New Year's Eve Masquerade Ball - [Game Over]

[Kagami]

And, given the willingness to put forward such effort, is a strategy that's fairly obviously generated.

[MiniDeathStar]

Spoiler: Up to 173

The one and only thing that gives me pause is Nahdia scumreading Jester/MDS.

That was based on First Dance + she thought Maria seriously claimed scum. Then it would make sense because Jester was defending their pair throughout the whole game and only expressed doubt when their wagon approached final destination.

^oh yeah, and pie/smith is still town with an asterisk on smith

But if Jester and I are both town, *and* Pie and Smith are also both town, that would make all 3 other pairs scum, including Parama, which means she WIFOMed mega hard with her town read on us and her double bussing post. That, or one of the other pairs is scum².

I feel like mds' behaviour has just been her intentionally acting scummy so that their pair can get lynched and removed from the game peacefully. I feel like her asking so many times whether she was ok to leave was just her gauging the waters to see if town would mind. I believe minimal conflict is her win condition in this game, even above her role PM.

Am I *that* obviously conflict-averse? Yes, I *was* legitimately trying to get removed from the game but I was afraid to suicide because I didn't want to piss people off. But I didn't act scummy on purpose, unless repeatedly saying "lynch me already" counts as scummy. I suppose I just come off as scummy when I'm disengaged from the game.

Umm, that's partly exactly why I'm scumreading her. She's trying to demonstrate she's town via acting in a way that town wouldn't think scum would act. But the fact she has went over it so many times while still seeming survivalistic at points indicates to me she's intentionally doing this. She seems like a nice person, and I understand that. However from my POV it still looks like she's heavily employing a certain playstyle to appeal to town. She's here enough that she could spend the time to instead scumhunt more. I think in her catch up she mentioned something about people not caring when she posts reads or something, but that is most def not true. In fact, the few glimpses of her I liked was early on in like the first day when she seemed to actively be trying to figure out the game and I thought it was looking genuine.

Of course I'm doing it intentionally. Like I explained *multiple times*, I'm scared because my pair has been scumread the whole game but somehow we're both still dancing. That only means one thing: the mafia allow us to be around, but try to maintain suspicion so we can be lynched at a more convenient time. That, or I'm wrong about Jester and he is scum. In either case, my best shot is to get myself lynched, which would either convince people to look elsewhere while they still can, or get rid of my scum boyfriend. My stating repeatedly that Jester is town wasn't survivalism, I was just trying to get people to focus on the real scum while I'm still around to discuss.

Also to be totally honest, my motivation to game-solve kind of plummeted after Jester stopped being active and after town turned on us and refused to listen about Kagami being scum and Shadow being town. I wish I had Smith's resilience and emotional void under pressure, but I just don't.

MDS' vote for the last part of D1 was a serious vote on herself, through the point when she had a large wagon on herself that was very viable and until the day ended.

I don't think that's feigned.

I don't find your reason compelling here.

What a surprise. You think Jester is scum, but if not then you guess I could be scum, too.

2655 remains the best reason to possibly townread that pair, to my mind.

I still find it pretty incredibly that a town-player whose only strong position has been "Shadow-Maria is town" produces 3706 and 3719. On the other hand, it's not really any less crazy that scum-jester produces them.

At the time he made 3706 and 3719 he was already second guessing his read on Shadow in our PT because he only spoke when spoken to and Maria was, quote, "wobbly as fuck".

I don't think she was in terrible danger, especially after the you-smith interaction, and retracting a self-vote is very easy.

The only reason you don't think that is because you controlled that wagon with your mafia pals. I guess you know that it was artificially inflated by scum votes and couldn't easily muster any more momentum. Is there anything else beyond me not suiciding that makes you think I was feigning my self-votes? You know, I would've suicided in a heartbeat if it was only up to me, I just didn't want to be "that gamethrower" and disappoint people.

Actually, this is probably a good time to hear out where kagami scumreads are actually coming from.

1) Trying to pocket Dunn.
2) Coasting on popular lynches all game.
3) Lackluster contribution.
4) Materalising from lurkspace to cast a blank vote. Several times.
5) To borrow HS's expression, the black hole of scumminess that was 3664 (coming right after 3659). Then she went ahead and advocated for no lynch in 3688 which would've been preferable "7 days ago". I'm astonished that nobody else noticed that gaping inconsistency.

I really wish I had lynched [Jester] D1.

Wouldn't have made much difference. Shadow wouldn've been here to act as the lynchbait instead of Jester.

Who do you think would be most likely scum with jester?

Parama and Smith.

what do you think scum-Parama's motivation for posting 4095 and related posts is if Jester-pair is town/town? at first I figured that they probably thought that either 1. the lynch would hit Jester and it would solidify their position, at which point they would either try to pivot onto the other town-town pair or try to eke them out in 4p, or 2. it would hit them and generate a bunch of WIFOM regarding their reads (and hopefully town would chain it into a Jester lynch anyway).

2 is pretty unlikely, since she could just save herself the gambit and push Jester without much controversy. 1 is more likely but now that our wagon lost its momentum it would be significantly harder to get it going while she's townreading us. It's still a risky move.

he's said a lot, but when I actually look at it from the top I'm a bit concerned about the way he focused almost entirely on MDS and S_S' pair to the near exclusion of any other push and I'm a bit concerned that I could be biasing towards him because he posts in a very logical style that resonates with me a lot.

Except he mixes in a lot of half-truths and misrepresentations in his posts, which I was been too fed up to call out whilst having no interest in delaying my lynch.

P. Edit:

Your reasons for townreading each other are entirely based on an interaction that had no reason to be public and could be scripted without too much effort.

Holy mother of scumpost Batman. Are you literally suggesting they are scum together and scripted that entire raw emotional interaction?

[Kagami]

If HS-parama flips T-T, then I'd be willing to let jester go on as T-T, but we probably disagree on leave order.

[mhsmith0]

Your reasons for townreading each other are entirely based on an interaction that had no reason to be public and

could be scripted without too much effort

.

I'm actually pretty curious about this point. What about our interactions seems not just like "well it could have been scripted" (which is essentially a non-point, as basically anything COULD have been scripted), but that it would have been EASY to do so? Moreover, since you are (I believe) pretty familiar with pie as a player, do you know her to be at all inclined to run that sort of theater, much less to be actively good at it?

A secondary question is why you think that it should have been private. Given that we were both strongly suspecting the other at the time (or, I suppose, you can argue faking it), what is the gain for taking it to PT instead of dealing with it in thread and out in the open?

[Kagami]

If Pie and I were scum and partners together, we would very likely script up something similar in case the game-flow looked like it was turning against us. It would certainly take effort, but would be easy relative to the total effort spent in winning a scum-game, which we're both painfully familiar with.

I maintain that things which have much greater scum-utility than town-utility should be kept private if possible.

You're basically arguing that if a scum-pair would choose to spend the effort to script a convincing interaction like that, they should automatically win the game, which is kind of silly.

In practice, unfortunately, that's likely how it will be if they are indeed S-S, since I have absolutely zero chance of pushing a lynch on any scum-scum pair in the current game-state, which is reason enough not to worry too much about it.

[Kagami]

I guess the question of motivation is valid. Pie doesn't really

like

being scum unless that's changed in my absence, and might be less inclined to prepare such a route.

I remember the pie of serum and steel being fairly emotional, and being convincingly so, but that was multiball and she might have actually thought ceph was scum.

[mhsmith0]

If Pie and I were scum and partners together, we would very likely script up something similar in case the game-flow looked like it was turning against us. It would certainly take effort, but would be easy relative to the total effort spent in winning a scum-game, which we're both painfully familiar with.
...
You're basically arguing that if a scum-pair would choose to spend the effort to script a convincing interaction like that, they should automatically win the game, which is kind of silly.

I'm actually pretty curious about this point. What about our interactions seems not just like "well it could have been scripted" (which is essentially a non-point, as basically anything COULD have been scripted), but that it would have been EASY to do so? Moreover, since you are (I believe) pretty familiar with pie as a player, do you know her to be at all inclined to run that sort of theater, much less to be actively good at it?

I am ASKING you what about our interaction seemed like it was easy to fake. Moreover, where did I argue that a scum-scum pair "should automatically win the game" from such an interaction? I'd utterly agree that such an argument would be silly, which is just as silly as you arguing that I actually made that argument.

You're also dodging the question by saying that the interaction would be "easy relative to the total effort spent in winning a scum-game" which is much different than your original point, which was that it "could be scripted without too much effort". The original point basically suggested that it was easy period, and now you seem to be back-pedaling into merely arguing "well, you gotta do something as scum to win, and it's easier than some of the other things you could do to win as scum". Why was our interaction easy to fake, and what about it makes you think that it was in fact faked? I want you to actually substantiate this read instead of relying on a super easy "well it COULD be faked", "it's easier to fake that kind of thing than some other non-specified scum strategy" etc. type take.

I maintain that things which have much greater scum-utility than town-utility should be kept private if possible.

Except that our interaction was the sort of thing that could potentially
1) Swing momentum onto scum (if the other member of our pair was scum)
2) Get others involved in the back and forth, and potentially create readable moments both for us and for them (for instance, HS is basically super lock town for me unless pie is scum for how she engaged with the situation)

So why do you think that had greater scum-utility than town-utility? You're asserting that it did, without substantiating why you think that it's the case.

[Kagami]

The latter question is kind of silly. If you and pie are scum, that interaction has likely already resulted in a win for you, where otherwise you were heavily suspected.

[Kagami]

It's not so much about what is easily fake-able as what seems reasonably likely to be fake.

If I were ever, for whatever reason, compelled to spend as much effort as pie did in that interaction and believed with the conviction that pie expressed that my partner was scum, I would simply leave the dance.

Despite your repeated comments to the contrary and extremely inappropriate Vedith-bashing, leaving the dance is a very reasonable option compared to trying to lynch potentially quadruply-loved scum. If we lose this game, the blame will rest primarily on the partners of scum.

[Kagami]

In any case, I think this all less likely than HS-parama giving us a scumflip, and being able to proceed nicely from there.

I'm open to leaving the dance if parama flips town, provided I get to determine the last surviving pair, since I don't really see how we can win in a world where hs-parama-dunn are all town unless whichever part of MDS-jester is town replaces out.

[mhsmith0]

The latter question is kind of silly. If you and pie are scum, that interaction has likely already resulted in a win for you, where otherwise you were heavily suspected.

Given that we're still suspected, and if we're scum we still need to hit two more ML's, I don't see how it's "already resulted in a win for you". Explain?

It's not so much about what is easily fake-able as what seems reasonably likely to be fake.

If I were ever, for whatever reason, compelled to spend as much effort as pie did in that interaction and believed with the conviction that pie expressed that my partner was scum, I would simply leave the dance.

Despite your repeated comments to the contrary and extremely inappropriate Vedith-bashing, leaving the dance is a very reasonable option compared to trying to lynch potentially quadruply-loved scum. If we lose this game, the blame will rest primarily on the partners of scum.

My Vedith-bashing was extremely appropriate and has (I think) been quite useful in getting people not to continue the disgusting trend of suiciding that he started (and that massively submarined town's chances in the LAST iteration of this format, fwiw). Leaving the dance is exceptionally selfish and anti-town behavior unless you are UTTERLY certain that your partner is scum (and lo and behold, both vedith and shadow were wrong, and in vedith's case especially he deprived Gamma of the chance to convince the board that he was actually town, and the rest of the board the chance to actually evaluate a potential mislynch, including how people behaved in crunch time as majority actually got close).

If we lose this game, Vedith gets a massive chunk of the blame for horrifically screwing up on D1. Cerberus gets a decent chunk of the blame for being useless "as part of a strategy to avoid the NK". Shadow gets some of the blame for suiciding, though at least there it was CLOSE to majority.

Your continual approval of the very obviously anti-town strategy of suiciding is bizarre and anti-town, and your unwillingness to substantiate "what seems reasonably likely to be fake" makes me think that your read here about the me-pie interaction is itself fake. Once again, what ACTUALLY makes it "reasonably likely to be fake"? Why is it so hard to get you to actually put meat behind that read?

[Kagami]

Being suspected is irrelevant, because aside from scout, the only people with any suspicion directed at your pair have no chance of executing a lynch. If you and pie are scum, you've nearly certainly won, in large part through the effort of the currently dead town.

You are wrong that Vedith made an error. Gamma was as close to a lynch as he was ever going to get until deadline loomed, at which point the votes are near meaningless. Even you, who are so gung-ho about lynching rather than suicide-bombing, have apparently placed no consideration on the votes leading to the shadow-maria lynch (who were are also as nearly lynched as anyone is going to get here).

Agree that cerberus misplayed. He and Nahdia executed a fairly silly gambit which failed. If he wanted to actually do it with a higher chance of success, he needed to be actively scummy rather than obviously non-present-as-a-strategy.

With regard to the final paragraph, I'm not sure what you're expecting me to point out. I've literally written posts for my scumbuddies in games where there is daytalk, though the practice is fairly rare. I've told you what makes me entertain it as a possibility, which is that pie evidently was thoroughly convinced you were scum when the pushed first started, and there's no reason she should be hesitant to leave the dance because *you* said she shouldn't.

[Kagami]

I also don't understand how pie considers jester-parama-dunn more likely than jester-parama-smith.

While that's irrelevant to actual execution, since I think we both agree that sad-scout lives following parama-jester scumlynches, it is strangely defensive.

[Human Sequencer]

oh hey we got content from kagami, what a time to be alive

[inspectorscout]

and posts like these are the reason i am hard pushing pie/smith today
kagami is town in these posts

[mhsmith0]

Being suspected is irrelevant, because aside from scout, the only people with any suspicion directed at your pair have no chance of executing a lynch. If you and pie are scum, you've nearly certainly won, in large part through the effort of the currently dead town.

You are wrong that Vedith made an error. Gamma was as close to a lynch as he was ever going to get until deadline loomed, at which point the votes are near meaningless. Even you, who are so gung-ho about lynching rather than suicide-bombing, have apparently placed no consideration on the votes leading to the shadow-maria lynch (who were are also as nearly lynched as anyone is going to get here).

Agree that cerberus misplayed. He and Nahdia executed a fairly silly gambit which failed. If he wanted to actually do it with a higher chance of success, he needed to be actively scummy rather than obviously non-present-as-a-strategy.

With regard to the final paragraph, I'm not sure what you're expecting me to point out. I've literally written posts for my scumbuddies in games where there is daytalk, though the practice is fairly rare. I've told you what makes me entertain it as a possibility, which is that pie evidently was thoroughly convinced you were scum when the pushed first started, and there's no reason she should be hesitant to leave the dance because *you* said she shouldn't.

wrt the last bit, your original point was that it was "easy" for pie and me to have arranged it as theater. If you're just "entertaining it as a possibility", then how is that different from "stuff that you shouldn't be clogging the thread with" (since it seems like this is something you care about)? If it's more than just entertaining the possibility, why can't you actually discuss it with substance? "Smith/Pie might be scum/scum trying to win the game with theater" seems like it's a potentially really big deal, and you seem perfectly content to just comment on the possibility and just let it hang out there, and I'm struggling to see why. If you think it's between realistic and likely, why aren't you actively pursuing the read, including trying to at least skim what actually happened and see if anything in particular seems like it was actually faked? It seems like it should be a point of interest for you based on what you've said, but at the same time, it seems like it isn't actually something you're all that interested in, beyond defending why you thought it was reasonable to suppose it in the first place.

PS It's a fair point that I haven't dug into the shadow-maria wagon. I plan to do that soon, was looking at the first half of d1 first.

PPS Why do you think Gamma was as close to lynch as he was going to get pre-deadline? Your vote on him put his wagon into the lead, and there was a LOT of time before deadline (IIRC it hadn't even been a full four out of eight days). Go back to

VOTE: gamma

and around that time, and I don't really see why you think that it was somehow static, especially since Vedith suidided just five minutes after your vote (and previous to your vote, MDS and I had voted Gamma at 2054 and 2157, then Gamma hopped off shadow-maria onto HS-Parama at 2177). It seemed like a potentially dynamic gamestate, not a static one, so I'm really curious why you think it somehow seemed fixed.

[mhsmith0]

and posts like these are the reason i am hard pushing pie/smith today

kagami is town in these posts

Explain why? What posts in particular seem like clear town, or really hard to fake, etc.?

[mhsmith0]

Like, I look at what kagami has posted the past couple pages, and I don't really see anything that a competent scum player couldn't post. What am I missing?

[Human Sequencer]

nah
let's instead lynch me and let pie/dunn fight for victory
one of them is town, and town has the inherent advantage in a logical argument of potentially being right, whereas scum can't be right AND play to their wincon.

VOTE: HS/Parama

i trust that at least one of them has the game solved and i also trust that the one who is correct can win the game tomorrow.
i think this strategy has the highest chance of victory for town
whichever one out of you is town, you can do it! i believe in you! ganbatte!

if any other wagon gets to l-1 i am suiciding, fun fact (sorry smith, i'm not as good at mafia as you, still love you)
btw really looking forward to that analysis from smith, and would rather get that before we end the day

[pieguyn]

I also don't understand how pie considers jester-parama-dunn more likely than jester-parama-smith.

While that's irrelevant to actual execution, since I think we both agree that sad-scout lives following parama-jester scumlynches, it is strangely defensive.

frankly, it's because I don't trust scout not to go rogue on us if he sees the game going in a direction he doesn't like, since he seems to have expressed he doesn't like SAD.

I'm fine with you leaving -> you choosing what pair survives to the end if Parama/HS is town/town, too, in case it wasn't obvious.

[mhsmith0]

and posts like these are the reason i am hard pushing pie/smith today

kagami is town in these posts

Explain why? What posts in particular seem like clear town, or really hard to fake, etc.?

Like, I look at what kagami has posted the past couple pages, and I don't really see anything that a competent scum player couldn't post. What am I missing?

hey scout, this is not a hard question to answer.

[Human Sequencer]

scout hasn't posted since you asked

[pieguyn]

Kagami, if Parama/HS contains scum, would you be opposed to a me -> you -> Jester pair lynch order, or do you think Jester pair has a significant chance of being scum/scum?

[mhsmith0]

true, but I also posted 3 minutes after his post. unless this was just a total drive-by post, I'd think he should be capable of seeing it.

[pieguyn]

actually hang on that doesn't work.

me -> you -> Jester pair if I flip town/town, me -> reevaluate from there if mhsmith is scum.