As some of you may know (and some have even ridiculed) I base much of my scum-hunting strategy on "feeling", or if you will, "linguistic cues". I am, among other things, a novelist and rather attune to language, and therefore tend to latch onto word choices or sentence structures that strike me as out of place or suspicious. It doesn't always work, especially with non-native English speakers, but I find it useful and it brought me results. That is how I uncovered popperik in game #22 and trentonlf+budejovice in game #23. I ususally don't bother to try to convince others using the same arguments, because most people do not find these very sensible and I accept that. I try instead to use more "logical" arguments.

Anyhow, short story long, I'll try to make a "feeling"/"linguistic" argument this time, for what it's worth, in order to explain why I find Robbeasy suspicious. At worst, I'll be ridiculed again.

There's a sentence that has been bugging me for almost two weeks now. I've mentioned it before, but I'd like to elborate now. It's in Robbeasy's post #142: "Can you see why I'm doing this?".

The full context is:
"@Adaliabooks - Vitek said 'I am Spaceship'. What made you reply 'I am Train'? Just a flippant remark? Can you see why I'm doing this?"

There are two things that struck me as weird:
- Why ask this "Can you see why I'm doing this?" at all?
SInce when does one challenge someone by questioning his posts and voting on him, only to end it with this kind of question, the answer to which is rather obvious ("because you're scum hunting"). My first reaction to reading this was (and still is) that it was "apologetic" in tone.
- Why use the word "doing"?
I would expect "asking" here.

Well, now that we know that adaliabooks was mafia, my feeling is that what this sentence actually says is:
"Can you see why I, as your scumbuddy, am doing this?"
"Can you see why I, as your scumbuddy, am paving the road on which to bus you later on today?"

This, compounded with:
1) His taking what I am certain was a meaningless "train" joke on adaliabooks' part and using it as a pretext for scum hunting.
2) His voting strategy. He claims to use votes to pressure people, but it seems remarkably similar to voting at will to see what sticks, to see what the town will "buy".
I didn't check, but I wouldn't be surprised if some old-timer comes up with the argument "he always plays like this".
Well, this argument is meaningless to me. He wouldn't be much of a player if he changed his style based on his alignment.
I still remember Ixam's comment at the end of game #22, where he expressed his surprise at how much Krypsyn's Scum and Town play align.
3) The unconvincing argument he made when placing a vote on trentonlf in post #674 (I commented on that in post #677).
4) The list of "suspects" he prepared in post #691, which conveniently "exonerates" a large group of people (him, me, yogsloth, Krypsyn, CSPVG, to some degree dedoporno) and "points the finger" at another large group of people (HijacK, Vitek, Trentonlf, Sage, DarkoD13). Again trying to see which one sticks without committing to anyone in particular?
5) The points already raised by CSPVG in post #584.

all put him at the top my scum list.

More on other players later.

Thank you for the response.

I did not mention the night action against me to claim town, I just mentioned it because I found it odd and wanted to know what others thought.

On my phone so can not reply to you and mrkgnao so,

@mrkgnao I find your point about Robb's post a good one. I had not viewed it that way since he has been very pro town in his posts to me and the post seemed ok. But, presenting it as a nudge to someone is very plausible. You have either twisted what he did hit on sonething we should examine further. I would like to hear ihers opinions on this.

Stupid phone and fat fingers. The end of my post should have said:
You either twisted what he said or hit on something we need to examine further.

Good find!
Even though these are action PMs, unlike the one trentonlf reported, I agree that we have a very inventive moderator on our hands, one that pushes the envelope of the game. Definitely fits.

Well. I have an idea, but as Vitek would probably say, it's too "crazy" even for me.

What if adaliabooks understood Robbeasy's comment and decided to go with it? To lie down flat on his back in the middle of the road for Robbeasy to bus him? To play scummy intentionally in order to give Robbeasy credibility?

And if you think adaliabooks wouldn't have thought about it, well, he only had to read HijacK's recipe on posts #207 + #215.

Not just a scumbuddy, but a strongman. That's basically crippling the mafia team.
Interesting post though. One of the reasons I needed more opinions on adalia's posts, especially from people who have played with him before, is that we need to consider what kind of mafia player he is. Is he the kind of person that would stage a fight with, completely ignore or vote a coconspirator?

Hard to say. This was just his second game.
In game #23 (his first game) he was town but died rather early (night #2) after hinting at having a role.

I must say, though, that I find your assumption that Robbeasy knew that adaliabooks was a strongman interesting. In game #23 (correct if I'm wrong, trentonlf), the scum learned about each others' roles only when they talked during night #1, so during day #1 they didn't know each other's roles (or even if they had any). See here (http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/4EBaPfDv6umcS), where trentonlf begins night #1 of game #23 with telling others about his role.

I don't like this assumption. I think some of the speed of the lynch could be attributed to scum possibly deciding tacitly to bus adaliabooks.

This I agree with, to an extent. However, this usually occurs when there is alternate wagon or someone who has garnered enough attention to warrant starting a new wagon. I don't think that was the case with adaliabooks from memory, but I'll pay special attention to anyone trying to distract from the wagon on my reread.

Or, I just like the way she scum-hunts. She tends to notice many of the same things I do, and the way she processes data is very similar to my own. We may reach different conclusions, but I often find myself nodding along with her analysis posts as I usually like her reasoning.

Quoting is overrated!

@ mostly mrkgnao; so what did it the discussion gave us. Now we know that trenton was maybe targeted by someone and maybe he wasn't. It was maybe vig shot and got protected or it was something else. Maybe it is something else. Maybe he is lying and tries to appear towny. Maybe he is honest. Can we prove anything of it? I don't think so. Does it provide some insightful knowledge? So what are we to do with what we have learnt so far (it's nothing)? Has the discussion moved us anywhere?
As for your mention of people who he painted in negative or positive way, it is good thing to do but in the same way it is as well worth to mention people he ignored completely because he could be avoiding them on purpose to not be linked to them. There is nothing to really work with there. That's also why we should require list of reads form player who is about to get lynched. So we would know his opinion on every player.

As for 4 mafia, I admit that crossed my mind after adalia mentioned and flipped scum, but once again there is no way to prove it right now and it is really of no use to us at this moment anyway so I don't feel the need to concer ourselves with it. (Says the person who grossly understimated number of mafia in his last game and it cost town victory. :-))

@Robbeasy; It is not so much big deal because it will put me from one group of possible mafia to another group of possible mafia but this is second time I was mentioned as waiting for adlaia and unvoting later. I would only like to note that I voted him for about 5 seconds before I voted another person (and then third) in single post in RVS. Sure you can still consider it as getting of wagon on my buddy

@Rob again; I said why I haven't voted. Because I wanted him to answer questions I asked him. Before I got back the day was already over.
As for today plays, I am obviously not too happy about night actions discussion but that doesn't necessary make invovled people scummy. It does looks like it makes the game go on while nothing new is gathered, though.
I am not too happy with dedo and his dissection that actually meant nothing (I was not just being jerk, I meant something by it and wanted to show how useless thing it was), how it seems he dropped trent even though he said last Day that he would vote him if he wasn't voting adalia and how he mentions I am one of his suspects from last day when he hasn't mentioned me once last Day. He was also propnent of no-lynch and did some amount of fishing on D1.On the other hand there is big positive of him being quite active on adalia's lynch and pointing how timid adalia was.
Then there is you who seems trying to go different ways and hoping something will stick.
There there is not-play of Krypsyn, which I don't like.
mrkgnao still confuses me and jumps from one end of scale to another. I need to read more of his posts, I tend to skip sometimes. :-)

@dedo; What is PGO? Pre-post edit: I found it earlier in this thread. It's not really common acronym. I still don't know what you consider "PGO thing" you mentioned.
Also, why have you dropped trenton out of sudden?

I would really like Krypsyn to take break from his reign (hopefully he gets disposed or something) and share more of his wisdom with us. I miss him dearly.

I am going away from town for weekend and it is possible I won't get to post. I'll try, though, but I don't promise anything. So if you want to know who is scum from me or some other useless knowledge, ask today.


Sorry if it is incoherent, I wrote it across several hours (the first part was written more than 3 hours ago;-)) and I watched several things in the meantime. I will likely write more bit later but I can't continue right now as I need to stop using my keaboard for some time. sorry.

You are correct and we did not know each others roles until we talked that first night. I'm not sure about adaliabooks just giving up, a strongman is a really powerful role for the scum. I could see Robb proding adaliabooks to make him change what he is doing. Would be a stretch to say adaliabooks layed down to let Robb run him over, just can't see that.

Oh, more posts appeared and some like Krypsyn's made part of mine obsolete.

What I want to mention, it is quite usual to include info about your scumbuddy in role PM.
Something like this (bolded part; post was shortened):

"Hello JoeSapphire,

You are the Alien, Mafia Brutal Janitor.
...
[i]Although you certainly would be able to handle those weaklings yourself, you allied with Jmich (Mafia Strong-Minded Ninja) and Robbeasy (Mafia Godfather) and together you can chat during nights at following link: http://quicktopic.com/50/H/aVTWfS3BmEd.
You can post there for the short time before game starts.[/i]
...
Win condition: You win when number of town equals number of mafia or if such outcome is inevitable. It doesn’t matter whether you live or not. "

lulz. WTF is a "brutal janitor"?

Janitor that is violent.
Don't laugh at my roles. :-)

"Abilities: At night your team can pick one town person to kill. If you are the one carrying out the kill you can use a bit of your corrosive blood to destroy victims features, thus rendering it unrecognisable. If you use it, no one will learn victims character name nor role. After using it, you need rest and can’t use it for next 2 nights."

Janitor is normal role, brutal was added only because of violent method of his ability.

Since we are asking about words we don't know what they mean, what is lulz?