Alright, at the request of Dsell (although I would like to keep this short(er). No books this game!):
I started to type this out, explaining step by step how I came to my conclusions, and realized that it was going to become WAY to long for me to start setting a standard now. So instead I'm going to bullet point with commentary.
- Where does Jotheonah stand on letting people sit with a few votes?
I would feel like kind of a jerk letting Morgrim be the Day 1 lynch ... AGAIN. Poor guy just wants to play some mafia.
On the other hand, two votes in a town this size is not so big a pressure cooker. It takes seven to kill? So 4 votes is the bare minimum for a mafia hammer, and that's assuming fairly stupid mafia play. So everybody calm down a little.
Seems to be pretty good advice. Don't panic over a few votes, because with this many people, a few votes can't hurt. Let's look at how he applied that advice to himself:
Ok, well I'm going to bed so I'm going to Unvote. It's been fun, this sparring with O, but I'm not actually convinced enough that he's mafia to leave that sitting there all night.
eHalycon, you're online and you're not participating in the exercise! what a mafia thing to do.
Taken all by itself, this seemed like a nice thing to do. And in fact, he even had ME thinking that:
Ok, well I'm going to bed so I'm going to Unvote. It's been fun, this sparring with O, but I'm not actually convinced enough that he's mafia to leave that sitting there all night.
eHalycon, you're online and you're not participating in the exercise! what a mafia thing to do.
+1 for doing the right thing. Unless you're Mafia covering your tracks. Hmm, ah, +1 anyway. I'm feeling nice today.
Buuut, not entirely. Those posts are back to back, and I was wary of how pro-town it felt even then. When Jotheonah unvoted, there were only 3 votes on O. One below the 4 that he admits being the "worry" number. And even 4 is only the "worry" number if the Mafia plays EXTREMELY poorly by hammering out the last 3 votes. So outside of "being a nice guy" there wasn't much reason for him to retract his vote except to give off a pro-town vibe. Is that damning all by itself? No, not really. Confusing, certainly. Saying one thing, and doing another for the sole purpose of being nice just didn't sit right with me.
- Why was I wary of Jotheonah by that point?
Jotheonah's unvote post was #310. He stated in it that he was going to bed, but "jokingly" accused eHalcyon of not participating in his exercise. His "exercise" was post #291, less than 20 posts earlier:
I hear ya on that one. OK everybody, I am BORED. So I propose a game. Imagine that Insomniac posted that the new deadline was tomorrow and everyone has to vote for someone. Who would you vote for and why? (Note: don't ACTUALLY vote.)
And ... GO!
(I will be immediately suspicious of anyone who chooses not to participate in this exercise)
This was the post that grabbed my attention. I posted in M-II MANY times over that the Mafia would do their best to stir up confusion and suspicion. While I did my best to remain as "town" as I could there, I also did my best to poke and prod as many places as I could. J does a good job once again of phrasing this post to appear pro-town (especially the "don't actually vote" - Do you REALLY think that was necessary?), but stop for a moment and think what this ACTUALLY does.
I can't recall who (I think it was Dsell, though maybe C.F.) said they weren't REALLY suspicious of Robz, but were just taking part in this "exercise", and it was Robz's response that made them start thinking as him as a possible Mafia. There are a lot of people in this game. If accusations start flying around by townies without any real drive behind them, we will end up self-lynching ourselves. So what does he do? He starts this exercise, and then gets outta the way by "going to bed".
This was a great Mafia move in a town this size. His first response to both my above accusations is this:
Quick reply to G before work.
I was bating O. He didn't seem to be taking the game seriously, I thought a few votes on his head would change that. It did. Look how he's been playing lately. As soon as he looked to be in any real danger I unvoted. Just like my "exercise" post, I'm looking for ways to generate meaningful replies for analysis. I think it's working.
By his own admission earlier, O should not have appeared to be in any "real danger". That unvote served no purpose except to make him look good. He knows that his case for survival in later days is going to be how he composed himself early. It worked for me, why not for him?
His second point is more to the truth of the matter. "I think it's working". Let's look at who had "accused" who in his "exercise":
#315, Voltgloss -> eHalcyon
#312, eHalcyon -> Morgrim/O
#304, Dsell -> def/Robz
#294, Galzria -> O/Volt
And much further down (at Eevee's first chance online), you have post #365 (will quote that a bit below): Eevee - Jotheonah/O
And that's not to mention Yuma or C.F. who had Morgrim voted already.
So his seemingly helpful exercise has caused the town to blow up in suspicions of each other, NONE of which he had a hand in. Why is that important? Two reasons:
1) He can't be tied back to any bad lynch that comes from that
2) He has town jumping on town.
We have SIX people as listed suspects in that list (seven if you include him from Eevee's post). Two of which are still primary suspects in most of your eyes. And NEITHER of those two has J connecting to them.
- One last point before I go. This is already way longer than I wanted and as I'm tired, probably not as clear as I intended. Eevee's post #365 (Taking part in the "exercise") and J's response to it:
Suspicious: johtheonah (Something feels very off here. I'll try to think of a way explain this when I have more time, I actually meant to just post a list now but I started writing the neutral column first and had something to say about everyone of those so I feel I've got to do the same here)
That something you can't explain Eevee, is that he is too damn "pro-town". Everything he's done he's done in a "to help the town" manner, but has done anything BUT, or cast him in a better light. And before you could get more time to try and think what it was:
First of all, sorry for being busy and not posting for a while. Just caught up with everything.. oh so much reading. Makes me forget the stuff I had to say four pages back.. should really try to get online every 5 hours or so to not miss out on stuff.
Oh well, I'll chime in with my hunches now:
Suspicious: johtheonah (Something feels very off here. I'll try to think of a way explain this when I have more time, I actually meant to just post a list now but I started writing the neutral column first and had something to say about everyone of those so I feel I've got to do the same here) > O (you've got to know that is bad bad town play.. kind of weird though, dont really think you would go that route if you were mafia either but.. eh, pretty confident that cant be a power townie role at least) > Morgrim (was my #1 suspect until someone posted he was just like this in some other game where he was town. Still not exaclty convinced but certainly helps his case)
Neutral: michaeljb (you post a lot yet I still dont remember any of your opinions. have you actually said much anything?), def (posting so little, hard to say), Galzria (posts a lot, some of it looks mafia-ish, some of it townish. undecided still but inclined to believe you're clean and sincere), Captain_Frisk (I find myself agreeing with a lot of your posts but am still not convinced. somehow it feels like you arent 100% honest / helping town as much as you could if you really wanted to)
I'm-pretty-sure-is-town: Voltgloss, Dsell (good, well-argumented posts that strongly make me feel like I can trust you. Either of these being mafia is a scary thought but I can't really see that being the case, it doesnt seem like either is holding any info back).
: Robz, half the time you seem like a sure townie, then you go around and say something too stupid for a guy that smart and start looking suspicious again. Your playing style is very good for the game though, so if I was equally suspicious of you and someone else, I'd rather vote for the someone else.
If the lynch was tomorrow morning, I'd pick either O or johtheonah but hopefully we'll get more info before we have to cross that bridge. Everything still looks very puzzling, I find myself hoping I could be "sure" of someone so that I could really start to hammer that person instead of posting these somewhat vague thoughts (sorry guys, I really dont have anything better to offer). Mafia seems to be playing very well which makes me suspect the silent ones and the more experienced ones more (and johtheonah seems to be the only one of my 3 suspects above who fits either of these labels so arghhhh).
BWUH? Man I don't mind being accused here and there, shows the town are on their toes and all that, but I just got cited as #1 suspicious person without any concrete (or even abstract) reasons given AT ALL. Eevee, I was getting a town read off you, but who does that?
I want to believe you're just new and don't see how incredibly suspicious that kind of vague, unsubstantiated pseudo-accusation is.
Also, you say Mafia is playing well, but I'm not sure what that even means at this point. All we can say is that Mafia hasn't done anything unbelievably stupid.
The very first person that suspected him in his exercise, he flips out over. **Oh No! How could THAT have happened! Well, good thing Eevee didn't bring any PROOF.** Boy, shoe doesn't fit so well on the other foot, does it J?
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So there you go. Probably not as clear as I normally would like, but I'm tired, and I don't have AS much at stake as my M-II game. Again though, I ask that you not be led to my conclusion based on my argument, but based on your own reasoning. I just ask that you stop to consider, "How would *I* act if I were Mafia? What would I try and do?" I feel that if you look at J's posts through that light, you'll notice that he looks pretty darn scummy. Not because he appears to the TOWN as scummy, but because he DOESN'T, yet his actions don't lead to good Town results.
To sum up:
His actions didn't back up his words regarding early voting.
He got off the "bandwagon" of O to set himself as looking good for future days.
His "exercise", while well disguised, did nothing but hurt the town.
He responded vitriolically to the taste of his own medicine when Eevee put him on the "would vote tomorrow" list