Midgardsaga III [Concluded]

[GeneralHankerchief]

Well, assuming nobody else can properly articulate ATPG's muddled visions, I'm going to head off to sleep. Per the rules of general courtesy, please at least start a decent counter-bandwagon that I can join when I wake up and find 9 votes on me.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Begin Askthepizzaguy-as-Askthepizzaguy mode:


You're comparing Kagemusha in Mafia X as Emilio to Khazaar in Midgardsaga III as Khazaar.


Here's what's wrong with that:

1.) Two very different players
2.) Two different games
3.) Wildly different setups and mechanics
4.) Anonymous accounts

That's just for starters. And specifically, Khazaar is always the same sort of way. You can pick on his voting pattern or his wording or who he's supporting or not, but voting him because he hasn't posted a lot is like voting for him because his name starts with a K. It's not going to change from game to game, and as such, it's entirely flawed reasoning for a vote.

Could it be a correct vote? Sure. You could have horrible reasoning and still be right. But let's not kid ourselves that the reason you'd be right, if you were right, was based on such reasoning. You might as well say random.org told you to do it. That would at least acknowledge that you're not putting thought into the vote.

I can't be bothered to link to Reenk's refutation of some of my own less-good cases in the past, but essentially he's right about a lot of things. One of my biggest mistakes with SkyNet was trying to profile only mafia, not town as well, and not differentiating between players, just actions.

If player A self-votes, it's unusual and weird. If player B does it, it's not. Trying to base a case on Khazaar for reasoning that may or may not work for Kagemusha is a shot in the dark at best, but when its a case that basically says "Khazaar is behaving suspiciously too much like Khazaar" it's utter hogwash.

I know you're a better thinker than this, as townie and as mafia. So I find the previous exchange legitimately scummy, not just odd or unhelpful like your challenge toward me, or fakey, like your lecture about networking.

Die, die, die.

[GeneralHankerchief]

None of those points you made have anything to do with anything.

1) Since this seems to be the point you elaborated on, I'll address this in greater detail below.
2) Your Points 2 and 3 are exactly the same, but with different wording.
3) The fact that they are two dissimilar games does not change the fact that a lurker strategy can work in both.
4) I tried to think of a rebuttal to this, but upon further examination I realized that it's just another variation on Points 2 and 3.

So really you only made an argument based off two points, one of which I refuted in a sentence.

As for Point 1, yes, Khazaar and Kage are two very different players, I'll give you that. Khazaar's playstyle *is* always to lurk and stay below the radar, I recognize this. This is my reason for voting him. His behavior has not changed, so were I to use a behavioral analysis program like our dearly departed Skynet or some of Kommodus's older systems, Khazaar would show up as townie, or at the very least would be well under a standard deviation from his normal style. Khazaar's behavior has not changed. The town's behavior regarding lurkers, however, has. Mafia X demonstrated this. We are no longer as diligent in weeding out the lurkers as we were in the past, and Kage's survival to the end confirms this.

Now, you can argue with me until the metaphorical cows return to their outdoor domiciles the reasons for this, and feel free, if you want to. I don't think it was the anonymous accounts. They were still the same players behind the accounts. The players that knew (or used to know) that the lurkers had to die before the end so they didn't completely slip by.

So yes, Khazaar is fine. The town sentiment, however, is not. Khazaar has the same chance of being a mafioso as he always does. However, the town, its sentiment regarding lurkers apparently having swung in a different direction while my superior wisdom and I were not involved in any games for that long stretch of time, has less of chance of lynching him than usual and doing itself a favor. Hence my vote. Think of it as a benevolent figure, say a deity, showing a sign to the lesser beings that he watches over to demonstrate the error of their ways as opposed to going all Old Testament on them.

[Askthepizzaguy]

None of those points you made have anything to do with anything.

1) Since this seems to be the point you elaborated on, I'll address this in greater detail below.
2) Your Points 2 and 3 are exactly the same, but with different wording.
3) The fact that they are two dissimilar games does not change the fact that a lurker strategy can work in both.
4) I tried to think of a rebuttal to this, but upon further examination I realized that it's just another variation on Points 2 and 3.

So really you only made an argument based off two points, one of which I refuted in a sentence.

2) Points 2 and 3 are not exactly the same. I'll elaborate.

Play in different games [with similar setups] can be based on the role distribution and based on the exact scenario at the time, say, if people are bandwagoning without reasoning and people's reaction to that, or if there's a lot of votes spread out and reactions to that. Same game setup, different situational aspects. Not accounted for with your comparison.

Now, 3) talks about [dissimilar games]. That adds a whole different can of worms to the reasoning why the comparison is flawed. You might be able to get away with lurking in a game where there's no investigators who can scan for night activity (there are in this game), you might be able to do it in a game without the Holmgang which basically amounts to a type of vigilantism which also exposes strength rating, and if you can't beat em by holmgang, you can still lynch. You might be able to do it in a game where there are no night time vigilantes, and I have reason to suspect we have some of those. And that's if Khazaar is lurking as a strategy. What about Andres? He dropped off the face of the planet. Could he have a momentary lapse in his RL situation that demands his attention? Is a day or two away from the computer lurking? Khazaar's behavior thus far, given what day it is, can't even be described as a definite strategy, or unusual.

Now, you can "refute" in a sentence anything I say if you just plainly dismiss it without reasoning. Anonymous accounts allow for unusual behavior to not get patterned. Kagemusha could get away with lurking because he wasn't kagemusha, he was Emilio. He could have been any number of usual-lurkers that had remained alive until near the end.

So yes, every one of my points had a purpose. Your rhetoric is skillful but poorly hides the fact that you had no real refutation, just an assertion that we should lynch lurkers.

All right, go ahead and vote Khazaar for his usual play because it might be dangerous as mafia. I'll vote for you because I find your principles situational and convenient. Giving your reason for a vote as a principled stand against lurkers is a nice way of not having to make up some fake analysis or give reasons someone can refute.

I'm taking a principled stand against GH, because he is dangerous as mafia.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I'll address the bells and whistles of your post once I wake up.

However, there's one part:

Giving your reason for a vote as a principled stand against lurkers is a nice way of not having to make up some fake analysis or give reasons someone can refute.

There was one other reason why Khazaar stood out against the many. He seemed like the type that didn't know about this being Seamus's first game in centuries and thus was less likely to realize that offing him N1 was a move.

[Nightbringer]

Why not just vote for a lurker who is behaving more uncharacteristically? ____ knows we have enough lurkers so far.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Why not just vote for a lurker who is behaving more uncharacteristically? ____ knows we have enough lurkers so far.

Because it's a principled stand against Khazaar, not a principled stand against unusual lurking.

[Nightbringer]

Because it's a principled stand against Khazaar, not a principled stand against unusual lurking.

What I am getting from GH is that he is taking a stand against lurking, and is targeting Khazaar because he is someone who would likely be left alone for it because of the reasons you have stated.
Lurking as normal behavior would be an easy way for mafia to hide and as such they are a possible threat. In a situation with little info to go on (day 3) why not try to put him on the spot and see how he reacts.

Of course, the extent to which GH is debating this does seem somewhat scummy.

If I were in his position, I probably would have just dropped it unless I were mafia, in which case I would obsess about not letting you have a point against me. That is just me though and GH is a much more skilled player than I.

[Askthepizzaguy]

There was one other reason why Khazaar stood out against the many. He seemed like the type that didn't know about this being Seamus's first game in centuries and thus was less likely to realize that offing him N1 was....

I have to re-read Seamus' death and see if there's any clue the Jotun did it. I admit I didn't read it fully the first time.

4 kills, 2 kills, 1 kill and at least 1 attempt that failed, I am not entirely certain all the kills are done by the Jotun. I think perhaps some gods or other roles exist which can kill.

If so, there will be false reasoning that someone is not Jotun because they'd never kill Seamus. I tend to agree that more of our veteran players would be overjoyed to see Seamus in action again and would leave him alone for that reason. But there are some rather important exceptions.

Exception: Example of the previous game, two veterans decided the kills by random.org. They could just shrug and say it was the will of the Force. This has happened before, it was effective, it could happen again.

Exception: Some players would love to have the alibi of "I'd never kill Seamus". This is Mafia, we're not taking each other to the prom. There will be dishonorable tactics and backstabbing and players will perform such actions with glee and its all perfectly acceptable. And if they get one over on us because they convinced us they'd never do such a thing, that is the essence of mafia.

So it's bogus. Those same peeps decrying Seamus' death will be the first to say it was a legit tactic once you find out they're scum and they did it, because they've pulled the same before with a big grin on their face.