Newbie 2082 - Game Over

[catboi]

VOTE: frogsfrogs


Until I get some satisfactory answers to my questions.

[StrangeMatter]

Re: Greeting. At this point I think it's entirely possible that my townread on him has stemmed from confirmation bias on a couple things I was reading too strongly in to early. That said, I also do want to gut townread the self-hammer thing still; if someone threatens that and is brought to E-1 then they have to either go through with it (which ofc scum has not much reason to do) or back out of it (which looks very bad). The act of saying "well just bring me to e-1 so i can selfhammer then" has not much utility for scum to say. I think that kind of second-level "doing something explicitly negative utility for the town cred" play happens not that often.

StrangeMatter: am I right in reading that you haven't really indicated active suspicion on anyone other than possibly catboi (and even then I'm uncertain) at this point? You've given a lot of questions and commentary but I don't feel like I have a good sense of where you stand on things.

Not entirely, I'm still suspicious of Greeting right now. And I also think you are the biggest candidate for who I think could be deepwolfing but that's just gut and very unfounded.

[catboi]

FWIW there was a certain wounded quality to implo's posting toward me last night that felt real but it's not anything I'd hang my hat on and I still have huge problems with how he's approaching the game, not sure if my response got too wrapped up in tilt, did think him basically breaking it off with me and looking to discuss other things was okay, didn't hate his last post although it's not anything that's a super hard observation for scum to make.

[MafMen]

i lied i do not have enough energy to do an analysis on every player rn
thatll come sometime in the future

[StrangeMatter]

Here's a question for Greeting, why do you not trust igorsprite's tracker claim exactly? Because I feel like a lot of the logic makes it hard to assume that.

They made a few statements which contradict one another. Expanding on what I said in 582, you don’t sound very believable if you change your version multiple times. It occurs to me that the lies were brushed off by catboi as newbie nonsense, but I don’t share that view. I think it’s scumplay and its goal is to be brushed off as incompetence.

Okay, so then according to that logic couldn't your self vote also fall under "It's scumplay and its goal is to be brushed off as incompetence"?

There’s virtually no reason for me to hammer myself on Day One if I’m scum. It

could

make sense late in the game - as a way to divert the blame from the other scum member, but there is absolutely nothing a scum could gain from being voted out Day One. Val has, however, made a point that pretending to put myself at risk could be a way for me to gain towncred, since I wasn’t really in danger of getting voted out at that time. I guess that if you want to find out if I’m a man of my word, you’ll have to put me at E-1 to find out.

Obviously scum doesn't want to take the risk and be eliminated at this point, but it seems like you aren't really acknowledging what I've said, just saying that you wouldn't do it as scum is not a good argument, and I've done that before. Also, why are you trying to bluff saying you would do that? It's already been somewhat stated in another post that self voting is very anti town, and something you should never do.

[frogsfrogs]

Ok, sure. I can respond to this point by point. Sorry for the length, everyone.

But their reactions to Greeting were entirely the opposite. How do they both come across as "making sense" when they have completely different reactions? What do you understand about what they're doing? It can't be that hard to point to a single thing, right?

Yes, they were opposite, but I think both were very internally consistent, seemed real, and are anchored in town logic. That's my point here. I consider the roleset strategizing to be probably a bad move, but implosion never thought it was an issue. He makes a post about this just after Val's entrance, 134, but then he's gone for the next few pages wherein greeting/val/mafmen argue. When he comments again, he says he still thinks the same way about the strategizing being fine, but that Val looks super townie for how he's reacted, 183 and 186, and he pushes back at greeting to try and convince him of this, too. I think 188 and 191 are both great examples-- he feels really strongly about this read and is trying to wrangle the both of them into stepping back and seeing what he sees. I think it's genuine and don't see why appealing to greeting is good for scum here, when it's a situation easily jumped on, either. Val I've spoken about before-- I really believe this is something he was irritated by after knowing it to have happened in a game already, given the depth of explanation he gives and the emotional progression as he and greeting argue. 156 as a specific example if you'd like.

- Why do you see val as a "viable train", when exactly three people have expressed suspicion of him, and you're scumleaning everyone doing it? Who do you think is going to make Val a potential elim here?

Is MafMen an option? No one's voting him.

I

haven't voted him. I already said I thought his response was town-leaning. And, again, he's your second highest scumread, so how does that make any sense at all?

I have the unfortunate, maybe emotional :/, reaction of feeling like some of this is attempting to make me doubt my own understanding of the game state. Genuinely, this and my own life schedule are why I did not respond fully before. It's not questioning that's the issue, but these two questions seem like no matter what I answer, you can jump on me for it. You know already I don't trust your motivations in this game, here, but apologies anyways if I can't fully see these as 100% good faith.

Going into this day I totally thought there could have been a push for Val. As you mention, there are three pretty strong scum reads of him, we had no idea of StrangeMatter's reads (plus they gave an ambivalent one of him shortly before Maf voted), I didn't realize implosion's townread was as strong as it actually is upon re-read (Guess I had the impression it faded a bit over time?), and igor has, a few times, voted very quickly for someone after a case is made for them being scum. It's not as viable currently as I thought it was, sure. As for MafMen, I absolutely think he's still an option? I'm of the impression he's the second-most widely scumread. I'm aware thinking that you two could be the maf team

and

that you want to vote out MafMen is odd, but I fully believe either

could

be true. Thus PoE.

- What about Greeting's posting is "weird", and why do you find that to be potentially scum-indicative?

Majorly, his suspicion of Igor. :T I truly think it's a silly opinion, especially that he's still holding it now, even if you disagree with his plays.

- What questions of implosion's are "incisive"? What about "making his own thoughts clear" is a towntell exactly? Why don't scum want to make their thoughts clear?

Implosion has frequently contributed to discussions in ways that moves discussion along and he does it in ways I think are good for town and agree with. Obviously this is subjective, but like, the inverse of saying x player is scummy for going down distracting rabbit holes and saying things just for saying them. 438, 344, getting back to questioning Maf in 69 are good imo. I think it's less plausible that this is a brilliant scum performance than just being townie.

- Has it placed a target on him, though? He's not even come close to being an elimination. Wouldn't "being outspoken" and "placing a massive target on his back" equally describe me? What do you think he's done that's "placed correctly" and "good for town"?

See above x2. Honestly I think your own outspoken-ness has been mostly reactive and I disagree that it hasn't been something scum could do. Val's way of making enemies and scum hunting is, again, less plausible to me as a scum move than him just actually being town.

[catboi]

Yes, they were opposite, but I think both were very internally consistent, seemed real, and are anchored in town logic. That's my point here. I consider the roleset strategizing to be probably a bad move, but implosion never thought it was an issue. He makes a post about this just after Val's entrance, 134, but then he's gone for the next few pages wherein greeting/val/mafmen argue. When he comments again, he says he still thinks the same way about the strategizing being fine, but that Val looks super townie for how he's reacted, 183 and 186, and he pushes back at greeting to try and convince him of this, too. I think 188 and 191 are both great examples-- he feels really strongly about this read and is trying to wrangle the both of them into stepping back and seeing what he sees. I think it's genuine and don't see why appealing to greeting is good for scum here, when it's a situation easily jumped on, either. Val I've spoken about before-- I really believe this is something he was irritated by after knowing it to have happened in a game already, given the depth of explanation he gives and the emotional progression as he and greeting argue. 156 as a specific example if you'd like.

Okay, this at least makes

sense

, but I don't think, necessarily, that getting worked up over a play being mechanically correct/incorrect is a surefire tontell - very few players are going to strongly argue in favor of play they believe to be mechanically incorrect as scum and val has demonstrated the ability to attack a townie over the townie doing mechanically un-optimal things in a prior game. What you're saying at least makes ~sense in that implosion trying to mediate there is disadvantageous as scum but I see basically no reason val wouldn't be able to do what he's doing as scum.

I have the unfortunate, maybe emotional :/, reaction of feeling like some of this is attempting to make me doubt my own understanding of the game state. Genuinely, this and my own life schedule are why I did not respond fully before. It's not questioning that's the issue, but these two questions seem like no matter what I answer, you can jump on me for it. You know already I don't trust your motivations in this game, here, but apologies anyways if I can't fully see these as 100% good faith.

Going into this day I totally thought there could have been a push for Val. As you mention, there are three pretty strong scum reads of him, we had no idea of StrangeMatter's reads (plus they gave an ambivalent one of him shortly before Maf voted), I didn't realize implosion's townread was as strong as it actually is upon re-read (Guess I had the impression it faded a bit over time?), and igor has, a few times, voted very quickly for someone after a case is made for them being scum. It's not as viable currently as I thought it was, sure. As for MafMen, I absolutely think he's still an option? I'm of the impression he's the second-most widely scumread. I'm aware thinking that you two could be the maf team and that you want to vote out MafMen is odd, but I fully believe either could be true. Thus PoE.

Shrug, I'm trying to make you JUSTIFY your understand of this because I need to grasp your perspective. It feels like you are quite literally only looking at this from possible angles where I am scum, and have put basically no consideration into worlds where I am town, so I don't really care for the emotional appeal at the start of this. Anyway, I'm not even

trying

to convince you of anything at this points - my questions are squarely aimed at trying to sort you.

Those answers are annoyingly meh though and I'm not really getting anything out of them. I probably should have asked better questions because this was realistically the only response you could have given, but blah.

Ultimately the entire reasoning here is paper-thin, your justification for suspicion is based solely on me suspecting those people and you believing those two to be "viable" wagons, when I've actively pushed for neither so far today, and none of this actually addresses why I can't, like, be suspecting those people as town, right? Like there's no attempt to actually engage with my suspicion/reasoning at all and whether it's believable coming from town, it's just saying I suspected people who could be wagoned so I must be scum for it, it's like saying 2+2 = 5, it doesn't add up.

Majorly, his suspicion of Igor. :T I truly think it's a silly opinion, especially that he's still holding it now, even if you disagree with his plays.

Does weird = scum? What benefit does Greeting-scum get from suspecting igorsprite here? Do you think that is a play scum is likely to make?

Implosion has frequently contributed to discussions in ways that moves discussion along and he does it in ways I think are good for town and agree with. Obviously this is subjective, but like, the inverse of saying x player is scummy for going down distracting rabbit holes and saying things just for saying them. 438, 344, getting back to questioning Maf in 69 are good imo. I think it's less plausible that this is a brilliant scum performance than just being townie.

All of the questions cited are really unconvincing, asking igorsprite what his tracker report was is super easy for scum to do, as is asking MafMen why he thought greeting was probtown, especially seeing as multiple people jumped on him for that post, so I see that question as not super original or incisive at all? Which leaves only the question to thynhith, which, sure, could be plausibly scumhunting-ish but ultimately we know for a fact it's just attacking a townie for being incorrect n something.

Ultimately I'm not really seeing at all how the stuff you cited adds up to a solid townread, the earlier stuff about trying to mediate was more convincing.

See above x2. Honestly I think your own outspoken-ness has been mostly reactive and I disagree that it hasn't been something scum could do. Val's way of making enemies and scum hunting is, again, less plausible to me as a scum move than him just actually being town.

This is, again, super vague and unsatisfactory. I've been reactive because I got fake guiltied by a troll who isn't trying to play the game and people are using my response as justification for my own guilt. None of that is explicitly clearing, I'd be righteously pissed off as scum too, but if my response is to just sling mud at everyone voting me that just gets me killed. I've been

trying

to re-center and play more logically and that's the entire purpose behind my questioning of you, because I'm trying to get a handle on your alignment.

Like, the entire response here just boils down to "I disagree" but I entirely think there's viable scum motive in aggressively pushing people the way Val does, and his entire play has, in my view, been tunneling likely town players on terrible logic. It's not particularly

hard

to do as scum and there's a lot of scum incentive in operating how he does where he seemingly tries to discredit everyone who opposes him.

That's not even to say I think he's definite scum, I have basically no idea how to make sense of him as either alignment, because in both cases I think he just hard tunnels on bad reasoning, and I don't really have a good sense of how to tell them apart.

[catboi]

This is super annoying though because I thought I had you pegged as newb-scum who can write ~reasonable sounding posts but can't back them up with real reasoning or justification when pressed on it. I find a lot of your answers unsatisfactory and vague but not necessarily impossible to be coming from town, and the way you replied gives me some level of doubt, leaving me a bit unsure what to do. I was totally primed to go full aggressive tunnel on you and call you caught scum for dodging questions.

[catboi]

Ultimately if you are town here, frogsfrogs, you're the type of player who gets hyperfocused on a particular worldview where you see someone as scum and view all their actions in the least charitable light while not showing the empathy to consider a possible perspetive where those actions could be coming from town. I think this sort of thing usually just leads to bad tunneling but becomes correctable with enough experience to understand other people's perspectives and how they think about things.

[catboi]

@implosion

- let's chat. I'm sorry if you felt my response to you yesterday was out of bounds.

I know you're not a bad player. Not sure if you're aware I'm Gira? (this alt's outed now, shrug). I understand maybe you'd be down on yourself after white flag, but, like, there was a lot of issues there that wasn't really your fault. Anyway, I know we weren't really close back in the day or anything but I'd like to think that if you're town you'd at least make a serious effort to engage with my perspective here and try to sort me.


That's why you coming at me today with sloughed-off POE reasoning set me off, because it's the sort of thing that is really easy to hide behind as scum. Did set off warning sirens in the memory banks of the reasoning scum-you had in guardians of the fortress where you were working off too-easy townreads that were built on a foundation of nothing much at all. It's like logical shortcutting, I sort of suspect you have trouble pushing cases you know are incorrect? So instead you work based on townreads, which you can feel justified in knowing are correct, nd then just cite POE as a reason to push mis-elims. So it set me off really hard when you came at me based on stuff like me being outed as a VT claim and my reaction to a fake guilty, which should absolutely be NAI at worst. It's all super lazy reasoning and I think you're better than that.

But regardless if you are town here I'd like to be able to find you and your responses to me screaming for your head gave me some measure of doubt so I want to discuss everyone else with you and see if it makes some level of sense, you're the one person here I feel like I

should

be able to connect with in some way if you're town here given we've been at this for a long time and started in the same place. I think figuring out your alignment is going to be key to my perspective on this game but to do that I really need to get your head here because there's clearly a disconnect between how we're viewing the game and i'm not sure if that's a sign of you being scum or not.

[catboi]

ultimately both igorsprite and val89 are the two archetypes of newbies I just find to be unbelievably frustrating to deal with - in spite of obvious stylistic differences neither is able to see the game outside themselves to any meaningful degree. Any questioning of their views is met with blunt resistance and treated as a threat, Val slagging me off as "desperate" for simply questioning his viewpoint is especially grating.

If both are town here then I suspect the game is as good as lost so I really have to hope that isn't the case here, don't know what else I can do.

[implosion]

I've known you were someone from EM but I was never quite sure exactly who/I perennially confuse which account from each site corresponds in what way.

I can re-evaluate frogs (and catch up generally) tomorrow but don't have the energy/focus to right now; who else do you think should be in my scum pool that isn't?

[catboi]

I've known you were someone from EM but I was never quite sure exactly who/I perennially confuse which account from each site corresponds in what way.

I can re-evaluate frogs (and catch up generally) tomorrow but don't have the energy/focus to right now; who else do you think should be in my scum pool that isn't?

I'm not really interested in forcing a particular perspective, my own view of the game right now is extremely unsettled and my goal here is to read

you

, not convince you of anything necessarily. To do that I need to just talk about your reads/reasoning on other players and see if it makes sense - you've said some stuff I agree with but not necessarily anything that's not, like, an easy thought to have. I dunno it's 2:40 AM so I can't find the right words but I guess I just want to go deeper here.

I'd at least like to get your thoughts on my questioning of frogs/their responses to me because I'm not sure what to make of it myself, I think it's fairly clear what I was digging at with those questions but the response is one where I can't really get a bead on it either way as to what it means for frogs' alignment.

[catboi]

"who should I be reading as scum that I'm not" as a response feels kind of :/

[catboi]

Ad I guess while we're at it, what's your view of mafmen? I just checked and you've said very little about him at all so your read of him isn't really clear at all.

[catboi]

one last thought because I literally can't get my mind off this game but don't think implo/val is the scumteam based on val's entrance, early distancing is possible but opening with a vote on a partner no one was suspecting at that point seems a very unlikely play so that at least is safe to rule out


forcing myself to log off and actually sleep now I just had to get that out there

[StrangeMatter]

And regarding catboi... I admit that I skimmed through the posts which built up their wagon but nothing really picked my interest. It was intense enough to make them mad, and that’s all I gathered from it. Perhaps there is some bias involved on my part, but catboi wouldn’t be my pick for an eliminating vote today.

Can you please explain more to this?

[igorsprite]

If both are town here then I suspect the game is as good as lost so I really have to hope that isn't the case here, don't know what else I can do.

don't be pessimistic

[catboi]

If both are town here then I suspect the game is as good as lost so I really have to hope that isn't the case here, don't know what else I can do.

don't be pessimistic

you've shown basically no desire to take the game seriously, you claim you're here to learn but there's basically no attempts to engage with meaningful dialogue with other players, any attempts to discuss your own reasoning have you barely giving any effort in response, your actions ingame come across as someone who's bored more than anything. you strike me as someone who just isn't interested in the style of game here, period, and are basically impossible to work with. Maybe I'm wrong and have misjudged you but you've shown basically no concern for what anyone else thinks so far. Instead you just treat the game as your own sandbox to screw around in.

[catboi]

And while I'm at it, can't help but find the attempt to placate me from someone who is supposedly strongly scumreading me to be scummy.

In my experience scum often tend to want to make sure they're putting down people "gently" and act conciliatory toward the ones they're trying to kill, usually because they don't want to be seen as acting too harshly toward someone they know will flip town

kind of a microread, not sure how much stock to put in it, but felt it was worth calling out in the moment

[igorsprite]

you've shown basically no desire to take the game seriously, you claim you're here to learn but there's basically no attempts to engage with meaningful dialogue with other players, any attempts to discuss your own reasoning have you barely giving any effort in response, your actions ingame come across as someone who's bored more than anything. you strike me as someone who just isn't interested in the style of game here, period, and are basically impossible to work with. Maybe I'm wrong and have misjudged you but you've shown basically no concern for what anyone else thinks so far. Instead you just treat the game as your own sandbox to screw around in.

that always happens when i'm town, especially when i'm a PR ;.;

i tend to be more townie when i'm scum because i feel that i have an obligation to do and i know who are my partners so i don't need to be worried about who i trust, but when i'm town i just don't know what i have to do because i think that i can't trust anyone and it's even worse when i'm a PR because it's obvious to me that i'm town and i think that the others need to trust me no matter what.

sorry if you are town and i frustrated you, but whatever if you are scum

[StrangeMatter]

I have a question, Catboi what are your current thoughts on MafMen?

[catboi]

Since this game is frustratingly dead I'm going to try to do some review. Had considered starting with MafMen, but as I asked implo his opinion of him I don't want to out any analysis on him before implo does so I can be sure his conclusions aren't influenced by mine at all. So instead I'm going to look over Greeting to see if I have the right idea or he's been in my blind spot all game.

Greeting:

I encountered Greeting in our previous game, I think there he became obvious town to me when he started complaining about the SEs in that game not doing much compared to his previous game. Was also fairly obvious town in his first game where he started scumhunting and putting in efforts to be helpful more or less right away.

I didn't really love the vote on margotrosa in 88, voting an inactive player is a fairly safe move that doesn't accomplish much, either they're going to start posting or they aren't but it's not like someone missing the start of the game is necessarily scummy, and as it turned out she'd flaked anyway. But it's not a guaranteed scum thing, town could legitimately think they're trying to force someone to post with that vote

The reasoning for going after igorsprite in 95/96 is actually meh, I can see town going after him based on how he was playing the early game but on a reread the lack of real explanation doesn't quite sit right with me

I don't know if it's my own bias speaking but in his previous games Greeting was able to present pretty fleshed out thoughts and I find the reads list in 96 a bit lacking, the exclusion of players who "sound like genuine newbies" and me as the least suspicious somehow reads rather arbitrary, the thoughts on mafmen are just that he "didn't sound very towny" but decides he's not as suspicious just because he's not likely to be a teammate to igorsprite, which is just bad associative reasoning that's dependent on igorsprite being scum, doesn't analyze mafmen's posts at all.

The 109 is also pretty weak reasoning, doesn't get at anything specific for clearing me or the other newbies, just that i'm "acting similarly" and the other newbies are "making newbie posts". I feel like in my skims of his previous games just before this Greeting had more fleshed out thoughts, but I'll have to check again after this.

The mechanical posts in 120 and 123 don't really bother me and are more or less consistent with how Greeting-town acted in his first game, but I don't really consider it a towntell at all and would expect he'd talk similarly as scum.

I actually like 140 as townish, the unease/hesitance toward implosion feels like believable paranoia and the way he talks about wanting to vote MafMen for sounding similar to a player who'd fooled him as scum sounds good. 141 stings a little because I had initially read post 50 as townish as well but second-guessed myself, something of the confidence in the read makes me afraid it's white-knighting but I don't think the reasons for Greeting's defense of Thyn are all that bad ultimately.

The sequence from 148/149/151/160 still looks town to me, feel like the confusion at val's accusation and the gradually increasing incredulity as he doubles down on extremely faulty/contradictory reasoning looks genuine.

Could it be scum getting miffed at an unreasonable accusation from a townie? Eh, I suppose. But it all looks town enough to me.

The attempting to check Val's posting history and feeling like what he's doing doesn't match with his other games in 169/171 is also a manuever I don't see newb-scum faking, bothering to even think about the meta angle is one most don't often bother with. Even the weird ridiculous angleshooty read where he speculates if Val could somehow be an unregistered hydra in 184 is one I don't see mafia making, ever?

I don't really like the rabbit hole associative read in 185 but if I had to guess it's a town post. Not strongly though.

Something about talking about the game being brought to a "harmful frenzy" in 193 I also like, that kind of feeling of victimization comes way more often from town and isn't often faked by mafia, particularly inexperienced ones. Generally speaking that type of thinking where they're perceiving things people are doing as plots and threats comes from the paranoid mindset of a townie.

The emotive threat to selfhammer in 204 left me conflicted. Greeting was mis-eliminated in his first game and came under pressure in the game we played together and he didn't react that way when he got heat in those games. But this is also a different game and it's possible he got tired of being pushed on. His explanation for it when I asked was related to his confidence in Val being scum. In general I think this sort of threat comes from frustrated town more often than scum, though, and the type of player who does it as a ploy is rare - I don't think Greeting has encountered anyone like that in his previous games so my guess would be this is genuine town frustration leading to the threat rather than a bluff.

234 asking about Thynhith does ping a bit.

235 trying to call out frogs for being online but not posting is also a type of angle-shoot read I almost never see from scum, ever, and I'm glad I went back and reread to remind myself of that. Bothering to investigate the activity of someone random while in the midst of a 1v1 with val indicates a genuine scumhunting mindset here, scum can and will use getting in a fight with a townie as an excuse to avoid commenting on the rest of the thread but Greeting isn't doing that, he's continuing to look around at other people even while locked in a tunnel on Val.

continuing after this but felt the last bit was a strong enough point to end the post on.

[catboi]

I have a question, Catboi what are your current thoughts on MafMen?

Lol, ironic, just said I was holding off on rereading him. I have a vague townlean based on him looking like he's dealing with legitimate indecision in his read on me (although that kind of thing can be an excuse to hold back for a bit only to vote me later), but that's a shaky foundation for a read, I want to look back more in depth sometime today.

[StrangeMatter]

Speaking of, to everyone on the Thyn wagon, what was the reason for their elimination? I feel like nobody really went through and talked about that, and I didn't really see anything that particularly pinged me.

Also, I absolutely didn't know that.