RED vs. BLUE: Endgame

[Sloonei]

I should probably be more afraid of Sloonei than I am.

[wi:paprika]

[Sloonei]

What is causing this paranoia about me?

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I think I appreciate that Sloonei isn't trying to look like he's more engaged than he really is. At the same time, I thought his towniest moment of the champs finale (when he asked for help in getting caught up) was when he didn't look more engaged than he really was.

[Golden]

I think the most suspicious player at face value is INH.

I think the most suspicious player by the evidence is Quin.

I have a little tinfoil going on with MM, but it's tinfoil.

Where do you stand on sloonster and me, at the moment?

linki, lol.

The biggest concern I could voice about you is that your continued defenses of me are a pocketing tactic as much as an honest conveyance of your perspective. That could have been said of Golden 1.0 too though and he was town.

Fair. I don't believe I would have held off on defending you if I were bad. I wouldn't want you to take something like that into account in making me more townie (this game or ever). For me that defence transcended the game... it was me getting feeling upset off my chest.

[Sloonei]

That was my only moment of the champs finale.

[Golden]

That was my only moment of the champs finale.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

My PC² in this game is currently 149.50. I am not going to explain what this means.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

That was my only moment of the champs finale.

Fair.

I'm annoyed that there are probably two evildoers among the rest of you five. Whoever they are they've played well.

[Sloonei]

Our lynch success rate is 67% and we might be in lylo right now. I'm voting for G-man.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Our lynch success rate is 67% and we might be in lylo right now. I'm voting for G-man.

It's a bizarre situation. It's possible for town to win the game this cycle.

But only if we lynch a townie.

[Golden]

Our lynch success rate is 67% and we might be in lylo right now. I'm voting for G-man.

It's a bizarre situation. It's possible for town to win the game this cycle.

But only if we lynch a townie.

This is assuming its a sk not a town vig though. I understand why you're assuming that, but I'm still not sure it can be assumed.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I'd much prefer it be a vigilante.

[Golden]

I'd much prefer it be a vigilante.

I do think you're right to be pessimistic. But, yknow, and I don't think this is what you were suggesting for a second, I wouldn't be behind a tactic of not lynching scum to induce the scum and SK to try and hit each other overnight.

But I do think (even if its a vig) that this is exactly what they'll be trying to do if they are both alive overnight.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Yeah I'm not down for trying that. If I'm right, lynching a townie features the only game-winning and only game-losing scenarios in play right now.

[Quin]

I smack myself in the face with a hot frying pan.

I can dig that, but I'm trying to get a more insightful answer about how you'll behave in this game thread.

That'll have a lot to do with what's yet to come. I can't tell you what I'm going to think specifically, but I know I'd be looking at both you and INH with a lot more scrutiny. I struggle the most in finding a reason to call the three of you town.

[Quin]

Quin, do you really believe that Wilgy placing one vote away from the larger wagons is good reason to remove him from candidacy to be mafia? That strikes me as an incredibly dubious thing.

I didn't remove him anything. You're removing people from it based on a single reason to town read them, which I think is bogus considering I can think of more reasons to scum read many players than town read them. Playing by your logic, however, I think my reason for 'removing him' is a good one. I'm more inclined to scum read anyone who tries to discredit alternative votes than scum read him for sticking to his own suspicion.

People who suspect me to whatever degree: I have a request/demand for you.

Tell me who my supposed living team mate is.

marmot. I think you have a weak reason to add him to your list of town reads and his voting pattern so far is suspicious.

Sorry about my inactivity, I have been reading, but uni work demotivated me a lot from this today. I'll be sporadically active tomorrow.

As a matter of fact, Quin's suspicion of me arose from Jay asking him (and anyone else) to name a secondary suspect after himself. Quin's suspicion of me looks like it was made up on the fly in my opinion.

This post came from the middle of Day 3.

My read on you has evolved since that post. Those were my honest thoughts then and these are my honest thoughts now.

[Quin]

So, Golden has been taken in by the paradoxical WIFOM tornado of scumminess that is 3J.

Quin and Marmot are now at each others throats for some reason.

And 3J is just encouraging the Quin and Marmot thing, drawing a line in the sand between him, Golden, Marmot and the treasonous Quin.

Quin and Sloonei, what's your read on 3J?

I feel at this point, forcing a tie is the best possible scenario here.

Marmot, are you dedicated to voting Quin?

This is the sort of plain anti-town behaviour that makes me go 'huh?' with INH. You want to let the lynch out of your control and let a dice roll determine whether your top scum read is lynched or not?

As for your question, I still don't trust 3J. But I have other priorities.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Given that INH made it plain he's not in civilian BTSC with Golden, I have no good reason to town read him at the moment. I don't care about the meta read on Day 4 with a deep wolf in play.

VOTE INSERTNAMEHERE

[Quin]

I'd rather lose to you than reywaS in this scenario.

That's a mindset I can definitely appreciate. At the worst of the anti-JJJ propaganda around here in this game, I was certain town would be losing this game to Wilgy and/or reywaS. And that would have been horrid.

Me too. With all of the effort put into this game by 90 percent of players, I'd feel like losing to an inactive would be a bit of a kick in the teeth. So regardless of everyone's alignment, all of us should feel satisfied with however this game ends.

[Quin]

But you should also feel bad about making this the most stressful game of mafia ever played

[Marmot]

If anyone is 'taking me in' it will turn out to be marmot.

His talk about what good civilian play looks like is like giving a girl roses on a first date.

If I've stated what I think good civilian play looks like, you should probably mute me for the rest of the game.

Actually the biggest concern about Golden 2.0 is that he is also leetic, and who knows WTF to do with leetic. I honestly think that if leetic was some manner of non-townie, we're in trouble because there's no evidence to support it given leetic's silence and the fact that neither dead scum had much to say about him (other than Scotty's semi-self-preservation vote).

To counter that, leetic and reywaS were both essentially MIA on Night 2, meaning the slimmest of chances that would make them possible mafia partners is that leetic logged on to submit a kill and that's it, or that G-Man let Scotty submit the nightkill.

Otherwise, leetic/Golden 2.0 cannot be reywaS's partner, nor can he be a killer of any kind.

[Marmot]

My PC² in this game is currently 149.50. I am not going to explain what this means.

I assume it means your average posts-per-day?

[Marmot]

But you should also feel bad about making this the most stressful game of mafia ever played

Fwiw, I feel incredibly unstressed about this game.

On a side note, I'm housesitting for my friend and her dog while she's away. Today's Day 1, and I come home from work to find her dog got into her roommate's bedroom and dropped a giant bomb in the middle of the their floor.

[Quin]

But you should also feel bad about making this the most stressful game of mafia ever played

Fwiw, I feel incredibly unstressed about this game.

On a side note, I'm housesitting for my friend and her dog while she's away. Today's Day 1, and I come home from work to find her dog got into her roommate's bedroom and dropped a giant bomb in the middle of the their floor.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[Marmot]

But you should also feel bad about making this the most stressful game of mafia ever played

Fwiw, I feel incredibly unstressed about this game.

On a side note, I'm housesitting for my friend and her dog while she's away. Today's Day 1, and I come home from work to find her dog got into her roommate's bedroom and dropped a giant bomb in the middle of the their floor.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Yup, sums it up nicely.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Night 3: DrWilgy and Epignosis; Remember when 3J directly told the SK to get out a baddie or else we all may be screwed? Lookie at what happened. Now, this is a WIFOM minefield, but the scenario that makes the most sense to me is the SK killing Wilgy, and 3J using that as cover to eliminate Epi, a player who was both unpredictable, clever, and against him.

INH's rationale for associating the Epignosis and Wilgy kills with me.

Yellow: The implication here is that I am the serial killer and I killed Wilgy in an attempt to kill a mafioso, or that I told the SK publicly who to kill so that I could use my own [mafia] kill on Epignosis.

He called it a WIFOM minefield.

I call it nonsense.

This "theory" demands that the following take place:

1. I am mafia specifically, not the SK or a townie.

2. The SK listens to my public recommendation that he try to kill a mafioso (which was made before reywaS flipped mafia, BTW).

3. I trust the SK to listen to my public recommendation and then orient my own kill under the assumption that DrWilgy will be targeted.

4. I have a mindset that allows for me to believe that the SK killing DrWilgy somehow provides me with "cover" to decrease the chances of my own killing of Epignosis getting me into trouble (I have no idea what this assertion even is).

That's how many steps INH has taken to arrive at the notion that I am scum and killed Epignosis. That's how much work it took to accuse me of that. It's a farce.

Let's examine precisely how many seconds INH spent after reywaS flipped scum contemplating the possibility that I just might be town after all. The first two posts he made after reywaS re-flipped:

Spoiler: show

Personally, I think Golden's claim about Epi suspecting 3J, "because he disagrees with his methods" is utter hogwash.

Then again, I believe that the only difference between how 3J/Golden and everyone else plays the game is a combination of apathy towards lynched civilians, complete and utter conviction in reads that will never be doubted for a second, (that last one describes Golden more than 3J) and an air of superiority.

So what do I know?

and lol at 3J calling everyone who doesn't like PoE's "clueless" people who just DON'T UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT, MAN!

JaggedJimmyJay bussed Reywas for civ cred. Discuss.

Can we move on from Jay being bad now? Anyone? Beuller?

3J is the serial killer.

I'd believe either of those possibilities over 3J being civ.

The first post contains plenty of griping about JJJ but no read of him. The second post clearly states that JJJ is more likely to have bussed rey or be a serial killer than be a townie. The answer to my previous question is thus zero seconds. He didn't even consider the possibility that I am town. This is the same player who has repeatedly claimed in this game that his reads are never 100% -- but when confronted with a profound change in game circumstance, his read doesn't move a millimeter. He doesn't show any evidence at all that he is willing to develop his read of me, but instead he is determined to continue attacking me with whatever convoluted theory he is forced to concoct (see above).

That's mafia behavior.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

My PC² in this game is currently 149.50. I am not going to explain what this means.

I assume it means your average posts-per-day?

Pretty much. Post count per cycles alive (PCPC ---> PC²).

Super secret project.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

No, but my reason for thinking that it's you is the strongest.

I'd like to hear more, Quin. I know we've talked about MM a lot already, but we're here and we have 1.5 days to sort it out. I think I am clear on why you disagree with the reasons I have provided to town read him. We're good there.

What I want to know more about is why you read him as scum rather than merely as less town.

[Quin]

No, but my reason for thinking that it's you is the strongest.

I'd like to hear more, Quin. I know we've talked about MM a lot already, but we're here and we have 1.5 days to sort it out. I think I am clear on why you disagree with the reasons I have provided to town read him. We're good there.

What I want to know more about is why you read him as scum rather than merely as less town.

For the most part my suspicion is based on his vote history, which is where I think you're misinterpreting me a little. You believe his votes are town-indicative, what I've been arguing with you isn't that his votes aren't town-indicative, but that's they're scum indicative. I know I have a habit of being indirect with my conclusions, but I think all through day 3, and even in parts of Day 2 I've had this train of thought.

I think Day 1 was an attempt to gain civ cred by sacrificing his first teammate (and while you have said that you disagreed with the thinking that his lynch was inevitable - I disagree in this specific scenario), and I think his Day 2 vote was weak, because there was no cause for him to put a pressure vote on you, and his 'I think I'm coming around' excuse to vote for me was uninspiring. I will grant him that part of the latter involved the possibility of you and him being teammates - but the fact that I can confidently say that you're not doesn't completely make this suspicion redundant. We've talked about Day 3 already, but I do think reywaS was a prime bus candidate, and I think it's especially likely to have happened because the vote was redirected outside of the meat which had been developed during the previous few phases.

[G-Man]

AN OCTOBER SURPRISE IN THE MAKING?

"Congresswoman?" an intern asked, her head in the doorway.

"Yes, Tina?" Debbie Wasserman Schultz replied, looking up from her desk.

"There's a Mr. Blumenthal here to see you. Shall I show him in?"

Debbie paused and let out a slow breath. "Yes, Tina, please show him in."

A thin man with an effete but stern face strolled through the door. Behind his Harry Potter-esque glasses his eyes studied the woman before him. Debbie couldn't tell if he was pleased or angry.

"Congratulations on winning your primary yesterday," he said with a smile.

"Thank you, Sidney."

"Here," the man said, pulling a miniature champagne bottle out of his briefcase. "You should celebrate. Your challenger gave you a good test. Thank goodness your district is blue enough to ensure you retain your seat."

"You're too kind," Debbie chuckled. "I never take November for granted, even if what you say is true."

"That's a good attitude to have. Bill and Hillary also send their congratulations," Sidney said as he pulled two pieces of paper from his jacket pocket. "You've been a long-time ally of theirs and they appreciate that. They take care of their friends. Here's a note she penned for you."

Debbie took the pages and started reading. The top sheet was indeed a message from Hillary, congratulating her on the close but comfortable primary victory. The second page, however, sent her heart crashing down into her stomach:

Don't read any of this out loud. Give it back to me when you're finished.

You fucked up, Debbie, and it might cost you big.

You selected, vetted, and managed Operation Cobalt's operatives well enough. For that, we thank you. But you overlooked a minor detail that might expose everything. In selecting our field of alternate operatives, you failed to match blood types.

When O'Donnell resigned, I called up Pamela Brown from your pool of alternates. She was a match in every physical way- hair and eye color, height, dimensions- all a perfect match. This morning's accident left her in the hospital though. The doctors will treat her based on Tiffany Trump's medical records, including her blood type.

Pamela Brown and Tiffany Trump are not the same blood type. In fact, they are incompatible. If they need to perform a transfusion, Pamela's body will reject the blood. It won't take them long to start asking questions. You better hope they don't discover her blood type is wrong or else Pamela will be in deep shit.

We can't extract her with all the security roaming around, so you better hope she can explain her way out of it. If she talks, there's no telling how much she'll reveal.

Take your champagne home tonight and enjoy it. Try to relax and enjoy your primary win because until you get an all-clear from me, you'd best be on pins and needles. The operation is over but we're not out of the woods until we can extract our operatives and assess the situation. There's no telling what Trump will do if he finds out we kidnapped his daughter.

Lucky for us, it looks like there may be another agent in play. If he or she gets caught, perhaps Trump's people won't be able to separate the two and this other party and their financiers will get all the blame. One can only hope.

Now hand this page back to me.

Debbie swallowed hard. Sidney took the note and rose from his chair.

"I think we're done here," he said. "Congratulations again on that win. And good luck going forward." With a nod, he left the office. Debbie sat dazed for minutes before calling it an early day. She was going to need more than that miniature champagne. That much was certain.

-------------------------------------------

Epignosis was really PAMELA BROWN in disguise as Tiffany Trump. He was a member of the mafia and part of Operation Cobalt.

[Quin]

ok.

[Quin]

Serial killer hunt, anyone?

[Epignosis]

[insertnamehere]

ha

[Ricochet]

china!!

"We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation - to make a point - than to further the cause of truth."

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Good then. So much for "I don't bus team mates".

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Note to self: when Epignosis can't let it go even when he has to make absurd arguments, lynch him.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

This likely means it 5 vs 1, which is still LyLo-eve.

DrWilgy was the scum kill, Epi was the SK kill. Time to start digging.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Also lol Wilgy's dying read was correct. My bad dude.

[Marmot]

Wooo! Was a baddie team eliminated?

[Marmot]

Also, my silly Day 1 case was spot on.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I think my beefs with INH are as applicable to a serial killer as a scum, so I'd still like a response to that.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I think this moment from MM is a nice look:

MM, what do you think of Wilgy's behavior since he replaced S~V~S?

He hasn't exhibited any of his towntells, but he hadn't as DrWilgy 1.0 either.

I think he's a civilian though. What do you think of this list he posted last night?

I think he put random names into a post. I don't think there was a good reason to associate Golden and INH as team mates while they were arguing with each other over page after page about strategic concepts. I have no idea what his gripe was with Ricochet. After he played so lazily at Wilgy 1.0, he'd have no choice but to maintain that image as Wilgy 2.0 when he draws a mafia role. He is still doing fuck all, but he's pretending to have "reads" in the midst of that fuck all.

I could also see him killing either Golden or Ricochet to help facilitate his current vote today. "Welp, my 'suspect' died, I guess I'm stuck voting for JJJ" -- while most of the remaining players are already frothing at the mouth waiting to click the JJJ button. It just reeks of fakeness and opportunism.

Combine that with the fact that I think there are valid reasons to town read everyone in this game except Wilgy 2.0 and reywaS, and it makes my suspect pool pretty obvious. Them.

What makes you think he's a civilian?

I forgot that DrWilgy can't be a vig, I take back my townread.

That he was considering Wilgy as a possible townie with vigilante in mind would imply that he was genuinely exploring the source of the extra night kills. If this was fake cover for a SK Marmot, it was a creative method for that.

[Marmot]

The last time (and only other time) Epignosis bussed a teammate was in Guess Who? Mafia.

Spoiler: show

This is the real Pamela Brown!

[Marmot]

I think my beefs with INH are as applicable to a serial killer as a scum, so I'd still like a response to that.

Except for Point 1, I don't think any of this is relevant anymore.

Point 2 might be relevant since the SK nightkilled Epignosis. inh doesn't like that you suggest that SK nightkill a possible mafia member, and the ensuing night, the most townread player in the game (aside from the just-returned Golden) is nightkilled. But that's only if you think inh's thoughts and the SK's actions are that well-connected.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I think my beefs with INH are as applicable to a serial killer as a scum, so I'd still like a response to that.

Except for Point 1, I don't think any of this is relevant anymore.

Point 2 might be relevant since the SK nightkilled Epignosis. inh doesn't like that you suggest that SK nightkill a possible mafia member, and the ensuing night, the most townread player in the game (aside from the just-returned Golden) is nightkilled. But that's only if you think inh's thoughts and the SK's actions are that well-connected.

I don't follow. The point of that post was to illustrate that INH's read on me is not developing organically, which would be applicable to anyone whose chief interest is survival.

I could actually see INH himself killing Epignosis and then painting that hyper-complex and improbable scenario to blame me for it.

[Marmot]

I think my beefs with INH are as applicable to a serial killer as a scum, so I'd still like a response to that.

Except for Point 1, I don't think any of this is relevant anymore.

Point 2 might be relevant since the SK nightkilled Epignosis. inh doesn't like that you suggest that SK nightkill a possible mafia member, and the ensuing night, the most townread player in the game (aside from the just-returned Golden) is nightkilled. But that's only if you think inh's thoughts and the SK's actions are that well-connected.

I don't follow. The point of that post was to illustrate that INH's read on me is not developing organically, which would be applicable to anyone whose chief interest is survival.

I could actually see INH himself killing Epignosis and then painting that hyper-complex and improbable scenario to blame me for it.

I thought the point was to call it mafia behavior?

An SK would have the inclination to act as an active baddie-hunter, especially at a point in the game where civilian numbers are low compared to mafia numbers.

I can only remember one game where we lynched a player because we thought they were the SK, as opposed to reading them as mafia. That was in Talking Heads with Diiny. And if I recall, the only reason we caught him was because he didn't post one night and missed a kill. His record otherwise was pretty pristine.

My point is, I don't think you can use the exact same argument with a different conclusion, because the argument doesn't relate to this particular role.

[Marmot]

Does inh have anything to gain by forcing a read on you that he doesn't believe in?

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I thought the point was to call it mafia behavior?

I've been calling him my top SK suspect in recent memory too because of my night kill analysis. I think that behavior is applicable either way.

An SK would have the inclination to act as an active baddie-hunter, especially at a point in the game where civilian numbers are low compared to mafia numbers.

They would, yes. And perhaps INH really was looking for a scum and tunneled me that thoroughly. It happens. I want him to respond to my assertions before I make that assumption in his favor.

I can only remember one game where we lynched a player because we thought they were the SK, as opposed to reading them as mafia. That was in Talking Heads with Diiny. And if I recall, the only reason we caught him was because he didn't post one night and missed a kill. His record otherwise was pretty pristine.

I voted for Diiny in Talking Heads because of night kill analysis. Because it was successful in that game, I employed the same method in this game -- that's when I determined the two players most implicated by the kills on Nights 1 and 2 were INH and yourself. I've started to like you more since then, and I think Epignosis on Night 3 is also attributable to INH (Epignosis voiced suspicion of INH throughout Day 3 and after reywaS flipped town and I looked better he'd have probably gone that direction again).

My point is, I don't think you can use the exact same argument with a different conclusion, because the argument doesn't relate to this particular role.

That's kind of my point too -- the conclusion is a general one. He suspects me regardless of circumstance and is not developing his read. He's counting on me being lynched. I think that's mafia behavior and serial killer behavior. I could be wrong, but I want his answers.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Does inh have anything to gain by forcing a read on you that he doesn't believe in?

If I am a SK, my chief interest in any day phase is "lynch someone who is not me" -- everything else is secondary to that. So yes, I think he would. I also think it's moot, because if he does believe in it -- that doesn't preclude him from being a SK.