# Screamers Mafia **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 21, 2009, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938 "2009-09-21T13:16:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![tiltawhirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@tiltawhirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiltawhirl)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/441 "2009-09-29T15:55:02Z")
**Chronos** vs. **Drain Bead** - I think that Chronos’ first vote against OaOW was a legitimate, if heavy-handed, way of letting OaOW know he was under scrutiny as someone known to be not-entirely-vanilla. By the same token, Drain Bead’s first vote against Chronos was justified on the grounds of Chronos’ mildly aggressive first vote. So far, so good–as I understand it, voting against someone with no votes against them doesn’t necessarily mean that you want them lynched, but you are putting them (and yourself!) up for closer scrutiny by the other players around a particular issue. But when we get into the lie dectector / town alignment declaration debacle, I don’t see where the difficulty lies. In previous games there has been known to be a Lie Detector and it would be very useful to Town if the players were to claim Town under that scenario. Over a third of the current players have claimed town. The meme has escaped the barn, and so let everyone declare or not declare & state their reasons why. That’s potentially useful information, not noise. **Vote Drain Bead**. Oh, and I did declare Town, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/442 "2009-09-29T16:04:38Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > By all means, check your vote(and those against you) for accuracy. I’m pretty sure it is right, though. I don’t think my vote should count for two against \*\*Alka. \*\* Speaking of which, **unvote: Alka Selzter** I’m still trying to hash out the arguments being arrayed here. The vote leaders right now are **jpei, Peeker** and **Drain Bead.** All of which are unconvincing arguments, but the one for \*\*Peeker \*\*is currently the one with the most rationale behind it, if you ask me. I’m going to weigh these things and throw a vote in. I’ll give my lie detector post immediately after this one: I don’t want extraneous information to get included if I’m scanned. ---
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/443 "2009-09-29T16:05:45Z")
I am town aligned. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/444 "2009-09-29T16:20:24Z")
There probably isn’t a Lie-Detector. But we don’t know that, and the mere possibility that there might be one should provoke different responses from different roles. Specifically, scum should be worried and try to avoid a) claiming themselves and b) everyone else claiming. So it was instructive that your first response, Drain Bead, to the suggestion of an LD was to rubbish the idea as likely to only produce noise and to suggest that it wouldn’t work because some townies wouldn’t co-operate, for various reasons. Later, that evolved into saying that everyone should do it, but it was still a bad idea because it might somehow constrain the cop, or flush out a second scum group. Finally, you’ve got round to FOSing “whoever’s not on that list”. (Do you even know who’s not on that list?) None of this sounds like encouragement. It sounds like someone who instinctively didn’t like the idea of us setting up an LD with testable statements, and who’s evolved her position from rejection to reluctant acceptance while doing her best to attack the idea. That doesn’t, by itself, mean you are scum, of course. But it’s easy to see a scum motivation for what you’ve done. The second part of my case against you was your apparent flip on Chronos. You’ve explained that you did think OAOW soft-claimed prematurely, but disagreed that this was enough to vote on. However, again looking at possible motivation, the fact that four people rapidly chimed in to disagree with your first post and say that Chronos’ vote was uncalled for/excessive makes it look like you were trying to conform to townie opinion. For now, my vote stays. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/445 "2009-09-29T16:27:02Z")
jpeg (2): OAoW, TxtKitty Mot Scud(1): peekra The One and Only(1): Kronzor Pecear(5): Tom Scad, Jimminy Chitwick, Gruff, Nook, Ting Phish Normal Faze (1): Braid Dean The Dread Bean (7): amrussett, Abnormal Phase, Alka Celtser, DaphkneeBlack, Freudian Skip, Fenix, tiltawhirl ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/446 "2009-09-29T16:42:42Z")
> [@AllWalker](#): > > Interesting theory - I had barely noticed **peeker** going quiet amongst all the other activity going on. Could be something to that. i was going to respond to **oredigger** but what the hey. yaknow, you guys/gals are really something else. no really. anyone who has ever played with me knows that i work during the week (for the most part) and am around more on the weekends. now last week i was sick towards the end so that was a little different. this week back to trying to pay bills. i have said my peace. no one agrees. that’s cool. i did post that i hoped i hadn’t stepped on anyone’s toes especially for those that i don’t know well at all. i also couldn’t quite figure out the whole tenor of the potential multiple scum teams. btw. that is where i did say i was town aligned. seriously, do folks read in entirety or just what they are looking for? and so that no one throws a clot. i’ve got to drive to austin in a bit and may not be able to check in until some time tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/447 "2009-09-29T16:53:42Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > Big fat FOS to anyone who isn’t on this list. But there’s something else I wanted to point out. > [@Oredigger77](#): > > I am town. I should be on that list as well. I think you missed a bunch of them when creating your little FOS list. Besides drawing attention from yourself I don’t see what purpose it serves you’ve said yourself that there are townies that won’t make the statement for a variety of reasons. Since the whole purpose of the claim was to give the lie detector/detective groups to work with I don’t understand why we need to care about it. There are much more fruitful things to do. Of course you could be trying to do the same thing you accused Chronos of. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/448 "2009-09-29T17:58:10Z")
> [@AllWalker](#): > > Oh yeah, I meant to pick on this - you can’t vote for someone else not claiming Town and then hurriedly claim Town in the same post. I know you are at a different timezone to most of us, but that just doesn’t look right. Especially when the person you are voting for DID claim town. I’m not the worst mislynch in the world, but if I’m going down, I’d hope that someone takes a very long, hard look at how the bandwagon on me started based on a lie. You’ll know soon enough that I’m Town, and I’ve pointed out the lie, and voted based on the most egregious one. Hopefully the look at who drove the wagon on me will end up netting us some scum. **Oredigger** , I’d like to know who are the rest of the posters in the “bunch” of people I missed when making my list. Feel free to check my work and show me who they are–otherwise, hopefully it’s just you (and Jimmy Chitwood, who I caught almost immediately). I’m a bit hypersensitive about people exaggerating things regarding my posts currently, and you can see I have good reason to be. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/449 "2009-09-29T18:01:38Z")
> [@amrussell](#): > > So it was instructive that your first response, Drain Bead, to the suggestion of an LD was to rubbish the idea as likely to only produce noise and to suggest that it wouldn’t work because some townies wouldn’t co-operate, for various reasons. Later, that evolved into saying that everyone should do it, but it was still a bad idea because it might somehow constrain the cop, or flush out a second scum group. Finally, you’ve got round to FOSing “whoever’s not on that list”. (Do you even know who’s not on that list?) How can you say “Later, that evolved,” when said evolution took place IN THE SAME POST? Literally, in the next sentence. That’s not evolution, it’s intelligent design. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/450 "2009-09-29T18:20:30Z")
**Drain Bead** , you’re being disingenuous. Here is the post of yours that the people who started the bandwagon on you, me included, objected to: [Post #345](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11602948&postcount=345) What you quote of it on the last page in an attempt to pass yourself off as always in favor of a mass alignment claim is as follows: > [@](#): > > This lie-detector thing seems like it’s adding unnecessary noise. If it works by only being able to detect actual lies related to alignment, it’ll only be helpful if we all participate in stating our alignment. This is the post in full (bleached): > [@](#): > > This lie-detector thing seems like it’s adding unnecessary noise. If it works by only being able to detect actual lies related to alignment, it’ll only be helpful if we all participate in stating our alignment. Ontherwise the scum can hide in the non-zero amount of townies who claim nothing. And seeing as we don’t even know if we have a lie detector, and if we do, his or her talents will eventually only be used to check actual role claims, this seems very premature. > > I’m a bit concerned with Chronos and what appears to be two attempts at role-fishing. He’s an experienced player and should know better. > > Vote Chronos > > (vote formatting on the phone is annoying!) In context, the post is not in favor of alignment-claiming in the slightest. It is cautionary at best, downright discouraging at worst. You pull out just about every stop in the book to discourage participation without actually saying outright you oppose it: “It’ll only be helpful if we all participate” – It’s unrealistic. “We don’t know if we have a lie detector” – It might be useless. “A lie detector would only be used to detect role-claims” – It might be useless, again, and based on a faulty premise to boot, as the whole purported point of the exercise is to give a lie-detector something to do in the absence of a role claim. “It’s premature” – Let’s not rush into this. To top it all off, you include an accusation against the person who brought up the idea in the first place. That is supposed to be the evidence you were always in favor of alignment claiming? Forgive me for borrowing a phrase, but you have some nads to try to pass that off as virtually the opposite of what it is while characterizing everyone who read it in context as suspicious, to boot. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/451 "2009-09-29T18:44:12Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > **Oredigger** , I’d like to know who are the rest of the posters in the “bunch” of people I missed when making my list. Feel free to check my work and show me who they are–otherwise, hopefully it’s just you (and Jimmy Chitwood, who I caught almost immediately). I’m a bit hypersensitive about people exaggerating things regarding my posts currently, and you can see I have good reason to be. Tilt is also claiming that you missed him so that’s three, there might be others but I really don’t care enough to check you. ---
**Author:** ![tiltawhirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@tiltawhirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiltawhirl)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/452 "2009-09-29T19:04:50Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > Tilt is also claiming that you missed him so that’s three, there might be others but I really don’t care enough to check you. (I am female, BTW). Yes, I did declare town and was not included in Drain Bead’s list. (relevant, unedited posts are quoted below). If it were important to my argument to show that players not claiming town were suspect, I would have a) made a correct tally of who claimed and who hadn’t and b) listed by name those who had not claimed, rather than those who did claim. :dubious: > [@tiltawhirl](#): > > Sure thing…this game sure looks a lot easier from the bleachers than it does on the field!!! > > **@jpei** - as a n00b I can relate to the difficulty of not knowing when to jump in, but the nonvote for Leader really can’t be defended as any kind of principled, much less pro-town move. No vote from me at this time, but you really need to start engaging (says the 6-post player). > > **Tom Scud vs. peekercpa** - I looked really hard at Tom’s post #131 to see if he may have made a slip about the presence/absence of third parties. Tom was making an educated guess on the most likely number of mislynches available to Town in the context of the policy discussion around ‘lynch declared Millers first’ and was not addressing the larger issue of whether there were third parties in the game. While I find peekercpa’s points to be without merit, I think his aggressive nit-picking will quickly lead to his undoing if he is Scum and will work to the Town’s benefit if Town. > > I am aligned with Town. > > more anon. > [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > Those who have posted a statement on their alignment, in order (hopefully I didn’t miss any): > > Chronos > Thing Fish > Tom Scud > AllWalker > OAOW > Alka Seltzer > CIAS > amrussell (the first to vote for me, on my “reluctance” to make the explicit claim) > Normal Phase (again, voting for me on my “open reluctance” to claim town) > DaphneBlack > Freudian Slit > jpei > Gryff > > Big fat FOS to anyone who isn’t on this list. But there’s something else I wanted to point out. > > Here’s my first comment on the Lie Detector issue, emphasis mine: > > So clearly I think that EVERYONE should be claiming, and am not “reluctant” to do so. That was my last post of that day, and I didn’t post again until I came back from lunch the following day and saw a bandwagon beginning based on my “open reluctance” to claim town. Given my initial comment, I’m not sure how anyone can suggest that I was reluctant to claim town. Once it started happening, I was pretty clear on the fact that I thought the only way it would be helpful is if we ALL did it. I thought it was a big distraction and probably not very useful unless a limited role was in play AND we all gave them the power to be a Cop instead of a limited lie detector. In no way is that reluctance to claim town–in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Just because I did not claim town in that one post is not reason enough for those first two votes on me, IMO. I clearly had no problem doing so, and in fact was encouraging everyone else to do it too! ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/453 "2009-09-29T19:06:15Z")
> [@Normal\_Phase](#): > > In context, the post is not in favor of alignment-claiming in the slightest. It’s in favor of everyone alignment-claiming, and not in favor of less than everyone alignment-claiming. Like someone said upthread–now that **Chronos** unilaterally started this, I’d like to see everyone claim or know the reason why not. I don’t see how that translates to me, specifically, being “reluctant” to claim–especially when people started saying I was reluctant before I’d even gotten back to my computer to do so. > [@Oredigger77](#): > > Tilt is also claiming that you missed him so that’s three, there might be others but I really don’t care enough to check you. So you can smudge me by saying that I missed a “bunch” of people, and right now the “bunch” is exactly two, seeing as I caught Jimmy Chitwood in the post after my list, and said so, but you don’t care enough to actually _prove_ what you’re saying about me. Just so we have that clear for the record. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/454 "2009-09-29T19:08:53Z")
I give up. I’m **Vanilla Town** , so it’s not the worst mislynch on Earth–all you’ve done is given our power roles a slightly smaller pool in which to hide. But I’m not going to continue to argue–I’ve made my case, pointed out those who I think are voting for me for scummy reasons, and once I’m dead you can do with that knowledge what you will. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/455 "2009-09-29T20:16:20Z")
Yikes, so many players makes this thread go fast. First order of business: I am town aligned. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/456 "2009-09-29T20:27:36Z")
So in all the games I’ve played and/or followed along I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern in early Scum behavior. There always seems to be at least one manufactured Scum v Scum squabble. I can’t remember if it has been expressly said by the Mods, but the initial game description seems to lean towards the Scum only allowed to communicate at Night. I can certainly envision the **Tom vs peeker** back-and-forth as Scum v Scum without the ability to communicate offboard what the tone and extent of the squabble will be. So I’m going to keep an eye on both of them and their interactions together. I definitiely see merit in the case against **Drain Bead**. Her posts definitely come across as either wishy-washy or drifting in meaning. Her explanations are unfortunately not too convincing and reek of post hoc justifications. For now, VT claim not withstanding, I’m going to: **vote Drain Bead** ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/457 "2009-09-29T20:46:36Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > Those who have posted a statement on their alignment, in order (hopefully I didn’t miss any): > > Chronos > Thing Fish > Tom Scud > AllWalker > OAOW > Alka Seltzer > CIAS > amrussell (the first to vote for me, on my “reluctance” to make the explicit claim) > Normal Phase (again, voting for me on my “open reluctance” to claim town) > DaphneBlack > Freudian Slit > jpei > Gryff Just as an experiment, I tried to replicate Drain Bead’s list. I missed Thing Fish, but got peeker, tiltawhirl and TexCat. (Based only on people who’d posted before Drain Bead’s post). So I guess I missed Oredigger’s post as well. Which I guess says to me that missing a couple people’s names doesn’t seem inherently scummy to me. I’ve been following the whole DB thread as it went along, but I think I need to go back and reread to try and get it straight in my head before I say anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/458 "2009-09-29T21:04:28Z")
BTW, a semi-updated “I am town” list: 1 Chronos 2 Thing Fish 3 Tom Scud 4 AllWalker 5 OAOW 6 Alka Seltzer 7 CIAS 8 amrussell 9 Normal Phase 10 DaphneBlack 11 Freudian Slit 12 jpei 13 Gryff 14 Oredigger 15 tiltawhirl 16 TexCat 17 Drain Bead 18 USCDiver 19 Boozy 20 ColdPhoenix 21 Jimmy Chitwood 22 peeker (in no particular order) Which leaves BillMC and Nanook. Bill’s been busy, and Nanook generally has a low-frequency, high-value posting style, and hasn’t posted since before the Drain Bead thing really got started. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/459 "2009-09-29T21:19:10Z")
Well, at least that’s been accomplished. Now if we have this Lie Detector role, it’s essentially another town Cop (assuming we have an actual Cop to begin with, of course), which is awesome. And if we don’t have one, well, the only bad thing is it’s boiling down to a mislynch of a claimed Vanilla, which is probably the least damaging mislynch we can have. And I think a whole lotta info can be gained by examining the bandwagon on me, so that’s a positive. I’m actually kinda hoping we have a Lie Detector now. Just don’t let my death be in vain, okay? Clearly I suck at playing Vanilla, because this happened the last time I was Vanilla, too. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938/460 "2009-09-29T21:33:32Z")
Hey guys: we need a sub! If anyone knows anyone who would be willing to sub in for Nanook, please contact me or Mahaloth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screamers-mafia/510938.md?page=24)