Newbie 2025 | Lilies | Game Over

[Frogsterking]

Hey guys! I'm very excited to start this game! I will post a longer introductory post later after I've done the dishes before my gf gets back!

I was curious though so I wanted to bite:

This is where we all point fingers at each other until someone does something that other people can latch on to, yes?

VOTE: Frogsterking

I have reasons, and I will even explain them! On request, I can explain them in any of these unique styles:

Mad scientist
Divine prophesy <-- Today's special!
Very upset historian
Philosopher (esoteric) <-- A personal favorite!
Conspiracy theorist
Normal person

But I'm probably going to default to normal person. Less confusing that way.

I'm dying to hear the explanation from the

Divine Prophecy

and

Philosopher

point of views!

[Frogsterking]

I'm dying to hear the explanation from the Divine Prophecy and Philosopher point of views!

Any special reasons from those PoVs? Just curious

Probably because those two were marked as the best/most exclusive and the price for all of them was the same so I chose what seemed to be the most valuable at that point in time!

Oops didn't notice someone had posted before me, that was the third post of the game.

Frogster, you haven't started by RVS (random voting). In a low info stage, why don't you vote?

I will! I want at least a little time to think about it. I have to run to Target now to pick up some dish scrapers bfore i can do the dishes. My GF is in a bad mood today.

[Frogsterking]

Frogsterking said he’d be back after he washed the dishes. He hasn’t returned yet so he must have either had a whole lotta dishes or his girlfriend said he can’t play with his friends, for not doing those dishes. Can’t wait for him to return and tell us what happened.

It was actually a little bit of both.

RVS VOTE: Tatsuya

Intro

: I live in the US in the state of Ohio, I'm 26, I'm working on a website and thought this game would be a good way to work on my writing skills. Despite the age of this account I am not an experienced mafiascum scumhunter and have not played since 2012.

I have extensive experience in this genre of game but very little in the forum format. I'm going to share a couple of my thoughts on this genre of game in general and how to win, this lobby and the players so far, and whatever else i think of while I'm writing that.

How I think about mafia-type games (mafia, secret hitler, werewolf, etc.)

: I think players who play this genre develop a style over time (and with it a preference for different formats of the game and situations which occur within those games). One way I think about the style-difference is if the player is logical vs behavioral, logical being that they focus on making the highest percentage play in the situation and behavioral focusing on minutiae of what the other players are saying and attempting to find hidden indicators of the players alignment. I think logical players tend to excel in fields like law, accounting, medicine, and is linked with a personality trait from the big five called Conscientiousness. These guys excel in setups that have many mechanics and require more detailed technical knowledge of the game and the format it is being played in. I believe behavioral players are linked with a personality trait also from the big five called Openness to experience and as such often have some kind of arts background. They excel in setups such as this one without many complex mechanics and the possibility of low info lylo situations with no clears. Most players eventually develop some traits of both even if they heavily lean one way.

I think people also have different communication styles they prefer which i think about as analytical, accommodating, and assertive. Most of us will use each of these styles but have a default one we prefer. We tend to be more receptive when others talk in our default state or the one we're in at the moment.

Another trait from the big five I think about a lot while playing games these types of games is agreeable vs disagreeable, which means how likely you are to be trusting, cooperate, empathetic vs skeptical, competitive and distrusting.

My thoughts on this lobby so far:

I think this lobby has an above average chance for a town win because of the high level of activity and presence of players who have already completed at least one game. The main issue I see going forward is a double edged one, and its that there (seem) to be a lot of disagreeable players in this lobby which will make the game more difficult to play for both sides.

I think the newbie setup is extremely town sided (to account for the presence of players learning the game.) Scum are going to have to survive so many mislynches they are going to be making so many lies and i think most players are going to really suffer in the scum role as long as the town is not really ISP or eating each other alive.

loz:

I do not believe he has posted yet.


ItalianoVD:

I think he/she might be slightly older than the other players and/or have some type of sales background and that causes them to come off a little more slick than the other players. I think this is just a trait of theirs and not really indicative of their alignment. Seems like more of a logical player to me.

shellyc:

Very aggressive, very assertive communicator. Pretty indicative of a behavioral player, maybe has some kind of arts background. Similar to how I played when I was younger. Sometimes a good d1 lynch candidate if he/she is scum telling a little and disruptive to the communication of the town.

Redados:

Seems like d1 lynch bait. I'm not really sure much about him/her yet, I'm curious to see what the rest of his/her posts are like.

rocknil:

I'm not sure, I don't believe he/she has posted much yet.

MUSHSHAGANA:

Seems like the type of player that is safe on d1 but comes under fire later. Seems like he has some kind of arts background. Another assertive communicator but more agreeable (so far) than the others.

MagikHorse: (SE)

Seems like classic d1 lynch bait. Seems analytical and disagreeable. I think there is a high chance they will come under fire soon and a low chance they will ever become a solid d1 lynch.

Tatsuya Kaname: (SE)

Seems like a normal intro.

Conclusion

:

I'm a heavily leaning behavioral style player which means i hunt for hidden indicators of a players alignment. I am an analytical communicator and disagreeable.

I advocate for town to play with this strategy: Plan to use the full 10 days available for the d1 lynch. Keep the activity levels very high, keep the pressure very low during the early days so that everyone gets to open up and have some input and then escalate the pressure during the last few days of the d1 lynch on the best targets to get some solid scum tells.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this game goes and my main goals are to be protown and get some sick d1 reads!

[Frogsterking]

I haven't posted today and this is probably it for me today. Caffeine withdrawal is kicking my ass. I'll be back to high activity tomorrow.

In the past I would do worse after day 1, but I've gotten rid of a lot of life stress so my play should be more stable. Also, I'm a lady and I have a homeless person background, so ... you're not really on point with me. Nice cold reading, though.

To be clear: I think keeping pressure low is a good idea to get initial engagement, and then you can dig into that deeply. Since so many are so confused, I'll give the game away: if you're too intense too early and not everyone has checked in and established a pattern of interaction, they get to pretend like they're just playing a quiet game. Once you establish a pattern of interaction, you can press on pattern changes instead of just flailing at a nearly empty corpus of posts for one user. Who might not respond to you, if they just post a single line of near-zero content garbage once a day or so.

Now that I've said it, I'd keep my eyes open for it in the less active players so far. I like to have meat to chew on, I don't like having to get reads on an empty history.

Anyway, I have a headache like someone implanted a nest of centipedes in my frontal cortex and I am exhausted. Talk tomorrow.

Thanks! And I completely agree with the advice here, Mush.

Thanks for the big post, Frogster!

Now both you and Mush have alluded to keeping the pressure low early in the day. I agree with the idea of not lynching until we've used all our time. But by saying, "we'll keep the pressure low", we don't LEARN anything. No one is going to care that they are being pushed because the pressure is "supposed" to be low. So I'm not really following this train of thought other than to say that I agree that we should use all of our time.

- I don't get why both frogster and Mush say we should keep pressure low, because if we aren't actively pushing players, what do we do? Wait for scum to misdirect us? I don't think Redados is lynchbait, they are my biggest scumread as I said before.

Be patient, learn about the other players, discuss setup mechanics, give scum more chances to make mistakes, double check your reads.

Frogster, what do you mean by me being "disruptive" to the communication of town? Because I believe being aggressive is a good trait to scumhunt and find information.

I think Mush explained what I was thinking very well about this in his post I quoted above. If we are town it's usually better to let the scum force the interactions because it gives us a chance to figure out what they are up to and identify them. If you are scum you're hoping town will tunnel a lot and create a lot of noise which helps you hide and look for potential weak spots.

Frogster's description of me almost perfectly matches his description of himself, ironically enough. I happen to be 27, live in Ohio, and his description of me thus far is similar as well. You wouldn't happen to care for some Skyline Chili... would you?

Yup!

[Frogsterking]

...If we are town it's usually better to let the scum force the interactions because it gives us a chance to figure out what they are up to and identify them...

How would we do this? What would we be looking for? How would we tell the difference between town forced interactions and scum forced ones? I’m not sure if forcing interactions is AI.

Examples:
a) A couple players are townread by everyone and at a crucial moment a random player that wasn't helping very much throws a bunch of dirt at one of the townie players.
b) A player lurks or coasts until later in the game (like lylo) and then suddenly becomes very active, and their viewpoints seem to magically align with one or two of the town players.
c) A player may be reliant on using an emotion such as anger as a cover up to explain their choices. If maf are forced to out a read when there isn't something to emotionally react to and this is the only tool in their toolbox they won't look authentic.
d) A player seems really pro town but they keep taking the game in strange directions.

The concept I'm picturing is that these situations here occur organically because of the mafia's win condition and don't require town to tunnel or be aggressive. In fact being overly forcing as the town player might make it easier or unnecessary for the mafia to make difficult choices here.

Finally got back home to see a whole lot of fluff before I've even gotten a chance to play. I hope this isn't going to be one of those all fluff no stuff games.

I don't like the lack of RVS vote from Frogster though. Even if it's not much a vote is still the only way for town to make any headway, especially at this stage of the game. As an SE he should know that.
VOTE: Frogster

Is this you leaving RVS or are you giving an RVS vote off the lack of an RVS vote?

This is my RVS vote.

@MagikHorse Redados answered it perfectly in 73. Call it paranoid or whatever but I definitely do not feel comfortable disregarding Shellyc. I will be suspicious of her unless she flips town

Lol @Frogsterking as long as she’s happy I guess. And you are correct I do have a career in sales. I am also a psychology major so there’s that. Are you sure you haven’t had a bit of psychology or sociology in your history. Your assessment is pretty spot on.

I am logical and analytical. While some may see this as a good thing, it has bitten me in the butt more than I’d like it and it’s probably because of my biggest flaw, which is overthinking.

On using the full allotted time for the day 1 lynch, after playing 3 games I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t really like Day 1. I get the premise and it makes sense, but after everything is said and questions are asked it does get boring and dull. I’m not against it and I will participate, but don’t be alarmed if I eventually get annoyed and just want the day to end.

Yes I do have a psychology background! And I can empathize with disliking d1. My theory is that scum dislike d1 even more than town do and getting the d1 right as town is like eating your veggies.

And a quick note that I strongly dislike Frogsterking's take on my request for more time to gather information.

Letting scum force interaction is a quick way to a town loss. The loudest people are going to have the majority of influence on player opinion, whether it goes the way they want or not.
(Example: EVERYONE has an opinion on what me, Shelly and Redados are saying. No one is talking a lot about MagikHorse or ItalianoVD.)

I strongly disagree with forcing scum to take up the reins of driving discussion. I do not want that. I want enough information to understand who is doing what. From there, day 2 and onwards becomes comparatively easy, because when someone interacts and it doesnt match up, you have a thread to pull on. Right now we have /nothing/ for multiple users.

Be patient, learn about the other players, discuss setup mechanics, give scum more chances to make mistakes, double check your reads.

Information instead of analysis? that's a scumtell.
Town want to scumhunt, scum want to pose as town. The intristic motivation of town is to find the scum, and push other players. I hard disagree that tunneling would create noise and disrupt our scumhunting. Scum forcing the interactions doesn't help us identify them.

If we are town it's usually better to let the scum force the interactions because it gives us a chance to figure out what they are up to and identify them. If you are scum you're hoping town will tunnel a lot and create a lot of noise which helps you hide and look for potential weak spots.

I agree with Shelly. I think that if everyone is active and engaged, that lets us get more information about who the scum is. If you try to let scum force the interactions, how do you know that the scum are the ones forcing the interactions? Quiet scum is scum we can't catch.

It seems important to clarify that by keeping the pressure low early on I wasn't promoting passive play I was promoting cooperation, less anxiety inducing situations etc., followed by applying pressure later when you've found an ideal target (if necessary.) It also seems important to clarify that by letting mafia force the interactions I was promoting the idea that as town we don't need to throw dirt and create conflict

1)

early on

2)

just for the sake of getting reactions. It seems like we agree about this in general except for shelly.

I see that you feel I misrepresented what you were saying Mush and I apologize for that and it was unintentional. I feel like in general we are on the same page about best play for town.

I also wanted to point out that making scum force interactions does help to identify them. In a game where neither of the scum players are getting townread and the town is getting along the scum will be forced to make something happen eventually or they will be lynched. I think that identifying forced interactions vs organic interactions is a foundational concept of this game. My thoughts are that if you as the town start tunneling someone to see how they react the scum don't need to force anything to happen because you are doing it for them.

At the moment I am most interested in hearing more from rock, Magik and Redados. I also find it hard to imagine a universe where I'm voting for Mush on d1.

[Frogsterking]

Here's a useful resource I found for the mechanics of the setup. https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=83092

I think the sample size is too small but it provides material worth speculating on.

It appears that scum newbies have the most difficult time handling this setup out of any group, which seems logical.

It appears that configurations in the A and B groups are heavily town sided (with A2 and B3 as exceptions presenting poor results for town but also an even smaller sample size) and the C group appears more balanced than townsided.

The average length of real life time for games that ended on D2 was 15.9 days I believe.

Also, Shelly, I am just copying and pasting the links from the address bar at the top of the web browser to the box I'm typing in.

[Frogsterking]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels uncomfortable with the dynamics of Shelly, Redados and Italiano. Redados has, at least, modified his play after having been called out to something that could be considered more pro-town, but Shelly is hyper-focused on Redados and Italiano is hyper-focused on Shelly. This doesn't help anyone else make any decisions at all, and might very well end up with two mis-eliminations to satisfy the paranoia of these three so we can actually get down to business.

I have no intent of listing reads quite yet, but this is not good play for town from Shelly and Italiano. I think they should back up and focus attention on other people altogether for a while. Especially Italiano, who hasn't so much as sniffed in the direction of other players, as far as I can tell.

Now then...



Shelly, if town "tunnels" someone, scum don't need to say much to come across as town that's just late to the party. "Yeah, I'm honestly here on this wagon. I have nothing to add, everyone else has made my arguments for me. I think it's the right idea." Scum shouldn't be allowed to direct the conversation either, but if town gets stuck on "YES WE HAVE THE ANSWERS" scum doesn't need to do anything except not rock the boat too much.



Frogster, you have a dependent chain of events for "scum forcing interactions" being a good idea, whether you recognize the chain or not.
First, town has to town read most of town.
Second, town has to mostly not town read at least one scum.
Third, town has to be mostly coordinating rather than throwing suspicion at or questioning each other.
Only if all three things are true does scum have to try to steer the ship, so to speak. I'd like to point out that we can't get reads on enough of the players to fulfill the first chainlink yet, and we are ALL bickering too much for the third link to be fulfilled.

Letting scum force interaction at this stage is a TERRIBLE idea.

I'm really not a fan of how you're spinning my desire to be able to get reads on the majority of players. It's making something that's fairly pro-town into a vehicle for highly pro-scum play, and that is just not a good look at all on you, particularly with how town read I seem to be.

I've mentioned before: I tend to jump the gun, and I am aware of that tendency. So I'm just going to ask if anyone else feels like my words and intent might be getting twisted for hidden motives here. Because I have that feeling, I feel it in my bones, and I don't like it at all.

VOTE: Frogsterking

I always feel more comfortable having voted, and this feels like the right place to rest my vote for the time being.



I also want to bring up that MagikHorse has made himself one of my favorites with just the recently-passed flurry of posts. These are direct, cutting posts that aren't over-determined or stuck on irrelevancies. Good stuff for town, though I have yet to feel comfortable giving reads out.



And last for now, notes on why I'm avoiding giving a player overview or a reads list for so long.

Remember how I mentioned pattern-matching before?

I'm seeing patterns in all of the active users. Some I'm curious about, some I just plain don't like, all of them I want to avoid drawing too much attention to until I have reached a conclusion about the patterns I'm seeing.

If you've posted more than 6 times, I'm considering you in some way. I won't tell you how or for what until I'm good and ready, because that would give away the patterns and make it too easy to disrupt the picture I'm building. I'm going to sit on these and see what comes of my approach before I try giving reads. So you'll all have to wait a little while longer.

I think your dependency chain is an accurate example of the possible late game scenarios I'm visualizing in which town can still win in case there is little aid from prs. I would describe your dependency chain as a win condition following good early town play. I'd imagine you can see how a chain like that is unrealistic on D1 as you pointed out, but could materialize later in a 3-way or 5-way lylo situation as a result of a good D1.

I'm interested in hearing your conclusions about the player patterns and the reads list later and I agree they will be more impactful given some time. I believe this is another benefit of using the full 10 days.

I assure you there was no deliberate attempt to spin what you were saying and my motivation for paraphrasing was to express what I thought you were saying so you could confirm (or in this case deny) that there was a mutual understanding.

I suspect there is an issue with communication rather than underlying ideas about the game because I agree with most of the points you've been making. I suspect the issue is a linguistic one and we are based on different definitions of what letting scum force plays or interactions means. In my mind "forcing an interaction" or "forcing a play" is usually a bad move for the side doing it because it implies the play was unnatural or awkwardly timed (hence it had to be forced in) and will be generally less effective. A "forcing interaction" that is dominant and controls the choices the other side has available is not what I was suggesting we want to allow others to be doing.

The tunneling trio you pointed out is a solid example of what I'm referring to about forcing an interaction (not a forcing interaction.) If the scum team decides to play that way that's fine with me but if it's the town doing that then there will be problems not only today but in the endgame as well.

I believe that Redados, Shelly and Italiano will be receptive to moving forward and focusing on other players. I also believe that the incoming replacements are more likely to be an asset than a liability.

[Frogsterking]

Finally got back home to see a whole lot of fluff before I've even gotten a chance to play. I hope this isn't going to be one of those all fluff no stuff games.

I don't like the lack of RVS vote from Frogster though. Even if it's not much a vote is still the only way for town to make any headway, especially at this stage of the game. As an SE he should know that.
VOTE: Frogster

Is this you leaving RVS or are you giving an RVS vote off the lack of an RVS vote?

This is my RVS vote.

Why are you answering questions directed at me?

I thought it was directed toward my late RVS vote.

Call it anxiety or paranoia, but I’m not gonna feel comfortable with you until you are flipped and we know what your true alignment is.

I don't like this paranoid outlook at all. It makes it particularly hard to take you seriously regarding Shelly, especially as I don't see the biggest thing you've accused her of (repeating others) at all. VOTE: ItalianoVD

I'm also curious to hear more about the repeating others tactic you observed, Italiano.

Prefacing by saying that this is probably NAI at this point, but I was curious so I assumed everyone else would be too:

Post count -
loz:

0

ItalianoVD:

7

shellyc:

14

Redados:

23

rocknil:

1

MUSHSHAGANA:

16

MagikHorse (SE):

7

Tatsuya Kaname (SE):

2

Frogsterking (SE):

4

This is not really helpful, given that anyone can simply scroll down to the bottom of the page, click "activity overview", and see every player's postcount at any moment. You can even get to everyone's ISOs from there too, just as you can by clicking the "ISO" button right next to the post number.

Are you just curious, or think there's something to gain from doing this? I'm suspecting the former for now given your preface.

I felt like Redados was just being helpful. Redados strikes me as being more agreeable and accommodating.

Okay, so there's an extra game dynamic going on here that I'm not familiar with. I'm gonna have to look at that game sometime when my mind's not addled by my meds.

I'm not seeing how Shelly's really "reposting" though. Could you elaborate on that a little?

Do you mind sharing now about the extra game dynamic you observed, Magik?

[Frogsterking]

Cool!

It looks like loz may be due for a prod.

[Frogsterking]

I've been reading through the game between shelly, italiano and redados because it seems relevant to our own. I think it's fair to be weary of shelly's scum play because of the previous game. It was well played on her part, her partner was not any help at all and she basically solo won.

I feel like the combination of his username and sales background could make Italiano seem scummy subconsciously to others sometimes. I don't think he is scummy in this game at all and along with Mush I feel it's hard to imagine a scenario where I vote him D1.

As far as behavior changes go I think that shelly's behavior is pretty different this game, redados is pretty different, italiano is pretty much identical. I think shelly seems more self-reflective this time around and it could be indicative of an alignment change. I don't think that solo winning a scum game would make me more likely to be self-reflective in the next game.

I feel like redados was noticeably more open and aggressive during his D1 town play of the other game and it could be indicative of an alignment change but I think that's a little thin.

[Frogsterking]

I don't think that solo winning a scum game would make me more likely to be self-reflective in the next game...

*

*

in the next game having rolled scum again.

[Frogsterking]

Hmm.

Fair enough.



I wonder if MagikHorse might have any thoughts on the same subject, then? Scum play versus anti-town townie play, the line between, where it is drawn? Also curious on Frogsterking's thoughts here. And if others want to throw their piece into the hat, I'll read those too, but I have a particular list of people whose thoughts on the matter are particularly interesting to me. (It's interesting that they're all the SEs, but that's the point, right? Learning.)

I'm not quoting you, I'm asking about play styles that connect to "scum" and "anti-town townie" as classes of player, and what separates those play styles for you.

It is quite possible you don't even recognize these things as meaningful to distinguish between, which I did also ask about! In which case I'd find it useful to get the "I don't think there's a meaningful distinction" answer too.

I do think about these things. I conceptualize it as a status dynamic where players that are higher in status within that particular game are viewed as more pro town and players that are lower in status are viewed as anti town, and there is an unspoken group consensus of who is higher/lower in status in addition to the individual beliefs which might differ substantially.

I think this construct is distinct from scum tells or town tells, and I think valid scum or town tells are extremely rare which is in contrast to valid observations about protown/antitown behavior which can be made more frequently.

I feel like Frederick has stated that he views shelly's behavior so far as antitown and has decided it's not a scum tell in her case it's just how she plays the game.

[Frogsterking]

Hey Frederick, I just thought of a couple of questions for you! Mainly because you replaced in recently and I noticed you had just finished moderating a game.

1) Have you noticed anything telling about lobbies on this site where all of the scum players became among the top 5 most active players in the game on D1?

and

2) Have you noticed anything telling about lobbies on this site where all of the scum players became among the top 5 most townread players in the game on D1?

[Frogsterking]

I feel like redados was noticeably more open and aggressive during his D1 town play of the other game and it could be indicative of an alignment change but I think that's a little thin.

I'm playing this game differently so far, mostly because of IRL stuff. Last game I was hitting refresh and constantly checking the game and because of life circumstances, I am not available to do that right now. Last game was also a different type of game because there were less paragraphs and more one-liners, and I'm getting used to the new style. I'm getting used to paragraph vs paragraph. It's not an excuse, just more of an acknowledgement that I would like to get more involved with this game.

Last game too I was constantly posting reads lists and impressions as they came to me. I am struggling to develop reads right now. I feel very in-my-head regarding ItalianoVD and ShellyC; my impressions of them from last game are burned into my head and it's like the opposite of a meta read. It's not helpful and I'm trying to separate them in my head that they don't necessarily have the same roles as last game. I'm townreading Italiano but I feel like it's leftover town cred from last game so not genuine.

I'm town-reading Mush, but I don't really have reads on anyone else. Again, the paragraph style of posting is something that I need to get used to.

I feel like that is an excuse (and it's understandable.)

Can you make a quadruplet of off-the-cuff reads, two different ones for shelly and italiano, one taking into account last game vs one taking purely this game into account?

[Frogsterking]

Yeah. (ignoring last game) this game Shelly has been pretty active and pushing. I don't necessarily agree with her pushes because she reaallly does not like being scumread. I am still scumreading her.

(using last game) I don't agree with Shelly's constant pushing because she was doing that last game; she kept yelling at MiniMegabyte for "scumslipping" (Mini was town). I think it's not helpful to latch onto small things and use them to justify a scumread. Sometimes you have a feeling you can't justify, but I think it's disingenuous to pull weak justification for your scumread. In retrospect, I may have done that with my initial scumread of Shelly, so I'm revising my scumread from a justified one to a gut one.

(ignoring last game) ItalianoVD has not been super active but he's posted enough. He's given reads and had conversations with people. I don't really have a handle on his alignment yet.

(using last game) something someone else said about how Italiano's playstyle might make him look scummier than he is resonates with me. I spent a lot of last game oscillating back and forth whether Italiano was scum or town and my impression is that he could hide it well enough if he were scum. It makes me scared to townread him or scumread him, although I'm townreading him now. I do feel like he was more active and off-the-cuff last game, but I haven't gone back and really ISOd and compared, which I will do at some point.

Hmm..

[Frogsterking]

I've been giving myself a little time away so I can get a fresh look at things. I plan on posting my preferred D1 lunch candidate list tonight or tomorrow morning and a separate list for any players I tr. I plan on responding to posts by Mush, Redados and Frederick.

Rocknil

was

my main FoS for the last few days because of the early post + lurk (which was also done by Tastuye in Frederick's slot), + overabundance of TvT-seeming interactions and general towniness creating a game-state where I'm more open to lunch in the lurker+VI pool. I waited because I was hoping he or his partner would interact with each other (which I figured was less likely after I voted him.) I believe this is a valid case for Frederick's slot and potentially van's slot as well, Rocknil just fit the archetype more purely.

Since then I've reconsidered based on Rocknil's syntax. I believe scum performing a post + lurk will typically use less first-person and write in longer sentences. He could be an archetypal post + lurk scum who just has better lines, it was just enough to make me reconsider. For this reason I'm leaving my vote on Frederick for now.

I think we need to

finalize a few candidates for the D1 lunch

.

[Frogsterking]

Rocknil

was

my main FoS for the last few days because of the early post + lurk (which was also done by Tastuye in Frederick's slot), + overabundance of TvT-seeming interactions and general towniness creating a game-state where I'm more open to lunch in the lurker+VI pool. I waited because I was hoping he or his partner would interact with each other (which I figured was less likely after I voted him.) I believe this is a valid case for Frederick's slot and potentially van's slot as well, Rocknil just fit the archetype more purely.

Here's the full research if you want to read:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Detection

VOTE: Rocknil

I double-checked my research on syntax this afternoon and was mixed up about sentence length and pronouns; longer sentences and use of the second-person were negatively correlated with scum not positively.

[Frogsterking]

A - B - C - D of the thought process behind the rocknil vote.

A)

Rocknil

was

my main FoS for the last few days because of the early post + lurk (which was also done by Tastuye in Frederick's slot), + overabundance of TvT-seeming interactions and general towniness creating a game-state where I'm more open to lunch in the lurker+VI pool. I waited because I was hoping he or his partner would interact with each other (which I figured was less likely after I voted him.) I believe this is a valid case for Frederick's slot and potentially van's slot as well, Rocknil just fit the archetype more purely.

B)

Since then I've reconsidered based on Rocknil's syntax. I believe scum performing a post + lurk will typically use less first-person and write in longer sentences. He could be an archetypal post + lurk scum who just has better lines, it was just enough to make me reconsider. For this reason I'm leaving my vote on Frederick for now.

C)

I double-checked my research on syntax this afternoon and was mixed up about sentence length and pronouns; longer sentences and use of the second-person were negatively correlated with scum not positively.

D)

At first glance Frederick's (who I was previously voting) vote on shelly looked townie to me.

[Frogsterking]

shelly if u could shoot anyone right now who would it be

[Frogsterking]

@Rocknil

if u could shoot anyone right now who would it be

@Van

if u could shoot anyone right now who would it be

[Frogsterking]

alright let's see what we can do here. i've overreacted to reactions before in medias im more experienced in however my instinct is that rocknil is town.

[Frogsterking]

My primary execution target is shellyc now. Give me several hours to do some things I have to get done and I will elaborate. I promise I will be less than 24 hours.

yeah like fred i have a few things i need to say as well. but i will spit some out now.

UNVOTE: rocknil

rocknil could be right, in the past i've overreacted to reactions many times. i think he could be scum and his partner was like "oh well i can't defend him now there are too many on him." i think more likely the general consensus of "oh golly well i sure dont have a problem lynchin' rocknil" implies that rocknil was a ML and one or both the scum are implicitly willing to jump on-board.

[Frogsterking]

First of all I want to point out that something which stood out to me from the redados/italion/shelly game was that shelly's partner in that game was an SE who got replaced in D1 and shelly totally threw her partner under the bus in that game. In that game shelly changed targets and someone else got lynched D1 but her partner got lynched D2.

The point being really that if it ever comes to a question of whether or not shelly will bus on D1 the answer is that she will.

VOTE: MagikHorse

I've given myself enough time to let the thread sink in I think and MagikHorse stuck out too much.

In my opinion if the rocknil lynch will just go down like that either i just nailed it straight out of the park or the scum are in the mid-activity posters like magikhorse and if not him then italiano. I feel too much for the hubris and what-not which makes me change even if that means sometimes i was just right the first time.

[Frogsterking]

i feel like the next 48 hours or so are critical to be on in if u r town because it gives u a chance to prevent things from being downhill tomorrow.

Frogster didn't ask me, but I have an answer anyway. For reasons of not influencing the answers of the INTENDED targets, I'm sitting on it till they answer.

what was it.

Yeah. (ignoring last game) this game Shelly has been pretty active and pushing. I don't necessarily agree with her pushes because she reaallly does not like being scumread. I am still scumreading her.

(using last game) I don't agree with Shelly's constant pushing because she was doing that last game; she kept yelling at MiniMegabyte for "scumslipping" (Mini was town). I think it's not helpful to latch onto small things and use them to justify a scumread. Sometimes you have a feeling you can't justify, but I think it's disingenuous to pull weak justification for your scumread. In retrospect, I may have done that with my initial scumread of Shelly, so I'm revising my scumread from a justified one to a gut one.

(ignoring last game) ItalianoVD has not been super active but he's posted enough. He's given reads and had conversations with people. I don't really have a handle on his alignment yet.

(using last game) something someone else said about how Italiano's playstyle might make him look scummier than he is resonates with me. I spent a lot of last game oscillating back and forth whether Italiano was scum or town and my impression is that he could hide it well enough if he were scum. It makes me scared to townread him or scumread him, although I'm townreading him now. I do feel like he was more active and off-the-cuff last game, but I haven't gone back and really ISOd and compared, which I will do at some point.

i just kind of feel like redados is town.

[Frogsterking]

Second reframe: Shelly is a high information target for elimination, MagikHorse is not. MagikHorse has done far less interacting with the majority of players, more bouncing off of them than pushing anything too hard. Since Frogster’s MagikHorse vote is in part based on scum-interpreted Shelly interactions, I would recommend her over him.

yeah that's why i voted them.

[Frogsterking]

Yeah. (ignoring last game) this game Shelly has been pretty active and pushing. I don't necessarily agree with her pushes because she reaallly does not like being scumread. I am still scumreading her.

(using last game) I don't agree with Shelly's constant pushing because she was doing that last game; she kept yelling at MiniMegabyte for "scumslipping" (Mini was town). I think it's not helpful to latch onto small things and use them to justify a scumread. Sometimes you have a feeling you can't justify, but I think it's disingenuous to pull weak justification for your scumread. In retrospect, I may have done that with my initial scumread of Shelly, so I'm revising my scumread from a justified one to a gut one.

(ignoring last game) ItalianoVD has not been super active but he's posted enough. He's given reads and had conversations with people. I don't really have a handle on his alignment yet.

(using last game) something someone else said about how Italiano's playstyle might make him look scummier than he is resonates with me. I spent a lot of last game oscillating back and forth whether Italiano was scum or town and my impression is that he could hide it well enough if he were scum. It makes me scared to townread him or scumread him, although I'm townreading him now. I do feel like he was more active and off-the-cuff last game, but I haven't gone back and really ISOd and compared, which I will do at some point.

Hmm..

That was off the cuff so I'm curious to hear your reaction.

it made me feel joy inside

[Frogsterking]

I believe Redados was high activity in the very early game and then dropped off and I think it's less likely to me he does that there as scum.

I think Frederick has town told more than shelly and both have town told a similar amount to expect them to in the games they flip scum.

A narrative that entertains me is that it's both shelly and Fredick. The idea being that Frederick replaces a scum SE slot ~10 pages in, Frederick gives it a solid skim through, then all of a sudden an assortment of stylistic characters start pressuring him faster than he expected including his own partner bussing him and he gets flustered and suddenly has to tryhard in a newbie game. Especially if Frederick is more of a town player than a scum player and now he's stuck having to carry off his main role which was not what he expected entering into a newbie game. I don't know how accurate this narrative is I just thought it was funny to point out.

[Frogsterking]

The point being really that if it ever comes to a question of whether or not shelly will bus on D1 the answer is that she will.

I'm fond of bussing. I guess I am. So you are saying that I may be scum with Redados / Fredrick / rocknil?

yes exactly. that is the main advantage of having the meta from the previous game in my opinion, because it demonstrates u r completely willing to do that.

[Frogsterking]

Second reframe: Shelly is a high information target for elimination, MagikHorse is not. MagikHorse has done far less interacting with the majority of players, more bouncing off of them than pushing anything too hard. Since Frogster’s MagikHorse vote is in part based on scum-interpreted Shelly interactions, I would recommend her over him.

I am the scum lynchbait. OK I get it we need to eliminate someone. I have been not playing very well this game. I understand the reasons that I may come off as anti town. I will willingly sacrifice myself if you want to get the wagon starting.

Keep in mind I will flip green. I will 100% flip green. If that removes Redados and Italiano's paranoia, feel free to lynch me. If that gives us info, feel free to lynch me.

Remember to analyse my wagon - I am pretty sure scum will be on it. Remember if you eliminate me today and miseliminate tomorrow, it would soon be LimLo (assuming scum get the nightkills in between)

I understand that my death might bring good to the town. I will self vote if you wish.

imo u aren't the lynchbait

[Frogsterking]

well that was unexpected

[Frogsterking]

When I first entered the game and thought she behaved the scummiest of all the players, I thought her thinking I had a scumread on her was because she simply failed to understand that I didn't necessarily think she was scum. However, as she continued to say that I scumread her from the start despite my many attempts at clarification, I chalked it up to the possibility she really believes that I thought she was scum and retracted it. This belief has been shattered after I see that she could clearly imagine a possibility in which something explicit was not said here. However, within that post in which I said I thought she behaved the scummiest, I made it very clear I made a distinction between behaving the scummiest and likely to be scum and even thought that whoever I thought was behaving the scummiest was irrelevant. Yet, she could not understand it despite my many attempts at clarification. I believe the most likely possibility now is that she has deliberately not understood to continue to scumread me.

idk. i am working on a response to your data you posted earlier. it would help if u posted the results of the iso u were reading earlier.

[Frogsterking]

wow that's harsh for van's slot and i think it will be helpful for town.

[Frogsterking]

wow that's harsh for van's slot and i think it will be helpful for town.

this is a reaction to van's slot being replaced.

[Frogsterking]

idk. i am working on a response to your data you posted earlier. it would help if u posted the results of the iso u were reading earlier.

I would like to see the ISO results as well. It would help me make my judgement as to who I shall spend my final days focusing at.

*passes popcorn to shelly*

[Frogsterking]

Welcome to the town LavarManos

[Frogsterking]

i think in link i posted for newbie games the town winrate was supposed to be significantly higher for games where there were three replacements.

[Frogsterking]

Yes. You are my scumread. I would like the town to lim you. If you are scum, you can keep voting yourself. If you are town, you should unvote.

There was no pressure on you. You had two votes: one from me (which has been there since very early) and one from Fredrick A Campbell, who is in the lynchpool of several players. That's nothing!!! You were not looking like the likely lim! And then you roleflipped for no reason way too early and voted for yourself. Voting for yourself and rushing the lim is anti-town behavior. We still have 48 hours to lim. And again I want to stress that you were NOT the likely lim.

Ok Mush literally said "Is anyone against shelly lim" so I assume I was the lim target. i roleclaimed so y'all didn't need to worry about flipping me.

I have no interest in flipping rocknil, really. Why would flipping a lurker get us any reads?

I concede that part of my voting was to check for reactions. I will unvote now. UNVOTE: shellyc

(added bold)

How did u know mush was town?

[Frogsterking]

@magikhorse

if u could insta-kill anyone right now who would it be?

[Frogsterking]

I will not no-eliminate on Day 1, I will not do it. I will go so far as to say I will self-hammer before I do it. If that’s what is required to get a wagon to elimination, by god I will push myself to the gallows.

Did Shelly sheep this?

(I agree with mislim over no lim though of course, just pointing this out)

Yeah unfortunately I have been scumread in all the games I’ve played on this site. Even in the other forums I’ve been a part of I am generally looked at as more wolfy than villagery. I’ve been told it’s the way I read people and how I post. shelly, I actually only truly town read 3 players (Redados, Frogsterking and Frederick). I could I’ve been right a larger percentage of the time in my history, but I can still be wrong here. It’s the scumreading I still have a problem with. But those are simply the three players I wouldn’t be comfortable eliminating today.

I'm re-reading the thread and this stuck out to me.
I would like to point out that ItalianoVD was universally townread for the back half of day one in Newbie 2019. So I'm not sure how this looks.

My answer has changed, Frogster.

Initially, it was Italiano. As I said... I have Concerns.

Right now, it’s Shelly. I was weakly, weakly townreading Shelly. This last outburst has made me a lot less certain, and IF it wasn’t sacrificing the vote, I’d gladly see her flip more than anyone else. (But my primary targets I want to save for the vote, she’s like ... number four on my current list.)

i reached that point too that's why i voted in the mid-activity posters because i interpreted it as a sign i had too many false positives and the scum were successfully blending

[Frogsterking]

and @redados i think what italiano said is consistent

[Frogsterking]

yeah i want to make sure we get a target in. VOTE: shellyc

[Frogsterking]

im fine scumhunting on the last day as long as we have enough on to get the hammer in.

[Frogsterking]

i feel like we did our job D1

[Frogsterking]

Since you guys seemed to like my last source I'll link another one I thought was helpful:

https://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/fo ... University


This is a collection of 24 articles that in my opinion range from moderately low to very high in level of expertise. In addition to the varying levels of expertise the information is qualitative in nature as opposed to quantitative so it's unlike the other source I shared. This source was useful for things like understanding different terminology, understanding differences between metas and medias of mafia, and understanding what kind of high level strategies exist for both sides.

Ahem.

LO, it was told that there would be Two and Seven, and the Two were to be friends only to The Adversary (cursed be his name), and the Seven were to withstand their predations. "For one night, and all of ye may die", so it is written.
And it was foretold that the Seven WOULD NOT KNOW the Two, and that they might only withstand their siege by counting out those among them, and proclaiming one to be of the Two.
And I TELL YOU, we are in this time, and the Two ARE among us. We cannot know their faces nor their natures, yea, they do stalk among us like SHADOWS. And there is but one way to DRAW FORTH the TRUTH: ye must VOTE on who ye believe belong to the Two.
And NOW do I cast my vote down: yea, though it is surely mistaken, it will elicit reaction, whereby one might get information. And I pick one of the OLD and WISE among us, I tell you THEIR EXPERIENCE will guide us to the light! And they bear the face of a frog, one of those Unclean Spirits of The Adversary -- so I do not have a shame to feel, should they be truly ajudged guilty by us.
Praise be to the Moderator!

And two...

Let us understand the nature of the world in which we exist: there are seven Innocents, and two Murderers. There is no escape: this place is a grave. Whether we are disentombed before we suffocate is a matter of our actions: we can only work together to reopen that gate to the world of life when we can trust our backs to remain unsullied by knives, our necks to resist the garrote.
The Murderers, we shall see, are symbols of that Final Death. And the Innocents symbolize that there is no life too pure for the Reaper.
Among us, cloaked in darkness such that we can only hear our own voices (the fire of Plato gone out, snuffed by an anti-Prometheus), we have those who are new to this, but no more innocent than others, for change is feared and fear has only a few reactions -- one of which is fighting, violence. And we have those who are old, and are intended to guide us, for they have been in this pit before, and we may all very well return, perhaps together, perhaps apart. It is in their interests to teach us the Ways by which they have survived, for we all are innocent at times and murderers at others.
But they have goals of their own, and they may be vicious or kind, pure or caked in filth: we cannot know. The darkness, it is absolute. We can only find them by their voices, grasp tightly, and threaten them, accusatory, outraged, and see how they respond: for truth comes out of conflict, as only conflict can dissolve lies.

And finally...

It seemed smartest to vote on one of the experienced players. They're more likely to understand what happens in the RVS, and they're going to react, or fail to react, accordingly. There's three, and I have one vote. So I picked Frogsterking because he has "king" in the name.
This has a somewhat higher chance of being someone who flusters easily, because royal titles in usernames tend to correspond with nerdy people or people who think highly of themselves. That's not a perfect correlation, just a recurring theme I've noticed in my, uh, 19 years online. This point is basically a game of chance and I didn't bother researching anyone this game for meta, so that seemed like the best way to maximize chances of getting information.

This daystart makes sense to me. Mush is demonstrating abilities like range of vocabulary, flexibility, ability to think from multiple perspectives. Seems like someone who wants to have a significant voice within the village and is willing to take on pressure/attention from other players. Struck me as a strong D1 player who sometimes had trouble later in the game which Mush self-confirmed. It makes me believe it will be easier to attempt to read Mush later in the game as opposed to earlier.

Here is one of the articles I linked to at the beginning of this post:
https://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/th ... tichora%29

Here is another one:
https://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/th ... erchief%29

These articles describe an alternative strategy for scum that involves becoming the influential player that is townread and directs the attention of the other players. I describe it as alternative because I believe strong scum players will usually try to play somewhere in the middle of status so they don't get lynched early and have some input but it still makes sense they're alive after multiple night kills. Based on Mush's reaction to my suggestion town let scum make plays it appears to me that Mush is hyper-vigilant of the alternative game plan of taking control early. If Mush is scum this is the approach she is choosing to take this game and it seems like she drew an enormous amount of attention to it by continuing her interaction with me. This is a big reason why I not only believe she might be town but that she's a poor D1 lynch and will be easier to understand later.

Yeah. (ignoring last game) this game Shelly has been pretty active and pushing. I don't necessarily agree with her pushes because she reaallly does not like being scumread. I am still scumreading her.

(using last game) I don't agree with Shelly's constant pushing because she was doing that last game; she kept yelling at MiniMegabyte for "scumslipping" (Mini was town). I think it's not helpful to latch onto small things and use them to justify a scumread. Sometimes you have a feeling you can't justify, but I think it's disingenuous to pull weak justification for your scumread. In retrospect, I may have done that with my initial scumread of Shelly, so I'm revising my scumread from a justified one to a gut one.

(ignoring last game) ItalianoVD has not been super active but he's posted enough. He's given reads and had conversations with people. I don't really have a handle on his alignment yet.

(using last game) something someone else said about how Italiano's playstyle might make him look scummier than he is resonates with me. I spent a lot of last game oscillating back and forth whether Italiano was scum or town and my impression is that he could hide it well enough if he were scum. It makes me scared to townread him or scumread him, although I'm townreading him now. I do feel like he was more active and off-the-cuff last game, but I haven't gone back and really ISOd and compared, which I will do at some point.

Hmm..

That was off the cuff so I'm curious to hear your reaction.

My reaction is that it's a conscientious and cooperative response. NAI and pro-town.

The point being really that if it ever comes to a question of whether or not shelly will bus on D1 the answer is that she will.

I'm fond of bussing. I guess I am. So you are saying that I may be scum with Redados / Fredrick / rocknil?

Yes. I believe you could be scum with anyone.

Yes. You are my scumread. I would like the town to lim you. If you are scum, you can keep voting yourself. If you are town, you should unvote.

There was no pressure on you. You had two votes: one from me (which has been there since very early) and one from Fredrick A Campbell, who is in the lynchpool of several players. That's nothing!!! You were not looking like the likely lim! And then you roleflipped for no reason way too early and voted for yourself. Voting for yourself and rushing the lim is anti-town behavior. We still have 48 hours to lim. And again I want to stress that you were NOT the likely lim.

Ok Mush literally said "Is anyone against shelly lim" so I assume I was the lim target. i roleclaimed so y'all didn't need to worry about flipping me.

I have no interest in flipping rocknil, really. Why would flipping a lurker get us any reads?

I concede that part of my voting was to check for reactions. I will unvote now. UNVOTE: shellyc

(added bold)

How did u know mush was town?

I didn't say Mush was town. I just said i was the target.

I'm curious what others have to say because to me it looks like you reacted the way you did not because of the quantity of votes but because you had some certainty they were coming from a town direction.

That part there.

If there’s more than 12 hours left in the Day, I’d prefer less active players lay their votes down and the active players withhold them to hammer closer to the deadline.

1: maximizing information gathered for Day 1.
2: reduces chances of scumteam forcing a hammer through to deny discussion time to town.

Frogster, what were you thinking putting Shelly at E-1 without saying?

You could have promised to place your vote later or asked to swap vote position with another active player. I strongly dislike that your idea was to just push the vote to the very brink and risk losing the scum hunting and discussion time we’ll need going into Day 2. Hell, you could have prevented me from explaining my play today, which is arguably pro-scum — not just anti-town.

That in mind, next post is going to be an explanation of my play. But assuming Shelly flips Town and I survive the night, I am going to make Frogster my new best friend on Day 2. He won’t be able to fart without me reaching for a gas spectrometer and a dictaphone.

(added bold)

I was worried I would not be here today to hammer and I was drunk so I didn't think about the consequences you just described.

Hey Frederick, I just thought of a couple of questions for you! Mainly because you replaced in recently and I noticed you had just finished moderating a game.

1) Have you noticed anything telling about lobbies on this site where all of the scum players became among the top 5 most active players in the game on D1?

and

2) Have you noticed anything telling about lobbies on this site where all of the scum players became among the top 5 most townread players in the game on D1?

After going through all that trouble of answering one of you questions, I have got to know what was the point of these questions?

I was curious about the percentage of games where both scum players adopt a power-scum strategy like I described earlier and if there was any statistical or behavioral way to determine what kind of game-state we were in before seeing any flips.

[Frogsterking]

I did a big write up on my thoughts on Magik but I decided to delete it because it looked like BS.

[Frogsterking]

If you guys that are on now (redadados and italiono) want to BW rocknil instead I'll hop on it.

[Frogsterking]

The guy that just replaced in looks town.

[Frogsterking]

If you guys that are on now (redadados and italiono) want to BW rocknil instead I'll hop on it.

Otherwise I can't guarantee I will be back in time to change my vote from shelly.

[Frogsterking]

With several hours left I'd suggest if anyone gets the chance to hammer rock or shelly or put them at e-1 they do it.

[Frogsterking]

How about that hammer though

[Frogsterking]

I"m so drunk right now guys

[Frogsterking]

Lavar what made you interested in queuing for a replacement slot instead of a new one?

[Frogsterking]

I don’t really disagree that rocknil could be a miselimination waiting to happen...

So then should we really eliminate him? He may stink as a player, but if that’s not the best move than maybe we should rethink it. Frogster has already done so in 336 & 338.

He IS, unequivocally, the easiest target to get a wagon on based on stated elimination pools. He also is one of the lowest engagement players and THE lowest information player, and his elimination (regardless of flip) substantially tightens the game state.

What am I missing with Frederick?

Reframing this: Does anyone except Shelly object to a Shelly elimination? Can we get a lock on an elimination wagon and promises that active players will push it to completion no matter their gripes, please? Because otherwise I’m saying that we stick with rocknil because no other player is that slow to respond and lacking in any informational content, and no other player has as many potential happy voters waiting to plonk down on them.

I don’t object. As the day has gone on I feel more comfortable with it. I just had to build the read more organically, so even though we clashed, thanks for letting me see that.

Second reframe: Shelly is a high information target for elimination, MagikHorse is not.

MagikHorse has done far less interacting with the majority of players, more bouncing off of them than pushing anything too hard.

Since Frogster’s MagikHorse vote is in part based on scum-interpreted Shelly interactions, I would recommend her over him.

(Bolded) And how do you feel about this? What are your feelings towards Magik, unless of course you don’t want to reveal it, then I guess it’s fine.

@Frogsterking: Coukd you let me know what towntold is again. I asked one of the SE’s last game and I’ve looked in his posts but I can’t find what he said.

(added bold)

It's possible I and the SE in question were referring to different things. To me towntold means the same as "they seem like town" or "i have a townlean feeling on this guy." Maybe the context I (and others) say towntold is referring to a specific incident while in other situations I (and others) might instead say townread to refer to incidents in general about a specific player. Again though it's possible we were referring to different things so it could be something good to learn more about.

[Frogsterking]

I pushed on Magik because I was curious what would happen and my gameplan as scum (if I wanted to win) would be to look like Magik pretty much. And just towntell during lylo.

If I were scum and wanted to have fun I would play like shelly.

I think I looked through Magik's meta and noticed he'd been hoping he would get to play scum on this site. Which makes me think if Magik queued and flipped scum it would look similar to how he's playing now because he's played it (successfully) on other websites or medias and not this one and would like to win this first time.

The main reason I would single Magik out for something like this is that I feel like his approach as scum especially when he wanted to win would be more technical which is how he's playing now.

The reason I deleted this stuff earlier was that I realized it was ridiculous to sr someone for seeming townie enough. I think overall Magik is prob town.

[Frogsterking]

I've given myself enough time to let the thread sink in I think and MagikHorse stuck out too much.

In my opinion if the rocknil lynch will just go down like that either i just nailed it straight out of the park or the scum are in the mid-activity posters like magikhorse and if not him then italiano. I feel too much for the hubris and what-not which makes me change even if that means sometimes i was just right the first time.

Why do I stick out, and what are you saying regarding the Rocknil elim here?

I think you stuck out because I wanted to townread you and I was not sure how certain you were about your read on shelly. As far as rocknil goes I'm fine with either rocknil or shelly.

[Frogsterking]

I pushed on Magik because I was curious what would happen and my gameplan as scum (if I wanted to win) would be to look like Magik pretty much. And just towntell during lylo.

If I were scum and wanted to have fun I would play like shelly.

I think I looked through Magik's meta and noticed he'd been hoping he would get to play scum on this site. Which makes me think if Magik queued and flipped scum it would look similar to how he's playing now because he's played it (successfully) on other websites or medias and not this one and would like to win this first time.

The main reason I would single Magik out for something like this is that I feel like his approach as scum especially when he wanted to win would be more technical which is how he's playing now.

The reason I deleted this stuff earlier was that I realized it was ridiculous to sr someone for seeming townie enough. I think overall Magik is prob town.

Lol what does "If I were scum and wanted to have fun I would play like shelly" mean

I meant it literally. Especially if you and Frederick are the scum team, I thought that was so funny.

[Frogsterking]

Actually, looking at the player list, it seems that I have a minor townread on everyone except for shellyc and rocknil.

Yeah. It's an interesting game.

[Frogsterking]

Yeah guys just gonna say I think it's Larvar and Rocknil

[Frogsterking]

VOTE: Rocknil

[Frogsterking]

Strong town game.

[Frogsterking]

Why are you voting rocknil instead of me though and why do you think we are scum together? Do you really think I would choose to attack him, but have him completely ignore my presence?

VOTE: LavarManos

[Frogsterking]

I'm up against a Charmeleon this time

[Frogsterking]

#1

Why are you voting rocknil instead of me though and why do you think we are scum together?

#2

Do you really think I would choose to attack him, but have him completely ignore my presence?

Answer my question

(added numbers and bold)

#1

Because I had already voted Rocknil and both you and Van's slots had seemed so townie it felt more intuitive to just vote Rocknil

#2

Yes

[Frogsterking]

#1

As for why it's you two together it's purely through priority of elimination. I think most newbies queued up for this game because they wanted to find scum and I think the other slot lurked when they rolled scum (Rocknil's) and your slot replaced through until the most competitive personality joined (you).

To be more specific I don't think either Frederick or Magik would have killed Mush if they were scum I think both would have killed Redados and between the newbie slots alone you're a lot more likely even though you and the other replacement seemed townie in your initial posts.

[Frogsterking]

The fact you're asking for an explanation instead of accusing me of being scummy (as though you're more worried that I cheated than if I really know if you're scum or not) is another tick in the scum direction from my point of view.

[Frogsterking]

I also think you were most active at the beginning of the daystart because you were the one to hammer the night action.

[Frogsterking]

Now let's see how Charmander handles Watergun!!

[Frogsterking]

Now, play explanation!

If I pressure someone and don’t tell them my reads, my pressure is increased tremendously. The default assumption is I have a scumread. It is also that that player has a TELL that I am reading off of and do not want them to be aware of and get rid of. If it’s true, the reason to play this way is obvious. If it’s untrue, it implies that there is a scumtell that is exceptionally strong and I’m putting the screws on. I am going to make you crack. The whole town will scumread you. Just you wait. This leads to town players floundering and scum players rapid fire trying to change their play styles to blindly avoid a scumread.

Sometimes, they actually do start to scumtell. Sometimes. Even if they don’t, the rapid, apparently /pointless/ playstyle changes provide information to town: this person is more concerned with how they look than finding player alignments, and that’s a scum playstyle.

If I then interact positively with that player, relief occurs. “Ah, I’m safe, I must be town read.” Town and scum react differently to these, more so even than to the initial pressure. Scum wants to get buddy buddy a bit more than town: town gets more wary or dismissive of me where scum wants to avoid the pressure and scrutiny and try to, even if not necessarily buddy me, certainly to play a more accommodating and cooperative game when it comes to me.

The longer I wait to share my reads, the more the pressure builds for both of these. Scum don’t feel safe until I sort them as town, town flounders and becomes defeated as hope of getting pressure off goes down. These aren’t universal, there is crossover, but they’re important information.

Another thing: STRONG baseless pushes tilt the play field. Everyone has to react to me and my target. We get a ton of associative information based on this, because town and scum have different world views when under fire: town sees baseless pushes, scum sees “oh damn I am scum telling and I don’t know about it”, or better still, “my partner is scum telling and is a weak link in the chain, I need to eliminate them as fast as possible”.

The best part of this is that it keeps working even when I tell you all about it. Because there is always the chance that I see scumtells that I am keeping under my hat until I’m good and ready to share them.

This is not necessarily pro town play, but it is exceptionally effective in Day 1, when information is nonexistent or open to interpretation. On later days, it loses effectiveness, creating noise where actual data exists. I imagine more experienced players would be less prone to it, also, though highly critical or anxious players may never be resistant to the style.

That is what has been going on. Read back through and tell me how many associative information with Frederick weren’t intermediated by my gigantic push, just by way of example! Ultimately, I believe more discussion and information came from this playstyle than would have otherwise been seen.

Why are you voting rocknil instead of me though and why do you think we are scum together? Do you really think I would choose to attack him, but have him completely ignore my presence?

VOTE: LavarManos

Why did you decide to switch to LavarManos after he/she questioned you?

Because I don't care. I will vote Rocknil or Lavar today unless you have some insight otherwise. If you would rather lynch Rocknil on D2 because you think he's a better ML candidate I will switch right now.

[Frogsterking]

By don't care I mean I don't care if I have to vote Rocknil or Lavaar, not that I don't care about the outcome of the game! I do want to win and I am town and I think either one of these is the best move.

[Frogsterking]

By don't care I mean I don't care if I have to vote Rocknil or Lavaar, not that I don't care about the outcome of the game! I do want to win and I am town and I think either one of these is the best move.

I didn't misinterpret what you said although it was ambiguous on looking back. I'm going to give myself 24 hours to look through parts of the thread. If I find anything, I will obviously announce it. If I don't, I will continue to look.

Yeah that's fine unfortunately another less likely explanation is that Redados is scum which is why Mush died and one of Lavar/Rocknil is inno.

[Frogsterking]

By don't care I mean I don't care if I have to vote Rocknil or Lavaar, not that I don't care about the outcome of the game! I do want to win and I am town and I think either one of these is the best move.

I didn't misinterpret what you said although it was ambiguous on looking back. I'm going to give myself 24 hours to look through parts of the thread. If I find anything, I will obviously announce it. If I don't, I will continue to look.

By don't care I mean I don't care if I have to vote Rocknil or Lavaar, not that I don't care about the outcome of the game! I do want to win and I am town and I think either one of these is the best move.

I didn't misinterpret what you said although it was ambiguous on looking back. I'm going to give myself 24 hours to look through parts of the thread. If I find anything, I will obviously announce it. If I don't, I will continue to look.

Yeah that's fine unfortunately another less likely explanation is that Redados is scum which is why Mush died and one of Lavar/Rocknil is inno.

Just fyi I'm curious what you have to say about that.

[Frogsterking]

Well, hopefully that means I'm about 15 minutes ahead of the curve.

[Frogsterking]

Watergun missed!

I think most newbies queued up for this game because they wanted to find scum

This is fair.

your slot replaced through until the most competitive personality joined (you).

Don't you think shellyc was more competitive? Also, why do you think that is alignment indicative?

To be more specific I don't think either Frederick or Magik would have killed Mush if they were scum I think both would have killed Redados and between the newbie slots alone you're a lot more likely even though you and the other replacement seemed townie in your initial posts.

#1

I don't follow this at all. MUSH suspected you, Fredrick, and rocknil to some extent, so why are you saying they wouldn't have incentive to kill her and instead kill Redados? This seems like quite a stretch, and you may even trying to be

intentionally

twisting the narrative. I do not know yet.

The fact you're asking for an explanation instead of accusing me of being scummy (as though you're more worried that I cheated than if I really know if you're scum or not) is another tick in the scum direction from my point of view.

I'm trying to see your thought process to see if how you arrived at this rocknil/me scumteam is a reasonable vs malicious.

I also think you were most active at the beginning of the daystart because you were the one to hammer the night action.

(added numbers and bold)

#1

Because her suspicion of so many different kinds of players could be a late game win condition for mafia who are hurting for win conditions in this setup and I think killing her n1 clears up too much for town about the gamestate. I also feel like it was a low-chance PR shot.

If I remember correctly Redados was pretty townread yesterday as well, aside from the MagikHorse slot and shelly who was lynched. Italiano also could have been a good night kill.

Basically killing Mush simplifies the game which is only good for scum if they are being townread by everyone and I don't believe that's the case here. It's possible, it just seems less likely.

I think you make good arguments and are good at seeming townie but selecting a night kill requires game sense and I don't know if you have that.

Why are you voting rocknil instead of me though and why do you think we are scum together?

#2

Do you really think I would choose to attack him, but have him completely ignore my presence?

#2

Yeah. I could see you bussing here. I mean what else would you really do? I feel like you need to play that way now in this gamestate or suffer a slow death.


Three other things I thought of is that you seem like you want to have an active voice in the town ever since you replaced in and night killing Mush is something enabling you to do that now.

It's also possible that Frederick would want to kill Mush just to get rid of the pressure or another duo apart from Rock/Lavar just decided it was the best kill. I guess I'm curious what everyone else has to say about the night kill?

[Frogsterking]

Yeah. I could see you bussing here. I mean what else would you really do? I feel like you need to play that way now in this gamestate or suffer a slow death.

Why would I need to bus him when I am already fairly townread? That doesn't make the most sense to me.

So you don't get hammered in the final three.

[Frogsterking]

I am still townreading Italiano and I still townread you, so I am thinking we can try to find the scumteam in the remaining pool of four players based on how they have interacted. I do not think rocknil is scum with Fredrick because there is no need to open up the day with a vote on his scumbuddy. I also do not like how rocknil chose to ignore my vote on him.

In Day 1, I pushed hard for shellyc. I thought there was something tangible there but I was wrong. I don't blame you for scumreading me. But you are wrong. I am now going over the thread to find the scum team. I have this feeling that I've missed something.

I feel that. I'm curious what you find.

[Frogsterking]

I'm really curious to hear from MagikHorse's replacement slot, I think getting an outsider's perspective on D1 will help.

There were a few things I was trying to type and I wasn't sure if I was making sense so I'm going to get some sleep and write more tomorrow. I'm planning on responding to Larvar and Redados and rereading some of D1.

[Frogsterking]

Hi! I'm replacing in for MagikHorse!

Time to whip this game into shape.

Initial question is how do we have 12 days left in a 7-day day?

Reading now.

Welcome to the town Casey!

[Frogsterking]

Okay I lightly townread MagikHorse and now I lightly townread Casey in the same slot which makes my life a lot easier.

[Frogsterking]

Casey if you didn't already say what is your opinion of the N1 Mush kill and my Rocknil/Lavar theory.

[Frogsterking]

Frog wasn't there something about welcome posts in that paper?

Probably. I've read a lot about welcome posts. It all blurs together a little bit.

[Frogsterking]

Okay I lightly townread MagikHorse and now I lightly townread Casey in the same slot which makes my life a lot easier.

Also what downgraded me from "town" to "lightly townread"?

I was just welcoming you earlier, not implying that I townread you yet.

[Frogsterking]

Casey if you didn't already say what is your opinion of the N1 Mush kill and my Rocknil/Lavar theory.

Haven't gotten that far. I'll get to it when I get to it.

That's fine, there's a lot to read.

[Frogsterking]

Okay so look at these.

Welcome to the town Casey!

Welcome aboard, Casey.

Welcome to the game Casey.

Italiano and Rock welcome me to the game / aboard, but you specifically welcome me to the

town

.

Hmm that's interesting. Maybe I implicitly read you as town because I was motivated by hope and my prior read of the MagikHorse slot.

[Frogsterking]

Ok. Can you guess my career?

Let's see

[Frogsterking]

TOWN

Redados - Consistent, fearless posting. Strongest townread by far. Nothing to complain about here, at all.

OK

Italiano - Confusing, though consistent and confident. Someone earlier mentioned he was like a puppy dog playing in the snow and after a reread I can feel that vibe.

MEH

Frog - The theory lessons are great, but it would also be great if he'd

do something.

Campbell - Frustrating posts. Weak townreads. Non-committal.

NAH

Rocknil - Less Rock than Nil. Hasn't followed through with

any

activity as claimed. Biggest post was a heckin sketchy dud.

LavarManos - Absolutely 100% disappointing and gross posts.

I have 4 pages left to read. Barring any revelations, Lavar needs to go.

Looks like we have pretty similar reads. I'll try to post more in depth in the areas I promised tomorrow morning.

I think I did enough outside the theory lessons since I lead the initial pushes on both your current scum reads.

[Frogsterking]

Frogsterking, why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill.

In the mafia format I have almost all of my experience in (livechat, roughly 5-20 minute days and 1-5 minute nights on average) I relied extensively on analyzing night kills to complement behavioral reads.

Part of the reason that method was useful to me was I understood how players of different levels approached their night choices in that format.

Things are different when players get a couple days to make their choice instead of a couple minutes and I'm not sure how much of what I know carries over to this format and I'm trying to learn quickly.

[Frogsterking]

Spoiler:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels uncomfortable with the dynamics of Shelly, Redados and Italiano. Redados has, at least, modified his play after having been called out to something that could be considered more pro-town, but Shelly is hyper-focused on Redados and Italiano is hyper-focused on Shelly. This doesn't help anyone else make any decisions at all, and might very well end up with two mis-eliminations to satisfy the paranoia of these three so we can actually get down to business.

I have no intent of listing reads quite yet, but this is not good play for town from Shelly and Italiano. I think they should back up and focus attention on other people altogether for a while. Especially Italiano, who hasn't so much as sniffed in the direction of other players, as far as I can tell.

Now then...



Shelly, if town "tunnels" someone, scum don't need to say much to come across as town that's just late to the party. "Yeah, I'm honestly here on this wagon. I have nothing to add, everyone else has made my arguments for me. I think it's the right idea." Scum shouldn't be allowed to direct the conversation either, but if town gets stuck on "YES WE HAVE THE ANSWERS" scum doesn't need to do anything except not rock the boat too much.



Frogster, you have a dependent chain of events for "scum forcing interactions" being a good idea, whether you recognize the chain or not.
First, town has to town read most of town.
Second, town has to mostly not town read at least one scum.
Third, town has to be mostly coordinating rather than throwing suspicion at or questioning each other.
Only if all three things are true does scum have to try to steer the ship, so to speak. I'd like to point out that we can't get reads on enough of the players to fulfill the first chainlink yet, and we are ALL bickering too much for the third link to be fulfilled.

Letting scum force interaction at this stage is a TERRIBLE idea.

I'm really not a fan of how you're spinning my desire to be able to get reads on the majority of players. It's making something that's fairly pro-town into a vehicle for highly pro-scum play, and that is just not a good look at all on you, particularly with how town read I seem to be.

I've mentioned before: I tend to jump the gun, and I am aware of that tendency. So I'm just going to ask if anyone else feels like my words and intent might be getting twisted for hidden motives here. Because I have that feeling, I feel it in my bones, and I don't like it at all.

VOTE: Frogsterking

I always feel more comfortable having voted, and this feels like the right place to rest my vote for the time being.



I also want to bring up that MagikHorse has made himself one of my favorites with just the recently-passed flurry of posts. These are direct, cutting posts that aren't over-determined or stuck on irrelevancies. Good stuff for town, though I have yet to feel comfortable giving reads out.



And last for now, notes on why I'm avoiding giving a player overview or a reads list for so long.

Remember how I mentioned pattern-matching before?

I'm seeing patterns in all of the active users. Some I'm curious about, some I just plain don't like, all of them I want to avoid drawing too much attention to until I have reached a conclusion about the patterns I'm seeing.

If you've posted more than 6 times, I'm considering you in some way. I won't tell you how or for what until I'm good and ready, because that would give away the patterns and make it too easy to disrupt the picture I'm building. I'm going to sit on these and see what comes of my approach before I try giving reads. So you'll all have to wait a little while longer.

I think your dependency chain is an accurate example of the possible late game scenarios I'm visualizing in which town can still win in case there is little aid from prs. I would describe your dependency chain as a win condition following good early town play. I'd imagine you can see how a chain like that is unrealistic on D1 as you pointed out, but could materialize later in a 3-way or 5-way lylo situation as a result of a good D1.

I'm interested in hearing your conclusions about the player patterns and the reads list later and I agree they will be more impactful given some time. I believe this is another benefit of using the full 10 days.

I assure you there was no deliberate attempt to spin what you were saying and my motivation for paraphrasing was to express what I thought you were saying so you could confirm (or in this case deny) that there was a mutual understanding.

I suspect there is an issue with communication rather than underlying ideas about the game because I agree with most of the points you've been making. I suspect the issue is a linguistic one and we are based on different definitions of what letting scum force plays or interactions means. In my mind "forcing an interaction" or "forcing a play" is usually a bad move for the side doing it because it implies the play was unnatural or awkwardly timed (hence it had to be forced in) and will be generally less effective. A "forcing interaction" that is dominant and controls the choices the other side has available is not what I was suggesting we want to allow others to be doing.

The tunneling trio you pointed out is a solid example of what I'm referring to about forcing an interaction (not a forcing interaction.) If the scum team decides to play that way that's fine with me but if it's the town doing that then there will be problems not only today but in the endgame as well.

I believe that Redados, Shelly and Italiano will be receptive to moving forward and focusing on other players. I also believe that the incoming replacements are more likely to be an asset than a liability.

What did you mean by "The tunneling trio you pointed out is a solid example of what I'm referring to about forcing an interaction (not a forcing interaction.)"

(added spoiler so others don't have to scroll past the original quotes)

I meant that the trio of Redados, Italiano and shellyc came in with preconceived feelings about each other and were skewing the discussion toward their point of view.

I was contrasting the early actions of these three with some type of play where one or more players are able to dominate the game, force the other players to respond to them or limit the actions of the other players in some way. I didn't feel like this was what they were doing because I felt like I could read their discussion and then respond to it as I chose.

I remember at this point in time I thought (incorrectly) the conflict between Mush and I was that Mush interpreted my statements about letting mafia force plays and make mistakes as allowing other players to dominate the game, and I was attempting to clarify my point of view in ways I thought might make sense to her.

[Frogsterking]

Here's my take on Mush's more substantial reads toward the end of D1 not including shelly. Redados was null to her, Lavar was briefly mentioned but was her strongest townread (which was the second most important thing I learned going over this.) Mush was a fan of Van's push onto MagikHorse which I think helped improve her opinion of that slot substantially.

I believe I overestimated her end of day suspicion against me as well which is causing me to rethink my interpretation of events.

I'm now neutral reading both Lavar and Italiano.

UNVOTE: Lavar

I might be referencing 452 at some point while writing this post so I'm putting it in the spoiler below.

Spoiler:

Now, play explanation!

If I pressure someone and don’t tell them my reads, my pressure is increased tremendously. The default assumption is I have a scumread. It is also that that player has a TELL that I am reading off of and do not want them to be aware of and get rid of. If it’s true, the reason to play this way is obvious. If it’s untrue, it implies that there is a scumtell that is exceptionally strong and I’m putting the screws on. I am going to make you crack. The whole town will scumread you. Just you wait. This leads to town players floundering and scum players rapid fire trying to change their play styles to blindly avoid a scumread.

Sometimes, they actually do start to scumtell. Sometimes. Even if they don’t, the rapid, apparently /pointless/ playstyle changes provide information to town: this person is more concerned with how they look than finding player alignments, and that’s a scum playstyle.

If I then interact positively with that player, relief occurs. “Ah, I’m safe, I must be town read.” Town and scum react differently to these, more so even than to the initial pressure. Scum wants to get buddy buddy a bit more than town: town gets more wary or dismissive of me where scum wants to avoid the pressure and scrutiny and try to, even if not necessarily buddy me, certainly to play a more accommodating and cooperative game when it comes to me.

The longer I wait to share my reads, the more the pressure builds for both of these. Scum don’t feel safe until I sort them as town, town flounders and becomes defeated as hope of getting pressure off goes down. These aren’t universal, there is crossover, but they’re important information.

Another thing: STRONG baseless pushes tilt the play field. Everyone has to react to me and my target. We get a ton of associative information based on this, because town and scum have different world views when under fire: town sees baseless pushes, scum sees “oh damn I am scum telling and I don’t know about it”, or better still, “my partner is scum telling and is a weak link in the chain, I need to eliminate them as fast as possible”.

The best part of this is that it keeps working even when I tell you all about it. Because there is always the chance that I see scumtells that I am keeping under my hat until I’m good and ready to share them.

This is not necessarily pro town play, but it is exceptionally effective in Day 1, when information is nonexistent or open to interpretation. On later days, it loses effectiveness, creating noise where actual data exists. I imagine more experienced players would be less prone to it, also, though highly critical or anxious players may never be resistant to the style.

That is what has been going on. Read back through and tell me how many associative information with Frederick weren’t intermediated by my gigantic push, just by way of example! Ultimately, I believe more discussion and information came from this playstyle than would have otherwise been seen.

Italiano:

I got the most out of doing this on Italiano because I did not really remember what Mush had said about Italiano. Mush seemed fine with Italiano about midway through the day, weakly townreading him. Around post #300 though Mush's opinion of Italiano went sharply downhill and deteriorated rapidly throughout the day.

In the spoiler I have posts 257, 268, 304, 310, 312, 319, 386 and 495.

Spoiler:

Italiano is interesting. I think I agree: town. Weakly, but still. The pressure was because I wasn't sure, and there's a difference between stubborn town and doubt-seeding scum. But when I cornered and squeezed, he deflated, despite no real pressure aside from mine. And no one's following my lead, so there's very little reason to do that for scum.



Frogsterking's paper is based on a corpus of actual Mafiascum games, and the conclusions are statistical in nature. Some are very strong, and are far more likely to be strong for newer players. The chance of two of the SEs being scum is roughly 8%, and replacements are more statistically likely for scum-sided players (0.33 vs 0.35). That's a powerful, powerful tool for helping direct attention. Scum would have little reason to introduce that to town except purely for towncred -- hence a conditional read based on future action. It's only worth the towncred if the scum player believes it removes all real pressure or that they can keep a consistent game. Frogster smells like he could be consistent enough to play scum on this, but again, it's a conditional read.



Now that I'm feeling well-set enough, I will share some of the reasons for the Frederick debacle.

Firstly, he had (and has) nothing to offer in terms of sortable information. His play is minimal, bland and utterly ignorable. I want to squeeze that until it pops, because I hate players that do little to no /playing/. They're worse than lurkers, because people can give them a townread without even realizing why. This was why I voted him at first: not for a scumread, but for a basically zero-information playstyle. Only pressure is going to drag anything out of that.

And then, all hell broke loose.

Every third player had something to say on the matter, and no one offered a coherent defense of Frederick! Shelly didn't like my playstyle surrounding my vote of Frederick, but otherwise had no real reason to offer that might make me back off. ItalianoVD was appalled by language that I didn't use, and found my vote suspect. His defense was aggressive but ultimately /without substance/. Everyone else made some murmurs about my failure to explain my vote, and the game suddenly became a LOT more information rich.

The less explanation I gave, the more infuriated players got -- and the more flailing Frederick's activity became, culminating in /pointlessly/ quoting a contentious post I made near the beginning of the game -- page four, I believe. This was incredibly good information for town, whether you agree with how I got it or not. In future games, I might have to rely more on near-baseless strong pushes with lots of "My reasons are mysterious and I am all knowing" mystique to stir the pot. It was insightful, it was effective, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Oh yeah. And I'm keeping my vote on Frederick because I do indeed scumread him. Bland play, bland posts, calling this all so very boring, misleading garbage (that ridiculous math post), and muffled flailing when pressured hard enough for long enough. He has no town vibes, his play is so unremarkable it's anti-town, and his sum total contributions are /all/ outright anti-town. For the special sauce, since scum slots are slightly more likely to replace out statistically, he's slightly more suspicious than our non-replacing players.

So my vote stays on Frederick.

Rocknil's reaction puts him at a tentative scumread for me, just saying. Practically everyone in the game has had a strong, sustained push on them at some point aside from Van, myself, and MagikHorse. Van, MagikHorse and I have gotten /shoves/, at least.

This was barely a hard poke, and "ah, ah, scum is attacking me" is the immediate reaction.

I was talking about some stink, but that's a big one right there for me. Could be pure new player and impossible to sort with, but I'm gonna go with new scum to be safe and maybe get him playing.



Redados, I'm not sharing my read on you yet, but... presuming you are town, how likely do you think it is that ItalianoVD is scum buddying up to you? Genuine question. Oh, and do show your work, too, explain why and how you come to your conclusion!

Also interested in the flip-side answer from ItalianoVD, who, I will remind people, I weakly townread.

I think ItalianoVD is probably town, but as time wears on and I consider his posts more and more, that read gets weaker. I don't think I'll scumread him today barring exceptional, spectacular behavior (sidenote that my bar for exceptional and spectacular isn't just different in height from that of others, it's probably at a different angle altogether), but I have Concerns. Capital C.

No, these Concerns will not be aided if I air them out. In fact, they'll become More Concerning instead.

Here, a practical experiment: consider motivations from a scum mindset, reread Italiano's post history so far, and think hard about what falls out.
It isn't a fun thought, is it? Concerning. Like I said. Hopefully you can also see how making Italiano AWARE of those Concerns would be bad for sorting him long-term.

But town motivations win out here. For now.

Right now, I like Frederick (seemingly blatantly unaware of the gamestate until cornered about it???) and Rocknil (inactive AND hyper-defensive about it is a bad look) for scum. My backup is, well, not saying, but I have a solid three people I'd vote for so far, put it that way. There's only a couple people I wouldn't be caught dead voting for so far, but I'm leaving that alone till we start to finalize our Day 1 elimination.

Yes, I intend to fully explain almost everything I've been doing for Day 1 near the end of the day, in case I get eliminated. The remainder are either pointless to explain (e.g. stylistic things, blatantly obvious things) or would undo a lot of the work I've done by revealing them that early.



Speaking of, we should start to talk about that Day 1 elimination in serious terms. Like, laying elimination pools on the table and trying to find where the overlap lies, if we can put together enough votes on someone to try and run the clock down a ways or if we need to try and push for a policy elimination, etc. (This also creates lots of opportunity for reactions to sort people by.)

I'm not looking for quick elimination, I'm not even looking for votes to start moving. (Truth be told, I like the vote spread right about where it is for the moment.) I am looking for who the most players can willingly sacrifice in the game, who they will fight tooth and nail to keep out of the vote, etc. This creates groundwork to avoid no-elimination and helps us build better reads. Just in case anyone has doubts about my intentions.

To that end: I'm enthusiastic right this minute about Frederick or rocknil, and no one else. Most players I could place a compromise vote on, but I'm not willing to step there today: we still have days left before the deadline if I'm not mistaken.

Oh, and for the record, it doesn't usually hurt anything to point out that someone is doing SOMETHING you find scummy. But one has to be wary of pointing at the exact thing and describing in exhaustive detail WHAT it is and WHY it is.

Me saying Italiano's play is Concerning to me by itself does little damage to figuring out if that's just how he is or if it's a scumtell. But if I explain what it is and why, it can easily become coaching the scum players in not being scumread by me.

And no, telling them this stuff I'm saying right now doesn't help them either. (It took me a while to come to that conclusion.) They're already trying to be town. Whatever they see in their own posts that is "scummy" is unlikely to be what I see. Sudden changes that are almost entirely NAI by themselves can be a whole world of meaning all on their own. And no change at all says something too.

I would quite like ItalianoVD to weigh in on an elimination pool for today.

My answer has changed, Frogster.

Initially, it was Italiano. As I said... I have Concerns.

Right now, it’s Shelly. I was weakly, weakly townreading Shelly. This last outburst has made me a lot less certain, and IF it wasn’t sacrificing the vote, I’d gladly see her flip more than anyone else. (But my primary targets I want to save for the vote, she’s like ... number four on my current list.)

Shelly, Rocknil and Frederick have filled my top 3. My former third place player isn't even worth listing right now.

Shelly, my argument when you said scum would be on your wagon should have made it obvious that at this very late stage with this little engagement, attempting to avoid this is basically anti Town. If not you, then no one, and I won't accept that, and if you won't either... Well, I simply don't understand why you are trying to avoid it instead of maximizing information for Day 2. The more effort we put into this pointless discussion, the less we can put into arranging for reads for later.

Given you were content to end the day early on your own elimination with a self vote, this is even more inconsistent and senseless.

I'll be legitimately surprised if you're town at this stage. It seems nigh impossible.

I’ll also drop a near full reads list. A couple folks are being set at “nope”, as in “not sharing”. This could be because there’s nothing to share, or because I feel like I cannot trust my read and/or their play to remain stable Day 2 onwards.



Fred: High scum probability. Bland and unremarkable, never rocks the boat, agreeable without being enthusiastic, total lack of awareness of the game state. Suggests a player who was hoping to coast and got caught, and now is trying to blend in.

Rocknil: near zero engagement, near zero information, rapid style change under sustained pressure, overdefensive when pressed with far less intensity than any other player, very big scum feel.

Shelly: overconcerned with appearance of her play, nonstop reiteration of being town after she made herself the de facto elimination... you’ve heard it all before, this slot’s play stinks as town and is high quality as scum. The player’s more intelligent and aware of the game than the town play is likely to support, hence scum.

Italiano: former number 3, HIGHLY CONCERNING PLAY. Few to no hard decisions made, but little in the way of changing his mind either. Town, but it’s a hair trigger from dropping to scum. I’m gonna waffle on this player some I think.

Frogster: townie play, but a very psychology-minded player, with statistical analysis partially memorized. There’s the possibility for depth that can cover up scum play. If Shelly comes up green, Frogster’s bad bad E-1 vote and relationship to how Shelly became the de facto target makes me highly suspicious, but also, I don’t think he’d bus that way. He’d be more convincing while leaving more of an escape hatch. Watch the flip, says I.

MagikHorse: Nope.

Lavar: pretty solid townread. I also weakly townread van, so this is consistent. This slot’s been brutalized pretty hard with replacements, but the play that has hit it has been very town-friendly, mildly tentative, and basically to be expected of thoughtful and serious newbie play.

Redados: Nope.

In my opinion the Mush kill benefited Italiano the most next to Frederick obviously. I'll touch on what Mush said about Rocknil a little bit later, but in my interpretation Mush viewed Rocknil as more of a policy lynch with a scumlean and had more substantial concerns about Italiano. I can't imagine a world where Italiano is expecting to win a lylo as scum with Mush alive unless he is expecting to persuade a townie to lynch Mush which seems unlikely. This definitely was a tick in the scum direction for Italiano for me because in my opinion Mush had to die at some point as far as Italiano's win condition is concerned. Consider 386 and 460, it seems as though shelly's erratic play drew all of Mush's attention away from Italiano which was why we did not hear about him more from Mush by the end of the day.

Mush's sentiment toward him was also something he was clearly aware of, because they both acknowledged it to each other in 496, 498 and 499.

Italiano is also keenly aware he could night kill Mush to remove a key threat without being overtly blamed for it as evidenced by his response to me in post 627.

Frogster:

In my mind I was Mush's second-strongest townread next to Lavar. It's difficult to say how much town credit putting shelly at e-1 followed by her town flip cost me in Mush's eyes. It's clear though that she (correctly) considered me town before and after the fact albeit with heavy suspicion. If she was also correct about Lavar's alignment that would make her an instant must kill overnight, if she was only right about me then it would depend more so on what the mafia were planning.

I noticed that the post #s are linked in the top of each quote so I chose not to include the #s for these and just pasted Mush's statements I reviewed in the spoilers below.

Spoiler:

I'm going to post my first public read: I think Frogsterking is town. If he isn't town, he's unreadable. I think his playstyle edges a bit toward anti-town overall, he's focused on game-solving over scum-hunting, but scum has no reason to give town a weapon like that paper. Arguably against their win condition to do so.

I'll note this read is conditional: his anti-town behavior is consistently game-solving (which comes from a town direction) and his towniness is based on a single event that gives away a lot of cover for lurker scum. It's a strong town read, but it isn't unbreakable.

Italiano is interesting. I think I agree: town. Weakly, but still. The pressure was because I wasn't sure, and there's a difference between stubborn town and doubt-seeding scum. But when I cornered and squeezed, he deflated, despite no real pressure aside from mine. And no one's following my lead, so there's very little reason to do that for scum.



Frogsterking's paper is based on a corpus of actual Mafiascum games, and the conclusions are statistical in nature. Some are very strong, and are far more likely to be strong for newer players. The chance of two of the SEs being scum is roughly 8%, and replacements are more statistically likely for scum-sided players (0.33 vs 0.35). That's a powerful, powerful tool for helping direct attention. Scum would have little reason to introduce that to town except purely for towncred -- hence a conditional read based on future action. It's only worth the towncred if the scum player believes it removes all real pressure or that they can keep a consistent game. Frogster smells like he could be consistent enough to play scum on this, but again, it's a conditional read.



Now that I'm feeling well-set enough, I will share some of the reasons for the Frederick debacle.

Firstly, he had (and has) nothing to offer in terms of sortable information. His play is minimal, bland and utterly ignorable. I want to squeeze that until it pops, because I hate players that do little to no /playing/. They're worse than lurkers, because people can give them a townread without even realizing why. This was why I voted him at first: not for a scumread, but for a basically zero-information playstyle. Only pressure is going to drag anything out of that.

And then, all hell broke loose.

Every third player had something to say on the matter, and no one offered a coherent defense of Frederick! Shelly didn't like my playstyle surrounding my vote of Frederick, but otherwise had no real reason to offer that might make me back off. ItalianoVD was appalled by language that I didn't use, and found my vote suspect. His defense was aggressive but ultimately /without substance/. Everyone else made some murmurs about my failure to explain my vote, and the game suddenly became a LOT more information rich.

The less explanation I gave, the more infuriated players got -- and the more flailing Frederick's activity became, culminating in /pointlessly/ quoting a contentious post I made near the beginning of the game -- page four, I believe. This was incredibly good information for town, whether you agree with how I got it or not. In future games, I might have to rely more on near-baseless strong pushes with lots of "My reasons are mysterious and I am all knowing" mystique to stir the pot. It was insightful, it was effective, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Oh yeah. And I'm keeping my vote on Frederick because I do indeed scumread him. Bland play, bland posts, calling this all so very boring, misleading garbage (that ridiculous math post), and muffled flailing when pressured hard enough for long enough. He has no town vibes, his play is so unremarkable it's anti-town, and his sum total contributions are /all/ outright anti-town. For the special sauce, since scum slots are slightly more likely to replace out statistically, he's slightly more suspicious than our non-replacing players.

So my vote stays on Frederick.

Different kind of gamesolving, MagikHorse: solving "Mafia" as a class of games. Game-theoretical perfect play, that sort of thing. I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's in line with that kind of thinking.

With regards to ItalianoVD, he questions why other players would change their mind more than why they had their mind set somewhere in the first place. He questioned why I had MY mind set on something, but he was using it as a wedge-driving element for arguing his case WRT the Shelly read. (Trying to say I was doing the same thing he was, essentially, either making me a hypocrite or forcing me to justify his play. The differences between our play didn't seem to matter.) He doesn't seem to quite understand people changing their mind or conceding an argument, which makes his own play in that area sort of NAI.



Frederick, who does not have a pattern of behavior other than van? Everyone else has a MARKED pattern. I can basically guess how any other player will react at this stage to certain theoretical events. In your case, it will probably be to be bland and non-committal, the way you have been from jump.

Rock, van and Frogster are all missing in action — again. Concerning.

Two of them just seem to DO this.

But! But. Frogsterking, where are you?

That part there.

If there’s more than 12 hours left in the Day, I’d prefer less active players lay their votes down and the active players withhold them to hammer closer to the deadline.

1: maximizing information gathered for Day 1.
2: reduces chances of scumteam forcing a hammer through to deny discussion time to town.

Frogster, what were you thinking putting Shelly at E-1 without saying? You could have promised to place your vote later or asked to swap vote position with another active player. I strongly dislike that your idea was to just push the vote to the very brink and risk losing the scum hunting and discussion time we’ll need going into Day 2. Hell, you could have prevented me from explaining my play today, which is arguably pro-scum — not just anti-town.

That in mind, next post is going to be an explanation of my play. But assuming Shelly flips Town and I survive the night, I am going to make Frogster my new best friend on Day 2. He won’t be able to fart without me reaching for a gas spectrometer and a dictaphone.

I’ll also drop a near full reads list. A couple folks are being set at “nope”, as in “not sharing”. This could be because there’s nothing to share, or because I feel like I cannot trust my read and/or their play to remain stable Day 2 onwards.



Fred: High scum probability. Bland and unremarkable, never rocks the boat, agreeable without being enthusiastic, total lack of awareness of the game state. Suggests a player who was hoping to coast and got caught, and now is trying to blend in.

Rocknil: near zero engagement, near zero information, rapid style change under sustained pressure, overdefensive when pressed with far less intensity than any other player, very big scum feel.

Shelly: overconcerned with appearance of her play, nonstop reiteration of being town after she made herself the de facto elimination... you’ve heard it all before, this slot’s play stinks as town and is high quality as scum. The player’s more intelligent and aware of the game than the town play is likely to support, hence scum.

Italiano: former number 3, HIGHLY CONCERNING PLAY. Few to no hard decisions made, but little in the way of changing his mind either. Town, but it’s a hair trigger from dropping to scum. I’m gonna waffle on this player some I think.

Frogster: townie play, but a very psychology-minded player, with statistical analysis partially memorized. There’s the possibility for depth that can cover up scum play. If Shelly comes up green, Frogster’s bad bad E-1 vote and relationship to how Shelly became the de facto target makes me highly suspicious, but also, I don’t think he’d bus that way. He’d be more convincing while leaving more of an escape hatch. Watch the flip, says I.

MagikHorse: Nope.

Lavar: pretty solid townread. I also weakly townread van, so this is consistent. This slot’s been brutalized pretty hard with replacements, but the play that has hit it has been very town-friendly, mildly tentative, and basically to be expected of thoughtful and serious newbie play.

Redados: Nope.

Last minute baseless speculation:

Consider a Frogster and Frederick scumteam. They play off of each other constantly, they reinforce each other; even Frogster’s criticism seems anticipated and expected.

If Shelly flips green... consider the value of a Frogster and Frederick scumteam and compare it with how their interactions and play have been.

Also, my survival or death has no bearing on this baseless speculation whether you want it to or not, to prevent Town from getting suckered into a wildly off base round of game solving nonsense. Even if scum actually use worried about this, don’t read into it. Follow my earlier play if I die tonight.

I think if scum were planning to cross against me in a lylo scenario they would need to think twice about leaving Mush alive. Mush said they would watch me closely 437 and had varying reasons for suspicion 495 550 which I don't find very threatening because I believe Mush watched everyone closely and was suspicious of everyone. She seemed to read me as town in an offbeat or anti-town way all the way from 258 to 550 with reasons for concern, as opposed to other players she either did not read or read as scum, also with reasons for concern. I think her end of day comments were motivated by paranoia that no one would consider lynching me even if it ever became obvious.

MagikHorse:

Mush did not speak a lot about MagikHorse and he seemed to be in the middle of Mush's priority of elimination. It seemed Mush mainly had concerns about Magik not doing much and the things he did do looked artificial.

Spoiler:

MagikHorse, can I get your opinion of Italiano's play? My take is: emotionally charged reasoning presenting with logical face. His play is also centered on himself -- which manifests as Always Right (unwillingness to concede lost points, unwillingness to cooperate with other players, etc), and deeply entrenched reads (taking subjective view as objective truth).

Point of note: he seems to expect other players to also have self-centered play -- he distrusts other people changing their reads or conceding arguments, for instance. So this may not be AI, but I'm not necessarily interested in alignment sorting him based on the playstyle that /I/ see.

Accurate? Have I missed anything? Have I misread the playstyle in your eyes?

Second reframe: Shelly is a high information target for elimination, MagikHorse is not. MagikHorse has done far less interacting with the majority of players, more bouncing off of them than pushing anything too hard. Since Frogster’s MagikHorse vote is in part based on scum-interpreted Shelly interactions, I would recommend her over him.

Redados: I haven’t known it to be a problem in past games either, but, IIRC, in my past games people were far less reserved about voting anyone and everyone, with or without explanation. This game is a lot more hesitant late in the day than earlier in the day, which is all kinds of backwards and makes me worry about finding a target that we can push to elimination before end of day.

MagikHorse, your Italiano push was way more focused than its intensity deserved. This was more like a light consistent pressure, with few glances in other directions. The shove that van gave you was strong and information rich, and your response was “nah that’s fair”. Overly agreeable.

I don't believe MagikHorse was very concerned about Mush, though it's hard to say because I had forgotten about Mush's observations about 1) Magik's push on Italiano and 2) Magik's reaction to Van's push. I can imagine a MagikHorse + Lavar team would probably be motivated to kill elsewhere.

Rocknil:

Spoiler:

Van I'm more inclined to give a slight pass. Rocknil has been consistent, patterned in his lack of engagement. I wonder if he'll coast on minimal engagement, ramp it up, or get replaced out.

Van might be one of those "infrequent megapost" types. It feels possible based on what has been seen of his style, and that's a sufficiently valuable style of play. He's target three if Rocknil shapes up though.

Rocknil's reaction puts him at a tentative scumread for me, just saying. Practically everyone in the game has had a strong, sustained push on them at some point aside from Van, myself, and MagikHorse. Van, MagikHorse and I have gotten /shoves/, at least.

This was barely a hard poke, and "ah, ah, scum is attacking me" is the immediate reaction.

I was talking about some stink, but that's a big one right there for me. Could be pure new player and impossible to sort with, but I'm gonna go with new scum to be safe and maybe get him playing.



Redados, I'm not sharing my read on you yet, but... presuming you are town, how likely do you think it is that ItalianoVD is scum buddying up to you? Genuine question. Oh, and do show your work, too, explain why and how you come to your conclusion!

Also interested in the flip-side answer from ItalianoVD, who, I will remind people, I weakly townread.

If we can get one other player to say they'd happily commit to eliminating Rocknil, we can resume the RIP AND TEAR part of scum-hunting, because that makes five.

If all of the players who haven't weighed in can commit to eliminating Frederick, we can also continue without worry. (I would consider Rocknil and Van unreliable enough in terms of activity that I'd want to get Frogster and BOTH of them to agree. Frederick is obviously given a pass here.)

Otherwise, we need to look for a compromise position. I am not looking forward to THAT process, because that's not going to be fun to try and organize. Start considering your next-down-the-line if Frogster or Fred refuse to commit to those two.

I don’t really disagree that rocknil could be a miselimination waiting to happen. My scumread is light and partially for pressure.

He IS, unequivocally, the easiest target to get a wagon on based on stated elimination pools. He also is one of the lowest engagement players and THE lowest information player, and his elimination (regardless of flip) substantially tightens the game state.

We have just over 48 hours to finalize an elimination. The happier people are to vote someone, the easier that wagon is to push.

I will not no-eliminate on Day 1, I will not do it. I will go so far as to say I will self-hammer before I do it. If that’s what is required to get a wagon to elimination, by god I will push myself to the gallows.

Rocknil has a whole lot to recommend removal and very little to back up saving him when you consider Time Constraints, Elimination Pools, and No Damn Engagement. We have three players who aren’t even contributing and not enough overlap to push an elimination any other way.

If Rocknil is a miselimination I will personally own it. But I will not no-eliminate on Day 1 under any circumstances, and only Frederick has nearly as much enthusiasm for his elimination.



Reframing this: Does anyone except Shelly object to a Shelly elimination? Can we get a lock on an elimination wagon and promises that active players will push it to completion no matter their gripes, please? Because otherwise I’m saying that we stick with rocknil because no other player is that slow to respond and lacking in any informational content, and no other player has as many potential happy voters waiting to plonk down on them.

Overall it appears as though Mush could be persuaded to vote someone other than Rocknil, I don't believe Mush FoSed Rocknil any stronger than any of the other players are FoSing Rocknil in this game.

Frederick:

Mush was out for Frederick's blood. If Frederick is on the scumteam they would probably need to kill Mush. I didn't bother reviewing all of the posts where Mush railed on Frederick, here's a summary:

Oh, and for the record, my push on Frederick began as a weak scumread and now is quite strong. It wasn’t baseless in fact, just in appearance. There is no player who I scumread so high as Frederick in this game.

I believe there were several other things I still need to address but I'll have to do that later because that took a lot out of me.

[Frogsterking]

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

Off the top of my head:

Pros:
In this game there is a higher chance of hitting scum because I think most players that are active are fairly pro town.

It makes our choice much easier today.

Cons:
May not make our choice any easier if we realize the scum are hiding in the more pro town players.

If we miss we will be in the same situation tomorrow as we are now except scum get a chance to eliminate one more player, so whatever conflict arises may be more in their favor tomorrow than it is today.

[Frogsterking]

Pretty certain Frog and Lavar aren't buddies.

I am still townreading Italiano and I still townread you, so I am thinking we can try to find the scumteam in the remaining pool of four players based on how they have interacted. I do not think rocknil is scum with Fredrick because there is no need to open up the day with a vote on his scumbuddy. I also do not like how rocknil chose to ignore my vote on him.

In Day 1, I pushed hard for shellyc. I thought there was something tangible there but I was wrong. I don't blame you for scumreading me. But you are wrong. I am now going over the thread to find the scum team. I have this feeling that I've missed something.

How did that go?

I can confirm this.

[Frogsterking]

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

rocknil is eligible for another prod. As this is his third prod, I am now seeking a replacement.

Maybe it won't be as necessary now after a replacement.

[Frogsterking]

Thank you for doing that effort. How much value do you place on kill analysis?

@Italiano: I still wanna know who you think is maf.

In this game I decided to place a little bit more because I'm townreading too many players and in the past that would help me in this kind of situation. Often I wouldn't do it because in the games I'm used to there either wasn't this much time or there didn't appear to be the need.

[Frogsterking]

Frogsterking, why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill.

In the mafia format I have almost all of my experience in (livechat, roughly 5-20 minute days and 1-5 minute nights on average) I relied extensively on analyzing night kills to complement behavioral reads.

Part of the reason that method was useful to me was I understood how players of different levels approached their night choices in that format.

Things are different when players get a couple days to make their choice instead of a couple minutes and I'm not sure how much of what I know carries over to this format and I'm trying to learn quickly.

Actually, I just noticed that this answers the question "Why are you so interested in the nightkill?" and not the question I actually asked, which is "Why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?"

So that you don't get to pretend to not understand what I am trying to say, let me put it bluntly. Please answer the question (Why are you so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?)

Night kill analysis isn't a scum tell. The harder you push this the less sense it makes to me from a town!Frederick perspective and the more sense it makes from a scum!Frederick perspective. The timing of your post also makes it appear as though you decided to re-FoS me once you saw Casey's post.

[Frogsterking]

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

Care to elaborate?

Originally, I started to scumread Frogsterking for his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill. Then, Casey made the following post.

Okay so look at these.

Welcome to the town Casey!

Welcome aboard, Casey.

Welcome to the game Casey.

Italiano and Rock welcome me to the game / aboard, but you specifically welcome me to the

town

.

The post added more fuel to my suspicions. I first questioned Frogsterking's obsession over what everyone thinks of the nightkill. Meanwhile, I reread some part of the thread and misinterpreted a post Frogsterking made. I prepared to make a post to question Frogsterking on the post and saved it as a draft. Frogsterking appeared to answer the question of why he was so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill, so I dismissed it. I then posted the draft. After Frogsterking clarified the meaning of the post I misinterpreted, I actually didn't understand the clarification. However, while I started to make another post to further point out what was the problem with the post, I noticed that no such problem actually existed. Instead of questioning on an issue that was now evident to me was non-existent, I unvoted instead since I had no further reason to scumread him. Several hours later, I look at my spreadsheet with the list of all my reads thus far and the post(s) from which I deduced them. I noticed I listed Frogsterking's post 640 as my reason for scumreading him. Actually, when I made the post you quoted, I still thought I only remembered scumreading Frogsterking for post 640 and the post I misinterpreted. It is only while looking into the question I remember asking Frogsterking something that I didn't remember that I remembered my true reason for scumreading Frogsterking.

In conclusion, my current scumread on Frogsterking is over his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill, while my reason for scumreading Frogsterking when I made the post you quoted was for post 640 and my very first suspicions on Frogsterking was because of his obsession over the nightkill.

Frogsterking, why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill.

In the mafia format I have almost all of my experience in (livechat, roughly 5-20 minute days and 1-5 minute nights on average) I relied extensively on analyzing night kills to complement behavioral reads.

Part of the reason that method was useful to me was I understood how players of different levels approached their night choices in that format.

Things are different when players get a couple days to make their choice instead of a couple minutes and I'm not sure how much of what I know carries over to this format and I'm trying to learn quickly.

Actually, I just noticed that this answers the question "Why are you so interested in the nightkill?" and not the question I actually asked, which is "Why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?"

So that you don't get to pretend to not understand what I am trying to say, let me put it bluntly. Please answer the question (Why are you so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?)

I don't like the shade here where you assume that I intentionally misinterpreted your question, when you yourself just tripped over your own words and notes in the lengthy paragraph above trying to explain what exactly you're doing here. I'm not an expert on your thoughts so it's not necessary that I would pretend anything to misunderstand what you're saying. This inclusion in your case is unhelpful at best and scummy at worse.

The "obsession" angle looks like poor or made-up reasoning and is also unnecessary to the case. Analyzing the night kill is simply another means of finding the scum. You seem just as "obsessed" here as I do, you seem very over-reactive to the idea of analyzing the night kills, something that as a behavioral player I value more than the night kill analysis itself.

This is also my answer to your question, by the way: I did those things because analyzing the night kill and asking questions are both methods of scum hunting.

Your double-take going into this FoS looks strange as well. I'm tempted to give Casey town credit if Frederick flips scum either now or at a later date because it appears as though Frederick decided I would be his best push only after he read her most recent posts. I will elaborate on this in the next post.

The only way I can see Frederick being town here is if it's in his meta to FoS for night kill analysis as town or if it's a pre-emptive townie OMGUS because he feared I would push him after my long post #734 (which I was not planning.)

In case of the latter situation I could see an equal argument your play here is an example of a scummy OMGUS. At this point I would be the second townie you overreacted to in an OMGUS, the first being shelly, something which made me believe you might be an anti-town townie.

In case of the first situation of a TvT I'm imagining, where it's in your meta to FoS for night kills,

Frederick do you have any completed games on this site where you FoSed another player for night kill analysis and you were aligned with town?

I will unvote you if you can supply an example of this.

VOTE: Frederick

This also reminded me of something you said which is incongruent, Frederick:

@Frederick: what do you think about the Mush kill?

I think nothing of it.

You mean you weren't pleased that the player who tunneled you all game was killed during the night? Not even a little bit? And you allegedly kept a spreadsheet of all of our tells yet you don't bother to make any notes whatsoever about the night kill? This looks like a lie to me. I think you wanted to kill the discussion on this topic because it was inconvenient to you.

This type of play on Frederick's part is exactly what I was referring to about letting the scum force plays in the part I bolded below. Frederick, your scumread looks like something you're trying to force into the game because night kill analysis ultimately is not a scum tell it's a method of scumhunting and the situation you're introducing it as a scum tell is convenient for you to avoid blame.

Spoiler:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels uncomfortable with the dynamics of Shelly, Redados and Italiano. Redados has, at least, modified his play after having been called out to something that could be considered more pro-town, but Shelly is hyper-focused on Redados and Italiano is hyper-focused on Shelly. This doesn't help anyone else make any decisions at all, and might very well end up with two mis-eliminations to satisfy the paranoia of these three so we can actually get down to business.

I have no intent of listing reads quite yet, but this is not good play for town from Shelly and Italiano. I think they should back up and focus attention on other people altogether for a while. Especially Italiano, who hasn't so much as sniffed in the direction of other players, as far as I can tell.

Now then...



Shelly, if town "tunnels" someone, scum don't need to say much to come across as town that's just late to the party. "Yeah, I'm honestly here on this wagon. I have nothing to add, everyone else has made my arguments for me. I think it's the right idea." Scum shouldn't be allowed to direct the conversation either, but if town gets stuck on "YES WE HAVE THE ANSWERS" scum doesn't need to do anything except not rock the boat too much.



Frogster, you have a dependent chain of events for "scum forcing interactions" being a good idea, whether you recognize the chain or not.
First, town has to town read most of town.
Second, town has to mostly not town read at least one scum.
Third, town has to be mostly coordinating rather than throwing suspicion at or questioning each other.
Only if all three things are true does scum have to try to steer the ship, so to speak. I'd like to point out that we can't get reads on enough of the players to fulfill the first chainlink yet, and we are ALL bickering too much for the third link to be fulfilled.

Letting scum force interaction at this stage is a TERRIBLE idea.

I'm really not a fan of how you're spinning my desire to be able to get reads on the majority of players. It's making something that's fairly pro-town into a vehicle for highly pro-scum play, and that is just not a good look at all on you, particularly with how town read I seem to be.

I've mentioned before: I tend to jump the gun, and I am aware of that tendency. So I'm just going to ask if anyone else feels like my words and intent might be getting twisted for hidden motives here. Because I have that feeling, I feel it in my bones, and I don't like it at all.

VOTE: Frogsterking

I always feel more comfortable having voted, and this feels like the right place to rest my vote for the time being.



I also want to bring up that MagikHorse has made himself one of my favorites with just the recently-passed flurry of posts. These are direct, cutting posts that aren't over-determined or stuck on irrelevancies. Good stuff for town, though I have yet to feel comfortable giving reads out.



And last for now, notes on why I'm avoiding giving a player overview or a reads list for so long.

Remember how I mentioned pattern-matching before?

I'm seeing patterns in all of the active users. Some I'm curious about, some I just plain don't like, all of them I want to avoid drawing too much attention to until I have reached a conclusion about the patterns I'm seeing.

If you've posted more than 6 times, I'm considering you in some way. I won't tell you how or for what until I'm good and ready, because that would give away the patterns and make it too easy to disrupt the picture I'm building. I'm going to sit on these and see what comes of my approach before I try giving reads. So you'll all have to wait a little while longer.

I think your dependency chain is an accurate example of the possible late game scenarios I'm visualizing in which town can still win in case there is little aid from prs. I would describe your dependency chain as a win condition following good early town play. I'd imagine you can see how a chain like that is unrealistic on D1 as you pointed out, but could materialize later in a 3-way or 5-way lylo situation as a result of a good D1.

I'm interested in hearing your conclusions about the player patterns and the reads list later and I agree they will be more impactful given some time. I believe this is another benefit of using the full 10 days.

I assure you there was no deliberate attempt to spin what you were saying and my motivation for paraphrasing was to express what I thought you were saying so you could confirm (or in this case deny) that there was a mutual understanding.

I suspect there is an issue with communication rather than underlying ideas about the game because I agree with most of the points you've been making. I suspect the issue is a linguistic one and we are based on different definitions of what letting scum force plays or interactions means. In my mind "forcing an interaction" or "forcing a play" is usually a bad move for the side doing it because it implies the play was unnatural or awkwardly timed (hence it had to be forced in) and will be generally less effective. A "forcing interaction" that is dominant and controls the choices the other side has available is not what I was suggesting we want to allow others to be doing.

The tunneling trio you pointed out is a solid example of what I'm referring to about forcing an interaction (not a forcing interaction.) If the scum team decides to play that way that's fine with me but if it's the town doing that then there will be problems not only today but in the endgame as well.

I believe that Redados, Shelly and Italiano will be receptive to moving forward and focusing on other players. I also believe that the incoming replacements are more likely to be an asset than a liability.

What did you mean by "The tunneling trio you pointed out is a solid example of what I'm referring to about forcing an interaction (not a forcing interaction.)"

(added spoiler so others don't have to scroll past the original quotes)

I meant that the trio of Redados, Italiano and shellyc came in with preconceived feelings about each other and were skewing the discussion toward their point of view.

I was contrasting the early actions of these three with some type of play where one or more players are able to dominate the game, force the other players to respond to them or limit the actions of the other players in some way. I didn't feel like this was what they were doing because I felt like I could read their discussion and then respond to it as I chose.

I remember at this point in time I thought (incorrectly) the conflict between Mush and I was that Mush interpreted my statements about letting mafia force plays and make mistakes as allowing other players to dominate the game, and I was attempting to clarify my point of view in ways I thought might make sense to her.

[Frogsterking]

The scumread isn't over your obsession of the night kill. It is over your obsession of what others think of the night kill.

Analyzing the night kill and asking questions are both valid ways of scumhunting. Asking everyone their opinion also does not qualify as an obsession. I used similar methods of scumhunting on D1 when I asked all of the players who their current choice in a daykill would be. Your case here is quite the stretch.

[Frogsterking]

That actually lines up pretty well with what I have observed thus far.

UNVOTE:

That literally doesn't explain why you find me scummy?

The fact you're asking for an explanation instead of accusing me of being scummy (as though you're more worried that I cheated than if I really know if you're scum or not) is another tick in the scum direction from my point of view.

Not a fan of this.

By don't care I mean I don't care if I have to vote Rocknil or Lavaar, not that I don't care about the outcome of the game! I do want to win and I am town and I think either one of these is the best move.

My opinion of Frog is dropping each time he posts. This "I do want to win and I am town" phrasing is baffling.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Congratulations. You have made me suspicious.

Good vote.

I think Mush was killed to try and frame Frederick.

Has anyone even hypothesized this today?

I think Mush was killed to try and frame Frederick.

Has anyone even hypothesized this today?

Mush was out for Frederick's blood. If Frederick is on the scumteam they would probably need to kill Mush.

Oh look at that.

I'm feeling pretty confident that Redados, Italiano, and Lavar are town.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

Care to elaborate?

Originally, I started to scumread Frogsterking for his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill. Then, Casey made the following post.

Okay so look at these.

Welcome to the town Casey!

Welcome aboard, Casey.

Welcome to the game Casey.

Italiano and Rock welcome me to the game / aboard, but you specifically welcome me to the

town

.

The post added more fuel to my suspicions. I first questioned Frogsterking's obsession over what everyone thinks of the nightkill. Meanwhile, I reread some part of the thread and misinterpreted a post Frogsterking made. I prepared to make a post to question Frogsterking on the post and saved it as a draft. Frogsterking appeared to answer the question of why he was so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill, so I dismissed it. I then posted the draft. After Frogsterking clarified the meaning of the post I misinterpreted, I actually didn't understand the clarification. However, while I started to make another post to further point out what was the problem with the post, I noticed that no such problem actually existed. Instead of questioning on an issue that was now evident to me was non-existent, I unvoted instead since I had no further reason to scumread him. Several hours later, I look at my spreadsheet with the list of all my reads thus far and the post(s) from which I deduced them. I noticed I listed Frogsterking's post 640 as my reason for scumreading him. Actually, when I made the post you quoted, I still thought I only remembered scumreading Frogsterking for post 640 and the post I misinterpreted. It is only while looking into the question I remember asking Frogsterking something that I didn't remember that I remembered my true reason for scumreading Frogsterking.

In conclusion, my current scumread on Frogsterking is over his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill, while my reason for scumreading Frogsterking when I made the post you quoted was for post 640 and my very first suspicions on Frogsterking was because of his obsession over the nightkill.

This sequence of events is extremely scummy. You clearly "remember" why you were scumreading Frogsterking after you see that Casey FoSes Frogsterking. It looks as if Casey decided she FoSed someone else you would have refrained from pushing on me at all. The paragraph attempting to explain this away is confusing and appears contrived.

I also find it extremely unlikely someone detail-oriented enough to keep a spreadsheet of their notes on every player would have nothing to say about the night kill.

[Frogsterking]

It could also be an attempt to avoid a policy lynch.

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

Off the top of my head:

Pros:
In this game there is a higher chance of hitting scum because I think most players that are active are fairly pro town.

It makes our choice much easier today.

Cons:
May not make our choice any easier if we realize the scum are hiding in the more pro town players.

If we miss we will be in the same situation tomorrow as we are now except scum get a chance to eliminate one more player, so whatever conflict arises may be more in their favor tomorrow than it is today.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

[Frogsterking]

My bad, I forgot to include the unvote before-hand which made the sequence of events meme-able.

That actually lines up pretty well with what I have observed thus far.

UNVOTE:

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

Off the top of my head:

Pros:
In this game there is a higher chance of hitting scum because I think most players that are active are fairly pro town.

It makes our choice much easier today.

Cons:
May not make our choice any easier if we realize the scum are hiding in the more pro town players.

If we miss we will be in the same situation tomorrow as we are now except scum get a chance to eliminate one more player, so whatever conflict arises may be more in their favor tomorrow than it is today.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

[Frogsterking]

And for the record, I think the associative part of Frederick's play being a scum tell depends more on Casey being town than it does on Rocknil being scum.

I am still townreading Italiano and I still townread you, so I am thinking we can try to find the scumteam in the remaining pool of four players based on how they have interacted. I do not think rocknil is scum with Fredrick because there is no need to open up the day with a vote on his scumbuddy. I also do not like how rocknil chose to ignore my vote on him.

Why couldn't Frederick have told Rocknil during the night to vote him at daystart?

[Frogsterking]

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

Off the top of my head:

Pros:
In this game there is a higher chance of hitting scum because I think most players that are active are fairly pro town.

It makes our choice much easier today.

Cons:
May not make our choice any easier if we realize the scum are hiding in the more pro town players.

If we miss we will be in the same situation tomorrow as we are now except scum get a chance to eliminate one more player, so whatever conflict arises may be more in their favor tomorrow than it is today.

This is also why analyzing the night kill is helpful. If scum believe that none of the players will analyze the night kill because they're afraid of wifom then they can just look at all of the player's reads list and kill the player most convenient for them to set up for lylo.

If they get called out on it then they're forced to make some kind of play the way Frederick is doing.

[Frogsterking]

What are the pros and cons of a policy lynch? Like I said, I just can't imagine rocknil in a LimLo situation. That sounds awful. I would like to make that not possible by limming him today.

Off the top of my head:

Pros:
In this game there is a higher chance of hitting scum because I think most players that are active are fairly pro town.

It makes our choice much easier today.

Cons:
May not make our choice any easier if we realize the scum are hiding in the more pro town players.

If we miss we will be in the same situation tomorrow as we are now except scum get a chance to eliminate one more player, so whatever conflict arises may be more in their favor tomorrow than it is today.

This is also why analyzing the night kill is helpful. If scum believe that none of the players will analyze the night kill because they're afraid of wifom then they can just look at all of the player's reads list and kill the player most convenient for them to set up for lylo.

If they get called out on it then they're forced to make some kind of play the way Frederick is doing.

To clarify:

If scum believe none of the players will analyze the night kill then scum can just look at each of the player's reads list and kill the player most convenient for them to set up for lylo.

If the scum get called out from night kill analysis then they're forced to make a wifom play like Frederick which might not have been his intention.

So it prevents scum from killing whoever is most convenient for them and sometimes forces them into an uncomfortable situation. For example, what would Frederick have done had Casey decided she townread me? I think that's what he was wondering when he unvoted me.

[Frogsterking]

I'm still planning on addressing the other things leftover from yesterday.

[Frogsterking]

At this point I would be the second townie you overreacted to in an OMGUS [...]

VOTE: Frederick

I'd just like to point out the irony here.

Yup.

The "obsession" angle looks like poor or made-up reasoning and is also unnecessary to the case.

What is "necessary" to the case, then?

"Frogsterking killed Mush to set me up and then brought up night kill analysis when no one was suspecting me."

I don't see what was obsessive about my questioning of other players about the night kill.

[Frogsterking]

At this point I would be the second townie you overreacted to in an OMGUS [...]

VOTE: Frederick

I'd just like to point out the irony here.

Yup.

The "obsession" angle looks like poor or made-up reasoning and is also unnecessary to the case.

What is "necessary" to the case, then?

"Frogsterking killed Mush to set me up and then brought up night kill analysis when no one was suspecting me."

I don't see what was obsessive about my questioning of other players about the night kill.

[Frogsterking]

@Mod

Is it possible to delete that double-post?

[Frogsterking]

You clearly "remember" why you were scumreading Frogsterking after you see that Casey FoSes Frogsterking.

Why are you talking about yourself in third-person? I had to scroll back up just to be certain it was you posting and not someone else.

Because I was imagining the situation from Frederick's perspective.

[Frogsterking]

Frogsterking, why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill.

In the mafia format I have almost all of my experience in (livechat, roughly 5-20 minute days and 1-5 minute nights on average) I relied extensively on analyzing night kills to complement behavioral reads.

Part of the reason that method was useful to me was I understood how players of different levels approached their night choices in that format.

Things are different when players get a couple days to make their choice instead of a couple minutes and I'm not sure how much of what I know carries over to this format and I'm trying to learn quickly.

Actually, I just noticed that this answers the question "Why are you so interested in the nightkill?" and not the question I actually asked, which is "Why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?"

So that you don't get to pretend to not understand what I am trying to say, let me put it bluntly. Please answer the question (Why are you so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?)

In fact, no one was obsessed with what others thought about the night kill, so rephrasing the question this way doesn't make sense and looks like trying to skew night kill analysis in a negative light.

[Frogsterking]

Casey, can you help me understand what it is that you are looking for when you scum read someone? I remember you described yourself as a behavioral player.

[Frogsterking]

I have a theory that you are good at picking up on tells in others behaviors, and that you scum read people who seem anxious and guarded, is this true?

[Frogsterking]

Yeah I feel it, the behavior you just described is reflected consistently in your posts.

What I was speculating on in 798 and 799 was what sorts of behavior your gut picks up on.

[Frogsterking]

I'm trying to find common ground.

[Frogsterking]

Wow there is a lot to dig in here.

[Frogsterking]

I'm not really sure where to start.

[Frogsterking]

Okay, last try. I've had enormous difficulty formatting this post correctly.

[Frogsterking]

In post 759, Fredrick A Campbell wrote:

Spoiler:

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

Care to elaborate?

Originally, I started to scumread Frogsterking for his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill. Then, Casey made the following post.

Okay so look at these.

Welcome to the town Casey!

Welcome aboard, Casey.

Welcome to the game Casey.

Italiano and Rock welcome me to the game / aboard, but you specifically welcome me to the

town

.

The post added more fuel to my suspicions. I first questioned Frogsterking's obsession over what everyone thinks of the nightkill.

Meanwhile, I reread some part of the thread and misinterpreted a post Frogsterking made. I prepared to make a post to question Frogsterking on the post and saved it as a draft. Frogsterking appeared to answer the question of why he was so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill, so I dismissed it. I then posted the draft. After Frogsterking clarified the meaning of the post I misinterpreted, I actually didn't understand the clarification. However, while I started to make another post to further point out what was the problem with the post, I noticed that no such problem actually existed. Instead of questioning on an issue that was now evident to me was non-existent, I unvoted instead since I had no further reason to scumread him. Several hours later, I look at my spreadsheet with the list of all my reads thus far and the post(s) from which I deduced them. I noticed I listed Frogsterking's post 640 as my reason for scumreading him. Actually, when I made the post you quoted, I still thought I only remembered scumreading Frogsterking for post 640 and the post I misinterpreted.

It is only while looking into the question I remember asking Frogsterking something that I didn't remember that I remembered my

true reason

for scumreading Frogsterking.

In conclusion, my current scumread on Frogsterking is over his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill, while my reason for scumreading Frogsterking when I made the post you quoted was for post 640 and my very first suspicions on Frogsterking was because of his obsession over the nightkill.

In post 758, Fredrick A Campbell wrote:

Spoiler:

Frogsterking, why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill.

In the mafia format I have almost all of my experience in (livechat, roughly 5-20 minute days and 1-5 minute nights on average) I relied extensively on analyzing night kills to complement behavioral reads.

Part of the reason that method was useful to me was I understood how players of different levels approached their night choices in that format.

Things are different when players get a couple days to make their choice instead of a couple minutes and I'm not sure how much of what I know carries over to this format and I'm trying to learn quickly.

Actually, I just noticed that this answers the question "

Why are you so interested

in the nightkill?" and not the question I actually asked, which is "Why do you seem the most obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?"

So that you don't get to pretend to not understand what I am trying to say, let me put it bluntly. Please answer the question (Why are you so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill?)

I don't like the shade here where you assume that I intentionally misinterpreted your question, when you yourself just tripped over your own words and notes in the lengthy paragraph above trying to explain what exactly you're doing here. I'm not an expert on your thoughts so it's not necessary that I would pretend anything to misunderstand what you're saying. This inclusion in your case is unhelpful at best and scummy at worse.

The "obsession" angle looks like poor or made-up reasoning and is also unnecessary to the case. Analyzing the night kill is simply another means of finding the scum. You seem just as "obsessed" here as I do, you seem very over-reactive to the idea of analyzing the night kills, something that as a behavioral player I value more than the night kill analysis itself.

This is also my answer to your question, by the way: I did those things because analyzing the night kill and asking questions are both methods of scum hunting.

Your double-take going into this FoS looks strange as well. I'm tempted to give Casey town credit if Frederick flips scum either now or at a later date because it appears as though Frederick decided I would be his best push only after he read her most recent posts. I will elaborate on this in the next post.

The only way I can see Frederick being town here is if it's in his meta to FoS for night kill analysis as town or if it's a pre-emptive townie OMGUS because he feared I would push him after my long post #734 (which I was not planning.)

In case of the latter situation I could see an equal argument your play here is an example of a scummy OMGUS. At this point I would be the second townie you overreacted to in an OMGUS, the first being shelly, something which made me believe you might be an anti-town townie.

In case of the first situation of a TvT I'm imagining, where it's in your meta to FoS for night kills,

Frederick do you have any completed games on this site where you FoSed another player for night kill analysis and you were aligned with town?

I will unvote you if you can supply an example of this.

VOTE: Frederick

This also reminded me of something you said which is incongruent, Frederick:

In post 629, Fredrick A Campbell wrote:

Spoiler:

@Frederick: what do you think about the Mush kill?

I think nothing of it.

You mean you weren't pleased that the player who tunneled you all game was killed during the night? Not even a little bit? And you allegedly kept a spreadsheet of all of our tells yet you don't bother to make any notes whatsoever about the night kill? This looks like a lie to me. I think you wanted to kill the discussion on this topic because it was inconvenient to you.

This type of play on Frederick's part is exactly what I was referring to about letting the scum force plays in the part I bolded below. Frederick, your scumread looks like something you're trying to force into the game because night kill analysis ultimately is not a scum tell it's a method of scumhunting and the situation you're introducing it as a scum tell is convenient for you to avoid blame.

Spoiler:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels uncomfortable with the dynamics of Shelly, Redados and Italiano. Redados has, at least, modified his play after having been called out to something that could be considered more pro-town, but Shelly is hyper-focused on Redados and Italiano is hyper-focused on Shelly. This doesn't help anyone else make any decisions at all, and might very well end up with two mis-eliminations to satisfy the paranoia of these three so we can actually get down to business.

I have no intent of listing reads quite yet, but this is not good play for town from Shelly and Italiano. I think they should back up and focus attention on other people altogether for a while. Especially Italiano, who hasn't so much as sniffed in the direction of other players, as far as I can tell.

Now then...



Shelly, if town "tunnels" someone, scum don't need to say much to come across as town that's just late to the party. "Yeah, I'm honestly here on this wagon. I have nothing to add, everyone else has made my arguments for me. I think it's the right idea." Scum shouldn't be allowed to direct the conversation either, but if town gets stuck on "YES WE HAVE THE ANSWERS" scum doesn't need to do anything except not rock the boat too much.



Frogster, you have a dependent chain of events for "scum forcing interactions" being a good idea, whether you recognize the chain or not.
First, town has to town read most of town.
Second, town has to mostly not town read at least one scum.
Third, town has to be mostly coordinating rather than throwing suspicion at or questioning each other.
Only if all three things are true does scum have to try to steer the ship, so to speak. I'd like to point out that we can't get reads on enough of the players to fulfill the first chainlink yet, and we are ALL bickering too much for the third link to be fulfilled.

Letting scum force interaction at this stage is a TERRIBLE idea.

I'm really not a fan of how you're spinning my desire to be able to get reads on the majority of players. It's making something that's fairly pro-town into a vehicle for highly pro-scum play, and that is just not a good look at all on you, particularly with how town read I seem to be.

I've mentioned before: I tend to jump the gun, and I am aware of that tendency. So I'm just going to ask if anyone else feels like my words and intent might be getting twisted for hidden motives here. Because I have that feeling, I feel it in my bones, and I don't like it at all.

VOTE: Frogsterking

I always feel more comfortable having voted, and this feels like the right place to rest my vote for the time being.



I also want to bring up that MagikHorse has made himself one of my favorites with just the recently-passed flurry of posts. These are direct, cutting posts that aren't over-determined or stuck on irrelevancies. Good stuff for town, though I have yet to feel comfortable giving reads out.



And last for now, notes on why I'm avoiding giving a player overview or a reads list for so long.

Remember how I mentioned pattern-matching before?

I'm seeing patterns in all of the active users. Some I'm curious about, some I just plain don't like, all of them I want to avoid drawing too much attention to until I have reached a conclusion about the patterns I'm seeing.

If you've posted more than 6 times, I'm considering you in some way. I won't tell you how or for what until I'm good and ready, because that would give away the patterns and make it too easy to disrupt the picture I'm building. I'm going to sit on these and see what comes of my approach before I try giving reads. So you'll all have to wait a little while longer.

I think your dependency chain is an accurate example of the possible late game scenarios I'm visualizing in which town can still win in case there is little aid from prs. I would describe your dependency chain as a win condition following good early town play. I'd imagine you can see how a chain like that is unrealistic on D1 as you pointed out, but could materialize later in a 3-way or 5-way lylo situation as a result of a good D1.

I'm interested in hearing your conclusions about the player patterns and the reads list later and I agree they will be more impactful given some time. I believe this is another benefit of using the full 10 days.

I assure you there was no deliberate attempt to spin what you were saying and my motivation for paraphrasing was to express what I thought you were saying so you could confirm (or in this case deny) that there was a mutual understanding.

I suspect there is an issue with communication rather than underlying ideas about the game because I agree with most of the points you've been making. I suspect the issue is a linguistic one and we are based on different definitions of what letting scum force plays or interactions means. In my mind "forcing an interaction" or "forcing a play" is usually a bad move for the side doing it because it implies the play was unnatural or awkwardly timed (hence it had to be forced in) and will be generally less effective. A "forcing interaction" that is dominant and controls the choices the other side has available is not what I was suggesting we want to allow others to be doing.

The tunneling trio you pointed out is a solid example of what I'm referring to about forcing an interaction (not a forcing interaction.) If the scum team decides to play that way that's fine with me but if it's the town doing that then there will be problems not only today but in the endgame as well.

I believe that Redados, Shelly and Italiano will be receptive to moving forward and focusing on other players. I also believe that the incoming replacements are more likely to be an asset than a liability.

What did you mean by "The tunneling trio you pointed out is a solid example of what I'm referring to about forcing an interaction (not a forcing interaction.)"

(added spoiler so others don't have to scroll past the original quotes)

I meant that the trio of Redados, Italiano and shellyc came in with preconceived feelings about each other and were skewing the discussion toward their point of view.

I was contrasting the early actions of these three with some type of play where one or more players are able to dominate the game, force the other players to respond to them or limit the actions of the other players in some way. I didn't feel like this was what they were doing because I felt like I could read their discussion and then respond to it as I chose.

I remember at this point in time I thought (incorrectly) the conflict between Mush and I was that Mush interpreted my statements about letting mafia force plays and make mistakes as allowing other players to dominate the game, and I was attempting to clarify my point of view in ways I thought might make sense to her.

Firstly,

I wasn't assuming that you were intentionally misinterpreting

my question. Instead,

I was warning you to not further misinterpret

the question.

Secondly, the "obsession" angle you are referring to doesn't even seem to be

the reason

I am scumreading you for. It is a misrepresentation of a part of the case, and there is no need for me to argue for something that I am not arguing about.

Thirdly, the "This is also the answer to your question" again, does not answer the question.

"Your double-take going into this FoS looks strange as well. I'm tempted to give Casey town credit if Frederick flips scum either now or at a later date because it appears as though Frederick decided I would be his best push only after he read her most recent posts. I will elaborate on this in the next post. The only way I can see Frederick being town here is if it's in his meta to FoS for night kill analysis as town or if it's a pre-emptive townie OMGUS because he feared I would push him after my long post #734 (which I was not planning.) In case of the latter situation I could see an equal argument your play here is an example of a scummy OMGUS. At this point I would be the second townie you overreacted to in an OMGUS, the first being shelly, something which made me believe you might be an anti-town townie. In case of the first situation of a TvT I'm imagining, where it's in your meta to FoS for night kills, Frederick do you have any completed games on this site where you FoSed another player for night kill analysis and you were aligned with town?
I will unvote you if you can supply an example of this."

No. I have attempted to clarify that I am not scumreading you over analysing nightkills, but you have failed to understand. I will repeat myself for the umpteenth time and will continue to do so. I am scumreading you for being concerned about what other players think of the nightkill. Also, even if I could provide evidence that I have scumread someone for it, the fact that you are basing your argument on something that is not true means that your argument is invalid.

"This also reminded me of something you said which is incongruent, Frederick:

@Frederick: what do you think about the Mush kill?

I think nothing of it.

You mean you weren't pleased that the player who tunneled you all game was killed during the night? Not even a little bit? And you allegedly kept a spreadsheet of all of our tells yet you don't bother to make any notes whatsoever about the night kill? This looks like a lie to me. I think you wanted to kill the discussion on this topic because it was inconvenient to you."
I don't analyse night kills. I simply don't. You can search every game I have ever played and I have never scumread anyone over a nightkill. I always suspect others for what they have posted instead of a nightkill that they may or may not have committed.

"This type of play on Frederick's part is exactly what I was referring to about letting the scum force plays in the part I bolded below. Frederick, your scumread looks like something you're trying to force into the game because night kill analysis ultimately is not a scum tell it's a method of scumhunting and the situation you're introducing it as a scum tell is convenient for you to avoid blame."

You have unwittingly just pointed out the actual problem I had in the post I thought was non-existent. Why were you thinking that "the trio of Redados, Italiano and shellyc came in with preconceived feelings about each other and were skewing the discussion toward their point of view." was a forced interaction?

Also, I suggest that you acknowledge that what you believe is going on in my head is not evidence of my alignment, just as I am fully aware that whatever I think is going on in your head is not evidence. It does warrant suspicion, however.

The scumread isn't over your obsession of the night kill. It is over your obsession of what others think of the night kill.

Analyzing the night kill and asking questions are both valid ways of scumhunting. Asking everyone their opinion also does not qualify as an obsession. I used similar methods of scumhunting on D1 when I asked all of the players who their current choice in a daykill would be. Your case here is quite the stretch.

I'm not arguing that analysing the night kill and asking questions are not valid ways of scumhunting. I agree that asking everyone their opinion does not qualify as an obsession, so I will call it a concern from now on. Your asking of all the players who their current choice in a daykill would be does not seem related to asking all the players what they think of the nightkill.

That actually lines up pretty well with what I have observed thus far.

UNVOTE:

That literally doesn't explain why you find me scummy?

The fact you're asking for an explanation instead of accusing me of being scummy (as though you're more worried that I cheated than if I really know if you're scum or not) is another tick in the scum direction from my point of view.

Not a fan of this.

By don't care I mean I don't care if I have to vote Rocknil or Lavaar, not that I don't care about the outcome of the game! I do want to win and I am town and I think either one of these is the best move.

My opinion of Frog is dropping each time he posts. This "I do want to win and I am town" phrasing is baffling.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Congratulations. You have made me suspicious.

Good vote.

I think Mush was killed to try and frame Frederick.

Has anyone even hypothesized this today?

I think Mush was killed to try and frame Frederick.

Has anyone even hypothesized this today?

Mush was out for Frederick's blood. If Frederick is on the scumteam they would probably need to kill Mush.

Oh look at that.

I'm feeling pretty confident that Redados, Italiano, and Lavar are town.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

VOTE: Frogsterking

Now

I remember why I was scumreading Frogsterking.

Care to elaborate?

Originally, I started to scumread Frogsterking for his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill. Then, Casey made the following post.

Okay so look at these.

Welcome to the town Casey!

Welcome aboard, Casey.

Welcome to the game Casey.

Italiano and Rock welcome me to the game / aboard, but you specifically welcome me to the

town

.

The post added more fuel to my suspicions. I first questioned Frogsterking's obsession over what everyone thinks of the nightkill.

Meanwhile, I reread some part of the thread and misinterpreted a post Frogsterking made. I prepared to make a post to question Frogsterking on the post and saved it as a draft. Frogsterking appeared to answer the question of why he was so obsessed over what everyone thinks of the nightkill, so I dismissed it. I then posted the draft. After Frogsterking clarified the meaning of the post I misinterpreted, I actually didn't understand the clarification. However, while I started to make another post to further point out what was the problem with the post, I noticed that no such problem actually existed. Instead of questioning on an issue that was now evident to me was non-existent, I unvoted instead since I had no further reason to scumread him. Several hours later, I look at my spreadsheet with the list of all my reads thus far and the post(s) from which I deduced them. I noticed I listed Frogsterking's post 640 as my reason for scumreading him. Actually, when I made the post you quoted, I still thought I only remembered scumreading Frogsterking for post 640 and the post I misinterpreted.

It is only while looking into the question I remember asking Frogsterking something that I didn't remember that I remembered my

true reason

for scumreading Frogsterking.

In conclusion, my current scumread on Frogsterking is over his obsession of what everyone thinks of the nightkill, while my reason for scumreading Frogsterking when I made the post you quoted was for post 640 and my very first suspicions on Frogsterking was because of his obsession over the nightkill.

This sequence of events is extremely scummy. You clearly "remember" why you were scumreading Frogsterking after you see that Casey FoSes Frogsterking. It looks as if Casey decided she FoSed someone else you would have refrained from pushing on me at all. The paragraph attempting to explain this away is confusing and appears contrived.

I also find it extremely unlikely someone detail-oriented enough to keep a spreadsheet of their notes on every player would have nothing to say about the night kill.

As it happens,

Casey's FoS on you was what triggered me

to check why I even had you as a scumread in the first place.

By the way,

I keep a spreadsheet

because I understand limitations in my memory.

I don't detail every little thing

in my spreadsheet as that would be just as time-consuming for me to wade through as the whole thread. Also,

I don't have notes on every player

.

I have notes on

a select few posts

that brought me closer to a conclusion on someone's alignment. Actually, it is even in the paragraph explaining my scumread on you.

[Frogsterking]

@Mod, will there be an extension for Rocknil's replacement to catch up?

I'll pause the deadline at 24 hours and resume when our game is full and active.

Prodding LavarManos.

Phew.

We have a little over 24 hours left, so I think it's time to get our limpools together. I would prefer to lim Fredrick A Campbell or Rocknil today. Where is everyone else at?

I believe it's critically important to hammer Frederick today because his plan is to bandwagon me off of Casey's vote who is town. I outlined my theory of this in 813.

If my theory is correct then Frederick believed now was the best time to force a play. He would only need to persuade one more townie to join the bandwagon after Casey's vote; Italiano who scum reads neither Frederick nor I or Lavar who I accused of being scum earlier today. Pretty solid odds for a scum in this setup.

I'm especially weary of Frederick's timing around the mod's announcement of a replacement of Rocknil and you and I's brief discussion of the pros and cons of a policy lynch.

If a) Rocknil is scum who voted Frederick at the beginning of the day with Frederick's guidance, creating distance and giving Rocknil the option of bussing or changing his vote later, now is an opportunity for the replacement to appear, "unvote while he rereads", and then hop on my bandwagon "for x reason."

If b) Even worse Rocknil is town, then policy lynching Rocknil will enable Frederick a cross with me on lylo day where he and his partner can vote me and only one townie is needed to be persuaded to vote me to win the game (which he believes could be Casey.)

I have two more things to add in follow up posts.

[Frogsterking]

Who is on right now

The deadline is coming and it looks like it’s getting very close to a no elimination.

Italiano, I'm on. Want to switch to Fredrick A Campbell so we dodge no elim?

I don't understand why he didn't hammer!!

We are out of time to discuss and Fredrick should know that he is the lim target if we don't lim Shelly.
LavarManos, *I* think that you should vote Shelly. But you should vote for Shelly or Fredrick at the very least. No elimination is bad for the town and not an option at this point.

You have to move your vote off MagikHorse now cause it's not doing anything there.

That was pretty sloppy play on Fredrick's part. Pretty sloppy.

Italiano, I'm on. Want to switch to Fredrick A Campbell so we dodge no elim?

Sorry Redados, I went to go drop off my sister at work and was gonna come back and do so. I didn’t like how he didn’t vote when I asked him. He said “he didn’t see the point”. I think he may be the Day 2 target. I may have been wrong about him.

No need to apologize, we got the lim.

If one of you two are scum then this was very good acting.

[Frogsterking]

I feel honored
Sorry shellyc! I think rocknil's vote felt a little forced, so that's where I'm going to start my day. Frederick had some redeeming qualities.
VOTE: rocknil

I think he couldn't be around deadline so he wanted us to discuss more. Just my thought and he can give a better answer if I'm wrong.

I won't be around at the last hour before the deadline. Unless you guys are fine for a hammer in six hours or less than six hours before deadline, I can't place the hammer.

This seems to be his explanation.
Redados, do you have a better read on Italiano now?

I am still townreading Italiano and I still townread you, so I am thinking we can try to find the scumteam in the remaining pool of four players based on how they have interacted. I do not think rocknil is scum with Fredrick because there is no need to open up the day with a vote on his scumbuddy. I also do not like how rocknil chose to ignore my vote on him.

Assuming Italiano is town, we have that the possible scum teams are
rocknil-Fredrick
rocknil-Frogster
rocknil-Magik Horse
Fredrick-Frogster
Fredrick-Magik Horse
Frogester-Magik Horse
I have already explained why I don't think rocknil and Fredrick are aligned, so I will be looking at the remaining 5 hypothetical teams. This assumes that Italiano is town which is dangerous, but I am still believing in it right now.

Assuming Italiano is town, we have that the possible scum teams are
rocknil-Fredrick
rocknil-Frogster
rocknil-Magik Horse
Fredrick-Frogster
Fredrick-Magik Horse
Frogester-Magik Horse
I have already explained why I don't think rocknil and Fredrick are aligned, so I will be looking at the remaining 5 hypothetical teams. This assumes that Italiano is town which is dangerous, but I am still believing in it right now.

Lavar, if the Rocknil replacement arrives, unvotes, rereads, and votes someone other than Frederick, would you still be eliminating the Rocknil-

Frederick

scum team from your list of possible pairs?

Why are you voting rocknil instead of me though and why do you think we are scum together? Do you really think I would choose to attack him, but have him completely ignore my presence?

Answer my question

That literally doesn't explain why you find me scummy?

Watergun missed!

I think most newbies queued up for this game because they wanted to find scum

This is fair.

your slot replaced through until the most competitive personality joined (you).

Don't you think shellyc was more competitive? Also, why do you think that is alignment indicative?

To be more specific I don't think either Frederick or Magik would have killed Mush if they were scum I think both would have killed Redados and between the newbie slots alone you're a lot more likely even though you and the other replacement seemed townie in your initial posts.

I don't follow this at all. MUSH suspected you, Fredrick, and rocknil to some extent, so why are you saying they wouldn't have incentive to kill her and instead kill Redados? This seems like quite a stretch, and you may even trying to be

intentionally

twisting the narrative. I do not know yet.

The fact you're asking for an explanation instead of accusing me of being scummy (as though you're more worried that I cheated than if I really know if you're scum or not) is another tick in the scum direction from my point of view.

I'm trying to see your thought process to see if how you arrived at this rocknil/me scumteam is a reasonable vs malicious.

I also think you were most active at the beginning of the daystart because you were the one to hammer the night action.

I'm speculating here that the frustration and contempt come from the combination of Lavar's pride in being townread by the other players and the fact that I'm voting him correctly but for completely the wrong reasons. That's pure speculation though because what everyone does around this hammer and D3 will be much more AI IMO.

Right now I have in order from most to least likely:

Very likely: Fred-Lavar, Fred Rocknil

Very unlikely: Fred-Italiano, Fred-Red, Fred-Casey

[Frogsterking]

Okay, I have a third and final follow up to my posts 813 and 815.

In Casey's 745 and Frederick's 753 from which I'm drawing my conclusions about what would otherwise in my opinion be EXTREMELY erratic play from town!Frederick's point of view, Casey also states for the first time that now, unlike earlier, she

townreads

Lavar. This means that scum!Frederick's play is substantially less risky in a Lavar-Frederick world because should he fail to get me hammered today and get himself hammered instead, Lavar can night kill me, policy-lynch Rocknil, and then enter a three-way lylo where at least one if not two town players have him as a townread.

[Frogsterking]

Wow there is a lot to dig in here.

By the way, this is exactly how I felt after you made those series of long posts. I just dissected everything bit by bit, post by post.

[Frogsterking]

I have a theory that you are good at picking up on tells in others behaviors, and that you scum read people who seem anxious and guarded, is this true?

Since this was addressed to Casey, who is only scumreading you, this post seems to suggest that you are anxious and guarded. Also, if you are not scum, why do you consider Casey good at picking up on tells in other's behaviors. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

I have a theory that you are good at picking up on tells in others behaviors, and that you scum read people who seem anxious and guarded, is this true?

Since this was addressed to Casey, who is only scumreading you,

#1

this post seems to suggest that you are anxious and guarded.

#2

Also, if you are not scum, why do you consider Casey good at picking up on tells in other's behaviors.

#3

Shouldn't it be the opposite?

Warning: essay approaching!!

#1

Correct. On the five-factor personality trait continuum (acronym O.C.E.A.N: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) I score very high on disagreeableness (or very low on agreeableness), a subtrait of which is how likely you are to be guarded and suspicious toward others, very high on introversion (low on extraversion), and very high on neuroticism (sensitivity to anxiety), which were the main categories I was thinking about here.

I believe Casey, shelly and I are all similar in a specific combination in that we are about midrange conscientiousness (Casey's correction of medias vs medium for one example), very high in disagreeableness because we are competitive, and very high in openness which is why we all self-identified as behavioral players, prefer lifestyles related to the arts, value things that are aesthetic or creative etc. and I did not believe that aspect was at play in her scumread here (except in a helpful way in that Casey initially enjoyed my posts minus the statistical parts) so I thought there might be some conflict brewing regarding guardedness and anxiety. I also wonder if people who are disagreeable and introverted express it differently than people who are disagreeable and extraverted, due to a sub trait of extraversion called assertiveness, which I will be focusing on in response to #3.

#2

Not necessarily because being able to describe other's behavior and accurately identify deception are different things. I'm inclined to believe that humans aren't really able to identify deceptive behavior as much as they're able to recognize when the liar has made a mistake, or failing that when some kinds of behavior may be easier to conceal a lie, such as in this case a personality that appears anxious, introverted and guarded.

One example of why I believe she might be good at picking up on other's behaviors is that she very quickly said things like "N-E-E-E-R-D" if I recall correctly, and though I do not self-identify as a nerd, if she was referring to the concept of a personality that was anxious, introverted, and competitive+guarded, then she is accurate not only on a qualitative scale but on a quantifiable one as well (the five-factor model) and she didn't need to read much of my writing to determine that. This also is congruent with how she seems to view the world and other things she said like "the ones who aren't the cool kids get voted out", also to paraphrase.

My theory is that as she read more of my writing she was able to pick up on more subtle aspects of my personality which is what she began scum reading me for.

A more critical example is when she scum read me for the push on Lavar. I believe she was correctly assessing that I was motivated by anxiety on some level though not fully aware of it, and town read his assertiveness and posting lots of reads. I believe she also townread Redados for being assertive at some points in D1, and this trend is important for how I'm about to continue:

I think she thought that I viewed her as town because of the welcome post, and because I didn't assert that I town read her, she suspected I might have been attempting to conceal that I knew she was town because I'm mafia, when instead she was accurately identifying two behavioral tells I wasn't fully aware of (guardedness and my view on the MagikHorse/Casey slot) which was accurate on her part, however the conclusion of deceptive behavior was not. Another example of when she was bothered by my guardedness early on was in my response to Redados on D1, when I said "Hmm", which she viewed as killing the conversation and holding something back. Of course since Casey is also disagreeable, most of these behavioral tells she picks up on she is inclined to be suspicious of, especially ones that are most unlike herself.

This seems to me what Casey is screening for here in a nutshell, the anxiety and guardedness in other players, as she does not come off as dumb, fabricating her reads, or inexperienced, so I'm not inclined to write her views off quite yet even though I know she is wrong about my alignment. Though she says she relies on her gut I believe there is something specific motivating her actions as she also does not come off as wishy washy, which is why I narrowed it down to guardedness and anxiety that she's picking up on.

#3

Like I said I think that Casey is high on disagreeableness, or has a tendency to be competitive, and I think because of her posting style and how she describes herself she is more extraverted and less sensitive to anxiety, at least compared to myself and possibly some other players in this game, so when she picks up on these tells she is inclined to be suspicious of them especially because they are unlike herself, some people act this way when they lie, and she is inclined to be suspicious in general because she is disagreeable. For yet another example on this behavior, she initially didn't like the Larvar slot on D1 when he did not jump in very much as the replacement, but viewed him more favorably when he started speaking up on D2.

Like I mentioned toward the end of #1, another key difference of extraversion that may cause disagreebleness to reflect differently is the subtrait of extraversion called assertiveness. Casey seems to value assertiveness highly, and being very low in extraversion myself I tend to behave much less assertively IRL and online.

This trait doesn't always stop me from speaking out, because the disagreeableness makes me competitive and the neuroticism makes me defensive, and the openness makes me desire to be creative. I suspect that Casey is accurately identifying my behavior as being in turns quiet, creative, aggressive or defensive, and when I do speak out it comes from a desire to win rather than a genuine desire to assert myself, so while she initially appreciated the creativity she became suspicious of my play as it seemed anxious, guarded and aggressive (though she is also aggressive but in a less guarded way) and from her point of view not very genuine as she values and is motivated by assertiveness, not just winning.

It makes sense to me that she could accurately identify my behavior, while still incorrectly concluding me as scum, if she is observing guardedness, anxiety, desire to win combined with lack of assertiveness, as some people act this way when they lie and it is different from her own behavior and she is presumably town. I believe that after interacting with me for a longer period of time she would realize that these traits in my case are not indicative of deception, as my behavior is like this when I'm telling the truth as well, since it's part of my personality.

It also makes sense you would choose Casey to push with Frederick once you saw how she is reading the game, as being extraverted and disagreeable, it's less likely she has the introspection to realize you're using her because she is extraverted and is more prone to disagree with me if I try to change her mind because she is disagreeable (no offense Casey.)

Why is this play erratic?

Umm if you're seriously town then it would be more difficult to find an example of how your play was not erratic. If you're town then whatever drugs you were on when you wrote that stuff outlined in 813 I want some.

If you're scum the play makes a lot of sense though. I believe you will flip scum here.

[Frogsterking]

@Mod, will there be an extension for Rocknil's replacement to catch up?

I'll pause the deadline at 24 hours and resume when our game is full and active.

Prodding LavarManos.

Phew.

We have a little over 24 hours left, so I think it's time to get our limpools together. I would prefer to lim Fredrick A Campbell or Rocknil today. Where is everyone else at?

I believe it's critically important to hammer Frederick today because his plan is to bandwagon me off of Casey's vote who is town. I outlined my theory of this in 813.

If my theory is correct then Frederick believed now was the best time to force a play. He would only need to persuade one more townie to join the bandwagon after Casey's vote; Italiano who scum reads neither Frederick nor I or Lavar who I accused of being scum earlier today. Pretty solid odds for a scum in this setup.

I'm especially weary of Frederick's timing around the mod's announcement of a replacement of Rocknil and you and I's brief discussion of the pros and cons of a policy lynch.

If a) Rocknil is scum who voted Frederick at the beginning of the day with Frederick's guidance, creating distance and giving Rocknil the option of bussing or changing his vote later, now is an opportunity for the replacement to appear, "unvote while he rereads", and then hop on my bandwagon "for x reason."

If b) Even worse Rocknil is town, then policy lynching Rocknil will enable Frederick a cross with me on lylo day where he and his partner can vote me and only one townie is needed to be persuaded to vote me to win the game (which he believes could be Casey.)

I have two more things to add in follow up posts.

I don't see such a thing in post 813.

Look in the quotes in post 813. The case I outlined is color-coded and made entirely of you and Casey's words. I also underlined some important words sparingly, at the very beginning and end I think.

That raises an important point though,

if anyone currently in this game or replaces into this game is colorblind, you will not be able to see the case in 813. It's using the font colors red, blue and pink, and highlights the areas where I believe Frederick is showcasing a scum motivation and manufacturing a read in reaction to Casey's posts. It's what I believe is a very strong scum tell coming from Frederick along with an associative town tell on Casey.

[Frogsterking]

I think hammering Rocknil today is risky, as I think there is both a high chance of both Rocknil-Frederick and Lavar-Frederick pair, and in the case of Lavar-Frederick they will be able to night kill a player that town reads me and force a majority off Casey's vote in D3.

[Frogsterking]

I believe that after interacting with me for a longer period of time she would realize that these traits in my case are not indicative of deception, as my behavior is like this when I'm telling the truth as well, since it's part of my personality.

This sentence is a stain on an otherwise bespoke garment.

Still. I don't think Frog is the best lim for today.

VOTE: Rocknil

In addition to sketchy play + replace out, I don't think it's fair to force someone to replace in, roll mafia, and climb an uphill battle.

My most likely pairing is Rock+Frog, but I'm having doubts about the Frog part of that.

This game is small enough that I don't feel like I need to make a chart, but I will if it gets necessary.

Because that sentence is more cliche, or because it reads as less genuine, or because it is poorly written, or for a completely different reason altogether?

I think a full-blown chart might just be too much information no matter how accurate it is, but some form of a reads list is probably helpful to other players at this point in the game, myself included.

[Frogsterking]

I’ve skimmed over the last few pages and I’m still trying to understand the Frogster/Frederick angles.

Let’s hope our suspicions of Rock were right.

I’ll take the night to reread the cases of Frog/Fred so I can fully get what both of you are trying to say.

I can empathize with this post because I feel if two players that I read as town started tunneling each other I would feel unsure of what was going on.

[Frogsterking]

I’ve skimmed over the last few pages and I’m still trying to understand the Frogster/Frederick angles.

Let’s hope our suspicions of Rock were right.

I’ll take the night to reread the cases of Frog/Fred so I can fully get what both of you are trying to say.

The reason why I chose to use color to represent my case in 813 was because I was studying color for marketing which was on my mind and I believed Frederick's case did not make sense and the points I had to make about it's irrationality and scum motivation required more of an artist than a lawyer.

[Frogsterking]

Actually, on looking further back the part about Frogsterking killing MUSHSHAGANA to frame me makes less sense to me now because Frogsterking didn't even start the day attempting to get rid of me, stating instead that he didn't think I would have killed MUSHSHAGANA in post 593. Another duo was hypothesized instead. However, I still think the perspective slips are there and not imaginary unless Frogsterking could give an explanation for my observation in post 732.

Yes..

If you are town I would heavily encourage you to reconsider the things you said because I don't believe they make any sense.

What was the perspective slip in 732?

[Frogsterking]

I'm on sodium valporate. 500 mg a day as prescribed by my psychiatrist.

Hmm. That's actually why I used the red and blue on your comments I highlighted in 813. I was influenced by your decision to use Beethoven as your avatar.

[Frogsterking]

I'm the town tracker, both of my reports are dead. I suggest not voting if you're town because with three to eliminate it gives the mafia the chance to quick hammer.

[Frogsterking]

I'm assuming that school might have started recently for one or two of you guys?

[Frogsterking]

I breadcrumbed twice for anyone who cares.

[Frogsterking]

A little one on each day, I wasn't trying to get night killed now.

I also think you were most active at the beginning of the daystart because you were the one to hammer the night action.

Tracker follows the one who hammers the night action.

Here's a useful resource I found for the mechanics of the setup. https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=83092

I think the sample size is too small but it provides material worth speculating on.

It appears that scum newbies have the most difficult time handling this setup out of any group, which seems logical.

It appears that configurations in the A and B groups are heavily town sided (with A2 and B3 as exceptions presenting poor results for town but also an even smaller sample size) and the C group appears more balanced than townsided.

The average length of real life time for games that ended on D2 was 15.9 days I believe.

Also, Shelly, I am just copying and pasting the links from the address bar at the top of the web browser to the box I'm typing in.

A2 and B3 both have the Tracker.

[Frogsterking]

I'm so drunk right now guys.

[Frogsterking]

I'm assuming that school might have started recently for one or two of you guys?

By one or two of you guys I mean Lavar, hence the end of D2 lurking.

[Frogsterking]

I'm assuming that school might have started recently for one or two of you guys?

By one or two of you guys I mean Lavar, hence the end of D2 lurking.

Also I may or may not have meant the scum team, who are about to get schooled.

[Frogsterking]

Tracker follows the one who hammers the night action.

What does this mean?

I am not scum. Also, Redados sent me his Friendly Neighbor message N1.
I will reconsider my reads, but the scumteam might just be Casey and Fred? Idk

It was just a breadcrumb.

[Frogsterking]

Lavar did you consider not outting that Redados visited you N1.

[Frogsterking]

Lavar did you consider not outting that Redados visited you N1?

[Frogsterking]

Tracker follows the one who hammers the night action.

What does this mean?

I am not scum. Also, Redados sent me his Friendly Neighbor message N1.
I will reconsider my reads, but the scumteam might just be Casey and Fred? Idk

What reads are you reconsidering here? The ones from the beginning of D2?

[Frogsterking]

Lavar did you consider not outting that Redados visited you N1.

#1

Why would I do that? I did allude to it in my first post of the day 2 here.

I feel honored

#2

What do you mean by the Tracker follows the one who hammers the night action? yes, I do need to reconsider my townread on Italiano since it is LYLO.

#1

To avoid suspicion. Redados died the next night.

#2

I was trying to allude to my role in a way that didn't get me killed. The tracker only gets a "guilty" if that player was the one to do the kill or night action. In the format I'm used to playing you'd call that player's choice the hammer, because it's selected like a vote, and will cause the night to end if they were the last one to make their choice, like a hammer.

I'm not sure if selecting a night action here is also called a hammer because it's not selected through votes, but whatever.

[Frogsterking]

This was the reason for my use of the word overestimate vs underestimate:

Last minute baseless speculation:

Consider a Frogster and Frederick scumteam. They play off of each other constantly, they reinforce each other; even Frogster’s criticism seems anticipated and expected.

If Shelly flips green... consider the value of a Frogster and Frederick scumteam and compare it with how their interactions and play have been.

Also, my survival or death has no bearing on this baseless speculation whether you want it to or not, to prevent Town from getting suckered into a wildly off base round of game solving nonsense. Even if scum actually use worried about this, don’t read into it. Follow my earlier play if I die tonight.

The first time I read through this post I did not read the bolded comment and believed the post as a whole to be a last-minute FoS of both Frederick and I. After doing the night kill analysis I realized that MUSH considered this read more speculative than the other ones, hence I'd OVERestimated her suspicion toward myself.

[Frogsterking]

Lavar did you consider not outting that Redados visited you N1.

#1

Why would I do that? I did allude to it in my first post of the day 2 here.

I feel honored

#2

What do you mean by the Tracker follows the one who hammers the night action? yes, I do need to reconsider my townread on Italiano since it is LYLO.

#1

To avoid suspicion. Redados died the next night.

#2

I was trying to allude to my role in a way that didn't get me killed. The tracker only gets a "guilty" if that player was the one to do the kill or night action. In the format I'm used to playing you'd call that player's choice the hammer, because it's selected like a vote, and will cause the night to end if they were the last one to make their choice, like a hammer.

I'm not sure if selecting a night action here is also called a hammer because it's not selected through votes, but whatever.

It is not called a hammer here, but is called "performing a night action" instead.

Anyway, why did you reveal who you targeted so soon? I could see some benefit if you kept who you targeted a secret.

That's good to know for the future. In hindsight I think I would phrase it that way instead.

I thought about it during N2 and decided this was best in case of a very aggressive CC. I did not take into consideration the result of the night kill during my claim either. It's definitely possible I could've played this better.

[Frogsterking]

Also in hindsight I noticed that I got pushed a lot for perspective slips on D2 and I wonder if it's due to how I write and whether it was exacerbated by my drinking.

[Frogsterking]

Also in hindsight I noticed that I got pushed a lot for perspective slips on D2 and I wonder if it's due to how I write and whether it was exacerbated by my drinking.

I think it was just me who pushed you for that.

To be fair it was Casey who pointed them out and then allowed you to push them.

[Frogsterking]

Also in hindsight I noticed that I got pushed a lot for perspective slips on D2 and I wonder if it's due to how I write and whether it was exacerbated by my drinking.

I think it was just me who pushed you for that.

Also in hindsight I noticed that I got pushed a lot for perspective slips on D2 and I wonder if it's due to how I write and whether it was exacerbated by my drinking.

I think it was just me who pushed you for that.

To be fair it was Casey who pointed them out and then allowed you to push them.

While she MLed Rocknil lol.

[Frogsterking]

Lavar I'm going to need you to do some amateur detective work or this day is going to be super painful for me.

[Frogsterking]

Also Casey what is your current opinion of the scum team?

[Frogsterking]

I have more experience with NKA, is anyone here amateur, pro or otherwise experienced in VCA?

[Frogsterking]

Lavar I'm going to need you to do some amateur detective work or this day is going to be super painful for me.

Professional detective work would be even better by the way.

[Frogsterking]

Italiano do you have any experience with VCA?

[Frogsterking]

I have more experience with NKA, is anyone here amateur, pro or otherwise experienced in VCA?

Pretty experienced. My vca is trash. I’ve been wrong both times (shellyc, rocknil), so if we go by vca, I don’t look too good. I’ll try to see what’s happening elsewhere, but I wouldn’t have the moral authority to make a case.

Oh okay. What about your opinion on the Lavar slot now that you've seen the flips from yesterday?

[Frogsterking]

Although I didn’t know it was called vca until I got on here. We just didn’t call it that where I’ve played.

Same.

[Frogsterking]

Lavar I'm going to need you to do some amateur detective work or this day is going to be super painful for me.

Ok, what do you want? I do not know how to VCA either.

What's your opinion on the Magik/Casey slot?

[Frogsterking]

Sorry, I'm not really sure. I'll try to get back to you later.

Sorry, I'm not really sure. I'll try to get back to you later.

So you didn’t have any type of semi read on the slot?

I think Casey has been townie, but it is LYLO. A member of the mafia could be townie, so that alone does not prevent my vote from going there.
If Casey is town, then you are scum. I would like to believe that my townread on you is correct.

Maybe sometime over the next couple days if possible, I'd like to hear your new opinion the Magik/Casey slot.

[Frogsterking]

If it's changed.

[Frogsterking]

Oh shoot I thought it was really ending in 14 days.

[Frogsterking]

Vote Count 1.06

shellyc (3):

Redados

,

Frederick A Campbell

,

shellyc

, ItalianoVD, Frogsterking, rocknil

Frederick A Campbell (2):

MUSHSHAGANA, MagikHorse

MagikHorse (1):

LavarManos,

Frogsterking

ItalianoVD (0):

MagikHorse

rocknil (0):

Frogsterking

,

ItalianoVD

Redados (0):

shellyc

Not Voting (3):

rocknil

,

Frogsterking

, shellyc, Redados, Frederick A Campbell

Deadline is in

(expired on 2020-08-25 15:51:33)

, at which point we will default to no elimination.

With nine players alive, it takes

five

to reach majority.

If anyone is able to find good sources on VCA I will give you town credit. So far I only read Mastin's thoughts on VCA, from this site, which seems to be divided up among a forum post and two wiki articles.

My main take aways were that it's very contextual, two scum are harder to VCA than three scum, and there's a decent chance on D1 they were on separate wagons.

[Frogsterking]

I'm starting to develop a semi-intuitive read about the game.

[Frogsterking]

I'm probably going to need a fellow townsperson to bounce ideas off with. I just finished doing VCA of D1 up to 1.06. I'm going to see if I can go the rest of the way through the day now.

Casey or Frederick, do you have any experience in VCA?

[Frogsterking]

At this point I would be the second townie you overreacted to in an OMGUS [...]

VOTE: Frederick

I'd just like to point out the irony here.

Casey how did you know that this post was ironic?

[Frogsterking]

I'm going to have to go back over the VCA of D1 again tomorrow it was super exhausting and there was only one moment I thought really worth analyzing.

[Frogsterking]

Lavar you still have less posts than MagikHorse lol.

[Frogsterking]

Okay I'm very tempted to call the game now.

[Frogsterking]

I'm going to give everyone one more round of posts tomorrow before I dump my thoughts out. If you're the scum team this will probably be your last chance to change my mind.

These were the sources I used for understanding VCA:

https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... unting#VCA
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... _VCA_Guide
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=VCA
https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?t=70951

I was hoping to find a greater variety of sources on the topic but it seems to be something more effective in the MafiaScum format.

This writer (or writers with similar names) predicted this information would become outdated as scum became familiar with the theory which I don't believe was the case at all in this game.

[Frogsterking]

Ughh I'm very very tempted to try and call the game but I know the winrate will improve the more patience I show, this is when some of the slips happen.

My gamesolve is based on four different things including the VCA of D1 and D2.

[Frogsterking]

Right now, I think the scumteam is either Casey and LavarManos or ItalianoVD and LavarManos. I am considering executing LavarManos today.

Okay, and why have you ruled out the possibility of Casey and Italiano?

[Frogsterking]

By the way Lavar, if you're too reticent about posting reads without the time to review the material, a semi-detailed description of your past mafia experiences would be EXTREMELY helpful.

[Frogsterking]

Anyone have any last contributions? 12 hours and some change left, a hammer vote is coming sooner or later at this point, and one of us won't be here for Day 2. Get your last impulses and reads and ideas out, tell us Day 2 plans, etc.

IMO this Italiano / Magik interaction for calling Italiano out seems off to me. (This is just a gut feeling)

I also have an opinion on the interaction.

I also have an opinion on the interaction.

Oh are you going to state it or what?

Actually, I think it should be fine for me to state it. I think the interaction is unlikely to be scum acting. Should it be true that it wasn't scum acting, at least one of them is town.

Right now, I think the scumteam is either Casey and LavarManos or ItalianoVD and LavarManos. I am considering executing LavarManos today.

Because of this????

[Frogsterking]

You're play has not been lackluster as much as lurky.

[Frogsterking]

Your*

[Frogsterking]

Can you give me any insight into how you approach the game as scum???

[Frogsterking]

Off the cuff. Please, it will help.

[Frogsterking]

I think I would just try to active lurk and throw in the occasional thought or two. Nothing much.

Okay great, and have you ever bussed a scum buddy before??

[Frogsterking]

Not yet

Lavar can you please answer one more question?

[Frogsterking]

Not yet

Not yet

Lavar can you please answer one more question?

Can you give me an example of a bad scumplay, like something your partner would do and instantly you would be so angry that they did that, like they ruined the game for you??

[Frogsterking]

Okay. You seem pretty easy-going.

[Frogsterking]

Thank you for answering my questions.

[Frogsterking]

But I also have a suspicion on LavarManos in addition to that.

Okay, and what is it?

[Frogsterking]

Also Casey what is your current opinion of the scum team?

Gun to my head Lavar Italiano. Or Lavar Fred. Italiano Fred has the greatest interactions and I am super sleepy and don't recall but I think I marked them as likely to be genuine.

Why "Lavar Italiano" in the first line and then "Italiano Fred" in the second line?

Also in hindsight I noticed that I got pushed a lot for perspective slips on D2 and I wonder if it's due to how I write and whether it was exacerbated by my drinking.

I think it was just me who pushed you for that.

To be fair it was Casey who pointed them out and then allowed you to push them.

Just FYI, I pushed you also. Like you were my #2 scumread at the time.

Setting up the lynch.

At this point I would be the second townie you overreacted to in an OMGUS [...]

VOTE: Frederick

I'd just like to point out the irony here.

Casey how did you know that this post was ironic?

You didn't answer my question here Casey.

[Frogsterking]

But I also have a suspicion on LavarManos in addition to that.

Okay, and what is it?

The initial reason I remember is for potentially lining up executions in post 688. A more general trend that I have noticed is that they (LavarManos) just says the bare minimum.

Ugh I totally did not see that post and it's so true he only says the bare minimum.

[Frogsterking]

Alright I'm going to wait a little longer for Lavar to post his scum team

[Frogsterking]

Do the mafia have day chat?

[Frogsterking]

Do the mafia have day chat?

Newbie games have had day chat since they last changed the setup I think.

That's how todays posts look to me.

I’ve read the past few pages and I think at this point we should all list our scumteam.

Frederick already stated his and I don’t blame him for thinking that even though it’s only halfway true.

My scumteam is Lavar and Casey, however, I’ve been wrong on both days so far (shelly / rocknil) so I’m not real confident about placing a vote down unplanned or without logic. I would like to hear from Frogster.

At that point I will make my decision and if the consensus ends up being me, there’s nothing I can do, but it’d be game over at that point.

"Frederick already stated his and I don’t blame him for thinking that even though it’s only halfway true."

How would you know that it is only halfway true?

I was thinking the same thing.

[Frogsterking]

I'm still waiting for Lavar to post his reads before I reveal the results of the VCA I did last night.

[Frogsterking]

I’ve read the past few pages and I think at this point we should all list our scumteam.

Frederick already stated his and I don’t blame him for thinking that even though it’s only halfway true.

My scumteam is Lavar and Casey, however, I’ve been wrong on both days so far (shelly / rocknil) so I’m not real confident about placing a vote down unplanned or without logic. I would like to hear from Frogster.

At that point I will make my decision and if the consensus ends up being me, there’s nothing I can do, but it’d be game over at that point.

What about Frederick?

[Frogsterking]

I have no read on Italiano but at this point I think I might cross my fingers and just hope he's town the same way I hope you are town.

I've also noticed that Redados N2 target hasn't come forward yet. From this comment I assume it's Italiano.

[Frogsterking]

Apparently I was Redados N2 target lol

[Frogsterking]

And I can confirm that Redados is indeed town

[Frogsterking]

Fred & Italiano how do you reconcile the quote above being from maf?? Coached by his partner to active lurk and say self-incriminating things??

lol

[Frogsterking]

I'm still holding off on the results of the VCA I did until A wild Charmeleon appears!

[Frogsterking]

Sorry, I do not think I have any new ideas.
Frogster, feel free to post your VCA whenever. Time is running out.

Yikes.

[Frogsterking]

Italiano do you have any thoughts on Lavar's lurking? And playing exactly the way he said he would as scum?

[Frogsterking]

Fred: "I think the scumteam is ItalianoVD and LavarManos."

Lavar: "I will reconsider my reads, but the scumteam might just be Casey and Fred?" "I think Casey has been townie, but it is LYLO. A member of the mafia could be townie, so that alone does not prevent my vote from going there."

Italiano: "My scumteam is Lavar and Casey, however, I’ve been wrong on both days so far (shelly / rocknil) so I’m not real confident about placing a vote down unplanned or without logic."

Casey: Currently feeling Fred/Italiano. It may be Lavar's lack of action that has me focused there. I'm giving Lavar a pass for being a newbie.

Also this exchange:

Can you give me any insight into how you approach the game as scum???

I think I would just try to active lurk and throw in the occasional thought or two. Nothing much.

Would a newbie maf really say how they play as maf while doing the exact same thing they say they're doing?

I'm wondering about this last bit as well.

[Frogsterking]

So my real reports were that Fred visited no one N1 and Italiano visited Redados N2

[Frogsterking]

I'll try to post the takeaways from the VCA though I'm fairly tipsy again

[Frogsterking]

Italiano visited Redados N2

I've been hoping you would say something that would help me town read you.

[Frogsterking]

I'll try to partner hunt, but considering my reasons for townreading Italiano were fallacious, I might not be the most reliable.
Between Fred and Casey huh

No it's between you and Casey. I don't believe Frederick declined to use his power N1.

[Frogsterking]

I'll try to partner hunt, but considering my reasons for townreading Italiano were fallacious, I might not be the most reliable.
Between Fred and Casey huh

This defense also looks eerily like Italiano's.

[Frogsterking]

So my real reports were that Fred visited no one N1 and Italiano visited Redados N2

I was coming round to townreading ItalianoVD again, actually.

Yes it was a fortunate report. The only thing that made me suspect him was the night kill analysis. He was pretty immune to behavioral scum reads.

Spoiler alert: same for the MagikHorse/Casey slot, who was the clear loser from the vote count analysis I did. I was hoping Lavar would do something that made my choice clear, unfortunately he hasn't inspired much confidence.

[Frogsterking]

One of the main take aways from the VCA was that Italiano only voted alongside now-confirmed townies whom he was townreading at the time. The exception is that he did join a BW with Lavar for a period of time, during which Lavar was heavily town reading him. It appeared to me that Italiano uses his votes to pocket townies and is concerned with distancing. I don't believe he's ever voted alongside MagikHorse/Casey once, and there was something about the timing he joined the main BW on D1, like it looked like he was making sure he and MagikHorse were never on the same BW. I'll have to go back through the day.