Mafia: The Thrill of the Chase [Newbie Friendly!]

[choie]

@Trepa_Mayfield

I can extend the night by a couple days, I guess. I’m a bit worried, though, that if I let it go too long, more people will wander away. Yeah, two extra night days seem like a decent compromise. So Night 4 would end on Tuesday, the 27th. Does that work for everyone?

Sounds good, albeit long, but I think it’s fair. I think the next couple of weeks are gonna be rough for us, conversationally, what with New Year’s also coming soon and people possibly going away. Not me though. I never go nowhere, sigh. (Not that it’ll matter if I’m not alive in the game, heh.) Thanks, Trepa

@Svejk_1

I’m sorry, missed that, I was just looking at that myself. Clearly, I should stop junior modding and go to bed. As soon as I finish my drink, that is.

No biggie, and it was nice only seeing one vote after my name, even if it was wrong. It’s not junior modding, it’s helping out. Thanks for that.

PCM, man. Freakin’ PCM. What are we gonna do about that guy?

Hirka, I don’t disagree with anything you said. The only trouble is that in my experience, that’s how Silver Jan plays, town or no town. As Eliza Doolittle might have said, “OMGUSing is mother’s milk to her.” This style got her falsely lynched in De’endee on Day 2. Also, re: her relatively low post-count, she was away for nearly a week (possibly more?), so she didn’t have as much in-game time to post as the rest of us.

I’m not saying your and Mental Guy’s votes on her aren’t well-founded; she pings me too. But she pinged me last time as well, and that was wrong, so I think my sonar isn’t very well adjusted. So what am I saying? I dunno. Just mentioning that this is her style and it may not, I repeat, may not, be reflective of her scummitude or not. She votes emotionally and reactively, which isn’t necessarily a judgment on whether she’s scum.

(I’ve been tempted to OMGUS, myself, so I totally understand the instinct. God knows I’ve been fairly itching to vote against Mahaloth since Day 2! But I refrain, nobly, with head held high.)

All this said, I have definitely noticed that almost all of her rationales-for-voting posts are just echoes of other people’s comments. In some ways that’s little different from fubbles’s notorious copypasta school of posting yesterDay (or was it the Day before? I’m losing track of time…) – which is ironic considering that this is the reason she gave for voting for fubbles. This lack of originality is likely due to either her not having time to come up with her own cases/rationales (quite understandable) semi-laziness (less forgivable but still understandable) or inability to come up with anything original due to guilt (perfidious and scummy).

[choie]

NETA: Holy crap, Svejk! That’s impressive. (I wish you’d abbreviated me as “cho” though. “choie” was my cat’s name and I often called her “cho.” :D)

I’m not sure I follow what the 1s mean – that is, I get the vertical rows, that’s how many votes we each had on us. But what do the horizontal rows signify?

[Svejk_1]

Every column is the vote distribution after a given post (starting with #809 by you); Every row is the number of votes that any given player had on them after any given post - so Ed for instance is stable at 1 vote, but Gnarly goes from 2 to 5, which you can read from left to right in the row marked gnc. The different columns are separated by vertical bars |.

I’m done drinking my drink now - I am going to bed for real this time.

[Silver_Jan]

@Hirka_T_Bawa

Ok, I finally had a chance to review Silver Jan. I read through all 44 posts she has… And honestly, I’m really starting to think she is scum She posted a bunch of fluff, or responses to questions, yet I never actually saw her doing any actual scum hunting. She has never posted questions about anyone, and I never saw anything about her that actually stuck out… Honestly, when I opened all 44 posts in tabs, I was closing all of them thinking “this doesn’t say anything”… Well… when I was going through all the tabs saying that, that started to get suspicious. It looks like she is flying WAY under the radar. She has made almost double the posts I have (though, I was away the first day), yet, IMHO, she hasn’t made nearly as many posts about the actual game state… Looks to me like she is trying to keep her post count up, while ignoring what is actually going on.

Here is the posts I saw that made me hit the multi quote message button…

Voting for someone, saying she “must be scum”, and saying it is an OMGUS vote. Sound like she is trying to excuse her actions, and make it sound reasonable. Looks like she is trying to place a vote that won’t be questioned.

Here is another vote that she placed that made me think it was a safe vote, one that wouldn’t be questioned in the grand scheme of things. Also, this is the closest I’ve seen her make in her 44 votes to an actual case against someone.

I agree, you shouldn’t vote for someone you don’t find scummy, and honestly, if you voted for Svejk he probably would have been lynched, because I wouldn’t have changed my vote, and Gnarlycharlie would still be alive today. But, at the time, there was a definite tie.. is keeping the tie pro town or anti town? Specially when we already had a tie on day one. But either way, you never actually made a case against Fubbles, you just agreed with another case, voted him on his revote of septimus, and his amount of “Smiles” in his posts…

Keeping your vote on someone isn’t scummy per se, but not looking at the other cases in the event of a tie is not a townie move, IMHO. I posted a whole list of reasons why you should break the tie, and vote for my candidate. If you didn’t agree, I would think you would have listed a bunch of reasons why I should vote for yours instead.

In conclusion, I don’t see anything in Silver Jan’s 44 posts so far that makes me think she is town at all, most of her posts have been fluff, or responding to other posts. She hasn’t done any scum hunting herself, hasn’t suggest who might be scum or not, and just seems to be going with the flow. To me, this suggests that she might be scum that is trying to stay off the radar.

Vote Silver Jan

What an absolute load of rubbish. I have actually questioned people, in fact you even quoted one. I have posted a list of suspects which includes you!!!

[Mahaloth]

Note: I seem to be able to access the site at work today. I will do my best to analyze things again when I get a break. Whew.

[fluiddruid]

choie, thanks for the concern. I think I’ll be OK. My job isn’t terribly strenuous anyway and if I can sit around at a computer all day at home, I can do it at work. My doctor didn’t seem too worried about me.

@Svejk_1

In Post #706 (below) you state that you find septimus’s claim ‘most likely credible’, and offer some convincing (to me) reasons for believing that. You also make a case that there probably is no vig, since if there had been, he would have probably tried to test septimus’s claim. And yet in posts #970 and #971 (also below) you go back to believing that there might be a vig, and that septimus’s claim might be a lie. The basis for this is that he allegedly messed with his PM - but there is every reason to assume that non-identical PMs were sent out to begin with to prevent handshaking.

Well, part of the issue was that I voted before his explanation. However, at this point, the problem is that I don’t see that there is every reason to assume that. If we had a good mix overall of people who said “Oh, me too!” to septimus’s explanation, I’d be convinced. We just don’t have a quorum at this point and it seems kinda bastard-mod to pepper just a few weird PM titles in there. For that reason, I’m still uncomfortable. It certainly is not absolute evidence, but it’s a note of serious concern for me, and one I’m a little hesitant to discard based on what we know right now.

That said, I tend to agree that septimus isn’t great as a final candidate for lynch today. As I said when placing my vote, it was a pressure vote to get a hasty explanation. We did receive one and, while I have reservations, lynching a claimed Doctor at this stage of the game seems hasty and unnecessarily risky. I think this is something I’m just going to keep at the back of my mind as we move forward, and hope to get more definitive evidence as we go later in the game.

unvote septimus

More soon.

[Svejk_1]

I don’t know if it has to be bastard mod, I think preventing handshaking would be a reasonable reason for adding small differences to otherwise identical texts - but there is actually an even more simple explanation for the differences. Since any doc PM will have to contain completely different text from the town PM that I received, it must be composed separately. If I were composing PMs like that, they probably would not completely conform to a particular pattern, they’d have small differences just because I would not pay attention to small details. YMMV, of course, but I’m happy to accept that if there are small differences, they’ll most likely show up in a doc MP (as opposed to in otherwise identical vanilla town MPs).

So what about your shift in POV re: the existence of a vig. You thought that septimus’s claim was ‘most likely credible’ in post #706, what do you think about it now, there seems to have been a change of heart.

[Svejk_1]

Less than 24 hours to go. What are we going to do people? Currently we have three players tied for the lynch with two votes each (choie, fubbleskag, and Silver Jan), with four votes still not cast (PCM, Ed, FluidDruid, and Fubbleskag). I really think we should be lynching fubbleskag, for whom I’ve voted in post #994. It bothers me a little bit that he has not been back to the thread since to address the issues raised against him during the Day (his last post was #985, more than three days ago. I wish he came back and spoke up.

At any rate, my case is here. Not many people have commented on it, except for MentalGuy who calls it ‘a decent case’ (here) but voted for Silver Jan later (even though that was a one-off vote at the time, and even though Silver Jan herself has also voted for fubbleskag, but perhaps that does not really have to mean anything).

I guess what I am saying is, for those that are voting for others than fubbleskag, and for those that have not voted yet, kindly read my case against fubbleskag and see if you find it convincing, and if you don’t let me know why and maybe I can convince you or answer questions you have. I myself will be reviewing the cases that have been made over the Day to see if there’s any merit to them. Of the cases made against vote leaders, I fail to see the case against Choie. She’s done some things I thought were odd, but I suspect there’s a level of OMGUS sentiment there. By and large she seems pretty helpful and townie to me. The cases against her are not very strong, particularly **Mahaloth’s **justification is weak. Speaking of whom: now that you are getting the SDMB at work again, maybe if you have time, you can answer my questions raised in post #998.

The case against **SilverJan **is stronger, but while I think others have been more helpful as townies, I don’t really think she’s done things that were horribly scummy (which I think is true for fubbleskag). I’d like to hear other’s views in this regard, though. Finally, I am glad that people have unvoted septimus, I think far too much time has been spent talking about something that gives us very little leverage in hunting scum (the role PM titles) when a lot of the other things about Septimus’s claim add up (the timing, etc). In comparison, fubble’s claim is much more suspicious.

[choie]

Hey Svejk, I’m here, honest! I’m just dealing with some last-minute work stuff (my design clients produce gift books and things get frenzied at this time of year; today is the last day for shipping in time for Christmas so you can imagine how busy they are!). I’m heading out to grab something to eat, but once I return I’ll give a considered reply to your case against fubbles, and all the other potential lynchees. Excepting moi, naturally.

[special_ed]

@Svejk_1

I think that the kill was blocked (rather than not carried out). This is inspired in part by Trepa’s comment that “(…) the second victim of the night proved to not actually be a victim at all! That is to say, not dead. That is to say, alive. Yay, life!” (here). But also, it’s because it would appear that whoever is behind the first two extra night-kills (probably the lurkers, **gregorio **and orcenio) still had one lurker left to take out - PCM, who disappeared. Why decide not to use your killing power, all of a sudden, when there is still a good candidate? Perhaps it’s one of those vigs who only has limited powers, or a remorseful, but how likely is that, given again that this game is supposed to be simple? This would indicate that a kill was tried and failed, which in turn would suggest that someone (possibly fubbles or septimus, since 1) they claimed, making themselves targets; 2) they both say they hid/self-protected) dodged a bullet. To me, it is evidence that there is at least one person in the game who has the power to avoid being killed.

Now **fubbles **announced during the night, all of a sudden, and very early, seeing as there had not even been the option of voting for him, and seeing as the problems that people had with him were quite mild (in my recollection at least, but fubbles agrees at least with regard to SilverJan’s accusations, as he calls them weak straw-grasping). If he had not claimed, a more straightforward case could be made that a vig had tried to take out a self-protecting septimus, lending more credence to his claim that he is a town doctor. The timing of fubbles’s claim (during the night, when vig, sk, and scum can still change their minds on who to take out) is odd to me. It would appear that **fubbles **put himself at risk if he really is a hider, *and *that he made things needlessly complicated for town. **Fubbles **gets called out on his timing by choie, but does not respond. Later, he claims that '(post #947) he was ‘tired of defending [him]self’ - but I don’t feel that he had been doing a whole lot of defending at that point, which makes me think that his claim, prompted so easily, was in fact a way of throwing sand into the (admittedly poorly functioning) town-machine, confusing us and making things needlessly complicated.

The late **Guiri **points out (here) that ‘Between the abstain, the attack on Mahaloth, the handshake attempt, the smilies, the evasiveness, voting the doc, the self-vote with its strained logic, and the claim’, fubbles mostly seems to have been attracting day-time votes, when he should have been attracting night-time kills so that scum would waste a kill on him, eg by trying to look like a power role. If there’s any night-kill he would have been trying to attract, it would probably be a town-aligned vig.

I find all of this highly suspicious and I don’t believe fubbles’s claim. At the same time, I am leaning towards thinking that 1) Septimus *is *in fact the doctor; 2) that a vig tried to kill him and failed, which is why we had only one night-kill last Night. Problem here is, that **Septimus **had not announced he would be self-protecting during N3 like he had before N2; it seems like a big risk for a vig to take. So perhaps there is something else going on here that I am missing. At any rate, my suspicion of **Fubbleskag **stands, so without further ado:

vote fubbleskag

OK, This isn’t bad.

When I’m reminded of my own suspicion of fubble earlier in the game, it makes even more sense.

The playstyle has been odd. (I know, pot, kettle) However, while my playstyle is different from my usual style, it’s not as…I’m not sure how to describe it…intentionally obtuse. I mean, I give fewer reasons, I play more hunches, try to apply pressure, but I don’t do so in a way to try to confuse anyone.

**vote: fubbleskag **

[Scathach]

I don’t like the fubbleskag lynch. I think he’s more likely to be 3rd party than scum if anything. And honestly, I think he’s most likely to just be town playing oddly (he misreported his results as town cop before - I’d expect anything!)

Of the other lynches, I think I prefer Silver Jan to choie. Moar rereading

[Scathach]

@Svejk_1

I think that the kill was blocked (rather than not carried out). This is inspired in part by Trepa’s comment that “(…) the second victim of the night proved to not actually be a victim at all! That is to say, not dead. That is to say, alive. Yay, life!” (here). But also, it’s because it would appear that whoever is behind the first two extra night-kills (probably the lurkers, **gregorio **and orcenio) still had one lurker left to take out - PCM, who disappeared. Why decide not to use your killing power, all of a sudden, when there is still a good candidate? Perhaps it’s one of those vigs who only has limited powers, or a remorseful, but how likely is that, given again that this game is supposed to be simple? This would indicate that a kill was tried and failed, which in turn would suggest that someone (possibly fubbles or septimus, since 1) they claimed, making themselves targets; 2) they both say they hid/self-protected) dodged a bullet. To me, it is evidence that there is at least one person in the game who has the power to avoid being killed.

It could be equally well explained if scum/vig/SK targeted fubbleskag who was hiding behind someone else. Now granted, I struggle to find a reason why scum or SK would attempt to kill fubbleskag, who’s doing a perfectly good job of getting himself lynched anyway but a Vig might conceivably target him in order to confirm his claim.

Honestly, I’m unsure.
I’ll
** unvote special ed
vote Silver Jan ** for the moment.

I’m aware that this makes a tie, but there’s a while left in day yet.

[Mahaloth]

@Mahaloth

Note: I seem to be able to access the site at work today. I will do my best to analyze things again when I get a break. Whew.

:sigh:

Yeah, it worked for like 10 minutes, then it went back to “waiting for reply” again. I have no idea what the connectivity issues are.

I’m keeping my vote on fubbles, but will try to read things tonight.

[Mahaloth]

NETA:

Make that “keep my vote on choie”, not fubbles.

[special_ed]

@Mahaloth

NETA:

Make that “keep my vote on choie”, not fubbles.

tough to remember who you voted for when you’re faking it all, Scum, isn’t it?

[special_ed]

@Scathach

It could be equally well explained if scum/vig/SK targeted fubbleskag who was hiding behind someone else. Now granted, I struggle to find a reason why scum or SK would attempt to kill fubbleskag, who’s doing a perfectly good job of getting himself lynched anyway but a Vig might conceivably target him in order to confirm his claim.

Honestly, I’m unsure.
I’ll
** unvote special ed****
vote Silver Jan ** for the moment.

I’m aware that this makes a tie, but there’s a while left in day yet.

oh goodie! another tie!

[Scathach]

@special_ed

oh goodie! another tie!

Well, yeah, but there’s 4(?) non voters still so I won’t lose sleep over it. And honestly, even if it was an hour before Night with no one online I’d do the same. I think Silver Jan is more suspicious than fubbles (in a weird sort of meta way, because fubbles is drawing so much attention to himself that I think he’s more likely to be town, whereas Jan is unusually quiet so more likely to be scum trying to avoid attention).

[fubbleskag]

PCM is our Vig/SK

His last post in the game thread was 12/06:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14536510&postcount=498

His last post on the dope was 12/07:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14541572&postcount=32

Our last double night kill was 12/11:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14553810&postcount=630

His last reported activity on the dope was 12/12:

Straight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest,...

The sudden and mysterious drop to a single night kill was on 12/18:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14578939&postcount=955

[fubbleskag]

@Scathach

Well, yeah, but there’s 4(?) non voters still so I won’t lose sleep over it. And honestly, even if it was an hour before Night with no one online I’d do the same. I think Silver Jan is more suspicious than fubbles (in a weird sort of meta way, because fubbles is drawing so much attention to himself that I think he’s more likely to be town, whereas Jan is unusually quiet so more likely to be scum trying to avoid attention).

I believe everyone except me and PCM have voted, actually.

[Mahaloth]

I’ve read the Day. It did not really take all that long, actually. I’m keeping my vote where it is for now.

I think fubble may be right on Preblahblah being our vigilante.