Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[MUSHSHAGANA]

You said it's demonstrably false, and now it's something for people to make up their own minds about -- by definition debatable, rather than being demonstrably anything at all. This is the sort of thing about your play that makes me think you're the best shot in the game. Not inconsistency per se, but the way your statements change (even to actively contradicting each other) based on what would be optimal to be true in the moment. There's also the asserting specific things to be true (e.g. saying that Norfolk was claiming scumhunting is up to Netflix without a shred of doubt in your post, or that I said something demonstrably false) when they are one of multiple possibilities.

Your play comes across as phony and agenda driven.

[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

[unwnd]

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?

If I'm being a little petty I could say that in 9 pages (up until my own post I made) that you had no other read for me to latch onto there would still be a problem. If you had other thoughts, they didn't seem as important as Whemestar, and even now you're asking what I should think about him and if I think he's town. My answer to that regardless is...nullish town. The backend of his content leaves a lot to be desired but there are some takes I've agreed upon. The issue I have with you presently is we both sit here and agree the game has changed, but I do not see you actively pursuing whether or not your Wheme thought is correct. I started this off petty so I'll just continue the trend and say that I dislike when someone says 'oh I have a scumread on someone' then they just ignore them as if you couldn't settle your difference or solidify your stance further on them by like, interacting with them.

[unwnd]

I don't think Cakez is scum and my Cakez read has been pretty accurate for the games we've been in

Maybe this is the game you pocket me Cakez!

[SirCakez]

I'm not even trying to pocket you though q.q

[SirCakez]

I legitimately just want help finding the town in this rabble and I think you're a very reliable source

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Do you have a guesstimate at a rough ratio of right games out of total games with Cakez, unwnd? Asking because you said "pretty accurate", not "100%".

[unwnd]

I legitimately just want help finding the town in this rabble and I think you're a very reliable source

I only have about 3 townreads right now, so ask me again later after a bullet has penetrated someone's face

[unwnd]

Do you have a guesstimate at a rough ratio of right games out of total games with Cakez, unwnd? Asking because you said "pretty accurate", not "100%".

I think close to 100% barring slight misdirection? It's not worth getting into a ratio about it, I just think Cakez is a pretty easy to read player from where I'm sitting. Summarize what you dislike about him to me and I'll try to pick through it

[Norfolk Boy1]

I had a thought, maybe it could be smart to do a democracy system on the first shot?

To whomever said that nobody was suggesting a shot by committee, go and read the posts. For me, there's too high a scum to town ratio for democracy to work well.

Never did I say that we shouldn't scumhunt and it's a huge misrep from whomever stated that's what I said. It's perfectly logical to trust a known town player over a group decision that's going to be do heavily scum influenced.

[Norfolk Boy1]

In regards to the 3 players to save question,right now i'd only save Not Mafia, because I love him. There's no pro town evidence from anyone other than Netflix at the moment.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think the post at the top of this page is a decent enough summary for most folks. That said: if I think about it, there's some other stuff that tends to ping me but which aren't things most people are sensitive to. May as well just rewrite it all out for ease of access.

Generally speaking: Saying one thing, then saying a contradictory statement under pressure -- feels less like stating beliefs than trying to evade attention. Making baseless assertions that seem like trying to force an interpretation (e.g. the whole Norfolk scumhunting thing). General gut feeling of the play being phony, i.e. fake, but not so much "simply acting" as it is "crafted for specific effect".

More specific to how I build out reads: Apparent lack of a coherent chain of causation -- I don't see how he gets from point A to point B, it feels like it's abrupt jumps instead of actual changes in thought process. Play is "concentric" -- instead of his play changing focus at any point, it takes a specific point (in this case, "shoot Norfolk") and centers all of his play on that singular point. All play that isn't directly centered on it is pushing back on people questioning it. Hence "concentric", his play reaches ever wider circles of the playerlist but the center point never changes, indeed hasn't changed since page 1.

Because of these things, his play feels agenda-driven: he has a specific goal (shoot Norfolk) and does not attempt to search around outside of that goal. When dealing with things that are not necessarily "shoot Norfolk", his statements are not necessarily logically compatible with one another, and there is no apparent shift in belief or understanding to explain the incompatibilities (since the conclusions he comes to do NOT appear to change alongside the statements).

[RLotus]

You said he was being LAMIST. That explicitly implies some kind of an act or show or desire to be seen.

To your first point, and to a great deal of the assumptions you made when you voted me, I say that is simply not how the game of mafia works. If everyone ignored everyone else's opinions except to argue, there would be no consensus. If everyone only ever posted about their own original thoughts, there would be no discussion. You have yet to explain why my behaviour in that scenario was scummy, and the post where you voted me reads to me like justification for scumreading me you found after the fact.

I'll explain what I meant with the first part. Sircakez called what Norfolk was saying about not wanting to be shot LAMIST. I pointed out that I don't really think that it is LAMIST, but something like what Whemestar was saying about wanting to be shot is LAMIST. Essentially, I'm saying that the "default" thing for town to say is that they want to be shot and the "default" thing for scum to say is they don't want to be shot. Not that Whemestar was necessarily scummy but that sort of thing is what I consider LAMIST in this setup.

For the second part: Ok but you haven't given

any

original thoughts. And, it wasn't apart of any discussion. You framed your reads as if they were your original thoughts, when in reality they were half hearted reads on the back of observations others had made. I don't see how this is a good defense for the things I pointed out about you.

RLotus. How often do you see players of either alignment committing to any reads in their first post?

Not usually. I never said or thought that you were committed to your reads, if that is what you are implying.

[RLotus]

In regards to the 3 players to save question,right now i'd only save Not Mafia, because I love him. There's no pro town evidence from anyone other than Netflix at the moment.

do you have any scum reads?

[RLotus]

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.

Another read on the back of mush.

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.

Another vague/half hearted read in an attempt to OMGUS. It really just looks like you are pushing where is convenient as opposed to having your own convictions.

[RLotus]

What would flipping Norfolk clear up lotus?

There has been a lot of conversation around Norfolk so seeing his alignment would help solve

This is a bad response.

Give me specifics - what would flipping Norfolk solve? If a lot of people suspect someone them flipping town just means that people were wrong. Are there people you think Norfolk can't be aligned with? Are there pushes that you are more likely to double back on if Norfolk flips town?

Mmmm, I'm not really sure specifically who looks better/worse. I said this because there is definitely something strange going on with how people are reading Norfolk. To me, it seems like he is being bussed because of the little resistance he is getting on reads on him. Or, scum are chasing an easy miss. I believe you said you thought this earlier as well. I guess I would tend to believe the people who are very openly pushing hard on him would be bussing so they can get the credit. While people who say they find Norfolk scummy but aren't adamant about him being shot more likely want the missed shot.

[WhemeStar]

In regards to the 3 players to save question,right now i'd only save Not Mafia, because I love him. There's no pro town evidence from anyone other than Netflix at the moment.

Does Norfolk really not have any reads in 20 pages

[Norfolk Boy1]

do you have any scum reads?

Ordinarily i'd be scumreading Cakez, but he's been so transparently misrepresenting me and tunnelling that i'm leaning misguided town. Although that's the same logic

ScrewTheTells is still pinging me. A quick jump in, push the wagon and run off again: scummy.

I'm also scumleaning you, Lotus. That's related to your democracy idea that I referenced earlier.

Pedit: massive falisifying of what I said by Wheme, there.

[Norfolk Boy1]

*falsifying

[SirCakez]

Norfolk what did you think of STT's more recent post where they explained show they have an odd posting style?

[SirCakez]

Also do you have any townreads?

[ScrewTheTells]

So just a "quick" post on some things I think are important: our two heads just caught up with each other about the content up to page 15. There'll probably be another post later to address more recent developments after that.

I also am not fond of shooting a player that has admitted to not being a strong player in the early game. Should he be town, we just die and we leave a weaker early game town player in control of the gamestate.

This isn't to say whether I think he's town or not, just that he's not someone I would consider a great first shot.

I understand this side of the argument, but I don't know if that's strong enough when compared to the advantages. It's already been mentioned: Norfolk is scummy (i.e. more likely to actually be scum so the worst case scenario discounted in its risk), players have invested positions on him (more on this below), and maybe it gets the lurkers talking more in general.

I'm honestly not sure whether I should trust my normal mafia instincts here since the mechanics are so different, and I might not have experience with the relevant heuristics. But if this were a normal game with votes and lynches, I'd be happy with lynching lurkers. It always works for me. This reminds me, I hate how Not_mafia is just getting away with not playing the game. I literally forgot about him until now. No one made a big deal of this, so is this his meta or something?

Give me specifics - what would flipping Norfolk solve? If a lot of people suspect someone them flipping town just means that people were wrong. Are there people you think Norfolk can't be aligned with? Are there pushes that you are more likely to double back on if Norfolk flips town?

But this ignores the details: not everyone on the Norfolk wagon is doing the same thing. In another post you said you think everyone reads Norfolk as confirmed scum. Well I'm far from that. I just think he's one of the better lynches at the moment compared to anyone else. I'm not particularly confident on anyone. If I had to give a number I'd say Norfolk is just maybe 10% above baseline probability of being scum. I mean, I wouldn't be hugely disappointed if Netflix shot someone else instead, a lot of people are dropping more substance now and I think reads on them are only gonna get stronger.

SirCakez indeed has been pushing Norfolk pretty hard. If Norfolk is town I think Cakez's the most likely scum. And town-Norfolk shouldn't need much convincing to shoot Cakez at that point. So actually, this also undermines the "Town-Norfolk's gonna shoot wrong" argument.

And if Norfolk does flip scum then uh... Imperium's zealous defense of him is kinda weird. Not decided if that is strong scum tell, but I think it's a scum tell at this point. I can see town defending a scum-lurker casually based on your reasoning, but this seems beyond that. You're defending him too hard while leaving a way out by saying stuff like

I don't know norfolk's alignment.

I just don't see many town players defending a lurker if they genuinely didn't have a town read on.

[Norfolk Boy1]

Norfolk what did you think of STT's more recent post where they explained show they have an odd posting style?

It's a fair explaination, but doesn't affect my view on them. It's early days, but it just feels a bit too opportunistic for me to ignore.

Also do you have any townreads?

Nothing's changed in 9 posts. My only solid townread is Netflix and i'm leaning that you're town.

[ScrewTheTells]

Again to clarify, my last post was based on combined reads by the heads a couple pages back so, I should say that Norfolk is not lurking as much with posts in the last page or so. We have players lurking harder, I think, and I don't like it. I still think Norfolk's posts are thin on substance for this stage of the game but I'll have to consult other head on that.

[Imperium]

sigh you guys are completely missing my point. So either I'm being unclear or you guys are just not actually comprehending what I'm saying. I think Lotus is the only one that has interacted with what I'm saying and catching what I'm meaning.

I'm not arguing that norfolk is town. I'm saying that his original posts were not that scummy to warrant being on everyone's scum lists and to get the type of pushes that cakez/unwnd/ducchess gave. So far Not Mafia has called norfolk town, Mush hasn't given a read I don't think, and then remove Norfolk himself. That leaves 8 players who have called him scum, some with reasoning that I don't buy/I think is odd.

If he is town, then he is being pushed/scumread by scum as an easy push. If not_mafia and Mush are scum, we're looking at 2 in that pool of 8. I don't currently think both of them are scum, which means more in that pool of 8.

If he is scum, there are bussers/distancers about and I'm trying to make sense of the pushes and reasoning there to try to determine who's being genuine and who's going along because it looks good. And unwnd being like yeah shoot him he's a slanker, but not taking about other ones who have as many or fewer posts than norfolk feels wrong on so many levels. Cakez pushing him in ways that make no sense whatsoever and trying to tie me to Norfolk when he's seen me push against reads and try to make sense of them in previous games is really weird as well, and I don't buy that his read is coming from a genuine place. It just feels all kinds of wrong.

I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Regardless of Norfolk's alignment, the reads on him are weird. I'm trying to read the people who are reading Norfolk who's reads don't read genuine to me.