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[Shakerag]

Reasons:
Previously kind of flaily, but mostly because RVS.
Now is past the time for RVS, and he doesn't seem to be doing anything particularly suspicious.

You are missing something from this post of yours.  I will leave it as an exercise to you to figure it out. 

Shakerag is cracking the whip.

newbie juice all over the place.

I'm not sayin'; I'm just sayin'.


Captain Ford:  I expect your next post to contain scumhunting and not just answering questions.


[Okay, I see the 'b' word starting to pop up, so I'm going to give my speech about bandwagoning.  A lot of votes on one particular player does not a bandwagon make.  If four players are voting player X, but all four players have given good reasons for voting player X, there is no bandwagon. 

If players A and B vote player X with good reasons, player C just votes player X, and player D votes player X with good reasons, the only player that is bandwagoning is player C. 

If you are voting with a crowd without good reasons of your own, or are encouraging other players to vote someone without good reasons, then we have bandwagoning.

Scum will try to slip in on a popular vote with poor reasons or with borrowed reasons to try and blend in with the crowd.  This ties in with another very important point.  Most anything you do, even if it would be scummy otherwise, is acceptable with good reasons. 

If you vote someone and have good reasons for doing so, you're likely not going to be called on it.  If you vote someone and have poor or no reasons for doing so, your ass is going to be grilled about it.]

Captain Ford:
Anyway, it is D2, and the only person you thought was scummy just got murdered, flipping town. You have no suspicions other than that, how do you gain your targets?

[You appear to be asking an RVS question.  If you feel the need to be doing so at this point in the game then I'm going to propose you're doing something wrong.]

I see this as role fishing because I was more focussed on scum-hunting than staying alive, and the question was what would you do as doctor. If I had answered scum-hunting, then the scum would probably know if I were a doctor.

I'm going to say no, because that feels like affirming the consequent.  Say you did answer scum-hunting:

Doctors are more focused on scum-hunting than staying alive.
borno is more focused on scum-hunting than staying alive.
Therefore, borno is a doctor.

Which, of course, doesn't take into consideration that townies in general should be more concerned about scum-hunting than staying alive. 

[Spaghetti7]

Spaghetti:

Which doesn't fix the issue- you're saying that to avoid attention by scum, you'd build a case on someone and then push it hard? Meaning you'd build and push a case on not-scum to avoid scum looking at you too closely?

Ah, I think I was answering the question as if the scum was leading a pretty successful attack against me. To simply not attract attention I'd avoid answering questions incorrectly, for a start, and prefer a background play style. Sure, attack people and scum hunt as much as I please, but certainly don't do any claiming, fake or not, without incredibly good reason.

How exactly would attacking and scumhunting at will constitute a "background play style?"

Perhaps a "more" in there would help. Since I'm new I wouldn't attempt roleclaiming unless it would obviously yield something useful, so I have a less aggressive (not sure about this being the right word, but I hope you get the idea) playstyle than others might, for now. In essence, don't go claiming roles because scum will kill you for it.

Also, if you were answering from the perspective of scum leading an attack on you, why did you earlier say:

I would deflect it to other people. Build up a good case against someone else, and push it hard if votes started falling on my head. If that failed, then I would push against those leading the bandwagon against me and try to expose them while they're weak on the offence. Try to reveal them to the people following for the wagon.

You'd deflect scum's attention onto someone else by building a good case on them?

No, on somebody else. During the course of scum hunting I would eventually find someone to push and break. I could then start shouting and screaming about that if somebody tried to bring me down.

That you'd build a case on "someone else" first, and only if that failed go after the (apparently scum) people leading the wagon on you?

Alright, let me try to explain that again. In the early game and the scumhunting that ensures, I would find someone giving off tells. I would push them and milk every last bit of evidence I could, showing them as weak. If someone then votes on me and a couple of people suspiciously join in, being all aggressive but obviously having no real reasons to join, I would try to ward off the attack by revealing someone else who was incredibly scummy. I realise this doesn't answer the original question (which I misread at the time) but I attempted to answer the actual question above. When saying background, I mean background by Mafia standards, not lurking.

[Captain Ford]

The Soldier:

Captain Ford: Ah, a commanding officer. I will gladly stand at attention! /joke

At ease, soldier.

More relevantly, can you explain superBlast's actions?

Sure. He's panicky and really, really overthinks things, just like the last game he was in, where he subbed in, and promptly got lynched as he drenched the forum in his own paranoia.

Oh wait, no. He lynched himself after I explicitly told him to extend the day if he managed to post in time. (he was a vanilla townie)

...now I haven't actually looked to see what it was he did this game that you're referring to. I'll get back to you with more specifics after I've done a thorough read-through.

(Side note: the person you missed was borno.)

This game has like nine players, right? I'm pretty sure I missed more than one.


borno:

Anyway, it is D2, and the only person you thought was scummy just got murdered, flipping town. You have no suspicions other than that, how do you gain your targets?

Oh crap. Did I miss the day end? Are there actually only seven players left?

...oh wait. That's an RVS question. -_-

Answer: I would reread and probe the other players, while looking over the information I already had in the new light of knowing at least one of them is scum. In short, by hunting.


Shakerag:

Spoiler: Off-Topic (click to show/hide)

Reasons:
Previously kind of flaily, but mostly because RVS.
Now is past the time for RVS, and he doesn't seem to be doing anything particularly suspicious.

You are missing something from this post of yours.  I will leave it as an exercise to you to figure it out.

This made me laugh.

Shakerag is cracking the whip.

newbie juice all over the place.

I'm not sayin'; I'm just sayin'.

...I'm not entirely sure what you're saying.

(I'm picturing you as a succubus dominatrix put in charge of a nursery. It's very odd but I wouldn't quite call it disturbing)

Captain Ford:  I expect your next post to contain scumhunting and not just answering questions.

Ah, I see. Please bear with me a little bit longer. I'm making this post to get caught up with the present before I go digging into the past.

PPE: And then Spaghetti7 posts and I'm staring at something that immediately captures my interest.


Spaghetti7: What the crap. Did you just admit you'd bus another townie to save yourself?

[Captain Ford]

EBWOP:

(Side note: the person you missed was borno.)

This game has like nine players, right? I'm pretty sure I missed more than one.

Oh wait, I'm one of them. So I only missed two people then. I think the other one was NQT.

*checks* Yeah, it was NQT. With only two posts, it's no surprise I don't have a read on him yet.

And I guess borno just failed to make an impression.

[Captain Ford]

Spoiler: Things that superBlast did (click to show/hide)

[To all you newbies out there, this is one of those things you really need to use spoilers for]

(Keep in mind that I have every reason to paint superBlast as town as I possibly can. As much as I can manage, I've tried to be objective in my evaluation, but I know I'm not free of bias)

(You don't have to read this. Really. I'm including it because I took the time to write it, and because I want superBlast to read it. I think it would be good for him)

Reply #4: Signs up!

Reply #39: Votes IronyOwl (omg) for lynching him in his last game. (O_O) He then asks other people to write his questions for him. (facepalm)
Well, the only purpose of RVS is to generate activity. Whatever works, I guess.

Reply #41: "Huh?"

Reply #43: Gets what Remuthra is doing.

Reply #45: Asks Remuthra the classic question. Remuthra gets it wrong.

Reply #51: Votes Remuthra with the reasoning "Scum don't wanna die really badly, you know? Since there is so few of them, death affects them a hell a lot more then townies. That's the reason you wanna stay alive right?" which is "bad reasoning, good reasoning, bad reasoning" respectively.
+    He responds to Nerjin's vote on him. He agrees the question was WIFOMy and makes light of having a vote on himself. He comes off as a bit nervous. (But then that's not unusual for him)
(I don't think the question was a bad one. It's an especially effective one for cracking newbies wide open on the first day of a BM. Although I like to bit more creative with the presentation than that)
+    He gives an intelligent answer to an RVS question about how he would pick targets as a doctor.
Reply #53: Points out that Remuthra has completely failed to consider how SC2 mafia is different from forum mafia. (I've seen this exact behavior before, from Hapah specifically. I call it "Starcraft Syndrome")
+    Gives a correct defense of his exchange with Remuthra. (The point of all RVS questions is to probe for a reaction, and it certainly produced results. If nothing else, it was educational, and that is the point of a BM in the end)

Reply #54 (by Nerjin): Nerjin points out the bad part of superBlast's vote logic (while ignoring the good portion)

Reply #57: Fails to understand Remuthra's defence. Actually, he did understand it. It's a clusterfuck of language, but he called SC2 mafia stupid (though he didn't know what SC2 was), accepted Remuthra's answer and unvoted.
+    Puts a random vote on Soldier, and asks an (actually quite good) question. (I prefer open-ended questions. It gets the most novel answers)
+    Accepts what Nerjin said without debate. He comes off as weak-willed newbtown. I think he was going in the right direction, but Nerjin scared him off. Nerjin didn't recognize or correct for this, so a minor FoS on him.
+    Asks for help coming up with questions.

Reply #59: Asks Soldier why he unvoted without voting someone else, while he fails to remove his vote OR redirect his suspicion after getting a good answer. Hypocrisy isn't a scumtell, but it does earn a facepalm.
+    Asks Remuthra why he isn't voting. Remuthra proceeds to get it wrong, again.

Reply #65: Calls out Remuthra for a bad answer, although he's being non-confrontational and comes off as weak.
+    Corrects Nerjin about his reasons for unvoting. (I feel a sense of accomplishment for managing to figure that out on my own before I reached this part)
+    Doesn't understand how Nerjin's suggested questions help to find scum. (Not surprising. That mental leap isn't trivial)

Reply #76 (By Spaghetti): Challenges Nerjin for asking questions. In my experience, it is always scum that do this.

Reply #77 (By Borno): Odd wording in what he says to superBlast. "In mafia, acting nervous or unconfident is never a good idea, even if you're scum." feels like it should be "In mafia, acting nervous or unconfident is never a good idea, even if you're town."

Reply #79: Votes Borno. And asks him a good question.
+    Also says he lacks confidence. His lack of self-confidence is his biggest weakness.

Reply #83: Gives a reasonable answer to Shakerag's RVS question.
+    Asks a question back. Shakerag gives a good answer and then turns the question back, implying that superBlast is asking for scum advice.

Reply #87: "Why do all my questions make people suspicious of me?" -- There's that lack of confidence again. He's not wrong, actually. He's gotten negative attention from all of his questions, but they weren't bad questions and he lacks the confidence in himself to stand up for them.
(By the way, strong self-doubt is important for detecting lies. It's been proven in studies that people who are confident in their ability to detect lies are worse at it. Expressing it, however, reduces pressure on your targets and hurts your chances of success in scumhunting. Have doubts. Don't talk about them)
+    Denies Shakerag's allegation. Shakerag then goes on to imply that superBlast is scummy for not explicitly saying what he was denying. This is BS and Shakerag knows it, but he's trying to teach the newbie to always be specific (to prevent misunderstandings), and to stand up for himself when someone pulls BS on them.

Reply #89: Spaghetti7 gave a bad answer to a question and superBlast calls him out for it. (Shakerag backs superBlast up on this in Reply #90)

Reply #92: superBlast correctly calls BS on Shakerag's WIFOM-bait.
+    Adds an unnecessary line of WIFOM in his defense concerning the scum IC. (It may be unnecessary and WIFOMy, but it's also valid. Just saying)

Reply #98: Throws out 5 questions. None of them are bad. In fact, they're quite good. He seems to have overcome his difficulty of coming up with good questions.

Reply #102: Comments on a discussion about fakeclaiming that started. His comments are dead on. I have to facepalm at the answers Spaghetti has been spewing out.

Reply #103 (By Shakerag): Jumps on superBlast for more WIFOM. He also clarifies (in his IC voice, no less) that he was doing exactly what I said he was doing.

Reply #104: Gets the point that Shakerag was trying to get across, and cops to his mistake.
+    "I never expected to have to explicitly say I'm town" - It's funny what people will try to push as a scumtell. I'm looking at you, Toony.
+    superBlast explains that he never expected his forgetting about the scum IC to clear him, which is a correct response. However, he reinforces the validity of the point he was making, as he should.

Reply #107 (by Borno): Borno's reasons for suspecting Nerjin were bad. Suspecting Nerjin for using an IC voice and not for what he said in it is a fallacy. He's also wrong when he calls out what superBlast said as WIFOM.

Reply #117: Unvotes borno and responds to his OMGUS. He gives a reasonable answer to borno's question, but the question was phrased poorly and he should have considered a NK on someone completely unrelated.
+    Accepts borno's accusation of WIFOM without debate. Again, he fails to realize that his points are valid and stand up for himself.
+    He then begins a descent into the newbie death spiral. The rest of this post is nearly incomprehensible to me, but I'll slog through it. Actually, no. It's a proper defense and a complete deconstruction of what's wrong with borno's attack. It only looks like a death spiral because it's pretty much one long run-on sentence. But break it up on your own, correct the spelling and grammar and you end up with this:

I guess it is WIFOM but I didn't think of it that way.

If I was seriously scum, but i didn't ask the scum IC for scum advice, or if I'm seriously scum and asking for scum advice in the game (even trying to camouflage it somehow to make look like I'm really not) is incredibly stupid.

The first one renders the scum IC useless and is stupid because I'm not using a resource that can help me win the game.
The second one gives me away to the town that I'm scum.

Your argument is WIFOM BULLSHIT because that makes me neither town nor scum so that makes it null and a completely useless defense and a completely useless fact to make a case on. And yet that's the only thing you have on me.

Yes it's suspicious but on it's own I think it's completely useless. And now you're probably gonna say that's really defensive of me, suspiciously defensive of me.

Fine, I don't care what you think. But what you just said makes me frustrated because it feels like you're missing something blatantly obvious to me. (Ford: Oh god I can identify with this)

If I actually did what you were insinuating then I'd be incredibly stupid and I would completely deserve to get lynched for it ... I mean it's so stupid I wouldn't think anyone would actually do it.

+    He addressed Soldier, confessed that all the WIFOM (which isn't WIFOM, but he lacks the confidence to assert himself) isn't on purpose. Puts himself through the wringer, makes a decision and votes the most suspicious person in his eyes, Remuthra.
+    Says to Shake: "Oh, I see what you did there" and "you're less suspicious to me now." He also manages to figure this out before seeing Shakerag explain it.

Reply #120: Reasonable answer to Irony's question. Asks Irony who he/she (the avatar confuses me) is suspicious of.

Reply #131: Stands up for himself against Irony, defending his position about his vote being both for pressure and lynch.

Reply #141: More RVS questions. Even gives an easy one to Remuthra, who then proceeds to vote the lurker.

Reply #145: He gives his reads and admits that he has no idea what's going on. This is evident, because if he had any clue he'd realize that borno was full of shit.

Reply #160: States he is going to re-read the OP and then the thread. Aims an RVS question at NQT.

Reply #169: Requests replacement.

...and that took me about three hours. But it was productive.

My opinion is that superBlast was doing a fantastic job, but he lacked self-confidence. He asked good questions, but he folded to criticism a little too quickly, and accepted other people telling him his arguments were WIFOM when they weren't. He asked good questions, and his answers were really on the ball. I hope he reads this and realizes that he's not nearly as bad a player as he thinks he is.

Now, because my detailed investigation pulled up red flags on borno, I'm going to give him the same treatment.

Spoiler: Borno's Posts (click to show/hide)

(As with the last set of spoilers, this one will also have bias. I started out more suspicious of him and became more objective about halfway through I discovered that my original suspicions were unfounded)

Reply #13: Signs up.

Reply #77: Votes Nerjin for using an IC voice. What the fuck. Sure, this is probably a pressure vote, but he doesn't let it go later on.
+    Answer to Soldier's RVS question is okay.
+    FoS's Remuthra for ignoring an invalid question. Except borno said "What question is so wrong that you chose to ignore it outright?", which indicates he didn't actually read the conversation and just saw an opportunity to FoS somebody.
+    Asks spaghetti a question (and not a bad one).
+    Answers spaghetti's question (which was directed at Nerjin), but his answer is off. Equating scumhunting with asking questions sounds like someone who has only a superficial understanding of scumhunting.
+    Calls out superBlast for being nervous, which he's correct about. He offers friendly advice. Nothing scummy here. (not sarcasm)

Reply #107: Drops his bad case on Nerjin. Fair enough, I suppose.
+    Good answers to Spaghetti's questions, in stark contrast to Spaghetti himself.
+    Is busy because of school.
+    Explains his vote on Nerjin was a pressure vote.
+    Explains his FoSing. His explanation is valid, but...
+    He then goes out of his way to call out superBlast's defence as WIFOM, which it isn't. But the stand-out here is the part where he said: "Logic doesn't really work in the mafia boards."
+    He answers Shakerag's question. This is a good answer, especially given Shakerag's followup.

Reply #109: States that he finds Remuthra and superBlast to be about equally scummy.

Reply #134: He responds unnecessarily to IronyOwl's read on him. He also comes off as being more concerned about pandering to Irony than about finding scum.
+    Denies bandwagoning, while admitting to lining up a second target. He also completely misses the fact that he has supported the Remuthra bandwagon, even if he didn't vote him.
+    Calls out Remuthra for voting somebody based on an IC's read rather than his own (which was really dumb).
+    Calls superBlast an experienced player (LOL), and cops to the accusation in superBlast's defense. Borno's listed reasons for voting superBlast are good ones (to gather more information), so that's fine.
+    Asks Shakerag, Nerjin and Soldier for their reads.

Reply #138: Accuses Remuthra of rolefishing with an RVS question, and votes him on it. What. (And Remuthra agrees with him. 2x What Combo)
+    Gives the correct answer with regards to vote patterns: "Nothing except really bizarre stuff. And even then it's only just weird."
+    Dariush was in a BM? That's hilarious. I must see this with my own eyes.

Reply #146: He's a bit too enthusiastic to bus another random player to save a townie. He's correct about speaking up in the player's defense, though. And if he's convinced someone is town, then anyone else is a better target, I guess.
+    Calls out Remuthra for failing to defend himself (which is accurate).
+    Calls out the lurker for lurking.

Reply #152: "Might not be able to post tomorrow"

Reply #170: Calls out Spaghetti for forgetting about the godfather.
+    Unvotes Remuthra, stating "it's not fair for me to vote you for doing something I said was okay." I guess that makes sense? No wait. Why did he unvote? Why not keep the pressure on if he's still suspicious? "Not fair" isn't a good reason to unvote someone.
+    Asks superBlast if he's sure.
+    Calls for an extension. Is the first to do so.

Reply #194: He's wrong about it not being a bandwagon (or rather, about his vote being the only one). At the time he voted, Remuthra had two other votes on him. He seems to be totally ignorant of it, though.
+    Asks me an RVS question.
+    His reply to Shakerag is a no-go. Shakerag deals with it gently, a rare mercy. I would've been more, "shovel, meet head."
+    Asks NQT a question, one that I think borno answered earlier. Maybe not. It's not worth checking.

...and there goes another hour and a half. But it was productive.


borno:

Also the point about me forgetting the scum IC was... well I really did forget about him. My real point was what I said after that. If I was scum I'd be asking him for scum advice and not asking in the game. That's defiantly a stupid idea.

That's complete WIFOM. "I didn't ask the scum IC a scum related question so therefore I am town!" Logic doesn't really work in the mafia boards. That's two slip-ups, superBlast. But anyway, if you were scum and had one player aggressively attacking you and a lurker, who (if any) would you kill at night?

What did you mean when you said "Logic doesn't really work in the mafia boards"?

@borno It's a good question, as you yourself admitted. And it's only a role fish if you are dumb enough to give away anything.

And where are we. A BM. People aren't necessarily dumb, but they are definitely new and a bit confused as to what to do. But I'm going to Unvote you for now though, since it's not really fair to vote you for a question that I myself admitted was good.

Why did you unvote Remuthra? Do you understand why "not fair" isn't a good reason?


Nerjin:
Remember when you said this?

superBlast: Don't ask blatant WIFOM.

You chainsawed for Remuthra. You pulled a double standard where you gave Remuthra friendly advice for a bad answer, and voted superBlast for asking a good question, effectively scaring him off. Admittedly, it didn't take much to cause superBlast to give in to self-doubt, but it doesn't change the fact that you showed very naked favoritism early in the game.

Why?


PPE: WOW. Nobody has posted in over five hours? I thought for sure I was going to come back and find a dozen posts to catch up on.

...darn, I'm almost disappointed now.

[Shakerag]

We have a tie, newblings.  Why don't you all do something about that?

Extend

P.S.  NQT, IronyOwl, and borno need to quit humping the fence and find someone scummy to vote.


PPE:  Goddamnit, Ford.  [P.P.S. You just set yourself up to get lynched, assuming last votecount is correct.]

...and that took me about three hours. But it was productive.

I hope you feel so, because I'm not reading that wall of text.

...and there goes another hour and a half. But it was productive.

tl;dr

[Captain Ford]

PPE:  Goddamnit, Ford.  [P.P.S. You just set yourself up to get lynched, assuming last votecount is correct.]

What? Dammit. I misread the votecount. I thought superBlast only had one vote from Nerjin.

Well, I'm not going to tie the vote back up. So Extension.

...and that took me about three hours. But it was productive.

I hope you feel so, because I'm not reading that wall of text.

I really, really hope not. Like I said, it's for superBlast mostly. It's also for me to refer back to.

If I'd known superBlast was on death row, I probably wouldn't have put in as much effort. But I did what I had to do to get a good grip on the game in a short timespan.

I've overtaxed my brain, though. I can actually feel the neural pathways in my brain aching from the changes.

spaghetti7: What's up with all the bad answers?

[Nerjin]

I'm as like as not to post today or tomorrow. Sorry.

[The Soldier]

Officially sick, mustering the energy to make a post.

Extend, sounds like we need more time.

Unofficial votecount, courtesy of the LurkerTracker:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

borno[1]: Captain Ford
Captain Ford[2]: Nerjin, Spaghetti7
The Soldier[0]:
NQT[0]:
Shakerag[0]:
IronyOwl[0]:
Spaghetti7[1]: Remuthra
Remuthra[1]: Shakerag
Nerjin[1]: The Soldier
Not Voting: borno, IronyOwl, NQT

If nothing changes, Captain Ford will be lynched.

Still waiting for responses to yesterday's post. I'll read through the thread and lay out my case for whoever I think is scummiest. For now, some more questions.

NQT, IronyOwl: Where are you? Been quite a while since your last posts. I haven't forgotten about my requests for your reads, either.

Captain Ford: I was going to point out that borno had answered your first question before... and then I realized that he'd never been asked that. So, borno, I'd be interested in hearing your answer as well.

[Captain Ford]

I forgot to add this bit:

I've read everything superBlast said, and I'll stand by all of it. He may have been timid, but he asked good questions, followed up on leads, and defended his points when he knew he was right, all in spite of his own self-doubt.

He didn't ask any bad questions, and he didn't give any bad answers. His only flaw was lack of confidence, which has no bearing on alignment. (In my experience, newbies with a lack of confidence are usually more silent, because they can vent their nervousness primarily in scumchat, but I can't vouch for that beyond the few games I've played in)

(by the way, superBlast contacted me by PM and thanked me for making that post, so it was totally worth it. For what it's worth, he agrees completely that he was lacking in confidence)


Also, I realized I should probably address the two votes that were cast against superBlast.

Nerjin:

Superblast: Likely either scum or flailing newblet. I say this because he keeps tossing out WIFOM and while I’m not sure which it is, gauging by his behavior in the previous BM [as short as he was] I’m leaning towards Scum. I’m also getting a vibe of him trying to play himself as a victim. Pathological appeal and whatnot. More recently he’s begun to appeal a LOT more via emotional methods. I am always distrustful of emotional appeals.

Bleh. This is it? You voted him in a list of reads without asking questions?

You're the one who accused him of WIFOM in the first place, so you're just tooting your own horn here. He accepted it because you were chiding him for bad play. I already addressed this point when I pointed out your chainsawing.

Emotional appeals? Really? Show me, because I read everything he posted and I think you're making that up.

Since you're not likely to post for the next couple days, I'd appreciate it if you at least withdraw your vote until you have time to consider what I've said.


And the other person who voted superBlast was ... Spaghetti7.

Do you have reasons for this?

For one, he hasn't formed any suspicion profiles for anyone except me, and doesn't state anything there. He's not lurking, nor is he doing much to find scum.

Fair enough. Unvote Remuthra.

superBlast, how important do you believe the Godfather is to the scum team, and how should he play?

Oh, it's a pressure vote. Okay.

My answer: The godfather's primary benefit to the scumteam is that he makes town investigation results unreliable, and that doesn't even require him to be the game. If he's actually in the game, then his immunity to the scumteam's biggest threat is certainly useful. He should, of course, play by being the towniest townie there ever was.
Oh, and then he should kill people at night, of course.


Disclaimer: I have a headache and my post may be bit more "Dariush" because of it. I hope I haven't been too intimidating.


This question popped into my head earlier today, and it's not going to go away until I ask it.

Remuthra: If you were scum, how would you respond to this question?

[notquitethere]

Magister NQT relaxes in his chair whilst the other wizards argue back and forth, more profane than arcane. Finally, a decided "Ahem!" emanates from the folds of his voluminous beard and he takes out his pipe and starts pacing the room.

"I have observed you all, and cast the runes and here at last is the demonstrables of my ponderances..."

The Post With All The Reads
I have read through the thread and made copious notes and here are my preliminary reads:

Soldier: Bona fide I'll-eat-my-own-hat-if-he's-not town. Town-tells include: swiftly rescinding random vote, following up missed questions and lurkers, pulls up others on their lack of scum hunting. Owns up to his own mistakes. Null tells: he's an enthusiastic and competent player.

Remuthra: Weak scum. Scum tells include: standoffish scum hunting technique at the start, following IC lead on Borno, short posts, flail attacks. Null tells: Inexperienced, sense of humour, doesn't have a villainous personality, his play style is going to be hard to read as he has experience in a very different mafia culture.

Superblast: Essentially null. Scum tells include: possibly a wagon-hopper, mild Vizzini overtones. Town tells include: suspecting Borno. Null tells: flailing newb, very jokey, sometimes genuinely funny.

Captain Ford: Mild town. Town tells include: performs keen analysis, is fair when it comes to recognising pressure votes, suspects Borno. Scum tells: stands by even the slightly dubious Superblast content. Null tells: forgot about me.

Nerjin: Nullish. Scum tells include: uses votes to lays into newbs for newbishness. Town tells: Gives honest looking appraisal of other players when asked. Null tells: serious, doesn't look to be on the same team as Soldier.

Spaghetti: Null to mild scum. Scum tells include: doesn't believe in questioning everyone, vote hops. Town tells include: swiftly rescinds random vote when the target is wagoned by others. Null tells: random approach to doctoring.

Borno: Scum city, population Borno. Scum tells include: over-speculation bordering WIFOM, Bandwagoned Nerjin in the RVS, anti-logic, unvoted Nerjin after reasonable response only to jump back on the Blastwagon, very defensive when prodded mid-game, jumps on the Remuthra train with dubious reasons, unvotes when grilled, worried about being lynched in his sleep. Town tells: extends. Null tells: appears to have some experience, aggressive.

Shakerag: Null. Town tells: follows up other players missed questions and lurking. Scum tells: appeared to bandwagon Remuthra in the RVS, (but for admittedly good looking reasons). Null tells: can be a good IC, rational, crypto-aggressive.

IronyOwl: Null, leaning town. Scum tells: lurks like it's going out of fashion. Null tells: lurking is Owl's general playstyle, genuinely nice, has a sense of humour, rational, probably actually busy. Town tells: suspects Borno.

Questions and Answers Coming Soon.

[notquitethere]

Borno, I'm reading you as cabal here. Could you tell me what you think should be the primary basis for making a proper lynch vote? (As opposed to merely a pressure vote or random-vote-stage vote). To answer this question:

Roleblocker or Godfather, and why.

Godfather. Although Roleblocker would be more fun to play (as you get to make an extra decision every day), Godfather is probably more useful throughout the game, whereas roleblocker only really starts to be useful towards the end of the game. To be honest, the existence of Godfather is mostly for town's detriment rather than scum's benefit: from experience playing as a cop in the last BM, town cops are filled with doubt when they get back a town read and there is no reassuringly dead godfather to put at rest the doubts.

Remuthra, how would you characterise the typical playstyle, or 'meta', that you encountered playing mafia elsewhere and how does it differ from the general style here at Bay12?

Spaghetti, is there ever a right time to tunnel another player? Is this an acceptable scumhunting technique?

[IronyOwl]

Extend.


Remuthra:

You haven't voted yet, IronyOwl. Why?

Good question. The short answer is that I don't think it'd be very productive; there's nobody I particularly want the extra pressure on and nobody I feel confident I want dead.

Under normal circumstances, of course, that's fairly weak reasoning, but I feel on D1 of a BM not voting anyone, at least initially, is at least somewhat reasonable.


borno:

I'm too busy to actually go back and check, but you and several other people were voting Remuthra, weren't you? That's a bandwagon of sorts.

No. My only vote for him was here,
-post-
And by then most people had moved onto different targets, so it wasn't really a bandwagon.

Yeah, you're right. I was either confusing a bandwagon with an easy target or thinking of earlier events.

Also, as it turns out the post I was referring to there was the only time you were acting scummy. More specifically, I was getting sort of a "man there's so many options for a mislynch!" vibe from you talking about how this person was scummy but also this person was scummy and man you want a target D2.

On that note, who are your current suspicions?


Spaghetti:

Perhaps a "more" in there would help. Since I'm new I wouldn't attempt roleclaiming unless it would obviously yield something useful, so I have a less aggressive (not sure about this being the right word, but I hope you get the idea) playstyle than others might, for now. In essence, don't go claiming roles because scum will kill you for it.

This is fairly standard practice though, isn't it? I mean, the question was kind of odd to begin with- why would you want to avoid scum attentions, exactly?- but this still seems like your answer is "don't do anything stupid."

I'd also label roleclaiming as... perhaps bold? Loud? It's not so much a matter of aggression as, well, being bold, playing your hand, or in extreme cases pulling a gambit.

Alright, let me try to explain that again. In the early game and the scumhunting that ensures, I would find someone giving off tells. I would push them and milk every last bit of evidence I could, showing them as weak. If someone then votes on me and a couple of people suspiciously join in, being all aggressive but obviously having no real reasons to join, I would try to ward off the attack by revealing someone else who was incredibly scummy. I realise this doesn't answer the original question (which I misread at the time) but I attempted to answer the actual question above. When saying background, I mean background by Mafia standards, not lurking.

Mmm? This seems odd also. You're saying you'd:

-Find a scummy target
-Harvest as many tells as you can
-Make them look weak

So, Step 1: Prey On The Infirm

Then, IF voted by multiple people, some of whom have weak reasons:

-Try to train them off onto someone else

Or, Step 2: Deflect Suspicion

What question were you trying to answer with this?


Shakerag:

P.S.  NQT, IronyOwl, and borno need to quit humping the fence and find someone scummy to vote.

This is true.


Soldier:

NQT, IronyOwl: Where are you? Been quite a while since your last posts. I haven't forgotten about my requests for your reads, either.

Yeah, sorry about that.

I went back and found borno's malicious calculations, which as it turns out was just this:

borno:
A question for you: do you consider superBlast's mistakes worse than Remuthra's earlier evasiveness?

The evasiveness of Remuthra is definitely scummy, but I'm finding superBlast quite scummy also with all his mistakes, and I'm chasing him because having only one person to pursue is not really good if it can be helped in this game, because in D2 we have another person to chase after right in front of us.

As I explained to borno himself, something about this just struck me as a scum in a mislynch candy shop style post. "Oh, this guy's stuff is definitely scummy, but there's also scummy things over here, and I want a serving read for me on D2!"

So, weaker than I had remembered, but it does still strike me as potentially suspicious. I'll have to do some proper hunting of him to figure that out.


Captain Ford:

I forgot to add this bit:

I've read everything superBlast said, and I'll stand by all of it. He may have been timid, but he asked good questions, followed up on leads, and defended his points when he knew he was right, all in spite of his own self-doubt.

He didn't ask any bad questions, and he didn't give any bad answers. His only flaw was lack of confidence, which has no bearing on alignment. (In my experience, newbies with a lack of confidence are usually more silent, because they can vent their nervousness primarily in scumchat, but I can't vouch for that beyond the few games I've played in)

Really? That's kind of odd, then, because superBlast was voting Remuthra with intent to kill him, whereas you're not. Why the discrepancy there?

[The Soldier]

It's worth noting that Nerjin posted in his other mafia games today with content, but not this one. This does bad things to his town points.

NQT: Good reads, and I agree with them for the most part. Would personally rank Nerjin as scummier, however. That said, I assume that borno's "overdefensiveness" is seen here?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Irony Owl:

Soldier:

IronyOwl: What makes borno more suspicious than Spaghetti?

Off the top of my head, lurkier and his posts have seemed more overtly calculating and malicious. Sphagetti's still had some flail to him, whereas borno's seemed fairly exclusively like a lurking schemer.

It's the timezones, I tell you! IT WAS THE TIMEZONES ALL ALONG! Really, there's a difference between lurking and not being able to go on the computer. And about the calculating and malicious part, sorry about that. I've screwed up in every single game I've been in before, and I really don't want to screw up this one. I'll try to be less serious from now on.

I don't know about you, but that looks more "jokey" than anything, especially coupled with things like this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Captain Ford:

newbie juice all over the place

OH GOD THE MENTAL IMAGES MAKE THEM STOP

You, elsewhere in your list, call jokeyness and having a sense of humor nulltells. Why, then, is this not the case for borno?

I said I'd have a case laid out, but that will have to come tomorrow. It's already 1:00 AM here, and I need to sleep. Did we get the extend yet or no?

PSA: vote is now tied, Captain Ford[2] vs borno[2].

[Nerjin]

It's worth noting that Nerjin posted in his other mafia games today with content, but not this one. This does bad things to his town points.

Yes, and it's also worth noting that I've been having waning interest in Mafia up until the point where I suddenly got it into my heart to scum-hunt again. It's also worth noting that I did so around 11PM where I have to get up at 4 in the morning. Expect a better post later on.