Newbie Mini Mafia XXII - Page 20

[QUOTE]On July 28 2012 21:33 Shady Sands wrote:
I am sticking with my eye on Golbat.

[QUOTE]On July 28 2012 13:46 Golbat wrote:
I'll probably be able to read the thread before I have to go to work tomorrow morning, but in case I don't get that chance,

##Vote aRyujin

This is why I am voting for him: His haiku style makes it easy for him to fill up his posts with a shit load of waffle and some nearly baseless accusations and almost get away with it. I hope in between now and deadline the eye of suspicion takes a long, hard look at him, because his confusing waffle is nothing short of a full-on impediment to real discussion.

I would also consider voting for Shady Sands, depending on the consensus of the town for these reasons : His direct swap from "I agree with golbat, let's lynch Mord" after Mord drew such attention to himself to "Let's lynch Golbat and then Mord, because one of them HAS to be scum" after people started questioning me is something that I don't think anybody else agreed with. The way he seemed so concrete about who we should lynch for multiple days is really suspicious. We should be picking lynches on a day by day basis as more discussion takes place, not queue up our votes for several days straight.

Right now these two seem to me to be the most scummy. Of course, if someone else decides to act scummy as all get out, i'd be happy to vote for them as well, but at the moment these two seem the most suspicious.

Hopefully i'll be able to get back and read/contribute more in the morning, as i'll be at work when the deadline hits and won't be home for three or four hours after that.


His rationale for voting aRyujin basically boils down to "aRyujin posts in Haiku--therefore he is a worthless townie--therefore we should lynch him." Simplified, Golbat is saying that we should lynch aRyujin because there would be no loss if aRyujin was gone. Apart from the fact that our poet has switched to normal prose from his prior haikus, Golbat's analysis is so simplistic and vapid that it would make me laugh were it not such a clear indication of scummy play.

Now let's look at what Golbat was doing in response to his own accusations:

[QUOTE]On July 28 2012 05:24 Golbat wrote:
Okay, now I'm back.

It looks like pretty much everyone else in the thread seems to think I'm scum. Well that's not good, because i'm not. You all seem to think that my incredibly poor play has something to do with me being scum, when that's not the case at all. I'm town. I'm very town, I'm just bad. I Honestly thought all of my posts were helpful when I posted them. I can see now why they aren't. I also think you can do better than lynching me. I propose instead that today we lynch someone who hasn't been a part of the conversation much, as it's entirely possible that the mafia has decided to sit back and let me and Mord go at it while the town analyzes itself to pieces.

I feel that in that regard, Keir has been suspiciously quiet so far. Besides defending himself from Mord's suspicions early on, and this post, + Show Spoiler + he hasn't contributed to the scumhunt at all. He himself also did say + Show Spoiler +, and afterwards has gone on to essentially lurk. I would say that he might just not be posting much, but he's had so much he could've posted about so far, that his lack of saying anything is something I find suspicious.

So basically Golbat is saying, Keir is quiet, let's lynch him. Then Golbat says aRyujin is posting Haikus, let's lynch him. Then he shifts to Shady Sands:

[QUOTE]On July 28 2012 13:46 Golbat wrote:
I'll probably be able to read the thread before I have to go to work tomorrow morning, but in case I don't get that chance,

##Vote aRyujin

This is why I am voting for him: His haiku style makes it easy for him to fill up his posts with a shit load of waffle and some nearly baseless accusations and almost get away with it. I hope in between now and deadline the eye of suspicion takes a long, hard look at him, because his confusing waffle is nothing short of a full-on impediment to real discussion.

I would also consider voting for Shady Sands, depending on the consensus of the town for these reasons : His direct swap from "I agree with golbat, let's lynch Mord" after Mord drew such attention to himself to "Let's lynch Golbat and then Mord, because one of them HAS to be scum" after people started questioning me is something that I don't think anybody else agreed with. The way he seemed so concrete about who we should lynch for multiple days is really suspicious. We should be picking lynches on a day by day basis as more discussion takes place, not queue up our votes for several days straight.

Right now these two seem to me to be the most scummy. Of course, if someone else decides to act scummy as all get out, i'd be happy to vote for them as well, but at the moment these two seem the most suspicious.

Hopefully i'll be able to get back and read/contribute more in the morning, as i'll be at work when the deadline hits and won't be home for three or four hours after that.


Basically his case against me is that I switched from Mord to Golbat when no one else did so, and because I talked about multi-day lynching patterns. I'm going to address the multi-day lynching complaint in a separate post, but calling for suspicion just because someone made that switch from a target to another target alone seems like a call for people to bandwagon, which is generally not optimal town play.

Indeed, this is where Golbat seems to show his true colors: look at the below part--

[quote]I would also consider voting for Shady Sands, depending on the consensus of the town for these reasons[/quote]

This is really wierd. Basically Golbat is saying he'll vote for someone if the rest of the town bandwagons that person. In a situation where the mafia can and will bandwagon a day 1 lynch, such a position is stupid at best and dangerous/scummy at worst. Why would Golbat even leave himself that out, and state it publicly?

This circles back to my point about "loud scum" being a difficult strategy to play, because inevitably a player will make a scumslip like the sentence above if they keep playing loudly. In that regard I think Mordanis made the right strategic choice way back in the beginning (even if on a tactical level his reasoning was completely off-kilter and wasted the town's time.)

I'd like to close my case against Golbat with the following quote from Golbat:

[quote]Just because you aren't making cases doesn't mean you still can't contribute. You could read over someone's filter and point out inconsistencies, or share a read you have on someone, or do ANYTHING. Not having a complete case to share yet isn't an excuse to not contribute at all. If nobody does any talking, how are we going to get anything done?[/quote]

That's exactly true--Golbat hasn't pointed out a single inconsistency or read as a justification for any of his lynches (either aRyujin, me, or Mordanis--remember that Golbat simply said "what are we waiting for let's just lynch Mordanis already"), yet he seems to acknowledge that this is the right way to play town. Something's not right here.

##Unvote Mordanis
##FoS Golbat

I will likely vote Golbat, barring something huge coming up, before the 17:00 EDT deadline.[/QUOTE]

---

[QUOTE]On July 27 2012 20:33 Shady Sands wrote:
[QUOTE]On July 27 2012 15:36 Mordanis wrote:
... *Sigh*
I'll begin by saying this: If the people jumping on my bandwagon 1/6th of the way through the first day are town, they are really doing a good job of muddling up the conversation. Look through the thread so far, and see that the only discussion before I posted my case was policy, and that very lenient. There was a lot of "Oop, don't want to attract attention, guess I'll say that we shouldn't policy lynch any lurkers". I admit that I rushed my two main posts, and they may have been suboptimal, but compare that to the entire rest of the populace. We've managed 2 cases so far, and I was one of them. The other is a direct response to mine. I really don't understand why the people who are tunnelling me are doing so: attacking the only person who has posted anything of substance (that isn't within the same bandwagon as you) seems anti-discussion. So while I certainly made a mistake in talking too much about Keir and potential blue roles, the biggest reason that I seem to be "in danger" is that I've been willing to say what I believe. Regardless, I see the bandwagon as being very interesting.

There are 3 people who have had an overwhelming share in the activity against me.

DarthPunk:
He seems to have a hard time with my line of thought. I apologize, my last game ended with me and another player (Release <3) in a duel that had a lot secrecy and enigmatic reasoning. I came to this game expecting the same. If you take people at the face value of their words (In which case, I'm town so don't lynch me :D), then you tend to miss a lot of good reads. The way to catch scum is not to find the first invalid argument, but rather to find the players who are playing in an anti-town way. This includes delaying to reduce the amount of analysis, making the atmosphere bad for town, and muddling with plans. By posting my case on the first thing that I saw, I went in the direction of an atmosphere that welcomes content posting, started the scumhunt before it would have started had I not posted, and laid a fairly straightforward path for the town without explicitly discussing policy. We lynch the player with the scummiest play. So while my read may not have been perfect, my post should have helped town. On the other hand, creating a mass bandwagon on the one person who has posted anything of substance (besides the counter substance) seems to accomplish the goals of scum. Still, he seems more to have an issue following my logic than to be following a plan, as well as being the first to place suspicion on me. I give him a solid "mEh" on the scum-scale

Shady:
The most brazen of my accusers. Doesn't seem to be following the fine points of the game very closely. Still doesn't appear to get that the day cycle is 48 hours and not 12. Has a great time posting out perceived errors in my logic and then votes for me on said perceptions, without seeming to notice that one of his main points + Show Spoiler + makes no sense. Why would scum draw attention to himself on a case this early? Why especially would the scum stick to his guns rather than move on to greener pastures? Seems like really dumb play for scum, although perhaps he thinks I am that dumb. I am pretty sure I'm more intelligent than a garbage can though... Anyways, despite my annoyance with him, his play seems more uniformed than scummy. So to you Shady I say: Read through the OP again, and preferably some of the guides. Your play so far has been far from inspiring. And compared to this group, that's saying something.

Golbat:
The entire time so far he seems to have been itching to get on my bandwagon. His first post with more than 1 line says: + Show Spoiler +
First he makes an excuse for potential scumslips (First time in a non UMS, take it easy on me), and then proceeds to quietly second the position of DarthPunk. He seems to be trying to avoid attention while being able to make excuses later on, with the added bonus of being able to hop onto a bandwagon on me without much thought from other players. His second post + Show Spoiler + is more of the same: he is trying to come off as pro-town without having to commit to anything as of yet. Particularly of importance is the phrase "I already have an idea of who might be scum". Almost brilliant, as it gives him the ability to jump on any bandwagon that forms. He could just say "Yep, just as I thought" and hop right on. Sure, it works better if the bandwagon was me, but if it ended on anyone else no one could say that he had flip-flopped. Finally, he posts this + Show Spoiler +
Awesome, he jumps on the bandwagon in 2nd/3rd position, early enough that he seems to be "leading", but late enough that he can avoid later suspicion by saying "Shady was in front of me!". He even tries to end the discussion by agreeing that the case on me is open and shut. Vague Pro-town comments + early excuse + bandwagon-ing + anti-discussion = quadruple scummy. So for right now at least: ##Vote: Golbat

+ Show Spoiler [nonsense about Keir] +[/QUOTE]

I think this is pretty important to parse through, because it makes me want to refrain from lynching Mordanis until day 2 or 3. I'm going to state that I share Mordanis' and Keir's concerns that Golbat may be scum. This is especially true if Mordanis flips green or blue--then Golbat is very clearly red, and vice versa.

That being said, however, I'm still pretty suspicious of Mordanis' desire to start scumhunting an hour and a half into the game, when only half of the players had even posted. This was exacerbated by the fact that his case against Keir was extremely poor, almost intentionally so--as if Mordanis wanted more heat than light to be shed on the situation.

One of the main things I'd like to point out here is that scum do not necessarily have to play quietly. It's easier for the scum to play that way, but playing loudly is also a valid scum tactic for sowing discord and division within the town--which is what I thought Mord's post was trying to do.

Now that the Keir case is closed, however, and Mord+Keir have both identified Golbat's behavior as pretty odd in and of itself, then I think it would be worthwhile to take a look at Golbat. (I'm still a suspicious of Mord, but mainly because his behavior has created so much uncertainty as to what he really could be--and Golbat can clear up a lot of that.)

Besides being the first one to "formally" vote for Mordanis, Golbat was also the first one to accuse Mord of faulty analysis. Granted, Golbat's claims were valid--but his more recent posts have made me pretty suspicious.

First, let's ignore the list for a bit--we'll circle back to it, but one general thing to note about Golbat's posting: he seems to spend more time trying to make himself look like a townie than trying to figure out who is scum. This is the kicker that shifted my focus from Mord to him.

Look at this train of posts below:
+ Show Spoiler [Golbat's posts since the "…] +

As soon as people start pressuring him, Golbat says that he's not scum in 4 different ways. He emphasizes his newbieness, he says he's just eager to win, then he self-consciously makes a post to make himself not seem like a flip-flopper. Then, when he finally realizes he's digging himself into a hole, he decides to pull the Ostrich maneuver and stick his head into said hole for 6-12 hours. Undoubtedly, if he is red, he is now sending a clear signal to his buddies to bail him out and hopefully shift the discussion to someone else by the time he is out of said hole.

Next post will be about Golbat's "list post".[/QUOTE]