Main Street Mafia: Day One

[mostlytechnic]

Too many posts to respond individually, so I'll just state my whole position for the day.

A vote was started. It had no real basis, it was designed to see who jumped on the bandwagon, who needlessly defended the accused and what the accused themselves would say. It was a conversation starter. It clearly did that. I thought that was fairly obvious and said I would sit back and see how it went before committing, thus encouraging that conversation.

That said, at the end of the day, we need someone to get 10 votes, and if that means joining a bandwagon to achieve that goal, so be it, it's day 1, we're not going to make a brilliant decision, but making one is better than not and will hopefully help us on day 2.

Many of you don't seem to understand these concepts and have used the course of the discussion to throw around a lot of random accusations based on how people have reacted. That's excellent, to be honest, because it means that in your confusion, you're helping give us things to look at as the days progress. This will be a day 1 to remember as a source of subtle clues, a lot better than most.

Going back to the need for 10 votes, I have no problem with a day 1 bandwagon, but in this case I actually feel pretty decent jumping on. Al, an experienced member of this town, jumped on the original vote far too quickly. I even hinted at that when I posted what I did, making it clear that while I might support such a vote later, I would like to hear from the accused. That was the reasonable response and one I would have expected from Al but didn't get. Therefore ...

Vote: Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs)

Dang, what a way to start a bandwagon. You vote for Al with a little actual logic behind it (emphasis on little though) and suddenly Greg, Louis, Ace, and Linda all jump on. That was a fast wagon! I can't see the scum team all being THAT blatant, but I sure think there's some scum in there.

I'm not sure what to make of Irene's overreaction to the two votes on Gregory. I don't believe he'd be so blatant if both he and Greg were scum, but I can imagine he might try to pass himself off as the voice of reason by defending another townie and criticising an early spitballing Day One vote.

Eh, I guess I did get a little worked up there. Just tired of seeing people beaten up on day 1 over nothing.

Also, I am the watcher. Actually, that's what I'm called, but I guess I'm more of a tracker because I can see who one person targeted each night.

I'm inclined to believe this. Frankly, the explanation of title vs action makes me believe you a little more, but we'd better see some results to back it up. (and yes, I know tracker is a low-chance of result role, but if you're batting zero for a long time.... watcher would be a lot easier to ensure a result since I can think of a couple people in town almost certain to get visitors tonight, but whatever)

Now, who to vote for? Al's out of the running as far as I'm concerned for today, and the rest just feel bandwagony as opposed to legitimate vote candidates. Time to do some actual research. I just took a look down the list of people and noted who I couldn't remember anything about (ie they're not posting much) - then looked at their post counts. A couple had a decent number of posts, but I still couldn't remember them saying anything, so time to check the thread. Turns out that one I checked had actually been pretty active in the discussion today, just not one of the most vocal. The other, well, fluff posts until things got more serious, and then just a single half-hearted post about voting and a bandwagony vote placed. Looks to me like trying to be busy at first when it's easy to say lots of nothing, and then when it started to matter, disappear rather than get caught doing anything suspicious. So I'm going to

Vote: Sarah Harris (JackJonesPaw)

I do understand that it's late to be starting a new lynchee, but since things have changed dramatically with Al's announcement, I expect a bunch of people will be looking for somewhere new to vote. Plus I will be around the rest of the day to see how things go. If no one agrees with me, I can change, since a lynch (except for Al or myself, since we're the only two I have townreads on, and it's only a townlean on him for now) is better than nolynch.

[Bob]

Vote Count:

Brian Barnes (Shadows) - 4 (jluck, Dragonfire, def, StickFig)

Wanda Barnes (Piratedave84) - 1 (Jackjonespaw)

Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs) - 8 (Palathadric, Sandy, KingoftheZempk, Shadows, Lady K, jamesn, Kintobor, TrumpetKing)

Ace Brickman (Kintobor) - 2 (Tamamono, Dannylonglegs)

Irene Allen (mostlytechnic) -1 (TinyPiesRUs)

Sarah Harris (Jackjonespaw) -1 (mostlytechnic)

Non-Voters: Piratedave84

With eighteen players, it will take ten votes to lynch. There's a little less than 12 hours left in the day.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Bob

[Palathadric]

Okay, I don't feel comfortable with holding my vote in the face of a role-claim, unless it's necessary to secure a lynch. I do certainly find Al still suspicious, but I think I also think it's true that one vote (Shelly's) would not have put a whole lot of pressure or gotten things started as much as if there were two (Al's). So I can understand Al's reasoning somewhat, enough at least to not vote for him in light of his claim.

The question is, who to vote for? Brian has been somewhat suspicious I guess. I do not like the fact that he's clinging to his vote in the face of Al's claim, but I understand as well that it could certainly be seen as a rather convenient claim.

Brian has also been relatively talkative, which is a good thing, sort of.

In any case, at this point I'd rather vote for Brian than Al.

I will however, be able to get back online (barring a really weird occurrence) to change my vote later in the day, and until then, I'd like to present a different option: Sarah Harris.

Her only useful post was this:

Damn, I'm at the Emporium for 9 hours, and then all this happens?! I can't believe you guys left me out of the fun!

The votes are good, and I'll never not say that a vote isn't justified (except those attention-grabber votes. Damn those.), but out of all this behavior, the only strange ping I got was from Wanda.

The only strategy (if there is one at all) that I can see is trying to just fade out until tomorrow, when hopefully everyone's forgotten about this vote.. But again, I don't try to guess people's strategies - I'm usually wrong.

Wanda's been playing a while, though.. Right? Or did I miss that? Inexperienced or not, saying absolutely nothing about a direct vote is just...weird. And scummy. Scummy vibes.

Anyway, I'll go and Vote: Wanda (Piratedave84). I'm willing to change it, I just need a really good reason for the behavior.

Now I understand if one person (Eugene) missed out on the discussion and didn't realize Wanda's situation. I find Wanda somewhat suspicious despite everything, but this vote seems really poor and like no thought was put into it. Sarah echoes a lot of what has been said, offers nothing more and has slipped under the radar, contributing nothing so far.

I unvote Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs)

and Vote Sarah Harris (JackJonesPaw)

Oh, and somebody jumped onto it before me.

Ah, well. In any case, this gives me a little more confidence that maybe we can secure a vote for Sarah.

[Sandy]

So do you think there was ever a possibility of a proper bandwagon forming then? I'm not sure what you're accusing me of now.

Your style of jumping to the gun was suspicious, that's all. Like I said, grasping at straws here.

But I agree that lynching a non-committal lurker over a potential watcher is smarter, so I will unvite: Al (Tinypiesrus) and vote: Sarah (jackjonespaw).

[Lady K]

Al has been contributing a little more now and his watcher claim could be legit. It could also be fake to save himself. What I don't agree with its Shelly's stance on a no-lynch. Lynching the watcher would be bad for town, but a no-lynch would be worse. The lynch gives us data to analyze for those scum who may be hiding and those who are jumping on and off the bandwagons.

With the votes spread out so far now, it looks like a no-lynch is what we are going to get. I will be keeping my vote where it is, but I will check back for new developments.

[TrumpetKing]

What is with everyone throwing votes all over the place? I agree that a no-lynch is better than losing a watcher, but a lynch is also better than a no-lynch on Day One, but placing votes on people with minimal votes for no reason other than lynching a lurker, especially starting a new voting block entirely is just unproductive, and fishy. And look who joined in on that? Russell. Ping. Again. Eric and Irene are also putting themselves on my radar. At least those two acknowledge a real explanation for their vote, rather than Russell who just fell into agreeance.

I should be back later today to leave some final thoughts and make any last minute adjustments, but just in case not, I've decided to place my vote in the way that's most productive for the town as we go into the night with a shifting vote, and to hopefully preserve our watcher.

Unvote: Al (TinyPiesRUs)

Vote: Brian Barnes (Shadows)

[mostlytechnic]

With the votes spread out so far now, it looks like a no-lynch is what we are going to get. I will be keeping my vote where it is, but I will check back for new developments.

Have you never seen how these lynch mobs form? There's still many hours (8 and change by my math) left, MORE than enough time for a case to be built and someone be lynched. If anything, you should realize that someone with a role claim on day one will not get lynched. It just makes no sense to. If it's a lie, we'll deal with that later, but no one with half a brain will lynch a roleclaim day 1 unless there's a counterclaim. So if anything, YOU are the one causing a potential no-lynch today.

[jimmynick]

Actually, the only time I ever snagged scum on day one was in an identical situation, where the lynchee claimed doctor, and a scumbum argued that they had to be lynched anyway.

That's interesting. I also agree that Brian thinks Al must be lynched despite his role claim just because of time considerations (as far as I can see, there are plenty of hours left in the day).

I find Wanda somewhat suspicious despite everything

Something about this rubs me the wrong way. Do you mean that, in the face of suspicions of Wanda being poorly grounded, you continue to believe Wanda is scum?

Oh, and somebody jumped onto it before me.

Why ? Surely you'd be happy that someone else has seen the things in Sarah that you see (oh la la, si romantique!) Did you and Irene try to coordinate something and mess it up a little bit?

Your style of jumping to the gun was suspicious, that's all. Like I said, grasping at straws here.

But I agree that lynching a non-committal lurker over a potential watcher is smarter, so I will unvite: Al (Tinypiesrus) and vote: Sarah (jackjonespaw).

"Considering all the lynch candidates there are today, I have to vote for either the claimed watcher (tracker) or the newly appointed Queen of the Lurkers. Wait, who's Brian? Nope, never heard of him!"

I'm going to:

Unvote: Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs)

Vote: Brian Barnes (Shadows)

[Lady K]

Have you never seen how these lynch mobs form? There's still many hours (8 and change by my math) left, MORE than enough time for a case to be built and someone be lynched. If anything, you should realize that someone with a role claim on day one will not get lynched. It just makes no sense to. If it's a lie, we'll deal with that later, but no one with half a brain will lynch a roleclaim day 1 unless there's a counterclaim. So if anything, YOU are the one causing a potential no-lynch today.

Interesting that you claim that I am the one causing a potential no-lynch today when you are the one who started a lynch on a new candidate with others already to choose from. It would seem to me that you were trying to instigate a no lynch using a lurker as your target. There are still several hours left as you pointed out and plenty of people have already jumped on the Brain bandwagon so I doubt it will be me who causes a no-lynch. As I said I will check back for new developments, but I will see a lynch through because I believe it is needed for the town.

[Palathadric]

It's a start. Especially when it was pretty obvious Shirley/Shelly only made her vote to get the ball rolling. And boy did you roll that ball!

Ooh, a last minute role call! It won't affect my choice, since I do not have any better alternatives at this point, but it might be useful information if you actually come up town. If you do, it'll be a damn shame, but Day One is always a game of russian roulette.

Your style of jumping to the gun was suspicious, that's all. Like I said, grasping at straws here.

But I agree that lynching a non-committal lurker over a potential watcher is smarter, so I will unvite: Al (Tinypiesrus) and vote: Sarah (jackjonespaw).

Hmmm...I find this a little disconcerting coming after your former unwillingness to switch your vote from Al.

As Shelly would say, "Ping!"

Might I add, "Pong?"

Al has been contributing a little more now and his watcher claim could be legit. It could also be fake to save himself. What I don't agree with its Shelly's stance on a no-lynch. Lynching the watcher would be bad for town, but a no-lynch would be worse. The lynch gives us data to analyze for those scum who may be hiding and those who are jumping on and off the bandwagons.

With the votes spread out so far now, it looks like a no-lynch is what we are going to get. I will be keeping my vote where it is, but I will check back for new developments.

While I also think I may disagree with Shelly's point. I find your determination to stay with Al somewhat baffling. We do have potential role on the line, and you're willing to lynch him after you just stated that he's been contributing more which was one of the two main reasons he was on the chopping block in the first place? I think there's decent momentum on Brian, and I think we should be able to get a vote on him. He has also, in my opinion, probably been more suspicious than Al anyway. I would prefer to vote out Sarah since I'm not convinced if Brian has been scummy enough to vote out, but...meh! Let's see how it goes.

There seem to be a few too many people who are discounting the possibility of turning the lynch on a better candidate for my liking, Brian included.

Something about this rubs me the wrong way. Do you mean that, in the face of suspicions of Wanda being poorly grounded, you continue to believe Wanda is scum?

I meant that despite my finding Sarah's vote on Wanda very poorly grounded so much so that Sarah is the person I think is the most likely to be scum, I also find Wanda suspicious.

Does that make it clearer?

Interesting that you claim that I am the one causing a potential no-lynch today when you are the one who started a lynch on a new candidate with others already to choose from. It would seem to me that you were trying to instigate a no lynch using a lurker as your target. There are still several hours left as you pointed out and plenty of people have already jumped on the Brain bandwagon so I doubt it will be me who causes a no-lynch. As I said I will check back for new developments, but I will see a lynch through because I believe it is needed for the town.

Who do you actually find more suspicious of Brian and Al. In case you didn't realize, Brian's bandwagon is gaining momentum and Al's is dying. It seems to me that Sarah is even more likely to be lynched right now than Al, considering that Al has had so many people, myself included, unvote him. If you want to ensure a lynch, I would suggest you make a move for somewhere that's actually gaining momentum and not losing it. What new developments, exactly, are you waiting for/expecting to see?

[Lady K]

I honestly don't find Al, Brian, or Sarah any scummier than each other.

I just don't really see extremely scummy in Brian's behavior. Al, I feel is more scummy. Butt then again it could be from this great murder/mystery novel about a political take over, in which his behavior was so very towny it was scummy and involved a false role claim that paid off very well. As for Sarah lurking could be scummy but I just don't see it at this point.

There are others with too few contributions or poor contributions as well.

[def]

What I don't agree with its Shelly's stance on a no-lynch. Lynching the watcher would be bad for town, but a no-lynch would be worse.

And you would be wrong. The only thing worse than a no-lynch is town lynching a power role when it might have known better. Explain this well, or you will be my first lynch choice tomorrow, for real reasons rather than random ones: Why is lynching the town watcher on day one better than a no-lynch? This is a real question. You've proposed the opposite, and there is no convincing argument that I can conceive of.

Worst case scenario is that he's lying, and we lynch him day two. More likely is that scum focus some night actions on Al rather than someone else. And town has a free night to operate whatever they will.

Right now, you are taking Brian's position: Let's lynch the possible town watcher!

Greg cross-posted with me, let me give a quick-reply.

I honestly don't find Al, Brian, or Sarah any scummier than each other.

I just don't really see extremely scummy in Brian's behavior. Al, I feel is more scummy. Butt then again it could be from this great murder/mystery novel about a political take over, in which his behavior was so very towny it was scummy and involved a false role claim that paid off very well. As for Sarah lurking could be scummy but I just don't see it at this point.

There are others with too few contributions or poor contributions as well.

The degree of your wafflee-ness, you're pretty much scum. Yup.... Not Brian, more the possible watcher, Al.... Yeah, you're scum, and Brian is a solid choice based on your soft defense.

[KotZ]

Wait, he's claiming watcher? Well that's great. If you really are Al, I'm sorry for voting for you. If you're not, well, I'll vote for you tomorrow. I'm switching my vote. If he is the watcher, Brian is leading the lynch on our watcher.

Unvote: Al (TinyPiesRUs)

Vote: Brian Barnes (Shadows)

[Lady K]

I could be wrong, and so could you! I think scum is leading all our choices and the town is being fooled. This is the first time I have ever seen you advocate a no-lynch. I am not waffling or taking Brian's position I simply don't like any of the top three lynch choices.

Al, I'll choose to trust you and I'll change my vote to ensure a lynch, even if I don't agree with it as the best choice. Even after reviewing the lack of evidence, I still believe Brian could be town or scum.

Unvote: Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs)

Vote: Brian Barnes (Shadows)

[Palathadric]

I could be wrong, and so could you! I think scum is leading all our choices and the town is being fooled. This is the first time I have ever seen you advocate a no-lynch. I am not waffling or taking Brian's position I simply don't like any of the top three lynch choices.

Hey, I am not convinced of Brian's scumminess either, but he's certainly more so than Al right now. I have to wonder if you're so against the top three lynch candidates. Why haven't you brought up any of your own. For the last how many hours you've talking vaguely about people who are not posting much and defending yourself. That's great and all, but even your vote against Al was very weak and at a rather scummy time to vote for him.

[def]

Yeah, we should have stuck to Gregory. Way too waffly. It's near bedtime here, so I'll... I just don't know?! I love day one lynches, and that one seems best.

unvote Brian

Vote: Gregory (Lady K)

Night actions, do your magic!

[Lady K]

Yeah, we should have stuck to Gregory. Way too waffly. It's near bedtime here, so I'll... I just don't know?! I love day one lynches, and that one seems best.

unvote Brian

Vote: Gregory (Lady K)

Night actions, do your magic!

Thank you for demonstrating waffly for us. This is your 4th vote! First me, then Al, then, Brain, and now back to me. That is if your formatting is allowed, otherwise your vote for Al will be the one that sticks.

[def]

Waffly is voting with zero reason, AKA you. You have only yourself to blame. Your vote is a horribly weak day one vote.

[Lady K]

Waffly is voting with zero reason, AKA you. You have only yourself to blame. Your vote is a horribly weak day one vote.

As are all day one votes Shelly, all are weak votes at best.

[Bob]

Vote Count:

Brian Barnes (Shadows) - 7 (jluck, Dragonfire, StickFig, TrumpetKing, jamesn, KingoftheZempk, Lady K)

Wanda Barnes (Piratedave84) - 1 (Jackjonespaw)

Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs) - 2 (Shadows, Kintobor)

Ace Brickman (Kintobor) - 2 (Tamamono, Dannylonglegs)

Irene Allen (mostlytechnic) - 1 (TinyPiesRUs)

Sarah Harris (Jackjonespaw) - 3 (mostlytechnic, Palathadric, Sandy

Gregory McHenry (Lady K) -1 (def)

Host (Bob) - 5 (penalty, penalty, penalty, penalty, penalty) <penalty for editing posts>

Non-Voters: Piratedave84

With eighteen players, it will take ten votes to lynch. There's about five hours left in Day One. Remember, voting is mandatory.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Bob

[Kintobor]

Well... Al claiming watcher makes things complicated. I can't tell how scummy Brian is, but I don't see him as 100% town. Still, a lynch is better than no lynch, and I'd prefer it not to be someone with a potential role.

Unvote: Al (TinyPies)

Vote: Brian (Shadows)

It's day one, and we need that lynch. Brian's bandwagon is the one with the most people, and we seriously need to, as a town, ensure that we start this day off with anything but a no lynch. If Brian speaks up, I'm more than willing to vote for Sarah, as her general quietness is worrying.

[Piratedave84]

Wow ! We had an almost lynch and now we have nothing.

At this point I'm not going to vote for Al in the interest of preserving a possible PR and seeing I;m a huge proponet of day 1 lynches I'll Vote: Brian (Shadows)

It's our best bet to achieve a lynch today.

[Dannylonglegs]

Sorry I haven't been around. Had to take a nap and then "prepare food for the dinner rush" at work.

Al's lack of participation and his general lack of input compared to Brian's increasing helpfulness is why I switched over to him.

Also, Al didn't participate in the fluff, yet under your logic he's even scummier than I am, so why didn't you vote for him? So is Russell and Brian, who did speak but not as much as I did. Why not vote for one of those three if that's the logic you want to run with?

It reads to me as a vote of convenience. you saw which way the wind was blowing and wanted to jump in with the rest of the sheep.

Al not participating in the fluff did not surprise me. From what I recall of his behavoir from previous times we've spoken,his taciturn behavoir is as I expected it to be. Earlier in the day, yours was not. in fact, if I had to say I trusted one person thusfar to be a townie, I'd say it's him.

while I don't think either Russel or Brian are behaving especially scummy, neither is behaving especially townie. I freely admit I can't read Shadows at all.

so, considering we need a lynch to anchor our analysis of today's voting patterns, I'll Unvote: Ace (Kintobor) and Vote: Brian (Shadows) who I would not have been able to read anyways.

Sorry Shady

[JackJonespaw]

Now, who to vote for? Al's out of the running as far as I'm concerned for today, and the rest just feel bandwagony as opposed to legitimate vote candidates. Time to do some actual research. I just took a look down the list of people and noted who I couldn't remember anything about (ie they're not posting much) - then looked at their post counts. A couple had a decent number of posts, but I still couldn't remember them saying anything, so time to check the thread. Turns out that one I checked had actually been pretty active in the discussion today, just not one of the most vocal. The other, well, fluff posts until things got more serious, and then just a single half-hearted post about voting and a bandwagony vote placed. Looks to me like trying to be busy at first when it's easy to say lots of nothing, and then when it started to matter, disappear rather than get caught doing anything suspicious. So I'm going to

Vote: Sarah Harris (JackJonesPaw)

I do understand that it's late to be starting a new lynchee, but since things have changed dramatically with Al's announcement, I expect a bunch of people will be looking for somewhere new to vote. Plus I will be around the rest of the day to see how things go. If no one agrees with me, I can change, since a lynch (except for Al or myself, since we're the only two I have townreads on, and it's only a townlean on him for now) is better than nolynch.

Now I understand if one person (Eugene) missed out on the discussion and didn't realize Wanda's situation. I find Wanda somewhat suspicious despite everything, but this vote seems really poor and like no thought was put into it. Sarah echoes a lot of what has been said, offers nothing more and has slipped under the radar, contributing nothing so far.

I unvote Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs)

and Vote Sarah Harris (JackJonesPaw)

Oh, and somebody jumped onto it before me.

Ah, well. In any case, this gives me a little more confidence that maybe we can secure a vote for Sarah.

Well, things got complicated, both life-wise and game-wise. I've finished my exams for this year, so no more disappearances from me. (Didn't have much time to catch up on the game before this moment, so pardon my lurking, I was just trying to get a quick understanding of what's going on.)

As for the vote and what I said, well, at the time, what more could be said? It was an empty post from Wanda that pinged me, and her next post didn't even acknowledge the previous votes. I'm still a tad suspicious, but I suppose it can wait until later, since we need to secure a majority.

If Al is the watcher, or tracker, or whatever it's called, then yea, its way too risky to lynch him now. On one hand, it could be a desperate scum move to avoid a bandwagon, but, on the other hand, he could be telling the truth. Impossible to tell at this point. You've gotta hand it to him, regardless, he's completely avoided the bandwagon.

I'm going to

Unvote: Wanda (Piratedave84) and

Vote: Brian (Shadows)

There's been so much jumping around, we need to secure a vote before the day ends. It really seems like Al against Brian, and since Al claimed a role, and as Brian nearly has the 10 votes, I've got to vote Brian, for the good of the town.

[mostlytechnic]

Vote Count:

Brian Barnes (Shadows) - 7 (jluck, Dragonfire, StickFig, TrumpetKing, jamesn, KingoftheZempk, Lady K)

Wanda Barnes (Piratedave84) - 1 (Jackjonespaw)

Al Cooper (TinyPiesRUs) - 2 (Shadows, Kintobor)

Ace Brickman (Kintobor) - 2 (Tamamono, Dannylonglegs)

Irene Allen (mostlytechnic) - 1 (TinyPiesRUs)

Sarah Harris (Jackjonespaw) - 3 (mostlytechnic, Palathadric, Sandy

Gregory McHenry (Lady K) -1 (def)

Host (Bob) - 5 (penalty, penalty, penalty, penalty, penalty) <penalty for editing posts>

Non-Voters: Piratedave84

With eighteen players, it will take ten votes to lynch. There's about five hours left in Day One. Remember, voting is mandatory.

Glad to see you gave yourself the editing penalty votes, but shouldn't that be 10 votes and you've lynched yourself, since you've edited posts at least twice that I've seen?

More importantly - for all you whiny nay-sayers, look - we just went from basically no votes to more than enough to lynch Brian in just a few hours. So why all the whining about "it's too late to change, it's too late to bring up new people, it's too late to xxxxx"?

However, I'm not switching. I have a REASON to vote for Sarah. I see the votes on Brian as just a bunch of bandwagoning. Look how many of you gave NO REASON (except perhaps "because we need a lynch, which isn't really a scum-hunting reason. It's ok for day 1, since we DO need a lynch to examine tomorrow, but since you all just played follow the leader, there's not a ton to learn from it). Yeah, I'm noting it and will be watching you.

(and also, there's no need for me to switch. At the risk of being hypocritical, yeah, if it was right before the deadline and we were one vote short of lynching whoever and I was around, I'd switch. But since we're already over 10, there's no need for me to pile on)