Newbie Mini Mafia XLIII - Page 4

On June 26 2013 13:26 Hurricane Sponge wrote:


Can you make an updated case for either Aqua or Alakaslam, whoever is your primary target at this time?

On June 26 2013 13:33 Hurricane Sponge wrote:


I'd really love to hear them now, in case you get NK'd.

On June 26 2013 13:33 Alakaslam wrote:

Nonchalance toward lynching someone on no case?

Man, I am at a loss but don't tell me.


Reading Onegu's filter just gave me the chills.

Kind of should but I'm not going to defend because homework, and trying to understand the above.

I will say Onegu has been antagonizing me since early on and so if he flips red a lot of my confusion will lift. I took him for correcting errors, thanked him and apologized immediately following this, and he is then attacking the errors.

I took it as town play because he was fixing errors but how manipulative a scum you can find must be beyond me.

Main thin I'm learning so far is do not disregard the general guide thread. Or read it and forget.

On June 26 2013 14:10 FirmTofu wrote:


(1)Town wouldn't do it either because it is a scum-tell so the bolded point is invalid.
(2) Your vote was contradictory to your statements. It was a scumtell, you can't deny that.

You are simply saying "I'm right and you're wrong" and that really isn't much of a defense. You should be saying "I made a mistake and I meant to say..."

You are digging yourself deeper into a hole that you won't be able to crawl out of at this point.

On June 26 2013 15:11 Hurricane Sponge wrote:


I will explain why I want people to cease talking out loud about these specific topics. We, as town, outnumber mafia. At this point, I am convinced that we are also the better players. Daytime is a great time to deduce why mafia did what they did, because we have the Power of Lynch as the next killing action. Night time is not because the mafia get to follow our chain of thought. As we say things like 'Oh Bob is safe, they can't kill him because then we'd know X', we've just betrayed that advantage. Now, they CAN kill Bob.

Add this to the fact that when we treat mafia as an amorphous blob like this we get no closer to actually finding out who they are. But even saying something like, 'Well Bob is probably gonna die because I think Steve is scum and Steve hates Bob.' is detrimental to the town. What if Bob dies now? They just heard you say that you think it's Steve's fault. And what if Bob doesn't die? Is Steve now innocent? Mafia controls those action items.

It's not so much we need to deny them information. It's more that we can better use this time interpreting the flip and going back over the filters to try to find relationships. Scumhunting is how you win. You don't get some magical prize if you can correctly vet out publicly the mafia's best shot for the night. Especially considered the vast unknowns with our own Power Roles.

Policy aside, in this specific game, I call upon the town to have faith in the players that are manning our Power Roles. They're not dumb. If you've thought of it, odds are they probably thought of it when they got their Role PM. Go find a filter and let's do some dumpster diving. Talk is good. Gameplanning for the other team is not.

On June 26 2013 14:28 FirmTofu wrote:
So Alakaslam, if you want to clear yourself in my eyes, you are going to have to vote Onegu. That is the only way I can know for sure that you guys aren't on the same team.

If he flips town(which is extremely unlikely), you are cleared of all blame.
If he flips scum, you will be scrutinized, but I will take some time to reconsider because you did vote for him.

Voting for Onegu is a win-win situation for you if you are town. The only reason you wouldn't vote him would be if you are scum.

The ball is in your court.

On June 24 2013 17:04 Aquanim wrote:

I suppose that's a fair enough position to hold. I've personally found that my reads based on 'feelings' are often more accurate than those where I carefully assemble 'evidence'. This doesn't feel to me like the town Chromatic which I played with in Newbie XXXIII.

Asking questions is a town-y kind of thing to do, I agree. However, in my mind it is only significantly town-y when there is an actual plan behind those questions. By comparison, Chromatic was asking pretty generic questions without any real point or follow-up. Asking other people for their reads while having shared none of his own does not sit well with me.


Pointing out that some plan or another is stupid before anyone else does is a really cheap way of accumulating town-cred without committing to anything. Someone was going to shoot that plan down either way, so a scum player would have nothing to gain from not shooting it down.

All this being said, I think that what he's done so far could plausibly be explained by a town mentality as well as a scum one. If he comes back tomorrow and starts playing a good town-game I'll be looking to lynch somebody else. For the meantime, though, my vote and intention stays.

It is even better to vote for people who have posted some stuff but haven't been useful, since you'll probably get a reaction out of them (and others) which will help you find scum. Voting a lurker doesn't accomplish much at this point in the day.

Meta in newbies is of limited usefulness, particularly for assessing scuminess directly - people's scumgames could change dramatically. However, if someone has demonstrated a capability for making cases/scumhunting/not being utterly useless/etc. there is no reason why that capability should disappear. I won't magically choose to start playing worse just for the sake of changing my playstyle.I am making the point that I can and will make cases to justify my vote when necessary, which I can prove by citing previous games. 

Because it's true. If I have a gut read, I do seek to substantiate it with a case to convince other people though. I don't expect anyone else to be convinced by my gut.What about this statement makes you think I couldn't say it as town? (NB. You should be thinking this about any scum read.)

Lastly, who says scum play has to be finely calculated? He said himself he was pressed for time - there's no reason why that shouldn't negatively impact the quality of his planning and calculation if he's scum.

There's a pattern here of wanting not to lynch people based on their strong play in previous games... which has absolutely no relevance to this game. Could be a side-effect of him not having time to read this thread properly, but not wanting to commit to anything relevant to this game is characteristic of scum.

That got kinda sparse towards the end simply because I'm tired of repeating the same thing over and over again.Well, a double townie flip is distinctly less than good, but Xzavier being green still tells us a lot. Obviously I'm the only one who knows certainly that I am town, but from my perspective (seeing this as a double-townie-wagon kind of day) I doubt scum took a hugely active role on Xzavier's wagon or on mine.

Like I said, a Vigilante is unlikely to be mislynched since he can claim, and the odds of him being shot are relatively low. A Vigilante is likely to be alive in the next night phase, and being able to take a shot when there is more information to decide a target is a good thing.

I asked the question to hear your reasons for thinking I won't be shot tonight, so as to get a better idea of how seriously you're analysing the game. I can see your point though about direct relevancy and the answer isn't vitally important to me at the moment, so I'm willing to let that question go.

I'm not reading filters at the moment, I'm living the rest of my life and occasionally checking the thread to see if anything interesting pops up.

On June 24 2013 11:15 FirmTofu wrote:
Scum Hunt Day 1:

Analysis: Trying to appear friendly with an innocuous greeting. Seems to project an air of insecurity.
Preliminary Conclusion: Scum


Analysis: Neutral statement of fact.
Preliminary Conclusion: Need more information.


Analysis: Exudes power with strong capitalization techniques along with a greeting.
Preliminary Conclusion: A leader with a powerful role.


Analysis: Trying to establish a connection with a player that he has interacted with prior to this game. A metagaming, manipulative sort of move.
Preliminary Conclusion: Scummy


Analysis: First baseless accusation. As the old chinese proverb states, "He who smelt it, dealt it."
Preliminary Conclusion: Scum

Suggested Lynch: Chromatically

As an aside, I would prefer if the accusations remained within the confines of this game and this game only. That is to say, judging people on the differences between their past games and this one is a rather boring way to play the game.

As I am about to go to bed, I would like to go ahead and##Vote: fyfy because he is the only person who hasn't spoken yet. Keep your eye on Stim and Meow as well because they are lurking, especially Stim.

It wasn't pure spam, and I certainly hoped it would generate discussion. I knew I could not really say anything of substance at that point, so I decided to do something fun that would get people talking. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. When you look at this post and contrast it to some first few posts, you can clearly see that singling me out as a target is rather silly.

Just because Stim seems scummier than fyfy doesn't mean fyfy shouldn't be voted. I wanted fyfy to talk and I wanted to draw attention to him. That was the reason for my vote. Nothing more, nothing less. We can address Stim now that I am awake.

I almost agree with everything you said. The problem arises when you realize that the case you've made for aqua is a hell of a lot stronger than the case you've made for Chromatically. Is this something you have overlooked? Or are you deliberately weaving a story to pit town against one another? For the time being, it's hard to tell one way or the other, but I did enjoy reading.

Regardless, I see your story as a plausible conspiracy theory, at best. Acting upon it without further evidence is dangerous. Most of your post relies on speculation about the player's true motives.

I agreed with it in the sense that it was a plausible theory, not that it was particularly likely. For the record I have you both pegged as town and I think you are both wasting precious time accusing one another. His conspiracy idea arose mainly because you accused him of being scum. I see his post as a long-winded retaliation against your credibility to ensure that no one bandwagons him to oblivion.

3) You defended fyfy while accusing me of not voting for Stim instead of fyfy. There was no reason to say that when both were perfectly good lurker targets that were largely interchangeable.

3) My point is your reason is stupid. What difference does one line of posting make? Seriously? Accusing me of being scum based on one line that someone else wrote?

2) For fyfy, I still hold that there is no difference between the lurkers and you claimed that there is a difference. I think your reasons for claiming that there is a difference are stupid and make no sense because only one line separated one from the other. Why do you continue to defend fyfy? It's quite intriguing.

I would remind everyone of the voting rules.Voting rules:Voting is done in this thread. You cannot PM me your vote.Please vote in the following format: ##Vote: Qatol. Votes not done in the correct fashion may not be counted. Vote counts will be updated whenever intermittently.No conditional voting.You may vote for yourself. You may not vote for anyone dead or outside the game.In the event of a tie the person with the most votes first wins (or loses).You may vote for a No Lynch in the format: ##Vote: No LynchVoting is mandatory. You may NOT abstain.If you do not think Chromatically is scum, then please vote either 1) No lynch or 2) Someone else.In the event of a tie, the person who gets voted up first, dies.

Sounds great! Could you consider looking through Xzavier's filter and reading Chromatically's case against Xzavier and consider voting for him? I would be willing to take you off my scum list if you would do that.

I concur. The Xzavier lynch didn't actually have the highest chance of flipping scum for me; however, it definitely provided invaluable information that we can use throughout the game. I'm glad to see we agree.

I disagree. vigi should shoot the target most likely to flip scum, and that is most definitely Onegu at this point.P.S. I wouldn't mind Spicy either *wink wink*

So Alakaslam, if you want to clear yourself in my eyes, you are going to have to vote Onegu. That is the only way I can know for sure that you guys aren't on the same team. If he flips town(which is extremely unlikely), you are cleared of all blame.If he flips scum, you will be scrutinized, but I will take some time to reconsider because you did vote for him.Voting for Onegu is a win-win situation for you if you are town. The only reason you wouldn't vote him would be if you are scum.The ball is in your court.

Bullying? I don't see how this is bullying at all. I'm giving him a choice that he can choose to accept or not and I letting him know the consequences of his decision.

Also, Onegu isn't being pro-town by calling me scummy. He's being anti-town. Almost all of town agrees that I have been one of the most pro-town players this entire game.

On June 26 2013 21:18 hzflank wrote:
I would really prefer us not to end up in an Onegu vs Aqua vote because I think they might both be town, and I am confident that the town can find much better scum reads than either of them.

On June 26 2013 22:55 Aquanim wrote:
I don't see either of these "cases" written by Onegu as real cases at all. All I see is random sniping at isolated posts in my and FirmTofu, often taken completely out of context. I don't see any actual explanation of what makes any of this stuff scum-indicative. I'll reply to a few of these to illustrate my point, but I don't see the point in replying to all of them.


Again, if you actually read my post I am not defending lurking. I am saying that one can bring out more information in the thread by voting someone who is actually present than by voting a lurker, which is a statement of fact. If a lurker isn't actually available they can't post and so pressuring them accomplishes nothing. If somebody is in the thread, but saying nothing of value, THEN you pressure them.



If you look at my post in context I was using MY previous meta to say that I can and will make cases when the need arises. This IS a valid use of my meta.
I have made cases in the past; therefore, I am capable of making cases.
It's a direct, logical proof. There is NO WAY in which this is wrong or scummy.

And again, my read on Xzavier was NOT strongly dependent on his play in previous games. From my perspective, his play in this game deserved to be lynched on its own merits.
I do keep having to repeat myself when I talk to you...


I don't think there's any reason to believe I'm covering for anyone besides wild speculation on your part. The subject of this statement was Xzavier, who flipped town. Who would I even be covering for?


There's a difference between my argument and the one Xzavier was using.
My argument: Xzavier was useful in a previous game and isn't being useful here, in a way that indicates scumminess. This is an indication that he is scum, so we should lynch him.

Xzavier's argument: Spicy and I were useful in a previous game, you should leave us alive because I might be useful later.

However, somebody's good play in a different game doesn't make them any townier in this one by extension. Xzavier's argument made absolutely no sense, whereas mine did.


1) I have no idea why you're bringing up the NN in relation to this
2) If you'd actually read my post and understood it I'm saying that the vigilante claim is only in the case that he is about to be lynched. What makes you think I want the vigilante to claim now? I never said anything of the sort.
3) What about this post is more "directing" blue actions than the posts I was replying to? Directing blue actions is as a general rule bad I agree, but what I said does not benefit scum to know in any way and was important for the vigilante to know. It is important to consider the specific case rather than applying blanket rules.
4) I don't have any way to know that anyone else in this game has read any guides (as I recall the guide, it doesn't talk about this particular situation anyway) or is talking to their coach.


Do you seriously expect me to be playing the game and reading into everyone 24/7? Are you bloody serious? I can't even fathom why you think this is noteworthy, unusual or scummy.

I'm not sure if I kept these points in order, and I didn't reply to all of them, but frankly I'm bored of repeating myself.

In short, Onegu's case on me is largely speculation as to possible (and in some cases, unlikely) scum motivations which some of the things I've said could conceivably have. Again, I don't see any reasons why what I've done (or what FirmTofu has done) are definitely scum-motivated.

These cases read to me like Onegu is trying to pull something together to justify his predetermined scumreads, rather than determining his scumreads by the quality of the cases he can present (which is obviously an awful plan from a town perspective). I still don't know that he's scum for it (townies do the daftest things) but if he is scum I would be disgusted to lose to this play.

I honestly don't think he understands my posts and arguments at all. Whether that's because he's incapable/lazy as town, or incapable/lazy/deliberately obtuse as scum, I'm not sure at this point.

On June 26 2013 21:52 hzflank wrote:
I think the first half of your case against Tofu should of been made on day one. It's the kind of stuff we were using yesterday when we had less information available. The part about directing blue roles is a bit better, but that could be a town mistake that a new player would make (and we are all new).

I noticed the bully also. Whether this is town or scum depends on who he votes for. If he is planning to vote for you (Onegu) then this is a scummy thing to do. On the other hand, it may of been a trap he was laying for Alakaslam. We dont know because Alakaslam dodged it.

I have also noticed him tunneling Spicy. After the flip I got a 'good town' read on Spicy. To clarify that, I have little reason to see Spicy as scummy at the moment and if Spicy is town then I think he has played a good game and been the most useful of us all. However, I was planning do some analysis of Spicy tomorrow to try to get a stronger read on him.

Your case is reasonable, but I am not willing to put my vote behind it because it contains nothing about the voting and the flip. I do not think we should ignore the voting from day 1.

On June 27 2013 00:29 Chromatically wrote:
Onegu, you had a scumread on Aqua all of day 1, posted a case on him, and then dropped it saying that "it wasn't that good". What's your read on Aqua and why did your opinion change?

On June 26 2013 23:47 Spicydinosaur wrote:
Few thoughts on Onegu: I'll try not to repeat what others have said for the sake of spamming the thread.

About his apathy claim between xzavier and aqua: I don't get why he said this as it makes 0 sense from either a town or scum perspective as his vote wasnt even on one of them. What i find more interesting is that regardless of the lynch, he will not be voting for Alakaslam next day. He claimed that if xzavier flips town, aqua gets voted, and if he flips scum, i get voted. What happened to Alakaslam?

His Aqua case: He seems to be tunneling aqua now (again?) with an updated case. A lot of it seems very nit picky. but i still come back to one thought... What about Alakaslam? I understand that reads change over time, but onegu went from voting aqua to alakaslam and now back to focusing on aqua. Why isnt alakaslam a priority target now? Unless i missed a post buried in the 6 pages of thread i caught up on.

On June 27 2013 01:12 Spicydinosaur wrote:


What about their playstyles makes them more dangerous?

On June 27 2013 03:04 Hurricane Sponge wrote:


I don't think you're scumbuddies. I think Aqua is town. I'm confused by your actions. If I saw two wagons forming, one on a Townie and one on someone I thought was Scum, I'd get on that Scum bandwagon no matter what it looked like to make sure the right man dies. I can say this with confidence because it's exactly what I did. If you were town, that's the behavior I'd expect. I could see how maybe if you thought both xzavier and aqua were town or both were scum you could justify your apathy. But having different reads on the two main wagons, and just letting them roll by you baffles me. In a bad way.

On June 27 2013 03:18 FirmTofu wrote:

Yes, you did try. I wasn't being fair when I added you to the list. I don't think you are scum, but you supporting Onegu's weak case against me was making me reconsider.

Anyway, you haven't addressed the core reasoning, so I take it that you agree?