Evil Dead Mafia II - Teaser and Sign-Ups [Game On!]

[storyteller0910]

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Through absolutely no fault of his own, GuiriEnEspana has gained access to sensitive spoiler information and cannot continue as a player in the game. I want to emphasize that this was my screw-up, not his.

Guiri will be replaced before Dawn if a willing replacement can be found, or modkilled at Dawn if not.

I apologize to Guiri and to the players for the situation.

[storyteller0910]

UPDATES:

Tom Scud has replaced GuiriEnEspana.

Also, I am apparently no longer a member at the Straight Dope. This is a new development as far as I am concerned.

[Tom_Scud]

holds up cape in front of his face, obscuring the lower half

Uh, hi guys, I am GuiriEnEspagne. Really. There were no contractual difficulties with the player previously playing GuiriEnEspane, nor am I a chiropracter with no acting experience brought in at the last minute to replace him. Really.

[USCDiver]

@Oy

However, I could easily see Maha’s role being a Scum role slightly tweaked. There’s nothing inherently good in the text, and finding out how many Third Parties there are would be useful for Scum. What I can’t really reconcile is why he would then tell us, Town.

He was getting quite a bit of heat at the end of the last Day so that may have prompted him to claim Tonight.

[One_And_Only_Wanderers]

@Tom_Scud

holds up cape in front of his face, obscuring the lower half

Uh, hi guys, I am GuiriEnEspagne. Really. There were no contractual difficulties with the player previously playing GuiriEnEspane, nor am I a chiropracter with no acting experience brought in at the last minute to replace him. Really.

Hi Tom, what are your thoughts on the game? Have you been following or are you now on an EPIC reread?

[Suburban_Plankton]

@Oy

If Maha got it from Evil Dead I, he did so early on (but not too early, because his post count when Maha copied his message was 2955, and it’s only 2957 now, with one post in this thread.) Because if I go to Evil Dead I now, I see storyteller as a Guest. On this board, member status and post count always contemporary, not contemporaneous with the original post.

I can’t reproduce anything like Maha’s PM post with my own PM. I can’t get a post count, and I can’t get it to say anything but Guest. I also can’t get it to show his location, although I think I would if Story were a Member.

I get everything Maha’s message had except whether or not the poster is online if I try to copy a PM from a true member. The online/offline bit may have to do with my browser; I use Opera, which is non-standard.

Impossible though it sounds, I’ve got to wonder if Story’s membership expired just after Maha made his post. Because for the life of me, I can’t imagine why Maha’d bother putting that stuff in if he were making up a PM.

I can’t see making a case against Maha based on this. It makes no sense for him to have made it up, and I can’t figure out any way he could have cut and pasted that info nefariously. Scum and Third party boards (if any) would not be on the SDMB; they’d probably be on BladeRunner or another board. In any case, I find it highly unlikely that Story’s profile on that board would be so nearly identical to his profile here - same name, same location, so nearly identical a post count (storyteller has made exactly two posts on the SDMB since Maha posted his purported PM, for a total of 2957, which is what he’s showing now.)

However, I could easily see Maha’s role being a Scum role slightly tweaked. There’s nothing inherently good in the text, and finding out how many Third Parties there are would be useful for Scum. What I can’t really reconcile is why he would then tell us, Town.

So Maha is WIFOM.

The Post Count that Maha gave us for storyteller still doesn’t add up. I just looked now (post count doesn’t show in the thread, but is listed under a user’s profile) and story’s post count is 2958. Maha’s PM shows story’s post count at 2955 back on October 4. He has most definitely made more than 3 posts since then (though it seems quite plausible that 2955 was story’s post count at the time Maha made his post). Even if the member/guest problem can be explained by assuming story’s membership lapsed within the last couple days, I see no way the post count in the PM can be genuine.

There’s also the issue of the line in Maha’s PM: “Please see the rules for formal definitions of “Town,” “Scum,” and “Third-Party” in this context.” Guiri pointed out that he couldn’t find any “formal definitions” anywhere in the rules for this game. I don’t see anything either.

As to the question of why Mahaloth would include the ‘header’ information in his post, when it’s really irrelevant to his case, I wondered about that as well. But when people are lying, they have a tendency to want to give out ‘extra information’, because they are aware of all the holes in their story and are already anticipating the questions they are going to get concerning them. The tendency is to try to answer those questions before they are asked. But since the answers have to be manufactured, the chances of providing information that is inconsistent with reality are greatly increased. I think that’s what happened here. Maha wanted to provide extra ‘proof’ that his PM was genuine. But in his effort to do so, he did just the opposite.

It appears quite clear that Mahaloth’s PM was borrowed from some source outside this game and then modified. I can see no reason for Town to do that. Part of me says “wait until dawn to cast a vote”, to see if anything new is revealed that might change the situation. But the case here seems very clear cut, and I can always change my vote if new evidence ‘proves’ Mahaloth’s Townness.
vote Mahaloth

[Tom_Scud]

Been following somewhat - I won’t have to read all 42 pages from zero, but really not closely enough to say much. Also, I actually need to get work done today, so catch-up will start on the weekend. I don’t remember if Guiri had a vote on Mahaloth, but just in case I will

unvote

in light of the latest green-text revelation from story.

[Normal_Phase]

Okay, this seems kind of pointless at the moment, but I did say I would do it, so:

Suburban Plankton’s approach to Romanic

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12990564&postcount=516
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12990752&postcount=526
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12991401&postcount=544

In the first post, he offers two comments on the Romanic issue. The first is flat-out supportive of Romanic (that he doubts there would be four scum. He does, as is typical of him throughout all of his posts this game, offer a caveat in the next sentence.) The second is neutral towards Romanic – he’s a bit dubious of the lack of role claim, but only a bit (he goes on to offer a few sentences of potential explanation).

Then he votes Romanic, saying we can’t overlook the “faux-pas”. So he offers one reason to believe Romanic and one null tell (in effect), then votes the guy. No indication of actual belief that Romanic is scum whatsoever, and a pro-forma, almost “policy” vote. He finds no reason to make him really think Romanic is scum, yet votes for him anyway. Keep this in mind when we get to the discussions of Oredigger and NAF.

In the next post, he agrees with NAF that Romanic should claim if he is town. In the third, he backs up peeker’s argument against Mrs McGinty (this is based in part on a mis-read, pointed out by Mrs McG a bit later). Of interest though is a subtle contradiction between what SP has to say in his first post about Romanic’s “four scum” slip and what he has to say in this one. Compare:

I agree that 4 Scum among 30 players seems like a ‘lower than normal’ number. On the other hand, when was the last time any of you played a ‘normal’ game of Mafia?

I agree with pretty much everyone that it seems quite unlikely that anybody, with any alignment, would say such a thing at this point in the game. but the fact remains that it was said, so we need to try to figure out the most likely scenario that would lead to someone saying that. I think it is more likely that Romanic knows how many Scum there are and gave that information out by accident, than it is that Romanic has no idea how many Scum there are but decided to state a ‘known number of Scum’ in his post anyway.

In the first post, “four scum” is offered as a potential reason to believe Romanic. In the second, it is the opposite. Already there is the impression that SP is not truly operating from an honest effort to understand the situation, only trying to give the impression that he is.

SP’s approach to Oredigger
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12992270&postcount=590
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12993969&postcount=677
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12995294&postcount=697
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12996096&postcount=726

The first post is the root of the worst case of all made against Oredigger (though SP doesn’t indicate any suspicion because of it at this point), that Oredigger might want to re-think advising Romanic to take a hike when Oredigger has said he thinks Romanic is town. As I and others indicated at the time, this was not an inconsistent position to take. However, SP doesn’t actually do himself any disfavors on this: he does seem to honestly believe he’s taking the most pro-town position; and he does come around once enough arguments have been made for the other side. However, he doesn’t drift away from Oredigger – in 697 he criticizes him sharply for keeping his vote on someone (Romanic) he says he thinks is town. By the time of his next post after that (726), Romanic has checked out, and Oredigger – SP’s target of most interest – has picked up a quick couple of votes and request a no-lynch to boot. In post 726 SP challenges Oredigger again, this time on the inconsistency between Oredigger’s advocacy of Romanic’s leaving and his current stance on no-lynch. However, he does not place a vote, only asks more questions.

Here’s the issue I have with this. When it’s an easy “policy” vote – Romanic’s “egregious faux-pas” – Suburban has no issues with plopping a vote on down, even though everything he says in the vote post itself suggests not voting would be the more internally consistent action. Yet when nothing like that is in the offing, as with Oredigger here and NAF later, Suburban can never bring himself to put his money where his mouth is, even when his own words express greater reason to be suspicious than he says he had with Romanic.

A bit later Suburban says he’ll be out of town and hence won’t place a vote, which – whatever. He still could have voted earlier, then unvoted “just in case”, but he did not. I criticized him at some point this past Day for not having had a vote placed at the end of Day one and he used his absence as the reason – I’ll just note here that given the situation (bandwagon on Oredigger well in swing by the time SP left; SP himself indicating suspicion of Oredigger; no vote placed at any time), that’s not really an excuse.

Chipacabra’s death and the really remarkable level of curiosity
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13013310&postcount=1183
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13013765&postcount=1200

There was one post before this I didn’t grab the link to, shortly after Dawn – SP speculates a martyr might protect from lynch. That’s not really remarkable. But 1183 is this:

From the Dawn Post

As quickly as it came, his attacker retreats into the darkness, even as the third occupant of the kitchen flees in the opposite direction.

Should this be taken literally? Does this indicate that perhaps there was a watcher investigating either Chip or his killer? If so, why would Story let us know? Perhaps someone has used a power that makes them visible to all? What might that be?
Sorry, I’ve got no answers to any of these questions as of yet…unless someone wants to volunteer that they were watching Chip (or someone else) last night? But I’m not sure if that would be a wise thing to do at this point.

And 1200 is this:

I read it. It says that " Anyone who takes the book by Night will sacrifice any other Night action they might have to do so, and will also be subject to observation by a variety of interested onlookers." So, if someone took the book from NAF, then they should have been seen by anyone who was looking.

Which implies that someone would need to be watching NAF in order to have the theft noticed. I’d say it’s probable that if we have a watcher, they would have been watching NAF last night to see what actions he actually took. So someone should have seen the theft.

Unless, of course, the “shroud of darkness” prevented any watchers from seeing what happened to NAF, thus allowing the thief to escape without notice.

Very convenient.

So what we know for certain is that NAF took the Book on Day 1. All other information is only as reliable as NAF himself is, which is to say, somewhere between 0 and 100%.

I would assume that whomever has the book at the moment is not Town. There is no evidence to support this assumption, but it’s my ‘gut feeling’. The question is: is that person currently NAF, or someone else?

Without addressing SP’s approach to NAF yet – SP is the only person to post more than twice about the night’s events, right off the bat. (Astral posts a couple of times, as does Cookies.) He is the only person to bring up a watcher, and he does so twice, both in the context of Chipacabra’s death and in the context of the disappearance of the Book from NAF’s possession. SP has watchers on the brain. Further – and you all KNOW how little enthusiasm I have for the concept of fishing as a scum tell, so please take this seriously – what the heck is post 1183 if not “oh please let me find out if any watchers were active so I can know which way to jump”?

Moving on.

Suburban’s approach to NAF
After post 1200 from above there are:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13013868&postcount=1213
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13014040&postcount=1219
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13014385&postcount=1226
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13017048&postcount=1325
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13018982&postcount=1391
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13024706&postcount=1521

1200: “very convenient” if the shroud of darkness allowed a book thief to escape without notice (but the implication is this is a reason to be suspicious of NAF, which doesn’t really make sense)
1213: still suspicious of NAF, but agrees too much time wasted talking about the book
1219: a lot more plausible that NAF is lying than that he isn’t. Also wants to hear from lurkers. Which, if this is not yet another bit of wishful hoping for someone to solve the watcher dilemma for him, is nevertheless the plea of roughly every other scum I’ve ever seen. But whatever. Suburban, if you are a townie, this is the point at which I would expect a vote. You have stated outright you think NAF is more likely lying than not. If that’s not cause for a vote, then what on earth is? Compare again to the approach to Romanic. PIS-slip vote, piece of cake even when his own words say he’s not really suspicious. Anything else, no vote even when his own words indicate more than enough suspicion.
1226: response to Guiri on why NAF is more likely than not lying. More on that below.
1325: Can’t think of any scum motivation for NAF to lie. Now has a big issue with NAF’s request to be vigged.
1391: Peeker’s more plausible if NAF is town. Leaning toward NAF being town
1521: NAF was one of his pings at the start of the (small d) day, but never could find a scum motivation for him.

Suburban throws a ton of mud on NAF throughout this Day, topping off with post 1219, where it is more plausible that NAF is lying than that he isn’t. Yet despite this, he never votes NAF; and by the end of the Day has reversed his position without ever really addressing the change (lack of ability to imagine a scum motivation should not outweigh “probably lying”). And at that, the original case itself was exceedingly problematic. I’ll just show 1226 (his big evidence post) to demonstrate the issues. These are the three reasons he gives to show that NAF is probably lying, and my responses:

My first was that the ‘shroud of darkness’ caused NAF to become untrackable, and thus enabled someone to steal the Book without being seen. That seems too much of a coincidence, and therefore suspicious. Of course, NAF says that’s not how the Book works.

Neither does the Book’s own description. It mentions interested parties, but there’s nothing to say the person with the book should see anything, and no reason to believe that anyone necessarily was watching NAF that night.

So I thought that maybe the darkness only affected him, so that he was unable to see who stole the Book, but maybe someone else who might have been watching could have seen. But he says that’s not how the Book works, either.

Ditto. SP is trying over and over (see also post 1200) to draw some kind of connection between NAF’s use of the Shroud of Darkness and the (unwitnessed) disappearance of the Book, but the whole argument is such a mess that I simply can’t take it as anything more than a loosely-connected series of excuses to throw mud. I mean, one of the ideas SP treats as plausibly indicative of NAF being a liar is that he might have used the Shroud of Darkness to prevent people from seeing someone else stealing the Book, which just – what?

He says the shroud of darkness is a sort of Roleblock power. He says he targeted himself, but his blocking of himself was not related to the fact that someone stole the Book from him. So the theft was just a coincidence…and I really, really hate coincidences.

There’s no coincidence here! There’s not even a halfway loose connection here! Somebody, either non-town or with a DAMN good reason to keep silent, took the book from NAF. They would have wanted it with or without any action from NAF himself, so what does his own action have to do with it when there’s no reason (see above again) to believe he should have seen anything anyway?

SP’s treatment of Idle
Just a few posts, along the same lines as everyone else, so I won’t link them. I’ll just point out that his first mention of Idle at all came in post 1346, a good long way into the Day (which began with posts in the late 1100s); but in post 1521 he says he was suspicious of Idle’s flip-flop “from the get-go”, which there is zero evidence of.

SP’s treatment of peeker
I lack a link for post 1387, his first foray into the peeker situation, but have it summarized as follows: “1387, a summary of the peeker situation to date, is conflicted on what to do. Ironically, would like to hear more from peeker in his own defense when he has not said a single word to as much as acknowledge the two votes made against him.”
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13018982&postcount=1391
This one I highlighted previously; it’s where he says peeker is more plausible if NAF is town, and he currently thinks NAf is probably town.

Two more posts about peeker follow that (didn’t even write the post numbers in this case unfortunately; was running out of steam), both of which slightly bolster peeker’s case. I think stanislaus pointed out one of them as “the defense peeker should have made, but didn’t”.

In isolation, honestly, these posts would be fine. Plenty of people lacked enthusiasm for the case on peeker, at least up to his refusal to claim – I’m one of them.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13021667&postcount=1461

@Suburban_Plankton

I’ve got to agree. I felt all along that the bandwagon against peeker built up steam awfully fast, and was based on pretty thin reasoning, but I can’t understand his reluctance here. If peeker is vanilla Town, as he has claimed, then I can’t imagine how revealing his PM is going to help Scum, as he said a while back.

peeker, come out with it. Otherwise, I can’t see any other conclusion than you’re lying about something, or perhaps everything.

I highlight this post because it was the one that made me decide to do a review on SP in the first place (it came right after a post of mine advocating the same thing; he was responding to me with the “I’ve got to agree”). It’s just too damn over-justifying. I wasn’t one of peeker’s early voters either. I’d chucked my fair share of doubt on the case against him, same as SP. But when it became obvious I was probably wrong, I didn’t feel the need to waffle on justifying my earlier mindset before telling him to cough up the damn role PM. SP did. It pinged me then, and still does.

Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for reading, if you did.

[Suburban_Plankton]

OK, apparently there were some developments while I was composing my last post. I really should check these sorts of things before hitting submit.

First of all; bad luck Guiri, sorry this happened. But welcome Tom, w’re glad to have you. Unless you’re Scum, in which case I hope you burn.

So it seems that storyteller *was *a member until just recently. That might explain at least one of the inconsistencies in Mahaloth’s PM. But I still think there’s a big problem with story’s post count, as recounted by Maha, and there are other problems with his PM as well. I still think it’s a fake, even if it’s not quite as fake as it seemed a few minutes ago.

[Normal_Phase]

@storyteller0910

UPDATES:

Tom Scud has replaced GuiriEnEspana.

Also, I am apparently no longer a member at the Straight Dope. This is a new development as far as I am concerned.

You rock, seriously.

Also, big sad face for Guiri and hiya to Tom.

[Normal_Phase]

I’m refusing to acknowledge any meta-game arguments regarding Mahaloth. It may be futile or even counter-productive, but I’m just not going to do it. I have reached my limit on things like this, and I just can’t take it.

So anyway. Regarding the non-meta stuff: I think Ed’s original case was a solid one, if thin; and Mahaloth’s lack of ability to back up his reasoning with evidence is plenty of reason for suspicion. His proferred role PM, in itself (grammatical and meta issues aside), is insufficient reason to move suspicion in one direction or the other – it’s just null. So is his decision to claim.

So taken all together, it still adds up to the original reason for suspicion being there, and nothing having been offered that gives any reason to change that.

[Mahaloth]

I see.

I’m going back to check my PM’s again, then. Wait a bit.

[Mahaloth]

I have no explanation why it says “Member” under story’s role PM’s in my claim.

Lynch me, reveal me as Town, and trust my census results.

I’ll be puzzling over this one for some time.

For when I die:

I honestly just copied and pasted my role PM as is. I have no idea how this screw up happened.

[Mahaloth]

I am blown away by this development. I’m literally stunned that my PM’s are so odd.

[Oy]

@storyteller0910

UPDATES:

Tom Scud has replaced GuiriEnEspana.

Also, I am apparently no longer a member at the Straight Dope. This is a new development as far as I am concerned.

This supports my post #2078. The header on Maha’s claimed PM is exactly what I would expect under the circumstances; story was a Member when Maha copied it and has since become a Guest. That accounts for all the inconsistencies in the header. Vote count is exactly right for the time when Maha posted his PM. I fully believe that the header was cut and pasted.

That said, it does not change anything suspicious in the content of the PM. The PM could have been copied and then modified. I think lynching Maha may well be worth the loss of a potential vanilla player to confirm the information he gave us. On the other hand, we already kinda figure there are likely to be two SKs in this game (there were in Evil Dead I), so what does confirming that buy us?

I’m not really clear on what the pre-claim case on Maha was. Could someone explain it to me in short words?

[brewha]

Gah, in light of Story’s member status revelation

Unvote

Not to say I won’t revote for him as there seems to be a case. I just want to go through it myself.

[brewha]

OOG

I hope we can get the details of what happened with Guiri after the game is over.

/OOG

[Suburban_Plankton]

Normal,

First off, I want to apologize to you. It must have taken you many, many hours to compose that last post on me. I’m truly sorry that I’ve been so verbose, and cheated you out of the night’s sleep you must have lost trying to put that all together.

But after all that analysis, and all the analysis you did Yesterday, which so conclusively proves that I am Scum, why haven’t you cast a vote against me?

You seem to take exception with my playing style, which can be summed up as “lots of talk, and little voting”. I have a tendency to share whatever is on my mind, especially when things are not making a whole lot of sense to me.

I understand how you might see that as waffling, mud-slinging, refusal to take a stand, etc. What it is, actually, is me putting my thoughts out there in hopes that the rest of the town can help me make sense of them. Basically, I take the running commentary in my head and put it into the thread.

If you don’t believe me, then vote to lynch me.

[Stanislaus]

This is special ed’s case, which I think is the main basis for the votes against Maha:

@special_ed

As to Mahaloth, the vote is for creating a weak case early on Telcontar and completely failing to provide any support for it whatsoever. A tactic I’ve called him on in a previous game.

In Random Mafia, he was Scum, and built a weak early case on a fellow Scum and promoted it to little effect. He then used it as evidence of his Towniness and survived to endgame and won.

Also, I noticed in Random that he bemoaned the lack of real conversation and yet provided none of his own. It sounds eerily similar to this game where he’s saying not much discussion is going on and we should just end the Day.

I realize my case is based purely on playstyle and other games, but I think it’s as strong as a case like that can be, and certainly makes Mahaloth the most suspicious in my mind.

[Normal_Phase]

It reads more like putting your thoughts out there in hopes you get get a few hapless townies to glom on while keeping your own hands clean(er). Like you’re blowing in the wind – there’s no real conviction or point of view behind your words, only the semblance of such.

And even this post, with “why haven’t you cast a vote against me”? Have you missed that it’s night? (Yes I know we can cast votes now, but why bother?) Have you missed that at the time I began my case against you, we already had a scum on the hook? Why even make such a comment?