Newbie 1972 | Game Over

[the worst]

VOTE: NaCl because i'm a spicy bitch.

[the worst]

Do you enjoy my towngame, Uncr?

[the worst]

'fraid not.

More importantly: assuming you don't lynch yourself you have a 75% chance of mislynching. That in mind, your rvs vote is more likely to be on town than scum by a decent margin.

So I can't help but wonder why you decided to join an rvs wagon on me?

[the worst]

Because I like joining rvs wagons and there was only one rvs vote so far. Had a quick glance at the list and I wasn't ~inspired~ to start my own

Let me spin it differently: when you saw NaCl on 2 votes and me on 1, what inspired you to vote me? Evening out wagons? Would you prefer to vote me than NaCl?

[the worst]

Have you heard the theory that being the third vote on a wagon in a micro is scum indicative?

[the worst]

VOTE: uncrowned not random

[the worst]

vote: uncrowned

or
VOTE: uncrowned

are both valid - the trick is the colon

Code: Select all

[b]vote: uncrowned[/b]
[v]uncrowned[/v]

[the worst]

I think the mod would call it valid either way, but it's less Abbi hyphen if we all use a similar format y'know?

How's Cymru btw?

[the worst]

The pond is quite nice!

Any thoughts on Uncrowned's contributions so far?

[the worst]

@uncrowned, not yet - looking for a couple of things in reactions

@gerain - fair enough. let me know when you have some reads.

[the worst]

I don't like that he seemed worried about there being 2 votes on his wagon, and his argument seemed weird. That it was statistically unlikely for someone to hit scum with their RVS votes is not something I consider relevant when I'd make my RVS vote, and it felt like he's kind of softly saying uncrowned should take his vote away for that reason.

this is incorrect on like a few levels.

Did I say Uncrowned shouldn't vote me?
Or was I trying to parse whether Uncrowned had a readable mindset at the time of placing his d1 vote?

You read this with a predisposition towards reaching the conclusion that I was scum. I'd like to ask you to try reading me again please.

If you do scum read me, fine. But you're misrepresenting what I did quite blatantly and I'm not sure if it's erroneous or negligent yet.

[the worst]

UNVOTE: the worst way too early to have someone at L-1.

\o
Hey as a general rule of thumb it helps if you keep your vote in play

If you'd rather not vote me, who else do you think needs pressure? Do you think I've had enough pressure that me being at L-1 is a distinctly bad thing, or is it just that you're worried about d1 ending so early?

[the worst]

Personally though, I want to know more about Uncrowned. His posts so far rub me the wrong way.

Could you give me a quick rundown of why please

[the worst]

As you were, Penguin. Interested to see how Thomth develops.

[the worst]

I'm gonna claim the lynchbait!Thomth hot take actually >:{

are you able to articulate your uncrowned town read a little creature?

[the worst]

He has quite a good scumgame - more of a long con wolf than like strong realtime interactions but - keep me posted on that read.

[the worst]

Are those worth speaking about as much as things that rub you the wrong way?

Absolutely. :> good townreads are actually often more valuable than early scumreads.

[the worst]

I poke and ask questions to get reads, they don't come out of thin air.

valid but what are your reads?

Arkias' posts feel super over-explainy.

does this include their posts other than the one where I asked them to explain a very early scumread? I'd be interested in seeing which of their posts pinged you as over-explainy and what you think that means for their alignment.

Think NaCl might have caught out TW with the discomfort of having 2 votes on him. Why bring up statistics when everyone has equal chance of being scum + you had just been the 2nd vote on another person?

Weird.

Do I feel uncomfortable to you Mr. Uncrowned? I'm in my element rn.

Did you feel like I was pressuring you to move your vote, or like I was starting a conversation up? Did you feel like my intentions were manipulative, or like I was trying to get a dialogue going between us? These are pretty big differences, and I need you to go a level deeper than shading me. I know you're capable of shading as scum. Let's see something you'd struggle to do as scum.

Do you equate weird with scum indicative? Talk me thru this

[the worst]

I'd actually say the bolded is the more pro-conversation part of that post :# I was trying to see firstly whether you had a sorting mindset during rvs (towntell, not a common thing but pretty handy), then how self-aware you were coming into that situation wrt voting patterns (fairly self aware)

It paints a picture where you, town, see a 2p wagon on NaCl and a 1p wagon on me and decide to join mine because you think that's valuable. Do you think I'm the type of person to alignment tell in rvs? You've kinda already slipped that you believe me to be pretty self aware and unlikely to slip, so this isn't it

Are you town who voted me because lolwagons? hey maybe

are you scum who's slipped in and seen 2/1 leading rvs wagons and decided to vote them to tie rather than taking a conspicuous mid-wagon voting position? You're aware that midwagon votes are viewed as opportunistic so maybe.

You're claiming to generate content but I am not sure what your reads are rn and I'm only seeing pretty superficial conversations with other players - your read on me is pretty interesting as well. I entered this game with a mission to get an early read on you - on that basis I'm basically handling you the way I'd handle a lategame mislynch (position you as "not very towny", find a reason to vote you and then slowly end up with a case).

If you're town I'd expect the way I'm approaching you here to feel kinda over the top and slimy. But you've largely been comfortable working around me and letting me do my thing. Then your stated read of me is "I think NaCl is onto something!" which is a low-accountability way to express a scumread.


Look this is overly elaborate but it's what the inside of my brain looks like earlygame when there's not a lot of facts and all we can really do is sift through motivations and probabilities

Short answer: I think you're reading things I'm doing but I'm not sure you've tried to work through why I'm doing them yet. NaCl has started on this but isn't inside my head yet..it doesn't feel like you have a read yet but it feels like he does. It feels like you're happy sitting behind his read and now that I'm pressing you on it again, #96 isn't really convincing me of your integrity

[the worst]

Coming to join us in the speakeasy?

[the worst]

Coming to join us in the speakeasy?

101. Give me the speakeasy.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

[the worst]

UNVOTE:
"never unvote!!!", he says, "unless you're me!!!"
holding this for something

so I kinda think voting me to L-1 after the discussion about how opportunistic early votes are a scumtell might actually be more erratic than I'd expect scum!Thomth to be?

I uh, don't really think Thomth is playing the game in bad faith either, so much as just inexperienced - not super interested in entertaining a policy lynch discussion rn

Anyone seeing scum motivation?

[the worst]

If Not_Mafia is readable then Gyro is readable them Thomth is readable

We can do it team!! /o/

[the worst]

That's the WIFOM arguement, isn't it The Worst? I had that same thought with Gyro when I first played with him and it didn't work out well.

I don't think it's a wifom argument, just a level 0.1 read. Just thinking I think we need to work on what Thomth's motivations are if we can try to guess them.

Gyro is a more experienced (and definitely erratic) player than Thomth I suspect

[the worst]

ya he felt the reason to come back and post about why he was voting (indicates self awareness, or maybe he was called out in the scum pt for it or smth) but he still did it. I don't think it's a very good tell. But I think it's more town indicative than scum indicative, if only 0.001%, and I'd be interested if someone disagrees with that other than just finding it frustrating

also TW any response to my reply other than your unvote?

I don't think this conversation is finished

not really - just keep swimming
I don't feel as confident on you as I wish I did but I don't think you're scum rn

[the worst]

Who's Not_mafia?

Language warning sorry but:
https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=75071

Scroll down
When you see it you'll know

[the worst]

karnage? more like karnagonnagetapagetop
absolute ninja

[the worst]

VOTE: faustiv

[the worst]

I'm gradually liking Arkias more.. Faustiv's vote was jarringly in the opposite direction readwise and I'm not sure his response to Uncr's callout really does much for me. He didn't really acknowledge my naked vote at all and I'm surprised he doesn't really seem to have a read on me.

I'd expect if he thinks I'm town my vote would be a little frustrating and if he thinks I'm scum surely me reactively chainsaw defending Arkias would be pongy

[the worst]

NaCl feels too generic

His posts are generic

Feels like he's laidback

Yet I still feel that's town for some reason?

Kinda same
Very "I am playing a game of mafia" vibe but I feel like it's relatively wholesome

[the worst]

I don't have a lot more to add. Sorry for the activity dip, rough week/weekend and this week isn't looking a tonne better. Weak town on Creature (it's because of "a creature thing"...)

[the worst]

Creature often plays by PoEing town until he has a list of X scum - and yeah often at the expense of making much sense. Don't think this lock towns him but it's very standard Creature

[the worst]

What's the VC? I want to vote Thomth, but I don't want to lynch just yet.

top of the page my dude
he's on one vote

[the worst]

Rn I feel like pressuring Thomth is like watering a fish. He's gonna keep playing and if he stops it's gonna be super obvious :U

Faustiv opener earnestly scummy

[the worst]

Well then, I've stated my reason to dislike Tomth, and the new posts don't really help much with the reasoning.

So,

VOTE: Thomth

Sorry if you feel like I'm asking you to repeat yourself but could you explain why you don't like Thomth for me again? Including his recent posting if you don't mind

[the worst]

RVS doesn't mean random nessisaryly it just means voting for someone for an asinine reason more or less as far as I understand.

I'm actually a firm believer there is no value in voting randomly yeah

Just vote for an asinine reason exactly as Thomth suggests. If it's to form a wagon, fine. If it's for a player who won't expect the vote and might be a little thrown off, fine. If it's a policy vote which will get some conversation going, fine.

Randomly lolvoting cripples discussion

Unfortunately asinine voting stage (avs) just doesn't flow quite so good

[the worst]

I see, alright well what ever they saw in Arkias I don't see and Arkias is still pretty much null to me.

This is very relatable content.

Also I already miss Thomth slightly.

[the worst]

Just since its been asked, and maybe he'll check in? who knows

there's kind of an expected "way" that people play mafia within site meta. people who play outside of it as either alignment are automatically kind of unconsciously binned as ~less towny~ than others just because they act differently. It's a thing which ideally shouldn't be a thing, but given the size and history of the site definitely is: people who play unlike 'mainstream' site players are easier to lynch as either alignment. Not after trying to sort their alignment, but because common site meta tells don't really work on them, because they don't play like a lot of people onsite.

So rather than thinking abstractly and trying to take a punt on their alignment based on abnormal tells, it's tempting to "take the bait" and just lynch them for playing abnormally.

This is a really common thing across all sites. You can read articles on how to look towny, and replicate the stuff in them; that really isn't everyone's style. Some people would rather just do their own thing.


Tl;dr: players who are hard to read but easy to lynch.

[the worst]

I think I have to agree with your post, The Worst. I think I'm seeing him as a bad player, but not scum indicative, and I've been mixing up the two. With his slot being replaced, there's a higher chance that his misplays will be corrected by someone else, and I'll be looking for actual scum indicative things over bad style.

VOTE: unvote

So allowing that you agree Thomth isn't scum.. who is? It might help to keep a tier list of your reads, from most confident town down to weakly town down to scum. Then if you find someone at the bottom maybe doesn't belong there, it's easier to evaluate where you might be wrong

On an adjacent point.... it helps if people keep their votes in play. I'd recommend voting for a scumread when you have a chance.

[the worst]

Creature - it might be beneficial to post less and maybe ask some probing questions to slots you're not sure on?

Rather than stuff looking bad it could be a matter of asking why it looks bad?

I'm almost completely null on you aorn

[the worst]

So Thomth is pretty much town

agree

[the worst]

Yeah I'm not really a fan of the push on Thomth. Feel like it's too easy.

I don't feel good about this post.

Feels like a towncred grab.

Sure. But it's also true.

We're in a newbie - do you think this is newbtown talking through their observations or newbscum looking for towncred?

Allowing the wagon had been plodding along for a while.

[the worst]

We're in a newbie - do you think this is newbtown talking through their observations or newbscum looking for towncred?

Pretty sure Uncrowned isn't that much of a newbie anymore

you know I went to contest this and then realised he's self aware enough but inexperienced enough that he might make that post as scum after all

[the worst]

people

For now I really do want Arkias' response to this post - I don't have a firm read on their mindset yet.

Otherwise unfortunately I think I'm largely waiting for slots to fill.

I might have lied about null reading you sorry. You've made a few stances which I think are solvey, I just know your scum range had expanded a lot the last year.

[the worst]

It's not necessarily going for towncred. Mostly a pretty easy read to have regardless of alignment - given game advancement is generally +town...you know.

Do you think it's the kind of read/stance which is difficult for scum to reach? And do you think Creature's misrep feels unfair or malicious?

[the worst]

Can you talk us through how you reached town!Thomth a bit more excluding wagonomics? -- and what's gross about 276?

[the worst]

shit dude
karnage
you're good

[the worst]

i'll grant that it's LAMISTy - do you think LAMIST is exclusively scummy? i draw attention to townie things i do / intend to do if i think it will improve my readability or the gamestate

sorry if it feels like i'm kinda dragging you through this conversation. to go a couple of levels deeper, i'm really not sure what your thought process is wrt sorting out creature's alignment. i definitely appreciate that his playstyle is pretty unusual and it can be confronting but i think he's alignment told but it feels like you're more preoccupied by his quirks atm.

i'll talk about your thomth townread in a sec.

pedit: hi zoomie !!

[the worst]

sorry, this is hard at work.

in summary:
- 152 & 153 came after a pretty extensive conversation between creature myself and others discussing the idea that thomth is town because he feels carefree/is doing what he wants/has a level of self-awareness but doesn't mind that he's perceived as town. i'd actually say these two are some of his least AI posts at that point; he's kinda just taking metagame level feedback on board and talking about his playstyle holistically. what part of these posts made you go "yeah this dude's a townie"?
- 236 similarly came after a pretty lengthy discussion about his self awareness / the fact he didn't mind the way his vote was perceived; if that wasn't particularly noteworthy to you by comparison to 152/153/236 at this point, did you not view this take as kinda LAMISTy? do you not think scum being misread as town could come into the thread and just post something like 236 literally because it's the reason people are incorrectly townreading them?
- agree 240 is towny

i agree with your conclusion but when you're showing the working out, i'm starting to get a bit nervous.
i feel like a maths teacher fml

[the worst]

i guess based on the samples you've displayed i'm not really following why you are scumreading creature and townreading thomth

if someone picked those quotes out of their ISOs and said "these are their most alignment indicative posts" i'd be calling something like
- creature is concerned about gamestate which is +town
- thomth feels quite disengaged from the game early on which is +scum and overjustifies a vote in 236 but feels townier in 240, maybe like ~null/nullscum

sorry if this exercise feels kinda stupid but like. generally everyone necessarily plays the game in a vacuum so that they can retain an adequate amount of information, which is fine. but the way you're presenting your stances feels like you've reached conclusions and are kinda having a hard time backing them up, you know?

[the worst]

rolled scum on your first game, huh? that's tough

[the worst]

How can you dismiss me as scum though?

i think your predecessor's posts are scummy (faustiv).
replacing into games is tough; there's often predispositions about the way your predecessor behaved that you have to deal with.

along that line... thank you for replacing in. but just so you know, your predecessor didn't look great.

[the worst]

Do you think you'll have time to read up on the game and offer your thoughts on who might be town/scum? We have 4 & a half days left in this phase.

pedit: ah, interesting - what strikes you as a rookie mistake in his posts?

[the worst]

He was mostly afk, yeah. I'm just not convinced he's town by what he contributed.

I was going to go down this "Do you think he shouldn't have done stuff which brought attention to himself?" rabbit hole with you. Technically that's only a mistake if you intentionally want to fly under the radar, which can be scum indicative. That said I get the feeling you have some experience under your belt and intend to be pretty active?

[the worst]

For sure - just use

Code: Select all

[b]this, for[/b] example

spits out:

this, for

example


if you're voting, just use these tags:

Code: Select all

[v]name here[/v]

andddd there's a rule against editing posts ingame - even if it's grammar corrections etc. standard users don't have edit permissions here

[the worst]

that does the trick - or these tags

Code: Select all

[uv][/uv]

why unvote arkias - do you think they're town?

[the worst]

Sure, that's understandable. I play shorter mafia games (and ToS sometimes!) pretty regularly.

Sorry if this seems pushy but your slot is in a situation where it's not townread, and we have just over 4 irl days to decide on a lynch. If you have some time, would you mind having a look at some players' posts and seeing if you think they sound like town or scum? Even if it's first impressions, or really superficial logic, every bit helps.

There's a feature called ISO (isolation) here which helps line a players posts up. it's in two places:-



and underneath the new post box at the bottom of the page, there's a feature called "Display posts by user:" with a dropdown box

If you're not sure where to start, I think maybe Thomth, Arkias, Uncrowned, geraintm are good ones to start with

[the worst]

Hope you're okay Arkias and LdOG.
Zoomie let me know how you go reading up on stuff. While those two are away, it's a really great time for us to sort out your alignment.

[the worst]

gonna drop the hot theory bomb: LAMIST is rarely alignment-indicative

i think it probably was like 5+ years ago. and if someone is not actually solving, but just signalling at all the towny things they're doing/intending to do, that can be scum indicative.

other than that? LAMIST is a personality tell

[the worst]

Zoomie any chance you could throw us some game-related thoughts? Nitpicking grammar isn't all that helpful sorry.

[the worst]

probably day two, maybe day three
in forum mafia MUCH more people are VTs, so the way people approach day phases is generally more highly regarded than the roles people have

if we wait until rolecall and play off that, town ~usually~ lose - so it's important to start dialogues earlier

[the worst]

Not sure why my post is that small. Also, the arguement that this is a newbie game and that voting to L-1 like that is putting someone far to much in risk of being hammered is very fair. I will remember that.

Do you mean Thomth?

I don't really like his playstyle and wouldn't mind him as a policy lynch, tbh. I feel like it's anti-town.

I'm generally of the belief that that sort of thing can wait until D2 though, or at least late into the D1 phase once we've gotten more discussion going.

To be honest I don't like my playstyle either it goes agaisnt the nature of this game and is way to unconventional to be fun. The game freaks me out and confuses me. I like the game though.

VOTE: faustiv

? Huh, why these and uncrowned vote for faustiv? I’d rather the pressure be kept on thomth at this stage

To be honest, I literally just wanted to throw a RVS vote on the worst and I did not want the fact that my vote would bring them to L-1 to stop me from doing that.

So, to finally answer that question that was posed earlier.

My opinion of Loserdude so far is that he really hasn't... dome much? Reading his posts in ISO just make it seem a lot like he's typed, but really hasn't contributed much. I don't have much of a read on him, NACL, since he's pretty forgettable and head down.

Tomth is the weirder one of the two, for sure.

I disagree ldOG has contributed and I would say he has contributed more then you have. I think what you are actually saying though is that you are not getting anything out of his posts which is fair.

These all feel like townie posts to me. He doesn't seem to have an agenda and tonally he reads as town to me. He didn't seem to care how he was perceived and the L-1 vote was something I think got taken out of proportion and was used to shade him

just as an example - what do you think of the way uncrowned townreads thomth here?
i've spoken a bit about it, because i think he's realised he should be townreading thomth but he is kinda struggling to actually justify the read

does it read as sincere to you? do you agree with my impression?

[the worst]

Vote count will go here

i was so sure this one was mine. the fuck.

[the worst]

@zoomie if you're not sure where to start, work on these articles.
particularly the last two are real handy for like, "things to do in forum mafia"

Spoiler:

]

Introduction and Tips

Here are some helpful links (a lot of them from our helpful wiki):

-> Forum Rules and Guidelines
-> The Glossary
-> Commonly Used Abbreviations
-> The Newbie Guide
-> Articles on How to Play Well (be sure to check the dates these were written/updated, as good advice changes over time)

Key Concepts and Tips

Activity

Try to check in at least once a day.

Besides the activity requirements listed in Plotinus' original post, it's just necessary for a fun and healthy game that everyone

plays

. If you post very rarely, or only post a little bit at a time, you may get scumread for lurking. Even if you are not scumread for it, what's the fun in playing a game where multiple people are hardly participating?

Site Meta

Meta is the description of how people on Mafiascum like to play mafia. Things can be different on other online mafia sites, or if you play IRL, so it's good to know what's expected of you on this site. These aren't "rules", per se, but if you don't follow these guidelines it is likely things will go poorly for you on MS. Some examples are...

Random Voting Stage (RVS)

Games on MafiaScum almost always begin with what we call the Random Voting Stage (RVS). At this point in the game, we are in a low information game state (except the mafia, which know everyone’s alignment). As a way to provoke reaction, start a discussion, and try to determine alignment, people will usually vote for non-serious reasons. As the discussion progresses, we will eventually get the game moving and progress out of RVS.

Voting, L-x, and Hammers

L-x is a way to convey how far away a player is away from a lynch. For example, you should always announce that you are putting someone at L-1 (1 vote away from a lynch) so that someone doesn’t come along and accidentally vote for that players lynch. This also prevents Mafia-aligned players from coming along and placing the final vote to lynch (“hammer”) and claiming ignorance about doing so. You may also see L-2 and L-3 (2 votes away from a lynch and 3 votes away from a lynch, respectively).

Before you hammer a player, state your intent to hammer (usually done in bold) and ask the player to claim their role. This is done to prevent power roles from being lynched, and can sometimes get Mafia-aligned players to be caught (via counter claiming). It's best to then allow other players to react and discuss the claim before hammering.

Claiming Your Role

It is almost always best to not claim your role unless you are at L-1 and have been asked to claim as part of an “intent to hammer.” This is because, as a town power role (“PR”), if you out prematurely, you are likely to be night-killed (“NK’d”). As a Vanilla Townie (“VT”), claiming early helps the mafia team narrow down the setup and possible PR candidates. An exception to this would be if a mafia player claimed your role, claiming early to counter the false claim (“CC”) would out the mafia player, and would be a benefit to the town.

Do not fake claim a power role as town!

While it may help you avoid getting lynched, you might cause a real PR to out themselves by counter claiming - then the mafia will know who the PR is, and you will probably get lynched for lying to town. Feel free to fake a claim as scum, though, if you think it would help.

LyLo

LyLo is the shortened representation of “lynch or lose.” LyLo in the Newbie Queue is when there are 3 remaining players, 2 of which are town and 1 is mafia; or when there are 5 remaining players, 3 of which are town and 2 are mafia. It is important in these situations that the town aligned players do not carelessly vote like is done during RVS or early days, as the mafia player(s) can organize and instantly provide the necessary votes to lynch (“quickhammer”) and win the game.

Conclusion

Mafia is hard!

As town, it can be hard to figure things out, and stressful when people think you're scum.

That's okay!

Just share your thoughts on who you think is scum as they come to you, and don't be afraid to change your mind. As scum, it can be hard to lie convincingly, and stressful when people think you're scum. Don't let that scare you! Try to think of what you would post if you were town, and don't be afraid to "change your mind".

This is a game.

Have fun!

[the worst]

I can't accurately read TW's alignment but I get the feeling he's subtly trying to shade me and seeing what slots it can stick with

I need to go back and see if I can find other instances of it but I'm pretty sure he's attempted it with both geraintm and Creature as well.

Don't forget this. Very interested in seeing what's causing it.

[the worst]

Arkias I'm liking more after he unvoted. I don't think that he would need to reconsider so quickly as scum, and could keep his vote there if he needed to think of his next possible target, or moving it to someone else if he had one in mind.

How would you feel if I said I distinctly scum read the fact that he unvoted without knowing where to go next? Town are looking for two aligned mafia people to lynch. Newbscum basically just need town to mislynch itself (unless they're comfortable controlling the gamestate but I'm gonna take a punt and say Arkias doesn't seem like the high level manipulation type). This often manifests itself in not being sure where to vote next.

On the contrary newbtown have other tendencies (e.g. Getting overly paranoid about high level manipulation)

Like I think you're townreading Arkias for something that is a general newbscum tell and I'm much more interested in holding a dialogue about that

[the worst]

The Worst is someone who I also liked initially, but I'm somewhat put off by his excessive helping of newbies. I think it's possible that it's a thing to subtly improve their opinion of him. It's not necessarily scummy, though, as this is a newbie game. TW, do you have a town game where you do this you could link to?

Yeah I'll link my town newbie games when I get home. It's a pretty common factor, and something I did much more heavily back when the IC role was a thing.

I rolled scum as an SE in a newbie pretty recently and found it kinda difficult to coach newbies as effectively as I can when I'm town but that's whatever, it's probably more of a mood thing than an alignment thing

Do you have a read on my actual content though? Sorry to be prickly but you're basically stating that you think me taking the SE role seriously is scum indicative and that's pretty heavily souring my ability to treat your reads as credible

[the worst]

gonna drop the hot theory bomb: LAMIST is rarely alignment-indicative

what is lamist?

Look At Me I'm So Town
people drawing attention to things they've done that are town indicative - it's a pretty dated tell from site meta long long ago

it's situationally alignment inducative (if said person is doing nothing but signal how towny they are, for example) but those situations are pretty rare

[the worst]

Uncrowned - could you talk to me about NaCl's reads on this page if you have time tonight?

[the worst]

Little confession: i did fabricate my push on you at the start of the game. Can you guess why?

[the worst]

TW, do you have a town game where you do this you could link to?

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=79402

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=78203

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=77949

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=77080


https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=77211 included for sake of completeness but I'd appreciate if you take meta from this game with a hefty grain of salt. I tried my best to maintain my usual level of engagement with newbies but one person in this game kinda tilted me a bit further than I like to be tilted.



Think this is all my newbie town games since the first time I took a teaching role. (the "IC"/inexperience challenged role in old newbie games - this play style was born from there)

If I've missed any I'm sorry. I'm mobile posting but think I got them all.

[the worst]

Sorry for vanity but in a vacuum what do you think of his read on me?

[the worst]

Mostly the former ya

You got through a lot in that game because a lot of the intensity of the gamestate attached to the masons & your scumbud - by the time it hit endgame you'd kinda gotten through without having to post under too much pressure. that meant there was nothing slippery or heated or personal from you, so the web you were weaving really didn't have many gaps in it.

You started with a slow burn on pg. 1 so I poked and prodded to squeeze more content out of you

[the worst]

I don't think opportunism testing newbies really works all that well. it creates content but generally super inexperienced newbies do some combination of
- ignore it
- sheep it because it sounds confident
- get paranoid of me at the exclusion of reading other slots

sadly none of them are particularly AI and in particular the third kinda kills a lot of gamestates. just too hard to check newbie caution/unsureness from opportunism


it is super valuable to try and push someone like you who has a good deep con scumgame out of your comfort zone <:

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Sorry for vanity but in a vacuum what do you think of his read on me?

I agree with the placement, I think. I'd probably have you toward as a weak TL/bordering on null, but that's because I'm not really confident in assessing your game tbh.

However, the reasoning isn't all that great. The "I liked you at the start" while giving no examples or anything is too vague for my liking. I don't really think it's fair for me to comment on him being paranoid about your helping of newer players though, since there's every chance he just hasn't played with you in this queue and doesn't know how you operate here.

Cool
VOTE: NaCl
I had a feeling your placement was pretty similar but I found NaCl's reasoning kinda slimy - if you were on a similar page I might have needed to really check my reads but I think NaCl is likely just scum

NaCl/Ark > zoomie as wildcard

[the worst]

I'd probs rather push Arkias but they're more lynchable than readable because of the deadline and v/la-ness

[the worst]

Yeah there's always an instinct to want to reward good play rather than lynch to hit alignments at risk of feeling silly postgame - I've seen some huge decisions made along those lines. I think only experience kinda helps prompt when that's starting to affect your reads (it happens to me sometimes even now)

Sometimes it helps kinda splitting the plist into two sections: people you feel you can read and people you don't

if for example you get a lot out of realtime interactions, look at the players you've interacted with in realtime. Say you scumread one of them and townread three. Now look back to the block of 4 quieter players and try to adjust them towards the MIDDLE rather than the bottom - see if you can find a buddy or just a single scum in there

Sometimes breaking the plist up like this and resetting expectations (in this example: expect to find three town reads in that group of four lurkers, and see if you can reach that - if not just leave them null) can really help reset perspective on a game

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Thomth - spoken about this a fair bit

geraintm - gerain is a bit of a wildcard; don't think he's exhibited a lot of things which are necessarily towny/difficult for scum to fake, but I feel like his approach to the game has been fairly earnest. he doesn't look like he's playing a manipulative gameplan, just kinda doing his thing.

LoserdudeOG - I actually like LDoG a fair bit - if anyone wants a case on this I'll boot up the pc

Uncrowned - just probably town

Zoomie8432 faüstiv - :shrug:

Arkias - I think Ark posts reasonably well under pressure but in retrospect I think they're actually posting to end the pressuring engagements; when left to their own devices they are kinda scummy and I guess I've kinda pressed them to answer a few things which pinged me most recently

the worst - too cute to be scum
Creature - should not be anyone's toptown read but has dropped some minor creature towntells. the meta of "creature who posts is town" is about 12-18 months outdated and you actually need to analyse his content now. but hey in a vacuum I'm kinda leaning town

NaCl - I think his reads are kinda consensusy; it feels like he's kinda posting to be running with the pack but when he actually tries to explain original thoughts I don't really buy the thought process

[the worst]

Glad you're enjoying yourself. :> I think your style lends well to forum mafia. It's slower paced but you really get to crack into each others' souls

[the worst]

tw
thomth, uncrowned
creature, geraintm, loserdudeog
zoomie ~~ null
nacl
arkias


think nacl/arkias read s/s by memory at like a surface level

[the worst]

btw on creature: if this were 12 months ago and he'd posted this much and I agreed with a couple of his reads, I'd townbin him and never turn back. still think he's more likely town. but he's gotten better at scum.

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I'm always wary that people who've been playing mafia for a long ass time, and returning folks, don't tend to strongly alignment tell on day one. It kinda feels like you're following and you're comfortable with the way the gamestate is going but you're not quite ready to come out and play.

Which is to say... I expect much of you. No pressure.

That's definitely a Britishism btw.

[the worst]

oh dw I know it
second? verse of Kooks by Bowie is great

[the worst]

And regarding your Thomth read, when did he go so high in your opinion? Last I remember was that you were feeling he was kind of towny in some ways and kind of scummy in others, and suddenly he's at the front of the pack?

I thought I'd spoken about him more but my brain is roughly the size of an apricot. He won an rvs townread out of me for the snibby snab thing; I think it takes a really fucking odd mindset to reach that kind of post as scum. Not impossible but strong anti-newbscum read for page ~3.

Outside of that he hasn't really given a fuck how he's perceived when people have thrown shade at him or even just joked around with him but the reads he dropped and questions he asked late in his iso were pretty nuanced.

His iso indicates he's more interested in sorting people than in looking good. He also picked up a tonne of flak earlier in the game and I feel like the main person flying to his defence was... me :{

don't know what to expect from Thomth's scum game but really don't feel like this is it

LdOG I'll go into in a bit.

[the worst]

ditto
i don't feel like nacl is really doing anything towny

[the worst]

yeah i'm keen to dive deeper into LdOG
basically i'm @werk atm and really owe it to myself to reread his iso critically
which i can't really do whilst at work
i'm working tonight and DMing a dnd session tmrw so it's more likely i'll be around sunday

which is eerily close to deadline but it's when i can kinda Effort

[the worst]

i mean meta can be very very effective - but i agree, don't sell your soul to meta.

zoomie.. your reads sound an awful lot like mine :p

[the worst]

hmm
more the latter

the way they're approaching the game makes it hard to be like "this person is definitely {towny/scummy}"; he has a lot of opinions, i just kinda find a lot of his explanations pretty disingenuous and kinda fake-looking

[the worst]

VOTE: Arkias

@NaCl we need you to shoot at the most lynchable people in the game. I'd suggest {LdOG, Arkias, zoomie}. DO NOT TARGET SOMEONE WHO IS STRONGLY TOWNREAD

State a pool of two targets before EoD and pick one of them

[the worst]

ya

[the worst]

Yup!

[the worst]

Sorry if you are indeed a town fn and I missed tells btw
I've been quite good at protecting tprs for a while : /

[the worst]

@TW
Nah, it's not like I crumbed, since I'm supposed to be confirmable anyways. I've actually just been pretty busy for most of the week and couldn't get into it.

I guess I'll go with Ldog and Arkias, but I'm still not understanding the point of saying my pool rather than just keeping quiet and aiming for someone who's unlikely to eat the NK instead of saying it out loud.

There's no rb/rc choice
Scum either shoot you or systematically murder the lynchpool to keep you nonconfirmed

Removes probability of counterclaim play later

It's unlikely to matter much tbh I'm just trying to minimise gamestates which are messy and easier for scum to gambit in

[the worst]

Thanks Alexc

[the worst]

Alexc's response is pretty much where I'm at - not a town indicator but kinda just nai

Zoomie let me know when you're around please

[the worst]

Yeah I definitely get that

[the worst]

Can you throw me a super quick summary of your reads rn? Tiered?

Townreads
Weak town
Null
Weak scum
Scumreads

^^ something like that

[the worst]

TW any concern with how quickly the wagon progressed or no?

I'm somewhat concerned because both Zoomie/LDog are on it which are the slots I'm probably least comfortable with rn outside of Arkias himself

basically ditto - don't think it's entirely maliciously motivated definitely but there's sketch slots on it but one of them was the first vote on it so

:shrug: I guess mildly; could go zoomie off this but my motivation to lynch zoomie is pretty moderate otherwise

[the worst]

TW/Alexcellent/Creature

Do any of you have an opinion about the above post? I know I'm thinking something right now about it that's a bit concerning.

Also yeah generally if you assume there's scum on a flashwagon it's pretty abstract to just assume it's the guy who's been voting the guy you're now voting the entire time

[the worst]

@NaCl from Gerrain that's either a good read or a pocket attempt. I don't really have a read on which one yet except that I didn't agree with it at the time.

I'm like just pretty null on gerrain and I don't think we're really gonna get great alignment indicators from him on day one

VOTE: zoomie feels better rn outside of general guilt for voting someone inexperienced

[the worst]

FL<3

[the worst]

If FL is scum with literally zoomie then this is exactly the correct play (even down to choosing to push Uncrowned rather than a weaker more exposed more opportunistic slot)

That being said I like the way less vocal slots have been rising up since FL's intro (LdOG/Alexc) and when I ask myself why I'm not still susp of Uncrowned my mind is kinda like "he's posting well" and yeah idrk

I kinda want zoomie to tell me why they're townreading Uncrowned

[the worst]

Ya an Uncrowned scum flip would be golden but uncrowned midlynch would suck. I'm kinda fine just lynching zoomie I think

[the worst]

......lol

FL my love do you see why I'm really not comfortable with you here?

[the worst]

I think you know me well enough to know that I just post whenever I'm here and in the mood. You're powerdriving literally any agenda you can which doesn't involve the main wagons when you replaced in - like a solving mind doesn't look at myself and Alexc having a similar gamestate read and go "waoaooaahhh it's the scumteam!!"

I know it's wifomy but if we're the scums and real desperate to mid lynch zoomie over mislynching uncrowned why would we openly play an agenda so sloppily...? you're looking at stuff that's objectively low team equity and screaming that it can't be trusted and I'm not sure why you're overplaying so hard if you're town

[the worst]

Your town game is a lot more considered than your scum game (which I also have a lot of respect for - but you know you play big). This shit doesn't look like your town game at all. And I don't really buy that you think replacing in and trying to steer lynches this way is a good town play.

Consider uncrowned - lot of readable content, surface level townie, kinda hard to get right d1 but this is gonna be a much easier read after a couple of flips. he just isn't scummy unless you're coming in with an applied read.

Zoomie posts fluidly enough but there's no solving or original thought; like all of his reads are just echoes of someone else's. he has myself and Uncrowned down as his strongest townreads which is exactly the equivalent of just throwing a townread to two vocal players who look like they're trying to solve the game.

TW/Uncrown
AlexC/NaCl
Ldog
Ark/Gerain
None

Lowest reads are your slot (pred was kinda just really elusive) and gerain (pretty minimal input so far) who just have no presence at all - on your repin he likes you, is still voting gerain, and hasn't reevaluated you hard scumreading one of his biggest townreads

I swear zoomie is legit scummy and if you're sincerely considering scumcrowned I'm not sure how you're missing zoomie's partner equity to uncrowned off the readlist/rxn to your repim

[the worst]

I think Zoomie is the best mislynch that’s on the table right now tbh. It sets up a scenario where if Uncrowned is scum, he can brush it off easily, if Uncrowned is town, he gets setup for a mislynch, and I can get pushed for “knowing Zoomie was town” even though I’m just good at reads.

I think this is a dialogue that happens in earnest AFTER zoomie's flip

I'd kinda be interested in lynching you aorn but holistically the idea of lynching you d1 doesn't feel all that wise

[the worst]

Posting a lot and townreading vocal townies without having original thoughts is definitely a tell of newbscum trying to fit in. I do think him not reevaluating reads post-FL is more concerning but geeeenerally speaking im more anxious about FL's townread there than anything else

[the worst]

Sigh
yeah he's positioning and trying to manipulate nightkill analysis
it's still not outside of his townrange

[the worst]

ngl I kinda think fl is scummy regardless of how zoomie flips

[the worst]

ok yeah that's a good takeaway

[the worst]

holding vote then L-1 on his scumbuddy would be kinda abstract for scum!Zoomie mindset

I wonder if we can just do this
VOTE: FL

[the worst]

I’m not scum here.

And I was considering townUncrowned right before you came in, and you know I’m one of the biggest flip flippers on this site, and just because I scum read someone doesn’t mean I’m not gonna change my mind and figure it out.

The thing is, ducky, you know I have a history of replacing in and defending the main wagon. This happens a lot of times if i come in after replacing in.

The duck also has a history of pushing town me as scum, and i have a history of being able to catch scumDuck, maybe not immediately, but i bet my comment on him or uncrowned being scum was enough to make him want to push me for it.

Citing very old game meta is like, nothing but manipulative.

Go dig up the games you're talking about here. it goes so far back in my skill level it's not even close to reliable.

More recent games - how about Josh Mafia where we caught you as scum and you exploded by calling scum on basically anyone you thought you could get away with?

You're playing thru this conversation to win the argument not to sort my alignment

[the worst]

Okay, so i don’t guarantee, but he’s high equity scum. Him misreading is par for the course, him opportunistically pushing onto me first is scum indicative. He can always change back to zoomie if it goes wrong then can push me the next day, and you.

If you are town, scum were coasting, which is what we were figuring out.

As soon as we started to figure that out, people started posting more.

......lol

FL my love do you see why I'm really not comfortable with you here?

This came off to me like him knowing i know he’s scum, and him talking to me in a “what ya gonna do about it?” Kind of way, which checks out with why he chose to push me.

Sorry but this is literally all incorrect. Every single part of it.

I constantly misread you as town and my read on you changes rapidly when we're in games together. This is anything but opportunistic; you've come in and started trying to lead the game and I've considered what you're doing talked through how I feel about and finally voted you when there are stronger established wagons - this is the opposite of opportunism.

Based on your reads I can't see how you can consider scum to be coasting.

Second post was literally me asking you if you could see why this reminds me of your scumgame. Polar opposite of approaching you with a premade decision. I was approaching you to see if you were playing like this intentionally.

[the worst]

NaCl
Uncrowned
Loser
Zoomie

Creature

Gera
Alex
Duck

Is how I’m reading people right now. Yes, Zoomie is the weakest of my town reads, but a town read nonetheless.

Zero trajectory on uncr
Read on loser is legit
Zoomie read is nonsense

Creature null agree

Gera read fine
Alexc is towniest persont itt last 5 pages
me read w/e

[the worst]

....okay this is a beautiful moment I'm gonna back out
happy to be jailed but id encourage any tpr who can check to get on fl

[the worst]

BBMolla and FL are two of the coolest people around here - hope you're as awesome LdOG

pedit: God yes this is golden

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TW one thing that's off to me is when I was going in on Zoomie, you were kinda like "ehhhh idk man doesn't seem AI to me"

And now you're talking about how scummy he is and stuff. Idk.

pedit: this is wholesome af

I've already talked with NaCl about this
I don't think the townread is earnest
I don't think FL is considering zoomie's alignment in like any capacity

[the worst]

dw LdOG most people are trash - self awareness and willingness to learn are all that really help

[the worst]

@Duck - if I do another LNT sometime early next year, you wanna co mod? I have some fun mechanics for it and a “Producer” element this year.

yeah for sure! that would be awesome <3
I'm gonna free myself up a bit for team mafia, if it runs after that I should have a lot of time to go assistant producer

[the worst]

dw LdOG most people are trash - self awareness and willingness to learn are all that really help

Yeah I already think I'm doing much better in this game than the last one. Still have to figure out how to do basic stuff tho. Figuring it out as I go. Living with BB helps a lot because he has a lot of good answers to my quiestions, but also thinks hes trash at the same time lmao

hahaha BBM would be great to learn from. he's definitely far from trash!

[the worst]

this is such a cool experience its kinda nice just hanging out and praying that scum just got lolhammered

[the worst]

I think a BBoonMolla hydra would literally cause time and space to break.

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I'm kinda not even convinced you're scum but some of the assumptions you're making about people's alignment and things just kinda missing from your evaluation while you're playing this hard is making me pretty wary

think this is a better conversation for d2

if the scumteam is gera/zoomie or if we're just all town in general this phase is hilarious

[the worst]

If this game ends before the end of the year, definitely wanna nom for Kodak moment after that. I don’t even care if I gotta nom it myself. How does that even naturally happen like that?

Well now we GOTTA end it before the year. Scum should self vote. be a friend. do it for the nom.

I like you

[the worst]

I’m a town Adc, I need time to get to the late game before I pop off.

I feel that its just hard knowing whether I'm supporting you or feeding you if I take a more neutral position

[the worst]

Hahaha no doubt on that front. I can usually weasel out of it irl but it's hard on a forum. My town paranoia is all I got here.

[the worst]

Oh
ok
in that case definitely definitely jk me

[the worst]

I think I see why he did it and there's a reason I replied the way I did
its... an interesting play yeah
there's the rest of the game & all of postgame to talk about it. for the time being no one else should acknowledge it

[the worst]

Yeah it was a very abrupt ending to the wagon.

Any final reads or anything to impart?

[the worst]

Gg, well played all.
Loserdude - great read on FL there.

[the worst]

@FL
If you want to re-evaluate after your break's over, I'd look at Alexcellent. And make sure you also read Thomth's posts, in case you weren't paying as much attention to those. Because between both of them, that slot is one of my stronger townreads.

I don't speak a word of english.

I am just kidding how are you?

Also, I'm really glad FL didn't notice what I meant. I nearly screwed that up.

Holy crap hahaha I was so oblivious to this.

[the worst]

Aw thanks!! I don’t think I ever heard what convinced you I was town?

I kinda reread your iso and struggled to quantify it
your thoughts felt pretty realistic and earnest. newbie scum tend to feel more uncertain or like they're going through the motions?... even when you weren't doing big loud town things it didn't feel like you were making stuff up.

some of your d2 posting was like, locktown levels of sincere. also your read on FL was a decision to pass up milking your irl connection for pocketing purposes.

so many little things - it just felt like there was a townie sitting behind your keyboard

[the worst]

how is FL so relatable