Newbie 1389 Trouble in River City Game Over Scum win

[imkingdavid]

sikon - my condolences.

A wise mafia man I once knew said "When in doubt, hang the lurkers." Mostly because their actions are not pro-town (they are either lurking intentionally as scum, or not helping the town by way of not contributing, so TL;DR HANG THEM.)

No. Differentiate between lurking and active lurking. In a newbie game there will be a lot of lurking from people who are new and perhaps intimidated by the level of play. That is a null tell. Active lurking, on the other hand, is posting and talking a lot and saying a whole lot of nothing. Policy lynching lurkers is not a good thing. Instead, have them replaced. That is a good thing. Active lurking can be a lynchable offense if there is something else to back it up.

There's no pressure to move quickly at this point, and we already have somebody at L-2

Just to clarify, Trollie removed his vote so no Kues is back to L-3.

By the way:
UNVOTE:

My vote on Kues was RVS and no longer applies. I don't find him scummy at this point.

sikon has also recently been looking townie to me - what I saw in the early posts is no longer present.

fferyllt - is your vote on me simply pressure or what? I see in #133 you say that bauss is your "strongest scum read" but I don't see a vote on him. I find it odd that you'd place your first vote in the game on a self-admitted inactive player rather than on your strongest suspect. Also, you're voting me, as I understand it, due to inactivity. But as others have rightfully pointed out, you've done a lot of talking without saying much (up till recently when you posted your reads on a few players). I don't see the difference between my inactive inactivity and your active inactivity.

Anyway, I won't be voting you at the moment. Inactivity is a fact and not really something you can defend against, and I don't find it strong enough to be a reason for you to be lynched, especially this early on.

-----

#114 from cAPS is meh. I've seen other ICs say that kind of stuff and have even said it myself as IC before. Perhaps that goes better earlier in the game, but ultimately it is a good thing to identify to the new players that IC is role/alignment-independent. I would not like to make a big deal out of it.

----

cAPS has also posted actively without really saying much. He votes Lynx for lurking but other than that, I don't see much of anything as far as actual content, except perhaps #114, which I've already addressed.

VOTE: cAPS

[JasonWazza]

I'll be honest there is something about this game that just makes it meh to read.

However cAPSLOCK is still a good vote, he's vote is based on lurking, not based on scumhunting.

[RachMarie]

Vote Count 1.02

cAPSLOCK (2) JasonWazza, imkingdavid
Kueshina (1) Lynx_Shine,
fferyllt (2) Kueshina, likeabauss
Lynx_Shine (1) cAPSLOCK
imkingdavid (1) fferyllt



Not Voting

TheTrollie sikon327




With 9 it takes 5 to lynch


(expired on 2013-07-03 12:46:15)

[fferyllt]

fferyllt - is your vote on me simply pressure or what? I see in #133 you say that bauss is your "strongest scum read" but I don't see a vote on him. I find it odd that you'd place your first vote in the game on a self-admitted inactive player rather than on your strongest suspect. Also, you're voting me, as I understand it, due to inactivity. But as others have rightfully pointed out, you've done a lot of talking without saying much (up till recently when you posted your reads on a few players). I don't see the difference between my inactive inactivity and your active inactivity.

Anyway, I won't be voting you at the moment. Inactivity is a fact and not really something you can defend against, and I don't find it strong enough to be a reason for you to be lynched, especially this early on.

That's two people who misunderstood my post about bauss. To clarify, bauss was my strongest scum read up to the point where he started making a case on me. He went from indirect to direct stance of attack, though I think his case is mostly rehashing others' comments.

I never put a vote down purely for pressure. If I vote then at that point in the game, I am willing to lynch. You have been inactive, though you've been slightly more of a presence than Lynx. But, lynx' two posts had IMO good, thoughtful content and questions. I like questions. Prior to this, though you had 5 posts, there was only one with even a little bit of content.

[Lynx_Shine]

Condolences, sikon, I hope things go well for you.

I'm not really into big reads lists after 6 pages of day 1. Some games I never do post a compendium about all players.

I can't blame you for the lack of long read-lists six pages in. Other than that I still have the previous concerns. Example, JasonWazza is cited directly below (Post 137) as being active-lurky, but you also said right above in 136 that you don't scum-hunt until late because there's nothing to go off of. I'm coming in as never played a game with anybody here and I'm not relying on secondhand meta dives to tell me someone might be Town because they did that before while I wasn't there. The active posting without scum-hunting is essentially active-lurking.

What say you all? Is fferyllt scum or am I crazy?

I think she leans, not enough that I'd vote her over Kue at the moment.

I don't get an apologetic sense from sikon's early posts at all. Insecure, maybe, but I think that's par for the course for a first game at MS.

Agreed that being soft spoken isn't a scumtell on its own. Everyone's a bunch of strangers for most of us.

How about her Lynx_Shine post? Oh yeah:

In post 144, fferyllt wrote:Lynx_Shine

I like her two posts. Would like to see more posts and more follow-up. In the interest of promoting follow-up...

MORE buttering up to a person that is suspicious of her.

I'm personally glad to see this opinion at least. I see twice so far "Lynx's posts are good, she should post more" and I'm not sure if that's from a legit standpoint or minor guilt-tripping. I've guilt-tripped like that once before, made them just a little less likely to vote me over someone else, and it bought me a Day or two. Considering I've gone hardest after her and Kue (who I don't know if she sees Town or Scum), it just seems odd to say unless she has a secret thing against him.

ffery is uber town dude.

If you don't usually post proof with reads you probably get sick of being asked. But considering I'm nearly between ffery and Kue I'd like to know where you see Town in her if likeabauss and I are reading scum.

Speaking of Kueshina, he disappeared too after being accused scum.

[fferyllt]

Lynx are you still around? I'd like to actually chat with you about Kue rather than respond to bits of your wall.

[cAPSLOCK]

Games I have played elsewhere prodding lurkers via a vote is normal. I am trying to scumhunt, and I think my posts in this game show that, even if i am not as good at it as many regulars here. I am afraid that my newness is the real factor there.

I do not really see JasonWazza doing a lot of scum hunting still, though. I feel he is even more guilty of what he is accusing me of. I will examine this theory later. My vote for lynx is stale though.

UNVOTE:

[fferyllt]

Ok, well here are some questions/thoughts for starters, Lynx. I haven't looked all that closely at Kue mostly because I dismissed the mass claim comments as something scum wouldn't bring up. So, here's a closer look.

The post about starting with mass claim - I've been thinking that this is probably a site meta thing. I'm reluctant to hit up the "scum would never do X" meme, but it seems like an odd thing for a scum player to want to bring up in this game format. However new to MS Kue is, he has a working knowledge of mafia and command of the lingo, and says he played some games on epic mafia. I played a couple games on a site once where the mods put shittons of power roles into the designs, and the players were in the habit of all but breaking the game with mass claim on day 1.

One thing about epic mafia, though - the games happen fast. I dunno about mass claims. I might hit up a friend who plays there and ask.

What do you think was the motivation for scum-Kue to bring it up?

37 and 48 come off a little defensive and I'm kinda torn. In a true-newb, defensive reaction to an RVS vote wouldn't really bother me. Kue doesn't look true-newb as I said in the previous paragraph.

54 was that vote table and the vote on sikon. Terrible trajectory on this. Prior to voting sikon, the only thing I can find Kue comment on was agreement with sikon that scum might stretch out the confirmation phase of day 1.

82 vote switch to me. Once again no trajectory, but this time there is at least a reason stated for the vote.

To me the mass claim stuff is just...null. The vote trajectory stuff could be an artifact of rapid fire chat-style mafia, but it pings a little.

[fferyllt]

The glacial pace of this game is making me seriously antsy.

[Kueshina]

[...] I was really just wondering why your logic sucks. What gives? Sikon used the word "careless", I'm going with failed logic.

That is not very specific or helpful. I don't have all that much experience with mafia, so excuse me if I'm not great at it yet. Hopefully I'll improve with practice. Was there some particular point of logic you wanted to correct me on?

[...]

Lynx_Shine seemed to think this was wrong because it was impossible for massclaiming d1 to ever be a good idea.

Regardless of how bad of an idea I think it is, was massclaim really necessary as the first thing on a list of things we could do in this setup?
[...]

No, which is why I put it on the list of things we could

n't

do in this setup.

I like likeabauss's case on fferyllt.

[...]
5) At this point, I reply a bit more inflammatory, and hint at a piece of the case against her:

And in my opinion, you're trying to contribute to the thread without adding anything that's helping the town identify and hang scum. This is not pro-town behavior, and I want to hang you for it.

This is one of my key reasons I think she is scum, but how does she respond?
6)She gives me exactly what I asked for. 3 scum suspects, her reasons for all 3, and a vote for one... not before offering an excuse for why she hadn't done it yet:

Substance and quantity is a little lacking in some quarters still, and it's primarily experienced players who seem to be holding back. I'm done waiting for content.

"I'm done waiting for content." Translation: HERE COMES THE BOOM.

Now, solely by virtue of me telling her what she's doing wrong, she corrects it and continues on. Experienced mafia players are very good at this, and can be difficult to nail down. [...]

Much the same thing happened earlier: I voted fferyllt for lack of scumhunting, and in her very next post she gives her first scumread of the game, while trying to make it look like she had given it earlier:

[...]
That said, as I mentioned earlier the indirect attack and indirect support for Kus's first vote pings. It pings harder than anything else in the game so far.[...]

Looking over her earlier posts, she did not mention earlier that this pinged. She did mention it earlier, but not that it pinged, only that it justified her defensiveness.

[fferyllt]

Fferyllt - let me clarify. I understand the point you are making about your play style, history, meta, etc. My question to you is why did you bring it up in the first place? I made mention of a different player doing a similar thing, as part of a line of questioning to that player, and you chimed in with a defense for YOUR actions. I never mentioned you doing it, neither did anyone else that I can see.

It smells fishy to me, mostly because good guys (town) operate under the confidence of their innocence. Bad guys (scum) are forced to mask their guilt and put on a show. This subtle difference changes the nuance of some things. One of the things I look for is people who are overly defensive (which you've exhibited in this maneuver) because scum feel the need to defend and keep the heat off. A town player knows their innocence and wont be as touchy or knee jerk on defense, especially against an accusation made against a completely different player.

It was in response to the player that I tentatively townread,

and appeared to be an indirect dig in my direction.

It also was the post immediately after Kus putting down a vote on me with the reasoning that I was buddying sikon,

so it also looked like indirect support for that vote

.

Your play in this game so far seems to be oblique and indirect in some ways.

I am going to make some time for a meta dive to see if that's typical of your town game.

I didn't use the word "pings", but I certainly did indicate concern about the indirect attack and the indirect vote support. In fact, it was enough concern to do a meta dive and read his earlier games.

And the dive

did not

turn up a propensity for indirect and oblique stuff.. He was direct and aggressive in his play back then. Given the passage of time (more than 2 years) I think he may have needed a little time to get back into the groove.

bauss was much more direct and aggressive right from the start in his earlier games. His later posts in this game, which I have said make me doubt the validity of my initial lean toward scum, are more in the vein of his first two MS games from a couple years ago.

[fferyllt]

Kue's post 159 was based on an extremely shallow read of my earlier posts to and about bauss.

Shallow cases are associated with scum alignment IME, but they are also common for newer players. I'll weigh that up with my post 157 from earlier today, but I also want to do a reread tomorrow .

[Lynx_Shine]

ffery sorry I wasn't there, I posted that right before school and I'm on now right before I have to be in bed. Monday through Thursday I'm not computer-able a good portion of the day, but weekends I should be a lot more free than I am now after the first week of July.

As for how to start day 1, depending on the setup: massclaim, some PRs claim to get doc/watcher protection but others say hidden, hypocopping, in dethy and similar everyone outs their reports, if there's a bulletproof the get told that they get shot, they claim if they got shot, if there's no bulletproof but there's a doc and no kill, sometimes they tell everyone who they saved, etc.
In this particular setup, I suspect that if any of those strategies were worthwhile, people would be doing them instead of the RVS. Our PRs are safer not claiming (with the possible exception of the BP, but in the newbie games I've read noone asks for BP claims d1), and it's day start; noone was saved from a kill and no one has any reports.

I wanna bring this up first because I've come back to this a few times, and it may be rendered moot depending on Kue's actual experience level vs my perceived. Kue in 159 says massclaim was on "the list of things we couldn't do in this setup." I don't see it said that it's what can't be done, but the most important thing I'm looking at is the placement itself.

First thing, from my point of view, I see buzzwords and pointing fingers in the first post, so I'm expecting experience since I know literally nothing about him (for all I know he's a she, it's not listed). So from there, it's...I'm failing to think of the word but "suggestion" comes to mind. You'll usually remember only the begining of things if you skim, so you bring up important things. Alternatively, if we had an actual newb in here, god forbid they were one of the PRs because nowhere in that paragraph did it say, "I'm not saying to do this." When it comes down to it I might've just seen him as a bigger threat than he really was just because he knows how to throw words around.

Aside from that, highly defensive and disappeared around the tag you and bauss were brought up for discussion, which is common to drop off the radar. He came back since I last posted, but what rubs me the wrong way about the reappearance is it's when he's brought up again, and it's to jump on the case against you.

As it stands now I've become torn, right now it honestly doesn't look like both of you are scum together short of Kue pulling a crouching moron hidden badass.

The glacial pace of this game is making me seriously antsy.

Is the pace not normal of newbie games? I know someone playing on the main part of the site, his game's moving much faster, but the post numbers in the new section all look lower in comparison.

[fferyllt]

Lynx,

[...]

@Kue: What is your level of experience with mafia?

I've played a few games on epicmafia, but that's about it.

Right or wrong, I am taking this at face value.

[fferyllt]

Re the pace, it is somewhat slow compared to other newbie games I've played from the start. We've been playing for over a week now.

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... rt_order=d

[Lynx_Shine]

Right or wrong, I am taking this at face value.

Ended up missing that first time around, caught it on a reread just a bit ago. Which is heading in that obnoxious rut of "not sure if newb or scum." Either way I don't personally see it as full clear, just eases up the massclaim fiasco.

[fferyllt]

Right or wrong, I am taking this at face value.

Ended up missing that first time around, caught it on a reread just a bit ago. Which is heading in that obnoxious rut of "not sure if newb or scum." Either way I don't personally see it as full clear, just eases up the massclaim fiasco.

Pretty much. Kue comes off a mix of touchy/reactive and aggressive.

First posts are interesting. having confirmation in-thread kind of dilutes the value of first posts in terms of seeing what a player brings into a game. But, in general town bring themselves, their questions and their desire to figure out other players. Scum bring their preparations and game faces they put on in the QT thread.

Jason, I don't like your newbie-biting. If you expect all newbies to both do enough reading to know that mafiascum games start with an RVS and to notice that their confirmation is the one that starts the game, you're going to be disappointed a lot. However, this seems likely to be a nulltell rather than a scumtell.

Took Jasonwazza's posts personally.

david, I was in bed when my role pm arrived, and checking mafiascum is not the first thing I do when I get up. Besides, wouldn't it make sense for the last people to confirm to be the people with the least exciting roles, e.g. Vanilla Townie? (Not that I'm saying what role I am, except that I win with the town)
I'll VOTE: Vote:imkingdavid because this seems like bad logic.

Defensive about arrival time, claims town, implies/denies vanilla.

I'm talking myself into a scum read.

[Lynx_Shine]

I'm curious if anybody doesn't think he's being too defensive. This may be another difference with epic mafia that I don't know about, but "a few games" should be enough to pick up that Townies aren't defensive, Scum are typically. Along the same lines of Townies shouldn't self-vote, or have no need to lie in most cases. (Unless there's reasons to do that here that I wouldn't even know about.)

Took Jasonwazza's posts personally.

In post 93, TheTrollie wrote:yo kuesh...

u scum bro?
No.

In post 112, likeabauss wrote:[...]
Kueshina - This may be a bit unconventional, but would you place yourself in the "older than 25" or "younger than 25" age group?
[...]
I believe the word you were looking for is "rude". Anyway, I prefer to avoid giving out private information on the internet to strangers in public fora.

Same with bauss and Trollie, lashing out all over the place.

david, I was in bed when my role pm arrived, and checking mafiascum is not the first thing I do when I get up. Besides, wouldn't it make sense for the last people to confirm to be the people with the least exciting roles, e.g. Vanilla Townie? (Not that I'm saying what role I am, except that I win with the town)
I'll VOTE: Vote:imkingdavid because this seems like bad logic.
Defensive about arrival time, claims town, implies/denies vanilla.

If this wasn't open I'd be wondering about the phrase "win with the Town," there's a good chance I'm reading too far into some of this. I know someone else earlier came out and said "I'm Town" so that isn't something I'm worrying about.

But I actually wholly disagree with the statement that a "less exciting" role would confirm last. If you've read your role PM you're able to confirm, and a VT has no reason to stall. Confirm and narrow down the pregame time. Since they can't do anything at night anyways, VTs are most expendable and are usually most vocal because if they die, the Doc/Cop/something else is still alive. Also probably worth mentioning is that he was the last to confirm, putting him in his own category of VT or Scum.

It's hitting am hours, I'll try to be back on before school tomorrow.

[likeabauss]

The glacial pace of this game is making me seriously antsy.

I bet you just can't wait to get to the night phase and chat with your scum buddy.

I'll be honest there is something about this game that just makes it meh to read.

However cAPSLOCK is still a good vote, he's vote is based on lurking, not based on scumhunting.

I was hoping for more insights from you... there have been a number of new angles developed since you RVS'd cAPSLOCK and just left your vote there. I'd love for you to share your "list" or maybe explore some of the observations that are being discussed.

The game may be "meh to read" because you aren't adding enough of your flavor to it. Try that and see if it helps?

ffery is uber town dude.

sik and kuesh (i think it was kuesh i was reading up on my phone earlier ill double check that soon) are scummy

I would love to hear why you disagree with my case against fferyllt. Would also love to hear about your thoughts on Sikon and Kueshina.

[fferyllt]

I bet you just can't wait to get to the night phase and chat with your scum buddy.

I love every minute of the day phase. A day that is down to minutes before the hammer is my idea of mafia game suspense and excitement.

I want more posts and more activity. More stuff to analyze. Not a shorter day. The glacial pace is depriving me of that. So, please keep posting!

[fferyllt]

I guess that's your post for the day, bauss. Would kinda like to get into conversational mode with you at some point in this game.

What are your thoughts about the convo Lynx and I have had about Kueshina and Sikon?

[likeabauss]

What are your thoughts about the convo Lynx and I have had about Kueshina and Sikon?

I have some thoughts about the Kueshina discussion that I'm happy to share. Please direct me to the convo with Lynx about Sikon though? Did I miss something because my "FFERYLLT IS MAFIA HANG HER" blinders are on?

[fferyllt]

The convo started in my post 142 where I disagreed with something iamkingdavid wrote about sikon's early posts having an apologetic air to them.

The reply was in 154.

[likeabauss]

There is so little about Sikon in those posts, you've really got me scratching my head. I'm wondering if you made a little Freudian slip and are just covering. Did you mean to mention another name? I mean, Lynx doesn't even mention Sikon except to say "condolences." You barely mention an FoS and an apologetic tone in your post. I'd hardly call it a conversation... In fact you pointing me to it just seems like you're trying to show me that you're "Scum hunting" and get back on my good side. Sorry not buying it.

I believe that Kue is town. If anybody else wants me to articulate why, I'm happy to. But for now, I'll barter with you...

Share your analysis of Trollie with us, and I'll respond with my analysis of Kue?

[fferyllt]

There is very little to analyze in thread. My snap-read of Morthas' early posts was town, but I have never played with him before. And I haven't played with TheTrollie either.

I did a meta dive earlier today. Here are a couple of threads I think are interesting.

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=24407 I like this one because he replaced into the game. He had 400+ posts to read, whcih is more than enough usually to come up with some strong reads. And he did quickly come up with some strong reads and pursue them. The player he picked to pursue first was town. TheTrollie was vanilla town.

And here's a scum game. http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=21681

The thing that really stands out doing a quick comparison of those games is the difference in post lengths. Lots of paragraphs in that scum game. In the town game the posts are shorter and to the point, as well as taking stronger stances.

I half expected to come away from the meta thinking he could be scum because unless I recognize a play-style or mafia background similarity with a player, I am suspicious of easy town reads.

Meta is often inconclusive because players' styles evolve. I didn't come up with red flags from my meta dive. But to firm up my read, I'll need to see more posts next week.