The Dr. Seuss game, when you said you changed your vote off the scum after the deadline as a joke (which was a lie). What I’m saying is, I’ll look like a fun-killer if I tell you that you really should be voting, Schadenfreude or no, but I do intend to pursue you if you don’t vote.
Now that’s a policy vote I can endorse. Just to keep things complicated and interesting. 
I don’t think it is a great vote and would like to hear from Septimus also. I just think it is slightly more likely to net scum than the Pleo vote.
Primarily, I am trying to get out of the habit of waiting until late in the Day to make my vote and part of that for me is being willing to vote for small things and move my vote around, especially early in the game. Septimus just happens to be the best candidate so far.
I’ve never learned how to tell lies, white or otherwise, and dread the day I’ll get a Scum role in Mafia. Fortunately that Day is not this Day, so I can write with utter candour.
(1) In the first post cited I wrote
“@ Other players: Has he made a similar argument in previous games where he was Town?” and received no answer. Two recent posts confirm that Pleonast has made the argument before, but these appeared after my 2nd cited post.
(2) Even after not receiving an answer to that question, I didn’t feel strongly that Pleonast was scum, but had no suspicions of anyone else. My instinct was to continue to abstain, but I’ve been told that’s “anti-Town.” I did ask about Sexton points hoping to provoke a discussion that might give other clues for scum-hunting.
(3) Time zone difference may have some effect. For me, there was a whole day between the posts of mine Tom Scud mentions, while he might have been asleep and woken to perceive them as following each other closely. Similarly, he’s probably fallen asleep waiting for my response, which I make immediately on seeing his post (though delayed slightly by a “SDMB Database Upgrade”).
Since I’m sure I’m Town, but unsure of Pleonast I’ll leave my vote where it is for self-preservation. 
No surprises for day one but I don’t get any strong scum vibes from anyone. It’s getting late and feel I should contribute though.
I have no idea about Pleonast. It could be guilty scum play or innocent but bad town play.
**Septimus **just sounds like he had a candidate for voting but wasn’t ready yet, then later he was ready so he voted. Not suspicious to me.
I still think Wolverine’s mistake was understandable in context (I pretty much made the same mistake). I also don’t see how he could have explained his mistake any better. **Mahaloth **did give a reason for voting Wolverine but I am slightly suspicious of his reasoning.
He votes in post 147, claiming he can’t even understand Wolverine’s explanation and then defends his decision in this postand this post, but it isn’t until post 234 that **Mahaloth **explains:
I don’t understand how scummy thinking would lead to Wolverine’s mistake. And if Mahaloth did think that way when he first voted and defended his, why didn’t he explain more clearly.
Vote Mahaloth
In my experience, about half the scum team seems to vote early, and about half holds back and waits to see how the day is going. I did a quick review of heroes mafia and LOTR mafia, and that theory seems to be true. I figure, as far as day 1 votes go, examining the lurkers works as well as anything else, especially since I’m not particularly feeling the Pleo case and it doesn’t need my help even if I did.
The first bit I’d like to examine is Cometothedarksidewehavecookies. She voted immediately after the post count, with a vote for Pleonast. Her vote does not appreciably change his fate; he was going down pretty well before her vote. About 20 minutes have elapsed between Red’s vote count and her vote; I’d lean more towards thinking she was already working on her post at the time, doing a reread and collecting quotes. I’m suspicious of everything in this game, but this doesn’t seem particularly scummy.
Tom Scud voted next, for Septimus. His case isn’t a bad one, but the suspicious bit of my brain thinks it could be a scummy Tom Scud acting opportunistically on a townie settling his mind on an argument. Septimus says he’s “not ready to vote for [Pleonast].” Then he changes his mind. Not really that inherently scummy. What seems worst about this case is Tom’s final bit before his vote:
Allow me to add my own addendum: Intervening posts ABOUT Pleonast: 13, with an additional 4 posts clarifying posts about Pleonast. Out of a maximum of 21 posts between Septimus’ two posts.
Next up, Wolverine votes for Mahaloth. I have no comments on this particular back and forth that hasn’t already been addressed.
Folks still not voting: Manwich, Astral, Story, Wanderers, Special Ed, Guiri, Sachertorte.
Guiri: Out of 7 posts, 5 are about game mechanics, 1 talks about how scummy Pleo seems, and 1 questions Mahaloth’s case on Wolverine. Definitely laying low while trying not to look like she’s laying low. This strikes me as scummy.
Manwich: Out of 6 posts, 4 are mechanics posts or questions, 1 is fluff, and 1 kinda questions Pleonast, but posts only vague concerns about players getting lynched over disagreements about strategy. His last post indicates that he is new, so I’m willing to cut him some slack for now.
Story: Got a late start to the game, so I’m willing to withhold any judgement or casemaking for the time being. I know I start slow as well, so this is a null tell for me. I agree with the points he’s making here.
Wanderers: So far, just mechanics talk, plus a rebuttal of an early vote against him. I’m satisfied with his defense of himself. Playing a low-key early game.
Special Ed: Insightful early game mechanics talk / strategy. I understand why he might choose not to vote for Pleo, even if he currently finds Pleo scummiest so far.
Sachertorte: Big, long, detailed posts. Can’t get too upset with these. Definitely not a lurker.
Based on this read, I’m gonna say Vote Tom Scum. Guiri struck me as next-scummiest, which counts for all but nothing this early in the game. Tom’s blatant misrepresentation of the game state by implying there was nothing that could have settled (not changed) Septimus’ mind.
I promise, I didn’t even do that on purpose, but that’s a pretty apt typo. 
Recent posts by Manwich and Astral Rejection have given me food for thought. I’ll re-read and study before my bedtime, but for now just retract a vote which I now doubt was on the “most suspicious” of y’all.
Unvote pleonast
/snip
I’ve commented on game mechanics and strategy related to this specific game in response to ongoing conversations with other players: giving a reason why the Town activated sleeper will probably not claim immediately, why an unforced VT claim is anti-Town in this game, why we should not consider a claim of attempted recruitment a confirmation of Towniness, whether an attempted recruitment should be reported and a comment on the order of actions.
I then picked up on a vote that pinged me and have questioned Mahaloth twice about his reasoning for his vote. I have also expressed that I disagree with Pleo’s position on a number of items but disagreement, dislike and considering his position anti-town does not make him scummy.
If I look at your posts up to now I see:
#58- a confirmation
#70- oog fluff
#73- oog fluff
#131-generic strategy question about Vigs
#151-a question to Zeriel about why he refers to your comment as “town-style foolishness” to which he replied but you made no further comment
#266-your post where you vote and express suspicions of others
You are misrepresenting my posts. What you consider a null-tell in yourself or other players is scummy when applied to me?
Omgus aside, those are two good reasons:
Vote Astral.
Day 1 Vote Tally
Pleonast(6) :Zeriel[162], [del]Mental Guy[187-255][/del], Drain Bead[202], Gadarene[208], [del]septimus[212-269][/del], pedescribe[216], peekercpa[230], ComeToTheDarksideWeHaveCookies[236]
Mahaloth(4) :Idle Thoughts[159], Suburban Plankton[217], Wolverine[241], Manwich[265]
septimus(2) :Tom Scud[238], Mental Guy[255]
Wolverine(1) :[del]Zeriel[137-162][/del], Mahaloth[147]
pedescribe(1) :Pleonast[240]
Tom Scud(1) :Astral Rejection[266]
Astral Rejection(1) :guiri[269]
One and Only Wanderers(0) :[del]pedescribe[138-216][/del]
Zeriel(0) :[del]Pleonast[240-240][/del]
Mental Guy(0) :[del]Pleonast[240-240][/del]
Drain Bead(0) :[del]Pleonast[240-240][/del]
Gadarene(0) :[del]Pleonast[240-240][/del]
Did Not Vote:storyteller0910,One and Only Wanderers,septimus,special ed,sachertorte
With these votes, Pleonast would be lynched.
**Some one asked about role reveals, and specifically the sleeper role.
Before Awakening:
[Player] is dead. They were a Vanilla Town (Sleeper).
After awakening:
[Player] is dead. They were a Vanilla Scum (Sleeper).
[Player] is dead. They were a Town Doc (Sleeper).
[Player] is dead. They were a 3rd Party Survivor (Sleeper).**
Oh, yeah, I’m still not sure why I wasn’t lynched after that. I mean, it was really incriminating, but instead we lynched the claimed Cop on my accusation. strange
perhaps he was counting all the contributions he was making in the Scum thread?
Vote: Astral
for a weak, made-up case that could have applied to many many people.
Something about this post doesn’t sit right with me. I read it first earlier this morning and ruminated on it for a while. The main issue I have is that if you look at the balance of the possibilities with Pleonast, it seems to support a Pleonast lynch. Really the only 100% negative one is #3–even with #1 there’s still a small chance some good could come out of it. And if #3 is actually the case, I’ll eat my shoes. I know Pleonast likes to claim on Day One, but I know he knows better than to lie about it if he’s a town power. Down that way lies a nearly sure lynch of a power role at some point in the game. So really, if you look at all the possible permutations, it supports a Pleonast lynch.
But after posting all the things that are supportive of a Pleonast lynch, and saying in the very first sentence of his post that he has no problem with a Pleonast lynch, he unvotes Pleonast to vote for Septimus in an essentially me-too vote made before septimus had a chance to defend himself at all. Basically, it’s a post that says “Here’s all these reasons why I was voting for this guy, but now I’m going to stop voting for that guy and vote for this other guy instead, even though the vast majority of this post was about the first guy and not the guy I’m now voting for.”
Doing some re-reading (again).
This strikes me as an extremely unfair comment:
Pleo DID comment on the previous conversation in his first post (talking about setup issues, the whole ‘“chicken” should claim’ thing, et cetera); virtually everything between then and the quoted post had revolved around his arguments and people’s responses to his arguments; what else was there for him to comment on? Besides which, it’s bloody exhausting to try and hold up one end of an argument against 5 or 6 people on the other side. Maybe he should have tried to call a halt to the argument at some early stage, but (1) I’m not sure that would have helped and (2) he would have had to reconcile himself to the fact that someone was WRONG on the Internet, and that doesn’t seem to be in the Doper gene.
The problem with punitive voting is that it puts me in the position of choosing between collecting votes or playing scummy. I refuse to do the latter, so I’m forced to accept the former. If you want me to change my tactics, you’ll need address what my tactics actually are, instead of the caricature you’ve been objecting to.
Part of the problem is my failure to describe my thoughts well. If you want to vote for me for muddled explanations, so be it. Next game, I’ll still be describing and voting for what I think is scummy behavior. Maybe I’ll explain better then.
But surely part of the problem is others looking to score rhetorical points against me rather than engage in discussion. That helps put votes on me, but does nothing to change my mind when what you’re arguing against is not what I think I’m doing.
And that applies as well to you. You’ll not change my mind when what you say I’m doing is not what I think I’m doing.
I don’t think I’m wrong. I’m not going to play in a way I think is scummy, which is what you’re suggesting I do. Being lynched is preferable to playing bad.
I voted for the players who’ve made egregiously anti-town votes. Those are not OMGUS votes.
Pleo - I understand your stance regarind self-survival votes. DOn’t agree, but at least I get it. I do NOT however understand your out of the gate vanilla claim. What is the benefit to town there?
The benefit is that it forces a decision on scum, one that they may make the wrong choice. They may try to recruit me, and fail if I was untruthful. They may try to kill me, and waste their kill if I was truthful, or fail if I was untruthful. Or they may not use any powers on me and lose a chance at recruitment if I was truthful, or lose a chance to kill a power role if I was not. All that, for the slight cost of a statement that has no information content.
Psst, Ed! I’m not voting for Guiri, I’m voting for Tom Scud. Unless I’m mistaken, he really did imply that nothing had changed between Septimus’ two posts. Therefore, I neither made the case up nor does it apply to “many many” people.
I have no case on Guiri, I just remarked that her posts struck me as laying low. On day 1, how can I possibly do better than a gut feeling? Perhaps by voting for someone who’s actually done something suspicious?
It also forces a decision on town, on whether you are on the up and up, or are scum blowing smoke up our collective asses.
Does this downside not negate your upside?