Open 644: Stack the Deck - Game Over

[Dunnstral]

Literally nothing in that wall of text is game solving

[Ranger]

So your shadow read was/is based on ploben flipping scum, because ploben's vote in 17 didn't look like a vote on a scumbuddy.

No. My Shadow read was partially based on that, yes. It was also based on others disliking Shadow, with me not liking their dislike of Shadow. Originally, it was mostly because of the belief behind the moderror. To be blunt...Persivul seems prone to having potentially made first-time mod mistakes like that. After all...he left the thread open for a VERY long time, when he should have locked it. So the idea of him making a moderror that accidentally confirmed Shadow, without realizing he was making a mod error that accidentally confirmed Shadow, was very plausible to me. By the time Persivul stepped in and explicitly said it was impossible, I was townreading Shadow_step off of his content, as laid out in 472.

You spent a significant amount word count on Longnight. Possibly more words than you've spent on giving reads or asking questions about this game.

Unless you take the viewpoint that previous games are entirely irrelevant and meta is absolutely nonapplicable...you're darn-right I did.

Because that game is relevant to

this game

, by simple virtue of your reaction to me compared to your prior experience with me.

It's one thing to, with no previous Ranger experience, say, "Ranger's not giving content with her reads! She must be scum."
It's quite another to, when

your Ranger experience is her giving no content with her reads as town

, say your reason for scumreading me is not giving content with my reads.

However, shadow is saying that Alpaca is reading ploben as town because Alpaca is scum who knows ploben is town, and Alpaca is trying to get some credit for it when/should he flip town (this is further reinforced in 294, which you call a great continutation of the Alpaca case).

Not the way I read it. He said "Alpaca wanted to defuse the case on ploben, but without explicitly stating so as to avoid suspicion". To me, that reads the opposite: seeing ploben as SCUM. I also see nothing in 294 which says Shadow thinks ploben is town. I see him saying that Alpaca is trying to make it LOOK like ploben is town.

Still, even if Shadow_step were to come in and explicitly say he's townreading ploben, my townread on him holds, because while I hold firm on a ploben scumread, this would still not diminish my love for his Alpaca push.

they wouldn't be hypocrites

Maybe not, but there's no better word I can think of.
Selectively-applying?
I feel like maybe there's a term, better than hypocrite, for explaining how them accusing me of doing it while not noticing Alpaca has done the same thing, which would deliver my disgust and even suspicion.

Who said this by the way?

For a start?
You.
But others as well. I'd have to check to see the others, but it was more than just you, I know that.

you're giving some credence to the idea that you've only defended yourself, while calling Alpaca scum for it. What's up with that?

Almost, but not quite.
It is true I have defended myself.
There is absolutely no denying this, because it's a hard-fact of my iso.
However, I have provided content. It started with readslists, which I view as content. You can read any towngame, any scumgame, of mine to confirm this viewpoint is a firm one I hold, that I view readslists as content. This, at the same time where Alpaca...hadn't.
Since that point, I gave reasons behind most of my reads.

Yet this is mostly missing the true point.
The point I'm making is that it's either unacceptable or scum for a player to say I was doing nothing but defending, while NOT making that same accusation against Alpaca.
In short:
-I recognize I have done defense.
-I disagree with the assessment I did nothing but defense.
-However, to those who BELIEVE I did nothing but defense, I'm flat-out calling them out for saying this and not noticing the same from Alpaca.

Though, this is less relevant now since we're getting an Alpaca replacement.

This post from Ranger containing the possible codeword "ninja" appeared just six minutes after the OP.

Yeah...before role PMs were sent.
As in, before I had any POSSIBLE way to know my alignment.
I'd quote the timestamp of my role PM if I could, but I'm pretty sure that's a modkillable offense. Check the time you got yours and see how long it was after I made that post.

@Ranger why did you make that post and what does it mean?

What it means is, the mod didn't lock the thread while he was setting the game up, and he hadn't even sent the role PMs yet, so I didn't have anything to do other than mess around in-thread, have a little fun, and poke at him for not realizing he left it unlocked.

Chip Butty I can see making the mistake. (In fact, he townslipped hard in that post. I'll let people guess where, but there's something he said which mafia would know is false.)
Both PantherPunt and ploben, not so much. They're both scum hopping on an opportunistic wagon.

[Ranger]

I'm going to need to see other times you've replaced into games to see if you have this horrible of tone

To be blunt, I'd be more inclined to believe Kuroi was scum if it wasn't you pushing him.

He's in the Alpaca slot.
And the posting was basically null, not doing anything to make him better or worse.
So I understand suspicion there.
But empty suspicion from you which you don't follow through on?

Not so much.

I actually agree that right away something feels off about kuroi

This certainly "helps" that as well!

And Kuroi does have a saving grace going on.

I'm sorry, but I can't find you to be scum at all. I've seen your scum game and you're playing much too well for that.

He's seeing the exact same thing about karnos that I am, in knowing this isn't the same game from karnos at all.

That's literally it though. Nothing else there is town.

[Ranger]

I don't care about what you did in other games because we're in this game now thanks

I addressed this in 651:

Unless you take the viewpoint that previous games are entirely irrelevant and meta is absolutely nonapplicable...you're darn-right I did. Because that game is relevant to this game, by simple virtue of your reaction to me compared to your prior experience with me.

Different players, same basic circumstance: how a player has seen me in a past game IS relevant to the current game, because if I see behavior that does not match my expectation of them, then there may be a reason for that.

For instance?

Kuroi, in his catchup, not

once

mentioning me.
Not. once.

That's an example of past games being relevant to the present game, because every past game I've had with Kuroi, he's held focus on me for at least part of the day.

[Ranger]

Literally nothing in that wall of text is game solving

I almost asked, "What game are you reading?", but then I remembered,
"Oh. Right. The game from a scum perspective."

One defense of myself/commentary on another player's hypocrisy. (Real hypocrisy this time.)
One statement on when I'll post my reads.
One elaboration on a townread, and why my townread there is not supporting their townread (who is my scumread).
One elaboration on a situation which I was

asked to give

.
One clarification that I have not given a case on any of my scumreads.
One clarification that I'm pursuing scummy players and pointing out their scumminess, and defending town players and pointing out their townness, and confusion over how that isn't obvious.
One request for specifics, while still trying to give a general answer, basically boiling down to, "whatever your point here is, it's probably still not relevant".
Two engagements where I clearly lay out why PantherPunt should know better. In the second, I explicitly say his argument on me is BS and he should know it's BS. This is an accusation.
In that same engagement, I clarify my stance and state I was not defending myself: I was attacking him.

All of the above are content, because they are all giving information that was not present, or not clear, before.

There's a grand total of two elements in the post which do not further this game, being the first PantherPunt quote regarding last we met, and the last PantherPunt quote also regarding that same topic.

Literally the entire rest of the wall is responding to things that

were directly addressed to me

. Actually, all of it was, but literally the entire wall except those two parts towards PantherPunt were responding to things with a specific goal: to give further details on my stances, my reads, my thoughts, at given times, past and present.

[Dunnstral]

One defense of myself/commentary on another player's hypocrisy. (Real hypocrisy this time.)
One statement on when I'll post my reads.
One elaboration on a townread, and why my townread there is not supporting their townread (who is my scumread).
One elaboration on a situation which I was asked to give.
One clarification that I have not given a case on any of my scumreads.
One clarification that I'm pursuing scummy players and pointing out their scumminess, and defending town players and pointing out their townness, and confusion over how that isn't obvious.
One request for specifics, while still trying to give a general answer, basically boiling down to, "whatever your point here is, it's probably still not relevant".
Two engagements where I clearly lay out why PantherPunt should know better. In the second, I explicitly say his argument on me is BS and he should know it's BS. This is an accusation.
In that same engagement, I clarify my stance and state I was not defending myself: I was attacking him.

All of the above are content, because they are all giving information that was not present, or not clear, before.

There's a grand total of two elements in the post which do not further this game, being the first PantherPunt quote regarding last we met, and the last PantherPunt quote also regarding that same topic.

Literally the entire rest of the wall is responding to things that were directly addressed to me. Actually, all of it was, but literally the entire wall except those two parts towards PantherPunt were responding to things with a specific goal: to give further details on my stances, my reads, my thoughts, at given times, past and present.

Nothing you wrote makes me want to consider your scum reads as viable lynches

You can talk about all the amazing things you did and how you clarify and elaborate things but you're engagements with people look plain weird

You're not pushing your scum read. You'll act like you have been but you're clearly not attempting to get any votes or do anything

I read your entire wall and I'm in disbelief that you spent so much time talking about

nothing.

[Dunnstral]

So you're arguing that kuroi is town because Panther and I were pushing him?

There's only 3 scum in the game.

[Ranger]

Nothing you wrote makes me want to consider your scum reads as viable lynches

Well no

duh

.
You're one of them.

Regardless of your alignment, I wouldn't be able to convince you to lynch yourself.

You're not pushing your scum read.

I've pushed all my reads almost equally, town and scum. The only difference is that I deliberately held off on making my scum cases. That's literally the singular difference between my push on my scumreads, and my push defending my townreads, e.g. karnos.

You'll act like you have been but you're clearly not attempting to get any votes or do anything

The game opened Sunday, June 5th.
It is currently early morning on Thursday, June 9th. Pragmatically, that's 3 days of content.

Why would I need to at this stage?

If I push, I don't push for lulz. I don't push to pressure. When I push...I push to

lynch

.
So tell me.
When we're over three days into the game, heading towards our fourth, out of a given two weeks...
When we've used just about 25% of the time in the game.
Why would I be trying to get a lynch right here, right now?

No. It's not needed for another three days. Even then, that's sometimes considered early. Everything I give prior to that is me being extra-generous. (With the exception of the karnos case.) I didn't need to explain any of my reads because we're not at the stage of the game where I would need to push my reads. I chose to give some, but I also chose

not

to give some.

So you're arguing that kuroi is town because Panther and I were pushing him?

Yes. BECAUSE,

There's only 3 scum in the game.

Of ^this. There's only three. I have a very, very,

very

strong {ploben, Dunnstral, PantherPunt} scumteam. It's not just individual posts, either, it's also your buddy-buddy reactions and trivial questions to each other that you never bother to follow through on. Given that, and your push on Kuroi, it's basically impossible for him to be scum, even though his posting contains basically nothing town.

[Dunnstral]

trivial questions to each other that you never bother to follow through on.

You're going to have to give examples for this because it's just untrue.

[Dunnstral]

If I push, I don't push for lulz. I don't push to pressure. When I push...I push to lynch.

You'll act like you have been but you're clearly not attempting to get any votes or do anything

The game opened Sunday, June 5th.
It is currently early morning on Thursday, June 9th. Pragmatically, that's 3 days of content.

Why would I need to at this stage?

If I push, I don't push for lulz. I don't push to pressure. When I push...I push to

lynch

.
So tell me.
When we're over three days into the game, heading towards our fourth, out of a given two weeks...
When we've used just about 25% of the time in the game.
Why would I be trying to get a lynch right here, right now?

Cool. On the other hand I'm planning to get you lynched by tomorrow or the next day, hopefully you can get your reads ready by then

[Chip Butty]

Okay, I'm going to let this go, for now, but I just want to flag that this is entirely possible, albeit with a modification.

You gonna delete my ninja postin?

Here's a thought that I would like some comment on: Ranger as JOAT. Yes, my RVS joke again, but not joking so much this time. In fact, not joking.

This post from Ranger containing the possible codeword "ninja" appeared just six minutes after the OP. That is, when the phase 1 role-PMs were circulating, but BEFORE scum decided which extra powers they wanted and whether to recruit.

So, that kills it, right?

That's what I was thinking up until recently. But, consider this: Scum role mods are CHOSEN, while Town ones are RANDOM. That means that, even though the Mafia discussion about whether to recruit and what powers to get was still in the future when this post appeared, scum!Ranger could be virtually certain of getting JOAT simply by telling her scummate she wanted it. That means she could signal early with confidence. The timestamps turn out to be irrelevant. Why signal? Because she intended

to not recruit

the traitor, and thus limit the number of additional powers Town would get.

Thoughts?

Uhhh, guys that was before role pms were sent out

I said that already

This post from Ranger containing the possible codeword "ninja" appeared just six minutes after the OP.

Yeah...before role PMs were sent.
As in, before I had any POSSIBLE way to know my alignment.
I'd quote the timestamp of my role PM if I could, but I'm pretty sure that's a modkillable offense. Check the time you got yours and see how long it was after I made that post.

Okay, this checks out, actually, and I did get the initial version of the theory wrong. I admit it. BUT, this post from karnos got me thinking about it more:

You know, something came to mind among this whole ranger signalling theory. In other games with a traitor role, multiple town players will "signal" as being the traitor. Why? It's pro-town to confuse the mafia so they don't actually know who the real traitor is, and personal incentive of being less likely to be night killed.

In other words, a "traitor signal", in itself, can be a town tell just as much as a scum tell.

Put on your tinfoil hats and check this: What karnos is pointing out is that there is a payoff to signalling traitor whether you are Town or scum. If you are scum, it lets your Mafia buddies know you are the traitor, and if you are Town, it sends a fake signal to the same effect, making it hard for Mafia to know who is the REAL traitor if they see more than one signal.

SO: Why not signal even BEFORE you get your role PM? There is a potential payoff regardless of whether you draw Town or scum.

Now, is it really so tinfoil? No! Once you understand the setup, it becomes a kind of obvious play, and one of which I think Ranger is capable. Do I think this is likely to have happened? No, I don't want to go that far at this point. I just want to establish possibility, as I said earlier. If this sounds paranoid, it is perhaps because at the site where I played my first couple games, the more experienced players were heavily into breadcrumbing, so there was stuff going on right under the noses of we Newbies, which I started to pick up on as I went along. /paranoid delusional rant

Also, nobody picked up the split infinitive I planted in my OP on this topic.

[Ranger]

On the other hand I'm planning to get you lynched by tomorrow or the next day

Yeah, good luck with that.

[Dunnstral]

SO: Why not signal even BEFORE you get your role PM? There is a potential payoff regardless of whether you draw Town or scum.

...

Sorry but... so what?

It doesn't tell us anything about her alignment if it's some pre-game play (It wasn't...)

Why not focus on her scum posts right now

[Dunnstral]

there was stuff going on right under the noses of we Newbies

Who is "we newbies"

[Dunnstral]

On the other hand I'm planning to get you lynched by tomorrow or the next day

Yeah, good luck with that.

Nah you'll get to L-1 by the end of tomorrow and everyone will pansy around and we won't be able to lynch for another 10 days

[Dunnstral]

Chip butty want to talk to me about Ranger?

And also about Kuroi

[Chip Butty]

I think the only way this works is that if Ranger is actually the Mafia Traitor and she is signaling to her team to pick the JOAT role as well as alert them she is the traitor, because the 2 goons obviously don't know who the traitor is. This would allow them either to pick another PR or at the very least not have to use the recruit and give town another PR.

But consider - why would Ranger need to signal unless she was exactly the traitor? The traitor knows who the goons are at game-start, so the goons (or JOAT if your theory had any credence) wouldn't need to soft/signal to the traitor. You could say that she's the traitor and that was a signal to the goons that she is the traitor and they should pick JOAT for the ninja and save them from recruiting.

I like these responses - a mini Copernican Revolution right there! : They remove the main problem I saw for the theory, which was "Why would Ranger as future-JOAT need to signal?" I only had the lame answer that she just wanted to give the traitor as much info as possible, but these answers are way better. I'm particularly impressed by ploben, who posted it first. You're looking less scummy for that, I have to say. Sorry Panther, second poster never gets the kudos in this game, but it was brave of you to echo the theory.

Oh, no, guys! Now that the theory in its original form has been shot down, this eagerness to advance it without due scrutiny doesn't look so Towny anymore. In fact, scum would be delighted to back a scheme that painted Town.Ranger as scum, right? I'm going to need those cookies back. I'll return them to you if Ranger flips Traitor.

[Chip Butty]

SO: Why not signal even BEFORE you get your role PM? There is a potential payoff regardless of whether you draw Town or scum.

...

Sorry but... so what?

It doesn't tell us anything about her alignment if it's some pre-game play (It wasn't...)

Why not focus on her scum posts right now

It alerts us to look for other possible communications between unrecruited-traitor!Ranger and her buddies when going through her ISO. Why are you so sure it wasn't a pre-game play? surely the prudent thing to do, if you are Town, is to admit the possibility, and perhaps check Ranger's ISO with an eye toward looking for coded communications?

[Dunnstral]

Why are you so sure it wasn't a pre-game play?

Why are you even considering it?

I mean don't get me wrong I

just

went off on Ranger and I believe she's scum. I don't think there was any pre-game play, no.

[Chip Butty]

Chip butty want to talk to me about Ranger?

And also about Kuroi

Ranger: Apart from the tinfoil hat stuff, I'd like to hear from her why she gave duppen such an easy pass and high ranking. Other than that, her rankings looked largely okay by me, but I would expect that from either Town.Ranger or scum.Ranger.

Kuroi: Def half-assed his readthrough. It looks scummy but I have so many scum candidates: duppen and yourself, for a start. ploben still isn't off my hook, Panther is a def maybe, and Ranger as a wildcard.

[Dunnstral]

perhaps check Ranger's ISO with an eye toward looking for coded communications?

Trust me, I've been keeping an eye on everything from the start, looking for coded communications. Up until now, 670 posts in, I've yet to see any. Of course we've only really had pressure on two people so far, but would you believe that neither karnos or ploben is the traitor, or do you think neither would have signaled with the spotlight on them in the first place?

[Dunnstral]

No offense but your reads suck, panther reads as obvious town to me, ploben town too, not sure what you're even talking about with duppen

I think Ranger and Kuroi are both scum but they have literally no interactions with each other so they're just individual scum.

[Dunnstral]

By the way I really do want to believe that Ranger is the mafia traitor because I think a karnos-ranger maf team actually makes sense if ranger is a traitor and karnos didn't know

[Ranger]

Nah you'll get to L-1 by the end of tomorrow and everyone will pansy around and we won't be able to lynch for another 10 days

I'd love to see you try.

Oh, no, guys! Now that the theory in its original form has been shot down, this eagerness to advance it without due scrutiny doesn't look so Towny anymore. In fact, scum would be delighted to back a scheme that painted Town.Ranger as scum, right? I'm going to need those cookies back.

Yep! Pretty much exactly what I said...

Chip Butty I can see making the mistake. (In fact, he townslipped hard in that post. I'll let people guess where, but there's something he said which mafia would know is false.)
Both PantherPunt and ploben, not so much. They're both scum hopping on an opportunistic wagon.

^Here.

Ranger: I'd like to hear from her why she gave duppen such an easy pass and high ranking.

Nulltown is not a high ranking. Believe me, he's not high. That read came mostly from not having any real issue with what he's said, but having a decent early RVS. I.e., sort-of town but not really town. He's more true null now (BTD6 is still nulltown, meaning BTD6 is now above him ranking-wise), pending further content, but he's no high townread of mine.

Other than that, her rankings looked largely okay by me, but I would expect that from either Town.Ranger or scum.Ranger. Kuroi: Def half-assed his readthrough. It looks scummy but I have so many scum candidates: duppen and yourself, for a start. ploben still isn't off my hook, Panther is a def maybe, and Ranger as a wildcard.

Your scumreads are literally identical to mine. Your pool is {duppin, Dunnstral, ploben, PantherPunt, Kuroi}. The only difference between your list and mine is that Scott's not off my radar, and looks slightly worse than duppin. Otherwise, exactly the same.

[Chip Butty]

Like you can only have so many posts that basically just talk about yourself scattered throughout the game before it starts to get silly and it's crossed that point

I don't care about what you did in other games because we're in this game now thanks

Literally nothing in that wall of text is game solving

perhaps check Ranger's ISO with an eye toward looking for coded communications?

Trust me, I've been keeping an eye on everything from the start, looking for coded communications. Up until now, 670 posts in, I've yet to see any. Of course we've only really had pressure on two people so far, but would you believe that neither karnos or ploben is the traitor, or do you think neither would have signaled with the spotlight on them in the first place?

That's kool-and-the-gang, but think about it this way: If Ranger IS scum, and this WAS a pregame play, this discussion probably closes down any attempts to communicate with her buddies from this point on, because attention has been drawn to the possibility. And if not, then nothing much lost. If I have time, I might skim through Ranger's ISO again and look for myself. After all, I see the pre-game post as potentially significant and you don't, so I might spot something that you would just write off.