Mafia 2: Cage Match

Hmmm, I don't think there is a point paying that one any attention until a new soul comes to inhabit his body. So I'll turn my attention back to Ghosty. I know you have a few other things to respond to, but I want to ask you this as well: Why haven't you cast any votes to lynch in this game? You purport to agree with me that votes are valuable information, yet you haven't cast any yourself. Supposedly in the case of Arc that was because the vote reached L-1 while you were typing, but there were five days of real time during day two before I made my claim. You didn't vote at all during day one either, not even during the random voting stage of the game.

I'll get to your question in time, GM, but I'm going to start with my opinions on Eyesack's reads. These are just my thoughts and anything I feel worth mentioning, not my own reads (because I will be working on supplying those in full next).

Ghosty: I already spoke a bit about this one, and when I did I said Eyesack had cherry-picked what I said because of the line, "Ghosty says after explaining the narrative “I wouldn’t be too surprised if that’s what happened during the night”" which leaves off what I said at the start of that sentence. That said, I'd actually forgotten over the course of time I was working on that post (I do not necessarily write my posts from beginning to end, but rather piece by piece) that his actual quote (as in, the grey box our forum system recognizes as a quote) did include the full text of the statement. I was more focused at the time with responding to GM's accusations, so my posts following shortly after that one were more scatter-brained.

As for not voting for Arc, if I were scum I would know there was no saving him and if anything I probably would have helped to lynch him faster. I held off on throwing my vote down because I wanted to draw out the day phase to its full length, if possible.

TNS: I still have a hard time buying the defense that they just didn't know how the game worked. To throw your vote out randomly when you think you can't change it seems... unbelievable, almost.

Arc agreed with me, but so did several other people like L9O (who even came to the same conclusion independently of me). The reason I think Arc actually agreed with me, now knowing that he was scum, was probably to try and start an easy bandwagon on TNS (implying he's town) and/or to make it look more like he and I were in cahoots in case he eventually got caught and revealed- as he did. Incidentally, the latter is also the reasoning I expect was behind Arc agreeing with me about the events of night 1, so you can see there might have been a trend of him leaving fake breadcrumbs to try and make us look like scum buddies in case he got caught.

Otaku1889: Not a lot to say in response to this one, except to point out that Arc's lynching was exactly the sort of lynch scum WOULD want to jump on. I'll break down my reasoning for that when I give my own reads on everybody.

Green Machine: Again, not a lot to respond to here. Nothing sticks out as obviously incorrect in what Eyesack said about GM, except of course for the bit about him being on to something regarding me being scum.

RedBeard: I too have noticed that RedBeard tends mostly to just agree with/acknowledge the points other players make. This would be scummy, but in RedBeard's case I think it may genuinely have to do with not having enough time for the larger, more frequent posts some of the rest of us make.

Thank you for reminding me he hasn't been getting notifications though, I'd been meaning to pull up the admin panel and see if I can fix that somehow but kept forgetting whenever I was actually browsing the forum. Unfortunately, it didn't seem that there was a way to do so from the admin panel.

Like9Orphans: I don't see anything here that really needs a response.

Raptor-Senpai: The way he placed a hammering vote on Arc was suspect, but I'm actually fairly certain he was town for reasons I'll get into shortly with my own reads.

Alright, I gave my reads earlier on day 1, but two days ago was actually more like two weeks ago and a lot more has happened since then. This post has taken me literally hours to write, as I have literally read and reread the thread several times during the time I spent composing it. And after having analyzed everybody's posts from multiple angles (primarily judging them on why they would say a given thing if they're town and why they would say it if they're scum) I have come to a conclusion I am reasonably confident in.

For the sake of not stretching the page more than necessary, I have elected to put each person's read in a spoiler box all its own. They are listed to match the order their names appear in the first post of this thread, since that is the order I tackled each suspect. Coincidentally, this near-perfectly matches how I would sort them in order of least-to-most scummy.

Green Machine:

RedBeard:

Raptor-Senpai:

Like9Orphans:

Otaku1889:

TotallyNotSuspicious:

Eyesack (previously Alkeriece):

Finger of Suspicion: Eyesack

And that would be a vote to lynch, except for what I'm about to address.

Reasons Why I'm Shitty About Actually Voting:

My request now of everybody is that even if you don't buy my justification for not having been eager with my votes, you still give your thoughts on my reads. That might be asking a lot after having already forced you to read all this, but consider the fact that at over 7 hours since I started it, I have likely taken longer to write this post than everybody else combined will take to read it.

Let nobody ever say that I am not dedicated.

@Ghosty
Now onto defending myself.

Ghosty wrote:
And to further support the idea that Eyesack is scum, let's look at what happened while Alkeriece was piloting that player slot.

At the start of the game, Alkeriece voted for PurpleRam. Shortly after, Arc voted for PurpleRam too (coincidentally, this also replaced Arc's RVS vote for Alkeriece). That could have been an attempt by the Mafia to start a bandwagon, but then Arc switched his vote to KSS, presumably because he realized how easy it would be to drive KSS to a lynch thanks to the man's agressive play style. And what did Alkeriece do?

Alkeriece, Page 3 wrote:As for the vote agaisnt purple from me, ill go ahead and retract that for now
Vote to lynch:Nobody

Not stick to his guns- he randomly and for (what seemed like) no reason pulled his vote off PurpleRam, just like scum would have done if they decided to abandon her as a bandwagon target. He didn't pull his vote off because he thought someone else was scummier- he just didn't want to be voting for PurpleRam anymore.

You have just pushed the events that my first body inhabitant, "Alkeriece" pulled his vote to lynch PurpleRam suddenly and without provocation and that makes him scummy. Let us look at the events though.

PurpleRam wrote:Arc, you may be on to something here. There are plenty of Cage pictures online. I picked my favorite moment from my favorite Cage movie, and someone picked almost the exact same one. Being a copycat looks fairly suspicious in my book. It could be that he's just a novice, but I still don't like it.

Vote to lynch: Alkerice

So PM votes to lynch Alkerice RANDOMLY.

Alkeriece wrote:well then in response since you also chose the same movie, i would like to come back at you as i did not pay attention to what cage movie i chose from i would like to...

vote to lynch: PurpleRam

as he also misspelled my name first time

So in kind Alkeriece responds with a random revenge vote back on the defense.

PurpleRam wrote:There is a lot of suspicious behavior around here. We really can't tell anything from a role confirmation post. Green Machine is right about me being excitable. The truth is, we're all Cages and one of us is a murderer. I'm hoping more information comes to light soon. For the time being,

Vote to lynch: nobody.

But I've got my eye on you. *looks at everyone through narrowed eyes*

PM now takes his vote off of Alkeriece. Now Alkeriece has no reason to keep his revenge vote and random vote on PM. So what does he do?

Alkeriece wrote:so i forgot about this for about 2 days here...gg me, anyway lemme try to answer the several things asked of me here, @ghosty i currently have no preference in role as im new to mafia..if anything something to force me back in to see how it turns out, and @Green Machine for the co-conspirators im a 1 man army bb, j/k but srsly, honestly don't know who i would pick. As for the vote agaisnt purple from me, ill go ahead and retract that for now
Vote to lynch:Nobody

He takes his vote off of PM and mirrors it even, to nobody. Both player, PM and Alkeriece take a step back to examine and wait for more evidence.

You pointed out my retraction of evidence was scummy:

Ghosty wrote:
That was a very sudden change of stance, especially when you consider that that argument was the most solid reason Eyesack seemed to offer for pinning me as scum with Raptor-Senpai (admittedly, IMO his reasoning for me being scum was flimsy and forced through-and-through, but that seemed to be the point he was most confident about). To call the entire scum team is a bold claim, and it takes a good deal of confidence in your logic. It's not something people tend to do lightly, unless they're scum trying to secure the last town lynches needed to win.

Why, if Eyesack is a town-aligned player looking to find the last two scum, would he confidently claim Raptor-Senpai and I are the scum players without even being able to defend his argument for placing me as scum?

You also said me pointing out you (Ghosty) jumping on the TNS vote was what was pinning you as scum with Raptor. While the TNS thing was not good evidence and I have retracted it, I have never made a link between you and Raptor. I only tried to stress links between you and Arc.

I made my first post and reads on people quickly since I was called late into the game. Admittedly it was  lot to take in with my limited time to check this board between my personal life and work. The post of me retracting the jump onto TNS was because of an improper reading, as I stated in my post to L9O. Instead of ignoring L9O I instead opted to go reread and retract my statement. That is honesty and humility. Admitting when you are wrong. My stance on you still has not changed. As that was not the most solid reason for pinning you as scum. The vigilante push was and still is the most evident.

I just had a funny feeling about Raptor being the last one to vote for Arc. You said he would not have blown up like that if he was scum. I still think he would have. I do not know him in real life, but it seems to me there are some underlying issues, like work is not so great so he didn't want to stress about this game. I think he would have left regardless.
I evaluated Raptor separately. I stated I could not get a good read on him. Just a feeling based on the lack of posting and the fact of him voting last on Arc thus ending the day which feels scummy.


You claimed I was cherry picking your quotes and not giving the whole picture when in fact I included the whole paragraph. Just called attention to the last part. You did say:

Ghosty wrote:
There, a scenario wherein the town has an Vigilante who was active last night. It certainly isn't the only possible scenario, but I wouldn't be too surprised if that's what happened during the night because I think Nihil made little sense as a target for the Mafia.

That strikes me as really odd. "I wouldn't be too surprised if that's what happened" This is directly trying to help the already confused town on reasoning with the seemingly random kill. Thus pushing an agenda. The Vigilante kill. WHICH, out of the people posting the most at that time, yourself, Arc, and GM, ONLY GM disagreed with at this time.

Green Machine wrote:Really Arc? You're thinking that Nihil was most likely a vigilante kill too? I have to strongly disagree with you and Ghosty on this one. The mafia wants to make sure their kill succeeds, and any of the three of us were possible protection targets for the doctor (which we all are assuming exists simply because it is a common role). So rather than roll the dice on getting a kill through, they went for a different town player. Nihil hadn't said much, but it had been commented that he was busy in real life and could make strong logical contributions when able to participate more, so I find him to be a perfectly valid target for a sure kill. A vigilante had way more reasons to target PurpleRam, but didn't. Actually that is the only way her statement of expecting to be the target makes sense, if it was the vigilante she was expecting to be killed by. Which she could only expect if she knows the kill was in fact a vigilante kill. But that's not something she would just blurt out, is it?....

It is way too quiet in here! Start making noise Cages!

You did nothing to distance yourself from the assumption town were making that you thought it was a Vigilante kill. Nothing until I brought it up in my first post. Which you then are misquoting yourself in saying "since when is saying something is possible" pushing a narrative. However, you did not say it was possible. you stated that you "wouldn't be too surprised" if that is what happened. Out of what you state could be many scenarios. This is pushing a narrative. If you would like to see the quote Ghosty made again, please scroll up in this post.


Now onto why the first night kill was not random by the mafia. It makes sense for the Mafia to kill him and not the Vigilante.

I find it odd that the mafia would have killed Nihil the first night. He wasn't a very prolific poster. But I also don't know Nihil. But some of you do:

Green Machine posted this question and it was interesting to see those who know him talk about his character.

Green Machine wrote:I guess I'll go ahead and ask a question of everyone. Not sure whether or not it will accomplish anything, but I may as well give it the ol' college try. If you were one of the three mafia members we know to be in this game, who would you want to be your two co-conspirators?

My answer would be PurpleRam and Nihil. PurpleRam I would want on my team because we live together and it would be great if we could actually talk to each other about the things going on in the game, instead of basically being limited to just saying "There's a new post in the Mafia game, if you haven't seen it." However the two of us are new and would need guidance. That's my reason for also wanting Nihil on the team; I think he has played Mafia more than we have, but even if I'm mistaken on that point he would still be good at noticing if we're about to make an obvious mistake in logic and prevent us from exposing ourselves in that way.

Green Machine Speaks of Nihil as having experience and logic.

Arc wrote:

As for Green's question, if I were scum, I would likely want Nihil and Himself with me as a scum team, He seems to have a good hold on the game so far, and Nihil is a fairly logical person, so I think they would be able to function without giving away their team quite well, and be likely to play scum similarly to how I like to play scum.

Good hold on the game so far and states Nihil is a logical person.

PurpleRam wrote:
To answer GM's question, Nihil and Arc. Experience and logic will help a hot head like me.

Again, Experience and logic.

We probably would have heard more from him if he had not been extremely busy over this time. Why not take out a logical and possibly more experienced member who hadn't had a lot of time to post yet on his reads. Thus confusing the town.

One take on this is the Mafia wanted to take out Nihil to confuse the town. As we see was the aftermath. You also bring up that why wouldn't the mafia take out a more prominent member instead of one on the side. The three main posters though that first day were yourself, Arc, and GM. It could be reasoned, at that time, the prominent posters were not taken out because they could have all been mafia. With GM's confirmed jack-of-all role by his pushing onto Arc I can say with a good level of confidence he is not scum. So that leaves you and Arc.

The Mafia also would know who is town. My point of bringing this up is that GM was one of the three most active posters in the early game. IF yourself and Arc were both Mafia you could have guessed GM might be protected by the doctor. Thus, the kill on a "random" person as you needed to take them out.

The second nights kill was also on an active player, PM. The same logic could be applied that Mafia did not target GM again because they assumed he would be protected and thus waste a night. So why not take out the second most active member to quiet the town further. The more people the mafia can silence the easier it is for them to push their agenda.

I still feel you are the most likely to be Mafia.

Dsilv87 replaces in for Raptor-Senpai. Give him a warm reception.

Welcome Dsilv87 !

Greetings Dsilv87, and welcome to The Shit Show, starring Nicholas Cage!

Yes, I too am happy to see that the new soul has arrived. Hopefully we will something profound from him soon.

The long quote-filled post from eyesack has an edit now. I read it last night and again just now, and I don't think there is any difference in actual content, so perhaps Hans will simply issue a stern warning.

See? See how a forgot an entire word in the second sentence of my previous post? I have to just live with that mistake - and the ridicule attached thereto - for the rest of my life now.

God damn you phone. I hate you so much.

Yeah don't edit posts pl0x. It may prove fatal.

I am sorry I haven't posted in the last few days. Work is killing. I'm on duty tonight and have been trying to take care of the last few days of camp as much as I can for the kids. (Special events and such for the last week) I will try to address the new player, besides a welcome, "welcome" and all the new posts and questions asked of me tomorrow as my last night off for 4 more days.

I am very much looking forward to what Dsilv87 has to say. Hop on in, the water's fine!

I do love the posts you have made Ghosty. They reflect very well on you. Of course it doesn't do much to make you look less like scum, since I think you are clever enough to make posts like that even when you are on the mafia's side. As for the math, I haven't done any number crunching, but it seems rather obvious to me that if we are lynching randomly then you are correct, as we're less likely to hit a town after a day a no-lynch. Of course games where lynches are random would result in a town loss a huge percentage of the time, while good setups give each side about 50/50 odds of winning. So that math is totally irrelevant to any decision we might make, as we can't afford to leave a lynch up to chance.

I hope nobody else is dissuaded by the length of time Ghosty spent making his post! Clearly eyesack isn't since he made long post of his own, but it would be good to hear from everybody.

Getting back to what Ghosty said, I mostly agree with his reads:
- I find Otaku a bit more suspicious than he does; he has a lot of very short posts that offer next to nothing in the way of information. He seems like he is a scum lurking and usually only popping his head in when prompted to do so.
- I am more willing to dismiss TNS's mistake of one of a newbie, even as egregious as it was. His main problem seems to be a lack of contribution, but that seems to me like a combination of not having much time and sincerely not knowing what to do here.
- I disagree with the statement that the ragequit makes Raptor seem more town, but I had him slightly on the town side of the fence anyway; something profound from Dsilv would help quite a lot in bringing him off the fence.
- RedBeard strikes me as someone who doesn't want to be part of a confrontation. Simply agreeing with someone got him lynched in the first game, so this time he has been agreeing with people and giving reasons for doing so each time. It's hard to tell whether he is town or scum since his posts do more to reflect his personality than his alignment.
- L9O seems to be trying very hard to contribute everything he can. He doesn't have as much time as Ghosty or I have, but when he gets some he makes the most of it, and nothing he says leads me to think he's scum. To me the most solidly town player at the moment besides myself.

Most notably I agree that eyesack is high on the list of potential scum. He's behaving quite a lot like a scum would act after having been thrown into the middle of a game where the previous player in his role was mostly silent: Agreeing rather aggressively with the guy who is confirmed town. Plus I agree with pretty much all of Ghosty's logic in his read of eyesack.

This leaves me with a conundrum, as I don't think those two are on the scum team together. They are going at each other far harder than I would expect the scum to be doing at this stage. Earlier I said that I don't think Ghosty and Raptor (now Dsilv87) are on the scum team together either, so that got me thinking: Who is likely to be on the scum team with Ghosty if he is in fact scum? I don't think it's TNS as I doubt he would be pushing harder for TNS as scum than I am. My main suspect in that scenario is Otaku1889, with RedBeard also being a possibility since I can't get a good read on him.

Similarly now is a good time to figure out who might be on the scum team with eyesack. Otaku1889 is still at the top of my partner list here; his lurking just irks me too much. Could be Dsilv; he was listing Raptor as likely scum, but used a very weak argument to do it, so it's possible he simply didn't want to be taken seriously on that point while still appearing to distance himself. RedBeard is also possible, but somehow feels even less likely here than as a partner to Ghosty.

Since I don't think Ghosty and eyesack are on a team with each other, but I think Otaku is very likely to be on a team with either one, Ill apply some pressure here by casting a vote to lynch: Otaku1889.

Oh, one combination I nearly forgot on that last post: TNS is a pretty likely scum partner for eyesack. If eyesack is scum then I rank TNS just slightly above Dsilv in likelihood to be his partner.

Welp I just spent 3 hours on a post and my browser crashed... lots of work wasted, but I will try my best to repost what I was trying to post.

Hey guys! My soul has returned from a vacation at the Lake of the Ozarks with family. Sorry I haven't been on frequently, lots of things in my life have kept me busy...and my email decides to send me like 1 notification someone has posted when I find out that there was 10 posts and some times I don't even get notifications. Kind of why I agree on posts mainly because I see people's comments and a lot of it makes a lot of sense. But now to post a large list of how I feel on each of the remaining players. I'll list them in order of Townie to Scum.

GM: - Townie
Since GM used his ability to find Arc out, he is a townie, pretty plain and simple haha.

L9O: - Leaning Townie
Not much to go on, but nothing is screaming scummy to me. He makes a very long post on the three town leads that is very detailed and it makes me believe townie.

TNS: - Leaning Townie
The reasoning why I believe he is leaning toward townie is the new player factor, I mean he didn't understand you can change your vote. He hasn't been on much and so it's understandable that a new player wouldn't no much. Me still being new I can sympathize with him on that aspect. He kind of acts like KSS did when he was getting voted on trying to defend himself but everyone believe he was scum. Though I would always like to hear more.

Ghostly: - 50/50
Currently I'm on the fence with this one. Mainly because I can see where he would be considered scummy, not voting right away on Arc and not voting in the beginning stages. (I know I'm not one to talk, the first day I didn't vote because I wasn't sure if KSS was mafia. The second day I didn't even get a chance to vote before the day ended. Yet, I can see that he also could be town with initiating questions about whom we believed was scum, defending himself on certain aspects and making him seem town, and giving good reads on people. Some of the things he has said either makes me town or a really good scum player.

Raptor-Senpai - Leaning slightly toward Scum
Voted very quickly to end the voting against Arc can either be scum just wanting to end the day to get the night to happen or he is a townie that just threw his vote out there.
Yeah he blew up and was angry. Unsure if that was due to in real life or what. I feel it was real life. I really am wanting to hear more from his new incarnation before I point a definite finger at him.

Alkeriece/eyesack - Leaning slightly toward Scum
Due to the person switch it's hard for me to determine scum or town. The main reason I chose scum is that he is seeming to side a lot with GM and what he has to say. It just seems like a scum player that is wanting to get under the umbrella of the town and be safe if he agrees with GM. Though he did do a lot of good posts that defended his previous incarnation. I am suspicious of him, but its hard to get a read when his previous form did not give much to go off of.

Otaku1889 - Leaning toward Scum
He doesn't have much to go off of, but I'm reading some of his posts. He says he would like to be a vanilla townie overall, does that mean he is not a vanilla townie? He also did a random vote that just didn't make too much sense in context. He voted for GM because he caught his attention. He goes back and forth with agree with people and siding with people. It seems like he wanted to become friendly to people. He stated that he would chose ghostly or arc being killed during the night. Though he did not chose GM which seemed a bit odd to me in a way. I mean most people were saying the top 3 posters on top they were surprised wasn't killed. I just feel that some of his posts seem though he did seem to call out Ghostly during the voting process. So I'm not sure.

Since I believe he is more scummy then others and I want to see his defense of why he is more of a townie then scum.

Vote to Lynch: Otaku1889

Also before posting this I just read GM's post on whom he believe's to be the partner of one of the scum members seems pretty logical. I am kind of thinking that myself.

My main thing is I want to hear a defense from Otaku1889 of why he is not scum and actually town.

I also want to hear from the people that I believe are slightly scum, and the question I ask for them is that do they believe Ghostly and Otaku1889 are in scum town or do you believe that there is another combination we are missing.

I also want to hear more from Raptor's new incarnation/new soul.

Also if you need any information from me let me know. I know that I haven't been voting or saying much and I do apologize for that. I tend to agree with people because I end up reading 6-7 posts and then reading the logic and commenting on how their logic is sound and how some of the time they take the words right out of my mouth in a way.

I will try and get on this more since it's now down to 8 people.

I'm sorry once more guys I will see if I can post something of value tonight but I am on a time crunch. I haven't been to sleep the last 5 nights before 1:30 am, my car is breaking apart as I speak, I'm cutting it close on getting back before curfew, and I bought an exacto knife that didn't have a blade and 15 liters of oil for my car that can only hold 4.6 liters... Life is currently against me.

Hey guys, so I'll address everyone's concerns and make a detailed defense later in the day, after I get off work.

First to addres the strategy that ghosty and GM proposed. im kind of on the fence with leaning towards This strategy namely because it still gives us more time, puts more pressure on the scum to play longer, it gives us a higher chance of lynching correctly no matter how you look at it randomly or with logic, and increase the chance of giving our resources a chance to do their jobs.

I will say that this game is just about as messy as messy can be. We have several people looking like mafia. I dont think i need to say it but i will to voice my opion on GM is working hard to oust the mafia. He has put himself in A very precarious position. Pending the next kills results go the way that we need tonight i have GM leaning 99% town.

As for my reads on the situation I would first like to address Ghosty's question of my thoughts on TNSs argument. I think his explination is expected of someone who is very new to this kind of game. He is very much not a person who plays a lot of multiplayer games to speak of and in fact dislikes them comparitively to single player games but also I know he is a frequenter of the computer. My reason for bringing this up is that I believe that he is online and watching and maybe unsure of how to add to the discussion or unsure of how to add to the discussion as the mafia while trying to seem town. I would say that he is on equal terms of suspicion for me as much as Otaku. They are both quiet and not giving us a whole lot to work with. They both seem to be keeping their heads lower than the rest.

I will say that if I had to choose between the 2 I would pick otaku just because he seems like potential scum in multiple options of who his partner might be versus TNS that seems like he would only be in cahoots with eyesack versus Ghosty. Of course this is assuming that one of Ghosty or Eyesack are scum partners with either TNS or otaku.

As for my read on Red beard is pretty townie. He hasn't done a whole lot of putting out his own thoughts and interpretations until his previous post. He is putting forward a foot on his own and seems to be trying to be the best townie that he can be with limited time.

Raptor is pretty well on the fence and leaning townie as was mentioned by Ghosty he seemed frustrated with being called a bad townie which I would see that if he was upset enough to quit them Ghosty's reasoning is sound but I'm not too keen on the ending the day early at all as that is a big flag.

Ghosty Is putting up an admirable defense against him being connected to the mafia but the link between the thoughts brought up by himself anf Arc about the possibility of a vig kill on nihil when it was pretty clear that a mafia being blocked by the doctor when there were 8 possible targets and that the vig wouldn't kill PR in the situation at hand was a hard pill to swallow. While he did say that it was a possibility it seemed like the words he chose were a bit pointed. Ghosty however has been still one of the most potent information gatherers as well. He has dedicated a large amount of time to his posts with lots of information and thoughts as well as wisdom pushing forward a pro-townie narative. He has taken his time to really ask everyone questions and poke around for more information at the same time trying to get people to put more time to their thoughts and actions. He has vouched for the best strategy for the townie thus far along with GM. I also have to return the hypocrisy button to him as he did exacftly what he claimed was a scummy move on Eyesack in his argument against him at the bottom of the Eyesack section pertaining to calling the scum team right after chastising him for doing the same. I'm leaning slightly scummy but it's so hard to call because there is nothing completely damning about him without taking into account his contributions.

Eyesack is a new face and has been a very large poster since he has come into his own inhabiting Alkerice's ever so slightly scummy body. He has also done an excellent job of putting forward a solid argument for his previous incarnations actions. However Ghosty has put forward an excellent argument for the possibility that he might be a mafia member. His actions from the begining of his first post were very good but as Ghosty pointed out calling the scum team is a bit scummy to try and convince that it is specifically 2 people besides listing possibilities. I have a quip about his previous post why couldn't arc and Ghosty be saved by the medic. That seems like a pretty obvious thing to happen in a game where you don't know who is who. The mafia could very well be saved by the doc. I would like to point out that I am a little bit distressed by the fact that this is the 2nd flaw that I have found in his argument which also makes me mean him more than townie, not much but just over the line like Ghosty.

In conclusion questions for all of you.
GM what is your thoughts on my reads overall as the most proven town person here?

Eyesack what do you say to my quip about your argument?

Ghosty what do you think of my point about the hypocrisy? (And as for my hypocracy I will say that I was putting more pressure since we needed 3 more votes to do anything to him to try to get him or the scum to make a mistake and defend him.

Otaku you have 2 votes on you and you have some pressure on you I want to hear your thoughts on everyone and your reasoning for not posting more often or at least with more value?

I want to hear TNS's interpretation or just anything in general really. This game hasn't seen word from him for a while.

I want to hear from the new guy on the game.

Red beard I would like to ask you what your thoughts are on for the no lynch strategy? You seem to disagree with your decision to vote to lynch.

Lastly again my finger of suspicion is on Otaku because he seems to be the missing link in several possibilities. However I am not voting because I A saw how fast the bandwagon formed last time and that goes against the no lynch strategy.

I'm gonna try and rest the rest of the day. I hope that this is enough info from me as it has taken me all day to write. If there are any questions I will try to answer them to the beat of my ability.

To answer your question L9O, originally the first person that was going to be lynched, I just did not feel comfortable with lynching him because to me he seemed townie in a way, but I couldn't be sure. I did feel that he could be scum at some points so for the first night I decided not to vote right away and it turned quickly for the votes against KSS. I just had this gut feeling he was townie haha.

Now for Arc, I didn't get the chance to vote. Being not on for a couple days a lot happened. Though when ghostly made me think I did suspect Arc may be being scum.

Now for this current vote, I do feel that Otaku is hiding something and feeling that putting some pressure on him would be good. My reason on not voting is not really a strategy of mine (would be good for mafia...maybe... not sure) but being new to this game I'm always hesitant. In the beginning we lynched a townie, we got lucky that GM had his power and found out a mafia member, and now we are down to 8 people in total. There are 2 mafia out there and if we mislynch 1 person it goes from 2 vs 6 to 2 vs 4, unless we get lucky and the doctor saves someone, then it would be 2 vs 5. Which will cause some major issues.

Okay, now that I finally have some time away from work…

Addressing GM's and L9O’s concerns: My lurking is mostly the result of a busy schedule. When I'm not at work, I'm working at home, so I haven't had much time to actually stay active here. The short posts are because I do this mostly on my phone during my lunch breaks (or when I'm taking a dump...). Not exactly conducive toward long, in-depth posting.

However, I'll admit that isn't the entire reason. My experience playing Mafia has usually been in-person during parties. Not nearly as much thought or skill involved in those. I got into the habit of keeping my head down regardless of role. Makes me easy to overlook and look less threatening. It's a tactic that's worked for me, so I applied it here, with obviously mixed results. I'll try to change tactics and be more active and helpful in the discussion, but I'm worried my schedule will make that difficult.

Addressing Redbeard's concerns: Firstly, I think you’re looking too deeply into the role preference thing. I’m a pretty passive person, so I just like simple roles in the games I play. Second, that random vote at the beginning of the game was a joke. Because Nick Cage. Thought that was clear... Lastly, I called out Ghosty because I wanted to see his response to GM's accusations after Arc's dramatic reveal.

In the interest of being more helpful, here’re my thoughts on some key people…

Ghosty: It’s true I called out Ghosty, but that was more out of actual curiosity than actual suspicion. I don’t buy into the argument that he’s scum. What would he and Arc have to gain by calling out that the they and GM weren’t being examined enough, especially so early in the game? No, I definitely think he’s town.

Dsilv87/Raptor-senpai: I have to disagree with the assertion that Raptor quitting is proof of him being town. I think he quit because he was basically being called an idiot, not necessarily because he was being called scum. There’s obviously a lot going on in his life, so I think he’d quit regardless of role. As such, I wouldn’t assume Dsilv87 is absolutely town yet.

Eyesack/Alkeriece: Basing this off Alk’s posting, it sounds like he was replaced because he didn’t have an interest in continuing. This is pure speculation, but unless I’m wrong here, I’d assume someone with a major role would be more invested in the game. So I my gut feeling says that he, and by extension Eyesack, is vanilla town. Though, like with any late entry player, I’m sure everyone would like to hear more from him.

Like9Orphans: Like others have said, he hasn’t done anything particularly scummy in my eyes. Makes detailed posts when he can, all of which seem pro-town. Doesn’t mean he’s in the clear yet. Arc has shown us that scum aren’t afraid to be an active part in the discussion, so it might be good to take a look at L9O.

TotallyNotSuspicious: I don’t know what to make of him. On the one hand, his defense was borderline insane. I guess it could be an honest Newbie thing, but that still seems a little hard to believe… For now, I think he’s top of my possible scum list, but only time will tell.

Redbeard: People have made the argument that his agreeing with people would seem scummy, but that it’s also within his personality. I haven’t seen his play style outside of this game, so I can’t argue as such. Me, I think the reactionary nature of his posts is worth looking into.

That's pretty much it. If you guys have any more questions for me, I'll gladly answer them when I get the time to do so. Putting my two cents in, I think we should follow the aforementioned plan of not lynching anyone today. It’ll buy the town valuable time, and the more info and townies alive, the better.

Vote to Lynch: No Lynch

Alright, there have been a lot of meaty posts since my last one, so I'm going to take my time in chewing through some of it. I'll start with a brief response to Eyesack's response to my own post.

On the subject of Alkeriece's RVS vote for PurpleRam, it is not by itself scummy that he put down a revenge vote against PurpleRam and later retracted it after Arc began to push for a lynch on KSS. It only qualifies as circumstantial evidence in my mind, but also doesn't make up the bulk of the reason I think you are scum. It just lines up conveniently with the idea.

eyesack, Page 9 wrote:While the TNS thing was not good evidence and I have retracted it, I have never made a link between you and Raptor. I only tried to stress links between you and Arc.

That is definitely false:

eyesack, Page 8 wrote:
Based on the above my thoughts on the remaining Mafia members are as follow:
Ghosty and Raptor-Senpai[/color]

But I think you misunderstand what I meant. I was saying that that point (regarding Arc and I both jumping on TNS) seemed to be the point you most confidently thought showed me to be scum, and because you also think Raptor-Senpai was scum, you were pinning both of us as the scum team. In any case, however, if you think the "Vig narrative" is the strongest evidence against me, let's revisit that. You ask why I didn't deny assumptions from the town about whether I genuinely thought Nihil was a vigilante kill or not, but I did- once such assumptions were relevant.

I'd like to direct attention to some facts about the order things occurred. First, I posted that idea about Nihil's death, GM then responded by saying it was unlikely but NOT by saying it was scummy of me to suggest, my next post didn't address that comment at all (because, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I didn't want to distract the town with a drawn out debate over something we can't really know until the game ends and which doesn't help us), GM later (before I posted again, I'll add) reveals his JOAT role and his scum investigation on Arc while simultaneously suggesting for the first time that my possible explanation for Nihil's death was scummy in light of the fact that Arc agreed with it, and lastly, my next post after that addresses the accusation. I can provide quotes demonstrating all of this, but for the sake of saving myself the time I'll only do so at someone else's request.

Also, just so it's on the record, I'm going to repeat that my post was not meant to be an iron-clad "this must be what happened last night!" I will remain stalwart in saying I only brought up an alternative scenario to showcase for newer players that sometimes the truth is not obvious... But, it seems nobody is likely to believe that regardless of how many times I say it. I only repeat it to remind everybody. I will add that at present I'm not confident one way or another about who killed Nihil, and have a couple ideas for reasons the Mafia could have targeted him. Confusing the town is a big part of it (because it certainly has done that), so I think you're on point with that.

I don't have time to respond to everything that's been said because I have to take care of other things too tonight, but I will toss in a few more quick mentions. If any of these seem brief, it's because they have to be so or else I'll spend an entire evening here again.


1) I would like to suggest that we probably don't have any more investigative roles left in the town. We already know that there were two (a tracker and a JOATs with a cop power). I doubt the setup included a JOAT w/ cop and a regular cop, or even a second person who only has a one-shot cop power. I am NOT bringing this up to encourage any power roles, cop or otherwise, to step up. That's a bad idea. But deciding whether we lynch or not is an important choice that must be made before we decide who to lynch, and I don't want anybody failing to consider all the details. I'm still trying to decide for myself whether No Lynch is the correct play.

2) To everybody still playing who also has a life outside of the game, I'd like to thank you all for making the effort to be active and respond to posts when you have the chance. Mafia games can make get heated, as we've already seen, but I don't want anybody to interpret attacks I make on them in the game as attacks against them out of the game.

3) Part of my read of Eyesack as scum was based on him defending TNS. I still have some amount of trouble buying TNS' defense (even if he's a new player, knowing him as I do I think he's smarter than that) but since several people have said they believe TNS' mistake was an honest one, I can't keep Eyesack's defense of TNS as something scummy without equally saying it makes everybody else look scummier. As such, I drop that point (against Eyesack, not against TNS).

4) Green Machine, you went from thinking we should No Lynch to voting for Otaku's lynch. This seems a little weird, although I'm not going to go so far as to call it a scummy play. Could you elaborate a bit on the sudden change? What sparked it?

5) Redbeard, I do not believe Ghosty and Otaku1889 are scum buddies.

6) Like9Orphans, I'd like to clarify (if it wasn't clear before) that the jab about hypocrisy was just a joke, hence the "/GLaDOSposting". I'll also take a moment to defend myself here- what I did was not hypocritical, because I'm not backing down from my points as soon as they're questioned.

Ghosty, I never advocated for no-lynch. I explained how the math says we can afford one, and what the benefits would be if we did. In the same post I said what the drawbacks would be and clarified that it's an option we have should it seem like the best one as the deadline approaches.

I disagree with you wholeheartedly in your statement that we probably have no investigative roles left. My having one-shot of cop does not remotely make it less likely that we have an actual cop, JOAT and cop still play very differently and can easily fit in the same game. One of my shots is doctor; do you think that means there isn't a full doctor in the game? I don't think it means that, I feel confident that there probably is a doctor. Because that too is a common role that plays substantially different than JOAT. The mafiascum wiki lists the "standard" JOAT loadout as cop, doctor, roleblocker, and vigilante. I mentioned earlier that none of my shots is vigilante, which led me to believe we either had no vigilante or an X-shot vigilante. Turns out we had a one-shot vig. Cop or doctor would not be limited by shots, and probably both exist.

Lastly, just as you have trouble believing TNS could throw out a vote he couldn't retract, I cannot believe that you still aren't sure who killed Nihil. There is a ton of evidence to show that it was definitely a mafia kill. As I've explained before, confusing the town - specifically the doctor - could only have been a motivation if you were part of that plot. Otherwise they are "confusing" the doctor into confirming a townie as town, which is bad for them. They did it primarily to make sure a kill succeeded, but also because people spoke highly of Nihil despite his relative silence. Also, why do you think the vigilante would lie? This is another point I brought up before. PurpleRam said that the didn't think a one-shot vig would have used their power night one. We now know that she was a one-shot vig herself. So what motivation does she have to lie about that? If she were role claiming as part of a mass claim she would have reason to lie about whether or not she had used her shot, but that wasn't the situation here. And here's a new point for you: I may or may not have used my shot of doctor night two, but I sure as hell didn't use it night one, as I can only use one shot per night. Using your logic about the existence of a cop, there isn't a doctor either, so in that scenario Nihil couldn't have even theoretically been a vig kill. Personally I think there is a doctor and they simply protected the wrong target that night (likely you, me, or Arc). But you can't possibly think that Nihil was possibly a vig kill and there isn't a cop in the game. Both of those are so unlikely that I dismiss them as reasonable theories, but to maintain both are true is simply illogical, in the strictest sense of the word.

@L9O I don't think there is a flaw in my argument of who the doctor protected the first night. The point was to say that if both Ghosty and Arch were mafia then they knew who the town was. With three main posters that day: GM, Ghosty, and Arch. With this logic they couldn't take a change that the doctor would choose to protect the one of the three of them. Even if two of them are mafia. They would then go for a sure kill which would throw everyone off. Since they know who the mafia are then they know who the town are. Thus making the choice easy.

Sorry I did not have time to make a detailed post today. Work has been crazy