Here is a selection of posts from the last page or so that I want to briefly discuss.
I agree to the extent that (as I have said before) snfaulkner and Dante seem quite wolfy to me, but I’m not sure this would actually work, if indeed it was a tactic on Mahaloth’s part - it doesn’t really reduce subsequent suspicion on these two.
I thought it was VERY odd, as I said at the time. I tend to believe him when he said he made a mistake in thinking the Day was due to end 24 (or possibly 25) hours earlier than it actually did, so assumed the game was up. As I said earlier, I cannot see any advantage in his post whether he was town or wolf.
HookerChemical, could you please summarise (or re-state if necessary) your reasons for this vote?
I find this post nearly as curious as the original confession. Could this have been intended for the wolves’ Night thread, and posted here by mistake? Surely if someone is careless enough to get end of Day wrong by 24-25 hours, they could make this mistake? On the other hand, as I understand it, wolves are only allowed to post to their thread during Night, so this would be cheating. So maybe Mahaloth, knowing this and not wanting to cheat, posted it here in order to try and give his fellow wolves a steer. Lo and behold, TexCat dies next Night and flips town. This does tend to strengthen the case for Hooker and Biotop being town, which is where I have them anyway.
In other words, she is not convinced he is a wolf. I’m not convinced he isn’t, though - pity we can’t hear more from TexCat on this.
TexCat was also convinced HookerChemical is scum. Personally, I tend to side with HookerChemical’s rebuttal of this. That being the case:
VOTE Dante G
Because he is one of my scum candidates, but if he flips town that could give us a fair amount more information.
Sure. Here’s my thinking on IRC. You’ll have more of my thoughts on others tomorrow. Hitting Mahaloth yesterday has added some good information and I’ve been putting off a good solid look at everybody for too long. The kernel of the case starts back in Day One (post heavily edited for length– it was long):
I tried charting in Resistance and I don’t think it’s practical. Not for me at least. So I’m not holding out for that chart. Still follow-up is important (/me glances sideways to snfaulkner who also promised data of snuggles in Post 243).
You make an interesting point here:
Which I agreed with in Post 261, stating that I agreed it was a scum/town pair, but I wasn’t sure which was which. IRConfused’s Post 265 looks like it’s the beginning of some wolf hunting. My initial read of that post was that it was very thin on real hunting. I think my initial assessment may have been a bit hasty, but I still think it’s a very long post that contributes little. It was right about TexCat, Astral, and Prof P, so it wasn’t completely empty. Still, I think everybody had TexCat and Astral in the town column. It was enough that I put IRC on the back burner, but I’ve had my radar looking that way.
Day Two saw this in reaction to Mahaloth’s late vote against Sario:
These Day Two posts don’t fit my case. I suppose it could by placing a safe vote on a fellow wolf who didn’t get much attention the first day, but it doesn’t feel like that. I’m including it for completeness. I’ll say here that I think I may end up talking myself into a different vote tomorrow morning. Day Two looks maybe townie for IRConfused.
Day Three is less so. It was only a two post Day for IRC, and one of those was an immediate follow-up to the first. Here’s the meatier one:
First, nobody is confirmed town. Not Biotop, not nobody.
Second, the case against Octarine for the late (post confession) vote against Mahaloth is extremely weak. There are two people who didn’t vote Mahaloth even after the confession (Dante and Suburban Plankton), so I’m not putting much weight on the late vote. By that logic Biotop is also scum. (I’m not making that accusation here, only pointing out the deep flaw in the accusation.) The next post then reranks the scum list to put Octarine at the top.
So the case against IRC is mostly built on the Day One posts. Day Two actually looks slightly townie for IRC. Day Three is a vote against confessed scum and a weak case against Octarine. I think there’s enough in Day One and Day Two to outweigh the townier Day Two posts, though I concede I hadn’t really noticed them because I was focused on WF Tomba and Dante G at that time.
There’s also a substantial amount of lurking. IRC is near the bottom of the post count, ahead of only Octarine. I think we have much better evidence to go on than that, so I don’t weigh it much in my analysis.
I think you’re right about it being a steer, but it doesn’t have to be all town. Imagine you’re the confessed scum Mahaloth and you want to give some scum some cover. You pick a few people who you have reason to want killed for either turning the lynch to you (TexCat, me) or because you’ve been making attempts to get a lynch going on them (Biotop). If one of these is scum, other scum will know and not make that kill. This is another post from known scum that I have to take with a ton of salt. I don’t know if it should make me think Biotop is town or scum, and everybody but the two of us has to go through the process for both of us.
I also think Dante G could be being set up, but it’s for completely different reasons than TexCat. (I’m not saying he is, only that I have to consider that possibility.)
PCM died accusing Dante G.
My initial take on the events (PCM’s finger and subsequent night kill) was that the wolves were trying to kill those who were throwing accusations their way. Otherwise, the PCM kill doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Now, TexCat has died fingering me. I’m looking at a situation where the most recent NK is fingering me and I am not a wolf, so it’s reasonable that the PCM/Dante scenario is similar.
There is one fundamental problem with the argument for me and an additional problem for the rest of you. The first problem is that I’m assuming I can guess the motivations of the wolves, and there’s no way I can know for sure if I’m right. The second problem is that you can’t have the certainty I have about me not being scum.
My guess about TexCat’s post is that she thought people were nit-picking Dante’s posts and jumping on minor errors to make a major case. I’ve said myself that I don’t put much weight in a single mistake, so I understand that perspective. I have as much insight into TexCat’s thought process as the wolves’. I can’t speak for her, but that’s my best guess at what she meant.
Let me first say that I agree with** Hooker** on this: No one living is confirmed Town.
There are five dead confirmed Town. Astral Rejection,** Precambrianmollusc**, Sario, TexCat and WFTomba were Town. We know that their posts were honest, but that does not make them accurate any more than if you, Honest Townsperson, asked yourself to name for certain whom to trust and whom to suspect. TexCat suspected Hooker yesterday. Maybe she was right, maybe not. My gut feeling is that she was mistaken about Hooker, but I could of course be wrong.
There are two confirmed Scum. Mahaloth and Professor Pepperwinkle. Mahaloth is an experienced player. The Professor less so. But we know that their posts were all a bunch of lies. Even if their posts seem to have factual merit, the motivation was always to deceive. We might be able to discern something form Prof. Pepperwinkle’s posts. New players make mistakes. But we need to be really really careful with Mahaloth.
I read somewhere that it is not uncommon for a person to be bitten by a poisonous snake that they find and, thinking it is dead, that they then pick it up and try to handle it. I think Mahaloth’s posts after his confession are dead snakes on the highway. Leave them alone.
I don’t trust Mahaloth’s reasons for confessing. Why should he tell us the truth about anything or anyone? I don’t believe his comments about whom to kill were directed to his teammates at all. They were directed to us. How am I supposed to tell what I should think of Hooker, or of** snfaulkner**, or of Dante, or of DeadCat, or of anyone else from what** Mahaloth** spewed after confessing. He posted those comments of his own free will. Why? To deceive us, to trick us, to make us think about his motivations, about why he chose this or that player to comment upon.
I, for one, refuse to play his game. I think he wants us to puzzle and suspect people based on his final throwaway comments, instead of the more telling posts that came before. Why else would Mahaloth even say those things? “Look here. Look at this player. I’m chummy with this one. I think that one should be killed.” **Mahaloth is trying to get inside our heads. Early on WFTomba **named Mahaloth as a player who would be dangerous as Scum. He was right.
I have all of tomorrow off, and I plan to spend a good chunk of the day Scum hunting. I will post my thoughts when they are gathered.
Hooker, thanks for the extremely detailed and well thought out post. I can see the case that you’re making, but at the moment I still think there are alternative innocent explanations for a good chunk of IRConfused’s postings. Namely, lack of experience in the game and lack of time in real life. I am hesitating to post this a bit as if IRC flips wolf it will look bad for me, but you will hopefully see before it’s too late that mine is a genuine townie view, though I acknowledge I could be mistaken.
One particular issue I have is IRC making the case against snfaulkner, who is on my scum list. If IRC flips scum, that makes it less likely snf is also. Conversely, if snf flips town, it slightly strengthens the case against IRC. Both have done a fair amount of lurking in my view (snf may have a higher post count but I believe not a lot of content) and I’m not discounting the possibility they could both be wolves. Would we get a better result by lynching snf toDay? I’m not sure, but probably not as I think IRC has posted more analysis.
I could yet be persuaded to change my vote but I’m leaving it as it is for now, I’ll wait to hear if others wish to make additional points. Oh, and Biotop, I understand what you are saying about Mahaloth’s posts, but I don’t think we should ignore them completely. He made a huge mistake in outing himself as scum when he could still have saved himself, so he could well have made other mistakes also. I do agree we need to bear in mind that he was probably trying to mislead us though.
Actually, on further review I’m starting to doubt my thoughts on Dante. In particular, I don’t think I agree with Biotop’s analysis in post 558, I don’t think the posts he highlights by Dante are inconsistent, rather they seem to be just different ways of explaining the same point of view. In addition, I can see what others mean about him being set up. From the Wolves’ point of view, if Dante is a wolf so they kill PCM for casting suspicion on him, that does help them. But if Dante is town, that could be even better for them as they might get a mislynch out of it as well.
I’m not saying I am necessarily town on Dante now, but I think there may be better candidates for toDay’s lynch. Which brings me back to snfaulkner. Unlike Biotop in post 558, I don’t give him much credit either for his vote against Prof P (because as I have said before, it came with a line virtually begging for someone to change his mind, and lo and behold he soon changed his vote to Sario), or for his bandwagon vote on Mahaloth, pre-confession or not.
Accordingly, while I reserve the right to change my mind later in the Day:
Hooker and Biotop’s most recent posts, 602 and 603, really bother me. They just seem “too Town” to me. Biotop’s especially stands out to me as sounding more like a epic speech to motivate the world against a big threat. Now in a movie this could make for great drama and intensity, but in mafia, in this game in particular, it just seems fake.
Sticking to my vote for Hooker and Bio is second on my list.
• He votes for snfaulkner(Post #371), who will probably be my vote for Today.
• PreCam was on Dante’s case. If it was a setup on Dante G, that could be why PCM was killed. Hmmm…
Why I think **Dante **might be SCUM:
• Day 1. When Dante says he should vote for Prof P, or** Sario**, but does not, he says it would “be better for myself” not to join a wagon. At the time Dante is voting for Mahaloth. Dante says he didn’t understand what the cases against the two (Sario/PP) were all about, but as they were explained multiple times on the first Day, I don’t understand that. There were cases, and the cases were better than his against Mahaloth. Dante had no trouble suspecting WFTomba on Day 1, though he forgets whether he voted for him or not.
• When WFTomba starts asking about how often there are mislynches on Day 1, (when Prof. P has the most votes by far), Dante jumps in to say that “I can almost guarantee it is high.” The “it” being the number of first day mislynches. This may be stretching, but I find that discussion of mislynches most ill-timed because it seems to me it was spreading seeds of doubt about the vote for Prof. P.
• So maybe Dante is not voting for Mahaloth the first Day to lend cover for Mahaloth and to give himself a Scum vote later (or vice-versa: If Dante had been lynched and flipped Scum, it would have provided Town cred for Mahaloth). Maybe Dante actually felt Mahaloth was the best candidate as Scum. OK. So Day 2 comes around, and we find out that Prof.Pepperwinkle was Scum. Does this increase Dante’s suspicion on Mahaloth? I guess not, because Dante promptly forgets his vote against Mahaloth and goes after others. I can find no post where Dante reassesses or reaffirms his feelings on Mahaloth at all, despite having voted for him the day before. I find that strange.
• The “Lynch** Precam** to throw suspicion on Dante” is a theory we have bandied about. I just don’t quite understand it. Why would the wolves pick Dante to set up? This was only night 2. The wolves have several players who are making detailed analysis. “Let’s kill **Precam **to set up Dante G?” Is that how an experienced player like Mahaloth would think on Night 2? And would the wolves really imagine we’d jump right on Dante G. without questioning what was going on? This sounds more to me like Town conjuring up complex wolf theories as opposed to looking for the simpler explanation. I think either the wolves somehow found out about Precam’s power role or made a lucky guess. I don’t think Dante had anything to do with it at all. So I guess I am putting this in my Dante/Scum file because it cancels out the “set-up” theory, in my mind anyway. YMMV.
I get a Scum read from Dante.
+++++
DeadCat:
Why I think DeadCat might be Town:
• While I stand by the analysis that no one is confirmed Town, DeadCat is as close to it as I have. He made a strong case for** Professor P** on Day 1. He was the first to vote for Mahaloth yesterday. DeadCat has made several strong analytical posts. DeadCat changes his mind, but when he does he gives his reasons for it. To me, changing one’s mind is not a Wolf tell, but a sign that someone is trying to read through these hundreds of posts over and over to get at the truth. DeadCat has made thoughtful posts about every player here, which shows to me that he is thinking about every player here.
Why I think DeadCat might be Scum:
• The “die on a hill” switch on Day 1 is still a possible black mark. The switch came at an opportune time for Prof. Pepperwinkle. I think the strong belief and then a switch is Towny seeming. But it is possible I am wrong.
I get a Pro-Town read from DeadCat.
+++++
Hooker Chemical:
Why I think **HookerChemical **might be Town:
• **HookerChemical **has posted several well thought out analytical posts. Hooker has also come under a lot of suspicion, but he has answered those suspicions with more long thought-out posts that ring true to me as opposed to a wolf struggling for an explanation.
• His post #517does come immediately after TexCat’s excellent dissection of Mahaloth one post before. As Hooker notes, these posts came exactly one minute apart. It is not possible that Hooker read TexCat’s post, realized the jig was up, and then jumped on the bandwagon. Nobody types that fast. So I think Hooker was really suspecting Mahaloth.
• Hooker’s postings on Day 1 may give the impression of someone looking for another wagon to take off and thus save Professor P. But I also think it more likely that Hooker was doing this to see what reactions he would get to the voting. Hooker was voting for others (Sario, WFTomba) well before a Professor P. lynch wagon got rolling. So I don’t really think this argument against him is a sound one.
Why I think Hooker might be Scum:
• He didn’t see the case against Professor P on Day 1. I don’t think it was necessary to vote for Prof. P., but I don’t know why he didn’t acknowledge the case. Mahaloth also didn’t see a case, but then of course Astral didn’t either.
• **Hooker **voted quickly for Dante G. on Day 1. If it was a set-up, then Hooker either played right into the wolves hands or he is one himself. It just seems rash this time to vote so quickly.
• Hooker is not shy about voting. It could be because he is fishing for reactions. It also could be that his constant voting and switching is meant more as a distraction, or to feed suspicion and then slip away unnoticed.
YesterDay I called on the Vigilante to take out IRConfused or Dante G. But really the best choices would have been either **IRConfused **or Octarine. Not playing is not helping Town.
IRConfused:
Why I think** IRConfused** might be Town:
I have actually have reduced my suspicion of** IRConfused** a tad since yesterDay. The postings Hooker mentions on Day 2 ring Town to me. IRConfused was the first to point out Mahaloth’s “zippo” comment in post #376, when he actually voted for Mahaloth. The vote itself could have been throwaway as Mahaloth didn’t rate to be lynched then. But I myself kept coming back to Mahaloth’s “zippo” analysis of the Professor P. case. That post set off all sorts of alarm bells once the Professor flipped Scum. If this is one Scum voting for another, IRConfused surely picked a particularly damning post of Mahaloth’s to draw attention to.
On Day 2, IRConfused , at the very end of that Day, makes the “unfortunate” comment regarding WFTomba’s guilt (Post#458). It, of course, would be unfortunate because WFTomba was about to be lynched and IRConfused believed him innocent. **Mahaloth **attacked IRC for this assessment. Again this is possibly wolf on wolf, but Mahaloth’s remark almost seemed condescending, as if he was glad to have found someone to pick on who wouldn’t fight back.
Why I think IRConfused might be Scum:
Posting gets your thoughts out on the table, and that is Pro-Town. Lurking keeps a player in the shadows, and I think that is good for wolves. IRConfused has been lurking the whole game, and while Prof. Pepperwinkle was scummy to bring LTL up after just a few hours into the game, we have weeks of play now. IRConfused has been lurking while the rest of us risk posting because getting thoughts out is more important than worrying about whether we look Pro-Town or not. It’s not as if IRConfused has not been to this site. He logged in early today (Wednesday) according to his Profile page.
I had IRConfused on my early Scum list with Professor P. because his participation seemed iffy. He basically had voted for Sario due to past game Scum roles, and added little else. Finally we get Post #265, with analysis and thought. But where have such posts been since? I think it interesting that **IRConfused **has the other major lurker, Octarine, at the top of his list of suspects in #561.
My read: Slight Scum Lean
+++++
Octarine:
Why I think Octarine might be Town:
• What few posts there have been seem Pro-Town to me, especially early on. Example: Post #273, where he argues that **Astral is one of the most “Town-y posters.” Another Example: Post #209, where he agrees with Hooker **that that either DeadCat or Prof. Pepperwinkle is likely to be Scum due to the level of antagonism between them. I had a positive read early on and nothing Octarinehas posted since has made me think he is Scum.
Why I think Octarine might be Scum:
• We have had weeks of posting and very little from Octarine. He votes for** IRConfused** the first day despite thinking that either PP or DeadCat must be scum. Octarine’s vote on IRConfused, incredibly, seems to be based on lurking (Post 160).
• A comment here and there have followed, but not many, and certainly not enough to give a Town or Scum read. I believe not posting is WORSE than bad posting. If my mistakes get me lynched, then I have at least left a record. The same goes with other players. Octarine has posted in many other threads during the past few weeks at the SDMB, but is strangely silent in this one. Octarine has given me little to go on. And that is not Pro-Town at all.
My read: Scum lean.
+++++
I am not quite ready to advocate we lynch either IRConfused or Octarine…yet. But both of these players signed up to play, and toMorrow I think either would be a good candidate if nothing else develops and neither chooses to participate. I particularly would like to hear from Octarine, as I touted his case on Day 1, stood up for him against Suburban Plankton’s vote on Day 3. Was I wrong, Octarine?
Voting record
How we got Mahaloth/ Contributions to Scum Hunting
Player Review and Inquiry
Voting Record
My last look at voting record was Post 517. We’ll also take a look at that one in the Mahaloth discussion, so keep it open.
At that point, we had mis-lynched Sario and WF Tomba, and there were three people who had been part of the mis-lynchboth times: me (HookerChemical), Dead Cat, and snfaulkner. Now, we can take a look at votes on Mahaloth. In order, the votes came (post #, date, and time indicated too):
Not voting for Mahaloth are Dante G and Suburban Plankton, though both posted to the thread after the confession.
The confession and the timing make it harder to analyze this than other voting records, but Mahaloth did put up some effort (3 posts) to avoid the lynch between Post 519 (snfaulkner’s vote) and confessing (Post 538). It was a pretty weak defense, but the confession wasn’t immediate.
The most interesting thing to me is that all three players with a record of two bad votes were early on the Mahaloth wagon and prior to the confession. It’s also interesting in that Mahaloth didn’t seem to be high on anybody’s list of scum. There were some questions and raised eyebrows thrown his direction, but I didn’t have him in my top three until I really took a look when composing Post 517. The timing of the votes is also interesting. I’m not sure how much it tells us, but Dead Cat was way out ahead of the curve on the vote by 16 posts and more than 24 hours. TexCat and I made very similar arguments in posts 516 and 517. They’re one minute apart, and both are pretty substantial, so this was pretty clearly two people coming to the same conclusion at the same time. (Technically, I came to the conclusion 10 minutes later in Post 518 after seeing that I wasn’t the only one wondering what Mahaloth was up to, but I cited similar evidence in my Post 517, down to the post (402, 436*, 495) in several instances.)
What can we make of all that? I think it substantially contributes to the townieness of all pre-confession voters. It probably sealed TexCat’s fate as the night kill, since she was in everybody’s “town” column already. (More on this in “Why are these people still alive?”) I’m not ready to clear snfaulkner of suspicion, but that vote against Mahaloth mattered. If it was scum voting on scum to look townie, it was scum voting on power scum, and that’s probably not a good trade.
*Rereading those posts (516 and 517), I’ve found why I don’t put too much weight in infrequent mistakes. It takes a pattern to bug me. I cite Post 437 as Mahaloth’s nonsensical vote against me for explaining why I had a position on Prof P similar to his. It was actually 436, correctly cited by TexCat. How did we find Mahaloth?
This is mostly “How did I (HookerChemical) find Mahaloth?” I can’t speak for Dead Cat, TexCat, or snfaulkner except to restate what they’ve said.
The thing that I found most offputting about Mahaloth’s posts was the lack of content. The ones that really pushed me into the “Time to level a serious accusation” column were the ones that seemed to actively create confusion or destroy information like the accusation against Biotop for perfect information or ignoring so many direct questions (Biotop in Post 427, reiterated with an additional question by me in Post 437). Posts 516 and 517 lay out a more complete case.
In a game that’s been characterized as trading bodies for information, Mahaloth seemed like he would actively prevent information from being generated.
The lack of information may continue to be the best place to look for more scum. This is probably a self-serving position for me, but I think there is substantial merit to it.
Finally: Player Review and Inquiry
I’m starting this from scratch rather than piggybacking on Biotop (we’ll see this addressed later).
Dead Cat: I have substantial townie feelings from Dead Cat. I was leaning moderate town on Post 440, and I continue to have that position. DC was the first voting against Mahaloth. DC is now the number 2 poster, behind me, so they’re active. DC’s posts ask good questions and contribute to the discussion of the information we have. The only strike I see against Dead Cat is the two votes for mis-lynches. I have the same mark on my record, so I understand how it can happen.
Octarine: Octarine is the lowest volume poster, ahead of only Sario, who died Day One. I think this is very unfortunate, because I like Octarine’s posts. While I have concerns about some ideas in Post 599, I think Octarine’s posts are generally townie. The biggest problem with Octarine is the lack of posts.
Suburban Plankton: Another low-volume poster. Some of that was noted by SP himself, and he’s been more active lately, so I’m not going to worry too much that he’s scum trying to float along and avoid notice. The problem with recent posts is that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of scum hunting; rather, SP is discussing mechanics. Post 548 notes that one possible motivation for Mahaloth’s early confession is to stymie conversation…then he doesn’t post again until the next Day and plays into what he posits was Mahaloth’s motivation. He’s also one of two who didn’t vote for the confessed scum Mahaloth.
I have a couple questions for Suburban Plankton:
Why didn’t you vote for Mahaloth?
Who are your scum leans at this point?
Biotop: When I started this post, you hadn’t posted your summary. Now, I have to rewrite this section, so fiddlesticks.
My initial write-up alluded to Biotop not doing his wall-of-text posts that I liked to piggyback off of. Day Three didn’t have anything like we got in Day One or Day Two. That absense asked the question of what had changed and if we were seeing scum fatigue after playing such a verbose and helpful townie. (Bio was at or near the top of my townie list Days One and Two for scum hunting posts.) You’ve responded to my accusation before it’s made. I had been getting a “Biotop has changed, mid game. He’s up to something.” Vibe, but I’m amazed how a single post can kill that feeling. My feeling is back to “Biotop posts a lot of long and useful posts. It’s really too bad he’s slowed down and I can’t piggyback like I did Day One and Two.”
Dante G: I’ll start by quoting my case against Dante from Post 440:
Here’s Post 271, referenced in the above:
Post 271 still irks me. I interpret “better for myself” as “looking townie.” There can be reasons to not have your vote on one of the leading candidates, but “better for myself” is not one I like. Do what is townie, not what looks townie. That’s not necessarily a scum thing, but it’s a think town needs to do less. I still have a hard time reconciling the Dante that put subtle clues into the narration with the gaffe prone Dante of this game.
But I think there’s a case to be made that he’s being set up, which I make in Post 602. One element I didn’t consider in that case is the first accusation of Dante being scum based on a gaffe is from PCM, a dead townie.
I find myself asking what Dante’s done recently.
This doesn’t make any sense. Biotop and I are scum because we’re too town?
I get that my Day One wasn’t good. I’ve made my defense of it, and I understand that won’t satisfy everybody. But there’s description of what “other things” are and there’s no explanation of why Dante went from voting Octarine yesterday (to the point of not voting Mahaloth) to me, despite my being part of the pivot onto Mahaloth. Without support, these accusations ring of Mahaloth’s votes against me and Biotop in Days Two and Three.
I also found this gem on reread, directed at snfaulkner:
I have two problems with this post. In context, the evidence presented by snfaulkner is that his gut has failed him Day One and Two. Therefore, he quotes Biotop’s discussion of experienced players and whether we should wonder why experienced players have not been killed and votes for Mahaloth. That’s not evidence or a case, that’s using a rough rule of thumb and no evidence.
Questions for Dante:
What are the “other things” that rub you wrong?
What changed between Day Three (where you were voting for Octarine) and Day Four (where you vote for me), because it doesn’t seem to be TexCat’s line of evidence, which you admit I’ve addressed?
And last we have snfaulkner. Snfaulkner is in the Two-Mislynch-Votes with me and Dead Cat, so there’s that strike. But like with Dead Cat, I’m considering that with other information. Back in post 440, I said in response to WF Tomba and snfaulkner voting for each other:
I think that assessment still looks reasonable, and WF Tomba flipped town.
You may be as surprised as I am to know that snfaulkner is the third most active poster alive and only one post behind Dead Cat by count. I’ve asked myself “Do you remember any snfaulkner’s insights or posts?” and find myself answering “No.” I read through them and I don’t remember them because they don’t have much content. I’m obviously interested in speculation about roles and powers (see my Post 595 among others), but not at the expense of scum hunting and posting evidence with posts like Post 602 and this one. Looking through snfulkner’s posts, there isn’t much meat on them. Here’s my summary of snfaulkner’s most recent posts:
Post 593 is a check in post with a question about Macho.
Post 557 is more role speculation about the Jester.
Post 553 brings up the idea that Mahaloth could be the Jester.
Posts 525 and 526 worry about fitting into my “suspicion peaks near the middle” theory (similar to Suburban Plankton’s “middle tier” theory).
Post 524 is a vote count.
Post 522 is more worry about appearing to be town.
Post 520 worries that he’s on a wagon train and looking all bandwagony.
We finally get some scum hunting (rather than worrying about whether thier posts were townie enough or speculating on roles) in Post 519, but even that is thin on evidence and appears more to be based on hunting experienced players rather than evidence.
I see lots of talk and little scum hunting or presentation of evidence from snfaulkner.
The bright spot is that snfaulkner was the fourth vote on Mahaloth and the last prior to the confession. I can think of convoluted reasons
I reviewed IRConfused yesterday. I half talked myself out of my vote on him for his Day Two posts already, and putting this post together completed that process.
UNVOTE IRCONFUSED
VOTE SNFAULKNER
I think snfaulkner is the most likely scum. Dante G is my next candidate. There’s a long separation until the next set of candidates.
About my low post count: I understand the logic behind posting more in case you’re lynched, but the truth is that I’m posting whenever I feel I have something valid and substantial to add to the discussion. Writing fluff posts just to get my count up seems counterproductive; being new at this, I’m learning along the way, and trying to make strong contributions whenever I can. While I’m aware my low posting means I wouldn’t be the greatest loss to Town, lynching me would mean missing yet another opportunity to lynch a wolf, so, y’know, I’d rather you guys not do that.
In other news, Dante is looking a tad more scummy to me than snfaulkner, therefore he gets my vote. In addition to everyone’s points above, and my prior suspicions of him in 550, something about the way he reacted to Mahaloth’s confession seemed a little . . . fake to me. He seemed too eager to show surprise after the confession:
So far in this game my gut’s been misleading, as I’m sure my voting record shows; still, I feel fairly confident in this.
Ok, I guess its time to focus on the game. I admit I have been a bit lurky as of late, mainly because re-re-re-re-re-reading 600+ posts is making my head hurt plus a bunch of other whiny out of game excuses.
I see there is a building case against me that needs addressing. I might have to do this one post at a time as I have been frequently interrupted (with work shit this past week since the holidays are coming up. People are pushing to finish up their stupid projects before they go off to whatever the hell it is they do). I understand this might over inflate my post count, so try not to judge me based on that number.
So for specific concerns, let me start with this one:
Yeah, I started said spreadsheet, but it soon became an incomprehensible mess and resulted in two mis-lynches. Plus it took up a great deal of real estate on my desk and too many people in my office were asking about it so I chucked it the rubbish.
You’re God Damn right it was FUD! I was expressing my OWN Fear, Uncertainty and Doubts, not trying to spread it. This whole game has been FUD for me. For good and for bad. I hate it, but i like trying to figure it out, but i hate getting it wrong which causes more FUD. Which was pretty sweet when I got it right yesterDay with the Mahaloth lynch.
I’m kind of glad I’ve been doing the “Wall of text” style posts, because I’m finding it gives me something to circle back to rather than having to reread everything from Day One every time. It sure beats a spreadsheet, IMO. When circling back, there’s this little link. Look for who you want to check up on, click the number of posts, and you have links to their posts in the threat.
I see this all as indication that I don’t know what I’m doing. My one success was listening to someone else’s advice. Advice I might follow again toDay. Aka, when in mid-game, look towards experienced players…
No vote yet however, I have a lot yet to get through. More to come…
I’ve addressed this before, but don’t have the time to dig up post numbers. But to reiterate, I was “begging”, as you put it, for someone to change my mind because it was my first real vote on the first Day of my first game of Mafia. I’m not a big fan of accusing people on thin evidence back on the mainland, so I was (am?) a bit timid about doing it on this island, even though I now realize that this island has become very lord of flies-y. Accusations and thin evidence is all we seem to have…
Ok, going back to what worked yesterDay…who do I think is the most experienced? Well, I’m not really sure. Mahaloth seemed the easy enough answer because of his extensive write-up about playing mafia. I’m not sure I know enough about the remaining players, but here is my WAG (in no particular order):
Dante G Claims to have played a bunch of times on other boards and even moderated a game on here that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. How much does his experience from other boards carry over to this island here?
Hooker Chemical certainly strikes me as having played a lot on here before…
Dead Cat Is a rookie…
Suburban Plankton Doesn’t seem to say much, but does seem to know what’s going on…I get the feeling he’s played quite a few times.
Biotop has played once before, as I learned in the sign-up thread…
IRConfused is a rookie…
Octarine also a rookie…
SO, based on ONLY on lynch-the experienced, I think I have to
VOTE DANTE G for now. Though HC and SP are tied for second.
HOWEVER, I’m going to do some more investigations going over the a fore mentioned vote records and a steaming loaf of gut feelings, which hasn’t served me well at all…so more to come…
Ok, so now, I have my top 3 candidate, Dante G followed by Sub Plank, Hooker Chem, based on a technique that worked once (which I admit is bad science). Can I now look at the vote records of these three and make a case for any of them to be wolves? Well, sure. With enough twisted logic you can show anything. So which is the LEAST twisted logic? Here’s what I’m looking at:
Scenario 1 Assuming Dante G is wolf
Day1
A fairly early vote for Mahaloth would be a bus attempt. Fairly easy to believe. Steers him clear of the Prof P vs Sario nonsense that doesn’t need his help deciding and earns himself town cred when Mahaloth finally Wolfs out.
Day2
3rd Vote for WF Tomba. Easy to pile on votes on a townie to get a lynch going.
Day3
2nd vote on Octarine. Again, easy to vote on a townie to try and get a lynch going. Curiously though, he never hops on the Mahaloth train, even after the confession…?
So, is there much twisted logic that is needed to make him fit as a wolf? some, I suppose. Let’s see home much the other two might need…
Scenario 2 assuming Suburban Plankton is a wolf.
Day1
vote for me and leaves it there, steers clear of the Prof.P/Sario thing. Always easy to vote on a townie, no biggie.
Day2
First vote on WF Tomba that ends in a townie lynch. Again, always easy for a wolf to vote town, no biggie
Day 3
First early vote on Octarine. Easy thing to do. But also stays clear of the Mahaloth lynch. Also an easy thing to do when wolf, NOT vote on another wolf. But after the confession, why not pile on?
So again, is twisted logic needed to see Sub Plank as a wolf? Not really, I don’t think. Let’s try Hooker Chem
Scenario 3 assuming Hooker Chemical is wolf
Day1
2nd vote on IRConfused…just as good as anyone at that point. But does stay out of the mess.
Day2
6th vote on WF Tomba. Easy/safe to pile on when it’s already a run away.
Day3
3rd vote on Mahaloth. This would seem to be an extremely ballsy wolf to starting/continue bandwagoning you puke scum wolf power role buddy. And for this reason alone I’m dropping Hooker Chemical from my Wolf Puke List.
So now, could BOTH Dante G AND Sub Plank be wolves? Sure. Though I’m not as solid with my Dante G vote for today based on all of the above bias confirmation I’ve done, I am sticking by it for now. I still need to go over a few more things…
Do not think I’ve ruled any of them out as wolves either. My thinking process for toDay had to start with the “keep an eye on the experienced”. I will come back to them all.