The Syndicate

This trio of posts from birdwithteeth intrigues me:All three posts are responses to DrWilgy about MP. In all three he is either vaguely defensive of MP or vaguely critical of Wilgy, or both. BWT has also been very wishy-washy with regards to Edgar Allan Poe all game long with posts like this one where he expresses skepticism of the strategy but does not condemn it or MP at all.
birdwithteeth, how are you reading Wilgy right now? How are you reading MP? What compelled you to respond to these posts in this way?

Others, how do you feel about these posts?

Scotty wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:Jay, can you give me a rainbow? I'd like a rainbow.

How about gun to heads? That'd be more useful to me right now.

A Person -- bad
Boomslang -- bad
LoRab -- bad
Scotty -- bad
sig -- bad

I like these baddies and my own GTH scum team might look similar right now, so that's good. Boomslang has given me a couple of pings, and nothing about LoRab's small sample of posts has carried over those Super Strong Town vibes that just radiated from everything she did in Mad Max. Scotty has had a fair amount of suspicion brought against him which I am intrigued by. A Person hasn't said a whole lot and I can pick up some lurker scum vibes in there. sig's done nothing to catch my eye, though.

Sloonei wrote:Moved my vote to birdwithteeth. I'll figure out if it belongs there tomorrow.

O glorious Sloon, please do explain your bwt vote. I went back a bit and am intrigued that those 5 names you talked about not 12 hours ago had nothing in common with bwt. I know why I'm votinghim, why are you?

I wanted to move my vote and I haven't looked at bwt closely yet. My vote was more a reminder to do that today.

Scotty wrote:I don't have the time and energy to go back but I feel like I skimmed way back when and someone was like, "why hasn't Scotty responded to this?"

You know who you are, I don't remember what I haven't responded to.

I said it, and others did too. I said it with regards to a post MP made where he called you out for a seeming inconsistency. Just to look through his posts, there's not that many of them.

Moved my vote to birdwithteeth. I'll figure out if it belongs there tomorrow.

I reread boomslang and I think I got someone else's pings mixed up with him. He seems alright.

picture me as a stern English teacher trying to bust a marmot student for not doing his assigned reading.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Marmot: right now I am arguably under the most pressure in the thread. I would assert that this alone is reason to doubt that your vote is truly just a random goofball "I'll follow Sloonei" maneuver.

Couple it with the fact that it was you he voted for, and you have my entire reason right there.

What if I told you it's more of a pressure vote than anything?

Actions speak louder than words, and all I can hear is tour vote.

So you don't care at all about my case against him?

Of course I do! But it's your beautiful vote that has captured my attention.

So you have in fact read my case?

insertnamehere wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:Furthermore, INH, if you think the "fellow" and similar accusations are bunk, how does that develop into your reads about Dom, etc.? Are they being genuine? Do the accusations appear faked?

There's a lot of gold to be mined in this thread.

I think your original comment was irrelevant.

I think Dom's comment about your comment was irrelevant.

I think your comment about Dom's comment about your comment was irrelevant.

Maybe I'm just not the skilled prospector you are, but all I can see is a bunch of manure with not a single fleck of yellow to be found.

What would constitute relevant content in this game of mafia?

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Marmot: right now I am arguably under the most pressure in the thread. I would assert that this alone is reason to doubt that your vote is truly just a random goofball "I'll follow Sloonei" maneuver.

Couple it with the fact that it was you he voted for, and you have my entire reason right there.

What if I told you it's more of a pressure vote than anything?

Actions speak louder than words, and all I can hear is tour vote.

So you don't care at all about my case against him?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:Jay, can you give me a rainbow? I'd like a rainbow.

How about gun to heads? That'd be more useful to me right now.

A Person -- bad
Boomslang -- bad
LoRab -- bad
Scotty -- bad
sig -- bad

I like these baddies and my own GTH scum team might look similar right now, so that's good. Boomslang has given me a couple of pings, and nothing about LoRab's small sample of posts has carried over those Super Strong Town vibes that just radiated from everything she did in Mad Max. Scotty has had a fair amount of suspicion brought against him which I am intrigued by. A Person hasn't said a whole lot and I can pick up some lurker scum vibes in there. sig's done nothing to catch my eye, though.

insertnamehere wrote:This feels like had-too-much-sugar-and-caffeine MP, which I haven't seen, maybe ever.

Would you say, perhaps, that he is like a dog who is so excited he is just peeing all over everything?

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Marmot: right now I am arguably under the most pressure in the thread. I would assert that this alone is reason to doubt that your vote is truly just a random goofball "I'll follow Sloonei" maneuver.

Couple it with the fact that it was you he voted for, and you have my entire reason right there.

What if I told you it's more of a pressure vote than anything?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Sloonei wrote:My true beef was with those two posts I highlighted in my follow-up post. As it was Day 0, I was mostly just trying to fling poo and put content in the thread. I did not put a whole lot of thought into the way I presented my case, I was just concerned with calling attention to a pattern I thought I was picking up on in your posts. In a lot of your Day 0 posts it appeared to me like you were tiptoeing around and trying not to do anything that would get yourself caught in any traps. Maybe this is just a product of an unusually chatty Day 0, but I am accustomed to you being an aggressive poo-flinger out of the gate.

I've said that I was restraining my tendency to fling copious amounts of poo because I didn't want to blow up the thread. That can be believed or not. It's a mindset I have adopted on a few Day 0s in recent memory.

My belief in this statement is complicated by the fact that my suspicion hinges on a post where you claim to be acting purely in the name of poo flinging on Day 0.

Sloonei wrote:MP calls you out for what he perceives as a softball question and your response is "Yeah I guess. Or...". I concede that the explanation contained in that "or..." is a valid approach on Day 0/1, but I get the vibe that it came more from a defensive place than an honest one. On top of that, I think this post of yours lends some additional credibility to MP's accusation against you. There doesn't appear to be a whole lot of resistance here. You prodded him but then pulled back as soon as he responded. Day 0 or not, I like my JJJ's to be more aggressive than that.

It wasn't an assertion I had a great deal of investment in. I only threw it out there because it popped into my head. I had even asserted MP looked good in relation to his introductory PoE dialogue, my read still trended more positive than not. Aggressiveness has its purpose, but sometimes it's also pointless.

Sloonei wrote:You said earlier that your "I guess" might as well be replaced by the shrug emoji, but that's exactly my point. You seem to be completely conceding whatever you had said prior to this point in the argument. As far as my suspicion is concerned, the content that comes after your first sentence is totally irrelevant. My suspicion is purely in the language you use here. "I guess I don't agree" suggests less confidence than simply "I don't agree." Town Jay has no reason to lack confidence when making the simple statement of opinion like this.

I don't understand what you're saying here. MP was basing his town read on INH on a premise that I didn't have as much faith in, and I said as much. It wasn't a qualification of something I had said before, but rather it was a response to MP's assertion. I really felt the entire conversation was eating up thread space and not making meaningful headway, at least not for me.

The rest of this response looks better and I can't pick at it without entering a tunnel, which is a bad place to be only a couple of hours into Day 1. I'm not ready to give you a town read, but I need to step back and cast a wider net now.

Others have expressed a liking to this case I've laid out (Dom, Boomslang, Golden, perhaps some others) and I'd like to hear which parts they like and what they think of this response.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Sloonei's initial work in suggesting I have been a waffler of sorts was a nice workload for Day 0. I do think though that his choices for highlighting left room for contextual problems (highlighting a word or two that only loosely apply to the stated premise of tentativeness). I also think the core expectation of confidence from anyone, JJJ or not, in a Day 0 lean is rather bunk. So Sloonei should answer for that.

Your tentative language was the thing that stood out most to me when I was reading the thread and I wanted to make a note of that so everyone could look at it and share their thoughts.
It wasn't that you struck me as lacking confidence in any reads on Day 0. That's not a thing I'd fault anyone for. It was that you seemed to be lacking confidence when people questioned you about things you had previously said, and that's not a great look on Day 0, or Day 1, or Day 8.

I'm not sure this qualification of your suspicion matches the original suspicion you presented. You pointed to specific language I used which you said evidenced tentativeness, and you said that tentativeness was atypical of a town JJJ. This means the read you were making was based in meta and in language directly relevant to the confidence I exuded in the reads I stated. Moreover, a significant portion of the moments you cited were related to my perspective of INH -- an uncertain perspective stated in response to an MP request for feedback on his own read. Those weren't "responses to questions about things I had previously said", they were answers to a specific prompt about something MovingPicutres said (relating to his town read on INH).

The other post you highlighted twice (the "softball/poo-fling" at MP is one that I would assert doesn't clearly suit either of those accusations. I clearly stated the thought I had, why I had it, and then qualified it when MP poked me in response. This is one of those examples I referenced earlier when I said it seemed you were attributing terms to "tentativeness" that only loosely applied -- in this case the term "probably".

Please spell out clearly examples of the assertion you're making now (highlighted above), and then describe why in context a different expression of confidence would have been warranted.

My true beef was with those two posts I highlighted in my follow-up post. As it was Day 0, I was mostly just trying to fling poo and put content in the thread. I did not put a whole lot of thought into the way I presented my case, I was just concerned with calling attention to a pattern I thought I was picking up on in your posts. In a lot of your Day 0 posts it appeared to me like you were tiptoeing around and trying not to do anything that would get yourself caught in any traps. Maybe this is just a product of an unusually chatty Day 0, but I am accustomed to you being an aggressive poo-flinger out of the gate.
Instead, this time around I saw you giving lots of soft reads, ("I think..." "Maybe...") instead of stirring the pot, and I thought this attitude was best emphasized in those two posts I highlighted separately. Since you asked for descriptions: MP calls you out for what he perceives as a softball question and your response is "Yeah I guess. Or...". I concede that the explanation contained in that "or..." is a valid approach on Day 0/1, but I get the vibe that it came more from a defensive place than an honest one. On top of that, I think this post of yours lends some additional credibility to MP's accusation against you. There doesn't appear to be a whole lot of resistance here. You prodded him but then pulled back as soon as he responded. Day 0 or not, I like my JJJ's to be more aggressive than that.

Exhibit B: You said earlier that your "I guess" might as well be replaced by the shrug emoji, but that's exactly my point. You seem to be completely conceding whatever you had said prior to this point in the argument. As far as my suspicion is concerned, the content that comes after your first sentence is totally irrelevant. My suspicion is purely in the language you use here. "I guess I don't agree" suggests less confidence than simply "I don't agree." Town Jay has no reason to lack confidence when making the simple statement of opinion like this.

Dom wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:
...That's how I talk. I'm not trying to be convincing. I'm just being goofy if anything. If you find that suspicious, then... OK. I find your observation a bit forced frankly.

ok

Who are you gonna vote for?

Voting for all three of the J's.

are votes changeable?

Ricochet wrote:

Sloonei wrote: While I dig the aesthetic of this Player List, would it be possible to get another list that includes post history links somewhere on the front page please and thank you Mr. Rick O. Chet?

Better?

Whoa, it is. Thank you, Emperor Rico.

I get no sinister vibes from that thing MP said.

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Scotty wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Scotty wrote: You are just as bad as me if you think I am bad without elaboration.

Also I haven't looked at my role card yet. I'll do that when the game actually starts.

I'm interested in why MP is the self-proclaimed Mother Theresa this game, and is getting a pass for listing off civs.

And where are you getting that impression about me? Do you think my behavior has been suspicious? If so, what's your beef with me, man?

You made a series of posts back in 1996 (aka the first few pages of this game) where you expressed your lack of confidence in calling out people for being bad so you instead would resort to calling people good.

Anyone can call anyone good. You may be an idiot savant with calling people good correctly more often, but this isn't alignment indicative and I feel like it's an easy cop out for scum hunting.

Not to say you aren't scumhunting, but that pinged me hard.

Does not compute.

Both the orange statements and yellow statements seem contradictory within colors. Try me again.

This is a post I want to see Scotty respond to.

Ricochet wrote:

While I dig the aesthetic of this Player List, would it be possible to get another list that includes post history links somewhere on the front page please and thank you Mr. Rick O. Chet?

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: Sloonei's initial work in suggesting I have been a waffler of sorts was a nice workload for Day 0. I do think though that his choices for highlighting left room for contextual problems (highlighting a word or two that only loosely apply to the stated premise of tentativeness). I also think the core expectation of confidence from anyone, JJJ or not, in a Day 0 lean is rather bunk. So Sloonei should answer for that.

Your tentative language was the thing that stood out most to me when I was reading the thread and I wanted to make a note of that so everyone could look at it and share their thoughts.
It wasn't that you struck me as lacking confidence in any reads on Day 0. That's not a thing I'd fault anyone for. It was that you seemed to be lacking confidence when people questioned you about things you had previously said, and that's not a great look on Day 0, or Day 1, or Day 8.

These were the two posts from the collection I made above that stood out and emphasized the point most to me:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:Actually MP, your post count has already jumped to an obscene place. I'm not sure I've seen it quite like this since you started Transistor with 57 posts before the second-highest poster made it to #8.

You over-eager cuz you bad, m8?

Furthermore, I could say that this was a bit of a softball, Jay, fabricated to seem as though you care about uncovering my alignment, but with no actual value in determining that or in generating useful conversation.

What would you say in response to that?

I would say that it probably is a softball, or perhaps it's better described as a poo fling. That's the nature of Day 0. I'm more conscious of the specific point I made than the average player because I was on your baddie team in Transistor. It came to mind so I puked it into the thread. You had 30 posts and I was in second place with I think 8. That's a significant disparity that recalled the even more significant disparity in that other game.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Golden wrote:I didn't see disdain from inh. He seemed to be fine with others using it, pointed out that it had a particular weakness in this game, and made it clear he wouldn't be using it. That's all perfectly reasonable.

Yeah, this was part of my point; as a member of the mafia, if he in reality feels so strongly against POE, he could have easily derailed the entire thread by responding in a more emotionally manipulative manner. Instead, he popped in, noticed a potential hole in my strategy, expressed his beefs, and then was basically like 'OK, you do you, I'll do me'. I would expect that a mafia INH might have been more tempted to respond more outrageously, or at least draw out the conversation more. He seemed intent to express his piece and then end it.

I guess I don't agree with this assertion. I don't think "emotional manipulation" is a typical circumstance in strategic dialogue regardless of alignment. Sometimes it gets heated when people don't understand each other like it did in Red vs. Blue, but that's an exception and not the rule in my experience (and in that game everyone involved minus Epi was town).

Those two little qualifiers at the beginnings of these posts ("it probably is...", "I guess...") seemed to me like they were concessions of a sort, like he was being forced to cover his tracks on something both times.

I genuinely forgot we're still in Day 0 for most of my catch-up.

All the scum games I've played with him were on RYM, so they're lost to eternity/sharifi's lockbox.

Golden wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

Golden wrote:Any conclusion, sloonei?

He usually states his case with more confidence than that. It's unusual. It might be alignment indicative.

Do you recall any specific example of noticing this about JJ in the past?

No. Not a single time. I've played a lot more games with him when he's town than scum.

Golden wrote:Any conclusion, sloonei?

He usually states his case with more confidence than that. It's unusual. It might be alignment indicative.

A collection of posts where Jay expresses things in uncertain/tentative language:

Vompatti wrote:Sloonei confirmed for civilian.

I thought so too.

DrWilgy wrote:Sloonei, are you bad?

at what?

Golden wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:Hey Sloonei, talk to me about some things too when you get the chance! What's your strategy?

I've read about 1% of the thread so far. I've been either at work or asleep since this game started, but that's done now. I'll have things to say soonish.

There are 192 posts. You've written 10 of them. By my calculations, that means you haven't read 8 of your own posts so far.

I don't blame you though. I don't want to read my own posts either. I don't even know what I just typed.

I'm just hitting random keys and hoping I make sense.

MovingPictures07 wrote:Hey Sloonei, talk to me about some things too when you get the chance! What's your strategy?

I've read about 1% of the thread so far. I've been either at work or asleep since this game started, but that's done now. I'll have things to say soonish.

Scotty wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Scotty wrote:Hi.

JJJ is bad.



If anyone wants me, I'll be listening to REM

Hi Scotty.

No. What's your beef?

No beef, mostly tofu

You see, I'm on a special diet of only civs and you aren't on the menu

What is your approach to this game right now?

timmer wrote:What the hell does POE mean? Am I that far out of the loop?

Process of Elimination

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

Sloonei wrote:Usually I'm all for tons of chatter out of the gate, but I'm too tired to read 140 posts right now, so you can all gonto hell.

You're probably not the only one that feels that way. I think we let our dialogue drag too long and I am going to chill out for the rest of Day 0. This is check-in time, not blow up the thread time.

That changes when the lynching starts.

I have no actual gripe. Please continue things if you feel like it's leading somewhere. I'm just assuming the role of grouch this game. It fits my persona.

Usually I'm all for tons of chatter out of the gate, but I'm too tired to read 140 posts right now, so you can all gonto hell.

Epignosis wrote:Townie is Such a Pussy Word

Goody Two-shoes-aligned player.

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Sloonei wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Sloonei wrote:Not me, I suck.

Absolutely untrue.

You sir are a villain and a knave!

Seriously, if you are at all referring to Mad Max, you don't suck. Quin had me 100% fooled there too. You played admirably well.

Not at all! I'm wearing that banner with pride. Just nonsensical self-deprecation to start the game off.

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Sloonei wrote:Not me, I suck.

Absolutely untrue.

You sir are a villain and a knave!

Not me, I suck.

Sloonei acknowledges that this game is underway.