First off I apologize to septimus, Chronos and the town. I feel responsible for believing in my idiotic conspiracy theory and posting about it. What a doofus I am. Turns out I had an unknown power role: Town Fool.
And I am angry. Not at the wolves, who after all are playing to win. I am angry with myself. I should not have believed a dumb conspiracy. When storyteller intervened and said the rules would change for a tie, he did that in the middle of the septimus rebirth of the self-voting plan. At one point when I was reading over the thread for the umpteenth time, a thought occurred to me. Storyteller wouldn’t change the rules if the wolves were already fighting back with their own trickery. But I dismissed it. Part of me thought I should dismiss it because inferring information from moderator action did not seem “in the spirit of the game.” I am sensitive to that now. But really I just loved my conspiracy theory so much I wasn’t going to let anything like reason stand in the way.
I thought we were lynching Potter, and instead we lynched Clarence.
I also allowed the whole “poor put upon TexCat” thing to get to me. Again I let emotion get in the way of reason. Town Fool indeed.
So my first order of business:
Vote TexCat
Unless we are to believe the whole switching off TexCat to septimus happened without wolf help, then she must be guilty. Why would wolves draw attention to themselves to change the vote if both were town whose roles were unknown? TexCat could have just as well been the Guardian. I do believe wolves were involved in the switch. I will not be fooled by again by “I am a poor put-upon” townie plea. Reason and only reason. No more “gut instinct.”
PlumPudding is most likely town because I can’t see a wolf arguing so heavily one way or the other. What if we had lynched TexCat and she had been town? PP would have looked guilty. A wolf would not risk that, IMHO.
Finally, Dante G.… after this all settles down I am coming for you. If not for all the reasons posted earlier, I would go after you for post #678. You voted for septimus. You should “resist” out of decency. If you truly do not know what side you are on, we will be happy to lynch you and let you know.
Well. Two power roles down. Now then, about that end of day sequence. Prof. Pepperwinkle, anything you’d like to tell us about whatever it was you were doing? Who was trying to engineer a tie? Why did you do what you did in response?
I didn’t understand why septimus, who was only one vote behind from TexCat, would unvote her, putting himself in jeopardy with only a very short time to go unless there was some scummy plan for a tie. Looking back, he was trying to shift the focus from TexCat to Dante G, but I goofed, and guessed wrong. I still don’t know what Cygnus was doing, there, which also heightened my groundless suspicions.
Yeah, not exactly quality Mafia-playing for me at the end of the Day…
It seemed like with the vote coming down to **Texcat **or septimus, I thought I should take a position on one or the other. I reviewed both people, and found suspicious-seeming posts from septimus, so I went that way. I think that if you go into it looking for something scummish, you’ll jump on anything that seems out of place. Well, I did anyway. And for any high-volume poster, there will likely always be something that someone finds scummy…
In retrospect, I probably shoulda stayed out of it, since I didn’t strongly suspect either from the beginning.
I still have suspicions for Dante G and **JSexton **- but I’ll ponder some more before putting a new vote down. The fallout from the septimus-lynching should reveal more info all around.
This makes no sense. What possible scummy plan benefit? We had not even been told what the new tie-breaker would be. How could septimus be concocting a new scum plan at that late hour of the day without being able to communicate with the other wolves?
First of all, I believe Biotop to be Town. Even though he called me out and voted for my lynch just recently, I believe his post therein is definitely Pro Town. It was believable and I accept his Townness, even if he did vote for me.
As for my vote, well, I think Pepperwinkle deserves some attention. I still believe Texcat is Town and Pepperwinkle held on to the idea of her Scumminess like a dog with a bone… or perhaps a wolf with a bone.
Waiting for the official vote count and looking for the vote switching shenanigans
It is entirely possible that the wolves were quite happy to let either texcat or septimus swing if texcat is town, so we would have to assume texcat was scum to assume the wolves were doing some changes to get septimus lynched.
Please explain to me more this “theory.” I can see plenty of reasons to think both TexCat and Prof. Pepperwinkle are both scum, but I can’t for the life of me posit a reasonable theory in which TexCat is town and Prof. Pepperwinkle is scum based on the end of day one actions.
To me it was just the interaction between the two.
Pepperwinkle calls out Texcat and Texcat came off as being more of a innocent Townie fighting for her life, whereas Pepperwinkle just didn’t really let up. It seemed more like a situation where a Scum player threw out a vote against someone whom they knew to be Town, the Townie reacted defensively and the Scum player skillfully ran with it.
Post 610, TexCat, possibly sure she’s going to be lynched, switches her vote from septimus to her accuser Plumpudding. 71 minutes to go.
Post 612, Biotop puts his money where his mouth is, and votes septimus. 65 minutes to go.
Post 616, Jimmy Chitwood questions who his the most scummy, TexCat, septimus or Dante G.
55 minutes to go.
Posts 619 and 620, Jimmy Chitwood changes his vote from TexCat to Dante G. 40 minutes to go.
Post 624. septimus gives a tally, then changes his vote after the tally to make it inaccurate. He switches his vote from TexCat to Dante G. This made the vote between TexCat and septimus tied. I couldn’t figure out why septimus would vote himself from being safe by one vote to tied with her, especially since he expected her to revote him, making him likely to be lynched. 26 minutes to go.
Post 628. 15 minutes to go. I mention the tie.
Post 630. Septimus states doubts that TexCat is scum, and plans to revote if she does. 12 minutes to go.
Post 631. Bayard says he’s leaning to Town for TexCat. 11 minutes to go.
Post 633. TexCat unvotes Plumpudding, votes septimus, probably to save her skin. 9 minutes to go. She then asks if we know what happens in a tie. I don’t, but again, I’m new, and figure I’ve missed something.
Post 634. septimus calls on Bayard to vote for Dante G for a three-way tie. 8 minutes to go.
Post 636. septimus unvotes Dante G, votes for TexCat, making a tie again. 7 minutes to go.
Post 639. Cygnus42 changes his vote to septimus from the noticeably absent JSexton. 5 minutes to go.
Post 641. With the vote now 6 for TexCat and 7 for septimus, it occurs to me if I change my vote, septimus can’t get the tie he seems to be looking for. I unvote TexCat and vote for septimus, making it 5-8, and making a tie implausible with 2 minutes to go.
Post 642. septimus claims to be the Guardian. 2 minutes left to go.
Post 646. Cygnus42 unvotes septimus, making it 5-7. 0 minutes to go, and it’s still not certain if his vote was counted.
Post 648. septimus again states he was the Guardian. I’m confused why he wasn’t keeping a lower profile if he was such an important role.
And that’s all I know about it.
Dante, I wonder if you are confusing**** Professor Pepperwinkle**** with Plumpudding. As far as I can recall, the** Professor** never really attacked** TexCat**, his vote for her (552) was based on his belief that septimus was town.
I realize, of course, that I have more knowledge than you; I know that I am town. And I feel certain that last minute changes must have been town. I agree that no wolves would want to get involved in those last minute changes without good reason, and I know that they had no reason.
I could not be Guardian. I was leading the lynch until the last minute. Had I been the Guardian, I would have claimed much earlier in the Day.
PlumPudding was already preparing his defense for when I flipped town. But yeah I think a wolf would risk that.
OK, so I am going to dump this huge post, a couple followups and then likely won’t be around much if at all for the rest of the day. I anticipate having a lot of time to devote to the game tomorrow, though. I know it is long but I think it makes some important points and I hope people will read it carefully.
**
Anatomy of a Massive Clusterfuck – Day One**
Wow, what a disaster. Catching up with that thread at the last minute was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. As I said right from the start, the case against septimus was a huge load of baseless, scummy crap from the get-go, and I can’t believe Town went for it. I reviewed the events leading up to this travesty (checked vote counts several times, so I think they are right, but possibly not):
After the smoke cleared from the tide of self-votes and unvotes, we were at (as of post 460)
Dante G 2 (Chitwood, Biotop)
Chronos 2 (Sario, JSexton)
JSexton 2 (Mahaloth, Cygnus42)
TexCat 1 (Chronos)
Sario 1 (me)
Sangfroid 1 (Precambrian)
Then Johnny Bravo made the first vote against Septimus, for “flip-flopping”. This isn’t inaccurate, but he didn’t explain exactly how he saw all this flip-flopping as hurting Town. Septimus in 556 (among other places) asked the question that all of his voters should have felt obligated to address (emphasis added by me):
As far as I am aware not one of his voters ever addressed this post.
TexCat came along and was all over that, mentioning her previous accusation that septimus had been looking at the plan from a scum perspective; “I did not like that Septimus’s first reaction to the scheme was to work out how scum could overcome it.”
I responded by pointing out: “Really? And his second reaction was to share what he had worked out with the Town! If the Town was considering a plan, and a scum player noticed that said plan would actually work to the advantage of scum, why in the world would he not keep his mouth shut and hope Town would screw themselves? I am very suspicious of those voting for septimus.” As far as I can tell, this still stands as a convincing refutation of all accusations against septimus, and one that none of his accusers ever attempted to answer.
Then, Bayard and Pepperwinkle voted for JSexton and Plumpudding, sangfroid and septimus voted for TexCat.
JSexton 4 (Mahaloth, Cygnus42, Bayard, Pepperwinkle)
TexCat 4 (Chronos, Plumpudding, sangfroid, septimus)
Septimus 2 (JBravo, TexCat)
Dante G 2 (Chitwood, Biotop)
Chronos 1 (JSexton)
Sario 1 (me)
Sangfroid 1 (PCM)
Then, suddenly septimus gets three more votes, from Diggit, Sario, and Dante G. None of them justified their votes at all; Diggit said he “seems the scummiest”, Sario said he “agrees with the case against Septimus” (what case?!), and Dante G claims that Johnny Bravo “pointed out some pretty convincing things.” I would bet my eyeteeth that there are at least two scum among those three.
Johnny Bravo posts an expansion of his “case” against septimus in 531; he now drops the flip-flopping angle and adds three new charges:
1)septimus undertook to explain his thought process to the Town (initially Johnny had accused him of retreating in the face of criticism, but when septimus pointed out that he hadn’t really gotten any criticism prior to that, he decided that for a player to take it upon himself explain his motivations to the Town somehow was scummy).
he used the phrase “Imp of the perverse”, which could be interpreted as a tacit admission that he is scum. If you think scum typically drop hints about their scumminess just for fun, that is.
He “pointed an FOS” at those voting for him. Johnny took this FOS very seriously, despite the big smiley face and the lack of any serious effort on septimus’ part to accuse anyone voting for him. The FOS was obviously a joke; at least it was obvious to someone actually looking for scum and not trying to justify a pre-determined vote. Incredibly, Dante G later had the nerve to cite this BS as further justification for his vote.
Pepperwinkle and Chitwood soon popped up to vote TexCat, both of them justifying their votes by saying that they didn’t buy the case against septimus.
So now, with 24 hours left in the Day, it’s 6-5 TexCat. I also voted for TexCat to protect septimus; 7-5.
Biotop voted septimus for no clear reason. Not sure about that guy. I had thought he was pretty clearly Town, but now… 7-6.
Now, with less than two hours left in the Day, Chitwood suddenly decided that TexCat and septimus looked equally Townish, and moved his vote to Dante G, creating a 6-6 tie.
With five minutes left, Cygnus42 cites a “gut feel” in voting for septimus! 7-6 for septimus. Professor Pepperwinkle then gets afraid that “someone is trying to engineer a tie” and switches his vote from TexCat to Septimus, making it 8-5. Cygnus42 unvotes after the roleclaim, so the final vote is 7-5.
So, to review the list of septimus voters:
Johnny Bravo made what I thought was a very bogus case against septimus. On the other hand, he was about the only septimus voter who seemed at all interested in actually making a case, and he was the first to vote for him, so can’t be accused of jumping on a bandwagon. It’s possible that he was scum trying to keep his head down and cast a one-off vote, but since we now know that Chronos was Town, it seems likely that a wolf would have been more likely to jump on his bandwagon (or on JSexton’s or Dante G’s, if they are Town). Despite him pressing a ludicrous case against septimus, I still have relatively low suspicion.
TexCat of course looks scummy because it appears that the septimus bandwagon may have been intended to save her. She was one of the first people to bring up the notion that septimus pointing out potential flaws in Town’s plan meant that he was “thinking like scum”, and therefore suspicious. She seemed very eager to jump on the bandwagon once someone else had gotten it rolling. Of course, after a certain point her voting can just be seen as defensive, which is a null tell. High suspicion.
Diggit, Sario, Dante G: provided 3rd, 4th and 5th votes to put septimus in serious jeopardy. None of them offered a good reason for their vote, then or ever. Massive suspicion.
Chitwood, Pepperwinkle: Last minute vote shifts to hang a Townie look suspicious as hell, but the problem is that they had initially voted for TexCat at a time which put TexCat in real danger. Can’t imagine scum doing that if TexCat is scum, also can’t imagine them drawing attention to themselves at the very end of the Day in order to ninja lynch one Townie rather than another. So the conclusion that seems logical is “Because these two players switched their votes at the last minute, which resulted in a mislynch, they must be Town!” I refuse to accept that conclusion because it seems far too weird, but for now I have low suspicion of these guys.
Biotop: Who the hell knows?
Cygnus42: Broke the tie to put septimus on top with five minutes to go = huge, massive scumtell. Unvoted after the claim; not sure what to make of this. It’s what a Townie would have done; or, since it didn’t affect the outcome, what a Wolf looking for town cred might have done. But this would have required him to be quite sure about the vote count at the last minute, which seems unlikely. But then, if he was Town and believed the roleclaim, why did he only unvote septimus, but not vote for TexCat? Still going with “Massive suspicion”.
So, I will hold off on voting for now to see how the early Day discussion goes, but I expect that I will end up voting for one of Sario, Dante G, Diggit Camara, or Cygnus 42. I also have one other candidate…
Although, as I’ve said, I do think there are some legitimate reasons to be suspicious of** TexCat,** I think it is entirely correct that Plumpudding’s case against her was a tissue of lies, mischaracterizations and innuendos (it also didn’t escape my notice that his attack on AFAIK our only female player was peppered with a steady stream of accusations of her being “overly emotional”, “hysterical”, and other sexist code words).
And although he never voted for him, Plumpudding was pushing the septimus mislynch just as hard and with just as much BS. At one point Plumpudding mentioned, apparently with pride, that when playing in person he tends to “point fingers and yell until the spittle flies” (quote may not be exact), and that’s exactly what it felt like he was doing in the second half of the Day – throwing a temper tantrum with no facts or reasoning to back it up.
But, although I thought he was certainly not helping Town find scum, and was making the game less fun, I didn’t see any clear clue to his alignment yesterDay; he seemed as likely to be obnoxious Town as Scum.
But then. Eight minutes after we have discovered that we have not only lynched Town, but lynched one of our power roles:
:mad: ARE :mad: YOU :mad:FUCKING :mad:KIDDING :mad: ME???
I usually don’t put much stock in accusations that someone’s unfortunate choice of words represents a “scum slip”, but I honestly can’t imagine how any Town player could have had that reaction. The only possible explanation I can think of is that he got confused and thought he was posting in his scum forum. So he is a fifth player I would be very happy to see on the gallows toDay.
Why would you vote to protect Septimus?
I could understand if you said " I voted for texcat because I found her to be the more scummy of the two leading lynch candidates" , but claiming your vote reason was to protect some one you had no idea was town, makes no sense.
You now know that Septimus was town, but that would be retroactively applying your reasoning for voting for texcat, sounds to me like you are a wolf and trying to claim some town cred by claiming to protect a now confirmed town
Thin Fish: No argument from me that the behavior of **Plumpudding ** was over the top and turned sympathy towards TexCat. And that “exhilarating” comment was very offensive.
But what motivation does a wolf have to go after someone so hard on the first day? It would draw attention and had we listened and voted TexCat, it would place suspicion on him for leading the charge when she was found innocent.
And could we have some more participation from those who posted little on the first day please. If I die I think I owe the town my thoughts, which will still live on. You owe the town the same.
Dante G., I know we have two players whose names both begin with “P.” I myself might confuse some of the players who have participated little in the game so far. But having gone over the final hours of the Day 1 many times in the past two days, I don’t see how you could confuse the two “P” players. I hope everyone will read and reread those painful pages to try and figure out what happened. But you know who has no reason to read them over and thus might confuse two key players? Wolves. They are not trying to discern loyalty. They already know.