Mini 1180: Game Over

[Soben]

Allow me to rephrase: Mastin, believe me when I say that I completly understand reading into a players tone to attempt to work out their allignment because the truth is that tone is the hardest thing for mafia to continue to fake throughout a game.

I do believe though that you've taken initial slight tone indicators and exaggerated them massively to attempt to explain your reads when those instances of town-style town are minimal, weak and rare.

If you're attempting to determine whether a player is town or not looking for the motivations behind the post while noting what have they done in an attempt to help and propel town further into the game is also crucial. By doing so I do indeed get a slight town-read from Jillyn and Alex therefore can understand your reads on them however I continue to be startled by your insistance that TWIE and Elsa are town.

Your reasoning behind your DarthYoshi scum-read does not make any logical sense, it all revovles around 'gut' and relies heavily on player interactions which may be useful further into the game mean absolutely nothing in a situation like this.

[DarthYoshi]

My responses to Mastin's...yada yada yada.

Something I was going to make clear in the finished case (but didn't do in the above, thanks to it being posted while incomplete), was that I believe ONE OF Yoshi/Ald to be scum FOR SURE, but that the OTHER among them would be confirmed town.

So why not hop onto the Ald wagon with me? Lynch scum AND have it be informative for your remaining reads? Profit.

Strawmanning the point. The point was that you asked in a polite tone for my reasoning, which was the scum way to word things, versus the town way, which would be far more blunt and to the point.

The way you took that first sentence of mine out of context is itself a strawman. I DID address your concern when I said that was HOW I ask questions as town.

1: I am a strong advocate of early-game play being far more telling than mid-to-late-game play. Specifically, I've been a strong advocate of "all the information needed to find the scumteam within the first ~5 pages". (Give or take a couple.) So, yeah. Of COURSE I have a lot of stuff on the early game, because to me, the early game is quite frankly more vital than the late game.

I absolutely, completely, wholeheartedly, utterly, vehemently, and adamantly 100% disagree with this point of view.

I eagerly await your case on the basis of the other however-many pages of material in this game.

PS: What informs your thoughts on tone? If it is gut, instinct, etc., then yes, there is overlap.

[Ironhead]

Are you second-guessing that read?

Always

. And for everyone, not just you. I scrutinize posts to reinforce or challenge the reads I have of everyone. If I have a town read of someone and he crafts a scummy post, my town-read of him is adjusted downward. If I have a town read of someone and he crafts a townish post, my town-read is strengthened. My reads aren't set in stone on Day 1, and will not be until that person's role is revealed.

Which is why the skewing intrinsic to those last few pages is bad for the town -- your posts, as well as Soben's posts, were more townish than they otherwise would have been because you were swatting softballs lobbed at you by the scummy (or anti-town) posting of some of the others. I want to see you two handle fastballs, not softballs -- that is where I hope to discern the scum from the town.

[mastin2]

Not helping.

I do believe though that you've taken initial slight tone indicators and exaggerated them massively to attempt to explain your reads when those instances of town-style town are minimal, weak and rare.

If I'm reading this correctly, "Town tone is weaker and harder to pick up" Not for me. For me, it's actually far easier to get TOWN tones than SCUM tones. Scum tones are quite hard for me to be sure of--I get a lot more False Positives for Scum Tone than I EVER do for Town Tones. (This might also explain why you think I'm exaggerating tone--because you primarily looked at the "Scum Case", and saw it there a lot. See above.)

Spoiler: Motive/Intention

If you're attempting to determine whether a player is town or not looking for the motivations behind the post while noting what have they done in an attempt to help and propel town further into the game is also crucial.

These are two separate things entirely. "what they have done in an attempt to try and get the town further" is different from Motive, because Motive is "what they have ATTEMPTED to do to further the town". Subtle, but key difference. Showing what they have done, versus what they intended to do. (And this is also different from a third, "what they said they would do", versus what they have done, and what they intended to do*.)

*To explain,
Player X says, "I am going to do Y." Saying what they intended to do.
Player X delivers Z.
Z does not look like Y. So, they failed to do what they said they would, right?
Z might not look like Y, but if you look at it from the perspective of Player X, does Z look like it was INTENDED to be Y? If the answer's yes, they're town. If the answer's no, they're scum.

That's the scenario I can best think up of to describe how these concepts are all different. Z-->Content Delivered. Quite frankly, this is null. Someone can bleed content in every single post and be scum, someone can deliver absolutely no content and be town. Y-->What they said previously (in the early game) what would happen. Failure/success to deliver is ALSO null. What's important is the Intention/Motive from their perspective.

Essentially.

It's very hard to explain this level of scumhunting. But put bluntly, I think your definition of Motive/Intention is different than mine.

By doing so I do indeed get a slight town-read from Jillyn and Alex therefore can understand your reads on them however I continue to be startled by your insistance that TWIE and Elsa are town.

This is simple. I see in TWIE and Elsa the same thing I see in Monk, Gerhard/Captain (same thing, really), Jily, and--to some extent--Alex. As far as I'm concerned, they're pretty much one and the same.

and relies heavily on player interactions which may be useful further into the game mean absolutely nothing in a situation like this.

Player interactions are important at ALL stages in the game. Admittedly, on Day One, I get a LOT of false positives for interactions between others. (Though this is another thing which doesn't work the other way--when I see a player who LACKS connections to other players, guess what? They're town. And I almost NEVER get false positives on THAT.) But when I look at things, I realize that I wasn't off. I had the right reasons, the correct logic, just formed the wrong conclusion from it. And upon review, frequently find the revised opinion, the revised take on things, to be more accurate. If that makes sense.

(As for Gut, see my rant.)

[mastin2]

(And, yeah, still haven't begun my Notes again.)

PS: What informs your thoughts on tone? If it is gut, instinct, etc., then yes, there is overlap.

Combination of both, actually. There are certain general patterns which I observe and have logically assigned to "scum" and "town". (Hard to explain. It's a concept I'm not used to having challenged, really.) However, not everything is so clear cut, since it's hard to say with pure logic, "this post had a scum Tone", so gut comes into it, yes.

Key words, "come into". Not "is completely made of". Gut's part of it, but only part of it.

[Soben]

If I'm reading this correctly, "Town tone is weaker and harder to pick up" Not for me. For me, it's actually far easier to get TOWN tones than SCUM tones. Scum tones are quite hard for me to be sure of--I get a lot more False Positives for Scum Tone than I EVER do for Town Tones. (This might also explain why you think I'm exaggerating tone--because you primarily looked at the "Scum Case", and saw it there a lot. See above.)

You are indeed reading what I am saying wrong. I do agree that town tone is easier to pick up then scum tone. Though I believe the examples you've shown for town tone are

very very

weak though and I believe you're clinging to them to a point where it's becoming hurtful.

This is simple. I see in TWIE and Elsa the same thing I see in Monk, Gerhard/Captain (same thing, really), Jily, and--to some extent--Alex. As far as I'm concerned, they're pretty much one and the same.

This is untrue. The examples you've shown in relation to TWIE and Elsa's "Town Tone" stem purely from the RVS period, had you noticed any of their actions afterwards you would have noticed otherwise. The fact of the matter is you've decided very early on the game X, Y and Z are your reads and have literally closed your mind of to anything that dispproves that, an example of this in action is your continual refrainment from addressing the points I brought up about TWIE earlier.

Player interactions are important at ALL stages in the game. Admittedly, on Day One, I get a LOT of false positives for interactions between others. (Though this is another thing which doesn't work the other way--when I see a player who LACKS connections to other players, guess what? They're town. And I almost NEVER get false positives on THAT.) But when I look at things, I realize that I wasn't off. I had the right reasons, the correct logic, just formed the wrong conclusion from it. And upon review, frequently find the revised opinion, the revised take on things, to be more accurate. If that makes sense.

This is where I believe you fall down heavily as a player. Interactions are very important - Yes I agree because it helps to work out unlikley or likely partnerships giving you a direction to look into however a players individual scumminess is by far the most vital element to look into on day one. I believe you spend far too much time pondering on interactions and possible entire scum-teams and far too little attempting to explain your reads in coherent and logical form.

[mastin2]

Though I believe the examples you've shown for town tone are very very weak though and I believe you're clinging to them to a point where it's becoming hurtful.

It's not just them. Tone, Motive, Interactions, all consistent throughout the game, point to town. Heck, you can throw Iron's name in there as well. Iron, TWIE, Elsa, Monk, Jily, both Gerhard and Captain, to some extent, Alex. (Alex is funny--a lot of his posts give half-town, half-scum looks. One half of the post looks like it could only come from town, the other half looks like it's more likely to be from scum.) I showed the first four, since that's what I have written. But going into later pages would give me the exact same thing, for many players. (Admittedly, there are one or two players I remember having seen a possible difference in.)

This is untrue. The examples you've shown in relation to TWIE and Elsa's "Town Tone" stem purely from the RVS period, had you noticed any of their actions afterwards you would have noticed otherwise.

See above. I showed the first four. But as I've now said for the third time, in my mind, I'm in the thirties. And while the Town Tone displayed was from the RVS, it continued (contrary to what you think) after that.

an example of this in action is your continual refrainment from addressing the points I brought up about TWIE earlier.

I fully intend to address them. When I get to that page in my cases. Not before then.

Interactions are very important - Yes I agree because it helps to work out unlikley or likely partnerships giving you a direction to look into however a players individual scumminess is by far the most vital element to look into on day one.

No. It's the combination of them that's important. If a player is scummy, but has no interactions with others, then lynching them provides no new info. There's no condemning interactions with others.
In other words, we already know everything we would from their flip. (And 9/10 times, it's that they're town, since--duh!--there's no condemning interactions with others.)

I'm of COURSE not willing to lynch a player purely off of interactions, due to the number of false positives.

No, I COMBINE them. If a player is scummy, AND has connections to another player, those interactions are vital to investigate.

and far too little attempting to explain your reads in coherent and logical form.

They make sense to ME! I already have coherent and logical reads. For me. I just know my thought process differs from most people's, and therefore, I need to translate, convert the reads into more traditional terms, since "coherent and logical to Mastin" translates to "incoherent, illogical gibberish" to others. It's a Code, essentially, that the Blue moglin needs to self-translate.

[wierdalexv]

Thanks for that, Mastin. It helps.

Anyways, I'm not sure if that can be considered a townslip or not. "All I've been" to me means "All I've been so far".

Other than that, your cases seem to rely heavily on tone. While I agree with you that it can be a big help finding scum, you also need to find actual scumtells to go with it.

As for your slight bit on me-scum, all I can say about the contradiction thing is that, being one of the first people to vote, there was really not much to bandwagon on. I would have joined a wagon later to see their response. The 'I dunno, TBH' means that I basically saw somebody else vote, so basically voted just to have a vote out while knowing kind of in the back of my head that it wouldn't count.

[DarthYoshi]

@Mastin: Can you please put in your quote headers who it is that you are quoting?

@Mod: I feel like this game is slowing down. At a minimum, I think brokenscraps is need of prodding. Anyone else?

And, in display of crass hypocrisy, I myself am V/LA through Monday. Sorry for the frequent V/LAs, I am in the midst of a job search, and I've been traveling a lot for that.

[Secret Project]

ZERO response to my brokenscraps comments. I'm on to something.

unvote, vote: brokenscraps

[Secret Project]

Oh I missed Soben's post. I don't answer every question people ask me. Get over it. And what's there not to see with Brokenscraps?

[Ironhead]

There's plenty to criticize about brokenscraps's play; and I'm not opposed to a brokenscraps wagon. But there is plenty to criticize about plenty of other players, including you. Before I (or anyone else) endorses your brokenscraps case, I think you ought to explain how or why you figured there are three scum.

[mastin2]

Iron: three scum is kinda the standard in minis. Believe me, I'd be overjoyed if there was only two, but most have three. It's not an unreasonable assumption. (And, hey, always best to assume the worst. )

As for Secret's case, I can't say I agree with it. I'll see if I can go into details later. It's something which kinda requires more insightful looking into the game. (Like a Case.) Which means I'll have to stop slacking off.

[Soben]

SecretProject, don't give me that "I don't answer all questions" bullshit, we agreed on a deal of presenting and addressing major issues and points in the other persons case. I've done so to yours however you still haven't shown me the respect to address what I've said about TWIE's.

[wierdalexv]

I would say that brokenscraps' play seems...different. I've seen him in a different game, where he played much differently if you ask me. I will look into him more later.

[Substrike22]

I will prod brokenscraps, he is the only player at this time that warrants such an action, as Elsa is currently V/LA. Vote count coming within the next 24 hours, when I have time.

[Secret Project]

I said the TWIE case is bullshit. What more do you want. Be totally honest here. If I gave you reasons for why I think that, and replied to every one of your bullet points, would it actually change your opinion? No matter how well-written an argument I made, you would still want him lynched. What's the point of replying to your post with more than my opinion on it as a whole then?

[Elsa von Spielburg]

Back, hopefully the only wall I'll have to post this game:

Anyone notice jily was going through Elsa's posts saying how town Elsa was? But then she doesn't mention the post where Elsa decides I'm town...

Misrep. I never said you were definitively town or not, just that you gave a single town-reading post was enough to stave my vote from you.

I have some questions to ask Elsa when she gets back.

Fire away.

I’m feeling better about a SP-Town read, just because I wholeheartedly agree with him, when he says:

Also this day is getting to the point where it's just really boring and dumb and we need a lynch to refresh everyone plus go off of new information so let's hurry this up please?

This town is just drowning in text and it’s likely that scum in contributing to the problem (seen this thing happen before on this site). I also agree that scum is part of my wagon, at least one of them, maybe more. As such:

Vig-Vote: Alex

If someone puts Krew at L-1 and Secret Project doesn't wait for a claim, I will be mad. Don't do it, SP.

Holy crap, between the pushing of my case and this post, I have reason enough to slam down my vote on someone. Really? Pulling out this old “cautious townie” card? There’s two types of posting that I look for: genuine, sometimes-frank speak and dialogue that looks staged, mostly in an attempt to look townie. This falls firmly into the latter and reads as someone trying too hard win townie points. I don't think anyone was worried about this (SP hammering), or if they were, wouldn't bother saying it. You're trying too hard. Add to the fact that you’re just sitting on my vote as well. “Happy with my vote, but reread” is another statement that adds to that lurky-scum feeling.

Unvote; Vote: Captain Corporal

Double that with the fact that you replaced in on my first target of the game who was an active-lurky type. Can’t forget that just because you’re a replacement.

Wierdalexv [2] - TheWayItEnds, Elsa Von Spielburg

This is scum avoiding the mislynch that's going to occur if Krew actually goes through and attempting to set up a lynch on Alex for tomorrow. How everyone fails to see this I don't understand.

I think that the fact that Soben and CC are both pushing this idea that there is scum pushing a WK-mislynch is, in itself, scummy. Soban and CC are trying to preemptively throw suspicion on people who are pushing for a mislynch.

But yeah, as I said earlier, getting to Page 33 for only Day 1 is absolutely horri-bad and a lynch sooner than later would be grand.

And I just love how over the course of the week I’ve been away people have slowly drifted from alex as the Vig-Vote to going, “oh yeah, I can see how Elsa is scum” from absolutely no new content from me. Oh, looks like I just got to another SP quote that I agree with:

ITT Brokenscraps totally reverses his read on elsa WITHOUT HER EVEN POSTING.

Yup.

I think it goes without saying at this point, but the strength with how mastin is defending me, instead of following the popular opinion to a mislynch, makes him (and somewhat SP) town in my eyes.

Secret, no. We're not lynching because you're bored. Take some initiative, we have time to talk.

“Guys! I’m totally town! Look how concerned for the town I am!” Lynchity lynch lynch. For all the scumhunting he wants done, he's been doing a lot of one-line active-lurking 'content' recently. I'm liking this idea more and more. If the mod didn’t see it the first time:

Vote: Captain Corporal

I’d be cool with and combination of Vote/Vig of alex/CC at this point. Hopefully brokenscraps comes back and answers some questions because his play's inconsistency did stick out to me.

[Secret Project]

Mastin's reads are weak, but he did say it wasn't complete. I just don't agree with some of the stuff said. Like "alex towntold for that"; as scum, the first thing I would watch out for would be messing up something stupid like that. Hey, even going "Oh I can towntell and softclaim and no one will expect me!" and say the exact same thing. It's hardly a towntell.

I do get the feeling that Mastin through reads out at the start of the game and adamantly refuses to accept any contradictions or changes to them.

The amount of meta in this game is hideous. STOP USING SO MUCH META. BY GOD, PEOPLE CAN CHANGE THEIR PLAY. Meta's fine and dandy and all, but let's look at the TWIE case which, for the most part, is "He's usually more town, and this game he's kinda lurking, so he's scum". That is not a case.

I thought Mastin's case on Yoshi was pretty awful, to be honest, and Yoshi's defence made me slam my head off the wall.

I have four completed games as scum. In only one of them have I ever bussed a buddy on D1

YOU CAN CHANGE THAT IF YOU KNOW YOU DO THAT ASHSBFDSFDS

This defence is downright awful.

In this game, we are relying far too much on meta. We should look for signs

in the game

, not from games before. Feel free to check my (MrBump's) first game Newbie 1045, I play absolutely nothing like I did then. Yes, yes, that was a long time ago and all that, but we are still relying on meta like it's the greatest weapon in town's arsenal. ...Slight exaggeration but you understand.

Also, Alex, we're not voting you simply because our vote is better on someone else as you're most likely getting vig'd as it is. Speaking of which,

everyone's

vote is better on brokenscraps...

[Secret Project]

Also Elsa's "case" on Corporal is weak. Very weak.

[Secret Project]

Mastin through reads

Mastin threw reads* >_>

[wierdalexv]

Elsa's case on Captain Corporal is actually downright pathetic. I agree with SP that we are using too much meta. I am waiting for Brokenscraps before I do anything with my vote/vig-vote, although I doubt I will switch anyways.

[Captain Corporal]

Allllright. Again, not much has changed since the last time I read.
I half-agree with this whole Brokenscaps thing, but I'd like to see his / his replacements response before I call scum.

Also, Elsa, I notice your OMGUS vote. Again.

Holy crap, between the pushing of my case and this post, I have reason enough to slam my vote down on someone.

Holy crap indeed. You then go on to say "I don't think anybody was worried about SP hammering". Why not? Why would you not wait for a claim? The worst it could be us scum claiming PR. It's rushed descisions like this that lynch town.

[Elsa von Spielburg]

Allllright. Again, not much has changed since the last time I read.
I half-agree with this whole Brokenscaps thing, but I'd like to see his / his replacements response before I call scum.

Also, Elsa, I notice your OMGUS vote. Again.

Holy crap, between the pushing of my case and this post, I have reason enough to slam my vote down on someone.

Holy crap indeed. You then go on to say "I don't think anybody was worried about SP hammering". Why not? Why would you not wait for a claim? The worst it could be us scum claiming PR. It's rushed decisions like this that lynch town.

Rushed decisions? It's Page 33 and we're still on Day 1.

[Ironhead]

Rushed decisions? It's Page 33 and we're still on Day 1.

Speaking of which; deadline is in two days. Current vote count:

TheWayItEnds: 4
WormyKrew: 3
wierdalexv: 1
Elsa von Spielburg: 1
Captain Corporal: 1
Brokenscraps: 1
Ironhead: 1
Alduskkel: 1