This is sad, but I guess you leave me no choice Max.
Here is why Max should be today's lynch:
Often, when two town players are spatting, a scum player will appear to butt in and egg them on in order to get chummy with one of the two and distance from the other. Under this analysis, Fallacy is the most likely to be scum. On the other hand, often, if that doesn't happen, a scum player will pick a fight with a town player and try to rope in another town player into the same kind of three-way. By that analysis, it's more likely to be Shakerag, although I wouldn't rule out Egan. In general, if I see three players in a runaround like that, I always suspect there's exactly one scum involved, who's trying to generate some interactions to make you think one of the others is also aligned with him in case something happens to out him later. I know for a fact that Fallacy, at least, knows how to do that since I've seen him do it; but I certainly figure the other two could do it as well.
But that's really secondary... the real point of any post you might make on d1 is to see how people react to it, and frankly, I don't believe Lenglon doesn't know what I just said in that paragraph above. I guess I could see NJW as a partner, although it's kind of a stretch, and I don't really think I'm important enough to be a coordinated d1 scum push, so his vote on me actually acts to counteract that suspicion... although I guess that could be the point but, you know, not going to get too in the weeds right now. Lenglon has also been fishing and generally acting pretty scummy, so I'm pretty sure this is where my d1 vote is going to sit.
(Extra beginner mafia tip: I, personally, always find "analysis" to be a scumtell. What I mean is, scum will often try to make cases that don't really make much sense by appealing to a cloud of little details that can vaguely be made to sound bad, to try to make people doubt their intuitions. I think the last person I clearly remember doing this is ToonyMan, who's not in this game and therefore a nice neutral referent. On the other hand, this can also be a crutch of a player who isn't very good and doesn't have much social intuition, so you kind of have to balance it with other observations of the player. I put appeals to statistics in the same category as well.)
This is.... strange.
On the face of things, it's a pretty blatent OMGUS vote, and it's a very large response to a very small accusation, combined with ALMOST actually addressing what I accused Max of, but not quite. Which is an amusingly large combined set of scumtells for a veteran player to have. There is one (and only one) mitigating factor in his response that is leaving me with a few doubts. And that factor is a little complicated. Let me explain:
When I made my accusation of Max here:
By the way: there's probably one scum among Fallacy, Shakerag, Egan.
Max - I really dislike this post. It looks to me like setup to attempt to say X was town, so Y should be scum, later on down the line. And in the short term you're basically just egging them on to infight, without getting yourself bogged down by taking an actual position on who is scum. I really just do not see how, be you right or wrong, you are helping anyone but the mafia here. I'm only using FoS because Tric (who my vote is currently on) has yet to post since game start, the moment that Tric shows up, you can expect to see your name in red over this post if something doesn't change. Justify yourself please.
I pointed out that there was no town-friendly purpose to his statement, and said lack of town-friendly purpose was the reason for my accusation. (which, to reiterate, is me pointing out "you may or may not be right, but attempting to make a point of this only hurts town.) In his rebuttal, he instead gave reasons he thought his statement might statistically be likely true, which still doesn't actually explain how making that accusation helps town, nor what the purpose of the statement actually was. To my eyes, this kind of deflection is a sign that he doesn't have an actual response to the accusation, and is a significant scumtell. However, as I said, there is one little piece of this jigsaw puzzle here that doesn't fit quite right.
That little bit that doesn't fit right is the advice in the parenthesis at the bottom of his post. You see, he spends an entire paragraph at the top explaining how
statistically he was likely right, but at the bottom he calls his own behavior:
(Extra beginner mafia tip: I, personally, always find "analysis" to be a scumtell. What I mean is, scum will often try to make cases that don't really make much sense by appealing to a cloud of little details that can vaguely be made to sound bad, to try to make people doubt their intuitions. I think the last person I clearly remember doing this is ToonyMan, who's not in this game and therefore a nice neutral referent. On the other hand, this can also be a crutch of a player who isn't very good and doesn't have much social intuition, so you kind of have to balance it with other observations of the player. I put appeals to statistics in the same category as well.)
a scumtell. Max isn't stupid. He knows he did this. So now I'm confused. I don't quite get WHY he would do this. It doesn't help him as town, but it also doesn't help him as scum. It's just... strange.
Anyway, I guess I'll go ahead and post my intended follow-up accusations of him that I hinted at when asking Web about ISO tools. It's fairly droll though. He simply isn't actually scumhunting... at all.
Why do I say this? Here's a compilation of every post he's made since game start:
Maximum Spin: Are you the kind of person to stick on one player or switch your votes multiple times in one day?
No.
I liked that question when I first read it, which is why I decided to answer it, but then I didn't like it anymore.
Maximum Spin - If you had a 1-shot dayInspect which would make wub post the result in-thread publicaly, when would you use it, and on who?
I don't like this question either. Assuming it can self-target, immediately, on myself.
I think if you do that you won't know if you have a post restriction
Imagine accepting post restrictions.
This is too much of like four people talking. Let me know when Knightwing shows up so I can tell you if he's mafia.
Max - Why?
Which part?
Why on yourself instead of on someone else, why immediately, and so on.
I've seen the power of conftown. I've even BEEN the power of conftown before. I like being conftown. I guess I could let someone else have the fun, but I've got a pretty high self-opinion with respect to my own value. And when it comes to public information like that, the sooner the better.
I'm definitely not bold enough to go straight for a claim like that.
...I don't currently think you're scum but I don't actually believe this.
alternately: if you were picking for someone else, instead of yourself, is there any player here that you think should not use the one-shot-public-day-inspect on themselves if they're the one with the ability?
"should" from my perspective or the player's? From the player's perspective, whoever's scum shouldn't.
Knightwing shouldn't. Egan, maybe. TricMagic shouldn't, but would anyway. These are all players who could credibly claim to be town while using it on someone who would be able to support the inspecting player's claim.
Interesting. If you had a 1-shot, must-use-right-now, day ability that forced the target to announce their own alignment within their next post, who would you use it on, and why?
Probably TricMagic. He likes to have to tell the truth. More seriously - though that really would be my first impulse - it would probably have to be between Shakerag and Egan. Not specifically because of their spat right now, though, but that does make it even more potentially useful!
Not Fallacy, though.
STOP POSTING WHILE I'M TRYING TO POST
By the way: there's probably one scum among Fallacy, Shakerag, Egan.
I trust Tric, for now, at least.
A guide to Tric:
Acting scummy: town
Acting like a townie: scum
As for why I’m not scum? Because… I’m not? Max apparently has a alignment detector for me on them, so they can clear me using voodoo magic, I hope.
Yeah, Knightwing looks like town.
By the way: there's probably one scum among Fallacy, Shakerag, Egan.
Explain.
Often, when two town players are spatting, a scum player will appear to butt in and egg them on in order to get chummy with one of the two and distance from the other. Under this analysis, Fallacy is the most likely to be scum. On the other hand, often, if that doesn't happen, a scum player will pick a fight with a town player and try to rope in another town player into the same kind of three-way. By that analysis, it's more likely to be Shakerag, although I wouldn't rule out Egan. In general, if I see three players in a runaround like that, I always suspect there's exactly one scum involved, who's trying to generate some interactions to make you think one of the others is also aligned with him in case something happens to out him later. I know for a fact that Fallacy, at least, knows how to do that since I've seen him do it; but I certainly figure the other two could do it as well.
But that's really secondary... the real point of any post you might make on d1 is to see how people react to it, and frankly, I don't believe Lenglon doesn't know what I just said in that paragraph above. I guess I could see NJW as a partner, although it's kind of a stretch, and I don't really think I'm important enough to be a coordinated d1 scum push, so his vote on me actually acts to counteract that suspicion... although I guess that could be the point but, you know, not going to get too in the weeds right now. Lenglon has also been fishing and generally acting pretty scummy, so I'm pretty sure this is where my d1 vote is going to sit.
(Extra beginner mafia tip: I, personally, always find "analysis" to be a scumtell. What I mean is, scum will often try to make cases that don't really make much sense by appealing to a cloud of little details that can vaguely be made to sound bad, to try to make people doubt their intuitions. I think the last person I clearly remember doing this is ToonyMan, who's not in this game and therefore a nice neutral referent. On the other hand, this can also be a crutch of a player who isn't very good and doesn't have much social intuition, so you kind of have to balance it with other observations of the player. I put appeals to statistics in the same category as well.)
What you see contains a simple, and very dissatisfying, common thread: he has no interest in trying to find scum. He doesn't ask questions. He doesn't interact with people. He's not willing to be involved in any actual conversation. His closest thing to it is when he says "Hey you three go fight each other while I watch from this safe corner over here" (aka the post I voted him for). Even when he makes his only vote of the game thus far, he acompanies it with "I'm pretty sure this is where my d1 vote is going to sit." - or to put it differently, he is building an excuse for himself to not scumhunt for the rest of D1 either. He really just doesn't have any interest in finding the mafia.
I didn't really want to have to make a proper lynch case out of this, but wow was his response to pressure bad.
anyway, I should probably address the accusations he tossed out there with the OMGUS shouldn't I?
In his counter-accusation, he accused me a three things:
1) I should already know the reasoning he used. - This is asking me to be a mind reader, which is silly, and is assuming what he said applied back when I last played. Which it did not. As I said in my conversation with Shake, when I last played was back during extend-spam. Scum would almost never jump in on a fight like he's describing, because activity is the scum's enemy. There was no need to go out of your way to get into a spat with townies, especially the active ones which were likely to have the inattentive ones blindly follow them in a bandwagon. Doing that kind of thing was an easy way to get yourself lynched, and as a result to MY eyes, the spat between Shake and Egan makes them
both more towny. and at the time of Max's contentious post, FoU hadn't really been a signifigant participant yet, and was a non-factor. So to me this logic of Max's is a way to try to set up chain-lynches of townie after townie, saying "well one of em's gotta be scum right?"
2) he accused me of fishing. This is actually a CORRECT accusation. I have made a couple minor fishing attempts, and deserve the pushback for it. specifically I fished Shake, which Shake correctly identified when I did it. My reason for doing so is to set up for later in the game, and also it gave me some insight into his likely alignment. I don't feel the need to go further into this at this time.
3) his final accusation is of "generally acting pretty scummy" - which is so vague as to be meaningless. specifics and examples would be lovely, but in the meantime I have no reason to bother addressing something this vague.