Tales of You (Endgame)

[Titan]

I had every intention of catching up in this game last night when I got home but then tequila and wine was involved and mafia didn't happen. I'm hungover today but I'm only 5 pages behind, I think, so later.

[MastinSSK]

So I realized a couple of things recently.

-Fox/Hound asked what sparked the change in my attitude. Now, I thought it was because of the thoughts I had, but while all of what I said was true, I think what made it stick, what made it possible, was that between meds and therapy, my mental health is slightly improving.

-Really random, but I know why AP's casting a suspicious eye on me but not voting me. It's really simple. To get complete, total, absolute revenge, a set of criteria must be met:

• I must be a BP. (Check.)
  
• I must be obvtown. (Check.)
  
• I must have good (perhaps perfect) reads. (...Check? I'm working on it.)
  
• I must have players supporting me be nightkilled. (Check.)
  
• I must have players that have had heated debates against me live. (Check.)
  
• I must be the top poster or among them. (Check.)
  
• I must have had a screaming, shouting match. (Check.)
  
• I must be a voice of reason in spite of the above. (Check.)
  
• I must have been aggressive. (Check.)
  
• I must have also held arrogance that I was not getting lynched, but be bewildered and slightly concerned at it happening. (Check and sorta-check, but good enough.)

...But mostly?

• It must be D3. (Thus, the lack of push from him today.)
  
• Bonus points if he enters a 1v1 with me, especially citing his role and him getting 'roleblocked' N1.

(First realization serious. Second one only semi-so.)

/content to come in a bit.

[Breakfast With Sandy]

Most of our hydra discussion currently revolves around figuring out what we think about AP's claim, but I don't think we're going to reach any sort of clarity. His claim could be completely factual in its final form and not say a thing about his alignment, aside from BRO's point about his original claimed target. As a gambit, it's not alignment indicative.

For me, it comes down to my thoughts about how many layers deep his scum play could go. Those thoughts are unsettled.

CF, what do you mean by "moving forward"?

[notscience]

Are you guys going to want my notes to be posted

[CarbonFiber]

/content to come in a bit.

I am going to say this one more time, please stop spamming the thread. You are making the game harder to sift through. I'd actually very much like to hear from Kagura, Orc, Clyton, and Titan.

CF, what do you mean by "moving forward"?

Before we go ahead with a lynch but I'd actually be interested in seeing Kagura's thoughts.

Are you guys going to want my notes to be posted

Go for it. I'd like to see them.

[MastinSSK]

Sheep, I've seen ffery be more transparent than this as well, but I've incorrectly scumread her at least once for similar reasons, and so I don't think it's a good reason to scumread her, especially when they've been pretty town otherwise imo (a few Beli posts in particular from memory).

Ok, I've decided.

Vote: MastinSSK

As always Ceph is free to change it, but I think this is ok. The only other person I could see myself being willing to lynch right now is Cupcake.

This sounds really, really legitimate by tone, but I'm really, really concerned about the mindset, here; it doesn't read as town. (No, not the vote. That's anti-town, yeah, but can come from town.) I wish I could pin down exactly what here feels 'off'; I had a brief flash in my head that said, "this aspect was scum thinking", but by the time I hit the quote button, the reason for the thought was gone. :/ I dunno, best guess on what pinged me would be something like having-cake-and-eating-it-too.
...Actually, I think I found it. It's going for an 'okay' vote rather than a vote-on-scum.

I can squint and make out a cupcake/mastinssk team, maybe. I dunno.

1. Why not?

Why not die when Rancid and myself are both town?

...Do I need to add periods to slow down that sentence so that the important bits are emphasized?

2. Um both?

I was looking for specifics. Not which head, but things about them in general that look town and maybe specific posts to highlight that behavior.

Also, the town pile are for nigh-confirmed/confirmed town list. Fery gets to stay there as an honorary spot.

1: Why isn't DesBRO considered nigh-confirmed town, 2: and why is ffery an honorary spot on there?

If anything, I'd think it should be vice-versa; while nothing CONFIRMS DesBRO, they should be honorary conftown anyway, whereas if you're townreading ffery (I'm not), it'd be in the probably town section. I'm not seeing the logic, here.

Here's where I am at: I'd still bet the farm on Yggrdra, Titan, and JSU. I took a look at Dark Age of the Law Mafia to see PV's scum-posting and it looks very different. In particular, his posting doesn't resonate to me the way it does here which makes me more certain about his affiliation. I am similarly confident about the Fox and the Hound every time DV posts. RedGyarados still feels town although I am not sure if I agree with Ffery's depiction of NotScience meta but then again, we look at it in very different ways. Cupcake is still a pretty strong town read. I have weaker townleans on Kagura, Orc, and Breakfast, null on Clyton. The game still leads right back to MastinSSK and AngryPidgeon. Happy to see Mastin getting lynched today. I want to hear if anyone has any other thoughts before moving forward.

I'm willing to gamble on Yggdra, Titan, and DespBRO, yes. But PV I simply am not sure about.

You could be correct that he could be town, but I'm really doubting that, especially since the extent of my townlist (which he is outside) puts him heavily in the POE territory. And while DV's posting does have that town tone, and I'm strongly considering Fox/Hound being town (still null overall), there are some serious concerns about their overall mindset. Who they're pushing, and more importantly the WHY for the push.

And though your townread on Kagura is justified, and you're probably right about one of orc/Stalin being town, and Clyton's a null read of mine...

...Your scumlist is still too small. Let's assume for a fraction of a second that Rancid was scum. That'd still leave three scum left. Let's also assume for a fraction of a second that Rancid/Mastin vs. AP was "scum theater". (No.) You think that a scumteam of Rancid, Mastin, AP, and Clyton would be possible?
Furthermore, given that theoretical scumteam:
You think that we (possessing daytalk, no less) decide to bus the shit out of one another, when Rancid and AP both have past history of reading me correctly, and vice-versa, meaning that if we mutually townread each other, it would be a nigh-unstoppable 3-player bloc? And also interact with Clyton the way we have, basically 'pinning' him as a reserve candidate?

It doesn't add up. My plans as scum might be masterful, they might be beautifully crafted, they might and often do span the entire course of the game...
...But if there's one thing about my plans that is consistent is that as scum, they are also gorgeously

simple

. The more convoluted, contrived plans violate every piece of essence-de-scuMastin. Because complicated plans? Are complicated, and in a game BUILT on randomness and unexpectedness...they are near-guaranteed to fail. And while it's true that my backup plans have backup plans...they all stem from the same basic, simple, easily-implemented (and most importantly, easily-

adjusted

) path that I build from my mind.

How do you think things went in the mafia QT? "Oh, hey, Rancid, we're scum together. Let's buddy one another and attack Titan and F-16. They'll never expect scum to go so hard against them so soon. Oh, and Clyton and Hawk? No offense, but if you don't bring your A-game, I'm going to bus your asses.
*AP replaces in*
...Awesomesauce. Hey, AP, we should totally crossbus each other. Scum theater would make the game far more confusing for everyone involved, and whoever won would end up looking better as a result of that. Unfortunately, you'll probably lose, since Rancid and I kinda have this thing together, and, well, two against one. But it'll look impressive all the same!"
"Umm...that's probably a bad idea."
*I blatantly ignore AP saying it's a bad idea*
"MASTIN, STOP."
*I don't*
"Okay, FINE. We'll do it your way. Just don't expect me to let up."
"Trust me, this will work!"
"Yeah, but you're discarding me. We could always force a mislynch in the last minute."
"True, true. Nobody would suspect we're scum distancing, not after that intense fight we just had, only to switch at the last minute onto town. But who, and how?" (There's basically no way for you to think we're both scum and not think we-as-scum would be well aware people would notice.)
"How 'bout PV?"
"Sure, but I don't think I can lead into it."
"I can!"

Like. I'm trying to make that dialog as realistic as I can. To be as close to what a scum us would do in this hypothetical scenario, and, well...it just doesn't fit. In a different scumteam, maybe something similar to this I could say. But the guiding factor of my scumplay is that it is contextually-dependent, on the circumstances. And given an AP-me scumteam, I NEVER would discard it, especially not for some weak-ass wifomy thing that all it'd take is "lol, scum theater" to blow apart.

...Oh, and speaking of plans. That's something that is also a founding fundamental aspect of my scum play. I have a plan. I ALWAYS have a plan as scum. And if I get a chance to execute my plan, it never fails. Perhaps it falls short of working; I didn't win Attack on Titan in spite of my plan. But my plan got us DAMN close, because I laid out a clear path to victory, which got us to 4p mylo easily enough. My plan relied on us buddying each other. My plan relied on scum surviving. My plan relied on us living, but having JUST enough distance, JUST enough of a gap between us, that IF we were to fall, that we'd have a chance. My lynch was sad, but ultimately, I had specifically avoided giving the town information. I played sub-par as scum to avoid giving away my plan. (Also kinda did that in Pick Your Poison.) So when I was lynched, it didn't lead back to my buddies. Pasch (in large part thanks to me) had a similar outcome--he got lynched, but didn't condemn BRO.

My plan was to have us all win...but my backup plan was to have it so that IF I died, and IF Pasch died, that BROseidon had an excellent chance at winning the game...which he did. He almost pulled it off. It was what I had intended from the beginning of my posting. I set it up instantly, and made only minimal adjusting as the game progressed.

Anything Goes was the same way--my plan was to have us all defend each other, as a scumbloc-appearing-as-townbloc. It didn't work, but it certainly helped us on our path to victory. I set out a plan, from the very beginning, dictating how things would do. And, yes, there were a couple of deviations (e.g. not killing DGB early, using our scum powers differently than I had intended), but for the most part, the plan I laid out at the beginning was uncannily accurate to what happened in the game, perfectly predicting the flow of events if I executed my intended plan--while I did augment my original plan with further plans throughout the game, the original plan still held that guideline to victory.

They were simple. Largely player-dependent, having done analysis on them. Knowing their strengths and weaknesses as players. (Note that in Attack on Titan, I didn't do this immediately--I did it only when I was settled down and had been more exposed to each member.) And knowing the overall vibe, of both the scumteam and the town. And with my proposed plan (a simple plan detailed elaborately but easily summed up by one sentence: "hardcore buddy each other"), leading to victory...which it did.

...What's my master plan this game?
Spam the town to death in scum theater, hoping that apathy would take hold and that nothing I did would have consequences and nobody would bother to think about the possibility of it being scum theater? That's not a plan. That's an action. Which is part of the plan. Again, that's the simplest way I can think of saying it. Playing the best advocate for that train of thought as I can, simplifying it as much as I can to the most realistic portrayal that I can...and even then...it simply doesn't mesh well.

It's not my style in general, and certainly not my style for this game. I KNOW players. I KNOW what strings to pull in order to manipulate them into doing what I want them to do. That's the essence of my scumplay, too. Not manipulating them into thinking I'm town. (Though that's often a part of it, admittedly.) Of them doing what I direct them to do, with their actions ultimately benefiting me.


...That was a little more long-winded than I had intended it to be. But basically, the point I was getting at:
It really, really seems like you're pulling random things together, and not thinking about whether they make sense together or not. (Which is, by the way, what players actually need to catch the real scuMastin's plans. A head for the bigger-picture stuff.)

I would strongly urge you to reconsider your thoughts. ESPECIALLY since I am advocating a lynch on AP right now rather than PV. But more than that, your townreads basically HAVE to have scum in them. Even if Rancid were to be scum (they're not, they are oh SO not scum), it'd be a requirement.

Are you guys going to want my notes to be posted

Very much so, yes.

I'd actually be interested in seeing Kagura's thoughts.

See, sure. Listen, no. Because Kagura's going to tell you I'm town.

[CarbonFiber]

Mastin, humor me what would you do if you were scum, then in this playerlist? Give me a brief outline on how you would evaluate the players, who you kill, who you would try to mislynch etc assuming the game played out the way it did D1.

[MastinSSK]

It's not my style in general, and certainly not my style for this game.

By the way, point on this that I'd also like to bring up (mostly at pie). As scum, when town players have meltdowns, I explicitly post messages in the scum QT essentially saying, "I feel kinda bad for them. <3 *playerwhomelteddown*." I did it in Anything Goes, feeling sorry for BROseidon and AP being right about the entire scumteam but ultimately ignored, and in-thread, I didn't bother to post anything about it after that. I didn't attack their character, their person, anything, and really didn't call them wrong. All I did was call them scum.

Same sort of thing happened in Chain of Command, too. Wisdom nailed the scumteam D2, but got mislynched. I called him scum, and got that mislynch, but I felt terrible for it because he was right and was mislynched for it. In-thread, same basic deal. I did not call him something like, I dunno, "a worthless piece of shit", who was a terrible player that shouldn't play. Those kinds of attacks go against the very fundamentals of my scum honor code, because I respect my worthy opponents. I misdirect the town away from their correct results, of course, because I need to win, still. But I never would stoop to such a low as to say something along those lines as scum.

As scum? I will take the whole thing calmly, for the most part. They're right, so when they're right? I find it very difficult to pretend otherwise. I take it casually. I will be fairly relaxed about the whole thing. I might invoke a raised voice if it's convenient, but during the whole ordeal, I am doing one of two things: trying to get them mislynched, or trying to get them to stop lynching me. But I don't do so with backhanded tactics. I'm upfront about it, attacking them as being scum, or if I'm townreading them, begging them to reconsider.

That's my scumplay under pressure.

Know what my townplay is under pressure? I could give you a long list of things done in various town games like house party, illustrate various language differences, maybe demonstrate it by talking about its tie to my instinctive-omgus to players-I-thought-wouldn't-misread-me-but-are, yet I think there's one sentence that perfectly above all treats me having been under pressure:
"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?"

(And now watch people point out that I'm being calm and that it makes me scum. Regrettably, I have no defense against that other than that they'd be wrong, to look at the rest of the game, and that I'm trying to take a more mature approach, all of which as a defense...kinda sucks. )

I am going to say this one more time, please stop spamming the thread. You are making the game harder to sift through.

You intend on mislynching me. I don't have a choice.

I'd actually very much like to hear from Kagura, Orc, Clyton, and Titan.

Clyton and Titan are busy, and have a QT to talk in. We'll get the results later. Kagura I don't need to hear from and you shouldn't, either; you know what I'm saying about them is true. You're right about Orc, though.

[MastinSSK]

Mastin, humor me what would you do if you were scum, then in this playerlist? Give me a brief outline on how you would evaluate the players, who you kill, who you would try to mislynch etc assuming the game played out the way it did D1.

Sure thing, but I'm about to take a shower. I'll be back in ~1 hour (Yes, I take hour long-showers;

you

try washing hair that long and doing it in less time. ), and will write it then. (Well, I might respond to posts made after this one first, but will begin immediately after that.)

[MastinSSK]

Slight disclaimer, though:
Me detailing my thoughts as scum is going to be imperfect, since, well. I don't have scumbuddies. I don't know who they are. So I won't be able to paint a precise picture.

[The Fox and the Hound]

Are you guys going to want my notes to be posted

Um, duh?

re Mastin vote: We've talked it over a little bit. I still feel conflicted about the slot while DV still leans scum on it. We're both pretty strapped for scumreads. I don't know how I feel about the fact that Mastin ceasing to tunnel on me happened pretty much right after I decided to stop tunneling on her, while we remain in the scum group (possibly so we can be moved back if I changed my mind). Part of me has a hard time believing the massive level of noise coming from Mastin can actually be scum. Ultimately, I don't intend to move the vote. I'm partially deferring here because I don't feel like there is much of anyone I actually want to lynch, and partially giving in to my still-present paranoia even though I would honestly still call it a town lean at this point. Also, as much as I hate this kind of logic, I feel as though sorting through the rest of the game will become less impossible with less noise. Usually I would object to using that as anything approaching a reason, but I've also literally never seen a player produce so much noise ever. Personally, I didn't read most of her posts on this page, and I don't really do that.

[Red Gyarados]

Heads up, they'll be long. I'll have them all spoiled seperately, but it'll be really long. I'm done 5 of the ISOs atm (I'm not doing deadlings) and once that's done I'm going to read the game as a piece and compare my thoughts (I'll have my reads prior, my reads after the game, and my final reads as seperate lists).

[MastinSSK]

Back a little early. It's morning showers that take an hour; this one took fifteen minutes less since I'm actually awake.

Before I begin, though, another note on the "WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?" bit that's in my towngames and not in my scumgames. I realized in the shower that it actually is basically a universal truth to my towngames, and has been even when I was a VI.

I mean, just in the shower, I thought of examples. A newbie game I IC'd as scum, my attitude towards scumreads on me in-thread was "meh" and out-of-thread was, "WOW!" (Wisdom was one, and Vic--who now has a Rising Star nom--was another.) My reaction to suspicion on me as a town IC was one F-16 is all too familiar with, since he was the primary target, alongside another player.
I was emotionally compromised, sure, yeah, and it was a newbie game so it wasn't as blatant, but if you read that game, you'd see my description of the scumreads on me is accurate.

In Game of Champions, the werewolf superstar of their site was someone I had pegged as having a similar playstyle to that of my own, so when their thoughts contradicted my own and they scumread me, my reaction was essentially just that: "WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?"

In JFSF Mafia 2, as a town Joat with a cop-guilty, ABR pushed my mislynch over the Magua-result, and while I had previously townread him, I got paranoia and thought, "WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?" (There were other players that game I had that same thought about, too, but don't remember. Maybe DGB?)

In House Party, I had that attitude towards ETL, BROseidon, Desperado, Jake, AND Titus, if memory serves me. Where I essentially said, explicitly, "It's most certainly NOT on my end, so...WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?"

And reminiscing about my games as a VI, where I always thought the problem was on their end rather than mine...I launched into long-winded rants when being mislynched about, "WHAT THE FREAKIN' HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?" (I didn't use curse words back then. )
And I don't remember those kinds of rants from my scumgames. The closest I can remember is Emerald City, which was multiscum (thus, I was playing much like town). I don't think any of my scumgames really had it. Oh, I got ticked off, alright, but I don't think it was nearly the same in my towngames.

I'm sure that if I bothered to put in the effort, that tell would be a constant, throughout all my games, as town having that reaction and as scum, not having it.
...In fact, that might be it. THE golden holy grail of reading Mastin. A scum Mastin can put up a good act, and might get ticked off about shitty reasons for being scumread, but cannot. Physically, literally. Cannot get ticked off at the actual scumread itself. Because it's ultimately right. Frustrating, sure. Wishing the scumread could be shook, sure. But ultimately still impressed, even if annoyed.
I think that's the description of my scumplay more than any other. It captures the artificial feeling. It also describes "lack of whimsy", because a scum me can't react in a "WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?" (whimsy) way to others, holding that deep respect. And it's also why a scum me tends to be more logical--because I can't think like that, to have that emotion, I also am driven to compensate by looking better in other ways, logic a strong factor.

That's it. It might manifest in different ways each scumgame. It certainly manifests in different ways each towngame. But more than any other thing...I can tell: that's it. And knowing it, you'd think that I could manipulate it. But I can't. Because I know myself, and know my morals. I know how I think, I know that I have that conscience, that humanity, creating a psychological block preventing me from nullifying the tell.
I'm sure as scum that I'll get much, much better at hiding the tell, and faking its counterpart. I'm sure that I'll find ways to obscure it, work around it, misdirect people into thinking that the tell says I'm town. That's a simple piece of scum play, to get better at mimicking your town play, by understanding its factors and being able to replicate them, after all, in a convincing enough matter that it's 99% the same (not quite 100%--you need the 1% to account for playing-to-scum-wincon).
But the tell will never cease to exist.

I don't know how I feel about the fact that Mastin ceasing to tunnel on me happened pretty much right after I decided to stop tunneling on her, while we remain in the scum group (possibly so we can be moved back if I changed my mind).

Because the way you went to reconsider your read on me looked town, and me beginning to be in the "oh, shit, I've fucked up" stage of maturing (recognizing that I've made mistakes), I began to rethink that read. (Still am, btw.) So you're right that you directly triggered the read change.

Part of me has a hard time believing the massive level of noise coming from Mastin can actually be scum.

That actually ties into the recognition of my tell, believe it or not. As scum, I won't be spamming the shit out of the thread, specifically because if I'm in a hole, I need to make sure I get out of it and turn it around. (Unless of course I want to obscure something from the town. Then drowning them in noise is a legitimate tactic.) I'll have a back-and-forth with players scumreading me, but it's focused on exactly the factors I described: getting them to change their read on me, or trying to mislynch them. I pursue no other options as scum.

As town, I have no clue whether the person attacking me is scum. So I'm pulling double-duty, potentially triple-duty, in that I not only have to try and get them off, not only have to figure out their alignment, but ALSO if I feel them scum try and push that. And the results are amplified exponentially by the closeness of the person to me plus the number of people with this attitude, making my posting rate skyrocket. I've had scumgames be plenty active, and towngames be lackluster, but only to a certain point. After crossing that, you can tell. Scumgames have a focus on achieving a specific goal, funneling information (this is basically one of the largest aspects of my scumgame: controlling the flow of info so that it says what I want it to say), which is often most helpful with reduced activity, whereas towngames have no focus at all, other than taking what essentially amounts to shots in the dark and hoping they hit scum.

Also, as much as I hate this kind of logic, I feel as though sorting through the rest of the game will become less impossible with less noise.

The noise from my slot has exponentially decreased since page three in my iso began, because I'm beginning to focus on factors. Basically every post of mine (aside from some fluff) contains content that is relevant and often new, and is pushing slowly in a specific direction. (Towards AP.)

Soyeah, will be doing F-16's request now.

[MastinSSK]

(...Though you'd never know I was back early since that post took half an hour to type. )

[The Fox and the Hound]

I can squint and make out a cupcake/mastinssk team, maybe. I dunno.

I haven't really thought about teams, but thinking about it, Cupcake if scum has had pretty much no impact on the game so could probably be scum with anybody.

[MastinSSK]

Note that the opinions listed below are basically my best guess at what I would have said as scum, at the time. Obviously, things are different now, butyeah.

First off, I'd run through the playerlist, listing things about them.

1 Kagura (borkjerfkin + nachomamma8)
^Something like, "Dunno 'bout bork, but Nacho? Nacho needs to die. Probably not immediately--I'm competent enough that short-term, I

can

fool him. But only short-term. I cannot maintain that ruse throughout the whole game. Not even remotely close. And when that townread turns to a scumread...it's all over. Because while we're both charismatic players...he's always been ahead of me on that curb. Last time, it didn't work well for me; this time, won't work any better. Soyeah, nightkill. Probably N1 or N2."

2 The Fox and the Hound (cephrir and DV)
^Not exactly sure, but it'd probably be something like this. "I don't really know either of their towngames that well. I know DV's a fairly-rounded player, but not particularly spectacular; I remember him being mediocre, not particularly good. Cephrir, I've basically only seen as scum. I know he's competent as scum, but that can probably be turned against him, a-la AFB-style."

3 Yukari Yakumo
^Well, I know it's GIF now, but speaking from a scum-me, I likely wouldn't, since I don't really pay attention to that sort of thing. It'd be something like, "Dunno who they are, but they look mislynchable." If a scumbuddy told me it was GIF, then I'd probably clarify. "Oh. Well, then. In that case? Don't really remember much of him. Probably still a fairly easy mislynch, since what I've seen of GIF is that he's kinda lurkish, meaning that in a game filled with more charismatic players, he'll probably be in the bottom. In a different game, sure, yeah, maybe he'd be a top scumhunter, but here...not so much."

4 orcinus_theoriginal
^Likely akin to, "orc's not a particularly noteworthy player. He's in games, kinda just there, and while he's okay, he's not particularly memorable. Additionally, he just won our last game, so he can probably be mislynched off of paranoia."

5 Titan (Tammy + Sir Arthur Dane)
^Honestly, not sure what I'd say as scum. Best guess is something like this. "Dunno about SAD, but Tammy? We want her on our good side. She gets on our bad side, we're probably screwed. She's a strong player, logical and convincing. If there weren't other nightkills that had higher priority, I'd probably suggest nightkilling her off of just policy alone." Or something akin to that, since it'd be likely similar to my AoT analysis, just...well, taking the results of AoT and the current playerlist into account.

6 Rancid Broderick Drake (zmuffinman and natirasha)
^Easy. "KILL IT. KILL IT WITH *insert theme-appropriate mafia kill flavor here*. I cannot fool zMuffinman. Literally, can NOT. He WILL catch me, and the best we can do is hope that he doesn't catch you three. I want him dead immediately, since the longer he lives, the more dangerous he will become. And Natirasha's no slouch, either! Nati might not be as good at reading me, specifically, as zMuff is, but helps to focus zMuff a LOT. Like, zMuff by himself is good, but kinda scatterbrained. zMuff with Nati keeps the good, but gets focused. There's no player here that I fear more than zMuff, and with Nati there to augment (rather than weaken) him, they need to die."

8 Breakfast With Stalin (Hydra of ffery and beli)
^Also a little bit harder to pin down for sure. But the basic would probably be something like this, I guess. "ffery's a fairly competent scumhunter, who is logical, reasonable, and decent at working with others. She's never been mislynched that I can think of, and add in those charisma and analytical skills, and she alone makes the hydra formidable. Don't really remember Beli that well, but unless he drags her down (I doubt it), my analysis hasn't changed--in a different game, our first nightkill. This game, we'll have to hope she's off-base for long enough to get to her, since there's other priorities that I want dead first." I might reference the ffery-Nacho dynamic, too, but I'm not sure how I would or where I would.

ElementalHawk (Prohawk+3dicerolling)
^Also easy. I don't remember the exact start date of the game, so I'm not sure when my victory over him in Malakittens's modded game was. If I hadn't won there, yet, I wouldn't make it explicit, but implicit. If I had, then it'd basically be saying, "Don't know about dice, but ProHawk? He's an easy mislynch. He's not exactly a strong scumhunter, and lacks in charisma, making him easy to target. Though, that might be bad, since it'll also mean he's likely to get the 'mac treatment', in that anyone knowing he's an easy mislynch is likely to defend him."

10 Carbon Fiber (FourTrouble and F16)
^Another easy one. "F-16 is a dangerously-competent scumhunter, who is decently charismatic. I'm his teacher, and trust me: you don't want to fuck with him. He is NOT to be underestimated. If we can get on his good side, then we can keep him around for a while, but otherwise, we need him dead."

11 Lord Business
^Also easy. "Dunno who LB is; I don't recognize the name. That makes them a high wildcard. They could be a scumhunting god, they could be absolutely and utterly incompetent. I simply don't know. Be on guard for them being dangerous, especially in a role madness game. But all other factors equal, they're probably going to end up mislynched, so plan accordingly."

12 Just Sheep Us (Broseidon and Desperado)
^I legitimately don't have a clue what I'd say about them as scum. Like. I'm trying to force something, here. I can fake a scum narrative on a number of things fairly decently. (A lot of the above fits fairly well, though I'm sure the actual scum me would be much more long-winded and take several posts to have it all, rather than having it all in one.) But I have absolutely nothing. Oh, I'd say something about them, no doubt. I always comment on all the players when I comment on them, and I comment on the players basically every game as scum, ESPECIALLY given daychat. But I'm coming up empty.

Like. I don't have anything. At all. Not even a fake thing. Last game I tried this fake-scum-list on, I encountered a similar problem, in that there was a player who I wasn't sure what I'd say as scum, but threw together 'probably something referencing this or that or whatnot', even though I knew that probably wasn't actually true. But I'm drawing a blank even on that. I really can't think about what I'd say. I mean, I suppose as scum, it's possible that means I'd say something like, "I don't know what to say", but I'd have something. Maybe "don't underestimate them, but also don't overestimate them"? Maybe in the potential mislynch pile? I really have no clue. The majority of my time in the shower was thinking about this, and I still don't have it.

13 Red Gyarados (Brian Skies and notscience)
^Another easy one. "While both players are decent, they are not strong, especially relevant to the rest of this playerlist. They are not a threat. They lack charisma, and aren't very strong scumhunters. Annoyingly, notscience will probably obvtown himself such that they're impossible to mislynch, and if he does, don't bother trying; you'll look like scum for the attempt. But if he doesn't, mislynch away. They might possess a mild danger to some other scumteam, but in this game with this playerbase, not so much."

14 Cupcake Panda
^You'd think that I'd go on about Katsuki, but no, I didn't know Cupcake Panda was Kats, so it'd be another "Dunno, so wildcard" type read. I imagine if my scumbuddies clarified, though, it'd become, "Oh. In that case...Katsuki is likely to lurk as town. Probably not a good idea to push a mislynch of, since Kats will become seen as town and pushing there is hella-scummy. However, Katsuki provides us with perfect vig-bait. Certainly not a threat."

15 PeregrineV
^A bit tougher, but overall, I'd say something like this, I suppose. "PV's strength lies in the late-game. If he gets that far, is analysis is dangerously right-on-the-money. Before then, however, he's, well, he's kinda a lurker. Push at your own risk. If you get a mislynch, it's good, but know that if he lives too long, he'll switch from mislynch-bait into deadly scumhunter. Which he's more inclined to do when heavily pressured."

16 Clyton
^Another simple, "Dunno, could be dangerous" type read. I'm not sure what the exact wording would be, and it'd also requiring me to go back to that time thinking as scum and being aware of Clyton. Like, now I know Clyton's experienced elsewhere but plays on here in a way that isn't best said as being a newb, in spite of being new. If I knew that, I'd have a different answer than if I thought he was a newb or if I thought him an alt, but I can't remember my knowledge level and even if I could, my knowledge level as town is different than as scum.

17 Mac
^A scum-me's treatment of Mac is...complex. I know Mac's a fairly competent player, who is easily defended against being mislynched by those who know him, but I also know that he's a bit on the lurkish side and can garner suspicion. So my read there would likely factor those in, and essentially say, "Basically the only player here that I know who's still best defined as a wildcard; might be worth pushing, but don't be surprised if it backfires."


All of those would form into a general strategy, I'm sure. I'm not precisely sure what the specifics would be. Again, it largely depends on who my scumbuddies would be. But I think my general strategy as scum from the onset would be something akin to,
"This is going to be a tough game. There are a lot of town players here who know each other fairly intimately. So we'll win it by creating paranoia. We can't let townblocs form; we have to let the town tear itself apart. Which also means that we have to not give them hints as to who we are. I know, it's predictable. People have gotten used to it from me, making invoking it dangerous. But I really, really think that we can NOT bus, here. We need to be making essentially our own bloc, because if we succeed, then we'll make the strongest force in the game be the scum players together.

It's a huge gamble, especially in role madness. But my experience with role madness as scum has been that bussing has gone very badly. The scum's roles are meant to interfere with the town's roles, meaning we need each and every single one of them alive as long as possible to screw with the town's strengths and break them up during the night just as much as during the day. The town won't be working together, so if the scum ARE working together, it'll give us the edge."

Meaning that as scum, I'd focus on townreading my scumbuddies and buddying them, while sabotaging efforts for town to work with town. Though there are elements in my play that can be taken that way, it most certainly doesn't fit that mold overall, because my play hasn't been to a plan; my play has been to my own tune.


WHEN AP REPLACED IN:
Assuming AP as town?
"Oh, fuck. Change in plans. We're killing AP N1. NO EXCEPTIONS. I don't give a damn what you think about others. zMuffinman's SOMEHOW misreading me right now, but also being scumread; I'd rather risk facing that read turning around than face AP. We do NOT want him figuring me out. zMuffinman can (normally) read me well, but kinda sucks at figuring out my scumbuddies. AP, on the other hand, has the accuracy of zMuffinman...but thinks almost exactly like I do. Meaning that he WILL figure our plans out. We need him dead. Immediately. His read may not be as strong as others, but he needs to die pronto."

Assuming AP as scum?
"Fuck yeah, game's won. AP, I'm here this game. At my absolute 100%. Give it your all, and we can STEAMROLL this town." No more words need be spoken if I was scum with AP, since when I'm in the game, we have this synchronization that is basically impossible to beat.

WHEN PIE REPLACED IN:
...There probably wouldn't be so much as a ping. I'd be focused on other factors. Like, I suppose I can figure out what a scum-me choosing to focus on pie would say, but I simply think that, bluntly, a scum-me wouldn't really pay attention to that at all.

I can't track the N1 results, since I haven't a damn clue what actually happened. I can tell you I wouldn't janitor Rancid, but that's about all.


There's probably more I could add, but this is as good as a scum-picture me as I can generate given that I'm not actually scum, don't actually have the full picture, and thus, don't actually have the full answers for the full interactions I'd make. It's definitely different from what I've done thusfar in the game, though.

[The Fox and the Hound]

I know DV's a fairly-rounded player, but not particularly spectacular; I remember him being mediocre, not particularly good.

Is this referring to me as town, scum or both?

[notscience]

I seriously want to lynch mastin for that last post because it felt like "lets potshot everyone on the playerlist so they start infighting because they think others actually think of them like that"

[AngryPidgeon]

I seriously want to policy lynch mastin for that all her posts because it felt like "if I keep posting endless amounts of walls ...well who knows what Im trying to accomplish, Im going to just keep posting walls because fuck it."

ftfy

[Yggdra Union]

Probably still a fairly easy mislynch

And yet I've been mislynched only 3 times throughout my mafiascuk career

[Yggdra Union]

Why can't mastin post like me

[Yggdra Union]

Like, in 3930, all he had to say was "you don't think like me. Try to think like me." and it probably would've said the same thing.

[Cabd]

Fuck it I'm bumping a few times.

[Yulia Jue]

Deal with it

[Cabd]

Or don't