Open 642 - The Woodshed - Game Over

[drmyshottyizsik]

Lots of things could explain my actions if I'm mafia. Otoh ...

Wrt alpaca, I want to see more from him so that I can sort him. I'm not ready to make any kind of strong read there right now.

Like this is EXPLICITLY my explanation. I'm not buddying (in what world does THAT look like buddying?), I'm not coaching, I'm trying to get meaningful engagement from him so I can sort him.

By saying don't do this or don't do that you aren't wanting more out of him, you are explicitly saying you want more town out of him

[AlpacaAlpaca]

I mentioned how his read on me was going to be a scum read whether I posted or didnt before touka did. Than touka did it and I mentioned it again but seemingly since nobody reads my posts and judges me regardless people assumed I was sheeping touka. So his 'advice' didn't matter since it was based on wrong info

[drmyshottyizsik]

I mentioned how his read on me was going to be a scum read whether I posted or didnt before touka did. Than touka did it and I mentioned it again but seemingly since nobody reads my posts and judges me regardless people assumed I was sheeping touka. So his 'advice' didn't matter since it was based on wrong info

Lol it didn't matter? So I should just pretend the scumminess doesn't exist because smith messed up? LOLOLOLOLOLOL

It matters a whole lot.

[mhsmith0]

Lots of things could explain my actions if I'm mafia. Otoh ...

Wrt alpaca, I want to see more from him so that I can sort him. I'm not ready to make any kind of strong read there right now.

Like this is EXPLICITLY my explanation. I'm not buddying (in what world does THAT look like buddying?), I'm not coaching, I'm trying to get meaningful engagement from him so I can sort him.

By saying don't do this or don't do that you aren't wanting more out of him, you are explicitly saying you want more town out of him

I wanted more thought and engagement from him. I found his ISO woefully short of useful AI indicative postings, and would prefer not to essentially just have a lurker lynch. If we're to lynch him, I want it to be the right lynch with enough info for me to be confident it's the right lynch. Or I want him to prove to us that he's town, and we lynch someone else (with ranger currently being my best candidate).

[mhsmith0]

Also he could just be trying to slow roll his way onto the wagon and be doing a poor job.
Like a lot of things could explain his actions as scum without Alpaca.


pedit: Well me and Ranger think Alpaca is town. If Ranger is town like I think she is achieving a lynch on Alpaca will require the cooperation of every single member of the town while having both scum on board.
So smith could easily just be trying to buddy up as the lynch isn't that easy to achieve.

Why are you town reading alpaca again? I relooked at your ISO and I saw a town read stated but I don't think you ever explained WHY you were town reading him.

[Quaroath]

Vote count 2.5

Ranger - (3) BTD6_maker, Kappy, mhsmith0
AlpacaAlpaca - (1) Music and Mail,
mhsmith0 - (3) Ranger, Touka, drmyshottyizsik

Not Voting - (1) AlpacaAlpaca

With 8 eligible to vote, is takes 5 to lynch.

Deadline is @ 10pm PST on 6/28

[mhsmith0]

Town: Alexcellent
Null-Town: Kappy; Alpaca
Null: BTD6; drmyshotty; Kickass; Music & Mail
Scum: Ranger; InnocentVillager

IV is in the scum pile largely for 110, the apparent strong need for everyone to agree with his reads and the non-committal Ranger vote. Also didn't get a good vibe from the way he was reacting to shotty.
Ranger's strangely confident reads list doesn't strike me as necessarily scummy itself - just weird. I don't know where the reads come from.

But I do dislike her more recent posts and the sudden jump from M&M to IV is pretty jarring and unexpected, considering how strong her scum read was on M&M.

Also, she appears to be dodging Alpaca's question (116). Gonna do this.

VOTE: Ranger

That's L-1!!

...

UNVOTE: Ranger
VOTE: InnocentVillager

Touka, what do you make of this pair of posts, made about an hour apart? Alex states that Ranger's "jarring and unexpected" "sudden jump" was wolfy, and then basically does the same thing (except he hops from Ranger to IV instead of M&M to IV). Do you see anything that happened in between his Ranger vote and his IV vote that especially justified the vote hop?

[Touka]

There where roughly 11 posts a good chunk of those where walls which was an exchange between Alex and Ranger.
Saying the posts where one hour an apart really misrepresents the situation in all honesty considering the quantity of the exchange between Ranger and Alex.

Why are you trying to convince me my slot is scum?

[mhsmith0]

I'm trying to see what you have to say about that sequence. It seems weird to me, but there was a specific question asked. Asking again to highlight it:
Do you see anything that happened in between his Ranger vote and his IV vote that especially justified the vote hop?

[mhsmith0]

And to clarify: "stuff happened" in those 11 posts doesn't really do it. WHY do you think there was information in that sequence to justify the seemingly naked vote flip, especially given that Alex himself called that out as (in his mind) a wolf tell?

[Touka]

I personally wouldn't have been voting Ranger at that moment so it is hard for me to say what would cause a shift.

[Touka]

Maybe Alex just reevaluated his Ranger read all together. I really don't know.

[mhsmith0]

Reading this in more detail, comments in bold orange

You die if you get lynched.

In a normal game, yes.
But this mechanic is basically a nerfed version of the shortnight/longnight mechanic.
In that I don't actually die.
I can still contribute.

And from my wagon, scumhunt.

Yes but from what he is saying he just doesn't want to waste a lynch on a town since that means that scum basically get one extra turn to prime something for free, so if you know you are town you shouldn't want to mislynch yourself.

It's more than that. Town auto loses on either the third or fourth mislynch (depending on night actions and whether we lynch primed trees). IMO people are WAY too relaxed about this.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Also M&M do you always make posts like these since they, in my opinion detract from your overall towniness.

Spoiler:

Autolynching Ranger tomorrow for this.

fuck yourselves.

If we get lynched here I'm not posting anything besides votes on Ranger for the duration of the game.

Stop being bad and vote Touka.

-- Mail

How do these posts detract from the slot's townieness? Because they're being rude? I could see 268 being a bad post, given that it's OMGUS in response to Sick wolf reading M&M (though alongside Ranger, who M&M also has been pushing). MAYBE you could make a case for 400 being bad because it's a vote for a bad reason, but it's transparently a temper tantrum, which again doens't seem meaningfully wolf-indicative. And the other posts there seem null at worst; how do you think these posts reflect a mafia alignment?

This town is so bad that at this point my main priority is lynching the people who are pissing me off so they don't win if they're scum rather than lynching scum.

VOTE: Drmyshottyszik

This is both.

How do these posts detract from the slot's townieness? Because they're being rude? I could see 268 being a bad post, given that it's OMGUS in response to Sick wolf reading M&M (though alongside Ranger, who M&M also has been pushing). MAYBE you could make a case for 400 being bad because it's a vote for a bad reason, but it's transparently a temper tantrum, which again doens't seem meaningfully wolf-indicative. And the other posts there seem null at worst; how exactly do you think these posts reflect a mafia alignment?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Trying to lynch Alpaca for not posting when literally no one is providing content is nice.

Alpaca literally has not voted since his one RVS vote. That's pretty terrible. I'm also not sure why his RVS vote was necessarily town; 28 reads pretty awkwardly to me.

PS Anyone want to guess why I really don't like Ranger's 134?

In general I don't actually vote until I am sure of somebody, I am not super big on pressure votes, though apparently I have to learn since voting for someone you aren't sure of is considered towny.

Seriously. If you are town, your posts should be pointed towards finding the best lynch or pushing the best lynch (once you've found it). If you're not sure of the best lynch, then you need to be working hard to figure out what it is. Also, unless you're in serious danger of getting lynched (and you're not currently a leading wagon), whether you are "considered towny" should be FAR from the top of your list. Find mafia. Kill mafia. Scum hunt. If you're town, that's your job.
And yes, voting is part of that job. You will just about NEVER have a "sure" read on someone. Make your best vote anyway. Or to quote the GM from my first game...

What matters most is what is written in Red and what is next to what is written in Red. i.e. When you are trying to kill someone. Is your desire to prioritise that particular person's lynch and your cited reasons for doing so sincere or not? That is the data that really gets you scum hunting. By half-way through the day at the latest - put a vote down. See how the votee reacts. See how other people react to your vote. Does someone vote for you for your vote. Great. You are town and they are wrong, but did it feel sincere? Does someone else join your vote in a way that seems insincere? And so on. Anyone hanging back and wishy-washing the day away is pretty vote worthy

Spoiler: Alpaca, this is you

just in case I'm being too subtle about it

, but if everyone is doing noting then how can you tell who is scum? Town have just incubated a perfect mafia play ground.
The VIAP lynch could perhaps have been iteration one of several potential iterations in d1. Get everyone voting then have a look at those votes and see where you might go next if anywhere.
d2 starts - vote early. You've seen d1 and re-read and had a chance to reappraise in the light of death reveals. Where is your thinking now? Put it in red. Take a stand. Make others commit to putting something in red and make the mafia defend their red votes. The mafia love not having to take firm positions and have all sorts of voting options open because they are always playing tactically. They are not trying to solve the puzzle.

~~~~~~~~~~~

BTD and M&M seem scummy to me
I town read Touka
null-town on Ranger, Kappy
null on Shotty and Sicko

Why on all of these? In particular your town read of Touka and wolf read of M&M. Also not sure why you're null-town on Ranger, that'd be helpful too.

I shall go through in order
BTD (scum) - I don't like post 57 where he votes his highest town read, I mean how about voting your top scum read? His whole stance on lynching Ranger and how it will be beneficial either way annoys me, If he was pusshing Ranger as scum I wouldn't have a problem but than he says

...a lynch on town Ranger is not too bad...

Great, you noticed something you don't like. Why didn't you push him on this? This was over 200 posts before this mega-quote of yours. In your 434 you note you didn't like his Ranger vote. Why didn't you vote him right there and then for it? In 436 you say that BTD and M&M "seem scummy to me"; why wasn't your vote on one of them? If a serious criticism of another player comes with a vote it's meaningful, and moves the game forward. Otherwise it's just words.

M&M (scum) - As mentioned above I really don't like some of their posts where they just seem fed up with the game and just say Ranger or nothing. Basically for the beginning of the game they only try and attack Ranger while labelling IV as obvtown and their reasons for that in post 160 I didn't see as giving IV an obvtown status. Later he mentions that he scum reads BTD but doesn't really pursue it and is right back on Ranger and than later mentions he town reads BTD after a re ISO. Than Touka seemingly distracts him from Ranger which is surprising but I don't like that he is scum reading Touka for being Beeboy I mean she is playing on an alt presumably so she can play differently and not get insta scum read for it. Than there is a terrible vote on Shotty and an understandable vote on myself. Overall I am not seeing a town mindset here more of just death tunnelling some of the people who attack him.

Great, you noticed something you don't like. Why didn't you push him on this? This was over 200 posts before this mega-quote of yours. In your 434 you note you didn't like his Ranger vote. Why didn't you vote him right there and then for it? In 436 you say that BTD and M&M "seem scummy to me"; why wasn't your vote on one of them? If a serious criticism of another player comes with a vote it's meaningful, and moves the game forward. Otherwise it's just words.

Touka (town) - I town read the person who Touka replaced in post 281 and I liked Touka's intro analysis of everything since she actually took the time to read the whole game. I agree mostly with her most recent reads except that I am still on the fence about Smith.

This is a nothing read. "she actually took the time to read the whole game" (and it's he, despite the avatar) is not alignment indicative. WHAT did you like about his analysis? WHAT do you agree with on his "most recent reads"?

Ranger (nulltown) - I don't like that she held back on explanations earlier but she did say that if it came to a point where she had to explain to save one of her town reads she would be more than willing, but at that point in the game and considering there isn't much posting going on it would have been helpful. Her tunneling of M&M was basically entirely for meta reasons at the beggeing but under pressure M&M seemed much more scummy than they were before. I was honestly surprised that IV flipped town however I can't say for sure say whether its becaue Ranger is scum trying to push mislynched or is she was just wrong and I have a gut feeling it was the latter so until former notice I am null reading with a little side of town here.

This is another nothing read. I get that you're new, but you need to try harder. You say she tunneled on M&M "basically entirely for meta reasons". Is that good? Suspicious? Is that worth you making active comments and engagement at the time it happened? And the last sentence is complete nothing. What you want to ask yourself is whether Ranger SINCERELY thought that IV was mafia. Was she being sincere and honest in her engagement and her vote? If the answer is yes, that's worth a town read. If the answer is no, that's worth a vote. If the answer is "I don't know" then you should be re-reading and/or actively asking questions and engaging in order to find out. You're not particularly doing this.

Kappy (nulltown) - Not too sure what to think of Kappy since a lot of his posts are not related to anything though in general he seems to be hunting for information to use to identify scum.

If you think that "a lot of his posts are not related to anything " then you think he's active lurking. That's mafia-indicative. Not town indicative. But you also say "he seems to be hunting for information to use to identify scum". What such work did you like? Did specifc posts jump out at you as being "not related to anything" (bad) or "hunting for information to use to identify scum" (good)? Again, what you're saying here is fluff. Back it up.

Shotty (null-) - He doesn't explain a lot and he doesn't seem to anything that benefits town, a town of fluff. He also jumps around a lot which kind of confuses me like in post 351, and 374 he says he is sucm reading Touka than in post 385 he is all of a sudden town reading Touka. I am leaning more scum in this slot but still nullish for now.

Great, you're developing a read (or trying to). Ask him about why he made this change. See what he says. See if you believe him. Do the work to figure him out.

Sicko/Smith (null+) - The 2 slots before Smith were useless so I had him labelled as null and now I am going to need a little more time to read you fully however, right now I agree with a quality amount of what you have written and you asking good questions. I am leaning a town read on you but that is pending further notice.

What specifically do you agree with? Which of my questions were good? Have I said anything suspicious? If so, ask me about it. If not, then see how people are engaging me, and see if any of their repsonses are suspicious. Then ask them about those responses. This is how you become part of the discussion and part of the game.

[mhsmith0]

@Alpaca, I'll be blunt: if you were anything other than a new player, I'd be entirely happy to vote for you. As it is, you're in my lynching range. If you're town, you need to make a serious effort to engage and solve the puzzle. And if you're mafia, you need to make a serious effort to pretend to be trying to solve the puzzle.

[mhsmith0]

Maybe Alex just reevaluated his Ranger read all together. I really don't know.

Well, do you think there was something in those 11 posts that made Ranger look especially town (or that especially answered Alex's stated suspicions), or that made IV look especially suspicious? You're the occupant of the slot, you're the one who knows for sure whether this whole thing was sincere or just a charade. Since if you're town you'd know if was sincere, you're the one best equipped to speak for Alex's actions. Because if there isn't a good explanation, then it looks like he was just faking it, and that's my current interpretation.

[mhsmith0]

Post post edit: the M&M comment should have been:
M&M isn't "scum reading Touka for being Beeboy". That's not what M&M is doing at all here. Specifically, re-read

If I didn't know you were Beeboy and you didn't just jump on me in this terrible way I'd consider it.

M&M is being pissy at Touka for being Beeboy, but there's a substantive accusation here, and it's the substantive accusation that matters. M&M also posted

I really wish I wasn't playing this game.
Touka stop being awful.

in response to

mhsmith and M&M's reads just feel like a bunch of confirmation bias.

But it isn't even good confirmation bias it is like they are trying to seek a lynch not actually find a scum lynch.

So, who do you agree with here? You're town-reading Touka and wolf-reading M&M, so I think you agree with Touka's accusation but think M&M's accusation here is unfair. If this is the case, why do you think it? And given what I've just said here, do you STILL think M&M's read is just about "Touka being Beeboy"? If so, WHY do you think this?

[mhsmith0]

Maybe Alex just reevaluated his Ranger read all together. I really don't know.

Hey Alpaca and Touka, do you guys want to talk about why you're town reading each other? I'm not seeing either of your slots as especially town, and I'm curious what you are seeing about each other that I'm missing.

[mhsmith0]

^ignore the quote on the above post, not sure why it got copied in.

[Ranger]

Explain how any of these reasons make your self-vote pro-town.

They are, quite literally, self-explanatory.

You said something about this being a "viable" but not "optimal" play somewhere - do you want to explain why you're choosing to go for "viable" over "optimal"?

Because, at the time, I didn't have any optimal play.

Optimal play requires a good scumread to vote.
I had none.

So in lieu of optimal...I went viable.
I now have an optimal play. Thus, the change.

[mhsmith0]

For the record, this is symbolic.
VOTE: Music and Mail.
I also wasn't fond of Kappy's 289.
But if another vote is places on M&M, I'm unvoting.
I want the vote there as a method of official record, in the VC history.

Can you walk through how m&m went from 95% wolf to just a symbolic vote that's explicitly stated as a "I don't want anyone to follow me here" sort of thing?

[BTD6_maker]

Ranger was actually my weakest scum read out of {Ranger, Touka, Mhsmith, M&M}. The scumread was mainly due to her self-voting and "promise" to get lynched. Now I don't see that much reason to scumread her so I should vote another scumread.

VOTE: Mhsmith

Not as strong as M&M, but a lone vote on M&M won't accomplish anything at this stage.

[mhsmith0]

Ranger was actually my weakest scum read out of {Ranger, Touka, Mhsmith, M&M}. The scumread was mainly due to her self-voting and "promise" to get lynched. Now I don't see that much reason to scumread her so I should vote another scumread.

VOTE: Mhsmith

Not as strong as M&M, but a lone vote on M&M won't accomplish anything at this stage.

Dude you just slapped on an l-1 vote for "well he's a scum read". WHY am I worth a vote from you?

[mhsmith0]

@drmy, m&m: you guys asked about my interactions w alpaca earlier. One of the weaknesses in my game is I struggle to differentiate bad/indifferent town from mafia. Btd's vote on me was pretty much terrible, but whether it's AI or simply bad town, honestly I'm not sure. I would LIKE to get more from him and alpaca so they can be sorted. Or we could just guess at which (if any) of the newbie lurkers is actually mafia. That game is ways fun.

[drmyshottyizsik]

Ranger was actually my weakest scum read out of {Ranger, Touka, Mhsmith, M&M}. The scumread was mainly due to her self-voting and "promise" to get lynched. Now I don't see that much reason to scumread her so I should vote another scumread.

VOTE: Mhsmith

Not as strong as M&M, but a lone vote on M&M won't accomplish anything at this stage.

Dude you just slapped on an l-1 vote for "well he's a scum read". WHY am I worth a vote from you?

Why are you worth a vote? What are you taking it personally that you are being voted? Everything yo have done has been from a scum mindset
VOTE: smith
that's hammer. GG scum

p-edit
the whoa's me I can't scum hunt yet defense isn't going to work on me
still hammer time

[mhsmith0]

Ranger was actually my weakest scum read out of {Ranger, Touka, Mhsmith, M&M}. The scumread was mainly due to her self-voting and "promise" to get lynched. Now I don't see that much reason to scumread her so I should vote another scumread.

VOTE: Mhsmith

Not as strong as M&M, but a lone vote on M&M won't accomplish anything at this stage.

Ps there is a LOT of time left in the day. You're right that a lone vote won't do much, but if you think there's a case you should be selling it. Or you could just give up on what you say is your best read and force the rest of the board to guess if you're mafia or just bad town.