Newbie 1389 Trouble in River City Game Over Scum win

[Grimgroove]

dude i dont rly see him as scum. cant we lynch someone else?

♥

[Grimgroove]

337: ♥♥♥
TheTrollie is town.

[Grimgroove]

My internet access is spottier than I thought it would be. I am on the blue ridge parkway near Mt Pisgah.

That said I HAVE been paying attention. I have been leaning to voting for likeabauss for reasons I have previously mentioned as well as some recent developments. I think Jason's recent catch of likeabauss wanting to vote because a player is experienced is especially damning. I don't know if my vote would be a hammer so I will hold off for a few moments. Day one is over really soon, yes?

I haven't been paying close attention to this guy because he's my slot, but I don't remember him saying anything about likeabauss.
He was clearly a clueless player who did not invest enough time in this game. Luckily you have me now.

[Grimgroove]

less love for 350, but still coming from an obvtown.

[Grimgroove]

Townreading bauss? I don't think so

The relevant parts are bolded. spoilered because quotewallz

Spoiler: My posts about bauss' alignment

Fferyllt - let me clarify. I understand the point you are making about your play style, history, meta, etc. My question to you is why did you bring it up in the first place? I made mention of a different player doing a similar thing, as part of a line of questioning to that player, and you chimed in with a defense for YOUR actions. I never mentioned you doing it, neither did anyone else that I can see.

It smells fishy to me, mostly because good guys (town) operate under the confidence of their innocence. Bad guys (scum) are forced to mask their guilt and put on a show. This subtle difference changes the nuance of some things. One of the things I look for is people who are overly defensive (which you've exhibited in this maneuver) because scum feel the need to defend and keep the heat off. A town player knows their innocence and wont be as touchy or knee jerk on defense, especially against an accusation made against a completely different player.

It was in response to the player that I tentatively townread, and appeared to be an indirect dig in my direction. It also was the post immediately after Kus putting down a vote on me with the reasoning that I was buddying sikon, so it also looked like indirect support for that vote.

Your play in this game so far seems to be oblique and indirect in some ways. I am going to make some time for a meta dive to see if that's typical of your town game

.

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?

What do you mean forming a town bloc?

It's the upside of town reads - some town players finding each other and actively working together to develop reads and push bandwagons.

Also, who do you suspect as scum? I'd love to hear your insights/thoughts/questions into this game, instead of the analysis of the way it is being/has been played. Seems like you're a very meta focused player, is that true?

I'm still developing my reads.

I have you down as possible scum, but I'm worried that it could be a false positive due to your current play style/rustiness after a few years away from mafia.

I need more data from a few players.

I'm not sure about "very" meta focused, at least at MS. When I have experiential meta I use it. When I wind up with a leaning scum read based on in-thread play I like do a meta dive and look for reasons to rethink.

VOTE: fferyllt

That feels good.

I believe you to be scum. I have many reasons that I will share when the time is right. For now, I will wait patiently while others weigh in and share their opinions.

What say you all? Is fferyllt scum or am I crazy?

You are my strongest scum read atm. Your vote adds more doubt about the accuracy of that read.

:/

You are my strongest scum read atm. Your vote adds more doubt about the accuracy of that read. :/

I can assure you that this logic is faulty.

Please review the post #127 Lynx_Shine made and offer up your thoughts on the concerns presented about you.

Also, cAPSLOCK's post #114 rings true with me. Having reread my previous games here, you'll notice that I strung up an IC mafia goon on Day 1 on an almost identical maneuver.

I don't think you parsed my statement correctly. Your vote on me makes me think my scum read could be wrong. I've felt that your approach was indirect, and that you are basing your FoSes on what other players dig up. This is similar in that you're vauting off cAPS and Lynx' posts, but you're not being indirect now.

IME, I tend to either pick up votes in the early phases of day 1 or go more or less unnoticed until there's more data to work with. I don't usually key in on specific posts for scum reads. It's more about body of work.

fferyllt - is your vote on me simply pressure or what? I see in #133 you say that bauss is your "strongest scum read" but I don't see a vote on him. I find it odd that you'd place your first vote in the game on a self-admitted inactive player rather than on your strongest suspect. Also, you're voting me, as I understand it, due to inactivity. But as others have rightfully pointed out, you've done a lot of talking without saying much (up till recently when you posted your reads on a few players). I don't see the difference between my inactive inactivity and your active inactivity.

Anyway, I won't be voting you at the moment. Inactivity is a fact and not really something you can defend against, and I don't find it strong enough to be a reason for you to be lynched, especially this early on.

That's two people who misunderstood my post about bauss.

To clarify, bauss was my strongest scum read up to the point where he started making a case on me. He went from indirect to direct stance of attack, though I think his case is mostly rehashing others' comments.

I never put a vote down purely for pressure. If I vote then at that point in the game, I am willing to lynch. You have been inactive, though you've been slightly more of a presence than Lynx. But, lynx' two posts had IMO good, thoughtful content and questions. I like questions. Prior to this, though you had 5 posts, there was only one with even a little bit of content.

Fferyllt - let me clarify. I understand the point you are making about your play style, history, meta, etc. My question to you is why did you bring it up in the first place? I made mention of a different player doing a similar thing, as part of a line of questioning to that player, and you chimed in with a defense for YOUR actions. I never mentioned you doing it, neither did anyone else that I can see.

It smells fishy to me, mostly because good guys (town) operate under the confidence of their innocence. Bad guys (scum) are forced to mask their guilt and put on a show. This subtle difference changes the nuance of some things. One of the things I look for is people who are overly defensive (which you've exhibited in this maneuver) because scum feel the need to defend and keep the heat off. A town player knows their innocence and wont be as touchy or knee jerk on defense, especially against an accusation made against a completely different player.

It was in response to the player that I tentatively townread,

and appeared to be an indirect dig in my direction.

It also was the post immediately after Kus putting down a vote on me with the reasoning that I was buddying sikon,

so it also looked like indirect support for that vote

.

Your play in this game so far seems to be oblique and indirect in some ways.

I am going to make some time for a meta dive to see if that's typical of your town game.

I didn't use the word "pings", but I certainly did indicate concern about the indirect attack and the indirect vote support. In fact, it was enough concern to do a meta dive and read his earlier games.

And the dive

did not

turn up a propensity for indirect and oblique stuff.. He was direct and aggressive in his play back then. Given the passage of time (more than 2 years) I think he may have needed a little time to get back into the groove.

bauss was much more direct and aggressive right from the start in his earlier games. His later posts in this game, which I have said make me doubt the validity of my initial lean toward scum, are more in the vein of his first two MS games from a couple years ago.

I decided to go back and reread the first 5 or so pages of the game this morning to remind myself why I had the reads I started with and think about whether they are justified. This is from my handwritten notes, and I'm not going to bother with post links. For the most part I'm not talking about later developments here - just the first 5 or so pages unless there wasn't enough content early on.

Sikon - post 22 struck me as town mindset. post 29 she seemed gratified at getting a tentative town read from me. She had good trajectory on her first non-RVS vote, and again on bauss for FoSing with no vote early on.

capslock - post 25 seems empty of real content. post 27 seems hedgy about rvs of all things. 43, 44 make excuses. 56 puts down a vote for lynx not posting (makes it clear that's why - oh the futility of pressure votes that are basically labeled as such). 78 more excuses. I liked that he questioned my IC post comment that I'm as likely to be scum as any other player, thought it was interesting that people read that as emphasizing I'm as likely to be town as any other player. Agree with trollie about the football metaphor, but on reread his contribution is comparatively weak.

kueshina - right off the top, a "townslip", not realizing scum can communicate via QT prior to the game starting with 7 confirmations. The only way this would happen if scum, I think, would be if kues was coached to make a townslip. 31 is a lot of theory. I feel like kues' general theory stuff kept getting read as suggestions about this game. Overly defensive about kingdavid's rvs vote, and in general pretty prickly and defensive. I keep reading this as paranoid town, but could be confirmation bias. kues looks worse as the game day progresses and doesn't seem to be advancing their reads.

morthas/trollie - morthas looked town as fuck to me. To the extent he gave reads, I agreed with them based on what was in the thread up to that point. His vote on bauss made sense to me. If I had wanted to put a vote down in the thread that early, I would have put it on bauss. He liked kues for town. Trollie's posts, aside from not including a lot of support, also look good to me. When I ask for support what he says makes sense. I can see his reasons for voting (and unvoting) sikon and then kues.

bauss - initially posts questions, including leading questions and foses without votes. In 51, reacts to morthas. oblique, indirect series of posts about buddying. Sometime after 70 he starts tunneling me, and since then his posts have been worthless for discerning alignment. I guess I can't tell town tunneling from scum tunneling when I'm the object, not without priors and some idea of whether my play style is by default scummy looking to him.

king david/cheery - KD's posts were substance free with one exception when I first ISO'd him. Lots of excuses for why he wasn't posting substance. Cheery's better, but he's not taking strong stances about other players. Vote is currently on capslock.

Lynx - votes kues in 64. posts have good content.

jason - I've posted about him several times, mostly with concern about his tunneling capslock. But, my capslock read has suffered a bit since going back over the first 5 or so pages. I like his content since returning. feel kinda unsure about his sikon vote.

I have never townread you. I backed you down from top scum read due to ambivalence over my objectivity when being obsessively and irrationally tunneled.

Here fferyllt is so kind to show all of us that she hasn't got a real case against likeabauss. Just go over those postys of her and try to discern a case.

[Grimgroove]

In any case, 352 is infintely better than anything that had been thrown his way.

[Grimgroove]

bauss,

If I were scum and if you are town, I'd leave both fferyllt and bauss in the game so it could fill up with our 1v1 and leave a pile of chaff in the air to hide behind.

Well it's not like you'd be able kill yourself.

What I'm wanting to see currently is caps's vote down on his biggest scum read as I'm really not liking his vote history. (which was a vote on a lurker and then the vote on jason after I joined the game) I have no real idea of where he is standing.

A gentle nudge. So subtle.

[Grimgroove]

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.

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.

I have to admit these two posts completely go against everything I've seen so far, which does make me waiver a bit.
But at this stage, fferyllt knew a Cheery Dog lynch was out of the question anyway, so no big risk there.
Claiming the likeabauss-lynch is not to your liking anymore without offering any reasonable alternative is not exactly trying to stop his lynch.
This is just really good scumplay, well thought-out positioning in a likeabauss-lynch thaty you knew was inevitable at that point.
Really well done.
But I'm on to you.

[fferyllt]

For all of the effort I'm putting into my posts, it doesn't seem that they're actually contributing effectively towards the hunt for scum at the moment. I am frustrated by my inability to have a meaningful impact on the game at the moment. This frustration is clouding my judgement, and causing me to act in a way that doesn't seem to be helpful to the interests of the town. It seems that other people here have a better idea of how to scumhunt than I do, so I am just going to step out of their way, let them do their thing, learn from their example, and hopefully come back strong once I better understand how this game is played, if not by the end of this game, then in future games that I am involved in.

I believe you could carry on attempting to hunt in your own style, I probably haven't commented much as I haven't seen where exactly to comment in arguments and suchlike I don't have strong reads on the people involved.

But I now do have a strong town read on you after that rage post. I guess I may have another look, but nonetheless just stopping hunting helps less that seemingly hunting badly.
(even if it's just on how people are attacking you and how that may help reads on them later in the game)

This post mitigates a lot of my concerns about you.

How?
In that read on him you provided you hardly voiced any concrete concerns (as I mentioned earlier), but please tell me how this relates to 249.

Oh for cryin out loud your catch up posts.

Because his earlier read of sikon was inexplicable to me if he's town. It boggles my mind when experienced players misread newbs who are so clearly town.

I am feeling kinda similarly about jason at the moment.

My best guess of the scum team is 2 of cheery, jason and Lynx.

There was no mention of his read on sikon anywhere when giving comments about Cheery Dog in 249. Why would you not include something that afterwards sounds pretty crucial to you?

Those two posts by sikon - the angry/exasperated one and the immediately apologetic one - were unmistakeably what they were - a new player floundering in a way that new town players flounder. Other players mistook sikon's earlier play, so I can accept that the towniness didn't shine through for everyone the way it did for me. But those two posts? No.

One of the things I've been working on in my own game in the Newbie format is getting better at sorting new players. I'm not as good at it as I'd like, but I've improved a lot.

If cheery had ignored or mislabeled sikon's reaction, my scum read would have solidified considerably. While his play bugs me and sets off alarms, it's not for solid and easy to describe reasons.

[Grimgroove]

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.

True that likeabauss! True that!

I think this nearly concludes my catch-up, the derphammer of my slot is just that, DERP. Big one though.

So, that's it. I think it's clear who I'll be focusing on for the remainder of this daystage.

Sorry for the spam

, but catching up with 17 pages is hard to do in an elegant way.

[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.

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.

I have to admit these two posts completely go against everything I've seen so far, which does make me waiver a bit.
But at this stage, fferyllt knew a Cheery Dog lynch was out of the question anyway, so no big risk there.
Claiming the likeabauss-lynch is not to your liking anymore without offering any reasonable alternative is not exactly trying to stop his lynch.
This is just really good scumplay, well thought-out positioning in a likeabauss-lynch thaty you knew was inevitable at that point.
Really well done.
But I'm on to you.

Here's the problem with your theory. I am not a super-skilled scum player. At best, my scum game could be described as not totally incompetent.

[Grimgroove]

Ok, still not done apparently, you guys sure kept busy.

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.

Another gentle nudge here, despite having claimed on the same page you did not like a likeabauss-lynch that much anymore. One-line statements like that stand out and with an approaching deadline it's all certain people need to place that hammer. cAPSLOCK was "certain people".

I mean, maybe I shouldn't have quoted all of it, but it is CLEAR who the drivers behind likeabauss' lynch were, and it is CLEAR that they had dubious intentions.
Couple that with strange inter-Cheery-feryllt-dynamics, and you've got yourself an obvscumteam.

[Grimgroove]

Here's the problem with your theory. I am not a super-skilled scum player. At best, my scum game could be described as not totally incompetent.

425

[fferyllt]

Here's the problem with your theory. I am not a super-skilled scum player. At best, my scum game could be described as not totally incompetent.

425

And that is basically an emoticon worthy response.

[fferyllt]

Ok, still not done apparently, you guys sure kept busy.

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.

Another gentle nudge here, despite having claimed on the same page you did not like a likeabauss-lynch that much anymore. One-line statements like that stand out and with an approaching deadline it's all certain people need to place that hammer. cAPSLOCK was "certain people".

I mean, maybe I shouldn't have quoted all of it, but it is CLEAR who the drivers behind likeabauss' lynch were, and it is CLEAR that they had dubious intentions.
Couple that with strange inter-Cheery-feryllt-dynamics, and you've got yourself an obvscumteam.

Associative tells work so much better when you know one player's alignment.

Don't drop your Cheery read when you figure out that your read on me is wrong.

[Grimgroove]

What did you think of Cheery Dog's case on likeabauss?

[fferyllt]

What did you think of Cheery Dog's case on likeabauss?

He had no case.

[Grimgroove]

Why was this not a problem to you before?

[Cheery Dog]

Holy crap that's a lot of calling the dead town obvtown (ygrim has now become the 3rd highest poster in this game)and paired with cAPS's inability to really get any hunting done, my suspicion is now quite rife on that slot. At least I know where your slot stands though.

Just for fun:

@Cheery Dog: what IS your read on fferyllt?Why did you not question her scumread on you? Why did you not question the mitigations of her "arguments" against you?

Still slightly scummy, but with the sheer level of inactivity that plauged the middle of yesterday, I can't say any reasons for them - I was probably more caught out my who I considered my highest town read after reading through the pages before my replace in not posting for ages due to a sickly mod.

As far as I've seen, her arugment against me is something weak do to with kingdavid's play - I didn't see what exactly caused it and I don't want to be defending predecessors, so unless it's actually from my own play, it means nothing.

[fferyllt]

Why was this not a problem to you before?

He's difficult to engage, and his play is ambiguous enough that any alarms he sounded were pretty mild. I am the only player who directly questioned him at all, and keeping the engagement going wasn't easy. He seemed off the radar screens of other players. There were really only 2 likely lynches yesterday, once the replacements were plugged in and the game sort of recovered from the server outage. Maybe a sikon wagon could have gained steam, but I tried to keep the wheels kicked off of that wagon.

[Cheery Dog]

What did you think of Cheery Dog's case on likeabauss?

I still don't know where anyone got an idea of me having make a case. I think it was lab himself who was the only one who did.

[Cheery Dog]

That shit is sheep worthy.

VOTE: fferyllt

Also that slot is town as fuck now.

cAPSLOCK i apologize if you are still reading this thread.

Which parts of it exactly make you want to sheep?

[Grimgroove]

I've made a case? (with apparent genuine insights?)

Why isn't a wagon on you able to take off then?

This was too ambiguous for being used as an argument that you never claimed you had a case. The fact your vote was and remained on him speaks for itself.

[Grimgroove]

So let me get this straight, you were both on the likeabauss wagon but admit to there not being a case?

[fferyllt]

Who is "both"?