I'm not saying it's 100% certain, I'm saying it's very likely. How many scum-less [early days] mislynches have you seen in your forum mafia career? Not that many, right? It's less likely to have both/all scum on one wagon (even more so on both) although not entirely impossible but I think you're discounting the possibility way too easy.


How about that clarification?

I am stuck in a highly busy conference at the moment. So I hardly have any time to read what you wrote. But I will be home in 4 or 5 hours and take time to read then. We still have 10 hours left.

I do see that Joe has made a long reply and dedo has posted some analysis. So I will take my vote off Joe until I have analysed his defense and dedos new input. I know that RW will accuse me of vote hopping again, but I don't want to contribute to a deadline driven 'we're out of time' lynch. As I said, I will be online in 5 hours, so I can help make sure that we don't get a no-lynch.

unvote Joe

Had a quick read of what happened in the past few hours. Yadda yadda - blotunga teammate - wrong track. Sounds lamist but my only buddies are town.
So that leaves with the following circle of suspects:
RW/Joe - it's a possibility albeit risky because if one is lynched and turns up scum, the other will surely be lynched (based on RW rolecop claim).
RW/Lift - somehow I find it unlikely. Not that I wasn't wrong before
RW/Pooka - unlikely based on what I've seen.
Joe/Lift - while some stuff might seem distancing, I have a feeling they aren't a team
Joe/Pooka - can have merit as a theory, nothing definite to lay my hands on it.
Lift/Pooka - this combination is also interesting because while Pooka did some early distancing with Lift, Lift didn't follow on the pooka wagon.

Unfortunately I have only a few minutes to drop in in the next few hours but gut tells me
vote pooka

This also might be related to the fact that pooka was L-1 once already but then somehow things turned around to GR.
Before I go to sleep I'll drop in and see the developments.

Ick. Not much activity. I've got to head out for the evening now, but I'll try and get to a library or something.

Dedo - I didn't discount the possibility any more than you saying it was 100% certain.

Blotunga - I do kind of love the Lift/Pooka theory. Mostly for imagining ZFR's response to it end game.

Oh c'mon now, let's be serious here. Unvoting isn't vote hopping. Why do you find it necessary to misportray events. But what you did do was make a whole lot of arguments talking about the probability of 1 scum vs 2, how my role precludes making a N1 kill and suddenly after Agent's breadcrumbing, I'm an easy choice. This is exactly why I'm finding you scummy. You say things, but they don't seem to be filled with much conviction. Your observation about Joe's logic was spot on and now you are back to these sort of distorted narratives...

What do you mean Lift didn't follow?

Doesn't that look unlikely to you? Pooka was at L-1. I backed off so he could claim comfortably which didn't happen. After that became clear Lift took Pooka back to L-1 (where I or others could have just sealed the deal) and left him there for the Day (that vote was Lift's last post for D1). Unless Lift was sure his buddy is going down and he preemptively bussed him I don't see them being a team. Lift's vote wasn't even along the lines of "I'm starting to doubt Pooka and maybe there is a decent chance he is scum after all". He said Pooka still looked more on the Town side but the lynch was needed for the sake of information.

Either of them can be scum, one probably is, but I really doubt it's both of them. If they are Lift did fantastic job hiding it.

You may remember that I was of the opinion that either you or agent are scum even before agent claimed. Agent revealing himself as very likely town, made you an easy choice indeed. Of course that choice meant that my 'one scum' theory would be wrong. But that is possible. It is possible that we do have two scum left and that you are one of them. Also the fact that I unvoted Joe doesn't invalidate the observations about him. I still think he has a good chance of being scum, but I want to go over what he wrote calmly. For that I unvoted. The closer the deadline comes, the more critical wrong votes become because scum can abuse the close deadline for justification of votes that lead to a mis-lynch.

But since you said that my observations about Joe are spot on, let me ask you: what is your opinion of Joe? On the one hand you seem to agree with my Joe-critical observation, on the other you say you think that he didn't target you. So, where do you put him?

While you answer that, I will finally take the time to go through the recent posts in detail.

Ah yes, I missed the fact that Lift hopped on the Pooka train before zfr withdrew. I don't think anyone would bus so blatantly on d1. So pooka/lift scumteam is very unlikely.

Yes. And? He only almost got you lynched and bussing is sometimes done by scum. So I don't see you as provably not scum together.

A warm, fuzzy feeling. If I imagine that I was instrumental in convicting scum-you, it gives me the nice feeling of having been smarter than scum. ... Perhaps you know that imagined feeling? However, if I imagine that you are Town after all, I feel quite stupid. Maybe that's why I don't like to imagine that. ;-)

However, jokes aside, you are right on some points: if we should both be Town, things look bleak. If one of us gets the other mis-lynched, he will be a prime target the next Day. And we will be at LYLO the next Day, if we don't hit scum today. Also, I did something I haven't done much before. I ISOd myself. You are right, I am omgussy. I focus (again) on those who attack me. I think that was one of the traits HSL used to get me mislynched. Provoke me until I voted him and then accusing me of OMGUS. I had hoped that I have outgrown this trait, but apparently instinct is hard to unlearn. ... If it helps (even if that is self-meta and LAMIST), I was careful about OMGUS votes when I was scum. When I had to keep up appearances, I tried to select targets that didn't target me. Also, when I was scum, being attacked didn't feel wrong. ... The attackers were right after all. Maybe that's why this 'fight back' instinct didn't trigger when I was scum.

I'm not fixated on the one-man-mafia-team. I just think, just as you say, that having three scum against us would not be fair. I don't like things that aren't fair. ... But of course you are right in pointing out that Trent already ran an imbalanced game before. So I probably focused too much on what would be fair because I wanted the game to be fair.

But there you go yourself and expect the world to be fair! ;-)

Well, someone did.

*sigh* No. Actually they are not. You always brag.

Agree on 1 and 2. Disagree on 3. Disagree on 4, but it contains valuable thoughts. Addition to 5: Pooka could be in a team with RW or Joe. 6. It isn't me. But blotunga+Joe or blotunga+RW are possible. Or blotunga, Pooka or Joe alone.

Now for the notable thoughts contained in 4: You are right! RW=scum and Joe=Town is very unlikely. A scum RW, after learning that you had no role, would have tried to get a PR lynched or at least to L-1 for a claim. He wouldn't have gone after a known vanilla townie. Town-RW and Scum-Joe is possible. Since a 'no role' read can refer to a Goon as well as a vanilla Townie. So RW going after Joe on D2, because he believed him a Goon, and changing his mind on D3 actually fits with a RW=Town theory. ... Does that mean that if RW is scum, Joe has to be scum too?
Isn't that interesting, Joe? In defending yourself, you have accidentally given Town points to RW. Unless you both are scum and giving Town-points to RW was your goal (after he tried to bus you)... huh. Something feels wrong here.


You are right, I think. On both last points. Would both scum really hop on both wagons? Probably not. However, Joe was on both wagons. But Pooka was the one who was saved by the shift to the GR-wagon. I will have to check after writing this post, who was the one who started the shift and for what reason.

I don't remember the details, but I think I had very little time during that game due to RL stuff, didn't follow the game as well as I should and was prone to being annoyed by HSL.

Why do you disagree on Joe? What convinces you that Joe is Town?

Of course it is conceivable that scum leaned back and let Town lynch GR all by themselves. But with GR's play being what it is, he probably also was a convenient target for scum. Someone you can vote for without getting scum-points for it when he flips Town. So I still think it was likely that there was one scum on that wagon.

About RFG's wagon: another thing I want to check when I have written this post is, whether someone was overly confident that RFG was scum. The point is: Town always has to fear being wrong and mislynching one of their own team. Scum, when detecting someone who actually looks scummy, know that they aren't voting against their own team. So they can be quite confident of their 'scum-read'. (of course, they probably would fake being insecure... so maybe this is a moot point).

Huh. Interesting idea. Yes, RFG did push for Pooka's claim. Why was he so interested in that?

I'll go back to have a look at the RFG train and the GR train.

@trent: how much time do we have left?

Thanks, trent!

On to a summary of the RFG-train, to see whether we can learn something from it:

1. Agent starts the RFG wagon
2. RW hops on, in a post where he collects points against Joe
2a. however, reconsiders, hops off and heavily goes after Joe
3. I vote Joe too
4. RFG votes agent
5. blotunga votes joe
6. Joe hops wildly from vote to vote (blotunga, RW, agent)
7. Pooka votes agent, without much reason. 'backing off of the soft-claim thing is scummy'
8. Joe votes RFG, without own reason. Just stating „I just read Pooka's reads list and, despite the problems above which I'd like pooka to explain his thought processes on, his reads make some sort of sense.“
9. blotunga votes RFG, citing time pressure and not much else.
10. I hammer.

Agent is solidly in the Town bucket, since an evil Angel would mean a third scum faction. RW's post made me think upon re-reading: 'Hey, distancing. Plus target of convenience.' but the way things between RW and Joe developed after that didn't look like distancing anymore. They looked serious. Joe was right. And there was no reason for RW to bus an assumed Joe-buddy at that point. That throws a serious wrench in my RW+Joe=scumteam theory.
5 - blotunga's vote on Joe doesn't come with much motivation. He just agrees with others that Joe doesn't look good.
9 - his vote on RFG doesn't carry own analysis either.
7 - Pooka's reason for suspecting RFG was the accusation of RFG that Pooka and I had soft-claimed. Or that RFG backed off of that accusation. Plus RFG's votes. As agent puts it in post 404
6. and 8. Joe looks very erratic in the second half of D2. Especially post 430 really looks off.
...so, Pooka's list is off and requires explanation. Yet still Joe goes along with this.

Now, of course RFG was SK and therefore scum. However, as I wrote further above, he still was a tempting target for scum. An actually somewhat scummy target that wasn't on the own team. ...
But there isn't one person voting RFG without good reason. There are three. blotunga keeps doing that. Just agrees with other's analysis without providing own input. And Joe is seriously erratic. Pooka seems to be set on finding RFG scummy, no matter what he does.

So, the three 'off' persons on the RFG train are three suspects that were on the table before: blotunga, Joe and Pooka. However, Pooka seems to be motivated by OMGUS, for RFG's previous attacks on him ... and I kind of can relate to that. But at least going back over D2 in detail made me realize that I probably was wrong with the RW+Joe = scumteam theory.

...onward to D1.

Condensed summary of the Pooka train and it's derailing:

initially: my train=Joe, Pooka, GR
Pooka-train=ZFR, blotunga
dedo votes pooka
agent votes pooka, pooka becomes leading train
GR switches to pooka, pooka at L-1
dedo unvotes
I vote pooka, pooka back at L-1
ZFT switches to GR, with valid reason
dedo gets behind that, votes GR
Pooka, who previously said he would rather get lynched himself than lynch GR, joins the GR wagon.
RFG tries several times unsuccessfully to join the GR-wagon
Joe pretends to join with a fake vote
Joe joins for real
RFG finally manages to vote and hammer GR.


Well, that was inconclusive. The train was actually derailed by ZFR, whom we know to be Town. The rest of the switches were believably driven by the time pressure. Joe's playing around with a pretend vote that close to the deadline looks bad. As does RFG's not knowing whom he is voting for - and RFG actually was scum.


So, in spite of the good things that Joe has written and in spite of him having been right about me tunneling on people who attack me, I come back to finding him (and blotunga and, to a much lesser degree Pooka) scummy.

Addition from Today: blotunga started very early to create pressure with pointing out that time is ticking.


Current vote count (inofficial)

Lift---------Joe (Post 575), RWarehall (Post 587)
Joe ------- Pooka (605)
Pooka --- blotunga (633)


... the deadline is very close. I'm not going to vote myself and out of the two who have a vote on them who aren't me, Joe is by far the scummier. I would be willing to lynch blotunga at this point, since the re-read has revealed quite some scummy moments and not much Town-work. However, he is at a whopping zero votes.

@Joe: if I am wrong about this, I probably damn Town with this, because I will probably be next Tomorrow. Then you can mock me all you want post-game. However, if I am right, I will mock you! Fair deal?

vote Joe

For the record: I will keep checking back from time to time for the next 2 hours. If you get a blotunga train running, I might switch to that. A Joe+blotunga team is possible, I think.


Holy hell, you're right. Checking back (thanks, adalia!), RFG actually wrote 'Pooka shouldn't claim'. Not 'Pooka should claim!'. Big difference. Sorry! ... But that only increases my perception that Pooka is less scummy than blotunga or Joe. Since it would have been a point against Pooka.

3 hours to go. Where are you all? Come on, it's time to make a decision.

To be honest I don't really have a good lead on whom to vote.

I'm okay with voting for blotunga or Pooka. I'm on the fence about Joe but I would vote him if I have to. RW/Lift at the end.