But the Scum have to deal with making those decisions with every single last one of us regardless of whether or not we make a vanilla claim. They know who isn’t Scum. If you’re being truthful, you potentially make it easier for the Scum to deal with you. If you’re not, you make it potentially more difficult for the Town to deal with you later, if and when you claim correctly. In what way did claiming VT out of the gate make any problems for Scum that didn’t already exist prior to your claim?
Where exactly do I misrepresent your posts? I make no commentary whatsoever about the content of your posts. I say:
You’re being ridiculously over-defensive for a day 1 smudge. Yes, you’re correct that I find similar behavior to be somewhat less suspicious in other players (Manwich I give a pass to, Wanderers I merely remark as “low-key”), the honest reason is that I consider you to be a very strong player, and that ends up in my calculations. Hanging low at the beginning is a good trait for scum (that’s why I decided to look there on day 1), and you’re a smart enough player to post insightful strategy or game mechanics questions without really getting involved with much of actual substance. It’s just a gut feeling that earned 3 sentences from me in a post discussing all of our non-voters.
Answering both of you. The usefulness of the claim is inversely proportional to how much of a null statement it is. If one believes it is exactly a null statement, then there is neither reward nor risk. If one believes it is not a null statement, then the risks and rewards are proportional. Since the number of ways scum can make a mistake with respect to the claim (they have multiple options for dealing with me) is greater than the number of ways the town can make a mistake (a mislynch), the rewards are greater than the risks.
I’ve decided it is very premature to Lynch Pleonast. There is another much more suspicious.
Vote Mahaloth
Here is the Wolverine --> Zeriel --> Mahaloth --> Idle skirmish as I perceive it.
[ul]
[li] Wolverine makes a tiny slip, with no possible scum motive; soon recants.[/li][li] Zeriel votes Wolverine, not for scum slip, but for skimming.[/li][li] Mahaloth votes Wolverine “for not making sense” without ascribing scum motive. Skimming may be a scum-tell (really?), but slight logic flaws might almost be a town-tell, given that the scums can coach each other.[/li][li] Idle votes Mahaloth for the same reason I do. Mahaloth’s post “pinged” me at the time, and pings me on reread.[/li][/ul]
Now, Scum might be trying to start a flimsy case, but Idle’s and other Mahaloth-voting posts seem brief and matter-of-fact to me.
There were several previous posts that had indicated that Pleonast had done the same thing previously (Suburban in 169, Mahaloth in 177, and especially Sach’s extended self-dialogue in 173); I’ll allow that you may not have been reading with as jaded an eye as I was.
I wish you had been explicit about this. That said, I understand the clock pressure, I can see how there was enough time to simply digest the previous goings-on, and I’ve seen a couple things that bear further scrutiny.
Unvote Septimus
However, let’s look at Septimus’s stated reason:
There were a number of earlier Pleo-related posts that had mentioned this, more or less, including Sach in 157; Zeriel in 162; Sach again in 165 and 173; maybe Cookies in 182 and Z in 183. After Septimus makes his first post, Sach went around the circle again in 192; to some degree peeker in 194… and that’s it before Septimus in 212.
Implying that Septimus might have been more influenced by those 2 posts more than the 6 (and Pleo’s responses) that came before is… odd.
Pleo, could you please comment on the game actions that are not directly related to the various debates sparked by your first post? (Astral/me/Septimus/Guiri/Mental Guy; Mahaloth/Wolverine/Zeriel/Idle)? If you do end up flipping Town it would be nice to have that information. (Ditto if you flip Scum, of course).
Can we get a vote count?
It looks like we have a 2 horse race here. I am not loving the case on either Mahaloth or Pleo, but I find Pleo’s play the scummiest of the two.
vote Pleo
I have adequately explained my case on Wolverine and while it is not super strong, it is a decent Day One vote.
The buildup around me(and frankly, Pleo) is lazy, easy, and reeks of people just being happy it isn’t them that are up for the lynch. Oh, and I would guess scum are more than happy to just slip their votes in quietly and move on.
I haven’t seen scum motivation or anything particularly anti-town in those discussions. Other than some votes on me that are blatantly anti-town, I haven’t seen anything worthy of a vote.
My top two scum candidates are:
Idle and Wolverine
I’ve explained my vote on Wolverine, but why aren’t we discussing Idle? He drops in, votes me for being the 2nd to vote on someone, then disappears.
Seriously, he has only two posts in Day One and one was a quick vote for me that was lame and the other is just his comment about Jsexton points.
If anything looks like a scum just dropping by, trying to say as little as possible, make a quick(but weak) vote, it’s what Idle has done.
In fact, he’s more scummy than Wolverine to me. I’d be that one or both of these guys are scum.
Unvote Wolverine
Vote Idle
Except that it IS exactly a null statement–it has no proof, it has no weight, it’s just confusing an issue for town.
It was said upthread a bit that minor logic flaws might be a pro-town tell since scum can coach each other. My scum experiences in the past bear that out, as well as the idea that scum are not paying any attention whatsoever to this kind of unforced claim. It’s a gambit, you’ve SAID it was a gambit–which comes across as Peter Griffin “sneaking” by walking on tiptoe and singing “da-da-da-da-dun-dah!”.
Disruptive play is always anti-town–it causes us to focus on things. Your claim was disruptive. Your multi-vote was disruptive. You don’t get a free pass for “la la, I’m going to do things that are disruptive that the rest of town doesn’t like” and then get all hurt because we’re voting for you.
This is a damn fine point and I’d love to hear Idle have something to say about it.
Your issue, I think, provided that you’re on the up-and-up here, is that you’re looking at flat numbers, without weighing the odds of each occurrence’s potential of actually happening. Giving the Scum a bunch of WIFOM is all well and good until you realize that by attempting to do so, you’re very likely to get lynched for it. If the odds of getting lynched are higher than the odds of fucking with Scum, what you’ve done is a very poor play. The WIFOM you’re giving the Scum isn’t going to work if you’re dead before they even get to act upon it.
I’m not the one voting to lynch me.
“1 talks about how scummy Pleo seems” - I dislike and disagree with his opinions but explicitly said I wouldn’t vote a player based on a disagreement
“and 1 questions Mahaloth’s case on Wolverine” - in the context of your post, you seemed to be handwaving the fact that I was actively pursuing my suspicions of another player (in 2 posts :))
It was a baseless smudge based on a double-standard.
The comment on Special Ed’s “insightful early game mechanics talk/strategy” greatly contrasts with your statement that my play “strikes [you] as scummy” and also contrasts with your comment that story and you “start slow, so this is a null tell for me” - both players eminently stronger and more experienced than I am.
And the fact that people are is coming as a shock to you?
Gosh, that’d be wonderful, but we are heading towards the end of the Day and it’d be a better scum move to just keep his trap shut at this point. I can not believe he has not collected votes for his play style so far.
I’m not responsible for other players’ bad play.
I do not see the point in this post. Are you just trying to stir up more Pleo discussion to distract us?