Open 741: Red Flag [Endgame]

[Aster]

Confirm.

[Aster]

Only a fool would vote for a jester. Have y'all forgotten that the godfather has already roleclaimed?

VOTE: Gamma Emerald

[Aster]

Also, shouldn't we be careful about who we vote? Because if scum is well coordinated, then after we vote, they could just pile on all 4 as 4 more votes.

✓ Statement meant to look townish;
✓ Statement not actually helpful.

[Aster]

God that post by Blackjacks is cringey

No it isn't. Is it a mafiascum.net tradition to insult somebody's sense of humour on day 1 or something?

[Aster]

No. Why do you not think it’s just a little bit overwrought?

I think it was funny and it made literally laugh out loud. It appears we have different senses of humour.

Anyway, Blackjacks clearly put a nonzero amount of effort in composing his post. It is pretty dishearthening to have two players immediately call you "cringey" when you tried to put some effort into making a joke.

it actually is, considering there are players who just quick vote rashly

Glad you're responding. Can you please answer the following questions?

• Do you know what RVS is?
  
• Do you think RVS is a bad thing?
  
• Is it a bad thing for players to generally have votes standing to indicate who they are most suspicious of, or to exert pressure?
  • Would it be better if players only used words to communicate and only placed their votes when they were sure they wanted a lynch?
• Do you believe mafia will actually try to collectively quicklynch a bandwagon provided they can get three townie votes?

[Aster]

Aster, nothing to comment about my post talking about you? :(

The posts you commented are after it so I'm just saying in case you did skip mine

I didn't skip your post, I just decided to ignore it. <3

There's a pretty simple reason why I didn't vote THE MEME MEN in post 90: I wanted to see whether/how THE MEME MEN would react to my post, and I figured that his reaction would be more informative if I didn't include a vote or hard accusation (yes, that was a conscious decision.)

His post seems pretty LAMISTy to me, but I was not yet sure whether he made his suggestion in good faith or whether he only made it to look townish. In the former case, he might be clueless town, in the latter case he'd be canditate lynch of the day.

I wanted to see his reaction if I didn't make any hard accusations. Would he fall on the defensive anyway? Which part of him would feel most attacked, would he try to absolve thoughts that he's LAMIST'ing scum, or would he crusade that his suggestion is valuable and the rest of us are clueless idiots not realising the dangers of voting? If he was scum, I would expect him to take offense at "statement intended to look townish", is he was town I'd expect him to take offense at "statement not helpful". If I had included a vote or hard accusation, he would likely fall on "I DON'T LAMIST" regardless of alignment.

[Aster]

THE MEME MEN, can you get your left head to answer my questions?

• Do you know what RVS is?
  
• Do you think RVS is a bad thing?
  
• Is it a bad thing for players to generally have votes standing to indicate who they are most suspicious of, or to exert pressure?
  • Would it be better if players only used words to communicate and only placed their votes when they were sure they wanted a lynch?
• Do you believe mafia will actually try to collectively quicklynch a bandwagon provided they can get three townie votes?

And while he's at it, this one as well?

Why is Gamma’s reaction more likely from town-Gamma?

Would have scum-Gamma not called you out too, or kept quiet?

[Aster]

In other news, I didn't like BJs' entrance. The post was fine, I laughed, but seems like it was prepared before the game started. My problema with that is that it was a huge post and it's obvious that took a lot of effort. I tend to scumread people who puts that much of an effort on RVS; preparing a post before the game starts is past that line. Does someone else has another point of view about this?

If with "before the game starts" you mean "before Blackjacks received their role", then the entire post is NAI.

[Aster]

We had 2 days of confirmation phase with an open thread.

Lemme get our facts straight. There was only a single day of confirmation phase; you can verify by checking the timestamps of post 1 and 94.

[Aster]

I wrote it after meme voted us (and searching a quote from a game I just played takes like 5 minutes max lol).

More facts: there is a time difference of 1 hour and 38 minutes between the moment THE MEME MEN voted Blackjacks and the moment Blackjacks posted his joke.

I'll post more thoughts on this later.

[Aster]

I wrote it after meme voted us (and searching a quote from a game I just played takes like 5 minutes max lol).

I've pondered about whether this statement is plausible. After further consideration, I've concluded that it is most likely true.

One hour and 38 minutes ought to be enough to put that post together. Moreover, the post does seem to be a reaction to being voted. The relative freshness of the links in the posts indicate that this was not just a post they have in a folder "prewritten shitposts from whenever" and it seems somewhat unlikely that in or before the pregame phase they decided "lets write a special reaction shitpost specifically for Open 741 just in case somebody ends up voting me during RVS which may or may not happen".

[Aster]

THE MEME MEN's answers

It took LH@THE MEME MEN almost two days to answer my questions, and what did we get out of it?

A glorious exercise in beating-around-the-bush

. Let me walk you through his post.

I dont do rvs anymore, i personally jump straight to business like james doakes and penguinpower do.

✓ Statement does not answer the question.

THE MEME MEN told us to be careful voting during RVS, so I asked him whether he thought RVS was bad. "I don't RVS myself" does not answer the question, which clearly intended to ask whether he thought RVS shouldn't happen at all; what does he think about other players RVSing?

players using words when they're sure, or not using words - it depends on the context like what they're trying to attain - whether reaction testing or whatever

✓ Skips one question.
✓ Doesn't answer the other.

The main question was whether players shouldn't vote lightly. A subquestion asked about the alternative of "using only words without voting". Yet he answers like the question was "Are words bad?"

look at Herebus with the 14 player large normal, moderated by Krazy. that had 4 scum.

✓ Cites anecdotal evidence.
✓ Cited evidence does not support his point.

Herebus day one had only two out of four scum on the lynchwagon, which is completely average since over half the town was on the lynchwagon. If anything, Herebus demonstrates that the scum will not collectively jump on the lynchwagon merely because they can.

Yes, they did collectively jump on the lynchwagon at LyLo, and that's completely beyond the point. Of course mafia would collectively quickhammer a LyLo wagon when they can. The real issue is about whether mafia will try to collectively quickhammer during early game.

---

Going Deeper

There is something about these answers. It seems that THE MEME MEN are unwilling to answer questions with "yes" or "no" and are instead trying to write something that resembles an answer but actually isn't. I get the impression that they hope my questions will just disappear, which is further corroborated by LH taking his sweet time to answer my questions while RH avoided looking like a lurker; he could've been trying to just stall things hoping town's attention shifts elsewhere in the meanwhile.

Now, if THE MEME MEN were town, why do they need to avoid answering questions? If he believed in his opinions, he could've confidently presented them; they weren't scum opinions at any rate. Alternatively he could have realized and admitted that although he hadn't thought things through, he made his suggestion in good faith.

On the other hand, if THE MEME MAN is scum, this behaviour makes a whole lotta sense. He clearly cannot confidently present his opinion because he knows it is a scum opinion and/or doesn't even believe it himself. He can't find another presentable opinion that doesn't make him look stupid. He doesn't admit that he hadn't thought things through because I said earlier that I expected town to crusade that his opinion is right, and certainly he doesn't want to look like folding scum. Stuck with a no-win situation, he tries to make things go away by stalling and beating around the bush.

Tl;dr:

THE MEME MEN opened the game with a LAMIST suggestion. I think his suggestion was unlikely to have been made in good faith. THE MEME MEN are scared to talk about their opinions leading to their suggestion.

VOTE: THE MEME MEN

[Aster]

The lamist post itself was kind of scummy to me, but why do you think scum, choosing to make a lamist post about mafia theory, would post something they themselves don't believe?

It seems plausible for scum to do it because I literally did that myself in my last scumgame (link.)

(Long story short: based on the town's lack of information there was a potential MyLo. Scum knew there was no MyLo. I then warned town about the potential MyLo to (1) slow down their operations, (2) make them think twice about lynching my troubled scumpartner, (3) score town points for myself.)

Telling town to be careful sounds pretty townish, even if it is blatantly bad advice. For some reason characters in movies always tell others to be careful, even when being careful will most likely get them killed and being quick is the best bet. I can very well imagine that (1) scum noticed the potential to throw four votes on a bandwagon, (2) realized there were nevertheless practical difficulties to it, and (3) wanted to salvage some of the situation by warning town for town points.

[Aster]

But you weren't exactly making up mafia theory that you didn't believe; if you were town in that game, there would be a potential mylo from your perspective

I guess that's a fair point. When I posted that warning, I did think it was a justifiable statement from town perspective, which THE MEME MEN may not. It does seem this situation is somewhat different indeed.

It does seem at least clear that THE MEME MEN did not think their statement through even if he were town. Their revised answers answer questions in a way that conflicts with his warning to be careful with voting. (Amusingly THE MEME MEN have been trying to dodge admitting they were wrong to the best extent they can, and then they suddenly fold when I accuse them of being scum?)

Reconsidering with this perspective, why would THE MEME MEN make the post at all? Was he (1) a misguided townie trying to be helpful who ended up making a not well thought-through statement, (2) a mafioso making a not well thought-through statement motivated by his desire to reap towncred by warning the town about a perceived danger, or (3) a mafioso intentionally giving townish-looking advice that he knows doesn't help town?

Looking at it this way, situation (1) seems a bit more plausible than I had initially considered, though (2) sounds very plausible as well. I do believe their subsequent handling of the situation indicates they're scum.

[Aster]

As per Nibbui's request, here is my list of reads on some players.

---

Blackjacks

"Lurker" captivates most of what can be said about them. They haven't posted a grain of content until I accused THE MEME MEN, after which they haven't posted a grain of content that was not related to THE MEME MEN. This makes me suspicious because I think THE MEME MEN is scum, but I probably shouldn't start association hunting this until scumflips happen. At least some of his questions (300 & 307) raised valid points.

This particular post is an eyesore:

People who shitpost in Mafia games are the scum of the earth, which makes them Literally mafia. I wanted to make sure everyone understood my Stance on the issue.

... says the shitposter. Not sure why, but for some reason I interpret this as "I have no intention to ever start contributing to this game."

Most unfortunately lurking isn't alignment indicative, which makes it hard for me to establish any proper read on them.

---

Gamma Emerald

There seems to be a lot of discussion about Gamma Emerald's meta. I won't comment on his meta, but unlike what some people claim, he doesn't seem very high effort or gamesolvey to me in this game.

His biggest contribution consisted of his RQS. After his RQS was handled, his contributions mostly consisted of (1) answering questions, and (2) asking others to explain something. Both of them are fairly safe methods of active lurking. Even the posts that others call LAMISTy such as 52 could be interpreted as trying to make others do the thinkwork rather than Gamma himself.

His active lurking while dancing around "my meta has changed" and calling it a town meta (323) does draw my attention as potentially scummy.

---

Keyser Söze

Reading through Keyser Söze's ISO, I get the impression that he's somewhere inbetween an active lurker and an active player. His posts contain a fair amount of noise. The extent of it that isn't noise is divided into questions and short opinions. It seems he suddenly had a bump of productivity on the current page and was more lurky if you look at his ISO before post 319.

The questions he does ask do often seem to be relevant and often make me wonder about the answer to it as well. To that extent he's helpful.

So far Keyser Söze has given me no concrete reasons to think he's town nor reasons to believe he's scum. I'm writing him as "neutral".

---

Pinturicchio

The first player so far who's not a lurker. I don't agree with most of his reads because they seem to be based on vague or unverifiable things such as feel, but his reads do not feel like they're scum-motivated.

There is one read that looks curious to me though: the part where he scumread Blackjacks based on "putting effort in RVS" (185) and then hypothesized that Blackjacks wrote their RVS post during pregame. For starters I think that "effort in RVS = scum" is a load of hogwash, but took interest in the discussion anyway to (1) see how much pinturicchio was willing to bend circumstances in his favour, (2) see whether Blackjacks would lie to get out of the situation.

Blackjacks states (199) that they wrote the post after THE MEME MEN voted them, and I think that their statement is most likely true. Small honesty town bonus to Blackjacks.

This statement from Blackjacks ought to aid pinturicchio's case: his main scumtell was "effort in RVS = scum" and the dispute was about whether Blackjack's post was written before or after they learned their role. We had just confirmed that Blackjacks' post was written after they learned their role.

Case closed? Nope.

Even if I still believed that the message was prepared beforehand, I still would be inclined to believe that ruru is town here

This is strange. First, if I still believed that the message was prepared beforehand, then I would definitely scumread Blackjacks under lynch all liars. Maybe he meant "Even if Blackjacks had instead told me the message was prepared beforehand, I would be inclined to believe ruru is town here"?

Anyway, whether Blackjacks wrote their post during pregame or during day one ought to be beyond the point. What matters is whether it was written before or after Blackjacks received their role. Pinturicchio's post makes me think that he forgot what his case was actually about, thought that he was now working with "writing posts during pregame = scummy", and then decided to drop the case.

I am somewhat wary of pinturicchio because of this.

[Aster]

Their revised answers answer questions in a way that conflicts with his warning to be careful with voting.

How so?

In particular the following two revised answers provided:

• Q: Do you think RVS is a bad thing?
  • A: bad as in people making joke votes then later complaining about fluff posting or inactivity - then yes it's bad
• Q: Is it a bad thing for players to generally have votes standing to indicate who they are most suspicious of, or to exert pressure?
  • A: nope. Why would you ask this question?

First answer

He states that RVS is only bad if people complain about fluff posts. He does not seem to think that the RVS votes themselves are bad. That contrasts with his earlier warnings during RVS about being careful about our votes because " there are players who quick vote rashly".

Since RVS votes are always quick and rash, it appears that THE MEME MEN originally warned about the existence of random votes themselves, yet in their revised answers, they do not indicate that the random vote aspect of RVS is bad.

Second answer

The second answer about it not being bad to cast votes to indicate who they are most suspicious of or to exert pressure, also contrasts with his earlier statement about not voting rashly, which gave me the impression he tells us to only vote when we've got a reasonable degree of confidence the votee is scum. After all, voting whomever is the most suspicious right now without sufficient evidence or voting just to exert pressure usually manifests as "quick voting".

[Aster]

Idk about crusading, but I do think 134 was LH insisting his initial statement was correct. as you pointed out in 144, that was slightly town indicative

You're right. THE MEME MEN did argue about the correctness of his statement over arguing that he wasn't LAMIST. The latter would've been way scummier.

However, although he picked the townier option of the two, that does not mean that he's town for sure, just less likely to be scum; his later posts do make him more likely to be scum. Moreover, while he maintained that his statement was right, he did not particularly defend it well. His statement

it actually is, considering there are players who just quick vote rashly

did feel quite passive. It is not an assertive statement that we townies are doing dangerous things and should stop it. It is not quite what I would call "crusade". His statement could come from a not-very-interested townie, but it could also have come from scum who wanted to defend themselves but didn't want to make a big deal out of it.

His initial reply is not what makes him scum, his later handling of my follow-up questions is.

[Aster]

First things first. There seems to be some rumour circulating that "Aster" means "Disaster". I wish to clarify that the rumours are entirely false. In fact, they are quite the

opposite

of the truth.

The prefix "dis-" is from Latin origin that is used to express a negative or opposite [1]. Examples are "disassemble" being the opposite of "assemble" and "distrust" being the opposite of "trust". As such, "disaster" or Dis-Aster, is the

opposite

of "Aster". Using the laws of logic, it follows that Aster is the

opposite

of Disaster.

The name "Aster" ought to be associated with things like blessing and salvation, or in mafia context, perfect victories.

Any further questions?

[Aster]

So: I scumread her because of something specific ---> she replies with a tone that ressembles her town range ---> I stop caring about the initial specific thing 'cause I have something better. Is this now clear?

My problem is not that you dropped the initial specific thing, it is that you dropped something else than the initial specific thing.

The chain or logic is: you think that Blackjacks is scummy because they put effort in their RVS. To have this claim be applicable, Blackjacks must've written their post after receiving their role. To prove that this claim is applicaple, you try to prove "Blackjacks wrote their post in pregame". Then Blackjacks confirms that the post was written after having received the role.

When you drop the case against Blackjacks, you act like "wrote post in pregame" is the scumtell you no longer care about, whereas "effort in RVS" should be the scumtell you no longer care about. It gives me the impression that you forgot what your case was about or how it was structured.

Of course it is plausible that you were just a confused townie, but I would expect scum to be more likely than townies to forget what their cases were about because they care more about finding some scumtells to point fingers at than finding real reasons others are scum.

---

Anyway, I'm a bit confused by the Blackjacks/ruru case. Since mentions of ruru's meta were made, I presumed that ruru's meta would be "useless lurker" like in this game, but RadiantCowbells asserts it isn't and it is rare for ruru to lurk this much? Even if claimed this is not the only game where ruru lurks, how can you be so sure about reading the "tone" of her messages if she rarely ever plays like this? I'd think there's little data to compare her to.

I guess you can't answer this question, but it is just something I'm worndering about.

[Aster]

i like ur hat

dis

aster

Thanks. Northsidegal gave it to me <3

We are now in an officially mod-sanctioned Christmas spirit ^^

[Aster]

I would make another checklist citing all the AtE's RadiantCowbell has committed so far, but I'd end up just quoting page 27–28. >_>

Let me reintroduce perspective in the case that's going on. To the extent I can skim from RadiantCowbell's ISO, I found only two posts that state reasons for lynching Blackjacks, which I shall address now.

---

ruru in our last game started talking on d1 about how it was autolose if she left scum me alive and seriously advocated policy lynching me day one.
this game she's avoided me entirely, has made zero decent content posts, and is shit pushing town.

Which, as pinturicchio explained, may as well be because Blackjacks learned that attacking you head-on based merely on other games wasn't the best approach? (On a side note, I haven't found the game you're referring to. Link?)

1) she would see it as an imperative to play disruption on me if she were town
2) she has consistently been a power player in her town games and has done little here
3) i think you guys underestimate just how scummy it is that she decided volxen was scum before he posted and stuck with the read after

4) and most importantly she just

feels

scum. and i thought she was obvtown in the game i played with her and i immediately locktowned her both times i spectated town her. she's not hard to read.

1. Already addressed.
   
2. As much as I'd love to lynch all lurkers, lurking most unfortunately isn't alignment indicative. Your statement tells us "her current meta does not match her town meta", which is something different from "her current meta matches her scum meta". Would you happen to know scumgame of hers where she's as lurky as she's here? Unless her meta shifted to her scum meta, I think "meta has changed" by itself is a really shaky argument.
   
3. She voted Volxen for the Ellitell. Volxen's post did nothing to address her Ellitell.

That leaves (4) as the most important reason. Unfortunately I lack the sense of "feel" that you do, and your "feel" is not really transmitted well through your posts. I understand that you may end up obsessed over Blackjacks using only a feel read, but unless you give some quantifiable reasons, you'll be the only one. (?)

Ruru has a scummy as ass iso completely devoid of any town motivated posts it's really not a complicated read.

✗ Statement says nothing.

[Aster]

Also, what is your taken on Volxen and RC's town read on him?

This turned out to be a surprisingly intriguing question.

RadiantCowbells is townreading a post of Volxen that parrots stuff that has already been said. It is not something I would townread myself or call "townish". Notable is that Volxen is the only player RadiantCowbells has townread and stated his reasons for so far. Notable is that his townread happened

before

he started his case against Blackjacks. He had already RVS-voted Blackjacks earlier, but he only started his case against Blackjacks later.

It is remarkable that Volxen has been the only player so far who RadiantCowbells has graced with an explanation of their townread on them. More remarkable is how RadiantCowbells

later

proceeds to attack the player who leads the Bandwagon against Volxen for seemingly unrelated reasons. This resembles a

chainsaw defense

.

We have two events:

1. RadiantCowbells states the reasons he townreads somebody for only one Player "A" who doesn't seem that townish to me;
   
2. RadiantCowbells attacks only one Player "B" who is attacking only one other Player "C".

It would take a one in eleven coincidence for "Player A = Player C" if these events were independent. Note that one in eleven coincidences are not that infrequent since you only notice coincidences that actually happen and nobody would remark anything about this situation if A ≠ C, but it is still suggestive.

FoS: RadiantCowbells, Volxen

[Aster]

What is your current taken on Blackjack though? You said before that they were somewhat lurkers and I get that but they have been posting a bit more now.

I'm still feeling neutral about Blackjacks aside from the part that I suspect scum may be pushing against them.

Blackjacks' greatest contribution so far has been attacking Volxen based on "Ellitell" right now, which seems to be: (1) Volxen is inactive, (2) Volxen is active in other games, (3) Ellitell has indicated scum!Volxen before. The case does make sense: if we observe something that happens when Volxen is scum and does not happen when Volxen is town, then Volxen is likely scum. I haven't personally verified whether the premises hold though.

What is remarkable is how Blackjacks themselves seemed to be uncharacterally inactive in this game while pushing somebody else for inactivity plus some other stuff. Blackjacks isn't inactive in the Ellitell way that Volxen is, but it makes me wonder: would scum try to push a lynch on somebody based on inactivity when inactive themselves? If they are lying low, wouldn't they rather try to distract from inactivity tells?

On the other hand, it could make sense that pushing others on inactivity tells requires little explanation and is therefore a good way to avoid having to say much. I haven't sorted Blackjacks themself without associations yet.

[Aster]

I've been pretty busy with real-life stuff the past couple of days, so I'm going to prodge and will post actual content tomorrow.

V/LA until tomorrow?

[Aster]

@Aster have you played with RC before?

Nope. Actually, I haven't played with anyone here. (At best I've modded one game played by Gamma Emerald and spectated part of another game of his.)

@Aster - So between then (Page 12) and now (Page 34), is your case on my predecessor still valid? I haven't looked at the mod's ISO for the VCs between then and now to see if you moved your vote between then and now or if you're vote sitting from page 12.

Yes, it is still valid.

I'm ignoring my predecessor's posts - because yay~ that much less to read!!! - but does that pattern you noticed from my predecessor continue after your post in 297? If so, can you point me in the direction of their posts? Thanks.

After THE MEME MEN tried to dodge admitting they hadn't thought their suggestion through, they suddenly fold in post 305 after I accused them of being scum. I think that's a pretty scummy end to the pattern.

@Aster - so besides pointing out RC's chainsaw defense of Volxen in 751 and reaching an FoS on the both of them... did that post get you any closer to sorting out their alignments?

Besides that? No.

(On a side note, may I remark that you sound awfully diminuitive of "pointing out RC's chainsaw defense" as if it is a minor fact?)

While we're on the topic, I would like to revise that pinturicchio's alternative whiteknighting explanation [765] makes sense as well. This would imply that RadiantCowbells' handling of the situation was scummy independent of Volxen's alignment.

[Aster]

Spring's firmly in the camp that the slot will resolve later. Either the majority will lynch this slot off before LyLo or scum might kill it off because it's the weakest link me thinks.

[And Clemency joins the camp as well...]

So... you're saying that mafia might end up killing Spring if Spring is scum, but if Spring is not killed, some forces of nature will compel the town to lynch Spring sometime before LyLo?

Your attitude seems to amount to "I don't care whether Spring is town or scum because town will kill him anyway". You're neither supporting nor opposing the Springwagon, but want to declare you're explicitly apathetic toward it?

I'd personally say that since we only need to lynch two out of four scum, we can affort to ignore and not lynch the unreadable doodlebags while lynching the readable scumbags. I would not say that we can ignore the unreadable doodlebags because we're going to lynch them anyway. That would be a pretty scummy proposition.

[Aster]

Which game did you spectate?

Open 714. I didn't pay much attention after day 1 though.

[Aster]

EBWOP: Now I look back at the game, it turns out that pinturicchio played Open 714 too, not just Gamma Emerald.

[Aster]

How would you say those affect your reason me?

Since I don't remember Open 714 all that well, my memory is a bit fuzzy on which of the things I know about you are from Open 714 as opposed to Open 716 (which I modded.) I'd have to reread Open 714 to figure that out. (It's currently too late over here to do that now.)

I don't want players of my games to feel like the moderator is silently judging them (or worse, judging them not-silently), so I try to avoid forming any opinions about how players play my game to the extent they don't violate the rules. To the extent I end up forming opinions anyway, my moderator honour prevents me from talking about them even after the game ends. Most of what I know about you is most likely sourced from Open 716, so I've been refraining from trying to metaread you in any way.

[Aster]

[Silently judges the quality of Gamma Emerald's moderation.]

[Aster]

aster's my scum read. 393 pinged me as fluff, 3 null reads, and a potentially scummy read on Gamma

yeah maybe she does lack reads with more commitment: I feel like she should have a lean on either me or BJ by now

>_>

First of all: yes, post 393

does

contain three neutral reads. No, it's not secret; each player's read's final sentence summarised that. No, it was not due to lack of effort in case you were wondering. No, you did not make an amazing discovery by looking at the last sentences and ignoring the rest. (By the way, I prefer the term "neutral read" over nullread because "null" seems to imply you know nothing whereas "neutral" only implies that whatever you know does not point in the direction of town/scum.)

As I'm sure you've noticed [because the very post mentions it], the reason I posted reads on those four players was because I was directly asked to. As it happens, it actually took me over four hours to conclude those "nullreads". I read the entire thread over and then all concerned players' ISO's as well. My conclusion was that for three out of four players I could not sort them as either scum or town.

Now, if after four hours I couldn't sort them as either scum or town, why am I supposed to give anything but a neutral read on them?

I am not familar with anyone's meta here. I seem to lack this sense of "feel" that you all seem to have. I am not in the business of calling people town/scum based solely on the order they put their words in; giving "leans" based on insignificant data leads to confirmation bias and tunneling. I could not find anything that significantly indicates scum nor something that significantly indicates town, so I'm not going to try to force a read on them.

[/rant on mafiascum meta of assigning leans based on literally anything]

---

Look on Ceejay's ISO guys.

- He doesn't take a firm position on anyone

Only one of your points in 815 is legit (joining the BlackJack wagon). the rest are just conf bias or differences in play style.

AnonymousGhost, in the above post you dismiss "doesn't take a firm position on anyone" as a valid scumtell. Yet somehow you seem to be pushing a bandwagon against me based on nothing but "doesn't take a firm position on anyone". It seems to me that you are unable to keep your scumtells straight and are just saying whatever happens to be convenient for you. Do I have to explain why this is scummy?

I still think we should lynch AnonymousGhost today. THE MEME MEN were already the scummiest bunch around and their replacement AnonymousGhost hasn't done anything to improve their position.

REVOTE: AnonymousGhost

[Aster]

I'd know because I wrote it all today, after I got home from work, about 7 hours ago. Of course, the part I wrote out in advance did take from something prior, that being, a PM I sent to northsidegal, but I'm fairly certain that if I actually quoted that it'd be modkill-worthy, so. You can ask me to paraphrase that but otherwise it's a "take my word for it" on me having done.

Please paraphrase. It's interesting.

[Aster]

Mastina's gambit

I think there's something odd about mastina's story. First, you claim that you were 70% confident that your role would be scum before replacing in. Assuming that you're not scum, you should believe your role to be a very bad NK target: why would the mafia want to kill scummy lynchbait?

Nevertheless, you "seemed" to be sufficiently scared of getting killed tonight that you wanted to already tell the mod about your reads so you could be like "I TOLD YOU SO" when you end up in the dead thread [1083]. However, your reads do not seem all that thorough at all—by your own statement, it is a "trash-tier, surface-level, quick one-minute VCA" [1073].

This really makes me wonder what made you feel so pressured to send your contributions to the mod. It couldn't have been the fear that the effort you spent tonight would be wasted in vain if the mafia were to kill you tonight, or some desire to protect your awesome reads from being wasted in any circumstance. In fact, the logic you state doesn't even make sense:

And if I did die, then that typed out message verbatim would be posted to the dead thread since I know northsidegal makes them in all games she mods. I wanted it written out as proof that, yes, I did have the reads which I would then claim to have had, for better or more likely for worse.

Provided that you were to get killed tonight and flip town, there would be nothing preventing you from posting you message verbatim in the dead thread yourself. It is not like "I got killed and flipped town" would give you any information that would make your reads less valuable.

Assuming mastina is scum

That, of course, is the story if you're town. On the other hand, suppose you're scum. Then your actions make sense for a confused scummer:

• As Volxen was a considerable lynch target, there may have been talks about considering nightkilling Volxen to prevent them from getting lynched tomorrow, planting the idea that you are a viable NK target.
  • Alternatively that didn't happen (because it'd be a stupid plan anyway), but you just forgot that from a town perspective you should think you were unlikely to be NK'ed.
• You subconsciously know that you would flip scum if killed, which would strongly impact the information available. This planted the idea that killing you would grant ample extra information and significantly decreasing the value of reads made without that information unless you could prove they were made during the night.
  
• There's clear motivation: scum wouldn't contact the mod with their reads, making what you supposedly did a town action, and you wanted to farm towncred. As bonus this explains why you went out of your way to tell us that your quick one-minute VCA happened during night.

Conclusion

Your whole story about making reads and contacting the mod about them looks like a LAMISTY gambit attempt to make yourself look town; when you wrote your story you were unable to distance yourself from your scum knowledge and gave motivations that don't even make sense for a townie.

VOTE: mastina

[Aster]

Thus, living or death would be a determinable factor in scumteam composition. I die, scumteam is players I don't know but doesn't matter because I am dead. I live, scumteam is made up at least partially of players who have good reason to believe that I can safely be left alive.

Are you seriously claiming you believe your surface reputation to be sufficiently bad that any scumteam that doesn't know you well enough is guaranteed to kill you? I mean, that fits within the description of "vain, narcissistic, egotistical bitch", but I'm not sure that it is even possible to actually believe that. (Also, doesn't your belief that "you can safely be left alive" conflict with your supposedly otherwise overflowing self-confidence?)

This really makes me wonder what made you feel so pressured to send your contributions to the mod.

Simple, really.
I am a vain, narcissistic, egotistical bitch.
I sent the analysis to northsidegal immediately after my offer to replace in, on Sunday; I typed out the post I entered with on Monday after I got home from work, that was based on the one I sent on Sunday. There was no grander purpose other than satiating my inner desire to be right.

Well, that explains a lot. Particularly the previous point, but this point not so much.

Is it common for you to send your contributions to the mod overnight? In my limited experience on mafiascum.net, I haven't heard of players doing it before. Have you done it before? Even if I were to feel extremenly narcisstic, it seems quite a leap for me to just start sending barely thought-through hunches to the mod.

Provided that you were to get killed tonight and flip town, there would be nothing preventing you from posting you message verbatim in the dead thread yourself.

Uh.
That message wasn't written for me being killed tonight.
I already know now that I've lived that I ain't being nightkilled for the rest of the game.
If it was going to happen, it was going to happen

last

night. Which was what the message was typed for.
I knew I had two possible fates this game.

EBWOP my quote to "last night". If you were to get killed

last night

and flipped town, there would be nothing preventing you from posting the message verbatim in the dead thread yourself. My point still stands.

[Aster]

Because I feel like AG is right that sorting them is a good move rn and since they would call attention to themselves as either alignment I don't see anything to give me immediate pause

...
......
............

Are you seriously suggesting we lynch nullsomething just to sort them? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Surely you remember that if town is lynched today, tomorrow will by LyLo requiring five unanimous town votes to not lose? And that even if we were to lynch scum tomorrow, we would just have another LyLo the day after?

[Aster]

I mean, I personally think AnonymousGhost is likely scum, but Gamma Emerald does not seem to think that. He just seems to want to lynch AnonymousGhost so we can have an information advantage during two consecutive LyLo's. This proposition is ab-so-lute-ly ridiculous.

Gamma Emerald does not seem to be attempting to solve to the game, he's just trying to make days pass by. Even for a lazy townie or active lurker, his attitude "things will be fine as long as we lynch for information" downright does not seem like a town thought process to me.

Please allow me to join the bandwagon.
VOTE: Gamma Emerald

[Aster]

But don’t think I think AG is scum?

Indeed, I don't think you think that.

Because I feel like AG is right that sorting them is a good move rn and since

they would call attention to themselves as either alignment

I don't see anything to give me immediate pause

First, this is part of the very post I quoted and the reason you stated for voting AnonymousGhost. If you believed that you were out for lynching scum who was not an ally, then you would be putting the burden of lynching on "AG is scum and...", not on "it's NAI but...".

Second, in post 1357 you already jump off the wagon after a "mite of thought", continuing your pattern of loosely doing whatever is convenient. I do not think that you had significant conviction for wanting to get AnonymousGhost lynched.

[Aster]

Aster to be honest from my point of view, from someone who has been harping on this for days, literal days, it looks like RC caught your buddy and now you are trying to start a competing wagon. Like what the hell. I was clawing for that lynch and now you decide that it’s time to believe me, only after a wagon on PP starts up? That’s literally the only thing that’s changed.

No, the thing that happened were posts 1350 through 1357. I am sure that you've noticed a pattern in my reads so far in that almost everyone is null until I have a concrete reason to believe they're scum? It was post 1352 that pinged me "this active lurking can't be town".

I had been mostly ignoring the Gamma Emerald wagon (among others) because (1) it consisted mostly out of metareads and feelreads, with the only real takeaway for somebody without meta&feel like me being "Gamma Emerald is an active lurker" which is somewhat scummy but not very strong, (2) it was supported by scumread mastina, (3) I didn't have a whole lot of time the past week.

[Aster]

y don't u think gamma could be bussing me?

It doesn't seem like Gamma Emerald actually put effort into getting you lynched, as such it is hard to call it a "bus", rather just some distancing. If you're both scum, there's no deep complot to throw open. Moreover, his actions make sense regardless of your alignment.

• If you're town, then Gamma Emerald's vote was just some more of his active lurking waffles to make it look like he's doing stuff.
  After all, "Vote Me" → "Okay I'll vote you" is an easy threshold.
  
• If you're scum, then Gamma Emerald's vote was some slight distancing before moving on to the next target.

The import part is that whatever his real motivation for voting you might be, he made up some reason that I cannot imagine a town active lurker making up.

[Aster]

sorting? seems like a valid reason

tell me y it isn't

Sorting

at the cost of a potential mislynch

.

Because if we lynch town,

we'll be at LyLo for the next two days.

And to boot, we'll need all townies to unanimously agree to get scum lynched. Do you imagine that getting some information by lynching a nulltell is going to make us lynch scum both of those days?

We're far beyond the point where we can hope to earn rendement on infolynches. We must lynch scum.

[Aster]

fat chance of this happening

why don't u think it's possible?

If we can't get the townies to unanimously agree both those days, scum won't get lynched, which means town loses.

(I'm not sure if "fat chance" means what you think it means?)

[Aster]

I think I’ve placed the difference between me and AG’s issue with Aster’s suspicions on me + AG. AG thinks Aster isn’t considering us both being scum. I think she is but that conflicts with her reason to suspect me.

Allow me to clarify.

• The (original) reason Gamma Emerald is scum (1374 + his active lurking history), is independent of AnonymousGhost's alignment [1397];
  
• I've thought AnonymousGhost to be scum since day 1, originally for reasons independent of Gamma Emerald's alignment;

Additionally, I think that there is now association between Gamma en AG due to AG's attempts to defend that "infolynches makes sense" along with his mutually conflicting beliefs "why wouldn't we be able to win in LyLo if we get an info lynch today" and "fat chance

this

town will be able to unanimously agree during LyLo". I have a hard time believing a townie really thinks that in good faith, and it seems more likely that he's just saying that in order to defend his scumbuddy Gamma.

[Aster]

the fact that you haven't been able to get a scum!Ghost wagon off the ground since D1 despite the fact that you practically HAD a majority of 5 people speaks for itself

I would imagine that with this games' scum/town ratio, it would be significantly harder to get a bandwagon against scum than against town? Does that speak for itself?

Let's try this again. VOTE: AnonymousGhost

[Aster]

Unofficial Votecount 2.3A

PenguinPower (5):

RadiantCowbells 1193, Gamma Emerald 1357, Lolwagons 1358, Clemency 1360, TTTT 1511

Gamma Emerald (2):

mastina 1214, Aster 1374

TTTT (1):

Blackjacks 1462

Not voting (3):

Keyser Söze, PenguinPower 1207, AnonymousGhost 1496

With 11 alive, it’s 6 to lynch. The Day 2 deadline is in (expired on 2018-12-22 23:27:59).

[Aster]

EBWOP: that votecount is wrong. Aster is voting AnonymousGhost, not Gamma Emerald >_> (1432)
(Of all the votes to get wrong...)
I did triple-check that PenguinPower isn't lynched, though.

[Aster]

Seriously Penguin. I am not buying that you seriously thought you were lynched when you posted 1553. At what point are these fake reactions supposed to enter lynch-all-liars territory?

[Actually, does anyone fall for those fakehammers anymore? This the third game I'm playing on mafiascum.net and I've already literally lost the count on the amount of fakehammers I've seen.]

[Aster]

Frankly, I hardly be bothered with this game anymore.

We're at LyLo. I already stated yesterday that it was overwhelmingly unlikely for us to win with five townies against four scum, but here we are.

I don't like following mastina here but... between "mastina is scum" and "Gamma Emerald is scum", GE is definitely the most scum.
Let's just get this over with.

VOTE: Gamma Emerald

[Aster]

I personally think that the game setup is seriously biased in favour of mafia. Four scum players is seriously powerful, and we don't even have any pesky cops to boot. "Two lynch is lose" sounds like a compensation until you remember that all scum's advantages help them not get lynched in the first place.

Town doesn't seem to have a reasonable chance at winning the game unless the scumteam seriously screws up, which unfortunately for town didn't happen.

[Aster]

By the way, I'd like to congratulate Nibbui for being the best townie by a long shot.

I'd also like to thank RadiantCowbells for winning the game for us, you were definitely the best scummer.

[Aster]

Forgive me for being so presumptive, but if you're scum and manage to get lynched D1, is it fair to assume you did something wrong?

[Aster]

i mean i guess you could say that if you're scum and you get lynched any day that you did something wrong

I guess that's kind of true (barring obvious exceptions, which there are a lot of), but day one should be an especially easy one.

Town needs many more townie votes to lynch scum than they need to lynch town.
You've got allies who are trying to help us as much as they reasonably can without compromising themselves.
Every townie is completely on their own and has three additional enemies who want to kill them just for existing.
Townies (usually) play in good faith, scum can throw the bandwagon wherever they think they can get a lynch.
If all townies' suspicions were random, the odds are greatly in favour of town getting lynched.

On later days town has historical association to go by and lynching townies to survive leaves evidence; having used your scum privilege to turn past days' "random lynch" into "town lynch" leaves evidence. Most games also have powerroles who cannot be reasonably predicted but will gladly ruin your day. On day one, town has none of its usual advantages and instead has a blank slate without any information.