Newbie 2071: The Sandwich Debate - End!

[Clasko]

Hey guys!

It's 00:25AM here rn, so I hope you all don't mind if I catch up tomorrow?

[Clasko]

Sorry - to quote the bangles, it's just another manic monday.

Will read up now and provide reads/thoughts very soon. (:

Hello looker~

[Clasko]

All right, giving thoughts now. Instead of my wallposts from previous games, just gonna present these reads in separate posts so people can quote them easier.

[Clasko]

JamestheNames - I like them as town rn. I'm taking the claim at face value. They've had some fluff posts but I particularly like James' #304 - no nonsense, clear thought process. I thought the timing of the claim didn't seem like it had a scum motive - near RVS stage, I imagine scum want to continue it for as long as possible to prevent the game opening up as quickly as it could. Him pushing people to vote also seems pro-town as (surface level reasoning incoming) how else are we supposed to eject scum?

[Clasko]

GrandpaMo - In my notes, I thought their #305 on HockeyFan felt unnatural - possibly from scum. They know Hockey misinterpreted what TSTBS meant, yet this post looks like an unnatural overreaction, and coming from the guy who originally wanted to drop the discussion wrt James' #40 (see post #130), the whole interaction just gave me scum vibes, which conflicts with what I think about their pro-town actions in pushing people with questions and pressuring the inactive slots. Could Hockey have baited Grandpa with their misinterpretation? Maybe, but I still feel the response was unnatural. I want to have more time to think on Grandpa overall.

[Clasko]

VFP - So we have to take a gamble with VFP because he's acting so differently he might be scum and hasn't proven himself that much as town this game... Do I give thim botd due to them being ill/waiting for slots to speak? If someone were to gun-to-head me for an answer, he doesn't look like scum protecting himself/a teammate???

[Clasko]

T3 - I forget who said #203 was good from them (fairly sure someone said it) but I thought part of them unvoting James due to "I put a lot of stock in meta, you don't care about it" when James explicitly stated he hated using meta was weak reasoning for the unvote. Uh, what else... they've reduced their pool of eliminations without giving reasonings, unless prompted, which we all expect from T3 at this point. TR'ing most of the cast and scumhunting less differs from the last two games I was in with them at least, where they were scum. I'm on the fence.

[Clasko]

Looker - Nothing to add about them currently as they have yet to speak, but I thought StrangeMatter could have done better things with their time instead of asking more questions when the game needed answers - just felt like deflection. I don't take much stock on Rocky's tonal posts (the slot Strange replaced into) compared to in-game actions, and more needed to come from them to justify any sort of read IMO.

[Clasko]

The Bulge - Well, that slot just replaced out, but I'll talk about their previous posts - I think Hockey was the one who said they had good tonal posts earlier, which I agreed with (specifically, showing resistance to James' claim - in a 'trying-to-see-the-intent-behind-it' sort of way), but they haven't done enough with their vote or looked anywhere outside of VFP/James. The shift from them townreading Strange's slot due to Rocky's tone, to later admitting the slot could be scum, doesn't sit well with me considering the slot should have been null to begin with (maybe I'm being overly harsh here).

[Clasko]

cowsloveSushirolls - Looking back at their ISO, (which was a hard read - it's a LOT) they've done good things for the game. I'm reading their interactions with Hockey as light banter and natural, and the AtE on waiting for replacements slots to speak as genuine. They pushed James where he didn't need to be pushed (IMO) which gives me town vibes. I took note that they have made great strides to interact with most of the players in the thread bar my slot. I do feel like they're trying to bait reactions and ask important questions to get a better picture of the game rather than scum blending in, so I'm somewhat confident calling them town for now - not as much as James, mind you (watch them be the team lmao).

[Clasko]

HockeyFan - His slot is okay. I think his interactions come off natural enough (similarly to cows' interaction with him). I humoured the idea he might have scum equity with Grandpa (as scum v scum) in my notes since I feel Grandpa's sudden push on him in post 305 would be safe to do since Hockey's slot was townread (to varying degrees) by some in the thread at that time, and scum voting a partner at that stage would present little risk but look good to town (but that's a WIFOM-y rabbit hole I'm not currently prepared to go down). He's acting like a more casual cows, perhaps because they've played together before. He's advancing his reads and the slot seems consistent from what i've read.

[Clasko]

tl;dr:

James
Cows
---
Hockey
VFP
T3
---
Grandpa
Looker
The Bulge

That's where I'm at rn.

[Clasko]

ignoring 564 pfft

woops didnt see that

sorry

It's all good, you've been patient enough with my slot already.

[Clasko]

You know you play too much of a particular game when you see botd and misread it as bork...

From someone who's played an MMO to death, I get that feeling.

Benefit of the doubt, though, in case anyone was unsure.

[Clasko]

Also:

VOTE: The Bulge

[Clasko]

Fwiw I didnt think gpas reaction felt that unnatural but a gpa vote is smth I can get behind. Idk if you didnt quite see cows's soft defending of VFP in the last few posts(479,503) Partially 51.

To each their own. It just jumped out to me as a possibility.
You SR'ed Grandpa at time of argument, in 368 you say you think they're town, now you're fine with a potential vote on them - what's your case for them rn?

So yea I do think cows hasn't necessarily hard defended VFP but certainly discredited the VFP push(that both me and Gpa made). It has indeed died down, and idk if thats cuz of Gpa's inactivity but just a thing to point out.

I get it. I just think VFP's being too deliberately laid back, and self-aware with it. It isn't fair to assume they're town because of this, but y'know... it just doesn't feel like he's bothered about being the elim here. On the other hand I'm not gonna deny hammering VFP either if he's the consensus wagon at EoD but my thoughts on them are the same. I'm aware you and GPA have pushed/voted him.

You're putting too much stock into meta in your T3 read imo. Like this game specifically sure he has done smth, but any other person would be called scum by the way hes playing.

Understandable. I know I need many, MANY games with said person to even justify using meta effectively. I don't mind giving context to D1 reads even if they're kinda flawed & lackluster - something good may come from it, discussion-wise.

Also can u explain to me how Bulge "not looking anywhere else" is scum? This game has had like 10 replacements so i really dont think thats an issue.

This I'll own up to - 'not looking anywhere else' was disingenuous of me to say, given they were waiting for slots to speak/replace out. I'll look back and let you know if my thoughts change on the slot.

Also I'm more null than town lean let's be honest - I've barely posted/interacted with anyone so.
Thanks, though.

[Clasko]

Mo, Clasko, and Lady LambdaDelta are the only 3 of whom aren't voting T3 nor VFP.

LLD, Clarke, and Grampa... your votes / not votes are just a waste.

Clarkso isn't looking good either.

I like the part where my name is represented three different ways.
I've even been called Cleo before...

Anyway Bulge-slot elim obviously isn't happening so:

UNVOTE:

Gonna read back on some posts, reply to cows most likely, see where I am with things.

[Clasko]

Eh sure, I'll sheep the consensus. Some of my read's based on the claim anyway:

VOTE: JamesTheNames

(1): Claskjo

*rolls eyes*

That's E-1.

[Clasko]

I'll try and get on as and when but I'm pretty ill so don't expect much the next couple of days.

I hope you feel better soon.

Either Clasko or GrandpaMo

I am... a Power Role!

By process of elimination, that leaves GrandpaMo.

[Clasko]

I meant, that leaves Grandpa yet to claim.

[Clasko]

But if you knew you were a power role and you knew he wasn't, if you thought he were scum you would have let him go first in the hopes of trapping him. That's what I'm trying to get across.

Gotcha, yeah, that thought didn't occur to me sadly - missed opportunity maybe. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Clasko]

Okay, well that's gross.

We need a result from you Clasko.

Yup, there was always that risk from my POV that I would be the only town PR (50% chance) - most likely C1.

I am indeed outing as Cop, and I

did

get a result (that wasn't cows, lol, that would have been a bad moo-ve) (sorry not sorry).

I'll probably out it when there's 5 days left from deadline (16-ish hours from this post) if that's okay with everyone else - I can reveal sooner if everyone wants, but VFP's the only one who hasn't had a chance to post when we finished mass-claiming and i'd like to know his thoughts pre-result.

[Clasko]

And yeah, from my POV at the time re. James wagon, if he flipped green, I had scum equity for an opportunistic vote on my no.1 town read and increased my chances of not being the N1K.

If he flipped red, then that's half of the battle and I still had a chance to avoid N1K.

Probably a not-so-good move overall but cop is def. one of the good ones to be bringing through with me so it's not all bad ig.

[Clasko]

Up to you, but I prefer outing now.

I don't have the result. Clasko does.

I have a guilty result on T3 - he is

confirmed

Mafia.

So, now we can speculate as to who his partner is!

[Clasko]

Ugh I said I wasn't gonna do walls...

Clasko, as confirmed town, now would be a great time for you to bounce ideas off me since you are gonna be 6 feet under tomorrow.

For the record, LLD, I would also choose Hockey over VFP-slot as the D3 elim. I can't see VFP/T3 team both pivoting onto claimed-VT James (who was townread by some - myself, hockey, cows, there may have been others) EoD, after VFP pushes for T3 for the majority of D1 (albeit a half-baked push with not much substance).

Towards beginning of D2, I was considering one of Grandpa/Looker as the team when I saw my result on T3, and had Hockey as 4th most likely partner of the 5, but that could have been my bias coming into play since I sort of townread them towards EoD1. I think LLD & peta make compelling arguments about Hockey voting VFP whilst keeping their FoS on T3 without actually pushing them. Looking back at Hockey's D1 ISO, I'm starting to believe it even more.

T3/Looker is a more scary combination because I can't

really

make a case for them being partners at all with the information provided.

Grandpa I'm less confident on, but I'm coming around to the idea that Grandpa maybe just busses T3 here instead of hard-defending them towards EoD, and continued to do so until I outed the result (926) - obviously scum!GPA has incentive to defend T3 since two co-ordinated mafia members have a more influence over a bunch of townies trying to figure things out for themselves, but I can't help but feel Grandpa bussing T3 would be the ideal strat and he didn't do that. I read individual scumminess from Grandpa at EoD for being absent/disengaged, and not choosing one of the two leading wagon at EoD and instead sticking to Looker despite them obviously never being the D1 elim, but they've picked up the pace D2.

As for LLD, I'm somewhat confident in her not being the partner - I agree with peta that her posts towards T3 don't look like scum theatre and she's done proactive things for town (admittedly they claim to do this as either align but it feels very helpful in the context of this game), and going back to Bulge for a moment, they were quick to townread T3 in a game where scum don't want to be associated with each other, and I don't think Bulge TR's a scum teammate for a reason based on 'gut' that will be most likely met with adversity and unwanted attention due to how people usually react to T3's play.

Take these with a pinch of salt because my experience playing mafia is sorely lacking, and recently skimming peta's posts may have influenced my own reads of people.

Here is a question: why does T3 shoot Cows?

IMO (with benefit of hindsight) he was a loud town voice who was building a case for T3 scum, in a game with three, not-fully-established-into-the-game, replace-ins (in me, yourself & looker). I doubt it was PR-hunting anyway. I'll probably re-ISO cows to see if my above opinions change as we're heading towards EoD2 somewhat quickly.

I would be looking at this order for D3 elim if I were there:

Hockey > Looker>Grandpa > LLD>peta

I knew she should have roleblocked Clasko.

Nice appeal to my paranoia there. D:

[Clasko]

Also, yeah, welcome to the game petapan!

[Clasko]

The way you organized your first post felt like a pr looking for who to do the action on so I suggested we roleblock you, but my partner suggested someone else.

I'll have to make sure that doesn't become a tell of some kind in future...

[Clasko]

That's how POE works, no? I dont think VFP's slot is paired with T3 which once again leaves You/Grandpa/Looker. So from my pov, ONE of you 3 is paired with t3. I mentioned that i think Gpa is the towniest here sooo, for me the people paired with t3 are you/looker

If you don't believe you're the correct elim come D3, do you have a preference between the two people you're suggesting? Can you give reasons?

[Clasko]

thanks, nice to meet you

Likewise.

other than that, i'm basically treating my stint in this game as a teaching role, so if any of the newbies have questions about my process here or any theory stuff, feel free to ask me anything

I think an immediate burning question I have, and... I don't know if it's the right one to ask, but:

What should newbies do in the presence of the "meta" argument? Like, if player X accuses player Y of being scum due to meta (or if meta is part of the argument), does Player Z (newbie) need to go through Player Y's previous games? Or should they focus solely on the game they're in to determine whether Player Y is scum?
I'm of the opinion it doesn't need to be a factor for newbies until they've shared/read a significant amount of games with Player Y, which would take a longer amount of time than the game they're currently in, but I've seen it being brought up in a lot of recent newbie games, so my thoughts over meta are slightly hazy.

[Clasko]

If you asked for a private personal thread for this game and would like it to be made public, let me know!

Mine can be made public - I have nothing to redact.

Good call, LLD!
Well played everyone! GG's!

[Clasko]

I think clakso voted james because he was the majority vote or smth. it was still a super unfortunate condemm

I think it was just mainly b*a*d on my part (lack of conviction on my James read), but yup, he was the leading wagon 4 hours from deadline (2 on T3, 3 on James IIRC), the VFP v. T3 thing stagnating slightly, T3 sort of intriguing me with the fake crumb discussion, and the thought of a new, almost enticing wagon in the form of James, IDK, I'd chalk it down to unfortunate circumstance. I kicked myself when I saw the red investig. and we could have been 6v1 (or 7v1 if A1 and the protective worked) coming into D2 if T3 was the majority wagon, but y'know, he escaped, and props to him.

Spoiler:

Clasko

Sorry for murdering you in your sleep

Is okie. ^^

Alright I'm coming back to this just to explain why I couldn't keep playing during this game. The main problem was that I was Mason with T3 in another game, and scum in this game. Not only would this be my first scum game that joined into the middle of it, I was more focused on playing Mason than scum, and tasking between four different chats is a bit much for me. I'll probably never sub in again if I have another game playing because I can't focus on two games at once.

It's all good, you don't have to explain. It's too bad you couldn't stay, is all.

Thanks to everyone, I'll hopefully see you all soon at

some

point int he future!
Also I never got to thank you for your take on meta, peta - it was a fresh take and I enjoyed reading it. Ty~