Mafia The Game III: Kinder and Gentler

I’m sorry, I can’t let this pass. You unvoted him because you didn’t like dealing with his defense. Not because you thought he wasn’t scum. WTF?

That’s not exactly a pro-town thing to do. Nor is leaving no trail.

Are you going to do this every time you vote for someone who defends - which they will do whether they are mafia or townie?

And please give me a link to your own analysis of fluiddruid and other posters, rather than recycling mine.

Hey wow, another gross overgeneralization!

My rebuttal to fluiddruid’s defense:
#929

His/her response:
#948

I would claim that fluid’s response was grossly inaccurate and purposely misinterpreted my accusations, which seems to happen every single time I accuse she or anyone else.

And don’t think I don’t notice you staying silent until I mentioned I was suspicious of you. :dubious:

My guess is that if fluid turns out to be town or mason, tirial is almost certainly scum.

So anyway, yea. Learn to read or shut the fuck up. (speaking of which, Gad, how much would it disrupt the game for you to find a sub for me? I suspect I don’t have the temperament for this game, since I’m thoroughly sick of taking shit from both sides.)

If you think I’ve been quiet over the last few days, you really haven’t been watching the game :wink: .

And btw, yes if fluidruid is town then I would, as I have already stated, expect to find myself on the firing line. I’m pretty certain about him (what with Kyrie, fd being the third vote on two bandwagons, a last minute swing to a townie who had roleclaimed saving him yesterday, and what I think occurred last night), but if we don’t take the chance we don’t know, and you can’t play this game without taking a chance.

If you had bothered to read my entire post, you would have seen the line “if you don’t think the player who has the majority of the votes is guilty, don’t vote for them”.

It’s not about “making me feel all better”, it’s about information. If you are a townie then you need to leave information in case you are night killed. It’s looking more and more like getting night killed isn’t something you need to worry about.

And on this issue, trying to distract me with someone else isn’t likely to work. There have been three days when votes were counted. You have not had a vote standing at the end of any day, and you are the only player who has done that.

You name three players that “top your scum list”. Why do you have no votes on record for any of them?

I am not pushing you to vote this second. We still have time to think, examine and ponder.

The latter. :slight_smile:

And stop looking for tells in what I’m saying! I’m not under the microscope here! :smiley:

[GAME OFF]The accusations and hounding and taking crap is part of the game. There’s going to be aggressive players that will not leave you alone for even the most minor mistake. I hope you know that it’s all meant in good spirit, but still, that doesn’t mean that this sort of game is going to be everyone’s cup of tea. If you aren’t enjoying yourself, there are subs available and they can be switched in with minimal disruption to the game.[GAME ON]

Omi No Kami:

I suppose it could be done, although I hate losing people. Is this a formal request?

How about introducing a “no death” rule? :smiley:

Heh. I’m actually thinking about putting together a future game—with 20 people, which seems to be an ideal size—in which everyone has a power role (or belongs to some meaningful faction) of one stripe or another. As improbable as it seems, I think I can do that in a way that isn’t overly complicated. :slight_smile: We’ll see.

Ok guys, sorry this took so long but it took me several hours to put together.

  1. Now that it is confirmed projammer was town, how does that change your suspicious list?

It changes it a great deal. I think in many ways I was targeting the wrong people for the wrong reasons. I’m starting to get a handle on townie behavior more than I think I understood at the beginning of the game.

One of the things that I see is that wavering has been seen as a sign of weakness, but in the end it’s townies who are doing most of the wavering! I saw Projammer’s lack of decisive votes as a sign that he was trying to avoid a voting record. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. Now, is it possible that scum can hide in such a fashion? Sure. Do I think it’s a definite tell? Not anymore. This is why I think that people like Omi no Kami are moving downward on my suspicion list. More below.

  1. When you were on the hook you didn’t roleclaim - about the closest you got was saying you were on the town’s side? Any reason? Any claim?

I think that in nearly every way, it is bad for a townie to roleclaim. As such I’m not roleclaiming now, and will not, even to save my neck.

A doctor or Night Watchman who role claims becomes essentially worthless - sure, the Doctor can protect himself for the rest of the game, but they become essentially the same pattern as a scum who has role claimed Doctor falsely. The Night Watchman, if not lying, becomes target 1 for Mafia. They become less useful and we have seen a lot of end-of-the-day swing votes. I thought I was dead yesterday; I wasn’t. Once the Mafia knows who the Doctor or, to a lesser extent, the Night Watchman is, they have a HUGE advantage to the point where the power essentially comes null. I guess maybe I could see it late in the game but I think, at this point, it’s counterproductive.

A doctor, or presumably Night Watchman, claim just tends to come up badly for Town, as it is ultimately unverifiable (as is a Night Watchman claim), does little to convince people not to lynch (if anything I would say it would be likely to increase the odds) and actively hurts the role if you manage to stay in-game.

Do-Gooder claims are the least useful as, if true, they completely nullify the power of the role. That’s why I found Projammer so suspicious at the time, but I think in his case he just didn’t think about it the same way. Essentially, a Do-Gooder should never, ever, ever role claim. Far better to claim Citizen and turn up Do-Gooder on a lynch and have that chance of avoiding the lynch. At this point the Do-Gooder should NEVER claim (though others could falsely claim and have a reason to) because, if the remaining Do-Gooder is identified, this means an unblockable recruit. This is very very bad for Town.

Now of course that assumes that the recruit hasn’t been used. I don’t think it has. Why? The Mafia have no reason to recruit so early. As has been stated, there are no confirmed and trusted townies, and the Do-Gooder is still in play. It makes the most sense for the Mafia to hold the recruitment as long as possible until they have no choice but to use it to survive.

Now for Masons. Masons know each other. I think based on the size of the game we are looking at 3 Masons. I have some suspicions as to who they are but this is one area where I think it hurts Town to speculate. Masons should role claim as late as possible in the game. Frankly, even to save one Mason of three at this point it would not be worth it, as other people would have to role claim to verify for it to be useful. The only time, as I see it, to role claim as a Mason is if you are the second-to-last mason and you are going to get lynched pretty surely.

That takes care of the roles in the game right now.

Skipping ahead:
4) Who do you believe was the Detective’s crumb if not you?

All of my thoughts on this have been pretty well hashed out. I’m not sure. Dnooman? Blaster Master? It’s not at all clear. As I’ve argued, though, I don’t think I made sense as the breadcrumb; in any case, a lot less sense than any other potential breadcrumbs. Not sure what else I can comment on this topic that I haven’t already.

  1. Since there are a number of other serious candidates for scum floating around, what is your take on them?
  2. Top of my scum list are you and Lightnin’. Out of these two, who do you think I should vote for and why?

I’m going to take these two together. Bear with me a moment.

Frankly I’m not convinced that Lightnin is scum. Frankly there is more evidence against me than Lightnin and there’s not much between them. I sympathize with the guy since he’s been basically a target from the beginning with very little to go on. Frankly, I would be less suspicious of the person who votes for me versus the one who votes for Lightnin, because at least there is a legitimate hypothesis (while one, of course, I argue against) that I’m the detective breadcrumb. I really don’t see that with Lightnin.

At the beginning of my research I thought it might be best for Town to off me. Being so high on the “suspicious” lists, all my arguments and thoughts will be seen in that light. Other candidates in that field would be Lightnin or CaerieD. I don’t know if that’s really a good strategy in the long term but I’d like to be useful for the team. I really hate the idea of staying in the game and having every one of my strategies assumed as misleading – as it really puts me in a position of difficulty to contribute at all.

But on the other hand I think that lynching townies to learn something is a bad plan. We should be lynching Mafia so I can’t really throw my support on this entirely.

And, frankly, if you’ll read my analysis below, I think we need to turn the game in a new direction.

In the end I think we need to get back to basics. We have not been successful in our recent succession of lynchings and basically the candidate from the night before who ended up not getting lynched ends up being the new target (of two). Only a few people are being held to task. This is very bad for Town.

Now, Snakecatlady is trying to crucify me based on my (admittedly unfortunate) posting history. But, let’s analyze exactly what happened.

------------VOTING ANALYSIS---------------

4/21 8:30 am
4 – Lightnin’ (NAF1138, Idle Thoughts, dnooman, Projammer)
2 – NAF1138 (Hal Briston, Lightnin’)
2 – Omi No Kami (Rachm Qoch, Kyrie Eleison)
1 – Idle Thoughts (Blaster Master)
1 – percypercy (DiggitCamara)
1 – CaerieD (Lemur866)
1 – Kyrie Eleison (Omi No Kami)
1 – DiggitCamara (percypercy)
1 – nesta (ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)

4/22 1pm

3 – Lightnin’ (Idle Thoughts, dnooman, Projammer)
3 – Omi No Kami (Rachm Qoch, Kyrie Eleison, CaerieD)
3 – Projammer (nesta, NAF1138, percypercy)
2 – NAF1138 (Hal Briston, Lightnin’)
2 – percypercy (DiggitCamara, tirial)
1 – Idle Thoughts (Blaster Master)
1 – CaerieD (Lemur866)
1 – Kyrie Eleison (Omi No Kami)
1 – nesta (ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)

4/23 FINAL VOTE COUNT

6 – percypercy (DiggitCamara, tirial, fluiddruid, dnooman, Blaster Master, CaerieD)
3 – Projammer (nesta, NAF1138, percypercy)
2 – Lightnin’ (Projammer, Millit the Frail)
2 – Omi No Kami (Rachm Qoch, Kyrie Eleison)
1 – NAF1138 (Lightnin’)
1 – ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies (Hal Briston)
1 – Millit the Frail (Idle Thoughts)
1 – DiggitCamara (SnakesCatLady)
1 – CaerieD (Lemur866)
1 – nesta (ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)

Okay. So, essentially, we have a serious three way between the following:

  • percypercy (confirmed town)
  • Projammer (confirmed town)
  • Lightnin’ (status unknown)
  • and, charitably, in a distant 4th, Omi no Kami (with one confirmed town vote, one unknown)

People with votes for confirmed town during these counts (final votes vs not final are designated):

  • Hal Briston (not final) voted for NAF
  • Omi no Kami (not final) voted for Kyrie Eleison
  • Lightnin (final) voted for NAF
  • nesta (final) voted for Projammer
  • NAF [CONFIRMED TOWN] (final) voted for Projammer
  • percypercy [CONFIRMED TOWN] (final) voted for Projammer
  • tirial (final) voted for percypercy
  • fluiddruid (final) voted for percypercy
  • dnooman [CONFIRMED TOWN] (final) voted for percypercy
  • Blaster Master (final) voted for percypercy
  • CaerieD (final) voted for percypercy
  • DiggitCamera (final) voted for percypercy

Ultimately, the two most likely to be lynched were Percypercy (town) and Projammer (town).
There were 9 people who had a final vote between these two candidates.
Of those that participated in this two-way vote, 33% (3) are already confirmed town.
The remainder are: myself, tirial, Blaster Master, CaerieD, nesta, and DiggitCamera.

For Day Two:

4/26 8am
5 – Projammer (SnakesCatLady, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, nesta, Millit the Frail, CaerieD)
1 – Lightnin’ (Projammer)
1 – dnooman (Lightnin’)
1 – CaerieD (Blaster Master)

4/26 11am
5 – Projammer (SnakesCatLady, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, nesta, Millit the Frail, CaerieD)
2 – dnooman (Lightnin’, DiggitCamara)
1 – Lightnin’ (Projammer)
1 – CaerieD (Blaster Master)
1 – Kyrie Eleison (fluiddruid)
1 – SnakesCatLady (Lemur866)

4/27 10:30am

5 – Projammer (SnakesCatLady, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, nesta, Millit the Frail, Rachm Qoch)
5 – dnooman (Lightnin’, DiggitCamara, CaerieD, Hal Briston, Idle Thoughts)
1 – ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies (Projammer)
1 – CaerieD (Blaster Master)
1 – Kyrie Eleison (fluiddruid)
1 – SnakesCatLady (Lemur866)

4/27 1:30pm

7 – Projammer (SnakesCatLady, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, nesta, Millit the Frail, Rachm Qoch, dnooman, tirial)
6 – dnooman (Lightnin’, DiggitCamara, CaerieD, Hal Briston, Idle Thoughts, fluiddruid)
1 – ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies (Projammer)
1 – CaerieD (Blaster Master)
1 – SnakesCatLady (Lemur866)

Final Vote Count

5 – Projammer (ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, nesta, Millit the Frail, Rachm Qoch, dnooman)
5 – dnooman (Lightnin’, DiggitCamara, Hal Briston, Idle Thoughts, fluiddruid)
2 – fluiddruid (SnakesCatLady, Kyrie Eleison)
2 – No Lynch (Projammer, CaerieD)
1 – CaerieD (Blaster Master)
1 – SnakesCatLady (Lemur866)

So, the probable candidates were:

  • Projammer (confirmed town)
  • dnooman (confirmed town)
  • and to be charitable, let’s say myself (1 confirmed town vote)

Of the votes placed that day, the following voted for confirmed townies:

  • Snakecatlady (not final) voted for Projammer
  • Cometothedarksidewehavecookies (final) voted for Projammer
  • nesta (final) voted for Projammer
  • Millit the Frail (final) voted for Projammer
  • CaerieD (not final) voted for Projammer
  • Lightnin (final) voted for dnooman
  • DiggitCamara (final) voted for dnooman
  • fluiddruid (not final) voted for Kyrie Eleison
  • fluiddruid (final) voted for dnooman
  • dnooman [CONFIRMED TOWN] voted for Projammer
  • Millit the Frail (final) voted for Projammer
  • Rachm Qoch (final) voted for Projammer

In addition, CaerieD and Projammer [confirmed town] voted No Lynch.

Day Three

5/3 10:45AM

5 – fluiddruid (tirial, SnakesCatLady, Idle Thoughts, Rachm Qoch, nesta)
3 – Projammer (Lightnin’, Millit the Frail, Hal Briston)
1 – SnakesCatLady (CaerieD)

5/4 12:30 PM

Updated Vote Count

7 – fluiddruid (tirial, SnakesCatLady, Idle Thoughts, Rachm Qoch, nesta, DiggitCamara, Blaster Master)
5 – Projammer (Lightnin’, Millit the Frail, Hal Briston, Lemur866, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)
1 – SnakesCatLady (CaerieD)
1 – Lightnin’ (Projammer)

5/4 9:45 PM

Final Vote Count

8 – Projammer (Lightnin’, Millit the Frail, Hal Briston, Lemur866, ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, fluiddruid, Blaster Master, CaerieD)
6 – fluiddruid (tirial, SnakesCatLady, Idle Thoughts, Rachm Qoch, nesta, DiggitCamara)
1 – Lightnin’ (Projammer)
So, the probable candidates were:

  • Projammer (confirmed town)
  • Fluiddruid (unknown)

Of the votes placed that day, the following voted for confirmed townies:

  • Lightnin’ (final) voted for Projammer
  • Millit the Frail (final) voted for Projammer
  • Hal Briston (final) voted for Projammer
  • Lemur866 (final) voted for Projammer
  • Cometothedarksidewehavecookies (final) voted for Projammer
  • Blaster Master (final) voted for Projammer
  • CaerieD (final) voted for Projammer

------------ END VOTING ANALYSIS--------------

So, what does all of this data mean?

Basically, it means that of the four days so far, each has essentially come down to two major people. The biggest third candidate gained TWO votes in particular day. And, of those third candidates, only one - Omi no Kami - has not later become a serious lynching contendee. The other two are myself and Lightnin.

The days go as follows:

Day One: Projammer vs Percypercy (with Lightnin in 3rd)
Day Two: Projammer vs Dnooman
Day Three: Projammer vs Fluiddruid
Day Four (so far): Lightnin vs Fluiddruid

Thus, there have been only five serious lynching candidates, all of whom have had maintained interest since very early in the game. Of these, three (Dnooman, Percypercy, and Projammer) were lynched. All were town. The remaining two, Lightnin and myself, are the contenders for today.

This is an extremely disturbing pattern for Town and needs to be harshly reconsidered today.

The vast majority of players still in the game have never been lynching candidates. Why is this?

Well, let’s analyze each day a little further.
Day One: Projammer vs Percypercy (with Lightnin in 3rd) [TOWN VS TOWN, 3rd person unknown]
Day Two: Projammer vs Dnooman [TOWN VS TOWN]
Day Three: Projammer vs Fluiddruid
Day Four (so far): Lightnin vs Fluiddruid

I have been held to task for my votes in the first two days. Yet, how much sense does this make? Why would the Mafia care to manipulate a voting match that came down to town vs town?

  • I have been suspected for starting the Percypercy “bandwagon”. Even if I accept that to be true, that assumes that I have saved the second candidate: Projammer, also confirmed town.

  • I have been suspected for my vote on Day Two. Day Two was tied. Either way, we lost a townie.

  • In Day Three, I voted for Projammer (confirmed town) in a race in which I was the only other realistic candidate. As I’ve argued, this is the only logical vote regardless of whether I’m Town or Mafia: Townies know 100% that they themselves are Town, so they should vote the other candidate, and Mafia of course should vote Town to save themselves.

So what does this all sum up to? The voting record against me is meaningless when examined. It makes no sense for me to put myself on the line for a lynch in order to get one townie lynched over another.

As I’ve been arguing for some time, what we’ve seen recently is only a pattern of townies lynching townies. The Mafia has no reason to manipulate the vote significantly in either Day One or Two at all, since both serious candidates are confirmed town.

So, this changes my suspicious list significantly. Rather than looking at who voted for townies in Day One and Day Two - a proven red herring - it makes more sense to look at who didn’t vote in the top two at all when it comes to the final tally.

So let’s go down the player list:

fluiddruid
CaerieD
Cookies
Hal B
nesta
SCLady
Lightnin
Lemur
Tirial
Blaster
Millit
Rachm
Diggit
Omi no Kami
Idle Thoughts

Looking again at the final Day One vote count:

DAY ONE FINAL

6 – percypercy (DiggitCamara, tirial, fluiddruid, dnooman, Blaster Master, CaerieD)
3 – Projammer (nesta, NAF1138, percypercy)
2 – Lightnin’ (Projammer, Millit the Frail)
2 – Omi No Kami (Rachm Qoch, Kyrie Eleison)
1 – NAF1138 (Lightnin’)
1 – ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies (Hal Briston)
1 – Millit the Frail (Idle Thoughts)
1 – DiggitCamara (SnakesCatLady)
1 – CaerieD (Lemur866)
1 – nesta (ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)

DAY TWO FINAL

5 – Projammer (ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, nesta, Millit the Frail, Rachm Qoch, dnooman)
5 – dnooman (Lightnin’, DiggitCamara, Hal Briston, Idle Thoughts, fluiddruid)
2 – fluiddruid (SnakesCatLady, Kyrie Eleison)
2 – No Lynch (Projammer, CaerieD)
1 – CaerieD (Blaster Master)
1 – SnakesCatLady (Lemur866)

Leaping to the bottom of the suspicious list would be DiggitCamara and nesta, who had two decisive townie votes.
I am also not inclined to suspect tirial (did vote conclusively in Day Three for me, and has been a big contributor in debate) and Blaster Master (large debate contributor).

Jumping to the top of my personal suspicious lists are:

  • Snakescatlady. Full disclosure, as you’ll recall she voted for me in Day Two right before the whole Kyrie Eleison / breadcrumb debate. She also failed to cast a meaningful vote in Day One. She is also voting for me, in her own words, based on me voting for townies in the first few days. This is either extremely illogical or suspicious. Her only conclusive vote so far has been to vote for me in Day Three - after she voted for me in Day Two, this would have been hard to avoid. Please remember this if I die.

  • Omi no Kami has so far neglected to cast a final vote EVER. I am baffled as to why this has been largely overlooked.

  • Lemur866 failed to cast a meaningful vote either day and frankly has been hanging back in debate.
    Where do I stand on Lightnin after all this? Well, frankly, yes, I’d be curious to see how this shakes out. My biggest problem is that by killing Lightnin or myself we are continuing the same trainwreck we have been following from Day One. As such, what we learn is limited.

Based on all of the above I suggest a third candidate.

Vote Snakecatlady.
FOS Omi no Kami.
FOS Lemur866.

Also, before anyone responds - for the sake of brevity and clarity I didn’t include all the vote counts ever given, but focused on the last few in days when many were given. They should be the latest chronologically unless I missed any.

Very good analysis. I would, however, emphasize one thing:

On Day One we had a vote swing. I would definitely agree with you that it’s very likely that on Day Three and Day Four (thus far) the mafia have had the chance to let trends from the first two days continue. But the significance of the first day’s vote swing is that scum had no chance to discuss strategy previously.

That is the lynchpin of my lynchin’ Lightnin’ movement. By ascertaining his townie/non-townie status we’ll be able to find out if scum were involved at all during the first day.

Overlooked one thing: on day one the real situation was this:

  1. Projammer, Lightnin’ and Omi no Kami were tied in votes
  2. Two new votes came in for Lightnin’ (just before my post, #483)
  3. You came in, voting for percypercy (making it 5-3 in **Lightnin’**s “favor” to his nearest competition)
  4. dnooman switched his vote from **Lightnin’ ** to percpercy
    Why do I insist on this point? Because, as you said, if the first place contender really had been Projammer, Mafia would not have had to involve themselves at all.

However, the top contender was not Projammer. And thus, we still lack one significant piece of information: Is **Lightnin’ ** town or not?

  1. If Lightnin’s town, your analysis is completely correct. Mafia has been lying back and relaxing, since we’ve probably had town on town competition
  2. If Lightnin’s scum, we still have significant information to mine from day one: they had no collective strategy yet and may have made mistakes by playing it by ear

A brief answer to** fluiddruid**'s accusations - “failed to cast a meaningful vote in Day One.” I voted for who I was suspicious of at the time. I did not think percypercy was mafia, and as I have said repeatedly I will not vote for someone just because the majority is doing so. I think that is a reason we have lynched so many townies.

“She is also voting for me, in her own words, based on me voting for townies in the first few days. This is either extremely illogical or suspicious. Her only conclusive vote so far has been to vote for me in Day Three - after she voted for me in Day Two, this would have been hard to avoid. Please remember this if I die.”

Why is this “illogical or suspicious”? Ever single person you have voted for is dead, either lynched or night killed. Only Lightnin’ comes close to your perfect record. How am I supposed to just overlook that?

I voted for you on Day Two because I suspected you and I decided to go with Projammer’s role claim. Nothing had changed on Day Three to make me change my mind. I voted for you again today because I still think you are mafia. If it turns out I am wrong it will be the first time I have suspected someone enough to vote for them and been wrong. Sorry, that is a whole lot better than your record so far.

Fluiddruid, thank you for the analysis. You have made a number of fair points.

True, but at the time Lightnin’ was the main bandwagon subject. If Lightnin’ is mafia it does make sense for the scum to manipulate the votes to another target. The second day I don’t think they cared who died as it was town v. town.

However the other candidate had roleclaimed town power-role, so if you are a vanilla townie, you are less useful than he is. Admittedly it wasn’t the most convincing roleclaim.

I will confess I wanted to investigate this but couldn’t as he wasn’t playing (I did start once he was back). I won’t go after a player who can’t defend themselves because the town learns nothing.

I voted for Lightnin on Day two because I thought he was suspicious, and still do. However in addition to my suspicions against you, there’s a chance you were the Detective’s crumb. Remember I don’t entirely trust my own judgement, so in my position would you vote for the one you were just suspicious of, or the one you were suspicious of that appeared to be backed up by the Detective?

What do you make of this post by nesta? He claims here that percypercy’s and Lightnin’s bandwagons were really “anyone but Projammer” bandwagons. It was largely this post that led me to vote for Projammer on day 2 and leave Lightnin’ for another day. (I’ll admit that it was kind of a dumb reason, but, well, I never used random.org! :stuck_out_tongue: )

I’m still pretty sure Lightnin’ is scum, but now we have the question as to whether nesta knew about Projammer’s innocence long before the rest of us.

By the way, nesta’s been really under my radar. So has Hal Briston. I keep forgetting they’re in this game. Suspicious? Maybe…

I will be honest and say this is one of my concerns. I am pretty certain fluiddruid is scum, but the focus on him isn’t necessarily helping to flush out the other scum. Every lead I follow is going back to the same people.

I was looking for data on **nesta, Hal Briston, SnakesCatLady, ** yourself Millit and Omi No Kami, but I can’t make a strong case in either direction at the moment - or at least no stronger than I can for anyone else. To be honest that worries me, as it means any scum in this group are well under the radar.

First, let us look at what happened at the time:

The bandwagon against Lightnin’ had, at the time, survived one or two attempts at derailing it, and Lightnin’ himself wasn’t helping matters. So, things were looking bleak. (Lightnin’-5, several others 3)

Along came fluiddruid with her suggestion that she thought it was likelier that **Lightnin’ ** had a power role. Unfortunately, dnooman immediately took that ball and ran with it, adding the possibility that Lightnin’ was a mason and jumped bandwagons (Lightnin’ 4, percypercy 4)

My take on this:

  1. If Lightnin’ is scum, the combination of fluiddruid’s and dnooman’s votes gave scum an opportunity to save scum by hanging citizen (percypercy)
  2. If **Lightnin’**s not scum, we have fluctuating citizen’s votes
    Again, the significance of **Lightnin’**s status is this: if he is scum, the events surrounding his “save” give us information as to who is and who isn’t scum.

If he isn’t scum, these 3 days go to show one thing: scum have been “hanging back” from the main action and left citizens to string up citizens.

True, by focusing on official vote counts I lose some nuance. Still, the bandwagon for Projammer’s head started on Day One. That’s the point. We’re just churning through the same 5 people and others are under the radar - my ultimate point here.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say I am Mafia. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to vote Projammer or (assuming he’s town) Omi… or to wait for the tie to be broken? Dnooman’s confirmed town so it’s not like it’s a Mafia bandwagon. Rather I chose someone I felt that I legitimately suspected because I didn’t suspect Projammer at the time particularly nor did I agree that Lightnin was scum just for his “defensive” post. (I’m more troubled by that pattern now than I was at the time, seeing it repeated of course.)

I guess you’re right. Here’s my concern.

  • If we lynch Lightnin’ today, and I hadn’t made the points that I’d already made, it is almost certain that I’d be lynched the next day. We’d be continuing the same bandwagon, and a case would be made against me that I’m voting for anybody but myself to save my neck. The bandwagon would continue from Day One.

  • We already know that a lot of the choices we’ve made have been between townies. Are we willing to risk Lightnin is the essential question.

On the Pro side of the argument, I think you’re right that it would tell us a great deal. In addition I think that Lightnin has had some suspicious behaviors in terms of his tight-fistedness with information. Could it be a townie who’s defensive about being accused? Absolutely. But maybe he’s Mafia and he has no real reason to give us a lot of information to work with. And his usable analysis has been wanting to say the least.

On the Con side of the argument, I’m concerned that we have been pointed only in one direction in terms of voting, and churning through the same candidates. The Day One and onward bandwagon of townie on townie action (heh) hasn’t been broken and we ultimately haven’t called other people to task and haven’t investigated but a small handful of people. The longer the game goes, the more complicated others’ records become to analyze. And I still argue that we should vote based on who we think is scum, not based on who will tell us the most when they die, if we want to win.

But I’d really like to hear from Lightnin about all that I posted before I make a decision.

If the situation were as simple as that then of course I would vote for myself. But it’s a false choice: we are not only limited to vague suspicion and a potential breadcrumb. We know, if the game is winnable, that people can be brought out by their votes and their posts – if not, we might as well forfeit now that the Detective is out of the game!

We are also not limited to just choosing between Lightnin’ and I, and creating two suspects early in the day to the exclusion of all other suspicion is not helpful to Town.

Fortunately we have the rest of today for Lightnin to respond and for us to continue going back and forth over the available information. We shouldn’t judge gut feelings at the most important, but there are logical ways to look at the voting history and even what people have chosen to post and not to post.

You shouldn’t overlook anything. But you should look deeper. The fact that you dismissed my long post by returning to your original point, which I have argued at great length as to why it doesn’t make sense, to me is more suspicious than anything.

It does not make sense for Mafia to have so many confirmed kills, particularly in cases of Town vs Town showdowns. It makes sense to avoid being held to task for those votes - as you’ve done, just as you’ve tried to turn around as if it’s a good thing.