Newbie 1389 Trouble in River City Game Over Scum win

[imkingdavid]

It's been a long day. Will post tomorrow. For now...zzzZZZzzzz

[JasonWazza]

@Mod: Mind you know actually starting the game for us and giving us a Votal?

[JasonWazza]

With regards to likeabauss:

The problem I have with his lack of voting is that, it seems to me, when a townie thinks someone is scum, they place their vote on them, because frankly, why not do that? But likeabauss's play has been unusually hesitant to actually place a vote. At all. He has not voted for one single person throughout the game thus far.

It seems to me that he knows that when a mislynch happens, the people on that person's wagon will be the first to come under fire. Knowing this, he hopes that by pointing out errors, inconsistencies, and strange behaviour in others' play, he may cause townies to become suspicious, and to form a wagon on them of their own accord. When the person flips town, he escapes scrutiny because he never actually voted for the person, or so he hopes.

I've had a look through his previous games -- there are two of them, one newbie, one mini normal, and in both of them, he's town. And in neither of those games does he display the hesitance to vote for possible scum that is present in this game. So why has he suddenly become cautious about voting? The way I see it, he either had some kind of epiphany in-between his previous game and this one, or he is merely playing differently now because he now has a different role -- that of the town's enemy.

The problem is that not all people think this is useful, i agree with you wholeheartedly that you should use your vote for pressure and on those you think are scum, however other people don't always follow this train of thought.

Also if a mislynch happens the people on that wagon SHOULDN'T BE THE FIRST UNDER FIRE IF THERE LOGIC WAS SOUND.

Yeah X might flip town, but with half the town having lynched them they obviously didn't LOOK town.

Also considering that both those games are 2-3 years old i am reluctant to use them, as a person's playstyle will change over time.


I think it's more important to look at the MOTIVATIONS rather then the ACTIONS.

Not voting seems scummy if you just look at the action, but look at the motivation behind it and that's not always true.

But if we look at the actions that cAPSLOCK has done (gonna use a quote to say what i mean)

I'm gonna keep my vote on cAPSLOCK because he is trying to push suspicion based on not being online for 24 hours, that is actually a normal thing, if someone hasn't posted for a few days then MAYBE you have a case.

But here is another thing, he is mostly coming off very defensive, his sitting on his hands, voting "lurkers" (quote's cause they aren't lurkers he is just pushing that reason) and he isn't doing any scumhunting whatsoever.

There is a lot less TOWN motivation to be defensive, vote "lurkers" and not scumhunt.

[cAPSLOCK]

This game (my first here), is much deeper and more aggressive than the games I am used to playing. Voting lurkers this early in day 1 is a fairly normal move where I come from. I am reading and paying attention and learning the culture as fast as I can. I wouldn't be surprised to see myself lynched today as sort of dead weight. But until then I will do my best and play to win.

[Kueshina]

If the setup has lots of different town roles, massclaiming d1 can be a good strategy. As an extreme case, if every townie has a different role then each scum can only counterclaim 1 townie, and all uncced townies are clear (if the setup isn't randomized). In setups where private communication is allowed, if massclaiming would be an advantage except mafia would gain too much from knowing who the powerroles are, having a confirmed innocent to massclaim to can be worth losing the doc.

I would except scumbuddies to buddy, but I hear it's common of mafiascum for the to distance so as to seem more town.

I would except townies not to buddy because they don't know anyone's alignment (unless they're cop with inno or mason, but neither is possible in this setup on d1).

I like JasonWazza's idea of looking for people who don't scumhunt much. cAPSLOCK does seem to have not done any really scumhunting, as do fferyllt, imkingdavid, and Morthas, although in the cases of imkingdavid and Morthas this is due to a lack of activity in general, rather that scumhuntingless posts. likeabauss and sikon327 have probably done the most scumhunting, which makes me much less confident in my scumreads on them (not that I was very confident anyway).

I'll UNVOTE: sikon723... and now I'm not sure whether to vote cAPSLOCK or fferyllt. I suppose lack of scumhunting from a newbie could just be lack of experience scumhunting, whereas lack of scumhunting from an IC is more suspicious, so I'll VOTE: fferyllt

[JasonWazza]

If the setup has lots of different town roles, massclaiming d1 can be a good strategy. As an extreme case, if every townie has a different role then each scum can only counterclaim 1 townie, and all uncced townies are clear (if the setup isn't randomized). In setups where private communication is allowed, if massclaiming would be an advantage except mafia would gain too much from knowing who the powerroles are, having a confirmed innocent to massclaim to can be worth losing the doc.

MASS CLAIMING IN A SEMI-OPEN SETUP WITH A MAX OF 2 TOWN PR'S IS NOT PRO-TOWN

[cAPSLOCK]

If the setup has lots of different town roles, massclaiming d1 can be a good strategy.

I see the idea of a D1 massclaim as throwing a hail mary on the 1st down at the enemy 20 just after the kickoff. In other words, sure if it worked just right then yes, town might just win by day 2. Otherwise all the PRs are outed and scum has all the info in the game and town is left with nothing beneficial.

IMO, this is the scummiest suggestion I have seen since the game stared.

I like JasonWazza's idea of looking for people who don't scumhunt much. cAPSLOCK does seem to have not done any really scumhunting, as do fferyllt, imkingdavid, and Morthas, although in the cases of imkingdavid and Morthas this is due to a lack of activity in general, rather that scumhuntingless posts. likeabauss and sikon327 have probably done the most scumhunting, which makes me much less confident in my scumreads on them (not that I was very confident anyway).

I'll UNVOTE: sikon723... and now I'm not sure whether to vote cAPSLOCK or fferyllt. I suppose lack of scumhunting from a newbie could just be lack of experience scumhunting, whereas lack of scumhunting from an IC is more suspicious, so I'll VOTE: fferyllt

I will try to up my play, but I do sort of like this logic here. But I have a very mixed read on you after this post. Honestly being confusing isn't a good strategy for EITHER side... So I'll just wait and watch. But I am definitely watching you.

[Kueshina]

If the setup has lots of different town roles, massclaiming d1 can be a good strategy. As an extreme case, if every townie has a different role then each scum can only counterclaim 1 townie, and all uncced townies are clear (if the setup isn't randomized). In setups where private communication is allowed, if massclaiming would be an advantage except mafia would gain too much from knowing who the powerroles are, having a confirmed innocent to massclaim to can be worth losing the doc.

MASS CLAIMING IN A SEMI-OPEN SETUP WITH A MAX OF 2 TOWN PR'S IS NOT PRO-TOWN

Indeed. As I said, depending on the setup massclaim can be a good way to start the day, but in this particular setup there's nothing better than RVSing. Lynx_Shine seemed to think this was wrong because it was impossible for massclaiming d1 to ever be a good idea.

[fferyllt]

I've had a look through his previous games -- there are two of them, one newbie, one mini normal, and in both of them, he's town. And in neither of those games does he display the hesitance to vote for possible scum that is present in this game. So why has he suddenly become cautious about voting? The way I see it, he either had some kind of epiphany in-between his previous game and this one, or he is merely playing differently now because he now has a different role -- that of the town's enemy.

I've had a chance to read his prior games this morning, and I've come to a similar conclusion about his play in those two games. My caveat is that the games are old - about 3 years old. In Mini1053 he mentioned that he played elsewhere, so it's not surprising that his games back then were aggressive. My play style 3 years ago is probably not a good indication of how I play today.

That said, as I mentioned earlier the indirect attack and indirect support for Kus's first vote pings. It pings harder than anything else in the game so far. I'm pretty deliberate with my vote when the game format allows, so I probably won't vote until after the weekend and there's more data to weigh up.

likeabauss, do you still play regularly on another site?

[fferyllt]

IC Intro

Ok, so it looks like everyone playing this game is fairly savvy about mafia, so I've delayed making an IC post so's not to make a huge wall of indigestible words right off the bat.

As the official Inexperience-Challenged (IC) player in this game. I'm here to help you get acclimated to MafiaScum-style mafia games. As someone who has played a lot of games elsewhere before joining MS, I'm advantaged in terms of knowing what sorts of things might seem alien to you, and disadvantaged in terms of knowing site meta like the back of my hand. But, I think it will work out. This is my first game as an IC, so I'm actually in learning mode, too.

If you guys have questions about mafia theory or how to play out certain situations I guarantee that I will not lie about theory or town and scum strategy regardless of my alignment. All of our roles were assigned randomly, so my chances of being town or scum were exactly the same as yours.

Additionally, I call on the 3 Semi-Experienced (SE) players to answer questions as they see fit, and especially to contradict me if they think I am off base. Some if not all of you have more MafiaScum-specific experience than I do.

I am playing for my team to win, though, so please treat me with the same skepticism in my non-IC posting that you treat everyone else.

These links may be useful, especially the commonly used abbreviations. The whole MafiaScum wiki is a wealth of information that I have been using regularly since long before I joined MS and started playing here.

Newbie Guide
Frequently Asked Questions
Commonly Used Abbreviations

[cAPSLOCK]

Is that IC post personal boilerplate?

Is it bad that I got a read from it? am I not allowed to do that?

[fferyllt]

Yeah, it's personal, though I looked at a few IC posts by others in thinking about what to include. Some IC's put in a lot of do this don't do that in theirs, but it doesn't look like this is a crowd that needs to be warned not to self-hammer or hammer someone without a chance to role-claim.

[imkingdavid]

@mod -please prod morthas

-----

I'd like to note that Kueshina's vote will not count because of the parenthetical comment on rule 4 of the voting section in the mod's rule post.

-----

Anyway, to be honest I don't really see much for me to comment on, and not much has changed since my last post, that I can tell.

[sikon327]

...Hm. I... didn't even realize there was a gap in likeabauss' meta. Frankly, I'm embarrassed. Guess that's a null point.

I decided to take a look through everyone's ISOs to reevaluate my case on likeabauss. His early play was not as scummy as I made it out to be. But I still find some things he has stated, which I now find to be distinctly strange, aside from his unorthodox scumhunting tactics:

"Keeping myself out of it" - I don't mind "some trouble", because sometimes we apply heat to players to find out if they break down and the facade becomes known. Please note though... in this game, town and scum alike are avoiding "real trouble" (being hung or NK'd.) So your suggestion that avoiding trouble is a reason to vote for me is not logical... every player in this game (town and scum) is trying to avoid being killed.

In this post, bauss states that scum and town alike are both trying to avoid "real trouble," and extols the importance of self-preservation. The problem I have with this is that self preservation is indeed more important to mafia players than to town players. Even a town lynch (though unfortunate) can provide useful information on the possible identities of scum if the voting patterns and attitudes of the other players with regards to the lynch, and if that information leads to a town victory, then the dead player still wins with the town. The mafia, on the other hand, lose substantially from having one of their precious few members killed, and since they are already in a superior position in terms of information, gain nothing that isn't gained via their own guile. A townie that prioritizes his own survival too greatly, if he is not a PR or something,

may

cripple the town.

Some may argue this is a weak point on its own -- certainly being lynched is no fun. But it's still worth noting.

Furthermore: though I accept my point about his meta to be null, I find it strange that, even though it was easily rebutted by fferyllt and JasonWazza by the simple observation that I didn't even have access to any of his actually relevant meta, likeabauss completely failed to make this argument.

sikon - I'm glad you're invested in this game, active players make it more fun for all of us. Did you notice in both of those games here on mafiascum, that I found scum on Day 1 and successfully lynched them? (this is why I find Morthas's comment so confusing... when he suggests that stirring things up does not help to find scum.) It was nothing more than subtle nuance and cues that I observed and explored in both cases. I can assure you that my methods of interrogation and observation can be very productive. In those two games, I picked up on something very early and was correct. My interrogation yielded responses that didn't satisfy my suspicions, and we hung bad guys.

(...)

Also, do you feel threatened (are you scum?) Is that why you voted for me and then went to research my prior games? Or is that your typical level of involvement in mafia? I'm not one to dive too deeply into meta history as it can be changed by an experienced player, or maintained to illustrate consistency and pseudo alignment.

He completely ignores the point that I was making about his meta, which is that his playstyle in this game is completely different from the earlier games I observed (where he found scum on day 1). He chooses to point out his skill in finding scum in those previous games (where he used a more aggressive, vote-centric playstyle than this one), and to cast suspicion on me for choosing to peruse his meta, EVEN THOUGH it would have been a much more effective defense to point out that the games in his meta were 3 years old and that most of his play history was on another site!

If likeabauss had pointed out what fferyllt and JasonWazza would proceed to point out later, it would have shut me down in my tracks! Instead, he made the strange decision to simply talk past my argument, and accuse me of being scum. I would like to know why he chose to do that.

I realize that was an unwieldy wall of text, so I will explain my points in tl;dr-mode, for those who are lost:
1. likeabauss claims that both town and scum have self-preservation as a high priority, even though it is actually a much, much higher priority for scum than it is for town.
2. likeabauss fails to point out an important error in one of my accusations, even though it would have shut me down more effectively than simply casting a shadow on my motivations.

And in any case, before I am willing to turn my attention elsewhere, I want to hear him respond to the questions I asked him in my previous post:

Why, exactly, do you "lack conviction?" Why is it that you believe that you don't have enough evidence to vote me? Statements like "it contradicts your goal of lynching a townie," "do you not like logical play," "do you feel threatened," "are you scum" do not sound like the rhetoric of someone who "isn't sure." What is it that you're afraid will happen if you vote me "prematurely"?

Why use rhetoric that centers around the idea that I am scum trying to lynch a townie if you aren't actually convinced that I'm scum?

I would prefer to hear the answers to both of these questions. And I want to hear them from him. His responses will determine how I proceed from here. Hopefully, his response will clear up this whole mess.

[RachMarie]

Morthas has asked to be replaced due to not having time for the game. I am sorry for the lack of VCs, in addition to everything else, my carpal tunnel is acting up really bad due to the angle I have to be on NS's computer, I may ask for a backup, and I already have one in my non Newibe I am modding, VC coming up... Rach

[JasonWazza]

awwww i'm sorry Rach, hope it gets better <3

[RachMarie]

TheTrollie replaces Morthas immediately

[TheTrollie]

hey dudez ill catch up on this after i eat

[TheTrollie]

yo kuesh...

u scum bro?

[TheTrollie]

jason n' caps are town

VOTE: kueshina

[RachMarie]

Vote Count 1.01

cAPSLOCK (1) JasonWazza,
Kueshina (3) imkingdavid, Lynx_Shine, TheTrollie (L-2)
fferyllt (1) Kueshina
likeabauss (1) sikon327
Lynx_Shine (1) cAPSLOCK


Not Voting

fferyllt, likeabauss




With 9 it takes 5 to lynch


(expired on 2013-07-03 12:46:15)

[sikon327]

With regards to The Trollie:

Now, I didn't make a big deal of it at the time, but believe me, I noticed that Morthas' behaviour seemed suspiciously like buddying. I was willing to write it off for the time being because he had stated that he had military obligations that would make it difficult for him to post often or with very much content, and also, I wanted to focus on my investigation of likeabauss.

Now his replacement, The Trollie, has made his first action to declare Kueshina scum ("You scum bro?"), and JasonWazza and cAPSLOCK to be town, and then not give even the remotest form of justification of any of these leads. If you think someone is scum or town,

say why you think that

.

And likeabauss -- don't think I haven't noticed your sudden silence. You were online today, but didn't see fit to actually post. I would very much like you to answer the questions I've posed to you. If you are indeed pro-town, then you should be able to explain the pro-town justifications for your actions.

[cAPSLOCK]

jason n' caps are town

VOTE: kueshina

Yeah but I HATE how he keeps his yard.

[TheTrollie]

With regards to The Trollie:

Now, I didn't make a big deal of it at the time, but believe me, I noticed that Morthas' behaviour seemed suspiciously like buddying.

in what way?

I was willing to write it off for the time being because he had stated that he had military obligations that would make it difficult for him to post often or with very much content, and also, I wanted to focus on my investigation of likeabauss.

how does this clear him from buddying

also, FYI, i do not think buddying is a scumtell in-and-of-itself. Scum sometimes will buddy their scumbuddies, which helps after a scum-flip occurs, but I buddy my town reads all the time.

Now his replacement, The Trollie, has made his first action to declare Kueshina scum ("You scum bro?"), and JasonWazza and cAPSLOCK to be town, and then not give even the remotest form of justification of any of these leads. If you think someone is scum or town,

say why you think that

.

(1) i'd like to nip this in the bud for once in a newbie game. I never go through a newbie game without people GOING WILD over my tendency to declare reads without giving reasons.

THIS IS WHAT I DO OFTEN AT THE START OF GAMES

(2) I wanted to get something out there for you all ASAP, i havent gone through the thread in enough detail yet to give you anything more than that.

jason n' caps are town

VOTE: kueshina

Yeah but I HATE how he keeps his yard.

i dont understand

[TheTrollie]

UNVOTE:

i need to read this thread in more detail. I have a slight gut scumread on sikon based on a few things in the ISO but i really need to do more reading before i solidify my reads