Open 798 | PYPX/Y+I/M | Game Over!

[Hoopla]

hi!

shall we execute from the top down as is customary for PYP?

VOTE: lilith

[Hoopla]

i only offer cake to my loyal flock of sheep.

please demonstrate you are a sheep.

[Hoopla]

Bah bah black sheep have you any wool
Yes sir yes sir three bags full
One for the master and one for the dame
One for the little boy who lives down the lane.

X

[Hoopla]

Also i'm intrigued that scum picked informed, i prob would have picked multitasking

you're lucky you voted correctly, otherwise i would be all over this.

[Hoopla]

Go on?

looks to me like a sneaky opening line cooked up behind the scenes.

the intention of course being to feign surprise & assert innocence.

[Hoopla]

Nah, just making an observation that's meant to spark conversation (like it did!).

And I've been scum in x|y setups twice and multitasking is vastly more useful imo, you can get a p decent sense of the spread of roles just from knowing where scum sits in the draft + like two flips/claims

doubling down, i see.

did you get outvoted in the scum PT?

[Hoopla]

no that is hooplas trick

i say we slice & dice the singletons.

seeing such a large amount of medium & high numbers looks like a deliberate scum strategy to land unique numbers. a high number selection usually guarantees a pick in the top half of the draft.

[Hoopla]

i mean, if i did, i kinda doubt i'd be airing scum dirty's laundry here, or that i'd choose to make a point of it

mmm fair point.

it would probably take a moment of brilliance to conceive of such a cunning plan.

[Hoopla]

With this thought process in mind, how many scum do you think there is between myself (14) Infinity (23) and Petapan (100000)?

i want to say peta's bid of a million is another brazen, highly suspicious scum move cooked up in the PT...

...but she's already pointed the finger at me, and we all know it's improper etiquette to accuse your accuser.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: hoopla

Hard to tell how serious her posts have been, but something feels off about them

i once attempted a humorous post back in 2013.

needless to say, i have learned my lesson since then.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, do, uh, do you have any stats about how often numbers have been repeated four or more times?

here's the relevant post from Open 794 (updated with the 794's results):

of the 210 slots across 15 games, 45 are scum, 165 are town. here's where mafia have fallen:

singleton

mafia - 21 (30%)
town - 49

double

mafia - 14 (18.9%)
town - 60

triple

mafia - 6 (14.3%)
town - 36

quadruple

mafia - 1 (12.5%)
town - 7

quintuple

mafia - 1 (10%)
town - 9

sextuple

mafia - 0 (0%)
town - 6

as we can see, scum overwhelmingly tend to land in the singleton and doubled up numbers. this is a consequence of scum never choosing to collide with each other's numbers in the previous 15 runs of the game. they will naturally land higher in the draft (on average) by using such a strategy.

as for something_smart's specific question:

two games have had a quadruple.
two games have had a quintuple.
one game has had a sextuple.

so, one in three games has seen a group of 4+. interestingly, out of those 24 slots, only two have been scum.

[Hoopla]

Or they werent in the last game?

I think that the info gained from picking informed isnt that much - a reasonably savvy scumteam should be able to approximate that sort of info once they know of like two claims

we have a lot of competing theories to explain the multitasking decision:

1) scum weren't in the last game/scumteam is comprised of newer players who may not know the true value of multitasking
2) scum have doubled/tripled up, tanking their draft position and chances to win roles
3) scum have made a leftfield play and are now engineering their responses to appear town by saying insisting they wouldn't have done that/considered that

~~

my responses to those:

1) a lot of the playerlist was in or observed that last game where it was seen multitasking was a useful consequence. seems likely scum would have had at least one member who knew its value.

2) this is an easier theory for me to rebuke as i have knowledge of my own alignment as town (thus can rule out 25% of the 4's), but there are simply too few doubled players for this to be likely, combinatorially speaking. the average draft will usually only have 2 to 4 players with unique numbers. this game we have 8. it's far likelier scum haven't doubled up.

3) my prodding of skitter was somewhat facetious. it's a seductive conspiracy theory for scum to pick something seemingly suboptimal just so they can overtly insist they wouldn't do it... this definitely falls within the realms of conspiracy, imo.

i'm persuaded by skitter's illumination of her thought process. having said that, i think infinity's piggybacking of skitter's train of thought:

I'm with skitter on this, I think multitasking is pretty much optimal no matter what.

is much likelier to be a faked stance.

~~

there's one more theory i'd throw out there regarding the multitasking vs. informed outcome:

what if scum was going for a PR strategy of limited use roles, ie; 1-shot vig, 1-shot PGO, 1-shot commuter, 1-shot watcher, 1-shot redirector, N3 vig, vengeful etc.

there's no real value in having multitasking if by the time it'll come in handy (being a solo mafioso in mid-to-late game) the team has already used all its power.

[Hoopla]

Maybe they wanted a better fakeclaim, and thought that claiming the "town counterpart" to their role wouldn't work for whatever reason? Idk

good point. lets add that to the list too.

Hoopla, thoughts on uncrowned?

enthusiastic & busy, which is usually a good sign early.

i do think a couple of his questions seem surface-level, though. in some ways that is nature of the beast for early game discussions; everyone has to start somewhere.

but these sort of questions seem like meaningless busywork:

With this thought process in mind, how many scum do you think there is between myself (14) Infinity (23) and Petapan (100000)?

[Hoopla]

I think 41 is a pretty good question. Why do you see it as meaningless?

i like using data to capture broad trends, or to theorise in a general way - but when you zoom into a specific subset of the playerlist before flips, it is just guesswork.

to throw him a bone: my guess is a slightly higher than random amount in that specific group of three players.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: penguinpower

[Hoopla]

rats.

looks like i hitched my wagon to the wrong horse.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: lilith

[Hoopla]

I wasn't really meaning super long ones. Just the paragraph ones, where it's more than a sentence.

that is such a weird comment to make about skitter when almost all her posts are one-liners. there's literally only one of her posts that is 4+ sentences long.

why pick out her?

especially when there --

*sorry, splitting up this post because it's getting pretty long.

1/2

[Hoopla]

2/2

continued:

especially when there are half a dozen other players who have posted with an amount of verbosity. not to mention me, who has actually posted a couple of walls.

i agree with peta. i simply don't buy this is genuine town thought.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: jacksonvirgo

[Hoopla]

Why is that weird thought more likely to come from scum than town?

looks to me like he threw out a surface-level offhand 'read' on skitter, then when someone pressed him on it, he just made up some BS and doubled down on it when pressed again.

i think if this was a genuine town observation, it's more likely for him to have had this thought about me (someone who has actually posted walls).

Hoopla, I'm pretty sure you're too good of a player to buy this reasoning.

that's where you're wrong!

[Hoopla]

If they did misremember, that's obviously not alignment indicative, so what makes you think it was a fabrication rather than an error?

at first, i assumed it was probably an error and that jackson must have swapped me & skitter in his head. but he was explicitly asked that:

Do you mean hoopla? I get the feeling she's known as the setup speccer so it's kind of expected of her.

Nah I mean skitter

if it was an error, it would have been revealed then.

[Hoopla]

I don't know. It seems more unskitterly than anything else.

My instinct is to say that it's more likely scum looking to grab towncred by pointing out why she shouldn't be townread, but I don't know if skitter thinks like that.

this is an aside, but you're one of those

"don't vote until absolutely sure"

type characters, no?

[Hoopla]

...ish. I'm quite reserved with my vote, especially on day 1, but it has less to do with surety and more that I see early votes as causing more problems than they solve. Also I'm afraid of making decisions.

We literally just played together, was I not like that in that game?

yes, we were. and i was shocked to discover it took you beyond page 50 to lay down your first vote.

i am fascinated by the stoic observers afraid to jump in the waters.

a handy tip: when in doubt, don't be afraid to sheep ol' hoopla.

[Hoopla]

oh my, i've fallen behind already.

is it too early for me to start scolding the chatterboxes? do i need to prepare my "balance of voices" speech?

[Hoopla]

oh my, i've fallen behind already.

is it too early for me to start scolding the chatterboxes? do i need to prepare my "balance of voices" speech?

hang on.

i just made a stunning realisation that these are seven day deadlines. serves me right for skimming the OP!

i take back my post 547. spam away brave townsfolk.

~~

i also just realised jackson virgo is in the group of 4's. this is shocking play on my part. there's no way i'm executing from that bracket on D1.

i apologise to jackson virgo for my overeagerness.

UNVOTE:

[Hoopla]

Can I ask why me being in the group of 4's makes you not want to yeet me? Also don't apologize for playing the game

there is max one scum amongst us 4's, unless a zany gambit is afoot.

[Hoopla]

I don't understand, why wouldn't scum do that. I could remember wrong but I think multiple scum picked the same number in the last PyP I played I'll go have a look

pedit: I thought you were talking about what I was saying on other people

it's never happened in 15 games.

well, actually. it happened once due to a mod error of making the scumteam pick numbers without pregame coordination.

[Hoopla]

i'm finding it difficult to analyse the rapid-fire conversational style of this game.

so, in lieu of detailed analysis, i'm simply going to shoot from the hip with some intuitive impressions. here we go:

lilith

- dodged the pressure of her wagon when it was at it peak momentum, which is a shame. now that she's around, she seems fluffy and whimsical. on pure intuition leaning town, but generally i find this player archetype hard to read. i'll likely be relying on group wisdom to guide me here - seems other folks know her meta.

dunnstral

- played a game as scum against him recently, and he was a dominant voice on D1 that seemed quite obviously town. granted, i had confirmed info that game which can sometimes trick you into thinking someone is more town than they actually are, but i haven't seen similar town energy from him yet.

skitter

- she clearly seems the most town to me. there's a chance i'm mistaking "most town" for "most competent", but if that's the case, she'll either be NK'ed early or be BOP'ed if she's still alive on D3+. i'm probably not going to spend much time focusing on her.

davesaz

- under-the-radar somewhat. not a crime per se in a game this fast, but given it's (theoretically) easier to stream-of-conscious spam through the pages as town, under-the-radar seems a viable factor to consider in a D1 execution. hasn't done anything outright scummy, but from a POE perspective he is suss given i have mostly town-leanings.

something_smart

- the other shining star along with skitter that i'll likely wait until they're NK'ed or BOP'ed. my only gripe is i wish he didn't cherish his vote like a mint condition star wars action figure. pull it out of the box man!

uncrowned

- i'm a believer in awarding town points for super active players (as annoying as they are). a few of his posts have felt cosmetic, but i suppose when you throw out as many nets as he does, some will come back empty. i don't know. i've been skimming his posts recently, and i shamelessly admit to this fact, if only as passive-aggressive way to guilt-trip him into a "quality over quantity" mindset. regardless, as most active poster, he gets a pass for now.

infinity 324

- i think his handling of the jackson virgo episode was very level-headed (given i now realise JV is prob-town). i think he could have easily been sucked into going along with my logic, or at least not played devil's advocate in a way to throw the brakes on what could have been a fast wagon if there was less resistance. leaning town.

petapan

- i have a vague uneasiness with peta's willingness to go to bat for my parade of naked voting. a part of me feels like it's early buddying, but it could also be we both share a similar philosophy about voting/wagoning. leaning scum so far. she also tricked me into attacking a fellow member of the 4 bracket!

~~

i'm stopping here, as the 5's (pine and DGB) haven't entered the game yet and unless someone in the 4's scumslips in a big way i'm not voting there. so, realistically i'm probably going to want to execute a singleton.

no slamdunk scumreads yet, but here's a rough idea of my current preferred order:

petapan
dunnstral
davesaz
lilith
uncrowned
infinity 324
something_smart
skitter
(pine, dgb)
(the 4's)

VOTE: petapan

[Hoopla]

Hoopla

Why is JV not in your readings?

I also don't really like your read on me. My activity isn't what should make me town here. This read feels very low effort.

I don't like the fact they refuse to read in the 4s or whatnot, I feel that's just stupid for town to do.

do you ever have those days where you make a to-do list of 10 different things you need to get done, get so overwhelmed by the prospect, that you procrastinate with TV or some other escape, then end up doing nothing on the list? when if you put your mind to it, you could have easily done 6 or 7 things, accepted that level of output and been satisfied with yourself, rather than doing nothing.

day 1's in games this size are often like this for me.

i don't have the stamina these days to analyse an entire playerlist on D1 (especially in 7 day deadlines), so some kind of filtering is necessary for me in order for me to stay focused.

my preferred modus operandi is to sort through who i'm not willing to execute. this includes: obv-town, strong players who'll likely get NK'ed if they're town (so i don't need to bother sorting them), active/transparent posters (who seem like they'll be easy to read later), + other miscellaneous town influences.

this in turn creates a de facto execution pool that is small enough that i can focus on until we get some real information in the game (big wagons, claims, flips etc).

this game is unique in that it has other mechanical considerations to help the filtering process: the 4's.

@Hoopla, I recall you saying there's likely one scum in the 4s. If so that's a 33% shot if you read in there yet you're choosing not to?

i'm saying there's max one scum in the 4's which means either 1 or 0. if it's 1, it's 33% from my perspective (25% from a town player's perspective outside that bracket), but you're also forgetting about another subsection of games where its 0. of groupings of 4+, it's been observed to have been an all town group 50% of the time:

Spoiler: data

779

M

TTT

675

M

TTTT

630

M

TTT

542

TTTTTT

472

TTTT

427

TTTTT

i'm well aware i'd make this appeal to data if by chance i was scum and ended up in a likely-town draft position, but i'll save you all the time and tell you now it isn't alignment indicative. i'd make this exact same argument as town, and am doing so now.

[Hoopla]

Except town!her usually brings a lot more content, is more focused, doesn't ask inane questions which basically dont go anywhere (but this is something she does as scum!), and is capable of quickly becoming an obvtown force to be reckoned with

He has towngames like the one you describe, but he also has towngames where he's more underwhelming and absent

I approve of your assessment of me : thumbsup:

thanks for the intel. i'll be taking that into consideration.

you seem to know lilith well. so, on her specifically, have you had a history of catching her as scum? any recommended scumgames of hers that you can link to that would typify her scumgame? maybe a couple as town that showcase her obvtown'ing it up?

[Hoopla]

sure, there might be 0 scum, but the especially problematic part is that she COMPLETELY ignores the 4s for reads purposes. thus, i think the scumteam including penguin and hoopla is extremely likely, and I also think that that third member of the scumteam ISN'T a 4 (because having 2 members as 4s and 1 member outside that group seems most reasonable from a scum!hoopla perspective). i would wager that this is a scum gambit that backfired because both me and JV also chose 4, therefore catapulting the two to the bottom of the draft pick instead of somewhere around the middle where they otherwise would be.

i'm ignoring them

for now

. as the game progresses (and i have a better handle on the part of the game i'm focusing on), i'll start considering them more.

i mean, on day 1, we all ignore chunks of the playerlist. it isn't realistic to give meaningful analysis on every player. for example, you've completely ignored the following players:

dunnstral, davesaz, infinity, something_smart

i'm ignoring low% slots until later because of data. what's your excuse for ignoring those slots?

the reality is we're all in the same boat here; we all pick and choose what we want to focus on for D1. it's hypocritical to criticise me for ignoring slots when you've done so yourself, albeit in a more indirect way.

[Hoopla]

Also voting out Lilith who is top of the draft is not a good move, why are people starting there?

VOTE: skitter30

Because I don't like her vote and she can play like this as scum

is there a functional difference between voting out top of the draft vs. third? third is highly likely to be a PR too.

what don't you like about her vote, as opposed to every other lilith voter?

[Hoopla]

Skitter and JV have also been relatively high posters but don't get mentioned at all in this regard.

This feels like scum lowkey discrediting me by boiling my ISO down to "active posting", not taking a hard stance on me but leaving the door open to putting suspicion on me later down the line.

@Hoopla

You didn't really answer this.

Do you think this is an unfair criticism of your read on me, or do you see where I'm coming from?

i see where you're coming from, but you're overthinking it.

i didn't take a hard stance on you because i don't have much of an opinion of you. it usually takes me a while to read low signal:noise players.

over-posting tends to be a town trait though, so i'm not so concerned about you yet.

[Hoopla]

@Hoopla:

davesaz - under-the-radar somewhat. not a crime per se in a game this fast, but given it's (theoretically) easier to stream-of-conscious spam through the pages as town, under-the-radar seems a viable factor to consider in a D1 execution. hasn't done anything outright scummy, but from a POE perspective he is suss given

i have mostly town-leanings.

this doesn't seem to really line up with what you've said about people?

you and to a lesser extent dunnstral were my only scum leanings in that post?

[Hoopla]

If you're going to call Uncrowned a low signal:noise, I'm going to question whether you're actually reading or if you're merely looking at post count.
I did a quick skim and I don't see any fluff at all in that ISO. It's all game related commentary and pretty much spot on in terms of relevance.

i know there's relevant stuff in there. my eyes just tend to glaze over when players comment on everything, though. when everything is worth commenting on, it's hard to know what he actually cares about.

[Hoopla]

@skitter

thanks for links. i'm give them a skim when i have some downtime.

[Hoopla]

hoopla, what are your reads on me, pp, and JV?

give me your reads on davesaz, dunnstral, infinity and something_smart first.

[Hoopla]

What do you mean by low signal?

quantity over quality.

to give an analogy: i worked with a designer recently on an art project, and she was hypercritical of every little detail. think a micromanager to the nth degree. over time i simply learned to filter out her comments as it was too distracting to take everything she said on board. it may have even led to me overlooking some good advice, because she couldn't pick her moments.

[Hoopla]

@peta, i'm about to head off. so i'll give you a more detailrd answer later.

[Hoopla]

townleaning on Infinity because i think he's making valid and helpful points and his mindset seems to be solvey, with genuine attempts to find town and scum. i don't think i have any chance at successfully reading SS

because he's a very mechanical player and my reads on those are generally quite bad

- if i had to give a read, extremely light townlean. dave is slightly weird because they seem to be focusing on me to a greater extent than they should be, and null on dunnstral because i don't have enough from them yet.

ah, so that's why your radar is off about me. i appreciate your candour.

anyway, on to your question:

hoopla, what are your reads on me, pp, and JV?

i get town vibes from penguin's one-liners.

i really didn't like JV's skitter-related posts. but since then i've come around to the idea of him being town. has a naive/innocent quality to his thread presence that is hard to fake.

if you weren't in the 4's i'd be vaguely suspicious of you, primarily because you've been overly focused on penguin/me. it feels like you've found a comfortable niche that allows you to churn out easy material, without expressing much curiosity for other parts of the game. ironically, it's the same behaviour you called davesaz "slightly weird" for.

but as i said, mechanically, you're just not that likely to be scum. i'd probably even execute some of my town-reads in the singletons over the scummiest 4, if that helps you get an idea on how i evaluate things.

[Hoopla]

but but you put him as suspicious from a POE perspective, but your townreads did not appear numerous or strong

*shrug*

i thought about this, and i really don't know what to say to this line of questioning. my town reads aren't strong, sure... but neither is my declaration of davesaz being "suss". the strength of that comment is relative to strength of my town reads.

[Hoopla]

I mean yes but not that good of a thing.

It's much worse for town to lose a PR than it is for scum to lose a PR.

i don't necessarily agree with that. eliminating, say, a scum-vig is a HUGE swing in town's favour (as we saw in the last PYP game), whereas losing a town vig sucks, but isn't the end of the world.

i think people underestimate the power of scum roleblockers too. an active scum RB allows scum to neutralise twice as much town power per night (NK + RB).

generally speaking, my observation of the current meta is towns are far too scared to execute a player just because they claim a PR. so to see this level of enthusiasm for pressuring high draft picks is very refreshing. sometimes to execute scum, you have to risk losing PR's.

[Hoopla]

Not to me, it seems like a genuine read

i can assure you i was being a hilarious jokester.

[Hoopla]

also, i am late to the party on this one, but i thought this was some spicy logic from PP:

There were a bunch of posts where I was like “ok, I don’t agree that this post makes someone more towny/scummy, but I see how someone could think that”.

So...if dgb had made the same post but with the reads reversed you would get the same out of it?

looked to me like infinity was stretching to give credit for a rather arbitrary collection of reads.

[Hoopla]

current status: sipping a coffee and reading through skitter's lilith-links.

i'm trusting skitter taking the lead on this one. skitter's a good pick for town, and i'm generally willing to sheep good town players on specific meta-claims like this (particularly on D1 when my alternative is usually utility-executing).

fine w/ getting a claim given we're somewhere close to halfway thru the day but also have something else i'm writing up

i also think we should get a claim. i think the first E-1 on D1 should always happen by the halfway mark or so, as you want time in the event of a town-looking claim to reorganise. and given we have no real counterwagon, i don't want to end up in a situation where we end up scrambling on deadline to organise a new execution. they never end well.

[Hoopla]

a couple people picked up that this looked like a scumslip:

Actually town doesn’t have a tracker right? Honestly I feel like skitter is confident enough that we maybe just lim lilith here. But I think we should talk about it more.

PEdit: you didn’t need to put it to L-1 though?

turns out that was just a typo?

but!

when i was reading the latest posts

this

actually caught my eye as a perspective slip:

I mean scum already knows she’s a powerful PR

does this imply he knows lilith is town? or am i out to lunch here? someone help me.

[Hoopla]

I don't think hoopla really believes I would add "if she's town" to the end of that statement if I'm town but not when I'm scum.

hmm.

[Hoopla]

also, get well soon lilith!

[Hoopla]

on another note:

UNVOTE:

i've liked peta's recent postings, in particular his systematic review of dgb's catchup post.

[Hoopla]

Am I BoP’ing you too much? I feel like it’s such a level 0 thing that people get scumread for all the time but is just NAI. Like we’re clearly assuming she’s town for the sake of argument there, otherwise there’s no risk in limming Lilith.

i don't know. maybe? i'm definitely guilty of reading too much into things sometimes.

the crux of it is, it caught my eye, so i threw it to the wall to see if it would stick.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: Hoopla

hey, did you ignore my question in 683 on purpose?

[Hoopla]

A lot of people just hopped off of Lilith. From l-1 to l-5

this is alarming to me.

when a wagon collapses for no apparent reason, it's usually because it was artificially inflated (ie; scum driven), which implies lilith is town. skitter was the only person who put in real effort for her lilith vote. everyone else seemed to be riding on her coattails.

who's scum?

i think DGB/davesaz was the tipping point and most suspect. i probably prefer davesaz over DGB, if only because DGB is doubled up with pine.

VOTE: davesaz

[Hoopla]

Random thought that better describes why I scumread hoopla: I think she’s approaching the game pretty simplistically while appearing to be thoughtful.

once a simpleton always a simpleton.

[Hoopla]

How about me?

good point. i forgot you were on there briefly.

[Hoopla]

@DGB

are you scum? i want you to look me in the eye and tell me the truth.

[Hoopla]

@DGB

are you scum? i want you to look me in the eye and tell me the truth.

i'm a cop IRL.

and if a cop asks you a question it's against the law to lie.

[Hoopla]

i'm a cop IRL.

and if a cop asks you a question it's against the law to lie.

no wait, it's the other way around. if you ask a cop if they're a cop, legally they have to tell you.

regardless, my question stands:

are you scum?

[Hoopla]

HOOPLA STOP SPAMMING OH MY GOD

i'm trying to catch up. if i don't get on the podium, i'll be disappointed!

[Hoopla]

Was my vote scummy?

you are in the hot spot™

[Hoopla]

if you ask a cop if they're a cop, legally they have to tell you.

No they don't

please don't interfere with my line of questioning.

[Hoopla]

Like I'm not jibbing with anyone, to me, mafia is comedy, and it's like I'm at a funeral.

DGB, you dodged my interrogation.

highly suspect.

[Hoopla]

Why wouldn’t you vote DGB just because she’s doubled up? Why does that preclude her from being scum, unless you’re scumreading Pine and think that scum wouldn’t be doubled together?

it doesn't preclude her from being scum. but it's a useful tiebreaker between close candidates.

[Hoopla]

she'd be having more fun if she had a town role pm

DGB doesn't seem the type to get stroppy when she rolls scum.

i think she secretly revels in the mischief of it all.

[Hoopla]

sorry friends, not meaning to lurk.

spooky season got a hold of me. will have patches of time today to throw out some one-liners & other quick thoughts.

[Hoopla]

Idk where to vote really rn

rats.

i was hoping to wake up today and see an obvious town leader step up and show the way.

~~

i've like melanque's entrance to the game. a good hustle, although (and i forget who mentioned this before), given he's been reading along since the beginning anyway, it's likely most of his insights came before his role PM, so he doesn't really get town credit for his explosion onto the scene.

i do agree with him on his thoughts about infinity. his slot has been underpressured relative to his actual content. usually when someone is getting by without pressure, despite being a bit all over the shop, it's because they're scum. when town posts in such a manner there are three more slots (scum), that are willing to seize the opportunity and to jump on posts that could be interpreted as suspicious.

[Hoopla]

my davesaz vote yesterday was mostly gut/PoE on the singletons, but this puts into words what i'm seeing:

Dave is making kinda oppurtunistic votes, and is kinda like

watching this game from a sort of meta/birds-eye view perspective

but isnt trying to actively solve himself really imo

it could be a personality thing like he claims, but it reminds of a habit/style i used to find myself gravitate towards in some of my old scum games.

[Hoopla]

Is this just because scum won't pressure their buddy if said buddy is not otherwise receiving pressure?

Because that's only 2/13 of the picture in this case.

i think scum are usually willing to turn a blind eye to a buddy's post that is a bit iffy, but that could be spun as scummy. whereas that calculation is less in play when a townie makes a similar style iffy post.

ergo, townies who post iffy 50/50 posts have more slots willing to interpret them as suspicious. so someone underpressured for what could be deemed pressure-worthy content can sometimes ping that intuitive "hmm, why aren't they being talked about" bell. it may only be a slight edge difference overall, which is why this tell is more an art than a science.

[Hoopla]

I've played one game with hoopla a few years ago. If I really shouldn't be expecting hoopla to use more nuance, I think she should be pushing me more on it. In reality, a lot of my expectations come from this game, but it hasn't been something I've been able to articulate until now.

my town game is quite volatile. the game we played together my output was good, and how i try to always play as town. but i have put in a handful of stinkers over the years when life throws me a curveball.

Hoopla continues to try to find excuses to scumread people. Meta is available, you know...

i'm aware meta is available, but this is all time dependent. i set high standards for myself, and i want to read as much as i can, but unfortunately i only have so much time in the day.

for now, i'm prioritising "just posting" in lieu of committing to the required reading, given we're so close to deadline. hopefully the night phase will give me (and it seems like a few others) the chance to fully catch up and do some deeper contemplation.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla remind me why you're townreading me?

think of it less as a townread, and more like hedging my bets that you are.

if town, you have great value, and will probably net us 1 or more scum and soak up an NK. if not, it will likely become apparent when the town is being led down the gardenpath.

i hope this isn't too cryptic of answer. but it is how i think about D1 executions.

[Hoopla]

i feel like everyone should post their top 2-3 scumreads so we can get a good idea on who is a viable candidate. we need to start compromising.

i'll hang onto this davesaz vote for another ~6-12 hours. if this doesn't take off, i'd probably favour infinity over DGB, mostly because i feel DGB doesn't melt away into an ambivalent puddle of lament as scum.

[Hoopla]

And your perception of me is just from this game, yes?

word on the street is you know your stuff.

but yah, pretty much.

[Hoopla]

and for god's sake, use your vote SS!

[Hoopla]

I have a really nice scumtell that i'm trying to see if i can trip out of you/dgb/peta/infinity but so far no results

keep us posted.

[Hoopla]

actually, skitter.

while i have you here. can you talk more about the lilith's wagon collapsing? i feel like that happened suddenly, and people moved on like nothing happened.

[Hoopla]

I feel like i talked about it already?
What so u want to know ?

have you observed this kind of thing happening before with other wagons you've led?

[Hoopla]

incidentally, i think this is best reason i've seen for skitter being town. i don't see scum running up wagons like that and jumping ship when it could have easily gone through without much blame given the sheep would look worse - well, if lilith is town that is. i think it'd be even more bizarre if this was skitter/lilith scum. it probably never is scum/scum.

the most likely explanations are skitter-town/lilith-town or skitter-town/lilith-scum.

[Hoopla]

We're gonna have to no-elim eventually, but I think it's better to get more information early.

we don't need to no-elim if a vig shot happens.

[Hoopla]

kinda agree with the logic of lilith being less likely to be scum as 1-shot vig wasn't taken first. obviously not a guarantee, but its a tick in the town box - which is useful, given i read the links skitter shared about lilith and i couldn't really see any discernable difference between her town/scum game. activity in particular is hard to discern when you're only reading ISO's.

anyway,

VOTE: dunnstral

under the radar D1. wanna say more things but all i have time for at the moment.

[Hoopla]

JV and Lilith were also wagoned D1 and didn't receive much, if any, resistance. Similar to DGB

it might just be the flow of the game. seems like we've only been collectively pressuring one candidate at a time.

[Hoopla]

actually, going to switch to menalque. composition of this wagon looks pretty good, and i agree we should probably be executing from DGB's wagon.

dunnstral can wait for now.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: menalque

[Hoopla]

@SS

are you planning on voting today?

[Hoopla]

also just a heads up, my partner's birthday is tomorrow, so will be mostly away for a ~24-36 hour window of time.

but will have the whole weekend free for this game. please don't make me read too much!

[Hoopla]

just checking in to endorse this current direction.

there's a chance a doc/RB did some magic behind the scenes, but if the JK is the one who stopped the kill, it seems much more likely that menalque was the killer rather than the kill-ee, mostly because i think scum are more likely to shoot for town PR's higher in the draft, rather than down that low.

[Hoopla]

Do we think it's more likely that scum got blocked or that doctor saved someone?

If Mena is scum I feel like that could be rather telling on who makes up the scumteam if they decided he was the safest option to make the NK.

if mena is scum, it probably means he's lowest scum in the draft (or if there's lower scum, they somehow jagged a PR, making mena the best killer choice. but imo two higher up buddies seems likelier).

as for what stopped the kill. it's probably 50/50 betweeen the JK or doc/RB. if there's a doc, i think it should stay hidden, so if the 50/50 is right, it can protect lilith. if its not right, we have a confirmed doc inno elsewhere that can be claimed tomorrow (or at the docs discretion).

if there's no doc and a rb instead, i think it should probably claim now. but it seems unlikely town actually picks rb over doc.

[Hoopla]

feel convinced by this late E-1 hustle from menalque. it takes a rare scumbag to pull off this level fake-theorising/game-solving when the sweet release of death is just around the corner.

anyway

UNVOTE:

for now.

until i have time to think about this properly.

[Hoopla]

May be biased because I just finished a game where basically-confirmed-scum kept trying to pretend to gamesolve, but I don't agree with hoopla here. Some people are just tenacious.

i mean, he might be one of those rare characters, sure.

but we have time.

we fluffed around for 50+ pages on D1 only to execute a plaintive goofball. i want a couple more days to sort this out.

[Hoopla]

so I'm gonna say the same thing I did there as I am here: if you decide I'm town today, you fucking stick to it and you bring me through the endgame regardless of whether I'm wrong on infinity/skitter or not. if you're not willing to make that commitment despite me hard efforting today (and I am willing to, but only if this condition is met) then you elim me today and listen to my reads while deciding elims for the next couple of days

i don't like these kind of ultimatums.

the town would never agree to it, so this is all just bluster designed to emotionally manipulate.

[Hoopla]

hey everyone, just letting you know i'm back in the saddle and will be catching up in earnest.

what did i say about not posting too much while i was gone, hmm?

[Hoopla]

this complaint might be me showing my age, but i find menalque's style of posting obscene. we're playing on a forum, so treating the game as a chatroom automatically brings out that style of posting in everyone else who wants to participate in the game thread.

if this continues, we're going to be stuck in a perpetual state where there's always a segment of the playerlist in catchup mode, and not able to participate in the current conversation. at the moment it's me, but i don't want to have to play at this pace to be heard.

menalque, is it too much to ask to filter your thoughts and not dominate the conversation like this?

like yeah, you've been under pressure - and you've improved my ability to get a read on you (feels like an explosion of town energy that is hard to fake), but it's come at the expense of drowning out everyone else, to the point where i feel like many of my other reads have capsized in a sea of pointless babble.

the same goes for skitter too. can we please try for a better balance of voices?

literally all i've taken away from today is menalque-probtown on play (but going to think about mechanics in my next post), and that there probably isn't a menalque/skitter scumpairing.

[Hoopla]

onto some mechanical stuff:

i think we can all safely agree that lilith is definitely a JK. there would be too much risk in the players immediately below going for her role in the draft (and getting VT), which effectively locks her into her actual role. the fact she has claimed unprompted is also a town-seeming play.

the only ways i can parse a scum-lilith universe is if:

1) scum no-killed
2) scum's kill was doc-saved, and the scumteam saw an opportunity for lilith to frame someone with a pseudo-guilty.

to me, 1 seems farfetched. it's a fabulous WIFOM play in theory, but in practice nobody does it (especially since no-killing gives the town an extra mis-elim).
as for 2, this is likelier than 1, but also seems a longshot in my eyes. outing herself as a JK as scum effectively locks her into not being able to use the role in a pro-scum way. worth mentioning the even longshottier longshot of her "framing" her buddy in menalque for an absurd bus, but i doubt it's ever this.

~~

so, if lilith is town, what are the possibilities:

3) menalque is scum and was blocked
4) menalque is town and was NK'ed
5) menalque is town and a doc save occurred elsewhere.
6) menalque is scum and a doc save occurred elsewhere.
7) menalque is town and a RB block occurred elsewhere.
8) menalque is town and a RB block occurred elsewhere.

going by menalque's play, i don't think him being blocked-scum is as likely as a doc-save occurring elsewhere (maybe on skitter?). i also don't think he had done enough D1 to warrant being a NK-candidate unless certain players are scum (like infinity or maybe someone who knows him well like skitter?)

- if we have a town RB'er and they are holding onto this info, i'd prefer them to claim it now. i want that on the table.
- if it's a doc-save, we have two prob-innocents that i don't think is wise to out themselves yet. to me, this is the most likely situation...

...but to rank them order them by likelihood:

5)

lilith-town

&

menalque

is town, and a doc save occurred elsewhere.
6)

lilith-town

&

menalque

is scum and a doc save occurred elsewhere.
4)

lilith-town

&

menalque

is town and was NK'ed
3)

lilith-town

&

menalque

is scum and was blocked
2)

lilith-scum

& scum's kill was doc-saved, and the scumteam saw an opportunity for lilith to frame

town-menalque

with a pseudo-guilty.
1)

lilith-town

or scum

& scum no-killed
2b)

lilith-scum

& scum's kill was doc-saved, and the scumteam are fake-framing

scum-menalque

with a pseudo-guilty.

not including 7 or 8 in my likelihood listing, as an RB should claim (imo).

[Hoopla]

next topic to discuss: thegoldenparadox's wagon

on play, i find him somewhat suspicious for his lack of interest in most of the playerlist D1. from recent postings, i found this disgustingly scummy:

i'm town because my interactions and progressions don't make sense for scum
like. imo the biggest difference between town and scum is the fact that town is completely in the dark whereas scum knows the alignment of every player in the game
and my posting whatever you think of my reads and my reasoning make a lot more sense from someone who's uninformed than someone who knows the alignment of every player in the game

but i really can't justify executing in the 4's yet for mechanical reasons. if you believe there is 0 or 1 scum in the 4's, we better be damn sure someone is scum in there, because it just isn't likely. each of the singletons can be in way more combinations of possible scumteams, but everyone in the 4's has three people (across two other scumslots) that they cannot be scum with (unless you really think scum have doubled up). this drastically reduces the possible combinations of scumteams a 4 can be in.

i would rather take a chance on the JK-pseudo-guilty than taking a swing at a very-town-dense pocket of the playerlist.

[Hoopla]

do you have any scumreads

you betcha.

hopefully it's not too late in the day to signal a seachange, but a lot of people have dunnstral in their solves without ever pressuring him. to me (and this is off my limited knowledge of him) his energy has been underwhelming, and it's surprising to me he's barely been voted.

also, was this post ever followed up on:

Manlque was fairly obviously blocked, stopping the kill don't out town pr, elim through claim:

VOTE: Menalque

if menalque is town and scum knows it was a doc save to explain the no-kill, this looks like cheeky attempt to hurry through the execution before the situation had been fully parsed.

VOTE: dunnstral

[Hoopla]

And I'd rather execute the most scummy player in the lobby than worry about draft order.

This whole thing is getting a bit tedious if you ask me. We've got half the people saying they don't want to execute people high in the draft, and then we've got others saying let's not eliminate in the doubled up numbers. Ruling this many slots out for elimination based off of what is essentially theory seems far less optimal than just going by play, in which TGP has been the worst of D2 and had an extremely scummy end of D1 as well.

we should have no qualms in executing in the top half of the draft. there is likely a higher concentration of scum there.

i guess it just depends how much you value mechanics. i'm pessimistic about people's actual accuracy (mine included) when it comes to behavioural stuff. most people think they're way more accurate than they actually are. mechanical considerations can give you actual improvement on odds without needing to consider the reputation of the scumhunter you're sheeping or questioning your own intel.

obviously a balance of the two worlds is ideal, but in a game like PYP, mechanics can be really important.

[Hoopla]

How did you come to the conclusion that all the 4s have three people they can't be in a team with, and why are you so certain that the single number players have more possibilities?

Or is this based off the assumption that there's a maximum of one scum in the 4s?

i came to that conclusion based on the 15 times this setup has been run, no scumteam has doubled up their numbers. the cost of giving up PR's isn't really worth the WIFOM.

[Hoopla]

and even on the very outside chance scum did, we likely PoE them with PR/mechanical clears before endgame anyway.

[Hoopla]

You’re the one voting an almost certain town pr. Doesn’t go with your post.

are you talking to me?

[Hoopla]

oh yes, redirection.

low% branches of the tree but worth mentioning.

[Hoopla]

@infinity

i don't think your JV vote is going anywhere. wanna bounce and help kickstart this hot new dunnstral wagon?

you seemed to be mulling him over recently.

[Hoopla]

also, i am dying of anticipation of who SS is going to vote first.

who's it gonna be

whoooo's it gonna beeeee

[Hoopla]

This isn't the case for everyone, but I believe generally that emotion/tone are easier for scum to fake than having good progressions and votes that appear natural.

TGP's progressions aren't great and their is a pattern already appearing where they avoid interacting with wagons, only to jump on them without making points about said wagons prior.

what do you make of characters that abstain from voting & participating in wagons?

[Hoopla]

the same goes for skitter too. can we please try for a better balance of voices?

I will try to be better abt this, apologies

+1 in that i will try not to actively make the game unpleasant for you hoopla, but equally my style is much more just responding to what’s in front of me when I’m here and as it comes to mind than trying to condense that into big forced posts. Realistically what I can offer is that if I notice I’m posting a lot I will intentionally vacate thread or give it a chance to breathe and for people to catch up before resuming posting again

all good. i think now that i've caught up (and had a sleep), i was probably being overdramatic and projecting a little. seems most of the playerlist is keeping up fine, and it isn't really that much of a problem.

anyway, occasionally giving the thread a chance to breathe from the skitter/menalque show is a fair compromise. thanks!

[Hoopla]

I think wagons point tentatively towards TGP!scum — as in, the people on him are mostly townie, he was a counter wagon to town originally, his wagon hasn’t really grown very fast compared to the wagon on town which shot up to G-1 instantly, and there’s now an effort to get a counterwagon to him going on Dunn (which, despite dunn being scummy, does maybe make dunn somewhat +town if TGP!scum)

from a speed/resistance & composition of voters perspective, i agree the TGP wagon looks healthier than most of the wagons we produced yesterday, ie; lilith/DGB... but i still feel it's a suboptimal play.

realistically, TGP does seem like the scummiest 4, but i think we can do better today. or at the very least, give the town a real counterwagon possibility in dunnstral.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla based on play alone, who do you believe is more likely to be scum between TGP and Dunn?

from play alone, they're probably my two top picks. who more than the other is just splitting hairs, which is why i like factoring in mechanical considerations when things are close.

[Hoopla]

So how long before you're comfortable eliminating in the 4s?

once we've flipped a scum elsewhere, i'd be more comfortable trying to solve the 4's.

[Hoopla]

Of course your position has nothing at all to do with your own draft number.

purely incidental, let me assure you.

yes, i'm a 4 today, but in another lifetime perhaps i'm a 7.

[Hoopla]

we're waiting for you to unvote because i'm town and join me on infinity

or hoopla

i'm happily parked on dunn for now.

but if those on your wagon aren't going to budge, perhaps it's best if you just claim so we can get on with it.

[Hoopla]

i feel so iffy

what's wrong peta?

[Hoopla]

It boggles the mind to choose venge over N3 vig but okay

gotta agree with this.

The role choices of the people who have flipped are really making me question my setup spec. Specifically whether scum would've chosen 1-shot vig. I think it's 100% correct to do so but maybe other people disagreed.

there have been a couple of questionable town picks, which i think will always happen. individual players are prone to some goofy logic from time to time, but when you have a scumteam of three, a suboptimal pick is less likely to slip through the cracks. all it takes is one reasonable mechanical thinker to be on the scumteam for any clearly bad picks to be vetoed.

i still like the logic for lilith town (scum should almost always take 1-shot vig first because having that level of control over nightplay is huge). but it is fishy that she is still alive.

my only take away from this is that it implies scum *knows* there is a doc who made a correct save N1. if this is the case, fear of town-lilith being doc'd would be a reasonable explanation why she's still alive. perhaps they also think she's a viable mis-elim from a "why-are-you-still-alive" perspective.

[Hoopla]

if lilith is scum and the scumteam *actually* picked JK first, i think it makes SS, infinity and maybe skitter less likely to be scum. i'd say menalque too, but he wasn't a starting player. davesaz seems mechanically minded, but he's already expressed numerous times he'd double up numbers for WIFOM purposes. he may be the type of character to support choosing something other than vig as first pick.

that does rule out a lot of combinations of lilith-scumteams, though. if she's scum, i think she's paired with the more whimsical/low energy types.

[Hoopla]

although, if lilith is scum, why out your role on D2 when you know the reason for the no-kill was not your JK action (and likely a doc save)? perhaps i'm being daft, but that seems an absurd gambit that doesn't benefit scum.

i just don't see how claiming your role unprompted is a scum-play, especially when there's a potential hidden N3 vig, and being outed means you can't use your JK in an overtly suspicious manner, AND people will start questioning why you haven't died anyway. doesn't seem like a scum-move conducive to longterm survival.

[Hoopla]

this is hurting my brain.

going to stick with what i know (and what we should have done yesterday):

VOTE: dunnstral

[Hoopla]

if dunn is scum, i'm starting to think skitter is looking like a reasonable partner given her pushes on lilith today.

i share menalque's paranoia over why she's still alive, but the explanation of scum being afraid to NK lilith (an outed JK) applies to skitter if skitter was scum's N1 kill and the doc saved her.

the doc's N1 save or the outed JK would both be good doc choices N2, so perhaps scum were afraid to lose another NK on what would essentially be a coinflip.

regardless, this line of logic at least *somewhat* quells the "why-is-skitter-still-alive" thoughts, but it does make a big assumption (she was the N1 save), whereas this logic for lilith makes a smaller assumption (being an outed JK is much likelier to attract doc attention).

[Hoopla]

Also dis anyone ger neighborized n1?

also, why are you asking about this?

neighbouriser is a highly prob-town pick. narrowing down who that player could be is anti-town.

especially if scum have the role-cop. they could already have a significant chunk of the town power figured out. they don't need extra hints.

[Hoopla]

i feel like it's due diligence to confirm the neighborizer exists
(i doubt dunn is lying, but still)

i'm not asking who the neighborizer is, i'm asking *if someone else* got neighborized
i'm not super worried about the rolecop tbh, it's a suboptimal pick for scum in the way that choosing informed is

it's like super suboptimal if they already have informed

there's no need to clarify if dunn is lying, as that is never a lie. you are narrowing down the pool by one slot, OR two if you're town since you've now softclaimed not-neighbouriser. it only helps scum, and i'm trying to decipher whether that is suspicious or just anti-town on your part.

i guess in your follow up posts you simply don't seem so concerned about leaking info, so probably just anti-town.

also, i think role cop is a reasonable choice for scum. if they're not going to go for vigs, and if lilith is town

and

there is a town doc out there, what has scum actually bid on? role cop seems logical.

[Hoopla]

rolecop is a really silly role for scum to take with informed + the knowledge inherent in knowing what scum picked and where they are on the draft

and stuff, i guess

if you were scum, what would you pick in your draft position?

for the sake of this exercise, assume the scumteam is you, dunnstral, JV/N_M.

[Hoopla]

purely hypothetical, of course.

[Hoopla]

why did you include jv/nm's slot

please don't try and flip my top secret interrogation back on me.

i'm in the zone here.

[Hoopla]

please don't try and flip my top secret interrogation back on me.

i'm in the zone here.

next question: imagine the scumteam is you/peta/best_bird, what role do you pick and why is this the scumteam?

[Hoopla]

why are you replying to my absurd line of questioning so earnestly?

[Hoopla]

i am sussing you out.

generally speaking i find earnestness in the face of absurdity suspicious, because it shows you're more interested in placating me despite having no real reason to.

[Hoopla]

be careful, or i'm coming after you too once i've eaten.

[Hoopla]

thank you for enjoying my thought experiment. i'll be sure to provide you more in the coming days for your pleasure.

[Hoopla]

yes, that you like hypotheticals. i'll brainstorm some more over my salad.

[Hoopla]

Mena, do you know if skitter would be more open minded to lilith!town as town here? I can relate to the idea of knowing how to read someone and trusting your read in them 100%, but if there are other people in the game that also know how to read lilith, it doesn't make a ton of sense to hold on to the read this long right? Idk, we're getting into the problem of people knowing each other's meta better than me, and generally being better scumhunters, but I wanna know if I wrote skitter off as town too early.

this is a problem that seasonal players like me get stuck with since i have so little history with the current player pool. some of my modes of interpreting behaviour seem dated, or at very least, people play very differently now and i find it hard to see the subtleties between say, two hyper-posters, or two shoot-the-breeze one-liner players, so i end up having to trust people with more meta knowledge on what the correct read is for each individual.

the problem with that is, you end up having to trust players who may be scum; the meta being too far removed and obfuscated to really understand the inside knowledge being dropped (even when i go to double-check, i can't sift through 5K-post games efficiently). there's also no real recourse for someone providing false meta reads, as you can always point to, "well they

were

different in town-games X, Y & Z, but shared similarities with scum-game Q. oh well, c'est la vie".

this is partially why i like playing PYP. the mechanics are such an influential aspect of the game, that i can still contribute in meaningful ways even if my scumhunting gets lost at times.

i'm not sure what prompted this post but for some reason it felt necessary.

[Hoopla]

my timing is way off with my posts this morning since i know we're supposed to be focused on dunnstral right now, but another question came to mind:

@menalque

whatever happened to your infinity scumread? has that fallen away since you replaced in? you seemed pretty gung-ho about that from what i recall.

either way i'd like an updated read there. i keep to-ing & fro-ing on him. i think he has a creative way with words & concepts and i like his posting style in general. my issue is, i think i tend to positively bias players whose posts i like reading.

plz help.

[Hoopla]

also, just letting everyone know i will be VLA for 24-36 hours. actually i think most of the coming weekends will be like this. i'll try and chime in for dunns claim, but i apologise in advance for my new schedule.

[Hoopla]

a final comment: i'd be extremely impressed if menalque is ever scum here.

[Hoopla]

hello all, checking in!

dunn's claim makes me hesitate somewhat, but realistically he is the play today. letting a VT claim slip through the cracks in pursuit of marginally better odds elsewhere (which is debatable anyway) is a pointless endeavour. or perhaps even quite -EV as we risk outing the cop/neighbouriser earlier than we need to. the cop especially we want to keep hidden until at least tomorrow (maybe longer if dunn's elim flips red).

i suppose nobody is

really

proposing shifting elsewhere, but what exactly are we holding up on? feels like we're playing with our food, when proper etiquette would be to chow down right about now.

[Hoopla]

also, did anyone actually end up verifying the existence of the neighbouriser or nah?

if dunn is scum it would suggest the neighborizer is town, as he felt the need to claim it straightaway

i suppose i'll field this topic before we lower the curtains on today.

based on the stats, neighbouriser is 13-0 as a town selection, so it may as well be conf-town when it claims. for that reason, stop trying to narrow down the possible pool of where it could be. i know it's only one slot PoE'd (two if skitter is town since she removed herself from the pool), but improving scum's knowledge of where the neighbouriser is located simultaneously improves their ability to narrow down cop and/or doc.

given we might stumble into some potential cop/hidden-doc or conf-inno/hidden-doc endgames, the less exposed now, the better. at least until we massclaim.

[Hoopla]

scum have the advantage of a lot of information in this setup (even more with informed), so all these little leaks add up, and may lead them to the correct sequence of nightkills they need to avoid being boxed in via PoE once we massclaim.

seems like pretty 101 stuff to me.

there's not even a supposed advantage to confirming the existence of the role now.

[Hoopla]

welp, i'm lost again.

back to the drawing board.

[Hoopla]

also, lilith should claim her action first before we massclaim. we can quibble about the order while we wait.

[Hoopla]

i was thinking we should actually do a massclaim minus doctor (if there is one, they claim VT), because if we can get one or two confirmed-town or prob-town, it may be more useful to have the doc hidden to disrupt scum's ability to weasel out of the endgame PoE. scum then have the guess amongst the VT's to execute the correct sequence of town power at the risk of no-killing.

seems like the correct play to me given we potentially have multiple cop investigations.

[Hoopla]

Maybe? I feel like the doc claim could really help solve things, though I suppose if the doc/n1 target gets wagoned they can just claim. If there’s no doc we have to talk about if mena is scum or why scum tried to kill him n1. Idk.

yes, the doc being outed will make it easier for the collective hivemind solving capacity, but if we shake out multiple innocents, we may be able to solve the game while keeping it hidden. obviously the doc can also claim if it gets wagoned.

maybe we can do a massclaim minus doc, then the town collectively decides if doc should claim based on what info shakes out?

[Hoopla]

I guess? I think she wanted to claim her real JK target in order to not get CCed later on. Like I do think the claim is +town for her overall but that’s not enough at this point.

i'm not usually one for sheeping dead townies in any big way, but skitter's read on lilith surely needs to be factored into the equation. it's probably tilting me in the direction of limming there, but it means there's something screwy happening mechanically which is the main feeling holding me back.

like, for lilith to be scum, it means scum either no-killed N1 with the intention of faking a guilty on menalque (if so, why do it on menalque - he's not exactly a sitting duck).

OR a doc made a save N1, then scum came up with that plan on the fly at the start of D2. that's a rather creative line to cook up on the spot. if this is the case, i feel it probably rules out certain scumteams that don't have that "thinking-on-your-feet" creative zeal in them (as there's no way lilith thinks up that on her own). JV & BB would be the main characters i'd rule out from thinking this up, with players like SS, infinity & maybe dave as potential scum mastermiinds.

either way, for a mechanically minded player like me, probabilistically, it still feels like we're veering into the realm of conspiracy, but given we've mis-limmed thrice, and there are no obvious standout scum (or scum pairing combos), i'm willing to entertain conspiracies.

[Hoopla]

how's this for a conspiracy:

lilith and menalque are actually

both

scum. they no-kill N1 with the intention of lilith "claiming a pseudo-guilty on menalque"

knowing

that the "guilty" won't be enough to get menalque eliminated D2, but in turn have effectively distanced and ruled out anyone ever considering them as a scum pairing.

...if this is actually what happened N1, just give them the scummy right now.

[Hoopla]

there's no way lilith thinks up that on her own

what makes you say this?

she's barely been present all game.

it seems to me that "faking a pseudo-guilty" in that spot would be such a keenly acute play that displays a level of awareness of the current gamestate that i just haven't seen from her.

i guess the counterargument to that is, faking a pseudo-guilty on a player like menalque in and of itself implies a lack of awareness.

either way, if lilith is scum, i don't think that play came from her brain.

[Hoopla]

i take it nobody is claiming cop? i think that was everyone.

the question is, does scum gamble on cop still being available at 4/5/7, risking a valuable pick on a purely preventative play when roles with more utility are available, or are they more likely to take a flyer on it low in the draft when they're unlikely to get anything useful

tricky question. i mean, cop still has some value for scum in early picks as it's paired with 1-shot redirector. if scum aren't going to go for vigs, picking 1-shot redirector is a pretty cool role to create chaos (plus blocking a powerful town role). i think it's likelier in the 4/5/7 bracket than the lower picks, but that's just intuitive speculation.

we'll probably be able to narrow it down more with more claims, which is another reason to complete the massclaim.

[Hoopla]

i'm not sure anyone currently alive is likely to think of that play as scum and to be honest i'm not sure we have a doctor so i'm not sure it's worth discussing lilith today

if there's no doctor, that would be a spanner in the works, as it implies that lilith must have stopped the kill or scum deliberately no-killed.

whereas if there is a doctor, it gives a little more equity to lilith being scum as it enables universes where there was a doc save and lilith fakeclaims a guilty, without there needing to be a scum no-kill N1 (which seems like a pretty low% play).

problem is, outing a potential doctor now to get more info about lilith's alignment doesn't seem worth it.

[Hoopla]

the doctor is essentially worthless given the remaining roles on the town side. no value in staying hidden if there are no roles worth protecting (do not tell me a 1-shot watcher is that valuable)

this is a near-certainty to be town and worth protecting:

I am the neighbouriser

or at the very least, people's solves shouldn't include this slot.

[Hoopla]

Hmm. S/T neighborhoods do tend to be beneficial for scum right? Not that it’s super likely scum would choose it, but when you’re so low in the draft and figure you’re not going to get anything good anyway, then maybe scum picks it.

wouldn't be the worst play for a low slot to gamble on because it looks so town, but again, i feel like it requires a thinking player (or teammate) to choose an obvious town role to subvert this meta.

[Hoopla]

imagine someone gets a PM for a game, and when they open it it says cop. so then they go into the game, and the game is another run of a setup that they've played before. and in the game they played before, there were some of the same people. and IN that game they'd played before, they claimed cop in their first post for a meme. and then they enter into this NEW game, knowing that some of the same people are in it, and are never gonna take a cop claim seriously, and imagine that they then claim cop, again

what a hilarious jokester that person would be if they were ever zany enough to do such a thing.

[Hoopla]

I am not joking

i still don't believe it.

but claim targets so we can get on with the solve.

[Hoopla]

targeted skitter both the first 2 nights, inno'd on the second, then targeted lilith last night

but was blocked on nights 1 and 3

cute.

N_M was blocked last night. so that would imply a roleblocker and a JK then? or are you counterclaiming N_M's claim of being blocked N3?

[Hoopla]

idk how I could be counterclaiming without knowing for sure if we have a doctor or a roleblocker

I think this is probably a gambit by lili and NM

in my eyes, N_M is 95%+ town, so he's pretty much the corner piece i'm starting with for my solve and i'm working backwards from there.

if you are actually claiming to be blocked last night, that means scum has a RB, which means town can't have a doc. that means lilith is either town or scum no-killed N1.

either way, i'd like lilith to chime in and tell her us her target last night so we can move forward.

[Hoopla]

in my eyes, N_M is 95%+ town

why?

neighbouriser has never been picked by scum in PYP X/Y (13-0 so far).

i play the odds.

[Hoopla]

i almost think the doc should claim. gives us one more confirmed/high-probability town to work with for a collective solve today, and would prove there's no RB in the setup, which would confirm menalque as scum OR a lilith+N_M team (but i doubt it's that).

[Hoopla]

but this is really bad logic and just fallacious?

when you have an overwhelmingly one-sided outcome with the data, you can make logical inferences based upon it. it's obviously not 100%, because a canny scumteam could see this trend and deliberately subvert it.

to me, neighbouriser being scum is in the same ballpark of probability of scum doubling up draft numbers (something that has never happened, but ~theoretically could~).

[Hoopla]

i think he's probably telling the truth about being blocked regardless because the potential for someone to just counter him would make it incredibly stupid to do as scum

i'm leaning this way too (believing menalque), which is why a doctor should straight up claim now, as it's a direct counterclaim to menalque.

[Hoopla]

doctor should not claim because (1) it's not, lili could have JK'd me last night

and (2) if we elim in me/lili/NM there's no reason to out them

there are two blocks claimed last night.

lilith & N_M have corroborated for one of the blocks, meaning that's a truthful event or they're both scum together. if no other block can be possible (ie; a doc claim), it implies you must be scum OR lilith + N_M together.

[Hoopla]

are you fucking serious?

[Hoopla]

i don't have a lot of time over the coming days to commit to solving this game, so to waste it on asinine reaction tests is so stupid.

seriously, i hate it when players are so obnoxious to think that their trolling of the game comes first.

[Hoopla]

I don't see why it's an asinine reaction test rather than a useful one?

you could have outed the doc as logically it was near enough to a direct counterclaim.

in fact, if you're scum we may have caught you in a bind where you overlooked that a doc claim proves you're scum, and you can now just safely revoke your claim under the lol-gambit clause.

or you could be town and you've muddied the waters for no reason. i don't know. but don't tell me whatever "reads" you got from it were worth it.

[Hoopla]

I took a calculated risk

i don't buy that you actually considered it at all when you fakeclaimed cop.

but that's the problem with these fakeclaim gambits. usually when you catch people out it proves them scum, but all this caught was you lying, which could either way. this is why you shouldn't lie as town without a really really good reason, as it's just a cloak for scummy/anti-town play, and the only thing that comes of it is just an annoying waste of time.

Pedit: hmm

[Hoopla]

now that we know there's no cop, i'm of the opinion we should full massclaim now, doc included.

there is no value in keeping the doc hidden because:

1) there is no cop (thus no innocents), with only N_M as a potential prob-town candidate worth protecting
2) we're in odd numbers, so a correct doc save doesn't even yield us an extra mis-elim
3) there is too much lingering haze, particularly around the N1 no-kill, that getting all the cards on the table would help the town's ability to collectively PoE. an extra exposed prob-town slot (doc) makes solving much easier as it rules out/minimises certain combinations of players
4) if there's no doc, this is info we need now, as it changes a lot of things

scum already knows the answer to the N1 riddle. we have a better chance of cracking the game by figuring that out, and that requires a massclaim. scum have also elected to hide the cop, so we know there will be a fakeclaiming scum amongst (dave, SS, infinity, peta, mena). a massclaim may be able to narrow down that field of the lying scum.

too much hinges on the lilith slot to properly solve, so we need to focus on that first, but in order to do that we need to massclaim. there's more to gain by massclaim at the moment than what we're giving up.

[Hoopla]

meh i'll claim vt as i've made myself pretty obvious anyway

what role did you go for?

[Hoopla]

in the spirit of altruism, i'll claim now:

VT, went for cop

i want dave to claim next.

[Hoopla]

wow, so there's no doc. that complicates things.

if anyone is secretly hiding the doc for gambit reasons, please just out now because it's more valuable for collective solving to have all the info.

i guess i'm back to considering the game from a lilith-town perspective. i really can't square away that scum would no-kill N1, so lilith being town seems like the most logical conclusion. i really resonate with infinity's 3246. it feels like the whole game has this dynamic tension between trusting reads or trusting mechanics.

by reads, lilith is scum, menalque is town.
by mechanics, the opposite is true, but i (again) agree with infinity. if menalque is scum, i'd be very impressed.

my gut read is that they're actually both town. or at the very least, i'm more interested in finding the cop/redirector and solving outside of this binary, as i think we have it narrowed down quite a bit.

the fakeclaiming scum can't be dave (unless dave is scum with peta specifically), but i found peta's weird gambit about going for watcher quite a left-field play that usually comes from a town perspective. and given watcher/commuter would be a weird role for a scum that high in the draft to take, i favour a town/town pairing there also.

to me, it's really starting to look like SS is scum. i feel if scum is going to go for cop, they're going to go for it earlier in the draft to ensure its blocked for town/narrowed down to a handful of slots above them.

and on another point: if menalque is town and was the NK N1, a scumteam with SS on it makes sense. according to menalque's 3226, SS would be a likely player to target him.

the cop/redirector

could

be infinity or menalque, but by play i have a much harder time seeing it than with SS (who is in the most logical spot from a mechanics perspective to be scum anyway). this actually does feel like a conclusion that has good harmony between reads/mechanics, so i want to trust it, given most of the other possible candidates require ignoring one side of the mechanics/reads dichotomy to work.

the only reads reason in SS's favour is that skitter was pretty sold on him being town iirc. but i still think he makes more sense than infinity/menalque or peta.

soooo...

VOTE: SS

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, what do you think of 3233? Put another way, if you agree with me that the scumpool is {peta, s_s, dave, bird} like you seem to, then peta has to be scum no matter what. If he flips town, then it makes dave a lot more likely to be town and we know that we have to reevaluate lilith/n_m/mena/each other.

i'm trying to work this out now.

~~

as far as SS partner hunting goes, i think BB looks the best bet from a PoE perspective, but i'm really struggling to find the third.

dave & N_M are prob-town based on claims.
menalque could be scum blocked N1, but it requires a lot of wilful ignorance re: his overall play.
for lilith to be scum, it requires a scum no-kill N1. i suppose SS is the sort of player who i could see considering this play, but this is still quite conspiratorial.

infinity and peta are probably the best bets for the third member, but i still have a lot of reservations. infinity will have played a blinder of a game as scum, with an impressive amount of lucid town-looking ruminations. this is maybe a partially gut thing, but when i've read some of his speculation/theorising posts, i just haven't got the sense he has informed knowledge of the setup.

peta i'm probably discounting too easily, because really, everyone else has way better reasons to be town, and the main one i have for him was his cute VT/watcher gambit. it seemed like the brainchild of a cagey townie trying to catch scum in the act, but i suppose it could have been manufactured. it's certainly not as strong of a reason as others have.

so, SS/BB/peta is probably my top solve right now.

[Hoopla]

@menalque

what do you think is more likely:

- scum no-killed N1
- you were the NK

from a town-you perspective, that is the only two options.

[Hoopla]

No I’m going through the plist. (This does assume mena town but)

n_m would’ve had to take neighborizer thing
you would’ve had to not claim cop for wine
lilith would’ve had to no kill n1
dave would’ve had to have taken watcher/commuter as scum unless scum with you

That leave hoopla, bird, s_s which means scum doubled up on their numbers. Like something ducky is going on 100% of the time if I’m not terribly misreading mena.

a lot of really low% seeming events, but at least one had to have happened.

a thought:

given dave spent a bunch of D1 harping on about how he would have chosen to double-up numbers if he drew scum just to subvert meta, it makes me think he's perhaps higher than likely to entertain different flavoured wifom plays (like taking a suboptimal scum role early in the draft).

[Hoopla]

Hoopla why is Dave prob!town based on claim?

And why is lilith cleared? Just because of the NK thing? But if you’re claiming JK and you think you can use that to soft guilty someone the next day, that’s actually a pretty strong move if you plan the soft guilty in advance

yes, i feel like i'm perhaps falsely clearing dave too. based on play, he'd be a decent candidate as he's been quite under-the-radar.

as for lilith, that's why i asked you the N1 question. because for lilith to be scum, it requires scum no-killing. i just can't find a person on this playerlist other than SS or you that would do that.

to me, it seems likelier lilith is town and you were NK'ed (or you're scum who was blocked, but lets talk about the town-you universes first).

an interesting observation comes to mind:

SS makes the most sense as a player who would try to kill a town-you N1. but SS also makes sense as a player who i suspect would consider no-killing N1 given his adeptness regarding mechanics/strategy.

[Hoopla]

If you think this is the team, why are you voting me over peta?

i'm still fleshing this out and seeing what makes sense.

i'm more than happy to compromise to elim a slot in my likely solve(s), but we have plenty of time to work through this.

[Hoopla]

{me, hoopla, mena}

We need to find one more town.

i would gamble the game on the neighbouriser being town.

[Hoopla]

I’m not sure he would actually — I’m notoriously bad at catching scum him — he might NK me for general reasons (if there’s just no doc at all, he figured that if there was one they’d be on lilith or skitter) and so i was less likely to have a doc on me but still a solid kill

But overall I don’t think he’d be that worried about me as a threat /to him in particular/ i think he’d only kill me as a general respect for my ability to be a pain in the ass for scum sometimes

scum have informed, so if there's no doc, scum

knew

there was no doc N1.

[Hoopla]

Does knowing I would actively prioritise getting neighbouriser if I was scum impact this take at all?

a lot of people talk up a big WIFOM game,

"oh, i'd definitely double up numbers if i was scum, i'd definitely pick X, Y & Z rah rah rah"

, but when it comes down to it few have the nerves to throw a curveball pregame - that's why we see lopsided observed results of 13-0 for neighbouriser scumpicks, and 15-0 for scum not doubling up numbers.

most of the time (pregame especially), scum will just take the path of least resistance (or the paths that keep the most options open).

[Hoopla]

Infinity and hoopla I really don’t think S_S is the one today,

and i think you should probably also listen to skitter there

this is a good point. i forgot SS was skitter's top town read.

but at the same time, she is dead; her reads existed in a gamestate with far less information. a lot has changed since massclaim, namely our ability to PoE the game in a more detailed way. so i think today's information takes precedence.

[Hoopla]

there's a part of me that is a little nervous that mine and infinity's reads are matching up too well. but i suppose to win the game, we need a big enough group of town to mindmeld in a largely cohesive manner.

i feel like we desperately need a scumflip today to show we're on the right track. if we mis-elim today, i don't trust our ability to win this from a 7p lylo given how wishy-washy and fluid everyone's reads have seemed to be.

[Hoopla]

sorry to bounce at such a critical juncture of the game, but i'll be V/LA for ~24 hours. weekends are tough.

UNVOTE:

don't elim anyone while i'm gone. i wanna look at this game through fresh eyes. too many loose ends to deal with.

[Hoopla]

last post.

peta-dave-s_s/bird/lilith
peta-s_s-bird
lilith + 2 of {peta/s_s/bird}

Any of these seem particularly likely/unlikely @hoopla, mena?

i think i still favour peta/SS/bird, but yah, want to reassess tomorrow.

[Hoopla]

Ahhhhhh this game feels like a loss tbh

i was thinking about this game this morning, and it's starting to feel that way to me too. we have too many fractured viewpoints of the game that i'm finding hard to synthesise, and in order to win from here, we need a cohesive enough town coalition with enough of an overlap in reads. there are some team distributions of scum that will be unwinnable, so i want to choose a pathway that optimises the amount of possible universes we can win in.

intuitively, i want to work with infinity/menalque based on their play, but i feel like i can't trust my ability to discern behavioural tells at a better frequency that some mechanical considerations can offer. like, when it comes down to it, i'd gamble on N_M being town over a tonal town read like menalque, and to a lesser extent dave over infinity. i feel like i'm also willing to lose to universes where lilith is scum too.

so, working backwards:

if i assume N_M, dave & lilith being town, this group all seems to be on the same page favouring a menalque execution. if menalque is scum, i think we have a good chance of winning the game or at least taking it deep, because there is a cohesion of views there. we can win a lot of possible branches of the gametree where menalque is scum. in actuality, lilith blocking scum's NK is a pretty significant percent chance of being the explanation for N1.

^the above seems like a viable way forward because we have good cohesion of reads with the people who are likely town from a mechanical perspective.

if i go the other route and work backwards from a reads-based way filtering the game, i'd want to work with menalque and infinity. problem is, menalque is hellbent on lilith, and infinity is happy just sheeping me. so even if this network of people are town, we probably still end up losing the game, because we don't have a good enough cohesive idea of how to win from here. i just don't really trust either menalque's or infinity's vision of the gamestate to go in blind with them.

i don't know. maybe the lack of clear direction is making me overly pessimistic, but i don't see how we win if menalque is town. too many prob-townies view him as scum, that even if we don't eliminate him today, he will be an easy LYLO mis-elim for scum.

i just don't see a way the town can win any universes where menalque is town, so it seems prudent to try and win the section of the gametree where menalque is scum, as we actually do have a good shot of winning in these branches.

so, working from the starting assumption that menalque is scum, who else is scum in this universe?

i'm ruling out dave and N_M for claim reasons, and it feels like peta's interactions with menalque have been far too nuanced and theatrical today. it's hard to see that as a bus.

infinity has good partner equity with menalque (he jumped on my push on SS quite easily with no original thought), and when you view the game from a menalque-scum angle that is suspicious timing. SS and BB sitting back while this whole thing rages on makes for good partner equity too.

so, menalque + two of infinity/SS/BB seems like the solve if menalque is scum.

[Hoopla]

@dave, N_M, lilith, peta

if menalque is scum, who are his partners?

[Hoopla]

3424 makes me sad

I do think this game is winnable in a town!mena world. But idk.

VOTE: peta is what I’m most comfortable with rn.

i'm not completely discounting winning in a town!mena world, but it really depends on who those vocal about mena are pairing him with and if they're willing to compromise on secondary reads. if peta/N_M/dave/lilith see someone else as a top buddy for mena, that may be a more optimal execution that yields good equity in both scum!mena

and

town!mena worlds.

this is why i want to talk specifically to peta/N_M/dave/lilith about who they see mena as scum with.

i think SS and BB have good equity in both mena!scum & mena!town worlds. perhaps you (infinity) also, but i think you make more sense if mena is scum.

[Hoopla]

i feel like menalque's play is starting to fray at the seams - or at least, it's looking like his scattergun stream-of-conscious style of posting is veering into deliberate obfuscation. he's continually focusing on low% possibilities, like trying keep open the possibility of N_M being the redirector and not a neighbouriser (as if N_M is ever capable of faking what is essentially a confirmable role).

he's also trying to keep lilith suspicion open despite calling her locktown earlier in the game. how he came to that conclusion earlier in the game, but now can't keep it going looks to me like he needs this angle open now when the walls of PoE are closing in. it's in scum's interest to have as much of a spread of suspicion as possible when we're nearing endgame.

when you couple that with his recent absurd "meta" attacks on peta, and then rescinding a cop gambit once it was revealed he could be CC'ed, it just seems like too many things adding up. and that's not even factoring in the possibility of a guilty on him. he could have been the NK N1, but a significant chunk of the time he's the killer too.

you've put up a good show, mena. but i think all the evidence is starting to eclipse your early game townposting.

VOTE: menalque

E-1

[Hoopla]

on another note, i'm annoyed peta/dave won't entertain me conversationally about a more indepth solve, but i guess we just need a scumflip to get motivation going again.

[Hoopla]

@hoopla Do you think scum playing ~weirdly~ makes s_s more likely to be scum (coming up with the weird plays) or town (since that's one more mechanical player to trick by doing unexpected mechanical plays).

i'd say the former is more likely, but it's still a lot of guesswork to pinpoint scum's exact motivations when there are so many moving parts to this setup.

[Hoopla]

another bonus with executing mena!scum today is we gain more info about the redirector puzzle, ie; if mena flips mafia cop/redirector, it means the bracket of SS/infinity/peta don't have to have scum. if mena flips goon, it guarantees scum in SS/infinity/peta.

it would also all but confirm lilith as town, but she'd surely be the NK on N4, as JK results will get too powerful as the scumteam's numbers dwindle.

[Hoopla]

i'm really at the limits of how much i can think about here, i don't have the confidence to try to call a team

i'm starting to suspect BB is the top buddy for a scum!mena world (especially if mena flips cop/redirector). BB has been mysteriously absent from most of menalque's solve attempts, and i don't know why that would be, really. that slot has been pretty under the radar all game and could easily fit into a number of scumteam combos, in my opinion.

[Hoopla]

This is an insanely wolfy and opportunistic hop on, hoopla, and it’s exactly like what you did on D2

no offense, but i'm not really interested in having a prolonged back-and-forth with you. i've made my decision. if you're town, i'm sorry, but the game just makes more sense if you're scum.

i'd rather spend the rest of the day talking with peta/dave/lilith/N_M if they want to talk shop.

[Hoopla]

alright, i was misremembering your exact positions. from memory i had you overly focusing on lilith/dave/peta solves.

so, i rescind that point and apologise for the misrep. but it also reinforces my point that you're literally keeping all options open.

[Hoopla]

Who are my partners, hoopla?

i stand by my logic at the end of 3424.

probably two of SS/BB/infinity.

[Hoopla]

Interesting how your position has swiftly and radically reversed from “town by play” to “obvscum that needs to be eliminated”

the reality is at this point in the game there are good reasons for every player to be town, so "town by play" doesn't cut it when you have a larger amount of suspicious reasons counterbalancing it.

[Hoopla]

Or is this literally all you have to say by way of your beliefs on the matter?

this is reasoning that is built from a perspective of PoE that is making assumptions elsewhere. so, i'm not particularly interesting in arguing why the walls of PoE have closed to where they have. incidentally, that is the beauty of PoE. i don't have to get into arguments with scum about why they're scum - that is never a fruitful endeavour.

if you want to talk about my assumptions elsewhere, i'd be more willing to discuss those.

but like i said, i'd rather talk to other sections of the playerlist than get in a protracted back-and-forth with you.

[Hoopla]

Prithee, tell me what are all the good reasons for everyone else to be town?

Why is N_M locktown? Why is Dave? You have never explained either of those beyond spurious mathematical arguments that I’ve refuted

ok, fine.

lets start with N_M. you say this a spurious mathematical argument, but it isn't. the odds of something coming up 13 times to 0 implies causality, because if these 13 times were truly just random events, the odds of something coming up 13 to 0 is microscopic.

you don't think from a large-scale data perspective, but i do - this is simply how my brain interprets information. i think when you observe a big enough difference in the numbers, it implies a reason why. sure, scum

could

subvert this by picking a role with mostly town utility, but they don't. in fact, they never have, and it's important to respect the observed data points across that many games.

to me, (and this may just be a philosophical difference on the nature of scumhunting accuracy) but i think there is a greater margin of error in relying on behavioural tells. there have been plenty of times i've gone all-in on reads i've thought were obvtown and been wrong. to me, relying on the numbers is simply more reliable from a probabilistic perspective.

~~

i'm less sold on dave being town in a vacuum. in my 3424, i was more arguing from the perspective of who was scum with you, and i just don't see dave's play going all in on you today as a bus, especially when there are plenty of other options open today. i'd be more willing to entertain the idea of dave as scum if you're town, but as it stands, a suboptimal role pick as scum that early in the draft i just don't see as being likely - especially considering that if dave is scum it's likely he's scum's top pick in the draft.

his role claim has also been confirmed by peta, so unless he's scum with peta, i'm comfortable relying on dave's claim being true (and thus likely town).

[Hoopla]

And you deciding to freeze me out is ESPECIALLY scummy given that you were calling me town with the last 5 pages on play

If that’s a genuine thought process you had, you should be — even if set on executing me — looking to engage me to get the most out of me once I’m dead

But instead you’re actively seeking ways to not do that/to not have to justify yourself for voting and pushing town

and you were calling me town 5 pages ago too? so what.

was your town read on me completely conditional on me reading you as town/defending you? seems like you're pissed that you had me pocketed/in your corner, and now that i'm not you're freaking out.

not everyone attacking you is scum, you know.

[Hoopla]

can someone else please step up and talk with me about the gamestate? doesn't have to be full solving attempts.

i just want to hear a better balance of voices, as it seems like half the playerlist is twiddling their thumbs and letting the thread spiral unchecked.

[Hoopla]

I’d like you to think about whether you really think mena is scum, or if you think we need to elim mena to move the gamestate forward and are convincing yourself mena is scum as a result.

i don't really. or rather, i'm not confident on anything behavioural.

at the end of the day, i wouldn't be surprised if mena was town. now that the temperature has fallen a little, his explosion at me in the last few pages did

feel

town.

but i am a creature of habit, and in times of doubt when i am truly lost, i will always favour mechanical reasons over interpersonal ones. without veering too much into real life personality stuff, it's been a dawning realisation in recent times that this is largely who i am. i am much more comfortable with concepts & things rather than with the fickle, capricious nature of people.

it probably explains how my more detached/analysing from outer type of playstyle has come about. in any case, i do try to read people personally, interact, and take emotion/tone into consideration, but if i'm honest with myself it's just supplemental. my intuition at its deepest is more in bed with logic/left hemisphere type thinking.

[Hoopla]

the only thing i know for certain is that this game is driving me bonkers in a way that mafia hasn't done to me in a long time.

[Hoopla]

@infinity

can you run me through why peta makes the most sense to you?

[Hoopla]

hmm, okay. i need to have a coffee and rethink this.

UNVOTE:

sorry everyone for being so scatter-brained. i got cold feet on D2 when we put menalque to E-1 and that same feeling is popping up again. that was a convincing display of ~emotions~. i'm not usually this gun-shy, so i don't know what to do other than admit i'm lost.

has anyone played with menalque-scum before? how does he usually react when he's at E-1/under extreme pressure? is this behaviour within his scum-range?

[Hoopla]

i'm almost at the point where i'm just going to give up and tagteam with infinity. he's been the only player who has been a consistent beacon of reason.

if he's scum. fine. i'll gamble the game on that.

[Hoopla]

Gladly.

Usually it becomes easier to read people in a critical situation like this because scum start to more transparently play to their wincons.

But almost everybody is transparently playing to their hypothetical wincon if they are scum.

I really want to believe that Menalque is town and his persecution complex is real but him blindly sheeping skitter and pushing on lilith is really hard to wrap my head around.

who is your top suspect?

[Hoopla]

s_s, if you're town we absolutely need you to vote today. Too many townies don't agree/are wrong and scum have no incentive to bus.

yes, at a certain point, this is no longer is a valid viewpoint:

Legit no clue.

like, yeah the game is hard. but i'd like to see more attempts at solving from you.

[Hoopla]

i feel like mena/infinity share the same alignment. they're either both scum playing excellently, or they're both town.

if infinity is scum and mena is town, i don't see why infinity consistently pumps the brakes on the mena wagon throughout the day. maybe he felt locked into his mena townread, or maybe he assumed mena's wagon would go through on its own accord. but i just don't think he would be so vocal in opposing it if scum.

if mena is scum, this is a pretty overt connection between the two of them. maybe it's too obvious? i don't know. but like even mena himself says, who are his partners? it's probably quite likely infinity is one of them from PoE.

i feel like if i end up trusting infinity, i end up having to trust menalque by default too. there is no point otherwise.

[Hoopla]

and the one last thing i'll fire off here before i force myself to log off, i know dave's pick is real, barring screwy roleswap shenanigans that i have no reason to believe scum would pull because i hadn't claimed my pick, and so i find it super hard to believe scum took watcher with probably their first pick in the draft while aiming for the cop slot later. would just be a bizarre drafting strategy.

this is actually a good point.

if dave is scum, why as a team take 1s-commuter/1s-watcher while going for the cop/1s-redirector with a lower pick, given the main value of taking cop/redirector is as a defensive blocking play. wouldn't scum want to take cop at pick 4?

i think the only way dave is scum is if peta & dave have gone all in with corroborating claims. dave can only be scum if peta is.

[Hoopla]

Skimming the last couple days. I didn't have a note of tgp pick. On mobile and it's hard to post much that way for me. This info suggests a solution that I'm pretty confident in. I'll write more when I can use more than one finger.

wait, you only text with one finger?

[Hoopla]

Actually, I might have lost track of what Hoopla thinks, so make that "suspicious IF she isn't all over this logic". I'm very certain that S_S hasn't jumped all over it.

yes, it's good logic to explain why mena is scum from a mechanics perspective. my internal battle isn't about whether or not this logic is right, it's about whether to listen to the logic over reads. that is the dilemma. discounting mechanics, mena is one of the towniest by play.

In addition to #4, mafia also knew that both of the vig roles were in town hands, which makes it even less likely they'd go for #10 in the draft on n1.

however, this logic doesn't make sense. we eliminated the PGO/1-shot vig slot on D1, and the other vig (if town didn't choose vengeful) isn't active until N3. so scum wouldn't have been scared of either vig on N1.

actually, now that i think about it, scum wouldn't have been scared of any roles N1 really, as they blocked cop,

knew

doc/RB didn't exist from their informed information, and the vigs weren't a threat. if there was ever any N1 to deviate from the status-quo move of shooting for PR's high in the draft (and instead shooting a strong player), it would be in this specific set of circumstances: where PR's are a low threat.

you could also argue that given the UB slot was out of scum's control and we eliminated a PGO D1, scum may have been fearing a high draft pick arming themselves with a PGO shot. shooting mena (who was one slot below DGB) is a plausible NK choice as he's a strong player guaranteed not to be PGO.

[Hoopla]

you could also argue that given the UB slot was out of scum's control and we eliminated a PGO D1, scum may have been fearing a high draft pick arming themselves with a PGO shot. shooting mena (who was one slot below DGB) is a plausible NK choice as he's a strong player guaranteed not to be PGO.

i think i've just talked myself into town!mena from a mechanics perspective (not for sure obviously, but much more than before).

can someone (SS, peta, infinity) chime in and tell me how persuasive the above thinking is?

[Hoopla]

also, welcome to the game smoke & mirrors!

looking forward to doing business with you.

[Hoopla]

He's a boomer

hey!

who would you vote if menalque isn't happening today?

[Hoopla]

alright, so we're two days away from deadline. we have a new slot that hasn't caught up yet, and it's obvious to me that we don't have the numbers for a majority anywhere. there are simply too many townies with differing viewpoints of the game.

we seem to be of a reasonable consensus that the right way forward is to execute in {SS, peta, infinity, mena}

but since we haven't been able to come to any meaningful consensus within that pool (and it's only two days until deadline), we really need to start compromising so we can get an execution most of us are at least OK with.

i'd like everyone to rank order SS, peta, infinity, mena from most preferable to least. include who you'd be happy eliminating, and who are absolute deal breakers. then, maybe we can move forward.

~~

for me, i've come back around to viewing the game through the lens of mena & infinity both being town, so ideally i'd like to elim between SS & peta.

i still believe the cop/redirector is higher in the list, so i prefer SS. but i would be willing to compromise on peta, as that slot also gives more info about dave. so:

SS
peta
infinity, mena (would prefer not to go here)