Open 633: Near Vanilla-GAME OVER

[OceanWind]

VOTE: KTthecreeper

[OceanWind]

@Lowell - when looking at a group picture that includes you, do you instinctively look for your own picture or do you analyze all of them equally?

[OceanWind]

dayvig OceanWind

I was serious regarding my previous question.

[OceanWind]

In fact,

UNVOTE: KTthecreeper
VOTE: Lowell

That case on KTthecreeper reads fake. Paying more attention to oneself is a natural human tendency. Regardless of KTthecreeper's alignment, he's obviously going to notice when his name is mentioned and react to it. What does it matter that he ignored other RVS votes placed on other players?

I voted KTthecreeper initially for entirely different reasons - his reactions to being voted looked awkward and stilted.

But Lowell pushing a case after a wagon already formed based on non-scumtells feels like he's either taking advantage of a young player's awkward opening to look like he's scumhunting (or pre-emptively bussing thinking that KTthecreeper may not be the type to survive the game). Lowell presents his case as though townies care about every RVS vote cast on everyone and that people don't naturally gravitate towards mentions of themselves.

Sidestepping my question with a fake-dayvig attempt doesn't help.

[OceanWind]

OceanWind's defense of KT is pretty scumtastic.

Where did I defend KTthecreeper?

I'm not sure if he's town or mafia. I find Lowell scummy regardless.

[OceanWind]

yeah I also hadn't read your post. Get over yourself.

Assuming you just now remembered this game, why throw down an RVS vote as opposed to offer your thoughts on the non-serious content in the thread?

---

Magna is going to be annoying as hell, but, unfortunately, is town.

Going to need an explanation for this one. He reads null to me.

---

So what do you think that means then?

1. Do you think Lowell's townread on you makes sense?
2. Why didn't you follow up on your previous question to Lowell?

[OceanWind]

That case on KTthecreeper reads fake. Paying more attention to oneself is a natural human tendency. Regardless of KTthecreeper's alignment, he's obviously going to notice when his name is mentioned and react to it. What does it matter that he ignored other RVS votes placed on other players?

Paying more attention to yourself is a pretty common scumtell (playing for survival instead of playing to find scum); the only way this case works against Lowell is if you think that he is both aware of that tendency and that it would factor into his reads while pushing a page 2 read. I don't really think this is the case.

It's not that KTthecreeper is "paying more attention to himself," it's that he reacted when his name was brought up/he was voted during RVS. He didn't react when other people were voted. I don't find that unusual.

Lowell is applying "common" scumtells without considering why it matters in this specific case. Why would he expect KTthecreeper to react to all RVS votes instead of just the one on himself? Lowell joined the site in 2006. I'd expect him to be aware of such tendencies.

The scum motivation I see here is two-fold. If KTthecreeper is town, Lowell pushing an early wagon to make him react badly (and clearly KTthecreeper is naturally "scummy") and potentially lynch him. If KTthecreeper is mafia with Lowell, Lowell probably deduced that he was an early lynch and got in on the action with a big case so he could take credit for the lynch or is simply distancing.

I

could

see potential town reasons why he would push it but if that's the case, I want to hear it from him so I can dig further.

[OceanWind]

KT is town.

This was my initial reaction as well, but I've played with him before and his play as town was a lot different although he wasn't under pressure then. I also followed a game where he was mafia and he did very well emulating the lost, confused townie act. So, I'm waiting to see how he actually pushes his reads.

By the way, I think we played together briefly. You're the same Nachomamma8 that was in that multiball game offsite where you were a governor?

[OceanWind]

24/25 <--- who states suspicion only to come back literally an hour later to put a vote down?

Why is it scummy that he came back an hour later to vote?

[OceanWind]

That previous quote should have been attributed to Nosferatu.

I agree that Ollie's terminology ("try-hard scum") seemed out-of-place so Ollie should explain what he meant exactly. KTthecreeper seemed long winded and awkward but it didn't strike me as him "trying too hard." I don't think that Ollie waiting for an hour to vote has any significance.

As for Nosferatu's vote on Ollie, what I want to know is why you didn't explain your vote and talk to Ollie when he asked you for your thoughts. Why did it take me accusing you of RVS voting before you explained it?

[OceanWind]

Yeah, I read that post. His question was pretty general:

Nosferatu what's your take on what's happened so far?

This might have been a good time to engage your then top suspect by pointing out why you voted him rather than answer completely literally that "nothing happened."

[OceanWind]

might've been a good time, but who knows? Cause I didn't.

I'm aware you didn't. My question was why?

what's your angle on this question? Once again, if he asked me if I found anything scummy, I would've talked about my vote. If he or anyone had said anything about my vote I would've explained it.

So, if you no one asked you about your vote, you'd have been happy to let people assume it was an RVS vote and move on? You cast a naked vote that could easily be mistaken as an RVS vote. Why does someone need to ask before you explain it? The one reason I could see for putting down naked votes is to get a reaction from the person you voted. You got that. Then you answered his question literally rather than use it an as opening point to scumhunt, ask him if he knows why you are voting him or question him further.

My "angle" with the question is I want to know why you are not pro-active and need to be prompted by others before you expand on your vote.

[OceanWind]

@Nosferatu - how much of the game had you read when you made your first post?

[OceanWind]

@Nosferatu - how much of the game had you read when you made your first post?

there's no way it was past 40

Is there a reason you specifically stopped short of reading the three posts before yours?

[OceanWind]

It can't be past 40 because I didn't reload the page to see the most recent posts. The only posts I would've seen are the ones made before 8:40.

Okay, walk me through your timeline. The reason I'm asking is you apparently caught up with the game before you posted but missed MagnaOfIllusion's post calling you out and said that it had nothing to do with the timing of your post which I'm skeptical about.

1. If you opened up the last page before 8:40, that means it took you an hour and twenty-five minutes just to read the last page. Why did it take an unusually long time to read fifteen short posts?

2. You also responded to him by saying that you were posting in other threads. That's actually not true. You made one post in another thread two hours before your first post in the game this morning and your posts before that were last night.

3. How do you remember the exact time that you opened up the last page?

[OceanWind]

Okay, that's a much more believable answer. What are your reads so far?

[OceanWind]

Mind explaining the Lowell read? You haven't said anything about him so far.

[OceanWind]

So, re-reading everyone's ISO's, the only thing Acryon has done is push KainTepes as a policy lynch and respond to non-game-relevant stuff like who the initials KT should refer to. Probably mafia.

Bellaphant's ISO is okay but for a couple of things: 1. Unvotes her RVS vote out of nowhere and doesn't revote. 2. Hedgy language regarding Ollie and KTthecreeper.

ChurchOfMercy is probably my best bet for mafia right now. Very minimal posting with no serious content. I've followed I think two or three games by now containing Albert B. Rampage and he always has more passion as town.

Implosion's content seems okay. No pings in any posts. I disagree with the push on Ollie but Ollie's most townish posts came after the vote there.

jmo16mla is probably town. From the few posts he made, he picked up on the same things about Lowell that I wanted to ask about (that quick townread on MagnaOfIllusion) and I agree with his perspective of Lowell's case as well.

I'm of two-minds on Killthestory because their posting seems free-flowing and unrestrained. But I'd rather not give her a pass on it before seeing some solid content. It's easy to fake as mafia if you don't actually care about the game. I do understand why some people townread her though.

KTthecreeper said several hours ago that he's going to read the thread and offer thoughts. Still waiting on it.

Re-reading Lowell's ISO, his lack of answering any questions directed at him is annoying but I like his pointing out that Church Of Mercy might be mafia and that killthestory might be town.

I'm leaning very slightly town on Nosferatu now. I disagree with how he handled Ollie's and my questioning of him but the way he dug his heels in and kept defending his point leaned town. Maybe. But I still have my eye on him.

I'm pretty sure Ollie is town.

UNVOTE: Lowell
VOTE: Church Of Mercy

[OceanWind]

Hey

Ocean

– why is it that you’ve read everyone’s ISO at 143 and yet I don’t see any mention of me at all in your reads list?

I seem to have missed you. I liked the early attack on Nosferatu + the rest of this post. Probably town.

[OceanWind]

I didn't actually really read anything between my earlier posts and 91. I skimmed since I had a minute to jump on at night (which I rarely do. Feel free to check my entire posting history and see how many times I post >5PM if you're curious) and wasn't about to read a bunch of back and forth but was willing to respond to a direct question.

Ugh I want to vote you very badly, but I fear you may just be overeager town.

Assuming this is true, did you really expect anyone to check your entire posting history, realize that you don't post after 5PM, and therefore that you skimmed and answered a direct question? The fact that you don't see that the suspicion of you is reasonable is more scummy than your play up to that point.

[OceanWind]

No of course not, but I will continue to stand by the idea that looking at my 6-post ISO and being suspicious is very stupid. There are real things to talk about and be suspicious of in the game of mafia; someone who has literally only posted 6 times and within a period of 12 hours is not one of them.

The fact that you ignored those real things and pushed a policy-lynch commented on irrelevant things is what I (and I assume others) found scummy. You acknowledge that we can't be expected to know that you weren't caught up with the game. So, I don't get why you overreacted and started calling people stupid/scummy rather than understanding the suspicion but pointing out that you weren't following.

Frankly, I find your policy-lynch proposal as a bizarre way to kick off the game. But if you were not being 100% genuine, why is your first instinct to call everyone who found you scummy for it stupid? Wouldn't that be the natural reaction of townies to something ingenuine?

Early on, Ollie began his 1v1 with Nosferatu, and it seemed clear through the dialogue that Nosferatu was on the backfoot. Then in 100, OceanWind decides to pile on. This felt like latching on to the low-hanging fruit, but he gets to avoid suspicion since Ollie started it. As for his points I don't like them. He points to not being pro-active as if its definitively scummy, when it's not. Some players are pro-active, others may be more reactive; it's NAI.

1. How was Nosferatu on the backfoot? I'll need to check but the only person I remember commenting on their interaction was Imperium and he took Nosferatu's side and voted Ollie. I could maybe understand if you were accusing me of defending a player under pressure to get on his side but this is just weird.

2. Town are more pro-active on average because they need to not only avoid getting lynched but to read other players and lynch correctly to win. Mafia are much more likely to be reactive than town. They only need to survive to win. Nosferatu's early play fit this profile as he seemed content to stay below the radar casting a vote and not taking opportunities to engage and refine his read.

3. By your logic, everyone that takes a side in a two-way conflict is suspect is "piling on?" How do you differentiate between my suspicion of Nosferatu and your own? Aren't you by your definition "piling on?"

---

jmo16mla is probably town. From the few posts he made, he picked up on the same things about Lowell that I wanted to ask about (that quick townread on MagnaOfIllusion) and I agree with his perspective of Lowell's case as well.

Is this a significant read if Lowell is town?

At the time, I liked his posting. But jmo16mla has so little content since then and overall in the game that it's not a read I'm happy about yet. So, I'm not writing him off as town.

On your read on KTthecreeper, I like your explanation but I'd be more convinced if KTthecreeper had actually followed up on his promise to read the thread and post thoughts.

What is your read on Ollie now?

---

@ocean, I'm curious as to your responses to 215. Also, do you have any questions for me?

Did you check out Ollie's games that he linked you to? What did you find?

---

Lack of engagement isn't scummy.

It's actually one of the most ridiculously accurate tells I've seen - a fairly significant percentage of mafia players tend to be much more active and involved as town than as mafia.

Saying "I'm useless D1" isn't an excuse. Everyone's reads get better as the game progresses but that doesn't mean we don't try on D1.

---

I’m not thrilled with his response which was “Meh, forgot you … you are Town” - smells of appeasement.

I don't have an issue with you asking me about why I left you off the list. But having a townread in not appeasement. If I was townreading you, why would I say anything else?

Also, I don't really understand what your issue is with Acryon saying that he is hard to lynch but that people might have attacked him thinking he was low-hanging fruit because he hadn't done much of anything in the first few pages.

[OceanWind]

Reading through MagnaOfIllusion's and Acryon's arguments on the current page, I'm actually agreeing with Acryon more than MagnaOfIllusion. The latter calling my post where I called him town "appeasing" was ridiculous and smacks of "look at me, I'm accusing people that are townreading me." I also thought Acryon's point on low-hanging fruit was fairly straightforward. He says he's not but he might be perceived as such based on early play. So, I have no idea why MagnaOfIllusion is incapable of understanding it after several explanations. I still want my own concerns answered but I'm less suspicious of Acryon than before.

[OceanWind]

No. It's still absurd. I have literally never one time seen someone comment on someone's content/activity when they had literally been a part of the game for less than 24 hours, and there's a good reason for that.

The thread was open for a little more than forty-eight hours and there was quite a bit of content by then. Why shouldn't you be expected to post relevant content?

1. In the 1v1 between Ollie and Nosferatu it was very clear who was on the backfoot.

2. Exactly. Part of being town is being pro-active so as to avoid getting suspicion and getting lynched, same as scum. Town may have other reasons for doing it as well, but they're both trying not to get lynched, so I don't think you can say one is more pro-active than the other. If it were, the game of mafia would be a lot easier.

3. No, because if I were to engage Nosferatu, it would be separately. You jumped on in the midst of a 1v1. What's your goal there?

1. I don't see how you are interpreting Ollie to be on the backfoot here. They were both arguing and providing their own reasons for why the other was mafia. Imperium had posted a few posts ago whole-heartedly agreeing with Nosferatu and voting Ollie and was the only person to comment. Ollie was the one in the spotlight with Nosferatu leading the attack on him.

2. That's sort of the point of playing the game though. Mafia do try to act like town but may not always succeed. Finding the cracks is how you develop reads.

3. 1v1s are not some separate entity shielded from the rest of the game where no one may comment until it ends. In fact, those types of 1v1s that nobody else is engaged in are often highly unproductive. The best way to progress the game is for other people to pitch in and take stances.

To elaborate, I think if your goal was to gain a better understanding from Nos, doing it while they were clearly already in defense mode isn't really the right time, because it just felt like you beating a horse in the process of dying. See 99. I may be making a bigger deal out of this than I should and may not have quite the evidence to back it up, but it was my first inclination when I read through.

It was relevant at the time. I'm not going to act like they were engaged in an exclusive duel and wait my turn until they are finished. I

can

see the potential scum motivation in picking a side when two townies argue so I understand your argument. But I also don't think as town, you need to "wait it out" before pitching in. In fact, when people are under pressure from multiple angles, their reactions may be more informative than if everyone ignored the argument and let those two battle it out.

[OceanWind]

1. I don't see how you are interpreting

Nosferatu

to be on the backfoot here.

[OceanWind]

If you thought I was scum with Ocean in this case, I'd think you'd go for Ocean first here, since he was who you were talking to first. But you diverged from your 1v1 with him to start this interaction here.

You lost me here. What's scummy about "diverging" from his conversation with me to vote you? This reads almost as if you want me and Acryon to continue arguing with each other as opposed to with you. If he thought you and I were mafia together, why do you think he should continue pushing me as opposed to you? Just because he was already talking to me? If so, at what point would you expect him to go after you if he thought you were mafia too?

---

You're pretty clearly equating post count with townieness, and that says that you're either Scum trying to make a phony case on me, or that you don't know the difference between a low-volume poster and a lurker.

If someone doesn't post at all (KainTepes, SeshatX), it doesn't say anything about their alignment. They seem to have flaked from the site and have been replaced. If someone is posting the bare minimum needed to skate through the game while staying under the radar, that's a lot more scummy than just not posting outright. I'm not strictly equating post count with towniness - you have a pretty high post count actually - but very little in-depth content. You voted KainTepes for posting elsewhere but not here which is fair. Then Albert called the scumteam as "Imperium, KillTheStory, and one more." Then you vote Jim out of nowhere for posting a GIF. There's no stream of thought or evidence of scumhunting behind the scenes.

I'd appreciate if you elaborate on your reads list in 325 a bit more. Why is KTthecreeper town simply for being low-hanging fruit? Low hanging fruit have just as much chance as anyone of drawing a mafia role. I'd also like to hear your updated read on Jim after the content he posted.

---

@Bellaphant -

I agree with most of your reads in 291 but a few follow-up questions:

1. Acryon is right that many were a rehash of the general consensus. Can you elaborate as to where in the 1v1 between Acryon and Magna, you found the former inconsistent.

2. You say that Lowell is mafia for not pushing his reads. You have also not been "pushing" any of your reads currently. What's the difference between what you are doing and what Lowell is doing?

3. I don't understand your read on MagnaOfIllusion at all. You call his initial push dumb but say he "improves" even though you find it hard to follow his points. Can you explain at what point you started reading him as town and why?

4. You say that Imperium is asking the "right" questions. What questions are you referring to? Also, you asked Imperium for their thoughts on two players that you seem pretty sure are town. Why?

[OceanWind]

@Jim -

in your catchup, is there a reason you glazed over the argument between me, Nosferatu, and Ollie?

I am currently viewing Imperium and jmo as relatively firm townreads. Oceanwind and Magna are leaning to that direction as well.

1. You place a lot of emphasis on MagnaOfIllusion's opening. You criticize him for going after Nosferatu. You call him out for not taking a side in the "KTthecreeper/Lowell" debacle. to the point where you are even making notes on who to look at if he flipped mafia. You also criticize three of his posts. How did you come to the conclusion that he was leaning town? For reference, here's everything you said about MagnaOfIllusion:

Spoiler: Jim's thoughts on MagnaOfIllusion

1.)

VOTE: OllieVOTE:

I forgot about this game

So you forgot about this game. And yet showed up 10 minutes after I mentioned it?

VOTE: Nosferatu

I'm not particularly sure this tell is something we should be chasing rather than trying to sort out what has already been occurring. Why did you choose to ignore taking a side on the KT and Lowell debacle?

2.)

Magna is going to be annoying as hell, but, unfortunately, is town.

There's definitely some context missing here. What is town about chasing lurkers and avoiding the big topics that had been going on thus far? It gives more of an air of scum trying to keep their nose clean and out of a fray.

3.)

VOTE: Jmo

Something that has stuck out is that the people who had not posted were called out by Magna, but we had posts such as KTS where there seems to be nothing truly happening that gets ignored. This might be insignificant, but I want to revisit this should Magna flip scum.

4.)

See this is where you lose me. Because the most damning of the exchange at 22-25 between Bella and Ollie is not that it took him an hour after posting 24 to vote in 25. It’s that he only voted for Creeper at all because Bella repeatedly badgered him about his read. And Nosferatu doesn’t address that element in his 73 at all.

Why is the time delay more damning then what I pointed out?

This is a very good point. The time between posts means nothing ultimately, but the amount it took to get something out of him felt like he was just saying what he thought bella would want to hear.

5.)

But I call him out on lack of content and almost immediately – BAM – post both trying to undercut suspicion and get some content into thread.

Is this a common scum tactic you've seen? Turning around immediately after they are called out for doing or not doing something to then right the wrong and abate some of the suspicion? Forgive me, but I fail to see what scum would ever do something like that.

So, in your mind, he made one good point and several questionable ones. How did you wind up with a townread here?

2. Is your read on Imperium dependent mostly on KTthecreeper trying to appease them? What would your read be if KTthecreeper is town?

3. You respond to jmo16mla's Post 62 by saying that you are leaning more green on him. But in your next post, he becomes a firm townread, how? He only made two posts in between (179, 206). Are you happy enough with jmo16mla's content so far that he's one of your top two townreads in the game?

4. Is Acryon heavily in the read purely for saying that he has never been lynched D1 in what you perceive to be an "intimidation tactic?"

5. Why is only one of Ollie and Lowell mafia? Why are you leaning towards it being Ollie? Why does an Ollie scumflip clear Bellaphant?

[OceanWind]

3. You respond to jmo16mla's Post 62 by saying that you are leaning more green on him. But in your next post, he becomes a firm townread, how? He only made two posts in between (179, 206). Are you happy enough with jmo16mla's content so far that he's one of your top two townreads in the game?

I meant town when I used the term green.

I know you meant "town" by the term "green." My question was that you were only "leaning green" on jmo16mla but once you are done with the list, he becomes one of your top two townreads despite the fact that he faded out of the game since the post you mentioned and only made two posts. Also, my other question still applies: Are you happy enough with jmo16mla's content so far that he's one of your top two townreads in the game?

4. Is Acryon heavily in the read purely for saying that he has never been lynched D1 in what you perceive to be an "intimidation tactic?"

He was more leftover and thrown in where I felt he fit.

You don't have townreads on most of the game to use process of elimination. So, why does a "leftover" read fall "heavily into the red" as opposed to being null?

5. Why is only one of Ollie and Lowell mafia? Why are you leaning towards it being Ollie? Why does an Ollie scumflip clear Bellaphant?

Upon reading back, I realize I was mixing up people. That being said, I need to rearrange some of my list. It's Ollie and Magna, and the reason is because they were using the same strategy to approach the game, where it makes sense for one to be scum but not both. Ollie just stuck out more in my head, and the reason it clears bellaphant is that preliminary interaction between the two of them, Bellaphant's pestering about KT I believe it was? That looked a lot like Ollie catering his posts to what Bellaphant was asking.

Okay, so if you mixed up MagnaOfIllusion and Lowell, then you have a leaning townread on Lowell (because that's where MagnaOfIllusion was in your list). Why is Lowell leaning town? The only time you've mentioned Lowell is to argue with him about his townread on MagnaOfIllusion.

What strategy are you referring to that MagnaOfIllusion and Ollie are using? Is it that they are calling out lurkers? If so, why is it unlikely that they are both mafia doing it? What about Ollie stuck out to you specifically?

Yes, please do post an updated list of reads - preferably an ordered list if you can.

[OceanWind]

Tl;dr that for me

I'm too busy to make short posts so I'm going to be making long ones tonight.

[OceanWind]

Here's (roughly) where I'm at with the game: ChurchOfMercy, Severa, KTthecreeper, jmo16mla, Nosferatu, KillTheStory, Jim, Bellaphant, Acryon, MagnaOfIllusion, Lowell, Imperium, Ollie.

ChurchOfMercy's primary content revolves around how everyone is dumb for voting them and now have added sarcastic remarks about they're mafia and have been caught. They sound more resigned to their fate as opposed to having a desire to push forward and turn the tables around.

Severa needs to read the thread and post actual thoughts. All she's done so far is attack ChurchOfMercy. Regardless of ChurchOfMercy's flip, I see it as either a player pushing the easiest lynch or feeling compelled to bus.

KTthecreeper's constant promises to come and post but not delivering on them doesn't sit well with me.

My townread on jmo16mla is pretty much dead. He posted on the site last night and the day before. So, I don't see why he couldn't contribute here.

My reads on Nosferatu and KillTheStory haven't changed. Read on Jim is under development but consistent engagement with the game seems slightly townish.

I'll elaborate on Bellaphant later but besides the things I questioned her about, other things she's done have leaned town to me.

Acryon's posting has looked increasingly town. The part where he re-evaluated how he was viewing the argument between me and Nosferatu seemed like genuine thought progression.

I'm reverting to my earlier townread on MagnaOfIllusion and I found his explanation to my previous questions to make sense.

Lowell is probably the most counter-intuitive read I have especially given my early posts. His suspicion of ChurchOfMercy before anybody else brought it up played into it. Beyond that, the way he's going about collecting reads without caring about anyone's thoughts on him looks distinctly town.

Imperium - I'd expect Nacho to be wary of townreading me too easily so that makes sense. He does seem slightly less energetic than in our last game though. I'm not sure what that means but I still think he's more town than the rest of the game.

Ollie is still my #1 townread.

[OceanWind]

Actually, KillTheStory can go between MagnaOfIllusion and Lowell on my readslist. The latest posts just reminded me of how much active scumhunting and adapting and development of reads has been coming out this slot even if they are not well-supported.

[OceanWind]

I don't have a strong townread on Magna. I'd put him just below my four strong townreads (Ollie, Imperium, Lowell, KillTheStory). I have some issues with Bellaphant's posting but have a slight townlean because it seemed like she was doing some scumhunting behind the scenes i.e. asking Ollie for scumgames, checking them and using that to refine her read. She's putting in more trouble to develop her read than is strictly needed and she hasn't even mentioned her results until I asked for them. If she were mafia showing off how much "effort" she was putting, I don't think she'd wait to be prodded on it before revealing what she learned. Speaking of which...

@Bellaphant -

@ocean, I asked for Ollie's scum games (not town!) to see if he was the kind of cheeky player who'd make a joke like that. The answer is 'yes', but they've been a tonne more aggressive in their other games, going after the guy who tunnelled him, being a lot more in your face than he has been here.

I'd like to see the specific posts in those other games where he did it.

[OceanWind]

I had no real issues with every post up until this one. It gives off the distinct tones of scum trying to present a laid-back comedic town attitude, but the delivery just falls flat. It could be a matter of the person, but this post makes no legitimate sense as to why it was posted or what it sought to achieve other than the above.

I agree that this post is a bit of a strange post, but, from what I've read of KTthecreeper, his posts are a little strange tonally, and I find the follow-up explanation that he posted to be pretty damn believable and fairly creative coming from a newer scum player. I also feel like I have a pretty good handle on his thought process on scum based on my familiarity with this scum topic (if you glance through it quickly, you'll probably be able to see where I'm coming from), and the "I'm going to make this post to sound laid back and funny" scum motivation that you're looking for here doesn't really mesh with his thought process does. What does mesh well, however, is the "trying new approaches in order to fix problems in his towngame" piece. I don't think he's a self-aware enough player to fake this particular aspect of his meta (I don't think he's aware of my familiarity of his meta), and to address a concern you bring up later in this wall, I don't think that if he was trying to pander to me specifically just by posting more "words" that it would align so closely with his previous thoughts about his town game.

Does that make sense?

All of this does make sense but I've played one game with KTthecreeper before (Micro 550). He was town and I was mafia and I thought he was bleeding town all over the place (which was why I buddied him). I don't expect anyone to read a whole game but notice how at the end of page one, he starts questioning Kaboose, and by page two, he is in the middle of a full-on attack on him. He does get voted by a couple of other players (Kaboose and Huntress) on page two, but while he stops to address their suspicion, he also prioritizes his attack on Kaboose and continues scumhunting elsewhere (Not_Mafia) on page three. The rest of the game goes by with KTthecreeper active and engaged and confidently pushing his reads. Here, KTthecreeper reacts (in a genuine way, I'll grant), but he doesn't have the same enthusiasm and spark that he did in his towngame.

I don't discount the possibility that someone who is often lynched as town would upon drawing a mafia role feel he can take advantage of that by saying "I'm always getting lynched when I'm town." I also think that even if he's mafia here, he'd want to try something different than what always gets him lynched as town. I do agree that him experimenting with different reactions to votes is a point in favor of him being town though. I read the first twenty posts in his ISO in the game you are talking about. His posting there as mafia is actually more similar to his towngame than his posting here. I'm not even sure he's mafia but I suppose I just want to hear more thoughts on KTthecreeper.

[OceanWind]

Um, what? You somehow mixed up Lowell and myself? How does that even happen given we are pretty much antithetical to each other’s playstyle? Maybe Imperium or Ocean I could see. But Lowell? I don’t find this as credible.

Are you saying that you think Jim made up that explanation after the fact?

Oh I'm feeling a bit better about OceanWind since his town read on jmo is recently dead. Neither one of us can understand why anyone has a town read there, and while I've had suspicions on both slots, nacho and i both agreed that it would be more likely for jmo to follow a townie on a bad push early game than a scum buddy, so we were having a slight issue seeing an ocean/jmo team though found both independently scummy and had no clue why ocean though jmo was town.

As I mentioned, jmo16mla remarking that Lowell's townread on MagnaOfIllusion was very quick matched with my thoughts. MagnaOfIllusion's posts seemed non-alignment indicative to me so Lowell's reaction seemed odd - one that jmo16mla called him out on. I was also suspicious of Lowell at the time so jmo16mla's subsequent vote rang town to me. Finally, I agreed with everything he said in 62: Lowell calling out KTthecreeper was something I had pushed previously, his accusation that Lowell was buddying Albert was something I found reasonable as well (although it later became clear that Lowell was simply testing Albert). All this was before jmo16mla slowly faded out of the game. At that time, it was enough content for him to be one of my townreads.

[OceanWind]

Reading through MagnaOfIllusion's and Acryon's arguments on the current page, I'm actually agreeing with Acryon more than MagnaOfIllusion. The latter calling my post where I called him town "appeasing" was ridiculous and smacks of "look at me, I'm accusing people that are townreading me." I also thought Acryon's point on low-hanging fruit was fairly straightforward. He says he's not but he might be perceived as such based on early play. So, I have no idea why MagnaOfIllusion is incapable of understanding it after several explanations. I still want my own concerns answered but I'm less suspicious of Acryon than before.

I didn't like this post though.

Although I'm town reading Acryon, his low-hanging fruit argument was stupid as Magna has been pushing at pretty much anything that strikes him as off, though at the same time I completely understand Acryon's point. However, I've had enough experience and arguments with Magna to know that Acryon's argument about him being low-hanging fruit but no really would strike Magna as completely off.

What makes me laugh about this is that I think from the way that Ocean Wind has approached this game so far that that conversation should be clear. I also think that Ocean Wind would understand the appeasement argument, and this post here where he pulls back on his town read on Magna reminds me of Wedding Blitz Invitational where Malakittens!scum gave me a townread for reasons she shouldn't and when I called her out on it, she suddenly found my posts null. Amusingly, I thought that Nosferatu's "8:40" thing was extremely obvious therefore him getting after someone for something straightforward rang false to me and I also thought that the early Lowell push was trash, so. But oh I'll probably get there soon.

1. What Acryon said was that he was difficult to lynch. He also said that his early posting and low activity level may cause someone who didn't know him to perceive him as low hanging fruit. MagnaOfIllusion took issue with this and attacked Acryon for this "self-contradiction." I found that a bit ridiculous since "

I'm not low-hanging fruit but based on my activity so far, you may perceive me as low-hanging fruit and therefore attacked me

" seemed perfectly reasonable and has no self-contradiction. It seemed me like MagnaOfIllusion was just throwing whatever arguments he could at Acryon because Acryon wasn't particularly townread or in a strong position at that point. When pressed on it, Magna clarified that it was the fact that Acryon was using charged language like "low hanging fruit" in a situation that didn't warrant it that he found suspicious. I found that explanation somewhat more reasonable than "self-contradiction."

2. I did find Magna's attack on me scummy. I'm not sure how what another player did in another game has any relevance. I find it just as likely for town to suspect their attacker as mafia.

3. What are you talking about regarding "Nosferatu's 8:40 thing?" If it is the fact that one of his classes start at 8:40 and he had to leave specifically at that time, it certainly wasn't obvious to me considering I don't know him or his schedule. It seemed like he posted just after being called out by MagnaOfIllusion, then denied that he was, then stated that he didn't read anything after 8:40 which conveniently seemed like a time just before he was called out. I needed him to explain how that happened. How was it obvious to you?

4. I think Lowell is town now but I found his early push on KTthecreeper and responses pretty bad. I think it's unreasonable for Lowell to expect KTthecreeper to respond to all RVS votes rather than just ones on himself.

[OceanWind]

Still think ChurchOfMercy is mafia. I'd prefer this day go on longer though since none of the people I really want to hear from have posted anything substantial in the last few days. Bellaphant had time to post on the site this weekend despite V/LA but not here. Also, a week-long birthday? Maybe "birthweek" would be more appropriate here. jmo16mla clearly has time to signup for another game but not play the one he's already signed up for. KTthecreeper will hopefully be replaced. Jim says he'll be back today which I really hope is the case. Nosferatu hasn't posted in two days. Updated thoughts from all of these players and KTthecreeper's replacement would be cool. I'm also really hoping Severa actually reads/engages with the game. I'm feeling relatively comfortable with Acryon, MagnaOfIllusion, Lowell, Imperium, KillTheStory, and Ollie as town so it's most likely between the other seven players.

[OceanWind]

Ugh, though, I totally misremembered my other game with ocean - he was scum. I'll admit some of this was a meta-read: we argued the fuck with him and got nked - I just remembered being impressed with his play. Thanks for the headsup.

I don't think we've played together in the past (unless you are part of some hydra that I didn't notice).

[OceanWind]

@ocean 397

1. It was mainly the low hanging fruit thing and the issues around tone. I know you seemed to think magna was being intransigent, but I understood their frustration.
2. Not much, although day 1 I tend to ask more questions.
@ocean 429 from other games? K, but it'll be tomorrow if you still want this.

1. What were these "issues around tone" where you felt Acryon was being inconsistent? Can you point out the specific inconsistencies you saw?
2. Okay, so if there's not much difference between you and Lowell, why are you scumreading him? If there's more to your read than "not pushing his reads," I'd like to hear it.
3. Yeah, it would help if you post links to specific posts (whenever you find the time).

[OceanWind]

Here's a readlist.

Town {MagnaofIllusion, Oceanwind, Ollie}
Townlean {Bellephant, Jim, acryon, Killthestory}
Scumlean {Lowell, Imperium, Nosferatu, ChurchofMercy}
Scum {Severa}

ChurchofMercy is interesting, because I see a lot of associatives with them (and a lot of info to be gained from that lynch), but I don't necessarily think they're scum, so I'd like to consider. Let me read that one a little more thoroughly.

Severa, on the other hand, has done almost nothing and I feel like that's a particularly worthy lynch, if we run up against it. Also, UNVOTE:

Explanations to go with the scum and scumleans would be cool.

[OceanWind]

I agreed with mag's points around how he wants to be viewd by the town 254.

I don't follow. Acryon was the one who said MagnaOfIllusion is overly concerned with how he is perceived by the town. What exactly are you agreeing with here?

256 bout low hanging fruit seems super weasley to me. I also didn't like in Post 268 we're rehasing an agurment over the first 'six -posts' instead of moving forward. There's a lack of consistent movement in a sensible direction.

What do you mean "super-weasley?" You just repeated what MagnaOfIllusion said about "weasel language." How was Acryon being weasley? Also, he was "rehashing the argument" because I was pushing him on it. Would you expect him to not respond?

irt to lowell: firstly, my role pm, secondly the push on kt (eaaaaasy bait), immediate townread on magna, imp, ollie, kts, scum-reads with no reasoning: I had like ten posts this morning to his 18, but I feel I've provided some content (and more now), rather than the lack of info with lowell.

If you found Lowell's push on KTthecreeper scummy, why didn't you say anything about it then? You only said "

one of the votes on him is probably scum

" (Post 76). When specifically asked which vote you found scummy, you were still vague about it "

I can easily see scum pushing a mislynch and with four votes, it's probable that one may be'

(Post 223).

[OceanWind]

@Xisiqomelir -

have you caught up with the game yet? I'd like to see you elaborate on why you approve of Lowell, Imperium, and MagnaOfIllusion on the ChurchOfMercy wagon. Why those three specifically?

[OceanWind]

DAY 1 READS
I'll finish Thursday night, guys. There's a storm coming and the power's likely to go out.

What happened to this? It's Tuesday of the following week.

[OceanWind]

I'm surprised you actually followed that newbie game. Can you go into more detail about your reads? Right now, they are very vague and don't tell much about your thought process behind them. For instance, what are these "right questions" that MagnaOfIllusion is asking? How are Jim's posts better, and better compared to what? Why are Lowell and KillTheStory leaning town? The only thing you said about those two are negative things. Why are Nosferatu and Severa scum? What happened to your scumread on me? You claim to still be bugged that I "defended KTthecreeper" but now I'm "paying close attention to the game?" Has your previous list changed or is it still the same?

[OceanWind]

Of the new replacements since I last checked, I'm getting townvibes from snarky and scumvibes from Xis.

Mind elaborating here. I get the opposite feeling on both. Xisiqomelir's reads and reasons are very original which I like. Snowman's post leaves a lot more to be desired. For someone who apparently read twenty-odd pages, he seems content to drop a list of reads, said he'd get back on ChurchOfMercy and hasn't posted since.

---

1. Yeah, I understood all sides of the discussion between acryon and magna. I do think that the first argument about the self-contradiction is exactly how magna would read it though.

2. How people treat people in games goes to mindset and it is absolutely useful and relevant to note. People create scumtells and how scum or town are more likely to react based on how scum and town have reacted in previous games. I'm pretty sure you know that.

3. Yeah, I thought that was pretty obvious. I don't know Nosferatu's schedule either, but when she said it couldn't have been after 8:40 or whatever she said, I immediately thought oh that was the time she went to work, school, whatever, and thought it was really obvious. Part of my point there was the you getting after Magna for something you thought was obvious felt off when there was a really obvious thing to me that you were pushing and didn't understand immediately. In part this just goes to show that what is obvious for one person is not at all obvious to another.

4. I thought Lowell's early thing with KT was just an early game push meant to do something/look like he was doing something or get a reaction/read out of KT. I didn't for one second think he was actually pushing a case he strongly believed in in the first two pages of the game that he thought would gain much traction. I thought his fake day kill thing on you was him expressing frustration that you had walked through his attempt to get a read.

1. That's okay if you think that. I'm not sure why you expect me to have an insight into how MagnaOfIllusion would read self-contradictions. Also, there was no self-contradiction. Acryon basically said "I'm not low hanging fruit but I could be perceived as such."

2. I'm aware and I've said it in the past too. The difference here is that you are bringing up a single instance of a behavior rather than a pattern.

3. The difference between my push on Nosferatu and MagnaOfIllusion's push on Acryon was that I didn't make the connection between 8:40 before Nosferatu explained it but after he did, I understood what he was saying. In the other argument, Acryon explained to MagnaOfIllusion a couple of times exactly what he meant pretty clearly.

4. Town push their early reads in RVS to progress the game. Mafia also push their "reads" in RVS to pretend like they are town progressing the game. Lowell's early posts felt like the latter because his reasons for suspecting KTthecreeper were objectively bad. It makes "surface-level" sense to accuse KTthecreeper of being "mafia that only cares about votes on him" while ignoring that any human being is drawn to mentions of their own name. If he had just said "KTthecreeper's reactions to pressure seemed fake," I wouldn't have suspected him.

But it wasn't the case by itself that made me suspect him. It was the fact that three other people voted KTthecreeper after Lowell did. There's plenty of scum motivation to post a made-up case on an awkward townie so that he hopefully digs himself into a deeper hole - it's the opportunity provided that's important. When town pressures someone (town or mafia), I've seen mafia jump in with shitty reasoning. I believed that this was one of those cases.

There's also the fact that Lowell could have seen a partner in trouble and hastily threw together a case because other people wagoned him. When mafia see a newbie partner wagoned, the temptation to push that partner hard is very high because if a buddy is getting lynched anyways, you want credit for it. Considering I also suspected KTthecreeper, this was a distinct possibility.

I don't understand why anyone would use cases they don't believe in to "get the game going." I don't RVS vote ever. My first post is usually a vote for the person that I find scummiest based on posts so far, and then I change it whenever someone new does something even scummier and so on. Low information doesn't mean you "clown around" and say things you don't actually believe.

[OceanWind]

Current scumreads for me are ChurchOfMercy, SnarkySnowman, Jim, and Bellaphant roughly in that order.

I find the make-some-posts-and-disappear routine for SnarkySnowman and Jim mafia-indicative as I tend to find most players tend to be less motivated to keep up with the flow of the game when they draw a mafia role. Jim also had several logical inconsistencies in his posts that he hasn't come back to explain. SnarkySnowman's single reads-list and no other content doesn't make sense from someone who just entered the game as that's when you know you have time to spare or you wouldn't have replaced in.

Severa still needs to post more content but I'm liking the more aggressive posting and I completely agree that SnarkySnowman putting him down as a sole scumread was odd. Xisiqomelir is the same tier.

Nosferatu is most likely town. His scumreads (Ollie, Lowell, Imperium) don't match with the general concensus at all which I find townish even though those three are fairly strong townreads for me. Reads on KillTheStory, MagnaOfIllusion, Ollie, Imperium, and Lowell haven't changed but I really would appreciate Lowell catching up and posting actual content as that's the read I'm second-guessing the most.

[OceanWind]

Consider this an intent to hammer.

Wait till Bellaphant and Jim come back and answer my questions. I also want SnarkySnowman to post more.

---

There was one post in particular I really liked. I'm too lazy to find it again, but I can if for some reason it matters.

You are kidding, right? He made three posts. The first was saying that he would catch up, and the last was a naked vote for Severa. That leaves one post.

---

My issue is he starts of by saying he was low hanging fruit, then he wasn't, then he isn't, and then it doesn't matter anyway. I just feel there's a lot of distancing between what was said between one time and the next around the same core idea.

No. The argument goes like this:

Spoiler: Low Hanging fruit argument

1. Acryon: (MagnaOfIllusion) actually seems to be jumping on low-hanging fruit and seems overly concerned with his standing amongst the town.

2. MagnaOfIllusion: I want to highlight the “Low hanging fruit” comment. He’s suggesting I’m attacking him for being a soft target for some reason. Yet he doesn’t see himself as one – he brags about not ever being lynched Day 1. So are we supposed to believe he is both simultaneously an easy target (intimating I am scum pushing on weak Town) and not one?

3. Acryon: At the time I was a low hanging fruit. I think once you get a closer look you'll realize I'm not, but that doesn't mean I wasn't at the time within the context of the game.

4. MagnaOfIllusion: Um, whut? So you were Low Hanging Fruit but you are not? I can't wrap my head around the level of self-contradiction here. Either you are an easy target who can get pushed for questionable reasons or you aren't. The fact that you were trying to position yourself as such in a soft attempt to attack me I find suspect given your response here.

5. Acryon: You're acting as if 1) perception doesn't matter and 2) status doesn't change. As for perception, being or not being low-hanging fruit has a lot to do with the overall town's perception of someone as such. Low-hanging fruit doesn't have a strict definition in mafia since the game is so fluid and differs so much from game to game. In the situation of me, I was a low-hanging fruit to you at the time because I hadn't had a real chance to even post something non-RVS yet you jumped on me for not doing so. Players are not strictly low-hanging fruit or not low-hanging fruit.

6. MagnaOfIllusion: I'm acting as if you were using weasel language to attack me, that I called you out on it, and now the phrase "Low Hanging Fruit" is some nebulous, ever-changing concept that varies from post to post. Fact is that you were using language calculated to have a negative connotation (translated - MoI is attacking me because I'm an easy target) while not being able to justify how that stance makes any sense. If you were at that point as easy a target as you say then my vote on you would clearly not be using such "bad" logic as you keep claiming. You can't be have been simultaneously be an easy target and being attacked with terrible logic that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny at the same time.

7. Acryon: What? I already pointed to how it made sense. I appeared as "low-hanging fruit" at the time since I had only commented on the policy lynch essentially, and my later posts where I didn't address anything else made it look like I wasn't reading the game. Rather than thinking "Hm, it's only his first day posting; let's see what he has tomorrow", you demonized me as purposefully not commenting on what all had happened within the game. You saw my lack of posts relative to the rest of the game and turned it into --> "Lacks any engagement in the game beyond the Policy Lynch issue."

Show me precisely where Acryon was doing a lot of distancing between one idea and the next. I strongly suspect you are bs'ing your explanations and riding on MagnaOfIllusion's coattails. I want specifics here.

@Imperium -

You say that you expect MagnaOfIllusion to react exactly as he did to the low-hanging fruit argument. In your mind, does this also apply to Bellaphant? It's pretty clear to me what Acryon was arguing and it apparently is to you as well. What do you make of Bellaphant's post here (the segment I quoted above)?

Also, before I go trawl back through the two games I was linked, why do you want it? It's there for you if you want it - and it'd be a dumb thing for me to make up. If I can get behind your answer, I'll do it.

I want to verify that you did in fact read the games like you say you did. I'm not going to assume that you did if you don't provide evidence of it. First, you delayed providing this information. Now you are asking me to justify why I'm asking when it's completely obvious. Then you claim that you'll only provide it if you can "get behind my reason." If you really did look at those games like you say you did, this should be trivially easy.

[OceanWind]

I'll be honest, I'm starting to see the argument for Bella being scum. I'm not sure I'm feeling the town vibes off the post you mention but I'm a little more cautious with my townread on bella - maybe into the null category for now?

Is there a reason you ignored all the posts asking for explanations on your reads?

[OceanWind]

Yeah, that case by SnarkySnowman was baloney. The part about "derailing the more thorough cases against Bellaphant" was a huge stretch. I'm actually leaning towards Bellaphant and SnarkySnowman being mafia together. Considering he has Bellaphant as a "townlean," it is odd the way he is trying to tie Bellaphant and Severa together and accusing Severa of shutting down discussion on Bellaphant. I'd rather lynch SnarkySnowman today. Do we have the time and the numbers to switch?

UNVOTE: ChurchOfMercy
VOTE: SnarkySnowman

[OceanWind]

Severa is also really obviously town based on the last several posts. ChurchOfMercy could potentially be town considering how SnarkySnowman is hedging there - not exactly voting him but also saying one of Severa/ChurchOfMercy is mafia. The way Bellaphant hopped on there also makes me rethink that slot.

[OceanWind]

Based on his response to SnarkySnowman's case, yeah. I know you think Severa is mafia but look at SnarkySnowman's case on him and how he positioned himself to "compromise" on you. The case is complete nonsense. His not taking a position on you probably means he thinks your lynch is achievable without his support. So, the following day, he can look like he has his hands clean and continue pushing Severa. The "association" is crap as well. Once you flip town, he'll simply go back to "oh, it was Severa all along, not ChurchOfMercy."

[OceanWind]

Yeah, I don't feel that strongly that ChurchOfMercy is town but enough to want SnarkySnowman first, and then rethink. But I think if SnarkySnowman and ChurchOfMercy were mafia together, Snarky probably wouldn't hesitate to vote a doomed partner and instead vote a player he knows he has no chance of lynching.

[OceanWind]

The fact that we’ve had such trouble getting Church to L-1 in the first place combined with this sudden very, very late day counter-wagon building makes me feel even better about the CoM lynch.

We had no trouble getting ChurchOfMercy up to L-1. People kept unvoting because they didn't want them in hammer range but for the vast majority of the day, ChurchOfMercy was the default lynch option. It's only now that another option emerged. What trouble are you talking about?

You replaced a flaked slot with no posts. You hop on the leading wagon with no reasoning other than “CoM is scum” and have done NO scum-hunting despite there being a thread full of content to discuss. Not hard to see your slot as a strong scum candidate – I certainly do.

Are you saying Severa is mafia with ChurchOfMercy or that he's mafia in the event ChurchOfMercy flips town? If the former, do you think he was bussing?

My townread on him comes from how he reacted to the case on him. The sudden aggression looked like town that thought they finally found something strong to push on. Severa wasn't in any real danger of being lynched so I don't know why he as mafia would panic at SnarkySnowman catching him and push back hard rather than stay on the bus/mislynch of ChurchOfMercy and put off Snarky for the following day.

I'm also interested in your thoughts about Snarky's actual case. Specifically, the notion that KillTheStory's case on Bellaphant was good and that Severa was derailing a legitimate line of enquiry. I found KillTheStory's case mediocre and attitude unproductive so it wasn't unreasonable for Severa to make that "god's gift to scumhunting" quip.

---

My initial impression is that derailing the CoM wagon to lynch Snarky is stupid; I've had decently strong scum reads on both slots for a while now, they are now shaping up as counter wagons and are still not cross voting (instead, they are both pushing a third target).

Why is it stupid to lynch Snarky if you have a decent scumread on the slot? What do you think of Snarky's case on Severa?

[OceanWind]

3. Ok, I didn't explain this well: reading through the game as a whole I found myself not agreeing with magna's points, but when I looked at them in iso I saw a tonne of thought progression and engagement - a lot of the time I look at whether I can see a sustained thought process, rather than if I directly agree with it. The frustration with acron seemed real, 162 was good, they pushed me for follow up about kt

I liked this post from Bella - this is a fairly insightful post from her on Magna and I think it's probably indicative of a town approach; no, it's nothing huge or really significant and I'm having trouble forming the right words, but I think that the reasons she's town reading Magna for are good ones and I think that it's less likely she would come to the right conclusion if she was scum.

While I didn't find that bit particularly scummy, it is vague to the point I'm not really sure what she's talking about. Decent players can fake thought progressions even as mafia and stay fairly engaged with the game, be frustrated at people and so on.

More than that though, I don't find her approach to the argument between MagnaOfIllusion and Acryon to be original. She's just going along with Magna's points using similar wording ("weaseling"), and just parroting what Magna said. I didn't get the feeling that she felt strongly one way or another or even understood the specifics of their argument. She just told me vague stuff like "

I just feel there's a lot of distancing between what was said between one time and the next around the same core idea

" which seems evasive and a way to just address my suspicion so I'd get off of her rather than positively asserting that Acryon is mafia for such and such reasons and that I should see it.

There's also her repeated dodging of my request to post links to games of Ollie's that she read. If she really did read them, posting the evidence shouldn't take so long. But on the 12th, when she first got to my question, she said she'll post the following day. Yesterday the 14th, when she came back, she modified that and said that I should give her a reason for asking and if she can get behind that, then she'd post the links. That makes me suspect that she didn't actually do the reading.

lowell continues to not impress.

And, oddly enough, I agree with this. Lowell was a town read of mine early game, but since then he's faded into the deep dark nothingness and is starting to play exactly like I expected his scum game to look like. I like this observation as well!

I've been in the same place (townreading Lowell mid-D1 and then wondering if I'm wrong), but it's the little things he does like popping up to say that Severa was town at a time when others were pushing him that re-inforce my townread. It's more that Lowell seeing what I'm seeing is relatable.

I thought Bellaphant's read on Lowell was rather shallow. She's voting for ChurchOfMercy, yet Lowell was the first person to bring up that are likely mafia which was the turning point for my read. Bellaphant doesn't seem to have given it a second glance.

I think the scumteam is comprised of SnarkySnowman, Bellaphant, and one of Jim or ChurchOfMercy. The first two actually make a decent amount of sense as a team. Snarky trying to tie Severa to Bellaphant despite having her as a townread is one such indication. What actually made me second-guess the most on ChurchOfMercy though is that Snarky is happy to sit on the sidelines and let the lynch go through without committing to it. That reads like he things we can lynch them without his support. You are scumreading both ChurchOfMercy and SnarkySnowman. Can you elaborate on what you think of Snarky's attitude towards ChurchOfMercy?

Have you done any research into Snowman's meta? Machina Mafia was likely the townies game he has ever played, and it wasn't very dissimilar from this game.

I remember vaguely reading the game towards the end where Titus and DiamondSentinel handed mafia the win. But I don't remember SnarkySnowman. Maybe I'll go look if I have time.

What?
You think that Snarky as scum saw a perfectly viable mislynch and instead of just cashing in on it (because everyone agreed with it), he instead decided to make a push on Severa, who a majority of town players were town reading?

Where do you get that the majority of players were townreading Severa? I had him as my second scumread and most people just seemed disappointed with how Severa is not posting much content. But we agree that Severa wasn't likely to be lynched today. So, if Snarky is mafia, why does he ignore the wagon on his buddy and place his vote on an unlikely lynch? On the other hand, if ChurchOfMercy is town that is the default lynch of the day, you don't think mafia would consider the idea of keeping their hands clean knowing that they'll get the mislynch anyways?

Why wouldn't he just vote on the Church wagon though, especially as he's stated that he's not town reading them? His hands wouldn't be dirty anyway as he's not the main pusher of that wagon. He could very easily follow along with the crowd today and not look bad.

Because his vote is not needed to achieve the mislynch. And the "talking like they are town" thing, I'm conflicted on Church.

[OceanWind]

Let's not end the day just yet please. I want to see Jim either back and posting or for his replacement to catch up and take stances. Assuming Jim gets replaced, the mod would have to freeze or extend the deadline. Just to confirm

@Mod -

can we have the deadline extended in case Jim doesn't show up.

[OceanWind]

Let's not end the day just yet please. I want to see Jim either back and posting or for his replacement to catch up and take stances. Assuming Jim gets replaced, the mod would have to freeze or extend the deadline. Just to confirm

@Mod -

can we have the deadline extended in case Jim doesn't show up.

Do you still want to lynch Snarky over CoM?

Yeah. I wrote a long wall response to you. I'm not sure whether you missed it or planned to address it later. I'll try and explain it in a different way, maybe with quotes this time.

[OceanWind]

So, here's Snarky's first content post in the game:

Here's a readlist.

Town {MagnaofIllusion, Oceanwind, Ollie}
Townlean {Bellephant, Jim, acryon, Killthestory}
Scumlean {Lowell, Imperium, Nosferatu, ChurchofMercy}
Scum {Severa}

ChurchofMercy is interesting, because I see a lot of associatives with them (and a lot of info to be gained from that lynch), but I don't necessarily think they're scum, so I'd like to consider. Let me read that one a little more thoroughly.

Severa, on the other hand, has done almost nothing and I feel like that's a particularly worthy lynch, if we run up against it. Also, UNVOTE:

a. The only reason he has for Severa being mafia is "doing almost nothing" which is pretty weak for twenty pages of content read.
b. Doesn't vote Severa here (wants others to make the first move).
c. Sees a lot of "associatives" with ChurchOfMercy. Doesn't explain what these are. Doesn't explain any of his reads despite being asked twice. Claims he wants to read "more thoroughly" but don't necessarily think they are scum. This is the hedging that I'm talking about. ChurchOfMercy is all but a default lynch for the day and he's refusing to take a stance and commit to a position. By the way, he never followed up on the "more thorough read." His wording here (info-lynch) also suggests that he doesn't want responsibility for the townflip. Mafia don't call their partners lynches "info-lynches." Especially not newbie-type mafia like Snarky-Snowman.

VOTE: Severa

A lot of people call him out for his lack of vote so he puts a vote on Severa. By the way, this doesn't make sense with his earlier stance that he'd vote Severa if a wagon forms since only one vote was on Severa. It looks more like he buckled under pressure and cast a vote.

Why do you talk like you think you're god's gift to scumhunting?
I'll give you a little hint: you're not.
I will not be unvoting CoM today unless something big happens.

This, directed at Kts, feels like it's meant to be de-railing to one of the most thorough cases (against Bella) that I've seen Kts make.

Killthestory basically said "we're lynching Bellaphant today" here. She didn't make a "case" much less a thorough one. This is bullshit.

[OceanWind]

I don't really understand the need to end the day right away. We don't have much to lose from Jim or his replacement (a slot that I think has a good chance of flipping mafia) committing to positions on ChurchOfMercy and SnarkySnowman. My top suspects are those three and Bellaphant so the more I see them all interacting, the better it is for later. Jim or his replacement catching up during the night doesn't solve that. Besides I'd rather we don't decide lynches based on high-volume last minute posting.

1. Snarky did say that he'd vote Severa "if we run up against it." That's not a narrative I'm creating.

2. You keep implying that if there's a near guaranteed mislynch, mafia would definitely hop on rather than hesitate to join the wagon or create counterwagons so that they can push the following day. A mafia player's dream ending to day one is two town counterwagons because the next day, the people who didn't get their lynch will push that wagon. You are acting like their only option is to hop onto that certain mislynch and I don't agree with that even remotely.

3. If he pushes Severa and somehow manages to swing the votes, chances are people are going to go back to ChurchOfMercy the following day. An unexpected lynch usually results in the previous days suspicions being continued. But if he pushes Severa and fails, a) people will likely look at the ChurchOfMercy mislynch wagon (assuming they are town) for mafia letting him evade suspicion. b) He can simply continue the push the following day. I think if he made a late hop onto the Church wagon, people would likely find it scummy and he's self-conscious about that.

Snarky gets mislynched/immediately vigged a lot.

I looked through the first few links you gave and skimmed Snarky's ISO briefly. He does seem to just post naked reads lists and have low activity relative to the rest of the game so I'll grant that maybe he's just lynchbait. I still want to see him post a lot more and not just rush the lynch today. Your point on Albert Rampage is noted. There were a couple of games I read of his where he had a lot of passion for the game which he isn't showing here.

This is not a good move to do regardless of alignment; I don't understand why you say that newb-scum wouldn't say that their partner's lynch had information (if he said he was lynching CoM for information, that would be an abnormal bus and thus would be an unlikely interaction. Saying nothing alignment indicative about your partner is new-scum 101).

He said a ChurchOfMercy lynch would yield information. That looks like he's setting up to "compromise" on them if it is needed. That would also be the reason why he has them as a leaning scumread as opposed to a townread. He wants to leave open the option to vote them if it comes down to it.

---

Anyways, it seems I'm outnumbered and there just aren't enough people who want to lynch SnarkySnowman. I'll roll with a ChurchOfMercy lynch but I want the full day utilized and no hammer before Jim's replacement has a chance to post.

[OceanWind]

I do.

Why are you agreeing to lynch Snarky tomorrow if in your mind, he's lynchbait/you are not sure about your read on him?

[OceanWind]

When I say that I'm not sure about Snarky as compared to CoM, we are talking about 95% sure that a player is mafia versus 65% sure. I'm still perfectly happy lynching Snarky in normal circumstances because the slot is scummy as hell, but I'm not dismantling a wagon on a player I am extremely confident is scum to someone who is not so scum because they are doing things they do as town because they are lynchbait. I am doubly not dismantling a wagon on my top scumread to lynch my second one when the people leading the charge say that my second scumread probably isn't scum with my first.

Okay, who are your current scumreads in order (besides the two you already mentioned)?

[OceanWind]

At this point, Lowell is probably very easily my third, but past that there's Jim whose posting I sort of liked when he was around and then the group of players who I'm town reading but not confidently (and hence could probably see them as scum), which is the mass I'll sort out with our deadline extension.

Lowell was the first person who brought up the possibility of ChurchOfMercy being mafia (who you claim to be 95% sure on). He was also the second vote on the wagon. Is he bussing?

[OceanWind]

Lowell was the first person who brought up the possibility of ChurchOfMercy being mafia (who you claim to be 95% sure on). He was also the second vote on the wagon. Is he bussing?

Yes.

I have a hard time buying that considering most of his focus has been on ChurchOfMercy. Is there a past precedent you are using for this read?

I also don't understand your recent townread on Bellaphant. Can you point to something more than that you liked her saying that Lowell was unimpressive and reading MagnaOfIllusion as town for "thought progressions?"

[OceanWind]

This head, for one, thinks it's a silly question to ask in the first place. Yes, of course it's possible he was bussing and his focus was on his partner from early on, especially if it's a weak scum partner whom he knows is going to get scum read by people who know how to read him. He busses early and gets that nice little cred.

I do not believe you find that hard to believe.

But again, silly questions to ask pre-flip.

Not really. If you are so confident ChurchOfMercy is mafia, then the rest of your worldview has to align with that. There are several other things that Lowell did that make me think he's town (his reads on Bellaphant and Severa for instance). The only thing I disliked was his insistence that SnarkySnowman was town and Xisiqomelir was mafia.

[OceanWind]

On Lowell's read on Severa, a) the way he reacted to Snarky's case on him looked like town wrongfully pushed on by mafia and the sudden burst of aggression fit in with town that thought he caught onto something. b) the way he accused MagnaOfIllusion of chainsawing had such a force behind it that I'd be very surprised if it came from mafia.
I thought other players would notice that but both ChurchOfMercy and MagnaOfIllusion kept pushing him and not seeing it. Then Lowell came by and voiced exactly what I was thinking. Same with ChurchOfMercy. He pointed out that they'd be more active as town.

Lowell seems to be a very minimalist poster so that's consistent with what I expect from him. On the other hand, I find Bellaphant's reads shallow because as I mentioned earlier, her take on the Acryon/Magna argument seems like she just found Magna a stronger player than Acryon and decided to back him. She provides no original reasoning to suspect Acryon, simply parroting Magna's and her actual reasons are so vague that they don't make any sense. I also don't like her dodging my request to post a link to the game she read.

Wait. Are the things you really like and town read about him because his reads match yours? And what you don't like is where your reads deviate?

Someone else saying what you are thinking can often be a towntell. For players like Lowell who provide close to zero reasoning, I find the best way to read them is to see how they are reacting to events in the thread and whether I can relate to those.

[OceanWind]

I don't understand why anyone would use cases they don't believe in to "get the game going." I don't RVS vote ever. My first post is usually a vote for the person that I find scummiest based on posts so far, and then I change it whenever someone new does something even scummier and so on. Low information doesn't mean you "clown around" and say things you don't actually believe.

Well this is a matter of play style. The great thing about mafia is that it's made up of humans who have varying approaches and there is no right way. If you expect people to do things your way, you're probably going to be frustrated and not understand things a lot. But that's not really germane to reading each other. If there was something else in this response you wanted me to respond to let me know, otherwise I'd like to get through as much as I can in my limited time right now.

Yeah, actually I'd like you explain why you think I'm supposed to know that MagnaOfIllusion would find Acryon's "self-contradiction" scummy. We both agree that it wasn't. You played with MagnaOfIllusion before so you just think that's how he would interpret it. I didn't and I found him scummy for it.

(And I'm aware people have varying approaches to the game but some approaches are better than others. And no, I don't expect people to "do things my way", no idea where you got that.)

[OceanWind]

ChurchOfMercy is at L-2 with KillTheStory claiming intent to hammer so effective L-1. No one else vote since I really would prefer we don't end this day early.

My primary pool of mafia is still SnarkySnowman, Bellaphant, ChurchOfMercy, and Jim in that order.

I'm less sure about townreads on Lowell and Imperium. Lowell because of his post defending Snarky and some of his later posts not making sense. I do think he's town if ChurchOfMercy is mafia though. I don't buy that he's bussing them. Imperium because a lot of their reasoning doesn't make internal sense. The Lowell-bussing-Church argument is one. Their townread on Bellaphant is shallow and the intense frustration over the SnarkySnowman wagon doesn't make sense when the latter was their second scumread. I also don't like the overly aggressive posturing and it seems a lot different from the game I played with Nachomamma8 where he was a lot more diplomatic and had a "positive energy" for lack of a better word. Specifically the parts where they accused me of "creating a narrative" around Snarky, and the latest posts (807, 814). If Bellaphant and Snarky are mafia like I think, Imperium needs to be looked at.

My read on Ollie is a lot weaker now considering he hasn't done much of anything lately. But the things I townread him for early are pretty strong towntells so he's still leaning town. KillTheStory, MagnaOfIllusion, Nosferatu, Acryon, Xisiqomelir, and Severa are all town.

[OceanWind]

Yeah, and the rush to end the day when it's objectively better to get more information and stances from Jim's replacement and wait for Bellaphant to show up again (I had outstanding questions to her) was pretty bad too.

Stuff I want to get done before ending the day:

1. See Imperium's views on the gamestate as a whole that they planned to post.
2. Get Bellaphant's response.
3. Get Ollie's updated opinion on everything that happened.
3. Wait for Jim's replacement to catch up and post thoughts.

[OceanWind]

Yeah, I figure you'd reach that conclusion. I don't think anyone has said ChurchOfMercy is mafia

with

another player though. It's more that I thought they

weren't

mafia with Snarky although I'm not confident about that.

[OceanWind]

By the way, if we lynch ChurchOfMercy and they flip mafia, it doesn't clear either Imperium or MagnaOfIllusion.

[OceanWind]

Some of your posts are so one-dimensional I'm not sure what to make of them. It seems like anyone that disagrees with your major scumread is mafia with them. You even called Severa mafia because they were trying to "derail" the ChurchOfMercy wagon. You apparently think Imperium is so town as they pushed that wagon despite the fact that the numbers for the lynch were always there so as much noise as Imperium generated, they didn't affect the outcome of the day. Then, very predictably you called my posts scummy apparently because I've considered other options besides ChurchOfMercy.

The complete lack of discernment makes me wonder if it is in fact MagnaOfIllusion/Imperium/ChurchOfMercy. Both decent players bussing the lynchbait and tying anyone and everyone possible with the doomed partner so as to generate mislynches the following days. If not both, at least one.

MagnaOfIllusion's posts, I have been townreading and I'm still not sure he's mafia but I'd expect there to be more depth to his analysis than "you defended CoM, ergo mafia."

[OceanWind]

1. With Lowell, it's not just that he pushed ChurchOfMercy, it's that a) he was the first one to bring it up, and b) his play around them didn't look like a bus. There was no overt noise-making (which I usually expect when a bus is going well). He was content to kick-start the wagon and sit back. That doesn't get him much "towncred" because most people remember the hardest pushers on the wagon. If anyone's bussing, yours and Magna's posts fit that mold a whole lot more than Lowell's.

2. With Bellaphant, I pointed out the posts of hers that I find suspicious. Your partner said that she was your third scumread. Then you showed up and quoted the most mundane posts of Bellaphant and townread them. Seemingly those were what changed your mind. But I fail to see how Bellaphant's "Magna's thought progression is good" was a towntell. It's so vague I can't tell if she's just making stuff up and using buzzwords to justify a read. There's also the part about how she's avoiding giving proof that she read Ollie's games. Then you are lecturing me about townreading people who agree with me while scumreading people who don't. At the same time, one component of your townread on Bellaphant is that she agrees with you on Lowell.

3. On you and Magna pushing ChurchOfMercy without me: isn't that exactly what MagnaOfIllusion is doing? It's not just now but the entirety of the day, Magna has been so certain that ChurchOfMercy is mafia that he's literally accusing anyone with an opposing position of being mafia with them. He's not looking at things through a nuanced lens and questioning whether anyone's reads make sense for them to have. It's literally been "yep, counterwagon, you are mafia with CoM." Again, one of you wrote this beautiful lecture about how mafia is played by humans with different viewpoints. Yet, you haven't once looked at MagnaOfIllusion who detracts from the ChurchOfMercy wagon as being mafia with them. But in your mind, he's so incredibly town you'll eat various articles of clothing and in his mind, you are so town it hurts.

4. You could always push your top scumread the following day. I'm not particularly frustrated that ChurchOfMercy is getting lynched because I know I can go for Snowman or anyone else tomorrow and Church was one of the few players I'm not townreading. You act like if Snarky does flip mafia, you can't try to convince everyone that Church was their partner.

5. I do hypothesize about various scumteams before flips. For instance, I think Snarky and Bellaphant are probably mafia together. That's not exclusive to my read on you. Sometimes the way mafia interact with each other can be extremely telling even before either of them flip. That doesn't mean I'm not trying to read you independently. I don't understand your's and Magna's mutual townreads on each other. Both seem shallow for two players that have been posting with much more depth on other players.

6. On the differences between the other game, what struck me about your play there was that you were very willing to townread people early on and I could understand your thought process fairly easily. (I was scumhunting for the other team at least some of the time and continued doing do when I vaguely followed along after replacing out). Here, a lot of your reads don't have the same deep thought process behind them (see Bellaphant, Lowell, and MagnaOfIllusion for example). Your scumread on me made a decent amount of sense considering you townread me early there. But I don't understand why you'd expect me to know how MagnaOfIllusion plays or argue that I'm creating a narrative around Snarky. I also don't understand your rush to end the day if you wanted to see more from Snarky. If you thought he could be mafia with Church, why not extend the day to let him take more positions on Church, let him assess the gamestate and either clear or hang himself? Wouldn't that also give you a better read to go off of tomorrow?

7. Now that you are getting the lynch you want, I'd like to hear what it was that you were initially planning to post - your views on the gamestate as a whole.

[OceanWind]

I'm going to catch up later tonight. Don't put anyone at L-1 please. Killthestory said he would hammer and is holding his vote for that purpose.

I want to see the replacement actually post. The 24 hours are up so mod should be looking right about now but I don't think he's been very actively checking the thread.

[OceanWind]

Sure. Tell me what about the following you didn't understand or need explained further.

I just did. You scumread me because I scumread MagnaOfIllusion for doing something that he apparently normally does. Except how do you expect me to know that?

I get my belief that you expect everyone to follow your lead and do things your way from some minimal reading of some of your posting including but not limited to a GD thread in which you disparaged other people's reads lists you don't find valuable and clearly prized your way over others.

Okay, well this makes a lot more sense ironically enough. I suspected that you were trying to discredit my reads which it seems you are doing because you disagree with my playstyle for whatever reason.

I went and read the GD thread to see what I said that was so offensive. A lot of the time I see people post readslists that don't have concrete information that I see time and time again. I pulled up a recent one as an example. I wasn't disparaging anyone's reads. I've never even played with the person that wrote it up. I don't "prize my way over others." We all have opinions about the usefulness or uselessness of various strategies in mafia which may vary from one individual to the next. I'm no different. I'm aware my opinions are subjective and that other people may disagree with them. The thread was inviting people to give their opinions and I gave mine. I don't claim it to be objectively better.

With regard to this game, I wouldn't dismiss every disagreement as someone having a different opinion. Whether or not something makes sense to me as an individual is part of how I scumhunt and it's part of how everyone scumhunts. I'd be surprised if you didn't see a post and thought that it didn't make any sense and suspect that person for it.

To expand a bit. The first game I played with Magna I picked up on the types of things he picked up on and argued about fairly easily. Why it struck me as off with regards to you was because, as I said before, you questioned and got after Nosferatu for the time thing which I thought was fairly obvious. And since you yourself didn't pick up on something that was quite obvious it was off to me that you were getting after someone else for not picking up on something obvious. If you hadn't shown yourself the inability to read something rather obvious, I'd probably not have taken note of it. And as I said before it's probably more an example of one person's obvious not being another persons.

I don't see the relation between the two. I found Acryon's argument pretty obvious but not so for Nosferatu. I could understand you thinking my going after Nosferatu is scummy but I don't get why you think that has any relevance to Magna vs Acryon.

Why can't we think that Lowell is bussing Church? What of our reasoning doesn't make internal sense?

Because the way he went about it doesn't make any sense as mafia to mafia interactions. I explained this and Nachomamma8 agreed. Do you still think Lowell is bussing after going through his posts?

I thought you followed Machina mafia? If you did, and since you posted at the end of the game with an observation, then how did you miss how frustrated we got when we had scum nailed both days two and three and town mislynched both those days mislynching our town reads.

I didn't read every post and only have a vague recollection of yours. The part I most intently followed were the last two days.

I don't for one second believe that you are that intuitive at reading this game so that you could declare Severa obviously town based on her reaction to Snarky's case on her, but are actually scum reading our posts.

I seem to have mixed up some of your posts with Nachomamma8's. My recollection of him was as a player that brought a lot positive enthusiasm into the game and the hostility didn't make much sense. It seems you have an issue with my posts in GD which explains your hostility. I don't know if the posts I mentioned in GD were an alt/hydra of you that you seem so upset with me when I don't think I've ever talked to you before. Regardless, it wasn't personal. My opinions of mafia theory and of games in general are subjective and not meant to offend or some sort of pretense that I think they are better than others.

What I do think is that you're used to driving the game and you want control of the game. You're coming up against some pretty strong opposition from both of us and Magna,

I do drive games when I feel that it is needed. I don't have a compulsion to do it and I tend to work well with players that are active and logical. Regardless I never fake scumreads as town so this entire paragraph is just bizzare. I scumread you because I misread your hostile stances as a) coming from Nachomamma8, and b) not knowing that you came into this game with preconceived problems with me because you misinterpreted something I said in GD.

FTR I also happen to know how much you love to bus and just how great your scum record is, so while my game has been unmistakenly unfakable town for me. You're likely town, but I wouldn't underestimate you and if you are scum here probably shouldn't underestimate me as town either.

I have no idea where you got that. I never said I love to bus. Ether wrote that bit in my wiki after I played a decent scumgame, not me. I thought it was funny so I let it stay there but it's not strictly accurate. I also don't believe that I ever said I was good as a mafia member? I just enjoy playing as mafia. There's a difference. I'm one of those rare players that doesn't have an alignment-preference. I'm not underestimating anyone so no idea where you got that either. It seems you are just throwing out whatever you can because something I said pissed you off?

[OceanWind]

I'm going to bed soon, but 883 was in response to severa, not you.

Also ocean wind, I'm going to be frank. I've thought for awhile you were an alt of a player banned for harassing the hell out of me. Your play styles are rather similar. However, I think I was wrong on that because of several things. I've had my back up due to that. So, sorry if that's bleeding through.

Lol, you also remind me of a player that was recently banned. I liked her playstyle a lot though.

I don't think I'm hostile. I prefer creating environments where town works together. If I have a strong read I believe in though, I will push it. I don't live very long most games and it's incredibly frustrating to sit in dead threads watching my scum reads pass by because I either didn't speak up like I should have or didn't push something strongly enough.

That's fine. I've come around to thinking ChurchOfMercy is mafia anyways so as soon as we hear from Jim/replacement, I'm happy voting there.

[OceanWind]

Ollie -

A few questions about your 831:

1. Can you point out what bullshit reasons ChurchOfMercy is being voted for?
2. What do you mean you got rid of reads where you townread people who townread you? I townread you. Then you townread me. As of your second readslist, you still had me in your townreads. So, what did you "get rid of exactly" and who are referring to?
3. What do you actually think of ChurchOfMercy? Your entire read these seem designed around who else is voting who rather than the player themselves.

[OceanWind]

By the way, if we lynch ChurchOfMercy and they flip mafia, it doesn't clear either Imperium or MagnaOfIllusion.

@OceanWind

- and what happens when I flip Town?

If you flip town, I'd go after SnarkySnowman and Bellaphant. Both of them are scumreads. Bellaphant has been pretty comfortable with her vote on you and Snarky's play around your wagon suggests ulterior motives to me. My third scumread would probably be Jim. I'd also need to review Lowell, MagnaOfIllusion and Ollie to make sure I'm not missing anything there.

[OceanWind]

Though I do find the robotic sort of playstyles jarring until I get used to the person and can gauge where they're coming from and what they look at. I'm more logic/emotion-intuition based, and which parts come to the forefront depend on my actual mood.

I wouldn't say I'm robotic. I can read the gut/emotion type players just fine although I don't develop those sort of reads myself. I tend to be stoic myself and play a logic-based game.

[OceanWind]

I said that voting for them because... they're likely to be VT if town, because we'd get alot of info or because they'd be annoying to sort would be BS reasons to vote for them. These were things I was considering when deciding which side I landed on Snarky/Church. I think you misinterpreted what I said there?

Who provided those reasons? Mind quoting or linking them?

Now pretty much most of Church's posts have been scummy for the last week or so due to the troll-y tone but that could be explained by them being the clear lynch for today since around that time.

Why does someone being the clear lynch of the day excuse them from suspicion for "scummy posts?"

---

Lowell, why are you voting us? Your performance in the last game where you were in a hydra, you can surely relate to not being committed to or invested in a game. I don't understand why you are so convinced that we're the best lynch.

One game I read of yours was one where Lowell was in it. He was townreading you hard for overposting (over four hundred posts a day). So, him scumreading you here for underposting doesn't seem all that unreasonable.

---

That's what I mean by robotic. Not that you can't read emotional players but that you don't express much emotion in your questions/pushes/reads yourself. Me reading you being maybe frustrated or paranoid in the way that you started to scum read magna and us is what made me come around to thinking you were almost definitely town.

I'd say I'm more logic-based than robotic but okay. I wasn't frustrated or paranoid about anything. I don't scumread people I'm frustrated with. Mostly, I just yell at them.

[OceanWind]

That's what I mean by robotic. Not that you can't read emotional players but that you don't express much emotion in your questions/pushes/reads yourself. Me reading you being maybe frustrated or paranoid in the way that you started to scum read magna and us is what made me come around to thinking you were almost definitely town.

I'd say I'm more logic-based than robotic but okay. I wasn't frustrated or paranoid about anything. I don't scumread people I'm frustrated with. Mostly, I just yell at them.

To expand on this, I don't irrationally scumread players that suspect me or disagree with me. I've explained my suspicion of you which was largely softened since then.

My suspicion of MagnaOfIllusion stems from his lack of deeper thought with regard to the ChurchOfMercy lynch. His posts follow a consistent pattern of accusing anyone who deviates from his preferred lynch of being mafia. He doesn't take into account that mafia can and do bus, that they can and do distance from each other and so on. The wealth of possible interactions that mafia could have are vast and it is never simply about whoever pushes the counter-wagon. MagnaOfIllusion strikes me as a discerning enough player to realize that, yet his "interactive tells" are far too simple.

The mafia motivation for this consistent pattern is something I could see regardless of ChurchOfMercy's alignment. If they are town, the constant attacking of anyone deviating from that push would be the ammo through which he could make the mislynch possible. It might fool weaker-willed players into folding as they grow to fear the prospect of facing MagnaOfIllusion the following day. Machina mafia was full of such players and the mafia member used the browbeating to great effect and was my biggest take-away from that game.

The second option obviously is that he'd get a ton of towncred if he was bussing ChurchOfMercy so setting up the next mislynches down the line makes sense. If he had a more nuanced view like Nachomamma8 did for instance, I wouldn't have been suspicious. Associatives before flips is something I do as well. But showing up when he did and accusing me of being mafia looked ingenuine for all those reasons. Nachomamma8 was right in that looking terrible is

exactly

why I wouldn't have hopped off the ChurchOfMercy wagon if I were mafia with them. I'd wait and see who else was taking the bait, maybe push harder to see who else I can set up to lynch the next day. He also accuses Severa without considering the larger context of Severa's posts. Unless I find out Severa is an alt of LLD or something, that's a townread I don't doubt.

But I'll likely get more insight into MagnaOfIllusion's alignment once he specifies what posts he finds scummy in more detail.

[OceanWind]

Meant to respond to this. I read it and somehow forgot.

So, to me it goes Ac: 'Haha don't vote me, I'm never lynched day 1' (confidence in his play) then 'you jumped on lhf' (not confidence) then 'I am not lhf' (confidence) then 'it doesn't matter anyway' and then he uses lfh to suggest moi 'demonised' him for his content. Why doesn't this look like a contradictory attitude to you?

I've explained it several times by now. Acryon said that he could be perceived as low-hanging fruit even though he's not actually low hanging fruit. It doesn't matter what he actually is. Whether or not people attack him is based on whether

they

think he's low hanging fruit, not on whether

he

thinks he's low hanging fruit. I'm perplexed as to why this isn't clear to so many people.

But moving on, I'd like to see actual links to this:

Firstly, I can't work out how to link to posts, so I'll give you some edited snippets.
I asked you why because it seems pointless for you to assume I'm lying, but, whatever. Admittedly some of this was in response to pressue, but the whole thing in very tonally different.

Spoiler:

'& you have the audacity to have a go at me for an over reaction! btw you're the one who has quick hammered a townie who'd voted for you (OMGUS, er didn't you accuse me of that?) in this game Whiskers. In contrast I've voted for somebody & you've disagreed with my reasoning. I'd say you're winning when it comes to shitty play. ' 'So what? If we had a vig who was forced to shoot the worst player on day 1 then you'd be dead by now. Shit play is no guarantee of anything. He hasn't given us enough to vote on him yet.' 'IN YOUR FUCKING OPINION. I don't know why you can't have people disagreeing with you about what scum tells are but I don't wanna talk about that any more, too many posts centred around that from you, taking up too much of my attention.' 'Death, so why the fuck are you asking for a modkill if you think it's unlikely? Pointless post then & you could have asked the mod via PM. The slot is also statistically more likely to be town so you're scumming the place up with this mod kill bull shit. Why are you objecting to me saying there should be a replacement so badly?' 'Me getting satisfaction from your death isn't gonna do us any good you clown. 's soon as you've come under significant pressure, you've hopped on the largest wagon. Love it.' 'Well done on outing the doc people! Are town even gonna have any roles left at the rate this game is going? At least I've got my role out there which is more than Victor managed.' 'Yeah save it farside, your constant buddying up to Golden Mole is sickening.' 'Derpa derp is actually quite a fun nickname for you, I'll stick with that, thanks Derpa derp. You gave a list once then lurked the rest of the time. That's like getting a BJ off your girlfriend once a year, just not good enough is it. Well done for unvoting me, do you want a medal? I guess you have to look like you actually care'

I can't place it in context. To post a link, all you have to do is click on the post number at the top of the post, and copy what's in the url bar.

This is what you said about Ollie:

@ocean, I asked for Ollie's scum games (not town!) to see if he was the kind of cheeky player who'd make a joke like that. The answer is 'yes', but they've been a tonne more aggressive in their other games, going after the guy who tunnelled him, being a lot more in your face than he has been here.

If it's true that you have actually done background research and not mentioned it, that's pretty strong indicator of town and was the reason I initially was townreading you. But I wanted to verify to make sure that it's true and every time you responded was to either delay or dodge which made me suspicious that you were making it up.

[OceanWind]

Severa is not an alt of LLD but is an alt of a good scum player with a good scum reputation.

Magna does have a tendency to view people who are looking at the game the same way as him as town and think those who disagree* as scum.

*I don't think this is blanket. I think in some ways it's in part that when he thinks that something is exceedingly obvious, i.e. Church is scum, that he can't accept that anyone else would see it any other way. For instance in Kingdom Hearts, moons and moons ago, he had me as a town read early game. He was reading someone else as scum that I was also reading as scum. That person made a post that I thought made him more likely town and when I said so, Magna thought I was more likely scum for it. We were both town and I was strongly town reading him in that game, correctly, while correctly identifying him as scum in a concurrent game. I point this out because my town read on Magna is not shallow, it's anything but. Can I be wrong, sure. Can I be overlooking stuff because we literally only joined this game because he came back, sure. I don't think I am though. I think I've analyzed it enough to be fairly confident.

I do think that him showing up this morning and suspecting you and anyone else is more in line with how he would perceive it as town than how he would react as scum. I'll try to explain this more later definitely tomorrow if we're all awake. If we're not here, please listen to what we said on Bella and read that Bees game I mentioned. Also meta a magna town and scum game. His scum game is good and competent, but I do think there are some pretty clear indicators there that would explain his views.

I was planning to go through Nachomamma8's responses to me and subsequent posts later on but I'll comment on those reads then. I don't have the time or inclination to read through whole completed games. Normally, I prefer following games in real time to see if I can guess mafia correctly. I'll likely skim over their ISOs at some point if it becomes relevant, but if you think there's any specific posts that would be helpful to look at, feel free to link them for me.

[OceanWind]

That's really not indicative of alignment. How many games of mafia have you played?

[OceanWind]

Nachomamma8 - I've gone through all your posting and there is not a whole lot I disagree with - or at least I see where you are coming from even if I don't agree on the details.

A few things I'd like to see elaborated on:

I thought that both of reasons for Magna being town were pretty spot on; I thought that it wasn't necessarily the strength of his arguments that made in town in the acyron exchange, but how he presented them and so obviously believed in them.

This one's about both MagnaOfIllusion and Bellaphant. I didn't get the feeling that Magna believed in his Acryon push all that much. He wall-warred with him for a couple of pages and then mostly let that read fall by the wayside.

Magna's weakness as town is that he is particularly susceptible to town reading people that agree with him and scum reading people that disagree with them. This is something that my hydra partner and I are aware of based on our experience with him.

This is understandable but still makes the read null at best (unless you are arguing that as mafia, he doesn't do the same thing). You then said this:

I've seen neither of you as doing anything that's significantly scummy to me, and there have been instances in both of your plays (Magna's with Acyron and early interactions with me, you moreso recently than early game) where I feel you've had strong emotional investment in a place that's hard to fake as scum.

and followed up by having MagnaOfIllusion in your strong townreads group. Is it just the fact that MagnaOfIllusion pushed Acryon that you are townreading him (and townreading Bellaphant for pointing it out), or is there more to it?

[OceanWind]

Didn't you vote randomly?

Can you link to those self-created forums where you played mafia. I want to get a general idea of the level of play. Trial and error is fine. When you finish reading the thread (you are reading, right?), I'd appreciate you posting your reads on SnarkySnowman and ChurchOfMercy. You should be reading everyone but those are a priority because they are the only possible lynches today.

[OceanWind]

I was actually hoping MagnaOfIllusion would show up and make that catchup post but it doesn't seem like he's going to.

I'll be here for another hour so I will hammer then unless anyone wants more time.

[OceanWind]

Severa was being very obvious about derailing the wagon. For a player like ChurchOfMercy who will probably get lynched early game, a partner's best move would be to bus, and bus in a way that'll get maximum towncred.

Severa's vote on SnarkySnowman was the first vote on the wagon. Based on many player's readslists, it was apparent that most of them preferred ChurchOfMercy as a lynch. So, why would an apparently skilled player like Severa hop off of the wagon and put himself in the limelight? If he fails, and ChurchOfMercy gets lynched anyways, he's the top target the following day. That'll take out 2/3 of his team in two days if he can't talk himself out. Let's say he succeeds and SnarkySnowman gets lynched. ChurchOfMercy is still a likely lynch on day two anyways considering how useless they've been. Day three, town will notice who derailed a wagon on flipped mafia to mislynch a townie on day one, and Severa gets into the hot seat again. While it's possible the majority would have a similar thought process to me, it's also possible most people will think like you and lynch Severa. I have a hard time reconciling the move as one a partner would make.

Why do you think mafia would be more inclined to save a partner who was the default lynch by risking their own skin with a small chance of success?

I'll keep posting but that was a hammer so I want to get at least this bit in before the mod closes the thread.

[OceanWind]

Glad I wasn't killed. I didn't want to die with my last words being that Severa was town. He's my biggest read change from overnight reading. I had a pretty strong townread there but after going through his ISO while I was reading MagnaOfIllusion's case, and the knowledge that ChurchOfMercy was town, my read reversed.

It's true that Severa focused only on Church for the most part, but when called out by Snarky, he responded by pushing him back. What I found most scummy though is how he was both negotiating with Imperium to lynch Snarky on D2 while setting up Imperium to take the fall for the Church mislynch.

I'm fine lynching CoM today if you join me on SS tomorrow or make it happen if I'm dead. Is that a deal?

I don't want you agreeing that he could be scum or anything like that.
Do you agree, in sickness and in wealth, that your vote will be married to SS's slot tomorrow if I vote CoM?

On hindsight, this does quite a bit to advance a mafia wincon by setting up consecutive mislynches assuming Snarky isn't Severa's partner.

IF you're wrong here and I have to choose between you and Oceanwind, I'd take Oceanwind. Sorry.

This sets up suspicion of Imperium while also taking my side. Considering Imperium and I have had a strong presence in the game, setting us up against each other creates a ton of town vs town conflict and also pushes Imperium on the backfoot. I think mafia is hoping that their credibility would be shot from being so sure on Church.

And like I said, this is if you in fact derailed my SS wagon to push the lynch back onto town. If you're going to hit scum I don't have an issue falling into line obediently. But if we're going to be doing this forever and you won't be hitting scum for it I'll start to have a problem.

This is a pure burden-of-proficiency argument where he is setting up to discredit Imperium and shoving the responsibility for the mislynch squarely on them. This despite the fact that the majority of the town wanted Church dead and we didn't have the numbers to switch regardless of Imperium's push there. Another issue I have is the vagueness of his threat. "I'll start to have a problem" leaves him open to either discredit them or push for a mislynch without committing to a position.

This is the most blatant chainsaw I've seen in my life.

This "chainsaw" accusation directed at MagnaOfIllusion is also a really shallow read. If anything, based on what I've seen so far, I think MagnaOfIllusion would be the type as mafia to play the long game rather than put his weight behind defending a mostly useless partner.

The consistent theme in Severa's posts is to set up lynches for the following day on Snarky, Imperium, and MagnaOfIllusion (for the last two, I think even if he couldn't get them lynched, he's trying to put them on the backfoot and make it harder for them to influence the game). I think he's backing me as a counterbalance to them to stir up conflict.

I don't have the same confidence in SnarkySnowman being mafia that I did D1. There's the possibility that he and Severa are cross-bussing but not very likely. Suspicion of MagnaOfIllusion also abated after seeing the case. I stand by my comments that Severa's play around Church did not make sense as a bus but I could see how someone that was so confident in Church being mafia could see it as such.

VOTE: Severa

(This is interchangeable with Jim/heuristically_alone, my other strong scumread.)

Several issues I have with Jim's posting. I can go more in-depth but a short summary:

• His reads don't mesh with his comments on the game. He has issues with MagnaOfIllusion's posts but puts him as a townread, then claims he mixed him up with Lowell. Hard townread on jmo16mla/Snarky is premature.
• Logical inconsistencies between several of his reads, and some reads such as the ones on KTthecreeper and Imperium involve jumping through too many hoops. Imperium is his strongest townread because KTthecreeper was verbose after Imperium said that newer mafia aren't verbose which is a ridiculous stretch.
  
  
• Having hard scumreads on Acryon and Church just through process of elimination despite not having confident townreads elsewhere.

heuristically_alone contributed nothing to the game in the time he was here. Most of his posting has been non-game relevant. I'll give him a bit more time to get caught up, but I'm very confident today's and tomorrow's lynches need to be Severa and heuristically_alone (in any order).

[OceanWind]

1. Why did my case seem compelling enough to help shift your read on Severa given that the main thrust of my case revolved around Severa as a partner? I have my doubts that scum would replace in and just weakly slide on a mislynch of CoM the way she did. So while the case may be well developed I personally don’t find it nearly compelling give CoM’s flip.
2. What motivated your change overnight about your belief in the strength of Snarky as scum?

I already explained both of these but I'll elaborate:

1. What shifted my read on Severa is my going through his ISO while I was reading your case, not your points about how he's a partner to Church. The main reason I suspect him is that his play around the day one lynch. He sets up Imperium and SnarkySnowman, and to a lesser extent you to be pushed the following day. He does in a way I find ingenuine.

2. I developed a confident scumread on Severa based on overnight reading. Considering how much SnarkySnowman and Severa were pushing each other, I doubted my Snarky read. Upon re-read, I realized I also misinterpreted his posts on Bellaphant. I had suspected that he demanded Severa's read on Bellaphant because he was partnered with the latter. But it seems Severa was the one who said he would read through Bellaphant first.

[OceanWind]

resummarize your case on Severa highlighting the two strongest pieces of evidence you think proves she’s scum.

I'd appreciate comments on my case.

[OceanWind]

It's not

that

you voted Church. It was the fact that your comments betray knowledge that Church was town. Even as you called them mafia, you set up your reads so that if Imperium were wrong, you'd have a "problem with that." Why can't they be town and wrong?

I never accused you of "jumping ship" to a town lynch so I don't know where you got that. I'm also not asking you to justify your vote for Church. I think you saw Imperium pushing a mislynch and set it up so that after the lynch, you can blame them.

Then there's you buddying me taking my side over Imperium's. I think you expected me to back you today and me catching onto you was demotivating. So, now there's the "if you are town" clause when you refer to me.

[OceanWind]

Don't replace me. Had a very busy weekend but I'll catch up soon. Hi Ranger.

[OceanWind]

{Ollie, Killthestory, OceanWind, acryon, RadiantCowbells}
{MagnaofIllusion, Xisiqomelir, Bellaphant}
{Nosferatu}
{Lowell}
{Imperium, SnarkySnowman}

And there you have it.

Your reads on Imperium, SnarkySnowman, and RadiantCowbells are the reads I most want to see elaborated on.

[OceanWind]

Still waiting to hear why I'm scum for a reason other than that I'm hard scum reading Rc

There has been a lot of stuff directed at you that you are ignoring entirely to continue to push RadiantCowbells. It's easy as mafia to focus on one person and tunnel them. I'm more interested in how you are seeing the game as a whole.

Here's a readlist.

Town {MagnaofIllusion, Oceanwind, Ollie}
Townlean {Bellephant, Jim, acryon, Killthestory}
Scumlean {Lowell, Imperium, Nosferatu, ChurchofMercy}
Scum {Severa}

ChurchofMercy is interesting, because I see a lot of associatives with them (and a lot of info to be gained from that lynch), but I don't necessarily think they're scum, so I'd like to consider. Let me read that one a little more thoroughly.

Severa, on the other hand, has done almost nothing and I feel like that's a particularly worthy lynch, if we run up against it. Also, UNVOTE:

1. What did you learn from your "more thorough" reading of ChurchOfMercy?
2. Explain your other scumleans (Lowell, Imperium, Nosferatu) at that time.

I'll be honest, I'm starting to see the argument for Bella being scum. I'm not sure I'm feeling the town vibes off the post you mention but I'm a little more cautious with my townread on bella - maybe into the null category for now?

Why were you townreading Bellaphant and what changed your mind?

This, directed at Kts, feels like it's meant to be de-railing to one of the most thorough cases (against Bella) that I've seen Kts make.

Quote this case and tell me what the strongest points were that Killthestory brought up against Bellaphant.

That is, you are not likely of the same alignment as CoM.

Why are Severa and ChurchOfMercy not likely the same alignment?

You did de-rail Kts on Bella though, which I didn't like at all.

By "derail," I assume you are talking about Severa's sarcastic labelling of killthestory as "god's gift to scumhunting." You were townreading Bellaphant at that time so what did you dislike about it?

B - Severa/RC has de-railed the shit out of Killthestory, on a few things. I can see the associative between RC and Bellephant, by the way, who are probably scumbuddies.

Explain this in a lot of detail with quotes. Where exactly is this thorough case that RadiantCowbells derailed? Why is is suspicious of him to do so when you were townreading Bellaphant at that time. What post or posts made you change your mind on Bellaphant? Why are they likely scumbuddies?

For the record, updated reads.
Town {MagnaofIllusion, Oceanwind, Ollie, Killthestory}
Townlean {acryon, Lowell, Nosferatu}
Scumlean {Imperium, hueristically_alone}
Scum {RC, Bellephant}

1. Why did Lowell and Nosferatu change from scumleans to townleans?
2. How did the Jim/heuristically_alone/Ranger slot move from a townlean to a scumlean?

[OceanWind]

Alrighty, we're lynching Bella today. There's a shit ton of associative tells that come with lynching her, and so much fucking information.

While Church's reads are shit and their play being annoying, he's not worth lynching at this point. I'd rather nolynch them since there wagon formed too quick, and the only associative tells are from people I'm already scumreading. No need to lynch here.

Lowell and Imperium are definitely town.

{Ocean, Ollie, Magna} Two out of three of these guys are the same alignment. They townread each other hard, and they seem to buddy up to each others reads just in the slightest bit. I'm feeling Ollie as town, so it'd be between Ocean and Magna for who could be scum or if both are scum. I'd say both are townleans, but Ocean would be scum in said situation.

Jmo was suprisingly read null by Bella. I'm unsure about this, but I'd still getting the genuine vibe from him. Everyone else also reads him as town, so there's that.

KT is clearly fucking town. Well as Jim. Not obvtowning, just not good lynches at all.

Acryon is town when Bella flips scum.

Nos is a wild card. I could easily see him scumteaming with Bella since he's not playing aggressively or scumhunting at all and arguing on shitty things. Some of his posts strike me as off in the gut too. Some of his posts are really town orientated which is where the townlean comes in.

Severa will flip scum when Bella flips scum. 90 percent sure on that read.

Is this the post you are talking about? Because it's not a case on Bellaphant which you'd know if you actually read it.

[OceanWind]

Actually give that post some consideration for a bit. A lot of reads and positions. A GREAT DISCUSSION ABOUT POSSIBLY LYNCHING BELLA. What info did we really gain from lynching CoM?? (other than my assertion that the Severa slot is scum?)

Bellaphant is still a good lynch, but it seems like we're ignoring that. This was a great route to try and go in, the CoM wagon was pretty lame.

1. Now you are moving the goalposts. You said that RadiantCowbells was derailing "the most thorough case" posted against Bellaphant. I asked you to quote it. You called me lazy and suggested I find it myself. I bring up the post where killthestory called for a lynch and there's no case. Where's the case that you agreed with that changed your mind on Bellaphant?

What info did we really gain from lynching CoM?? (other than my assertion that the Severa slot is scum?)

2. You arguing this point is such bullshit considering this post:

ChurchofMercy is interesting, because I see a lot of associatives with them (and a lot of info to be gained from that lynch),

3. Why did you ignore the rest of my questions?

I'm far more comfortable on this wagon.

UNVOTE: RadiantCowbells
VOTE: SnarkySnowman

[OceanWind]

You're welcome. Glad I could bring some clarity to your reads.

[OceanWind]

well at least I can rub this game in KTS's face if he's town.

Or you could explain your reads...

And you aren't doing this why exactly?

[OceanWind]

Or vote RC because not helping town is pretty anti-town, by definition.

And this is why Snarky is mafia with or without RadiantCowbells. He can't string together two sentences on his reads elsewhere despite being asked multiple times. His entire focus on the game begins and ends with RadiantCowbells simply repeating that Radiant is mafia, and he never follows up on any questions asked about his other reads.

There's nobody in the game that I'm currently reading as town though so I need to reset. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong.

[OceanWind]

Stuff that swayed me:

1. Post 1213 - He tells me that killthestory caused him to change his read on Bellaphant. He tells me to go find the quote myself since he's clearly too lazy to do it.

2. Post 1216 - After I bring up the relevant post to show that there is no case, rather than admit he made a mistake or clarify what he meant, he claims that killthestory brought up a "great discussion about lynching Bellaphant." You can look at the post yourself and see that there's absolutely no reason given as to why killthestory thought Bellaphant was mafia. There's a big heading telling us that we're lynching Bellaphant followed by a list of killthestory's reads with some associatives to Bellaphant. This tells me Snowman is talking out of his ass. There was nothing there that could have possibly changed his read which makes it more likely his reads are just made up.

3. Additionally, his argument that "Bellaphant was a good information lynch, what information did we gain from lynching ChurchOfMercy?" is directly contradictory to his statement D1 that ChurchOfMercy was a great information lynch with lots of associatives.

On RadiantCowbells: Some players prefer playing town and have trouble staying engaged when they are mafia. For those type of players, it would be alignment indicative if they posted selectively in some games. Radiant doesn't strike me as that kind of player considering how much he talks up his scumplay.

I'm not impressed by Radiant's responses to my case which basically amount to "I'm too good to make these mistakes." I'm not townreading Radiant and I'm not even discounting the possibility of bussing but those posts by Snarky put him over Radiant as my strongest suspect. I'd like to hear what you think of them.

[OceanWind]

Also, @MagnaOfIllusion - who are your next suspects after killthestory and why?

[OceanWind]

If you actually want me to take you seriously, respond to my points and questions to you. Repeating that RadiantCowbells is mafia isn't doing anything. We already know.

[OceanWind]

It's your other reads I'm interested in. I'm well aware by now what your read on RadiantCowbells is.

[OceanWind]

Your point is that you don’t buy that Snarky can be convinced to change is read on Bella based on that post. That doesn’t sell me in the least. I feel like you are trying to split hairs by saying “Kill never gave reasons” when the reasons are the associative tells themselves – Acryon being auto-Town with a Bella scum flip.

Okay, how does Snarky change his read on Bella from his "townlean" group to his "scumlean" group based on kill saying "Acryon is auto-town if Bella is mafia?" It's not that he put faith in the post or that he was more willing to lynch Bellaphant because of that post. He actually changed his read due to it.

It looks to me like he is mafia faking reads on players including a townlean on Bellaphant. When he saw killthestory make that big heading saying that we're lynching Bella, he skimmed through it, assumed it was a "case," and changed his read so he could hop on the wagon if it took off whether it was a bus or a mislynch.

As for the associatives: this is all killthestory wrote on Bellaphant:

1. Jmo was suprisingly read null by Bella. I'm unsure about this, but I'd still getting the genuine vibe from him. Everyone else also reads him as town, so there's that.

2, Acryon is town when Bella flips scum.

3. Nos is a wild card. I could easily see him scumteaming with Bella since he's not playing aggressively or scumhunting at all and arguing on shitty things.

4. Severa will flip scum when Bella flips scum. 90 percent sure on that read.

I can't see how (1) and (2) could possibly induce Snarky to change his read considering (1) was about his own slot's interaction with Bellaphant and (2) was that Acryon would flip town which has nothing to do with Bella. I could maybe see (3) because he was suspicious of Nosferatu. But he later changes him to a townlean so he's not buying killthestory's associative tells. (4) is the only thing I see as coherent with his own reads. But all killthestory said here was make a bare statement asserting that Severa (Snarky's biggest scumread) and Bellaphant (his townlean) were mafia together. Then suddenly, Snarky's read on Bellaphant changes with no new reasoning provided? And this overshadows his original reasoning? We have no way of even knowing whether he had actual reasons because he ignored every request to provide them.

See I think find this stretching. I went back and found the post in question -528. In fact Snarky in that post said specifically “ChurchofMercy is interesting, because I see a lot of associatives with them (and a lot of info to be gained from that lynch), but I don't necessarily think they're scum, so I'd like to consider.” Which is a reasonable stance given he never went for a CoM lynch and in fact has consistently gone after the Radiant slot.

I didn't say it was an unreasonable stance by itself. I'm saying he was okay with a lynch on Church because there was a lot of information to be gained from it in the form of associatives. But today, he complains that we got no info from that lynch and we should have lynched Bellaphant instead who would have given us more info.

who are your strongest scum reads then?

I'm not sure. I thought I had a handle on the game but then all my townreads started fading away and I could see pretty much anyone being mafia with almost anyone else.

SnarkySnowman is my strongest suspect. I don't think he has actual answers to the questions I'm asking him which explains his consistent dodging. He can't articulate a single other read beyond Radiant.

I

could

see RadiantCowbells being partnered with Snarky. That explains Snarky's singular focus on him. It's a lot easier to fake suspicion of a partner when you know that they are mafia and are aware of what the ulterior motives for their actions are. That also explains why Snarky is so confident on this read and is putting his entire weight behind it while he seems so inarticulate elsewhere. On the flip side, Radiant who loves to bus would certainly want the cred from bussing his weaker teammate so he could go deep into the game.

I could also see Radiant being partnered with you (MagnaOfIllusion) considering you were dead set on him being partnered with ChurchOfMercy but didn't find him suspicious on his own. I thought it was very unlikely that he was partnered with Church and his play made a lot more sense as mafia trying to set up who he would go after upon Church's townflip. I also don't understand why you are currently townreading him so I'd appreciate an explanation, especially considering you pointed out that he was posting in other games on V/LA, not engaging with this game, tunneling on Snarky, etc. What is compelling enough to outweigh all of these things and make him a townread for you?

I don't understand your read on the jmo16mla/SnarkySnowman's slot. It seems unlike most of your other reads in that you defended jmo early and continued to have at least a slight townread on Snowman. At no point did you voice any suspicion of either and whenever asked about the read, you always speak in defense of them. I find it odd that two separate low-content/low-analysis posters (jmo/Snarky) have impressed you. Your relationship with that slot is something to keep in mind going forward. I don't think you're partnered with them though. If you flip mafia, I'd be more inclined to think it was a red herring you are planting for the town to use in order to get a mislynch because you are a thorough enough player not to leave an obvious link to one of your buddies. If you are town, I'm probably on a wild goose chase.

I found Ranger's predecessor suspicious but Ranger's entrance has reminded me more of her townplay. I've been partners with her once and she was a lot less enthusiastic and less engaged with the game. It's too early to tell though and I'm waiting to see those cases on Snarky and Imperium that'll likely give me a more accurate read.

I agree that there is probably mafia among the low-content posters, specifically on Ollie. He was active at the beginning but then only shows up once every day or every two days and passive about the content he posts. It fits the mold of mafia who got townread early and don't want to shake up the gamestate.

Lowell also falls under this category though. Everytime I think "Lowell," I think "busy for the weekend," "will catchup later," "don't have internet" and so on. He too is on his own island with Ollie not minding anyone else or even analyzing how his old reads make sense today after Church's townflip.

I was townreading Imperium after the D1 lynch but they too faded away. I'd expect the level of passion they had for the Church mislynch would translate to today as they have big revelations based on the flip. I also found it odd that they agreed with my case on Radiant but didn't think to comment on it for a couple of days. If they really had a scumteam figured out overnight, I think they'd be excitedly pushing their new reads. Finally, I don't understand what Radiant did that suddenly made them unsure about him. Can't he fake frustration as mafia? Why was Imperium not in your list of low content posters?

I still have suspicions of Bellaphant's slot, and potential asssociatives with SnarkySnowman's slot, but the only thing to do now is to wait for a replacement. Acryon is probably town. I was townreading him but although the read faded due to his lack of participation, I think in this case at least, it is legitimate considering he replaced out. I think killthestory is town but not exactly someone who is making much sense to me and most of his posts just read like spam. killthestory strikes me as a player that changes his mind every few seconds and goes over multiple possibilities which make his posts incoherent but I don't think that's scummy. You initially voted killthestory saying "this is where I'm starting with my vote today." What did you mean by that? Did you have other suspects at that time that you intended to move your vote to?

So, I don't trust anyone at this point. Mostly, I'm frustrated that no one really cares about the game except you, Ranger, and killthestory. Anyone could be mafia for all I know, except maybe kill, Nosferatu, and Acryon's empty seat.

[OceanWind]

LOL MOI IS SCUMREADING RANGER AFTER ME

RANGER IS LITERALLY OBVTOWN WTF

And what do you think of Ranger townreading MagnaOfIllusion?

[OceanWind]

Imperium's progression on SnarkySnowman's slot has been fairly bad this whole time, but 32 is really what tells the story there.

I don't understand this line of thought. Imperium seem to be experienced enough players that they wouldn't go out on a limb to derail a partner's lynch to push through ChurchOfMercy's. They'd know Snarky was getting lynched the following day anyways so why burn towncred just to delay a partner's lynch?

Furthermore, the tell I have for MagnaofIllusion is not specific to him as a player; it's specific to his playstyle which a few other players have. My go-to example is Red Coyote.

What is this specific tell? Cite examples of MagnaOfIllusion's pushes and posts that you found alignment-indicative. I don't care about any other game. In this game, what were these things? The game you played with RedCoyote is finished so it shouldn't be a problem explaining the similarities.

1. The tunneling is usually present, and hasn't been this game. His tone often comes across as flat even when he's saying he's ticked off at a player, but here he feels sincere.

2. When Radiant is scum, he is setting up a long-term game plan, I have seen it multiple times, and yet here that behavior is absent.

3. When RC is scum, he may take unusual stances, but they come with an agenda: getting a strong player mislynched with gusto is practically a signature move.

He's done all these things here though. He has tunneled SnarkySnowman. He set up a longer term plan in pushing other players upon a ChurchOfMercy townflip. He was setting up to push Imperium before I made a post calling him out on it. If that's not what you are talking about, what is it? How has the tunneling been absent? How has he not been setting up longer term plans?

Also, your reads haven't changed all that much since page one, why? You had Ollie as a townread on page one and nothing that he posted since then affected your read? Why are you townreading him anyways?

[OceanWind]

They'd know Snarky was getting lynched the following day anyways so why burn towncred just to delay a partner's lynch?

I don't know. Ask Nacho.

I'm asking you because you are one calling them mafia.

Instead of focusing on nitpicky details, instead of relying on technicalities, instead of being stubborn, instead of lacking a firm base, he is making logical conclusions and following through with that town eagerness.

Examples of where he did this?

This isn't a tunnel from RC.
You say his attack on SnarkySnowman is a tunnel. But...that's not how RadiantCowbells tunnels. THIS is an RC tunnel, on Titus.

I'm not going to read an ISO over two hundred posts. What's the sparknotes version?

his recent posting is still as strong as his earlier posting. Maybe not necessarily in content, but in conveying alignment; his actions have maintained the existing townread.

What did you like most about his recent posting?

---

It's hard to stay engaged when people I question don't respond to questioning, can't make much progress. I had enthusiasm for this day at the start of it & it ebbed away. We had a period with barely any posts which really saw me off, I did quite a few prod dodges in this period, like that Stevie Wonder vid.

Why was I your strongest town read before? It seems like whenever I'm not posting mega amounts I'm suddenly scummy. If there's one or two pushing people then I'm fine dipping in & out when I notice stuff. In fact I could point you to town games where I've mentioned that I play like this & not a mega active town leader when I've been scum read for it. It's funny, that is always the thing that gets brought up about me. In fact I guess I only lead when I have a vested interest in a mislynch these days going off my last game.

I don't know if you're talking about me as well in that last sentence but the Church flip informs part of my read on Lowell. You're definitely my strongest town read because of recent developments, I'll clear up why later.

I empathize with people not responding to questioning since the only people giving me substantial responses have been MagnaOfIllusion and Ranger. But I've still been posting trying to move the game forward. You and a bunch of others posting extremely sparsely is part of the reason this game stagnated. Several people have been posting and you haven't made any comments on their posts until your name was brought up. Stuff like Ranger replacing in, Radiant and Snarky tunneling each other, etc.

I started townreading you when you were pushing Nosferatu on D1. It was when you decided to ISO the entire game unprompted and post reads that that townread solidified. I find that town are much more likely to try and understand the game as a whole rather than push isolated reads without regard to the big picture.

I don't expect you to post "mega-amounts." I do expect you to post more than the bare minimum required to avoid being prodded. There is a difference between enthusiastically doing a great job and just barely meeting the requirements and your latest posting falls squarely into the latter. Can you link me to a post where someone incorrectly suspected you for posting too little?

You don't seem like you actually believe in your Lowell read. On the twentieth, you voted him. On the twenty-sixth, you justified your suspicion to Imperium when they questioned you. You are back today on the twenty-eighth responding to MagnaOfIllusion's accusation and asking why he didn't vote yet. If you were that confident in your read, I'd expect a stronger presence in the game, more engagement with people about Lowell, asking for our reads on Lowell, asking people for votes. You haven't done any of that. You just parked your vote there. Eight days in this day phase are up and we only have six more left. It seems like you are okay with time running out and then at deadline, you'd make a similar post to this and decide which of the lynch-wagons you are okay with. Rinse and repeat. I don't see your own mark being made on the game.

[OceanWind]

On just this page? 1281 is ridiculously good. I like his paranoia in 1282. His interaction with Killthestory furthering it in 1285. The tone in 1289. All of these make me think Ollie is town.

No, not on this page. You said in your Post 1280 that his posts have shown a town alignment. How?

[OceanWind]

But even in the links you gave, I don't see how they are alignment-indicative.

1282 - He suspects you for posting readslists.
1285 - He tells Killthestory to ISO Jim.
1289 - He cracks a joke about uniforms that has nothing to do with the game. What do you mean "tone?" That's one of those words I see being thrown around that don't mean anything.

[OceanWind]

I've got a better question: why isn't he town? Same question for RadiantCowbells, too.

I explain why I suspect Ollie in Post 1290 and RadiantCowbells in Post 987.

I'm suspicious of you partly because I don't understand your reads. Your townreads on Ollie, MagnaOfIllusion, and RadiantCowbells (though the latter two it seems that you did the best you could) are examples of that. I also don't get the suspicion of Imperium. I was reading their D2 ISO earlier this evening and realized I missed some of what they posted last weekend. On a re-read, it looked more town and I find the reasoning that they were going out on a limb for SnarkySnowman hard to buy. Is there reasoning beyond just the defense of Snarky?

Your examples with Ollie aren't compelling in the least. How is asking Killthestory to ISO Jim or cracking a joke about uniforms indicative of town? If I stretch I could maybe understand the suspicion of you being townish considering he pushed you after you townread him but that's still pretty shallow and not uncommon for mafia to do. How was his wall response to me town-indicative? (I didn't check his link yet so I'll get to that in a bit).

[OceanWind]

How they seem to say they support lynching SnarkySnowman today but are incredibly noncommittal about it

Why would any halfway-decent player be non-committal about a bus? It's the worst of both worlds: they don't get the credit for it but Snarky dies anyway.

Pick a spot, any spot, in Ollie's iso. I can name at least one post in that area I like, and if I'm not lazy I might even be able to describe why.

End of day one/early day two is where my townread started to fade. Describe what town posting he's done there.

One line, that's it, in a post that otherwise gives all the reasons why Ollie should be a townread.

You are misreading the post. I made one paragraph explaining why I townread him initially. The rest of the post was about why I suspected him. Here's a quick summary: 1. Lack of commentary on other significant happenings in the game. 2. Posting the bare minimum to escape prods. 3. Not pushing his Lowell read when no one voted with him - he only responds to comments that someone else initiated.

And it's something that is obviously not alignment indicative. Many people this game are not putting forth a stronger presence in the game. Too many for them to be the scumteam. Do you know how many people you can apply that statement to? The acryon slot (admittedly getting replaced), the Bellaphant slot (admittedly getting replaced), Imperium, Killthestory (especially until recently), Lowell, you could argue Nosferatu, and SnarkySnowman most definitely fits in that category.

You are preaching to the choir. I suspect most of them to varying degrees. The fact that they aren't all mafia is what's frustrating.

Acryon (massive) was a fairly strong townread when he was posting. An actual replace-out suggests legitimate reasons for not putting effort into the game. Killthestory has been one of the few very active players so I don't know why he's on this list.

I'm suspicious of Bellaphant's slot. I'm suspicious of Lowell just as much as I am of Ollie. I'm even more suspicious of SnarkySnowman.

I'm going to wait for Imperium to post more like they said they would and I'll get back to you on Nosferatu.

[OceanWind]

I dearly hope for my sanity that you're town.

What is your read on Ranger now?

[OceanWind]

Can you link me to a post where someone incorrectly suspected you for posting too little?

Why did you ask me for this?

I wanted to check your claims about yourself. I thought you were referring to a game on this site. That would have been great because of the ISO feature. I'm not reading over fifty pages in an offsite game so I'll take your word for it.

I'd still like you to follow-up on posting updated reads like you said you would.

One more thing - can you point out when you started suspecting Ranger/Jim? The first mention of Jim in your ISO is you agreeing with my start of D2 post. Why didn't you comment on Jim's posts while he was in the game?

[OceanWind]

Then he replaced out and immediately signed up for another game.

Yeah, I noticed this too. Although a look at his onsite activity shows he hasn't been posting much at all in the past few weeks.

We do feel better about the Ranger slot being scum

I came to the same conclusion on Ranger. I've played with her a few times before and followed some of her other games. The most striking thing about her townplay was that immediately upon replacing in, she suspected a strong player that hadn't received much suspicion before and aggressively went after them. That game she linked with RedCoyote was one example. That's what initially reminded me of her townplay and why I wanted to see her case. But if the bulk of it is "derailed their buddy Snarky's lynch," that's incredibly shallow.

Snarky is a weak player. That much is clear to me even after my short return to Mafiascum. Weak players tend to be influenced by more vocal players in their reads. That’s not to say that weak players can’t be scum. They absolutely can. But they can be Town as well. And I see it as not surprising in the least that a weak Town Snarky would see Kill’s post and be convinced that what he read was solid and replace his own reads with his own.

Honestly the tipping point fro me on why I am not reading Snarky as scum is this – I don’t see scum Snarky behaving as he has the last two Days. He came in and chose to make a weak push on Severa for weak reasons. Scum Snarky didn’t have to stick his neck out with Town CoM poised for lynch and doing everything in their power to make sure they got deadlined. Snarky instead zeroed in on Severa and continued to do so even after the Radiant replace in. If you say “Him moving off after Radiant replaced so that would show he’s scummy for not really believing in his read” my response is two-fold

1. He’s then in a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation.
2. Well congrats that’s exactly what Killthestory did under the guise of sheeping his hero.

All in all I don’t see what Scum Snarky has to gain with his play given he’s just cruising along. Unless this is the weakest cross-bus ever because Radiant has completely abdicated any potential Town cred he would have gained with a Snarky scum flip by basically doing nothing other than repeating “Snarky is obvscum”.

What sparked my suspicion D1 was that he was setting up to push Severa while not taking a definite position on Church. He could have just voted the leading wagon and not pushed anywhere else but that would have been rather blatantly suspicious. I see newer mafia members more often setting up pushes elsewhere and hesitating to join the leading wagon than just complacently hopping on.

But all of what you said here does make sense and I'm mulling whether Ranger might be a better place to vote considering all of Jim, heuristically_alone, and Ranger were scummy. I'll figure it out after re-reading some parts of the game.

[OceanWind]

Do me the courtesy of responding when I've taken the time to dig up what you requested.

I'm not sure what you want? I said I'll take your word for it that when you are town, people have accused you of "dipping in and out" so that may not be indicative of alignment. That's why I asked you other questions to help me get a better read on you.

[OceanWind]

Yeah, I'm happy consolidating on Ranger.

UNVOTE: SnarkySnowman
VOTE: Ranger

[OceanWind]

I've made several posts about my suspicion of Ranger. If you want to know why Ranger over SnarkySnowman:

With Snarky, there's a possibility that what I'm seeing (lack of reads beyond RadiantCowbells, lack of analysis, his read change on Bellaphant not making sense) could be explained by him being mislynch bait.

With Ranger, I know that she's competent and capable of in-depth thoughts. So, when she makes posts like "Snarky is mafia and Imperium is mafia because they defended their partner," fails to back it up, and doesn't show a deeper explanation after being asked several times, I find that more suspicious. Ranger's other reads are pretty shallow as well - like the read on Ollie for example.

Snarky could be mafia. Ranger just feels like the surer bet for me. We can always re-analyze Snarky tomorrow.

[OceanWind]

1. I already gave some of the highlights in what I see in SnarkySnowman, but for Imperium, for a start, their posting simply hasn't felt town for the majority of the game.

2. It was vaguely townish-looking initially, enough that I was giving them a pass and looking elsewhere, but it was not something where I could instantly view them and go, "town".

3. Then, you get Imperium's strong push on CoM, over the push on SnarkySnowman. This in spite of how SnarkySnowman's predecessor was a scumread of theirs. Once SnarkySnowman came in, suddenly, without them stating a read change, they refuse to support the wagon despite earlier having driven the wagon. This was also the time where interest in lynching SnarkySnowman came. So, in short: they were pushing the slot when nobody was interested (distancing), but once interest formed, they went elsewhere."

yeah no explanation, no real depth whatsoever.

1. This is a bare assertion. How is "simply hasn't felt town" an in-depth read?
2. Basically a repetition of point one.
3. This is the entirety of Ranger's case. When I ask Ranger why Imperium would go out of their way to delay a lynch on a partner that's getting lynched anyways, her response is "ask Nachomamma8." No barely-competent player would do what Ranger is accusing Imperium of doing.

So, where's the depth?

[OceanWind]

It looks to me like he is mafia faking reads on players including a townlean on Bellaphant. When he saw killthestory make that big heading saying that we're lynching Bella, he skimmed through it, assumed it was a "case," and changed his read so he could hop on the wagon if it took off whether it was a bus or a mislynch.

If he was going to do that then a mislynch is a mislynch why didn't he just hop on CoM then?

I said he was positioning himself to hop onto Bellaphant, not that he actually hopped onto Bellaphant. He was positioning himself to jump onto Church also. Seems like he wanted to "compromise" onto whichever wagon went through that day by having both as secondary suspects.

[OceanWind]

I'm in favor of Lowell being force-replaced if he doesn't post game-relevant content. I think some mods don't count prod-dodges as legitimate posts, not sure if this mod enforces that.

@Virtue -

I have a guess about who you are and if I'm right, we've played together before. Your reads are a bit difficult to follow. Can you post a short summary outlining who your major suspects are? I also want to see you taking stances on the current two big wagons Ranger and SnarkySnowman as in which you find scummier. (Ranger replaced heuristically_alone who replaced Jim, and SnarkySnowman replaced jmo16mla).

[OceanWind]

Fair enough.

UNVOTE: Ranger
VOTE: SnarkySnowman

[OceanWind]

Who should we be voting instead?

[OceanWind]

@Masquerade - welcome. Our mod seems pretty inactive so go ahead and infodump all of your thoughts (and reads on everyone) in the first fifty-one pages including why you wanted to hammer.

[OceanWind]

I was a vanilla townie. Fuck you guys. RC is scum, OceanWind is scum, and one of Virtue / Masq is scum. Imperium is probably town.

You know what - if you were town, the one thing that would have been great was for you to actually play the game, explain your reads, and communicate with people. You ignored around three-quarters of the questions directed at you, you popped in from time to time with random useless comments like how often you get mislynched, you were like a stone wall that could not be penetrated or understood. I have no idea what drives you to play that way. You weren't a player in the game, you were a troll that somehow found your way into a mafia forum to get yourself tangled up in a game. All you needed to do was read the thread, and answer the questions that people were asking, and say why you had the reads you did. This isn't even a case of a new player trying to learn the ropes, this was a case of you being absolutely a hindrance to anyone trying to scumhunt. And it doesn't matter one bit if Radiant is actually mafia - that doesn't "redeem" you in my eyes because you went about it in the worst possible way, and that's coming from someone more than a little annoyed at Radiant's play this game.

[OceanWind]

MagnaOfIllusion is the player I most want to look at. Out of everyone's play around the Snarky wagon, his was the most strategic. He spent the entirety of the day going after Killthestory for stuff I don't understand and can't relate to. While he did make some valid points about Snarky being a weak player, that seems very unlike Magna to give someone a pass for being weak. He most certainly didn't give a pass to ChurchOfMercy or Killthestory, both of whom he picked on for things that could come from both mafia and weak town. He also doesn't strike me as the type of player to forgive mistakes of inconsistencies. Yet, despite the most ridiculous display from SnarkySnowman, MagnaOfIllusion was careful to stay away from the wagon. When his Killthestory push didn't kick off, he tried to get a wagon going on Ranger but never questioned me this morning after I switched back to Snarky while providing no reasons why. It's also very odd that he townread both jmo16mla and Snarky both of whom have the type of playstyles I'd expect Magna to pounce on based on how he went after Church/Killthestory for how inconsistent and useless they were being. I think this also had the ulterior motive of putting him in a better light than RadiantCowbells which is important considering they both dislike each other.

[OceanWind]

Something I didn't mention before was Jim going after MagnaOfIllusion the way he did, criticizing many of Magna's posts yet winding up with him as a townread could point to being partners. Jim's read on Magna did not match up with his comments. I think that points to mafia wanting to read their partner as "leaning town" which is a pretty classic place to keep your partner but couldn't help criticizing Magna's post because of inside knowledge.

Magna starting this late wagon on Ranger does make me second-guess this but I still don't discount a Magna-Ranger pairing. a) It would make Magna look absolutely great if Ranger was lynched and flipped mafia, b) If he fails (which seemed likely), he's exonerated from the Snarky lynch anyways. I think he's smart enough to try such a tactic. Ranger hard-townreading MagnaOfIllusion I think probably points to either defending a partner or just making it look like he's buddying him so as to "clear" him.

I don't think Ranger's description of Snarky's play is very accurate either. If you look at Snarky's wiki and skim his first newbie game, you'll see that he made a lot of big analytical posts there so it's certainly not something he would only do as mafia so the extreme confidence I don't like.

[OceanWind]

I think Oceanwind may be scum regardless of this flip.

I still think SS flips scum for the record.

I want to hear your read on Ranger. You kept it like this big secret you won't reveal until Snarky was lynched so now is a good time.

[OceanWind]

I also have to look back on Imperium. They're in my "town but with a some questionable actions" category. a) I don't understand the townread on MagnaOfIllusion at all and the immense confidence in it would like it explained if you guys show up before the thread locks. b) Their reasoning for voting Snarky essentially amounted to a deal with RadiantCowbells that they'll vote him if he votes ChurchOfMercy and I just don't think that's pro-town. For a while, I didn't think they were actually seriously going to follow through with it but they did which is surprising.

[OceanWind]

Killthestory is another one in the same category. The read changes and the enthusiasm I read as town but that hammer without a claim from someone that he said he was townreading was pretty bad. The problem with this game is there are so many people doing anti-town things (Killthestory, ChurchOfMercy, SnarkySnowman) or lurking that's hard to effectively zone in on the mafia. Hopefully, masquerade, Virtue, and massive give us a lot to read them by.

[OceanWind]

I think Oceanwind may be scum regardless of this flip.

I wasn't gonna say it, because it's paranoia from the post-hammer, but...the thought did cross my mind, yes.

I'm swamped at the moment (can't even update my wiki, too busy), but I intend to read up on him over the night.

Clearly, all thoughts that Radiant ever has tend to also cross your mind.

[OceanWind]

The most striking thing about her townplay was that immediately upon replacing in, she suspected a strong player that hadn't received much suspicion before and aggressively went after them.

And in

what

realm is going after

Imperium

not qualify as doing this?

I was thinking about this as well. I don't think you ever seriously intended to go after them. I think you wanted them to townread you upon Snarky's townflip because the entirety of your read on them is based on Snarky flipping mafia. It's almost as if you "knew" Snarky was mafia so when he's town, that would absolve you. It also absolves from having to push Imperium anymore since you no longer have any reason to. They weren't protecting a partner after all.

I did a similar thing in my first newbie game. I bussed my partner (GoodMorning) while saying that if she flipped town, a townie (Ether) was likely the culprit setting me up, and repeated this many times. After GoodMorning flipped mafia, Ether strongly townread me.

[OceanWind]

VOTE: Ranger

The most compelling evidence here is that all three occupants of the slot were suspicious in several ways.

1. Jim's reads were stretchy, inconsistent, and didn't align with who he actually pushed.
2. heurstically_alone fits the profile of a newbie who didn't know what to do with a mafia role, and has opportunistic hops onto town wagons.
3. Ranger's read on SnarkySnowman and the confidence there just doesn't make sense to have on a player that is extremely difficult to read. It would have made sense if Ranger wanted Snarky dead as a utility lynch but to insist that he was definitely mafia seems more in line with sheeping RadiantCowbells. The read on Ollie looks fake as well because he's taking perfectly null posts and calling them town. The Imperium read is also based on a very unlikely scenario of them going out of their way to defend a partner and considering Snarky is town, I don't think Ranger ever intended to even push them.

I'm still working out who else I think is mafia with Ranger so expect more posts after a re-read.

[OceanWind]

1. How was Snarky's posting similar to that game? The only thing you've said about Snarky was that he makes more analysis posts when he's mafia.

2. I wasn't misrepping your Ollie read. Ollie was an early townread for you but that never changed even as his activity dipped. I asked you what of his recent posting you thought was town. You pointed out completely null and game-irrelevant posts and said that they were town.

3. What happened to your suspicion of Imperium? Did that disappear because you were wrong on Snarky? What changed that Ollie is now in your list of suspects?

[OceanWind]

1. How was Snarky's posting similar to that game?

This was SnarkySnowman's iso that game.
This was SnarkySnowman's iso this game.
They looked nearly identical to me. This did not match my experience with him as town.

How did it not match your experience with him as town? I need something more than the superficial "ISOs are identical." You could pull up a town ISO and call it identical. What was the similarity that wasn't there in his townplay?

3. What happened to your suspicion of Imperium?

When Imperium actually started reaching out, it looked town. They also defended themselves against the majority of my points. (Not all, but the majority.) When you combine the two, you get me very strongly reconsidering my read. Though...

Did that disappear because you were wrong on Snarky?

This certainly helps, yes. The disappearance of the scumread existed well before the SnarkySnowman flip, but with it, any lingering traces have evaporated.

What of their defense was persuasive? I and they argued the same point - that it was dumb to suspect them of going out of their way to defend a partner. That didn't persuade you the first time so I don't see how it would after several iterations of the same argument.

What do you mean "Imperium's reach out?" Are you talking about where they told Radiant that he was a good player? Where they said they are voting Snarky because they think Radiant is likely to be right? Why was that town?

Radiant's play wasn't productive. As much as he may be your favorite player, his pouting about how he's the best and everyone should follow him for no reason while not communicating with anyone else wasn't helping the town wincon. I would have been annoyed even if Snarky flipped mafia and Radiant was lucky. As it turned out, he wasn't. You and Imperium because of your history and friendship with Radiant tolerated that behavior. I found yours suspicious because your scumread on Snarky seemed to exist purely because that's the lynch Radiant wanted to push. Imperium were at least trying to read Snarky on their own too so I didn't find it suspicious but their talk with Radiant seemed null to me.

What changed that Ollie is now in your list of suspects?

That's not a list of suspects as much as it is a list of people I'm so much as looking at.

What's the difference between "suspect" and "list of people you are looking at?"

I'm not looking at MagnaofIllusion. I'm not looking at Imperium. I'm not looking at Killthestory. I'm not looking at Nosferatu. In hindsight, probably should have included massive in the list, but you get the idea.
{Virtue, OceanWind, Lowell, Ollie, massive} is where I'm focusing my effort on in my reread. Three of the names there are scum. If you were to ask me right now, I'd say {Virtue, OceanWind, Lowell}. However, I

am

going to reread, fully and entirely.

Why aren't you looking at MagnaOfIllusion? Give me something more than "his playstyle is similar to RedCoyote's" and a link to RedCoyote's ISO as mafia. Actual, concrete reasons why you are reading MagnaOfIllusion as town.

[OceanWind]

@Imperium

– Again you were my number 1 Town read going into Night 2 and the kill doesn’t change that. I need you to talk to me and give me your reads on Ocean and Kill. And with some whys would be great. I have some things I think I am seeing but want confirmation from an outside source.

Why are Imperium your number one townread? You found it suspicious that I voted Snarky but you didn't find Imperium's vote there suspect at all when a good part of their reasoning amounted to sheeping Radiant?

I also want to hear what things are that you seeing from me and Killthestory.

[OceanWind]

This was SnarkySnowman as town. There was strong thoughts present the whole game.
This was an earlier SnarkySnowman towngame. Less posts, but just as much content as the above link. Strong thoughts.
This was SnarkySnowman as a jester. He was playing more town than scum that game.

Contrast with Open 632 and with Diffusion of Power.
This game looked like the latter two, not the above few. There wasn't the same strong posting, there wasn't the same strong thoughts.

In all his games, most of his posts are one-liners with a couple of wall posts. That remained true no matter what his alignment was. I'm not seeing this difference that you are.

But this actually contradicts what you said before about how his case on Severa was more indicative of his play as mafia. Does he put in more effort as town or mafia?

As much as he may be your favorite player, his pouting about how he's the best and everyone should follow him for no reason while not communicating with anyone else wasn't helping the town wincon.

Given SnarkySnowman flipped town, sure, but if SnarkySnowman had flipped scum, that would be a different story altogether. He was wrong. It happens. That's no excuse to justify bashing a player, least of all one who is likely retiring from playing anyway (and maybe in part from comments like that).

I'm not bashing him. I think that's a fair assessment of his play this game. He ignored most questions directed at him and refused to collaborate or even provide reads on anyone until he got the lynch he wanted. If you had more integrity, you'd be calling him out on his behavior rather than enabling him.

That's a small part of why I suspect you - you replace in as mafia and see your friend (who is town) pushing another townie with everything he's got. Best way to get townread from him is to push alongside him.

I have 11 officially completed scum games. Find one where I was sheeping someone else on the lynch.

They're all listed conveniently on my wiki. I'll wait.

"Sheeping" the push of someone else is a very strong,

very

prominent, element of my town game.

A lot of my readslists are significantly impacted by points other players make. If they make a point I strongly agree with, I'm more likely to townread them. If they make a point I haven't thought of, I may or may not townread them, but I'll look at their point, realize it was valid, and take it into account with my reads, moving people up/down accordingly. RadiantCowbells is a player I can do this quite well with because I know his accuracy is fairly high. He is not the only player I can do this for, and even in this game he is not the only player I have done it for. I can't instantly remember another player, because this is a passive thing I automatically do on instinct every game without even thinking about it, but it's there.

The two bolded statements sound like you are saying that you sheep as town but don't sheep as mafia. If that's true and you know it, you can potentially change it. But I have a hard time believing that reading you is so simple as just checking whether you sheeped or not and figuring out your alignment from there.

reconsidering my Ollie townread (oh, this is actually an example of the above: I am reconsidering the Ollie townread because of

things you have said

)

If you suspect me, why are you putting weight into things I've said about Ollie?

[OceanWind]

Why do most of you make such huge posts?

Why do people that dislike reading pursue mafia as a hobby?

(Personally, I don't mind walls of text. What irritates me is contentless spam posts that don't add anything to the game and inflate thread count. I think this game has been on the lower end of that, thankfully.)

You said from your day one reading that Jim and RadiantCowbells were town. 1. Can you elaborate on your read on Jim? 2. At what point did you start reading Radiant as town (before or after the alt reveal)?

[OceanWind]

I do want to know why Killthestory hammered Snarky after calling him obvious town but I'm not optimistic about actually receiving an answer. That seems to be the running theme for half the players in the game...

@Magna

- what's your opinion of Killthestory's posting in context of the game you finished where you were partners? I'm assuming you see at least some similarity considering you suspect him but on a surface-level skim, his posting couldn't be more different. He barely posted in that game before flaking. Here, he has one of highest posting rates.

---

I have some time to spend on mafia so I'll go over D2 again and maybe go over the end of D1 posting if I still have time, and post outstanding questions I have which will hopefully get the new replacers talking about the game. I want to narrow down my pool of suspects but there's not a single player that I think is both town and making sense so I need to work on that.

[OceanWind]

I think it's perfectly reasonable. You said Snarky was town. Seemed pretty certain about it in fact. So, why did you hammer days before deadline?

[OceanWind]

Okay, and why aren't you pursuing this "real scum" today? I asked you who we should vote and you said Lowell. Why haven't you engaged his replacement at all? You haven't voted or done anything D3.

[OceanWind]

You've remained tired for three whole days? How is Lowell "obv scumming?" Can you quote the relevant posts and point out what is suspicious about them? Why aren't you voting his slot if he's so obviously mafia? What are your thoughts on his replacement Masquerade?

[OceanWind]

@Ollie -

a few questions for you:

1. Your suspicion of Lowell was based on him not responding to you (among other things)

During this time, he didn't respond to a big post I mostly directed at him. 541 This is yet more evasion which he was doing earlier in the game, that kind of thing was why he fell into my scum leans.

Most of the game was doing this including Snarky and Severa. Why weren't they in your pool of suspects?

2. Did you go through RadiantCowbell's other games?

@SEVERA we should see some of your previous games, doesn't matter if they're on a different site.

What conclusions did you draw from them considering your request here? Are you normally the type of player that bothers reading through completed games? What do you generally look for and how in-depth do you read games you are not in? If Severa had linked offsite games for you, what would you have done?

[OceanWind]

MagnaOfIllusion is the player I most want to look at. Out of everyone's play around the Snarky wagon, his was the most strategic. He spent the entirety of the day going after Killthestory for stuff I don't understand and can't relate to. While he did make some valid points about Snarky being a weak player,

that seems very unlike Magna to give someone a pass for being weak.

He most certainly didn't give a pass to ChurchOfMercy or Killthestory, both of whom he picked on for things that could come from both mafia and weak town. He also doesn't strike me as the type of player to forgive mistakes of inconsistencies. Yet, despite the most ridiculous display from SnarkySnowman, MagnaOfIllusion was careful to stay away from the wagon. When his Killthestory push didn't kick off, he tried to get a wagon going on Ranger but never questioned me this morning after I switched back to Snarky while providing no reasons why. It's also very odd that he townread both jmo16mla and Snarky both of whom have the type of playstyles I'd expect Magna to pounce on based on how he went after Church/Killthestory for how inconsistent and useless they were being. I think this also had the ulterior motive of putting him in a better light than RadiantCowbells which is important considering they both dislike each other.

Why does it seem odd to you, player who has never played with magna before, to think it seems very unlike him to give a pass to someone for being weak?

1. okay so I got a little ahead of myself and you do explain it a little, but he's also offered quite a pass to lowell, why aren't you mentioning that?

2. But can you explain why he would go after CoM for the same thing, try to get a lynch on KTS for the same thing, but excuse Snarky? That's where you're losing me.

1. Lowell was never under serious pressure so Magna didn't really have to step in and defend him the way he did with Snarky.

2. I don't know. It could be because Magna was trying to throw some red herrings just in case he was lynched. It could be that he just wanted to look better than RadiantCowbells if he anticipated a push from Radiant as the best way to discredit him would be to not be on the lynch that Radiant was pushing with all his credibility on the line. It could be that he thought hard-pushing both mislynches D1 and D2 would cause people to start wondering about him. There are a ton of motives I could see. But it does seem out-of-place that he defended both jmo16mla AND Snarky.

[OceanWind]

The most striking thing about her townplay was that immediately upon replacing in, she suspected a strong player that hadn't received much suspicion before and aggressively went after them.

And in

what

realm is going after

Imperium

not qualify as doing this?

I was thinking about this as well. I don't think you ever seriously intended to go after them. I think you wanted them to townread you upon Snarky's townflip because the entirety of your read on them is based on Snarky flipping mafia. It's almost as if you "knew" Snarky was mafia so when he's town, that would absolve you. It also absolves from having to push Imperium anymore since you no longer have any reason to. They weren't protecting a partner after all.

I did a similar thing in my first newbie game. I bussed my partner (GoodMorning) while saying that if she flipped town, a townie (Ether) was likely the culprit setting me up, and repeated this many times. After GoodMorning flipped mafia, Ether strongly townread me.

You know snarky hadn't flipped yet here, he could totally have been trolling, but you feel 100% confident on calling him town here. And why do you think we'd call Ranger town based on her read on us due to Snarky???

I don't normally assume that people troll in twilight. There's no reason to. I did wonder if Church was trolling though but that's a different case.

I didn't necessarily think you'd call Ranger town. But I explained Ranger's possible motivation for playing the way she did by using the example of my newbie game.

[OceanWind]

@Imperium - are you still townreading MagnaOfIllusion. If so, why?

[OceanWind]

I also have to look back on Imperium. They're in my "town but with a some questionable actions" category. a) I don't understand the townread on MagnaOfIllusion at all and the immense confidence in it would like it explained if you guys show up before the thread locks. b) Their reasoning for voting Snarky essentially amounted to a deal with RadiantCowbells that they'll vote him if he votes ChurchOfMercy and I just don't think that's pro-town. For a while, I didn't think they were actually seriously going to follow through with it but they did which is surprising.

A) Magna
1) Why don't you have a town read on Magna?
2) Why did you want it explained before the thread locked???
3) Quite frankly, at this moment the only reason I have concern about magna is because you keep asking and I think you could be partnered.

B) Snarky
1) Did you not notice that ever since day one we had Snarky as our second scum read?
2) We've had our vote on Snarky for quite a long time, did you ask about it before now? If not, why not?
3) Did our scum read on Snarky confuse you in any way? Was our reasoning anti-town?
4) Why did you vote Snarky?
5) Is there something wrong with listening to someone else who had a strong read who listened to us when we had a strong read?

C) Miscellaneous

1) Did you or did you not argue with Ranger about how her accusations made no sense if we were competent players?
2) Why are you casting such a wide ass net?

A) Read the thread. I feel like I'm repeating myself constantly. My post where I express suspicion of Magna is only a few posts above the one you quoted. Now that I've answered your question, please answer mine - what was the basis for your townread on Magna?

B) You did have Snarky as a second scumread D1 but based on your posts towards Ranger, you seemed a lot more confident there. I'd have expected you to switch to Ranger when Magna, I, and Ollie kickstarted a wagon there but you never reacted to that which I found odd because Ranger was your primary focus of suspicion.

I voted Snarky because Ranger's ATE made me second-guess my read a bit to the point I found Ranger and Snarky equally suspicious. But Ranger was answering questions and making a sincere effort to play the game while Snarky was ignoring everything directed at him. I felt that there was no way I could get a better read on Snarky but that if I talked to Ranger more and saw her play for a longer time, I may be able to deduce her alignment with more confidence. On the off-chance I was wrong, I'd have much preferred Ranger being alive later in the game than Snarky, and with my suspicion on both of them being roughly equal, I thought a Snarky lynch would be more useful.

Firstly, I don't think way you and Radiant have played the first two days is optimal play. You are not the only two players in the game so the you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours fails to take into account that lynches are decided by the town as a whole. Secondly, you started the day saying that you suspected Radiant and agreed with my case. Then apparently something made you second guess on Radiant (you never said what this was), and then you turned around and helped Radiant with his lynch. You didn't at any point state a townread on Radiant, simply saying that you don't know anymore.

C) I stand by my comments that a you-Snarky partnership doesn't make sense and I think Ranger's suggestion of that was a shallow read. I do think a you-Magna partnership makes sense as does a partnership between you and Ranger.

[OceanWind]

@Imperium

– Again you were my number 1 Town read going into Night 2 and the kill doesn’t change that. I need you to talk to me and give me your reads on Ocean and Kill. And with some whys would be great. I have some things I think I am seeing but want confirmation from an outside source.

Why are Imperium your number one townread? You found it suspicious that I voted Snarky but you didn't find Imperium's vote there suspect at all when a good part of their reasoning amounted to sheeping Radiant?

I also want to hear what things are that you seeing from me and Killthestory.

Can you decide what avenue you're going to push our snarky vote from? Either we sheeped RC, or we were trying to figure out his alignment, or we're sheeping RC.

And why the hell wasn't this an issue for you yesterday when we were voting snarky?????????????????????????

You misunderstood the intent of the question. I was accusing Magna of treating you and me inconsistently, not making a statement about your vote.

[OceanWind]

Um, are you okay? I feel like we're talking past each other but I'll go through your more recent posts and re-explain

[OceanWind]

Look at it from my perspective though - you and Magna both seem reasonably competent. You said you knew each other from before and were strongly townreading each other from D1 on. Neither of you have died for two nights and at least one player that died didn't leave any PR crumbs (Magna's words). Here we are D3, not having lynched a single mafioso, and Magna hasn't re-evaluated his read in the slightest - in fact he explicitly stated that the kill doesn't change anything. You also don't seem to have any concerns about Magna other than that he could be partnered with me.

I mean, if you've got some secret ways of reading each other, maybe it makes sense to you but to me from the outside looking in, I'm still struggling to see how you guys winded up with such strong, unwavering townreads while I've struggled to find even a single townread.

[OceanWind]

Post 1552 and Post 1555 was where I talk about my Magna suspicion.

Ranger calling the game cancer and regretting replacing into it was what shook my suspicion of her. Then Snarky came in and completely ignoring everything that was going on or explaining his Radiant read, made

yet

another random-ish statement about how Ranger was a bad wagon. That was the breaking point where I felt that it just made more sense to eliminate Snarky first and try to spend more time reading Ranger. There was no emotional response. 1478 was tongue-in-cheek. That wasn't the entirety of my reasoning. I thought why I suspected Snarky was pretty obvious given D1 and my posts about him throughout D2.

What about Radiant's posts made you change your read? Also, I don't think you've called Radiant town. You just said, you were second-guessing your scumread.

So then do you or do you not have a problem with our snarky vote? And if yes, how come this wasn't a problem yesterday???

I don't think your suspicion of Snarky was completely unreasonable. He was hard to read. But I also felt that you were more confident in your read on Ranger than Snarky i.e. you used stronger wording and reacted more emotionally to Ranger. The lack of switching stuck out to me especially when Magna - the person you were so happy to be playing with and was clearly town in your mind - was the one that suggested a switch. From your perspective, I expected that you'd collaborate with your strong townread and lynch the player you suspected over sticking with difficult-to-read player like Snarky on the word of someone you weren't even certain was town (Radiant) just because he helped you with a wagon.

Wait ocean wind - did you or did you not argue that if we're halfway decent competent players then it would be odd for us to be scum partners with snarky due to the way the suspicion played our but you're arguing that we're scum with ranger for a very similar thing. Am I getting that right???

Are we competent or are we idiots. I'd like you to keep your story straight.

No, I think there are differences in your interactions with Snarky and Ranger.

1. With Snarky, you obviously and blatantly derailed his wagon to lynch ChurchOfMercy. With Ranger, you simply suspected him throughout but kept your vote on your other suspect.

2. Snarky was a pretty certain lynch if he were mafia. Ranger is a decent player who's vocal, active, and I think capable of talking her way out of suspicion a lot better than Snarky. Going out of your way to save Snarky would be stupid if you were mafia with him. Keeping your vote on Snarky and ignoring Magna's call to lynch Ranger, not so stupid if you were mafia with Ranger.

As far as reading me goes, I'm an easy read, like seriously I'm a super easy read. Nacho's a whole other story. If I'm taking the lead in a hydra to the extent I have, we're town. I'm the one who pushed that CoM read; if that kind of push comes from me, I'm town. It really is that simple.

Why isn't Nachomamma8 paying more attention to the game? He said he liked this playerlist so once he got over being drunk, he should have been back, right?

[OceanWind]

I'm amused that right after I express annoyance with people not answering questions, you respond to my questions by peppering me with twenty other questions while not answering the ones I actually asked. I'll put them in one place for convenience:

1. Why were you townreading MagnaOfIllusion (I'm talking about the D1-D2 read that you said you'd explain but didn't get around to doing)?
2. What of Radiant's posts made you uncertain about him when you suspected him overnight?

[OceanWind]

The whole fucking idea that it's an ok thing announce reads but not go in depth AT ALL is absolutely trash. I'm not necessarily one to talk seeing as I often make votes and not explain those immediately, but when I suggest a possible lynch on someone, I make damn sure to explain why the hell I'm proposing to do so.

This is why I don't know how to sort SS, because I can't know if he fabricated the read on severa or not because of this shitty new read list meta.

Considering this, explanations to go with those reads would be awesome.

[OceanWind]

Here, she's reconsidering a Magna read when the meta does not match.

Where did Ranger reconsider her read on Magna? The confidence in her Magna read is actually one of the reasons I suspect her because I don't see it.

[OceanWind]

I've already talked about Magna.

This just hasn't felt like his scum game.

Ranger was right about magna and him having that aha feeling. That fits in more like his town game. You can save your why and where question follow up.

See, this is the kind of bare assertions that get me nowhere. "Why" and "where" were exactly the questions I was going to ask but you pre-empted that by basically saying that you can't/won't point it out. I suppose that's par for the course with the group of players in this game.

I buy the RadiantCowbells explanation though.

I imagine he'll be back and posting when he's caught up with his other games or if I need him to do something in particular, but until that happens, you've got me. (Which to anyone even moderately familiar with either one of us should clear up any doubts about our alignment. I can't imagine a world where I ask to take the lead in a scum game when there's a town game I could have taken the lead in. Although that should also already be clear from the way I pushed CoM, so.)

Can you get him to post more? He's one of the few people that was providing straightforward answers to questions and when I played with him in a game offsite, I found him to be pretty clearly town. If he's all caught up, that shouldn't be too burdensome a request.

You've both featured in games that I've followed but I wouldn't say I'm moderately familiar with either of you so I'm not quite sure why you are insisting that your push on ChurchOfMercy clears you. I've pushed mislynches as mafia before on D1 and I assume almost everyone who's decent at the game has.

[OceanWind]

PoE makes??

Ranger - meta (Blitz 2, Mini 1774)
Imperium - tone
Ollie - made some posts I agreed with, particularly 438 comes to mind
Killthestory - meta (Mini 1774, Mini 1740)

Simple sentences on Ranger and Killthestory meta would be nice. Just the highlights. What was the difference in their play as town and as mafia and how have their posts here fit more with their townplay?

What does "tone" even mean in this context?

More examples of Ollie posts you agree with please. That one post I find to be rather null. If Ollie knew Severa was town, that would have been an easy read to make.

[OceanWind]

What do Killthestory's and Ranger's "tones" look like when they are town, and when they are mafia? What posts in this game corresponded to their town "tone?"

Imperium's

just got that townie feel you guess?

What does that even mean?

Some more of Ollie's genuine posts/ones that you agreed with would be nice.

[OceanWind]

OW - Nacho will get here when he gets here. You're just going to have to deal with that. As far as people answering your questions, not to be rude or anything but you kind of oversaturate the game with questions. Now normally I think asking questions is a good thing but you want everyone to be as robotic as you are and we aren't. It's actually somewhat becoming partly a distraction and I think is hindering the process of the game. I told you more than once I wasn't going to give reads on people before I reread and reevaluated the game yet you asked me for my magna town read more than once. This conversation you're having with nosferatu is going nowhere yet you're badgering her to answer your way. In the event she's town, you're just going to make her dig her heels in about her reads and if she has a wrong read will probably keep her from reassessing. Sometimes watching how things play out is a good thing. If you're town, I get that you want to figure out the game and maybe you're just lacking direction or focus, I don't know. But the way that you're approaching the game is confusing to me. Like you literally defended us yesterday from an accusation that you are today accusing us for. I don't know why you can't find any town reads this game. I don't know why you're coming up with the scenarios you are. You keep making assumptions about us as players and if you don't know us I don't know why you think we would do things the way you're saying we would or should do them. But in many instances I don't feel like you're actually reading what people say.

When I said that about my CoM push day one, I said the *way* I pushed it. Key word there. But you don't read that part, you just go oh everyone has to push mislynches day one as town, ignoring what was actually said because it was more important to you to refute what I said than actually process it. Xis gave a meta read on me day one that was spot on. Of course I have to push mislynches as scum. I didn't say one didn't. I hate scum. My scum game sucks precisely for one reason. I have a hard time pushing mislynches on people when I know they're mislynches. I'm not completely incompetent and I've come a long way over the years, but I still have a hard time pushing mislynches, especially on people I play with often or like in particular. ABR respects my town game and has told me as much recently; therefore a scum me wouldn't be pushing their lynch as hard and relentlessly as I did. Scum me doesn't get mad that a mislynch is slipping by for another mislynch I could just easily get the next day. Maybe one day, but not today. But I've talked about this to Ranger I'm pretty sure.

Several points here:

1. I think you are projecting with regard to oversaturating the game with questions. I thought your questions to me fell under that category especially the "why should we answer before the thread is locked" type questions. When I brought up those two points against you (your MagnaOfIllusion read, your SnarkySnowman push), instead of responding with something to the tune of "I'm townreading MagnaOfIllusion because..." and "I voted Snarky because..." you instead asked me twenty other questions. I answered them in good faith to hopefully move the game forward and get a better understanding of where you are coming from, but still felt like I had to squeeze your RadiantCowbells read out of you until you finally gave something decent.

2. Nachomamma8 has been more diplomatic and direct. The majority of your posts when I suspect you have been aggressive complaints and abrasive responses. I felt that having a level-headed player who responds calmly to suspicion and answers questions I ask would help me scumhunt better. That's why I wanted him here.

3. I didn't ask you for your current read on MagnaOfIllusion. I asked you why you were townreading him before. You don't need to re-read the game to explain why you had a past read.

4. Nosferatu's reads do not make any sense. He's just repeating "tone" or "they just feel like it." If he's town, the only way I'll figure that out is by having him go in-depth on all those reads to the point where the thought process is just too deep to have been faked. I'd really appreciate it if you don't interrupt me when I'm questioning others and discourage them from answering by making comments like the one you made.

5. I'm not robotic nor do I expect anyone else to be. I do think there's a certain playstyle clash between a rational player like me and an emotional player like you but that's something I'm accounting for in my reads. What I want is for people to explain their reads beyond "gut" or "tone" or "it just is so." Every read can be explained and I don't buy that people have reads that they are incapable of explaining.

6. I defended you yesterday from Ranger because I found Ranger's read on you shallow. I stand by the fact that you and SnarkySnowman don't make sense as partners which is the entirety of Ranger's read. Considering I was voting SnarkySnowman, it should have been obvious that I suspected him - and by extension that I didn't really have much suspicion of you. After Snarky flipped town, I reconsidered my reads. Your Snarky vote I wanted explained in-depth with knowledge now that Snarky is town. If Snarky had flipped mafia, I wouldn't have thought it worthy of much investigation. I explained this.

7. I can't find townreads this game because of players like Nosferatu "they just are town. Tone." Because of players like Massive who show up once every two or three days and post nothing that's readable. Because of players like Masquerade who have very minimal input. Because of players like SnarkySnowman who are impossible to read. Titus is hard to read also by the way - I've mislynched her slot in Blitz games twice. Then there's you. Then there's Killthestory ("I hammered my townread because I wanted to push actual mafia but now that D3 has arrived, I've forgotten about it entirely!") I've been trying my best to squeeze alignment-indicative reads out of players so I can get a sense of the game. I'm not in the mood to appreciate mafia advice from someone who's put in half as much effort as me so let's cut that out and focus on game-relevant stuff.

[OceanWind]

I didn't specify town reads. I just asked you to explain your reads. It doesn't seem like there's anything behind your townreads other than "they just seem like town" which doesn't make any sense to me because there has to be a reason why their posts made you feel that way.

I don't really buy into "tonal reads" but if you want to want to elaborate on your non-town reads, I'd like to hear them.

[OceanWind]

Just explain what your reads are. For someone that made this post,

The whole fucking idea that it's an ok thing announce reads but not go in depth AT ALL is absolutely trash. I'm not necessarily one to talk seeing as I often make votes and not explain those immediately, but when I suggest a possible lynch on someone, I make damn sure to explain why the hell I'm proposing to do so.

This is why I don't know how to sort SS, because I can't know if he fabricated the read on severa or not because of this shitty new read list meta.

I don't get why this is so hard.

[OceanWind]

Here's what I wanted:

What do Killthestory's and Ranger's "tones" look like when they are town, and when they are mafia? What posts in this game corresponded to their town "tone?"

Imperium's

just got that townie feel you guess?

What does that even mean?

Some more of Ollie's genuine posts/ones that you agreed with would be nice.

[OceanWind]

I fail to see how. As scum, my misery would be, very clearly, not faked; the desire to have not played the game would therefore be real. As town, obviously, my misery was, very clearly, not faked; the desire to have not played the game was therefore real. What in there could be considered town?

The use of such strong language (cancer) is more likely to come from someone that feels like they're being wronged than from someone who knows that the suspicion on her was accurate.

But if you claim you'd have done it as mafia, I won't argue with you.

[OceanWind]

So lowell who as far as I can tell replaced out of the last scum game he rolled isn't as involved or as scum hunty as the last game I read, didn't replace out of here but offered to stay in this game when he was force replaced as a hydra. I still think his reaction to ABR looking scummy matched mine and feel natural.

I'll review this on my reread this week, but this is one I like.

Let's look at Lowell's actual posts. ISO him and read along. He starts with a silly push on KTthecreeper, early townreads on MagnaOfIllusion, and yourself neither of which are explained or feel like they have a strong basis considering they were on pages 2-3. Expresses slight suspicion of ChurchOfMercy. This is the post you are strongly townreading him for? All he said was

I'm also a little worried CoM might be scum. Which makes me sad. And that Killthestory might be town. Which makes me sadder.

I found it town also because it matched with my thoughts as well (and by the way, using that logic, you should also be townreading me - I was the first vote on ChurchOfMercy and you guys voted because you agreed with me. Why townread Lowell but not me?). But that's a small reason for townreading him that just doesn't hold this far into the game.

What else does Lowell do? He votes Church because he's sheeping Killthestory. That doesn't make sense with being sad at Killthestory being town (someone brought this up before I think). Then he re-iterates suspicion of KTthecreeper (which means that rubbish case at the beginning was actually serious and not as you say, some reaction-test to move the game forward). Then suspicion of Bellaphant for "asking and answering pointless questions." Then this unnatural confidence that he has the game solved with ChurchOfMercy, Bellaphant, and KTthecreeper as the team. Considering his reasoning was so weak, and he was barely participating in the game, this looks like fake confidence. Then he resorts to prod-dodging for a while.

Once he's back, he says he's getting townvibes from Snarky. Then that changes to "pretty comfortable calling Snarky town." In between this time, Snarky hadn't made a single post. And he had only made one post before Lowell gave his initial townread which was a naked list of reads. Out of Lowell three suspects, Snarky had Bellaphant as a townlean, ChurchOfMercy as a scumlean, and did not mention KTthecreeper/Xis at all. So, there was nothing in the reads there that would have made Lowell think "this matched my thoughts and is so town." It looked like Lowell just wanted to be contrary and townread a townie that other people suspected.

D2 - he posts some vague stuff about my case being "okay" but Severa's reaction being bad, and that he's ready to lolhammer whenever. Then Ollie pushes him and he omgus's Ollie. This bit in particular is hilarious:

It's my experience that the first person to point out "Lowell has been dodging, let's get him" in invariably scum.

That almost reads like "I'm going to lurk it out and if you call me out on it, you are mafia" which completely disregards that there is pro-town motivation to push lurkers.

Bella could be scum, too, but yeah, I'd eat my hat if ollie is actually town. Cautious as whoa. ISO that rube and join the wagon.

So, with no previous suspicion of Ollie, just based on Ollie's vote on him, he has this eat-my-hat level of confidence. Then rather than tell us to lynch Ollie, he disappears for several days without giving a shit about the game when he had such confidence in a suspect.

The strong townread on heuristically_alone is another one I find ridiculous. Serious, how in the world does anyone get a strong townread on heurstically_alone? I get null. I get "not necessarily suspicious." I don't get "strong townread." But of course, Lowell isn't going to give us reasons.

The rest is fluff. So, clearly he doesn't care about the game. Has close to zero involvement. The majority of his posts are uninvolved prod-dodges with weird flashes of extreme confidence here and there. He's so uninvolved people wanted him force-replaced. But he makes this little quote over here:

well GL masq.... let me know if you need a hydra partner...

and that excuses his low activity? I'm not sure if this was even a serious offer to hydra. So, I'm not seeing it at all. Like I get that his suspicion of Church matched yours and mine but considering his posts as whole, that just isn't enough for me to townread him.

Now that I went through his posts, I actually think there's a decent chance he could be mafia. Going to look through Masquerade's posting.

[OceanWind]

@Masquerade -

my gut is telling me Ranger is scum so I'm going to look into that slot in a bit and elaborate on that later.

1. Have you looked into the slot yet? Please elaborate when you do get a chance.

If I had to name 3 suspects rn it would be Ranger, Massive (Acryon doesn't PL as town) and Virtue. Ranger and Massive I'm quite confident in rn, Virtue not so much but it's all still superficial.

No, but having played with him more than once, I don't think it would be absurd to say that his death early is almost as good, if not better, for town as a scum-death.

I hear your stance. I guess the original question remains - do you normally champion policy lynches Day 1? Or is this specific only to Kain?

Oh yeah no definitely not. I've never seen a player more disruptive to town progression than KT. I'm still not fully on board with the idea of policy lynches, but KT's existence is truly terrible for town and the game will be a lot more enjoyable/easier to process for all townies with him gone.

2. Did you read this bit Masquerade? If so, how does it affect your read on Acryon/massive? Do you think if he was vocally against policy-lynches, he would have forgotten about that as mafia and tried to do a policy-lynch?

Just read Bella/Virtue and I don;t believe they're scum with Massive and I'm pretty confident that slot is scum so Virtue can be town for now.

3. Mind elaborating on this?

The 'for now' is key. It hints to how I will reevaluate my read on Virtue in case I'm wrong about Massive. But I happen to know Acryon does not PL as town and here he started out suggesting a PL on kain. And nobody has responded to that yet so I might need to put in more power in my statement.

VOTE: massive

4. There was a wagon on your other suspect (Ranger). Is there a reason you choose to push the suspect with no wagon on him as opposed to the one with the wagon? It can't be for "pressure" since Acryon has replaced out and is no position to give you a response.

[OceanWind]

@Imperium - I wasn't trying to "divide" your hydra. I think you've been hyper-abrasive with me before I had even made a single post addressing you. Perhaps, your intent was sincere and you were trying to offer advice and help but that just goes to show that people have different playstyles and don't really appreciate "advice" on changing their playstyle to something else. I scumhunt by encouraging people to post large quantities of text, the more they post, the better I can read them. I'm not going to change my playstyle. I'm not going to ask you to change your playstyle either so you asking that wasn't reasonable and probably why I reacted by telling you I don't appreciate mafia advice. If I said "hey, I don't like how you are questioning this player, change your approach," would you be likely to actually change it or just tell me to screw off (or some variation)? I think the latter is more likely. Everyone that has a well-developed playstyle will react the same way. I'm not going to play like you and you won't play like me.

[OceanWind]

If you are re-reading everyone, then you have no solid townreads either (or do you? If so, who?) Why do you think it's so unreasonable that I don't have any? Do you think my most viable strategy as mafia is to interrogate everyone and complain about the lack of townreads rather than have strategic reads that benefit me? I would not be this frustrated as mafia in such an environment that favors them.

I didn't say you had Lowell as a strong townread. You are arguing just to argue on this one. You said you were re-reading everyone but

specifically

pointed out that Lowell was the one you like. My going through Lowell's ISO was partly a response to your asking me why I have no townreads while you apparently had him as a townread. In the process, I winded up thinking his slot is more likely mafia than not. If you are indeed town here, please stop just trying to refute everything I say and actually look into your Lowell read. I think I've made a lot of valid points (in fact, I think they were relatively strong compared to my other pushes). I get you are digging your heels in (as you say Nosferatu would have) but it's not about who was right. I don't really care about who is right. I just want to add another win on my record.

Lowell expressing disappointment is a good reason to townread him. But when that's the only thing of significance in a mostly-useless ISO, I think it's worth re-evaluating. I didn't see where you said you didn't like his strong townreads on SnarkySnowman and heuristically_alone. Quote them for me if you can. Onto your point that he expresses townreads out of nowhere when he's town, I don't think that outweighs how unreasonable his reads were (heuristically_alone as strong town).

It's a little hard to figure out what you are saying when you claim to be re-reading him, but say that that's the one read you like, then accuse me of having no townreads, and when I scrutinize yours, it's "I said I was re-evaluating Lowell, how dare you say I was strong-townreading him." I mean, really?

[OceanWind]

All this while, you have expertly dodged my question as to why you were townreading MagnaOfIllusion D1 and D2. I'm not asking for your current read on him (I'll wait until you do your re-read). What I'm asking was why you were townreading him before. I asked Nachomamma8 D1. He didn't respond and neither did you. It's not about your current read, it's about figuring out whether you two are mafia together and were faking your read or whether it was a real read. Why were you townreading him before?

[OceanWind]

1713 just removed any doubt I had that Imperium wasn't town.

OceanWind -- I want you to townread me, so what can I do to help move you in that direction? I may not have the quantity of posts that other players might, but surely I can post something in terms of quality that can be helpful.

What of 1713 made you townread Imperium? I mean, I get why ate-ish posts get townread but I'm asking for more specifics.

You can get me to townread you by pushing who I want.

But serious answer - hammer out in-depth reads on everyone in the game.

[OceanWind]

his constant need to push on people’s Townreads (asking again and again for reasoning).

I see. So, it doesn't bother you in the slightest that Imperium has dodged providing reasons for townreading you for over three weeks now but instead it bothers you that I'm asking for reasoning. This is why you are mafia.

[OceanWind]

Why are you townreading Imperium, MagnaOfIllusion?

Both of you have been insisting that the other is town but neither can provide a single concrete reason why.

[OceanWind]

Because 1552 is so scummy I can’t imagine it didn’t twig you. Snarky has been lynched but hasn’t even flipped yet. Yet Ocean swoops in and is ready to assess blame related to the Snarky mislynch. But who is the person he most suspects? Me – for properly reading and assessing Snarky as not likely scum. And I was more than clear about my reasoning for Snarky Town – the supposed meta read from Ranger I disagreed with and there was no scum motivation for Snarky to try and push on RC (who I was correctly reading Town) who would probably be one of the hardest mislynches to sell in the game.

Add in his soft defense of Killthestory (who, up until recently, was completely off the Ocean’s radar) and his constant need to push on people’s Townreads (asking again and again for reasoning). I see a recipie for scum who doesn’t want players getting comfortable with each other and spends far too much time worrying about breaking down Town reads (and perhaps Town blocks forming) and too little time actually pushing his scum suspects to be lynched.

You act like mafia never have "townreads" on town players. If you genuinely wanted to push harder against Snarky, you would have spent time arguing against the mislynch, and tried to push people towards Ranger. But besides the one post you made, you never followed up. When Imperium ignored your call, and I switched back to SnarkySnowman, you didn't pursue it. You didn't have the drive and energy to sway the lynch. You were content keeping your vote on a different wagon and just... letting it happen. That's why I suspect you (among other reasons).

I've pushed RadiantCowbells's slot too as well as yours (who would arguably be a hard lynch). I've also pushed Ranger and Imperium who would probably be harder lynches than most of the rest of the inactive playerlist. But you have me as a suspect so why is Snarky town for pushing a "hard" mislynch?

I've explained my Killthestory read which you ignored. He seems engaged on almost a different level than he was in the game you two were a team. I hate that hammer though and I don't like that he hasn't followed up on his suspicion of Lowell's slot. That's just what my read is and if you want to call that "soft-defending," knock yourself out. If I had an abundance of townreads elsewhere, I'd be pushing hard on Killthestory.

Do you really think the way for mafia to break up a town block is to demand explanations for townreads? You break up town blocks by nightkilling the universal townreads, not by going after players like Xisiqomelir and RadiantCowbells, the latter who lost all credibility after the SnarkySnowman push. Why do find it unlikely that as town looking in from the outside, I just don't trust either you or Imperium being so tight together? Do you find it unreasonable to demand explanations when they weren't forthcoming?

[OceanWind]

You can say this is fluff all you want. I have a pretty good read on her play. She's engaged. She's pushing multiple lines of discussion which is pretty damn Pro-Town.

You on the other hand more interested in breaking Town reads than pursuing scum reads. I also note you avoid the entirety of the rest of my post on why you were scummy as hell at the end of Day 2 to focus on this one narrow item. Which is how scum plays - don't focus on the whole of the case but try to nitpick a part and say it invalidates the whole.

That's so vague I don't know what to tell you. I'm engaged and I'm pushing multiple lines of reasoning and multiple people. Imperium were not engaged. They only show up occasionally and their lines of enquiry for the most part revolve around whoever is suspecting them. D2, it was Ranger. D3, most of their focus has been me.

I have been pursuing scumreads. I've pushed Severa, SnarkySnowman, and Ranger. I've also pushed Imperium who I found suspect for several reasons. I've said all I could say about Ranger so I stopped. If she's town, her posting from now on may change my mind, but it seems like arguing with her isn't particularly making me more or less confident in that read. Imperium have not been pursuing their suspects. They have been arguing with me about playstyle stuff, discrediting everything I did as "looks fake" and have not voted anybody so far.'

That's why I find your assessment ludicrous.

[OceanWind]

But on the point of questioning townreads:

If you are town and you see people townreading others for poor or suspicious reasons, would you not question those reads? Why do you think it's unlikely for town to question them?

[OceanWind]

This is rich – I’m scum for not pushing hard enough against a Snarky lynch. But you, who self-admittedly jumped back on a wagon being primarily pushed by two of your so-called suspects (Radiant / Ranger), are clearly Town for it.

This is missing my point entirely. I had suspicion of Snarky. I also thought he was a better utility lynch than my other suspect Ranger. On Radiant, a) my suspicion of him declined after his meltdown, and b) even while I suspected Radiant, I strongly considered the possibility of bussing.

But you haven't addressed my actual point - you didn't have any determination to prevent the mislynch of Snarky. You were just posing for the cameras. You stated a townread, made a single call to lynch Ranger, and ignored my switchback and Imperium's lack of response which pretty much guaranteed that SnarkySnowman was getting lynched.

See. You haven’t. Not at all. The only two of your suspect that have any modicum of pressure were Ranger (which I’ve pushed much harder than you) and Snarky (a mislynch).

Snarky being a mislynch doesn't invalidate my point that I was pursuing him. I also kickstarted a wagon on Severa when I had him as a stronger suspect than Snarky. The fact that nobody agrees with me on the MagnaOfIllusion/Imperium suspicion and isn't pressuring them is a fault of my ability to corral a wagon, and of both of your abilities to look superficially town.

By your logic, you haven't gotten any pressure on Killthestory despite trying. Should I fault you for not being able to put pressure on him?

One game meta is the reasoning for your read? Lol that’s terrible. I mean – scum looking for any straw to reach for a Town read on a partner terrible. He isn’t engaged in this game AT ALL. Yet you deride my read on Imprium’s engagement as bad. In fact here you list multiple reasons why Kill is scummy but basically hide behind why you aren’t pushing him is that “you don’t have enough Town reads”. You have never addressed the fact that he’s constantly moved away from Scum reads when tactically it benefits scum-Kill (RC read, CoM read). You are absolutely doing everything in your power to not push or scum-read the slot while having multiple stated reasons for doing so.

I gave one reason for why Killthestory is scummy - the hammer. Why would I push Killthestory in particular when I'm also suspicious of you, Ranger, Imperium, Lowell, etc for a start? You could just as easily make the argument that I'm partnered with Lowell because I outline suspicion of him, yet don't vote him. Or Ranger because I hopped off her wagon at the last moment. I can't vote all my suspects at once.

Funny you mention the kills as not being Universally Town read – which leads to the logical conclusion that they suspected the Mafia. Which is Kill (who is Xis’s only significant suspicion) and yourself (Radiant’s only read besides Snarky was assessing you were likely scum just before Nightfall).

I also find it suspect you are trying to peddle “Radiant had no credibility” when I know for a fact there are several players still in the game who would happily sheep him regardless of the Snarky flip.

I could see the Xisiqomelir nightkill from you considering you played with him before and therefore, he's the most likely to eventually catch onto you despite townreading you. Letting him die while townreading you is probably a better play than leaving him alive to re-evaluate that read.

I could see the RadiantCowbells kill from both Ranger and Imperium since they seemed to admire Radiant the most. The last thing he said was that I could be mafia which makes it easier to frame me. If I'm not hunting for power roles when I'm mafia, I tend to kill people townreading me so as to not leave any tracks. Killing someone after they called you mafia with their last post is dumb.

Who are these players that would sheep RadiantCowbells? Imperium and Ranger? Do you think you have more or less credibility that Radiant? Why push you and kill him as opposed to kill you and push him? Do you think you are a stronger player than RadiantCowbells?

Hello scum motivated line. Because Town don’t stop pushing authentic scum-reads and then “stop” when you have “nothing more to say”.

I haven't stopped trying to figure out the game. I'm interested in seeing what Ranger would produce without being pushed, and what pushes she would make naturally if addressing questions didn't occupy the majority of the time she had for this game.

[OceanWind]

@Oceanwind (irt 1725)
1. Haven't gotten the chance yet, sadly. The hinting at a PR in her 1714 pinged me when I caught up with the latest posts, but that's the closest thing to something concrete I have rn.
2. I don't remember if I read that, I skimmed over a lot but I do remember I hesitated and looked into several other games. It's something I can;t yet really elaborate on until a specific game is over. I think I repeated several times there were ongoing reasons, so why are you pushing me to elaborate on this?
3. That's simply a pre-flip association. I do those, it's automatic, and it's not set in stone. I will reconsider once I see a flip, and we can only lynch one player a day so I don't really see a problem with that. Titus' first posts after replacing in with her main make me lean town on her individually.
4. I was more certain of my Acryon/Massive-read (well, more an opinion than a read I guess since I still have to properly look at them) than my Ranger-read. I said Ranger was based on gut, you apparently got the reason for my Massive-vote, I don't get where you're trying to go with this question?

And as I'm reading along I'm liking Magna a lot and Ocean not so much.

This is a load of junk by the way.

UNVOTE: Ranger
VOTE: Masquerade

1. Here, Masquerade is townreading Ranger's predecessor Jim, yet when Ranger (in his view) hints at a PR, that changes to a scumread as opposed to just assuming that the Jim/Ranger slot is a PR and town. More likely, he saw Ranger get heat and decided to change his read with crap-ass reasoning.

2. I asked Masquerade to comment on Acryon admitting in this thread that he doesn't like policy-lynches, yet is making an exception for KainTepes. This undermines Masquerade's point that Acryon is inconsistently pushing a policy-lynch when he doesn't as town. That has nothing to do with ongoing games. I took his claim at face value and didn't ask him to source it.

3. It's obvious that the pre-flip association is load of baloney because Masquerade can't explain it. He's confident massive is mafia because Acryon pursued a policy-lynch, and clears Virtue for no reason at all.

4. His liking MagnaOfIllusion and "not liking me" is a pile of nonsense he made up because I was questioning him and getting pressure from both Imperium, and MagnaOfIllusion.

[OceanWind]

Um, whut? I didn’t prevent his mislynch and thus I'm scum? Funny that’s the kind of thinking that comes from scum slots who actually know the alignment of the other players.

This is you twisting the meaning of my post. I said your lack of effort in

trying

is suspect, not that fact that you failed.

I did my best to prevent the mislynch by clearly stating my position and trying to the best of my ability to get my scum suspects (Ranger and Kill) lynched instead. Yet you are straining to suggest somehow I just passively let the lynch go through without speaking out about it.

"Clearly stating your position" just so it looks good on paper. Imperium tried harder on D1 to save their second scumread than you did D2 to save your townread.

And you keep dodging the salient point that your suspicion pre-flip doesn’t make any sense form a Town perspective. You are claiming to have Radiant and Ranger scum-reads yesterday. They push through a lynch on Snarky. Yet your reaction when Snarky claims to be Town? You don’t accuse either of your so-called scum reads out for pushing the mislynch. You instead attack someone who didn’t vote for Snarky and repeatedly said they were likely Town. Your progression of reads there isn’t logical. Thus scummy and fabricated.

You keep dodging the salient points that Radiant would be a heck of a lot easier to push and discredit than you. As I mentioned, my suspicion of Radiant declined after his emotional collapse where he demanded that his reads be followed because he was awesome. It furthered declined when Snarky flipped town because while there was still a possibility that he bussed, it was unlikely that he burned every ounce of credibility he had to push someone that was lynchbait anyways. So, no - I didn't suspect Radiant after the flip. Your behavior fell much more in line with scum-motivations.

I did still suspect Ranger and if you noticed, I voted Ranger at the start of the day as opposed to you. I also pointed out the connection between you and Jim in twilight.

Yet your claimed push on Snarky was completely coat-tailed on the pressure from Radiant and Ranger. And since you are acquiescing to not really pushing Ranger as I said that just leaves Severa / Radiant. It is telling that of your claimed suspects two have flipped Town, you are claiming to step-away from one (Ranger, despite leaving the vote on her) so they can “do stuff”, and the remainder are Imperium and myself neither of which you have actually voted for today. And I know for a fact your claimed read on me is incorrect. That leaves Imperium who I Town-read.

I did push Ranger D2. I'm just not pushing her now. Why is stepping away from a suspect suspicious? Why is changing reads suspicious? I haven't voted you or Imperium because I'm less certain of my reads on you than Masquerade and Ranger. Imperium made a huge deal out of a simple question which is why the volume of posts directed at them are so high. You also have been going back and forth with me (Masquerade hasn't responded yet), so the volume of posts is higher. That doesn't mean my level of suspicion is also higher. I also want to be certain about my read on you before pushing you because you've been more engaged than most and on the off-chance I'm wrong, I'd prefer you being alive in later days than inactive players.

Oh it’s a frame job now. Lol.

Also this conflicts with your earlier stance that “Mafia Nightkill those Universally Town-Read” looks like you are pretty blatantly not answering from an honest opinion base but simply looking to make the argument that suits your needs at the moment.

How does it conflict? The mafia can make decisions that serve multiple purposes - framing as well as killing people townreading them as well as killing universal townreads.

But go ahead and link me to games where you actively have chosen to nightkill people who were Townreading you as opposed to players who were suspecting you. I’m eager to see those games.

Read my wiki. Almost all my kills are mostly based on who I think are power roles but I also consider what their reads on me and my partners are.

[OceanWind]

All links are on the wiki. Click "Mafia Private Topic." ISO me. I only have four completed scumgames.

[OceanWind]

Sure. Here's a game where my only non-PR kill was Sakura Hana: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... &start=200

[OceanWind]

Here's a game where I killed All Alone when the last thing All Alone did was state a townread on my partner and agree with a point I made: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p7426806

I also thought All Alone was a PR but as I said, multiple reasons.

[OceanWind]

Speaking of completely vague assertions. My effort in suggesting Snarky was a bad lynch and my pushes on Ranger and Kill are pretty clear. But you are just Appealing to Repetition to say they were not. Scummy.

It was a half-hearted effort with no follow up. Why didn't you ask me why I moved my vote back to SnarkySnowman? Why didn't you ask Imperium why they didn't respond to you when they didn't move to Ranger?

You keep dodging the salient points that Radiant would be a heck of a lot easier to push and discredit than you. As I mentioned, my suspicion of Radiant declined after his emotional collapse where he demanded that his reads be followed because he was awesome. It furthered declined when Snarky flipped town because while there was still a possibility that he bussed, it was unlikely that he burned every ounce of credibility he had to push someone that was lynchbait anyways.

So, no - I didn't suspect Radiant after the flip. Your behavior fell much more in line with scum-motivations.

Again with the dodging. The second half the whole “my Radiant read as scum diminished” isn’t relevant to the discussion because that happened

AFTER

your twilight post not before. So it isn’t germaine that your overnight read on Radiant was better when your posts before the Snarky flip showed a complete disconnect from a logical Town train of thought.

So the bolded is an outright lie – you made your accusation post before the flip not after. So basically you made the post-flip assessment pre-flip. Now remind me again – who is in position to know for certain which way a flip is going to go before the Mod posts it? That’s right – it’s scum.

I'm not sure what the heck you are talking about. If you are actually serious, you need to rephrase. Like I explained to Imperium, I don't normally assume that people troll in twilight. That's stupid. SnarkySnowman saying that he was town was enough for me to believe him.

So do you suspect Ranger or not? You are trying to parse this as “MoI is calling me scummy for changing my reads” but this doesn’t suggest you changed your read on Ranger at all. You here outright state that you suspect Ranger more than me.

So let me get this straight – did you drop your vote today on Ranger with no intention of actually pushing a case on her and despite the huge back and forth with your claimed scum suspects (Imperium and myself) still find her more suspicion? And then basically OMGUS Masq when he finds your play scummy? Do I have that right?

I was referring to why I voted Ranger as opposed to you.

I suspected Ranger today. When I went through Lowell's ISO last night and later realized that Ranger had made a push there, it reduced my suspicion of Ranger a little, while increasing my suspicion of Lowell/Masquerade. When Masquerade made that scummy post, he overtook Ranger as my top suspect. Suspicion of Ranger decreased more the more confident I became in the Masquerade read. This one didn't look like a bus. I'm not sure about my Ranger read right now - I'm evaluating how much I should weigh the fact that all three members of his slot are suspect versus Ranger's push on Masquerade and both Lowell and Masquerade being suspicious.

[OceanWind]

Sure. Here's a game where my only non-PR kill was Sakura Hana: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... &start=200

Um Sakura basically called you out with the Scumputer right before she died. Despite her earlier "I'm never lynching Ocean" statement I don't see how you think this supports your assertion.

I don't think she was taking the scumputer seriously. I was actually not even sure what the results meant. The last thing she said with words was under the spoilers here: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p7378480

Fun fact: This was the Vote Count right before the counter wagon started > OW, lordj and SW should all be conf town in a Sakura VCA, or should be, but SW's jump to the CW later looks sketchy as heck...

The one that sprung the counterwagon was Ether which means this could go either way, SW's jump to the counterwagon doesn't look too good for her. Specially considering how she's been on GM a lot since daystart.

Therein lies the hammer, im p. sure there's 1 scum among SW/Ether.

(With SW/Ether being the remaining players besides Sakura Hana and myself).

After Ether refutes her scumputer, she says this:

Yeah... i dont use the scumputer much, i usually do my very own VCA, but that takes longer and you guys were waiting on me sooo...

Implying that her actual reads are more important than the scumputer.

Not really, there's an added boost to the chance based on ammount of living scum remaining, ammount of flipped scum on wagon and ammount of town on wagon, but

it failed last time i used it either way.
SW's my most likely scum candidate,

and i was going to comment on why, but she decided to cut off discussion with a hammer sooooo

Here she states that the scumputer failed and the SW was the most likely candidate.

It was pretty clear she was ignoring the results and that didn't even factor into my decision to kill her.

[OceanWind]

@Imperium - I'll try to keep this game-related. You are consistently missing the point that lecturing people about how they play the game is not productive by launching into yet another lecture about how this is a social game. Seriously, why write a wall about pointless rubbish advice when you could have written a wall refuting my read on Lowell or explaining your read on MagnaOfIllusion? There's a part of me that thinks you are baiting me into inflating the thread.

Lol at your assertion that I wouldn't be able to figure out a fake read. You're unintentionally funny - I'll give you that.

You have STILL not answered my question as to why you were townreading MagnaOfIllusion.

I did answer your magna question. This is not his scum game.

This is not an answer. This is a bare assertion.

[OceanWind]

I come back on Monday and post 1527 and 1529 trying to get more people to join in on Ranger and again showing that the logic behind the Snarky wagon was faulty.

Why didn't you ask about my switch when I made it?

[OceanWind]

You are falcon aren't you?

I'm not anyone else.

[OceanWind]

I don't know who you've played with that has playstyle similarities with me but I don't get why you feel the need to continue to offer unsolicited advice after I specifically told you not to.

Frankly, this game is so frustrating with all your personal attacks, I considered just replacing out but I didn't want to bother the mod even more after all the mass of replace-outs that already happened.

[OceanWind]

Told the mod to replace me. Done with Imperium's garbage and the self-righteous lecturing. Good luck.