Mini Normal 2146: Cute Pets Game Over, Town wins

[Hoopla]

hello people of the town.

gosh, i have to say, this looks like a veritable "who's who" of mafia. it would almost be a shame to lose any one of these fine players. but alas, we have signed a contract. a social contract dictating the death of one poor soul today, and more again later.

it besots me so that i even have to consider such a vile thing.

but...

it is the game we signed up for.

~~

i will attend to my civic duty soon and bear my responsibility, but please allow me a few short posts of quiet contemplation. a few short posts to savour my innocence before i have to do the unthinkable. i'll be standing by the nearest tree.

[Hoopla]

why on earth would you claim that?

i yell from my tree

[Hoopla]

in times of despair (and believe me, having to lynch to any one of you kind souls is a sad, desperate time), i sometimes revert to my former ways: plaintive wailing from the abyss

hopefully i will pull myself together soon

[Hoopla]

a meme claim, you say?

i don't know how i feel about someone treating the early game with such disrespect.

[Hoopla]

to my fans and any curious onlookers, if pressed, i would describe my style thusly; a hearty blend of piecemeal observations and deep intuition, framed from a fiercely individualistic perspective.

i wear my heart on my sleeve, and shoot from my worn, but sturdy hip.

relatedly - and in response to notscience's question - i prefer to be town. i simply no longer have the verve to embody the spirit of a liar for weeks on end. it can truly be an exhaustive process.

[Hoopla]

hmm, thinking

VOTE: Emperor flippyNips

[Hoopla]

i felt this coming, I didn't know from where but i knew it was soon

yes, let it sink in.

sit with that feeling

[Hoopla]

my current pick for most likely to be town is notscience. the following sequence of posts have an air of lucidity and stream-of-conscious curiosity;

Spoiler:

Nai because I’ve only played with them once if I’m remembering correctly and I don’t even remember the exact game let alone what hooplas alignment was

The style of posting is just something I think I would remember, you know? Like pirate mollie i automatically associate a certain text style with her and same for kkb, who both have weird posting styles

This is a really long winded way to say idk but I don’t think it has anything to do with alignment in this instance- maybe more excitement for this game?

I think it was an open?

But again it’s been so long

Does anyone with more experience know hooplas alignment preference?

it appears to me, that this comes from a perspective of genuinely not knowing my alignment.

as such, let me appeal to you, notscience, directly. i want to offer you an invitation to work together to build some early town-powered wagons.

[Hoopla]

I’ll join if you’ll answer this question

Have we played together more recently? Maybe on diff accounts? Acknowledging without an answer is okay as well

Idk it’s really weird being on the opposite side because literally how I love to play is what you just lined out and it’s so weird to actually have someone invite me to do that style hence my skepticism that out of the blue someone’s trying to link up and play exactly how I wanna play it so yeah!

it's been many moons since i've dipped my toes in the mafia waters. perhaps even years. i don't remember which game(s) we've played together.

historically, i've found it easier to spot town thought processes early in games, which is why i tend to base my play around identifying like-minded innocents to build a powerful voting bloc. after a while, scum can't help but expose themselves once they fear the walls of PoE closing in.

[Hoopla]

But yes, probably. I try not to needle people too intensely because people do not like it.

don't be afraid to gobble away like the magnificent turkey you are. there is nothing mafia fear more than a rabid bird juiced up on adrenaline.

~~

having said that, please specify why you are jumping on the EFN wagon with me and notscience.

[Hoopla]

Wagons are good to move the game forward. Might I suggest a better player to wagon? Flippy is a lurker and when he is here he posts cash gifs, but other than that pressure on him doesn’t do much.

cooing sweet nothings about bandwagons is music to my ears, but don't think you're getting in the town bloc that easily.

there are no better wagons on D1 than a lurker/memelord wagon. a ritual sacrifice as old as time to show the mafia gods we mean business.

[Hoopla]

my opinion on gypyx's strange fascination with a mafia traitor is that it's almost too obvious to be an expression of something real. i know "too scummy to be scum" is often a flawed concept, but my intuition says the following comes from a town perspective:

Yeah, I get why this is weird, but it's a thought that just came as I read the post, and now i'm kinda obsessing over it tbh

[Hoopla]

i've enjoyed renaissance's entrance to the game, and am currently penning him an invitation to the town bloc. you should receive it in the mail in a day or two.

i also agree with his take on hiraki:

Not a fan of Hiraki's mass confusion in 78. I don't get why he's so befuddled at the Hoopla-related matters.

early days, but hiraki is one who fits the blue-print of classic behaviour i look for on D1; lurky/below-radar, surface level engagement.

~~

still formulating my thoughts.

[Hoopla]

i believe i have some fanmail overflowing at my desk. allow me to respond, dear readers:

Hoopla what do you think of agar?

i vaguely remember agar's tone as similarly abrasive, back in the day. seems as if he's working his way into the game in earnest, though i haven't noticed anything that has struck me as overtly town. his name doesn't belong in town bloc conversations yet.

Hoopla, do you still townread notscience? He's pinging me as being overexplainey and kinda apologetic in tone. He's also mentioned your reason for townreading him is NAI.

i still townread notscience. it's a day 1 townread admittedly, but i think it's right. right enough to form an early alliance with. do i fear a scumbag slipping through the cracks of the town bloc application process?

no.

oh, i can spot a scumlord mistakenly caught up in a town bloc from a mile away. they start to sweat, secrete strange odours, and before you know it, they've overplayed their position, and have been fully exposed. scum don't like being in the limelight of running the town. they deceive from the shadows. it takes a rare scumbag to be able to thrive out in the open.

What do you think of UnaBombah?

a suspect. like hiraki, fits the blue-print of typical D1 behaviour of scum i screen for, even if he hasn't said any one thing that was explicitly scummy.

[Hoopla]

one thing i noticed in my rereads was this comment from prana:

Seems like a hell of a way to prod-dodge the entire game and write it off as "I said I was doing this at the start of the game".

UNVOTE:
VOTE: gobbledygook

i don't like this vote. one, because the turkey was contributing in his own way, consistently and eagerly. and two, this was only prana's third vote of the game. seems strange to be leery of someone

potentially

committing a lurking tell, even though he hadn't yet -- while he had only produced three posts himself.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla what do you think of taking this wagon off the rails?

yes, i think the flippy wagon has probably run its course. the memelord survives another page.

i am tossing up between voting prana and hiraki. i could probably also do una. thoughts?

~~

UNVOTE:
VOTE: hiraki

[Hoopla]

What about espe?

not much to go off, so put him in the maybe-pile. as you may have suspected, i have an affinity for d1 utility lynches of lurkers/non-contributors.

the only real post of substance to look into espeonage was the reveal of his fake vig claim:

Ok so my thoughts are that I would expect town who believes the claim to go, ok cool good to know. It's bit wifom-y so imma leave it to later or just err on the side of randomness.

Scum however I would expect to look at it as part of the puzzle to solve. As if it is true it can mess with their play / be used as a tool to hide behind. Especially since that was immediately where CD's thoughts went. I think if you think, how can scum use this it would generally be a pretty strong indicator that you are scum.

seems like a sincere attempt to derive reads from his experiment, even though i don't agree with his conclusions. imo, such antics usually turn out to be a honeypot for players with a certain temperament, rather than anything alignment-related, but i digress.

[Hoopla]

I just don’t get how a newbie pulls traitor spec out of their ass like that tbh

i agree.

agar can cite the scum motivation for such a play all he wants, but the reality is newbies sometimes just do wacky things not in line with site meta or standard patterns of behaviour. you can't read them like normal regs.

just like strange questions to the mod, or role-claiming at weird times, sometimes you just gotta write things off under the banner of

"oh you! silly goose"

and move on.

if he

really

is scum, newbies usually make themselves obvious by day 2 or 3 anyway.

[Hoopla]

I’m saying I don’t get how he’d pull it out of his ass unless he knew it existed.

to my eyes, it looks like an overthinking new player, really trying to read into the context of posts; a trait more commonly associated with curious players devoid of alignment knowledge. you can see his train of thought;

Sorry I think you don't get my point, what i'm saying is that this post

[65]

really feels like you're a mafia traitor trying to reveal yourself to your team, and i may be overthinking this, but the punctuation is really weird too, like, each dot represting a mafia member and the dot next to a question mark represting the unknown mafia member (traitor therefore) makes a lot of sense to me

are y'all just the scum team.? ..you can tell me if you are

imagine you're a newbie town player eager to make waves and you see post 65 by flippy. you can see how a newbie's mind could generate the idea of that post being a signal to a scumteam.

to me, it's really obvious this observation comes from an overthinking, detail-oriented town mindset.

~~

according the normal guidelines for the traitor role, "

identity is not known by the Mafia team, although they should know a Traitor exists"

if he's scum, he wouldn't be looking for traitor tells

unless

there is a traitor. why look for traitor tells if you're gyp-scum in a team of, say, 3 goons? but!

if

there is a traitor, why out the traitor-tell you picked up in such an obvious way as he detailed in post 190?

relatedly, i've been collecting data on mini normals again. i've been primarily looking at D1 lurking/wagon patterns, so i wasn't checking for traitors specifically, but i only recall seeing one or two mafia traitors in the last 50 games. they are rare.

[Hoopla]

it's literally day 2 of the game, what engagement have i been avoiding? my ego is on page 4, sorry i don't shit the thread every 20 minutes???

do you agree with renaissance too that i was A) confused and B) that confusion is scummy? that post was garbage so i am concerned if you actually agree with it or if you're just pulling all of this out of your ass

i didn't see your post 78 as confusion, per se.

i saw it more as a smattering of irrelevant one-liners that didn't really invite much thoughtful dialogue. that's what i meant by surface-level.

it's true, we're only two days in. you have a lot of time to turn things around and impress me.

[Hoopla]

I'm just gonna park here with some townreads for now.

Let me town hunt so that the scum knows the strongest town reads are to kill during the night so town has less info to go off of... Also, let me just put a vote here with little to no explanation.

Hoopla's post 217 is part of the reason I am voteing her. Over confident town reads d1. Not doing much scum hunting. Also doesn't do much actual analysis of hikari or reasons for vote in next post. Just does a quick slip in there.

~~

it appears you have some hang-ups about the concept of townhunting as a strategy. could this playstyle difference be the explanation for your suspicion of me and renaissance? food for thought.

[Hoopla]

to hiraki and any other concerned readers:

you must understand, cooldog is a very sensitive soul. i can feel the fragility with every post i read. that deep seated fear of opening up and seeing things another way.

my appeal to cooldog was a modest inquiry. a quiet call to reason. a call to his higher self that's able to see the bigger picture.

do i think he is town? unsure. this was merely my way of extending my hand to him, tenderly, on the possibility that he is.

of course, if he's a scumbo, he may do as he pleases.

[Hoopla]

i have to say, this has been a satisfactory hustle from hiraki, despite his conclusions. i'm ready to move onto greener pastures.

VOTE: prana

[Hoopla]

Such a cute pets!

hello...

[Hoopla]

the town bloc is starting to formulate. gobbledygook has earned himself an invitation. gypyx is clearly town.

current members:

hoopla (president)
gobbledygook
notscience
renaissance
gypyx

~~

listening to the advice of fellow board members, it appears agar's name was being tossed around. i agree, he has potential and has been showing some promising signs. but can a peaceful organisation like the honorable town bloc contain his abrasive energy? too early to tell in this humble observer's opinion. lets consider him an affiliated member for the time being while things unfold. we still have plenty of good lynching options:

flippy nips
lickety quickety
hiraki
prana
una
espeonage
cooldog

^is my current vision for the lynching pool. in my upcoming posts i expect to narrow the pool once more and close in on these scumbags. i hope the esteemed town bloc members are on the same page.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: licketyquickety

an uninspiring entrance to the game.

[Hoopla]

What did you do with Agar’s body?

nothing...

yet

[Hoopla]

@turkey

what do you think of this lickety character?

[Hoopla]

Well in that case the read on Flipy is kinda useless but ok

just like flippy himself;))

i was deeply saddened when his wagon faded away into the ether.

~~

what do you think about my lynching pool, gypyx? excellent curation of suspects or merely above average?

[Hoopla]

it seems everyone's a critic these days!

that's ok. please allow me, dear reader, a post of navel-gazing contemplation. this will be an attempt to illuminate my thought processes, and hopefully restore some faith in my posting brand.

~~

the crux of my disagreements with players like cooldog is that we value different things on day 1. cooldog seems to think the purpose of day 1 is lynching scum. this a classical view. i'd say most players agree with this view.

unfortunately, the grim reality of day 1's is they are a largely random affair. it's true! historically, the day 1 lynch hits scum little more than random. so, why the objective posturing from players like cooldog, who think they've nailed scum in a gamestate devoid of any

real

information? does he actually believe with conviction he has scum pinned at a much higher rate than random? the fact that i am town calls into question his surety.

is he merely exaggerating his suspicion on me? is he reading too much into things aren't alignment-indicative and passing it off as useful scumhunting? is he scum? or is he perhaps just incompetent? we don't know yet.

we don't know, because we don't have much

real

information in the game yet. i refuse to pretend my suspicions are much better than random before we've had any roleclaims, flips, or substantial wagons. these events are the beginning of information. do i have my intuitions? yes, of course. but they are just that. and my intuition is honed from large scale data collection and attempting to look at broad trends.

~~

this leads me to my opinions on day 1 and what

i

view its purpose is. in my observations, towns often struggle with organising a lynch before deadline. 30% of day 1's end with a lynch on an unclaimed player. this occurs because town's wait until the 11th hour to organise a lynch, then when a roleclaim comes, all of a sudden things change. the gamestate has changed. information - real information - has finally come into the game, and they now only have 24 hours to organise a new lynch, and lo and behold it lands on some random townie, as any vote can be justified in a deadline panic.

this is an all too familiar pattern of how day 1's often go. town's don't actually realise what real information is. they spend the day in petty arguments over their favourite behavioural tells, proudly proclaiming XYZ is an oh so objective tell, and not merely flavour of the month.

this is all well and good. we do need players engaging in these little dances. we even need players to mistakenly believe their reads on day 1 are better than random. you simply have to "fake it til you make it", so to speak, with day 1 scumreads. then, once you've said them enough, they crystalise.

but...

i refuse to participate in this charade. i know my biases too well, and dislike pretending i am much better than random. on day 1, i see my role more as the "benevolent head of content curation". i prefer to engage lurkers, and ensure they can't skirt by. a balance of voices is crucial to producing a readable, yet informative day 1 for future rereading. i prefer to push wagons and accelerate the game, and readily encourage others to do the same. in my eyes, we should have the first L-1 wagon organised before the halfway point of day 1. that way, we have enough time to assess the claim and deal with the fallout.

i focus on these things because they are +EV. this is my way of trying to achieve my win condition. it's probably not best if everyone played like me, but every town needs one of me. a functioning town takes all types. i'm not asking anyone to change their ways, but i'm asking others to consider mine.

you'll get more a focused approach to scumhunting in the traditional sense from me post-claims and flips. until then, to me it is all one big hoopla.

[Hoopla]

Not scum hunting and rolling the dice is ev negative for sure dude. If you think your gut is 1% better than random, you should go with your gut.

i'm not dice rolling. i just base my day 1 decision making process on a wider range of factors. a special blend of intuition, pseudo-PoE formulations, assessments of players utility (value if town, scumhunting ability, lurking frequency, expected transparency post-d1 etc), and data-based observations using my patented system of "Holistic Abstracts and Heuristic Analytics" (or H.A.H.A for short). these are all factors that i believe offer greater +EV boosts on D1 than pure scumhunting. at least, that is, until we transition to a post-claim game.

here is a fun example:

from the last two years of 3:10 mini normals, i've recorded the alignment of every post made on D1 to assess the lurking frequency of scum. the ratio of scum in 3:10 games is a shade over 23%, so we'd expect that scum would post 23% of the time if lurking was a neutral factor. across 48,000 D1 posts, only 18% were scum's. and of the 50 games i surveyed, only 11 had games where scum had a higher posting average than 23%. if we lynched based on just that factor alone, and lynched a lurker in the bottom half or bottom third of the playerlist, we're doing much better than random. there is likely a much higher density of scum. it wouldn't surprise me if two or three scum were here:



of course, this is just one factor of many. it's not always about pure scumhunting. sometimes its about pruning the town in a wholesome way. ensuring a balance of voices. making sure we don't end up waffling for 50+ pages before choosing a lynch. this can make day 1 unreadable for future analysis, and create less accurate lynches later. carrying negative utility players like lurkers, spammers, thoughtless memers past D1 carries risk too, as it makes future days less productive. if d1 lynches are close to random (and they are), why not use the day 1 lynch as a form of utility lynch and drop some deadwood, and improve future days' odds? or at least factor in such things with your scumhunting.

[Hoopla]

this is a call to the esteemed town bloc (you know who you are):

can we please start building some fun wagons?

cooldog, for all his naive posturing is at least active, and will likely appear quite easy to read on future days. he is a suboptimal utility lynch.
gypyx is likely only scum

if

there is a traitor. his alignment could sort itself out without us guessing, if one were to flip at some point. he is also active and fairly transparent.
gobbledygook is a solid contributor with thoughtful posts.
and my wagon? perhaps the worst of all.


i am signalling a seachange. please consider a flippy vote. the only time he really participated was when he was under pressure from an earlier wagon. he somehow memed his way out of contention and his slipped into active-lurking. it's time.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: flippy

[Hoopla]

Hoopla for madame President

VOTE: Hoopla

the nerve!

[Hoopla]

by your logic you should self vote at this point so we can get information. Hell, your arguments would indicate that mass claiming would be a good idea.

i have 0% chance of flipping scum, and have good value to town's on later days. that is, to town's that put faith in me.

one to two claims for day 1 is optimal.

[Hoopla]

Haha, I was just messing with you.

What’s your read on Agar?

VOTE: Flippy

classic turkey behaviour!

agar? despite misreading you, he is becoming more and more town by the post. he belongs in the town-pile. i'm thinking we should send him some flowers or chocolates, and hope he joins this hot new wagon that is forming.

[Hoopla]

hoopla -

do you have any evidence to backup whatever this stupid "HAHA" system is? those numbers have no value unless there's something behind it. i didn't see anything after a quick search. not to mention, your model has a lot of assumptions that i don't know who would get behind, without further analysis (which is why I am skeptical of it in the first place, as neat as I think game theory in mafia is) - for example, your model goes into the fact that 39/50 games have "scum" as being under 23%. How is the 23% calculated? Could there potentially be a point where 2 scum are slightly above that threshold and one scum drags them down? Then I don't think 23% is a fair number, no? And if 23% goes up, I'm sure that 39/50 is not solid either. Which means that your underlying "towntelling" theory isn't very valid and doesn't make sense.

i did a little digging too - no one in this game has posted over 23% when taking a sum of the average and the average of all in the thread as of your data set was 30.615. that would mean that your circle conveniently misses the one person that everyone has put up weird looks for in your town block -

renaissance

. what is even

more

convenient is that the number you went with to highlight your data was 23 while renaissance has

24

posts.

lastly, if we get rid of the two outliers in this thread (i think this helps the dataset become more uniform but i understand the underlying problem here) - your average goes from that 30.615 above to 32.991 which gets rid of every player but Gypyx, gooble & CooLDoG

i don't think this really makes a lot of sense and i'm starting to just feel weird about the clearly soft defenses of renaissance here that don't consider anything that renaissance has posted

oh yes, a magical spreadsheet filled with numbers beyond your wildest dreams. perhaps you'd like to know my collection method for this set of data?

1) record the d1 posts of 50 different 3:10 games. all the games selected were 13 player 3:10 games, so i have a stable ratio of scum to town across each game.
2) iso the mod, subtract their posts from total
3) iso the scum (including any replacements)
4) left over amount = town posts, and we can now observe the frequency of posting by both alignments relative to each other

~~

these numbers are a way to visualise the activity of scumteam as a whole, not so much as individuals. so, for this game for example, we have 398 posts made. 23% of the game should be scum, which means scum should have posted ~91 times collectively to be average. according to my data, if the trend i've observed over time has continued here, we'd expect scum's

actual

output by now to be ~74 posts so far. combinatorially, this starts to make scumteams comprising of multiple active players less likely, and we should expect more scumteam combos containing the likes of our prana's, our lickety's, our espeonage's etc.

admittedly, i'd have preferred to reveal this data and other findings later in the day when we've had more posting, but it seems there are some paranoid townsfolk around doubting the veracity of my prestigious H.A.H.A system.

and again, this is one metric of many i base day 1 lynch choice on. i am strongly in favour of utility lynching. lurkers being a good starting place to build wagons.

[Hoopla]

i realised in my haste, there were a couple of things i skimmed over in Hiraki's post and didn't respond to properly. please forgive me:

Could there potentially be a point where 2 scum are slightly above that threshold and one scum drags them down?

yes, that is definitely possible. but like the composition of scum on lynch wagons (we can observe the density of scum on/off lynch wagons, or even positionally), we're more observing frequencies. and simply put, there is a much denser saturation of scum in the lurkier slots of towns across time, and probably in this game too.

i don't think this really makes a lot of sense and i'm starting to just feel weird about the clearly soft defenses of renaissance here that don't consider anything that renaissance has posted

why are you hung up on this one town read i've made?

[Hoopla]

yes, espeonage fits the profile well. he scores higher on the metric of "

could be useful later if he gets his act together

" than players like Flippy, who i view as a lost cause.

generally speaking, i give some amount of grace to lurkers with dormant town potential not yet actualised, but in the interest of cohesion...

UNVOTE:
VOTE: espeonage

[Hoopla]

Now... I'm not saying scum won't be in there, scum love to lurk, and hey, I've posted the least... I also don't split my replies up into a response to every single thing I respond to, so focusing just on posts themselves... well that can fuck right off at the best of times. Number of posts isn't that important. Plus I am not great early game. Never have been. I do better after a re-read and a lynch of two, where I can do some analysis. If you expect me to be coming out of the gates day one as some amazing super posting person.... you'll be disappointed. My early reads are generally bad (I'm actually finding CooLDoG to be more town, the more I read).

Anyway... Hoopla advocates for the above to be where we should focus. I'll note that Flippy has 22 posts, renaissance has 24... is that 2 post difference such a huge thing? Why is renaissance somehow ignored there?

Then Hoopla votes for Flippy... the person who's posted the most of all those she ringed... fair enough she was on me, and that was going nowhere... but why stop voting me after you post about wanting to push lurkers? If "number of posts made" is your most important factor... you stay on me and push for more pressure on me, not less... especially when I hadn't posted for a while. So pushing lurkers... ignoring renaissance, voting flippy instead of staying on me, or something equally light on posting... none of it adds up.

my post highlighting the lurking analysis was mostly framework to help my critics see how i view the game.

is there a difference between a player with 22 posts instead of 24? no, of course not. my big red circle was rather arbitrary. i definitely factor in the density of content one offers in their posts. your 10 posts have more content in them than the totality of Flippy's, which is why he's probably higher in my lynch list than you, and one of the reasons why i am promoting espeonage's wagon now.

[Hoopla]

damn so harsh. this game just started hop off my back

i'm still figuring out the correct motivational prompts to address the underperformers in the game. it appears you respond well to passive-aggressive sass! i will keep this in mind.

a question to help further aid your integration into being a useful town member:

what do you think about prana's scathing observation about your play in 504? are the critics right? is your sudden rapid posting a tactical response to avoid my list of lurkers?

[Hoopla]

after sleeping on it, i've decided to promote agar to the town bloc. it's been a long time coming, and i know he's been waiting patiently. consider this post his formal invitation.

also, this is a private letter for agar's eyes only. PLEASE NOBODY ELSE READ:

Spoiler: for agar

dearest agar,

this is hoopla. i understand you have some mixed feelings about some of my fellow town bloc members. that's okay! i encourage diversity of opinion amongst the town bloc, and am always looking for "

new ways of seeing things

", so to speak. but... i really can't get on board with this turkey vote you are promoting. can i instead request your help in voting for espeonage?

please respond:

[ ] yes
[ ] no
[ ] maybe later

[Hoopla]

i respect your decision.

[Hoopla]

I guess going off of Hoopla's system I would pref to lynch either renaissance. It must be noted that if you believe in hoopla's system you can't exonerate her for it, because it is her very system. SHe will perposfully play to look town under it as scum and town.....

I am thinking of shipping over to espe.

it appears you've come to the conclusion that my play is neutral and not inherently scummy like you were claiming a few pages back?

in the interest of breaking the fourth wall and connecting heart-to-heart with my readers, i must admit, this is true. i am capable of playing scum or town this way. historically, i have been fiercely devoted to mimicking my town meta as scum: that town meta being passionate attempts to optimise d1 play to boost town EV. it has always been annoying to have to copy that as scum, and not lurk my way to victory, but such is life.

i recommend readers to judge me on the outcomes of my actions. i'll be easier to read once we have some claims/flips. or in this specific game, wait for me to absorb the nightkill.

~~

mister cooldog

i see you are greasing the wheel, readying yourself for an espeonage vote. are you waiting for a sign? for someone to hold your hand and tell you it's okay?

well, consider this post that sign. i can't promise safe passage on future days from the eyes of the town bloc, but your allegiance will be looked upon favourably.

[Hoopla]

@renaissance

are you an alt? be honest...

[Hoopla]

hi farside and battle mage! welcome to the game.

i'm looking forward to us olds showing these whipper snappers a thing or two about mafia. here is an advanced move that will shock the readers: an aggressive wagon-hop based on intuition

UNVOTE:
VOTE: unabombah

[Hoopla]

@turkey

thoughts on una? i sense a potential speedwagon opportunity...

~~

@BM

i always thought it was the olds who had the ability to pony up and make difficult decisions, unlike these kids who need to waffle on for 1000+ posts before lynching someone. don't tell me you've lost your touch!

[Hoopla]

another post directed to battle mage:

in my distant memories of you, i seem to recall you being a bastion of logic; someone who can be depended on to read in deeply to things. may i get your opinion on the logic i laid out in post 229 defending gypyx?

it seems to me, he wouldn't be searching for traitor tells if he were scum (unless there's

specifically

a traitor in the setup - but even then, it's overt and heavyhanded). to me, it's more likely to come from an overthinking town mindset.

[Hoopla]

what is the case on Una?

for me, it's a sort of pseudo- PoE - he's one of the few in the game, i haven't picked at least some tertiary indication of town tells.

i also sense that some other townreads aren't reading him as town and there is an opportunity to get this wagon going. i'm ready to compromise and organise a lynch wagon. my list has shrunk to about 4 or 5 players. he's one of them.

[Hoopla]

a bastion of logic? I nearly spat frooty loops all over my screen!

I'll give your posts the dignity and respect they deserve after I've slept.

actually, i may be mixing you up with vollkan.

no matter. pretend you are him;)

[Hoopla]

i have to say, this day is going about as expected. a bloated thread of stubborn townsfolk unable to compromise in any meaningful way.

like, for real. half the time for D1 is gone, and we can barely get a wagon of more than three votes happening. surely, scum are kicking up their heels, enjoying this passivity. vanity vote parkers, lurkers, and players not voting for long periods should be high on everyone's list.

having said all this, hiraki and cooldog have both made good game-forwarding votes in the last few pages. enough to promote them out of my lynch-zone.

[Hoopla]

i swear, if we twiddle our thumbs until 24 hours before deadline, get a claim we don't want to lynch, then panic-lynch some random townie, i will be very annoyed!

[Hoopla]

welcome to the game klick & bob!

[Hoopla]

i have a prana/unabombah scumteam, by the way.

not sure who the third is yet, but it isn't the turkey. i'm quietly confident he is town, and am hoping the non-voters, replacements and vanity vote-parkers select una ahead of him.

[Hoopla]

What did you think of gyps l-1 vote and the actions leading up to it

i was fine with it, despite not agreeing turkey is scum.

what did you think?

[Hoopla]

eh, to me it looked like gypyx was doing his due diligence as responsible town player and not putting someone to L-1 and risk lolhammers. he even said himself that turkey was spiritually at L-1 and should claim. when he didn't claim,

then

he put him to L-1.

[Hoopla]

this is an unrelated observation to the current conversation, but it needs to be said:

if

the two leading wagons (turkey and una) are town, then flippy is my top pick for scum. he hasn't made a vote in the last 12 pages while both of these wagons have developed, despite having posted 40+ times during that period. there is nothing scum love doing more than sitting back and letting innocent townies do their dirty work for them. this is especially true when the scumteam as a whole is under little to no direct pressure.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla what made him go from “I sense people aren’t townreading him” to “he’s on a scum team with prana”

process-of-elimination and some advanced wagon composition analytics from my patented H.A.H.A system of advanced tells for advanced players.

believe me, i have these guys pinned.

[Hoopla]

my patented H.A.H.A system of advanced tells for advanced players.

What's the acronym of the system for players like me?

All Bluster & Cavalier (A. B. C.)

[Hoopla]

So Hoopla, are you just scum here after all?
I vaguely remember the game we were scum together, and I thought you were able to fake rational reads back then.

i vaguely remember playing with you too. we had a grand old time til I got cop'd on N3, then we unravelled spectacularly.

I actually thought it would've been nice to be town together in another game because I really thought you'd actually make accurate reads as town.

if you think i'm able to fake rational reads as scum, wouldn't my hypothetically irrational reads now be a town tell?

[Hoopla]

don't start me on a rant about normalcy, una!

[Hoopla]

Maybe just play normally for a moment and help people get a reliable read on you as well?
I'm sure you can post "normally" too, and this has just all been a gameplay-decision by you.

una, i could fake confidence in reads or scumhunt in the traditional way on D1 if i wanted to, but i don't. if an observation comes to mind, i offer those, but i prefer putting my energy into motivating the town to actually make decisions and organise a lynch wagon. i don't know why everyone is so content to let things just drag out until the last minute. it just creates apathy - and apathetic towns are losing towns. it produces a gamestate that seems to attract replacements, and it also creates an environment where scum can not only lurk through critical moments, they're encouraged to. towns tend to go after vocal townies who are polarising on D1 because they have nothing else to go off. why wouldn't scum lurk/active lurk?

i do get behavioural reads on D1, but they are more intuitive and based on how players interact with/perceive me, since that is the only alignment i currently know. i prefer to info dump and analyse D1 play the next day once we also have some other flips to work with.

in the mean time, i will be cracking the whip on players like flippy routinely stalling the game for no good reason.

[Hoopla]

who do you think would be scum based on the hypothesis that Flippy is scum lurking because of the low pressure on his buddies then?

if flippy is scum, i'd give turkey and una better odds of being town.

having said that, i'd rather wait for flips before i do too much more "

if x is y, then z is q

" type reasoning.

[Hoopla]

But don't you think we are already seeing wagons?
I believe Gobbledy is a very reasonable lynch.

we're only seeing wagons because i've been vocally complaining about them and calling out lurkers.

~~

as an aside, i feel turkey's reaction to his L-1 wagon has been the least townie thing i've seen from him. everything else i was vibing with. and if it came down to turkey or a gypyx-speedwagon, i'd pick turkey (sorry turkey, gypyx is my top town read)

[Hoopla]

how about we all attempt a flippy speedlynch instead of dancing around the topic? seems like it's on everyone's mind.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: flippy nips

[Hoopla]

don't be shy una.

maybe this is the watershed moment that can help unite us and make us realise we're both town?? a moment of divine compromise.

[Hoopla]

This is interesting too...

Hoopla says she wants a lynch decided by halfway through the day.... and now shifts where there is an actual wagon away to someone who is no longer being wagoned... that does not add up either.

I think I'm confident on my Hoopla Scum feeling and the fact she's trying to pull attention away from the turkey makes me happier there. I'm less certain about Flippy though considering that's where she's pushing now, but that could be a double bluff, and that gets into WIFOM territory right now, so I won't think much beyond it. I'm even happier about the roast dinner now than I was before though.

seems like there is more buzz in the air for a flippy counterwagon to rival turkey. can you not feel it in the air?

[Hoopla]

VOTE: hoopla

@mod, is this allowed??

[Hoopla]

Yes.
To gobble's credit, I've played with him twice and he was scum both times, and I don't remember him being quite like this.

how would you describe his behaviour as scum in those two games?

[Hoopla]

wow, great catch-up klick!

my critics weren't happy with my bold decision to list the renaissance slot in the town bloc, but i've townread each player who has occupied it so far.

i'm also warming to klick's observations re: notscience;

I really didn't think Hoopla's interest in working with you early was that suspicious. I find it much more odd that you're being so weird about it, almost like Hoopla has you in an uncomfortable spot.

So many of notscience's reads are suuuuper flip-floppy. There's room for most of them to change on a dime. Just look at this post:

Spoiler:

Agar town for the similarities in train of thought like I’ve mentioned before

Hoopla still leads town but that weird post hiraki mentioned still irks me a bit

I liked Renaissance’s entrance into the game but still want those reads explained

I’m tempted to townread hiraki but can’t really place what it is that makes me think that way?

I liked my interactions with una so far so leantown there

I still want an explanation from Espeonage about the damn night prep because he’s been ignoring that question multiple times which is sketchy as shit

LicketyQuickety is still in this game and I don’t think he’s even posted

Turkey I’ve resolved to give him a few more days and see what he does with the space he asked for earlier

I want to iso warmcat because I frankly struggle to remember what he’s done

I didn’t feel either way re prana

Nippy flips I don’t think has done anything either but I’m pretty sure someone said that’s par for the course for him

Gyp I still don’t have good feelings about the traitor thing for the reasons in my iso

The only read here that I feel couldn't change on a whim is AGar-town.

of my current townbloc, notscience has drifted away to my least confident read, and i will be reassessing his membership overnight. he was my first townread i developed, and i sorta stopped thinking about him while i focused on the rest of the game. he is overdue for some close scrutiny.

[Hoopla]

Whoa whoa whoa I’m a 1 shot combined fruit vendor gunsmith

Oh.... I wasn’t L-1..

hmmm curious. mods these days and their abstract role mashups.

first thoughts: due to its provability, fruit vendor part is almost certainly true. whether he has tacked on a gunsmith investigation to boost his apparent usefulness is another story.

still thinking.

[Hoopla]

I don't see why not. There's nothing in the rules about large text, just not tiny text

but it hurt my feelings.

[Hoopla]

flippy, is your role like a JOAT, where you use one ability at a time? or do you investigate someone for guns while simultaneously sending them fruit.

[Hoopla]

Whoa whoa whoa I’m a 1 shot combined fruit vendor gunsmith

Oh.... I wasn’t L-1..

reareading this sequence of posts, there's only a 2 minute time-stamp between these two posts. is that enough time to read the last three pages to scan for votes then post again?

he'd have to have posted, then gone back

immediately

and scanned the last three pages and counted his votes - that's if he knew

exactly

where the last mod VC was, and wasn't spending time looking for that. also, judging by the capitalisation of these two posts compared to his iso, it looks like he's phone posting (autocorrect often capitalises for you), and his other non-capitalised posts are desktop posts. if he's on his phone, that's generally harder to navigate and scan for votes on yourself than a desktop. well, at least for me, i find it harder navigating the game on a phone...

could this be scum overreager to get a claim out, and wanting to fake lucidity of "not knowing he wasn't on L-1". is 2 minutes enough to reread the last three pages, then make that post? this may just be a situation of me being old, but it seems like a very short window of time. whipper snappers please chime in!

[Hoopla]

I counted the most recent then ISO’d the mod then counted up to most recent again it wasn’t that hard

why did you claim before knowing how many votes you were sitting on?

[Hoopla]

i definitely believe this is flippy's role. it seems far too weird/creative for flippy to just pull out of a hat, especially when it has role-confirming properties to it. so, now the question becomes is this role more likely scum or town aligned?

~~

I counted the most recent then ISO’d the mod then counted up to most recent again it wasn’t that hard

I even did it mobile! :Lol:

Oh you talked about me doing it mobile already. I didn’t finish reading what you said

^ this sequence of posts makes me believe my timing tell is not relevant. you can see he responds without thinking or even reading all of the posts in the game. that explains why he claimed without being fully aware of the game state. my intuition is that this is slightly more town-indicative, as i imagine scum to be more likely to check the game situation before compulsively locking themself into a claim - it's at least more of a consideration as scum. you just have to consider the gamestate more when you're deceiving. whereas, i find town often just compulsively spew out the truth of their role even when it's suboptimal. there's less mental barriers filtering their play (this also applies to reads and thought processes in general - the more lucid the better)

when i used to study day 1 claiming patterns in mini normals, i would track unprompted d1 roleclaims (for this data set, "unprompted" meant any roleclaim at L-2 or less and outside of the last 48 hours of the Day) and town overwhelmingly leak their role compared to scum. generally speaking, it would be the weaker/newer/more impulsive players that would claim unprompted (amazingly, town PR's would sometimes do it even on just 1 or 2 votes), but i rarely observed scum claim well before they needed to. my assumption why this pattern exists: scum (especially inexperienced scum) prefer to keep as many fakeclaiming options open as late as they possibly can - the more options the better. so they're less likely to lock themselves into something early.

~~

from a setup spec perspective, i also think this role has more utility/interesting interactions from a town perspective. so, my gut says this claim is town.

UNVOTE:

for now...

[Hoopla]

are you really doubting this?

i was definitely doubting the timing when i first saw it. i don't now.

turns out i am just

Spoiler:

old

[Hoopla]

dear notscience,

i am making this letter public.

i appreciate you reaching out to me, but i regret to inform you that your stock has been plummeting in recent times. you sadly do not have the town cache to be calling the shots. it pains me to say, as you have been a serviceable ally... but these are different times.

in saying this; prana is decent choice, but i suspect upon the collapse of flippy's wagon, the embers of una's wagon will catch alight, and i am suspicious of you pushing hard for prana now. if una is scum, you may be my top pick.

to assuage my fears, please explain your read on una, because i can't really follow why you think he's town. this the complete collection of times you've mentioned him:

I don’t really wanna wagon una barring the weird question that’s already been asked being repeated?

I liked my interactions with una so far so leantown there

Una I honestly thought was town from his first vote on me, but he’s frankly kinda forgettable. I need to iso him

I never did get to iso una so let me do it. I still liked his early stuff

And I did read una but I really don’t get the case on him? I feel like more people than him have been questioning townblocking this game so what makes him so special

240 is especially weird. what interactions did you have with him that you liked?

plz respond

[Hoopla]

I’m assuming you used control f because I had also been referring to him as umbreonage in my iso

mmm i did.

fair enough

[Hoopla]

His inflection at times just sounds town. It’s happened multiple times this game for him specifically, I can’t format on my phone but I can on the computer tomorrow if you want further elaboration, however I think most of it is touched on in my reread.

i only remember playing scum with him, so any time i notice something tonally from him, it's stuff matching that. i'm not well acquainted with his town meta, so i admit i have a biased lens here. maybe tomorrow show me the posts you noticed a town inflection so i can look into it more.

in the mean time, i'm going to get the ball rolling

VOTE: unabombah

[Hoopla]

I love the fact that your system dictates that we lynch un cc'd power roles on d1. VOte fucking hoopla people.

her post 879 is basicalyl her back tracking because she knows she is going to get shit from the above. I mean, we can verify the fruit vendor part. A scum fruit vendor is very, very unlikely in my honest opinion. I mean, it basically nurfs a tracker to shit at that point.

my post 879 was the synthesis of my thoughts surrounding the claim. before then, i was a-spitballin' and interrogatin', earnestly trying to pick my way through that absurd roleclaim

I could vote for una if it comes to that. We should really lynch hoopla for trying to lynch an uncced fruit vendor gunsmith.

when exactly was i trying to lynch him?

[Hoopla]

could this be scum overreager

to get a claim out, and

wanting to fake lucidity

of "not knowing he wasn't on L-1". is 2 minutes enough to reread the last three pages, then make that post? this may just be a situation of me being old, but it seems like a very short window of time. whipper snappers please chime in!

yes, it's called thinking through a situation instead of just blindly jumping to conclusions.

you should try it some time.

[Hoopla]

I thought you didn't think through situations on d1

now you're just being facetious.

[Hoopla]

Anyone else think we were closing in on scum earlier, considering there are now FOUR wagons on pretty much equal footing?
Again.

too many players lurking. it's sapping my vigor and zeal. yes! even me - your local heroine - is feeling the effects & fading fortunes of this pathetic town.

[Hoopla]

here is the updated vote count:

Vote Count Day 1.16

gobbledygook (3):

AGar, UnaBombaH, PranaDevil

Hoopla (3):

Emperor flippyNips, Hiraki, CooLDoG

UnaBombaH (3):

gobbledygook, Hoopla, Klick

Gypyx (2):

notscience, Battle Mage

Not Voting (2):

bob3141, Gypyx

Battle Mage is VLA until Sunday

There are (expired on 2020-06-17 06:05:00) remaining in Day 1
With 13 alive, it takes 7 to lynch.[/area]
[/color]

from my eyes, it looks like it's come down to gobbledygook, me and una. gypyx has never really been a serious candidate, and although he's a polarising character, there are too many players that have him as newbtown to get a majority there.

notscience, Battle Mage, bob3141 and Gypyx are the current game stallers.

make something happen.

move your vote.

compromise.

we have four days.

[Hoopla]

Una : weird wagon considering the peoples on it, and the fact that it's kinda stalling : scum / lynchbait for later?

you think that wagon's weird? check out the brains trust powering mine!

[Hoopla]

eh, hiraki goes okay, i guess. though i am starting to find his lack of curiosity about my alignment suspicious. seems like he picked a position on me early and is just sticking with it.

of course, cooldog is doing the same thing re: me. but black & white thinking appears to be the status quo for cooldog, so lack of curiosity doesn't seem as much of a tell for him.

[Hoopla]

after doing outside work cleaning up construction materials.

fuck it

VOTE: una

If una is town then this is rather scummy vote.

X

no.

sorry, not allowed.

i'm revoking your shade-throwing privileges until you actually take a stance on these wagons and make a vote.

[Hoopla]

Not really... apart from Flippy I feel that could be town.

so, you're still reading flippy as scum?

you were around at the time of his claim, and decided to respond to an unrelated notscience post, which was your only contribution during this critical passage of play;

Honestly my biggest issue with him is how he’s been under the radar all game. I think he’s sitting exactly where scum would hide best and that deserves scrutiny- I don’t really remember ANYONE having anything substantial to say about him- and he’s the only real player sans bob who’s just catching up as his lurking predecessor never said anything either. He’s not making waves and he’s in that bunch of people saying they’re late game players like that gets taken into account when deciding to Lynch d1?

I mean... it's not like there's a recently finished game I was in, where one of the players (Una) was in that game... and where I was town and played no differently could be viewed is it?

Oh wait... there is.

this shows you were up-to-date with the game and reading along. so, why did replying to this take precedence over commenting on flippy's claim? especially since you apparently still scumread him - a contrary view to most of the town.

it appears to me that you lurked through that whole passage of play.

[Hoopla]

Claims can be made up, that reads like a lot of words thrown together as a claim.

By the same token, I was in the same game with Una with the absolute shit show of a set-up.

So... I could sit here talking bollocks about how the claim sounds like a mess, but that the mod could have added a mess of a role into it etc. But that just boils into "here's a mess of WIFOM that harms town", so it was more pro-town to not get into that and treat it as the null that it is at this moment in time. I shall expect that to change if something useful comes from it.

Commenting on every little tiny thing is pointless

,

<snip>

sure, commenting on every little thing is pointless - but the first role claim of the game is a pretty significant moment. i just don't get why you wouldn't say

something

about it when everyone is posting opinions apparently contrary to yours. looks like strategic silence.

[Hoopla]

good lord.

what sort of chaos have i returned to?

catching up...

[Hoopla]

theoretically hoopla should be chill with this wagon since prana is not very active.

prana was my second suspect after una, so while one part of me is happy to have another viable lynching option, i'm finding the composition of the speedwagon highly questionable;

bob, cooldog, notscience, flippy, una, battle mage

^this was prana's wagon at its peak. i literally feel nauseous just looking at it. there's possibly two scum there, maybe even three if prana is town.

myself and klick have found prana scummy throughout the day, so we have a majority there, if we want it.

~~

i feel like for prana to be scum, he is being bussed by both members, or i have some crucial reads wrong. he could easily be an easy mislynch target, scum are trying to capitalise on in the haze of deadline chaos. if this is true (prana-town), i'd be highly suspicious of the wagon. if he's scum, i see una as one of the top picks for his buddy, so combinatorally, i still favour una as scum, as he makes sense as scum in both prana-town/prana-scum universes.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, as offended as I am that I make you nauseous, perhaps you're right, and Prana is being bussed! She should be, as she is obvscum. So let's lynch her and then we can pick apart the wagon?

imo, the correct order is lynching una first;

if una scum --> lynch prana next
if una town --> reassess.

in a una-town universe, i think there must be something pretty wrong with my reads. why derail a safe mislynch in una to bus prana?

[Hoopla]

Alternatively is there is a bus vote on it and prana is scum it’s likely late on the wagon.

i can see a bob/prana scumteam actually. the zeitgeist at the time of bob's prana vote was a turkey/una dichotomy. if they're both town, vanity voting on your buddy and not getting your hands dirty on a town mislynch when you assume either could go through, is easily within the scum playbook.

[Hoopla]

how does a wagon get up to l-1 and then dessolve immediatly.

in the midst of these shifting sands, wagons rising and falling, we actually have generated some good info. i wouldn't be surprised if the game is solved by lunchtime day 2.

but...

it's going to take a couple of true town heros to step up and put the nail in scum today. is the equation now locked into una or prana? it sure seems so. lets do this. BIG towncred on offer in these last 48 hours.

[Hoopla]

in a una-town universe, i think there must be something pretty wrong with my reads.

why derail a safe mislynch in una to bus prana?

What the actual cuck?
"Safe mislynch"?

i was just about to scold you for doing that thing where you deliberately misread a post speaking from a scum's perspective, and framing it as some kind of "gotcha".

glad to see you weren't being obtuse. prana, on the other hand...

[Hoopla]

I'm a watcher for fuck's sake... So well done for forcing a claim and helping Hoopla and co.

hmmm, my initial gut reaction is i don't buy it. thinking...

why did you wait until post 214 to breadcrumb?

[Hoopla]

also watcher claim, i think that's a powerful role, is it common for scum to claim high power roles like that?

during certain cycles of meta, scum would often fakeclaim big daddy roles like Cop/Watcher to either out town's big PR or to dissuade town's from lynching them. i'd describe that as the most common D1 fakeclaim tactic in the 2010-2014 metagame i grew up on. these days, every other role has some kind of modification - at least in the mini normal's i've read over the last two years, which has altered fakeclaiming strategy. flippy's role, perversely enough, is stereotypical of the current mod meta. prana's claim i associate more with my era of play - which is when he was most active too.

~~

if anyone wants to do any further reading on prana's scum mindset, here's a link to the scum QT of his last scumgame. coincidentally, he was helping coach an inexperienced teammate come up with fakeclaims for her JOAT role;

Reckon a JOAT claim should have cop/vig shot/roleblock

I'm creating the massive post I said i would atm, should I try and crumb in there?

Vig and roleblock yes, cop no. Would be a bit weird, maybe vig,

watcher

, tracker?

this isn't a slamdunk gotcha, but the fact he's quite thoughtful about the fakeclaiming process (if you read through the thread), and watchers were a big part of the cultural zeitgeist we grew up in, i see it as more likely this claim is fabricated.

a fakeclaim dredged up from the subconscious of a simpler time - a time before these zany mods turned things upside down.

[Hoopla]

answer this, mr. watcher:

why did you wait until post 214 to breadcrumb?

[Hoopla]

Any more stupid questions scum?

do you feel guilty for deceiving our humble, little town for 45+ pages?

[Hoopla]

@bob

prana is a sophisticated enough player to know a VT claim there gets lynched. how do you expect to lynch scum on D1 without risking possibly losing a town PR?

drats, my unerring egalitarian principles. if only i had the courage to lolhammer scum when it was an option - town's reactions be damned!

[Hoopla]

Lynching Prana today would be a terrible play and I shouldn't have to explain why. Everyone get on either Una or gobble while we still have time.

explain it to me like i'm a 5 year old

nice and slow

[Hoopla]

I would want to leave prana till tommorrow and see what he claims his results are.

More flips will leave us better informed of how likely his role is


If he is scum i would rather pick out for today someone who could be his partner

hypothetical situation:

- we don't lynch prana, and mislynch elsewhere
- random townie dies N1 (say me, for example)
- on D2, prana-scum claims he watched some other townie visit me N1
- mislynch townie D2

all of a sudden, you've let scum dodge two mislynches, because the town didn't have the cajones to make a tough choice on D1

~~

the primary utility of an investigation role is that its hidden and can collect results. its been exposed - if it is town, it has little to no value now.

another possibility: what if he's town and scum has a RB and prana claims no results? that would look awfully suspicious on D2 and we end up mislynching then in an ill-fated game of wifom, when we should be dealing with it today.

[Hoopla]

people should be judging prana based on how likely a mod is it to give a player a watcher in today's climate vs. how often scum like prana would fakeclaim watcher.

if you think prana would fakeclaim something else, and the claim rings true to you, that's fine. i can work with that.

but i refuse to let the town making decisions out of fear of losing a PR.

~~

IF YOU WANT TO LYNCH SCUM TODAY YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LYNCH A PR CLAIM. DO YOU THINK IF WE RUN UP SOMEONE ELSE, SCUM WILL JUST ROLL OVER AND CLAIM VT AND LET YOU LYNCH THEM?

[Hoopla]

but if its town then scum will resolve the slot for us. Scum cant afford not to kill a watcher.

And if its scum it will give us associations

scum can easily go for an off-the-radar kill N1 if they wanted to frame a town-prana on D2 by leaving him alive.

are you lynching prana no matter what if he's alive d2? him being alive d2 doesn't solve his slot. what if there's a ninja? what if there's a roleblocker? it just means we have to play wifom games on d2 - a day when we should be lynching based off wagons/flips instead.

this is what the d1 lynch is good for.

[Hoopla]

i'm off for a while. someone else can take over the yelling

VOTE: prana

[Hoopla]

this will be my last post explaining my position about the watcher, then i'll move onto something else, seeing that everyone isn't willing to the challenge the accepted orthodoxy.

~~

I really don't care; from a game theory perspective, you don't lynch the strong PR D1 because there's little to gain if they're scum, but there's plenty to lose if they're town.

We lynch someone that looks scummy, and even if Prana is scum and fakes a guilty like under Hoopla's theory, we basically are choosing who looks scummier between Prana and his guilty.

we've already lost most of the utility of the role by it claiming. the only value the role has if its town is that it can sometimes soak up the nightkill. a watcher isn't like a cop where its investigation is so powerful, scum are forced to kill there. the watcher only has a ~10% chance of getting a guilty if scum kill an off-the-radar player - and that isn't even factoring in if scum have a blocking/ninja type role. what information do you think prana can possibly get if he's town?

i'm less concerned about the branch of the possibility tree where prana claims a guilty - and more concerned about the branches where he claims a no result/nobody visited X outcome. what then? this is the most likely outcome if prana is alive D2. do we then waste D2 guessing on that slot? do we give him a pass and let him live to D3 on the guise that we can work it out from a setup spec perspective?

personally, i think the value of scum occasionally killing a town-prana in one branch of the tree + a slither of a chance of a guilty from town-prana in another branch is offset by the possibility of scum-prana living to D3 with a no-result claim, or scum framing a town-prana with a ninja/block/left-field kill, and us mislynching D2 (a day we should be lynching based off flips, rather than trying to outguess wifom).

in klick's watcher game he so kindly linked, scum had a 1-shot JK - waking up on D2 in the most -EV situations for the town (prana alive with a no-result claim) is the most frequent outcome imo.

people assume all the risk is in lynching the PR, but there is just as much risk the other way in letting a scummy slot live, allowing wifom to fester on later days. there are risks to both. and in my eyes, a watcher claim in this specific instance seems more likely to come from scum imo. and i'd rather lynch scum than put my faith in a blind speedwagon with 36 hours to go.

[Hoopla]

to emphasise and follow up on this thought:

and i'd rather lynch scum than put my faith in a blind speedwagon with 36 hours to go.

what are towns expecting by lynching elsewhere today? are we just going to keep running up players until we hit a VT claim? let me repeat: scum aren't going to claim VT. we're either going to run up a real VT, or scum will claim some other role.

~~

as an aside - the predicament we're in now (36 hours from deadline with no real plan and a fractured town) is exactly why i advocate for organising the lynch earlier on D1.

i'll be making further "i told you so" posts when we end up ruining D2 with wifom-poisoning.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: una

[Hoopla]

battle mage's 1174 is woeful, by the way.

On balance, I think Hoopla is town for taking and persisting with the "I want to lynch the claimed PR" approach

Your final "possibility" which suggests a risk of mislynch tomorrow is somehow worse than a surefire mislynch today is odd. Also giving him ideas of what to claim tomorrow, probably not helpful. Well, my Hoopla town-read evaporated quickly...

very well hedged.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, I've always considered Watcher a rather strong role, but I can sort of see the idea behind it not being a slam dunk winner role. I consider it far more useful than a Doc for example - I think it has the same functionality, except instead of blocking a kill it trades 1-for-1 with scum.

If true its likely to be a significant portion of our available night power.

if it's true, so what if it was a significant portion of our power? it isn't now. we no longer have the opportunity of it yielding useful results. scum will either manipulate its results (rb/jk/ninja/left-field kill) and play wifom games D2, OR if he's scum we're in the exact same situation as today. think of the role as more like a Passive Wifom Enabler.

the only way i see scum killing a town-prana is if they're a scumteam without an obfuscating role and don't want to risk it, but i'm telling you now, if i were scum i

absolutely

would leave town-prana alive and let the town's paranoia take over.

[Hoopla]

Hoops he’s Espeonage slot that’s been scum all day but we ignored it for these lovely wagons just like we ignore other scum

yes, i feel like i haven't been paying enough attention to that slot.

i absolutely would lynch there too.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: battle mage

alright, i'll jump on this and see if it takes off. will switch back to una if need be. turkey hasn't been on my radar, but he's done very little this last week, and i won't continue defending him in a deadline situation.

[Hoopla]

The only people who were on him were me and turkey who consolidated hoopla there’s no point in trying a last minute wagon this town will just get itself in a tizzy about how it’s not proper play and you must suck if you want to Lynch them and it’s honestly a huge drag

oh, i misread the votes. fine, battle mage can be a fun project for the town to take on tomorrow.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: una

[Hoopla]

Fuck it. Who cares. Better no lynch than to lynch an investigation power roke

why are you so sure he's town?

you were on the wagon to lynch him less than 24 hours ago. did that scumread just evaporate?

[Hoopla]

okay, so turkey is broken. cooldog is broken.

we just need someone to post their role pm now for the trifecta.

[Hoopla]

you're all aware this a game, right?

lets not be so doom and gloom on D1, just because town hasn't been cohesive. scum's objective is to allow chaos to flourish. they're getting away with it right now, but strongminded townies are what we need on D2.

[Hoopla]

I’m ready to go for d2 we need some more information at this point.

yes, clearly.

a good night's rest will do us all well.

[Hoopla]

i mean, at this point, cooldog is basically acting like 2 year old having a temper tantrum. if you're going to behave that way, we can treat you that way. here, allow me to make this post as kid friendly as possible:

~~

okay, mister doggy woggy, i gots a pic of a rainbow for YOUUUUUU



i also have some nice pictures of planets if you pwetty pwease be serious, compromise, and make a real vote. i know u can do it!!!

i'll even give you a juice box if you get back on the una or turkey wagons.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla what do you think is more important, brain or gut?

gut informs the brain.

no point using logic and reasoning if your intuitive presuppositions are off.

[Hoopla]

Lynch hoopla

just give him some time guys, he'll wear himself out

[Hoopla]

VOTE: gobbles

good doggy

Spoiler: as promised

[Hoopla]

what a ridiculous way to end the day.

from turkey's twilight posting, it appears we lynched town. sucks, but can't say i have a lot of sympathy if you're just going to give up and self-vote 24 hours from deadline.

anyhow, sleep tight fellow townsfolk!

[Hoopla]

Hoopla wanted everyone to not lynch Flippy for his PR.

Hoopla wanted my lynched for mine.

yes, it's called critical thinking. i don't just blindly believe or disbelieve all PR claims. every claim is a different beast, you see.

yours? highly suspect.

[Hoopla]

prana, stop ruining my twilight.

i'm trying to make a cup of tea and relax.

[Hoopla]

WARNING! WARNING! SETUP SPEC POST INCOMING!

---

so, after last night's fascinating twist of affairs, i took it upon myself to do a quick scan for watcher setups over the last two years in 13p mini normal games, to see what kind of setups they existed in. generally speaking (as someone pointed out earlier), watchers and docs are an overpowered combo that mods and game designers are sure to avoid, OR if they are to use that combo, ensure scum has significant counterbalancing power. this post is from the normal queue:

/in to mod a pre-designed mini

given this setup has been handcrafted by the normal team, i'm not expecting that maxim to be subverted, as such, no-kill last night makes prana's continued existence highly suspicious.

here are all the setups that feature a watcher of some description. i've also listed all the blocking/protection power in the game so you can get a feel for how mods deal with including watchers in setups:

2137 -

1-Shot Watcher

,

Jailkeeper

2132 -

Watcher

,

1-Shot Jailkeeper

2114 -

Combined Watcher/Voyeur

,

JOAT (STR/RB/RS)

2092 -

Even-Night-Watcher

,

1-Shot-Doctor

2060 -

Watcher

,

Backup Watcher

2053 -

Watcher

,

2-Shot Jailkeeper

2045 -

Watcher

,

Backup Watcher

2035 -

Non-Consecutive Night Watcher

,

2-Shot Loud Doctor

,

2-Shot Roleblocker

2015 -

JOAT (RC/RB/Watch)

so, what does this all mean?

firstly, mods generally don't give towns watchers + protective roles - only 1 game from 9 has a town watcher/protective combo.

a town jailkeeper/town watcher combo happened once in 2137, but given flippy and prana are both claiming results, and scum should be killing one of the two outed PR's, it means a JK must have blocked the killer, or saved a kill elsewhere. in a flippy/prana town universe, i find it unlikely scum don't kill a PR or block/manipulate PR results (scum

has

to have something if both prana/flippy are town). maybe a no-kill gambit? absurd! there's just too many assumptions.

a simpler conclusion, occam's razor if you like, would be for prana to be scum. if he is, it means protective roles can exist in the game, giving us many more possible explanations for a no-kill night (and we need one!). sure, a bullet-proof/commuter type role could exist, but i find the setup possibilities too narrow if both prana/flippy are town. it's more likely one of them is scum, and i think prana makes way more sense.

i'll likely be voting him today, but want to do some wagon analysis/stuff not focused on him first.

[Hoopla]

an aside: if prana is scum, he's almost certainly a watcher or a JOAT with a watch ability, as he claimed nobody targeted flippy on N1. a doctor, or any random PR could instantly disprove that claim. so, prana isn't a vanilla goon if scum.

[Hoopla]

I would suggest any roleblocker that succeeded doesn't come right out of the gate and say who they are, as trading the Roleblocker for the scum would be a bad idea.

i also disagree with this. a town roleblocker should claim now, as its highly likely they're responsible for the no-kill, and i believe we can probably break the game wide open from PoE if we have a prob-guilty (and prob-inno) to work with today.

scum won't kill with the same team member twice, so it's not likely a town RB will succeed again. that info is more useful in the game now.

[Hoopla]

And lack of a claim reinforces the protective idea

indeed.

has anyone here heard of hypocopping before? for the newer players: this used to a tactic common in early 00's meta when cops were expected in setups. the play is; at the start of d2, each player makes a post "

if i am a cop, i investigated X and got an inno

" or "

if i am a cop, i investigated Y and got an inno

" etc. this way, it allows the cop to claim its results in case it is killed later, without actually fully revealing itself on d2.

~~

as far as i'm concerned a town doctor is as good as a direct counterclaim to prana's claim. so, we

could

get a doc to claim confirming prana as scum, but! there's a way we can get knowledge of a doctor existing in the setup without actually outing a doc.

the plan? we do a variant of hypocopping, where each player claims "

not a BP/commuter/jailkeeper

"

if each player in the game is not a BP/commuter/JK, this proves the kill was prevented by a doc, essentially proving prana-scum AND the doc is still hidden. this forces scum to accept prana's death OR fakeclaim one of those roles linking them with prana. if scum do fakeclaim one of those roles, it means they've essentially lover-ised themselves with prana, as catching either one of them proves the other is scum. scum would be suicidal to do so.

if a bp/commuter/jailkeeper

is

claimed, we can decide on a case-by-case basis what to do with them then (whether they full claim or not). they're highly likely town, though.

a town roleblocker should straight up claim their result now, which is why i haven't included it in these formulations. for this plan to work, it also requires everyone being on board.

[Hoopla]

Hi. Just got here.

We should lynch Klick.

I blocked him last night.

VOTE: Klick

nice.

this game could be over soon. i have a D1-analysis post brewing in the lab at the moment, so no quicklynches plz.

[Hoopla]

oh, i forgot to do my obligatory "

i told you so

" post

i swear, if we twiddle our thumbs until 24 hours before deadline, get a claim we don't want to lynch, then panic-lynch some random townie, i will be very annoyed!

how do i do it? psychic powers? a witch? i'll leave this up to the reader's judgement.

[Hoopla]

so, i've been working on an analysis post for a while. am just going to dump it here instead of reevaluate now that the game has changed with agar/klick info. here it is:

~~

i know everyone is jonesing for someone to do the deep dive and take on that glut of a D1 we produced. allow this inquisitive townie to take the first steps.

- we only got one flip, but we have a prob-innocent to work with in una. he can only be scum with flippy OR if the traitor conspiracy is true. both unlikely.
- flippy isn't cleared, as his role can still be scum-aligned, but he is prob-innocent. not to the same level as una, obviously.
- another read, this time a behavioural read, is cooldog-town. i don't think he has the acting chops to feign such a temper-tantrum over optimal play as scum. it seems much likelier he is spazzy-town.
- prana is prob-scum

these are the alignments i'm most sure about, so i'll be conducting my analysis from this base. i have other reads too, but don't want to include too many assumptions.

~~

this was a key inflection point midway through day 1;

Emperor flippyNips

(3):

PranaDevil

, Gypyx, Hiraki

gobbledygook

(3): AGar,

UnaBombaH

,

CooLDoG

UnaBombaH

(3): farside22,

Hoopla

,

gobbledygook

Battle Mage(2): LicketyQuickety, notscience
Gypyx (1): Battle Mage

Not Voting (1):

Emperor flippyNips

as you can see, the key wagons we had eked out were all town or prob-town. if you remember, this was about the point of the game i was calling out active lurkers and vote-parkers to do something. an observation i've made about day 1's is that when scum can get away with it, they love letting townies be the one's to risk pushing the game forward with meaningful votes. to make a new vote is to have essentially reevaluated the game in a new light, which can sometimes derail a wagon on town, or bring attention to yourself. if scum have a safe vote placed - one that can't really be challenged - there is less incentive to reevaluate, as such, you'll often see them sit on it a long time if the gamestate isn't threatening. you can see here, these are optimal conditions for safe scum-vote-parking as all the major wagons we produced were town/likely town.

scum simply don't like getting their hands dirty when they don't need to. if anyone was curious, the numbers from my patented

"H.A.H.A system of Advanced Tells for Very Advanced Players"

bears this out too:

if votes were purely random, we'd expect to observe 1.75 scum on a D1 town-lynch. what i have actually observed: of the last 30 D1-lynches on a townie, only 44 of the 210 voters have been scum, a rate of 1.46 scum per lynch wagon. when you factor this in with the lurking data i revealed on D1, it becomes clear that we should expect scum to post less, and do less things that push the game forward when they don't need to.

i'm not revealing this data to

explicitly

say scum are definitely the lurkers/safe voters, but to illuminate that this is a pattern that reveals itself across a number of different metrics. scum simply don't take as many risks to further the game when they don't have to. it's much easier to sit back, let townies bicker and incriminate themselves ESPECIALLY when the gamestate allows it (ie; no threatening scum wagons). on a related note; i suspect most of the noise from late D1 was town mania, and scum sitting back chuckling to themselves, watching town implode. little did they know, wily ol' hoopla was taking names and collecting reads.

~~

i've talked plenty about prana, so in the interest of looking for other scum, lets move ahead later in the day.

turkey's wagon was the first to come under any real heat. his wagon and una's was the main dichotomy.

gobbledygook

(5): AGar,

UnaBombaH

,

CooLDoG

,

PranaDevil

, Gypyx

UnaBombaH

(3): Klick, Hoopla,

gobbledygook

Gypyx (2): Battle Mage, notscience

Emperor flippyNips

(1): Hiraki

Not Voting (2):

Emperor flippyNips

, bob3141

a key suspect i've developed in my reread of this sequence of events is battle mage. he was an active presence the game when he arrived, but happily sat on his initial gypyx vote without much comment on the main wagons - wagons he knew to be town. he even sat on this vote through the rise and fall of flippy's L-2 wagon and una's L-1 wagon. he lurked through the flippy claiming fiasco. he did nothing to further the game during crucial periods - i suspect happy to just sit back and let the town mislynch any one of their main three incorrect lynches.

the only time he participated in a wagon not gypyx-related was when a speed-wagon grew on prana unexpectedly late in the game. he was the L-1 vote - a key bussing vote. a

"oh shit, i better get on this wagon before its too late

" vote. and given the espeonage slot fit the D1 lurky profile i associate with early scumplay, i think this slot is an excellent candidate for scum. doubley so because he works well as a potential prana-buddy.

the next best possible bussing vote in a prana-scum world is;

prana interesting that you would pick that out. Only after two other playesr but ignor my posts for you entirely

VOTE: Prana

at the time, this was a vanity-vote when we had two big town wagons available. a time where scum would expect one of those two mislynches to go through. unexpectedly a major wagon blossumed out of this vote, but this is exactly the sort of play i mean when i say "scum don't like getting their hands dirty on town mislynches when they can help it".

conclusion:

bob or battle mage for scum

[Hoopla]

klick/prana/battle mage

could the game really be this easy?

[Hoopla]

Weird gut. I asked about the role PM confirmation because I was getting weird Quagmire vibes from Klick's posting, so I had a bit of suspicion from the posting. I noticed a handful of people townread Klick, so I decided that was most likely who was going to carry out a kill if on a scumteam.

if this is true, that is a smart way to use a blocker - great intuition!

[Hoopla]

i was wondering who the cheeky scumbag that had snuck its way into my town reads would be.

i thought it would take a bit longer to work out, though.

[Hoopla]

No agar lol

I don’t want our watcher dying with nothing to show for it

Our role blocker

God damnit I need sleep

if agar is nightkilled tonight, are you really trusting prana when he claims a guilty on someone D3?

[Hoopla]

did i make this list because I'm NK proof and so you need to push to lynch me now?

are you actually claiming to be NK proof or are you being a hilarious jokester?

also, this is my main reason for suspecting you;

a key suspect i've developed in my reread of this sequence of events is battle mage. he was an active presence the game when he arrived, but happily sat on his initial gypyx vote without much comment on the main wagons - wagons he knew to be town. he even sat on this vote through the rise and fall of flippy's L-2 wagon and una's L-1 wagon. he lurked through the flippy claiming fiasco. he did nothing to further the game during crucial periods - i suspect happy to just sit back and let the town mislynch any one of their main three incorrect lynches.

it's precisely the sort of behaviour across multiple metrics i look for on d1 that makes you stand out to me. the fact that your predecessor was lurky and you fit well with my other scumread is the icing, not the cake.

[Hoopla]

Then we have Hoopla twisting shit to make herself seem town, doing her damndest to off a Watcher via lynch as well now.

i don't need to twist.

i simply lay it all out in earnest; humbly, courageously.

[Hoopla]

Fucking hell you people.

and just what exactly do you mean by "

you people

"? hmm?

do you mean...

townies

?

[Hoopla]

Turns out scum isn't as fun as it was years ago

let this be a lesson to you. crime never pays.

[Hoopla]

the cheek of this scumbag!

even in the final throes of life, he only knows one way. a true monster.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: Klick

goodnight everyone

[Hoopla]

i for one am shocked to be sitting here

who could have ever seen this coming?

[Hoopla]

VOTE: prana devil

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: battle mage

actually, might be better to lynch the buddy first, on the small, small chance prana is town

[Hoopla]

It’s not buggering it all up to assume you’d watch the person who claimed a fucking guilty.

Hoops you know as well as I do he’s lying.

i'm 90% sure he's scum, and am operating from that perspective.

i suspect it might be optimal and try and lynch his buddy first, though.

[Hoopla]

it's more insurance on the off-chance prana is town. if we lynch his buddy today, scum is pretty much forced to kill town-prana, as one scum alive means a correct watch loses the game outright.

but you're probably right. trying to eke out a slither more EV from a day where we have obv-scum on the ropes is just petty squibbling.

[Hoopla]

i'd rather everyone checked in and had a chat before we lynch though - especially given yesterday was a short phase.

[Hoopla]

Hi I’m here. I got some errands to run before I really start going, but I do want to say this. I fibbed about my role. I really had two shots, I sent a fruit to BM and he’s unarmed

hmmm, so this means outside of traitor screwiness, bm can only be scum with flippy. i'm not sure if these two have the cajones to pull off a team gambit like that, but we should be able to solve the setup via massclaim (which should happen tomorrow imo).

strange. i was so confident in a bm/prana scumteam. looks like i have to do slightly more thinking.

anyway

UNVOTE:
VOTE: prana

[Hoopla]

Hi I’m here. I got some errands to run before I really start going, but I do want to say this. I fibbed about my role. I really had two shots, I sent a fruit to BM and he’s unarmed

Flippy is a fruit vendor regardless bc una conformed it

yes, but there's a chance that flippy could be scum-aligned, is what i mean.

2-shot gunsmith/full watcher is a lot of investigation power - especially when town was given a roleblocker (capable of pseudo-investigations).

[Hoopla]

And you're still trying to push me as scum, even now? Desperate, not coming from genuine inquisitive, responsive town here.

i'm currently reevaluating.

keep your pants on.

[Hoopla]

Hi. Just got here.

We should lynch Klick.

I blocked him last night.

VOTE: Klick

VOTE: Klick

I fucking called it!

@battle mage.

why did you blindly believe agar's roleblocker claim, when from your perspective the no-kill could have been explained from scum targeting you?

[Hoopla]

you can't just change your mind in light of new evidence? with me, it's a pretty quick process - I don't feel the need to progress gradually to avoid making any wrong moves, if you catch my drift.

believe it or not, my take on the game comes from a thoughtful place. new evidence requires thinking.

we do have

way too much

power claimed, though. so i'm trying to work out who is most likely lying.

[Hoopla]

Are you seriously still trying to shade me? I'm confirmed-town remember, try doing some actual scumhunting.

you're actually not, so perhaps tone the screeching down a little.

[Hoopla]

the fact prana didn't watch an essentially conf-town PR is absurd. scum were forced to kill that role. if he's town, and actually tried to "outwifom" the scum...

no, lets not dabble in conspiracy theories. my faint heart couldn't withstand such an absurdity.

[Hoopla]

I'm starting to believe that Prana is just VI and not scum because the scum motivations for this move are becoming ever increasingly small. At the same time, the town motivations for this move are also very small.

there's a small part of me paranoid about this, because faking a guilty on a townie to eke out one more mislynch before he goes down seems like the obvious scumplay. maybe he was naive enough to think he could talk his way through a wifom defense, and didn't need to resort to a fake guilty?

[Hoopla]

Do you think we should consider mass claiming?

massclaim is a tactic to gain more insight, and improve lynching odds immediately with PoE. this comes at the expense of the value hidden PR's offer. we already have prob-scum painted in a corner. massclaim isn't really improving lynching odds today, so what are we gaining?

tomorrow makes more sense for massclaim.

[Hoopla]

good thing we didn't lynch this unabombah guy!

[Hoopla]

Also...there might come a time when I might be the only one not wanting you dead Hoopla.

such is my fate.

solve the game before town gets too paranoid about me!

[Hoopla]

He’s a traitor alright.

Game solved.

if the traitor conspiracy is true, it would be amazing given that we thought it was flippy/gypyx as a potential traitor, and not BM.

gunsmith/bulletproof are the perfect roles you'd expect to see in a traitor setup, which is the main reason for my paranoia.

but lets not get carried away.

[Hoopla]

we need a scum flip to restore some faith that we're on the right track, rather than deal with a low percentage conspiracy.

[Hoopla]

Hoops I’m saying gyp is a traitor I don’t like his stance re prana

It explains a lot of this game. Why it was brought up in the first place, and why prana scum wouldn’t claim a guilty now.

oh i see, don't know why i read it that way.

it makes sense.

i don't know how likely it actually is, but it makes sense.

[Hoopla]

Check how many times prana gives a stance on him hoops. Do it.

literally never.

you might be on to something here.

[Hoopla]

Is tomorrow lylo?

nah, if we mislynch today it's (probably) 2:6 tomorrow.

[Hoopla]

I know, I know.
It just seems weird saying that we need a scumflip to restore faith, considering that we have avoided one nightkill, and lynched correctly 1/2.
I'd call that a good start.

personally, i like crushing the scum into the dirt.

any town death - especially the ones at our hands - is a tragedy.

[Hoopla]

hi micc, welcome to game! here's a quick run-down on the gamestate;

day 1

- we run up flippy. he claims 1-shot combined fruit vendor/gunsmith at L-2. town backs down, and instead end up running up prana to L-1 who claims watcher. i am suspicious of him, almost hammer, then town gets cold feet and runs up a lynch on VT-gobbledygook in a deadline rush.

night 1

- no kill occurs

day 2

- flippy claims his gunsmith result on una: no gun. una confirms this by declaring he received a piece of fruit. from left-field, agar claims a roleblock on klick, making it the likely explanation for the NK. he flips goon.

night 2

- scum kill agar

day 3

- prana our watcher claims he watched una (and not our essentially conf-town roleblocker who scum needed to kill last night). meanwhile, flippy claimed he lied and was actually 2 shot and investigated BM: no gun. BM also claims that he is bulletproof.

that should be the totality of all claims/results, sans analysis. it's up to you to read into these events more, but i will let you know that local heros hoopla/notscience/unabombah are highly suspicious of prana's claim from a setup spec perspective and due to him absurdly not watching agar last night.

your slot also has some tinfoil traitor-conspiracies floating above you, due in part to gypyx's strange curiosity about traitors and one possibly fitting with the setup.

Hoopla has been pushing for my lynch since day 1.

yes, i am that good.

[Hoopla]

couldn't have been too much of a panic. he thought about it enough to lie about a number of shots.

this is actually a good point.

[Hoopla]

i received a delicious mango last night, so i assume flippy lied about his role yet again?

[Hoopla]

no kill overnight is strange. i doubt mafia attempt to kill battle mage if he's town.

a non-killing traitor is a real possibility. if no-kills keep occurring, we ought to treat this as the case.

[Hoopla]

massclaim does sound appealing.

thing is, there's two reasons a no-kill happened last night

1) there is a traitor in the game who can't kill. the game is now essentially nightless and we have 6 chances to lynch the last scum.
2) battle mage is BP and scum foolishly tried to kill him
3) there is actually a town doc who made a good save

~~

how exactly is massclaiming helping us though? if we're in situation 3, we prevent any future saves at night due to outing the doc.

i'm still thinking if it's worth it to wait another day.

[Hoopla]

....I've already had enough of today.

I figured after yesterday's flip you had to be town, because it would be a complete dick-move to bus your scumbuddy on the one part of their claim that was legitimate and provable (you didn't believe there could be a watcher in this game).

if there's a traitor who can't kill as scum's third member - i'm picking it's you. a bullet proof claim is exactly the right fakeclaim for your situation.

for the record i believed that a watcher could exist in the game, just that it'd likely be a scum watcher if there was one. i was correct.

[Hoopla]

But of course, I'm not remotely surprised you want to lynch another claimed power role

we wasted three days putting off lynching a claimed PR that we should have gone through with on day 1.

[Hoopla]

Hoops do you think pranas hammer was the only scum vote on the turkey Lynch

unsure.

i'm overdue to give this game a reread filtered through the lens of our updated alignment-flips. expect a more focused approach from me some time soon.

[Hoopla]

Hoops is this one normally this obstinate?

i have vague memories of him being so.

my plan is to step away and do a proper analysis post, than to get sucked into bad faith arguments.

[Hoopla]

Meh, I’m waiting for hoops to reread.

i'm well rested and slurping on a coffee as we speak.

i was preparing to hunker down and do a proper analysis, though it appears the game may be wrapped up if bob is truthful?

*shrug*

VOTE: Micc

[Hoopla]

for posterity's sake, i'm a VT also.

[Hoopla]

oh, we're done?

i want to keep lynching people, though...

[Hoopla]

catching klick was a game-changer. i think it would have been a lot closer if we had to catch him the conventional way.

congrats to the many town heros who had their moments. it was good to be town with you, notscience. and well done to prana who never wavered in the face of ol' hoopla zeroing in. that is the kind of commitment to villainy i like to see.

[Hoopla]

Scumteam didn't have the tools to fight against the town power without the town mismanaging their power. And this town didn't mismanage it's power at all.

that is kind of the reality of mini normals.

it appears that in an attempt to steer winrates closer to 50%, you have accept that some percentage of games will be solved by town PR's. occasionally, the stars will align and scum simply have to passively accept the narrow confines of a largely PoE'd gamestate.

the roleblocker isn't always a pro-town power - if it got wagoned to L-1, upon claiming, people could have easily lynched it thinking it was scum. it could have easily blocked the doctor/gunsmith instead of the nightkill. swings and roundabouts.

it does suck as scum when you feel like you have no path to victory through no real fault of your own.

[Hoopla]

also, lets see the scum PT.

[Hoopla]

I do feel maybe town was a bit OP, but I also feel that a Doctor AND Roleblocker claiming would lead to them potentially lynching one, then the other, in short order.

yes, if both of these roles were outed, we could have easily lynched one, thinking one may be lying.

also, notscience staying silent and assuming agar blocked the kill could have backfired. if his protect was the reason no-kill happened, and we followed agar blindly on to a town mislynch D2, agar could have been mislynched D3.

that was a gamble.