Rise of The Snake Cult [Concluded]

48 hours or so from day break.

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Votes on Beskar:

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Originally Posted by landlubber

Hello everyone.

Gut instinct is giving me a scum lean on vote:Beskar. It seems like he's deliberately playing up the "in-the-dark townie" thing. Everyone else is striking me as reasonably townie so far. I like Raith's reaction to Al Sips's prodding. Very much what I would expect from a townie.

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Landlubber pops into thread and says Beskar is his only scum read.

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Originally Posted by Csargo

Also, Vote:Beskar

Hi!

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Then Csargo makes a well-thought out vote post...

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Well, since I have no desire to be the D1 lynch:

Unvote: khaan
Vote: Beskar

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And Hankerchief self preservations.

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Originally Posted by landlubber

I actually had the same thought. Scarlet's question could be genuine, but it's also so broad to be essentially useless (I know of essentially no players who have any one go-to strategy).

About the reading El Barto stuff: conventional wisdom says that El Barto plays as scum when town and as town when scum. His play right now (distracting, noticeable, sarcastic) reminds me a lot of how he approached the Red Dwarf on CFC, and he was town there. Meta isn't something I'd lean too heavily on with Barto. He breaks a lot of norms, and his strategy isn't at all consistent across multiple games.

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This post stands out to me, I dunno.
@landlubber Why do you think Csargo was the NK?

Here are Al's posts.

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Originally Posted by Al Sipsclar

Vote: Raith Kemmler for apparently knowing something we don't know.

I lean town on Winston so far.

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Originally Posted by Al Sipsclar

Well, you know, the mafia being the informed minority... and you appearing informed... and in minority, too.

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Originally Posted by Al Sipsclar

But what about people who know that the people, saying that the speculation poster knows too much, know too much? That's, like, even more perfect, triple-distilled information. Vote: edse

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Originally Posted by Al Sipsclar

I'd love for the scum to be reckless or bold, unabashedly or not. Alas, they usually try to keep low profile, lurk in the shadows. That's understandable, since the more active they are, the more mistakes they are bound to make. That's why I like to stir the pot a little. Even if they don't react and stay low - that's still a result, we can note who's been lurking. So either way, you're better be active.

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Originally Posted by Al Sipsclar

Vote: Cass_. You're posting, but not voting. Why?

My leans are just my reads. More the intuition than the hard science. And this is just D1, there's nothing much to go on yet.
Also, El Barto is always unreadable.

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Originally Posted by Al Sipsclar

Does Csargo always stop posting and goes MIA when he's randed mafia?

Anyone told Cuthillius the game has started?

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To me, it seems like he's moving his vote around a little too much compared to the number of posts he's making and what he's saying. First he makes a sort of jokey vote, than he OMGUS's, then votes Cass because she hasn't voted enough. I just don't really see much mental transition between these and it kinda feels like he doesn't care much if any of them die.

Vote:Al Sipsclar

This whole post gives me heebie jeebies.

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Originally Posted by Al Sipsclar

It's day one. No one should look scummy yet. 5 bucks says that a hapless townie is going to be lynched today, and mafia don't even have to participate in the lynch. They would pull all the tricks to avoid the responsibility. They may happily vote off the wagon or for each other. But sometimes they have to move their vote to avoid being lynched on D1. So, voting early and seeing who voted who and when is important. It is your duty as a townie.

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*Hands over 5 bucks* :/

What do you make of who voted who and when?

*Mindmelds*

I agree 100% (and some extra) with Cuth's 182 and 183.

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Originally Posted by Cass_

This whole post gives me heebie jeebies.



*Hands over 5 bucks* :/

What do you make of who voted who and when?

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Oh you're right, I missed that post.

I mean, he did end up getting lynched because of self-preservation. That's not super pingy.

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Originally Posted by Winston Hughes

vote: edse

Initial vote on El Borto looks like an opportunity grabbed.
Switch to Al Sips isn't bad in itself, but the reasoning seems forced.
Overall, activity is low and content a bit contrived.

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I read the El Borto vote as a joke post:

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Originally Posted by edse

Time to blindly follow the ghost of Pizza Vote: El Brato

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I'll grant that it could be opportunistic, however gut says it's less likely to be scummy since once the game really got going he moved it off onto Al Sips.

I agree with the vote and his reasoning seems sound enough to me, even if it was worded really roundabout (I read that as deliberate).

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Originally Posted by edse

People like to say PIS (perfect information syndrome) after speculation posts. The weird thing is that for them to know that the speculation poster knows too much, they know too much, otherwise they wouldn't know that the speculation poster "know" too much.

Unvote: Vote: Al Sipsclar

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The other two posts from edse were explaining the vote on El Barto and answering Scarlett's questionnaire.

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Originally Posted by edse

You sure know how to insult people El Baritone. I was merely playing with your name since Scarlett misspelled it in the post before (and did again :P )

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Originally Posted by edse

1. I would ruthlessly spread hints around me untill I hang.

2. Not like this, that's for sure.

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I can't read the tone of these enough to tell if they're significant or null. I generally have problems with these types of questionnaires because they're so easy to sidestep as scum and often get used to paint townfolk as scummy.

@Winston
I get what you're saying about activity being low and at a push can understand contrived BUT my overall take on it is that there are other players who have posted much less than edse, and others still who have made votes on more towny looking candidates with weaker reasons. Right now I'd put Edse as effectively null, maybe Town and I probably wouldn't vote here just yet.

Could you elaborate on your thoughts more for me please? As they are, the points are very broad and there's very little to go on to help decide if your motivation is more likely Town or Scum.

1. What makes the vote on El Barto more opportunistic than jokey?
2. Why do you say the vote on Al Sips 'isn't bad' / How are you reading Al Sips?
3. How are you currently reading Edse and why did you pick him out to ISO?

vote: Edse. Lets create some pressure here

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Originally Posted by Cuthillius

Oh you're right, I missed that post.

I mean, he did end up getting lynched because of self-preservation. That's not super pingy.

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I agree self-preservation's not super pingy in itself. But it ended with a dead Towny and there were several other players GH could have moved his vote to, so at this point I'm not necessarily buying that the only motive was 'self-preservation'. I'd like to hear more from both Landlubber and GH today to see where they're coming from and help decide if the lynch was directly influenced by scum or not.

What are your current leans on each of them?

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Originally Posted by Cass_

I agree self-preservation's not super pingy in itself. But it ended with a dead Towny and there were several other players GH could have moved his vote to, so at this point I'm not necessarily buying that the only motive was 'self-preservation'. I'd like to hear more from both Landlubber and GH today to see where they're coming from and help decide if the lynch was directly influenced by scum or not.

What are your current leans on each of them?

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But it didn't seem like a super panicked vote. It was earlier on in the day, before he had as many votes. Of course it's not necessarily the only motive, but it seems fairly reasonable given the situation.

Landlubber pings me a bit scummy, not sure about GH. Lemme take a look.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Okay, good. Now, to business.

Vote: khaan

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He pops into thread and votes khaan, with whom I'm guessing there is some meta, and this should not be considered serious. @GeneralHandkerchief is that correct?

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Originally Posted by Beskar

Yes, indeed.

Vote: GeneralHankerchief :smash:

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And then Beskar basically makes just as pointless of a vote at him. Not sure why he left his vote here all day.

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Originally Posted by seireikhaan

Rude!

Vote: GH

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khaan jokeOMGUSes.

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Originally Posted by Raith Kemmler

Unvote;

Something like a third of the players have basically slinked through day 1.

I'd be okay with hanging a few of them. But idle wishing and with sun down approaching...

Vote: GH for being a dirty cheerleader to put someone into real contention.

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And then the third vote is strange. "Putting him into contention"? But why, exactly? Is this really a good tactic? Let's put random people into contention rather than at least trying to hunt scum. @Raith Kemmler

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Originally Posted by El Barto

Whose 4 am?

:stare: I wanted to see if we could get Cass the non-voter to swing, but now you've dared me. Don't you dare dare me. unvote; vote:General Hankerchief

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El Barto then votes GH, for little reason again. Possibly deflecting pressure from himself. self-preservationating

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Originally Posted by seireikhaan

Unvote: GH

Vote: El Barto

Don't you touch my honeybun.

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And then khaan retracts the OMGUS and votes El barto.

this is interesting though. I'm worried about Raith's vote there.

Here are his other posts.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

1. Exactly the same way as Scenario #2.

2. Exactly the same way as Scenario #1.

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On how he'd approach closed game as scum/town. This is completely null.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

20-way tie! C'mon, we can do it! :cheerleader:

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This is silly, also null.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Well, since I have no desire to be the D1 lynch:

Unvote: khaan
Vote: Beskar

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And here, a fair ways before deadline, he switches for self-pres, and then...

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Originally Posted by El Barto

I'm very much tempted to vote you for that.

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

So why aren't you?

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Which isn't also very alignmented.

Right now he's a null lean that needs a bit of paying attention to.

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Originally Posted by Cuthillius

Here are Al's posts.

To me, it seems like he's moving his vote around a little too much compared to the number of posts he's making and what he's saying. First he makes a sort of jokey vote, than he OMGUS's, then votes Cass because she hasn't voted enough. I just don't really see much mental transition between these and it kinda feels like he doesn't care much if any of them die.

Vote:Al Sipsclar

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I agree with the summation. Al isn't inspiring much yet. But I'm hesitating to wagon here...

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Originally Posted by Cass_

I can't read the tone of these enough to tell if they're significant or null. I generally have problems with these types of questionnaires because they're so easy to sidestep as scum and often get used to paint townfolk as scummy.

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Yeah. Hopefully the questions helped Scarlett, but I'm just gonna ignore them for now. Too wooly.

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...and others still who have made votes on more towny looking candidates with weaker reasons.

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Such as? Whose breathing air in the thread from your view?

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Originally Posted by Cuthillius

And then the third vote is strange. "Putting him into contention"? But why, exactly? Is this really a good tactic? Let's put random people into contention rather than at least trying to hunt scum. @Raith Kemmler

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I like some of the posting here, but this looks rather scummy personally. 'At least trying to hunt scum' is low hanging sophistry. Let's turn this around. Cuthillious, how do you bag mafia day 1? Is there some formula to it? My two best shots for that didn't look good, so I tried to build a wagon. That's not the greatest thing for getting someone, but it's a nice bit for analysis later once we've got some perspective. If the mafia has to then react-I'm sure we all know this, it's a common tactic.

There were 5 hours left, where was this all alleged hunting going to go? There wasn't a lot of activity to make me confident a new wagon would happen, and I didn't have good case for it anyway. We had a wide open field with a bunch of people with 2 votes. Apparently someone decided we should shoot the adorable dog. I had Beskar as a very weak town, so he wasn't getting my vote. Bart's floating, so I'm willing to watch and wait on that score. I'm not going to vote for myself, so that left you and GH as non content posters to latch onto, so I rolled the dice. Maybe I rolled wrong, I'm not sure. Depends on your response here. But it definitely wasn't arbitrary.

I can get not liking my push, though I'd argue someone has to do it. I can get not liking a post I made. I can get just thinking I feel scummy. But don't post that I somehow abdicated finding the mafia for the RNG when the town is 0/1 currently in a thread I've been moderately active in.

I'm gonna OMGUS, till I've looked around for a better lead or I'm convinced this is a bad vote.

Vote:Cuthilious

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Originally Posted by Raith Kemmler

I like some of the posting here, but this looks rather scummy personally. 'At least trying to hunt scum' is low hanging sophistry. Let's turn this around. Cuthillious, how do you bag mafia day 1? Is there some formula to it? My two best shots for that didn't look good, so I tried to build a wagon. That's not the greatest thing for getting someone, but it's a nice bit for analysis later once we've got some perspective. If the mafia has to then react-I'm sure we all know this, it's a common tactic.

There were 5 hours left, where was this all alleged hunting going to go? There wasn't a lot of activity to make me confident a new wagon would happen, and I didn't have good case for it anyway. We had a wide open field with a bunch of people with 2 votes. Apparently someone decided we should shoot the adorable dog. I had Beskar as a very weak town, so he wasn't getting my vote. Bart's floating, so I'm willing to watch and wait on that score. I'm not going to vote for myself, so that left you and GH as non content posters to latch onto, so I rolled the dice. Maybe I rolled wrong, I'm not sure. Depends on your response here. But it definitely wasn't arbitrary.

I can get not liking my push, though I'd argue someone has to do it. I can get not liking a post I made. I can get just thinking I feel scummy. But don't post that I somehow abdicated finding the mafia for the RNG when the town is 0/1 currently in a thread I've been moderately active in.

I'm gonna OMGUS, till I've looked around for a better lead or I'm convinced this is a bad vote.

Vote:Cuthillius

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You could have looked at posts, or said "oh this person is posting scummy i'm going to vote for them". But instead you just voted one of the top wagons to "put it into contention".

But really? There were five hours left. That's quite a bit of time, and more than enough for votes to accumulate. You could have gone through the thread, isolated the person with the scummiest posts to you, typed out a reasonable argument for them, voted them, and at least made your opinion known. Would have been more useful.

Aaand that's not an OMGUS.

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Originally Posted by Cuthillius

This post stands out to me, I dunno.
@landlubber Why do you think Csargo was the NK?

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What stands out to you about that post?

Your guess is as good as mine about the Csargo kill. I just scanned over his posts, and he wasn't doing anything that would really catch my attention if he was scum. Maybe he was killed to focus attention on GH and me. It's also very possible that the scum decided to kill a gameroom veteran to give all the new players more time here.

I don't regret keeping my vote on Beskar. If I wanted to misdirect the town as mafia, I would behave pretty much how Beskar was behaving-- being dodgy without seeming dodgy. I still think that Beskar was a better lynch than most players would have been. My vote had nothing to do with saving GH.

Khaan and GH would save each other every time, they've got a strong OOC relationship. That's null. I'm not generally a fan of self-preservation, but it doesn't mean GH is scum. I'll take some time to think before I place a vote, but I don't think it's GH.

Pretty much all of the D1 voting on this forum is meta, unless something really out of the ordinary pops up. This injection of new blood has meant for a much faster paced D1 than I - and probably others - are used to, as evidenced by them mostly being the ones to lead discussion. Out of those that voted for me on D1, I didn't and don't consider any of their rationales for doing so suspicious.

As for khaan, I'm probably putting words in his mouth, but he's likely to save me on D1 when there's nothing to go off of, but he'd be more than willing to cut my throat midgame if he thinks I'm scum. Or if he flat-out doesn't have a read on me. Or if there's no good lynch candidate and he simply wants to troll. But by that time he's usually picked up a grudge against at least one other player in the game and will have tunnel vision on them, so who knows.

Caught up and going to respond to quotes.

Also, @Cuthillius, I don't have an issue with Raith putting an additional vote on me to "put someone into contention", it was a good way to amp the pressure up and break the stalemate we'd had. No scum wants to be in the lead for voting on D1 and there would have been a decent enough chance of somebody slipping if we got lucky.

Killed Day 1 two games in a row. Why do you all hate me so? Good luck town! :2thumbsup:

Actually, here are my impressions of "baseline" behavior for the people that have played on the .Org before, for the benefit of our new players:

In order of inclusion in the game.

Jarema: Been a while, actually don't remember much. Know him more for hosting than playing. Great start with my baseline impressions, eh?

GeneralHankerchief: Should never ever ever be lynched under any circumstances.

Golden1Knight: Fairly new to all mafia IIRC. Established baseline from Pirate Ship III and The Inquisition is a low level of activity in thread, often without explanations for votes, but always willing to chip in for a night action. Has been town both games.

seireikhaan: Discussed above. Sometimes he puts on a persona schtick, sometimes not. Depends on his mood, really. Looks like he's playing this one straight-up. As mentioned, can sometimes get too focused on small-term objectives.

Zain: First game back in years. Forgive my memory.

landlubber: Putting The Inquisition to the side where he was inactive for RL reasons, usually has a helpful townie personality. Nothing about his behavior has twigged me so far.

edse: Was actually scum in The Inquisition (the most recent game before this one). Has had a tally ready to go in the past, moderate-to-low levels of activity in the thread.

Csargo: Dead.

Beskar: Dead.

El Barto: Likes to do his own thing. Took on a personality in Pirate Ship III focused on acquisition of gold above all else. Was town in Inquisition but refused to cooperate with any organizational efforts. He's been fine in my book. Through one day anyway.

Winston Hughes: Decent levels of activity but his posts are usually short and to the point. Will elaborate if pressed though.

Nightbringer: Got whacked with RL issues in The Inquisition so wasn't that active. Baseline in that game was a bit like Winston, though he's more prone to dropping in, casting his vote, and being done with the round.

autolycus: Usually blends in pretty well. Made it to the end of Pirate Ship III as mafia, only dying because he triggered a serial killer. Am actually interested to see how he responds if pressed.

johnhughthom: All but impossible to read. I'd call him the King of Apathy, but he doesn't care enough to battle for the crown. Terrifying for both sides if he makes it to the endgame.

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Originally Posted by Cuthillius

Here are Al's posts.













To me, it seems like he's moving his vote around a little too much compared to the number of posts he's making and what he's saying. First he makes a sort of jokey vote, than he OMGUS's, then votes Cass because she hasn't voted enough. I just don't really see much mental transition between these and it kinda feels like he doesn't care much if any of them die.

Vote:Al Sipsclar

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The thing that makes me think he is scum is his under the radar type play D1. It has a different tone then the others. The Csargo kill could possibly be someone who thinks he has good reads on this roster? Not sure because this is my first game.

Vote: Al Sips

@Cuthillius you are Cuthalion right?

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Originally Posted by landlubber

What stands out to you about that post?

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I'm not completely sure. It seems... different. Thanks for the input, though.

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Originally Posted by Scarlett Aria

The thing that makes me think he is scum is his under the radar type play D1. It has a different tone then the others. The Csargo kill could possibly be someone who thinks he has good reads on this roster? Not sure because this is my first game.

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I always find Sips hard to read. He seems to be a favorite mislynch target, but I haven't played enough with him to be certain of my reads.

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Originally Posted by Scarlett Aria

@Cuthillius you are Cuthalion right?

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Yep. Who are you?

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

Also, @Cuthillius, I don't have an issue with Raith putting an additional vote on me to "put someone into contention", it was a good way to amp the pressure up and break the stalemate we'd had. No scum wants to be in the lead for voting on D1 and there would have been a decent enough chance of somebody slipping if we got lucky.

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I suppose. I'd just prefer something more based on actual posting.

First game back in years, a mystery man of sorts :verycool:

That being said, inactivity is both scummy and intriguing, therefore for the time being...

Vote: Nightbringer

Vote: Al Sipsclar

Raith seems a bit suspicious too.

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Originally Posted by Cuthillius

I always find Sips hard to read. He seems to be a favorite mislynch target, but I haven't played enough with him to be certain of my reads.

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Noted

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Yep. Who are you?

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Surprised you haven't guessed yet. ;)

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Originally Posted by Golden1Knight

Vote: Al Sipsclar

Raith seems a bit suspicious too.

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Why are you voting Sips?

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Originally Posted by GeneralHankerchief

As for khaan, I'm probably putting words in his mouth, but he's likely to save me on D1 when there's nothing to go off of, but he'd be more than willing to cut my throat midgame if he thinks I'm scum. Or if he flat-out doesn't have a read on me. Or if there's no good lynch candidate and he simply wants to troll. But by that time he's usually picked up a grudge against at least one other player in the game and will have tunnel vision on them, so who knows.

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You can put those words wherever you want, love. :smitten: