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[jotheonah]

I was going to say exactly the same thing as Insomniac. Robz and Voltgloss definitely initiated 90% of the suspicion against Morgrim, pushed the conversation back toward him when it started to wander elsewhere, and, as Insomniac pointed out, cast the penultimate votes. Robz began the Morgrim chatter at a time when he was being targeted for various reasons (Reply 83). He then jumped on Morgrim for the rather small thing of quickly jumping off the no lynch bandwagon - a bandwagon we all agree was bad and which I jumped off of just as quickly. When Morgrim suspicion starts to flag, VOltgloss comes in with the very stirring post #114.

Robz started the suspicion but delayed his vote - perhaps hoping we'd remember the latter but forget the former? Then Voltgloss told Robz not to vote yet and said he wouldn't vote, but after catching Morgrim in a lie, he voted. We all said we would wait for Tables' analysis. Tables had a history of defending Morgrim. Before the analysis we were all waiting for arrived, Robz, with Volt's support, put down his vote.

Was Morgrim's lie (or, as it turns out, blunder) worth all that?

Both Robz and VG are experienced players, and I think our mafia's play so far has been advanced enough to suggest a veteran.

Some possible objections, and rebuttals:

1) Voltgloss was the one who first pointed out Robz' disparity in posting attitudes and cast early suspicion on him. So if that was all an act to throw us off the trail, it was a gutsy one. But that conflict disappated fairly quickly, and I do believe these two to be capable of that level of deception and complex play.

2) Voltgloss went to a lot of trouble to explain why a no-lynch vote was bad for the town and good for the mafia, at a point when no one had shared that viewpoint and at least two of us were content to ignorantly sabotage ourselves. A Mafioso would not have missed that opportunity - he would have at least waited to see if the rest of the town jumped on the no-lynch bandwagon.

Of course, this is something I said about Voltgloss early on:

Of course, another potential mafia tactic would be to set yourself up as the group's leader by being very vocal, thus giving yourself a position of safety in rounds to come.

And also, though no lynch is bad for the town, it's not as good for the mafia as lynching a townie is, right?

All in all, these two, as a team, are my top suspects right now. I think this narrative pretty well jives with what went down.
____________

Re: Why Tables? Could he have given some tell that he was the cop that we didn't catch but the mafia did, or did they really just get lucky?

I think I've learned my lesson about hasty voting, so I'll be waiting this round until the conversation has run its course.

I guess I should pre-emptively defend my part in Morgrim's death.  By the time he cast his vote, I was starting to believe he really was just a townie. But I wanted to see how it played out to get an idea of the power players. The reason I bit my tongue when I first started to suspect Robz and Voltgloss was that before Morgrim went and lynched himself, I was eager to see who would jump in with the hammer and how insistently anybody would fight for his death if public opinion started to sway the other way. All information we were deprived of, tragically.

[jotheonah]

To reiterate/clarify: Looking at Table's past analyses, there was reason to believe he would debunk the Morgrim is mafia hypothesis. When Tables delayed in posting, Robz and Voltgloss both turned up the pressure on the lynch, despite agreements we would wait to hear out Tables. Then Tables dies, and the contents of that analysis (and all future analyses) with him. Very, very suspicious.

[jotheonah]

FYI, I'm going to be out and about a lot this weekend, so I may not be as quick as I'd like to be with replies.

[Kuildeous]

My first suspicion was on Robz, as well. I had some weird vibes in rereading Voltgloss's posts, but Robz stands out more. I was toying with the idea that they were both Mafia, which kind of freaks me out to see that two other people are veering that way.

If those two are not Mafia, then the real Mafia are pretty damn good at manipulating us.

Although, since they are veteran players, I would not think that they would both vote to lynch the same person...not unless it were a desperation ploy, and the only other person that had multiple votes was bozzball, so desperation is not a factor. Hmm, come to think of it, I'm not so sure that they both are Mafia. But, Robz does raise more suspicion in me than Voltgloss does.

I did check and saw that Voltgloss was the first to vote for Mogrim, so he didn't really have much of a bandwagon to hop on. If V is Mafia, then he got pretty lucky with that vote. Robz tops my list because he fought pretty aggressively for Mogrim's head but did not yet vote. Opinion was stacking up against Mogrim pretty quickly, so I think Robz could have waited it out rather than place the fourth vote.

Though Robz is at the top of my list, I am also leaning heavily toward Galzria. He originally voted for bozzball but switched to Mogrim. I believe he was the third vote to doom Mogrim. It's a comfortable position for Mafia: He didn't jump in there early, and he didn't wait too late to place the bet.

So, I guess in order, my top suspects are:
Robz
Galzria
Voltgloss

These are not set in stone, and I'm willing to entertain other ideas.

I don't think that Tables was killed for being on the right track. I would imagine that killing off the person who is on the right track would convince the other townspeople to follow that lead. I still think Tables was killed for being experienced. His potential of pissing in the Mafia's cheerios was the greatest. It just so happened he had a town role. A double loss for us.

[Robz888]

Okay, wow! I have a LOT to say. Please, everyone, read it. I think it's important.

Why Tables?: It's very, very obvious why he was killed. He was killed because the mafia want to kill the people who look the most innocent. They want to spare the highly suspicious, so that we townies might lynch the wrong people. Tables was killed because he was one of the 2 or so most likely to be innocent people left in the game. Here's why: he had the opportunity to vote for Morgirm, and didn't. There were already 3 votes against Morgrim, and it was known that I would soon supply another, but that I was waiting for Tables. Then, in Post #213, he declined to say anything of value or cast a vote for Morgrim. To me, this made him a likely mafia associate of Morgrim--but then Morgrim wasn't mafia. Which means Tables made the right call. If Tables had been mafia, it would have been the easiest thing for him to get on the bandwagon and kill Morgrim. The fact that he didn't spoke well of him when we all learned Morgrim was not mafia. So the mafia killed him in the night because he was almost certainly innocent. Him and Kuildeous both had the opportunity to vote for Morgrim but didn't, so I expected one of them to die. The mafia want to leave alive the Morgrim voters, because it is highly likely at least one (and possibly both) of the mafia are in their midst. More on that in a minute.

Oh, and I assume the fact that Tables was also the cop is just a horrible, horrible stroke of bad luck for us.

Why Morgrim?: I am quite surprised he wasn't mafia, to be frank. I really did think he was, from very early on in the game. His behaviour after I accused him only made him seem more and more suspicious. Everything he did was suspicious. So, I for one thought we had lynched ourselves an early mafia. But we didn't! That's the game.

Some people are wondering why my vote for Morgrim came at the time it did. As I've stated before, I am a reluctant but firm voter. I will make accusations, but I don't generally flip flop from one vote to another. When I have made up my mind, I cast a vote, and only really compelling evidence overturns it. I would have voted for him before I actually did, but someone asked me to wait until Tables had weighed in. Tables did weigh in (Post #213), it just wasn't anything useful. So I cast the 4th vote. It was important for me to cast the 4th vote I thought, rather than the 5th vote, because it was going to be important to see who the 5th vote was. Everyone knew I was going to vote for Morgrim, but would Insomniac cast the kill vote? Would Kuildeous do it? I wanted to find out, and I knew I would vote Morgrim anyway, so I put the vote on him once I realized Tables wasn't going to do anything (and really, I suspected both Morgrim and Tables were mafia).

Now, Morgrim robbed us entirely of finding out who that 5th vote would have been, so again, a horrible, horrible thing. Truly, we are in not-so-great shape on Day 2, here.

Who's next?: The mafia knew Morgrim was innocent. This means that given the chance to vote for him without casting suspicion on themselves, they would have easily voted for him. There are four people who voted for Morgrim: Voltgloss, Galzria, myself, and jtheonah. Certainly, these are all suspicious people, now, and I know that includes me. I expect your suspicion. I definitely deserve it. I was way, way wrong about Morgrim.

However, I'm not convinced that Insomniac had the opportunity to vote for Morgrim, because it didn't seem like he was active at the time the vote was happening. So really, he could be a mafia who just never got the opportunity to get on the Morgirm bandwagon when it was really rolling. This is true for Bozzball, but probably to a lesser extent. I probably still suspect Bozzball more on the count of shady behavior than anything else.

Tables and Kuildeous would be mostly in the clear in my view, but Tables is dead. So Kuildeous is the only one I don't truly suspect.

So, from my perspective: Galzria or Voltgloss or jtheonah (or me! you say) probably have at least one mafia between them. I mean, if Insomniac and Bozzball are the mafia, the town is totally outplaying itself 

Between Galzria, Voltgloss, and jtheonah, I don't know who is more suspicious than the other. Here are some thoughts on each:

Is it Galzria? Well, Galzria played the most erratic game of these people. He jumped around a bit. He suspected Morgrim, then he liked Morgrim, then he voted Bozzball, then he switched to Morgrim. His vote for Morgrim was #3, and was probably the most transparently bandwagon-y. But then again, it was so bandwagon-y, I actually have a hard time believing it was a mafia move. Surely they would be more cautious than that? But maybe not.

Is it Voltgloss? Voltgloss's posts and point-of-view seem very similar to mine. He was a true believer against Morgrim, providing key early ammo (along with me) to do the Morgrim vote. And the fact that he was so in sync with me this past round was great at the time, but gives me a lot of pause now that we were wrong. He backed me up more than once, and I appreciated that. But of course now that looks more like a mafia trying to win my trust.

Is it jtheonah? Okay, of these people, I suspected jtheonah the least. I was getting a strong townie read from him. But, this very recent post from him really, really, really bothered me:

I guess I should pre-emptively defend my part in Morgrim's death.  By the time he cast his vote, I was starting to believe he really was just a townie. But I wanted to see how it played out to get an idea of the power players. The reason I bit my tongue when I first started to suspect Robz and Voltgloss was that before Morgrim went and lynched himself, I was eager to see who would jump in with the hammer and how insistently anybody would fight for his death if public opinion started to sway the other way. All information we were deprived of, tragically.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda, buddy... but I don't buy this at all. If you were starting to unsuspect Morgrim, then please take back your vote!!! I don't see any hard evidence in your posts that you no longer suspected Morgrim. So, it's really a transparently mafia thing to do, to vote for someone and be publicly all for killing them... but later, oh you confess your doubts and other people are suspicious. Your post reads to me like you are a mafia who knows that the Morgrim vote made you suspicious, and you need to damage control immediately. It makes you much, much, much more suspicious.

Is it Insomniac or Bozzball? It would not at all surprise me if one of the mafia lurks here. It's true they should have voted Morgrim, but perhaps they didn't have a chance or they recognized how suspicious it would have been, and were hoping Tables and Kuildeous would do that job for them.

Is it Kuildeous? No. I really don't think it is.

Is it Robz888? Of course not! In all seriousness, though, I recognize that you'll be suspicious of me. I am a Morgrim voter--you could even call me the Morgrim voter. I can only say that I voted for him because I sincerely believed he was mafia, far and away more than I thought that about anyone else. I was wrong, and that's a fair criticism. I don't think the timing of my vote is a fair criticism, though, since it was no surprise: I said when it was coming, and it wasn't the kill vote, anyway. I was hoping to gain more info by being 4th instead of 5th.

Since I suspect suspicion, and probably some votes for me this round, and I will be gone most of tomorrow, I want to say: It only takes 4 votes to kill, now! Please, please, please do not cast the 4th vote against me without giving me a chance to address you.

Okay, those are all my thoughts for now. Off to bed for me! Please read, and I would love to read thoughts from others.

[Kuildeous]

If you were starting to unsuspect Morgrim, then please take back your vote!!!

Robz already made this point later in his post, but I wanted to reiterate that it only takes 4 votes to lynch someone now. Since both Mafia members are still alive, they only need to wait for 2 votes and pile on to ensure the death of another victim. Now, that alone is suspicious, but if they do it and then assassinate someone in the night, then they'll have 40% of the votes in day 3. All it takes in day 3 is for a townie to slip up and cast the wrong vote.

So we need to make sure that no one has 2 votes unless we are absolutely certain that is the direction we want to take.

[Galzria]

Heh, Robz did almost exactly what I was intending last night: A break down step by step of each person. Sadly by the time I got home and started, I couldn't put two thoughts together to make a coherent sentence.  So, with that said, I'll start putting everything together now. Give me a few...

[jotheonah]

Is it jtheonah? Okay, of these people, I suspected jtheonah the least. I was getting a strong townie read from him. But, this very recent post from him really, really, really bothered me:

I guess I should pre-emptively defend my part in Morgrim's death.  By the time he cast his vote, I was starting to believe he really was just a townie. But I wanted to see how it played out to get an idea of the power players. The reason I bit my tongue when I first started to suspect Robz and Voltgloss was that before Morgrim went and lynched himself, I was eager to see who would jump in with the hammer and how insistently anybody would fight for his death if public opinion started to sway the other way. All information we were deprived of, tragically.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda, buddy... but I don't buy this at all. If you were starting to unsuspect Morgrim, then please take back your vote!!! I don't see any hard evidence in your posts that you no longer suspected Morgrim. So, it's really a transparently mafia thing to do, to vote for someone and be publicly all for killing them... but later, oh you confess your doubts and other people are suspicious. Your post reads to me like you are a mafia who knows that the Morgrim vote made you suspicious, and you need to damage control immediately. It makes you much, much, much more suspicious.

Should I have taken back my vote? Yeah, I probably should have. The truth is we were all impatient for day two, and Morgrim WAS the most suspicious person. As a townie, he did not play well. (Sorry Morgrim, if you're reading, nothing personal.) So it's not as if I was completely convinced of his innocence and kept my vote on his head. I was just having doubts.

Now I know why Morgrim was the most suspicious character: Because our mafia are not suspicious characters. They are very good, very shrewd players who won't give themselves away. Thus, they are among our veteran players, not our newbies.

But especially when Morgrim voted for himself, I thought, well, there's no way he's mafia. Of course at that point I couldn't save him. But I immediately - before Axxle made the death official - went through the motions to see who could have been the mafia in light of Morgrim's innocence and, like several of you, it looks a lot like Robz.

I fully expected Robz to turn the accusation back on me when I fingered him, but frankly I expected a little more competence at that from such a skilled mafia person. I desperately need to damage control? No, I don't think I do. I don't think that any of my actions, to date, make me suspicious enough to warrant anything desperate. I did issue a pre-emptive defense because, as you said, all of us who voted for Morgrim are suspicious.

I was taken in by a lot of convincing talk about Morgrim, as I'm sure most of us were. We need to be looking at the originators of that talk, Robz and Voltgloss, and we need to be scrutinizing whether it was suspicious on its face, or whether their rhetoric made it suspicious. It's tricky, because they're the veterans and we're the newbies. We're inclined to trust their guidance and what is and isn't a scum tell. And unfortunately, if I'm right and they are the mafia, they've abused that trust while eliminating our remaining, trustworthy veteran guide. So now, we newbies are going to have to stop bandwagonning, trusting, and following and start thinking for ourselves to beat the mafia. I'm pretty confident that if you all read the log and consider your suspects independently, my name will be clear. Can you say the same thing Robz? Volt?

Sidebar: At this point, I don't suspect Galzria. Strong town read, despite his vote. If he's playing mafia, he's playing a more advanced game than I can figure out, but if someone else wants to make a case.

[jotheonah]

I have other suspicions about who is mafia if you really do turn out to be town. But I think I'll sleep better if I wait until the next daylight to voice them.

Morgrim, I do not see how it benefited you to lynch yourself when you still had a chance of salvation. I can't think of any way that's not poor play. Axxle, idk if I still have the option now that the 5th vote has been cast, but Unvote

I would like to point out that the msfia have probably  already voted for me. (assuming that I am not mafia myself)

It all depends on their play style. I can imagine a mafia choosing to sit back and enjoy the first round, especially if we all happened to stumble on a townie. I can also see a mafia rabble rousing.  You're right though - Looking back, if you turn out to be innocent, I think we'll have gained some very valuable information about the Mafia. But that info will be much more reliable if we kill you than if we don't.

I can't help but notice the predicted role claim has not materialized, despite the growing majority behind this lynching.

Here's two quotes that support my assertions that I had misgivings/ was admitting the possibility that Morgrim could be innocent and already thinking about the repercussions. This is not, as Robz wants you to believe, a cover that's come out of nowhere, but a consistent part of my play.

[Voltgloss]

Given how much interesting stuff has come up to respond to already in Day 2, let's get right down to it.


I. Insomniac's accusation of me.

Of course there are going to be accusations coming my (and other Morgrim-voters' way);  that's to be expected.  What should be scrutinized is the manner in which those objections are made, and the facts used to back them up.  Here's Insomniac's rationale for voting for me:

Voltgloss  - Stats on no lynch first left out jailkeeper/doctor/cop involvement. Claimed he would unvote if someone else voted for
   Morgrim, gave Robz888 permission to do so, did not unvote. Retracted the "unhammer" almost immediatly after offering it.
   The offering makes him seem non mafia if you ignore the unhammer

1.  On "no lynch."  Yes, my initial analysis on "no lynch" left out jailkeeper/doctor/cop involvement, because my math skills were not up to the task of doing so.  And I encouraged bozzball, as the resident mathematician, to provide just such analysis.  Which he did (as to jailkeeper and doctor at least) and concluded it didn't make any difference.  Plus, I don't really think coming out against "no lynch" should be a reason TO suspect someone.  I stll stand by all of the analysis that I and others (especially confirmed townie Tables) gave as to why "no lynch" is bad.  So this seems like a very strange reason to offer as to why I should be lynched.  It feels like grasping at straws.  Why would a townie feel the need to grasp at straws to lynch one of the more vocal town residents, especially with a full-blown vote right at the start of Day 2? 

2.  On "retracting the unhammer."  As I alluded in my response to Insomniac, I gave extremely detailed reasons as to why I said I would no longer unvote if Morgrim's vote total got up to 4.  I'll repost them here so people don't need to dig for them.

I woul like to point out that I voted for bozzball before Kuildeous, thus I was the first person to vote for him. Ergo, I voted for him not knowing that another person would vote for.him.

The italicized part is true.  But the bolded part is false. 

Morgrim voted for bozzball before Kuildeous, but after Galzria.  (Galzria's vote was in post #138.  Morgrim's was in post #143.  This was well before Galzria switched his vote to Morgrim, in post #170.) 

Ergo, Morgrim voted for bozzball knowing full well that another person would vote for bozzball - because another person (Galzria) had already done so. 

The Mafia, by definition, must lie to keep themselves safe.  Seems to me that's exactly what Morgrim is trying.  Except... he just slipped up. 

I still want to hear from Tables.  But if someone votes Morgrim to 4 now, I'm not going to unvote to stop the hammer.  This, to me, is the clincher.

Everything in my post above was completely accurate.  Morgrim admitted he "blundered" several posts later (Reply #214).  I stand by everything in my post above, along with all of my other posts detailing reasons why Morgrim was the most suspicious among us.  He was the most suspicious.  I don't really think there's any argument about that.  Ultimately, he was behaving suspiciously because of poor town play instead of poor Mafia play.  And that's unfortunate.  But our job as Townies is to ferret out who is acting suspiciously, get them to explain themselves, and if their explanations are not convincing, deliver justice.  Morgrim had every opportunity to explain himself and just dug himself deeper and deeper.

Those who suspect/accuse me for my voting for Morgrim:  Where in my posts, from Reply #114 onward (my Vote post), did I ever advance an unfounded reason for suspecting Morgrim?  This is a key question those who suspect me should answer. 

Note that Insomniac completely ignored both my reasons for retracting the "unhammer" offer and my pointing out that he ignored them.  So not only was he grasping at straws in his first reason for lynching me, he simply ignored the defense to his second reason.

Am I saying Insomniac is Mafia?  I'm saying that's a distinct possibility.  The only evidence we have of his Day 1 behavior is admitted bandwagoning on someone who turned out to be a townie.  Would he have hammered if Morgrim didn't do it himself?  Maybe.  There actually wasn't a need to hammer at the time though, as Tables (confirmed townie) commented in his last substantive post: 

I'm not comfortable with a 4th vote being on Morgrim. Not because I don't want him lynched (I'll get to that later), but because I think we should definitely use at least a few more days for discussion first.

Assuming only one Mafia member had voted for Morgrim up to that point (which I tend to think is probably right, otherwise their bandwagoning would be too transparent), this post from Tables would be read by the nonvoting Mafia as "there's no need for me to hammer yet because Tables might very well do the job for me."

To reiterate:  I don't suspect Insomniac because he voted for me.  I suspect him because his offered reasons for voting for me don't hold water.


II. jotheonah's recent posts

Several things in jotheonah's recent posts jump out at me as odd. 

Robz and Voltgloss definitely initiated 90% of the suspicion against Morgrim, pushed the conversation back toward him when it started to wander elsewhere, and, as Insomniac pointed out, cast the penultimate votes.

Certainly, I and Robz focused the town on Morgrim.  No denying that, and no reason to deny it.  But I did not "cast the penultimate vote."  I cast the FIRST vote. 

Robz started the suspicion but delayed his vote - perhaps hoping we'd remember the latter but forget the former? Then Voltgloss told Robz not to vote yet and said he wouldn't vote, but after catching Morgrim in a lie, he voted. We all said we would wait for Tables' analysis. Tables had a history of defending Morgrim. Before the analysis we were all waiting for arrived, Robz, with Volt's support, put down his vote.

As noted before, I did not say I wouldn't vote.  I had already voted, way back in Reply #114.  The following events happened when Tables next chimed in with significant substance (Reply # 162):

- R#162:  Tables explains his sleep schedule, defends against suspicion based on his comments on Robz, unvotes Jotheonah, suggests Morgrim is showing bad town play rather than bad mafia play, and says he is going to come back with further analysis.

- R#163:  I voice interest in hearing Tables' analysis.

- R#164:  Tables says he has done analysis up to page 4 and would come back after 10-11 hours with more.

- R#170:  Galzria lays down the third vote on Morgrim based on reasons given in his reply #s 151 and 158. 

- R#177:  I say that I will likely unvote to prevent a premature hammer if the 4th vote comes before Tables' analysis.  With the caveat that if I unvoted, and then Tables' analysis did not convince me my suspicions of Morgrim were misplaced, I would be reinstating my vote.

- R#190:  Robz states he would vote for Morgrim but would wait for Tables as requested.

- R#206:  Morgrim posts a blatant falsehood.

- R#210:  I call Morgrim out on his falsehood.  I reiterate my interest in Tables' analysis, and also state that, because of Morgrim's falsehood, I am now no longer planning to unvote if someone votes Morgrim to 4.

- R#213:  Tables comments he hasn't had an opportunity to analyze yet.

- R#215:  Robz comments, as he had before, that Tables "is probably the most likely candidate to be Morgrim's fellow mafia."  He asks if anyone would be bothered if he puts the 4th vote on Morgrim.

- R#216:  I say that a 4th vote on Morgrim would not bother me, for the reasons set forth in my R#210.

- R#217:  Robz puts the 4th vote.

- R#218:  Tables comments he is not comfortable with a 4th vote on Morgrim, "[n]ot because I don't want him lynched (I'll get to that later), but because I think we should definitely use at least a few more days for discussion first."  He also adds that he "defended [Morgrim] earlier, but not much."  He further adds that "things don't look great for [Morgrim].  My notes on him currently are pretty much a list of 'this is strange', 'That's interesting' and very few things that can really be said in his defence."

- R#219:  Morgrim suicides.

jotheonah's summary leaves out (1) my having already voted well before this exchange took place, (2) my voicing interest in hearing Tables' analysis, (3) Galzria laying down the third vote before Tables had an opportunity to return with more analysis, (4) Robz's suspicion of Tables, (5) Tables leaning towards suspicion of Morgrim in his last (#218) post, and (6) the fact that no one had an opportunity to unvote in response to Tables' announced discomfort with the 4th vote, because of Morgrim's suicide.

I question why someone other than Mafia would choose to accuse someone by using a flawed version of the facts.

]Both Robz and VG are experienced players, and I think our mafia's play so far has been advanced enough to suggest a veteran.

This comment forgets an important theme throughout Day 1:  Morgrim's incredibly suspicious behavior.  Morgrim was conducting such, in Tables' words, "bad town play" that the Mafia barely needed to do anything for the town to rally against Morgrim.  There was no need for advanced Mafia play in Round 1.  I would like to hear why jotheonah thinks there has been advanced Mafia play, as he hasn't given a reason for that.

Was any reason I offered for suspecting Morgrim, from reply #114 onward, not unjustified?  I don't think they were.  I would very much like to hear someone explain why my reasons for voting Morgrim paint me as Mafia.  Because I stand by those reasons.  In both a substantive and (ironically) literal sense, Morgrim got himself lynched through his wildly strange behavior.

I guess I should pre-emptively defend my part in Morgrim's death.  By the time he cast his vote, I was starting to believe he really was just a townie. But I wanted to see how it played out to get an idea of the power players. The reason I bit my tongue when I first started to suspect Robz and Voltgloss was that before Morgrim went and lynched himself, I was eager to see who would jump in with the hammer and how insistently anybody would fight for his death if public opinion started to sway the other way. All information we were deprived of, tragically.

Robz has already expressed his view on this.  I haven't yet had an opportunity to go back over jotheonah's Day 1 posts to see whether or not this excuse holds water.  But I will, and for good or ill, will report back with my thoughts.  I encourage all others to do the same.

To reiterate/clarify: Looking at Table's past analyses, there was reason to believe he would debunk the Morgrim is mafia hypothesis. When Tables delayed in posting, Robz and Voltgloss both turned up the pressure on the lynch, despite agreements we would wait to hear out Tables. Then Tables dies, and the contents of that analysis (and all future analyses) with him. Very, very suspicious.

I did not turn up the pressure on the lynch due to Tables' delay.  I was the one who dialed the pressure down.  I was the one who first said "let's wait for Tables."  Why did I turn the pressure back up?  Because of Morgrim's lie, not Tables' delay.  Furthermore, Tables' last post indicates he was leaning towards lynching Morgrim anyway. 

Again, I am not suspicious of jotheonah because he suspects me.  I am suspicious of jotheonah because he is twisting the facts in an effort to sway opinion towards suspecting me.


III. Other thoughts

Questions for the town to consider.

If Robz and I were both Mafia, do you think we would have jointly come down so hard on Morgrim as we did?  Knowing that Morgrim would be revealed as a Townie after Day 1?  Or is it more likely that at least one of us was a townie convinced of Morgrim's guilt?  This is Kuildeous's point, and it is an important one.

Robz commented that I provided a lot of key early ammo to do the Morgrim vote.  Which is absolutely correct.  The question is whether I am a townie who firmly believed Morgrim was guilty [ed.: I am] or whether "a mafia trying to win [Robz's] trust."  To help answer that question, I ask everyone to look back at the reasons given in my posts for voting for Morgrim.  Did those reasons make sense?  Did those reasons make more or less sense than the reasons given (to the extent they were given) by those others who voted for or suspected Morgrim?  That is the question to be answered in figuring out which of the Morgrim-voters is most likely mafia.  I've already said I think my reasons all hold up.  If you disagree, let's hear why.  I will be doing the same review of others' reasons given for voting for Morgrim.

Finally, I am very much looking forward to hearing from Galzria and bozzball.  Bozzball's perspective I'm particularly keen to hear, as an (effectively) outsider to the whole Morgrim
discussion.


IV.  Pre-post Edit

I typed up all the above before seeing jotheonah's most recent posts.  So I'll address that now.

First:  I'm not yet weighing in on Robz's suspicion and jotheonah's response.  Because I need to review Day 1 - both Robz's and jotheonah's posts - before I feel comfortable giving an opinion on that.  I suggest all others do the same.

Now I know why Morgrim was the most suspicious character: Because our mafia are not suspicious characters. They are very good, very shrewd players who won't give themselves away. Thus, they are among our veteran players, not our newbies.

This assertion perplexes me.  Yes, of course it's possible the mafia here are good, shrewd players.  But that doesn't explain why Morgrim was the most suspicious character.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Because Morgrim was so suspicious - based entirely on his own actions - it is entirely plausible that the Mafia are NOT experienced players, because they didn't need to be experienced to help Morgrim self-destruct.  He did that himself.

I was taken in by a lot of convincing talk about Morgrim, as I'm sure most of us were. We need to be looking at the originators of that talk, Robz and Voltgloss, and we need to be scrutinizing whether it was suspicious on its face, or whether their rhetoric made it suspicious. It's tricky, because they're the veterans and we're the newbies. We're inclined to trust their guidance and what is and isn't a scum tell. And unfortunately, if I'm right and they are the mafia, they've abused that trust while eliminating our remaining, trustworthy veteran guide. So now, we newbies are going to have to stop bandwagonning, trusting, and following and start thinking for ourselves to beat the mafia. I'm pretty confident that if you all read the log and consider your suspects independently, my name will be clear. Can you say the same thing Robz? Volt?

All of this paragraph is correct.  Absolutely everything Robz and I posted should be scrutinized.  And I am confident that if you read the log, consider the suspects independently, and - most importantly - weigh whether the reasons offered for suspicion/voting hold water, the Town will conclude that I am a Townie who was convinced of Morgrim's guilt based on well-supported reasoning.  Not a Mafioso who blatantly and publicly led the charge against someone I knew to be a Townie.

You'll note I haven't tried to defend Robz.  That's because I haven't reviewed his Day 1 posts yet.  I need to do that before deciding whether Robz is or isn't worthy of suspicion.

Sidebar: At this point, I don't suspect Galzria. Strong town read, despite his vote. If he's playing mafia, he's playing a more advanced game than I can figure out, but if someone else wants to make a case.

What evidence leads you to have a "strong town read" on Galzria?  I'm not suggesting such a read is necessarily wrong.  I am suggesting that, right now, offering suspicions (or non-suspicions) without evidence to back it up - is itself suspicious.  Something leads you to think this way.  Let's hear what it is.

Finally, I see jotheonah has cited two posts of his that he claims make his recent defense plausible.  That's good.  That's the type of evidence-backed approach (whether defending or attacking) that we need to see, from everybody.  I will still be going over the rest of jotheonah's - and others' - posts to see what we can discern from Day 1.

Incidentally, I would be surprised if both Insomniac and jotheonah are Mafia.  To come right out with a 1-2 punch on Day 2 like that against people they (if both Mafia) know to be townies?  That would be extremely suspicious on Day 3 if they succeed.  Just the same way that it'd be very odd for me and Robz - if we were both Mafia - to come down so hard on Morgrim on Day 1.

[Insomniac]

To Voltgloss:
2.  On "retracting the unhammer."  As I alluded in my response to Insomniac, I gave extremely detailed reasons as to why I said I would no longer unvote if Morgrim's vote total got up to 4.  I'll repost them here so people don't need to dig for them.

I did not ignore this, I think its suspicious that you retracted it to begin with, a true townie myself included would have wanted day 1 to last longer. That is the reason I did not vote when I had the opportunity to. I agree that its unfortunate that I wasn't around much in Day 1 because now that is going to make me a prime target of both people who I accused. I am in fact a newbie, and my suspicion is that a mafia wouldn't draw himself to attention as much as I did by not only calling out those whose activities seemed the most suspicious to me from reading the log but actually voting for someone.

To Robz:
 Thats probably not unfounded but I DID have a chance to vote Morgrim and I said I wouldn't because I think we needed more time, as it stands I still think Day 1 should have lasted longer and would NOT have voted Morgrim had I been online around the time you had. I know that is only hear say because well I can't prove any of it but I can say I have a clean concious for not being one of the ones who lynched him.


Why Tables? Lets SERIOUSLY think about this question now Morgrim accused him of being mafia. This definitely would have made him the target of some town attention on day 2. Having learned that Morgrim was NOT mafia. So was that a rookie mistake or a complete misdirect on the mafia so that it would LOOK like a rookie mistake. Or maybe they just drew names out of a hat, either way I'm not convinced that the mafia chose tables at random or because he "looked the most innocent" (Robz) I think there was a motivator behind choosing Tables as he definetly would have been a target today.

Rules Question: When the rules cop gets to know the role of a townie do they get to kill AFTER they know that role or are both submitted at the same time?

I do not think I will be convinced that at least one of Voltgloss or Robz should be the target today but it's possible. Reading the rebuttals I'm a bit more concerned about Robz than Voltgloss. However To prevent a premature hammer for now Unvote

[Galzria]

Alright, a lot to get through. Let me start with the general, before moving into to specifics.

First, the 5th vote by Morgrim onto himself really sucks for us. Not only did we loose an opportunity to see who would cast that final vote, but (to me) most importantly, Morgrim's vote #5 came after ONLY TABLES had a chance to post. What does that matter? Well, it means that 4 people were in on the vote for Morgrim, but also that 4 people were out. I'll get into that more below.

As I mentioned in my very first post after we began day 2, I feel very strongly that amongst the Morgrim voters, there is at least one Mafia member. Here are, for reference and in order, each of the 4 voter's posts condemning him:

#1, Voltgloss: Post #114

Hmm.

There is one player who:

- immediately after jotheonah proposed "no lynch," jumped on that bandwagon;

- immediately after the "no lynch" proponent (jotheonah) was countered by two dissents (myself and Tables), jumped off the "no lynch" bandwagon;

- was the only person who responded to my question about "what additional info are you hoping to get," and did so by explicitly refusing to answer as it "could turn out to be a dangerous piece of info" - which sounds like telegraphing he has a power role, but why hint at having a role (without revealing it) unless it's a fakehint?;

- has repeatedly pushed people to vote, rather than just voice their suspicions - an approach that can lead to a hasty bandwagoned, scum-driven lynch; and

- responded to Robz888's reasonable question (to "defend his bandwagoning on the 'no lynch' thing") by not responding at all - other than to vote for Robz888; and

- responded to Robz888 pointing out his failure to respond to the question by, yet again, NOT responding - instead focusing on one minor aspect of Robz's post (that he quickly switched his vote in the space of a few minutes).  Poking a hole in a minor piece of an argument does not automatically make the whole thing collapse - and trying to do that, while ignoring the more substantial gist of the argument, feels scummy to me.

My scumdar senses are strongly tingling in the direction of Morgrim.  Quite strongly, in fact.

Vote: Morgrim

Morgrim, if you want to allay my suspicions, you should address each of the points I've listed above.

Starting with his first two points (along with points 5 and 6) about No-Lynching: I NEVER believed that to be an argument against Morgrim. It was a case made consistently by both Voltgloss and Robz888, and I absolutely thought it was a straw-man. They never jumped on Jotheonah over that issue, and Morgrim spelled out for them countless times why he made that vote (See posts #58, #69, and #117, amongst many more later).

Voltgloss's third point is where my argument to vote for Morgrim was derived from. I'll get into that more later.

Lastly here, Voltgloss's accusations that Morgrim is trying to get everyone to vote... is quite the pot calling the kettle black, no? Post #75:

Voltgloss:
As for Galzria's vote against me for "stirring everything up"... well, yes, I am stirring things up, quite deliberately.  I'm doing so in order to bait the Mafia into making mistakes.  If everything is "nice" and complacent, the Mafia don't have any reason to put themselves out there.  And it's when they put themselves out there that they make mistakes.

Morgrim was innocent. Voltgloss, I'm not so sure. Still, I stand by my belief that "stirring things up" and causing confusion is only going to help the Mafia. We need to stop and think and make more reasoned accusations than those above by Voltgloss. Now more so than ever.

End opinion on Voltgloss: Very suspicious. If he is town, why get on Morgrim so early and keep pounding away? There was nothing to be gained by going at him relentlessly without really allowing for others to develop their own thoughts. If he is Mafia on the other hand, what better place to be? It means he's out of any "hammer" conversations, and if it seemed his accusations were going nowhere and nobody was climbing on board, then so what? He could keep an eye on any/all developments from a position of safety.

#2, Jotheonah: Post #167 (unofficial at post #149)

Things that jumped out in my morning-suggested readthrough:

Quote from: Morgrim7 on May 15, 2012, 10:19:15 am

    I like jotheonah's point, but you, sir, could very well be mafia yourself... so could I...

If I were a beginning player in the mafia, that would be an odd thing to say. Even though it's obviously a joke, I would think a mafia player would be on guard against putting that idea further in the forefront of someone's brain.

Quote from: Tables on May 15, 2012, 02:58:08 pm

    In fact, I'm beginning to get a bad vibe from Robz. The things he's chosen to respond to aren't exactly... the most relevant things he could have been picking out. Information, not analysis, type posts. Slightly worrying.

Tables, I'll be interested to here if this suspicion has cleared up for you.

Quote from: Kuildeous on May 16, 2012, 08:32:06 am

    I did actually vote for Insomniac, but it didn't take. I suspect because I omitted the colon, and I’m sure the moderator is searching for that (we do provide a lot of text to sift through).

    My vote was pretty much random, but I then reread the rules and saw that a tie means that there is no lynch. So, if a no-lynch vote is bad for the town, then it would reason that a tie is just as harmful. So, I'm avoiding the random vote and jumping on the bandwagon. I will vote: bozzball and may the gods have mercy on us if we are wrong.

Kuil, you keep chiming in to vote without doing analysis or explaining. There's no need for you to vote for anyone yet, a tie wouldn't be declared until everyone had voted and we're nowhere near that OR the deadline. Bandwagon voting like that doesn't really help the town and is slightly suspicious.

Also, if your point there was just to vote for someone who already has votes, why bozzball and not Morgrim?

To clear up any potential syntax problems, I'll reiterate. Vote: Morgrim7

Jotheonah doesn't really make any hard points against Morgrim in this post. But then, upon rereading the thread, I never really felt he did anywhere. He took after points made mostly by Voltgloss and Robz888. Even my arguments against Morgrim didn't seem to hold much water with him, as he listed a possible Mafia pair of Morgim and myself in post #149 (his unofficial vote for Morgrim post). It is VERY possible for Jotheonah to be Mafia. By this point in the conversation Voltgloss had already been sitting on a Morgrim vote for some time, and there is no doubt that it looked like the river was starting to flow in that direction. Getting on board the bandwagon at that point is a GREAT move for a Mafia, and a terrible one for a town member. Especially knowing and seeing that Robz and I both had different cases that we were considering for Morgrim, he had to KNOW that with his vote, Morgrim was likely to be at 4 very soon. Casting vote #2 is a whole lot "safer" than vote #4 or #5.

End opinion on Jotheonah: I'm leaning a little bit more towards Mafia here than I am with Voltgloss. Voltgloss... at least thought for his own and was fairly consistent. Jotheonah seemed much more opportunistic. His unvote of Morgrim right after Morgrim doomed himself (post #220, following Morgrim's at #219) is a GREAT play by Mafia. As a townie, if he wanted more time to think about it, he shouldn't have been in the pool of votes to begin with.

#3, Galzria: Post #170

Quote from: bozzball on May 16, 2012, 09:08:12 am

    - Bozzball, you keep saying you don't see how a first day vote can be anything but random.  That suggests to me that you don't find the arguments against Morgrim convincing.  I would like to hear more detail on why that is so.

    Because the arguments seem to be that he should be lynched because he voted for "No lynch", and that he suggested people should get on and vote because there's not much benefit for waiting - as the first day vote will essentially be random. Both of these are arguments that I have made.

Those arguments, while I find... Less than innocuous, aren't tells as far as I'm concerned. Of greater worry to me, were points made in posts #118, #128, and #140. It's those arguments that have me UNVOTE: BOZZBALL, and instead VOTE:  MORGRIM7. I've fully laid out the rest of my reasons to that move in posts #151, and #158.

Me! Oh, I'm a very shady character.  Ok, jokes aside, YES you should all be evaluating me as much as I am evaluating you! Kuildeous is the first person to do so, and now Robz888 as well. As far as I'm concerned, this is only going to be good for the town. We all need to get everything out on the table. That said, I will wait until a follow up post to respond/answer any concerns that have been recently posted about me. This post is focused on the death of Morgrim and Tables.

PLEASE review posts #128 and #151.


Done? Ok, first off - I was wrong about Morgrim, but I always knew that I could be. Voting for him was, as I pointed out, a risk I was willing to take. I'm sorry Morgrim, I don't mean to hang you out like that, but I honestly did not think our odds of hitting a Mafia first round were going to be any higher than they were by voting for you. So that's the vote I made. I was comfortable with it, and going back would probably make the same vote a second time. Nothing that was said prior to your death brought me anywhere near the amount of suspicion that a few of your posts did.

Now, let's talk for a minute about my timing and previous actions:

I cast 3 votes altogether in the first round. Voltgloss, Bozzball, and Morgrim. While the vote for Voltgloss was unneeded, I was making a point. I am (as posted above and in many other places) very, very, VERY against random accusations and a "stir-the-pot" playstyle that leads to confusion. If you have a point to make, BACK IT UP. Early on, Voltgloss did not do this. He fully admitted it. Once his actions became more directed and he started posting ideas for their analytical value, I quickly backed off.

My second vote cast went to Bozzball, and I stand by my suspicions of him (fully laid out in post #151). As I noted, I would NOT put him in a position to be killed yet, as my suspicions are not "You are Mafia" suspicions but are "You are acting oddly" suspicions. Thus, when his vote tally went up to 3 by Kuildeous in post #165, I backed down as soon as I could (post #170). This line of thought was laid out by me in post #202.

To be clear: I switched when I did because I didn't want to see somebody I thought might be innocent get bandwagoned into a lynch, when I had good reasons for actually suspecting somebody else.

End opinion on Galzria: I'm not perfect, and I can understand where some of you might get a Mafia read on me from. All I can say is feel free to fire away with your quest... *ahem*. Perhaps "Fire away" isn't the best choice of words?  Anyway, I'll be happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have.

Note: things are flying fast and thick right now. Nearly every one of us is writing a book on our thoughts. I will do my BEST to get answers in where I can. If I miss something you said that you would like addressed, post it again with a directed question my way so it's easier to see.

Whew, almost done with us first four clowns.

#4, Robz888: Post #217

Okay, VOTE: MORGRIM 7

I am comfortable lynching him. If others are not, that's understandable. They may retract their votes if they like. We have plenty of time. But he's done more than enough to merit votes so far, in my view. So here we go.

Short and sweet. Nothing here of note, except perhaps his comment to others to feel free to retract their votes. While I don't have anything other than a feeling on this (read: nothing concrete, nothing I would build a case on) it is does feel like an odd way to start your endorsement telling others that they don't need to stay around. I don't know. It feels like he might be trying to get somebody (most likely me or Jotheonah) to jump ship, maybe so that his vote isn't so close to the final one?

Still, I think here we are going to have to look way back, because Robz888 seems to me to be the first person to cast suspicion on Morgrim, even while being the last to actually vote.

Robz888's first accusation comes in post #83. However he isn't really casting doubt on Morgrim here, just feeling out thoughts on the No Lynch vote that was going around at the time. He doesn't really get aggressive on Morgrim until post #91. My problem with Robz888, is that a couple of times (and this is the first case) he took things said by Morgrim out of context, and applied them to his own reasons. Morgrim wasn't "backing down" from Robz888 in post #90, he was unvoting ME. Continuing along, Robz888 next goes after Morgrim in post #107 and #110. By this point Robz seems to have already made up his mind towards Morgrim, or is at least heavily leaning that way. Note that this is ALL before Voltgloss even casts the first Morgrim vote.

Now, maybe Morgrim did himself no favors with a few of his replys. Still, I found quite a few of Robz888's arguments to be straw-man cases, and a few times he kept after Morgrim even after Morgrim (to my mind) had given good reasons for his actions/statements. Honestly, there were points where it felt like if Morgrim said "The sky is awfully black tonight", Robz888 would've responded "No, it's very dark blue, and the fact that you can't see that and that you have black thoughts on your mind incriminates you".

I'm not sure I like that Robz888 sat back for so long given his seeming early conviction that Morgrim was guilty. And casting the penultimate vote was definitely a knock against him. Still...

End opinion on Robz888: Ok, I think of all 4 of us, it's easiest to be suspicious of Robz888. That said, he's probably slightly below Voltgloss to me, maybe just about even and here's why: He never waivers. There was plenty of opportunity for him to go elsewhere (Bozzball, for example, who cast an early random vote Robz888's way). He gets on his horse and rides it all the way through. Was he wrong? Obviously. So were we all. Did I like his reasons? No, not most of the time. But did he show conviction? Yes. That says a lot to me. Not nearly enough to exonerate him, but enough to not make me want to come out of the gates voting for him as Mafia day 2.

To summarize the order of my feelings:
Jotheonah: Suspect #1
Voltgloss: Suspect #2
Robz888: Suspect #3
Me: Innocent, but for the sake of my point, Suspect #4

Now that I've gotten that all cleared out of the way, onto the meat of my post.   

4 voters. 4 chances for the Mafia to get their names out there. Here's my thought though. Votes #2 and #3 were separated by 2 posts (#167-#170). Votes #4 and #5 were separated by 1 (#217-219). All came within 52 posts of each other. It would've been tough for the Mafia to mobilize that quickly, and it would've been a HUGE mistake for them to push it that hard that close together. Add in the fact that they would've been relying on a townie to jump on board for #5, and I just can't bring myself to see two Mafiosi amongst them. The only way I reckon that there are 2 amongst the primary 4, is if Voltgloss is one. Even if that IS the case though, I can't see a good reason for Mafia #2 to get on board during that time frame, when it already seemed the river was flowing Morgrim's way. He would've waited it out to see if his vote was even needed. This leads me to hazard a guess (and don't hold me to this, it's just where I stand right now) that there is 1 Mafia in, and 1 Mafia out. What does this mean? Analysis for those not involved! Yay! (And you thought you were just about done with my ramblings! HA!)

Let me redirect back to the fact that votes #4 and #5 were separated BY JUST A SINGLE POST. This means that with the exception of Tables, nobody got the chance to hammer away. It means nobody got the chance to respond in any fashion to a "one-vote-from-lynch" scenario. With 2 people dead, and 4 already discussed above, I'm left looking for Mafiosi amongst 3 others:

First, Insomniac. I start here because I think that he said the least of our remaining 3 candidates, but he did show suspicion for Morgrim in post #115. This is EARLY. Right around the Voltgloss/Robz early. Still, despite it being a FINE Mafia move to excuse himself with a "wedding" (pics or it didn't happen!  ) I'm inclined to believe his absence was for the stated reason. Moreover, I would actually be MUCH more suspicious of him if he had actually CAST his vote for Morgrim at that time. Still, possible Mafia? Absolutely.

Second, Kuildeous. His early stance of not wanting to say much because he believed the first round was going to be random (#131, #144, #177) strikes me as dangerous, especially as he came back later with actual directed thoughts (#200). Incidentally, post #200 is really rather confusing, and exactly the type of thing I've been preaching against since the very beginning. The fact that he admits to bandwagoning Bozzball up to 3 "to try and draw out Mafia votes" is also disconcerting to me. I was first to cast a vote on Bozzball, and I've given my reasons for that. I've also given my reasons why I got OFF his bandwagon as soon as Kuildeous made the move to put him at 3 though, and the fact that Kuildeou's reasons for getting on are exactly my reasons for getting off leave me hugely suspicious.

Lastly, Bozzball. A bit of a cross between Kuildeous and Insomniac, and so lands right between them in my eyes in terms of possible guilt. His play has been rather erratic and unrefined, and that's when he's been around! He's also professed to not seeing how the first round could be anything but random, but then again, he's a Mathematician and sees everything through a very filtered lens. At least his play has seemed to be "consistently erratic" if there is such a thing? Could he be Mafia? Again, absolutely. He's given me nothing to indicate a reason to think he's a townie.

Alright! Almost done! Here's where I stand on the whole:

Top of the list from part 1:
Jotheonah: Suspect #1
Voltgloss: Suspect #2
Robz888: Suspect #3
Me: Innocent, but for the sake of my point, Suspect #4

Top of the list from part 2:
Kuildeous: Suspect #1
Bozzball: Suspect #2
Insomniac: Suspect #3

If there is a pairing in the first half, I would have to think it's Voltgloss-Robz888. But as stated before, I don't think that's likely. My overall feelings towards a pair are Jotheonah-Kuildeous but I'm open to talk and other thoughts. I will NOT be casting unnecessary votes this round, and it is way to easy for the Mafia to pile on to gain a 3-2 advantage on day 3.

Again, as a final note: I will address other thoughts from events following the start of day 2 in a follow up post. I will also try to answer any questions then. For now, I have to go get myself a coffee and some breakfast.

RIP: Morgrim, Tables

[jotheonah]

Maybe my analysis is too simplistic. I agree with the comments that say Voltgloss and Robz together were being awfully obvious if they were mafia.

However, the timing of RObz's offensive against Morgrim still seems suspicious. Imagine he's the mafia. He's resolved to wait and see who the first bandwagon emerges against and then jump onto it late, to allay suspicion. Hence his suspiciously less-agressive-than-in-game-1 behavior.

But then, his name starts flying around a lot. He starts to worry that if he lets things take their course, they'll land on him. So he accuses Morgrim. Not the first accusation anyone's made, but the first serious one.

But one person making an accusation won't necessarily turn the tide of group think. There were several such assertions that happened day one and were never followed up on. SO my thought was that the first person to jump to his aide was more likely his co-mafia. But now I think that would be too obvious and too much of a liability on Day 2 (now).

Given VOltgloss's correction to the facts of the timing of his vote (a mistake on my part). I guess my suspicions are stirring strongly toward Robz as mafia and Volt as town. But I'm not entirely convinced. Perhaps Volt thought that the rest of his very vocal, seemingly pro-town play on day one would be enough to protect him from Day 2 suspicions. It's risky mafia play, but it's not stupid mafia play.

Volt is right, Morgrim was doing himself in. But in retrospect, certain voices were amplifying the suspiciousness of his actions. I especially want to know why Morgrim's "lie" and my, if I might make a suggestion, very similar "twisting of the facts" are quite as damning as Voltgloss wants them to be. Volts has shown himself good at zeroing in on sloppy analysis and reframing it as manipulative lying. So far that instinct has only hurt us.

[jotheonah]

To tackle some other things:

Why do I think Galzria is town? I guess I don't really know what a "town tell" is. I am just going on the absence of mafia tells. Galzria has not done anything to raise my suspicions. But I haven't read as closely as I'd like to - I have limited time to devote to this game, I skim through and post about what jumps out at me as obvious. That explains why my analysis of Volt and RObz actions was not as detailed as Volt's rebuttal. I'm sorry if my being less specific read as me being biased. I'm not attached to lynching Volt or Robz as people. I just want to lynch the mafia, and I strongly suspect at least one of them is.

Galzria's foregrounding of me is deeply worrying, though it doesn't make me doubt my assertion that he's town. It's worrying because I have so much faith in him. I don't want to see the town waste it's vote on me today, because then you will have killed a townie and sealed your fate.

So Galzria (and everyone else), what questions can I answer or actions can I explain to make you all believe I'm not the mafia? I'm happy to answer them.

This game is much more complicated than I gave it credit for. When I started playing I didn't stop before every action and ask myself "does this look scummy?" I assumed the fact that I am innocent would automatically make me look innocent. I felt sure that Galzria would look through the logs and see what I saw. But he saw a lot of different things from what I saw, including, apparently, a lot of suspicious behavior from me.

But his suspicions seem mainly rooted in the fact that I've played with a light touch, being hesitant to drive the action and more willing to advance what already seems to be the will of the town. That looks scummy, I'll admit. Here's what it really is: I'm an enthusiastic newbie. I really want to be an active, involved town member, but I don't yet know all the ways to do that and not do that and how not to look like Mafia. THat's how I've played. When I've done something wrong and been called out, like the no-lynch vote, I've resolved to act differently in the future.

This round, I'm learning from last round by delaying my vote and by going more on the offensive.

His "one in, one out" suggestion makes a lot of sense to me. My top suspect is Kuieldeaous. (I will never get those vowels right). He's been, as I said, willfully unhelpful, but has thrown some votes around casually in between. Bozzball second, for basically the same reasons.

As for whether it's Robz or Volt, I was leaning toward Robz but the more I think about it the more I suspect Volt.  I'll have to take a really close look to figure out which of them is mafia, but I'm so very sure one of them is. It probably won't be until late tonight or tomorrow that I'll have the time to sit down and do that analysis and present an informed opinion to you all. Don't take my absence as suspicious behavior.

[Galzria]

Wow. I don't envy the position of those who have yet to say much coming in... There may be more to look over since the start of Day 2 than all of Day 1 combined! 

With that said, I'll do my best to keep this brief for now. From what I can tell, two main points have been addressed to me:

Kuildeous:

Though Robz is at the top of my list, I am also leaning heavily toward Galzria. He originally voted for bozzball but switched to Mogrim. I believe he was the third vote to doom Mogrim. It's a comfortable position for Mafia: He didn't jump in there early, and he didn't wait too late to place the bet.

Robz888:

Is it Galzria? Well, Galzria played the most erratic game of these people. He jumped around a bit. He suspected Morgrim, then he liked Morgrim, then he voted Bozzball, then he switched to Morgrim. His vote for Morgrim was #3, and was probably the most transparently bandwagon-y. But then again, it was so bandwagon-y, I actually have a hard time believing it was a mafia move. Surely they would be more cautious than that? But maybe not.

Both of these seem to be in the same vein, so I'll answer them together if you gentlemen don't mind?

From post #202:

Not voting is not suspicious at this stage.

I disagree. I would think that a true member of the Mafia would be interested in withholding his vote until he can condemn an innocent person. This does not mean that I hold Robz and Insomniac in suspicion based on their lack of votes. I just don't think there's any behavior in here  that completely allays suspicion.

My original plan for changing my vote to bozzball was to push the vote up to 3 to see if the Mafia players would jump on and push the vote to 5. Unfortunately, the vote is at 2, as Galzria changed his vote shortly after

So now Morgim has 3 votes. I've yet to see 2 players jump in and push it to5. I'm making a pretty big assumption that the Mafia players would be interested in placing their 2 votes on someone to push the number to 5. I say that, but it's quite possible that the Mafia players already suspected that delaying votes would be suspicious. They may even realize that concentrating their votes on one person would be suspicious also.

So, if I go with the idea that Mafia players would wait to place a vote, then the fact that Mogrim doesn't have a majority yet casts him in the role of Mafia. Paradoxically, Mogrim voted for bozzball early, so if I vote for Mogrim on that assumption, then I have to recognize that my assumption is faulty, since Mogrim contradicted it.

Although, another thought comes to mind. Since you can change your vote at any time, it's actually unlikely that the Mafia will wait to vote for someone. They can accomplish the same thing by changing their vote to tip someone over to majority vote.

There's a reason I don't like to reveal my thought process. To be fair, whoever is in the Mafia probably already thought of these things already. I read a little in the first game and saw the claim that a talking town is more likely to be efficient in lynching. I still kind of question that, but I guess I'll leave my experiments at home and speak more freely. I still don't like saying what I think where the Mafia players can hear. Just because they are more logical gamers doesn't mean they'll think of everything.

After all that, I'm still not convinced in a particular direction.

So if you really believe we have no more information than we did when we started, well, you're doing it wrong.

I don't dispute that there is more information I question the amount of useful information. In fact, I'd say that a lot of these posts are actually harmful to the town, which should be expected when you have two people working in tandem to undermine us.

Hell, in this post, I simultaneously condemned and exonerated Mogrim. Well, not really exonerate. I'll still vote for him if there's a compelling reason. People are eagerly awaiting Tables's analysis. I'll join in on that and see what he has to say.

To be fair, following your line of thought was exactly why I changed to Morgrim from Bozzball at that time. While I was (and am still) suspicious of Bozzball, I am much more so of Morgrim. I didn't think it was fair to set Bozzball up to fall, and my initial vote was the first cast in that direction. I'm still willing to go back if he does anything more incriminating, but I'm not ready to put him in a position to be lynched quite yet.

... <snip>

This was back when there were only 3 votes on Morgrim. Now, you may see that as erratic, but as I point out in my earlier post today (and my full analysis of where I stand), it was anything but. I find wanting somebody with almost no case against them at 3 votes (Kuildeous) to be much more worrisome. You moved in to set the hammer up to fall. I moved out so it couldn't. Do I hold suspicions of Bozzball? Yes. Were my suspicions of Morgrim much higher? Absolutely.

In more direct response to Kuildeous:

Furthermore, with my belief that Morgrim was guilty at the time (and I don't think anyone would deny things looked that way), his 2nd vote of Bozzball appeared like an attempt to move the conversation away from him. Now, one of two things is true: You are Mafia, or you are not. For the case that you are NOT, it seemed like mighty bad play to cast a 3rd vote alongside him. In doing, you open a door for the Mafia to change targets if Tables comes out with a strong case why Morgrim should be innocent. And "setting the hammer up to fall" just seems to me to be bad all the way around.

In the case that you ARE Mafia (which yes, I am having feelings about), it makes PERFECT sense. You would know that both Morgrim and I are not. That's 2 town votes. Your voting for #3 there keeps you out of the Morgrim scuffle if things go down there, keeping you appearing innocent. And if Morgrim gets a clear from Tables, you've set things up to fall somewhere else without having to scramble.

Hmm. I'll have to consider some more, but a response from you right now as to how that went down would be greatly appreciated.

[Galzria]

Taking my last thought from above a step further, and not to harp on without waiting for a response, but this gets to the heart of my point:

... <snip>

Hell, in this post, I simultaneously condemned and exonerated Mogrim. Well, not really exonerate. I'll still vote for him if there's a compelling reason. People are eagerly awaiting Tables's analysis. I'll join in on that and see what he has to say.

This is from the end of the post I quoted above (#200 for full reference).

What a way to go, eh? Talk about hedging your bets. You talk about both condemning Morgrim, but also protecting yourself in case he goes down without your help. You point out your willingness to change to him if your vote is needed, but you also warn to watch out for Table's analysis, which could in effect, cause the Morgrim train to become derailed. And through all of this, you defend switching to Bozzball in an attempt to get the hammer to fall. Whew.

Really looking forward to your response.

[Kuildeous]

but you also warn to watch out for Table's analysis

I wasn't warning to hold off on Tables's analysis. I was just offering to wait since others thought it'd be useful.

It was my belief that the first vote would be more or less random. Mogrim had a 1/9 chance of getting lynched. He inadvertently shifted the odds in his favor. If it wasn't for that, then he'd have the same odds as the rest of us.

I was willing to listen to Tables, but I doubt it would have swayed me on the first day. Everyone was equally suspicious, and I recognized that someone *had* to be lynched. I respect Tables's knowledge and reasonings, but I don't think he could have saved Mogrim.

[Kuildeous]

Here's two quotes that support my assertions that I had misgivings/ was admitting the possibility that Morgrim could be innocent and already thinking about the repercussions.

I do not hold that unvoting for Mogrim after he signed his death warrant is a sign of being innocent. The rules were posted that once a majority is achieved, all subsequent votes and unvotes will be ignored. Since Mogrim is a confirmed townie who obviously wouldn’t have wanted to get lynched, I believe 100% that he did not catch that rule. I do not know if jotheonah honestly made the same mistake or if he’s trying to cover up his vote by playing the sympathy card. Not willing to vote against jotheonah right yet, but in my book, he’s not out of the clear.

I say that I will likely unvote to prevent a premature hammer if the 4th vote comes before Tables' analysis.  With the caveat that if I unvoted, and then Tables' analysis did not convince me my suspicions of Morgrim were misplaced, I would be reinstating my vote.

This has been gnawing at me lately, and now I see why. On the surface, it sounds like he is concerned about not rushing the vote, but his actions do not support his words. If V was truly worried about prematurely executing Mogrim, then why didn’t he unvote right away? It seems that the best way to prevent a premature lynching is to remove your own vote rather than rely on the others to not cast their own votes. That actually makes Voltgloss my top suspect now. Maybe it was sloppy play, and I would be more inclined to overlook it if a newbie did it. I would not expect a veteran to do it.

And a convenient way to get out of the stipulation that V needs to unvote to prevent 4 votes is to simply find a reason to not be interested in protecting Morgrim—mainly catching him in a lie, which we all now know is simply Morgrim misinterpreting the vote order (he remembered that he voted for bozzball before me but did not remember that he wasn’t the first vote of all of us).

He's been, as I said, willfully unhelpful, but has thrown some votes around casually in between.

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.

Sorry that I wasn’t that helpful in the first day, but I had no reliable data to work with.

[Kuildeous]

Rules question: What is the deadline for Day 2? I presume that it's the same time frame as Day 1 (2 weeks), so that would make the deadline June 1?

[jotheonah]

Here's two quotes that support my assertions that I had misgivings/ was admitting the possibility that Morgrim could be innocent and already thinking about the repercussions.

I do not hold that unvoting for Mogrim after he signed his death warrant is a sign of being innocent. The rules were posted that once a majority is achieved, all subsequent votes and unvotes will be ignored. Since Mogrim is a confirmed townie who obviously wouldn’t have wanted to get lynched, I believe 100% that he did not catch that rule. I do not know if jotheonah honestly made the same mistake or if he’s trying to cover up his vote by playing the sympathy card. Not willing to vote against jotheonah right yet, but in my book, he’s not out of the clear.

The unvote was kind of a just in case. I got there, saw Morgrim's stupid mistake and thought "there's a tiny chance I can prevent this with a rules loophole if I unvote now and w'll get to continue discussing and get more information." So I gave it a try.

Honestly, if this was a mafia attempt to elicit sympathy it would be the most pathetic, transparent mafia move I've ever seen. It was a last ditch attempt on the part of the town to delay what appeared to be a very hasty lynching. If Morgrim had turned out to be mafia I would have defended it exactly the same way - trying to get us the delay that almost everyone SAID they wanted.

[Insomniac]

Since there hasn't been any conversation in a while and I'm aware there are some suspicions of me due to my lack of conversation and voting on day 1 (and there should be we should suspect everyone right now) I'm willing to answer any questions you may have of me and my opinion on happenings. I should obviously be far more available for the coming days as opposed to the first few

[Axxle]

Vote Count 2-1

Not Voting (7) - Insomniac, Voltgloss, jotheonah, Galzria, Robz888, bozzball, Kuildeous

With 7 alive, it takes 4 to lynch

Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2012 6pm PDT

[Galzria]

Galzria looks out his window into the empty, desolate town. Things sure have gone quiet lately. Sad, he thinks. This used to be such a lively place to live. Now nobody trusts anybody, and everyone is afraid even to go down to the Market. He sighs to himself. Maybe it's time to call together a town meeting so we can get all the accusations in one place. And who knows? Maybe the Mafia will let something skip...

I will put together a post later tonight that tries to bring everyone's suspicions into a single post, so we can get a feel for where the town as a whole is leaning, and discuss how we would feel off those were votes instead of suspicions.

[Galzria]

Last word of flavor text was supposed to be "slip". Silly auto correct.

[Kuildeous]

I wanted to give the other players a chance to catch up. Though, it looks like bozzball is the only person who hasn't had a chance to chime in yet. But I get the feeling that this weekend was pretty busy for lots of people. I'll speak up again this week.