That, and the fact that a Vig’s target can’t role-claim or try to explain their actions.
Yeah, that’s a bit harder to explain in terms of information - it’s comparing an interactive process to a much less interactive one.
Why would we not fight the symptoms as well as the disease. Until we get a lead on the godfather, lynching the recruits everyday works. If we collectively think that Pleonast is scum, we should lynch him.
It doesn’t feel like scummy play to me, but stupid town play.
Menocchio, thanks for the detailed explanation. I disagree with the strategy you propose, but I see where you’re coming from.
Ugh. I’m sorry for not posting this weekend, but I’ve had some personal issues that I’ve had to deal with, and I’m a bit of a wreck.
I really don’t like this impending Pleonast lynch. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to believe his role-claim. It just seems a bit too reckless for a scum to try to pull off. (Yeah, yeah, never say scum would never/always do anything, I know. I’m sure it’s possible that scum would take such a gamble; I’m just saying I find it more unlikely than not.)
I don’t think Menocchio is scum either, which presents a bit of a dilemma in terms of voting, since no one else is even remotely close to being lynched toDay.
I have an early morning tomorrow, so I’ll come back for a vote tomorrow afternoon.
I’m going to channel Storyteller a moment.
Vote for who you think is scummiest. If you really think that neither of the leading two are scum (and there’s good odds of that) then vote for the person who is. Not only do you leave a record behind, but there may be others out there who would vote for your choice, but feel they have no chance of making an impact.
Unvote HazelNutCoffee
Vote CapnPitt
Hazelnut has impressed me somewhat with her sincerity since I voted, so I’m moving to someone else on my FOS list.
You’re right, I did make a mistake in the formula, as you pointed out with regard to the Bishop. However, that isn’t correct either. The point was that the term that includes p© and B needs to approach 1 as p© is small, and approach zero as p© is large, it also needs to be zero if B is zero (which is where I screwed up), the the term really should be (1 - p©)B not (1 - p©B); you could also make it p(~C)B, but that might be more confusing.
The reason I included variables for Doc, Vig, and Bishop, was so the formula could be updated unambiguously if/when any of those roles die. I suppose you could use a simpler variable for all unrecruitables, but then it gets more abstract; I was trying to keep it easily understandable so everyone can follow my math since it’s a formula I made up and can’t be backed up elsewhere (unlike the information theory formula I use early, which I can support with some external source). Plus, it allows people to point out an error in my math, like you just did.
I’m sorry, I have to interject here. The Vigilante is NOT firing blind, he has the benefit of the town’s discussion to go off of. There are other advantages to the Vigilante that the town doesn’t have. First, we can be assured that his “vote” is pro-town motivated, even if poorly reasoned. Second, the influence of the scum is reduced, because it is only their reasoning, and not their votes that may affect his decision. Third, he can act in a specific way without facing the wrath of the town, eg “Why are/aren’t you voting for HIM?” We all may :smack: when he screws up, but we’ll also 
when he’s right, and his towniness will be dependant solely upon his Daytime play and reasoning.
Can he be a liability? Absolutely, but he can also be a valuable asset, provided we have enough discussion to allow him to decide if he has a reasonable suspicion of anyone AND if it’s a shot worth taking. So, please LET’S figure out who we should lynch, but let’s ALSO get some discussion about other potential candidates.
You’re quite right that some of the town power roles have extra information that is not shared with the town az a whole. But can that really be said to be information that the town has? In this sort of environment, I don;t think you should, and I interpreted “the town’s knowledge” to mean what we all know from public sources of information.
The thing is, in context you were trying to whip up some in-game fear of what the Vig might do. Yes, the Detective will have more information than the Vig. The detective is better informed than most of the players in the game at this point. That doesn’t mean the Vig should just sit on their tail every night. They have to be free to take their best shot.
You’re right to be concerned about the chance that the Vig could take out a power role without warning. But so could the Mafia - without warning. Worse, they could subvert the power role (in many cases) and have it used against us.
I’m still uncertain about who to vote for. There’s one issue to think round before I vote. I think we’ve just passed the 24 hour to go mark so I can take a little time.
Back in a while.
Theory: Pleonast is scum who was recruited by a male Boss and “slipped” that the boss was female.
That’s not always a bad thing.
Okay, time to play some mind games with the scum. 
There’s actually three possibilities regarding Pleonast, and I think they SHOULD be brought up, because it’s changing my opinion about what we should do with regard to him. He could either be scum or town AND he could either be the Priest or not; obviously, one alternative is impossible (scum AND Priest), so let’s look at potential motivations behind his actions:
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Priest - Simple scenario, he did exactly what he said he did for the reasons he said. Not much to discuss here, but clearly pro-town motivated, even if you disagree with the reasoning
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Scum - Simple, he panicked and made an unwisely rash decision. However, he also should have been aware that IF he lives through the Day, he’d likely be investigated. Thus, he would be found out, unless he’s the Boss and get’s really lucky. OTOH, it IS possible he is depending on the third condition to be considered but, as I said early, it’s rather complex and risky, and makes a LOT of assumptions that I just can’t see scum doing at this time.
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Pro-town and NOT Priest - This is a rather complex situation. This all assumes the scum would likely believe his claim knowing that he’s not scum. Assume he’s some other valuable pro-town power role. If he’s, say, the Doctor, and attempt to recruit him would obviously fail, so the scum would be convinced he’s what he says he is. Further, if they tried to kill him, they may assume he was protected by the doctor, leaving them to look amongst those who supported him for the Doc, and allow him to protect someone else. Or maybe he’s another pro-town role, but recruitable; the scum may forego trying to recruit him (thinking he’s a Priest), and since recruiting is still a valuable option, may also forego killing him, allowing him to use his powers for another couple of Days.
2b) The problem with option 3 is, that IF scum were playing this gambit (which, as I’d say is HIGHLY unlikely, due to it’s complexity, and the necessary assumptions), it would only work IF the detective decided to investigate him (which he probably won’t) AND he’s the Boss AND he came up as another power role.
Bottom line, looking at this, the motivation is just HEAVILY lacking for anything other than a truthful Priest, so I’m actually inclined to discourage the Vig from hitting Pleonast, and instead, let the scum sort through the possibilities, because I’m quite certain that SOMEONE out there will investigate him, which is information we’ll eventually get, and when he becomes more confirmed, the scum will HAVE to kill him, because they’ll eventually have to start killing confirmed townies.
I want to add some of my own general advisory comments here as well. A difference of opinion and/or strategy is NOT necessarily a scum tell. Two people arguing could mean just about anything. They could both be scum, trying to distance themselves from eachother and possibly gain some townie cred when the other dies. One could be scum, one could be town, where the scum is likely caught and trying to weasel his way out of it by turning blame on the other. Most likely, however, it’s town vs. town. It’s very common for suspicion to be reciprocal, or for disagreements over strategy turn into the mafia equivalent of Godwin’s law. But mutual finger pointing alone doesn’t necessarily mean anything, as there’s potential motivation for each role in each situation.
Similarly for those looking at “bloodthirsty” as a scum tell… it’s not. Sure, scum want townies dead, but being bloodthirsty puts them in the spot light. Similarly, townies want scum dead. Similarly, NOT being bloodthirsty isn’t either. Scum COULD be laying low, but then they risk the accusations of being a lurker. Similarly, a townie may be indecisive or find all the arguments unpersuasive, and not like his options.
The BEST way to look for scum is to examine motivation. That is, “why might a townie do this” vs. “why might scum do this”; whichever has a higher weight is the strength of that tell. For instance, a flaw in reasoning could EASILY be a mistake made by either side, which makes it a null tell, because there’s no more or less motivation for either person. What’s helpful is to put yourself in scums shoes and try to figure out what their motivations are, and then use that to examine the potential scenarios, and you can assign probabilities based on how well they line up.
Either way, we HAVE to remember that the scums’ motivations aren’t simply to get townies killed, as that could easily expose them. They want the town dead, but by providing the least amount of exposure of their own motivations.
So, when evaluating a situation like Pleonast’s claim, going “OMG, only scum would do that so early” COMPLETELY ignores the the potential motivation for an a TOWNIE to have done the same thing.
Similarly, probabilities only make sense in certain contexts, and motivations is NOT one of them. For instance, the probability that Pleonast is a Priest is P/n to any of us, but from his perspective, that information is 100% known; it’s either 1 or 0. Thus, the probability of him being a Priest really has little bearing, because he either IS or IS NOT. Which is why his actions should be filtered through the motivations of someone who IS the Priest and the motivations of someone who is NOT the Priest. Probabilities are useful for this game, but if we go purely off of the odds, no one is likely to be scum or the doctor or whatever else, but inevitably, SOMEONE has to be.
Blah… I probably rambled too long… so I’ll stop.
I am going to come out and say that I don’t like either of the lynch candidates we have at this point.
I think that we are idiots if we lynch or suggest that we vig a claimed power role. WHY WOULD WE DO THAT? Blaster’s last couple of posts sum up what I am feeling farily well, but I think it is important to reiterate that the likelyhood of Pleo having false claimed at this stage is very low.
It has been interesting to kind of sit back and watch the game develope and be less agressivly involved then I have been in the past. This will likely change toMorrow, but it has been interesting. I am working up some notes on what I think at this stage that I will post before the end of the Day.
I think it might be a good idea for everyone to post just a general synopsis of what they are thinking before the Day ends. It will make it easier to keep track of everyone, and will make it more obvious if someone’s viewpoint changes midgame.
I am sticking with my vote. I haven’t seen anyone else say anything that has struck me as so blatantly scummy. Also, the good Captain’s participation level has been surprisingly neutral. His post count is solidly middle of the pack, and his fluff to content ratio is about middle of the road too. He is just too perfectly on the fence, I don’t like it at all.
I’m glad you posted that. It’s really helpful for new folks like me.
Grrr…no edit annoyance…I didn’t mean glad that you stopped rambling. I mean for the post as a whole. Thanks.
NAF all I can say in my defense is that I made a newbie mistake. If you want to lynch me for it, then by all means, go ahead, but you’re making a bigger mistake by doing so.
After Millit pointed out the logical trap I fell into, I understand much better why it makes me suspect. However, I’m not scum and I have no idea what I could do or say to make you change your mind.
I have to say, in light of the fact that CapnPitt is inexperienced, as I laid out in one of my recent posts, it’s very likely that he’ll interpret an argument as necessarily being between two people of opposing factions. That is, this is a mistake that could easily be pro-town motivated by simple inexperience. I hate to do this, but for those who are familiar with the Day Two fiasco of M2, I was one side of a disagreement over strategy which ultimately led to much of the rest of the town either taking sides, or assuming one side or the other simply must be made primarily of scum. In the end, I “won” because I had a trump card (I was the Vig, which was easily testable to the town). The reasoning that SOMEONE in the argument MUST be scum, led to the lynching of who I found out in subsequent games, was actually an intelligent player. Meanwhile, the scum pretty much sat back and watched us rip at eachother.
My point is simple, not everyone can be measured by the same ruler. For instance, these actions may be a classic scum tell because the motivation is clearly favoring scum, but only so much that he’s experienced. Thus, both an experienced townie and an experienced scum would avoid such behavior knowing, for the townie, that it was silly, and for the scum, knowing that it would reveal his scummy motivations. IME, newbies, particularly scum, will tend to be very hands off, particularly in a case like town in fighting, because labelling one as necessarily scum would clearly lead to some guild on his hands when both were eventually lynched and neither turned up scum.
Thus, I’m inclined to believe, if anything, that his actions show a slight tendency toward newbie townie mistake than newbie scum mistake. However, I’m not really inclined to think it’s anything more than a null tell, because of the following scenarios surrounding how he’d be scum:
CapnPitt is the Boss - I would guess a new player with a recruit power would almost certainly use it, with or without any understanding of the numbers, they’d likely simply not one to be one-shot and he’d want an experienced player for insight an advice. Now, I’m unsure if a new recruit gets any time to converse or not before the Day starts (I’d assume not), but if they did, he’d have the advice of an experienced scum, or he’d either have faild the recruit or not have been able to speak to him, in which case I imagine he’d continue to lay low. Being “distinctly in the middle”, as NAF describes him, again, only appears to be low to an experienced player who understands how posting patterns can play out.
CapnPitt is a recruit - Without regard to why the Boss may or may not have chosen him, the Boss COULD provide some advice and guidelines before the Day whether or not they could actually speak before dawn. I’d especially expect information with regard to how they should seperate themselves, and how they should treat common scenarios (particularly disagreements amongst townies). IOW, I’d expect he would have been given some advice on avoiding those very sorts of statements.
Bottom line, had someone like you, NAF, had done what he’d done, I’d be all for getting some information out of him. However, given his predicament, I just can’t see the traction for scummy motivation here.
Sorry, guys. Hit a busy patch…but I’ll be back tonight to catch up. Just wanted to quickly check in to say I’m still around (although I wasn’t around much to post yesterday).
I understand your argument, but I am not sure that his newness totally exonorates him. The distancing himself from his own arguments, the staying in the middle of the pack. to me that says scum *as well as * inexperience. I would rather see him lynched instead of Mennochio or Pleo who I don’t see as being scummy at all right now. It isn’t just that he fell into the “one of these players must be scum” fallacy (which I could dismiss as just being new) but how he posted about it and how he has been posting generally. To me that all reads as scum.
Cap, the way you will change my mind is by a) dying or b) surviving long enough that other players are scummier than you. It’s early in the game and one (in my opinion) big scum slip means more at this stage then it will later on. If you aren’t scum you don’t have anything to worry about becasue the worst that can happen is you will get killed.