In post 1107, ClarkBar wrote:
In post 1095, Battle Mage wrote: In post 1074, ClarkBar wrote: In post 1070, Battle Mage wrote:Why you: Well there were 3 options really. Probably you and TTJT would have been my top scumreads ahead of 72o
You pretty much town-read me all D1 and then all of a sudden I'm in your top two scum candidates?
I basically town read everyone Day 1 apart from my 2 scumreads.
That's cool, but if your read switches from a town-read to a scum-read I think it's nice to say why. Maybe give the player in question something to work with? Have a dialogue?
As noted, I didn't have a strong scum-read on you at all (nor was I feeling minded that it would be helpful to do so, given how poor my reads had been to date). I did quite clearly acknowledge this, without trying to make it seem like a complete farce, which would have resulted in no meaningful pressure and you not claiming, which was the purpose of the gambit. Try and see from my perspective - I'd just blown my load on Day 1 with 2 nailed on scumreads both of which flipped town. I was therefore inclined to change tack and look for a mechanics based solve, rather than going back to the well again, especially as I thought the masons were going to be a proverbial ace-in-the-hole.
Tldr; as a general matter of courtesy and scumhunting, you're absolutely right. This was an exceptional circumstance, and you could argue I was trying to be too clever and failing.
If I get lynched today for being consistently wrong about everything reads-wise, I'm fairly cool with that, although it hasn't been the argument presented by anyone to date.
To be clear, because I think this point has been lost somewhat - the wagon on you would not have resulted in a lynch on you unless you claimed PR
and
the players I thought were masons indicated you were scum for doing so, allowing me to lead that charge (i.e. unless I had some reasonable assurance you were fakeclaiming). As a result, the criticism of me for failing to engage in dialogue, isn't really relevant here as I wasn't actually planning to lynch you based on anything which had happened to date. It's not a completely outlandish or risky gambit if your reads are half-decent, and obviously mine weren't. It doesn't risk a mislynch, it shouldn't out a PR (if reads are decent). It COULD result in a false positive, although clearly I wouldnt have taken you as literally conftown for claiming vanilla, so that isn't really a problem.
It could only be considered anti-town in the sense that it outted a cop unnecessarily.
There's no reason for me to make an aggressive play like that as scum, where my stock is at rock-bottom anyway - although this bit is somewhat WIFOMy, it's also just reality that it would be way too conspicuous and high risk with too little reward (and if you were to disagree with Jam and look at my meta, you won't find a BM-scum game where I've done anything like this). In my 3 completed scumgames this year, I got lynched in one for lurking, I survived another despite lurking, and in the final one I fakeclaimed Cop on Day 2 to bus both of my partners (one of whom was 72o). The key thing with the latter, is it was a bold play with HIGH reward, because it basically made me near to conf-town and I was able to win the game. And you could argue the risk was fairly low given I knew I was going to be proved right.
In post 1107, ClarkBar wrote:
In post 1095, Battle Mage wrote:As above, if I was scum and thought you were a PR, why would I want you to claim? ESPECIALLY if I thought you were a cop, because in claiming, you'd be guaranteed to be protected at night by a doctor if there is one.
I don't want to get into a WIFOM quagmire. Why would town!you want me to claim? I think my argument for your scum motivation is stronger and simpler than yours.
This bit isn't WIFOM really - it's basic logic. What is simple, isn't necessarily right - and particularly true where I'm concerned (as TTJT can attest). You argued that I suspected you were a Cop. If I was scum, and suspected you were a Cop, I would NOT want you to claim. Although you hypothesised I might have been expecting the claim, and wanted to pre-empt you or force us into a 1v1. First issue with that it, it wasn't the immediate daystart when this happened, so I can't see why I would have been expecting a claim. Additionally, it would also be a completely stupid strategy, given I wouldn't have actually known your results and what I was contending with (i.e. if you had a guilty on my partner, I'd be literally throwing the game in this scenario). Lastly, as noted, if I was going to do this strategy you suggest, why didn't I actually do it? When your hypothetical scenario played out, I did not do anything like what you suggested I intended to do. Even aside from the above, the idea that as scum I would push for a cop to claim because I think he has a guilty on me and I want to basically cc and undermine him (and again, I have no idea where you think that is borne out in the thread), and then after he claims, not cc him, is completely ridiculous. I'd be offended you think I suck that bad as scum, if it wasn't for how bad this game has gone for me as town.
I'm not saying this makes me the towniest conftown ever. But I am saying that there is no organic scum motivation for me to push for you to claim there, so it is in fact a towntell even without the added weight of meta.
In post 1107, ClarkBar wrote:
In post 1095, Battle Mage wrote:What you refer to as a "bizarre and confusing" POE gambit, is a staple of my game nowadays, and it can be very effective. I can't refer to ongoing games, but there is nothing to stop you reading.
Would you be willing to point me to a completed game where this gambit was effectively used? I find it difficult to believe that pushing a wagon on a player to see what kind of claim they make is a tried and true winning method. The risks are enormous. The most obvious of which is what happened here, which is you force an actual PR to claim. What if scum!me made a VT claim? Then you'd be giving town-cred to scum. Your gambit also relies on there being 2 masons, and there is only a 22% (see Looker, percentages can mean something!) chance of that being the case in this game. It also relies on your suspicion of who those masons might be to be correct. And in turn it relies on them to somehow know to "signal" to you that a fake claim had been made without outing themselves as PR's. All the while leaving open the possibility of a quick hammer or an "oopsie-poopsie" hammer on a potential town slot.
Unless I'm fundamentally missing something I cannot see the risk/reward ratio of your gambit to be in town's favor. I do see what the goal of the gambit is, I just can't see that goal justifying the myriad of risks and potential misfires.
I was very confident on there being masons, and the statistical odds weren't a factor - it was predominantly based on their reaction to LL's "I'm a PR" claim. They both completely disbelieved it, and didn't seem to give it much thought at all. In almost all cases, it's pretty standard practice to avoid lynching a claimed PR on Day 1 if at all possible, and it's pretty normal for people to give them the benefit of the doubt (really nothing about LL's play to that point suggested he shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt). The fact they didn't do that, made me think they must be masons, as masons would be the only scenario in which each of them would know 100% that the PR claim was fake.
As an approach, there is risk, but generally if timed right and based on a reasonable expectation about the role structure (which could be based on having a PR myself, or some insight about the mechanic etc), it is +EV i think. As noted above, I'm not scared of a false-positive - it's possible to think someone is more likely to be town, without completely taking them out of the equation. I also don't think them signalling would have been an issue - I figured that essentially it's what they did on Day 1, and scum didn't figure it out then as they didn't NK one of them. All it would have needed was a bit of lowkey but clear skepticism about the claim - not a precise science but again, didn't really worry me.
All that being said, whether the gambit is a good one or not, isn't really the crux of what we're discussing. The question is, is it something I would do as scum or town? And how likely as either alignment? A bit of deduction is required here which goes beyond the right or wrong of the play, and thinks about the motivation for town-BM and scum-BM to act as I have done.
There's a perfect example of this exact gambit which I can't currently refer to, however the rules are clear that you would be able to find and read if you so chose, and you may find that helpful.
On recent completed games:
I planned a gambit in my last one with TTJT (Newbie 2009) to fakeclaim cop (as town) in order to get control of the lynch for the following day (with no mechanical idea of who the scum actually were). It never got used because I got NKed. TTJT can however confirm that was the plan. I'd argue that was higher risk than this.
In Large Theme 'Jigsaw's Revenge', I fakeclaimed a PR in order to strengthen a case against another player I believed was scum, based on the setup mechanics.
In Large Theme 'Twice Baked Wrestling', I fakeclaimed Day-vig which resulted in somebody claiming (although that wasn't really my intention).
In post 1107, ClarkBar wrote:
In post 1095, Battle Mage wrote:Please do me the courtesy of actually giving this some thought and reading and responding to my points above.
I'm giving it thought, relax. I didn't respond to everything due to time purposes/I feel I already addressed it. But if there is something glaring you want me to discuss I'm happy to do so.
I think I've covered most of it above, but I would also come back to this point:
BM wrote:
Additionally, if I was scum and thought you were a cop, and investigated me or my partner (and you havent really explained to me why you think I would have thought either of those things) I would sooner be claiming first with a guilty on you, rather than pushing you to claim a guilty on me and ccing you. Taking the initiative is valuable.
Although in reality, I'd do neither, because
