Newbie 2025 | Lilies | Game Over

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Occurs to me I didn't do an introduction of myself really!

I've had a couple games of experience here.... like 3 and a half years ago.

(I forgot my username, and even if I had remembered it, I've lost all of the information I could use to get back into that account. So I made another, it's been a long time anyway and I need to get the rust off of me. Old username is "cassielle" for the interested, found it earlier today. Fair warning, it's likely to be misleading for meta, I was under way more real life stress at that time.)

I also had, even before that, a Mafia game on another forum. Or two games? Not sure, it's been a looooong time.

But functionally, I'm brand new. Forgot damn near everything.

Never played Mafia off of a forum, I feel like it'd be less interesting to me: I like the asynchronous nature, the way it lets you overthink yourself into a corner, and so on. It feels like a more immediate medium would rely more on intuition and gut feeling and charisma than strategy and psychology, and I'm just not into that.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Well! If we're doing THAT kind of introduction... only one of the following statements is ENTIRELY true:

I am a published author who has worked with notable horror authors like Laird Barron or Adam Washington.
I have been homeless for nine years.
I drink like a fish.
My middle name quite literally is Fraudulence.
I eat very little food, and people are alarmed by my diet.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

VOTE: Redados

There's no reason to ever put it out there that you /could/ be scum, right? Why would you let me doubt?

This is, officially, All Your Fault.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Unfortunately there is no way to escalate this to dizzying heights of petty tomfoolery, I have already used my only weapon.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

See, until this moment, I was very much still in RVS. But now, I'm on the line. I tend to jump the gun, so I'm going to lay out my case and see what other people have to say...

Why would a townie, who is trying to figure out who is Town and who is Scum, because they themselves do not know, assume they would be voted for only by scum? Surely they realize that no one has more information than them BUT scum?

Indeed, only with Town voting on anyone can that person be voted out, because if scum can vote by themselves and eliminate Town, it's a loss state. So clearly one has to be aware of the fact that the only way to mis-eliminate at all is by town voting on town.

Flipside: scum forgets that alignment isn't fully known outside of the scum team, and says "Ah, I have someone voting for me. What can I do to discourage this? Ah, right, I remind them that I am town, and therefore only scum would want to kill me." Which is true in a sense, but they aren't town -- which they can't let people know about, or it's a loss. So they play the game: "I am town, you don't want to do this."

Now, a townie could make that mistake (assuming their own knowledge is open knowledge, happens to the best of us), and it has some of the taste of a joke. And like I said, I'm prone to a paranoia of sorts. But I'm intrigued about how this occurred, and I wonder if anyone shares my feelings about Redados at this moment.

Of course, if everyone agrees that I'm maybe reading a bit too deep, I'm content to continue in RVS. So it's sort of a grey area for me currently.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Ah yes, the username. I guess that was inevitable.

My username is Sumerian using a very basic transliteration scheme. Under the standard scheme, it's muš-šag-ana, "Something In The Heart Of Empty Space", literally "'empty space'-'inside, at the heart of'-'What?'"

You can think of it as a rough translation of the sentence "There's something out there in the void." Sumerian is agglutinative, so it makes a single word for simple phrases like that. It's not a reference to anything, it's one of a short list of "names" of my own design that I am fond of.

It's in all caps because of the Armored Core games, specifically Nexus to Last Raven, where Kisaragi, one of the major weapons manufacturers, named their Armored Core parts as single words in all caps. In that case, they were Japanese mythological references, mostly Buddhist with a couple Shinto ones. The convention stuck with me. I would normally add a product code after the name to cement the intent (i.e. MUSHSHAGANA-00A4), but I wanted it to at least be possible to look at without gibbering.

As for why use all caps at all? I can't use mixedCase naming conventions anymore, because Homestuck ruined them. It's not a striking enough word in all lowercase, and it looks like a normal high fantasy orc name when you use Normal Capitalization.
I have a strong cyberpunk/techno-occult theme to all of my online presence, so I wouldn't dare do anything that could be mistaken for "high fantasy orc name".

So: MUSHSHAGANA it is.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Hmmm. I didn't think too hard on the "oh, Shelly asks many questions" thing Redados said, which may have been a mistake.

Reasons to say that:
Drawing attention to "fishing for ???" -- the information being gotten is on playstyle and game state changes. And that's not very scum-indicative. Unsure of why you'd draw attention to it -- say she's scum: put a fool in a rope factory and so on, you're just making it likely they'll play harder at hiding when they're role-fishing. And if she's town, it's a town thing to do, so it's very uninformative all around.
Drawing attention to curiosity -- which translates usually to a weak townread. But withholding any judgement makes that null. Hmmmmmm, don't like that. Smells of faking paranoia, though there's also past games to consider. So I'll call this one a toss-up.
Calling out a pattern -- usually only useful after enough of a "corpus", so to speak, has been established. I feel it's too weak to see a pattern useful for directing votes yet, and now that the pattern has been outlined it's unlikely to continue. So that's denial of useful information.

I have decided I don't have any reads on Redados, or anyone else right now, but that RVS is over for me. There's solid information to dig into, and I'm not touching on some of it yet for reasons similar to why Redados would NOT have drawn attention to Shelly questioning.

UNVOTE:

I'm awaiting more arrivals... and more engagement from the quieter folks so far.

Well, there's another arrival.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

She asked several questions that were relevant.

Why I made my RVS vote -- I said I had an actual reason, that makes it a way to get game relevant information. In fact, that is the actual point of RVS.
Why Frogster hadn't voted -- obvious.
Why Frogster wanted to hear my reason in the specific ways he did -- not obviously game relevant, but there's literally not /anything/ to work with at that point, and it increases the amount of information she gets in his next post.
And the "General Discussion" comment is... making the exact same observation you're saying that you're making, but as a general thing ("why is everyone focused on fluff") instead of a specific thing ("why is SHELLY focused on fluff"). And for the record, one is more reasonable than the other, since I've written more fluff by volume than anyone else and I haven't seen anyone finger-wagging at me yet.

And since I think the game-state has evolved enough that I can write off attempting to draw more of it out, I'd like to point out that you contributed more fluff posts than she did. I'm counting the OMGUS vote, since it's zero information content by definition. Go back and count.

Stones and glass houses.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think that you're underselling questions 1 and 3.

1 is starting from zero. There is no information at all. There is, in fact, nothing at all. I am the only thing that exists, and I'm teasing "a reason" for my vote. Someone had to ask the question to get the answer, and she was there, at the first moments of the game, and she asked it. So did Frogster, but that's honestly irrelevant. With that little to work with? It's still substantive for the /state of the game/.

(Also, she is the ONLY one who asked for it in "normal human" style, without which you'd need to decode writing styles that are purposefully obtuse. So she actually managed to get useful information that otherwise would have needed someone else to ask for it multiple times.)

3 is starting from, oh, if question 1 is zero, call it two. The game state is so early that even fluff is helpful, because fluff builds a corpus of writing to cross reference later. And now that I've realized she's the only one wh asked for "normal human", I can safely say this /isn't/ fluff -- I teased a reason for my vote and Frogster asked for it in styles that aren't immediately useful for the other players. Denying information, you could quite possibly call that. Combined with the lack of vote, does that seem potentially indicative? Not to me, but I have different criteria than others.

You have a solid point on question 4. But agreeing with someone isn't a bad thing. And there's information to be had on the "how" of it -- though I don't think I'm ready to draw attention to that yet.

As for your fingerwagging: duly noted. But I don't intend to fluff the game too much from this point on. I was trying to encourage engagement, and now it is here. So my business is now getting down /to/ business.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Because people are sure to ask now that I've drawn attention to it, I might as well answer the unasked question:

"Why did you intend to give purposefully obtuse answers on request?"
Two reasons:
First! Because I misunderstood my audience. I come from very different internet circles, where humorous use of disparate, ridiculously opaque writing styles is the norm. I've been on here before, but that was three years ago and I was not joking about forgetting everything.
And last! Because I didn't realize how obtuse my muse would take me until the deed was done. It's possible to decode, but it's Kind Of A Lot. Those pieces would be sort of mildly received even in most of my usual online hangouts. But I see my dumb jokes through, even if they've failed: it would be poor form to simply say "Philosophy Machine Broke".

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Townies are sure to act scummy every so often, and we have one person who hasn't posted and two (I think?) who have only posted once. Only one SE you could really call active. Consider we've only got between 3 and 5 meaningfully active players right now, and there's only two scum and a total of 9 players.

I feel it's very premature to push to eliminate right now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don't want to press too hard when better than half of the players aren't active and have posted little useful information to make determinations with. I'd explain in more detail why it could be bad to press too hard too early, but that'd give the game away. Call it Day 2 I'll tell everyone, assuming I'm not dead. Reserving the right to say so earlier, of course, just setting realistic expectations in the longer term.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I said push too hard. I already pushed you earlier, twice even. But there's a difference in approach that changes how the inactive players will act if they know their turn will be coming. Again, don't want to say too much.

Shelly was more aggressive than I would be at this state. There's a time for that, I think it's a bit further out. We aren't even a full 24 hours in, are we? No, not even 12.

I want more time for people to check in and contribute before we increase pressure.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Quick check in before i crawl back into bed:

1: If there is no information, there's nothing to analyze. The important part is to have information to analyze in the first place. Right now, for instance, we have 4 users who have less than 5 posts. One has posted nothing, two have posted nothing of value. We know at least one of those who have contributed no information of worth HAS to be town (maximum 2 scum), and therefore we have no idea if all the scum are fundamentally inactive or if they're among the three players with more then 10 posts -- or both (one in each group), or neither (one of the 3 players with 4 to 9 posts).

There's no way to narrow things down currently, so information over analysis is literally the only right answer until we have enough information to actually do any analysis on. We can't compare or contrast. We can't work out a readslist. It's far, far too early to talk about wanting information being a scumtell.



2: Your push, Shelly, is the only one that seemed like real pressure to build a wagon. Everyone else is questioning decisions and motivations, working out rationalizations, and requesting explanations.

No one else is accusatory yet. Your push was accusatory in tone and, interestingly enough! was almost entirely based on your personal feelings about Redados's play rather than taking into account motivations from scum and town perspectives. Which is unique so far as well, everyone else is making pushes that have escape hatches (because that provides us information on their playstyle that we can later compare and contrast... playing a long game, which is very much a town game).

Long story short: you said you had no intent to eliminate, but that's not how it read at all. Your push was more intuitive than analytical, more cornering than informative, and more provoking action than inviting discussion. No one else has done that.



Whole lot of posts while i was writing this, my typing's definitely slowed down some. I'll read them tomorrow.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Cool!

It looks like loz may be due for a prod.

Check page 4.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I tend not to like meta either. Being aware of your own meta makes meta a poor support for even strong arguments.


For ItalianoVD:
You have done little to no pushing on people other than Shelly. You have pushed way harder on Shelly than anyone but Shelly has pushed on anyone. Your reasoning is somewhere between "thin" and "wishful thinking". It feels more like you're taking paranoia from a past game into this one. That's not a scummy behavior, but it's anti-town. It helps the rest of us not at all.

Simply put: it's a team game, but your play isn't cooperative, it's personal.



I've been re-reading the wiki and getting back into Mafia-brain, and I think I'm going to UNVOTE: Frogsterking for now. Frogster strikes me as ... well, that would be telling. Suffice to say, I am not sure a vote on him is the right move -- at this time.



Finally, I have a question for Frederick A Campbell: what distinguishes, in YOUR eyes, scum play from anti-town town play? Is there a distinction at all?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It was not a read at all. It was a defensive reaction to having my words misused.

And I think explaining my unvote would be giving away the barn, so to speak, and with all the livestock still inside too. In time.

Remember I jump the gun, and I know that I do this. Sometimes I let myself do it on purpose, sometimes I am uncertain of how far is too far. When I go too far, it's only right to fix it.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Shelly seems unnecessarily hostile in general, I'd say. Some people have that as a behavioral trait, scum or town, as Frederick says. I used to be one of them, and I'm not just talking about Mafia. (I've managed to mostly dial that back.)

I'd also say that you're getting too hung up on the similarities and not looking for any differences is another reason I dislike your hyper-focused pushes. And for the record: if you see no differences at all, that means you're just stuck on this read and not actually thinking about it. Different game, different time, different players all mean different dynamics and thus different behavior.

Pick at the differences and let them aid your conclusion, /then/ you're actually scumhunting. (Similarities are also useful, but you can't focus all on one and not at all on the other and still get useful information.)



For Frederick: I was asking in the most general sense. ANY play that comes across as scum play versus ANY play that comes off as town that isn't working in town's favor. I want a really high level overview of where your line is drawn, even if it's a thin and insubstantial line.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

So you don't consider that to be a meaningful distinction, then?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

So, is it fair to say that (for you) the distinction is meaningful, but there's a lot of overlap?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Hostility and aggression on the level you're displaying can be NAI, I think. In those (NAI) cases, it's more like a personality trait. Some people are just abrasive. Some people just suck to interact with if you aren't used to it, there's no getting around it. They're going to be like that whether they're town or they're scum. Sometimes it's only in a competitive context (i.e., Mafia), sometimes it's universal (i.e., asking them how their day has been), depends on the person.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Oh, I don't like that post very much at all, Frederick. I'll even give you a hint: the first half is just fine, and the intended message is great. That hidden habanero doesn't work so well, though, and I really hope I don't have to point to it with flashing lights for anyone else to pick up on it.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

For ItalianoVD:

I hint at what I'm thinking to let everyone else where my eyes are, and (sometimes) the general thrust of my thoughts. It's essentially cooperative in intent, I want more people to look where I'm looking and start forming their own opinions, which I can use to inform my own train of thought.

I don't say what I'm thinking out loud for a number of reasons: it creates pressure, it lets me know if I'm seeing something that isn't actually there (without introducing my own bias), I want to keep my target from recognizing their own patterns and changing them until I have enough to work with.

Example in action: I was sitting on Redados being the fluffiest player by post count while criticizing Shelly for fluff until I was sure I was not going to get any more fluff from him.

Sometimes, I don't actually have any thoughts at all, but feel something deserves attention or I want to introduce some pressure to a player and see what falls out without doing anything accusatory.

Not every reason applies to every time I withhold my actual thoughts, and saying which one it is before I'm ready gives the game away.

Speaking of...



Based on the other SEs answers to my question, I want to do this. VOTE: Frederick A Campbell

Frederick is adamantly against categorization, in a game where town wins by categorizing actions, intent and motivations. He sees no utility in the play-style categories of "anti-town townie" and "scum". The other two agree these have meaning, even if they think they're either too overlapped to draw a line between or that they're essentially in separate domains.

His playstyle seems accommodating to a fault. Rock the boat? Not our Frederick, never him. He's unfocused in play thus far, and reactive rather than proactive -- he rarely (a quick skim suggests "never" might be more accurate) initiates questioning or interaction, though he readily responds to it. At 20 posts, he's past the point where every other player in the game had started making moves rather than passively reacting to others moving around them -- and he has not.

(A quick note that almost all of our active players and one of our inactives had started making moves and asking pointed questions before their 15th post. Redados is the only truly active player who I think may have had 15 posts before getting serious at all, though I'm insufficiently caffeinated to double-check at the moment.)

This isn't a scumread (yet), but it is a note of peculiar behavior. Time to raise the pressure a little, I think.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I've been busy today, but I'm pretty free for now.



ItalianoVD: MagikHorse basically outlined the basic problem: your scumread on Shelly is obsessive, your townread on Redados is throw-away. Not liking that much now that I recall that it exists... barely. And yeah, it's just as invalid, since you could be stuck on bad information and not reading correctly... permitting scum to manipulate you freely.



Redados is doing this really odd thing I am not fond of, where he repeatedly makes offhanded references to how town he is. Incessantly. It's more like it's for his own sake than for anyone else's. "Ah, yes, my confidence in being town is such that I do not crack under pressure!" Repeat until you believe. It's a bad look.

That said, I'm (for the time being) quite liking my vote right where it is. Not much more to say for now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I imagine random chance doesn't hold here, since people aren't truly random. Some players are hyper-active, some are not. I imagine the chances are probably a bit higher in general (though seeing that I'd not say much more than double) since being active increases town cred by a certain amount. It might be higher, but there's confounding variables in the extra side-channel Mafia have to manage and the fact that being highly active takes actual work, and I don't feel comfortable speculating that the slight town cred overwhelms the risk of information leakage, the extra effort, and the distraction of a side channel.

Regardless, I feel this only helps us a little bit with D1 probabilities (hunt among the inactives, maybe, if this really rough n-of-1 overview holds in real life) and is ultimately a /distraction/ from scumhunting.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

To be clear, I'm more critical of Frogster for this than of Frederick, though Frederick putting so much effort into this mostly pointless exercise is not great either.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Especially since, just realized, the numbers used for this purpose have no actual relationship at all to this game! That assumes a 13 player game, this is a 9 player game. This is just about as bad as you can get in leading people down a pointless side path.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Considering you didn't even use the right numbers for the generalized probability and you could have used https://www.dcode.fr/picking-probabilities or a similar selection probability calculator to easily re-calculate something at least distantly tangentially useful, I'm not pleased with this by any means.

(That generalized probability for a 7/2 setup, for the record, comes out to roughly a 27.7777...% chance of both scum being in a random given selection of five players. Which means your mistake was genuinely dangerous, potentially risking town deciding not to scum-hunt among actives.)

My vote stays on you.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

If you don't point out that it's inapplicable, the less mathematically inclined are likely to presume that the probability carries over to this. I'm fairly mathematically inclined, and I still nearly got caught by it -- I saw it was about a different number, but it took some cogitating before it struck me that 3/13 is a vastly different ratio from 2/9.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I might vote people I don't scumread, if I don't have enough information. I might scumread people I don't vote, if I want to narrow the field. Or maybe I do scumread Frederick, but I don't feel like saying so.

If you must insist that it's a scumread, I encourage you to find me saying those words: you will not.

Saying more right this moment is premature.

I will point out your defense of Frederick is hilariously, pointlessly personal. Nothing about "people who aren't enthusiastically excited about mathematics are unlikely to pour a lot of time and effort into checking the validity of a mathematical post" is calling you or anyone else dumb. Take me for example: you could not pay me to sit down and read German philosophers, that's just the beginning and the end of that discussion -- and it has nothing to do with my intelligence or lack thereof.

I went out of my way to phrase that so that the exact interpretation of my words you're laboring under would not be an easy fit: one has to PURPOSEFULLY presume that is the meaning. Your phrasing it to try and make it an insult to every player (presumably to call for backup) is even MORE interesting.

Tell me, ItalianoVD: why exactly is my push on Frederick something you're taking just so damned personally?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

If I feel like I have a very weak scumread and a whole bunch of nulls, why on earth would I just stay on my scumread early in the game and ignore everything else going on, Shelly? That's a surefire way to miseliminate. So I'll press where I feel will build my reads fastest, and sometimes that's on the other side of the board, sometimes not.

Honestly, feels like you're grasping at straws because you don't get what I'm after here. Which is fine, really -- that is, after all, part of the goal. See, all this talk about voting in RVS or not is circling an important, valuable point: all useful information comes from getting reactions. Everyone can agree on that so far, it is the one universal.

There are many, many ways to get reactions. And THAT is the goal.

I'd recommend for Day 1, if people have townreads on me, that they pay more attention to the ripples from what I do than what it is I'm doing. I'll clear my play up later, but right now there is no MEAT.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

A no-elimination isn't an option for anyone but scum. I wanted to wait until at least all but one player had made enough posts to make reads off of. Weak or even useless reads, maybe, but that's immaterial. I should have enough to say "This player seems to be playing this game like this," and that gives a lot more power to later reads since I have a baseline to start from.

Well, the time has come, and enough players have played enough to satisfy me. You will note that I have gotten much more aggressive since the time has come. Well. Maybe you haven't! But, you in particular SHOULD note this -- because right now, Frederick, you are my favored target.

In the spirit of continuing this: I'd like to note that you were saying nothing interesting (well, nothing "of note") had happened, then now you suddenly dug up a contentious post from around 130 posts prior to you saying nothing of note was going on! Well, which was it? Nothing of note, or was it interesting that I took the stance I did? Otherwise, why dig up a dead discussion that clearly no longer applied to my play?

What's so very interesting about you as a target, Frederick, is that you don't react much, but your reactions tell a whole story of their own. And while even those reactions are minor and small, chaos erupts all around, from corner to corner, when I bear down upon you.

It's incredibly useful.

I have managed to develop multiple strong reads because of this bizarre dynamic surrounding you. I think I'm enjoying it, and I think I'm going to keep the pressure precisely where it is for the time being.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I have no intention of sharing my reads until I'm ready. Keeping them hidden increases pressure on everyone in the game -- as you have noticed, or you wouldn't want to know them. I'll tell you this: I have a fairly solid read on you. My mind isn't fully made up, it could flip, but I have a read on you.

As for whether it's town or scum? That will need to wait.

In the meantime, I'd want to point out that I still never said I scumread Frederick. I'm just finding all of the chaos that falls out of pressuring him highly informative. Ridiculously so. To the point that I can basically confirm the alignment of a player by the end of this little thing I'm doing here, and honestly I'm not sure this would work so well if there was a different game composition.

Still, I might also scumread him. Might also townread him -- the information quality I'm getting would more than justify it, if I am. Could be null too. Frederick is less interesting for what he is than for all those things happening around him, and how far the gameboard tilts when I lean in his direction. Van and his push on MagikHorse are practically background noise at this stage, no one is really putting too much into that despite it being a large and well reasoned push. Somehow it's all about Frederick and me. That's kind of unusual.



Also, a reminder that Frederick's total contributions to the game are a weak scumread on Shelly, the dislike of categorization of playstyles or people, a pointless bit of math geekery, and the constant reiteration that everything in this game is boring. Oh, no, also floating the idea of no-elimination. So five things.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

ItalianoVD: I'm going to say that you're not getting answers to those from me right now. Because you are still definitely responding very, very personally, not at all logically.

Now that time has passed, you'll notice that everyone else has accepted the words I chose around math inclination at face value. I was very careful: "potentially misleading town", "other players who aren't so inclined".

Note, there is no "the" in front of "other" there -- it's stating that there is such a thing as players who aren't into math, and says nothing about how many, or even IF any, exist in the game. I purposefully left that open to avoid precisely this interpretation you have. And yet, here we are. Here YOU are. Tilting at windmills, but without even the implied heroism of that.

You are dreaming up an interpretation I was careful to not post. That interpretation is not there. It isn't real and it doesn't exist. Why, then, are you just so bent out of shape about something I didn't even say? Why is this push on Frederick so important to you?

When I'm satisfied on this subject, you'll get the rest of your answers.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

You say nothings happening while everyone else sees quite a lot. You bring up nothing is happening but offer no explanations of how that could be changed.

"Just, you know, do the thing!" -> "What thing is that even supposed to mean?"

That smells more like a cop-out than actual intent, to me.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That last post I made is a mess. It's embarrassing. If I could, I'd delete it out of shame. My only defense is that I'm busy dealing with infuriating tech problems. Sorry that everyone has to see that trainwreck.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Gee, you mean like the entire style of play I've been using from the start? That you've responded to by saying that nothing of note is going on?

And considering most of the players have had at least some amount of semi-activity by now... and plenty of AI activity, at that... Do tell me, what WOULD it take to make you wake up? Someone posting a wall of "I am scum, fight me about it"? Come on, Frederick, what is NOT boring to you?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

And as we all have discussed, in fact as you yourself stated, there is no useful distinction in your eyes between anti-town townie and scum play. In fact, you don't even like those categories at all, don't find them meaningful.

So what, precisely, did you expect to see in terms of alignment indicative behavior? Give me an example of something, anything, that is town or scum indicative. Come on. It'll be FUN.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Well, with Frederick actually PLAYING the game, I just have two players I'm left wondering about for now.

<To the tune of Prude - Knife on Mars:> Hey man... Has anybody seen... rock?

Been awhile since we heard from someone whose total contributions were... to RVS me, promise to contribute, unvote me without explanation, and then handwave all questioning away like a rank fart.

Mm. Smelly indeed, and I wonder, O how I wonder, where our rocknil has gone. Should we send a search party? Did he get lost? I wonder.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Be advised my activity might drop a bit in the near future. I'm probably RMAing my computer.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The time has come!

Yes, it is time to tell Van that it's been over 48 hours and his public is IMPATIENT and AWAITS MEAT. Where are you Van? Are you lost in the scum chat? Are you stunned by the magnificent rocknil's glorious return?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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

[MUSHSHAGANA]

And to be clear! Point of order: where you wouldn't vote is not the same as where you'd REALLY like to vote -- and I do not care about reasons until everyone's put their pool on the table.

I want to make sure we can safely put an elimination vote together in the end without relying on anyone feeling like they need to compromise. When we have that, or when we know we DON'T have that, that helps organize the last parts of Day 1. If we ignore that, it's a lot of herding cats with time pressure on, and if townies are both of the inactives, scum can heel-drag against an elimination until time expires. I want to lock in a good, guaranteed elimination that enough people will be happy with to avoid any risk.

By the way...

There's a thread I read over in the Mafia Discussion forum about the math -- our chances of hitting scum with a random elimination go down dramatically if we no-eliminate. If we hit scum, they drop even lower but we have completed 50% of our win condition -- obviously good. If we hit town, they increase dramatically because we get one extra mis-elimination before a loss over no-eliminate. Also, in the worst case, two town players are out of the game (because of the nightkill) -- but a town/scum ratio of 5/2 makes it far easier to find the scum even by blind voting. It also gives us the use of Vote Count Analysis, and we lose that if we no-eliminate.

I would rather mis-eliminate than no-eliminate. I am doing everything in my power to find a way to avoid no-eliminating, and right now that means building a shared elimination pool that can wagon someone cheerfully despite any, /ANY/ misgivings or cries of protest.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

On mobile for the time being due to returned computer, expect a change in typing style and more mistakes, apologies folks!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It’s really frustrating when more players than can be scum are practically not even playing the game. I’m here to hunt scum, not to poke and prod and coax the other players into posting something of substance every so often.

We need to get an elimination together for today, and I am almost about to say that none of those who have failed to weigh in but Frederick can be relied upon to actually VOTE on a timetable. So I’m going to say that unless Frederick can commit to a Rocknil elimination we need to push for a policy elimination on someone and start the whole process of pulling teeth and herding cats while we squish someone’s townread.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm putting this out there: we have 48 hours and some change. If we can get a Shelly elimination right now, let's dial back and start re-reading the past little bit of play and putting pressure where it needs to be for Day 2.

Caveat: UNLESS every active player can agree on a different target from Shelly when the time window is closer, Shelly MUST be the elimination.

That means we don't try and go for targets we begin to think are better. That sort of last minute cat herding is a terrible, terrible plan and will end in no-elimination.

Can we agree on that? Can we scum hunt while the clock runs down some, or do we need to start pushing for either Shelly or Rocknil as policy eliminations (since they're equal in "will be voted for gladly" numbers right now)?



I, for one, will vote Shelly to end the day with an actual elimination. I will vote just about anyone to do that, really, but I'm laying it down in writing: I will vote that wagon for an elimination. Unless there is overwhelming consensus to vote for someone else instead of Shelly just before the deadline, I will stand by that.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

More equipment failures. My participation is still guaranteed, but it’s getting to the point I might need to plug a keyboard into my PS3 to do it.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Scum is likely to be on EVERY wagon.

ALL of them.

Because they get VCA cred for being on scum wagons and they help their wincon by eliminating town.

Saying scum is likely to be on your wagon if you’re the closest to elimination is equivalent to saying the sun rises somewhere sometimes: it is blatantly true. It is meaningless. It doesn’t speak to your alignment at all.

Why, Shelly, are you so desperate to have people townread you if you know that an elimination is needed for end of day AND that you are the only one we can get a wagon on? Not that town wouldn’t want to survive, but smart town would far more aggressively want to avoid no-elimination. Because if town wins, that includes dead town. And you have made it clear that if you are town, you are aware of the danger of no-elimination.

Also, since you already claimed VT, it can’t even be that you’re a PR. So why are you trying to wiggle out of the place you have put yourself in?

I promised this post would be a play explanation, but that’s coming next. MORE HARDWARE FAILURES. Bad, bad week.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Multiple typing errors in my playstyle post, I apologize. On mobile for the time being as my laptop and Surface Pro AND a borrowed computer have all caught fire and died screaming. This is unprecedented, and in one case, nothing more than posting here and watching YouTube videos about gun disassembly was involved in the failure.

So you might have to get used to garbage composition and typing ability from me for awhile. Again, very sorry.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Awake and semi active. I have alarms and timers set on every working device, I’ll be here for the last couple of hours or there will be some sort of power outage.

A self vote denies information. I would only use it if there was no consensus nor anything close to one, just enough wagoning and active players to make this work, and if I was willing to play extremely horribly in order to force a scumread on myself from the actives.

Shelly took heat off of Rocknil and Frederick, far from the deadline, where there was a functional near consensus on players who weren’t Shelly, and then DEFENDED HERSELF AS TOWN. This is bad play if you’re trying the noble sacrifice route and since she apparently does this as scum at all ever (it’s a non-obvious scum play that she is aware enough to talk about avoiding doing as town), I distrust it.

Then, having made herself the default elimination target, she continued to defend herself as town... but she was cornered into either playing toward a D1 elimination on herself or into changing her mind dramatically AFTER other players had seen how anti-town a different play would work. So we see compromise play here. “Yes, don’t risk the elimination! But I’m town and it’s a mistake!”

Anti-town townies are less concerned with appearances and figure they have to be pro-town if they’re town, it’s part of how they’re anti-town townies in the first place. Scum will make a compromise play because of their awareness of needing to look like town and — in this case, unwillingness to hurt their wincon as badly as Shelly-as-scum unwittingly has.

Thus I think a Shelly elimination hits scum AND is the least likely elimination to fail when needed. It’s the right move.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Also if Shelly flips scum, I would look at the posts only up to the page after the self-vote for associative reads: I feel like she’s aware of how badly she screwed the pooch on her wincon and her play surrounding the rest of the players changed around that time.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I gotta say I’m consistently surprised how hard I’ve been coming across as town all game long, given I played the mysterious and all knowing style for so long (normally scum play) and my playstyle has been high pressure, sarcastic and abrasive (normally gets spurious scumreads). Only Shelly and Italiano even truly tested that against other players, and they got shot down pretty hard.

They didn’t play off of each other the way I’d expect scum to, but it’s possible we have a low-communication scumteam, that seems like Shelly’s style.

Aside from Shelly and Frogster: everyone explain why I’m town.

Why? Well, I have pocketing concerns. It’s important to note that I’m not particularly vulnerable to pocketing, but that means it’s harder to spot attempts to do it, which denies town information. Trying to rectify that before Day 1 closes.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Haha! Well, I’m glad our view of each other is mutual. Let’s see how that works out long term, shall we?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don’t know why Shelly is saying there’s not that much time left when we have over 12 hours to go, and multiple players circling like vultures.

Personally, I want more from Frederick before end of day.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

Clock's ticking.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

As far as I am personally concerned, we are late enough that a hammer can fall at any time safely. If someone tells me to jump, I’ll do it: I just want to make sure everyone’s said their piece.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I would have caught it, Redados. Just woke up. See ya Day 2 folks!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

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.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Incredibly great game all around. I think town's weakest players being better couldn't have saved us by D2: by the time Rocknil went down the scumteam was firmly locked in as townreads, and only Frogster's eleventh hour play saved even an inkling of hope for a town win. Lavar could have been a bit better on the dayphase before last, but even that would have only been a minor aid for town: Casey played the exact sort of game that I'm weakest to, and I find most players tend to townread that playstyle by default. Not to mention Fred's falling for the Italiano/MagikHorse play -- but that's no bad play on Fred's part, check the dead thread, we /all/ fell for it. It was still nail-bitingly close, from the outside looking in.

Special shout-out to MagikHorse, whose starting off the Casey slot locked in that scum win on multiple levels, as Fred found out for sure. I actually mistook MH's play for a town PR!

I wanted to be in this game for longer, but Italiano taking me out was top-tier play for getting rid of both of his biggest immediate threats in a single day cycle and creating a WIFOM-supported platform that even Casey was working until the end. That was my mistake: I was hoping to sort by NKA if I lived and create an escape hatch for town to get out of WIFOM hell there if I died. Didn't work out quite as well as I had hoped. Lesson learned.

Excellent play all around, amazingly fun game, thanks everyone!