The Hobbit Mafia [Town win]

[BuJaber]

Official vote count asap please.

Also thor, vote with us, come on. I at least sort of defended you, that counts for something yes?

(Yes I'm shameless ) Though to be fair 2 out of the 4 bandwagons are favorable to me so it could be a lot worse.

[Ragian]

Is Ragoo ever going to address my reasoning for not voting Masket?

Mayhaps his Ragooness is in need of a reminder. Care to help?

[Thorthoth]

The late afternoon of Day 1, My thoughts (such as they are...):

First another look at the Vote Count (1.4):

No Lynch (4): Thorthoth, Samlen, Icepack, DirtyDishSoap
Thorthoth (3): Pikanchio, madmitch, MudPuppy
Minister Masket (3): ZaBeast, Ragian, BuJaber
Za Beast(1): Hotshot53
BuJaber(1): dakky21
Hotshot53(1): skoffin

Not Voting (3): Minister Masket, FloresDelMal, Kamikaze Jawa

With 16 alive it takes 9 to lynch.

Why are any of these people voting as they are?

Voting 'no lynch' seems/seemed like a rational choice to me, but some of the other 'no lynch' voters may indeed be scum, who's to say...
At this point 'no lynch' is pretty much the same as 'no vote'... So that makes seven of us (six of them...)

Players who are voting solo don't actually expect (or even want?) their candidates to win/lose... They may have nothing anything against the player they are voting for... just placeholders.
dakky's reason for voting for Bujaber was particularly fatuous....Could dakky and BuJaber be in cahoots?

Why is HotShot voting fro ZaBeast, I forget... Does it even matter?

That brings me to the two mini-bandwagons: Both bandwagons may have town in them, misguided town for sure in my case....
I think usually scum knows who each other are on Day 1, but that might not always be true...
If they do know who each other are then they're likely to join the same bandwagon to make their vote count...
Though none of this matters too much since I think a Day 1 lynch won't happen...

MM joined my bandwagon... what a douchebag. I suppose I should join his bandwagon in retaliation... but no, I will remain rational.
MM might be town. Doesn't he usually stay pretty quiet... Even if he is town, getting lynched would make a good lesson for him to change his play style...

Could MM and Pika both be scum again? An ironic possibility... but quite possible.

All these quiet players (yeesh):
Extremely quiet: Minister Masket, FloresDelMal, HotShot53, IcePack, Jawa, Samlen
Somewhat quiet: ZaBeast, MudPuppy, BuJaber, dakky, madmitch,
Loudish: Thorthoth, Pikanchion, Skoffin, DirtyDishSoap, Ragian

Lesson: When one is a bigmouth, maybe everyone sounds like a scumarine...

The night is coming. Am I going to get killed?
It might be good for town if I was killed... take a battleaxe for the team.
I probably should have made everyone think I was Gandalf...too late for that now.
Besides, if I do stay around I might serve as a useful town catalyst/ detective.
I may have a 'boring' role but I'm NOT a boring player!

My hunch is the mafia killer is one of the quiet ones, maybe only somewhat quiet.
That's my only suggestion to the power roles... and it is just a hunch.

I may even be a bit quieter myself for the rest of the day (surprise), unless there are truly fresh accusations to deal with, or the vote count becomes surprising.
At this point, I've probably said and oversaid everything...

[Thorthoth]

P.S:
My mention that MM joined the lynch bandwagon against me is an event that has occurred since the last vote count and is therefore not reflected in the vote count that I re-posted.

[Thorthoth]

P.P.S. In my prior post, the use of the term 'detective' was not intended in the sense of a game-role, but rather only as a descriptive for the analytical attempts that all players engage in.
That was a noob mistake, easy to make considering the vast number of terms for possible mafia game roles.

[Minister Masket]

MM joined my bandwagon... what a douchebag. I suppose I should join his bandwagon in retaliation... but no, I will remain rational.
MM might be town. Doesn't he usually stay pretty quiet... Even if he is town, getting lynched would make a good lesson for him to change his play style...

Could MM and Pika both be scum again? An ironic possibility... but quite possible.

Fun fact: I've survived the previous two games I've played in (won one), so why would I change my play-style now when it's working so well?

If you're going to theorise that Pika and I are scum, then you're going to have to analyse the lore discussion we had near the start. IE: would we openly debate like that knowing we were both scum? At first glance you might think so because it's a simple way of driving an imaginary wedge between us early on, so players don't suspect we're linked.
Ahh, but many of us here are experienced players, so now you have to bear in mind that reverse psychology is in play - we're banking on everyone else thinking exactly that so that we can get away with it.

The question then for you is do you think that reverse-reverse psychology is in play?

[Thorthoth]

MM joined my bandwagon... what a douchebag. I suppose I should join his bandwagon in retaliation... but no, I will remain rational.
MM might be town. Doesn't he usually stay pretty quiet... Even if he is town, getting lynched would make a good lesson for him to change his play style...

Could MM and Pika both be scum again? An ironic possibility... but quite possible.

Fun fact: I've survived the previous two games I've played in (won one), so why would I change my play-style now when it's working so well?

If you're going to theorise that Pika and I are scum, then you're going to have to analyse the lore discussion we had near the start. IE: would we openly debate like that knowing we were both scum? At first glance you might think so because it's a simple way of driving an imaginary wedge between us early on, so players don't suspect we're linked.
Ahh, but many of us here are experienced players, so now you have to bear in mind that reverse psychology is in play - we're banking on everyone else thinking exactly that so that we can get away with it.

The question then for you is do you think that reverse-reverse psychology is in play?

Okay, that does it. Vote MM.

[ZaBeast]

Since I'm probably more likely to be answered if I post this first,I'd like someone to answer the question below, as it is something I don't really understand.

If fake claims are present, can someone briefly explain me how thor (or anyone, for that matter) claiming role X would make him more of a confirmed townie?

Okay, that does it. Vote MM.

MM joined my bandwagon... what a douchebag. I suppose I should join his bandwagon in retaliation... but no, I will remain rational.
MM might be town. Doesn't he usually stay pretty quiet... Even if he is town, getting lynched would make a good lesson for him to change his play style...

Could MM and Pika both be scum again? An ironic possibility... but quite possible.

Isn't your previous post the ironic one? Also, your vote isn't valid. Try figuring out why, you're a big boy.

It appears we are at an impasse as 4 people are voting masket, 4 are voting Thor and 4 are voting for no lynching. As we need 9 people for a verdict someone is going to have to change. you could all change to hotshot for example.

In any event, I never understood the reasoning to vote for MM. Hotshot is a maybe, I'm just use to him being a lurker. Thor, imo, is the better candidate of the three. Even if he's a vanilla, it's better to just get it out of the way now, rather than later.

If I had to change, I'd switch to Hotshot, mostly because of the scummarining. Even after he posted to explain why he wasn't active, I haven't seen him much. 4 posts from him on the 19th, and all a few lines at most (relevant to the topic: 6, 2 (not including both parts where he talks about his absence/future one), 2

Posting only flavor without scum hunting is considered scummy because scum can do it to post and seem to be active, but not actually contribute anything meaningful, or take positions on any players. So it's pretending to be active while actually scumarining.

(which I find ironic), and 3. Also, as I explained previously (see the quote on the last HotShot post), I feel it is fishy the way he is considering switching to MM if he can't lynch me. His explanation makes sense, but he could still be a scum (and MM being town) trying to get more arguments for lynching me later on.

Official vote count asap please.

I'm pretty sure the only change is MM voted for Thor. Unless I get fp'ed

Why is HotShot voting fro ZaBeast, I forget... Does it even matter?

He didn't like the way I asked KJ if he was a double dwarf

I think usually scum knows who each other are on Day 1, but that might not always be true...

What would the point in D1 be if scum don't know who each other are? Lynching someone that may be on your team or not makes no sense. There wouldn't be a way to get scum tells from anything.

Besides, if I do stay around I might serve as a useful town catalyst/ detective.

You've been more of a scum tell beacon than a scum tell detective.

[ZaBeast]

I don't think thor is scum, but since there is still a non-zero chance of him being scum, I'd like to see a claim before the end of the day. Though as I said, I don't see how fake claims would make claims relevant. The only way to contradict a fake claim would be to investigate someone, wouldn't it?
And also, as I think of it, I find Thor's voting pattern weird. FOSing me, dakky and Pika, but voting* (invalid vote) MM for his post? doesn't make much sense. Then again, with thor, not much does. He probably is trying to direct the pressure away from him by voting for the other viable lynch target, which sure looks kinda scummy, but I'm not surprised as it comes from thor.

Posting only flavor without scum hunting is considered scummy because scum can do it to post and seem to be active, but not actually contribute anything meaningful, or take positions on any players. So it's pretending to be active while actually scumarining.

(which I find ironic)

(Because that's all there is to this post)

In any event, I never understood the reasoning to vote for MM. Hotshot is a maybe, I'm just use to him being a lurker. Thor, imo, is the better candidate of the three. Even if he's a vanilla, it's better to just get it out of the way now, rather than later.

Lead by the exemple, then?

[ZaBeast]

If fake claims are present, can someone briefly explain me how thor (or anyone, for that matter) claiming role X would make him more of a confirmed townie?

Or ar fake claims roles left non-assigned on purpose, but the list of which isn't given out to scum? I assumed fake claims were a list of roles scum could claim without fearing being contradicted, but maybe they have to guess them. And then the usefulness of claiming makes more sense.

[Skoffin]

Thor is good at making a very long post that actually says nothing. Mate do you watch Yes Prime Minister?

@ZaBeast - If someone claimed someone more credible it might help them (eg doctor) but overrall I don't think claims mean much unless there is something special to it.

Is Ragoo ever going to address my reasoning for not voting Masket?

Mayhaps his Ragooness is in need of a reminder. Care to help?

Masket is playing in the same style D1 as other games where he has been town, therefore his posts so far are not an indication of scumminess.

[Thorthoth]

Skoffin, my posts do not say nothing. I'm doing better than most at shuffling through a deck of uncertainties.

MM's attitude is unhelpful to town. If he is a townie, which I'm doubting, he's the kind that will not contribute. He has made me feel sufficiently comfortable about a Day 1 lynch against him.
Of course we are still a long way from a lynch anyway....

Unvote. Vote MM. There are you happy?

[Skoffin]

Your long rambling post at the top was just thoughts that pretty much everyone thinks through, but just don't waste time writing them down. In the end that speech didn't really conclude much.

I'll ask you the same thing I ask Ragian; if Masket is playing D1 here the same way that he has played D1 in other games as town, on what basis do you determine his actions are scummy? Masket may not contribute much now but he always ends up contributing plenty in later days. On the other hand Hotshot has not contributed D1 and he is notorious for not contributing in general. So why Masket over Hotshot? I'm starting to get the sense that people are avoiding the hotshot possibility entirely and I'm starting to wonder why.

[Thorthoth]

I'll ask you the same thing I ask Ragian; if Masket is playing D1 here the same way that he has played D1 in other games as town, on what basis do you determine his actions are scummy? Masket may not contribute much now but he always ends up contributing plenty in later days. On the other hand Hotshot has not contributed D1 and he is notorious for not contributing in general. So why Masket over Hotshot? I'm starting to get the sense that people are avoiding the hotshot possibility entirely and I'm starting to wonder why.

There are a lot of (suspiciously?) quiet player,not just MM & Hotshot.
There are also a lot of votes that may seem rather arbitrary to others, yours and mine among them.

A lot of players want to to put some pressure on players that they think might be scummy.
That might be why Mudpuppy is voting for me. He's wrong, but he seems sincere. Mitch less so, Pika and MM much less so. The way Masket just jumped on my bandwagon for no good reason seemed like a scum shot.

(sigh) t probably doesn't matter we're just going to be in a boring and lynchless rut until Sunday...

[Kamikaze Jawa]

So at this point, it seems there are three possible bandwagons? No-lynch, Thorth and Masket. I don't see it likely that enough people will change votes to anything other than one of these three.

[HotShot53]

Your long rambling post at the top was just thoughts that pretty much everyone thinks through, but just don't waste time writing them down. In the end that speech didn't really conclude much.

I'll ask you the same thing I ask Ragian; if Masket is playing D1 here the same way that he has played D1 in other games as town, on what basis do you determine his actions are scummy? Masket may not contribute much now but he always ends up contributing plenty in later days. On the other hand Hotshot has not contributed D1 and he is notorious for not contributing in general. So why Masket over Hotshot? I'm starting to get the sense that people are avoiding the hotshot possibility entirely and I'm starting to wonder why.

Probably because more people are voting for MM now, so if we want a lynch or even a claim before sunday there is more chance of that happening with MM than with me.

And I could use the same argument for myself that you are using for MM... how is this different from my normal play? Of course me being scum for like 4 or 5 games in a row recently doesn't help my defense since whatever I do it'll match how I acted in one of those games lol.

MM's latest post doesn't contribute or convince me he is town any more than his prior posts... just because he's had success the last few games staying alive by just posting flavor doesn't mean he wouldn't do that as scum also.

As for Thorthoth, he's giving off a very energetic newbie town vibe to me, he seems to be trying to play this game instead of just asking a million questions like he did last game when he was scum.

So since no-one has joined my case on ZaBeast, making my vote on him at this point in the day worthless, and I think MM has more scum vibes than Thorthoth does, I will unvote, Vote Minister Masket

[Pikanchion]

A lot of players want to to put some pressure on players that they think might be scummy.
That might be why Mudpuppy is voting for me. He's wrong, but he seems sincere. Mitch less so, Pika and MM much less so.

In what way do I seem insincere exactly?

So at this point, it seems there are three possible bandwagons? No-lynch, Thorth and Masket. I don't see it likely that enough people will change votes to anything other than one of these three.

Perhaps, although personally I wouldn't be opposed to a Hotshot53 lynch from what I've seen today, but with Thorthoth dragging their heels more and more of late I see no reason to even consider a change to my vote without them claiming at this point.

---

My initial thoughts with regards to the fake claim thing was that it's plausible only some of the scum roles were given fake claims; The Company of Thorin Oakenshield is only 14 (15 including Gandalf) after all, and we are 16. Consider the possibility of multiple Dwarves as a single role and the pool of believable fake claims is reduced further still. This is why I originally thought that Thorthoth (if town) eliminating one of the Dwarves from consideration for scum to guess at may be bad for town. However with later consideration (largely while I was writing this post, but also because I am now reasonably confident that there are no multi-dwarf roles) the likelihood of Bard as a town-sided character to counter Smaug (from a lore perspective, if not also mechanically should Smaug be a third party) means that in my mind it's probable that the role list is as follows (with three or four of these roles merely being the fake claims of scum roles):

• Gandalf
- Primary Good character throughout both [i]The Hobbit[/i] and [i]The LOTR[/i] trilogy - Definitely Town
• Bilbo
- Main character of [i]The Hobbit[/i] - Definitely Town
• Bard
- Can't be on the same team as Smaug for obvious reasons - Definitely Town
• Thorin
- May become just a [i][size=85]teeny tiny bit selfish[/size][/i] during the latter part of [i]The Hobbit[/i], but otherwise is the leader of the Company and reason for its existence - Definitely Town
• Fíli
- Close blood relative of Thorin - Important to the story - Almost definitely Town
• Kíli
- Close blood relative of Thorin - Important to the story - Almost definitely Town
• Balin
- Blood relative of Thorin - Important to the story - Of the royal line of Durin - Very likely Town
• Dwalin
- Blood relative of Thorin - Of the royal line of Durin - Very likely Town
• Óin
- Blood relative of Thorin - Direct descendant of Durin - Very likely Town
• Glóin
- Blood relative of Thorin - Direct descendant of Durin - Father of Gimli - Very likely Town
• Dori
- Remote relative of Thorin - Largely unimportant - Probably Town
• Nori
- Remote relative of Thorin - Largely unimportant - Probably Town
• Ori
- Remote relative of Thorin - Largely unimportant - Probably Town
• Bifur
- Unrelated to Thorin - Largely unimportant - Possibly Town
• Bofur
- Unrelated to Thorin - Largely unimportant - Possibly Town
• Bombur
- Unrelated to Thorin - Largely unimportant - Mostly just a liability in the book and comic relief in the films - Possibly Town

There is more I could say about this list, it is in fact taken almost unchanged from the post I had been planning to make, but all I will say today is that I have fairly strong reasons to believe that some of those towards the bottom of the list are indeed scum.

[dakky21]

Let's push MM to the claim point:

unvote, vote MM

Note that I will unvote him when he gets to L-1. I still believe BuJaber made a slip in the early hours of D1.

[lord voldemort]

Vote Count 1.5


Minister Masket (6): ZaBeast, Ragian, BuJaber, Thorthoth, Hotshot53, dakky21
Thorthoth (4): Pikanchion, madmitch, MudPuppy, Minister Masket
No Lynch (3): Samlen, Icepack, DirtyDishSoap
Hotshot53(1): Skoffin
Not Voting (2):FloresDelMal, Kamikaze Jawa

With 16 alive it takes 9 to lynch.

I have set a deadline for Sunday Night (US TIme). Click here for time in your location.

[Thorthoth]

Okay we need to take a serious look at dakky's scuminess.

He just said he would vote MM to make him claim... but then at the same time, announces that he'll unvote him if the lynch actually gets close. Way to put on the pressure, ...NOT!

...and then he continues to malign BuJaber, because.... wait for it....

Vote riskllama for making jokes at this very serious hour.

I don't know if this was intentional or a joke, but as I always say voting people who are not in the game is the same as not voting or voting for the sake of voting.

Vote BuJaber

Wow, just wow. I don't know if Bujaber is town or not, but we are way past the joke phase and dakky is pulling stuff like this??

[HotShot53]

Okay we need to take a serious look at dakky's scuminess.

He just said he would vote MM to make him claim... but then at the same time, announces that he'll unvote him if the lynch actually gets close. Way to put on the pressure, ...NOT!

...and then he continues to malign BuJaber, because.... wait for it....

Vote riskllama for making jokes at this very serious hour.

I don't know if this was intentional or a joke, but as I always say voting people who are not in the game is the same as not voting or voting for the sake of voting.

Vote BuJaber

Wow, just wow. I don't know if Bujaber is town or not, but we are way past the joke phase and dakky is pulling stuff like this??

That is dakky's day 1 procedure... he always votes for people who make joke votes for people not in the game, he considers it a very big scum tell. He's been right a few times, too... so it will be hard to convince him otherwise at this point.

[Ragian]

@Skoffin, I'm not comfortable in my knowledge of MM to say whether or not this is his usual D1 town play. However, I've had good fortune with looking at who says things without content D1 before, so I'm sticking to that. How was his behaviour D1 in Lion King mafia? I was shot early, so I was sulking rather than reading.

[DirtyDishSoap]

In any event, I never understood the reasoning to vote for MM. Hotshot is a maybe, I'm just use to him being a lurker. Thor, imo, is the better candidate of the three. Even if he's a vanilla, it's better to just get it out of the way now, rather than later.

Lead by the exemple, then?

Already am. Not sure why you feel the need to double quote this on the same page.

Spoiler

Okay we need to take a serious look at dakky's scuminess.

He just said he would vote MM to make him claim... but then at the same time, announces that he'll unvote him if the lynch actually gets close. Way to put on the pressure, ...NOT!

...and then he continues to malign BuJaber, because.... wait for it....

Vote riskllama for making jokes at this very serious hour.

I don't know if this was intentional or a joke, but as I always say voting people who are not in the game is the same as not voting or voting for the sake of voting.

Vote BuJaber

Wow, just wow. I don't know if Bujaber is town or not, but we are way past the joke phase and dakky is pulling stuff like this??

As Hotshot pointed out, it's been established that Dakky has his method of madness. Feels like a poor attempt on your end to just discredit Dakky and deflect whatever remaining votes you have on yourself onto (dakky)/MM.

Your long rambling post at the top was just thoughts that pretty much everyone thinks through, but just don't waste time writing them down. In the end that speech didn't really conclude much.

I'll ask you the same thing I ask Ragian; if Masket is playing D1 here the same way that he has played D1 in other games as town, on what basis do you determine his actions are scummy? Masket may not contribute much now but he always ends up contributing plenty in later days. On the other hand Hotshot has not contributed D1 and he is notorious for not contributing in general. So why Masket over Hotshot? I'm starting to get the sense that people are avoiding the hotshot possibility entirely and I'm starting to wonder why.

The problem with Masket vs Hotshot is that Masket, imo, has proven to be the far deadlier player no matter which alignment. If he's scum, that's ALOT of breathing room on our end, if not, doc will just have to protect him in the mean time. Hotshot on the other hand, well, you pretty much just eliminated the reasoning as to why I wouldn't want to pursue him. The same thing has applied to the likes of DJfireside.
(I'm going to assume one of the elves is present in this, the one that I think it was Kili that wanted to pork her).

[BuJaber]

Good job everyone..Exposed: Flores and Mud are scum.

[Pikanchion]

(I'm going to assume one of the elves is present in this, the one that I think it was Kili that wanted to pork her).

Legolas and Tauriel (the female Silvan Elf) only feature in the film version, Legolas so they could cynically push the films onto those who have a passing interest in LOTR and Legolas fanboys, Tauriel (and Bard's kids for that matter) so they could make the film more "Hollywood" by dilluting the story with unnecessary love interests and "drama"*. That, along with the addition of Azog and greater presence of Radagast so the first film actually had anything at all happen during it, is how they turned a short book into three films, and why, especially by the third film, there were large parts that felt dragged out and dull.

If Tauriel is featured we would surely have to assume Legolas too, but then which two of the Dwarves aren't featuring? -The numbers just fit too well with my proposed line up for this to seem likely, and that's before you get to the fact that neither Elf is really on the side of the Company at any point.

*I can't have been the only one routing for the Orcs to kill Bard's kids throughout the entirity of the second and third films, can I? During the second film Orcs break into a Bard's house (with the element of surprise, at night, and having clearly either snuck past or killed anybody on watch [or simply out and about in town] completely unnoticed) on an assassination mission against three fairly young kids, two Dwarves armed only with bowls, and a third who's lying half-dead, and yet they fail to even injure any of them? Bard's youngest daughter (who can't even be 10 years old) genuinely fends off one of the Orcs in single combat with a bowl in that scene, it's fucking stupid... But anyway...