Newbie 1412 - GAME OVER

[mastin2]

Hi, guys. I'm Mastin, and I'm your IC for this game. What that means is that I'm going to be your teacher, and act as your guide to playing on mafiascum. As a warning, as far as players go, I'm a bit unusual, including in my methods of teaching. Most IC's write a long, rambly post about how to play. Me? I wrote a wiki article. The way I figure it, nobody coming to mafiascum.net is actually new to the game of mafia, and everyone has some experience elsewhere.

So I'm going to ask a question of all of you:
Where have you played? Describe it to me, what your experience with the game is. (Preferably text, as I am generally too lazy to read links. )

Now for those who're too lazy to read the wiki article I linked to, I'll give a brief summary of important facts on mafiascum:
-Our deadlines are 2-3 weeks. Not 2-3 days. We use almost every single day of that.
-The reason deadlines are so long is because MS.net is focused on logic and analysis. We are tuned towards dayplay, not nightplay (thus, why there are so few power roles in a game), and take our time to make rational decisions, rather than randomly lynching.
-Which means, yes, we do lynch. And our lynches are triggered by a majority (50% +1, which in a 9-player game is five), rather than alternative methods.

With that in mind, talk to me. If I know what you're familiar with as a player, I can better help acclimatize you to the way mafiascum games are played.

[mastin2]

VOTE: Marquis

Because he in my other game.

Friendly IC'ly reminder, referencing other games (no matter how vaguely) is

B A D

. Very very bad. It can get you into

serious

trouble to do so. It is alright to reference another game ONLY IF that game is finished. If the game is still ongoing, references to it can get you into trouble.

The reasoning should be fairly evident: we don't want to compromise the integrity of any game. So, try not to make references like this. (Don't panic, Marjam. Your comment isn't going to get you banned. But know that it's a fine line to walk, and you should aim never to cross it.)

Speaking of V/LA, I should announce it myself:

Mod: Am V/LA indefinitely over weekends.

I might be able to get in one or two posts if I'm lucky, but in general, I won't be able to teach during those times.

Hanasawa:

In general, you'll find that there are certain advantages and disadvantages to being aggressive. Some advantages to it is that earlier in the game, that level of aggression makes people feel like you are confident, making them more likely to listen to you. It also can have the advantage of catching people off-guard, not expecting a player to be so "in control", so to speak, of themselves.

However, there are also disadvantages. That confidence can be seen as arrogance, which (almost) nobody likes. It can also potentially give the impression that your confidence is because you know too much and are scum. (Your Mileage May Vary; some consider it the opposite, that lack of confidence is scummy. It's highly subjective, to say the least.) Plus, while I say it can catch people off-guard, that doesn't necessarily mean it's scum you're catching off-guard. Town players caught off-guard will generally not be appreciative of it.

In general, I recommend to a player to have a little aggression, but to have it in moderation. The reason why is because--generally--there's a difference between town and scum players: town players are proactive, trying to generate content. They want to see what 'sticks' on a player, and are constantly trying to figure out the puzzle of alignments in the game, which requires effort and initiation. Scum players are typically more reactive, trying to respond to content. They observe what sticks on a player, and constantly are trying to interfere with the town's efforts to figure the alignment puzzle out.

This doesn't always hold true, but even when it doesn't, most players

consider

it to be true, and that perception is the important bit. So, if you think you have found a lead, you

should

be pushing it through. However, I have a golden rule--fit the reads to the evidence, not the evidence to your read. If you push something through and it doesn't pan out, you should back down and say as much; don't get confirmation bias (tunnel vision) and refuse to admit you were wrong.

I should also note that the way you push things can make a difference; tone carries a lot of weight in mafia. You can follow through on things you have noticed in a calm, cool, rational, and civilized manner, maintaining a relatively-polite tone as you inquire further and explain what you're seeing. This is one of the more effective ways to go about the process, because it is one of the best ways to pursue multiple angles at the same time. (It is a bit harder to follow through on two different paths if, say, you're screaming.)

As the game develops, with luck, I'll be leading by example and showing this myself. (And, no, Hanasawa. My message wasn't copied. I hand-type it out each time, which does make it fairly sad that nobody other than you paid attention. )

[mastin2]

EDBWOP:

(MS.net doesn't allow for editing of posts in game forums for anyone other than mods, hopefully for obvious reasons. )

I should also mention, though, that there are other factors involved.
-Don't make your posts artificial. Let them be natural. Natural to YOU. Okay, so if your natural self is overly-aggressive/arrogant/jerkass in nature, you'll probably benefit from some filtration. But don't go overboard. To give an example, while I'll generally be friendly in my posting, I don't maintain the tone of my above post throughout the game, because it is a little more "structured" than normal posts. (In this case, owing to being teaching.) If I did, it would likely be seen as scummy, because "structured" equates to artificial, which most people see as being scummy.

-Adapt your posting to your audience. This is generally game-specific. Certain players react more strongly to certain cues. Pay attention to how they react to certain tones, and adapt your play accordingly. (It's not the best example, but if you're in a game with a player SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS, it can sometimes be of benefit to, in a sense, "speak their language".)

-Figure out what works for you. This will be different for each and every person; they all have their own styles.

-In general,

the important bit is to work with others

. For me, it's easier to work with others by being friendly and talking to them, not at them. I try not to antagonize players. This is why I advocated above to be calm, cool, rational, polite, and civilized. Ultimately, your own style of posting may turn out to be none of those, but I find them to be helpful "stepping stones" towards encouraging this mindset of working with others. (If it helps prioritize for you, being calm and rational are probably the two I consider the most important.)

[mastin2]

Apologies for my weekend V/LA. That probably contributed to this game's slow start.

Aaah noes, I'm sorry. I'm too used to lurking. But I am here. Hey!

As a general note, know that people see lurking as a scumtell. It's not quite true; lurking has a certain benefit for the town. But for the most part, lurking is anti-town and considered scummy as a result. To go into the full details would be more suited for MD than for a newbie game, but I can give you a bit of an IC lesson on what you

can

do.

One benefit of lurking is, basically, the more strategic lurking, which I also call "strategic posting". That is, not posting for the sake of posting. Not posting because you want to post. Posting with a

purpose

in mind. That skill is something lurking can teach you to do, and it's a skill you SHOULD master. It's just that mastering it by lurking is a bad idea to do. It's alright to occasionally have fluff in a game (it can really make things a lot more entertaining), but for the most part, people put far too many words in their posts, and post far too many times.

It ties into my other golden rule: the KISS rule. More specifically, succinctness. Your posts should always serve some purpose. The goal should be to maximize your words-to-content ratio. To give content, and to give it frequently and consistently. That's a skill many players never learn to master. (Heck, thanks to my own verbosity, I'm still trying, and I have five years of site experience!) But if you can master it, you'll be a force to be reckoned with.

So mastin, is there a reason you aren't participating in RVS?

Several, actually. Glad you noticed. For starters, I don't actually like the RVS. I kinda hate it. I'll participate in it if I'm feeling like being silly, but for the most part, I try to end it as quickly as possible. I've also sought alternative methods of ending it, multiple times, but ultimately, whatever alternative techniques I use will at best work only just as well as the RVS does, and not better. And because the RVS is more established and standard, it unfortunately is dominant. A necessary evil of the game, you could say. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

I also am hesitant to vote in a newbie game before everyone has checked in, especially as the IC. As a teacher, my words (and votes), whether I intend them to or not, typically tend to hold a higher value than intended. Thus, the delay in voting. It also helps to avoid shenanigans happening; it's fully possible to quicklynch in a newbie, and it's even happened thanks in part to a vote I cast, thus my reluctance.

Plus, I generally wait to vote until I've gotten a better feel for the game and for the players. What's scummy coming from one player might be town coming from another, which means that my question to others served a dual purpose: the stated purpose (to help teach) was true, but it also helps me gauge each player responding, and to get a better grip on them so that I can scumhunt more effectively.

This makes a nice transition into my next point. One alternative method we had around for a while to the RVS was the RQS: random question stage. Site meta eventually turned it into a scumtell, however, for good reason: it had the appearance of being helpful, without actually being productive, which works towards the scum agenda. Truly random questions are fluff to look better, without providing content. As you can tell by my above post, my question had a distinct purpose, clearly defined and holding great value. Let's contrast that with a more typical (i.e., scummy) RQS post...

@everyone: what is your favorite season of the year and why?

...This. It gives the appearance of being useful and even friendly. But it has no value to scumhunting at all. This is especially true for a player like Marquis who claims to have a bit of experience in the game; as I said, the RQS approach to the game is typically seen as a scumtell for good reason, and I find it a bit difficult to believe he wouldn't know this. There's also the fact that

his

question masked the importance of

my

question; some players completely skipped over my question (which was important) while answering his (which wasn't).

There's more to Marquis than that, though.

I don't know anyone here that well so this should be interesting.

VOTE: mastin let's lynch the IC guys this should work

Helpful hint: 'interesting' is a mild scumtell. I typically always ask when I encounter it, "Define 'interesting'.", because it's something that unexplained is a phrase that scum tend to use more often. (I don't know why. They just do? If I had to guess, it's basically "this should be a challenge" in this case. As I said--it's not much of a tell, especially if they actually follow your request and DO define what interesting meant. But it's a minor tell, and in the early stage of the game, certainly enough of one for a vote.)

But there's also the fact that he-as-an-SE is trying to lynch the IC. Yes, it's an RVS post. But I've found in my experience as a player, players who're SE's trying to lead a lynch on the IC are scum more often than not. (Again. Not a strong tell; it's very weak. If I had to give a divide, I'd say something like 53-47, so enough to be a BIT of a tell, but nothing concrete enough for a serious case.)

All of these are little pieces of circumstantial evidence. They're nothing concrete, especially not by themselves. Together, though, and they make a good solid basis for a serious vote.

VOTE: Marquis.
(Other reads will come later.)

[mastin2]

It feels like you're just pulling that lynch the IC tell out of your ass
It was RVS yes but if you want an actual and still unpopular reason why my vote is still on you it's because I dislike how you're making such long paragraph posts

Nope. Unfortunately, the best game I have to demonstrate it was lost in the great rollback (before all your times; I believe it happened early 2012 and rolled back to late 2011, erasing the game), and it only applies to SEs, but it's a tell I've observed in multiple games. In a scumteam containing one (or two) SEs but not the IC, the SEs are more prone to lynching the IC. I've never really worked out why it is; the best guess I have is that newbie-scum fear the IC and want to nightkill him, whereas SE-scum have the confidence to challenge the IC. As for my long posts--they will get shorter as I teach less. I believe in the value of succinctness more than most, so in my scumhunting, I try to keep words down to a minimum. (Try being the key word. As much as I hate it, I have a reputation for verbosity. My original account, Mastin, has the title "Unabridged" because I

sucked

at shortening my posts. )

As for reads--other than my mild scumread on Marquis, I'm actually quite concerned for this game, in that I have trouble locking down on my reads. (Which sets a bad example for newbies, since I'm supposed to be the guy who shows how it's done. ) I have some ideas which I will shortly be following through on, but nothing solid. Overall, the activity this game seems somewhat lower than normal, another deeply-concerning fact. If I had to guess, it's because they're a self-feeding loop. Low activity means less ability to get reads and less ability to get reads decreases motivation to be active and less motive to be active means less activity means...you get the idea.

Be back soon, as I try to sort things out mentally. (This might take a bit.)

[mastin2]

Hi guys, sorry for the delay. Got a reminder last night that I have a wedding to attend today.

...Well, sorta. I couldn't actually attend it (even though I really, REALLY wanted to*), but I'll be watching a livestream of the wedding (with luck, anyway), and thus, not online here. (So I'm afraid content will be delayed until tomorrow. A one-day declaration of V/LA, you could say.)

*The people being married are two online friends of mine from another site. Crazy kids.

[mastin2]

Okay. When I said "MS games are generally slower than normal",

this

isn't...isn't exactly what I meant. I swear to you, this game's an abnormality for just how little is going on. It's probably at least partially my fault, but I think it's something that affected us all. To give you a mini-IC lesson, it's basically the bane of all games: apathy. (Especially for town; apathy KILLS town, and is among the greatest factors resulting in a town loss.) If I knew how to effectively fight it, I would tell you, but honestly, I'm struggling with it myself, and if I knew the answer, I'd have given it already.

Right now, I'm employing a desperation tactic: randomly questioning things in the hope that it'll spark content. This isn't RQS; this is "throwing stuff at the wall and hoping that even if it doesn't stick it'll at least get discussion going". I would generally not advise you to be doing this in a normal game; I mean it when I say that I'm using it because I've run out of ideas.

VOTE: smurf
because little blue people are scummy

This makes me sad . But i can understand the use of it. But, I think I'll go for the late dude, for the time being
VOTE: Meezus

What made you understand Karnage's random vote, Smurf?
And more importantly, what was the reason behind your own random vote on Meezus?

(Gun to my head, I'd say Smurf would be scum, but this is mainly for the sake of having a second scumread at all. )

Hanasawa:

You still have your random vote on Meezus('s slot), despite having posted since the RVS somewhat-ended. Is there a reason for that? Who do you suspect? And why are you posting so little when you're back from your V/LA and are a player who (at least at a time) was aggressive? (Aggressive players generally being active players, the lack of activity is concerning.)

Discussion seems to have died, so I'll pick it back up. UNVOTE: Smurf Ninja Fan VOTE: hodge That chicken...

Was this a serious vote, or just a random vote?
If random, why the change from the Smurf-vote?

If it matters at this point, I'm somewhat-townreading Karnage and hodge, but both of these are not strong. I'll see if I can get you talking more in a bit.

[mastin2]

Though not strong, I also have a small townread on anorway.

VOTE: mastin let's lynch the IC guys this should work

Why would lynching the IC benefit the town?
[Marquis vote attempted]
Serious vote to get the game going.

He was analyzing things before most of the other players, scumhunting, and trying to get discussion going, all while trying to end the RVS with a serious vote. It's not much, but it's more than most of the players this game have done.

My Marquis scumread is a little bit stronger, since I noticed something: his posts were extremely defensive, containing no scumhunting. This isn't necessarily a scumtell, but it is suspicious all the same. (In general, town players focus on scumhunting, and scum players focus on not getting lynched. It's again not a solid tell, but one which in conjunction with the rest adds up to him being a stronger scumread.)

Karnage:

Why haven't you voted someone else since you unvoted me?

[mastin2]

I should clarify a statement I made yesterday. Asking questions isn't an act of desperation. Asking questions with a specific purpose is an integral piece of scumhunting; it's essential to the process of finding scum. A well-placed question can make the difference between having no scum and nailing their entire scumteam, depending on the question and the answer and followthrough. Asking a question without a purpose (which is mostly what I was doing yesterday),

that

is an act of desperation.

in hindsight my reasoning on mastin was bad and my vote was only on him because I was OMGUSing him. he actually looks town when I bother to read his posts UNVOTE: mastin

also hodge keeps saying "start some discussion" but is opposed to all rvs votes now?? like no VOTE: hodge if you want discussion post some general reads like of the posts on this page, I'm not going to give scumreads for you to follow up on

hodge instead of asking questions like "what can we gain from your rvs vote" come to a conclusion yourself. you don't need people to self-reflect
phok as i hinted at earlier is town. innocent fluffing as opposed to posting for the sake of posting in a lurking stage of the game
karnage can you like.. finish your read on smurf
kk
there
i made all of that up on the spot
let's go for it

Okay, Marquis. I'm willing to admit my scumread on you is wrong, and you owning up to your vote on me is not what I'd expect you to do as scum, which is why I want to talk to you. But there's a problem I'm having, which is keeping my vote on you. Your reason for voting hodge makes no sense. "start some discussion" and opposing rvs votes actually can work together quite well. Your following paragraph looks like scum-coaching town to me, in that you seem to know he's town already and are telling him how to scumhunt.

So, what do I want you to do? Breathe. Slow down. And talk to me in a less stream-of-consciousness posting style, with complete sentences using good grammar if you can. And walk me through your thought process here. Carefully. Because it looks like scum-thoughts to me right now, and if you're town, if I'm wrong about you, I need you to show it.

[mastin2]

I'm confused... do you think marquis is scum or not? You said your scumread on him is wrong but end your post by implying he is scum.

At the time of that post, yes, I thought Marquis was scum. However, I did not strongly think him to be scum. Percentile-wise (with 0% being confirmed town and 100% being confirmed scum), I'd probably rank him as being no more than 75% at the time, so it was still fully possible I was wrong. It was bad wording on my part; I meant "willing to admit my scumread on you

might be

wrong". So, I was talking to him as if he were town. (Talking to a player as if they're town, even if they're a scumread of yours, helps prevent antagonism, which can be bad if you

did

change your read on them to be town yet they justifiably have lost their trust in you. )

Right now, I'm actually not scumreading Marquis, and the basic reason why is that too many other people are. In the best-case scenario (which is what I'm hoping for), each town player came to this conclusion separately and using their own reasoning. If this is true, then there's nothing to be concerned about.
...I can't afford to assume that this is the best-case scenario. A more realistic scenario is that people think Marquis is scum because influential players such as myself and Bulbazak think that Marquis is scum, and are "sheeping" that read. This is something I-as-an-IC

strongly

discourage, because I encourage players to think for themselves. They can work with a player and agree with them, and even state the reasoning seems sound, but I prefer them to articulate this, which I haven't seen.

And I also need to keep in mind the possibility of the worst-case scenario. That is...the reason so many people have Marquis as suspicious is because the scum are influencing people to think Marquis is suspicious, and that it's a scum-driven mislynch. This is what I'm mainly concerned about, right now. In particular, Bulbazak and Hanasawa, with a minor dash of Smurf.

Bulbazak:

You've given reads and given reasoning, but not really given elaboration on said reasoning, except on phokda. What do you see in my play as being strongly town-oriented? Where do you see the town-motivation from Karnage's posting? Why is Smurf listed as null, when everything you're listing places him as at least null-town if not town? What did you see in Marquis's post that you think was buddying?
(Mini-IC note: These are examples of questions which have a purpose.)

For the record--currently thinking Smurf is town, but it's a

very

weak townread, probably my weakest. I have Bulbazak as null, pending his answers and elaborations. Phokda is also at null, and Marquis is as well, as is Hanasawa. (Four null reads is not a good sign. :/ I have leans. Pending further content, Marquis is still a minor scumread, albeit a far-lessened one thanks to paranoia. Hanasawa is actually a scumread by my own gut, but I have nothing concrete against him and it is just that. Phokda is a minor townlean, but not enough to be a townread, and Bulbazak I'm waiting for more content.)

[mastin2]

So, at this point, we're getting close to deadline. I'll be honest, I'm no longer a big fan of a Marquis lynch, but Marquis hasn't done enough for me to think of him as a townread, his lynch will give a lot of decent info (in particular, helping shed light on the alignment of a few players--more on that later), and while it's possible to get a lynch on someone else in that timeframe, it's not something I'm going to try, because the names that I am considering as alternatives are not as likely to get lynched, AND have the same problem of Marquis in that I don't have enough confidence in my read to push for their lynch. (Just as I don't have enough confidence in Marquis to try and avert his wagon.)

Explanation incoming.

[mastin2]

Overall reads:

I have Hanasawa is leaning-scum, but it's off of gut. The addressing to Marquis in post 42 doesn't really do much to contribute, especially not from a player who has claimed to have been aggressive. His posting has been fairly lurkish in nature, and he almost seems afraid to contribute. His contributions also don't show that level of originality in them; most of what he says is a rehash of what others have said.

I have Karnage as town. He locked onto a detail in my play that others hadn't noticed, that being, my lack of RVS, and cast what is easily the first serious vote of the game. He hasn't hesitated to bring up valid points about multiple people, and is showing that effort fairly well. He has the air of trying to figure stuff out around him, and looks to be trying to find scum to the best of his ability.

Marjam hasn't given much. However, I actually have Marjam as town for 43. Perhaps slightly-useless town, but town all the same. The reason why is that it seemed really,

really

legitimate to me, as I ended up having similar problems; not being able to get solid reads left me with far too many nulls. I knew to do something about it, but a newbie probably wouldn't know what to do, and merely tried their best guess. (Unvoting.)

Hodge also appears town. Hodge's curiosity sparked one of the first productive questions, when he asked about the lurking of Smurf. His questioning of Karnage also looked strong, as he was pursuing an angle many weren't, showing original thought. Calling Marjam out on his posting continues this trend.

Smurf is honestly a bit of a null-read. I go back and forth on Smurf in my mind. I can see town-bits in his posting and also scum-bits in those very same posts. It's difficult for me to lock down a read on him.

I have Marquis as scum in one scenario. In that scenario, Bulbazak is town. (My reasons for Marquis being scum have been discussed.)

If Marquis is scum, then I have anorway/Bulbazak as town; the vote on Marquis is rather solid. If Marquis flips town, however, I'd have that slot as one of my stronger scumreads. (But only if Marquis flipped town.)

While the serious vote was a nice way to get the game going, declaring it as a serious vote to get the game going is a little redundant and even detrimental, as it cheapens the value of the vote. (Saying "serious vote", on the other hand, would have increased the value, emphasizing its importance.
...Yes, I realize that this is nitpicking details. But the details

can

make the difference between town and scum.)

Aside from that, Bulbazak's entrance into the game left a somewhat-bad taste in my mouth. It felt overly-confident. If you look at me, for instance, I have reads, but they're not solid. This is somewhat of a playstyle thing, yes, but I'm calling it as I see it; it left me with a bad gut read on him. All of his reads seem "too easy", so-to-speak. A townread on two of the townier players, along with a similar townread on Hodge. Having Smurf and Marjam at null, and Phok and Marquis as scum.

All of those are things that many players were already saying. It's quite possible that he put them together as an individual and is town. It's also possible he-as-town unified the opinions of others and built off of it. But I

do

have the concern that Bulbazak may be scum.

This is why I'm advocating for a Marquis lynch: because I feel like between Marquis and Bulbazak, we have precisely one scum, no more and no less.


I'm thinking Phok might be town. Phok locked onto the fact that Marjam hasn't been posting actively, and that showed some effort. Additionally, while phok may have been overly-fond of switching votes during the RVS, it seems like a tactic that phok-as-town could see as being beneficial for the sake of drawing out information. 92 also shows a decent posting streak, and I feel like Phok defended himself fairly well against Bulbazak.

Theory time:

You'll note that aside from Bulbazak/Marquis, I have two players in my sights: Hanasawa and Smurf. Both of them

can

be scum in either scenario. I can see Smurf as scum with either Bulb or Marquis and Hanasawa as scum with either Bulb or Marquis.

However

, though I see both as possible scum, I do have an idea of which pairings are *slightly* more likely.

If Marquis is scum, then I would more expect Hanasawa to be the partner. This is mostly because of their weird interactions with one another. Something about Hanasawa's treatment of Marquis pinged me on the first page (although I can't remember what), and Hanasawa was hesitant to vote Marquis.

If Bulbazak is scum, then I would more expect Smurf to be the partner. In part, this is because of Bulbazak's weird treatment of the slot, and in part, it's because of Smurf's interactions with Bulbazak. After Bulbazak's entrance, Smurf's posting seems to change in its nature, as he seems more confident. As an example, post 87 can be seen as buddying Bulbazak, but to me, it more looked like Smurf has begun looking up to Bulbazak as a proper mentor.

I realize that none of this is really strong, and it's all fairly circumstantial, but it's the best I've got on only five pages.

That said, I have some additional questions that can hopefully shed some light on the answers before the lynch:

Hanasawa:

Why did you leave your random vote on Phok's slot? Why has your activity been so low for a formerly-aggressive player? What are your overall reads on players?

Bulbazak:

What made you declare Marjam's play as that of a "typical newbie"? (And for that matter, define what 'typical newbie' is.)
Why did you join this game?

[mastin2]

tl;dr version:

TOWN:
Karnage
Hodge
Marjam
Phok

(Roughly in that order)

SCUM?
Marquis
Hanasawa/Smurf (more likely Hanasawa)

TOWN IF ABOVE ARE SCUM: (scum if above are town)
Bulbazak
Smurf/Hanasawa (more likely Smurf)

[mastin2]

What was it exactly from Marquis that shook your confidence in that scumread?

Combination of factors, actually. His unvote and switch to Hodge--while being confusing and maybe-bad--is an acknowledgement that a mistake has been made. You can argue it's scum-acknowledging-they've-made-a-mistake, and yes, that's fully possible, but all the same, it weakened the read. Targeting Hodge is going against popular opinion, another thing most scum players are not fond of doing. 103 weakens it even further, because it sounds

really,

really

legitimate

. Is it, hard to say. It could easily be faked, yes. There's a reason why Marquis isn't a townread. But it's enough to weaken the read some more.

And the last factor is, as previously mentioned, the ease of the wagon. Marquis is getting lynched a bit too easily for him to realistically be as strong a scumread as I originally had. The presence of Smurf, Hanasawa, and you, all make the wagon look worse. Smurf and Hanasawa both being scum candidates regardless of your alignment, and neither one having a particularly good reason to be on the wagon. You being (as previously mentioned) highly "convenient" in your reads on players, which is concerning as well.


By the way. 103 makes it so that Marquis and phok, your top two scum candidates, cannot be scum together. "...Why?"

You really think that scum, with what could very well be their dieing breath, is going to screw their scumbuddy over by defending them very weakly in a very desperate tone of voice? HECK no. That was as legitimate as it comes. Argue wifom all you like; that. was. not. scum. wifom. It was either town legitimacy (in which case, Marquis is town), or scum legitimacy (in which case, Phok is town), but in either case, is legitimate.

"Why would scum-Marquis make a legitimate statement like that?"

As a last-ditch effort to appear pro-town. To cast wifom onto the slot and make people think they're scumbuddies, because on the surface, scum-defending-a-player makes said player look bad when you don't bother to analyze the reasons

why

they were; circumstances are everything. As something Marquis would say regardless of alignment. Take your pick. There's any number of reasons why Marquis would do it as scum, and dang-good reasons Marquis would do it as town, but absolutely no reasons why a scum-Marquis would defend a scum-Phok.

[mastin2]

103 weakens it even further, because it sounds

really,

really

legitimate

.

Explain this one to me, because I'm not seeing it.

How exactly can I explain something seeming really legitimate? It just is. There's no quantifiable way of measuring legitimacy.

What exactly is "convenient" about my reads, which were only made based on 4 pages of gameplay?

They were in line with what others have already previously either stated or hinted. Basically, the reads lack originality. And if I thought that you couldn't make those conclusions as town, I'd be voting you rather than Marquis. You

could

make them as town, and I admitted as much. It's just that they're more likely to come from scum, in my experience.

Just because they're both top scumreads does not necessarily mean that I think they are scum together.

So who's the other scum, then? If not a Phok-Marquis team, what do you see?

Anywaaaaaay. I have a policy. It's called "don't lynch claimed PRs on day one, no matter how scummy they may seem". I'm reasonably certain Marquis is lying, yes. But I'm sure as heck not going to risk him telling the truth. My last newbie game had the town doc self-hammer on D1 and screw the town over, allowing me to NK the cop N2. In the chance that the claim is correct, I want Marquis alive to have a chance to prove it. If Marquis is scum, then being forced to fake that jailkeeper PR will give us info on the alignment of other players and potentially limit Marquis's mislynch-pool. And if Marquis is town, obviously, a lynch there is sub-optimal.

In either case, I would strongly recommend we give Marquis a night. With that in mind...

Unvote: Marquis

.
VOTE: Hanasawa.

[mastin2]

So my take on things:
-Bulbazak is incredibly suspicious for the push on phok. I told you that phok was town and I think I laid out some fairly-decent reasons as to why, and yet, he managed to push that wagon through.
-The alternative wagon at the time was Hanasawa. This, to me, is beginning to point to a Bulbazak-Hanasawa team. (Yes, I know, I said Bulb-Smurf before, but Bulbazak's treatment of Smurf doesn't match that of a scumbuddy as well as his treatment of Hanasawa does. And before someone makes the argument that a team between them is too obvious--no, no it's not. Not from Bulbazak. In a game like this, you need your scumbuddy alive. And in most games, you can get away with the argument, "They wouldn't be *that* obvious, would they?" Bulbazak, however, is a type of player who can and has exploited the too-obvious-to-be-true argument as scum.)
-Marquis is town. When there's only one scum left, a jailkeeper better dang well tell the truth about who they're jailkeeping. But when there's two scum alive, it's actually optimal play to lie in the exact manner Marquis did. If I had the jailkeeper role and was outted, I would have done the EXACT thing Marquis did.

-There are theoretically three options for what could have happened last night. The scum could have no-killed, in the hopes of framing Marquis's jail target. The scum could have killed Bulbazak, who they considered to be the most town. Or, the scum sent Bulbazak to kill because they feared their other member would be blocked.

I will admit--the first option is not impossible, but I believe it to be improbable. It semi-confirms Marquis's claim, placing him in an advantageous position. It also has the potential of confirming Marquis's target as town, or condemning Marquis's target as scum if Marquis targets scum. Basically, while there's a potential for Marquis's scum-target to be town from it, and while there's a potential for Marquis's town-target to be scum from it, this is not the ideal play for the role*. It's a gambit, and one that I don't see most newbie scum as likely to perform. If it were to be true, it'd point to a SE with a fondness for pulling ballsy moves. (Like Bulbazak.)

* To elaborate--because the jailkeep target will be claimed, we can evaluate off of play which it is. Thus, a scum player being jailed is more likely to be seen as scum whose kill was stopped, and a town player being jailed is more likely to be seen as town who was nightkilled. Yes, this assumes the town has somewhat-accurate reads, but that's generally the case for at least one town player.

The second option I quite frankly find to be pretty much impossible. Bulbazak was not a town player, yesterday. While there were plenty with townreads on him, he spearheaded the Marquis attempted mislynch, AND the successful Phok mislynch. If he WERE town, that's the type of player a scum player would want to keep around for a mislynch. It doesn't take much to realize that type of player would be heavily-suspicious come day two, and thus, have many townreads weakened or even reversed into scumreads. Furthermore, there are players who are more town than he was. Objectively speaking, I was not seen by scum by anyone at the end of yesterday, painting me as a more probable target. If Marquis is town like I believe, then the scum also know that Marquis's claim is true, and that they cannot afford to have Marquis live for too long, painting a target on Marquis as well. Other stronger townreads include Karnage and Hodge, who at most had one player suspecting them by day's end and were mostly seen as townreads, equaling or exceeding Bulbazak.

In essence, there is no scum reason for a kill on Bulbazak.

That leaves me to the third option: Bulbazak is scum, who killed instead of his scumbuddy. This points primarily to the Bulbazak-Hanasawa team, as Marquis claiming that he'll be blocking Hanasawa gives incentive for a scum-Bulbazak to perform the kill.

I am not voting yet, because I'm reasonably certain that'd be the hammer, and I need to check some stuff to confirm, but those are my thoughts right now.

[mastin2]

Right, so I'm going to give my take on things.

-If Bulbazak flips scum (Bulbazak is the lynch for today--if not for being scummy, if not for having what's effectively a guilty, then for the information alone), then Marquis should jail Hanasawa.
* If there's a kill, Hanasawa is confirmed town. We lynch Smurf, and if Marquis is alive, Marquis announces Marquis's next target.
* If there isn't a kill, the scum are either Hanasawa, or sacrificed a(nother) nightkill in order to frame Hanasawa. Either way, the town comes out ahead. We lynch Hanasawa, with Marquis announcing the next target (preferably Smurf).

Rinse and repeat until we find the remaining scum.

-If Bulbazak isn't scum, then we need to work out an alternative plan. I see this as basically being less than 1% possible, but I want to put in safeguards as a just-in-case. Which, again, is why I am not yet voting Bulbazak. We need a failsafe if I'm wrong about him. But I haven't yet worked out what that'd be.
* Which is one reason I need to do some analysis.

[mastin2]

Right. So my take on things:

Karnage's claim has a weakness, and Marquis's claim has a weakness, both of the opposite kind.

Marquis's play has been fairly scummy. The only thing which saved Marquis was the claim, in fact. In that regard, Karnage has Marquis beat, because Karnage has been solidly posting since the beginning.
On the other hand, Marquis's usage of the role makes perfect sense, whereas Karnage's usage of the role doesn't make as much sense. To elaborate--there are two possible setups with a jailkeeper for the scum to have: Goon and Roleblocker. If they have a goon, then there's no way Marquis can make this claim and not come out on the losing end. Doctor/Tracker? Lynch the JK claim. Actual JK CC'ing? Lynch the original JK claim. Just a cop? Still lynch the JK claim. BP townie and tracker? Still lynch the JK claim.

Roleblocker? Cop-Doc results in lynching the JK claim. JK-BP? Again, JK CC equals lynching the original jailkeeper claim. There's no scenario where a jailkeeper claim offers Marquis a chance at living, thus, why a jailkeeper claim from Marquis makes sense. Then there's also the usage of the role. Marquis used the role in the

exact

same way that I would use it if I had the role.

In contrast, Karnage's excuse for not counter-claiming is fairly weak, and his usage of the role is sub-par. Blocking a would-be-mafia player who knows their claim to be false, you're not likely to stop the killer, since it's their partner who should be doing the killing, in case there's an actual jailkeeper who decides to JK the fake-JK. His play doesn't scream jailkeeper, and his claim itself is weaker.

In summary--Marquis's claim is stronger, but Karnage's play is stronger. Overall (and in general), I'm inclined to believe in play over believing in a claim, especially given the situation. If Karnage is scum, it almost has to be with Bulbazak, and his claim would therefore practically be factional suicide. Thus, why a Karnage-scum scenario is incredibly unlikely right now, and it is far more probable for Marquis to be scum.

But therein lies the critical question: If Marquis is scum, who is his scumbuddy? Again, I'm not voting, because while I believe Marquis to be scum, I still need to work that out. And while I believe Marquis to be scum, I need to be

absolutely

sure about my analysis for why Karnage isn't scum before I place a vote. So right now, I'm
-Double-checking my mental equations on Karnage and Marquis, and
-Running the math on who's scum with Marquis.

At this stage, I'd be willing to bet it's a newer player, because more experienced scum players are less likely to send their jailkeeper-claim to do the killing. I'm also willing to bet it's a figure of interest--among them, Smurf and Hanasawa. (Lean towards Smurf.) Because another reason the jailkeeper-claim would be sent is if they feared that an actual jailkeeper would be targeting their scumbuddy. With a real jailkeeper being a possibility, and knowing that a real-jailkeeper would know that Marquis is a liar, they could fear that the jailkeeper would use their power as a roleblock, and stop their scumbuddy from killing--which would condemn their entire scumteam. Still need to do the analysis on this to see who's most likely to fall into that category for sure, though.

[mastin2]

I have to admit i'm getting a bit lost in you're posts, probably just me and in how long they are but sometimes struggle to take it all in.

Alright, a simplified version:

-Marquis, while having a stronger claim, has weaker play.
-Karnage, while having a weaker claim, has much stronger play, including how claiming this as scum would completely screw over his scumteam, thus, is not likely to be lying.

-As a result of this, I'm analyzing to try and best determine who Marquis's scumbuddy is.
-Which is why I am not voting Marquis, yet, because there's still things which we need to talk about.

[mastin2]

Well, that removes all the doubt about Marquis's alignment and confirms it's scum, but again, request nobody hammers until I can figure out the scumbuddy.

My thoughts right now is that Marquis didn't lie about his target, and he

did

target Bulbazak...for the kill. Making Bulbazak town. And also increasing the value of Bulbazak's reads. Among them again being Smurf-as-scum. Marjam being a lesser possibility. But I still want to work it out.

[mastin2]

I'll be back on later tonight to make a case for why but I think Mastin could be scum. His interactions with marquis seem off to me.

Don't bother. Just block me. With Marquis lynched, the scum will only have one member left. If a kill goes through, I'm confirmed town. If a kill doesn't go through, then the scum have given up their nightkill to try and frame me--and that gives me another day to scumhunt before I'm lynched, and gives you a chance to announce your next target, and the cycle will repeat. Either way, you win. I'm quite aware that Bulbazak thinks I'm Marquis's scumbuddy, too. He hasn't made it explicit, but he doesn't need to. He couldn't hide that if he tried. The simplest solution is to block me.

That said, though...we need to make sure that there's no roleblocker before this.

I realize that outting the existence of a bulletproof nullifies the point of having the BP, buuuuuuuuuuut
-The BP would be conftown and be untouchable,
-And the above strategy relies on there being no roleblocker; a roleblocker being present would nullify the plan, so we need to make sure it's not going to happen.

Of course, since you guys think that I'm scum, then you obviously aren't going to listen to this plan, which is why I'm running it past you two. (Karnage and Bulbazak.) Consider the above, and whether it's worth it. In my opinion, it is.

[mastin2]

To explain my logic further...

-We have a jailkeeper. The possible setups from that are {Goon, VT} and {Roleblocker, BP}.
-If we're in {Goon, VT}, then the plan to have Karnage truthfully announce his target will work, because with only one scum remaining, said scum can be easily blocked and have no way to stop the block. Either they're getting blocked, they kill and confirm whoever

was

blocked, or they no-kill, sacrificing their nightkill to frame the person who

was

blocked. In any of these situations, the town comes out ahead.
-If we're in {Roleblocker, BP}, this won't work, though, because the roleblocker has priority over the jailkeeper. Thus, the mafia player can block the jailkeeper and do whatever the heck they want to unimpeded.
-This is why I'm proposing that if a bulletproof townie is present, for them to claim.
-Doing so would make the bulletproof townie untouchable, because it would take two nights for the scum to get rid of that player, which is generally not worth it.
-It would also allow us to know we couldn't rely on the jailkeeper strategy.
-With two confirmed town (the BP and the jailkeeper) and one confirmed scum (Marquis), that narrows the remaining scum to the five names that'd be left over. By my math, that'd place us at six players on D3, with a mislynch available. Then, four players on D4, with one of them conftown, and basically sorting out the remainder in lylo.

The only way this isn't ideal is if you think the math works better for the BP to remain anonymous, which admittedly, I haven't run the math on. (The BP could be forced to claim via nearly being lynched, the BP could be hit, or the BP could be left unhit and have the situation remain the same until one of the other two scenarios listed has played out--however, if my quick calculations are correct, the ONLY scenario in which the BP remaining anonymous gets us ahead is if the BP is left unhit until 4p mylo, the town no-lynches, and the scum miss the BP with their shot, putting us in 3P lylo with a 50/50. This unlikely scenario doesn't seem like it'd be worth it, but again, I haven't run the math.)

[mastin2]

tl;dr version:
-I propose a block on me.
-I also propose before the day has ended that we make sure there's no roleblocker, so that the above will work, which is accomplished by a bulletproof (if present in the game) claiming. If present, we scrap the above as useless, and work our way through the scenarios. If absent, then the above plan will work.

[mastin2]

Ugh, I felt like that prod was completely unnecessary...

Only thing wrong with that plan is if Jailkeeper doesn't hit scum and scum purposely and continuously no kill so we keep dwindling down and lynch townies until LyLo and then there'll probably be a fake BP claim at LyLo making it really disgusting for the townie at the end who has to decide from the crossvote.

Nope, wouldn't happen.
If the scum were idiotic enough to continuously sacrifice their nightkill, eventually,

they

would be the one jailkept and then lynched. If they killed Karnage before then, then they're still up against at least one conftown. Fakeclaiming BP would get them lynched if town consensus was that the BP should claim today, as I am advocating, and it goes against the evidence the setup would suggest via the nightkills (rather, lack thereof).

The worst-case scenario for my plan:
-Karnage blocks me, and is nightkilled. I become conftown with six alive on D3.
-We use that phase the best we can to select our lynch. If a mislynch, scum NK me, and go into 4P mylo with no conftown on D4.
-We no-lynch and force the scum to NK someone, placing it in 3P lylo on D5, but with information from the previous four phases to help, along with all six flips.

[mastin2]

TOWN:
Karnage
Hodge
Marjam
Phok
(Roughly in that order)
SCUM?
Marquis
Hanasawa/Smurf (more likely Hanasawa)

TOWN IF ABOVE ARE SCUM: (scum if above are town)
Bulbazak
Smurf/Hanasawa (more likely Smurf)

Town

Mastin2[/b]: Strongest town read in the game. His IC stuff is null, but his actual play is strongly town motivated.

Karnage

: He's been scumhunting and there's been solid town motivation behind his posts.

Null/Town

Hodge

: I'm not sure how to take his actions sometimes, but for the most part, what he does seems to come from genuine town motivation.

Hanasawa

: Gut. He reads as town to me.

Null

Smurf Ninja Fan

: He's said several things, such as the lurking comment, that would cause an immediate scum ping. However, I can't see scum being that blatant. He's most likely town, and I wouldn't be surprised if scum push for his mislynch at some point in this game.

Marjam7

: Typical newbie. Not sure how to take his actions, and therefore I can't read him at this time.

Scum

Phokdapolees

: I think several people have commented on it, but a lot of his posts have been filler. He's trying to create the impression that he's doing something, when he's really not. Scum tend to do this more than town.

Marquis

: He tries to appear to be helpful when he's really not. He stretches for reasons to vote people, more so than town tends to do so. And did I mention the buddying? Yeah, this slot's scum.

I'm quoting these side-by-side, because my working theory relies on the contrast between the two. Admittedly, this is a bit of speculation on my end, and admittedly, it

is

a bit of a large assumption to make, but again, I feel like it makes sense--that Marquis wasn't lying about targeting Bulbazak, but targeted him for a kill.

The questions that come to mind, then, are
-Why Bulbazak instead of me? And
-Why Marquis performing the kill instead of a scumbuddy?

(You can answer both with "Because Mastin is scum, and someone likely to be PROTECTED by the real jailkeeper", but given as how this is

my

analysis and I know that to be false, we'll just skip that. )

To me, the first is the more vital. When it comes down to nightkill-reasons for stances, you'd think Bulbazak would be a bad kill (at least in comparison to me)--he pushed the phok mislynch, which should have been a blow to his towncred. But if his reads were more accurate than mine, then the scum have more incentive to get rid of him than they do for me. The common elements in both lists are a Karnage/Hodge townread and a Marquis scumread, but from there, things begin to diverge.

I have the scum as Marquis and Hanasawa, backup pick of Smurf.
Bulbazak has the scum as Marquis and Smurf, backup pick of (via being at null) Marjam.

I'm basically analyzing at this point who's the more likely Marquis buddy, and I'm leaning towards Smurf. There are a couple reasons of why. First off, with Bulbazak dead, following MY list, that'd be saying, "HA! I'm not scum with Bulbazak, so surely, I'm less scummy!" from Smurf, in essence. Furthermore, Bulbazak had Smurf as leaning scum and has Hanasawa as leaning town, which is opposite of what I had. (In essence, at least.) With him dead, and with Marquis going to eventually be exposed, with me alive, that'd paint a window for a Hanasawa mislynch.

This also provides a possible answer for the second question. With Smurf on nearly everyone's radar (but on nobody's radar more than Bulbazak), having Smurf be the one to submit the kill would be an incredible risk. I can't really see very well Marquis concluding that Marjam would be stopped--if anything, Marjam would be the perfect person to perform the kill, as a null/town read for most players (including Bulbazak), and thus, not an optimal jailkeep target. With Smurf as scum, though, Smurf killing had an incredibly-high chance of being blocked. So, I can easily see Marquis concluding that he should perform the kill instead of Smurf, to be safe. (Or as it turns out, not. )

But this is just speculation on my part, so I'm not done analyzing. (This is probably the only time I'll be able to analyze things until Monday, so my finishing analysis will have to wait 'til then. In the mean time, continue discussing things, both the "BP-if-present, claim" plan, and your own analysis.) I want to take a look at the contrast between the L-1 Marquis wagon and the finishing phok wagon, along with posts throughout the day relating to the three key players: Marquis, Smurf, and Marjam. (I'll also be taking a look at Hanasawa, to put my fears to rest for good.)

[mastin2]

2.) You're town, and someone on the scum team is competent (not Marquis). Only newb or incompetent scum go for the IC on n1. This means that we're looking for an experienced player to be Marquis's partner.

Yes, I'm quite aware. You'll remember that I'm the one who originally brought up the theory of SE-scum being the people who push for a lynch of the IC, rather than newbie-scum who go for the kill of the IC. I think, however, you're underestimating the competency of Marquis. He's an SE, not a newbie. (He knew

exactly

how to claim his JK. Even on day one, when he wouldn't have any assistance.) If memory serves me as to what the new rules are, that means that Marquis has three games under his belt, and at least one of those being not a newbie. Thus, Marquis

is

the experienced player on their team. (I'd have to double-check who the third SE is, but I'm reasonably certain that the only two players with more experience than Marquis are myself and you, Bulbazak. I'm not scum no matter how much you think I am, and I don't believe you're scum, either.)

However, I think that with how things played out, you're overestimating the value of me being the IC. (Admittedly, it's possible that I'm underestimating the importance of me being the IC and that it

did

play a factor. But...) While I certainly started out as the IC, by the time you had entered the game, I was playing far more as an ordinary player, just like you were. While it's true, I have the label of IC, I don't think it's an important variable, because there hasn't been a need for me to take on that role.

(The times where an IC are needed most are at the beginning of the game to prevent newbies from going wildly off the rails, and in the post-game, where the newbies need to have feedback on their play. Aside from that, I'm increasingly finding that newbies are competent enough to not require my guidance. Every now and then, I'll have to give a teach about site meta on a subject, or give them encouragement when they're on the verge of replacing out and abandoning mafiascum.net forever, but aside from that, newbies are generally smart enough where they don't need the IC.)

In short, I've been working under the assumption that the scumteam, when factoring in their kill choices, considered me as a player--not as an IC. And, factoring me in as a player, the difference between my reads and your reads is a vital difference if, as I suspect,

you

were killed over me.

[mastin2]

Oh. Right. Third SE is Karnage.

So, then, that's a guarantee. I know myself to be town (although I'm quite aware that I'm the only one who does--thus, why I'm offering myself as the jailkeep target), so the only way Marquis's scumbuddy has more experience than Marquis is if it's you who's his scumbuddy, Bulb. Which I don't believe to be the case.

[mastin2]

BAH.

I'm so going to pay for this comment. (That is, you're going to think I'm scum even more from it. ) It's so going to undermine everything I've been saying.

But, dangit, if it's right, I just can't in good conscience not let myself say it.

...I'm having a sudden wave of huge paranoia that Bulbazak

is

Marquis's scumbuddy.
Excuse me for a sec while I go bang my head in idiocy and (via percussive maintenance) get the stupid out of my head.

[mastin2]

VC 1.4
(3) phokdapolees - Hanasawa, hodge, Karnage
(3) Marquis - Bulbazak, mastin2, Smurf Ninja Fan
(1) Hanasawa - phokdapolees
(1) hodge - Marquis
Not Voting: Marjam7

Spoiler: Vote History

phokdapolees

Meezus

- Smurf Ninja Fan > hodge > Marjam7 > Hanasawa

Smurf Ninja Fan

- Meezus > Karnage > unvote > Marquis

Hanasawa

- Meezus

Marjam7

- Marquis > unvote

hodge

- Karnage > phokdapolees

Bulbazak

anorway

- Karnage > mastin2 > Marquis

Marquis

- mastin2 > hodge

Karnage

- Smurf Ninja Fan > mastin2 > unvote > phokdapolees

mastin2

- Marquis

So, this votecount is interesting--phok got to L-2, and I had totally missed that, in favor of paying attention to Marquis at the time. Marquis insisted that phok was town, but I'm trying to figure out why there apparently weren't any scum on that wagon. It's theoretically possible there is, but a townread on hodge and Karnage's role leaves only Hanasawa as possible, and even then, not probable.

Pretty much the only thing I can really think of is that Marquis's scumbuddy, at this point, planned to bus Marquis, and Marquis--recognizing this--hoped to take phok down as a mislynch. The names on there are, obviously, myself, Bulbazak, and Smurf--with Hanasawa joining in immediately after that. However, there's another name of importance, critically,

not

voting anyone:

Marquis you might want to claim before your quick hammered. Marquis seems scummy because he seems to buddying with Phok.

...But casting suspicion onto Marquis with the subtle hint.
Essentially, I realize it doesn't narrow things down much, but we can be pretty dang sure that Marquis's scumbuddy was intent on bussing.
{Bulbazak, Smurf, Hanasawa, Marjam} all present. (Along with myself, who again, I'm eliminating because I know my own alignment to be town.)

With all four being possible, it's basically an exercise in process of elimination at this point; I need to narrow down the four to one or two. (I previously had the two as Smurf and Marjam, but I need to make sure--Hanasawa, for instance, is apparently an incredibly-experienced player on his own forum, despite being a newbie to mafiascum.net. Which is one reason why he's in consideration right now; I need to evaluate that possibility.)

VC 1.5

(4) Marquis - Bulbazak, mastin2, Smurf Ninja Fan, Hanasawa

(2) Hanasawa - phokdapolees, Marquis
(2) phokdapolees - hodge, Karnage
Not Voting: Marjam7

Spoiler: Vote History

phokdapolees

Meezus

- Smurf Ninja Fan > hodge > Marjam7 > Hanasawa

Smurf Ninja Fan

- Meezus > Karnage > unvote > Marquis

Hanasawa

- Meezus > Marquis

Marjam7

- Marquis > unvote

hodge

- Karnage > phokdapolees

Bulbazak

anorway

- Karnage > mastin2 > Marquis

Marquis

- mastin2 > hodge > Hanasawa

Karnage

- Smurf Ninja Fan > mastin2 > unvote > phokdapolees

mastin2

- Marquis

The peak of the Marquis wagon, as stated, with honorary not-present-but-still-there Marjam as a theoretical hammer-vote that never happened.

VC 1.6

(5) phokdapolees - hodge, Karnage, Bulbazak, Hanasawa, Marquis

(1) Hanasawa - phokdapolees, mastin2
(1) Marquis - Smurf Ninja Fan
Not Voting: Marjam7

Spoiler: Vote History

phokdapolees

Meezus

- Smurf Ninja Fan > hodge > Marjam7 > Hanasawa

Smurf Ninja Fan

- Meezus > Karnage > unvote > Marquis

Hanasawa

- Meezus > Marquis > phokdapolees

Marjam7

- Marquis > unvote

hodge

- Karnage > phokdapolees

Bulbazak

anorway

- Karnage > mastin2 > Marquis > phokdapolees

Marquis

- mastin2 > hodge > Hanasawa > phokdapolees

Karnage

- Smurf Ninja Fan > mastin2 > unvote > phokdapolees

mastin2

- Marquis > Hanasawa

The Marquis wagon disintegrates and literally overnight, the phok wagon forms and is hammered by Marquis. The question to be asked is whether the phok wagon has one scum (Marquis, the hammer) on it or two. If two, then it could only be {Bulbazak, Hanasawa}, as previously mentioned.

A VC that never happened:
(3) Bulbazak - Hanasawa, hodge, Marquis, with an honorary fourth member in the form of me.

I actually find this to be pretty dang important, and from it, I'm almost willing to eliminate Hanasawa right here and now. (Still need to check to make sure.) Why? Simple. Because--without Karnage's counterclaim--the only person to know Marquis was fakeclaiming would be Marquis's scumbuddy. And Marquis's scumbuddy, aware that Marquis was going to be busted, is far,

FAR

less likely to have bought Marquis's story. In other words, the people who followed Marquis onto Bulbazak (regardless of Marquis's alignment) are incredibly more likely to be town. (Yes, I realize once again that this analysis is slightly biased given that I'm the one performing it, but again. I know my alignment to be town. )

Though that raises the question I need to answer--is Marquis, here, by pinning Bulbazak, trying to take out a townie before his own inevitable demise, or is Marquis, knowing he's going to be outted, trying to give his scumbuddy some massive town-cred?


This is all from the votecounts, without much context behind them, though. I need to actually reread the thread to see for sure.

tl;dr version: One step forward, two steps back.

[mastin2]

As an aside--I'm one of the few people on the site who thinks that alignment can sometimes be determined from the RVS itself, so I'm running through the process right now. For instance,

Spoiler: Marjam

VOTE: Marquis

Because he in my other game.

It's a decently-common scum tactic to vote your scumbuddy in the RVS. (Yes. I'm quite aware. Marquis voted

me

in the RVS. So, yes. I'm quite aware that this suspicion is a bit hypocritical. ) It's one of those unpublished scumtells that comes up every once and a while. Again, this is one reason I have my eye on Marjam. It's not a solid tell (I know that it doesn't apply to Marquis's vote on me, for instance), but it's something I need to consider.

Summer by far. Means no school plus its awesome in Cali during the summer.

Marjam was also the first one to answer Marquis's RQS.

I have really got to get better at this because I have no clue on who to vote. Everyone seems null to me. But I will unvote my RVS.
UNVOTE:

And unvotes Marquis when attention has begun to shift there, listing everyone as null, and doing nothing to fix that. Basically, what hodge called Marjam out on.

Phok can you give the reason you voted me. Also Phok was that an RVS or a real vote.

This is the first town thing to come from Marjam, in that it shows some initiative in trying to figure things out--but the problem here is that it's parotting what others have already pointed out about phok.

Spoiler: Smurf

But, I think I'll go for the late dude, for the time being

VOTE: Meezus

Aside from commenting on the vote on him (which could be alignment-indicative, but is probably null), this is also a slight alarm bell, because it's parroting an existing vote: Hanasawa's. The same reason for the same player, making the first mini-bandwagon of the game.

Aaah noes, I'm sorry. I'm too used to lurking. But I am here. Hey!

In answer to the season question, mine would be spring; hot enough to be comfortable with no jumper, but not so hot that you can't do anything

Smurf also answers the question fairly quickly, and admits to being a lurker. While there are benefits to lurking as town, this is still a concern of mine, since lurking benefits scum more than town. Hodge called him out, and Smurf promised to change his ways. However, I don't think this has held true--whether it's a case of "old habits die hard" or a case of lurking being beneficial, I simply haven't seen Smurf actively provide analysis. (Newbies do get a bit of leeway, though, because analyzing things is generally not a skill that comes naturally.)

Stuff happening is good, and it's what we want. Come on guys, let's do something!

VOTE: Karnage

Purely 'cos you were the last person to type something

The potential-scum: Karnage called out Marquis in the above post, so chainsaw voting. Also, randomly voting and not giving content. The potential-town: similar to phok, thinking a change in random vote will generate content for the town to use. (And in a way, it did.)

Sill weighing the two, but right now, all things considered, I'm beginning to lean away from Smurf being the scumbuddy. It's mostly instinct at the moment, but I kinda just have the

feeling

that Smurf is town. If Smurf were an experienced Scummer, sure, then I'd have Smurf as scum. But Smurf doesn't seem to be showing the signs of that; Smurf is showing the signs of being a newbie, and my take on it is that Smurf's looking more like a newbie trying to figure out how to scumhunt rather than a newbie trying to figure out how to blend in. Accentuated here:

As a note, Karnage seems to be reacting poorly to being RVS voted, and that seems pretty off to me. Makes me suspicious. We'll see what happens as time goes on though.
@mastin I didn't answer your question because my answer was going to be poor and pretty dodgy. Pretty much "I've played on another forum, but it was small and I don't know what forum it was". Sorry about that

Smurf showed original reasoning and scumhunting on Karnage--while not exactly strong, it was a lot. Smurf also addresses a question that he had missed, that would have been easy to ignore, but the reasoning is key; he admits that it was a poor response. That might not seem important, but in my experience, that kind of honesty is more likely to come from town than from scum. (Because scum players are more afraid to admit they've made a mistake--not a very solid tell, mind you, because it's largely playstyle-dependent, but a minor tell especially for a newbie all the same.)

What really seals the deal for me, though, is this:

karnage can you like.. finish your read on smurf

Marquis's comment to Karnage. Easy to miss, but it's asking Karnage (who we know to be town) to focus on Smurf. This subtle direction is not the type of thing you'd expect from a scumbuddy directing attention onto scum. When you're scum and want to focus attention on your scumbuddy, you make it just about as dang obvious as possible, so that if one of you ever flips, the other can point out the evidence there and use it for towncred. Subtle pushing like this, therefore, is far, FAR more likely to be scum-onto-town. Thus, Smurf's pretty much being eliminated at this point. (I'll continue reading posts relating to Smurf, juuuuuuuuust in case, but I think I have enough confidence to make this call.)

Spoiler: Hanasawa

I've played at the osu! forums since August 2009 apparently. I don't really remember my experience as any scum faction but they more than certainly did not turn out well. Going for a less aggressive approach to mafia now as it really didn't help me these 4 years.

More than anything else, I think this is what gives me the pause on Hanasawa. The four years of experience on another site--that might not translate into skill level, but it very often

does

. And the truly concerning point, I think, was how he immediately followed the talk about his scum-play with the talk about his plan to change his style of play--it's a semantics thing, to be sure, so probably nothing. But I think that might have been the original gut reason I was suspicious of Hanasawa's post. Because somewhere in my mind, no matter how much it seems like Insane Troll Logic, I think I tied the two together, as if one was reliant on the other.

And that's the concern I'll need to address for myself before calling Hanasawa town. That Hanasawa's decision to play less aggressively is not tied to alignment, and that Hanasawa's experience did not factor into the scum's decisions.

@Marquis: If these tl;drs, which I assume what you are re-referring to as long paragraphs, have a tendency to fake helpfulness in your eyes, could you please tell us what tells you've found between the lines that mastin has given so far? Changing the reason of your RVS vote to a personal dislike of 'long paragraph posts' without any other substance is really not helpful.

Scum reason: prodding scumbuddy to evaluate them, and maybe send them a hint, in addition to latching onto a potential-wagon. Town reason: scumhunting.

Similar to Smurf, still trying to figure out which. However, this helps:

Sorry, my apathy just came from somewhere else as I just lost a completed game as Town back at the osu! forums just a few hours ago so I'm actually quite gutted as it is now. It's because of that game and others that I'm withdrawing from being aggressive and I'm going to refrain from approaches like that until further notice.

It's actually good for me to have just a plain mafia game like this as well so that's a yay.

Vote is still staying though. Might have been random at first but with phok doing a second random vote with 'discussion' to start with 'that chicken avatar' along with the reason of the Marjam vote being somewhat weak, I see no reason yet to change it.

Helps a lot, in fact. It is fully possible that Hanasawa lost a town game and is using that loss to justify a change in his scum-game. (I've done that before, and done it a lot.) However, it's far more probable that performing abysmally in the game as town (I'm willing to bet that he was predicting a loss before the loss even happened, and maybe depending on the game's length, as early as the beginning of OUR game) influenced his decision to try and avert that as town in

this

game. I can't fully eliminate Hanasawa yet, but it's getting much closer. This post also has some good scumhunting when it comes to phok--while ultimately wrong, the reasoning of "multiple RVS votes" does hold merit, and is considered by quite a number of people on MS.net to be a scumtell.

This is through the first three pages--by now, we can pretty safely say the RVS has ended. My conclusions from it will have to wait until I've read the entire thread again, but at this point...

-Smurf is being written off as town. On the radar, still, so I'm not ignoring what Smurf is saying. But for the moment, is out of contention as far as I'm concerned for being Marquis's scumbuddy.
-Hanasawa is close, but not quite there, yet, to being written off.
-This leaves Marjam and {anorway, Bulbazak}.
-I'm intentionally leaving out anorway for the moment, because I'm planning on looking back on anorway after everything's finished to see the likelihood of him bussing compared to the likelihood of him being town.

I have other obligations to attend to, so I'll be back soon.

[mastin2]

* This leaves {Marjam, anorway/Bulbazak} as my main focus.

[mastin2]

mastin, any chance you could post an order as to the most likely you have down as the partner out of your suspects?

Given as how I'm still working on it?

Not really, no.

But as of

right

now

,

this very moment

, the list would look (most likely to least likely) something like:

Marjam
Bulbazak
Hanasawa
(After this is irrelevant, because it's going into those eliminated)
Smurf
hodge
Karnage.

[mastin2]

I'm getting a bit concerned, here. Even the mod hasn't been online that much. Marjam's last post was two weeks ago, before day one ended. I can understand Marquis not posting for four days, given as how he's outted scum and is going to try and not give away info as to his scumbuddy's identity, but the mod's also not posted for three days--same for Karnage. Smurf and Hanasawa are both two. I realize it was a holiday weekend, but still...it's a bit worrying. And even those who have posted, aren't as engaged as they should be.

Right now, some seem to think that we're playing the "waiting on Mastin" game. (Again. ) But what

should

be happening is

everyone

doing what I am--trying to work out who Marquis's scumbuddy is. And aside from Karnage assuming it's me and Bulbazak implying the same, nobody's really seemed to put effort into it. Yeah! It's something we'll probably get to do tomorrow. But why do tomorrow what you can do today? The more we talk about it now, the better chance we have of success tomorrow. So let me, for a moment, turn hodge's question back on you:

Hodge:

Who do

you

think is Marquis's buddy? If you've not got a clue, then I'd strongly suggest you begin doing the same analysis that I'm doing to try and find Marquis's buddy.

Smurf:

Where are you? What's your take on this?

Hanasawa:

How many games have you played on that other site you come from? On that site, about how valuable do you think you are as a player? And when it comes to here, what are you thinking?

Bulbazak:

Who is scum if I'm not? And why do you think that I am Marquis's scumbuddy?

Karnage:

You I don't expect to write a case on me. In fact, I'd prefer you not, at least until AFTER Bulbazak has made his against me. (Your case is best done as a jailkeep. That will speak louder than any words.) But who, if not me, would you expect to be scum with Marquis?

[mastin2]

Looks like I get to have some time to IC after all.

Spoiler: To Hodge

To be fair the reason we delayed the lynch on marquis was so that you could look into who you thought was the scum partner.

To be honest the only person I have nailed as town is Karnage, the rest I keep changing views on

Yes, well, the thing is, I shouldn't be the only one doing this. For starters, it's bad practice to rely on a player. As the IC, I specifically try to teach newbies to be reliant largely on themselves, because quite frankly, newbies have a remarkable way of being surprisingly competent when they let themselves be. Sure, yeah, I prefer to also teach them to work with others. But the key is, "work with". Not "rely on". Then there's also the fact of the matter that while I AM town, I very well could be scum and waiting on a scum player is generally not a good thing, either.

Basically,

every

player

should

be doing what I am doing: trying to figure out Marquis's scumbuddy. So, go through the same processes that I am: rereading the thread and asking questions. You say that you keep changing your views on everyone else. So, explain to us WHY your views keep on changing on them--we can potentially help you out, and often-times, the very act of explaining your ambivalence helps you solidify the read. And if it doesn't, and if our feedback alone doesn't help, then you should be following through.

You KNOW that if not now, you'll just have to do this later. Players like myself and Karnage aren't going to be living very long, so it's more important for us to be doing it than most, but the simple fact of the matter is, you're going to be doing it eventually, and it's better to start now when you (theoretically) have six others giving input (five of whom are town) rather than a significantly-reduced number.

But Hanasawa, you should read that, too. Speaking of which...

Spoiler: Hanasawa, this is for you

My signature has your answer, links to games and my comments about them. Overall, there, I feel like I'm an absolute tool and here I kinda feel like I'm flaking hardcore. If you're looking through my games, go for a guy named Rantai, he's the one I'm trying to lean my play on now.

I'm also trying to wrap my head around how Smurf looked like scum in the first place.

Oh, dang. I took a brief look at that, and I have to say I'm sorry. Buuuuut, I'll make you a deal: stick with this site, and I'll help you. Put effort into this game and don't give up on it, don't flake, stay through it all, and I will give you the best IC lesson I can possibly give. All I require is for you to not give up and keep trying.

Obviously, said lesson will be much greater in the post-game, but I can give tips for right now. While there's definitely a certain advantage to "lurking" as both town and scum, of laying back and letting others do most of the work...you've fallen too far into that. There's a difference between not being overly-aggressive, being a total pushover, and being a competent player--being, that a competent player doesn't fall into either extreme. One extreme is just as detrimental to a town and drags them down just as much as the other.

So my advice to you is much the same as with hodge: sure, yeah! You don't need to be hyper-aggressive. But you need to show SOME initiative. You have Smurf as being town, yes? So explain why you think Smurf is town. (Even if it boils down to "gut".) You don't think Smurf can be scum, yes? Then look at the cases which have Smurf as scum, and analyze them to see why others have--and then, think about why they thought that. Was it town-oriented pushing, or scum-oriented pushing?

And with that as a baseline, expand out into other reads. You don't need to be aggressively shoving your reads down people's necks. You don't need to be pushing super-hard on your scumreads and town-reads. You don't need to show complete conviction in your reads. But you DO need to let others know your reads, you DO need to work with them and try to figure things out, you DO need to be honest about the strength of your reads (which you should have plenty of), and you DO need to show some initiative in all of these--you shouldn't be providing them only when asked; you should be providing them every time you think it relevant to do so, which is typically every time they've changed.

For both of you--look at what I've been doing as an example. I'm not merely reacting to others; I'm actively trying to figure things out. A good teacher teaches by example.

As an alternative example, Bulbazak's approach (while different, and potentially scum-motivated; still figuring that out) is a slightly more passive way of achieving the same. His methodology is less aggressive than my own, but still shows his strength. It's not as proactive as I'd prefer, but it's still providing on a somewhat-consistent basis good content which can be analyzed.

[mastin2]

I can't see Bulbazak being scum. I don't see why marquis would immediately vote his partner to start day 2.

I can.

Not coming from Marquis, though. But keep in mind, going into D2, Marquis had all of N1 to talk to Bulbazak.

And a cross-bus

is

something Bulbazak would orchestrate.

In fact, I think it's a concern--that Bulbazak instructed Marquis to say that he had jailkept Bulbazak--if their kill goes through, Bulbazak's seen as more likely to be town as a result, and if their kill fails, then Bulbazak could probably (even without Karnage's CC) swing things around onto Marquis.

Though most likely, if this is correct, Bulb told Marquis to claim a Bulb jailkeep expecting the kill to go through--and when it didn't, Marquis still claimed the Bulb jailkeep without thinking things through.

In either case, I would strongly, STRONGLY recommend not eliminating Bulbazak from the suspect pool based off of Marquis's vote.

[mastin2]

I'll be around at the time of the deadline, but I'm not sure I'll finish my analysis by then. Not that it's strictly needed for me to finish, given as how I'll be alive come D3, but I still feel bad about it. Anyway,

Vote: Marquis
This is the L-1 vote.

Other players wanting to do analysis before the hammer comes tomorrow should do so now. (Especially you, Karnage.)

[mastin2]

Unvote

.
Forgot--Marquis can self-hammer. Cutting the discussion short.

I'll vote tomorrow.

[mastin2]

Mastin, convince me that hodge isn't Karnage's partner.

In the hypothetical situation where Karnage is scum who suicidally claimed JK, then Marquis's claim of blocking Bulbazak was true. If Marquis truthfully blocked Bulbazak, then the two options are, (1) the scum nightkilled Bulbazak (in which case, why would hodge do so when hodge was listed as town to Bulbazak?), or (2) the scum sent Bulbazak to do the killing.

As I previously discussed, the latter is incredibly more likely in that scenario. (Especially given that Karnage's claim saved us from a Bulbazak lynch. If Karnage were scum and Bulbazak were town, why counterclaim? Why not let the town-Bulb get lynched?) But given as how that's only true if Karnage is scum, and Karnage is likely telling the truth, this is all pointless.

[mastin2]

And for the record--Tamuz's outburst is similarly-suicidal in the same way Karnage's claim would be. Basically, Tamuz has virtually zero chance of being scum with Marquis. That'd be factional suicide to defend your scumbuddy who's getting lynched, buying them AT MOST a single day, and drawing attention to yourself. Thus, Tamuz cannot be scum with Marquis.

This is, similarly, why Karnage isn't scum to me. We were lynching Bulbazak. A scum-Karnage couldn't counter-claim Marquis and win the game if Bulbazak were his partner, because Marquis's townflip would incriminate Karnage, and Karnage's scum-flip would leave the town wondering why he claimed and stopped the lynch on Bulbazak, with the only answer being, "scum with Bulbazak", because he'd have no incentive to stop the lynch of a town player if he were scum.

Furthermore, I believe that Bulbazak's scum with Marquis, now, not only because Tamuz's posting has made Tamuz be obvtown...but also because a town-Bulbazak would not be naive enough to think scum would make the game be "incredibly easy".

[mastin2]

Why are you trying to shut down information, Bulbazak?

Answer: he's scum.



And to elaborate on why Tamuz isn't scum. Tamuz is no rookie. Tamuz is a veteran. Tamuz also doesn't strike me as the type of player to defend a scumbuddy beyond reason. It's something I'd have to do meta research on to confirm, but basically, I think that even in 2005, players knew that bussing was occasionally a necessity.

Thus, Tamuz would be able to survey the scene. A scum-Tamuz would look in, see the situation, and realize that defending Marquis would put him in a severely-disadvantageous position. A town-Tamuz looking in, however, has no such qualms. A town-Tamuz analyzes the situation like a scum-Tamuz, but not knowing which JK claim is real, can come to an alternative conclusion. If you recall, I did similar analysis to Tamuz. And you know that between Tamuz and I, there's an ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM of one scum, so both of us can't be scum using similar tactics. I happen to think neither of us are, and that Tamuz analyzed this situation as town, but came to the opposite conclusion of most of us. A conclusion that I happen to disagree with, but not an unreasonable conclusion to make, as I can clearly follow Tamuz's logic.

[mastin2]

A tl;dr version:
Short of Refuge In Audacity, there's no way Karnage's counterclaim was scum-motivated.
Short of Refuge In Audacity, there's no way Tamuz's stances are scum-motivated.

[mastin2]

P-edit: I've seen scum be this stupid before. Simply dismissing Tamuz as scum because "no scum in their right mind would do this" is bad play. I actually think that Tamuz as scum WOULD do this, especially given that he so out of sorts with the game and is not playing to a town wincon.

Yes, scum can be this stupid. "Can". In theory.

That ignores the circumstances of the situation. You're classifying Tamuz as being "out of touch". That's not something I think is true. I think that Tamuz knows exactly what he's doing. So, it's not that I'm dismissing him because "no scum in their right mind will do this". I'm concluding he's town because I've analyzed the situation from the viewpoint of Tamuz.

A scum-Tamuz gains nothing by pulling this move. All it does is draw attention to himself, and relying on it being too obvious is something a player from his generation is not likely to do. A scum-Tamuz is likely to realize that pulling this move won't save himself, because people won't dismiss him as being too obvious; they'll lynch him thinking he

was

obvious.

A town-Tamuz could see things from a different light as the rest of the town. There are legitimate reasons to see Karnage as being scum. I've pointed out a few myself, and I've loved the points Tamuz has brought up in favor of that. Ultimately, I think the points are wrong, but the points aren't being pulled out of Tamuz's ass. The points are well-refined and easy to follow. They show analysis, rather than showing desperate mudslinging. His posts are legitimate scumhunting, containing solid questions, and also solid reach-outs.

Tamuz isn't scum. And a town-Bulbazak would know this.

[mastin2]

As to his partner I have said before my reasons for thinking bulbazak. Marjam (your predecessor) had been suspicious but after you're play less so I'd believe now.

Point these out to me, since I seem to recall you saying you were null on everyone else, until AFTER Bulbazak called you scum. Prove me wrong.

(Yes, this is me considering the possibility of Bulbazak being town and hodge being scum. Dealwithit. )

[mastin2]

To be honest the only person I have nailed as town is Karnage, the rest I keep changing views on

Bulbazak - Said at the start of day 2 that I wasn't happy with the late swing to Phok and that I thought it was orchastrated by scum so it pointed to 3 votes Marquis, Bulba and Hanasawa. Said at the start of the days play I felt in 149 Bulba was pressuring people into voting even if they felt it was a mislynch as with Hana 150. Also 'I no longer believe that Smurf is Too Scummy to be Scum, but rather blatantly obvious scum' without too much info put forward as reasons.

fair point, could give Bulba that excuse though if it came down to it 'if I were the partner why would they vote me' sort of thing. Start of day 2 I wouldn't think anyone would get lynched straight away so a vote on your partner maybe wouldn't be so bad as all Marquis would have to do if it got too many votes would be to retract their vote saying they don't want to see a quick lynch.

These don't seem to be saying Bulbazak's scum.

[mastin2]

You clearly didn't get enough sleep last night, you're still being a dick.

No, he's seemingly being a dick because he's scum.

I skimmed Bulb's "case" against Tamuz, because bluntly, I went "meh" at it, because it looked like utter crap.

[mastin2]

Right, so I was going to vote Marquis, but that'd be the hammer at this point. I'll be around for the next three hours or so, which gives you that much time to talk. After those three hours, I'm voting Marquis to ensure we get that lynch today, soyeah, speak now or potentially-forever hold your piece.

[mastin2]

well since you're maybe here, mastin. Comments on my train on hodge?

Honestly, am putting it off for the moment. Skimmed it, think you might have something, and am still thinking about hodge, but it's something I'm mainly planning to deal with come D3.

To me, it's effectively a question of "Bulbazak, or hodge?" at this point. So I'm weighing Bulbazak, and weighing hodge. Since it's a fairly decent probability that I'm living to see D3 (the only way I wouldn't is if the scum nightkilled me successfully), I can afford to wait to form my conclusion on which is the most likely.

[mastin2]

Well, I was planning on doing it now, so...

VOTE: Marquis.

It'll probably be at least 15 minutes before the mod gets in here, anyway.

[mastin2]

Well, I was planning on doing it now, so...

VOTE: Marquis.

It'll probably be at least 15 minutes before the mod gets in here, anyway.

[mastin2]

Not quite yet.

Karnage, I will be flipping town, so I think that you should change your strategy. YES, Tamuz has the same traits as me: if town, good to have around. If scum, good to block.
But that trait's not going to work forever.

Instead, I'd advise Bulbazak. Let's run through the list, shall we?
-You seem to hold more faith in Bulbazak being valuable than any other player in the game, so having him as confirmed town would be awesome, no?
-It would help resolve the Bulbazak vs. hodge debate we're having in the town.
-It does have the same traits as me: if town, good to have around. If scum, even better to block.

So I would strongly recommend a jailkeep of Bulbazak instead of Tamuz.

Also, I would like time to sort out hodge and Bulbazak, anyway. We have, what, three weeks? I don't expect us to wait the entirety of that time--but I request at least one week for me to try and solve it today. You'll have your lynch on me. I'll even help; I'll self-vote. Just not yet.

[mastin2]

No, I have an ego; I think they killed

me

.

(But seriously, I thought that if they had a roleblocker, that it was possible they'd RB you and nightkill me, because I'm arrogant. )

Could be no-kill, could be kill on me, but it's not me who did the killing, so it's going to be one of those two.

[mastin2]

Mastin, you being targeted for a NK would have been a waste of said NK, especially since Karnage stated that he was going to JK you.

It actually makes more sense than you think. At worst, it has the same result as a no-kill. At best, I die, and suspicion is cast onto Karnage, and people begin to doubt what the setup is. (If Karnage lied about protecting me, the kill would go through. He shouldn't lie, naturally, but he could have in theory lied, which is why the scum can in theory have tested it out via nightkilling me to confirm Karnage's money was where his mouth was.)

That leaves you doing the killing and scum no killing. If scum decided to no kill, instead of taking the opportunity to kill the JK, then they are taking an awfully big risk.

Not really. There are seven alive. My mislynch brings it down to six, and Karnage's death tonight if he jails wrong brings it down to five, with one confirmed town. A mislynch and nightkill of the confirmed town later, and it's lylo. So, in effect, the scum only needs two mislynches in order to win. (Because my mislynch is free.)

Or, Karnage is left alive, and we're brought down to six tomorrow. That player is mislynched, and we go into night--Karnage dies, his target is confirmed, and we go into the next day with four alive and one conftown. Meaning only one mislynch is needed.

It's not nearly as risky as you think. All it requires is for the scum to correctly guess Karnage's next jailkeep target the night before Karnage announces it--and to nightkill him before he does so. He announced it was me yesterday, and me being town, this mislynch would be a given. It also is not an unreasonable assumption to make that Karnage would choose Tamuz next, given as how Tamuz was the alternative choice to me, yesterday. Meaning, if the scum is even half as competent as you have been assuming, Bulbazak, then they'd know that they could get away with it for at least today. If not tomorrow, too, depending on Karnage's announcement today and predicted target tomorrow.

Is there some risk involved, undoubtedly. But is there a reward to be reaped? Most certainly, ESPECIALLY for last night. Last night had the greatest payoff with the least risk. Each additional night lowers the payoff and increases the risk. But last night, when there was virtually zero risk (Karnage isn't exactly hard to predict) and an incredible reward...it makes a whole heck of a lot more sense to not kill Karnage than to kill him.

And of course my analysis is going to be biased, because I know my alignment to be town. I'm flipping town, and no amount of willing me, no amount of wishing me, no amount of thinking, hoping, or praying me to be scum will change that fact. So if you plan on bluntly writing me off as scum, you should be next on the chopping block, Bulbazak. That arrogance and flat-out ignorance is incredibly detrimental to the town if you're town, and offers you the perfect tool to blend in if you're scum.

Karnage, I want you to analyze with me, here. Yes, you'll be lynching me. I'll help you after my week is over. (It ends in five days.) I'm not going to talk my way out of a lynch. There's absolutely zero effort going into me trying to survive. Promise. But I want you to assume that I am town for the remainder of the five days, and work with the town-me, here. Including my recommendation on who to jail next. Please take it into consideration. I want you to read the game with me and see if, honestly, Tamuz could ever be an ideal target. I want you to read the posts today and the way they've been done to, realistically, gauge the scum reaction in them.

Tamuz looks town, and thus, not the ideal target. Especially given my above prediction, that being, Tamuz is who the scum

want

you to jail. Because a Tamuz jail does nothing to help us. It doesn't answer the equation of hodge vs. Bulbazak at all. Tamuz continues to look like a town player, trying to lynch scum, not being interested in the technically-correct play. (The technically-correct play is lynching me, which again is why I'm advocating for my own death. I should not, under ANY circumstances, be allowed to live to see Day Four.)

Now think about Bulbazak and hodge, where I feel the real scum interaction lies. It could be hodge, whose posting thusfar has been kinda lousy. But I'm thinking instead that it's Bulbazak, your townread on him be damned. He's sucking up to you, buddying you. That's because he needs you to act the way he wants you to, in order to best secure his chances of victory. He wanted this day to end early, thus the vote on me. He wanted you to jail Tamuz. He wanted you to not resolve the hodge vs. Bulbazak conflict, because he knows that if you did, he could be screwed as a result.

Then there's his whole attitude. He's "assuming" that I am scum. When doing so is detrimental to a town wincon. You can never assume that it's this easy. That it'll end with the correct jailkeep. That you don't need to account for the aftermath. As town, you should ALWAYS be prepared to be wrong, you should always be ready in case things don't go according to your prediction, and Bulbazak has thusfar refused to do that.

This is also part of the reason I'm encouraging you to jailkeep him. Because I want to throw a wrench in what I believe was his prediction. I want to not have Tamuz be jailkept, but instead have Bulbazak jailkept. Because, if I am correct, he planned on you JKing Tamuz, and I don't want things to go according to HIS plan.

[mastin2]

Why? That leaves mastin alive, conf town and he's a strong player who is certain I'm town.

Everyone, except me (because I'm karnage's next target-- and Karnage has been stupidly opaque BEYOND the immediate night) gets a free kill on a very strong player by no killing and then can kill the JK the next night. They also get 0 heat from lynching a town-mastin because they're just 'following the PR'. 2 confirmed or potentially confirmed towns down the drain with no day manipulation.

IMO it only makes sense that someone who fear's Karnage targeting him the next day (ie today) would to hit Karnage. The rest get a free lynch on mastin with no danger to themself.

Why is it that when *I* say something, people brush it off as desperate scum, but when Tamuz says the same thing, it holds more weight?



But seriously. This is

exactly

what I've been saying. Karnage is not exactly a hard man to predict. Any half-competent player could have told you the same. Heck, all competent players (aside from Bulbazak)

are

telling you the same. That Karnage's decision to jailkeep Tamuz tonight was so painfully obvious that it was a near-certainty. And that by blindly following said jailkeeper, they can get a guilt-free mislynch on town. Because lynching me is the strategically-correct move, there's no reason not to do so.

And, by the way, Bulbazak.

Because I'm not stupid enough not to use a kill. In your scenario, we have a confirmed town either way. Why not get rid of the conf. town who could make my life miserable in future nights? This almost sounds like you think conf. town Mastin would be able to somehow get scum-me lynched. Most likely, the result would be a Hodge lynch, so I'm not seeing where you're coming from. The best move for scum last night would have been to lynch Karnage. Period.

You claim you wouldn't waste your nightkill by choosing no-kill. But if you targeted me, you wouldn't be lying with your claim. You

wouldn't

be wasting the nightkill. You'd be gathering valuable info and testing the waters for tomorrow. If things played out in the most probable way, you'd end up having effectively no-killed and put me on the chopping block. But you'd have also gained info about Karnage which no-killing would have lost you. So a scum-you WOULD nightkill me.

As for the rest of that--yes, I could get the scum-you lynched. In fact, I'm probably the ONLY player in this game, as conf-town, who could get the scum-you lynched. Karnage has you as town. Tamuz suspects (or, at least, suspected) hodge more. Hanasawa and Smurf haven't given their thoughts, but would probably be much the same. I'm a charismatic player, who is a fairly-decent judge of people's psyche. Simply put, I know what resonates well with people, can work with others, and get them to go the way I want them to go. Especially as the conf-town IC. (I would never use my position as the IC to my advantage, but the fact that a conf-town IC is telling players to act a certain way is certain to influence them regardless of whether I bring that up. )

You're the only player in this game who is refusing to look into the future, Bulbazak. You're the only player who is stubbornly refusing to admit that you could be wrong, here. And again, I see that coming a lot more from scum than from town, especially from someone like you. To put it simply, "Only scum deal in absolutes". (For the sake of this quote, assume there's a difference between "deal" and "use". It's one thing to say an absolute; it's another to enforce an absolute. )

Compare--Karnage: "Okay, willing to talk and hear you out, but still going to lynch you."
Tamuz: "I'm not going to blindly assume Mastin's scum, here. Let's look at the logic behind the play rather than the logic behind the roles." (Essentially.)
hodge: "Like Karnage, am willing to talk, but I'm still going to lynch Mastin in the end."
Hanasawa: "I think Mastin's scum, but we should still talk about things in case he isn't."
Smurf: "Like others, I see the logic of both sides, so we should talk about it more." (In essence.)
Me: "I'm going to lynch myself because it's the technically-correct play, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take some time to discuss what you'll be doing after my town flip."

Bulbazak: "Fuck that, lynch Mastin. We have our scum here; why are you waiting?"

One of these is not like the others.

[mastin2]

If it wasn't clear by the above: Bulbazak has, once more, continued to push himself to be my current choice for scum. Haven't yet done the final batch of reading I need to make that call for sure, but his attitude sticks out like a sore thumb. Bulbazak's a competent-enough player where he should

know

better than to act the way he is, showing both apparent short-sightedness, arrogance, and flat-out ignorance. This is not the hallmark of a player of his caliber--not as town, anyway. This type of tunnel-visioning, this type of confirmation bias, refusing to so much as LOOK at alternatives, comes far, FAR more often from a scum player than a town player.

Take it from a guy who does it as scum! As town, I do like I am now: I have my ideas, but I'm fully willing to admit I'm wrong. As scum, I display confirmation bias and show absolute conviction in my scumreads being infallible. It's not something you know now, but if you gained experience across the site, you'd see that's far from a trend unique to me. It's everywhere, across the whole site. Scum love to get narrow-minded, and town are more willing to accept alternative points of view.

That's not to say that this tell is absolute. You'll see reasonable scum players dealing with town, and you'll see town players who "death-tunnel" in that they refuse to accept defeat when it comes to their belief in a player being scum. (It largely depends on the players in question.) But in general? In general, tunnel-visioning to the extent Bulbazak has is a decently-reliable scumtell. It's one of those things you'll definitely be agreeing with me ten or so games down the line, but will just have to take my word on for the moment.

As I said--it's not absolute. If it were, I'd be pushing Bulbazak as being 100% scum. I wouldn't need to be doing my reread; I could cancel it right here and now, declare Bulbazak to be scum, explain it with all of the above, self-vote, and martyr myself to get him lynched. But it's not that simple. I

can

see him pulling this stunt (anti-town as it is) as town, even though I

think

it's coming from him as scum. Hence why I need to continue my reread.

Though, again, I would like to emphasize to Karnage that he should be jailing Bulbazak--NOT Tamuz.

[mastin2]

Image no longer available.

Amrun, I think that counts as a mistake.

I can still see it, but I changed it just in case. Kittens are important, OBVIOUSLY.

~Amrun

[mastin2]

I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.

And yet you have failed to show any signs of it not being true.

Even now, Mastin continues his attack. He's not looking back over the game and giving final thoughts. He's trying to get leverage to sling mud onto me and shift attention onto my slot so that maybe I'll be lynched instead of him.

On the contrary, I am. And if you've been paying attention, you know damn good and well that I'm advocating for my own lynch, because no matter how much I don't like it, that's the strategically correct play, and I as the IC have to teach that. Oh, and speaking of which...this next part is spoilered because it's basically just one rant. Titled,

Spoiler: There is NO thing in a game that I take more personally than people questioning my teaching integrity

A PR lying at L-1 is good town play?

Not a PR. A

jailkeeper

. There's been plenty of theory talk. There actually

is

a decent case for a jailkeeper to not reveal their true role and to hide it, same as a bulletproof. There's an MD thread about it, even. I am too lazy to track it down and link to it, but needless to say, this is not something that I wasn't aware of existing.

Yes

, there is a theoretical reason to maybe lie, as a JK or BP.

But let's go over what I actually said. I never advocated it as good town play. I advocated Marquis's claimed usage of it as good town play, where Marquis claimed to jail one person where hypothetically-real-Marquis jailed a different one. Because as a jailkeeper with TWO scum left, that is ALSO the theoretically correct play to make; lie about your target so you can catch scum.

When there's only one scum left, a jailkeeper better dang well tell the truth about who they're jailkeeping. But when there's two scum alive, it's actually optimal play to lie in the exact manner Marquis did.

So, yes. In that regard, I supported a lie. (BECAUSE THIS IS OPTIMAL PLAY FOR THAT SPECIFIC ROLE AND SITUATION.) And yes, in theory I could support the lie of a JK as correct play, as demonstrated above.

But did I? No. I did not. Know what I actually said?

Anywaaaaaay. I have a policy. It's called "don't lynch claimed PRs on day one, no matter how scummy they may seem". I'm reasonably certain Marquis is lying, yes. But I'm sure as heck not going to risk him telling the truth. My last newbie game had the town doc self-hammer on D1 and screw the town over, allowing me to NK the cop N2. In the chance that the claim is correct, I want Marquis alive to have a chance to prove it. If Marquis is scum, then being forced to fake that jailkeeper PR will give us info on the alignment of other players and potentially limit Marquis's mislynch-pool. And if Marquis is town, obviously, a lynch there is sub-optimal.

In either case, I would strongly recommend we give Marquis a night.

That I didn't believe his claim to be true

. But that, despite how I didn't believe the claim to be true, it was the correct move, AGAIN BY MAFIA THEORY, to not lynch the un-counterclaimed (at the time) power role on D1. Despite the lie, despite the scumminess. And then, D2, I also said this:

On the other hand, Marquis's usage of the role makes perfect sense, whereas Karnage's usage of the role doesn't make as much sense. To elaborate--there are two possible setups with a jailkeeper for the scum to have: Goon and Roleblocker. If they have a goon, then there's no way Marquis can make this claim and not come out on the losing end. Doctor/Tracker? Lynch the JK claim. Actual JK CC'ing? Lynch the original JK claim. Just a cop? Still lynch the JK claim. BP townie and tracker? Still lynch the JK claim.

Roleblocker? Cop-Doc results in lynching the JK claim. JK-BP? Again, JK CC equals lynching the original jailkeeper claim. There's no scenario where a jailkeeper claim offers Marquis a chance at living, thus, why a jailkeeper claim from Marquis makes sense. Then there's also the usage of the role. Marquis used the role in the exact same way that I would use it if I had the role.

Usage. of. the. role. As in, the claimed block on Bulbazak, after having claimed he was going to jail someone else on D1. Never do I say that Marquis claiming VT-then-JK was optimal play. (Though there

is

theory debates supporting that notion, as I mention. Controversial ones? Yes. But debates nonetheless.)

And when it comes to the actual jailkeeper,

I am not advocating for me being spared. I will be self-voting because it is the technically correct play.

You're flat-out

lying

when you say that I'm saying that we shouldn't be lynching me. We SHOULD be. I've made this QUITE explicit. As explicit as I can be. That I am going to be lynched today, despite being town and knowing it won't hit scum, specifically BECAUSE it's my duty as the IC to advocate for the correct play.

Scum in such a situation should still NK the person who the JK said he was going to JK?

Yes. I laid out the facts. There's no disadvantage to it--absolutely none. There is, however, potential advantages in the play. Furthermore, it's consistent with a trend that I like to teach scum. I like to teach scum to be aware of the setup, but to generally not fear the protective PRs and kill who you want to kill. This being an extension of that. The kill fails? You know there's a protective PR in play. (Or, in this case, that said PR already claimed is being truthful.) The kill succeeds? You get rid of someone you'd have wanted gone anyway.

cum always deal in absolutes and focus so tightly on one person, leaving no other options only?

Again. This is a massive misrep. I said in general, they do. MY QUOTE EVEN EXPLICITLY POINTED THIS OUT. Where I said some scum will be reasonable and not do it, and some town will death-tunnel. But in

general

, scum WILL deal in those absolutes, and scum WILL focus on only one person. Note that focusing on one person is actually a

great

way to leave your options open. Know why?

Because, via focusing on one person,

you're not focusing on anyone else

. You're not addressing other options, ignoring all around you in order to pursue the target. And when your target flips town, you go, "crap, I need to reassess", and then, BAM! Bingo. Easy as that. Options are open. You should know this, Bulbazak. That as scum, tunneling and then having your target flip town is a GREAT way to get yourself out of a corner and open up mislynch options otherwise unavailable.

So it's not me who's violating the rules.

It's

YOU

.

[mastin2]

tl;dr?

-I never advocated Marquis's VT-then-JK claim as being the correct play.
-But even if I had, there's actual MD backing behind that theory.
-I did advocate that claiming your target and then jailing someone else WITH TWO SCUM ALIVE is the correct play,

because it IS

.
-And I did advocate for leaving Marquis, a then-unCCed-PR, alive for D1, which is ALSO the correct play; you typically don't lynch PR claims on D1 without a CC. (And even then, generally not; you let the scum sort out the CC. But that depends on circumstances, of course. So does the policy, but in general it holds true.)
-When it comes to scum, I advocate targeting players you want dead and ignoring protective PRs. Again a generality, but something which can apply to me being NK'd while JK'd.
-The correct play for today, lynching myself, is PRECISELY what I am doing.
-Scum DO generally tunnelvision and DO generally focus on a specific player because it is MASSIVELY beneficial to a scum wincon to do so,

but they won't always do this and town can do this

, so it's only a general tell.

All of these are true.

[mastin2]

So, let's move away from this argument, it's not exactly productive. We have mastin down as town, but because of certain factor, he's a necessary lynch. Then we have to narrow down between hodge and bulba. Personally, I agree with tamuz about hodge being slightly more likely. Kinda gut feeling, and for the reasons I put in my last post. But, we can see what happens. We could have scum choosing not to NK every night from now, because they're neither hodge or bulba

In which case, we find that out tomorrow after the JK if it's on Bulb or hodge as I want.

Karnage dies, we have conftown, we lynch the other, and if they flip town, we look for scum in the remaining names. (Tamuz, Hanasawa, and yourself, from my memory.)

Karnage lives, we lynch the player, jail the other, repeat until we DO hit scum.

Really, though, it's like 90% likely that the remaining scum is one of those two, so while you can entertain the idea of alternatives, don't seriously pursue them until you've crossed that bridge.

Anyway, still want Karnage to confirm he'll be JKing either Bulbazak or hodge. I'll see what I can do to finish my analysis today, since today's my last day.

[mastin2]

Bit of a rush, so no content--

I am at L-1. Someone should unvote to prevent an accidental hammer before we get Karnage checking in.

After that, hammer away. But we need Karnage here, announcing his target.

[mastin2]

Derp. Read Smurf as voting me twice and being two different people.

Still holds, though. I'll be self-voting when Karnage comes along to confirm his target, but I can't before that.

[mastin2]

I'm willing to follow Mastin's advice and Jail Bulbazak tonight.

Right, then.

Vote: mastin2

.

I'll continue to post and analyze throughout the day, and encourage others to do so, but now that we have this, we can end the day at any time.

[mastin2]

Also,

In this situation why is it better to lynch the JK target rather than to lynch scummiest target and continue to JK the same target?

Bulbazak is correct: because it is effectively equivalent to a cop guilty.

While I can theoretically teach you about scenarios where players are willing to put aside their results and go off of their feelings which turn out to be true (for instance, a cop with an innocent correctly deducing the target's a godfather and lynching them anyway), it's bad practice and 99% likely to be wrong. For every instance of a player with a PR correctly deducing their result is misleading, there are dozens upon dozens where a PR thinks their results were misleading when they were truthful.

This game is no different. The results implicate me as scum, in theory. In practice, I know I'm not, and others are saying I'm not, and most people here think that I am not at the moment. So in theory, you can take the risk. But most times, it will not pay off. Let's say someone else was mislynched, and I was jailed again. Would you still think me to be town? It'd only take a day or two, at most, before faith in that townread would quite justifiably be wavering. Despite myself knowing it to be true, the simple fact of the matter is that you don't.

That said, I'll run the math. Going with a lynch on hodge or Bulb and a JK of me, assuming a mislynch, the JK dieing clears me and leaves us with 5 alive and one mislynch. Assuming a mislynch, I die and leave you in lylo.
Going with a lynch on me and an announced JK target, assuming the JK dies, we have that player as a clear, 5 alive, and one mislynch. Assuming a mislynch, that player dies and the math remains the same.

Going with a lynch on hodge/Bulb and no death, we're left with six alive tomorrow. Lynch on the other, and if a mislynch, five going into the night--regardless of the situation following, the town's got no less than a 50/50.
Lynch me and announce a target, much the same--regardless of kill/no kill, the town has no less than 50% chance at victory.

Going with a lynch on me and no death (with Karnage jailing Bulb), we run through the same math as above, only modified. Lynch Bulb with target announcement, and if a mislynch, five in night. Lynch someone else with him as the target, same thing.

So from a theory stand-point, I guess it doesn't matter if I am lynched or if it's Bulbazak/hodge. In this specific game, at least. In general, the correct play would be to lynch the effective guilty.

So I guess I'm open to the idea of lynching Bulbazak/hodge, with the understanding that we ARE lynching someone (we can't divide our votes), and that if we can't get a consensus on one of them, we WILL go back onto me, and that if they flip town, I AM jailed again. And that people understand that in general, despite choosing not to lynch me this game, you should generally be doing it in future games. Trusting your reads over trusting your results can work depending on the context (context IS key to things), but generally, the results are called results for a reason, because they're actually results.

[mastin2]

In that case, I expect intent to be given before a hammer, along with enough time for Mastin to get some final thoughts out. If anyone quickhammers, Karnage should JK them in the event Mastin is not scum.

My thoughts are more or less out there already.

Honestly, I can try to reread what I haven't already, but at this point, I think I'm kinda in confirmation bias mode, anyway.
I see you as the last scum, and failing that, hodge. Like, 60/39. (The remaining 1% being in the remainder of {Hanasawa, Smurf, Tamuz}. ) I can

try

to read with my bias removed, try and see you as town and hodge as scum, try and keep an open mind, but I honestly think I'll fail, and fail miserably.

I just can't get out of that mindset, right now. I can

see

hodge as scum. I can

see

you as town. But no matter how hard I try, I can't believe it. :/

[mastin2]

Mastin, part of me really hopes you're town, because if you're scum, my faith in you has been shattered.

If I were scum, this would be my greatest game ever, because

despite self-voting and advocating for my own lynch, I

still

haven't been hammered

.

As it is, even with me being town, it's still hilarious--
Mastin: so damn good, he can't get lynched even when he tries to.

(Butyeah. As hilariously awesome as me being scum, getting closer to winning the game via a move that should actively cost me the game, would be...no. I'm town. )

And, seriously. You guys need to lynch me before deadline. No-lynch is literally the worst possible thing to happen today.

Though all this said, there's reason for hodge to be scum. A no-lynch is the worst possible thing for the town, and him not being around and not voting could be another potential reason for him being scum. So it's moved down a bit, to be 54/45, Bulb/hodge.

[mastin2]

Right, so scales have shifted; I'm now 55/44 on it being...hodge/Bulbazak. If I have the time before the hammer, I'll explain, but do note: Karnage's last claim as to who he'll jailkeep should still apply.

[mastin2]

I'm willing to follow Mastin's advice and Jail Bulbazak tonight.

Karnage, this is what the town will expect you to do, so it's what you need to do tonight.

[mastin2]

Reason I haven't yet voted is because i'm one of the ones not really believing you to be scum

This again shows an inconsistency, because hodge's earlier stance on it was this:

Mastin, willing to give you some time to try and work things out, but unless something substantial comes up I will still be voting for you.

Nothing indicated a change in opinion.

Karnage indicated the likely person to be jailed is bulba so there is no desperate need to wait for Karnage to come online to vote.

This indicates victorious scum, knowing they're safe for the night.

In that same post, we've got this:

Mastin I really hope you are scum so that this isn't a total mess up on our behalf by just going along with Karnage without delving deeper.

Immediately after a declaration that I'm town.

Not really liking this due to the fact I believe Mastin to be town.

Still think Bulbazak should be jailed, because that's what Karnage has indicated in his latest post. So assume a Bulbazak JK unless Karnage explicitly says he's targeting hodge before Amrun locks the thread.

[mastin2]

Hey, guys, just saying I haven't forgotten about you. As the IC, I feel obligated to give you a post-game write-up. It'll have thoughts on the game itself, thoughts on the theory of the game, and thoughts about every player. (Including myself, to demonstrate the flaws and strengths in my own play so that you can better understand all players.)

Unfortunately, this will take a bit of time to type, and won't be done until Monday. (Ah, fitting for this game. That the notes would be delayed. ) I ask that you stay around long enough for me to type them up, after which, you can disperse to the eight winds of mafiascum.net.

[mastin2]

First off, a general note about the speed of the game--once again, a reminder that games going this abysmally slow is

not

the norm here on MS.net. Even in 9-player games, you typically have people (including the mod) posting at least once every two days, and frequently much more than that--a rate of one or two pages per real day is far more typical. Which means that if this were a normal game, it'd either have been over in less than a month (all the events transpiring at a faster rate), or it'd have nearly double this number of pages. I as the IC hold a large amount of fault for that (apologies), as I'll be explaining later, but do recognize that this game is the abnormality, and not the norm.

If you think this game dragged on...that's because it did. Everyone got a bit apathetic, everyone got a bit lazy, everyone procrastinated, everyone kinda had to force themselves to so much as post in here during a large portion of the game, and even Amrun our mod showed those same tendencies. In future games, I recommend doing everything possible to avert that, because while this game was ultimately a town win, it's not a fun environment to be in and is incredibly advantageous to the scum. In short, I highly recommend of all players to be much, MUCH more proactive than they were, here, posting a minimum of once every day whenever possible, preferably much more, and with much more content.

Next up, the players.

[mastin2]

phokdapolees:

You need to push harder and with more confidence. :P You might not have had it, hence the many changes in "RVS" votes, but you needed it. A little confidence goes a long way in making you charismatic to others, which will not only help avert your lynch, but help you get stronger reads as well. As to how to get stronger reads--your approach was actually fairly decent, but needs some tweaking. Instead of multiple 'random' votes, pressure multiple players early-on for legitimate (albeit weak) reasons and have your vote on the player you feel strongest about.

This process allows you to get the reads, to get the game rolling and get out of the RVS much faster, and at the same time, won't make you D1 mislynch bait. :P From there, out of the RVS, don't drop your RVS pushes. Follow through on them and write up conclusions. If someone you pushed hard had a town reaction, say that. If someone you pushed had a scummy reaction, say that, too. And push it with vigor.

In other words, you're actually on the right track. You just need the slightest tweaking to your technique, and then you'll be good.

Smurf Ninja Fan:

You need to be more active. You seem to have a decently-good intuition when you apply it, but you actually need to apply it. :P My advice to be proactive mainly applies to you more than most. You may be used to lurking, but that will hinder your ability here on MS.net. Yeah, you shouldn't be posting for the sake of posting; your posts should have purpose. But you need to actually BE posting. :P That's about all the advice I can give you. Your approach to the game seems good. Your scumhunting seems fine. Your logic seems good. All you really need is to apply them all consistently with some degree of activity.

Tamuz:

Aside from not getting emotional about Bulbazak (despite having basically every possible reason to justifiably be ticked off about him :P), I don't really think I have much advice to give ya. You know your stuff. You have a sharp game. You're a strong player with a lot of experience, who knows what they're doing and how to handle themselves. You had a solid composition this game, and have a great deal of skill. Well-done all around.

hodge:

Well, without the mafia QT, I'm not able to get the full picture, but honestly, even if I had it, I'm not sure how much help I would be for you. Your scumgame was actually decently solid. You did an awesome job of being pro-town on day one, being both active and reasonable, with solid posting that made you one of the strongest townreads of everyone throughout the game. My main piece of advice, then, would be to try and replicate your success on D1 in later days, and to continue to bring that pro-town appearance to later days. One of the main ways you slipped was with inconsistent stances. While town players do in fact contradict themselves all the time, their contradictions tend to be far more natural.

So I guess my advice is to check your posting to see if the evolution of things (that, I believe, is now basically called the "trajectory" of your reads) makes sense and feels organic. If it feels like your reads are broken and disjointed, then you're going to get in trouble; if your reads feel natural and there is a logical progression in them, then BAM, you've nailed it.

The other thing is, of course, to keep your activity level up. You were one of the main posters on the first days--by the end of the game, you were basically a non-entity. If you had applied yourself consistently throughout the game, then you could have gained an incredible amount of towncred, and averted being caught in the lynch. That's another piece of advice I have--towards the end, you kind-of gave off the aura of defeat, in that you didn't think you could fight your way out of the noose. If that's true, take my word for it: you can fight your way out of ANY scenario, no matter how ridiculously low you think your chances are. You might not always succeed, but you have a better chance of winning by trying than you do of winning when giving up. :P

Bulbazak:

I really do hope this is a humbling experience for you. Yeah. You pushed both Marquis and hodge--but it'd be sheer arrogance and ignorance to assume that made your play this game good. Every single one of your stronger pushes was on town. You strongly pushed for the last-minute phok mislynch. You strongly pushed for my mislynch. You strongly pushed for Tamuz's would-be mislynch.

Yeah, you had them as scum. But you didn't push them as scum, at least, not as strongly as you pushed town. Phok can be forgiven, because of the deadline and Marquis's claim. But you were the ONLY player here who refused to accept that I could be town. You were the ONLY player here who stubbornly refused to look into a day after I would flip town, hindering your performance. You were the ONLY player here who had Tamuz as scum, holding stubbornly onto a dead read when everyone else had universally figured out Tamuz was town.

You might have good reads and good pushes. But you can't be this, bluntly, much of an ass. Because that's exactly what you were this game--an stubborn bastard. :P

There's a difference between being confident in a read and arrogantly refusing to give up on a read. If you can learn the difference, you'll be a much stronger player. (Basically, this article is for you. :P)

Marquis:

Honestly don't have a lot of advice to you, given how briefly you were in the game. Don't fall into common scum tactics, don't claim a role which you know will get you lynched, don't contradict yourself, and that's about it. :P

Karnage:

If you return, I'd love to see you continuing to play. You were a solid town player, showing reason throughout the game and decently-strong logic. Your jailkeep targets were all good, and you weren't as stubborn as Bulbazak was. :P


Last but not least...

Hanasawa:

I know I owe you the mother of all IC lectures, but honestly, I don't have the material I need to get things strongly down. My main piece of advice, though, is simple--don't give up on playing the game. You might think you suck now...but being aware of your weakness as a player is the first step in becoming a stronger player. I used to be a weak player. I was a weak player in all of 2009. It wasn't until 2011 that I became so much as mediocre at the game, and even then, that was only after a LOT of hard work (~40 games) and hydra'ing with someone who helped refine my play. (Nachomamma8.) In other words...everything you see about me was created through sheer force of will, with a TON of time and effort put into improving myself. I sucked. I knew I sucked. So...I worked as hard as I could to NOT suck.

You could be the next me if you let yourself be. By which, I mean...you can become a solid player if you apply your skills well. Analyze your play. Look at what you did right! Look at what you do well. Maximize those. Look at what you did poorly. Work to improve those elements of your play!

If you need help gaining charisma, this quote is a good starting point.

Be friendly/polite, and see things from the other point of view. Though this slightly conflicts with being concise, knowing when to be direct and when to be indirect can make all the difference. Often, Bluntly saying "you're scum" doesn't work as well as "I'm confident you're scum for this," and presenting it.

Strong-arm Arrogance works really well short-term, but it's self-destructive in the long-term; you need to negotiate/persuade, not threaten and force.

For more advanced reading, my article here basically covers the entirety of the subject in more detail. If people like you and you have a charm, then they'll be less likely to mislynch you and more likely to follow what you're trying to do.

If your problem is with accuracy, let me point to your vote history. You voted hodge, you unvoted me, you voted Marquis, your vote on phok was only out of desperation...seriously. You don't need as much help there as you think you do. :P You're already naturally a strong player.

Trust yourself

! You have good reads. You have good reasoning behind them. You're a sensible, reasonable, decently-logical player, whose accuracy is better than average. You know when not to back down and when you need to reconsider, so stop doubting your abilities. :P

I believe I said this in-game, but you have the opposite problem as Bulbazak. Whereas he has too much confidence (arrogance), you don't have enough. If you can conquer your self-doubt, if you can get into the mindset that you're not that bad, then you will be able to improve by miles. (That said, don't go TOO far and become Bulbazak. :P Knowing your play isn't perfect is the only way you're capable of improving.)

Like many others, one of my main tips is to be more active. You said that you were once known as being aggressive, and this game were scaling it back to be more passive. Once again, I'd recommend reincorporating some of that aggression into your play. Being proactive will MASSIVELY help your game, turning you from some guy who's afraid of the mislynch and of mislynching, into a guy who you respect and will work with if town, and fear and try to eliminate if scum.

So please. I'm begging you--stick around. You are not a bad player.

(Part three, in which I reflect on myself, will come in a bit.)

[mastin2]

Now as for me, I owe you all apologies. I set out in this game trying not to teach you to be lemmings, to try and teach you not to be sheep and to think for yourselves. Unfortunately, this happened anyway thanks to the 'follow-the-jailkeeper' mentality, and also had the negative effect of limiting my own play, here. In trying not to take control of you, fearing that doing so would hinder your growths as a player, I stagnated activity, especially given my multiple V/LAs and the mentality of people being waiting for me

anyway

. In other words, my approach to teaching you backfired horribly.

I feel directly responsible for the lack of activity, because as the IC, leading by example, it was my job to set the standard. And the standard I set was..."well, shit, I'm going V/LA."
...Not...not exactly the shining example you want to give players about mafiascum.net. When it comes to my own play as a player, separate from my teaching, it's a similarly mediocre overview. While not terrible, it was far from stellar. Though I ultimately correctly labeled hodge as the last mafia, and came up with a strategy to help the town win, and had Marquis read as scum via play...that's about all I have to my credit, and even these are weak. It took me too long to get hodge there, and even when he was, I was still 60/40. My strategy wasn't exactly groundbreaking and was mostly implemented already. I didn't follow through on Marquis because I allowed myself to ignore my read and go with the 'follow-the-jailkeeper' strategy.

All while being largely inactive and not giving this game the attention it oh so desperately deserved. While others slacked off and procrastinated, I as the IC and also me as the center of attention should receive the most flak for it, because that's not the kind of standard I should be setting for games. It was a lesson learned, though. ICs join newbies for the same reason newbies do, believe it or not--to improve, to learn from their mistakes, and become a better player. (Not to mention, IC. ) And I've done so.

In general, do as I say, not as I have done.
What I say is typically ideal play. What I actually do is flawed because I struggle with upholding everything I preach. In this game, it was not being proactive, despite advocating proactivity in others. I may be overly harsh on myself (or, not harsh enough ), but again, I have to emphasize the abnormality of this game. If you don't want games to turn out the way this game did (slooooooooooooooooooooooooow), then follow my advice and become proactive.

[mastin2]

Oh, certainly. As a general rule, don't self-vote, and as a near-absolute, you can always turn things around. In theory, it has uses as scum, though, to end discussion early. And as town, it CAN be useful--for instance, in this game, I weaponized my mislynch to have Karnage target Bulbazak and by extension, lead to a hodge lynch. And self-voting

can

, in theory, get you reactions. But it's in general a Very Bad Idea. So don't do it.