FTR, I concur, but because it looks sloppy to say “toDay” or “yesterDay” I will tend to just capitalize the word. If it is grammatically ambiguous (ie, it’s at the beginning of a sentence), I will tend to rewrite such that it is clear that the capitalization is intentional. Just a point of reference for those observing that I do not follow that convention.
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Fair enough.
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Yes, as I explained, bandwagon jumping is a null tell in and of itself; however, I was specifically referencing his jumping without providing a reason.
I made this patently clear yesterday when I expressed my suspicion of him, thus attempting to differentiate between my reasoning yesterday on those grounds is baseless.
Further, this statement of “You were so level headed yesterDay…” is an excellent example of a smudge, because you’re alluding that I was recruited last Night while not overtly stating such.
Thus, I challenge you to back up this statement, that my reasoning has changed, otherwise it’s, at best, an accidental misrepresentation, and possibly a deliberate misrepresentation, of my reasoning.
Okay. Here’s what I said.
You complain about my point 2, “I can’t think of a single town reason to do that”. Well, read my point 1. That’s why.* I even prefaced it with “I’m stating this publicly for two reasons” to clue players in as to why.
I had another, unstated, reason for posting my point 2–to force a kind of WIFOM on their recruitment strategy. The Mafia must now consider our suspicions when recruiting. Since they know that we will be scrutinizing lurkers as better recruitment candidates, they have to weigh recruiting a candidate who has short record (but more likely to be watched carefully) versus one who has a long record (and give more evidence when motivation changes).
*I assume that current Townies will want to minimize their chances of recruitment. However, there’s a possibility that a Townie could play to encourage their own recruitment. This is especially true if we get to a point when the Town is not doing so well. Personally, I think it’s bad form to try to switch sides, but unfortunately, the rules allow it.
Yeah but we aren’t. In order to better utilize the vigilante, to whatever end, it helps to know their motiviation. Thus, you discuss it. Besides, discussing things, anything, gives more data to help you determine your patterns. I also think that figuring out how the vigilante works would give the protectors info they could use.
And you’re missing my point. Those numbers don’t give enough information to make a good decision from, so it comes down to a gut reaction. I’m not saying don’t use numbers, I’m saying be careful when using numbers that don’t have solid evidence behind them, and don’t knock gut reactions. We don’t have solid numbers to work with, so a lot of this is going be gut reaction.
But actions can be neither pro-town or anti-town. People aren’t always logical.
So in two days and one vote do you have enough information to see a pattern in my actions?
Hmm, yeah your right, I can see that. I should have at least said something about who’s argument I was agreeing with. I thought that since it was just above my post it might be obvious, but I shouldn’t have assumed. I can see this as valid reasoning for suspicion.
Oh it was totally a smudge, and implied exactly what you thought it did. I almost ended that post with a vote for you, but decided I would rather see how you reacted to my post before I laid down a vote. As of now I am thinking no to voting for you.
I have a short list of people who I think are prime candidates for early drafting attempts into the mob and you are on it BlaM. Take it as a sign of respect. You are a dagnerous fella when you are scum, so I am watching you and a few others with special interest.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, can we talk a bit more about the right time to role claim in a game like this? If, for example, the vig had accidentally outed themselves toDay, would it be prudent to role claim rather than risk getting targeted by the scum. What if a priest did it? Should we have a second priest roleclaiming?
I know talking about power roles is usually verbotten, but I think this game has to be played differently. I also think (after running You-Solve-It) that the risk of open strategy discussion is negated by the reward of more solid teamwork and better shared information. That being said, let’s try to keep the talk abstract and numbers driven. I don’t want anyone to actually risk outing themselves.
You have a good point, NAF, about discussing claims. But I see a problem. Many of our power roles can be especially nasty if made the Capo. I’d rather not let the Mafia pick and choose for the best one. So I think any mass reveal is best delayed until either the Boss or the Capo is lynched.
There’s two exceptions: Priests. They could mass claim and make a core of unrecruitable Townies. Two obvious problems: 1) improves recruitment risk for everyone else, and 2) not easily verifiable. My inclination is that it’s not worth doing at this point, but maybe in a Day or three when the Mafia switches from recruiting to killing. I think it should be discussed.
And Masons. They are not unrecruitable, but they are verifiable. Their 50% recruitment resistance makes them less likely targets. A mass claim will definitely be useful at some point. Probably not yet, but they need to consider it.
As for hotseat claiming: I recommend any power role who is under threat to claim. Maybe not as quickly as I did, but before the last day of the Day. Lynching a power role is always bad for the Town. Having the possibility of one recruited is gives us a chance at keeping you.
Reviewing the roles, I want to point out useful strategies to two of our power roles. Wish I had done this earlier. We have two recruitment powers on our side: the Bishop and the Police Chief may both promote a Townie. These should be done as early as possible in the game. If you postpone it, you may be killed or recruited before you can use it. Think about it.
I just cannot agree here. His motivations are clearly pro-town, so what is there to discuss about them? He will kill, or not kill, based upon his reasoning, or perhaps whatever reasoning he finds persuasive. Whether or not he actually does the optimal action or not matters with regard to acheiving our win conditions, but does not help us find scum. The outcome of his actions is helpful in determining what the scum may or may not have done, but all we can do is try to provide good reasoning and, if so desired, recommendations. Whether or not he feels like trying his luck or wants to play conservatively, whether he attempted a kill and failed, or didn’t try at all, does not change the current state, and thus does not alter the optimal action for him (whatever it may be).
I am being careful. I explicitly stated my guesses and estimates. Primarily, the purpose of the numbers, as far as guessing the non-recruitables, was to have an idea of the risk of failure for a recruitment. People were saying that recruitment has a higher chance of failure, therefore he probably would have killed. My argument was simply, yes it does have a higher chance, but because of the much larger reward (about double) versus still being more likely than not to succeed (about 2/3 chance of successful recruit), the optimal move, probabilistically speaking, would have been to recruit. Does that mean that’s necessarily what the boss did? No. But, unless my guesses are WAY under what the Boss would have guessed, it’s good reason to believe he probably attempted a recruitment and probably succeeded.
Treating this specific scenario as more likely allows us to utilize particular information more specifically. Obviously, my information theory stuff is just a theoretical model, for a more realistic thoughts like “it seems about the same chance”, “it seems more likely than not”, or “it seems very likely”, etc.
The primary point of the model was to make the simple point that we HAVE to make some educated guesses about things because we CANNOT keep thinking of every possible scenario as equally likely, otherwise, we have a very large noise ratio.
So, sure, I’m willing to conceed I don’t have hard evidence that there’s 3 Priests; it’s based on my personal experience with out this game tends to be set up. However, I don’t think it’s a terribly inaccurate guess that will effect the general notions of likelihood in a such a substantial way that “more likely than not” becomes “equally likely” or even “less likely than not”.
This is simply terminology. A pro-town action is an action that benefits the town, an anti-town action is an action that hurts the town. For instance, I would have said that the no-lynch on Day One was against the best interests of the town, thus a vote for a no-lynch was an anti-town action. Obviously, interpretations of what is pro-town or anti-town can vary and, more specifically, at most one person who voted for the no-lynch was scum, and so the correlation between pro-town action and pro-town motivation is simply necessarily weak at best.
This is why I’ve said not to look at things like definisiveness or grammatical slips because, while they may or may not be an anti-town action, the motivations, and thus ultimately the actual towniness or scumminess of the individual, they simply do no have any real, tangible correlation to scumminess.
I had observed a pattern over two Days, which is as much as could be observed over two Days. That pattern may or may not change; obviously, we’re still early int he game. Given the information available, the pro-town motivations based on the actions I observed seemed definitively less than the other options (Pleonast, Menocchio, and CapnPitt).
It is always in the best interest of town to provide a trail for their reasoning, but doing so, it allows for accountability for their actions as well as forces the scum to also provide trails. A vote without reasoning does not leave traces of the underlying motivation, but even a badly reasoned vote does.
To refer back to a post I made yesterday about how this game essentially pits our numerical advantage against the scum’s informational advantage, this is one methodology we can utilize to force them to give up some information. The more they participate, the more effort they have to put in to look like a townie, the more evidence we get, and the more useful it is.
In light of this discussion, I’m more inclined to believe a lot of the differences between us are primarily differences in strategy and/or experience, and not so much a difference in motivation. So, I’m reasonably satisfied at this time to remove my vote from you an examine someone else.
Unvote hotflungwok
Fair enough. Just as I’m going to call out smudges against me, as they can be useful tools for scum. I suppose I will take that as a sign of respect, thanks. 
Anyway, yes, if the scum are looking for an experienced player, there’s a reasonably short list of people that would likely be on their list, and I’m aware I’m a likely candidate if that’s there strategy. I’d also conceed that is a likely strategy. OTOH, it again introduces a WIFOM situation, like with Pleonast’s lurker recruitment idea. In fact, I was in a similar situation before in the Pirate game, where I was left alive specifically as cover Gadarene. That is, even if they are following that strategy, and even if I am the obvious choice, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
OTOH, the discussion of these potential strategies will be very useful for future reference after we’ve lynched a scum or two, because perhaps we’ll be able to determine a pattern.
FWIW, I didn’t get the opportunity to follow the You-Solve-It game, but I can certainly find several scenarios in previous games that apply. Hence, this specifically is the other reason why discussing these strategies is important. With a few exceptions (like the identity of certain power roles), the situation is almost always to the benefit of the town to maximize information. Thus, discussing strategies and ideas openly is helpful because, ultimately, if everything is known, the game is won by the town, so approaching this is obviously our best option.
As for discussing power roles, I no issue with discussing potential strategies, or even, as it may arise, parituclar tells. I run under the assumption that the scum are at least as smart as I am, thus anything I notice, they’re likely to notice as well. Meanwhile, a particular person in a particular role may or may not see the same thing. Thus, by discussing a power role’s strategy, we’re really not telling the scum anything more than they probably already know, but may help the person who actually has that role.
NETA: NAF, in the interest of sharing information and strategy openly, do you care to share your “short list”. I’m interested in seeing who else has the same level of respect from you that I do, and why I haven’t observed you go after them. Since I was primarily responding to your logic and not your back pedaling, I don’t think I made it clear sufficiently clear that I find your action, and your explanation very suspicious.
You admit that it was a smudge, and that it meant what I thought it meant. But say I hadn’t called you on it… what then? You would have been left with a clear example of a misrepresentation of another player and a smudge.
What about my reaction made you change your mind about voting for me? From my perspective, it looks like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar and then a quick attempt to cover up with strategy talk.
And I’ll state plainly, my vote very well may land on you if I don’t find your “short list” and your explanation of whatever you expected my reaction to be sufficient. 
I remember, when we did that. It was one of our smarter moves I think. But you are right, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything and I think trying to get THAT far into the scum’s heads will only get us into trouble. There are too many possibilities and variables to consider and not enough information on our end. But it doesn’t hurt to try and see what the big catagories of choice are, and work our way towards more solid evidence from there.
(does any of the above make sense. It’s clear in my head, but I don’t think I am writting it down very well)
Good, then we are in agreement on this point. What does everyone else think?
Meh, vote away. I am not sure that sharing the short list is a good idea at this point. Pleo was on it, but if he is a priest he is unrecruitable, and if he isn’t we can deal with that later. I want to see things play out a little longer today.
As to the rest…
I do not feel that it was a misrepresentation, just that it was a smudge. They are different. I made some implications with the intention of getting a reaction from you. I wanted to see what you would do if I brought up your behavior yesterDay. I figured that if I pushed a button or two I you would give more infomation than if I had just called you on what I saw as a contradiction. You did, and I am fairly certain that your reaction was a townie one. Lots of logic and just a little OMGUS, in about the right proportion. I could be wrong, but it makes me feel a bit better about you.
I did similar things to other folks yesterDay, but they ignored me (maybe I wasn’t subtle enough) so, I moved on. For now. You are also only a for now. Sad fact of this game.
Okay, I will.
Vote NAF1138
Can you provide some reasoning here? For instance, certainly if Pleonast is on that list, and I am, wouldn’t someone like, say, YOU be on that list?
Surely, anyone else who feels he’s reasonably experienced would expect to be on that list, so they could already reasonably expect to be prodded by you; thus, any bit of “surprise” you might have gained by not providing their name is virtually gone by the very mention of a list.
Further, there does seem to be an apparent contradiction between you having stated you think we should discuss strategies openly, but here you are using a particular strategy and witholding information about it.
Explain to me exactly how this is not a misrepresentation. You specifically accused me of not analyzing hotflungwok’s motivations and implied that my vote for hotflungwok was reasoned around him bandwagon jumping. By that point, and certainly by now in the posts prior to my unvoting him, I had made it clear that it was jumping on bandwagon alone is a null tell, but doing so without providing any reason potentially has anti-town motivation AND I provided my reasoning for why I saw that motivation behind it.
Further, you accused me of not being as level headed and, if my apparent contradiction exists, as you imply, you ought to be able to point out a post from Yesterday and one from Today that demonstrates that contradiction.
Again, you say you’re fairly certain my reaction is a townie one, but… what about it is townie? What if I hadn’t called you on it? What if someone else said called you out saying that wasn’t why I voted for hotflungwok Yesterday?
I just can’t buy what you’re selling
Can you point out an example? I didn’t notice it either.
You make good sense here acutally. It just makes me uncomforable to say anything along the line of “well if I were the scum, I this is how I think I would play so I could win” It just feels very wrong. Also, I am not opposed to talking more about this subject later on this Day even, but at the moment we seem to be monopolizing the conversation and I really would like to hear what other people have to say.
I disagree. It seems to be a contradiction, but there is a difference between saying we should share more than we have in the past, and just giving everything away.
Here is where we run into a problem. It is a more slippery thing than that. First off, it had to do a little with who you accused and why, secondly I think if you actually examine the motivations behind what he was saying you will come to a totally different conclusion about him. (and seem to have since you unvoted him)
The question isn’t what about this is townie, the question is, what about this isn’t townie, and what do the scum stand to gain? The not being level headed bit is more about seeing what you would do with it. The contradiction was in your attitude towards Cap vs. your attitude towards hotflungwok.
You don’t have to.
I did more or less the same thing to Freudian slit and HNC for more or less the same reasons in a much more blunt fashion.
You know, I can’t change what my justification for something was in the past. I acknowledged that I was wrong. I don’t mean just about the lynch itself, but the reasoning behind it. I agree with everything you said about considering motivations in a different light, in your post immediately before the one I’ve quoted. I’m occasionally not very smart, but I’m already grokking what you’re telling me to grok. I’m gonna try to do better this time.
While I do admit that I may be tunnel visioning myself into suspecting Mennochio, he’s still my biggest suspect, so vote Mennochio
Also, minor FoS hotflungwok for that whole vigilante thing. It does feel more like a slip a newbie townie would make, but it is a tiny tick against him.
Okay. I’m new in this game, so I’ve missed a lot of what happened, but this post sort of jumped out at me. Menocchio said “Pleo said he wanted to stop the town from talking about us all Day,” but what is this us? Pleo just wanted the town to stop talking about HIM and move on–he didn’t say anything about anyone else.
And that’s pretty much all I can think of to say at this point.
I explained that earlier. I misspoke. I meant to say “him”.
Pleonast (1) - Darth Sensitive
NAF1138 (1) - Blaster Master
Menocchio (1) - dotchan
hotflungwok (0) - (Blaster Master)
I definitely have my eyes on NAF today, and on subsequent days. As I said, I severly doubt he was scum Yesterday, but Today? Not only is he a veteran and thus a prized get for the mob, but his leadership in getting the Capn lynched would seem a neat prize too.
I’m not casting a vote or even a FoS, I’m just saying investigators… Check out those guys, if you’d be so kind.
I can agree with this.
And this.