Mafia CLIV: Bigger, Medium, Smaller Mafia (Town Win)

[Harb]

Cool. So let's not do what you just rightly noted Chuck did D1. Let's talk about a good counter lynch. You know why I'm not comfy moving to Justy. Is SJG a good counter lynch? Should we break the wall and go for Chuck/HM/SF1?

justy still has momentum from thinking bad thoughts about him all day, but he's also on a stronger upswing. I think I'd lynch sjg over justy. justy's recent effort has been solid stuff, and his remark about not making great cases as a townie did spark some sort of remembrance of that being objectively supported elsewhere. I'm reluctant to go for the Larges, since there's now two streams of reasoning against it in my mind: justy's math and the lack of incentive for two Larges to no kill.

So I guess the counter would be sjg. I'm NOT super comfortable with that. I don't currently buy into Chuck's "only town sjg chooses small" theory. Particularly given that sjg seems to have believed town got hides early in the game (I'm not misremembering that, right?). So I don't have a strong town lean on sjg to prevent me from voting him, but it doesn't feel great.

[Harb]

Doing more reading of my own, I'm struggling to see the difference between Jordan's play here and Jordan's play in the first iteration of BMS. There's even a couple points that stand out as pretty similar tonally. I thought his thought process re:thinking UDC didn't want to keep townies alive held together pretty well even after some poking from me. It struck me that he was making a good distinction about Chuck's position that demonstrated thinking beyond the surface of things. When he came back to votes on him D2, his response was "I have votes. Fun.", which struck me as sort of loose callback to his criticism of DJA's similar statement. Seemed like a pretty chill reaction for newbie scum facing votes.

Wow, thanks for backing up that soft attack. That just isn't true about my case at all, and you haven't supported that accusation in the slightest.

Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you didn't think that was true about your case at all after jordan pointed it out. Here:

Firstly, let's keep in mind that this is another new player:

I've got a total of 3 days under my belt. So yeah, I'm new.

[*]And he plays like it - his first 10 or so posts are extremely generic, for lack of a better word.

And yet generic in the same manner as his town play, which you've experienced first hand recently. What's the point of pointing this out? You don't make any sort of claim that generic posting is more likely to be new scum than new town? To paraphrase, "It just makes jordan look a little worse" without any backing to it.

Interlude where SF admires Jordan's initial HM vote.

More thoughts to come later (my vote feels a little stale, among other things) but I wanted to ask whether Chuck had revealed yet and whether or not that was at all indicative.

This points out that his vote is quite stale, largely because I don't believe he talked to Happymeal once after placing it. It's interesting, because usually if you're actually convinced someone's scum you might follow up on that. It sort of conveys a lack of commitment to his chosen lynch.

20 hours go by between his HM vote and this. There's a lot of HM discussion going on around that period. Any reason that jordan can't take it in and react to it? If questions he has are being answered, does he need to speak them on his own and get things repeated to prove himself interested?

Okay by this point I'm kinda off the Happymeal read. I disagree with the way he's been playing but that doesn't make him scum. He's also taken more risks than I'd expect from a scum.

@Jordan: where did your concerns about HM's attack on Zoomzip go? What about your concerns about his selective discussion?

I thought he had a decent case, but he abandoned it as soon as it wasn't happening, saying as noncommittally as possible that his scumread is gone. Here's the thing: I just read all of his posts between the two votes, and I can't see anything that might have dismissed his concerns.

I mean, consolidation, or switching to another read is one thing, but losing a read altogether doesn't happen without engagement. Jordan has not engaged with Happymeal, so where did the read go? Sure, it became sort of inconvenient, but if you actually have a scumread you will stand by it.

You read him in ISO and didn't see anything that might have shifted his concerns, right? See above about reacting to the totality of the thread. He explains where his read went. It's not in depth, but he has two reasons. He decided the behavior he saw wasn't indicative, and that HM was taking more risks than scum would want to take. Saying he's noncommital or that he's abandoning it without reason is just not true. Want him to give you MORE about those thoughts? Fine. Ask him to do that. But saying they're not there is misrepresenting the situation.

I ISOed him. And there really isn't a whole lot there.

Same goes for Jordan, actually. Saying this in a case is a good way to throw shade, but really not a scumtell at all.

Good thing he goes on to issues, and doesn't make a big deal about this being part of why he's voting. Saying this in a case is a good way to throw shade, but really not a scumtell at all.

He talks pretty much exclusively about mechanics. But then when pressed for info on his size, why he chose it, and his position on mechanical issues, he gives us one piece at a time then makes us ask for more. When asked about his reluctance to reveal, he plays it off with a joke and doesn't actually address the issue. He pretty much uses sjg's and UDC's positions on these issues as justification for his own positions.

Nothing about this is scum indicative though. Read it closely. He's just paraphrasing DJA's behaviour, sort of in the tone that the opposition party always uses in parliament (if you know what I mean). This is sort of compensating for the lack of content in his justification for his vote.

Jordan answers this perfectly well in his response to SF. He thinks that forcing the town to pull that info out is anti-town behavior.

When voted, he goes "oh. I got a vote" (actual, verbatim quote) and carries on rather than engaging in any discussion of it. Perhaps because he can't actually defend himself.

'Perhaps' is not a great justification for lynching a player. There are many other reasons a new player could be surprised about getting a vote, such as he hadn't gotten a vote before. Once again, this kind of reeks of thrown shade (wow that was an awful mixed metaphor) without content.

The critique in Jordan's statement is clearly the "carries on rather than engaging in any discussion of it" section. Responding to the "perhaps" as if THAT'S the basis for concern doesn't make it so. If you actually acknowledge what Jordan's ideas are you'll have a lot more success. I mean, you respond to the idea that DJA is surprised and to the perhaps. That's everything AROUND what's important about the point Jordan is making.

For his vote on Zoomzip (which, unrelatedly, has been recast at least twice due to color and size errors)...

WHY POINT IT OUT IF IT"S UNRELATED, THOUGH? I mean, this isn't a tell at all, not even a narrative... it just makes DJA look a little worse.

I get this problem from SF actually. But I also thought Jordan's answer was pretty solid. He was annoyed at having had to fight to find the votes. I had a similar annoyance.

Here is where SF votes Jordan. There's more, but I'm cutting off here because I want to get this out and the vote seems like a decent enough stopping point in the post

[Harb]

Town: are we stomping on the other little ones tonight? I suspect they will use their hides if they are evil, so we'd probably just kill townies that way.

Is this a reason not to stomp little folks in your mind?

[Harb]

And yet generic in the same manner as his town play, which you've experienced first hand recently. What's the point of pointing this out? You don't make any sort of claim that generic posting is more likely to be new scum than new town?

Because it isn't a tell at all. I was literally reading him in sort-by-author and summarizing his play for those who were too lazy to build a case (ie. all of you). I didn't see that as scummy because I don't think his play WAS scummy at the start. When I wrote that I really didn't have more than a light read on him, so I was not trying to make him look bad at all. I was just giving a holistic view of his play, which later turned into a case. But that wasn't part of it.
I do understand that it may have appeared that was part of a case, but it was really a non-partizan comment. If his play had kept up like that I would have not adopted a scumread on him.

Right. I was building on the connection between this statement which doesn't seem to have a purpose and your own, WHY POINT IT OUT exclamation in your case.

I said in that comment, my concern is that it will only kill the townies.

Right. I'm asking if that's enough reason in your mind not to do it. And if so, why? If we stomp all the little folks and only Jordan survives, doesn't that give us some pretty valuable information?

[Harb]

sjg11 If I'm sold on Jordan as seeming similar to his town play, and justy on his townieness for his late posting, and that we should be looking at non-Larges... It's sjg for me. It doesn't make me happy. I feel like there's a mistake in here somewhere. I'm just not sure where it is, so I don't know how to correct.

Chuck, comments on the fact that sjg seemingly thought town also had hides and how it relates to your town read on him?

Guess I'll go looking for some sort of pro-active sjg case. Not sure what I'll do if I don't find it there.

SF points out that we should be putting down red votes. I'm not sure what the voting situation is currently. Do we have enough votes that we have a decision we need to be voting? Are we dogpiling?

[Harb]

Zip, any thoughts on my Jordan comments? I recognize you've moved to sjg, but if the voting situation is what you just posted then we're stuck because HM has been pretty anti-sjg and Jordan will presumably vote notJordan. Curious how you'll break in that situation.

[Harb]

Grrrr.... I'm really not seeing a pro-active sjg case here.

SJG, you around? Tell me I'm wrong on Jordan in a convincing manner?

[Harb]

I'm here to answer questions but, to be honest, it's gonna take a lot to persuade me not to vote for Jordan now.

Is that survival, or belief in his scumminess? If it's the second, give me something to work with here. Here's my most recent Jordan thoughts:

Doing more reading of my own, I'm struggling to see the difference between Jordan's play here and Jordan's play in the first iteration of BMS. There's even a couple points that stand out as pretty similar tonally. I thought his thought process re:thinking UDC didn't want to keep townies alive held together pretty well even after some poking from me. It struck me that he was making a good distinction about Chuck's position that demonstrated thinking beyond the surface of things. When he came back to votes on him D2, his response was "I have votes. Fun.", which struck me as sort of loose callback to his criticism of DJA's similar statement. Seemed like a pretty chill reaction for newbie scum facing votes

Where am I wrong here?

PPE: Oh, nevermind. You pre-answered

[Harb]

@Harb, where are you at regarding stomping small or med? You were against it earlier, how about now?

I think I'm still opposed, but maybe I'm thinking wrong. I don't want to do the scum's work for them. If they want someone stomped, they should have to stomp them. But if we have two Large scum there's no reason for them NOT to stomp tonight, right? They'd have already achieved their objective and they're unstompable. If we don't have two Large scum why aren't we stomping to get at least one of them, and the one with voting power?

[Harb]

Except, if there are Med/Small scum who lied into the Large pool we no longer catch them if all stomp the claimed Med/Smalls. All of the above analysis assumes our claim situation is accurate. If we have a sjg/HM team and HM is actually Small instead of Large, then lynching jordan and then stomping justy is about the worst thing that could happen.