Fair enough. In hindsight I gotta admit that I didn't pick the best choice last night. I still maintain that it didn't look wrong when I did it, but as they say hindsight is 20/20. Unfortunately I can't go back and choose again. And I wonder if I overreacted in OMGUS, so
unvotus Lifthrasil
at least for now.

You're wrong about how you interpret my words, tho. You said I meant to start paying more attention to you and Caesar NOW. All the time after I saw people start following the Joe wagon was spent thinking if the scum was among you or Caesar and I was set to follow one of you, probably you. And then Agent makes his joke and we can't question him, made me change my action on the spot. I didn't stop scrutinizing either of the unconfirmed players for one minute. Only my night action was aimed at Agent.

I gotta add to Lift's question here. Why don't you try and spill it out? You haven't shown much effort the whole game. If you have something please put it forward. Do you need some pressure to do it? Should I vote you?
If you need some hard number for your theory imagine everyone said only one scum left. Then write below a second theory that considers two scum left. We'll analyze them both and dismiss any that can't be true.

That way we will also have something to judge you by, to conclude if you're a townie or not. Because so far you gave us barely nothing we can work with.

If it wasn't for this argument sprouting with me and Lift I am fairly certain you'd be dangerously close to being lynched already.

Because yesterday I didn't have the time to make a long post, and, sine I have absolutely no idea about balancing mafia games, I knew I was going to end up asking how many scum everybody thinks are left. Hopefully it will make sense when I finish my post.

But really, what some of you call "contributing the absolute minimum" for me is "finding precious moments in the very limited free time I have during the weekdays".

OK, here are my thoughts:

What we know for sure:

* Micro is confirmed innocent child, no questions here, 100% town.
* Agent is a confirmed neighborizer who proved his ability. Oractically conformed town. He also has a "nothing" on last night by the claimed tracker.
* Pooka has two "nothing" results by the claimed tracker, one of them in the last night that the mafia killed someone.

What I know for sure that the rest don't:

* I am Town.
(Everybody, think now what you know for sure and draw you own conclusions!)

What can we deduct from this?

Now that's where the number of scum left changes things. The assumed number of scum left is 1 (makes sense in a game with two potential night kills per night), but during today, when I've been thinking about this, I didn't know what everybody would think, and I wanted to foresee it anyway, so let's explore both scenarios.

If there is a single scum left:

Pooka can't be it. For Pooka to be scum, then Joppo must have lied about his "didn't visit anyone" result the last night mafia killed someone. And in this scenario, there is only one scum left. This is huge for two reasons: 3 out of 6 players would be basically confirmed, and we don't even need to know if Joppo lies or tells the truth to draw this conclusion.

That means, for me, that the last scum is either Joppo or Lift (this will be different for the rest of you. For example, if Lift is innocent, he will probably be thinking now that the last scum is Joppo or, well, me).

The problem with Joppo is, with the current set of players, he has no way to prove himself. Unless someone suddenly comes out and tells they protected him last night from a night kill, we only has his word. Well, technucally there is a way, which comes into place in the next scenario.

If there are two scum left:

As I said, I've been thinking about it just in case because I have no idea what would be an OP or UP setting. So just humor me and let's think:

If Pooka is scum, then Joppo is also a scum. In this case we wouldn't know... until Joppo is dead. The thing is, Joppo's dead would confirm his role and his results.

Joppo and Lift could be another pair, just theoretically.

Pooka and Lift are less likely, because then Joppo would be innocent and he has not one but two "went nowhere" results on Pooka. If course, the mafia kill could have been held by Lift and not Pooka, that's why I don't see it as impossible but not as likely.

I am not considering a pair in which I am mafia because I know I'm not, that's your job to think about. :p

What is lacking:

* If Pooka has a permanent immunuty against tracking (or at least two shots), he could be the last mafia. But that's supposing he has an immunity against a specific role that has gotten a false innocent twice in a row.
* I have no idea how the fact that last night there was no kill plays into this. That's why I mentioned that, if someone thinks it could clear someone, they should consider talking. I'm guessing they would have told us if it was a roleblock, so I am leading towards a protect for one of the already confirmed players.

Also please find and share any mistakes in my reasoning. :)

Note that none of this had taken into consideration the "scummy behavior" factor.

tl;dr (shame on you): Pooka is borderline confirmed town. Joppo is more likely to be scum after considering different scenarios, especially if there is more than one scum left. Joppo's results can only be confirmed after he dies. Lift would be second more likely from my point of view, but that relies on my knowledge that I am town which only I know for sure.

Ans for a counterpart:

Based on behavior alone, I'd say it's Lift. I have suspected him since Day 1, that's no secret. But we (and of course I am including myself in that we) have been doing an awful job at scumreading this game, so I think we should first give a try to obtaining as much objective information as possible.

If it were just me, I'd vote first for Joppo. If he is scum and the game ends, yay! If he is innocent then I'd lynch Lift, which should
end things and all town wins (including Joppo and all the mislynched).

If Joppo is scum but the game doesn't end... Well, we'll cross thar (unlikely?) bridge when tge time comes.

But of course, it's not only up to me.

The game gets so slow at this point.

My vote on Joppo stays.

Weeeell, there is the ninja role...

soo, we seem to be giving the miller a free pass anti-policy.... just to get this game moving and to put my vote where my gut instincts are,

vote lifthrasil

also willing to policy Pooka, or vote Joppo.

Exactly that is my assumption. My preference would be to lynch Joppo today and if he is actually Town, either lynch you tomorrow or re-visit the Pooka=Ninja theory. That is still a possibility, as Micro pointed out and Ninja isn't hat uncommon in a game with a Tracker.

But there are just too many things off about Joppo. While it is nice that he admits that his choice of tracking agent was strange, I really would have expected him to choose a different target if he were Town. For example me. He suspected me time and again all game and I am in the unconfirmed pool. So I would have been the natural tracking target. Yet he never once tried to track me. Instead he double tracked Pooka and tracked a confirmed player, based on a Godfather/Neighborizer double role idea. That just feels off and still looks like an excuse to give Town as little information as possible. Therefore Joppo remains my primary choice.

true....but if we are RM, as Pooka suspects vocally, having 4 vanilla seems high, and we have
SPF, Trent, Flocke all confirmed vanilla
Lift, Caesar claim vanilla.

is 5 vanilla abnormal considering?

list of players with unconfirmed claims in brackets 5 vanilla seems very high for RM. Thus I would state that this is PR heavy but not RM.

could be, but my gut says Lift is scum, in part because he keeps putting pressure on various but backing off them later.
Joppo and Pooka have a high likelihood of being scum, Joppo more than Pooka, unless Pooka is Ninja.
14 players,
confirmed are 2 : 1 : 6 (+1) = 10 (4 unconfirmed)
4 : 1 : 9 seems scum-heavy?
OTOH, 4 : 10 is closer to the 14/4=3.5
4/14 is 0.28571428571428571428571428571429 or 28.571% scum, which is slightly high but not too high.
Mafia games usually have 1/4 of the players as scum.
Correct me please if I am wrong: are 3rd-party SK's usually considered scum for balancing purposes?
if yes, we have 1 scum left. If no, we have 2 scum left.

Vote Count

Joppo 2 - agent, Lift
Lift 1 - Micro

Not voting - Caesar, joppo, Pooka

Joppo closest at L-2

6 players. 4 to lynch.

Yes, SK is considered scum. While it is true that it may work in Town's favour temporarily by killing a regular Scum, the second NK more than makes up for that and also the SK has to wipe out Town to win. So it is definitely a Scum-role for balancing purposes.

As for Role-Madness: I don't think that this is a role-madness game. Too many Vanillas for that, as you noticed yourself.

That's true. Which tells us two things:
1 - it wasn't a role-block that prevented the kill. Otherwise the Roleblocker would long since have revealed the guilty blockee
2 - it probably wasn't prevented by protecting one of the unconfirmed. Because that would have been valuable additional information that the protector would also have revealed by now.

So, Scum probably attempted to kill one of the confirmed players and the probably existing protector chose the right target to protect (50% chance between the two confirmed). Or the target was bullet-proof. As we discussed at the start of the Day, these are the cases where it is in our interest not to reveal what happened exactly. In this case, the less information the remaining Scum has, the better. If we reveal whether it was, for example, bullet proof or doctoring, we would only tell Scum whether they can safely re-target the same target or whether they should switch targets. Let's keep them guessing. In that way, we have a good chance of having another NK prevented, if the scum keeps targeting one of the confirmed players. And if he plays it safe and targets one of the probably unprotected unconfirmed players, he will only narrow down the suspect pool for us. So, keeping scum in the dark is our best path right now!

I'm a bit torn about cutting the Day short, though. On the one hand I don't like cutting discussions short. On the other hand hardly anyone is discussing at the moment and the game seems to have stalled. So we might as well end the Day, since it is unlikely that more information will suddenly appear. Anyway, my vote is on my preferred target. I would switch if the approaching deadline forces me to, but for now I see no reason to move my vote.

FYI, Joppo PMed me that he has some Real Life issues (broken bone and missing work) and won't have access to a normal PC till he visits his parents. His posts from mobile are not going through.

Deadline for End of Day might be extended.

So, if I understand it correctly, a ninja is a way to balance a tracker (extra investigative power for town)?

Those were my thoughts as well.

I'd be ready to vote for Joppo now, but that'd be putting him at L-1 and I think we should give him time to sort things and let us know by posting again or contacting ZFR.

Ouch! I hope he gets through, that must hurt like hell. Stay strong, Joppo! No need to fuss over the game, your health is more important.

Oh, that is bad. In that case we shouldn't end the Day prematurely. Especially not since he is the main suspect right now (at least my main suspect and the leading wagon). It would be unfair to lynch him without him having the chance to participate and defend himself.

@Joppo: get better soon!