Preston

This is definitely tense. I got back ~10-20 minutes before the end and (since the mod has not responded about an extension) been watching to see if anything is posted - from mod or anyone else. As for your points: obviously whoever is on the final wagon will be judged accordingly. However if the wagon turns up town it will be impossible to know if the other wagon wasn't ALSO town, short of someone with a cop role or similar. Spaztik voting for iSoc to save himself is understandable, lurking or not. I can hardly imagine him doing anything else, and I'm frankly surprised it took THIS long. Robert voting to tie things up again - making it 'interesting' in the same way that EM did with the three-way mexican standoff, creating a situation where your vote cannot be the final one so you'll avoid the spotlight. It doesn't quite sit well with me. At the moment, if neither Imran nor I vote, iSocialism is still lynched since he was the first to get to 5 votes. The only way a vote would change anything is if it's a vote for Spaztik; otherwise it's locking in iSocialism. I previously was leaning more towards Spaztik than iSocialism. But the way iSoc came out with a half claim and subsequently refused to elaborate - even in the face of his lynch and the information it will deny the town - makes me think he CANNOT claim without having to come up with a fake role someone else could counter. Given that TBRaiders, whom I consider town, is on the iSoc wagon gives it extra weight; given Robert, EM, and Lyner (whom I am watching) on the Spaztik wagon make me want to NOT vote there. I still suspect Spaztik. I don't have to vote at this point; but I'm not going to sit on the sidelines here and be a lurker. I accused Ovid of being unhelpful when asked, and have kept my vote there until now on that rationale. With you doing the same thing now, I can do no less. Let the dice fall where they may. Vote: iSocialism -Preston

Brief opportunity to post mid-day; I *really* wish deadline was a few hours later! Mod, can we push it back til midnight? And yet.... I think you left off the rest of your sentence here. I don't know what your "And yet..." is meant to convey. Fatalism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nothing is final until the day ends. If you are town: giving us your role now will tell us a) what we must consider in determining whether to risk lynching you, and what we will have lost if you are lynched - because we will NOT learn it from the mod death messages. I know Robert will likely decry this as 'role digging' - but iSocialism made his role an issue when he said it was a reason behind his vote shift. With him on the block as the next-in-line to be lynched if NO votes move, anything and everything he can do to explain his position and reasoning is fair game. If he is going to be lynched, I want to at least know what he claims we will lose. -Preston

For a VERY short morning post (gotta run in like 5 minutes): iSocialism - the default assumed of those who have not roleclaimed is vanilla townie. That role has no active or passive 'abilities', and in many senses is not considered a role (aka power role) at all. The moment someone refers to their role as actually influencing their actions, or refers to an 'ability' they have at ALL - even without further information - that is the start of a role claim. You have already taken this step, which sets you apart from all those who have not claimed. Townies obviously do not want to lynch a power role - this is why many roleclaims come out when the person being lynched is on the defensive, as a "Don't kill me! I have a role that will help town!" measure. As one of the candidate lynch wagons, you are in that position. So your referring to a role NOW at the end of the day, as part of the justification trying to keep people from finishing you, is *extremely* suspect. My input is thus: right now, having claimed your role like you did will do you more harm than good because noone will really believe it. The more vague you are right now, the less you will be trusted. If you want to keep the final votes from swinging your way, I suggest you become a lot less vague, FAST. -Preston

This began as a shorter post, and grew into something longer. The end of this day is certainly tense! A stand-off of your making, as I previously posted; and it appears as though Imran has blinked first - in the context of changing the status quo anyway. But he simply unvoted instead of voting for a separate wagon; thoughts on this? @Robert: Given 12 people alive, the odds of none of the three wagons being scum are ~38% (9/12 * 8/11 * 7/10). The odds of at least one scum having a wagon on them are then ~62% - by sheer probability, and ignoring a LOT of other factors. TL;DR: we don't know how scum are distributed, though we must hope we can find one scum out of this mess. However your focus on Lyner agrees somewhat with my prior post: that Lyner and EM have somewhat been able to keep out of the spotlight while still voting - letting someone else end this standoff, to which they can say they only contributed. I'll be keeping an eye on them both I think. When reason is absent, feelings prevail - even feelings with a semblance of reason. But philosophy aside, it is as I said before: if another candidate becomes the better best guess at finding scum, that is what will carry the day. You are correct that little new has been added to your docket; mostly your push against Big Ego and Spaztik. What is changing is the weight of what lies on iSocialism and Spaztik's end of the scales. It does not diminish the reasons for which you were accused (which were, again, behavioral - virtually everything today is) but the tides are turning. There is no malice; only trying to make the best of a low-information situation and the difficult decisions therein. And on a side note, I've got to say your eloquent way of speaking is somewhat infectious I dont' always use such phrases in a response. So if I read this correctly... 1. You gave up your defense vote buffer to try and create a third wagon and see if Ovid would switch his vote? It would have been easier to believe this if your vote on Spaztik had included more justification than just quoting Lyner's vote. It is easier to say anything now, and as a result it's a little harder to trust what rationales are provided. 2. You just mentioned 'because of my role' as part of your justification - implying that we cannot know the full extent of your reasoning without knowing your role. The obvious question you have raised is "How would your role affect your reasoning *during* the day?" Similar to Robert's situation, I don't tend to like roles being referred to as a defense or a justification unless you are prepared to follow through on it. Trusting iSocialism's rationale seems to boil down to whether you believe his self-endangering vote switch was done to test whose vote would jump - especially Ovid's. At this point I am uncertain. However with Imran's vote no longer on Ovid, and my prior statement that I am suspicious of Robert and Spaztik who are the two remaining votes on Ovid alongside me - I am less comfortable with my own vote remaining there either. Given TBRaiders and Big Ego voting for iSocialism, along with Imran now potentially leaning in that direction, I am increasingly looking there as well - but I will make a final decision later tonight/tomorrow before deadline. I should hope that if my vote moves, I shall only need to do it once. -Preston

Looks like a LOT has shifted since I last posted yesterday! Curiouser and curiouser. But first let's answer Ovid's relevant question: The rule states "In case of a tie, first come first served." i.e. the first to have reached that vote number is first in line to be lynched. I believe that is currently still you; Ovid reached 4 votes, then iSocialism, then Spaztik. If you drop below 4 votes then go to 4 again while the others stay at 4 votes, you would go to the back of the line and iSocialism would be lynched if the tie remained. I also have to address a rather embarrassing mistake on my part: I don't believe I ever voted for Ovid. I voted Imran, then iSocialism, then Spaztik. I did a double-take when I read this, checked my notes, then checked the thread. I made a mistake in my post summary notepad No excuse for this one other than 'oops' on my part, and thank you for correcting me on it. This makes me think of you as more town - you may be changing your vote, but the scenario from my post that you quoted no longer applies. So we now see a 3-way tie between Spaztik, iSocialism and Ovidsidios at 4 votes apiece. All 12 players are voting, and the votes are evenly split. Very curious. When I posted my first novel, the wagons were between Killgor, iSocialism and Ovidsidios. The iSocialism wagon went away and returned. Killgor was swapped for Spaztik. Ovid remained. Given that I put my vote for Ovid, I am likely responsible for his wagon remaining while the others faded - but the fact iSocialism came back and now Spaztik has surged to pairity with the others is quite interesting indeed. While catching up in the thread, three votes in particular stood out to me: Lyner, iSocialism, and EM. Lyner: Given the 4-vote tie between iSocialism and Ovid, Lyner's vote for a third candidate struck me as scummy at first; his vote brought Spaztik's wagon to 2 while leaving the tie unbroken. I interpreted this as very similar to lurking - voting in a way that did not look at the time like it would affect the day's lynch, just to seem active. The Spaztik wagon has since tied the others, but at the time Lyner voted it did not look favorably on him. iSocialism: He had applied the 5th vote on Ovidsidios to keep himself safe... and now he votes Spaztik to follow Lyner. He quoted Lyner's post with no elaboration on his own, and in so doing he tied himself with Ovid again at 4:4, while bringing Spaztik's wagon to 3. This runs counter to the idea of simply surviving, so I'd have hoped the risk would be accompanied with a STRONG reason... but nothing. This does not sit well with me. EM: Welcome back? I think this is the first I've seen you post since I joined the game. Your vote caught my attention because you deliberately created the 3-way tie. Similar to Lyner I could see this as lurking-ish behavior: reducing the impact of your own vote and making whoever changes their vote into the focus for later. Your brief statement that Spaztik 'fits the bill' of being a non-vet player is fairly thin, and honestly feels like cover for wanting to make the tie happen. Despite your statement that information will be gained on whoever changes their vote (which is still true), I'm still looking at how you have deftly managed to be 'active' while letting someone else take the spotlight. With those votes addressed, let's look at the other content: If you think Ovid is scum, check him out tonight. You should read my posts more. I sense some skimming........ I had a very similar ??? reaction to reading this post from iSocialism, Robert. I am not fully onboard with 'skimming' being a scum tell - in a huge thread missing some details isn't inherently a sin and mistakes will be made (see mine above) - but I think this is a fairly significant example of that. You DO need to pay attention when scum hunting, and he's somehow missed the hanging question about your role that you've left unanswered... yeah, I'll give iSocialism a few scum ticks for that. Robert also responded to Imran specifically about his pushing to finish Robert's half-claim. Overall you seem very intent on suspecting people who are very justifiably interested in the role you teased. I'd almost call that borderline entrapment, along the (extremely oversimplified) lines of: Since you note both Imran and I have asked what seems the question you've all but begged the thread to ask, I should note that TBRaiders and killgor (off the top of my head) have also expressed interest in your role; will you call them scummy for it as well? This sort of borderline tactic really doesn't sit well with me, especially given that you acknowledge in this game your role info is lost on death. However your middle paragraph stands out to me: 1. "For really no reason or any pressure on me to do so" - Right now there is no vote pressure on you, but your original half-claim was in response to EM voting for you. The only pressure that remains is the hanging unresolved question that you threw out there. If I said, "I have a role too!" do you expect people would not respond to me with the obvious question of "What role? And why are you saying it?" 2. "I paint a target on my back" - you've already done that with your half-claim of an active, information-gathering role. You've said you got no evidence, yet you think EM is town as a result. If you die tonight, whatever justification you have for thinking EM is town will vanish with you. 3. "I've already said my name in this game. So I've given out more than enough Information." - You said you don't mind name-claiming because everyone probably has a flavor name - i.e. everyone has a non-informational label that has no game effect from sharing it. Not only is this not "more than enough Information" it's virtually no information at all. The only use to my mind that has come from name-claiming is Kevin stating that Rafay's "Patrolman" prefix does not inherently denote a cop or even a power role. Your Inspector name does not say anything about your role, as you noted when iSocialism tried to imply you should check out Ovid tonight. As for EM: EM, I believe Kevin simply said his flavor name and that he is not a cop - i.e. he attacked the assumption that Rafay had been a cop simply because he had "Patrolman" in his name. He did not eliminate himself from having another power role; similar to Robert, a flavor name alone gives virtually no information. However I am glad to see you have not forgotten your earlier suspicion of him - I was wondering where that had went. Finally Big Ego's longer post; he is fairly strongly defending Ovid at this point, despite being on Ovid's scum list. He notes Ovid often speaks through poetry but the priest aspect is new for this game. And most importantly he swapped his vote back to iSocialism (before Lyner put more weight on Spaztik again). I appreciate that your vote for iSocialism was primarily in defense of Ovidsidios, away from your primary suspect. You could easily swap a vote to Spaztik and break the tie, if that's the case. However I want to know what you see that makes iSocialism stand out in your eyes. As of my first post he seemed like he had at least support R2V, so I was less inclined to call him scum at the time; but steps since then are making me want more information. Whatever you can share, please do. 3-way ties are such a strange state of affairs. We have until tomorrow night, so I want to see what is said between now and then. I am keeping my vote where it is for the moment, but as I told Ovid earlier - if an argument is made that someone is a better scum guess than he, that is what will carry the day. To state it for the record, I would lean more towards Spaztik than iSocialism, however; if only due to his earlier random vote against TBRaiders. Let's see what happens for the rest of the day... I expect a lot of 11th hour tension. -Preston

This part of your response in particular stood out to me, so let's focus on it. I understand getting lost in that huge novel I first wrote so that you might have missed it, but I will pull out the relevant sections as a response to you: You can see Spaztik got a very clear mention, and I explicitly said why I initially limited myself to the three ongoing wagons as I got myself caught up again - namely that if I had not thrown my vote to one of the existing wagons (or not voted at all) it would have been an anti-town move. We *need* to lynch someone today for analysis' sake, and if I had voted for someone with no votes or otherwise avoided the ongoing discussion it would have been seen (or spun) as my trying to avoid committing myself to any particular course of action. With that cleared up, let's look at what else you brought up. 1. You note that you have been accused of fluff posting and lurking, and that others have done this same. This much is true; Big Ego called out Spaztik for lurking, and I have pointed at EM and Lyner for their relative silence (I do not fully consider Lyner's recent posts to be more than 'show I am active' fluff, which is on the level of lurking). Beyond those general faults, you are also accused of being unwilling to clarify or explain your position earlier on during your conversations with Imran. Most specifically I refer to this post: ...no? I will provide activity, and, in some way, shape, or form, I will contribute. But it will be on my terms, not yours. If Imran had been asking you to roleclaim or otherwise something unreasonable for one townie to ask another, that would have been one thing - but all he was asking was the same questions put to me when I entered the game: my position on people and recent events. I appreciate that you prefer to post with your own style, but when it gets in the way of clearly conveying your intent and suspicions then the resulting mis- or non-communication sows discord and runs counter to the idea of hunting for scum as a team. I explicitly called this out as one of the tiebreaker reasons that made my vote go to you and not one of the other two wagons at the time: To demonstrate that this is a problem, most recently your phrasing made it seem as though you were defending Spaztik from Big Ego - hence why I asked for clarification. 2. You throw out an interesting theory that iSocialism and R2V were scum partners, based on R2V thanking him for support in the midst of his ragequit. It is indeed very much a stretch as you acknowledge. While I obviously have no concrete means to refute the theory, note that I also acknowledged/thanked iSocialism for his defense of R2V when I joined the game. If the two of us were scum, that would mean I repeated the same mistake R2V did - even more of a stretch. Instead, iSocialism corrected me to say his vote for Killgor that had looked to me like support for R2V, was just because of Killgor's bandwagon hopping: My vote fell more on killgor for his constantly band wagon hopping. I think the simpler interpretation of R2V's parting gratitude for iSocialism is due to him reading iSocialism's vote the same way that I did upon joining the thread. So while I will give you credit for looking into subtext of what was said, there will be no water from this particular stone. 3. You provided a list of your current scum/town/unknown stance; thank you for that. I do note that Robert appears to be missing from it, though you referred to him in your final line (which appears strangely cut off?). Given that you previously threw out a quote asking how Lyner has not attracted more negative rep than you for his lurking/null posts, I am a little surprised to see him only on your 'uncertain' pile. In the end this is how mafia often must go. Townies know only what they are provided by roles and mod postings; the rest can only be guesswork. You are, sadly, the best guess that we seem to have at the moment. Your chance at this point is to convince us that someone else is more worth of being that best guess. The accusations in your recent posts are spread among those voting for you, or protesting that you are not the only one to have lurked or posted fluff. Even now you posted "the life of Spaztik" while keeping your vote on iSocialism. Put your vote where your suspicions are instead of slinging accusations to see where they will stick: pick a singular target to justify your suspicions against, put forth a clear argument against them, and vote for that person. Let us judge what you do when backed against a wall, and the tide may yet turn if you are convincing about it. Nothing is final until the day ends and the votes are tallied. -Preston

So it seems Big Ego is continuing to pursue his suspicion of Spaztik. Ovid's responses as part of that conversation seem to be defending Spaztik and attacking Big Ego. Given the lateness of the day, I am a little surprised to see Big Ego striking out on his own like this. While prodding lurkers is typically not a bad move, I am not sure that Spaztik fully fit that label - you could perhaps say his votes were thin and bandwagon-y, but then what do we make of his random voting for TBR out of nowhere? While this is again behavioral, Scum tend to try to avoid standing out. They accomplish this by staying on well agreed-upon bandwagons, lurking, or providing minimal activity through fluff (flavor) and null (no content added) posts. They DO try to avoid being on wagons that lynch townies when the day ends, though. So there are two ways to interpret this sequence of events: 1. Big Ego-as-scum had his vote on the Ovidsidios wagon, which gained steam with Preston and iSocialism adding votes to it. With that lynch seemingly assured, he moves his vote elsewhere so as not to be on the wagon when the day ends. This could be a defensive maneuver and possibly scummy. If a second scum is ALSO on the Ovid wagon, Big Ego looking to separate votes would be a wise scum move. 2. Big Ego-as-town has no reason to simply stick with an existing wagon, and thusly feels free to stand out and pursue an impulse against Spaztik. He said to Ovid that his actions were to prod a lurker, though the level of Spaztik lurking is up for debate. I currently am watching Lyner and EM. EM still needs to post since I joined the thread, and he has been conspicuously absent for a while after throwing the 5th vote on R2V just before his replacement. Lyner is not posting much, and his last two posts are largely null posts with no content really added; his apparent eagerness to see Ovid lynched makes me consider Lyner effectively on the wagon, whether he votes it or not. If we don't lynch, we will probably lose more townies in the night and be in worse shape tomorrow. There is a hope that the scum might kill each other, but I feel the best chance to take is to lynch and hope to get lucky. I have to echo and agree with KevinH on this particular point, TBR. We are woefully short on actual information - given 2 night kills with no role flips, we have less going for us than a normal game at this point, even given the Day 1 no-lynch. We don't know if we still have a cop or not, and Robert has revealed his having a role and thus may be targeted; thusly we cannot rely on power roles to fully bail us out. A second no-lynch would potentially result in 2 more dead with no further information; we must lynch someone to start the vote analysis, otherwise we'll still be in this same position on day 3. In my opinion (which I know Kevin does not share) normally all this behavioral-based voting should belong more on Day 1; but without a lynch to force people to commit to their votes and start the vote analysis then, Day 1 ends up being a wash. Good to see a response from Imran; this is your first since I first posted too. Imran seems to be of the mind that Big Ego's voting for Spaztik is a townie move moreso than a scum move; possibly based on Ovid's attacks on Big Ego, i.e. 'enemy of my enemy' or 'suspect of my suspect' as the case may be. If Ovidsidios proves to be town, obviously his suspect list will gain weight for consideration on Day 3 - this will include Big Ego and iSocialism; his highlighting also included spaztik muffin, but given that Big Ego and Spaztik are currently attacking each other the list is either flawed or Big Ego and Spaztik are attempting to distance themselves from each other. Given that Big Ego is newish, I don't know if this is something he would come up with on his own - the mafia COULD have daytalk, but honestly if this game setup is both no role information on death and mafia daytalk, that would be pretty brutal for the town. Speaking to Ovidsidios's response to Imran: Yes, others have been lurking more; I will give you that point quite readily, you are active if nothing else. Activity does not in itself confer towniness however, especially if that activity largely starts when someone calls you out for being inactive (i.e. lurking). As for people bandwagoning, my original long post pointed out that there's been a lot of that going on today; ultimately one must chose a suspect and commit to it, hoping to either find scum or narrow their suspect list if the suspect proves to be town. Given the Day 1 no-lynch and apparent failure of any power roles we have last night to produce anything actionable, Day 2 has been thin. However I'd like to ask you to clarify one line from your post: Watching the recent byplay between yourself, Big Ego and Spaztik, your attacks on Big Ego came across to me as at least a tacit defense of Spaztik; i.e. justifying him with "There is a fairly obvious defense for this..." - expand upon this point please, at least to clearly state your position with regards to Spaztik? Your verse-style of writing, while stylistically entertaining to read, lends itself to misunderstanding at a time when you need to be *very* clear on whom you suspect and whom you do not. If you are town, the record of your final suspect list - less so your earlier ones - will be your epitath, and carry weight going into further days. -Preston

Less time tonight than I'd like to go into too much detail; you'll likely be spared another novel QUITE as long, but let's wade into it. It's interesting to note the reactions that have happened since I joined; a lot of votes moving around. 1. Ovidsidios votes for iSocialism and asks killgor to join him as a 'leap of faith' - this would create a 4-person wagon as of that time 2. Lyner unvotes from Big Ego (was the only vote), saying Ovid will die soon 3. iSocialism votes for Ovid, bringing wagon to 5 to defend himself. 4. Big Ego votes for Spaztik Muffin. This one seemed out of nowhere, especially given that his immediately prior post had been him saying he was sick of changing his vote. Ovid and iSoc's moves are understandable from a keep-yourself-alive perspective; not a scum tell, as both scum and town would/should act the same in that situation. Lyner seems to support lynching Ovid without actually throwing his vote. Big Ego's move seems strange; I am not sure how to fully read it. I also haven't seen EM post yet I think; I'd like to hear from him, and more from Robert. There were also some corrections from my huge novel; given how long I took to write that thing, I understand that. 1. iSocialism corrected that his vote for killgor was due to killgor's apparent tendency to jump on bandwagons? Useful information, since I hadn't really reviewed Day 1. 2. TBRaiders notes his vote for iSocialism was actually a reference to Robert's half-claim as well, and before EM fully brought it up again. That was a little subtle, but I see it upon reading what TBRaiders quoted. If I read this correctly, TBRaiders voted for iSoc because iSoc voted for EM, after robert's half-claim saying he visited EM? @TBRaiders, do I have this interpretation correct? I currently do not consider Robert's claim to provide townie or scum points to EM, until we know more about what Robert did. I'd like to respond specifically to something Killgor posted about events since my return: Without trying to taint your very justifiable skepticism - as sortof a 'newbie' I think I am being given a fair chance to offer a new perspective... which I very much appreciate given how much R2V went off the deep end. That's one reason I started my huge post with an analysis of what happened with him; I wanted to know what led him to quit the game, and whose shoes I was filling. The original votes for R2V with his bandwagoning and OMGUS vote on robert - behavioral and thin justifications to begin with - were compounded by his overreacting and generally acting like a jerk. This made him a lightning rod that everyone flocked to. I am not sure how much weight to throw onto the five votes that ultimately formed the R2V wagon; were any scum trying to finish him off, or were they content to let the townies do it themselves? It's difficult to say. Finally, the more significant event of sorts: Kevin's name-claim. However if true he provides a somewhat relevant piece of information: That the 'Patrolman' prefix Rafay's role had does not necessarily denote a cop. In general trying to second-guess the mod's use of flavor and map it to underlying roles is not reliable, so Kevin's statement makes sense. While kevin could be lying about his name, I am not sure what the scum would gain by casting doubt on our having lost our cop though... so I am inclined to believe the nameat least; there is no way to verify it short of Kevin's death. So with that said, here are my ongoing thoughts at this point: There are 5 votes on Ovidsidios, and only iSocialism has more than one vote at this time. Barring a major shift, this will be the day's lynch. I agree with Kevin that we are thin on actual information; and picking Ovid from the three wagons at the time of my novel post was not simple. I want to stress that everything people are going on today is *behavioral* - guessing based on people's actions that you think are scummy. This is HIGHLY prone to interpretation by different individuals. The only non-behavioral information we have is who died, their flavor names, peoples' votes, and the half-claim by robert/name claim by Kevin. While I was writing it appears that Robert has decided to post his name as well; an Inspector, so yet more implication that titles in flavor names may not imply roles - yet Robert claims to have a role and visited EM. He earlier said that he had no evidence; but his roleclaim was in reaction to EM voting for him. Given that if Robert dies we will not know what he DID to EM at night, I ask Robert to finish his partial roleclaim; you've already got the target on you, so at this point holding back anything is not going to help; remember that this isnt a normal game, and you cannot count on your death (if you die tonight) to reveal what your visit type on EM did or didn't find. I would prefer Robert to answer this directly. But absent that, here is some speculation: Robert said he found 'no evidence'. Therefore his role could, under certain circumstances, return SOME kind of evidence? This does not mean a cop; no result on a cop would mean his investigation was somehow blocked. Watcher or tracker could reasonably get a null result though. What strikes me as I write this though; given that Robert got no result - i.e. he had nothing to share by claiming - why did he throw out even this half claim in response to EM voting against him? It felt defensive when I originally read it, but also wastefully defensive; outing himself as a power role with nothing to really show for it. So this could also be him baiting the scum, or a scum baiting town defensive roles. I'd like some more discussion on this from the town, and preferably just straight clarification from Robert himself. At this point though I'm rambling. Hitting reply now. -Preston

If we had more time in the day, I would prefer to try and pressure Robert more directly to expand on his half-claim - since without role information on death, we would have NO idea what he was alluding to if he is killed on night 2. It may not be a lot of information, but right now losing ANY information is bad. Given how thin we are on actual info right now, I think anything he could provide would benefit the town. I made a post/summary list of notes as I read through the thread - when I get home tonight I'll skim through it again and see what falls out. Offhand however, the interaction between EM and Robert still sticks out to me due to the sheer lack of weight that connection was given. Kevin had thrown out a bunch of scenarios on what it could mean when prompted by EM to look at it again, but again - noone has followed up on it beyond EM loosely saying he thinks Robert is town. I would like to see this discussed more in what's left of the day. -Preston

No energy to quote the responses to my post right now, but I'll reiterate that the final choice between those three options was NOT easy. I wavered between Ovid and the others for a good while. I frankly would have rathered some other options than the three that are there - however at this point to split votes further would be I feel anti-town, and ultimately risk us not getting a day 2 lynch at ALL. -Preston

@TBRaiders and @Robert2424 - you're right that I need my own opinion, but given the daunting task of reading this thread that's now at 22 pages... yeesh. Besides, seeing how different people chose to characterize the day would have been a source of information in itself. With that said we've only got until Monday so let's get down to it. I cut down the task by starting reading at the start of Day 2; I saw that Day 1 ended in no-lynch, and thus most of the posturing/etc that happened then is utterly deniable by everyone involved. I did get a kick out of TBRaiders referring to me in his posts a few times though, for my prior support of Day 1 lynch; scum or not, that tends to be how I play! Just last game didn't go so well for me That game setup was *brutal* for the scum. I'm a little surprised to see no role information provided for both of the Night 1 deaths. Serial killer + scum faction is a reasonable guess; I dont know about two factions. We can try to gather from Rafay's role name that he was some sort of cop (ouch), but "Old Man Bella"? Not knowing for certain what roles we are losing is a strange sort of twist - but MOST importantly, it means we CANNOT rely on death-flips to confirm or reveal what peoples roles told them! More on this in a bit. As for the day's content: first thing I should look at is why R2V got so many votes slung his way. From what I have gathered, R2V was one of the 3-vote mini-wagons on Day 1 (KevinH referred to this on Day 2, killgor was the other mini-wagon). And after bandwagoning on the inactive Lyner, R2V found himself the subject of another bandwagon. I can see why this frustrated him, twice in two days. Specifically, this was the rationale that earned him that first vote from Robert: R2V responded to this with a OMGUS vote. Killgor later threw on the second vote for 'pointless bandwagon'. This is where the votes sat until Lyner, Kevin, and eventually EM threw their votes onto R2V. Given the way that Robert initially gave R2V an opportunity to explain his bandwagoning before voting, I get the impression R2V didnt realize how that was making him look; doubly so given the OMGUS vote that followed. It's ironic this earned him such a focus, given that at the time Robert's half-claim was still an unbroached topic (there was more to talk about than just a bandwagoner). It's doubly ironic given the similar bandwagoning votes that happened later in Day 2. Without meaning to sling suspicion at anyone in particular: 1. Lyner and KevinH bandwagoned onto R2V for 'scattered votes' and "we gotta go with what we got", respectively. 2. Spaztik's "Bandwagon ahoy" and initial attempt to vote for Big Ego after Imran and EM voted 3. EM returned to Big Ego bandwagon "To make this a two horse race" As for the rest of the day's content, a few things stood out to me. First and foremost, Robert's half-claim in direct response to EM's vote against him.... that subsequently went completely ignored until EM brought it up again. Reading through the thread I was boggling, "WHY IS NOOONE EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS?" EM reviving the point later said he had been waiting to see if someone ELSE would respond to it, and singles out Kevin in particular for not having done so. However aside from Killgor asking how much info Robert would take with him when he died and Imran opining that it could be a scum tactic to draw defensive roles to him, there doesnt seem to have been TOO much followup on the subject - least of all on EM's stated suspicion of Kevin. EM said he thinks Robert is town for the half-claim. I seem to recall Robert doing this half-claim trick in the last game I was in? Memory is a little fuzzy. I agree with Killgor's later statement that there is no point in half confessions - teasing a role is disruptive if town, and frankly something I consider more anti-town. If you're claiming information to share, then share it and let people decide if you're real: if you're claiming a role to verify yourself, you have to give enough info for people to verify it/test it/decide if they trust you. And remember the thus-far quirk of this game: If killed, we won't know what your role was! Only your flavor text name and town/scum alignment is made public. So if Robert is killed Night 2 without revealing what he was/what he learned, we will NOT be able to infer anything from the fact he claims to have visited EM (other than the fact EM did not die). There is no point for a townie to paint a target on themselves without following through on it. Another running trend today has been Imran and Ovidsidios. Imran was fairly vocal on Day 2 about how a Day 1 lynch would have left the town in a better position. Imran's working theory seems to be that an experienced player would have not killed Master Master Samus, and thus he is targeting newbies for either scum or SK. He started with a vote on Big Ego, and later took that vote off when Big Ego demonstrated some townie competency with a suspect list. He then voted for the similarly new and previously inactive Ovidsidios. Barring some intervening fluff between R2V, Robert and killgor, Ovidsidios responded fairly quickly after a vote was placed on him - and in his apparently characteristic verse. Imran subsequently asked Ovid to explain himself in plain english and Ovid refused, continuing over a few posts to refer to suspicion of Imran. Ultimately Ovid did a huge wall-of-text breakdown of Imran's attacks against him, without much Rhyming. Imran eventually responded to this, seemingly refuting most of the points or dismissing it as emotion/opinion/fluff. Finally, after it was announced I replaced R2V, Ovid seemed to back off his attacks on Imran in another wall-of-text and instead seemed to focus Big Ego for not having been convinced R2V was scum? This post of Ovid's was hard to parse, all over the place. (As is my post... oh well, cant deal with 11 pages of content in a SHORT manner!) To TL;DR: the byplay regarding Ovid - lots of poetry that while stylistic is largely fluff, inactive/possibly lurking until voted for by Imran, still has not voted for anyone himself. Side note: there seemed to be a recurring humor point where it is pointed out that Robert doesn't like poetry. Though I shared Robert's facepalm after reading three of Ovid's posts in a row. So what about Big Ego? I commented above that Imran started a wagon against him (that got to 4 votes) before ultimately giving him townie credit and backing off. EM, Spaztik, and Lyner added to this wagon - EM changing his vote to Kevin and then later back FROM Kevin. Overall the impression I get from Big Ego is mostly town, albeit new town; difficult to read newbies. The one aspect about Big Ego that really stuck out was how he started Day 2 saying he suspected iSocialism, and now has found himself voting for iSocialism at the end of the day along with TBRaiders. However Ovidsidios suggested in one post that Imran would be found guilty when Big Ego was found to be town; I'm not sure how much to read into that. Other misellanea that caught my eye during the day: 1. iSocialism and Big Ego both commented on R2V's lynch wagon in such a way as to support R2V or at least question the validity of the wagon being run against him. iSocialism actually voted for Killgor due to his R2V vote. And when KevinH put on the 4th vote, Killgor (who was on the R2V wagon) commented surprise that Kevin was willing to lynch on so little evidence. 2. Spaztik - A lot of his posts seemed fluff or otherwise null posts. However he jumped onto the Big Ego bandwagon (third vote). Then later voted for TBRaiders - who seems VERY town - for no reason other than TBR "needs some love as well"?? And finally jumped onto Ovidsidios with Imran and Robert. 3. Lyner commented on townies "lynched" last night, and later said that each dead townie gives us clues. While true in a strictly "who voted for town" sense, remember *again* that there role data is not made public after death in this game. For some reason these two comments of lyner's stuck out to me. 4. EM jumped onto R2V to 'trim dead weight' after R2V went inactive (and before my replacement was announced). EM has done a fair bit of vote jumping today, which catches my eye - aside from the obvious fact his is the last vote remaining on me. ------------------------------------------------------ Okay. So that's my thoughts on the day so far. So what do I *DO* with it all?? Ugh. It's already been 3+ hours reviewing the thread and writing this novel. (I hope EM will consider this valid for catching up to my usual wordcount?) Those whom I currently feel are town: TBRaiders - clear and detailed positions are useful. You seem to have a way of writing that seems very town, even in the prior game I played with you. So far it's in your favor this game as well. Imran - thus far no clear scum tells, and generally seems to have a reasonable position. Plus he has been active, and I agree with his Day 1 lynch stance. I am not sure I agree with his prior idea that there is a vigilante instead of a serial killer though. There are currently three people with two or more votes on them: iSocialism, Killgor, and Ovidsidios. In the interest of not fragmenting votes and helping the town to lynch someone today (with 3 offline days remaining) I will confine my current focus to these three so that at least ONE of them can be reasonably lynched Ovidsidios - Against him is his potential lurking, lack of any vote applied even now, reluctance to explain his thoughts in a clear manner, and his push against Imran that he ultimately backed off from as votes mounted. For him is the fact that Robert2424 and Spaztik are on his wagon - I am uncertain about the pair of them. Imran I feel better about. iSocialism - TBRaiders voted against you. Big Ego has also voted against you; between the two of them I have a decent town feeling. However you also voted to defend R2V, which gives me something to consider. And your posts have seemed overall reasonable, including questioning Robert's partial claim. Killgor - Against him is the fact he was on TBRaiders' suspect list, and that he voted for R2V; as a townie inheriting that position, I have to take votes against me as potential scumminess. However it is somewhat balanced by his counseling R2V when he started to get unhinged, and his questioning of KevinH's 4th vote on the wagon. Killgor currently is not voting, but unlike Ovidsidios he has voted prior during the day. The two on this wagon are iSocialism and KevinH. I havent fully bought into EM's suspicion of Kevin for not having reacted to Robert's roleclaim, but neither have I completely absolved him of it - though he doesn't exactly stick out since NOONE responded to it. I have reasons to vote and not vote for all three. This is a difficult choice. However I am ultimately falling on the side of voting for Ovidsidios for the following additional reasons: 1. Refusing to clarify position when asked is disruptive/annoying at best and anti-town or scummy at worst. When you flat-out refused to explain yourself when asked, that was bad on your part. 2. I do not trust Robert's half-claim; it was too conveniently timed and allowed to slip away largely untested or even seriously discussed. However Robert has spoken strongly against you. Your lynch, if it happens, will help in testing Robert and influencing my further opinion about him for future days. 3. Your refusing to vote even when you antagonized Imran was effectively not putting your money where your mouth is. Avoiding committment in that manner is scummy behavior. 4. While night targets are always something to be second guessed, right now the list of who died is one of the few SOLID pieces of information we have. I am willing to try Imran and EM's theory on this one that at least one of the killers last night was a newbie, since none of the experienced players (or semi-experienced players) were targeted. Vote: Ovidsidios Okay. That's done. Thanks if you read the whole way through; bleh if you just skipped to the bottom to see who I voted for. I'll try to check back in later tonight, but right now I am going to close the thread and go play a game or something. Peace. -Preston

Okay, checking in to the thread! I've got quite a bit to read up on it seems - I'll attempt to do so, but I would appreciate some brief summaries to assist with the backlog. Hopefully I'll be able to post something more coherent later this evening. -Preston

Wow, a LOT of posts since my last. People are really active tonight. Unfortunately I cannot stay up much longer - which is really dangerous given EM's push against me, because my doctor didn't block a strong arrow or say I was roleblocked. One problem with the theory about me being a strongman that worked despite being jailed - I'm a JOAT, not a strongman, and Imran has confirmed this. Unless you want to assume my JOAT is *also* a strongman, I cannot have fired that strong arrow last night. The only way I would then fit into the scenario is as the one doing the roleblocking - but if I was jailed, I could not have roleblocked ABD last night, and he *was* blocked. There's a contradiction here. Not all of the pieces fit. Another interesting piece that's come out of this is Nick having targeted ABD last night; it was as much of a surprise to me as hearing that Kaz visited Robert last night, given that both Kaz and Nick have been inactive and hardly present on the forums at all. Consider instead now what if EM were the scum strongman instead of the jailer he claims to be. The whole thread knows Imran was blocked Night 1, so it's simple to take credit for it. Either limited or waiting on Night 1, EM could have fired the normal scum arrow in addition to d3mon's vigilante arrow, and a scum roleblocked Imran. Night 2 EM fired his strong arrow at Lyner, and the scum roleblocker (Nick?) blocked ABD. In list form: Night 1: EM (Strongman): Fires scum faction arrow d3mon (JOAT): Fires vigilante arrow Nick? (Roleblocker): blocks Imran Night 2: EM (Strongman): Fires strong arrow, kills Lyner d3mon (JOAT): dead Nick? (Roleblocker): blocks ABD This would mean the scum ignored their faction arrow on night 2 in favor of the strongman shot, but blocking ABD for protection is a reasonable reason to do so. This fits the demonstrated/observed facts far more than the fare you're selling, EM. -Preston

I placed what was going to be the 5th vote on d3mon; you posted in the middle of my writing, and my 5th vote became the 6th. And given how vocal I was on Day 1, I'm surprised you didnt target me first - but also I would like to know how you thought your "jailer" role was going to actually check on someone? Without a clear target you would be more likely to interfere with a townie than to get lucky and block scum. I don't really buy the "check on" argument. Without quoting Robert's whole post, he is correct: I did not receive a message on the success or failure of my doc action, just that it had been recorded. I further looked up on mafiascum.net - a reference, albeit not definitive for what Kevin choses to do - and it states "Players are not told that they are blocked unless it cannot be helped." - i.e. if they have an investigative role they would be told something, but a role like a doc would get nothing. Link here for that quote: http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Roleblocker So your argument that I would have known I was blocked holds no water, unless Kevin has chosen to do something differently. -Preston

EM has been fairly quiet and laid low throughout the game up until now. For all that, he still had some town credit because of the arrow he took on night 1 - from my prior post I was looking at Kaz and possibly Rafay or Robert, but not him. With d3mon dead and nearly all the other roles claimed, it makes sense for him to be acting a little desperate since it leaves him on the short list as we hunt the remaining 2-3 scum. Putting the attack on me like this isn't an unreasonable move - however he seems to have missed that verified actions WERE performed on me last night, and scum still did a roleblock and a night kill of their own. Unless EM is accusing Imran of being my scum partner and fake-verifying my role, or accusing me of being a fourth scum on the basis of my doctor failing when trying to stop a strong arrow that overcame Lyner's 1-shot arrowproof, I'm not sure what he's hoping to accomplish here. -Preston

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it EM (Really wish I could edit posts to add this to my original): unless you also roleblocked ABD, the scum still have a strongman and a roleblocker. Which of those two do you claim I was blocked from doing? Both occurred last night. -Preston

Typo correction, Imran verified my JOAT with *his* rolecop. Point stands, if I was jailed that could not have occurred.

Interesting. Given the scum's strong arrow, explain to me how you can say my doc was not overcome by it? And furthermore did you forget that Imran verified my rolecop role last night, while Rafay in turn verified that Imran targeted me...? He could not have done so if you were in fact a jailer and sealed me off from other actions. I think we have the first verified lie of the game, EM. Vote: Electric Mango -Preston

You've indeed got it right this time I had a lot to catch up on, and from only having missed not even 24 hours of Day 3 - so it was indeed a bit long. Per my earlier post Imran, I wasnt 100% on scum having a strongman based on our discussion on Day 2, because Kevin had implied the scum didn't have strong arrows currently with his threat to buff them and we had observed two arrows fired already; my guess as to the balance of the game was that they got two shots per night. I think I spelled that out on Day 2, but I can go looking for it later if needed. Because of that theory I figured if the scum had two shots they would use one on Lyner, so if I was able to block it that would waste one of their attacks and keep the proven cop around for longer - his results would now be trusted. You make a good point about the scum having arrowproof implying there is a vig ability in this game, however. I do have one vig use as part of my JOAT role, and presumably Lyner did too; I'm not sure if that's sufficient to explain the scum's arrowproof however. I don't expect a vigilante would have held their shots for two nights, so I think it's unlikely we have a dedicated vigilante on our side. We could examine how many role actions claimed so far could ALSO be JOATs, but Robert might call that digging toward roles I'm pretty sure I already said I have a sane cop usage on Day 2. I chose to try and save a proven townie on Night 2 instead, because scum targeting Lyner seemed a pretty sure thing. For more elaboration read what I wrote to Imran's comment in the same vein above. I also posted at exceeding length exactly why I felt I had no choice but to do a full roleclaim when the role chain led from ABD to Rafay to me. My curiosity about your role stems from this statement you made: You've already used your role as your basis for attacking me, so it's fair game and not role digging to wonder what that entails. It cannot be anything you DID with your role, because as of that time you had not targeted me. You are also now throwing out vague references - I fail to see how saying you were visited and know who it is with no context is helpful to the town at all. I'll leave it up to you to elaborate on this or not, but the fact you staked your attack on your role that you won't reveal leaves a key piece out of your justification. Nice, welcome! You've got more than a little bit of a novel to read to catch up; have you played before? With a replacement for Nick, that is one less inactive; would be nice if Kaz would similarly return. This is a good post. Couple things I would want you to think about, though. We killed one scum already, one blocked you last night, and one killed Lyner. We know Rafay tracked Imran last night as confirmed by Imran. 1) Do you think there are 4 scum? 2) If there are and Rafay is a tracker scum, then why would he track Imran. He already knows Imran is a role cop so the scums job would be to find other power roles in our group. 3) IMO, the absolutely only way Rafay is scum is if he is in cahoots with Imran. For Imran I had a strong town vibe in day 2, especially after all the claims, but we can't be 100% sure he isn't a scum role cop. He could have not been roleblocked night one and he could have faked claimed he investigated Preston last night while targeting someone else. I am not saying he did, just that I don't give him over 55-60% town vibe right now. There is important information that other people need to share from last night for us to finish putting this together. TBRaiders has some good questions here. 1) Numberswise, 4 scum would be 1/3rd of the game. It's possible, though I don't know how likely. 2) The only possible use I could see for Rafay-as-scum tracking Imran would be to know in advance if Imran did a role cop investigation on one of his scum allies. By publicly saying at the start who Imran investigated, it would them inform their decision whether they could safely fake-claim should it come up. However this would imply a connection between Rafay-as-scum and one of those who have not claimed (EM, Robert, Nick, TBRaiders) or someone who has claimed only their action. 3) Based on my response to #2 I don't think Rafay and Imran are scum together; in general when anyone is confirmed as having targeted someone else except with abilities like doctor or watcher, I think that means they're not in the same faction. The only direct role connections to Rafay are ABD (watched me on Night 1, called out Rafay as a result) and the inactive Kaz who claimed via fletcher/gunsmith that Rafay's role was not arrow-related on Day 2. Rafay being a tracker and not showing up as arrow-related makes sense. Kaz's claim was interesting because it seemed out of the blue; I think it was done in response to Robert asking why Kaz thought Rafay was town, and instead of giving some other reason Kaz dropped an action claim and then voted for Lyner. Kaz not being involved in the roleclaim chain meant he really didnt HAVE to claim at all; for some reason none of us paid a lot of attention to it on Day 2, and I know Robert didn't blow up at him for the additional claim like he did at me. If we consider that Kaz might be scum, this leads to a few possibilities: 1. Kaz chose to say Rafay was arrow-less because it was a safe fake-claim; i.e. he knows what a gunsmith would return for Rafay based on Rafay's tracker claim, so he says it. 2. Kaz chose to claim to defend Rafay because Kaz and Rafay are scum together; at that point Rafay was about to be lynched and Imran, Lyner and EM had all demanded he roleclaim. The timing would work for this, but it's not conclusive; and it would also mean there would have to be a fourth scum per TBRaiders above (d3mon(JOAT), rafay(tracker), kaz(strongman or roleblocker), ???(strongman or roleblocker). The 4-scum idea may make this less likely. 3. Robert didn't blow up about/call attention to Kaz's roleclaim because Robert and Kaz could be scum together. He reacted strongly to the push to make Rafay claim, and VERY strongly to my roleclaim; another investigative role comes out and Robert's reaction was simply "yeah, thats allot of tracking abilities." Obviously this is not conclusive either, though it would not preclude Kaz and Robert from filling the strongman and roleblocker roles. No scenario above requires Kaz to have actually used a fletcher/gunsmith ability to have gained the knowledge he used, because Rafay had explained his ability first. This therefore could be a cover for the scum roleblocker or strongman... hm. I tend to write my "novels" by multiquoting major bits said since my last post and then responding to them in stream-of-consciousness fashion. So I've just now come to this particular line of analysis about Kaz-as-scum... which seems like it might actually hold water. What do you all think about this? -Preston

Bleh, sorry for silence all; seems I missed the start of the day by not being on the forums yesterday. My war in CN just finished, and so per my GF's insistence I was able to go to bed earlier last night for a change instead of staying up until 2 am; not checking in here was a consequence of that. Anyway, let's see what's been said... First reaction is relief that d3mon was scum and Lyner's cop action was real; I'd put the hammer on that somewhat by accident, and I'd have been in a VERY bad position if d3mon had turned out to be town. His being a JOAT made sense to balance out my role; one scum JOAT, one town JOAT. Second reaction is wtf that Lyner is another town JOAT? And d3mon was one too. Very much role madness indeed, and as someone put it there seem to be entirely too many JOATs in this game. Here I was thinking my role was special somehow... but perhaps we're just meant to get in each others' way and throw false positives all over the place with the tracker and watcher roles - that combined with the now-demonstrated scum strongman could be how they're meant to have a chance. I'll be curious to hear Kevin's thoughts on how this game was balanced when it's all over. For my night action: when d3mon proved scum, I felt that vetted Lyner as town; as such instead of investigating I used my JOAT's doctor to protect him. On Day 2 my theory had been that the scum didn't have a strongman because Kevin had implied they'd only get it if we developed a breaking strategy, but instead were shooting two arrows per night. Lyner was an obvious scum target and hence obvious person to defend... unfortunately it seems Imran was right about them having a Strongman they could not (or did not) use on Night 1. TBRaiders makes an important point here; scum have demonstrated roleblocking on two nights (Imran night 1, ABD night 2) and now a strongman role. Since JOAT roles are 1-shot, that implies they have a dedicated roleblocker - with this many town roles that makes sense. We've now seen the scum's JOAT - so if noone else speaks up as a vigilante (or yet *another* JOAT?) to claim the arrow shot at EM, d3mon could have been the one that fired it to supplement the scum's normal arrow on the first night. If their strongman is the one who fired the 'normal' arrow on Night 1 this would make sense. Per my post last game, the only ones left who haven't claimed or referenced their ability are EM, Nick, Robert, and TBRaiders - only one of them could be the vigilante from Night 1. EM could not have shot at himself, so that removes him from the list. An alternate interpretation that should be kept in mind, however: since the scum have the same 1-shot arrowproof we do, they could have chosen to shoot one of their own (non-fatally) to given them credibility on future days. So even if no vigilante claims the shot on EM, it doesn't inherently clear him - I dont know how LIKELY this strategy is, however. I appreciate this confirmation of my roleclaim; unfortunately it means you didnt discover one of the unclaimed roles last night, such that if they fake-claimed today you could call them out on it. But yes - since it seems we can't rule out multiple roles of the same type on one side or the other, that's going to make our job more difficult. There are a lot of JOATs this game, but unless there is a fourth scum it looks like they have a JOAT (d3mon), a dedicated roleblocker, and a strongman. The excessive use of roles has caused more confusion than information this game; a lot about "someone did something", but the only scum identification was through Lyner's action. Most of your analysis about scum roles echoes what I've just written while reading the day's posts thus far, so we seem to be on the same page at least. I agree that ABD having been roleblocked implies he's town; even though anyone can claim 'roleblocked' to mask their action, it makes entirely too much sense for ABD as a claimed watcher to have been blocked at the same time the scum killed Lyner. I'm curious why you think Kazio is town; he's not posted at all on Day 3 yet, and has been nearly as inactive as Nick:. Kaz last posted on the 23rd and Nick last posted on the 18th. That kind of inactivity is terrible in a crazy game like this one; they both need to get back in here and contribute, and I'd like to hear who kaz targeted last night. I got an initial positive feel from Kaz on Day 1 when he supported my analysis on the rapid no-lynch wagon (which yes, I have since accepted was a wild goose chase on my part...), but he went quiet partway through Day 1 and never really returned on a consistent basis. And Nick's sparse posts have been fairly noncommittal, which could be a scum flag - given that he seemed new I was giving him some slack on Day 1, but he didn't do himself any favors halfway through Day 2 when he returned and asked for a summary to catch up then never posted again. Now this is interesting: In searching for Nick's content to find his most recent post, I saw the signup thread for this game has been changed by Kevin to read "Immediate Mafia Replacement Needed!" Maybe reading a bit much into things, but it looks like Kaz or Nick may have asked to be replaced. That could shake this up a bit... it's also terribly disruptive, but it could be better than keeping one of them inactive. Until we see how the 'replacement' angle shakes out I'm going to hold off on voting; I'm not a fan of taking the easy route and voting for inactives in either case, and frankly on Day 3 we need to be scum-hunting more than inactive-culling. I am very curious about Robert's comment that he 'received a visitor' last night - a half-claim of some sort, with no clear motivation behind it. I don't know what THAT could mean, nor why Robert felt it was appropriate. I remain VERY curious about his role however, because apparently whatever his role is (not its use, since he didn't target me on Night 1) made him suspect me just by having claimed my role. I'll check in tonight to look for new posts. -Preston

If you're referring to me putting the hammer on d3mon, I've already commented on that. Unless it's tongue in cheek payback for me suspecting you on Day 1 for having made the same sort of voting mistake. Otherwise I'm not sure what you're referring to; if you're looking at me listing the people who have NOT claimed, I can't have been the only one keeping track of all this - with the roleclaim insanity, keeping notes is the only way to have kept it straight. -Preston

Assuming you are correct about d3mon, yes. If so, I really wonder what he has... if we manage to take out the strongman role that Imran guessed might exist, that would be a HUGE win. I can't think of much else they could have that would tip the scales in a game like this. -Preston

Given that the only people who havent claimed or referenced their role's action so far are EM, Nick, Robert, and TBRaiders, three of those four would have to be scum for them to have stayed out of the roleclaim craziness today. EM has been fairly quiet, Nick has been practically inactive, Robert referenced his role itself as making him suspect me (but not his action) and TBRaiders seems the strongest town. I threw out earlier that both arrows could have been from scum as a potential way for this game to have been balanced; Imran had the idea they might already have a strongman role somehow. If Imran is right we'll probably see it tonight; otherwise we'll see two arrows fire. -Preston

And I just realized I should not have been multitasking checking on CN with writing this thread; I think I just posted the sixth vote on d3mon. Ironically this makes me look like an idiot for not re-counting votes after I saw EM post; I'd counted and saw I would be the fifth vote when I started writing, and commented on seeing EM's vote, but didn't realize that meant my vote would now be the last. Puts Lyner's Day 1 L-1 vote into perspective I guess. Now I REALLY hope his cop claim is correct, otherwise I will have put the hammer on a townie. Cross your fingers folks. -Preston ... and now back to taking the fight to TOP

Ugh, being up late to hit CN targets at update has done a number on my availability the past two days - and it looks like a LOT has happened in my absence. Let's see... Wow. There are way too many posts of note, so if I quote them all my post will be ungodly long. I'm going to snip out the quotes and instead respond to the content below. A LOT has happened indeed. Now THIS is interesting - Lyner has posted a roleclaim late in the day that has effectively derailed the entire conversation. My first reaction is to be skeptical of such a claim - the odds of Lyner finding scum on night 1 seem low, and d3mon didn't stand out to me as scummy on Day 1. However d3mon has also been very quiet today... and frankly the fact that d3mon then immediately claimed Miller does NOT really count in his favor. It's on the list that Kevin says can be in the game, but I'm not sure I trust that - it's a little too convenient for him to have the ONE false-positive role when everyone else's ability seems to be active. AND he tries to hedge his claim by saying Lyner could be scum that hit the jackpot? That's a bit of a stretch. So as loath as I am to switch my vote from Rafay - At this point we are all but forced to test Lyner's claim by lynching d3mon. The alternative would be to use Imran's role tonight to test d3mon's miller status... but the way he claimed does NOT make me think that it is credible. The fact that Imran shifted his vote is another point in favor here; I'll trust that if nothing else. Unvote Vote: d3mon This will not preclude Rafay from being scum if Lyner proves correct about d3mon; for better or worse, Lyner's cop claim has superseded everything else. If Rafay is scum, this will give them one more night to use whatever role Rafay has - regardless of how this lynch turns out. However we have another point to add into the mix there as well: Kaz's claim that he investigated Rafay too. At this point we know nearly everyone's role... that's somewhat disturbing for Day 2. Even with Kevin's statement that we're free to share what we know, there are only four of us left who have not referenced our role in some way during the day. Robert keeps fearing a mass claim will buff the scum despite Kevin saying otherwise - but with this many claims out in the open he may not be too far from the truth. I'm also VERY curious about Robert's strong push against me prior to Lyner's claim. Earlier he started by saying he didn't believe my JOAT claim and that he thinks I'm a role cop - despite the fact I found a role cop in Imran. Then he says JOAT roles are frequently scum (role madness of this game aside). Then he asked Rafay - at the time the leading scum suspect - why he suspected EM and not me? Pretty solidly trying to turn votes in my direction. What really caught my eye though is something Robert said - that without claiming, his role makes him think I am lying somehow. If we trust ABD's watcher claim that started the roleclaim chain today, the only one who targeted me last night was Rafay. Therefore Robert did not *use* a role on me to gain information in any form. So I am quite curious what role Robert could possibly have that would make him so utterly convinced I am scum, just based on his simply HAVING the role - I really cannot think of anything that would fit that description. And if Robert is using it as the basis for his attacks on me, that suddenly makes Robert very suspicious in my eyes. ... and as I'm about to hit 'post' I see more replies added to the thread; tt looks like EM has jumped on the d3mon wagon too. Interesting. However it doesn't change the fact that voting for d3mon seems to be the only viable option now. Let's see if Lyner managed to find us a real scum on Night 1. -Preston