I've read the posts thus far and have little to offer by way of mystical insight. (I am willing to pick up the mantle of enigmatic so handily wielded by JMich in the past.)

I have no issue with being lynched other than it will be a mis-lynch for certain. If town can plug that into the abacus and cypher whether it is an acceptable loss or not then so be it.

I see most of the chatter as pinching my low-hanging-fruity-goodness.

I find myself agreeing with most players are posting (overlaps, rephrasing the same suspicions, etc..). However, my suspicions are first: PookaMustard and second: Bookwyrm627. I'm willing to Vote to achieve lynch, but not for myself.

"crucial contribution"?! seems dramatic at best and possibly shade slingy.

And what is the sum total of your experience with my wronginess??

"Ah of course, that was dedo" I couldn't find your answer to dedoporno's question. Was there a reason you didn't want to reply to this bold assertion of yours??

I'll respond to Gogtrial first, then I'll get to Pooka's posts. This is part 1 for Gogtrial.

I'm...not seeing it. To me, this looks like a mistake in counting the letter combinations, not a mistake in figuring out the probability of a particular letter appearing. Two different things.

Also, I don't see Dedo deliberately going for a derpclear by bussing his buddy on spur of the moment at MyLo. It just doesn't jive with my feel for how he plays. I've already mentioned how I don't think scum could have anticipated Micro shooting Joe.

Nor do I see Flub and Dedo trying to feel each other out to see who might counter claim. Both are experienced players, and if either of them thought they had a good chance with a CC, then they would just do it. The other would play off it from there.

Not very effective when I'm the only one that seems to have bought it as distancing. :)

Ouch, good catch. When looking at that, I flipped back to my headspace of when they were making the claims, where I didn't know how the ?? in the letter string would play out.

I claim excellence, not perfection. I suspect you'll understand a lack of perfection, considering the paragraph of 879 and then 880. :P

*snort* This is weak, Gogtrial. I specifically pointed out that I replaced my name, and I noted my source if someone wanted to put my name back in there. I replaced my name to help demonstrate my point, and people that weren't sure of my towniness were fully informed (upfront!) about my process before they even got to the wagons.

For fun, don't forget, when doing your wagon position analysis, that the EOD wagons don't always tell the whole story. By way of example, in this specific game I was in spot one on that D2 wagon for a significant period, until I finally hopped off in the last hours before coming back to hammer. :P

*shrug* I'll grant you this one. A quick scan indicates I didn't make any comment about agreeing with Joe on Pooka not really standing out as town in his 755 or his 761, so I have no evidence of that.

I didn't comment on Joe following up with a town read on Pooka because 1) I haven't been town reading Pooka, and 2) I wasn't impressed with his reason for town reading Pooka.

This is also how you put forward argument as a townie, so other townies can see why you think such and such are scum.

Sort of the way you're currently presenting reasons that I'm scum. :P

Then I guess town loses, because we aren't going to be able to form a consensus vote on the final scum.

You note that he's made the effort, therefore he's capable of the effort.

Would first time mafia (thus, inexperienced) put in the effort? If they are inclined to be a lazy player, then maybe not. If they are inclined toward effort, then they absolutely could put in the effort.

Unless your argument is that town!Pooka would not be able to see that these things don't matter, while scum!Pooka would know that they don't matter?

I dunno, can first time mafia be effective?

Assuming you're town, you're seeing Pooka complaining about a wagon that has at best 2 (unrelated) scum on it (wyrm and agent). But pretend Pooka is mafia for a moment, and you're seeing Pooka saying a 5 vote wagon, with zero mafia votes, is really fishy. "Oh noez, a wagon on a townie got going really fast! Must be scum in them there votes!"

And then later on D1, Pooka was okay with lynching Scene. The only wagon difference was Agent (not mafia) got off the wagon and GR (also not mafia) got on. Pooka was cool with making Scene a 5-vote wagon in that instance.

Wot the 'ell, mate?

I specifically said I wanted to lynch Pooka and Flub as my picks for scum team, and I even said which order I wanted to lynch them.

Are you trying to tell me that this was our master plan?

N3 chat.
Wyrm: "What we going to do tonight, Flub?"
Flub: "Same thing we do every night, Wyrm. Fail to kill town!"
Wyrm: "What if we actually succeed tonight, Flub?"
Flub: "Huh. How about this. You afk for less than a day, and I'll vote you for it. That will show we aren't teammates!"
Wyrm: "Great idea! For more fun, lets make up some disagreement about flavour, and you can use that as evidence too!"
Flub: "Good choice. Lets try to lynch one of the inexperienced players."
Wyrm: "Yes! I'll put you as my second pick for scum and offer town the choice of the two of you. They'll definitely go for the other guy!"
Flub: "Good, good. Who shall we fail to kill?"
Wyrm: "Hm. I know, lets go for Trent. He's been hard reading me as town since forever."
Flub: "Joe has become suspicious of you, so we'll leave him alone. We'll also leave everyone that suspects me alone."
Wyrm: "Hooray hooray!"

Yo Dedo, is there any chance at all that you wouldn't throw my ass under the bus if such a throw meant scum would win?

-----

I wasn't the first to mention the 50% chance. No scum ping for Dedo?

Right. I also had this re #1006. I agreed with the percentage in general being 25 but I also read yours in the context of short-term results rather than winning the game as a whole. That's also what I meant in the post you're quoting now.


We win together, we lose together. The amount of alive players on the winning team is irrelevant. I suppose that answers your question.


Off-topic: My son has turned 5 today and this morning we finalized the deal on a new apartment. Double celebration tonight, so I'll probably won't be around too much.

Oh, looks like there wasn't another Gogtrial wall-o-text.

I'll cover everything but Pooka's wall here (which I haven't read yet).

-----

"Stay in my pocket, Gogtrial!"

I still don't see Gogtrial as scum. Trying to get me viewed as scum is wasted effort when he could simply agree with Dedo and I. Either Dedo is also scum and we mislynch Pooka (Wyrm, Flub, Gogtrial, Dedo), or Dedo isn't scum and Gogtrial has two town votes (Wyrm, Dedo) ready to mislynch whichever isn't scum among Pooka and Flub.

Lots of work for no benefit.

A Wyrm-Gogtrial scum team should look even more absurd at this point.

This looks downright nonsensical. Why would scum!me put forth Flub for lynch when I could have put forth Dedo and win regardless of which one of my options town chose? I've expressed suspicions of Dedo more than once.

"I suspect Flub mostly because of Bookwyrm", and Flub is at 50%? I could maybe see a Wyrm-Dedo team idea being explored, but not this Wyrm-Flub mess.

I'm guessing you flipped to being suspicious of me for this reread, and that has heavily colored your thinking. If you're manufacturing this as scum, then post game I'm going to laugh at you putting in so much work for nothing.

In other words: "Let me introduce you two. Wyrm, Bus. Bus, Wyrm. Have fun!"

Don't worry, I feel the same way. :)

Congrats to Dedo Jr. and to the family as a whole!

I remember when my kids were cute.

A doctor claim might have been interesting. You would have had to make up your protection targets, and there would likely be heat from people questioning the odds of 3 doctors. Assuming we hit scum today, you would also have been questioned on your N4 survival since you would be a sure kill.

If you CC'd Micro, then you would immediately be in a situation where we are either going to lynch you or Micro, instead of you being among the rest of us. It can work, but it is a very risky play.

*sigh* Forgot to copy the tail end over to the notepad with the rest of the post.

Did you ever name which people you thought might be scum doing the jump starting? Maybe I just missed it.

You ask the question and promptly answer it. Well done!

Fair enough.

How would Trent's night action indicate, in any fashion, that Flub was the attacker?

Okay, lets say we No Lynch. Run the scenario. What does D5 look like? What puts us in a better position on D5 that we don't have on D4?

1) Then we'd have talked through it, and you'd have had to explain your reasons. I would have put forward the idea that you should go first as the person who is least generally read as town.
2) Rolefishing does not involve you leaving breadcrumbs. Rolefishing involves you trying to get others to give away their roles, and I specifically said I didn't think you were doing that over the course of the game.
3) I'm extra glad I didn't follow your suggestion. Why would you send me looking for breadcrumbs that don't exist? :(

Yikes. This went out of hand quick. Stuff to address...

Mafia me would have taken the risk to claim doctor in an effort to buy me sometime. If a townie was mislynched, N4 wouldn't matter. If a scum ends up being lynched instead, then there goes the reward for taking the risk, but at least I would not have confirmed the setup. If I counterclaim Micro, then yes, it's either me or Micro. I would have winged it as hard as I could to make either nightkills make sense from my perspective. Heck, I'd have gone for trent instead of Joe as the kill, and point to earlier breadcrumbs that I was suspicious of trent and so offed him. As scum, anything was better than just saying "I'm vanilla."

Not really. My jump start theory was going to be expanded on after D2 when more information was obtained...that wasn't Agent and SPF are scum. But beyond that, trent, who brought scene to L-3 before blotunga, did eventually get my suspicion (although he is the 4th voter and not the 2nd or 3rd like I assumed).

But you didn't quote the whole answer -_-

That is something I'm seeking the answer to. The only way to know that is by knowing who trent was protecting and if flub was raising any suspicions on that player. It just so happens that trent is gone, and all we got is an implication that Joe protected your face. As it stands, good luck with that.

Most likely scenario is that we'd play D4 without Micro, but then we'd be at LyLo. The upside is that we now have a couple more days to study the game, the downside is that it's the last chance unless we lynch correctly.

1) See, scummy Pooka would have hesitated to reveal this bit of info and build up to one of the two claims I put up at the beginning of this post. By claiming right away, I sure didn't give myself any wiggle room as scum...counterproductive as heck if you ask me.
2) Yes, I wasn't doing that, I was more concerned with the possible suspects, like scene and GR.
3) Precisely. I wasn't breadcrumbing. No reason to, not as vanilla anyway.

Off to dinner!

Dedo Jr. made me chuckle.

But if you're the roleblocker, then a goon mislynch would point right at you as the final scum; the mechanics would call you a liar. By removing yourself from the lynch pool, we should have a better chance of hitting your partner.

You left breadcrumbs?

I think we'll just have to disagree on that point. Vanilla was, by far, the safest claim.

You were going to expand on your theory during D2, but then a mafia and SK flip disrupted the plan?

I don't see how the rest was relevant. If Scene was going to be lynched regardless, then the speed of his wagon didn't matter.

The answer is simple: there is no way that Trent could have known for sure that Flub was the attacker. Doctors don't investigate, default doctors find out their power didn't work when the person they protected ends up dead anyway, and doctors certainly aren't told if/who visited their patient!

Any suspicion Trent had of Flub can't be based around Trent's night action. Trent isn't that bad of a player. At best, Trent could have guessed "maybe my target isn't scum".

The "implication" that Joe protected me is dubious, at best. Trent, having me down as firm town, is far more likely to have protected me, assuming I was protected at all.

An even more likely possibility: Joe protected Trent N2, when mafia went for him. Kill failed, no one shouted bloody murder about blocking someone, so mafia can guess that a doctor can't protect their target a second time.

Then I hope the studying pays off. I think the surprises are basically gone, and tbh I'm getting bored; as far as I'm concerned, it is just a matter of people making their decisions and then we see what happens. If people need an extra 6 days to take a guess at who might be scum, I guess I'll wait.

By claiming right away, you didn't look like you were trying to figure out what to claim.

Exhausting day again, and lots of things to address. Given how tired I am, I'm going to try limiting my replies to stuff I feel is particularly relevant. If there's something specific you feel I dodged, please repeat and I'll still do a point-by-point reply.

I agree the way I tried to make your back-and-forth with flub make sense was starting to feel like a stretch (also see my #997). I guess I didn't structure my huge post very well, as it was pulled together from stuff I'd written during two evenings as my thinking kept evolving.
As those posts were happening, I basically had you and flub as the scum. What I wrote down was how I made sense of you from that perspective, to provide a counterpoint to Bookwyrm conclusion that you aren't scum together. By the end of my post, I basically had it as unlikely.
I still think it out-of-character for you (at least for the mental image of you that lives in my mind) that you made two huge mistakes about the game setup like that, and so I can easily see you doing the second one deliberately for some nebulous nefarious purpose. However, I acknowledge the point that Bookwyrm made in #1009, that the second mistake wasn't the same as the first. You explained your thinking well in #927, but I was too caught up in my original thoughts about how you were wrong (#910), and so I misinterpreted it.

I remember you giving reasons for Pooka ( #973), but not for Bookwyrm (at least not since the unvote in that same post). What makes you currently suspect Bookwyrm, and what makes you currently not suspect dedo?

Iirc, I was focussing on scene at the time, and it was really late at night. *checks* yeah, I see a date change between #844 and #845. The next day was EoD. The feel was also based on the overall impression I have of you as a player who says little but makes his actions count. I really wasn't looking forward to go and look up specific references throughout many games. What I remember specifically is the way you voted me (correctly) after the Town Sibling gambit in #55 (it felt like a major achievement when you unvoted), and the way you - and I luckily could look this up in my notes from that game - correctly voted adalia in #52.

That's... a very good point.
Why do you have to take this shiny theory away from me??! I was so certain! :(
(Also, also, Joe also read him as such, as he's my big bro, and I must avenge him, or at least treat his reads as holy scripture, so I can blame him if we lose because of it!)

You're not doing yourself favours with this one. As scum last night, you'd have had three PR dice rolls unaccounted for, and a serious risk of cop thrown in.

Ah! I actually remembered that as a ping against dedo, but when I searched the page for "50", you came up, so I thought I misremembered. (Because dedo was on the previous page already.)

Preferred lynches:
Bookwyrm: Pooka + flub
dedo: Pooka + flub
flub: Pooka + Bookwyrm
gogtrial: Bookwyrm + flub
Pooka: ...
micro: Bookwyrm and flub as scummiest (#993), but lots of hedging of bets (as is only right), and probably unduly influenced by me?

Yo, did you ever specify who your likeliest scum team is today?
If not, why not? And, erm, please do so?


So, pulling this all together.
I'm torn.

On the one hand, there's the fact that we've been mislynching town newbies for doing suspicious but very town newbie things, and I can so easily fit Pooka in that lineup.
Irrational reasons which I must cast away from me:
- If Bookwyrm is scum, and fooled me, I'll feel it's payback for #55 and be sad that he pulled it off, while if he's scum, and I singlehandedly unmasked him, I'll be the greatest mafia player evar!
- Joe would've been proven right on all counts
- I was right with GameRager, and feel like I didn't defend him enough, therefore I am right with Pooka, and must defend him more

On the other hand, there's two very experienced players who agree on the scum team, and who I'd trust if I hadn't had such a strong townread.


@micro: I'd like your thoughts at this point.

Okay, I've read all this, and am just as confused as previously. I was all set to vote Flub/Book, but Book unconvinced me (congrats, I guess).
I was thinking Book wasn't as aggressive this game as last (talking mostly theory instead of hunting like last time), but am unsure.

I've been wrong every time so far, and since time is fading, I'll vote and say that my list of suspicious folks hasn't changed much, just enough that I'll hold off on voting Book today.
Book, what do you think of gogtrial's alignment?

@ZFR VOTE FLUB

@Dedo--Congrats!

I hadn't seen your list just before posting now; yes, I think you have been pushing hard for your narrative, similar to Book and his.

If you're scum, my hat goes off to you. (Sidenote: Is JoeSapphire your brother? :O )

Not in alphabetical or prioritical order:
I am quite torn between Flub, Book, and you, oddly enough. This conflict between you and Book makes me wonder if such conflict is really probable from two experienced town players.

Before you made your posts, I was voting Flub, with Dedo being less townie than I currently have him.

I honestly thought Joe and Flub were a tossup; obviously I picked Joe, but maybe I would have struck oil if I'd chosen the other.

Dedo: reasoning--if two players say "this other guy's town", at this stage there cannot be 3 scum left over, so one of them ain't lyin. Overall, I'm unsure, but have him leaning town.

Book: I noticed a major disparity between Books play last game and this game. He was JOAT last time and was pulled no punches; was quite hard-hitting in his questioning and argufying. Maybe it was because many of them were addressed at me, maybe because he was a PR, but he seems milder and less dogmatic(?) this game, on the whole. I was all set to vote Book (maybe largely because of gogtrial) when he countered arguments so ably that I'm unsure of anything. His care more for "will the likely mislynch leave a good bah-ing post" than striking scum bothered me when he made it.

Pooka: protected a tad because of his less seniority than Flub, but he seems to be less aggressive this game? It is hotter, he's been less active on discord, etc. I don't want to say he is scum, but I cannot clear him, either. I think Book might be tunneling, but it might be a case of WIFOM or bussing.

Gogtrial: maybe tunneling, probably town? Gives a vibe of scumhunting all game; at this point I'm wondering if it's all an act to fool us, and he is the gogfather all along. I'd be really annoyed if he is scum, and am wondering where the 34987 bit comes from. Then again, with this majorish conflict between you and Book, I wonder if one of you is not scum trying to pull a fast one, and the other isn't gonna give in without a fight. I don't know which of you to believe. The fact that both of you are pushing Flub worries me a bit, tbh.

IF flub is town, I suspect you two (book, gogtrial) above all others for giving him a bum rush of sorts. IF Flub is scum, I'd lean Book, Pooka, Dedo, or Gogtrial.as the other half, but more Book or Pooka. I strongly suspect him, and have much of the game. He's been...niggling at my mind as something being off. I'm not sure of him, but atm, more sure than about others.

I haven't been keeping a notebook or anything this game, it might have been useful, but....

In any event, folks, it has been fun playing with you, even if I've been nowhere near the best player here.

[Does the bus around here come with an all-expenses-paid trip to some scenic place?]

Vaya con Dios, and bag the scum.