Open 581: Making Friends and Enemies! (Game over)

[Whatisswag]

Ok I will wait for LR's opinion on that.

[elleheathen]

You're ignoring the entire context of Ranger's D1 play with respect to her stated suspicions:

- Ranger replaces in, and immediately does into a hard elle push.

- Followed by declaring awesome/Mala scum based on one (valid) point (Post 419).

- But only "Think<s> of switching there," nothing more.

- Unvotes elle in Post 453, but doesn't go to her next suspicion awesome/Mala. Even though in Post 439 Ranger was "debating between Elle and Awesome as the better lynch today."

- Then finds Kaboose scum, "probably with Elle," even though Ranger had already unvoted elle and thus suggesting Ranger's elle suspicions weren't exactly up to par any more (Post 472). This is confirmed in Post 517 when Ranger states "Elle could be town. Her latest posts felt townish." Weird that Ranger goes from elle to Kaboose, rather than elle to awesome/Mala.

- All the more weird for the lack of an awesome vote because in Post 524 Ranger states "Awesome could be scum if you <elle> are town." Ranger was reading elle to be townish (Post 517), which would undercut her associative suspicions of Kaboose and bolster her disassociative suspicions of awesome - thereby leading to an awesome/Mala vote. Not a Kaboose vote.

- No mention of awesome again for remainder of D1.

- Does mention awesome's replacement, Mala, all the way in Post 728. Simply declares: "Malakittens is town. Now to wait for the other replacements (who hopefully will also make their alignments apparent)." Careful - reading Ranger's posts will give you pretty big whiplash as she changes the slot from her biggest scum read to "apparent" town.

- Ranger then proceeds to get dismissive-defensive about the reason and quickness of her Mala read (Post 733, Post 739, Post 741). Also, successfully makes the conversation about something else by attacking someone who had problems with her Mala read (me) (Post 741, Post 743, Post 744, Post 753).


CONCLUSION: If Mala is town, Ranger is a possible buddy. Laid out some suspicions that will look good should awesome/Mala get lynched - "look, I suspected that scum!" - but simply refuses to actually follow through on those suspicions w/r/t awesome, and then when Mala replaces in shifts the read 180 degrees for no real justification (also recall that Heartless noted that Mala was doing the exact same thing that Ranger found suspicious about awesome - fencesitting - and so Ranger's read shouldn't have changed) and attacks her attackers.

Yes. But that reads as a lot of reasons why LR is scum, with Mala as association scum.
So why Mala as opposed to LR?

[Green Crayons]

Mala lynch because the slot's contribution - both awesome and Mala - amounts to fencesitting and lurking. Plus, Mala's D1 play is coextensive with scum not wanting to be on a town lynch (this does not make Mala scum, but it explains why Mala-scum would have acted the way Mala did on D1).

Also, I disagree that my case on Ranger being a buddy with Mala-scum shows why Ranger is scum independent of Mala's alignment. I don't know what the scum motivation would be behind Ranger's weird play directed toward the slot. (I'm all ears, though.) I don't really like making cases based on a hypothetical flip, but it appears to be the only thing that persuades swag, so that's why I laid it out today instead of after Mala flips.

That said, I

do

think that Ranger has some scummy actions independent of Mala's alignment. I touched on it at the end of yesterday, and I think some of it coincides with the Mala-And-Ranger buddy case (e.g., attacking attackers to displace suspicion). But Ranger is also being an evasive, patronizing asshole towards me, and so I don't know whether that is biasing my read on her. So I would really like it if someone who I think whose scum alignment would strengthen the case against Ranger, and therefore quiet my uncertainties about any bias I might have, would get flipped first.

That said x2, if folks want to lynch Ranger first, I'm down.

[Green Crayons]

Also, I disagree that my case on Ranger being a buddy with Mala-scum shows why Ranger is scum independent of Mala's alignment. I don't know what the scum motivation would be behind Ranger's weird play directed toward the slot

if the awesome/Mala slot is town

. (I'm all ears, though.) I don't really like making cases based on a hypothetical flip, but it appears to be the only thing that persuades swag, so that's why I laid it out today instead of after Mala flips.

Corrected for clarification.

[davesaz]

I read the last day+ and it added confusion. Must take family to appointments, will have to reread later.

[Titus]

I am leaning towards Mala being mislynch bait at this point. She has been vla for some time with her family. Turning the attention towards a lurker player when we have active scum in Swag open is a ploy I have seen quite a few times. It is further justified by cannot have in Lylo etc. while such lynches can be useful, those are better when we cannot agree on a scum read late game.

Grib would be my next choice in scum. He was pushing hard for Elle's lynch yesterday and now he's taking a back seat on things. It makes me wonder what changed. Did he find Elle to be ugly change and then stop? On the other hand, the town Von I play with tends to be more reserved. I am not as confident in Grib scum but I would not cry if he got lynched.

Lord Ranger and I need to interact for me to read him. He has been active but I read people by talks ng to them.

Green Crayons, while I think he is being an idiot, I doubt he is scum. I see his thought processes, I just disagree with him. Given LR is a null read for me at the moment, I would like to see what shakes out there.

[Heartless]

I am leaning towards Mala being mislynch bait at this point. She has been vla for some time with her family. Turning the attention towards a lurker player when we have active scum in Swag open is a ploy I have seen quite a few times. It is further justified by cannot have in Lylo etc. while such lynches can be useful, those are better when we cannot agree on a scum read late game.

haha, what?

titus, nobody said we can't have mala in lylo. YOU were the one that said we can't have swag in lylo.

We should be lynching Swag. Even in the worst instance (meaning that we all perceived his claim to be fake when it wasn't), we get a confirmed scum in Kaboose. If we mislynch Kaboose, then we don't get a confirmed scum in Swag as he'll just say "obvious fake claim for reaction. lolz".

That's not the 'worst instance'. If it were actually that, losing a mason who has already served their purpose is not a worst instance situation when it guarantees us a scum lynch.

The worst instance situation is swag actually being town and lying about the mason claim. Because. That's just fucking stupid.

Then we remove a threat to us losing a lylo.

[Heartless]

also your argument that mala is lynchbait b/c ppl are "turning the attention" to her
doesn't
mesh up w/ your GC townread b/c i'm p sure he's the only one making a concerted effort against her right now

[Heartless]

turns out, i didn't use "concerted" correctly in the above post b/c... you know, brain is 80% pig shit.

point is that gc is the only one really leaning on mala right now

[Heartless]

Working theory

Reviewing the game, I have townreads on: davesaz, CptPicard, Whatisswag, and elleheathen. These are very unlikely to change any time soon.

As I said before, Whatisswag's style makes him inherently difficult to read, but I this it's a lot more likely he's town than not. In the center of all the chaos that is Whatisswag's ISO, there's a distinct absence of an agenda or goal he's working towards. In some of the previous scum games he linked to earlier, you could see the same spam style posting, but it was all tied together in a cohesive way and it usually served to get something he wanted. Indeed, some of the things he posts would be contradictory to a scum agenda in nature, for example Post 50. He states that the masons should try to recruit an active player and then proceeds to be the top poster as scum? I think it's much more likely he's overzealous town who wants to be recruited. I also think Post 226 is much more likely to come from town than scum. It's clear and cogent, and the flow of the writing suggests an underlying confidence that I think it would be hard for scum to counterfeit. I'm kind of wondering how exactly Titus levels the charge of "no content" when that's clearly not the case.

I'm left with:
Grib, MalaKittens, Kaboose, Green Crayons, Lone Ranger, Titus

Malakittens is the key slot here because it dominoes into the other key ones: Green Crayons, Kaboose, and Lone Ranger. Lone Ranger would be close to a town read, but Anti picked up on his entrance being kind of crappy and I felt the same way. If I had to pinpoint it, I would say it has to do with Lone Ranger's relatively weak vote and push on elle.

Green Crayons is a very problematic slot for me because, while individual posts make enough sense, his opinions and votes over the game don't track well. In particular, his read on elle when she was being wagoned always seemed to have some sort of lingering doubt over it though Green Crayons himself never acknowledged this himself and it doesn't look like there's a clear effort to resolve this doubt. I'm also a little lost on the purpose and the direction of the logic thread in GC's ISO because it feels like the reads should be getting more refined as we go along and they seem oddly stagnant and skeletal. Take Day 1, for instance. There's wall upon wall but the best scum reads, and incidentally the ones that got the votes, that came out of it were apparently: ILoveFairies, davesaz, and NJAC. None of those cases were very well supported and I certainly don't see any reason why it took priority over the peaking elle wagon. The vote always ends up in the crevices of the vote counts and that really bothers me.

[Titus]

@Heartless, that's wrong, you've been stating that Mala is possibly scum. Swag's been stating it. GC's been stating it. It all happens after I busted Swag. I don't believe in coincidences. I also find your townreading the four jumpers off. If you think Elle is town, then the logical conclusion to draw from the two ending day one wagons is that scum bailed after trying to mislynch Elle to another safe mislynch. Yet, your analysis ignores that completely.

I think 50 is good for a scum nature. First, it basically helps scum kill the mason recruit targets. Doubly so if his buddies tend to lurk. Plus, the scum can target people who agree with him for the night kill. We already lost a mason. Who was hunting the masons but for WhatSwag?

#226, Confidence hard to fake? Really? There's no hunting there. I'm just as "confident" Swag is scum but I actually have reasons and have devoted the time to explaining them. Swag just cries "useless".



As for GC read, I'll work backwards. Get me a scum lynch and we can determine whether or not GC's votes were placed appropriately. Scum can be determined by who they value over others. In the abstract, it means nothing. However, Green Crayons is not a confident type player. He's slower, more reserved. I tend to be that way until I catch a scum myself. I actually have a problem with someone having consistent reads getting stronger throughtout which is what you would be expecting from GC. You said NJAC (a major scumread of his) flipped town. That should cause a player to reasses. AS such, his logic should appear to be going backwards until he sees what the problem is.

[Titus]

Also, I disagree that my case on Ranger being a buddy with Mala-scum shows why Ranger is scum independent of Mala's alignment. I don't know what the scum motivation would be behind Ranger's weird play directed toward the slot

if the awesome/Mala slot is town

. (I'm all ears, though.) I don't really like making cases based on a hypothetical flip, but it appears to be the only thing that persuades swag, so that's why I laid it out today instead of after Mala flips.

Corrected for clarification.

Swag cannot be persuaded because he's scum my dear. See the light.

[Titus]

I do agree with one thing. Elleheathen is 100% town.

[Heartless]

If you think Elle is town, then the logical conclusion to draw from the two ending day one wagons is that scum bailed after trying to mislynch Elle to another safe mislynch. Yet, your analysis ignores that completely.

We've already discussed this. There's no reliable way to distinguish between 11th hour town and scum votes because of how much plausible deniability deadline lynches afford. I also would hardly call what happened between the rise of the wagons "jumps." As per Post 426, the elle wagon reached it's peak on January 2nd. It slowly decayed to 2 votes by January 10th and Post 702 and you see the votes are quite spread out. The NJAC wagon arose in the last 36 hours of the day. The overlap between the elle and NJAC wagons falls on the latter votes on the NJAC wagon: Lone Ranger, davesaz, Grib, and Whatisswag.

[Green Crayons]

@Heartless:

Green Crayons is a very problematic slot for me because, while individual posts make enough sense, his opinions and votes over the game don't track well. In particular, his read on elle when she was being wagoned always seemed to have some sort of lingering doubt over it though Green Crayons himself never acknowledged this himself and it doesn't look like there's a clear effort to resolve this doubt.

Yes, I had reservations about the elle suspicions. That's why I talked to her about my suspicions, and ended up deciding against voting her. Your problem with my play is that I didn't say "hey I have some doubts about my suspicions of you, just a head's up as we go into this conversation"?

There's a balance between being open with the town and sabotaging one's suspicions. I choose not to completely undermine my suspicions.

As for "resolv<ing> this doubt," it's there if you want to look for it. Post 573 and Post 574 was the tipping point where my elle suspicions started to deflate. I was much more secure in reading elle as town by Post 659 (was phone posting at night so didn't feel like going into a blow by blow), and I made explicit this development in my elle read in Post 880 back when your other half had a hardon for calling elle scum.

I'm also a little lost on the purpose and the direction of the logic thread in GC's ISO because it feels like the reads should be getting more refined as we go along and they seem oddly stagnant and skeletal. Take Day 1, for instance. There's wall upon wall but the best scum reads, and incidentally the ones that got the votes, that came out of it were apparently: ILoveFairies, davesaz, and NJAC. None of those cases were very well supported and I certainly don't see any reason why it took priority over the peaking elle wagon.

I don't really know how to respond to your "lack of refined" criticism. Mainly because I disagree with it.

My posts explained who I thought was town, and why, and who I thought was scum, and why. I interacted with players who I thought were scum, and my opinions either shifted (Corpses, elle) or they did not (dave, Ranger). I don't know what this something "else" is that you're faulting me for failing to have done. This is just how I play the game.

Also, dave, Fairies, and NJAC votes all occurred after I started to, or had already, smoothed over my suspicions on elle. (There's a Ranger vote that was made in there, too, that you seem to ignore.) That's why they took priority over elle. She wasn't an interesting lynch when I voted elsewhere, because she was looking increasingly more town.

The vote always ends up in the crevices of the vote counts and that really bothers me.

Uh, no? That's not what happened?

I was first on Fairies, dave, and Ranger, if memory serves me correctly. If not first, certainly second, but I don't recall anyone else voting for them prior to putting down my votes.

I was third on NJAC, which is fine if you want to call that the "crevice." But it's not some habitual play I've taken up, as your stating.

[Titus]

If you think Elle is town, then the logical conclusion to draw from the two ending day one wagons is that scum bailed after trying to mislynch Elle to another safe mislynch. Yet, your analysis ignores that completely.

We've already discussed this. There's no reliable way to distinguish between 11th hour town and scum votes because of how much plausible deniability deadline lynches afford. I also would hardly call what happened between the rise of the wagons "jumps." As per Post 426, the elle wagon reached it's peak on January 2nd. It slowly decayed to 2 votes by January 10th and Post 702 and you see the votes are quite spread out. The NJAC wagon arose in the last 36 hours of the day. The overlap between the elle and NJAC wagons falls on the latter votes on the NJAC wagon: Lone Ranger, davesaz, Grib, and Whatisswag.

No we hadn't. Otherwise the conclusion is inescapable that there's scum selecting the deadline wagon.

It's a deadline wagon, if scum are active, they aren't going to pick themselves or their buddies. We can pick which one of the jumpers are scum by determining who was pushing someone who isn't a scumread.

That's the same sort of shit I do with the VCA all the time.

[Green Crayons]

Malakittens is the key slot here because it dominoes into the other key ones: Green Crayons, Kaboose, and Lone Ranger.

Then vote her.

[Titus]

GC, talk to me about your read on Swag please.

[Heartless]

Titus: I think your point that elle and NJAC's "joint wagon" has validity, but I think there's an important part of the story left out by just the vote counts.. Green Crayons was scum reading elle as per Post 484, when elle was L-2 at the time, as was Kaboose in Post 339. I consider them "joint wagoners" as much as everyone you're taking issue with.

[Green Crayons]

The problem with this game is that the main focus is on players I am reading as town. Grib, Kaboose, swag, elle. So a lot of the thread's conversation is of little value for me.

Also, there's nothing much more for me to say about my main two suspicions, Ranger and Mala. My justifications for lynching them are out there. Nobody has said much about my case (lol, Mala isn't even my case) against either, and they don't appear inclined to say much themselves. So while it'd be great for the thread to turn focus to them, that isn't happening.

[Green Crayons]

@Titus:

GC, talk to me about your read on Swag please.

His D1 play reeked of new town.
His D2 fake claim looks like town playing badly.
He was not in the position of a scum about to be lynched, and therefore his D2 fake claim doesn't strike me as being coextensive with swag being scum.

Is there anything specific about swag's play that you want me to address?

[Heartless]

Uh, no? That's not what happened?

I was first on Fairies, dave, and Ranger, if memory serves me correctly. If not first, certainly second, but I don't recall anyone else voting for them prior to putting down my votes.

I was third on NJAC, which is fine if you want to call that the "crevice." But it's not some habitual play I've taken up, as your stating.

No, that's

exactly

what happened.

When I say "crevice" I mean small, insignificant places and wagons that never took off. Places that would be hard to find if you're doing what Titus is doing right now. Fairies and dave are low profile votes.

[Green Crayons]

Oh.


lol, okay.

[Titus]

Yeah, why is his play "newb town" instead of "newb scum" when his mason fishing only helps scum? If you suppose he was boned, then would you consider his play consistent with being scum?

I want to get at these assertions and find what's wrong because you're wrong and swag is scum.

I want Lone Ranger to get on, because that's how I read people. If he doesn't come on or go v/la, I'd be down to policy lynch him. One of the "most active players" suddenly going silent when I show up and grill people does not sit well with me.

I'm pretty sure of GC/Heartless/ElleHeathen being town. Mala, I'm leaning town due to circumstances surrounding her, but nothing regarding her own play.

[Titus]

Uh, no? That's not what happened?

I was first on Fairies, dave, and Ranger, if memory serves me correctly. If not first, certainly second, but I don't recall anyone else voting for them prior to putting down my votes.

I was third on NJAC, which is fine if you want to call that the "crevice." But it's not some habitual play I've taken up, as your stating.

No, that's

exactly

what happened.

When I say "crevice" I mean small, insignificant places and wagons that never took off. Places that would be hard to find if you're doing what Titus is doing right now. Fairies and dave are low profile votes.

I've caught people in crevices. Don't worry about that. No one has fooled my VCA into making me think they are town. Don't try to force people to vote a major wagon for voting's sake unless we are headed towards an NL. Things are much better if they are "organic" decisions. (Organic is in quotes because scum are not organic).