The Syndicate

Snow Dog wrote: If Bullz flipped civ it means I got it wrong from the evidence.

I was never suspicious of you before, just viper. But that double-vote really makes both of you look suspicious to me.
I never meant to imply that a civ bullzeye would *prove* you were bad, just that a baddie bullz would exonerate you.

Snow Dog wrote:

Nevinera wrote:Wile I'm not prepared to accept the double vote as coincidence, I think voting bullseye off is the best way to tell if snow and viper are bad.

Voting bulls

Seriously? I am following up on "The Llama Gambit" for which he died and you want to see if I'm bad? If nobody sees the logic in my vote then I am speechless. If I don't vote for a Llama voter then what did he die for?

I didn't vote for you! I simply saw a win-win.
If bull flipped civ, your double vote looks more suspicious,
And if he flipped diesel, yay!

I didn't expect /nobody/ to flip :-/
I mean I guess that's useful to know too, somehow?

Voting Tull, obviously.

Ok, now I really have to go. I almost hope he IS civ, cause then we would know two baddies instead of one.
But today will turn out well, one way or another.

Bullzeye wrote:

Nevinera wrote:

Bullzeye wrote:
Linki: Nev, your willingness to kill civvies just to find out if someone else is bad speaks volumes about your alignment.

It's true, I am logic-aligned.

Are you diesel-aligned as well? I do wonder...

Seriously? That's the bluntest NO-U I've seen.

Bullzeye wrote:
Linki: Nev, your willingness to kill civvies just to find out if someone else is bad speaks volumes about your alignment.

It's true, I am logic-aligned.

Wile I'm not prepared to accept the double vote as coincidence, I think voting bullseye off is the best way to tell if snow and viper are bad.

Voting bulls

Bullzeye wrote:

McViper wrote:We haven't heard from Bullzeye in a very long time. I think he's laying low to avoid detection. I cast my vote for him

You're not exactly rebutting with a "no comment"..

Wow, my two strongest suspicions just mutexed :-/

I've been generally more suspicious about bullzeye, but that pair-voting read to me like Btsc + an over eager newbie teammate.. And vipers reasoning sounds suspiciously experienced.

I'd rather wait to see how this develops, but it's a morning wedding, so I'm going to have to vote in the next 15.
You still around viper/snow? I'm debating between one of you and bulls, and I'd love more to base that guess on.

Lizzy wrote:Now I feel awful! But darn it, Llama! ...experimenting when there are so many newbies. :\

Also, do these polls actually do something? I guess I'll go with 15 because it's closest to the mean of the first 5 options.

They do something, yes. I had an outcome from the first one and not the last one. Mildly beneficial, no info.

DharmaHelper wrote:Well what I mean is it read as a statement you made assuming everyone is just supposed to accept you're a civvie.

God I wish. The only game I've survived long in is the one where I (roughly speaking) pretended to *not* be a civvie :-\
I apparently talk like an evil mastermind or something; experienced players in every game I'm in are all 'pinged by my playstyle'. I think they're getting used to it a little or something, since I haven't been lynched yet. I was kind of hoping that would eventually happen.

DharmaHelper wrote:@Nev your whole "I'm not claiming to be a narrow gauge guy, so don't bother NKing me baddies! And also if someone could protect me that would be swell!" post rang as not genuine to me.

Not "not genuine" in the sense that I think you might actually be a narrow gauge train, but not genuine in the sense that it read to me as a not so clever way of implying civiehood on your part.

I'm sorry?
It *was* genuine, in the sense that I thought that both the logic was relevant and that communicating it would get me killed.

I don't feel a need to 'imply' civ-ness; I've never even really felt a need to *state* civ-ness. Which has gotten me lynched before. To my mind, there's no point in communicating information that people will simply ignore - everyone in the game is claiming to be a civ, so doing so myself shouldn't be necessary.

But I *am* fairly clever (ask anyone), and I generally try to avoid not-so-clever actions. Like bringing myself to everyone's attention immediately, just so I can 'imply' that I'm a civ.

Bullzeye wrote:

Snow Dog wrote:

Nevinera wrote:I think 16 should be sufficient for a party. I can't see how 1 extra balloon would be too many, so 15 seems pointless.

It is boxes. So it's an extra box of balloons. I don't know how heavy it is of course.

How heavy can a box of balloons even be? You'd need hundreds of balloons before they start getting too heavy to carry.

Well I totally missed that it was whole boxes. Though in retrospect it seems rather obvious that you wouldn't ship 16 individual ballons by train.

Snow Dog wrote: I don't think either of us are baddie. And the TP game is all in the past and has no bearing on this game I promise.

I still feel awful about that. I really wish I'd gone with my original plan and abstained :-\

DharmaHelper wrote:So as I tried to say earlier I think there is a baddie in the Snow Dog/Neverina back and forth.

I don't know, I kind of thought he was just irritated with me for the ending of the Twin Peaks game. (Sorry again!)
I'm keeping an eye on him, but I still like McViper or Bullzeye better.

I think 16 should be sufficient for a party. I can't see how 1 extra balloon would be too many, so 15 seems pointless.

Epignosis wrote:thellama73 has been decommissioned. He was Sir Handel.

That is definitely not who I thought he was :-\

Bullzeye wrote: That's what I don't get about the whole thing. Either he wants out, knows he won't be lynched, is a civvie who made a mistake and is trying to cover it up as intentional, or he's a baddie trying to cause confusion. I'm not even sure which I think is most likely.

There's no way he's stupid enough to try this as a baddie.
He had to know it would get him lynched, and this is far enough out there to rule out 'mistake' I think.

thellama73 wrote:Now that all the votes have been cast, I can reveal the patented "Llama Gambit."

Knowing that most of the time baddies try to act helpful and logical to blend in with the civvies, I decided to act crazy and illogical. A baddie would have to be nuts to act the way I've been acting, and I was counting on the civs realizing that. Therefore, civs would be unlikely to vote for me, but baddies would see an opportunity. They could vote for a civ and when my affiliation is revealed excuse themselevs by saying "well, he was acting really crazy."

However, by revealing my strategy in the thread, one of two things will happen: Either I get lynched, in which case the civvies have good info on who the baddies are based on who voted for me, or I survive and still have good info based on the votes for me. Either way, my team is aided substantially towards victory.

This is the "Llama Gambit." I hope you are sa impressed with it as I was when I came up with it.

An interesting tactic, and you certainly sparked some complications..
But I don't think your conclusion is particularly valid, especially since you (rightly) encouraged everyone to focus their votes together. You gave civs a pretty compelling reason to vote for you too. A *civ* would have to be nuts to act the way you've been acting as well, unless he was in some fairly specific circumstances.

I still generally think you're both a civ and somewhat lying about your plan though.
Or at least your intent to martyr yourself for it :-)
There is a lynch redirect lying around out there, so someone could still save you
without affecting the validity of the information you've gathered for us, right?
A Thomas vote for DP would present the same way.

And there is still that one character that would just shrug it off..

reywaS wrote: It's pretty clear who you think llama is. You say that you think llama has info. You think that the result of a day 0 poll would net a player info about the affiliation of another player? I don't think so. I don't feel comfortable voting for DP because llama's reasoning is purely wild theory territory. I also don't feel a llama vote is warranted yet. Not sure where my vote will go yet....though it probably won't matter anyway.

I really don't think he has info, but it's my strongest straw :-/
I'm not getting a huge ping from anyone.
Viper has my eye, but I don't think that tracks..
DP at least has been very quiet, and careful about his comments.
That's not 'baddie' behavior exactly, but it concerns me.

If llama does have anything, I expect it to be fuzzy in nature, not a specific players affiliation -
"a diesel voted for pigs" would be an example.

Hedgeowl wrote:Votes are getting a wee spread out here and I'm not inclined toward llama, so I am voting DisgruntledPorcupine again.

It does look like a choice between DP and Llama, doesn't it :-\
I still don't see Llama's angle here, but I'm going to troop along and hope he's got some info that he just doesn't want to share.

Voting DP.

Bullzeye wrote: Is there really such a thing though? You could say baddies wouldn't willingly draw too much attention to themselves and I'd even agree with you but on the other hand the fact we're saying this suggests it's a good tactic for baddies to employ because people will say oh he'd never do that if he was a baddie.

That's WIFOM* the whole way. Nobody plays that way, because it hardly ever works.
I could see Llama trying it, but not like this - not with so much confusion and so many new players.

*WIFOM = "Wine in front of me" - it's a reference to the scene from The Princess Bride in which somebody went in against a sicilian when death was on the line.

thellama73 wrote: I have no info besides that which I have posted in the thread. I think the pig theory is sound. It could be a weird coincidence, but I am testing the waters to find out. If DP is lynched and flips civ, my theory will be disproven. If he flips baddie, I will have a clear path on how to continue.

If I am lynched today, I hope the survivors will heed my advice on this.

Well there goes my lynch voting plan..

I see a silent vote for llama from Andrew - did you have any particular reason? Just the wierd pigs thing?

Bullzeye wrote: You really think Llama has info? I think that if he did he's a good enough player to find real stuff to back his points up with rather than joking about the letters in someone's username making them bad. I'm considering a vote on Llama myself as I find the whole pig theory weird and didn't think it was actually a serious thing until he based a vote on it.

I found it really strange also, but he's just not the sort to vote randomly.

If the info said 'you cannot reveal that you have this info' or something..
I could maybe see him making up a wacky reason just so people would figure out the real one?

thellama73 wrote:

S~V~S wrote:Nice way to spread the vote even further~ the baddies can swoop in and lynch a civ with just one vote with such a spread, especially if the lurkers dont vote

No kidding.
It's hard to come to consensus this early, but we can't afford to leave everyone with 1-2 votes again.

I'm favoring DP, on the logic that llama must have some kind of info from that last survey,
but I could see Bullz or maybe McViper - he went oddly silent after that initial flurry of suspicion.

Russtifinko wrote: I had decided not to vote Nev today, but he's seemed exceedingly prickly. I don't know what to make of it; I kind of changed my opinion on him with every new post of his I read today. For now I'm inclined to withhold judgment because I'm so unsure. I will ask, though: Nev, you said you had a certain role in mind for llama. How could that possibly be, so early on? I'm asking partly in astonishment at how fast that happened, to get more info about your thought process this game, and partly out of general curiosity. I've almost never pinned down a specific role, only alignments, and I'm curious about how others do it.

So, all that said....I don't know who to vote for. I don't have any pings anywhere near large enough to lynch someone over. So I'll go with...Bullzeye. Why not?

I'm prickly because I'm not sleeping well. Though I am pretty grumpy normally anyway.

My opinion about llama's role is based entirely on his current behavior and my understanding of his personality.
I can't imagine him playing this way except under certain circumstances, which only one of the roles satisfies.

I have the impression that I'm not allowed to say or strongly imply what that role is, but if Epi says otherwise I'll gladly explain,
and I think you'd probably generally agree with my assessment.

It's sadly useless to know, until he stops behaving like a crazy person.
Unless he has some kind of information I can't fathom from that last survey?

Snow Dog wrote:Does he get drunk?

Not that I'm aware of, but I cannot fathom his game.

thellama73 wrote:That's why! Isn't it obvious?

I'm a bit curious too, but I've never given people a shortage of reasons to suspect me anyway.

Well, unless he's being incredibly clever, I'm fairly confident now that llama is civ. And maybe drunk? But civ.
I don't see how he could know anything about DP though, unless I have his role wrong :-\

This game is getting very strange -.O

-.O

Have you been meditating too much again Llama?

Bullzeye wrote: Yes baddies target their own but never with their kill. There is Sir Topham who can redirect targets but aside from interference by him I'd say it's pretty much confirmed that SVS was civvie.

The NK isn't described as a specific role's night power, so I can't imagine Topham could redirect it.

thellama73 wrote: All four votes for Pigs came from people who missed the previous lynch vote. I have a crazy conspiracy theory that these people had some info on the poll, and I think that indicates baddieness.

I didn't get anything from that poll, if it helps. Not even bacon, and I feel a bit cheated.
Would it have killed you to pm me some bacon, Epi?

thellama73 wrote:I think what bullz said is logical and correct. I find Nev's reaction to it a little odd.

It just felt stilted to me. Like he was trying to prompt us to come up with some theories without putting anything out there himself. My response was intended to be a bit tongue-in-cheek though.

thellama73 wrote:I suspect this very good advice is likely the reason for her sudden departure. We would do well to heed it in the future.

That does make some sense. She was behaving as sort of general font of wisdom for the new players in other ways too.
Maybe there just wasn't anyone they definitely wanted scrapped, so they decided to take out the stabilizing players who have been around the block the most?

linki snow: I already linked to the post that responded to that one.

Snow Dog wrote: Well you never answered my post so I didn't know what else to call it. If you have a better word I'll be willing to use it. All I have done is show what you have written.

Which post? You have three in which you said roughly the same thing, in increasingly shorter ways. I answered the first two, and my answers *more* than sufficed as a response to the post saying "I didn't misrepresent anything".

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=155&p=21559#p21621

That post was intended as a response to both you and Russ. I didn't *quote* your post because I find posts that involve a page of other posts quoted in them to be annoying, but I thought it was fairly clear who it was directed at. Since I put both of your names in the front.

linki Snow accusing me of being bad because I'm tired:

Not everyone, no. Just you really.

Bullzeye wrote: She almost had to have been good right? There's only one baddie team after all... I do agree she seems an odd choice to take out. Could she have done or said something to earn the baddies' wrath?

I just don't see anything. I've been rereading her posts carefully, and I don't see any sensical reason someone would scrap her. A few nonsensical ones maybe, and one real stretch involving the secret power..

It kind of sounds like you're trying to direct the discourse here.
So tell me, *did* she do something to earn said wrath? -.O

linki Snow: Not really, I think I've expressed my reasons sufficiently. I certainly didn't "ignore" anything, but I'm not at all surprised that you'd cast it that way.

DisgruntledPorcupine wrote:RIPIYWG SVS. D:

I don't think there's much doubt she was good.. RIP for sure.

Why SVS though? She didn't point the finger at anyone but Boogs, a known steamer..
All she's been doing is making other players justify their actions, and not even very harshly.

thellama73 wrote:I love a hairbrained theory, and I'm going to stick with this one as long as it is tenable. The pig voters must have had info on the poll, and that means they cannot be trusted!

He's trying to steal our bacon.
This cannot be countenanced!

Russ: "The hinting at info or grand theories"
Snow: "what is this marvelous insight?"

Here's the text of the post you were both talking about:

[quote=nevinera]I've noticed a few things about the setup that I'd love to share, but if I point them out I'll almost certainly be scrapped tonight.
But everyone.. think about how the Narrows are going to play out, from various points of view.
And be careful, the early game is more important than usual here.[/quote]

Point out any claimed 'grand theories' or 'marvelous insights'? I had some logic to share, and it was risky to do so.
I'm not trying to make out that you were playing up my post intentionally, or even that it would un-civ-il to do so if you were.
Just that it bore watching.

If the mafia has any players from my other games in it, then I probably didn't need to be worried really.
I'm like a suspicion magnet; I'll be at the top of every 'keep him alive to draw fire' list forever.

Russtifinko wrote:Although your quickness to try to make me look bad for my vote is not giving me the warm fuzzies.

For your vote? I didn't think anything of that. If boogs had flipped, it'd be a different story of course.

I was just bothered by your your stated reason for that vote, which seemed a clear attempt to misrepresent my post to me.
And I wasn't really bothered until a second player starting doing exactly the same thing soon after; it feels a bit coordinated to me.
That could just be my paranoia talking though - I'm not accusing you of anything on such a flimsy feeling.

Snow Dog wrote:Nev worries me. First he says he has noticed some things about the setup he would like to share, but refrains out of fear apparently, of doing so. The lynch ends and what is this marvelous insight? Simply a few words of caution to narrow gauge trains about hinting too strongly. Then saying that he is not narrow don't NK him.

I have my eye on Nev.

Good lord, I didn't claim 'some marvelous insight'. I claimed to have "noticed some things". What kind of crazy deductions would you expect me to have on Day one? All I really have to work with are the rules at this point :-\

My fear was that my logic would make me look like a Narrow Gauge, and my logic suggested that they would be the first targets. I'm not concerned that they'll scrap me now (unless "they" is "you"), because clearly I'm to be lynched early again anyway.

I noticed that you and Russ both tried to exaggerate my statements to make me a better target, and in similar ways. I'll have my eyes on you two for however many days I remain unlynched as well -.O

thellama73 wrote:Has anyone else noticed that all the people who missed the lynch vote are going with Pigs today? Could this be a meaningful pattern?

You're just jealous that you didn't think about bacon before you voted.

Man.. dinner with family, and I forgot about the poll :-\

I guess it wouldn't have changed anything, since I wouldn't have voted for myself.

Russtifinko wrote: Voting Nevinera. The hinting at info or grand theories but then leaving before explaining is a pretty thin ploy to avoid being decommissioned, if you ask me. Similar to cliffhangers in paperbacks. It doesn't necessarily mean Nev is bad; goodies and baddies both want to avoid decommisioning. But, well, it's Day 1, as I believe someone mentioned, and I have to vote for someone.

Not hinting, and it's no 'grand theory'. I didn't 'leave before explaining', I specifically chose not to explain for a clearly stated reason and then left.

I have no info at the moment, just logic. Specifically, I want the Narrow-Gaugers to be careful about hinting - it might seem like a good idea to give the other Narrows a hint so they can find you fast, but please be *really* subtle if you do try that. Civ BTSC groups of any real size are a huge advantage (remember the endgame of MotU), and baddies will see your hint too. Don't waste your check on me, I'm not claiming to be a Narrow (hear that, baddies? Don't bother scrapping me!). I think there's a fair chance that they won't believe me (and if nobody else hints, they won't have anything better to go on), so if anyone wanted to protect me tonight, that'd be swell ;-)

I choose pigs because bacon.

thellama73 wrote:

Snow Dog wrote:I guess we should discuss some possibilities. How about McViper. I am not getting a totally good feeling reading his posts.

Could just be new-player weirdness or you could be onto something.

Here's what I have so far(which isn't much): The only things that stood out to me on a quick reread is that Nevinera has only posted once, and he is usually a very chatty player, so that is atypical. Also, A Person has only posted one word, "blue," which prevents us from getting any kind of read on him whatsoever. These are the two I've got my eye on right now, but as always on day one, it's very, very thin.

birdwithteeth11 wrote:I agree with llama about Nev. I find it odd that someone who is normally very talkative is suddenly so quiet.

The answer is simple - I have a computer job, and when I'm at the office I'm very chatty, because I can check into the thread every 20 minutes. Right now I'm nearing the end of a long and busy weekend (today is a holiday in the US), and I will become Chats McChatterson again on the morrow (though I'm out of town from Friday through Sunday next weekend, so I'll be even less around).

Also, I've been lynched within two days in all three games I've played in, essentially for talking too much at the start. That rather has taken away my interest in filling up the the thread with my thoughts on day 1.

But if you'd like to go ahead and lynch me first, it's ok. At least I can keep my streak going!

I've noticed a few things about the setup that I'd love to share, but if I point them out I'll almost certainly be scrapped tonight.
But everyone.. think about how the Narrows are going to play out, from various points of view.
And be careful, the early game is more important than usual here.

I'm voting red, so I can pretend to be a fire engine!