Right then.
When in doubt, flail uselessly. Or just ask an IC what you should be doing, but impotent flailing is still better than impotent sitting. Activity is paramount to catching scum, and also to looking like town and getting townies mislynched. If you're not active, you can sometimes slide by as scum, but not well. You simply cannot win as town.
So, as many of you have noticed, we begin the game with RVS, or Random Vote Stage. This is a stage of useless flailing, with two purposes in mind. The primary one is to get something to genuinely talk about, but the second is to get a less specific read on players. Thus, while RVS questions should always be game-related in some way, they can sometimes be more esoteric or currently irrelevant than more normal questioning.
So, onto specifics.
blackmagechill:RVS Time!
TolyK: Any ideas as to who would be scum?
Theoldus: How many games of mafia have you played before?
borno: Can you beat your post record from BYOP mafia this time?
What, no vote during the random vote stage? What's the point of that question to TolyK?
More generally, I'm not getting a very useful vibe from any of this; it feels like going through the motions. You ask TolyK what suspicions he has before there's anything to be suspicious of, Theodolus how experienced he is in a somewhat roundabout way, and borno if he's going to lurk and then drop out again. Where were you hoping to get conversation and reads from with this?
Deathsword stuck out to me because he seems to have fewer questions, and what looks like less suspicions.
All I'm saying is, and, granted this is RVS which really doesn't matter, you weren't throwing around as many questions as everyone else, and it seemed like you had relaxed suspicions. Now, maybe it's just me, but if someone isn't suspicious in a game of mafia, then that person probably knows more than everyone else.
Does anyone have any suspicions at this point?
Theodolus:BMC: What do you think you most need to improve on in mafia games?
FlyingDice: Given a choice would you rather play scum or town?
IronyOwl: What is the most important thing for a mafia player to remember?
Odd that you've got the best RVS questions so far. You ask one player what his primary playing weakness is, one player what an aspect of their preferred playstyle is, and one what they feel is most important to either players or scum players in general. Though, you should probably bold to catch people's attention.
So, where'd you come up with these questions, having never played before?
To answer your question to me, I'm not sure if you mean mafia as in person playing mafia or scum.
If it's the former, I'd say "activity is key" is the most important thing to remember. It can be easy to slide into not doing stuff for various reasons (you already "know" who's scum, other people are doing things for you, you're busy, you don't really suspect anyone, etc), but if you don't do stuff, you lose.
If it's the latter, that's much tougher. You could certainly make a case for the exact same thing- being active very much helps you look town. That said, I'm not sure if that's the
most important thing or not. "Don't get greedy" is another contender, since scumtells are usually scum being lazy and/or greedy.
Deathsword:So, RVS, here I go...
Chaos Armor: Since you weren't mentioned by those above, what kind of role do you enjoy most?
You also look like you're just going through the motions (and should probably bold, possibly vote). This is a good question, but why is it all alone?
Of course, your statement could also be a lie should you be mafia (at least the one where you claim you are town), but I'm not going to go on this due to no evidence at all. At least not for now.
This looks pretty useless. You point out the obvious, claim you're not going to push him over it because there's nothing there, then imply you might push him over it later. Why mention it at all just so you can glare at him uselessly and imply he'll have to answer for it later? Are you trying to pressure him, mentioning things you find suspicious, or something else?
I went with him because he wasn't questioned by you, in fact I could say it's suspicious you only mentioned 3 players. I don't expect this to be a compelling argument, but it's still what I am going to say.
This is even worse, being both weaker and hypocritical. What's so suspicious about only mentioning 3 players, and why is it both not a compelling argument but something you're going to say? And why, if only mentioning 3 players is suspicious, did you only mention one? Are you intentionally trying to draw suspicion to yourself or something?
Let's assume that I am scum for a moment, wouldn't I try to act non-supiciously? Wouldn't I have asked more question in order to pass as town, throwing random guesses at nearly everyone? From what I know, a scum player would try as hard as they could to look like town, perhaps a bit too hard?
Well then clearly you're town. Except then scum would know that and do exactly this to look town. Hm.
So no, WIFOM is not a good defense against scumminess or for towniness. If you've got some
specific reason why asking more questions means someone's scum or fewer questions means someone's town, let's hear them, but vague hypotheticals dependent on a very precise manner of scum thinking is useless to the point of being suspicious.
What if my single question was a result of paranoia, of fear that someone might use such questions against me, not unlike you are doing now?
Then you're playing like shit and going to be lynched anyway.
"I'm terrified of fallacies" is not even a remotely valid reason to not do anything, offensively or defensively. If you can't open your mouth without someone using a logical fallacy to lynch you, you're going to die anyway and you're not going to accomplish anything in the interim anyway, so you might as well get it over with. The game's also not likely to work so well in that case, which means you'd be in good company.
Flying Dice:blackmagechill: Who are your initial guesses as potential scum? Why?
Deathsword: What do you find to be the most suspicious in D1? Why?
Shakerag: What do you think the greatest town mistake in BMXXXIII was? Why?
What's the point of these questions? Two of them are based on something that probably hasn't had enough time to meaningfully happen yet, one's very vague and based on a prior game.
Theodolus, IronyOwl, and Chaos Armor: All three of you are online, but none of you have even made an opening post for the RVS yet. Have you not noticed that the game has started, or are you trying to sit back and sideline, letting newtownies target each other instead of you?
I'm doing other things, of course.