Mini 1733: Jurassic Monkey - game over

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

1) Is anyone in a non-American time zone, or for other reasons posts in odd hours?
2) Is anyone here brand new or otherwise unfamiliar with how the game is played here at mafiascum.net?
3) What kind of level of activity should we expect from you?

I'm likely to post at odd hours since I'm an early bird in a world full of night owls.

I'm not brand new, but I'm terrible at the game.

I love the game, but I also like graduating, so activity level is dependent on schoolwork.

ICEninja is acting weird. I'm not sure I like "EASY RVS GUISE --> Oh I guess you're town let's vote for someone else I guess..."

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

ICEninja is acting weird. I'm not sure I like "EASY RVS GUISE --> Oh I guess you're town let's vote for someone else I guess..."

There'd be nothing wrong with this as a page 1 case if a vote followed it. Without a vote, it feels like you're giving yourself clearance to hop on an ICEwagon should it form. Slightly scummy.

Or, maybe I'm just pointing out that it's a bit weird for you to have such a strong opinion:

Welp, that was an easy RVS.

Then go, "Aha, it was part of my plan all along," and changing your vote.

No, I read it correctly. I was hoping you'd unvote or attack me in another way in order to attempt to cement your vote but alas you're more likely town based on that response alone.

Unvote

.

Garmr seemed excited that he knew who would be confirmed town. Maybe that excitement came from already having a solid N1 target?

Vote Garmr

.

I don't have to vote to say that. I'm not a fan of voting so early in the game, with so little to work on.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

ICEninja is acting weird. I'm not sure I like "EASY RVS GUISE --> Oh I guess you're town let's vote for someone else I guess..."

There'd be nothing wrong with this as a page 1 case if a vote followed it. Without a vote, it feels like you're giving yourself clearance to hop on an ICEwagon should it form. Slightly scummy.

Or, maybe I'm just pointing out that it's a bit weird for you to have such a strong opinion:

Welp, that was an easy RVS.

Then go, "Aha, it was part of my plan all along," and changing your vote.

No, I read it correctly. I was hoping you'd unvote or attack me in another way in order to attempt to cement your vote but alas you're more likely town based on that response alone.

Unvote

.

Garmr seemed excited that he knew who would be confirmed town. Maybe that excitement came from already having a solid N1 target?

Vote Garmr

.

I don't have to vote to say that. I'm not a fan of voting so early in the game, with so little to work on.

I mean, nobody has much to work on at this point. Why not put a vote out there?

I'd rather ask "why" than "why not." I err (probably excessively) to the side of caution on lynches. At this point, I've kind of just integrated "excessive day one caution" into my playstyle.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

One of the things I do remember from my town experience is that it's important to put down votes early because VCA are very useful later games. Even if the votes are just for pressure or something.

I didn't find VCA on the acronyms page of the wiki, could you clarify?

Why is it "from your town experience," specifically? Does your scum experience say something different?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Won't votes that I'm not confident in muddy the waters for VCA? It's not going to be reflective of my true perspective if it's a vote I was arbitrarily pressured into making for VCA, is it?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Sorry to interrupt with stupidity again, what is "AtE?"

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Wanderer-nl

I've played plenty of mafia before, but not on Mafiascum—Mafiascum has its own internal lingo and its own internal meta that's hard to keep track of, though I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the meta. This is my... I think my third game on Mafiascum? I played a Newbie game, and one other. I also joined a large game, but replaced out fairly quickly as I couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of posting.

I've always been really terrible on Day 1, which is something I've been trying to nail down. Analysis on the first day, where information is scarce, is tricky for me. Most analysis on Day 1 seems to be based on meta, or reads on the particular poster from past knowledge of that poster. I don't have the later, and meta has never, ever sat well with me. I always have hated guessing things based on the metagame, because its in constant flux and has no sense of cohesiveness. It seems like any analysis at this stage is more or less guesswork. I suppose it makes sense—your guesswork makes a base for others to make guesswork off of you, and then somewhere in the process the scum is exposed.

Mostly, my expectation coming into any given game of mafia is to have fun losing.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Okay, just going through both my games and trying to create some actual content. Here's what I've seen in this game so far:

3dice:

Quotes things a lot. I don't see anything really suspicious in his behavior. I looked back through his post history in a random game, and he wasn't quoting nearly so often as he was in this game, but I don't know if that necessarily means anything. Soft town leaning?

All Alone:

No content posted except for a vote for Garmr and a vote for me. Not enough for any leaning.

Davsto:

Modding the other game that I'm playing in. My innate sense of sickening nepotism tells me that I should be kind to him to avoid being modkilled, but I'll ignore that for now. Davsto so far has contributed thirteen posts, but hasn't really said much in any of them. In order his posts are: RVS, quality of life question answer, four posts related to "Quoted For Truth," two posts about how he'll figure out analysis later, a quality of life modrequest, an answer to a question as to who he'd lynch if he was forced to, two miscellaneous quotes, and then answering a quality of life question of mine.

About one in thirteen of his posts contains anything usable, but he's staying active by doing so. Still is probably better than where I am, but I still put a slight scum lean on Davsto.

Diego:

Only three posts, most of which seems to be pretty narrow-minded criticism of ICEninja. Not enough data for a leaning.

Firebringer:

Short posts. Votes ICEninja, then unvotes ICEninja. Lots of casual conversation. I'm not clever enough to have a read here.

Garmr:

Acting really close to Firebringer. I'm unsure if this is past history between them or something else—I considered the possibility that Garmr was scum trying to buddy up to Firebringer, so that Firebringer might go down if Garmr did, but I discarded that idea pretty quickly. It would be way too blatant a scheme, and wouldn't accomplish much of anything. Suggests that ICE's mindset, looking for power-roles, reveals ICE's scum-nature. I think that this is a misrep of ICE's position: since it is accompanied by an ICE vote, the implication is that ICE considers Garmr scum, and it's perfectly ordinary to ponder the potential night-action of scum. I think. No strong leaning.

ICEninja:

Startled me at first with the triple vote change in first three posts, but I've seen similarly eclectic voting styles with people I've played with in real life. Super misrep of Firebringer on post #17. I missed a question of his, post #87 "@Archmage: what do you plan to do to start gaining reads of people? You seem to be trying VERY hard to not have any right now."

Response: I really don't have a plan walking into this. I'm a slow person, thick-headed and meaningless. I don't like condemning people without feeling like I have a reason.

Spoiler: This post makes me fairly confident that Diego and ICEninja can't be scumbuddies.

So ice can you explain why I'm your number 1 scum read even through you haven't really pushed me that much and

this post comes off as you town reading me

Incorrect. I stated that your vote helps people read your alignment, which is something that town WANTS people to do. I also called your vote bad. I don't have a case on you, per se, but you're reading a double personality here. Half of your posts are care free and include the tongue-out emoticon, and half of them seem nervous and unsettled. All of those posts regard me and my vote/read on you. It's giving me a gut read that you're faking stuff, and has resulted in my vote no longer being a tool with which to end the RVS, but instead an honest "I think you're more likely to be scum than anyone else based on the available information" vote.

----------

Alright as for Diego's first piece of actual content, let's tear it to pieces piece by piece.

Firebringer did not call you town. He said your trying to look like town, completely different.

Yup. And I tried to catch him backpedaling his statement which would have indicated scum. He did not, which slightly indicates not scum (though he definitely seems too competent to fall for that, and too abrasive to care what anyone thinks to back down either so I doubt my move would have worked regardless if he's scum or not). You're certainly focusing quite hard on what I did on page 1, care to comment on things that have developed since then?

Again, this is not scumhunting, this is throwing WIFOM into an argument to make someone else look bad.

I pointed out something that VERY SLIGHTLY indicated someone having a higher chance of being scum than town. How is that WIFOM? It's the opposite of WIFOM. I'm pretty confident you have absolutely no idea what WIFOM is, even moreso than the 60%+ of the time that the term is used incorrectly.

Based on what information I had, it was the best vote I could make. I've since applied a (admittingly somewhat weak and mostly gut based, but good enough for me early D1) scum read on him. Explain again how that isn't scum hunting, please.

This is LAMIST if I've ever seen it. Aggression is not alignment indicative.

When did I ever say that had anything to do with alignment? I have 2-5 votes on me the first few pages of virtually every game I'm in, scum or town. It was simply an honest statement.

I'm voting you because of the intent behind your aggression, which is to throw shit at the wall a see what sticks. That is scum indicative.

Ohhhhhh so scum hunting is scummy now, got it. I guess I'd better wait for sure fire logical facts that point to someone being scum before trying to find any, huh?

Honestly what I did early wasn't even town indicative, it was ICEninja indicative. I make early moves to get out of the RVS nearly always, because I find that stage of the game pointless.

----------

Alright so there's a ton of meta reads floating around right now. I'm 100% fine with people having them, as some people are quite good at finding alignment based on meta. I, personally, will not regard "this player is playing like how he plays town" or vice versa as alignment indicative unless there are specific examples, and usually only noticeable trends in somebody's scum game. So forgive me if I ignore any comments about, for example, Fire being town because this is how Fire acts as town. I'm not taking your word for it.

I'm incredibly uncertain of ICE. Very aggressive scumhunting on his part makes me lean towards his being more town than scum.

MM4:

Not as active here as in the other game, but I don't know what that means. He was under the spotlight in the other game, so there's that. Meta-vote for Diego, which I can't vouch for the accuracy or inaccuracy of.

pistachion:

Basically nothing, three posts. Not enough for any leaning.

Scorpius:

Is reading. No content available, no leaning.

Syndesis:

Seems to be tunnelling Diego a bit. I'd have to throw a light town-reading, nothing really suspicious that I saw.

I'm pretty sure that's everyone. Sorry for the lack of contribution for so long.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Spoiler:

archmage you know syn is innocent child

Syndesis:

Seems to be tunnelling Diego a bit. I'd have to throw a light town-reading, nothing really suspicious that I saw.

lol hahah-

archmage you know syn is innocent child

dammit you beat me-

Syndesis:

Seems to be tunnelling Diego a bit. I'd have to throw a light town-reading, nothing really suspicious that I saw.

Townslip or nah?

>:|

You bring up a good point. I doubt mafia would

truly

be unaware of my conftownness (having, presumably, pregame chat?) but this is an easy to fake "slip", so I'd so no.

Oh. Right. Sorry. Knowing that there's an Innocent Child in the game, I probably ought to have checked who that was. I feel like the biggest idiot in the world.

Spoiler:

Archmage's last post was a gigantic wall of IIoA, and I really have a hard time believing a townie would think that was useful.
Pistachi0n is also likely scum. She's very noticeably more reactive as scum and more proactive as town, and I've seen no proactive out of her.

Hi AA :D Nice to play with you again!

I do agree that it is mostly IIoA (Information Instead of Analysis), but do you think that IIoA is a scumtell in this instance?

In this instance yes. I doubt a townie would feel the need to say things like "3dice posts quotes a lot" or "Davsto is modding the game I'm in" or "pistachi0n has three posts" in a reads list, when those things don't contribute to a read. It comes off like he's trying to say things that he thinks will appear helpful, rather than things that actually helped him.

I was trying to be humorous with the Davsto thing. I was just under the impression that people wanted to know what my reads were, so I listed all the information and put down what few ideas I had.

Uck. I cause more problems than good in real life, why should it be any different anywhere else?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Archmage,

Do you always use post counts to help formulate reads?

I have to say 146 looks really forced. You don't really say a lot. Am I scummy based on my slow start here?

Post 146

was

really forced, to be honest. I really wanted to contribute something, and I felt like if I went through all the ISOs I might find something. In the end, though, there wasn't anything really conclusive.

Post counts are something that I tend to bring up in the early game, but I don't think it's a scum tell. More of just a thing of note. I like aggregating information in places, and then I only tend to act when my information and suspicions reach a critical mass.

---

I'm getting the same feeling about your readslist as some of the others. It looks like a lot but in the end it isn't really going anywhere.

Agreed. I'm not proud of my readlist.

I really don't have a plan walking into this. I'm a slow person, thick-headed and meaningless. I don't like condemning people without feeling like I have a reason.

That's really easy to say if you don't want to make your reads more definite. You have some ideas in your readslist at least, if you're town what can you do to make your thoughts/ideas stronger? Right now it feels like you're trying to avoid confrontation. Is that something you do as either alignment?

I suppose you could say I'm trying to avoid confrontation. I don't like it when things get emotional, and I don't have the experience or intuition that makes me willing to trust my "gut" feelings to someone's scumminess. I try to keep things pared down and logical when I make decisions, and I really don't like voting until I'm certain of my target. I'm prone to tunneling when I find someone who I think is scum, so I try to back off quickly in case I'm missing the whole picture. I... really don't know how I should be developing my reads without it seeming broken and based solely on the work of others. What I've always done is wait until I see something really contradictory, differences between claims and realities. Based off of that mistake, I construct sets of possibilities—it could be set that the greatest flaw in my scumhunting style is that I try to understand the entirety of the game rather than to pick apart the individual opponents. Or something. I also really don't like being wrong, so I rarely fully commit to anything.

If I were force myself to commit to a vote, right this instant, I would say...

Davsto is the most likely scum. They've been staying active in the game, but posting little to no actual content. There is clear evidence that they are active enough to contribute, but they have not contributed to activity in any significant way. Active-lurking, in my opinion, is incredibly scummy.

---

@ICEninja, why will the reasons for my scumminess become more clear as more content arises? Why can't they become clear right now?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I felt like voting for Davsto without giving him an opportunity to respond would be foul play on my part.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

So essentially, you want to avoid being accused of...

Monkeying around?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

So Archmage! How do you feel about...

-Scorpious, now that he's posted something?
-All Alone's push on you?
-3dice suggesting that you not knowing I was IC was a townslip?

Additionally, do you think the exchanges between Ice and Fire and Garmr have left any indicators of their respective alignments?

1. I get a town-ish vibe from him. He's asked questions, which is good.

2. I think All Alone has tunnel vision, and I don't like that he's been active enough to post about how I'm suspicious, but to say absolutely nothing about anyone else. I don't think well of him, but there isn't enough in my mind to call him scummy. I'm probably not the best person to ask, because a person who has a vote on you innately seems more suspicious, which gives me a bias.

3. Objectively? I don't think it's a townslip. I think that it was more a display of my individual lack of thought than any town-minded or scum-minded activity. I would have likely made the same mistake if I were scum.

4. I haven't really factored in Fire into the whole thing, but I did give ICE and Garmr previous thought. I think that the degree to which they are tunneling each other suggests pretty heavily that they aren't a scum pair, but I wouldn't rule it out. Crazier things have happened. Taking a gander at the whole deal, I suppose that you could come to the conclusion that Fire is scum-buddy with Garmr for going against ICE but sticking with Garmr... but that seems a bit obvious. I wouldn't do that as scum under any circumstance. More likely, I think Fire internally drew the same conclusion that I did—Garmr and ICE are highly unlikely to be scum-buddies—and then further came to the conclusion that ICE was scum. In his mind, by process of deduction, Garmr is town.
I think it's likely enough that Garmr and ICE are both town at this point, although I would favor ICE as town over Garmr.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Firebringer

"I don't think ICE and Garmr are scum-buddies. I think it's possible to draw the conclusion that Fire and Garmr are scumbuddies, but it seems a bit too obvious for that to actually be the case (since them damn mafiosi are sneaky). I think Fire thought that ICE was scum, and figured that first bit out in his head, then concluded that Garmr was town. I disagree with Fire."

FTFM(yself)

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I have yet to decide if ICE is scum, though I did decide Garmr is town.
And I don't use their two interactions alone to decide that.
In fact that is one of the least considerations I have used to try figuring out ICE.

Not everything is about two players interactions >.>

Agreed. But, I was specifically asked about the interactions of three players, so my response was on that topic. At the time, you did consider ICE scum, as presumably voting for ICE means that you consider them to be scum.

I (in my non-simplified version) said that the interactions between ICE and Garmr "suggested heavily" that they weren't scum buddies, but I never said that it wasn't possible—I explicitly noted that I wouldn't rule it out.

As to my presumption of your actions, you'll have to forgive me for some inaccuracy in that department. I'm not psychic, despite how often I try to understand what people are thinking.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I want to set up a town block this game with fire being the only one i trust so far.

eye twitch

I don't suppose you mean, bloc, do you? Block and bloc are two incredibly different things. Blocs are for groups that vote together. Blocks are put in the way of progress (although, I guess you could say that some blocs are, too).

In any case, I don't think setting up voting blocs are a great idea in a game of mafia. I can see potential positives, but I don't think that outweighs the possibility for discouraging original thought. And that's not even taking into account the fact that a voting bloc could be made partially or entirely of mafiosi. I guess I can't

stop

you and Fire from forming a voting bloc, but I wouldn't agree with it.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@ICEninja, why will the reasons for my scumminess become more clear as more content arises? Why can't they become clear right now?

Patience. My statement, which you read hastily, will become clear.

Syndesis, every game that I've been scum I've had access to the quicktopic before D1 starts. Assuming with near certainty that scum had a chance to talk before the game started.

Archmage's biggest scum read is based on "active lurking", where one attempts to force content despite not actually having much.

Hmm.

...Really?

That feels unfair to me. I've been at least

trying,

if not to any effect. The reason I'm suspicious of Davsto is because nearly all of his content is explicitly non-content. As far as I can tell, Davsto is not exerting any effort in the game. That's what I meant by active-lurking.

If you want to take the piss on me for hypocrisy, go ahead, but at least be correct about it.

I don't like it when people say "All in due time, little ones. Have patience, patience!" If you don't have the evidence to say what you need to say, town doesn't say "It will come in due time, my pretties." They don't talk about it—because if it's a single piece of concrete evidence that they think is going to be revealed in the future, then talking about it tips off the scum, and the scum is less likely to show it. If their "future evidence" is the actions of that player in the future, then saying "all in due time" introduces themself to bias where they're going to cherry pick their evidence out of that player's future posts. Predicting that someone is going to be scummy in the future creates a need for them to produce that evidence, or else lose credibility, which means that the predicting player is encouraged to ignore the vast body of a persons' evidence and pull out only the bits that make a person look scummy. And if the evidence that you're telling us to be patient for

already exists,

then keeping that evidence from us is scummy as all hell.

Let's go over the possibilities:
1. It's a specific sort evidence that you suspect will be brought up (for whatever reason).
2. You don't have a clue what kind of evidence will be brought up, but you're sure it's gonna be good!
3. You already know, but you're just not telling.

People who like to hold the idea that they know something you don't make me upset in mafia. Your goal is to share the knowledge with the town to find the scum, not to get wrapped up in how it makes you better than everyone else. If you're really so certain you know why I'm scummy, or what I'm going to do that's scummy, or something that's happened that's scummy, then either

tell us

or

don't mention it.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I can tell this is going to be a high-volume-post game.

Anyone else I have no read on right now. I'll take another look at some of these slots later on to look at them from a more logical perspective, but for now I'm comfortable with this.

VOTE: 3dicerolling

Tell me more about your vote?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I don't like Davsto's way of returning. He creates activity in the form of a vote based on page-one things, but the very fact that he's returning at this time (when myself followed by ICE have criticized him, and ICE making a vote) shows that he's been keeping track of things. Reading, but not commenting.

I further think that refusal to acknowledge those attacks is a scum-tell in of itself. A town player wants to clear their name as quickly and as frequently as possible—I think that the town reaction would be to respond to and acknowledge criticism, and/or to double down on scum-hunting. A scum player might consider trying to lay low and let the criticism pass them by.

I feel really convinced that Davsto is scum. Convinced enough that I'm willing to vote: he's had his chance to allay my fears, and I'm not satisfied.

VOTE: Davsto

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Spoiler:

Archmage likes to point out lazy behavior and call it scummy.
I agree its anti town, but its definitely not scummy.

Davsto is more likely town for being lazy and not catching up than scum.

Never seen scum be so lazy to not read whole thread before voting.
Just saying.

VOTE: Archmage Ludicrous

For spending ages "being suspicious" of me but not actually voting me until a bandwagon has formed.

I'm back. Thanks. It was beautiful. Still sad but was able to make peace. Hundreds of people came, we didn't fit in the room even.

On Davsto: his case and vote on ICE were bad. But I don't really see much issues with his vote on Archmage because Archmage did hold his vote for a while. Just that he voted ICE on page 1 stuff without analysis of later posts makes him look bad enough. In my experience Davsto is always hard to read and looking a little scummy. I agree he needs to start posting content, I do think that if he's scum he would maybe try harder to make reads to prevent getting lynched and I don't see him doing that.

Archmage: Not sure what to think here. To me he still doesn't feel too involved. He had a scumread on Davsto but not much other reads and he's not really contributed to other discussions in this thread except when he was specifically asked. In 204 Archmage tells us that he doesn't want to vote Davsto because he wants him to have a chance to respond, Davsto never responded to Archmage's case, and Archmage never looked to engage with Davsto other than his 204. Now a wagon on Davsto started and he's ready to vote. I also didn't like his attack at ICE in 226.
Archmage: what's your read on ICE currently?

Mario, Davsto is hard to read for me as well but don't you at least have some sort of thoughts on what he's been doing so far this game? Right now you seem to be avoiding saying anything about him at all and that's not really helping. Also, you really think Garmr and Firerbinger are scumbuddies?

Everyone I didn't mention is either town or null. I plan to reread later to try and sort the nulls more.

I had previously mentioned, I don't think that it's sporting to vote for people without giving them a chance to respond. I

gave

Davsto a chance to respond. He chose not to respond. His return and choice to create content at the specific time he did proves that he's not lazy, and that he is clearly reading the game.

Furthermore, his swiftness to jump to "you just don't know how I play" as a defense sits ill with me. It's a kind of vacuous defense on its own, a kind of token defense just to show that he's putting up resistance. I feel like if he were town, he would have taken the opportunity to at least put in the effort to explain to us why his playstyle excuses him. Hum. Although I suppose scum would have likely taken that opportunity too. I'm going to keep my vote on him since voting seems to be encouraging him to action.

In regards to Wanderer: I still lean town on ICE. He's made a few funky plays, but I think his scum-hunting style is just very aggressive. He still makes me uneasy to a degree... but I'm fairly confident in his towniness at this point. Of course, I'm biased given that he's voting with me, but I think I'd have that opinion regardless of his vote.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Sorry for disappearing, school is butts. Catching up now.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Pistachion: what are your reads of Davsto and Archmage?

Davsto's first real vote on Iceninja was based off of something Ice said in RVS that was maybe overly aggressive but not scummy. The vote on Archmage in 279 was a good reason, though. And being slow on Day 1 matches his meta, I don't fault people for that unless it continues on in the later game.

Archmage says in his first post that he's terrible at the game. That creates plausible deniability in case he does something scummy later, I don't like that. Then he says he's not a fan of voting in early game even while clearly expressing suspicion of Ice. Talks a bit about being cautious about Day 1 lynches. More plausible deniability. Then posts a reads list, that was pretty good. I agree with Davsto that it's scummy that he talked a lot about his suspicion but didn't vote until a wagon had already formed. If anything, that doesn't match what he said about being cautious with day 1 wagons.

VOTE: Archmage

Or maybe it could be the truth that I'm terrible at the game. After all,

being town

and have

everyone think you're scum when you do

generally means that you suck.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Ugh, where did my grammar go in that post?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Or maybe it could be the truth that I'm terrible at the game. After all, being town and have everyone think you're scum when you do generally means that you suck.

Thing is that we don't know whether you are town or scum, right now only you do. It's up to you to convince us you're town by scumhunting and posting reads. You're not doing that. You are convincing us that you are bad at this game and therefor town. And your sole read on Davsto that has been the same for ages isn't nearly enough.

I'm not claiming to be bad at this game, and therefor town. I'm just bad at this game. You'd be stupid to think I was town for that, and to my knowledge I've never tried to argue that it made me town.

And I have reads on more than just Davsto. I have read town on ICE for a while. I also read town on Scorpius. I like the tenor of his posts so far, though I would like to hear more from him.

The way 3dice plays reminds me of how I play as scum, but that probably means nothing. The way I play as scum is probably also a viable way to play as town. As scum, I like to play nice guy and help the underdog whenever possible, so that I can get some good vibes in the minds of those players if they survive. 3dice's support of me kind of feels similar to that, but it really doesn't mean anything since my scum playstyle is probably as shit as my town one.

@All Alone: Any reads on people who aren't pistachi0n?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I was just looking at Garmr's ISO.

I thought back to his attempt to form a voting bloc with Fire because he was "the only one [he] trust[ed] so far" @215. That bugged me at the time, 'cause a voting bloc seems really weird to set up in a game where you don't have any certainty that the person who votes with you is proper in any way... and frankly, it just seems scummy. If you're town, why do you want to give up your vote to vote with someone else, or to force someone else to vote with you? Scum can benefit with it, by piggybacking good lynches and swaying town into bad lynches, but it doesn't make sense for town at all.

Garmr's most recent post, #314, also sets me on edge. It's kind to pistachi0n, with a hint of frustration, and a request to "pick up her game..." I dunno.
It's totally unfounded, but this just screams in my ear like a hint to a scumbuddy, something that says "Pick up the pace so you don't get lynched," without being explicit about it. Guh. That sounds stupid, almost as stupid as me.

@Garmr, can you explain why you thought the voting bloc was a good idea?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Spoiler: @Garmr

I was just looking at Garmr's ISO.

I thought back to his attempt to form a voting bloc with Fire because he was "the only one [he] trust[ed] so far" @215. That bugged me at the time, 'cause a voting bloc seems really weird to set up in a game where you don't have any certainty that the person who votes with you is proper in any way... and frankly, it just seems scummy. If you're town, why do you want to give up your vote to vote with someone else, or to force someone else to vote with you? Scum can benefit with it, by piggybacking good lynches and swaying town into bad lynches, but it doesn't make sense for town at all.

Garmr's most recent post, #314, also sets me on edge. It's kind to pistachi0n, with a hint of frustration, and a request to "pick up her game..." I dunno.
It's totally unfounded, but this just screams in my ear like a hint to a scumbuddy, something that says "Pick up the pace so you don't get lynched," without being explicit about it. Guh. That sounds stupid, almost as stupid as me.

@Garmr, can you explain why you thought the voting bloc was a good idea?

No just Pista gets mislynched every game I'm in with her. except one and that's only because she was extremely lucky and had a guilty verdict on someone which she presented at the last possible moment before she was about to get lynched.

You know what judging from the amount of people rushing to vote her I bet you she town and she's going to mislynched because she can't be bothered actually reading the game and I will be able to rub it in everyone's faces saying "I called it bitches"


Also once you have enough

skill

archmage and have played with someone enough you can pick up that they are town and forming a town block with town is advantageous to town. Since firebringer knows me well enough do you think advantageous to try and rope someone who knows your town and scum game well enough that it might blow up in your face.

Why is it advantageous to town to be on a voting bloc?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Or rather, to have a town voting bloc.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Garmr,

If a town voting bloc is such a pro-town move, why didn't you try to include, I don't know, the Innocent Child in your voting bloc?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

So basically, you chose Firebringer, and not Syn, for your voting bloc,

Because you wanted to choose someone who thought you were town?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

UNVOTE: Davsto

Considering changing my vote to Garmr.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

So basically, you chose Firebringer, and not Syn, for your voting bloc,

Because you wanted to choose someone who thought you were town?

town blocks only work when you read each other as town or are you just fucking thick.

Hey, man. Let's not get aggressive.

I just wanted to know: the reason you wanted Firebringer as part of your bloc is because you wanted your bloc-mate to be someone who thought you were town. Am I right? Or is there something else that I'm missing. Assume that I am thick, if it helps. It's probably the best way to operate around me.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Garmr

Okay. So correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that the town bloc has nothing to do with the two town members voting together, and just has to do with them reading town at each other. Right?

Also, clarification on "dragon town?"

@Garmr and 3dice

Not really correct to say that "scum suggesting a town block would get back lash," or similarly that the presence of backlash to a town bloc confirms that the initiator is scum. Assuming town blocs can be pulled off correctly by town, there can be a scum player who plays townie as can be and enters a town bloc without backlash, but there can be backlash from two kittens looking at each other funny on the internet. The degree of backlash there is to something can't really prove anything at this stage in the game, although in the later stages it might represent an organized response by the scum. Scum just haven't had the degree of time necessary to plan, yet.

@Wanderer

My read on Davsto hasn't changed. I wanted to see Garmr's reaction when I seem intent on voting on him, and unvoting Davsto helps demonstrate my intent. And as always, I like letting my votes percolate, generally. I do jump onto wagons when I'm very convinced of them, but I think it's generally good to have an intention of voting planned out well ahead of times.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Also @Wanderer:

Why "focus" on a thing, instead of looking at the big picture? Since this is a topic that I've been driving for the most part, doesn't it give you an opportunity to analyze me, and others? I can't think of much content that can be posted that is

bad

for town. Anything said furthers the information out there. How would you better focus the town's efforts?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

In the end archmage you just cancel yourself out because town blocks can be made by Town you admitted that. What makes mine a cum town block? Since your whole point is only scum would do it?

...I'm asking questions. I've been asking to confirm your position on the matter. I'm trying to get a straight answer out of you:

The reason you wanted Fire as part of your bloc is because you wanted someone on your bloc who reads you as town. Yes, or no?

You claim that being part of a bloc is about two players reading each other as town, and has nothing to do with voting. Correct, or incorrect?

I want you to answer these questions in no uncertain terms.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

There we go, that was what I was looking for.

Garmr, the issue was never that two players were town-reading each other. The issue was the bloc, which I disagreed with. I just wanted to figure things out.

I got nosy and looked through your games. As far as I can tell, you've never attempted to form a town bloc unless you were town. I could have missed something, and I don't think it points towards anything totally concrete, but it did ease my fears significantly. No longer have intent to vote for you.

I intend to return to Davsto again if Davsto doesn't show up so that we can see him doing more things. I also want ICE to come back, because I think ICE has been nice this game. Really cool. Chillingly competent. Um... [more bad jokes about ice].

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I'm kinda thinking Garmr/Dave is Town/Town here, and this huge argument is coming from two people who are very different.

I don't know about them both being town, but I do agree that it points strongly towards Garmr and Dave not being scum-buddies.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Well. That happened.

I have the impression that Garmrwagon is bad but I'll examine it in detail in a bit.

Yeah, I'm pretty confident that the case on Garmr is bust. It's a meta read, which makes me feel dirty inside, but my searching his post history seemed to suggest that the only time he's talked about townblocs has been when he was town. @Garmr, correct me if I'm wrong?

@

Archmage

423: Why?

Considering the two suspects I've pushed so far (pistachi0n and Archmage) grew into major wagons shortly after I started pushing them, it'd be pretty absurd to accuse me of barely doing anything today. My postcount isn't all by itself a good reason for anyone to accuse me of that...

I'm not sure the logic of "I started big wagons, therefor I've done a lot" sits with me. It's not like you knew ahead of time those cases would become big wagons. I do agree that it's not reasonable to accuse you of being scum at this point, and definitely not on the basis of post count.

VOTE: Davsto

Returning my vote to where it was. Davsto hasn't become any more town-ish in my eyes.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Crap, forgot to respond to Post 442, but I quoted it. Guess that's what I get for posting in school. And not previewing before I post.

@Syn, I think it points to Garmr and Davsto not being scum-buddies, because the degree of vitriol and the lack of provocation behind Davsto's attacks on Garmr seems like it really can't have been planned before the first day. I don't think scum would try to bus a buddy on Day 1, just generally, and scum tend to be at least courteous to each other, even when they're "disagreeing." I don't think it can rule them out as buddies, but it definitely strongly points against it.

@Wanderer: I changed my vote away from Davsto because I was considering a vote for Garmr. I wanted to see Garmr's reaction. Since I'm now pretty confident he isn't scum, I'm moving back to Davsto.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I really don't get the Davsto wagon.
Like, at all.

I remember being nailed for something like this earlier...

Information instead of analysis, I think? Am I misapplying that term?

Can you tell us why you don't like it, go into greater depth?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

No, information is "There are people voting for Davsto. ICE made a case against him but I don't know how I feel about it".

Analysis is "I don't like this wagon", which is how I am interpreting Mario's post. Mario, please correct me if I am wrong, and that you are actually confused by the wagon as opposed to being against it.

I guess that makes sense?

"I don't like this wagon" was Mario's post. I just wanted to hear more. It just seemed to me that "I don't like this wagon" was a statement of fact rather than an interpretation of it.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

No, information is "There are people voting for Davsto. ICE made a case against him but I don't know how I feel about it".

Analysis is "I don't like this wagon", which is how I am interpreting Mario's post. Mario, please correct me if I am wrong, and that you are actually confused by the wagon as opposed to being against it.

I agree with this..

UNVOTE: mm4
VOTE: Archmage

Being voted for because I asked a question, and because I was looking for more information, makes me sad.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

What is that acronym ICE?

Information Instead of Analysis.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Sorry, stuff happened yesterday. Catching up now.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Oh wow, that lynch went from zero to sixty in no time flat.

I'm... not feeling too pleased about the way Scorpius hammered. There was fifteen minutes between intent to hammer and hammer. Almost like Scorpius didn't want someone to back out on Davsto before he could hammer. Seems really scummy imo, what was your decision making there Scorp?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Spoiler: @ICE

Excuse me, I believe credit for finding Davsto scum and pushing the lynch tips preeeeetty heavily in my favor.

Garmr's case on Mario is good. I might be convinced to vote Mario. Based on where the votes were thrown around, a Mario, Scorp, Davsto scum team makes a lot of sense.

I can see the Mario possibility. Garmr's case is pretty solid, and in the other game I'm in with Mario, Mario's been a lot more active. Inconsistent behavior probably points towards something. I feel more strongly that Scorpius is scum than Mario, though. I think that the way Scorp hammered was suuuuper sketchy. Whole point of declaring intent to hammer is to give people time to decide, fifteen minutes is not enough time to decide. Of course, maybe that's just because I take votes a lot more seriously than everyone else.

Looking through them, there are a lot of little tidbits that point towards Mario/Scorp being the remaining scum team. Mario goes against Scorp mostly off of gut towards the second half of the first day, but Scorp doesn't respond much, whereas Scorpius pushes against Mario earlier on but changes his mind quickly. Almost like the interaction was token, just to demonstrate that there was some conflict there. Mario's case against Scorp has never been more than gut, but in #517 he says he would have preferred a lynch on Scorp, but admits that a lynch on Davsto was probably for the best. Preferring a lynch on Scorp seems like more "token conflict" to keep things between he and Scorp tense enough that the passing eye won't suspect. It lacks the vitriol of the Davsto/Garmr interactions earlier, though. Scorp/Mario interactions don't have much or any back and forth, where the passion and response of Davsto/Garmr interactions heavily imply that Davsto and Garmr can't be scumteam. I'd say those interactions make Garmr more or less conftown at this point.

I want to vote, but I'm ultimately not sure whether to vote Scorpius or Mario. I'm going to do some poking around to make my decision.

Spoiler: @Mario

N

A Brief Compilation of Thoughts About People

I genuinely believe Garmr believes what he's saying and thus the tiff with Davsto is not a good reason to scumread him. I lean town.

You should change this to garmr knows what he is saying is right as dave did flip scum.

If you are town, there were, (I'm assuming three scum because there's literally always three scum) 9 other town and 3 scum. You had a 25% chance to hit scum. Doesn't mean you are a Mafia God; your case on Davsto was nonsense from where I'm standing.

A person I used to play with once told me that "Maths are scummy." Mafia is a game of logic, but not of mathematical logic. If you're using maths to justify a position, it means that you don't have the reads, or that you don't want to show the reads, or you're trying to make objective a game based on totally subjective reads and opinions and views. It's not incorrect, but it's not playing to the spirit or the most effective parts of the game. If you were to decide whether or not to lynch based on what the percentages of lynching scum were, you'd never lynch—you're always more likely to lynch town than scum.

Yes, it's true that there was a one in four chance to hit scum. That's assuming we're all completely random lynch-bots, though. The town isn't a herd of random lynch-bots, they're a thinking and reasoning mass, which is why it's possible for skill to exist in this game in the first place. Disregarding the possibility of skill looks like an excuse not to engage the realm of reasoning that this game concerns.

@Scorpius

How do you feel about Davsto hanging as scum? Your previous primary suspect was me, did my role in the Davsto lynch make you feel more or less confident in that suspicion?

Furthermore, what was your thought process behind your quick hammer?

@Mario and Scorpius

Can you each give me a readslist?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Forgot to finish the @Mario section. There was supposed to be a line right before it ended asking,

"What are your thoughts on Mafia and maths? Do you feel like your use of maths is justified?"

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Hey Scorp. Explain your hammer to me?

General reads list?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Scorpius, once again, I'd really like to know why you chose to hammer fifteen minutes after intent.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Sorry! School is butts. I am back.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

All Alone, I would appreciate if you could expand your view to like beyond Pistache. You don't engage with others about their reads on Pistache, you don't seem to be scumhunting, just pushing the one target. What doesit meanto you that a lot of players are actually townreading her?

That's why I keep reading her, either to see if there's a town motive from her that I've overlooked, or if I can find enough evidence of her having a scum motive to actually push her lynch through. I've tried everything I know and haven't found either, and I honestly really don't know what else I can do here.

@Scorpius, once again, I'd really like to know why you chose to hammer fifteen minutes after intent.

IDK, seemed like the right thing to do..

VOTE: Scorpious

I

seriously

doubt a townie would hammer and not know why. Townies have to think about the alignments of the players they're voting, so when they've made the decision to hammer they've almost certainly got a good reason for it. This reads like Scorpious already knew Davsto was scum, and thus didn't have to think about it.

Davsto/pistachi0n/Scorpious. Calling it now.

I agree one hundred percent that most likely scum team at this point is pistach and Scorp. Intent to vote Scorp.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Woah, what on Earth happened to those colors? How does one BBCode?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Spoiler: @Alchemist

All Alone, I would appreciate if you could expand your view to like beyond Pistache. You don't engage with others about their reads on Pistache, you don't seem to be scumhunting, just pushing the one target. What doesit meanto you that a lot of players are actually townreading her?

That's why I keep reading her, either to see if there's a town motive from her that I've overlooked, or if I can find enough evidence of her having a scum motive to actually push her lynch through. I've tried everything I know and haven't found either, and I honestly really don't know what else I can do here.

@Scorpius, once again, I'd really like to know why you chose to hammer fifteen minutes after intent.

IDK, seemed like the right thing to do..

VOTE: Scorpious

I

seriously

doubt a townie would hammer and not know why. Townies have to think about the alignments of the players they're voting, so when they've made the decision to hammer they've almost certainly got a good reason for it. This reads like Scorpious already knew Davsto was scum, and thus didn't have to think about it.

Davsto/pistachi0n/Scorpious. Calling it now.

I agree one hundred percent that most likely scum team at this point is pistach and Scorp. Intent to vote Scorp.

If you're trying to use a spoiler tag use

Code: Select all

[spoiler=][/spoiler]

Normal spoiler tags make the spoiler censored.

Okay, thanks!

Why do you think Pistachion is scum?

Process of elimination is my driving factor for suspecting Pistach. I feel confident in Garmr, ICE, Wanderer, and yourself in terms of town-ness, due to general town play. I also think that All Alone's play feels very pro-town, but I mention him separately since a tiny voice in my head is telling me to be more suspicious of him. Can't quite place why at this instant, it just kind of feels like he's... purposefully emphasizing his townie-ness, and that feels scummy? I dunno. I still think he's town, though, just a little quibble in my brain-box. Syn is confirmed town.

That leaves Scorp, 3dice, Mario, and Pistach. I'm at least ninety percent certain that . The way 3dice is playing reminds me of how I play when scum, but it isn't in itself against town, it's just vaguely percolating suspicion at this point. Then we're down to Mario and Pistach and between the two, I feel like Mario's the less scummy of the two. Not by much, mind you—it's a close race in my opinion, but I think that Mario's reaction to pressure is more of a town response than not. Defends the points directly addressed to him, and continues pressing his lynch against the person he thinks is scum (Scorpius). Pistach, on the the other hand, has remained elusive, and her wagon-ish vote on Mario to bring him to L-1 doesn't speak positively to me.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I'm at least ninety percent certain that .

*...Scorpius is scum.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I'm at least ninety percent certain that .

*...Scorpius is scum.

and you are 90% wrong..,

If I am ninety percent wrong, I must be ten percent right.

Therefor, you are ten percent scum.

A person cannot be ten percent scum: if they are any percent scum, they are scum.

Therefor, Scorpius is scum, by his own admission. Case closed.

/s

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Garmr Judas is superposition of scum and not scum. That's different.

My vote on Scorpius has had time to percolate, and I didn't think of anything that made it seem less reasonable. In fact, I think that Scorp's claim to "You said I was town before, but now I'm not?" (Paraphrased) as a defense has made my vote feel more reasonable. It's a defense that avoids my causes for suspicion and tries to make my initial read on him my final position. I don't like it.

VOTE: Scorpius

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Wow,you got all that off semantics? *slow clap*.

The "/s" meant that I was joking.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Seconded. I still think a Scorpius lynch is possible and favorable.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I intend to vote Scorpius as soon as the day kicks into gear.

@Wanderer,

Tell me more about your hammer. Any additional thought you had behind it aside from it being "robotic and fake?"

I'm still ninety percent certain Scorp is scum. Debating between Wanderer and Pistach for second scum slot. I really didn't like Wanderer's hammer, and the justification given.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

VOTE: The Archmage Ludicrous

"I intend to vote Scorpius as soon as the day kicks into gear" + "I'm still ninety percent certain Scorp is scum" doesn't read like a town thought process, why would a townie wait for everyone else to move before voting someone they were certain is scum? It reads like he wants to get town consensus before deciding whether to vote, which isn't something I'd expect a townie to let get in the way of voting someone they thought was scum. Scum on the other hand often want to make sure the wagon they're pushing is popular so that they don't stand out too much.

Everyone sheep me on this

Gee golly gosh willikers, it's not like I have any precedent declaring my votes long ahead of time! Cheese and crackers, now that'd put a wrench in your reasoning, wouldn't it?

I declare my votes in advance. It's how I play, please get used to it.

Questions, yay! Directed towards

everyone

.

-What distribution of scum do you see across Mario and Scorpious's wagons?
-Do you think scum bussed/attacked/scumread one another yesterDay?
-Is there a strong reason for the Garmr kill? (I'm about to go back and look again, but I'd like to see what others think.)

1+2. I know that Mario and I were town, ICE is conftown IMO, and I'm comfortable saying that All Alone is probably town. I'd like to say that scum was not on the Scorpwagon yesterday. Most likely it was all on the bandmario.

I can see the possibility of All Alone bussing Scorp if they were a scumpair, but I don't think All Alone is scum. I'm not sure ICE would bus at this stage, he doesn't seem at all like the type who'd bus his partner out of nowhere if he were scum. I'm three nines of certain that ICE is town at this stage, and confident saying All Alone is town. Scorp was just so much of a better lynch for town that it would have been for scum, and there was plenty of time for scum to subtly weave good PR for their buddy rather than bus him. It just doesn't make sense for scum to have been on that wagon yesterday, IMO.

3. Reiteration of what ICE said. Garmr was more or less conftown, although I was expecting an ICE kill not a Garmr kill.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

ICE,Archamge,all Alone are my scum pool..

VOTE: ICENinja

Stating that you are going to vote me and nothing can change your mind.. not cool..

and since I don't feel like doing this whole thing again.. I'm a commuter..

Interesting. A difficult role to prove or disprove.

Do you have any other reason for suspecting ICE, All Alone and myself aside from OMGUS? I want to hear your thoughts on the previous lynch, as well as some expanded reasoning on your current scum and town reads.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Wanderer,

Tell me more about your hammer. Any additional thought you had behind it aside from it being "robotic and fake?"

First of all because I thought he was scum. Second, all my townreads had posted after his claim and everybody seemed to have made up their minds and ready for a hammer. Mario's claim felt robotic to me in the sense that it looked a lot like he just copy-pasta'ed his claim and didn't believe in it himself.

...I'm not sure I like this response. It didn't seem like people were done trying to get info out of Mario at the time.

Care to narrow down who "all your townreads" are?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

VOTE: All Alone

Scorp has gone from mild Town to null for me. I want to see how they play today to try and get a more solid read on them.

How does that line of reasoning justify a vote on All Alone?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I intend to hammer. I in no means intend to hammer any time soon, we still have a full day ahead of us. I want to delay the hammer for as long as possible.

We should try to postulate who the other scum is before hammering. Since Scorp being scum is a near certainty, we can use the rest of the day to try and ferret out the other scum.

In fact, if someone (myself included) hammers without the blessing of the town, it is probably best to assume that they are scum trying to deny further conversation. Will post more later.

While you wait, here are some questions to consider:
If Scorp ends up not being scum, who does that most point to being scum?
Who is Scorp's scumbuddy?
How would Scorp interact with his scumbuddy?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Why does that make him scummy?

Looking through his ISO again, I see he did avoid talking about Davsto.

But his votes and unvotes seem genuine. That's what there is. What are some things he's said that strike you as scum?

Clarify "genuine."

---

Been thinking, just got time to post. If I were to pick out a single person to be Scorpius' scumbuddy, I would currently finger

Wanderer-nl

as my prime suspect.

Warning: HUGE WALL OF TEXT

Spoiler: My Case On Wanderer

Reasons I like Wanderer as scum:

1. Wanderer was noncommital and non-involved with the Day 1 lynch on Davsto.

She was not part of the vote on Davsto, which in its own is a single point against her, as it lets her avoid voting for a scum-buddy and avoid voting with a scum-buddy. On top of that, she tries to involve herself with Davsto, but avoids casting suspicion on him. She admits to his failings, ("his case and vote on ICE were bad") but is not committed to a stance and generally defends him ("But I don't really see much issues with his vote on Archmage because Archmage did hold his vote for a while. Just that he voted ICE on page 1 stuff without analysis of later posts makes him look bad enough. In my experience Davsto is always hard to read and looking a little scummy. I agree he needs to start posting content, I do think that if he's scum he would maybe try harder to make reads to prevent getting lynched and I don't see him doing that."). Lots of this sort of behavior where she kinda-sorta sides with Davsto, but is always noncommital. Quote is from her ISO post #7.

This is her only real mention of Davsto before he's lynched, aside from her ISO post #18, where she says "I'll go read Davsto's iso because lately I've kind of been ignoring him (well, not ignoring him but brushed his posts aside as a VI-thing) but looking at how far we actually got with discussion I think Davsto is really lagging behind in terms of scumhunting, or at least trying to."

All other mentions of Davsto in Day 1 are in passing, or in relation to someone else's behavior.

2. Wanderer never mentions Scorpius at all on Day 1.

If Scorpius is scum, this does not sit in her favor.

3. She displays similar wishy-washy behavior towards Scorpius on Day 2.

More subtle, but still there. #20 begins with a fairly strong criticism of Scorpius. Her actions immediately afterwards, though, connote a slightly more pro-Scorpius viewpoint. From the same post: "What is your read on Scorpious? What does him

hammering scum

tell you?" Emphasis mine. Following closely after:

@Pistachion: What is your read on Scorpious? What does him hammering scum tell you?

He got a late start, then he started questioning people when he posted. Said he wanted his questions answered before he'd be comfortable voting. Voted Mario after some argument. More stuff, etc, etc, I think the fact that he hammered makes him seem less scummy. Nothing that screams town, but I don't consider Scorp to be actively scummy.

What do you mean with 'actively scummy'? Right now I feel like you don't really want to commit to a read on Scorpious, like you want to keep your options open.

Mod: can Scorpious be prodded please?

Or is it too soon for that yet?

Wanderer takes interest in Scorpius' lack of activity. She wants Scorp active, badly, which makes sense from the perspective of a scum-buddy. Her implicit suggestion that Pistach should "commit" to a position when Pistach seemed to think more town of Scorp than not also is suspect. Also don't like the further implicit suggestion that Pistach is scummy based on having reservations on a single read on Day 2. Seems aggressive, like she's trying to scare Pistach.

"If Mario and Scorpious were the only choices today, I would currently rather go for Mario over Scorpious. It's mostly gut based on how each handled pressure so far, and I feel Mario is a lot more defensive while Scorpious feels more relaxed and seems to not really care about dying..." from post #25 smells like bunnysoap to me. A town death is detrimental to town, a scum death is detrimental to scum, and more importantly, dying means you can't play.

Every

player should be scared of being killed. Furthermore, she's setting up a system where she suspects Scorpius and Mario, but just happens to like Mario for lynch a little bit more. Feels like scum: if Scorp is lynched, she can say "Oh, shoot. He was my second choice," whereas if Mario is lynched, her scumbuddy lives.

Scorpious not having a reason, or not telling us his reason anyway, for hammering Day 1 threw me off because I'd expect scum to make up a reason for their hammer to make themselves look more town. And Scorpious didn't do that. But I still don't like he never shared an actual read on Davsto. Also, when he posted his reads, Scorpious said he'd elaborate if we asked, and he hasn't. But he has been responding to other things so he is reading. I don't believe he missed multiple posts from several players asking him to elaborate on some of his reads. He's also not doing much to move discussion forward, feels like he's just waiting for someone to hammer Mario now.
My read on Mario hasn't changed, however, and I still barely see him do anyything. I agree with ICE though about Mario looking better if Scorpious flips scum, and that would go the other way around too. I'm going to sleep on it.

Defends Scorpius' quick hammer on Day 1 with the reasoning that "scum would have justified it, and he didn't," more or less. I don't like that one bit: town or scum would have justified the hammer, because town would feel that the hammer was justified, while scum would want to justify it. Then, wraps that in reasons that she "suspects" Scorpius, before adding that she still supported the Mario lynch more. Smells like something there for safety, so that it looks less like she's trying to deflect suspicion from Scorpius onto Mario. Once again, plays into that safety system.

4. Hammers Mario for being "robotic and fake," with plenty of time left on the day.

Wanderer lynches town, hammers early, one post between intent to hammer and hammer, with very slim justification. I don't think that this was pro-town behavior, especially given that there was the distinct possibility that the tide would turn and that Scorpius would be lynched. Scorpius' wagon was pretty stacked at this time.

5. Turns on Scorpius as soon as its clear that he is the prime target.

Wanderer initially tries to defend Scorpius (#30), but immediately switches positions (in #31). This on its own is one of my weaker points, probably the weakest, as the change happens after Scorpius claimed Commuter (incredibly scummy).

6. *Ignores the reasoning behind unvoting Scorpius to less than L-1 and votes Scorpius back up to L-1*

This is what piqued my suspicion. I think it was a good idea to unvote Scorpius so that he couldn't self-hammer. A great one, in fact.

Wanderer shoves the vote right back up to L-1, with very little reasoning aside from the general scum case. I really, really don't like this play.

My one reservation:

Wanderer's insistence on getting Scorp to answer questions about his reads on Day 2 could just be a scum trying to mentor their scum-mate along, but it is still a generally pro-town thing to try and get people to answer questions. Her insistence on getting Scorpius to try and answer questions seems like something that scum would not be obligated to do. I can see upsides and downsides to it as scum, but it just doesn't seem like something scum should be encouraged to do, if we act on the assumption that Wanderer and Scorp are scum-buddies.

TL;DR: It's not unlikely that Wanderer-nl is scum, and if Scorpius is scum, I'd consider it extremely likely.

Thoughts? I like this case, but it's possible I just tunneled my head straight into the ground.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

When I say "general scum case," I mean the general case against Scorp.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Mage

First off.. Well written. You're obviously educated. I like that.

Second,I hope you didnt put off anything important to write all that up. I'd hate to know you missed a test,or a kids soccer game,or yoga for something that is ultimately so wrong.

I almost feel bad that that I am not scum.

>Implying I have a life

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Hum.

If Scorp flips town, I'd still suspect Wanderer pretty heavily. Aside from her interactions from Davsto, I think that her behavior around Scorpius is a bit scummy even if Scorp flips town. After all, if Scorp is town, Scorp is the scummiest-looking town I've ever seen. It's in scum's best interests to make the most scummy town last as long as possible to increase the chances of mislynches, so I still think that if Scorp is town, Wanderer's Day 2 interactions with Scorp add to her interactions with Davsto to still make a pretty convincing scum case.

@Wanderer

Any response to my case?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

If you're town, why don't you want the day to go longer?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Hm... In retrospect, that's an unfair question. If you're town, you're probably feeling pretty discouraged.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@Wanderer: have you read the post in which I criticize you? I'd like a response.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I'm back. Give me a bit to catch up.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Spoiler: Wanderer's Response to my Case

My response to Archmage's case on me from 838.

1. Wanderer was noncommital and non-involved with the Day 1 lynch on Davsto.

True. I wasn't able to get a decent read on Davsto, and I could have done more by engaging with Davsto and stuff to improve it but I decided to pursue my own leads instead.

2. Wanderer never mentions Scorpius at all on Day 1.

That's possible, I tend to look at 2-3 people at a time because I can't handle too much information at once. What do you think of my posts about (and to) Scorpious Day 2 and today?

3. She displays similar wishy-washy behavior towards Scorpius on Day 2.

Oh right, here's my answer. So what exactly is wishy-washy and why does that make me scum? And similar to what?
Wanting Scorpious active: Ofcourse I want him active, if he's town he needs to help us find scum and if he's scum we want to catch him in a lie/contradiction and for that he needs to post.
About wanting Mario lynched over Scorpious: I was scumreading Mario and going back and forth (or being wishy-washy as you call it) on Scorpious. Mario is usually more involved, this time I missed his questioning and sharing thoughts, he was just there.

4. Hammers Mario for being "robotic and fake," with plenty of time left on the day.

I explained the 'robotic and fake' already.
As for the time of my hammer:

This game is kind of stagnating. As of right now, I'm pretty OK with either wagon. I'm pretty sure there is exactly 1 scum between them, and if we miss today we'll get scum tomorrow.

I'm not really sure where to go after that, though. I'll need to look at interactions depending on which one flips scum.

I don't think we're going to get much more discussion out of this Day. Someone should probably hammer at this point. I'm still thinking Mario/AA are the scumteam.

I'm done vomiting words for now. Hammer if you want so I can stop WIFOMing myself on Scorpious. Will probably attempt another reread overnight.

I also asked:

I'm not liking Archmage too much again, and only makes me want to hammer Mario more.. I'll wait for Syndesis to post his thoughts.
Ice, do you have anything else you want to share before hammer?
Anyone else?

And everyone posted between that and my hammer, nobody told me to hold it. If it was too soon then I'm sorry, but I really thought everyone had made up their minds and done with the Day.

5. Turns on Scorpius as soon as its clear that he is the prime target.

(Could you please use actual post numbers instead of the numbers that are in iso? I have no idea where to place 30 and 31 rn. Also, for quick access, if someone is too lazy to make the postnumber into a link I'll open the reply-box, make the post-link myself and click it in preview, so the actual postnumbers would be great. Anyway, found them in my iso)
In my 801 (31 in iso) I was in a really bad mood and starting to get annoyed with Scorpious. I have no better explanation for 801, and after some more thought about Scorpious' claim I decided to drop it because it's outguessing the mod. It's null. The wiki-page says most commuters are even/odd-night or x-shot, but a full commuter is still considered normal, so it is possible though unlikely.

6. *Ignores the reasoning behind unvoting Scorpius to less than L-1 and votes Scorpius back up to L-1*

Yes, that happened. I made a mistake and I unvoted again.

My one reservation:

Wanderer's insistence on getting Scorp to answer questions about his reads on Day 2 could just be a scum trying to mentor their scum-mate along, but it is still a generally pro-town thing to try and get people to answer questions. Her insistence on getting Scorpius to try and answer questions seems like something that scum would not be obligated to do. I can see upsides and downsides to it as scum, but it just doesn't seem like something scum should be encouraged to do, if we act on the assumption that Wanderer and Scorp are scum-buddies.

What happens to this thought if Scorpious flips town?

For the record, I'm townreading Archmage now. I think he put a lot of effort in his case on me and I didn't get the feeling he was trying to make me look bad, he just misinterpreted some things which also have to do with how I post when I'm in a bad mood. I'm sorry, it's a female-thing..

Summary: I like this response from Wanderer. My gut says it's a town response, but I don't trust my gut.

The Specifics: I especially like Wanderer's retort to point 4. It's consistent with her original provided reason for hammering rather than trying to drag up a new excuse from the ether. I also like 1 and 6. Scum likes to look more useful than not, being willing to admit mistakes and inconsistencies is, I think, a town behavior. 5 was a weak point anyways, more of a token mention than an actual reason for suspicion.

Point 2's response gives me reservations. It's making an excuse, rather than just saying yes/no like the other bits. Wanderer asks a question (what I think of her Day 2 and 3 posts about Scorpius) that is already answered in my post. I'm not sure if that means she was writing the post as she read, but it feels like an unnecessary question. The whole bit where "The only stupid question is the one you already know the answer to" bit. I always thought that saying was stupid, but I wonder why Wanderer felt the need to ask that there.

Her response to post number three doesn't make her lean more town or more scum for me. Feels kind of neutral. On one hand, reasoning for liking Mario is solid enough. Personal experience is a good justification for making a move on someone that I don't understand. On the other hand, the response feels very confrontational. Which is a neutral action in of itself, so it really shouldn't make me feel more like she's scum.

All in all, this post has made me monumentally less sure in Wanderer being scum. I'd say... around seventy-five percent confident that she's scum if Scorpius flips scum. Around thirty percent confident if Scorp flips town. Time for me to examine someone else.

Specific Responses to Wanderer:

"What do you think of my posts about (and to) Scorpious Day 2 and today?"
A: That's kind of answered in the rest of my post. I hope you won't begrudge me for not providing more details.

"So what exactly is wishy-washy and why does that make me scum? And similar to what?"
A: "Wishy-washy" meant that I felt like your interactions with Scorpius weren't entirely ordinary, similar to your interactions with Davsto. It felt like you were always suspecting Scorpius, but just a

little bit

less than you suspected Mario. As scum, that'd be a strong interaction: if Scorpius got lynched instead, you had a good deal of negative interaction between you to say that "I wasn't on his side, see? I wanted him lynched." Yet at the same time, it felt like you were kind of discouraging Scorpius as a lynch. I'd call your interactions with Scorpius "wishy-washy," because it seems like it could be simultaneously true that you suspected him, but also that you wanted him not to be lynched as a more-or-less primary goal.

"Wanting Scorpious active: Ofcourse I want him active, if he's town he needs to help us find scum and if he's scum we want to catch him in a lie/contradiction and for that he needs to post."
R: Of course! ...it's just that you seemed slightly more interested in Scorpius' inactivity than the inactivity of other people. Is that a fair assessment?

"What happens to this thought if Scorpious flips town?"
A: My "one reservation" becomes pretty big townie-points in your favor. A lot of my case is based off of the assumption that Scorpius is scum, since that seemed a pretty reasonable assumption. If Scorpius flips not-scum, you become a weak town-read for me. If Scorpius flips scum, you become for me "probably scum." (Note that you've made progress with this post of yours: if Scorp flipped scum, I would have called you certainly scum, before.)

---

Next player I'm going to go real in-depth on is probably Pistach or ICE, the former to see if my suspicions on them are justified, and the latter to see if there's anything I've missed when town-reading him. I trust ICE a lot, and that makes me uncomfortable.

I'd also like to vaguely note that

All Alone is dangerous scum.

That's not to say that All Alone is scum. I don't think that he is. However, I think that at this point All Alone has enough of a chance of being scum for me to consider the possibility, but has a small enough amount of information on him in this game and town-y enough play that if he were scum, he would have a fair shot of winning the game. I think that I'll probably go check out some of his other games to see if I can catch some meta-reads on him.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

So...anybody know any good jokes?

I see a pretty funny one in the mirror every day.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Yeah, I thought that ICE was a cop. Shame he didn't tell us who he had investigated.

Really, I don't know who to trust anymore, aside from Synd. I'll stop by later and formulate a new picture of the game.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

What made you think he was a Cop if you couldn't tell who he investigated?

ICE was planning. In my experience, vanilla town try to avoid making long-term plans, because in their dearth of information, if they make a plan with any assumptions, they run the risk of every one of those assumptions being wrong. As such, only scum and town members who can gather information set long-term plans, because they're the only ones who can confirm their assumptions or act on non-assumed knowledge. I first began suspecting that ICE was cop (or at least, pro-town information gathering role) here:

Spoiler: Big quote

Let's go over the possibilities:
1. It's a specific sort evidence that you suspect will be brought up (for whatever reason).
2. You don't have a clue what kind of evidence will be brought up, but you're sure it's gonna be good!
3. You already know, but you're just not telling.

There's a 4th possibility, and it's that I have a really solid theory on something, but the theory needs to be tested before I can say anything conclusive. I've been trying to be more clever and tactical this game than I have been historically (where I would mostly just logically analyze what I saw to death).

This quote is a bit confusing out of context, but basically what was happening was that ICE talked about approving of the wagon on me, but that it would become clear why later. I criticized him on this, and in this post he basically says "shut up nerd, I'm planning something." I picked up the hint, and dropped the topic as quickly as it was natural to do so. The reason why I thought he was town rather than scum is that if scum is laying a long-term plan, they don't want to be hinting anyone about what's going on, and those long-term plans are more likely to involve other scum-members. Since this plan began on day one, I deemed it very unlikely that ICE was scum.

The goal of ICE's "plan" was that he wanted to set me up as an "easy lynch," so that scum would wagon onto me. See here:

Spoiler:

Oh right, I totally forgot something.

A long time ago, I stated that "I approve of the Archmage wagon, and it'll be clear why later".

Note that I didn't actually find Archmage scummy, I just wanted scum to wagon him. Because every game has the easy lynchbait, that (4 out of 5 times) townie who is trying but doesn't really have the best grasp of scum hunting, and scum vote them. A lot. It's easy to justify, gets D1 over without as much information going through, and it has come as no surprise to myself that the two most suspicious players FMPOV (Scorp and obviously Davsto) have made absolutely horrible awful Scummy McScumcum votes on Archmage.

I had plans to do more with this earlier, but people didn't quite wagon him as hard as I thought they would.

I wish I could articulate this better, but if Davsto's baseline level of scumminess is always high then you have to recalibrate your reads, right?

I totally get what you're saying here, and my response is that useless/bad at D1 does not equal scummy. He has done things that are outright scummy.

So for the record, my lynch preference is Davsto, and I don't really want to move my vote, but for cookies I might be willing to hammer Scorpious if he gets run up to L-1.

--------

It's page 20, I'm solid on my reads, and I think most people are as well. It's time to lynch. If your vote isn't on a major wagon, then reconsider.

This was my next little clue: since this plan didn't benefit scum at all, and was designed with the explicit purpose of exposing scum, it made a lot more sense for him to be town rather than scum, but it also made assumptions and conclusions along the lines of scum versus not scum. It made the assumption of me being not-scum (a fair assumption, since it's the game's start), and ends with the idea that if the assumption is true, there is likely scum in the set of people who wagoned me. His end conclusion was that Davsto and Scorp were likely scum, or at least possibly scum, and he probably felt more comfortable with that gambit since he had the knowledge that he could use the results of it to inform a night action rather than a lynch (investigate Scorpius), or test the assumption itself (investigate me).

I don't think he investigated me, though. He didn't put me in his "will not vote for" category, so unless he's playing the "cast slight suspicion on the people you think are town so that the scum is likely to lynch them" gambit (which seems like too silly of a gambit for ICE to use), I don't think that ICE investigated me. And to be fair, the assumption that I was town was a pretty strong one, especially considering that Davsto was in my wagon (meaning that in his eyes, his plan had already partly paid off), so he likely directed his investigation elsewhere.

I don't think you can say with any degree of certainty that ICE investigated All Alone and Pistach. I do think that it is likely that at least one of the two was investigated by ICE, and it is well possible that he visited both. However, I think it is a significantly important note to make that ICE very well could have investigated Scorpius. Hm... actually, in review of that thought, I'm not sure if I agree with it in myself. I don't think it's possible to get a "null result" when visiting scum, can you? If scum is investigation proof, it usually means they read as town, which means that if ICE got a null result, he'd probably read Scorp as town, unless the null result had no flavor in which case he'd read it as having been role-blocked.

Ugh. Nevermind that logic. I don't think we can possibly conclude whether or not ICE investigated Scorpius unless we know how much flavor ICE did or didn't get. It made a lot of sense to me that ICE might have visited Scorpius on Night One: He had just been right in his read on Davsto, and Scorpius was his second scumread at that point (IIRC), so I don't doubt that he'd check Scorpius. However, AA and pistach were also good choices to make as a cop (they feel very uncertain, IMO, and alleviating that feeling as a Cop is a big weight off shoulders), and the "VI" comment seems like a very blatant tip to future town of "Hey, this is who I investigated." Maybe he left a similar clue for his other night?

ICE seems careful and sneaky, the type who'd be fond of using innuendo. He sneaky-talked to me about his little chicanery on Day One, and the "VI" post seems like a bit of a clue to say "Hey Pistach is town," so... I'm sure there's a "hint hint I investigated this person" somewhere in his ISO for the other person he investigated, but I have to go now, so I'll look through it later.

I dunno, I need to speculate on this while I'm not full of ham, turkey, and pie. The Scorpius possibility for his investigation is interesting to consider, but it does seem likely that of all possible targets, pistach is probably the one we can say with a high degree of certainty was investigated by ICE.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Looked at ICE's ISO and couldn't find any clues to his second night visit. I think saying that All Alone was the second night visit is the most reasonable conclusion, as he really favored All Alone for town without much doubt or conclusive evidence. That means that scum must be in Alchemist, 3dice, or Wanderer. I'm still suspicious of Wanderer, but she's the only one I've really investigated, so that's almost certainly bias speaking. A lot of my case on her fell apart since Scorpius flipped town, and while there was a thing or two that has made me a bit more suspicious of her, the net balance is that I think her more likely to be town than before. I'll evaluate who I think is the best choice when I have the mental energy to examine 3dice and Alchemist more. I can see a 3dice and Wanderer scumteam, but I'm a bit disturbed that I haven't thought too much about Alchemist.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Consider me prodded. I've been reading, but haven't had time/motivation to comment.

@anyonewhohasplayedmorethanme,

What are the general chances of a non-town one-shot neighborizer?

Are the chances higher or lower if the neighborhood consists of only two people? (For that matter, @Synd, did the neighborhood have only two people?)

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

-thought about neighborizing Ice/Fire/Garmr but paranoia

Wait...

Wanderer

thought about neighborizing ICE/Fire/Garmr? Or is there an unmentioned third party in the neighborhood?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Like, you're summarizing what happened in the neighborhood, right?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Our neighborhood was just the two of us.

Okay, so it was just you two. No unmentioned third party.

If I interpret this right, something fishy is going on here. Wanderer claimed to be a one-shot neighborizer, but Syndesis seems to have the impression that Wanderer was implying an ability to neighorize additional players.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Hm...

At least one of Wanderer and Alchemist is scum, unless All Alone or pistach is Godfather. We can't conclude the existence of a Godfather at this point, so we'll call them town with two nines of certainty.

Actually, scratch that. Even if there is a Godfather, I think it's nearly certain at least one of Wanderer and Alchemist is scum. The balance is wonky otherwise. IMO.

Balance-wise, of the two, I think it makes more sense for Alchemist to be scum than for Wanderer to be. I think there's a reasonable chance they're both scum, though.

asdf.

What I really need is to dig down on Alch, but I don't have the time right now. That takes a good hour or two.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@dice: I do? I thought Synd just wanted those two to claim, and it wasn't a massclaim.

I'm VT, though, so it doesn't really matter if I claim.

@Synd: My reasoning behind liking the Alch/Wanderer scumteam is that Alch and Wanderer seem to me the most likely to be scum when taken on their own. I haven't had the time to really examine interactions between them.

I don't like Wanderer for her interactions with Davsto, and in retrospect, this part of her response:

What happens to this thought if Scorpious flips town?

Feels like a bit of a gambit to drag out an endorsement from me based on scum knowledge. I feel about forty-five percent confident in saying she's scum... maybe forty.

Alchemist, though, holy crayola his claim feels so scummy. It's all so... convenient. I can't believe I didn't notice it before. Let's take a look at it:

If they have a Day Kill that would mean today is MyLo, since tomorrow would be 5 alive and the kill would achieve Parity.

That being the case I should probably hardclaim now. I'm a Town Universal Backup and I inherited Scorpious' Commuter ability. Just knowing that there's a chance 2 commuters could be in the game is why I'm confident in the scum having a Day Kill of some kind, and the fact I could have also have become a second Cop makes the setup as we know it very Town-sided, which pretty much guarantees scum have some strong powers.

P-edit: Hmm, a Godfather is a strong possibility for this game. That would make me think AA isn't 100% confTown, but just doubtcasting Cop results isn't enough to make me consider him for PoE at this time unless someone provides strong enough evidence he's scum, or that 2 of the 3 in my PoE are undoubtedly Town.

1. Universal Backup.

With the number of power roles? This is

highly

unlikely unless Wanderer is scum, in which case, it's only very unlikely. This is a universal backup who can become: Innocent Child, Commuter, Cop, and (if Wanderer is town) 1-shot neighborizer. This would bring the Neighborhood from 2 to 3, with 4 total people having been in the neighborhood in the course of the game.

I don't buy a Universal Backup in this game. It just seems way too ridiculously powerful.

2. The Setup.

Emphasis in the beginning is on 'today could be Mislynch or Lose.' The setup begins with a crisis, something to grab attention and lend credence to the rest of the post. More to the point, the existence of the crisis is his reason for claiming.

The thing is, the existence of the crisis is justified by his claim: "Just knowing that there's a chance 2 commuters could be in the game is why I'm confident in the scum having a Day Kill of some kind," but presenting the MyLo possibility before the reasoning that read to it just doesn't feel Town to me. It's like he's emphasizing the presentation over the content, and by having something in front of his claim, it avoids emphasizing the weight of the claim itself.

3. The Play

Alchemist could have communicated this message without claiming. He could have said, "with a Commuter in the game, it's fairly likely that scum has a daykill, therefor we ought to consider today Mislynch or Lose."

The reason that this is important is that someone who has just inherited a commuter role

does not want scum to know that they have a commuter role.

They desperately, desperately want scum to target them during the night, so that they can use their ability to prolong the game for the town. If they are legitimately town, then scum has no reason to doubt that they've become a commuter, so they will not target him during the night.

But Alch claimed anyways, which means that he's not operating by the same priorities and goals as a town commuter, and that his overall goal has nothing to do with being targeted during the night. Id est, he is lying and is not a commuter, and therefor not a Universal Backup.

4. The Message.

Alchemist is trying to make the point here that today is Mislynch or Lose (or rather, likely is).

However, his play contradicts this position.

If today is Mislynch or Lose, and he well and truly believed it, and he was Town, then he would not have

voted for Wanderer

. Assuming the meta is the same here as it is in other places I've played when it comes to MyLo, that is: because last I checked, a No-lynch is favorable for Town on MyLo, so that Town can reduce the number of suspects in play by allowing the mafia to kill a town member. Either Alchemist doesn't truly believe his own argumentation, or he's playing against town on purpose.

---

Apologies if I've reiterated anyone's points. I haven't been rereading as often as usual, so I feel a bit out of the loop.

I'd feel comfortable supporting the Alchemist lynch, for the reasons above. Intent to vote Alch, pending on his response.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Also, I did post #1000. Do I get an achievement?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

My role did have an exemption for the Innocent Child. If it died first I would instead get the next Town PR that died.

Why not mention that initially? If you don't catch every power role, then you aren't a real universal backup.

I do not think I was ever going to be a choice for the NK given that I was in a lot of people's null piles and ICE's apparant Cop results. I had considered claiming backup Cop instead to draw the NK, but I sincerely believe that the implications for the overall balance of the game are different for a Universal Backup than they would be for a backup Cop.

Hnmn. This is solid reasoning, but I don't like the tone of it. Generally, I find that town reasoning is more along the lines of admitting mistakes, whereas scum reasoning generally frames the situation such that 'Oh, I considered that, I just didn't find it important.' It's not really an argument against your reasoning (which is excusable, not that I personally agree with it, but it

is

something a town member might consider), just a little scumtell I pick up from it.

I decided to claim at all because I think my claim adds one more to the pool of confTown (though the confTown voting me seem to disagree) and makes PoE'ing the scum much easier.

...Claiming as Universal Backup makes you, by no means, "conftown." Explain your reasoning as to why it would?

Some people think you shouldn't lynch at MyLo, others think you should. The argument for lynching at MyLo is that you get one more Town voice during the day that would be silenced by the scum NK.

Oh, that's nifty. I've never heard that before, and it's solid reasoning.

So tell me, why do you think I as scum would claim Universal Backup and push the idea we may be in MyLo in the first place? What would I gain from that?

That's a WIFOM defense. If we look at scum in the general case trying to make this move, it's kind of null. Of course scum wouldn't make so ridiculous a claim in this scenario, which is exactly why they should, which is exactly why the shouldn't, et cetera.

The reason I think

you

made this play is because it seems like the kind of gambit that you (or, really, I) couldn't resist. The gambit is to combine a claim that town can't confirm with a degree of speculation to manufacture the crisis of Mislynch or lose. In theory, noticing this gives you towncred and power to drive the lynch. From scum perspective, if they actually have a Dayvig, then you have the power to drive a mislynch and win the game, quickly. I just think you might have botched the implementation.

More to this point, that sort of defense is a misdirection from the core of my argument, not being that scum would do the things that you did, but that town wouldn't.

And again, did you look into 3dice at all since you said you would? If you're Town then the scumteam is almost certainly wanderer/3dice.

No, I haven't had the time to do a really in-depth investigation of anyone. My deep-dives take a lot of time, and I've had a headache since Sunday. I've just been doing little nitpicky stuff.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

If you want to argue I'm not a true Universal Backup you'll have to take it up with the mod and the review group who approved the setup. I thought people would come to the conclusion I'm Town based on my role because it wouldn't make sense for scum to have my role. Even if I couldn't have become an IC I could still have become a Cop which is absolutely useless for scum.

That reasoning all comes laden with the assumption that you are Universal Backup. I think I've proved pretty well that you aren't a town Universal Backup, and you've shown pretty well that you're not a mafia-aligned universal backup. So what's your real role?

Also, " because it wouldn't make sense for scum to have my role. " ? Why did you assume that Town would think you were telling the truth about your role?

The whole situation with the Innocent Child exception isn't that it exists, it's that

if it existed, town would have brought it up when they first claimed.

There's no reason for town to withhold that bit of your claim. You did withhold it, which in my eyes makes it much more likely to be a new element of the claim made up on the spot.

As for the mylo issue, if I were scum and knew for sure it was mylo I wouldn't even suggest that possibility. Scum's main advantage is having more information than the Town. It would have been far more advantageous to keep quiet on the matter and let the Town believe it's a normal Day phase. Suggesting it's MyLo would make the Town more likely to be more cautious about the lynch than rush one.

Excellent. Now, if you flip scum, we'll know with more certainty that scum does not have an extra kill.

In your last post twice you admit I have solid reasoning, yet you seem to maintain the argument that Town wouldn't do what I did.

Feels like you're misrepping me here. I said you had solid reasoning for that specific piece of your response, not your whole post.

If you think Town wouldn't do something then you implicitly believe scum would do it, and I'm showing you reasons why scum

wouldn't

do it.

If I think town wouldn't do something, it doesn't mean that I believe that scum would do it, it's rather that scum must have done it. Scum is perfectly capable of acting against their own interests in order to appear less like scum. That's why your reasons (scant as I feel they are) as to why scum wouldn't undertake your actions in your shoes don't really address my argument. Sure, they're a general defense, but they don't show why you would, as a town member, act in the way you did.

If you cede the points that point to you being not-town, it can only mean that you're scum. You can say that "scum wouldn't do what I'm doing" as much as you want, but if you aren't town,

you must be scum.

Unless you're going to change your mind and claim Survivor.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Right. None of the things Alchemist has said made me less suspicious of him. His defenses overall addressed completely separate points to my attack, and he seems set on asserting that "I am the Universal Backup, and since there can't be a scum Universal Backup in this game, I must be town." It's a false dichotomy: true, if he were totally confirmed as a Universal Backup, he would probably be town. He isn't, though, there is no real reason to believe his claim, especially given that it's one we have no ability at all to confirm.

I also read through Alchemist's ISO. No time for a full analysis, but his interactions with Davsto are well in line with a scum player's interaction. He avoids direct communication with Davsto, starting with a light scumread of him that transitions to total support of Davsto as 'town.' Wagons me without much reason. I'd say that gives his Day One a light taste of scum, and there's nothing exceptionally actionable in the rest of ISO, though I could probably find something if I tunneled my head into the ground again...

Regardless, my intent to vote from earlier is now blossomed into a fully grown vote-flower.

VOTE: Alchemist

THIS IS L-1 ON ALCHEMIST.

Sidenote:
Interactions between Alch and Wanderer right now feel fishy. Not sure if I can fully describe why, and if I could, I'm not sure if it would be a good idea. I could be wrong, so I don't want to be a dick and interrupt, and if I'm right, then the evidence will be better if I give it time to marinate. Want to see the end results of their work, so I'd appreciate it if nobody rocked their boat when it came to letting them say their words about All Alone.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Okay, this is unrelated to this current game (it's a theory point some of my other friends and I were discussing, not on mafiascum) in every way, but I want the opinions of players who are better than me.

If you are playing a weak role, when do you mention that your role is weak, and when (if ever) do you start declaring your targets before each night?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

@3dice

Saying that I "wasn't voting" for Day 3 isn't entirely accurate. My 'vote' was on Scorpius the whole time, more or less, I just withheld it because I didn't want him getting instalynched. You can check ISO, I would have voted Scorpius if that was a more controversial day in any way.

It is true that two people voted on Davsto before I did, but I wasn't waiting for them. I was waiting for Davsto to have time to do things, to prove me wrong, et cetera. In case you haven't noticed, this is how I play. I give people time before voting for them, at least a page or so.

One last quibble. You said, "Wanderer and Alchemist are both on the same wagon on the end of the day. I'm not sure both scum would leave there votes like this. Interesting to note that they are both on archmage wagon, which means if archmage is scum, then one of them is bussing their buddy."

I'm not entirely sure what the point you're trying to make is. From my position, I've never seen scum bus their buddy Day One: if I were in your shoes, I'd analyze that and say that if Archmage flips scum, then Alchemist and Wanderer are both highly unlikely to be scum.

Archmage, however, will not flip scum. I have it from a good source that he's town.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I officially give up on the balance in this game. Pistach and All Alone are (probably) still conftown. Suggests 3dice and Wanderer for scum.

Scary scum-team contains All Alone, and one of 3dice and Wanderer.

Wanderer, tell us why there was no intent declared to hammer?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

I think it's been long enough for this postulate to be safe and reasonable:

I would consider that at least one of wanderer and 3dice

must

be scum. I personally would consider them both to be, but we know at least one of them is because if this was a townie voting on a townie, scum would have likely voted and hammered, for the win. There is, strictly speaking, a chance that scum wouldn't do that anyways, due to a sense of extreme caution, but at this point in time it doesn't feel unreasonable to me. I think if there were two scum inside of the population that is not 3dice, and not wanderer, one would have had the savvy to vote for (X justifiable reason) and the other would have had the savvy to hammer.

Side note: I would really like to push All Alone to more content output so that I could feel more comfortable with my townread on him.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

The only way you could be proposing all alone as scum, is by proposing it's me and all alone, except I know I'm town, so that means you must be scum.

Mm... I don't think that's quite true. I think she might be trying to make a case of me and All Alone as a scumpair.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Hm... Comment withdrawn. I can't really say that she isn't making a 3dice/All Alone case at this point. I'm letting my suspicions leak too far into my reasoning.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

pistach was the obvious kill for scum. pistach did not die. Something is afoot.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

If pistach is godfather, pistach has an obvious reason to kill All Alone. If 3dice is or I am scum, there's the obvious confusion factor that killing All Alone creates. Hm... I don't think I could have been swayed to vote for All Alone. Scum kills All Alone because he's the harder to lynch townie doesn't make sense: I'm even less likely to lynch pistach than All Alone. Ough. Interesting.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

There's a distinct enough possibility of Godfather that pistach isn't conftown, I agree.

pistach was the obvious kill for scum. pistach did not die. Something is afoot.

All Alone and I were both speculated about being confirmed town by cop result, why is that afoot?

Yeah, but All Alone was being "suspected" by Wanderer, and there was less certainty that ICE had ever investigated him. If pistach were killed, then it would be... 3dice that was scum, and nobody would know that All Alone was town. It'd be easier to convince me to lynch All Alone, there's good setup on Wanderer scumreading him, makes it look like scum might have been trying to cover their tracks, build some last-second animosity. Plus, he'd been quiet all game long.

Overall, 3dice, as scum, had a good setup for the final day if he killed pistach.

In fact, the same argument applies to me. I would have had a fairly good setup for the final day if I killed pistach rather than All Alone.

Pistach didn't die. To me, this implies that she is the scum.

Either that, or there are mindgames going on. Totally possible.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

What do you think about pistacion preferring my lynch yesterday?

I think it's null, IMO. I don't think scum versus town has any particular reason to choose a bad lynch... but it does kind of ring that she could have been trying to shift the lynch towards non-Wanderer. Hmph. I almost prefer pistach for lynch more, now.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Proddodging. Finals r hurd

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Who are you addressing?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Got it.

I'm town because:

I started on Davsto early on, and though ICE's vote came before mine, my suspicion was right before his. I was called him out about his avoiding the game. As scum, there's no motivation for me to call my mate out on active-lurking at that point, and no reason for me to draw attention to him, I'd want to keep quiet about anything fishy that my buddies are doing that isn't obvious. Especially with a mostly gut-based accusation like active-lurking, I wouldn't want to stir the waters needlessly. If it turned into something, I could lose my buddy when I didn't necessarily have to.

I was also two votes away from being lynched, with both confirmed scum on my wagon. I heavily doubt both scum would have bused this early: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p7355994

That doesn't narrow down my reads any, looking at it. I read pistach as the type who would vote with her scumwagon, and 3dice as the sort who would vote away from it. Agreements? Disagreements?

I supported the Scorpius lynch on Day 2. Scum had a definite motivation to keep Scorpius alive at that point, as he was easily the most fishy suspicious player at the time, and was likely to (and, did, to a degree) divert the Day 3 lynch away from further investigation. I predict that scum would be on the wagon opposing Scorpius, which was Mario. Unfortunately, this does not eliminate either of you from my scum pool.

I think I've decided. pistachi0n is scum, 3dice is town. I'm still too beat to list all the quotes, but the gist of my case for this is...

1. 3dice supported Davsto lynch on Day 1 from early on. He does have a scummy vote position (I'm told L-1 is fairly scummy), but it's a teammate nonetheless. 3dice doesn't strike me as the sort to call out against his teammate starting from Day 1.

2. pistach defended both Davsto and Wanderer. She also sheeped a lot (thanks to 3dice for pointing that out).

3. 3dice has been doing much more scumhunting, pistach has been playing much more passively.

I got interrupted at this point in making the post. I think I had another point, but I forgot.

Intent to vote pistach.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Just realized that 3dice wasn't on the mario lynch like I thought he was. I've decided, I'm tired, I'm sick, and I'm committing. If I'm wrong, then 3dice has played well and deserves the victory. I just need this game to be over, so I can stop checking Mafiascum for a while.

VOTE: pistachi0n

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

That's cool. Don't want you to make your decision on a bad stomach.

Now I don't have any doubt in my vote, though: you're conftown.

pedit

Damn it. GG.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Started to get suspicious when you asked pistach why it took so little to convince her. My town case was pretty good.

I gave in to laziness, though. If I thought it through just a little better... gah.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

GG, anyways. Maybe one time I'll figure out how to play, and we'll have another game together.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

And sorry, pistach. I let you down.

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Setup was seriously questionable. You were either a Godfather or a Lawyer, right?

[The Archmage Ludicrous]

Sorry that I wasn't up to scratch.