I feel completely ignored. I point out a good reason to vote for Tan and nobody seems to notice. Notice people!
*Goes back and checks*
IDK. Earlier today I was kinda bothered by that FoS (#63). Not because it didn't make sense, but because after arguing with AI, Tan simply made the escape route for AI.
There is the chance in the back of my mind though you may actually be reading it as a person and not a player though, and Axelrod's comment was scummier and awkward in my mind that my vote was placed there instead.
You are right that I was critically evaluating the flavor as a "person", just relating it to other narratives I'm familiar with, and was not embodying my role at that time. Hard to do so when my character wouldn't see it as fiction eligible for dissection.
And afterwards no one ever bothered with AI again.
After re-reading it, their arguments seemed legit to me, but maybe someone will see something I haven't.
On a serious note, the points Arnnaria is making about Axelrod seems relevant. I've also noticed that his attempt to divert attention for Shark at #114 passed largely unnoticed. Only Silversihhe called it at #120.
If I raise an issue with another player, that is hardly a "diversion." That is how you play the game. I wasn't even the first person to raise it, though I had my own issue. Do you think there is something I'm avoiding here? Like, if I was screaming "Lynch SK" while at the same time refusing to answer questions people were asking me, that would be closer to what people refer to as a "diversion."
This seems oddly made-up in my opinion.
Well, I can't help you there. I've laid it all out there. What exactly seems so unbelievable to you? The idea that I could have thought other people in the Town might feel the way I felt reading that opening?
Playing what off? All Axel has done in his large post is essentially repeat himself. I'm not buying it.
And what aren't you buying, Iso? Lay it on me, dude. All you have said so far is "too self-conscious". What don't you understand?
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
I don't see it. Originally, when The flavor conversation began I largely ignored it. Not because I don't like the flavor (that's why I sign up for the games that I do) but because it just felt to me as an advertisement that Axel is town without demonstrating it in any way. Something that Arnn picked up on and mentioned earlier.
After reading that long post I definitely changed my mind. The fact that there was well thought out reasoning behind those comments is impressive. I don't see this as crumbling but providing well thought out reasoning behind what he has said so far in regards to the flavor.
@Axel: None of your post reads as natural to me. It's like you're unsure of how to dig yourself out of your hole. As I said, you're pretty much repeating yourself and it all seems very...disconnected. I feel like your sentences are not natural constructions, like you had to think about what you wanted to say, instead of posting a line-of-consciousness post like what it seemed you were attempting to do.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
@Iso: I was not trying to meta you. I don't think you are scum thus far (as mentioned previously). I thought your color claim was odd and scummy, based on past experience (not your play, but play of others).
@CharmMaster: How is Iso opportunistic? I thought he had been pushing for Axelrod?
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"Ask the right questions in the right way and truth is inevitable."
—Lazav
@Axel: None of your post reads as natural to me. It's like you're unsure of how to dig yourself out of your hole. As I said, you're pretty much repeating yourself and it all seems very...disconnected. I feel like your sentences are not natural constructions, like you had to think about what you wanted to say, instead of posting a line-of-consciousness post like what it seemed you were attempting to do.
So, you're now suspicious because it *seemed* to you that I was attempting to post in a "stream-of-consciousness" style, but it didn't seem all that stream of consciousness to you?
And, if I'm not claiming to be posting "stream-of-consciousness," which I'm not, despite what you apparently thought, then what?
Because I actually do think about my posts before I post them. Most of the time even. I preview them and everything, check for spelling and format errors. Rewrite stuff that didn't come across like I meant it to.
Your entire post is written from the mindset of someone who has already made up his mind, and then reads everything from that skewed perspective. When did you get so close minded? You still haven't even said what it was that got you thinking this in the first place - besides "too self conscious" and then you didn't say what posts those were. Was it just "all of them?"
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Even if you take into account that he misvoted it's just bad. The vote, FoS, and attack seem forced and like he is trying turn an ant hill into a mountain. Plus FoS.
I think you're being a bit lazy here Guardman. Clearly him mistaking players is no big deal, so your reminder of it seems fruitless, even while you dismiss it.
Plus, mafia is an entire game based off making mountains from ant hills. I don't begrudge Tanarin for digging into the conversation. Wrong though I think he is.
Still, keep in mind that is entirely possible for role skills to have a color condition, thus making the theoretical "color cop" skill meaningful as either town or scum. Having it on scum would be just a nice bonus.
I just wanna bold my opinion of not giving info away like that on D1, especially locks' colors.
Good to see you're not a fan of giving information away. Might want to make sure you're not doing that any more than you already have, then.
3. Did I seriously believe he was scum? No. If I were serious, it's a poor chainsaw, and it's almost as weak as the first ~10 posts of the game (a-la vote the prev. person train).
But was it a joke? I am not inclined to say yes, because I knew my post would generate reaction and I wanted to see what's up.
I was ready to pounce on this as a fence-sit, and a posturing excuse. But man if he didn't have an easy out by calling this RVS post a joke. I think we have some hard-to-believe truth here, gents.
I am interested in the flavor, yes. But Axelrod took it one step further. And that one step had nothing to do with the flavor. The first time I could let it slide. But he continued to post after that about it as if he was harping on the fact that he was utterly disappointed that he didn't like the flavor of his team.
I don't care if he liked the flavor of his team or not. The fact that he harped that he was Town multiple times is what caught my eye. I see it as a surreptitious way to earn a bit of Town cred without committing to anything. That's what I had a problem with. Even when he was answered by a couple of people as to why we are fighting (in regards to flavor), he continued to push it.
And as I've stated in this thread before, I'm not sure how much of it is RVS and how much of it is simply a scum tactic. I've resigned to the fact that it was probably RVS, which seemed to have ended with the Shark debacle. However, Axelrod is still on my radar.
And since RVS has ended...
Unvote
This post is so very full of crap. Unvote, Vote Arnaria
Your conclusions in the first half are completely different than those in the 2nd. You're casting dispersions on Axelrod for "harping town", but he is a VERY experienced player who knows what's going on, and knows the ineffectiveness that strategy would have if he were scum.
Then, after that, you completely play it off anyway. Your convictions seem very milquetoast.
EBWODP: I might also ad that Axelroad's defensive stance to the accusation when he was under very little pressure (considering Shark was under more pressure) just ads fuel to the fire.
Plus you misspell his name as Axelroad here.
Which made me crave Rocky Road.
Which made me go and get some from my freezer.
Which made me trip on the steps.
Which made me sprain my ankle.
This is a significantly better answer than I was expecting. I'm not sure it all entirely makes sense, since you're assuming that abilities of similar types will have similar coloured locks, but it is an actual explanation.
This is an overreaction to a very obvious answer from Iso. What did you expect him to give you? A non-explanation? Of course he'll point to his past MO in Seasons, and of course he'll claim it's to help coordinate town abilities. Yeesh.
Playing what off? All Axel has done in his large post is essentially repeat himself. I'm not buying it.
I don't see crumbling in the least. His post made perfect sense to me. Not only do I not know him to crumble under pressure, but if he did I don't imagine it would look like his very well-reasoned response.
To your second point, he brought completely original information about what he hoped to gain in that large post, that is a repeat of nothing he said before. Explain?
IDK. Earlier today I was kinda bothered by that FoS (#63). Not because it didn't make sense, but because after arguing with AI, Tan simply made the escape route for AI.
And afterwards no one ever bothered with AI again.
After re-reading it, their arguments seemed legit to me, but maybe someone will see something I haven't.
The bolded sentence made me powerfully sad. I feel like a stray kitten now.
What do you mean by the arguments seemed legit?
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Quote from TheFooFish »
Lies! -I'm Buffy Summers, town tracker. I used my ability on you and saw that you didn't use any abilities before the game started. My flavor is I was sucked through a mysterious space-time portal and I'm here to kill all the vampires, and my tracking ability is a combination of my Slayer and Native American skills.
I think you're being a bit lazy here Guardman. Clearly him mistaking players is no big deal, so your reminder of it seems fruitless, even while you dismiss it.
Plus, mafia is an entire game based off making mountains from ant hills. I don't begrudge Tanarin for digging into the conversation. Wrong though I think he is.
I don't like this answer. Not at all. You chide me for pointing out that I am dismissing his mistake from my analysis. Why would you do this? It is sort of pointless and combine that with the fact you are calling me lazy seems that you are more interested in passive aggressively dismissing my points via some light mudslinging instead of addressing them.
The second paragraph reads as a person trying to trump up a case against someone using shaky reasoning is fine in your opinion, which is just wrong.
This post doesn't grok. There's too much mudslinging, too much passive aggressiveness, and too much attacking the player instead of the ideas.
Add to the fact AI is the one Tan FoSed and I think we found two scum. I feel good.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
What exactly seems so unbelievable to you? The idea that I could have thought other people in the Town might feel the way I felt reading that opening?
That’s one of the things that feels strange: You overly reiterates how townie you are. No, other people in town reading the same way as you did is perfectly acceptable, but why are you so eager to pass the townie impression everytime?
I was genuinely curious if anyone else had the same kind of reaction as me from reading those opening posts.
And the point here is that, those having similar reactions would by definition be other members of the Town.
Why would they necessarily be town? Look at the bold part of your post below:
Also, I am bothered by the fact that the flavor of this game seems to suggest that the Town represent the brainwashed prisoners who are too stupid or just don't care enough anymore and want to stay in prison, while the Mafia appear to be the rebellious freedom fighters.
Man, I want to be a freedom fighter, not a brainwashed drudge who thinks it's better to stay in prison.
The Mafia would obviously not have that kind of reaction. Could they fake such a reaction? Sure. But I thought it slightly less likely a Mafia would jump forward and try to barn what I was saying.
The way I see it, having the same reaction as you did could easily be achieved by any role. Why would be so difficult for the Mafia to act exactly the way you did, and to lie about the flavor? I can’t see how they couldn't.
I was also anticipating that many, if not most, people wouldn't even have read all the flavor text stuff (it's kind of long), and even if they had might not have fully understood it (I had to read it twice), and might not even know what I was talking about at all.
That statement directly contradicts your first sentence of my answer quote:
I was genuinely curious if anyone else had the same kind of reaction as me from reading those opening posts.
If you, as you said, have antecipated that many, if not most, people wouldn't even have read the flavor, then why would you expect people to have the same kind of reaction as you did?
Why even bother posting it if they wouldn't know what you were talking about?
I don't like this answer. Not at all. You chide me for pointing out that I am dismissing his mistake from my analysis. Why would you do this? It is sort of pointless and combine that with the fact you are calling me lazy seems that you are more interested in passive aggressively dismissing my points via some light mudslinging instead of addressing them.
The second paragraph reads as a person trying to trump up a case against someone using shaky reasoning is fine in your opinion, which is just wrong.
This post doesn't grok. There's too much mudslinging, too much passive aggressiveness, and too much attacking the player instead of the ideas.
Add to the fact AI is the one Tan FoSed and I think we found two scum. I feel good.
I'm not interested in trumping up any case against you. I just think, and I said pretty clearly, that you're pointing out a very common mafia strategy -- constructing cases from something that may seem insignificant -- as being a bad thing. I fully addressed your actual points in this way.
Put it this way. I don't see Tanarin's tact he took as scummy. Obviously I disagree with his conclusions, where you disagree with his methods. I endorse the method, which is where my problem with your post lies.
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Quote from TheFooFish »
Lies! -I'm Buffy Summers, town tracker. I used my ability on you and saw that you didn't use any abilities before the game started. My flavor is I was sucked through a mysterious space-time portal and I'm here to kill all the vampires, and my tracking ability is a combination of my Slayer and Native American skills.
I also don't agree with your aversion to FoS-ing from a mafia standpoint. I've heard it called a crutch for those being non-committal, but it's just as easy to be non-committal with ordinary language.
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Quote from TheFooFish »
Lies! -I'm Buffy Summers, town tracker. I used my ability on you and saw that you didn't use any abilities before the game started. My flavor is I was sucked through a mysterious space-time portal and I'm here to kill all the vampires, and my tracking ability is a combination of my Slayer and Native American skills.
I think that the post on Shark was just generally a cobble of the scummy things he's been doing, highlighted by asking for a vote count. I'm not on the Shark wagon, but I wanted to bring to light that his call for a votecount was extremely scummy because nobody else had picked up on it yet.
Emphasis added. You still haven't addressed this discrepancy. If it was very scummy, why not move on it? Surely voting him would get some people looking.
Too bad Alpha beat me to elaborating on why 110 was gawdawful.
It's not, however, as weak as bandwaggoning me for being too "self-conscious."
I will give you a tip. For future reference. I'm mellower now than I used to be (a bit) but one thing that is still liable to get me to blow my top is being accused of being "too defensive" when someone comes at me.
Duly Noted.
Seriously, has there ever been a dumber accusation in all the game of Mafia? Like, you can defend yourself, sure, but you better not be too defensive about it. Because, man, that's so scummy.
Maybe not defensive; maybe dismissive. There's something to be said when the pressure is coming your way in how you react. I think up until this post you've been shrugging off an explanation which is why I think this post is very important for the day.
I'm going to go ahead and give everyone a tiny window into my brain now, at excruciating length, and at the risk of *horror* being accused again of being too defensive, because I don't know how many votes I have but it is more than a few and whatever. I actually have time to spend on this game at the moment, which is usnsual for me for the past year.
This has no bearing on how I view your alignment, but are you saying you are rusty when it comes to mafia right now?
It's like this:
So, I'm reading the opening posts. The story. It's cool. I'm digging it. I like all the set up. I like this warden character. I like the guy who has got caught on purpose. Then I get to the end where the actual game part is "set up" and I'm like, Wait, what? I didn't even get it the first time I read it. So I read it again, and I'm like, so, the "Town" are the mindless idiots who want to stay in the prison, and the "Mafia" are the rebellious freedom fighters?
Ew.
This was what inspired my initial posts. Now, I don't actually care about this. I am not, in fact, angry about this. It does not affect how I am playing the game. It's just weird to me. That, at least thematically, I am playing for the privilege of staying in prison that is apparently sucking my magical energy out of me. So I make, what I think is a humorous post. You know, with the and everything.
I think there's some of a disconnect here. I keep on getting chided for attacking you on flavor. I am not attacking you on flavor. I am attacking you because you used the flavor to push the point that you were town. And you continue to do that. I feel it's been my fault that you haven't had a chance to otherwise prove your town by scumhunting since you've been put on defense so soon.
I will confess that there was a secondary purpose to the post (you will see that there is often more than one purpose to a post that I make). I was genuinely curious if anyone else had the same kind of reaction as me from reading those opening posts. And the point here is that, those having similar reactions would by definition be other members of the Town. The Mafia would obviously not have that kind of reaction. Could they fake such a reaction? Sure. But I thought it slightly less likely a Mafia would jump forward and try to barn what I was saying. And I could at least make a judgement call about whether their reaction sounded natural or not. I was also anticipating that many, if not most, people wouldn't even have read all the flavor text stuff (it's kind of long), and even if they had might not have fully understood it (I had to read it twice), and might not even know what I was talking about at all.
I do the same thing as well. Every game I ask what pronouns people prefer. At first it was a way to make sure I didn't offend anyone. Now, it's morphed into a way to see if people are even paying attention. Those that respond usually are people I need to watch out for because they don't dismiss a question that is being applied to a large group. The people that don't respond are usually people who aren't paying much attention. I guess now that the cats out of the proverbial bag, I can't use it anymore.
I got like three reactions, to that post. The one I liked came from ced in #31. "The uninformed Majority, the best majority...." which is kind of what I was looking for. He's acknowledging that the Town appears at least flavorfully to be kind of stupid in this game. Arnnaria also responded, and my response to that post is kind of neutral. If felt like Arn maybe didn't understand what the flavor actually was. So, call it a push. And I got one more interesting response. This was the one from Eco. in #38. The one where he says, "I" understand that "I" am a danger to society, etc.
No, I understand the flavor quite well. I was simply applying my knowledge of sociology to the game. People who are treated as slaves cannot arise unless a group consciousness forms. If you need me to explain further, I can dust off my copy of the manifesto.
That post was interesting to me for 2 reasons. One, because of what I said previously about how I thought normal people would react, and two because his personalization seemed to stick out a bit. I was almost like he was saying that his "character" i.e. his role-pm, was telling him that this was how he felt.
okay...
I can't speak for anyone else, but my role PM says nothing about my character's feelings. It is styled as a Dossier from the Mancers about who I am and how I came to be in the jail. It's very impersonal.
Mine is pretty personal.
So, I decided to prod Eco., just a bit, to see what he would say. That was my next post where I questioned him about "role-playing" (still in a humorous way, mind you). Where I "re-voted" him, which was my way of hinting that there was something slightly more to the vote this time than the first vote, which was truly just a RVS vote. What I really wanted to see was if he might "slip" and claim that he got that stuff about feeling like he was a danger to society and was better off in the jail from his actual role-pm. I mean, who knows, right? At that point it would be an open question as to whether anyone else claimed that their roles had stuff in them about their characters and their feelings about the Atagan, but it could lead to something productive. So, gentile prods. I questioned him about his role-playing. Because, normally when you role play, it's because of, you know, your role, not because of something written in the opening post.
Was it really considered role playing though? I'm assuming that you are assuming (eesh) that he was due to the "I" statements.
Eco. eventually responded saying he was just giving a flavorful reason why we (as Town) are doing what we are doing. Which, you know, could be true. It's the reason given in the opening post. Which he's just saying back, but making it more personal. I still find that a bit odd, but that's about it. He certainly didn't fall into the potential trap.
And that was pretty much that.
Except now I have to deal with people saying I'm too self-conscious and suspicious-looking for implying I'm Town this game. And defensive. Joy.
This has been your tiny window into my Mafia brain. Be careful asking me why I do anything. It's liable to net you a response like this one if you're not careful.
I have to think a bit about how I view your play with this information. I'm probably 65% sure that the pressure needs to be pulled off of you (but not forgotten) to see how you play offensively in this game instead of defensively due to a barrage of attacks. However, I think at this point, that's beyond the decision of one person so I don't know how others are going to react to your post, although some of the comments about it have ranged from positive to negative.
Emphasis added. You still haven't addressed this discrepancy. If it was very scummy, why not move on it? Surely voting him would get some people looking.
Too bad Alpha beat me to elaborating on why 110 was gawdawful.
Because Shark was backed into a corner by multiple other people and I wanted to pursue Axelrod further. The post was simple pointing out another reason for the people pursuing Shark to consider. However, why do I need to continue to apply pressure when other people already are and there are other avenues I'm far more interested in exploring?
I'm not interested in trumping up any case against you. I just think, and I said pretty clearly, that you're pointing out a very common mafia strategy -- constructing cases from something that may seem insignificant -- as being a bad thing. I fully addressed your actual points in this way.
Put it this way. I don't see Tanarin's tact he took as scummy. Obviously I disagree with his conclusions, where you disagree with his methods. I endorse the method, which is where my problem with your post lies.
But it is one thing to say I think you are scum because of X which is scummy and another to say I think you are scum because of X which isn't scummy and in fact doesn't correlate to alignment yet still try to push it as if it does.
Town build cases and prod with what is given. They might overstate things, but they do this within the mindset of overevaluating the worth of something or because of tunneling. Scum like to build cases out of mudslinging, attacking things which are neutral, and trying to turn nothing into something. They are also made with less conviction and are easily influenced by other players.
When you read that post you get a clear mindset from it. The FoS is just cake, which is proven to be used mostly by scum, especially from people who aren't noobs. It's all mindsets, but both Tan's attack and the FoS and FoS use in general come from a scum mindset.
Because Shark was backed into a corner by multiple other people and I wanted to pursue Axelrod further. The post was simple pointing out another reason for the people pursuing Shark to consider. However, why do I need to continue to apply pressure when other people already are and there are other avenues I'm far more interested in exploring?
Two reasons:
1) You don't have a limited amount of pressure you can apply. There's nothing wrong with pressuring two people (particularly since, as you've established, pressuring doesn't require voting), and
2) If you're a townie, usually you don't lose interest in pursuing people you think are scum. Whereas scum have an incentive to step away once the wagon they've incited on a townie has caught on.
But it is one thing to say I think you are scum because of X which is scummy and another to say I think you are scum because of X which isn't scummy and in fact doesn't correlate to alignment yet still try to push it as if it does.
Town build cases and prod with what is given. They might overstate things, but they do this within the mindset of overevaluating the worth of something or because of tunneling. Scum like to build cases out of mudslinging, attacking things which are neutral, and trying to turn nothing into something. They are also made with less conviction and are easily influenced by other players.
When you read that post you get a clear mindset from it. The FoS is just cake, which is proven to be used mostly by scum, especially from people who aren't noobs. It's all mindsets, but both Tan's attack and the FoS and FoS use in general come from a scum mindset.
I suppose I'm not seeing a sizable difference here between overstating and turning nothing into something. Since it's now become clear that Axelrod was in fact trying to accomplish something secondary with his flavor conversation, there was actually substance there for Tanarin to question. Again, I think he's wrong, but I also see no evidence of your other characteristics in him -- less conviction and being easily influenced -- which would indicate a mindset.
As for the FoS discussion, are we talking actual proven statistical facts that I missed at some point?
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Quote from TheFooFish »
Lies! -I'm Buffy Summers, town tracker. I used my ability on you and saw that you didn't use any abilities before the game started. My flavor is I was sucked through a mysterious space-time portal and I'm here to kill all the vampires, and my tracking ability is a combination of my Slayer and Native American skills.
@Iso: I was not trying to meta you. I don't think you are scum thus far (as mentioned previously). I thought your color claim was odd and scummy, based on past experience (not your play, but play of others).
Well assuming his story of wanting to unlock his ability is true, (I am not sure, can't read Iso for the life of me,) then a claim makes sense if he feels his role would be very valuable to the town. I did something similar at the start of Amnesia Mafia to unlock my role (In that game asking for everyone to claim their monikers so I could post them in one post.)
Speaking of monikers and locks and stuff like that. I wanna propose something now before we get to any claims that may happen.
If and when we claim, I think it is for the best that colors of locks remain off limits. Same go for real names. The colors are obvious (Mafia 2nd ability,) Names is paranoia on my part. Until we know the names are going to be safe to claim, we should assume claiming them will result in bad stuff happening. I will be taking this route if I need to claim.
@Axel: None of your post reads as natural to me. It's like you're unsure of how to dig yourself out of your hole. As I said, you're pretty much repeating yourself and it all seems very...disconnected. I feel like your sentences are not natural constructions, like you had to think about what you wanted to say, instead of posting a line-of-consciousness post like what it seemed you were attempting to do.
OK, I am gonna ask you, deconstruct the post then. What sentences feel unnatural. Don't give me a line by line, but do tell me what is off in his stream of thought in more detail than these vague statements.
@Guardman: I am not liking your last post. Not so much for the reasons you give, as you are entitled to them, but for the fact that you feel so stressed into trying to push them when there seems to be two active wagons on both Shark and Axelrod. Screams of either tunnelvisioned town or scum trying to distract the town. As to which it is, I dunno yet. I do want to hear your views on those wagons before deciding anything.
Edit: I see you posted more. Why the hate on FoSes? You are using the line of reasoning that "Only Scum FoS people" and Scum FoS to remain non-committal but the fact is I AM committed. My vote is on Axelrod, and I don't have 2 votes, and at the time I was suspicious of AI. Your whole argument falls over given that info.
@Shark: Yes, I did do some research, since I remember playing in "Stuff I Like Mafia" with you and knew you were not as new as ced was letting on. which leads me to this...
@Eron: Well Post 29 came off to me initially as a pure RVS post. I was going under the assumption from the start of this being a 4 mafia + 1 neutral game. Looking back at it, I am still confused as to the fuss this post raised. The thing that bothers me is the fact that he seems to get overdefensive in his reasoning for making that post the more he is pressed on it. If he had left it at it was just an assumption I made about the setup, I would not have paid any more heed to it.
Aside: Looking back at the whole exchange, I am not liking Ecophagy's vote in post 38. He is taking what at the time was a seemingly joke post and calling it jumpy. Not sure how to take it, but worth noting at this juncture.
Back to the original train of thought, Re-reading today, I did take note of post 103. I never liked people throwing around the term Chainsaw willy nilly, especially without any bodies to go with it. The other thing that bothers me is the fact that as time goes on, he is taking his own seemingly RVS vote more and more as a serious vote. Almost as if he is bending to someone or something. I think dC put it best, he is too self conscious of his position right now, and is trying to bend his post to what he thinks the town wants to hear. If he was really a newb, I would take this as a newb folding under pressure, but given he isn't a newb it is disturbing.
I suppose I'm not seeing a sizable difference here between overstating and turning nothing into something. Since it's now become clear that Axelrod was in fact trying to accomplish something secondary with his flavor conversation, there was actually substance there for Tanarin to question. Again, I think he's wrong, but I also see no evidence of your other characteristics in him -- less conviction and being easily influenced -- which would indicate a mindset.
As for the FoS discussion, are we talking actual proven statistical facts that I missed at some point?
There is a big difference between overstating and turning something into nothing. Humans are naturally drawn to hyperboles when trying to make a point. This is why its something that towns (and scum sometimes) do when making an argument because of natural inclination. Scum on the other hand are much more concerned with mislynches then scum hunting and because of that they are much more likely to see an anthill and try to turn it into a mountain, even though a mountain doesn't exist. Town don't want to attack people based on nothing, they want something scummy to draw conclusions off of. Scum want just something to attack and cause a mislynch, which is why they are much more likely to try and turn nothing into something.
Also just because Tan was eventually proven right doesn't mean he was right to begin with. A stopped clock is right two times a day.
Every recent game I've been in that has had someone FoS in it has had the FoSer being scum. Just look at Arnaria in Smalltown Animaniacs.
@Tan: I feel it is more prudent to put my time and energy into your wagon then other wagons as I am not that convinced by them. Could they be scum, sure, I see inclinations that could point in that direction. But I am much more sure of you and AI. I spend my energy where I feel it is best spent, and it is best spent proving you and AI are scumbuddies.
As for FoS, yes and no. I've become more and more convinced just in my games that I've seen that town don't FoS even when they have two suspects. They are fine putting pressure only through attacks rather then non-commital psuedovotes. As such I've moved more to the mindset that all FoS are scummy.
Is your FoS as bad as others I've seen. No. Not even close. But when you combine it with your nothing attack I believe it adds additional support to the fact you are scum.
Also thank you for showing another scum tell in by trying to deflect my attacks by saying that I should be focused on the two active wagons instead of scumhunting you.
@Guardman: I am not liking your last post. Not so much for the reasons you give, as you are entitled to them, but for the fact that you feel so stressed into trying to push them when there seems to be two active wagons on both Shark and Axelrod. Screams of either tunnelvisioned town or scum trying to distract the town. As to which it is, I dunno yet. I do want to hear your views on those wagons before deciding anything.
Mmm. Smell a little blood here? Or are you OMGUSing? It's kind of ridiculous to imply that nobody can veer off 'current wagons', especially considering we're 1 RL day in AND there are much more than 2 people already being discussed. Arnaria being another.
There is a big difference between overstating and turning something into nothing. Humans are naturally drawn to hyperboles when trying to make a point. This is why its something that towns (and scum sometimes) do when making an argument because of natural inclination. Scum on the other hand are much more concerned with mislynches then scum hunting and because of that they are much more likely to see an anthill and try to turn it into a mountain, even though a mountain doesn't exist. Town don't want to attack people based on nothing, they want something scummy to draw conclusions off of. Scum want just something to attack and cause a mislynch, which is why they are much more likely to try and turn nothing into something.
Also just because Tan was eventually proven right doesn't mean he was right to begin with. A stopped clock is right two times a day.
Well, the problem with all of that is that the issue was not, is not, and never was nothing. Using the broken clock metaphor doesn't change that, especially in light of the fact that you have less to go on that early in the game.
Quote from Guardman »
Every recent game I've been in that has had someone FoS in it has had the FoSer being scum. Just look at Arnaria in Smalltown Animaniacs.
As for FoS, yes and no. I've become more and more convinced just in my games that I've seen that town don't FoS even when they have two suspects. They are fine putting pressure only through attacks rather then non-commital psuedovotes. As such I've moved more to the mindset that all FoS are scummy.
Is your FoS as bad as others I've seen. No. Not even close. But when you combine it with your nothing attack I believe it adds additional support to the fact you are scum.
So then when you said that people who FoS are pretty much "proven" to be scum, you were massively overstating the actual fact of the matter, which is that you've drawn that conclusion yourself from recent game experience. And let me check my Guardman Mafia ManualTM...
Ah yes, overstating makes you town, right?
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Lies! -I'm Buffy Summers, town tracker. I used my ability on you and saw that you didn't use any abilities before the game started. My flavor is I was sucked through a mysterious space-time portal and I'm here to kill all the vampires, and my tracking ability is a combination of my Slayer and Native American skills.
Well, the problem with all of that is that the issue was not, is not, and never was nothing. Using the broken clock metaphor doesn't change that, especially in light of the fact that you have less to go on that early in the game.
It was nothing, but became something. When he was attacking it was nothing. Therefore stopped clock.
So then when you said that people who FoS are pretty much "proven" to be scum, you were massively overstating the actual fact of the matter, which is that you've drawn that conclusion yourself from recent game experience.
I don't believe I am overstating anything. I believe any use of FoSing is scummy. There are varying degrees of how scummy it is from auto-scum to just likely to be scum. His was in the likely to be scum category. I still think it makes him scum, but it doesn't make him auto-scum. Also the experience I have with FoS proves a very high correlation with FoS and being scum.
Axel clearly doesn't remember cold war mafia, where the town were the bloody commies and the mafia were the glorious democracy-loving americans.
That being said, The entirety of his long-winded rant makes a lot of sense to me. It took me more than a few tries to figure out what the whole flavor premise was. Not to say that it's bad, merely that it's not as simple as it may seem. Axel gets townie points for the assessment, and iso looks a lot worse for trying to play it off.
Unvote, Vote Iso
Opportunistic scum is opportunistic.
The irony in the justification. Especially since its like barely out of RVS?
@Tan: See, that would be difficult because it's based on my preconceived notion of how people think and language flows, which is all rooted in the way that I, myself, think. I'm willing to say that I believe Axel is scum for reasons that other people may not accept and if that earns me scrutiny in the future then oh well but I can't explain it any better than that.
I feel like there was something about AI vs. GMan that I wanted to address before I left for work but I can't remember what it is now.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
With all these votes everywhere, who is getting lynched? I feel like Iso could be scum for trying to get us all mowed down from the color claim.
My name is Asenion. This is very different from Ascension. Asenion is the designation given to robots designed to follow the Three Laws of Robotics designed by Isaac Asimov. (The etymology of the word is a misspelling of Asimov's name that stuck and came into common usage.)
Welcome to Mafia! (This is your first game, right?)
That being said, some actual content would be nice. Sometime soon. For starters - what do you actually think at the moment of Iso, Axelrod, and SharkFinnigan?
Axel clearly doesn't remember cold war mafia, where the town were the bloody commies and the mafia were the glorious democracy-loving americans.
That being said, The entirety of his long-winded rant makes a lot of sense to me. It took me more than a few tries to figure out what the whole flavor premise was. Not to say that it's bad, merely that it's not as simple as it may seem. Axel gets townie points for the assessment, and iso looks a lot worse for trying to play it off.
Unvote, Vote Iso
Opportunistic scum is opportunistic.
But the bloody commies were the good guys. (But yes, there's Fahrenheit Mafia, Berserk Mafia, etc., etc. as other examples.)
When you read that post you get a clear mindset from it. The FoS is just cake, which is proven to be used mostly by scum, especially from people who aren't noobs. It's all mindsets, but both Tan's attack and the FoS and FoS use in general come from a scum mindset.
I don't believe I am overstating anything. I believe any use of FoSing is scummy. There are varying degrees of how scummy it is from auto-scum to just likely to be scum. His was in the likely to be scum category. I still think it makes him scum, but it doesn't make him auto-scum. Also the experience I have with FoS proves a very high correlation with FoS and being scum.
.......................
FoS: Iso
So there.
More seriously, though - how far do you actually think Tanarin is scum?
Right. This was less interesting than it was going to be.
See, I passed over Shark's "4 scum" post first time around, because I remembered reading that there were four scum in the OP when it was posted on Saturday. However, when Xyre brought it up, I noticed that it no longer said this.
Now, I'm not sure whether this is because the first post never said this (I may have been intoxicated when I first read it), or because Zinda spotted it and edited it out. The former definitely seems possible, since Seasons mafia had 20 randomized roles and 5 scum, but, if the latter is true, then Shark is probably scum, since he guessed there to be four mafia and would be right about it, which would be shady.
But, unless someone else can confirm that drunk me actually saw an info leak in the OP a few days ago, then I don't figure that there's anything in this.
Shark's a newb, but I don't see anything of concern aside from the "4 scum" thing (which I covered above). He's been thinking independently in-thread, rather than riding on others' coattails.
Shark's been spilling glaring newb tells (see: reference to mafiascum wiki page). I don't think the things you're bringing against him are valid in this situation.
Umm... mind enlightening me more on this? I hardly call him a newb (6 games here, 3 ongoing), and the fact he has at least once referenced playing on/browsing mafiascum. See here for one such post.
He also has a history of being in all three main player positions (Mafia, town, and neutral.) So why dismiss what he says so easily as "newb" tells?
This. In addition, he's outright invited us to attempt to 'meta' him based on his most recent completed town game, Intrigue Mafia. Which I actually did take a look at, and found myself reading a totally different SharkF - one with obvious clarity of thought and seeming sure of himself, in abject contrast to the almost tentative meandering and waffling he's been engaging in here.
Which brings me to the other part of the above - you're going to have to spell out this 'independent thought' you're seeing from him, because I'm really not seeing it.
Unlike Caex, who has been. After I said I'd delay my response to (Xyre's vote on) Shark, he did so as well, except he doesn't seem to have given a good reason for this. Since then, he's made a number of posts about Shark, including railing on the "joke or not" thing, but so far doesn't appear to have voted for him, which is odd.
...I do agree with this, somewhat. I already had reservations about your muted response (interpretable as attempting to derail an incoming wagon) to something that most definitely deserved pressure, but the way Caex latched on to that was arguably worse. Still, I'm not getting a bad feeling from his more recent posts, so SharkF is still scummier to me.
Oh well. Unvote. I'm going to start looking at Axel, and see if I can figure out what's a joke and what isn't. I wouldn't be at all surprised if his jokes and sarcasm were an attempt at hiding his scuminess, but I don't want to make a formal accusation without evidence.
I still don't see how I was trying that hard to speculate setup. It was not like: "looking at zindabads history of hosting." I think the overreaction by several to this is questionable.
KosaKosa: I was not even trying to put suspicion on you. Self-conscious much?
Tanarin: I'm glad you did your research. Town points to you.
I've played on MS for a year then a year hiatus and played in several here. See my sig to research and try to meta me. Most are scum games so feel free.
@Xyre: Expecting maybe some questioning like this right now. If I can get a scum player to jump on me for terrible reasoning, over-reacting to a lighthearted post, I'll take the pressure to catch them.
...well, many people have jumped on you. Who's the scum?
And no, I do not give that much thought into my posts. "This sounds good, lets post this." Unless it's an analysis, then I do try to push it. All I want as town is for everyone to not twist my words and have a clear understanding my mindset, hence I'll repeat stuff for clarity.
Intrigue is my only town-game here thus far that I can direct you towards if you want to see for yourself. D2 I was under pressure and then D3 I was town. So you can see me there if you are bored and you think I am behaving similarly or not so.
As I said to ced earlier, I did in fact take a look at Intrigue Mafia, in which you were town. And guess what - your posts in that game read like an entirely different person from you here. A meta defense doesn't really work if it just makes you look worse, you know.
Because Shark's a terrible player, but I believe he's a townie.
He genuinely believes this is a thing that might happen. Clearly, he doesn't have the experience to know that playing like an idiot to bait a scum never works. And I don't believe he's experienced enough to try this as a scum - as Arnnaria himself noted, Shark's twitchy despite not being anywhere near lynch.
There are two explanations for being twitchy before a lynch: a player being so scummy it hurts, or a player being so awful it hurts. I'm surprised several of you really think it's the former. I'll go read Intrigue to confirm this read, but this is the best explanation.
Questions:
1. Does this opinion change in the light of the fact that SharkF has played previously on MafiaScum and has more than a few completed games here?
2. Have you read Intrigue Mafia (or at least scanned SharkF's posts there) and what is your opinion now if you have?
Is there some reason you think I'm not paying attention?
Exhibit A: Your colour lock claim proposal, which was because you allegedly had not read the rather important mod note on the extra mafia ability in the opening posts.
Exhibit B: The text of yours that I quoted, in which you incorrectly attribute 'voting someone for being mean to a newer player' to SharkF and use that to attempt to undermine Caex's argument against SharkF.
Any more questions? Because I'd like to ask one right back at you - why exactly were you so quick to ask me why I thought you weren't paying attention?
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Regarding Axelrod - at the moment I'm not finding the arguments against him terribly convincing; especially Iso's, because I can actually see Arn believing what he's saying. That being said, a question to Axel...
This is from #92, in reply to Iso's bolded proposal for a lock colour claim. Can I know why you said no at the time?
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Esper Simperer; Even the court homonculi need someone to look down on.
Jund Fangirl; Few things can describe the bliss of the fangirl's cries fading to silence (broken by occasional munching sounds).
Grixis Emo; 'Why should I go out there? They're all uncaring zombies! *sniff* No one understands me...' Bant Wageslave; Behind every successful knight is a corporate drudge doing his taxwork.
Naya Overenthusiast; Because there is such a thing as too much enthusiasm.
I didn't know I had anything to respond to in your first post. I fail to see any questions directly towards me.
I will say this,
Quote from Shark of the Finnigan »
Arnnaria: I don't see anything scummy with him at all. I see his push for Axelrod completely acceptable and I do not like that at the moment either.
I don't know WTF I was saying here. It doesn't make any grammatical sense at all. But, I believe what I meant to say is that I agree the push is fine, but I was not going to pursue that avenue atm.
On your comment on who's scum on the wagon. I looked at each of the vote posts, and the most out of place vote would be Ecophagy's, because of the fact it was still RVS when I posted, his jumpy reason felt a bit odd. I still need to look into everyone else and see their stance and see which are inconsistent with others.
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"Ask the right questions in the right way and truth is inevitable."
—Lazav
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I don't really have a meta to point you at, but that's how I am as a player. I'm pretty much stuck with the consequences of that until games finish and I can point at my sig and say "hey, look. This is how I am." Until then you just have to take my word for it =(
Was this meant to be a fluff post? You highlight something but come to no conclusion. It feels like you are trying to look busy.
No, it wasn't meant as a fluff post. I came to no conclusion because I can't know for certain that Zinda took Cehenna in his flavor from the concept of / name of "Gehenna." I think it's certainly a fair assumption, and I, personally, would operate under the presumption that Cehenna, as an ability, does not equal good things happening.
If I missed anyone else's questions or comments directed at me, I apologize. Just direct me at them again, and I'll get to them asap.
For now, my thoughts on the salient points of the last few pages:
Iso: From other games I've read, Iso appears to be being Iso. I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that, while I don't like the idea of the color claim [at least at this juncture], I have liked his posts so far. From a relative newcomer's perspective, it seems like Iso draws a lot of fire just for being in a game and being notoriously hard to read (if I am to believe what people say about him, anyway).
Shark: The biggest problem with Shark is not what he's saying, I feel, it's how he's saying it -- a problem shared by Axel. As has been pointed out, Shark is saying things / acting like a new player, but this runs contrary to his actual experience level. It could be a gambit of some variety, I suppose, but his posts read as genuine. It's all very confusing to me.
Axel: This I like less than Shark, and is less confusing. I'll try to have a more elaborate post up by the end of the specifically on Axel, backing up my vote.
GMan vs AI: I feel like this belongs in the Theory thread as opposed to in a game. My eyes may have glazed over a bit, despite being interesting. At this point I'm inclined to see their wrangling as two townies who have different ways of playing the game.
Arnnaria: Has had some very good points throughout this game so far, and a lot of what he's said has seemed to fall on deaf ears ... although I might be just lost in the recent sea of Guardman vs AI.
Also, while on the subject: @Arnnaria: can you elaborate on why you feel pressure needs to be taken off Axel? It seems to me that there hasn't been enough dedicated pressure on him in the first place, given that people have been going after Shark most of the game, for good or ill.
Arnnaria: Has had some very good points throughout this game so far, and a lot of what he's said has seemed to fall on deaf ears ... although I might be just lost in the recent sea of Guardman vs AI.
Also, while on the subject: @Arnnaria: can you elaborate on why you feel pressure needs to be taken off Axel? It seems to me that there hasn't been enough dedicated pressure on him in the first place, given that people have been going after Shark most of the game, for good or ill.
I don't mind that it's being fallen on deaf ears. I'm kinda used to it, actually. I've made my points and they are on the record in case anyone wants to look them up.
Axel has been playing defensively for the entire game. He hasn't had time to scumhunt at all. I'm going to take it with a grain of salt that Axel "knows better than that", but I'm waiting for his response to my post on his. If Axel switched into an offensive mode and rooted out some good points for who is scum, I think he would gain credibility. Instead, he's slowly circling the drain. He needs to step up and provide a reasonable explanation as to who is on his scum list.
Alrighty, doing a quick reread of the top posters in the game.
Skipping over the RVS stage stuff. #44- I remember thinking the same thing about Axelrod's post. I didn't particularly think it was worth mentioning, but Arnnaria pointing it out is fine with me.
#45- Maybe a little aggressive here for something that was probably a mistake.
#50- Continues poking at Axelrod. Nothing wrong here.
#65- Watch out Arnn, ced is going to start suspecting you for riding Xyre's coattails!
#85- States his intention to continue to persue Axelrod. I'm all for applying pressure until something interesting happens, so :thumbsup:.
#89- Nothing really of note here, but at least shows he's paying attention to the rules. Moreso than in Intrigue, so that's a positive.
#110- This post is strange to me. He goes into some detail about why he didn't like Axelrod's posts, which I'm not opposed to. But then he says it was probably a RVS vote so he'll drop it, but he's still watching Axelrod... Seems like he's looking for an excuse to back off from Axelrod in case people don't like the case against him. Still, that's only one point against Arnnaria, compared to all the other stuff I like.
#111- This is fine, I think, though I'm not sure why he felt the need to add it. I thought he explained himself well in 110.
#138- Finally comments on the Shark wagon, and spots something I'd missed (the votecount request). I disagree with Xyre about this post being bad.
#151- This post doesn't sit well with me. He'd just previously said he was attributing Axelrod's post he didn't like to the RVS, and in post 110 he implied he was going to back off from Axelrod a bit. But then Arnnaria says that since other people had started agreeing with him about it, he was going to keep going and votes. This seems like he's trying to deflect Xyre's attention of his Shark vote by drawing more attention back to Axelrod with a vote.
#177- Responds to Axelrod's great big post. Mostly reasonable, except for the last part. He wants the pressure pulled from Axelrod? After spending the whole game going after him? His explaination is reasonable, but it could be argued he's trying to jump ship. Though I can't imagine he'd actually say it out loud as scum. I'm of two minds on this post, so let's just move on.
#178- This post is alright with me. Other people were pressuring Shark and he was more interested in going after Axelrod at the moment. It's more or less the same reason I was focusing on Shark and simply watching the Axelrod thing.
The few posts of his I didn't like aside, I'm definitely leaning town for Arnnaria.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
If you, as you said, have antecipated that many, if not most, people wouldn't even have read the flavor, then why would you expect people to have the same kind of reaction as you did?
Why even bother posting it if they wouldn't know what you were talking about?
I was curious whether others might have had the same reaction. I surmised that people who did would be members of the Town. I also anticipated that many wouldn't have read it all or understood it (at least understood it the same way I understood it). That's (1) not a contradiction and (2) still potentially useful, as people who don't know what I'm talking about go back and re-read it, then comment on it.
This has no bearing on how I view your alignment, but are you saying you are rusty when it comes to mafia right now?
Well, rusty might not be quite the right word. In general, when I have time to devote to a game I think I'm pretty good. There was a time 5+ years ago, mind you, when I could play in 6 games at the same time and be productive in all of them. I posted a lot. In recent times, not so much. If you were to look back over just the last 2 year even, you'd see a lot of complaints about me kind of sleepwalking through games.
I'm going to get busy again eventually, but what I'm saying is that, at this moment, I have time, which is nice.
Was it really considered role playing though? I'm assuming that you are assuming (eesh) that he was due to the "I" statements.
Calling it "role-playing" may have been overstating it a bit, but he did use the personalization "I" understand this, "I" am that, etc. Which stuck out as unusual. Because it wasn't the response I would have expected from a Townie, and I wanted to feel out if he was actually saying this was coming from his "role" or not, as opposed to just what we were told in the opening posts.
@Axelrod
This is from #92, in reply to Iso's bolded proposal for a lock colour claim. Can I know why you said no at the time?
Well, because it was a ridiculously bad proposal. Which had already been pointed out, so there wasn't any need to really make a serious argument against it.
If you are asking why I phrased it as a "?" instead of just saying "No." It was an attempt at humor (again, because the idea was so laughably bad given the Mafia ability we had been told about). You have to imagine a certain tone of voice, I guess.
If you are asking why I mentioned it when Iso had just made his post acknowledging his mistake, I am virtually certain I was typing my post up at the same time as Iso was making his post, and then I just didn't bother to change anything. It became a point of suspicion against Iso, just because in general I tend to think he's more intelligent than to completely miss something like that.
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Axel has been playing defensively for the entire game. He hasn't had time to scumhunt at all. I'm going to take it with a grain of salt that Axel "knows better than that", but I'm waiting for his response to my post on his. If Axel switched into an offensive mode and rooted out some good points for who is scum, I think he would gain credibility. Instead, he's slowly circling the drain. He needs to step up and provide a reasonable explanation as to who is on his scum list.
Well, I can give very general impressions about where people are leaning for me atm, but I tend not to do hard scum/not scum very early in the game. It's another pet peeve of mine actually when other people do that.
At the risk of being accused of "diverting attention" away from myself, however, I will make a list or something.
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
I also had to replace out due to medical reasons in Gotham, Intrigue, and one other which I'm forgetting at the moment. I was waiting a couple months until I was all healed up from my surgery to get into a mafia game.
#70- He asks a question I was going to ask Shark, so that's a positive. Then he goes and suggests a Mass Claim variant. Which was a bad idea, obviously. More on that in a moment.
#79- Obviously this post implies he hasn't read the rules thoroughly. I'll get to this when I'm analyzing an upcoming post. I don't see how my post was an unnatural "me too" post, but then I guess I wouldn't. I've responded to Iso several times, so you can look it up if you want.
#84- I respond to this in post #87, so go there if you want to follow up on this post.
#91- This is a post people seem to be using to read Iso. I find his "didn't read the rules" at least plausible. He had a similar problem in Intrigue. He had to have the rules of the game explained and pointed out to him several times. As for the part Iso addressed at me: Didn't I mislynch you in Intrigue? I respond to this in post #101.
#95- Interestingly, Axelrod in the previous post more or less refuses to answer Iso's question. He disguises it with a joke, sure, but he still doesn't do it. And Iso responds by... letting it go with a rolleyes smiley. I don't like this post.
#108- Tries to compare this game to Seasons. I don't think that's a comparable situation, because they're different games with different mechanics. He seems to imply that color locks matter in regards to other abilities, which I know to be true. But the scum could also benefit from this with the Mow Down ability. This post is pretty much a wash when it comes to reads for me.
#141+142- Yeah I don't know what SilverSihhe was talking about here. It's it pretty standard to speculate about number of scum?
#143- Big post. I'll respond to the things that stood out for me. The first thing I noticed is that he calls out Shark for saying "Meta me". Then, a few quotes down, he implies that Shark should go read some of his other games. Is that not self-meta as well? Pushes Asenion to contribute, which I liked. Being a newb doesn't excuse you from not helping. Starts looking harder at Shark, which is just dandy. Starts putting more pressure on Axelrod. I'm undecided on Axelrod atm, because I really haven't been reading his posts in detail. Once I reread him I'll have more of an idea of how I feel about Iso's push.
#154- I don't know about the first line, but I think he's right about the bottom one. There's really no way to know if he's being honest or not here. From past experience, I'm inclined to believe he just didn't read it.
#156- Prods Asenion to start contributing. Nothing wrong here.
#158- I dislike this one. He doesn't even explain how Axelrod is "crumbling". Just tries to smear him without reason.
#161- Same here. Gives a vague reason for his vote on Axelrod, doesn't go into detail about how Axelrod repeats himself.
#166- Three in a row. Implies that actually thinking about your posts is a bad thing for some reason.
#171- I don't understand why having a post that looks well thought-out is a bad thing?
#172- Once again, Iso is vague in his response to AI. I'm not liking Iso atm.
#187- In post #182, Tanarin directly cuts through Iso's vague responses and asks him to explain in detail, so that's some town points for Tanarin. Iso's response is... vague. Basically he says that he can't explain it in detail because of something or another. Not much content, plus evades having to give actual details.
#190- I see nothing wrong with asking more questions.
I generally have a tough time figuring out Iso. But there's such a volume of things I dislike here when compared to positive things that I'm finding him easier to read this time around. He's certainly in my scummy pile.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
Walk me through, step-by-step, how this point actually forms part of a case for Axelrod being scum. You seem to pass it off as something that does, and I don't see how.
He was dismissing his overly "Hey I'm town!" attitude by saying that scum wouldn't be able to fake his reaction (which they simply could), and therefore everyone having the same reaction as him would instantly be a townie (again, the "Hey I'm town!") attitude. For me, his assumptions are null.
This game is moving really fast. Iso seems like scum because of how he is attacking everyone and because he tried to help the mafia use Mow Down. Shark is being really defensive and seems scummy. I'm not sure about most other people. I need to reread I think, there are a lot of posts pouring in fast.
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An accurate description of myself:
Quote from Megiddo »
You're the dude who just lies a lot and makes people hate you and then magically becomes town later, right?
#53 and #56- I dislike this. Look at how he words 56. He's not going to follow ced and me, while doing the same thing we did? Keep in mind that this was after ced indicated his intention to question me after I agreed with how he was going about Shark. Seems like he's trying to dodge pressure while doing the same thing that caught ced's attention.
#71- Makes some sense about the neutral. Then nothing of note.
#74- Calls out Iso for the obvious reason why not to mass claim lock colors.
#86- Dunno wtf is going on with this post. When he points out the Mow Down, it shows he's read the thread. Then he goes and ruins it by saying that Zinda could have given the scum an ability, when zinda specifically said the scum were randomized from among all roles.
#90- This post is good. I agree with most everything said here.
#96- The first part is fluff. The second part disagrees with what he said previously about not following me and ced.
#99+100- 99 is alright, I think. Threatens Axelrod with a vote (which is just terrifying) and says his comments were supposed to be directed at Shark. 100 rubs me the wrong way a little. In what way is Iso claiming to have not read the thread comparable to kpaca claiming cop and bussing Void? It's comparing apples and hand grenades. A healthy dose of suspicion is never a bad thing though.
#125- His responses to Shark are pretty solid here.
#128- I expressed the same opinion, so town points for KosaSquared.
#144- Yep, can see nothing wrong with this. DoubleKosa is slowly revealing himself to be more experienced than he first claimed.
#145- This is also fine, because I thought the same thing when Xyre voted. Xyre's explaination is pretty well thought-out, but questioning him when there was only the vote is a positive thing to do.
#148- Obvious gimmick is obvious? Probably lies about his experience, then tries to say "Don't meta me". Possibly setting himself up for when his real identity is revealed. Trying to hide something, perhaps?
#159- Oh hai DRey. Pretty vague about why Axelrod's post seems made up.
#163- I have no opinion on this atm. Once I've reread more players I'll probably be able to judge this more fairly.
#173- I don't really see the contradiction thing. He might be tunneling Axelrod some, here. This post is hard for me to pin down. The vote lines up with his previous opinion on Axelrod, but he seems to be stretching a bit with the "blatantly scum" remark.
Kosa² is in my "leaning town" section right now. There have been a few of his posts that have made me but his overall content is making up for it and pushing him toward the town side of things.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
#53 and #56- I dislike this. Look at how he words 56. He's not going to follow ced and me, while doing the same thing we did? Keep in mind that this was after ced indicated his intention to question me after I agreed with how he was going about Shark. Seems like he's trying to dodge pressure while doing the same thing that caught ced's attention.
#71- Makes some sense about the neutral. Then nothing of note.
#74- Calls out Iso for the obvious reason why not to mass claim lock colors.
#86- Dunno wtf is going on with this post. When he points out the Mow Down, it shows he's read the thread. Then he goes and ruins it by saying that Zinda could have given the scum an ability, when zinda specifically said the scum were randomized from among all roles.
#90- This post is good. I agree with most everything said here.
#96- The first part is fluff. The second part disagrees with what he said previously about not following me and ced.
#99+100- 99 is alright, I think. Threatens Axelrod with a vote (which is just terrifying) and says his comments were supposed to be directed at Shark. 100 rubs me the wrong way a little. In what way is Iso claiming to have not read the thread comparable to kpaca claiming cop and bussing Void? It's comparing apples and hand grenades. A healthy dose of suspicion is never a bad thing though.
#125- His responses to Shark are pretty solid here.
#128- I expressed the same opinion, so town points for KosaSquared.
#144- Yep, can see nothing wrong with this. DoubleKosa is slowly revealing himself to be more experienced than he first claimed.
#145- This is also fine, because I thought the same thing when Xyre voted. Xyre's explaination is pretty well thought-out, but questioning him when there was only the vote is a positive thing to do.
#148- Obvious gimmick is obvious? Probably lies about his experience, then tries to say "Don't meta me". Possibly setting himself up for when his real identity is revealed. Trying to hide something, perhaps?
#159- Oh hai DRey. Pretty vague about why Axelrod's post seems made up.
#163- I have no opinion on this atm. Once I've reread more players I'll probably be able to judge this more fairly.
#173- I don't really see the contradiction thing. He might be tunneling Axelrod some, here. This post is hard for me to pin down. The vote lines up with his previous opinion on Axelrod, but he seems to be stretching a bit with the "blatantly scum" remark.
Kosa² is in my "leaning town" section right now. There have been a few of his posts that have made me but his overall content is making up for it and pushing him toward the town side of things.
Alrighty, I'll pick this back up later today.
Clarifying doubts:
#53 and #56 was meant to be a joke, but my phone screwed the coherence of the post -__-
#86: #90 is what I meant to say in #86, but over the course of the game I'm more inclined to consider that Mow Down purpose in the game is to be more of a "sideboard" as in: 1- A build-in game prevention of exactly what Iso had proposed and 2-A way to make scum stronger via the balancing "hidden skills" mentioned in OP in case they had crappy ones after role randomization. Of course, this is just speculation, so I still would rather have we keep our locks' colors for ourselves
#148: I will say it again just to rest any doubts about it: This is indeed my very first online Mafia game. I am no proxy of anyone on this forum, nor I have played online anywhere else. I do have played my fair share of IRL games though, so I know how the argumentation part works.
I have, however, done my homework. Read nice bits of Seasons, mainly to understand how advanced the setup would be and what kind of pro-plays I should be expecting. I've also read the Mafia Subforum posts and went onto mafiawiki to learn about more uncommon roles and especially the game abbreviations.
I tried to avoid disclosing this because I have seen people overly interested in judging based on the meta, and the "newcomer meta" is just terrible because people can tend to avoid paying the rightful attention to your points, since they consider that you don't know what you are saying. But as people in general are correctly valuing my points the by way I meant them to be, I think it's all cool now.
Outside that, your points on Arn and Iso are more or less the same as mine.
He was dismissing his overly "Hey I'm town!" attitude by saying that scum wouldn't be able to fake his reaction (which they simply could), and therefore everyone having the same reaction as him would instantly be a townie (again, the "Hey I'm town!") attitude. For me, his assumptions are null.
This is simply so blatantly untrue it makes me wonder if you are reading the same thread as me.
I said in literally the same post you are referring to that it would be possible for scum to "fake" the reaction I was looking for. Like, right there.
Hey, look:
Quote from Axelrod »
Could they fake such a reaction? Sure. But I thought it slightly less likely a Mafia would jump forward and try to barn what I was saying. And I could at least make a judgement call about whether their reaction sounded natural or not.
At zero point did I say I would consider anyone claiming the reaction I was looking for "instantly" to be town. I said:
Quote from Axelrod »
I was genuinely curious if anyone else had the same kind of reaction as me from reading those opening posts. And the point here is that, those having similar reactions would by definition be other members of the Town. The Mafia would obviously not have that kind of reaction.
Which was immediately followed by the quote above. Maybe it was the "by definition" that confused you? If I said people genuinely having similar reaction would "by definition" be town, would that make it clearer? I am not/was not ever suggesting that anyone who just said they felt the same way would be town.
Because that would be dumb.
You are simply making stuff up.
I have to say that Caex is getting major points for what he's doing in his reviews It's the best scum-hunting effort put forth by anyone so far this game, it's coming across as sincere, and it's just hard to do something like that as scum. Especially early on when you could just lie low with no pressure on you.
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
If I said people genuinely having similar reaction would "by definition" be town, would that make it clearer? I am not/was not ever suggesting that anyone who just said they felt the same way would be town.
Bold part: probably not, because I can't see how hard it is for scum to effectively fake such an easy reaction, so I can't see how you would know if they just said it or really felt it. For instance, AI was the only player eager to discuss the flavor with you (at #58) after your "secondary purpose post", so what does your judgement call read about him?
I have to say that Caex is getting major points for what he's doing in his reviews It's the best scum-hunting effort put forth by anyone so far this game, it's coming across as sincere, and it's just hard to do something like that as scum. Especially early on when you could just lie low with no pressure on you.
Although I agree with your opinion about Caex, doing that means nothing about his allegiance. Experienced scum would present PBPA about some townies proving how so townies they look like, but demonize others after gaining the town's trust. Actually, doing that on D1 is much more easier for the mafia, as no one have their minds set about players yet, so it's easier to change opinions by creating thorns where there are none.
Considering that he was the most prolific player while leading up the first pressures against Shark, if by any chance we lynch Shark and he flips town, my scumradar reading on Caex would get over 9k.
See you just completely ignored the part where you totally misrepresented what I said. I don't care if you agree or disagree that the Mafia would attempt to "fake" a townie reaction to my post, or if you don't believe I could ever tell a genuine reaction from a fake one. That's not even the point. The point was you were attacking me for doing something I didn't even do.
Can you acknowledge that or not?
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
I hear that, Kosa. This is my second game (the first is ongoing currently), and not being able to be like "here's my meta," seems to be a problem. As long as you've done your homework and you're reasonably intelligent / not scared away, you should be fine. I've been having a blast so far, and I like to think that I've handled myself fairly well so far. I'd love to share some thoughts on just starting out with you, but ongoing game says otherwise. I will note that once that game is over, I'm planning on doing a write-up to try to help people in that situation going forward...but that doesn't really help now, I realize =(
Regardless, welcome to the game =)
Now, for Axel:
28: First talks about the flavor, stating how he wants to be a freedom fight instead of a brainwashed prisoner. This feels very light-hearted and personal to me. Let's be honest, I think that most of us feel the same way. Speaking personally, I would also much rather be a freedom fighter than not, because I hold freedom highly in my core personal beliefs. I don't see anything wrong with this post at this point.
42: There is where I start to have a problem. Axel does two things here that I don't like: he re-votes Ecophagy after RVS voting him, seemingly forgetting that he already had placed a vote. And then there's the fact that this vote happens to be on the same person he voted during RVS, -and- it's in direct response to something that I think Eco was baiting with. It's pretty obvious that Eco isn't going to refer to himself as scum if he were scum. If it's obvious what Eco meant, why bite in the first place?
The other thing that I don't like is that he continues to press on the flavor issue. One begrudging post about the flavor is fine. Two sends up warning bells. If I wanted to stretch, I could note that it reads as if he knows more than everyone else via his comment about liking the story that Zinda is telling... at this point, we've barely seen any story outside of Zinda's OP. That feels like a stretch me, though, so I'm just going to note that the possibility exists and then throw it out as evidence. If something happens later to bring it back to the table, then that's fine.
47: Here we get a very snippy response to Arnnaria. Although I find the content here fine, I don't like the tone of the post. It's a very coy reply, as though he already knows the answers and is just toying with his questioner. That may be a play-style difference from how I tend to answer questions (which would grate on me), or it may be that he's just overreacting, which is almost always a scumtell when dealing with an experienced player. I have also noticed that the danger of overreaction is much higher in experienced players when dealing with stupid questions, because they tend to get over-involved mentally with the attitude of "this is too stupid of a question to actually out me." Just my observations.
52: This reads to me as a contrite response to his 47, as if he realizes that he overreacted and is trying to bring it back to a calm, normative level. At the same time, he's handwaving his earlier attack on the flavor, dismissing it via "I like a good story, though." Scum points here.
92: This is a hard one to read, because it's full of that tongue-and-cheek that I highlighted via Iso a few posts back. You have a massive sarcasm attack at the start, followed by a snooty response with a lack of reasoning, followed by a little modgaming. Of it, the only piece that reads as at all townie is the final piece, discussing how many scum are present. Apparently I'm like the only person who avoids speculating on the number of scum on Day 1...but that aside, he does read well through this piece.
His sarcasm burst at the beginning, then, seems designed to attack the credibility of those who had been attacking him, by mocking them through sarcasm. This seems a rather scummy play to me, considering that he could have just as easily responded with a calm, rational reply. This supports my feeling of 47 & 52: at best, Axel is telegraphing instability. The question is what he would be hiding under that bravado, and the answer is obvious.
As far as his "lol no" reply to Iso, I don't have anything more to say here, really. It has the same tonal problem that I've had with all of his posts that I've pointed out up until now, and some reasoning would have been nice.
114: Then we have this gem. Shark's wagon had been building at this point, and this post reads like a blatant attempt to redirect the focus from himself onto Shark -- while simultaneously attacking the credibility of those attacking him yet again, by noting that they're "taking the game too seriously." He also goes back and attacks Eco's "I understand that I am a danger to society" line again, just before hopping on Shark's wagon himself. +scum.
126 Belaboring his sense of humor yet again. I really don't mean to be a fun-nazi, but explaining away all of these slips via humor seems really weak to me.
Then there's this:
Quote from Axelrod »
Whereas in Eco's post when he was talking about himself, he appeared to be speaking in character - from his character's perspective.
Eco's "character" was talking from the perspective of a town-aligned prisoner. Did you just get this confused, too? All Axel is doing is pointing out that Eco's role-play is from a town-mindset, in stark contrast to how he's trying to twist it. Oh, and apparently the whole roleplay discussion was a trap.
...And then we divert back on to Shark again in the last paragraph of the post.
157: Axel's defense post, after needling Iso quickly.
I actually buy his line about the fallacy of being "too defensive." This, it seems to me, comes straight from Axel-the-person, not Axel-the-player, and I actually agree with it, for what that's worth. I also don't see this as crumbling, unlike Iso. I do feel that it's a little...involved, let's see, for a fairly simple post with a fairly straightforward (two such) goal(s). But I'm willing to accept that that's just how someone who's experienced at Mafia thinks and that I'm not there yet.
Things I don't like about this post: again, Eco's role-played statement came from a Town perspective. I certainly agree that it read really awkwardly, but I think that's a natural reaction to "suddenly roleplay," more than anything else. I also think that Axel is stretching in his assumption of why Eco said what he did:
Quote from Axel »
I(t -ed) was almost like he was saying that his "character" i.e. his role-pm, was telling him that this was how he felt.
This in particular is a huge leap. I can look at my role-pm and pretty easily extrapolate how my "character" would feel about things. Zinda gives enough information through the dossier approach that it's fairly self-evident what kind of a person your role is. If we -wanted- to RP, it would be pretty easy, I think. Note: let's please not, because I don't like RPing -.-
Overall, however, I will admit that I like this post. It was rambly in a good way, and I am willing to accept that most of the leaps therein are just me seeing phantoms where there isn't anything to be seen. However, I also don't believe that one good post trumps a slew of bad ones.
164: I actually missed this post when I was catching up with the activity from overnight. The meat and potatoes of his post is his response to my initial accusation of redirect the attention back on to Shark, by way of Kosa. And I think my response to him would be: timing. His post and its message came at a perfect time to redirect attention back towards Shark, and indeed, I think (not 100%) that Arnnaria and myself were the only two people who kept on Axel at that juncture, while everyone else hopped on Shark. I may be mistaken in that, but I don't think I'm missing anyone. It's fine to raise issues with other players, especially if you're noticing something scummy about them, but I feel that it's important to keep track of the timing of when you point out such things. The way Axel points out his problems with Shark, at that particular moment in time, makes him look rather poor, despite it not being an inherently "wrong" thing to do.
Reading back over that, I'm not sure I got my point across well enough. I've also been at this for a while. If it doesn't make sense to you (whoever reads this), just let me know and I'll try to restate it.
Note: Axel raises a good defense vs Iso's points in 168. I'm not going to bother linking it or say much about it, but I wanted to point it out in the interests of fairness. I also don't particularly like Iso's offense against Axel so far, and I feel that his points have been fairly weak with regards to Axel. But Axel mount a solid defense here.
I'm inclined to agree with his initial line. Seriously, Iso?
Axel's reply to Kosa is okay until the last line, whereupon we get more derision. Why the attitude =/
I'm just going to point this out, and then feel like a dick for doing so: Axel sets up a a future excuse for poor posts by virtue of a warning that he will probably get busy again at some point. I really, really hate using warnings of RL as a reason for anything, and as a result I'm throwing this out of my case. I still felt compelled to point it out, because it does read as somewhat scummy of a reply to Arnnaria, but I refuse to use it going forward.
Finally, dC asks Axel about his "lol no" reply sans reasoning to Iso's mass color claim idea. Axel provides a "humor" excuse, with another hint of derision, and then gives Iso a backhanded compliment to top it off.
To summarize, then:
We've got a whole ton of humor excuses and hand-waving, some content that's good and some that's bad (as normal for basically anyone), some good defenses provided against weak attacks, and some highly suspicious timing.
Yes, I admit being wrong on that. You didn't said they couldn't, you said you could see through them if they did because that was a hard thing to fake, which I disagree.
To clarify my "role playing" post: I was posting a flavourful justification from my point of view, that meshes (and somewhat regurgitates) elements of Zindabad's OP. While my dossier is similarly impersonal, it's descriptive enough that I can get a handle on my character's possible motivations. I didn't have any particular reason for posting it in first person, I just did.
I was also mulling over dropping a breadcrumb in, which I would have done in first person. As a result, I was just sort of in that character mindset. I'm glad I didn't though, with all the attention the post has received.
Quote from ced395 »
I don't think that's exclusively a scum reaction to pressure.
It's much more likely to be a scum reaction to pressure, especially since SF isn't the noob you think he is. Mafia isn't a game of absolutes.
#28- This is the first in the series of posts that Arnnaria is using as fuel for the Axelrod fire. I remember thinking "he's sure going out of his way to emphasize how he's totally a townie" here, but didn't mention it because it didn't hit me hard enough to be worth mentioning.
32 and 36 are really hardly worth mentioning. I'm not even going to link them because they're more or less just RVS idle speculation.
#42- I read this as mostly joking. But he once again seems to go out of his way to say "I'm a townie, yo!"
#47- The tone here, to me, reads as mildly surprised that someone was questioning him about those posts. I'd mark this post as genuine.
#52- Hm. I tend to agree with this when I think about it. If I'm being honest, I wasn't really reading too heavily into the Axelrod v. Arnnaria thing. I was pretty focused on Shark. After reading the post that kicked all this off, I don't think the "anger" in the post is what Arnnaria should have been focusing on. "Anger" didn't even really register when I saw Axelrod's post.
#92- He says "sarcasm aside" here, and says Ecophagy is scum, but then just moves on. See next linked post for more about this. Other than that, says no to Iso's mass claim thing, so that's good.
#94- As I said in my Iso post, Axelrod basically just refuses to answer when Iso asks him about why Ecophagy is scum, deflecting with a joke. I dislike this quite a bit.
#114- And his big reveal for Scumcophagy is... That he used the word "I". Anticlimactic. Says "what's up with that", when I read the Ecophagy thing as really more light-hearted banter than an actual serious thing. But I'm all for questioning Shark, and his questions are good ones.
#119- Explains himself in regards to the last post. I can accept that, I guess. I think he's arguing over semantics here, but it's not like it's ringing any scumbells for me.
#126- He explains himself in more detail here. This post makes me feel quite a bit better about Axelrod's focus on Ecophagy's word choice. Spots Shark not answering his questions and pushes him on it. Obviously that's something I like.
#157- Now here's a post with some useful information. My very first thought when I saw this was "Well that's a bit of an overreaction". But I hadn't really been paying a lot of attention to Axelrod. With the context of the previous quotes, I think I can see where Axelrod is coming from now. He seems exasperated at the amount of attention he's recieving up to this point. I read this as pretty positive, if annoyed at having to explain himself in such absurd detail.
#164- Axelrod is looking pretty confident here. He directly challenges Iso to point out where he's seeing the self-consciousness in 157.
#168- This post is something I'm having trouble getting a handle on. I would have sworn 157 was a stream-of-consciousness post, but he's claiming it's not? Still, he brings up good points against Iso. I also tend to look over my posts once I've written them out to see if they say what I wanted them to say. That should be neither a townie nor scummy thing to do.
#194- He seems to be getting annoyed at Kosakosa here, imo. After his mostly calm and reasoned responses to everyone else, this is kind of a deviation in tone, but obviously just a tiny drop in the bucket. Responds again to Arnnaria in a calm sort of way. He's mostly just rehashing what's already been said here, so moving right along.
#195- Says he'll get a town/scum list up. Haven't seen it yet.
#204- I like this post, and not just because he's giving me points. He calls out KosaDitto for KosaTwice's post, and jumps right on the blatant untruth in it.
Axelrod is in my "probable town" section at the moment. Aside from the "I'm so town, guys. Srsly." comments at the start of the game I've seen really nothing awful with him up to now.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
I also don't agree with your aversion to FoS-ing from a mafia standpoint. I've heard it called a crutch for those being non-committal, but it's just as easy to be non-committal with ordinary language.
These are my thoughts on FoS-ing. I don't recall ever using it myself (maybe in my first game, I don't remember), but I don't think it is strictly a scum tell. It would certainly have to be coupled with other behaviors or tells.
I think there's some of a disconnect here. I keep on getting chided for attacking you on flavor. I am not attacking you on flavor. I am attacking you because you used the flavor to push the point that you were town. And you continue to do that. I feel it's been my fault that you haven't had a chance to otherwise prove your town by scumhunting since you've been put on defense so soon.
So at this time you believe Axel to be scum. Is there anything besides the "I'm town" that you can point to?
Quote from Arnnaria »
I do the same thing as well. Every game I ask what pronouns people prefer. At first it was a way to make sure I didn't offend anyone. Now, it's morphed into a way to see if people are even paying attention. Those that respond usually are people I need to watch out for because they don't dismiss a question that is being applied to a large group. The people that don't respond are usually people who aren't paying much attention. I guess now that the cats out of the proverbial bag, I can't use it anymore.
So asking people what they preferred to be called is a scum hunting technique for you? What does that tell you about people that you have played with before? I would think by now you know I'm a guy so I don't respond. What does that tell you?
Quote from Arnnaria »
No, I understand the flavor quite well. I was simply applying my knowledge of sociology to the game. People who are treated as slaves cannot arise unless a group consciousness forms. If you need me to explain further, I can dust off my copy of the manifesto.
okay...
Mine is pretty personal.
Was it really considered role playing though? I'm assuming that you are assuming (eesh) that he was due to the "I" statements.
I have to think a bit about how I view your play with this information. I'm probably 65% sure that the pressure needs to be pulled off of you (but not forgotten) to see how you play offensively in this game instead of defensively due to a barrage of attacks. However, I think at this point, that's beyond the decision of one person so I don't know how others are going to react to your post, although some of the comments about it have ranged from positive to negative.
Why does this feel like you are trying to bail out Axel?
But it is one thing to say I think you are scum because of X which is scummy and another to say I think you are scum because of X which isn't scummy and in fact doesn't correlate to alignment yet still try to push it as if it does.
Town build cases and prod with what is given. They might overstate things, but they do this within the mindset of overevaluating the worth of something or because of tunneling. Scum like to build cases out of mudslinging, attacking things which are neutral, and trying to turn nothing into something. They are also made with less conviction and are easily influenced by other players.
When you read that post you get a clear mindset from it. The FoS is just cake, which is proven to be used mostly by scum, especially from people who aren't noobs. It's all mindsets, but both Tan's attack and the FoS and FoS use in general come from a scum mindset.
I don't understand. In my readings of Mafia history it says that the FoS has just fallen out of favor (I think that was on MS or something). I just don't get why the FoS by Tan is such a big deal in this case. He pointed out statements from 2 people, felt one was scummier than the other, and FoS the second.
Well assuming his story of wanting to unlock his ability is true, (I am not sure, can't read Iso for the life of me,) then a claim makes sense if he feels his role would be very valuable to the town. I did something similar at the start of Amnesia Mafia to unlock my role (In that game asking for everyone to claim their monikers so I could post them in one post.)
Speaking of monikers and locks and stuff like that. I wanna propose something now before we get to any claims that may happen.
If and when we claim, I think it is for the best that colors of locks remain off limits. Same go for real names. The colors are obvious (Mafia 2nd ability,) Names is paranoia on my part. Until we know the names are going to be safe to claim, we should assume claiming them will result in bad stuff happening. I will be taking this route if I need to claim.
I'm not a fan of you preemptively setting up a defense on why you won't full claim if need be. You're reasoning also seems shaky. It sounds like you are concerned about a hit man type of character. Is that correct?
Quote from Tanarin »
OK, I am gonna ask you, deconstruct the post then. What sentences feel unnatural. Don't give me a line by line, but do tell me what is off in his stream of thought in more detail than these vague statements.
@Guardman: I am not liking your last post. Not so much for the reasons you give, as you are entitled to them, but for the fact that you feel so stressed into trying to push them when there seems to be two active wagons on both Shark and Axelrod. Screams of either tunnelvisioned town or scum trying to distract the town. As to which it is, I dunno yet. I do want to hear your views on those wagons before deciding anything.
Edit: I see you posted more. Why the hate on FoSes? You are using the line of reasoning that "Only Scum FoS people" and Scum FoS to remain non-committal but the fact is I AM committed. My vote is on Axelrod, and I don't have 2 votes, and at the time I was suspicious of AI. Your whole argument falls over given that info.
I agree with this as stated above. I just don't get the FoS hate.
Quote from Tanarin »
@Shark: Yes, I did do some research, since I remember playing in "Stuff I Like Mafia" with you and knew you were not as new as ced was letting on. which leads me to this...
@Eron: Well Post 29 came off to me initially as a pure RVS post. I was going under the assumption from the start of this being a 4 mafia + 1 neutral game. Looking back at it, I am still confused as to the fuss this post raised. The thing that bothers me is the fact that he seems to get overdefensive in his reasoning for making that post the more he is pressed on it. If he had left it at it was just an assumption I made about the setup, I would not have paid any more heed to it.
So you:
1. Thought it was an RVS post.
2. Feel that he was over defensive (of an RVS post)
3. Now know that he didn't mean it as an RVS post.
This feels like you are going back and forth on Shark, but you use it to cast suspicion on Ecophagy in this next bit:
Quote from Tanarin »
Aside: Looking back at the whole exchange, I am not liking Ecophagy's vote in post 38. He is taking what at the time was a seemingly joke post and calling it jumpy. Not sure how to take it, but worth noting at this juncture.
Back to the original train of thought, Re-reading today, I did take note of post 103. I never liked people throwing around the term Chainsaw willy nilly, especially without any bodies to go with it. The other thing that bothers me is the fact that as time goes on, he is taking his own seemingly RVS vote more and more as a serious vote. Almost as if he is bending to someone or something. I think dC put it best, he is too self conscious of his position right now, and is trying to bend his post to what he thinks the town wants to hear. If he was really a newb, I would take this as a newb folding under pressure, but given he isn't a newb it is disturbing.
You have several reasons why you don't like Shark here. You claim above that you're vote is on Axel for x,y and z reasons and you also cast suspicion on Eco and AI in this post. I really feel like you are just trying to get something to stick here. Vote Tanarin
I didn't know I had anything to respond to in your first post. I fail to see any questions directly towards me.
I will say this,
I don't know WTF I was saying here. It doesn't make any grammatical sense at all. But, I believe what I meant to say is that I agree the push is fine, but I was not going to pursue that avenue atm.
On your comment on who's scum on the wagon. I looked at each of the vote posts, and the most out of place vote would be Ecophagy's, because of the fact it was still RVS when I posted, his jumpy reason felt a bit odd. I still need to look into everyone else and see their stance and see which are inconsistent with others.
No, it wasn't meant as a fluff post. I came to no conclusion because I can't know for certain that Zinda took Cehenna in his flavor from the concept of / name of "Gehenna." I think it's certainly a fair assumption, and I, personally, would operate under the presumption that Cehenna, as an ability, does not equal good things happening.
I still fail to see the point. If that ability is activated the neutral wins. Sure that does not equal good things happening, but I think that is pretty self explanatory. That = Fluff to me.
If I missed anyone else's questions or comments directed at me, I apologize. Just direct me at them again, and I'll get to them asap.
I don't know that i see that as deflecting, personally. It feels like he was just responding to other concerns.
Quote from SS »
For now, my thoughts on the salient points of the last few pages:
Iso: From other games I've read, Iso appears to be being Iso. I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that, while I don't like the idea of the color claim [at least at this juncture], I have liked his posts so far. From a relative newcomer's perspective, it seems like Iso draws a lot of fire just for being in a game and being notoriously hard to read (if I am to believe what people say about him, anyway).
What is a situation where you would support a color claim?
Quote from SS »
Shark: The biggest problem with Shark is not what he's saying, I feel, it's how he's saying it -- a problem shared by Axel. As has been pointed out, Shark is saying things / acting like a new player, but this runs contrary to his actual experience level. It could be a gambit of some variety, I suppose, but his posts read as genuine. It's all very confusing to me.
Axel: This I like less than Shark, and is less confusing. I'll try to have a more elaborate post up by the end of the specifically on Axel, backing up my vote.
GMan vs AI: I feel like this belongs in the Theory thread as opposed to in a game. My eyes may have glazed over a bit, despite being interesting. At this point I'm inclined to see their wrangling as two townies who have different ways of playing the game.
I feel pretty confident (without researching b/c I don't have time) that Guard has used this argument as town. I'm not sure if he has as scum. Regarding AI's stance, I fall on his side. I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Quote from SS »
Arnnaria: Has had some very good points throughout this game so far, and a lot of what he's said has seemed to fall on deaf ears ... although I might be just lost in the recent sea of Guardman vs AI.
Also, while on the subject: @Arnnaria: can you elaborate on why you feel pressure needs to be taken off Axel? It seems to me that there hasn't been enough dedicated pressure on him in the first place, given that people have been going after Shark most of the game, for good or ill.
I need to see more from Arnn before forming an opinion.
Bold part: probably not, because I can't see how hard it is for scum to effectively fake such an easy reaction, so I can't see how you would know if they just said it or really felt it. For instance, AI was the only player eager to discuss the flavor with you (at #58) after your "secondary purpose post", so what does your judgement call read about him?
Although I agree with your opinion about Caex, doing that means nothing about his allegiance. Experienced scum would present PBPA about some townies proving how so townies they look like, but demonize others after gaining the town's trust. Actually, doing that on D1 is much more easier for the mafia, as no one have their minds set about players yet, so it's easier to change opinions by creating thorns where there are none.
Considering that he was the most prolific player while leading up the first pressures against Shark, if by any chance we lynch Shark and he flips town, my scumradar reading on Caex would get over 9k.
Re: the bolded - that seems like what you are doing here by making that backhanded statement about Caex. Axel just stated that he liked what he had done so far and you are trying to cast it in a negative light.
This game is moving really fast. Iso seems like scum because of how he is attacking everyone and because he tried to help the mafia use Mow Down. Shark is being really defensive and seems scummy. I'm not sure about most other people. I need to reread I think, there are a lot of posts pouring in fast.
Just jump in. Comment on whatever peaks your interest.
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Also strong chance Iso is also scum. Meta quote and lock claim are so far out of the Iso field something is wrong.
*Goes back and checks*
IDK. Earlier today I was kinda bothered by that FoS (#63). Not because it didn't make sense, but because after arguing with AI, Tan simply made the escape route for AI.
And afterwards no one ever bothered with AI again.
After re-reading it, their arguments seemed legit to me, but maybe someone will see something I haven't.
Not remotely.
If I raise an issue with another player, that is hardly a "diversion." That is how you play the game. I wasn't even the first person to raise it, though I had my own issue. Do you think there is something I'm avoiding here? Like, if I was screaming "Lynch SK" while at the same time refusing to answer questions people were asking me, that would be closer to what people refer to as a "diversion."
Well, I can't help you there. I've laid it all out there. What exactly seems so unbelievable to you? The idea that I could have thought other people in the Town might feel the way I felt reading that opening?
What did you think about it? Anything?
And what aren't you buying, Iso? Lay it on me, dude. All you have said so far is "too self-conscious". What don't you understand?
I don't see it. Originally, when The flavor conversation began I largely ignored it. Not because I don't like the flavor (that's why I sign up for the games that I do) but because it just felt to me as an advertisement that Axel is town without demonstrating it in any way. Something that Arnn picked up on and mentioned earlier.
After reading that long post I definitely changed my mind. The fact that there was well thought out reasoning behind those comments is impressive. I don't see this as crumbling but providing well thought out reasoning behind what he has said so far in regards to the flavor.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
@CharmMaster: How is Iso opportunistic? I thought he had been pushing for Axelrod?
—Lazav
_______________________________________________
Mafia Stats
Summary:
Total Win %: 40%
Total Scum Win %: 60%
Total Town Win %: 20%
Total Neutral Win %: 0%
So, you're now suspicious because it *seemed* to you that I was attempting to post in a "stream-of-consciousness" style, but it didn't seem all that stream of consciousness to you?
And, if I'm not claiming to be posting "stream-of-consciousness," which I'm not, despite what you apparently thought, then what?
Because I actually do think about my posts before I post them. Most of the time even. I preview them and everything, check for spelling and format errors. Rewrite stuff that didn't come across like I meant it to.
Your entire post is written from the mindset of someone who has already made up his mind, and then reads everything from that skewed perspective. When did you get so close minded? You still haven't even said what it was that got you thinking this in the first place - besides "too self conscious" and then you didn't say what posts those were. Was it just "all of them?"
I think you're being a bit lazy here Guardman. Clearly him mistaking players is no big deal, so your reminder of it seems fruitless, even while you dismiss it.
Plus, mafia is an entire game based off making mountains from ant hills. I don't begrudge Tanarin for digging into the conversation. Wrong though I think he is.
Good to see you're not a fan of giving information away. Might want to make sure you're not doing that any more than you already have, then.
You are very earnest, Kosa-san. For some reason, you appear unable to detect the coy nature of Axelrod's post though. N00b town points, ahoy!
I was ready to pounce on this as a fence-sit, and a posturing excuse. But man if he didn't have an easy out by calling this RVS post a joke. I think we have some hard-to-believe truth here, gents.
This post is so very full of crap. Unvote, Vote Arnaria
Your conclusions in the first half are completely different than those in the 2nd. You're casting dispersions on Axelrod for "harping town", but he is a VERY experienced player who knows what's going on, and knows the ineffectiveness that strategy would have if he were scum.
Then, after that, you completely play it off anyway. Your convictions seem very milquetoast.
Plus you misspell his name as Axelroad here.
Which made me crave Rocky Road.
Which made me go and get some from my freezer.
Which made me trip on the steps.
Which made me sprain my ankle.
This is an overreaction to a very obvious answer from Iso. What did you expect him to give you? A non-explanation? Of course he'll point to his past MO in Seasons, and of course he'll claim it's to help coordinate town abilities. Yeesh.
Oh, yeah...only non-Eco scum is a threat in this game. Of course.
I don't see crumbling in the least. His post made perfect sense to me. Not only do I not know him to crumble under pressure, but if he did I don't imagine it would look like his very well-reasoned response.
To your second point, he brought completely original information about what he hoped to gain in that large post, that is a repeat of nothing he said before. Explain?
The bolded sentence made me powerfully sad. I feel like a stray kitten now.
What do you mean by the arguments seemed legit?
I don't like this answer. Not at all. You chide me for pointing out that I am dismissing his mistake from my analysis. Why would you do this? It is sort of pointless and combine that with the fact you are calling me lazy seems that you are more interested in passive aggressively dismissing my points via some light mudslinging instead of addressing them.
The second paragraph reads as a person trying to trump up a case against someone using shaky reasoning is fine in your opinion, which is just wrong.
This post doesn't grok. There's too much mudslinging, too much passive aggressiveness, and too much attacking the player instead of the ideas.
Add to the fact AI is the one Tan FoSed and I think we found two scum. I feel good.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
@AI: I didn't get that impression at all from his posts.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
That’s one of the things that feels strange: You overly reiterates how townie you are. No, other people in town reading the same way as you did is perfectly acceptable, but why are you so eager to pass the townie impression everytime?
Answering you:
Why would they necessarily be town? Look at the bold part of your post below:
The way I see it, having the same reaction as you did could easily be achieved by any role. Why would be so difficult for the Mafia to act exactly the way you did, and to lie about the flavor? I can’t see how they couldn't.
And the biggest problem over here:
That statement directly contradicts your first sentence of my answer quote:
If you, as you said, have antecipated that many, if not most, people wouldn't even have read the flavor, then why would you expect people to have the same kind of reaction as you did?
Why even bother posting it if they wouldn't know what you were talking about?
You are blatantly scum to me right now.
Unvote
Vote Axelrod
I'm not interested in trumping up any case against you. I just think, and I said pretty clearly, that you're pointing out a very common mafia strategy -- constructing cases from something that may seem insignificant -- as being a bad thing. I fully addressed your actual points in this way.
Put it this way. I don't see Tanarin's tact he took as scummy. Obviously I disagree with his conclusions, where you disagree with his methods. I endorse the method, which is where my problem with your post lies.
I also don't agree with your aversion to FoS-ing from a mafia standpoint. I've heard it called a crutch for those being non-committal, but it's just as easy to be non-committal with ordinary language.
Emphasis added. You still haven't addressed this discrepancy. If it was very scummy, why not move on it? Surely voting him would get some people looking.
Too bad Alpha beat me to elaborating on why 110 was gawdawful.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
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Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
Duly Noted.
Maybe not defensive; maybe dismissive. There's something to be said when the pressure is coming your way in how you react. I think up until this post you've been shrugging off an explanation which is why I think this post is very important for the day.
This has no bearing on how I view your alignment, but are you saying you are rusty when it comes to mafia right now?
I think there's some of a disconnect here. I keep on getting chided for attacking you on flavor. I am not attacking you on flavor. I am attacking you because you used the flavor to push the point that you were town. And you continue to do that. I feel it's been my fault that you haven't had a chance to otherwise prove your town by scumhunting since you've been put on defense so soon.
I do the same thing as well. Every game I ask what pronouns people prefer. At first it was a way to make sure I didn't offend anyone. Now, it's morphed into a way to see if people are even paying attention. Those that respond usually are people I need to watch out for because they don't dismiss a question that is being applied to a large group. The people that don't respond are usually people who aren't paying much attention. I guess now that the cats out of the proverbial bag, I can't use it anymore.
No, I understand the flavor quite well. I was simply applying my knowledge of sociology to the game. People who are treated as slaves cannot arise unless a group consciousness forms. If you need me to explain further, I can dust off my copy of the manifesto.
okay...
Mine is pretty personal.
Was it really considered role playing though? I'm assuming that you are assuming (eesh) that he was due to the "I" statements.
I have to think a bit about how I view your play with this information. I'm probably 65% sure that the pressure needs to be pulled off of you (but not forgotten) to see how you play offensively in this game instead of defensively due to a barrage of attacks. However, I think at this point, that's beyond the decision of one person so I don't know how others are going to react to your post, although some of the comments about it have ranged from positive to negative.
Because Shark was backed into a corner by multiple other people and I wanted to pursue Axelrod further. The post was simple pointing out another reason for the people pursuing Shark to consider. However, why do I need to continue to apply pressure when other people already are and there are other avenues I'm far more interested in exploring?
But it is one thing to say I think you are scum because of X which is scummy and another to say I think you are scum because of X which isn't scummy and in fact doesn't correlate to alignment yet still try to push it as if it does.
Town build cases and prod with what is given. They might overstate things, but they do this within the mindset of overevaluating the worth of something or because of tunneling. Scum like to build cases out of mudslinging, attacking things which are neutral, and trying to turn nothing into something. They are also made with less conviction and are easily influenced by other players.
When you read that post you get a clear mindset from it. The FoS is just cake, which is proven to be used mostly by scum, especially from people who aren't noobs. It's all mindsets, but both Tan's attack and the FoS and FoS use in general come from a scum mindset.
Two reasons:
1) You don't have a limited amount of pressure you can apply. There's nothing wrong with pressuring two people (particularly since, as you've established, pressuring doesn't require voting), and
2) If you're a townie, usually you don't lose interest in pursuing people you think are scum. Whereas scum have an incentive to step away once the wagon they've incited on a townie has caught on.
Experiments Series: #5 (Courtly Intrigue Mafia) | #4 (Drunken Tracker) | #3 (Big Red Button) - coming soon | #2 (Pope Mafia) | #1 (Iso's Inflammable Mafia)
Mini Games: MTGS Mafia Redux II (Invitational, Evil Mirror Universe) | Unreal City
Old Games (bad): The Greenwood Affair | Blood Moon Mafia
I suppose I'm not seeing a sizable difference here between overstating and turning nothing into something. Since it's now become clear that Axelrod was in fact trying to accomplish something secondary with his flavor conversation, there was actually substance there for Tanarin to question. Again, I think he's wrong, but I also see no evidence of your other characteristics in him -- less conviction and being easily influenced -- which would indicate a mindset.
As for the FoS discussion, are we talking actual proven statistical facts that I missed at some point?
Well assuming his story of wanting to unlock his ability is true, (I am not sure, can't read Iso for the life of me,) then a claim makes sense if he feels his role would be very valuable to the town. I did something similar at the start of Amnesia Mafia to unlock my role (In that game asking for everyone to claim their monikers so I could post them in one post.)
Speaking of monikers and locks and stuff like that. I wanna propose something now before we get to any claims that may happen.
If and when we claim, I think it is for the best that colors of locks remain off limits. Same go for real names. The colors are obvious (Mafia 2nd ability,) Names is paranoia on my part. Until we know the names are going to be safe to claim, we should assume claiming them will result in bad stuff happening. I will be taking this route if I need to claim.
OK, I am gonna ask you, deconstruct the post then. What sentences feel unnatural. Don't give me a line by line, but do tell me what is off in his stream of thought in more detail than these vague statements.
@Guardman: I am not liking your last post. Not so much for the reasons you give, as you are entitled to them, but for the fact that you feel so stressed into trying to push them when there seems to be two active wagons on both Shark and Axelrod. Screams of either tunnelvisioned town or scum trying to distract the town. As to which it is, I dunno yet. I do want to hear your views on those wagons before deciding anything.
Edit: I see you posted more. Why the hate on FoSes? You are using the line of reasoning that "Only Scum FoS people" and Scum FoS to remain non-committal but the fact is I AM committed. My vote is on Axelrod, and I don't have 2 votes, and at the time I was suspicious of AI. Your whole argument falls over given that info.
@Shark: Yes, I did do some research, since I remember playing in "Stuff I Like Mafia" with you and knew you were not as new as ced was letting on. which leads me to this...
@Eron: Well Post 29 came off to me initially as a pure RVS post. I was going under the assumption from the start of this being a 4 mafia + 1 neutral game. Looking back at it, I am still confused as to the fuss this post raised. The thing that bothers me is the fact that he seems to get overdefensive in his reasoning for making that post the more he is pressed on it. If he had left it at it was just an assumption I made about the setup, I would not have paid any more heed to it.
Aside: Looking back at the whole exchange, I am not liking Ecophagy's vote in post 38. He is taking what at the time was a seemingly joke post and calling it jumpy. Not sure how to take it, but worth noting at this juncture.
Back to the original train of thought, Re-reading today, I did take note of post 103. I never liked people throwing around the term Chainsaw willy nilly, especially without any bodies to go with it. The other thing that bothers me is the fact that as time goes on, he is taking his own seemingly RVS vote more and more as a serious vote. Almost as if he is bending to someone or something. I think dC put it best, he is too self conscious of his position right now, and is trying to bend his post to what he thinks the town wants to hear. If he was really a newb, I would take this as a newb folding under pressure, but given he isn't a newb it is disturbing.
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There is a big difference between overstating and turning something into nothing. Humans are naturally drawn to hyperboles when trying to make a point. This is why its something that towns (and scum sometimes) do when making an argument because of natural inclination. Scum on the other hand are much more concerned with mislynches then scum hunting and because of that they are much more likely to see an anthill and try to turn it into a mountain, even though a mountain doesn't exist. Town don't want to attack people based on nothing, they want something scummy to draw conclusions off of. Scum want just something to attack and cause a mislynch, which is why they are much more likely to try and turn nothing into something.
Also just because Tan was eventually proven right doesn't mean he was right to begin with. A stopped clock is right two times a day.
Every recent game I've been in that has had someone FoS in it has had the FoSer being scum. Just look at Arnaria in Smalltown Animaniacs.
@Tan: I feel it is more prudent to put my time and energy into your wagon then other wagons as I am not that convinced by them. Could they be scum, sure, I see inclinations that could point in that direction. But I am much more sure of you and AI. I spend my energy where I feel it is best spent, and it is best spent proving you and AI are scumbuddies.
As for FoS, yes and no. I've become more and more convinced just in my games that I've seen that town don't FoS even when they have two suspects. They are fine putting pressure only through attacks rather then non-commital psuedovotes. As such I've moved more to the mindset that all FoS are scummy.
Is your FoS as bad as others I've seen. No. Not even close. But when you combine it with your nothing attack I believe it adds additional support to the fact you are scum.
Also thank you for showing another scum tell in by trying to deflect my attacks by saying that I should be focused on the two active wagons instead of scumhunting you.
Mmm. Smell a little blood here? Or are you OMGUSing? It's kind of ridiculous to imply that nobody can veer off 'current wagons', especially considering we're 1 RL day in AND there are much more than 2 people already being discussed. Arnaria being another.
Well, the problem with all of that is that the issue was not, is not, and never was nothing. Using the broken clock metaphor doesn't change that, especially in light of the fact that you have less to go on that early in the game.
So then when you said that people who FoS are pretty much "proven" to be scum, you were massively overstating the actual fact of the matter, which is that you've drawn that conclusion yourself from recent game experience. And let me check my Guardman Mafia ManualTM...
Ah yes, overstating makes you town, right?
It was nothing, but became something. When he was attacking it was nothing. Therefore stopped clock.
I don't believe I am overstating anything. I believe any use of FoSing is scummy. There are varying degrees of how scummy it is from auto-scum to just likely to be scum. His was in the likely to be scum category. I still think it makes him scum, but it doesn't make him auto-scum. Also the experience I have with FoS proves a very high correlation with FoS and being scum.
Touche salesman, I too have an uncle.
The irony in the justification. Especially since its like barely out of RVS?
I feel like there was something about AI vs. GMan that I wanted to address before I left for work but I can't remember what it is now.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
@Asenion
Welcome to Mafia! (This is your first game, right?)
That being said, some actual content would be nice. Sometime soon. For starters - what do you actually think at the moment of Iso, Axelrod, and SharkFinnigan?
@Charm_Master
But the bloody commies were the good guys. (But yes, there's Fahrenheit Mafia, Berserk Mafia, etc., etc. as other examples.)
@Guardman
.......................
FoS: Iso
So there.
More seriously, though - how far do you actually think Tanarin is scum?
@ced395
Mmmh.
....because I don't trust you?
Mmmh. Noted, with reservations.
First off, regarding Shark being a 'newb'...
This. In addition, he's outright invited us to attempt to 'meta' him based on his most recent completed town game, Intrigue Mafia. Which I actually did take a look at, and found myself reading a totally different SharkF - one with obvious clarity of thought and seeming sure of himself, in abject contrast to the almost tentative meandering and waffling he's been engaging in here.
Which brings me to the other part of the above - you're going to have to spell out this 'independent thought' you're seeing from him, because I'm really not seeing it.
That being said....
...I do agree with this, somewhat. I already had reservations about your muted response (interpretable as attempting to derail an incoming wagon) to something that most definitely deserved pressure, but the way Caex latched on to that was arguably worse. Still, I'm not getting a bad feeling from his more recent posts, so SharkF is still scummier to me.
@SilverSihhe
This seems rather defensively minded, doesn't it?
@SharkFinnigan
You're ignoring me. I'm hurt.
The bolded section is so scummy it hurts.
....huh? You... find Arn's push on Axelrod acceptable, but... don't like it.
Does not compute.
...well, many people have jumped on you. Who's the scum?
As I said to ced earlier, I did in fact take a look at Intrigue Mafia, in which you were town. And guess what - your posts in that game read like an entirely different person from you here. A meta defense doesn't really work if it just makes you look worse, you know.
Confirm Vote: SharkFinnigan
@Xyre
Questions:
1. Does this opinion change in the light of the fact that SharkF has played previously on MafiaScum and has more than a few completed games here?
2. Have you read Intrigue Mafia (or at least scanned SharkF's posts there) and what is your opinion now if you have?
@Iso
Exhibit A: Your colour lock claim proposal, which was because you allegedly had not read the rather important mod note on the extra mafia ability in the opening posts.
Exhibit B: The text of yours that I quoted, in which you incorrectly attribute 'voting someone for being mean to a newer player' to SharkF and use that to attempt to undermine Caex's argument against SharkF.
Any more questions? Because I'd like to ask one right back at you - why exactly were you so quick to ask me why I thought you weren't paying attention?
--------------------------------------
Regarding Axelrod - at the moment I'm not finding the arguments against him terribly convincing; especially Iso's, because I can actually see Arn believing what he's saying. That being said, a question to Axel...
@Axelrod
This is from #92, in reply to Iso's bolded proposal for a lock colour claim. Can I know why you said no at the time?
Jund Fangirl; Few things can describe the bliss of the fangirl's cries fading to silence (broken by occasional munching sounds).
Grixis Emo; 'Why should I go out there? They're all uncaring zombies! *sniff* No one understands me...'
Bant Wageslave; Behind every successful knight is a corporate drudge doing his taxwork.
Naya Overenthusiast; Because there is such a thing as too much enthusiasm.
I didn't know I had anything to respond to in your first post. I fail to see any questions directly towards me.
I will say this,
I don't know WTF I was saying here. It doesn't make any grammatical sense at all. But, I believe what I meant to say is that I agree the push is fine, but I was not going to pursue that avenue atm.
On your comment on who's scum on the wagon. I looked at each of the vote posts, and the most out of place vote would be Ecophagy's, because of the fact it was still RVS when I posted, his jumpy reason felt a bit odd. I still need to look into everyone else and see their stance and see which are inconsistent with others.
—Lazav
_______________________________________________
Mafia Stats
Summary:
Total Win %: 40%
Total Scum Win %: 60%
Total Town Win %: 20%
Total Neutral Win %: 0%
To delve into your motives for asking, of course.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I don't really have a meta to point you at, but that's how I am as a player. I'm pretty much stuck with the consequences of that until games finish and I can point at my sig and say "hey, look. This is how I am." Until then you just have to take my word for it =(
No, it wasn't meant as a fluff post. I came to no conclusion because I can't know for certain that Zinda took Cehenna in his flavor from the concept of / name of "Gehenna." I think it's certainly a fair assumption, and I, personally, would operate under the presumption that Cehenna, as an ability, does not equal good things happening.
Sure: 114
If I missed anyone else's questions or comments directed at me, I apologize. Just direct me at them again, and I'll get to them asap.
For now, my thoughts on the salient points of the last few pages:
Iso: From other games I've read, Iso appears to be being Iso. I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that, while I don't like the idea of the color claim [at least at this juncture], I have liked his posts so far. From a relative newcomer's perspective, it seems like Iso draws a lot of fire just for being in a game and being notoriously hard to read (if I am to believe what people say about him, anyway).
Shark: The biggest problem with Shark is not what he's saying, I feel, it's how he's saying it -- a problem shared by Axel. As has been pointed out, Shark is saying things / acting like a new player, but this runs contrary to his actual experience level. It could be a gambit of some variety, I suppose, but his posts read as genuine. It's all very confusing to me.
Axel: This I like less than Shark, and is less confusing. I'll try to have a more elaborate post up by the end of the specifically on Axel, backing up my vote.
GMan vs AI: I feel like this belongs in the Theory thread as opposed to in a game. My eyes may have glazed over a bit, despite being interesting. At this point I'm inclined to see their wrangling as two townies who have different ways of playing the game.
Arnnaria: Has had some very good points throughout this game so far, and a lot of what he's said has seemed to fall on deaf ears ... although I might be just lost in the recent sea of Guardman vs AI.
Also, while on the subject: @Arnnaria: can you elaborate on why you feel pressure needs to be taken off Axel? It seems to me that there hasn't been enough dedicated pressure on him in the first place, given that people have been going after Shark most of the game, for good or ill.
I don't mind that it's being fallen on deaf ears. I'm kinda used to it, actually. I've made my points and they are on the record in case anyone wants to look them up.
Axel has been playing defensively for the entire game. He hasn't had time to scumhunt at all. I'm going to take it with a grain of salt that Axel "knows better than that", but I'm waiting for his response to my post on his. If Axel switched into an offensive mode and rooted out some good points for who is scum, I think he would gain credibility. Instead, he's slowly circling the drain. He needs to step up and provide a reasonable explanation as to who is on his scum list.
#44- I remember thinking the same thing about Axelrod's post. I didn't particularly think it was worth mentioning, but Arnnaria pointing it out is fine with me.
#45- Maybe a little aggressive here for something that was probably a mistake.
#50- Continues poking at Axelrod. Nothing wrong here.
#65- Watch out Arnn, ced is going to start suspecting you for riding Xyre's coattails!
#85- States his intention to continue to persue Axelrod. I'm all for applying pressure until something interesting happens, so :thumbsup:.
#89- Nothing really of note here, but at least shows he's paying attention to the rules. Moreso than in Intrigue, so that's a positive.
#110- This post is strange to me. He goes into some detail about why he didn't like Axelrod's posts, which I'm not opposed to. But then he says it was probably a RVS vote so he'll drop it, but he's still watching Axelrod... Seems like he's looking for an excuse to back off from Axelrod in case people don't like the case against him. Still, that's only one point against Arnnaria, compared to all the other stuff I like.
#111- This is fine, I think, though I'm not sure why he felt the need to add it. I thought he explained himself well in 110.
#138- Finally comments on the Shark wagon, and spots something I'd missed (the votecount request). I disagree with Xyre about this post being bad.
#151- This post doesn't sit well with me. He'd just previously said he was attributing Axelrod's post he didn't like to the RVS, and in post 110 he implied he was going to back off from Axelrod a bit. But then Arnnaria says that since other people had started agreeing with him about it, he was going to keep going and votes. This seems like he's trying to deflect Xyre's attention of his Shark vote by drawing more attention back to Axelrod with a vote.
#177- Responds to Axelrod's great big post. Mostly reasonable, except for the last part. He wants the pressure pulled from Axelrod? After spending the whole game going after him? His explaination is reasonable, but it could be argued he's trying to jump ship. Though I can't imagine he'd actually say it out loud as scum. I'm of two minds on this post, so let's just move on.
#178- This post is alright with me. Other people were pressuring Shark and he was more interested in going after Axelrod at the moment. It's more or less the same reason I was focusing on Shark and simply watching the Axelrod thing.
The few posts of his I didn't like aside, I'm definitely leaning town for Arnnaria.
{Magic: The RPG}
Well that's just stupid.
(sorry, I don't mean to offend, but really, that's just silly)
?
It really doesn't.
I was curious whether others might have had the same reaction. I surmised that people who did would be members of the Town. I also anticipated that many wouldn't have read it all or understood it (at least understood it the same way I understood it). That's (1) not a contradiction and (2) still potentially useful, as people who don't know what I'm talking about go back and re-read it, then comment on it.
This is really an issue for you?
Well, rusty might not be quite the right word. In general, when I have time to devote to a game I think I'm pretty good. There was a time 5+ years ago, mind you, when I could play in 6 games at the same time and be productive in all of them. I posted a lot. In recent times, not so much. If you were to look back over just the last 2 year even, you'd see a lot of complaints about me kind of sleepwalking through games.
I'm going to get busy again eventually, but what I'm saying is that, at this moment, I have time, which is nice.
Calling it "role-playing" may have been overstating it a bit, but he did use the personalization "I" understand this, "I" am that, etc. Which stuck out as unusual. Because it wasn't the response I would have expected from a Townie, and I wanted to feel out if he was actually saying this was coming from his "role" or not, as opposed to just what we were told in the opening posts.
Well, because it was a ridiculously bad proposal. Which had already been pointed out, so there wasn't any need to really make a serious argument against it.
If you are asking why I phrased it as a "?" instead of just saying "No." It was an attempt at humor (again, because the idea was so laughably bad given the Mafia ability we had been told about). You have to imagine a certain tone of voice, I guess.
If you are asking why I mentioned it when Iso had just made his post acknowledging his mistake, I am virtually certain I was typing my post up at the same time as Iso was making his post, and then I just didn't bother to change anything. It became a point of suspicion against Iso, just because in general I tend to think he's more intelligent than to completely miss something like that.
Well, I can give very general impressions about where people are leaning for me atm, but I tend not to do hard scum/not scum very early in the game. It's another pet peeve of mine actually when other people do that.
At the risk of being accused of "diverting attention" away from myself, however, I will make a list or something.
Click Here
I also had to replace out due to medical reasons in Gotham, Intrigue, and one other which I'm forgetting at the moment. I was waiting a couple months until I was all healed up from my surgery to get into a mafia game.
#79- Obviously this post implies he hasn't read the rules thoroughly. I'll get to this when I'm analyzing an upcoming post. I don't see how my post was an unnatural "me too" post, but then I guess I wouldn't. I've responded to Iso several times, so you can look it up if you want.
#84- I respond to this in post #87, so go there if you want to follow up on this post.
#91- This is a post people seem to be using to read Iso. I find his "didn't read the rules" at least plausible. He had a similar problem in Intrigue. He had to have the rules of the game explained and pointed out to him several times. As for the part Iso addressed at me: Didn't I mislynch you in Intrigue? I respond to this in post #101.
#93- Follows up on Axelrod. Nothing wrong here.
#95- Interestingly, Axelrod in the previous post more or less refuses to answer Iso's question. He disguises it with a joke, sure, but he still doesn't do it. And Iso responds by... letting it go with a rolleyes smiley. I don't like this post.
#97- Oh look, Iso is spamming. Sigh.
#105- Stop that.
#108- Tries to compare this game to Seasons. I don't think that's a comparable situation, because they're different games with different mechanics. He seems to imply that color locks matter in regards to other abilities, which I know to be true. But the scum could also benefit from this with the Mow Down ability. This post is pretty much a wash when it comes to reads for me.
#141+142- Yeah I don't know what SilverSihhe was talking about here. It's it pretty standard to speculate about number of scum?
#143- Big post. I'll respond to the things that stood out for me. The first thing I noticed is that he calls out Shark for saying "Meta me". Then, a few quotes down, he implies that Shark should go read some of his other games. Is that not self-meta as well? Pushes Asenion to contribute, which I liked. Being a newb doesn't excuse you from not helping. Starts looking harder at Shark, which is just dandy. Starts putting more pressure on Axelrod. I'm undecided on Axelrod atm, because I really haven't been reading his posts in detail. Once I reread him I'll have more of an idea of how I feel about Iso's push.
#154- I don't know about the first line, but I think he's right about the bottom one. There's really no way to know if he's being honest or not here. From past experience, I'm inclined to believe he just didn't read it.
#156- Prods Asenion to start contributing. Nothing wrong here.
#158- I dislike this one. He doesn't even explain how Axelrod is "crumbling". Just tries to smear him without reason.
#161- Same here. Gives a vague reason for his vote on Axelrod, doesn't go into detail about how Axelrod repeats himself.
#166- Three in a row. Implies that actually thinking about your posts is a bad thing for some reason.
#171- I don't understand why having a post that looks well thought-out is a bad thing?
#172- Once again, Iso is vague in his response to AI. I'm not liking Iso atm.
#187- In post #182, Tanarin directly cuts through Iso's vague responses and asks him to explain in detail, so that's some town points for Tanarin. Iso's response is... vague. Basically he says that he can't explain it in detail because of something or another. Not much content, plus evades having to give actual details.
#190- I see nothing wrong with asking more questions.
I generally have a tough time figuring out Iso. But there's such a volume of things I dislike here when compared to positive things that I'm finding him easier to read this time around. He's certainly in my scummy pile.
{Magic: The RPG}
He was dismissing his overly "Hey I'm town!" attitude by saying that scum wouldn't be able to fake his reaction (which they simply could), and therefore everyone having the same reaction as him would instantly be a townie (again, the "Hey I'm town!") attitude. For me, his assumptions are null.
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9981
#71- Makes some sense about the neutral. Then nothing of note.
#74- Calls out Iso for the obvious reason why not to mass claim lock colors.
#86- Dunno wtf is going on with this post. When he points out the Mow Down, it shows he's read the thread. Then he goes and ruins it by saying that Zinda could have given the scum an ability, when zinda specifically said the scum were randomized from among all roles.
#90- This post is good. I agree with most everything said here.
#96- The first part is fluff. The second part disagrees with what he said previously about not following me and ced.
#99+100- 99 is alright, I think. Threatens Axelrod with a vote (which is just terrifying) and says his comments were supposed to be directed at Shark. 100 rubs me the wrong way a little. In what way is Iso claiming to have not read the thread comparable to kpaca claiming cop and bussing Void? It's comparing apples and hand grenades. A healthy dose of suspicion is never a bad thing though.
#106-
#125- His responses to Shark are pretty solid here.
#128- I expressed the same opinion, so town points for KosaSquared.
#144- Yep, can see nothing wrong with this. DoubleKosa is slowly revealing himself to be more experienced than he first claimed.
#145- This is also fine, because I thought the same thing when Xyre voted. Xyre's explaination is pretty well thought-out, but questioning him when there was only the vote is a positive thing to do.
#148- Obvious gimmick is obvious? Probably lies about his experience, then tries to say "Don't meta me". Possibly setting himself up for when his real identity is revealed. Trying to hide something, perhaps?
#159- Oh hai DRey. Pretty vague about why Axelrod's post seems made up.
#163- I have no opinion on this atm. Once I've reread more players I'll probably be able to judge this more fairly.
#173- I don't really see the contradiction thing. He might be tunneling Axelrod some, here. This post is hard for me to pin down. The vote lines up with his previous opinion on Axelrod, but he seems to be stretching a bit with the "blatantly scum" remark.
Kosa² is in my "leaning town" section right now. There have been a few of his posts that have made me but his overall content is making up for it and pushing him toward the town side of things.
{Magic: The RPG}
Clarifying doubts:
#53 and #56 was meant to be a joke, but my phone screwed the coherence of the post -__-
#86: #90 is what I meant to say in #86, but over the course of the game I'm more inclined to consider that Mow Down purpose in the game is to be more of a "sideboard" as in: 1- A build-in game prevention of exactly what Iso had proposed and 2-A way to make scum stronger via the balancing "hidden skills" mentioned in OP in case they had crappy ones after role randomization. Of course, this is just speculation, so I still would rather have we keep our locks' colors for ourselves
#148: I will say it again just to rest any doubts about it: This is indeed my very first online Mafia game. I am no proxy of anyone on this forum, nor I have played online anywhere else. I do have played my fair share of IRL games though, so I know how the argumentation part works.
I have, however, done my homework. Read nice bits of Seasons, mainly to understand how advanced the setup would be and what kind of pro-plays I should be expecting. I've also read the Mafia Subforum posts and went onto mafiawiki to learn about more uncommon roles and especially the game abbreviations.
I tried to avoid disclosing this because I have seen people overly interested in judging based on the meta, and the "newcomer meta" is just terrible because people can tend to avoid paying the rightful attention to your points, since they consider that you don't know what you are saying. But as people in general are correctly valuing my points the by way I meant them to be, I think it's all cool now.
Outside that, your points on Arn and Iso are more or less the same as mine.
This is simply so blatantly untrue it makes me wonder if you are reading the same thread as me.
I said in literally the same post you are referring to that it would be possible for scum to "fake" the reaction I was looking for. Like, right there.
Hey, look:
At zero point did I say I would consider anyone claiming the reaction I was looking for "instantly" to be town. I said:
Which was immediately followed by the quote above. Maybe it was the "by definition" that confused you? If I said people genuinely having similar reaction would "by definition" be town, would that make it clearer? I am not/was not ever suggesting that anyone who just said they felt the same way would be town.
Because that would be dumb.
You are simply making stuff up.
I have to say that Caex is getting major points for what he's doing in his reviews It's the best scum-hunting effort put forth by anyone so far this game, it's coming across as sincere, and it's just hard to do something like that as scum. Especially early on when you could just lie low with no pressure on you.
Bold part: probably not, because I can't see how hard it is for scum to effectively fake such an easy reaction, so I can't see how you would know if they just said it or really felt it. For instance, AI was the only player eager to discuss the flavor with you (at #58) after your "secondary purpose post", so what does your judgement call read about him?
Although I agree with your opinion about Caex, doing that means nothing about his allegiance. Experienced scum would present PBPA about some townies proving how so townies they look like, but demonize others after gaining the town's trust. Actually, doing that on D1 is much more easier for the mafia, as no one have their minds set about players yet, so it's easier to change opinions by creating thorns where there are none.
Considering that he was the most prolific player while leading up the first pressures against Shark, if by any chance we lynch Shark and he flips town, my scumradar reading on Caex would get over 9k.
Can you acknowledge that or not?
Regardless, welcome to the game =)
Now, for Axel:
28: First talks about the flavor, stating how he wants to be a freedom fight instead of a brainwashed prisoner. This feels very light-hearted and personal to me. Let's be honest, I think that most of us feel the same way. Speaking personally, I would also much rather be a freedom fighter than not, because I hold freedom highly in my core personal beliefs. I don't see anything wrong with this post at this point.
42: There is where I start to have a problem. Axel does two things here that I don't like: he re-votes Ecophagy after RVS voting him, seemingly forgetting that he already had placed a vote. And then there's the fact that this vote happens to be on the same person he voted during RVS, -and- it's in direct response to something that I think Eco was baiting with. It's pretty obvious that Eco isn't going to refer to himself as scum if he were scum. If it's obvious what Eco meant, why bite in the first place?
The other thing that I don't like is that he continues to press on the flavor issue. One begrudging post about the flavor is fine. Two sends up warning bells. If I wanted to stretch, I could note that it reads as if he knows more than everyone else via his comment about liking the story that Zinda is telling... at this point, we've barely seen any story outside of Zinda's OP. That feels like a stretch me, though, so I'm just going to note that the possibility exists and then throw it out as evidence. If something happens later to bring it back to the table, then that's fine.
47: Here we get a very snippy response to Arnnaria. Although I find the content here fine, I don't like the tone of the post. It's a very coy reply, as though he already knows the answers and is just toying with his questioner. That may be a play-style difference from how I tend to answer questions (which would grate on me), or it may be that he's just overreacting, which is almost always a scumtell when dealing with an experienced player. I have also noticed that the danger of overreaction is much higher in experienced players when dealing with stupid questions, because they tend to get over-involved mentally with the attitude of "this is too stupid of a question to actually out me." Just my observations.
52: This reads to me as a contrite response to his 47, as if he realizes that he overreacted and is trying to bring it back to a calm, normative level. At the same time, he's handwaving his earlier attack on the flavor, dismissing it via "I like a good story, though." Scum points here.
92: This is a hard one to read, because it's full of that tongue-and-cheek that I highlighted via Iso a few posts back. You have a massive sarcasm attack at the start, followed by a snooty response with a lack of reasoning, followed by a little modgaming. Of it, the only piece that reads as at all townie is the final piece, discussing how many scum are present. Apparently I'm like the only person who avoids speculating on the number of scum on Day 1...but that aside, he does read well through this piece.
His sarcasm burst at the beginning, then, seems designed to attack the credibility of those who had been attacking him, by mocking them through sarcasm. This seems a rather scummy play to me, considering that he could have just as easily responded with a calm, rational reply. This supports my feeling of 47 & 52: at best, Axel is telegraphing instability. The question is what he would be hiding under that bravado, and the answer is obvious.
As far as his "lol no" reply to Iso, I don't have anything more to say here, really. It has the same tonal problem that I've had with all of his posts that I've pointed out up until now, and some reasoning would have been nice.
114: Then we have this gem. Shark's wagon had been building at this point, and this post reads like a blatant attempt to redirect the focus from himself onto Shark -- while simultaneously attacking the credibility of those attacking him yet again, by noting that they're "taking the game too seriously." He also goes back and attacks Eco's "I understand that I am a danger to society" line again, just before hopping on Shark's wagon himself. +scum.
126 Belaboring his sense of humor yet again. I really don't mean to be a fun-nazi, but explaining away all of these slips via humor seems really weak to me.
Then there's this:
Eco's "character" was talking from the perspective of a town-aligned prisoner. Did you just get this confused, too? All Axel is doing is pointing out that Eco's role-play is from a town-mindset, in stark contrast to how he's trying to twist it. Oh, and apparently the whole roleplay discussion was a trap.
...And then we divert back on to Shark again in the last paragraph of the post.
157: Axel's defense post, after needling Iso quickly.
I actually buy his line about the fallacy of being "too defensive." This, it seems to me, comes straight from Axel-the-person, not Axel-the-player, and I actually agree with it, for what that's worth. I also don't see this as crumbling, unlike Iso. I do feel that it's a little...involved, let's see, for a fairly simple post with a fairly straightforward (two such) goal(s). But I'm willing to accept that that's just how someone who's experienced at Mafia thinks and that I'm not there yet.
Things I don't like about this post: again, Eco's role-played statement came from a Town perspective. I certainly agree that it read really awkwardly, but I think that's a natural reaction to "suddenly roleplay," more than anything else. I also think that Axel is stretching in his assumption of why Eco said what he did:
This in particular is a huge leap. I can look at my role-pm and pretty easily extrapolate how my "character" would feel about things. Zinda gives enough information through the dossier approach that it's fairly self-evident what kind of a person your role is. If we -wanted- to RP, it would be pretty easy, I think. Note: let's please not, because I don't like RPing -.-
Overall, however, I will admit that I like this post. It was rambly in a good way, and I am willing to accept that most of the leaps therein are just me seeing phantoms where there isn't anything to be seen. However, I also don't believe that one good post trumps a slew of bad ones.
164: I actually missed this post when I was catching up with the activity from overnight. The meat and potatoes of his post is his response to my initial accusation of redirect the attention back on to Shark, by way of Kosa. And I think my response to him would be: timing. His post and its message came at a perfect time to redirect attention back towards Shark, and indeed, I think (not 100%) that Arnnaria and myself were the only two people who kept on Axel at that juncture, while everyone else hopped on Shark. I may be mistaken in that, but I don't think I'm missing anyone. It's fine to raise issues with other players, especially if you're noticing something scummy about them, but I feel that it's important to keep track of the timing of when you point out such things. The way Axel points out his problems with Shark, at that particular moment in time, makes him look rather poor, despite it not being an inherently "wrong" thing to do.
Reading back over that, I'm not sure I got my point across well enough. I've also been at this for a while. If it doesn't make sense to you (whoever reads this), just let me know and I'll try to restate it.
Note: Axel raises a good defense vs Iso's points in 168. I'm not going to bother linking it or say much about it, but I wanted to point it out in the interests of fairness. I also don't particularly like Iso's offense against Axel so far, and I feel that his points have been fairly weak with regards to Axel. But Axel mount a solid defense here.
194: Axel's last big post.
I'm inclined to agree with his initial line. Seriously, Iso?
Axel's reply to Kosa is okay until the last line, whereupon we get more derision. Why the attitude =/
I'm just going to point this out, and then feel like a dick for doing so: Axel sets up a a future excuse for poor posts by virtue of a warning that he will probably get busy again at some point. I really, really hate using warnings of RL as a reason for anything, and as a result I'm throwing this out of my case. I still felt compelled to point it out, because it does read as somewhat scummy of a reply to Arnnaria, but I refuse to use it going forward.
Finally, dC asks Axel about his "lol no" reply sans reasoning to Iso's mass color claim idea. Axel provides a "humor" excuse, with another hint of derision, and then gives Iso a backhanded compliment to top it off.
To summarize, then:
We've got a whole ton of humor excuses and hand-waving, some content that's good and some that's bad (as normal for basically anyone), some good defenses provided against weak attacks, and some highly suspicious timing.
I eagerly await Axel's response.
To clarify my "role playing" post: I was posting a flavourful justification from my point of view, that meshes (and somewhat regurgitates) elements of Zindabad's OP. While my dossier is similarly impersonal, it's descriptive enough that I can get a handle on my character's possible motivations. I didn't have any particular reason for posting it in first person, I just did.
I was also mulling over dropping a breadcrumb in, which I would have done in first person. As a result, I was just sort of in that character mindset. I'm glad I didn't though, with all the attention the post has received.
It's much more likely to be a scum reaction to pressure, especially since SF isn't the noob you think he is. Mafia isn't a game of absolutes.
32 and 36 are really hardly worth mentioning. I'm not even going to link them because they're more or less just RVS idle speculation.
#42- I read this as mostly joking. But he once again seems to go out of his way to say "I'm a townie, yo!"
#47- The tone here, to me, reads as mildly surprised that someone was questioning him about those posts. I'd mark this post as genuine.
#52- Hm. I tend to agree with this when I think about it. If I'm being honest, I wasn't really reading too heavily into the Axelrod v. Arnnaria thing. I was pretty focused on Shark. After reading the post that kicked all this off, I don't think the "anger" in the post is what Arnnaria should have been focusing on. "Anger" didn't even really register when I saw Axelrod's post.
#92- He says "sarcasm aside" here, and says Ecophagy is scum, but then just moves on. See next linked post for more about this. Other than that, says no to Iso's mass claim thing, so that's good.
#94- As I said in my Iso post, Axelrod basically just refuses to answer when Iso asks him about why Ecophagy is scum, deflecting with a joke. I dislike this quite a bit.
#114- And his big reveal for Scumcophagy is... That he used the word "I". Anticlimactic. Says "what's up with that", when I read the Ecophagy thing as really more light-hearted banter than an actual serious thing. But I'm all for questioning Shark, and his questions are good ones.
#119- Explains himself in regards to the last post. I can accept that, I guess. I think he's arguing over semantics here, but it's not like it's ringing any scumbells for me.
#126- He explains himself in more detail here. This post makes me feel quite a bit better about Axelrod's focus on Ecophagy's word choice. Spots Shark not answering his questions and pushes him on it. Obviously that's something I like.
#157- Now here's a post with some useful information. My very first thought when I saw this was "Well that's a bit of an overreaction". But I hadn't really been paying a lot of attention to Axelrod. With the context of the previous quotes, I think I can see where Axelrod is coming from now. He seems exasperated at the amount of attention he's recieving up to this point. I read this as pretty positive, if annoyed at having to explain himself in such absurd detail.
#164- Axelrod is looking pretty confident here. He directly challenges Iso to point out where he's seeing the self-consciousness in 157.
#168- This post is something I'm having trouble getting a handle on. I would have sworn 157 was a stream-of-consciousness post, but he's claiming it's not? Still, he brings up good points against Iso. I also tend to look over my posts once I've written them out to see if they say what I wanted them to say. That should be neither a townie nor scummy thing to do.
#194- He seems to be getting annoyed at Kosakosa here, imo. After his mostly calm and reasoned responses to everyone else, this is kind of a deviation in tone, but obviously just a tiny drop in the bucket. Responds again to Arnnaria in a calm sort of way. He's mostly just rehashing what's already been said here, so moving right along.
#195- Says he'll get a town/scum list up. Haven't seen it yet.
#204- I like this post, and not just because he's giving me points. He calls out KosaDitto for KosaTwice's post, and jumps right on the blatant untruth in it.
Axelrod is in my "probable town" section at the moment. Aside from the "I'm so town, guys. Srsly." comments at the start of the game I've seen really nothing awful with him up to now.
{Magic: The RPG}
These are my thoughts on FoS-ing. I don't recall ever using it myself (maybe in my first game, I don't remember), but I don't think it is strictly a scum tell. It would certainly have to be coupled with other behaviors or tells.
So at this time you believe Axel to be scum. Is there anything besides the "I'm town" that you can point to?
So asking people what they preferred to be called is a scum hunting technique for you? What does that tell you about people that you have played with before? I would think by now you know I'm a guy so I don't respond. What does that tell you?
Why does this feel like you are trying to bail out Axel?
I don't understand. In my readings of Mafia history it says that the FoS has just fallen out of favor (I think that was on MS or something). I just don't get why the FoS by Tan is such a big deal in this case. He pointed out statements from 2 people, felt one was scummier than the other, and FoS the second.
Would an IGMEOY be any different here?
I'm not a fan of you preemptively setting up a defense on why you won't full claim if need be. You're reasoning also seems shaky. It sounds like you are concerned about a hit man type of character. Is that correct?
I agree with this as stated above. I just don't get the FoS hate.
So you:
1. Thought it was an RVS post.
2. Feel that he was over defensive (of an RVS post)
3. Now know that he didn't mean it as an RVS post.
This feels like you are going back and forth on Shark, but you use it to cast suspicion on Ecophagy in this next bit:
You have several reasons why you don't like Shark here. You claim above that you're vote is on Axel for x,y and z reasons and you also cast suspicion on Eco and AI in this post. I really feel like you are just trying to get something to stick here. Vote Tanarin
I'll be interested in what you come up with here.
I still fail to see the point. If that ability is activated the neutral wins. Sure that does not equal good things happening, but I think that is pretty self explanatory. That = Fluff to me.
I don't know that i see that as deflecting, personally. It feels like he was just responding to other concerns.
What is a situation where you would support a color claim?
I feel pretty confident (without researching b/c I don't have time) that Guard has used this argument as town. I'm not sure if he has as scum. Regarding AI's stance, I fall on his side. I don't think it's that big of a deal.
I need to see more from Arnn before forming an opinion.
Re: the bolded - that seems like what you are doing here by making that backhanded statement about Caex. Axel just stated that he liked what he had done so far and you are trying to cast it in a negative light.
Just jump in. Comment on whatever peaks your interest.