says lets see who goes after Mal today.
1386 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764859&postcount=1386) quotes me, re:stas and his list. As well doesn't like that I said he was threatening people with any discussion of mal. I stand by this. Why would you say what he said previously? It can only poison any discussion with fear at best, at worse end all discussion of the topic.
1507 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8771775&postcount=1507) talks about my so-called hostility, and threatens me with a vote again. Also says he wants to see what storteller had to say.
1543 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8773617&postcount=1543) Drops his retaliatory vote against me. Says it is my "unrelentless persistence".

That is all his posts.

Here is what I think.

-I find it odd that mtgman was not mentioned at all by him until after/during the dustup between story and mtgman
-He placed the 1st vote on mtgman
-in later posted analysis of the voting pattern he neglects to mention this fact
-he mentions the secret role as an attack role, and gives lame excuse about it
-mentions numerous times that he has read the thread over and over
-never to rarely posts real analysis
-his analysis tends to revolve only around roles (not votes <except for that once where he didn't mention himself> or actual content) with the occasional post count thrown in
-mentions over and over his noobness, yet did follow M3 at the very least
-is all over the place and suspects everyone (admits to this and it seems to have stopped, sort of)
-accuses me of going after him even though he has mentioned my name numerous times, including suggestions I flamed out, was drawing fire and I was always close to a vote from him. This vote never happened until I said I thought he was suspicious. I admit one of the reasons I might have found him suspicious is his constant mention of me.
-He says he will do things, but rarely to never does. I expect to see one of things you have promised us Scuba
A: Detailed analysis of storyteller, and who he mentioned
B: Unrelenting persistence of someone
C: you say you have read the thread many times, but never give proof or analysis, how about some?
-Shut-up about the n00b thing. This game cannot be won by some sort of formula or a magic bullet. It can only be won by intelligent believers or a great play by the oracle. Stop looking for said magic bullet
-unsubstantiated FOS frequently

Thats it. I can say the vibe I get and I will if the collective you want, but I would like to know what others think.

[Fretful Porpentine]

Wow, slow topic.
Where is everyone? It's not the weekend yet!
I have a friend visiting from out of town, so I'm not going to be posting much -- but I'm reading along, and will try to get a vote in later today.

[Hockey Monkey]

Queuing, that was extremely helpful. I would like to know what your conclusions from all your hard work are. I will work on one of these today as I have time through the workday...maybe even two!

[Zeriel]

I've got comparatively little time today at work, but I'll re-read as possible and see if I can find someone worth voting for.

[Queuing]

Queuing, that was extremely helpful. I would like to know what your conclusions from all your hard work are. I will work on one of these today as I have time through the workday...maybe even two!

Well ok here goes.

I am leaning towards scum. I find it very suspicious that he has claimed to have read the thread numerous times, yet has shown very little for it. No links, no new theories, the only analysis is basically about roles. I think, but don't know, that this is a scum tell. Reporting that you are putting a lot of work in but producing very little in the way of results seems to me to be a good way for scum to plant the idea of a useful hard working townie while actually doing very little.

One point of his analysis that was not role chat was about the votes that went toward mtgman. He neglected to mention that he himself had started the voting bandwagon by placing the first vote, and instead mentions Diggit Camara as the one who had started the bandwagon. This post of mine (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8748069&postcount=1141) also outlines the voting pattern in regards to the mtgman kill. Diggit was the 4th person to vote for mtgman. We know storyteller was good guy, why are vote 1 and 3 ignored?

He claims that he will do such and such but rarely comes through with it. This is, IMO, another scum tell. Many things get lost in these kind of monster games. One of the ways to plant in other heads that you are a good guy is to repeat over and over that you will do something very townie, but actually do very little. I admit this is something of a repeat point.

His constant n00b card playing. Over and over he says he is inexperienced. We get it, we understand that this is probably your first game, however he also claims to have followed M3 closely which IMO would not make him much of a noob anymore. As well the constant reminders strikes me as a way to say "don't look at me, I don't know what I am doing". This could go either way as a tell though.

He says that he finds persistence annoying and a scum tell, yet has mentioned me many times, over and over threatening me with a vote. When it comes the reasoning is very lame and is basically an OMGUS vote (assuming OMGUS stands for Oh my god you suck). A poor play at best, and one that has been mentioned as poor many times in this thread. You would think he would know this if he has read the thread as many times as he claimed.

He uses veiled threats of votes as a way to stop discussion. Saying things such as "lets see who mentions mal today"; "let us keep an eye on Nava" etc, with no further mention of these people or things. I don't like this. It isn't very subtle.

On the other hand, he could be a n00b player. He could just not have any faith is his own ideas about this game, and is scared to go out on a limb. A retaliatory vote is generally, IMO, a bad thing to do as a scum as it draws attention to yourself. This could be a wine thing though.

What it boils down to me is that on the scales of Nairu I see more scummy things then town things. As well, not to be mean, but he hasn't provided much in the way of use to the town. This early in the game if you look scummy and haven't done much to help the town (no matter how many times you say you are going to) I see no reason not to vote for you. On the 3rd hand I do worry that his mention of my name numerous times is clouding my judgment.

[Captain Klutz]

Thoughts on various players

Malacandra - likely town. I believe that the events of Night 1 are best explained by Mal being town (see #1264 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8754275&postcount=1264)).
Mal didn't vote in Day 2. He explained this in #1440 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768455&postcount=1440), which looks very genuine (I thought some of his Day 2 postings looked like a man resigned to his fate).

Malacandra got 2 quick votes at the start of Day 2. One was from Pleonast, with the "heads I win, tails you lose" comment. This looked reasonable at first glance, and his immediate vote looks to be his style (he also had a quick vote at the start of days 1 and 3). His day 3 vote (#1442 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768524&postcount=1442) ) is also for Mal, the justification being that "There's been no reasonable defense". I'm not sure what to make of this. However, Pleonast has hardly posted in Days 2 and 3, perhaps trying to keep off the radar. I'm suspicious of Pleonast.

Fluiddruid - cast the second vote for Mal on day 2. The vote was justified by 'everyday townies have no real reason to worry about "get out of dunking free" cards' (#1031 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741148&postcount=1031) ). To me, this looks like it was trying to start a bandwagon.

Idle Thoughts - leaning town, for his decisive pursual of Kat. This may instead have been a clever ploy, arranged during Night 2, but I don't think that's very likely.

Hockey Monkey put in the last vote for Mtgman on Day 1, when Mtgman was already well in the lead. It seems unlikely for scum to needlessly join a townie lynch, so I am leaning toward Hockey Monkey being town (of course, you can also look at it as a brilliant scum move in order to avoid suspicion etc...)

Sachertorte - leaning town. Looks to have the town's interests at heart.

Nava - no idea. Nava hasn't posted much, partly due to timezone issues (hey, I've got timezone issues too!)

For my vote, it is between Pleonast and Fluiddruid. I will vote Fluiddruid

[Zeriel]

Y'know, Queuing, now that you've done that I'm going to have to re-read Scuba_Ben's stuff more carefully. I'd been mostly ignoring him and a few others because I'd seen them post but they weren't following lines of reasoning that I was concerned with, but your list seems to indicate he's not reasoning much at all.

Then again, my most recent re-read has me suspecting Hal Briston more again, due to the timing of the voting on Mal and mtgman (to my own annoyance, I had been counting his death as bad, but not TOO bad because of the difficulty of determining good non-belief from bad by any means other than dunking--not to mention the flak I've been getting over my later vote.)

I'm gonna have to chew on this a while. Lynched non-believers might provide more clues than I'd initially thought, because scum almost have to vote on them as though they're townsfolk (since scum can't differentiate them from townsfolk just as the O/A can't differentiate them from scum.) but townies are not going to be as upset about their deaths so people won't analyze them as much.

I'm, of course, lending weight to my own death here since I'm also primarily suspected based on my somewhat pivotal vote on mtgman, but I've already explained my reasoning for that vote in post 1551 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8773801&postcount=1551)

Yeesh, and I thought I wasn't going to have time today. Stupid busy-waiting on meetings to happen.

If I were forced to vote right now, I'd have to roll a die, because Hal Briston, Scuba_Ben, NAF1138, and Hockey Monkey are all looking possible to me for reasons stated upthread. At the same time, I'm wondering if I should bite the bullet and vote now (and risk being accused of bandwagon-starting) or wait until I'm sure of what I want to accomplish with a vote (and risk another mtgman-vs-ArizonaTeach situation that'll get me killed tomorrow).

This game is radically different here on the SDMB, that's for sure.

[Zeriel]

My last bit of discussion about staying alive is probably suspiciously scummy, at that. Whether or not people want to think of me as a newbie player who's getting inappropriately nervous about dying (and I don't think we can afford to be cavalier about "take one for the team" town deaths) or as a scum who's playing up his over-defensiveness as a WIFOM strategy, that's up to them.

[sachertorte]

I like Queuing's analysis of Scuba_Ben. I had also been getting a sort of 'posting a lot but not saying anything' vibe from Scuba_Ben, but hadn't had the chance to do a deeper analysis to confirm my suspicion. Also, I need to note that I think I've been confusing MHaye and Scuba_Ben so either they are both 'not saying much' or I'm just in a state of confusion. Queuing's look at Scuba_Ben at least makes me think I'm at least only half confused.
Anyway, I like Queuing's look at Scuba_Ben. My suspicions of Queuing are fading.

My list of people I wouldn't mind dunking today include:
NAF
Hockey Monkey
Scuba_Ben

I'm most suspicious of NAF, but if there's little support for dunking NAF, I'll back A Hockey Monkey or Scuba_Ben dunk. (Of course if others give analysis on another candidate, I'll consider alternatives).

Personally, I think this game is kind of screwed. MonkeyMensch is still a no-show; MadTheSwine has posted a little bit but not much substance yet, and many many others haven't participated much in day three.

Day Three Post Count up to post 1557:
Auto (Diggit) 4
Captain Klutz 7
Cookies 4
fluiddruid 3
FlyingCowOfDoom 3
Fretful Porpentine 5
Hal Briston 7
HazelNutCoffee 9
Hockey Monkey 9
Idle Thoughts 9
Kyrie Eleison 9
MadTheSwine 8
Malacandra 3
MHaye 7
MonkeyMensch 0
NAF 19
Nava 3
Pasta 2
Pleonast 3
Queuing 17
sachertorte 12
Scuba_ben 6
SnakesCatLady 6
USCDiver 9
Zeriel 26

** Of course some of those with more than 5 posts might be posting fluff or padding the count in some other way. I didn't check for content. But I think this many players posting so little is very bad for the game. (I'm not even talking pro-town or anti-town, just from a game flow/operations perspective).

I know there are reasons for lack of posting. I'm sure there are very good reasons for some people not posting much, but with 3 people with 4 or 5 posts and 7 people with 3 or less posts... it messes up the game.

In looking at this list, I'm inclined to knock NAF off my dunk-today list simply because he has a presence in the game.

[Queuing]

I too am still suspicious of Hal Briston. I do not want to vote for him know though. Based on his spreadsheet however. Currently he is being useful. It is my idea to go after people based on 2 things. 1 of these, and the most important is whether or not I think they are scum. The 2nd is how useful they are being to the cause of the Believers. Hal is being more useful then either Monkeymensch (where my vote lies as there has been no decision in regards to him being subbed or not) and Scuba Ben.

[NAF1138]

My last bit of discussion about staying alive is probably suspiciously scummy, at that. Whether or not people want to think of me as a newbie player who's getting inappropriately nervous about dying (and I don't think we can afford to be cavalier about "take one for the team" town deaths) or as a scum who's playing up his over-defensiveness as a WIFOM strategy, that's up to them.


For what it's worth, I think this explanatory post is much scummier than what you posted initially. But then again I already think you are scum, so maybe I am biased. :dubious:

[off topic]you said that the SDMB version is very different, how so? This is just curiosity on my part, I mostly play meat space versions also but have read many games at mafiascum. Just interested to know what other people think about the version of the game we are developing here.[/off topic]

[Kyrie Eleison]

Innocuous if devoid of ulterior motives; heavy-handed if truly an attempt by someone who is scum - is what I meant. I saw the original post, and while I only referenced the game quote what I said applies to both.
That's practically tautological -- yes, they are innocuous if innocently made, as that's pretty much the definition of innocuous. I wasn't prepared to assume that they were innocently made, though. I thought that his remarks were worth noting, and pointed them out for consideration. I don't know why you take exception to that. You intimate suspicion, but you're not very explicit about it.

You did reference only one quote, and in so doing, you made it appear that I was attempting to find fault with Idle based on a single, "innocuous", remark. This is a small thing, but it bugs me -- it, along with your choice of loaded words, and your failure to draw any sort of conclusion, strike me as dishonest. You acknowledged that you read the original post, so you were aware that there was more to it than your post represents.

To be clear, I don't think that anyone who reads this:
... And then his insinuation that Idle Thoughts was posting about playing games to kill time during the Night because he was trying too hard not to look like scum. (To be fair, Captain Klutz did this as well.) It was a pretty innocuous out-of-game remark, and anyway, I doubt scum would call attention to themselves in such a heavy-handed manner. ...
would fail to think that that my post concerned anything other than a single remark by Idle, unless they were already aware of the context, or bothered to review it. And I note that there's not cite that would easily allow them to perform such a review. Is it fair of me to say that you knowingly misrepresented what I had said?

[Pleonast]

However, Pleonast has hardly posted in Days 2 and 3, perhaps trying to keep off the radar. I'm suspicious of Pleonast.Not staying off the radar, I just have little new to say. Malacandra is still the most suspicious to me, followed by MonkeyMensch. I've stated my reasons (for Mal 1004 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8739345&postcount=1004), and for Mensch 1442 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768524&postcount=1442)), and don't see a point to endlessly repeating them. I've been going back and reading others' posts, but don't see enough to make a case against anyone else.

A couple people have voted for me, for apparently ill-defined suspicious behavior. I've stated my reasons for all of my votes and I have no defense other than I think I'm acting in the Town's interest. They don't. And while I disagree with their assessment, their suspicions don't seem unreasonable enough for me to be suspicious of them.

Since I have little time to follow along on weekends, I'd prefer people would get their votes in today. Hopefully we can get a consensus on who to dunk by this afternoon. I'd rather avoid a late minute rush to vote and corresponding quick bandwagons and/or role claims.

[sachertorte]

On the 3rd hand I do worry that his mention of my name numerous times is clouding my judgment.
I don't think your analysis is overly biased, but I will point out that bias probably pointed you into the direction of Scuba_Ben and motivated you to investigate his history. Also, I'd say that Scuba_Ben is probably not the only player with the modus operandi you attribute to Scuba_Ben. That doesn't absolve Scuba_Ben, but I think it gives perspective to what we're facing here.

[Scuba_Ben]

I've gone over storyteller's posts through about 750, and here's what I've found significant so far:

In #281 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=281) and #351, (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=351) there's a dust-up with MadTheSwine.

In #362 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=362), aks Pleonast about their vote on USCDiver; I think I missed Pleonast's reply. On the other hand, by #483 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=483), this had triggered Idle Thoughts interest in Pleonast.

In #582 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=582), goes after Mtgman for discussing the math of night kills.

In #589 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=589) and #593 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=593), finds problems with NAF1138's vote on ArizonaTeach for NAF giving leeway to Malacandra but not to AZTeach.

In #712 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=712), has a change of outlook upon realizing that Cult does not ID as Cult, and hits Mtgman's plan.

From these, I believe that MadTheSwine and NAF1138 are probably not Monks; Mtgman has been shown to not be a Monk. I base this on my conjecture that the Monks, forming a trusted group, probably want to not reveal each other early in the game.

Those pages also cover the early discussion of the Oracle and Apprentice. When I was skimming those posts, I had an insight that I don't think was brought up earlier: The Cultists ID as Nonbeliever, and the Prophet IDs as Believer -- but the town's power roles ID as such. Therefore, investigations of people that reveal power roles will be 100% reliable for the Oracle. At some point, certainly not toDay, sharing a list of people of known power roles will be useful, as it will add people to the trusted group.

The other point that jumped out at me in those early pages was how weak my posts were in Day 1 and likely much of Day 2. If it's that obvious even to me, I can barely imagine how it appears to everybody else. I hope I'll be doing better next week.

[NAF1138]

I've gone over storyteller's posts through about 750, and here's what I've found significant so far:

In #281 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=281) and #351, (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=351) there's a dust-up with MadTheSwine.

In #362 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=362), aks Pleonast about their vote on USCDiver; I think I missed Pleonast's reply. On the other hand, by #483 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=483), this had triggered Idle Thoughts interest in Pleonast.

In #582 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=582), goes after Mtgman for discussing the math of night kills.

In #589 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=589) and #593 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=593), finds problems with NAF1138's vote on ArizonaTeach for NAF giving leeway to Malacandra but not to AZTeach.

In #712 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724265&postcount=712), has a change of outlook upon realizing that Cult does not ID as Cult, and hits Mtgman's plan.

From these, I believe that MadTheSwine and NAF1138 are probably not Monks; Mtgman has been shown to not be a Monk. I base this on my conjecture that the Monks, forming a trusted group, probably want to not reveal each other early in the game.



Um...so why are we trying to figure out who the monks are? I understand you may not think that is what you are doing, and eliminating possible monk claims is a noble endevor, but let the monks look out for each other. We don't need to out them or cover for them.

[Hal Briston]

...investigations of people that reveal power roles will be 100% reliable for the Oracle. At some point, certainly not toDay, sharing a list of people of known power roles will be useful, as it will add people to the trusted group. As well as to the "primary target for a scum kill" group. A spectacularly bad idea, if you ask me. The only time the Oracle should make public his findings is A) if he's uncovered a large group of "non-believers" (some of which are bound to be scum), or B) if he's about to be lynched. Obviously, if B is the case then he'll have to role-claim, and hopefully the Priest is still around to move from self-protecting to Oracle-protecting.

Still, it would have to be very late in the game for it to be a good idea for him to start naming names on the power roles.

[Zeriel]

sachertorte, looks like you knocked some folks out of the woodwork to come back and actually post. =) I'm curious as to whether you have any opinions on Hal Briston, myself--otherwise, my current suspicion list looks close to yours.

For what it's worth, I think this explanatory post is much scummier than what you posted initially. But then again I already think you are scum, so maybe I am biased. :dubious:

Well, I'm still holding out on declaring you scum, but like sachertorte, I wouldn't mind seeing you dunk. Consider it halfway mutual. =P

[off topic]you said that the SDMB version is very different, how so? This is just curiosity on my part, I mostly play meat space versions also but have read many games at mafiascum. Just interested to know what other people think about the version of the game we are developing here.[/off topic]

The mafiascum newbie games and meatspace games are so fast, relatively speaking. There's less chance here of a dominating personality driving the discussion like in meatspace. The mafiascum newbie games don't have nearly the room for error this game does, and with only seven people to keep track of it's a lot easier to hold the whole game in your head. Meatspace games have an entirely different set of scum tells for me, like bandwagon-starting rather than bandwagon-joining.

Half my problem playing here is that my suspicion posts are all over the map because I forget about people I've been suspicious of. This is why I personally love sacher's suggestion to self-summarize.

[SnakesCatLady]

I am wondering more and more about Mad the Swine. In post #1410, I made a comment that he had not been heard from for a few days. He immediately came back with a post that quoted what I said and then said "Hi". So he is definitely reading the game but doesn't seem to be contributing much to it. Post #1423 he says that he was "going to' investigate a player based on something said on Day 1, but that player has been killed so he is off to Plan B. Post #1426 asks who the "noob" players are in the game. Post #1429 talks about the "third vote" and Hal Briston's play in M4. Post #1435 says he prefers to be addressed as Mad rather than MtS. Post #1509 is a response to a question about his vote for ClockworkJackal in which he referred to the FOS placed by CJ as a vote. He still believes CJ's "no one looks scummy yet" is a scum tell. Post #1528 gives the reason he voted for CJ over Hal Briston (he had been responsible for Hal's death twice previously) and that he regards a FOS to be as important as a vote.

In summary of Mad, he seems to be participating a bit more in the last day, so I'm going to hold off on him.

On to Captain Klutz. I mentioned earlier that I had not noticed any posts from him in the last 7 pages I had read. He responded by saying he had posted on pages 22 and 23. So I went back and looked over those pages. On page 22, post #1100, he comments on Idle Thoughts "I'm not doing anything at night" post. On page 23, post #1103, he discusses the possible whos and whys of zuma's death in response to a post by Queuing saying that the who wasn't important, but the why was. He goes on to say that zuma's death did not ease his suspicions of Malacandra. Post $1104 is a another response to Queuing concerning the Crusader. Post #1106 uses an exchange between myself and Zeriel (concerning repeating things other players have brought up in order to leave information at death, even if I have not disovered or uncovered any information I thought was new) to say "Okay" and that he is male. Post #1136 un-FOSs storyteller after accepting the explanation of a memory lapse. Post #1264 he lies his suspicion of Malacandra to rest. He also writes that sachertorte "feels like town", asks auto to come out and play, says that he has doubts about Kat but wants to give the sub a chance. He goes on to say that he is most suspicious of Kat but since he wants to give the sub a chance to play he will vote for auto and if that looks like a throwaway vote "so be it".

Since I was the one who brought up his lack of posting, I wanted to clarify that he had posted where I thought he had not. It was just prior to the events which brought him to my notice.

Now that I have been fair, I vote for Captain Klutz. I think he is scum, and that the Arizona Teach vote for Zeriel was intended to draw attention away from him.

[Pasta]

Quick note:

I've been a slow poster toDay. This is due to two things. (1) Work jumped up and bit me this week. Should be better in the weekend. (2) The "homework" thing I think really dragged the thread to a halt. Pointed discussions have been replaced with synopses with no particular raison d'etre. The next content I am expected to post is my homework, and that just doesn't excite me much, so I haven't jumped at the opportunity to blow an hour that way. (If someone else wants to do a Pasta workup....) I've already done two such workups on other players, but it was in context: something I feel is way more useful. When that amount of effort/thread-length is devoted for a targeted reason (such as "I think I might vote for this person; lemme make sure" or "I have no idea who this person is; lemme find out" then it's useful, and sharing the research can be helpful to others, but it can also be passed over as well.

[Fretful Porpentine]

At some point, certainly not toDay, sharing a list of people of known power roles will be useful, as it will add people to the trusted group.
Nonononono. This is about the worst thing the Oracle can do. It tells the scum exactly who to target, and it means that the Priest and Disciple will be well-nigh useless for the rest of the game, because they're too busy self-protecting to get anyone else's back. The Oracle and Apprentice should ID power roles ONLY as "Believer."

I was dithering between Zeriel and Scuba Ben before, since I've outlined my reasons for suspecting Zeriel before but I thought Queuing's analysis was very convincing. This pushes me over the edge. Vote ScubaBen.

[Malacandra]

Nonononono. This is about the worst thing the Oracle can do. It tells the scum exactly who to target, and it means that the Priest and Disciple will be well-nigh useless for the rest of the game, because they're too busy self-protecting to get anyone else's back. The Oracle and Apprentice should ID power roles ONLY as "Believer."


Assuredly. The only possible Town gain from identifying the Priest and Disciple is in knowing not to lynch them - that hardly counterbalances the big round target on their back. Once the Oracle knows who the Priest is, the Priest should be harder than most to lynch as you would hope that the Oracle and Disciple should be able to help keep someone ahead of the Priest in the dunking race. The poor bloody Disciple's not so blessed, of course. :)

Unfortunately the two people I'm most suspicious of are the ones who'll look like OMGUS votes on my part. I'll have to see if I can come up with some sort of a case.

[Blaster Master]

Blaster, a Mafia 5 question: what happens if the Psychopath is recruited? (This is actually 2 questions, for recruitment before and after being triggered)
And if they are triggered after being recruited, what happens? (this can't happen now due to the loss of the Crusader, but I'm still interested)

The Psychopath will lose all powers upon begin recruited. If he is unactivated, because he didn't know he was the Psychopath, neither will the Cult until his death. If he is activated, he will lose his Night kill ability (similar to if the Crusader, Oracle, or Apprentice was recruited). In the last case, he wouldn't have been activated, he simply would have died.

Also, I'm not quite sure about the win conditions for the Psychopath: the Psychopath wins if they are alive at the end and there are no Believers or Cultists remaining. Do the Non-Believers also win in this case?

If the Psychopath is unactivated, he wins as a regular Non-Believer. If he is activated, he must remain alive and the Non-Believers must equal at least 50% of the town population when the Cult is eliminated. If the Psychopath wins, all Non-Believers (excluding Cult, of course) win with him.

[NAF1138]

Any word from the Monkey man? If not I would like a sub, we have enough people who are only barely playing as it is.

[Blaster Master]

Any word from the Monkey man? If not I would like a sub, we have enough people who are only barely playing as it is.

I am currently looking for a sub.

[Queuing]

I am currently looking for a sub.

In that case I will unvote monkeymensch and since I laid the case out

vote Scuba Ben

This probably means Scuba Ben is a power role if my performance in M2 is any indication.

[Kyrie Eleison]

In summary of Mad, he seems to be participating a bit more in the last day, so I'm going to hold off on him.
His level of participation is actually making me more likely to vote for him. He seems to be responding to direct inquiries, and participating just enough to avoid getting subbed out, while not really contributing anything of significance. Yet he pops in enough, often just after having been mentioned, to make it clear that he's following along, and he promises that there's more to come if we'll be patient. He's failed to vote once, and he seems to be following the plan that fluiddruid outlined as the optimal scum strategy.

I'm still waiting to hear about plan B, but my patience is wearing thin.

[MHaye]

The text of the first question seems to suggest that the writer believes only the Crusader can activate the Psychopath.And if they are triggered after being recruited, what happens? (this can't happen now due to the loss of the Crusader, but I'm still interested)It's just the bold bit, obviously.

That's not my understanding of the Psychopath's activation conditions : it explicitly states "When the Cultists or the Crusader attack you at night, you will awaken startled and barely manage to scare off your attackers..."

It is therefore still possible that we might face the Psychopath activated.

[sachertorte]

I agree with Kyrie. I really didn't like MadTheSwine's vague notions of investigating someone only to find them dead, so he needs another plan. 1) He doesn't tell us who this player was. Why not? 2) He doesn't tell us why he thought that player deserved further investigation.
It seems conveniently vague and purposefully unhelpful.

[sachertorte]

MHaye. The questioner is right. Without a crusader a recruited unactivated psychopath has no one to attempt to kill him. A recruited psychopath will not be targeted by cultists.

[MHaye]

MHaye. The questioner is right. Without a crusader a recruited unactivated psychopath has no one to attempt to kill him. A recruited psychopath will not be targeted by cultists. :smack:

I think I must have misread the order of actions. Excuse me while I hide.

[Hal Briston]

His level of participation is actually making me more likely to vote for him.Thank you...that's exactly the way I've been feeling of late.

I keep thinking back to the discussion on the scum board in M4, where it was decided that Autolycus would play it almost the same as Mad currently is (without the role-playing) -- the very light posting, not a great deal of content, just enough to remind everyone that he's here. It's all looking very familiar. Don't care for it one bit.

In fact, hell with it...I'm consistently having a harder time deciding where to place my vote in this game than I have in any of the previous ones, so I'm just going with my gut. Vote Mad The Swine.

And after the events in M4, man do I hope I'm right about this...helping lynch a scummy Mad would be such poetic justice. :)

[Queuing]

Can we get an official vote count BM? Thanks.

[HazelNutCoffee]

That's practically tautological -- yes, they are innocuous if innocently made, as that's pretty much the definition of innocuous. I wasn't prepared to assume that they were innocently made, though. I thought that his remarks were worth noting, and pointed them out for consideration. I don't know why you take exception to that. You intimate suspicion, but you're not very explicit about it.
This will teach me not to post when I'm half awake. All I meant to say was that I didn't think his comments were suspicious at all, and that I thought it was a big of an over-reach on your part to say they were. Perhaps it is a bit of an over-reach on my part to find your over-reach suspicious. I don't know.

As for only referencing one quote, all I can say in my defense was that I thought you were quoting from the same post - plus, my suspicion stemmed from (what I deemed was) your over-reaction, so I didn't really think the number of quotes you included was significant. Both of his remarks seemed similar in nature.

No need to be delicate. By saying you think I "knowingly misrepresented" something, you are basically accusing me of lying. I admit I may have misrepresented what you said, but I certainly didn't do it on purpose. It would be stupid of me to lie about posts that are there for anyone who cares to check. I apologize if my laziness appeared as dishonesty.

Also, I didn't state any explicit suspicions because I don't have any yet - my original post (the one I made half-asleep) was all about vague suspicions, not just about you, but about a number of people. I posted them in the hopes they would be challenged, so I could either discard them or have them confirmed. I don't see anything wrong with this. Are you suggesting I refrain from posting anything until I am absolutely sure of my opinions?

[Hockey Monkey]

Pregame: post 51, 165, 167, 181

Post 206 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8718844&postcount=206) – agrees with FCOD not to worry about non-believers until the town starts winning handily because they aren’t the ones killing us right now

post 230 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8718995&postcount=230) Thanks Hal for retracing his internal editing process re: the above post when Clockwork Jackal questions his wording.

post 325 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719851&postcount=325) Agrees with sachertorte's strategy re: the Oracle and Apprentice investigations. Makes contradictory statements: that they should investigate in random order and that we should remember who was up for investigation if it's a good idea to do it in order.

post 328 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719857&postcount=328) And an immediate followup to say holy cow, Mtgman is right. The Apprentice is going to be hard to really usefully interpret results from.

post 367 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8720590&postcount=367) Gender clarification (male)

post 385 (http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721484&postcount=385) Reply to FCOD about people defending others on the first day...maybe they are masons. Talks about a few low level scum vibes (Clockwork Jackal, Mad the Swine, NAF, Pleonast, and DiggitCamara, and says he doesn't have enough for a vote yet.

post 406 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8721731&postcount=406) Agrees that we've had enough Oracle/Apprentice discussion, and points out that they are both Dopers which makes them smarter than the average bear and should be able to pick out a good strategy by themselves.

post 425 (http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722012&postcount=425) Responds to Pleonast re: recruitment. Basically that we can't. This one is hard to sum up, so please click to read link.

post 435 (http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722141&postcount=435) Response to Scuba_Ben re: Prophet detection. Says he misread. Says we should treat those read as non-believers as scum unless proven otherwise.

post 522 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724038&postcount=522) Response to NAF about NAF's listing him as a lurker, and FOS NAF.

post 524 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724043&postcount=524) Quote of entire post: "And yeah, what SnakesCatLady said--this is my first on-board game of Mafia(alike), and it's WAY different than the in-person version I'm used to."

post 549 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724867&postcount=549) NAF's anti-lurker post scummy, Hal Briston's post (about the Apprentice getting the Oracle's attention) looks scummier every time it's quoted, Kyrie Eleison nudging the radar but not as much as Clockwork Jackal did, Captain Klutz's explanation of a good reason to lurk is scummy. Votes for NAF (in the wrong color).

post 550 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724872&postcount=550) Corrects his vote for NAF

post 564 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724996&postcount=564) Response to Captain Klutz: "Who benefits if we have people thinking it's alright to post once per GameDay, with a vote and justification? That doesn't give the townies much to go on, therefore it's ...essentially, not even worth an "official" FOS, just a mental note that it might be scummy."

post 565 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725019&postcount=565) Lists people with post counts similar to the one's on NAF's list that NAF failed to mention as lurkers. (I'm on that list. :( ) Says that if NAF is scum, these folks are suspect.

post 578 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725342&postcount=578) Response to NAF...again hard to sum up, please click link.

post 584 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725422&postcount=584) Response to NAF. Shining light on those not mentioned. Says Pleonast, Mad, and Mtgman are all starting to look scummy. (But doesn't give any further explaination)

post 716 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729351&postcount=716) Storyteller was right about if the apprentice is revealed that he should be protected from conversion. sachertorte has a good point, but still think Queuing is right. Doesn't know why so many votes for sachertorte other than the harping on the plan. Mtgman's plan was more detrimental, but he backed off sooner. Considering backing off NAF vote.

post 717 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729372&postcount=717) Clarifies his defense of sachertorte and mtgman. Says it's suspicious that Kyrie jumps to kill the apprentice rather than protect him. Unvotes NAF, votes Kyrie.

post 737 (http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729688&postcount=737) A response to Kyrie Eleison

post 768 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8730499&postcount=768) Ease up on the pharmaceuticals

post 836 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8731873&postcount=836) main point to SnakesCatLady to leave breadcrumbs so we can figure out what you were thinking after you die

post 870 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8734213&postcount=870) Mtgman jumps to the top of his list and Kyrie Eleison is looking less scummy. Unvotes Kyrie and Votes Mtgman.

Night posts – 906, 952, 995

post 990 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8739118&postcount=990), URL=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8739118&postcount=991]post 991[/URL] Wonders how stupid the scum are to kill someone on the list for dunking on day two.

post 1047 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8741618&postcount=1047) Explains his vote for Mtgman, says he doesn't disapprove of bandwagon voting when there are a lot of frontrunners

post 1057 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8742115&postcount=1057) Penis owner

post 1123 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8746955&postcount=1123) Chastises Mal for his condescension and FOS's him

post 1130 (http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8747659&postcount=1130) response to Mal

post 1200 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8750721&postcount=1200) votes for Fluiddruid for immediately jumping on Malacandra with "precious little reason", and to poke her. I don't recall him being suspicious of Fluiddruid before this vote, so this one pings me a little

Post 1209 wonders if the 4th has slowed down the thread (not worth a link)

post 1223 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752725&postcount=1223) For the Record FOS's: Malacandra, Kyrie, Autolycus, SCL, and NAF. Notes that SCL and Auto have been very quiet and that's why he voted for Fluiddruid. I thought her being quiet was a secondary reason per post 1200.

post 1249 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8753347&postcount=1249) A reply to SCL, and puts Mhaye on his FOS list

Night posts 1333, 1341

post 1369 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764647&postcount=1369) "Observation one: If I understand the rules/roles correctly, either the secret role can kill or we know the psychopath is activated." I missed this before and don't really understand why he thought this. Did he forget about the Crusader? Yep post 1370 says so. The rest of the post is some analysis and a vote for Hal Briston that I just don't understand (the analysis or the vote). It's all starting to look like random words on a screen right now :p .

post 1373 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764699&postcount=1373) "Next random thought: We know, at least, that Kat wasn't the Avatar. Neither of the deaders voted for her." I won't harp on the wrongness here because it was addressed in subsequent posts by other players.

post 1375 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764738&postcount=1375) "Final thought on my lunch break--anyone wanna call the odds of Diggit having activated the Psychopath on night one? If we make that as a potential assumption, can we potentially get any ideas of who he might have been trying and failing to whack on night one?"

Post 1377 says he missed the rule on the Avatar kill. (Not worth a link)

post 1381 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764788&postcount=1381) Replys to NAF on why he voted for Hal Briston.

post 1385 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8764824&postcount=1385) If he were the crusader he would be leaving breadcrumbs on the off chance that he activated the psychopath.

post 1413 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8766825&postcount=1413) Response to Idle on Idle's vote for Kat

post 1441 (http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768485&postcount=1441) "it's in sachertorte's post, dude. Number 585 is your statement." This was a reply to NAF.

post 1445 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768569&postcount=1445) Reiteration of his FOS for NAF. Click the link and read the whole thing.

post 1449 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768755&postcount=1449) Response to NAF's vote for him. Notes that his vote is still on Hal. Makes a good point about NAF's lurker list.

Post 1451 explains his view of the use of FOS (not worth a link)

post 1453 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768832&postcount=1453) Reads back and sees that zuma was on NAF's list and is confirmed town so is not voting for NAF today.

post 1462 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8769150&postcount=1462) Response to Kyrie Eleison re NAF

post 1463 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8769180&postcount=1463) Unvotes Hal Briston stating that it was a dumb decision he had made based on the votewar between Kat and Mal

post 1485 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8770444&postcount=1485) sums up his own posting record, and says that he may not remember why he posted some of the stuff

post 1486 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8770453&postcount=1486) Question for NAF re obsession vs suspicion

post 1491 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8770678&postcount=1491) A very nice summary of his suspicions

post 1506 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8771735&postcount=1506) "Can't agree more. I know I'm personally making a conscious decision to accept all real-life excuses for lurking or for substitutions at face value, and I'd be disappointed to find out people were using things like "oh, work was hell this week" as a contrived excuse not to post."

post 1517 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8772215&postcount=1517) "I gotta admit, I've got a lot of little suspicions but damn, I have no idea who I should be voting for here."

Post 1519 – fluff (the first one other than night posts)

post 1541 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8773484&postcount=1541) Bouncing between the following people to bote for: NAF, Pleonast, Hockey Monkey. Just a little earlier he had all but cleared NAF from his suspicion list. States that Pleonast is fading into the background. And up till this point he had not mentioned me at all (other than in his rebuttal lurker list to NAF). I find it "convenient" that he does this now, calls my reasons for FOS ridiculous and poor and threatens a retaliatory vote. Did I push a button?

post 1551 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8773801&postcount=1551) In response to me, offers an alternate explanation for his vote for Mtgman, and says he will step back from the impulse to place a retaliatory vote.

post 1552 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8773806&postcount=1552) comments on my capstone vote for Mtgman

post 1555 (http://http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8774990&postcount=1555) On re-read says that he wants to suspect Hockey Monkey and NAF, but he can't really at this time.

Post 1559 – has little time today

post 1562 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8776097&postcount=1562) Says that he will have to examine Scuba_Ben because of Queuing's analysis, is again suspecting Hal Briston, and puts NAF and me back in the suspicion rotation. This one confuses me because I think little had changed between post 1555 and this one. Why am I back on your short list now?

post 1563 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8776117&postcount=1563) Makes a possibly scummy correction/explanation of a possibly scummy interpretaion of his above post.

post 1573 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8776569&postcount=1573) Tells sachertorte it looks like he knocked a few people out of the woodwork, and that his suspicions are close to sacher's. A reply to NAF. An out of game comment.

And that brings us up to now. Up until about post 1485 I was thinking that I may have been wrong to vote for Zeriel. When he said he might not remember some of the reasons he posted stuff, that pinged me a bit. Then the on again off again nature of his suspicions for both me and NAF don’t sit well. (I admittedly may be biased when it comes to me, but I think I would have picked up on this if it were concerning another player.) I also want to say that I am not defending NAF in any way, he’s just the other player concerned. Almost all day I was going to change my vote, but I think I will leave it be for now.

[Idle Thoughts]

Regarding Queuings asking for thoughts on Scuba Ben..I dunno. I've been following along and reread some of his posts that you linked to and I don't really see it. I mean, nothing really strikes me or pings my meter that says "scum", although there are a lot of things that could go either way, I think (which you mention one or two--but to me, that kinda reads all of them like that). Other than that, I don't know what to tell you. He does have a lot of meandering posts and thoughts but then again, so do I. So did Mtgman. So does most of the players in this game. My two cents is just this: At least I, personally, don't see anything there yet that raises any alarms. *shrugs*

I'm mostly in the boat with Zeriel at this point. I have one or two suspicions and other than that, not much. I don't know why this seems to be a harder game than the others but I get the sense that the Cultists are taking paints to remain in the woodwork.

Also, does the commradary between Hockey Monkey and Queuing seem off to anyone else as it does to me? :confused: I dunno, but just the exchange in posts 1556, 1558 and 1560 that they have seems weird. Like one is trying to butter up the other or such. Could be from both, but I tend to lean more towards the "coming from one" sense. But whatever it is, it seems/feels/reads wrong to me.

Speaking of Zeriel...

Y'know, Queuing, now that you've done that I'm going to have to re-read Scuba_Ben's stuff more carefully. I'd been mostly ignoring him and a few others because I'd seen them post but they weren't following lines of reasoning that I was concerned with, but your list seems to indicate he's not reasoning much at all.

Bolding mine.

Hmm, well, I always read every post in the topic when I come on and do my catching up because I've found in this game, slips or hints could be found anywhere and it certainly never hurts to go over things more than one time. So please correct me if I'm reading/taking this wrong but are you saying you don't usually read many posts or skip/browse over those that don't really pertain to you or what you're thinking/feeling?

From these, I believe that MadTheSwine and NAF1138 are probably not Monks; Mtgman has been shown to not be a Monk. I base this on my conjecture that the Monks, forming a trusted group, probably want to not reveal each other early in the game.

Snipped.

Hey, thanks for doing some of the scum's work for them! Seriously, this sort of talk IS the stuff that raises hits on my radar. :dubious: I might have spoke too soon above when I replied to Queuings comment.

If you really ARE town, I don't really see the advantage that can come from helping narrow possible choices down for the opposite team.

Only one page still? What happened to the days of yore when I'd come back and find three or four new pages on these games?
Anyway, I haven't seen any major reason to change my vote. I say major because there's been a few minor ones, but nothing rock solid enough to make me waver from strong suspicions I've had since Day One and only growing stronger since. Scuba Ben raised a lot of flags there with the talk of power role talk and trying to guess at Monks, so I have no idea if he's either a boneheaded (at the time, not in general) town or very obvious scum. I tend to think it's the former, although that's me being tempted myself into the "scum would never be that obvious" brush-off, which scares me sometimes. But I don't know what else could be and I haven't had any prior pings, so I dunno.

Mal and, on a lesser degreeMad, are the only other two that are around on my suspicions lists at all. Mal from the start and Mad based on feelings I had and was starting to form that I see Kyrie expressed above--mainly that he (Mad) has seemed to just put in enough posts to stay in the game, but hasn't added squat since he returned to the game.

As for now though, I'm going to keep my vote where it is as it's the most credible/suspicious I've got at this point.

One thing Pleonast said, in his last post here (number 1568) is that he hasn't been posting because he doesn't have much else to add and doesn't see the point in just repeating himself. I slightly disagree with this style of play because it doesn't ever give anything for town, REAL, ACTUAL town, I mean, to use or work with. At the very least, even if you've voted already, what's the harm in helping out by making comments here and there and giving your input on things? It could make a world of difference after you're gone and your role (whatever it may be) is confirmed. If we had everyone do what he's doing (or apparently feels), I feel--even though this is Day Three now--it'd feel like Day One still with all the info and reads we've had gotten from others.

Ah well, though. Just chalk it up to another good reason I'm voting for him and why he's been a suspect in my eyes this long.

[Kyrie Eleison]

... All I meant to say was that I didn't think his [Idle Thoughts'] comments were suspicious at all...

As for only referencing one quote, all I can say in my defense was that I thought you were quoting from the same post - plus, my suspicion stemmed from (what I deemed was) your over-reaction, so I didn't really think the number of quotes you included was significant. Both of his remarks seemed similar in nature.

They were similar in nature. Had there been only one, I doubt I would have said anything at all. But two similar remarks, in widely separated posts? That's the beginning of a pattern. And that's also part of why it troubled me that you made it appear to be a single remark. It occurred to me that you might be trying to downplay the significance of what I had said regarding Idle, that is, defending him to some degree. I even thought that the other points in that paragraph might have been included simply to provide cover for this, and it didn't help my paranoia when you later backed away from one of them.

No need to be delicate. By saying you think I "knowingly misrepresented" something, you are basically accusing me of lying.
True, but I did choose that phrasing carefully. "Lying" would have implied intent, which I couldn't support, and which I remain unsure of. Had I thought you were lying, that post would have included a vote.

Also, I didn't state any explicit suspicions because I don't have any yet - my original post (the one I made half-asleep) was all about vague suspicions, not just about you, but about a number of people. I posted them in the hopes they would be challenged, so I could either discard them or have them confirmed. I don't see anything wrong with this. Are you suggesting I refrain from posting anything until I am absolutely sure of my opinions?
Not at all. Truth be told, I just wanted to poke you hard enough to get a response, which I hoped might be revealing. Thank you for responding -- I was waiting to hear from you before voting.

Vote MadTheSwine, for all of the reasons I previously listed here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8777093&postcount=1582), because Hal Briston is right regarding his behavior being similar to established scum strategy, and because, more and more, it appears to be strategic in nature, rather than due to unfortunate circumstance. MadTheSwine disappeared shortly after he began taking some heat from storyteller0910, HazelNutCoffee, and others, and his behavior since seems to be designed for self-preservation, in a fashion more appropriate to scum than to town.

[Zeriel]

Hmm, well, I always read every post in the topic when I come on and do my catching up because I've found in this game, slips or hints could be found anywhere and it certainly never hurts to go over things more than one time. So please correct me if I'm reading/taking this wrong but are you saying you don't usually read many posts or skip/browse over those that don't really pertain to you or what you're thinking/feeling?

It's more that I find myself doing many of my re-read the threads at work on breaks or late at night, and I'm prone to having my eyes slide over some stuff that's not strictly related to the last few people that pinged my radar. It's one of the reasons I'm not voting until the weekend.

[Zeriel]

And that brings us up to now. Up until about post 1485 I was thinking that I may have been wrong to vote for Zeriel. When he said he might not remember some of the reasons he posted stuff, that pinged me a bit. Then the on again off again nature of his suspicions for both me and NAF don’t sit well. (I admittedly may be biased when it comes to me, but I think I would have picked up on this if it were concerning another player.) I also want to say that I am not defending NAF in any way, he’s just the other player concerned. Almost all day I was going to change my vote, but I think I will leave it be for now.

I make very few apologies for the on-again off-again nature of my suspicions. First of all, the NAF and you things are just as you said--I'm going to be super-sensitive about attacks on myself, and I'm not exactly alone in that. After all, if someone knows they themselves are a townie, it's in their best interest to at least consider why they're being targeted. I'm also admittedly prone to following along on other people's logic--if I like what someone says in an analysis post, I'm likely to take their suspicion as my own.

Offtopically, I'm used to smaller games by a factor of 3+ and despite having joined in 2005 I'm not QUITE all the way adept at dealing with the type of fast-paced threads one sees on the dope--probably half my total posts are from this thread! That's really the other reason I'm not always 100% fully on board with my posts from a few days or Days ago.

[Queuing]

Also, does the commradary between Hockey Monkey and Queuing seem off to anyone else as it does to me? :confused: I dunno, but just the exchange in posts 1556, 1558 and 1560 that they have seems weird. Like one is trying to butter up the other or such. Could be from both, but I tend to lean more towards the "coming from one" sense. But whatever it is, it seems/feels/reads wrong to me.

Extensively snipped.

Camaraderie? You mean he said that what I did was helpful, and then asked for my opinion? Which I then gave?

Meh, I wanted to hold out on giving it, but as you have pointed out numerous times the amount of talking has gone down significantly. I had hope others would have responded, but they hadn't. I didn't know when I would be able to get back to thread so I posted. It may appear that I am online all the time, but that is because I just leave the dope up in a tab at all times occasionally refreshing it.

I believe I pointed out that what Scuba was doing could be taken either way. However in conjunction with his mistakes and unwillingness to take much of a stance, or attempt to prove what he says or what he says he will do, I see no harm in dunking him, beyond the potential loss of another believer. That will happen to the vast majority of believers in this game, so no biggie.

[HazelNutCoffee]

You're welcome, Kyrie. And . . . you know all my sharp words are just part of the game, right? :) Feelings tend to run so high in mafia games, and I'm always afraid that aggressive words might end up offending someone in an out-of-game context.

Must run to go grocery shopping, but I do have an idea for a vote. Will post more later.

[Idle Thoughts]

Extensively snipped.

Camaraderie? You mean he said that what I did was helpful, and then asked for my opinion? Which I then gave?

Snipped too.

Yeah, that. : p Spelling isn't my strong point, sorry.
And it wasn't just "helpful" in her words but "extremely helpful". And then she makes mention of all the "hard work" you've done when most others in here have done full summuries too. Upon reading (and again, which I just did now) it just strikes me as buttering you up or false praise because of other motives. It just all reads wrong to me, but I guess it's just me.

In any case, I doesn't make me twitch at you any, much (and I'm sorry if just saying what I did before made you think that, I guess I should have been clearer) but it doesn't help my suspicions of her. I do admit that it's possible I'm reading too much into it (which I have a strong tendency to do).

[Hockey Monkey]

<snipped>

Also, does the commradary between Hockey Monkey and Queuing seem off to anyone else as it does to me? :confused: I dunno, but just the exchange in posts 1556, 1558 and 1560 that they have seems weird. Like one is trying to butter up the other or such. Could be from both, but I tend to lean more towards the "coming from one" sense. But whatever it is, it seems/feels/reads wrong to me.
<snipped>


I think you might be reaching a bit here. I don't feel buttered. I think I would notice. And I wasn't buttering. But that does bring to mind one of my favorite southern sayings: "Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit!" :p

[Queuing]

Well if I was you and I was looking for a connection between us, I would look at the fact that s/he first said that doing yourself was a waste of time. I agreed with that completely and both of us refused to do ourselves. S/he also said that it was more useful if someone did another person, which I also agreed with. Even pointing out the assigned homework that I spearheaded in M2.

That is why I think she chose do to say "extremely helpful", it was more or less meant as a "particularly when compared to the masturbation homework" addendum.

Full disclosure and everything, you know how I am.

Still, for the record there is no connection between Hockey Monkey and I.

[Kyrie Eleison]

You're welcome, Kyrie. And . . . you know all my sharp words are just part of the game, right? :) Feelings tend to run so high in mafia games, and I'm always afraid that aggressive words might end up offending someone in an out-of-game context.
I know exactly how you feel -- don't worry, there's little risk that I'll take anything in a game thread personally enough to be offended by it. I might get worked up in-game sometimes, but I don't find it difficult to separate the game from reality. Unlike my sister, who used to pout for days after Monopoly games; Monopoly, in my family, is a rather cut-throat affair.

[Hockey Monkey]

Snipped too.

Yeah, that. : p Spelling isn't my strong point, sorry.
And it wasn't just "helpful" in her words but "extremely helpful". And then she makes mention of all the "hard work" you've done when most others in here have done full summuries too. Upon reading (and again, which I just did now) it just strikes me as buttering you up or false praise because of other motives. It just all reads wrong to me, but I guess it's just me.

In any case, I doesn't make me twitch at you any, much (and I'm sorry if just saying what I did before made you think that, I guess I should have been clearer) but it doesn't help my suspicions of her. I do admit that it's possible I'm reading too much into it (which I have a strong tendency to do).

Idle, it was extremely helpful because up to that point, I hadn't even considered Scuba_Ben. It opened up a whole new line of questions and logic for me. And it is hard work to do a full summary. I just did Zeriel and it took me all damn day. I think it's harder to do one on someone else than it is on yourself. I don't mind giving kudos where I think kudos are due. I enjoy getting them myself from time to time. There wasn't anything false about it.

[Idle Thoughts]

Well, then, like I said, it must have just been mean to read/take things wrong...and while I'm not going to totally dismiss it or erase it from my mind (I think that's kind of impossible in this game :p), I do take both of your explanations with ease and they work well enough for me. Which leads me to remark now that I've never heard that phrase before, but it certainly gave me a good laugh.

[Idle Thoughts]

Please note, the above "mean" is supposed to just be an em and e--"me". I have to stop posting with my eyes closed.

[Idle Thoughts]

Idle, it was extremely helpful because up to that point, I hadn't even considered Scuba_Ben. It opened up a whole new line of questions and logic for me. And it is hard work to do a full summary. I just did Zeriel and it took me all damn day. I think it's harder to do one on someone else than it is on yourself. I don't mind giving kudos where I think kudos are due. I enjoy getting them myself from time to time. There wasn't anything false about it.

This wasn't here when I just made my last post (and follow-up correction).

I understand what you're saying but it just read (and still does some, I'm not going to deny it) off for some reason to me..mostly on your part. Although that very well could be because I already have suspicions of you (boy, doesn't history repeat itself?) and am looking closer at your posts, in particular.

But I hear what you're saying (or see, rather) and I agree that it could go the other way too. At this point I'll take your explanation at face value.

[Blaster Master]

About 43 Hours left in the Day. There is a total of 13 out of 25 votes cast.

MadTheSwine (2) - Hal Briston, Kyrie Eleison
Pleonast (2) - FlyingCowOfDoom, Idle Thoughts
Scuba_Ben (2) - Fretful Porpentine, Queuing
Zeriel (2) - NAF1138, Hockey Monkey
Captain Klutz (1) - SnakesCatLady
fluiddruid (1) - Captain Klutz
Hockey Monkey (1) - fluiddruid
Malacandra (1) - Pleonast
Queuing (1) - Scuba_Ben

[Blaster Master]

Please welcome zuma [Ver. 2] back into the game; he will be taking the place of MonkeyMensch who has not repsonded to any of my prodding over the last week or so. An updated player list will follow presently.

[Blaster Master]

Alive
2 USCDiver
3 Idle Thoughts
5 Hockey Monkey
7 NAF1138
8 sachertorte
9 SnakesCatLady
10 Malacandra
12 Kyrie Eleison
13 Hal Briston
14 Pleonast
16 Fretful Porpentine
17 Nava
18 Pasta
19 FlyingCowOfDoom
20 Scuba_Ben
21 Queuing
22 Zeriel
23 zuma [Ver. 2]
24 ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
25 DiggitCamara [Ver. 2]
26 HazelNutCoffee
27 MHaye
28 fluiddruid
29 MadTheSwine
30 Captain Klutz

Dead
11 Mtgman - Non-Believer - Day One
4 zuma [Ver. 1] - Citizen - Night One
1 Kat - Cultist - Day Two
6 storyteller0910 - Monk - Night Two
15 DiggitCamara [Ver. 1] - Crusader - Night Two

Substitutions
Kyrie Eleison (Repl. Clockwork Jackal )
Nava (Repl. Captain Carrot )
Kat (Repl. ArizonaTeach )
DiggitCamara [Ver. 2] (Repl. Autolycus )
Zuma [Ver. 2] (Repl. MonkeyMensch )

[NAF1138]

Substitutions
Kyrie Eleison (Repl. Clockwork Jackal )
Nava (Repl. Captain Carrot )
Kat (Repl. ArizonaTeach )
DiggitCamara [Ver. 2] (Repl. Autolycus )
Zuma [Ver. 2] (Repl. MonkeyMensch )

Crap, have we really had 5 people sub out? Crazy man, I think that might be a new record too.

[Hal Briston]

grumblegrumble...damn subsititutions...do you slackers have any idea what kind of hell this plays on my spreadsheet?? grumblegrumble...

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Time is short, and internet access lacking, so I'm going to cut to the chase.

I'd like to order a vote for Hockey Monkey with a FOS on Hal, HazelNutCoffee, and Scuba Ben...and a side of fries. To go.

Justification in chronological order...

#319 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719796&postcount=319)
It may not seem very compelling to lead off with this seemingly innocent post, but it keeps sticking out at me. If they're scum, they wouldn't have had a chance to speak in private until that Night, and this post just keeps striking me as scum discussing scum strategy in broad daylight.

Similar deal with #329 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719866&postcount=329).


#492 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8723203&postcount=492)
Casting suspicion on confirmed-town Diggit[ver1].

#498 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8723354&postcount=498)
Hazelnut makes what could be considered at least a small nudge towards an early role-claim being potentially pro-town.

#730 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729554&postcount=730)
If my theory is correct, and Hockey and Hal are in cahoots, this would be how I might phrase a water-muddying post if I were Hal. The potential implication of Hazelnut and Scuba is much weaker, but since they are involved in conversation in these posts that are sticking out to me, I think they are at least worthy of notice. They could, however, be innocent townie decoys.

#884 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8735015&postcount=884)
Hockey's "this bandwagon makes me uncomfortable, but I'm gonna jump on it anyway" dunk vote for the late, confirmed-town Mtgman.

#1215 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752581&postcount=1215)
I get a general scum vibe from this whole post, topped off by her calling me out due to a comment I made about a town-killing bandwagon that she was on, and I was not on. Just doesn't sit well with me.

#1252 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8753514&postcount=1252)
I've already echoed the observations of others, but I just wanted to point out yet another dead townie post that I largely agree with. This is one of storyteller's.

#1405 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8765889&postcount=1405)
I've previously stated my dislike of the logic used for this FOS list, see #1430 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768130&postcount=1430)

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Aaaaand forgot the availability update. No internet at home until Monday at the earliest, so you will likely not hear from me until Monday morning, if I'm still alive.

[Hal Briston]

Huh...FOS on me aside, that's a very compelling argument you've put together there, Cookies. I had completely forgotten about the FOS I had leveled against Hockey Monkey in #730 until you pointed it out there.

You're incorrect about she and I being in cahoots, but it all still fits anyway (perhaps even moreso from my perspective, knowing that I'm town). Hmmm...going to have to put some serious thought into a vote switch here...

[HazelNutCoffee]

Hmm. I wasn't trying to nudge anyone. I was just saying that there could be circumstances where early role-claims could be helpful. I also finished off that post by saying that such discussion was premmature anyway.

I find it suspicious that you would find this scummy, since Diggit, a confirmed townie, was the first one to suggest that power-roles should out themselves after a few Days. I was responding to his idea. Why don't you think his suggestion is scummy yet mine is? Is it simply because he's been confirmed town? Shouldn't that prove that the suggestion of an early role-claim being possibly pro-town isn't necessarily a scum tell?

Hockey was calling Diggit out for the very same reason you are now calling me out. You cited her suspicions of Diggit as justification for your FOS. I am not sure what to make of this.

[Hockey Monkey]

I've tried for the last 3 hours to access the board to respond to Cookies, and now it's midnight and I have to go to bed. I'll respond as soon as I can tomorrow when I get to work.

[Zeriel]

Cookie's analysis crystallizes stuff a lot for me, especially since she cites posts and reveals things that I can then catch.

For example, Hockey Monkey in two consecutive lines in post 1215 both says to suspect one-off votes the most and that the bandwagon (of which he is a part) potentially hides scum. Following that, he's basing all the substantiative parts of his Day 3 analysis (I continue to be irritated by the spurious reasoning on the vote/unvote patterns of AZTeach/Kat) on my supposedly bandwagon-starting vote after agreeing in 1215 that the one-offs are what's highly suspicious to him.

vote Hockey Monkey

[Idle Thoughts]

Just in case you didn't get the memo, Hockey Monkey is female. :p

Welcome again to both DiggitCamera (whom I forgot to welcome back earlier) and zuma.

Normally this is where I make one last post before I head off for the night and catch up a bit but not too much has happened since I last was here. I guess people are getting ready for their weekends.

But in any case, while I'm here I guess I'll weigh in on the current topics/votes at hand.

While I'm suspicious of Hockey myself, I haven't yet had much of any read on HazelNutCoffee at all. I don't know if this is because she doesn't have scum signs to show or if she just hides it very well. Hal has tripped my meter way back on Day One (mostly over the post where he thought the Apprentice should send a message somehow, in a post, that signaled the Oracle--something anyone might be able to notice) but it wasn't really that strong at the time and has sense faded into nothingness. And I've already said my two cents on Scuba Ben. If you put a gun to my head (please don't) I'd say that I didn't feel that all four of them were scum...and I think the odds are also probably highly stacked in the non-favor of it, but it's very possible one or even two of them are. Right now, to ME personally, I'm most suspicious (of those four that seem to be the current names pushed around) of Hockey with Scuba coming in second, but not anywhere near number one.

And both of them are far behind, in my mind, who I've seen the most shady characteristics/posts/behavior from, and who currently has my vote.....then again, I have had more time looking at him and noticing things than the other two.

Just my two cents..and my goodnight. Hope you all have nice evenings. :)

[Captain Klutz]

#1574 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8776625&postcount=1574)
Now that I have been fair, I vote for Captain Klutz. I think he is scum, and that the Arizona Teach vote for Zeriel was intended to draw attention away from him. (colour removed)

If that was ArizonaTeach's intent it backfired spectacularly...

Zeriel smudged me. AzTeach reacted (or overreacted) with a vote for Zeriel. On being challenged by others, AzTeach then withdrew his vote, which attracted lots of suspicion.

So AzTeach defended me and voted for Zeriel. You seem to regard this defence as scum defending scum. Remember that scum will defend town in order to gain that person's trust, as has been pointed out several times in this game. Heck, scum will vote for scum in order to confuse the trail, so the quick vote/unvote for Zeriel can be used as evidence for Zeriel's scumminess.

Also, note again my voting post #1264 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8754275&postcount=1264), where I decided that Malacandra was likely town and I didn't want to vote for Kat, so I made a 'throwaway' vote. If I were scum trying to avoid voting for AzTeach/Kat I could have done so much more easily by simply voting for Malacandra. This would have been seen as entirely reasonable, since I had earlier stated I was suspicious of Malacandra and I did not remove that suspicion until I actually made my vote.

[SnakesCatLady]

#1574 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8776625&postcount=1574)
(colour removed)

If that was ArizonaTeach's intent it backfired spectacularly...

Zeriel smudged me. AzTeach reacted (or overreacted) with a vote for Zeriel. On being challenged by others, AzTeach then withdrew his vote, which attracted lots of suspicion.

So AzTeach defended me and voted for Zeriel. You seem to regard this defence as scum defending scum. Remember that scum will defend town in order to gain that person's trust, as has been pointed out several times in this game. Heck, scum will vote for scum in order to confuse the trail, so the quick vote/unvote for Zeriel can be used as evidence for Zeriel's scumminess.

Also, note again my voting post #1264 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8754275&postcount=1264), where I decided that Malacandra was likely town and I didn't want to vote for Kat, so I made a 'throwaway' vote. If I were scum trying to avoid voting for AzTeach/Kat I could have done so much more easily by simply voting for Malacandra. This would have been seen as entirely reasonable, since I had earlier stated I was suspicious of Malacandra and I did not remove that suspicion until I actually made my vote.

One thing I have learned in this game is that there is no predicting what scum will do. And defending youself by trying to throw suspicion on another player (in this case Zeriel) is a scummy move of itself. I admit to being tempted to change my vote to Hockey Monkey since I also find her suspicious, but for now I want to get all the attention I can on you.

[Hockey Monkey]

<snipped>

#319 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719796&postcount=319)
It may not seem very compelling to lead off with this seemingly innocent post, but it keeps sticking out at me. If they're scum, they wouldn't have had a chance to speak in private until that Night, and this post just keeps striking me as scum discussing scum strategy in broad daylight.

Similar deal with #329 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719866&postcount=329).
Um, yeah…pretty weak. There are several new players to the game and there was some brief discussion about scum voting patterns, and all I did was tell people not to get caught up in thinking that scum are going to vote strictly by party lines. Something most of us know already. I can see your point, but no, that’s not what I was thinking.


#492 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8723203&postcount=492)
Casting suspicion on confirmed-town Diggit[ver1].
I called Diggit on something I found fault with. I misunderstood, he explained, and I dropped it. Weak again.


#730 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729554&postcount=730)
If my theory is correct, and Hockey and Hal are in cahoots, this would be how I might phrase a water-muddying post if I were Hal. The potential implication of Hazelnut and Scuba is much weaker, but since they are involved in conversation in these posts that are sticking out to me, I think they are at least worthy of notice. They could, however, be innocent townie decoys.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I am not in cahoots with anybody. I asked Scuba what he meant…he said he didn’t say it…I quoted where he said it…he said he must have made a mistake or been thinking about the psychopath. Hal thought I was trying to out the secret role, and I explained that I only wanted clarification because there were so many nuances to the rules and roles that confusion was easy. I was satisfied by Scuba’s answer and Hal said he was satisfied with mine. It was dropped. You seem to have already decided I am scum and are reaching for evidence in any discussion I’ve been involved in.


#884 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8735015&postcount=884)
Hockey's "this bandwagon makes me uncomfortable, but I'm gonna jump on it anyway" dunk vote for the late, confirmed-town Mtgman.
I’ve said before that’s where I thought my vote should go. Bold (read stupid) move for scum to place a vote like that, on a bandwagon, when they didn’t need to. I commented on the bandwagon because it sure did grow fast, and I still think that a couple of the people involved in it swung the vote from AZTeach to Mtgman. (I’m currently voting for one of those people.) If I were scum, I would have stayed far far away from that one.


#1215 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8752581&postcount=1215)
I get a general scum vibe from this whole post, topped off by her calling me out due to a comment I made about a town-killing bandwagon that she was on, and I was not on. Just doesn't sit well with me.
Probably doesn’t sit well because I was commenting about you. I found it odd that you would post with only a comment about how we likely won’t find any scum on the Mtgman bandwagon. You normally post with more than one thought. Why won’t we likely find scum there? But you think I’m scum and I’m on it. I think you may know full well that I’m not scum, and that post was just what I thought it was…an attempt at redirection from one or more of your mates.


#1252 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8753514&postcount=1252)
I've already echoed the observations of others, but I just wanted to point out yet another dead townie post that I largely agree with. This is one of storyteller's.
I very much respect storyteller, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t wrong sometimes. As a monk, he knew that I am not a monk. But that’s all he knew.


#1405 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8765889&postcount=1405)
I've previously stated my dislike of the logic used for this FOS list, see #1430 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8768130&postcount=1430)
You don’t like it ‘cause I FOS you. The logic is sound.

Huh...FOS on me aside, that's a very compelling argument you've put together there, Cookies. I had completely forgotten about the FOS I had leveled against Hockey Monkey in #730 until you pointed it out there.

You're incorrect about she and I being in cahoots, but it all still fits anyway (perhaps even moreso from my perspective, knowing that I'm town). Hmmm...going to have to put some serious thought into a vote switch here...
Yes, if by compelling you mean weak, then it’s very compelling. I already went back through the Scuba thing.

Cookie's analysis crystallizes stuff a lot for me, especially since she cites posts and reveals things that I can then catch.

For example, Hockey Monkey in two consecutive lines in post 1215 both says to suspect one-off votes the most and that the bandwagon (of which he is a part) potentially hides scum. Following that, he's basing all the substantiative parts of his Day 3 analysis (I continue to be irritated by the spurious reasoning on the vote/unvote patterns of AZTeach/Kat) on my supposedly bandwagon-starting vote after agreeing in 1215 that the one-offs are what's highly suspicious to him.

vote Hockey Monkey

Expected. But I stand by my voting analysis. The reasoning there is sound. Pleonast is second on my list because of his involvement in the Mtgman dunking. I have been sticking my neck out and calling people on what I think is odd behavior and I'm catching a lot of flak for it. I really went out on a limb with my vote for Fretful on day two. I'm just town trying to do what I think is right, and unfortunately for a lot of townies it comes off as scummy.

[Captain Klutz]

One thing I have learned in this game is that there is no predicting what scum will do. And defending youself by trying to throw suspicion on another player (in this case Zeriel) is a scummy move of itself. I admit to being tempted to change my vote to Hockey Monkey since I also find her suspicious, but for now I want to get all the attention I can on you.
It was not my intention to defend myself by throwing suspicion on Zeriel, I was pointing out that, of several interpretations, you have selected just one. I even prefaced my comment with a 'heck', to show that that was just an example of another interpretation. Incidentally, in my notes I have 'Leaning town" against Zeriel.

You say "One thing I have learned in this game is that there is no predicting what scum will do." By that argument, you can take absolutely any comment or action and call it a scum tell. Take another look at my post 1264 and see if you can come up with a scenario which explains why scum would do that, rather than taking the easy out of simply voting Malacandra.

[SnakesCatLady]

>snip<

You say "One thing I have learned in this game is that there is no predicting what scum will do." By that argument, you can take absolutely any comment or action and call it a scum tell. Take another look at my post 1264 and see if you can come up with a scenario which explains why scum would do that, rather than taking the easy out of simply voting Malacandra.

Yes, that is true. That is also why I didn't do a lot of posting on the first Day of this game or the other game I played.

I don't have any explanation for the actions of Cult members. I do know their job is to try not to look scummy! So I can imagine they would go out of their way to do things - such as votes that don't really matter - so they can call attention to them later and say "why would scum do that?".

[SnakesCatLady]

Bullfeathers. Since I can't edit - the bolding in Captain Klutz post was added by me.

[Captain Klutz]

You say "One thing I have learned in this game is that there is no predicting what scum will do." By that argument, you can take absolutely any comment or action and call it a scum tell.
In reply,
Yes, that is true. That is also why I didn't do a lot of posting on the first Day of this game or the other game I played.
Do you mean you were afraid of leaving scum tells, or were you afraid that your words would be interpreted as scum tells?
I don't have any explanation for the actions of Cult members. I do know their job is to try not to look scummy! So I can imagine they would go out of their way to do things - such as votes that don't really matter - so they can call attention to them later and say "why would scum do that?". Sure, their job is to not look scummy. But now I'm curious as to what you would regard as not looking scummy.

Also, you say "So I can imagine they would go out of their way to do things - such as votes that don't really matter..." (bolding added).
Note that the thing I went out of my way to do was not voting for Malacandra.

Although I don't think that anything I say will help. It seems you have decided that I am scum and nothing will change your mind, as you can always simply say "Well, of course a scum would say that". Note that an innocent will also say that...

[SnakesCatLady]

No, I wasn't afraid of leaving scum tells. I was afraid being so desperate to find them that I would twist someone elses words.

I am aware that I may be wrong about you - that is a chance we all take in this game. I just don't think I am wrong in this case.

[sachertorte]

Hmm. I wasn't trying to nudge anyone. I was just saying that there could be circumstances where early role-claims could be helpful. I also finished off that post by saying that such discussion was premmature anyway.

I find it suspicious that you would find this scummy, since Diggit, a confirmed townie, was the first one to suggest that power-roles should out themselves after a few Days. I was responding to his idea. Why don't you think his suggestion is scummy yet mine is? Is it simply because he's been confirmed town? Shouldn't that prove that the suggestion of an early role-claim being possibly pro-town isn't necessarily a scum tell?

Hockey was calling Diggit out for the very same reason you are now calling me out. You cited her suspicions of Diggit as justification for your FOS. I am not sure what to make of this.

I have a very different take on the primary and secondary speakers on a 'controversial' topic. I think scum would be more inclined to be the secondary than the primary. Sort of a, 'thanks town for bringing it up, I can support it and hide behind you.' At the very least, I don't think we can use Diggitv1's confirmed town status to absolve anyone's participation. Furthermore, the use of dead townies to defend something in this manner strikes me as slightly scummy; mainly because I find the logic lacking.

Anyway, my vote is for Scuba_Ben. His posting style has been overly crafted and lacking in content. His promises to do pro-town actions are not followed through.
Also largely because my other candidates NAF and Hockey Monkey are participating the most of my three dunkables. I will try and check the game again tonight (Saturday), but will most likely be unavailable on Sunday. Please everyone get your votes in soon; right now we have no clear leader and very little chatter. This is why I had been trying so hard to get the end of day to fall on a weekday! My big fear is we end up with a roleclaim and no time and/or no people to react to it. (I'm not advocating a roleclaim right now, I'm just afraid that with no indication of the specific individual who will get dunked today, none of the many candidates can't roleclaim now, and may end up with little time to save themselves should it prove necessary, so vote!)

[Hal Briston]

Hal thought I was trying to out the secret role, and I explained that I only wanted clarification because there were so many nuances to the rules and roles that confusion was easy. I was satisfied by Scuba’s answer and Hal said he was satisfied with mine. Heh...there I was, sleeping soundly at 4:00 this morning, when I awoke with a start and realized "Oh, wait, Hockey Monkey explained that whole bit I FOS'd her for". Damn game, interrupting my sleep... :)

Anyway, I still have my suspicions, and don't find Cookies' arguements as weak as you're making them out to be, but I still feel stronger about Mad right now. My vote will stay for toDay.

Incidentally, I'm visiting family for the weekend, so I won't be able to update the spreadsheet until tomorrow evening.

[HazelNutCoffee]

I am not using the fact that DiggitCamera was a townie to support my position. I am saying that Cookies is contradicting herself.

1. DiggitCamera suggests power-roles should role-claim after 4-5 Days.
2. Hockey FOSes him for saying this.
3. DiggitCamera explains his position more clearly.
4. I comment that it COULD be helpful but is not really relevant at this point.

Cookies cited #2 as a reason to suspect Hockey, since she is casting suspicion on a "known townie role." I feel this is a poor reason to suspect anyone, particularly since I think Hockey's FOS at the time was justified. And by this logic, anyone supporting the known townie should be exonerated (which is equally silly). Or is it a double-edged sword - FOS the townie and you're scum; support the townie and you're scum as well?

I'm going to stop rehashing this unless someone brings it up again, but below is the entire exchange:

Of course, if they have a comprehensive list of living players and their investigation results at such a time (4, 5 Days?), they should out themselves and publish the investigation and that would render the scenario moot, anyhow.

Huh? Wha? Did you just say that they should out themselves after 4 or 5 Days? Why would they need to do that?

FOS DiggitCamara


Because, hopefully, they'll have enough information by then to reduce the number of unsuspected/suspected townies by a bucketful.

Think about it: after 5 Days we'll have at least 10 players less (it'll tend to be around 12, unless the Psychopath is activated and the math gets fuzzy from there).

Let's assume 10 players less:

Therefore 20 players left. Deduct 2 "confirmed" town folk (Oracle + Apprentice). Imagine they only inspected living players until then (5 inspections each). Which pretty much gives the town an overview of about 50% of the Town--who should be suspected, who shouldn't, who should be re-inspected, etc. etc. It forces the Cultist's hand, since they'd have to attack unsuspected Townies.

Sounds pretty good to me.

Which is why it most certainly ain't gonna happen.

A LOT can happen in 4 or 5 days, and there's no telling what the town will look like by then. We'd be better off discussing what to do now, rather than worrying about an uncertain future. I am tempted to say that power-roles should not role-claim until they absolutely must, but then again I am reminded of sturmhauke's play in the first Werewolf game, where his initial role-claim seemed much too early to be sensible but ended up being the key to the town's victory. So it depends on the circumstances; but again, what good does it do to discuss these things now, when we're not even halfway through the first day?

PS - I am aware that I haven't posted a vote yet. I promise I'll do that by the end of today.

[fluiddruid]

For example, Hockey Monkey in two consecutive lines in post 1215 both says to suspect one-off votes the most and that the bandwagon (of which he is a part) potentially hides scum. Following that, he's basing all the substantiative parts of his Day 3 analysis (I continue to be irritated by the spurious reasoning on the vote/unvote patterns of AZTeach/Kat) on my supposedly bandwagon-starting vote after agreeing in 1215 that the one-offs are what's highly suspicious to him.
vote Hockey MonkeyI admit I don't follow the reasoning of "bandwagon-starting" (re: Klutz's vote for me, also). Basically, using this type of argument, you're screwed no matter what:

- If you fail to vote, you're scum
- If you vote a one-off, you're scum
- If you vote early for someone who gets votes, you're "starting a bandwagon"
- If you vote late, you're piling on a bandwagon

So what ISN'T suspicious?

[Zeriel]

I have been sticking my neck out and calling people on what I think is odd behavior and I'm catching a lot of flak for it. I really went out on a limb with my vote for Fretful on day two. I'm just town trying to do what I think is right, and unfortunately for a lot of townies it comes off as scummy.

Welcome to my own personal world.

[Hockey Monkey]

Welcome to my own personal world.

This is actually making me think some more. Townies do tend to act reactionary when a vote comes their way, and tend to point the finger back. For now I will withdraw my vote. Unvote Zeriel. I still hold a FOS on you though.

Something that stood out to me on my last re-read is that Queuing said he was going to do a workup on Scuba_Ben. Scuba very shortly after that voted for Queuing. Now if you do a quick skim through, Queuing's vote for Scuba looks like an OMGUS vote, when in fact it is not. I don't know if that was the purpose, but that along with the suspicion raised by Queuing on this one makes me want to vote for Scuba_Ben.

I will likely not have much time after 6pm eastern today to check the thread. I will try to check it when I get up in the morning and if I need to make a defense post, I'll do it then. Although it won't be much of one. :(

[SnakesCatLady]

This is actually making me think some more. Townies do tend to act reactionary when a vote comes their way, and tend to point the finger back. For now I will withdraw my vote. Unvote Zeriel. I still hold a FOS on you though.

Something that stood out to me on my last re-read is that Queuing said he was going to do a workup on Scuba_Ben. Scuba very shortly after that voted for Queuing. Now if you do a quick skim through, Queuing's vote for Scuba looks like an OMGUS vote, when in fact it is not. I don't know if that was the purpose, but that along with the suspicion raised by Queuing on this one makes me want to vote for Scuba_Ben.

I will likely not have much time after 6pm eastern today to check the thread. I will try to check it when I get up in the morning and if I need to make a defense post, I'll do it then. Although it won't be much of one. :(


Interesting. Very interesting. Hockey Monkey decides to change her vote from Zeriel, and of the 8 other players who already have votes she decides to vote for Scuba Ben, who just happens to be the only player tied with her in number of votes. Of course, the matter of breaking the tie is not mentioned in the vote post. Haven't we already seen scum do this once in this game?

Since my suspicions of Hockey Monkey are already on record, I am going to even things back up. It doesn't look as if my suspicions of Captain Klutz are getting any attention, so unvote Captain Klutz. Vote Hockey Monkey.

[Zeriel]

And now we're back to two frontrunners again. I'd just like to point out that Hockey Monkey, in the guise of being reasonable and unvoting me, has just broken a tie involving herself by voting Scuba_Ben into the lead. More to the point, she didn't acknowledge when voting that she'd pushed her opponent to the lead with less than 24 hours to go in the vote.

Now, where have we seen THIS behavior before, recently?

Updated unofficial vote count:
Scuba_Ben (4) - Fretful Porpentine, Queuing, sachertorte, Hockey Monkey
Hockey Monkey (3) - fluiddruid, Zeriel, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
MadTheSwine (2) - Hal Briston, Kyrie Eleison
Pleonast (2) - FlyingCowOfDoom, Idle Thoughts
Zeriel (1) - NAF1138
Captain Klutz (1) - SnakesCatLady
fluiddruid (1) - Captain Klutz
Malacandra (1) - Pleonast
Queuing (1) - Scuba_Ben

[Zeriel]

*arbitrary simulpost high-five to SnakesCatLady*

Re-updated unofficial vote count:
Scuba_Ben (4) - Fretful Porpentine, Queuing, sachertorte, Hockey Monkey
Hockey Monkey (3) - fluiddruid, Zeriel, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, SnakesCatLady
MadTheSwine (2) - Hal Briston, Kyrie Eleison
Pleonast (2) - FlyingCowOfDoom, Idle Thoughts
Zeriel (1) - NAF1138
fluiddruid (1) - Captain Klutz
Malacandra (1) - Pleonast
Queuing (1) - Scuba_Ben

[Zeriel]

and of course Hockey should be at 4 votes in my immediate last correction. *facepalm*

[MHaye]

Interesting. Very interesting. Hockey Monkey decides to change her vote from Zeriel, and of the 8 other players who already have votes she decides to vote for Scuba Ben, who just happens to be the only player tied with her in number of votes. Of course, the matter of breaking the tie is not mentioned in the vote post. Haven't we already seen scum do this once in this game?Good catch, SCL. We have indeed, as Zeriel also noted.

There are two things that make me hesitate to vote for HM; firstly I don't see a Cultist would necessarily jump on an already successful bandwagon and secondly, surely they'd be aware that not acknowledging the self-interest in the vote was something one Cultist has already done, and want to avoid it?

Nevertheless, it is suspicious, and if I cannot find a better candidate for dunking by midnight (just under 2 hours 40 minutes from now) my vote will go to Hockey Monkey.

I've started a post analysis of Autolycus because he was behaving the same way here as he was in M4; however, he's subbed out (for honest reasons) which is somewhat different. I've started and I'll finish (to quote the quizmaster).

[Hockey Monkey]

Interesting. Very interesting. Hockey Monkey decides to change her vote from Zeriel, and of the 8 other players who already have votes she decides to vote for Scuba Ben, who just happens to be the only player tied with her in number of votes. Of course, the matter of breaking the tie is not mentioned in the vote post. Haven't we already seen scum do this once in this game?

Since my suspicions of Hockey Monkey are already on record, I am going to even things back up. It doesn't look as if my suspicions of Captain Klutz are getting any attention, so unvote Captain Klutz. Vote Hockey Monkey.

Actually I didn't know the vote was tied. I haven't been keeping a tally. Dammit, I can't do anything that isn't scummy. :(

[Hockey Monkey]

Good catch, SCL. We have indeed, as Zeriel also noted.

There are two things that make me hesitate to vote for HM; firstly I don't see a Cultist would necessarily jump on an already successful bandwagon and secondly, surely they'd be aware that not acknowledging the self-interest in the vote was something one Cultist has already done, and want to avoid it?

Nevertheless, it is suspicious, and if I cannot find a better candidate for dunking by midnight (just under 2 hours 40 minutes from now) my vote will go to Hockey Monkey.

I've started a post analysis of Autolycus because he was behaving the same way here as he was in M4; however, he's subbed out (for honest reasons) which is somewhat different. I've started and I'll finish (to quote the quizmaster).

Really, is there anything I can do at this point that won't be deemed suspicious by someone? Should I put my vote back where it was? Not vote at all? No, that's scummy....Vote for someone else? Vote for myself? Ack!

[fluiddruid]

Agreed with the catch. Hockey Monkey is our best bet, methinks.

[MHaye]

Autolycus made a total of 25 posts in this thread. Most of these (nearly one half) were in Day 1.

I won't be linking to or providing a summary of either Night or pregame posts. I will say how many were made in each period, but that's all.

The posts :
Pregame : 4 posts.

Day 1 : 12 posts.
Day 1 : 12 posts.
541. Auto says he wants to roleplay and have fun without being a "detrimental aspect".
683. Vote for NAF1138. Seems groundless – no cite or other explanation.
685. “We have beaten off MTGman's plan.” (At least I think he meant MTGman.) No grounds for this, which followed 13 minutes after the above post.
689. ArizonaTeach picks up on one of his obscure sayings and says it means nothing. This triggers the argument that lead to ArizonaTeach subbing out. This argument continues in post 697, post 767, post 841, post 842, 844 and post 846.
792. Corrects a technical error.
843. Points out to DiggitCamara1 that he is not lurking right now.

Night 1 : 1 post.

Day 2 : 6 posts.
1024. Commits PUI.
1110. Votes Kat.
1120. Revotes.
1125. Belated happy 4th July.
1269. Isn't going to change his vote.
1296. Joking during the Day's extended twilight.

Night 2 : 0 posts.

Day 3 : 2 posts.
Day 3 : 2 posts.
1330. Urges the female residents to dance naked.
1420. Requests being subbed out.

That's it. Everything he did. Apart from voting Kat in Day 2, he did nothing of any substance after the fall of Day 1. As for Day 1, it was dominated by two things – him finding his “voice” and his argument with ArizonaTeach.

The timing of the spat is wrong for it to be staged between two Cultists, as the Cult had had no chance to meet and talk amongst each other. So if both are (or were) cultists, then it was improvised.

Draw your own conclusions. I can't come to any right now. Maybe if I sleep on it?

[MHaye]

Really, is there anything I can do at this point that won't be deemed suspicious by someone? Should I put my vote back where it was? Not vote at all? No, that's scummy....Vote for someone else? Vote for myself? Ack!HM, what made my antennae twinge is that you didn't flag up that you were breaking a tie for a dunking in your favour. Not that you switched your vote, not that you voted for someone tied with you, even. Just that you didn't discuss the ramifications upfront. Any reason why?

I've elected to give the question of whether to vote for you some thought (insofar as I can with my eyes wanting to close). I'm not convinced of your Cult membership yet.

[Hockey Monkey]

HM, what made my antennae twinge is that you didn't flag up that you were breaking a tie for a dunking in your favour. Not that you switched your vote, not that you voted for someone tied with you, even. Just that you didn't discuss the ramifications upfront. Any reason why?

I've elected to give the question of whether to vote for you some thought (insofar as I can with my eyes wanting to close). I'm not convinced of your Cult membership yet.

Well, I just said a little bit ago that I didn't know it was tied. There hadn't been a vote count for a while, and I haven't kept a running tally this game. With Blaster Master's sig line, it didn't seem necessary. Now that I know I broke it, I'll be happy to discuss the ramifications. I see it has been compared with what Kat did with Mal. Only in that case she did it with only minutes left in the day and the only reason she was dunked was because Blaster Master wasn't around to end the day and Idle switched his vote. She did it with the thought that no one would be able to react to change the outcome. Uh, there is still quite a bit of time left in this Day, so not really the same thing. If I had known it was tied, I would have said that knowing I am town I need to do what I can to dunk Cultists. I don't know anyone else's affiliation but my own. With that information, I know that dunking me would be a mistake, so I'm going to vote for someone I think is a Cultist.

If I get led to the pond, I'll accept my fate and you guys can comb back through my posts with the knowledge that I didn't know anything. But I'll do what I can to convince you otherwise while the sun still shines on this day. :p

[SnakesCatLady]

We have less than 24 hours in this Day, and only 16 of 25 players have voted. Last-minute votes cut down on discussion and give the person voted for much less chance to defend themselves.

Please get your votes in.

[Idle Thoughts]

Wow, I come on late today and find everyone gone nuts. Votes flying all over, people unvoting and voting again, ties being made and broken. And lots of new sides, apparently like with SCL and Captain Klutz, Scuba Ben and a few others and a lot vs Hockey Monkey. Even I find the last one pretty suspicious.


However...

HM, what made my antennae twinge is that you didn't flag up that you were breaking a tie for a dunking in your favour. Not that you switched your vote, not that you voted for someone tied with you, even. Just that you didn't discuss the ramifications upfront. Any reason why?

I've elected to give the question of whether to vote for you some thought (insofar as I can with my eyes wanting to close). I'm not convinced of your Cult membership yet.


This made me look at Kat really hard and had her rise up on my suspected list really fast when she did it. I see that Hockey did the exact same thing earlier and a lot of people noticed it. And again, it doesn't sit right with me for all of the same reasons...


....however..
Man, I don't know...but the Cult would have to be pretty stupid (or AMAZINGLY BRILLIANT) to try it again. This is the only thing that makes me pause..and again, it's that whole thing that I don't think we should listen to (the whole "oh scum would NEVER do something that obvious" thing) hitting and niggling at me. I'm falling victim to it myself because crap, if anything is the most obvious thing to do, that would be it, breaking a tie again like that. : /

Honestly, I'm torn right now over what to think, personally.

[Pasta]

Again, apologies for my lack of presence this Day. I just spent my alotted Mafia time this evening looking over Pleonast, Scuba_Ben, and Hockey Monkey. And, damn it! I can't find a good reason to pull the trigger on any of them. I'll get in another session late tonight and hopefully come up with a name. Presumably the recent vote/unvote flurry will give us something to chew on toMorrow.

[Hal Briston]

Heee...it would seem I found cask of sacramental wine (or a bunch of beers at a Blue Claws game)...so, while posting while drunk is a bad idea, and Mafia posting while drunk is probably exponentially worse, I'll stumble across that bridge when I cross it:

I buy Hockey Monkey's denials. Without a large change of mob direction, she's as good as drowned, but I'm really thinking she'll come up clean.

[Zeriel]

I gotta admit, I'm feeling some remorse over my Hockey Monkey vote, for precisely the reasons articulated by Idle Thoughts.

However, I'm not really sure that Scuba_Ben looks any more scummy. I'll leave my vote where it is to keep it tied up, and encourage others to come and vote for whoever they think most scummy--the tie is at FOUR votes, after all, with several others at two and one. Any number of absentees to the thread could come in and dunk literally anyone.

Also, in the future, I'm personally going to avoid setting up this kind of last-minute pick-a-frontrunner thing, since really it seems to be limiting the town's thinking unnecessarily.

To close, I plead again to my fellow townies: Don't feel compelled to pick one of the frontrunners in a tie situation. Especially when the vote counts are so low that literally anyone could end up dunked if enough of the non-voting people suspect them.

[Zeriel]

Also, get your butts in here and vote for SOMEONE. Nonvoting townies are gonna start getting looked at really hard by me, especially if you didn't vote in Day 2 either.

[Captain Klutz]

I admit I don't follow the reasoning of "bandwagon-starting" (re: Klutz's vote for me, also). Basically, using this type of argument, you're screwed no matter what:

- If you fail to vote, you're scum
- If you vote a one-off, you're scum
- If you vote early for someone who gets votes, you're "starting a bandwagon"
- If you vote late, you're piling on a bandwagon

So what ISN'T suspicious?
Your Day 2 vote for Malacandra looked like bandwagon starting because the reason for the vote looked flimsy.
Malacandra was already under deep suspicion and was looking likely to face a very difficult Day 2. Pleonast cast the first vote and gave a plausible reason. However, your vote had a flimsy reason and so looked like it was trying to get a bandwagon started.

So regarding your list above, it is correct if you make one addition: a vote action for the wrong reasons is suspicious.

So far fluiddruid, you are my best bet. However after recent events I'm going to take a closer look at Hockey Monkey.

And I agree with SnakesCatLady and Zeriel - where the hell are all the votes?

[Pleonast]

Read through the posts. I'm not convinced of the scumminess of either Scuba or Hockey. This flurry of voting at the end is one reason I advocate early voting. It'd be nice if I wasn't the only eager to vote.

Anyway, my vote for Mal stands. He hasn't even voted yet (or I missed it).

[Queuing]

Again, apologies for my lack of presence this Day. I just spent my alotted Mafia time this evening looking over Pleonast, Scuba_Ben, and Hockey Monkey. And, damn it! I can't find a good reason to pull the trigger on any of them. I'll get in another session late tonight and hopefully come up with a name. Presumably the recent vote/unvote flurry will give us something to chew on toMorrow.

So you looked over all 3 people (pleonast, scuba_ben and Hockey Monkey) and you didn't find any sort of reason? And apparently nothing at all? How could you claim to have re-read looking specifically at people and NOT say anything? Except for a for-all-intents-and-puposes a useless post?

Lets show our work people!

There have been 3-4 cases laid out against people. Please don't just say "I am not convinced" say WHY you are not convinced. Just saying "I don't buy it" does NO good at all.

This is meant as a general sort of annoyance, not at any one person specifically as Pasta is not the only person to do this.

I reiterate: Be useful to the believers, or risk being branded a non-believer.

Yes that is a threat; I look for scum and then players not doing much to help find scum. If you are the latter I will consider you the former.

[DiggitCamara]

Ok. I was going to let this Day end without a vote on my part (since I hadn't had time to check up on the Day's events very much), but this caught my eye:

In this post (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8778198&postcount=1613) HazelNutCoffee goes out of her way to defend HockeyMonkey and she does the same thing again here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8779456&postcount=1627) .

As far as I can tell, it's gone far beyond just "feelings". HazelNutCoffee knows HockeyMonkey is worth defending. The question, of course is, why does HazelNutCoffee know HockeyMonkey should be defended?

I don't know. But I want to find out.

Vote HockeyMonkey

[HazelNutCoffee]

I am not defending [B]Hockey Monkey. I am pointing out a flaw I saw in Cookies's logic in my own defense. It happened to include refuting a point Cookies made about Hockey. Note that I made no comment about Cookies's other points regarding her suspicions of Hockey. If you want to accuse me of defending Hockey simply for the sake of defending her, please point out to me some flaw in my argument against Cookies.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Damn not being able to edit!! I will post my vote within the hour.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Wow, these last few days have been crazy.

Something I keep finding myself coming back to is Kat's FOS post she initially made (#1020). I am almost sure that there has to be at least one scum in there somewhere, simply because I think it would be stupid for scum to post FOSs directed purely at townies.

I am waffling between all these different suspicions flying around at the moment. Hockey Monkey definitely has a lot of evidence piled up against her. Yet I find myself coming back to Pleonast. Reading over the Day 3 posts, I find it interesting how Pleonast was among the handful garnering the most suspicion, yet with the spotlight turned on to Hockey, he has mostly slipped under the radar. I also find his suspicions of Mal unconvincing. Mal's damning statement concerning zuma doesn't really seem to prove anything one way or the other, yet I feel that Pleonast is holding onto this supposed scum-tell rather tenaciously. He never even responds to storyteller's post where he points out that Mal's statement isn't necessary a scum-tell in and of itself. His right-off-the-bat vote for Mal on Day 2 seemed a bit over-eager as well, although I also acknowledge that it could simply be the result of an aggressive playing style. He also cites his "playing style" when others have called him on his repeated vote switch. Very well, perhaps it could be, but it's not a method that strikes me as particularly pro-town, since it muddles up a potential paper trail. All of this, combined with the fact that Pleonast was on the list of FOSs that Kat left behind (and singled out as a weak FOS compared to the others), leads me to
vote Pleonast.

Although with my voting record so far, I have a sneaking suspicion he's going to turn up town in the end. :smack: Still, that's my vote and I'm sticking to it.

[MHaye]

My apologies for not voting last night.

Having slept on the problems that reared up yesterday, I have decided I cannot vote for HockeyMonkey just for her slip in breaking the tie and not admitting that. In addition to the reasons I refused to vote immediately (see post 1635), there is the major difference that Kat tried this with a few minutes to go (or so she thought) to the end of Day. HM didn't - she gave us a day to consider her post. That strikes me as a sign of a clear conscience, and strengthens her claim that she didn't realise she was in a tie.

That means I slip back into not knowing who to vote for.

As for Autolycus : I still don't know what to make of him.

So I have to leave the vote unplaced (for now) while I read the thread a bit more. Maybe I'll do DiggitCamara2's participation Today and see what light that sheds on the problem.

[Captain Klutz]

Sachertorte summarised Hockey Monkey's Day 2 posts in #1546 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8773701&postcount=1546). Here is a Day 1 summary:

#233 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719006&postcount=233) - Believers and Non Believers should play together against the cultists. Asks all the evil people to raise their hands
#317 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719791&postcount=317) - A note for the first timers: scum will vote for scum to avoid clearly distinguished voting patterns
#329 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719866&postcount=329) - more on scum voting scum (and unvoting scum). Mentions the Avatar
#343 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8720023&postcount=343) - more on a Non Believers win being a non factor
#372 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8720726&postcount=372) - general thoughts on the game
#492 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8723203&postcount=492) - misunderstanding about Diggit's suggestion about Oracle outing himself after 4-5 Days. FOS Diggit
#557 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724933&postcount=557) - how to get post counts
#628 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8726226&postcount=628) - comments on Jackal, Pleonast, sachertorte, NAF1138, Autolycus and Malacandra. Votes Pleonast
#660 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8727472&postcount=660) - comment on Mgtman's strategy
#663 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8727614&postcount=663) - fluff (re 660)
#675 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8727985&postcount=675) - questions Scuba's "secret attack role" comment
#676 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8727987&postcount=676) - fluff re 675
#701 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729025&postcount=701) - clarifying 675
#725 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729502&postcount=725) - regarding 'filtering'
#734 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8729646&postcount=734) - defending against Hal's claims that Hockey Monkey is grilling or 'unmasking' Scuba
#758 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8730317&postcount=758) - reference to M2 game (beat cop)
#862 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8733326&postcount=862) - asks AzTeach to reconsider his decision to leave the game. Most suspicious of Mtgman due to storyteller's argument. Other (lower) suspicions toward Pleonast, Malacandra, AzTeach
#863 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8733340&postcount=863) - clarifiying that 862 wasn't a defence of AzTeach
#884 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8735015&postcount=884) - late vote for the doomed Mtgman

My comments

317 and 329 could be construed as advice for any fellow scum, particularly 329 where she says scum will vote for other scum, but they do not necessarily leave their votes on their compatriots Other people have made similar posts that could be warnings to fellow scum - I've been going through Day 1 looking for this specifically, and I will post the results when I'm done.

628 is interesting. She refers to NAF1138 post #585 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8725446&postcount=585) and says Huh? Wha? You wanna bop Mal on the nose for that scum tell, but vote for ArizonaTeach for making one? I don’t even see what you are seeing there as far as scum tell goes.
So Hockey Monkey cannot see AzTeach's scum tell and criticises the vote for AzTeach.

862 is also interesting. In regard to AzTeach leaving the game, she says I've seen townies react that way moreso than scum. Looks like trying to paint him as town. Notwithstanding the additional clarifying post 863.

884 is the late vote for Mtgman. This vote looked unnecessary, due to Mtgman already being well in the lead and does not look like something scum would do.

Overall, I am now more suspicious of Hockey Monkey. I am leaning a bit more toward changing my vote to Hockey Monkey, but for now my vote stays where it is.

[MHaye]

Well it didn't exactly take very long to review the posts of DiggitCamara2. He's only made three. The first of these posts is solely to announce his return, the second is to state that he refuses to acknowledge or respond to any questions about his former incarnation as the self-appointed Crusader. That leaves post 1651, in which he votes for HockeyMonkey.

I find the choice of vote a little strange.

DiggitCamara2 argues that HazelNutCoffee has gone out of her way to defend HockeyMonkey and wants to know why she thinks HockeyMonkey worth defending, so he votes for the latter.

HazelNutCoffee explained the aim of her post in 1627 (that's the second one DiggitCamara2 quotes). I find it fairly convincing.

Additionally, at the time HazelNutCoffee made her posts, HockeyMonkey and Scuba_Ben were tied, with just under a day to go in the Day. I don't see a Cultist sticking out her neck to defend another Cultist in that situation. The last thing the cult want to do is create such an association in the minds of the players. I realise it's risky saying “the cult would never do such-and-such,” but some things carry a high downside.

If (and this is pure hypothesis) HazelNutCoffee is a Cultist, then it's almost certain that HockeyMonkey would not be. And if HazelNutCoffee is not Cult, she'd (probably) have no certain knowledge of HockeyMonkey's role.

I do find this vote suspicious. Enough that If I had to vote now or die, I would vote for DiggitCamara2.

I'll hold off voting for a while yet, but that's the way I'm leaning. I'm also gong to read some more to see if anything strikes me as more worthy of votes.

[Captain Klutz]

The game started with Day, so the scum did not have a chance to discuss any strategy. Because of this, I've been looking through the Day 1 posts, specifically for things that look like "fellow scum, this is how to act".

253 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719261&postcount=253)It is indeed possible and probable that the scum will be voting and FOSing and trying to say that such things were random. There was a lot more to this post. It was in response to a discussion about random voting, so this extract is a bit unfair.

317 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719791&postcount=317) Don't think that scum won't vote for other scum, or that the other roles won't vote for each other either.

323 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719831&postcount=323), in reference to a Hal Briston post about the Avatar (Although voting for one of your own seems like a last-ditch strategy at any rate.) Possibly suggesting not to pile on a scum dunk. Yes, it's a reach.

329 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719866&postcount=329) scum will vote for other scum, but they do not necessarily leave their votes on their compatriots.
331 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719878&postcount=331) Not always. In M3, one of the identifiers was the fact that while there were still multiple scum, every single time one of them was lynched, all living scum were part of the voting block. Every scum that was lynched had every other member of team scum voting for them.Doubt you'll see that this time around. Okay, this is even more of a reach than HazelNutCoffee's post above.

369 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8720655&postcount=369) Lurking is not necessarily a scum tell, but it does make you look suspicious. Either way, it's probably not a good strategy - whether you are scum or townie, you certainly don't want to give everyone else a cause to doubt your faith. Plus, the whole point of the game is social interaction. It's no fun when people lurk!
469 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8722652&postcount=469) if I were scum and I were NAF, I wouldn't be wanting to create associations so early and
also The best (or, perhaps more accurately, easiest) way for scum to succeed in the early game is to simply stay off the radar altogether. Make weak or no assertions, vote little, suspect little, post innocuously and avoid suspicion.
491 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8723199&postcount=491) I maintain that it is best to stay off the radar for the first few days for Mafia
546 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8724805&postcount=546) Yes, that post from Malacandra (probably the most quoted post in SDMB history)
Not a huge point, admittedly, since scum will cheerfully vote for each other, especially when there's small risk of the vote actually resulting in a death.

Of these, the only ones I find even vaguely suspicious are those from Hockey Monkey and fluiddruid. I have already commented on Hockey Monkey's posts in #1656 above. As for fluiddruid, she is advocating that scum lie low. I did a check of Day 1, to see if any newbies dropped their posting frequency after fluiddruid's posts. I didn't find anything.

So there we have it. I'm not sure how useful it is, but since I dug them out I thought I might as well post them.

[sachertorte]

I'm really surprised at the amount of "I'll post my vote later" we're getting this late in the Day, especially the ones that already state I'll probably vote for X, but I'll do it later. Just vote! You can change it later.

[MHaye]

I'm really surprised at the amount of "I'll post my vote later" we're getting this late in the Day, especially the ones that already state I'll probably vote for X, but I'll do it later. Just vote! You can change it later.I was concerned that I would not have a chance to change votes between lunch and going out this afternoon. If I do go out, I won't get back in time to do anything before Nightfall. I wanted to let the thought bubble away in my hindbrain a bit to see if any flaw came out.

To the business of suspects.

In post 1261 I outlined my suspicions at the end of Day 2. These wereSachertorte
DarkCookies
Idle Thoughts
USCDiver
Storyteller0910
MalacandraWhat's happened to them?

Storyteller0910 has been definitively cleared. I think that the misunderstanding between USCDiver and I has been sorted out.

As for the other four, there really hasn't been much movement. Sachertorte never discussed my suspicions of him; he never responded to my reminder that my case against him was not laid out in the vote post. As far as I'm concerned, he has just ignored it.

My suspicion of Malacandra was based largely on his trying to have his cake and eat it. My impression of his behaviour Today is much more positive – but it is only an impression and I'm prepared to have that overturned by evidence.

My notes on DarkCookies show that she has withdrawn her comment that made me suspicious. That's enough for me to drop her from the list. Idle Thoughts, on the other hand, has not cleared up what raised my eyebrows (that does not mean “has not addressed” because he has, iirc – its just that I found the explanations not convincing.) On the other hand, he's added nothing to his tally as far as pointers go.

So with the addition of those referenced in recent posts, my list now looks like this :-Sachertorte
Idle Thoughts
Malacandra
DiggitCamara2

I don't consider HockeyMonkey has enough against her to vote for her; in fact I believe on balance that she's probably not a Cultist. This leaves me a choice; vote for one I suspect, or vote blindly for Scuba_Ben to tie the vote in the hope that the extra time reveals something about one of the candidate.

For now I'm going to follow up what I said earlier and vote DiggitCamara2. However, other obligations (and the thunder I can hear outside my window) permitting, I am going to do some research on Scuba_Ben.

[Hockey Monkey]

Crap! I'm gonna have to do this now 'cause there are less than 2.5 hours left and I'm not going to be around at 1:00.

Folks, I am your non-believing Alchemist. I've been playing the role as if I were assigned a townie spot. Meaning, I've done nothing at night but sit around and make gold for fear of blocking someone important. Which I'll be happy to continue to do, or use my sleeping potion later on if we get a clue as to who the Cultists are. That's it, my big defense post. Dunk me if you see fit, because I know the only way to prove it is through death, but I am not a Cultist.

[Zeriel]

Wonderful, a roleclaim that can't be proven in any way. Still.

If voting stays the way it is, I'll come back in at 12:45 and remove my Hockey Monkey vote so that we go into overtime and have at least part of a weekday to think it through. If I cannot push us into overtime, my suspicion and vote will stand.

[SnakesCatLady]

Crap! I'm gonna have to do this now 'cause there are less than 2.5 hours left and I'm not going to be around at 1:00.

Folks, I am your non-believing Alchemist. I've been playing the role as if I were assigned a townie spot. Meaning, I've done nothing at night but sit around and make gold for fear of blocking someone important. Which I'll be happy to continue to do, or use my sleeping potion later on if we get a clue as to who the Cultists are. That's it, my big defense post. Dunk me if you see fit, because I know the only way to prove it is through death, but I am not a Cultist.

Okay. I was already tempted to put my vote back on Captain Klutz since that would have put you back into a tie. Unvote Hockey Monkey.

Vote Captain Klutz. In addition to the reasons I have already stated, I am bothered by his post #1648 in which he tells fluiddruid that a "vote action for the wrong reasons" is a scum tell. Any player is free to disagree with the reasoning or logic of any other player, but to tell them that their action or reasoning is wrong implies forbidden knowledge.

[Fretful Porpentine]

This probably comes too late to be of any use, but I believe Hockey Monkey's role claim is truthful. Posts 233 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8719006&postcount=233) and 343 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8720023&postcount=343) strike me as things the Alchemist would say -- they're important points for Nonbelievers to get out there if they are to have any hope of surviving the game, and I'd argue that they can be construed as advice for fellow Nonbelievers more easily than HM's other posts work as advice for cultists. For the record, I also believe the Alchemist is a potentially valuable role for the town. In a situation like the endgame of M2, when there were no longer any unclaimed townie power roles and no good way to determine which of the remaining players were town and which were scum, it might even be a crucial role.

[Hockey Monkey]

Well, it looks like I will be around at 1:00 because I just got dumped. :( So if anyone has any questions, I'll be here. Refreshing the page. Over and over.

[Captain Klutz]

Okay. I was already tempted to put my vote back on Captain Klutz since that would have put you back into a tie. Unvote Hockey Monkey.

Vote Captain Klutz. In addition to the reasons I have already stated, I am bothered by his post #1648 in which he tells fluiddruid that a "vote action for the wrong reasons" is a scum tell. Any player is free to disagree with the reasoning or logic of any other player, but to tell them that their action or reasoning is wrong implies forbidden knowledge.(colour removed)
The "wrong reasons" as in "poorly thought out or fallacious reasons". For example, fluiddruid's vote for Malacandra was based on townies not having to worry about "get out of dunking free" cards. Malacandra responded with (#1027) As a Town player my default position would of course be to value my own life at a straw, but we can't all adopt the same ultra-helpful attitude or we'll all go gently into that good night and hand the game to the scum on a plate. It is right and proper that a townie should be willing to die in a good cause, but we should resist getting dunked for no good reason.
and fluiddruid found this "no less troubling" (#1041). If defending yourself is a scum tell then we're all in trouble. I believe that counts as a vote for the "wrong reasons". To make it clearer, "wrong reasons" does not mean "because the votee is town", it means "because the logic is dubious". And no, I don't know if Malacandra is town. I think he is, but he could be scum.

And now, I do believe Hockey Monkey's role claim (if she's lying there will be a counterclaim followed by a quick Hockey Monkey dunking). There are only 2 people who look likely to be dunked and I am now pretty sure that one of them is town, so
unvote fluiddruid
vote Scuba-Ben

[Hal Briston]

Meaning, I've done nothing at night but sit around and make gold for fear of blocking someone important.So, you're saying you haven't been blocking other players at night?

[Hockey Monkey]

So, you're saying you haven't been blocking other players at night?

That's what I said.

[Hal Briston]

That's what I said.Okiee doke...just clarifying. Smart way to play it, when you don't know who's who.

[Zeriel]

I'd like to go on the record as not liking the speed at which Hockey Monkey is being believed. I have no reason not to accept the roleclaim, but I'd really like to force a tie--I'd hate to see any other claimants to the Alchemist title do so after the 1pm deadline.

[Blaster Master]

Just a reminder that the day ends at 1:00 PM EDT, which is in about 18 minutes. I do not have time to do the dusk post now; I will do it in a few hours.

[fluiddruid]

In case I get offed during the night, my short list of suspects in order of suspiciousness:

- Hockey Monkey
- Pasta
- Pleonast
- Zeriel

Probably not all of the above for various reasons, but worth watching all of these guys.

[DiggitCamara]

(snip)

If (and this is pure hypothesis) HazelNutCoffee is a Cultist, then it's almost certain that HockeyMonkey would not be. And if HazelNutCoffee is not Cult, she'd (probably) have no certain knowledge of HockeyMonkey's role.

I do find this vote suspicious. Enough that If I had to vote now or die, I would vote for DiggitCamara2.

I'll hold off voting for a while yet, but that's the way I'm leaning. I'm also gong to read some more to see if anything strikes me as more worthy of votes.
By now we have Hockey Monkey's claim she's the Alchemist.

I still don't know why HazelNutCoffee defended her. (Post 1627, btw MHaye, still reads like a straight defense of her). But, barring a counterclaim, I have no reason to disbelieve Hockey Monkey. So I'll unvote Hockey Monkey.

[out of game]Sorry to hear you RL news, Hockey Monkey. Hang in there![/out of game]

[SnakesCatLady]

I'd like to go on the record as not liking the speed at which Hockey Monkey is being believed. I have no reason not to accept the roleclaim, but I'd really like to force a tie--I'd hate to see any other claimants to the Alchemist title do so after the 1pm deadline.

Zeriel, I was the first to remove my vote. At this point I don't see that I have a choice other than to believe her. If another player role claims as the Alchemist then I will have my vote back on Hockey Monkey before she can blink, but I don't want to be in the position of having assisted in the loss of a power role.

We still have (by my count) 5 players who haven't voted. I think I will spend the Night going back over their posts and see what I can come up with.

[fluiddruid]

Your Day 2 vote for Malacandra looked like bandwagon starting because the reason for the vote looked flimsy. Bandwagoning is a completely different charge than bad logic or voting for the wrong reasons. That's why I'm pointing out that "starting a bandwagon" is a completely meaningless term unless it's applied to a small group rather than a single individual. Bandwagoning is suspect when a bunch of people pile on to a vote and cause a lynch of a townie, particularly on short grounds and in a short period of time; it doesn't apply in this case.

[DiggitCamara]

I'd like to go on the record as not liking the speed at which Hockey Monkey is being believed. I have no reason not to accept the roleclaim, but I'd really like to force a tie--I'd hate to see any other claimants to the Alchemist title do so after the 1pm deadline.
Sorry... are you in a hurry to see her dunked for some reason? I mean, if tomorrow a counterclaim is posted it's still early enough in my book.

So: vote Zeriel

[Captain Klutz]

I'd like to go on the record as not liking the speed at which Hockey Monkey is being believed. I have no reason not to accept the roleclaim, but I'd really like to force a tie--I'd hate to see any other claimants to the Alchemist title do so after the 1pm deadline.
Yes, it is a very late claim, likely too late to be counterclaimed this Day. But I don't see that we have much choice but to accept it. Note that if it is false then we will get the real Alchemist counterclaiming at the start the next Day, and then Hockey Monkey will be dunked.

Hockey Monkey, why did you wait until just a few hours before the deadline before claiming?

[MHaye]

By now we have Hockey Monkey's claim she's the Alchemist.

I still don't know why HazelNutCoffee defended her. (Post 1627, btw MHaye, still reads like a straight defense of her). But, barring a counterclaim, I have no reason to disbelieve Hockey Monkey. So I'll unvote Hockey Monkey.Thanks for the response.

I still don't agree with your analysis - but on reread agree that it is a reasonable interpretation. So I'll unvote DiggitCamara2.

I see you had the same gut reaction as I did to Zeriel's post. I noted it, but there wasn't enough "scum" feel about it for me to place a vote.

Nevertheless, I did not like it.

[MadTheSwine]

I will vote Scuba Ben on the strength of Q'ings analysis.

[Hockey Monkey]

Yes, it is a very late claim, likely too late to be counterclaimed this Day. But I don't see that we have much choice but to accept it. Note that if it is false then we will get the real Alchemist counterclaiming at the start the next Day, and then Hockey Monkey will be dunked.

Hockey Monkey, why did you wait until just a few hours before the deadline before claiming?

I wanted to see how the votes overnight went. I didn't want to claim if it wasn't necessary. It's a hard thing to guage - when should one do a role claim? Too soon is bad and too late is bad. Not at all is bad. I did it when I thought it was warranted as I didn't think I would be around today.

[USCDiver]

Ah SHIT, I thought the Day ended later this afternoon. I've been working swing shifts and just woke up. And I see I've missed the deadline now.

[DiggitCamara]

I wanted to see how the votes overnight went. I didn't want to claim if it wasn't necessary. It's a hard thing to guage - when should one do a role claim? Too soon is bad and too late is bad. Not at all is bad. I did it when I thought it was warranted as I didn't think I would be around today.
Thing is: you survived! Let's mosey over to the bar and drink to that!

[Zeriel]

Sorry... are you in a hurry to see her dunked for some reason? I mean, if tomorrow a counterclaim is posted it's still early enough in my book.

So: vote Zeriel

I'm just sayin', there's no particular way to verify an Alchemist claim, is there? If I wasn't suspicious of her, I wouldn't have voted in the first place, and there's no guarantee that the Alchemist is going to be pro-town. Hell, the only way to really differentiate between multiple alchemist claims would be kill 'em all, so I doubt the scum will try it. By the same token, it'd be pretty easy for the scum to role-claim the alchemist specifically to get the real alchemist to out themselves.

I just wanted a few more hours to think about it and get some other missing opinions in here.

Also, nice poorly-supported vote. I know who I'm giving the eye to now. :dubious:

[HazelNutCoffee]

I will vote Scuba Ben on the strength of Q'ings analysis.
Wow. I think this is the scummiest thing I've read this Day. You haven't posted anything of content in awhile, other than to defend yourself and remind us that you're here. And a random question as to who is new to the game. I'm not going to switch my vote at this hour, but I have a strong FOS pointed in your direction for the next Day, providing we're both here when it begins.

[HazelNutCoffee]

Oh crap, has the Day already ended? I forgot the deadline was EDT. :smack: Apologies for an in-game post after the end of the Day.

[SnakesCatLady]

Looks like the Day is over. I'm heading for a margarita, myself. Anyone care to join me?

[HazelNutCoffee]

I could SO use a margarita after this Day.

[MHaye]

Looks like the Day is over. I'm heading for a margarita, myself. Anyone care to join me?Sounds like a plan. I think I'll steer clear of the rotgut though.

[USCDiver]

I can't come to the bar guys, I have homework and ....ah fuck it... I'll have a beer? Got any of them 32oz glasses?

[DiggitCamara]

I can't come to the bar guys, I have homework and ....ah fuck it... I'll have a beer? Got any of them 32oz glasses?

Please rephrase your request in metric units.


I am not the Barman, however our BarWoman seems to be deeply rooted in metric-land (Spain, Switzerland).
:p

[USCDiver]

Please rephrase your request in metric units.


I am not the Barman, however our BarWoman seems to be deeply rooted in metric-land (Spain, Switzerland).
:p

32 US fluid ounces = 946.35295 ml (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=32oz+in+ml)

[USCDiver]

And I want that full 95/100,000ths of a mL too

[MHaye]

Iirc, Nava went to college in the US. She's probably up to speed on such things.

I'm puzzled as to why you only want 1½ pints though.

Ok, not really. I know you Americans have smaller pints and gallons than we do.

[HazelNutCoffee]

British pints are dangerous things. One is usually enough to knock me out.

I'll stick with my margarita, thanks.

[Scuba_Ben]

As well as to the "primary target for a scum kill" group. A spectacularly bad idea, if you ask me. The only time the Oracle should make public his findings is A) if he's uncovered a large group of "non-believers" (some of which are bound to be scum), or B) if he's about to be lynched. Obviously, if B is the case then he'll have to role-claim, and hopefully the Priest is still around to move from self-protecting to Oracle-protecting.

Still, it would have to be very late in the game for it to be a good idea for him to start naming names on the power roles.
I didn't check back from then until just now. You're absolutely right; I had realized much the same flaws in my idea over the weekend. It's a Bad Idea.

And did I have the wrong time for the deadline in my head?

[DiggitCamara]

British pints are dangerous things. One is usually enough to knock me out.

I'll stick with my margarita, thanks.
Well... d'oh... a pint of tequila will knock out anyone.

(It'll land you in the hospital, even) :p

[Scuba_Ben]

Yes, I did have the wrong time in my head - I thought Dusk was 5PM. I booched this past Day very badly. If I go out, it's probably for the better.

[Idle Thoughts]

Man, come back to an influx of insanity. Now why can't that happen whenever I'm actually ON, you think? :p

Ah well, I'll take a Coke.

[Hal Briston]

Hurm...after last night, I don't know if boozing it up is a good idea.

....oh, hell with it. Barkeep! A double, and keep 'em coming!

[Queuing]

Still no kill scene? And so much has happened! It looks like it will be Scuba? More information needed!

Ah well can do nothing but wait. Beer me please :).

[Kat]

That's it! I'm starting a haunting right now until I get to read a dusk scene!

[Pasta]

Did anyone see that? I swear I just saw a ghost in here!

[SnakesCatLady]

Why is the fur of the Psychic Cat standing on end?

I need another drink. And some catnip, please.

[HazelNutCoffee]

*takes out guitar, strums it wistfully* Wasting away again in Margaritaville ~~~

Damnit, the suspense is giving me a headache. Or maybe that's the margaritas.

[Blaster Master]

Sorry, just got back, I'm going to tally up the votes and write the dusk post now...

[Kat]

Yay!

[SnakesCatLady]

Cat's fur is on end again - what in the world is going on in here?

Oh well, the margaritas are good.

[Zeriel]

Can a brother get a jack and coke to ease the pain of waiting here?

[Kat]

Oh well, the margaritas are good.

That's your problem right there. You shouldn't be giving the cat margaritas.




Cats prefer daiquiris

[Idle Thoughts]

Methinks BM got sidetracked again.

[Zeriel]

*notes execptional ghost activity, starts making drawings for a proton pack forged from iron age technology. Now if only the grace of Nairu would provide a quantum flux intercooler...*

[HazelNutCoffee]

*clutches guitar nervously* GAH! Can't ... stand ... suspense! I need another drink.

[SnakesCatLady]

I was hoping I would be able to stay up for the dusk post, but it looks like all those margaritas have worn me out. Somebody keep an eye on the Psychic Cat, will ya?

[Kat]

Well? *gives Blaster Master the Evil Eye, tapping her foot impatiently*

[Clockwork Jackal]

<Count Floyd voice>

Look kids, another ghost! Scary eh kids? Ooooooh! Scary!

</Count Floyd voice>


So....where's the requisite dusk scene? I wanna see who kicks the bucket, dammit!

[Idle Thoughts]

Well, while we have some extra down time, I figure now is a good time as any to pre-bring up Mafia VI.

As far as I know, Pleonast is the next one on here to run a mafia game, so like Malacandra (who held Mafia VI on my boards, the link in which I'll give in a bit), who had a game going on while Gad was having III on here, I'll figured I'd start one up on my proboards (set up specifically to play mafia type games) as V and VII were back to back on here.

So yeah, it'll be at my boards which is at: psychopathgame.proboards106.com, although those who used the boards and were in the Pirate themed game there will have first shot at the sign up. I'll be making a sign up there first and then one here a few days later (again, explaining that the game will not be held on here, but on those boards) just so others will get to sign up if they want.

Anyway, feel free to sign up there anytime though, if you want or if you plan on playing. Mal's game is also archived, so anyone who wishes to read through it all is welcome to.

[Blaster Master]

A total of 19 out of 25 Votes have been cast.

Scuba_Ben (6) - Fretful Porpentine, Queuing, sachertorte, Hockey Monkey, Captain Klutz, MadTheSwine
Hockey Monkey (3) - fluiddruid, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, Zeriel
Pleonast (3) - FlyingCowOfDoom, Idle Thoughts, HazelNutCoffee
MadTheSwine (2) - Hal Briston, Kyrie Eleison
Zeriel (2) - NAF1138, DiggitCamara
Captain Klutz (1) - SnakesCatLady
Malacandra (1) - Pleonast
Queuing (1) - Scuba_Ben


Voter - Action - Votee - Post
Zeriel - Vote - Hal Briston - 1369
FlyingCowOfDoom - Vote - Pleonast - 1422
Pleonast - Vote - Malacandra - 1442
NAF1138 - Vote - Zeriel - 1447
Zeriel - Unvote - Hal Briston - 1463
USCDiver - Vote - MHaye - 1465
Queuing - Vote - MonkeyMensch - 1492
fluiddruid - Vote - Hockey Monkey - 1513
USCDiver - Unvote - MHaye - 1531
Hockey Monkey - Vote - Zeriel - 1535
Scuba_Ben - Vote - Queuing - 1543
Idle Thoughts - Vote - Pleonast - 1544
Captain Klutz - Vote - fluiddruid - 1561
SnakesCatLady - Vote - Captain Klutz - 1574
Fretful Porpentine - Vote - Scuba_Ben - 1576
Queuing - Unvote - MonkeyMensch - 1581
Queuing - Vote - Scuba_Ben - 1581
Hal Briston - Vote - MadTheSwine - 1587
Kyrie Eleison - Vote - MadTheSwine - 1592
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies - Vote - Hockey Monkey - 1610
Zeriel - Vote - Hockey Monkey - 1615
sachertorte - Vote - Scube_Ben - 1625
Hockey Monkey - Unvote - Zeriel - 1630
Hockey Monkey - Vote - Scuba_Ben - 1630
SnakesCatLady - Unvote - Captain Klutz - 1631
SnakesCatLady - Vote - Hockey Monkey - 1631
DiggitCamara - Vote - Hockey Monkey - 1651
HazelNutCoffee - Vote - Pleonast - 1654
MHaye - Vote - DiggitCamara - 1660
SnakesCatLady - Unvote - Hockey Monkey - 1663
SnakesCatLady - Vote - Captain Klutz - 1663
Captain Klutz - Unvote - fluiddruid - 1666
Captain Klutz - Vote - Scuba_Ben - 1666
DiggitCamara - Unvote - Hockey Monkey - 1673
DiggitCamara - Vote - Zeriel - 1676
MHaye - Unvote - DiggitCamara - 1678
MadTheSwine - Vote - Scuba_Ben - 1679

[Blaster Master]

Unlike the two previous Days, this one had begun quietly. The citizens were in shock over the loss of two strong Believers in DiggitCamara [Ver. 1] and storyteller0910. Many hours went by before all clues started to point to only one candidate, Hockey Monkey. Just as the shackles were being bound on her, voice frantically changed tone: "Wait! You can't do this, I'm an Alchemist, not a Cultist!" The rabble ceased for a moment as the bewildered citizens thought over this bizzarre claim. One voice from the crowd screamed out support, and then another. Soon, her captors were forced to let her go, for fear of being over run. But whom SHOULD they dunk? ...and all eyes fell on poor quiet Scuba_Ben.

With no protest, he was led up to the blessed waters. A sullen glare at the crowd as he spoke his final words: "If I am to die this day, may I be once again be one with beloved waters of Nairu. May she embrace her own once again." And, without prompt, he took his own final step into the water. Slowly, he sank into the blessed waters, bubbles of air rose from his mouth and nostrils as his body fell to the bottom. Scuba_Ben had drowned.

As his lifeless body was pulled from the tank, a sense of duty overcame the now guiltridden crowd. Surely this man deserves his last rites and his last wish. And so, taken to a nearby port town, his last rites given by the local friar, his embalmed corpse was cast into a boat and pushed out to sea. Once again he could return to the sea, the waters he so loved.

Scuba_Ben, a Citizen has been drowned.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Night will end at 1:30 AM EDT on Wednesday, or when all Night instructions have been received.

[Blaster Master]

Alive
2 USCDiver
3 Idle Thoughts
5 Hockey Monkey
7 NAF1138
8 sachertorte
9 SnakesCatLady
10 Malacandra
12 Kyrie Eleison
13 Hal Briston
14 Pleonast
16 Fretful Porpentine
17 Nava
18 Pasta
19 FlyingCowOfDoom
21 Queuing
22 Zeriel
23 zuma [Ver. 2]
24 ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
25 DiggitCamara [Ver. 2]
26 HazelNutCoffee
27 MHaye
28 fluiddruid
29 MadTheSwine
30 Captain Klutz

Dead
11 Mtgman - Non-Believer - Day One
4 zuma [Ver. 1] - Citizen - Night One
1 Kat - Cultist - Day Two
6 storyteller0910 - Monk - Night Two
15 DiggitCamara [Ver. 1] - Crusader - Night Two
20 Scuba_Ben - Citizen - Day Three

Substitutions
Kyrie Eleison (Repl. Clockwork Jackal )
Nava (Repl. Captain Carrot )
Kat (Repl. ArizonaTeach )
DiggitCamara [Ver. 2] (Repl. Autolycus )
Zuma [Ver. 2] (Repl. MonkeyMensch )

[HazelNutCoffee]

Holy crap.

*raises glass for Scuba_Ben* So sorry, Scuba. Nairu bless your passing.

Gah! This is not going well at all.

[MHaye]

Barlady? A glass of your best single malt.

To Scuba_Ben, who went the way he would have wanted - in water.

[Blaster Master]

And FTR, sorry about the severely delayed dusk again. Just when I was counting up the votes, my fiancée started getting upset that I was ending the Day rather than spending time with her. Hopefully, the Day end will come on a weekday soon so this will stop happening.

[Captain Klutz]

(Raises glass) To Scuba_Ben.

We should have known that he wouldn't float with those big tanks on his back.

[Malacandra]

Ay de mi!

*sits nervously in corner clutching glass of water, wondering who's going to be horribly murdered toNight.*

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Well hell. :( So long, Scuba...

Here's hoping my connection is finally repaired this afternoon.

[Hal Briston]

Barkeep! A water with which to toast our departed Scuba_Ben, and then bring forth the beers, if you will...

[Zeriel]

I'll have a whiskey and water, myself. So long, Scuba. Nairu grant you the clearest lagoons in which to dive.

[SnakesCatLady]

Sorry, Scuba Ben.

[FlyingCowOfDoom]

Bleh. RIP Scuba_Ben.

--FCOD

[Scuba_Ben]

The only thing that surprised me was that I didn't freak out on the first two Days. The rest, well, that's my own fault.

Good luck to the town!

[Queuing]

Shite, sorry about that Scuba. May your death not be in vain.

[Scuba_Ben]

I don't blame you, Queuing. Someone would have set me off, you simply got there first.

[Idle Thoughts]

Fare thee well, Scuba Ben. Save me some nachos and R.I.P.

[DiggitCamara]

Sorry to see you go, Scuba_Ben.

However, Death in this town seems to be as permanent as in a Marvel comic (witness both zuma and me). And since you of all people should be immune to Death by Dunking...

[SnakesCatLady]

Isn't it morning yet?

Oh well, might as well have a drink. Something different...

[Hal Briston]

Arright, I'm tired of waiting...

Attention scum! Finish your deliberations and get your nighttime instructions in immediately. Until this directive is followed, I'll be standing in the Town Square singing Air Supply songs at the top of my lungs.


Even the nights are better
Now that we're here together
Even the nights are better
Since I found you, ohhhh-a-woah woah!
Even the days are brighter
When someone you love's beside ya
Even the nights are better
Since I found yooooooou!!

[Hockey Monkey]

Arright, I'm tired of waiting...

Attention scum! Finish your deliberations and get your nighttime instructions in immediately. Until this directive is followed, I'll be standing in the Town Square singing Air Supply songs at the top of my lungs.


Even the nights are better
Now that we're here together
Even the nights are better
Since I found you, ohhhh-a-woah woah!
Even the days are brighter
When someone you love's beside ya
Even the nights are better
Since I found yooooooou!!


Thanks Hal...just what I need right now...an Air Supply song stuck in my noggin for the rest of the day.

[Idle Thoughts]

Cause you're every woman in the world...to me!
You're my fantasy; you're my reality.

[Hockey Monkey]

I'm more in the mood for "Love Stinks" J. Geils Band type songs. Please don't sing me any sappy love songs right now. For the love of god!

[Hal Briston]

Then tell the scum to get crackin'! Until then...

Here I am...The one that you love
Askin’ for another day!!!
Understand...the one that you love
Loves you in so many ways!!!


On an unrealted note, sorry about the breakup...love, sometimes, does indeed stink.

Yeah yeah...

[MHaye]

When you want a change from Air Supply, sing the Monkees?

I've had that song running through my head since I read the list of roles... exxcept when involved in a discussion of dwarven beards and ZZ Top.

[Hal Briston]

Wow...I've very impressed. I didn't think we'd make it to post #200 before someone mentioned either I'm A Believer or Love Removal Machine...

[Zeriel]

...THAT'S IT!

*staples Hal's lips shut with horseshoe nails*

Some of us are trying to drink here. You'll just have to use a straw.

[SnakesCatLady]

*removes plugs from ears*

Thanks, Zeriel.

Bartender, vodka tonic with extra lime, please. And some tuna. And a lint brush if you have one, Hal's singing made the Psychic Cat start shedding.

[Idle Thoughts]

See what you did now, Hal?

*makes no mention of the fact that he was singing as well*

[Idle Thoughts]

[slightly off game although since it's Night I think that's debateable]That reminds me, Hal Briston--I see to recall reading you and your wife enjoy the movie 10 Things I Hate About You?

I LOVE that movie. Proud owner of a copy.

"Why do you have to be from Planet Loser?"[/SOGASINITTD]
"Better than being from the Planet Look At Me Look At Me Look At Me"

[Hal Briston]

Mmmph! Moo mink mis'll mop me?

Mow mime mosd min muv mnd my mon't mow much
Mus my minkming mumoud mnd mell mout muv much?
Mut mime mack mon my meet mnd meamer moo me mutt moo manmed!!

[Hockey Monkey]

*grabs MonkeyMensch out of the crowd at the bar and drags him to the mic-stand for impromptu Karaoke Night duet*

Hey Hey we're the Monkeeeeeees
And people say we monkey around
But we're too busy singin'
To put anybody doooooooown!

We're just tryin to be friendly!
....... ::blinks:::
......what?

Come on everybody! Sing-along!

*Hockey Monkey dances off her current funk and proceeds to get highly intoxicated*

[DiggitCamara]

*grabs MonkeyMensch out of the crowd at the bar and drags him to the mic-stand for impromptu Karaoke Night duet*

(snip)

... MonkeyMensch has been substituted by zuma...

[Kat]

Hey, I like those songs! *un-staples Hal's lips*