Alright. I made a list of the players still alive so I could decide who to read over, and I realised something. Despite people murmuring throughout the game that Atrahal might be scum (mostly because of the Day 1 stuff with me and Atrahal posting cases about Kessobahn at the same time), no-one has so much attempted to give him any direct pressure or serious attention. This seems odd to me - I went back to have a look and found that the following players had all at one time or another implied that Atrahal might be suspect:
- Hood's Path - made the initial case.
- Tennes - suggested Atrahal might be a symp at one time
Rashan - also suggests Atrahal might be symping.- Anomandaris - says Atrahal likely killer with me as symp.
Osseric -- symp suggestion.- Omtose - suspicious of a late vote by Atrahal.
Anyway, let's have a look at some posts:
Here is Atrahal's Day 1 case on Kessobahn:
Atrahal, on 29 November 2011 - 12:20 AM, said:
I personally don't like all of the vote jumping this first day. I'm good with the initial joke votes (despite creating a haven for signaling), but just voting when someone tickles the other's fancy: counter-productive. Right now, Kesso is catching my attention with posts like this:
Quote
precisely. when skimming the thread to try to locate a relevant point, we rely on the avatars to easily identify the poster. it is an incredibly useful shortcut that allows us to focus on analyzing a point, and constructing elaborate case around it. it's much harder to do so, when the you go though a 20-post conversation, between players with the identicad "dark, with a spot of colour in the laft portion" avatars. Made me spend my limited attention onfiguring out who made what point, making us read the poster's name, as well as looking at the avatar... well, oyu get the picture.
He tends to start with the promise of insight but ends up getting sidetracked by distractions such the similar avatars of Rashan and Mockra, or Spite's penchant to vote like a bored inno with nothing to lose. He's very involved, but not altogether that helpful. Even the couple of summaries help more than him....
I would like to point out that Emur called him out, asking him what HE thought, to which Kesso hemmed and hawed (such as with the quote above). Who are you planning to vote for Kesso. I see you haven't put one down yet (not that it seems to mean much in this game
)
Vote Kessobahn
I'm not sure that the first point is all that damning. Second point has a bit of weight behind it. But in any case, it's Day 1 and as such there's not going to be much evidence in a case like this. At the time, if Atrahal hadn't said anything then Thyrllan would have been the most likely lynch for her refusal to respond to people's queries about her first post. So scum might have been satisfied to let things lie here. On the other hand, if they can engineer two possibilities on Day 1, it can often be spun out to two lynches as we have a tendency to lynch both sides to be sure. I'm going to make the rest of my case by looking to see whether his behaviour is consistent with the hypothesis that he is scum acting like this.
From later on Day 1:
Atrahal, on 29 November 2011 - 10:49 AM, said:
Ok, awake and caught up. So everyone has checked in I see, and we still lack content from Omtose and Meanas, both of whom have 1 post early after the game started. If we don't hear from them before the lynch today, I think some extra prodding will be required.
I looked over Thyr again, and I think that is a worthy train as well. I agreed he doesn't say much and seems to spend most of his time perpetuating or exhibiting confusion, a great way to look like a blundering inno. Also, the fact that not only did he not remove his vote from Kesso, but that he didn't even respond to Kesso's retort is suspicious. Frankly, I still find them both (Kesso and Thyr) suspicious, so I'll hold on Kesso for now.
This mirrors my opinion at the time almost exactly. Perhaps that's why I hadn't had my suspicions raised about him up until now
.
OK, here's the first post of his that I don't like:
Atrahal, on 30 November 2011 - 10:15 AM, said:
Wow... I chose not to respond to HP due to the patent ridiculousness of his claim. However, it doesn't seem like HP can let go of his pet theory and now is getting attention for his obstinacy. So allow me to chime in...
As Rashan pointed out, a symp/killer offline communication is unheard of. I could potentially see such a scenario in a more involved, higher level game (such as a faction game), but in a town vs scum, the standard is killer communicating with killer, if off thread communications are even happening in the first place. Even granting the possibility of symp/killer communications, how stupid would I and Galain have to be to make such a blatant linkage between ourselves in such a close succession of posts. I'm insulted.
More likely, HP is either attention seeking, pushing a pet theory to justify a hard-on for Galain and/or I, or he has a more malicious intent in trying to direct attention elsewhere (which would make sense if he was continuing to cover for Thyr, seeing that Thyr made it through day 1).
As for Ano's most recent addition, why would the whole scum team pile onto a day 1 vote! I mean really, why? I know that last game scum led town around by the nose, but even in that game, generally on day 1, scum don't step out of the soup of crapy jokes and spam to take the lead and begin calling the shots. Furthermore, if iirc, Thyr's vote on Kesso was in response to being called a multi-voter like Spite. He wasn't even making a case beyond the typical jokey OMGUS.
So yeah, not seeing it HP. But I would like to know why you are so sure there are killer/killer off thread communications. Do you have the inside scoop there?
There was a little bit of blue sky thinking by Tennes and Anomandaris about the possibility of some kind of Galain/Atrahal link. But this still sticks out on reread as a disproportionate response. I do not like the immediate jump to OMGUS in his case - it feels like someone determined to stamp out the fire before it starts. That sort of behaviour is something I would usually associate with scum, who tend to be hyper-sensitive about accusations against them (or at least, more so than innos, since they have more at stake).
Early on on Day 2, Atrahal is interested in pushing votes onto Thyrllan:
Atrahal, on 30 November 2011 - 10:41 AM, said:
Thyrllan, on 29 November 2011 - 03:30 PM, said:
Bollocks, Tiam was my main gut instinct for scum... I am bad at this
Also, this is interesting. Looking at it quickly, not much, just a comment of despair at a town death. But, considering he's commenting on this death first as opposed to Kesso (I don't think Thyr actually comments on Kesso's death despite his joke vote being at the beginning of the train...), could such a comment be construed as an attempt to cover for his choice for a NK? It would be a beautifully transparent attempt to distance himself from the kill, but in the context of everything else piling up against him, makes me more suspicious.
If Atrahal's actions on Day 1 were an attempt to set up two days worth of lynches, then this would fit right in with that. The same logic can be applied to pretty much any 'reaction post' to the results of a death scene which is why this could be construed to be an attempt to manufacture evidence to suit the verdict Atrahal wanted people to give.
Here is Atrahal's Day 2 vote. At this point there are 6 votes on Thyrllan and 4 votes on Ruse:
Atrahal, on 01 December 2011 - 12:58 AM, said:
I just checked online, and the flight I was going to pick up is running early, so I'm hoping to be back just before the lynch... but if I don't you know why. I was just looking over the Ruse posts and I agree that Ruse is skating. And while Thyr needs to be examined more closely (esp. with his comment about the absence of symps in this game...WTF O_o), I think Ruse is a higher likelihood of being scum. Just incase I don't make it back in time:
Vote Ruse.
Scum don't care about the outcome of this lynch, because they know both are inno. It's in scum's interest to keep the voting tight so they can argue for a continuation on Ruse the next day. So this vote fits with that (and so does his exhortation to look at Thyrllan the following day).
I think this is where my theory falls down:
Atrahal, on 02 December 2011 - 10:23 AM, said:
Ok, I've been reading straight through the posts of people, and so far (well, I'm not done reading yet), I really don't like the looks of Meanas.
I know he seems a bit more active, but to tell the truth, most of what he does is post massive amounts of quotes and then give a one or two liner comment, usually along the lines of "Interesting catch" or "I liked these three posts. Basically point, counterpoint, and counterpoint. Just sayin." I tried looking for some original thinking, but wasn't actually able to find any. Mostly just agreement with other people's statements and side comments like "Alas D'rek"
However, currently Ruse is a lot worse in this respect, especially with all the moaning about being today's lynch target without doing anything about it (e.g. defending himself, giving us better targets, etc). I'm getting the feeling that lynching Ruse is just a waste of time for town, another night when scum has a chance to knock one of us off, but I'm not sure we have much of a choice.
I really don't like the idea of letting people float on, especially since often scum vary their play style to make sure at least one of them is sticking around like a cold sore. But we already seem to be giving Spite a free pass (who was it that said that they would use that as a scum trick in another game? maybe Spite discovered the trick early...) and unless some of the people with low content slip up, like Ruse, so far we lynch the more controversial members, who talk more...
I dunno, I'm really not sure what to do with all this. I want to trim off dead skin in fear of gangrenous parts, but I also don't want to waste time and give scum a chance to pick us off before we whittle the population down to active players.
So, I know that this has already been said, but, Ruse, step up to the fucking plate. Meanas, give us more than just quotes with one line follow-up nonsense. Spite, either have someone outside the game take your role or let PS kill you off for us.
If the previous pattern had been followed, I'd have expected Atrahal to have tried to find more evidence against Ruse. But instead he moves in a different direction (Meanas), while encouraging Ruse to participate and avoid getting lynched.
His next post also shows that he is branching out:
Atrahal, on 02 December 2011 - 10:48 AM, said:
So here's where I'm going to vote for the time being (I figure Ruse's lynch is inevitable since he seems like he's already padding his coffin for a nice eternal slumber): so far the most vocal player who has simultaneously struck me as scummy is HP. Now, this is more than just a response to his attacks on me (but that didn't help his case in my mind either), but as others have said, he seems to have a pet theory to which he's stuck to the exclusion of all else.
For the first two days, he was on neither train ending in a lynch. Day 1, he stuck with a vote on me till the bitter end of the day. Not a major problem on the first day's lynching, seeing that he held true to his stance, however Day 2 was less promising. Still stuck on his Day 1 theory, HP continued to defend his position, adjusting our scum roles from symp to killer as necessary to maintain the theory. The longest text he gave in one post on Day 2 was defending himself and his theory from day 1, quoted below:
Quote
as you can see there was a almost a hour between there cases more then enough time for them to conlude and then mess up as to why the would go after the same person well that would have to be a mess up wouldn't it no right minded scum would both go after the same target unless they messed up
tennes the fact that people thought that I was kesso's symp speaks not to my symp hood but to their own lack of ability
mockra the only reason that scum would make the same case on a person is that they messed up it has happened before there for it is possible.
galain what else could you possibly say that you were in fact scum and that atrahal was your partner and that you had thought that you were suppose to make the case while atrahal thought that he was suppose to make the case you two still look scummy and much to chummy for my tastes
still getting caught up
And now he's too busy to post much. I actually believe that he is busy (I myself am very busy), however when he has had time to post, he hasn't really addressed much beyond his own theories and protecting his ass.
So why is this scummy? Townies get hard-ons that probably require emergent surgical intervention, right? Well, that may be the case, but a great position for scum is throwing people off the scent. HP's case, how ever poorly constructed, still permeates the game and continues to find it's way into conversations on the third day. In fact, Galain and I are still linked for some reason for his case directly following mine on Day 1, something that I would really be hard pressed to believe was scummy that early in the game, and that careless if we were colluding. Plus, since when do scum actually work hard to come to agreement on a Day 1 lynch, when nobody has been around enough to build more than weak cases with WIFOM evidence?
HP has done a good job of holding onto his position and somehow appearing to contribute to town, despite rarely discussing more current lynch possibilities. I'm not sure I can make a difference today, since Ruse has garnered too much attention and probably needs to be lynched to be sure he's not scum (though if he is scum, I would be surprised....), but since I'm don't think Ruse is more that a townie having a crappy game, I need to vote where I see scum:
Vote HP
I will though be ready to continue discussing Ruse, as I have previously, but I wanted to put out another theory, at least for tomorrow's consideration if Ruse's case is too pressing today.
Edit: bolded vote
Now to me, these last two quotes sound like someone doing their best to get a sluggish thread moving. I can't really parse these in a way that indicates possible opportunism in action. He explicitly states that he doesn't think Ruse is scum. It's an about face from the previous day, and I would like to know what changed his mind from the previous day, but not something that makes me suspicious. The one thing he does say that sparks my interest - he makes the claim that scum don't often speak up on Day 1 with cases when the thread is meandering. Since this is exactly the opposite supposition from what I've based this post, I could chalk it up as a 'well he would say that, wouldn't he?'. But I know I've used that argument as an inno in the past, so I feel a bit hypocritical holding it up as a scum tell.
So, in summary, an analysis of Atrahal's decisions doesn't reveal a consistent strategy that I think would need to be in place for him to be scum given what he did on Day 1. However, there are a couple of posts of his that contain things that make me a little nervous. Couple of other random things I noticed on readthrough: he is very interested in discussing the content and implications of Shin's scenes, there are numerous mentions of him being busy with work and he likes to try to get into the psychology of the scum player when making a case (which I approve of).
There's not enough there for me to feel like putting a vote on him at this time. But don't let this post stop anyone else from doing their own readthrough - you might find something I don't suspicious, or disagree with the conclusions I've come to. If you do, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
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