Oh, that’s why Romanic hasn’t weighed in.
Gods help me, but I have to admit that PizzaGuy’s analysis of Silver Jan was pretty convincing. **Normal Phase’s **addition to that analysis also makes sense (despite the fact that she is gunning for me). I still don’t think Silver Jan is playing well, but that is not by itself scummy, so
Unvote Silver Jan
In related news, I am completely conflicted about PizzaGuy. He’s had at least two blatant examples of his actions contradicting his words. Normally, I would vote something like that damn quick and be pretty confident about it. But I can’t quite pull the damn trigger. The bandwagon that he’s on right now feels like an easy “lynch the loud” train and his participation is solid, even if I disagree with his methods. He’s driving me crazy, to be honest, but despite it all I am leaning Town on him. I don’t think I’ll vote for him toDay. (That said, I do think his case on septimus is really weak).
Which leaves me with…no votes right now. Back to the drawing board.
Is there a second “if” missing here?
You include a quote by ATPG in this post that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what you’re talking about otherwise. Did something get snipped? If so, what?
Do you think he’s scum?
I believe that what Lightfoot was getting at is that if the scum were not themselves responsible for scathach’s no-reveal status, then they would be confused and probably assume a third party responsible instead. (Lightfoot seems to assume that third party would be scathach himself, which doesn’t make much sense to me, but the overall concept does.) They might then bring up the issue of third parties. Whereas town would be much more likely to assume “scum janitor” and leave it at that.
Coached to do what, Ed? OMGUS all over the place, say “I’m town” a lot, and so on? Why? Just to fool contrarians like me? There are a lot more players out there who think my methods are nuts than who both agree with me and are willing to follow me, as evidenced by the bandwagon itself, which could well prevail today. I would not call such a thing good coaching; I’d call it bad coaching.
To say I have issues with this comment of yours is to put it mildly. Clarify, please.
I remember one from yesterDay and had the same reaction; have there been others?
About ATPG:
Hoist by your own petard, dude. 
Well, maybe.
Can you demonstrate this? I didn’t pay any attention to Mental Guy on day one; if there’s something there I’d appreciate seeing it.
But I disagree with your characterization of his case on you being weak. Avoidance of scum hunting while still being visibly present is characteristic more of scum than of town, unless your name is Inner Stickler. Your noise-to-signal ratio on day one was extremely high.
(snip my vote)
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to insinuate here. That I’m scumbuddies with Septimus and was so threatened by ATPG’s two votes on him that I engaged in horrible me-too-ing just to tie it up?
That was at USCDiver; I have no issues with this comment.
Apropos of nothing, it really should not be outdated. Third spot is very comfortable for scum psychologically. I bet even with knowledge of the meme it still tips a little bit out of proportion toward scum being there than town. It’d be silly and counterproductive to consider it a strong tell, but it’s a good enough reason to look at someone.
About Koldanar specifically (quote above is gnarly in response to Lightfoot’s idea that Koldanar had no justification for this third-vote smudginess) – scum are certainly not immune from making bad or outdated arguments.
The vote on Diver is OK, I guess, but I’d feel better about the one on me if it WAS that you were paranoid about me and Septimus being scumbuddies. This rationale makes no sense; it would have been a stronger vote if you’d left out Septimus entirely. What possible connection does “attempt to make two bandwagons” have to scumminess?
Yes, if there is a doc, there is a possibility that they are paranoid.
Replies to special ed, Lightfoot, Weedy, Stanislaus, and ShadowFacts, spoilered for less clutter.
I’m actually fairly decent to talk to provided one is not on the other end of my accusatory pointing finger.
Though, even though I am uber aggressive in that regard, I hardly ever write someone off as completely guilty and stop listening to them. People have changed my minds even when I was sure they were death-worthy before… they just need to hit the right townie-tell buttons. It’s rare but it happens. And when that happens, I have an nearly 100% record of being correct in reversing my opinion of them.
I think after the initial shock of getting to know me, people learn to excuse my potentially dunce-cap worthy moments. There are times when I speak my mind a little too honestly and I haven’t checked my statements for accuracy or tone properly.
[QUOTE]
Of course, I don’t have the best reputation, though I like to think I’ve mellowed.
However, you did encourage me to crunch some numbers on my own gameplay. Looking beyond just the record.
So I looked at all games which were o the more standard 1 Scum team variety (I basically took out 3 handed and Conspiracy games none of which I’ve ever won). My record on just Giraffe, Idlemafia and here. My record in those games is 17-25, which is actually much better than my over all record.
We don’t have records overall for all players, but still
[spoiler]42 games (17 wins, 25 losses) - Survived 8 times
Mafia: 7 games (1 wins, 6 losses) - Survived 0 times
Neutral: 3 games (0 wins, 3 losses) - Survived 0 times
Town: 32 games (16 wins, 16 losses) - Survived 8 times
Survival:
0.190
Wins
0.405
Which basically leads me to believe that I rarely survive. That probably has some influence over my 14% Scum record and 0% 3rd party record.
[/QUOTE]
Anywhere near a 50/50 win rate *as town *is excellent. You have my respect there, especially since you’ve edged me out in that category.
I think with the level of activity, discussion, and length of days here, that a better win record for the town is the likeliest outcome. Less time and less thinking leads to mafia wins.
I won’t be voting for myself (this time) if that’s what you mean. All I’m saying is if I think I can help but I’ve already bungled my credibility then no one is going to listen to me anyway and I’ll just be left alive as bait for a lynch, and eventually eat one when the temptation to look under my skirt gets too great. I’d be more effective not being a distraction then.
Nice.
Well I’m not going to lie, bluffing and deliberately using certain styles to convince people not to lynch you is effective as mafia, and also as town.
While I am on the level when I suggest that, for lack of better options, lynching me is fine here and won’t hurt my feelings, demonstrating with a little bravado that death doesn’t scare me and that folks are only voting me for being a little aggressive with baiting and eye-poking is an effective way to change people’s minds. You’re well within reason to suspect me of using such tactics, since I am using them. That said, please note that I have removed all options for myself to push the vote onto anyone but septimus and I’m not exactly playing in a way that makes me appear sympathetic. And one of the more likely outcomes of telling people that you’re not afraid to die is they’re likely to go “okay” and kill you. Case in point.
I tend to feel that the bait strategy has in fact worked. I would be very impressed if none of the scumbags have voted for me so far or bothered to comment on the situation. Even if I die here, I would still encourage suspicion on those who wagoned me and especially focus on their motivations for doing so and see if they pass the sniff test. It’s going to be a long game, and I hope people will refer back to this part when examining someone for being genuine or not. Once the innocent people on my wagon die off, it should be easier to see which of the remainders were more sinister.
It also works very effectively over several games, because when you do outrageous things that would ordinarily get you lynched, and people stop reacting to it, you’ve now gained a license to actually act scummy when scum, and not look any different from normal.
It’s a particularly nasty strategy. But to be honest, a lot of the things that come across as scummy are effective for winning games on both sides of the board.
Getting people to not vote for you wins games as townie too. OMGUS voting rids you of people who want to rid themselves of you, and people are generally more willing to get rid of people who have voted them in the past and more likely to find them suspect. Lying can send misinformation to the scums just as it can to the town. I particularly love fake claims which get basic townies murdered instead of power roles.
I’ve even claimed detective and gotten scum lynched when I wasn’t detective. That’s extremely scummy, but, my philosophy is to play just as dirty as the scums do and beat them at their own game.
Also, you’d be surprised how effective announcing your strategy is. The best response is to ignore the bait, but often people will react by confronting or retreating, and either of those is a flinch over baseline. People either want to show how weak the tactic is by putting themselves in the line of fire, or they deliberately avoid being caught by it. If you’re not scum you have no reason to show much of a reaction at all unless you’ve concluded I am guilty.
I’ve found that scumbags will attempt to avoid being caught by inconsistency and hypocrisy and play as straight as possible. And they also like pointing out the inconsistency of others so any minor instances they might have of it look less incriminating by comparison. “Hey, I’ve only flip-flopped once. This guy, on the other hand, major flip-flopper, let’s get him!”
Looking less bad than others is basically the number one overall strategy of being scum.
I’d actually be suspicious of such obviously and gratuitously selfless behavior if it weren’t me doing it. It sort of smacks of WIFOM.
I’ll only give myself a pass on that. You’ll notice that I gave Silver Jan no points at all for mentioning that she wasn’t voting for me to save her own hide in this close vote. I would think the scums would wait to the last minute to “reluctantly” vote for Pizza over themselves, so as not to appear eager.
Being selfless sort of looks like nervousness sometimes. I wouldn’t call it a tell unless something seemed off about it, though. Such as voting for someone earlier in the game (thus indicating you wouldn’t mind lynching said person given the opportunity) and then not following through when it is you versus them. Why hesitate? Trying to look townie? Or, thinking someone is likely townie and then making no effort at all to come up with third alternatives when it is you versus them for the lynch. Sadly, this one is less of a tell because people are lazy.
I refer to my survival percentage as mafia here. If you poke the nest enough times, the hornet’s nest will come alive and you WILL die. I know this just as much as anyone who has ever played the game, and I also know when not to poke the nest. Look at what happens after I suggest “I’m not a horrible lynch”, I actually got at least one additional person voting for me. The natural reaction to such moves is to call them out on it. You’re not going to live for very long by putting your head in the tiger’s mouth, especially if the tiger doesn’t know who the hell you are. You’re a SNACK.
People’s reactions are often so natural and instinctive that you can easily predict what words you can say will get you dead. I do avoid saying those sorts of phrases as much as I can when scum, and it does work. If I were scum, being a snack on round 2 wouldn’t be my strategy.
Ask Normal Phase how often people have that reaction. I don’t change my style and it always leaves people with a “but if I let him live and he wins, I’ll feel suckered”. This leads to me dying moar.
I kinda didn’t like Diver’s vote on me as well, but I’m well aware that what I do often leads to townies abruptly going “fine, whatever, die.”
Obviously, or the wagon wouldn’t be comprised of more people than are possibly scums in this game.
I’m kinda interested that septimus seems to be avoiding voting for me or commenting much on my jihad against him. I don’t know whether that’s because he’s more interested in trying to solve the game, or because he feels it’s the best way to avoid the magnifying glass. Time will tell on that.
This is my favorite reaction to see. 
It *is *really weak. The point of it is to rattle septimus’ cage if I can and see who also wants septimus dead. Imagine if he turned out to be scum later on… would you pick Normal as his partner?
I think the scummiest thing about septimus is he seems to be ducking me entirely. Is that normal, is he usually not much of a talker?
:o
In cases like this, voting for anyone that is up for the lynch at least distances themselves from you so I can go “you’re probably not their partner” in retrospect. Depending of course on how badly you seem to want them dead.
Which btw, invites scums bussing their partners… which can lead to dead scums anyway. :D[/SPOILER]
Also, Normal Phase, your double-triple-quadruple posting which I’ve come to tolerate and find cute could be cut down slightly by doing the above kind of reply.
Love you lots.
**Please bleach votes when quoting them, especially in a game with multivotes. **
If the quoted votes are in a spoiler, is that sufficient?
I don’t think any vote inside a spoiler should be legally counted, as it’s annoying for the GM to open spoilers to find votes. They should be plainly viewable or not legal at all.
The votes won’t be counted if not bleached, but it’s just a courtesy. Spoilering them is fine, too.
No, But Scumbuddies might coach you to try to look Townie in the ways that AskThePizzaGuy saw…and maybe it just wasn’t a perfect job, eh?
Which particular ways were you referring to?
Please give specific examples. I want to see if I can imagine the kind of coaching you’re talking about. At least some of those examples, I can’t.
(This is an example of trying to figure out if you’re lying to me or if you really believe what you’re saying.)
No rush, but if you take all day to respond I’ll know you’ve carefully formulated a reply and it may be less genuine. 
However, by his own admission, he tends to survive games better ass Scum than as Town, which means he must appear to be Town quite well in games in which he is Scum, probably playing with people who are familiar to him.
So, your opinion may be tainted. I’m curious, in games in which you two have played together, how good are you at determining when he is Scum in general?
The parts I’ve bolded below
I especially didn’t like the “I was right about the mislynch and you were wrong part.” Scum have a much greater ability to be correct about lynches than Town does (since they already know who is Scum), and so might use their ‘good’ voting record as evidence of Towniness
subscribes to Normal’s newsletter
**
unvote: Normal Phase
vote: septimus*