Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Yeah, I can agree with that. NM is a late game POE shot if ever.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm going down for the night. One last question.

Where the hell is Dunnstral today?

[Dunnstral]

I don't like

Dunnstral

right now. I fear this feeling however because the last game we played I didn't like him either. There was an intricate tell I provided with Dunn for the longest time and I think I forgot it. It seems that somewhere we both got bad at reading each other because we shared mutual scumreads. I have less of a confirmation bias feeling towards Dunn and more like an annoying twitch. That statement made about 'scum wanting to avoid conflict' did have truth to it, but I think that is not the full representation of the game, nor is it relevant. I think this game has been quite scrappy, even if they are just minor events (outside of the blatant obvious ones like Imperium v. Cakez) so for Dunn to say this to me seems like he's giving this game a cursory glance and nothing else. The pop-in from him after RLotus just furthered the agitation, and the only response he had to my complaints was 'well I responded 30 minutes after' as if the time responded matters? You could even say 'avoiding conflict' would be the most apt description of his play right now.

How am I avoiding conflict? It feels like half the lobby (of the portion that is actively playing) jumped on me after I gave my opinion

You saying I'm avoiding conflict is what feels disingenuous, because it seems fully untrue? Looking at the rest of my play as well.

The game being scrappy doesn't mean scum are avoiding conflict, it means there's likely a good amount of scum in the slots that have been lurking all day.

I didn't say I responded 30 minutes after. I said the rtlotus shot came into consideration and then concluded all in a span of 30 minutes, of which I was not there. And you're trying to hang that over my head as if I can't say anything afterwards because I wasn't there at the time

[Dunnstral]

If he doesn't like being VT or not confident then like is it justified to give him a gun?

Who cares if he wants a gun or not

He's scummy so shoot him, don't invent reasons/bend over backwards to talk yourself out of scumreading someone who is both scummy and barely playing

[Dunnstral]

I'm going down for the night. One last question.

Where the hell is Dunnstral today?

What do you mean?

[Dunnstral]

Unwnd doesn't your tell have to do with the way I approach my scumreads? Didn't you think I got stuck on my scumreads when I'm scum?

[Dunnstral]

Alright actually:

If we shoot wrong two more times, we lose

With that context I can accept not wanting to give norfolk the gun if th ey're town

[Dunnstral]

i'm reading in real time but not taking notes or anything of the like since i'm disorganized. i can see there was mention of it previously but it was never really fleshed out

in general this game, i've liked a lot of what you've said and what you've been doing, like how you really seemed to want to interact with norfolk and actually get a read on him rather than just call for his head like half the players in the game, but if i had to raise a point of concern it seems like you've been difficult to pin down to a concrete stance for a lot of the game. that's not a crime necessarily, my reads tend to waver a lot which is why i hate committing myself to lists but in a setup like this, there's a lot of scum, i'd expect some strong scumreads because you can pretty much close your eyes and throw a dart and still hit scum.

so i want to ask, what's your opinion of norfolk after you interacted with him, or tried to? why's duchess a scumread for you? why's unwnd scum? why is MUSH your top townread?

(i'm still a few pages behind where i first subbed in in my readthrough so i may have missed some stuff, apologies if i'm making you repeat stuff, this is just the impression i'm geting)

It was never fleshed out, you're correct, but i find it not

notable

but odd that you didn't recognize that it was part of a conversation about players that had started at 710. Yes, he at that point said he was thinking lotus, and I restated my previously stated points - my little pings that I wanted to reread and flesh out, which I would have done regardless of who he said. We were in a conversation, one in which he had just stated not too long before that he wasn't going to be shooting right away. (Just double checked this; he said he wanted to give us a chance to get our thoughts out there the night before.) Anyway, there was no indication that he was shooting right then until after that point when he said he was shooting and gave his reads list. I get Dunnstral in the moment thinking it looked that way, but I guess I don't really understand how you don't recognize it for the conversation that it was.

For what it's worth, I didn't even think he was going to be shooting right that moment when he said he was informed they were shooting. I thought that we were still going to talk more. (I realize this part here is pretty meaningless from an outside pov who truly has the above thought, but.)

Nacho feels pretty good about norfolk being scum. I think he's pretty likely to be scum. I'm still trying to make sense of duchess, but I think my original theory on the people, like cakez, who had given reasoning I disliked on Norfolk being scum might have been wrong. unwnd mentioned that scum probably were more likely to slip norfolk into their scum reads if scum and dunnstral mentioned that scum probably don't want much conflict this game, and that has me shifting my assumptions some. I only played this setup once before at my homesite, and after giving the gun to the strongest player my team bussed the fuck out of me. It lost us one at the start of the game, but I spent day one working to make my partners not look like my partners and vice versa. We almost won the game that way; we would have but the last partner standing just flaked from lylo.

ANYWAY, I think my original thought on how scum would behave was based on my only experience, but dunnstral's no conflict point makes a lot of sense to me. And while I do think unwnd has a point, I'm not sure how much i want to agree with that because bad distancing is still an issue that will get someone shot. Does that make sense? This is a lot to say that I'm trying to reorganize my thoughts a bit, and I had to step away from the game before I unleashed.

I was concerned that Norfolk's pop back in after the cakez/me thing was a bit appeasing of cakez. Cakez did misrep that point of Norfolk's so it was odd to me that he wrote him off as misguided town at that point. When he came back he had him as scum, which had me wondering if scum were going to kind of float cakez as scum to hopefully get him shot because if town the game losing shot is Cakez shooting us. (Part of me wonders if this is what Duchess was doing too) I've haven't really felt great about anything he's posted. Except I did have one little thing I wondered, but I think it's probably stupid. I used that questionnaire as support for him being either nervous town or scum at the beginning of the game, but he came in and corrected me. He told me he lied in that post, and he loves being scum and having a role - he finds VT boring. Now does scum point out the mistake I made, or does he let me continue thinking he'd be nervous regardless? I guess yes, because maybe he wants to point out how much he loves being scum. I also wondered about the shifting position to being ready to get the gun.

Why does everyone townread Mush?

I should go to sleep. I saw the first part of your name and read nacho, and was about to remind you that I literally just explained that and my fears about it before realizing it was you guys.

I, in part, and town leaning her because some of the ways she questioned and talked to whemestar and me reminds me a lot of me as town a long time ago in a way that I couldn't really accomplish as scum. This is a dangerous reason to townread someone though I know because this has bit me in the ass before. Just because I have limitations in my ability to play scum because drawing scum sucks doesn't mean someone else will.

Other than that, I kind of liked the way she's described her play style and what she looks for. Does that make sense. I'm a sucker for self-meta though, so that probably won't be a strong reason for anyone else.

The little kind of setting traps? or little things that give her information, I've also kind of liked in a way.

It's not a strong read because I don't think my reasons are very solid. I didn't agree with her whemestar points or really part of the cake one about the voting.

OH wait I liked her reaction to ABR calling her obvtown. In the moment, it was a post that just felt good.

My MUSH read started there and just really kept continuing. I've pretty much liked the majority of her posts down to the descriptions of how she looks at the game. I liked the way she was certain and ready to go after STT, which literally moved at the same moment that Nacho started having doubts about STT. We might just be the next best synchronized skating team.

Nacho also thinks unwnd is more likely to be scum than I do, but I do suspect him. ABR didn't do anything that ABR usually does regardless of his alignment, so I didn't have a read there pre-unwnd at all. The problem I've had is the kind of mediator (sort of) play style he's adopted this game. But it doesn't even feel like that because at points it's felt like it was fanning the flames of me and cakez rather than actually mediate. Though as I just looked back for an example, I see that I misread his original point in 503 so hrm. And I think I misread 856 too. I thought he was saying that we were handwaving cakez, when it's felt the other way around, but I don't think that's what he was saying. Let me come back to this.

To be clear I'm not saying every scum is avoiding conflict

And I'm not saying me being in conflict makes me town (I'm just refuting unwnd saying I'm not)

I'm saying that a good number of scum, in the range of 2-3, are people who are avoiding making waves with other people

I didn't have specific people in mind when I said that

[Dunnstral]

I have no particular issue with your Wheme or Dunn scumreads, I even agree with the substance of them, I just have some suspicions that I need to follow up on before I can sort them properly. Not giving too much away, but here's a riddle for you: who do they agree with? (Note: I do not know the answer to this yet.)

I mean, I feel I've made my stances pretty clear

[ScrewTheTells]

Yeah, I can agree with that. NM is a late game POE shot if ever.

I think it's clear that is exactly what he wants us to do, so I think he's therefore scum. I'm glad Cakez and petapan brought up the fact that not enough people are calling for his head is also an indicator of his alignment - his scum buddies are also thinking this is working out great, they have one guaranteed scum to survive to the end game. Why bother interacting with him at all.

People saying whemestar's pushes are bad, well I think not_mafia's lack of pushes is worse.

Some things I didn't get to in my last post:

At least Lotus should have some good targets.

what makes you say this

Well I had the impression that Lotus was in a similar head-space as us, so I expect he'll shoot one of our top suspects or at least someone we wouldn't mind too much shooting either. In any case I had no fear that Lotus would fire the gun randomly at a weird target. That's why I was like...Imperium, are you trying too hard for the LAMIST theatre? I think it's obvious Lotus will not shoot immediately. How do you even mis-read Lotus's style that much?

the guy selfhammered as town in the game i played with him because he didn't feel he'd be able to get suspicion off his slot, play is entirely consistent with someone playing for the first time outside the newbie queue and is probably a bit overwhelmed, not really scummy

This is valuable info. Someone who self-hammers as town definitely would do this crap. I guess that neutralizes the earlier "evidence" against him (namely the calls of LAMIST and weird tone of posts) but that still leaves the later interactions like how he OMGUS me, says Not_mafia is probably a bored VT just like himself... oh yeah remember Not_mafia also said

I think Norfolk is town

I think I'm putting together the scum team here.

Town to scum:

petapan
SirCakez
Dunnstral
unwnd
WhemeStar
Duchess
Imperium
MUSHSHAGANA
Norfolk Boy1
Not_Mafia

[unwnd]

Not_Mafia as your strongest scumread? Why?

[WhemeStar]

Not_Mafia as your strongest scumread? Why?

because stt is scum

[SirCakez]

Other then Mush I like your stack a lot STT

[Duchess]

I will say I think Duchess drafting up this old argument between Imp and me and developing an "extremely confident" scumread after just having a mega fail on their Lotus read seems very unnatural

Should I slink away and give up on scumhunting after just one wrong read then? What is unnatural about it? What does a natural progression look like to you in this case? Did you want me to bumble around aimlessly for a bit before continuing to play the game?

You seem extremely confident for someone who just completely missed on another read you were very confident on
I'd expect you to take a step back and reevaluate because obviously you were off-track
Instead you just moved on to the next SR in your old pool.

I'm sorry that I don't allow my confidence to be shook so easily?

Is there a particular reason why you think being wrong about Lotus should affect my read of you? What ties you two together?

You are missing what I am saying. I saw your explanation. I am not near satisfied. Read my words. You called him LAMIST. I called it an act. These are the same thing. This makes me scummy, and it makes you...?

These are not the same thing at all. I said that the things that he said are what I would consider LAMIST, but not that he had scummy intentions behind them or that he is being deceitful in some way. You said that he is specifically saying these things as if he is faking something. I seriously doubt that you can't see a difference after I already explained.

If that's so then I think that is an incredibly scummy early stance to take on a player with as much LHF potential as Wheme. I also think your incredulity at my disapproval towards your answers is completely overblown.

???

Saying that somebody isn't really being scummy or deceitful but still choosing to apply a term like LAMIST which usually connotes a scumread is an easy way to posture yourself early on that leaves the door open for that read to evolve either way.

Listen.

I really do think Cakez is town. The argumentative process he gets in with people is at such a slight that I can't imagine he wouldn't at least be self-aware as scum. The lack of care in that department makes me think he's a townie who is just strongly defiant, getting into a back+forth like Imperium because of his beliefs. Even the minor squabble with Duchess/MUSH as well. I struggle to see ulterior motive with pushing the issue so incessantly that Tammycho breaks out

THIS TEXT

and tells him to stop misrepping. I mean, at that point..what have you exactly won? What does Cakez gain as scum to keep pushing and pushing and pushing at this point. The read he has on Imperium feels almost personable at this point. Like it's gone beyond merely 'I scumread you' and more like Cakez wanting to convince Imperium that they're scum lol. A foolhardy choice, but this itself makes me think the intent is pure. Let me get it clear: I don't think Cakez is incapable of faking this or even building a narrative around his own absurdity. I just believe he'd be more precise with it and if it

did

come at the expense of himself (and how others read him), he'd be using that to greater effect. We've seen it before and I've seen a defiant scum cakez, where as scum the issue is not disagreement of (read), rather disagreement of (himself).

What do you think of my theory that Cakez feels locked in? Maybe he doesn't see an out at this point, or like I said, feels vulnerable with Imperium left alone. Right now you're looking at what scum would want to do in this situation to their benefit, while I'm looking more at how scum might react to the situation, wittingly or not.

-- Duchess. There's something there but my most confident takes on Duchess isn't that confident unfortunately. I think the biggest tell is that their activity seems to suspiciously coincide with what other players want. When other players cast suspicion on them, they make a flurry of posts. Otherwise they don't say much. At least that's the impression of the timing I get. When Imperium called them out vocally they responded and made a huge wall. I don't see any strong indicators in the content of the wall itself. No great towntells anyway. But the manner and timing of delivering what people asked just seems like scum covering their ass. This goes with what Lotus said before about Duchess seeming to regurgitate other people's reads. It would be a similar mentality.

I can assure you the timing and volume of my posting has absolutely nothing to do with the gamestate. I post for as long as I am available whenever I am online. Aside from one day when I had personal things going on, I have been fairly consistent with my activity. Where exactly are you seeing me kick up my activity when there is mounting suspicion against me? Or rather, show where I have been avoiding the thread?

[Imperium]

Unwnd is not at the bottom of our list anymore. Don’t have a placement just wanted to make a note of reassessment.

[Imperium]

Luckily I'm pretty sure town!Cakez is the only person in this playerlist bad enough to shoot us and I'm not yet entirely convinced town!Cakez is a thing.

Also c'mon I know you're above insulting me like this as town
Not good AtE

I'm not a perfect person

THERE'S MANY THINGS I WISH I DIDN'T DO

Thank you for being the only person to get my joke.

[Imperium]

@Lotus:

This is your daily reminder not to shoot until Sunday evening at the very very earliest. Please. Please please please.

[Imperium]

If it helps, it's a pretty vanilla take-away from a post talking about how they have the power of Bayesian reasoning and probabilities on their side so they are so good at this that you shouldn't even try them.

This post helped my emotional state.
You are my rock and you are a wonderful person. If you are scum then you are a heartless sociopath and you will not be invited to the barbeque.

[Not_Mafia]

I'm shooting Cakez if I get the gun

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Morning, folks.

Seems like today's going to be a good day aside from the afternoon dumping Eris's boredom on Chicago. Hopefully it's just the "look how boring you are" kind and not the "let's spice things up a little" sort. The Goddess's idea of "a little spicy" is "a shot of mace garnished with CS powder", after all. /Definitely/ a case of More Fun Than I Really Want. Fingers crossed.

As such, I'm going to do a different sort of initial catch up post today, because I want to start off with good vibes.

This post helped my emotional state.
You are my rock and you are a wonderful person. If you are scum then you are a heartless sociopath and you will not be invited to the barbeque.

Don't get too excited, now. I haven't completely sorted you yet.

Also, I think that's the nicest thing anyone's said about my Mafia play, ever.

I'm shooting Cakez if I get the gun

Care to elaborate?

[Not_Mafia]

No

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Moving on from there, Dunn's lookin' pretty scummy now independent of the stuff mentioned by unwnd.

I'm going down for the night. One last question.

Where the hell is Dunnstral today?

What do you mean?

When I sent the post quoted here, Dunn's last post according to the Activity page had been 1 day 18 hours ago. So "what

mean" was patently obvious: he had been /entirely missing/ for over a day and a half. 42 hours.

But that's not the scummy part, people forget to check the thread after all... No, no. The scummy part you can find if you just take a look at those timestamps. Hooooooo-ee! 8:22 pm for me and 8:31 pm for Dunn's response to me -- which was his /third/ post after I asked where he was. Beetlejuiced as all get out when you consider that Dunn responded in a seemingly random order (but hold that thought!) to a bare handful of posts that don't even actually address anything except himself and the value of shooting Norfolk... then /immediately/ bailed without interaction after /42 god-forsaken hours inactive in the thread./ /Nine minutes/ to respond after just /six hours/ short of /two days/ of /complete radio silence/. Plenty of posting elsewhere on site, though...

And for kicks check out the posts responded to first there. Huh, the first four are /all/ focused on me and unwnd. Ordered pretty much from highest pressure to lowest, too. Note that the post numbers being responded to are /distinctly/ out of order -- I think the thing about Dunn's scumtells is in fact the earliest one of those posts, although Dunn didn't do me the favor of quoting it. I'll look into it later, or someone else will. It's /definitely/ before I ask where the hell he's been all day.

So! Pressure first, then admitting Norfolk might be a bad shot in this gamestate as that argument becomes increasingly obvious, then deflecting /implied/ critique from Imperium that isn't even outright stated in the post quotes, giving a complete non-answer to a riddle I posed about him to /someone else/, and then out of here. Like a shot. No sticking around for interactions, just in and out, quick and clean.

Hmmm...

[MUSHSHAGANA]

No

More serious, give me a Cakez quote that makes you want to shoot there. I'll come to my own conclusions, I just want to see what you're looking at.

[Not_Mafia]

Another reason not to shoot NM - we probably just lose if he's town lmao

Other then Mush I like your stack a lot STT

[Dunnstral]

I thought you meant this day phase of which I've definitely been active. I don't need to explain my absence from this thread, it does feel like I'm being singled out here. The pressure order stuff is nonsense.