Oops! My mistake, sorry Freudian… I should’ve seen the obvious joke/reference in the username (in retrospect, :smack:).
I’m assuming edits get us insta-killed by the ever-compassionate mod, so I’ll just suggest that anybody reading my last post mentally substitute “she, her, hers,” and so forth where appropriate. ^^
Well, what I’m getting at is not aimed at what you did in that game, although it would have been nice had you been a bit more circumspect. I was always more angry at sachertorte, especially when I later realized that the Scum never would have thought to look at your vote record had it not been for sach bringing it up.
This kind of language really gets on my nerves. To me it reads like someone who knows that they’re going to be following it up by analyzing and voting for the behavior of someone who is townie. There was this old game a while ago, I think an SDMB game but it may have been on Idle, where someone said “this Day was a disaster” after a bunch of power role claims…but before the actual lynch occurred. Had the lynchee been Scum, the Day would not have been all that bad…so it sure seemed like that person knew they were about to lynch a Town player. It’s those kind of slips that are the only ones I think are more likely to be made by a Scum player than a Townie. When I’m Scum, I frequently whine and hem and haw about how much Day One sucks, usually because I know I am joining a bandwagon on a Townie. And yeah, Day One might suck, but then again it might not. And Town shouldn’t know how much it’s sucking until it’s over.
As I said earlier, the Chip vs. Skeezix argument doesn’t really draw me in on either side, but this is enough for me to place a vote.
vote Omi no Kami
(And if past history in SDMB games are any indication, I’ll get several quick votes for this and turn out to be right several days later. Seriously, it’s becoming as much of a trend as my being a Roleblocker on Idle.)
This was fluiddruid’s “The Mob is Recruiting” game, played here at the SDMB.
Thanks. They all blur together after a while. Gonna have to find that one–I think it’s the one I subbed into as a Cop.
See, Drain Bead, you’ve seen scum slips (how do you pronounce your name in your head, by the way? do you maintain the rhyme scheme or what? this troubles me.)!
Anyway, I was in the middle of working on a post making the same basic argument but I keep getting pulled away.
The part of the post that bothers me, but for much the same reason, is
So we’ve got “never confident… on small evidence” to open the post, followed eventually by a “both highly suspicious.” Two different outs.
As far as the numbers go, I’m far more comfortable backing the notion that there’s a scum player pumping up both sides of a town-vs.-town debacle than the idea that there are two good scum candidates presenting their necks unilaterally on day one. The “both sides look scummy; if I’m wrong about the first one it’ll have to be the second one” argument is one that seems vastly more likely to cook two townies than to serve as a day one code-breaker.
For the record, I do agree in large part with Omi no Kami’s assessment of Chip’s play style to this point. But I don’t agree about the conclusion.
We’re now officially into voting season, I think, so I’ll get on record.
Vote Omi no Kami
I don’t see the connection between the case you’re citing and my complaint: I hate voting on day one because I’ve never, to my recollection, had a strong opinion about any of the players. I assume that’s frequently the case for everyone else as well, but it does honestly irritate me to pick at minutiae and build mountains out of molehills just to see who jumps and who shrugs it off.
As far as I can recall, and as you’ve summarized, the case you’re talking about involved a player revealed (in large part due to his slipup) to be Scum by making that before the lynchee’s affiliation was revealed.
I prefaced my analysis because a) it happened to be true, and b) I was worried that someone might try to attack me by picking apart a flaw in my analysis and then claiming that, as I had made such a big deal out of a minor point, I must have had some ulterior motive for wanting that particular player lynched-no truly objective player would reach those conclusions, yadda yadda yadda. By clarifying that I didn’t have a strong feeling or evidence toward any one player, and was simply coming up with the best conclusion I could based on the evidence and my own personal feelings, I hoped to head off that sort of thing pre-emptively.
So I guess I’m just wondering where you see my decision to vote for Chip on the basis that among the early suspicious players he’s been the most disruptive to Town discussion even remotely resembling a Scum slipup indicating foreknowledge of his candidate’s allegiance.
I actually agree with you on this one, and I’m much happier to have you voting for me that Drain. For my part I can’t do much beyond justify my argument from my own point of view, and if I survive, wait to see if Chip and Red’s affiliation. For my own part, the reason I brought up continuing to suspect Red is that I think he has a better chance of being Scum than Chip does: his reaction was way too strong when Chip voted for him, and while it was possibly the reaction of an inexperienced townie (sorry Red, I don’t know how much experience you have in the game), it’s generally better not to presume innocence.
However, in spite of that he wasn’t being nearly as disruptive or single-minded in selling his own argument, and since Chip’s single-mindedness bothered me almost as much as Red’s flinch, I felt that given how much time and focus he was sucking into his own issue, he was the greater potential threat.
I can’t say anything about the provisios you’re (rightly) pointing out in my voting post, though: I’m naturally a very cautious speaker IRL and when writing, and I tend to fairly punctuate anything I write with qualifiers to make sure I’m not claiming something that I can’t back up. I can make an effort to quit it for the purposes of the game, but my non-mafia board history supports this and there’s really nothing I can do about it beyond making a point of being more clear-cut in my statements here.
Jeez, I go to the bed for the night, and stuff gets real.
Lots to say, so I’m going to try to organize my thoughts a bit.
The muggle joke was purely a joke about soccer, yes.
I do think I’ve been pretty open with my plan from the beginning, and have been consistent in how I applied it.
It looks like the biggest blow to my credibility is Peeker. 
Thanks a lot, hehe.
The arguments that people are making that I sound scum seem… strange to me. Like, maybe I’m just thinking about this game differently, but I think my actions wouldn’t be a very good idea for a scum player.
I’m sorry if I’ve been acting in a ‘hey follow me’ sort of way. It just seemed to me that if my ping vote idea was going to work, it had to happen very early in the day, when there’s still plenty of time to switch to the actual scum hunt later in the day. Which is where I’m at now.
You can’t say that my plan hasn’t been effective, even if you don’t agree with it. 
Look at all the lovely arguing it’s caused! My hope is that even if this particular day gets screwed up, it will leave behind some threads for town to unravel.
I’m a little disappointed with Omi’s vote logic. You suspect Red more than me, but vote me because I’m more disruptive? That seems backward. I can’t decide if it’s suspicious or just short sighted, though.
Why do people keep saying that an early day 1 vote needs to have anything supporting it? That just makes no sense to me.
Guiri: It didn’t seem like tilt, Freudian, and Meeko responded in any unusual way. Red’s response seemed unusual. Was your read different? How so?
Where is Storyteller?
For the record, this is my first forum game. All of my other games have been live. I am watching the Malazan game, but did not participate. I have watched a few games here, so I am aware that the metagame is somewhat poisoned.
**Vote Count:
Chipacabra(3): Red Skeezix, Meeko, Ominokami
Red Skeezix(2): ShadowFacts, Chipacabra
Freudian(1): Rysto
Ominokami(2): DrainBead, JimmyChitwood
This Day ends in 21 Hours.**
Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone.
This isn’t Malazan! The greater potential threat is the one who “has a better chance of being Scum,” not the person whose policy or gameplay style you disagree with! If you think Red has a better chance of being Scum, then you should be voting for him. I am not getting your reasoning here at all.
I’ll admit my vote was as much on hunch as anything else, but the above quote has given me yet another reason to vote for you. I feel like I must be missing something, because that’s maybe one of the more blatantly scummy comments I’ve seen in all my time of playing Mafia.
Effective toward what goal? If a bunch of people are arguing about something irrelevant to distinguishing between town players and scum players, a possibility you’re allowing for, it seems, how are you so confident about your “plan’s” effectiveness? Sometimes - often - noise is noise.
What I see is a few players who have suggested that you’re shooting your own plan in the foot by actually saying “I’m voting for X for no reason.” Which is probably true - for an effort designed purportedly to get people to flinch, you don’t do yourself any favors by disclaiming any actual suspicion. Which gets back to the point above - why should anybody else believe you’ve been effective by voting near-randomly?
Omi: I hear you and I hear the point that it isn’t necessarily an argument you’re going to be able to substantiate. I especially agree that couching an argument in cautious language is fairly normal and not a great point to hang my hat on. I do it all the time myself. I don’t know what to do with my vote but I don’t want to seem like I ignored your response.
Yes, please explain further about your position here, Omi. This is so freaking blatant that I’m not sure I’m reading “scum,” but on the surface this seems pretty damn anti-town.
OK Huge blaring sign on Red. I hear ya
Ok Chipacabra annoys you and you think he is increasing the noise to signal ratio
No no no you d’int
anti-town <> scum. You have said that you have a huge blaring sign (presumably of scumminess) on Red, yet you are voting Chipa for anti-town (noise) reasons.
suspected scum > suspected anti-town, as anti town can be scum OR can be bad town play.
vote Omi no Kami
And just to expound a bit more, I see it as you trying to have the best of both worlds. If Red comes up scum you can say “look, look I raised suspicions as early as day one”, whilst at the same time not voting him and trying to kill off a (if my suspicions are correct) town player.
You used the word “flinched”. As you cannot flinch on a message board, I interpreted this as “reacted”, not “responded in an unusual way”. Several players reacted but you focused on only one of them. Your interpretation explains your actions.
@ Omi no Kami, I don’t understand your vote reasoning either. You’re voting a player whose playstyle is bothering you over another player who you think has a better chance of being scum? How will that approach help Town win the game? We win when the scum are dead, not when disruptive players are dead.
Vote Omi no Kami
**Vote Count:
Chipacabra(3): Red Skeezix, Meeko, Ominokami
Red Skeezix(2): ShadowFacts, Chipacabra
Freudian(1): Rysto
Ominokami(4): DrainBead, JimmyChitwood, Oneandonly, Guiri
3 hours and 45 minutes until the end of the Day.**
This is more or less where I am, inasmuch as any of this makes sense. Something’s wrong here. That which I cannot understand gets Stupefied and tied up by its ankles to interrogate further.
Vote Omi no Kami
I’ve got a meeting from 10-12 today (and every Thursday), so I’m never going to be around at the very end of a Day, which sucks. So, this is going to be my last post before the end of toDay, and I suspect it will be a bit controversial, and I’m sorry I won’t be back to explain/defend it. Anyway…
This run on Omi No Kami is giving me serious deja vu. I’ve seen it before: a player says something really stupid, lots of people jump on that player shouting “OMG Scum!,” they get lynched, and it turns out they were Town. [Note for clarity: I am NOT saying that Omi No Kami is Town - I am explaining something I’ve seen in previous games]. Everyone left alive shrugs and says “But they said X - how could we not vote for them???” And we get a dead townie and learn little about those who voted for him/her. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?
Is there anything we can do to shake up this familiar story? Here’s why we should consider it: this is exactly the kind of situation I tried to get in on with my vote when I have played as scum. It’s the perfect vote hiding place. IF Omi is Town, then I can almost guarantee that there is one or more scum voting for him/her (?) already. The safe thing to do, of course, is just to let the day take its course and if Omi gets lynched and turns up Town, take a hard look at those who voted for him/her. But the deniability I talked about above makes that unlikely to yield any real fruit. A more out-of-the-box, shake things up idea would be to spend the last 3 hours of the game looking at the Omi voters hard and voting for one of them instead. At this moment, (again assuming Omi is Town for a second) I would say there is a 20-40% chance of hitting scum in that group just on random chance alone, and that ain’t bad for Day One.
OK, that’s all I have time for right now. I’m sure I’ll take some flak for this idea, but I’m tossing it out there, and I hope Town will take it seriously and think hard about it. Maybe it’s a terrible idea, but maybe, just maybe, I’m a genius
I have stated the reasons for my vote and am happy to be accountable if things go pear shaped. I think “me too” votes, or votes light on reasoning are the problem. Omi’s posting of a long thought out post, where they then ignored the player they themselves pciked as scummy to vote for a player they viewed as a noise generator was most odd, and I am not surprised it has garnished votes.