Mafiascum.net

In post 531, Auro wrote:@GL: Do you agree with Esther's assessment: that summarizing and interpreting those pages of arguments hurts scum more than any towncred it may offer?

This is actually an interesting question, my mind started racing in a bunch of directions as soon as I started trying to think about how I feel about it, it might be a good general mafia discussion topic tbh but I'll try to keep my thoughts concise and grounded in this particular game

1) In the general sense, I think it's fairly difficult "work" to try to closely read through two players caught in a mudslinging slapfight and tease out what the underlying claims/reasoning are. In a more traditional single Mafia faction vs Town setup, I think town has a lot more incentive to do that work and try to draw Actual Reads out of those pages of arguments because they're the ones with a need to sort alignments of players involved. Scum knowing alignments already don't gain anything personally from that mental load. So from a bird's eye view, I see where mc esther is coming from, scum can usually just not post anything when there's a big fight in the thread and it's rare that they get scumread for it. I definitely see how someone diving in and to draw a signal from the noise gets townpoints accordingly on that basis.

2) That being said, I would say in this specific set up that the existence of multiple scum factions actually creates a real incentive for scum to also do that work, because scum in this set up should still be trying to figure out who the other scum faction are and eliminate them. So big caveat to point #1 there off the bat

3) Where I disagree slightly is that a scum's ideal gamestate is "low information" and so any generating of "information" inherently hurts scum. I think the ideal scum gamestate is one where scum have enough influence to secure the specific eliminations THEY want without drawing too much suspicion for it. Sitting back and hoping town eats itself alive can sometimes work in the right game/playerlist, but it's playing with fire because it's also fully possible that town will recognize each other and townblock effectively and POE you out rather quickly if you're not contributing. So I think if I were scum, there are a lot of ways where I could use a Roden vs LQ fight to my advantage, the classic one being that I could try to make one side look worse and make myself look good from it at the same time. If I have enough WIM to overcome the "mental load" of point 1, this would be a good play for scum!me. And the sneakiest/best play of all would be to subtly make both sides look bad in everyone else's eyes, so that I could hope town chains two lims that I might want back to back.

4) All that being said, I think it then comes down to looking at the conclusions/posts that I specifically made, and looking for any agenda or ~ uncharitable twisting ~, as it were. Was I fair in my assessment of LQ and Roden's posts? Did I try to leverage something NAI to give myself a reason to scumread one of the players involved? Is my summary more or less likely to lead to LQ/Roden being limmed, and if , are my suspicions valid? If mc esther thinks I was fair, and not trying to embellish or throw dirt on a clean slot, then it makes point #1 stronger town!evidence than it would be if I came out of my summary championing a lim for dubious reasoning. There's also flip side questions of - were my posts actually meaningful? Is it solely a lot of summary without any indication of actual attempts to sort either player?

I can't really answer the questions in #4, that's for everyone else to discuss. Personally I was hoping teasing out the poor/obfuscated reasoning surrounding the "did Roden invite a wagon on himself" and "if so, why would scum!Roden invite a wagon on himself" would lead to Roden specifically explaining why he said he was obvious town or why he thinks he doesn't get wagoned as scum.

I did walk away from that with a feeling that LQ was being sincere in what he was posting, though I've also since noted (429) that this being multiball makes it hard to fully townread LQ for it, as scum!LQ might genuinely believe that Roden is also scum of a different flavor.

epic wallpost pagetop

In post 573, Galron wrote:I don't think in this instance that it's an uncharitable reading of what Pav said. We're in multi-ball, and it seems to me to be good play to coordinate night kills if possible. If you look at 440, the second and third sentences are unnecessary to the point the Pav was making, and the more I look at them the more I think, why did he even go there?

In post 440, Pavowski wrote:I would also go as far as to say that if we should flip GL, and he turns town, that would be scum indicative on Bingle given the recent shade. But I also kinda don't think GL is likely to get flipped. A NK'd GL would be another story.

it's probably beating a dead horse at this point, but it seems pretty easy to me to understand why he went there?

1. "If I knew GL was town, I'd think this Bingle suspicion of him looks bad"
2. "The only way we can know GL is town is if we lim him or if he's NK'd"
3. "I don't want to lim GL"
4. "Oh, but if GL is NK'd, that probably wouldn't be additional evidence for scum!Bingle"

Like, that flow of reasoning just feels extremely straightforward to me. I agree that it's not like, the deepest or most insightful or most important train of thought, but it's a train with a well illuminated and clear railroad.

When I ask myself how that post amounts to signaling, why scum!Pav would signal at all to begin with, and then why scum!Pav would signal about killing GL, for me it's a lot less clear.

thinking that it's signaling feels to me like assuming Pav's alignment/motivations first and analyzing his post second. Like if I start from Pav being scum, could that be a signal? Maybe. Do I look at his post and think it's such clear signaling that it makes Pav more likely to be scum? No.

In post 577, GuiltyLion wrote:

In post 573, Galron wrote:I don't think in this instance that it's an uncharitable reading of what Pav said. We're in multi-ball, and it seems to me to be good play to coordinate night kills if possible. If you look at 440, the second and third sentences are unnecessary to the point the Pav was making, and the more I look at them the more I think, why did he even go there?

In post 440, Pavowski wrote:I would also go as far as to say that if we should flip GL, and he turns town, that would be scum indicative on Bingle given the recent shade. But I also kinda don't think GL is likely to get flipped. A NK'd GL would be another story.

it's probably beating a dead horse at this point, but it seems pretty easy to me to understand why he went there?

1. "If I knew GL was town, I'd think this Bingle suspicion of him looks bad"
2. "The only way we can know GL is town is if we lim him or if he's NK'd"
3. "I don't want to lim GL"
4. "Oh, but if GL is NK'd, that probably wouldn't be additional evidence for scum!Bingle"

Like, that flow of reasoning just feels extremely straightforward to me. I agree that it's not like, the deepest or most insightful or most important train of thought, but it's a train with a well illuminated and clear railroad.

When I ask myself how that post amounts to signaling, why scum!Pav would signal at all to begin with, and then why scum!Pav would signal about killing GL, for me it's a lot less clear.

In post 579, GuiltyLion wrote:thinking that it's signaling feels to me like assuming Pav's alignment/motivations first and analyzing his post second. Like if I start from Pav being scum, could that be a signal? Maybe. Do I look at his post and think it's such clear signaling that it makes Pav more likely to be scum? No.

I think I disagree with the second post, or maybe it's a playstyle difference. But many times looking at a post, I look at the town and the scum motivations behind it along with the post as a whole. It's difficult for me to dissect it like you're talking about. And with the first post, that jump from 3 to 4 does not necessarily look like a natural thought process, but i think it's borderline and just lightly +scum for Pav at this point.

yeh, fair enough. I think I've said as much as I can or want to about the whole thing

In post 546, mc esther wrote:when you talk about salsa's developing reads, im assuming youre largely talking about her lickety read. ill think on it, but it's not that convincing to me right this moment; and im really not sure it can outweigh the way she responded to me and t3 pressuring her, or her weird relationship to the roden wagon.

I did want to touch on this / DArby's Salsa townread in general, to add that I'm also not convinced. I think I can feel where DArby's coming from in that Salsa's read/reaction to LQ feels genuine, and certainly that feeling is amplified when DArby is also suspicious of LQ, but again I'd like to point out that this is multi ball and so Salsa might think the likes of T3 or LQ are scum opportunistically hopping on her wagon while still being scum herself.

The thing for me that's missing with Salsa is I feel her questioning has been mostly meant to make people look bad rather than help her sort their alignment, and I have vibes of survivalism from how she hopped onto Roden in 417 or making posts like 550 and 554. She's not appealing to A50 at all to sell him on her reads when he's literally conftown voting her. and 554 is just a bad post in general - so she thinks there could be all 4 scum in {T3, mc esther, Pavowski, Bingle, Galron}? Why is she still voting LQ then? Who of those 5 does she think is town? I can't see a genuine town thought process behind posts like that.

It feels perfectly reasonable to accuse an unannounced E-1 vote as scummy when you're potentially about to be hammered though?
Salsa's last posts felt the opposite of survivalistic. Wouldn't appealing to A50, or trying to aggressively shift a wagon onto one of her voters be survivalistic? Should town be survivalistic or not?

In post 583, Auro wrote:It feels perfectly reasonable to accuse an unannounced E-1 vote as scummy when you're potentially about to be hammered though?
Salsa's last posts felt the opposite of survivalistic. Wouldn't appealing to A50, or trying to aggressively shift a wagon onto one of her voters be survivalistic? Should town be survivalistic or not?

Do you think Salsa actually believes Galron is scum? She hasn't substantively mentioned him at all before or since and I don't get that vibe from her post. Feels more like either a joke or some kind of bizarre last minute effort to make Galron look bad, and neither is a good look in my book

Shotgun accusing everyone voting you of being scum without naming specific players is definitely survivalistic, it's trying to make everyone in thread feel wrong for voting you without actually giving any real reads in the game. Could even be a specific attempt to antispew, if I'm putting my tinfoil hat on.

What I mean by "appealing to A50" is this. Let's say Salsa is town. What I would expect town to be doing is trying to understand why A50 is voting her, and also trying to sell their main scumreads in the thread so that even if they are limmed, they leave behind a legacy of where they stood for players to follow. Notably A50 especially as he has a public cop check. Instead, she's not trying to shape the game in any direction. What is her motive for posting then?

I think town should try not to get limmed, but even more than that they should be trying to push for the elimination of who they think is scum. Latter most important, even if it requires being limmed yourself to hope to achieve on later days. When I say someone is being "survivalistic", what I mean to communicate is it seems they care more about surviving than actually pushing their own particular reads. That's scum-mindset, not town. Simply wanting to live at all is NAI, but there should be a component of advocating for your own reads at the same time as well. Otherwise what are you doing here

In post 538, DArby wrote:Gut read there’s one scum between these two.

I’d be inclined to say it’s LQ.

What is this based on? Why do you think there is one Scum between us?

In post 539, DArby wrote:

In post 515, LicketyQuickety wrote:

In post 514, GuiltyLion wrote:

In post 513, LicketyQuickety wrote:P-Edit. Okay, so then my question still stands in why you are just acting flowery with your SRs. Does not make sense. Are these just tentative SRs or what?

I don't think I've been especially flowery? Like where do you see me doing that, specifically? I went in hard on Roden, he bailed, and Salsa has had enough attention that I haven't needed to push it myself. I'm satisfied with the gamestate currently, I don't need to do anything at the moment other than poke at peripheral slots like Auro

These posts right here:

In post 133, GuiltyLion wrote:Like unless LQ is going off of meta (which would change the vibes),

Honestly, I'm just pushing things and seeing what comes out. My understanding of GL is that he's usually not very aggressive, but what throws a monkey wrench into the mix is that GL says he does get aggressive with his SRs if he's sure about them and GL isn't saying how serious his SRs are on Salsa/Roden.

wasn’t this along the same vein of your tring me in our last completed game together? @LQ

I have no idea what you are talking about here.

In post 586, LicketyQuickety wrote:

In post 538, DArby wrote:Gut read there’s one scum between these two.

I’d be inclined to say it’s LQ.

What is this based on? Why do you think there is one Scum between us?

In post 539, DArby wrote:Like unless LQ is going off of meta (which would change the vibes),

Honestly, I'm just pushing things and seeing what comes out. My understanding of GL is that he's usually not very aggressive, but what throws a monkey wrench into the mix is that GL says he does get aggressive with his SRs if he's sure about them and GL isn't saying how serious his SRs are on Salsa/Roden.

wasn’t this along the same vein of your tring me in our last completed game together? @LQ

I have no idea what you are talking about here.

EBWOP

In post 554, Salsabil Faria wrote:

In post 476, Not_Mafia wrote:

Salsabil Faria (3)-

T3, mc esther, Pavowski,

Bingle, Almost50, Galron

(E-1)

Edited by me...

I won’t be surprised if all 4 scums are voting me

I plea "guilty as charged"

In post 585, Salsabil Faria wrote:In each game with A50 of mine, they read me wrong every freaking time, so I don’t have high hope from them.

Not my fault that you only play MAFIA with me.

In post 558, Enchant wrote:Not hammering.

In post 559, Enchant wrote:But gonna be honest, it's tempting.

In post 560, Salsabil Faria wrote:

Do you townread me

Enchant

?

In post 562, Enchant wrote:If otherwise i would send to anime hell already.

enchant, can you elaborate on why hammering a townread is tempting?

In post 552, Galron wrote:I thought that was hammer actually.

my gut feeling is that self-admitted failure to quickhammer is somehow different from an actual quickhammer in terms of alignment indication, but my head is telling me "no lol that's a completely daft belief". insert that simpsons quote about the nobel prize for attempted chemistry, i guess.

I'm back to TRing GL.

I think the talk about Scum signaling to each other is over my head, but on play, I'm reading GL as Town here since it's in line with what I know of them as Town.

In post 586, LicketyQuickety wrote:

In post 538, DArby wrote:Gut read there’s one scum between these two.

I’d be inclined to say it’s LQ.

What is this based on? Why do you think there is one Scum between us?

In post 539, DArby wrote:

In post 515, LicketyQuickety wrote:

In post 514, GuiltyLion wrote:

In post 513, LicketyQuickety wrote:P-Edit. Okay, so then my question still stands in why you are just acting flowery with your SRs. Does not make sense. Are these just tentative SRs or what?

I don't think I've been especially flowery? Like where do you see me doing that, specifically? I went in hard on Roden, he bailed, and Salsa has had enough attention that I haven't needed to push it myself. I'm satisfied with the gamestate currently, I don't need to do anything at the moment other than poke at peripheral slots like Auro

These posts right here:

In post 133, GuiltyLion wrote:Like unless LQ is going off of meta (which would change the vibes),

Honestly, I'm just pushing things and seeing what comes out. My understanding of GL is that he's usually not very aggressive, but what throws a monkey wrench into the mix is that GL says he does get aggressive with his SRs if he's sure about them and GL isn't saying how serious his SRs are on Salsa/Roden.

wasn’t this along the same vein of your tring me in our last completed game together? @LQ

I have no idea what you are talking about here.

oh jeez this is quoted weird so I'll respond the best I can and I will come back if I missed something. But the thought is that In the arsonist game we were in that just ended the other day, it felt like you were townreading me with my interactions with Pan/Koba where I had a similar vibe to what I'm getting from GL, who you were scumreading.

In post 593, DArby wrote:it felt like you were townreading me with my interactions with Pan/Koba where I had a similar vibe to what I'm getting from GL, who you were scumreading.

Uh, no? Not at all. No idea how you drew that conclusion.

My standard way of reading people is based on play. I don't do a lot of tone reads or RT or anything like that (with an exception here and there). Mostly I try and look at people's reasoning and try and tell if it comes from Town or Scum. I have some experimental read type stuff (like the TvS read from last game [that was wrong]) but I generally just play it straight.

In post 590, mc esther wrote:

In post 558, Enchant wrote:Not hammering.

In post 559, Enchant wrote:But gonna be honest, it's tempting.

In post 560, Salsabil Faria wrote:

Do you townread me

Enchant

?

In post 562, Enchant wrote:If otherwise i would send to anime hell already.

enchant, can you elaborate on why hammering a townread is tempting?

I am vengeful.

Yes but no