Cripes, I hope not - all I’ve had is a two-minute skim of the thread, and I can’t even promise I’ll be back on before end-of-day. The last thing I want is for this to end or almost end on a whimper.
ToDay is only 13 posts long. 
I mentioned that I had written a post Wednesday evening that I thought I accidentally did not post. Sure enough, when I get home Thursday, the computer was still on and when I checked the open tabs in the browser, the post I had written was there in the preview. I decided to save it so you could see what I had written then. Here was the post I thought I made Wednesday night:
I had finally decided to go ahead and vote for Ender, but when I get on and read I run into this:
There is just so much wrong with this post. Even if Stanislaus is third party, we know that he is not scum and we know the rules do not allow for any win-stealing third parties. Voting for him just because you don’t like that he hasn’t responded to you is silly at this point.
I don’t agree with his argument about Ender’s power use either, but if he really did not protect Visor for the reasons he gave, then he is at least being consistent. I just have a problem understanding how he could see a confirmed Town as totally useless.
My first reaction to this post is to immediately vote for Babale because I find the arguments ridiculous. But then I think about it and I have trouble believing scum would actually make that post, especially with the vote for Stanislaus.
Vote Enderw24
though, now I am nervous about it because if I am wrong and Babale is actually scum and Ender is not, I may have helped scum win because they were worse players.
I still pretty much feel the same way, except with really only three players to choose from, I sort of suspect that Babale and Ender are both scum.
And I am a bit afraid that I am giving Astral the type of pass I gave Stanislaus in the De’endee game.
All that said, I still think Ender is the most likely of the three to be scum. I haven’t really seen anything lately that makes me more likely to think he is scum, but nothing that makes me less likely to think that either.
Vote Enderw24
Thanks for the vote MentalGuy. Honestly 
Sorry Hal. It’s most likely going to come down to you. But that’s why they pay you the big bucks, huh? But if you’ll indulge me just a bit, and wait until at least tomorrow evening (that’s tomorrow in real time), that would be great. Babale, you too.
I gotta go to bed, but tomorrow’s gonna be fun. Night all.
Hal Briston
Babale,
I’m going to lay out why I think **MentalGuy **and **Astral Rejection **are scum. My reasons are *not *going to come from this thread. My reasons *aren’t *going to come from a “he said/he said” quote war. My reasons are not going to come from a thorough analysis of the voting record.
For EIGHT weeks we’ve been playing this game and better players than the three of us have poured over everything that was said and every vote cast in an attempt to root out scum and what did that get us? Five mislynches and 12 dead townies. We’ve gotten two scum this game and one was a random killing at night, not a concerted town effort. Despite all town’s effort to find them, scum have been really good at hiding and masking this game and, as a result, the not-scum to scum ratio has gone from 19:4 to 3:2. Scum are winning this game.
But they haven’t won. If we work together, they won’t win.
See, scum may have experience on their side, but we have math on our side. We have logic on our side. Let me start my analysis with a breakdown of Mafia games. Here’s a list of every Mafia game **MentalGuy **and **Astral Rejection ** have participated in, cross referenced with known scum ** Suburban Plankton **and ** Inner Stickler **
De’endee Mafia
[ul]
[li]MentalGuy[/li][li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]Lord of the Rings Mafia
[ul]
[li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]Mafia: The Thrill of the Chase [Newbie Friendly!]
[ul]
[li]MentalGuy[/li][li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]Glasnost Mafia
[ul]
[li]MentalGuy[/li][li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][/ul]Hotel of Heroes mafia
[ul]
[li]MentalGuy[/li][li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][/ul]
No-tell Motel of Sidekicks Unspoiled Heroes Mafia Thread (Players Stay Out!)
[ul]
[li]MentalGuy[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]International Mafia
[ul]
[li]MentalGuy[/li][li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][/ul]
“I’m Too Busy To Play This” Mafia
[ul]
[li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]Mystery Mafia – Game Thread
[ul]
[li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]Genre Fiction Mafia
[ul]
[li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]Official Mafia Game Hosting Line
[ul]
[li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][/ul]Thundercats Mafia Gameplay Thread
[ul]
[li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]Evil Dead Mafia II - Teaser and Sign-Ups [Game On!] (
[ul]
[li]Astral Rejection[/li][li]Suburban Plankton[/li][/ul]Harry Potter Mafia
[ul]
[li]MentalGuy [/li][li]Inner Stickler[/li][/ul]
That’s 14 games they’ve played together over the years.
As a comparison, here’s a list of every mafia game that Babale and I have played against known scum:
This one.
This is my first game of Mafia ever. This may be your first game, but it’s certainly your first on the SDMB. Remember that scum gets to pick their teammates. So answer me this: what are the odds they’d pick someone with ZERO experience in playing Mafia? Even if they wanted to mix it up a little and pick someone with less experience to throw Town off the trail, would they really go with someone with no experience? How can they be certain a complete unknown would fall in line, strategically?
No. They’ve been playing the game too well. Why do you think we’re still alive Babale? I’ve made no bones about how horribly I’ve been playing this game. Is it any wonder that we’re down to 2 experienced players, two complete newbs, and one unkillable third party? They left us alive until the very end because we were the least threatening, and least likely to work out what the hell was going on.
Still not convinced? OK, then let’s look at the voting record. No. Not for the whole damn game. Just toDay. Just in the last 48 hours. First, a tangent. See, here’s the great thing about this game that I’m assuming is different from many other Mafia games at this stage of the endgame. We have Hal, the unkillable third party. That completely messes the math and in a really good way for Town. If we’re down to 5 players, 3 town and 2 scum, then it’s a crapshoot. You know you’re town. But now it’s 50/50 on any other player. Not so with the situation here.
Suppose I’m scum. Go on, let your imagination go wild. OK, I’m scum, Babale, and you’re Town. Since you know you’re town and you know Hal is not scum, what’s left? Three players and two scum and all scum needs to get a mislynch is THREE votes. So what happened here? Both MentalGuy and Astral voted for me. You know who you are, and you know who Hal is, and if you think I’m scum, then you also know for certain that at least one of the players voting for me is scum. Why? Why in the world would my teammate do that? It takes three votes to take down a Townie and they have two and here one scum is trying to vote against another? They could literally end the game toDay and instead there’s a concerted effort to bus me? It makes no sense.
Throughout this game, I’ve made certain to unvote by Day’s end to ensure I had a single vote going into Dusk and not muddle the vote record. Today is different. Babale, your concern a few posts ago was that I could be voting for one townie and one scum and just unvote who I want. That won’t happen. My vote is my vote is my vote. I am not changing my vote. I am not unvoting my vote. I’m the Goddamned North-Going Zax and I will not budge. Here I’ll do it again, just to be double-plus certain:
VOTE MentalGuy
VOTE Astral Rejection
If you think I’m voting for 1 scum and 1 town just to confuse you, I’m here to lay that to rest. Vote for one. Vote for both. I don’t care. My vote’s not changing.
Hal, here’s where you come in. Throughout this game, you’ve been saying you’re a pro-town third party. You win either way, but if you want to end this game today, then I guess vote for me. I can’t stop you but know that you’re siding with Scum. But if you want Town to win, I’m going to need you to vote for someone else. MentalGuy or Astral. I do not care which. But you’ll have to make a choice. And fun thing is that you’re going to have to do it Tomorrow as well, because the tie-breaking vote will come down to you again. It’s the beauty and the irony of the situation that, as I said above, the person least invested in which side wins will be the sole decider in which side wins not once, but twice. Have fun!
And as for Scum? You picked the newb to last this long, but what you didn’t count on is that this newb would go down fighting. If I survive toDay, you’d better kill me twice tonight because my ghost will be coming back to vote for you Tomorrow.
There may only be 18 (now a couple more) posts today, but man, are they ever filled with food for thought!
Going to have to make this quick - on the way to the park with the kids. Ender, you make a good point about whether scum would pick you as a teammate, but that doesn’t take into consideration that you could have been the first scum.
However, I’m going to go with the gut feeling I’ve had all game. I think Astral has been playing a good game, but I’ve had a deep suspicion the whole time. You’ll forgive me if i can’t give better justification at the moment (since I’m literally phoning it in), but I’m going to have to go with my gut on this one (the pool of “two scum in three players” is “two scum in four players” for me, remember).
I have my doubts if I’ll get in another post before this Day ends, so here’s hoping I hit this right:
Vote Astral Rejection
Le sigh. Thus ends the game, unless someone changes their vote.
I have one final counter-argument, but I don’t expect it to sway anybody, given how quiet toDay has been (and where is Mental Guy, anyway?)
Almost all of our known-for-a-fact townies have voiced suspicion or voted for Enderw24 and Babale. Their voting record is supremely suspicious, especially given how readily (and suddenly) they’ve abandoned their suspicions of each other. It’s killing me how little traction that is getting.
The fact is, many, many people have built cases against these two. Their case against me comes down to “process of elimination.” Neither of them have built a case for either of their votes. I don’t understand how their lack of scum hunting is more compelling than the preponderance of cases leveled against them.
They’ve developed a “case” where Mental Guy and I are the final two scum, yet they point to no evidence to support that case. They’ve cleared each other based on the flimsiest of evidence, and the best Enderw24 can do is point out how unlikely it is in his opinion that they were chosen as scum.
Oops, sorry, MentalGuy. Missed your post when I glanced through the thread. Just kinda gloss over the part where I call you out for not posting.
You’re correct. I could have been. But if that’s the case, it doesn’t explain why scum would be voting against me today or why I would be so blase about you hitting either of two people today. Does “Go ahead, hit town. Hit scum. What do I care?” really sound like an effective strategy?
And it’s also possible Babale is, like, the Kayser Soze of scum and has completely fooled me. Even if that’s true -which it’s not - I STILL have a 66% chance of guessing right on the two remaining players.
Ender, if I am wrong and you are Town, I can see where you would follow that line of reasoning (I also see why you would think it a good argument to make if you were scum), but I know the argument is invalid because either you or Babale has to be scum (unless Hal has really somehow snowed us this game). So, the question for me is which of you three did not get picked as scum. I think you are the least likely to be that one.
Since it looks like Astral is going to be the lynch, though, I just hope you guys are right.
They aren’t. This game is solved if we lynch Ender, since you’d be voting for me if you were scum. I’ve got my fingers crossed that Hal changes his mind.
Story, just end the game. Hal said he won’t be coming back, and the scum are locked in on me. I’ve been obsessively checking this thread to see if he pops back in, but I’m gonna say that’s not happening.
Put me out of my misery. Sorry, town. I tried. My scumdar was terribly misaligned this game.
That’s why we need a “hammer” vote 
But more seriously, tempting as it is to take Astral’s words here at face value and conclude he isn’t Scum, I’m afraid I can’t do that. Because what if he IS Scum, and is doing this to convince us Town players to vote for someone else?
Sorry, Astral. But I’m gonna have to go with my gut (and evidence as I see it) here.
Or because you’re a scummy mcscummerson.
Is exactly what you would say if you were a scummy mcscummer!
It doesn’t matter now, since the game is over when I die, but when you’re scum, saying things like
and then not doing it really makes you look scummy. In the interest of improving your game, I thought I’d toss that out there. 
Here’s the funny thing. If you die and flip town, the game will end and you’ll see that I was town also. Wouldn’t that be great? The only two town left leaving scum alone and voting for each other? It would be a perfect end to a perfectly crappy game for Town.
Or, you know, you could be scum and I could be a rock star. I think I’ll take my chances. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go polish my guitar. Or Psaltery. This is the time of Canterbury Tales, after all.*
[sub]*or Hurdy-gurdy, because I like that name[/sub]
You and I have a different definition of “funny.”
Play me some Hurdy-Gurdy, Ender. I like the cut of your lute’s jib.
Well here’s one:
It kind of sounds like electric bagpipes. Weird.
Story, you are killing me in every way save literally right now!