# Hotel of Heroes mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 14, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544 "2011-01-14T01:30:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/401 "2011-01-19T03:51:52Z")
> [@ushimitsudoki](#): > > Neither here nor anywhere else have I admitted it was a “bad play”. I have at all times qualified it with language like “questionable”. [Merriam-Webster is available online should you need further assistance with the English language](http://www.merriam-webster.com/). > > I never suggested that scum would latch onto anything **more** than town, nor that town would not make note, simply that it was not unreasonable that scum would jump onto an opportunity and so do with vigor. > > The more subtle argument to be made is that Town might **not** beat the drum of a so-called “bad play”, because what’s done is done, so why draw attention to it? I fear you are not one for the subtle, so this is probably lost on you. > > My “scum buddies”? Remember when we were talking about “subtle” before? > > In any case, you point out no “futility” in “my” arguments, because you have not actually addressed any arguments I have made. > > The other “pillars” of my vote were not and are not personal feelings. I added 2 reasons for the vote _in addition_ to reasons others stated. > > In summary, there are a few reasons why you may have dredged up such a weak series of misconceptions and inaccuracies as re-validaton of your vote (For what reason? No one asked you to.); none of which are a competent town mentality. > > === > All that being said; while I understand some people might vote for players they haven’t heard from, that’s not something I’m prepared to do: > > **unvote ScubaBen** otie dotie. i will respond in the morning when i have a chance to fully digest this post. to do so now would merely cause more ill feelings. i will add this, however. if there is ever another game that **sushi** plays in i will opt out unless it’s on idle’s board. ain’t no fucking pussy mods over there and his ass would be cut bait at best. ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/402 "2011-01-19T03:53:20Z")
neta: and genius typically unvotes are in red and votes are in blue. i guess you are setting a new standard, einstein. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/403 "2011-01-19T03:56:09Z")
Oh, **Scuba Ben**. I knew it was you, you’re the one that always plays with us. I always thought your name was Scuba Steve for some reason, haha. ---
**Author:** ![ushimitsudoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9a140/32.png) [@ushimitsudoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ushimitsudoki)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/404 "2011-01-19T04:09:40Z")
> [@peekercpa](#): > > otie dotie. i will respond in the morning when i have a chance to fully digest this post. to do so now would merely cause more ill feelings. i will add this, however. if there is ever another game that **sushi** plays in i will opt out unless it’s on idle’s board. ain’t no fucking pussy mods over there and his ass would be cut bait at best. lol, umad? ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/405 "2011-01-19T04:17:47Z")
I’d appreciate it if we could continue to try and dial back the rhetoric. There still seems to be room for more civility and less hostility. I happen to agree with most of peeker’s points criticisms regarding ushi, and I have (game-related) problems with many of ushi’s posts in general. However, I’m not really to keen on wading into what still appears to be a minefield. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/406 "2011-01-19T04:17:51Z")
> [@](#): > > It is in the rules on page one. D’oh, I managed to skim right over that. So, if I’m not mistaken, **ushi** is the current lynch designate. And **ushi** , **peeker** is probably just shortening your name and then adding a letter to turn it into a word he knows. He comes up with nicknames for everyone, and as **peeker** nicknames go, that’s a pretty straightforward one. ---
**Author:** ![ushimitsudoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9a140/32.png) [@ushimitsudoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ushimitsudoki)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/407 "2011-01-19T04:38:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > D’oh, I managed to skim right over that. So, if I’m not mistaken, **ushi** is the current lynch designate. > > And **ushi** , **peeker** is probably just shortening your name and then adding a letter to turn it into a word he knows. He comes up with nicknames for everyone, and as **peeker** nicknames go, that’s a pretty straightforward one. I quite agree - all I did was point out the correct way to shorten the longer name. I didn’t chastize or ridicule him. Despite how easy it would have been to do so. “sushi” doesn’t bother me. I’ve got real thick skin. I was told you need that for Mafia games on the SDMB. **Unvote ScubaBen** ---
**Author:** ![MentalGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/439d5e/32.png) [@MentalGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MentalGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/408 "2011-01-19T04:43:35Z")
> [@ushimitsudoki](#): > > 1. Attack the newbie for hurting Town: > Although I understand the argument that unprovoked vanilla claims may be considered “bad play” by some, I also understand that some people don’t agree. That is, there is no clear consensus on the matter. > > I think it is a reasonable scum tactic, then, to sieze on my “bad play” and get all high and mighty about how the newbie has hurt Town. > > Note that after several people have tried to pin him down on exactly how it hurts Town, and how it differs from **Idle Thought** ’s claim, he continues to retreat from his bold “bitchslap” position to a “it’s a null tell” position. This is not a retreat (Well, he did say he should have been nicer about it, but did not change his opinion on it). He does not like unprovoked vanilla claims and never has as long as I have been playing with him. When he says it is a null tell, he means it doesn’t tell us anything about your alignment. It doesn’t mean he thinks it doesn’t matter. You are comparing apples and oranges here. > [@](#): > > In fact, he ends up conceding that my move was a “null tell”. A null tell more helpful to scum? Which is it, then, a “null tell” or something more helpful to Scum? Again you are making a false comparison. A null tell just means that it doesn’t reflect what alignment you are. You could still be doing things helpful to scum and be a town player. I don’t like pants vote for Ed just for disagreeing with his idea, but I don’t really see it as a scum move. It just feels more like a new player move to me. And while there is a lot I haven’t liked about ushi’s play, I don’t really see him as scummy. Truthfully, not much has really seemed scummy to me toDay. The thing that has struck me the most is that peeker has not had a major bandwagon started against him, which makes me think that he may be playing more carefully because he is scum. But I am not about to vote peeker with the only reason being that he did not get himself lynched. I have seen Meeko play as scum and I am not getting that read off of him. Any vote I make right now is going to be a weak one, but I had committed myself to getting a vote down early in this game. Obviously, that did not happen, but I do want to vote before the last 24 hours. I am going to **Vote ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies** Her post voting for Chronos just seems to me like it might be a scum searching for something to vote for and seems to misrepresent Chronos a bit. I don’t think that Chronos really was overly confident about his theory, just that that would be his default assumption absent any other evidence. Of course, since I was making the same assumption, I might be a bit biased there. When looking at Cookies other posts, while they haven’t been opinion free, they have been fairly safe. They look like a scum trying to paricipate, but not draw attention to themself. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@Red\_Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/409 "2011-01-19T04:47:41Z")
I’m not really getting **ScubaBen** ’s vote for\*\* peeker\*\*. He’s saying that **peeker** “me tooed” **Idle** , but what reason would there be to vote for **ushi** at this point other than the reasons **Idle** mentioned. I guess i’m wondering what makes the vote scummy? I don’t agree with the reasoning behind it, but how does voting **ushi** = **peeker** scum here? And I’m a little surprised at **Chronos** talking about making a defense vote when the lynch candidate only has two votes at present, but hasn’t bothered to make much of a stand against the votes he’s garnered. Or even address my vote against him at all. At this time, I’m feeling that based on **pant** ’s defensive comments about **Chronos** , that if **chronos** comes up in red that pants will also come up in red. **Ushi** , you’ve harped on about people calling out your bad play, and that they are trying to drum that up as suspicion against you. The problem is, I called your play bad, and I’m only slightly suspicious of you (sometimes “The lady doth protest too much” is a scum tell). In fact it seems like several people have said to the effect of “bad play does not imply scum play”. At this point it seems like a dead horse. And also, **Cookies** , if you leave any kind of mucus (bogey or booger), whether wrapped in a kleenex or not on my table, I won’t invite you over for tea ever again. ---
**Author:** ![ushimitsudoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9a140/32.png) [@ushimitsudoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ushimitsudoki)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/410 "2011-01-19T05:07:40Z")
> [@MentalGuy](#): > > A null tell just means that it doesn’t reflect what alignment you are. My understanding of a “null tell” is that it reveal no useful information. Hence, a “tell” that is “null”. However, if my understanding is not accurate or out of sync with the rest of the players and “null tell” means “might have revealed useful information, just not alignment”, then you are correct in pointing out I was comparing apples to oranges. Having un-voted, this is largely academic, but it is good to know going forward. [QUOTE=RedSkeezix] Ushi, you’ve harped on about people calling out your bad play, and that they are trying to drum that up as suspicion against you. [/quote] No. Only in that one single point in relation to one single individual. This will be at least the 5th time I’ve addressed it: I only point out that it is not unreasonable for Scum to jump on a “bad play” and use it as cover. That’s it. I don’t think that Town won’t jump on a bad play. I don’t think that anyone who jumps on a bad play is Scum. I don’t think that everyone who votes for me or thinks my play is bad is Scum. I only think it is **not unreasonable** that Scum may object to my “bad play” as cover. I realize it’s weak alone, which is why I was careful to set it out as an _additional_ reason when I first mentioned it. Again, largely academic at this point, so perhaps I’m making a mistake by addressing it here again in addition to every time it comes up? ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/411 "2011-01-19T05:51:17Z")
> [@MentalGuy](#): > > When looking at Cookies other posts, while they haven’t been opinion free, they have been fairly safe. They look like a scum trying to paricipate, but not draw attention to themself. I get this all the time, especially in the early game, and I think it is ties back to my default assumption of approaching everyone as vanilla town plus a tendency to try and poke holes in other default assumptions that I consider weaker than mine until there is some hard information to leverage against or enough soft information to roll into a ball to sufficiently leverage against. ---
**Author:** ![Astral\_Rejection](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Astral\_Rejection](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astral_Rejection)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/412 "2011-01-19T05:59:48Z")
> [@MentalGuy](#): > > **Vote ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies** > > Her post voting for Chronos just seems to me like it might be a scum searching for something to vote for and seems to misrepresent Chronos a bit. I don’t think that Chronos really was overly confident about his theory, just that that would be his default assumption absent any other evidence. Of course, since I was making the same assumption, I might be a bit biased there. When looking at Cookies other posts, while they haven’t been opinion free, they have been fairly safe. They look like a scum trying to paricipate, but not draw attention to themself. Agreed. **Vote ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies** For the record, this is not a “me too!” vote. I’ve been catching up on the game, and that post immediately jumped out at me. I was planning to address it as soon as I finished reading the thread, and it just so happens MentalGuy has already pointed it out. Here’s the post in question: > [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](#): > > Thanks for helping out, Scuba. I promise not to dress you in women’s clothes. Unless you like the gender bending stuff as much as I do… > > At this point I’m going to put a vote down on Chronos. His early theory about power distribution goes against my instincts as a player and in my mind did nothing for Town (how could he possibly be confident about that much less convince anyone else that it is so?) and when viewed with a little paranoia can be seen as baiting either powers or vanillas to out themselves in their responses to him and any ensuing conversation. > > **Vote Chronos** Chronos never struck me as confident, and I don’t remember him actively trying to convince anyone. Here’s the pertinent part: > [@Chronos](#): > > OK, so first game-related thought: Given the color, I think that it’s likely that we’re playing a power-role heavy game, here. With that in mind, I think it’s probably safe to say that we’re likely to have a full stable of the standard roles, like Detective, Doctor, Town Roleblocker, Vig, and probably a powered Scum team (probably a Godfather, Scum Investigator, and Scum Roleblocker, at least). I think I have a bad habit of leaving assumptions tacit, so let me just say up front that, pending evidence to the contrary, I will be assuming that we have many different powers. That seems reasonable to me. In fact, his thoughts mirrored mine; it would be a waste to have a hotel of superheroes and not deck folks out with powers. There are always exceptions, but it is really such a strange assumption to make? He hedges his bets a little, but I think at this stage that’s perfectly fair. And, I fundamentally disagree with Cookies about how this post “does nothing” for town. Chronos is assuming a full complement of scum powers, and he’s playing accordingly. The alternative, I guess, is assuming scum have no powers whatsoever? Voicing his opinion about what he considers to be the likely scum team lineup seems pretty pro-town to me. On top of that, I find Cookie’s final sentence troubling: > [@](#): > > …when viewed with a little paranoia can be seen as baiting either powers or vanillas to out themselves in their responses to him and any ensuing conversation. I’m guessing that Cookies is drawing this conclusion from Chronos’ choice of the phrase “pending evidence to the contrary.” I didn’t get any baiting vibes from that post. This whole post, as MentalGuy has noted, feels like an intentional misrepresentation of Chronos’ post. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/413 "2011-01-19T06:16:53Z")
The “viewed with a little paranoia” is actually referring to a vague and unprovable sense of possible cause and effect between Chronos’ statement, Idle’s vanilla claim, and then ushi’s vanilla claim. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/414 "2011-01-19T06:29:51Z")
> [@storyteller0910](#): > > …just read the exchange between Ed and ushimitsudoki. > > Yikes. > > Without reference to the substance of the argument (and hoping that this won’t run afoul of the Moderator directive not to discuss the situation), I am having a hard time envisioning a Scum ushimitsudoki coming out of the gate in the way he did here. I am open to being convinced otherwise, I guess, but for the moment I am strongly disinclined to vote for ushi. > > For Ed, either, honestly. And I still don’t see how any of it would shed any light on their respective alignments, with the same rationale as why I don’t think Ed’s request for a sub said anything about his alignment. ---
**Author:** ![Chipacabra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Chipacabra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chipacabra)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/415 "2011-01-19T09:12:19Z")
> [@ushimitsudoki](#): > > All that being said; while I understand some people might vote for players they haven’t heard from, that’s not something I’m prepared to do: > > **unvote ScubaBen** If you thought that special ed was scum for reasons unrelated to personal reasons, how could you possibly not still think that scuba is scum? He can’t have changed roles. This does not sit right with me. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/416 "2011-01-19T09:21:37Z")
> [@Chipacabra](#): > > If you thought that special ed was scum for reasons unrelated to personal reasons, how could you possibly not still think that scuba is scum? He can’t have changed roles. This does not sit right with me. Yeah, that one made my ears prick up too. We may not have heard from the player (Scuba\_Ben), but we have heard from the role. If Special Ed was scum then so is Scuba Ben, so I don’t see why you would take the pressure off just for a change of player. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/417 "2011-01-19T09:35:35Z")
For whatever reason I didn’t connect that statement from ushi with the unvote. I attributed the statement to earlier general discussion of “Lynch the Lurker”. I agree that smacks of a big inconsistency on ushi’s part. **Unvote Chronos** **Vote ushimitsudoki** As an aside, I really do hate voting early for new players. It is such a tough crowd compared to back in the Werewolf class of '07, where most of us didn’t know what the hell we were doing, but at least we didn’t know anything together. And I hope that is interpreted as the self-deprecating humor it was intended to be… ---
**Author:** ![ushimitsudoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9a140/32.png) [@ushimitsudoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ushimitsudoki)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/418 "2011-01-19T09:58:46Z")
> [@Chipacabra](#): > > If you thought that special ed was scum for reasons unrelated to personal reasons, how could you possibly not still think that scuba is scum? He can’t have changed roles. This does not sit right with me. It’s right there? I don’t vote for a player I haven’t heard from. I already said it several post earlier. I didn’t say anything about the role. In any case, at this stage of the game it is fallacious at best to pretend like a vote is a statement of certainty and changing it is heresy. ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/419 "2011-01-19T10:13:06Z")
> [@ushimitsudoki](#): > > It’s right there? I don’t vote for a player I haven’t heard from. I already said it several post earlier. I didn’t say anything about the role. > > In any case, at this stage of the game it is fallacious at best to pretend like a vote is a statement of certainty and changing it is heresy. The thing is though, as far as the game is concerned special ed and scuba ben are the same person. If Ed had outright declared he was scum and then subbed out, would you give scuba a pass just because you hadn’t heard from him? ---
**Author:** ![ushimitsudoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9a140/32.png) [@ushimitsudoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ushimitsudoki)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2011, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544/420 "2011-01-19T10:33:42Z")
> [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](#): > > The thing is though, as far as the game is concerned special ed and scuba ben are the same person. If Ed had outright declared he was scum and then subbed out, would you give scuba a pass just because you hadn’t heard from him? Is that what happened? Because if the Queen had balls, she’d be the King. I’m not sure why people try to take general statements, go to an extreme absolute, pretend they are equivalent, and then declare victory? This is called a [straw man](http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html) in some circles. It has never won a debate, in fact I hear tell of some rough auditoriums where they’ll shoot a man down jest fer totin’ a bundle of straw. Try this then: As a general rule of thumb under non-extraordinary circumstances that don’t strongly compel me to act otherwise, I’m not going to vote against a player who I haven’t heard from. I do not find myself in that set of circumstances. I’m not going to preface every statement with conditional disclaimers longer than the meat of the statement. When I say something, it means “under normal operating conditions”. This is because when I speak, I speak in English and not in a computer programming language. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-of-heroes-mafia/567544.md?page=22)