Scum mafia: On Cecil pond [Game Over]

[KellyCriterion]

This is my first game of Mafia, but I have semi-lurked some of the other Mafia threads.

[Rysto]

@TexCat

I was just trying to say that Ed did have more information than most of us. If he was, in fact, a mason, he could identify his fellow masons and know that they were town. So, it could be that he knew that Scuba Ben is town, or maybe he was just playing the odds.

This is exactly the kind of speculation that sach warned us against. Why are you trying to work out who the masons are? Let them be!

[Mahaloth]

@KellyCriterion

I am not sure why people keep insisting I made an “unjustified” or “unexplained” vote. I think every vote made against peeker yesterDay was unjustified, and I ahh… stated it at the time:
Given that peeker got lynched, that means I ahh… turned out to be right.

After fully admitting that no stated case looked strong, I figured the best thing to do was make it a close lynch vote, which would up the pressure particulary on Scuba, possibly causing a slip. If you remember, peeker had hoisted the white flag and said he was considering leaving the game. That’s how disinterested he’d become.

If you think a reckless, careless vote at some random player based on flimsy, farcical evidence would have made me look more “pro-Town” on Day 1, then all the power to you and heaven help the rest of us that are making genuine efforts to root out the scum. Similarly, if you cast your lynch votes at the players whose methods you don’t agree with rather than at those players you suspect to be scum, then I hope for town’s sake that you are a scum.

yesterDay you voted for peeker because he made what you deemed to be a “baseless vote” (which started the avalanche of a townie lynch), and toDay you once again make a vote based on disagreement with someone’s methods.

If you want to discuss the best way to root out the scum, Mahaloth, I’ll happily start another thread in The Game Room and we can discuss it to our hearts’ content.

But in this thread, for appearing to be driven to vote based more on whose playing style you most disagree with instead of who you suspect of being scum (which would be a lot more helpful to the town), I:

vote Mahaloth

I think I snipped it a bit.

1. My vote wasn’t unjustified against peeker. I was one of the first to vote for him and my reasons were clear. He was behaving anti-town with his vote and his reaction did not help him. Did I really start the avalanche, though?

2. I agree that many of yesterDay’s votes on peeker were lame. My wasn’t.

3. Perhaps you are right and I should have unvoted peeker and voted you, since you were even making a more foolish decision than him. Obviously, we know he’s town now, but I didn’t know that at the time. Did you?

4. Your vote right now, I think, is just a reactionary vote because I have placed one on you. Kind of an “ohmygodyousuck” vote, which is lame.

5. I am voting for the person who I think is most likely scum. I can’t know for sure, obviously, but I’m doing my best.

At least I have reasons behind my votes. :dubious:

[sachertorte]

@Mahaloth

2. I agree that many of yesterDay’s votes on peeker were lame. My wasn’t.

Wait, what? How was your vote not-lame, but the others were? According to my notes, you were the second vote on peeker, long before peeker imploded. As far as I can tell, the first vote on peeker for non-spurious reasons was Ed’s. If anything, I think your vote on peeker was the WEAKEST.

Mahaloth, please justify your statement. The following is a list of peeker voters from Day One. I would like you to classify them as “lame” and “not lame” and explain why.

1: special ed – peeker (353), Spawn (353)
6: Meeko – Spawn (182), [del]fluiddruid[/del] (334-386), [del]peeker[/del] (386-507), Scuba_Ben (507)
7: Mahaloth – Spawn (209), peeker (209)
8: Freudian Slit – Spawn (183-314, 441), peeker (282), [del]sachertorte[/del] (314-441)
9: USCDiver – Spawn (246), peeker (509)
10: Alka Seltzer – Spawn (249-470, 622), [del]DiggitCamara[/del] (419-622), [del]storyteller[/del] (470-622), peeker (622)
13: Zeriel – Spawn (204-277, 345), peeker (204), [del]sachertorte[/del] (277-345)
19: fluiddruid – Spawn (296), peeker (296)
20: TexCat – Spawn (198), peeker (488)

[Alka_Seltzer]

I’m not really liking the single data-point cases flying around toDay.

@Drain_Bead

What I really find odd is the fact that NONE of the attention that got Scuba Ben to within one vote of being lynched has transferred to toDay.

I find that odd as well, but it’s hard to chase him up when he isn’t here. I’m still waiting for him to respond to the Day 1 case against him. His account hasn’t been active since the 2nd Feb, a mod-kill looks quite likely.

@KellyCriterion

Yes, that is what I meant. Cast a vote at Scuba_Ben, then watch him sweat. See if he does anything scum-worthy with the extra pressure that’s on him.

OK, that answers my question, you were looking for a reaction from Ben.

@KellyCriterion

I am not sure why people keep insisting I made an “unjustified” or “unexplained” vote. I think every vote made against peeker yesterDay was unjustified, and I ahh… stated it at the time:

Your vote was unjustified because it said nothing about your own suspicions. If we all played the game like this the game would never move forward, we’d never have any basis on which to decide which players are scum.

@KellyCriterion

Given that peeker got lynched, that means I ahh… turned out to be right.

This tells us nothing about your alignment.

@KellyCriterion

If you think a reckless, careless vote at some random player based on flimsy, farcical evidence would have made me look more “pro-Town” on Day 1, then all the power to you and heaven help the rest of us that are making genuine efforts to root out the scum.

The job of town is to do the best with the information we have. If we accepted your reasoning here, no-one would ever place the first vote.

@KellyCriterion

Similarly, if you cast your lynch votes at the players whose methods you don’t agree with rather than at those players you suspect to be scum, then I hope for town’s sake that you are a scum.

Policy votes are bad, because they give us no information.

@Mahaloth

1. My vote wasn’t unjustified against peeker. I was one of the first to vote for him and my reasons were clear. He was behaving anti-town with his vote and his reaction did not help him. Did I really start the avalanche, though?

You justified your vote against peeker with policy, which tells us nothing about your own suspicions. Looking through your Day 1 posts, I’m not seeing a great deal of content. You plonked an early vote down on peeker and then repeatedly justified it with the same reasoning. I don’t think your vote was any better than Kelly’s.

Hopefully I’ll have some time tonight to review the game and get a vote down.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Mahaloth

And, for now:

vote peeker

For his totally baseless vote. Flinging votes around for no reason isn’t OK, even if it is peeker.

@Mahaloth - How exactly can this be considered a good vote? You never made a case for peeker as scum.

[sachertorte]

@Drain_Bead

Maybe it’s just that when I’ve seen townies accused of PIS, it’s often done by a Scum trying to take advantage of something that can be construed as a “slip” by others. See my suspicion of…shit, who was it…amrussell? In Colorless? Scum will try to latch onto stuff like that, because it is a lot easier than actually making a real case against someone.

@sachertorte

Hm. That’s entirely possible. I can’t remember if those jumping on my slip were Town or Scum. Maybe I should look it up. (I can’t even remember which game it was though).

So I looked it up, and the results are quite illuminating. The specific game in which I supposedly displayed perfect information was Pleonast’s Mini-Munchkin Mafia
If you want to read the whole thing, My “slip” gets pointed out in post #107.

The summary:

• I, sachertorte (Town), imply that storyteller and Squid are Town, when I should not know this. (They turn out to be, but I didn’t know this, yet my statements imply that I do). (Somewhere on Page 2)
• sinjin (Scum) points out the slip, but merely states “concern” in post #107.
• I acknowledge the slip, state that I don’t know that storyteller and squid are Town, but I think that they are. I also explain my statement a bit more.
• Mostly ignored.
• sinjin (Scum) repeats the accusation, wondering why no one else cares. in post #131.
• Cookies (Town) wonders what the fuss is all about, not even remembering the exchange even happened.
• ShadowFacts (Town) links to the post.
• Hockey Monkey (Scum) repeats the accusation and labels it PIS.
• Cookies (Town) relates similar beatings she endured on Day One for statements. Acknowledges that sachertorte should be under watch, but nothing more at this time.
• Chucara (Scum) “sachertorte is really pinging me”
• It gets dropped for a while
• sinjin (Scum) votes for sachertorte post #200

I stopped reading there. I also recall that at some point in that game storyteller poo-poos the entire PIS meme.
The result? Drain Bead has justification in her assertion that scum are more likely to latch onto instances of apparent, though totally incorrect, perfect information displays. My only concern is that if a scummy Rysto thought he could get Ed lynched based on PIS, why would scum kill Ed? If Ed were alive Today, would anyone question Rysto had he pushed for Ed’s lynch on the same reasoning? I wouldn’t have.

Those who are voting for Drain Bead, could you explain your vote? Is it the Mason thing?

[storyteller0910]

@Rysto

This is exactly the kind of speculation that sach warned us against. Why are you trying to work out who the masons are? Let them be!

Well, OK, here’s the thing.

I’m always going to assume that the Scum aren’t stupid. I think if there’s something that many of us are already thinking, the Scum can probably work it out, too. I mean, which of the following things do you think that the Scum couldn’t have worked out without the flapping of Pond tongues:

1. That “collective organism” might mean Mason? I’m going to guess that they made that leap right along with the rest of us.

2. That if Ed was a Mason, then even tepid support of Scuba_Ben in the absence of the latter yesterDay might indicate that Ben is/was, himself, a Mason? (Yeah, I said it. Out loud and everything. So what? If the Scum didn’t figure that shit out, then the Scum should just concede the game to us right now).

[sachertorte]

@storyteller0910

Well, OK, here’s the thing.

I’m always going to assume that the Scum aren’t stupid. I think if there’s something that many of us are already thinking, the Scum can probably work it out, too. I mean, which of the following things do you think that the Scum couldn’t have worked out without the flapping of Pond tongues:

1. That “collective organism” might mean Mason? I’m going to guess that they made that leap right along with the rest of us.

2. That if Ed was a Mason, then even tepid support of Scuba_Ben in the absence of the latter yesterDay might indicate that Ben is/was, himself, a Mason? (Yeah, I said it. Out loud and everything. So what? If the Scum didn’t figure that shit out, then the Scum should just concede the game to us right now).

That’s not the point. My concern did not regard what scum could figure out about Ed, or Scuba, but what scum could figure out about those talking about Ed.

If Ed is a Mason, the other masons know this. If Ed is NOT a Mason, the masons know this. Their discussion points will likely be different than those of the rest of town. That is what we want to avoid. Furthermore, all Town Power Roles know that Ed is NOT their power role.

Asserting that Ed might mean mason doesn’t do much good. Any speculation is a guess, NOT FACT.

[fluiddruid]

I realize my contributions so far have not been as substantive as anyone would like, and I’m sorry for that. I don’t like to post unless I feel I have something to say and it’s taking me a bit to sink back into this style of game. I’ll also add that I was rather ill late last week so I didn’t get some work in before the end of the day that I wanted (taking a harder look at Scuba Ben since he was a vote leader).

At this point I’m honestly not sure that the peeker lynch (in and of itself) has given us much to go on, so I spent some time today going through the posts of someone who pinged me late yester-summer: Storyteller.

I’ll start off by saying that the reason I chose Story to go through posts was because I just felt that something was not quite right in the ‘lyse spawn’ debate, particularly towards the end of the Day.

I really, really, really hate to reopen the lyse spawn debate. Frankly it has been more of a distraction than anything. But it’s just not possible to analyze Story’s posts without considering the arguments involved, since the vast majority of his posts are regarding this strategy, so I honestly do not have much choice since I specifically wanted to look him over.

I will also freely admit that during the time I went through these posts I waffled on my opinion of Story several times. Story is an outstanding player and produces a great deal of analysis that is both interesting and compelling. However, after going through all of his posts one by one, I do not believe he is trustworthy and I believe that there is a compelling case against him.

Below, I’ll go through in a lot more detail, but my summary is:

• As Alka Seltzer and Sachertorte repeatedly held him to task for, his comments regarding lysing spawn do not bear out under close scrutiny
• When taken to task for this and pursued, he became (in my opinion) suddenly evasive and uncooperative for no clear reason
• It does not make sense (to me at least) to pursue a topic so vigorously and stubbornly, but yet to suddenly refuse to defend it on the grounds that it has been overdiscussed, while at the same time providing little to no substance for a vote

Storyteller repeatedly espouses playing aggressively. I find this very interesting because I do not believe he is actually doing so, if he is Town; his comments, however, are representative of extremely aggressive play if viewed as a scum player, which I feel is more in line with what I know. He is doing what most scum players are too cautious to do – to shake the status quo, to make enemies, to garner suspicion, and to stubbornly stand his ground as if he were a Townie player who was just incredibly convinced he was right. And honestly, I’d buy this if it weren’t for the specifics of what he was defending, and – even moreso – the topics about which he has been nearly silent.

I’ve tried to hit all of his posts here, if I missed any I apologize. Please note that I have edited for (relative) brevity here but the links are available for you to view the full posts.

---

Post 181: Role confirmation.

Post 211Takes first stand against anti-double-player-lyse group.

Spawn cannot coordinate, they cannot vote in a directed fashion, and their deaths will reveal nothing about the game. Every lyse of a player will increase our ability to analyze what has happened so far; every lyse of Spawn will give us nothing, no information, nada. The idea that having two living Spawn is so egregiously problematic that it mandates daily split voting seems to me, at first glance, to be one that doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.

With 21 players, I figure 3-5 PC Scum, with 4 the most likely number given the existence of the Spawn mechanic. Discounting for a moment the influence of third parties, that would mean 17 Town. So right now, the balance may be 17 Town vs. 5 Scum total. In the worst case, if we were to lynch two players this Summer and hit both Town, we’d end up at 15 T vs. 5 Scum going into Winter (assuming one Scum directed Night kill and ignoring other factors), and then 14 T / 6 S next Summer. But a quick double Spawn lyse gets us back to 14-4.

On the other hand, if one of the two players lynched turned out to be Scum, then it’d be 16-4 starting Winter, then 15-5 at the outset of next Summer. If we then lynched one player and one Spawn, we’d trim things to (worst case) 14-4 or (best case) 15-3.
I think the short version of this is that the knee-jerk response is wrong. In some cases, lynching multiple players may prove to be a beneficial strategy, because having an extra Spawn hanging around won’t really affect us at all until the endgame.

Now, so far, so good. This makes sense; the logic is sound.

In fact, for these reasons, I’m not even 100% sure that it makes sense to lyse Spawn at all this Summer. I realize that this opinion may get no traction, and that I’ll most likely take heat for it, but I learned a very important lesson from Ed’s game about playing to not get lynched, so there’s my opinion - let’s see what folks think.

This addition is the undermining part of the argument. “Double voting players instead of spawn” – sure, not a problem. But now, all of a sudden, it’s “Double voting players TODAY instead of spawn”. That’s a pretty big difference (as of course is pointed out later).

Post 213

I don’t see how this is a problem. That “future Summer” could well be the last Summer of the game, if we eliminate all of the PC Scum, in which case, so what? It’d be a purely administrative Summer in such a case.

As to peeker, I am basically unmoved, mostly because I’m pretty sure he has voted for me on Day One of every game I’ve ever played with him. It’s getting to be a bit of a tradition.

Okay, not so bad yet but we are starting to equate “let’s lynch more earlier” to mean “this will mean we eliminate scum faster”, as he’ll get to more below. This is again a bit concerning, because he’s not really argued why double voting players early on provides good information or an advantage to saving this until later.

Post 233

Well, look. Leave aside the Spawn for just one tiny moment, OK? I’ll get back to the Spawn.

Let’s say the Mod gave you a choice.

Let’s say the Mod said, you may pick from the following two options:

1. Game as normal. One lynch Day One, Night kill Night One, and so on into eternity; or
2. You lynch Day One, but you don’t get your results until the end of Day Two. The catch? No Night actions, including Scum kill, during Night One.

We would all jump on #2, right? Lynches are our tool, our way of getting information. Even if they are sloppy, two lynches without the Scum getting to Night kill is always a plus; it’s as if a Doctor had a successful protection. Well, the present situation, sans Spawn lynch, is, essentially, option #2.

This is where things start to get fuzzy on logic for me. Saying a double player lyse on Day 1 is, essentially, getting a free extra lynch if you don’t consider the spawn lynch is meaningless. It’s like saying, <for example> ‘Well, we scum players can kill a Doctor or a vanilla Townie, and if you don’t consider the protection power of the Doctor, it makes more sense to kill the vanilla Townie if they’re a stronger player.’ Being in favor of something without considering the disadvantage of it doesn’t really make sense even as a theoretical construct.

Post 240 Spawn lynch debate continued, snipped for brevity.

Post 242

I do not agree with this reasoning. Following it to its conclusion, we should never lynch at all, since we could zero our risk of mislynch by not lynching. We can’t operate that way. All other considerations aside, two lynches increases the absolute chance that we will catch at least one Scum (over one lynch). I do think it definitely increases the risk of one mislynch, but if we have one mislynch and one caught Scum, that’s definitely in our favor.

This is a false dilemma. The way it’s phrased is misleading: we could mislynch one wrong person, but if we only mislynch one person and the other lynch is on scum, we win! The most likely outcome on Day 1, of course, is that we mislynch both, AND we’ve mortgaged our lynch on a future day to do it, AND now we have two random votes instead of one.

Post 243

Also, if the possibility of a double-PC-lyse is at least on the table, it greatly increases the difficulty Scum will have maneuvering their own votes. Since the second-highest-vote-getter is in danger of dying as well as the first, the Scum can only merrily vote for one another if they are actually willing to sacrifice someone… no voting Scum up to second place to sow confusion later and then getting a Townie to take the real fall. And if they are willing to sacrifice someone? I’ll take the gift.

Yes, not constantly being an axeman of Town players is good – if basic – scum play. However, if all of the votes are split between two candidates, and we lynch both, what have we really learned if they’re both town (which the odds say they will be in the early game)? Even if one or both of the players is scum by some lucky break, we haven’t really learned anything from what amounts to a unanimous vote. Not only have we likely learned less – not more – by splitting the vote between two lynchees, we’ve still lost a future lynch. That just plain sucks for town.

Now maybe Story meant if we had more than two major contenders for a vote. But I’m hardpressed to see why two lynches would mean that scum can’t vote their own with mitigated risk. As long as there are more candidates than there are lynches, there will be the opportunity to vote scum. Double lynch doesn’t change this at all, in my mind.

Post 309

OK, last word on the double-PC vs. one-PC-one-NPC thing from me. I think I favor a double-lyse this Summer iff we have two compelling targets, because the main portion of the downside - that one Spawn will linger thereafter, until we deal with it somewhere down the road - just doesn’t seem particularly compelling to me. I think we stand a chance to generate a lot more information.

And here it is. Finally, once the debate heats up, he’s softened his point. If there are two really good candidates, let’s not prohibit double-voting. “Compelling” is a pretty weak word and can mean nearly anything in hindsight, from “Well, no kidding. If two people are caught red-handed as scum, of course we need to vote both and not have some rule!” to “I thought it was worth voting for both because of <some tenuous case>”.

Look, many of us have played together repeatedly in the last few years (since 2007! Holy shit!). How many times have you seen the following play out on Day One:

(1) Day One ends with vote leader and secondary target; (2) vote leader dies and is Town; (3) because whatever caused the initial suspicion of secondary target hasn’t gone away, Day Two winds up being a discussion about secondary target anyway; (4) Secondary target is eventually lynched, possibly Day Two but certainly by Day Three-ish.

Let me phrase this differently: how often have you see a Day One where there was a significant secondary target where the secondary target didn’t eventually get lynched? That secondary target almost always gets lynched eventually (unless he/she has a confirmable role), because that initial suspicion sticks with them like a stinky cloud. Thus - if and again only if there is a strong second option - the double lyse essentially just accelerates a lynch that is very likely to happen anyway, and saves the next Day or two from being about the second option. All at the very minor cost of a single lingering Spawn.

Again, makes sense on the surface but then if you really think about it, this doesn’t make sense. If we’re going to vote for two bad candidates today, let’s just speed it up and do it now, rather than just doing it later. This ignores some pretty big negatives:

• We could, you know, decide not to vote for someone who’s a bad candidate just because they got suspicion on Day One
• We lose all of the discussion and vote patterns between now and that eventual lynch

The cost really isn’t “a spawn”. The cost is basically the loss of a Day, plus it’s assuming that Town is going to play poorly and just speeding things up so we can, you know, suck at playing a little bit faster.

So that’s my last pitch. It is clear that this is a minority opinion, and that’s OK; I don’t think it’s an especially critical decision, especially not on Day One. I feel more strongly about the sachertorte proposal that we enforce some kind of unanimity in double-PC-voting vs. one-PC-one-Spawn voting.

No.

Wait, that wasn’t strong enough.

Hell, no.

I object to such a policy. In fact, I absolutely refuse to follow such a policy. I also categorically refuse to give any sort of pass to a player who uses such a policy as justification for a vote. I am opposed to creating any rote mechanism. Every player should have to explain every action, every time. Are you voting Spawn with one of your votes? Fine. But you need to defend that choice, each time; you don’t get to have the fallback of “well, we decided to be unanimous, so here’s my contribution.” You’re responsible for your votes, whether they be for a PC or a Spawn. Eventually, we will look at your record and the choices you made and see how they stack up. Every vote I make in this game will be a reflection of my own current opinion on the gamestate, and I expect every player to have to live up to that same standard… it’s where and how we will find the Scum, if we find them.

Story’s pretty good. I have to admit I was a bit swayed here on my first reading. It’s just that he makes good sense: it’s always a bad idea to give people an out without explaining, of course! Unanimity is bad, sure! You’re responsible for votes, yes!

… except that it completely misses the meat of what he’s defending. There’s a strong difference between “COMMIT NOW TO NEVER EVER EVER EVER NOT VOTE SPAWN” and “Let’s consider doing this this Summer!” Remember, Story espoused the second one – tentatively, yes, but he did support it. It’s equating two completely different things. This doesn’t make sense to me coming from an experienced player like Story.

What does make sense, though, is – if playing scum aggressively – taking a hard line on refusing to agree not to double vote. Rather than waffling later and sacrificing yourself, if you take a strong stance now, a lot of people can convince themselves that you’re trying to do the best for Town when you use this power later to surreptitiously undermine a vote.

[Post 342](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12056432&postcount=342”)Real life time restrictions notice

[Post 391](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12059397&postcount=391”)Request for peeker votes to be substantiated
[Post 442](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12063464&postcount=442”)

…Also, re: your longer post about double-lysing, etc - can we agree to disagree on this subject? I’m not trying to drive you insane, honestly, I’m not, but I don’t agree with you and I’m not going to and it doesn’t really matter right now. If a situation emerges where I feel strongly that a double-lyse is the best course of action, we can pick up the debate then. For now, going point-by-point on a subject that is completely academic for this Summer at least is not a good use of anyone’s time.

This is where Story backs off. Okay, I can buy that this argument isn’t really helping town. I tend to agree. But Story says “going point-by-point on a subject that is completely academic for this Summer at least is not a good use of anyone’s time”. This discussion was not only academic, he seriously did, albeit weakly, propose this in post 211.

Further, why is it at this point that it is suddenly not worth Town’s time? It was worth discussing in practically all of his previous posts, posts which took complete priority above voting or discussing vote candidates; all of a sudden, not now?

Now, this is the first time he discusses voting:

So: Scum hunting. peeker has garnered a metric crapload of votes, and sachertorte has managed to earn a bit of suspicion (and a few votes, I think; I haven’t re-read yet). I’ve played a fair number of games with both players, and I think both will agree with the following statement: whether they are Town or Scum, both tend to generate early votes (for completely opposite reasons, I think). Whatever their alignments, I hypothesize that they (especially peeker) may appear to be relatively soft targets in the early game. This is not to say that every vote for one of those two players is Scummy - just that at least one or two are highly likely to be.

This afternoon, I plan to re-read the entire Summer so far with this hypothesis in mind. I’ll post my results, and hopefully a vote, early tomorrow (Tuesday).

A pretty meek argument. Not scummy in and of itself but nothing to write home about in the pro-town arena either.

After this, in Post 470, Alka Seltzer writes: “I’m not satisfied with your lack of an explanation of why you are pushing an unambiguously anti-town idea, I think you are quite strong on game mechanics.” Story responds with a rapid series of posts.

Post 481

Alka Seltzer: I disagree with you. You are going to have to get it through your head that sometimes, people have strategic ideas that differ from yours. There is not one correct way to play this or any game. I disagree with you on the correct way to play this one. I don’t apologize for my position on this nor do I back down from it one bit. However, I do decline to continue to discuss it, because it’s a line of discussion leading nowhere. I get the feeling that this drives you crazy, that you need everyone to agree with your strategic opinions and if they don’t, they must be Scum, but you’re not getting the first or the second, at least as far as I’m concerned. Sorry.

Your vote for me is silly and baseless. And it’s comical - comical - that you actually unvoted Spawn in order to place it.

<To be continued in next post>

[fluiddruid]

Post 485

I don’t agree with you. I am never going to agree with you. Whether you wish to continue to argue about it is your call, but I will not continue to engage you on this subject.

I do not agree with you.

Story has been taken to task. He’s been questioned. I, as you would imagine, agree with Alka Seltzer. Story does seem to be subversive and espousing an idea which does not make sense. He has consistently minimized the negatives and exaggerated the positives to skew the entire discussion.

It does not make sense to make these posts as a Town player coming from Story.

Now a lesser player would waffle. In that situation, I myself would be very tempted to just stop posting, or even to change my position. Not Story. Remember: he’s playing aggressive. So you know what he does? He says, “I am a Townie, this is my opinion, and I will die on this hill if I have to.” Quite clever: stubbornness can be incredibly persuasive. Read as scum, he is daring us to question him and making it clear that not only will he not waffle, he will not negotiate and he will not discuss it further. It’s strange behavior that is difficult to chalk up to scum, but yet does make sense as scum if you consider the future advantages of reserving the right to not vote out spawn.

Post 487 Long post with game summary (which you can read for yourself).

Now, Story continues in the same vein as post 485 in the subsequent few posts:

[Post 574](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12074167&postcount=574”):

Sorry. But you can’t seem to acknowledge that it is possible that I both see and understand the same things you do, and yet have reached a different conclusion. I am not accusing you of failing to grasp game mechanics, in spite of the fact that your opinion on this differs from my own. It’s actually insulting, a little, the implication that the only way I could have reached a different conclusion is if I’m “having problems” (or, I guess, pretending to, though why I would do that is utterly beyond me).
=Quote removed=

I can help you with that. I’m not having any problems with the game mechanics. I understand them perfectly. I understand your argument, and sach’s argument. There is not one bit of it I don’t follow or don’t grasp.

I don’t agree with you. I think you are wrong, incorrect. I find your argument unpersuasive, in spite of the fact that I understand it perfectly well.

Seriously, I can do this all day if I have to.

I have tried to do this repeatedly. Can I just refer you to my seven thousand, six hundred and twelve other posts on this subject? No? This post is going to set off another twenty responses, none of which will persuade anyone, and on and on into oblivion. OK, in a nutshell: lynching twice allows to eliminate two suspicious players instead of one, thus eliminating the tedious drag on the game that happens when the second-choice for Day One’s lynch hangs on for Days before eventually getting lynched. It generates more information more quickly, something that sach is poo-pooing but that is of value to me.

Most importantly by far, it somewhat increases the chance that we will actually kill Scum. I have found that the biggest pro-Town moment in any game is the first lynch of Scum. Without a lynched Scum, the “storylines,” as it were, aren’t ever particularly clear (no matter how much information has been generated by other means). As soon as one Scum is dead, you can start to see the shape of things much more distinctly, and develop more intelligent hypothesis as to the missing pieces. If there are Scum power roles, then eliminating one of them early is a bonus, but even if there aren’t, I still view lynching at least one Scum as early in the game as possible very critical. I don’t think even my critics will deny that lynching two players instead of one increases our absolute percentage chance of accomplishing this goal toDay, right? As I don’t see the downside of a double-lyse (the persistence of a single Spawn) as a problem worthy of consideration at this point, I am thus in favor of the double-lyse. I would prefer to be extremely aggressive in pursuit of that first Scum lynch. Others would not. I’m OK with this. Let’s just keep going.”
He’s repeated his claim here: speeding up the game is better because it means we catch scum faster. Again, from a “gut” sense, this makes sense because we are thinking about the normal process of Mafia games: you shoot around rather blindly at first, and once you hit scum, you have a lot more to go on. Yep, makes perfect sense!
Except, again, he’s completely ignoring the negative here. The equation isn’t “let’s double lynch now, hit scum, and have some piddling negative”… it’s “let’s mortgage a lynch from late in the game and use it now, when we have LESS information, and have LESS voting history”.

@Drain Bead

So Story, how do you suggest we mitigate against the risks of scum executing manipulations with their two votes each while keeping our minds open to the possibility of voting to lyse two players?

I have no interest in mitigating against that risk. If the Scum attempt to execute vote manipulations at this stage of the game, then you know what? That’s awesome! Vote manipulations are (comparatively) easy to spot; the vote record is transparent and can be followed in real time. If the Scum try to use the option to double vote to play games, you don’t think it will eventually show?

I would argue that giving scum players freedom to manipulate the vote at the same time as increasing the number of random votes in the game is a strategically poor idea, but again, as is typical of Story, it does make sense on its own merits, too. But, again, he subtly changes the argument so as to minimize town risks. Drain Bead is taking about vote manipulations in the entire game, and now it becomes “at this stage of the game”. Sure, scum all double-voting in the first few summers would play into Town advantage, but that isn’t what Drain Bead is talking about.

Post 580: Sorry for not voting post.

Post 616 Lengthy reasoning for not voting peeker, and briefly regarding scuba ben.

[Post 619](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12076496&postcount=619”)More response to Sachertorte on this issue

[Post 623](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12076753&postcount=623”) and [Post 626](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12076776&postcount=626”) – Frustrated response to Sach and Alka Seltzer.

[Post 629](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12076829&postcount=629”)Request to please see post 626.

Now, his vote in [Post 629](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12076829&postcount=629”).

On another note:

I am going to

vote Freudian Slit and
vote Spawn

The former because she came out looking not-so-great in my vote analysis of yesterday, and the latter because I currently lack the motivation to develop a second vote. I’m going to walk away from this game for the afternoon; I am way too old to be letting my blood pressure rise over this.

As Day One votes go, I’m really in no position to judge. I just find it interesting that Story has spent such an excessive amount of time arguing strategy and so little actually working to find scum, when the strategy that he has repeatedly espouses is to try to lynch scum on Day 1. His reason for his vote is half a sentence, and yet he has posted considerable reams of discussion on the spawn vote.

Probably a null tell either way. Interesting to me, though, that when it counted, he didn’t actually pursue the double-player-vote.

Now, he does return to expand on his vote pretty shortly after:

[Post 636](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12077207&postcount=636”)

And by “this afternoon,” I obviously meant “for the next hour,” because how could I stay away?
Quote:

Originally Posted by Drain Bead
story, could you expand upon your vote of Freudian or provide a link to your previous post, for those of us who don’t feel like digging through 16 pages of thread to re-read the justification for your vote?

Sure. Page 10, post #487. Happy reading.
Quote:

Right now I see you as butting heads with almost everyone over an issue that you are clearly in the minority on,

So? Seriously, so what? This is a non-sequitor. Yes, most people disagree with me, and therefore I am butting heads with most people on this subject. Recognized. And?
Quote:

and now making a vote late in the Day with a somewhat lazy route of justification. This isn’t the story I know,

You know what? Having someone I respect directly call me stupid to my face has put me off my game somewhat. If you want to read that as a Scum tell, be my guest.

I understand where he’s coming from here. The argument between him and Sachertorte did get pretty heated, and I’ve snipped large parts of that because I don’t think that anger at perceived insult is a tell either way. I sympathize.
[Post 640](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12077261&postcount=640”)

Eventually (once you learn my alignment) you will learn that you are, in fact, calling me stupid every time you post stuff like this.

One upside, though: I really don’t think sach would be acting this way if he were Scum and knew me to be Town. It would be a profoundly asshole thing to do. I consider sach extremely likely to be Town (or, at minimum, non-Scum).

This is one post that makes me pause a little bit – I certainly don’t mean to offend Story by saying I think he’s a better player than his argument. I certainly hold Story in very high regard and I have consistently admired him as a player and feared him as a potential enemy. But them’s the breaks. I have to go with my best impressions, and honestly I get his frustration either way his alignment turns out.

[Post 646](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12077500&postcount=646”)This post is about the case against me, and you can review it for details – it doesn’t really fall into my discussion here, as I (obviously) don’t disagree with his assertions.

[Post 648](” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12077261&postcount=648”)

Because, for the love of Mike, I DON’T THINK IT’S THAT IMPORTANT. I WOULD RATHER TALK ABOUT OTHER THINGS. I HAVE TRIED TO POST SUBSTANTIVE, SCUM-HUNTING POSTS, AND ALL I GET BACK IS “WHY DO YOU FAVOR DOUBLE-LYSE?” BECAUSE QUITE FRANKLY, I DON’T THINK I HAVE A PRAYER OF CONVINCING THE TOWN THAT I AM RIGHT ABOUT THIS AND AS A METS FAN, I’VE HAD MY FILL OF HOPELESS CAUSES.

God almighty! …

Again, I think it’s safe to ignore the anger and frustration here as a null tell. But reading his posts above – do you think it’s fair to say that he’s tried to post substantive, scum-hunting posts? The level of content he’s produced on that had been extremely minimal.

Post 649: “I suddenly understand Pleonast a lot better.”

Post 651
Saying trying to look Townie doesn’t make sense to reflect his strategy – which I agree, isn’t the main motivation here.

Post 654

You’re missing the point. Bucking the majority as a way to get Town cred would be a stupid way to get Town cred - especially when it requires someone to argue a position they don’t believe, which would be incredibly difficult.

That’s not to say Scum would never buck the majority. But I sincerely doubt they would do so in order to get more trusted, rather than less. A blind dead person could have guessed that I would get static for my position.

I think Story trusts himself enough as a scum player to take on the majority. It’s a small enough of a gamble – he can defend himself with great vigor and intensity, and people generally don’t get lynched over having an unpopular strategy opinion – but it gives him, and other scum players, a base on future Summers to manipulate the vote, as well as encourage Townies to use double-voting as a smokescreen for such behaviors.

Post 657 re: Conspiracy 3 correction.

Post 664 Accidental post-end-of-summer post, largely again about the case against me.

---

Okay, so that’s Summer 1 posts.

As my summary’s above in my first post, please refer back to it again if you need to, but one last thing I want to add. If you’re not convinced by my case against Story, I ask that you do one thing. Go back and use the links and read his posts twice. Ignore my commentary. Once, imagine that you know he is Town. The second, imagine that you know he is Scum.

Knowing Story to be a strong, aggressive, and (as scum) deviously clever player: which makes honestly more sense to you? I’ve read through the posts several times and I believe they present a strong case.

vote Storyteller0910

[storyteller0910]

I’m not going to respond to the whole thing. Just this:

But reading his posts above – do you think it’s fair to say that he’s tried to post substantive, scum-hunting posts? The level of content he’s produced on that had been extremely minimal.

I will not respond to it myself. To do so would be to give the above statement more validity than it deserves. I will ask anyone who is moved by this statement to do the following, though, before buying it.

Do a search on my posts in this game. It shouldn’t take long; I haven’t been posting much outside of Mafia so you won’t have a lot of unrelated posts to manage. Take a look at the number of posts I’ve made that you - according to whatever your definition might be - consider to be substantive, Scum-hunting posts.

Then conduct the same experiment with fluiddruid.

Then tell me if you agree that she has any business calling my substantive participation “extremely minimal.”

[Rysto]

@storyteller0910

It shouldn’t take long; I haven’t been posting much outside of Mafia so you won’t have a lot of unrelated posts to manage.

Even better, go to the top of the page, click “Search This Thread”, choose “Advanced Search” and then search by poster name.

[storyteller0910]

Actually, having read more extensively:

fluiddruid’s entire case against me centers around my position on double-lysing.

It hinges on the esssential assumption that I am wrong in my position and know it. Think about that. The argument only makes sense if I am deliberately promoting an idea that I think is a bad one, because it hinges on what she sees as inconsistencies or flaws in my argument. So if you actually believe that all day yesterDay, I took an unpopular and heat-generating stance for something I don’t believe, then, OK, I guess vote for me.

If, however, you think I believe what I said, then the entire argument is a null tell.

[Stanislaus]

Sidestepping for a moment what looks like evolving into another fascinating strategy discussion between sach and story…

The Drain Bead vs Rysto discussion is perplexing. Assuming for the moment that Drain Bead is right and PIS accusations are more likely to come from scum than town, it still leaves us with two PIS accusations: Rysto’s original accusation that ed was too sure of Scuba’s alignment and Drain Bead’s accusation that Rysto knew ed was a town power role.

On Rysto’s, it should be noted that if story is right (and I’d been thinking this myself) and Scuba and ed are both masons, then Rysto’s accusation of PIS was not spurious but perfectly accurate (it’s just that in this case, the PIS is benign). It might be that the exception to “PIS is a scum-tell” is when we genuinely have PIS, and not a manufactured “slip”. However, we don’t know if this scenario is accurate or not, and won’t until either we know Scuba’s role or the masons out themselves (which, for the avoidance of doubt, they should do only in their own good time). If there is no link between ed and Scuba, then the above exception won’t apply.

On Drain Bead’s, I wasn’t impressed by the original suggestion that voting for a power role on Day One makes someone likely to be scum, but this has evolved into the “PIS = scumtell” argument. I’m not sure I like cases that change after a vote has been made, but I know some players go on their gut and only articulate all their suspicions when their case is challenged.

I’m suspending judgement on these two at this point, pending some reviewing.

[storyteller0910]

@Rysto

Even better, go to the top of the page, click “Search This Thread”, choose “Advanced Search” and then search by poster name.

Nine years. Nine years I’ve been posting here and I didn’t figure this out. :smack:

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Before I crawl into fluid’s posts for real, on initial skim she attributed a quote of mine to Drain:

So Story, how do you suggest we mitigate against the risks of scum executing manipulations with their two votes each while keeping our minds open to the possibility of voting to lyse two players?

[Mahaloth]

@sachertorte

Wait, what? How was your vote not-lame, but the others were? According to my notes, you were the second vote on peeker, long before peeker imploded. As far as I can tell, the first vote on peeker for non-spurious reasons was Ed’s. If anything, I think your vote on peeker was the WEAKEST.

Mahaloth, please justify your statement. The following is a list of peeker voters from Day One. I would like you to classify them as “lame” and “not lame” and explain why.

Snipped.

I guess I was wrong about the “lame” idea. Poor choice of words and a poor explanation. I voted for the person who was behaving the most anti-town(in my opinion) and no one, with the possible exception of Kelly, rose to the level for me to shift my vote.

@Alka_Seltzer

@Mahaloth - How exactly can this be considered a good vote? You never made a case for peeker as scum.

Good vote? Acceptable Day One vote, anyway. I joined no bandwagon justified it as best as I could.

[Rysto]

@storyteller0910

Nine years. Nine years I’ve been posting here and I didn’t figure this out. :smack:

It’s a feature that came in with the vBulletin upgrade a year or so ago.

[sachertorte]

@Mahaloth

Snipped.

I guess I was wrong about the “lame” idea. Poor choice of words and a poor explanation. I voted for the person who was behaving the most anti-town(in my opinion) and no one, with the possible exception of Kelly, rose to the level for me to shift my vote.

Good vote? Acceptable Day One vote, anyway. I joined no bandwagon justified it as best as I could.

I’m not liking Mahaloth’s explanations here.

(1) Why say your vote is more justified than other votes on peekercpa? Do you really think this? Why did you say it?

(2) Mahaloth correctly indicates that he didn’t join a bandwagon, but he certainly helped create it.

eh, It’s Tuesday already:
vote Mahaloth
Regarding searching for posts, you can also click on the number of replies in “The Game Room” then click on a username and you will get all the posts by that user in that particular thread.