Mini normal 1823 dead thread

[Zyf]

So who's scum?

[Zyf]

Hmm...
Xkfyu, Algebra, and...Vedith?

[Zyf]

? What's an encryptor?

[Zyf]

UGH
I'm getting cancer reading that shit, I had to un-sub

[Zyf]

Encryptor enables day talk. Day talk + no cops were the key concepts of the design, the rest flowed from that.

HOLY
WHAT
OK
WOW THAT'S HUUUUUUGE

spoiler me if I'm right on scumteam

I'm glad I repped out, I feel like in the interest of town winning that was a good play
I find that most times replacements are deemed townier than the previous owner of their slot–at least initially

[Zyf]

WHYYYYYY

[Zyf]

I might toss in spoilers day two but it's more fun if you are at least guessing through d1/n1. It's good practice IMO. A small spoiler...

Spoiler: small spoiler

You're neither all right nor all wrong

Ps why on those three specifically?

Vedith is straight up gut
Algebra returning in just to opportunistically attack my slot (which SR's him) is so scummy i can't even
Xkfyu I'm less sure on now; i could replace it with blackstar and be equally confident

[Zyf]

why are you scum reading vedith??

The person he replaced was awful your replacement and Trascaned wanted him lynched then got off it and never said a word about it again I think the teams add up quite nicely Ved himself has had some okay lines but not enough to get out of the team I have

SCUMREADS ME AND DOESN'T EVEN READ WHAT I HAVE TO SAY >.>
I said at least 4 times that I sr vedith but it's gut so there's no point, like holy fuck sonia is tunneling HARD

[Zyf]

I wonder what post count position I'll be in by the end of the game...

[Zyf]

So who are your solid town reads (if any) and why? Or maybe do a roster run /reads list. It's more of a practice exercise, you don't have to actually defend it now which is nice.

This is reference to 1714 isn't it

lol

anyway

Xkfyu is nullscum
Lowell is town
Vedith is scum
Sonia is nulltown
Transcend is town
Blackstar is nullscum
Tiershift is town
Algebra is super-scum
Gerryoat is town
Mimikyu is nulltown
texcat is null/nullscum
Dilweed is conftown
Saru is town

PRs:
Doc–One of the nullscum players, I think
Vig–Tiershift or gerry
Tracker–Mimi or saru

[Zyf]

It would never be dark if i was there tbh

[Zyf]

Is Xk scum?

[Zyf]

Tell you what: you give me your single best guess, whether a town read or scum read, and why it's your best guess, and I'll alignment flip that one player (though all relevant discussions on that slot will need to be spoilered from then on).

Vedith is gut
Xkfyu because of this

Spoiler: Case

Then die.

VOTE: Xkfuckyou

Yeah, I doubt it.

Trolling people is fun, too much fun.

VOTE: Saru

I like it.

VOTE: Saru

hatehatehatehatehate -> I'll sheep you.
It doesn't matter if it's trolling, you don't just change your mind that fast

I think the foses on sonia/gerry are slightly justified, but i feel their actions are nai.

Get out of here with that. You can't believe both.

Before trolling

Although i am serious when i feel that the foses are quantifiable on them.

Fair enough.

After trolling

Apparently voting good alters basic LOGIC perception; this isn't believing a read, this is saying a statement makes no sense and then later saying it's logical

Can we vote in me and Zy fucker today?????????????????????

no because there are much better lynch options.

I'm getting more and more sure sonia is scum trying to save saru's ass

She really isn't scum.

convince me

She soft claimed way earlier.

I never got the answer to where the fuck the soft claim was
I still don't see it

1) Why would you do it? So that if/when he flipped town people would be like "oh wow saru was right let's trust them"

Wait, so apparently I'm scum with Snake(which you're 100% sure about) but I'm also scum who is WK-ing a town Snake. What? Guess you contradicted yourself and now you're confirmed scum for that.

Anyways, I'm just going to claim right now because fuck it. Alas, I am but a VT. I hate being VT anyways so whatevs.

After I flip, take a good hard look at both Transcend and Xkfyu because the fight between them looks fake af. Trolling is a convenient excuse that I could use for my posts too, but I'm not scum so. Plus, Transcend's discredit of me just looks so bad lmfao. If I'd have to give a third scum, I'd probably say one of the lurkers.

Mimi is probably town. Gerry is also probably town. inb4 "oh those are Saru's scum partners."

If Zyf is town, then he's just a bad player who thinks questioning speed wagons is scummy. Sad times. He'll learn.

Good luck and cy@ in the dead thread!

I like it.

UNVOTE: Saru

VOTE: Lowell

Unvotes saru, votes to try and incite me
Even though apparently they like the post, apparently they don't agree with the content
Which accuses them of scummy-ness

sounds like appeasement

A wagon on town is a bad wagon.

Yeah, that's what I figured you meant.

What if a townies lynch directly resulted in catching one scum? Would you still consider that to be a "bad wagon?"

Wrong mindset for town.

What do you like about it? You haven't explained your town read

It's funny that it took this long for someone to ask this.

It's this:

After I flip, take a good hard look at both Transcend and Xkfyu because the fight between them looks fake af. Trolling is a convenient excuse that I could use for my posts too, but I'm not scum so. Plus, Transcend's discredit of me just looks so bad lmfao. If I'd have to give a third scum, I'd probably say one of the lurkers.

If Saru is scum, he knows that any "scum reads" he claims will obviously be ignored. So, this is absolutely pointless for scum to post, and it's more effort than scum would make.

TERRIBLE reason for townreading someone. If scum is about to get lynched, they will ABSOLUTELY make the effort because they're on the brink of death and have to try harder to live.

I agree with the read but this reason is horrific.

I'm calling it now it's Transcend Zyr and Ved

Is there a type of kudo I c n get for all 3 scum being obv cause this is borderline easy

Yeah, I could see that.

I'm calling it now it's Transcend Zyr and Ved

Is there a type of kudo I c n get for all 3 scum being obv cause this is borderline easy

Yeah, I could see that.

lol k you try that shit

I already am. I'm voting Vedith aren't I?

Note that they're acting like they believe it

Okay but you said i was a green read then sonia over here pulls 3 foses out of her ass (she's hard town btw just playing off of emotion) and you're like "yep sure sounds good haha yep"

That's not what I said. I said "I could see that." That doesn't necessarily mean that I believed it.

If I did believe it, I would be voting for you instead of Vedith.

Apparently not.
But they're saying two different things here. First they say they do believe it because vedith is part of the pile, but then later on apparently vedith doesn't count? Sounds like someone trying to dig themselves out of a pit.

Where did saru go, btw?

Doesn't matter. He's town.

Alignment doesn't matter
input is important
and saru was important because as the receiver of the wagon you oftentimes have more insight on who you think is scummy

By the way, if this is just one huge scum theater production and you (Sonia, Transcend, and Zyf) are ALL scum, I am gonna be soooooo mad at you guys.

throwing shade

UNVOTE: Vedith

VOTE: TierShift.

ok fine

Ok Zyf, here are my reads, just like I promised.

Town

:

Gerry

- Posts 209 and 302

Saru

- Post 585

Transcend

,

Sonia

,

Zyf

- All town, Too much to explain. Please don't make me.

Null

:

BlackStar

Lowell

texcat

Scum

:

algebra

- Weak reason for such a strong town read in Post 36. Actually, now that I've gone be to see this, I'm gonna vote him for this, and his weird 55 and 57, which doesn't look at all natural to me.

Mimi

(not with TierShift) - Post 615. I checked the Activity Overview page at the time of this post, and TierShift and MariaR were both listed right next to each other at the bottom of the list (sorted by post count). See my 622.

TierShift

(not with Mimi) - For his reasoning to want to lynch Gerry in Post 143.

UNVOTE: TierShift

VOTE: algebra

People have already mentioned problems with this list
>switches to other one

Oh, and

UNVOTE: algebra

VOTE: TierShift

>Neither has posted
>switches to the other one anyway

UNVOTE: TierShift

VOTE: Transcend

Calls out scumslip that isn't a scumslip
that's a scumtell for me

Ok Mimi is town.

UNVOTE: Transcend

VOTE: Zyf

>mimi being town has nothing to do with whether or not transcend is scum
>I drop from town to scum for voting them; they start voting me because I'm starting to get votes on me

Anyone who uses the word "noice" must be scum.

Random joke, but still throwing shade while they're at it

You choose

[Zyf]

Which are you more confident on? You can also pick a more confident town read if that's your preference too.

Ps you say gut on Vedith. If he's your pick, what sets off your gut? Think he's lying? Lazy? Pretending to scum hunt? Something else?

More confident on vedith tbh

Also idk something just doesn't feel right

[Zyf]

That's fine, but before I flip I think it'd be useful for you quantify it a bit. Or maybe point to a post or two that pings. Imagine you're in LYLO with vedith and xkfyu and are trying to prove its vedith. It's actually (IMO) a fun exercise that way.

Too helpful? Idk there's associations and there's their initial expectation of needing a better reason which I dunno i just don't like

If that's not enough for u fuckit I'm waiting

[Zyf]

How much does the avg person post by the end of a mini?

[Zyf]

Spoiler:

Damn. My gut is better at scumhunting than I give it credit for.
Algebra is super-scum in my eyes, idk.
I can't believe I have to rely on SONIA to get vedith killed >.>

Lol only 100 more than me
I pulled that shit in less than a week lmao

[Zyf]

Everything they've done is bad
There was that weird play at the beginning, and then they opportunistically just /happen/ to be there to fuckin attack my slot >.>
I guess they're town then

[Zyf]

Spoiler:

When sonia is terrible at playing this game properly but she's right >.>

[Zyf]

Holy shit
What kind of doc plays so aggro?

[Zyf]

FUCK SONIA GODDAMMIT
I'M GLAD I REPLACED JESUS CHRIST

[Zyf]

Transcend y
scumteam is good af
mh pls spoil my scumteam's alignments:
-xkfyu
-Vedith
-Algebra
-Blackstar

[Zyf]

Spoilers below, look only if you want spoiling

Spoiler: full setup

Gerry tracker
Algebra doc
Dwlee bp
Texcat vig

Sonia 1-shot strongman
Vedith Encryptor
Black star goon

Everyone else vt

Spoiler:

DAAAAAAAAMMN
2/3
not bad I'm proud of myself

[Zyf]

Spoiler:

Scum has already won
they've got like 3 PRs nailed already
I'm guessing sonia is shooting dilweed?
Also why'd ya claim doc?

[Zyf]

;-;

Spoiler:

I wish the fucking mafia would kill dweelee so that the people who were actually playing the game right would've been all dead
i hope fucking mafia wins tbh this idiotic town doesn't deserve it
also fuck mimikyu for being an idiot at every turn
it makes sense on sonia now but jfc
I don't think I ever want to play sonia as scum again, it's SO ANNOYING HWOGHEIOWHGWEG

[Zyf]

Spoiler:

Sonia was town read for yelling so she decided to just yell more

Spoiler: triggered

[Zyf]

Spoiler: :facepalm:

what the fuck
Idiot
Why the FUCK would you vig the BP!!!!!!

[Zyf]

Y'know...
Either town or scum is actually hella good at scumreading
Because they've managed to hit 3/4 PRs.
Lmao

[Zyf]

Spoiler: >.>

i'm never playing with sonia again.
like i just can't handle the level of asshole pompousness emanating from someone who doesn't even really help

as BOTH alignments.
i don't think I can even handle being on a scumteam with her

[Zyf]

Spoiler:

not at all

[Zyf]

Spoiler:

i ended up hitting 2!

[Zyf]

Mafia Psychology: Identifying the difference between scummy town and actual scum

by Mastin2

Spoiler: Part 1

The key isn't to look at actions.
Scum do town stuff a lot, and only rarely do scum stuff.
Town to scum stuff all the time, and only a fraction of the time can you see them do townposting that makes you think they are assuredly town.

Actions, in short, are useless: they're first-level play, so to speak.

Mafia is, at its core, a game of psychology. It is not a game with mathematical answers. You can game setups by using math, sure: crunch the numbers, find the probabilities, figure out which claims are more likely, and whatnot, but that only applies to PR claims when they pop up. So, the ability to use hard-defined limits in a game is incredibly-limited. It has its place, but usually is not what you need.

What you need is to look behind the action. What is the player going through? If the player is compromised in some fashion, their play is going to be erratic. This applies regardless of the three types: emotional, physical, or mental. If someone is mentally compromised, what that basically means is that they are barely functioning. If someone is physically compromised, it means that something in real-life is preventing them from being able to give something the same level of critical thought that they normally would. If someone is emotionally compromised, they are in a state where regardless of their alignment they are going to have some severe mood swings.

Now, there's an art to reading those things. First is to check sitewide activity: are those things influencing everywhere, or just one place? Now, this is NOT a check to see if they're lying. Nobody ever lies about being compromised and if you so much as think as much you're probably a worse scumbag than any of the scum players. This is a check to see how their compromised state affects them elsewhere. If, across all games, you see the exact same pattern emerging, then the chances are, the compromised state cannot be read as alignment-indicative. If, across all games, you see the same pattern, but there are little oddities here and there, reading it MAY be possible, but is an advanced-level skill. If, across all games, you see vastly different responses, then this is not necessarily a sign that you can read their compromised state...but what it DOES tell you, is this vital piece of information:
How they are compromised IS in fact influenced by the situation at hand. This is not necessarily alignment-indicative; two town games can have vastly different circumstances which lead to different effects. Same for two scum games. A town game might look identical to a scum game as well if the circumstances within that game are similar enough.

But, while not alignment-indicative, it tells you that you can prod and poke the player in question and figure out what lies beneath, even in their compromised state, and that you can find useful info there. This is where checking other games stops being useful (you can't exactly meta from ongoing games anyway), but if you've gotten this far, they've served their purpose: they tell you what to look for.

Now that you know what the player has gone through, the next step is to look at how it has influenced them in the current game with the current circumstances. Read not what they are doing, but why they are doing it: is the action born of a scum player pushing a clear agenda, or is the action scattered, without a clear, defined pattern? Scum can obfuscate stupidity all they want, but when they do so, they still are pushing for a specific cause, a specific reason. Town, on the other hand, when erratic...will not have a clear idea of what they are aiming for.

Furthermore, there's a difference between town contradictions and scum contradictions, and contradictions that are just the player not remembering. Town contradictions spawn from poor memory: they push for something, forget about it, and then later, push something else which contradicts what they said before. Scum contradictions spawn from a changed agenda. They push for something, and then, when it is convenient for them to push for something else, they start pushing there instead. This difference is hard to pick up, but vital. Then there are contradictions that exist purely because the passage of time is a harsh mistress. In these cases, the only alignment-indicative things are hard facts which contradict things. "I investigated this player N2"-->"I got no result N2" would be an example (albeit unlikely and extreme) of a scum contradiction.

Even there, you need player psychology: dig into the player's history. Are they someone who works off of memory a lot? Or are they someone who religiously checks their results to ensure accuracy? If the former, then ask yourself: how important was the piece of information to the person giving it? Was it just something that they saw and then wrote off, or was it something absolutely vital to them? This makes the difference between derptown and derpscum: derptown may forget small pieces of information that they wrote off and misremember the details until they check. Derpscum are more likely to forget larger details that were key events in the game.

But even there, you need to be careful. Scum tend to be more meticulous about the details, whereas town are more reckless. The above will catch more reckless scum and help clear more idiotic town, but what you need to be aware of is the other side: if you've got a player whose psychology is meticulous attention to detail, then as scum, their story is going to be flawless, or near-flawless. If that same player has a story that has some issues, then ironically enough, it's more likely for them to be town. What you need there is to look at their presented argument from THEIR point of view: in both cases, they should be presenting something they think is a flawless argument. As scum, because they designed it without any holes, and as town, because they know they are town and therefore they KNOW their argument is real by default. So, when examining the arguments, the one which has a few holes that the player making it won't see is more likely to be town than the one which has no holes.

This, because the scum player's argument isn't made from their perspective. They're making an argument to fool other players, so they are thinking like those other players and trying to present facts in a favorable light to those other players; the town player's argument is made from their perspective, because they are presenting the facts as they know them.

I realize this is complex, and highly circumstantial. Following the above, I'm basically telling you to half of the time side with the flawed argument, and the other half of the time, side with the less-flawed argument. But that's the thing about mafia: it's not universal. There IS no universal procedure. You need to adapt. You need to be able to identify what you're up against, and then from this profile, figure out what the most likely options are.

When it comes to the higher-level players, they do this instinctively. For instance, I've played enough games that I can flash-profile a player just on a few select details. If I have previous game experience with them, I'll have a better profile on them (this is the CORRECT way to use meta, where you're doing it to establish a profile on them rather than as an analytical facts-of-them approach that so many flawed meta users try), but I can do it even without that prior-game experience. What kind of avatar they have, what kind of sig they have, the way they speak, and most importantly, what they say and when.

That tells me what they are, and once I know what they are, I have a fair idea of what they're doing, which is why I'm able to call out players as "town" or "scum" so early-on with seemingly no evidence at all: because in their actions which THEY think are meaningless, I've assigned meaning to.

tl;dr:
Don't use meta to establish facts. "They do this as town, but this as scum." That is wrong. That is thinking of the game in terms of math, in terms of statistics.
Use meta to establish profiles. "They think like this." That's thinking of the game in terms of psychology.

Spoiler: Further Reading

Some further reading:
this post of mine is focused on me, but it actually covers a lot of the above, and can be turned into some general practices in psychological profiling and reading of players.

To wit,
Town players don't know what's going on, whereas scum players (barring multiball and even then) do.
Town players' actions will generally show some consistent trends, but the most consistent trend of all is how they'll lack clear consistency: they'll have patterns here and there, but for the most part, they'll be prodding around everywhere. This is because

every

town player, universally, has their own method of throwing mud on the wall and seeing what sticks, but they have no idea what will or won't stick.

Scum players' actions will occasionally have inconsistencies, but the most consistent trend will be how they'll lack inconsistency. Some scum players will have wild contradictions here and there, but for the most part, their reads will evolve in a suspiciously-consistent, suspiciously-logical, suspiciously-perfect way, with no leap in logic at all. Of course, player psychology comes into play here. There's a difference between someone like fferyllt giving reads and someone like Titus giving reads and someone like MS Marangal giving reads and Malakittens giving reads and me giving reads and, say, Klingoncelt giving reads. Some are methodical even as town. But this is a helpful general pointer, to look at how smooth the transitions are.

To put it in math terms: Think of reads in term of a graph, on which you're mapping their progression. If you see a dead-straight line in a reads trajectory (as in, you draw a perfect line, and it matches perfectly), it should raise a red flag. If you try to draw a straight line and you see all these points EVERYWHERE that are off the line, it might raise a red flag. (In short, either your line is off, or theirs is.) If you draw a line, and there are small points that diverge up and down from the line, you've got a more natural reads progression, because in real-life, statistics are used in that manner: they'll show general progressions, general trends, a general prediction, but the data for the actual event won't line up perfectly. Just close, with the occasional extreme deviant off of unforeseeable divergences.

Town players, generally, don't think they need allies, so will be more likely to alienate a player; scum players, generally, will be catering to specific town players in order to get their aid. However, town players do seek allies, and scum do alienate players, it's just you need to look at the how and the why: a town player seeking an ally is doing so because they have conviction: "Dude. That player is scum. DUDE. TRUST ME. THAT PLAYER IS SCUM. Jesus, dude, how many times do I have to tell you! Please, help me. That player is scum. Work with me, you idiot." A scum player seeking an ally is doing so because they want to form a long-term plan.

A town player antagonizing someone is doing so because they don't care. A scum player antagonizing a player is doing so to strategically cut ties to that player: attempt to make their conflict look Town-town, attempt to paint the other player as scum, a self-defense mechanism to not look bad themselves, stuff like that. They are antagonizing a player to intentionally build frustration levels, because frustration levels allow scum to manipulate emotions better.

Looking for who wants to find scum, versus who wants to just lynch a player, is a good helpful pointer to. Town hold interest in lynching scum, specifically, and only scum. Scum hold interest in lynching, period, just as long as it ends the day and gets the game into the night where they hold control. Related, who is trying to look town? Town players shouldn't be trying to look town; they should be trying to find scum. A player trying to look town is trying to avoid the noose, something which has a far more scum-oriented mindset.

You also have to look for who is defending who, and why, and just as importantly: when a player

isn't

being defended. Scum have other scum, who unless they have bad chemistry, will usually hold some reluctance to bus. They'll maybe decide to hard-bus, or even cross-bus eventually, but prior to the decision to bus, they will likely not have decided to go for it. So, if a player is being attacked and has no defenders, or virtually no defenders, there's a fair chance that scum are taking advantage of a town player that is a weak link, or decided to bus a scum player they decided was a weak link. In either case, there's scum on the wagon most likely.

It all boils down, however, to the term I coined:
Situational Awareness.
Above all my other skills, that's my greatest asset.
Knowing the players, knowing the circumstances behind those players (for instance, what games have they recently finished, especially with me?), and knowing the game.

It became instinctive to me, second-nature, but it took me years of playing mafia and thinking along those lines before I had it down.
It also took me a lot of getting familiarity with the current mafiascum playerbase: I knew about 70% of the players I was playing with from recent games, and of the 30%, knew about 40% just from games too old to be entirely reliable.

Good read
Will probably bookmark this tbh XD

[Zyf]

Dwlee wishes me to pass along the following:

lease tell dead chat my jimmies were thoroughly rustled

send this back

im sorry for putting you through this

[Zyf]

Town is getting cranked.

Yyyep

[Zyf]

fuckn hell
scum deserves it tho

[Zyf]

>.> <.<
I was way off. But lol @ vig shooting me.
I'm just going to sit-back, relax, and watch this fuckery play out. If I were still alive, I would be asking for Sonia's head on a fucking spike. I legit lost my shit when I saw she hammered Gerry without a claim. Like if she were town in this game and she did that, I would never ever think of playing with her again. But the way she's acting even now as scum is just so annoying to read. I don't see town pulling this one out.

yeah, I don't think i can play with sonia

she has the most FUCKING egotistical attitude and her scum play is annoying as FUCK
like i'd feel an obligation to policy lynch her at any time I play with her like WTF

btw srry for scumreading you

I should've stuck to Vedith >.>

[Zyf]

Town is basically random guessing it seems. Also I'm fine w openly spoiling at this point it's MYLO and no one has been super interested in flowing along unspoiled.

HOW THE FUCK DO THEY NOT KNOW MY GOD

[Zyf]

I bet no one will bother looking at Sonia's d2 posts to see if what she said was at all consistent w an inno on xk.

nope
because this town is fucking stupid and inactive
GOD DAMN
like I'm not even watching the game it's disgusting how wrecked they are at this point
and the sad part is that I was 2/4 on the scum and with what sonia did i would have definitely fucked sonia up too
aka I would have won the game
FML

[Zyf]

The town isn't really doing the things it needs in order to win. Post game probably everyone blames texcat but honestly this was a collective failure. Wolves had a great day one but I think after that point it was more town failure than wolf success.

^^^^
btw has everyone read spoilers?
just wondering

[Zyf]

Mafia Psychology: Identifying the difference between scummy town and actual scum

by Mastin2

Spoiler: Part 1

The key isn't to look at actions.
Scum do town stuff a lot, and only rarely do scum stuff.
Town to scum stuff all the time, and only a fraction of the time can you see them do townposting that makes you think they are assuredly town.

Actions, in short, are useless: they're first-level play, so to speak.

Mafia is, at its core, a game of psychology. It is not a game with mathematical answers. You can game setups by using math, sure: crunch the numbers, find the probabilities, figure out which claims are more likely, and whatnot, but that only applies to PR claims when they pop up. So, the ability to use hard-defined limits in a game is incredibly-limited. It has its place, but usually is not what you need.

What you need is to look behind the action. What is the player going through? If the player is compromised in some fashion, their play is going to be erratic. This applies regardless of the three types: emotional, physical, or mental. If someone is mentally compromised, what that basically means is that they are barely functioning. If someone is physically compromised, it means that something in real-life is preventing them from being able to give something the same level of critical thought that they normally would. If someone is emotionally compromised, they are in a state where regardless of their alignment they are going to have some severe mood swings.

Now, there's an art to reading those things. First is to check sitewide activity: are those things influencing everywhere, or just one place? Now, this is NOT a check to see if they're lying. Nobody ever lies about being compromised and if you so much as think as much you're probably a worse scumbag than any of the scum players. This is a check to see how their compromised state affects them elsewhere. If, across all games, you see the exact same pattern emerging, then the chances are, the compromised state cannot be read as alignment-indicative. If, across all games, you see the same pattern, but there are little oddities here and there, reading it MAY be possible, but is an advanced-level skill. If, across all games, you see vastly different responses, then this is not necessarily a sign that you can read their compromised state...but what it DOES tell you, is this vital piece of information:
How they are compromised IS in fact influenced by the situation at hand. This is not necessarily alignment-indicative; two town games can have vastly different circumstances which lead to different effects. Same for two scum games. A town game might look identical to a scum game as well if the circumstances within that game are similar enough.

But, while not alignment-indicative, it tells you that you can prod and poke the player in question and figure out what lies beneath, even in their compromised state, and that you can find useful info there. This is where checking other games stops being useful (you can't exactly meta from ongoing games anyway), but if you've gotten this far, they've served their purpose: they tell you what to look for.

Now that you know what the player has gone through, the next step is to look at how it has influenced them in the current game with the current circumstances. Read not what they are doing, but why they are doing it: is the action born of a scum player pushing a clear agenda, or is the action scattered, without a clear, defined pattern? Scum can obfuscate stupidity all they want, but when they do so, they still are pushing for a specific cause, a specific reason. Town, on the other hand, when erratic...will not have a clear idea of what they are aiming for.

Furthermore, there's a difference between town contradictions and scum contradictions, and contradictions that are just the player not remembering. Town contradictions spawn from poor memory: they push for something, forget about it, and then later, push something else which contradicts what they said before. Scum contradictions spawn from a changed agenda. They push for something, and then, when it is convenient for them to push for something else, they start pushing there instead. This difference is hard to pick up, but vital. Then there are contradictions that exist purely because the passage of time is a harsh mistress. In these cases, the only alignment-indicative things are hard facts which contradict things. "I investigated this player N2"-->"I got no result N2" would be an example (albeit unlikely and extreme) of a scum contradiction.

Even there, you need player psychology: dig into the player's history. Are they someone who works off of memory a lot? Or are they someone who religiously checks their results to ensure accuracy? If the former, then ask yourself: how important was the piece of information to the person giving it? Was it just something that they saw and then wrote off, or was it something absolutely vital to them? This makes the difference between derptown and derpscum: derptown may forget small pieces of information that they wrote off and misremember the details until they check. Derpscum are more likely to forget larger details that were key events in the game.

But even there, you need to be careful. Scum tend to be more meticulous about the details, whereas town are more reckless. The above will catch more reckless scum and help clear more idiotic town, but what you need to be aware of is the other side: if you've got a player whose psychology is meticulous attention to detail, then as scum, their story is going to be flawless, or near-flawless. If that same player has a story that has some issues, then ironically enough, it's more likely for them to be town. What you need there is to look at their presented argument from THEIR point of view: in both cases, they should be presenting something they think is a flawless argument. As scum, because they designed it without any holes, and as town, because they know they are town and therefore they KNOW their argument is real by default. So, when examining the arguments, the one which has a few holes that the player making it won't see is more likely to be town than the one which has no holes.

This, because the scum player's argument isn't made from their perspective. They're making an argument to fool other players, so they are thinking like those other players and trying to present facts in a favorable light to those other players; the town player's argument is made from their perspective, because they are presenting the facts as they know them.

I realize this is complex, and highly circumstantial. Following the above, I'm basically telling you to half of the time side with the flawed argument, and the other half of the time, side with the less-flawed argument. But that's the thing about mafia: it's not universal. There IS no universal procedure. You need to adapt. You need to be able to identify what you're up against, and then from this profile, figure out what the most likely options are.

When it comes to the higher-level players, they do this instinctively. For instance, I've played enough games that I can flash-profile a player just on a few select details. If I have previous game experience with them, I'll have a better profile on them (this is the CORRECT way to use meta, where you're doing it to establish a profile on them rather than as an analytical facts-of-them approach that so many flawed meta users try), but I can do it even without that prior-game experience. What kind of avatar they have, what kind of sig they have, the way they speak, and most importantly, what they say and when.

That tells me what they are, and once I know what they are, I have a fair idea of what they're doing, which is why I'm able to call out players as "town" or "scum" so early-on with seemingly no evidence at all: because in their actions which THEY think are meaningless, I've assigned meaning to.

tl;dr:
Don't use meta to establish facts. "They do this as town, but this as scum." That is wrong. That is thinking of the game in terms of math, in terms of statistics.
Use meta to establish profiles. "They think like this." That's thinking of the game in terms of psychology.

Spoiler: Further Reading

Some further reading:
this post of mine is focused on me, but it actually covers a lot of the above, and can be turned into some general practices in psychological profiling and reading of players.

To wit,
Town players don't know what's going on, whereas scum players (barring multiball and even then) do.
Town players' actions will generally show some consistent trends, but the most consistent trend of all is how they'll lack clear consistency: they'll have patterns here and there, but for the most part, they'll be prodding around everywhere. This is because

every

town player, universally, has their own method of throwing mud on the wall and seeing what sticks, but they have no idea what will or won't stick.

Scum players' actions will occasionally have inconsistencies, but the most consistent trend will be how they'll lack inconsistency. Some scum players will have wild contradictions here and there, but for the most part, their reads will evolve in a suspiciously-consistent, suspiciously-logical, suspiciously-perfect way, with no leap in logic at all. Of course, player psychology comes into play here. There's a difference between someone like fferyllt giving reads and someone like Titus giving reads and someone like MS Marangal giving reads and Malakittens giving reads and me giving reads and, say, Klingoncelt giving reads. Some are methodical even as town. But this is a helpful general pointer, to look at how smooth the transitions are.

To put it in math terms: Think of reads in term of a graph, on which you're mapping their progression. If you see a dead-straight line in a reads trajectory (as in, you draw a perfect line, and it matches perfectly), it should raise a red flag. If you try to draw a straight line and you see all these points EVERYWHERE that are off the line, it might raise a red flag. (In short, either your line is off, or theirs is.) If you draw a line, and there are small points that diverge up and down from the line, you've got a more natural reads progression, because in real-life, statistics are used in that manner: they'll show general progressions, general trends, a general prediction, but the data for the actual event won't line up perfectly. Just close, with the occasional extreme deviant off of unforeseeable divergences.

Town players, generally, don't think they need allies, so will be more likely to alienate a player; scum players, generally, will be catering to specific town players in order to get their aid. However, town players do seek allies, and scum do alienate players, it's just you need to look at the how and the why: a town player seeking an ally is doing so because they have conviction: "Dude. That player is scum. DUDE. TRUST ME. THAT PLAYER IS SCUM. Jesus, dude, how many times do I have to tell you! Please, help me. That player is scum. Work with me, you idiot." A scum player seeking an ally is doing so because they want to form a long-term plan.

A town player antagonizing someone is doing so because they don't care. A scum player antagonizing a player is doing so to strategically cut ties to that player: attempt to make their conflict look Town-town, attempt to paint the other player as scum, a self-defense mechanism to not look bad themselves, stuff like that. They are antagonizing a player to intentionally build frustration levels, because frustration levels allow scum to manipulate emotions better.

Looking for who wants to find scum, versus who wants to just lynch a player, is a good helpful pointer to. Town hold interest in lynching scum, specifically, and only scum. Scum hold interest in lynching, period, just as long as it ends the day and gets the game into the night where they hold control. Related, who is trying to look town? Town players shouldn't be trying to look town; they should be trying to find scum. A player trying to look town is trying to avoid the noose, something which has a far more scum-oriented mindset.

You also have to look for who is defending who, and why, and just as importantly: when a player

isn't

being defended. Scum have other scum, who unless they have bad chemistry, will usually hold some reluctance to bus. They'll maybe decide to hard-bus, or even cross-bus eventually, but prior to the decision to bus, they will likely not have decided to go for it. So, if a player is being attacked and has no defenders, or virtually no defenders, there's a fair chance that scum are taking advantage of a town player that is a weak link, or decided to bus a scum player they decided was a weak link. In either case, there's scum on the wagon most likely.

It all boils down, however, to the term I coined:
Situational Awareness.
Above all my other skills, that's my greatest asset.
Knowing the players, knowing the circumstances behind those players (for instance, what games have they recently finished, especially with me?), and knowing the game.

It became instinctive to me, second-nature, but it took me years of playing mafia and thinking along those lines before I had it down.
It also took me a lot of getting familiarity with the current mafiascum playerbase: I knew about 70% of the players I was playing with from recent games, and of the 30%, knew about 40% just from games too old to be entirely reliable.

Good read
Will probably bookmark this tbh XD

^this right here is legit bookmarked for me

[Zyf]

i don't want to post here anymore either

this town has given me brain cancer

good fucking job to the scum

[Zyf]

idk how i had you at the beginning >.>
i should have stayed in I was 2/4 in scumteam