White Flag Mafia [TM2015] (Game Over)

[Llamarble]

VOTE: Llamarble

It has to be done.

Your mom has to be done.

[Llamarble]

Cheery Dog is probably scum.
VOTE: Cheery Dog

[Llamarble]

But is he always dunk?

Ika is scum with Cheery Dog. Doesn't matter who the third one is. Zach Oversoul Psyche can be town.

[Llamarble]

Llama, did you spend tokens on this game?

Just one, but it was enough.

[Llamarble]

Ok we can do ika first
VOTE: ika

[Llamarble]

You are welcome to self-vote.

Where are Regfan and CES?

That is an odd response

And?

[Llamarble]

But is he always dunk?

Ika is scum with Cheery Dog. Doesn't matter who the third one is. Zach Oversoul Psyche can be town.

This seems like good reads for now.

VOTE: ika

This seems inattentive. How come a list including you-scum is good?

"Cheery may have used a scum token"

I'll solve this question for you, I did attempt to use a scum token, still rolled town.

What do you think you'd have said regarding this had you rolled scum?

[Llamarble]

That is an odd response

And?

It was purposefully vague. Why were you snark with the original answer?

"And?" isn't "why;" it's "so what?"
Also, my original answer isn't vague at all. My preference for town is well known. I spent one token on town and got town.

[Llamarble]

im fine with em as long as we lynch llamarble next

Why are you not voting?

[Llamarble]

yknow
i've never played a game with ika where he wasn't lynched

I've never played a game with ika where he wasn't killed night 1.

Regfan has some townpoints for token-reasons, but neither Regfan nor CES has towned very hard yet.

I have no objections to BBT so far.

[Llamarble]

the meta changes nothing

i understand the virtue of Llamarble and CES's early game procedure
but at the moment it all seems rather mechanical
there's nothing to read in it

tth is more town than scum for following up on my gasp

ika is so ika and i'm very unhappy about that but ambivalent about the thing that matters

aero, oversoul, zach are all in the same bunch in my head
reg and elk in another
llamarble and ces in a third

someone will ask what the bunches mean!
please know that i'm not sure
none are quite town or scumreads, though

Honestly the way you're processing the game sounds like scum figuring out what everyone is doing so they can decide how to play rather than town figuring out who is scum.

VOTE: Psyche

[Llamarble]

i don't really understand what you mean by that llama

Town usually go depth-first and put some time into analyzing one player, then another. Scum focus on understanding the game as a whole so they can make sure the day doesn't head down a path that will hurt them.

[Llamarble]

Elk, what is your opinion of Cheery Dog? Also, why would an analysis of the votes for ika take a long time? There are like 100 posts in this thread and only 4 votes for ika.

[Llamarble]

I actually disagree with that. As town, I find I need to understand where the game as a whole is going before I can see who looks scummy. As scum, I'd prefer to try to see how far I can push a player than to understand the game as a whole.

Can you link me a game where you did this as scum?

[Llamarble]

'Marble, why aren't you voting Cheery Dog? You must know this Psyche-thing is kind of weak given that he's being perfectly open about it.

Nacho assigns Cheery Dog some townpoints for admitting he took a scum token. I'd like to hear more from CD.
Who are Cheery's buddies?

[Llamarble]

I've admittedly been a little more manipulative this game than usual, but I there's anymore benefit to be had from that.
Felt weird voting Psyche for the sake of doing something while I waited for CD to post. Patience is hard.

TOWN:
Llamarble

Regfan - He hasn't really done anything yet but 2 town tokens :doubles: his chance of being town.
Zach - I expect at least one token from him as well. Town are more likely to see their targets as 'squirming.'

BBT - Confidence, readiness to change direction. #84 particularly solid.
ika - Attitude, 'Elk is prob scum for calling me town.'

Oversoul - Followed a reasonable path so far.
TTH - 81, 135 are both moves in the right direction.

CES - 44 & 128 are solid but within scumrange.
Psyche - Pretty much content-free.
Elk - Kinda has the figuring out the game tone but he hasn't really bitten in, works with Cheery, and mostly speaks in generalities.
Ankamius - All he's provided is a low-relevance vote.
Aeronaut - seemed kinda town on a previous readthrough but works just fine as scum.

Cheery Dog - A scum token makes you twice as likely to be scum as a random person. This is sufficient to lynch barring impressive play I haven't seen yet. I don't think CD realized how strong the tokens are.
:SCUM

VOTE: Cheery Dog

I'm kind of tired so I may have derped some of these, but this is round 0.5 I guess.

[Llamarble]

Maybe he didn't understand how hard it's going to be for us to justify lynching anyone other than him today with this information in play.
Maybe he was concerned people wouldn't believe him if he didn't claim his token and wanted to get in front of the problem, hoping to be townread for doing so.
Cheery Dog is currently ~twice as likely as any other player in this game to be scum. He better do some impressive things if he doesn't want to die.

[Llamarble]

Scum:
Llamarble

Many have died for such folly.

[Llamarble]

Okay
I win a lot as town and one of the reasons for that is I don't ignore mechanics when figuring out the game. Scum got daytalk this round; we got tokens.
Maybe it will be clearer if framed differently. Suppose you have a cop that gets a correct result 50% of the time and a random result the other 50%.
That cop has a guilty on CD and an innocent on Regfan. I will need to be :twice: as sure of Regfan scum / Cheery town as normal to go against those results.

And yes, it is true that as scum, if somebody rolled town but used a scum token and admitted it, I would be absolutely gleeful for the free lynch. I have won games as scum following that kind of path.
Fortunately for you, I have a tendency to practically confirm myself as town via dayplay and have already made substantial progress in that direction.

[Llamarble]

Fortunately for you, I have a tendency to practically confirm myself as town via dayplay and have already made substantial progress in that direction.

I can 100% assure you that you have not done this.

Oh ye of little research. I'd say the chance I get lynched this game has already dropped below 3%.

Speaking of free lynches, Cheery hasn't really attracted votes even though lynching him is the Right Thing To Do.
Impressive patience from the scumteam? Or maybe Cheery is actually just scum.

[Llamarble]

Llama; Know your super-early game reads do have reasoning behind them, would appreciate you not ignoring me and actually running me through the thought process behind having Oversoul and Psyche as town to begin with

I think my actual internal monologue was along the lines of 'this guy and this guy seem town' but I'll try and describe the patterns they matched.
Psyche hadn't (and hasn't) gone out of his way to look properly involved. I believe it is harder for most people to be annoying as scum (this is also a reason for Zach-town).
Oversoul's vote had at least a minimal amount of bite, which seemed about right from town (whereas Cheery's did not).

[Llamarble]

I have to admit Cheery's ISO so far is neutral at worst. Still the best choice if forced to lynch this instant.
Regfan is trying to figure me out, which makes sense, though I'm curious about the point of having me reconstruct my reads from post 18. Empire being involved is also certainly a good sign, but the way he presents his teammates' ideas reminds me of how I did it as scum in previous Team Mafia ("but teammate has this contrasting idea" to prove teammate is scumhunting instead of "I spent some time with X and we arrived at Y" which would show teammate being used as a resource to help him scumhunt). Actually I lied; on review Empire's involvement looks more like the latter - I happened to focus on instances resembling the former on my first pass. So that is a good sign too. Regfan is not obvtown yet, but is my best townread.

[Llamarble]

These are the ones that bugged me:
semi-tempted to try and trick Mina (She's very decisive) into taking a stance on them and blaming her if they're wrong
Empires kind of paranoid here though and also wants something explained below but it's not something that troubles me much
Empire wanted me to state that he agrees with you entirely in regards to disliking BBTs Post 57, I'm not reading it that way though

These are the favorable ones:
Empire and myself also didn't like Elks Post 74
Empires still up so probably going to discuss the game with him for a bit

Ok that last one is telling not showing but it is at least telling the right thing.
But its important the the person who actually gets a vote is the one they discussed together and agreed on. That is as it should be.

[Llamarble]

*it's important that the
If I make any textual errors from here on, you can make fun of me; I am proud of how few mistakes I make while writing and I don't want my skill to atrophy.

[Llamarble]

So guys, how does ika have 4 votes already? Like he's kinda not saying much of anything useful, but I don't see anything abysmal in his posts either, it feels more like "pre-game banter" from a player who doesn't have reads yet.

I'm keeping a moderately suspicious eye on this wagon.

This is definitely questionable but it is hard to separate n00b flavor from scum flavor.

Elk, what is your opinion of Cheery Dog? Also, why would an analysis of the votes for ika take a long time? There are like 100 posts in this thread and only 4 votes for ika.

Getting to Cheery in a second, but the problem with the ika votes is that none of them look especially bad to me, so I'm considering the ika-voting players more closely and trying to get more to read them on.

*is sad about the replacement*

The replacement occurred after my teammate copper told me to say hi to TTH and that he expects TTH is town and can carry the game.

VOTE: Psyche

Mostly because TTH is my strongest townread and while struggling to find scum so far, I can back the scumread of my strongest townread with a vote.

All three of these actually sound kinda town

[Llamarble]

I have to admit Cheery's ISO so far is neutral at worst. Still the best choice if forced to lynch this instant.

I can make Cheeryscum work in my mind more easily than most others at this point.
Aeronaut scum also makes a lot of sense. Ankamius can be #3 for now.

None of those three people have interacted with either AH or his predecessor; AH if you can get one, I'd appreciate a dump of whatever thoughts TTH had regarding those 3 players before he left.
AH slot :could: be scum but I have no actual problems with them so far. Same goes for CES.

[Llamarble]

Starting to get giddy feelings about Cheery + Ank + Aero scumteam. RAWR! Certainly I don't mind the three of them posting in a row after some worried discussion in their QT.
If the plan is to attempt a lynch on me before I cause too much damage, I almost want to link some of my past games to show you where that leads, but I'll settle for laughing evilly to myself.
I really don't think you'll even get a chance to start though - I'm expecting a Regfan post declaring me irreversibly confirmed town anytime now.

Hey Aero why don't you tell me about how Elk manufactured this:

*is sad about the replacement*

The replacement occurred after my teammate copper told me to say hi to TTH and that he expects TTH is town and can carry the game.

Regfan you're allowed to answer this as well if you still believe in Elkscum.

Ank, at this point I literally have some manner of townread on everyone except you three. Finding my play so far this game scummy is ridiculous, and the way you refer to your teammates is exactly the way I used my teammates in previous team mafia (as I described earlier in this thread).

[Llamarble]

Nacho's the only one who has posted anything about it.
He mostly agreed with my early reads but said ika was probably town, and would eventually be super obvious if scum.
He thought Cheery admitting his scum token seemed town.
He thought TTH scumreading ika was cause for concern.

[Llamarble]

IT BEGINS

Your reads make no sense.

Psyche: You townread him early on, then later on switch to scumreading him here for the way he's going about reading the game. This is dissonant with your read on Psyche in your reads post, which I assume is part of your null pile for a lack of content. Then he's suddenly town? This is a non-reason, since I can't make sense of this in any way that doesn't apply to a lot more than just him and Zach.

Cheery Dog: You put a lot of effort into pushing Cheery Dog based on the scum token and putting an emphasis on having to have double the convincing to start townreading the slot, but then you admit that his ISO looks more town than scum (neutral at worst implies net positive), but suddenly this post appears which implies that the opposite despite the fact that Cheery Dog had not posted even once in that timeframe.

Schizophrenic looking reads are one of my most powerful towntells. When I am town and make time, I reread the game over and over from different perspectives and my reads can turn around rapidly. I find it incredibly difficult to replicate this behavior as scum.

Ffery hasn't said anything.

[Llamarble]

then you admit that his ISO looks more town than scum

Ah, "you admit," favorite words of scum casemakers who feel a townie has done something they can objectively claim is scummy.
You do realize I QUOTED my 'his ISO looks neutral at worst' in the post where I stated Cheery had become one of my best scumreads to demonstrate my opinion had changed?

While 89 did trigger the ping I described, there was never much to my push on Psyche - trying to engage him was mostly a thing to do while I waited to see a little more Cheery behavior (I also mentioned Nacho's opinion during this time) before letting on how big a deal the scum token is. This and my push on ika, which I was hoping would annoy ika into obvtowning the way he did in my previous game with him, are why I said I was being more manipulative than I usually am in 136.

[Llamarble]

When you are voting the player most likely to be scum, it is not a policy lynch. It is a trying to win the game lynch.

VOTE: CES

By this point there were two other votes and a woo, but Cheery opts to go through the standard motions while doing nothing at all.

This seems like good reads for now.

For Cheery-town it is hard for an ultra-early list to be more wrong. But it's good?

"Cheery may have used a scum token"

I'll solve this question for you, I did attempt to use a scum token, still rolled town.

It's very important that Regfan mentioned the possibility of Cheery's scum-token before Cheery did. He didn't just volunteer this; there was discussion of him spending a scum token and he chose this course of action over lying about his tokens. Most scum do have an irrational preference for telling the truth when possible. And then came this:

I'm fine with talking about them, but not as a basis for reads. I'm probably actually going to remain out since I don't know enough to spectate on what others are likely to do. I assume anything said about them is going to be honest though, so it's probably not worth it.

This makes it clear he wasn't expecting much fallout for claiming his token. In fact, he expects everyone would be honest about tokens and nothing would come of it.
These factors weaken the "scum-cheery wouldn't claim his token idea at this point" idea significantly. We should be treating the token like the partial-guilty it is.

Cheery's vote for me is entirely based on me pushing him for reasons that offend him. I don't see any "the bad evil llama is trying to lynch clearly-town me" here. Instead the battleground he chooses is "you don't have the right to lynch me just because it's twice as likely to result in a scumflip; you're supposed to point out behavioral tells!"

As bonuses, Cheery has yet to do anything that would indicate real interest in solving the game, and despite all of the above and the combined work of me / CES, this wagon has been hard to build.

[Llamarble]

CES agreeing with me is kinda scary but hopefully it's just because we're right.

[Llamarble]

You're right, reads can be based on shitty reasoning. But, I don't want the basis of those reads to be on tokens, I don't particularly want tokens to influence reads in any way, shape or form. Llamarble's reads-list pinged me because it was based around token speculation instead of actual scum-hunting.

I really like winning, so I don't ignore game mechanics. If you want to be a scumhunting purist and ignore what the setup / roles tell you, fine, but it will be hard for you to get a really high town winrate. Also about half my posts, including the reads list you found so offensive, include behavioral reads with explanations. Other posts include behavioral reads I did not bother to explain at the time. I have also provided behavioral discussion of both Regfan and Cheery. Claiming I am basing my play solely on tokens / am not scumhunting is so obviously wrong it's hard to understand how you got there.

258 - More self-meta, Llama. I'd lynch you for this alone. 'Hey look, I can't be scum because I can hand select games that show you I've done this exact same thing as town so therefore I must be town.'

That's also pretty good meta if you're scum, right? You can change direction with your reads whenever you feel like it. Nah. That shit will get you lynched.

I think I actually did get mislynched for being utterly insufferable once. I had just led 2 scumlynches in a 3 scum game, so I figured I was pretty safe, but the player I was expecting to play the role Regfan is playing here (Fate) was actually the last scum and surprised me. My only two other mislynches were the time I literally got bussed by town (I was role-confirmed town to Fate but he needed to prevent the scum from NKing him so he drove my lynch), and a time when a townie roleblocked me on a night with a no-kill. Anyway, I frequently get a player or two who is just so annoyed by how I play the game that they vote me even though it's probably obvious even to them that I'm town.

If he isn't a good scum-hunter as town, with the addition that I'm already scum-reading him, he would be a fantastic lynch.

Fortunately I'm a Paragon. Lolz.

[Llamarble]

I still think you're misunderstanding, say Llama has no one that he's "confident" that is scum (Which is the case here)

I actually did get some "I HAVE SOLVED THIS WHEEE" feelings last night. I still feel pretty good about where things are, but Cheery's unvote is interesting and I'll have to rethink that read tonight after work. As for Elk, I can totally imagine a 'Player X is really strong and can carry the game and looks town' post not immediately making it into the game and then being a source of disappointment when X trades out. I don't think 'Yay threat X is gone!' or anything similar triggers a post in thread. Just seems like a hard concept for a newer-seeming player to pull from nowhere.

[Llamarble]

BBT, you are a broken record. Regfan and I have ridiculously high town winrates, so maybe we're on to something. Anyhow, by now it's utterly obvious at least that I believe tokens are important, so voting me because of it is senseless. Also, I made a post last night where I summarized the important CD points.

[Llamarble]

It doesn't even matter whether it's actually a good strategy or not.
You're voting me (which suggests you think I'm scum) for placing high importance on something I obviously believe is of high importance.
Tokens actually influence alignment; your time-waste of an argument doesn't even come close.

[Llamarble]

In the case of Cheery, we are pretty much 100% that he used a scum token (if he didn't, he's probably scum regardless).
What if spending tokens 99% guaranteed you an alignment? 98%? Ok, Cheery is not confirmed scum. That's not the point.
I said he's twice as likely to be scum as everyone else. It will take a lot for him to stop being the scummiest player / best lynch. If he's town, I like to think I'm good enough that I'll figure it out and lynch someone else, but it's really hard for even the best scumhunter's reads to beat the token-odds.

[Llamarble]

pedit: get her talking now

I mentioned there was a request for her in WF; no response yet.

[Llamarble]

I don't feel much impetus to continue this argument either. I think we should take tokens into consideration in our reads. You won't do that. Life goes on.
I do hope that by now you understand that I would take the tokens into account regardless of my alignment and will adjust your read accordingly, but I guess I can work around that too.

Your status on Elk is weird though. The only content-related comments you have on him are that you found some of his posts scummy, but you ultimately avoid voting him because "wagon is ugly" even though I, your favorite scumread, have been arguably his most influential defender. What specifically is wrong with the wagon on him? What do you think of his "sad TTH is leaving because teammate said TTH town will carry game" post? For somebody who hates lack of explanation, you haven't provided much yourself.

[Llamarble]

Zach I like to think we've wrapped up the token discussion on an agree-to-disagree note. Going further doesn't seem productive.

BBT: Cool; I don't really disagree about the Elk wagon though Aeronaut is my initial pick for the scum on it.
I'm not so sure about TTH:

The "game dynamic" element of the Ika weak scum read was something I didn't really like though which Empire also picked up on.

Nacho mentioned this as well (though it was more general - TTH's scumread on ika bugged him).
I would say TTH / AH being scum is plausible; will reread soon.

[Llamarble]

I'm here and munching / reading. I think BBT has climbed to the top of the towniest townies pile. Confused by TTH townreads though; I have this feeling they might steal a spot on the scumteam.

[Llamarble]

I didn't mean to spend so much time tonight rereading...
Ffery says she feels lost / doesn't know many of the players. She's curious what Titus has to say about ika.

This is where I am currently:
TOWN:
Llamarble

BBT - If a couple of the questionable people manage to town as hard as BBT has, we have a great shot at a perfect game.

Regfan - Performing as expected but hopefully we can eradicate all doubt this weekend.
Zach - Would appreciate a stronger scumhunting contribution but he has dropped a number of decent towntells.

I like CES' play so far. He does however have a very strong scumgame and is aware that buddying is probably the best approach to use against me.
Elk - A lot of reasonable people think he's scum, but I still find it very hard to get over 201 and 357 + his early "this wagon alarms me" show original game-searching.
If ika is scum he's playing the "sheeping my teammate" plan pretty well. A vote from this slot would be welcome, even if the read is supplied by GIF.
Eh, Psyche is playing the game but I don't see a lot of specifically hard to fake posts.

AH is a very reasonable scum alternate. I'm kinda hoping I got all three on my first try but if I didn't, AHscum wouldn't be a surprise at all.
Oversoul is a good scum alternate too. Works particularly well with Ankamius I think (see below)
Aeronaut isn't actually any worse than the two above. Absolutely still works as periphery-scum, but hmm.
Ankamius - Off on the side giving reads and reasons (which happen to be the types of arguments scum can construct readily). It's possible he saw BBT's distaste for my methods as an opening to get something rolling against me.
Cheery - Things I said yesterday hold, but the unvote post and subsequent posts do weaken my resolve a bit. I want to reevaluate more thoroughly before I consider moving my vote. Cheery, has Hoopla gotten a chance to look at this game?

Anak; Would like some reasoning or explanation behind your reads list in Post 139 specifically the reads on BTT, Oversoul, Llama and CES.

Oversoul: He felt town based on his interactions with Llamarble about the tokens; since I have a scumread on Llamarble independent of this, I'm putting more stake in this than I usually would.

Llamarble: He felt scum based on his interactions with Oversoul about the tokens. I didn't like this post either; the questions feel incredibly empty. The way he reacted to the 'scuffle' at the top of page 5 looks wooden.

This isn't as helpful as I hoped it would be.

Oversoul's interaction with me which Ank focused on and the Ank explanations Regfan requested which Oversoul 'wanted more' from are both peripheral enough that picking up on them suggests extra awareness of each other.

Vote Count 1.08

theelkspeaks (5) - Regfan, BlueBloodedToffee, Aeronaut, Zachrulez, Oversoul
Cheery Dog (2) - Cogito Ergo Sum, Llamarble
Psyche (2) - Antihero, Ankamius
BlueBloodedToffee (1) - Psyche
Oversoul (1) - theelkspeaks

Vote Count 1.09

theelkspeaks (4) - Regfan, Aeronaut, Zachrulez, Oversoul
Cheery Dog (3) - Cogito Ergo Sum, Llamarble, Psyche
Psyche (3) - Antihero, Ankamius, theelkspeaks
Oversoul (1) - BlueBloodedToffee

Aeronaut and Oversoul are the best candidates for scum voting Elk.
It's still notable that nobody especially sketchy has joined the Cheery Dog wagon as yet.
Scum deciding pregame to bide their time / not get picked off of wagons they don't think will lynch wouldn't surprise me, particularly given daytalk.

[Llamarble]

'Marble, why aren't you voting Cheery Dog? You must know this Psyche-thing is kind of weak given that he's being perfectly open about it.

This is probably my favorite CES post. An effort to influence things in a direction that makes sense (and it's true, I did know that the Psyche-thing was kind of weak).
That said, CES absolutely has the scum-chops to make the posts he's made so far, and I'll be much happier once he's helped us lynch a scum.

[Llamarble]

VOTE: Theelkspeaks

Explain this vote.

Given that you had a serious vote on Elk, what bugs you here?
This is especially weird given that Oversoul discussed Elk both before and after placing the vote.

[Llamarble]

Wow, that's pretty brutal. I just figured he had a 40% chance of getting scum for ~sure by rolling under 500 plus another 15% or so from the 25% scumchance if he rolls in the 500-600 range. 55% is still more than twice everyone else, but yeah all the town tokens used makes it really hard to justify not lynching him.

[Llamarble]

I almost want Cheery to be town just so the game isn't "A scum makes a claim that gets him into huge trouble because he doesn't understand the game mechanics -> 9v2 WhiteFlag Trololo"

[Llamarble]

Maybe we lynch the other scums first to prove our manliness?
Anyway, Elk's last post / Regfan and others coming around towards town on them makes me more confident about Elk being town.
That brings the TOWN count to 5.
I'm glad others like ika for town; I'm not as confident but it does make me feel good about the {Oversoul Cheery Ank Aero AH} scumpile. CES and Psyche are wild cards but I have no reason to scumread either of them; I expect both to flip town.

So yeah, who are the townies in the scumpile? Who is the best guarantee of a scumflip? No more reading until tomorrow I really need to do some other stuff...

[Llamarble]

Also would any of Ank, Aero, Oversoul or TTH be likely to use a scum token?

[Llamarble]

Ffery is going to check out the BBT aggressive scum thing - I don't see it but I haven't looked at any meta so I'll look into it if Ffery says it's plausible. She believes Oversoul used town tokens.
I will say that I'm hoping for more from Regfan. Regfan can play a solid scumgame (he doesn't wear his <3 on his sleeve as town quite as much as I do). The Elk push worries me a little, especially if Aero turns up town.
Fortunately the obstacles to Ank + Aero + Cheery continue to weaken. I really don't get TTH town (will try again I guess) but everyone seems to be a staunch believer and Oversoul has started to do some work, so it's getting harder to come up with alternative scumteams.

I dunno where the idea that I would take a scum token came from; I really strongly prefer town - Empire and I hydraed and got scum once and our chats sounded like a support group.
I've had an okay scum winrate but my townplay is what I pride myself on. As scum I enjoy winning and playing the mechanics / finding the path to victory; as town I get all those (with much more puzzle-solving) but posting is something I can't stop doing instead of a brutally unpleasant grind.

[Llamarble]

Meh. TTH had reads and presence but scum can produce "this doesn't fit" easily enough. I get why CES 128 would annoy him but how does it look scummy? Overall I don't see a lot secondary towntells or a high level of engagement with the game.
All AH has done is say "I wouldn't replace into a scum slot" which has various problems and read TTH's ISO / comment on his opinions.

Would really appreciate somebody who has TTH / AH in their upper tier of towniness making sense of that for me.

[Llamarble]

That goes for ika (still hasn't placed a vote) too actually. I don't see why those players are strong townreads for people. Not actively scummy? OK, I buy that. But I see any 'I am super impressed if you wrote this as scum' from them.

[Llamarble]

Hey, that game was closer than it looked - I had the votes I needed D2 until Zach changed when I was hoping he wouldn't. A mislynch D2 and killing another threat and who knows how that game turns out.

I think I could fake TTH 81 if I were scum but I guess I'll listen to the consensus for now (it would be Really Nice if the team did turn out to be Cheery/Ank/Aero).
I should review Oversoul's stuff too but it's a quality burst of work so unless I missed a particularly weak aspect it probably won't hurt him.
Meanwhile Cheery is doing some weird stuff but I wouldn't call it drastically town and Ank / Aero just seem like scumflips.

[Llamarble]

VOTE: ika

I'm annoyed we early wagoned him now, because I'm fairly sure it could be the correct one.
Basically all he has been doing is asking for readlists of no content.

Why is it a problem that we wagoned him at the beginning of the game? Nothing is stopping us from doing it again.

[Llamarble]

Vote Count 1.17
Aeronaut (2) - Zachrulez, Regfan
Cheery Dog (2) - Cogito Ergo Sum, Llamarble
Psyche (2) - Antihero, theelkspeaks
ika (1) - Cheery Dog
Llamarble (1) - Ankamius
Oversoul (1) - BlueBloodedToffee
theelkspeaks (1) - Aeronaut

Not Voting (3) - ika, Psyche, Oversoul

Is a shockingly bad VC for this point in the game.

So it is.
VOTE: Aeronaut

[Llamarble]

Cool. I skimmed a little but Oversoul definitely has improved his standing.

[Llamarble]

The biggest problem I had with Oversoul early is that he wasn't really doing the work; even if you don't like his content much he is at least putting some effort into the game now. I don't subscribe to 'effort is a null tell.' It is at the very least a good sign for him. You're right that I need to read it more closely as soon as possible though.

This is the post where I go into the things that could go wrong so we keep them in mind.
It will be pretty difficult to convince me that any of BBT Elk (and probably Zach) are scum.

#1 The biggest problem we could have right now is if CES and/or Regfan are scum. Regfan finding CES town for "reclaiming my glory days" comments seems strange to me; if there is ONE statement I could easily fake as scum it's the "here's what I was hoping to do as town" statement: "please let me do my thing; I really want to play a spectacular town game here to start a new streak of crushing town wins and contend for a paragon repeat." Regfan and CES can both play very well as scum; even if it's not Regfan's favorite he will certainly at least provide reads / reasons / expected content (I would expect him to townread me on cue there as either alignment). I wish I had more secondary towntells from Regfan. Regfan's primary targets so far (Elk / Aero) are both people I would see as good targets if I were scum and they were town. Regfan + Cheery or Ank and Psyche or TTH are believable, or CES with Regfan / lurkers. Regfan's treatment of AH is also worrisome (happy to townread him while everyone else is but aware he's not doing anything). I have a hard time believing this game won't be an easy town win if CES + Regfan + me are all town and all agree, so please please don't give total control to Regfan / CES if we haven't lynched scum by D3 and BBT / me eat the first 2 NKs.

#2 The fact that ika / Psyche are doing nothing but getting totally ignored sucks for town and could cause problems down the road (scum can lynch them easily or if they're scum they may manage to coast further). Psyche, ika, AH, Aero, Cheery - Whichever of you are town need to get in here and do things. We MUST lynch scum early or else half our townleaders will be dead and the other half will be untrustworthy (or trusted scumz with lynch-control). If you do nothing D1, you make it harder to lynch scum D1 and those bad scenarios become much more likely. I think this game is decided before D3 starts so if you want to win, you should play now. Are we making a mistake lynching Aeronaut today? Is Ankamius town or is he a buddy Regfan is protecting? Are Regfan and / or CES just agreeing with me and voting whichever of my scumreads are town? Am I as obviously town as I say I am (correct answer: yes)? Is there actual substance behind all the weird AH townreads? Why is everyone content to table ika for later; is he just always worthless to town? Are Oversoul's walls good? Who was the scum voting for Elk? Is the Aero wagon an all-town wagon? There are so many interesting questions in this game - wtf is the point of you being here if you're not going to try to figure the game out?

I guess those two are the biggest risks I can think of right now. I really do think we have this in the bag if CES and Regfan do turn out to be town and we're not "This game is so easy har har har" laughing our way into a terrible situation D3 because half the town isn't playing the game.

[Llamarble]

Aeronaut is posting other places while half-dead.
Psyche's last post in this game is midway through the second page of their recent posts.
ika is a lot more active elsewhere too and when he has bothered to post in this game his posts have been complete non-participation.
AH at least isn't more active elsewhere, but when you swap games, the point isn't so that your team can neglect one of the games totally.

[Llamarble]

Well so far my call to action is a smashing success. P. edit: at least ika's post gives me more comfort about letting them live today.
Anyway, I did look into Oversoul's posts. Still think he's town.

Zach was the type of person to fairly exclusively only like to play town. I'm hoping he is still that type of person!

Wagon!

This has a happy-to-be-town aura; also he 'hopes' Zach is still someone who likes town as that would indicate tokens and make the game easier to figure out.

199 - Oversoul, you're now voting Elk when you just previously stated that you don't see much scumminess from him? Nah.

Yes...
Wagons are a good thing, especially in a game as murky as this.

Does that surprise you?
For the record, Regfan's point is valid. Elk just... doesn't seem to be doing much of... anything.

Stuff

This isn't as helpful as I hoped it would be.

I feel like scummersoul would be more concerned about pulling a 180 and voting a slot he didn't see much against. Makes sense that Oversoul wanted to help the game progress; that's much of the reason for the timing of my switch to Aero, but it sucks that Aero is going V/LA now. The "this isn't as helpful" comment still sketches me out.

Although, I wish the preference picking between town/scum was cut and dry as it was last time. Made for an easier game. Would make me feel better about Zach's activity.

Seems like a genuine statement about mild frustration trying to get a read on Zach.
I just remembered - I think I picked scum roles in previous team mafia due to preferring this setup and in order to cash in on my known town preference in games I cared about (winning the games we rolled scum in would make our team v. likely to win TM as a whole). Now I play less often and it was more important to me to get a town game and see if I could stomp some faces. Also my obvtown factor has gotten too strong to the point where a lot of the eyes on this game would catch me as scum pretty easily.

Tammy talked about tokens and marble and other peoples' reads on marble

These are the things I would expect her to talk about, even if the slot is scum here, but it does show teammates putting some time into reading the game so it's certainly not a negative.

"Cheery may have used a scum token"

I'll solve this question for you, I did attempt to use a scum token, still rolled town.

Yeah, I actually don't feel like a scum Cheery Dog would say this. It's too ballsy, high risk and low reward. There is very little good in confirming that you spent tokens on scum in a game like this where you cannot confirm yourself as town at some point.

Meh. I did already point out problems with this argument. Small negative dose of townpoints if Cheery does turn out scum.

why was it purposefully vague?

I don't think I ever responded to this. I thought it was Llamarble being cheeky - at that point he never explicitly said he spent it to be town. Cheekiness is something I look for in people who are comfortable being scum. For a long time, Llamarble had one of the highest win rates as scum, so I just attributed his win rate to his liking scum.

I think this statement is more likely from town - cheekiness being a tell for stronger scum players shows some nuanced effort to figure out the game and willingness to engage with a potentially dangerous townie.

stuff about cheery

I like this post a lot. Although I will say I think the point about the list isn't as strong as Llamarble thinks it is.

Favorable until cheery turns up scum at which point it's just okay.

stuff

I think this is the towniest post thus far into the game.
Looking forward to when TTH and Antihero switch, I think Antihero's emotional appeal rings true. I know I would not want to willingly switch into a role that is scum. Then again, that is just me.

"This is the towniest post of the game" is an award I think town hand out more often than scum. Every time I point something like this and the meta adjusts I have to come up with new tells to replace them, but I've never really been one to hide the things I notice. Maybe when I write a program that analyzes scumprobabilities I'll start concealing the tells I use...

Jesus Christ.

This post reads really town to me on my second read through of the game. This is the type of frustration I think I would feel at this point talking to another player who doesn't see what I am seeing.

Okay, others have pointed this out already, but it is still positive contribution and the wording sounds forthright.

2Q - I admit up to very recently, I haven't been a diligent reader. I mostly wanted to provide momentum to leading wagons to see how the game progressed.

Now that I think about it, I don't think anyone has really "cracked" my playstyle even though I am very upfront about how I play. :shrug:

Introspection, trying to help out while less caught up. Good.

To both Llamarble and Regfan, why did that comment seem weak to you (and your teammates)?

We read something differently than OVS and this bugs him. Good sign - scum expect town to see things differently and if Regfan and I are misreading any townies, scumsoul would be strongly incentivized to just let it happen. Revisit if TTHscum.

Man that reread took a long ass time.

I'll bet it did. It's really hard (at least for me) as scum to put a ton of hours into a catchup post unless you're designing it to make you town forever / trying to avoid some significant danger. Don't get the sense OVS was trying to do one of those things. Sustained heavy analysis as scum just feels so pointless when all you need to do is not get lynched and maybe steer things toward teammates.

BB&T is mainly a pet theory that I think has been fairly supported in this game. I think he is being coached by ABR. I haven't had the time to read BB&T's meta (would appreciate if the team Cabd/Empire is on could help investigate), but when I think of hyper-aggressive on a single point I think of ABR. By being this aggressive and sticking to a theoretical reason to disagree with everyone, BB&T can LOOK active without actually scumhunting people for their play.

While I find the coaching thing derpy, I at least understand where he's going with BBTscum latching onto something he can truthfully attack even though he's scum (token-discussion).

Ank is like Aeronaut, he is coasting in my opinion. I'm giving him slight benefit of the doubt for not having time, but the one post he made about me and Llamarble just felt off. From a player as established as Ank, I was expecting much more than the cursory comments he gave for those reads.

This is a viable explanation for why town Oversoul makes the 'expected more' comment I didn't like.

So yeah, I feel pretty good about Oversoul town, though there are some associative things worth revisiting after a couple flips.

[Llamarble]

{ AH Aero Psyche Ank Cheery }
I should probably perform an Aero reread before we end the day but I won't be too mad if psyche votes and ika hammers.

[Llamarble]

Nacho thinks Aero + Cheery; not so much Ank (combined scum effort against me seems unlikely to him). He provided reassurances for Zachtown (#320 in particular shows the full confidence of never getting lynched hard for Zachscum to demonstrate) and liked the same CES post others have. Also pointed out some townish Psyche posts (groupings post shows thought process; doesn't seem like the type of thing scum would bother with).

[Llamarble]

Nacho thinks Aero + Cheery; not so much Ank (combined scum effort against me seems unlikely to him). He provided reassurances for Zachtown (#320 in particular shows the full confidence of never getting lynched hard for Zachscum to demonstrate) and liked the same CES post others have. Also pointed out some townish Psyche posts (groupings post shows thought process; doesn't seem like the type of thing scum would bother with).

tell nacho i think his reads suck

[Llamarble]

He did also say that you're town AH <3
Still hoping for Aero Ank Cheery team.

[Llamarble]

Aeronaut (5) - Zachrulez, Regfan, Llamarble, Cogito Ergo Sum, Oversoul

wagon composition isn't anything to write home about either

Wat
If BBT and Elk joined, this might become the towniest wagons I've ever been part of...

[Llamarble]

Arrgh. wagon.

[Llamarble]

This pre-twilight thing we have going is fun but I would like to do something other than refreshing this thread hoping for le flip.

[Llamarble]

What's wrong with those 4 posts Zach?
Can we get another Aero vote? They're not here, they're not going to be here, we're not actually doing anything right now. BBT / Elk would be my favorite votes to add.

[Llamarble]

I think any wagon with 6 votes is a wagon ika is happy with.
At this point the pool of least surprising scum might be The Three and Psyche / CES?

Well, do you expect me to sit there as town and just get lynched?

[Llamarble]

Psyche if you vote Aero you can continue being busy during night. Momentum!

[Llamarble]

Cheery I will grant you that you are a strange creature, but if you're town then it's really hard for Aeronaut to be town...

[Llamarble]

Psyche you might as well have your vote sitting on ika while you wait. Seems like it could make end of D1 more useful if all the nonvoters did a thing.

Ika is annoying, but not in a particularly scummy way. Everyone is tabling their reads on him until later, which would seem like a really good sign for him being scum if Nacho didn't share this opinion.

[Llamarble]

Exhibit A:

I don't think he looks amazing but if ika is scum, he'll probably get caught at some point.

[Llamarble]

Exhibit B:

ika wagon would be a waste, let's save him til we can read him better in a day or two.

[Llamarble]

Well it's Wednesday; maybe Aero will actually say some stuff.
Never too late to reexamine assumptions.
Who wants to propose some scumteams without Aero? (you also shouldn't include Me or BBT or Regfan or Elk or I'll have trouble subscribing; Oversoul Zach would also be hard to convince me of)