Newbie 1859 (Game Over)

[ofrhz]

@188 I believe she did answer my question but I will wait for another explanation.

I was really looking for ruru's comments on the state of the game.

Also she said she was trying to move the game forward by asking the question, but she never really followed up on it, or commented much after that. So was she saying that to be like "look at me, I want to move the game forward to help town!!!111"? basically I still think she's suspicious.

[Scioness Sajj]

1). Thanks for letting me know what I thought at that time.
2). I've spent most of the game asking questions and answering them. I didn't engage you, you did engage me. I think at some point I have said that I want to get to know players and their thoughts and you agreed with me I have also said multiple times that I'm more interested in creating content than looking for scumslips this early in the game.
+) they don't work towards my wincon. I'm pretty sure that misslynches benefit scum best when they happen naturally.

Another question:
3)Do you think it was optimal for scum!me to imply/push for lynch on you so early in the game instead of just hoping on a wagon created by town?
4) why would scum!sajj want to misslynch you especially? What would scum!sajj benefit from lynching you over eth0s for example?

I don't really want to lynch Oxy I don't think scum would try to work a case like that.

[Oxy]

I was about to head off to bed, but I'll answer this last post first.

Not particularly? Where are you getting that from?

I feel like ever since I initially FoS'd her, Sajj has spent the vast amount of her posts trying to get me to town read her, and then getting frustrated when I wasn't. I get that town wants to be town read, but I feel like town's focus should be on finding scum. I feel like Sajj is a good enough player and smart enough person to expect this focus from town!Sajj.

Is it accurate to say that you think he's deliberately ignoring you? IE that you don't inherently have a problem with someone not sharing thoughts, but you dislike it when people avoid direct questions, which is what you think he's doing?

There wasn't a question in that spoiler, or I would have answered it.

196 - point 1 feels kinda reachy to me?

It is reachy, but I'm not telepathic. Maybe she did it subconsciously because she knows that it's a good scum strategy and as such she found it an easy way to throw some shade that might stick. Maybe she's running on putting on airs after being praised for her successful scum game in her previous game, and thought she was invincible. Maybe it was something else. Let's ask her in postgame.

p-edit:
@Sajj
1) see the above paragraph
2)Actually, on reread, I think you'll find yourself engaging me an awful lot since I put you in my null read column.
+)I don't want to have this debate. It's not productive. There are many ways to play scum successfully.
3) I think you were sowing the seeds for that wagon and positioning yourself to jump on it once it started forming. That was the plan you outlined, after all.
4) I don't necessarily think scum!Sajj cared. Or maybe she does. I'll ask her in postgame. I'm also scum reading eth0s, so I'm kind of wondering if this isn't an attempt to shield her partner. Will come back to this after a red flip.

[Oxy]

Folks, she's doing exactly what she has said is scummy. If she is town, why is she acting scummy by her own definition? Don't get bogged down in the nitty gritty. This one is pretty easy.

[Oxy]

And if you aren't convinced, put some pressure on her, examine her actions under that pressure and help pin down this slot one way or the other.

[ruru]

I just spent a ridiculously long time going through Oxy v Sajj; it was hard to follow because there was so much talking over each other.

I know right...

However, Sajj's defensiveness comes off as genuine.

She also acted tilted at one point in 1859 when being accused. I would consider her defensiveness as NAI.

It feels to me like Sajj is playing with the goal of not being scum read rather than playing with the goal of finding scum. Does anyone else see it that way?

I think her playing style is a bit odd. Not inherently scummy or towny, just odd, and that makes it more difficult to read.

My introduction to mafia was IRL mafia in a certain circle of what I think were fairly experienced players. I had never played or seen the game played before, and I was majoring in math, so my playstyle was pretty strange. I played two games with them; in the first I rolled mafia and the second I rolled VT. In both games I claimed mafia with a villainous grin on day 1, because I thought I may as well explore weird options to balance myself (in the poker/game theory sense), because I didn't think I could pull off mafia when I rolled it unless I always acted scummy and I didn't want people to be reading me. (I also got lynched on day 1 in both games and never played mafia again with that group.)

SS reminds me of a much less silly and more sophisticated version of that. It almost feels like she is playing with the goal of balancing herself for future metagame reasons. Or maybe I am reading way more into this and it's just her personality.

One other thing I noticed is she likes to not-answer people's questions by asking them a question instead. I think she is doing this more here than she did in 1859.

@188 I believe she did answer my question but I will wait for another explanation.

I was really looking for ruru's comments on the state of the game.

Also she said she was trying to move the game forward by asking the question, but she never really followed up on it, or commented much after that. So was she saying that to be like "look at me, I want to move the game forward to help town!!!111"? basically I still think she's suspicious.

I haven't followed up on it because not everyone has answered yet and I don't want to help scum game the question. I'm planning to post my reads afterward.

[ofrhz]

@Scioness Sajj I just read through your ISO. You've actually never called me scum outright. In fact, in between your read list and now, you actually implied that you didn't think I was scum, as indicated in bold

In the post you quoted, I think she was talking to me, saying I was suspecting her of asking questions

[ofrhz]

@oxy - I think you asked for my opinion last page. I need to go through the recent interactions between You and Sajj but the tldr is that I am not seeing eye to eye with your reasoning on Sajj. I still townread you both, so at this point, it’s like town is picking each other apart. And I don’t want to encourage that while half of the players are effectively taking a backseat which is why I see no need to pressure Sajj

[ofrhz]

@ruru interesting link (the one to game 1851). I’ll try to read it more closely later

Fair enough. But Given the natural flow of conversation, I think the question is likely to just fall through the cracks. I don’t want the analysis you have cooking up to be lost

[Assemblerotws]

Seeking replacements for westen and callitwhatyouwant.

[eth0s]

VOTE: Scioness Sajj

[eth0s]

Will elaborate when I have more time. Should be available within next 14 hours. Almost done being super bust for awhile.

[skitter30]

I feel like ever since I initially FoS'd her,

Sajj has spent the vast amount of her posts trying to get me to town read her,

and then getting frustrated when I wasn't. I get that town wants to be town read, but I feel like town's focus should be on finding scum. I feel like Sajj is a good enough player and smart enough person to expect this focus from town!Sajj.

Can you show me specifically where you think the bolded is happening?

Also, yes, town's focus should be on finding scum, but I kinda think that town ought to try to get townread too - it can take you out of the lynch pool and thus make it easier for everyone else to find scum by PoE.

I also kinda feel like you're expecting a lot from her given that it's literally her second game. Also since you said you don't think you can meta her, and she doesn't even have any towngames to look at in comparison, I'm not really sure why you think town!her would not behave this way.

It is reachy, but I'm not telepathic. Maybe she did it subconsciously because she knows that it's a good scum strategy and as such she found it an easy way to throw some shade that might stick. Maybe she's running on putting on airs after being praised for her successful scum game in her previous game, and thought she was invincible. Maybe it was something else. Let's ask her in postgame.

Like I'm not asking you to be telepathic, but you kinda have to give me a plausible and reasonable explanation for why she, as scum, would publicly telegraph her plan of setting you up as a mislynch if you want me to entertain the idea.

----------
205 - I'm an applied math major (and I'm taking game theory next quarter )

Game related - This entire post kinda feels kinda :/ to me. Like you don't outright call Sajj scum, but indicate you find her sketchy for a variety of reasons. But since you don't really follow that up by trying to sort her by talking to her or by laying down a vote, I kinda feel like you're just making a general observation that you find her sketchy without doing anything about it. It makes me feel like you're comfortable finding her vaguely sketchy without trying to sort her, which feels kinda shade-y to me.

[Oxy]

You math folks are living in a theoretical world. Having studied physics, I think my approach to scum hunting is a lot more pragmatic.

Spoiler:

I'm going to wait for eth0s to elaborate before moving forward. The above was simply a joke above. Please don't read too much into it.

[Scioness Sajj]

n post 103, Scioness Sajj wrote:
In post 88, Oxy wrote:
As a corollary I think it's easier for scum to find small errors in one's memory of an event, or reasoning for a case than it is to try and identify "fake" town emotions in people they KNOW are town. Town, knowing that they must find scum and working from an information disadvantage are as likely (more so, perhaps?) to make small errors

So you are saying that scum will only be after methodical mistakes?

Example of trying to put words into his mouth. I think Oxy was making a general statement but never implied it was a hard and fast rule.

I'm asking if I understand him correctly, not putting words into his mouth at all here. Like I'm talking to him about his words I'm not saying 'oxy said that...'.

You don't want to commit to a read on me, so something is stopping you?

1). In this entire interaction about reads, I felt like you were assuming he was doing something he wasn't. You think he's holding back his read or whatever, but he really just didn't have a read. I find that believable.

2). Your post 152 was actually the first time you asked him for his general conclusions (Read =/= conclusions). I think 153 was the only time he was holding back. I'm inclined to chalk this up to him being frustrated as a result of the interaction from post 144 onwards, and he gave you his conclusions right after your response. In general, Oxy seems very eager to engage with everyone except in 153, which is the main reason why I'm townreading him.

In 172 in the spoiler, where he said "because mafia is not an easy game. I don't understand what you're trying to get out of this," I think that was an earnest answer to your question.

1). In 138 Oxy on his own decides to mention that he has read my iso but came up with nothing. I didn't asked for it, he just thought he would mention it. But he doesn't give any reasoning he just says he did, the fact he ISO-ed me adds nothing to the game. Like he said it for people to know that he is putting effort in without actually progressing the game or sharing his thoughts. He had to have thoughts when he was reading my posts, a reason why his read on me stayed the same. I wanted to know the reason. I agree my questions at first aren't clear enough. I can see now when the misunderstanding is coming from. But then when I tell him exactly what I want to know and he knows what I want he changes topic. I took him as him being difficult on purpose, I believe I was as clear as I could in 152 and he had no reason to change the topic like that. I still wanted to know the answer so I offered to trade informations. And I was just happy to get the answer but then he made a joke. I didn't pay much attention to it I took it as a joke. But then I looked at the joke in the context of the whole convo and it pinged me. The joke paired with the answer makes me think that he said what he thought I would want to hear instead of giving me an honest answer.
2). Yeah the questions weren't clear, I get that. And he did refuse me the answer. It wasn't the first time though.

Spoiler:

You have misunderstood or skimmed over much that I wrote, but that's fine. One question, though. How do we know who has confirmed/who hasn't?

If I have misunderstood/skimmed, it's not fine it would be best to explain it.

In post 41, Scioness Sajj wrote:
If I have misunderstood/skimmed, it's not fine it would be best to explain it.

They are town reads, not scum reads. I'm not pushing a lynch on them, so

I don't really care if you share them. If you're interested, you are capable of reading and understanding.

Here's a hint: There wasn't an error in my timeline.

Bolded pretty clearly states to me that he doesn't want to help me understand what he is saying. I assumed he was being difficult because he was scumreading me.

[Oxy]

Haven't said this up until now because I generally think it's a waste of time arguing against strawman arguments, but I'm pretty fed up with this one. Let's not pretend that you're a paragon of being forthcoming. I had to "trade" you for your reads because you refused to give them to me in 107

[Oxy]

And while I'm sitting here all riled up, the rest of ya'll should check this out: https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=74900
It's the private thread from her mafia game. Skimming it is fine, and I'll give you some themes to look for while you read:
1) Very rarely does she 'misunderstand' things her scum partner is saying.
2) New player or not, she has an excellent mind for the game and should be given no quarter for being new.
3)the private thread is THIRTY-SIX PAGES. The end of D1 in that game ends somewhere in the first few pages of thread, just after she replaced in. I can't imagine how long the thread would have been if she had been in the game from the start. What does that mean? It means she is putting more effort into these games than probably anyone else here. Her posts in this thread are not indicative of that type of effort.

[Scioness Sajj]

2. I don't think not sharing thoughts has to be AI, but the manner he goes about it bothers me. Example in spoiler in 172, which he also ignored and went stright to scumreading me and he has found 170 to have a vote on me, but it seems like an excuse for a vote more than a reason.

Is it accurate to say that you think he's deliberately ignoring you? IE that you don't inherently have a problem with someone not sharing thoughts, but you dislike it when people avoid direct questions, which is what you think he's doing?

Overall not as much ignoring me as he didn't want to wrok with me and was selective about the things he wanted to answer. I believe he did ignore 172 on purpose when I was talking about it with ofrhz, he did answer it when you brought it up though. The answer seems pretty scummy to me, it's more of an excuse than explanation.

I don't have a people with people wanting to keep information to themselves. But when they wiggle around it it makes me think that they don't want to refuse outright becuase they are concerned with it appearing as scummy. They are more concerned with how they will be precived by players than actually solving the game.

[Scioness Sajj]

I feel like ever since I initially FoS'd her,

Sajj has spent the vast amount of her posts trying to get me to town read her,

and then getting frustrated when I wasn't. I get that town wants to be town read, but I feel like town's focus should be on finding scum. I feel like Sajj is a good enough player and smart enough person to expect this focus from town!Sajj.

Can you show me specifically where you think the bolded is happening?

Oxy, could you answer this instead of providing subjective 'proofs' on your theory?

[Oxy]

I will. waiting on eht0s first. Didn't want to post much of anything, tbh, but you got under my skin.

[Scioness Sajj]

It is reachy, but I'm not telepathic. Maybe she did it subconsciously because she knows that it's a good scum strategy and as such she found it an easy way to throw some shade that might stick. Maybe she's running on putting on airs after being praised for her successful scum game in her previous game, and thought she was invincible. Maybe it was something else. Let's ask her in postgame.

My first scum game wasn't successful from my POV and you should know that after reading end game comments and scum PT.

[Scioness Sajj]

I will. waiting on eht0s first. Didn't want to post much of anything, tbh, but you got under my skin.

What have I done that I have got under your skin?

[Scioness Sajj]

3)the private thread is THIRTY-SIX PAGES. The end of D1 in that game ends somewhere in the first few pages of thread, just after she replaced in. I can't imagine how long the thread would have been if she had been in the game from the start. What does that mean? It means she is putting more effort into these games than probably anyone else here. Her posts in this thread are not indicative of that type of effort.

You were making it sound like I had a lot of scum plans in that PT and proactive ideas how to win that game. Is that correct?

[Scioness Sajj]

Haven't said this up until now because I generally think it's a waste of time arguing against strawman arguments, but I'm pretty fed up with this one. Let's not pretend that you're a paragon of being forthcoming. I had to "trade" you for your reads because you refused to give them to me in 107

I believe I have put an effort in trying to understand you in 39, 107 as I have already explained to you was me being mean to you for telling me to go figure out 30 on my own. And you left it at that, there was no trade at all. Have you asked again maybe you could have get the reads.

[Oxy]

I really don't have time for a back and forth right now. We can converse as long as you'd care to this evening. I will answer these for you now, though.

My first scum game wasn't successful from my POV and you should know that after reading end game comments and scum PT.

By successful I meant that you won. I did see your comment in post game, and I do know from your PT that you

felt

overwhelmed, but you did a great job and everyone who commented on your game agreed.

I will. waiting on eht0s first. Didn't want to post much of anything, tbh, but you got under my skin.

What have I done that I have got under your skin?

Primarily your straw man arguments, as detailed minutes ago in 215. (Seriously, Sajj, are you even reading the game?)

3)the private thread is THIRTY-SIX PAGES. The end of D1 in that game ends somewhere in the first few pages of thread, just after she replaced in. I can't imagine how long the thread would have been if she had been in the game from the start. What does that mean? It means she is putting more effort into these games than probably anyone else here. Her posts in this thread are not indicative of that type of effort.

You were making it sound like I had a lot of scum plans in that PT and proactive ideas how to win that game. Is that correct?

No. That is not at all what this is saying. I'll go further and evaluate that statement. You DID have many plans and ideas throughout the PT. Many of them were great ideas. They were mostly reactive in nature, but there were definitely proactive ones as well. Things along the lines of, "we need to kill {player name} because of {game mechanic} and so that {other player name} will suspect so and so." or "I'll go make this argument to accomplish {goal x} which will allow you, meaning your partner, to do y.

p-edit: so when I don't share my reads or answer a question immediately, I'm avoiding it. When you snap at me and refuse to give your reads, I should have followed up. ooh! ooh! I know the next rule! When scum wins, it will be my fault for not pushing a lynch harder on D1. Give. Me. A. Break.