[QUOTE=sachertorte]
If Fretful really was scum and knew there was no scout, would he be jumping in here to say “Hey! there is no scout!” I’m thinking no.
[/QUOTE]
But why not?
It’s not so much that a posited Scummy Fretful would know that there was no Scout, per se. Of course she would know this, but she’d know that the only way to truly know it would be to be scum. So just saying “there is no Scout” is right out, from the perspective of Scum trying to avoid getting caught.
But scum need to say something. It’s often safe to discuss game mechanics, since they’ll be of interest to everyone and generally don’t involve voting (which of course draws the spotlight). So you wade in to discuss the likely construction of the game. And here’s where Perfect Information Syndrome comes in. It seems like PIS generally doesn’t manifest in really obvious ways (like the above). It more often manifests when the scum player tries to develop a “real” argument that represents his/her true thinking. It’s always good for Scum to do this, because if they’re being sincere, they’re harder to tell from the Townies.
So let’s hypothesize a Scummy Fretful, who knows that there is no Scout (or, also possibly, knows that there IS a Scout but truly believes that it is unfairly powerful). She wants to comment on it in the game thread, because why not? She outlines her real, true, opinions on the role - as Townie a thing to do as there is in this game.
But.
Her real, true opinions on this subject are influenced by a critical bit of information that the rest of us don’t have: the number of Scum. It is self-evident that, with five Wolves, a Scout would be really unfair to the Town. But it is just as evident that, with four or even only three Wolves, such a role would fit neatly into a balanced game.
So she makes her argument, being as sincere as possible, but underlying the argument she’s making is a bit of knowledge that she has - the number of Wolves - that influence her conclusions indirectly. See below:
[QUOTE=Fretful Porpentine]
Um, because I didn’t know that the game could be balanced to include all sorts of combinations of roles including the Scout at the time I made those two posts? Intuitively, it seemed to me to be too powerful a role to work,
[/quote]
I believe that the last sentence is a true statement of Fretful’s opinion, whether she is Town or Wolf. But to me, the only way such an opinion comes intuitively is if one has information on the number of Wolves, as explained above. Her response feeds into that a bit for me - it reminds me of Blaster Master in the Asylum Lane game, who kept insisting up and down that the things we caught him for (he was scum in that game) were legitimate and sincere attempts to be a good Townie. But they reflected hidden knowledge and hidden motives, even when they were not conscious.
So I think I’m going to vote Fretful Porpentine.
I specifically explained why I didn’t vote for Blaster. Based on my experience playing with him (including the recently finished Simpletown), I expect he’s going to be in here at any moment with 4-5 long posts catching up from the start of the game. Expecting this, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and skipped to the next person. I think I’ve only played with Hockey once before, and do not recall what her posting patterns are. I’m not avoiding voting for Blaster, and will happily do so if I’m wrong about his M.O.