Newbie 2045: A Midwinter Night's Dream - End!

[BBmolla]

Hmmm.... I'm not experienced enough to say but the start of this game feels very awkward. It seems like people are trying to seem like they already know who the Mafia are but to me there's really not much to go on. Even the things other people are saying I think they're mostly reading too much in to. I'm not sure if faking confidence or being genuinely overconfident is an indication that people are Mafia though.

vote confirmed this is absolutely scum

hop on folks we're executing this

[Illwei]

So why were you voting Lunar before this post then?

[BBmolla]

So why were you voting Lunar before this post then?

to push them for more content

why aren't you voting them?

[Lunar Martian]

Hmmm.... I'm not experienced enough to say but the start of this game feels very awkward. It seems like people are trying to seem like they already know who the Mafia are but to me there's really not much to go on. Even the things other people are saying I think they're mostly reading too much in to. I'm not sure if faking confidence or being genuinely overconfident is an indication that people are Mafia though.

vote confirmed this is absolutely scum

hop on folks we're executing this

what vote?

[BBmolla]

Hmmm.... I'm not experienced enough to say but the start of this game feels very awkward. It seems like people are trying to seem like they already know who the Mafia are but to me there's really not much to go on. Even the things other people are saying I think they're mostly reading too much in to. I'm not sure if faking confidence or being genuinely overconfident is an indication that people are Mafia though.

vote confirmed this is absolutely scum

hop on folks we're executing this

what vote?

my vote on you

cause you're scum

[petapan]

It was the question that best asked someone to consider an interaction and make a read based on what happened. I think its the best way to move the game along.

I'd really like you to share your thoughts on the interaction between unwnd and quiet.

Oh but you're keepimg your reads to yourself... Forgot.

you're free to ask me what i think of anyone at any time, don't be put off by that. i don't have much to say about that interaction, though.

game openings are always awkward, but especially so in newbie games where often a lot of players won't quite have an idea of how to get things started. early game awkwardness often gets mistaken for scumminess.

How do things generally get started? How would you rate this game in terms of awkwardness out of ten? I think I'm having a good amount of fun, but there's also the sad reality that I'm decently awkward as a person.

As a side note, I'd never heard of RQS before, but after looking it up, I don't see there being much distinction between RQS and RVS in terms of outcome. It seems unrealistic to me that any scum is giving themselves away day1 (though information from day1 might inform future days, that I can understand). Am I missing something?

i'd say it's basically normal. maybe a touch more awkward because, aside from mikul, this seems to be a fairly timid group. functionally, there's not a real difference between the two styles, it's just a way to break the ice and get conversations going in the hope of making something out of nothing. some people prefer to go on the attack early, some prefer to just make conversation for a while. in a non-newbie game i'd be playing like BBmolla is right now.

but enough of the generic theory talk. why did you ignore mikul's vote on you to answer me instead?

VOTE: quiet

[petapan]

Oh, I totally believe some people here have a ton of Mafia experience. Just clicking through the profiles of a few people really briefly (is that allowed? frowned upon? I decided against reading into previous games, as that seems metagamey, and maybe a touch stalkery, but maybe that's a thing people do), it's clear some people have played a very reasonable number of games over years on this site.

meta reading people based on past games is certainly a valid tool but it takes a lot of time, and you have to be very careful with it. people often make a lot of false assumptions based on differences across a small number of games that aren't really meaningful. you're free to try it on anyone, but i'm deliberately playing this game differently, so it's not going to match up with how i play as either alignment.

being genuinely overconfident is an indication that people are Mafia though.

The meta here is different than what I'm used to, and I'm still learning it, but IMO if someone is overconfident then that's usually something I'd read as Village (excluding all other factors) (so not really) because the Mafia know that whoever they're trying to push is a Villager, so they can't completely fake that "yeah I have analyzed this and they are 100% Scum get em guys"

of course this kinda, doesn't apply as much to more experienced players, but hey! it's a newbie game, right? *sweats*

how do you feel about mikul? or BBmolla? they're the ones moving confidently right now.

Part of me wants to sus petapan for just asking questions, but It's early D1 and there's also...not much...else...to do...

I say go with it. I have no read on peta right now and It'd help me as well. Generally speaking, I don't think it is ever too early or too late to sus someone. Scum can get caught close to RVS and I would even say sometimes they more often than not get caught there because they're less guarded.

in general, i agree with the theory point that taking action is better than doing nothing at all, and you can always change your vote if you start to think your suspicion was mistaken, but do you think that kind of pressure would be helpful in reading me at all?

[quiet]

Quiet, how are you reading your other newbies right now?

Let's give this a shot.

quiet: 9 posts
Illwei: 12 posts,
Lunar Martian: 77 posts, 2 games, vanilla town lynch day1, 1 game ongoing early.
safebet222: 369 posts, 3 games, vanilla town shot night1, vanilla town elim day5 , mafia roleblocker elim day3 (mafia win)
Mikul: 667 posts, 4 games, vanilla town replaced, town jailkeeper killed night3, mafia roleblocker elim day3 (mafia win), mafia rolecop elim day3 (ongoing).
unwnd: 2393 posts, lots of games, lots of roles, will check out later
petapan: 5650 posts, lots of games, lots of roles, see above
BBmolla: 23033 posts, all the games, all the roles, likes really short posts, see above
Mr Turtle: too slow to review, probably racing a hare
bonus round: mod edition
fferyllt: 17216 posts

Before checking this, I had my "newbie" list to myself, Illwei and Lunar. Safebet222 doesn't talk or act like a newbie, and reviewing previous games, they seem pretty experienced, despite the low game count. Mikul is def. experienced, similar reasons. Not ready to go down the rabbit hole of the rest of y'all just yet.

So give me a sec and I'll provide some reads on Illwei and Lunar, and maybe throw in some extras if anything else stands out to me.

[Cabd]

This is a reminder that an ongoing game does not exist at all until the mod declares it over. Please do not discuss ongoing games. If you need clarity, please refer to the site rules regarding discussion of ongoing games, here: https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=30909

Specifically:

There may be a perception that there is some wiggle room when it comes to discussing ongoing games. This post is to tell you that there is not.

It does not matter if you are dead.
It does not matter if you don't think it will affect a game.
It does not matter if you aren't in the game.
It does not matter if you are posting about a game taking place on another forum or posting about an MS game on another forum.
It does not matter if you are moderating the game in question.

Discussing ongoing games by quoting or otherwise referring to an ongoing game is forbidden. There is no clever way around this rule. Don't try.

[quiet]

why did you ignore mikul's vote on you to answer me instead?

I considered it, but I felt like I'd been up front about my reasons for acting like I did. I'm happy to follow up on some of his points, though.

Additionally, safebet222 stepped in. I was interested to see what responses that got, if any.

The stuff that most stood out to me from Mikul:

also to note, he can be scared because he is mafia and getting pressure as well. So being scared doesn't mean he is town. It gives him at least better odds of being town, and the fear of playing in the game could be there. But as I said, it could also be that he thinks he fucked up as scum when unwnd pointed out that he was trying to justify his votes in the rvs stage and then he felt the need to be defensive and further explain that vote and his though process.

Could be, but I don't think I come into game 1 joking then fold under pressure as first game first time mafia. More likely that I bother my partner in the mafia only thread, strategize a little, and model my opening messages after something I read in a thread somewhere. This isn't to say I'm not going to take my town game seriously, it's just to say that I would probably take a much safer line than "he hoo funny empathy play".

This is obvious newb town or nervous scum.

Frankly, I agree. I think one is a lot more likely than the other.

In my first post, I said:

Sorry I'm late. Excited to be here! Absolutely no experience playing Mafia via forms, though some experience with hidden role games more generally. While waiting for a newbie game, I read through some previous games, and spent some quality time with the wiki, but I get the sense that none of that will really compare to the real thing.

To properly roleplay my naïveté, it feels only right and natrual to sheep for unwnd. @unwnd, please be my guiding hand, teach me the ways of killing scum.

His first response:

This bothers me because it comes off as a half ass buddying attempt. It's also meant to install humor or emotion into his opening post. Maybe it's because he's new and trying to break in with a good intro or maybe to try and get empathy which is a typical scum tactic.

I don't think my post reads as trying to get empathy, at least not from unwnd. If anything, it was a bit of a joke at his expense (hopefully taken in the way it was intended, lightly); the dynamic up to that point in the thread was that his offer to stand back and let newbies take the forefront, to teach his idea of scumhunting, etc, was a little condescending (not saying it was or it wasn't, it was just the dynamic in the thread), so I figured, what the hell, I'm a newbie, this is as good a way as any to enter, especially in a round that is mostly about randomness and pushing people into making reads/giving information that can be used in later rounds.

The second point is that he is aware of what rvs is. Whether that is from research, asking the mod, however you want to say he learned it. If he is aware of what RVS, he is also aware that it's random. If it's random, then why try to justify your vote and then become defensive about it. Why also hedge that vote with qualifiers.

My experience is watching Super Mafia AllStars vods on twitch/youtube, playing mafia with very casual friends in a time before Covid, and reading a bunch of articles on strategy because it's interesting to me. RVS is like, one of the very first concepts you would pick up on, because it happens at the start of basically every game. I wanted to explain my rational behind voting because discussing your thinking is the best way (read-only way I know) to give and get reads, and people asked me to.

Do you think it would have been better to give that response after he voted/sused me?

[quiet]

Quick Newbie Reads:
(I reserve the right to circle back when I get some more time)
Lunar Martian: 4 posts short posts is not enough for me to have a read. I'm not sure what BBmola thinks is so scummy about Post #67, and I'm very interested to hear about it.
Illwei: Towny town to me. Seems relaxed, putting his reads out there, I don't agree with everything he says, but I see town in the way he says it.

unwnd was performative in a calm...something else...sorta way, and quiet was performative in a "this is a fun little bit here imma do it" sorta way.

Really like this read.

Part of me wants to sus petapan for just asking questions, but It's early D1 and there's also...not much...else...to do...

This also seems towny to me, even though I don't sus petapan for questions.

of course this kinda, doesn't apply as much to more experienced players, but hey! it's a newbie game, right? *sweats*

I don't think scum ever wants to be sweating day1.

Bonus round reads:

BBmola's playstyle confuses me, petapan likes questions and pressure, unwnd goes hard, where is Mr. Turtle, Mikul leans town to me, I want to like safebet222's defense of me, but I could be getting pocketed over that, and y'all experienced people make me paranoid.

[fferyllt]

Mr Turtle has been prodded.

[Lunar Martian]

Okie, I think quiet is town. I'm still very curious about BBmolla's reasoning behind that vote.

[unwnd]

Alright, I'm ready to teach. Color-coded for my reads. Yellow is Null (I don't really have enough), Red is scum (E.g we should lim this person), Green is Townie (We should not lim this person). Any lighter shade based on color is where I lean on their alignment.

Quiet

is putting in a lot of work in for what was a simple question. I think that extra work isn't determined by his alignment quite yet and instead is just busywork that he thinks is appropriate. There are a few things misconstrued (not sure if intentionally) in his recent posts as well. I think when it comes to Quiet he's best left alone, and it will become indicative whether or not he truly wants to solve. Right now he's only been given homework and proves to be capable of doing it. We'll see how an actual test fares.

BBMolla

gives me an opposite approach, where he is already giving the answers. He's confident in himself and I think that he believes that confidence will cause things to go his way. I don't think that confidence is justified quite yet however, and I think his authority is more demanding than it is beneficial. While he may not be a newbie, the way he's approached the thread with lack of care/sensitivity makes me think he only wants to give off a tough impression instead of using it for town's benefit.

Then you have

Mikul

. What's interesting to me about Mikul is that he seems to have the same approach as Quiet, yet he thinks Quiet is scum nonetheless. They're both interested in the hypothesis before a conclusion, and I think the lengths Mikul took were purposeful. I liked the initiative and felt like he had true conviction in his words, wanting to really consider Quiet's alignment and show everyone else why he thinks he is scum.

Petapan

remains null to me, but I think he will come through and show that he's town. It's more of a null-lean town, where I believe him in his different approach. I think he joined this newbie for the same reason I did, for a low-stress environment where he could sit back and observe instead of pushing lims. I think his questioning is valid and I've enjoyed the approach, but I know it's still within his range as scum so I can't give him a fuill pass.

Safebet222

feels detached from the newbie game, but not in the way BBMolla is. I think his style not indicative of alignment and think he becomes more readable as he applies pressure to something he notes as interesting. Thus far, his presence is only inquiry, but what that leads to remains a secret.

Illwei

's skepticism towards me was a good thing. I am not infallible and I do not mind being questioned. Their squinty eyes matches the same style of their approach right now. They seem alert and willing to try and help town, even if they don't have everything. I think that their in dependency in approach/reads is a good thing and I look forward to hearing more of their perspective.

Lunar Martian

is probably the person who I have the least things to say about in general. I don't get a feeling from any of their posts, but for clarity sake I'll put them here.

Mr. Turtle

, where are you?

[unwnd]

VOTE: BBMolla

[unwnd]

overconfidence is certainly not AI.

I agree with you Mikul. What do you think about BBMolla's confidence?

[quiet]

There are a few things misconstrued (not sure if intentionally) in his recent posts as well.

Curious what you think was misconstrued. You are likely right, I just want to know which bits I got wrong.

Also, thoughts on the fact that BBMolla seems to (at least on my quick skim) generally play this way, with short confident posts? I also have him scummy, but I'm very open to the possibility that I'm off on that.

[Illwei]

I think that their in dependency in approach/reads is a good thing

Can you explain what you mean by this?

I am always wary of people who use a lot of words. I mean, I myself use a lot of words from time to time, but...well...I don't use

large

words, I just...ramble about nothing for...too long. =P. The thing is, what I've seen in two of your posts is what seems like encouraging me to solve the game, while shading me at the same time, which is why I'd like you to explain this above bit, as I may just be misinterpreting it. =P.

Personally I don't see BB's playstyle as AI, like you seem to, (though I am notorious for calling players who are just wolves TWTBAW...and so I'm not going to try and find scum as much, I'm just going to try and find village (even though that seems like it might be hard in a new place with newer players (luckily these newer players aren't actually clueless like the people I'm used to lol)) so I'm probably not going to be

great

at that =P.) because first of all, I read confidence as more AI of village (something that apparently you and a few others don't agree with) (and yeah I know confidence can be faked) and...well, (This is hard to write posts, without easy access to the thread...) and, well, basically BB seems like the easy target of the day. they have 4 votes on them now, I think, and that- they seem like an easy target for exactly what you said.

Er: TL;DR ?

1) I Think BB's playstyle is not AI, as it is his playstyle it seems.
2) It feels like Unwnd is trying to use his playstyle as an easy kill
3) I have more thoughts but am keeping them to myself, as I want to see how things play out a bit first.

I rambled a bit but that's basically it.

[BBmolla]

BBMolla gives me an opposite approach, where he is already giving the answers. He's confident in himself and I think that he believes that confidence will cause things to go his way. I don't think that confidence is justified quite yet however, and I think his authority is more demanding than it is beneficial. While he may not be a newbie, the way he's approached the thread with lack of care/sensitivity makes me think he only wants to give off a tough impression instead of using it for town's benefit.

how people respond to conflict is way more telling readswise then a bunch of people being nice to each other

[unwnd]

I meant independency, or independent. There was a space added.

I am always wary of people who use a lot of words. I mean, I myself use a lot of words from time to time, but...well...I don't use large words, I just...ramble about nothing for...too long. =P. The thing is, what I've seen in two of your posts is what seems like encouraging me to solve the game,

while shading me at the same time

, which is why I'd like you to explain this above bit, as I may just be misinterpreting it. =P.

Personally I don't see BB's playstyle as AI, like you seem to, (

though I am notorious for calling players who are just wolves TWTBAW...and so I'm not going to try and find scum as much, I'm just going to try and find village (even though that seems like it might be hard in a new place with newer players (luckily these newer players aren't actually clueless like the people I'm used to lol)) so I'm probably not going to be great at that =P.)

because first of all, I read confidence as more AI of village (something that apparently you and a few others don't agree with) (and yeah I know confidence can be faked) and...well, (This is hard to write posts, without easy access to the thread...)

and, well, basically BB seems like the easy target of the day.

they have 4 votes on them now, I think, and that- they seem like an easy target for exactly what you said.

I'm highlighting (bolding) sentences in your response that I wish to address. This is something I do as I feel as your said yourself, people can ramble sometimes. I also believe that you can find contradictions this way and often I will bold/highlight phrases of interest. Some scum have a tendency to try and adopt an approach that seems like considerate thinking, but instead is just exaggeration for an effect. I think right now you believe that is what I'm doing?

I was shading you? I complimented your approach actually and I don't think there has been any measure of shade.

Other bolded, could you explain what you meant here? I think you got a bit sidetracked in your own thought, or felt an excessive need to explain. Try to simplify this for me.

Lastly, what makes you think they're an easy target?

[unwnd]

BBMolla gives me an opposite approach, where he is already giving the answers. He's confident in himself and I think that he believes that confidence will cause things to go his way. I don't think that confidence is justified quite yet however, and I think his authority is more demanding than it is beneficial. While he may not be a newbie, the way he's approached the thread with lack of care/sensitivity makes me think he only wants to give off a tough impression instead of using it for town's benefit.

how people respond to conflict is way more telling readswise then a bunch of people being nice to each other

I don't think I'm being particularly nice, but I don't know where you think newbies would even realize they were being pressured. If I were to regress back into my first few games, this type of behavior more than not scared me, and less willing to give reads. Why are you not in consideration of this aspect?

[BBmolla]

UNVOTE:
lunar vote was just for reactions and I'm relatively satisfied

moving on to a better vote
VOTE: safebet222

[BBmolla]

BBMolla gives me an opposite approach, where he is already giving the answers. He's confident in himself and I think that he believes that confidence will cause things to go his way. I don't think that confidence is justified quite yet however, and I think his authority is more demanding than it is beneficial. While he may not be a newbie, the way he's approached the thread with lack of care/sensitivity makes me think he only wants to give off a tough impression instead of using it for town's benefit.

how people respond to conflict is way more telling readswise then a bunch of people being nice to each other

I don't think I'm being particularly nice, but I don't know where you think newbies would even realize they were being pressured. If I were to regress back into my first few games, this type of behavior more than not scared me, and less willing to give reads. Why are you not in consideration of this aspect?

I feel like the moments where one is unsure how they're supposed to react you get the truest reactions, no?

[unwnd]

What happens if they lock up? Then we just run the risk of mis-limming a townie who was too scared to do anything. They don't see pressure the same way we do, and I may be biased in that regard but that's what I believe to be true. I

[fferyllt]

allez