White Flag - TM2020

[Formerfish]

[CheekyTeeky]

Case still in progress, in the meantime this is where I'm at:

{Hopkirk, Kittymo, Dannflor, Dunnstral, BBmolla}
{Auro, Cephrir, Gobbles}
{northsidegal}
{}
{Espeonage, Formerfish, Dongempire}

After going through FF's ISO in depth I've changed my reads on Hop, Espeonage and Dong (again). If I was wrong on either Espeonage or FF I'd relook below my top tier town line. If I'm wrong on Dong I'd relook at BB.

[Cephrir]

I might be kinda ok with that list, except nsg should be in the bottom group.

I'm starting to wonder if espe is town just because his play is really terrible for scum.

[Donempire]

Sorry about this but i will get to playing come tomorrow morning. I've read up and have a few thoughts i'd like to share.

[Dannflor]

Eddie says that he agrees with Ceph exactly and his kill pool is Esp, Dong, Ff, and nsg

[gobbledygook]

Its becoming increasingly distressing that I’m arriving to different conclusions than you

Don't be distressed I often go full circle on reads.

What conclusions are you concerned about?

Dong mainly and FF. I look forward to the case though because maybe that will explain better what I’m not seeinf

[gobbledygook]

Although maybe it looks like you’ve changed your mind on Dong based on your reads list?

[BBmolla]

hey cheeky I'm okay with FF now, their last posts were awful

[Dannflor]

Hello. In this post I will vomit words. Read it if it'll be helpful in sorting me or other people.

Spoiler: Town Reads!

Dunnstral

- Town. This read took a while to form. I don't know what's it been about his posts but I've just had a hard time parsing or focusing on them? I want to blame the wall post style but that's extremely hypocritical of me given I often default to that style. I think I've just been tired! Anyway, actually reading his posts it's uh... pretty good. I think the biggest factor here is the distinct lack of agenda present in his posting. His wall posts reek of good faith town sorting. I especially like progressions such as in #346 where he comes to an understanding with gobble, doesn't make a big LAMIST show of it, and moves quietly on to his next scum read. I like Dunn getting town pinged by my early posting #154 and then subsequently scum reading me and not hesitating to push me / question me. It shows a desire to constantly reevaluate without worrying about looking like he's constantly reevaluating. The uncertainty in #512 reads genuine and towny to me, as well as echoing some of the sentiments I've had about this game recently. In more general terms, he asks good questions.

CheekyTeeky

- Town. Eddie Cane helped with this read initially but since then I've liked a lot of Cheeky's posts individually. For the most part, I keep mind melding with him—which I've found to be a pretty good way to tell when someone is town—both in his entrance/initial FF vote in #552 and more recently in feeling better about Dong in #916. Cheeky has been relentless in asking people who town read his scum reads to explain where they're at, and genuinely attempting to get at the root of the difference in read. He asks Dunnstral to explain town FF and me to explain town Hopkirk. I think Cheeky has the best balance of asking good questions and actual sorting / taking stances of anyone in the game, and as such is probably my strongest town read right now. Also contrary to what BBmolla said, I really like all of his votes and timing of all of his votes. Cheeky's general paranoia and continued probing/hedging on me while still *shrugging* and putting me in his top bracket also reads like a townie progression. It shows that he's not just throwing shade at me because he can and it'll keep me from town blocking, but he actually wants to determine my alignment.

Auro

- Town. Here's the spicy one. I started town reading Auro very early on with post #50, where his concerns about Gobble's question echoed exactly what I was thinking at the time. Honestly, reading back over his ISO, I see *why* people scum read him, even if I don't agree. In general, the scum reads on him seem to be a clash in style, where Auro is a player who gets a lot out of dissecting and evaluating other player's reads on himself, whereas other players see that as overly defensive and scummy. And the thing is, I feel like Auro is a good enough player to just know that as scum, he could let some of these attacks go and look a lot better for it, but he engages in the sometimes fruitless arguments—like recently with FF—anyway. You could argue that he's just trying to clutter the thread as a scum strategy, but I really don't think that's a danger in this game with such a slow pace. Instead, it reads much more like a town mindset that's very willing to go into just about anything and everything, EVEN if that reflects poorly on himself. Like, I don't read Auro's posts and think that his defensiveness is image based, or that he's worried about being town read. Instead, I see Auro using other's reads on him as a way into sorting those people. This is shown in posts like #203 and in his reads list in #491. If Auro was focused on image, I don't think he comes around so quickly to Ceph!town when Ceph was his original attacker. His reads on Dong and Esp are also generated out of his direct engagement with them. I ALSO think it's been quite clear for a while that Auro's method has only been causing more people to scum read him, and I think Auro is smart enough to see that. Yet, he hasn't stopped. Which simply points to Auro just being town. Town that clashes with other town? Maybe, but still town.

KittyMo

- Town. Someone else said earlier that the timing of KittyMo's vote on NSG was towny, I agree with that. I'm not going to harp on too long with this read because I think it's fairly consensus. However, I will say that her progressions and thought processes in a post like #527 is super towny. She takes strong stances but still has an ounce of uncertainty that speaks to her alignment. It's not fence-sitting for an agenda, but more believable uncertainty and trying to get to a concrete conclusion despite evidence in both directions. You can see the same sort of thing in her read of me. Similar to Cheeky, she has her (valid) concerns about me but isn't interested in using them to just discredit me. Also "I guess I'm bored of everyone saying he's too good at scum to deserve to be townread or whatever with minimal elaboration" felt like an especially towny way to approach the read on me. I think me being a more uncertain town read is always going to be beneficial for scum and just dismissing that so casually is towny. Also KittyMo makes me laugh and I don't want her to be scum

Cephrir

- Lean Town. Idk like, what is Cephrir really doing if he's scum? His disinterest in this game has read pretty genuine compared to other players' similar sentiments (more on this later), and his complete lack of regard for engaging with Dong or Auro in #315 is ACTUALLY towny. Definitely a style difference between Auro and him, but in this game especially I think makes Ceph greater than rand town. We have a lot of wall posters and people engaging over every little squibble and detail, and Ceph has firmly said he's not gonna do either of those things. Psychologically, scum want to blend in and what he's done is exactly the opposite of what he needs to do for that. Is Cephrir a good enough scum player to just say fuck it and do that anyway? Probably. But I like his trajectory on NSG and nothing about his posts have really scum pinged me, so he's leaning towards the town category for now.

Hopkirk

- Lean town. Another read Eddie had first. Early on, his analysis in #73 and #149 concerning gobble was something unique no one else had latched onto yet and showed a level of deeper thinking that's harder for scum to pull off. Later on, Hopkirk's reaction to the modkill in #304 was especially genuine. I don't really think that:

A. Hop spends so much time ranting about this if he's rolled scum and really doesn't have to worry about this as much.
B. Hop lies and uses this event as scum to AtE and try to gain a distinct advantage.

A lot of the rest of the reasons I like him for town are similar for my town!Dunnstral reasons. My one main worry here is that his reads in #600 are... kind bad? Like even if you exclude me from that list, there's still Dunn, Auro, and Cheeky in his scum pool that really all deserve to be town cored IMO. I also don't think Gobble or Ceph have done enough to be town cored. FF and Espeon are just straight up scummy. So ehhhhhh... This read has dropped a lot in town equity since that post.

Spoiler: IDK!

gobbledygook

- Mixed. So uh... I was lightly town reading him off his hyperactivity and reaction to pressure in the early game. But since he's completely lurked out of the game, and even admitted to strategically lurking in #344... I just really don't know anymore? My town read on him is extremely stale and I feel like gobble just kinda disappeared at the height of his pressure/wagon, which is NOT a towny look. If he has IRL issues that's fine, but I really need to see more from him soon.

BBmolla

- Mixed. Blah. I liked the entrance and subsequent vote on Dong! It was very sharp! Since then, I'm not a fan of him writing off Dong's pop-in as fence sitty in #772, not a fan of lambasting Cheeky's vote in #793, not a fan of the "I'm obv town" bravado in #800, and not a fan of the overly dramatic and fake feeling #897. In all of these posts there is just a complete lack of any attempts to engage with other players, opting instead for making large sweeping statements and hoping people will town read him through brute force? Idk. Like I liked him, but now his push on Dong has actually made me feel less like I want to lynch Dong.

Dongempire

- Mixed. I thought his pushes on Cephrir on Auro were god-awful, I really did. I mentioned this before but I also hated the timing of his vote in #228. It feels like a very slimy way to get on the Cephrir wagon ESPECIALLY because Dong had just said he wasn't voting Cephrir said because he needed to clear his mind on FF... Yet, there is no engagement or thoughts on FF in between that statement and the vote on Cephrir. Feels like a fake excuse just so he can get optimal timing. On the flip side, I actually like #758 and #763 . Fence sitty? Yes. But tonally this feels like it really could just be uncertain town. The progression of pushing Auro and Ceph to start with and now town reading them is like... very blatant and kinda ballsy for scum in his position. also don't think it's very AI, but I very appreciated the snark in #875.

Spoiler: Scum Reads!

Formerfish

- Pretty scummy! This feels very different from town!Formerfish that I've played with before. I was town pinged by him a little when we engaged cirque his wall posts and he was actually asking me some good questions. Aside from that though, his ISO is very sparse of content that's not unneeded aggression or quibbling over semantics that don't matter. Reads list in #366 also seems... I don't wanna say political, but kinda like he just threw names into different categories until it passed the eye test. I don't understand why wgeurts or Espy or even Hop was in his town list at this point. And Joan and Dong both just feel like easy names to throw in the scum pile without elaboration.

Let's talk about FF's aggression this game, which is actually a lot less aggressive than town!FF! Or at the very least, it's directed differently. In #842 and #847 FF's questioning is:

A. not really useful in encouraging productive AI discussion
B. Assuming the person he's talking to is town, which in both cases, he was scum reading the person he was talking to

Generally, I expect FF not to hold himself back when he thinks someone is scum, he will call them out on being scum. When he's interacting with them, he tries to push them on the reasons why he thinks this. He was sort of doing this with me much earlier in the game, which is why I was town reading him, but overall, he seems much more apt to get involved in fights about semantics and rather useless things. It feels like he's kind of trying to imitate his town self in posts like #852, but it lacks any sense of being genuine when his cases and arguments are lacking the type of logic I would expect from him.

When I ask him about his progression on Auro, he responds with this:

Auro dropped lower to a scum lean because of interactions earlier. I was looking at others but had no reason to change my vote at that time. Nothing came up with the people I was scum reading and then this happened and pushed him further back down my list.

Should I be more rigid with my read?

The bolded is extremely defensive aggression that I don't think FF goes to as town. Furthermore, I don't really think this is how he responds to or interacts with a purported scum read at all.

NSG

- Lean scum. It's possible I'm so hesitant on this read because I really really really want NSG to be town this game. However, if that's the case, I really don't understand what the fuck she's doing this game. Her argument in #669 that she CAN play scum and that her game plan doesn't make too much sense as scum has some credibility. However, we're 1 day away from the deadline with the primary wagon still on her. Half the game has expressed being okay with lynching her here (I think some of the latter sentiments have been scummier than the earlier ones)... NOW is the time to show that she is town. It's really really strange because I don't see NSG, nor RC, or really that whole team being just okay with her slot dying here. This sort of leads me to believe that NSG just can't put the time in, but with half the other games in night phase that seems demonstrably untrue.

Now we're in a position where NSG is one of a few viable lynch options and only 24 hours left. Does a town!NSG let herself get into that position? It's hard for me to see that. And there are viable reasons as to why a scum!NSG would choose this strategy for the first day, such as fear of BoP.

Either way this slot intensely frustrates me and I think if town, NSG would have taken care to spend more time reassuring us that her efforts would go here eventually. Like 515 and 669 don't do enough and I feel like town!NSG should have the sense to know that?

Espeonage

- Scummy. I don't really buy Espeonage's whole "this game sucks, you all suck, and I'm sick of this" schtick. Even if some part of it is genuine, it's overblown to the point where it's a startingly large percentage of Esp's posts, which only accomplishes being a rather LAMIST sentiment. More LAMIST proclaiming in #663 with a level of analysis that reaches the highs of "lynch lurkers bad," without considering why people are suspicious of NSG in particular. I think the dichotomy of being able to compromise on most of the player list, and then also town leaning most of the player list is something that shows either a complete lack of effort or a scum player that is trying to keep their options open.

I'm trying not to let my read be tainted by my utter dislike of Espeonage's attitude, so I'm trying to be as objective as possible. But I don't really think the "lone wolf against the world" attitude is anything towny. I've correctly town read players like mbaki before for such mentalities because at least they were still trying to reach out and had actual reason to be angry. In this game, Espeonage seems to have come into the game with the express intent to be as grumpy as possible and not engage. Like nothing exactly caused this, this was how he entered the game. Anger is fine, but I don't read it as genuine given the lack of attempts to engage with anyone. It feels like Espeonage has spent more time talking about how they can't engage with anyone than even trying. This is maybe my least confident out right scum read right now, but Eddie has also backed it up so \o/

tl;dr: town core of [Auro, Cheeky, KittyMo, Dunnstral]

want to lynch in [FF, Esp, NSG]

could probably compromise on one of my mixed reads, BBmolla especially but ehhh I mostly wanna give those slots more time because I think they CAN become readable

VOTE: FF

This is what I want to kill most.

[CheekyTeeky]

We should probably start consolidating seeing as we have two days left.

[BBmolla]

VOTE: FF

[Cephrir]

That post was actually really helpful to me. Thanks. In particular, you've convinced me of most of your top townreads.

[gobbledygook]

Yeah. The comment about Formerfish is pretty accurate

[gobbledygook]

I feel like I want fish to be town rather than actually town reading him

VOTE: Fish

[Dunnstral]

My main qualm with FF is that there is small amounts of analysis, but there's a lot of words that say nothing as well.

I don't agree with this though

I've kind of already said, I hate their first two posts and that post on the last page

That's pretty weak

OK, but Joan does it as both alignments

Isn't this the same argument that Auro is trying to use about why no one should scum read him for his "NAI" actions?

Possibly, but I agree with that argument for Auro. In any case her lurking is undeniably NAI and not scumsided, and there are dozens of games for reference (pretty much any game she's played really, don't ask me to list stuff, people can check for themself if they really want to)

"ITS NOT SCUMMY, ITS TOWNY AND I DO IT AS TOWN" but you also do it as scum,

True but "they do it as town and scum" isn't really a reason to vote somebody

So if I do it as both town and scum, you accept that *scumreading* me for it is equally bad, yeah? Where'd I say you should townread me for it?

Auro's arguments like this all make sense

This is the same sort of premise that I think Dunn responded to me with earlier without addressing

on what merits he is instead reading Auro on that are more worth looking at

.

Here is where you are misunderstanding me

I don't think I can get a good read on Auro when all he is doing this game is defending himself in a way that I perceive to be NAI - because he is defending himself from something that is Nai, and is justified in doing so since there are a lot of people talking to him about it. I'm not reading him any other way, I'm saying the reasons people are using to scumread him don't make him scum. I don't like to lynch Null people on day 1

1) lurkers are fucking poison to a mafia game

2) and if you think that's me being aggressive you haven't played with me enough

1) Agree but this lurker is a paragon. Again I won't lynch her for what may happen. She will be obvious scum tbh so I'm not concerned about a scum!nsg slipping through my fingers.

2) I was thinking the same thing when dann called me rude lol.

I guess if you had read a little bit more it wouldn't feel like you just latched onto the first explicitly scummy post you saw and then went 'Zomg obv scum.'

When I read through Dong's iso there are a lot of scummy posts, so much so that it seems too scummy to be scum. I think 'surely he would think before posting as scum.' So I'm not sure if he's a generally scummy player as town or if he's just scum here. I kind of need more from you on Dong so I know that your read is legit and you're not just surface level scum hunting as scum.

i like this post a lot I'll trust you on nsg

This post feels kind of towny from BBmolla

Okay for real let’s lynch Dong today look at all the fucking resistance I’m facing against a slot almost everyone has as null THATS NOT NORMAL FOLKS

There isn't "resistance". The reason to vote him was you didn't like 2 early posts and another post, which was weak, so nobody jumped on it.

I'm at the point now that if nsg is town and lynched I don't really care because today most people seem fixated on it and that is going to mess up how the game reads D1.

Ugh.

This is lame though

[Dunnstral]

Dunnstral can you help me see town FF? Why are you townreading him?

I'm not good at explaining townreads; I think that he started off weak in the beginning then picked up and now I can look at his posts and see what he is doing and it makes sense.

Formerfish

- Pretty scummy! This feels very different from town!Formerfish that I've played with before. I was town pinged by him a little when we engaged cirque his wall posts and he was actually asking me some good questions. Aside from that though, his ISO is very sparse of content that's not unneeded aggression or quibbling over semantics that don't matter. Reads list in #366 also seems... I don't wanna say political, but kinda like he just threw names into different categories until it passed the eye test. I don't understand why wgeurts or Espy or even Hop was in his town list at this point. And Joan and Dong both just feel like easy names to throw in the scum pile without elaboration.

Let's talk about FF's aggression this game, which is actually a lot less aggressive than town!FF! Or at the very least, it's directed differently. In #842 and #847 FF's questioning is:

A. not really useful in encouraging productive AI discussion
B. Assuming the person he's talking to is town, which in both cases, he was scum reading the person he was talking to

Generally, I expect FF not to hold himself back when he thinks someone is scum, he will call them out on being scum. When he's interacting with them, he tries to push them on the reasons why he thinks this. He was sort of doing this with me much earlier in the game, which is why I was town reading him, but overall, he seems much more apt to get involved in fights about semantics and rather useless things. It feels like he's kind of trying to imitate his town self in posts like #852, but it lacks any sense of being genuine when his cases and arguments are lacking the type of logic I would expect from him.

When I ask him about his progression on Auro, he responds with this:

Auro dropped lower to a scum lean because of interactions earlier. I was looking at others but had no reason to change my vote at that time. Nothing came up with the people I was scum reading and then this happened and pushed him further back down my list.

Should I be more rigid with my read?

The bolded is extremely defensive aggression that I don't think FF goes to as town. Furthermore, I don't really think this is how he responds to or interacts with a purported scum read at all.

842 looks fine to me; not every question has to try to determine if someone is town or scum, the question here is trying to determine how you are thinking about your response in 836, and standing by his earlier point. I don't think he is assuming the person he is talking to is town; I think both questions are trying to work with the other person to see what they are thinking

And Joan and Dong both just feel like easy names to throw in the scum pile without elaboration.

But I think he'd put them there as town, too, so it's not a good point

Generally, I expect FF not to hold himself back when he thinks someone is scum, he will call them out on being scum. When he's interacting with them, he tries to push them on the reasons why he thinks this. He was sort of doing this with me much earlier in the game, which is why I was town reading him, but overall, he seems much more apt to get involved in fights about semantics and rather useless things.

pedit- Auro dropped lower to a scum lean because of interactions earlier. I was looking at others but had no reason to change my vote at that time. Nothing came up with the people I was scum reading and then this happened and pushed him further back down my list. Should I be more rigid with my read?

Him fighting about semantics is a side effect of arguing with Auro, IMO. Here's the thing: He doesn't have a strong scumread, he's only scumleaning Auro and still is open to being convinced he's wrong if AUro makes a post that he likes, which he hasn't seen from Auro yet. He even says he moved Auro down to a scumlean. What you're pointing out as his behaviour is instead his behavior when he is certain that someone is scum with a higher confidence than he currently has right now - he's not in tunnel mode, he's in solve mode.

This progression is really scummy.

I'm looking at people that are consolidating on FF right now - this wagon feels sketchy, it's like it came out of nowhere that everybody is scumreading FF

[Dannflor]

I do not feel like he's solving. Like the reason I was asking him what he was hoping to get out of that discussion is because his attacks are empty. He goes from arguing semantics with Auro to saying Auro must have a red PM and shutting him down. Where do you see him solving?

[Dunnstral]

958 is overall a good post though. I don't need to comment on every little thing in there but I liked you talking about not letting espeonage attitude affect your read + their lone wolf thing. I'm also low confidence on this one and wasn't excited about pushing espy.

Nsg is playing scummy yes, low confidence on that but willing to lynch. I prefer to get GobbledyGook - is that possible today?

[Dannflor]

I could kill the rooster

Did not particularly like his vote on FF all things considered

[CheekyTeeky]

Dunn your wisdom blinds you.

[Dunnstral]

He goes from arguing semantics with Auro to saying Auro must have a red PM and shutting him down.

Well where do you see this?

Where do you see him solving?

In most of his posts that don't talk about Auro I think there is clear solving. With auro there is some trying to figure him out but low decisiveness which is what you have issue with I'm guessing

[Dannflor]

eddie said he would switch cephrir and Dunn as far as read confidence goes but otherwise agrees with my reads

He wants to kill in nsg, ff, esp, dong, gobble specifically

[Dunnstral]

Dunn your wisdom blinds you.

IDK what you're talking about

My preferred vote right now is Gobble, my secondary vote would be NSG. We need to figure this out pretty fast because we're coming up on deadline

[Dannflor]

Quote the multiple people explaining why it's anti-town.

People don't need to explain things to your liking for it to be true, your role pm dictated that long before you opened your mouth and let us all see which color you got as clearly as you did when you opened the pm.

[Dannflor]

VC has 3 on NSG, 3 on FF currently