xkcd

Boomfrog, I agree it's pointless, but I'm continuing with it because I kind of like not having the option of saying '... is neutral', it forces me to have an opinion, even though the opinion has generally seemed to be '... is town' so far.


Angua - I'm not going to go through every single one of her posts, because I want to spend my time analysing Adam H. Suffice it to say that she's acting like she's trying to help town, but I'd like longer posts and more and stronger opinions on people. Angua is town.

Now, Adam H - First to mention the idea of multiple statements which are all true for town. But also the first to use the term 'damn rebel'. I would assume that this would be covered - as in the lie detector would accept rebel as a synonym for scum. So I don't see that as a major problem. A post with the list of statements, but also the claim of vanilla town. For the people that haven't played with Adam H before, read the first day of magicians - viewtopic.php?f=53&t=73700&start=40 - in particular the whole no lynch argument. That is what this feels like (I particularly like Misnomer's 'Acting scummy to promote discussion is never a defence.' )

He eventually votes for Silknor, just at the point where Silknor is looking better. Then has a massive argument with Mav and there's nothing else really. I don't like that he disappeared without lie detecting anything, which seems very bad. I guess if he's scum, the idea is that we'd rather lynch someone else than have the potential of a lie detector from a townie left unused. But I'm more inclined to think he's a townie who was so caught up in the argument he didn't think to use his detector.

Overall - Adam H is town. I accept the possibility that he plays scum the same way as he plays town, but I don't like this lynch - it feels like there's scum sitting back and just letting it through - there's no discussion of alternative candidates or anything.

So there you go, apparently everyone is town except Misnomer who hasn't posted. This is annoying, because nobody has been perfect, but equally nobody has stuck out as being overly scummy - as far as I can tell everyone is acting how they usually do.

I'm going to put people in this order from scum to town:
1. slbub
2. Adam H
3. Mavketl
4. Silknor
5. Angua
6. Boomfrog

And I'm going to

Vote: slbub

basically by a process of elimination, but also because he does seem slightly different to normal. I put this down as actually tying to be helpful for once, but now I'm going to go with my 'slbub is like more_people' theory and say that he actually looks more townie when he's scum than when he's town. Also, I'd like him to post more and hopefully this will put the pressure on.

Hang on, if you're still around and you're town, you need to lie detect someone and give us the results. The fact that you haven't done that when you think you're going to be lynched and you're not coming back before deadline is not a good sign.

Ok, time to actually have a proper look at the players - so far I've just been going off general impressions, so this might change my mind:

Misnomer - to be modkilled or replaced. I'll just reiterate that everyone should make the statement that he's scum (or town). I'm going to say Misnomer is scum, just based on the fact that I have what is probably too many townies in my list.

slbub - Is the first to explicitly mention the idea that we could make multiple similar statements (although Boomfrog alluded to it). Reposts Mav's list. Suspects 'a few people'. Asks the mod some questions - seems to be looking to save the strategy. Says he may not be back before deadline. Doesn't vote, which is a big negative - town should always make sure they're voting at deadline.

Overall - slbub is town. I said earlier that he felt a bit different from normal games, but I've convinced myself that the difference is actually trying to help town, not just pretending to be town.

Silknor - First post other than confirm says that he's a loyalist and speculates on ways the lie detector could fail. This in itself is slightly scummy, as it's something that town might do, but that scum would do (if that makes sense). Also, he only posted a single 'I am a loyalist' rather than a list of statements as requested. This was also his only post before what was supposed to be the deadline. I voted for him at this point. Boomfrog votes first, Adam H says he'd also be on the bandwagon but doesn't vote (I include this as a reference to remind myself for later if we're interested in links between players).

Silknor then comes back saying that he'd asked the mods to change the rules, because he (rightly) believed the game was broken. Explains why he didn't post the list. Overall this post seems reasonable - it doesn't necessarily make him town, but it is a plausible explanation for his behaviour if he is. Adam H then votes for him. Mav won't vote for him.

Another post explaining why he asked mod in private, not public and also explaining to Adam H why vanilla town claiming is a bad idea without going over the top or being confrontational. This post is quite townie, the only slight problem with it is the part where he says he has suspicions and opinions, without mentioning any except for a fence-sitting statement about Adam H. Notes to Mav the problem with saying '... is scum' or '... is town'. I guess that's true, although I do like that we're being forced to say either town or scum - the absence of being able to say someone is neutral is, in my opinion, a good thing.

And a post explaining why exactly he thinks Adam H is scum. It is going after the easy target, but I can see exactly why he would put his vote there.

Overall - Silknor is town. Still minor things I'm not happy with and I'd like him to give an opinion on players other than Adam H, but I'm leaning town here.

Mavketl - Claims town in first post. Says we shouldn't use lie detectors too early. This is an interesting point, because I was considering using mine quite early if I saw something scummy (before they had a chance to discuss things at night, especially if there are any powers that mess with the lie detectors). I like Mav's statement in the next post about cop powers being best used unpredictably, given that then scum don't know what they can get away with (here they won't know what to truthify). Thinks that we should claim all results, which I agree with. The only point of not claiming is that scum won't nightkill you, but if you do have a result which you haven't claimed, you don't want to be nightkilled anyway.

Posts her experiment. I'm reserving judgment on this until the morning, when she's promised to explain. Uses the term 'rebel' coined by Adam H. Not happy with people who copy her list (oops). Realises the term rebel was never used in flavour, but came from Adam H. Posts list of 'anti-statements', which are no longer particularly useful (until this stage she'd only said 'I am town/a loyalist' and 'I am not a rebel').

Strong attack on Adam H for vanilla town stuff. Won't vote for Silknor because she thinks what he did fits his normal playing style. Suggests the '... is scum' type statements which actually turn out not to be of any use (especially as 'I think ... is scum' would come up with the same result to a lie detector).

Thinks there aren't any independents (reasonable). Continues attack on Adam H.

Analysis post. Nothing really unusual there - all seems reasonable. Then changes mind on Silknor based on her experiment.

Overall - Mav is town. Quite a lot of good content with only minor negatives. I'm reserving judgment here until she tells us about the experiment.

Boomfrog - Suggests the 'I am a loyalist' plan. Suggests town should only make true statements so that scum can't mess with it by truthifying. This actually got a bit lost/ignored, but I don't agree with it anyway - if scum use their truthify on this, they can't use it on themselves, so that's ok. Gives the long list of statements. Thinks Adam H was just being flippant about the rebels thing. Good analysis post and vote for Silknor. Corrects my misinterpretation of the rules. Points out exactly why scum would want to claim 'I am vanilla town', which I hadn't appreciated before.

Overall - Boomfrog is town. But I'm not as convinced as I was when I did my quick analysis before.

I'm going to do Angua and Adam H later. (And yes I'm aware this will need recalibrating because I just called everyone town. )

First I'll make my previous list in the format Mav suggested:

Silknor is scum
slbub is scum
Adam H is town
Mavetkl is town
Angua is town
Boomfrog is town

Misnomer is scum (just in case he gets replaced, good to have a statement of this).

Now I just have to figure out what I still believe out of the above. We should make sure whoever we lynch, we give them a chance to use their lie detect. Is the 8 referred to 8am, or 8pm? 8am is 5pm my time, while 8pm will be 5am tomorrow. I'll assume 8pm for now.

I don't think anyone in the game has a worse timezone for deadline than me, but I know Boomfrog at least is in a similar timezone - not sure about the rest of you - so I think it would be a good idea to have our own deadline of 10pm my time (which is 12 hours from now, 7 hours before the deadline) to have a good idea of who we're going to lynch. We don't want to miss out on a lie detect result.

I'm busy for a little bit now, but I'll come back in a couple of hours or so and work out who I'm going to vote for.

Unvote

We have more time until deadline and Silknor's more recent posting was better.

I've seen Adam H act kind of like this before as town - I've never seen him as scum, but in Magicians he did look really scummy (and got lynched day 1) and in Resistance he got into some arguments that he came out of looking bad. He seems to me like the type of player that would actually be less argumentative/stubborn as scum.

The other one high on my list is slbub - haven't heard many opinions on him - what do people think? Is this normal for slbub, or is he acting differently?

BoomFrog wrote:

webby wrote:Before we lynch someone, they need to lie detect something. I'm not going to suggest what yet, because I'm not sure whether it's worth discussing or not. The advantage of discussion is obviously that it can make it useful even if the lynched player turns out to be scum, while the disadvantage is that we give the target a chance to truthify. I would suggest day 1, when scum may not have truthified yet and the lynch is less likely to be correct, we don't discuss which statement the lynch target tests. Any other opinions?

Think the bolded part through a little better. Scum could report any result they want when claiming that they used a detect, we'll only know they were reliable after they flip town. I think we just let the lynchee decide what to use detect on, if they are town hopefully they make a good choice if they are scum who cares it was useless anyway. Discussing only gives scum a chance to influence things or prepare with a truthify.

I thought the result was posted in thread? Actually looking back at the rules that's not completely clear - I may be misinterpreting this:

1. A one-shot lie detector that can be directed at any one statement in a post by the following format:

So I thought you posted what you want to detect in thread, then the mod responds in thread. But re-reading, it actually seems more likely that 'a post' refers to the post that the statement you're detecting is in, not that you direct it by posting.

Mod: Can you clarify this?

I've been pretty busy (just had enough time to make one post before deadline in the other game I'm in), but it doesn't look like I missed much anyway.

I agree with Boomfrog on Silknor - he's the one player (not counting Misnomer) who hasn't made a list, or contributed anything useful/new. Also, perhaps more significantly, he was the only player who agreed with me suggesting that scum might have a 'falsify' or similar - which is possibly looking for an excuse if he or one of his teammates fails the lie detector.

The rest of the players:
slbub - I can never tell with him - I think he's acting townie, and in fact more townie/looking to be useful than usual? I'm not sure if he's a player like more_people who acts way townier as scum than town. Neutral for now.

Mav - pretty solidly townie, seeming to be helpful. Small things stop me from being sure such as the possibility of her list being an intentional trap to try and make the lie detector actually useful for scum as well, but I don't consider that particularly likely. Slightly townie.

Boomfrog - not as active as usual, but good that he came back rather than just letting time run out before deadline. First to post the idea about making everyone say that they're a loyalist, but that was a pretty obvious plan. Reasonable posts, not that much I disagree with in his analysis. Slightly townie.

Adam H - I want to truth test 'My head is like a friggin thesaurus'. First to suggest multiple statements so that scum can't truthify all of them. Don't like the vanilla town claim, but that strikes me as newish player as much as scummy - I remember people thinking he was scummy in magicians for similar dodgy statements. Neutral.

Angua - Agree with Boomfrog here - she seems to genuinely be working to understand the game from a town perspective. Slightly townie.

So in order from most to least scummy:
1. Silknor
2. slbub
3. Adam H
4. Mavketl
5. Angua
6. Boomfrog

Vote: Silknor

Before we lynch someone, they need to lie detect something. I'm not going to suggest what yet, because I'm not sure whether it's worth discussing or not. The advantage of discussion is obviously that it can make it useful even if the lynched player turns out to be scum, while the disadvantage is that we give the target a chance to truthify. I would suggest day 1, when scum may not have truthified yet and the lynch is less likely to be correct, we don't discuss which statement the lynch target tests. Any other opinions?

I am a sane cop.
I am an insane cop.
I am a mason.
I am a tracker.
I can write anonymous flavour.
I have a one-shot vig kill.
I am your worst nightmare.
I know who the rebels are.

It feels like this game would be broken if there were six town and only two scum, so I reckon there's most likely either 5 town and 3 scum, or something like 4-2-2.

I don't think I've quite grasped this game yet - can't we get past scum's truthify by making false statements?

I'm going to be very suspicious of anyone who doesn't make the statement 'I am not town'. 'I know who the rebels are' isn't good enough on the chance that the rebels actually don't know who the other rebels are, or that there is a serial killer or similar.

The other question is the possibility of there being independents. Do we want them to claim now, so that anyone who comes up true to 'I am not town' can be lynched?

My one worry is the possibility that we don't have all the information - what if scum have an ability like a 'falsify', by which they can make a true statement come up false? My recommendation would be to make as many statements as possible that are true if you're scum and false if you're town. Sure scum can truthify one of them, but it wastes their truthify and if you have a lot of them, then when we come to lie detect you, we can pick one at random.

My faction has a kill.
I have a kill.
My faction can talk at night.
I am a rebel.
I am a serial killer.
I am not a loyalist.

I am a loyalist.

One other useful thing to do if we're suspicious that two players are scum is to get one to say about the other 'X is scum'. This will come up false unless the player knows that the other is scum. Possible drawbacks are that someone else could truthify it and (a smaller one) that we might have a cop who knows for sure the other player is scum. But I think this could be a good lategame method.

Adam H is correct that claiming using your lie detection is sort of like claiming vanilla town - it narrows down the power roles for scum. I think in general, however, the benefits of claiming are likely to outweigh the negatives.

Confirming!