So what you're essentially saying is that I should just start flinging trout at people and hope that it sticks? No thank you. This early on we have absolutely nothing to go on, everything we're doing is pretty much guesswork anyway. The best we can ever hope for on a first day is to either have a mafia slip up and expose themselves, which isn't easy if they're even moderately competent, or just get lucky and hope the person we end up lynching is mafia. Which as I said, is basically a crap shoot. Analyzing people and what they say at a point in the game where there isn't any evidence or night kills to go on is pretty much pointless, in my opinion.

You continue to insist that I've done nothing to help the town so far, well I disagree. This may be a little long winded, so bear with me. Keep in mind that what I'm about to say is also just a hypothesis, and the most straightforward one at that. I'm not saying that this is exactly what is happening, and that other ideas should be discounted, I'm just putting out the most obvious and simple idea out there.

What I can make out from what you're saying is that in order to be a useful town player, I should have been spending the entire game so far needling at people, trying to pick apart everything they say and try to convince everyone else that anything I think is suspicious is exactly what I say it is. Being that we're so early into the game that this is pretty much all any of us have got to go on, surely then it stands to reason that this is exactly what any active mafia members would be trying to do. "We have to blend in! We have to make the town think we're one of them! Let's do exactly what a good townie would!"

If you take that to be a reasonable assumption, how exactly would it help anyone for me to do exactly the same thing the rest of the town and the mafia are doing? It wouldn't. It would just be another roll of the dice hoping to pin something on someone regardless of who they are affiliated with.

So I haven't done that. Instead I've had a thoroughly enjoyable time poncing around in the thread, amusing myself by annoying you lot and seeing exactly what kind of reactions it would garner. So let's take a look at that. Instead of playing a generic townie game, I've been doing something outside of what would be considered safe or useful townie playing. And immediately, there have been people jumping all over it. LOOK! SOMETHING DIFFERENT! BLAME IT FOR ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS! Could they just be well meaning townies who genuinely believe there's something fishy about me? Sure! But who exactly would stand to gain the most from someone like me at this stage of the game?

"Look! Bruce isn't being helpful. If we start screaming at him about how unhelpful he's being, it'll help our cover out. We'll look like really helpful townies!" I think you see where I'm going with this.

So am I accusing you three of being mafia? No, not really. Am I trying to convince you that this is all a big ploy and I'm definitely town? No again. You can make your own minds up. I don't really care either way. But to immediately look at the guy who is not doing what a townie should and assume there's something up, and that everyone trying their best to be helpful must be town...well. Make your own mind up on how much sense that makes.