Preston

Here is the relevant line from Ali's post that I should have included in my post a moment ago; after I hit post I figured the actual line would help with clarity. The phrasing seems pretty conclusive that he thought Rhizo's vote was the important one and SM's was secondary, he even had a dashed line separating them. Now here's a fun question: if we assume for the moment that Ali is scum and this was how he interpreted the votes, could this be why Rhizo was chosen as the night's kill? -Preston

I just posted a wall-o-text, but given that this seems to be a developing point of conversation right now I'll weigh in - plus I just finished reading a bunch of posts so it's all fresh in my mind. From Ali's voting post list earlier, it feels like Ali's opinion is that Rhizo's vote "Sealed the deal" on Lego - that any vote after it was the equivalent of a 'me too' to join the winning side - and hence SM's vote was superfluous at best and a scum seeking cover of the winning wagon at worst. KevinH correctly points out without SM's 5th vote for Lego, it would have been easier for shifting votes to change the landscape again - hence her vote DID have some value and was not superfluous. Ali has not yet responded to what Kevin said on the matter. -Preston

The downside to a Monday holiday is that Tuesday feels like a Monday and just drags ON... ugh. I've been able to watch this some from my phone, but now's my first chance getting back to actually type a response. So let's wade into it... The meaning I drew from it was to see who was watching the outcome, even if they were not posting or responding to the rapid last-minute conversations. Sometimes it can reveal lurkers who want to see the outcome without influencing it one way or the other. Lyner and KevinH feel like they fall into that category for me; Lyner's last post was at 2:40 AM, and Kevin's was at 10 AM with an unofficial vote count. Both of their votes stayed on Rafay at day's end, letting everyone else decide the wagons. And welcome back? After your close call it's gratifying to see you posting again, but I can't help but shake the feeling you are posting this early in the day explicitly to establish your presence so you won't get an inactive vote again. Please do be active and contribute this time - You were not my first choice vote yesterday, but eyes are definitely still on you today. This seems... a little too logical and safe, Kevin, to throw your metrics-based vote so early in the day. As it is, Mazuurek ended up finally posting - you comment they need to catch up - so who now is next? On the one hand, welcome back - On the other hand, 'deciding' not to vote? Interesting word choice. Ali provided a useful list of vote posts that refuses to copy/paste right for multiquote, so just refer to it above. He points out that Rhizo's vote was a turning point; however looking at it again I also find that KH's -1 on Raafy/+1 on Lego vote was significant. Prior to KH's vote, Rafay was at 4 votes first and would have been lynched at deadline - Wolfpacks was tied at 4 votes but was second to reach that number. KH's vote for Lego actually meant Wolfpacks was suddenly first in line for the lynch; Rafay went to 3 at the same time Lego went to 3, while Wolfpacks was still at 4. Rhizo's vote took Lego to 4 at the same time Wolfpacks went back down to 3. So it feels like both KH and Rhizo carried the day yesterday, which means I should probably look at KH more favorably now. With that said - we are now apparently at the point where people make references and allusions to roles and night information to teasingly bait people. It's a little frustrating to see people do a tease-claim like this because it runs the risk of killing conversation until the teases follow through. We have had three of them so far: Finster: I have no info from overnight that will prove relevant to the future of the town. I now need to look at the posts from when I was on holiday a bit more carefully in order to discern where I should look next. KingHitler: With my pointless role, we don't lose much there. Samus: But anyway I have some (interesting?) news from last night to share, but will see how the day goes So the onus is now on these people who have started to roleclaim to finish the job before any REAL discussion may take place; no matter what is said before, expect the voting landscape to possibly shift when each bit of information comes out. However for what it's worth until that happens, here is my current list of those I am paying particular attention to: KevinH - playing it perhaps a little too statistically safe and impartial today, and let yesterday end while staying on the sidelines. Lyner - Lurked at the end, doing the same sideline-watching with KevinH. Both were on the Rafay wagon at the end and watching how the votes fell. Rafay - Per above the fact that Rafay was one of the FIRST posts of the day is notable, after so long of silence. Please do more than just say lynching you would be another townie, actually contribute. Finster - I had a FoS here yesterday, and he remains of significant interest... however he was also the 2nd vote on Lego. Was this a smoke screen, not believing the Lego wagon would get enough votes to go anywhere? I am on the fence whether to include Wolfpacks here or not. I ironically still stand by the wagon on him having been better than the sheer-inactivity wagon on Rafay yesterday, but in light of Lego's scumminess I am wondering how much towniness that confers Wolfpacks. The Lego wagon came out of nowhere, and until the VERY end it was Wolfpacks vs Rafay... the Lego wagon did not seem to be in opposition to the other two so much as it rapidly snowballed with votes from them both. I'm not sure how to read that. Thoughts? Now, in terms of whom I so far think is *TOWN*... Samus - Started the Lego wagon. King Hitler - Per my examination of Ali's vote post list above, KH's shift from Rafay to Lego was significant along with Rhizo's; without removing the 4th vote from Rafay, Lego would not have been in front. So let's see how everything else goes from here; expect this will be an interesting day. -Preston

Well this certainly shakes things up - my last post got cut off by when TW locked the thread before posting his answer, but with Lego having proven scum that will now give us some more to look at. I am curious why Rhizo was chosen, though... and it says just 'A Gryffindor Student' - when Chaplain/Hagrid was lynched it said 'A normal hogwarts staff member'. Is the lack of "Normal" important, or a mistake on TW's part? I'm still busy today, but initial thoughts: At the end it was Wolfpacks vs Lego on votes, but Wolfpacks made a very big deal of not moving his vote onto Lego. When I get more time either tonight or tomorrow I'll read back and see how the wagons shifted, but those past 24 hours were hectic... I'm just glad we didn't default to an inactive. One final datapoint: Since I was trying to post when the thread locked, I also got to see who was watching the thread when it ended. While I was reading/posting and after the thread locked, I saw the following names: TheWarrior, Preston, Lyner, KevinH, Lego, Samus, Wolfpacks, Rhizoctonia, Ali Bin Turban -Preston

Okay good, the topic is not locked yet. Last few hours have been frenzied, and there's been a shift toward Lego and away from Wolfpacks vs Rafay. Rafay still has not returned to defend himself, so for everyone who previously had been so adamant about him being a lurker the situation has not changed - but now we're seeing Lego as the next bandwagon target. I don't have enough time before deadline to do a full analysis, but I can see where the suspicion of Lego comes from; as well as his reaction since the votes shifted to him. I'll also note that I think Lego only started posting again once votes turned his way... which is notable. He was not a 0-post during Day 2, so was not caught in the same filter used to select other inactives; but he was indeed laying low. Between Lego and Wolfpacks, both of their wagons are based on something more than just sheer inactivity... and whichever one it ends up as will give us information. -Preston

LOT of changes and shaking things up since my last post, wow. So first off: Samus has returned, and is arguing that the "Samus is still alive" justification is a scum-tell. It's a thin premise to be sure; the only weight it's worth giving is if it's a recognition of Samus's veterancy - i.e. a target scum should not leave alive unless he's one of them. The real question now that Samus has returned is whether he was lurking or truly inactive; the former is worse than the latter. Given the pattern of his posts since he returned, catching up bit by bit - MAYBE he was just inactive, but given his level of activity elsewhere it's still a little hard for me to believe he couldnt have been watching this thread enough to see where the votes were going. However, I said I would remove my vote when Samus returned, so I am going to stick with that. Though I have to comment on Samus's statement that I look to be 'working alone'... only scum know each other for certain, so how could townies NOT be working alone? Or did I misunderstand that statement? Unvote Before I get into the other wagons... Finster has seriously caught my eye with his most recent posts. I'll snip the lines that feel the most notable to me: So here Finster seems to be doubling down on the "past game pattern" argument as why Rafay's inactivity equals scumminess. I still dont feel this argument holds water, and is a weak stretch unless someone observes Rafay watching the thread without posting and turns his inactivity into definite intentional lurking. So much wrong with this; not lynching anyone means we go into day THREE with no more information than day one, short of someone with a power role a) successfully finding scum and role claiming to reveal that info openly (in which case they get a target on their back). And 'live to fight another day' is exactly what won't happen; barring some beautiful luck on the part of a doctor or other protective role (if one even exists), we're going to lose someone tonight. People need to go on record, even if it means screwing up. Finster posted after that saying he was going to be gone, which struck me as dangerous; unvote and then excuse yourself to leave? Fortunately he had another response later where he concludes as follows: So is this a change of heart again to where you no longer rather we don't lynch anyone? It's hard to keep track of all this; I believe Finster said this is his third game, but this is really all over the place. Combined with my suspicion earlier when Finster said for people to spill if they had any role information, this now puts him quite high on my scum list. However the viable wagons at the moment are on Rafay and Wolfpacks. Neither are ideal, but time remaining is now measured in hours instead of days... so let's look at them. Rafay - I've spoken about this before, but if he is just inactive then that's one thing; but I think I am reacting to the people who want to equate that to him being a scum ONLY because he was inactive/lurking in prior games as a scum too. It just doesn't sit right with me as an argument, day 2 or not. Wolfpacks - I can see the argument that he has posted a larger amount of generalized statements than most of us - posts where little constructive feels like it has been said, or where he has been intentionally vague. I called on him to actually post his thoughts on who may be scum, but he has not done so yet. He needs to, so that it can put some concrete positions down for him and we can judge him more effectively. I don't know if I'll get another post in before the day ends, since I *think* it's noon tomorrow - er, today. So like 10 hours. I might /sleep/ that long, even. So I'm going to act like this is my last post, and if I can follow up in the morning then good. Vote: Wolfpacks Between the two wagons, this one speaks to me the most - it's not based on the question of inactivity versus lurking, it's based on a seemingly deliberate desire to not take a solid position - excepting the OMGUS vote back against Finster earlier. FoS: Finster I am now concerned enough about Finster to make this a full FoS. Some of the statements and positions he has taken are difficult to reconcile with a townie feeling it'd make sense, and is more in line with feeling out which wagons he can jump on safely. His earlier question about role information still doesnt sit right with me either. Other scum watchlist: KevinH - I don't have anything solid here. He and Finster seemed to be on the same page during the Rafay/Mazuurek inactives discussion, and Kevin as well as Finster called for role information early in Day 2 which caught my interest then. As for the content about role variants that 'may' be present - that felt like a smokescreen, even as it made the point (that I agreed with) that we can't rely on investigations. I am open to seeing myself proven wrong about this based on how Kevin posts in the future, but in case I get killed... this is what I am thinking. Here's hoping we get lucky with our lynch today... I'm none too confident in either choice, but we need to get people on record or the scum will walk all over us. I'll post in the morning if I'm here before deadline. Fingers crossed. -Preston

Per my prior post I acknowledge you had that longer list, and you don't need to be facetious about explaining it. I am referring to how the conversation around inactives revolved around Rafay and Mazuurek until I raised Samus and Lyner when looking at Day 2 posts only, unless I've missed a post to the contrary looking back over the day. Case in point, your most recent post where you changed your vote and only cite Rafay and Mazuurek as #1 and #2 - and no, you do not need to list your whole scum list each time you change your vote. It felt like an omission to not be examining all the day2 inactives equally and then looking for what sets them apart - I disregarded day 1 post count because it's easy to inflate with theme and fluff, and it seems like you didn't. This may be a case of me expecting you to have already seen what I'm seeing, or having an inflated opinion of your analysis... but it felt quite glaring. If we are considering 'lurking' as defined by inactivity here plus activity outside of the thread, such that they are seemingly not posting on purpose - by that score Samus is the worse offender because Rafay has not been active anywhere else we can see. With that said - we have 3 votes apiece on Rafay and Samus now. This should be enough to apply pressure without yet committing to either. If nothing happens by tomorrow... then we see who shifts votes where to take a wagon to half-majority, and that will be useful information too. On the subject of your following post, I would be a bit frustrated if TW applied such weakening roles without somehow compensating the town. I don't know if we're advanced enough to deal with it, so I'll just hope those are not in. But your takeaway point is still correct - no-lynch for a 2nd day would be a mistake, we need *meaningful* vote info; votes that cannot be shrugged off as "you cannot blame me for it". I just wish I felt more confident about either of the two currently on the block. As for Wolfpacks' comment - it's a general statement that long speeches can be scummy, and it's true; scum can look like townies trying to do analysis, or they can go near-silent and try to fly under the radar. However please do not tease with a vague "I have a couple who I actually think are scum" - you might die tonight like any of us, and your thoughts would die with you. Everyone should get their suspect list and rationales out in the open before the day ends, so that if you're the night kill we know what you thought tomorrow. -Preston

So is Wolfpacks still on your scum short list, and if so what keeps him there? Adding some detail to flesh out your votes after the fact won't be a complete excuse for the bandwagoning, but it will help explain your case. All of this is generically true, but I fail to see how your recent vote shifts would provide this information to anyone. You did include Rafay in your earlier list; what I want to understand is what makes Rafay your #2 choice over others like Samus and Lyner who are (or in Lyner's case, were) doing the same thing he is. It feels off to me that you seem to be disregarding two of the four inactives for no clear reason. Also the relative brevity of your posts in switching your vote and now explaining it when prompted also has my attention... I get that Rafay's scum-play style is apparently to lurk, but according to SM (and what I vaguely remember from earlier games as well), he does the same thing as town too. So when I see people justifying their vote as "Well he is always scum" I can't see how that can possibly hold true unless he has literally turned out to be scum in every game he's played. I think I'm reacting more to that fallacy and contradiction than to anything else. It'd be a hell of a lot simpler if our inactives got back in here. -Preston

Addendum - and now KevinH has joined Finster on Rafay, bringing it to three votes- one shy of the number needed to secure a lynch at deadline. No reason was given for the vote shift other than Kevin being alone on his other pick, and Rafay being second on Kevin's prior list - which excluded Samus' inactivity while focusing on Rafay and Mazuurek. Per my above post, the exclusion of Samus and Lyner when discussing inactives is becoming a pet peeve of mine, because the same numbers and metrics should apply to all four and I'd be surprised at Kevin for missing that. It would be a stretch to say Samus, Finster and KevinH are ALL scum, but right now I am looking at them all and wondering if the scum team could be stacked that heavily. If nothing else it might explain why CoD was taken out instead of any of them. We're not at 4 votes yet, but the scrambling for a wagon is starting to feel like they are testing the waters to see what will stick with the rest of us. -Preston

As the end of the day gets closer, we're starting to see people feeling out which wagons might get traction. I am particularly looking at Finster right now for semi-rapid vote switching - he joined Ali and iSoc on Wolfpacks, then joined King Hitler on Rafay. Combined with the earlier feel of him seeking people to spill night info this puts him currently on top of my suspect list, as thin as it is for the moment. Now with that said - the debate over inactives has been framed in terms of Rafay and Mazuurek for the past realtime day or so, but Samus is just as inactive on Day 2 and MORE active than Rafay outside of this thread (as far as I can see), and Lyner posted only to provide a cover excuse for why he is not posting. If we are looking at lurkers, we cannot look at anything less than all four of them - and the fact that Samus keeps getting forgotten when discussing inactives/lurkers is bothering me a little, as though he is being deliberately omitted by those talking about it. That's one reason I'm keeping my vote where it is - the other is that I still have not gotten an answer as to whether Samus is 'veteran' enough that he would have been a good N1 scum target over CoD. Saying that Rafay is "always scum" is a horrible concept to base a vote on - past games have absolutely zero influence on what roles you get THIS game, even if he plays the same. Finster's assertion that Rafay was absolutely watching while lurking in *previous* games carries no weight unless he has been observed to be doing so this game. I have no desire to defend Rafay specifically and think he needs to speak up, but I can't let misleading statements like that stand without challenge. We might be able to poke the inactives more directly as well. Back when I used to play, we could request the mod issue a prod message to inactives who had not posted for X real days, and if they did not return to the game in short order they were up for replacement. If TW has no problem with this, I would like to request a prod on Mazurrek, Samus and Rafay - or hell, say something to them on Discord. I'm not giving Lyner a free pass, but at least he has said SOMETHING today. Things are mixing up and that will be good for determining peoples' stances later on, but I dont want to move toward finishing the day just yet. -Preston

Nice to meet you as well KH - yeah, your initials and Kevin's do coincide, I'll just refer to KevinH by the full name for clarity. If AbT is just trying to shake things up that's one thing, but it takes two to tango - iSoc is feeding back into AbT who isnt/wasnt letting it go. TBD how big of a deal that becomes. Scum kill selection is always WIFOM - Wine In Front Of Me, aka trying to second-guess why someone did what they did knowing you'd try to second-guess them. We can speculate, but we have no concrete reasoning for any of it. All we can definitively say is who died and who was NOT targeted. And agreed thus far about SM - she seems to be putting in a decent effort. See, this is the part where I start to worry about what you said just now. Agree that PR claiming is not wise, but if we go *two* days without a lynch then we're just handing days to the scum aren't we...? Unless we know we've got something that will help by stalling for time, which at this point we do not. What we have against Samus and Mazuurek is slim and open to interpretation, but if we give up on even pursuing it we lose not only the potential information from the lynch, but the information from how people react to pursuing it. I don't think another non-day is wise. I didn't take it as negative criticism don't worry! To elaborate (because you seem to enjoy it? ) Long posts dont inherently mean town - anyone can be longwinded. However if there's a lot of good analysis it suggests they are trying - People doing the right job of hunting for scum will show they're looking for subtext, and most importantly not remaining fully neutral the whole time. And it can be moderately hard to sustain a strong line of attack/analysis as scum without eventually contradicting yourself. So yes, keep feeling things out and see what you can find And we all hope Samus and Maz will speak up, and if they don't... we'll see how everything shakes out in the end. -Preston

@Legoboy, As both SM and Finster have commented you can FOS/suspect as many people as you wish at any time. And yes SM, I do tend to be a tad bit verbose - only way to get all the thoughts out of my head, so there's room to put more thoughts in! However quick responses like this can work for when there are only a few intervening posts to examine. As a tangent/addendum however: I note that Mazuurek seems fairly active in Discord chat. I'm still curious if anyone has seen him actually reading this thread to directly lurk, but purely inactive he is not. It does not make him automatically scum, but does rub me the wrong way. -Preston

And good evening to you as well Finster. --- So a bit of activity today, good - seems to be following four main threads. 1. KevinH's List - another analysis list, and I'm a little amused he gave me the same rating as himself. Gryffindor indeed? It doesn't stop me from watching him of course, but more notably he lays out a list of his current suspects: Lego, Samus, iSoc, Lyner, Rafay, mazuurek. Kevin also accurately noted that I am riding on Myrrdin's legacy. He was an active poster apparently and not trying to hide, though skimming day 1 I can't get into his head on some bits either, particularly his unvoting prior to the day's end. He had voted for CoD before the day ended, along with Lego - and CoD was killed on night 1. Speculation, but I wonder if that kill was intended to shift suspicion onto Lego and Myrrdin as the two who had votes there? 2. iSoc and Ali arguing about iSoc's earlier statement regarding scum on the no-lynch vote. Either they're good at acting, or Ali is just that argumentative, or these two don't like each other and aren't on the same team. It's drawing a lot of attention to the pair of them, and feels like Ali doesn't want to let iSoc go. 3. Lego tossed a FoS on KevinH with minimal explanation, after previously focusing on Samus? 4. Votes/FoS being directed at Rafay and Mazuurek, the current minimums in vote count (if you exclude myself due to late joining or add in Myrrdin's posts to my count). Before going further, I decided to do a post count only since Day 2 started, to see how that looked without the spamminess of Day 1: Ali bin Turban 7 Finster Baby 8 iSocialism 6 KevinH 9 King Hitler 6 legoboyvdlp 3 Lyner 1 Preston 2 (counting this one) Rhizoctonia 2 Sister Midnight 6 Wolfpacks 3 Samus 0 Rafay 0 Mazuurek 0 So the subject of lurkers vs low post count vs inactives... the easy targets that can't (or are not) defend themselves. I'm always a little leery when this line of attack is used, because similar to the day 1 no lynch it is a "blameless" targeting - one where if the vote happens and a townie is lynched, everyone on that wagon can say it was sheer numbers and how can you question the statistics? My personal thought is that if someone is REALLY scum, then they have a power role of their own and that makes the game more exciting - i.e. scum are less likely to be truly inactive barring outside life issues, so lynching inactives is better-than-even odds to kill town instead of scum. If they're really dead weight we can try to get another replacement for future days. With that said, I also want to distinguish between "Lurker" and "inactive" - the first is scummier than the second. Both Mazurrek and Rafay (and Samus, and Lyner until today) have not posted on day 2, but have they been observed to be reading this thread without posting, by ANYONE? If so, then yes there is more info that they are lurking and it's on the word of the one who says they saw them reading without posting. The other question is when they last did anything else on the forums - to proactively answer this part myself, Rafay's last post in the forums was on June 17th; Mazuurek's was yesterday, June 27th; Lyner's only day 2 post was to say he's having a hard week (explanation for inactivity), today June 28th; Samus has been active elsewhere on the forums, last post today June 28th. So with all that said - unless someone can specify they have seen someone actively reading this thread (list on the bottom) but not posting, Samus and Mazuurek both hit the "active on forums but not posting here" criteria moreso than Rafay and Lyner. So are they lurking, or just not paying attention here - do they NOT have a role so they are bored with the game and less attentive, or are they trying not to make waves? Some pressure might help - and to spread out the votes so a wagon doesn't form, I am going to vote for the other active-but-not-here-and-no-day2-posts player. Vote: Samus Come rejoin the conversation to remove your inactivity/lurking and I'll remove the vote. As a relevant side question, would those who have played with him more recently consider Samus enough of a veteran that he would have been a better N1 target than CoD? Ignoring what seems to be a running joke about him, anyway... -Preston

Well, that's one way ta do it! And here I was minding me own business while the owls deliver mail, when suddenly I get this howler showin' up and makin' a terrible racket - caught my attention RIGHT away I tell you! Now that the requisite flavor is dealt with, here are my thoughts as I catch up in no particular order as I read and re-read the thread stream-of-consciousness style... I've missed Day 1's classic no-lynch debate and joke votes - not too sure that's a big loss I guess. We lost one townie overnight - not a power role, and I'm a little curious why CoD was picked given that there are other veterans here. The joke used to be that if either KevinH or Electric Mango was alive on day 2, one of them was scum - doubly so if the other was killed on the first night. So either some of the better target veterans are scum and CoD was a reasonable choice, or scum saw something CoD said on day 1 that caught their interest, or the scum team is new enough to not know who is a better target... there's a lot of possible reasons here. That said, with what I've skimmed so far of the day before my arrival... both Finster and KevinH have referenced asking people to role claim. I'm lazy tonight to find the specific posts, but it was to the effect of Finster saying "If anyone has night information now's the time to spill it." KevinH above first acknowledged that by roleclaiming information one would put a target on their back, and then in the next breath said that if Mazuurek shows up "with a good role claim" then he'll adjust. Neither of these are conclusive, but they caught my attention. Finster also brought up the serial killer slant which feels more a distraction than anything... I'll have to reread that whole exchange, but we had only one death last night - if we'd had TWO then I'd be far more likely to consider a SK as a possibility (and it would also have tipped the SK's hand pretty heavily). I also found it... curious, that KevinH gave Sister Midnight townie points for her cute owl spam post. The humor is certainly appreciated, but I don't see how that leads to towniness in itself. Maybe my memory is hazy, but I seem to recall KevinH being a bit more discerning than that once day 2 rolls around. King Hitler and Ali both have some longer list posts out. I'll give King some credit for his detailed per-person sheet thus far, but I did twitch a bit on seeing him awarding himself "Townie of the year" - anyone will be townie on their own list, but that felt a bit over the top there. Ali's list shows he seems to be taking the game seriously... but there's not a lot of meat to it aside from dismissing the SK possibility for now and asking Lego to not joke vote about Samus unless there's more rationale to it. Which brings us back to one of our only solid bits of info thus far, the no-lynch list: KevinH, King Hitler, Finster Baby, Sister Midnight, Wolfpacks. ... I don't know that we can do too much with this. KevinH is a constant member of No-Lynch-Anon, and the others I don't have enough info to fully parse yet. iSocialism correctly points out that voting no-lynch is typically a 'safe' town-looking move for anyone on day 1; it doesn't buy the scum another quick death to speed the game, but neither does it tip their hand any. However at the same time I find it odd that iSocialism started by saying that "there might be one hiding in the no-lynch wagon." That seems... something of an overly obvious statement. Go figure. I havent put together a coherent list of my thoughts on EVERYONE yet, but I think that at this time I'll be watching KevinH and Finster the most due to their testing the waters to see if someone will drop role info as I described above - it's the first impression I got upon reading the thread, and for now it's sticking with me. I know it's day 2 and this is when such info should possibly start coming out to inform town votes, but the way it was asked felt a little too blatant for my taste. I don't consider this enough for a FoS and certainly not enough for a vote yet - but those are my thoughts coming into the thread with fresh eyes. And now, I need a lemon drop and a soft bed - too much more of this and I'll end up another library hermit with rotting eyes! Now where's that portrait, and what was the bloody password...

Goodness, looks like I'm missing out on some history and epic posts... among other things... >.> May as well get my mask too!

Hey all. Just got home, and I'm reading over the thread - though with all going on it may be a little late tonight for me to have time to do a FULL post. I'll aim for tomorrow if I can't manage it tonight. In the meantime it looks like my question/opportunity to frame the debate with a summary has generated some good discussion! I'll definitely be looking to see if the facts support how Imran has described events. I'll also note that mario's holding up his newness as a defense is interesting - and while NOT a final opinion, joke-votes do not tend to sit right with me after Day 1 is over. Keep talking, and I'll catch up through the backlog eventually! -Preston

In my opinion, the earlier protests - coming out and blocking the streets without actually harming people - were those who truly felt something about the issue and wanted to keep a spotlight on it. They may have annoyed people stuck in the Orioles game and unable to leave, but that's still not damage per se. The protesters throwing rocks/etc at the police and damaging police vehicles, etc - tempers run high, the police are the focal point of the anger, and they're RIGHT THERE telling people to go home. While these actions are NOT constructive, they are at least more understandable. Someone who came out to do a peaceful protest can get caught up in the mob mentality or react to something done by the police at the scene and 'fight back' in some form. Then you have the people looting and burning buildings and vehicles NOT involved with the police, but rather just normal people - these are the ones taking advantage of the chaos to do things they probably would have otherwise done anyway, just perhaps not all at once. Opportunistic criminals mugging passers by - I think I heard a story about reporters being similarly waylaid, which is ironic because reporters are exactly who the original protesters WANTED to see what was going on; that's how the message gets out. Whatever investigative attention might have been turned on Freddie Gray's case has been overshadowed by the rioting that has followed. TL;DR: The looters are opportunistic criminals taking advantage of the existing protests as they turn ugly.

Here's where I cross my fingers and hope that this game doesn't implode like the last one I joined as a replacement. I told Rafay prior to accepting that I'd be a little inactive this week; I've got family coming in this weekend, so LOTS of time is being spent preparing for that. I expect my activity will pick up more after Sunday, but until then I figure any level of activity is better than none. I know I'll have to go back and do a lot of reading, but I will still ask for a brief summary of what has transpired so far, from the perspective of whomever wishes to respond. It looks like there are two lynch wagons in play; Imran and mariomario. This is an opportunity for both sides to frame the debate for someone with fresh eyes to see if your arguments hold up. It looks like Kaz had not yet voted as of when I replaced him; I'll vote when I have a better idea of what's going on. Getting me up to speed quicker will mean I'll sooner be able to contribute to a more informed debate (and have my vote mean something). -Preston

I can get behind this, assuming Kaz can get online enough to send Rafay the game's information - roles, night actions received, etc. The alternative is for everyoen to add Rafay to their role PM conversation (Invite participants) so he can see what was written thus far.

When will then be now?

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Kaz has something else going on that's causing the delays. I hope everything is alright offline. With that said I wish I'd also gotten into the other game Rafay has going on

Yargh! Per me last note in a bottle, cast adrift and bobbin' in different waves, I've been becalmed til dawn t'day - and t'would seem it's a red sea I ride in on, findin th' deed all but done if'n TBRaiders' count o' six above be true. I done some o' the readin, an t'would seem the black spot o' Ovid been delivered truly if'n Robert and Big Ego speak true - though that last I be a lil' suspicious o', given tis hard ta give Ego a clean bill o' health for just claimin his kill. Lyner be a little strange choice ta me too - wonderin' what we lost in th' captain. We've only his word that he's out o' shots, an' a serial killer need not keep the same MO nightly (head trauma/shot in head). Still, should Ovid prove scurvy t'will do much ta put Ego in good graces. Tis good to finally put paid on Robert's claim - unfinished business be bad for business, savvy? But it follows what 'ee said prior, and tis a role not so strange to see. Ovid's post though... Priest? burying the dead? Lack 'o bodies an info about 'em be bane, not boon! Besides, when I lookit up in the good book, Priest t'would seem somethin totally other: http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Priest Not precisely gospel, but a precedent worth weighin. I also be watchin KevinH - Summat he said, and about 'im votin fer names an pushin tha vote early dun quite set right wit me. ... me head be hurtin, writin like i'm speakin like a pirate. T'will be a blessin ta put it a-stern on the morrow. -Preston Yar.

Checking in; ugh that the other game is STILL locked! Ironic that I join a game as a replacement and then that happens. I'd be interested this one if there's still slots - caveat however that i'm currently out of town until April 5th, and internet access will be VERY spotty or non-existent. -Preston

let's not forget that we had 3 waggons at some point. i'm guessing that it's quite possible that scum might have jumped on mine if either one of the 2 contenders were to be scum. however, there probably are 2 factions of scum and one of them probably doesn't have a partener so there you go. We've had wagons all over the place today it seems. R2V, killgor, iSocialism, Ovidsidios, spaztik - almost half the people still alive have been target at some point or another. I don't know if I'd believe in 2 factions of scum - it's possible I guess. Never played where that was the case. If we seem the same two methods of killing at night (head trauma and vanishing), then it would lend additional weight to that theory. In terms of sheer odds, for 2 people out of 12 the odds of neither being scum (assuming 3 scum) are (9/12 * 8/11) = 72%. If we assume 4 anti-town (potentially 2 scum factions, or 3 scum + 1 SK) then the numbers are (8/12 * 7/11) = 63% Given iSocialism's fatalism and reactions at the end of the day, I am hoping we got this right. He could very likely have thrown out enough reasonable doubt to shift votes to Spaztik if he had been open - but he opened THAT can of worms himself by referring to his role. It really irks me when someone does that... you can vote and act on your role info all you like, but don't even mention you HAVE a role unless you are prepared for the scrutiny and questioning that follows. To do anything else is just disingenuous. Anyway, enough watching this for now; show's over until the Mod weighs in and the big reveal happens. Still way too tense x.x -Preston

Bleh, it looks like my post got in 2 minutes after the deadline. However it's still there, and I suspect the mod will count it - not that it would change the outcome anyway. Now I just cross my fingers and hope we chose right. This was definitely a very tense end to the day. -Preston