Alt accounts

[Psyche]

i use alts to reinvent myself and then switch to them as mains when they are sufficiently successful
i haven't needed a serious alt in a while

[DeathRowKitty]

Or for cheating!

[mastin2]

Can you give a link to a game your original account posted in?

Can do better. It was only 35 non-marathon games or so.

Technically

, my first game on site was Newbie 688, and to this day, I consider Battle Mage my scum IC for it, but I don't count the game as being a game, thanks to my early replace-out.

The game I count as my first game is Newbie 735, where I drew cop and nailed both scum. Running at nearly the same time was my second game, Newbie 742, also a cop, also nailing both scum. This is what started me down the long dark path of arrogance: I had early success in my youth, so I essentially got mad with power. My first scumgame was Newbie 748. However, I didn't replace into that game until after I had been in Newbie 762, where I drew doc and was NKed immediately for being too town. (Coincidentally, this was my third game, and there were two pregame replacements. I was one. The COP was the other. So if I had replaced the OTHER slot, that'd have been three newbie games in a ROW as a cop.) Incidentally, I played in Newbie 763 as well, and did fairly well there, too. It was also my first game with a non-incompetent town IC, in the form of ABR, who I consider my town IC. (Yes, ABR was my town IC.)

My first non-newbie game was Bleach Mafia Karakura Town (I stalked mods back in the day, if you couldn't tell), my first Large was apparently Mafia/NY 91 Hell Aboard the Purple Flower (though I thought it was...) and my first Large Theme was Lynch All Lurkers, which was also my first-COMPLETED scumgame. (That game, OhGodMyHamlet? A newbie? Went on for months. Lynch All Lurkers was my second scumgame, starting after Open 131 below.)

My first Open was Open 141 Bird 7p. Incidentally, my second was also the very next game I joined according to my chronology, Open 131, a game so painful to read that I'm not even sorry I flaked from it. (Nightless Vanilla. Yeah.)

I'm the reason my team of Polygamists lost Open 145, since I was beginning to show the symptoms of siteflaking. The first game of mine as TOWN to show this degenerating mental health, though, is Inventor Mafia, where I got lynched D1 I think for the first time and certainly first time as town. Another fail on my part was Newbie 779 as the scum roleblocker.

Then we begin to enter into both the best and the worst. Worst? Large Normal 92 was my next game, as a lyncher. That got lynched D1. When my target was the cultafia (yes, cult that was second mafia) leader. (Incidentally, I publicly claimed. This no doubt has had an influence over why I am always so benevolent to third parties. I may have been a VI back then, but that sort of humiliation shouldn't be inflicted on anyone.) Yes, this was a NORMAL game, and one of two Normal games to inspire the foundation of the NRG. (Which I'm now a member of.)

Open 148: Jungle Republic is noteworthy not as a worst game of mine (though I, in a moment of epic fail, scumread the two near-universal townreads of iamausername and Yosarian2, convinced they were the wolf team), but as a game with an epic failure of a moderator.

Beard Mafia is a fail in that I was nightkilled by a serial killer acting like a vig, making it effectively the first time I was ever vigged. It gets worse, though. Much, MUCH worse. Introducing...Phables: Death Note, where I got DAYVIGGED. (To this day, I have only been dayvigged three times. Once was by scum, when I was being a scumhunting god and they shot me to prevent me from continuing to nail them. Another time I was a miller, shot by town. The third was THIS game.)

And in a similar failure to Phables and to NY 91, there was NY 96: Murder in Emerald City. As scum. Most widely known for being the source of Khan's title, thanks to his infamous miller gambit, it's also one of my greatest failures. (Fun fact: I almost let a scumslip out by saying I'd used my strategy once as each alignment...at a point where I had flipped town in Phables, and lyncher in 91, which'd leave 95 as scum. I caught the slip before I made it, though.)

Noteworthy though not a failure on my part (I have no shame in having flaked this one), is the utter failure of a game not even worth being called as much known as Chess Mafia.

It wasn't all bad, though. My first modded game had excellent flavor. Cubic Mafia was the first game I survived to 3p lylo (albeit by replacing into 3p lylo), and also the first game I made a vote that directly led to the town win. (Though it was fairly easy; all the pieces were already there for me, I just needed to complete the job.) It was my own fault because I siteflaked, but while I was ticked off the town lost the game, I'm not ashamed of what little I DID give to Newbie 804, because the reads were good, just...not given in a timely fashion. Mean Mod Lovefest marks the first usage of the Mastin Gambit. I was wrong on most my other reads, but dangit, I was right about Blood being town so I was happy to die for him. (Link for the curious.)

I was of course struggling by this point rather severely, getting closer and closer to that siteflake, so Boost Mafia goes back into the failure pile, as mafia. I should never have joined NY 98: Appenine Mafia, and my D1 lynch there is my fault.

Proving I wasn't an utter failure, though, Open 155: Jungle Republic, I was scum actually doing fairly well. I was, again, siteflaking, and I forget whether I flaked or officially asked for replacement in a moment of responsibility, but either way, I was quite sad I couldn't complete the game since I WAS avoiding my normal scum pitfalls such as they were. Similarly, I regret being unable to finish Rabbit Doubt Mafia, though I ended up nightkilled anyway as a vaguely-coplike-rolecop.

Some other fun things, a lolworthy game is the original Stars Aligned, where I and a SK crosskilled each other and a scummate got themselves modkilled for betraying the scumteam. Bleach Soul Society is lolworthy in how scumsided it was, and also in how I basically didn't play at all and yet never got replaced because the game ended so fast that there was never a need for me to BE replaced.

That was it, save for one game. My last game, the game which sent me on my path to redemption: MtG Parallel Universe Mafia Tar's Subgame. Where Tar gave me a posting restriction

specifically

to me, to counter my style, forcing me to evolve my play. I owe a random act of crowd-control from Tar to me being a better person.

To think I did all of that in less than a year. I was gone from games (except formally requesting replacement) by August of 2009. I came back in September, mainly for closure. I made sure I was around during October, though, because I wanted to be around on October 8th, my scumday, for a specific reason...the creation of this account. Now, I did play two additional games on the account: Newbie 1024 introduced me to Nachomamma8, who helped to redefine my play, and is one of the largest influences on me. (I got replaced only because of upcoming holidays and my inability to be around during them.)

The other game, Newbie 1048, was the game that gave me the prototype for my first respected MD article, A view on cops, launching my MD career.

The rest, as they say, is history. I switched after a couple of hydra games to be on mastin2.

[SleepyKrew]

Is it too late for an intervention

[Psyche]

did you type all of that just now

[N]

The rest, as they say, is history.

no one says that

[mastin2]

did you type all of that just now

Over the course of an hour, yes. (Approximately. Post 22 was the last when I began typing.) I had to make sure the chronology was accurate. I've never done that before. (I've given up on the idea of ever doing so for MY account. I played about 35 games as Mastin in one year. I skipped 2010 mostly, but in 2011 and every year since then, that average has been more or less the same. It seriously wouldn't surprise me if I'm in the 170s by now, but between the massive number, the number of games as hydras, and the lost data of the rollback, it's nearly impossible to tell for sure. This, incidentally, is just for games where I'm not an alt. Add in alts, and by now it wouldn't surprise me if I've played over 200 games in my mafia career, EXCLUDING marathon games.)

Edit:

Checking the timestamp on post 23 (which was in my pedit before posting)...make that two hours.

[Cheery Dog]

also... this is why I don't even try to play on alts anymore

I outed myself by posting from the wrong account, melted down... had to shirk off a ton of shit because I tried to play shit off as my alt as LOL I AM NEWB and then proceeded to destroy the scumteam (and KK was displeased)

That can still happen. (although my slip in whatever newbie game it was happened much earlier, and I then was able to chuck it in the bin)

[saulres]

LOL Only Mastin would wall post when asked to provide one link.

[BROseidon]

The only alt I've ever used was for Secret Alt Mafia where people in the dead QT thought I was Buldemar because it was right around the time I straight-up jacked his posting style.

[BROseidon]

But yeah I'm not a huge fan of alts.

[inte]

alts are for pussies

[inte]

hydras are for dicks

[saulres]

hydra alts make babies?

[Oversoul]

you cannot in for a newbie game as an alt - and some mods, particularly of large games, will require you to out your main in order to play unless you've got a decent playing history on that alt already

this is the main issue I have

mods of games don't know what's an alt and what's not; the fact that mods DO know what's an alt and what's not creates an uneven playing field

I have a moral code that when I do play a newbie game on an alt, I only play in a slot that my actual account would be able to play. This often means I have to replace into newbies as an alt if I want to play newbies.

My most recent slew of alts, with games that probably ended a year or so ago, was eye opening. I think I got lynched day 1 on all four accounts. I'm just naturally scummy.

[ZZZX]

also... this is why I don't even try to play on alts anymore

I outed myself by posting from the wrong account, melted down... had to shirk off a ton of shit because I tried to play shit off as my alt as LOL I AM NEWB and then proceeded to destroy the scumteam (and KK was displeased)

first game here: everyone kept asking me over and OVER again if i was an alt of xyzz or smthing. some of htem scum-read me for being an "alt that was never revealed". showed offsite games with my udername 5 years ago. Got a golden theory of my whole mafia career being made for that one game

i was dying lol.

[LlamaFluff]

Alts should basically be used to magnify a personality trait or playing trait of yours in an environment that would prevent people from just starting to argue about meta. Its for if you want to play more aggressively, or be excessively nice, or want to try to town hunt instead of scum hunt, or etc. Experiment with who you are as an alt.

Alts unlike hydras should always claim who is a part of them, but hydras *should* always at least not deny being an alt. I don't care if you want to brush off being an alt with a "does it matter" type claim, but I always have an issue with things like alts claiming to be a newbie, or hydras claiming to not be a hydra. Both are creeping into the unethical area of play.

[sthar8]

Claiming to be a newbie is unethical?

I totally have a hydra-alt.

edit: it's actually a secret-alt alt hydra.

[Psyche]

i am part of a network of secret hydras

[Vampirate]

also... this is why I don't even try to play on alts anymore

I outed myself by posting from the wrong account, melted down... had to shirk off a ton of shit because I tried to play shit off as my alt as LOL I AM NEWB and then proceeded to destroy the scumteam (and KK was displeased)

first game here: everyone kept asking me over and OVER again if i was an alt of xyzz or smthing. some of htem scum-read me for being an "alt that was never revealed". showed offsite games with my udername 5 years ago. Got a golden theory of my whole mafia career being made for that one game

i was dying lol.

<-----wants to see the lolz, knows that something happened to the site and games were lost. Will not be able to read the lols....

[LlamaFluff]

Claiming to be a newbie is unethical?

Because of what I view alts should be used for. Using them to fake being new I feel is intentionally withholding information from the game in a way designed to give you an unfair advantage in a way that cannot really be predicted. Its like not saying you are a hydra to me.

Alts should be to experiment with your play style or play a character or something like that. Not to gain an advantage that no one else has. If you are going to hide behind an alt, why doesn't everyone just make a new alt for every game because apparently that's the best thing to do.

[Astinus]

I have two alts, Loneli and Alpha Sapphire. I thought I would use them a lot for some reason, but since this is my main and the only account which has Speakeasy access, I use it almost exclusively. But I'm thinking about changing to one of the alts permanently.

So I can have a pretty rainbow signature again.

[mastin2]

Oh, yeah.
Claiming to be a newbie is borderline unethical. When I make alts, I make sure to play them in a manner where my experience is left ambiguous, and if asked, I come up with a way to say, "I have some."

Claiming to be just an alt or a single person when a hydra IS unethical and borderline illegal.
...Claiming to be a hydra when it's just you as an alt, though, is just being stupid.
(Yes, I am guilty of this. Not my proudest moment.)

[Psyche]

i think in one of my older accounts i posed as a newbie to play a Newbie game
and today i finally make peace with mafiascum.net about the harm my decision caused
i'm sorry

[kuribo]

I have two alts, both of which are gimmicks:

kuribo the white- my non-raging alt that didn't last long with that gimmick
Erotic Tales of kuribo- my alt that posts only in the form of erotic stories

I also have a couple of hydras: Serotonin (with GreyICE), Hammer Bros (Quilford), Heaven and Hell (pirate mollie), Serene (DGB and Fate), Serene2 (DGB and Fakegod), and Three-Pronged Trouser God (Untrod Tripod and T-Bone)