FOA, that actually was a typo on my part, as it was 2:47 in the morning. As long as my point got across, which I think it did, then it’s all good.
Anyway, this is an important point, and it’s one I think is worth emphasizing as I have sort of taken it for granted. Intuitively, the job of the detective is to find scum, but this is sub-optimal. His job is to gain information, and the maximum information comes from two factors. First, is towniness versus scumminess. A player who is found to be scummy get’s lynched, and that’s all we gain from that. A player who is found to be townie get’s confirmed status and becomes a Night target for the scum. Second, and more important, is longevity. The detective should try to investigate people who are unlikely to be lynched or Night killed prior to when he will claim.
With this in mind, when I’ve had a detective role, I’ve always avoided investigating people who were high suspicion. Chances are they’ll be high suspicion the next Day too. If you investigate them and they come up scum, well, they were probably going to be lynched anyway, so that doesn’t help at all. If they come up as town, then either they’re still probably going to be lynched or they’re going to claim their power role and be saved. The only way your townie result could save them is if you put your own neck on the line to save them, which is generally a bad idea because the Detective is one of our most valuable roles.
So, to the detective, try to keep these factors in mind. You should probably favor longevity first. Then try to confirm a townie before trying to find scum. Beyond that, I’ll leave it up to you.
I have bolded the part of the sentence that anyrose omitted due to, um, probably space considerations. I am sure it was not her intent to deliberately quote another player in a misleading although technically accurate manner, for that would be a kinda scummy thing to do. And I do apologize for failing to take meticulous notes on the posts that were made before the game actually started.
anyrose, although your participation has now risen to the point where you are no longer among the lurkiest of the lurky, it has been limited almost entirely to defending yourself against me (and why not a word against twickster? Maybe you two are scumbuddies and are alarmed that his “random” vote against you was seconded?).
General tip for newbies: when you are trying to defend yourself against a lynch, especially when the people voting for you will freely admit that they have no real compelling reason for doing so, it is generally better not to get drawn into arguing about your case, but to find someone else that you can make a better case for lynching (this would mean not just OMGUSing).
So, OK, **anyrose,**assuming you’re town, you could reasonably suspect that I have an above-average chance of being scum based on the fact that I voted for you. Who ELSE do you think might be scum? Coming up with an answer to that question (and granted, it’s Day One, nobody can reasonably expect a great answer, but you have to start somewhere) would be the best way to help out the Town, rather than just covering your own ass, thus making you look like someone who might not only be Town but be capable of contributing to the Town in a helpful manner.
Later in the game they really begin to ping me. However, if there are better choices to lynch due to information, I’ll go with that before a lurker. In Batman, the only game I’ve played in so far, lynch the lurker really didn’t come into play after the first Day. (And we actually hit scum that Day. I voted for the “lurkiest” because I didn’t see what the others were seeing who were on the Kat bandwagon. But, they were right, and I wasn’t.) The main reason for this is non-town elements made up almost half the participants. There was always someone strategically better to lynch.
Lurking isn’t necessarily a tell. It can be an indication of newbie scum, but it can also just be an indication of newbieness in general or being busy. However, it doesn’t help town at all. Town needs information to win, and posting provides that. If people have legitimate reasons for lurking, I’m okay with that. (I didn’t post much on the first Day of Batman because I had family in town helping me with my house so I couldn’t devote a lot of time to it that week. After the first Day, my participation ramped up considerably.)
Personally, I just prefer to keep the more active people around because it both makes for a more interesting game and helps town develop strategies.
So to summarize, I have an even stronger opinion against lurkers as the game progresses. And I’m even less apt to switch a vote off of them barring information otherwise.
Speaking of lurkers, where’s fluiddruid? She’s the only one who’s yet to post since the game started.
And I nominate peekercpa for the Rugger award. He’s already hit double digits in posting numbers.
Thing Fish - I apologize that I only partially quoted you - and I was taken aback by twickster’s (who is female, btw) vote as well. But I would have been taken aback by any vote against sweei l’il ol’ me.
However - how much of a scumtell is it to change one’s vote once cast? Seems to me it’s a pretty big “ooo! I better jump on *that * bandwagon lest they suspect me” kind of tell.
Ok this is the friendliness that I remember from reading other game threads. I randomly voted for you, you told me I was wrong and thought I was scum, which proves your scum unless you can tell me who else is scum. No real contribution but I’m trying to force myself not to lurk. I have a vote against me but absolutely no defense yet. Any one want to pile on so I can work out different ways to say me no scum?
(since I missed the edit window)
In answer to your question, Thing Fish, about who I might suspect (other than you ;)) - right now, my answer is everyone since there have been no clear indicators, for my money. Lurkers/infrequent posters may merely be AFK for an extended period of time. By DAY Two, I may have a clearer sense of who is who.
See now I don’t like how you painted twickster with your slight smudgey comment. That is the kind of thing that bothers me, for icky reasons, accuse anyrose but then throw twickster in for good measure?
A little to early to be painting people as scum IMHO, but I guess it can be done.
It’s not necessarily a no-no, at least on Day one. The important thing to remember is that this is a game of information. The town is trying to gather more, and the scum are either trying to hinder that or manipulate it. One of the most valuable pieces of information available to the town is the voting record; not just who voted for who, but when and why. If reasoning for a vote is flimsy, it may reveal that you are privy to additional information, that you’re voting for ulterior motives or both.
Thus, even if I’m doing a random vote, as my current vote is, I made a point of stating that it’s random. I suppose in some of the joking votes, it can be assumed that they are random as well, but it’s important to make sure that your reasoning for votes is explicit and clear. If you’re pro-town, you are providing and information trail that is useful in the future and you may convince others with your reasoning. If you’re scum, you’re forced to do it because it looks scummy if you don’t, and that forces scum to provide us with information as well.
And yes, some of us take this game too seriously. What’s it to ya?
The advantage of the town is that we have superior numbers, our disadvantages are that we have inferior information and we are forced to do any strategizing in the open. The only way we can really take advantage of our numerical advantage is to actually develop a strategy in the open.
That said, assuming the scum will do that reverse is dangerous. Look at it this way. We say we will vote for lurkers, does that mean the scum will not lurk? No, because if that were the case, then stating the case means that the scum either don’t lurk to avoid that, and thus cluster as non-lurkers, or they attempt to distribute themselves in such a way that such a strategy only acheives a random result. The point is, if the scum deliberately cluster and either work with or against a particular plan, it will be an obvious anamoly.
IOW, if we say we’re going to lynch lurkers, we can expect that some scum will probably still lurk, just as if we hadn’t developed that strategy at all.
Eh, I hope that makes sense, cause I’m not sure I did a good job explaining it.
Well, the point is not to hide the strategy. As a general rule, town shouldn’t hide much from each other. Scum starts the game with information. Town starts the game with numerical advantage. Scum try to increase their numerical advantage; town tries to increase their information. When you hide your information and strategies, town cannot benefit from it. Any information you put forth is typically more useful to town than to scum. (Granted, power roles and such have compelling reasons to withhold things until the right time, but that’s the exception.)
For example, saying you are going to lynch the lurker will explain to your fellow townies why you are currently voting the way you are. It provides a record for people to reference later. Or if you choose a lurker lynch over what many would consider a better choice to lynch, you should justify it. “Trust me”'s tend to draw suspicion, and this applies to any strategy. “Trust me” can be justified (see storyteller in offsite Batman), but they can also swing a discussion into a direction that ends up ultimately being harmful to town.
Additionally, getting the scum to post is a good thing. It increases the chances of them screwing up, and forces them to have a record that can be referenced in the future. When a scum is exposed, town will get information on how they acted and can try to deduce motives for their actions. It’s also good for townies to be active, because scum know who the townies are, so through scum interactions with town, more information can be gained on any overarching strategy scum may be taking.
Now, just for my informational purposes since random never really came into play in Batman, what exactly is the rationale behind random votes for spurring discussion? Is discussion really increased significantly by it? I mean, getting one vote from random chance shouldn’t really scare anyone into talking. I guess I don’t understand it because I’m a bit of a blabbermouth anyway.
Eh, votes are cheap. If somebody hops onto a bandwagon, there’s not much difference between doing that by unvoting then revoting versus casting a bandwagon vote as your first vote. Scum tend to hide in bandwagons, and that’s definitely one thing I’m going to look for when voting.
And I think it’s hard to tell what anyrose’s motives are right now. I learned in Recruitment that defensiveness is pretty much a null tell that can be misinterpreted as scummy, so let’s definitely not fall into that trap again. Uber-defensivenss (how dare you vote for me based on a joke–even the the vote was a really jokey as well) is more a characteristic of a newb, Town or Scum affiliation being somewhat irrelevant to the reaction.
I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make sense. It is not reasonable to suspect that the person voting for oneself is necessarily more likely to be scum. Let’s assume that anyrose is vanilla (and for the sake of this point, since neither a Doctor or Detective have additional information, this applies to them as well). All she knows is that she isn’t scum, she does not know. She also knows that the chance of anyone else being scum is equal and that any one of them that isn’t scum knows the same thing. The only way to actually have a higher probability of being scum is to have a priori knowledge about the roles involved. IOW, that’s a circular argument.
And telling her not to defend herself is suspect in and of itself as well. It is a natural instinct to want to defend oneself. If she’s a power role, that instinct is obvious. But even if she’s vanilla, she KNOWS that she is town, but only knows that anyone else has a chance at that. As such, it IS a pro-town motivation to defend oneself, particularly if she sees that vote’s reasoning to be spurious.
You also ask her to say who else she thinks is scum, but you fail to mention that your reasoning against her is essentially random. This is what I’d call motivation transference, and it’s quite scummy. I expect a good explanation from you about this post, or you’ll be seeing your name in blue in a future post of mine.
Fish’s vote against me wasn’t entirely random, well maybe it was it that he looked at who had already been voted against and took a random pick from that set. But I think he took the “Shelbyville” comment as my propensity towards untruths. Feh on him, I say, feh.
And I too am wondering about fluiddruid. Kind of unlike her to not be more responsive. I am surprised that my lurker lynch vote has stayed on her this long.
