The Half Monty [Concluded]

[God Emperor]

vote: zack
Explain how and why you were saved from lynch last night.

This is not good enough... We know a tie means no lynch.. and there was a tie yesterday, so Zack was never 'saved' by anyone. Thus your reason, if any, should be regarded as invalid.
judging by yesterday, Zack is today the absolute most easy target to vote for today, and people who are attacking him today should be focused on.

Vote: Yaropolk ; your vote today, and your follow up on DE's hunch

[johnhughthom]

Vote: Renata

What are these secrets I forgetted to remember? And what was that lady doing in your lap?

[thefluffyone93]

Vote: Renata

What are these secrets I forgetted to remember? And what was that lady doing in your lap?

Uh....Is someone supposed to understand this?
I want to hear something understandable for this vote.

Also...

Unvote
GE makes a good point.

[Death is yonder]

At the top of my post, I felt it necessary to include a small blurb that my post should by no means be considered the gospel truth to be followed simply because I'm confirmed innocent (I don't have any out of thread information to back this up, obviously), instead, just accord to me the credibility by not taking this post with a pinch of salt (EG: Considering posts to, but rather as any one person's possibly fallible line of thinking (that doesn't mean you can just dismiss the arguments in an off-hand manner though). I actually wanted to post this yesterday, before Zack's most recent posts, but I delayed it to see his reactions to the situation and they only reinforce my decision to go ahead with this. While a general accusation of Zack, I hope that this post serves its overall purpose to provide questions to mull over.

This is not good enough... We know a tie means no lynch.. and there was a tie yesterday, so Zack was never 'saved' by anyone. Thus your reason, if any, should be regarded as invalid.
judging by yesterday, Zack is today the absolute most easy target to vote for today, and people who are attacking him today should be focused on.

Vote: Yaropolk ; your vote today, and your follow up on DE's hunch

In my opinion when I viewed the extra vote, the thought process that followed was that:

Its day 2, if a pro-town character had this ability to add an extra vote (which most likely is a one-use ability owing to the size of the game), it would be saved for a crucial round to possibly turn the odds in the town's favor, or when a strong suspect might just escape the lynch in the late game. At this point, the information that said "pro-town" would possess (hypothetically if it was a pro-town that used it) would likely not justify its early usage against its potential importance in the late game, after all, it is only day 2 and the suspicion on Khazaar is just that he's being a low profile individual, which is what Khazaar usually if not always does. Here, a slightly off track question must also be brought in to consider: Romanic acknowledges Fluffy's, well, Fluffy-ish style of being very jokey and all, but yet forgets to take into consideration Khazaar's somewhat lurker style. A question to ponder is, Why?

Therefore it must be considered also, why was it used on Khazaar and not Zack, or even, why was it used at all?

It seems unlikely that a pro-town individual in the given circumstance (little information in general to make an educated guess on whom to use an ability) would place a deciding vote to lynch somebody in the early game, especially when the choice is between someone is being his typical low profile style (Khazaar), and someone appears to be very twitchy and antagonistic, and choosing the person who is being typical to boot. (Perhaps my word choice is too strong, but Zack does seem to be very bitter and annoyed about his lynch, as if it would be the end of the world or something).

I feel that in conjunction with what has been said above, I probably should explain the "hunch" behind my last vote before I died.

Zack does not seem like he's trying to catch scum, merely trying to advance get through a lynch round with what he thought would be a decent vote. In this post, he advocates fluffy's lynch for as he calls it, being the most "egregious spammer", a rather negative word to use in my opinion. I'm not sure of Zack's view on off-topic posting [perhaps the CFC folk could provide some insight], but evidently his choice of words here indicate that he's voting fluffy because he perceives fluffy's post to be detrimental to the discussion. Not sure how that links to fluffy being scummy though, because after all, votes by innocent townspeople are meant to be placed on their strongest suspect, not the most "annoying" person.

In case its not here, here's a definition courtesy of dictionary.com

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Egregious
–adjective
1.
extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar.

When placed under a third vote by Fluffy (which places him convincingly in the lead in a short space of time), he reacts interestingly, defending his previous vote on fluffy to be something silly and trivial, which is contrary to his usage of the word egregious, which was in fact, a very strong word to be using and hardly trivial.

Queerly enough, Zack changes his reasoning from "Fluffy the egregious and flagrant spammer must go" to "Fluffy who squirmed and OMGUS'd me while trying to play it cool and fit in" [which will make sense later in the post]

As Romanic points out, Zack's case doesn't make that much sense either, but yet he pursues Fluffy's lynch because he knows that he's in the lead and he's going to have to come up with another lynch suspect to make it all go away.

Following suit from his previous example of changing his reasoning for voting Fluffy, in response to Romanic saying that only the OMGUS component of Zack's accusation made sense, Zack changes his "reasoning" for why Fluffy should be voted for [AKA why he thinks Fluffy is guilty] from "reacted scummily to my vote on him" to that of "bandwagonning OMGUS" after he realizes that his previous reasoning will not hold water in his attempt to make fluffy the lynch instead of himself.

I will cautiously note, however, that Zack seemed content to leave himself voting Fluffy rather than saving himself by voting Khazaar or something.

On the other hand, it is extremely important to remember that Zack was trying to salvage himself from the lynch, and placing the deciding vote to lynch Khazaar would look very bad on himself, especially considering the fact that he was already almost lynched for being too twitchy and jumpy, reacting to save himself publicly would be a very bad idea. Taking a hypothetical situation where Zack is mafia, he would know that Khazaar will definitely turn out to be innocent, and as such, outright placing a deciding vote on Khazaar would simply result in him getting lynched next round.

Which then brings about my main/overall point:

Since it is unlikely that it was a pro-town role that placed the deciding vote on Khazaar rather than to leave it at a tie, a point that must be considered is that mafia do not like being left in a tie, especially when their lives are on the line, and most certainly, much less when they won't be around in the final moments of the round. With reference to the time stamps on the posts, the time period between Zack's last post and pizza's write up was approximately just over 6 hours. [Caution, assumption is that Zack lives in America/Canada/Similar timezone] Assuming that Zack is in the EST zone, he would have carefully reviewed the timing of the round and realized that it would end during a time where he would be sleeping.

With reference to all of his posts and the above assumption, Zack's latest post in any given day is about 10.30pm EST ++, which means that typically he would/might check the thread until that time perhaps plus minus an hour tops (because its only his last post, not his final thread check of the day). Csargo's vote change to Zack was at about 11pm EST which means that its plausible that Zack could have seen Csargo's post and simultaneously noted that any sudden change in the voting (with hours to spare) was possible. As such, it is extremely likely, that would Zack have possessed a vote altering/vote adding (in this case) ability, he would have used it as a safeguard against any vote switching that had a very high chance of resulting in his death [this voting round would be crucial to the mafia (surely if one of them died, they would be greatly crippled, it being so early in the game) and as such, warrant the use of this one use ability] (Which ties in with what I said about it being unlikely that a pro-town would have been the culprit that used this ability, as well as this nature of one shot ability typically being saved for crucial points of time)

ConclusionFinally?

1. It is extremely unlikely that it was a pro-town role who altered the vote owing to very nature of the ability, in that it was likely one use, and would likely have been saved until a crucial period of time where said pro-town role would have more information to work with

2. Zack does not seem to be trying to make a conscientious effort to lynch what an ordinary townie would try his best to do, lynch who he thinks is mafia. Instead, he tries to lynch Fluffy based on "being a spammer (which implies annoyance rather than perception of guilty), and constantly changes his vote reasoning to fit public opinion.

a) When Fluffy OMGUS'd him, he omitted the causing factor [Fluffy voted him for not noticing that he IS a spammer, so Zack changes his reasoning from being a spammer to Fluffy's reaction to Zack's own vote]

b) Romanic criticizing Zack's reasoning, so Zack plucks out only what Romanic thought was valid in his argument, that Fluffy was OMGUS voting him (which in itself is not a very strong reason for constantly and doggedly voting someone for two straight rounds, and constantly alluding to Fluffy's guilt.

c) Playing the victim of Fluffy's two rounds in a row vote on him, and continuing on his modified reasoning [post Romanic criticism] as if it were his original reason in the first place. He tries to steer public opinion towards a lynch on Fluffy by focusing on Fluffy's bandwagoning, without stating how that could possibly mean that Fluffy is guilty. In essence, Zack is only trying to lynch people without making references to how the reasoning he poses leads to a conclusion of them being guilty.

3. Based on an assumption of Zack's timezone (to be EST/North America), as well as references to the typical time that Zack is online, it is clear that before the conclusion of Day 2's lynch, Zack knew that in the still many hours that he was unable to be online, it was highly possible that he could be pushed forward into the lead by a last minute decision [It is likely that witnessing Csargo's vote switch (which he likely was able to view before he went to bed) greatly upped this fear]

4. On a follow up with Point 3, he knew that he would be unable to outright and publicly secure his position and switch his vote to Khazaar because:

a) He would lose a lot of credibility. Up till now his in thread persona seemed totally convinced that Fluffy was guilty. Diverging now only to save himself would make him lose any credibility he possessed and result in him getting lynched next round

b) In addition, were Zack mafia, he would know Khazaar's alignment to be innocent. Since post-death reveals were the case in this game, last minute switching to Khazaar in public to save himself would not only make him lose his credibility utterly [in conjunction with Point 4a] but practically guarantee his immediate lynch next round.

5. As such, it fits very nicely, that in this dire circumstance where the mafia could be crippled in the early game, measures had to be taken to prolong Zack's lifespan without making him get instantly lynched the following round as suggested in point 4. The round was admittedly crucial, if Zack died in Day 2, the mafia would have to hobble along and hope for lots of good fortune to carry them through.

6. Earlier I mentioned that such an ability (the addition of a vote) would be conserved by whichever alignment possessed it until a crucial point of time. [A continuation of Point 1, as well as my question posed early on of:

Therefore it must be considered also, why was it used on Khazaar and not Zack, or even, why was it used at all?

a) It is extremely unlikely that it was a pro-town role that used it

ai) This ability, likely one shot in its nature (after all it being a small game), would be conserved in the off chance that the pro-town role would be able to turn around the odds in the end game, where town would normally have lost [1 Mafia 1 Townie/1 Mafia 2 Townies] to greater increase the chances of town winning

aii) Either that, or it would be conserved till at least the later rounds, so that with greater in-thread information to refer to, said pro-town role in possession of this ability (if it existed) would be able to make a more educated guess and better place this extra vote on a strong suspect to make sure the aforementioned suspect is lynched and does not worm his way out.

b) Moreover, the choice of the ability was Khazaar, rather than Zack. In my opinion, Khazaar was being the quintessential Khazaar. He was largely lurking, popping in here and there only, whereas Zack was twitchy, very jumpy, and his tone seemed bitter about being lynched, as if it was something really horrible to be doing, even though its was just Day 2 and townie lynches are an inevitable result of almost any mafia game. As such, it would be a huge gambit to waste a potentially game winning one-shot ability and use it on somebody for being himself were the intent of the usage pro-town.

7. Were Zack a mafia, this would indeed be the crucial time in the game to use the ability rather than to let himself possibly die in a time frame where he could do nothing about it. If the mafia were to go one man down in a small game this early, it would be very crippling, especially considering how little is gained from it.

8. Therefore, Zack or his teammate was making sure that he 100% would not get lynched this round, all at the same time avoiding any negative townie feedback which would result from him doing it via public vote change (and its working too, as seen by the current town opinion on the matter)

-----------------------------------------------
While you may argue that my case is based on hypothetical situations and does not account for human error, or perhaps just purely coincidental, there are way too many of these "coincidences" for me to ignore the situation. When one steps back and views the big picture, too many dots are joined and seem to fit PLUS we are but in Day 3, I think that the sheer number of coincidences cannot be overlooked and cast aside merely because you view that its just "suppositions".

While GE's point is valid to a certain extent that Zack "was not saved" because it was a tie in the end, the factor of "fear" must be considered strongly. Zack was likely around to witness Csargo's vote that changed it into a tie. This leads to a fear that someone else might do the same and push him in the lead. Zack is stuck in a catch-22 because if he changes the vote to make sure that he doesn't get lynched, public opinion of his actions will sour dramatically. Moreover, this fear is exacerbated because the round is ending at a point of time in the day where he is sleeping and thus helpless to make any last minute decisions. Hence, any smart mafia would take the necessary precaution to avoid the possibility of someone breaking the tie while he is sleeping by placing an extra vote on Khazaar. This means that even if somebody did switch to vote Zack, it would still be a tie, and hence he would be safe from the lynch, unless the highly improbable situation of two people last minute switching their votes occurred.

Anyway, I didn't spend over an hour typing this, and slogging through about half an hour of internet difficulties for this to be ignored. Kindly at the very least read through it and pause to think.

people who are attacking him today should be focused on.

So yes, I'm accusing Zack, do focus on what I'm saying and give me your thoughts

That is all

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If Zack isn't mafia, then at the very least I tried my level best

And I do apologize that there is no tl;dr version, because this is ultimately as condensed as I can make it without the substance and link between the points disappearing

[thefluffyone93]

So....much....text....
But I think I got the gist of it.
Vote: Zack

That was the gist of it right?

[Death is yonder]

And I do apologize that there is no tl;dr version, because this is ultimately as condensed as I can make it without the substance and link between the points disappearing

That was the gist of it right?

Kinda.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Bah, I've made much bigger posts than that.

[Death is yonder]

Bahhh its only Day 3

[slashandburn]

Your reasoning was clear, I wouldn't have switched the votes if I had that power. IT means that Zack has a very high chance of being mafia, fluffy, very high but not absolute. So,
Vote:Zack

[Nightbringer]

um, yah, what DIY said :D

But honestly, that made a lot of sense, and given the lack of much else to go on at this point, there really isn't much reason not to vote:zack
At the very least he will stop tying up all our attention.

On a side note, JHT, I think we would be better served by your contributing to the discussion than just voting Renata because of something about a lady and a lap.

[Romanic]

[...] the suspicion on Khazaar is just that he's being a low profile individual, which is what Khazaar usually if not always does. Here, a slightly off track question must also be brought in to consider: Romanic acknowledges Fluffy's, well, Fluffy-ish style of being very jokey and all, but yet forgets to take into consideration Khazaar's somewhat lurker style. A question to ponder is, Why? [...]

I didn't vote Khazaar for lurking/being low profile, I was voting him because he failed to participate to the main discussion (Zack vs Fluffy) when everybody was doing it. I think they're two different things. If you're saying that I should have given a free pass to Khazaar because he's a typical lurker, then I'll have to disagree with you. Lurkers shouldn't walk free for being useless, for lurking, or any action with a possible scummy motivation.

Spamming, on the contrary, doesn't have much scummy motivation, if any.

[Romanic]

I didn't particularly care about voting for Zack, I did it to see who would follow behind me, and I've been of GE's (first) opinion all along: Zack is too easy a target and people going after him should be suspected. Now I see that GE changed his mind, but I didn't.

Yes Zack gave weak reasons to vote Fluffy, and yes he may not be looking hard for Scum, but I think the fact that DIY was kiilled yesterday, after voting for Zack, points toward a frame attempt rather than Zack getting rid of people suspecting him.

unvote Zack; vote: slashandburn

For backing down when it appears that voting Zack could be seen as a bad move.

[Romanic]

Tally

3 Zack (Thefluffyone, Nightbringer, God Emperor)
3 slashandburn (Renata, Yaropolk, Romanic)
2 Thefluffyone (Zack, classical_hero)
1 Renata (johnhughthom)
---
5 not voting (Capt Blackadder, Csargo, pevergreen, robbiecon, slashandburn)

Around 10 hours to go, based on ATPG's last writeup (00:22 EST)

[Zack]

If you want to see how I acted when I was innocent and being lynched, look at Those Darn States and Zelda Mafia on TWC.

As for sarcasm in general, clicky. (Day 6)

Ah, sarcasm. A townie's best friend.

It's tough to be sarcastic and lie at the same time. It feels very dirty.

Try it, because sarcasm is based on what YOU find funny or ironic. If you don't believe your lie is the truth, then you don't think sarcasm based on that lie is funny, because it's not funny to YOU, because you know what the real truth is.

Humor is an important weapon in mafia games. If the joke is off, that indicates there's something wrong with your sense of humor. Which means you're uptight, anxious, stressed, or lying.

Which means you're scum.

Here, the sarcasm works. It fits a relaxed but irritated psychological state. The sarcasm is quick, biting, and honest. That's townie. That's something you can take to the bank.

Try telling jokes about your lies, in a way that you find directly funny, not funny in a meta-sense. It's hard to tell a joke you find funny while lying, because it doesn't "ring true".

Jokes are serious business.

As for not looking hard for scum, what I'm doing with fluffy has worked in a similar style of game hosted by ATPG before (not exactly the same, but similar).

As for suspects, I think that we should be concentrating on fluffy and slashandburn.

[slashandburn]

I don't see why me unvoting Zack should cause an instant bandwagon especially Yaropolk using my name to insinuate that I'm mafia. And Mr. Burns was shot, not stabbed.