Voltgloss suspects: Insomniac? Jotheonah? You've switched to a more defensive sit-and-wait strategy. Not totally sure where you stand.
Had an extremely busy weekend, as it seems most everyone else did. Was also hoping to hear from all players (i.e., bozzball as well) before posting more of substance. Really not sure how to proceed with bozzball's most recent post.
I will say this, in response to jotheonah's asking why I thought catching Morgrim in a lie was so damning:
My RL profession is attorney*. Catching people in lies is part of what I do for a living. In a legal case, if you can catch the other side's witness in a lie or a contradiction, their credibility takes a huge hit. If they're lying about X, aren't they more likely to be lying about everything else they're saying? The answer to that question is a resounding "yes." It's one of the most basic and simultaneously most difficult tasks to accomplish during the pendency of a legal case.
So, yes, I found Morgrim's lie damning. That is the reason why I "retracted my unvote": because he did the one thing that, in my eyes, could cement his status as someone posting falsehoods:
posting a falsehood.
See also this post of Kuildeous's:
Oh, it’s not a willful unhelpfulness, jotheonah. It’s simply recognizing that without much information, the first day is pretty much a random lynch. In person, I’m sure it’s easy to catch someone in a lie. In a forum, not so much. People have the time to frame their lies so they are not as easy to dissect. None of the posts in the first day helped me choose my suspect, and going beyond that wasn’t going to provide me with any more information. Though, I do have to confess that first-day ramblings are shown in a whole different light once blood is drawn.
The bolded part is absolutely true. When I have played Mafia before, it has always been face-to-face. (I have never played forum-based Mafia before.) Catch someone in a lie, you've almost always got yourself Mafia. Or, at the very least, a lot higher than a 2/9 random chance of getting Mafia. In a forum - it's a lot harder to catch someone in a lie. But you can do it! And if it's that much harder in a forum to tease out someone's lies, isn't it
that much more damning to actually catch someone in one?
Which is why I find it rather surprising that I'm being suspected primarily for retracting my unvote offer. To which I say two things:
1.
I was the one who started the "let's wait for Tables" approach. The only reason I retracted my "unvote" offer was because Morgrim did the absolute single most incriminating thing he could possibly do: lie. To my mind, if you lie and get caught, you are vastly more likely to be Mafia. Morgrim lied and got caught. Why
wouldn't I put my money where my mouth is by increasing the pressure on him?
2. And if I were Mafia and playing a very advanced game, why would I retract anyway? Wouldn't it be safer to simply sit and wait for Tables and THEN leave my vote unchanged? It's not like there was any ebb in the suspicion of Morgrim at the time I "retracted my unvote offer." He still had a pile of votes on him. What strategic advantage, from a Mafia point of view, would there be to wait? (Knowing that, if I were Mafia (which I am not), I'd be weathering suspicion on Day 2 for leading the charge in lynching someone who wound up to be a townie)
Let me also add this, from one of the few other people we know to be a confirmed townie on this board (from Mafia I):
No one has ever stated a case for lynching me other than the fact that I targeted TINAS early on, and that I have not wavered from that position. This is the behavior of a townie. Not a mafioso. Real mafia hedge. They deceive. They waver back and forth. They act suspiciously.
This is what I did, as soon as I felt a particular player (Morgrim) had done enough to warrant SERIOUS suspicion. (Not "voice doubts about someone to get them to react" suspicion. Which I freely admit I did towards several others. As did the rest of you. That's the game!) But as soon as I seriously targeted Morgrim (via vote), I never wavered from that.
Was my suspicion of Morgrim wrong? Ultimately, yes. He was playing such a poor town game it looked like a Mafia game. That's unfortunate. But given his and everyone else's actions, he was
the most likely person to be mafia in Day 1. Can anyone dispute this? (I don't think anyone is.) Then, why is single-minded pursuit of the most suspicious person on Day 1 itself a cause for suspicion?
Finally, as to who I suspect - there is one person who:
1. I have caught in a lie on Day 2;
2. when called on it, brushed it off as a "mistake," and countered by arguing that my interest in dissecting lies
is itself suspicious; and
3. in the first of the two posts offered in R#258 as evidence in his defense (as examples of him having significant misgivings about Morgrim's guilt), presented a post made
after Morgrim had already hanged himself. So by the time of that post, if jotheonah is Mafia, he
knew the lynch was successful by then and had every reason to IMMEDIATELY start distancing himself from the lynch he helped create. No one but Mafia would have a reason to do this
before Morgrim's alignment was revealed. A townie who believed Morgrim's guilt would stand by the courage of his convictions. A Mafioso helping engineer the lynch of a hidden innocent would back away from the results as quickly as he could.
So that's why my suspicions, right now, lie squarely on
jotheonah. Not Insomniac or Kuildeous, despite their suspecting me strongly now, because their recent behavior strikes me as significantly less suspicious than jotheonah's.