Well here is another attempt for me not to be branded a lurker. A lot of the strategies whether looking at motivations or votes only seem to be reasonable at the end of the game and really not that useful to discuss right now. It seems in the short term we are either looking for mistakes or just jumping on whoever looks the weakest link in the town’s knowledge gathering attempt. If I am missing something to watch for in the short term let me know but as I haven’t seen either yet I’m still going to withhold my vote.
Yes, I’m sorry if I’m giving some shell shock to some of the new blood. I realize I’m making a lot of references to other games, and I’m not doing it to make you all feel bad but, instead, to provide a frame of reference for my reasoning. That is, I can say that something is a scum tell, but then you all are stuck either believing or not believing me. If I tell you that something is a scum tell and reference a historical case, veterans can either confirm or deny me based on that AND anyone who is willing can go back and read about it and decide for themselves.
The unfortunately part to this game is that, giving examples just doesn’t always work, sometimes you just have to see it happen to understand what’s going on. A good example of this is that I can say that sometimes scum will throw other scum under the bus to get townie cred. Well, sure, but how exactly would they go about it? If I reference storyteller in M2, or Idle Thoughts in MV, you can now go back and see how they went about doing it.
But please, if I use a term or make a reference that doesn’t make sense, please just ask me, and I’ll try my best to clarify.
[fluff] you all do seem to love the “sound of your own voices” :D:D [/fluff]
says the queen of fluff.
FTR, yes, I tend to do a lot of strategy posting, particularly on Day One. IME, this is fairly usual. We don’t have a lot to go on except unsubstantiable suspicion, and randomness. The point is, talking is good. We get a good idea for where people are coming from and how they think. We also get people on the record, which helps us find scum.
If we had a game where it was themed or we knew more about the set-up, we’d be able to discuss those aspects, but we don’t know anything, so all we can do is talk general strategy. I’m not making an attempt to force my thoughts on anyone. I am trying to play transparently so that my actions, decisions, and strategies aren’t seen has having no logical basis.
To reitterate my point about motivation, if I’m scum, you could be right. But if I’m town, wouldn’t it also make sense to share some of my thoughts and my experience so that we can all benefit? I fought a lot of this in the Simpletown game, and a lot of people kept thinking the same sort of thing, and that’s because you’re asking the wrong question, because there is at least as pro-town motivation for general strategizing as there is anti-town motivation.
So, my question to you is, do you disagree with anything I’ve said? Does it seem misleading? Is it illogical? If so, point it out and we can talk about it, but just saying this sort of thing is a smudge, and it’s unproductive at best, and scummy at worst.
This seems a little disingenuous here. I have read all of your posts. I never said that you said “anyrose, don’t defend yourself”. Instead, what I’m reading how it comes across. When you suggest she should look for other scummy people, it implies that she shouldn’t counter the accusations against her.
The point is, she should always be looking for scummy people, that’s a given. But she should also defend herself. The way you stated it, it implied that she shouldn’t, and I’m not the only one who read that implication.
This is a strawman argument.
I don’t have an issue with big egos, at least as far as mafia goes. Townies can have just as big egos as scum. The point is, you at first mention you’re a newbie, perhaps to get some leniency. Then you make a statement that doesn’t explicitly say, but again, implies that you have some level experience. This could be an attempt to build trust in your judgment. Either way, it’s a blatant contradiction and I wanted a response to it.
This is another strawman argument.
God you height-gifted snobs!
It was a clarification and nothing more; I know some games in the past have allowed fluffy interactions between scum, and with it not being explicitly stated I wanted it to be clear. If they had a chance to talk at all, they can strategize, and that can give us some pattern to watch for. Kinda hoping this type of discussion is restricted to nights for them though, as that can be an extra edge too? I’m a cautious person; go ahead and look at my history. I check these things over, and I agonize over day one lynches. It’s my thing.
This is what we call a smudge. Yes, as far as anyone else knows, I could be scum. This is a given. But this is true of ANYONE’s arguments, including yours. This doesn’t make any sort of attempt to rebut any of my arguments or my logic. This is, at best, the pot calling the kettle black.
And really, I’m not infallible? Yes, we all make mistakes, I never claimed or attempted to imply that I’m infallible. What’s the point of this?
??? Wait a minute, so you act all suspicious of anyrose for throwing an OMGUS vote on you, and you turn around and do the exact same to RyJae? How is voting for you anti-town? If so, wouldn’t that same logic make all of those voting for you scum?
Thing Fish is doing *a lot * of backpeddling. That’s a sure sign of someone who cannot keep thier lies straight in their head.
I appreciate that you probably have precious little time to post at work (unlike some of us), but I’d appreciate if you could ellaborate on this point.
please see post 249
I disagree with this. Motivation is most useful at the end of the game because we have the most to work with at that point, but it’s still very useful Today. For instance, I’m most suspicious of Thing Fish right now. Why the recent unvote? Why throwing twickster under the bus? Why the strawman arguments? Why would a townie do that? Why would scum do that?
And this part right here is why, after my reread, I’m leaning towards removal of Thing at the end of today. Some posts back, he tries to bring up the idea of not trusting BLaM’s talk of strategy, and using his experience and knowledge to mislead the town. This stinks of anti-town, so lets look at motivation :
1) Thing is town. He mistrusts BlaM because he is so loud, that it can be easy to hide scummyness as a "helpful" townie.
2) Thing is scum. BLaM Has been on him for a bit about anyrose, and he sees a way to redirect this heat onto another and get him eliminated.
Now, I myself have done #1, in the very first game I played. NAF and RoOsh were dominating post counts, and I felt that it was a great way for scum to hide. I was wrong, and I was called out for my reasoning. Where is the motivation for Blaster at this point? This is a null-tell; he’s not misleading but rather describing appropriate and tested methods. Now, if he does turn out scum, that doesn’t mean he won’t use these ideas to manipulate us later, but what he is doing now doesn’t tell us this at all.
This brings us to number 2. I feel that this can be the sign of an inexperienced scum. Not quite an OMGUS vote, but rather a minor shift to some other person in the game, who has a large presence.
Were I to break down how I think this goes for Thing, I would say 75% on #2, and 25% on #1; not enough to vote for him yet, but certainly I have a large amount of suspicion on him now.
Apologies. I tend to read and respond in order, and I saw that right after I posted.
I was getting ready to post something alone these lines, when I seen his disregard BlaM strategy posts. Irrelevant whether BlaM is town or scum, his strategy posts still make sense. In this game and in others I have played in and observed. Actually to the point of causing confusion in the stands at his strategy.
For him not to make strategy posts, that would be scummy IMHO. As for Thing Fish and his vote on me for being “lurky” or you know voting for him well that’s fine. I don’t want to lynch a townie and if something changes will remove my vote but from where I am looking we need to lynch and I think mine is rested squarely on the shoulders of the person who so far acted the the least in towns favor.
No, everything you’ve said makes sense except I’m still trying to get my mind around the pseudo-random thing. But if I just dropped in and said that it made sense and then disappeared I would be getting a lot more of those votes for lurking. So instead I just made a comment that you seem to be trying to point the towns thinking, which if your town is a good thing and if you’re scum we’re screwed. But like I said at the end, I’m just trying to point out the obvious and hope someone smart makes a connection. But for the record I’m leaning towards Thing Fish being scummy but not enough to vote this early in the day. Because I would hate to get a bandwagon rolling and then lose out on time to discuss. Any other questions let me know It keeps me from lurking.
I think I understand where you’re coming from and thinking about motivation is always helpful but at this point in the game any motivation guesses would just be WAGs. See above about my agreement about Thing but any thing you could say about his motivation would be wrong because there is no pattern yet. Then again I could be full of it because there could be common motivators and you could be picking up on them and I just haven’t been around long enough to know about them.
All of this makes sense, and I tend to agree with BlaM’s reasoning. I think that it is very important to look at motivation, even on Day one.
I do worry that an experienced player can essentially lead us around however they want by posting a lot of information that leads us to look at a situation in whatever way they want us to. I think that the only way we can avoid that is to look at motivation. Why would someone post a multi-paragraph explanation of strategy? What sort of actions do they advise us to take? Who would these actions benefit - town or scum?
Looking at motivation is what caused me to place my vote on Thing Fish. I didn’t like the reason he gave for placing his first vote on anyrose, I didn’t like how he advised not to defend yourself when voted for, and I didn’t like how he misrepresented anyrose’s response to his vote (see post #213)
They are certainly not WAGs. When I pointed them out, I gave my evaluation for why I thought each of those behaviors had a scummy motivation. Do you think those are WAGs? If you do, then you must think my logic is flawed, and I’d like to know why. Do you think my assessments are incorrect? Do you see them as null tells, or townie tells? If so, please explain.
In each of the examples I’ve given, I see a propensity for scummy motivation, and I’ve explained why. You are classifying motivation at this point as WAGs, and I strongly disagree with that.
This is why I asked, I picked out the behavior and explained the motivation as I saw it. If you don’t see it, or think they’re fairly neutral, say so, but this is just a blanket statement that seems geared toward not evaluating motivations Today. I don’t see why we shouldn’t or what better alternative we should have.
This is a valid point, and it’s one I want people to explore. I don’t want people to trust me just because I make a lot of strategy posts. If they do, then they’ll trust ANYONE who makes a lot of strategy posts. Both scum and townies have good motivation for discussing strategy, thus explicitly trust me or suspecting me because of it just doesn’t follow, logically.
Koldanar pointed this out well. Plainly put, all my strategy talk is a null-tell. If I’m town, well then it’s probably the best advise I can offer. If I’m scum, it would be foolish to give obviously bad advise, particularly if it contradicted things I’ve said in previous games. Either way, there’s motivation for it to be either way, but not a whole lot of motivation to deliberately give bad advice on general strategy.