That should be “it just boggles my mind”.
Also, apologies to FCOD for not bolding his name.
RIP zuma…
Just getting caught up, will try to make a coherent post later. For now let me just say that several people seem to be way too fast on the draw - what’s this, the Far West?
The attempts at coming up with a pronoun for when you guys don’t know someone’s gender are hilarious 
and Malacandra I remember is a guy.
Well, time to hit this thread one more time before I retire for the night and come back to find a good three or four pages added tomorrow.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I’m just bound to always keep my mind open to all possiblities though. 
But I do conceed that that’s probably how it went down/what happened.
Snipped.
This drives me to remember the eight or so that voted for Mtgman on the first Day. That was quite a bandwagon and it also seemed to grow fairly quickly. Now I don’t think for one second that the Cultists would be that stupid as to all hop on the same person but I would think that the odds were fairly good that one did, at the very least. Looking over the list of those that cast a vote for him, though, I find only one that had any stong pings on my meter as of yet and that’s Pleonast, who cast a vote for him fairly late in the game after having it on someone else earlier (actually a few somebodies else before finally settling).
And weighing in on this whole Mal/zuma thing…I’m flabbergasted as well but I think I’m leaning a bit more towards thinking that Mal is a bit more suspicious to me than he was before, but not because zuma turned out to be town or because of the weird, out-of-the-blue vote (Get it? Out of the blue? Get it?) but mostly because he was willing to help his case of being town based on if zuma was scum before and seems to be doing it now based on finding out zuma is town.
That, if anything, shows shady techniques.
But for now I’m going to sleep on it and see what tomorrow brings after I come back. I’m actually curious to see what he has to say about it before rushing and voting for him.
I also want to see the comments of others, obviously, and see if anything else jumps out or raises my hackles more than the ones who have them raised now.
Night all.
I’m drunk. Will post tomorrow.
Ok, just got home from work, and reading through the Dawn and aftermath… a little unexpected because zuma wasn’t on my radar at all. I actually kept getting him and Zeriel mixed up. At least we only have one Z-player and one Captain now… still have two Monkeys and to aquatic types though. I think I can keep everyone straight now though.
I’m still trying to make sense of the end of the last Day (pile up on Mtgman) and Night. Hopefully I’ll have something meaningful to contribute when I have chance to go through it all, which will be in the morning.
I’ll have to spend some quality time with the thread tomorrow to go through zuma’s posts and Mtgman’s bandwagon. For now:
While I don’t think we need to pick through the possibilities too much, I could certaintly see the Crusader trying a kill, if heesh had a semi-strong read.
Actually, since the expected rate of Crusader kills can’t be higher than one kill per two days, killing every day is just as good as a no-kill/kill/no-kill/kill alternating approach. But notice: if the crusader alternates, then the Cult can recruit on a Crusader “kill” day, making the cult recruitment nearly impossible to detect (since there will be a night-kill.) But, if the Crusader attempts a kill every night, then there’s a 50% chance that a Cult recruitment will lead to a kill-less night, which is (until the psychopath is born) almost a sure sign of recruitment (since a block is much less likely.)
I suppose the above is nothing more than “predictability can be taken advantage of”, which we all already knew.
I’ve not been especially trying to paint myself as anything with my one post toDay - just following up the logic of yesterday’s minor controversy over myself and the recently departed, and wondering whimsically whether the world in general would now see me as more or less credible. Pleonast speaks of me as playing “heads I win, tails you lose”, but it did strike me that the line certain people were taking yesterDay would be consigning me to the “heads I lose, tails you win” corner - which is of course just as nonsensical.
In my view I’ve provided zero information about myself (though that, of course, owes something to my being the only player in the game with perfect information about my own role) - I have said nothing that could not be said equally by town or scum alike - and I find it illuminating that Pleonast is in such haste to drop the V-bomb straight out of the trap. Not that I think it’ll help anyone at all if I retaliate with an OMGUS, but perhaps the user-of-too-many-words would bear a little watching over the next few Days.
As a Town player my default position would of course be to value my own life at a straw, but we can’t all adopt the same ultra-helpful attitude or we’ll all go gently into that good night and hand the game to the scum on a plate. It is right and proper that a townie should be willing to die in a good cause, but we should resist getting dunked for no good reason.
I’m not really looking at the pre-replacement behavior of people who have been replaced. I mean, we can’t in true logic say anything like “Kat doesn’t behave like ArizonaTeach! FOS, FOS!”, and the mistakes or analytical ability or whatever of one don’t tranmit to the other… only the roles they have do.
Does that make sense?
Some people that I’ve noticed
USCDiver - I see mucho fluff but not much analysis. Please correct me if I’m wrong, ok? I can sympathize with the “mixing people up.”
NAF1138 - cut the coffee, man. The bar has a wide selection of herbals.
sachertorte - well, I think we’ve all noticed him by now :). I’m assuming newbie enthusiasm rather than ill-intent, but that assumption may change.
Nava - your friendly neighborhood bartender. Hi!
Autolycus - ok, so he’s playing an irritating I’m-so-pious character. But he’s also dropping the RP when keeping in char would delay things, which I think is good.
HazelNutCoffee - short and to the point posts. Thanks!
fluiddruid - is posting less than in other threads but has explained it.
MadTheSwine - anybody home?
… I realize Blaster said not to read too much into his color, but why would the Crusader kill his victims in the same fashion as the Cultists (with or without shaved-off ears)? I don’t know if we’d be able to tell apart a case of
“Crusader kills and Cultists, who were aiming for the same target, get there before it’s cold and have an anatomy lesson anyway” from
“Crusader does not kill and Cultists do,”
but I expect to be able to tell apart “dude with his head bashed in” (or however the Crusader acts) from “dude with his guts torn out and his eyes removed very carefully”.
Yes, it does. It’s difficult, though, because we also can’t simply drop any suspicion of the folks who’ve been replaced purely because they’ve been replaced. If one of the new players was worthy of examination before replacement, the same is true now. I agree, though, that we can hardly expect Kat, for example, to explain or defend AzTeach’s comments or behavior. 'Tis a puzzlement.
I’d say it’s pretty clear that we’re not supposed to be able to tell anything from the description of events. Blaster Master created his color such that it could be explained by any of the possible combinations of events from last Night, so I think hunting for explanations within the color is a bad idea. I sort of think, in general, that trying to develop theories about why the Night events unfolded as they did is an exercise in futility, particularly this early in the game and particularly particularly with so many power roles in play.
I want to do some more reading and note-taking before offering thoughts on specific players, but I did have one thought, which is:
We have generated an awful lot of posts so far. A thousand posts for the first Day and Night is roughly double the number of posts generated in M2 in the same amount of game time. If this thread continues at a similar rate, we’re going to be severely handicapped in any effort to read the thread for comprehension. Somehow, we have to endeavor to reduce our overall posting volume without reducing the amount of useful content we’re producing. I have no idea how to accomplish this, but thought I’d say it aloud anyway, just in case someone else does.
<snark>Drown them all, let Nairu sort it out.</snark>
The analysis is (mostly) useful, it’s the main tool we have at our disposal to separate the wheat from the cult. We may want to look hard at people who post more fluff than analysis. Paradoxically, the top posters will be looked at no matter what they do, because they have the largest presence. That’s why I suspect all the low-post-count people. I need to check the game roster with the post counts…
Agreed. Personally I think anyone trying to win brownie points is suspicious, though it could be said that it doesn’t make much sense for scum to do so publicly.
“…in the event of his turning up scum, it can be taken as a minor point in my favour that I was willing to see him dunked.”
Ultimately, everyday townies have no real reason to worry about “get out of dunking free” cards. Yes, everyone wants to play, but if self-preservation is a driving reason for your strategy then you’re at best a bad townie and far more likely to be scum (or, admittedly, a power role but I think a power role would lay lower).
Townies have the advantage of size. While we don’t want to be dunking too many, we do learn from every dunking, and playing to stay in the game simply doesn’t make sense. We play to find scum.
For now, vote Malacandra.
When the roles were posted, I gave a bit of thought about the crusader. The 50% thing just bugged me; uncertainty is bad. I came to the personal conclusion, that especially early in the game, the best course of action for the crusader, would be to skip a kill attempt in order to guarantee a kill the next night. This removes variables. By skipping the kill last night, the Crusader will be able to interpret results from tonight better. For example, if the Crusader skipped last night, and by chance his target tonight ends up not dead tomorrow morning, the Crusader can make stronger conclusions since there would be no 50% qualifier. In other words, such a no kill means, protection or psychopath period, no additional questions. The latter being of utmost importance.
That plus the fact that hopefully on night two the crusader would have better information on which to act.
Anyway, its just the way I was thinking. In my opinion the most probable events last night was a cult kill and crusader choosing no kill. I can’t be sure, but the evidence and game rules seems (to me) to point in that direction.
shrug A reference to my subsequent reply would at least have demonstrated that you’d read it, fluiddruid.
Having not heard from MadTheSwine in about a week, I thinking it may soon become necessary to forcibly sub him out. My thought is, if he doesn’t post by the end of the Day, then I’ll start looking. However, if you all feel like close to two whole Days without posts from him is too long to go, I can start looking for a sub sooner. Any preferences?
When the psychopath dies, what role information will be revealed?
Case A: Activated psychopath
Case B: Not activated psychopath
Good question, because it’s one I wasn’t very clear on. Unlike with the investigatesion, when the psychopath dies, he will be revealed as the Psychopath regardless of whether he was activated or not (death reveals all) but why will remain up to what method of death he receives, because I’ve got ideas for the color. 
Playing aggressively is not an indication of either Town or Cult. Judge (me and others) based on the logic of the argument. Why would pointing out others’ mistakes be suspicious? Would you rather we delay?
I found the fact that they were willing to continue the discussion despite others warning them it was nonproductive (at best, and counter-productive at worst) was very suspicious behavior. I expressed my reasons for being against that particular discussion and was willing to back it up with a vote. Again, don’t let my aggressiveness be what you judge me on.
As I’ve stated before, I do not consider votes to be especially valuable. I place my vote where I find the most suspicion, and I see no reason to delay a vote merely because it’s early in the Day. If you did something to dissuade my suspicion or if someone else becomes moreso, I’ll change my vote. The Town needs to choose someone to dunk. It’s bad for us to either delay to the end or to speed dunk. We don’t seem to be in any danger of speed dunking anyone, so I see no reason to postpone my vote.
Mtgman was second on my suspicion list. When no one was showing interest in Malacandra, I switched my vote. (And I stated all this at the time of the vote.) At the time, Mtgman was already ahead 5 votes to 3, so it’s not like my vote swung the momentum any.
It’s true I haven’t posted much analysis because I’m not very good at this yet and, to be honest, Day 1 has little true accurate analysis to be performed. I wouldn’t say I’d posted ‘mucho fluff’ though, as I haven’t really made that many posts period.
So I’ve read through all the posts by zuma and I can truthfully say I have no ideas about why he may have been killed last Night. It seems to me that the Cultists strategy at this stage in the game is to try to kill power roles, but nothing in zuma’s posts gave me any feeling of a power players. shrugs
The rapidity with which Mtgman was piled upon near the end of Day 1 screams bandwagon to me. I’m particularly suspicious of the last 4-5 players to jump on as this seems like a perfect opportunity for the Sekhaphytes to get a non-cultist killed. I’m going to re-examine their posts in more detail for signs of cultiness.
Please please please do not allow the color text to influence your decision making. It’s a well established fact that the color text has absolutely no bearing on who killed whom. It can only hurt the town to make assumptions based upon the color text.
Now, on to my thoughts of what went down. I was a little suspicious of **Malacandra **yesterday for his seemingly random vote of Zuma. I was more suspicious of the way he announced, “in the event of his turning up scum, it can be taken as a minor point in my favour that I was willing to see him dunked.” Now that zuma has turned up non-Cultist, it makes me more suspicious of Malacandra. FOS!
YesterDay, I noticed a rapid series of votes for **Mtgman **that made me very nervous. Specifically, I’m talking about:
**Hal **(post 856)
**DiggitCamara **(867)
**Zeriel **(870)
**Pleonast **(871)
**MHaye **(874)
Hockey Monkey (884)
**Mtgman **had three votes (IIRC) and was not the vote leader, and all of a sudden he got rushed. I’d bet good money that there’s at least one scum in this group of players. Personally, I think it’s Pleonast. When he kept trying to reprimand **sachertorte **and me for our discussion yesterDay I kept getting a weird feeling, and now I know why. I think that he’s trying to set himself up to be trustworthy. First, he made a huge point about how **sachertorte **and I were engaging in anti-town discussion, even threatening us with votes. ToDay, he’s voted for **Mal **right of the bat. I think that they’re both scum, and Pleonast’s activities are planned so he can later claim, “Look how pro-town I am!”. I will vote Pleonast for now, and I’d like to hear what other people think about this theory.
Next time be more careful!
–FCOD
FlyingCowOfDoom, I just don’t buy it. Considering the odds are greatly on their side, scum has no real reason to bandwagon on Day One and a very strong reason NOT to - to avoid giving any information at all at first. I find throwaway (one-off) votes or no votes much more suspicious than anyone on that list, at least for solely the voting pattern.
Here’s the post count of living players as of #1035, not taking into account Day One substitutions:
Total Posts: 1,035
User Name Posts
sachertorte 77
NAF1138 71
HazelNutCoffee 57
Hal Briston 56
Idle Thoughts 46
DiggitCamara 42
storyteller0910 41
Hockey Monkey 38
Scuba_Ben 37
FlyingCowOfDoom 36
Zeriel 32
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies 28
Queuing 26
Pleonast 26
Pasta 25
Fretful Porpentine 25
SnakesCatLady 23
MHaye 23
USCDiver 23
Captain Klutz 20
Autolycus 18
MonkeyMensch 17
Kyrie Eleison 14
MadTheSwine 12
fluiddruid 10
Malacandra 10
Nava 5
Kat 2
(repl. ArizonaTeach 26 )
That’s four people with over 50 posts and 8 with under 20 posts, at least one of whom just subbed in, and one of whom may be subbed out. I’d like to see more activity from those lower 8. So for now I question Autolycus, MonkeyMensch, & Kyrie Eleison, pending a double-check of their statuses.
And as I previously noted, I question the four highly prolific players based on their many posts, and everybody with 20 to 50 posts based on “being just active enough to not be noticed for lurking but not active enough to be noticed for volume.” Again, rampant paranoia.