Mini Normal 2159 | Cinder Block Mafia | Game Over!

[Looker]

goddamn it; you mean i actually have to

READ

this thing?!?

[Looker]

o wait, i did read that; it's some shit you're saying is confirmed but is only confirmed to you. i'm good with my vote for now.

[Looker]

if your concern was that the setup was townsided, i don't see why 9:4 wouldn't offset that

[Titus]

Mod: Is a parity cop normal?

@Looker, I can only be scum if CFD is. If you think I am scum, your vote should be on cfd.

[WaltertheDunce10]

Parity cop?

[callforjudgement]

Can you respond to 1844 cfd?

I'm not sure I understand your VCA logic, here.

It seems quite plausible that the shelly wagon would be all town. In particular, I don't think any votes after Nosferatu's are useful for VCA purposes; at that point it was almost guaranteed that shelly would be the elimination that day, and with the potential for a 2½-hour deadline to be instituted at any point and only three votes on the largest counterwagon, it would have been obvious for anyone (town or scum) to pile onto that wagon in order to avoid deadline expiring.

Also bear in mind that geraintm's unvote of shelly came pretty soon after geraintm's vote of shelly; the original vote was to avoid deadline, the unvote was after deadline was suspended (in a sort of weird awkward position where it could have started back up at any moment with only 2½ hours left). I don't see why a hypothetically scum geraintm wouldn't just stay on Walter (scum geraintm implies Walter is town, because otherwise the setup would be 8:5), rather than moving to shelly.

As for the other topic of discussion, Parity Cop is not Normal.

[callforjudgement]

if your concern was that the setup was townsided, i don't see why 9:4 wouldn't offset that

We'd need considerably more town power that has been claimed so far to balance a 9:4, especially when scum have a power role of their own.

If you're a moderator trying to design a 9:4, why would you make it even harder on yourself and give scum a Tracker in addition to the fourth member?

[GeorgeBailey]

Mod: Is a parity cop normal?

No, a parity cop is not Normal

[Titus]

If a parity cop is not normal, how can you know Walter and I have the same alignment CFD?

[callforjudgement]

The reasoning on Walter and the reasoning on you are entirely unrelated. So I know that you and Walter have the same alignment because I know, separately, that each of you is town (and thus must have the same alignment because you're both town).

As I said earlier, I'm planning to claim today, and will explain why you are town, and why Walter is town, when I claim.

If we decide to have a massclaim today, I will claim as part of the massclaim. If we decide not to have a massclaim, I will nonetheless claim unilaterally.

As such, I think it might worthwhile to discuss whether a massclaim is a good idea or not. I think a massclaim may be preferable simply to avoid paranoia about whether the setup is actually 9:4, because that will need additional town power; if it's 10:3 then I imagine every unknown town role is vanilla, and the scum will claim VT to match. This also means that if it's 10:3, scum should know all the roles except mine already, so there's no real disadvantage to a massclaim. But given that scum were rolefishing yesterday, and many people are sceptical about me, I can understand it if people decide that a massclaim today is a bad idea.

[Titus]

I think I want to hear your claim and then decide whether or not massclaim is a good idea based on that.

[callforjudgement]

I will be V/LA for much of this weekend. (I should still be able to get a few posts in, but might be missing for much longer than normal.)

OK, here's my claim.

I am a Town Alien, without modifiers. (Wiki page, for players unfamiliar with the role: Alien (role).) This is a combined Rolestopper and Roleblocker; it prevents any other actions affecting the target, but it also prevents the target using any actions.

On Night 1, I targeted Tayl0r Swift. With two scum still alive, and lots of townies around, it seemed unlikely that I would be able to stop a kill by blocking the player performing it. Additionally, players who look scummy often turn out to be power roles. So I decided to protect Tayl0r from the nightkill instead; I thought she would be the most likely choice of target (being very townish and somewhat active), and was also unlikely to be a power role. (Unfortunately, she did turn out to be a power role, and her night action was lost as a result.)

On Night 2, I targeted ItalianoVD, who was the only confirmed townie at that point; same reasoning, trying to stop the kill. (Because Tayl0r had claimed to be a power role at this point, I couldn't protect her because it would cause her action to fail again; I just had to hope that scum would go for ItalianoVD rather than her.) This is the reason I was so anxious on Day 2 to make sure that ItalianoVD was definitely confirmed town, without any potential for a missed action; I obviously wanted to protect the confirmed tonwie, but my role would prevent him confirming himself a second time, so it was important that the first protection went through. It also had the bonus of increasing the chance that scum shot Italiano, thus increasing the chance that I would stop the kill.

Also on Night 2, I was targeted by Walter with a Friendly Neighbour action, confirming him to me as town (this is a 100% modconfirmation with no way to fake it). I don't know his exact role for certain (e.g. for all I know he could be a JOAT with a Friendly Neighbour shot), although anything other than Town Friendly Neighbour Neighbour would be a surprise given the claims that have been made so far. I claimed this (in an intentionally misleadingly worded way, to avoid disclosing the existence of a second Friendly Neighbour to scum) in #1570. Walter immediately posted #1571, which I took to mean that he was letting me know that he had understood the real meaning behind my claim. I subsequently clarified in #[poat]1660[/post] that the Friendly Neighbour I was talking about in #1570 was not Italiano, but a second Friendly Neighbour.

On Night 3, there was only one scum left alive (assuming 10:3). My roleblock prevents, among other things, players killing. So assuming there's a death overnight (and there was), anyone I target with my ability can't possibly have performed the nightkill, and thus it must have been performed by someone else. I targeted Titus, so because the kill went through, it must have been performed by someone other than Titus, = Titus is not the last remaining scum. (I chose Titus because out of my PoE pool – Titus, Looker, Frogsterking – she was in the scummiest slot (thus a town confirmation would give the most information), and also she seemed like she'd be more valuable as a confirmed townie than Frogsterking or Looker would be.)

---

I should also talk somewhat about my strategy for the game. I've intentionally been playing to a different meta than my normal town or scum meta. The thing is that Alien is a very weak power role for town early on, but gets much more powerful when there's only 1 scum left. So, when I got the role, I had to contrive a way to outlive two scum without my role being discovered, without scum nightkilling me for other reasons, and without town eliminating me.

My solution to this issue was to play more honestly and openly than normal. That sounds like it should be a great thing as town, but there are lots of thoughts and ideas you have during a typical game that you can't really post (because they "look scummy", even though they aren't really). In a typical game, there are lots of things you think of, but then end up not posting, because you know you're going to get scumread for them. (To be clear, I normally won't post these regardless of whether I'm town or scum, although I'm much more likely to have these thoughts as town because I have less information then and thus am more likely to be off-the-mark.)

In this game, through day 1 and day 2, I adopted the strategy of simply posting these thoughts anyway, even if I couldn't see how it would help. The idea was that being open about my thoughts, even at the cost of looking scummy, would give people a logic-scum read on me but a gut-town read on me, meaning that small wagons on me would be frequently likely to form, but that they'd have trouble gathering momentum. That way, scum would assume that I would be a potential miselimination to bring into the late game, but town would never actually force me to a claim. It also had some advantage in reaction testing (in particular, I had a townread on Raya based on her actions towards me being almost identical to how I'd expect a townie to react, but I didn't think this read was strong enough to override the scumread on Raya from Nosferatu and Tayl0r who I had a stronger townread on; often my reads are bad, so I'm typically willing to sheep people who I townread and have strong reads of their own).

[Titus]

Alright, we can go forward with the massclaim.

I'll go next. I am a VT.

[WaltertheDunce10]

I am a tfn neighbor

[WaltertheDunce10]

Should I post all tfn actions by myself and italiano?

[callforjudgement]

Wait for everyone else to claim first, I think (including claiming any Friendly Neighbour messages received). Confirmed players should normally go last in a massclaim, because it makes it harder for scum to make sure their claims match up with everyone else's.

[WaltertheDunce10]

K

[geraintm]

I am vanilla townie

[GeorgeBailey]

Votecount 4.2

Titus(1)

~ Looker(5)

Looker(1)

~ callforjudgement(12)

geraintm(1)

~ Titus(12)


Not Voting (4): geraintm(3), Frogsterking(0), WaltertheDunce10(4), Nosferatu(0)

With 7 alive it takes 4 to eliminate.

Day 4 deadline is in (expired on 2020-10-16 00:31:59)

[Titus]

We should just have everyone claim in their next post. Then make a wall of claims.

[Frogsterking]

I'm a VT Walter confirmed to me N1

[Frogsterking]

Ooh, an idea that could explain Gamma's actions…

@

Gamma

: Did you receive

Italiano's

Friendly Neighbour PM Night 2? That would explain your actions here; you would naturally assume that I'd fakeclaimed to receive Italiano's PM for some reason, and would be hoping to catch me in a contradiction (in this scenario, you'd be lying about the "confirms a player as town" reason for pressuring me in order to reduce the chance I caught on). The question in this scenario would be intended as a subtle way to check for a second Friendly Neighbour (with you forgetting that Nosferatu would be able to counterclaim a "no" answer and thus it would reveal the existence of a second Friendly Neighbour in the case that I was town).

I thought of two more possibilities.

Given that Gamma has flipped now, and as a consequence answering this question won't leak any information: what were the other possibilities?

Gamma could be a motion tracker

Gamma could be a watcher

[Frogsterking]

I'm still trying to keep an open mind

[GeorgeBailey]

Nosferatu has been prodded!

[Nosferatu]

i'm vt