Death to the Conspiracy! Game over, town wins!

[Misnomer]

Right, immense apologies for my inactivity - I've had an unusually busy week with regards to RL stuff.

The selection committee idea sounds good to me. I'm not sure how much it'll help prevent a townie lynch, but it'll provide us with more information that a simple vote will.

So, my nominations are...

A-wan - He's been coming up with good ideas for scumhunting throughout the game, and he's effectively taken on a leadership role - which is something I have rarely seen done by scum at all, let alone done well. I'm going to trust him on this.
NAR - This is more of a gut feeling than a content one, but I've actually been getting good vibes from NAR this game. His analysis post was pretty impressive too.

...and now it gets awkward. My third vote would be for Sruixan, but that would do nothing to solve the tie. So, unless more players vote after me, consider my third vote a spoilt ballot, and me as only nominating A-wan and NAR.

[Sruixan]

I'm now wondering how much of an arse I'd look if I changed my ballot now; webby's made a bloody good point that I hadn't thought of before about the danger of having a-wan on the committee of his own design. Who better to play the system than its inventor and proponent? Unfortunately, switching my vote off of him (probably onto e_e as I had originally intended) would force a tie for the final spot 'twixt him and I, which would then need sorting again... hmph.

Reading back, I see that these aren't popular choices. I didn't think my analysis was that far off everyone else's? :S

See, I would have far preferred to have some more leftfield candidates, as it were, in my selection, but at this sort of stage in the decision process voting outside the core group is practically wasting a vote, unless there's a sudden sea change. I mean, softchews would have been a satisfactory member on the panel, for example (not so sure about weiyaoli myself) but with no momentum there's no chance of it happening. I'd almost consider an unusual vote as a declaration of indifference and/or scumminess (if the top three at the point in time you arrive to vote suit you, why muck around with them?) if it weren't for the fact that it would probably have helped to have had someone else bar the four big names on the committee. Now I'm kinda regretting not having left my ballot to the morning...

[a-wan]

I'm not going to force myself on the committee if people don't want me there. Judging from the way the discussion has been going, I doubt having Sruixan on the committee instead of me will change who we nominate.

I say, if anyone wants to change their vote, please feel free. The more voting the better. Sruixan, if your vote places you and I in a tie, then we at least force Misnomer to commit to a third vote. He has already said something about himself by voting for me and Not a Raptor. It will give us more information if he still votes for you even if he knows that it will force me off the committee.

[weiyaoli]

Dr. Ug (8) - a-wan, more_people, weiyaoli, jayhsu, Not A Raptor, Ibarra, Sruixan, weiyaoli

Why did you count me twice?

I think we need to get on with this right now, I would be happy with the top 4 as it stands right now and get onto voting or risk not everyone voting (which may not happen anyway, since people have suddenly started to lurk their way through the game although scum carry on lurking and get modkilled, that's fine with me).

[Elvish Pillager]

Let it be noted that there are three more days until the deadline, which is still Monday, August 15 at UTC 16:00.

[a-wan]

wei, I guess I got so caught up in adding you to the end of the list that I added up to the end of the first list as well as to the bottom of the list. Doesn't change things anyway.

Anyways, how about the top four people give their three people to nominate.

My top three picks before were more_people, jayhsu, and softchews. more_people hasn't really done anything to change my mind (sorry, voting me onto the selection committee doesn't do it for me).

I still think people bought into softchews excuse about being new too easily, and his list of three people for the committee seems like he is trying to buddy NaR because NaR has clearly been perceived as one of the towniest players (he used NaR's list but with NaR instead of Dr Ug).

I'm not as sure about jayhsu anymore. He's still on the scummier end of the spectrum for me, but he does seem to be putting some effort in, and I like that he's at least thinking in terms of NK strategies. I'm looking through the rest of the players:

John Citizen - Only has two posts, but they have been decent. I'm suspicious because he has barely posted, which seems like he's posting just enough to avoid a modprod, but not enough that we can really analyze his posts. But I like his two posts, so I don't think I can put him on.

existential_elevator - She makes me suspicious because she preemptively warns us that she will be lurky, but she makes some okay points in her one post.

Misnomer - Only three posts, and I haven't really gotten anything one way or another from him.

webby - I was suspicious of webby at first because he said we might be able somehow force a scum lynch, but have moved him more neutral because he has made some useful analysis.

cellery/Hausdog - Does this role have a posting restriction or something? Do those exist in this game? Seriously, Hausdog makes one completely contentless post and nothing else, and cellery hasn't made a post since joining. When do modkills start happening? I won't waste time on someone who's going to end up modkilled.

Ibarra/Chandani - Chandani's content was a little confusing but not particularly alarming one way or the other. Ibarra seems helpful, though looking at his post again it doesn't actually have a lot of content, so I look forward to his promised analysis.

weiyaoli - I've had weiyaoli as on the townier side most of the game. One thing that caught my attention on the read through just now is that he seemed to be defensive of scum's ability to lynch, like the game would be unfair if NL was permitted, though now that I think about it, NL would probably tilt the game in scum's favor since everyone would just vote NL and scum could sit back and watch us kill each other, so I guess that statements not really that scummy. I don't know, he's not as far up on my list as he was on NaR's.

Lorenz - I've really been going back and forth on Lorenz. At first, he was so eager to lynch for no reason that he seemed really scummy at first, but looking back on it it seemed like he was just trying to get things moving. His second post seemed to be a little bit anti-discussion, and his third post promised to post more, but he hasn't had anything since. I was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he's had people saying he's scummy and all he's done to defend himself is to not post, so he's starting to climb my list again.

Sruixan - I've liked his posts. The only thing I find troubling is his uncanny ability to make long posts where he doesn't end up really saying that much. His objections to calling frequent posters towny and sparse posters scummy is valid to a point, except that it seems like a viable strategy for some scum to post as little as they can get away with, not vote at all, and hope that we won't have enough content to feel comfortable pulling the trigger on them tonight. I guess the same can be said about town too, since we want to avoid each others NKs every bit as much as town does. And now Sruixan's got me posting endless blather, too. Anyway, I like his posts because he seems like he's not hiding anything.

Not a Raptor - Has encouraged discussion and really put a lot of time into his analysis, which I like. My only worry here, is that I like it a little too much. On the one hand, the effort he showed seems like it would be uncharacteristic of scum to go through that much effort into it, but on the other hand that's exactly why scum would put that much effort into something like that. In the end though, few people have given me more reason to trust them, and that's all I have to go on right now.

Dr Ug - Semantics screw up aside, he's in the same boat as Sruixan and NaR, in that my main suspicion of them is that they seem almost too towny. He has been helpful in his speculation and his strategizing. I haven't come up with a good reason why we shouldn't claim our kills after N1, as he suggested. My biggest problem with him now is that he seems to have disappeared.

So, in the end I'm waffling between jayhsu and Lorenz. My gut tells me they're probably both scum. If I could pick four I'd pick more_people, softchews, Lorenz and jayhsu. If Lorenz can put together a decent post, I may change it, but right now I'm going to say:

more_people, softchews, and Lorenz

If Dr Ug, NaR, and Sruixan post before Lorenz, then consider this my final vote. I think that we need two days for a lynch vote, so if we only get three of the four people on the selection committee committing to votes after 24 hours I think we should finalize it so everyone starts voting (Dr Ug's recent inactivity has me questioning whether he'll weigh in at all).

[Ibarra]

1/4 way done with my analysis.
Note to self: Never replace into a game with walls of text again.

[Lorenz]

Well, I finally read everything. I am can do nothing but to say I'm sorry and the whole game quickly went beyond the time I could spend. Saturday finally came with time to spare (some at least) so here I am.

First of all, answering a-wans questions.

1. Is this an okay plan? Please give concrete reasons for yes or no.

I don't like it but don't hate it. The problem would be deciding who the 3 persons are and scum can have too much of a decision in that.

2. If we did this plan, should we lock in the there we have currently or choose a different (though not necessarily non-overlapping) group of three.

It's too late for this, but I would not like more_people in it... and definitely not me.

3. If we choose not to lock in these three, who would you choose?

{Jayshu, Softchews, sruixan}

I wish I had made notes while reading this thread, so I'm not going much into detail as to why those 3, lets call it a hunch for now.

I don't understand why m_p has so many votes and is so scummy. Yes, he has proposed that proposing plans is not good, but I agree with it. Every plan proposed I think fails in understanding that scum has the bigger voice here, and doesn't really give more information than individual voting. Also, it doesn't really help our chances of lynching scum. I think individual voting is the best choice we have. The only other suggestion I like is having a single person decide, but that leads to less analysis and choosing that one person leads to the same problems.

So in summary: I believe individual voting is our best strategy.

Vote: Jayshu

[jayhsu]

...Did you just vote for me with no analysis whatsoever? On a hunch?

That is probably the scummiest thing I've seen so far in this game, and you were already #2 on my scumlist. I think that just bumped you to #1, and with 3 days to go, I think I'm confident to

Vote: Lorenz

My 'analysis' on you is here, but its obviously brief as a result of your nearly complete inactivity.

[Elvish Pillager]

Votals:

jayhsu: 2 (weiyaoli, Lorenz)
Lorenz: 2 (webby, jayhsu)
more_people: 3 (Not A Raptor, Sruixan, softchews)

[Lorenz]

@Jayshu: It mostly had to do with there being 3 people to vote on. I don't feel good on voting more_people, and I wouldn't vote myself. It also comes down to forcing scum to vote as a-wan first proposed. I can't promise a very in depth analysis of the players later, but I will certainly try.

[Ibarra]

Actually nevermind.
I can't seem to make a summary regarding this game.
All the posts are long and intimidating.

Incomplete Summary for those who are curious:

Spoiler:

a-wan:
1.) Participates in analysis of number of town. Proposes a kill strategy involving claim those who you kill - contrary to the mod. (#2)
2.) After Misnomer replies, says that he doesn't see why it would be bad. It would generate discussion to figure out the faction of people. (#4)
3.) Drops strategy proposed due to possibility of scum power role. Suggests that voting is a scum tell, and we should vote a person right after voting another to force majority. (#6)
(Don't town get lynched first when it's a tie?)
4.) Suggests that scum will almost always ensure a town lynch. States that voting patterns would be unreliable even if scum is lynched. Votes Lorenz for voting first. (#11)

Hausdog:
1) Says that he is reading the thread. (#16)

jayhsu
1.) Promises to post content. (#7)

Lorenz
1.) Says that a-wan's plan is worth considering then votes weiyaoli. (RVS?) (#9)
2.) Denies a-wan's strategy; says should do follow the mod's advice. (#13)
(What's with the sudden shift from "It's worth considering." to "I see no reason to defy the mod's advice" in one post)

Misnomer:
1.) Against a-wan's startegy of claim those who you would target - citing the mod. (#3)

more_people:
1.) Agrees with Lorenz. Says that scum would probably be the one who comes up with a plan as they're majority. (#14)
(That's horrible reasoning IMO.)
2.) Comments on Hausdog's statement. I don't understand what he's trying to say though. (#17)

Not A Raptor:
1.) Says that he will keep an eye on those who vote. Also says that he is thinking about the set-up. (#18)

Sruixan
1.) Promises to post content. Also talks about claiming targets and the possibility of the mod setting up aspects against it. (#8)
2.) Weighs in pros and cons for a predetermined kill method. Talks about confirmed town and how scum need to speedlynch to lynch them. (#12)
3.) Defends his actions from Lorenz. Wants to at least attempt to make a plan for a system for nightkilling.(#15)

softchews:
1.) Agrees with the mod not to claim targets. Suggests a scum protective role. Also suggests random killing won't work. (#5)
(How would selecting kill targets based on a-wan's suggestion (killing them when you're sure they're not town), be random?)

webby:
1.) Says that we should indeed vote as scum would have to bandwagon to lynch town thus would reveal themselves. (#19)

weiyaoli:
1.) Starts off by analysis how many town are there. (#1)
2.) Goes against a-wan's plan stating that scum may distance themselves and the flip at morning may lessen info for such a plan. (#10)

At the moment, we have a votals for jayhsu, Lorenz and more_people.
Lorenz has voted jayhsu on the prospect of not wanting to vote more_people. That alone shouldn't be a reason to vote someone.
If the vote was self-preservation, it would be more understandable, but you weren't even in danger yet.
FoS: Lorenz

[existential_elevator]

I don't think I'm going to have time to do a proper read through (again) before deadline. I don't want to not vote.

Not sure how people feel about this for a strategy, but I'm gonna vote:

No lynch

I don't know yet who I think is scummy, so I'll probably also be with-holding my vig kill, unless I get time to do more reading when night hits. I am really sorry. I got a new job halfway through the week - I'd normally mafia from work, but I actually have a good job now, one where you have things you're responsible for and stuff (which probably marks the death of me playing forum mafia, again, for a while at least).

[Misnomer]

*gasp*

No lynch! Now why didn't I think of that earlier?


So anyway, the deadline is imminent and the committee plan seems to have fallen by the wayside. I'm gonna go with my earlier gut feeling and say that more_people's defence of jayhsu rings of scummyness.


Vote: more_people

I'll be back online before the deadline, so if our committee does get its act together I will change my vote to comply with its wishes.

[softchews]

2. Each game day, you decide on somebody to lynch. Someone will always be lynched each day - you can't choose not to lynch - and there are no vote-affecting or lynch-affecting abilities in the game. If there's no majority by the deadline, then the lynch will be decided by plurality. If there's a tie, it will be decided at random, except that town will always be lynched before scum, because the lynch is the scum's main weapon. The town are also not permitted to decide the lynch based on the player order, cryptography, or any other external source of randomness. You're supposed to vote for who you think is scum.

I may have misunderstood this, but I think this means a no-lynch vote is not allowed, and if you don't have any opinion on anyone that is strong enough to want a lynch, then you don't vote or something. So a no-lynch vote is effectively not a vote?

@Lorenz, as one of your three suspicious peoples I would like to know why you have picked that list of people. It is understandable not having a list as long as your arm on everyone playing (although when people do those its useful, I know that I have not got the analysis skills or the patience to carry the whole lot out or write it out anyway), but calling your choices of potential lynches a hunch makes it sound like your reasons are ones that you don't want to say ie. scummy.

[Elvish Pillager]

No lynch

There is no such thing as a vote for no lynch. Stating "No lynch" in bold does nothing. Please re-read the rules, since if you missed that, there's probably at least one other important thing you missed!

Votals:

jayhsu: 2 (weiyaoli, Lorenz)
Lorenz: 2 (webby, jayhsu)
more_people: 4 (Not A Raptor, Sruixan, softchews, Misnomer)

[Sruixan]

...and the whole thing descends into anarchy. Can't say I didn't see that coming either... if anybody still cares, more_people and Lorenz were going to be the first two of my votes, but I was and still am having trouble picking for that final slot since jayhsu started being reasonable. I had a few gut rumbles from e_e and Ibarra, mainly from the tone of their posts, but I would expect I'm just misinterpreting clueless replacement vibes (given e_e's latest post, I feel more confident in that assumption).

Before I go on, I need to have my by-now-obligatory lurker rant. We haven't heard from cellery at all since he replaced the borderline invisible Hausdog, and Dr Ug and John Citizen haven't posted in over a week. As we've exhausted the replacement pool and have gotten to the modkill phase, I'm awfully worried about the reprecussions of their continued absences and what it might do to the player numbers. There's a nice chance that modkills will knock out scum, yes, but modkills taking out town are just very, very bad indeed. I know that's a very obvious thing to point out, but I'm wondering what the strategic implications of such might be... it's probably more a "cross-that-bridge-when-we-get-to-it" deal, but still...

Right, anyways; Lorenz. Oh dear. I'm considering now if there exists a reasonable strategy that involves a mafioso acting too scummy for their own good. Just because gut is part of a mafia game doesn't mean it's all one is supposed to use; I shan't echo the cries for logic and justifications, since you've refused one request for clarification already, but sheesh...

I don't understand why m_p has so many votes and is so scummy. Yes, he has proposed that proposing plans is not good, but I agree with it. Every plan proposed I think fails in understanding that scum has the bigger voice here, and doesn't really give more information than individual voting. Also, it doesn't really help our chances of lynching scum. I think individual voting is the best choice we have. The only other suggestion I like is having a single person decide, but that leads to less analysis and choosing that one person leads to the same problems.

That's... not the only problem. Here, let me go and do the reading up for you:

Spoiler:

7. more_people - webby says his posts are "pretty typical of usual posting style", in which case I'll put away this hatchet and look somewhat dejected. See, his first post seemed like a sheeple-esque following of Lorenz, giving no new reasons for why we shouldn't scheme. This reeks of a scumster who isn't quite good enough at distancing himself from those he knows are his teammates and backs them up in a manner that's far too obvious. I get the same sort of feel from his third post, supporting jayhsu. But if he's always like this, how to tell if it's bad town play or terrible mafia play...? *sighs*

The other gut concern was with regards to more_people's post here - perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but this looks like m_p jumping to the defence of jayhsu - and jumping to people's defence is generally a sign of scummyness in my book*.
*The worrying implications of which regarding my state of mind, I will ignore for now...

7. more_people

(14): "me too"'s Lorenz, advocates a lack of strategy on the town's part. Either a real strong scum ping or he doesn't know what he's talking about. "no strategy", in my view, is throwing one's hands into the wind and devoting yourself to fickle luck in the hopes that it'll help you.

(17): Criticism of Hausdog. Perhaps picking an easy target? Hell if I know. Certainly legitimate to criticize, at any rate. No ping one way or the other.

(36): Criticizes weiyaoli's suspicion of jayshu. Scum might be "town" in numbers and using the lynch, but terminology mindfuckery is hardly productive.

(70): Suspicious of Sruixan and Hausdog. Is now calling strategizing scheming. Seriously? Sruixan and Hausdog? Sruixan, for not reading the entirety of one of your posts despite lots of consistent contribution and a player analysis? And Hausdog, merely for a gut feeling instead of being a lurking player? I'm about to kick your butt off Slappy Island, here! >.< (Can this place please be Slappy Island in the flavor? )

(72): Forgives Sruixan, answers the questions. Anti-plan forever. Urgh.

[votes for more_people]

This vote has been a while coming for me, but it was in the reply to Sruixan's vote which seemed unreasonably sharp and defensive, rather then a thought out defence against the vote which is what I would expect in a game like this. This on top of scum-like behaviour earlier (defending scummy thoughts from people and the likes) makes me vote this way.

The fact of the matter, though, is that you've now reciprocated more_people's earlier crack at coupling with you with several lengths of neon pink rope, with a flimsy defense and a opposition for voting him. If you two aren't both scum, then... um, then that's probably going to be quite a bad thing. Still, as far as I'm concerned there is at least a link, and I would still rather lynch more_people today, mostly his roleflip will shed a bit more light on whether or not you're really scum or just poorly represented by your posts...

By the by, I will be around before and at the deadline, fingers crossed. If there is another development (I wouldn't be particularly amazed if there was), I'll be there.

Sruixan - I've liked his posts. The only thing I find troubling is his uncanny ability to make long posts where he doesn't end up really saying that much.

Guilty as charged, m'lud. I'm a stream-of-conciousness style guy, really, and to top it off I am neither concise nor good at explanation. Sorry if my posts have been dense reads...

[Elvish Pillager]

'Hey, wasn't there another person here?" says one of you.

"Eh?" says another.

"The one with the glasses. Celery, was it?"

"Don't be daft, the one with the glasses was called Housedog!"

"No, it was totally Celery!"

"Are you two trying to confuse us or are you just going crazy?" demands a third. "None of us has ever worn glasses, and that is a fact!"

cellery has been modkilled for inactivity. There will be no role reveal; I'm simply pretending that Hausdog/cellery never existed.

The deadline is still August 15 (tomorrow!) at UTC 16:00.

[webby]

Just posting to say that I am around, but I haven't seen anything to change my mind. Lorenz's post has done nothing to change my opinion of him, no real analysis, just a vote based on 'hunch' and brief, unenlightening answers to questions posted a long time ago. Also I have no idea why he thinks softchews and Surixian are scummy?

It looks like more_people is going to be lynched, he always seems to act pretty scummy, which is why I don't think he's the best lynch target when other people (Lorenz, jayhsu) have been acting scummy too.

[more_people]

Self-preservation vote:
Sriuxan
I've already stated that I don't trust you nor do I agree with you. You probably already saw this coming so here it is.

[Ibarra]

I see merit in the case against more_people, but I think that Lorenz is the scummiest among the bunch.
As such I'm afraid that voting for Lorenz could make more_people shift his vote to make a tie.

On the other hand, If it is a tie and one of the two are lynched, chances are the one who wasn't lynched is scum.
Deadline is around 9 hours 30 minutes time, so there should be some activity before the deadline - I hope.

Vote: Lorenz

[John Citizen]

Very quick checking in post. As a note, I've been away since Friday.

I'll post something substantial soon, but I do agree that a Lorenz lynch would be better than a more_people lynch; this is partly due to the meta on more_people (as webby mentioned). I'll reread and update my suspicions when I next post.

[a-wan]

Okay, I guess there's no selection committee, which is fine because votes have been pretty concentrated on just a few people, and with 8 votes we've likely got some town votes, so we're not just being railroaded by scum.

The last posts by Lorenz and more_people really have me confused. If they're scum, it seems like they're almost being too obvious. Lorenz's last post alone was enough to convince me that he and more_people are scum, but then more_people does a "self_preservation vote" on Sruixan? I don't get it. If he and Lorenz are scum, then I understand why he would be reluctant to vote for Lorenz. But shouldn't a self-preservation vote be for someone with a better chance of getting lynched than Sruixan? jayhsu already has two votes, and one of them is Lorenz's, so why not vote for him? Are they all scum together, and the fight between jay and Lorenz is just to muddy the waters? Or does more_people realize that he already looks scummy and he's trying to make jay look scummy too by not voting for him?

So as I've been typing this, I had a thought. I've been planning on voting more_people for the lynch, but I have one small reservation at the moment, which is that he has gotten votes quickly enough that I'm beginning to think scum is trying to lynch him. So I'd like to vote someone else. In fact, I think it may be to our advantage to force a tie vote. Right now, it seems very much like more_people and Lorenz are scum. If they are and they are tied for the most votes, then the lynchee will get picked randomly and tomorrow they'll flip scum. If one or both of them is town, then the lynchee will flip town. So basically if we finish with a tie and the lynchee flips scum, then the one who doesn't get lynched will be confirmed scum.

[a-wan]

EBWOP:

A fly in the ointment, though, is the fact that it seems to me that scum wouldn't let this happen unless one of the two people in the tie vote were town. I'm going back and forth between voting on who I think is most likely to be scum (more_people) and seeing if it's possible to force a tie between him and Lorenz in order to possibly lynch scum and end up with a confirmed scum tomorrow. For now I'll

Vote more_people

but if people can make the case that scum would allow a tie vote between two scum, then I'd be willing to switch to someone else.

[Sruixan]

a-wan, if you were seriously entertaining the possibility of forcng a tie, why did you vote just then? Vote-switching to change or tie plurality just before the deadline extends it by an extra 48 hours, so you've basically blown the chance of you personally tying the vote and made it so that two of our three current non-voters would have to show up and vote Lorenz before the deadline (that's John Citizen, e_e and Dr Ug, for the record). Anything could happen in an extra 48 hours (well, maybe not anything, but still) and such an opportunity might not persist. Just pointing that out.

As for why more_people voted for me, I'm not totally sure. Such a vote was arguably the easy way out, meaning he didn't have to give an opinion on anyone else (such as jayhsu) so we couldn't make any further assumptions from his alignment. I can't help but note that most other votes he could have made would have opened up a couple of barrels of wine, though whether or not that would have been more effective is something of a grey area.

With only one and a half hours to go, barring someone vote-switching, it looks like more_people is going to get lynched. I don't suppose anyone has anything they're burning to say? Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance over the weekend to look at the idea of withholding kills in any great detail (I told you lot I'm generally busier at weekends, didn't I?) so I'm honestly not sure what else to say...

[a-wan]

I voted more_people because I wasn't sure of the strategy of forcing a tie and didn't want to put us in a worse position if I was wrong. I was hoping people would offer some opinion on it before I went ahead with it. Granted, the opinion I received could likely be scum's, but I just wanted someone else's thoughts. I like to think that if someone says something that is obviously bad logic that I would be able to pick it out, so I don't mind if scum weighs in on it or not. Any scrutiny from anyone seemed helpful since it was 3 a.m. for me when I made that post.

Also, if one other person and I had voted for Lorenz that would have triggered the 48 hour extension. Right now I feel like scum has dropped the ball and left more_people exposed so I wanted to take advantage of that and make sure it went through, and I'm afraid that with another 48 hours they might be able to bail him out somehow. If more_people flips scum tomorrow, I think we have a decent number of links between him and other people that we can exploit to our advantage.

You know what, though? Maybe another 48 hours would be just the right thing for us right now. Tonight is the most important night of the game, after all. I'm pretty sure the results of tonight will have a stronger effect on the outcome than any other night, so more time is better. If scum manages to bail out more_people that may give the game to us.

UNVOTE
VOTE: Lorenz

Please someone tell me why forcing a tie between two scummy players is a bad idea. I'd rather like to have some confirmed scum tomorrow, even if they're basically all but confirmed scum right now.

[a-wan]

Incidentally, I think any plan to systematically withhold night kills is a bad idea. The only way we win this is to kill as many scum each night as possible. I can't think of any great strategy for this other than, if you have people you are reasonably sure are scum, then kill them. If you are just too confused about who's town and who's scum, then it's up to you to decide whether or not to use your NK. Using an NK on town is about the worst thing we can do, but one misfire on town is not actually as bad as if we only NK one scum.

To show this, first I have to acknowledge that we lost a player. Before we were looking at 10-5, 9-6, or 8-7. I don't think the modkill would have preceded if it moved the game to 7-7 or to 10-4, so I think we are either at 9-5 or 8-6.

If we assume a town lynch then:
- Only one scum NKed and no one else leaves us either at 8-4 or 7-5.
- If we kill one town with NK then we can get 6-3 or 5-4 with only two NKs on scum, which at least as good for us, and we have 5 or 6 NKs, so it's possible we can get it down to 5-3 or 3-4 if we do it right.

Time's running out, so my point is simply that we should use our NKs if we are reasonably sure about at least one scum. Even with 1 misfire and if town gets lynched, we still have a decent chance of coming out better. I'm pretty sure I have more than one good candidate, so I have no problem pulling the trigger tonight.

[a-wan]

EBWOP

I meant to say "one misfire on town may not actually be as bad as if we only NK one scum". I know it could actually be worse to kill one town if we only kill one or two scum.

In summary, town please don't kill town tonight. Thank you.

[Elvish Pillager]

a-wan's vote extends the day by another 48 hours. The new deadline is UTC 16:00, August 17.

Oh dear, that's a horrible strategy. I should have known my weird tie rule would cause some really bad effect. Sorry everyone, but I've gotta change the tie rule. For now, just... don't make ties, okay? Meanwhile I'll try to come up with something that works better.

Votals:

jayhsu: 2 (weiyaoli, Lorenz)
Lorenz: 4 (webby, jayhsu, Ibarra, a-wan)
more_people: 4 (Not A Raptor, Sruixan, softchews, Misnomer)
Sruixan: 1 (more_people)

[Elvish Pillager]

Aha - since the point of the original system was to make ties advantageous for scum, so that making ties would be scummy, the solution seems obvious - if there's a tie, I'll put the question of who to lynch to the scum: I'll have them make a collective decision somehow. Doing that would waste lots of time, so I hope you don't make ties.

I expect that there won't be ties except in endgame situations.

[a-wan]

Okay. There goes the tie strategy--it would definitely be bad if scum is able to vote without town. At least I was able to change the game.

It doesn't matter to me which of the two we lynch, so for now I'll

UNVOTE

and save my it in case there is a tie in the future. At this point, perhaps a slightly stronger case can be made for Lorenz being definitely scum, but really only on the basis that more_people was the one that was about to be lynched. I had said in the past that I didn't think that scum would let scum get lynched when it's the only kill they control, but I'm willing to admit that I may have been wrong.

Anyways, I'm grateful for the reprieve for several reasons:

1. It gives scum another chance to mess up which means we have a better chance of hitting scum.
2. It gives us one more chance to think about night strategy (which I confess still feels a lot like rolling the dice at the moment).
3. We've had precious little content from John Citizen, who acted like he was about to take some action or another. Now he has a chance to actually follow through.
4. Dr Ug and e_e have one more chance to vote. It will be good to see if they do. Dr Ug's absence is starting to change my mind a bit on him, but I want to be wrong because he has had a lot of reasonable ideas.

[more_people]

I see people are wondering why I voted for Sruixan. Well I need to vote for someone out of self-preservation but I didn't want to vote for those that were already being voted for because:
1) I don't see why people are voting for jayhsu.
2) I'm not voting for myself.
3) Lorenz made a slip-up, which everyone makes every now and then. That's all it was, a mistake. I'm not going to lynch Lorenz because of it.
So I choose to vote Sruixan who has been bugging me for a while.

[Lorenz]

I don't understand why you didn't vote me m_p. Your vote is basically a no vote. If you're town you should have voted me or jayshu, forcing more scum votes on you. It feels as if you're trying to make links between us, especially with that last post, and I don't like that.

Unvote
Vote: more_people

[Ibarra]

Yeah. more_people isn't acting townie at all.
If he is town and wants to live then he should have done a self-preservation vote.
But alas the meta. The problem with m_p is that he always to some extent acts scummy regardless of the role.

[Ibarra]

Actually screw it.
Unvote
Vote: more_people

To get rid of the wine surrounding him.
He is at 6 votes now.

FoS: Lorenz still.

[Ibarra]

Prods for everyone?
Why are you guys not posting?

[a-wan]

At this point, the only people that have votes are three of my four scummiest people. I'm happy to vote for more_people, except that he already has 6 votes, which gives me 3 reasons not to vote for him:

1. 6 people is the absolute most number of town that we could have, so as far as I'm concerned, the fact that he has 6 votes means that at least one of those votes comes from scum. The question is then, is this scum piling up on town that happens to look scummy, or is this scum acting so scummy that other scum feel like they have no choice but to vote for him? Since the first two votes are from NaR and Sruixan, I'm inclined to hope that town somehow forced this vote, but that also means I'm putting a lot of trust in NaR and Sruixan, which may also be problematic in this setup.

2. The second reason is that my vote would put more_people at L-1. On the off chance that he is town, I'd hate to make it easy for scum to hammer town. Especially since I haven't heard a NK strategy that gives us a significant advantage, yet, and I'd like to see if anyone has any ideas.

3. Finally, if I vote for someone else, and more_people is town, then there's a chance we can force scum to have to push too hard to get him killed.

On the other hand, I have good reasons to vote for more_people, as well:

1. As far as I can tell, he's acted scummier than most people in the game so far. Is this meta? I don't know--I've never played with him before.

2. Who else do I vote for at this point? The only other people with votes are on my scum list, so I have no problem voting for them, but I don't see a jayhsu vote gaining any traction, and, in my opinion, voting for Lorenz is practically the same as voting for more_people. If more_people is scum, I don't see scum switching from more_people to vote for Lorenz.

3. In order for voting for anyone else to be worth it, we run the risk of a tie vote. With scum now able to privately break the tie, a tie now gives us less information than no tie, so we need to avoid it.

For now, the reasons for voting for someone other than more_people revolve around him not being scum, which still seems unlikely, but I also wasnt to have one more chance for people to be able to propose NK strategies, so I'm just not going to vote yet.

I admit, that there don't seem to be a lot of good choices, but if anyone has anything, I'd like to hear it.

[Elvish Pillager]

Sorry I missed the deadline - just realized, but now I'm about to go to bed. Anyway, more_people is lynched; expect flavor, votals, etc. tomorrow. Feel free to start sending in night actions.

[Elvish Pillager]

"It's more_people! They're scum!"

"Yes, I know more people here are government agents than loyal illuminati or whatever. We've been over that."

"No, I mean the person who's named more_people!"

"Wait!" yells another one of you. "You're lying! You're just trying to lynch more_people because they're an easy target!"

"We can't lynch more people, we can only lynch one person every hour!"

"Shut up, all of you! Let's just shoot more_people and have done with this!"

"Did somebody say 'shoot'?"

Suddenly the crowd bristles with guns...

Firefight 1 begins. It will last no more than 72 hours; the firefight deadline is August 21, at UTC 16:00.

(Oh, by the way, the flavor is that the lynch victim dies in the firefight.)

If you don't send in an action, you default to leaving it unused. If you want to withhold an action deliberately, please tell me so so that the night can end promptly.

more_people has been lynched. The final votals were:

jayhsu: 1 (weiyaoli)
Lorenz: 2 (webby, jayhsu)
more_people: 6 (Not A Raptor, Sruixan, softchews, Misnomer, Lorenz, Ibarra)
Sruixan: 1 (more_people)

[Elvish Pillager]

Just before the shooting starts, a terrible din is heard over the next hill.

"Oh no!" cries one of you. "One of the government spies must have called in a tank!"

"That doesn't sound exactly like a tank..."

"It's worse! It's a modified tank!"

Then the mod-tank starts shelling the area. You run for your lives. When the noise is a little quieter and you think you've escaped, you regroup.

Then the body of John Citizen is flies in an arc and lands in the middle of you, propelled by explosive ammo. I guess ze didn't run fast enough...

John Citizen had to drop the game, and has been modkilled. Zir role will be revealed in the morning.