Newbie 2082 - Game Over

[Val89]

he wants to scare people into not voting him by making them afraid they'll get scumread for doing so

Catboi, who is it you think this applies to, here, from your perspective?

[catboi]

he wants to scare people into not voting him by making them afraid they'll get scumread for doing so

Catboi, who is it you think this applies to, here, from your perspective?

igor/mafmen/strange/implo, that's the audience you're trying to make not want to vote you here.

The act is transparent, IMO. frogs coming undone with desperation on the last page and trying to cover for you reinforces that.

[frogsfrogs]

Val absolutely should start explaining himself here, but yeah, sure, me reading the situation is clearly a scumtell. Do you agree with igor that I'm only town if I vote him?? How does this being a bluff by scum!val work?

[Val89]

Except that implo was already on my wagon, and you've told us that Igor/SM are the PRs from your perspective, no?

[catboi]

Val absolutely should start explaining himself here, but yeah, sure, me reading the situation is clearly a scumtell. Do you agree with igor that I'm only town if I vote him?? How does this being a bluff by scum!val work?

No, I think you're scum regardless, because your posts are incredibly scummy and the way you have been arguing with me does not feel like town thought process. I believe you and Val have tied yourselves at the hip and you know him flipping is going to be damning for you, as I have been arguing (and was going to make a post about).

It being a bluff is very simple, he selfvotes, people panic and ask themselves if scum would give up like that, maybe they second-guess themselves out of it.

I think contextually it's a significantly different move from what Greeting was doing on day 1. There's no feeling behind it, no no genuine frustration, it's totally out of line with Val's personality and how he'd been posting all game prior to this

[Val89]

You seem to be floundering around quite a bit trying to explain something that's so "transparent", catboi.

Come on. Explain. If Igor and SM are the PRs from your perspective, why do they worry about getting scumread for having voted me?

[catboi]

Except that implo was already on my wagon, and you've told us that Igor/SM are the PRs from your perspective, no?

Your pedantry is incredibly tedious. You say that stuff, but no one is theoretically cleared, a jailkeeper claim could be CC'd, etc, and there's a lot of psychology behind it, people don't want to get called scum for voting you

I don't think you're going down with the bravado of believing your flip will vindicate your reads.

[catboi]

You seem to be floundering around quite a bit trying to explain something that's so "transparent", catboi.

Come on. Explain. If Igor and SM are the PRs from your perspective, why do they worry about getting scumread for having voted me?

Kiss my tail val, the game isn't about you trying to win precise arguments on my wording like you're in a debate club


Jokes about "self-vote and AtE" are well-worn in mafia by now, it's hardly anything new.

Your selfvote does not look genuine.

[catboi]

If you're so utterly confident, just leave a legacy case that'll sink me, rather than this tedious crap over word choice.

I am fully prepared to be voted and lose this game should you flip town (because you'll have made it unwinnable)

Likewise, if people were to panic and vote Greeting and he flipped scum, I would take it squarely on the chin that my read was awful and accept elimination.

[catboi]

What I see is someone who's running on fumes

[Val89]

You pulling out the word "pedantry" and trying to change your position everytime you are asked to justify your crap logic is incredibly tedious.

This shouldn't be difficult. Apparently, the scum motivation behind my actions is transparent and obvious, and reinforced by frogs too, apparently. It shouldn't be at all difficult to explain in a manner we can all understand and by doing so, shut me down, no?

If you think I'm taking issue with just your wording "like a debate club", then re-word it. I'm pointing out your whole argument is hokum. Show everyone I am wrong and explain.

[Val89]

The facts of the matter are that implo was already on my wagon, and says he jumped off because he didn't want Igor to hammer. That demonstrates an understanding that when I self-voted, I put myself in the clear and obvious danger of Igor dropping the hammer on me there and then, particulary as he was online and saying he was scum reading me.

Igor and SM, are if as you say they are from your perspective, PRs, then why do they give a crap about being scumread by voting for me? Frogs is also supposed to be my obvious partner too, so clearly there is no need for some super-risky play to scare them off from voting for me if I didn't want them to, I could just ask them not to in the PT.

That leaves MafMen, and if you are trying to suggest I put a gaurenteed vote on my wagon for the chance of scaring off a potential one, I'm going to ask you politely to stop trying to patronise us.

[catboi]

So, as I was saying yesterday, I am strongly scumreading Val and frogs right now both on their individual play and from Process of Elimination. What I am going to do now is look at how Val interacts/talks about frogsfrogs and see if they make sense as partners.

I don't know how to comment on this argument, nor should I

No, you shouldn't.

Let's hope everyone else follows your lead here and doesn't buy into the idea I'm misrepresenting the issue and it's OK to comment; whether that idea is being advanced here by scum or simply silly town. We can establish which it is as we go.

This is the first reply from Val to frogsfrogs, with frogs staying back from the Val/Greeting argument on day 1 where he tells frogsfrogs he shouldn't comment on their argument.

I don't think this interaction is telling in and of itself, he's telling frogsfrogs to step back and not intervene, I could see reasons for not wanting a partner to intervene but also wanting town to keep back.

Somewhat interestingly, he cuts out the ending part of that statement, where frogs says he is reading both Val and Greeting as town from it. He didn't want to address that part. It is actually fairly bizarre that when someone came in and suggested they could be TvT, he just outright blows past that and ignores it.

Focusing on me atp would be derailing town. I would advise everyone to look at Val/Greeting more carefully.

Honestly I consider the derail to be doing more arguing about Greeting vs Val right now.

Right on the money again. Put me down for a frog townread.

I think there is plenty to bite into already to make your mind up where you fall on the Me/Greeting debate. I note that Thyn wants to encourage everyone to look carefully without actually taking a stance himself. He wants everyone to look over here, without commiting himself, and describes shifting focus elsewhere as a "derailment". I don't think shifting attention elsewhere, even temporarily, can be consider a derailment, unless Thyn thinks there should be a train now barreling down the tracks towards the lim of either myself or Greeting today, and if he has taken such a strong stance, where is the vote? I don't think his vote is doing much where it is at the moment.

Sorting that slot is a useful excerise and basically saying 'oh no, keep looking at these two, don't look elsewhere, that would be a mistake' pings me hard, particulary if (and I don't think this is the case at the moment, but I recognise I don't get it correct all the time) implosion ends up on the right side of history, and it does prove TvT. He also seems to suggest that I am 'insisiting on getting stuck on a seemingly less important point', and that I could be motivated to 'trip up town and control the thread', but no, let's all continue to focus on that point, shall we?

That's a heavily scummy post to my eyes; but, I guess there isn't much to be done presently if he is going on V/LA.

This is really a completely bizarre reason to townread someone.

frogsfrogs is saying that focusing on the Val/Greeting argument would be a derail and a waste of time. Val says this is "on the money" and calls frogs town for it.

But, does Val actually believe this? At the time, he was still voting Greeting and involved with pushing him as scum. Why would he agree with someone saying his current push is a derail? Somehow frogs trying to de-escalate his argument is worthy of a townread, but Val shows absolutely no sign of actually wanting to de-escalate with Greeting. It's a very dissonant mindset.

I'm happy townreading

implosion

and

frogsfrogs

, at this point

Here, in his first readslist sort of post, Val puts frogfrogs down as his strongest townread, with no further elaboration. It's a fairly surprising place to put them, especially given frogsfrogs's meager contributions to the thread at that point.

It's not "does a VT claim survive until late game", it's "if you are still around in late game as scum, how do you defend yourself?" He's saying claiming VT early prepares a narrative. That's what I'm reading, at least.

It's clear other slots are getting it, so I am just going to chalk this up to you misunderstanding what I've driving at.

This is an interaction where Val quotes frogsfrogs in response to MafMen arguing with him as support for his own viewpoint, so he can say MafMen is misunderstanding him. Val and frogs seem to have each other's backs but don't talk to each other a lot.

Cards on the table, there is no world in which I will be convinced to vote either Frogs or Implosion today. Post 421 could have basically have been written by myself; the only thing it appears we disagree on at all is the degree to which Greeting is suspicious, and it's pretty much the same story as implosion. This is something that's been consistent righjt through the game (42,102, 218, 246, 283,472) are all examples of places frogs was right on the money and totally instep with my own thinking before I had come out and said what I was thinking, in a game when a lot of bullshit has been thrown around and by slots that should as least have the experiance to know better. I could make a comparable list for implosion, too, but the same basic deal applies, although there is a more fundermental disagreement there in that he thinks Greeting is town.

Here's the first place where Val actually elaborates on why he's townreading frogsfrogs at all. He simply links a bunch of posts and claims "frogs was right on the money" and was saying things he thought before he said them.

If we actually look at those posts, what do they actually say?

42 - This is actually just a waffly post that says nothing at all, frogsfrogs says Thyn and Margot voting each other for a previous game stands out to them, and says they don't seem maf/maf, but doesn't actually draw any conclusions as to either's alignment from it. I'm not sure how Val could have agreed with this post because there was nothing to agree

with

.

102 - This is shading igorsprite for saying he wants to "avoid complicating" himself. given igor got pushed to claim on that page befor val showed up, don't know what he agreed with here, unless it was something from a generic theoretical stance? It's a post that could mostly come from either alignment, to me.

218 - This is frogsfrogs saying greeting and val don't look scummy from their argument but not liking Thy saying to focus on it.

This doesn't really sense for Val to be talking about the way he did. What was there to agree with here? frogs called him and Greeting town. Does he agree with the Greeting townread? Obviously not. So really he just agree with frogsfrogs calling him town, and both wanting to push Thynhith.

246 - Here, frogs gets upset with Greeting for calling them out for activity, and defends Val as town. So, again, Val mostly likes frogs for calling him town. There's not a ton of substantial analysis here.

283 - This is literally just a post where frogsfrogs says MafMen is misreading Val's argument. So Val is saying frogs is town for supporting him. Is he saying what Val is thinking before he says it? No, he's just defending Val by making his arguments for him.

472 - This is a post where frogs says they don't get how Greeting trusted me over igortsprite. This is at least an original thought. It could be believable that they shared this view. It's also a single line on day 2 and not really substantive at all, I would think a townread ought to have a more solid basis.


None of this...really adds up to a good reason for a townread at all? Most of what Val is "agreeing" with frogsfrogs on is posts where frogs defends Val and calls him town. All this stuff doesn't really feel like a believable foundation at all, there's no depth of discussion in reading, simply that two people are supporting each other

[catboi]

Now, here's where I put on my SE hat and say this is not typical scum behavior. Partners usually don't try to make the connections between each other so obvious. But given that Val won his scumgame prior to this with a strategy of towncoring and defending his partner, Roden, with very little reasoning that simply went un-questioned, I don't think it's a stretch to think he would want to come into his next scumgame looking to see if he could repeat that strategy. That looks a lot like what he's doing with townreading frogsfrogs for very little reason.

[catboi]

You aren't trying to solve - you are trying to keep the net as wide as possible. I'm not trying to engage in a debate I think I can "win", and the fact you think that's possiblity tells me you know your arguments and logic here aren't exactly sound.

This, whether or not you are prepared to justify reads that might result in elimating suspects from the pool, is a point that is clearly recognised as alignment indicative in both directions. Frogs was given townreads for the speed at which he was prepared to eliminate suspects from the pool 182 (and even if I disagree with the conclusion frogs came to there, I agree his williness to do so was deserving of towncred).

I also strongly beleive frogs and implosion to be town. In any case, even if I am wrong, I also don't beleive that catbois attacks today on either Implosion nor frogsfrogs are SvS; and if anyone else has any suspicion that they are, nobody has said as much. That means on a red catboi flip, we have Igor (regardless), SM, Frogsfrogs and Implosion all spewed town, and only two slots remaining the partner could possibly be - Greeting and MafMen. A red flip today means we have time to flip both; in other words, a guarenteed town victory.

These are the last two posts Val makes referencing frogs. Again, the actual reasoning for a townread here is beyond insubstantial.

Notably, in the first post, he townreads frogsfrogs for "being willing to remove names from the elimination pool", parroting what implosion had said at the time, while simultaneously attacking me for "keeping options open" when I was actually trying to work from an even more narrow suspect list at the time! Now, reads can change and evolve. My reads shifted since then, althought I have returned to more or less where I was on day 1 and frogs went back on calling Greeting town. That behavior is not really scum-indicative for either of us, but Val wants to paint me as scum for having an evolving opinion of the game.

But frogsfrogs gets credit for calling two people town. I call more people than that town, but hedge slightly, because as town I am uncertain. Somehow frogs is town for...making two town reads, but I'm scum for my town reads.

Also, as an aside, in general, someone being town for making town reads early is a

really bad type of read

, in a general mafia sense. Often scum will be calling lots of people town early in the game, this is because, due to the nature of being informed, they tend to see townies as innocent more easily, often reading town behavior into things that aren't. I don't think frogs calling the fight TvT is inherently scummy, though, but it's certainly not townread-worthy, and this is something I've been saying more or less all game.

The second post, of course, says nothing at all, just calls frogs town and puts them as spewed town on the basis of pre-flipping me red. This is the bad type of pre-flip associative. It's basing a read entirely on how someone else is supposed to flip, while saying nothing about their posting on an individual level.

[catboi]

I know this is activity-based meta, but I see frogsfrogs online most of the time I'm around and they have almost three times less posts than I do. They aren't posting in any other games. What's up with that? In 221, Val89 strongly townread frogs, without really saying why.

Maybe I'm being paranoid about this, but I think it should be pointed out.

Well, if we are going to open that door; I've noticed that both you and MafMen are routinely hiding your online status.

Given that it appears activity-based meta is something you think worth pointing out, are you hoping to hide something that way?

Notably, this post doesn't come up in name-searching an ISO, but in my review I was reminded of it.

Here, we have greeting questioning frogsfrogs on why they were appearing online, but not saying anything, and Val IMMEDIATELY leaps in and freaks out at Greeting for making this argument, shading him and MafMen for hiding their status.

There's no reasonable town motivated explanation for Val having this aggressive a reaction to Greeting questioning someone else about active lurking. Indeed, as I've said before, the type of observation Greeting makes here is one that almost never comes from newbie scum.

This reaction only really makes sense if Val is partnered with frogsfrogs, and is upset that frogs is being attacked for online status reasons he believes to be "unfair", and so he starts flinging dirt and attacking Greeting and others back to try to discredit this accusation.

[catboi]

Meanwhile, from frogs:

I don't know how to comment on this argument, nor should I, but I think I'm reading both Val and Greeting as very town from it.

I really thought Greeting and Val were both town arguing from different experience but this has absolutely spiraled now. :S

I guess I'd prefer to be talking about Val's new info from 180 re: Thynhith. I think it has some merit. The mentioned posts seemed totally town lean to me, but with greater context putting some doubt on them I see not much else I like?

VOTE: Thynhith

Noted on the activity. See ya soon! o/

Honestly I consider the derail to be doing more arguing about Greeting vs Val right now. I don't think Greeting proposing to self hammer makes him look more scummy and I don't think it says anything about Val.

To start with early on, calls Val vs Greeting TvT repeatedly.

This in and of itself isn't partnery, have said that townies do this sort of thing all the time. It's maybe a little atypical for scum, even, but there would be obvious strategic utility in trying to entrench in people's minds that your partner's fight is town vs town. Notably, frogs doesn't really try to intervene with the argument. This is in contrast to someone actually trying to mediate and tell Val how Greeting could be coming from a town perspective.

I absolutely cannot see why Val would be scum and have posted the way/what he has so far. That sus from Greeting is my largest point of confusion with him, so yes, I'd really like for him to elaborate on the read, too.

This is the first time frogs actually gives an explanation of their read on Val.

Now, this is vague, but they're a newbie, so I don't necessarily expect newbies to have fleshed out reasoning for reads. They just don't see why Val would post the way they are as scum. There's something of a lack of skepticism here as to why scum can't play aggressively, but I an see a newbie making this read. I don't think it's damning. Okay. let's move on.

Sorry, but that's bullshit. It's basically the only defense that would fly.

You are trying to tell me if you are scum, you would consider shooting a claimed VT with 2 PRs outstanding, unless you thought there was a chance they were lying?

there is a good chance that any mafia in a game decides to shoot a townread player instead of doing a potentially low reward act of pr hunting
theres also shit like fearkilling

Can some other people weigh in here, please, because I am starting to doubt my reality.

Are these two talking out their arses, or have I taken a blow to the head or something?

Yeah no, sorry MafMen, you're misreading Val's argument here I think. It's not "does a VT claim survive until late game", it's "if you are still around in late game as scum, how do you defend yourself?" He's saying claiming VT early prepares a narrative. That's what I'm reading, at least.

This, however, I do find notable - for some reason, frogsfrogs is coming in trying to defend Val by explaining things for him, like he's Val's lawyer. This is the exact same thing I called out as happening just now.

This is also something that can happen incidentally, I'll explain how I read someone's post if I feel they're being misinterpreted, but it feels kind of notable that frogs is doing it on multiple occasions. I think the suspect thing is it goes beyond defense to frogs seemingly being aware of Val's intentions. It's not clear otherwise why they need to explain things for Val, rather than letting him explain himself.

I absolutely cannot see why Val would be scum and have posted the way/what he has so far. That sus from Greeting is my largest point of confusion with him, so yes, I'd really like for him to elaborate on the read, too.

Greeting, will you explain your current stance on Val more than in 225?

So, this is something, frogs steps in and asks Greeting about his stance on Val. They don't ever seem to have stepped in and talk to Val in a similar fashion about his stance on Greeting, despite supposedly having a townread there.

I absolutely cannot see why Val would be scum and have posted the way/what he has so far. That sus from Greeting is my largest point of confusion with him, so yes, I'd really like for him to elaborate on the read, too.

Curious, what makes you think that? It sounds like you've got Val townlocked

Townlocked is strong, of course, but yes he's my highest read. In their argument, Greeting and Val were both calling the other scum for their position on the role talk but I do not see what value scum!Val89 gets from his side of that. Explosive, double psychology play for town cred that involves disagreeing with three other players at once right out of the gate? I think the rest of his questioning has been helpful and well placed, too.

I feel like the defense of Val here is a little weaselly, frogs says they don't see why val gets town cred for "disagreeing with three other players right out the gate", but it's not like Val would know coming in his case would mostly disagreed with - he came in making a strong push on Greeting and it got rejected by people, that's all.

In this reasoning, Val is simply town because people disagreed with his push. It's not really a good argument at all and is really just sort of self-justifying.

Then there's a vague follow-on about questioning being "helpful" and "well placed". It's generic.

This is starting to form a pattern and I think that's where the red flags are showing up - frogs is mostly townreading Val for the sake of townreading val, and is only able to make the vaguest arguments as to why. Of course newbies don'talways explain things, but stuff like "helpful and well placed questioning" are things anyone can say about anything, and I don't really get the sense frogs is actually reading or interacting with Val's posts in any meaningful way. It's saying something just to say something.

Again this level of townlock would be atypical for newb-scum, but if the plan is to powerwolf as orchestrated by Val, I think this makes a whole lot of sense.

I will repeat though that I'm drawing on these connections as a final step and I think that both are scummy independently of one another.

[frogsfrogs]

Catboi's super stuck in these reads and I feel like they've been leaning on their experience and ability to write create expansive arguments like this all day as scum. I want to respond to some posts a few pages back but won't be able to until later today. See the thread then.

I will say a Val flip.. gives us lots of info to go on.

Like "two scum pushed this." :/

We're in MELO tomorrow with a mislim though.

[Val89]

Before you go, vote me.

[catboi]

Val89 :His outspoken-ness is a playstyle thing for sure but I think it's been placed correctly and good for town since he's swapped in. If he were scum, his play so far would have only been hurting himself and placing a massive target on his back. Have not seen reasonable explanation as to how he makes sense as scum.

So, again, this is all vague stuff. The idea that his "outspokenness" has "been placed correctly" and is "good for town" is really just a pure assumption and is saying "I agree with him". There's no real examples beyond that, it's something anyone can say about anyone, is the problem. frog's entire view of the game is essentially val-centric, what Val is doing is good for town, the people who disagree with Val are bad.

[catboi]

Catboi's super stuck in these reads and I feel like they've been leaning on their experience and ability to write create expansive arguments like this all day as scum. I want to respond to some posts a few pages back but won't be able to until later today. See the thread then.

I will say a Val flip.. gives us lots of info to go on.

Like "two scum pushed this." :/

We're in MELO tomorrow with a mislim though.

You're claiming I'm "stuck" in my reads but have given me no reason to doubt it whatsoever

[frogsfrogs]

Uggghhhhhh. I dont like being instructed by you or by Igor.

[catboi]

I mean, saying I'm "stuck" sort of implies my perspective is coming from town, no?

and I'm not really "stuck" on them either, a few days ago I was screaming about how implosion is scum, my reads evolved since then because I tried to stop reacting emotionally to everything and read through the game in a methodical fashion

[catboi]

Before you go, vote me.

This post does give a bit of the fear


But, like, hypothetically, in a world where you are town here


You have made it essentially impossible for me to find you as town with your tunneling and repeated bad faith arguments



So let's try a thought exercise here: assume that I am town and am tunneling you incorrectly. What should I have been doing differently?

[Val89]

If you trust in your evaluation that I am town, you should still vote me here, frogs. You know we aren't partnered. You know the second I flip, that's going to become clear. I realise that catboi has gone to great pains everytime he says anything about the two of us, to keep hammering the idea home that he thinks we are both scummy individually (because he knows I am flipping town and wants to continue the push on you regardless tomorrow), but I trust the rest of the player list to see through that.

It might be MELO tomorrow, but that doesn't really matter much when there is a clear path to victory following my flip. Catboi has spewed you, implosion, Igor and SM as all town. I think the way he has been treating the game today as if its a ELO situation on his flip makes sense from the perspective that, like I explained, I think he is the roleblocker, and it might well seem like a ELO situation as scum. It would have been preferable to flip catboi today, but I think it's clear today was always going to come down to me or catboi, and the way this will end became clear the moment implosion (who I still think is town) switched from one wagon to the other. The RBer living into tonight does mean we gotten no value from our PRs, but it's still not a total disasater given the amount of info that has been spewed with catboi trying desperately to cling to survival for another day, providing you lim there tomorrow. I don't think we are going to get our catboi flip today, and flipping Greeting when MafMen is the partner would be a disaster too.

I agree with your assesment, that the scum is within {Catboi, Greeting, MafMen}. I don't think {Greeting, MafMen} are the team, because it would have been a super ballsy play for them both to come and stake their claim on the same side of the "it's OK to give scum clues about who isn't a PR here" debate (which I STILL can't beleive was actually a debate) issue on D1 and wait to see if anyone else was buying the fact the sky is green before hand. That means one of the two are town with absolute dogshit reads, and that's going to become clear on my flip - seeing me flip town is going to force whichever of the two it is to reevaluate.

In short, I know it seems paradoxical to vote someone you think is town, but here, it's the play. Vote me.