The Syndicate

Then again we've played 89 games there and I think only 2 of them featured any manner of resurrection mechanic. Culture clash man.

Y'all use weird terms around here. :P

"Meta" is a staple of RYM vernacular. Where you say "no u", we say "omgus" (oh my god you suck). Where you say "civs with BTSC", we say "masons" (though the entire concept of BTSC is completely different here). I'd never even heard "BTSC" before coming to The Syndicate.

Never had a proper opportunity to thank Black Rock and Long Con for the wonderful effort they put into building and running this game. It was a pleasure to take part. My favorite part was probably the flavor text at each turn of phase.

Also thank you Spacedaisy for believing in me enough to select me as a recruit. It's humbling and immediately made me fiercely loyal to you.

Turnip Head, sorry I felt compelled to lie about my recruitment status. I did want to reveal myself truly, but it wasn't you I distrusted -- it was the other guardians who might learn of my allegiance through you and use it against me. I also felt a strong sense of duty to protect the secrecy of the Ahriman team because of Daisy's faith in me.

Most posts?

Yep, I win.

I'm not accustomed to tracking votes like many of you folks do since we handle them so differently on RYM. This might be a good time for an aapje chart.

Scotty wrote:Wrong. I just counted the times when people say they voted. TinyBubbles had a total of 4 votes on her, only 2 above DP, before he came in with this:

DrWilgy wrote:*Wilgy twirls around in an office chair*

A Bubbles lynch sounds dumb... Still too busy to explain a better case though. In the meantime Vote registered for Timmer.

The vote hadn't run away yet. TH was the only one that was soft-defending her at the time/throwing doubt at her badness.
His full defense of her comes 3 hours later, and he said that that defense took him a while to write. So that would mean he was looking to defend her hard- with his biggest post to date, mind you- when she still had a chance to be saved. Obviously her own defense was doing her no favors. Between that time, only Synonym added onto the Tiny vote. 5 votes? Landslide? Hardly.

This was someone who was defending her before she had too much heat on the first half of Day 5 with hopes of maybe calming the waters.

I'll verify this myself to determine whether Bubbles received votes that weren't claimed in the moment by players ITT and how her vote total compared with other players. The DrWilgy post you reference doesn't mean much to me honestly, but the larger defense is important. If it turns out that you're correct and she wasn't ahead in the tally by as much as I'd thought, that'd be an important point. I'll investigate.

My memory has been telling me that she was the clear favorite to be lynched when he came to her defense in a meaningful way (the larger post).

Bullzeye wrote:I never accused him of using a brilliant strategy .

I think this is the core of the discussion. If you and I both agree that your proposed strategy for DrWilgy's actions was a poor strategy, then you're asserting that he made a significant mistake.

I have my doubts that he makes that mistake. I've never played with him before, but he strikes me as a capable player with a strong understanding of the game of Mafia. If he is newer than I might think having never played with him, I'd invite anyone else to pipe in and say so. How long has he been playing Mafia?

Ricochet wrote:@JJJ: It read to me like you meant it's an argument against Wilgy's innocence, so to speak. Can you clarify?

DrWilgy surviving the lynch attempt brings us back to essentially the same scenario we had before with Bubbles. Assuming it was a baddie-motivated lynch switch, we're left asking this question:

Was DrWilgy rescued by his baddie team, or was the switch generated to remove a bigger threat (DH) while maintaining the suspicion on DrWilgy -- two off-team lynches for the price of one?

In the case of Bubbles, the answer was the former. With that in mind, it's understandable to me if this is perceived as a point against DrWilgy. In this instance, I'm still not inclined to ignore the latter as a genuine possibility. It's especially noteworthy that the switch attempt targeted DH specifically given his position in this game right now. It's a number of variables we'll all have to consider moving forward in the next day phase.

Scotty wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:For me, this single sentence is a better argument against DrWilgy than the entire notion of his defense of TinyBubbles:

The game roster at large tried to lynch him and did not succeed.

So do you think he is bad, or....?

If he is bad, I think he's on team Azura and not team Ubbybear.

Gun to my head, I'd predict not bad.

For me, this single sentence is a better argument against DrWilgy than the entire notion of his defense of TinyBubbles:

The game roster at large tried to lynch him and did not succeed.

Bullzeye wrote:I have seen baddies blatantly defend teammates before. They're usually hoping that someone will make the same argument you're making and enough people will buy it.

Do I think it's possible that what you're saying is what really happened? Sure. Possible.

Do I think that's the most logical explanation? No. I've definitely seen baddies defend the crap out of their team mates, but that tends to happen when there's still an opportunity for the impending lynch of that team mate to be moved onto someone else. In this case, Bubbles was ahead in the vote by a total landslide and there was essentially no hope of that changing. So if DrWilgy's desire was merely to play WIFOM and hard-defend her anyway just in case someone like JJJ might make this argument in his favor, then that was clearly a terrible strategy (I assert that it's obvious it would have been a terrible strategy). By defending Bubbles he made himself a massive target for the following lynch, and my perspective was proven to be a small minority. DrWilgy was nearly a landslide lynch himself.

Sorsha wrote:Polls from day 4 and day 5.

Players who voted for bubbles on day 4 (when it didn't matter because her team switched the lynch) but DID NOT vote for her on day 5 when it DID matter:
llama, timmer, DH, jjj, bea

I don't think llama is on team Uzi with bubbles. I think it was tranq who put up the theory that bubbles was recruited on day 0 or 1 and I agree with that (it was always the "emotionally invested" comment from her that stuck with me, unless llama was recruited to the team on day 5.

I'll have to go back and look at the reasons that timmer, DH, jjj and bea gave for changing their vote but I'll probably vote for one of these four players.

I'd love to be able to find a player from team azura today but I'm focusing on team Uzi because one of the reasons for not choosing position 1 on the poll was so that we avoid Uzi's lynch immunity.

I liked the way Sorsha approached this phase. Her focus was probably narrower than mine would have been, but she showed at the end that she wasn't completely stuck on these four people (she voted S~V~S). What I see here is a player with a genuine interest in baddie hunting in accordance with an understandable and transparent strategy -- and I thought she was fair in her assessments of the players in question. I grant that believable baddie hunting isn't an exonerating factor with two baddie teams, but I'll still consider this a positive point for her.

LoRab wrote:Switched to wilgy (whose name I keep thinking is wiggly) because this post tipped the scales. You are not new to this game, and I find it hard to believe that you don't know what WIFOM is--I don't believe that is a unique term to our mafia culture. It stands for The Wine in Front of Me, a Princess Bride reference. It means that a baddie is posting something as if to say, "why would I ever do XYZ? I would never do that as a baddie!" when that's exactly what they've done.

I find it hard to believe that on page one hundred something, no one has explained that to someone who asked. If you did ask, then I missed the question. But, if you "still" don't know, then I'd think that you would have asked it again.

And yeah...the whole tone of this seems bad to me.

LoRab, I struggle to believe that you really found "I don't know what WIFOM is" to be the scale-tipping factor in your voting thought process. What exactly do you think a baddie DrWilgy would be up to by pretending not to know what WIFOM is?

I had my vote on Bullzeye for a short time too. It was mostly because this:

Bullzeye wrote:

Black Rock wrote:

Caelia wrote:Bullzeye, SVS, Lorab and Scotty are enemies of peace.

What a waste of a perfectly useful night action. Caelia, please don't be that person who posts their own opinions into gossip posts presented as facts. It's just lame.

struck me as perhaps the least genuine post of Day 6. Pure gut. I did appreciate his efforts later though in providing reads on numerous players. He's one I need to reassess in full context.

DharmaHelper wrote:I think there are several baddies in the Doc Voters.

I have the same intuition. Maybe not "several", but some baddie presence.

Immediate thought about the attempted lynch of DrWilgy:

It stunk. I hated the lynch all day phase long and wished I could do something about it. Numerous people seemed to reduce the case for DrWilgy merely to WIFOM: "would a baddie defend his team mate so hard???"

I think this is inadequate because it doesn't respect what I perceive to be the most important variable: the likelihood that DrWilgy's defenses of TinyBubbles were going to motivate a lynch of someone else instead of TinyBubbles -- likelihood that I'd call infinitesimal. He didn't merely defend her hard, he did so when it was pointless. Is that how baddies behave? Maybe in some universes, but not terribly many of them in my experience. His hard-headed defense of Bubbles when she was already the clear lynch suggests to me that he really did believe in his defense of her and was stubbornly pressing it into the thread -- indicative of someone not on her team.

I could be wrong about that. I don't know. The fact that the lynch didn't actually take place is also a relevant factor that I will mull over that moving forward. For now though my stance remains that DrWilgy is not on team Ubzuccini.

S~V~S wrote:Ah now I see that JJJ has voted for me. Looking forward to hearing why.

Without the luxury (and for me, the necessity) of compiling posts into a progressive ISO analysis, my votes throughout Day 6 were mostly intuitive. Yours was no exception. The tone of your defenses against DH's vendetta struck me as rather disingenuous, and I really haven't observed content in recent phases from you that lends me confidence about your innocence. You're currently compatible with what I think I'd see from a bad-recruited S~V~S, and I find you more suspicious than I did either of the other two wagons with any traction (llama and DrWilgy).

When time permits I will check my suspicion of you against thread data as I have with others before. For now it is too late, I'll be sleeping soon.

Roxy wrote:

Turnip Head wrote:

Scotty wrote:

Turnip Head wrote:Vote registered for Boomslang

Why? You haven't mentioned Boomslang in your posts since Day 5 at least.

I read his posts and I think he's on Team Uzzy.

I am quite surprised neither of you have commented on the drastic change in JJJ's game.

1.) What is the drastic change? Give me details. I'm starting to think you're making this up. If you're not then I'd like to state that you're making zero effort whatsoever to read my content through a non-baddie lens -- exactly the accusation you've [wrongly] applied to me w/r/t Boomslang and Bass.

2.) That you specifically elected to express "surprise" to these two people makes very little sense. After only you, Turnip has probably been my biggest detractor in this game so far. You literally couldn't pick a worse player to accuse of not commenting on me. Scotty and I have also engaged in quite a lot of dialogue and I don't think he has been inclined to read me positively or negatively. What was the purpose of this post Roxy?

S~V~S wrote:And I am glad I am not the only one who thought JJJs sudden case of the *mehs* and a major posting style change a bit odd.

I'm not glad that you waited for someone else to suggest there's been some kind of "change" in my posts before asserting that you already felt that way. You also picked such an easy thing to critique from my content, and criticism like this is the entire reason I post that sort of thing. When I asked the thread at large to help motivate me, I was given some recommendations for analysis and immediately proceeded to provide thick, thorough content. There was no "case of the mehs". There was a single post in which I proclaimed a moment of laziness which was followed by Mafia effort quite opposite to laziness.

You're picking at surface-level things and not trying to assess me in a deeper way. That is less than I'd expect of you because you strike me as a pretty thorough thinker.

Canucklehead wrote:JJJ: I dread re-reading him, but I agree with Rox that he's changed, and I'm suspicious of his over-abundant posting..... throw enough stuff indiscriminately out there, and you leave yourself with many, many "justifiable" options to hide in when voting time comes around. I think it's *smart* play in a recruitment game.... but I think it also could be indicative of being baddie aligned.

I'm going to need you to describe exactly what "change" you've observed in my play since the game began. Reference a specific post I made or a specific feeling you had about my content that represents a difference from what you perceived about my earlier content.

I am making this demand because this came out of nowhere from you. You've not said much about me this game, but the few examples before this all seemed more positive than not. This was your previous mention of me:

Canucklehead wrote:

Canucklehead wrote:@Boomslang voters: Does JJJ's ISO case adequately cover all the reasons why you chose to vote for Boom? Or are there other points you want to add?

JJJ seems to be stepping up admirably to take the scrutiny about the rush of Boomslang votes..... and I REALLY am very itchy about how other Boomslang bandwagoners are just letting him do so....

It looks to me like you're riding Roxy's coattail. Moreover, to cast suspicion on me for "over-abundant posting" is incredibly dubious in its own right. Even if you don't know me very well as a player (I tend to lead more games in post count than not), that observation just seems irrelevant to what you're read of me would really be. Every game has players that post at a very high rate and most of the time they're not bad. Why does this ping you right now in Recruitment Mafia IV?

Also, why assert I might be leaving myself options to "hide in" for my votes? When I've been able, I've accompanied my votes with a significant amount of explanatory content. Nobody can possibly claim to have any doubts about how I feel about any player I've voted for (in a day phase in which I've made posts) because I bear my strategy and mindset for all to see every time.

thellama73 wrote:

DrWilgy wrote:

thellama73 wrote:I'm starting to wonder about DrWilgy. I haven't played with him before and up to now he's escaped my notice, but he begged us not to vote for TinyBubbles, and his vote for SVS is based on disagreeing with her logic, not genuine suspicion.

Woah, hold up! Wilgy holds up a big stop sign, Jack black can be seen in the distance pointing at it. Disagreements in logic isn't genuine suspicion? Logic doesn't lead to genuine suspicion? Genuine suspicion isn't caused by logic? Wat? If there's something you don't understand quote me for it, but this makes absolutely no sense Llama.

I used to lynch a lot of players because their logic didn't make sense to me. I lynched a lot of civvies that way. Being illogical is not the same, or even correlated to, being bad. I would think you would know that.

I half-agree that bad logic isn't necessarily indicative that a player is bad. I do question though whether you can fairly expect DrWilgy to "know" something (something I think isn't actually an objective truth anyway) that you have just admitted to not knowing yourself at one point in your tenure as a Mafia player.

*runs off to find all those posts that made his left eyeball tweak so hard*

JJJ awakens, one cheek pressed against the carpet, a pool of drool seeping into the fabric. He struggles to sit up and attempts to survey his surroundings. Everything is still blurry, and he has a pounding headache. He notes a small shard of glass nearby and another next to it -- he follows the trail to a broken bottle with what must be his own blood encrusted on the jagged edge.

WTF?

S~V~S wrote:I am SO expecting shenanigans after the drama/nobility of that last Wilgy post. And i swear on a stack of esoteric texts that I bring no shenanigans myself

What about DrWilgy's post made you suspect shenanigans would be afoot?

thellama73 wrote:Remember this the next time people give me a hard time for putting weight on the "are you bad" question.

So you know she was recruited by the time you asked her if she was bad?

DrWilgy put himself out there in the face of a landslide vote for Bubbles and stood in her defense. He took total responsibility for his read and explained in a thorough manner. I don't think his maneuver makes a lot of sense as a team mate of Bubbles because it was never terribly likely to actually result in a different player being lynched. He has literally begged for the spotlight by being wrong about her. Right now I am not inclined to view him with much suspicion for this.

Turnip Head wrote:I 2 am fine with 5 4 now.

Me 3.

But I picked 1.

Consider that Bubble bursted.

*dodges tomatoes*

Good job, y'all.

bea seems like a literal cool cat. let's keep her around.

Thanks everyone who offered responses to that S~V~S question. I'll assess her at face value moving forward. I haven't suspected her much at all really, but she warrants a reassessment this deep into the game. Maybe later.

DharmaHelper wrote:Am I in a soundproof bubble?

I hear u brah.

bea wrote:so um...that was a really nice catch. maybe it is so maybe not I'm pretty sure dh isn't allowed to confirm it.

Thanks! But if I caught something it was by accident.

I'll review/address your responses tomorrow, TH. After this flip I'm off to bed. Thanks for the effort though.

Yeah I don't remember either. I'm kidding anyway.

You just hate my post count.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:What do you think, MM?

I don't feel like lynching you, that's for sure.

I think that despite your persistence in asking us to motivate you to play to your own standards, you're doing just fine on your own.

Linki: Turnip is a fellow Shinigami as well.

I think this is our first game together in which you haven't suspected me.

What's your angle?

J/K

DisgruntledPorcupine wrote:

Roxy wrote:DP - was very disappointed that he cba,ed to respond to me. I understand why he is getting the votes he has so far.

Sorry, forgot. It'd take some effort for me to come up with 3. But...

TinyBubbles because her posts just feel bad to me.

DH because he hasn't read like himself, and I didn't like the whole situation with Scotty.

Not totally sure who I'd place at #3.

What about Bubbles posts rubs you the wrong way? Gimme those deets, Porucpine.

DrWilgy wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:DrWilgy, do you have any thoughts on what I said about TH? I'm hoping for a little feedback before I have to go to sleep -- right when this day ends pretty much.

TurnipHead is a fellow Turnip and my kinsman. He's not bad.

Nah, I haven't looked too heavily into TurnipHead yet, I'll do that and read your ISO, but I doubt I can get back to you in time. Do an ISO on me next JJJ!

No rush, I know it's huge. If I ISO you, what sort of skeletons might I find in the DrCloset?

What do you think, MM?

DrWilgy, do you have any thoughts on what I said about TH? I'm hoping for a little feedback before I have to go to sleep -- right when this day ends pretty much.

DrWilgy wrote:JJJ, are you bad?

Nope.

To those who suspect otherwise:

About 40 minutes left. Anyone want to talk about things?

Turnip Head ISO
Day 0 post. It's not that important, but we have to decide whether he's a recruiter so whatever. I don't know TH's personality well enough to decide how many steps of WIFOM to take on this one (does he post this as a recruiter???). I'm inclined to perceive it as non-indicative of a recruiter role and proceed.
Quite vague.
I like this post a bit. His method for probing DH is agreeable to me, I think he asks relevant questions with potential to influence his read on DH in a meaningful way. It's a minor point because this is a minor post, but it's a positive.
This is a very specific meta read on Bass. It might have been valid insight, I don't know Bass well enough to say. I'd appreciate it though if TH could try to recall some specific example of Bass "answering suspicion and turning it around into a question" in a past game as a baddie.
The man wants to keep his options open. He's open to multiple options. There are two, and one of them is bad. Take that however you may. I am kind of inclined to believe that he was neutral when he made this post though. When I compared TH with DH, this was the sort of post I had in mind.
TH took the right sight in the Golden controversy. I like that he bothered to provide a specific example from a prior game that inspired his non-baddie perspective of Golden instead of just dropping a read into the thread.
This may have just been in response to my prior post when I joked that people "paying attention" might notice that some accusations of Golden could also apply to me. TH can clarify though: did this represent a true moment in which your suspicion of me began to develop? I ask for my own sake, this isn't really relevant to the overall progression of this ISO.
This seems a little obtuse. I mean no offense, TH, indeed you strike me as a very intelligent person. That's why this looks like playing dumb to me -- the reasons Ricochet might have viewed TH's Bass vote with suspicion were pretty self-explanatory (as he explained in the following quote pyramid). Ricochet even stated "the problem" in his accusation. Whether his suspicion was accurate can be debated, but I don't struggle to believe TH really didn't grasp why it was viewed with suspicion.
The same conversation continues here.

Yellow = TH makes it clear that he was conscious of how his vote might reflect on him and that he cared about that to some degree. That's not a great look.

Orange = Another question that strikes me as obtuse. While a flip-flop isn't an immediate indicator of obvious baddieness, it is valid cause for suspicion. This seems disingenuous to me.

Green = He's technically right that Bass was the most viable counterwagon to Golden, and that he had expressed more suspicion of Bass than Golden. I think this is the right answer to Ricochet's accusation, but I don't know why TH felt the need to include all of the other stuff. Just say this. Why even ask whether flip-flopping is bad? Why even ask whether bandwagoning is a problem? This looks like overworked defense to me.
I'm a little bugged when TH asserts some cause for suspicion, even if minor, without referencing an example of some sort. This is just a statement in a vacuum, TH has left everyone else to figure out what he means.
I think this is an important post. TH chastises another player for an move that he feels is pro-baddie. That means TH has distinctly taken the side of the neutrals/civs against the baddies in public discourse, and by my measure absolved himself of the excuses that can easily be applied to DH -- that he is deliberately doing less than he could be doing because of his probable neutrality. That he has adopted an anti-baddie mindset should imply that his effort will reflect that mindset.
I think it's pretty clear what LoRab meant by "again", and it wasn't that.
This is a bit awkward. "Exactly this" implies TH is stating his full agreement with what Roxy had said, but in truth their points weren't the same. I'll express them to the best of my own interpretation (they can both pipe in if I do a poor job of interpreting):

Roxy's point = it wasn't necessarily suspicious that LoRab was involved with the anti-Golden movement. it was suspicious that she moved her vote away from Golden when Golden asked her to.

TH's point = it was suspicious that LoRab was involved with the anti-Golden movement because it conflicted with her claimed pro-civilian neutral approach. It was also suspicious that she moved her vote away from Golden when Golden asked her to.

These two seemed to arrive upon their individual misigivings about LoRab in different ways, but TH's language implies otherwise. #nitpickpolice

The implication here if TH is bad is that he was latching onto the anti-LoRab movement via Roxy (perhaps a trend since he has joined Roxy against me as well) so as to share accountability instead of shoulder accountability.
I felt the same way, so I'll give some credit to TH for the mindmeld.
This is a bit of a reach. BWT could have easily just overlooked a relevant role since there are about 12,000 of them to keep track of.
This is at least some evidence that TH had something specific in mind about me as his claimed suspicion began brewing. I don't know what it was though. What the relevance of this question, TH?
*prolonged fart noise*

Suspecting me of being recruited is fine. I don't really view Roxy with suspicion given her repeated insistence of that. I would expect TH to try a little harder than this though -- at least present some kind of information from my post history that gives him this perspective. I've prodded him repeatedly to give me something, but so far that hasn't turned up very much.

Let's recall that earlier TH had espoused an anti-baddie strategy in his criticism of LoRab. That means we can rightfully expect meaningful anti-baddie effort from Turnip himself. I expect better effort than this.
TH expanded some on his suspicion of me, asserting that I am falling short of emulating my civilian game. It's important to me that he provide an example of something in my posts that gives him this impression, especially because of his own admission that his knowledge of my game is based on a small sample. I genuinely have no idea why TH would feel this way, and he isn't helping me to understand despite my repeated requests. He's also appealing to Roxy's case again, sharing accountability for his read on me with her instead of taking personal responsibility -- even though her read on me doesn't even seem that meta-based. She has cited specific beefs that she has with my content in this game.
I perceive obtuseness again.

~~~

I think TH's early game content isn't terribly suspicious. But he has trended downward over the last couple cycles and that might be indicative of him having been recruited to a baddie roster.

Now this TH ISO is getting huge.

*gets banned*

Vote registered for Turnip Head

I'm underwhelmed by his being glued to Roxy's suspicion of me. I also think some of the criticism often directed toward DH could also be directed at TH. He is less blatant and transparent about his approach, but the content doesn't seem that much more productive. I'll do an ISO to gauge this vote against thread data.

Roxy wrote:You against Boomslang I feel just the opposite. I would think a good JJJ would look at both sides (you even admonished Scotty about his case being one sided) but you were one sided with Boomslang in a nitpicky way.

Original ISO on Boomslang

Please note the positive points included among the negative points.

Roxy wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Roxy wrote:Llama vote for DH - I cannot remember much from you inre:DH. is it bc of his asking to be lynched?or his overall play this game?

llama has been quite constant with his statements of DH suspicion.

Ponder all you want there kojak but I have been sick and really I do not remember his sspicion of dh. Do you have a prob with me asking?

I had to Google "kojak", and I must say I am pleased by the results:

"Who loves ya, baby? That would be Theo Kojak, the bald, lollipop-sucking New York detective who isn't afraid to bend the rules to bust the bad guys."

Ask away. I'm just poking at potential filler content.

timmer wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:I'm not being forced by the hunger to promote an SVS lynch.

Is that a thing? I just picked a word that appealed to me.

That's a little bit of a stretch, homie. the instant I saw you emphasize the word starved I had to go check if we were on a hunger day, that's how much you didn't just pick a word. Whatchoo up to?

I think half of the words in my post history are italicized. What would I be up to?

Open question about S~V~S for those who've played with her often:

Her tunnel vision on Golden was well-documented. Most people didn't seem perturbed by that, and my inclination as an observer without meta was to not be perturbed. However, it should be noted that her case against Golden seemed to be reduced entirely to a single post (in which Golden claimed to have baited the Epi kill).

Golden fought and fought to explain his maneuver and his perspective, but S~V~S never got over that post. Would you folks say that tunnel vision of such a focused sort is normal of S~V~S? Because that is a special sort of tunneling -- instead of hating everything Golden posted, she hated one thing he posted. Enough to drive him over 300 posts defending himself to no avail.

Roxy wrote:Llama vote for DH - I cannot remember much from you inre:DH. is it bc of his asking to be lynched?or his overall play this game?

llama has been quite constant with his statements of DH suspicion.