Newbie 1389 Trouble in River City Game Over Scum win

[likeabauss]

I started in on Sikon very early in the game. Backed off when I latched onto Fferyllt and wanted to see what associations I could observe between the two.

You'll remember that Sikon came back with a revenge vote and pressure on me after I pushed a bit. Later, he backed off me when I let up on him and pushed on Fferyllt. The rage post he made didn't feel genuine... I mean, there was literally no real pressure or angst to warrant a nuclear reaction of that level. It didn't add up. Then the apology came immediately afterwards. It rang like he was attempting to mimic the rage that whats his face pulled early and then other players got town reads as a result. Too forced. (I'm iPad only so quoting/searching is hard at this point.)

I let it lie, because I wanted to see what shook out and I had a better target for the time. Later watch him dive back into me when I catch momentum. He plays the noob card a few times, restates other people's positions incorrectly and obfuscates. Appeals to emotions. Etc etc. it wasn't enough for me to push him over Fferyllt, and I needed more, so I stayed on my number 1 suspect. Also, I remember a few circular logic trains of thought, some WIFOM.

Sikon - For reference, I'm not putting on a show. Last words from townies and scum alike are very helpful to town. Rather than play pro-town, imagine I am town, and try to get some info about other players... All you care about was inserting some discrediting snark and hearing my case on you. Like I said, I know I'm town and soon you all will too. I can only hope that my contiributions and subsequent hanging will help town win. I made my case for Kue being town. I also believe that cAPS is town.

Morthas subbing out so early seemed like a scum maneuver. Theres more pressure on a scum player to be present and contributing because in a 2 person scum game of this size, youve got to carry your weight for the team. Trollie came in as useless, until we starts saying "You suck, gonna hang you for sucking." boom, then a playstyle change. He sets up the "I don't want to hang bauss because he's town" line, then is actually ready to hang bauss. Good guys don't hang other good guys. They try to hang bad guys. Hang suspects. Hang lurkers/non contributors. But, he can point back and say "guy was annoying, I thought he was town, I hung him" which is a perfect defense and totally logical given his play. Either way, not enough right now to make a case but it's suspicious and warrants a careful eye.

Lynx is active lurking I feel like. Couple good posts, but mostly building on existing themes. Not much original, no real digging. If lynx is experienced and savvy, I could see this as a very good scum game playstyle for her. But again, not much content so it needs exploration.

[likeabauss]

I cant read Jason for beans, but I would err on a slight town read. You have to discredit this position though because I really don't have a developed impression at all. A few pro town maneuvers, but overall a lackluster scum hunting iniative. So null or slight town. Could just be noob sauce town.

Cheery I'm null on because he hasn't really had an opportunity to get into a groove. Seemed like he was getting there in his case on me, which rang as genuine to me. Let's face it, my play is much different than the norm here. I'm reckless, and I do some shady shit to try and get reads. He did a few shady things, restating/exaggerating, etc but his response seemed reasonable. He did sub in and had lots to catch up on so I get it. Overall Null.

[fferyllt]

bauss, I agree with a lot of what you posted in 375, except:

sikon's posts come from a newbtown motivation to me, including the aggressive reactions to FoSes. There's a reason newbtown players get mistaken for scum a lot.

morthas' ade some strongly town-motivated looking posts and trollie's posts have mostly built on that. The one thing that worries me about him is how much WKing of me he's done.

I'm not liking your lynch so much right now.

[fferyllt]

also, jason couldn't be further from newbsauce town.

And I disagree about cheery not having an opportunity to get into a groove. I've replaced into games with far less time to deadline, gotten up to speed, and had a positive impact on the day and on the game.

[likeabauss]

Is it bad strategy to defend yourself when you are l-2? As far as I can tell likeabauss is doing a good time building a case against another player but is not spending much time talking about being l-2?

It is not a rhetorical question.

Skipped this before. There isn't really a case against me. It's more of a convenience hang. We are almost at deadline, and need to hang somebody. I'm not being hung because of flip flops, a slip, or anything scummy. I'm being hung because I made a case I believe in and stuck with it. There's no defense to be made. My reasoning and logic has been laid out and I've answered all questions honestly and openly. Conviction, like I stated earlier in the game.

[likeabauss]

also, jason couldn't be further from newbsauce town.

And I disagree about cheery not having an opportunity to get into a groove. I've replaced into games with far less time to deadline, gotten up to speed, and had a positive impact on the day and on the game.

If Jason isn't nooby, then I'd go slight scum instead of slight town. But again, I don't have a developed read so you have to discount that.

Agree to disagree on Cheery then. There's something to be said about reading continually and getting a feel for the pace of a game. That is mostly lost on a re-read after subbing in.

Show me something Morthas said or did that was town motivated? I don't remember a single thing.

Look at the time stamp of Sikons rage post and then the apology? Wasn't it really soon after?

[likeabauss]

Looks like 14 mins from rage to apology. Without anybody prodding. Seems planned to me.

He also follows my lead on you, then flips back to me? Chasing momentum. Has lots of votes, and ambiguity in direction. It's high peaks and low valleys... Feels scummy to me more than nooby.

[fferyllt]

I really liked Morthas' exchange with you here, bauss.

Very strong gut feeling about this
You post like someone trying to stir up trouble while keeping yourself out of it.

I find this comment very interesting. What is your opinion of what a town person should do? Sit by idly, just reading, and not try to find scum? I like to question and dig, in an effort to obtain information, or "stir up trouble" as you put it. Please explain a bit more.

"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.

And lastly, if you don't mind, I'd like to hear about some of those other things you said you noticed as you read through the posts thus far.

Finding scum priority which is why I voted for you. I had a feeling your priorities lied elsewhere
No sorry, I really don't care whether I die or not and will not withhold something in case someone finds it scummy.
I think Kue is town. His train of thought doesn't match with that of scum. I may post quotes tomorrow.

^^ Based on your early play, this post was dead on. It's the early indirect and oblique stuff that I've referenced repeatedly. You pushed back at his vote and short reason why, and he pushed right back at you. He was the first to call you on this IIRC.

[sikon327]

Bauss:
My vote on you was not a revenge vote -- it was borne of the fact that you put pressure on me BUT didn't see fit to vote me. I believed this to be incongruous -- you seemed to believe I was most likely to be scum, but didn't place a vote. I eventually decided it was a scumhunting tactic, and laid off. This is before you started tunneling on fferyllt -- you made a post asking her questions, but you were asking a lot of people a lot of questions, and you showed no signs of being less suspicious of me at that time -- your last post directed towards me still seemed to frame my actions as scummy.

Also of interest: you stated in post 295 that my reaction to your post 32 (me attacking you, I presume?) turned your read to town, but now that you're in danger, you're using that same attack as evidence that I'm scum. This bothers me for obvious reasons.

The ragepost earlier was borne not solely of the fact that trollie was pressuring me, but also that, at that time, no one in this thread saw fit to post other than the person I was voting and their best friend. There were a lot of people whose opinions I would've liked to hear with regards to my case on fferyllt, and every single one of them was off lurking somewhere -- the only people who seemed to have anything to say was the person I was voting and the person who'd been insisting I was scum the whole game. This is what drove me over the edge -- not that I had pressure on me, but that I couldn't get any attention to my case from anyone else. It was bad play and I regret doing it, particularly because

after

my unvote and ragepost, I FINALLY got the opinions on my case from other players that I'd wanted.

My "snide" post was also a bit weak. I regret that too. I intended it to carry more information than it did. There are two things about your list that caused me to snark at it the way I did:
-I had never been explicitly among your top scumreads until I put my vote on you again. I found this suspicious.
-Even if you ARE town, the saturation of your scumreads with the people on your wagon would make me think that your judgement is somewhat clouded by frustration at being placed at L-1.

And my problem with your current play isn't that you posted your reads -- it's how strenuously you insist that "WHEN I

FLIP TOWN

YOU'LL ALL BE SORRY." I can't be the only one who thinks the amount of times you're bringing up how you're going to flip town is getting to be a bit much.

--cut--
p-edit: the short time from rage to apology was me realizing that making a rage post like that was poor sportsmanship. I was embarrassed about the post pretty much immediately after I made it.

[likeabauss]

On that Morthas exchange, I disagree because "stirring up trouble" is a perfectly viable scum hunting playstyle. I might be off because him and I never got to finish that conversation and my suspicion lingered as a result... But he didn't do enough to earn a town read in my book. Also, derailing lines of questioning/digging always feels scummy to me. Why not wait/watch and see what shakes out? Why break something up before it develops? You can always go back to it later... But steering the conversation away from something and towards something else never sits right with me.

[fferyllt]

So I'm seeing likeabauss:
-Accusing fferyllt of changing her playstyle. It never really changed. It's been focusing on her interest in forming a town-group since the start of the game. She gave reads because you bugged her about it. I don't think that's something that's solidly scummy. Honestly if there's anyone here who's completely changed their playstyle it's you, bauss. You started this game flinging accusations in random directions without committing, multiple people took issue with your noncommittal nature, and then at some point you went into full tunnel mode on ff. The only difference is you didn't do it as a direct response to any specific accusation, but the correlation is still there, at least enough to make your accusation seem hypocritical.

-Misinterpreting fferyllt's willingness to lynch outside her personal scumreads to avoid a no-lynch as a desire to lynch townies. Nobody wants a goddamn no-lynch. That's tantamount to giving the scum team a free kill in exchange for another two weeks to argue fruitlessly.

-Interpreting all uncertainty on fferyllt's read on him as somehow scummy.
-Interpreting fferyllt's uncertainty about your three-year-old meta as somehow scummy. Would you prefer that she declared meta to be law and threw all logic to the wind?

sikon, where did you learn about this?

[likeabauss]

Sikon, couple things. I don't like to show all my cards. It's bad play, IMO. So yes, I don't always update people on my reads as the game progresses. I do however like to close a day with a brief synopsis of strong reads so people can look back and piece together wtf I was thinking/doing.

At that point I leaned town, but then all your other wtfery pushed me back to suspicious. You're either a loose cannon townie or flailing mafia. Either way, you're all over the map. Could just be noob I guess. But it's not protown to flip flop, and behave erractically if you're relying on a logic based playstyle (which it appeared to me you were.) Also, once I leaned town on you, you backed off of me and then started to build on my cases. This always comes off as scummy to me. You backed my case on Fferyllt, then flipped off it. Then jumped back on me once I caught momentum. It's wild and inconsistent.

I never said you'd be sorry, I just said you were wasting energy on snark instead of protown opportunities. Noob or scum? You tell me.

Somebody needs to hang. I stuck my neck out in support of my opinions/reads. It flipped around on me. It's part of the game, I'm not bitter or dramatic about it.

[sikon327]

My opinion on you has changed over the course of the game, bauss. Your recent behaviour has made me think you to be scum, just as you claim mine has made you think I'm scum. I still have my reservations about fferyllt, but don't trust myself to make an honest judgement about her right now. Right now, you're the person I most believe to be scum.

Yes, I have gotten more emotional in this game then a logic-based playstyle should warrant. I have made some poor play as a result. I think having a death in the family midway through day 1 has perhaps affected me more than I like to admit. I didn't want to bring that up again. I know it's a goddamn copout. But I'm only human.

However, in spite of all that shit, I believe you to be the player most likely to be scum at the current moment. I find many aspects of your play under pressure to be off-putting, in spite of (or perhaps because of) your show of willing to sacrifice yourself. If you turn out to be town, then thank you for your noble sacrifice, and my deepest apologies for ever having doubted you, but that's not what I'm really expecting to happen.

fferyllt: I was in the newbie queue for a week or two and I spend that entire time poring over the wiki. I also took the time to read through one completed newbie game. I have picked up a few things as a result. The importance of avoiding a no-lynch (except in specific circumstances) was one of those things.

[fferyllt]

On that Morthas exchange, I disagree because "stirring up trouble" is a perfectly viable scum hunting playstyle. I might be off because him and I never got to finish that conversation and my suspicion lingered as a result... But he didn't do enough to earn a town read in my book. Also, derailing lines of questioning/digging always feels scummy to me. Why not wait/watch and see what shakes out? Why break something up before it develops? You can always go back to it later... But steering the conversation away from something and towards something else never sits right with me.

I don't see where you get derailing from that exchange.

[likeabauss]

Trying to derail me from stirring things up. If somebody calls you out on something, a lot of people stop doing that something. Maybe I was questioning a scum buddy. Maybe he didn't want me shitting up the thread. Maybe it just looked shady to him. But to me, his play though short, felt lurky. And it read like he was implying I should stop "stirring things up", like its a bad thing.

[fferyllt]

Trying to derail me from stirring things up. If somebody calls you out on something, a lot of people stop doing that something. Maybe I was questioning a scum buddy. Maybe he didn't want me shitting up the thread. Maybe it just looked shady to him. But to me, his play though short, felt lurky. And it read like he was implying I should stop "stirring things up", like its a bad thing.

The key phrase was "while keeping yourself out of it".

That is classic scum behavior IMO.

[likeabauss]

You can't actively keep yourself out of it. That's a stupid insinuation on his part. By the very nature of stirring the pot, you attract attention. Keeping yourself out of it involves lurking or avoiding confrontation. Asking people questions, digging, and making arguments for and against people isn't staying out of it. Sticking your neck out to avoid hanging a town read, isn't staying out of it. If I was trying to stay out of it, I wouldn't have kept pushing on hanging you and not hanging Kue. I wouldnt be in the noose either.. I ccould've just strung up Kue or at least stayed quiet and laid back.

Show me where my behavior looked like I was trying to stay out of it? I don't believe an example exists.

[fferyllt]

I am pretty sure this was the post that got Morthas' attention, since it also drew my attention for similar reasons. One, you walked into the middle of an exchange between kues and imkingdavid, which could have (oh ho!) derailed their attempts to develop reads on each other or tangle the other up into a scummy-looking knot, depending on their alignment.

Kueshina, thanks for the reply. Again, I'm confused by your response though. Let me clarify a bit...

imkingdavid, to paraphrase, said "vote you, because you were the last to confirm." I think we all realize that during the RVS, people just toss votes around frivolously without any true belief, and his vote + reasoning seems to be of that nature. You then responded defensively to imkingdavid's accusation against you, even though it wasn't serious. Now, when I myself have made no accusations, your response has a defensive tone again. I only asked why you responded defensively to his vote, not why you voted for him.

This post, which came after Morthas' vote post was more of the same. This was the one that I called a ping. The second paragraph looks like indirect cheerleading/support for kues' vote on me while keeping your own hands clean of a vote or an actual direct FoS for the nonce.

sikon327 - thanks for your detailed response to my initial prod. In response to your questions back to me, I'll vote either randomly during a RVS if we need to instigate discussion and create info (prior to my post, sufficient info was generated that I didn't see the need for a random vote alongside my questions.) Or I'll vote when I have more conviction (I have not done enough digging yet to support any of my theories, for or against you or any other player.) So, no vote thus far.

If I may, I'd like to explain the scum tendency of leaning town on multiple people... there are a number of reasons for this. Scum know who is town, therefore they can/will be correct when it suits them (ie, later they can point back and say "Hey, my read on that guy was town... now he's dead, I was right, I'm a good guy.") Also, they can build credibility with town members by leaning/suggesting that they are town... especially with some more novice players. Very often a town player will feel validated like they are doing good, when somebody else thinks they are town. (In my experience, it's more important to find scum than for other people to think you are town. Scum will often NK the most trusted town person to maintain control.) There are a thousand other scenarios, but these are just a few, and we are of course exploring all that we can on Day 1.

[likeabauss]

There no friggim way my question to Kue at that point derailed imking. It was an RVS from him. He wasn't pursuing anything. I was opening a new line of questioning to Kue. Why did Kue make a big deal out of an RVS and cop a defense? Totally unrelated.

And no way. The town reads as a scum tendency post was directly related to my conversation with Sikon at the time. I suggested that early town reads could be a form of buddying or a scummy tendency in my first post as I began my questioning to him. I wanted to explain the scenario and clarify because his response to me didn't seem to understand the point.

You're taking those posts out of context or deliberating misstating what was said. Go back through those exchanges.

[cAPSLOCK]

OK. We are running into a bit of a tight thing with time, yes?

A no lynch on day one is almost always bad is it not?

No one is really fighting for a particular wagon, and one of the only active posters is the one who is closest to being lynched.

This game culture and style is so different than the several games I have played elsewhere I have truly turned into a functional noob, sorry... But we need to get a move on yes?

VOTE: likeabauss

I feel sure this action leads to a quick day 2 lynch for m... But its the best I have. I don't believe him yet.

[sikon327]

likeabauss was at L-1. You just lynched him with no claim. What the hell?

[likeabauss]

Good grief. Why do people sign up to play a game that requires reading, writing, and thinking when they don't like to do either?

I'm vanilla town. Good luck guys!

[fferyllt]

phoneposting. guys, don't do this again. no matter how it turns v out. Will be at laptop I'm about .5 hour if the thread is still open I'll have more to say.

[likeabauss]

Are twilight posts allowed here?

On re-read, I'd look a bit harder at Jason. He was the one that originally misstated my reason for wanting to lynch Fferyllt after my post and started the momentum on my wagon.

[fferyllt]

I really didn't think I needed to keep warning about derphammering in this crowd. I'm going to annoy the fuck out of the players in the next game I IC.

Don't instalynch tomorrow. Whether or not you decide to go after capslock for the hammer, still, use the time well to scumhunt and look at other players, especially players who were low on content day 1.

There's no reason for bauss to lie after the hammer, so yeah, almost certainly vanilla town.

pedit - Yes they are. We can post until the thread is closed. So, keep posting your thoughts.