Vaguely like ausukas entry to the game even though I don’t know why they town read ydrasse.
I REALLY like
Post 259. It’s something that didn’t hit me when I first read the post, but I really agree.
This questioning of datisi screams town to me.
Post 732 I don’t really like this response to marci either tbh. It feels like a town player would want to do some amount of convincing of other town players if they really thought this post came from scum marci. On the other hand its maybe an emotional reaction vote and those tend to come from town more than scum (no matter how much people like to shout OMGUS at the top of their lungs)
Post 1074 kind of weird that this didn’t occur to ausuka because I’m pretty sure this point got made on like page 10 or something right when ausuka was questioning datisi. I find this kind of inconsistency to be more likely to come from town than scum though.
Post 135 is just bizarre. Scum being annoyed at an early correct town read? What? That’s just…not a thing? In a large? What? I kind of feel like its the kind of bizarre statement that only comes from town.
On page 15 I’m getting some really sketchy vibes from scamper tbh.
Scamper’s
Post 516 just pings me in all sorts of bad ways. I don’t love that preemptive defense of ausuka when no one was saying they thought they were scum, in fact the prevailing wisdom of the crowd seems to be that they’re town, so parroting that seems like a good way to insert yourself into the conversation giving an opinion that is in no way controversial or important, and then the takeaway is like “well but also baltars questioning makes sense I guess. Could be town. Idk.” Garbage stuff.
Most of scampers iso is stuff like this so far.
Post 632 Hey my former self makes a point I agree with! Hey scamper, want to actually say who might be the scum instead of doing the thing scum frequently do day 1 where they cast doubt on weak reads of other people to seem engaged but are actually saying nothing the whole damn time.
I stg if scamper flips scum I’m going to go back and lock town every single person they did this about.
Also FB and Scamper have non-zero buddy equity.
Post 642 The FUCK does this actually MEAN. No one is asking you to lock scum people, but how do you think scum reads actually happen? Do you think the wolf just comes up to you and grins and says YUP I’m a wolf! You’re supposed to use your vote to FIND them. Not just park it on FB randomly, do nothing to actually create any pressure from it, and then make vague doubting noises whenever someone expresses that something might be scummy. If you’re town thats just not how you play, my guy.
Post 743 this post SUUUUUUUUUCKS. Curtailing your posting? What? You haven’t exactly been tearing up the thread before this, pal. I think things like this also where someone cautions against some imaginary bogeyman (100 page day one! The horror!) are WAY more likely to come from scum than town early on.
Post 851 yawn another example of scamper just throwing water at a read of someone else without providing any opinions of his own.
Post 1018 nothing to see here, just another example of scamper throwing cold water on reads without interrogating them at all or providing his own thoughts. Doesn’t even feel the need to say which ones this time. Says doesnt feel like elaborating which is weird because just earlier hes like I dont have anything to talk about.
Ugh this is just scum, isnt it?
Post 1025 says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Attacks a scarecrow of “all the scum being in the least active people” which absolutely no one was advancing.
Also keeps saying he doesn’t have a good idea of where the game is at or its incomplete, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from having a lot of vaguely well poisony thoughts on someone elses reads every time he manages to pop into the thread.
Post 1055 ooooooh are we gunna get a 1v1 when I get into the game? Come at me, bro.
Post 1076 This is an extremely amusing post because, yes, actually, if you read the rest of this iso dive I think your scum range is EXACTLY that, but not to get town read but rather to just continue being present in the thread while adding nothing.
Post 1149 I like this post insofar as its one of the first times I’ve actually seen reasoning added to one of scampers dismissive posts but it is still a dismissive post without adding much and I think severely understates why people are suspicious of datisi as well. Idk.
Post 1266 what a brave and bold take from scamper. “He probably isnt scum. Idk. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was scum.
What exactly IS interesting to you? I’ve read 50 pages of you and I still don’t know. I’m sorry mafia is so boring for you.
Post 1293 oh boy we get OPINIONS FINALLY.
Ironically scampers posts since casing my predecessor make me feel much better about him. For one thing he actually seems to be interested in taking stances and explaining them.
Post 1387 I like this post quite a bit. I’m beginning to come around quite a bit here. Maybe we won’t have a fun 1v1 after all.
It’s possible that scamper is just the kind of player who takes a while to get warmed up to whats going on and uses these sorts of “adding nothing” posts to build up that connection to the game.
Post 1501 ok I’m back to not liking scamper because I do not like this post at ALL. I know I have some bias here because I know the flip, but this play just does not match the style I’ve seen scamper do all game, which is to cautiously move extremely slowly with his own reads and nitpick everyone elses reads ad naus without actually engaging with them. He has also multiple times expressed not being interested in things or bored by them because he does not think they lead to useful information.
So it is EXTREMELY incongruous here for him to immediately say, upon a replacement joining the game to replace an extreme lurker “I’m just going to vote here immediately.” despite even saying that the replacement is NAI based off of the one entry vote when theres so much else going on. I just…What?
Do I think its necessarily scum indicative? Idk, but holy hell is it completely different from every other game action he’s taken this game.
Datisi’s entrance is as town as random shit can be. I like Datisi picking up on the same interesting point as I did on skitter even if he’s coming to the opposite conclusion to me. I have a bias towards looking towards people picking up the same moments as I do as important because I find that scum have a harder time figuring out the actual bits to talk about.
I will say on page 38 I’m starting to come around to the idea that I don’t know what datisi is trying to accomplish. It seems to me like he’s been very active when his name comes up but he has not done much that I would call solving so far this game.
In contrast with Skitters page 1 reaction HEMs reaction to getting votes in RVS is more in line with what I would expect from scum, joking reactions to them which are trying to say ‘lol I dont care. Lol its funny ur voting me’
Though the interaction with ydrasse kind of reads more similar to my thoughts on skitter.
Post 286 feels way more like a scum wagon jump than a real read, but at the same time I don’t know that scum would be trying to pressure datisi this early in the day. Possible buddy equity if either of them flip scum.
Post 313 is this a town reaction?
Post 783 ugh I’m going to fucking hate playing with you, aren’t I? I fucking hate this style of scum hunting. It’s DAY FUCKING ONE. Saying things are POE is fucking NONSENSE.
Page 38 I’m starting to think HEM might be town.
Page 45 I’m really starting to vibe with HEMs thoughts. Feeling pretty good about a town read here.
It is noteworthy that we’re on page 13 and I don’t feel like you’ve done anything noteworthy.
Post 782 is a very good point, unfortunate that theres no follow up in the post but this is exactly what I was thinking. Not in the sense that I thought ausuka asked for it, but in the sense this is the second time this game that I’ve noticed marci doing something IMMEDIATELY after someone mentioned that it would be town of her to do so.
It’s not a town tell if you say if before hand! Then its the opposite!
Post 2261 This isnt alignment indicative or anything but every time someone makes a post like this I wonder if they’ve ever been in a scum PT. I’ve been in a lot of them and in my experience scum daytalk interaction just…does not look like this for the most part. Theres some vague back and forth usually but I don’t think I’ve ever had a scum buddy tell me “hey you need to do/say this” in this manner before.
I’m not going to try to read firebringer. You’ll have to catch him for me.
Ok I lied, this on page 37. I think firebringers lack of engagement and generally not feeling that excited about the game make me slight town lean him.
More lies from me.
Post 967 just doesnt feel real to me in the sense that I don’t think town firebringer makes it. I think its pretty obvious that the attack isnt that you’re voting skitter, but rather that you have done nothing to interrogate that vote or any other possible one.
The fluff about scum claiming not getting you scum read well I’ve played like 6 games with you and you’ve at least vaguely scum claimed in like..4 of them? As both alignments? This doesn’t seem like a real response but rather just vague deflection and well poisoning.
Post 1181 I agree with guiltylion about this. I realize this contradicts what I said earlier about lack of engagement being a slight town lean but I do agree that with that lack of engagement there is just a different energy to firebringer town game. It’s like as town he makes all the jokes in between the game play but as scum the jokes ARE the game play. I get that sense here.
Post 1565 I keep changing my mind about this and I know self-meta is crap but actually this post really resonated with me because it really does read like annoyed firebringer who knows that being scum in a game would never really be a reason for him to be low effort.
That doesn’t really necessarily answer the last point I said about jokes being the game play vs between the game play but its something I want to think about.
This slot is hard. Firebringer is hard.
I can’t get over this feeling that Gamma is just sitting on the periphery of the game and picking at safe topics to discuss.
Post 331 is an example. Does gamma actually care about this? Does he expect this line of questioning to actually go somewhere important? There’s loads happening, so this feels like a really strange thread to pick at.
Gammas posts on 18-20 feel like more of this to me. Just kind of there without doing anything. They’re more committal in that we actually get some reads and agreements but it still feels like gamma is just standing on the edges of the game.
We’re on page 46 and I’m still waiting for gamma to DO something.
Page 58. Gamma is back. Gamma still is doing NOTHING. Why does no one want to vote gamma? Why doesn’t gamme want to find scum? So many questions.
Post 1582 god I just hate this shit so much. I don’t think I can overstate this: This is just fundamentally not how mafia works.
Post 2359 this might be the first post this game that reminds me of the gamma town games I’ve seen.
Post 291 feels like a town post. I don’t really know why nero cain would jump in and try to steer the conversation away from what is currently happening unless he and datisi happen to be buddies. On the other hand the follow up reason is nonsense so maybe it could have some scum equity in just trying to derail the town discussion.
Post 521 feels like nonsense mostly, but it at least feels like nonsense that he believes. Is scum nero really getting this righteous over this and devoting a wall post to it? Methinks not.
I’m here on page 50 and I still have yet to hear anything remotely readable or impactful for eiralox. I see there’s a replacement so I’m probably just going to wait for that.
Post 1559 I’m glad someone said this. It really annoys me when people are like “It was genuine so it can’t come from scum.”
I get genuinely upset as scum all the fucking time.
Post 1575 I AGREEEEEEEEE. *jumps into dannflors pocket*
Post 1598 More than HALF the time??? REALLY? Really? Reallllllly? *jumps out of dannflors pocket*
Post 105 sucks because its such a bad basis for a town read. Marci so far has done basically nothing and I think claiming the vibes could come from town more often then scum. Ydrasse has a more detailed thought on this in post
Post 106 which I like better because it seems to be getting more into the why here, but I’m honestly not sure its better actually because scum literally do the “lol its because I’m scum” thing all the fucking time. I haven’t played with Marci but I have played with firebringer who is in this game and basically both his scum game and town game involve jokingly claiming scum constantly. This part of this kind of should go on the ydrasse section but I started typing it here and now its here.
Post 112 REEKS in this context. Oh let me get the town talking about how something that isn’t a town tell is a town tell and then DO it immediately after. Hate it.
Fire breaking out the self-meta in
Post 173 to say nooo don’t town read me for the wrong reasons this is actually how I would play as scum but LOL DONT WORRY I’M NOT SCUM HERE is an argument I hear all the time. From scum. Would definitely be voting fire here.
Post 270 is a YIKES from me. Saying that the town read on ausuka came from the datisi callout but the proclamation of ausuka town read came BEFORE the post which is referenced in this post. Post hoc justification of a read is serious scum vibes. There was no datisi callout yet, just a naked vote.
Post 1378 I agree with this post but also like…I have no idea where we currently are in MS meta cycles of whether pushes on lurkers tend to come from townies or from scum. It tends to oscillate in my experience.
Post 1414 self meta is either useless or cheating. Either you are lying and you try to do these things equally because you are aware of them, OR you are actually aware of the differences in your play and intentionally not fixing them and bringing them to the attention of others in your town games is borderline trust telling. So I guess my question to you is: Which is it? Are you so bad that there is a massive difference in your town games and your scum games in how you fundamentally approach day one and you’re mentioning that here to say you’re town in this game, or are you a capable town and scum player who we can safely disregard your self meta description of yourself?
We’re at the guiltylion entrance and its town as fuck.
Guiltylions 888 and 891 ping me quite a bit. I understand the theory is to pick at someone to try to discern their alignment but this doesn’t feel real to me. It’s the kind of thing I frequently do as scum where I find something to pick at and sort of question someone directly on it in order to look engaged with the game and like I’m solving. The issue here is that I really don’t see how this line of question helps guiltylion solve scamper. Am I really supposed to believe that “why did you respond to me saying you were scum with some reasoning” a reasonable thing to be surprised by? I don’t, really. There are so many things that GL could have talked about and this seems like a very odd place that doesnt accomplish anything but making him look like hes involved.
Post 919 is really interesting. On the surface I like it, but also isn’t this guiltylion accusing someone of doing exactly what I was just accusing gl of doing?
Post 1514 I’m no jeeptell enthusiast but third vote on the wagon. From a slot I’m iffy on. On a wagon I think sucks now that I’m reading context. On a player I already know is town. :thunk:
God guiltylions push on conman is SO bad. Hes scum because he’s aggressive now? What?
Post 512 is a very weird post to me. Like, I don’t know if this is alignment indicative at all but its just extremely odd to make a post that says “I don’t begrudge you for having a gut read” and then proceed to…do exactly that? Isn’t the whole point of a read being gut that you don’t have concrete reasons to discuss in the play? Isn’t the point that baltar doesn’t “see anything in the play” kind of disingenuous if he is saying the read is gut?
Post 2150 breaking my no writing about the game rule to say I think this is a very good post.
I can’t help but notice that marci, as soon as people started discussing her on page 6-7 and declaring her town for being present and not awkward and willing to respond to something with a joke immediately disappeared from the conversation. I would think that’s something that people who were actually looking into a real meta analysis of marci would pick up on, but like I said meta is garbage and people squint to make it say whatever they want it to at any given time.
Post 330 don’t like this post either. Coming back into the game and reacting in the exact same way as people flimsily townread you for before while adding very little additional context to the game at all is a big yikes. And I really hate the meta read here a lot. People change and people learn. This seems to be a particularly shitty example of meta which is directly correlated to change as someone gets more experience.
Oh hey, marci comes back on page 24 and once again contributes nothing. And ONCE again drops the “let me joke about being scum” thing again that got her town read for shitty meta reasons earlier. Hmmmmmm.
Post 732 seems like such a huge tonal overreaction to what was happening here. Maybe I’m missing some context but like jesus christ.
Post 740 is a weird AtE. What is there to be frustrated about? The game has barely started? You had a couple people vaguely think you could be scum? This also seems like such an incredible overreaction to me and I don’t think a town one.
Post 750 more AtE stuff. Marci, if you are actually town and you want to “do good” as you put it, why don’t you try solving instead of posting giant walls about being sad. The reason people are finding you suspicious is you’ve done basically nothing except pop into the thread go “LOL YA I’M SCUM” and then disappear without any attempt at determining other peoples alignments. If this is really your town game it needs a major makeover.
Post 809 feels vaguely town. One of the first times I’ve seen marci do something I would call earnest attempt at sorting.
In fact, the whole follow up to dropping this list feels vaguely town too. And spurred actual discussion.
Post 838 is also pretty townie.
Post 996 dont love this from marci. When she posted a similar list someone pointed out that one of the people on it had done nothing she said “so why do you think theyre on the list” so she’s aware of the process of putting lurkers in your scum pool.
Page 53: Marci is still here apparently. And still not interested in playing the game.
Post 1564 YES!
<3
Post 1717 this grouping is EXTREMELY gross.
Post 1835 yo this is precisely how I feel about gamma as well. Marci why dont you post more shit like this and less shit like LOL VOTE ME LOLOLOLOL
I think I’ve decided to town read marci for her actions and push on gamma at end of day, mostly. I also feel like the tone is good.
On some level, I understand that it is probably true that Xof doesn’t post much content day 1 as town, but on the other hand I don’t really want to let them get away with it because while it might not be super scummy for them its not super townie either!
We’re on page 15. I need to know what you think.
I liked skitters response to being voted in RVS. I know this can go either way depending on the player but in general from players with a bit of experience I find that digging into RVS votes like this is likely to come more from town than from scum. Scum are trying to generate discussion that does not point back to them and are focused on not seeming suspicious or hyper defensive so its not usually a discussion point scum choose. Slight town lean.
Kind of hate skitters
Post 89 though. It’s weirdly defendy for no reason, I think. I’ve played/read a few games played by ydrasse and I don’t understand why ydrasse wouldn’t have in scum range putting a third vote on for pressure in the RVS stage. That seems like a completely normal thing to do. Vaguely pockety, maybe? Idk.
@skitter your meta on marci is trash. Meta is trash.
I like skitters reentry to the game. I think in particular the thing that stands out to me is coming back into a game you’ve been out of for a while and having the ability to say I dont know or I’m unsure about a lot of stuff. I think thats actually something thats difficult to put in your scum range. There’s a big difference between saying something is null and saying “not sure i understand marci/ausuka but i think it's probably tvt”
Even though I don’t agree with the thoughts on scamper. I don’t think functionally townies frequently complain about thread length and take a back seat in the game especially if they’re not already super involved. I see a lot of sweet sweet scum motivation for doing that.
Post 903
Same, skittzy. Same.
Post 906
Shea - Skitter clasping hands dot jpg
Post 1731
Uhhhhhh. I can’t believe no one else pointed this out but I have seen the “newbie asks how many scum are in a game.” like 5 times in my life and every single time they’ve been scum. Like EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I’m gunna have a really hard time not just death tunneling this.
It’s weird because the content is actually generally ok. Little bland and generic, but they are new, but gosh thats a huge slip imo.
The more I’m reading the more it just does not read like newb scum imo. (page 70ish for reference)
Post 1981 ugthghhghghhgh were talking about the number of scum again. This time with certainty. Is there any way I can NOT death tunnel this.
Also like…yo, am I the only one who thinks obscures posts have felt like vaguely performative? Like they are at great pains to bring up how new they are a LOT and make a big show of asking newb questions and “googling omgus.”
Like I don’t want to be the asshole who is like is this new person lying about being new and be wrong but also like thats the vibe I’m catching so like idk dude.
Post 2003 like here we’re just throwing out the term pocket which is definitely obscure mafia terminology but we made a big show of googling omgus??? Especially because his experience is supposedly IRL and I’ve played a shit ton IRL and its not like pocket is a phrase that comes up a ton there in my experience.
I feel like I’m just confbiasing myself more and more here so I’m probably not going to vote this right out of the bat day 2 but just be aware its under the surface here simmering.
I’m gunna talk about this a little more here even though I talked about it under fireisreds blurb, but I just really don’t like this defense of marci. It’s not a reasonable stance. People do things that “bring pressure on them” all the time and ESPECIALLY in RVS it seems like the claim that scum would be worried about a joke claim of lurking in the first few pages of the game bringing pressure onto them in a real sense is just LAUGHABLE and I don’t think that’s a real basis for a town read, I just don’t. This just feels like a blatant pocket attempt tbh.
I’ve sort of liked some stuff ydrasse said early in the game but I’m here on page 36 and I’m starting to realize its been quite a while since I’ve seen them do something I would describe as “solvey” in any way. Ydrasse, what’s up wit dat? There’s been a lot of stuff like cat gifs and “painting nails gif” and not a lot of righteously murdering wolfies.
Page 46. The more time that goes by without ydrasse doing something the more jittery I get about ydrasse.
Post 1274 makes me worried that I don’t understand ydrasse very well. Something to consider.
Post 1506 hate this post too. I covered my thoughts on the first cmm vote on scampers iso but I just wanted to mention here that I find it completely shocking that ydrasse thinks that this is the place where they should actually get involved in the game. I also like…actually kind of liked CMMs response to the questioning so I’m not really even certain what prompted the vote.
What the fuck is this entrance?
Post 1625 is this really what people consider playing mafia now a days? Asking people questions like “Would you please tell me if you do this as town?” and expecting that it will ever give a useful answer.
And honestly the most frustrating part about it is that probably its completely NAI.
I liked deas entrance to the game on page 13. I hadn’t considered the wishywashyness of the nero post he highlights but it seems like a good thing to pick up on.
Post 349 ok yeah Dv can be town.
Post 994 is an interesting take on datisi that I hadn’t considered. I personally have felt pretty sympathetic to the idea that datisi doesn’t seem to be making much solvy efforts here but I’m open to the idea that perhaps datisi is good enough as a player that he would be trying to make more effort to appear town, but on the other hand isn’t he also a good enough player that he would be making more effort AS town? Is the claim here that as town he allows himself to indulge annoyances and as scum he doesnt? That doesnt make much sense to me. I still think its a pretty townie post from DV because I like where its digging and how the thoughts are pointed even if I don’t agree with the conclusions that much.
Thoughts not related to a specific player or my predecessor:
lol love having pretty much the exact opposite reads of the slot I’m replacing
I have read up to page 20 and I will take a breakypoo.
Ok I am now up to page 30. There’s so much going on. I wonder how we get from here to a conmanmick lim. I swear to god if you fuckers lazily yeeted a lurker instead of actually using some of this shit I am going to have a conniption. Anyway second break time.
Ok starting again. <3.
Page 32 God this is taking me way more time than usual. I think I’m being way more nitpicky than usual and its making me want to talk about multiple things per page.
Ok I’m on page 42. Time to do some work so I don’t get fired.
Ok I did one productivity. Time to return to the real task at hand.
Ok page 51 pause time. HALFWAY THERE
I’m on page 55 and I’m trying really hard to stay invested because I would really like to be caught up fully before day start but honestly its getting kind of hard to keep focused so please forgive me if I start skimming a little bit more and calling out specific posts less. When I post this if you feel like theres a specific post I missed that might be elucidating for me pleaaaaase point it out :eyes emoji:
I’m up to 63 and I’m super skimming at this point. This whole exercise was a mistake and I want to die.
I’m at 75. I’m not going to post that many more comments on things from this point on because its 10:35pm and I need to sleep at some point and I want to post this right when the thread opens and then let people talk about it while I have time to read through it myself and sort through what I think it means about my reads.
At 88. I just want to say I am extremely not understanding the dann scum reads. It feels like a whole bunch of people just simultaneously said “DEEP WOLF” in one voice and then all of a sudden it became common wisdom somehow. It’s possible I’m missing something in the skim but I thought his entrance was fine and I think the slot he replaced was non-existent (and I do not think, as someone who has modded a fuck ton of games, that replacement is at all +scum equity. In my experience its pretty much the opposite) but I do find that scum love PUSHING replacement slots because they have a much harder time defending themselves without being in the flow of the game and they have the actions of their predecessor to answer for.
@MOD: out of game aside
Can you please make some quality of life improvements to this game for the players?
Please format your first post better and consider adding useful information there for players. Best practice would be to have a separe list for players who are alive and dead (with information about their deaths i.e. role, when they were eliminated, etc) as well as some information about the current phase and deadline. This is especially true in games where you are pausing the deadline to get replacements. I need to be able to figure out when night or day actually ends and it is incredibly difficult when there is not one source of truth. Here is an example from a game I ran (
https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=87738)
Please do not pause the deadline to find replacements. It is somewhat understandable to do this over night or if a deadline is imminent, although personally I still wouldn’t, but there is no need to pause the deadline when there are 8 days remaining to find a replacement. It drags the game and bloats the thread and doesn’t really add anything meaningful.
@ me for scum reading VP?