Signs and Void (Game Over) [TM2015]

[Empire]

Empy: I was coaching him on what to do to not be a scumread, if you want to put it that way. The reason for that is even in that post: I don't want to get your slot easily murdered if you're town. I don't think it's scummy to ask someone to stop being scummy. I think if you looked carefully you would also find in my scumgames I don't talk to people I want to mindlessly wagon like they're people who could convince me otherwise. Did you not read that we already agreed not to Bane you today, which might have affected my decision more then oh noes, here comes The Empmeister?

I'm only bringing this stuff up for the benefit of my teammate. We had a hard time levelling about you last night, so let me give this another shot (and Regfan can yell at me on skype or whatever if I'm bungling this): what bothers him is the progression of posts - he thinks town-you would have stated the reasoning you laid out in #660 before moving your bane-vote over to Bulbazak. He says that you don't normally go "unvote x, vote y" and then later explain x is town, you'd explain the reasoning that prompted to vote move first. That's what leads him to believe that it looks like you're scrambling for a vote since you know I'm going to obvtown (I'm personally not sure I agree with this but I still want to know what prompted the order of posts).

I'm not voting anyone.

...but that's precisely the problem. Why

aren't

you voting, especially when your logic suggests my slot is borderline confirmed scum to you?

Empire kind of reads here as rubbing the ~effort~ in everyone's face! Scum for the emphasis on it I think!

*sigh* If I had a penny for every time I've had to hear some sort of variant of "trying too hard" as a basis for an accusation against me, I'd be able to pay off my student loans. I asked him that question because he was seemingly in the middle of trying to catch up on this game and considering that I'm his strongest scumread, you'd think he'd actually, you know, read my posts.

Also, strongly recommend you go talk to Zach and Sotty about my alignment in this game, positive they should know I'm town here.

Though I will ask you something empire. You've got confirmed town here, confirmed town of a team you know well, why aren't you trying to work with her/them? You guys have wildly different viewpoints on me, if you've actually forgotten how to read me, they have more recent games with me, have people better at reading me - though nacho I still maintain I would have fooled you in that f2f game! - and have it right with me.

Why aren't you talking to them about me?

Tammy, I literally just got here. Not counting myself, you, and ffery, there are 17 other players in this game, (almost) all of whom I have to read and make a determination about their alignments. I will work with that team in due time and on my own pace.

The you-read is utterly mindboggling to me. Nacho and I both are extremely skeptical of the efforts to discredit you, and we expect to see more of the same. And we're totally, totally not liking it, though we don't think it will come exclusively from scum players.

Jesus fucking christ, for what feels like the 800th time, I am not discrediting Tammy. Being suspicious of her =/= trying to discredit her. I still have some reservations about that slot due to the fact that I'm slowly coming around to the idea that she might not be scum here after all, that Regfan still strongly reads her as scum (last I talked to him about it, we oddly enough didn't really discuss her much last night), and that I am a gigantic pussy because I'm honestly afraid of reading her wrong. If you want me to give you the lowdown on her, then I'll do my best to explain what's going on.

Also, I want to work with you generally but I'm not super sure re: how to go about doing this (I think this might be the first game where we're actually town together). I know you prefer to keep a lot of things under wraps in order to gather your reads (ex: you would not have been able to post the first paragraph in #696 if you'd have been forward with everything) so I really don't want to be intrusive. Alternatively, I could use you as a conduit to talk to Nacho and Llamarble while you gather info but it's up to you if you want to be put in that position.

Feel like I should point out that the day has been open for a grand total of 3 days and some hours at this point, one of which I had real life things happening after work so implying that I'm scum intentionally trying to lurk through everything is a little silly. Also have plans on Thursday that'll from prevent me from posting much, if at all, then but I'll have plenty of time tonight to go into stuff.
You're not wrong about me not having much scumhunting yet, trying to read people based on mechanics talk isn't something I think is reliable or worth delving into very hard and we're just now getting into the part of the game have opinions on people for actual things that they've done instead of what theories they have about the setup.

I totally get the real life stuff, but Regfan and I expected you to have tried to maximize your time while here. People have had opinions about things beyond mechanics for what seems like quite some time now so we expected you to have more than what you've been putting in and it feels like you've been using the mechanics stuff as a crutch to generate content. Also, your tone just feels off - it seems like you're disinterested in a way that doesn't suggest the root cause is preoccupation with RL stuff.

[hitogoroshi]

VC 24 (Minor Day 1, VC 24)

Bane:

Target player's Sign is revealed.

(5)

Empire

: Bulbazak, Titus, GuyInFreezer, Marquis, Untrod Tripod

(Tammy)

[L-5]
(4)

Gammagooey:

ActionDan, vezokpiraka, Empire, Cheetory6
(3)

Bulbazak:

DeasVail, Gammagooey, Shadoweh
(2)

vezokpiraka:

T S O, ChannelDelibird
(1)

Titus:

mastin2
(0)

Untrod Tripod:

(TellTaleHeart)

(4)

No Bane Vote:

Aronis, Espeonage, TellTaleHeart, Tammy

(Untrod Tripod)

With 19 votes in play, it takes 10 to Bane. Deadline is Sunday, April 5th at 9 PM CST.

Minor Day One Deadline

(expired on 2015-04-05 21:00:00)

mastin2 may be V/LA in the near future.

[Titus]

I am in a good mood. Someone got me a deck of mafia cards for hosting a meet. Plus no trial to prep for. I hope this thread keeps me there.

So if that nice anonymous soul is stalking my posts, thank you. Made my day.

[vezokpiraka]

(5) Empire: Bulbazak, Titus, GuyInFreezer, Marquis, Untrod Tripod (Tammy) [L-5]

I think one of these is scum. I'm not sure who though.

[ChannelDelibird]

Diving into this now. Empire, CES says to tell you that if you'd like to suggest an alternative hard-to-read player than lurky vezok, that'd be fine too. As far as my own experience with vezok goes, the only one I remember is a game in which I was scum so didn't have to read him. So I've pretty much accepted CES's description at face value, having no reason not to do so.

Also, the Black Goo are agreed that Baning Empire is a bad idea and that you should all stop. I like all of the other currently voted-for options better.

[ChannelDelibird]

Reading through and taking notes for a big post, but interrupting myself because I'm kinda ruffled.

So random iso of cdb shows me that he've been focused with non-read stuff and the closest thing he has as a read is a null read on Vezok who he's baning.
I don't mind that slot eating rope.

Seriously? I have two stated townreads in the same post in which I bring up vezok. I've also mentioned a Shadoweh scumread in two separate posts! What I find impressive is that I'd actually be

fine

if you still thought that that was inadequate, but that you leave it out entirely to encourage my death is weird.

I also make no apology for not having much time to develop reads. On both Monday and Tuesday this week I had to wake up and go straight to work, after which I immediately had engagements for the evening (board game night and a concert), during neither of which I had time to read this game. Today is the first opportunity I've had to focus my attention on this game, which is what I intend to be doing all night from this point. I've been clear about the fact that they were busy days for me. Did you read the fact that I was posting during work? I dunno, man. This sounds like the most half-arsed "random iso" ever.

[Tammy]

All these people townreading Tammy and DV this game makes me kind of nervous for some reason I don't really get! I mean I understand why it's like that for DV for me but I'm townreading Tammy while simultaneously feeling weird about it!

IDK! I think part of it is that I always take Tammy being town for granted especially in games where there's an element of choice but this time I keep thinking about how if there was a time to subvert her meta it'd probably be now! After ffery's comments earlier I was looking through the old Team Mafia games to see what she meant and noticed Tammy won a mini as scum for it and that shouldn't really bother me but it does! :/ Of course that's an obvious idea but the thought is everyone always sees her as being so indisputably town and loving to be town so much that it would trump that paranoia of her choosing scum, but from what I know at least it's not like she isn't a threat as scum!

Like if there were ever a time to stop just doing the same old same old, both in regards to those kinds of automatic trigger reads and potential Tammy-choosing-an-alignment, it would be this game and I guess it kind of bothers me that people are just going through the motions with that read in particular as usual! (Preview edit: I'm still getting ffery and Tammy mixed up when I type out who I'm referring to! Note to self to stop! I guess!)

I think the main tangible thing that bothers me right now is that huge Zar wall she made! Like she's so intent on Zar right now with barely any outside focus and devoting so much time to it when I feel like most people here are more restrained due to the competition pressure and like I said should be considering reads more than just taking them for granted so soon, and trying to think about it from that angle it makes a bit of sense! But then I get the feeling that I'm bending my thinking to try and fit my paranoia, but then I know I should probably be using Occam's Razor, but then I think about how it's Team Mafia again and ugh!

Oh marquis I forgot to ask. When you say you were looking though old team mafia games and learned I won a mini as scum, can you direct me to where you found that information?

[Empire]

Out of curiosity, how much time has Fenchurch put into discussing this game with you?

P-edit @CDB

[ChannelDelibird]

Out of curiosity, how much time has Fenchurch put into discussing this game with you?

P-edit @CDB

We haven't often been online at the same time in the last few days because of my busy schedule so we haven't been able to discuss things so much as she's offered a few early reads and opinions that I receive a few hours after the fact. She's lost pace with the growth of this thread over the last day or so, but brought up the thing that I mentioned re: Shadoweh and backed up my townreads on Titus and Tammy. She thought UT's early posts were a bit scummy but I disagree.

[ChannelDelibird]

From the horse's mouth: she read the first 11 pages but hasn't been able to catch up since her own game started.

[fferyllt]

The you-read is utterly mindboggling to me. Nacho and I both are extremely skeptical of the efforts to discredit you, and we expect to see more of the same. And we're totally, totally not liking it, though we don't think it will come exclusively from scum players.

Jesus fucking christ, for what feels like the 800th time, I am not discrediting Tammy. Being suspicious of her =/= trying to discredit her. I still have some reservations about that slot due to the fact that I'm slowly coming around to the idea that she might not be scum here after all, that Regfan still strongly reads her as scum (last I talked to him about it, we oddly enough didn't really discuss her much last night), and that I am a gigantic pussy because I'm honestly afraid of reading her wrong. If you want me to give you the lowdown on her, then I'll do my best to explain what's going on.

There was some thought separation in my mind that didn't make it into the words I posted. I actually am more concerned about other players who have been making discrediting noises since before Zar replaced out. We're noticing it and we don't like it, but we're don't think it's going to be a 1 to 1 correspondence with scumteam. Or I don't, anyway. I'm remembering the Marketplace game and my first huge failure at reaching out to town-Tammy and working with her. It did (and could again) ding her ability to be effective in the game if she's under constant sniping attacks for her reads, and I"m sure that scum will be happy to skate along under all the flying debris.

Also, I want to work with you generally but I'm not super sure re: how to go about doing this (I think this might be the first game where we're actually town together). I know you prefer to keep a lot of things under wraps in order to gather your reads (ex: you would not have been able to post the first paragraph in #696 if you'd have been forward with everything) so I really don't want to be intrusive. Alternatively, I could use you as a conduit to talk to Nacho and Llamarble while you gather info but it's up to you if you want to be put in that position.

Anything that helps me be as effective as possible for town while I'm still in the game is welcome. I"m happy to be a conduit. I'm happy to talk about stuff. I think it will help me solidify my read of you. I'm not holding back a lot of stuff, but it's part of my style to do research and let my thoughts jel before speaking up sometimes. There's a tension between that tendency and the desire to be transparent and work with townreads, so I wind up doing a little from column a and a little from column b and a little of those odd moments where a lightning bolt strikes when I'm driving, sleeping, etc, and my view of the game gets unexpectedly transformed.

[ChannelDelibird]

Summation of some notes I made while reading up on new posts - still intend to go back over the first 20-ish pages now that I've the time.

I accept UT's explanation for forgetting about ffery's conftown status pretty much unconditionally. That shit happens more often than people generally like to admit when they're latching onto an obvious inconsistency.

I found Tammy's wall on Zar/Empire fairly convincing, both on the discrediting which she believes was happening and on the strength of that belief. I also found the player swap kinda skeevy. UT's suggestion that the Circlejerk might have felt it the only way to salvage the slot rang pretty true to me. I'd be pretty happy lynching Empire at the earliest opportunity, though that means I definitely don't want us to Bane him.

This from Cheetory came from earlier than my last post but I read it again when Bulbazak linked to it, and I find it weird. Given that nobody is in a position to vote as we know it, this reads as more likely to be scum posturing than it does town genuinely believing that they've found scum. Town has to be more specific in this game.

Though our team finds Shadoweh scummy from earlier, I like this line of thinking on Bulbazak and await his response with interest.

This post makes me think Marquis is town. Partially because it plays into the scenario which I already suspect, the one in which the Circlejerk parachutes in Empire as a 'surely he must be town' gesture, and partially because I have no idea what the benefit is to scum Marquis making this observation

and

Baning Empire for it. Empire is one of the biggest candidates for a lynch as soon as we hit Major Day 1, and while a scum Marquis would want to push this argument if Empire is town, Baning him too only removes the advantage for scum if Empire goes on to get the first lynch.

There's also the part of Empire's big reads list post on me that I want to address separately in case I go rambling, so that's next.

[ChannelDelibird]

CDB:

Don't like CDB's opener (#7), CDB's the kind of guy who, from memory, takes the early game very seriously to push for reactions and get reads. The opening reads very passively, especially the deference to the others on how to proceed. I dislike the mention of his team discussion here, feels like he's forcing it through to be like "hey dudes by the way my team and I are totally talking about this game."

I'm not that sure what else you expected from my opening post. Yes, I'm absolutely a strong advocate for making RVS as little of a thing as possible, but I'm pretty sure that no such thing was likely in a game with these mechanics - mechanics whose implications my team and I did not get a lot of time to chew over, particularly after role PMs went out - and given that my own position within even those limited discussions of the theory implications was one in which I found my team-mates having ideas that I didn't, I fully expected others to come in with a plan for the start of the game that I simply didn't. I was interested to see what people brought, and anticipated a different dynamic to the start of the game anyway because of this being my first experience with Team Mafia.

I think you can see the fact that I was doing some of the figuring-out that I hadn't been able to do in my team PT right there in the thread in my first few posts of the Day. Then on my next check-in that evening I got a bit put off by the angry tone of those early pages, particularly between two people whom I generally like in UT and ActionDan (who, by the way, needs to show up), so I left it for the evening.

So I Baned someone in Titus whose approach to the game doesn't gel particularly well with my own, as that seemed like a decent enough place to start with the Bane given that, when I started writing the post, literally nobody had posted.

[Cheetory6]

Fek. I'm eating my words here. 90% of Gamma's posts are pretty damn coasty, but he made a mid-catchup post with content in 614. I'm expecting a better content-post before end of minorDay though.

Bane: Bulba

Tier's saying he has a decent amount of experience with scumBulba and he's been telling me that townBulba will typically try to figure out people before become really stubborn and pushing for them, and he thinks the lack of Bulba trying to figure things out is uncharacteristic. He really really wants me to push this. o.o
On my side, I've been getting pings from Bulba's play that have struck me as kind of off. Mostly just the certainty with how he was reading me as scum, but the willingness to switch off to Zar without elaborating at all on his read on me until I asked him about it. It just kind of irks me that he was posturing like he understood what Ceph's case was on me and when he was prodded to explain why he was scumreading me it was really vague and nondescript, which makes the certainty of it feel unusual. I'm not super confident on this read, but deadline's coming up and the alternative that I like is UT and it feels like there's no momentum there.

This from Cheetory came from earlier than my last post but I read it again when Bulbazak linked to it, and I find it weird. Given that nobody is in a position to vote as we know it, this reads as more likely to be scum posturing than it does town genuinely believing that they've found scum. Town has to be more specific in this game.

i) You have time to ignore my questions but you have time to take a potshot like this? Kay.
ii) Are you really getting on my case for the usage of the word 'vote'? Do you really think I meant anything other than vote to bane him?
iii) So you think I'm scum posturing to try and get UT lynched despite my back-and-forth with him where I tried to figure out what he was doing?

[Untrod Tripod]

(5) Empire: Bulbazak, Titus, GuyInFreezer, Marquis, Untrod Tripod (Tammy) [L-5]

I think one of these is scum. I'm not sure who though.

you think that out of 5 random players in a 19 player game one might be scum?

please do go on, but be careful because I'm not sure my fragile mind can take any more of your amazing insights

[Untrod Tripod]

ActionDan (who, by the way, needs to show up)

DAN IS LURKING???

WHAT ARE THE ODDS????????????????????????

[Cheetory6]

UT why you no vote.
Why you ignore me.
Why.
y.

[Untrod Tripod]

are you asking why I haven't voted for a bane target?

[Cheetory6]

Yes.

[Cheetory6]

Wait fuck I'm an idiot you're voting Empire.

[Cheetory6]

I'm just going to sit in the corner and think about what I've done for a minute.

[Cheetory6]

Can you talk with me about your Empire read while I cry into a bowl of ice cream?
q.q

[ChannelDelibird]

i) You have time to ignore my questions but you have time to take a potshot like this? Kay.

I was reading up on everything since my most recent post. I saw this one of yours from before that point because it got quoted later. If there are questions from before the point from which I caught up that I missed, then rest assured I'll be getting to them soon. Though if you'd like to point me to them - because I have, at some point, read every post in this game, even if just skimmed - that would be helpful. I may have already answered.

ii) Are you really getting on my case for the usage of the word 'vote'? Do you really think I meant anything other than vote to bane him?

I dunno. There's been so much discussion in this game about how best to utilise the Bane that it's honestly not that clear whether you wanted him Baned or lynched, and I am definitely considering actively which of the two I would want done to specific people when it comes to plans for the Day. I did not have your stated policy on the relationship between Baning and lynching burned into my memory.

iii) So you think I'm scum posturing to try and get UT lynched despite my back-and-forth with him where I tried to figure out what he was doing?

If your policy was to call for Baning first and ask questions later, I don't put a lot of stock into this, but I might find myself changing my mind on reread. As I say, it's one post that I was drawn to, out of context, which I found kinda off-putting, especially while it was drawn to my attention by somebody calling it out as problematic.

[Cheetory6]

i) You have time to ignore my questions but you have time to take a potshot like this? Kay.

Oh god I'm losing my mind. I thought I'd asked CDB questions that he ignored but I didn't q.q.

If your policy was to call for Baning first and ask questions later

At the time I thought UT had slipped and I wanted pressure on him to either force him to slip up more clearly or to clarify on what he meant.
Bleh. I think I was more prickly than I should have been because I thought you'd ignored things I was asking you.
I need to go get food and eat because clearly my head is just not screwed on right today.

[Empire]

Re: ffery's #760 - I can definitely understand the approach to Tammy and that's part of the reason why I'm more than willing to give her space right now (I know I definitely benefited from the shitstorm when I was scum in Marketplace III). If you want to talk about reads, could you tell me pretty much everything Llamarble has on this game? (Nacho, too, I guess, but that depends on where he is with his process).

---

I found Tammy's wall on Zar/Empire fairly convincing, both on the discrediting which she believes was happening and on the strength of that belief. I also found the player swap kinda skeevy. UT's suggestion that the Circlejerk might have felt it the only way to salvage the slot rang pretty true to me. I'd be pretty happy lynching Empire at the earliest opportunity, though that means I definitely don't want us to Bane him.

Uh, have you spoken to your team about me (#754 implies that you have)? Because I find it very hard to believe that a guy who (probably still) believes I have no scum game suspects me in this game.

I'm not that sure what else you expected from my opening post. Yes, I'm absolutely a strong advocate for making RVS as little of a thing as possible, but I'm pretty sure that no such thing was likely in a game with these mechanics - mechanics whose implications my team and I did not get a lot of time to chew over, particularly after role PMs went out - and given that my own position within even those limited discussions of the theory implications was one in which I found my team-mates having ideas that I didn't, I fully expected others to come in with a plan for the start of the game that I simply didn't. I was interested to see what people brought, and anticipated a different dynamic to the start of the game anyway because of this being my first experience with Team Mafia.

My impression was that the inevitable mechanics discussion was not going to prevent you from doing your own thing and that you were going to treat this like the average game in the beginning despite the Team Mafia aspect. I don't remember how you tended to act as town in mechanics-heavy games specifically but I'll look some of this up when I'm not feeling like a zombie.