Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[SirCakez]

I really don't have a grasp on this game yet. Mush says the gamestate has progressed but frankly I don't feel it has.

[SirCakez]

Unwnd says he likes this game because it's slower but I actually wish there was more posting here. I do better in games with high post volume.

[Duchess]

Let’s play a game.

Everyone can save three people who do you save and why?

If I had 3 vetoes I would most likely use them on myself or MUSHSHAGANA, I'm not sure if there is another player at this time for whom I would stick my neck out if you decided to shoot them.

[Duchess]

I think if I shoot duchess I die

She flips red though

How do you expect the Godfather's play to differ from the Goons? I know you are trying not to interject more than what is necessary, but I would appreciate if you could answer this whenever possible and to whatever extent you would be comfortable.

[Duchess]

Well that's not a strong read but it seems like unwnd may be bussing

I don't understand what the next step is in this line of thinking. This response was very quick, but I fail to see how it connects to your conclusion.

[Duchess]

As for my reasoning

Very "giving" start in terms of information. Lot of conjecture-based tone. The way I described it to myself is that her sentences were hand-picked. I don't like it at face value because I don't expect town to process their words so carefully, especially not this damn early. Her reads are all pretty safe in a vacuum as well (such as her saying Wheme is faking the whole 'i wanna be shot' deal). That actually remains to be her strongest read I could pick up on if I think about it, which is pretty bare. I might've agreed with it 9 pages ago but Wheme has displayed a bit of individuality besides the whole shoot me shoot me deal by now.

I like to be precise in my choice of words, yes, but this is true regardless of my alignment or of whether I am playing forum mafia. Do you think Whemestar is town?

[Duchess]

unwnd. You say you might have agreed "9 pages ago", but that is roughly when I made that post. The game has indeed progressed since then, as have my thoughts on other players including Whemestar. Have you read the whole game?

[Duchess]

Voting isn’t going to give the scumteam information that’s dangerous to town any more than using townreads gives the scumteam information.

Vote if you want. Don’t vote if you want.

It doesn’t really matter.

I agree with this logic (no this is not townreading Imperium)

[snip]

Your playstyle and tone is extremely obnoxious. This is not a read on you but a comment.

I don't like this one bit. Cakez seems way too concerned about how his reads are perceived, like he doesn't want to risk knocking over something he has carefully constructed.

[Duchess]

MUSH: I don't get it, we both write walls, so you think my walls are suspicious even though you also explain your actions in no fewer words? This inconsistency is scummy.

Did MUSH say she was suspicious of you because of the length of your posts?

[Duchess]

Sir cakez why do you not like rockhopper's iso when you agree with his scum reads???

This seems dishonestly obtuse, much like some of our earlier interactions.

[Duchess]

UNVOTE: Whemestar

VOTE: RLotus

Next time I am on I would like to put together an ordered list of my reads. There are also a number of questions I've asked that have gone unanswered. Some of the guilty parties have not posted since, but I will be collecting responses by the end of today.

[SirCakez]

Voting isn’t going to give the scumteam information that’s dangerous to town any more than using townreads gives the scumteam information.

Vote if you want. Don’t vote if you want.

It doesn’t really matter.

I agree with this logic (no this is not townreading Imperium)

[snip]

Your playstyle and tone is extremely obnoxious. This is not a read on you but a comment.

I don't like this one bit. Cakez seems way too concerned about how his reads are perceived, like he doesn't want to risk knocking over something he has carefully constructed.

People constantly misinterpret what I'm saying so I like to go out of my way to make it obvious what I mean. Like here I wanted it to be clear I don't think Mush's play is scummy in itself, but I dislike his playstyle as a player.
Don't you see how saying someone's playstyle/tone is obnoxious could be construed as a scumread?

[Duchess]

I am more concerned about the first instance, personally. I don't see how saying you agree with one mechanics post could be construed as a townread.

[SirCakez]

Oh I see that's fair enough
I was just being careful

[MUSHSHAGANA]

You didn't miss it, you literally directly responded to it. But nice try.

Also, I literally outright said it would convince no one but me. But nice try.

[SirCakez]

You didn't miss it, you literally directly responded to it. But nice try.

Also, I literally outright said it would convince no one but me. But nice try.

Where?

[SirCakez]

For both things
The only voting thing I responded to from you was 186 and 198
Not whatever voting wall you're referring to

[SirCakez]

I ISOed you to double-check and I assume these are the posts you were referring to?

Hi folks.

Fair warning: My normal style of posting isn't going to be as common this game due to homelessness. It will not affect my ability to play, only my playstyle (less wallposting and/or less posting in general) to varying amounts from day to day based on what needs doing that day. I have no interest in discussing my personal situation further, this is just a heads up if you're foolish enough to rely on meta. Today is a more or less normal day for me, expect changes to be more evident tomorrow and onwards.



My assumption regarding the votecount is it's purely a visual reference to where the general consensus is; a decision-making aid for the gunbearer and a source of information on town opinions for the scum. I doubt Syryana would give us secret vote mechanics. No reference is made to a vote goal, implying a lack of mechanical pressure from votes regardless. I expect that votes are going to have negative utility (giving up information to scum) unless a gunbearer specifically asks for them, and even then they should only be useful near the end of a day.

This means that basically, the rest of the town is reliant on the gunbearer having their back to hard-push slots. I'm probably going to have some difficulty in this setup, because my normal aggressive playstyle will be functionally useless: I have no power to really lean on a slot unless I'm armed, and then I practically have total control of the game. A gunbearer trusting me might give me mechanical backup to really sink my teeth into the gamestate, but I can't rely on that. Based on my read of the setup, most of town's utility is going to be content production, rather than collective sorting. The gunbearer's reads are going to be the axis everything spins around, the rest of us have limited ability to influence the gamestate.

This is going to take some adjustment. Hopefully as more players join we'll get enough content for me to read the dynamics of this playerlist.

The concern with voting in this setup is that the town has very little agency to begin with. Only one person has /any/ power, and we know they are town, so we should trust them to have town's back. Now, leashing shots to votes sounds great in theory. After all, it just puts us roughly at "ordinary mafia game", with a final adjudicator. In practice, however, it gives the scum team agency they shouldn't have, and takes away one major town-sided element the gunbearer gives us.

The exclusive advantage that the town has in a setup like this over an ordinary Mafia game is that it avoids the ironclad law of committees being absolute hot fucking garbage at actually performing tasks well. (This law is so ironclad that it's a major component of managerial level sabotage: you load important committees with more than IIRC 8 people, and ensure that at least one of them is dead weight, and nothing will ever get done, ever ever ever.)

Instead of /everyone/ simultaneously trying to herd cats in totally different directions oh and by the way some of the cats have rabies, you have a single point of control. No need to get everyone on the same page at all -- in fact, depending on the gunbearer, having literally no agreement could be a net benefit for sorting. (Just by way of example, I would be quite effective in a situation where every single player in the list was arguing with every single other player here.) No Abilene paradox scenarios come up here, because the gunbearer has no incentive to compromise to try and make the other players happy: if they miss their shot they're out, and if they hit then clearly they were right and it's hard to complain. They can use the rest of the town as essentially independent investigators to help them make their decisions, but they are not required to do what everyone else wants them to do.

I think we should lean into the advantage we have of a single guaranteed pro-town controller of the gamestate, even if it means the normal townies have less agency and control. In the process, we deny scum a large part (obviously not /all/, but I think /any/ advantage is important) of the only agency that they have in the setup while a gunbearer is alive: misdirecting the shot.

Yeah I skimmed past both of these early on.

[SirCakez]

move on from there since it will change exactly no minds on alignment but my own.

Oh this for the second thing you said
I don't really care because what you said was demonstrably false

[MUSHSHAGANA]

...I should have quoted, but I didn't realize there was another full page. That prior was in response to Cakez's response to my saying he's the shot I'd make here.

PEDIT:

Cakez, I /highly/ doubt you skipped post 21. Did you even check the post numbers I gave? No?

VOTE: norfolk
Just cuz we can't elim doesn't mean we shouldn't vote yo

You might want to say that your commentary was in response to someone else, but you would be telling a lie if you did. The only other thing even referring to voting on the first page was someone saying they were curious about the votecounter, and my post about voting being non-optimal. That's it. You can go and look for yourself. This is publicly accessible information.

[SirCakez]

You might want to say that your commentary was in response to someone else, but you would be telling a lie if you did. The only other thing even referring to voting on the first page was someone saying they were curious about the votecounter, and my post about voting being non-optimal. That's it. You can go and look for yourself. This is publicly accessible information.

I was using common sense because of the game mechanics meaning we obviously can't elim....

[SirCakez]

Sorry to tell you the game doesn't revolve around you

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The issue is "doesn't mean we shouldn't vote". No one else had even said anything about not voting. Only me.

[SirCakez]

Whatever I'm not gonna talk about this anymore because people can make up their own minds on it and it's non productive and frankly it annoys me discussing with you because your holier-than-thou attitude

[SirCakez]

@Unwnd who are you townreading right now?