When you woke up this morning, what pant leg did you put on first? If you are right-handed, it's almost a certainty that it was your right leg. Why? Because people develop habits and preferences based on nature and nurture. Habits such as that which you demonstrated by your play a scant 2~3 weeks ago.
You've still yet to distinguish the difference between universal habits in simple playstyle, and habits that are indicative of alignment. I've provided examples and explanations of how the habits you're latching on to a universal aspects of my recent play, yet you continue to contend that they are evidence that supports a notion that I'm scum, which is entirely NOT the case. You've identified some of my habits and I'm not denying that there are aspects of my play that are found in all games of my play, however, just because I have habits does not mean that said habits indicate scum alignment, because they don't, and I've shown you why this isn't the case.
This reeks of appeal to authority. You are the experienced player (actually, the most experienced of the ones you left alive), so we are to blindly assume you can maintain a certain play style?
And just how are we to judge that for certain? We can't look at what you've done in the past as a gauge. Oh wait, that was according to you.
I would think that since the rest of your post deals primarily with logical fallacy, that you wouldn't begin with one. I guess experience isn't everything.
Nice try trying to flip my point on its head and brand me with fallacy of fallacy. You've misunderstood appeal to authority. Appeal to authority is contending that a point is assumed to be true because some authority (usually an irrelevant one) believes differently.
I wasn't trying to say "I'm more experienced than you, therefore your contention is wrong and I'm right". I WAS saying that I am an experienced player, an undeniable fact. By virtue of my experience, I've learned how to maintain a consistent playstyle across all of my games that I've played. I've already discussed in detail the past examples you've brought up and shown you how they aren't indicative of alignment, but instead my overall playstyle and outside circumstances. My experience is a reality that legitimizes my contention. I'm not appealing to authority, but rather explaining a very logical conclusion from an undeniable fact, a fact that just happens to be directly related to me. I understand you trying to misconstrue it as scum though. Well done.
This is the first bit that shows Frozen isn't really reading anything about what I'm doing here. Funny that he didn't take the time to realize the points he made here, before. Ronike previously talked (extensively) about scum getting defensive under pressure. But rather than attack my arguments in this fashion, Frozen opted to attack me.
Now, why would Frozen go out of his way to point out that this is a defense of me?
He wants to appear softer as his outburst wanes, so he doesn't alienate the town.
There's no reason for me to waste my time discussing the merits of believing "getting defensive = scum." If that's the code he wants to play by, so be it, as ****ty as I might believe it is. It's obvious that being defensive can be a result of having a PR, being attacked in a manner someone feels is unfair, being pushed into a corner, or other sources of frustration. It's a contention based entirely on opinion TBQH and not really relevant to the issue at hand.
Nice attempt at labeling me with ad hominem though, despite that fact that NO WHERE in that quote did I make anything near a personal attack. Could it be? Did Mr. Cello skim this and just decide to toss ad hominem in there? Sure looks like it.
Why would I go "out of my way"? What if I told you it wasn't going out of my way at all? What if I told you that all I was doing is explaining the truth of the situation and wanted to explain WHY saying what I said was actually a defense. Certainly you wouldn't believe me, since all you're thinking about as scum is how to spin everything I say and do into a scummy move. There's no reason for you to discuss what's real as scum. As town trying to be as transparent and helpful to our new players as possible, I explained what I did in it's entirety. But of course, that doesn't make sense from your perspective and predictably you tried to turn an entirely pro-town move into something deceitful. Phenomenal scum play.
"KevinM's style is consistent, but his content is off." How in this not an analysis of his past play? How is this acceptable for you and not a person you do not know? How is this not that dreaded thing you so vehemently despise? This looks like a good time to address one of your "quality, core arguments" against my own case. Metagaming.
What is metagaming? Using information outside of the context of the game/system to aid the decision making process. It has a negative connotation due to Table-top RPGs (which I'm sure most of us here have played at one time or another).
Why is metagaming bad? In the case of Mafia in general, the obvious reasoning is that
it is unreliable in the long term. This makes sense enough, and is not to be disputed; if a cat wanders into the road and is hit by a car, it will be less likely to make that mistake again (either because it is dead or will remember the experience).
After this game, FrozenFlame will certainly be more wary of his play style, and likely won't be making the unconscious slips he has been.
Metagaming: making decisions based on events of earlier games as well as the current one. I.e. using past game specific behavior to judge whether or not a player is a certain alignment or role based on their performance as that alignment or role in the past.
My analysis of Kevin was NOT metagaming. It was me expressing the belief that Kevin was playing just like he always does. He was not departing from his UNIVERSAL playstyle. I was NOT judging him based on game specific information. I made a judgment call based on how Kevin ALWAYS plays. This is NOT metagaming, it was a stylistic reaffirmation. Big difference. All of your accusation of me are based on drawing connections between certain behavior and their coincidence with my mafia alignment, and ultimately concluding that said actions are a RESULT of my alignment when such a relationship does not exist. You assume causality when it is simply coincidence. My analysis of KevinM makes no such assertion. I simply state he his not deviating from his natural playstyle. If I had noticed and obvious change in style, there would be reason to be suspicious, but such was not the case.
Nice attempt at spinning things again though. I've been making no unconscious slips. You've provided nothing that supports such a contention. Your analysis of me will have absolutely NO effect on how I play because I know you're wrong, and I know that the ACTUAL definition and understanding of what metagaming is supports everything I'm saying to the T.
You speak of other "quality, core" arguments as though they produce indisputable evidence. This is ridiculous. You have shown a pattern of action over time. Your mafia play was rewarded with victory and positive reinforcement. Your town play should have been reinforced as well, if not for TUSM. Obviously, you felt that your own play was spot on here and wasn't going to change it. Without an outside stimulus there would be no reason to alter your style. And. You. Haven't.
Can five million psychologists be wrong? Yes, logically. (argumentum ad verecundiam and Argumentum ad populum, or appeal to authority and the masses)
But going with their findings will provide someone with a statistically higher percent chance of success.
You've found habits. Congratulations. Your fatal flaw is in trying to establish causality where there is simply correlation. The correlation exists because what you've pointed out are UNIVERSAL aspects of my play. THAT is the pattern over time you are seeing, yet you're trying to misconstrue it as "mafia patterns". I don't need to change my play style because it works. I can play highly effectively as any alignment and I've been rewarded for doing so with victories as both major factions. THIS is why my universal style has gone unchanged.
Concerning what you said in the quote, you are correct. What I have done is NOT pro-town simply by it's nature. I would be making this play whether I was scum or town. But, what you had attacked the QUALITY of my play and my arguments, in an effort to discredit me for use at a later time. i.e. "Cello has bad play, we can't listen to what he says."
To this end, you are continuing to use your appeal to authority as an experienced player.
"Classic new player mistake". That phrase truly is worthy of the term topic sentence.
I can't believe you wrote this paragraph. It blows my mind.
By you own admission, you've said employing metagaming is poor town play. By your own admission, you've stated that I've done nothing but focus on the quality of your arguments. Both of these contentions support my townie-ness ENTIRELY.
If you're seriously trying to contend that I can't dismiss your points because they are poor in quality, then there's nothing left more me to do, since you've basically just told me NOT TO PLAY MAFIA. Your own statement "i.e. Cello has bad play, we can't listen to what he says" is almost entirely true. Why would you listen to anyone who is using terrible logic and reasoning to reach a conclusion?! SCUM are the players who use such logic to causes mislynches. THAT is exactly what you are doing now. Using arguemnts of horrendous quality to try and draw links between my play here and past play to make me look scummy by establishing a false cause.
I'm not appealing to my authority AT ALL. I simply trying to make clear that the quality of arguments is one of, if not THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN MAFIA DEBATE. This is not something that I'm deciding, this is something that is UNIVERSALLY UNDERSTOOD and that I am trying to make clear to everyone in this game as an IC player. By saying quality of argument is a poor basis for determining the believability of a argument, you're essentially asking is to take you for your word that what you've discovered is a relationship derived from causality when nothing you've shown us (as a result of the poor quality of your argument) gives us any reason to believe such a contention is true. It is my job a responsible townie to prove you fallacious contention wrong by revealing the poor quality of your arguments and showing how my contention (that the relationships you've been discussing correlate with, but are not caused by my alignment because of their universal narture) is superior in quality, and thus, more likely to be the case.
"From what was written". Funny how you talk tout your ability and the necessity to look past what is written. On that note, let's see what else was written here. Then let's see past it.
You are trying really hard to associate every argument I make with my metagaming, even though they are clearly separate entities. You are trying to group them all together because you believe that makes my arguments look bad. I'm seeing the beginning of an ad hominem attack here as well. "Cello is just trying to make himself look intelligent and thoughtful. He's just doing this to make himself look good."
A correlation exists here. I just drew the line of best fit.
Nothing I said in there was anywhere close to ad hominem. I contended that the reason you were banking on the less rational conclusion that you found a relationship of causation is the fact that you are overly confident that you found the "rosetta stone" to my play when as I've shown by virtue of attacking the quality of your arguments, was a poor conclusion to make.
You found a correlation. You drew a line of best fit, and I've shown you why you're misinterpreting what that line represents.
When you don't have a strong idea who the scum is, you try to find out.
Use whatever methods you like. I'd expect you to not sit like a knot on a log, though.
In this case, doubly so, since you are an IC.
Who are you to tell me how I'm allowed to figure out who scum are? Just because I'm not posting DOES NOT mean I'm not paying attention to the game. It doesn't mean I'm not re-reading and trying to figure things out. Me not saying much does not mean I'm not doing anything, it just means I have nothing important to say. As I've already stated before, I WILL NOT post if I've nothing to contribute. I will not post just for the sake of posting. You're asking me to do that and I'm telling you that not only is that an unfair expectation but a poor ideology concerning what represents scum hunting. Posting just for the sake of posting loads games with unecessary garble. Scum use that garble to misrepresent and undermine the credibility of people much like you are trying to do. Why would I give the scum ammunition when I can make the poignancy of my important posts much greater when I don't flood the thread with idle thoughts?
So, let me get this straight: the reason you were stalling and not contributing is because you don't have enough time? So, in that case, why would you EVER want to stall? Why not actually use your time to contribute?
I didn't have enough time to post anything of significant quality or depth, so I use what little time I have to LET PEOPLE KNOW OF MY SITUATION, and inform them about what I PLAN to do when I have sufficient time. THAT is the best way for me to use what little time I have, as opposed to rushing expressions of suspicion or simply tossing out isolated thoughts and comments that may only serve to muddle what could otherwise be fruitful discussion. It has become increasingly obvious that we have a sever disconnect in prioritization when is comes to quality vs. quantity, with me prioritizing the former in you the latter.
And there's the rest of the ad hominem. Didn't take Frozen very long for that.
But really, undecided? You're going to claim that you totally agreed with me on Delvro (I did take words from your mouth), then once again here on Day 2 with May against SRB (He just REEKED of scum bussing, remember?), then turn around and say you were undecided?
There is no ad hominem there. I'd love to hear your explanation for once again attempting to blanket label me as the bad guy with literally no substance to back it.
No idea where you think I was undecided about Delvro or SRB. The example you pointed out are examples of me being confident in my suspicions. I don't recall turning around on either of these as is reflected by my voting of both of them (SRB until you decided to try to take me down).
Here is the second part that indicates Frozen doesn't read posts and just skims through for information.
Coattails = letting everyone else do the work
Agreeing = pulling your own weight
I'll give an example. When Mayling accused me and Raptor, I was ready to point out the flaws in her argument. The very ones Hilt posted while I was gathering information.
Instead of getting mad, even though I was slightly irked I didn't get to say them, I went back to find other points to contribute. If you can't find ANYTHING relevant, then maybe you aren't playing the right game.
How does this prove I skimmed? You say it does but don't explain. Nice attempt at labeling once again.
This paragraph further elucidates our disconnect over quality vs. quantity. If someone else posts a major point that I wanted to bring up, then I will express my agreement with them and maybe attempt to clarify the point if I don't feel what was said is sufficient. If I believe what was said was an important point worthy of discussion, WHY WOULD I INTRODUCE SOMETHING ELSE TO DISTRACT OF FROM FOCUSING ON THE POINT?! You have no right to tell me what to do to "pull my own weight." You think that agreeing with people means you aren't contributing and I wholeheartedly disagree. If simply agreeing with people is a player's general trend throughout a game, then that might be worthy of investigation, but pointing out one circumstance does not mean they are doing nothing. You're basically saying that if someone steals your point, you have to go find a new one and introduce it otherwise you aren't being pro town. This is ENTIRELY false. As I already stated, if you feel a point brought up is very important, it is most prudent to support the idea and focus discussion on it. FORCING yourself to go grasp at straws just for the sake of "contributing", is what I would contend is "empty contributing." Having the mentality that "I have to have a point unique to myself" is a bad one to have. It forces people to over scrutinize and creates more TvT that the scum can prey on. A perfect example of the over analysis you are advocating is TUSM's botching of newbie 1 when he ignored all of the valid points I put out and instead constructed a complete ridiculous cluster**** of speculation that caused the town to lose.
Later on in your post, you admit to stalling in this game.
And anyone that disagrees with you is unreasonable?
That's the most likely alternative suggestion to what you are saying.
FrozenFlame: "What you aren't realizing is that anyone who doesn't want to go to war, is gay."
The Group: "I want to go to war!" "No, I want to go to war!" "I was the first who wanted to go to war!"
Is that what you've learned from being on the debate team?
Even my team was better organized than that.
I in no way admitted to stalling the game, but of course, you would try to misconstrue me agreeing with someone and not going to great lengths to muddle, confuse, or redirect attention away from the point as stalling.
And then you go on to use a family guy reference to try and belittle me and my point. How clever. And then you go on to insult my debate team after previously questioning whether or not I should be playing mafia. Anyone else noticing how far he has fallen from the moral high ground he attempting to initially claim? Anyone else noticing how desperate he is and how low in quality his arguments have become?
FrozenFlame said:
You then go on to accuse me of only bringing new substance when I'm attacked. How does that not make sense to you? You're trying to twist an entirely townie action (thoroughly defending oneself against fallacious offenses) and make it seem anti-town by juxtaposing it with instances of agreeability.
You are trying to redirect the subject here.
Defending yourself against an attack from your past has nothing to do with rehashing other presented viewpoints. How could it? That's why I didn't claim you tried.
This was just an attempt to keep saying the word "town" and your own name so that people associate them. We are creatures of association.
After all, 5 million psychologists can't be wrong.
Wasn't redirecting the subject at all. I was simply addressing another aspect of the debate.
I also love how now you're trying to play the "he's trying to be too townie" card. According to your 5 million psychologists, your constant namecalling in the form of changing my name in all of your quotes into something belittling makes you guilty of trying to associate me with all of those negatively connotated words. At least I'm not guilty of ad hominem in that comparison.
Let's take a look at what this 'agreeable' bit refers to.
Little extreme there. Oh, but didn't I take the words out of your mouth too? The words themselves are immaterial and missing importance, since your style has had a bit of time to mature. But then again... there's really no reason for you to have changed, eh?
If I were a better player? Better, or one that had more credentials than you?
Another ad hominem attack. Followed by another attempted association with metagaming.
So wait, you're saying the way I agreed with both of you is similar when the situation is the same (you both "took the words out of my mouth)? What is your point? This supports MY point that the reason I did the same thing in both situations wasn't because of the false cause you're asserting (that I must be scum), but because the situation was the same in that you both took the words out of me mouth.
Nice try with the ad hominem label again. You CREATED the ad hominem by deliberately putting words in my mouth. I said BETTER PLAYER which means BETTER PLAYER. If I wanted to say one with more credentials, I would have said that. Let's not play the words games anymore, but I suppose you might have a hard time with that as scum.
You were the one that said it was ironic you were being accusing of not scum-hunting when the May-Ronike debacle was still on everyone's minds. Was there no fresh material to bring to the front then? You got nothing from that? I'll admit, I was timid about getting involved, and I others said as such too, but now that we are a bit calmer, combing through it might yield something of interest.
I definitely commented on the Ronike/May debacle. I have a post that addresses it directly. I said in a very direct manner that I thought their debate was not one of substance but simply disagreement over what is good mafia etiquette. How clever of you to omit that from your archive of posts that you love to refer to selectively to make me look bad.
Yet you got really defensive when Hilt called you out. Delvro and Hilt's votes seemed to be pressure votes, whereas yours with mine was something that was never going to come off, unless, of course, we did decide to go with Hilt. Your scum-hunting ship has really good tacking doesn't it?
Of course I got more involved when I was attacked. How does not that not make sense? I'm legitimately confused what you mean by my "scum hunting ship" and "tacking" though.
How poignant. Still, the Marshy line was pretty much the same as we got here in three whole posts. The first and third are obvious, and the second was a post expected of an IC plus a "pressure vote". Frankly, it seemed more to me like you were just trying to get close to Tandora so you could exploit her later.
Lol, so now the number of posts matters. More quantity over quality priorization.
It seemed like I was trying to buddy Tandora to exploit her? Care to explain? Of course not, that's just another whimsical undermining comment to toss out to try and pile more on. I'm used to that by now.
Examining someone's style is metagaming by it's very nature. Either it's fine or it's BS.
Yeah let's create a false dilemma! I already explained the difference between stylistic analysis and metagaming earlier in this so reference that.
I would bet my firstborn child that most of the people here aren't going to the other threads to read these bits. So I'll just post them here as quotes.
Who's the one reaching now? Clueless on a person is NOT suspicion. You aren't just skimming in this game, you somehow manage to skim on YOUR OWN POSTS. In "the most important topic so far" for this game, you're screwing up like this?
Yep, because your original contention was that I always had two suspects wasn't it? Oh wait, no it wasn't! I was that I had two targets of interest. Nice job trying to move the goalpost.
Even if you somehow were town, I know I wouldn't want to take you with me to the final Day. You'd drop the ball like TUSM did.
That's too mean to actually say. But I want you to know it crossed my mind.
And you call me CondescendingFlame, and then go and do this bull****? How classy.
You would have to be buried under a rock to not think people would be gunning for Delvro.
He was instigating "Roniker", Hilt introduced the point that excessive wolf talk would indicate mafia alignment, and S2's vote got the ball rolling. It would draw attention to Delvro that he did not withstand.
Of course, maybe that's how the three of you planned it.
Of course, it's unreasonable for Cello to take people for what they say were their expectation at their word, but when he wants us to do so, to not believe him is akin to disagreeing with established law.
Something bothered me when I first read this, and I realize why now.
You make it sound like like a townie COULDN'T aid in a lynch unless there was clear and present proof that he wanted that person lynched.
Anyone remember when Hilt asked Frozen a question about who he thought was suspicious? Hilt put a pressure vote on him to get a response and then...
From your response to Hilt, you had everyone else cowed. Do you really think anyone else would be coming forward after that little tirade? No. Especially since Hilt just accepted it.
YOU closed those avenues of communication all by yourself long ago. Moreover, you had no reason to open them up again unless it suited your needs. People are creatures of habit. 5 million psychologists can't be wrong.
Huh. Gathering information beyond the simple text. Imagine that.
So what you're trying to tell me is that my method of answering Hilts question and rebutting his case against me was so thorough that it was damaging to the game because it made people too afraid to attack me? Really?
So what do you suggest, that I do a worse job at destroying poor cases against me? Never once did I suggest that people should not attack or address me. I simply wanted to make a strong point that Hilts suspicions were poor. If you're saying I'm suspicious because YOUR interpretation of the situation was that I unintentionally "scared" everyone away from attacking me, then TBQH you've really got no case. Your own attack on me is a perfect example of how what I did did not have the effect you're guessing it did.
This is in reference to the quote Mayling makes just above this. Yet, despite having it RIGHT THERE, Frozen still manages to "have no idea where I'm coming from".
Tunnel-vision with blinders must be a new fad.
No one will believe you are a hurt little lamb here, Frozen. Don't even try.
Quotes are set in stone statements that cannot be altered.
An open statement that could be interpreted dozens of ways is the exact opposite.
You gotta be kidding me. I said I had no idea where you were coming from in reference to you saying that I was trying to make it look like Mayling supported me. You in NO WAY elucidated that point and thus, I had didn't know where that contention came from.
The second quote was me discussing you questioning me for specifics and how ridiculous of an expectation that was when I IN THAT VERY SAME POST TOLD YOU I INTENDED TO EXPAND ON IT LATER. Where the **** do you get the idea that those are related quotes? I didn't ****ing skip anything, and yet you're trying to muddle what was actually said. Cut the **** dude.
False dilemma, eh? Now, that's funny...
Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, false in one thing, false in them all.
Almost all of your post is describing my incompetence and how it poisons all of my arguments. Fear-mongering.
Just because I point out the fallacies of some aspects of your argument does not mean that I am contending that one fallacy negates the entire argument. My posts wouldn't be this long if I was doing that. That's fallacy of fallacy. I'm pointing out all of the fallacies in your argument because they are necessary to understanding why the logic you're using is broken and that your points are inadequate. Love how you attempt to link me pointing our fallacies to to fear mongering though. Keep trying to smear me, it just makes the fact that you're scum more obvious.
Now, when did I say you couldn't evaluate multiple statements? I said that the why behind what Delvro said was unimportant, and potentially harmful if we were swayed by what he was saying. That's a far sight from imposing sanctions against thought.
You implied it by saying I was tunnel visioned by discussing what Delvro said. You stated that I was too fixated on what Delvro said based on my post concerning him and that it was anti-town because I wasn't open to discussing other people.
You know, I didn't realize that I posted the uncleaned notepad version of my thoughts until now.
(When I'm at work, I don't have internet access. If I get bored, I'll mull over my impressions of this game, then come home to find information to disprove my impressions. If I don't find any, I look for those that support them)
At the time, I was actually thinking it could have been Xiivi too, since he mentioned the FF7 game for metahunting. On that note, why did you do nothing to discourage metagaming then? Why did you wait until it was a direct assault on you?
I was scum in FF7 mafia. Why would I discourage the town from doing something detrimental when i can easily get away with it? It had nothing to do with whether or not I was being targeted, the key difference between me dismissing metagaming and me going with it was me being scum in FF7 in me being town here.
He was the best choice. I agree. I don't think the non-DGamers do.
They all saw my post saying I'd go for the most talkative. I think they would go for a frame job, or ask an IC partner if he or she had one.
So you're the exception to non Dgamers? Why? We're supposed to just take you at your word here again aren't we? I forgot that you don't have to explain these things but I do. My bad.
BTW that's horrible WIFOM. Try again.
Just in case you didn't notice, my responses ARE in fact chock full of logical holes this time. But a logical fallacy doesn't negate truth. 5 million psychologists can't be wrong.
Stop pretending this is a logic puzzle on Grey Labyrinth. Almost all of the arguments made in mafia are logical fallacies. Spending time arguing about it is time that we are wasting.
WIFOM is a logical fallacy. But the many instances of these occurring for Frozen is more likely the slip up of a human being.
Logical fallacies don't NECESSITATE non-truth, but they certainly suggest it.
Even if we accept 5 million psychologists can't be wrong, it IS possible that YOU are wrong in interpreting what the nature of the relationship of my behavior between games really is. You may have noticed a trend, but all the evidence discussed suggests that you've found nothing but universal behaviors unrelated to alignment. You found a correlation, not a causation, and all of the fallacies and poor points you've used supports this.
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So there's the major rebuttal. I'll finish up by addressing his second addendumish post later.
