A town case:
1. Meta
As a matter of comparison, here's my my most recent scum game (
https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=77970). It doesn't take a lot to see the differences there.
My priority as scum was to manipulate the most influential townies in the game (e.g. Irrel, the worst, Nauci, etc.) into townreading me. I did this by actively townreading them as quickly as possible, questioning them for not townreading me, and exclusively attacking players who questioned my towniness. I normalized my towniness as quickly as possible so that I eventually became the most townread player in the game. I was unlynchable at all points of that game.
In short, I behaved in ways that I predicted would get me townread. I never alienated anyone. I didn't take risks. I didn't use WIFOM. I played a simple game of manipulation.
In this game, I didn't try manipulating the most influential players into townreading me. On the contrary, I spent the early parts of this game trying to sort the strongest scum players: Irrel, Auro, & RC. Rather than manipulate these players into townreading me, I relentlessly tested their reactions while trying to sort. I knew this wouldn't help me get townread but I thought sorting these players ASAP was more important than having them townread me, at least in the short term.
a. Irrel
I voted Irrel for reasons that I knew would alienate a number of players, especially the bit about how he prefers scum. I was testing reactions so that I could sort Irrel as well as others around him.
Irrel knows that I know he prefers scum, so I knew Irrel would understand why I was voting him, at least to some extent. I predicted that town Irrel wouldn't let paranoia fester about me -- he's clear up my vote for those who didn't understand -- whereas scum Irrel would let the paranoia fester to potentially set up my mislynch.
This is how I sort Irrel in most of my games (e.g. is he allowing paranoia to fester when he could easily clear it up based on his meta knowledge?). And I can point to previous town games where I've townread Irrel based on the way he prevents paranoia from festering, so if you need further meta evidence that this is how I approach sorting Irrelephant (with 100% accuracy so far over multiple games), that can be provided as well.
As scum, I never approach the game by testing reactions because it's too risky. There's no reason for me to unnecessarily attract suspicion of others (including Irrel), or to create a situation where paranoia about me could arise in the first place, when I easily could have easily manipulated Irrel into townreading without attracting any suspicion or doing any actual scumhunting.
If I were scum, it would have been very easy for me to say nothing about Irrel's alignment, or to townread him. The fact I didn't do those things is strongly town indicative for me.
b. Auro
I slightly ignored Auro's questioning at the start of this game to test his reactions. He doesn't know me so I expected to receive flak from him. I also knew his questions would eventually be cleared up without any problem, and I believed town Auro would quickly reevaluate my alignment if he were to scumread me at first.
As a result of my test, Auro engaged a strong line of questioning on me that was one of the towniest things in the game. His push was especially towny because he felt so unconcerned about addressing my concerns about him & almost exclusively focused on trying to understand my thought process. His lack of self-concern in that push is part of why I'm locktown on Auro.
I don't engage this sort of subtle testing as scum because it unnecessarily attracts suspicion without any upside. Auro didn't leave that conversation townreading. On the contrary, he left it with lots of paranoia about my slot, paranoia that I let sit for the moment because again I wasn't worried about my appearance. The upside of my initial play around Auro is that I was able to townread one of the strongest scum players in the game.
This is something I exclusively do as town, not as scum. I never alienate a player like Auro as scum, especially when I predict that Auro would push me in precisely the way he did. My goal as scum isn't to be pushed because, again, I don't take risks as scum. I do things that have predictable responses (from my perspective), and those predicted responses are myself being townread.
c. RC
This is the biggest one. I never vote or push RC in any manner on D1 if I'm scum, straight-up never. I keep calling him town until LYLO. This is the biggest town tell for me, although you probably won't understand it if you don't know our history.
If I were scum, I relentlessly defend RC throughout the game because doing so causes RC to keep me alive. RC struggles with surviving, so if there's someone keeping him alive, he'll keep that person alive even if the player might be scum. And, in my case, it's especially the case because RC really really doesn't want to mislynch me. He'd feel too bad about it. As long as I defend RC, RC never pushes my lynch unless he's absolutely certain I'm scum, meaning he keeps me alive until LYLO.
As far as I'm concerned, my win condition as scum against RC is bringing him to LYLO and then mislynching him with the argument that he's godtier scum who got inside my head. I don't see myself losing in this circumstance with this player list, especially given Irrel's paranoia of scum RC. Plus, I think Irrel would prefer losing to scum me over scum RC. This would be much easier than trying to fake genuine attempts to actually sort RC, which as you've seen in this game, don't necessarily cause RC to townread me.
--
There's another massive difference between my play here and my play as scum: the way I interacted with Wazoo.
As scum, I don't keep interacting with a known mislynch, continuously trying to sort them. Look at how I interact with the mislynches in Starcraft. I occasionally made cases and then ignored the lynches until they died. I didn't show any genuine interest in their thought process, nor did I give them any chances to prove to me they were town.
But in this game, I kept trying to give Wazoo a chance. I read through his games (something I'm very unlikely to do as scum), kept trying to understand his reasoning, rereading this game to see if what he was saying made any sense. I never do this unnecessary stuff as scum, especially since I'd be worried that the more I interacted with Wazoo, the more I'd betray my informed perspective about his alignment.
3. Nominations
If I were scum in this game, I never nominate myself.
For starters, RC replaced out of the game calling me scum, so if I were actually scum, I would have been scared shitless that the townies would sheep him. I'd especially be worried about it because of how much flak I received on D1 from multiple players:
DT votes me regardless of what happens.
Fusco votes me because I called him scum.
SR votes me because I called explanations scummy and because he's misreading me based on stylistic differences (as well just mistaking wordiness for content when that's not the case).
Irrel votes me because he sheeps obvtown RC.
Auro votes me because I potentially alienated him yesterday.
Clemency votes me because he's a troll who maybe sheeps RC.
RC's replacement votes me because he's sheeping RC.
You get the point. If I'm scum, why would I take this risk? What's the upside? Do I suddenly become confirmed if I survive the nomination phase? No, there's no upside. I never take this risk as scum.
That said, even if I were to nominate myself as scum, I do so only with players who I reasonably could survive against. In other words, I'm not putting myself against Irrel/Volx. That's like flipping a coin. It's suicide as scum, something I'd never do.
Who do I take with me if I'm scum? I take the townie from the group of DT, Clemency, Fusco, Vedith. I might take SR. I might take one of Irrel/Volx but not both. I create an environment where my chances of survival are better than just flipping a coin.
Again, I don't play a WIFOM game as scum. And my scum meta bears that out. I win games as scum by taking minimal risks while manipulating players into townreading me with strong day play. If I'm scum in this game, I never nominate myself. It's an extraordinary risk with no reward.
