Micro 661 | Scumteam UnPick - Pressure Done

[Something_Smart]

sup dawgs
reading up now

[Something_Smart]

okay so after a cursory read my reads are:
(scum) Tenshii > ProHawk > Jin > ZZZX > Dunhallym > Gamma > Jaack (town)

Jaack is close to obvtown for me. I just feel like his thought processes have been super transparent and he doesn't seem to be trying to hide or force anything. The way he took charge of chronicling the picks and involved in discussion about the setup that wasn't awkward seems like something that would be challenging for scum to pull off well and easy for scum to simply avoid.

Gamma is less strong of a read but still fairly confident. This one has a decent amount of meta involved, mostly from Surrealism where I correctly townread him. I've witnessed Gamma's scumgame indirectly as being the backup mod for a game where he was scum (though I didn't do anything, I loosely followed the game) and it seems to me that he has more of a solid direction as scum; as in, he has a plan and works toward that plan. As town he's less focused and more exploratory in trying to find out people's alignments. I think his play here is consistent with the latter.

There's a significant gap between those two and the other five, them being the only reads I have a decent amount of confidence on. (Usually my reads upon catching up are bad because I usually form them better going forward than backward.)

Dunhallym pinged me earlier with some of her posts, particularly where she argued in favor of scumhunting first and then sharing picks. I don't think that benefits scum per se (I guess it depends on how much they will let the picks guide their play), but it just struck me as a little unlike town to want to have less information on the table, especially since the main relevant issue regarding sharing picks is whether scum will lie, and if so, who they'll say instead, for which sharing picks later would be better because they would pick scumteams that people are finding likely anyway. However, I think her other posts have been fairly solid, to the point where she's a slight townlean. Now that I'm reading her posts, I'm actually a little less impressed with them than I was the first time. I guess just the fact that she is getting a lot of thoughts out seems genuine. 190 is a very solid post as well.

ZZZX is a bit of a non-entity in my mind. I don't feel like much of what he said has left a strong impression, and so he's mostly at null for now. (This happens with some people, where I just don't really pay attention to their posts for whatever reason. I think it's a me problem, but hopefully I'll be able to interact with him and get a better read later.)

Jin has some really awkward lines that I think are indicative of being a newb more than anything. Reading his posts he's quite defensive and detached, and his argument in 170 is terrible, especially when he backtracks and calls his action NAI after Jaack pointed out how his argument was crap. That said, people are attacking him for his bungled read on Jaack (how it seemed that he was initially townreading him, but then he claimed he never was), but I think that that, if anything, is slightly town indicative. I'll need to see more from this slot, which unfortunately was replaced so I can't see how he continues his ideas, but right now I have the slot at null-scum. (Also looking at ssbm's first post, IIRC claiming to be confused by or not understand your predecessor's actions is slightly more likely to be scum covering up something bad. Though ironically I don't even think it was bad.)

ProHawk is really aggressive and quick to accuse, and I get the feeling that he's trying to look like he's in control while finding weaknesses in other players to attack. This could be playstyle but IMO it's a good playstyle for scum to use, especially more experienced scum playing with less experienced players. Even from his very first post, his arguments and reads don't feel completely real, and the fact that he mostly handwaved the setup discussion (read what I said about Jaack) doesn't work in his favor either. And I don't love his comments about Gamma. Looking at their interactions, I feel like there is exactly one scum in ProHawk/Jin.

My Tenshii scumread is pretty hard to explain. (Ironic, I know, since it's the strongest.) I don't like how his early posts seem to be trying to avoid scumhunting or commenting on the game, and when he does he makes several votes with really sketchy reasoning. I could see him being partners with Jin making the Jin vote and then immediately jumping off him. Although he does vote ProHawk and stays on him until Gamma asks him what his ProHawk read is, at which point he switches to townreading him and votes my slot. He also later claimed that his Jin vote was a reaction test, but he didn't mention anything about the reaction he got. Tenshii just seems like he has one or two agendas that he's pushing, and that his interactions are being guided by his mindset, rather than his mindset being guided by his interactions.

[Something_Smart]

oh yeah that's true. I don't actually remember too much about your play from that game though lol

[Something_Smart]

I couldn't resist the urge to do some math since nobody else has done it yet so I'm going to drop a couple of numbers so that the info is out there for town jic I die.

The chance that your scumteam unpicks were duplicated at least twice by a combination of other players' scumteam unpicks is 100/441 or 22.68%. (Something_Smart/ArcAngel slot)
Note that this includes the chance that 2 or more different players from yourself duplicate the same one of your scumteam unpicks twice, so the chance that the SS/AA slot is being truthful is slightly, but not much less than 22.68%, assuming Dunhallym and Gamma are both being truthful about their unpicks. We don't know yet if they were being truthful as neither of them have flipped, but this will be valuable later on if one does.

The chance that exactly one of your scumteam unpicks is duplicated at least once is 10/21 or 47.62%. (Gamma/Dunhallym) This is the chance that each of Gamma and Dunhallym are telling the truth individually (not the chance they're both being truthful together. That would be 22.68%).

I'm really tempted to vote SS based on this alone but since Dunhallym claimed her picks after SS it makes me hesitate until I'm more sure of Dun. I really did not like her attitude early on towards claiming because it is not pro-town, though she says she is not good with probabilities. If that is the case, she would not have known that filling

The Matrix™

is the best way to start the game for town. Now I'll do real reading with note-taking, I got caught up in the math before.

As of now I'm set on voting between SS and Dunhallym today based on the numbers, just have to decide which of them is telling the truth. There's one scum there, and probably not 2 unless Dun didn't realize that making both of SS's unpicks get duplicated would look suspicious. Again, this is possible if she was being real about not being good with probabilities.

pedit: No worries on the slot, glad I could join in this game because Mathia is my favorite Mafia variant

This isn't Mathia though, and those probabilities aren't accurate because it fails to take into account the fact that my slot has claimed those picks and (from an objective perspective) there's a good chance that I'm town and therefore telling the truth.

I've been trying to ignore the picks for the most part and just scumhunt; without flips, the picks can't really give us anything definitive.

I feel that Jinslot is the best informational lynch. The slot has a relatively high chance of flipping scum, and if it's town, Tenshii is very likely town.

Do you not see Tenshii/ProHawk as a potential team?

[Something_Smart]

Why?

[Something_Smart]

[Something_Smart]

I couldn't resist the urge to do some math since nobody else has done it yet so I'm going to drop a couple of numbers so that the info is out there for town jic I die.

The chance that your scumteam unpicks were duplicated at least twice by a combination of other players' scumteam unpicks is 100/441 or 22.68%. (Something_Smart/ArcAngel slot)
Note that this includes the chance that 2 or more different players from yourself duplicate the same one of your scumteam unpicks twice, so the chance that the SS/AA slot is being truthful is slightly, but not much less than 22.68%,

assuming Dunhallym and Gamma are both being truthful about their unpicks

. We don't know yet if they were being truthful as neither of them have flipped, but this will be valuable later on if one does.

The chance that exactly one of your scumteam unpicks is duplicated at least once is 10/21 or 47.62%. (Gamma/Dunhallym)

This is the chance that each of Gamma and Dunhallym are telling the truth individually

(not the chance they're both being truthful together. That would be 22.68%).

I'm really tempted to vote SS based on this alone but since

Dunhallym claimed her picks after SS

it makes me hesitate until I'm more sure of Dun. I really did not like her attitude early on towards claiming because it is not pro-town, though she says she is not good with probabilities. If that is the case, she would not have known that filling

The Matrix™

is the best way to start the game for town. Now I'll do real reading with note-taking, I got caught up in the math before.

As of now I'm set on voting between SS and Dunhallym today based on the numbers,

just have to decide which of them is telling the truth

. There's one scum there, and probably not 2 unless Dun didn't realize that making both of SS's unpicks get duplicated would look suspicious. Again, this is possible if she was being real about not being good with probabilities.

pedit: No worries on the slot, glad I could join in this game because Mathia is my favorite Mafia variant

This isn't Mathia though, and those probabilities aren't accurate because it fails to take into account the fact that my slot has claimed those picks and (from an objective perspective) there's a good chance that I'm town and therefore telling the truth.

I've been trying to ignore the picks for the most part and just scumhunt; without flips, the picks can't really give us anything definitive.

Just want to clear this up nobody gets tripped up later but the bolded in my quote is where I take into account the chances that people are lying about their picks.

Sure there's a good chance you're town (5/7), but Dunhallym and Gamma are just as likely to be town based on probability alone. No one of you 3 is more or less likely to be lying by merit of being town or not, it's the content of your claims that make you objectively more or less likely to be lying about them. Since Gamma claimed the first of you 3 it is not possible that he specifically made his claims with the intention of giving town a useless (duplicate) claim. When SS claimed, he claimed one duplicate. When Dunhallym claimed, she also claimed one duplicate, but it just so happened that her claim is what makes it more likely that SS claim was fake in the first place. scum!Dunhallym would know this which is why I will not vote you based on probability

alone

, rather, I will decide which of the 2 of you is the scum.

You can't say that since the probability one person will have both of their picks overlap is 22.68%, therefore the probability that my picks overlapped is 22.68%.
Because my slot claimed that its picks overlapped. The 22.68% is only applied blindly, without knowledge of what picks were actually claimed.
The probability of somebody's picks overlapping is much higher.

If it still doesn't make sense: imagine that I gave 100 people each a 100-sided die and told them all to roll it. Then I asked them all what they got, except that one person was secretly told to lie. Suppose now that exactly one person claims to have rolled a 100. According to your logic, the chance of them actually rolling a 100 is only 1/100, so therefore there's a 99% chance that they're lying. Which is obviously not true.

[Something_Smart]

If it still doesn't make sense: imagine that I gave 100 people each a 100-sided die and told them all to roll it. Then I asked them all what they got, except that one person was secretly told to lie. Suppose now that exactly one person claims to have rolled a 100. According to your logic, the chance of them actually rolling a 100 is only 1/100, so therefore there's a 99% chance that they're lying. Which is obviously not true.

Let me FTFY:
Without any other information from the above example, the chance of them actually having rolled the 100 they claim to have rolled is 99%, because 99 out of the 100 people that rolled the 100-sided die will tell the truth about what they rolled. Stop trying to wave this away, your location is making me think you're giving people bad math on purpose but I want to read Dunhallym first because they have more motivation to make their claim fake in the way that it was claimed

because

it makes someone else look more suspicious than them. Like I'm not sure if you're not following me or if you're intentionally twisting what I'm saying so please don't anymore. I'll show my process if you don't believe the numbers I arrived at.

I'm not waving it away; what you said is my point. The probability that my slot actually chose the two picks it claimed is 3 in 4, because 6 out of the 8 people will tell the truth about what they chose.

I'm not intentionally twisting anything; probability can be confusing. You should look up the Monty Hall problem if you don't know it already-- it's a good example of how something that seems intuitive can be totally wrong.

@Tenshii I am curious about your other reads on players, you seem to word your reads well and i like the outlook you have when approaching reads.

It would be nice to see more activity from people, i think after the chart was made the conversations for most fizzled out. What are people thinking concerning the three players that Jaack said would be a good starting place.

@ProHawk That wasnt emotional or fear-mongering, that post was me stating that i WOULD flip town and it would be a wasted day phase. Its facts, nothing emotional about it. If Jaack flipped scum later, i would be upset. Wouldnt any town be upset at the fact that they had a scumread on scum and they got lynched instead of the scum?

I was expecting to see more of an aggressive push from dunhallym onto SS if their claim was fake and intended to cast suspicion on him. Dunhallym still looks town after a reread so if she was trying to frame him it's working for me so far. Optimal play is to lynch 2 of the 3 of us (me, SS, Dunhallym). My PoE leads me to this conclusion

VOTE: SomethingSmart

We're not playing this game based on probabilities.

If he's town I'm tomorrow's lynch, if I'm lynched today I will flip town and he's tomorrow's lynch. Either is fine

So why aren't you voting yourself?

ProHawk is really aggressive and quick to accuse

I may be aggressive, not sure I agree with the quick to accuse part, but go ahead and meta me, since you like that sorta stuff?

I would like you to expound on why My/Jin's interactions are scum v town.

I've been burned enough times to know that it's usually not a good idea to use meta from games you didn't personally witness. I might take a quick look and see if anything jumps out at me though.

Regarding you and Jin, if Jin/ssbm is town then your vote and push on him was super opportunistic due to a couple newbie mistakes. However if he's scum I think the way you went about it makes it unlikely to be a bus.

AND I want to know what you disagree with my posts on Gamma - Take into consideration I have no experience with his playstyle.

Well I disagree for the obvious reason that I do know his playstyle and I know that he does that stuff as town. But the reason I don't like your interactions>
"Gamma is probably town. But he's acting so scummy! Well, I agree that he's probably town, but I kinda wanna lynch him anyway."

Is this for me?

Oh and I feel better about Gamma.

ofc it isn't, it's for Gamma giving me a non-answer about you.

and what is making you feel better about Gamma now?

gfdi
Why does everyone like to use the Amished tell? I know it's bullshit but I hate how people always invoke it.

I think it does have some validity to it, because scum are more likely to be annoyed at how their predecessor got them into a bad position than town are, although it shouldn't carry THAT much weight and the player's personality should also be taken into account. I disagree with ssbm's reasoning because his argument for why he would do it as town is essentially because he thinks his predecessor made a mistake, which doesn't explain why he would point it out.

[Something_Smart]

it is unlikely for all 3 of you to be telling the truth.

Why? If the odds of one person's picks overlapping with two other players' picks is 22.68%, then the odds that one out of eight players would have both their picks overlap is 87.23%.

[Something_Smart]

Okay ssbm I'm finally starting to get what you're saying. I still think you're putting way too much stock in the probabilities, especially given that the benefit scum get from repeating picks is fairly small.
However, you arguing to lynch in a small pool that includes you would be a risky strategy as scum.

And ZZZX I played in Maths which you modded but I don't think I've ever played with you.

[Something_Smart]

Right now I'm actually more confident in ssbm being town than in Dunhallym being town. I don't know if I'm confident enough in either one of them for ssbm's plan to work, but that doesn't matter yet because Tenshii is just scum.
VOTE: Tenshii

[Something_Smart]

Also Gamma why is your vote still on me?

[Something_Smart]

It looks like ssbm is advocating a me/Dunhallym/Jaack townblock.

If we're going to do a townblock, the one I'd be most comfortable with right now is me/Gamma/Jaack. (Although I'm a bit less confident on Gamma, but I'll reread his posts and come to a definite conclusion before agreeing to this.) If we do agree to this townblock, then we have an automatic win by lynching Dunhallym. If Dunhallym is town, then ZZZX is cleared, and if Dunhallym is scum, then Tenshii is cleared, and either way we have 3 lynches and a suspect pool of 3.

If people don't agree to this, then we should lynch Tenshii, because I'm pretty sure Tenshii is scum (and I can make a case if necessary) and Tenshii flipping scum is auto win as well.

[Something_Smart]

Well that happened.

Alright.

284 was a lie, I don't think Tenshii is scum really, was just trying to bait out a scummy reaction from SSmart/Dunhallym because from my pov there is only a 16% chance that both of them are town, and they're also optimal lynches with me. I knew I was pretty dead already. I also wanted to see who would go for the Tenshii wagon and how they would justify it. Leaning towards SSmart being more likely to be scum from the reactions.

Well, most of 284 was a lie I guess. Still self-vote and hammering in this case, because no lynch is worse than my lynch for town.
VOTE: ssbm_Kyouko

Although I don't think the reaction test was necessarily a bad idea, you probably shouldn't have self-hammered yet, because we did still have a day and if you had made this post without self-hammering we could have discussed it further, and the worst thing that can happen is that somebody else hammers you anyway.

I think the reason that he didn't like my reaction is that I went for the Tenshii wagon that he offered, but I think he neglected to look at the wider picture, which is that I was becoming increasingly turned off by his wagon and I scumread Tenshii anyway, though there didn't seem to be much support for his wagon.

I don't think the odds of Dunhallym being scum from my POV are as great as what ssbm said, but knowing that he's town, this post actually does look pretty bad:

I don't have time to expand but the speed at which ssbm changes his plan from we have to lynch between ssmart and d'un to let's trust each other and lynch Tenshii whom he said was likely town in a previous post does nothing to convince me of his innocence. I think he's trying a desperate gambit.

At the very least, I'll give ssbm the benefit of the doubt and look into Dunhallym a bit more in depth at some point.

[Something_Smart]

@Something_Smart Why were and/or are you scumreading me?

I was scumreading you, a read which I explained somewhat in 210. Your posts still don't feel that genuine, but my scumread on you is weaker than it was, because I don't like Dunhallym nearly as much and I know you two can't be partners. (I could still see you being with ProHawk though.)

SSmart a question for you : why do you think the post you quoted is bad? Tenshii misinterpreted it so I guess it wasn't very clear.

I see how Tenshii misinterpreted it, and I'm interpreting it to mean that you scumread ssbm's abrupt change of opinion (which was later revealed to be a reaction test), which I'm pretty sure is what you meant.

It's just a really shallow point being used to justify a mildly opportunistic read. Like, yes, he changed his mind abruptly. Yes, it might have been desperate. But he wasn't in so much danger that his lynch was nearly inevitable and as scum he definitely would have realized that doing a 180 with his reads and pushing a completely new person would not have been a good way to avoid being lynched. (Scum try to avoid being conspicuous, so a better plan as scum would have been to take his strongest scumread and start pushing it really hard.) In general, a town thought process is likely to be closer to, "What is he trying to accomplish with this? Let me try to figure it out" whereas a scum thought process would be "How can I make this flailing townie look bad?"

[Something_Smart]

@Anyone, Why is Jaack your townread?

My reasoning in 210 still applies. It's really just that all of his posts seem to be transparently working for the benefit of the town, in a way that would be very difficult to fake.

I see how Tenshii misinterpreted it, and I'm interpreting it to mean that you scumread ssbm's abrupt change of opinion (which was later revealed to be a reaction test), which I'm pretty sure is what you meant.

What posts are you guys talking about?

I was referring to what I didn't like about Dunhallym's 297, which details why she thought ssbm's suggestion was scummy. She mentioned how you misinterpreted her post in 303-- you thought that Dunhallym was calling you scum, rather than ssbm-- and she wanted to be sure that I interpreted it correctly. (I did.)

The math leads me to believe Dunhallym is simply the best lynch. The odds are good and I think that SS's points in 322 are good enough that my townread there has faded. But I'm not locked in there.

SS doesn't even talk about Dunhall there.

The last paragraph of 322 was referring to 297.

[Something_Smart]

His first three posts (7, 21, 36) are already discussing how to make use of the setup in a way that benefits town. Given that as scum, he very likely would have discussed whether or not he would lie about his picks, I think that would have made him hesitant to take the lead on claiming and keeping track of picks.

His theory points in 92 are similar in the way that he just puts information out there, something I think scum would be self-conscious about, and also how he admits that he doesn't support plans that go beyond D1; scum already generally plan things out and this setup makes it even more likely that they'd be planning out their moves ahead of time.

I like how in 123 he didn't attack my slot for being confused. I also like how in 293 he admitted that he was widely townread but didn't try to use it to accomplish anything, instead rejecting a proposed townblock with him in it. (And one that he easily could have accepted as scum given that he was townreading me and Gamma.)

It's a bit hard to explain, but his posts just give off a sincere-town vibe that I've found almost always comes from town. (Except for Nahdia. ) The best other example that I can think of off the top of my head is Transcend in this game.

[Something_Smart]

@SSmart

It's just a really shallow point being used to justify a mildly opportunistic read. Like, yes, he changed his mind abruptly. Yes, it might have been desperate. But he wasn't in so much danger that his lynch was nearly inevitable and as scum he definitely would have realized that doing a 180 with his reads and pushing a completely new person would not have been a good way to avoid being lynched. (Scum try to avoid being conspicuous, so a better plan as scum would have been to take his strongest scumread and start pushing it really hard.) In general, a town thought process is likely to be closer to, "What is he trying to accomplish with this? Let me try to figure it out" whereas a scum thought process would be "How can I make this flailing townie look bad?"

There are 3 points I’d like to answer:
1) “It's just a really shallow point being used to justify a mildly opportunistic read. “
2) “he wasn't in so much danger that his lynch was nearly inevitable”
3) “In general, a town thought process is likely to be closer to, "What is he trying to accomplish with this? Let me try to figure it out" whereas a scum thought process would be "How can I make this flailing townie look bad?"

1) I had expressed suspicions on Jin/ssbm for a long time already and had stated in a previous post my intent to vote him, so no that was not a justification, I was simply stating that ssbm’s post hadn’t changed my mind. I won’t go back to my reasons to suspect him, reading my posts should be enough.

It wasn't necessary to post that if your whole point was that it didn't change your mind. You did, at the very least, use that post as an additional reason to suspect him, and a shallow reason at that.

2) When ssbm made his post and the Tenshii vote he was at l-2. I had made it clear that I meant to vote him, and Gamma also had said that Jin was the best lynch. There was no real alternative up there was no real case against Arc, and my wagon never really took up. Besides, I thought there was a connection between you and ssbm. I never said so in the thread because I didn’t have the time to make the case and thought it was pretty pointless anyway before we had a scum flip.

It was definitely looking likely that he would be lynched, but that doesn't mean that he had no shot at changing the lynch onto someone else. Your point was predicated on his action being something that scum would do as a desperate bid to avoid being lynched, which I suppose I understand how someone could think that but to me it seems like the exact opposite of what desperate scum would do.

3) You are correct that I probably didn’t give it enough thoughts. Truth is that my suspicion level had reached the point where I was tunneling in spite of my efforts to keep an open mind. But for the second part, why would scum me need to “make this flailing townie look bad”?

The most obvious reason that comes to mind is to make sure that your mislynch doesn't slip through your fingers. If you could drive home the idea of his reaction test being scum just completely losing it, then that would be the last nail in his coffin and it would likely destroy his credibility.

First, he already looked bad, and I don’t see how my post made him look worse. Second, scum me would have known that he would turn town so why stick my neck out and risk to look bad when I could just have sat back?

You don't see how you made him look worse? You accused him of being incoherent scum. And like I said, when momentum on scum's planned mislynch seems to be stalling, scum will often assume a much more active role out of fear that the wagon will disappear or switch.

Especially since lynching Tenshii would actually have been even better for scum me than lynching ssbm (it left the original pool of 3 and Tenshii can’t be my partner).

This is a fair point. But just because it would be better in a vacuum doesn't mean it would be the better strategy; there are a lot of other factors to consider.

Some questions for you:
- Since “In general, a town thought process is likely to be closer to, "What is he trying to accomplish with this? Let me try to figure it out”: what did you think ssbm was trying to achieve?

I thought that ssbm was more likely town due in part to how stupid that move would be as scum, and I thought that if town he would be trying to identify town and scum, and maybe save himself in the process.

- You said Tenshii was your main suspect in your first catch up post(#210) but only voted for him in #311. Why did you wait that long before casting a vote?

I'm generally hesitant to vote, especially soon after replacing in because I know that my reads are often bad and sometimes change a lot. (In this case, Tenshii did very little in those hundred posts to change that read.) Besides, there's generally not much point to a single vote that nobody else agrees with, so I only voted Tenshii when it looked like an actual wagon might develop on him.

- You said in your catch up that “I feel like there is exactly one scum in ProHawk/Jin.” What are your actual thoughts on Prohawk.

Hmm, I'm gonna quickly go look at the interactions that prompted me to say that.
~~~
Okay, so 119 and 129 look pretty nasty knowing that Jin is town. I haven't got any super icky feelings from his recent posts (though I do have a question for him about 332, see below), so he's a moderate scum lean. I could see him being paired with either you or Tenshii.

Looking back I don't like how Something Smart sheeped ssbm on that idea of lynching Tenshii
VOTE: SSmart

Except I didn't do that?

@ProHawk: would you be willing to vote Dunhallym if you think she has a good chance of being scum?

[Something_Smart]

sorry guys

I'll respond to stuff soon

[Something_Smart]

Some questions for you:
- Since “In general, a town thought process is likely to be closer to, "What is he trying to accomplish with this? Let me try to figure it out”: what did you think ssbm was trying to achieve?

I thought that ssbm was more likely town due in part to how stupid that move would be as scum, and I thought that if town he would be trying to identify town and scum, and maybe save himself in the process.

Those are the three posts you made between ssbm post and his lynch:

Right now I'm actually more confident in ssbm being town than in Dunhallym being town. I don't know if I'm confident enough in either one of them for ssbm's plan to work, but that doesn't matter yet because Tenshii is just scum.
VOTE: Tenshii

Also Gamma why is your vote still on me?

It looks like ssbm is advocating a me/Dunhallym/Jaack townblock.

If we're going to do a townblock, the one I'd be most comfortable with right now is me/Gamma/Jaack. (Although I'm a bit less confident on Gamma, but I'll reread his posts and come to a definite conclusion before agreeing to this.) If we do agree to this townblock, then we have an automatic win by lynching Dunhallym. If Dunhallym is town, then ZZZX is cleared, and if Dunhallym is scum, then Tenshii is cleared, and either way we have 3 lynches and a suspect pool of 3.

If people don't agree to this, then we should lynch Tenshii, because I'm pretty sure Tenshii is scum (and I can make a case if necessary) and Tenshii flipping scum is auto win as well.

If you thought that ssbm was likely town and thought he was “trying to identify town and scum”, and you were really that sure that Tenshii was scum, then why didn’t you try to convince people, and in particular Jaack as you hard townread him, and Galmma, your other townread, who both voted ssbm at that time?

Because they probably wouldn't have changed and deadline wagons usually aren't good anyway.
Because I don't usually have particular interest in convincing other people that I'm right, and I don't have a lot of faith in my reads anyway.
And also because I was busy and didn't want to waste the time considering the first two reasons.

- You said Tenshii was your main suspect in your first catch up post(#210) but only voted for him in #311. Why did you wait that long before casting a vote?

I'm generally hesitant to vote, especially soon after replacing in because I know that my reads are often bad and sometimes change a lot. (In this case, Tenshii did very little in those hundred posts to change that read.) Besides, there's generally not much point to a single vote that nobody else agrees with, so I only voted Tenshii when it looked like an actual wagon might develop on him.

I was mistaken, you voted in #287, but it doesn’t really change my point.
I disagree with you. To me voting is committing to your read. It’s fine to go with FOS if you already have a vote somewhere else as you cannot vote two players at the same time, but you never had a vote on anyone. Town shouldn’t be concerned about going against the tide and I don’t remember you trying to push Tenshii to get a better read on him. BTW I’d love to see your case on Tenshii now (see #291 that I quoted above).

This said, I'm really considering voting you at this point (yeah you can call me a hypocrite after what I've just written) but I have a hard time sorting things out as to whether my suspicions come from the fact I know you're wrong or if it's deeper, and for this I need a full rererad.

Okay, it's how I play, you can play differently if you want.
It's not being concerned with going against the tide; it's literally common sense. A lynch can't happen with only one vote. And up until I voted, nobody else had shown any interest in voting there.
And I can still make a case on Tenshii if you want, but he's not my strongest scumread anymore.

@ProHawk: would you be willing to vote Dunhallym if you think she has a good chance of being scum?

Is this a trick question?

No, it's not a trick question. Vote Dunhallym if you think she's scum. We're not lynching me or ZZZX today.

@SSmart

Could you try to explain your townread on Gamma, i-e point specific things that you think make him likely town?

I'll get to this when I have some time to reread (probably Sunday). It was mostly meta and gut having correctly gut-read him in a previous game.

[Something_Smart]

Inactivity is killing this game.
Are you all having finals?

hey how'd ya guess

@SSmart

Some questions for you:
- Since “In general, a town thought process is likely to be closer to, "What is he trying to accomplish with this? Let me try to figure it out”: what did you think ssbm was trying to achieve?

I thought that ssbm was more likely town due in part to how stupid that move would be as scum, and I thought that if town he would be trying to identify town and scum, and maybe save himself in the process.

Those are the three posts you made between ssbm post and his lynch:

Right now I'm actually more confident in ssbm being town than in Dunhallym being town. I don't know if I'm confident enough in either one of them for ssbm's plan to work, but that doesn't matter yet because Tenshii is just scum.
VOTE: Tenshii

Also Gamma why is your vote still on me?

It looks like ssbm is advocating a me/Dunhallym/Jaack townblock.

If we're going to do a townblock, the one I'd be most comfortable with right now is me/Gamma/Jaack. (Although I'm a bit less confident on Gamma, but I'll reread his posts and come to a definite conclusion before agreeing to this.) If we do agree to this townblock, then we have an automatic win by lynching Dunhallym. If Dunhallym is town, then ZZZX is cleared, and if Dunhallym is scum, then Tenshii is cleared, and either way we have 3 lynches and a suspect pool of 3.

If people don't agree to this, then we should lynch Tenshii, because I'm pretty sure Tenshii is scum (and I can make a case if necessary) and Tenshii flipping scum is auto win as well.

If you thought that ssbm was likely town and thought he was “trying to identify town and scum”, and you were really that sure that Tenshii was scum, then why didn’t you try to convince people, and in particular Jaack as you hard townread him, and Galmma, your other townread, who both voted ssbm at that time?

Because they probably wouldn't have changed and deadline wagons usually aren't good anyway.
Because I don't usually have particular interest in convincing other people that I'm right, and I don't have a lot of faith in my reads anyway.
And also because I was busy and didn't want to waste the time considering the first two reasons.

ssbm did his post 2 days before the deadline, and you brought earlier against me the fact that he could have changed the tide and that it was not a desperate move. Besides, if you really suspected Tenshii then you cannot say that this particular deadline wagon was not good! The "I can make a case on Tenshii if necessary" is particularly bad IMO.
As for the part about not trying to convince others, either you are telling the truth and then either we have a really different idea of what mafia is about or you are being dishonest.

He could have changed the tide. But if people weren't scumreading Tenshii then the Tenshii wagon would have failed. And by deadline wagon I mean a wagon where a bunch of people go, "Well, Tenshii isn't my top scumread, but I could compromise there" right before deadline. That would have likely happened if I had tried hard to shift the wagon if he had been town. If he were scum, then it probably would have resulted in an awkward wagon split and probably would have fallen on either nobody or ssbm. The "I can make a case" was just me showing that I can back up my reads, but don't want to unless somebody actually cares.

And yeah, we probably do have a different idea of what mafia is about. But I'm like this all the time.

- You said Tenshii was your main suspect in your first catch up post(#210) but only voted for him in #311. Why did you wait that long before casting a vote?

I'm generally hesitant to vote, especially soon after replacing in because I know that my reads are often bad and sometimes change a lot. (In this case, Tenshii did very little in those hundred posts to change that read.) Besides, there's generally not much point to a single vote that nobody else agrees with, so I only voted Tenshii when it looked like an actual wagon might develop on him.

I was mistaken, you voted in #287, but it doesn’t really change my point.
I disagree with you. To me voting is committing to your read. It’s fine to go with FOS if you already have a vote somewhere else as you cannot vote two players at the same time, but you never had a vote on anyone. Town shouldn’t be concerned about going against the tide and I don’t remember you trying to push Tenshii to get a better read on him. BTW I’d love to see your case on Tenshii now (see #291 that I quoted above).

This said, I'm really considering voting you at this point (yeah you can call me a hypocrite after what I've just written) but I have a hard time sorting things out as to whether my suspicions come from the fact I know you're wrong or if it's deeper, and for this I need a full rererad.

Okay, it's how I play, you can play differently if you want.
It's not being concerned with going against the tide; it's literally common sense. A lynch can't happen with only one vote. And up until I voted, nobody else had shown any interest in voting there.
And I can still make a case on Tenshii if you want, but he's not my strongest scumread anymore.

Putting a single vote on someone who is not suspected just before the deadline is indeed not going to achieve anything. But this is not true earlier in the day, and IIRC you replaced 4 or 5 days before the deadline so if you really suspected Tenshii there was no reason not to vote. Besides I remember that I at least commented that I had had similar thoughts on Tenshii after your original post.
And yes, I want to see your case on Tenshii. The "I'd love" I used before was a polite way to say that. I don't care if he's not anymore your top scumread.

I think that's just a matter of preference.
And ok, I'll show you what about Tenshii's D1 I didn't like.

@ProHawk: would you be willing to vote Dunhallym if you think she has a good chance of being scum?

Is this a trick question?

No, it's not a trick question. Vote Dunhallym if you think she's scum. We're not lynching me or ZZZX today.

Why? Can you give me a good reason we are not voting any of you today? If it's based on numbers (IIRC you said yesterday "we're not lynching based on statistics" or something like that but whatever) then lynching you makes as much sense as lynching me: considering everyone's POV as town, for you and Jaack, I'm more likely to be scum, for Gamma and me, you are more likely and for the rest we are equivalent. If it's based on other elements, then tell me what has ZZZX done to be out of the scumpool?
Additional questions: if I'm today's lynch in your opinion, then why are you not voting me? If there are opther possibilities in your mind then who and why?

We're not lynching me because I'm town and because my alignment is usually painfully obvious before too long. (At least, it's obvious to me that I'm playing my towngame or my scumgame, but I think that most other people will find it pretty obvious as well.)
We're not lynching ZZZX because he's probably town, and because there are far better choices.
I think right now it's down to you or ProHawk, or maaaaaybe Gamma pending a reread there.

@SSmart

Could you try to explain your townread on Gamma, i-e point specific things that you think make him likely town?

I'll get to this when I have some time to reread (probably Sunday). It was mostly meta and gut having correctly gut-read him in a previous game.

OK.

So I've been waiting for your answer before making a decision but VOTE: SSmart
Part of the reasons are stated in this post but to clarify: you said yesterday that your main scumread was Tenshii but you never really tried to get him lynched or to move the tide to him.

It's not always the responsibility of town to convince others to vote with him. And it's weird that you say this when you scumread ssbm but didn't vote him until Tenshii "reminded" you that you ought to vote?

You now say that you understood that ssbm was trying to evaluate town/scum with his play but when I read your posts I don't get the impression that you saw anything else in his post than the "vote Tenshii".

This is either a massive reading comprehension failure or a flat-out lie.

Additionally, I feel that your push on me is more "Dun has a high probability of being scum, and I can use this post against her" rather than you really trying to get a feel on me. I had this impression from your first answer but sisn't want to vote on it as I'm obviously biased on the matter, but your lack of further answer confirms this impression.

I mean, that basically is what it is. You do have a high probability of being scum, and you made a bad post, and I'm pressuring you because of it.

Spoiler: Tenshii

Keeping in mind, this is a past-case, that I don't fully believe in before, about why I scumread Tenshii at the end of Day 1.
73 was kinda awkward, as in I don't know if town would feel the need to point it out.
His Jin vote in 105 has really stretchy reasoning, which would normally be par for the course on page 5 but he doesn't handle it like he knows it's weak or like he knows it's pretty early or anything.
127 final paragraph gave me bad feels, being defensive without being overtly so and making a point of articulating that he doesn't townread Jaack.
ProHawk vote in 128 isn't terrible, but he doesn't stick with it at all, when it seems like his reasoning is exposed as flimsy. (Even if it was, the post quoted-- 121-- is indeed a terrible post.)
And then, while he's still voting ProHawk, he sheeps his townread in 157 to conclude that Gamma is town too.

Spoiler: Gamma

+points for immediately talking about the setup (14, 16, 18).
Apparently real vote on ProHawk in 30 because he "doesn't feel very towny."
Then he votes Jaack in 102 for "pushing SAJ over NAI stuff." Which is funny because in that post he is pushing Jaack over NAI stuff
Comments that Jaack/Jin could be SvS before looking at chart-- I don't know how to feel about this
155 throws some shade on my slot for having duplicated picks
159 looks characteristic of his towngame; it's probably not something he would think to try as scum but it looks like he's doing genuine solving.
In 213 he defines his play in Normal Idea Mafia (where he was scum) as "don't think you can be wrong." Which means that if he's scum then he switched up his strategy significantly and was very aware of doing so.
Wants to lynch Jin for information, seeing as a townflip would make Tenshii town because he townread ProHawk. When I asked him about his ProHawk read he basically brushed me off.
240 is kinda awkward, I know that Gamma in general is more awkward as town than as scum, I don't know how that applies here though
And then like Dunhallym, he doesn't move his vote until reminded to do so (in 289).
He rejects a townblock containing him in 292, which is a pretty towny move.

So my read here is weaker than it was, because I don't know how much there is that he couldn't fake as scum. But it's stronger than the spoiler makes it sound, because there is a significant gut/meta component that doesn't really come out in a PBPA.

But Gamma still hasn't explained his ProHawk townread. @Gamma can you explain why you did townread ProHawk, and if you still do?

After doing all of that rereading, I'm even more confused as to where I want to vote. I agree with Jaack that Tenshii/ProHawk is very possible, and if I am wrong about Dunhallym then that's where I'd want to go. But some of Dunhallym's points on me are pretty bad and Gamma's vote on me isn't stellar either.

Also

happy birthday Creature!

[Something_Smart]

We should probably stop this back-and-forth soon, and I agree with you that I want to hear what other people think of it.

@SSmart
OK for the Tenshii case and thanks for the Gamma points. About the first part of your post, just one thing I want to answer: maybe you're right on you being obviously town but this is my second game here and I've never played with any of you. So meta is not going to help me. I've tried to have a look at previous town or scum for a few of you but honestly I don't have the time or energy to do it seriously enough to get a real feel.
Other points I want to answer to:

It's not always the responsibility of town to convince others to vote with him. And it's weird that you say this when you scumread ssbm but didn't vote him until Tenshii "reminded" you that you ought to vote?

If you reread my ISO completely and are being honest, you'll see why I hadn't yet voted ssbm: I didn't want to put him at l-1 yet in the post where I said to consider my vote on him, then someone else (Tenshii IIRC) put him at l-1 and I didn't want to hammer yet either. I only voted after ssbm was back at l-2.

That's a reasonable explanation, although I think hesitance to put someone at L-1 in a micro (especially in this setup) is somewhat uncalled for, especially for someone who believes that one should always be voting on one's reads.

You now say that you understood that ssbm was trying to evaluate town/scum with his play but when I read your posts I don't get the impression that you saw anything else in his post than the "vote Tenshii".

This is either a massive reading comprehension failure or a flat-out lie.

I've quoted your three posts. You also talked about the "town block" idea, but I don't see anything that indicates you had guessed ssbm's true intents and not taken his post at face value (that's what I meant but didn't chose my words well). If I'm dumb or suck at English comprehension then so be it.

Oh, that makes more sense. So what you're saying is that I thought that ssbm meant what he said and didn't realize he was doing a reaction test. Which is definitely true. But you obviously didn't realize it either; in fact, you took his read flip-flop as another argument against him.

Additionally, I feel that your push on me is more "Dun has a high probability of being scum, and I can use this post against her" rather than you really trying to get a feel on me. I had this impression from your first answer but sisn't want to vote on it as I'm obviously biased on the matter, but your lack of further answer confirms this impression.

I mean, that basically is what it is. You do have a high probability of being scum, and you made a bad post, and I'm pressuring you because of it.

You miss my point here: I don't have a problem with you pressuring a post you think is bad. I have a problem because I think you are not using this pressure to evaluate me but rather that you found a pretext to suspect me and are using it.

Now, I'd like to hear what others think of our exchange because I have too many scumreads right now.
More to come

I have been using the pressure to evaluate you. I just haven't been doing it publicly. I've been taking the stuff you're saying into account and honestly it's leaving me conflicted. Some of the things you say sound genuine and others sound like you're intentionally twisting facts to support your argument. So I'm still working through my read on you.

I brlieve I've already explained, but Pro's immense desire to lynch me doesn't feel scum-motivated. I get it can be, but I just don't think it is.

Where did he show an intense desire to lynch you? It seems right now that he has an intense desire to lynch ZZZX.

No, it's not a trick question. Vote Dunhallym if you think she's scum. We're not lynching me or ZZZX today.

According to the matrix, she has a good chance of flipping scum. According to play, I don't think she will be flipping scum. So no, not voting there... whats your case there? Why not ZZZZX? Why do you have a town read there?

Uhh... either she does have a good chance of flipping scum or she doesn't. In 332 you put her in the same tier as ZZZX, and now you want to lynch ZZZX.
And regarding my townreads, his play has been low effort, but it doesn't look like busy scum just posting to keep afloat. And I also think his "wait this is a nightless? " was genuine.

We're not lynching ZZZX because he's probably town

This is a false statement.

Even if you disagree, his only likely partner is Dunhallym. It's the same reason we're not lynching Tenshii today. If you scumread ZZZX, vote Dunhallym.

Wait, is ZZZX getting replaced?

He was on V/LA until today.

[Something_Smart]

Smart, why aren't you voting?

I think the answer to this question is fairly obvious. I hadn't decided where I wanted to vote yet. See below though

@SSmart you said this

I thought that ssbm was more likely town due in part to how stupid that move would be as scum, and I thought that if town he would be trying to identify town and scum, and maybe save himself in the process.

I understood it as meaning that you had understood ssbm's post as a reaction test. That's why I made the point that to me your posts don't show that.

No, actually, I thought his post was real, and I thought it represented a true change of opinion. Something that scum rarely do because they want to seem consistent, but sometimes townies do have sudden ideas or realizations that cause abrupt read changes. So that's why I said that.

In a game where bussing is bad, that's kinda what I'd expect from scum.

This is coming from a guy whose reads completely avoid him voting for his partners.

Wow is this a leading post.

Contrary to my memory, ProHawk was never scumreading Tenshii.

Prohawk, what are your thoughts on Tenshii?

I remember feeling like Tenshii's push on me was a bit scummy, but while engaging him that feeling wore off. I can go re-read some stuff, but not getting the scum-vibes there.

I'm just going to leave this here....

Jaack, your vote on me is bad. Your reasoning is bad. And its all based on an associative that you have NO CLUE about. Oh look, Tenshii reincarnate wants to lynch me. YOU'RE RIGHT! We totes decided to hard bus eachother because.... new guy!

VOTE: Jaack

Lying scum.

And this is even worse.

Okay, I might as well put my cards on the table. I feel better about Dunhallym after our exchange, and nothing much had happened to change my scumread on ProHawk until these quoted posts which were terrible. BlackVoid writing Jaack, Gamma and ZZZX off as town makes me more than a little uncomfortable, as those are my townreads too so I wonder if he's either trying to appeal to me or keep me as a townbeard to protect his buddy Gamma. But I think no matter how you slice it, it comes down to this, since a townflip would give us a ton of information and a scumflip would almost solve the game.
VOTE: ProHawk

[Something_Smart]

What the hell is terrible about the posts. You don't just get to say GARBAGE and that makes it trash.

Here.

Gosh SS that post takes the cake for worst post ever. Are you dumb town or just scum?

416 is begging the question because you're assuming Jaack is scum (because if he's town then he has no partners) and using it to prove that he's scum.

423 is assuming that just because somebody is wrong, they have to be lying scum. Not to mention that you're quoting a post that came before BV's catchup and trying to say that it's a bad post because it failed to take into account something from BV's catchup.

[Something_Smart]

Jaack is my scum-read, and is likely scum. He is setting up his endgame by claiming I am scum because of scum-team matrix associatives before flips.

That's exactly what you're doing though.

He isn't lying scum because he is wrong, he is lying scum because he is using the lie to make me look bad.

No he isn't? He admitted that his case was weakened by his error (not lie!) but also that it brought up a new point.
Which is a valid point. Why didn't you ever call him out on the fact that he was wrong about you scumreading Tenshii?

[Something_Smart]

BlackVoid writing Jaack, Gamma and ZZZX off as town makes me more than a little uncomfortable, as those are my townreads too so I wonder if he's either trying to appeal to me or keep me as a townbeard to protect his buddy Gamma.

Why does it make you uncomfortable? Why are you voting Prohawk if you Gamma and I are partners?

Because you almost immediately called three slots out of six unequivocally town. And I don't think you are scum with Gamma, but I think that that would be a great way to interact with your partner if you were scum, and the only one among those three who could be your partner is Gamma.

[Something_Smart]

Okay, that's fair. What changed your mind on Dun? Who do you think is the scumteam?

I might be able to find specifics if you wanted them, but the general way Dunhallym approached my pressure seemed like town trying simultaneously to defend against accusations and figure out the motivation of the person making them. She didn't really appeal to me at all, nor did she seem afraid that other people would catch on to what I was saying, as scum would be.

However, this then presents a quandary because I don't really see you or her particularly being ProHawk's partner, but I'm pretty confident that he is scum. (I guess if I had to lean one way, I'd lean you.)

No he isn't? He admitted that his case was weakened by his error (not lie!) but also that it brought up a new point.
Which is a valid point. Why didn't you ever call him out on the fact that he was wrong about you scumreading Tenshii?

Are you really this dense? THE LIE IS THAT HE IS SAYING I NEVER SCUMREAD TENSHII WHEN I POSTED THAT HE DID SOME SCUMMY STUFF WHICH IS WHERE HE SAID I HAD A "WEAK" SCUMREAD ON HIM.

So he's lying about a fact that makes his case weaker? And using that to push you?

Well, this is the second game in a row someone told me I was playing for the scum - with very similar wording even.

In that game, you were confirmed town. So that means that ProHawk is approaching you as if he knows you are town. Food for thought.

[Something_Smart]

Lol.

I don't have super strong feelings about either Dunhallym or BV, but I'm leaning Dunhallym because of the interaction I had with ProHawk regarding Dunhallym yesterday.
Basically, ProHawk said that his scumreads were me, ZZZX, and Dunhallym, and he voted ZZZX. I asked him, if you scumread Dunhallym why not vote Dunhallym? (Because I did scumread Dunhallym at that point and I townread ZZZX, and I thought that ProHawk/Dunhallym was a possible team.) He responded by saying that he only scumread Dunhallym because of probability, but that he didn't think she was scum. I kept pressing him, and he kind of brushed it off. Then he produces a readlist with Dunhallym as his top townread. (He also had Tenshii second, which means that regardless of who his partner is, he was townreading them by the end. Something to note.)

I'm going to continue later with game-relevant questions when I get home but I do want to get to know your playstyles a bit so I can get a baseline for both of you.

@Dunnhallym & Smart, can you talk about your playing history and playstyles as both alignments a bit. For example, how long you've been playing mafia, what alignment you prefer, your survival rate and winrate as mafia (approximation will do if you don't keep track), mislynch rate as town, and how accurate you think your reads are when you are town?

It'll help me profile you as players when I try to read you in-depth.

You can look at my wiki for precise winrates and lynch rates. But I can answer in imprecise terms:
I've played F2F mafia for 3 or 4 years and forum mafia for 1 year (I haven't played forum mafia on any other site besides mafiascum). I prefer town, mostly because my scumgame has become such a mess (here is my most recent scumgame, and you can read my ISO and laugh at how pitifully I did). My scum survival rate is bad; I haven't lived to see day 2 in either of my recent scumgames. My scum winrate is not as bad, but usually because I get carried hard (I won both of those games only because my teammates were really good.) As town, I usually either get lynched and lose or survive and win. I'd say my reads are decent on average with a pretty high variability (sometimes they're very good, sometimes they're awful).

I see how Tenshii misinterpreted it, and I'm interpreting it to mean that you scumread ssbm's abrupt change of opinion (which was later revealed to be a reaction test), which I'm pretty sure is what you meant.

What posts are you guys talking about?

I was referring to what I didn't like about Dunhallym's 297, which details why she thought ssbm's suggestion was scummy. She mentioned how you misinterpreted her post in 303-- you thought that Dunhallym was calling you scum, rather than ssbm-- and

she wanted to be sure that I interpreted it correctly.

(I did.)

(emphasis added)
@Smart - Why did you believe this post from Dun was intended for you?

That was referring to the last line of 320, which was clearly intended for me and was trying to make sure that I had interpreted 297 correctly.

[Something_Smart]

I plan to do at least an ISO read of ProHawk, BlackVoid, and Dunhallym at some point, and probably also a full reread of the game. But I'd probably have to sit down and devote at least an hour to it, and I don't think I'll be able to do that in the next few days because of Christmas. Hopefully I'll have the time and concentration to do that on Monday or Tuesday.
But I can still respond to stuff in the meantime.

Smart,one last thing: I see what you're refering to but all prohawk said in that post was that from his PoV ZZZX, you and me were the most likely scum based on probabilities, not that he scumread us. At least that's how I understood his post.

He didn't say it was based on probabilities, he just said most likely scum, which I understood to mean taking probabilities and reads into account. Even if he never actually intended to act as though he scumread you, it still smells of distancing to say something like that and make it sound like it is somewhat serious, while being able to argue that that was only probability-based and that he townread you by play if there was any sort of real pressure on you. (Which is pretty much what he did.)

I also just realized that I never explained a little reaction test I did earlier. Dunhallym pointed it out in 505, but my 397 to ProHawk, which claimed that Dunhallym was the only likely ZZZX partner and therefore charged him to vote Dunhallym, was valid only from my POV. I knew that, and it was part of my reason for not considering ZZZX that day, but I wanted to see how ProHawk would respond to arguments stating that he ought to be voting Dunhallym, even if those arguments were invalid.

As it happened, he didn't make any effort to demonstrate that my argument was invalid (by saying that from his POV, me/ZZZX was also a valid team). Instead, he just brushed me off with an "Umm what?" and completely dropped the subject.

Dun, I didn't vote for Prohawk because of anyone else's case. It was a combination of POE and Prohawk's scummy play. Jaack was town obviously (you agreed as well). I explained why I townread ZZZX and Gamma. That just left you, Smart, and Prohawk. Smart was the towniest and Prohawk was the scummiest of the three of you. I found a lot of his arguments and stances to be fake. I didn't make a case on him because I thought I could get him lynched either way but if momentum had stalled, I would have written one out.

Smart may have voted before me but that was only because I was still catching up. I committed to voting Prohawk first. I've wondered if Smart saw that and put down a vote to look better than me in comparison. Anyways, I'm town and if you are, we've got today to explore the possibility of Smart being scum which I'm going to do when I re-read the thread.

How exactly are you defining "committing to vote"? Because generally in my experience, saying you will vote someone is not committing, whereas actually voting is making the commitment to the read. (Now you definitely did say that you would probably vote ProHawk, but IIRC you kept your options open until your catchup was done. Of course as scum it still would have been an unexpected tactic to bus immediately upon replacing in, but it would have been a planned bus that you still could have gotten out of if you'd wanted to.)

Okay, that's fair. What changed your mind on Dun? Who do you think is the scumteam?

I might be able to find specifics if you wanted them, but the general way Dunhallym approached my pressure seemed like town trying simultaneously to defend against accusations and figure out the motivation of the person making them. She didn't really appeal to me at all, nor did she seem afraid that other people would catch on to what I was saying, as scum would be.

However, this then presents a quandary because I don't really see you or her particularly being ProHawk's partner, but I'm pretty confident that he is scum. (I guess if I had to lean one way, I'd lean you.)

Why did you say that you didn't see me as "particularly Prohawk partner" In that post and why we're you leaning BV then? What made you change your mind today as you now lean towards me?

Reading you is annoying because most of your posts sound fairly genuine and that's why I didn't want to see you as a ProHawk partner (and individually, I'd want to call you town more than BV). But, most of the other factors point toward you-- particularly ProHawk's attitude toward you when I pressured him to vote you and the fact that you fought against ProHawk's lynch while BV voted him.

No he isn't? He admitted that his case was weakened by his error (not lie!) but also that it brought up a new point.
Which is a valid point. Why didn't you ever call him out on the fact that he was wrong about you scumreading Tenshii?

Are you really this dense? THE LIE IS THAT HE IS SAYING I NEVER SCUMREAD TENSHII WHEN I POSTED THAT HE DID SOME SCUMMY STUFF WHICH IS WHERE HE SAID I HAD A "WEAK" SCUMREAD ON HIM.

So he's lying about a fact that makes his case weaker? And using that to push you?

Well, this is the second game in a row someone told me I was playing for the scum - with very similar wording even.

In that game, you were confirmed town. So that means that ProHawk is approaching you as if he knows you are town. Food for thought.

What thoughts does it bring?

I don't know if someone would treat their partner that way, so I think if anything it points more to BV being town.

[Something_Smart]

I hope everybody had a merry Christmas

@Smart

There are a few things I 'd like you to answer:
In #359 you said Tenshii was no longer your top scumread. I initially understood it as meaning me as your top scum read. Was it the case or were you thinking of one or several other players?

I think at that point you were my top scumread, yes.

Then in #372 you say this about the lynch

I think right now it's down to you or ProHawk, or maaaaaybe Gamma pending a reread there.

and here is the explanation:

I agree with Jaack that Tenshii/ProHawk is very possible, and if I am wrong about Dunhallym then that's where I'd want to go. But some of Dunhallym's points on me are pretty bad and Gamma's vote on me isn't stellar either.

. Why did you consider Gamma but not Tenshii as a possible lynch since you previously had Gamma as likely town and Tenshii as likely scum?

I was townreading Gamma at that point, but I had gotten a little nervous by some of the things he had said, and wanted to reread him. (It didn't end up becoming necessary.)

And this is your vote in #432:

Okay, I might as well put my cards on the table. I feel better about Dunhallym after our exchange, and nothing much had happened to change my scumread on ProHawk until these quoted posts which were terrible. BlackVoid writing

Jaack, Gamma and ZZZX

off as town makes me more than a little uncomfortable, as

those are my townreads too

so I wonder if he's either trying to appeal to me or

keep me as a townbeard to protect his buddy Gamma

. But I think no matter how you slice it, it comes down to this, since a townflip would give us a ton of information and a scumflip would almost solve the game.
VOTE: ProHawk

underlined is mine. You say you townread Gamma but suspect BV of keeping you to protect his buddy Gamma? Yet you don't seem that interested in voting BV. Why?

I only said "buddy Gamma" because Gamma was the only one in that group who could be his buddy, and I felt like if he was scum he would probably have named his partner in that group. (And also due to the above.)

Also, when did you go from scumreading me to this statement in your last post

Reading you is annoying because most of your posts sound fairly genuine and that's why I didn't want to see you as a ProHawk partner (and individually, I'd want to call you town more than BV).

?

I still scumread you; the point of that line is that individually you're townier than BV but your associatives with ProHawk are a lot worse than his.

[Something_Smart]

Sorry sorry!
Been working this week, should be able to do stuff this weekend.

[Something_Smart]

Working on a post, I should hopefully have it by this evening. (Sorry I haven't been contributing much; there's just a lot going on in my life right now.)

[Something_Smart]

Okay, finally getting around to looking at some ISOs.

ProHawk/Dunhallym notable interactions:

Just noticed that Dunhallym and ProHawk RVS'ed each other; if anything that strikes me as RVS distancing, especially since ProHawk makes his vote out to sound serious but changes it to Gamma 13 posts later.

PH and Dun continue to debate about whether it's a good idea to share picks. It's very likely that scum discussed what stances they would take in the scum PT, and so this interaction is something that probably would have happened regardless of Dunhallym's alignment. (Although noteworthy is that Dunhallym promises to come back with a better argument but then instead of doing so changes her mind and shares her picks.)

Dunhallym's 87 is a point in favor of Dunhallym being town and BlackVoid being scum. It would be gutsy to Dunhallym to call out her partner for treating her differently from another player. On the other hand, it would make sense for a townie to call out one scum for ignoring their partner like that.

In 119, ProHawk townreads Dunhallym out of the blue, for reasons that amount to "she's scumhunting like town and she's genuine."

ProHawk then makes a whole bunch of posts, none of which mention Dunhallym. Dunhallym makes 174, where she calls ProHawk lean-town, and 176, which strikes me as a bit partner-defendy, especially since ZZZX made a comment that wasn't necessarily negative.

After ssbm's lynch, Dunhallym's read on ProHawk graduates to a full-on townread in 320.

Then begins the interaction that I think is the most critical; where ProHawk claims that Dunhallym has a good chance of being scum (332) and then fumbles when pushed to act on that.

As Dunhallym pointed out, it's likely that he just meant based purely on probabilities. But that doesn't make his reaction to my 339 any less awkward; clearly I misunderstood what he meant, but rather than correcting my misconception he tries to play my suggestion off as ridiculous in 348. I asked him again in 359, and he shrugged me off again.

In 374 Dunhallym still townreads ProHawk despite admitting a possible connection between him and Tenshii, saying that she doesn't want to lynch someone just on a partner connection.

She tries to figure out why Tenshii and ProHawk are townreading each other in 377 but never really followed up on it.

402 is ProHawk's response to my 397, where I gave ProHawk an argument for why he should vote Dunhallym that was intentionally only valid from my POV. He didn't vote Dunhallym, nor did he show me why my logic wasn't valid. All I got was an "Uhmmm what? "

ProHawk calls Dunhallym the towniest player and begins his desperate crusade against Jaack.

As pressure on ProHawk grows, Dunhallym makes post 466, where she basically states that she has no solid scumreads and that she doesn't feel good about the lack of case on ProHawk, including asking me for one in 469, after which Grey comes in and hammers.


After reading this, I don't feel much better about Dunhallym than I did before. There's the way the two townread each other consistently, plus ProHawk's edginess and evasiveness when I asked him to vote Dunhallym, plus Dunhallym's continued defense of ProHawk, that make me think that Dunhallym is likely scum. 87 is the only interaction that I would call an unlikely partner interaction.

However, I still plan to look at the interactions between ProHawk and Tenshii/BlackVoid. That will probably come Saturday or Sunday.

Also, happy New Year's!

[Something_Smart]

I'm sorry, I'm working on it. Mafia has just taken a major backseat to RL for me recently; I won't go back on my commitment in this game, but after this game I'm planning to take at least a short break from MS until classes start back up.

[Something_Smart]

210 - Smart enters the game pushing a Tenshii-Prohawk scumteam with SAJ as scum if Prohawk isn't. I think it makes sense if he's scumreading Tenshii since my slot could only be scum with Prohawk, SAJ, or Gamma. Smart seems very sure that Gamma is town and there was no reason to think Prohawk was bussing SAJ. So, I get the Gamma townread. I get the Jaack townread. I can understand ZZZX and Dun floating around in the null pile but since they can't be scum with Tenshii, I could see a town-Smart plausibly not zoning in on them initially. I think the big question is why you were scumreading Tenshii. I want to see if there is a good backing behind this read because I glanced through Tenshii's posts before I replaced in and was fairly convinced he was town. Let's go over Tenshii's twenty posts until you replaced in:

[snip]

So, he had solid reasons to think AA9 and Jin were scum. He then starts to townread Jin, moves onto Prohawk, interacts with him, comes away with a townread and returns to his original read on AA9. So, I don't understand what exactly you were scumreading here. He just came across as carefree and easygoing and his pushing and changing reads seemed natural. I'm actually very interested in seeing you justify this read because my read on you is mostly dependent on understanding why you had this scumread. All your other reads make perfect sense if you had Tenshii as solid scum. How was he avoiding scumhunting or commenting on the game? You've basically called both his evolving reads partner-reads, as if the only reason he would change his reads is if he was partnered with them. You explicitly said he was partnered with Jin and later implied that he could be partnered with Prohawk. What agendas was he pushing? His interactions are being guided by his mindset? What does that even mean?

I'm going back and forth about whether I think Tenshii's posts are actually scummy. I got a poor gut feeling from his posts in addition to the points mentioned in 372.
But I misread Tenshii in the one game we've played together and I also misread him in a game that I spectated, and so I don't know if the feeling I got was just me scumreading his tone. That would make more sense given that when I did go back and look to explain why I originally scumread him (when I was making 372), there was less there than I thought.
Anyway, regarding the specific statements:

>How was he avoiding scumhunting or commenting on the game?

In the early pages, he made a lot of posts that struck me as less game-solve-y posts and more skating by. In particular 99 where he makes a vote but also claims that it's still sort of RVS (when I don't think it was). He then jumps around with his vote a lot, with generally sketchy reasons. And I guess I'd modify this a little, because he does seem to be commenting on the game through questions and responses but he doesn't seem to be doing a ton of original analysis (looking primarily at early on).

>What agendas was he pushing?

He voted my slot for semi-RVS, then Jin 6 posts later for a small wording thing. He then left his vote on ProHawk for a while but 50 posts later has a townread on him again, and he jumps back on Kyouko just as that wagon is building momentum but off again after a little bit. It seemed like he was fitting his reasons to his read changes that he had already decided to make.

>His interactions are being guided by his mindset? What does that even mean?

Basically see above. What that means is that, if it were accurate, his reads and arguments would be made for the end result of producing the result that he had decided-- for instance, as scum, he would have voted ProHawk to distance and already have decided that he wanted to ultimately townread him, the result of which is that he votes and unvotes ProHawk for dubious reasons.

@Smart

, I came across your 432 while doing my re-read. In the last paragraph, it seemed like you were saying that the scumteam is either me and Prohawk or me and Gamma - because you said you feel better about Dun after your exchange with her. In that case, shouldn't you be voting me? Why did you vote Prohawk when from your POV, he could only be scum with me or Dun and you were townreading Dun? I would be an infinitely better lynch under those circumstances. You also seemed pretty sure Tenshii was scum and although he wasn't your strongest scumread, the read didn't seem to have gone away entirely.

I didn't suddenly have a townread on Dun after our interaction. And I also never scumread Gamma, I just thought that it would be REALLY convenient for you to write your partner off as town as well as two townies. In other words, even after feeling better about Dun and worse about Gamma, I still found ProHawk/Dun more likely than you/Gamma.

I also wouldn't mind you detailing exactly what you found scummy about the Prohawk posts that you quoted. Because Prohawk had been scummy throughout the game and the posts you quoted didn't seem much more scummy to me than the rest of his ISO.

These are the ProHawk posts that I really didn't like:

In a game where bussing is bad, that's kinda what I'd expect from scum.

This is coming from a guy whose reads completely avoid him voting for his partners.

As I pointed out this line has a massive fallacy in it, but it also pinged me as scum desperate to discredit someone who's on the right track. Furthermore, the type of bad logic used here looks like scum who doesn't know how to apply the matrix well but is trying to do it anyway to fit in.

Contrary to my memory, ProHawk was never scumreading Tenshii.

Prohawk, what are your thoughts on Tenshii?

I remember feeling like Tenshii's push on me was a bit scummy, but while engaging him that feeling wore off. I can go re-read some stuff, but not getting the scum-vibes there.

I'm just going to leave this here....

Jaack, your vote on me is bad. Your reasoning is bad. And its all based on an associative that you have NO CLUE about. Oh look, Tenshii reincarnate wants to lynch me. YOU'RE RIGHT! We totes decided to hard bus eachother because.... new guy!

VOTE: Jaack

Lying scum.

And much more discrediting and logical fallacies, including the assumption that someone who is wrong is scum. Also important with these is that nowhere in ProHawk's Jaack push did he even acknowledge the fact that Jaack was widely townread, and that he was never going to get anything done by just yelling at him.

Jaack is my scum-read, and is likely scum. He is setting up his endgame by claiming I am scum because of scum-team matrix associatives before flips.

As I pointed out before, ProHawk was guilty of exactly what he was accusing Jaack of here-- claiming someone was scum based on preflip matrix-based associatives.

I don't think it's feasible to draw good conclusions by examining in depth what you and Dun are saying today, but I will say that I noticed a few things Dun said while she was explaining why she acted the way she did around the ProHawk wagon:

I said I would have taken a firmer stance one way or the other because I'm aware that staying in the middle of the river, i-e defending but not really, is the worst looking position you can take as a partner.

The other thing is a statement which I'm almost sure she said but can't for the life of me find it, about how if she had wanted to as scum she could have bussed ProHawk if she had wanted to. In any event, it gives me the impression that she felt caught in a middle-of-the-road position when the pressure ramped up on ProHawk, wanting to take a hardine stance one way or the other but not being able to without looking even worse.

I'll do my ISO of ProHawk and Tenshii/BV soon, though I probably won't go as in-depth as I did with Dunhallym, because I'm pretty sure Dunhallym is scum.

[Something_Smart]

Woo...I can feel a vote coming soon.

But seriously, we have over 4 (real life) days left, however, it would be nice to finish this Day before the weekend.

@Smart - is that enough time for you?

I planned to have time for this right now, but now I don't. But I almost definitely can do it either tonight or tomorrow.
I have read through the ISO already and nothing jumped out at me as being obvious partners, so if you want to end the day (and hopefully the game) before the weekend, I won't stand in your way.
VOTE: Dunhallym

[Something_Smart]

I'm actually surprised that my reads were so good early on; one of the reasons I think I thought it was Dunhallym was because I didn't think that I'd get both scum immediately upon replacing in. (I still think it was partly luck, at least, given how I did shift my focus away from them at times.)

VOTE: BlackVoid

I'll certainly have more later, but for now I just want to say that BV attacking my activity is understandable as it is probably the most attackable part of my play, but it's also kind of a low blow because I have been busy, and I've also been on the between-semester break from college which means that I'm at my computer thinking about the game a lot less, and it is hard to find the concentration to really think about the game. He pointed to the fact that this is my only game that I am alive in as another reason that I could get away with intentionally contributing less, but I'm only in one game because I'm lowering my activity for a bit and I'm actually planning to take a break from mafia after this game is over.

I don't think this decision will be too hard; Tenshii's play was by no means obvtown like BV claims it was, BV's meta is mostly unreliable for someone as new to the site as him (and I'm not going to claim that you can totally trust mine, either, but it is much more established), and my interactions with ProHawk are much more clearly genuine than BV's, which constitute a planned bus, probably because BV was aware of how scummy ProHawk was beginning to appear.

[Something_Smart]

So I think the argument for why my slot is town is pretty straightforward, and has been laid out before. I pushed ProHawk at a point where the day's lynch was not clear, and I could have easily gone after Dunhallym or Tenshii as scum. BlackVoid did a somewhat similar thing, listing ProHawk in his scumpool before I voted ProHawk, but he didn't vote until after I did. According to him, he "committed" to voting ProHawk before I did, but I did point out that the actual vote is the commitment, and that it is easy to just call someone scum without acting on it. In hindsight, it is obvious that he did that for the credit of saying he led the wagon on his partner if that wagon did go through, without actually aiding it to go through until my vote, which was likely the deciding factor on the wagon.

Regarding why BlackVoid is scum, his slot's interactions with ProHawk were pretty patently manufactured. (Maybe it's not obvious to you, but knowing he's scum I can definitely understand a lot of the things that he and Tenshii said.) Notable interactions include:
27, where ProHawk calls Tenshii's post "cute"
119, which is conspicuous in its being a non-interaction, where ProHawk makes a readlist but doesn't include Tenshii. (He does, incidentally, include my predecessor, placed in a null area where he would certainly know not to place his scumbuddy.)
128, where Tenshii votes ProHawk, for having weak arguments
129 & 130, where Prohawk immediately discredits Tenshii for it,
a few more posts of Tenshii/ProHawk back-and-forth, followed soon after by
181, where Tenshii jumps off ProHawk and onto my slot. No mention of why he doesn't scumread ProHawk as much, nor why he scumreads ArcAngel more.
Distancing accomplished, the two back off and don't interact with each other for a while. Tenshii jumps on Jin/ssbm and then back onto me. Tenshii also refuses to agree to the townblock of me/Gamma/Jaack, which was all town. (I didn't expect people to accept it, but he didn't even think about it and just dismissed due to a distaste for townblocks in general.) Interestingly, ProHawk did a similar thing, saying: "Not a fan [of townblocks], but that's mostly because I'm never in them... lol."
Tenshii and ProHawk do more vote jumps onto town, until ProHawk and Tenshii, being questioned on each other, state vague townreads (300, 314). Then in 361, ProHawk has become Tenshii's strongest townread, "because of how he interacted with [Tenshii]." An interaction which was neither very long nor very involved, and culminated with an arbitrary dropping of discussion by both parties and a shift of focus towards other things.
ProHawk has many posts from 382 to 409, among them his reaction to my reaction test regarding Dunhallym, and some miscellaneous discrediting of me, done because I wasn't open to voting ZZZX. He also reacts to Jaack's suggestion of a Tenshii/ProHawk team about exactly how you would expect, indignantly but also slightly desperately. His readlist continues to have Tenshii as strong town.

Here BlackVoid replaces in.

BlackVoid's first post is sucking up to Jaack. It states a vacuous "I'm town" (which, incidentally, was part of what got my caught in my most recent scumgame, which Ms Columbo ought to take a look at if she gets the chance), and asks Jaack who to vote. He then continues his read and arrives at the conclusion that Jaack, Gamma, and ZZZX are town. The same three players who then became confirmed town when ProHawk was lynched. Now, I realize I was townreading them too, but I showed a real read progression on them.

One post after BlackVoid announces his scumread on ProHawk, I vote ProHawk. On rereading I'm actually surprised that it was only one post later, because BlackVoid made it seem as though it was a while later. And ProHawk responds to both of us-- he calls me out on my methods, and BlackVoid out on his reads. Essentially, he's saying that I'm wrong because my process of scumhunting is bad, whereas BlackVoid is wrong because his reads are wrong. Therefore, he's trying to discredit me to get people to not trust my posts, whereas he's just passively responding to his partner's bus.
BlackVoid's scumread of ProHawk then turns into a vote, and ProHawk gets even more desperate. He blows up at me about a misunderstanding about Jaack and also begins to rant about why Jaack is scum because he's trying to sell this RIDICULOUS idea of a ProHawk/Tenshii scumteam.

This is a lot, and more than I intended to write. But there's a lot of evidence here. I'll cover day 3 and respond to BV's recent points before long.

[Something_Smart]

BlackVoid's trying to argue that he can't be scum because he's played similarly as town and differently as scum. However, that's not valid unless he also gives a reason for how his scumplay couldn't be different from before, and that's because there is no reason. Calling it "hilariously obvious" is a form of appeal to emotion that implies that he will be frustrated and upset if Ms Columbo fails to agree with him. (Which he might be, but not because he's been obviously town.)

Okay, I'm going to outline my case for me-town and Smart-scum and if you have any questions, we'll go from there.

First off, Tenshii's play. I don't know why he was being scumread but he was super town to me right from the beginning. He pushed Prohawk, then Prohawk pointed out some semantic holes in his argument and Tenshii backed off. Then Prohawk saw this as an opportunity to buddy up to town and townread Tenshii back. It was similar to what he did with Dun where he called Dun the towniest and buddied her hard. He was buddying townies that townread him so he could coast on that.

I've already addressed this. That interaction isn't real, and the reasons Tenshii uses both to jump on and off of ProHawk are manufactured. Moreover, this is assigning a motivation to Tenshii's ProHawk unvote which was never stated; Tenshii didn't even mention ProHawk when he shifted his vote. And suggesting that ProHawk buddied one townie so another person he buddied must also be town is fallacious.

Secondly, look at my town and scum meta. There is no way I can play like this as scum because I'm not capable enough of doing it. I love playing town. I replace into slots that I think are town. I'm really passionate about the game when I'm town. It's something that doesn't happen to me as scum because solving games, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together is the ultimate thrill and why I play mafia. The amount of thought I put into figuring out which of Dun or Smart were scum, going so far as to make an account on another site and compare her play to here is something I'd never do as scum when the lynch was all but assured, and if you've played with me even a few times, I'm super easy to read.

This, once again, fails to address the point that nowhere has he proven that he is incapable of changing his scum meta. And I know from experience that when someone is as new to the site as he is, even if they've been playing a lot of games, is very capable of changing their play significantly. I did it when I was that new.

Third, Smart's activity level. I think Smart is somewhat like me in that he's less passionate about playing scum than town. He's consistently been "busy" all of day three. If he had been playing in any other games and posting there, I'd have nailed him but this was his only game which makes it easy to feign "busyness." The regular once every two day posting is something that comes from scum doing just enough to coast by. I was posting whenever I could find five odd minutes to look at the game. When I'm town, I can't stop thinking about the game. Scum who bus well and have lynches lined up often find it hard to keep posting content especially if they prefer playing town. Smart never tried to solve the game. He made a token analysis post saying Dun was scum and was pretty inactive. This may have been over the holidays but it was for a massive period of three weeks. It's so unlikely that he has no time at all to play mafia for nearly three weeks.

Honestly, if my bad activity is what causes us to lose, I'll be pissed, but it wouldn't be the first time. In that game I was on vacation and had just gone V/LA so I didn't want to again, and I couldn't get invested in the game, and got lynched as a result. (Also Fire Assassin fakeclaimed vig. But whatever.) But the stance that BV is taking here is low, because I would never lie about RL things. Similarly, I try not to let people's RL situations interfere with my reads on them. I hope you can do the same and just judge us on what we have posted. (Which, contrary to what BV is implying, is MORE than enough to get a good read on me.)

Fourthly, Smart had motivation to bus because the theory being floated around at that time was Prohawk/Tenshii and Dun's interaction with Prohawk and townread there made her look pretty bad, not to mention I was calling her a Prohawk partner. I should have seen this but Prohawk had basically given up. He was calling Jaack scum for the most bizarre of reasons and hard-townreading Dun. He was trying to sew in partner-like interactions with Dun before going down so that his lynch would be followed by mine and Dun's leaving Smart free and clear to win.

"He had motivation to bus because he wasn't under pressure."
ProHawk was going down, and anybody would have had motivation to bus for towncred. But the people with more motivation to bus would be the ones under more pressure, not less, i.e. BlackVoid. ProHawk/Tenshii was the prevailing idea and BV had to make a drastic effort to try to change that perception. (Also, I just realized, why Jaack probably didn't die N3. Jaack calling a ProHawk/Tenshii team, lynching ProHawk-scum, and then promptly dying would not have looked good for him.) It's already been said, multiple times now, that as scum I had no reason to go after ProHawk; I could have gone after BV or Dunhallym without attracting suspicion.

Finally, Smart's change of stance from me to Dun at the beginning of D3. At the end of D2, he said that neither of us fit as partners but I was more likely and hedged his bets without taking a position either way. By the way, if neither of us fit as partners, he shouldn't have been voting Prohawk at all.

On D3, He WAITED to post until every single other player had already posted and Dun became the universal scumread over me. THEN, he showed up and said that he thinks it's Dun all along. I can't emphasize this point enough.

More than once, he stood back to see which way the town would go and tailored his stances in a way that helps him. I also suspect he was following along with the game before his replace-in and his very first wall was likely his honest thoughts on the game which is why they seemed so town.

That's called having a scumread and not putting the cart before the horse by looking for partners before the flip.
It's also called changing my mind and having 2 days to think about the game. This is reachy as hell: the point that he

cannot emphasize enough

is that I posted my semi-weak scumread of a townie AFTER he posted his semi-weak scumread of a townie.

Also, Smart saying that he pushed Dun because he thought he couldn't possibly be right about both his top suspects is dumb and fake. It makes much less sense than him opportunistically waiting to see which way the wind blows D3 and then taking that mislynch.

It's not fake nor is it dumb. My reads change a lot because I don't trust myself very much. I'm thinking of this game where on day 5 (6p MYLO) I came out pushing two people as the scumteam, then I did a complete 180 and started pushing two other people. They were my best reads at the time, and yet even then I was fairly confident that I didn't have the scumteam; I figured I probably was 1/2 in each of the two pairings, which was right.
It's not common for me to replace in and call both scum (in fact I don't know if it has ever happened before), and I'm pretty happy about it even though I do think it was a fluke.

On his activity level, everytime he posted, it seemed like a chore for him which is mostly indicative of him just wanting the day over with so he could get his lynches and win.

Also, if he really was uncertain about me and Dun, he'd be spending a lot of time thinking about it even if he didn't have as much time to post. Yet, he never once calls me scum on D3. I think it's because he didn't want to antagonize me yet - he needed that Dun lynch to go through first whereas if he started pushing and questioning me, I'd be more likely to scrutinize him and figure him out.

Both Dun and I considered both possibilities even though we landed on each other in the end. It's the way he went from not being sure but slightly leaning me at the end of D2 to being wholly certain that Dun was scum D3 after everybody else said she was scum that's most indicative.

So now I'm scum for having a bad read and sticking with it, whereas BV keeping his options open and laying the groundwork for his push on me today is town. Not to mention that I did put forth points against BlackVoid, I just didn't scumread him for them. So he's not even saying that I didn't consider him as scum; he's saying that I never achieved a point where I actually thought he was scum, and THAT's why I'm scum trying not to antagonize him.

[Something_Smart]

Smart - can you link me to a scum game where you survived or remained in the game until near the end?

Here's a good example. I don't have that many recent ones; my scumgame has been terrible lately.

[Something_Smart]

I'd like to address 626 in particular, which is essentially a lesson in cherry-picking data.

BV gave evidence from my three large games, of which I have been scum in all three. In each, I powerbussed at least one partner and I distanced more weakly with at least one more.
Therefore, it stands to reason that in a micro, I would also be likely to bus, and therefore I'm scum here because I pushed flipped scum.

Except that BV is using games where I had three or four buddies and trying to support a conclusion about games where I would only have one. Aside from the three BV listed, I have only had one partner in each of my scumgames.

9 or fewer players (2-player team):

Newbie 1663- My first game and first scumgame. I did not bus until I was almost literally forced to, and as soon as my partner was replaced and the pressure dropped on him, I stopped.

Won.

Micro 567: Work Sneak Mafia 2- I townread my partner all game.

Won.

Micro 599: Worst (Role) Idea(s) Mafia- My hydra was lynched day 1, but I never bussed my partner.

Lost.

Micro 632: Mislead- Unusual setup, but I didn't bus. Had my partner around null until he became confirmed scum.

Lost.

10-13 players (2-player team):

Open 624: Fire & Ice- My partner was super awkward, returning after a 5-year hiatus. I bussed him day 2, because I felt he was going down anyway.

Lost.

Mini 1818: Princess Bride Mafia- Had my hydra's partner as null-town until he was killed night 2.

Won.

Open 654: Two Fold Matrix6- Townread my partner for the entirety of my life (I was killed night 1).

Won.

I don't have any scumgames with 3-player teams.

So BV is manipulating data to paint me as bus-happy, in order to explain away the fact that my vote was one of the most important on ProHawk's wagon, and that unlike BV, I wasn't under enough pressure that I needed to prove that I wasn't partnered with ProHawk. (BV, on the other hand, had to dispel the ProHawk/Tenshii suspicion by any means possible.) In fact, I rarely bus my partner when I only have one, and I certainly wouldn't if my partner were as townread as ProHawk was.

[Something_Smart]

I also want to address his "my vote was the most important one on Prohawk's wagon" which is meaningless rhetoric. This guy could give Trump a run for his money.

So BV is manipulating data to paint me as bus-happy, in order to explain away the fact that my vote was

one of the most important

on ProHawk's wagon

While we're making Trump references, how about the guy who claims things that patently aren't true?

[Something_Smart]

@Ms Columbo

I just want to apologize for my activity in the past month. It definitely wasn't what it should have been and I wish I could have devoted more time to this game so that we might not be in this position.

That said, if BlackVoid gets the win because his activity was better than mine, I'm going to be pissed. Because he's using a classic scum tactic in LYLO: to throw tons and tons of information at the confirmed town, and basically overwhelm them with argument. When you get down to it, most of his points are either fabricated or seriously exaggerated and supported by a decent amount of misrepresentation. But I'm afraid that you are going to decide in his favor because you think he deserves it more, or because you wouldn't feel bad losing to him after everything he's said.

But he doesn't deserve to win; I deserve to win, because I'm town and have made that as evident as I can in all of my posts thus far. And you deserve to win, because you were on the right track at the beginning of the day.

BlackVoid's checklist is equal parts twisting around the events to make them appear in his favor and ascribing motivation and meaning to things that don't have it. 1 and 2 massively simplify a complex situation into a few factors that happen to, when stated the way he states them, support his argument. 3 and 4 are bullshit, 3 being an appeal to the "deserve to win" trap that I mentioned before and 4 is something almost impossible to measure. 6 is also bullshit, making the assumption that my reads have to all be connected and that just because I used the matrix to support my scumhunting, that I must have every read predicated on the matrix-- when in fact I just found ProHawk's posts scummy.

5 is bad statistics, which I thought I made clear before, but it seems like he's continuing to push it. Data can be interpreted in any number of ways, and BV's selecting the ways that support his conclusion, rather than the ways that make the most sense. It doesn't make sense to analyze larges, and while it's true that I have bussed in games with a 2-man scumteam, it doesn't support the conclusion that I am likely to bus, and certainly not the conclusion that my lynching scum makes me more likely scum. Then he redirects to point 2.

I'm going to be honest: I want this game to be over. But just as badly (if not more), I want to win, so if you're intending to vote me, please tell me why so I can do my best to change your mind.

[Something_Smart]

But he doesn't deserve to win; I deserve to win, because I'm town and have made that as evident as I can in all of my posts thus far. And you deserve to win, because you were on the right track at the beginning of the day.

This by the way is 100% pure emotional manipulation. Funny thing is, I think he believes he played well enough as scum to deserve the win. The part about making it evident he's town is false. It actually applies to me. He's been coasting since the point it seemed like he had two lynches set in stone after Prohawk. You obviously deserve to win but won't win with him because he's scum. The appeal to you being on the right track is hilarious in light of what I mentioned earlier about people being attached to their initial reads and wanting to be right. He's trying to obfuscate the facts and evidence through manipulation.

It's emotional, yes; that's how I feel about the game. But it's not manipulation, it's just true.

Sun Jan 15th (he made two posts one of which was fluff)

BV claimed I said something that I didn't say. I pointed it out, and now the post in which I did so is labeled "fluff."

He never went V/LA which is what someone would do when they are legitimately busy. Instead he constantly posts hollow apologies for why he's unable to contribute.

This is because taking a V/LA when you don't need it is as good as lying to the mod and is highly unethical.

But simply saying he's busy is the sort of vague excuse that scum can use to lurk it out. If he was legit busy, he'd go on V/LA and post when he can. He wouldn't have a posting rate that's deviously designed to avoid prods by posting once roughly every 48 hours. This is so ridiculous I'm kicking myself for not catching it on D3 and lynching Dun instead.

"Deviously designed to avoid prods." Obviously I'm trying to avoid prods. And in case you didn't notice, my activity has been bad for a month. I can't go V/LA for a month, so cut the crap about me obviously not being legit busy.

And if he believed any of the nonsense he's spewing about not "overloading you with information," he'd have been transparent about it and just say that he's prod-dodging and waiting for you to make a decision. But he isn't. Because prod-dodging looks bad. He wants to make it seem like he's engaged without actually being engaged. That this extended all the way through D3 is actually an even bigger tell because he just wanted us to lynch Dun quickly and then me without much effort on his part.

I don't believe in prod-dodging. You're equating two different things-- providing

any

content at all and providing massive amounts of content. I am giving what I think to be necessary. You are giving what you think to be sufficient to sway Ms Columbo on the basis of quantity rather than quality of points.

Pedit: goddammit cfj

[Something_Smart]

I would be okay with that if the mod allows it, assuming Ms Columbo doesn't return and place a vote before deadline.

[Something_Smart]

@Smart

Why do you think BV voiced FOS on PH and then voted him instead of voting for you or pushing another wagon? Wouldn’t it have been better for scum-BV not to bus his partner?

I think that it was a reaction to the universally townread Jaack noticing a connection between the two. BlackVoid based his arguments for voting ProHawk, rather than his other scumreads me and Dunhallym, on theory, and he probably could have found a justification for a reversal. In any event, he was testing the winds.

#439 - I didn’t follow what you said about post #423, regarding where the post came relative to BV’s catch-up. Can you explain that? It may not be relevant at this point, I just didn’t get it.

ProHawk was trying to throw shade onto Jaack for believing that ProHawk never scumread Tenshii. ProHawk's argument was to show how much distancing the two had done, including the fact that Tenshii's replacement said he was probably going to vote ProHawk. (A response which, incidentally, makes it seem very much like a planned bus!) But that made no sense as BlackVoid's post was new information that occurred after Jaack's post, and rather than ProHawk suggesting that Jaack reevaluate his belief based on that new information, he jumps right to accusing him-- as desperate scum would.

#500 – In your description of play history, everything you said seems factual. But just looking at your record, it seemed like you down played your ability as scum. You survived to the end in a couple and lasted late game in others (I consider this an indication of ability regardless of the game outcome). This is more an observation than a question. Thoughts?

I don't think my record necessarily tells the full story either; I have survived to the end or near the end in 6 scumgames:
Newbie 1663- I had no meta this game, and also the town was pretty poor with the cop claiming unprompted D1 and a newbie replacing in and quickhammering a townie D2.
Micro 567- The way the setup was designed, this 7:2 game reached endgame at 3:2, after only 2 mislynches, something which nobody expected.
Open 624- I did play pretty well this game, but it was multiball so I could genuinely scumhunt.
Mini 1818- This setup was also weird, with a scum non-consecutive day-executioner plus a beloved princess plus an SK that together allowed the game to end with only one true mislynch.
Walking Dead Season Finale- My hydra and a scumpartner were the two leading wagons D1, and our partner was lynched after we were bussed by all three buddies. Those flips earned us a ton of towncred, which is the only reason we survived so long.
New York 194- I think I played well this game too. But I just couldn't keep it up by the end and the setup was such that I had no chance to win if my partner was lynched, and he was obvscumming, so I burned all my towncred trying to save him.

Overall, of these 6, I'd say I legitimately played well in two of them (Open 624 and NY 194), and the others were just lucky circumstances. And, ironically, I didn't even win either of those two. So you see why I am not exactly praising my scum ability.

#606 you re-evaluate BV’s play from a he must-be-scum angle:
“119, which is conspicuous in its being a non-interaction, where ProHawk makes a readlist but doesn't include Tenshii. (He does, incidentally, include my predecessor, placed in a null area where he would certainly know not to place his scumbuddy.”

That post was in regards to Jaack’s plan of lynching one of {Dunhallym, Jin, ArcAngel}. Why would he include Tenshii?

'Tis a fair point, and a reason why I should be reading context instead of just ISOs. (But that's so much harder...)
That said, it's not as though there was no reason to include Tenshii, and the fact does remain that he chose not to, but I'll grant that that isn't really a strong point. (Although it is still a point that he put me at the spot where scum stereotypically put their buddies, no doubt with knowledge of that fact.)

Later in that 606: "181, where Tenshii jumps off ProHawk and onto my slot. No mention of why he doesn't scumread ProHawk as much,

nor why he scumreads ArcAngel more.

"

(Emphasis added) In the next post Tenshii explains his take on ArcAngle

These posts stuck out as being troublesome.

He gave what was essentially a one-liner about overreaction to an accusation that was never there, which from what I've heard is indicative of nothing other than ArcAngel's trouble with reading comprehension. (Source) Tenshii's reasons are both weak, and it's pretty clear (at least to me-- I hope it's clear to you) that his vote changes were predetermined and then he came up with reasons to match them, as scum do.

[Something_Smart]

BlackVoid is using a whole bunch of small misreps and fallacies in his recent posts. (More so than before; probably he's trying to jack up the rhetoric out of desperation.)
I hate to nitpick, but all the broad arguments have already been made.

1. Someone noticing a connection between two scum is a reason

not

to bus because the cred would be limited as people still wonder after the flip.

This is AT LEAST balanced by the suspicion put on such a pair if a mislynch occurs outside it. Even if the two of them managed to secure a mislynch (me, as he suggests was most feasible), the fact that such a connection was called out and then both players pushed a mislynch looks horrible for them. The only way to contest such a pairing is to try to prove it wrong.

5. What motivation do I have to "test the winds" for a Prohawk lynch as opposed to just townread him so he's not even on the lynch table to begin with?

It wasn't hard to tell that I might switch to ProHawk. I had had Dunhallym as lowest with ProHawk second, and I had just started to lay off of Dunhallym. If you townread him and I come out with a case on him, even if people aren't convinced that strengthens the connection between you two.

I mean, your theory is that I bussed Prohawk to make it more difficult for me to win because a guy you know likes making absurd plays... If you honestly think I'd be setting up absurd challenges for myself and messing up my sleep schedule for nothing when I could have just teamed up with Prohawk and won, you're jumping through hoops to see me as scum when I'm not.

Vastly oversimplifying the situation.

Smart's whole "he could have switched away from Prohawk" is just trying to play on your paranoia. Anyone could have hypothetically changed their reads at any time. But I didn't. I voted Prohawk, I stuck to it and ensured he got lynched when not doing so would mean a very likely win were I scum.

BV didn't ensure ProHawk got lynched, he put him at L-1 and Grey lolhammered.
And by the way, anyone can hypothetically change their reads at any time. But it's a heck of a lot easier if they don't have a vote down.

I've been trying to explain this but here's the major difference between Tenshii and Smart - Tenshii never posted strategically to avoid prods. He posted when he could. He got prodded from time to time. When he was engaging Prohawk, he posted a lot in a short time frame. It was unself-conscious and natural. He WAS replaced out. Smart is still here. Can you see the difference? That's because Smart was posting just enough to stay in the game. There's a difference between inactive players and active lurkers.

That's only because I have the commitment to avoid getting replaced due to inactivity. And, incidentally, my activity was anything but active lurking-- active lurking entails posting infrequently and providing very little content.

I've been trying extremely hard to sell you on Smart as scum because he is and I need to do that to win the game for town. I'd probably also need to do it if I were scum so it's null. Right now, both me and Smart are in identical situations where we both need to get the other lynched in order to win whereas you win by choosing correctly.

...

His major advantage is that he knew you entered the day pre-biased towards him so if he could just respond to questions and survives, he would be fine. His play I think would actually be majorly different if he were town. I think he'd check in more often, he'd be a little more concerned with how things are going.

Funny how he makes the first argument when it suits him, and then makes the second argument conveniently ignoring the fact that it's also completely true regardless of my alignment.

The things you indicate you would only do as town are things I've watched scum do.

Are you saying you've never seen scum coast through the game when town argue amongst themselves?

This is some kind of fallacy, asserting that just because something is possible that therefore it is likely. Also handwaving Columbo's point.

You are not even trying to figure the game out anymore. You are paranoid that I could be playing a wonderful scumgame, probably because I remind you of someone who does.

More fallacy and misrep.

[Something_Smart]

@Smart - when BV replaced in, you had two votes. If BV is scum, why not try to lynch you instead of busing his partner?

Like I said, the Tenshii/ProHawk connection was starting to become defined. For BV to replace in and immediately push on me in essentially a chainsaw to ProHawk would, even if I were lynched, make that connection very well-defined. And if that push isn't successful, then they're left in an even more terrible spot.

BV is a person who thinks ahead; this is evident. So it would have been clear to him that a mislynch on me would put heavy suspicion on him (since I no doubt would have fought it) and also on ProHawk, whom he would essentially be shielding.

Granted, it's not obvious whether what he did was smarter than pushing on me. But it was definitely more forward-thinking. It also could be the case that he thought I would get lynched without his help.

[Something_Smart]

And if I were hoping he'd get lynched without my help, I'd push in a completely different direction like Dun, ZZZX or Gamma with unpersuasive arguments, not contribute directly towards Prohawk's lynch.

But you didn't contribute directly to ProHawk's lynch until I voted him and basically forced you to.

[Something_Smart]

Well, you've got two reasons that are mostly out of my control.

Regarding the first point, what I can say is that you should look at ProHawk's reaction to BV; in particular, his reaction to Jaack insisting on a BV/ProHawk team after BV caught up.

your vote on me is bad. Your reasoning is bad. And its all based on an associative that you have NO CLUE about. Oh look, Tenshii reincarnate wants to lynch me. YOU'RE RIGHT! We totes decided to hard bus eachother because.... new guy!

When I bussed my partner in Fire & Ice, I made sure to emphasize how ridiculous it was that I could be his partner. ProHawk is doing the same thing here: look at how RIDICULOUS it is that I could POSSIBLY be BV's partner!
Whereas he did no such thing with me. The strategy with bussing is to go big or go home: you get as much as you can out of a bus to offset its cost, and that's what BV did. I did no such thing, and I never claimed that I shouldn't be considered scum because I pushed ProHawk. (I think my D1 & D2 play was strong, independent of the fact that I pushed scum.)

Regarding the second point, it's a case of unequal opportunity. BV has the time to invest in the game, and so he does. He really wants to win, and he's shown that, and so it might be tempting to let him. But as I said, he doesn't deserve anything. Don't fool yourself into thinking he does.

Aside from that, I urge you to look over-- even briefly-- the arguments he's put forth today. Think about them not holistically but logically, and most of them fall apart with just a little examination. He's throwing everything he can at you in the expectation that you won't carefully examine it all, and if I try to refute it then I look like the bad guy.

[Something_Smart]

I never claimed that I shouldn't be considered scum because I pushed ProHawk.

Yet, that's clearly the conclusion he was hoping the town would draw without him explicitly having to argue it. I mean, what would you be expecting town to think when you bus? You don't have to go "hey guys, look I pushed scum." You just expect people to notice.

But you are explicitly arguing that you are town because you pushed ProHawk, while at the same time calling it scummy for me to do it.

You ready to vote Smart or do you need to talk over anything else? I've got an interview in a while and just wanted to go out on a high note rather than be anxious. 384 from Prohawk should seal it though. He wouldn't be encouraging Jaack to flip Tenshii first as that would mean a loss. But I think he was hoping that a Tenshii-townflip would clear him because then the associative case would fall apart.

Tenshii was never getting lynched on Day 2. The matrix wouldn't allow it, and I'm sure ProHawk was aware of this. (I made it abundantly clear myself.) So the only point of ProHawk's implication that Tenshii should be lynched first is to imply that they weren't partners.
Furthermore, ProHawk was caught for the wrong reasons, as BlackVoid said. Regardless of my and BV's alignment, ProHawk was being pressured due to people's reads on Tenshii, and he didn't like that. And this is true regardless of Tenshii's alignment, and therefore should be disregarded.

Ms Columbo, I believe you're capable of figuring this out and I think I've provided enough to point you in the right direction.
But if after all that you still think I'm scum, then I really don't think anything I say will change your mind, so just get it over with.

[Something_Smart]

I'll have more discussion later but I just want to touch on a few things.

First of all, GG. I have a lot of respect for the way BV played that. I'm glad that it's over, but I'm also glad that it had a satisfying ending.

Second of all, regarding my activity, the truth was somewhere between the two extremes. I wasn't actually busy, but I was on break from college and at my computer much less; so it did make it more difficult to think about the game and also I had to force myself to post. And I apologize for making the game drag out like that.

Third of all, a lot of the stuff I said about deserving was bullshit and I was aware of that. BV definitely deserved to win, and IMO he would have deserved to win even if he were scum. (Although, BV saying I was good at AtE meant a lot to me because I thought it was awful )

Regarding the setup, I don't think it's townsided per se, but scum definitely have a difficult road ahead of them. The fact that I'm a calculating player helped me plan out the possible scenarios, but I basically got forced into a lot of the stuff that I did: I didn't want ssbm lynched D1 because it meant I couldn't logically go for Tenshii over ProHawk D2, and so I tried to mislynch Dunhallym but that also proved challenging, so I was forced to bus. And BTW I killed Grey because (a) I wanted Jaack alive another day to defend me, (b) I was a little pissed at him for lolhammering my buddy , and (c) I was afraid of how unpredictable he might be (in the scum topic I described him as a "loose cannon").

And finally, I don't mind if you release the scum topic.