Stuart was a little confused today. He heard a fair bit of commotion, ironically Sam hadn't said much this week, but it felt like it was a whole lot of noise over nothing.

Maybe, just maybe, the whole plan of his was a dud. Maybe he he could save face. Maybe he could bring the employees that left him directly because of that game, because of his weird insistence that they work from home. Maybe-

"It's you, Russian scum!!" Natsuko shouted across the whole room. Of course it had to be her. She's the only one to get that loud, maybe even flashy at some times with her demeanor.

But then he realized... The plan's working after all. He's going to weed out the scum. Now whether the scum was Nikolay or Natsuko was their problem. Of course, if Natsuko was scum, then would come the question if whether Natsuko was "American scum" or "Japanese scum", but he'd rather cross that bridge only if he had to get there. She could also be a Stormtrooper for all Stuart knows.

----

WEDNESDAY VOTECOUNT

supplementscene (1) - joppo

supplementscene is closest to lynch at L-3

Not voting:
- Lifthrasil
- GamezRanker (MrKrabsWallet)
- Atlo
- supplementscene
- Microfish

[Apologies in advance - I know I typed out that I will list some theories - when I began writing... it turned out into something else...]

Ok, first things first - why the need for conspiracy theories? Why not just use what has been posted so far?

Because we are into Day 3 and are 1 mislynch away from having to work from home, instead of getting to see each other face to face, like normal people. (Goddammit Pooka... you do realize scum are actually the ''good guys'' in this flavor!?)

I think it's fair to say they have done a good job at staying hidden this long. :/

Why don't we simply lynch the scummiest player?

There are 2 problems with this:

1.) It worked out very well the last 2 days, didn't it ?
2.) Who is currently the scummiest player? By any metric its supplementscene -- but there is a special paragraph about him further up ahead.

-- Lift & Microfish --

When your talking about conspiracy theories it is very easy to imagine anything!
The thing about Microfish is... as far as I'm concerned most votes cast on him were already based on conspiracy. :/
No one has actually added anything to my this text:
But that's OK. I did re-read the votes and accusations -- those appear to have evaporated.

The problem about Lift is/was - up until this writing he was AFK.
I was beginning to worry he might not actually show up. He's back! So I'm interested in what he has to say. No need for conspiracies here just yet.

-- MrKrabs & joppo --

Essentially these 2 are the sole reason why I'm even coming up with this ''conspiracy theory'' post...

If we exclude Microfish, Lifthrasil & supplemenscene from the scum-list for a moment these are the only that remain
To repeat what I wrote earlier: Both have made good and insightful posts, no?
Both have cast votes that they can justify, no?

Yes. And that's a problem.

You cannot catch scum who simply are not scummy.

But no one is perfect. Both have also done moves that are ''Well, that is strange...''

MrKrab's vote-hopping. joppo's weird vote-placement. To name the most prominent ''weird feeling'' ones. :/

I have asked both ''What's up with that ?'' And both have given seemingly reasonable answers.
So how do you begin to find mafia in this situation?

By assuming there is a masterfully crafted conspiracy afoot.
(An outlandish example but it will get the point across:) joppo & supplementscene are both scum who intend to remove their respective votes later on.

Right now you're probably thinking: - What the hell did I just read??? Atlo is scum wasting our time with nonsense like this!!!

To this I repeat what I wrote earlier on: You will notice that this is not the full quote. And with this I am coming close to the end. ---

The thing about Scene is - you don't have to find things that make him look scummy. He does that by default. :/
(Right now for example I'm looking at 1 scummy thing that no one has bothered bringing up. And I think yesterday there were 2.)

In scenes case I look for things that make him town.
And it is here where I begin to have problems:

Only the last part broke!!! \o/

--------------------------------------


And it is here where I begin to have problems:

There is also this issue; my summary of scene on Day 1:

As much as I would like to state that scene's vote hopping and other questionable points is not something to worry about too much - at what moment do you reach a cutoff point where you say - ''that's enough scuminess for me.'' ?

---

I lost my train of thought here, but the dilemma I'm trying to point out is -- lynching the scummiest player has worked out so well historically hasn't it?

At the same time - saying NOT to lynch the scummiest player is really questionable advice.

---

My current hope spot is -- Lift! =]

When he finally posts I have a few questions for him. (Provided he does not already point those out in his post.)
After his answer a question for 2, maybe 3 players.

There are still more options than doing unreasonable things for reasonable reasons, or reasonable things but for unreasonable reasons.

Where do you get that from? In the mafiascum wiki there is no one-shot obligation mentioned. On the contrary, the 'normal' sample PM states 'Each night you may target a player...'

So it actually does make sense to ask who got the message in the first Night.

OK. To pick up a thread from yesterday, the micro wagon evaporated. But I still have the feeling that somethin is off with Micro. There is only one post from him Today, so far, and it begs one question:

@micro: why would scum start bussing Today, when they are one mislynch away from a win? It's not impossible, but unlikely. So why do you wonder whether GR and Joppo are bussing Scene? And why do you even wonder whether two players bus a third one, when we only have a two player scum team? That reads very off!

Bumping as requested here:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/forum_mafia_administration_and_general_discussion_1/post8490

Thanks.

One question to everyone which I forgot above: whom did CatV message on N1? Did someone tell and I missed it? Or did no one tell yet about getting a message from her in N1. Scene reported getting a message in N2, which is, of course, unconfirmed. And it is possible that the recipient of the message in N1 is already dead. But if they are still alive, I think it would help analysis to know whom CatV messaged.

I might be missing something here, but... why? Why is that important or useful in any sense right now? How does that help us unroot the 2 scum?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit curious about that night action as well (for post-game) but IMO the only benefit that message has is in reinforcing the claims of towniness of the Friendly Neighbor. Which is in our game a player that already flipped Town. So I think us going down this road will distract us from more pressing concerns.

Besides, I think that if Catv used her power she must have chosen Trent. There's just no reason for any of us to keep that message a secret after she was NK'd, and she obviously did not pick Yog. Speaking of which:

I can't help chuckling at the irony.

Yeaaaaaah.....I stupidly misread the first line on the page for friendly neighbor when reading (skimming) it.

This is a good point, now that I know the role isn't one shot that is.

I mean, if CatV sent out a message on N1 then why didn't anyone mention it? It says on the friendly neighbor page that it's not ideal to hide such. But then CatV themselves didn't mention it the next day(day 2), so maybe they didn't contact anyone on N1?

Well, CatV not saying anything is obvious. She couldn't say anything without claiming and a useful part of the role is the fact that it is hidden from scum, unlike an innocent child. So I can relate that she didn't claim on D2. Still it would be useful to know now that she is dead whom she messaged on N1. The reason why I think it would useful is something I'll discuss later.

I've meant to have a deep dive before today. Today was Steam's last winter sale day and I spent a day researching the games only to miss the end of sale. Anyway, before going deep tomorrow I'll give a superfiscial view:

Lift - strong town lean - I thought he could be scum hiding and avoiding chat but he sounds too town today

Atlo - well he's solving and going back and forth. I'd lean Town. If he's Scum he's very good, it's detailed balanced analysis

Micro - my strongest read for the other faction. If we lynch the other faction we lead. He could be Scum, he could be Town but there were some things that didn't add up to him being Town. I think other faction but could be Scum. I vote do no lynch

Joppo - strong, strong Scum leaning. His votes are all over the place. He was asking why I'm hammering when I was off to bed. He's posting his reads on Day 1 hours after hammer. He's not hammering on Day 2. He's asking if a vote on a 1 person wagon with hours to go is valid he's taking the whatsit. I think he's scum

MrKrabsWallett - strong Scum leaning. Why is he saying 'why doesn't Scum hammer Scene', when he knows it takes 4 to hammer Scene? An absolute garbage point even if he's Town.

Vote Joppo

We need to lynch scum today, otherwise we lose - I'd like other peoples thoughts on Joppo, MrKrabsWallet and Micro. I obviously prefer Joppo but I'm open to have people find me a better lynch after realising a few games in that a few players can make better reads than myself.

In keeping up with the ''conspiracy theory'' theme.

--- Lift ---

Let's look at the votes you cast last 2 days:

You yourself stated that these votes could be seen as opportunistic. (And I shouldn't stick my head outside about L-1, seeing how I actually did the same earlier.) =P
I won't press you on them. Nevermind that if turn out to be mafia you already would have a reasonable explanation. :/

Instead I'll ask about something vaguely related -- what are your reads on Scene's, Joppo's, GR's vote hopping?

--- Microfish ---

Could you elaborate on what it was that made you see Scene and Lift as scumbuddies?

Scene seems to be himself. The vote hoping isn't unusual even for Town scene. But the intent seems to be towny. So just by gut, I put Scene as towny. I'm undecided on GR. Here I don't get that strong of a town vibe. But neither strong scum vibes. Joppo seems to be the scummiest of the three. He doesn't appear to care where his vote falls or in other words doesn't appear to be trying to solve the game. And I would in principle be willing to Lynch either him or micro. Problem is, this behaviour could also be coming from the Neutral player. ... And if we Lynch the Neutral, we lose.

This leads be to a suggestion: the Neutral could claim. We don't want to Lynch you. You don't want to die. It's win win for now. If the Neutral claim remains uncontested, that is. (Otherwise one scum might try to impersonate the Neutral). So there needs to be enough time for a counterclaim, for the claim to be believable. In other words, if the Neutral wants to claim, they should do so soon.

please at least give a hint now in case of emergency.

I don't know how long before the end of day falls, but I recall seeing that Lift and Scene weren't as accusatory towards each other as some of the other players. Nothing more than gut. I think almost "lack of interaction" more than anything.

How long until EoD?

Admittedly, Stuart thought for way, way too long about the question he had yesterday. Would Natsuko be "Japanese" or "American" scum? She's certainly the most tryhard in being an American he's ever seen, if he ignored the fact she wasn't a big fan of the Second Amendment - in fact, that made her slightly a little bit Japanese, because apart from her ability to hurt anyone with just words, she's never hurt anyone physically.

And he kept being stuck in that loop for some reason. All of this internal monologue of his was pointless. He just wanted everyone to work from home, he didn't care less if a Martian or even an alien from Alpha Centauri worked for him, as long as he did the job and-

"So, yesterday, someone called me a Russian scum." Nikolay interrupted. "Let me guess, it's the fucking Santas. Who cares if I have two fighting Santas all year round? Now if I remember..." He paused for a little bit, stroking his chin... "yes, I think it was a certain Japanese scum who called me that. Well, ditto."

There, that was the answer to Stuart's questi-

"If you're gonna call me scum, at least call me an American scum you Soviet asshole!" Natsuko fired back. "I bet all of your shitty Steam games don't work in America, good riddance!"

It didn't help that Nikolay decided to go on the counteroffensive, and he was in so much of a rush, he did it in Russian.

Well... it doesn't look like Stuart was going to have a direct answer anytime soon.

"Oh say, when is Friday?" This time, Franco seemed like he just stopped petting his cats.

"Uhhhh..." Amanda spoke, seemingly at some loss of words. "Have you really not paid attention to the day?"

"Huh?" Franco just looked confused.

"It's Thursday, dude." Sam explained. "Tomorrow night's the final workday."

----

THURSDAY VOTECOUNT

supplementscene (1) - joppo
joppo (1) - supplementscene

supplementscene and joppo are closest to lynch at L-3

Not voting:
- Lifthrasil
- GamezRanker (MrKrabsWallet)
- Atlo
- Microfish