Himelander Mafia Thread (Over! Scum Win!)

[Kefit]

EBWOP: It seems that my frantic attempt to fix gender pronouns in section II of my post above failed to change all of the necessary pronouns. This has had the unfortunate effect of casting UK as a hermaphrodite. I apologize for this mistake, and will now correct it to ensure that no one misreads a particular sentence as possibly referring to two distinct people:

II. I hold a mild belief that UK is scum.

I don't have much to say here beyond the fact that I agree with Alex's general analysis. However, I'll add that at one point UK attacked the value of my economically reasonable day one post. Seems to me like he was just seeing if she could attack the quality of the post due to the fact that it did not arrive at the correct result for the situation we were in, rather than attacking the course of reasoning applied within it. Not a big deal, really, but hey, every seed of doubt that a scum can fabricate via a fallacious yet facially appealing argument has the potential of paying off big down the line.

The third sentence here should read: "Seems to me like UK was just seeing if she could attack the quality of the post due to the fact that it did not arrive at the correct result for the situation we were in, rather than attacking the course of reasoning applied within it."

[?lice Bl?ckb?rn]

Bleh, miss a day due to a random irritating illness and you're playing catch-up for the next little while, <grumble>. Anyway, let's see what's going on:

I honestly do not know what to make of Chaore anymore. He's been playing terribly and illogically, not to mention suicidally. As I've said before (on D1, re: Pesco), it doesn't make sense for Scum to be suicidal. Honestly, part of me just wants him dead, but I think we have far better targets today to consider.

UK just pisses me off, between "oh hey could someone please summarize the game for me" back on Page 9 followed by "if you can't read my walls of text then deal with it, they're pretty coherent (um, no) and the tl;dr at least half explains for those who are too lazy to play mafia (i.e. you, apparently)". But enough with the personal attacks, despite the fact that it is getting extremely grating to read through several pages of back-and-forth chatter between you and Bard that simply seems like a repetition of "You're Scum!" "No, I'm Town!" back and forth and back and forth and christ. At the moment, still unreadable, though honestly a Bard flip would do a lot to determine her alignment considering she seems to be paying lip-service to accusing him despite the back-and-forth arguments with him.

Bard...can you please actually Scumhunt? 95% of your posts since D1 have been affirmations of your own Townieness, without any Scumhunting whatsoever, really. Who do you think is Scum right now, and why?

Hum, interesting, regarding Cid's latest roleclaim. So, in theory, modulo framers, we do have a way to pick up Confirmed Townies(TM) in this game? Despite seeming a bit too convenient, this at least finally makes Cid's previous actions D2/D3/etc make sense... Hm. Not sure what to make of this. Hm.

Anyway, since time is running out, I'd suggest Someone Townielike vs. Chaore. I was going to suggest El Cid or Kiro, but I'm not sure about the first due to roleclaim, and the latter could do with a reappearance right about now (again, yes, I know I'm being hypocritical). Hm, actually, Chaore might not be the best idea. He's playing stupidly, and weirdly, but completely in the opposite way one would expect Scum to play in this game (i.e. suicidal behaviour, etc), which actually makes me suspect him less.

Honestly, I'm still not sure what to make of his little mistake near the beginning of this day with the Ciato/Cideon slip-up. As Scum, you'd think he wouldn't confuse the two. Then again, as Scum, Ciato's death would be on his mind as of the end of D3/beginning of D4, so...yeah.

I am actually not against a Someone Townielike vs. UK match, either. Honestly, so much of UK's content has been chaff that it's near-unreadable, and her parading around the n/5 claim is starting to not only be grating, but suspicious as well. Beyond that, Alex does a pretty good job slamming her, and in general I back that opinion up fully. A lot of my further opinion on this depends on her post in ~6 hours.

Ninja by Kefit: You do bring up an interesting point. The main issues I have with Serp are actually that he's spent too much time trying to break the setup in ways that contradict each other, as you've pointed out. I think he might be a better target than Chaore, but a worse one than UK.

Though Scum vs. Scum is strictly the most optimal matchup for Town, so...yeah. I'll do a reread of Serp and see what I can make of him.

[FinnKaenbyou]

Okay, these endless freaking walls are really starting to get to me. Why the hell does everyone have to write a goddamn essay every post?

Chaore is still talking bullshit, UK is nowhere near as coherent as she thinks she is, Bard needs to do something beyond screaming I'M TOWN GUYS DON'T LYNCH ME PLZ, Cid's roleclaim is sort of bullshit because a framer really isn't enough to counteract a cop but I'm not confident enough to act on that, Serp is still talking total crap:

Scum need at most four more heads to win.  Suppose that two people we consider to be town are actually scum.  If they both claim heads, and they both survive through LyLo, then scum wins.  Is it ever a smart move in vanilla mafia to say "I'm so certain that these two people are town that I'm willing to wager the game on it"?

Stop and think about this for a second. Compare it to the vanilla mafia equivalent, which is 'Suppose that two players who have been acting very Townie are scum'. If you turned around in a game of vanilla mafia and accused the two players who the majority of the Town trusted, would anyone trust you? The only difference is that scum don't get a kill this game and thus we're meant to sit around and sink into the paranoid outset of 'Ooh, maybe the people I think are Town aren't worth trusting!' that you've been promoting.
Secondly, have you considered that (especially given their dwindling numbers) scum will most likely try to AVOID scum/scum duels? Let me reverse the question for you: Are you so confident both players are scum you're willing to risk giving the Mafia a free head?

If no-one else offers anything before deadline, I'm challenging Serp. Maybe UK or Chaore if people can convince me it's worth it.

[El Cideon]

Though Scum vs. Scum is strictly the most optimal matchup for Town, so...yeah. I'll do a reread of Serp and see what I can make of him.

I'm not sure this oft-repeated theory is actually true. I mean, scum fighting each other is obviously to our benefit, but my problem is that the closest we can realistically get to that is scummiest-looking vs. next-scummiest-looking. How this becomes a problem is that there's still a margin for error--there's always a chance that we're wrong about one, in any matchup, and putting two scummy-looking players against each other gives the real scum the opportunity to exploit a mentality of "does it matter which one goes first since they both look scummy?" and a chance to argue people into voting in their favor. This isn't going to happen if we send a popularly-chosen champion against the scummiest-looking player, in which case the outcome of the duel is basically predecided by us. Yes, scum can be hiding in plain sight as well, but I think the possibility of scum bagging a head is likely this way. The more certain we are in advance about who's going to win a duel, the better.

Time for work. Think I'll barely be back before deadline? (~4PM EST).

[Kiro]

Ok, a more full review from #391.

Serp: We HAVE to put our faith that some people are Town. That's what Mafia is all about. You seem to be going against that grain of thought. Yes, the only neutralized scum is one with 0 kills, but having victorious players kill each other off may invariably lead to Scum with 1 kill because someone has to mop up with no opposition. Or we can do it more controlled and "put our faith in some people to be Town" to do the mopping up. Differing circumstances have forced those 3 to be Bardiche, Alex, and Kefit, but until you convince me that one of those 3 are Scum, I have my trust in them and they should not die.

So, my proposed immediate course of action is this:  Next two kills should be between untested combatants.  If both kills are town, then the fight afterwards should be between two of the three loose ends.  Then alternate between a fight of two untested combatants and a fight between tested combatants until a scumflip gives you more information.

The latter part is "trusting some people to be Townie". In that kind of a fight, we may see the greatest debate as we balance the risk of getting someone who already has 1 kill a second kill. And I don't recall Kefit saying his plan was foolproof or whatever, but I didn't agree to it because I thought it was foolproof. I thought it was a good idea as is. We really are at a difference of opinions.

Jam really has no original content from what I can remember. High risk of Scum.

Chaos: I see your confusion in me thinking you might be Town, but that's how I saw it, especially since you framing it as a manner to get Cid to activate his power seems Townie-ish. Well, now that I read #431, your reasoning on doing this to expose a possible ScumCid is reckless as hell. Yet it's only Scummy on your part if Cid is Scum and ScumCid's power is imba in Scum's favor. At this point, you're not a preferred target today.

Cid copclaim. Well, that makes things interesting. Not sure of the chances of it being faked by you as Scum as you probably wouldn't have exposed yourself in Day 3 only to bag ScumCiato's head and have to profess a Town Champ and possibly have yourself killed to prove it making you the 3rd dead Scum. Now that it's out in the open, might as well make it happen. Your result is a piece of information. Advocating Cid v. Serp with Cid as victor.

Rou: Rash challenge? You know what we think of that. Ugh.

[FinnKaenbyou]

Rou: Rash challenge? You know what we think of that. Ugh.

If no-one else offers anything before deadline

I could easily have challenged Serp right there, but I didn't. I'm saying that I'll challenge Serp if we get to deadline.

[UncertainJakutten]

My first inclination is to point out your first three posts WERE fucking terrible and COMPLETELY IIoA, but you know what? Serp vs. UK sounds interesting to me. I need to reread Serp to be sure, but I'll admit that while some of the points his recent posts have made have made sense to me, there's a little bit bugging me about him. Further, after I've caught up I'll reiterate the cases on the three people still living that I named as scum.

At the moment, still unreadable, though honestly a Bard flip would do a lot to determine her alignment considering she seems to be paying lip-service to accusing him despite the back-and-forth arguments with him.

Well, I did say he was my weakest suspect.

I'll be honest, this game is pissing me off. I feel like my namesake (real name, not my screenname), but I realize I've contributed to that with my playstyle.

Honestly, I'd somewhat WELCOME dying just so I could leave the game, ask Carth if I was right, and not have to deal with this bullshit anymore.

However, I can't really give up right here, so, I'll post those three cases, eventually reread Serp, and hope for the best.

[Ranmilia]

Hi UK, please post your cases, and then challenge Serp or Chaore.  This sounds good.

Yeah I thought Cid would say something like that.  The odd part is that I do think Cid is probably town and telling the truth... but probably isn't good enough and the risk/reward seems not worth it.  We'd need to get him a head for every use, then kill Cid himself to be able to trust his results if he doesn't hit scum, and there's still the risk of inaccurate results or other scum interference (personally I think a scum roleblocker equivalent or role-charge-sapper or such is considerably more likely than a framer but whatever).... If Cid is scum it's free heads for them and if Cid is town we also have to spend townies to make any actual use of his power and still don't get that much.  So.  If we weren't already two scum up I might say differently but I think in this situation it's just not worth it.

Rou why would you offer to challenge before deadline.  Don't do that.  There's growing agreement on UK/Serp or possibly UK/Chao, if none of these three step up before deadline then they'll be in trouble on later days.  A random pairing if they fail to do so is much preferable to someone who is possibly scum stepping up and saying "Oh I'll challenge and kill this generally disliked person if we don't get anything else by deadline."  Do you realize how scummy this is.  The quantity of scummy is very.

[UncertainJakutten]

Bard: Lots of fluff, minimal scumhunting. He adds very little to the game with his first few posts, and his nitpick fight with me didn't add much either. That's basically it. He's been posting a fair bit, but not bringing anything to the table. Alice put it best about the 95% fluff thing.

Kiro:

* UncertainKitten sighs

Originally there was some scathing statement here about how retarded you all were for thinking Kiro's town. But after his initial posts, he seems to get a lot better and a lot more stancey. I can follow him more, and he's dropped most of the set up speculation. Honestly, this is a dead end for the time being. I'll keep reading him in case my mind changes.

But before I completely drop the case:

does this post bug anyone? At first I thought it was good but now it feels...odd. Like, there's a pretense of giving opinions without actually giving them. Please, someone comment on this.

and this post seems to ignore a lot of people, but who it does focus on...I guess is reasonable.

Alright, fine, my case on Kiro is reduced to "Your first few posts weren't very scumhunty, and that one post I linked feels off." I'll still push it but I'm far less convinced than I was.

Chaos: is easy. He has not posted any real scumhunting, what opinions he does post tend to be fluffy as hell and full of waffles. He does seem unable to string together a coherant thought with any less than 5 posts. And overall he seems to be a follower. The suicidal thing is the only pro town thing he's done.

Cut:

Hi UK, please post your cases, and then challenge Serp or Chaore.  This sounds good.

When was this decided on? As an aside, I will gladly challenge Chaore if deadline is approaching. You all BETTER not give him my head though because I guarantee you'll be giving scum another win.

[UncertainJakutten]

Unrelated to Kiro case:

Serp: We HAVE to put our faith that some people are Town. That's what Mafia is all about. You seem to be going against that grain of thought. Yes, the only neutralized scum is one with 0 kills, but having victorious players kill each other off may invariably lead to Scum with 1 kill because someone has to mop up with no opposition. Or we can do it more controlled and "put our faith in some people to be Town" to do the mopping up. Differing circumstances have forced those 3 to be Bardiche, Alex, and Kefit, but until you convince me that one of those 3 are Scum, I have my trust in them and they should not die.

Why is Bard town? Alex and Kefit I can believe.

[UncertainJakutten]

Alright, here's the deal. We have 5 hours left in the day.

I will challenge Chaore in about one hour. Any objections?

[?lice Bl?ckb?rn]

Rou why would you offer to challenge before deadline.  Don't do that.  There's growing agreement on UK/Serp or possibly UK/Chao, if none of these three step up before deadline then they'll be in trouble on later days.  A random pairing if they fail to do so is much preferable to someone who is possibly scum stepping up and saying "Oh I'll challenge and kill this generally disliked person if we don't get anything else by deadline."  Do you realize how scummy this is.  The quantity of scummy is very.

Wait what why. A challenge between someone near deadline on someone who we think is Scummy and have been voting for a challenge against is probably still a better option than a random battle - random means the RNG could give us any kind of matchup it damn well wants, Town vs. Town, Scum vs. Town, Scum vs. Scum, between any two players, no matter how competent/Townie/etc they are, and we have no say in the matter and have to off one of them anyway as opposed to one of the people we have spent the past 24 hours deliberating. Thus, I am not seeing why this action is Scummy at all, let alone Very(TM).

Ninja UK: why not Serp?

[?lice Bl?ckb?rn]

EBWOP: one of the people we have spent the past 24 hours deliberating on.*

[UncertainJakutten]

Ninja UK: why not Serp?

Because I feel that Chaore is more likely to be scum. Did you really have to ask?

I really don't care if you all think that his suicidal gambit is town. IIRC he was suicidal in RKS Mafia.

Oh hey, he flipped scum there

[Chaore]

Only a page this morning? You guys spoil me.

Alright, here's the deal. We have 5 hours left in the day.

I will challenge Chaore in about one hour. Any objections?

Sure. Hi, You're not taking my head.

In twenty five minutes, I will challenge Cid.

Also, I didn't suicide in RKS. I fucked up majorly and then proceeded to have carth make good use of that fuck up. You people give me too much credit for that.

[?lice Bl?ckb?rn]

@UK: keep in mind that every individual Scum is more important in this game than normal, because of head-taking mechanics and also because it reduces the number of heads Scum need to collect amongst themselves before Town hits LYLO and cleanup ensues. This isn't like a typical Mafia game where one can bus all of their partners at the beginning and still win fine several days later if they're good at evading detection, because evading detection alone is insufficient to win in this game. Combine this with the fact that we already have two Scum deaths and it makes for Chaore being suicidal to make abso-fucking-lutely no sense as a Scum gambit at this point in time, simply due to numbers and game mechanics. Also keep in mind that he wasn't overtly suicidal in RKS Mafia, more just a complete idiot who put his foot in his mouth repeatedly a couple too many times, and was bussed for these reasons by Scum.

@Chaore: wait what why why 25 minutes can we please not be premature this day still has another four hours in it before deadline hits and before UK says she will challenge you. Can we please not cut it short? Also why El Cid I thought Town decided things should be swinging away from him (and you as well, actually!) and more towards UK/Serp from what the last couple posts seem to indicate.

[Ranmilia]

Surely you meant to say "I will challenge Serp" right?

I really don't know what to make of this.  Thanks to UK for finally getting a case out, I'm still not sure it's a very strong one but Chao's downright suicidal nature - well just what.

On the one hand matching up with Cid is terrible policy.  On the other hand if Chao's going to be suicidal I guess we don't really have any choice but to kill him, so maybe Cid IS better?  Oi.

[?lice Bl?ckb?rn]

@Alex: I'm still curious about your reasoning, so mind responding to my post above about why someone claiming that they will step up and challenge one of the people being voted for instead of letting the RNG take over is Very Scummy(TM)? Because I'm still not seeing it and it makes no sense at all.

[Chaore]

She said an hour, I'm meeting half of it. I'd love to not premature the day, but it seems like UK isn't willing to.

Things probably won't swing away on the basis UK and Serp have to be the ones to make the challenge. I assure you neither will challenge eachother on the basis they are scumbuddies. Therefore, I'm always going to be the second person.

Mostly, yeah, Cid is better on the principal I'm going to trust him with my death more than UK. As much as it would be amusing to win over UK, I'm not exactly confident everyone feels the same way as you two. The idea of UK and scum thereby taking a head is pretty much enough of a threat in my opinion.

[Edible]

Three and a half hours remain.

[?lice Bl?ckb?rn]

@Chaore: in that case, I am for you challenging Serp atm instead, quite frankly.

[UncertainJakutten]

Apparently I can't do maths.

And make up your minds. I already stated my stance on letting the day draw out and letting someone slyly slip in and fuck up all of towns plans like yesterday. Kefit is probably town, but what's to stop a scum from doing something similar?

[UncertainJakutten]

Ok, how about this. People who are on: State why I should challenge Serp, who could potentially be scum, rather than Chaore, who I'm almost CERTAIN is scum?

Also, please answer the question posed in my Kiro case. You wanted compressed cases, I gave them. So please actually read and respond, over.

[Kefit]

UK: I'll just link to this post for my argument against Serp. No one has bothered to refute any point in it, and it certainly seems stronger than your argument against Chaore - which basically boils down to "he's not doing anything useful and is just posting fluff." I'll agree that this makes him a bit scummy, but it doesn't seem to rise to the level of my Serp argument.

[Chaore]

@Alice: Serp? I could. I assume you're saying this as you want him on the ballot for being taken out?

@UK: Somewhat a point. I'd like to push the deadline back a bit more though, now that we have Alice talking. He rarely talks, So I want to atleast get an idea of what hes up to.

Ninja UK: I still don't see why you're so damn certain about ANYONE here. This is incredibly alarming, really. Once again I bring up the 'Rou is town' to point out EXACTLY how certain you've been with pretty bad reasoning. THIS is part of the reason I think you're scum, you're using weak malleable scum calls and you act ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN. What the hell?

[UncertainJakutten]

I think your first two points don't take into account the fact that people's views change throughout the game. Your later points, do, however, ring true. Does it make him scummier than Chaore? I'm not sure, to be honest.

Ninja UK: I still don't see why you're so damn certain about ANYONE here. This is incredibly alarming, really. Once again I bring up the 'Rou is town' to point out EXACTLY how certain you've been with pretty bad reasoning. THIS is part of the reason I think you're scum, you're using weak malleable scum calls and you act ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN. What the hell?

Because I betray my screenname and tend to focus on people until I'm dissuaded from thinking they are scum. I suggest you look at my play in RKS mafia. I think you'll notice I acted similarly. Generally I get more pressure out of seeming like I'm absolutely SURE someone scum. And for the most part, I am in your case.

[UncertainJakutten]

Anyway, I'll give you all 30 more minutes to tell me why Serp is better. I'm actually somewhat convinced by Kefit's argument, but want to see more.

[FinnKaenbyou]

If Chaore is scum, he's Idiot!Scum for being so aggressive. If Serp is scum, he's being smarter!Scum by spending so long talking about the setup and hence manipulating people and so little time actually playing.

Which one do you think scum will miss more?

[UncertainJakutten]

those are big ifs, Rou. Well, not so much on Chaore.

But...at this point I've kinda been defending Serpy indirectly, haven't I?

I will challenge Serpentarius to alleviate the town's worries.

[UncertainJakutten]

in four minutes, btw.