Open 853 - PYP X/Y S_S [game over!]

[implosion]

Howdy.

[implosion]

I think it'd depend on who the other scum are. I think the automatic thing I'd want to do is try to think of what I'd do as town and have the others do the same, and just submit those numbers possibly editing them to avoid collisions.

[implosion]

I did look at some recent runs of the setup when I was picking my number. I think the most interesting one was one where the biggest 3 numbers were all scum (though those numbers were much less big than the big numbers here - 18, 20, 42). It was also an explicit gambit in the scum PT.

I don't think Titus's number makes her auto-town (maybe a bit town, idk) but I do think Gamma's comment is +town.

[implosion]

I am curious why Mala and Aristeia both have large powers of 2 (really it's quite impressive that 9/14 players submitted some power of 2 but almost certainly not meaningful)

[implosion]

why would you doublebid as scum i dont get it

It's an anti-associative gambit.

[implosion]

I think this is actually the fewest number collisions that have ever happened in the draft in this setup - out of the 17 other runs of the game I see one that had 5 people colliding and one that had 6, but this takes the cake with only 4, and most of them had like... in the vicinity of 8-9 people who picked the same number as someone else.

This could theoretically be meaningful in some useful way but probably isn't.

[implosion]

I've now realized that I missed a handful of games that weren't on the wiki page - I think it's still fewest though. Also Titus has done this before, but last time she submitted one more 9 than this time. Curious.

[implosion]

well actually a town did apparently pick 21 recently I missed that one, I think my point still makes sense though

I think this is actually the fewest number collisions that have ever happened in the draft in this setup - out of the 17 other runs of the game I see one that had 5 people colliding and one that had 6, but this takes the cake with only 4, and most of them had like... in the vicinity of 8-9 people who picked the same number as someone else.

However strategically speaking I don't think it makes a lot of sense to have multiple mafia players pick large numbers. I guess it could be wifomy in a way.

Like I pointed out, scum literally have picked "Oops, All Large Numbers" as an explicit gambit before - the fact that their version of "large numbers" was in the double digits rather than the triple digits is meaningless, the intent was still to have their numbers be bigger than the town's.

This could theoretically be meaningful in some useful way but probably isn't.

Why do you think it isn't meaningful? I know it's difficult to draw concrete conclusions but isn't it at least worth looking at during RVS? It seems like a major anomaly to me

Yeah I mean, that's why I brought it up. I just can't think of any interpretation of it that seems particularly likely to actually be informationally useful. It is definitely related to "lots of people picked big numbers and probably someone with a big number is scum" but that's statistically the case anyway because... a lot of people picked big numbers.

[implosion]

Oh no.

well actually a town did apparently pick 21 recently I missed that one, I think my point still makes sense though

I think this is actually the fewest number collisions that have ever happened in the draft in this setup - out of the 17 other runs of the game I see one that had 5 people colliding and one that had 6, but this takes the cake with only 4, and most of them had like... in the vicinity of 8-9 people who picked the same number as someone else.

This could theoretically be meaningful in some useful way but probably isn't.

Why do you think it isn't meaningful? I know it's difficult to draw concrete conclusions but isn't it at least worth looking at during RVS? It seems like a major anomaly to me

Yeah I mean, that's why I brought it up. I just can't think of any interpretation of it that seems particularly likely to actually be informationally useful. It is definitely related to "lots of people picked big numbers and probably someone with a big number is scum" but that's statistically the case anyway because... a lot of people picked big numbers.

However strategically speaking I don't think it makes a lot of sense to have multiple mafia players pick large numbers. I guess it could be wifomy in a way.

Like I pointed out, scum literally have picked "Oops, All Large Numbers" as an explicit gambit before - the fact that their version of "large numbers" was in the double digits rather than the triple digits is meaningless, the intent was still to have their numbers be bigger than the town's.

Fixed.

[implosion]

I see Ausuka has basically said what's needed so I won't reiterate more.

I think Ausuka calling me scummy for not crafting a narrative and pushing someone based on the numbers is a bit weird; like yes I'm poisoning the well a bit with the phrase "crafting a narrative" but I really don't think it'd be difficult to do as scum. It's like the mechanical talk at the start of any open game - easy for scum to participate in in a way that helps them blend in, a lot of the time. And I ultimately don't think it's very likely that the draft truly contains info that will let us pick a lim with significantly >rand odds most of the time.

I agree with whoever said Bellaphant's posting is somewhat town. I don't really like that comment from Ausuka toward me and I don't really feel strongly about their comments toward Aristeia - they're very much correct but that correctness doesn't necessarily translate to alignment. Don't think they're particularly scummy on the whole, but I don't think they should be townbinned yet though I understand why someone would.

Enchant's 2 posts so far ring much truer to what I know of his scum game than his town game; at least, to my memory, I've seen him actually play the game as town and decidedly not play the game as scum (though I'm probably going to over-weight that scum game in my mind because I knew he was scum all game).

I'm also interested in 2/3 of Klick's posts being answering Aristeia's exercise, and then later complaining that they can't accurately answer Aristeia's exercise, but not necessarily scummy.

I could probably write a wall worth of random comments but shrug.

VOTE: Enchant

[implosion]

Oh and as for Ari herself, eh idk how to read her off this. I'm terrible at reading her generally. I can see scum reason for playing how she is, but I do think that her play is a little on-the-nose if scum did coordinate on picking big numbers in *this* game. I haven't read the other game but I doubt the scum immediately came out of the gate calling each other town for also picking big numbers.

[implosion]

This is exactly the issue I have with your early posts - you contributed to the mechanical discussion but never used that for reads. It's fine to believe there's no way to push someone based off the draft because it's NAI but if that's the case I wouldn't expect someone to make several posts contributing to the draft analysis. It helps you blend in and doesn't start alignment based discussion

But I did try to start alignment based discussion - I threw it out there in case someone else had a conclusion they could draw from it. And I did start giving reads for other reasons.

Incredibly when I voted enchant i remembered that he was the only one who picked #1 and forgot that that meant he's a guaranteed PR. Alas.

[implosion]

If people won't treat me in basic good faith then I don't really feel any obligation to explain myself.

The answer I gave was the best-faith answer I could give. If I gave numbers, they'd be in bad faith.

I suspect others who gave non-answers feel similarly.

[implosion]

When you pick a number that is higher than 100, you're basically ceding priority in the pick order to every two digit number without really gaining much in terms of "less collision probability" so I find these picks to be more likely to come from town than scum.

I think it's more likely that a town player would pick a very large out there number rather than a scum player because there are more players in the scum PT and one of them is likely to say "well why dont you pick like 25 instead of 212?"

This is an interesting argument for the magnitudes being different, actually. I mean my picking 16 was partially because I thought it was around the point where collision became very unlikely but that I'd still beat some people out. I think it is assuming a good amount about scum PT dynamics, though, and that could depend on who the scum are. For instance if Malakittens is accurately reporting her reason for picking her number, maybe she just wanted to pick that number and didn't care even if her scumbuddies said it was a bad idea to go that high, or maybe she said she was gonna do that and scum said it was a good idea because she had the reason to go with it.

[implosion]

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=87462
https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=84708

Here are a couple recent scum PTs. The first one scum literally just say numbers with no coordination whatsoever. The second one they coordinate, and in coordinating, eventually decide that the best thing to do is to have each of them just independently pick numbers.

So... yeah. I see no reason why this sort of dynamic, which with my solid sample size of 2 is present frequently, couldn't lead to some scum picking a high number. Heck 2 of the people in the 2nd game picked their numbers because they'd picked them previously in another run of the game, which would be literally the exact reason Titus would have picked her number as scum.

[implosion]

This whole back and forth is deeply boring to me at this point. I don't really get much of a read on either of them from it.

[implosion]

I've given lots of thoughts and I will be giving more shortly!

[implosion]

Thought 1: I would like Dwlee to take some stances on some people.

[implosion]

i have to say this out loud but i want to ask other people what they feel about ari's position because right now all im seeing is manipulative scum

No

In particular while this isn't a bad post per se it feels a bit like a scummy pop in and I don't like that they have not given any reads at this point.

[implosion]

oh hey.

[implosion]

I was thinking this earlier, he had a scummy pop-in but I wanted to see if he would start scumhunting on his own if he was left alone

This is fair and probably the first thing from Ausuka that I think is actually pretty town-indicative.

[implosion]

Moreso for the "wanted to see if he would start scumhunting" thing than the mini-mind-meld on the phrase "scummy pop in"; I think it shows clearly that Ausuka did view that post that way but did opt not to do anything about it and I don't see much reason for scum to notice that and choose not to poke at it.

[implosion]

I like that Gamma is immediately trying to make sense of the game.

I like this read from HEM
so I probably won't be voting him rn

I do think his ari push is crossing a line tho

Why do you like it? I know I'd already townread you and iirc someone else had as well (though I might be thinking of hem)

[implosion]

I do think hem potentially having a propensity to push people as scum by calling them defensive is relevant. It's not a be-all-end-all but it does recontextualize his push a bit.

[implosion]

hem, do you have any reads currently other than aristeia-scum and gamma-town (and any others I may have missed in a brief iso-skim)?

[implosion]

And do you make anything of the new people jumping on your wagon?

[implosion]

hem, if you're not in a healthy headspace, please do yourself a favor and log off for the day. Come back later when you can look at things more clearly.

[implosion]

I'm not against a hem wagon but I would like more contribution from at least Mala, Titus, Klick, and Enchant, who each have 3 posts total, before day end. Have people played with Enchant in games where he does this (i.e. posts no content whatsoever) as town? I think the only game off the top of my head where I saw Enchant-town was a replace-in, so may be different meta, but he was actually participating.

[implosion]

VOTE: dwlee

[implosion]

I would like an explanation from Gamma on Klick if he can elaborate bc this does ring a bell for klick scum to me but I can't remember what game. It could even be the same one but idr specifically.

Just the data I'm afraid

Does this mean my number pick?

[implosion]

I distinctly remember playing a white flag game and I distinctly remember playing a game where Klick was a bit lurky in a similar way to this and people were townreading them but I was too lazy to check if they were the same game.

[implosion]

I don't especially mind a townread on dwlee for ~reasons~ at this point tbh. I don't agree with it obviously but I think they have enough content to be townread. Wouldn't mind an elaboration of course but I don't see it as scummy per se.

[implosion]

I don't especially mind a townread on dwlee for ~reasons~ at this point tbh. I don't agree with it obviously but I think they have enough content to be townread. Wouldn't mind an elaboration of course but I don't see it as scummy per se.

Do you townread Dwlee yourself?

Check the votecount.

[implosion]

I don't especially mind a townread on dwlee for ~reasons~ at this point tbh. I don't agree with it obviously but I think they have enough content to be townread. Wouldn't mind an elaboration of course but I don't see it as scummy per se.

some of this feels unnecessary

Entirely fair, tbh, it felt a bit unnecessary as I was saying it but I still wanted to.

what do you make of implo saying dwlee is townreadable

that's not what implosion is saying.

implosion is voting for dwlee because implosion thinks dwlee is mafia.

implosion is saying he doesn't mind if someone[titus] makes him a case for dwlee being town.

he is also saying he believes dwlee has enough content that Titus can make a read of dwlee one way or the other.

This is accurate.

[implosion]

VOTE: humaneatingmonkey

[implosion]

Roden does feel a little bit on-the-fringe rather than in-the-thick-of-things. The half of his iso that is basically saying "golly this numbers thing sure did derail us huh" is fairly easy content to throw in as scum, I could see him as an avenue to pursue.

[implosion]

I haven't played with him before to my memory though so I can't speak to "should have done more by now".

[implosion]

okay, in any case, i'll be absent from here on and only appearing to and for

watch my wagon. that's a wagon on town. if people push for it aggressively without trying to parse more info from me, that means it's scum-motivated. i haven't read the game beyond the posts i didn't make today.

Gosh golly this is a bad post. Town does not say "This future behavior: if this is what you see in the future, push the people who do it" because scum will just... not do that if they genuinely think it's going to get them caught.

Ari no longer gives me heartburn

I liked their recent posting wrt HQ and dwlee

I was also thinking ari town stock was going up around this point.

I do have many more thoughts that I am collecting atm, I've caught up.

[implosion]

An unordered smattering of thoughts.

1) The more time passes, the more I don't really buy that Enchant should be 100% no-holds-barred off the table today. There's no universe in which scum are gonna NK them over e.g. HQ and Gamma, who are 2nd and 3rd in the draft and widely townread. They are Simply Not Playing The Game. They're going to continue not playing the game on future days. And yes, they're a guaranteed PR... which includes as scum. Enchant could be a scum 1-shot vig or 2-shot PGO, among other dangerous roles. Shouldn't whether or not they're a good elimination depend at least a little bit on whether or not they're scummy? And right now they're playing exactly the same game (read: non-game) they played in chromavalon.

2) StD, Aristeia, softly mathblade but don't push me on it because I have no actual reason (and I'm open to hearing arguments from StD but I don't right now see it), and HQ (but not as strongly as some people have been saying) are recently townish.

3) I'm not wed to the hem wagon. But I do like it. I think hem's behavior makes quite a lot of sense as scum; their play feels much more aesthetic than substantive. Asking people what they think of things, but not until recently really starting to take any real stances on their wagon; I think town in hem's position is like, a little caught between a rock and a hard place because no one was biting on the aristeia suspicion. But even so the play around her feels really awkward and almost unmotivated - like he never really had all that much impetus for people to vote for aristeia, just for them to be able to call her scum and to defend themself. Disclaimer in that I didn't really re-read their ISO before typing this so maybe it's bunk but yeah.

4) The reason I'm not wed to the hem wagon is that there's an unusually large number of people that I feel are pretty good potential scum. I see lots of potential in Roden, Dwlee, Enchant to be scum, and there's others who I don't have a bead on like Mala and Bellaphant and maybe Titus who I wouldn't be opposed to pressuring. But saying the wagon "stalled out" as an L-2 wagon this early in the game feels... wrong.

[implosion]

Do tell.

[implosion]

I am okay with an HEM wagon and am in fact on the wagon

[implosion]

Wouldn’t you scumread me because I am the one who said it stalled out?

I disagree with you, but I don't think it's scummy to call it stalled out, just incorrect. Hence, "wrong".

I am okay with an HEM wagon and am in fact on the wagon

Then why shop 6 alternatives?

Why not?

[implosion]

-snip-

I think Enchant is the kind of player who could easily yolo pick a killing role or a blocking role or something. I'm not going to push it hard right now, mostly because yes, it is true that if we paranoia-lim Enchant d3 and they are an ascetic cop we get 2 results. But I am going to be *really mad* if they don't get limmed d3-4 if they keep playing this way.I guess frankly I'm just very annoyed at what they're doing, because I had to play a game where they were doing this and I had to hold my tongue because it was chromavalon and I was their merlin, and this time I don't have to hold my tongue.

[implosion]

I am okay with an HEM wagon and am in fact on the wagon

You seem ready to jump ship the moment someone else starts getting pressured though.

I am! It's early in the day and I don't see why I should bind myself to a wagon I like right now.

I really just don't view the game of mafia the same way Titus does where there's some grand explanation of things; I am voting HEM because I want to vote HEM right now and wouldn't mind if the wagon went through, and there's lots of other players that I think are also good lims or who are low-info slots that could use more info before d1 ends.

[implosion]

Like sure, if I'm scum with hem i might want to pressure them well shopping alternatives.

I can also be (and indeed am) town who thinks hem is a good shot for scum but feels no need to commit to the hem wagon as the Only Thing Of Interest Today, because (a) why would I, and (b) I'm not like, 100% sure they're scum.

Like, if I'm scum with hem, what reason would I have for being so unabashedly bold about "shopping for alternatives"? I could just... not. Or I could just do it and not say I am. Or I could just like, focus on one person who I also like as scum. Doesn't it make more sense for me to just be town who's train-of-thought-ing? Does Titus calling me scum with hem mean that she's scum with hem bc she's shopping for an alternative in me? No. (Yes, that's a bit reductive, but etc).

[implosion]

okay, in any case, i'll be absent from here on and only appearing to and for

watch my wagon. that's a wagon on town. if people push for it aggressively without trying to parse more info from me, that means it's scum-motivated. i haven't read the game beyond the posts i didn't make today.

Gosh golly this is a bad post. Town does not say "This future behavior: if this is what you see in the future, push the people who do it" because scum will just... not do that if they genuinely think it's going to get them caught.

I also want to reiterate this point because no one's mentioned it and I was genuinely surprised that no one else called this post scummy while I was rereading.

[implosion]

I think picking ascetic cop is much stronger than picking a jailkeeper/roleblocker type role because ascetic cop can't be blocked in the first place and by picking it you are essentially permanently blocking the cop.

Absolutely.

Mafia players don't always play optimally.

Again, this isn't really

important

, I'm just annoyed that we're basically Contractually Obligated to let Enchant not-play-the-game for 2-3 days.

[implosion]

I don't think Enchant-Town should auto-pick ascetic cop 100% of the time... because if town was supposed to do that they'd essentially be denying the existence of ascetic cop because scum would just shoot the ascetic cop in 100% of games. The "optimal" play for town is some kind of mixed strategy where they pick it sometimes.

I think this is all wholly irrelevant because frankly treating Enchant like a player who is going to play with a focus on optimizing the probability that they will win... is inane. They autoquickhammer anyone at E-1. That's not the kind of player who's going to auto-pick ascetic cop as scum to deny it. It's also not the kind of player who's going to always pick ascetic cop as town because they think it's the Correct Play. I agree in broad strokes with what Aristeia is saying but they do have an assumption (which to her credit, she is explicit about):

Let's say in both worlds Enchant is an Ascetic Cop because it is the strongest TPR [this is an assumption]

which is, frankly, simply incorrect because Enchant isn't that kind of player.

I'm not strongly interested in continuing discussion along these lines; I'd rather hear from Math why he thinks I'm pinging as scum.

[implosion]

(and if there's a reason he's not voting me when I'm literally the only player on the player list who he is calling scum right now)

[implosion]

I think this is all wholly irrelevant because frankly treating Enchant like a player who is going to play with a focus on optimizing the probability that they will win... is inane. They autoquickhammer anyone at E-1. That's not the kind of player who's going to auto-pick ascetic cop as scum to deny it. It's also not the kind of player who's going to always pick ascetic cop as town because they think it's the Correct Play. I agree in broad strokes with what Aristeia is saying but they do have an assumption (which to her credit, she is explicit about):

yes but if Enchant is

town

then scum can't KNOW if he's an ascetic cop or not, he's probly ascetic cop more often than not and therefore they would shoot there as a first resort to stop him from getting results.

If an ascetic cop flips somewhere else, then obviously these rules no longer apply to him.

I think the most likely scenario is that Enchant is scum and we'll lim them d3.

I think the second most likely scenario is that Enchant is town and that scum will kill players who are actually playing the game and let us mislim them on d3.

[implosion]

actually y'know maybe i don't actually care why math thinks i'm pinging as scum x_x it's probably going to be something that just doesn't even mesh with how i play the game

[implosion]

Look here’s Implosion correcting you again.

Like ???

Let me guess this isn’t a “correction”.

this is me saying I agree with her in broad strokes and disagree on a detail.

[implosion]

Ari, do you have particularly pronounced reads outside of hem right now?

[implosion]

In short you’re the only player making sense and the only one besides me considering HEM town

Towns tend to tunnel on D1 and you waffling and such gives me pause.

It’s like you aren’t really deciding on much.

let me introduce you to any game i've ever played as town

[implosion]

if you can find a single town game i have ever played where i tunneled on d1 then i will let you control my vote for today.
(not actually but)

[implosion]

i am like, the consummate terrible-at-deciding-things and bad-at-getting-lasting-scumreads player.

[implosion]

if you can find a single town game i have ever played where i tunneled on d1 then i will let you control my vote for today.
(not actually but)

That was “Towns” meaning the collective

I don’t know enough of your meta as I don’t think we’ve played together recently and if we have I don’t remember.

So Towns, Collectively on d1, have a tendency to Tunnel, and I am Not Tunneling, therefore I must not be in the town?????

In short implosion you are one of my few scum pings but it isn’t to the level of a vote yet.

"one of my few" - who are the others? It looks like it's just me and maybe Bellaphant?

[implosion]

So reads besides HEM and me?

Has Ari stated a scumread on you?

[implosion]

Correct

Since I don’t know your meta I use the general collective and it seems off

I am weaker with social reads so it’s difficult to explain.

This is just so deeply foreign to the way I view the game of mafia.

[implosion]

I honestly think it's like, just Bad for the game of mafia for any town player to ever be that sure of any read on day one full stop.

[implosion]

I've been appreciating your play this game Ari fwiw.

[implosion]

(at least, now that we're past the whole numbers apocalypse)

[implosion]

I feel stronger about HEM flipping scum and if HEM flips town your scum equity goes down by a lot so it makes literally no sense for me to try to flip you today.

I kinda disagree with this. Nobody joined Gamma and me on Klick's wagon when HEM started gaining momentum, if scum wanted to save HEM they would just make Klick a counter wagon. Imo scum is either fine with the HEM wagon, or didn't want to endorse a Klick counter wagon because then it would be SvS.

I kind of disagree as a matter of course with this type of analysis; I think it's reductive. "If scum wanted to save HEM they would just counterwagon". What if scum weren't online at the time? What if the scumteam is HEM and 2 of {Enchant, Mala, Bella, Dwlee} - players who are either lurking or avoiding being majorly committal? What if the scumteam is HEM, one of those players and someone else on the HEM wagon who's currently committed to the bus?

Scum also can't just go "wee, counterwagon" willy-nilly - if they're the third vote on a Klick wagon and HEM flips scum, their vote's gonna be scrutinized. Heck, it'll probably be scrutinized in the moment.

[implosion]

Tbh I also very strongly think there is almost no way that a gamestate-wide statement like "there's three wagons right now" can mean anything in any game of mafia - certainly it can mean something with the benefit of hindsight, but I am confident that you will never be able to correctly state some high-level reason about who is scum based just on the fact that "there's 3 wagons" with any accuracy whatsoever.

[implosion]

I think Ari's leading theory of HEM/Enchant/Math is very solid, in the sense that it's almost certainly not perfectly correct (because calling the scumteam at this point is atrociously unlikely) but that I think it's got great odds of going 2 for 3 and I like the fact that someone with a lot of sway in the gamestate is pushing it.

I don't know how I feel about Mathblade's alignment right now; I think probably in practice there's a good chance he'll never do anything that I will be able to confidently glean a read from.

I essentially have a sort of backlog of people that I want to make sure see some amount of centrality in the game at some point, because they haven't been in the thick of things enough. Of course still Dwlee, as well as Bella and Roden and probably Harley as well. Not even gonna put Enchant on the list because I'm fully convinced Enchant is not going to play this game.

[implosion]

So then either scum likely have an active member if HEM is scum,
But then why the wagons as they are?

It just doesn’t add up

I mean.

This adds up perfectly if Ari's scumteam call is exactly correct. You're an active scum, the wagons are as they are because you're trying to fight the HEM wagon and not gaining ground.

[implosion]

To be clear I don't agree with the premise of "HEM-scum means there must be an active scum". I have no idea why that is necessarily true, or even why it'd be particularly likely. It sounds like you're just basing it on one anecdote?

[implosion]

Put scum HEM in the same instances (inactive scum)

You should get the same conclusion (wagons disappears)

I'm quite confident that there are many, many, many, many, many, many more things that contribute to whether a wagon maintains itself or dissolves than "whether the other scum are active". And I see no reason why "the other scum being active" should be prioritized as an important thing to consider in that dynamic. Even if it is an important part of the dynamic of wagons on scum staying alive or not, they're two different games... one single game where this one player had a wagon that happened to dissipate doesn't mean all games with that player will have the same result if one thing about them is the same. This just seems absurd.

[implosion]

There’s always a chance I am wrong, but the odds of that are slim.

I think a lot about whether I am wrong actually.

You know, I was chatting with a professor who I've been working with over the past few months at a house party a week ago. We were talking about the double slit experiment and the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, because he's working on a thing related to them and I was part of a focus group that talked about that thing. And I think the double slit experiment is fascinating - it absolutely in no way jives with any intuition any person could possibly have. Yet it somehow is the way it is.

I think it's a great way to frame just how easy it is for people to be wrong about things they have perfect confidence in, and I think it's a good lens to see how important it is to inject a healthy dose of humility into the way that we navigate the world.

Why do you think the odds of you being wrong are slim? Are you just, that good at this game?

[implosion]

What's the double slit experiment btw? Is it relevant to the game or should I just google it?

No it's not relevant to the game; yes you should google it because it's *extremely* strange and lays bare just how little we know about the universe.

[implosion]

I would like to officially lodge a formal complaint that I am being (directly or indirectly, and by different people) accused of both desperately trying to keep the HEM lim alive, and of refusing to commit to the HEM wagon in favor of shopping for alternatives

[implosion]

Anyway. Good night thread. I expect to wake up to at least double, if not triple the current page count. Don't disappoint me.

[implosion]

It’s a bad take Implosion has regardless. Scum!Math wouldn’t hard defend a buddy that way but leaning Math town. The fact that he’s pissing off Ari, is typical town!Math.

To be clear: I'm not calling Math scum. I never called Math scum! I said that I liked Ari's solve but the reason for that is the two other people it contains and the fact that Ari (someone talking a lot) was pushing it.

This is my opinion on Math's alignment:

I don't know how I feel about Mathblade's alignment right now; I think probably in practice there's a good chance he'll never do anything that I will be able to confidently glean a read from.

[implosion]

How do you have 3 associative so confidently this early in the game?

He's shopping.

You're literally calling the wagon dying when it very much is not! One person unvoted, and she said she unvoted because she wanted to take a break from the game... not because she thinks HEM is town.

[implosion]

I'm sort of willing to read Math by proxy to consensus to some degree. And I can understand (and partially agree with) people calling him town here - I just don't think I understand his meta enough to really have any confidence, because it feels like he's a player that meta understanding is somewhat necessary to read accurately.

I find it suspect there's a push on Enchant "not playing the game" but not on mala.

It's a meta push. I don't know Mala's meta. You were in Chromavalon, you should understand that Enchant refused to play that game the same way Enchant is refusing to play this game.

@harley: I have no read on hem (but his wagon is stacked with my town reads), enchant seems to be basically a policy elim and math is town. So, I hate this team and also, who's this confident on a team on day one? They even acknowledge this, and then immediately after say they are probably right about 2/3, which feels like weird double speak in the same sentence.

Why do you "hate this team"? It sounds like you'd have no reason to be surprised if 2/3 of it was right, since you have no read on HEM and most likely no read on Enchant. When you say "I have no read on them", do you really mean something like "I don't think anyone should have a proper read on either of them yet"? I could understand that stance on Enchant (but disagree with it), but I don't understand it on HEM.

[implosion]

I felt like enchant seemed mainly for policy almost, bases on the convo Ari had with math: if it's something else then can you explain?

I I said elsewhere I should have more thoughts on hem but I can't get anything solid on them. If I looked at his wagon I didn't town read most of the people on it.

I also hate "teams", especially day one. Ithis may be a play style thing. What I was more worried about was your positioning: you seemed to be saying it was reasonable and unreasonable and then reasonable again in the same breath?

My calling Enchant scum is because their play is ostensibly identical to this recent game. Giving 0 actual opinions and 0 actual content that's meaningfully related to the game. That game is strong in my mind because I was town who knew Enchant was scum (literally informed of it) but had to be coy, because of the nature of the setup.

I also hate "teams" to the degree that they are about pinning people on associatives on day one. But I'm on board with hem and Enchant being called scum (and at the time with Math but now at least somewhat less so, but also Ari has soured on Math-scum it seems so it's all moot).

I could also case hem at some point maybe (I haven't actually read the other cases but an independent one could be useful); there is a degree to which I anticipate the next few RL days being gear-grindy since the top wagon can't be here, though. I do want to keep momentum up for useful game activity because I feel good about the overall amount of info that's been generated in the game; I feel I think better about my reads right now than I do on average at this point in a d1.

[implosion]

The other game I've played with Enchant, at least that I remember, was a game where they replaced in on d2-3ish and got like, immediately universally townread as town when their slot's previous occupant was contentious. So I know Enchant is capable of actually interacting with the gamestate as town. I'm sure reading them isn't as simple as "are they literally playing the game of mafia" but well, in this game their only content now is an explanationless vote on a person who just had 2 people unvote them. So.

[implosion]

I don't really want to *wagon* enchant right now because of the annoying they're-first-in-draft thing. I mean I

want

to but I know we're not

supposed

to. I don't really want to tear down the hem wagon either right now; in theory I'm okay with wagoning someone else while they're gone but also I don't really like the idea of a wagon that is explicitly not about maybe-eliminating someone and is just about "oh, we'll just Pressure them while the person we want to wagon is gone". I still could be convinced to in principle but I'm happy just sitting on hem for now.

I'll make some kind of case or bullet points later today most likely, possibly early evening or maybe late evening depending on various.

[implosion]

Which game is this?

I didn't realize it until you asked but it's that same white flag game that came up earlier.

[implosion]

I believe I'm 5th in the draft, and I'm pretty sure about that

Not 100% sure why I listed you tbh. Ausuka who's actually in that spot is also if not widely townread at least not particularly suspicious right now so shrug.

If someone else was playing like Enchant has this game with top pick, would you have the same attitude towards them?

I'd still be annoyed but probably not as annoyed and I wouldn't be calling it scummy.

That being said HEM Implosion Enchant might be a thing.

Ah, the classical implosion double bus in a game brimming with PRs. classic. definitely something that i'd do in any setup at all, especially this one.

[read: sarcasm]

[implosion]

If someone else was playing like Enchant has this game with top pick, would you have the same attitude towards them?

I'd still be annoyed but probably not as annoyed and I wouldn't be calling it scummy.

the thing is low presence is pretty regular PR play I would think
so Enchant doing it shouldn't be such a red flag

Well, the reason for doing that is to dodge a nightkill by making other targets look more attractive, in principle. While that does apply here in some way, the fact that it's public knowledge that pick #1 is a PR changes that calculus for scum a lot.

[implosion]

A smattering of points on hem. I'm going to do this by just going backwards through his ISO because it'll hopefully avoid common ground with previous cases (plus I think their recent play is worse than their early play). And I will start by re-mentioning this. Their most recent post is very similar, and fit in line with what I described of hem's play being aesthetic rather than material: rather than picking out specific people and targeting them, or trying to appeal to specific people on the wagon, or really making any real effort to use their wagon to find scum... they just say "watch out for people who just rode this wagon". That'd be 8 people if the wagon goes to lim. Not exactly a useful statement. In context, as a last post they're making before they won't be available for a while (and where they think they could be limmed while gone) it feels even scummier; I think natural town inclinations in that situation would be things like a final reads list or a couple specific scumreads, or even something vindictive directed at people on the wagon. But a general "this wagon on me is sus" is utterly useless to the town in the event that hem is limmed.

The closest they got to calling out specific people on the wagon was here. They called out Aristeia for a while but even got shaky on that. I think what speaks volumes on their alignment is what's absent in their ISO, rather than what's present. 122 posts and as far as I can tell they have given exactly two actual reads: a now-retracted scumread on Aristeia that is the focus of roughly half their ISO, and an "I'll die by this read" townread on Mathblade. For most of the game they've been the second-most active player and yet they've left not a trace to tie themself to any other player. This is the brunt of what I mean by asethetic rather than substantive: while they are engaging with the game, they are not making any claims, reaching any conclusions, or, to borrow from MathBlade, creating any hypotheses.

[implosion]

The other weird quirk of this game that I do want to make mention of is this weird conflation of Dwlee and Roden by some people, partially including me. I think I've done this because in my mind they're both "not in the thick of things", though in slightly different ways. It feels like neither has been involved in any major arguments, or been the major person pushing any perspective, etc. I think this weird coupling will become naturally decoupled as they each take more committal stances and have prolonged direct interactions with other individual people, because those are the things I feel are lacking.

[implosion]

Gosh golly this is a bad post. Town does not say "This future behavior: if this is what you see in the future, push the people who do it" because scum will just... not do that if they genuinely think it's going to get them caught.

it's not smart to say but why does town never say it?

"never" is a very silly word to use in mafia. See: that rant I went on about MathBlade being too certain of things.

I think town will rarely make that post because it doesn't jive with the way town think about being wagoned. I don't think the mindset when town is being wagoned is typically "well, clearly someone on my wagon is scum but I have no idea who. I'll just say that and let everyone else sort it out and it'll be fine", because town typically either have a strong investment in winning the game (in which case, they'll be more specific or more helpful) or an emotional investment in the game (which hem's posting IMO does not demonstrate - they seem... fine with dying, based on a reaction that amounts to "well, if i'm limmed, just look at my wagon, mkay?")

Like, compare this post from me in a game from 6 years ago where I was being wagoned and eventually got mislimmed from it. This game springs to my mind whenever I'm trying to think about how town reacts to wagons, because I had both this investment in winning and an emotional investment in my wagon. I was desperately trying to figure it out, desperately proposing alternative lims and trying to get people on board with them. Trying to solve the game. hem's doing nothing of that sort, they've given no analysis of anyone on their wagon, no real reads, nothing to go off of but "hey, my wagon sure is terrible". And that is the absolute easiest thing in the world to fake as scum.

No, I'm not trying to say "all town will react the same way I did six years ago to being wagoned". But there are a lot of things about this reaction that just feels extremely not how town reacts to wagons in general. Like. Let's look at the important sentences from that post again, and lets add in their most recent post.

watch my wagon. that's a wagon on town. if people push for it aggressively without trying to parse more info from me, that means it's scum-motivated..

if yall decide to L me, just watch out for people who just rode this wagon. yall smart and also i forgive you.

if you flip town... no shit it's a wagon on town, and no shit people are going to scrutinize it. That's how the game works. Obviously we're going to watch out for people who rode the wagon. Obviously we're going to look at who pushed aggressively, and who didn't.

My take on these posts from hem is that they are vapid nothingness masquerading as a reaction. They're posts from scum who are doing the bare minimum to look like they have any investment in solving their wagon, but who has posted a huge amount of posts without making any meaningful effort to do so. Town doesn't "never" make these posts, but they have an extremely straightforward explanation from scum, and they lack any indicators of a player who is viewing the way in the way town in their position generally will be.

The only way i can imagine hem can make those posts as town is if hem is just, detached from this game. Like, I could see those posts coming from town who just doesn't care, sees their wagon as inevitable, and wants to get it over with so they can get out of this game. But that's not the vibe that hem's other posting gives, either in content or in volume.

[implosion]

We haven’t had a single viable wagon besides HEM all day. That says town isn’t talking. So since I can’t force that best to let the wagon through then find the scum on the wagon.

We had an Aristeia wagon and a Dwlee wagon that both hit 3 votes (the Aristeia wagon twice). Sure that's not 6 but it's enough to call it a wagon.

And more importantly, at least fmpov, this is not a normal d1. The thing that makes it not normal for me specifically is that I have an unusually strong scumread for day one. So why wouldn't I be leaving my vote there?

Dwlee Bellaphant Implosion Titus Enchant (but only if scum with policy pushers) Ari (only if Enchant is scum)

I like Asuaka’s response so they’re back null to me.

Any particular reason you wanna not confirm what I told Ausuka?

Hang on.

So Ausuka is "null" but not in a PoE???

[implosion]

Not having multiple wagons is a sign of a dysfunctional town.

I actually do agree here to some extent, I think it is a sign of that, but I don't think it guarantees it. Consider that we're still <1/2 of the way through deadline. Consider also that we've had a lot of productive conversation, and lots of people have given committal stances, etc.

I think the converse is sort of more true - having lots of competing wagons (not necessarily all at the same time even) specifically on day 1 is often a good thing. I think in this game it's a symptom of a lot of player slots that just aren't really participating in the sort of coalition building, if that's the right phrase, that's involved in building wagons. Every vote count has had quite a few people not voting - maybe some people just feel we're not at that stage of the day yet or something.

[implosion]

If you scumread 6 people in a 3 scum game that means you're wrong

It’s a POE

Some are obviously town but it’s a PoE not a solve. If I had a 6 player solve I would be wrong.

I do want to ask, what does PoE mean to you? When I think PoE, I think it means... well, they're the only people left who could be scum, so we can just lim them all and by process of elimination we'll hit all the scum. "If we lim all the people in the PoE we should be in good shape". which... this seems... like just a list of an arbitrary number of people who (presumably) are at the bottom of your reads list.

[implosion]

I wouldn't say "resigned to" a hem elim; i would say "enthusiastic about".

[implosion]

I need to be sold on a scumread, however it does concern me that no one is really trying to save HEM and HEM not doing much could just be related to his just recovering from surgery, so it’s frustrating. Hopefully he does more tomorrow.

Also not sure why he’s claiming vt? It’s kind’ve antitown to do that in case he isn’t flipped and it doesn’t actually tell us anything about his alignment.

Math sure is trying to save HEM.

And I feel like scum here going out of their way to save HEM-scum would be pretty difficult to do in a way that doesn't tie you to HEM here.

[implosion]

I can see some of the reasons people are giving for Math scum and I'm pretty much falling back to "Idk how to read him reliably".

[implosion]

MathBlade... I know that you know that you're

egregiously

misusing the word "prove" most likely to give your argument more bravado than it deserves. You know what mathematical proof involves, and it's a rigorous process that leaves no room for error. There is no such thing in a mafia game outside of purely mechanical setup analysis.

I really have trouble taking any points you're saying seriously when you are dressing them in this sort of veneer of perfection, like nothing you've said in a mafia game has ever been wrong and nothing you say ever will be wrong.

Telling people who say "I'm more confident that you're scum than this other person" that that's a "shitty excuse" to vote... you rather than that other person... is like, very simply absurd. That's literally how the game of mafia works. It's not like we have ten minutes until deadline and these players need to vote HEM or no liim will happen. It's not like half this town is 100% townreading you with no chance of changing. It feels like you're trying to rhetorically stifle other people's ability to even play the game.

[implosion]

I do have a bit of a pet scumread in implosion. Particularly the insistence on being enthusiastic about the HEM wagon after being called out for exploring other options/being non-committal feels like more of a response to that than true progression of the read.

I won't lie, there might be a degree to which my annoyance at Titus made me subconsciously want to double down on the read to spite her.

Ultimately my progression on hem is more due to me rethinking how I thought about their later content, though also partially due to the actual little bits of content they more recently posted. And I only realized the thing about the absence of any read whatsoever on anyone other than Aristeia and MathBlade relatively recently.

[implosion]

I am forcing them to put their proof where their beliefs say the are

I am not allowed to convince you HEM is town

I am not allowed to talk about the reads I have.

So the only thing I can do that is force people to prove they scumread HEM

Stop using the word "prove". People can't prove anything. People say they scumread HEM? They don't need to vote HEM to prove that. Either they're town and they scumread HEM but have some reason to vote someone else (which, gasp, can exist in the complex game of mafia) or they're scum and lying. But them voting HEM wouldn't prove anything, and them not voting HEM doesn't disprove anything. It isn't a logical inconsistency. Sure, it's a form of evidence, but I view it as a form of intellectual dishonesty to say it's the only way for them to "prove" anything.

You're completely

allowed

to convince me HEM is town. You're just staunchly refusing to do so, consistently claiming that you simply cannot explain your read on HEM, and then trying to spin grandiose theories about the entire gamestate to somehow "prove" they're town, which is a style of argumentation that I simply don't put any stock in. I'd love you to try to convince me HEM is town on the merits of HEM's play but for some reason you're allergic to that.

You're fully allowed to talk about the reads you have. I'm interested in them as well (particularly Dwlee depending on flips today and how their future play shakes out). But I, and others, have other reads that we're more interested in pursuing today, like HEM or you.

[implosion]

Wallflower's stances so far seem to broadly be summable up as "reasonable" which is not a tell. The points about calling those two posts from Dwlee townish are maybe the most interesting thing there, I think they have at least a bit of merit, but don't know what they say about her alignment. I think she'll be generally readable with more content.

[implosion]

Most everyone here says preflip associatives are bad

But instead have preflipped HEM scum

Any defense I do if HEM will be completely disregarded

I and the other four people on the HEM wagon are, by my estimation, at least mostly voting HEM primarily on the merits of HEM's play, not on preflipping an association with you. Heck I've indicated very mixed feelings on you and Aristeia has called you probably wrong town a bunch.

[implosion]

Sometimes you just have to put your chips where they fall and take an educated risk

And considering people won’t vote HEM that makes him town.

Otherwise they’d just bus for credit

Considering people won't vote HEM that makes him scum.

Otherwise they'd just take the free mislim.

[implosion]

Math, what specifically do you consider you defending HEM that has been "ignored"?

[implosion]

so why dont u vote for hem and prove yourself town

Because then I would eat a ban for town voting town post game

...
...??????????

[implosion]

quick, while math's gone, everyone talk about your dwlee reads!!

[implosion]

If I vote Hem when I believe he is town that will eat me a ban for voting against wincon

It's not playing against a win condition as town to vote for someone that you think is town if you believe that voting for them helps the town win, which it theoretically can for a ton of different reasons. It's "play to win" not "play to never miseliminate as town".

[implosion]

Math, what specifically do you consider you defending HEM that has been "ignored"?

Me saying he’s town.

Me posting a response to Ari’s case she ignored

Me using VCA to show he’s town

Me daring people to flip HEM

So in order.

1) People are going to ignore you when you call someone town with no reason, yes.

2) Not sure which post you're referring to (p-edit: ari answered)

3) Not ignored. I literally spent the past page yelling at you for doing this. That's not what ignoring means.

4) Also not ignored. HQ for instance gave a reason why she's still voting you over HEM. You not liking that reason doesn't mean she's ignoring you.

[implosion]

You seem to be conflating "people are ignoring me" with "people aren't agreeing with me" or "people aren't following my logic" to some degree.

[implosion]

I'm fully willing to re-evaluate on HEM in principle, it's just that nothing they've done or anyone has said about them gives me any reason to. There's a difference between unwillingness to do something and not doing that thing.

[implosion]

And yes, I have read your points on them and yes, I've explained why I find them deeply unconvincing.

[implosion]

why even speculate out loud about who is a vig

[implosion]

but... why even say anything at all X_X

[implosion]

He moved the game towards talking reads and instead of working on reads y’all dog piled on HEM for asking the purpose rather than dragging it down in RVS mech theories

This isn't true. I had to tell him to move on multiple times because he kept complaining about the numbers and Ari in general. He didn't want to move the game towards working on reads and instead preferred to keep arguing with Ari and make the Day's focus about their 1v1.

In particular, if hem's aim was to move the game toward talking about reads... why has he done so little talking about reads?

[implosion]

That's the one thing Math can't do well is compromise.

Is this specifically as town, as scum, or both?

Out of everyone here, implosion's play feels the most constructed. Every post feels like it's careful to not rock any boats too much, but when you really think about it there's nothing actually that town about implosion. I was first concerned when in Post 158 he dismissed Ausuka's suspicion of him (which I actually vibed quite a bit with when reading through) as "weird", which I know might seem like a trivial thing, but I think it's a pattern of how scum dismiss suspicion on them. A way of appearing not too bothered, not too defensive, whilst subtly discrediting the push on them. Because I don't think there was anytihng weird about Ausuka's posting at all.

I think part of the reason it struck me as weird is actually sort of complicated - in more mechanically heavy setups, I often am one of the first people out of the gates talking about mech, and I get townread for it (as town) sometimes (e.g. I think this happened in a recent guardians of the fortress game). But I think those townreads are usually not justified because me being competent at mechanical discussion is a function of me, not my alignment, and I don't generally think it'd be beneficial to lie about mech talk as scum. Whereas here, Ausuka called me scummy for

not

talking about mech, in some sense - sort of the inverse, and it felt unjustified in a similar way. I didn't simply dismiss it as "weird" with no other comment, I described why I disagreed with it because faking some meaningful conclusion is not difficult to do as scum.

I've already mentioned the shift from being "fine" with a HEM wagon but thinking about other options -> being enthusiastic about HEM scum and having more solidified reasons. Again implosion's explanation for this is logical, but the progression was really dissonant with my thought processes when reading the game. While HEM was posting I was feeling more suspicious of them, but then with the V/LA and explanation of their hospitalisation etc. it made their posting and pattern of posting make a bit more sense for me. I don't believe that town become MORE suspicious of someone for not posting reads AFTER finding out that they're actually V/LA due to being in hospital.

To be clear: this had nothing to do with hem being gone, and everything to do with me taking a moment, stepping back, and realizing that hem *had* been here and posting a ton for a long time without giving any reads.

The other thing that has concerned me is the interaction with MathBlade. A lot of the response posts and questions from implo to Mathblade do not strike me as actually trying to sort mathblade, and seem more like trying to make Mathblade look bad (and again, very dissonant with the claimed "I can't read Mathblade, I'll let others sort him" approach.

This is absolutely fair - many or even most of those questions aren't really me trying to sort MathBlade, they're more along the lines of... well...

[implosion]

hem, I'm glad to see you posting real analysis on me and Dwlee (and feel better!). Is there a reason you had such a narrow focus on just Aristeia and then Math earlier on in the game? Also, someone (Roden I think) asked for a reads list - could you just give a sort of current gut-feel reads list, without having to go into depth on anyone (though of course you're welcome to)?

[implosion]

I like Ari's townblock minus Math. I find some of HQ's points somewhat convincing on him, she isn't just saying Math isn't making sense and therefore is scum.

[implosion]

We have over 3 days left. Just want to point that out bc I think someone thought the timer math posted is deadline. It isn’t.

[implosion]

might have been misinterpretinig things but don't have time to check atm, will be on in an hour or two

One more important note: remember that Enchant is just gonna autohammer anyone at E-1. So pretend everyone is at one less vote to elim.

[implosion]

Nope, I wasn't misinterpreting/misremembering at all. I'm right.

Noone seems interested in my scum reads and I don't think will be until we've flipped some or the more controversial slots.

We have like a day and a half left

and I just want to be done with today.

Only explanation is that Bellaphant thought Math's timer was the deadline.

This was also shortly followed by Wallflower implying she thought we were pretty low on time but she had enough time to "sleep on it" so I think she might have misinterpreted it too.

(and no this wasn't intended to be an attack on math, just a clarification...)

[implosion]

i have absolutely no idea how timergate is becoming a thing but i'm here for it.

Let's go down a time (hah) line of events.

We have over 3 days left. Just want to point that out bc I think someone thought the timer math posted is deadline. It isn’t.

June the tenth, approximately 9 AM Pacific Daylight Time. I say "I think someone thought the timer math posted is deadline". When Math is confused at who I mean, I say I can't explain and I'll be on in an hour or two.

MathBlade seemingly decides that I am Lying Scum on an unholy crusade against time, and proceeds to spend that "an hour or two" decrying me as scum, misrepping my saying I might have misinterpreted someone (which implies it's an accident) as saying I might have misrepped them (which implies intention), confused why people aren't "shitting all over me" in the

literal 45 minutes and less than ten posts

since my post.

Harley Quinn very reasonably points out that this sort of thing is the sort of thing that it's best to hear an explanation from the person who said (and also of course, points out correctly that there's no scum motivation for me lying about this).

MathBlade calls my post "verifiably false" and then i explain why it's verifiably true 20 minutes later.

[implosion]

Nope, I wasn't misinterpreting/misremembering at all. I'm right.

Noone seems interested in my scum reads and I don't think will be until we've flipped some or the more controversial slots.

We have like a day and a half left

and I just want to be done with today.

Only explanation is that Bellaphant thought Math's timer was the deadline.

This was also shortly followed by Wallflower implying she thought we were pretty low on time but she had enough time to "sleep on it" so I think she might have misinterpreted it too.

(and no this wasn't intended to be an attack on math, just a clarification...)

Yeah so like I thought a mistake right?

Yes,

bella

made a mistake, and while I was reading I assumed she made this mistake because she saw MathBlade posting a timer in thread with basically no context and assumed that timer was the deadline. Hence, I clarified to her that we have 3 days left.

[implosion]

Wait say what?

You’re saying you’re right in that someone brought up my timer

Then immediately contradict yourself and say the only explanation is Bellaphant thought my timer was the deadline when she didn’t even talk about it?

Cmon man.

Why else would she say there was a day and a half left in the deadline?

[implosion]

(She can answer this herself but i mean, surely you can see where i'm coming from - I mean, at the time she made her post, your timer would have been at somethiing like 1 day and 17 or 18 hours)

[implosion]

He then said Bella said she talked about my timer
Which is like not true?

I literally never said "Bella said she talked about the timer". Nor that Bella talked about the timer herself. I said "I think someone thought the timer math posted is deadline" because someone had said they thought deadline was roughly the amount of time listed on your timer.

[implosion]

I know I'm repeating myself but I just feel argh.

I would love to hear more engagement from Ausuka, hopefully RL lets up on you. I think HEM being so disinterested in their own death could theoretically make sense with them as VT who claimed VT but also makes plenty of sense in an SvS world. I HQ's maybe implied point that it makes less sense in a world where HEM is scum and Math is town, I guess.

[implosion]

Right now in principal I think HEM and Math are both fine flips. I think HEM is a bit better for a few reasons: I think he's a bit scummier on face, I still see some of the points toward Math town as somewhat persuasive (I see points in both directions on Math persuasive, though I am trending toward him being scum over time at this point) and HEM has already claimed.

[implosion]

so calling HQ not town

is a little sus

As someone who is named as scum with her in Math's solve, I can get behind this as well tbh.

[implosion]

so calling HQ not town

is a little sus

As someone who is named as scum with her in Math's solve, I can get behind this as well tbh.

Whether I scumread you with her or not has no bearing on what HQ’s alignment is.

This is a fallacy.

Not a fallacy, was intended to be humor. I can get behind the point, it doesn't actually have anything to do with you scumreading me, the point was just "yes, i agree Math's reads are terrible, and i have direct evidence of it in the form of my role card".

Gamma did say this (and i read that from Gamma after writing this sentence) but really more than that it was just supposed to be a joke.

[implosion]

None of those are investigative

MathBlade you have this truly infuriating pattern this game where you say something like "X is ABC" and then someone says "no, X isn't ABC, and here's an example of why" and then you say something like "I never said X was ABC, I said X was BCD".

You said Dwlee was at 0 questions. That was, flatly, false. And then you no true scotsman them, claiming "nuh uh, none of those count as questions".

It makes it really unappealing to try to reason with you.

[implosion]

Unvote

for now

I do sort of see Titus's point about Math's vote on HEM maybe being a tiebreaker to why a Math vote would be preferable to a HEM vote. And like, to be completely frank, I am having a really hard time focusing on any other slots with the way Math is playing. Him claiming I've given no committal reads is absolute bullshit, I've given committal scumreads on HEM and Enchant and committal townreads on like half the player list both by my own logic and by saying I agreed w Ari's townblock.

[implosion]

UNVOTE:

in case the vote counter needs it.

[implosion]

(Oh and also because this unvote should piss off enchant and that brings me some small amount of joy)

[implosion]

It makes it really unappealing when you’re taking things literal versus their implied meaning

If Dwlee had asked “is the sky blue” that clearly has no hunting value so it’s no questions

C’mon dude

It’s you’re being legalistic to avoid the point

I could continue down this argument but there is literally no point in doing so.

[implosion]

Right now, here's my overall feelings in the game.

There is good scum equity in HEM and Enchant. On HEM, I have some trepidation, but less than I do in a usual d1 scumread by a wide margin. On Enchant I have literally no trepidation and I'd happily yeet them at a moment's notice tbh, "proper" play be damned.

I am over time convincingly seeing scum equity in MathBlade, mostly as a result of HQ's points but also some of Titus's.

I think Aristeia, HQ, Gamma, STD, Titus are all simply town right now. I think Wallflower and Roden feel pretty town, less than the first group. Ausuka maybe is somewhere between those two groups. I am tending to lean more town on Dwlee at this exact moment because their belligerence feels unmotivated, I think the combination of their just sort of refusing to play the way people want them to and the early "selfish" reads (i.e. the "fmpov this is town" thing and one other) paint a picture of town who just genuinely doesn't have all that much investment in how they're perceived.

That leaves I think just Bellaphant who is probably the only player I have at null right now.

[implosion]

I'm going to simply try not engaging with anything Math says for a while because I think I can be more productive in this game that way.

[implosion]

look at hems iso and maths iso

they both mutually townread each other

math is incredibly adamant about defending hem and i twisted his arm to vote hem because regardless of how much he wants to defend hem he knows elimming hem is better than elimming himself

hem has not at all defended math and is already angling to maybe vote for him.

if this is T/S i think hem is much likelier to be S than mathblade is.

The way that MathBlade wound up voting HEM was really weird. Twisting his arm is kind of accurate but it also felt very... concessional. HEM never defended math per se but did

hard

townread him early. I'm just not sure I understand Math-town's motivation for that vote, similar to what Titus has said, why should Math town concede it at all? If he's this very belligerent, uncompromising player, shouldn't he not be willing to vote a townread like 3 or 4 days before deadline?

[implosion]

I kind of hate how much this game has become so harshly centralized on "here's deep analysis on what happens if HEM is scum or Math is scum or they're both scum". I do scumread both of those slots right now but it still feels like, sort of a lot of rhetorical eggs in one or two baskets.

But alas.

Yeah, you did have to twist Math's arm to vote HEM... but he did vote HEM. Actions speak louder, etc.

To be clear at this moment I'm really undecided on which of the two is the better lim/which one is likelier to be the scum if exactly one of them is scum, just trying to reason it out.

[implosion]

HEM + Math would be convenient and easy

I kinda think Math is town just because there has been such a massive divide on him. I feel like I've been put in this weird spot where I'm a bit of a swing vote, and have had several different people try to convince me of their reads on him.

i vibe incredibly strongly with this post.

[implosion]

(well possibly excepting the part calling math town, i just... keep changing my mind on him over and over)

[implosion]

(but that said, I do think i'll jump back on HEM before voting math atm)

[implosion]

what did you even unvote hem for?

Because I was starting to be convinced that it might be better to vote Math. (And also because Enchant wanted the day to end.)

I'm finding myself generally to be convinced by whoever is online when it comes to him, hence vibing with Roden's post.

[implosion]

i think town!implo wouldve written why he was convinced rather than use an excuse like this

Not certain what you mean by "why he was convinced". Like, you think I would have re-explained it? I'd explained it before, why would I re-explain it?

if town implo believes this about hem - i see no reason why he would soften his stance on HEM given that since this post hem has come back and given reads on exactly noone. if anything this makes his antispew point about hem even more salient and should cause him to double down on hem scum and want to yeet hem.

I mean, this is simply wrong? He didn't give reads on exactly no one, he gave reads on Dwlee and on myself, and they were the kind of thing I had wanted out of them, they had analysis behind them. I don't view it as enough to reverse the scumread but it did at least start giving me pause.

Continuing to read through but want to start replying now.

[implosion]

say what you want about mathblade but that dude is NOT antispewing at all.

mathblade has mixed it up with pretty much anyone who is online

if mathblade flips scum, it spews a ton of different slots green

harley is probly spewed town

dwlee is probly spewed town

gamma is probly spewed town

titus is probly spewed town

im spewed town

this is just of top of my head i havent actually read all of math's interactions.

so its super weird to me that implo can think pivoting to mathblade makes sense if he believed in his initial point against hem

Why do I have to read hem and Mathblade using the same methodology? I view MathBlade as really hard to read using that sort of thing because 1, I don't understand his meta and 2, the fact that his posting has been mostly nonsense to me is hard to read fundamentally. He also anti-spewed people before it seemed like he was potentially going down so the same line of logic doesn't apply - it applies to HEM because HEM never gave reads to begin with.

Earlier I said I was very likely to not get a solid read on MathBlade. I was planning to possibly farm out my read on him to other people, and lo and behold, everyone has their confident pet opinion on MathBlade. And a lot of HQ's points really felt convincing to me, regarding play relative to HEM, and his motivation for voting HEM, etc. But you also have your confident townread on him, and I've also found your points convincing at times.

[implosion]

I mean if you were convinced by titus to change your mind and vote mathblade instead of hem, then you would've read some post or some idea that was compelling and convincing to you.

You would cite that post/idea as being what convinced you rather than citing titus.

I'm so confused by what you mean here. I cited both HQ and Titus and I've mentioned posts from both of them before that convinced me... so like... in what way am I not citing them??? just because I didn't quote the same posts that i've already discussed a second time? I assume i'm misunderstanding you here.

ok who do you want to flip today?

(but that said, I do think i'll jump back on HEM before voting math atm)

[implosion]

Ari, I also think that like. You are just allergic to townreading me on a fundamental level.

[implosion]

I also want to say Ari calling me scum here is like, probably extremely town for her, I think she would just happily continue to have me in her pocket as scum but doing this is extremely not surprising from town her.

[implosion]

Are you at all familiar with HEM!scum because dude is a master manipulator and by the EoD1 and post flip, Math looked exactly like a HEM buddy due to the optics. That means he isn’t.

I really don't like this line of logic. It's exactly the line of logic that led Math to conclude that HEM was town yesterday - he's a master manipulator, so if he's being wagoned he must be town.

Everyone with comments like these and comments like "HEM was happy to go down so their buddies must have been in a good spot" are ignoring a very basic important point: HEM was in the hospital for half of yesterday, in particular, the half of yesterday where their wagon picked up steam. They probably had bigger concerns than playing their best scum game, and trying to make conclusive statements on the assumption that their play was good is... very silly.

That said: I still have mixed feelings on Math. I agree with Ari that Titus is simply not scum here (I also agree with whoever was complaining that she's sounding like MathBlade yesterday).

I look forward to being mad at ari (because there is literally no way i will not be).

[implosion]

Rough feelings right now are something like this.

Ari, Titus, HQ: town who I don't really imagine ever re-evaluating on.

StD: town who I still feel good about calling town.

Gamma, Ausuka, Wallflower, Roden: town, but due for an audit.

Dwlee: leaning town, not confident.

Bellaphant: next step is to ISO her.

Math: idk.

Enchant: still casually scum.

[implosion]

Eh there's a lot in the ISO on day one that I just don't have strong feelings on. I don't like her opening today though.

I don't think we should elim math at all

I think we need to go back and work out why it took 80+ pages to elim scum - that was our leading eagon for most of the day but blimey it took a fuck ton of work to get it there. Anyone trying to elim math today is just putting us back to yesterday and it just isn't good for town.

My scum pool has t changed massively.

The math wagon is clearly not pure. Why would you want to drag us back to yesterday? Please don't do this to the thread.

Why has your scum pool changed massively? You were on-wagon on a wagon that flipped scum. Isn't that like, the ultimate situation where you have no reason to change your reads overnight? Did you re-read the game, or did something else spur the massive shift?

Why are you against the thread being "dragged back to yesterday"? Yesterday was pretty great, it led to a scum elimination and had a ton of analyzable content. I think it's very silly to characterize it as "it took 80+ pages to elim scum" - there are lots of good and frankly pretty obvious reasons why the day was so long, among them competing wagons that generated lots of info, some people (like HQ) not being ready for the day to immediately end, and well, above all, the main wagon being in the hospital for like 4 days. I don't see why Bella is casting yesterday in a negative light.

[implosion]

Hey, sorry, that's 'hasnt' - see the rogue t?

oh. alas.

I do agree it's bad if today devolves into being so MathBlade centric as yesterday, but I do think it sort of served its purpose yesterday in some way too.

And yeah, there was some consensus on the HEM slot, but near eod HEM was actually starting to give reads, like I mentioned, and they'd said they were going to give more when next they were on before they got hammered. I kind of agree with HQ that I wish the day had gone on a bit longer - at the time because I felt like "well, either these reads from HEM make me think twice about HEM-scum, or they're associatives to think about".

[implosion]

Ari, I'm mad at you not for scumreading me here but for scumreading me in every single game that we have ever both drawn town, acknowledging that fact, and refusing to just set me aside for later

[implosion]

Bella I guess I don't really have a clear view of your reads as as a whole - like on me, you'd called one of my posts really shady, but also said you didn't want to lim me, and you're describing some specific reads as all over the place. What would be like, a short summary of your overall feelings on the game? Do you feel like you just don't have a great grasp on who's scum right now?

[implosion]

Wallflower is an interesting case in that I have called her town now and distinctly remember having had some reason for that that I wrote down but clearly I never did actually write it down whatever it was.

I think the pretty town thing about her play is that she feels very reactive, like she hasn't committed to a plan. See: her voting me and then quickly unvoting me, saying screw the numbers and voting Enchant, voting Math and then unvoting 3 minutes later after realizing there's still time left. Some of her tone feels a little scummish but I don't think I can concretely rely on that.

[implosion]

I don't remember the last time I saw Gamma as scum but the angles he's taken are, idk, in line with how I feel like he'd be playing the game as town. It's the kind of read that I think I don't really feel the need to investigate deeply unless someone else familiar with Gamma sees something they think is scummy, and broadly people townread him, and I also still townread him.

[implosion]

I'll wait for the case to respond to anything specific.

[implosion]

No one who's an RB or JK or Doctor should claim anything. There are too many of those roles that could exist for any results to be unambiguous.

Hypocop green check on Titus.

[implosion]

Actually it's jailkeeper and doc/rb so I guess it's possible to get low ambiguity. But still, I don't think there's much need to claim right now.

[implosion]

Yeah i rescind what I said about rb/jk/doc claims. Hypo doc is definitely bad, rb claiming is probably okay (possibly depends who they blocked/if their block target is gonna get limmed anyway), jailkeeper depends.

[implosion]

If I am wrong on your wagon Math, the only slot that really makes sense is StD.

Talk about your read there please.

what about implosion?

he literally unvoted HEM and was preparing to vote for mathblade..

And then I made it clear that I was going to go back to HEM.

Like I said today (granted, I didn't say this at the time iirc) I would have preferred the day go on for like, 24 more hours or so. I also really don't think I'd go through the trouble of that loud a waffle as scum when it's clear HEM had no staying power, and was a goon - what would be my motivation? It'd just be torpedoing my own game.

[implosion]

I was! I was considering it at the time.

Again, why would i do that as scum when HEM clearly had no staying power and was a goon?

[implosion]

I was! I was considering it at the time.

Again, why would i do that as scum when HEM clearly had no staying power and was a goon?

because at that point in the game titus was pushing mathblade very hard and HQ was leaning towards voting there after mathblade pissed her off so he was a viable mislim

If mathblade is town he sure as hell still is a viable miselim.

If mathblade is town and had been mislimmed yesterday, HEM sure as hell would be going down today.

Again: what would be my motivation as scum to tank my credit for being on the HEM wagon and instead waffle like this in order to secure a miselimination that probably would happen at some point anyway to save a doomed scumbuddy?

[implosion]

Titus's reads are attrocious.

People calling me scum here have a serious deficiency of understanding of my meta. Like, I have had plenty of town games where I've thought it'd be reasonable to scumread me, but I really feel like I'm way outside my scum range in this game. But I know there's no reason to harp on that.

This day is frustrating because I really like every part of Aristeia's play this game except for her suspicion of me (and maybe the strength of her Math read but I understand having it), and I want to work with her on things that are actually productive instead of miseliminating me, but past experience makes me feel like if I try to work with her from this situation it's just going to make things worse. It feels like there's like no angle into the game to actually reason with the most important parts of the player list right now.

[implosion]

I'm working through things and you can see me working through things.

[implosion]

Part of the issue is that I still think Enchant has lots of scum equity, and if that's correct then it's 1/11 for the remaining scum.

I would be thrilled to push them though, you'd mentioned potentially being willing.

[implosion]

Like, me having a scumread that I have any confidence in at

all

is really quite uncommon on d1 I think. HEM was probably one of the most confident d1 scumreads I've had in a long time, though that's not to say it was a particularly confident scumread by most people's standards (notwithstanding Titus and Math's standards of seeming 100% certainty...)

The people ostensibly at the bottom of my reads list right now are Enchant, who is awkward to case+push for obvious reasons (though I'll happily do it if I think there's a chance of it working) and Math who I really still don't have any confidence on. I can give like, an elaborate breakdown of how I feel about Math if that helps. It wouldn't be a case exactly, it'd be a "here's a summary of why I'm conflicted". I feel like he has more scum equity than anyone else other than Enchant right now but it's not like, much above baseline, ostensibly.

[implosion]

One other problem is that so much of the Discourse right now is operating on the level of VCA. And I think it has its place, and I think it's absurd-on-its-face for players like Titus and Mathblade to try to "clear" a player based on a single vote they held somewhere, rather than a balanced approach of weighting that kind of thing (maybe even heavily if you believe in it) but weighting it against other sorts of evidence. It feels impossible to reason with them because the only piece of reason that can contradict that kind of thing is a different VCA, and good luck trying to convince them that their VCA is wrong. It's also just somewhat not my thing.

[implosion]

If Math is town and I think he is, why does scum!Enchant tell people not to vote for Math?

Idk, I think if the scum team is Math+Enchant then they've already pretty much lost and there's not a whole lot they can do about it? So it's hard to predict how they'd choose to act from this point.

[implosion]

Oh doy if Math is town. I mean, why wouldn't scum!Enchant say that in that case? It's not like people are listening to Enchant.

[implosion]

And it's not like scum!Enchant wouldn't hammer town!Math anyway at e-1

[implosion]

One stray thought is that maybe I don't actually have any real reason for townreading StD that he wouldn't be able to fake as scum. I haven't played with him but someone said he snowed them recently and I'm not really sure how to describe why I think he's town, I think most of the things I like about his ISO are things that I just like as play but that could be faked as scum. Idk.

[implosion]

if the scum team is math+enchant i doubt math spends that much time screaming in the thread becuz he knows a lost cause when he sees one

I think this is not true based on my one experience with scum!Math.

[implosion]

Spicy.

[implosion]

I have no fucking idea why i'm viably a lim candidate in Titus's mind when Math is claimed vanilla jailkeep target.

Like people [read: titus and mathblade] are talking like my flip is half certain to be scum and i have no idea where that's coming from.

We lim Math. Math agrees we lim Math. It's patently obviously the correct move here. Yeah he might flip town. It's still the correct move. We don't need to rush it, either. It's been what, a handful of hours sinice the JK claim. Calm down.

[implosion]

There is ostensibly no world where Ausuka claims jailkeeper right now as scum. Tons of other plays for them as scum - claim JK later, claim tracker (paired with JK) later, etc. Them claiming JK at 2:11 as scum is throwing the game to the wolves 100% of the time, there won't be any way to explain why people other than them keep getting shot (that said: if there is a doctor, they should be on Ausuka, obviously, and probably Roden should be too but not 100%).

[implosion]

I'm gonna be pretty mad at a lot of people if math/enchant is the scumteam. mostly datisi tbh

[implosion]

I disagree that BP has "0 utility" but only on like, a technicality; if Enchant is town and got shot as bp then that did put us in odds which is nice. But it also has led to ambiguity over why there was no kill. I kind of see the claim itself in a bit of a middle ground. I don't think it's purely a scum claim, but I do agree it's very poor play, and I see no reason why Enchant as a town BP wouldn't have just... y'know... played day one.

For the doc/rb thing, worth mentioning that scum could also have gotten it and could just not claim it if they want to. Not purely a matter of "did at least one person pick within that pair".

People saying "just lim enchant's scumbuddy first" as though we can just Magically Know Who That Is are wack.

[implosion]

If scum were Math + Enchant, also, Enchant should have been the one making the kill (at least in theory) because either they're ascetic, or they'd know that people would be treating them as ascetic so there's no way they'd be blocked or tracked. In which case the kill should have gone through, unless there was a doc save that isn't claimed.

Part of me is honestly tempted by the massclaim idea, we've had so much info get put out in the open and we are ahead right now. Idk.

[implosion]

For reference I got p'edited by Titus there so I said that before seeing her support massclaim again

[implosion]

I don't think Bella claimed but Roden did

[implosion]

for a second i was trying to cross reference titus's order with the player list instead of the actual draft order and i was about to cry havoc lol

[implosion]

So I guess the idea is if scum are high in the draft, then fakeclaiming risks a CC from a PR below them, and if they're low on the draft... then what stops them from just like, fakeclaiming a different PR or something? Other people below them? Or like, committing to how many PRs total there are I guess?

If we are massclaiming then I'm not too worried about massclaim order tbh because I don't think scum have all that much to gain by making an out-there fakeclaim.

[implosion]

Harley, I made a specific order to force scum to real claim.

Is your list upside down then? Why would Gamma and I be at the top?

The way she wants it is that first, we go through the first list in order, but only claim whether we're PR or VT. Then we go through the second list in order and all claim our draft picks (i believe).

[implosion]

Or do just PRs claim? Do VTs also claim their draft picks?

[implosion]

Before we do start a massclaim I want to make sure people more broadly are on board with it though since e.g. Ari objected earlier

[implosion]

but you spent literally half of your iso breadcrumbing how can you be vt

[implosion]

(to be crystal clear: the previous post is a joke)

[implosion]

yeah if we're massclaiming we should massclaim... if not we shouldn't. This is why I wanted to wait for more consensus. I guess trying to get any real consensus on anything at all in this town is like asking a giraffe to do algebra though

[implosion]

Titus, is there any way I can work with you to stop wanting to lim me? Because that is, Bad for the game that you want to do that. And I don't really understand how to work with you.

[implosion]

My main thought today was that Implosion fits pretty well as a HEM partner, and honestly possibly with Math as well, but I haven't looked into that closely yet. But there are some key aspects of how implosion played D1 that are how I think a HEM buddy would have played it. For e.g. the initial hesitant bussing, feeling forced to double down after being called out, backing off slightly when other options may have been possible. I also was reconsidering the way that implosion interacted with me and my scumread there. I'm used to scum just shading me when I suspect them, but I think implosion's... almost-buddying in a way? also makes sense. Especially the part where implosion was using the same reasoning as me for certain reads.

It's probably roughly how I'd have reacted as scum too, because as scum I generally just try to mimic whatever reasoning I'd give as town for stuff like that.

[implosion]

I'm losing a lot of will in this game especially with Titus not even acknowledging my reach out.

[implosion]

I don't know if I want to lim Enchant anymore, because if Enchant is scum then the only known explanation for the no kill is Math scum, or a doc save. Which is part of why I want a massclaim. But in the absence of a massclaim this makes me feel like limming Math before Enchant is typically the correct play. Ari is right that a universal backup could inherit ascetic cop if Enchant is ascetic cop, but I think Enchant could just as easily be a scum bp (since e.g. a scum ascetic cop could get outed when someone targets them and gets a result) and a universal backup becoming bp wouldn't be useful when there are several power roles already out right now. Another use of a potential town universal backup is to just lim Math, and make scum essentially "waste" a shot on Ausuka that doesn't actually get rid of the jailkeeper.

[implosion]

bulletproof is literally useless

scum win at parity

enchant will

never

clear himself

do you mean it's useless as in "if enchant is town, bp did nothing for us because of parity"? Because the setup starts in evens. Or do you mean it's useless at this point now that we're in odds?

[implosion]

i do not understand what you are trying to argue with that statement. the utility of bulletproof town enchant is that if the doc/rb pair wasn't taken, then enchant becomes softly clear. I don't want to assume that role pair was taken... hence my wanting a massclaim.

[implosion]

(above is @ 3052)

[implosion]

a town enchant that is Ascetic cop and gets shot on N1 clears a slot from our POE, makes UB ascetic cop and this is way way better than Bulletproof Enchant being a ???? and we have to use an elimination on him eventually.

What's the point you're trying to prove with this? That Enchant is scum bc taking bulletproof is bad town play?

[implosion]

I'm like, philosophically happy to support an Enchant lim but I think a math lim is better play right now and I don't really understand the arguments here beyond like "there's no universe where town Enchant takes bp". And I just, don't agree with that statement, I think it's awful play for myriad reasons (if you're not gonna take ascetic cop, leave it for someone else, and if you're gonna take bp, then actually play the damn game and let people develop townreads on you). But I don't claim to know how Enchant town views mafia games. My guess was that he'd take a vig role and not anything from the ascetic cop pair, tbh.

[implosion]

if you let people get away with plays that favor scum

they will always do them when they are scum

forcing scum to play in a protown fashion is basic strategy

This sounds like playing in a meta-optimal way to optimize for long-term town win rates instead of playing to optimize for our win rate in this game.

[implosion]

So you're advocating for a form of policy limming? Not trying to use the phrase as a criticism but it sounds like a kind of policy.

[implosion]

Is it bad that I might’ve been tempted by that?

What do you mean? Tempted to take bulletproof for that reason, or tempted to accept that line of logic potentially coming from Enchant?

[implosion]

MathBlade you both have a plan that depends on the existence of a doctor to save Roden to confirm Enchant as town, and then don't go the extra step and see that the existence of that doctor for that plan means Enchant is not confirmably town....

[implosion]

Oh actually eh i guess it kinida makes sense with 3096. still don't like it as a plan much but

[implosion]

I think scum shooting HQ is a lot more plausible than scum shooting Enchant. But Math being blocked is also still a possibility.

[implosion]

I kind of think in retrospect that playing today in such a way, with like, Ausuka claiming, was a mistake. There's so many roles in this setup that can interfere with kills in principle, trying to get unambiguous info feels like a nightmare.

[implosion]

i wonder if scum-enchant might actually take bp over ascetic cop because of fear of getting vigged lol

[implosion]

I kind of think in retrospect that playing today in such a way, with like, Ausuka claiming, was a mistake. There's so many roles in this setup that can interfere with kills in principle, trying to get unambiguous info feels like a nightmare.

Nope it’s a great play.

We end up with a conf town and know scum shot in Enchant or HQ

If Ari is town doctor who dies then Enchant can be pushed not before.

do you know what conf means

[implosion]

"one of these two people is 100% cleared town" is a logically near-worthless statement