Newbie 2051: Iceland! - End!

[quiet]

So if I live in a Prism, Flow Trap town world,
and if I stubbornly refuse to consider Fred as scum today,
I'm left with Salsa, Floo, Spartan. But I like Spartan.

Salsa/Floo scum theater today? I don't think so. Not sure what the motivation would be exactly.
Can't shake my townlean on Spartan just yet though.

I need to go see if there were any Spartan interactions with Floo or Salsa.

But any way this falls out, my FredHope is looking pretty bad. It's just so easy for me to feel so much better if Fred is on the table as scum, but Fred is just...so...low hanging fruit to me rn that it hurts.

[flow trap]

I've always seen being diplomatic as a scum tell

I have very, very bad news for you about me as a player lmao

In general I don't think this tell is the worst-particularly if the person is overdoing it or not taking any real stances-but becoming more diplomatic and communicate effectively with others is literally

my entire purpose for playing the game of mafia.

I don't enjoy the puzzle or solving aspect at all.

Guess it's just culture shock, I hope

[Prism]

I can't tell if quiet is town or if he's intentionally exploiting my self-perception/knowledge of the type of player I want to be. I hate this game sometimes.

Eh, maybe try and judge my other read on Flow Chart the Chaos God vs. try to search in my read of you.

Easier to determine if I'm being genuine or exploitative when directed at someone else.

Besides calling it out the first time (which I am rather proud about, good read past quiet), noticing it or pressing further on it now is probably NAI, as you've made it clear from your response that it was a good read/is how you want to play.

I'm just havin a good time, makin nicknames for my town slots, building up the energy to try and scumhunt in this most towny of games. I think I'm starting to come to the frustrating reality that if Fred isn't scum like I'm scared about, then someone that gives me townvibes is scum, which means I need to hunt better. Mafia hard. Still feel good about you and Flow though.

The bolded is funny because it's the opposite for me. Historically, my best reads come from detecting someone's positioning around me being off. That said, while in some worlds I want you to be scum just giving analysis as it comes to you...I don't think this is the case and don't really scumread you.

[Prism]

Eh, maybe it is in some cases, but specifically here past-quiet was thinking about how they were trying to build town cohesion, setting in to try and get two players to resolve differences to move the game forward. This is substantially different from being agreeable, or conflict-adverse, which is a scum tell. In fact, it's putting yourself into the spotlight, and possibly into conflict, when what seems to me to be the +EV scum play is to let town (or any two people) fight and cause chaos. This is something Prism further alludes to in regard to their floo read, where they note that floo seems to be trying to pick a fight with Salsa, how such fights are -EV for town, cause a distracting noise, and possibly setup a miselim. I liked floo's response a fair amount, and am still thinking about it, but this has been my lecture for why diplomatic =/= scummy thank you very much.

So I think it's a bit more nuanced to this. "Picking fights" can be a more negative phrase for pushing, which generally helps people sort and

totally necessary to do as town

. In some sense I'm picking a fight with floo.

I don't find what he's pointing out scummy to begin with and I don't see the town motivation behind intentionally riling her up by revising the arrogance comments, especially in a world where that slapfight with flow trap make sense for her to believe as town FMPOV.

[Prism]

Guess it's just culture shock, I hope

I don't think it's culture shock so much as just me as an individual. Most people definitely put a lot more weight on the puzzle aspect of the game, and that's okay.

I don't really want to drag down the game with meta links but this is really easily verifiable comparing my scum/town games.

As a sidenote, my confrontation of you was directly inspired by a game that recently finished, where myself and a player named petapan both let our egos and unwillingness to bluntly confront each other boil over into something much more toxic later. He gave me a speech about how he thought that keeping a civil face all of the time lead to things being disingenuous and blowing up later, sometimes you just need to say what you have to say, and I've been chewing on that a lot lately. As town I tend to value civility above all else, but that experience has me challenging that idea a bit more.

[flow trap]

Is using meta here taboo or something?

[floo]

In 1058, as I explained, I didn't take the time to form a read on Prism. There were some scummy posts I saw from Sal that caught my attention more.

[floo]

Also I'm in the middle of writing some reads / elaborating on why I scumread Salsabil. It looks like an essay, and I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow.

[Prism]

It's not taboo at all-it's very much encouraged, but it's a lot to tackle for a Newbie game and can be very tedious. It's generally more effective to focus on the game in front of you, using meta only if you have something specific you want to look for or if you just want to get an idea of someone's range.

Since you seem curious, here you go.

Spoiler: Prism meta re:diplomacy

Here's me describing the same preferences as town on a secret alt. This game had unusual mechanics where we could guess a town OR guess a scum with our votes. I was adamant about guessing town for a 2% mechanical EV increase over aiming for scum even when A) I had an EXTREMELY strong scumread and B) voting a single scum instantly won the game mechanically, which is referred to as a white flag mechanic.

My most recent towngame isn't a good one to meta-I was miserable and hated the playerlist-but here's me talking about the puzzle/sorting aspect. This game is also a good example of

why

it's important to communicate and advocate effectively. My reads were, for once, some of the best in the game but I refused to work with an elitist social club I felt did not value anyone else's voice and was openly miserable the entire time. The result was a town loss.

Second most recent towngame, I was an extreme driver of activity and working together. I thought I overshot this one-my intensity resulted in others feeling they should leave the game to me, resulting in a loss.

Perfect Blue shows the same tendency towards working together/townblocking going back several years.

The only scumgame I've played in the last 2 years, where I'm the white-texting half of Black Hole Defection, was a snoozefest where I AFK'd the entire game, gave only baseline reasoning, and eventually was so bored I abandoned my hydra partner. Not a highlight.

My other scumgames are all several years old but every single one has me being verbally hyperaggressive (Last link is a hydra game, I am Stalfos)

tl;dr: Could I be scum being diplomatic for town points? Absolutely. But diplomacy and playing with complete transparency is

my entire thing

as town.

[Prism]

Forgot Xenoblade, pretty recent towngame but hard to sift through as I'm hydraing as the Bush half of Reagan Bush 84. Not really a good read either given how it played out.

[quiet]

Also I'm in the middle of writing some reads / elaborating on why I scumread Salsabil. It looks like an essay, and I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow.

Christ, I already TR this without having read said essay.

So what I'm coming to realize is that we have four very pro town slots.

Floo writes a 5 paragraph essay with MLA citations (anticipated publication date early 2021)
Prism gets genuinely hurt/concerned that I'm using their aspirations of being a diplomat to scumread them, generally tries to break up fights
FlowTrap makes not one but two partner charts with clearly considered and detailed takes for each, generally plays relaxed and in accordance with their chaos meta
Spartan posts their long, detailed, point by point responses with receipts

I'm sitting here trying to determine if any of these people make these same plays as scum. Spartan's seems the most replicable as scum on the surface, but honestly, metadive shows them even more verbose and detailed than usual, and I'm really struggling to see why scumSpartan would be working quite this hard. Today's posts have also been good. I like the slot.

But the exact scumworld of {Fred, Salsa} does not feel correct to me. That partnership doesn't make a ton of sense, and Fred makes my miselim spidey senses tingle. So one of these +town players is probably not town, but...how. Like I know I'm town, and I look at my posts like, all of these people are playing way better as town than I am. So that's unfortunate.

[Prism]

I don't think the very carefully curated posts from floo are as town as you think they are.

I'll save judgment on the essay until I see it but the initial reasoning I do not like at all, nor much of floo's play around the stronger slots.

[quiet]

I don't think the very carefully curated posts from floo are as town as you think they are.

This is a good point.

They're still in my "oh god please be town" pile, and not my "deserving of a title town" pile as of right now.

[quiet]

Also, I didn't intend to set up a false Prism vs. Floo dynamic by saying they were two wagons i'd consider other than Salsa, so I'm sorry for that. Though I think it helps me sort, so maybe I'm not that sorry.

[Spartan117]

Also I'm in the middle of writing some reads / elaborating on why I scumread Salsabil. It looks like an essay, and I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow.

Christ, I already TR this without having read said essay.

So what I'm coming to realize is that we have four very pro town slots.

Floo writes a 5 paragraph essay with MLA citations (anticipated publication date early 2021)
Prism gets genuinely hurt/concerned that I'm using their aspirations of being a diplomat to scumread them, generally tries to break up fights
FlowTrap makes not one but two partner charts with clearly considered and detailed takes for each, generally plays relaxed and in accordance with their chaos meta
Spartan posts their long, detailed, point by point responses with receipts

I'm sitting here trying to determine if any of these people make these same plays as scum. Spartan's seems the most replicable as scum on the surface, but honestly, metadive shows them even more verbose and detailed than usual, and I'm really struggling to see why scumSpartan would be working quite this hard. Today's posts have also been good. I like the slot.

But the exact scumworld of {Fred, Salsa} does not feel correct to me. That partnership doesn't make a ton of sense, and Fred makes my miselim spidey senses tingle. So one of these +town players is probably not town, but...how. Like I know I'm town, and I look at my posts like, all of these people are playing way better as town than I am. So that's unfortunate.

What do you think on the possibility on 1 of sal/fredrick and 1 of floo/flowtrap/prism being the scum partnership?
Do you think a floo/flow trap, floo/prism or flow trap/prism partnership would be viable?

[Spartan117]

Sorry about this, but this game will need to wait till tomorrow. I haven't had the will to read any part of this thread in detail today.

You've had a day, so are you going to answer my challenge below or are we going to see another prodge?

I'll set you a challenge, in your 75 posts quote us which ones have you providing meaningful content trying to solve the game, otherwise I'm placing my vote on you.

[Salsabil Faria]

I think that and a few other things added up in my head (I’m also thinking of how aware Salsa was of the town/scum wincon of “oh jeez we really need to not get another miselim today or we are in big trouble”, that’s not something I think most people say or being up or are deeply counting day2) to make me start feeling like a scumSalsa world could be a thing. It doesn’t help that so many people in this thread are towny as hell or capable of playing very pro-town, so my AoE is really small.

Spoiler:

If we shoot FaC and they flip town we are in a really bad position

I suspect that the easiest way to solve this is to just get a scum flip and force the NK. I am not sure Frederick is it, but I am sure the game will be much easier one way or another when he starts playing.

But we can't afford another miselimination, right? What should we do then if we fail to find a scum this time?

[Fredrick A Campbell]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think Spartan117 has justified their scumread of me despite the fact that I have stated that he stated an opinion that had no justification.

Allow me to correct you Fredrick, because you are wrong. It honestly really frustrates me because I share the same concerns of flow trap that there is a chance you might be town and a miselim on you would be a big problem for us, if you are actually town you are making this really hard for us. But you continue to act the most sus player here, you have had as much time as everyone else here to read the thread we have had the night phase where you had time to catch up and work towards providing a meaningful contribution, there have been two player deaths which you could review the wagon on Enchant and EZs flip on which you could review their interactions and who might want them dead, there is lots of material for you to use to actually try and solve the game whilst you would rather talk to the dead. If you want to scumread me that's fine, I'm all for it, but provide reasoning play the game if you are town, quote my posts that you think are scummy and explain what you think about my actions that are so suspicious, because I don't want to lose this game just because you can't be bothered to check my ISO...

VOTE: floo

Very scummy vote imo, has been lurking around and posting but still yet to provide any sort of detailed reads of their own as if they are unable to because they know everyone is town. Here voting off the back of other peoples reads without providing any sort of breakdown as to why they actually think they are sus or bringing anything new to the table.

Here in 215 I explained my read on you and your only response was watery and meaningless in 357 and 364.

Let me make this very clear. The part of your statement where you say "as if they are unable to because they know everyone is town." is an opinion. If you want me to take that seriously, you need to show me more reasons why you think that is the case. Otherwise, expect me to ignore that.

Fredrick
comes in with 90 their random vote on safebet seeming potentially a little opportunistic to jump on early to a potential reverse wagon that didn't formulate.
166 strange reaction to being voted, lack of desire to input thoughts and fight for reads, very reserved and not very townie.
173 again refusal to providing meaningful content with a mindset of "I don't have to" very much keeping their cards close to their chest, making it hard to get a well rounded read on them.
185 states that he is expressing his opinion on something but provides a pretty nothing statement that contradicts itself.
211 212 jumps on the back of Sals reasoning without providing any fresh ideas of their own to vote Floo, seems like a very scummy vote to me. something I called out in 215 which I don't believe was ever properly answered by them.

I don't like Fredricks aloofness and lack of pushing for reads, he has appeared to me very opportunistic, as for someone who should be one of the far more experienced members of this group as an SE and isn't pushing conversation or contributing to uncovering scum, if anything it feels like he is scum hiding in plain sight.
VOTE: Fredrick A Campbell

Your comment on 166 does not explain why you think the reaction was strange. The rest of the comment says "lack of desire to input thoughts and fight for reads, very reserved and not very townie." It, however, does not explain why does any of what you observe make it "not very townie."

Your comment on 173 says that I refused to provide meaningful content. Any attempt to read the post would demonstrate that I was not refusing to provide meaningful content and was refusing something else entirely.

Your comment on 185 fails to point out the non-existant contradiction. Also, I disagree that it is a "pretty nothing statement."

Your comment on 211 212 simply states that it is a very scummy vote to you. I was given no indication of what may change your mind.

Finally, you further state what makes you think I am scum. However, the comments on which you base your conclusion on are not falsifiable and you do not have any reason to make any of these conclusions.

Here in 746 where I share my reads I go into detail breaking down your posts and giving an explanation as to why I voted you D1, the fact that you are an SE and are an experienced player and are doing this just makes me think you aren't very experienced playing as scum. You seem to struggle to formulate reads, providing twice as many posts as floo while they have provided plenty of content, breakdown of their thoughts and reads.

Overall you come across as a very defensive player who seems to have something to hide. 166 173 show you being over defensive and look to be afraid of the spotlight being put on you. Requires meaning on why they are being scum read in order to respond and contribute but then doesnt provide any meaning behind their own votes, as seen in 191 212 (212s only elaboration appears to be in the meaningless post of 364 ) 626 853

And now, you think 166 and 173 are "defensive and look to be afraid of the spotlight being put on you" for no reason. I "Requires meaning on why they are being scum read in order to respond" only when asked to defend myself.

He likes to appear to be playing the game casting votes without actually applying any pressure, not actually contributing anything to the group which is indicative of scum.

863 makes me laugh because you actually request the reasoning for my opinion while quoting my reasoning breaking down your posts with me explaining why I think you are scum. You state

There was no reasoning for your opinion for me to argue against

I'll set you a challenge, in your 75 posts quote us which ones have you providing meaningful content trying to solve the game, otherwise I'm placing my vote on you.

I refuse to place my vote on you now as I do not wish to put you to L-1 at this moment in time when D2 has only just begun, I do not want you or your scum buddy to come along and hammer you, there is still much discussion to be had and people to hear from, and after all there are 2 scum.

I had planned to put my attention on Sal and review their posts in answer to their 1080 and I shall do, but to do it justice I shall have to do that later.

[Salsabil Faria]

Also I'm in the middle of writing some reads / elaborating on why I scumread Salsabil. It looks like an essay, and I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow.

When my flip will be happened, I want to imagine your face that time, I bet it'll be the most hilarious thing if you're a town but if you're one of the scums, then you're playing really good.

[Salsabil Faria]

Also I'm in the middle of writing some reads / elaborating on why I scumread Salsabil. It looks like an essay, and I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow.

Christ, I already TR this without having read said essay.

So what I'm coming to realize is that we have four very pro town slots.

Floo writes a 5 paragraph essay with MLA citations (anticipated publication date early 2021)
Prism gets genuinely hurt/concerned that I'm using their aspirations of being a diplomat to scumread them, generally tries to break up fights
FlowTrap makes not one but two partner charts with clearly considered and detailed takes for each, generally plays relaxed and in accordance with their chaos meta
Spartan posts their long, detailed, point by point responses with receipts

I'm sitting here trying to determine if any of these people make these same plays as scum. Spartan's seems the most replicable as scum on the surface, but honestly, metadive shows them even more verbose and detailed than usual, and I'm really struggling to see why scumSpartan would be working quite this hard. Today's posts have also been good. I like the slot.

But the exact scumworld of {Fred, Salsa} does not feel correct to me. That partnership doesn't make a ton of sense, and Fred makes my miselim spidey senses tingle. So one of these +town players is probably not town, but...how. Like I know I'm town, and I look at my posts like, all of these people are playing way better as town than I am. So that's unfortunate.

If you're a town, then nothing will ever make sense to you if you think that I'm one of the scums here cause I'm not. And it's applicable to all the townies (and only the townies) who are so sure that I'm scum here. I really don't know what to say to all of you right now so that you will believe me, my head is literally empty.

[Salsabil Faria]

Spartan117

, hope you don't forget about my 1080 post.

[flow trap]

Also I'm in the middle of writing some reads / elaborating on why I scumread Salsabil. It looks like an essay, and I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow.

When my flip will be happened, I want to imagine your face that time, I bet it'll be the most hilarious thing if you're a town but if you're one of the scums, then you're playing really good.

This is something I said as town back when I had no clue what I was doing

[Salsabil Faria]

Also I'm in the middle of writing some reads / elaborating on why I scumread Salsabil. It looks like an essay, and I won't be able to finish it until tomorrow.

When my flip will be happened, I want to imagine your face that time, I bet it'll be the most hilarious thing if you're a town but if you're one of the scums, then you're playing really good.

This is something I said as town back when I had no clue what I was doing

All concentration is right now for my final exam only, so if it seems like that to you, can be true. After my exam, I can think properly actually.

[quiet]

If you're a town, then nothing will ever make sense to you if you think that I'm one of the scums here cause I'm not. And it's applicable to all the townies (and only the townies) who are so sure that I'm scum here. I really don't know what to say to all of you right now so that you will believe me, my head is literally empty.

Sadly, taking you out of the scum pile makes this game even harder. Then my AoE is exactly Fred, and we’ve talked about Fred and why I’m resistant to voting there today.

So which of my townreads in Floo, Spartian, Prism, Flow Trap is scummy?

And don’t just say Floo for pushing you, unless that feels strongly like the correct answer.

Also good luck with your final! You got this!

[Salsabil Faria]

So which of my townreads in Floo, Spartian, Prism, Flow Trap is scummy?

It's you actually

Also good luck with your final! You got this!