The Syndicate

I gotta get to bed.

VOTE BASS

Just kidding.

VOTE DRWILGY

Still creeping around dropping votes in an active game thread. Get in here.

Roxy wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Roxy, would you agree that it's important for a player to have substantive supporting content in his/her post history which clearly explains why any eventual final vote has been placed?

Substantial in whose eyes?

Definitely the eyes of those viewing that post history without the benefit of first-person understanding of it.

VOTE BASS

*aapje's head explodes*

Okay really bed time now.

RIP Bass

DharmaHelper wrote:I'm not gonna read that ever.

Maybe we should spare you the trouble of reading things by hanging you.

Stuff about Boomslang:
I find baddies more likely to focus on minor semantics and basic surface-level content in their attempts to appear as though they're putting forth real effort. This post above is a potential example of that. Boomslang makes two points, both of which draw from the outermost layer of the Day 1 atmosphere and show little interest in deeper critical thinking.

1. "Golden can't know Epignosis is certainly not going to be on his team unless he's a recruiter."

Well, no kidding. Do you suppose Golden wasn't aware of this concept when he made that statement? This line of thinking essentially equates to Boomslang associating Golden with ignorance of recruitment mafia fundamentals -- something I find dubious.

2. "Players pushing the LMS agenda instead of the good vs. evil agenda are suspicious, because it's obvious that this is a good vs. evil game based on the content of host posts."

This is probably the single easiest accusation anyone can make in this game so far (and to be fair, Boomslang wasn't the only one making it). A discrepancy is noted between the theories promoted by some players and the dynamics described by the hosts -- and this discrepancy is immediately painted as a cause for suspicion. Again, this is a very basic assessment of something that really demands a more refined and thorough investigation. This asserts that baddies, particularly baddie recruiters, were deliberately pushing an agenda that conflicted directly with undeniable truths stated by the hosts -- something clearly counterproductive to anyone trying to avoid pressure. Such a baddie might as well broadcast to the thread: I want you to be suspicious of me right now and here's why.

DFaraday, I spared your life on Day 1. Don't make me regret it, show me some of that juicy #content.

Hey bea, did all of the positive feedback you received on Day 1 (including from me) inspire someone sinister to recruit you?

Golden wrote:@JJ - although you did not make the point about me, the italicised last 13 words of your posts I find myself relating to a lot in this game because it expresses very simply why I find it difficult to understand that some people are so convinced I'm behind epi's death.

At this point I am not sure you stand to gain much by continually addressing this issue -- but you stand to lose everything if those pursuing the matter continue to dislike everything you post about it. I'll make a recommendation, that you can ignore if you see fit, that you put this on the backburner for at least a while and focus your efforts on anything else in this game.

Tranq, do you find me suspicious or are you tagging along for an opportunity to maybe kill a vocal contributor?

Tranq wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Tranq, do you find me suspicious or are you tagging along for an opportunity to maybe kill a vocal contributor?

Can't say i have a strong opinion on you one way or the other, although i've enjoyed reading your posts. I'm more interested in seeing discussion on the theory. I know there are several pros and cons.

If it didn't involve you, what would your thoughts on the matter be?

Interesting question. I'd have to shed all biases to answer truly which I of course cannot do. My best assumption is that I'd allow LoRab the space to pursue the theory and the player in question the opportunity to respond before involving myself. Then I'd suggest that the theory is probably too speculative given that it hinges on a single one-line post.

Hey Scotty, you're really suspicious. I'll explain later.

Scotty wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Hey Scotty, you're really suspicious. I'll explain later.

Cool. I haven't even started with you yet.

I can't wait. Let's fight.

thellama73 wrote:Observation 7: I think JJJ demanding that Bass post reads of ten players or else be lynched was super unfair and put Bass in a very difficult spot. Mafia is about detecting the bad guys, not forcing players to dance for your amusement under threat of death. I don't like it. I don't know if it makes JJJ bad, but I don't like it.

I think this mindset is counter-intuitive. You're right that it put Bass in a difficult spot -- that was the point. Prior to that interaction he had said exactly nothing about players not named Bass or MP; I sought to change that. There were two reasons for this:

1.) His responses might have improved or worsened his standing before I placed my vote. I was toying with a number of votes at that point and Bass was the frontrunner. I needed some way of inspiring content from him that might influence my decision. One response which he was free to make, which I honestly expect from an innocent mindset, is "No, JJJ. I'm not going to post reads for you because X." Somewhat akin to DH's response to MP's request for a rainbow.

He chose to provide responses. The effort was appreciated, but the content of that effort did not make me feel better. I wasn't the only one to feel that way.

2.) In the event of a baddie flip by Bass, having a number of baseline reads from him would have been very useful information post-mortem. I didn't want him to get away with having only established minor links with MP and yourself.

What I find dubious, llama, is that you don't seem willing to grant that what I was doing was directly relevant to "detecting bad guys". I wasn't forcing Bass to "dance for my amusement" at all.

S~V~S wrote:So you are blaming the dead non baddie for his own death?

Me? What?

aapje wrote:Didn't get to record all votes live but I think this should be pretty accurate:

Day 1 short
Day 1 full
Day 2

What insights have you gleaned from this compilation so far?

Scotty wrote:Yo JimmyJohnJahusophat I thought we were fighting and stuff. What gives? My knuckles are taped and everything.

You said you would explain your suspicion of me later. Well it's later, and I'm getting older and my joints are hurting actually nevermind we shouldn't fight. My blood thinner medication hasn't been refilled lately and that would be bad for me

I'll get to it. I have other things going on atm.

thellama73 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: What I find dubious, llama, is that you don't seem willing to grant that what I was doing was directly relevant to "detecting bad guys". I wasn't forcing Bass to "dance for my amusement" at all.

There are lots of things you coul have asked Bass. I don't think demanding reads on random people was productive at all. It just seemed mean.

I certainly didn't intend to be mean. I intended to generate meaningful information to further my own understanding of Bass. Bass, if you found my behavior distasteful then I apologize for that.

Did anyone else feel that way? I ask because if this perspective is a trend then I'll need to reassess my approach. I don't want to baddie hunt so hard that I become a jerk.

Scotty wrote:JJJ, do you feel like you would be a good candidate to be recruited? Why or why not?

I suppose that depends on what a recruiter is looking for.

Would I be a good candidate for someone seeking consistent effort? Yes.

Would I be a good candidate for someone seeking a specific skillset related to this setup? Iffy.'

Would I be a good candidate for someone seeking a player under the radar? Absolutely not.

Would I be a good candidate for someone wanting to have a little fun? I like to think so.

I think civilian recruiters might fear picking me because I bear the appearance of a night kill target. Baddies might not be inclined to pick me because I bring the spotlight upon myself deliberately. I dunno though. This assumes they even have much of a choice in the matter.

Scotty pings:
I give MP credit for drawing even more attention to himself by taking a controversial stance -- that there's reason for civilian-inclined players to celebrate the death of neutral Bass. However, the people who tagged along on that notion (which might actually just be Scotty, I'm not sure) are a little more suspicious for it. MP's stance provided an opportunity for people to espouse a potentially damaging perspective: that killing off unaligned sorcerers is a worthy objective.

The more significant ping here is in the second paragraph though. I don't like any of these sentences. Scotty echoes my own sentiment that Golden could stand to benefit from dropping the self-defense agenda for a while, but he does so in the third person as a detached commentator. He is calling the plays on a delay:

Golden is making life worse for himself by continuing to defend himself so much. He's probably going to keep doing that, and that is why he's going to remain a big suspect. This won't change until the Epignosis kill is resolved if ever. I read Golden as neutral.

His post prior to this was largely about Golden and his detractors in the thread, and he really had a lot to say. He even specifically stated that he doesn't believe Golden killed Epignosis (I agree). I feel like this mindset should appear in this post too, as a component of what becomes a developed and nuanced read on Golden. Instead he offers a summary of everyone else's take on Golden and Golden's behavior in response without putting forth an original thought. This troubles me.

I admit that this is a complex read by me, so I invite Scotty to talk about it.

Scotty wrote:Man, looks like we had very similar days. Glad we both stayed in.

Scotty wrote:You are forgetting that BWT had no votes in the abbreviated lynch so he was a non-factor after all. What about BWT's presence do you like? What does tenacity mean in this context?

I like that BWT emerged early in Day 2 with a bone to pick. He put the work in to lend confidence that the attempt at lynching him might have been ill-advised and that he has something to offer. I thought he seemed genuine in his conduct post-lynch and didn't strike me as a baddie trying to recover in the face of immense suspicion.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:What kind of content did you see? Less? Because I'll give you that much. How am I different now? How is my driving? Call 1-800-4-SCOTTY

What I hadn't seen much of at the time I posted that was what some Mafia communities call "WIM" (want it more). In Broadway your effort was fantastic and constant, and I wasn't seeing the same level of dedication early in this game. I actually hadn't realized you've been faced with time constraints until now, so I am willing to relax on that front some.

EBWOP: That last quote should be Scotty's, not mine.

Scotty, my concern wasn't the stances you took -- it was the language you employed in taking them. I saw a detached observer more than a person making reads he can be held accountable for, something I view as suspicious. You shouldn't reduce my discussion of language merely to my mention of you speaking in the third person; that was hardly my only point of interest (indeed it wasn't actually one of them at all, it was a contextual observation within a more relevant read).

Golden wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:It'd be like putting my name on the top of a rainbow list.

Well I disagree with SVS view that rainbow lists make the slightest bit of difference as to who baddies kill anyway.

I wish we could literally tell the mafia who to kill every night merely by giving them a favorable color.

I want Boomslang to awaken with a vote on him. There you go.

Scotty wrote:Yup. The last week really beat me to a pulp. I do hope to contribute as much as I can for the time being until it gets busy again.
But at the same time, this concept where I'm expected to churn out as much as another game really sucks. I guess I should've set me bar lower and posted half the content I did in that game so that I could come in here, get acquainted with the new gameplay theme/style, and not have someone breathing down my back for more. Real life sucks man. If I could just Polly Wolly Mafia all the live-long day I would. But my dad Polly Wolly'd for a few years, couldn't get a job, couldn't raise his son, and ultimately left. And I ultimately don't want to end up doing the same when I have kids, ya get me? I gotta be real with you man. I had a lot happen this past week that I'm not even going to discuss, but RL ALWAYS comes first. I forget it sometimes and I have been losing my livlihood in the process.

I won't press the issue. I definitely know external forces can affect a mafia performance. You just do your thing as well as you can with the time you have and that's good enough for me. I'll judge your content for what it is.

Golden wrote:I do not perceive any of Scotty's posts as suspicious this game.

I felt more strongly about calling him suspicious when I was at work and expected to have more to say now. I'll consider the possibility that my perspective is unreasonably affected by my memory of our first game together.

Note to self: try to investigate and/or interact with these players more than you have so far.

[sppoiler]Canucklehead
Devin the Omniscient
DFaraday
DisgruntledPorcupine
Dom
Metalmarsh89
nutella
Ricochet
Roxy
Sorsha
Spacedaisy
S~V~S
timmer
TinyBubbles[/spoiler]

Time for bed.

Nothing more annoying than a failed spoiler tag.

nutella wrote:Ok, looking at the exchange between JJJ and Scotty I find myself agreeing more with Scotty and not really grokking JJJ's reasons for suspecting him. Most of what Scotty has posted, from what I see, strikes me as eminently reasonable. He brings up and in fact votes for aapje with quite good reasoning.

I can understand that. Truth be told I don't even feel much conviction for my prior stated suspicion of Scotty. I experienced what I thought was a significant ping when I was reviewing the thread at work, but when I came home to talk about it I felt a little less confident. Moreover some of Scotty's best content in this game has been his most recent. I'm not really feeling him as a great vote anymore.

I do like that you assessed our discussion and seemingly tried to grasp both sides of it nutella.

Dom wrote:I feel uneasy about voting Golden after his meltdown post, but... I still suspect him.

Why does his "meltdown" post give you pause?

Roxy wrote:Not mean.Manipulative - yes. Pushy - yes.

It was definitely pushy, I readily grant that. I am kind of a pushy player. I try to get more out of people.

Some have asserted it was manipulative of me. To that I'd ask this question: if my motivation wasn't what I claimed it was (to generate information that would help read Bass and potentially other players if he flipped bad), then what was it?

Also: do you suspect me Roxy? This post would imply it but it doesn't explicitly state a stance.

Vote Metalmarsh89

His content has taken a rather steep dive over the last couple of real-time days. I'd like for him to say why.

Sorsha wrote:I see that golden is heading out and might not be back much but I have a question or two. Anyone else can weigh in on the answer as well. I have been away from mafia for a while and don't know/can't remember all the player dynamics.

First of all I'm of the mind that golden is not on the team that killed epi night one. I know golden still claims responsibility like that team is going to do his bidding for him but I'd think their motive was more to frame him. Anyone in particular come to mind as one who would do that?

My thoughts on the matter is whoever is really hounding golden in the thread did it. But is it a silly question to ask who would set golden up?

I honestly don't know if there's a real way to answer this question, honestly. I suppose some of the more experience Syndicateers around here might have some insight, but it'd all strike me as very speculative. For example, I actually pulled a very similar maneuver to what Golden claims to have done here in Broadway Mafia. Epignosis was behaving in a way that I felt was distinctly against town interests, and I made it very clear that I wanted him dead. Moments later the night ended and he was dead -- an obvious attempt to frame me.

The guilty party there was fingersplints and DFaraday. The former is not playing this game and the latter is barely playing this game. My point is that you could probably select a name at random to answer this question and it'd probably be nearly as likely to be correct as anyone's educated guesses would be.

You guys see that double "honestly" in the first sentence? Even I am embarrassed about that adverb usage.

Spacedaisy wrote:I'm leaving my vote where it is for now, but I'm open to hearing input from people who have played more with unfurl than I have. I would prefer to get a baddie than a neutral personally. They aren't bad lynches but they aren't good ones either.

I have played with unfurl exactly zero times, but I think that might give me a uniquely advantageous perspective (of course people who have played with her often should comment too). I don't have to be concerned with meta when I read her and content can be assessed intuitively at face value. Here's what I see: unfurl is the current best example of the low-hanging fruit in this game, in my opinion. By that I mean she is one of the players that the baddie-aligned teams are counting on as a lynch, and certainly not one they are counting on as a team mate.

That's really the whole matter, isn't it? For all the things you've identified that bother you about unfurl, you're still reduced to those two questions:

1.) Was unfurl recruited by a baddie team?

2.) Is unfurl a baddie recruiter?

If I take her content at face value, my intuition tells me that the answer to #1 is a resounding NO. Unfurl's style was met with criticism quite early in this game, and she has always been at least a backburner suspect for a number of players. Baddie recruiters are certainly paying attention to that, and they're not going to take someone on with a lot of baggage. Of course we can play WIFOM and wonder aloud "well maybe that's what they want us to think!", but I don't think that's logical.

Would you agree with that assessment, Spacedaisy? If not, please state your own thought process.

If you do agree, or at least you see my point as valid, then you're left with #2. Is unfurl one of the two baddie recruiters? Maybe. I think her post history is at least compatible with what I would expect from some baddies in more typical setups. I wouldn't say it screams recruiter at me though, because one key characteristic is preventing me from confidently viewing her as suspicious. Her posts have been so extremely detached -- you and MP astutely observed as much when you noted how little she seemed to want to talk about -- that I am brought to wonder whether a recruiter agenda is actually present at all. Is this how most recruiters would behave? Would they really be so hesitant to even try to make a meaningful dent in even one relevant discussion? Such avoidance is equivalent to the total absence of manipulation, misdirection, or even an effort to obscure oneself.

One caveat for my prior response to Spacedaisy:

I keep making the mental error of reading potential recruitees for how desirable they'd be, forgetting that many of them haven't been specifically chosen by the recruiters. That would add a little more plausibility to the notion that unfurl was recruited.

LoRab wrote:Going to vote now, so I don't forget and so I don't miss voting if the thread gets locked. I'm voting Golden.. As I said before, not so much because I think he's been recruited to a baddie team, but because I don't think he is playing in the best interest of the civies.

This is a bit of a cop out. I don't disagree that the Golden Problem has become a distraction, but that doesn't mean the solution should be to remove him from the game. If you don't think he has been recruited by a baddie and you don't think he is a baddie recruiter, then I would assert that your vote might not be in the best interest of the civilians.

aapje wrote:A lot of people throwing out stuff like: they are probably (not) bad because a baddie team would absolutely/never recruit that player. I think it's not a bad idea to keep in mind that for most of the recruitments the teams will have very limited knowledge on who they are recruiting.
Sure maybe they wouldn't knowingly pick player X for their team, but that doesn't mean those players will not be recruited.

You're right, I keep doing this. I wish I could program my brain to emit a small shock every time my thought process goes this direction.

Bullzeye wrote:If half the thread is saying X is definitely civ and we really trust him, then that's a pretty good signal to the baddies that they may as well kill X since he's not getting lynched and might lead a bandwagon on one of them. In my experience baddies don't kill at random, whenever I've been bad anyone I've killed has been for a particular reason and sometimes that's based on things others in the thread have said about the victim.

The value of open townie play in which people are happy to identify their town reads publicly is that it really progresses a process of elimination strategy. This has been one of my hallmarks in Mafia and I think it's usefulness is often overlooked in this culture because of the rule disallowing dead players from winning. Motivating the baddies to kill some specific player isn't that big a deal honestly, it promotes a civilian-controlled kill sequence and corners baddies in the live discourse. I've won many games on that strategy, often as a corpse.

However, in this game I can understand the tight lips more. There are only a few true civilians right now and it's better not to deliberately expose them.

S~V~S wrote:You have not played with Epignosis much. I think it is unlikely that it is a frame becasue if I were a baddie, an Epi/Golden thread derailment would be a major wet dream. Had Epi not died, we would have had 2 more days of nonstop, escalating sniping and talking about almost nothing but Epi & Golden. Any bad team would eat that up. UNLESS Golden or Epi was on their team.

What about the baddie team that literally didn't "eat that up" in Broadway Mafia? Epi and I were sparring rather abrasively, and they killed him to frame me.[/quote]

S~V~S wrote:

DrWilgy wrote:

Sorsha wrote: My thoughts on the matter is whoever is really hounding golden in the thread did it. But is it a silly question to ask who would set golden up?

I'm upto date and I'm not voting for Golden. Sorsha, what has you thinking someone hounding him is framing him?

If it is one of the players hounding him, who are they? DH, SVS and rey?

Yeah, good question. I would like to hear what she thinks as well.

Linki @JJJ~ there is always an exception. I still think a derailment is a better proposition early in the game than a frame.

I believe you think that. I don't know that your perspective is the majority perspective though. In my experience, baddies often can't resist an opportunity for a frame job.

Golden, what is your immediate reaction to LoRab's vote for you and stated reason?

Golden wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Golden, what is your immediate reaction to LoRab's vote for you and stated reason?

I concur entirely with your view, but feel like a hypocrite for doing so.

Before I voted for myself last night, you will see LoRab just said she found me suspicious (just a few posts beforehand). This is the post that pushed me over the edge into my self-vote. It made me feel as though it is hopeless me saying anything, because no matter what I say people will call me suspicious, and it was that post that made me feel like I would not be able to survive the lynch anyway.

So to have her come back the next day and say she does not think I'm bad, but then vote for me anyway because I am a distraction and having me alive is not in the towns interests... it's just disappointing for me and it's times like this that I feel like it does not matter how many words I use, I cannot get my points across.

LoRab wrote:You're making it increasingly more difficult to not suspect you. No, you're not unrecruitable. And I think the civies would be just as hesitatnt to recuit you as the baddies would be. Actually, I think the baddies would want you more at this stage. And, as the game goes on, nuetrals become more of a threat. We're far from there, but will get there.

And you think Epi wanted to recruit you? That is new info, so to speak, and seems extremely unlikely. And negates your entire idea of the 2 of you never being on the same team. You are starting to grasp at straws and I find it hard to find that as a civ thing to do. I did not suspect you until this post, but the ping has started, and is growing louder.

That was part of her post, but you should find it in her iso and read the whole thing including thread context.

I don't know if it makes lorab bad, but I do think it means she could be a neutral.

Honestly that post you reference, in this context, amplifies my concern and makes me outright suspicious of LoRab. She was verbally describing her own quest to find a reason to join the bandwagon against you, and continued in that direction with this most recent cop out vote. The highlighted pink text in there is a pretty literal example of this, and it is expressed in language that I find suspicious at face value. The highlighted orange text is a logical discrepancy and exemplifies a player interested in surface contexts and not deeper critical thinking. I don't think it's hard at all to associate your theorizing about the potential for Epignosis recruiting you with your prior insistence that it would be a bad idea to recruit me onto Epi's team, I'd kill him myself.

This seems like willful ignorance of the most important content in this discussion by LoRab, and a concerted effort to justify the easiest vote on the board.

Bullzeye wrote:Don't count DF out just yet. He may be quiet now but he almost always is, and he can be an absolute joy to scheme with in btsc because he's lethal when it matters. Still I think your general point here is an accurate one.

Quiet is an understatement. He hasn't posted for more than three days. I'll try to get his attention:

DFaraday, if you don't get involved then your eventual lynch will be close to inevitable. That's not a winning strategy, mate.

Golden, if I dedicate some of my Mafia resources to turning a lynch away from you and end up wrong in doing so, then my Syndicate reputation is forever shot.

Golden wrote:I'm feeling much more positive today, I've really appreciated posts from people like Sorsha and JJ that have demonstrated that there are people genuinely thinking about and understanding my points about why me being responsible for killing epi makes no sense in the context of my actions before and afterwards.

I'm glad.

This is a great opportunity for you to harness the good vibes and turn the tide against the thread at large. Someone or someones might be exploiting you, and if so you shouldn't let 'em get away with it ever.

DisgruntledPorucpine, I see you down there. Say something! Anything! I'm tired of being deprived of your delicious posts! I've waited so long, stop being such a tease.

lol MM voted for me. Maybe he's trying to tell me something.

Vote LoRab

Black Rock wrote:Hey guys. So it turns out I can't fix the poll without deleting the votes so I can either redo the poll at 10pm EST for another 24 hours. I would take a picture and post it at that time or we can continue voting in thread for the remaining of the day period. Thoughts?

I think the easiest thing for you and Long Con would be to restart the poll when this one expires. Many votes will change anyway, and those that don't can simply be carried over from the old one.