Open 719: Stack The Deck! (D4)

[Nauci]

@Math - please explain the concept of how a Tracker not dying matters one whit to a situation where you (I presume) agree that the BG is dead tomorrow unless he obligates scum into a suboptimal kill?
Like, I agree the BG won't get protected but...like...so what? Isn't his point to die?

Or just walk me through how a BG claim is bad - something you keep stating but haven't actually explained.
I'm dumb, as you keep calling me - so walk me through it like a dunce.
Why do you, AS A MODERATOR ON RECORD think it's a bad idea?

I worked hard on my post and you didn't even look

I'm hurt

[Nauci]

I'm still down with the flu but I'll probably be poking in enough to not warrant v/la or anything

[Thor665]

I worked hard on my post and you didn't even look

I'm hurt

I read it. I also note I asked Math and was trying to get his answer for reasons outside simple theory gaming - but to address your reply;

As a quick thought experiment - if a BG is in the game, do you think the BG should ever *not* protect the IC tonight?
If you say 'no' to that, you're basically saying that you accept that, claim or no claim, the BG and the IC are dead in two night phases barring scum playing badly.
If scum are playing badly, then huzzah us.
If scum are playing well - then does it not gain an advantage to town to have *two* confirmed town players discussing the day as opposed to one? It narrows lynch pools, and it gives town more honest feedback to assess.

The extent of your negatives are;

1. If there is no BG (which, claim or no claim makes no never mind to who scum should kill tonight and what should happen)
2. That, somehow, by a BG claiming, and having scum shoot him, that it loses town info over scum shooting the IC (which, I'll admit, I don't get what info we would lose and suggest we don't).

So, for the cons we have...lost info?
For the pros we have...more focused scumhunting, more chances for confirmed town to assess things.

Where do you see me being wrong here or missing something?

[Nauci]

If scum find out that there is or isn't a BG in the setup on day 1, then they know that the chances of having a GC/RB/Tracker/Vig are significantly higher or lower depending on how many powers they grabbed. I think it is highly advantageous information for scum to know if the additional TPR(s) is/are BG.

On the other hand, town would have absolutely no way to know if the BG claim is real or not, and not be any more focused, until we saw who died N1, and even then, they can shoot elsewhere to implicate the BG claim as fake. Scum get certain info which narrows down their understanding of the setup by leaps and bounds, while town gets almost none in exchange.

I'm not sure how you're getting the "two confirmed town players discussing the day" part. How could we possibly know for sure if it's a real claim or not? And if we don't know it today, why reveal it now if you think we'll be finding out this info upon seeing the NK?

I mean part of the fun of this setup is that, while town can get an absurd number of PR, the lack of setup info for town keeps it kind of balanced. We've talked about multiple games where claims were bad or fake claims were made, like the Sky_Paladin one where scum managed to bluff RB to defeat a wagon, and rode that conftown train to victory.

[Judge Joseph Dredd]

So your argument is that a town PR claim that will give us a 2nd confirmed town and effect scum NK choices is suboptimal because scum can then not be caught fakeclaiming BG...as though any scum could *ever* fakeclaim BG in a setup with an Innocent Child?

What am I missing here?
Either I'm being dumb or you are. We both seem to think it's the other - can you clarify your stance a bit more? I think mine is made pretty clear above.

I'm not calling you dumb, but you are certainly misunderstanding me.

Let's

assume

scum didn't pick anything, so we have only 2 PRs, and one is the IC.

Now who

knows

we only have 2 PRs? Scum do. Town doesn't because we don't know if they have chosen additional abilities or not.

Let's assume our 2nd PR is indeed a BG, and they claim. Now what's to stop a Goon from claiming RB? What's to stop them from claiming GC? They obviously can't claim Vig because there will be no 2nd NK.

So, the BG claiming gives the Goons the chance to fake claim a PR they already know doesn't exist and thus cannot be CC'd.

Now let's assume the 2nd PR is

not

a BG. We call for them to claim and there's no claim, so the Mafia will know the remaining PR is RB/GC/Tracker/Vig (and the latter will be public info after N1). If they hit that PR at night (by mere chance) they can now fake claim any of the others, and again we don't know. This means they will have to hunt for that PR instead of shooting the IC on N1.

Now apply the same analysis assuming scum did choose one ability (so we have 3 PRs including the IC). the BG outing means scum will hunt for the 3rd PR outside of these 2.

I suggest you go read that game Mathdino modded. Almost50 claimed as BG on D1, and Scum.Jaydragonking used his -limited- knowledge to immediately fake claimed RB as he was being wagoned/pressured. Scum went on to win the game because nobody wanted to lynch the claimed PT (as well as the shenanigans of the BG targeting TW who was the exact target for both the Town Vig and the Mafia kill on N1).

In sum, if for nothing else, the BG claiming gives scum a better of getting way with a fake claim, as well as paint them a road map for their NK on/off the IC, depending on how many additional abilities they picked. which something they know and we don't.

[Judge Joseph Dredd]

But, then again, scum can do that

if we run up a PR and they claim

.

What makes you so confident that will happen? That is what

forming reads

is all about. If you're a PT you need to not stick your neck out too far lest you look suspicious to a majority of players.

[Judge Joseph Dredd]

And scum can (and should) be fakeclaiming regardless so...?

So they could be caught lying!

For example, if you are @L-1 and fake claim something, you are more likely to be CC'd now than you would have been if a BG existed and did claim. You don't know if it's 100% safe to fake claim RB/GC/Tracker (and I'm assuming you won't claim Vig because if you do and there's a Vig they will shoot you. You also can't claim BG after this conversation or you'd still be lynched w/o the need of a CC).

The more you argue here the deeper you're digging your own grave.

[Judge Joseph Dredd]

Why would a scum *not* fakeclaim rolecop if a BG didn't claim?

You trying to fake a town slip here??

[Mathdino]

Honestly, for one of the first times, I don't wanna have this argument.

Nauci and JJD are essentially correct. I don't have much to add. And Thor seems to be the only player in the game that wants this to happen.

Thor isn't making this argument in good faith. I know that, and Thor knows I know that.

In Newbie 1856, I argued (I believe correctly) that the 2d3 Newbie Setup is very optimisable by having the Tracker claim D1. This is because:
- The Tracker can be protected 2/3 of the time if it exists
- It prevents scum from fakeclaiming Tracker later on
- The 1/3 of the time it DOES die, it eats the kill for the Cop.

Thor countered by saying (during and after the game, so this wasn't cuz he was scum):
- It's bad to create a situation where Tracker can die N1 without providing results.

- It's bad for a PR to claim early, because this robs town of VCA and the ability to read players who otherwise would've voted up that PR.

Thor doesn't believe in having more confirmed town running around too early, because this worsens dayplay.

Now Thor is arguing that it's beneficial for there to be more confirmed town.

Basically, this is a long drawn out reaction test that's just filling up the thread with trash: Thor doesn't believe his own argument, and this content is NAI from everyone else. Thor seems to think that town-me would similarly want D1 PR claims just like in the Newbie game, but that's ridiculous and the circumstances are clearly different.

Thor isn't scum because of his "BG should claim" argument. He doesn't believe that, and he's not genuinely arguing that as either alignment. He's scum for dropping a load all over the thread at every opportunity.

Vote Thor or Beefster.

[Judge Joseph Dredd]

jesus fucking christ someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed again

If you're talking about Thor, I think he woke up to find himself sleeping in the bathtub and without a mattress too.

[Nauci]

I didn't want to vote Thor until he addressed his bad faith arguments, but now that he has, I'm not seeing how he looks any better.

Math, is the case on Beef mostly based on his post about you?

[Mathdino]

Reads so far:

Nauci - This sort of self-consciousness is not the scummy kind. probtown.
Mathdino - usual levels of setup speculation. I'm going to stay far away from MD v Maria. Null for now.
Maria - waters muddied by MD v Maria.

Looking into brassherald.

This is not a reads list. This isn't even actual analysis.

brassherald is town for now. Nothing incriminating on him.

This literally makes no sense. Nothing incriminating? There was nothing incriminating on me or Maria either. There's no apparent method here to his reads.

I just realized there is an actual player named "UglyDuck". I assumed everyone was referring to tw due to his avatar. xD

Esp's posts are good. This is nothing like the way I saw him play in Jungle Republic when he was mafia. (or was he WW?)

Wow espetown what a hot take.

Good point. I should vote myself for that.

fluff

UNVOTE:
Since my vote was on Esp

Looking into duck now.

Yeah. There's nothing to go of for UglyDuck. I'm going to give it more time.

Shopping around for someone to vote instead of actually trying to gamesolve. He can't find anything "incriminating" on a player so he throws his hands up and looks elsewhere.
Also lol "I'm going to give it more time". For what? Duck to do something scummy?

Mathdino's posts strike me as IIOA mixed with lurkscum opportunism

VOTE: Mathdino

And this is literally just wrong. He's played with me twice now.
- I always start Opens with setup spec. I do tons of information FOLLOWED BY analysis.
- He thinks I'm LURKING? WAT.
- Opportunism? For what?

His posts are devoid of meaningful content, and the last time I played with town-Beefster, he self-L-1'd in LyLo saying he was gamethrowing, so I don't really mind a deadweight mislynch here.

[Nauci]

I think if we're lynching between Thor and Beef, the former is more capable of damage to the game rather than just not being helpful. I thought about meta divign Beef but honestly if he's unhelpful, it's not worth my effort to know bad-town is his meta.

[Mathdino]

I was thinking about that too actually. Try reading Masons and Monks. I replaced into D1 and immediately powerlynched scum-Beefster. Gut says he's acting similar but I'm not sure and that was a while ago.

Responding to your earlier thing directed at me in a second, i kinda skipped the spoilers

[Mathdino]

I am wary with how often Mathdino has appealed to meta. It's one thing to talk about meta with people one is experienced with (e.g. I had a good game with brass), or to cite a lot of examples from previous games. But I feel like there's a lot of uncited chatter about how someone is not playing their town/scum game without actually knowing their metas, and being able to sound both authoritative and tryhard, relying on other players in the game not caring to research themselves.

I don't know what he has read on the others like Thor, but I've only had one opportunity to be scum and that game last barely a day and a half, with my scum partner accidentally giving away the game almost immediately. I had a great day 1 that game which IMO sounded mostly like my town meta. Every other game I've played I've been town, so I concur with Thor that I don't understand these statements about my scum vs town range.

I've been on a serious meta kick for the past couple months or so trying to enhance that aspect of my towngame. My reads have gone slightly down in quality in general, but I'm getting back up I think.

That said (and I say this most of the time I use meta): I mostly use meta to nullify tells. Like if I'm townreading someone for something, I check their scumgames to see if that's fakable. If i'm scumreading someone, I check their towngames to see if it's NAI. The more I read, the more I can profile the player for what scum-them can fake, and what town-them is likely to do.

So when I townread you, I townread you independently of any meta. I then checked your scumgame to see if the elements I was feeling were present, and you felt different. So I kept my townread, on the basis that you've made arguments today that my profile of you suggests you just wouldn't as scum.

The fact that I'm right that you buddy people as town is proof of concept. I didn't check your towngames for buddying behaviour, because from your thought processes, it just seemed like a natural thing you would do (and probably as either alignment).

Sorting is about getting in people's heads. Meta just helps a little with that.

[brassherald]

My Catch Up.

the worst is not looking great to me. His analysis is minimal, he looks to be fake scum hunting to me. Then he has this, quite bluntly, bullshit read of me sounding guarded because I was VLA, I guess. Or I fluff posted during the RVS stage. Even his Beef vote is pretty weak, with "I missed 206" Where is ANY analysis from him? Quick answer, there's nothing. Closest he has gotten is reviewing Thor's posts, which does not include analysis.

Nauci is pretty okay so far. 233 in particular shows some work coming from the slot. Trying to build up reads and cases and the such is pretty good. I'd like more content in the future, but when she feels better.

Beefster is doing what I believe to be the biggest scum tells 0 analysis, promise to read more people, and not much else. I'd still be cool with a lynch on this slot.

Thor665 and his BG claim ideas and walls and walls of quotes have me on edge. Let me first settle with my two cents on claims. Don't. No one should claim on Day 1 unless they are L-1 on day 1. It doesn't matter if there is a BG or not, it's dumb to claim early. We should be hiding which PRs came out and who the PRs are. We should also not let the scum know if there is not a BG. Thor, if you are town, stop being an idiot. I'd be willing to lynch this because he is very good, and I do not see the town motivation of his posts right now. Beef is still my vote for the time being, though.

Espeonage I don't see much at all from this slot other than 151 which gives me town vibes, but nothing I can put to words.

MariaR I have seen her before, I don't get how she does reads. At the same time, I hate policy lynches and won't participate in one.

Wisdom I hate when people guess the entire scum team on Day 1 and he did exactly that in 176. It's another dumb thing that you shouldn't do as town. I think it's ineffective and creates a confirmation bias later on if one of your guesses is actually right. I'm also just assuming that Wisdom has random guesses because he refuses to share his analysis with anyone in every game.

UglyDuck has 5 posts, but I'm willing to townlean based on 192 for the time being.

Mathdino is frustrating to play with and going way too in depth with the setup speculation in my opinion. I'm also going to lodge my complaint once again with his trying to tell us all where to lynch. I've never seen his scum game, and would assume it is quite good, but I'm not lynching him today, he's got enough actual analysis hidden amongst his ridiculous amounts of setup speculation that I'm not moving toward him. Plus, he is arguing against this BG claim idea, and I don't think scum would.

Judge Joseph Dredd is arguing against the BG claim as well, so that's enough for me to not lynch him on it's own. He's also tunnelling hard on Thor, which is more town than scum because scum wants to BS reads, call them out to everyone and push them. Tunnels as scum make no sense to me.

Can we lynch beef?

[Mathdino]

brass what exactly are your townreads in descending order

[brassherald]

brass what exactly are your townreads in descending order

You know damn well I don't do read lists. I'm not making an exception for this.

[Mathdino]

it feels like you've put yourself in a position to be able to scumread everyone, and a lot of the reasoning seems founded on more basic scumhunting principles than i'm used to from you

like i ultimately agree with a lot of your reads, but the way you've arrived at them feels off

idk we'll see where the day goes

[MariaR]

Alright out of work.

A lot of this just makes me tap my foot like "okay and?" but one thing that stands out to me is

I don't understand Thor scum in fact Thor feels like town. The stance he has taken is one that is one against most of the town and it's just digger him further into the ground and he's not trying to backtrack out of it either he still seems to believe it and has got into arguments over it hell it's getting him lynched all because of 1 thing.
I understand the set up spec of scum knowing or not knowing that if bg is in the game they can claim more stuff but honestly there are only a few roles scum could fake claim and the slot becomes self resolving. This is just a matter of talk I honestly care more about play than any godforsaken claim. To me Thors logic is something that feels genuine even if I think it's wrong and that's what matters in this point of view.

[brassherald]

it feels like you've put yourself in a position to be able to scumread everyone, and a lot of the reasoning seems founded on more basic scumhunting principles than i'm used to from you

like i ultimately agree with a lot of your reads, but the way you've arrived at them feels off

idk we'll see where the day goes

I do have fewer town reads than I would like, at the end of it all, I will say that.

I will say that for today, my lynchpool is Thor/Beef/The Worst.

I think a Thor lynch would more help me sort you out, too so I'm tempted to vote Thor to clear up reads.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by basic scumhunting principles, but at the same time, I would like to point out that I have on at least one occasion made a joke about being in LYLO if my day 1 reads are accurate.

[MariaR]

yawn

VOTE: Beef

wake up

What do you think of Wisdom brass and Thor?

Wisdom can be a scum lean at the moment for the sake that I think Beef is scum and he's trying to distance given the interactions and lynch Thor
Brass isn't someone I've ever really been able to get a good feel on and I'll be relying on others for assistance

Alright, we done here?
Cya in 5 pages

[brassherald]

Alright out of work.

A lot of this just makes me tap my foot like "okay and?" but one thing that stands out to me is

I don't understand Thor scum in fact Thor feels like town. The stance he has taken is one that is one against most of the town and it's just digger him further into the ground and he's not trying to backtrack out of it either he still seems to believe it and has got into arguments over it hell it's getting him lynched all because of 1 thing.
I understand the set up spec of scum knowing or not knowing that if bg is in the game they can claim more stuff but honestly there are only a few roles scum could fake claim and the slot becomes self resolving. This is just a matter of talk I honestly care more about play than any godforsaken claim. To me Thors logic is something that feels genuine even if I think it's wrong and that's what matters in this point of view.

Wow, MariaR literally right after my catch up does something I wasn't expecting and posted a full argument. Definitely not lynching here today, now.

[Mathdino]

Maria, even if he's town, he doesn't believe this.

He seems to be parroting an argument I made in a previous game with him to see if I'll make a similar argument again.

I'll repeat:
- I argued in Newbie 1856 that Tracker should claim D1.
- Thor argued "No, PRs claiming D1 is bad for dayplay and VCA".
- Thor is in this game arguing "Mathdino, why don't you want a PR to claim D1?"
- I argued "This is a different situation, that's stupid this game, and talking about this is stupid because I know you don't actually want that."

If you seriously think he's being genuine with that I really don't know what to tell you. The whole "surprise guys that was a reaction test" is incoming.

My problem is that it's a useless test and has created more noise than useful content. People are getting bogged down with it and hilariously, brass is blaming me for the continued unnecessary setup spec.

[Judge Joseph Dredd]

@Mathdino: I have a request. Can you use your influence on a couple of players to get thor to L-1, please? I'm hoping you do catch my drift, but if not then just please do it for me.