Mafiascum.net

I started out this game wanting it to be more instructional on the subtler side of the scum alignment. I think a lot of players think the only way to win as scum is to prove yourself super town.

One of the main concepts to understand how I was able to effectively convert this game into a win is Every single player was scared of me Day 2, and this led me to look for ways to capitalize on the paranoia. I understood that as long as you were paranoid of me, I could force town’s attention on me, bear it, and keep it away from Spartan. As long as I could get one more miselim, I did not mind being voted Day 3. I had set up plenty to suggest Salsabil was my partner for Spartan to use Day 4. The notes PT goes more indepth on this, but at virtually every turn I was doing my best to control exactly what the town players were thinking about and where their attention was focused. Innocent dialogues with quiet were in reality safely quarantining him, knowing the topic is safe and it preventing him from moving his attention somewhere productive. As I discuss in the notes PT, I actively looked for ways to capitalize on floo’s absence Day 3, such as by selling myself as town looking ahead to the 3 way decision and doing traffic control to make sure conversation is going in a favorable direction.

Two things combined to ruin my life Day 2. One, I overshooting my dialogue Day 2, becoming more town than I wanted after a conversation with flow trap. Second, fairy replaced in and completely shut down any chance of me letting Spartan go it alone, let alone setting up the slot to be voted.

Second, springing off of this concept is the idea of Day 2 and Day 3, I was very intentional about using the clock against the town, publicly positioning as though I wanted something to happen but all the while content to let it run out, putting the pressure on town to drive miselims or concede to my desired floo vote without too much of a worry. Ironically, this almost backfired as Spartan got flashwagoned, but we survived thanks to Spartan coming in at the right time.

Third is the concept of One of the things you’ll notice in the notes PT is that I have no earthly idea what to do early on, simply because I don’t know who I’m up against. As I gained knowledge of the players, I became better at predicting exactly what would be townread-or scumread-by others. Many of my “basic powertowning” posts I reference in the notes PT aren’t actually basic at all, but strategically using my understanding of other players to engineer townreads during extended interactions in conjunction with my more extended schemes. I constantly ran ahead of things I knew would cause trouble, and by describing or addressing them on my terms, would almost always nip them in the bud before they even started. I don’t have too much advice as to how to replicate this: This is a strength that gets refined in the fires of chat mafia. At times, I specifically utilized the same concept to engineer scumreads on me or issue challenges I knew wouldn’t be taken up, such as my potentially gamelosing bluff with floo Day 2.

Every single post of mine was crafted to be townread or scumread by certain people, often down to the specific word choice. This sounds like a lot of effort, but at a certain point becomes instinctual.

Fourth, you must One of the huge walls quiet ran into was that I simply had no scum record of playing this way as scum, but a very extensive one as town. As you are players lacking in a meta record for the most part, this is something that will come with time.

All 4 of these combined to deliver the win in 5 way. The first two were crucial all game, the third was crucial for executing some of the smaller-scale tactics, but the third/fourth in conjunction are what won the game.

I said this in the Notes PT, but , with the pinchhitters and my own mistakes forcing me to swap strategy halfway through the game. I said that if town got caught up in my tone, and in my meta, rather than finding Spartan and working their way through pairings from there, town would lose, and this is essentially what happened. From my perspective, game was about town being able to find each other and eliminate pairings, which is what came close to sinking us Day 3.

Lastly, You don’t have to take it to extremes like I do, you can have a life, but you can’t disappear for extended periods of time and expect to win whenever you happen to show up. This game had some strong and very active town players, but at crucial points the others disappeared when they needed them most. I don’t want to beat up on floo-who played well-but waiting until Day 3 to come around put way too much pressure on quiet/flow trap, both of whom were already dealing with enough obstacles from me.

I do think being more open would have gone a long way, especially early days. Your pairings and wall were brilliant, and your reads were good (esp. on Salsabil imo, that was legitimately a great progression) but actively dialoguing with quiet, floo, etc. much earlier on would have gone a long way. By playing more closed, I was often able to leverage my appeals to you as “freebies”: +town posts that didn’t put myself or the scumteam at any risk at all. Imagine if you had, say, worked with quiet on a Spartan vote or been able to sell that more effectively Day 2. I think Day 3 specifically, you could have engineered a bit more from both quiet and floo. Your off the cuff style was a strength, and I chose not to push you this game, but you do need to be careful that you’re not making the kind of contradictions I pointed out near the end of Day 2.

You ruined my life, I have virtually no words for you. You didn’t really play enough to have me give a ton of feedback but I think your reads were great, maybe a bit too caught up in my tone/emotional side. You pushing Spartan more would have outright won the game, but just the vulnerabilities you showed by pushing the slot were nearly enough to sink it. Easiest fearkill of my life.

he most glaring issue, as you’ve identified, is motivation and posting. Your team needed you Day 3, not to necessarily no-life it like I did, but to be engaged and dialoguing with them. My perception was that you were in your own head about where you went wrong/how you got put into such a bind, which is understandable, but you had to push through that. You have good analysis, but you need to dialogue more readily and not selectively ignore things. I exploited this relentlessly this game and others will do the same. Finally, I think you had the right idea in going after me/Spartan specifically! This is extremely tough to do but you found it. Lastly, this one is more minor, I do think you could have sharpened your points against me a bit-had I responded, I think you would have found they shot you in the foot. That said, you were under a ton of pressure by this time, and making sure you got me exactly right was a very small worry in comparison

Never selfvote as town unless you gain a concrete mechanical advantage for doing so. Never think of yourself as valueless or “bound to be voted later.”

In general, you were a pleasure to play with, and I found flow trap similarly abrasive as times. Simultaneously, floo/flow trap were right that your reaction was throwing gas on the fire. It’s on you to successfully link up as town, and sometimes that means really, REALLY going out of your way to accommodate people you entirely disagree with.