Mini 1533: No More Heroes - Abandoned

[Minions]

That's three people now to press this point.

Is there a purpose to continually pointing out that if we were scum us posting more might lead to a scum slip?

We don't intend on going anywhere if it's an attempt to put pressure on our posts, and with the hive mind actually in cohesion over the avenues we have so far pursued I don't see the relevance of general game theory as opposed to focus on the posts in front of us or indeed anyone rather lacking in posts.

Early impressions has me in total agreement with Stuarts push. And if TIP flips anything but town I will literally cry.

~ Simon

[Varsoon]

Yeah, we should focus much more on the game instead of the theory.

That said, if anyone's an IC or something of the like, could they confirm now?

[Skullduggery]

Skull: You're exhorting us to vote minions, but I'm not entirely clear on the argument. It feels to me that you're primarily reacting negatively to Dave's insulting post, and some of the arguments you're making above, such as those against both Dave's and Rufio's posts, feel like they're fitting evidence to a read rather than the converse (I don't btw, think that this is alignment indicative). What do you think is the best bit of evidence that suggests Minions is scum?

Why focus on just one piece of evidence when you can focus on the whole body of work instead? I made my assertions in 52 pretty clearly, I think. I'll sum it up in bullet points for the sake of cogency.

* The overly defensive response to a simple question I asked him in 36. Town has no reason to be so defensive this early in the game.
* Saying that I'm dropping a Scum-tell ("closing the door" or whatever) when I'm not in an effort to incriminate me for something I didn't do.
* The flippant manner in which he brushes off my arguments to make sure that the other players are less willing to listen to me.
* The subtle accusations of me overreacting and panicking (again, when I'm doing no such thing) to further downplay the significance of my arguments.
* The wishy-washy nature of his analysis of Pope.
* Accusing Peregrine of white-knighting a Town player to earn Town cred for himself. In this scenario,

I'm

the Town player that Peregrine is supposedly white-knighting, which means that Minions thinks/knows I'm Town but is pushing to get me lynched anyway. Where is the Town motivation here?

That is a lot of evidence pointing to the Minions being Scum. I can understand overlooking one or two of those points, but you really have to go out of your way to ignore all of it.

I don't quite think you're grasping the concept of "closing the door", though. Closing the door is when a player essentially predicts the next move a scum suspect will make, which warns them of what they shouldn't do ahead of time. I personally have no idea why anyone would do this: it seems far more beneficial to call them out for being scum, and then call them out for a bad reaction instead of letting scum know what you would find scummy from them before they even post. The more common reason for closing the door is because you see an obvious problem with your attack and somehow by refuting the rebuttal ahead of time, you can discredit it.

Conversely, you're robbing Scum of the most obvious reaction to see what else they come up with. Do they have a fallback response or do they just ignore you? Do they try to make a weaker argument that's full of holes? There's nothing wrong with keeping Scum on their toes. If I tell you how I expect you to react as Scum, that makes you less likely to react that way and more likely to react in a secondary off-the-cuff manner that you didn't get to think about, thereby increasing the chances of you posting a half-baked argument that could tip your hand.

How is any of this scummy again?

For example, I don't see how you predicting us calling your vote OMGUS makes it any less OMGUS

Brushing off a player's vote as OMGUS is an easy and convenient way to minimize the impact of their vote without actually taking the time and effort to address it and refute it. Do you disagree? Furthermore, is it more likely for Town or Scum to take an avenue wherein they don't have to directly address an attack made upon them?

Brushing off a reasonable and fully-explained vote as an OMGUS vote is a Scum-tell. You brushed off my reasonable and fully-explained vote as an OMGUS vote. Make the connection.

Since I don't find dissecting your posts to find where you were being clever and where you weren't being clever fruitful, I'd rather ask why it matters that our sweetheart "acted like an ass and called you out". You yourself stated that you were a conversational and confrontational player, so it doesn't seem like calling someone out is a horribly large scumtell, no matter the substance of the call out. I also don't think that a bad attitude is indicative of alignment; if anything, having a confrontational attitude and more of an "in-your-face" attitude is more indicative of town, since it's not the type of thing to make you any friends.

Actually, I never said I was confrontational. Stubborn and aggressive, sure, but I try to avoid going out of my way to piss off my fellow players. I only bite when someone else bites me first.

I think I've explained my issue with 37 pretty extensively by now, so if you're still not sure why I think that response is scummy, I don't know what else to tell you. I can only reword the same point so many times before I just start repeating myself.

Saying that your opponent is "panicking", "afraid", "flailing", are basic signs of aggression, an attempt to call them on their fear while they are writing in order to make their posts more self-conscious. You calling this slander is going a bit overboard.

And yet, when your opponent isn't actually exhibiting any of those behaviors, that only makes it look as though you're going out of your way to make your opponent's arguments feel weaker than they really are. That is a cheap tactic that I've seen Scum use many, many times before.

If you're Town, why do you feel that it's necessary to "call me out on my fear"? Where do you see fear in my posts? Do you think I'm afraid of you? Do you really?

Your argument suggesting that we are looking down the road to after your lynch suggests we have incredible and unnecessary foresight; do you really think we would already be thinking of what move to make after your lynch on page 3?

This is a really silly question. Are you implying that I should be underestimating you instead? Are you implying that I should be expecting you to play at a sub-optimal level? Are you implying that it's somehow foolish for me to expect the Scum team to possess enough foresight to plan ahead and start organizing lynches as early as page three?

You choosing to make that attack in response to my post is part of why your attack feels so much like OMGUS. At no part during your response to me does it feel like you actually sat down and considered what we were saying. It just feels like your pride was hurt and you would like us to be scum as a result.

While it's true that 37 is what started this whole exchange, it's ludicrous to suggest that my entire argument against you is a simple case of hurt feelings. Give me a little more credit than that.

Your logic seems to be based on the conception that Town players and Scum players act in a cookie-cutter fashion, which is the largest problem of the bits of your case against us that I can parse.

And that isn't what you've been doing as well? How can you accuse me of viewing alignments in a cookie-cutter fashion after saying things like this...

Spoiler:

I have highlighted one of my FAVOURITE scumtells in mafia there.

It's known as closing the door. Skulduggery is being self aware, in itself a scum tell , but in order to try and avoid bein drawn into a fight and be prone to scum slips he needs to box in the arguement to try and stop us from going on the attack.

Oh, and the person who used the term white knight... That's a scum claim then you are giving us? Cos to white knight is to (as scum) ride to the rescue of a town player to gain town points.

How are our respective arguments any different?

Do you honestly think that there exists a player who sees the mafia role PM in their inbox and immediately begins to panic and melt down whenever someone asks them what their favorite color is?

As a matter of fact, yes. Yes I do. That player was me the first time I ever had to be Scum. I don't know precisely how experienced each head in your hydra is, but I think it's safe to say that some of your heads are better at the game than others. Maybe "Dave" sucks at being Scum. Do you expect me to just overlook the scummy things that one head says because another head is more skilled at explaining his way out of dangerous situations? You're all one player as far as I'm concerned, so you're still accountable for everything that your other heads say.

If anything, it makes me think they're both town. The huge walling reminds me of my own town v town spats with other players in the past.
Smart scum wouldn't give town so much to work with, IMO.
I guess genius scum would be able to make it all town, though.

Yeah I'm with Varsoon here

So you're saying that we're either both Town or one of us is Town and the other is genius Scum, but you don't commit to either possibility? Come on, guys, I like pancakes, not

waffles

.

and i guess i could also push a case on Kagami for asking a bunch of useless questions and doing a bunch if safe things but my heart really wouldn't be in it.

So do you think that Kagami is Scum or not?

[Skullduggery]

Eh. I wrote out those bullet points for Kagami before reading 55, so some of the points I made there aren't completely applicable anymore. You get the idea, though.

[Kagami]

...

* Accusing Peregrine of white-knighting a Town player to earn Town cred for himself. In this scenario,

I'm

the Town player that Peregrine is supposedly white-knighting, which means that Minions thinks/knows I'm Town but is pushing to get me lynched anyway. Where is the Town motivation here?

...

The rest is meh, but this is legit.

This seems to me like it would be a significant source of dissonance for town-minions, to such an extent that he would be very unlikely to say it. The consistent stance would be to say that peregrine is chainsawing him rather than white-knighting you, but that would involve accusing two players of being scum, which is much less safe than saying one of the two of you is scum.

The "separate line of inquiry" explanation is reasonable, but feels like a reaction rather than a motivation. The dissonance should have been obvious during the post rather than something to explain after the fact.

[Varsoon]

Skull, I also concede that I don't think either of you are playing a genius-tier scum game. If you are, fuck it, I've already lost.

At the very least, your snark feels very town to me. :3

Can we focus on the players who have the most to gain out of taking a backseat to the Skull/Minions walling?

Also, can you guys stop walling? It kicks up so much dust that scum can hide in it and it's WIFOM-able to a degree that a wagon either way could easily be strung along by scum.
I'm pretty sure you're both town.

[pieguyn]

mod: request replacement

sorry

[Skullduggery]

* Accusing Peregrine of white-knighting a Town player to earn Town cred for himself. In this scenario,

I'm

the Town player that Peregrine is supposedly white-knighting, which means that Minions thinks/knows I'm Town but is pushing to get me lynched anyway. Where is the Town motivation here?

The rest is meh, but this is legit.

This seems to me like it would be a significant source of dissonance for town-minions, to such an extent that he would be very unlikely to say it. The consistent stance would be to say that peregrine is chainsawing him rather than white-knighting you, but that would involve accusing two players of being scum, which is much less safe than saying one of the two of you is scum.

The "separate line of inquiry" explanation is reasonable, but feels like a reaction rather than a motivation. The dissonance should have been obvious during the post rather than something to explain after the fact.

Your

face

is meh.

As you mull over the Minions' motivations here, what conclusions do you draw about Peregrine himself? Is his self-professed white-knighting of me coming from a Town or Scum mindset, would you say?

At the very least, your snark feels very town to me. :3

Total number of Mafia games where another player has called me snarky:

three

four

Can we focus on the players who have the most to gain out of taking a backseat to the Skull/Minions walling?

Also, can you guys stop walling? It kicks up so much dust that scum can hide in it and it's WIFOM-able to a degree that a wagon either way could easily be strung along by scum.
I'm pretty sure you're both town.

I can't make any promises; if my posts are long, they're long. I'll try to take things down a notch, but only because

you

asked me to~

I will agree, though, that in the unlikely event that me vs. Minions really is Town vs. Town, then the Scum team is probably content to just sit back and watch it unfold. We do need to hear from some of the other players, and I think I'll start with SMP.

I can see a multi headed hydra being helpful to town even if the hydra is scum. The more heads there are the more posts are made. The more posts that are made the more likely a scumslip will happen. All it takes is one head to slip and the whole thing is screwed.

This is...pretty much your only post of substance so far this game, SMP. In it, you make an observation about Minions, but you don't actually indicate whether you think they're Town or Scum. You still have your RVS vote on me, so does that mean you think I'm Scum or have you simply not found a better place to put your vote yet? If you think I'm Scum, does that mean you think that the Minions are Town? If so, then what was the point of making this observation about theoretical-Scum-Minions eventually slipping up and making it easier for Town to catch them? You don't honestly believe that Minions and I are both Scum and this is the most hardcore distancing/bussing ploy in the history of Mafia, do you? Finally, what are your thoughts about Pope calling this post "bullshit" in 74? Is this something worth defending?

[Kagami]

Your

face

is meh.

As you mull over the Minions' motivations here, what conclusions do you draw about Peregrine himself? Is his self-professed white-knighting of me coming from a Town or Scum mindset, would you say?

...

Null without knowing peregrine better. Very bad scum would say it because they're bad. Decent scum would say it because it's so clumsy coming from scum that it would look town. Town might say it because "why not?"

How good do you think scum peregrine is?

[Kagami]

^broken quotes: please fix if you fix quotes

Done.

[aptil]

v/la till the 2nd of Jan

.

[Wake1]

*Reveals

Annihilator Beam

*

[Wake1]

Varsoon

———✹

Is your vote on Antihero still pretty sound logic?

———✹

What would Scum-Varsoon be like?

———✹

I don't support policy lynches. If you do, which player would you have policy lynched and why?

Skullduggery

———✹

I'm having difficulty reading TIP. Do you have any experience with him?

———✹

Are you obvTowning?

———✹

Is it fair to say that you countered Minions' OMGUS with an OMGUS of your own?

SMP

———✹

Is your vote on Skullduggery serious?

———✹

Do you have any thoughts on the other players, like Varsoon, Kagami, etc?

———✹

Do you know what you do as Town and Scum? If so, would you share them?

Minions

———✹

Thoughts on your fight with Skullduggery?

———✹

Are your heads real, or are you just one guy? Seriously, Rufio?

———✹

Any specific reads on Varsoon, SMP, and Aptil?

Aptil

———✹

Why the naked vote?

———✹

Are you staying in here?

———✹

Reads from you would be great. Anything, really.

TheIrishPope

———✹

Apathy?

———✹

Between Cristovo, Varsoon, and pieguyn, who do you lynch and why?

———✹

If you have any Scum meta to share, that'd be helpful.

Kagami

———✹

Hi! Reads on Skullduggery et al?

———✹

Have you ever played as Scum before?

———✹

Does it feel to you like Varsoon's being subtly Townish?

PeregrineV

———✹

If you have any meta, or meta of others you'd bring to the table, it'd help us all.

———✹

So, your "Whiteknight Activate" is flavor, like my

Annihilator Beam

?

———✹

Your top two Townreads at the moment would be good.

[TheIrishPope]

Yes apathy?
Cristovo cuz he's scum probably
I have some games, Varsoon modded one, he can link it

[Kagami]

Kagami

———✹

Hi! Reads on Skullduggery et al?

———✹

Have you ever played as Scum before?

———✹

Does it feel to you like Varsoon's being subtly Townish?

Minions feels very slightly scummy, but I might just be getting scum tinglies from the excessive hydra-ness. I think Skull is probably town, but I'm nowhere near as confident as Varsoon or Peregrine are. I have never been scum on this site, though I have been scum in private games with friends and family.

[Varsoon]

Varsoon

———✹

Is your vote on Antihero still pretty sound logic?

———✹

What would Scum-Varsoon be like?

———✹

I don't support policy lynches. If you do, which player would you have policy lynched and why?

Varsoon broadens his chest and accepts the love that is The Annihilator Beam.

Vote on Antihero was for early pressure, and since Antihero hasn't responded at all to that vote (or anything, really), it makes me think one of two things:
Antihero doesn't give a damn/isn't playing the game or
Antihero is town, has seen the game, and isn't shaken up at all by it.
Regardless, I'm getting nothing out of leaving my vote there.

In this situation, I'd incite the walling, participate in it, and try to kick up as much dust as possible. I'd want an early lynch on Skullduggery (if Skull's slot is town), because I could probably feed a later mislynch on Minions (if minions slot is town). Skull's got a strong, reliable town meta and scum-me would want that mislynched immediately unless I had some sort of way of recruiting Skull (neighborhood, cult, etc). A kill on Skull is unlikely, since a protect/track/etc on town-skull is likely. I've been in this sort of a situation before (as scum):
C9++, where I tried to make the most amount of noise possible on D1. It backfired, but that wasn't entirely my fault. I think this tactic could work if there were other people walling hard as well.
Calvin & Hobbes Mafia, where I neighborhood'd Psyche, who soft-confirmed me as town, and avoided killing Skull because Skull was obv-town. I also tried to neighborize Skull but was busdriven and tracked to the other team's NK, which I then navigated my way out of.

I don't like policy lynches either. If I had to PL someone this game, it'd be one of SMP or Peregrine. I'd say Aptil, but the V/LA clears that.

[Varsoon]

Yes apathy?
Cristovo cuz he's scum probably
I have some games, Varsoon modded one, he can link it

I did mod that one game you were scum, huh.
Here it is.

[Varsoon]

It was fairly obvious (to me, I guess) that TiP was bargaining for Mislynches in that game, while riding into the sunset on a conf-town status.

[Skullduggery]

As you mull over the Minions' motivations here, what conclusions do you draw about Peregrine himself? Is his self-professed white-knighting of me coming from a Town or Scum mindset, would you say?

Null without knowing peregrine better. Very bad scum would say it because they're bad. Decent scum would say it because it's so clumsy coming from scum that it would look town. Town might say it because "why not?"

How good do you think scum peregrine is?

The best firsthand experience I have with Scum-Peregrine is Two Room Mafia II. That game lasted for four months and he was the last anti-Town player to be caught. He has a knack for blending into the background without actually looking like he's trying to blend into the background, and he's very good at making casual observations that make you think, "There's no way Scum would say that." I'd say he's pretty good at being Scum.

Having said that, I am leaning Town on Peregrine at the moment, but I'll need a bit more content from him before I can make any concrete decisions about his alignment.

I'm having difficulty reading TIP. Do you have any experience with him?

One game where we were both Town (Calvin & Hobbes Mafia). I don't know what his Scum game looks like, but I'm leaning Town on him at the moment.

Are you obvTowning?

I'm just doing what I normally do. It's up to the other players to decide whether that makes me obvTown or not.

Is it fair to say that you countered Minions' OMGUS with an OMGUS of your own?

No, because neither of our votes were OMGUS votes.

I don't like policy lynches either. If I had to PL someone this game, it'd be one of SMP or Peregrine.

Why do you regard them as policy lynches?

[Varsoon]

Votes aren't doing anything, and they're not very active.

[SMP]

I will agree, though, that in the unlikely event that me vs. Minions really is Town vs. Town, then the Scum team is probably content to just sit back and watch it unfold. We do need to hear from some of the other players, and I think I'll start with SMP.

I can see a multi headed hydra being helpful to town even if the hydra is scum. The more heads there are the more posts are made. The more posts that are made the more likely a scumslip will happen. All it takes is one head to slip and the whole thing is screwed.

This is...pretty much your only post of substance so far this game, SMP. In it, you make an observation about Minions, but you don't actually indicate whether you think they're Town or Scum. You still have your RVS vote on me, so does that mean you think I'm Scum or have you simply not found a better place to put your vote yet? If you think I'm Scum, does that mean you think that the Minions are Town? If so, then what was the point of making this observation about theoretical-Scum-Minions eventually slipping up and making it easier for Town to catch them? You don't honestly believe that Minions and I are both Scum and this is the most hardcore distancing/bussing ploy in the history of Mafia, do you? Finally, what are your thoughts about Pope calling this post "bullshit" in 74? Is this something worth defending?

Your vote was just an RVS one that I hadn't unvoted yet.

UNVOTE: Skullduggery

I don't have a strong read either way on Minions. My post was to highlight another viewpoint of a multiheaded hydra, since posts (mainly Kagami's) were saying that hydra's are primarily advantageous for scum.

TIP can believe whatever he wants. I'm not going to fight over it though, since it's just another viewpoint, and not necessarily the best one for this game.

SMP

———✹

Is your vote on Skullduggery serious?

———✹

Do you have any thoughts on the other players, like Varsoon, Kagami, etc?

———✹

Do you know what you do as Town and Scum? If so, would you share them?

1) Answered above
2) Partial answers above. I don't usually have too many thoughts on players D1, and any I do I try to keep to myself for the day. I feel that giving out too much info early allows players to slightly change their play style. Players don't usually seem to care (or notice) since D1 is usually so hectic anyway.
3) I've only played a handful of scum games and most times I was found by some sort of investigation role then got caught having fake arguments with other scum.

[Skullduggery]

Votes aren't doing anything, and they're not very active.

So you don't think Peregrine's vote on Minions has any substance to it? What do you make of his white-knighting comment?

I don't have a strong read either way on Minions.

Considering how much content they've produced thus far, I find that hard to believe. Does that mean you don't have a strong read on me either?

TIP can believe whatever he wants. I'm not going to fight over it though, since it's just another viewpoint, and not necessarily the best one for this game.

If you feel that Pope's opinion on multi-headed hydras isn't the best one for this game, why are you okay with him thinking that way?

[SMP]

Votes aren't doing anything, and they're not very active.

So you don't think Peregrine's vote on Minions has any substance to it? What do you make of his white-knighting comment?

I don't have a strong read either way on Minions.

Considering how much content they've produced thus far, I find that hard to believe. Does that mean you don't have a strong read on me either?

TIP can believe whatever he wants. I'm not going to fight over it though, since it's just another viewpoint, and not necessarily the best one for this game.

If you feel that Pope's opinion on multi-headed hydras isn't the best one for this game, why are you okay with him thinking that way?

I have a read on you, but like I said, I tend not to give out too much info D1.

I guess that didn't come out as clear as I hoped. The viewpoint I was referring to was mine, not TIP's. I won't know whether my viewpoint is valid for this game until the game progresses more.

[Skullduggery]

I have a read on you, but like I said, I tend not to give out too much info D1.

How do you intend to catch Scum if you keep all your opinions and observations to yourself?

[Varsoon]

Intended pressure, amounted to nothing.