Newbie 2051 - Prism's personal notes

[Prism]

I don't really think I've done anything too nuanced so far. I'm honestly kind of puzzled-I haven't rolled scum in a Newbie before, and to me half the table is already very obviously town. That doesn't mean I have to acknowledge it but it does mean I have to be a bit more careful. Replacements are unfortunately a thing that I have to account for: I can't rely on getting away with murder if a pinchhitter enters at some point. The small size also really throws me-I don't know yet know whether to play more aggressively or more passively.

I normally like to position aggressively against partners to be set up well regardless of who flips first, but the setup and unpredictability/lack of knowledge of the table make me hesitant to try it. I can normally be quite confident my push will go nowhere beyond appearances, but I don't have that same confidence this game.

I'm basically just trying to get a feel for the players while giving reads that won't be hard to flip later down the line. I would probably get punished for it elsewhere, but here I can get away with just raw activity and surface level reasoning.

I mentioned it in the scum PT but one thing I do want to do is run interference by seeing if I can bait flow trap into a slapfight.

[Prism]

I'm really uncomfortable with how I've interacted with Spartan so far. Until he gives me enough reason to townread him I can't justify him being any better than the middle, but I'm uncomfortable leaving him in the with players that will stop there if I flip. I'm trying to give an avenue towards more aggression or for him to be town, but I really hate how I'm having to play the association aspect.

I think I can get a safebet elimination at some point, I wouldn't mind it being today.

[Prism]

Two lessons esoteric is about to learn unfortunately: Never trust tone with chat mafia players, and analytical ability doesn't depend on alignment.

[Prism]

You will hate me for this.

I will hammer anyone, if i see him at E-1.

Don't put people on E-1 unless you surely decide you want them dead. Ask for claims on E-2, so mafia can't trade self on some Cop claim with instant punch.

I decided on it, so don't argue.

I will elaborate on this post at a later date.

Point of this is Enchant is now instantly getting nightkilled. This is to claim that I knew they were a PR, hoping they lived and I could selfclear. Naturally, I'm scum and will kill them, but would scum out the knowledge over keeping it quiet? Of course not.

There's also some WIFOM stuff I can claim but I think that wouldn't work well. Will need to cook up something else in the event they flip VT.

[Prism]

Not really looking to catfight with flow trap over defending Frederick. Catfight was valuable on ground that leaves me net town, this is very stupid and shifts the focus from Frederick. It will make both of us look worse, no benefit.

Endgoal here is probably a safebet Day 1 into a Spartan vote Day 2.

[Prism]

We might be able to swing an Enchant or Salsabil vote Day 2 actually, we'll see.

[Prism]

Frederick scumread was fully expected due to stylistic differences, consciously traded this for more general townreads. Not too concerned about him being able to swing it, more concerned he tunnels longterm.

[Prism]

I'm actually really confident I can get him [Frederick] voted out here without any difficulty, but my big concern here is Spartan.

I'm not suited to go deep in this table-I will be too town to live through NKs if I bus and expectations of me so far are too high to survive multiple miselims. I can't really afford to go solo, meaning Spartan needs to be town enough to survive my flip. In an ideal world I engineer two miselims and he secures the last but I'm not willing to bet on that just yet.

I'm finding the 2 person scumteam doesn't suit my style well. I don't find the lower miselim threshhold worth the tradeoff in operating room.

[Prism]

Decent dialogue. I'll take it.

Pretty disappointed in my play this game. No art, no nuance, just being town.

[Prism]

So Frederick is kind of alien to me completely in thought process. I really don't know what to expect from him here, but I'll take it.

Spartan's play is quite strong the more I look at it, for certain sections he really kicks into gear. It's the smaller posts that I think are mistakes but he's done a great job so far. I feel a lot better about our positioning now having dedicated the wall towards publicly flipping the read and working together.

Enchant has gifted us a free miselim with a bowtie. I don't really know what else to say here; it just kind of validates my approach that you can win most scumgames by just waiting for town to mess it up. There are still some danger points with town finding each other but I think the lack of activity on Frederick's/floo's part gives us enough room to win even if all of Salsa/flow trap/Esoteric link up.

I think floo and Frederick are both good targets for the next miselim with quiet as a backup.

[Prism]

It's worth digging deeper into my recent progression with Spartan.

For background, early on in the game, I really didn't know how to approach the day given that it felt like a minefield with the level of unpredictability of the game. I've gotten more comfortable with positioning around him as I've seen the TRs on both of us trickle in.

This sequence I'm about to dive into was planned in the scum PT.

Don't have time to really read today, prefer the Spartan vote to Enchant one. I'm probably not going to get more out of Frederick, safebet was top scumread but will wait on replacement. Might swap vote tomorrow, might keep it.

Can you explain your read of me compared to Enchant, why am I the better vote? Why do you think I am scum?

Why was Safebet your top scumread? Personally I he is a townread of mine I'm going to have to re-evaluate once he is replaced.

Spoiler: scum PT quote

Can probably actually ask why I'd prefer you to Enchant, forcing me to back off by challenging me might look decent

With my original post of 598, I was intentionally noncommittal to my vote to give the appearance I might be willing to flop to Spartan. This is scummy for me individually, but critically important to setting up Spartan in the event I flip! The original plan for the followup was for me to give a shitty justification, have him grill me a bit more, and then reluctantly back off. The idea behind this is that if I flip, Spartan successfully defuses a scum push on him. In a more advanced table, this would have worked wonders, but in this specific table I think it might have looked bad.

Spartan asking about safebet specifically was actually a godsend and allowed me to kick this up a few more notches.

[Prism]

Next, let's break down the sequence itself.

Splitting this into 3 different posts was a conscious choice. You don't want to tell someone what your thought process is; it is much more convincing to

take them along for the ride

. Most people tend to stop at sentence-to-sentence or make only reactionary pivot turns.

Unprompted

turns utilizing multiple posts and real time gaps have great power. Splitting up posts, waiting a few minutes, then going further or in a different direction gives the appearance that you've finished a thought, but have been chewing on it more. Here, I chose to use the illusion that I'm just now catching up to further this as being spurred by quotes, but honestly? It tends to work better without them.

Let's dive into the first post where I immediately react to Spartan.

Don't have time to really read today, prefer the Spartan vote to Enchant one. I'm probably not going to get more out of Frederick, safebet was top scumread but will wait on replacement. Might swap vote tomorrow, might keep it.

Can you explain your read of me compared to Enchant, why am I the better vote? Why do you think I am scum?

Why was Safebet your top scumread? Personally I he is a townread of mine I'm going to have to re-evaluate once he is replaced.

Hey, I'm really sorry I couldn't get to this yesterday.

Enchant and you are both kind of dart throw gut reads. Enchant was pretty comfortable at the start and his thought processes have mostly been fine in my book, the questioning floo in 150 is one example. esoteric was right that he was a bit fillery but in context I think he's just conversing, not really going out of his way. The worst thing he's done to me is put flow trap at E-2....which was fine.

With you I didn't like the explanation for the "I feel like there's at least 1 scum in these two" comment about Salsabil/flow trap. Your explanation seems to just suggest Salsabil town and flow trap scum-and flow trap wasn't even in your top reads and you were voting outside.

Declaring something as likely TvS is one of the few things I ask about immediately as a hard rule. It's not a superb tell, but it's great to force people to justify it immediately regardless. As scum it forces you to justify it rather than chain miselims/let the 1v1 continue without interdiction. As town I need to get you to drill down and pick which one is scum, or realize neither have to be, instead of leaning on one of the easiest bad assumptions to make in the game. You were my third vote choice so you'd be more of a compromise than my first choice, if that's what you're worried about.

For safebet, I know he's been replaced and will get to that in a bit, but I didn't like the clashing motivations he had early on and the read wall he gave. (Post links are my explanations). I never got explanations from him on any of these and now I never will.

First sentence in red is standard tonal distancing, friendly/ingratiating to give the nonpartner appearance.

Second paragraph, in blue, tackles the Enchant half of the preference statement. It's intentionally very weak to give the appearance of waffling. I had mostly caught up and known about Enchant but not completely at this point, I don't for sure know that he's getting voted out yet: So I want it to draw Enchant-Prism flags in the event I flip. Enchant ~probably~ flipping town soon means I can afford to be a bit lax in my justification for not voting him over Spartan without much concern. If you don't see why it's weak, it's really lacking in depth, very vague and extremely noncommittal. I'm ascribing vague attitudes like "comfortable at the start", which means nothing. "Thought processes have mostly been fine" is again noncommittal and with no depth despite the backlink. The defense around filler/the worst thing comments aren't

terrible

but like I said, this entire section is intentionally very super weak.

Next up it's time to go to bat against Spartan to complete justifying the preference order. This one is a delicate balance. I need to make this strong in case he flips, but I don't want to bus him. I need to give both of us room here: I want room to townread him, he wants to be able to answer with depth that makes us both look good without pushing me in turn. So I turn it into a fake teaching moment. His TvS statement

was

scum bread and butter, but I can play it off. The more nuanced part comes down to my lecture: I'm trying to give the appearance that me asking him about it was good for him, good for the town members in question, and me trying to encourage good play. This is just +town points for me while not putting any pressure on Spartan's alignment at all.

The final line, "You were my third vote choice so you'd be more of a compromise than my first choice, if that's what you're worried about", is again all tonal distancing. I have no reason to reassure a scum partner I'm not bussing him inthread over the PT: the endgoal here is to look like I am reassuring a town I'm on their side.

Finally, in white we have the beginnings of a dialogue on our reads. This gives me the important launch point I need: Shifting from Spartan as a potential waffle vote to someone I'm actively trying to team up with and mislead into misvoting.

[Prism]

Next we have the second post where I really start backing down on Spartan.

His post 136 gives me townie vibes about him first, very detailed about what he thinks and why he thinks; His interaction with me in post 266 indicates that he was trying to understand my point of view; His interaction with you also indicates that he was trying to understand you better; Post 339 is constructive, also very detailed, indicates that he takes our 1v1 conversation seriously (though I think you're a town most probably, despite being a pain in the *** ); His conversation with

Fredrick A Campbell

gives me town vibes too, I agree with post 359 for this matter; His interaction with

esotericzoomer

(specially, post 547 and 560) gives me some new perspective to think but I still townread

esotericzoomer

at the moment.

Rereading 136 I agree and think this post was better than I gave it credit for in my early readthroughs. I'd caution townreading 339 in that this came more from me grilling him on it than organically.

I actually concur on 547/560 being a lot better than I gave credit for at first glance.

I went into this with the intention of kind of taking down the TR but Spartan can actually move up here.

This one is pretty straightforward. I'm using the illusion that I'm rereading to pull this quote as an excuse to engage further with my thinking on Spartan. Sentence to sentence and post to post, my thinking on Spartan is shifting realtime, moving towards a townread. Expressing caution about 339 is again just basic anti-partner distancing. I think the last line would get eaten alive in a more advanced table-it's too blatant-but I felt comfortable enough to take the shortcut so I could be done with the townread justification.

In a more ideal world, I make it stronger but I didn't really want to bother risking overshooting it. I'm not very worried that he'll have to deal with accusations I was defending him for no reason in light of the other posts.

[Prism]

Finally, in our last post of the evolution, we get the transition to explicitly working together. This one wasn't ideal and could have been better in so, so many ways, but I was running out of steam and still had a lot more to do afterwards w/ quiet and Enchant.

Spartan, I get why you scumread Esoteric at the time of 547/560, but I think esoteric had a point in that he could make jokes about being townread and such while pushing his scumreads simultaneously. You have a point that he should probably fight harder for a top SR before settling for a lower scumread but do you think this is implausible as town?

I kind of have the polar opposite reaction to his early reaction to the E-1 which is unfortunate but I found the wall insanely town. Writing for its own sake isn't town but you can see him actively using the math as a way to put the pieces together, he's not just throwing one liner reactions out. This was at a time when he would naturally have needed to sort as town but was far from getting eliminated as scum.

I guess a good starting point here for working together might be: Why do you think safebet is town?

My lines on Esoteric are again very weak. This was intentional. I could have easily made this stronger by delving more into the reaction, the wall, and various other posts, but I want to give Spartan as much room to operate as possible in response. I don't want to make the argument strong enough to where he feels compelled to flip, strong enough to completely sell a third party on Esoteric town, or strong enough to sound any alarm bells on Spartan for pushing it to the third party reading it.

All throughout I'm trying to find points of commonality/connection for a springboard to talk things out and work together, but it's the last line that makes this attempt at cooperation explicit and gives us a talking point to really, really split on or consolidate on as we see fit. Both it being the last and it being alone were intentional to highlight the sentence for attention. The idea, again, is that if I flip at any point, I want to give Spartan something good to fall back on: Making him appear a high-priority target for me to mislead and win the vote of.

[Prism]

I could break down the latest updates in this sequence but I'm tired-between the game itself and this PT I've typed up a lot. I'm quite happy with the quality of Spartan's responses.

[Prism]

My recent sequence of posts, 933 to 953 is just to cause complete chaos.

Originally I was planning to revote Enchant but my response to 953 has me verbally work through my status as a swing voter. I don't want the perception to be that I revoted

after

realizing that, even if I knew it all along.

I can definitely afford to play it slow here, but I'm actually really curious about another potential play: Can I actually get a Frederick flip here? This requires teaming up with Spartan, who I've just positioned more aggressively against, but I think this avenue would be a lot of fun!

[Prism]

There's just so much fun to be had in this entire sequence. 933 is pocketing quiet by going the "skeptical but hopeful" route. Anytime you can take this route knowing the other person will townread it is just so huge-it gives a ton of flexibility. I can opportunistically vote hop to him later, I can try and force a 1v1, or I can just townread him and call it a day.

940 is a dangerous post, I think overall it's a really poor one that I wouldn't let fly in a more advanced table. It's a bit too pointed and should beg the question later down the line of why I'm not shoving Spartan hard. There are some fun elements to it, though, that make it so dangerous to begin with: I'm suggesting Spartan-scum harddefends Enchant as scum regardless of what Enchant is, even though I come down harder on the "Enchant/Spartan" team line. It's very rare for me to cast my scum partners as being scum with a town they're harddefending, even if it's basic, so I'm having fun with this one!

Rest of this is again just causing chaos. Unvote on Enchant leaves open other votes, I'm questioning both quiet and flow trap, I'm pushing Spartan. I think my flip should make a few players-esoteric and quiet-obvtown, but reading into everything else would be a nightmare.

[Prism]

Gotta decide pretty quickly if I want a Frederick flip or not. Hmmmmmmm.

It's definitely the more fun route but it's a bit gamethrowy.

[Prism]

My revote and not visiting the readwall explicitly is a scum claim but the first/second drafts didn't feel right to me. I lost the first draft but the second draft was the more simplistic: "I think the only reasons not to vote this are that he bothered with the reads wall and that he didn't push an alternative vote in it." I could probably cook up something better, but I'd rather just bet on no one noticing.

I've had my chaos inducing fun for the day.

[Prism]

I think my mistake was not committing to either Enchant vote or causing chaos/angling for Frederick. I actually think angling for Frederick was the correct play; the much better play would have been to leave Enchant for later. Unvoting/revoting was kind of halfassing it and I deserve to get burned a bit for it.

[Prism]

The good news is that I can punish it [not shooting me] regardless.

About to start rereading, my instinct on flip was quiet/Spartan with an outside chance my Esoteric read was wrong.

This one's a bit weird. The last sentence is meant to be -town. The first sentence is meant to be +town while laying the foundation to come out hitting harder later.

I really want to sit in the middle but flip the switch at a moment's notice to get a miselim.

[Prism]

I expect to be making extensive use of specifically targeted posts this dayphase, ones that are meant to be townread by specific players (mostly quiet) but not the table at large.

[Prism]

This day is actually going to be trickier than I wanted. I need to be more proactive to ramp up a townread, but being on two miseliminations in a row puts me in a rough spot come Day 3. Quiet/FaC should be obvtown with my flip.

I think I have to be more forceful against Spartan, and I need to position as a loud but ineffective voice. A bus isn't the worst thing in the world but I really would rather not.

I really want one of us to claim Doctor Day 3 for the shutout but planning ahead here is surprisingly rough. I really want a quiet or flow trap driven miselim here, but I think quiet will come around to a Spartan elim if left to his own devices. I want Salsabil, Frederick, and flow trap to make it to Elo.

[Prism]

Hmmmmmm hmmm hmmm. I really don't want to talk about the town players right now. I really don't want to help them find each other; I'm a bit worried about flow trap/quiet dialoging but can insert myself if needed.

I'm just going to focus on talking about Spartan without actually voting there.

[Prism]

It's also worth noting that I'm intentionally being extremely vague and avoiding interacting too much with Salsabil. Every time I've been asked about them I brush them off with a vague, unelaborated town lean that stalls a real answer for later.

I'm confident I can net at least one more miselim without going down, but in the event I do they're the designated elimination target. If this goes to an elo like Spartan, Salsabil, and one of flow trap/Frederick, I want my interactions to not just point

away

from Spartan but

towards

another player. This is critical when flow trap/Frederick both have strong cases to not be my partner.

[Prism]

Frederick, it last looks like you were still catching up. Did you ever finish/where are you at?

I'm also wondering what you thought about Enchant, it seemed like you got current near the end w/ responding to Enchant's 869. What did you think about the slot/why were you leaning Salsabil and quiet?

Mild suspicion on Prism, Quiet, & FaC for that NK

VOTE: Quiet

What happened to your scumread on Salsabil?

Reviewing the slot I don't really scumread quiet right now.

The EoD positioning and their interactions with me rub me the wrong way but I don't trust my gut/tonereading as a rule.

With these two posts, I'm not as worried about Frederick coming out and being powertown, and I think questioning flow trap on this will make Salsabil/quiet more likely to vote them. I'd rather flow trap dialogue with me than with quiet, too.

The last line, bolded, is the start of a progression on quiet. By itself it's not a town line but I'm looking to hit a home run with this later.

[Prism]

I'm also being very intentional in how I phrased my objection to flow trap's quiet vote. I don't want a legitimate dialogue to start, which means I'm not asking him to elaborate. I'm discrediting it and moving on.

Result is that a flow trap followup will hopefully be more aggressive rather than openended/cooperative, while quiet might be less inclined to ask personally or feel the pressure from it with me voicing opposition already.

[Prism]

Not too much going on here. More basic conversational traffic control/rote responses. Crucial to this is the concept of town attention/mental space. I want to make sure that certain town (ie. floo/quiet) don't link up with each other or others very effectively, and I'm doing this by trying to dominate their attention span and energy. I want to poke players to focus their energy on dead ends. Me/Spartan have done some good distancing but need to shelve it before we demand more attention from other players into our lines of argument: We don't want our aggression to become the main story until

one of us has already flipped

. ie. Don't make invite town to pick in us right now.

Some minor notes in spoiler

Spoiler: Post sequence

My immediate thoughts were “should have just townlocked them and moved on, this gives us nothing”.

I don’t think particularly anyone stands out as a paragon of scum for how they interacted with that wagon. It’s basically a policy elim at that point. I couldn’t find a hero fold there, so why should I expect anyone else to have?

I think the NK is our best bet for info, but otherwise my immediate take was, great, day1 part2, electric boogaloo. I’m probably being dismissive and I’m sure that there’s some info to be gained, but right now I’m trying to figure out what two wagons help solve the game most today, and will need to review to see if there’s anyone that benefits from an EZ kill. I retain some townreads I feel good about, and I remember townreading EZ (I hope I did, havnt looked back yet still traveling), so there was a lil disappointment there.


Flow doesn’t get NKed, I never do, Fredrick doesn’t, as we had suspicion from yesterday. Spartian falls into that category, but was less sus than us three. I think salsa gets left alive, not over suspicion, but because I think they’re not the scariest town.

I could see floo getting killed, EZ obviously did and was pretty widely TRed if I recall correctly, Prisim you also do often I think, though you fall into the category of scary as a competent scum threat, and may be left alive for that reason.

I’ll need to review as to why EZ was the choice over floo and you. That is my no review (and possibly fallible memory) reaction. When I’m done traveling I’ll read back over and give stronger reads about my suspicious, but other than a TR on Floo which I wholeheartedly retain, I don’t think there’s any that feel locked for me without looking back.

I’m interested in why the push on Fredrick happened, and why it’s still happening. Trying to decide if it’s a good wagon today. I think I’m inclined to hunt somewhere else, but if other people want to champion that I’ll be very interested.

My difficulty here is players tend to shoot for vague feelings of PRs early on, which makes NK analysis difficult. Even if one player is unlikely to shoot Esoteric for dayplay reasons, their teammate might want to, which compounds the issue further. I constantly have to hound my partners to just shoot the person that will be impossible to get voted. I don't want to get in the way of your own NK analysis but I'm not really inclined to play the same speculatory game over reading into dayplay.

Again I am curious as to what "I think I'm inclined to hunt somewhere else [not Frederick]" means in action. I know this is a first pass.

I concur on the Floo townread even though it's more of a lean. Still like the start even if I wish they'd post more.

Keep quiet sorting outside and engaging with me over others, prevent townblocking.

At the time yes I was sus of EZ and I had some mild suspicion on Flow trap (generally find them hard to read) who I'm not sure if they was on the Enchants wagon at that exact time but was dancing on or around it. Although I had townread Quiets slot before they subbed in I was also concerned of them being a bit too LAMIST and I had and still have that concern with you too, so I found that whole wagon sus pretty much, I agree what enchant did didn't look very good but it was all too easy for everyone to jump aboard.

What do you think now seeing that slot flip? what do you think of your fellow wagoners? How do you feel their motives compared to your own with that wagon?

I was a bit annoyed given that his timeline was blatantly false and basically threw my hands up and said I'll read if I have to Day 2. I also wondered if I was wrong on Esoteric. Now my instinct is to look at you and Frederick, neither of which were on the wagon. If quiet is scum I'm probably going to have to catch him off of forcing errors or bad pushes over one-off posts and analysis, he's clearly capable of faking. I'd townlean it given that he kept up the activity and analysis through the EoD; I had that as +scum with Enchant but that is now obviously not the case.

I don't like that you spent the Enchant wagon not only whiteknighting but openly saying "scum are on the wagon" without really pushing a specific person, and instead pushing someone off wagon.

The votes on the wagon were Esoteric, me, flow trap, quiet, and Enchant. 2 of these are flipped town, 2 of these are townleans for me. One scum is almost certainly off the wagon, and I don't think both being off is a bad bet at all.

Basic response to Spartan, not much here.

I don't townread Prism. A lot of vote pressure/suspicion would be the best way to get a read out of a player who stays under the radar by just contributing a lot.

This is a bizarre way to dodge giving a read on me. Pressure is one way to get a read on me but you're not weighing in on the flood of content I'm giving you. Casting it as "staying under the radar" is disingenuous.

Stop dodging my content or vote me.

This one has more nuance. I want to nip any idea of voting or pushing me in the bud immediately. If floo is going to talk to someone or spend energy dialoging, I want it to be with me over someone like quiet-I don't want a townblock forming.

Frederick, esotericzoomer has access to the flip and can see that it flipped town. It's Day 2. You're one of the more experienced players here. It's time to play the game.

VOTE: Frederick

Punish Frederick for being too scared to play the game. Can't do that as town. Don't know why he's lecturing esotericzoomer here.

Floo how do you feel about Prism? Would you be willing to join a wagon on them today?

Why am I specified here over Frederick/flow trap/quiet? As far as I can tell you haven't really differentiated between me/quiet and you seem to scumlean flow trap.

This was part of a planned sequence with Spartan-I asked him to openly test the waters for a wagon on me. Good associative if either of us flip, also good chance to evaluate my standing with the less verbal slots. I suggested that we cap the conversation before it demands more attention and we're forced to go deeper into a 1v1.

[Prism]

Could try and dialogue, but right now I'm content to burn clock. I really am not worried about the paranoia around me as long as I net one more miselim.

[Prism]

Hot damn it's Christmas again

Salsa, you get almost indignant with your posts sometimes when responding to people lobbing suspicion your way. Do you think that’s AI at all?

True, Sal mocked many scumreads/suspicion on her meaninglessly (like with emojis) while not necessarily refuting them.

Spoiler:

VOTE: Salsabil Faria

I'm finding Enchant town now

Ok, I think I'm going to place Salsa in the Leaning Scum but not open to shoot category

Right now, given what I have read, my guess of the scumteam is Salsabil Faria and quiet with a higher than random chance of being right. Random chance is (1/28). Odds of right to wrong are (1:27).

It's irrationally defensive at best, arrogantly scummy at worst. The underlying thought process in any case is "I'm so towny, how could someone scumread me?"

Joke of the year!! Now I'm arrogant!!!

Yes, you're arrogant.

I second that. Not your vote but your explanation is suspicious : "

to avoid seeming scummy"

Ironically, you're outspokenly image-conscious as seen by the posts in the spoiler.

VOTE: Salsabil Faria for now

I definitely think Salsabil was flown under the radar and deserves more scrutiny but this is great timing for us

[Prism]

Man I'm doing a lot here, most of it is just powertowning to make it through another day but laying out

how

I'm doing it is a lot more instructive.

Town's doing a lot better than I thought about about not letting me direct conversation completely but I've managed to leverage the paranoia into using up a lot of head/attention space running town in circles, which is nice.

[Prism]

Will try to revisit and go post-by-post when I have more time.

[Prism]

Me/Spartan in no danger at all, multiple town miseliminations on the table, all of them but Salsabil probably outright losing the game, 4 days on the clock

♪ Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'♪
♪ Into the future ♪

[Prism]

Alright, let's see if we can break down a few of these posts if not all.

State of the game. It's Page 45. floo has successfully connected with quiet, which I didn't want, but we have the benefit of him making a wrong push on Salsabil and running too aggressively with it. We've got a post from quiet putting Spartan at the top of the townlist.

Keeping him here and out of deeper scrutiny is probably the single top priority

. If he outlives me, we win, period. Quiet also votes Salsabil. We've got a paranoia vote on me from flow trap, he's worried I'm setting something up.

The second I see the flow trap vote-I kick into gear and decide to start posting. We've got a few goals here.

1) We want to keep Spartan out of the spotlight without defending him.
2) We want to keep the town-led wagons going. Me/Spartan had talked this over; we're fine with Salsabil but what we

really

want is to save her for Elo. A lot of my play to this point has been to paint her my partner
3) I want to end any idea of paranoia voting me today.

I decide to post as though I'm responding while I'm reading the game. Gives it a natural feel, allows me to avoid seeming as though it were prompted directly by the flow trap vote.

First post up is this one in response to floo's Salsabil push:

[re: floo vote on Salsabil] This weirdly looks more like picking a fight than a legitimate push. I don't like it, especially when you lump me/Salsabil together previously and then completely ignore my post.

I'm not playing fair here

at all.

The whole point of 1070 was to force floo to focus on me. He didn't fall for it, but he gets punished anyway for not responding. I'm avoiding commenting on Salsabil directly the entire time-in a more advanced table, I don't think this would be partner read, but here I want this floo vote I'm about to make to come off as a chainsaw.

Next post is important enough to garner its own deep dive.

[Prism]

I'm trying to figure out where the narrative of scum!Spartan is coming from, because I just do not see it. Only one scum game to compare to, like, 3+ years ago in an open setup (and I can't even find the gamethread), but given how quiet this thread has been in the last few days, I don't see why scum would be popping in, trying to get things moving again. Like for a game that has 45 pages of content, we've made maybe 3? Since the night?

I don't get the two different standards being applied to myself and Spartan here. I've been trying to flog content out of Frederick, flow trap, yourself, and floo the entire day. Spartan's high effort but the defense of Enchant was deeply questionable, and he's been making vague statements about "scum on the wagon" "feels like TvS" etc. without specifying who they were the entire game.

So I'm jumping on the Salsa wagon today. Other wagons I'd consider: Prism, Floo, because I sure as hell aren't going to be able to sort them by reading them. No interest in a Fred vote today, I think enough people can eliminate that slot if my gut is wrong about that one without me. When I get a moment, I'm going to see if defensive towny vibes are a thing for Salsa generally, or if this is a deviation, because I'm still early enough in my mafia career to enjoy meta.

You had no problem calling me town Day 1. One of the things that most bothered me about your slot was that 793 was spot on. My intuition was that you had the assistance of knowing my alignment. It annoyed me to think that I could be read off of a single post but in this case it's true-in no world do I step in to rein in flow trap there, and my meta establishes this extremely well. I can backlink you later if you want but the only time I did similar as scum was my first game onsite, and I lost for it. Realizing this was unfair and that I needed to set my pride aside was a big part of why I backed off today.

In red we have basic distancing, nothing special. Toss shade on Spartan but give the bare minimum, really nothing to chew on and what's coming next will surely take up more headspace for quiet.

In blue we get the magic. This is the long-awaited progression on quiet I alluded to back in 26 that I have been planning since night phase. Unfortunately, this is

not

the context I wanted it to happen in, and it's much weaker as a result. This would have been much stronger had I been able to do this naturally and unprompted. I never really got my chance to "organically progress", so here I force it to take what I can get. I don't want to give this when I'm actually under pressure.

There's a few different nuances to this one. The most basic is the emotional texture/progression to it with the skepticism, the annoyance, etc. It is also somewhat backed by meta, as I'll link flow trap later on request.

But the most important is the dynamic of putting myself below him for a moment here. Quiet is a talented player, sharp but rough around the edges, and eager to prove himself. You can see him gaining confidence with every post.

He wants to work with me on equal terms if he's town, and hold his own against me if I'm scum.

This entire angle-that I'm annoyed he called my alignment in a single post, and had a hard time admitting he could see through me so quickly-is playing specifically to that rising confidence and desire to prove himself. It's flattery disguised as annoyance and reluctant recognition.

1161 and 1162 were the prizes. I was couldn't dedicate as many words or make the lead-in/follow up posts I wanted out of this, but I'm still very pleased to see it work.

[Prism]

I'm good at running interference and setting town up to implode.

I remembered; this is what is worrying me about Prism's FaC push

VOTE: Prism

I literally have been begging you, and Frederick, to play the game and been very open that my vote is open to change. Where is the interference? I have literally spent the entire day trying to squeeze every bit of content out that I can, the entire reason I answered for Spartan in 1096 was so that we could get a response from Frederick in a reasonable timeframe rather than 2-3 days later...which still did not happen.

The interference I'm running is literally trying to get Frederick to play the game and trying to get you to be more transparent and work with people.

All this said, after 4 days of trying to pressure content out of him, I realize nothing I do will get Frederick to actually play the game of mafia at this point and I have to find ways around it. He's not my first pick for an elimination today.

UNVOTE:

Probably going to vote Spartan or floo. I know quiet will be glad to hear that.

Cool. Do you think I've been running interference today, and if so, where?

flow trap is absolutely right that I'm setting up-in this case I'm trying to force conversations to go through me and to hit dead ends-but he has no idea what and I know it. Nip this in the bud before it even gets started. Frederick vote was always indefensible but I've long alluded to this "altruistic" get him to play motivation, so time to set up the floo vote.

Again elaboration would be nice but I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that the only way I can get people to stop posting vague fears is by getting a scum flip,

and at this point I'm down to go floo. Frederick still needs to play the game but if that elimination is wrong we're going to outright lose Day 3.

VOTE: floo

Basic floo vote. The red I believe I had said once before, but the idea here is that I'm only trying to get through one more miselim. Chat mafia instinct tells me the line itself gets townread, and the idea that I'm better sorted with one more flip-"given a chance" to vote scum so to speak-should help stave off any further paranoia votes.

1142 is a very basic followup push on floo/continued chainsaw of Salsabil, not worth quoting. I'd give a floo vote a pretty low chance of going through, but that's not really what I'm angling for. I'm angling to let people continue to push Salsabil, and make sure that me/Spartan aren't alternative vote choices. floo vote is hiding me/Spartan and taking the vote if I somehow get it.

[Prism]

I feel like you're setting something up

I was setting up to get Frederick to play the game. If you have questions about my motivations in certain posts

you have to ask

.

It's really annoying to have to deal with the vague accusation without you being legitimately willing to dialogue about it. This feeling will stick unless I net us a red flip, and even then you might still say "bussing". There are other ways to handle this than forcing me to do all of the heavy lifting, especially when the quality of my reads are by far the weakest part of my towngame.

I'll be back later, in some sense I should be flattered by the paranoia but I've been spoiled by being a universal TR my last several games and I should probably just take a lap.

More playing the victim/diplomacy cards. Not much to see here.

[Prism]

Very basic posts to round it out.

I can't tell if quiet is town or if he's intentionally exploiting my self-perception/knowledge of the type of player I want to be. I hate this game sometimes.

Eh, maybe try and judge my other read on Flow Chart the Chaos God vs. try to search in my read of you.

Easier to determine if I'm being genuine or exploitative when directed at someone else.

Besides calling it out the first time (which I am rather proud about, good read past quiet), noticing it or pressing further on it now is probably NAI, as you've made it clear from your response that it was a good read/is how you want to play.

I'm just havin a good time, makin nicknames for my town slots, building up the energy to try and scumhunt in this most towny of games. I think I'm starting to come to the frustrating reality that if Fred isn't scum like I'm scared about, then someone that gives me townvibes is scum, which means I need to hunt better. Mafia hard. Still feel good about you and Flow though.

The bolded is funny because it's the opposite for me. Historically, my best reads come from detecting someone's positioning around me being off. That said, while in some worlds I want you to be scum just giving analysis as it comes to you...I don't think this is the case and don't really scumread you.

Again, trying to exploit quiet's desire to work with me on equal footing, and putting myself a bit below quiet to flatter. Otherwise just adding texture.

Eh, maybe it is in some cases, but specifically here past-quiet was thinking about how they were trying to build town cohesion, setting in to try and get two players to resolve differences to move the game forward. This is substantially different from being agreeable, or conflict-adverse, which is a scum tell. In fact, it's putting yourself into the spotlight, and possibly into conflict, when what seems to me to be the +EV scum play is to let town (or any two people) fight and cause chaos. This is something Prism further alludes to in regard to their floo read, where they note that floo seems to be trying to pick a fight with Salsa, how such fights are -EV for town, cause a distracting noise, and possibly setup a miselim. I liked floo's response a fair amount, and am still thinking about it, but this has been my lecture for why diplomatic =/= scummy thank you very much.

So I think it's a bit more nuanced to this. "Picking fights" can be a more negative phrase for pushing, which generally helps people sort and

totally necessary to do as town

. In some sense I'm picking a fight with floo.

I don't find what he's pointing out scummy to begin with and I don't see the town motivation behind intentionally riling her up by revising the arrogance comments, especially in a world where that slapfight with flow trap make sense for her to believe as town FMPOV.

Add texture to read, keep quiet dialoguing w/ me over others.

Guess it's just culture shock, I hope

I don't think it's culture shock so much as just me as an individual. Most people definitely put a lot more weight on the puzzle aspect of the game, and that's okay.

I don't really want to drag down the game with meta links but this is really easily verifiable comparing my scum/town games.

As a sidenote, my confrontation of you was directly inspired by a game that recently finished, where myself and a player named petapan both let our egos and unwillingness to bluntly confront each other boil over into something much more toxic later. He gave me a speech about how he thought that keeping a civil face all of the time lead to things being disingenuous and blowing up later, sometimes you just need to say what you have to say, and I've been chewing on that a lot lately. As town I tend to value civility above all else, but that experience has me challenging that idea a bit more.

First two paragraphs basic tonal stuff. Meta is there, not worried I'll be perceived as hiding it. Later he asks and I give it, not worth quoting.

Bolded is referring to and was a planned explanation from the second I made 422. Always be looking for "evolutions" or "lessons" from your towngames that you can use to give life to your positions in scumgames. IIRC I originally made 422 hoping to get an unproductive slap fight going, knowing it was free as long as I publicly backed off after a bit. I wasn't really trying to discredit flow trap but that was kind of a result? I knew 422 would be townread but I really underestimated how strongly people would react to it. I considered 422 a mistake because of that. I did

not

want to powertown Day 1.

[Prism]

Throughout all of these discussions w/ quiet, flow trap, and floo, I'm trying my best to force town to spend their energy on dead ends. I'm specifically targeting quiet to townread me. I'm letting flow trap go on a meta deadend, talking about my playstyle rather than anything of substance. floo push is an obvious deadend and I'm hoping he's got to waste time defending/responding to me over evaluating other slots, like Salsabil. I'm not commenting on Salsabil

at all

really and while I'm throwing shade on Spartan, I'm inserting it in places where it's hard to focus on that over the other things I'm talking about.

[Prism]

Really, REALLY annoyed by that replacement. A lot of our play has revolved around setting this slot up to fail. Now they get a frozen deadline and a pinch-hitter who is likely to be an SE on account of the game length.

I'm making every post in this game based off knowing what I can get away with based off the player list. I take a completely different approach to Spartan/Salsabil with a stronger player at the table.

Now I have to roll the dice and hope the pinch-hitter is a bad matchup against my pre-existing play. Replacements suck, pinch-hitting sucks, but it's a necessary evil and you only hate it when it's to your detriment. Nature of the game.

[Prism]

Day 2, 48 hours or so to deadline, flow trap just asked who we're shooting and I'm lecturing him. I'm being kind of lazy, don't really want to take it post by post.

So far we've won the lottery in the sense that fairy didn't instantly break the game, but they're definitely a bit more experienced than their predecessor.

All of my latest posts are just basic maintenance. My posts lecturing/pressing flow trap are really just tonally powertowning to the quiet slot and hopefully a few others. The bit about being willing to vote him might be scumread but I'm not really worried about it. Still trying to force conversation to go through me.

[Prism]

Speaking as someone who feasts on town players like you as scum, you will lose against stronger tables if you do this as town, period.

As promised, I intend to fully capitalize on flow trap's mistakes and refusal to be proactive/cooperative.

Would probably be playing this the exact same way as town with one exception: I'd ask specifically about Spartan, which is not currently to my interest.

It would be better play if I did ask and push Spartan a bit more, but at this point my priority is really to curb any sort of risk/unpredictability over playing in a way that will stand up to deeper scrutiny.

[Prism]

Want to falsify intensity/obsession so I have to keep posting atm

I don't think a Newbie is the place to make the game virtually unplayable with content so I'm going to try to stop soon though.

[Prism]

Fairy's analysis is spot on and this is exactly why I hate pinch hitters. I go a lot more aggressive on Spartan late Day 1/today in a more experienced table. They're one step from the finish already. Quiet was my only fear for analysis but I knew I could force him to locktown me.

Will backlink later since I'm out and on my phone, lot of posts to breakdown, might have to wait for night phase.

[Prism]

I'm betting he makes the connection between my acknowledgement of my vote being required for Enchant and revoting later

That's not why I revoted, but it's what I was worried about the second quiet forced me to publicly work through the votes.

[Prism]

Fairy might be out of Spartan's league atm, I weakened my own play+set him up well but there are limits. Might sink both of us.

Might need to go all out. I'm excited.

[Prism]

Nope, they talked themselves out of it. We're not out of the woods on this day yet, though.

Our current predicament is 100% my fault for powertowning yesterday over just letting the clock tick. Everything I wanted to avoid with my style today just went up in smoke because I felt like flexing. People removed me from the pool, which gave them more time to worry about Spartan. I completely tanked any chance of fairy elim if I flip, might still happen but it

shouldn't

. floo now has a real chance of getting voted today which isn't

the worst

but should have been another town pushing it.

[Prism]

I'm pretty worried about Spartan atm-am trying to keep him confident and in high spirits but he's noticeably flagging. I really don't want him to flip but it might not be up to me.

I honestly don't have a plan if he flips - I'm not even sure if I want to be on a Spartan vote - and I'm pretty annoyed by that. It's a testament to how difficult the position is, how much I messed up by hyperposting yesterday, and how tired I am.

Town is doing quite well overall atm and should be quite proud of themselves. That said, just because it's a newbie doesn't mean I have to be kind. I have a very deep bag of tricks and hate to lose.

[Prism]

Yeah I'm fucking dead, way too tired to cook something up atm.

Annotating most of my play the last ~48 hours is probably going to have to wait until night phase

[Prism]

I'm being pushed to the limit here-my early progression around Spartan is completely indefensible, because it was never supposed to be. We're in really, really rough shape.

But as I said in the scum thread, I'm not in the charity business. I will not make this easy for them.

[Prism]

That was, that was a day. Wow. Spartan really swooped in at the 11th hour and killed it.

Biggest feeling is of relief. I think the NK choice is a lot tricker than it looks but I'm going to worry about it tomorrow.

If I don't get around to commentating, long story short, god, pulled out all the fucking stops to powertown enough to survive a floo miselim.

[Prism]

So nearly 70 posts happened in between my last explicit checkin, I'm definitely not annotating all of them.

Our problems Day 2 started with the powertowning/avoiding going more aggressive on Spartan that I described in 41/42 of this thread.

If you're just looking to powertown, posts like 1295 are explicitly taking my town meta and refashioning it to my own ends, which will come up again later.

I don't think powertowning and avoiding Spartan is the worst, but the entire point of maintaining the paranoia around me was to take up a lot of headspace. That gets removed if players feel they no longer have to worry about me, and they start looking elsewhere to Spartan. If I'm going to powertown, I need to be setting myself up for a Spartanflip by going more aggressive-instead I just got the worst of both worlds.

1322 is a funny post-I've reconciled with flow trap, and ask basics, but I point him towards working with others too. This might seem to contradict my "force conversation to go through me" playstyle atm, but I know it'll be a miracle if he follows up with me, let alone with another player.

Post 1346 blows this game open completely.

his analysis of Prism in #746 is also pretty interesting, in that it reads as a null or even scumnull conclusion. i'm expecting scum to just outright townread Prism here to avoid a confrontation. also interesting that Spartan completely ignores Prism's interactions with Frederick, or at least neglects to mention them. Spartan's man fos is Frederick, so i'd expect him to take these interactions seriously, as i think this is potentially some ammo for his scumread. wouldn't he also factor into his analysis of Prism the fact that Prism is pressing Fred pretty hard? This is Spartan's main fos afterall - weird how he doesn't mention it.

Spot on-it's not just my interactions with Spartan that can point to him, it's

his reactions to me

. They don't have the final step yet but this is too close for comfort and draws the N2 night kill. Suddenly, I can no longer afford to just set up Spartan nicely like I've been angling for all game long.

This is now extremely dangerous, and I am now pressured to either flip Spartan-and still be in danger-or watch it get flipped without me. There are ways for me to be off-wagon and still look good but this is

very, very bad

. I've done a bit more just because I wasn't sure how fairy would be as a player- eg.1328, where I point out that Spartan is noticeably panicking - but this is not going to be enough.

[Prism]

All throughout this I'm continuing to use very cooperative language and be diplomatic. This requires some texture, ex. at times being terse in feigned annoyance only to come back around a few minutes later.

Back to the main story.

Fairy winds up townreading Spartan but only briefly. This sequence is the start of me really starting to kick into gear:

I know I'm going to wind up voting Spartan

at the end of this, but I need to give a good, believable

progression

. I also want to be lukewarm on it, me powertunneling it will be too obviously reactionary. Now that I can no longer rely on just dying and setting Spartan up, it's time for me to engineer townreads on me that are virtually bulletproof. This is hard to do with positioning re: Spartan, but I think I can make up for it with tonal/individually targeted posts.

A very important part of this will be that

I cannot let floo vote Spartan, ever

. If Spartan gets flipped with floo pushing it, this is 99% game losing. I will struggle to get one more elimination, two will be virtually impossible.

Dart throw is no, but I'll review the slot since I know flow trap is there atm. Assuming you're neither of flow trap/Frederick we have the votes to vote it at deadline if you want.

If the choice is between Spartan and quiet I'm 100% voting Spartan though lmao

The idea here is just to start out leaning no and work my way to leaning yes, without anyone forcing me. So I do that, I point out some problems w/ Spartan's quiet vote in 1368.

Sorry shadow slug is me. When is deadline? Spartan would be my hammer but I’m not fully caught up yet

Definitely have the votes for it if I'm onboard, will review the slot. Anything in particular you want to point out? I'll check out the post about him letting me go wild on Frederick before I ISO.

Earlier I touched on being afraid someone would make the connection between the vote counting I did for Enchant and me revoting later. Here I'm leveraging that same concept to emphasize that my vote on Spartan is crucial.

Thinking more on NK spec I actually don't think Spartan kills Esoteric here? Arguably they shot for PR reads/their partner forcing it but all of Day 1 for a scum Spartan revolves around pushing Esoteric the second Enchant flips town. 1047 is not worth it at all.

I don't really scumread this slot and it's an absolute disaster if it flips town, not really a fan atm. Still working through.

More texture to the read, look like I'm backing off for a second, this actually brings up what I think is a good point on Spartan that might make someone else reconsider as a bonus. I have every intention of voting shortly, despite what I claim here.

Eh these TvS and scum on the wagon comments are still really questionable

Maybe maybe

I agree that is true but I don't see why he is even somewhat vindicated when he was being scumread before them interactions occurred, Floo how do you feel about Prism? Would you be willing to join a wagon on them today?

I forgot how much I hated this post.

Spartan, why was I specified here? When I asked you gave me 1047 which is talking about your read on flow trap over explaining why you were suddenly interested in a vote on me here

We're swinging back to being willing to vote

Prism, the slots you would entertain today are...floo, Spartian, Fred? As things stand right this second.

floo->Clown fiesta don't no elim lmao

Gun to my head I'd go floo->Spartan->Frederick->flow trap but I honestly think Spartan would flip town here so ???

Now we're getting somewhere interesting: I'm positioning to vote it while saying I fully expect it to flip town. At first glance you might think I'm trying to stave off a wagon, but that's actually not the case at all. It's counterintuitive, but I want to take

virtually zero credit

for the push and act like I had no idea what it was if it flips. This serves as a counter to any bus accusations and guarantees that a town me plausibly lives through nightkills. I want town to think "Wouldn't Prism have been more forceful if they were bussing?", but there's a chance they think the opposite. Doing nothing isn't an option though-

I have to take a guess as to which looks better

.

i thought his treatment of EZ was scummy in that EZ's massive wallpost did nothing to change spartan's read of him. he didn't really engage with many of the reads made in that post. he eventually downplays his fos on EZ (which coincides with other people townreading EZ at this point) and focuses on Fred. i don't think he really tries to get fred voted out at this point though. his defense of Enchant is a townlean for me, but only because it's consistent with his earlier townread on enchant. but after dropping a townread on Enchant and his thoughts on fred, he pretty much dips out of the thread and lets the wagon happen without much resistance.

Rereading, I think I take more issue w/ the timing of his vote swap. Not engaging with the wall makes sense given that he was making a giant global catchup. The reason for backing off of esoteric is

fine

but not great.

The defense of Enchant is questionable and he's noticeably pivoting more to quiet in it.

Distancing with texture-not merely tagging along with the read but actively disagreeing on the reasoning

while still coming to the same conclusion

.

also can we stop voting quiet thank you

why on earth are the two options locktown or elim? i find these polarizing options baffling - if you're starting to suspect there's a world where enchant is town, why don't you unvote and look for those other names? you're umming and ahhing over this enchant wagon constantly but you never unvote. i just find the progression of [enchant could be locktown -> floo please hammer] in the space of a few minutes to be ... strange.

I mean I did the same thing when I saw the wall though I can't remember the timing, that feeling of being torn between two extremes is very performative, you're right, but I think it's natural in light of how bizarre Enchant was playing. Enchant was straight up lying about the timeline even at the EoD.

WAIT THAT'S AN UNVOTE

OKAY WE'RE GOOD, NO EATING EACH OTHER

This sequence was planned, I knew fairy unvoted. I just want to appear legitimately distressed.

floo, you down to vote Spartan with me/Fairy?

It's time. This post is borderline scumclaiming to floo, and I want that. This is a pretty obvious attempt to link him/Spartan, and if he votes Spartan here it looks like it forced his hand. Calling my bluff is the best option here though-it nets a scum flip! Here if he chooses to defend Spartan, Spartan is unlikely to get voted and even if he doesn't I'm set up well. Instead, floo chooses the worst option: doing nothing, and this gets followed up with a vote in 1416.

As a side note, way back, flow trap did actually wind up responding to me about reads at some point, but I didn't think his floo wall was solid. So I just respond and push it in 1365, more to push flow trap for his stance than floo tbh

[Prism]

Okay I'm about to have to run, I do have plans for tonight but they shouldn't take more than 2 hours and I will 100% be around the ~3/4 hours as we approach deadline to vote anywhere I'm needed.

In the meantime:

VOTE: Spartan

flow trap, Fred, Spartan need to get in here and participate more.

So 1416 I've finally voted Spartan. floo is now never going to vote this, for sure. Just the fact that I'm on it means him/flow trap are more likely to go elsewhere and drive counterwagons.

to be clear, still fully expect this to flip town atm, but i'm not getting my first choice and i'm not the town dictator so

OKAY, SEE YOU LATER, WHY AM I LIKE THIS

1419 still plays the "expect it to flip town" angle but I've got something much more nefarious in the works-the ace up my sleeve that I've been sitting on since Day 1, never expecting that I would actually have to use it.

quiet, why have you not placed a vote at all btw?

Sorry for continuing to check in, this game has become very personal to me, both because of who I am as a player and my history with fferyllt

I don't want to lose, in short, and am risking a lot by going against my scumread to do so. This is more than a single vote to me.

I straight up do not have the votes to get you flipped unless I take the town hostage. There are very real problems with the slot that effort/the Esoteric NK do not completely redeem. I expect it to flip scum about as much as I do Frederick.

There is a lot of history here that I can go into another time, but I refuse to lose the same away over and over by letting my intensity turn me into a unilateralist dictator who demands too much and only pays verbal homage to respecting the views of others. This is me vs. fferyllt in the sense that fferyllt very much wants me to be that player, insists that it is me at my best, and I adamantly disagree. The aspects of my play she views as my strengths are to me me at my worst, and the aspects I have spent years obsessively trying to change. I am not the same player I was 3 years ago, and if I lose then so be it, but it will not be the same way.

This is the ace up my sleeve that I have been holding onto all game. Every bit of diplomacy, speech about working together, etc. has been knowing I had this card in my hand. I've chained together a lot of obsessive/intense posts, trying to be diplomatic but progressively more emotional and worked up as I go.

I do not care what fferyllt thinks of my play, no offense to ffery at all. But this isn't just run of the mill bullshit, this narrative is something that makes sense and that I can 100% back up with all of my town games dating back

for literally years

. This narrative tracks my town meta in Dystopia, Undertale 2.0, Chara's Folly, illicit substances, and to a lesser degree Emperor and Mini Normal 2181. I've laid the grounds in prior days for my playstyle, I've increasingly gotten emotional, worked up, and intense over the course of the day, and now I'm revealing exactly why that is and having a miniature emotional breakdown in thread. No one has bothered to check the games, but if they do, they will quickly find it backed up completely.

Even the diplomacy/intensity themselves have no scum record, but by looping in fferyllt and her opinion of me as a player/our history, this goes way beyond that. The references to Dystopia, no comparable scum record etc. were the ace for most of the game, always something I thought about, but when driving one night Day 2 I realized I could explicitly say that it was personal, and explicitly paint it as me vs. fferyllt, and at that point I started really cooking.

Final parts to sell it are me visibly reining it in with posts calling myself delusional, such as in 1430.

It is insane that I got pushed to the point where I had to actually use this, and insane that I had to spend an entire real life day or two crafting this to perfection over just halfassedly throwing it down. Town has done incredibly, incredibly well for a Newbie game. I wanted to burn the diplomacy/intensity tell but I did not expect to go this far in doing so.

[Prism]

I'm very worried about Spartan at this point-he's been dead in the water but he needs to post. After this, Fairy waffles on Spartan, no one is actively shoving it for awhile, and while it'll go through if I stay on I sense the time is right to be opportunistic. I now know that I can survive getting floo eliminated, and have set up enough that Spartan can get flipped Day 3 and I'll be fine.

1435 I revote floo. Spartan actually does show up and start killing it, rest is kind of history.

I've skipped over a lot of posts specifically targeted towards getting townread by quiet-Serious hunting with a bit of humor thrown in-but I'll skip those.

flow trap becomes possible due to his mistakes today, I make some basic posts capitalizing on his refusal to be more proactive.

[1500s] is the last section, for now, of the "me vs. ffery/my obsession" personality arc. Come back, recenter, remove the emotion, make logical votes/reads.

I want Floo to either go through or Frederick/flow trap to go through only reluctantly. I know I can survive a floo elimination, so might as well take it earlier since that's the harder one. I'm perfectly willing to go on Frederick/flow trap and just make some basic waffle posts. I decide I'd rather have flow trap in 5 way, so I end up going Frederick.

Finally, I end the day off on a "dying reads/last words" note. 1525 is the reads, the FaC/flow trap waffling is after, but I end on 1597's "Also, listen to Golden Hour, great album". It is, but that's not why I'm saying it: I get the feeling this will be townread as plausible, non-game related last words. Quiet confirms this.

[Prism]

Those annotations were all over the place/kind of a mess but ah well.

I go over night action thoughts in the scum PT. I act like I'm unsure about whether to kill quiet or fairy to give Spartan more agency, and I am willing to go either, but in my opinion it is obvious that killing fairy is by far the stronger play. It makes floo a bit harder to push but I'm confident that I can win this tomorrow by getting either floo or flow trap. I may claim doctor if I feel it's advantageous (ie. I will be allowed to choose the vote)

We'll see if I'm right!

[Prism]

It also might be confusing as to why I'm saying I got pushed so far Day 2 when I was never in danger at all.

It's not that I was in danger of getting voted that day, but both a Spartan redflip and a floo townflip would put me in a

very, very

bad position. All of my play this game was centered on avoiding the former, so that's a disaster, and with fairy too close to the mark I could no longer afford to let Spartan carry it after a floo townflip. I was not in immediate danger, but I needed to be town and be town

now

, rather than have it happen when the pressure is on and scum being more emotional is expected.

Even with all that I did, I was confident I could win a game where floo got voted Day 2, but I would give my chance of winning a Spartan Day 2 vote as less than 50%.

[Prism]

Up through page 71 on Day 3, I don't think there's too much worth commenting on. Town is playing well but I've pulled out all the stops to get townread tonally-the two weak links in this scumteam are my positioning around Spartan and Spartan's lackluster read on floo. quiet and flow trap are both playing well and making good analysis but they're missing floo.

The ball is in town's court to identify these weak links successfully; if they focus on tone, or get caught up in my meta, they will lose.

I'm playing very safely but I really will have to make a riskier play soon by voting floo. I do not want to go to three way given the lackluster interactions on the table. I already have my progression on floo envisioned clearly in my mind, but I needed to review the other slots and solidify the townreads one more time by doing so.

[Prism]

Typed up a doc claim post, almost hit submit, decided against it for now.

I think with the post I had it would be very easy to strongarm a floo vote, but I do not want to risk getting overruled by someone voting Spartan early rather than waiting for my lead. It's worthwhile to hold off for just a little while longer, and it is likely better for Spartan to claim it. The important thing isn't that it's even remotely believable, the important thing is that it buys him a single day....which it might not, to be fair.

I meant to save it here but I lost the post entirely. Alas. I might recreate it later.

[Prism]

I've thought about this very carefully over the last few hours. I've decided to go ahead and claim.

I am the doctor. I was on Esoteric N1 and was roleblocked, and I was on quiet N2.

I do not think the benefits of holding the claim are worthwhile. Assuming we make it that far, I am likely to be nightkilled anyway, and there is a good chance a scum floo claims it upon my vote. The only benefit is if we flip the roleblocker without my claiming or being nightkilled, which is unlikely. In contrast, while unlikely, I also do not want to deal with the paranoia fallout of claiming it in the event I am left alive in 3 way after flipping the goon instead of the roleblocker, and I am again liable to be nightkilled regardless.

By claiming we can get straight to the point and skip the sideshow. Sorting me further is a waste of time unless someone cc's, though I am aware I am not mechanically clear. In the event I am right in my reads, I do not think this really hurts us. In the event I am wrong, this day is about to be a complete disaster, and this is our best chance to make it even vaguely winnable. I see no value in sending townfloo on a goose chase in 5 way Elo. This is our last chance to get on the same page.

Floo: I have three very specific questions for you. I'm sure the town would appreciate it if you answered them even in the event you cc.

1) What were you looking for in differentiating between an upset/frustrated town Salsabil and a fearful scum Salsabil?
2) Why did you say you were willing to vote my slot Day 2, in reply to Spartan, without having actually read my content?
3) Why did you entirely avoid answering my question about Spartan near the end of Day 2?

[Prism]

Followup post would be

I can now finally elaborate on this post.

You will hate me for this.

I will hammer anyone, if i see him at E-1.

Don't put people on E-1 unless you surely decide you want them dead. Ask for claims on E-2, so mafia can't trade self on some Cop claim with instant punch.

I decided on it, so don't argue.

I will elaborate on this post at a later date.

My immediate reaction to this was that Enchant was softing cop/PR. PRs have an incentive to instantly hammer without claims, cop was randomly capitalized, and this entire post smacked of some hidden mechanical knowledge. I was dismayed when I saw it. The point of this post was to mark that I knew this in advance, clearing myself if scum shot outside of Enchant or bolstering my case in the event he was scum and I needed to counterclaim.

Of course, I was wrong, Enchant was a VT.

Followed by a third outlining my approach to how I'm going to choose the vote today but that this will still be a collaborative effort, work together still, blah blah blah

[Prism]

Know intuitively it was the strongest move, phrase it in a way that shuts down any of the risks I listed, still opt not to do it for basis of fundamental principles rather than the specific situation, and now the timing/tempo advantage is lost by the current scrutiny on a me/Spartan team specifically.

Classic, I very much deserve to lose this game.

[Prism]

In light of the lost tempo advantage/current pressure on Spartan, I am no longer sold on it being a strong move.

[Prism]

I have played this day like shit, doing basic maintenance/some towntelling while letting Spartan fall to the wayside.

I've been lazy, and deserve to get punished for it. I said I pulled out all the stops yesterday but it's time to seriously brainstorm and dig a little bit deeper to put this game away once and for all. I lost the tempo advantage on the doctor claim but I doubt this is the only way to win.

[Prism]

There are several candidate ideas

-I continue with the doc claim
-I do nothing, and see if flow trap randomly flips his reads around.
-I micromanage Spartan and instruct him exactly how to claim doctor
-I micromanage Spartan and tell him to go on the extreme offensive against flow trap

None of these are great. I think I can do better.

[Lategame edit: The single strongest play, and the one I eventually went with, we could make here as a team depended on Spartan. He needed to be obvious scum but makes it seem like it was floo. I was hesitant to ask this, even though I knew it was the right answer, just because of how difficult it is. In the end, I was forced to ask: and Spartan pulled it off beautifully.]

[Prism]

Goal of the vote is to punish floo's mistakes at daystart, speed up dayplay, shift focus from the other 3, but the last is more a hope than a guarantee.

[Prism]

Also, floo's implication is different than what I'm painting it as, but it's an easy mistake to make and he's not being direct enough. I can and will punish this.

[Prism]

Just another post about me and my new best pal, fferyllt, yep. Best friends. Totally inseparable. Our families do Christmas together, godmother of my child, absolutely not just someone I've interacted with in two/three games. Nope. Best friends.

[Prism]

Spartan is a god. That's all I can say. Again and again this dude pulls out ridiculously strong posting out of absolutely nowhere. Made himself plausibly town, made himself look like he's preparing to bus floo if he has to simultaneously. A+++

I'm going to take my time responding today, speeding up the pace of the game was good for running interference when quiet/flow trap were finding each other, but now that the focus has now turned more towards sorting in me/floo, flow trap/quiet linking up is no longer such an immediate threat, and Spartan has just hit a home run w/ that post I want to slow it down again.

[Prism]

I did/will do some more nuanced stuff with quiet yesterday, will try to go back and edit this in later.

[Prism]

Now that quiet's stopped by I should too, but going to stagger it by a an hour or two to minimize real time interaction.

[Prism]

Nuanced stuff w/ quiet I mentioned yesterday and finishing it through today:

Spoiler: Select quotes, plenty more in thread

Sorry, mind doesn't ever turn off.

Quiet-why were you aiming for voting in 12-24 hours as opposed to something longer?

@Quiet: Also wondering: Why have you chosen to not publicly walk through the meta you did?

I really, really liked floo day1. I was against eliminating floo yesterday, for basically the same reason you have pulled out in that review of their play; their posts throughout the game give almost every appearance of being from someone who wanted to solve the game, and I was really hoping I'd see something today to help support that feeling. But basically, as it stands, finding an innocent floo means finding a guilty prism. And here's where the case on floo starts to sour a bit.

My suspicion of floo mostly comes from what they are not posting, and not responding to. It comes from a place of me really struggling to TR someone who won't engage and casually throw out reads, or some kind of flash impression take.

I am deeply concerned about your progression on floo here.

Day 2 you felt my points on the floo-Salsabil push compelling. You acknowledged that the curated posts weren't actually that town. You expressed the willingness to follow me, but when push came to shove went for the AFK voter in Frederick.

Today you've been very adamant that at some point you'll vote floo, which is great, but that's not really what I'm worried about.

Would you like me too? Frankly, I find copying and pasting between threads challenging, I think meta reads are generally good ancillary evidence, but not case building in of themselves. I’ve reviewed some games from you and I reviewed what was available from Salsa in the context of a floo read; I took a quick look at floo, but was planning to do so much more before I voted tmmrw, just wanted to see if they would engage in a more causal chat with me first. I also did the Flow Trap alternate form metaread of the game they linked (and was very proud to determine who they were despite our chaos god not telling me their alt’s name. It was very exciting.)

My concern here is that you've apparently done a lot of meta research, found very good reasons to townread me with it, and instead it's in this wall about why I'm town for mostly tonal reasons to do with my intensity, anxiety, friendship/rivalry with ffery, etc. You're not wrong but this isn't even trying to really convince anyone that I'm town, these are super subjective. With the meta case there are

extremely concrete

reasons for why I'm town that are objective, which you've apparently reviewed but chosen not to present except as secondary to the more emotional appeal.

You've given good reads for the most part and been spot on at times but there are real problems with your positioning around floo and how you've approached the day, and it's not okay that I handwaive it just because you've presented good analytical ability with no obvious ulterior motive, when the ulterior motive for you would just be to never get voted rather than trying too hard to frame someone else.

I appreciate the response about the 12-24 hours but it's unclear how legitimate it is and if speeding it up in wake of no response would be a good idea anyway, while speeding the game up is absolutely good for you as scum if you're bussing.

My grammar is going to shit, my memory is shit and I'm not even reading to make sure my posts said what I thought they did, good hint that it's time to *~step away from the keyboard~*

Posts like 1872 are/were transparently halfassed and give the impression floo isn't even trying, the wall was appealing to me over any specific player of the three, and I just do not like that idea that he is counting on 3 way given how we're all just like "IDK guess it's Spartan he defended floo" but pummeling you for asking me about something or why you haven't objectively argued for me being town when objectivity isn't the source of the read to begin with is not the answer

This progression/sequence of paranoia was planned. The questions were meant to seem organic-"mind doesn't ever turn off", followed by another question, then another, and another....culminating in some real posts grilling quiet about my insecurities/fears on his slot.

And then we rein it back in with the final planned bit that sells why I was worried about "floo isn't even trying" which pushes floo, sells that I'm looking beyond 5 way, and is the missing piece of the paranoia puzzle.

Finally, I show some ~fondness~ for the first time with the hug comment. Sorry I had to do it to you quiet.

I did make a legitimate error w/ my memory and post sequence w/r/t the point about quiet asking question on things I just talked about, that was also planned but I completely forgot the first one and I fucked up the second one all to hell. Maybe it helped sell it, though, so cool.

[Prism]

I really want to spare quiet the 4 day parade and get him to vote by making the case that it forces Spartan/floo to make a choice and bus over waiting around for the other, but I can't risk it.

I'm sorry I have to keep doing this to you fella. From a voting standpoint, you are likely to lose this game, but this doesn't mean you've played poorly. You and fairy both forced me to play the game entirely around the two of you, and to pull out almost every stop in order to force errors. flow trap might be able to vote me-and even if they don't, they still played well-but they had a luxury you didn't: I wasn't spending day after day meticulously crafting ways to get them specifically to townread me. Another way to measure you contribution is in terms of how much sheer time/effort of the scumteam was centered on you-which leaves them vulnerable to other slots-and in that regard you've have done extraordinarily well.

It has taken me reaching again and again and again into my bag of tricks to try and seal this game, and it's still not over. Quiet might still swing it yet.

[Prism]

I really want to touch on floo a bit-I think ceding thread control to me here is a big mistake, and I've done my best to take advantage of it. You can't roll over and die like this as town. I use the word "thread control" because this is going a lot further than just him looking bad, I am controlling almost everything about the public dialogue right now.

It is not a good idea to let scum do this

.

There have been a few times this game where I've exploited floo's playstyle, like in his hesitation to engage with difficult slots or take on open challenges, but this should be a no brainer. You can't throw two liner vague shade and AFK for 3+ days in a 1v1 in Elo like this.

That said, I do think I need to tone down how hard I go against him in-thread. Don't poke the sleeping bear and such, let him sleep for 4 more days.

[Prism]

Even with this game virtually over, I'm still trying to think of ways to press the advantage. Right now my big concern is that floo comes in and actually tries. I don't think it's possible to put together a persuasive scum case against me until Spartan flips, but he can towntell in other ways, and the concept of range would point my way.

Looking at his post history, it's pretty randomly populated between 12-11 PM EST, with a bit more around the 3-6pm EST range. I don't want to post anything around that time that baits him into responding. Simultaneously, if I'm the only one around he's not liable to stick around long.

I'm thinking the two best ways to leverage this are either:
A) Just not posting at all and putting the onus squarely on floo
B) Starting a more engaged read into flow trap/Spartan around that time, with the hope that floo checks in, sees I'm talking about some random nonsense, and doesn't want any part of it and closes the tab.

[Prism]

I think the second is in pretty poor taste in a Newbie game; I don't think the hypothetical advantage is enough to really justify making floo not want to play the game period. I'm not into charity but making the game outright awful for others to play is something I'd like to avoid if possible.

I think my point is made enough. If something comes up where I think it benefits me to post I will, but I'm not going to play active keepaway.

Lesson should be clear. The ball's in floo's court and he needs to use it, I don't need to put it behind barbed wire in a game meant to be beginner-friendly.

[Prism]

I don't really think I'm doing too much here that requires explanation. Continuing to power town, solving flow trap working through the checklist etc.

floo's timing doesn't help him. His points are outright wrong and easily debunked by crosschecking Day 2. I get that he's pretty demotivated and likely upset that he got blindsided so heavily, but rigor is important. If anyone reads these for substance, they're deadends.

My meta reinforces that intensity/emotion is my playstyle. He gave a bit about "If they're town Prism should be trying to get a scum voted first, THEN get townread." but there's like 5 quotes of me frantically expressing how I needed to do exactly that. I definitely wasn't a town dictator. Calling quiet my lapdog is understandable given his position, but misses the forest for the trees and just how much I've visibly leaned on and fought with quiet throughout the game.

floo's big advantage here is that he has a level of AtE that is arguably unable to be faked, and we'll see if he can capitalize. Me/Spartan are very comfortable with him knowing the team-and have made no attempt to hide it-but he's got to figure out a way to convert that into a tangible advantage.

[Prism]

I've been in floo's position before. Playing from behind like this

really, really

sucks. I've got the advantage, I'm pressing it constantly, I have the momentum and I flat out want it more and will do whatever it takes to seal it.

The best solution to this was not ceding me control of the game/throwing in the towel for 6 days. This isn't the tortoise and the hare, I'm not going to slow down or take it easy just because he gave me a 50m headstart. The second best solution is to go all out

now

.

It's not totally lost, and this is still winnable for town imo. Floo has to shapes up his arguments though. He's got to sell the case on me/Spartan specifically-always our Achilles heel- and he's got to make the right emotional appeals.

[Prism]

I don't know what else to really say here. It's incredible that town has made it this far, incredible that they've correctly deduced the partner interactions, and incredible that they still were pushing for the win last night. The fact that this is a Newbie game is

absolutely fucking insane

. I just wanted to put up a basic, instructive game with annotations, and instead I've been forced to produce my best-ever scumgame by a mile.

But I am not so kind, and I do not let go. I woke up ready to carry this through.



If you are that determined to fight on, I cannot afford to take it easy on you.

Every time they're on the verge of losing, they keep pressing further and digging a little bit deeper. This will only make the loss more emotionally crushing.

It was not a mistake to get this far, and you were not wrong to press this hard and fight so desperately. But I will leave absolutely everything I have on the floor to put you down.

I earnestly hope you win.