Newbie 2082 - Game Over

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Hello, friends! I hope we can have a wonderful and pleasant game of mafia.

VOTE: frogsfrogs

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One other small advice for pseudoAristotle: it's generally a good idea to put votes on separate lines (i.e. not in the middle of a sentence like in 17). This is just a quality of life thing for mods, since votes in the middle of lines are easy to miss.

And yeah, echoing MafMen: we don't really eliminate "at random". One day is plenty of time to get reads on people. I don't really have any material reads yet but I've had plenty of games where I have some real reads at this point.

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Of everything so far, I guess I'm most interested in that little back and forth about prev games! Voting for each other, are we, Margot and Thynhith?

What about it makes it the most interesting thing so far to you?

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Unvote

VOTE: Greetings

My new choice of vanity vote. I mildly like frogsfrogs's response to me as townish.

Don't have particularly strong feelings on Aristotle. I certainly don't think they're particularly more likely than average to be scum right now.

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whoops. Greeting singular.

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This page is actually useful. I think igor and Aristotle are town off of it, I can see townreading Thynhith for it but I don't get as strong of vibes on him as the other two.

@MafMen: you still haven't explained exactly why you thought Greeting was townish. Do you have an explanation for why his first 3 posts townpinged you?

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Do you have any general thoughts on your wagon or specific thoughts on if you think any of the votes on you are particularly town or scum indicative?

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you like igor that much off two emoticon posts?

I think the vote is too overtly opportunistic to be likely from scum along the lines of scum thinking about/caring how they're perceived more than town. The second one as well, I think scum would feel more obligated to give a real response to frogsfrogs's question.

[implosion]

What gives you the sense he would care about he's perceived, though, given the way he's acting?

Nothing about him in particular does, that's the point; it's a broad statement about mafia in general. There's nothing specific about him that makes me think he'd be more or less likely than the average person to care about how he's being perceived as scum, but I think scum on average tend to care more than town, and that's probably slightly more true of newbies. It could certainly be significantly weakened (or strengthened) based on meta info.

Yeah, I think implosion's argument is that igor

doesn't

seem like he cares, catboi!

I see where that's coming from, but I can't make myself feel like it's conclusive. Seems like it could go either way to me? At least in a newbie match. I've got totally no thought either way yet on him

I don't think it's "conclusive" either; I think it's very rare for there to be conclusive evidence of someone's alignment, it's ostensibly all speculation. And certainly most mafia players are very bad at finding conclusive evidence if there is any.

[implosion]

That jump is fairly townish.

Unvote

When you said you "removed the least suspicious" but also said those you removed were genuine newbies/those from past games, i'm a bit confused - which is it? Or do you just think you have a townread on catboi based on past games, and that the others are genuine newbies in the sense that they are newbies acting genuinely town?

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Alas. I will echo that igor, that wasn't a good move; I understand the excitement/vindication of getting to tell off the people that think you're scum, but you weren't at risk of dying. Yeah, you're likely town (not confirmed, but likely) but you could have revealed that information later and we could have made better use of it then, and as Greeting has laid out, your role's usefulness is now limited and depends a lot on the setup.

Greeting's analysis is mostly good (I agree the other town PR shouldn't claim no matter what, I generally agree with what he's directing the potential JK/doc to do) but a couple things he didn't mention that are relevant if we think about things from the scum's perspective: if it's setup 1, then scum can block igor if they want. This is a double-edged sword: the JK might want to block elsewhere because this would mean scum have less incentive to kill igor since they can indefinitely block him, but on the other hand there is less risk from blocking igor because he might get blocked anyway.

On the other hand, if it is setup 2 or 3, the mafia don't know which one. Ergo, even if there's a friendly neighbor, they can't safely kill igor because there could be a doctor. This is all the more reason for a doctor, if there is one, to actually target igor tonight and not try to make a guess. A friendly neighbor probably shouldn't target igor because if there's a friendly neighbor igor could just die. On the other hand if there is a friendly neighbor they don't strictly need someone to be able to confirm them imminently so they can if they want.

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And now for actual content.

I thought igor was town before the claim so I'm certainly not going to doubt it. I think Greeting is being fairly eminently town in general; his jump in 96 was very town like I mentioned because new scum tend to be unwilling to jump so overtly, and Greeting-scum should in principle be happy to sit on his Margot vote there with it becoming a wagon with Aristotle's vote three posts earlier. I think his jump to setup analysis on the claim is reasonable though it's not like, a strong tell.

I think Aristotle is town as well, still. igor correctly points out that 117 is a bad idea, but I disagree that it's an idea scum are likely to suggest. This is kind of just an intuition, though; I don't think scum would be so bold as to say "hey, track me" when igor would certainly know that they could be scum letting their partner kill.

VOTE: Thynhith

I dislike his recent posting. His jump onto igorsprite reads to me as scum who feels like they can get away with it. 104 before that paints such a broad brush of suspicion so as to be kind of useless, saying he has 3 people he'd like to lim out of but there's also me who's a bit too distant and margot who isn't posting. That's more than half the player list.

[implosion]

catboi, I don't really have a material read on yet, though it's possible I'll get one eventually.
frogsfrogs, I have trouble telling how to distinguish playstyle from actually alignment-indicative content. catboi's comment in 107 is sort of poignant but I can also imagine that post coming from town who feels they have reasons. I would like frogs to respond to that.
Val/Margot, has not posted enough.

MafMen I kind of gut townread. The continued reaction to his wagon of "eh everyone on it was probably town" is, idk, kind of too uninvested in his own wagon to be scum. I think 100 looks reasonably townish in general.

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Val, me giving that analysis has nothing to do with my role. If I'm a VT, then I think it's good for the other PR to understand what they should do/how they should think about things; if I am the other PR then I want to look like a VT, so I'd still give the same analysis. Same goes for Greeting, I imagine.

If anything, I'd implore

you

to not make comments like that; commenting on what other players might say as VT versus say as PR, and (as you put it) inducing other people to make such comments, could very much risk the mafia getting insight into who the other PR is.

[implosion]

Game got quite interesting. Unordered collection of thoughts on the past couple pages:

-I think Val is actually quite town in this all. His concern about the setup spec stuff seems real and his willingness to immediately jump from me to Greeting after someone joined him on Greeting is a kind of high-risk-low-reward play as scum I think.

-I don't like MafMen immediately voting for Val. I think it's a relatively easy jump for scum to make there; it isn't necessarily from scum but I think if Val is town then he looks like a good jump there as scum.

-I feel no need to litigate what is and isn't setup speculation or anti-town in all those regards, as there's better stuff to talk about now anyway.

-Seven vanity votes is quite funny.

-This is a good sign for frogs being town (mostly the second half of the sentence but really all of it i guess)

-Greeting voting Val is perhaps the one thing so far that makes me suspicious of Greeting, not enough to outweigh everything else.

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On the whole I think right now if any if igor, Val and Greeting are scum I'd be moderately surprised.

I think frogs calling Val/Greeting tvt is good because I'd been sort of irked from frogs for not giving any committal stances, but saying they're both "very town" is (1) something I agree with, (2) committal and (3) something I think scum is probably loath to do at that moment before the dust settles.

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Val is super town because of how irked he clearly is over the setup speculation thing. He just won't let it go. I really think that indicates it's an actual thing that he actually feels about this game and not a front. This is evident in 165 (that post absolutely reeks town to me), and really every single one of his posts before it on the same page. He's also town like I mentioned because of the jump from me to Greeting; this would be a really odd jump for scum to make and the level of nuance in his opinion on my posting (143) is I think also townish.

[implosion]

Greeting, I don't *agree* with Val's take on the setup discussion either but I don't think calling any of his posting "outlandish theories" is accurate. I think they're entirely plausible as a way someone could view a mafia game.

Consider that if one is playing as mafia in a mafia game, they have basically no incentive to post something that they think is actually outlandish. Scum want to appear reasonable. If Val is scum and posting these "outlandish theories" despite knowing that they're bologna, what is his motive? It seems like the only result is him getting attacked. Beyond that, igor agreed with him; do you think both he and igor are living in some alternate-dimension where logic works differently?

I think it's broadly true in mafia that if you find someone's line of reasoning entirely logically inconsistent, that's probably got little to do with alignment, it probably has more to do with you and that player having different ways of thinking logically.

[implosion]

I feel quite confident Val is town right now and though of course I could be wrong, I'd like you to take a step back and think about

why

Val would be playing this way if he's scum. What does he gain from doing it?

[implosion]

I will be like,

quite

irked if we eliminate Val here. Moreso than if we eliminate Greeting. I am trying to figure out how to justify him being town to Val but I feel like it should be easier to convince Greeting that Val is town than the other way around/I think Val is the towniest slot right now after igor.

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I guess the one thing to say to Val is that if your initial reason to be suspicious of Greeting is the whole accidentally-giving-away-info thing... you yourself apparently witnessed like four townies do that in the other game you linked. Even admitting that it's anti-town, clearly you should agree that it's a trap town can easily fall into.

I think I actually want to stew more on how I feel about Greeting, looking at his posting more.

[implosion]

Val's theory of rejecting logic,

For someone who was accusing others of putting up straw men... this sure is one biased-as-heck way to phrase how he's been playing.

[implosion]

He said that before I started directly appealing to him about you being town so I'm ignoring that one >.>

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Put me at E-1 and I’ll hammer myself.

Please, please do not do this if you're town.

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I absolutely promise if you're town that you selfhammering is the very last thing that would ever convince me that Val is scum.

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And beyond that as a newbie game spiel: self-hammering in general, except in very specific circumstances, is bad play. If you're mafia and want to cut off info for the town, fine. If you're town and the deadline is about to run out and you don't want the day to end in a no-lim, sure. If you're unhappy with how the day is going, or with your wagon, or with people disagreeing with your reads... then please, just take a step back from the game and come back to it later with a clearer head.

[implosion]

do you guys have any idea of what i should do? '^'

It'd potentially help if you were more open with your thought process; this isn't *as* important in this game as it would be in an average game since your claim makes you very likely town, but it could help if you gave more examples of things you agreed/disagreed with, found indicative of people being townish/scummy, etc.

Right now I'm generally happy with the game state; I have no particular impetus to do much until Thynhith is able to post more and respond to the pressure on him.

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I wonder if there is some of sort of comprehension issue between the two of us and we are debating two different issues without realising.

Congratulations, you just described the entire second half of this game so far.

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I really thought Greeting and Val were both town arguing from different experience but this has absolutely spiraled now. :S

I guess I'd prefer to be talking about Val's new info from 180 re: Thynhith. I think it has some merit. The mentioned posts seemed totally town lean to me, but with greater context putting some doubt on them I see not much else I like?

VOTE: Thynhith

Thread has really ballooned quickly. Not surprised to see that with Val in the game. Focusing on me atp would be derailing town. I would advise everyone to look at Val/Greeting more carefully. There's definitely something there that irks me, and I'll get a reread on the day as soon as I can.
One interesting thing of note is that scum!Val in our last game had a similar argument with Margot. Won't regale you with all the details, but he'll definitely try his best to come away looking townier. In fact his insistence on getting stuck on a seemingly less important point could be a red flag in itself, to trip up town and control the thread.

Consider this a notice for decreased activity for a few days. Have a bunch of irl stuff coming up, so expect me to be dipping out.

To start off with I see some people hating this post. I was writing here in a rush, and wanted to get my first impressions of the Val/Greeting exchange out, before I had to v/la for a few days. Hence the post looking general, was hoping someone might look into my points, and check how scum!Val was arguing with Margot in our last game. Evidently no one did,

and took the opportunity to scumread me instead.

@Maf I was asking people not to focus on me when they had a potentially telling interaction by Val. There was nothing on me then, why should I stress out?

I'm certainly not comfortable with my wagon, and

it seems this is the only post for it.

This is a bit of a disingenuous reaction, the bolded (by me) in particular; half your wagon (me and frogs) were already voting you when you made that post, and igor is off the table at least for now. So this is a very broad accusation/defensive stance that's aesthetically directed toward a lot of people but logically only applies to catboi or like Val who didn't vote you and I... can't really see what's being referred to regarding them either? I easily could be missing something here but what actual player has actually said that they hated that post/started scumreading you in response to it? Unless you're saying people started scumreading you because you went v/la and people wanted to attack someone who couldn't defend themself? Like, I never said anything about that post... frogs voted you before it... catboi said they were sheeping me when they voted and igorsprite didn't give any reasoning. so, ????. It just seems nebulous.

[implosion]

That catboi vote is also kind of flimsy.

Val made some comments throwing shade at Thyn for reasons that I think I far more substantial than anything he's thrown at Greeting, but continues his tunnel toward Greeting while only slapping Thyn with a scumlean and not much else. Thyn comes in with a "I would advise everyone to look at Val/Greeting more carefully" and an fos on Val but is mainly content to point to a past game and let other people do the legwork, he also avoids actually moving his vote here.

That's not very fair to say, is it? Did you miss the

bolded

notice for reduced activity? I will look into the past game again, but I had no time to do it when I made the post. It was as much a reminder for myself as for town. And I'm against voting out Val, at least D1, because his align will be much more obvious in later days.
In fact it seems you're avoiding voting Val, despite declaring him to be disingenuous, thin and repetitive. Why go after someone on v/la over only a couple posts? VOTE: catboi

The first part of this is pretty reasonable maybe but very eh as a reason to scumread someone.

The second part is strange and feels tacked-on to make it look like Thynhith has good reason to vote here. There's no way in which voting one of two scumreads is avoiding the other, especially given catboi is vocally saying you could both be scum.

I'm not actually sure if this post is really scum-indicative in isolation but it's not doing any favors in terms of making me question my reads.

[implosion]

This is a bit of a disingenuous reaction, the bolded (by me) in particular; half your wagon (me and frogs) were already voting you when you made that post, and igor is off the table at least for now. So this is a very broad accusation/defensive stance that's aesthetically directed toward a lot of people but logically only applies to catboi or like Val who didn't vote you and I... can't really see what's being referred to regarding them either? I easily could be missing something here but what actual player has actually said that they hated that post/started scumreading you in response to it? Unless you're saying people started scumreading you because you went v/la and people wanted to attack someone who couldn't defend themself? Like, I never said anything about that post... frogs voted you before it... catboi said they were sheeping me when they voted and igorsprite didn't give any reasoning. so, ????. It just seems nebulous.

Nebulous? Did you miss 318 313 and 229?

318 sure, the others catboi had other reasons to scumread you; your take seemed to me to be something like "i made this one post and now people are chomping at the bit to vote me"

You said "it seems this is the only post for it" referring to that post being the only impetus for your wagon and... catboi literally cites a different post in one of the posts you just linked. Sure catboi cited that post too eventually but it isn't the cited reason for their joining your wagon.

[implosion]

I'm open to frogs, catboi and potentially StrangeMatter today. Still not interested in val or greeting, MafMen I can be convinced on but it would take a fair amount. I agree with catboi that frogs is one of the least townish people here but I also think if frogs is town then it's entirely possible catboi is scum who sees a townie that they think they can maneuver back into the lim pool; I'm decently confident there'd be scum in the two of them anyway just because of PoE.

[implosion]

I will need to do some re-reading before I have any real conclusive feelings on how d1 went.

[implosion]

No one died. This means: we have a Doctor who saved the nightkill or we have a Jailkeeper who targeted either the nightkill or someone who might have tried to kill.

Or...

someone

is lying.

I honestly don’t understand why no one is discussing this. What a weird game.

Please, stop trying to drag my townlean into the ground.

Is this just because you think he could be rolefishing?

[implosion]

Not rolefishing, but the part bolded just feels entirely like shading Igor, an unCCed claim remind you.

What does scum get out of shading igor, an unCCed claim remind you?

Do you think scum would think they could get a lim on igor?

[implosion]

frogs: could you give a general overview of how you feel on everyone in the game right now?

[implosion]

Let's take this slowly.

If igor is town, then catboi is scum, meaning whoever catboi targeted is confirmed town, and the mafia already know that they're going to be confirmed town; igor should claim who they are now.

[implosion]

Or to put that simply:

igor, who did catboi target?

[implosion]

igor these kind of plays will lose a lot more games than they will win games. They'll also piss off a lot more people than they will win games.

I'm busy for a while today but will have a lot more to say later.

[implosion]

I still see no real reason to scumread greeting; I don't like the igor vote but intrinsic distrust of lying is something that's very common in newbie games (partially because bald-faced lies like igor did are more common in newbie games, perhaps). I vehemently disagree that igor's play makes any play from scum here but I think Greeting scumreading igor for his play is consistent with the general approach to the game I've seen from Greeting. Not the biggest townread I have by any means at this point (that's still igor and then Val).

---

My general thoughts on everything that's happened recently: first of all, igor being blocked (by any means) means we are in exactly setup 2a (assuming igor is town). catboi has a lot of justified outrage. This, however, is a situation where justified outrage/annoyance from knowing that igor was lying is actually not a towntell; if catboi is scum, then catboi would know igor is lying, because (given that igor actually didn't get a result) either they tried to kill igor and they failed because he was jailkept (in which case, they'd probably know he had no result because he was jailkept) or they tried to kill someone else and block him (in which case they know he'd have no result because they blocked him). So if catboi is scum, catboi knew igor was lying. This is all to say that catboi doesn't get any towncred for genuine indignation in response to igor because he'd know he can safely claim that he didn't target anyone and act annoyed at igor, etc. I think in situations where, as scum, you have an opportunity to show something like genuine outrage, it's generally a good idea to do so. Unfortunately again catboi would probably react similarly in that regard as town so it's kind of moot.

This is also to say that yeah, igor's "gambit" is entirely pointless... because catboi-scum would have all the info they'd need to respond to it this way.

With all this said: I think catboi is the best lim for today, for a variety of reasons. They're in my PoE and they've already claimed VT now, for one, even if it was for bad reasons. They said yesterday that they'd be able to prove that they're town eventually but ostensibly each aspect of their play so far (joining me on thynhith, the way they've pushed frogs, the way they've reacted to igor, the way they were talking about val yesterday) has a lot of utility as scum and just like, idk. It just feels like they're doing things they'd do as scum, more or less. They said this about frogs. Everything they've done has a perfectly reasonable justification for them to have done as town but taken as a whole there's just nothing that I wouldn't expect them to have done as scum. They said that they should be "self-evidently" town when they thought they were in a CC with igor and I just don't see why they think they would be self-evidently town there as town when they recently said they haven't really proven it yet.

VOTE: catboi

[implosion]

Why isn't this exactly how you'd react as scum to a tracker guilty that you know is fake?

How does "I'd have just nightkilled the other PR" imply you're town when no one died last night?

[implosion]

That's a drastic misrepresentation of what I said and you know it.

[implosion]

Why isn't this exactly how you'd react as scum to a tracker guilty that you know is fake?

How does "I'd have just nightkilled the other PR" imply you're town when no one died last night?

...Because I'D KNOW HE WAS BLUFFING?

And because I'd have nightkilled the other PR, rather than having a kill blocked???

I genuinely don't know what you're getting at here. What would have been different about your reaction given that you'd know he was bluffing (which I've made clear I understand)?

If the other PR is a jailkeeper (if we're in 2a) why can't it be the case that you tried to do this but the kill was blocked by the jailkeeper blocking whichever scum committed the kill?

[implosion]

you're not questioning me at all,

I mean, apart from the fact that I am literally doing that right now...

[implosion]

That's an exact representation of the lazy-ass reasoning behind your vote. It doesn't purport any actual reasoning to why what I'm doing is scum motivated just bullshit shrug POE reasons while taking advantage of the momentum against me because of igorsprite's horseshit claim. You're not really investigating my posts, you're not questioning me at all, you're not trying to solve me

But to answer the whole of this post: you giving a broad "your reasoning is shit" doesn't dissuade me, astonishingly.

I think you've had plenty of time to show that you're town. Lots of people have had that time, and lots of them, in my view (val, and mafmen, and igor, and to a lesser extent Greeting and to a lesser extent but still more than you IMO frogs and psueodaristotle) have done this. When the entire rest of the player list has done this and I've looked at your posts and found a whole lot of things that, sure, could make sense as town, but also completely make sense as scum, well, i mean.

[implosion]

Die.

lotta bravado while you're sitting vanity voting at e-2.

[implosion]

Because I don't put myself into a fight with the tracker and flip out (which, always, always makes people conf-bias the shit out of the reaction) when it's clear their result isn't real? I'd just go "I ddidn't go anywhere, retract", etc. Being informed means there's no pressure from a test result and I think it's very clear I actually felt pressured there.

If the jailkeeper blocked the kill they'd have a soft guilty. Which also clearly hasn't happened. (actually, I probably roleblock the PR read and shoot igorsprite in that world, thinking of it, but regardless, the other PR is extremely obvious and it's clear mafia failed to take advantage of this)

I just don't know if I buy that. I think flipping out in anger at being fake-guiltied is something town-you could do (as evidenced by you claiming to have done it as town) and it's something that mafia-you would see an opportunity to emulate. Or alternatively it was a reaction based on a (justified) emotion of annoyance/anger, and that emotion would have existed whether you're town or scum, because you'd have known he was BSing either way.

I mean, I guess. This is just like, essentially hearsay-upon-hearsay though; to buy that you're town from this argument i'd have to buy that the other PR is as obvious as you say, AND that you and your scumbuddy were so confident in them that you'd be willing to block them over a claimed tracker, AND that you're right about who they are (I think I know who you're talking about but like I'm not 100% sure)... like it's just a very nontrivial situation. If I were scum with a roleblocker and a goon facing a claimed tracker and a person that I'm almost certain is the jailkeeper (but who is not claimed) I have no clue what I'd do. Hell,

you

have no clue what you'd do, evidenced by you changing your mind about what you'd have done in response to my questioning. It's a mechanically complex situation that you're trying to simplify into "if i were scum, i'd have just done X" and that just isn't how scum thinking about night actions... works.

[implosion]

he's coasting on too-confident townreads and shallow POE

You're saying this to call me scum, but this is actually a way to describe my town playstyle that is a remarkable combination of accurate and uncharitable. Falling into too-confident townreads that I fail to get myself out of is something that happens and that I sometimes shoot myself in the foot with, but I also ride those townreads to victory sometimes (I'd like to think more often than random but like, I'm not especially good at online mafia lol)

[implosion]

i really do hope you're i'm right that you're not town if you're acting like this means anything in a newbie game. I'm not being smug or dismissive. I mean I guess I'm being dismissive in the sense that i am literally dismissing you're arguments because I disagree with them. I'm just not being persuaded.

[implosion]

Like, your first reaction to me indicating suspicion on you was to say "this is ass, do better" without offering any kind of alternative or any actual reasoning, when all game you've been saying you've found me generally reasonable and have indicated no suspicion of me whatsoever.

And when I indicate suspicion on you you more or less immediately jump at my throat after like three posts of calling my reasoning ass and seemingly expecting me, if town, to magically change my mind.

Like, wtf? How am I supposed to work with you if we're both town there?

[implosion]

I'm going to stop for now because I think this is plenty to look at for the rest of the player list and I don't think there's a need to bog things down further, and I want to see what others think of the last page.

[implosion]

Who else would you want to go for, MafMen? I feel like I have good reasons to not vote everyone else in the game right now (obviously at least one of those is wrong but etc). My 2nd guess right now would be StrangeMatter but I am quite afraid that that's just me biased because pseudoAristotle didn't have as much time to towntell. StrangeMatter themself on their play alone I have no strong opinion on atm.

[implosion]

In particular I don't see a reason catboi can't make this arc on igor as scum. Like:

the progression between the linked game and now does seem like a mafia player who got ptsd over a very smart wolf pllay

Sure, catboi saw a tracker fakeclaim work fairly well in a previous game and is so more vigilant to make sure we aren't auto-accepting it this game. This is a feasible reading.

Isn't it also feasible to read this as catboi-scum who saw this kind of thing work for scum in a previous game and sees an opportunity to use it to shade an actually trueclaiming tracker?

(fwiw I agree that if igor lives for a long time we should re-evaluate him but my reason for townreading him is not really the claim itself per se, it's the way it was made very similar to what MafMen described earlier)

[implosion]

Actually, I'll just outright say it: implosion should know better than to scumread me here. Screw the self-deprecation.

He asks "how am I supposed to work with you", but his read on me

gives me nothing to work with

. The goal here is to paint me as unreasonable when in fact he is the one not trying to reason with me and is only concerned with flipping me. There was never any attempt to work with me on his part.

I feel very similarly to this in the other direction. catboi-town should know better than to scumread me here.

Like, what do I even gain as scum by voting for them in this way, when I'm basically universally townread. Why would I not just chill, especially in a newbie game. Like, honestly I can see catboi being suspicious of me as a result of this but the way they've gone essentially scorched earth just doesn't make any sense. I still am not sure they're scum! I feel like I've made that clear though maybe I haven't. The biggest of my reasons for voting them is PoE. Sure they're allowed to examine my vote and call it scummy. But like, they're just so quick to jump to absolute certainty that I'm scum to the point that they're all-capsing to demand people lim me after they die. I just don't buy that that's genuine.

[implosion]

I guess I do need to see more from Val in that it's bad to rest on the laurel of my townread on him with him absent today, even if I think it's a fairly rigid laurel.

[implosion]

I feel very similarly to this in the other direction. catboi-town should know better than to scumread me here.

I guess I started writing this post thinking catboi should know my meta better than to think that this kind of thing is scum-indicative from me but that's probably not true since we haven't played in a while and only a few games (i think?) and my train of thought kind of wandered from there so let me rephrase this for clarity:

catboi-town should know better than to lockscum me here.

[implosion]

Re: Greeting. At this point I think it's entirely possible that my townread on him has stemmed from confirmation bias on a couple things I was reading too strongly in to early. That said, I also do want to gut townread the self-hammer thing still; if someone threatens that and is brought to E-1 then they have to either go through with it (which ofc scum has not much reason to do) or back out of it (which looks very bad). The act of saying "well just bring me to e-1 so i can selfhammer then" has not much utility for scum to say. I think that kind of second-level "doing something explicitly negative utility for the town cred" play happens not that often.

StrangeMatter: am I right in reading that you haven't really indicated active suspicion on anyone other than possibly catboi (and even then I'm uncertain) at this point? You've given a lot of questions and commentary but I don't feel like I have a good sense of where you stand on things.

[implosion]

implosion we arent really going to risk testing greeting on that though are we?

The point is more that if Greeting is scum, probably he thought there was a significant chance that we *would* back when he made the comment.

[implosion]

I've known you were someone from EM but I was never quite sure exactly who/I perennially confuse which account from each site corresponds in what way.

I can re-evaluate frogs (and catch up generally) tomorrow but don't have the energy/focus to right now; who else do you think should be in my scum pool that isn't?

[implosion]

Okay. So. I'm here, and fed, and etc.

First, regarding MafMen: my rough impression of him has improved over time. I will need to reread him to make sure that that's based on something real, but basically my impression is that he's continued to have takes that don't really feel like scum interacting with the game state.

Second, regarding catboi: idk. I am really not sure if they'd be going through this rigamarole for this long as scum. The statement that this is outside of their and almost anyone's scumrange is like, probably true. The amount of stamina that that kind of thing would take as scum is really high. I know at least when I'm playing scum it's a lot of effort to fake a post that I think is reasonable and doing that much for that long, etc. I'm not calling catboi locktown or anything but I am being convinced they're not necessarily the best lim for today. The fact that they've softened on me without me doing anything at all to warrant that i guess could be in response to people not buying the push on me but it's also just like, idk, not how i'd be looking at the game as scum there.

Unvote

More coming.

[implosion]

Regarding greeting:

I am aware of the risks. Of course, it would be far from ideal if we vote someone who has a power role. But his carelessness fully assured me that, at best, they’re a Jester who will only serve as a distraction and essentially of no good use for town. They didn’t even use their supposed role Night One, because they thought they would be dead anyway. Or at least that’s one of their versions - not sure which one is considered to be the truth by others now.

If you're saying we should policy lim igor... tough break, we have one mislim left (assuming someone dies tonight). We're not wasting an elimination on igor based on him being "at best a jester". We're limming whoever we think is most likely to be scum. I understand you think igor is up there, but I think it's clear at this point no one else agrees that igor should be eliminated today. You should direct your attention in more useful directions.

[implosion]

Val repeatedly telling catboi that catboi is scumreading igor while catboi tries to tell Val that catboi is not scumreading igor is... a look.

[implosion]

The more i read the more i feel like i have absolutely no finger on the pulse of this game. I'm doing that thing that i always wind up having regrets over where i try to go back and read something where i claimed someone was obviously town and i have no idea why the hell i thought that.

Or I guess I'm trying to read val with active bias in the opposite direction and yeah, his early play is reasonable enough as scum.

This isn't to say that I'm immediately convinced that his kind of BS arguments against catboi make him scum but, etc.

[implosion]

Like, Val's singlemindedness toward catboi right now is really offputting. Even igor, absolute closed box of reasoning that he has been, has admitted now that catboi's posting is giving him pause. Val seems absolutely convinced that every thing catboi posts is tainted. There is like, so little of substance that Val has posted today that isn't about why catboi is scum. I feel like if catboi is scum then they're playing an incredibly good game here, a game that deserves recognition in the sense that like, I don't understand how someone can be so unwaveringly confident that catboi is scum in the face of the past several pages. I can understand scumreading them in spite of that but I can't understand an

unwavering

scumread on them.

[implosion]

StrangeMatter I mostly am just confused why they're seemingly universally above null; it feels like they've played quite on the outskirts today, haven't really committed to any hard stances or... voted at all yet. If you're town then they could easily be scum coasting on a good gamestate. Or if you're scum they'd make sense as a partner.

It says something that I can look through their entire ISO, where they have tons of dialogue with you, and I actually have 0 clue what their read on you is right now or at basically any point (even their answer to my question asking about their reads specifically mentioning you doesn't answer it).

frogsfrogs I still need to do more work.

[implosion]

Honestly just haven't been able to work up the motivation to read the large amount of text that i feel like I need to in order to properly read frogs at this point.

Val, I think I'm willing to vote for now.

(Also igor I appreciate that you're working with people in this way given how you were playing very opaquely earlier)

I imagine MafMen/Greeting may also be willing to compromise there.

VOTE: Val

734 makes me think back and wonder if Val has changed his mind about a major stance this entire game. It feels like he just said early on "i'm gonna townread implo and frogs" and is just never going to re-evaluate any reads. I feel like this game is really hard and his arc just doesn't lend credence to him thinking critically about people's alignments at this point.

[implosion]

.-.

[implosion]

That's E-1, by the way, and I am a VT; before someone claims ignorance of that fact.

Pedit: No, lets. We know its catboi, lets flush out the partner.

if you're trying to "flush out the partner" isn't it a much better idea to... y'know... force two more people to vote for you rather than just one?

[implosion]

Unvote

My vote's still symbolically on Val; consider his selfvote to be my vote. I don't want igor to hammer just yet though.

[implosion]

I feel like this day is unstoppably doomed and whoever we lim is going to flip town no matter who it is right now, tbh.

[implosion]

I agree strongly with catboi that if Val is town he's making this game absolutely impossible to play. And that's like, triply true if Val is correct that catboi is scum.

[implosion]

I would bet the game on catboi being scum here. Lim me, lim catboi when you see the green card, and some scum team we aren't looking take the game that way, you can not count this one towards your win/loss and just say "oh, well we had dickhead Val as town in that game, that one doesn't count."

So basically, you're saying that no one other than you is allowed to play the game anymore. No one else should have any emotional investment in this game that they've been playing for weeks, because *you* are so confident in this one read that you're "willing to stake the game on it" despite the fact that you won't be in the game anymore to stake the game on it.

Imagine if everyone in the game took this kind of attitude; imagine how deeply unfun the game of mafia would be if no one was ever willing to think twice about anything.

I'm

still willing

to look elsewhere, apart from you and catboi, even for a lim today! At least in principle. But you playing like this makes that literally impossible. If you're taking this tact then I'm going to actively ignore everything you're saying right now after you're eliminated if you flip town, out of a combination of not being convinced, spite, and trying to convince you to actually play the darn game today.

[implosion]

I mean my confidence in anything in this gamestate is nil.

I might be willing to try frogsfrogs but while I agree with the sentiment of "lost all appetite" i just don't know if that's the right attitude to have here.

I think the fact that both of us are willing to go elsewhere changes the gamestate a lot and as a first resort it might be good to see what others think of that occurrence. I feel like it fundamentally has to be extremely hard to play as mafia in this kind of game where things are constantly changing on a dime.

[implosion]

We have about a day and a half left which isn't a ton of course but it's not nothing.

I want to hear especially what MafMen and StrangeMatter have to say on the recent happenings (because everyone else I feel like I can at least roughly predict what they're going to say in response to this)

[implosion]

I can probably do MafMen. I'm like, especially susceptible to confirmation bias this game for whatever reason and so me thinking his recent stuff from like a few days ago was townish combined with catboi meta-casing him as town was enough that I kind of ignored him. But under the theory that the last few days would be especially difficult for scum to effectively bluff their way through, he is a player who, well, was absent and wouldn't have had to do that.

StrangeMatter, I don't think Greeting is copying my reads, the point of reads is that if they're sensible people should be able to come to their own conclusions... and besides, the way I'm reading Greeting has little to do with Greeting's own reads.

[implosion]

frogs are you able to make an opinion of your own
i have a townlean on you and i dont really want that to drop

What do you mean by "i don't really want that to drop?" Like, you don't want frogs to be scum?

[implosion]

so lets make that 5 different wagons you participated on

This is a weird comment - why are you mentioning it? Do you think participating on 5 different wagons is scummy? I personally think there are almost no scum who would be brave enough to jump wagons that much in a newbie game, where that kind of thing is stereotyped as scummy.

[implosion]

The way I'm reading Greeting is a combination of the selfvote and the play around it, the way/timing he was pushing igor having not that much utility for scum, and his presence today as things have been in turmoil. But honestly the selfvote is the biggest piece of it.

[implosion]

VOTE: MafMen

I still think a lim today is better than no lim. If this doesn't coalesce in time I'm open to moving elsewhere but the idea of a MafMen wagon gives me a lot less angst over there being no way in hell it flips scum compared to val or catboi or greeting, at least. I'm open to others in theory (frogs or maybe strangematter, idk) as well but I think this is an acceptable direction for the game to go in, provided Val gets over himself and plays. I guess if this flips town he'll be forced to tomorrow anyway.

[implosion]

he wants you to not keep voting yourself

yeah this

[implosion]

you're free to vote catboi. leaving your vote perma on yourself as the game moves forward is just, not playing the game.

[implosion]

It went through a period where it was less firm and has since firmed up again.

What about your reads, which I still have absolutely no idea what they are on basically anyone?

[implosion]

Like StrangeMatter you have not laid down a vote

ever

and it's 14 hours til day end.

where do you stand on things.

[implosion]

maybe we should just no-lim. it's not like it's physically possible to get a majority of people here to agree on anything at any given moment anyway.

[implosion]

i know it's game-losing if catboi and val are both alive and town if we lim someone else who is town but like i still hold a glimmer of hope that maybe something could go right. i'm just, going to be so deeply astonished if either of them is scum at this point.

[implosion]

catboi, how do you feel about you vs val being the lim if it comes down to the two of you?

[implosion]

Well I'm going to sleep soonish and not gonna be up again before deadline so I guess I'm just sitting where I am since it's the biggest wagon? if there's no lim it's not a huge loss and it's not like we couldn't use more time at this point lol

[implosion]

Howdy! It me, the jailkeeper.

I targeted catboi, then StrangeMatter,

not

igor. Notably,

neither of them can be the roleblocker

: if either of them were, then igor would have gotten a result on the corresponding night.

catboi was actually correct that I was not being entirely candid when I was pushing them at first, because I did have a soft guilty on them and wanted them to be the lim for mechanical reasons. However, their effort eventually convinced me, and I also realized that a goon flip on anyone else would clear them. I also knew Val was wrong about them being the roleblocker, which is part of why I was townreading them (I think them making this much effort to stay alive would make more sense if they're the roleblocker than if they're the goon, but they can't be the roleblocker). This is now true of StrangeMatter as well: if anyone other than catboi or StrangeMatter flips goon, then either the other scum is a roleblocker and igor was blocked by them both nights (in which case, neither of them can be that roleblocker, since they were each blocked on one night) or the other scum is a goon (in which case, that scum is igor fakeclaiming). So mechanically, if a goon flips, both of them are cleared.

Ironically, Val complaining at me for "basically claiming VT" served as great cover n1, despite him being simply wrong. As did catboi pointing out that PseudoAristotle "softclaimed"; this made it really easy to pick a target tonight because if StrangeMatter is town it made them a shoo-in to be targeted for the nightkill.

[implosion]

It's natural for scum to block the tracker and shoot for the jailkeeper in this situation btw; there was really very little reason for me to ever jail igor. The jailkeeper is the bigger threat because of the implication that they can't safely kill the tracker while they're alive, and the roleblocker deals perfectly with the tracker in the mean time.

[implosion]

If we do eliminate the roleblocker (if they exist) today, we are in *near* mechanical autowin, though I think it might not be a 100% guarantee. In the event that there's a quicklim or I don't get to say anything else in time, in the event that we eliminate the roleblocker, I will block StrangeMatter. I probably should claim a target in the event that we lim a goon as well, though it matters somewhat less, and I'd want it to be someone else. If we eliminate the goon today then we gain 2 clears.

I personally think it's best for mechanical reasons to take catboi and StrangeMatter off the table for today; they mechanically cannot be scum together and if igor is town then the best lim (the roleblocker) is not either of them.

I also think there's no reason to lim igor today with a mislim left (I still think he's town but I'll probably re-evaluate at some point today)

That leaves a nice small pool of Val, frogs, and MafMen for today.

[implosion]

Also fwiw I don't entirely mind Greeting selfvoting (given that the kill was stopped, it has earned us an extra mislim). At least, I would like to make it clear since this is a newbie game that that is one of the situations where it definitely isn't

objectively

wrong to selfvote. You can certainly argue it was bad play. Of course it doesn't really matter whether it was good or bad play so no need to litigate it too much.

[implosion]

Right now my immediate inclination is toward MafMen, and if not MafMen then frogs. I don't think there's much of a world in which I'll want to lim Val.

[implosion]

Sure. I have a fair amount of brain-energy being consumed by real life atm but etc. I'm certainly happy to evaluate a case.

Right now my only concern with you is that I never really bought you being the n1 kill that much (your presence d1 wasn't very large, and Thynhith was cursing your name on the way down). If you're convinced that no MafMen team makes sense and are persuading me toward frogs over MafMen then I do need to note that that can be a point in favor of you/Andante being the scumteam if frogs does flip town. But I still do have a hard time imagining a lot of things you've done this game happening as scum.


Is your team right now roughly frogs/{Strange or Val}? Forgive me if you've already been explicit about this.
I also am sort of eh on if Strange would have committed the kill last night as scum... if they were thinking ahead I think they'd realize they'd be jailkept for sure because of the suspicion on them of being jailkeeper. But there's no real way to know if they'd think that far ahead or in the same way as I am.

[implosion]

whoa. that wasn't how that was supposed to be formatted.

Alas.

[implosion]

So thinking a bit more about mechanics if we flip a goon...

If we flip a goon, me/SM/catboi are clear. If I announce my target in advance to be someone not-igor, then igor can track someone else. I'm obviously scum's best kill because they have to kill a clear and I'm the power role that's clear. If igor gets a result, then we get a third clear in 5p and we win. If igor claims blocked, then the person I jailkept is cleared (because they can't have both blocked me and blocked igor).

If we flip a roleblocker, me/igor are clear. We target different people. If I die then both of our targets will be cleared (or igor will get a guilty) and we'll have 3 clears in 5p which is a win. If igor dies then my target is clear, we have 2 clears and a jailkeeper in 5p which is a win. In either case the

only

important thing is that we target different players. So I just want to make sure igor is on the same page, to make the plan as simple as possible (note that this overrides what I said earlier):

igor: if we eliminate scum today

, I will target Val no matter what (this is assuming we aren't limming him today). I want you to target either frogs or Andante (whoever we didn't eliminate) no matter what. Please explicitly acknowledge this.

If we don't eliminate scum today, I think it's best not to claim targets in advance (there is some benefit to it but there's also some downside), so ignore this if we eliminate town.

[implosion]

Idk, my inclination right now is generally that I don't really trust associative that highly in a game like this. I don't really see what's particularly townish about Andante's play so far; the coming in without knowledge thing isn't something I buy as a tell in either direction, I don't see anything from her that doesn't look fakeable by someone replacing in. Frogs feels generally more earnest than she does or mafmen did (not that i'd expect her to be like super earnest on replace in but she kind of gives off the vibe of wanting to appear earnest and idk i'm rambling now but you get the point).

[implosion]

VOTE: Andante

I am going to be like,

mega

sad if you are scum btw catboi. I know if you're town this is useless to hear but if you are scum i just want you to feel bad for how painfully you're outplaying me.

I'm more or less ready for day to end when others are. Ofc people don't have to sheep me or anything but I feel like this is just the lim that feels least likely to misfire, and it felt that way yesterday too.

[implosion]

I believe catboi and strange are most likely town, they could've easily voted me off when I was e-1, so I tr them, we have igor and implosion pr, and whoever is left is in the pool I think is maf. this game is way too easy.

golly this sure doesn't convince me.

[implosion]

Alright. I don't think it's worth hiding at this point, scum no-killing was the mechanically correct play here (incidentally, it'd also be their correct play if we'd limmed the roleblocker) no matter who scum is. It's the only way to avoid a mechanically guaranteed loss.

The situation is now this: me, catboi and StrangeMatter are all mechanically cleared, which is great. If anyone wants me to run through the argument again to verify it I'm happy to. We now have to determine if the other scum is frogs, Val or igor, and we have two shots, which is pretty solid odds. I think it's going to take some extreme arguments for me to not want to use our first shot on frogs. Val's play just makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever from scum. This

is

the point at which we do need to start seriously looking at igor, simply because of how many people are clear, but there are quite a few things in igor's play that I also would find kind of shocking to have come from scum. Chiefly among these are his desire to claim early as a tracker where, from his point of view, he'd have a 2/3 shot of being CC-able (if igor is scum then we're in column C, meaning he'd know that tracker will be countered by a cop eventually in C1 and a mason eventually in C3, with C2 as the only setup where the claim works). I also think his elaborate series of claim changes on d2 is absolutely absurd play for scum, the kind of thing that is something along the lines of incredibly high risk for medium-low reward.

igor should claim his result first, technically (and no claiming one thing and then changing to something else at this point, please!)

[implosion]

Actually maybe it was a mechanically guaranteed win if we limmed the roleblocker first even if scum no-killed here, but not an important question.

(Side note, this is by

far

the most mechanically intricate newbie game i've played)

[implosion]

If we flip a VT, you jail igorsprite. igorsprite, if mafia, is exactly a goon and cannot block you. If there is a kill, he is cleared, if there's another no-kill, we have 5 alive with 3 clears and have a mechanical PoE. Doesn't work if you target a VT because roleblocker has priority.

aaaah. clever.

[implosion]

Well, consequence of that is that we don't have a mechanically guaranteed win by limming igor today, so.

VOTE: frogsfrogs

I guess the rest of the game then is just triple checking that this is actually a guarantee.

[implosion]

Just to be absolutely unambiguous in case it matters, I will be jailing igor tonight if we don't win today.

[implosion]

Frogs not acting last night doesn’t mean frogs is town.

[implosion]

What a wild game.

[implosion]

I have many thoughts on this game though I already shared a good amount of them when I claimed.

I did do well, though a decent amount of it was down to luck (blocking the n1 kill) and figuring out the right way to exploit things that were put in front of me (mostly the fact that everyone thought SM was the jailkeeper). I was aiming for scum n1 when I jailed catboi, and d2 and the game ultimately going the way it did was down to catboi thoroughly convincing me that what I saw as a soft guilty wasn't enough to act on.

I think it's clear that this game was decided much more by nightplay than by dayplay. The obvious solution in retrospect for scum would have been to outguess me and shoot igor on night one; if that had happened the game would have had no way to follow an arc like this. The wild thing about this game is that we got so much information from igor in spite of him being repeatedly blocked because he outed d1, because of this quirk in the setup where me blocking someone meant they weren't the roleblocker.

frogs and MafMen both played generally quite well during the day, imo; they did a good job of blending in, making townish comments, and letting the town eat itself alive on days one and two. Both of them had some suspicion on them but were able to avoid the sorts of aggressive pushes that characterized much of the game. Part of their problem was that this isn't enough in a game where so many players (catboi, val, arguably Greeting even though he was limmed) are doing things that would be impressive or unexpected as scum on a level beyond just good play.

[implosion]

The StrangeMatter bait was just a perfect storm of it being believable, pseudoAristotle not being here to comment on it and SM correctly choosing to keep quiet, me being one of the few people who hadn't been forced to claim (in retrospect literally every town member had claimed at this point except me and SM!!!), and the no-kill n1 meaning it earned us an extra mislim.

[implosion]

I want to say that in the absence of catboi and SM being cleared my preferred lim order at the end would probably have been SM->frogs->panic. I really was going to panic a bit if I was forced to decide between any subset of Val/catboi/igor by the end.

Some observations about the people in this game that were sort of hard-towntreadable: I think it's somewhat telling that Greeting was complaining about not being townread for the selfhammering proposition in the dead thread in that me and catboi were the two people basically uninterested in touching a Greeting wagon at that point, and I think both of us were saying it was because of the selfhammering thing. I think this is the kind of thing that you need experience in forum mafia to recognize as what it is: a play that just has more negative utility for scum than positive utility, basically end of story. I felt similarly about a lot of Val's play. These kinds of things won't be as reliable outside of newbie games (especially if a player has meta of doing that kind of thing as scum before) but in general, the argument is even stronger in newbie games precisely because something like threatening a selfhammer is something that newer players might be less likely to recognize as townish; this in turn lowers its utility for scum even further, because in a newbie game they're unlikely to get much town cred for it.

For Val his resolute willingness to die for a Greeting lim, followed by his resolute willingness to die for a catboi lim, was similarly just way too negative-utility for scum. I think one thing that new scum can have trouble with (and that I've been bad at historically) is "changing your mind" in a way that looks convincing; e.g. this is one reason that catboi looked town because his reads were so fluid despite being so strong (going from tunneling me to tunneling val to not feeling good about anything). Val was sort of the opposite, in that the way in which he was not changing his mind looked very town because new scum in that situation will typically feel like they need to come up with some out for when catboi or Greeting ultimately flips town.

For catboi it was an extremely complicated story in terms of

my

reasons for my read changing. I saw igor's fake guilty and I was like hell yeah and then I started biking to campus being all happy with myself for blocking the scum who made the kill, and knowing we'd have an extra inno, and... yeah that didn't turn out that way. Like catboi said, the amount of effort that they put in while at death's door and the way they kept trying to work with people (in particular we worked together very well this game after we stopped tunneling each other), and the way their reads were in so much flux, it was all just way too much effort for what I knew had to be a goon to be putting in (I didn't realize that catboi had to be a goon if scum for a bit, that realization happened in tandem with my read on them softening).

For igor iirc I had him as like, not locktown but really, really town before the claim. But it sort of is another case of, why the everloving heck would you do this as scum. The whole faking a pseudoguilty and then changing the story twice thing, while not good play as town, is buck-wild play as scum. Scum do not want to be that conspicuous, full stop.

I think all of this adds up to the second half of why this game is likely to be hard for scum (the first half being night play).