Newbie 1524 [Day 3]

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Just a very quick "hi folks" as I was in Iceland for the last couple days on VLA. Reading in now.

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VOTE: BlueBloodedToffee

In reading through, I also wondered why BBT didn't vote in #37 and then did in #39, why he pushed for other people to hop on the wagon when the target was already at L-2, how he could possibly say he "wasn't pushing it that hard," and why he's partial-quoting Faust's vote and calling it "opportunistic." Also, as pointed out, he is the first one to mention quicklynching (in the spirit of it "not being a bad thing") thereby continuing to imply that jumping on the insta-bandwagon wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

I can't see any reason Alayne would think BBT is town because of it, for sure. (#64)

Also, it seems like BBT will follow Dr Pants onto just about any wagon.

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82. BBT declares that his vote on Scripten wasn’t just to get the ball rolling, claiming he found Scripten scummy, but still jumps to Faustbyte in this post. Scripten wagon is dead at this point? Not sure why BBT would claim to legitimately think Scripten was scummy but change his vote.

83. I don’t know how I feel about “read lists.” I think they’re an interesting piece of the current site. What value they provide to other people is speculative.

I think the biggest thing to take away from 83 is that BBT doesn’t even consider the possibility that DarkCrimson is scum, and that his readlist might just be nonsense.

89. I like Flubber’s discussion of the value of his vote.

90.

Alayne

: Despite the content of your post, your vote there has no value. (Pressure votes that actually SAY they’re pressure votes don’t actually put any pressure on.) Why stay away from the actual bandwagons there?

91. Faust was first on the Scripten wagon by virtue of RVS. Not exactly a pattern there.

94.

BBT

: Why push for a bandwagon on Scripten if you think he might flip town? BBT said earlier he found Scripten legitimately scummy so why hedge your bets?

96. Is very clever. I like the pointing out of BBT’s subtle SE vibe there.

98. Obvious caveat is “null-read” which should be where everyone starts. I can’t imagine playing Mafia with the initial thought being “everyone’s town until they prove otherwise!” I see Scarf brings this up later. +1

110.

Alayne

: Moving from RVS to actual scumhunting can be done by anyone, in my opinion. (Meaning, scum or town, with scum starting wagons on fumbling townies.) And if you're picking out someone to townread in that section, why not single out Dr Pants? Why not mention both of them? What’s weird is not necessarily your motivation, but why SPECIFICALLY it was BBT that you read town for that sequences of actions. Also, do you have anything else you’d like to contribute? So far it seems like you are trying to be helpful and that’s about it -- your vote is sitting on someone for “pressure” and it doesn’t seem like you actually think any of us are scum.

114. I want to quickly say that I agree that using meta to find scum is a pretty tricky thing, and this seems like the perfect spot to do so. Good players, even ones new to this site, have the capacity to change up their meta from site to site and from game to game. Meta reads never trump the fact that Scum Have To Lie, and personally I think the best method for hunting scum is through questioning and pressure. Playing mafia on a message board instead of real life gives you a huge advantage for finding scum -- and that is that everything said by them is preserved for you to go back, reread, and compare to their current posts. But I prefer to limit that readback to inside the current game. (I’m also a dinosaur and look at all this meta nonsense as horribly gauche.)

120. So I read Flubber’s vote shift as making a snark at Alayne (the “newfound vote tool” part specifically is pretty snarky) (also see 89 and his discussion about the value of his vote) so I’m not sure why Dr Pants attacks him here. But it does raise the question, Flubber, do you really not have a problem with anything BBT has done up to this point? (Also note that, perhaps hilariously, Dr Pants has mentioned how bad he is under pressure on the exact same page.)

125. Alayne pokes the bear despite being the instigator of Flubber changing his vote in the first place. Do you really not know why he changed his vote?

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Who have I scum-read that I am now town-reading? Hint; I'm only town-reading one person in this game so far.

I assume it's Scripten, who you at least felt less scummy about that you could move your vote?

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144: what I got from this post is that...
-You openly admitted to causing confusion.
-You voted for DP because you didn't like his scum hunting techniques. So you think he is scummy because you think he is trying to meta?

Sorry but I don't know if you're scummy or dim.

Ladies and gentlemen. If you learn but ONE THING from this game, please let it be this:

The board nature of this game lets every person go back and reread what you have written. Clarity is your best friend. This will help you avoid saying "I caused confusion" when you mean "I accidentally caused confusion that I am now clarifying."

So now the question is: is Faust being just overly enthusiastic in trying to find any little reason to vote someone? Or is he purposefully twisting the statement of Flubber? Or is English the fourth language Faust speaks and some of the nuance is lost on him?

Also: waffle (v): to sway between two divergent actions or opinions.

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Scarf

: Where did you play before here? I know you said chat box, but any other message boards? What might take a few hours in a chat will likely take two weeks here, so you may want to reconsider your time expectations.

Alayne

: How do you feel about Scarf? And I agree that crimson being in need of a good prodding. At least he's always voting, amirite?

BBT

: How do you feel about Dr Pants? Manipulating scum or just wiggly townie? I guess we're using "waffle-y" now?)

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Scripten

: On a scale of 1 to "my PM says so," how confident are you that BBT is town? Do you believe that a townie MUST be voting in order to be a productive member of the town?

Alayne

: What made me ask was 147. You're asking for clarification on something Scarf said, but end the post by saying "it's not super important." I'd like to think you don't believe that. And I'm not sure, if 146 bothered you, why you'd say it wasn't important in the Very Next Post. (And yeah, a bit cheeky. Sarcastic has such a negative connotation and I don't mean it cruelly, just as a bit of a poke.)

BBT

: So, manipulative scum then?

Dr Pants

: How did post 38 get backwards?

In terms of game theory: I'm not convinced by the "interacting with your town reads" argument. Mafia isn't a solitary game where it's you by yourself against the scum -- you have teammates either way. Sure, when you're town, you have to work to figure out who they are, but once you have a confident feel for another townie, working with them can sometimes be advantageous. This can be by asking them more questions to cement your read, working to question some of their scum reads, following their lead on vote wagons.

In addition, we need to again visit this term: "null read." I think it's important to remember not to confuse it with "town read."

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and yes, I want people to view me as town. BECAUSE I AM TOWN. What is unusual about that?

Surprisingly, everything. Townies don't usually feel the urge to make themselves LOOK LIKE town, because they ARE town. Scum have a much higher desire to make themselves LOOK LIKE town.

Mafia, at its core, is a team game. Lynches, whether correct or not, provide a wealth of information. If you're town, then your lynch helps your team as they can look at who voted for you, who pushed your wagon, and can trust your opinions from earlier days.

And also, before we take this too much further: if you vote someone for pressure and you SAY IT IS FOR PRESSURE, it doesn't actually put any pressure on that player! They know you don't actually think they are scummy so they can ignore your vote! THAT is the point that I'm trying to get across. Vote who you want for the reasons you want, just know that in this case, it's totally useless. While Flubber may have become an active participant following the vote, it wasn't due to any fear of being lynched, so they're likely unrelated.

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Scripten, if you white-knight defend One More Player, I'm going to switch my vote to you.

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@Massive - Do you think Alayne is scummy?

Tentatively, yes. I'm still feeling it out, but my initial gut hasn't subsided and I haven't been assuaged by her answers. 235/237 is very good but historically she has followed up good town posts with things that make me ask more questions.

Who else do you feel Scripten has been white-knighting?

36 and Flubbernugget, 172 and BBT, 199 and you.

Care to give me an example of where I defended another player without more than ample reasoning?

See above. Flubber you can write off because it comes during the "meta" argument and you have experience with Flubber from another site, so it's at least relevant to the conversation. BBT is an interpretation issue and your argument isn't based on logic but on how Dr Pants is misinterpreting something; why would I believe you are correctly interpreting what BBT means? Why would you trust BBT over Dr Pants enough to stick up for BBT? Alayne is actually you supporting faulty logic because the result (Flubber posting) is counter-intuitive to what you'd expect, more likely to be due to a desire to participate in the game (which largely points to Flubber being town), and not from actual pressure from the vote.

Newbie question: what is sheeping?

Following someone blindly onto a wagon, like a sheep following a shepherd.

Faust

: When you made post 249, did you think you had hammered Dr Pants?

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An interesting game to watch from the sidelines. We didn't have a dead thread (or, at least, not one I saw) so I was just forced to sit with my own thoughts and watch it all unfold.

I'd like to believe that, given the ability to lynch BBT on D1, that we might have been able to catch Scripten. My post 128/149 shows BBT at least somewhat protecting Scripten, but I also think I would have mislynched Alayne / Thor in between. I definitely think killing me was the right play because I don't think I could have been dissuaded off of BBT on D2.

One thing I will say to the newbies townies -- it always pays to go back and reread the thoughts of your fellow townies. You can trust that they are motivated by finding scum and should be telling you what they actually think, and it can give you little moments of inspiration, or the additional piece of evidence to cement your reads. When we die, let us help you win!