WW 31 Game Thread PARANOIA

[Rowain]

I've been voting for novice all day, and as soon as I switch off him you vote for him. How frustrating.

Patience young padawan patience

[spacetyrantxenu]

Wow, looks like the bus is leaving the station on me. I don't have a lot of time (i.e., I'm a busy person, not an intentionally lurking player) so I can't answer everyone's votes, but I'll start with posting my own vote for Old Harry for now even though he isn't the best candidate out there. Rationale being mostly limited to the fact that I'm not scum, so whatever the odds are that Old Harry is, (or isn't) scum, from where I sit any percentage of his chance at being scum is greater than zero, so Old Harry it is for now. Yes, this is a vote to save myself, but if we can navigate a better lynch candidate to the top of the board I'll gladly change my vote to one of them. (preview edit: My preferred lynch candidates would come from the Scum Leans section below).

There are better cases being made against other people, though, so it would be great if the vote moved off of me and OH and got on to some actual suspects so I can move my vote to somewhere useful. I don't think having to vote defensively like this is helping the town much but I don't see what choice I have. Anyway, I can't dig back through the last 100 posts for specifics right now (I should already be leaving for work), so how about I give away my leans on the player roster, as per Zak's request. I may as well anyway because if you guys kill me today I won't get another chance.

Xenu - I just want to add that your last post, in isolation, is a lot less scummy than your earlier posts. So in the event that you're innocent, you shouldn't give up. Try to catch up to the thread, and just give us your honest thoughts about who you think is scum and town. It might convince us to move off you, and even if it doesn't, it will be useful after you're dead.

This is incomplete because some of these guys aren't saying much either, but you guys aren't throwing them under the bus because of it.... Also, if I get some of this wrong, sorry, I skimmed a lot of posts this morning because otherwise there was no way I'd get a response in before I have to go to work.

Scum Leans:
Serdoa - I don't trust what I'm reading, sorry.
Lewwyn - I don't really know what to make of the Lewwyn-Ryan thing, but I don't like it. Lewwyn may be a victim of a dumb play by Ryan for all I know, but the fact that he can kill is something that can't be good for the town. But getting caught in a lie was a . Which brings me to:
Ryan - I can't think of a good reason why he played the situation the way he did. Again, maybe this should be filed as a bad play rather than a scummy play, but this was just bad and makes me not trust him OR Lewwyn now.
Gazglum - He may be a victim of playing the Happiness Officer role, but he doesn't seem genuine in his posts.
Azza - I'm almost certain of it!
Catwalk - Now that the game is on he's been less active today (unless I'm not remembering a lot of useful posts today). Maybe that's a result of almost hanging day one, maybe he's busy. And I don't have a huge scum lean on Catwalk, this could be a residual feeling from day one when we didn't have a lot to go on.
Old Harry - Totally doesn't deserve to be on this list, and like I said above, I don't really think he's that scummy at all. But I'm voting for him until I'm not the leading lynch candidate because I know I'm not scum. Sorry OH.

Town Leans:
Merovech - I don't feel really strongly about it, he's been pretty inactive, too, but he seems like Town to me.
Bob - Has had some really good ideas so far and seems genuine. Maybe that makes him less wolf and me more sheep, though.
Jowy - I don't want to generalize from other games where I've followed Jowy, but he sometimes has a...brashness about him. Like a bull in a China shop. I'd have to think that if he was a wolf he'd behave in a more reserved and careful way. But he isn't. I think Jowy is 100% town.
Qgqqqqq - Seems to be playing the role of honest investigator (I'm not trying to buy off his vote saying this). I don't get a scummy feel from him.
Rowain - I'm not sure how to classify his style of investigation, but it doesn't feel like scum. Feels like all town.
Ichabod - This may be Stupendous Man's charisma shining through and coloring my opinion but I don't think he's scum. I don't know why I think he's town, either, but I feel sure enough of him to not put him in the No Idea category.
spacetyrantxenu -

No Idea:
Azarius - He's almost as absent as I am.
Mattimeo - Absentee landlord.
Novice - I can't get a good read on Novice but he doesn't seem like a threat to the town. I haven't loved his investigation though, so maybe he's not really helping much either. So he's here.
MJW - Who can say? He seems to think outside the game at the rules and constructs of the game a lot, but that business with wanting Brick to intervene was just silly. But it didn't give me a vibe as to town or scum, so he goes here in the no idea category.
Sunrise - He's been a bit reserved, too, but I don't sense anything scummy in what he's said yet.
Zak - For a guy voting me for not saying much, Zak hasn't said all that much himself. But I guess when you're running from a bear you don't have to be the fastest, just not the slowest.

Also, since Qgqqqqq specifically asked for a followup on why I suspected Serdoa from this post yesterday:

I already tried to answer it, saying I sounded non-commital because I WAS non-commital. I didn't see it as a smoking gun, just as an interesting lead to follow, which is what I think Lewwyn was doing. Yeah, I still think Serdoa has a scum lean to him but I can't point to anything concrete, it's more of a feeling I have about him. He's tried to defend himself aggressively, which he should definitely do whichever faction he's in, but his tone while doing so doesn't sound 100% honest to me. Maybe another way to put it is that I don't trust what Serdoa is saying, and if I don't trust someone they aren't getting a town lean.

Sorry I can't provide more useful content, that's the word I'm seeing used, but I'm an hour late for work now so that's going to have to do it for now.

Deadline was 5 PM Eastern last time right? So it's 7 PM US Eastern now?

And finally, your communications officer will surely have some pithy wisdom for you later today. Once he thinks of something to say.

[Jowy]

Who are you and what have you done with Noob-Xenu?
You know, it's not a bad post in itself, but it pretty much confirms our fears that you were playing the noob card.
It reads like a last ditch effort by scum to survive after the noob play stopped working.

[Rowain]

Who are you and what have you done with Noob-Xenu?
You know, it's not a bad post in itself, but it pretty much confirms our fears that you were playing the noob card.
It reads like a last ditch effort by scum to survive after the noob play stopped working.

I wonder what you would have said had Xenu made a "I'm a noob -don't kill me "-post instead.

[Serdoa]

Well, honestly xenu, that post is fun to read, but after having finished it I'm left with a sour taste in my mouth because despite such a long post you pretty much succeeded in saying nothing. Your list should give an idea of what you think about the different players but imo the names on your list are interchangeable however one wants. In a nutshell: Non-committal at its finest. Even your scum-leans are basically:

Lewwyn / Ryan: No clue what to make of it. -> Can easily be changed to "ah, that alone is not enough".
Gazglum / Serdoa: Don't trust / not genuine -> can easily be changed to "ah, but it got better now".
Catwalk: No real lean really, maybe just because of D1 -> can easily be changed to "ah, yes, just D1".



My personal favorite though is Ichabod, to be found in the town-category:

"Ichabod - This may be Stupendous Man's charisma shining through and coloring my opinion but I don't think he's scum. I don't know why I think he's town, either, but I feel sure enough of him to not put him in the No Idea category."

So basically you have no reason, no single thing you can point to, not even a single line from a post that you felt villager-y. Just "I don't know why, but he is town". I think that is the least amount of reason I've ever seen given for a town-lean

I admit you did work through all the names and I don't want to discourage you, but really xenu, you could as well not have said anything. Maybe I would react differently if any part of your post would have felt like committing, but the only real committal I found was that you would vote whomever necessary to save yourself. What, as I told earlier to someone else, is fine. But as the whole point of a 40+ lines post? Seems lacking

[Catwalk]

Who are you and what have you done with Noob-Xenu?
You know, it's not a bad post in itself, but it pretty much confirms our fears that you were playing the noob card.
It reads like a last ditch effort by scum to survive after the noob play stopped working.

I wonder what you would have said had Xenu made a "I'm a noob -don't kill me "-post instead.

I don't think Jowy is off base here. We weren't saying he wasn't contributing enough (at least I wasn't), we were saying it looked like he was making a big effort to appear like a newbie. Xenu, did you do so deliberately?

For the record, my activity will be hit or miss this game. I'll likely be a lot more active on weekends.

[Catwalk]

Reading Serdoa's post, Xenu actually still does come off as a newbie with that post. I think it looks more like he's trying to contribute (and failing) than faking activity. He can still easily be a wolf, but the newbie badge seems real enough. Going to unvote for now and read up tonight.

[zakalwe]

I kind of liked the Ichabod read, as it mirrored my own feelings. Lewwyn's case on Old Harry is fairly compelling, too. And I hope Novice plans to chime in some more at some point.

Merovech

[spacetyrantxenu]

Who are you and what have you done with Noob-Xenu?
You know, it's not a bad post in itself, but it pretty much confirms our fears that you were playing the noob card.
It reads like a last ditch effort by scum to survive after the noob play stopped working.

I wonder what you would have said had Xenu made a "I'm a noob -don't kill me "-post instead.

THIS.

...despite such a long post you pretty much succeeded in saying nothing.

Is there no pleasing you? I just dumped my thoughts on every player in the game. What more do you want? So what if I'm not insightful, I'm not Perry Mason here. And Perry Mason wasn't Perry Mason the first time he took a guy to court. (Dammit, there, I've done it again. I'm a witch! Stone me!)

Lewwyn / Ryan: No clue what to make of it. -> Can easily be changed to "ah, that alone is not enough".
Gazglum / Serdoa: Don't trust / not genuine -> can easily be changed to "ah, but it got better now".
Catwalk: No real lean really, maybe just because of D1 -> can easily be changed to "ah, yes, just D1".

So not having a read on someone is non-committal? I thought it was...not having a read on them.

My personal favorite though is Ichabod, to be found in the town-category:

"Ichabod - This may be Stupendous Man's charisma shining through and coloring my opinion but I don't think he's scum. I don't know why I think he's town, either, but I feel sure enough of him to not put him in the No Idea category."

So basically you have no reason, no single thing you can point to, not even a single line from a post that you felt villager-y. Just "I don't know why, but he is town". I think that is the least amount of reason I've ever seen given for a town-lean

Yeah, my reason on Ichabod is total weak sauce, I admit that. But it isn't logic based, it's gut feeling so I could be completely wrong. It's just my opinion. If I had thought Ichabod was scummy and didn't have anything to back it up I would have said that instead. But what I don't feel is that he's neutral, so I didn't put him in the No Idea category. Besides, this isn't a court of law where we have to convict on the basis of facts. You guys are trying to lynch me, after all, largely on the basis of: 1. me not saying enough, 2. me not saying enough that's useful or insightful, which totally means I must be scum, and 3. me appearing to play up not knowing what to do. (I suppose answering this third charge is easy enough now: Hey Jowy, it's my second Day around the game. Guess what? I see how other people play and I'm picking up on it. Also, I spent some time reading mafiawiki late last night, and that helped too. Who knew, I can learn!)

I admit you did work through all the names and I don't want to discourage you, but really xenu, you could as well not have said anything.

Well that is discouraging. On the one hand I hear that people want some effort from me, they haven't heard enough. Then you say my effort sucked and wasn't good enough. I didn't claim anywhere in my post that I had solved the games and that the scum were players A, B, C, D, etc. I gave my current thoughts on the game. If you still want to lynch me, fine, do it because you think I'm not helping the village or because I can't think of anything useful to say in these investigations, not because I'm not trying.

Maybe I would react differently if any part of your post would have felt like committing, but the only real committal I found was that you would vote whomever necessary to save yourself. What, as I told earlier to someone else, is fine. But as the whole point of a 40+ lines post? Seems lacking

I get killed for not saying anything, I get killed for not saying anything you like and taking too long to do it. Tell you what, give me an ironclad case against someone better than Old Harry for better reasons than the non-reasons I just gave you. Show me all of your cards. My cards aren't good, but at least I showed them. And yes, you do post a lot and say a lot, but for all you've said I still don't trust you and think you're scum.* (*preview edit: this is strictly in this game, this read a bit like a personal attack, sorry). I can't really articulate what your positions are, there's way too much noise in this thread with so many posts here, but bottom line I don't trust you. And if you saw it your name was the first one I listed in the Scum Lean section, if that gives an indication of who I think a better lynch target is right now. If the votes start moving your way you can bet I'd vote you over Old Harry. Is that committal enough? But I'm not going to give up my save-my-own-skin vote just yet because letting myself die doesn't help the town at all.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I don't think Jowy is off base here. We weren't saying he wasn't contributing enough (at least I wasn't), we were saying it looked like he was making a big effort to appear like a newbie. Xenu, did you do so deliberately?

I guess I can answer this once more, with feeling. I ask questions to learn because I have never played or lurked a game of werewolf/mafia on this forum or anywhere else before. No, I didn't deliberately intend to appear like a noob.

Thanks for the unvote, if I can get one or two more I can change off Old Harry myself and try to point the finger at a more likely scum case.