Newbie Mini Mafia XXII - Page 21

On July 29 2012 08:34 Golbat wrote:
Hey guys, this is my one polite goodbye post.

I'm really sorry that things played out the way they did. I feel like I was going good up until I backed off Mordanis so early, and that was truly a rookie mistake. I've learned a lot about how to play from my first game, and I hope to improve a lot in my next game. I'll be signing up for XXIII, so I'll see some of you there hopefully ^^. Good luck town, kill those dirty mafia bastards!

<3,
Golbat

On July 29 2012 13:05 alan133 wrote:
I just woke up and I need to get some food. I will go through the day post again when I am back with the information we got now - Golbat flip blue. I hope everyone else do the same.

On July 27 2012 22:11 Zorkmid wrote:
Another of these people is Golbat:
So far, Golbat has, in this order:

voted Mordanis
unvoted Mordanis
FoS Mordanis

His unvote seems to coincide with Mordanis's making a case on him. He claims he backed off the vote because:

I'm not sure what this could mean, but I think that it's worth pointing out. It's one of the stranger seeming posts I've read in this game.

On July 27 2012 15:36 Mordanis wrote:
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

On July 29 2012 13:19 Obvious.660 wrote:
> Keirathi - that Shady's posting resembles a cop's posting in a previous game. I'd like to know how that's relevant, unless Shady was that cop, we're talking about different things completely.

On July 29 2012 13:19 Obvious.660 wrote:
In regards to my activity, should be able to pick it up by Monday if I haven't been decimated. Going for quality over quantity til the wedding stuff (not my wedding) is finished. (double spacing to keep things grouped)

So here's what I'm putting together from all of this:
Shady Sands' play is rather deliberately confusing and time wasting:
1) Bringing in statistics without identifying exactly how they were obtained, ergo they were not easily identifiable as a lie
>>>>Lots of time is wasted on people focusing on the stats, trying to verify them, instead of spending time looking at what is more readily confirmed: anything in the thread.

2) Trying to understand what he meant by what flips reveal about the surviving town members, before any other deaths occured
>>>>This will end up being a bunch of circular logic on Day 1 given that no other information is known to plain old town members. Delays relevant conversation away from today's discussion and focuses on tomorrows.

3) Being willing to let someone who he considers definitely scum survive the night
>>>>No. We always kill scum, potentially removing scum power roles in the process.

4) While in the process of writing this, Shady has claimed that I voted for Golbat.
>>>>This is wrong, as my vote was on Shady. More misdirection/confusion.

On July 29 2012 00:39 Keirathi wrote:
@Promethelax

Really? You were gone for 14 hours and that's all you have to comment on? What are your current feelings on my Golbat case? Mordanis? goodkarma?

What about people like aRyuujin who was getting some heat as well?

I don't understand how "townie" Promethelax can be a worse player than the scum Promethelax I played with in XIX.


Shady Sands

The main argument against him seems to be him saying + Show Spoiler +. I maintain that this kind of connection theory isn't in and of itself alignment indicative. For instance, from my last game (I Can't Believe Its Not Themed [non-newbie game]) + Show Spoiler +. This was said by our COP. My only grief with what Shady said is that it's a bit too early in the game, and any hard connection theories are purely speculation until a flip.

He gets some townie points back though for his active scumhunting. I dunno if he's been right or not, but he has what no one else has had yet this game: conviction. He lays out his reads without caring what other people think of them. He's pushed cases on Mordanis and Golbat that for the most part had solid reasoning based on fact and logic rather than WIFOM.

Honestly, I find the townie points in his filter to outweigh his scummy points, and therefor I would be highly against with lynching Shady today. There are just flat-out better candidates imo.

On July 29 2012 14:39 Shady Sands wrote:


Weird, why didn't he mention he had a wedding to attend in any of his earlier posts in the thread? This seems like a pretty strange after-the-fact excuse for any strange patterns of activity.

One thing that is important for everyone in town to start watching for now is activity patterns and posting patterns. Scum will tend to post with an identifiable ringleader and others following in their footsteps... and they will often all make excuses about IRL commitments to assuage any doubts about odd patterns in their collective posting histories.

On July 29 2012 07:57 goodkarma wrote:



Welcome back. Since you skipped out on the vote, I think it's only fair you give us an update on who you feel is scummy and why. I've read through some of your posting history, and understand that what you've been posting to date is fairly consistent with how you've posted with other threads in the past.

I feel I may have come down a bit hard on you earlier with your first attempt at real analysis. I just want to ask you not to feel discouraged, and encourage you to give it another try . This is a newbie game after all, and we're all still trying to figure out how to play this game.




And regarding some general questions about a few of my actions, most of it I feel I've already covered in prior posts and will not repeat myself here. There is, however, one point that I would like to discuss a little further. And that is why I selectively set out after aRyuujin. I laid out a few other "lurkers," including people such as MrMedic, Obvious, and Zorkmid. So why did I only set after aRyuujin? It had to do with two factors:
1) posting history and general activity outside this thread
2) writing style and post readability

Why aRyuujin sticks out here:

1) I will confess I was a little more whimsical in choosing him on this point than I should have been. I remember looking at one of his posts that was two hours later in another thread than his last mafia post and going "Why didn't he post again in the mafia thread? He still hasn't contributed anything..." But in retrospect, I stand by my decision. Stylistically he doesn't always use haiku in his posts. This choice could have been intentional, so it warranted further investigation.
2) Obviously, haikus obfuscated everything he posted, hiding any real chance at reading his intentions.

I may have come across as some madman who wanted to lynch only on policy and not on other qualities but there is some method to my madness. It's been brought up that I should have gone after all of them. The problem with that is that I only have one vote. It would be kind of meaningless to pressure all the people on my "lurker list," as they could just sit there and be like "my bad." You pressure one of them with a vote and you can get a real response, as was the case with aRyuujin.


With the day passed, and our first flip, I plan on making a rather lengthy analysis thread on top suspects. I promise to have it before night ends, but don't expect to see it for several hours.

To be fair, he said he looked through 20 mafia games (which I assumed was an exaggeration, but I'll let him clarify), not that he looked through the *LAST* 20 games, or specifically looked at newbie games.

Overall, I'm leaning townie on Shady despite the case against him. He feels like a townie getting caught up in wild conspiracy/connection theories rather than a scum. I don't think scum can be quite that obvious about it, especially this early into day 1.

@goodkarma:

I mostly agree with your assessment of Mordanis. I feel like it would be a really silly play for a mafia to try to pull this early. It *WAS* a suspiciously weak case though, but mostly I feel like it was a townie trying to find something to push rather than a scum trying to start a bandwagon. I'll be keeping my eye on him though, that's for sure.

About your suspects:

aRyuujin

I don't really have much to comment about him. I feel like its too early to start qualifying people as lurkers. It is the middle of the night in US times, so I suspect a lot of people are sleeping.

MrMedic

In his longest post, he did have some good insight despite how hard the post was to follow. He noted how each point of the Mordanis case against me seemed to be trying to paint me dying in a good light. Would definitely like to hear more from him, hopefully in an easier to follow writing style next time though.

Promethelax

People have to work and sleep. I've played with Prom before, I have no doubt that he'll be active when he has time. People have to work and sleep, they can't be active 24 hours a day.

That being said, Prom has been scum in most (all?) of his previous games, so I'm definitely keeping an eye on him

I'm not sure what time I'll be able to get on tomorrow because my grandpa was put in the hospital today, so I want to lay out my cases for today preemptively so that people have time to discuss them.

Golbat (as an aside, am I the only person that has trouble typing Golbat instead of Goldbat?) :[

The only reasoning he gave for hopping on the Mordanis vote was + Show Spoiler +. Saying "that's scummy because I read it was supposed to be scummy!" isn't really making a case.
Minor point, but he said + Show Spoiler +, then still voted for Mordanis before everyone has posted. I understand that the vote was in response to Mordanis' second big post, but still inconsistent.
Another mintor point, since he refuted it, but in his list post, he called out Mordanis for and OMGUS vote against him, but in the same post he questions why I didn't make an OMGUS case against Mordanis for his early case on me+ Show Spoiler +, despite the fact that I defended myself both times.
No convictions in his reads, giving himself an out if he is wrong + Show Spoiler + He's so wishy-washy there, even though just 2.5 hours before he had said + Show Spoiler +
Along the same line of being flip-floppy, as soon as anyone questioned his vote, he immediately hopped off of the Mordanis vote and asserted that it was only because he was an over-zealous noob + Show Spoiler +
Repeatedly uses being a noob to excuse his play. We are all noobs, it's not an excuse. Throwing it around like that just feels like a desperate attempt to correct your mistakes.
Along the same lines, I find it scummy that he repeatedly feels the need to proclaim his townie status. EVERYONE is going to say that they are townie, so repeating it a bunch of times to sheep town into believing it doesn't necessarily make it true. I used a similar argument to nail Promethelax as scum in Newbie XIX after he kept repeating that he was townie over and over again in the thread.
From his post responding to karma: + Show Spoiler + Didn't he do the same thing (cast suspicion on MrMedic) in his big list post? Yes, yes he did + Show Spoiler +
Ryu pointed this out, but I just want to expand on it. Farther down in the same post, he said + Show Spoiler + So he say this can be an inconsistency? Then why has he done it not once, but TWICE?
+ Show Spoiler + While I don't believe that saying you're willing to change your mind in the light of new evidence is necessarily inconsistent, I don't get how you can call someone else out for doing something that you are doing yourself.


Two other people that I am minorly interested in:

goodkarma

I find repeatedly pushing to have lurkers lynched is an anti-town trait. Our goal is to lynch scum. You claim it's impossible to make solid reads on day 1, but without people making reads, our ability to get successful lynches later in the game diminishes. Repeatedly trying to sheep us back onto lurkers and away from active cases is suspicious.

Mordanis

While I don't find his initial case against me particularly suspicious (other than the fact that it was pure WIFOM) because it could reasonably have been made by either town or mafia, he hasn't full escaped my notice. He repeatedly tried to assert that I wasn't blue. What good is that information to town, and why did he feel the need to point it out? Town never has a reason to "blue hunt", but scum always does.



I really feel like Golbat is our best chance of flipping scum at the moment, so:

##Vote Golbat

Also aRyuujin, alan, Obvious, and Prom: you guys have overall been pretty quiet comparatively as well. At least you guys have posted cases, but you really need to step up your amount of input. EVERYONE needs to be giving reads as much as possible. Being wrong isn't a crime, but sitting back and letting others lead the discussion just means you have less "town power" and people are going to be more hesitant to listen to what you have to say when you do randomly decide to chime in.

I'm not going to make bad cases just to put pressure on people. Like I also said, making cases is what keeps the game moving, but when they are just bad cases you give the scum ammunition to push their own agendas.

Weird, why didn't he mention he had a wedding to attend in any of his earlier posts in the thread? This seems like a pretty strange after-the-fact excuse for any strange patterns of activity.

One thing that is important for everyone in town to start watching for now is activity patterns and posting patterns. Scum will tend to post with an identifiable ringleader and others following in their footsteps... and they will often all make excuses about IRL commitments to assuage any doubts about odd patterns in their collective posting histories.

On July 30 2012 02:29 alan133 wrote:
I just got back. I was called out right after breakfast and did have any internet access until now when I got back home. I just
went through a few filters would like to throw out a few points I noticed, in case I die.

@Keirathi
After going through Kei's filter, goodkarma's case on Kei made much more sense.
Kei's first page in his filter since the game started has literally zero scum hunting. He dedicate most of his post passively defending targets of other people's case.

(Note: I directly copy paste text so text formatting is not preserved)

I am not going to post his entire filter, look at his filter and I would be surprised if you don't agree with me.

This is the only post where I found him writing a case



Also, this post gives me a "funny" feeling:



While there is nothing wrong to urge other players to contribute, I feel uneasy when this comes from a person where his filter consist of one case against players that are already being presented, and the rest of them were mostly him passively commenting on other people's cases, I feel like there is plausible + Show Spoiler + scum motivation behind this. The many "encouraging" posts were to distance himself from the lurker crowd, and he can sit back and gauge cases made by other players, and nudge them passively to a mislynch.

Keirathi also said this:

Are you actually discouraging discussions here? For all I know scums can push their own agendas based on these "bad" discussions as well?

@MrMedic
I hope you don't miss your next vote, and since you claimed you are going to be free, (And I doubt scums would target you if you aren't one yourself), I would like to see more post from you in day 2.

Don't worry, if you are town, just post when you see someone doing something scummy, and don't wait for another person to say it first: It will almost paint you in the wrong light.

I refrained from looking at Shady Sands and Mordanis because the filters that I have been reading the entire time was theirs + Golbat's. I noticed

So looks like you will be FoS me too, since I have been giving "excuses about IRL commitments"? I think it is best to declare when you're available to play so when you're being called out at least people knows you won't be around to response.

That said, it's late over here so I won't be around in 8 hours, so in case I got killed, please consider my points here.

On July 30 2012 02:18 goodkarma wrote:
Just a small update:

I've finished reading through all the filters again, and have some new thoughts on who is scum. I have decided to follow the advice posted by alan and postpone discussion of those thoughts until day 2 begins in a few hours here. It seems everyone else is doing the same...

I would, however, like to make a few comments on the Golbat debacle. While Golbat certainly is to blame for not sticking up for himself, so is the town for voting him.

Very obvious, but one of the bigger issues I have with some people's current scum-hunting tactics is they think that scum just have to present in one or two very particular ways. And I will confess I have been guilty of this too...

Things like: Scum are sneaky. They hate to make coherant arguements against players. They love to slip up on statistics that don't really have much bearing on their arguements. They can only sit back and lurk (yeah, I was guilty of this one...).

Everyone plays scum a little differently, making finding them not a science but an art form. Looking back at the Golbat lynching, I couldn't help but notice that while he played badly, he did it consistently. There wasn't one "scumslip," or one particular bandwagon he was willing to ride. He was like, "I want to ride every bandwagon that presents any semblance of a case." I mentioned this too in passing, that he was either a bad town (for bandwagoning without thinking) or a bad mafia (for being so out in the open). But he wasn't afraid to change his mind. Repeatedly. And he did stick his neck out in getting behind cases, being only the second person to do so in something like 3 different spots... Mafia could do all these things, but I find it highly unlikely that they would, especially in a newbie game where I figure first-time Mafia would prefer to play more cautiously to avoid being exposed than to jump into the spotlight like that. In retrospec, and I know it doesn't mean much, but looking at how he was consistent in his terrible play and was completely unafraid to change his mind I don't see how he could have been anything but really bad town.

I encourage everyone, as they're making their new cases, to not have their "scum check-list." Try to show some empathy and really assess if a town could make the posts your suspect has made.


Anyway, my 2 cents. I'll catch up here in a few hours, once day 2 has begun.

On July 30 2012 02:29 alan133 wrote:
I just got back. I was called out right after breakfast and did have any internet access until now when I got back home. I just
went through a few filters would like to throw out a few points I noticed, in case I die.

@Keirathi
After going through Kei's filter, goodkarma's case on Kei made much more sense.
Kei's first page in his filter since the game started has literally zero scum hunting. He dedicate most of his post passively defending targets of other people's case.

(Note: I directly copy paste text so text formatting is not preserved)

I am not going to post his entire filter, look at his filter and I would be surprised if you don't agree with me.

This is the only post where I found him writing a case



Also, this post gives me a "funny" feeling:



While there is nothing wrong to urge other players to contribute, I feel uneasy when this comes from a person where his filter consist of one case against players that are already being presented, and the rest of them were mostly him passively commenting on other people's cases, I feel like there is plausible + Show Spoiler + scum motivation behind this. The many "encouraging" posts were to distance himself from the lurker crowd, and he can sit back and gauge cases made by other players, and nudge them passively to a mislynch.

Keirathi also said this:

Are you actually discouraging discussions here? For all I know scums can push their own agendas based on these "bad" discussions as well?

@MrMedic
I hope you don't miss your next vote, and since you claimed you are going to be free, (And I doubt scums would target you if you aren't one yourself), I would like to see more post from you in day 2.

Don't worry, if you are town, just post when you see someone doing something scummy, and don't wait for another person to say it first: It will almost paint you in the wrong light.

I refrained from looking at Shady Sands and Mordanis because the filters that I have been reading the entire time was theirs + Golbat's. I noticed

So looks like you will be FoS me too, since I have been giving "excuses about IRL commitments"? I think it is best to declare when you're available to play so when you're being called out at least people knows you won't be around to response.

That said, it's late over here so I won't be around in 8 hours, so in case I got killed, please consider my points here.

On July 30 2012 02:29 alan133 wrote:
Keirathi also said this:

Are you actually discouraging discussions here? For all I know scums can push their own agendas based on these "bad" discussions as well?