I’ve written up some thoughts on the game to share with you in post-game. These are stream-of-consciousness and written as I noticed things, so it’s not really organized or anything.
1) I do feel that A Drowned Kernel was pressured in early Day 1 for bad reasons. Starting a wagon in early Day 1 and checking for reactions is a tried-and-true method of scum-hunting. It’s a
very
valid use of an RVS vote, and I wouldn’t have done anything differently as town. His response basically saying he was checking reactions was the appropriate response. Basically, RVS is meant to generate something which prompts the first real discussion. A wagon almost always does that.
2) Please remember that town have a motive to stay alive too. You’re the only player you know is town (barring masons or innocent childs), so you should absolutely try to make sure you’re not lynched. People pushed Rubixxx by page 3 for defensiveness, but defensiveness alone is not that scummy given the motive of town to stay alive. What
is
scummy is prioritizing your defense over scum-hunting or abandoning scum-hunting entirely in favor of defending yourself. It’s important when scum-hunting to analyze someone’s posts from the lens of town motivation and scum motivation. If someone would have a scum motivation for their actions but no such motivation as town, it’s a good bet they’re scum. I fully agree with Luna’s #79 in this sense.
3) In response to Luna’s #80, it’s best to wait for a response and
then
point out the flaws. This is a case where you can have your cake and eat it too; get information on both players engaging in an argument when possible.
4) AtE is not always a scumtell. Townies respond emotionally very often, because humans are naturally emotional. The cliche of a townie that is perfectly logical and a scum that is perfectly emotional is rarely, if ever, realized in reality. Moreover, SRMP’s #96 is not even AtE; there’s nothing there that appeals to emotion. An appeal to authority maybe? But that also isn’t a scumtell. #96 is bad for other reasons, of course. If you wouldn’t play a certain way as scum and believe you can make people believe you wouldn’t, then that’s precisely the reason why you
would
want to play that way as scum. This is an example of self-meta which cannot be relied upon.
5) In Day 1, Garrett displayed serious opportunism, which is one of the few generic scum-reads that is generally correct. Scum don’t care which townie is lynched (mostly) as long as a mislynch occurs. When someone hops from major wagon to major wagon without contributing anything new or analyzing the game for themselves, you should look hard at them. Before someone says “modsight is 20/20”, I actually forgot Garrett was scum for the first half of Day 1 and still thought he looked like scum. >.<
6) Day 1 should not end until you have a read on all players or almost all players if you have at least a week of deadline left. You should never lynch someone while there’s information to be had, and I feel that happened here in a big way.
7) #241 had an incredibly good question. Most people trying to test a reaction do it entirely wrong. When you set up a reaction test, you need to have clear pass and fail criteria. You should set out ahead of time what you think a town reaction would look like and what you think a scum reaction would look like (in your head or on notes, don’t post that in the thread before the reaction test, obviously). All too often, people think they’re doing a reaction test, but they consider any reaction whatsoever to be scummy due to confirmation bias.
8) Dierfire made a huge error in #319. He forgot to list a read for his scum-partner. That is
extremely
telling once Garrett flips scum. Garrett was the major conversation happening during the time this reads post was made. The fact that Dier didn’t mention him at all indicates he either wants to hedge his bets and not provide a read yet (leaving open bussing without committing to it) or he forgot to provide an analysis for his partner (a scum-slip). Either way, Dier comes up scum after Garrett flips scum.
9) Honestly, Drixx seems to be putting forward his best scum-game, heh. #324 reeked of someone knowing too much info and trying to line up lynches, both signs of scum. Why would anyone rationally vote for one person while hinting that the person who originated that wagon should be looked at closely in the next day? Why not look at them now if you think they’re scummy? It reads as if Drixx knew already that Garrett would turn up town when he starts to say “look at A when this person I’m voting is flipped” (implying town, since there’d be no reason to look at BBT if Garrett flipped scum). The scum motivation for doing this is that you get two mislynches for the price of one; you attempt to fluidly allow mislynches to happen in such a way that town keeps going after town in the next day. The town motivation is …. what exactly? I have no idea why he made this post and didn’t try to resolve the issues he had with BBT before voting Garrett. BBT picked up on this instantly. Up to this point, I’m very impressed with his play in general.
10) BBT’s posting in early Day 2 was pretty bad. There’s no reason to end a day early if there’s more information to be gotten out of it or you have a confirmed scum via cop investigation or something. If there are players who think using the time is helpful, you should generally use the time. This rush to a lynch doesn’t really make too much sense. I would have pushed BBT here a bit if not for his Day 1 leadership on the scum lynch if I were town.
11) Once you've decided on who to lynch, it's a good idea to actually do the lynch. This day, it seems like people stalled out just for the sake of using up time, but either of the two people who declared that they would have hammered probably should have hammered earlier after Dier had his last words.
Newbie 1680 - GAME OVER!