The Syndicate

So I really sucked it up this game, and so did our team. Sorry folks, especially to Epi. It just came at the perfect storm of me and Daisy being busy with moving apartments, studying for my comprehensive exams, preparing this Excel training class for the first time, among other things. I can't believe we played so badly.

Congrats to the winners though!! I'm glad it was the civilians who won.

I'll try my best to make time to be time to be in here for longer than a few minutes at a time, but it won't be until closer to EoD. I have too much to get done today. I promise I'll throw up a rainbow and converse with whoever wants to converse with me then.

DDL, just here quickly to say that I don't understand how you're coming to the meta assessments of me this game. I don't think I'm patient and I don't at all think that I always react patiently to suspicion when I'm civilian. So if you suspect me for your meta assessment of me, I'm not sure what to say about that. I'm sorry I didn't try to converse with you on it but I keep popping on here when instead I should be studying and I don't have the time to get bogged down in a conversation right now. I just wanted to quickly post my observation because it appeared to me that you were misrepresenting me, and I found that suspicious. Like I said, if you suspect me because I barely talked about MM, cool, I honestly expected more heat about that by now. I was wrong about him, but I didn't like the way everyone was bandwagoning him for what I saw as barely alignment indicative behavior, especially since he and Wilgy WIFOM the fuck out of each other every game. I'm willing to take responsibility for the fact that I was wrong.

And lol Dom, you suspect me in every game we play together, so I knew it was a matter of time. I don't feel like arguing with you and I don't have the time. But I'll just point out that timmer wanted to duel and he wasn't bad, so... yeah. I have my reasons. Trust me. I wanted to duel nutella today.

I've had other things to say to people too that I just haven't had the chance to say due to it being Night yesterday and due to being busy. Sorry for forgetting to address this stuff. Rico, I think Boomslang is civilian largely due to gut/tone reads but I'm liking his activity, I also agreed with JJJ's assessment of Boomslang's mechanics proposal, and in his subsequent behavior I've seen genuine attempts to solve the game.

I'll throw up a rainbow at some point, but I shouldn't even be here right now, so I'm leaving again.

I said this earlier in this game, but, anyone who played Turf Wars should know that the civilians can uncover a baddie early on in the game and then derail the entire rest of the game by overanalyzing and coming to false conclusions. They continuously went after people who had strong stances on the CFD that doomed RadicalFuzz. But all 4 of his teammates weren't there for any of the CFD discussion and some of them even missed the vote.

But go ahead though, DDL, vote for me. I want to duel anyway.

I didn't defend MM, but, along with expressing my thoughts on Dom and Russ, I did comment on the situation, and explain thereafter multiple times that I didn't think he was worthy of a vote. I saw nothing there.

http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com/viewto ... 53#p296153
http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com/viewto ... 55#p296155

etc.

Just read my ISO. If you're going to suspect me for my treatment of MM, that's one thing, and totally understandable. But at least don't throw out misinformation. I called for the CFD primarily because I felt strongly about timmer AND nutella, and I didn't at all feel strongly about any of MM, Russ, or Dom. I hard defended Dom, I soft defended Russ, and I saw nothing alignment indicative in MM.

DDL, you're suspicious. You're manipulating my content right now.

So during the Night I caught up, well I skimmed a lot, but yeah. I'm pretty much current. Unfortunately this weekend is going to leave me pretty much no extra time. Thankfully we are done moving into our a new apartment by Tuesday so I'm hoping to be more active thereafter.

I want to duel this time. And I should have stuck with my evaluation of Nutella from before; she is giving me bad vibes and I think she's latching onto easy targets again today. Not letting her off the hook.

I want to take her down. Nutella vs MP!!!

Sorry guys, I'm a fail at playing mafia right now and I hate the way I'm playing with the exception of my few hours of activity and analysis on Day 2. There's just too much stuff going on that's more important for me to be able to contribute meaningfully during this phase. I'll have to do one of those drive-by votes that I have consistently hated so much.

Checking the poll, I see Boomslang has a vote already. I haven't read any posts but I want to make it clear that Boomslang is one of my TOP civilian reads. I don't have a real opinion of Nerolunar. So I don't want to vote either of them.

I feel better about Mac and nutella after I expressed beefs with them on Day 2; their responses seemed reasonable and genuine from a tone perspective, so while I won't call them town reads right now I'm not calling for their lynch either.

Dom is also one of my TOP civilian reads. Russ is a civilian read. Not voting them either.

So I'm really stuck in a position here where I have to make a shitty set of votes because I'm not caught up, and I don't feel I can make remotely informed decisions because of that and because I haven't performed any teammate analysis.

I'm voting timmer (again) for reasons previously stated, and I suppose I'll throw a second one on Dunny because I want to call attention to him over the 'main' wagons of yesterday (as I stated during Day 2, again, find my previous posts for elaboration).

I have no idea if any of you have questions or concerns for me; if I live to see Day 4, I'll try to get to them then. Apologies all around. I would replace out probably if Epi actually had a bunch of replacements waiting but as it stands I'm just going to have to continue a lower approach, just hopefully more informed than this.

I only have a minute but wanted to say a few things:

- The Nanman are dicks. So long, JJJ.

- But welcome, Rico! Glad to see you playing.

- Looks like I was wrong about MM. I stand by what I assessed of the situation, but it appears Jay was onto something with his Wilgy/MM observation. If anyone thinks I'm a teammate for this, I anticipate it, but I think my behavior and post content demonstrate that I was coming from a genuine place of trying to figure it all out. I still don't think MM was lynched on anything that strong, so we sort of got lucky. Glad we did though, and props to everyone who legitimately saw something there.

- I feel better about nutella and Mac after their responses to me. Thanks for those, guys. I don't have any other concerns at this time.

- I haven't conducted any vote analysis or in-depth reading of posts made the last couple of hours in d2, but I still think timmer should be heavily considered for the dueling block today, and I still don't think Dom or Russ is bad, but that's just me.

- I start teaching tomorrow and will be spending the next 24 hours or so at our new apartment, which doesn't have internet, and between that and being busy, expect me to be quieter this phase, unfortunately. I'll contribute when I can, but it won't be again until Thursday likely.

TTYL

Only here for a second. Voted nutella and timmer.

I'VE CAUGHT UP.

Now I need to go back to work. I'll be back in time to cast my votes and talk some more. I'd like to start a CFD on any of the following players (in order of most preferred to least):
1. nutella
2. timmer
3. Dunny / Jan
4. Inactives (rabbit8, Soneji)
5. Somewhat inactives (BWT, CapsFan DP, INH, leetic nijuu, Spacedaisy, S~V~S)

I'd rather hear back from Mac before considering him today, since the rest of his post history and content seems good, and I realize I may be coming at it from a biased viewpoint since my beef is only with his treatment of me specifically as much as I try to get away from that.

And those inactives / somewhat inactives are off my memory, I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't remember any posts from inactives and remember at least one post from the somewhats, even if it lacked content.

Linki w/ Turnip Head: Can you elaborate on Dom / nutella / timmer and MM being connected / sig (case maybe? )? Thanks!

Dom wrote:To the haters who say I'm hiding behind a gimmick-- take this !


I am posting more, creating more discussion, and trying to baddie hunt more than many, many people out there. It's all out there, folks. You can see it for yourself. People who make this criticism are looking for an easy place to vote.

Damn straight, Domald! DOM/NJU 2016!

Dom, whenever you get in here, can you name your suspects and in some kind of preference order? If you could expand upon some of your thoughts too, that'd be great.

DFaraday wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

DFaraday wrote:So far my biggest suspicions are MM and Dom. I think JJJ made a good case for connections between MM and Wilgy, and Dom is not fully addressing the points made against him and, I suspect, hiding behind a posting gimmick.

Bubbles' votes seemed random, but not unusual for Bubbles.

DF, a few questions:

1) In what way would you assert that Dom is hiding behind a posting gimmick?
I think gimmick posters offer themselves a built in defense when it comes to inconsistent behavior or doing things not easily explained. If they frequently do gimmicks, people will come to their defense and say it's just how they always are. If it's unusual for them, as with Dom, I think they hope they can skate by for longer with people remembering the gimmick more than their content. In this case the gimmick seems to be drawing suspicion though.
2) Do you agree or disagree that Dom's posting gimmick is attracting potentially negative attention that he would not have had to deal with otherwise?
I think to a degree it is attracting attention, because his gimmick seems to be causing him to strongly assert his opinions.
3) What points made against him has Dom not addressed, specifically?
He hadn't really established why a less vocal Bass would be bad, nor why he now thinks Bass is good, and didn't address the notion that he could be setting up an excuse to vote Bass later on. He also didn't explain his votes for JJJ and Scotty, beyond saying they're bad.

Thanks DF!

Regarding 1) (and 2) I suppose), I agree that, over time, gimmicks can serve as a sort of meta-tinged defense. The best example I can think of is Vompatti. However, when players first introduce "weird" gimmicks or quirks into their gameplay whether intentionally or unintentionally, I would argue that the opposite is actually true, and that the players open themselves up to increased scrutiny. I think that's what we're seeing here with Dom.

I'll agree with what you said in 3) except the Bass stuff, but that could be because I've seen and made that observation of Bass in past games before. I think Dom definitely could elaborate upon what he's been saying more, but I don't think that makes him suspicious.

Boomslang, nice catch with Jan. Jan's a new player to me and the site, so I've been probably not giving full attention and scrutiny there when reading posts in a hurry, but I should be. I'd say Jan's behavior at least strikes as illogical, but I'm not ready to proclaim it as the most suspicious thing going on right now. A lot of players are acting illogically or in a gimmicky fashion; some of them are getting attention for it (Dom + MM) and others aren't. Not entirely sure why that is.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:I'm feeling rather inspired, MP. On some level I've found myself wondering if nutella has been too agreeable (as in she's accepted the consensus suspects without really asking questions), and I think you've done a good job of conveying that in the form of a legible case. I hope she shows up before the day ends because I'd like to see her rebuttal if possible.

One concern I have is that you're influenced by a bias MP -- the suspects she is pursuing are the same ones you are defending. I do think you make some good observations though and I am more interested in a nutella vote than I was an hour ago.

I fully recognize that potential influence, and I'm even willing to admit that I may be a bit overly enthusiastic now that I've sat on it for a half hour or so, especially since Dom is being accused of a similar thing that I accused nutella of (not backing up assertions for her main suspects).

However, distinctions should be made because they make all the difference:

1) Dom has occasionally provided some backup (such as when he questioned Glorfindel), and I find even less with nutella
2) More significantly, nutella's suspects are always with the general tide of the thread, which in combination with her strong language and assertions is the troubling thing, whereas Dom has been mostly going against the grain, and
3) Dom's strongly worded statements seem to be partially due to his gimmick, whereas nutella's language is plain to see ("disturbingly cavalier"), and perhaps even more strongly worded than Dom's Trumpist statements, which should be alarming in and of itself.

I still feel better about lynching nutella than just about anyone else, at least right now. timmer can take my second vote too. I'm still mulling over it though and trying to finish this last batch of post reading.

brb phone call

Oops, my brain must have short circuited. Not sure what I was saying with "none of their behavior" in that third paragraph there, but what I was trying to express is that what she described about those three candidates and why she's OK with voting them (like not providing content) could be said about many other players in the game.

Alright, here's another random observation I thought of: nutella is reminding me of myself when I'm bad. I appreciate her contributions, but they've been devoid of actual substance and too go-with-the-flowy. See the below post:

nutella wrote:Top candidates for my votes are MM, Dom, and maybe Russ or Bubbles. MM is looking more and more suspicious to me, I already bought JJJ's case and now all of MM's responses are rather disturbingly cavalier and many of his recent posts I have found suspicious in and of themselves. Earlier I said I didn't like either Dom's or Bubbles' votes; I'm pretty convinced that Bubbles is being her usual self but that doesn't preclude her being bad. Dom is just being incredibly annoying and not really providing sufficient content imo due to his obnoxious posting gimmick, and I am still perplexed by his voting behavior. And I'm keeping Russ on my list as well, since he hasn't given me a great impression overall, and I look forward to seeing what he has to contribute today.

Speaking of contributing, there are numerous players I would love to hear more from. INH, Niju, Bullz, Dunny, Timmer... where you at?

MM, Dom, and Russ are the 'hot button' candidates right now, and Bubbles is a semi-hot one. That's not particularly inspiring in and of itself, but then check out the orange stuff.

So what's wrong with the orange stuff?
1) Very strong, assertive language, like "pretty convinced", "incredibly annoying", "disturbingly cavalier", "more and more suspicious", especially given a lack of substantive reasons for those strong opinions.
2) The fact that she is OK voting for Dom because he is "just being incredibly annoying".
3) The fact that she is OK voting for Russ for such a vague reason.
4) The fact that she is OK voting for Bubbles for, again, essentially a non-reason.

nutella, please elaborate. I'm concerned. I don't understand what makes your views of these players any more alarming than most of the rest of the players in the game, considering that none of their behavior also fits your descriptions for voting those three candidates (like 'precludes from being bad', 'usual self', 'not really providing sufficient content', etc.

A few questions for you as well:
1) What other posters in the game have provided more sufficient content than Dom?
2) What content can you find in Dom's posts? Because I can find some, even if it isn't strongly supported. Let's compare.
3) Which posts of MM's are "suspicious in and of themselves" and why?

Oh, and that that yellow stuff? That's the kicker to what's reminding me of myself when bad. I love throwing out those lines.

Furthermore, and again we're on meta here, nutella has a VERY strong and consistent meta phenomenon. She is always incredibly unsure of herself when she's civilian. See Bullets Over Broadway. She's conducting herself with confidence and incredibly strong language and assertive statements without wavering. That's not only suspicious at face value because she provides no substantive backing for those statements and is piggybacking onto the three people with the most heat going into this phase, but additional cause for concern from a meta level.

I'd call nutella moderately suspicious and more worthy of a lynch than Dom, MM, and Russ easily. Again, feels like a pretty d1-ish case, but I think there's some real potential here even if it's far from a slam dunk. What do you folks think? What's agreeable or disagreeable in my assessment?

I want to lynch nutella.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Sorsha wrote:I'm here

You should talk to MP about his beefs:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Sorsha wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Sorsha wrote:I think I'm going to vote for two of the prefects. Jimmy, Scotty, INH... See who's the toughest.

What is the advantage of doing this?

What's the disadvantage? Scared?

And this kind of post is why I have so much trouble reading Sorsha. I can't make sense of this response. Despite my gut screaming that this is face value suspicious, I've been fooled by Sorsha and many other players (Roxy and S~V~S come to mind) and historically read them very badly in the past because apathy and these kinds of loaded questions always read insincere to me. Anyone have a read on Sorsha yet?

I was actually looking for input more from other players re: Sorsha rather than Sorsha herself, but it'd be nice to hear what she thinks about things too. I don't really understand or agree with her d1 prefect focus, but it's not like she didn't explain it.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:For folks who played Transistor when zebra was acting "weird", ignoring people's requests for elaborating upon her actions, and talking like a cheerleader or something, Dom is that this game. This is a BS lynch.

Who's here? Someone get a CFD going with me. I haven't finished catching up yet, but at this point I'm thinking DFaraday and timmer, the latter due to what I posted above and DF because I think he looks the most potentially opportunistic of the people who have already voted Dom, MM, and Russ to me. That said, I'd be cool with anyone who's absent or mostly absent since it seems this will be a continuing problem. Almost anyone but the three people with the most votes, frankly.

I think your Dom-Three Kingdoms / zebra-Transistor comparison is a good one. I'm not thrilled with that lynch either. I don't think I'm inclined to pursue a double CFD because I do suspect the other two leaders, but I'm considering a timmer vote. I don't suspect DF. His vote is also comparable to Transistor, where he voted frequently for people who were seemingly "bizarre" on the surface (zebra/Mac/llama) in that game. That's his MO.

That's a good point regarding DFaraday. If there's one thing about his gameplay I've noted too, it's consistent as hell. I have a really hard time distinguishing civilian and baddie DF. The only player who might have him beat is juliets.

I think I might have another potential candidate though, based on what I've just read. Let me elaborate in a second here.

Sorsha wrote:I'm here

Hi Sorsha! What's going on? Do you have any suspects? What do you think of Dom, MM, and Russ?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:This doesn't seem forced to me FWIW. And I do think there is an inherent desire to try and find and then provide reasons for prefect votes to prevent everyone from hiding behind meaningless votes, so Russ's perspective here is one I can completely understand and I think it's not indicative. Am I missing something?

I don't think you're missing anything. We just read the post differently at face value. To me it appears rather inorganic; the strategy you assign to it looks to me more like something a baddie would design to feign investment in their votes while townies would just do whatever the hell they want on Day 0. I could be wrong, it's never inspiring to judge people by such early content.

MovingPictures07 wrote:This all seems within character for Russ (particularly the strong language, which, if memory serves has been lodged against him before with mixed success), and I'm just not seeing your distinction for the accusation response. Help me out here.

This kind of thinking is something I'm actively avoiding after recent games have shown it to be dubious (I believe). I think this is the kind of stuff that people said about Long Con in Talking Heads (bad), MacDougall in Talking Heads (bad), Epignosis in Turf Wars (bad), etc. There are exceptions I'd imagine. I think I could clarify it like this: your perspective may be valid, but I think it's more "this is why your attack on Russ isn't necessarily convincing" as opposed to "this is why I think Russ is good".

I don't know, but re: the first point, for me personally, I find myself trying to find the best reason to vote for anything as much as a civilian as I do when I'm bad, if not even more so. It's easier for baddies to hide behind meaningless or fluffy votes.

Well, I agree that defending people with meta can be really dangerous, but so can attacking people with it. I'd ideally like to remove it from my repertoire but it has shown to have some relevance. Anyway. We can agree on that. I guess I'm just confused as to what exactly makes Russ bad in the second half of your case there, specifically with respect to the 'turning' it back on you. I'm not sure that's always manipulative, since civilians can emotionally react and do that.

Bass_the_Clever wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:Expect gigantic MP catchup post some time within the next 24 hours. Probably towards the latter end of that spectrum though. It will happen.

Just realized the first day of Fall '16 isn't tomorrow, but Tuesday, so I don't have to teach my first class until Wednesday. I love teaching, but given my current time crunch, that was a pleasant surprise of extra time.

I can't wait. What are your thoughts about my game so far?

Digging the activity, glad to be playing with you again.

As to alignment, not sure yet.

Who are the no-shows still, does anyone know off hand?

For folks who played Transistor when zebra was acting "weird", ignoring people's requests for elaborating upon her actions, and talking like a cheerleader or something, Dom is that this game. This is a BS lynch.

Who's here? Someone get a CFD going with me. I haven't finished catching up yet, but at this point I'm thinking DFaraday and timmer, the latter due to what I posted above and DF because I think he looks the most potentially opportunistic of the people who have already voted Dom, MM, and Russ to me. That said, I'd be cool with anyone who's absent or mostly absent since it seems this will be a continuing problem. Almost anyone but the three people with the most votes, frankly.

MacDougall wrote:

Scotty wrote:

MacDougall wrote:

Dom wrote:

MacDougall wrote:Oh look a guy who I voted for on day 1 got lynched and is bad and this time I didn't actually try making a case on him. New strategy.

Wassup Glorfindel with ignoring my comment? You scared there buddy?

Mr. Big Mac, what was the result of that test you took eh?

(c) Paid for by Dom/Nju 2016.

You seem civ.

What makes him seem remotely civ to you?

I haven't seen Dom play like this before. He doesn't strike me as someone who would play this whimsically if he had a team agenda.

I agree, well said.

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:I didn't like Russ's recent "Congratulations on lynching Wilgy, guys!" It doesn't feel honest.

I think I'm voting for him today.

I disagree with this though. What about it doesn't feel honest, and how does it justify warranting a vote?

Wow, that last post was atrocious from a grammar perspective. Sorry guys. Stream of consciousness stuff here. Also, my brain is fried.

And Jay, yeah, the site's loading a bit more slowly than normal for me today, similarly to when it was when Epi was trying to get this game going the other day. I looked into it back then and didn't find any particular cause. I'll email Bluehost again though.

Another thing I've noticed about Dom, though it's purely meta-based, observational, and I can't quickly back it up with evidence, but it's something I feel confidently in asserting, especially since Dom was my first mafia rival and I've known him for my entire mafia career, and that's that: I've noticed one hallmark of Dom's meta over the years that seems to be relatively consistent. Dom tends to throw questions at people more often and emphasize other people's suspicions more so than solely contribute and emphasize his own suspicions when he's mafia versus civilian. I feel like he's doing the latter here, throwing out more bold statements than questioning and ripping apart others'. Not an airtight argument by any means, and perhaps others have had different experience with him (if so, please speak), but it provides additional pause to the fact to joining his bandwagon for me anyway.

Oh, and Scotty, as for the last game Dom was bad in... it seems like he's been bad all the time lately, but since I haven't been playing mafia for a few months it feels like I'm so out of the loop. I guess Arkham was the most recent? Maybe? Does someone else know? If you pick a random game from 2016 though chances are Dom is probably bad. :P

I think, of Dom, MM, and Russ, at least from what I've read thus far, I can most understand why Dom is getting attention, but I don't agree with it. It's the classic "_______ is making assertions and not backing them up or stating them in an obtrusive way, therefore ______ must have sinister intentions" combined with the phenomenon that taking strong stances and/or attracting attention with weird behavior or a posting gimmick also is more likely to have sinister intentions.

I wouldn't call Dom a remotely strong civilian read by any means at this point, but this stuff is pretty weak, guys. Especially with all of the players that are contributing bupkis.

Nevermind, disregard somewhat, DF just corrected himself after that post. Bah.

DF either is misunderstanding the nature of Dom's comments about Bass (saying that he should be pressured and thought to be bad if he goes silent) or intentionally misrepresenting them. That's my second observation and I'd give DF a slight mafia read for this because I'm leaning the latter.

DFaraday wrote:So far my biggest suspicions are MM and Dom. I think JJJ made a good case for connections between MM and Wilgy, and Dom is not fully addressing the points made against him and, I suspect, hiding behind a posting gimmick.

Bubbles' votes seemed random, but not unusual for Bubbles.

DF, a few questions:

1) In what way would you assert that Dom is hiding behind a posting gimmick?
2) Do you agree or disagree that Dom's posting gimmick is attracting potentially negative attention that he would not have had to deal with otherwise?
3) What points made against him has Dom not addressed, specifically?

Russtifinko wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Hey Simon, what do you like about Russtifinko?

Simon likes me?? Yaaaay! I like Simon too.

MovingPictures07 wrote:FYI I still need to read this thang. I've been just recently caught up helping Daisy with the Psych endgame, we still have to pack and move some more stuff thereafter, and I have lots of studying to still do. Very likely will be pulling another all-nighter tonight, so at some point if I want a break I might try popping in here. Otherwise you'll hear from me tomorrow evening probably.

<---Do it.

I did it! Seriously, I love coffee, but my consumption has somehow even increased the last week or two and somehow I'm becoming slowly immune to its awesomeness. That alone should tell me I'm overdoing it. I've singlehandedly drank 3 pots in the last 36 hours. And I can't stop peeing.

/rant

timmer wrote:Added some votes to the people wit votes. No time to figure things out just yet.

OK, I'm triggered, timmer. This may be the worst possible thing you can do if you're behind. Even BWT's method of self-voting, while meaningless and 100% guaranteed to get a civilian if he were to be lynched and assuming he's self-voting as a civilian (instead of 'randomizing' and potentially catching a baddie), all you're doing is creating a barrier to other players contributing meaningful alternative suspects and making it easier for other players to come in and, without discussion or adding input, do the same thing you just did, making those players effectively unreadable and the game more difficult to solve.

I understand being busy. Trust me. I'm sleeping like an average of 2-4 hours a night, if I'm lucky to get sleep, and working almost non-stop otherwise when I'm not here, eating, or cruising Facebook/politics news occasionally. But you would be better off abstaining or even voting yourself or 'randomizing' (both of which I despise as d1 tactics, by the way, let alone as d2+) than doing this.

I want a CFD and I think timmer might be a good candidate just for this attitude alone. I realize it could be a seriously behind and apathetic civilian attitude, but this is aggravating and I don't like the three major candidates.

See, the problem with that for me anyway is that Dom is pointing out a trend with Bass that I, without actual in-depth analysis, have noticed as well. Bass did have a string of games where he posted quite a bit early on and then trailed off with respect to activity, and regardless of whether that was true, he consistently did seem to be less posty when he was bad, much more so than trends with other players. Do I think that's even remotely foolproof though? No. I wouldn't be caught dead using that as a solid reason to think Bass is bad.

But you've touched on something about Dom's play, Scotty, that I've started to notice too as I'm getting into the beginning of Day 2 and thinking on his Day 1 stuff. He's definitely throwing around a lot of suspicion (DF, JJJ, Bass, from what I've seen and can recall so far), and doing so in a fairly assertive matter (though that could be due to the gimmick), but on the basis of little, dubious, or nonexistent claims and reasons. I'm starting to understand that the thread isn't exactly teeming with information by which to judge other individuals and we have to start somewhere though, and I wouldn't say this is out of character for Dom. I don't feel like it's inherently suspicious because I don't understand the motivation that a mafia Dom would have to behave in this way. It's unnecessarily risky. And GTH I'm reading Dom's posts as genuine, even in the presence of the Trump gimmick.

Just got to Day 2. Fuck it, I'll stick around and catch up. I have to. Especially since I'll be even busier Tuesday-Friday. Studying can wait because it sucks anyway. I'll speedread Day 2 and let you all know about Dom and other stuff.

Oh, and reading it again, one point that JJJ did make with respect to stuff about Wilgy strikes me as meaningful -- the one about Golden here. I'd say that gives Golden a lesser chance of being on Wilgy's team at this point than pretty much anyone else, but I'm not putting much stock in it.

Linki: Scotty, you're my hero. I'll read that now. Thanks bud.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:I'm quickly uncovering that the case I just didn't clearly understand from JJJ about Russ might be all there is going on here. What else is there, folks?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:I didn't like Russ's recent "Congratulations on lynching Wilgy, guys!" It doesn't feel honest.

I think I'm voting for him today.

Speaking of Russ:

Russ, it'd be groovy if you could talk to me about my Day 1 case against you. It's a new day and I am not one to cling to old material, but I need inspiration to change my mind. Let's chat. We've already talked some about the first point, so please focus on the other two.

Did Russ respond to this?

I don't believe so.

It may just be that I'm still not fully caught up, so correct me if I'm wrong, but for a d1 baddie lynch and 835 posts in the thread, it seems the thread is in a stasis chamber.

Can someone help me out with the Dom stuff? Is that in Day 2? Maybe I'll CTRL+F these pages for "Dom". I don't see anything compelling on MM or Russ, especially when considering the sheer amount of players who didn't vote yesterday and didn't interact with Wilgy, so I'm a bit alarmed at the current vote tally with less than 5 hours until EoD.

I cannot make sense of the MM and Wilgy WIFOM combined with their less-than-serious general d1 attitudes, and the risk/reward analysis for whether a baddie would vote for their teammates on d0 combined with the assumption that the baddies would have to actively plan such a strategy seems less than ideal speculation upon which to make a vote. Pretty typical behavior. I'm not sure we've found a teammate connection there, but I appreciate your analysis of Wilgy's posts nonetheless, Jay.

Oh, and with respect to other Day 1 stuff going on, I can see and dig JJJ's suspicion of Dunny. What I find most suspicious at face value are: (1) the fact that he is quick to recognize the suspicion against him, yet the elaboration was vague and seems potentially conflicting after the (2) "why me?" defenses, which are also questionable.

I think I'd call him slight mafia at best though. Nothing particularly compelling.

I'm quickly uncovering that the case I just didn't clearly understand from JJJ about Russ might be all there is going on here. What else is there, folks?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:I didn't like Russ's recent "Congratulations on lynching Wilgy, guys!" It doesn't feel honest.

I think I'm voting for him today.

Speaking of Russ:

Russ, it'd be groovy if you could talk to me about my Day 1 case against you. It's a new day and I am not one to cling to old material, but I need inspiration to change my mind. Let's chat. We've already talked some about the first point, so please focus on the other two.

Did Russ respond to this?

Scotty wrote:I'm also going to remind everybody that even when someone looks like they're actively attempting to look for baddies that in a game with multiple baddie teams, even baddies will be doing this. And just because someone leads a charge against a baddie, that doesn't validate them as civ.

I'm having lots of trouble reading people in this game because I feel like everyone is bad to an extent. It's like, Wilgy is dead but there's still 6 more baddies, 3 independents, and we still need to outnumber other civ factions to win. It's kinda a crapshoot, which is what The game of Mafia is, but I must warn people that civ labels should be used sparingly, since 1/3 of the players are not civ, and over 2/3 aren't even on the same civ team.

This is definitely true. While I haven't even started reading d2 content yet (ugh), I'm feeling a bit lost right now myself due to trying to absorb all of this content and, more to your point, judge how teammates would have voted considering Wilgy's d1 demise. The vote was pretty spread out and half of the players missed; I'm not sure we can affirmatively say that his voters didn't all miss the vote, as unlikely as that would sound. I'm wary of trying to make conclusions such as 'Wilgy's teammates are behind the d1 Scotty push' or 'Wilgy's teammates cast their votes away from main wagons' because I saw everyone overanalyze the fuck out of the CFD that netted mafia!RadicalFuzz in Turf Wars when in reality his teammates weren't involved in the CFD or the CFD pushback. They were all, even Epi who was relatively active in the game, absent from most or all of the phase and the discussion completely.

Hey JJJ, I'd like to respond to this case! I'm confused, help me out. I personally don't see anything here to judge Russ as bad or good:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Hey, let's make a Day 1 case.

Russtifinko

Spoiler: show

Russtifinko wrote:Agreed, JJJ.

Hey, I REALLY like the idea of the "whoever does ____ first, gets my votes" posts. They prevent people from finding excuses to give votes to baddie teammates. So I'm gonna do one too, and would suggest others do the same (even though it's an itsy bit late for a few).

The first two people to post pictures or emojis of platypi earn my votes.

DDL was the first to bring this post up, and I agree with his assertion that appears a bit forced. I don't think the context of Day 0 demanded that an explanation be generated for people's "if you do X, I'll vote you for prefect" activity. Russ provided an explanation anyway, and it's laborious, and it's actually completely wrong too. He acknowledged that after it was pointed out.

This doesn't seem forced to me FWIW. And I do think there is an inherent desire to try and find and then provide reasons for prefect votes to prevent everyone from hiding behind meaningless votes, so Russ's perspective here is one I can completely understand and I think it's not indicative. Am I missing something?

Spoiler: show

Russtifinko wrote:Lots to read. Things I saw to respond to on Page 8:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Russtifinko wrote:Agreed, JJJ.

Hey, I REALLY like the idea of the "whoever does ____ first, gets my votes" posts. They prevent people from finding excuses to give votes to baddie teammates. So I'm gonna do one too, and would suggest others do the same (even though it's an itsy bit late for a few).

The first two people to post pictures or emojis of platypi earn my votes.

DDL brought this post up and I think his concerns were valid. Russ, it appears here that you are attributing a meaningful strategy to what I would perceive to be typically arbitrary Day 0 behavior. This method removes the responsibility from your votes and increases the likelihood that they will be given to people who are in deliberate pursuit of power for whatever motive. Indeed, the two respondents to your platypi request were INH and I -- both eventual prefects.

I'd like for you to talk about this, please.

You didn't like it, you shouldn't have posted a platypus picture. You say those pursuing power shouldn't get it, but went ahead and pursued away yesterday. Dunno what to tell ya, I had an idea. It was pointed out to me that it could in theory be used to work out even better for the baddies, and after thinking about it, I agree.

He did that thing where when faced with an accusation, he returned another one upon his accuser -- without clearly stating that it's accusatory. I don't think "No U" is inherently a suspicious thing, but when it comes in this form, where the return-fire is indirect and doesn't net a concrete accusation, it's more of an issue. Moreover the shade he threw at me doesn't make sense. The highlighted portion is Russ essentially telling me that I was hypocritical because I didn't distrust myself.

Separately, the response he gave does not address the original accusation. Instead of more thoroughly explaining his mindset, or attempting to discern my own motives for accusing him, he simply said "if you didn't like it, you shouldn't have posted a platypus". This is inadequate because my decision to post a platypus (am I really typing that?) reflects my trust of myself, not on my perspective of Russtifinko. Instead of addressing the point in some way or another, he turned the conversation against me.

Spoiler: show

Russtifinko wrote:You even think this is true when the strategy that you propose each side would promote is demonstrably, mathematically better for their opponents? Please. This is ridiculous. I'm an economist, and incentives just do not work that way.

This is too dismissive for my liking. When confronted with my assertion that baddies would be more likely to propose the more obvious dueling strategy (suspect vs. suspect) to look like the logical parties while townies discuss wilder ideas, Russ doubled down with this strong language.

This all seems within character for Russ (particularly the strong language, which, if memory serves has been lodged against him before with mixed success), and I'm just not seeing your distinction for the accusation response. Help me out here.

I'll check out your more recent stuff now, then the stuff about Marmot, then Dom, then I'll leave and come back, just in the interest of time. I'm running out of it.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Sorsha wrote:I'm one person and at most can give you one vote.

I think too many people adopt this mindset on Day 1, thereby ensuring Day 1's lynch is close to random if not entirely random, thereby ensuring the likelihood of a productive lynch is minimized, thereby perpetuating the impression that Day 1 is a pointless crapshoot, thereby churning the wheels of the self-fulfilling prophecy, thereby causing JJJ's head to explode, thereby rendering him dead.

I wasn't here to argue about Day 1 and all of that, so I'll just sit here and nod in agreement.

And then move on.

Turnip Head wrote:Wasn't Mac bad in Taking Heads? How can anything he said about meta there be used against him here?

Yes! He was bad. So that's a good point. I thought Mac was pretty consistent against meta just across the board, but it didn't occur to me that the statement I pulled could be a bad example since it was still during the game when he had an agenda. Maybe he can speak to this specifically.

Sorsha wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Sorsha wrote:I think I'm going to vote for two of the prefects. Jimmy, Scotty, INH... See who's the toughest.

What is the advantage of doing this?

What's the disadvantage? Scared?

And this kind of post is why I have so much trouble reading Sorsha. I can't make sense of this response. Despite my gut screaming that this is face value suspicious, I've been fooled by Sorsha and many other players (Roxy and S~V~S come to mind) and historically read them very badly in the past because apathy and these kinds of loaded questions always read insincere to me. Anyone have a read on Sorsha yet?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:In fact... *looking at the poll* If Jay or someone else can succinctly explain to me why Dom, MM, and Russ are receiving votes, or at least point me in the direction of stuff I should pay attention to, that'd be great. As awesome as 100 ppg is in making me feel like I have less to read, I still have a lot to read. And I think once I get to the end of Day 1 I'm going to take a break to work again for a couple of hours, and then come back and try to catch up.

I can't on my phone, but if you CTRL+F Marmot and Russ in my ISO you'll find it quickly.

Sweet, thanks!