<snipped>
<snipped>
because i am so seldom right.
I was being over-optimistic as regards point 4. If you got killed (and were revealed as Town) we’d know you’d honestly reported a Town result (hypothetically) on IS, so he’d be confirmed as Town or Ringleader.
However, this is all moot. I’ve checked with Pleo and:
Results go to the current Doc (at end of Day). It doesn’t matter who submitted the order. So in the case above, Maha wouldn’t get the result at step 3. It would be sent to IS. Who would then be reporting on himself. Not a helpful situation.
So we can scrap my grandiose schemes. But I think it’s good that we know this. It’s something else the XO needs to keep in mind when promoting/demoting - who’s going to be reporting on the Doc result?
Well, if the doc just doesn’t investigate with two people of himself, we should be fine, no? Not that I’m saying the doc should maintain that distance but if you are the doc and are for some reason worried that it won’t be you in that spot come night, you can prevent someone reporting on himself by not investigating the person right after you, the person after them and the person right ahead of you. Although I don’t know why the executive officer would demote the engineer so that last one’s probably not very likely.
I am a bit lower on time than I was expecting to be this weekend. I’m reading but don’t have time to really respond. I’ll be back on Monday.
jumps out from behind a bush
Boo!
Hey guys. I have had no time to check the game yet, and still have to take my daughter to gymboree in about 40 minutes. But I will read the whole thread and post some responses when I put her down for a nap later today.
I don’t think it really matters how you rank your votes - they all count equally.
By all means, however, tell people how much weight you’re putting on each of your votes. I think being required to find a certain number of votes is going to screw up the vote record because a) Town will be making votes with a varying range of confidence and b) it makes it very easy for Scum to excuse votes by saying they only made them under duress.
These are conflicting points. I’m going to struggle to find four votes today, I suspect, and I’m not keen on being interrogated on why I voted for the person I found fourth-most suspicious - because I probably won’t have a great deal to justify it. On the other hand, if I ask anyone else to justify a vote, I can’t accept “Because I had to vote for someone, anyone” as a good answer. That just let’s scum skate.
I think the only way round this is to say upfront how confident you are in each vote (this should come out in your arguments, but it’s as well to say upfront). That way at least we know ahead of time which votes you can be made to stand behind. And if you have too many “oh I just had to” votes then we’ll spot that too.
If his votes had been placed after the game had clearly started, I might agree with you more; as it is, they come across as more of a joke, and by treating them seriously, you look worse than he does.
What was the point of this vote, too? Votes only count when they come in groups of four; this one will not be tallied.
For Head of Engineering I agree, obviously. For the others, I don’t really agree. Any opportunities opened up by knowing, say, that the doctor is likely to examine one of the scum can only really be taken advantage of by public action (a scum XO moving someone else into the doctor position before the current one places his order, in hopes the new doctor will choose to examine someone else). As such they would be highly visible. I should think that would be something we’d want to encourage, not discourage.
(If this isn’t clear to anyone, say so and I’ll try again in an hour or so; the caffeine isn’t really working yet.)
Sorry Skeez, but combined with the slight uneasiness from the last two points, this bit means you’ll probably be getting one of my votes today. I can’t imagine that the danger of scum manipulation is so extremely high that a lazy vote or two will open up huge doors of opportunity for the scum to waltz through. Nor will many people here cast lazy votes in the first place; it’s just not that kind of group. It looks like a pose – “look what a good townie I’m being.”
To make it semi-official: FOS: Red Skeezix
No, for several reasons.
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Those who are arguing poorly and yet are town are still town, and there is a limited number of town players we can lynch and still win.
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Voting for the town players who are helping town the least is generally what the mafia does as the path of least resistance. To a certain extent it’s therefore important for all town players to do the best they can not to wind up as lynch bait (by not making lazy arguments, for instance (waves at Red), by being as open about their reasoning as possible, etc etc). But as a corollary it’s also important for town players to do their best to distinguish scum from “scummy” town. You’re not always going to get it right, but you have to make the effort.
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Scum can act “helpful” or even genuinely be helpful to the town, and still be scum. As a notorious example of that, the player Storyteller0910 was once instrumental in lynching four out of five scum in a game. Super helpful. Except he was the fifth, and acting that way won the scum the game.
Which is all just to say, if you’re a townie, please vote for people you think are scummy, even if at first you’re not entirely certain what “scummy” is. In the long run you and the rest of the town will be better off.
I think one of us must be confused. I am operating under the interpretation that votes don’t count toward lynching until a fourth (Nth) vote is placed. Where does it say that all votes must be placed at the same time?
This seems to be the operative rule, but i’m not seeing anywhere that people have to cast all four votes at once. Was this amended/clarified somewhere that I missed? In fact it appears that peeker’s 3 votes all counted as votes. I am assuming that once he places a fourth vote for a person actually in the game then the votes will count.
He had confirmed his PM and his votes still stand on record. The game hadn’t officially started? If it was a joke vote, I’d like to at least hear it from him, also: what was the punchline of this joke vote?
I do see what you are saying about the obviousness. And allow me to clarify. This point came from fluiddruid stating that she was against rank shifts at this time. Saying that she’d be unlikely to perform any actions any time soon, allows scum to plan accordingly (if she’s town).
[QUOTE=glowacks]
I guess I’m unsure where you think people ought to draw a line between not having any of one’s votes counted and having some not-so-greatly-considered votes cast. It seems silly to give up 3 solid votes just because you can’t some up with a decent 4th. Hell, put it on yourself if you have no better options and aren’t particularly in line to be lynched, but don’t let your voice go to waste given the vote minimum required.
[/quote]
I did say that people should be conscientious with their votes. I don’t like the idea of having votes of no account. And I do agree with you that one or two people casting one or two votes just to get their votes counted (on 4 vote days) probably isn’t a huge breeding ground of scum manipulation. What i’m more concerned about is if everyone in the game is casting half good votes and half junk votes, and the effect that it will have; that, I argue is an undesireable situation, and does provide a lot of cover for nefarious activity.
Pleo could stand to clarify about the votes, then. You may well be interpreting it correctly.
About Hal, Pleo had given a specific time for the game to start, and that time had not yet been reached. My votes, peeker’s, and Hal’s were all placed prior to that official starting time. As such I have a hard time seeing the votes as meant seriously. They could have been the result of scummy self-consciousness (“heehee obviously I’m not the scum in the bunch, heehee”), but just as easily could been purely a bit of silliness. (Which is what I meant by “joke”.)
What in Hal’s comment reads to you as intended to be serious? I haven’t gone back to look at the post since I first read it, so maybe there’s something there I missed. Convince me.
I agree completely that whoever is in my scum filter should be voted for before anyone else. With different voting rules it might not be an issue, but under these rules I might need to use additional criteria if the primary one does not result in enough votes. Given that, I feel the criteria of “less likely to help catch scum in the future” is reasonable to use; although it has the problem of “past performance does not guarantee of future return”, I have to come up with something or my vote won’t be counted. It’s quite possible that this will be a moot point by the end of the Day, but given the voting rules it’s very important that everyone has a vote cast and that means having some way to justify 4 votes.
Of course, that’s operating under the normal assumption that no-lynch Days are very bad for the town. While these rules are strange, I don’t see anything that would change that basic fact - especially since we have absolutely no way of stopping a night kill (besides brigging all the scum, which can’t happen day 1).
Regarding ‘lynch the lurker’:
While I don’t disagree with your reasoning here, for the most part, I think it’s worth saying that while lurking isn’t a scum tell, lurking is an effective way to play scum with low risk if lurking is acceptable in a given game. I realize it’s difficult – hell, I’m guilty of it more often than not, particularly in early game, regardless of alignment – but we have to enforce participation somehow, right? If not by considering lynching those who choose to hang back and say nothing, then how?
While there are always exceptions to every trend, all things being equal, some behaviors tend to benefit scum more than others, and lurking is one of them. (Not being particularly helpful in catching other scum is another. Story is a very experienced player who made a very risky play.)
Again, I don’t disagree with you here that ‘lynch lurkers’ isn’t a good blanket policy, and your points are generally valid. Plus, as a blanket policy it gives scum the excuse to place a lot of votes that aren’t paticularly well defended. But I don’t think that lurking should be out of consideration when voting. Absolutely it is not necessarily a scum tell by any stretch of the imagination, but barring better information in hand it absolutely is something that I will consider when making my vote. I don’t think it’s a good idea to make it the sole criterion for voting on a regular basis, as again it’s too easy to hide a vote that way, but I’ll still consider it if no other candidates seem available or particularly if used in context with the rest of the user’s posts. The more scum talk, or feel compelled to talk, the more information is available to Town – and the more likely pertinent information will come to light.
[QUOTE=Normal Phase]
About Hal, Pleo had given a specific time for the game to start, and that time had not yet been reached. My votes, peeker’s, and Hal’s were all placed prior to that official starting time. As such I have a hard time seeing the votes as meant seriously. They could have been the result of scummy self-consciousness (“heehee obviously I’m not the scum in the bunch, heehee”), but just as easily could been purely a bit of silliness. (Which is what I meant by “joke”.)
What in Hal’s comment reads to you as intended to be serious? I haven’t gone back to look at the post since I first read it, so maybe there’s something there I missed. Convince me.
[/QUOTE]
The post simply says here’s some votes, and they are all justified (poorly, imo ima) by the position he’s taking regarding the possibility of scum having a rank.
I’m reading this as serious. There’s no joking tone, no smilies, no references to other games. The only thing that could hold this as reasonable silliness is the timing, but at the time this was made some people are already in game, including you. For instance, within 20 minutes of Briston’s vote, you have accused Inner Stickler of possible disingenuousness.
@ fluid – I wasn’t even addressing lurking specifically (how’d you get from glowacks’ posts to there, anyway? She was talking about people using bad logic, wasn’t she?) I’m against putting pressure on lurkers as general early-game strategy only because it rarely seems to lead anywhere productive. In a game like this though, with so many vote slots to use up, I’m all for using a couple of them to pressure lurkers.
@ Skeezix – you’re right and I was wrong. I mis-remembered Hal’s as the first of those three pre-game votes and not the last, and definitely put a tone to it in my head that the words themselves don’t support. Your vote is fine.
I am male, and I was referring to both lurkers and those who have some poor judgment. They both are in the set “people less likely to be helpful in catching scum”; there are certainly differences between them, but I grouped them together to make the point that if we’re unsure about actual motives, actions not fully beneficial to the town are reasonable justification for votes given the need to cast 4 votes. I don’t like having to do so, for all the reasons given previously, but every vote needs some justification and we need to make sure our votes are officially cast.
Day One Vote Count
All Votes by Voting Player
Hal Briston => fluiddruid (74), TexCat (74), peekercpa (74), Mahaloth (74).
fluiddruid => no votes.
TexCat => no votes.
peekercpa => [del]Normal Phase (65-126)[/del], [del]Stanislaus (65-126)[/del], [del]fubbleskag (65-126)[/del], Normal Phase (126), Hal Briston (126), Drain Bead (126).
Mahaloth => no votes.
Inner Stickler => no votes.
Red Skeezix => Hal Briston (173).
glowacks => no votes.
Natlaw => no votes.
Normal Phase => [del]NAF1138 (72-92)[/del], [del]Stanislaus (72-92)[/del], [del]peekercpa (72-92)[/del], [del]Drain Bead (72-92)[/del].
fubbleskag => no votes.
Crackrat => no votes.
Stanislaus => no votes.
Drain Bead => no votes.
Idle Thoughts => no votes.
NAF1138 => no votes.
Net Votes
peekercpa (1) <= Hal Briston.
fluiddruid (1) <= Hal Briston.
TexCat (1) <= Hal Briston.
Mahaloth (1) <= Hal Briston.
With 16 players eligible to vote, 8 votes are needed to space. With these votes, no one will be spaced.
I quoted the post which quotes “Lynching the lurkers may be trite and lynching those with poor analytical skills may be unfair, but we should be trying to eliminate those we feel are helping the town the least even if we don’t think they’re scum, right?” If you weren’t responding to lynching lurkers at all, this was confusing, to me at least.
I missed/failed to remember that line, only noticed the bit about glowacks having trouble with people with with bad reasoning.
This is my first mafia, so I apologize if I’m lurking and not contributing - but I assure you I’m reading and paying attention. I’ll understand if I get lynched early for lack of contribution, but will try to come up with some input as soon as I can.