Open 887: Coalition of Frogs (Game Over)

[implosion]

hello!

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hello! how u doin?

i feel as though some burden of many years has been lifted, but i can't quite put my finger on it.

also jet lag

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I like Mala and Hero.

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I cannot remember how well I am capable of reading Ari or Datisi, especially Ari. I like her mala take as town for her a fair amount but it's probably not something I should actually be putting weight in?

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("town for her" -> "town for ari")

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unfortunate - i was actually thinking THS and hero make a cute scum team together

THS could be scum. and well hero could too i'm pretty bad at this game

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i feel like my day 1 reads are probably historically <rand and then they get better over time. which is really just excellent for this setup.

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i agree with aristeia that hero's confidence feels fake but i don't think that's scummy when hero is a self-proclaimed alt who is trying to mix up playstyle. Or at least by default I don't think it has to be scummy. I kind of feel like hero is just townie as of page 4 with the one caveat being the Veil of Altness.

ehh, a joke is a joke. i don't have any read on implosion at all. what is the best mo for scum in this phase? if you need one scum in the coalition you want to gain enough people’s trust. picking a player i don’t know out of the blue and being like "they’re scum” right out of the gate doesn’t really fit the MO of the setup.

This is a really fascinating line. It's like, almost lampshading the fact that he is saying "well, i was never scumreading implosion" in a post about how it's pretty townie of him to immediately call me scum (unless i'm misinterpreting). But I think it is +town just for the brazenness of a seemingly relatively new player being like "nah i'm really not playing how scum would be playing in this setup lol" in this way.

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HEAL: Hero

This could be TvT between them and THS, but Hero has an energy to their posts(almost feels like how I post when I want to effort) that says town more than THS.

THS almost feels like they are trying to get Hero in a gotcha moment.

i do not like this post. but also i absolutely turbo tunneled doctor drew in the one game we played together and we were both town.

this might sound really silly but:
@drew, merlyn, kittens, implo - feel free to townspew yourself if you are town

i probably will at some point. are you someone who's played with me much?

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I think THS is very town. his posting on the whole has a certain verve to it that feels like there's real opinionatedness and like, the right motivation behind it. Softly think bella is town.

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Also, what is the issue you have with my post?

It feels overexplainy in the way of scum who feels the need to appear justified rather than town who actually has reasons behind what they're doing. Like, "this could be TvT but maybe this one feels more townie and the other one feels like it's a gotcha" immediately after a Heal feels like scum who feels like they need to add people to their coalition and that each person they add needs to be accompanied by a blurb explaining it. Sort of ditto with 141 but that one doesn't ping me in the same way for whatever reason. this is probably a bad explanation.

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i agree with the seeming consensus that hero is town.

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ftr here is the game where i erroneously scumread you (you replaced out and were replaced by enchant, who i proceeded to tunnel even harder and get mislimmed and then effectively get cleared for how hard i mislimmed them >_>)

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Merlyn seems like a good scum candidate. 140 saying she's already townspewing when she has yet to give a single read is not great.

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I don't even feel like that's a play that "good" scum is likely to make. It's the kind of thing that probably a lot of good scum would avoid because it's practically likely to be scumread by a good swathe of people.

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I don't even feel like that's a play that "good" scum is likely to make. It's the kind of thing that probably a lot of good scum would avoid because it's practically likely to be scumread by a good swathe of people.

Are you making the mistake of assuming how a player, especially one that you are not familiar with, would play under a certain alignment?

Especially when there is another player, Merlyn in this case, has first hand experience with THS as scum......and you are seemingly poo poo-ing their read?

this is just a weird take. 1, mafia is a game that is fundamentally built on a pile of assumptions. 2, I don't need to defer to someone else's read just because they've played with the person before. And most importantly 3, no, that's not what I'm doing at all, I'm making a reasoned counterargument to Merlyn's reasoning; she said that THS is a good scum player so we shouldn't townread him too easily and I gave the counterargument that my reason for townreading him should still apply even if he's a good scum player. It's also kind of heinous in isolation to say i'm "poo poo-ing" Merlyn's read just because I'm disagreeing with it and she's played with him before. Like, heck, i'm not allowed to disagree with someone???

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i'm just going to disengage from the line with Drew. although maybe i won't completely since hero says they want to see how it develops lol but I feel like it's almost certainly one of those things that is practically not going to be actually useful for sorting compared to how much it'd bog down the thread. I think it's probably very likely that Drew and I just sort of parse arguments in incompatible ways.

We've still got time but let's get some organization to our approach. I'd like to challenge everyone, by Friday, to come up with 2-3 people you absolutely want in your coalition, and 2-3 people you don't.

this posts feels really off, but not even in a scummy way. it feels like THS has to have zero gamestate awarenessbto make this post when multiple other people have already expressed their preferred coalition and he hasn't.
i doubt this is scum indicative, but i am noting it bc it's weird and i would like to have people's thoughts on this, if they have any thoughts.

It feels reminiscent of similar things I've seen other people do sometimes of like "hey everyone name your top scumread please!" and i feel like usually when people suggest such a thing they get pushback from everyone because no one really cares to follow orders. I don't think it really means much for THS's alignment (though see later in this post)

i think you misinterpreted it because he was replying to me saying it was scummy to make that joke.
does that change your read of him?

Yeah I did miss that, it dampens how much I find that post town significantly.

i am curious about that, could you please expand more on it?

104, 139 are probably the best examples. In the context of the rest of his posting I think 142 also might even be town-indicative. Part of it is that he has a view/approach to the game he's espousing that feels consistent and like something he's thought about rather than just coming up with something, but the bigger part is the way he's handling suspicion on himself. There's a degree of assuredness in both of those posts that reads as genuine to me.

[implosion]

I'm admittedly having trouble getting out of the weeds here. But I have nothing to be untruthful about

i feel like a lot of this game is going into the weeds remarkably quickly

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it's scummy that I don't have a set of reads by pg 6 (by page 6!?),

I don't think this is a fair characterization. It's not that you "don't have a set of reads", it's that you hadn't given any at all, in conjunction with you saying that you'd already been townspewing which, no, does not mean "posting literally anything as town".

I do agree there isn't much of a real rush. But I feel like there's been lots of quite useful content so far. I don't really agree with THS's take that scum are necessarily proactive in this setup; yeah, they need to get in the coalition, and actually the point could have some truth to it if people are playing in such a way that the scum

feel

rushed. But I think it's entirely possible for scum to play under the radar, especially if they think their scumbuddy is going to get in to the coalition.

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it's scummy that I don't have a set of reads by pg 6 (by page 6!?),

I don't think this is a fair characterization. It's not that you "don't have a set of reads", it's that you hadn't given any at all, in conjunction with you saying that you'd already been townspewing which, no, does not mean "posting literally anything as town".

I do agree there isn't much of a real rush. But I feel like there's been lots of quite useful content so far. I don't really agree with THS's take that scum are necessarily proactive in this setup; yeah, they need to get in the coalition, and actually the point could have some truth to it if people are playing in such a way that the scum

feel

rushed. But I think it's entirely possible for scum to play under the radar, especially if they think their scumbuddy is going to get in to the coalition.

I was kind of going for humor there when I said bc I thought it was a question that deserved a flippant answer. Like, it's not a serious thing to ask a bunch of folks to townspew like it's something someone can come in on the next post and go, "oh! Got it, here's my townspewing".

I'm going to get really nitpicky on this idea that it's scummy that I hadn't given any reads. I posted as soon as I saw the game was open. When you posted 156, I had been playing in the game for 29 hours. I also slept and went to work twice in those 29 hours. So, was it really dubious that I hadn't formed or posted any reads yet? Am I really the first player you've met who decided to take more than 29 hours to figure out what they think? Or am I right to think it's odd that it's even being remarked upon?

The way a game gets going is by people giving reads. My scumread on you, itself, is like, a page 6 read. It's not like it's set in stone (in fact I think 202 is mildly town). It's not like it was particularly strong. Honestly, I don't know for certain if "has posted a bunch without giving reads before page 6" in isolation is meaningfully an indicator of scum, but I think it's likely to be and is worth considering as one because it pushes people to give stances that can be further read into.

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Drew, talk to me about mer?

Implo, any questions for me?

Why specifically me and why do you want to talk to specifically Drew about Merlyn? I guess your play so far feels very broad-strokes like I remember your town game feeling in terms of how you're interacting with the game but I don't know if I've played with you as scum.

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I think this is town ari much more often than not. I have horribly misread her in the past but I think the fervency/exact way in which she's arguing to not be on the coalition is really high-risk for scum, because she's essentially advocating to not be in the coalition and also is sort of acting like she's fine with a coalition she doesn't have much control over. It could theoretically make sense if she's scum with like, hero or datisi maybe.

I don't really understand where Datisi-town is coming from in popular opinion; merlyn's reason seems kind of flat and 99% is uh, kind of a whoa there amount of confidence to have in a d1 townread on a very renowned scum player, to the point where it gives me some pause on hero. I don't know if I agree exactly with Ari's concern about hero's confidence but I do want to look more closely at hero's early stuff that I and others were townreading. Most of datisi's posts feel inscrutable to me in terms of his alignment.

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Ari, you said in the other two games you played you didn't want to be in the coalition but wound up in it anyway - why was that? Did they have an arc of what's happening here -> people started townreading you for how you were acting around the coalition (or other stuff) -> people asked you to be in it?

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you know that when someone is town, they just can't help but towntell sometimes? like what merlyn claimed to have done, except with datisi he HAS been actually towntelling all game. i can't point you to a specific post because every post he makes is a towntell?

this is actually entirely fair of a take if you haven't played with datisi much, I think i probably used to feel this way about his play

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i looked a bit at hero's early game iso again and i'm a little too tired to feel like i'm really piercing the veil. It does feel somewhat town still but I don't think it's like ironclad, I probably still want hero in coalition and I do like 327/328

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I'm sorry your 99% datisi is town read sounds extremely fake to me and considering i know who you are it just makes me suspect you even more

I think there's a decent explanation here in a hero-town world where the 99% is kind of fake because hero did say they were trying to turn off their tryhard brain to make that post. like i mentioned earlier at one point the veil of alt-ness is annoying, especially since it's going to change how they're playing even if you know who they are

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I called merlyn's reason for townreading Datisi flat but I don't mean for that to imply that I think it's scummy on Merlyn's end. I think it's a reasonable response for merlyn-town to have to Datisi's push

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had a very blah day yesterday. will be catching up soon

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Hero, did you pick this coalition because you saw Datisi suggest it or did you independently pick the same 5 people?

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I would support you or ari, but not both. Sub out drew or myself for yourself or for ari and I will go along with this.

This is a sentiment that I don't understand. Why do you want to avoid a specific combination of two people in the coalition? Isn't that... not how a coalition works? Are you just trying to compromise? Doesn't asking for a compromise not make any sense if one of the people you distrust is the one making the decision of who to sub out for who?

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The way hero is playing the game right now is very town and also annoying. I kind of hate the attitude of "well if this is wrong then woe is me, i'll just exit stage left". No, if this coalition goes through and is wrong then you don't get to magically shirk responsibility if you're town, you have to play the rest of the game.

I don't feel particularly confident in this coalition. I guess I feel also annoyed at the This Coalition Is Unilaterally Final thing. I like THS (i'll talk about the scum case on him in a bit but it seems like hero is particularly intransigent on him). I feel like Malakittens feels town from what posting she has and is a viable member of the coalition if she winds up showing up to the game more, which I'd theoretically like to give her a chance to do even if she doesn't get added to the coalition because, well, I don't feel as gung-ho as Hero does.

I don't really understand why Ari is just going along with a coalition that it seems like she thinks has decent odds of failing (given that she has expressed a townread on Hero but not on Datisi) after talking about how she's annoyed that she always gets put on failing coalitions as town.

I also don't really buy Hero's datisi-town case, it just reminds me of reasons I have incorrectly townread Datisi in the distant past. I do lean town on Bella but not with high confidence and I like her reason for townreading Datisi somewhat more but it is also pretty intangible because I don't think I've ever really seen things from Datisi-scum that made me want to actively scumread him in early days in past games like she describes, though I definitely believe that someone could.

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I think I also just don't like the idea of "we need to lock in a coalition really soon". In particular I think the existence of uncertainty about who is going to be in the coalition is healthy because it will force scum to commit to stances in a way that will be useful to go back and read - like, if the proposed coalition is a/b/c/d/e and e is scum and a new coalition that is proposed is all-town, then even if we wind up going back to the coalition of a/b/c/d/e, the reactions of other players outside the coalition are probably telling once we have enough flips to have context that we might have been proposing an all-town coalition.

The only real reason to lock in soon in my mind is people's interest in the game petering out. Which I guess it seems like hero's essentially is

[implosion]

i think that in a vacuum, yes this is a townie post. the thing with THS this game is that when he started getting pressured hard, he took a sharp turn and started making a lot of "townie" posts about how he's looking at the game - except there's a huge discrepancy between what he claims to be doing and what he is actually doing.

I think this point (and this whole post) is like, logically sound but I don't buy it as a reason to think THS is scum over town. I guess thinking of things motivationally, if THS is town, then he said he was going to be thinking about the game in a particular way and looking for particular things, and then he didn't do that. That's probably somewhat unlikely to happen but the game does move quickly sometimes and I don't think it's like, super unlikely. On the flip side, if THS is scum, then he said he was going to be thinking about the game in a particular way and looking for particular things, and then he didn't do that. That's also unlikely - if THS is scum (especially if he's a good scum player like Merlyn had claimed), it's not like he has any reason not to follow through with the thing he said he was going to do. You can think of it somewhat like Bayesian statistics. Essentially if THS is scum then he decides what he says entirely (because scum aren't beholden to actual reads or anything) and so it's not like it's particularly hard to do a thing after you say you're going to do that thing. So basically just because at first blush the behavior doesn't make sense as town, that doesn't mean that it makes

more

sense as coming from scum.

With all that said I continue to think THS is acting townish - 374 as a post immediately after getting cased seems very nonchalant for scum in this setup (in particular if he is scum, I think that post would imply it's somewhat likely another scum is in the current coalition). I think his [post]401[/[post] is quite optimistic if he's town but also not a very likely post for scum to make. Or at least I think it's more evidence that if THS is scum, there is already scum in the coalition, which would make him a good candidate to add to the coalition if true.

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ari has set it up in such a way that i'm basically a guaranteed misyeet if the coalition fails

this is untrue lol

if THS is town then who are potential scum candidates for you?

You/ari/THS are the only ones who aren't "potential scum candidates" for me right now (in that order but honestly maybe THS should be above ari because ari has burned me in the past).

In rough order from town to scum for the rest of the player list: Bella's play feels like what I remember of her town play and there are things I like, just not confident. Mala as I mentioned I lean town on but need more from. I think Datisi hasn't done anything to rule himself out as scum (which is notably the opposite of how Bella is claiming to read him). Drew like I mentioned I don't really trust myself to read well but I think he's viably scum. Merlyn is I guess the closest I have to a scumread, she's done things I've thought were townish but she's done multiple things that have pinged me significantly and I think her overall approach of wanting to slow the game down and pigeonhole it into being a game that should be viewed from that particular angle is scum a good amount of the time.

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I think the best way to explain why I don't like your read on datisi is to reference this game. I was SK but I was giving genuine reads iirc. Datisi was scum.

this post and like, this quote from me later on:

I think my gut still says Datisi is town; the way he's interacting with the game right now, his general manner strikes me that way. The way he's talking about himself and his thought processes and his meta while still trying to push the game forward e.g. by voting me.

There was a certain degree of playing the game in a competent, relaxed manner that I was inclined to townread from him, and I feel like that's what you've been describing in this game. I have been able to successfully townread Datisi on d1 in at least one game I can think of since then (though he was on an alt) and I think it came down to him being more embroiled in the game state. His engagement in this game exists but there's not much substantial conflict. I liked the fact that he proposed a full coalition at the moment he did and the indication of a real thought process in 356 but I don't think it's outside of his scum range, as illustrated by the above quote from myself in 2021.

I don't have any particular reason to scumread him in this game, but I'm more looking for reasons to townread him and not seeing any right now. I think I can probably find reasons to scumread him if he's scum at some point but I don't have Bella's confidence that I'd have been able to do it by now.

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I think I'm just being paranoid. I'm probably limmed if this is wrong aren't I? Your coal is good.

Do you mean if the me/ari/hero/datisi/bella coalition is wrong? If so, why would you be limmed if that coalition went through and was wrong?

Damn, my reads are a mess right now.

Kinda feel good about THS, and weirdly worse about Merlyn.

Your not just saying this because I just said this, right?

Touché (i just gave the same reads on both THS and Merlyn last page)

I don't really understand your questions towards me. I'm offering a compromise bc if Hero accepts then there are more folks in the coalition that I tr. If THAT's not 'how a coalition works' then I don't know how a coalition works. I'd be the one 'making the decision who to sub out for who' bc I'm the one making the suggestion. I don't know if that phrasing makes any sense either way, though, bc I don't have the power to 'make the decision' for the coalition and neither does Hero. Even if he and I end up agreeing it doesn't mean three others will too. Re: distrust- his very acceptance or denial of the offer will also affect my read on him if this coalition fails.

I'm also not really understanding what you mean by 'this coalition is unilaterally final'. I don't think it's final, that's why I'm trying to suggest other options. If you don't agree with it, propose a different coalition?

The question was I guess why you're willing to engage in coalition building in that way with someone you don't trust, where you aren't making the decision because you were essentially asking them to decide who to sub out for who. Like if you had the magic power that your suggestion had to be followed, and the person you're talking to was scum, they'd just use it to get a coalition that is equally good or better for them. Because in some sense the coalition is worthless unless it's all-town. This response does answer the question more or less though.

The "unilaterally final" thing was referencing hero's attitude toward coalition building which was ostensibly "i have decided, kindly sheep me" at the time. It's interesting to hear specifically you asking me to propose a different coalition, given that you've constantly been talking about how it's townie to not be in a rush - the reason I haven't proposed a full specific coalition is because I've been nominally waiting to see if one of various useful possible events happen (e.g. Mala starts posting more and is actually obvious town, hero/others are willing to reconsider THS, etc).

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It's disheartening to see Mala's only post in the last 48 hours to be contentless.

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How much of the game have you read, STD?

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It's disheartening to see Mala's only post in the last 48 hours to be contentless.

I've seen her be completely contentless as town unfortunately so it's kind of a tossup

Yeah that's why it's disheartening.

I didn't realize it was a combined deadline but that makes sense, i'll probably give something more concrete tomorrow

[implosion]

do you have a preferred coalition implosion?

At this moment you/me/hero/THS/bella.

ok i am lowkey worried that THS suggesting a coalition identical to mine/ari's/datisi's but without sheeping us means he's town

which basically means my reads are terribad and there might be 1-2 scum in the coalition.

am i being overly paranoid, or just the right amount of paranoid? @implo, ari, THS

it's very weird for you to say a thing that i literally already said like three times and then @ me to se if i agree.

or rather i think it's possible that this coalition is all town but if it's all then then i think THS is also town

datisi never really made a coalition before he quit playing

didn't he?

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Hero, how would you feel about replacing std or maybe bella with THS? I feel like the logic you gave is indicative of THS is town but is (as i'd said previously) strongly indicative that THS should be in the coalition because if it's already succeeding then adding him almost never hurts it

[implosion]

alas.

i do not like std's approve post. I guess it can come from town but it makes lots of sense from scum who's afraid that the winds could change with the fact that his reads like, conveniently happen to match up with the coalition that was already proposed and that his predecessor also liked. Like, just the sheer odds of those reads matching up is kind of low whereas scum can pick reads that are convenient and if he's in a failing coalition that has popular support and someone is talking about ousting him from the coalition then of course those are convenient reads for him to have.

I sort of want to throw up my hands and say it's just std/mala because that explains them jointly hammering the coalition when I was asking to sub in THS for probably STD. I like bella's previous page. I'm kind of irked at the coalition being hammered this way but i also probably could have been louder but i guess hindsight is 20/20. I think Drew saying he wants to start over is pretty townish in context.

VOTE: Save The Dragons

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we should vote out someone in the coalition first - voting outside of coalition is p bad

Thoughts beyond this? I feel like I didn't have the best sense of where you were at before the coalition got hammered.

[implosion]

Question for you all: Given the way the coalition came about, how viable do you think an Ari/Hero scumteam is?

Ari/hero scumteam would mean a lot of theater. I don't think the way the coalition came about particularly points to that; Datisi thought it was a good coalition, ari+hero were the first votes on the coalition and other people voted it up later, I don't think the way hero turned around their read on Ari is particularly s->s, etc.

Why is this your first thought that you wanted to ask about?

I can't help to remember how Implo and I clashed, then they backed off.....after referencing a previous game where they came after me when I was town (and they were town as well, I believe?).

I backed off because of that game. And also because I wasn't really looking to pursue scumreads by nature of the setup. "I think there's a deep wolf" is sort of a moot thing to say by nature of this setup; in theory we collectively decided who we thought the 5 towniest people were and at least one of them is scum. So yeah.

At this point I think you're more likely town than not.

[implosion]

shocker

what the hell

Ari,talk to me about hero?

Would really love if people would play the game of mafia that we signed up for.

Bella's is at least technically content (and I guess she said she'd be low-content, idr if that's still going on) but like, ugh. This is 1/3 of the player list posting without giving any opinion on anything after

the coalition failed

. Like, the coalition is either the anticlimax where town wins or the climax of the setup where we're supposed to learn we were wrong about everything. And Mala and STD voted for the coalition and now have nothing to say now that it failed. Like it probably isn't just as easy as STD/Mala but if either of them is town then they had better give some reason to believe that

[implosion]

i'm not fully read up but no, i can't give reasons (in good faith) for everyone but std/mala to be town because that's not why my reads are in the state they are but i can justify a bunch of people if you want

[implosion]

STD's 604 and 605 is a whole lot of words to say "eh, it could be anyone" and then essentially call one person on the coalition town and vote the person voting him. Calling 156 an attempt to "sew discord where there's not much going on yet" is like, him calling me scummy for throwing out a read when no one was really throwing out many reads, as far as I can tell? and like... what?

I somewhat like Merlyn's posting on page 25.

[implosion]

Though, I'll tentatively VOTE: implo because I feel like STD's hammer could a genuine mistake and implo's using it against him.
Also, the focus on Datisi.

Honestly, this post is baffling. "could be a genuine mistake and implo's using it against him" is an argument that just lacks any curiosity or desire to interrogate the hammer. Or me and my play for that matter. Do you think it was a genuine mistake? Why do you think it was a genuine mistake? Why would it being a genuine mistake make STD town? He could have mistakenly hammered as scum.

Also, the "scum would want to be careful" argument is wrong, because if STD was the only scum on the coalition then he needed the coalition to get hammered before I could convince people to potentially change it. Which maybe overly centralizes myself in the narrative but etc.

Also, what does "the focus on Datisi" mean?

[implosion]

Oh the careful thing was Drew's argument. Well etc.

Drew's vote on me isn't scummy but is annoying.

[implosion]

I think at this moment in time if like, STD were limmed and flipped town and then I got limmed after (or well, tomorrow in a world where STD flips town), I would want Ari to die next. I think she probably hasn't

really

gone out of her scumrange in this game and the fact that her presence in this game is waning is not actively scummy but it does mean that there aren't the kinds of persistent tells that I think I need to cement a read on a player who has snowed me before. I think if Hero is scum then they've played a really good game and if Bella is scum then she's like, doing a lot of small posts here and there that are really hard to fake. Like her most recent post (599) being willing to just call Drew obvtown I think is a townish thing to do in this game state (I also don't think she'd do it if they're both scum). The saying she's worried about being snowed by Hero is something that tactically could make sense from scum but idk, the whole trajectory on hero feels genuine.

[implosion]

I don't think I'd want STD today.
His ISO doesn't feel agenda-y at all.

To this point, I think this is actually contextually a scumtell, maybe a strong one. Imagine replacing in to a slot that is already widely being put in coalitions as town, vs as scum. As town, you would absolutely have an agenda, as in stuff you need to be doing: you're in the coalition, you need to sort the other people that are currently widely townread and make sure you think the coalition is good or propose an alternate coalition. Like, I felt like I wanted to get the right coalition, because people were townreading me and the game is way easier if we just get it right the first time so I wanted to be careful. On the other hand, if you replace into a scum slot that's in people's coalitions, you don't need to have any agenda - so long as you remain in the coalition, you're good.

The reason that having an agenda would be scummy in the first place is that scum sometimes need to think in terms of eliminating specific people who they know are on to them or other scum, but that doesn't apply to a coalition phase.

[implosion]

I think at this point I could towncase Drew, I don't really agree with Bella that he's obvtown but I think it's pretty likely. I sort of like Merlyn's 601 a lot - I think the indignance of it reads as town who is genuinely frustrated. I think frustration is a reaction that makes sense to being in the position of someone not on the coalition who is being tossed in the ring as a lim candidate by someone with rhetorical sway. I'm not sure what scum in that situation might do. But the statement "I'm actually trying to play this game AND there are these people who voted for the failing coalition without even being on it, why aren't we looking at them" is I think psychologically more likely to be town because she's not actually justifying or defending herself or her play. She's not giving reasons why she's clearly town or shouldn't be the lim, she's giving reasons why there are other people who should come first, which would logically leave her as still a person who could be limmed later after those people are dealt with. She just reads as annoyed at the pressure on her rather than worried about it.

[implosion]

Anyway I have to run but I do just think STD flips scum most of the time here. There's nothing in his posting that looks unlikely to come from scum and his content now is just, a one liner on everyone in the coalition and no actual nuance or consideration, after like, he was basically snowed by someone on the coalition since he was so sure that it was gonna be town that he was willing to vote it without even checking if it was a hammer supposedly

[implosion]

And re: focus on Datisi, I saw that you were SRing him pretty hard in your ISO

...what? This is a wildly inaccurate reading of my ISO. I at no point had a hard scumread or really any solid read on Datisi, I just disagreed with the reasons he was being townread.

Ari's posts are fair I guess. I'm also kind of losing steam for this game today. I kind of just want a flip and if it's a townflip then I think Ari will probably be more readable tomorrow.

i think rh9

could

be std's partner in a scum!std world, but am not sure

To be clear I'm not like sure of this by any means in this world. I just think if STD flips scum then I'd have a hard time ever being okay with RH9 not being flipped before endgame.

[implosion]

because it feels like there's too many people twiddling their thumbs on the sidelines and their votes are on irrelevant people[THS,Bella] and that's sometimes a sign that scum are fine with the current choices/dichotomy in the game and kind of just hoping someone gets offed.

This logic only really applies if one of THS/Bella is scum, right?

i don't really understand how you went from datisi is 99% town to oh he's the bad guy now

I feel like this is sort of weird but the trajectory still makes sense to me as coming from town, like they were convinced on Datisi and then there was sentiment that changed their mind over time? I do want to hear their response to this though

[implosion]

I don't really see myself voting anyone other than STD still unless tides change significantly. I still think we lim on coalition and I think Ari stepping back to re-evaluate is probably +town. I guess I can be convinced on Bella but even if my reasons to townread her aren't that great (and i'm not sure atm) I don't really see good reasons to lim her over STD. STD's play right now is sort of weird from scum because he's not like, doing anything other than just calling me scum and I don't know why that's the case, but I feel like if you're town at E-1 in this game you'd have something more to say than that.

[implosion]

Std, rh9 and the are all.making fucking weird choices without much explanation, they can't all be scum

big mood.

i agree w hero that ths (continues to) look like town

we have 36 hours left!

bella's annoyance (particularly the line about this is how i caught 2 scum recently) reads town to me

i am bored and want a flip >_>

[implosion]

i could be convinced on Bella but it'd be sort of a hard sell. I sort of have a hard time imagining wanting to lim anyone other than RH today though. His argument that I should be seeing that he is playing differently from the game I've seen him as scum is kind of absurd (like, sure, you bussed once, okay, most players don't always bus or always not bus). I don't think I have much of a read on RH's play in isolation but the circumstantial evidence of Mala's coalition vote + RH9 not particularly feeling like town means like I said yesterday I don't really want the slot living to endgame. I feel probably less confident on him than I did on STD but mostly because of the coalition info.

[implosion]

I usually am not good at reading into nightkills in this kind of context. I guess it's simpler given that it's a mountainous setup but idk. I wasn't really expecting to die last night, I guess I would have guessed ari or hero but I didn't think about it that hard, I've kind of turned my brain off from this game overnight

[implosion]

I softly intend to devote some effort to the game today but it will feel very bad to have devoted that effort if RH is indeed scum

[implosion]

I'm inclined to say that Hero's incredibly aggressive waffle on STD comes from scum really really rarely. It's one thing to like, distance noncommittally so that you don't have to bus if there's an alternative. But hero actively committed and uncommited like 3 separate times from wanting to lim STD. That seems like a very scary thing to do as scum partnered to STD who doesn't know the day is going to go on that long, and like, if they wanted not to bus they could have easily justified voting me over STD at any point and if they wanted to distance without really intending to bus then idk i feel like they wouldn't have like 3 separate posts where they say "okay now for realsies i'm voting std" and if they wanted to bus then they could have just bussed. It feels like what they did is a weird amalgamation of all of these that I think there are very few scum players who would consciously decide to play the day that way.

[implosion]

Don't you all think that scum would've seen that supporting STD was a bad move?
Have you all not considered that most of you are getting confbiased and are trying to filter things to fit your worldview?
All simply because you were right D1?

I think it's perfectly cromulent that you as scum in particular could have replaced in, seen that it's unlikely you're winning the game if STD goes down d1 in the context of you two being pushed as a team, and decided to hard defend. It's not like scum never hard defend each other and you might have seen me as a viable alternative.

I don't really understand RH9's defense of himself if he's town. He keeps saying he wouldn't have played the way he did as a brute fact, because scum don't play that way or he played differently in a past scum game. And like, that weird argumentation isn't scum-indicative per se from him. Mala's coalition vote is just so bad though, I think the bulk of my read on the slot is from her play. I disagree with Ari about Mala's posting toward Datisi, I think her early posting makes plenty of sense as distancing in the context of this setup where scum can pretty inconsequentially distance pre-coalition and 114 doesn't really feel hard to fake to me. I do agree RH9 feels sort of vaguely limbaity though.

[implosion]

Ari, how do you feel about 835?


I agree 232 is probably a very hard post for Drew to make as scum.

[implosion]

Uh.
To point out that implo knew my meta well enough that the possible scenario would be ludicrous to himself and thus, town!implo might be more willing to rethink things?

I also just, want to belabor this point, because, well, I just have to.

I do not "know your meta" well. I remember having played one game with you as scum (i think? I assume you're referencing that one guardians of the fortress game from whenever it was) but probably wouldn't have remembered you were scum if you didn't say it, at least off the top of my head. I did not remember that you had hard bussed on replacing in. You hard bussing on replacing in does not mean that you will always hard bus on replacing in or that you can't hard defend your scumbuddy on replacing in and I have no idea why you are implying that your "meta" is to always act the same way in every game you play as scum and that i should know this based on one game you played in a wildly different setup where bussing is heavily incentivized because you have no control over scumbuddies' fates.

[implosion]

i am definitely tempted to just hammer but I'll wait. I maybe just should bc I don't think there's anything that RH's replacement could say to sway me here and it's sort of cruel to whoever replaces in to the slot regardless of its alignment but I think we're still getting useful things out of the day. I won't begrudge a hammer if it happens though.

[implosion]

okay i do find parts of 891 more convincing than I thought I would. I don't think enough to override my townread as a whole which is based on more than just that but it is sort of a convincingly possible narrative. I guess a lot of it comes down to performativity though and I don't know if performativity is a scumtell in this case, like I think we had this discussion earlier d1. Like,

also if i'm a suspect to him why is he apologizing to me?

This is something that does bug me, hero does spend the entire game talking to you very abstrusely (apologizing when they think you could be scum, promising not to yeet you even though you'd be their top suspect if the coalition fails) which I've assumed is just some weird thing that makes sense if you know who the alt is of bc you two have history (also based on posts like 894). It does also make sense as some weird scum ploy. But it basically feels like a lot of it stems from this being a performance, which Hero has a good explanation for if town (that they're trying to turn their brain off this game and finding it hard to do so). Whereas it just feels really elaborate for scum to do. Like I don't know if I've ever constructed (as scum) such an elaborate series of "weird" things to do (i.e., the entirety of Hero's play toward you) and idk exactly what scum-Hero's motivation to do so would be except to try to pocket you? Which maybe but it still seems like just a weird way to play scum. I guess you have better meta knowledge than me but eh. maybe i don't actually find 891 more convincing than i thought i would.

[implosion]

I don't think it's Hero. All of this stuff, including yesterdays vote waffling, would have to be a performance. If I'm throwing away the game here I'll congratulate him at the end and also be slightly scared of him.

Yeah this feels right. Like the amount of effort that Hero would have had to expend in order to fake this complex emotional reaction to each part of the game as scum here feels like more effort than i've ever put into a scumgame (or any game) personally.

[implosion]

most of these pages make me feel nothing except that i feel bad for not hammering last night if titus is indeed scum

[implosion]

VOTE: Titus

[implosion]

Yeah i was much more expecting to die last night. I think my first thought would be that it points to Ari but I don't know if it makes sense for her as scum to immediately back off from Hero being scum today. I don't think hero as scum would have likely killed Ari last night but I also still just never bought the scum case on Hero. It could be that I'm alive because I have some bad read, like maybe Hero is scum trying to leave me + Ari alive in the hopes that I'll go after Ari? I feel like I haven't been very vocal about reads other than on Hero and the mala slot recently so if it's because of my reads it has to be that

[implosion]

The way Merlyn voted std here feels super unmotivated as scum. It would maybe be even stronger if the timestamps of that post and 557 were closer but to turn on a dime like that and decide to bus on a whim feels unlikely. 601 feels like, i mentioned it before want to hard townread that post in isolation even more than before because there's an extra layer of work that it'd take scum to fake that emotional investment when they're actually bussing and are going to likely gain towncred if STD flips.

I had a pretty strong townread on Ari yesterday that I wasn't very vocal about (I don't think I ever mentioned it but I thought the way her hero read was working felt a lot like how her reads often work when she's town in a way that seems like it'd be hard to reconstruct as scum, like it feels similar to wrong scumreads she's had on me before) so I don't really understand why she shoots Drew over me when I feel like she has a fairly easy path to win of like, shoot me lim hero shoot ???.

[implosion]

My thoughts are really disjointed right now because I also do not have a good feeling about who it is. I think I'd guess Hero right now but I did not feel like it was Hero even after seeing that it wasn't the mala slot

[implosion]

I think i'm honestly just afraid that ari is snowing me again

[implosion]

i feel like this is a weird suggestion to make (from ari) right after i talked about my strong townread on her and why i'm not sure why she'd shoot drew. Like, wouldn't you rather just... not be limmed and try to make people listen to you?

Actually, you know what? Implo, would you be willing to do a bop or reverse bop?

I literally just said I don't feel good about who's scum right now so no, I'm not really interested in taking a 1/4 shot at winning when we can get a strictly better EV shot by playing normally. The only reason to do a "BoP shot" is if we're convinced someone is scum and we trust their judgment very strongly in the case that they're town. I don't trust my judgment in this game to that extent, and if you think I'm scum, I'd much rather just be limmed normally today than declare who I demand will be limmed tomorrow first, because that means we get 0 information from the nightkill. And evidently whoever is scum is making weird nightkills.

Of course I'd rather just not be limmed at all, and then maybe not eat a nightkill again for whatever reason. Are you thinking that I'm scum, Merlyn? If not, why do you want me to do a bop or reverse bop?

[implosion]

I'm very much interested in listening to what you have to say given that Titus flipped town. I'm not especially interested in giving you absolute power and I'm not especially interested in planning to guaranteedly crucify you tomorrow if you're wrong.

Regarding Hero: is the feeling that Hero would have shot you last night as scum mostly/entirely based on personality/meta? Particularly given Hero saying they wouldn't have shot you.

[implosion]

Fwiw this page also reinforces Ari as town to me

[implosion]

Also FYI: I'm variously traveling for the next ~10 days, should still be around a similar amount but might have some days where I just forget to

[implosion]

today was very busy/tiring, will have more tomorrow at some point, i can find some scum games but i historically play so infrequently that i feel like my meta is usually out of date in any given game i'm playing

[implosion]

I think for me it’d be between hero and Bella for today but I am increasingly feeling like hero is the best lim while brooding on it. The main reason I’ve felt hero is town is because of effort that would have to go in to a performance but I think I might be overly projecting that doing something like that would be really difficult for me to do as scum while it might not be as hard for someone with the right personality.

Bella right now feels sort of unagendad for scum, which is not a great reason and I should audit my reasons for thinking she’s town soon

[implosion]

I do agree the game is sort of lethargic right now, I think it’s partially rl stuff for me but also I think it’s sort of natural for the game to sputter out after Titus flipped town.

I do think part of it though ari is that I and I think others said we wanted to know how you’re feeling but you haven’t been super forthcoming since then

[implosion]

I am pretty much ruling Ari out as scum and hopefully that won't be a big mistake. What if we'd taken her up on the reverse BoP idea?

I could get behind an implo lim. It's so weird he's alive. He didn't want to do the BoP idea. Drew was scumreading him.

Regarding this: I do agree it’s weird that I’m alive. I honestly think I’d have been more likely to go along with the bop idea if I were scum (I probably still wouldn’t based on what I know of myself but etc), I fucking hate being mislimmed and it’s not like agreeing to a bop shot is signing a contract, and I kind of assumed you’d be calling me scum for not going along with it after the way you asked and it’s annoying since I do think you’re probably town.

I don’t claim to know why drew was shot but I don’t think he was scumreading me? At least not for a while

[implosion]

Anyone else got points for me?

I know you gave a sort of rundown of your reads a couple pages ago but I don't feel like I have a good idea of where your head is actually at right now, mostly because that rundown doesn't actually explain who you're feeling like you'd like to lim or not lim today and partially because it feels like you've sort of been playing your game in a way that's not enmeshed in the rest of the game. E.g., what did you think about the bop shot debacle? How are you feeling about like, Hero's waffling or Ari's ultimately going back to Hero?

Who specifically is your preferred lim(s) and why?

[implosion]

Like Hero I also have no idea where they're at right now but they are more or less claiming to have no idea where they're at in a very particular way at least

[implosion]

Oh we have 2 days left in deadline btw.

[implosion]

it feels like you've sort of been playing your game in a way that's not enmeshed in the rest of the game.

that's exactly what i was feeling about bella that i was scumreading

but i think that might be something she does as town somewhat?

Yeah, I don't know if I find it scummy, it just makes it hard to like, connect her play now to the play earlier from her that I thought was townie

I'm not really sure if I'd particularly expect scum to sputter out in this sort of game; like, if Bella is scum it feels like she was probably putting in more effort toward doing actively deceptive stuff earlier and is trying to coast to some degree now? RL is a thing I suppose so it's probably not something to read too much in to either way.

[implosion]

I'm probably hammering given deadline + i think hero is my top choice to lim all things considered (partially because I'm putting some faith in ari but i don't want to shirk responsibility if it's wrong or w/e, i agree with the sentiment that everyone feels townish right now in isolation and so etc). Definitely would like to hear more from bella first though.

[implosion]

Actually I guess in this context I'm probably not dying anymore if this is wrong so maybe I should just hammer >_>. i'm still not going to do that tonight, mostly because i'm a coward

[implosion]

Hero I've already explained why I think you make sense as scum. Or at least why the reasons I've felt you're town can easily be wrong.

I think survivalism as a scumtell is sort of a relic of personality. Like, I think I'm likely to be more survivalistic as town because I hate being mislimmed in most contexts more than I hate being limmed as scum. Which is not to say that I wouldn't be playing to win as scum - acting non-survivalistic is a tried and true strategy for scum. It feels like a significantly above average amount of my ability to read you in this game hinges on your personality because of the way you've been playing, which is why a significant part of this is that I'm deciding to go with Ari who knows who you are. If you are scum, then in the absence of Ari this game I'd probably still be misreading you completely because she's forced me to stop and think. If you're town then well, it's unfortunate I guess but that's life. Which is not to say I'm trying to blame her if you're both town, I'm the one choosing to listen to her now (and independently re-evaluating my reasons) when yesterday I was choosing to ignore her. If she's scum then well, I guess this is all your fault for saying you'd never lim her >_>

[implosion]

hero do you think i'm scum or do you not think i'm scum

[implosion]

i will say that my scum case on implo is based on the fact that if you read his iso starting from post 935 onwards, you see the smoothest transition between a hyper townread on hero, can't believe hero is ever scum here, to "i wanna hammer hero but not yet".

and what bothers me is the smoothness of it, there are no bumps, no wild turns left or right, no flip flopping. it feels a bit artificial. compare it with ari's 4 times of readflipping or whatever, where she was like super scumreading me in one post then saying "fine i'll tr you" in the next post. the fact it isn't smooth makes it feel organic, at least to me.

Like honestly this is a fairly reasoned point against me. The reason it's the case is because my town case on you essentially amounted to one thing that over time I realized wasn't good enough in the game we're in. But like, I don't understand how you make this post, then vote me, then six minutes later you vote ari. After you were arguing that Merlyn should let you live because you're literally never going to vote Merlyn, and after all game you talked about how you were never voting Ari, like you have things that are set in stone but you just don't. I don't understand why you're playing this way as either alignment tbh. It feels like such a weird kind of performativity.

[implosion]

Yeah, I'm thinking there's no rush to put the hammer down on you, I don't know why if you're town and Bella or Implo is scum that they don't come in and end it. Cautiousness tends to be more towny. The other option is that you really are scum

Worth noting Bella hasn't posted since the E-1 happened. Honestly I also still want her on the table for today, I feel like I'd have a hard time not voting her in f3. I really don't think Ari is the play today. I feel like I really like the reasons I have to townread her. Like fuck, Hero gave a great reason to townread her in his post against me seven minutes before voting her >_>

[implosion]

like I don't think the reasoning stated in this post is why you've decided to vote me because its incredibly weak.

it feels like you decided to vote me based on Merlyn unvoting you and stating she doesn't think it's implosion or bella because niether of them have hammered you - which leaves just me.

You think if she is willing to vote me and not willing to vote implosion then that means you have an easier way to lim me - hence you deciding to move your vote - then you decide to add in some reasoning that's pretty tangentially related.

You saying that my reaction to your 99% townread on datisi is TMI is just nonsensical - your read was terrible regardless of Datisi's alignment

The thing about this gives me a little bit of pause is just that like, does anyone actually play this way as scum? Specifically the voting for you in that moment. I think I have a sometimes-wrong inclination to call things too scummy to be scum, it makes sense if hero thinks it's literally their only out but just the level of blatant, out in the open opportunism is almost foreign to how i think most scum think

[implosion]

merlyn made a good point so i re-looked at the possibility of ari!scum, one which i had earlier dismissed, and found that it is possible.

I guess the main thing is that this took you like 3-6 minutes to re-evaluate. I get that if you're town you're just not confident in yourself but it really is a staggering amount of reads volatility.

Friendly reminder that it is like 17 hours to deadline. I'm flying out tomorrow morning and am not sure how online I will be in general during the day. I think I should be chilling at the airport a bit after I land so should at least have that chance. I still want to hear more from bella.

[implosion]

I’ll definitely be able to at least hammer when I land (in a bit over 4 hours)

[implosion]

VOTE: Hero at Heart
here's hoping.

[implosion]

I’m probably gonna be pretty much v/la until monday, I’ll check in a bit and respond to stuff probably but I’m at an event all weekend and won’t have much energy to spare to think about much or dig into much until then.

[implosion]

But suffice to say for now it’s been a long time since I’ve been in 3p elo and my default inclination is that Bella is scum but I am not sure how much to weight the fact that elo is what it looks like because Bella as scum might have shot me. I think I am still inclined to think it’s Bella at a glance but I want to dig in to stuff

[implosion]

Also,.implo, you think the hero wagon was all town? Was it just because it was rushed?

I mean, that wagon being all town is synonymous with you being scum so it’s sort of a loaded analysis in that way. But I don’t think wagon analysis is super meaningful at 5p with 1 scum alive, there’s no one potentially trying to bus or distance or save their partner and there were at least 2 town on the wagon and at most 1 scum so it’s not like it was meaningfully scum driven.

[implosion]

I'm flying back tomorrow and expect to have some time in the airport to start looking more closely at things, and will continue to either when I get home tomorrow, or more likely Tuesday at some point.

Let's start here. Im not sure why you are confused as you are about my reads: I think I've been really clear about who I definitely wouldn't lim, and who's an option.

I see. I think the confusion comes down to me not thinking the phrasing in 1090 was especially clear, but I can see it just being a misunderstanding. You listed Mer as "see above" to Ari so I wasn't sure how you felt between the two of them and you listed Hero as "see above but with more obvious mistakes" to me, and I wasn't sure if "playing a fantastic scum game??" meant you were townreading me or that you felt like I was actually likely/viably scum but playing well. Also the phrasing of effectively two people being "still /could/ be scum" and two people being "playing a fantastic scumgame?" made it sound like you had no actual scumreads. It makes more sense with the clarification.

My two questions are: implo, hero talked a lot ablut your read change on him being smooth: can you tell me about it?

I explained it a little here. I think what Hero was seeing was that my read sort of flowed from "hero is obvious town" to "hero is the best lim" in response to the game state of Titus flipping + Ari's reasoning, and that I was continuing to feel that way even as Ari iirc slowed down a bit on it. Part of it is just that I didn't really have a good bead on things when Titus flipped town. I was more or less expecting to die after that and the Drew kill threw me for a loop a bit (as it did everyone seemingly) and I generally feel like it's hard to read into kills at that point.The other part of it is that the way I often approach games is to maintain townreads and periodically audit them, and I went back at reasons I had for townreading you and Hero and at that time I felt like the reasons that I had felt especially good about townreading Hero for could actually be more personality than alignment, if hero is the kind of player that approaches scum play in a particular way. And then the day kind of blurred by a bit tbh.

@Implo- how would you describe your scum game?

I usually conceptualize my scum play to myself as trying somewhat straightforwardly to mimic my town game as best as I can but in practice it's been so long since I've been scum in forum mafia that it's hard to really give an answer that's likely to be accurate to how I'd play scum now. It'd probably still largely be that though.

Another one for Implo- what's your best guess as to why you didn't get NK'ed after the STD lim?

This is maybe easier to answer now that we have a smaller pool. Looking at THS's ISO, if Bella is scum then it's possibly just that THS had indicated some suspicion of Bella, he said he wanted to lim RH9 next if STD flipped scum but bella or hero next if STD flipped town. Granted this isn't actually all that meaningful because the Bella/Hero read is just saying those are the two other people he found scummiest in the coalition potentially but it's possible she was just getting rid of a slot that had latent suspicion of her that she thought might eventually haunt her. The last sentiment I'd expressed about her before the hammer was thinking that her annoyance at something was town and it was pretty clear I wanted RH9 next so it's possible I was left alive just to secure that mislim. That doesn't explain why I didn't get NK'd the next night though, Bella shooting Drew would be interesting since she was hard townreading him. This is part of what I want to dig in to soon

If you're scum, THS was townreading you maybe even earlier than other people were so it'd be a weird shot. I was also townreading you which can explain not-shooting me but doesn't explain shooting THS. Well, I was townreading everyone but RH at that point I think at least to some degree already so like, it's possible that the explanation is as simple as whichever one of you is scum thinking I was going to tunnel a townie the next day (correctly). Which means it will also be elucidating to think about the Drew kill since that was after RH/Titus was dead.

Alas I need to sleep now. Really like 30 minutes ago. I've kind of been posting at arbitrary times throughout the day but once I'm back home I'm happy to be online concurrently with either/both of you at some point, based on timestamps on this page it shouldn't be *too* hard.

[implosion]

I'm at the airport but without a ton of time before plane boards and gosh i am just very tired so probably not gonna spend a ton of time today on this

But let's just lim RH, then if they do flip town we can discuss who should be next instead of just nuking Bella or Ari right away(or maybe you lol).

This is the closest/most recent thing in Drew's ISO to reads that I see that isn't just saying he thinks it's Titus. I think at that point I really am not sure why I wasn't shot over drew, I don't think I had really given much away about my feelings on the game beyond thinking Titus was scum except maybe calling Hero town which would be more reason to shoot me. Maybe bella as scum left me alive until yesterday because she thought she'd be able to keep me townreading her for some reason? I kind of feel like I'm grasping at straws for actual good reasons on this and it's probably more fruitful to just examine play directly than NK speculate at this point

[implosion]

Bella had an interesting early townread of Datisi circa 357 where she thought he would normally have done something to give himself away as scum at that point. I think I can see this coming from either alignment, like if she's scum and drew scum with Datisi then it'd make sense for her to try to conceptualize her play toward him around another game she'd played with him where he was scum and to give some read on him that way, but it can certainly be a basis for a read as town as well. This is probably not especially useful but it's interesting

[implosion]

I don't think it's Hero. All of this stuff, including yesterdays vote waffling, would have to be a performance. If I'm throwing away the game here I'll congratulate him at the end and also be slightly scared of him.

I'm asking this question from a perspective of having felt similar: how exactly did your internal thought process evolve from this to voting for Hero?

[implosion]

Part of what I want to know from Bella is, if you had been able to post more in the last ~48 hours of yesterday, would you have been hard defending hero and pushing for a different lim? I feel like that would have been useful to see and asking what you think you'd have done is obviously less useful but given that you asked me about the hero wagon being all town I want to know if you're saying you think it was "obviously" a bad wagon to the point that you'd have tried to dismantle it.

[implosion]

Implo, I feel like the ths nk was weirder than the drew nk: I asked earlier int he game why if scum wanted a low info kill, that it wasn't mer, and I think hero responded saying they'd never lim ths after the std flip (or something): what are everyone's thoughts on this?

Is the implication here that you think THS may have been a low-info kill by Merlyn because she wanted a low-info kill and couldn't shoot herself?

Iirc I felt pretty good about THS town but I don't really remember it being about his interactions with STD in a way that would mean to never lim him after the STD flip. But yeah, it's possible that my advocacy for THS as town made scum think THS wasn't gonna die this game so that it was a safe low-info kill or something.

Also in regards to your 48 hours question, at the time and at the start of day I was a bit like 'wtf is this lim', which I would have expressed, but actually a) I'd probably have gunned for an Ari lim, which would've been equally wrong and probably worse for town, as I don't think hero gets nk, and b) I can now see more of mers point about a 3p lylo. It's a shit lim to get info from, in hindsight.

I feel like any 3p eLo where everyone is a candidate for scum is always going to feel sort of starved for info. I think if Ari hadn't been killed I would feel really bad about the possibility of misreading her in particular in either direction just because of how kind of fraught the game has been.

I am inclined to believe that this is at least not being made up wholecloth.

If we look at the nks by looking at elos, I feel implo benefits slightly more from this elo, as he knows I don't hard tr mer and my activity dropped off massively, so am an easy push.

Mer would have to convince implo to vote me, which...mid, because again, activity. I hadn't posted that implo was making me feel some sort of way, because I hadn't read before the night phase, so from her pov getting me to vote implo would be a hard sell.

From my point of view (really a neutral point of view), if Merlyn is scum then killing Ari makes sense from her pov because I was indicating a lot of suspicion of you near the end of yesterday. If you're scum, maybe you'd have shot me for that reason? Or well, the reasons not to shoot me would be for wifom value or if you thought you could lim me. I think Ari was not very vocal about specific reads other than Hero yesterday? The Ari kill is definitely interesting especially with you opening the day saying you were planning to push her

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Maybe I'm naive but i don't think hero pushes me in this elo? Liek mer said, hero mer Bella hero votes mer, probably.

Hero implo Bella is a cluster fuck for me.

Hmmm

What does this mean? You mean like, if ari had been limmed and merlyn had been killed? Why are you thinking about elo with Hero when Hero was limmed?

[implosion]

For me this might really just come down to what I think is more likely: a straightforward game where Bella is the scum and she's been a bit absent and thus hard to pin down, or a more complicated game where Implo is a scum mastermind who voted his partner off in cold blood.

I guess Occam's razor says I should just assume it's Bella- it's really just because I do think Implo is a very good player that keeps giving me pause

I sort of have a similar point of view of you two except I'm nervous about Ari dying last night being you leaving me alive to lim bella. I think you've played a very solid game if you're scum (tbh Bella has too if she's scum, at least a solid early game). I think the overarching thing (or well, I guess this is directed at Bella in the event that I wind up with hammer/if she thinks Merlyn is scum) is the timing of various stances or the way Merlyn has interacted with the game. Like, I think her approach to yesterday feels town-motivated, I think the way she was voting StD doesn't feel especially like a bus. I don't really remember what she was doing on the day titus was limmed so might look more at that. In particular I think 601 is a really hard post to make as scum that would require a lot of really deep thought to craft as a post from scum who is currently bussing and is about to theoretically get towncred from that bus.

I think bella and I have been asked this but maybe you haven't, Merlyn - how would you characterize your approach to the game as scum?

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I kind of see this point of view, given that you were open about sussing Bella yesterday, but Bella would be a dangerous choice for me as scum to keep alive as she's indicated for a lot of this game that she could see me as scum. If I were scum in this game I'm not sure I would chance that and go for Ari instead, who has been on the fence about me in a more neutral way and I could frame for leading the charge on Hero.

I mean maybe, but if you're scum and relying on me voting Bella then it doesn't matter who Bella votes.

I think the best case I can make me for as town is that I don't know how I vote Hero yesterday as scum. He said multiple times he would never lim me, including before he flip flopped on similar vows. Even if he changed his mind, I could used that as ammo against him in a final three. I'd already gone on record as saying I thought he was town pretty strongly- as scum I don't think I deliberately court the heat by changing course there, I think I just vote Bella.

I don't quite follow this - the fact that he'd flip flopped on other such vows would be reason to believe he might flip flop on you, no? Especially in f3. I feel like someone changing their mind on something like that is something that in the modern meta is not actually seen as materially scummy. If anything that sort of thing is why I had been townreading Hero before I changed my mind. I don't think there was ever momentum toward Bella yesterday, so you'd have had to be the first one to go in that direction and I feel like there'd be a risk associated with that. I guess this isn't even an argument that you're scum, I just don't agree that this is a great reason to townread you.

Basically, I'm trying to say that being a lurksack isn't my typical scum game.

I've gotten the impression that you've been lurking due to RL reasons, which seems alignment-independent?

[implosion]

Also, I tend to town hunt, and especially when those reads are a bit /hot take/-y: I think I felt stronger about Dr drew this game than anyone did.

I vibe with this strongly, not in a way that necessarily means anything about your alignment but I also often get a lot of joy by getting a lot of mileage out of strong niche townreads. For me that was THS on day one but alas.

Is this something that you try to replicate in your scum game? You described your recent scum game as aggressive, would you be aggressive about handing out townreads like that as scum, or do you think your townread on Dr Drew should be a reason to read you as town in this game?

[implosion]

VOTE: Merlyn

Reading up.

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I don't massively agree with the statement 'all 3 are good scum candidates', because like I said, until day end you were hard town for me, so....I don't really know why you said this? It feels a bit contrived, same as 'from a neutral point of view'. Why do you think we are all 'good scum candidates '?

I was widely townread early in the game but Hero was convinced i was scum for part of yesterday and obviously (at least fmpov) i was left alive partially because scum thought they could potentially mislim me. I was surprised I didn't die two nights ago but last night I had vaguely thought Merlyn would be the default kill for scum over me, but well, here we are.

The "neutral point of view" is just how I talk. I'm sure I can find similar examples in town games I've played if you want. Well I'm not like, literally sure but I'd be really surprised if I couldn't.

What are you both talking about? It can't be Hero saying he'd never lim THS after the STD flip bc THS was the nightkill after STD was limmed.

I mean that my townread on THS was based on his play and wasn't based on interactions with STD, so the fact that he was shot immediately after STD flipped scum isn't explained by STD flipping scum and scum wanting to shoot someone who was obviously town based on that.

[implosion]

I'm saying that there's never a good reason I as scum bring you vs. Hero.

This also just isn't how the game works. There were very clearly 3 people ready and willing to vote Hero. There were like, 3 potential voters for Bella or maybe like Ari but there were not 3 people clearly willing and ready to vote them.

I also don't think my actions today have been consistent with someone who needs to convince Implo you're scum.

This is in some sense fair but also kind of shedding a layer of nuance. Merlyn most likely came into today with a first plan of getting me to vote Bella, and then saw an opportunistic chance to vote for me because

I do feel like implos sr of me and hero did evolve fairly fast

I feel like I came into them really slowly >_> this game has pretty short deadlines and I spent most of the game townreading both of you. Like I said, the way I play the game is mostly around thinking about townreads and auditing them, and I felt like I had better reasons for townreading other people. In a vacuum I would basically townread everyone in the game but STD and Titus (and maybe Drew if I'd had a chance to audit my read of him before he died)

[implosion]

lol at myself stopping in the middle of a sentence.

I think merlyn voted me here because she saw bella starting to sway against me and her having the opportunity of being in real time with Bella and being able to be persuasive that way. Honestly it is a really good play. But she is scum.

[implosion]

And to be clear for Bella, yeah I don't even feel great about saying that. I'm saying it because it's now something that I know but I am pretty surprised both that it's Merlyn and that she's opting to 1v1 me. It's honestly a really creative play, since I just talked about her taking me and Bella into the 1v1 so I'd vote Bella.

[implosion]

I feel like Merlyn is trying to leverage looking townie by interacting in real time, which I haven't gotten an opportunity to do, so if you are still around Bella and have any questions I'm here for another ~hour probably.

[implosion]

oh hey that was my 14000th post. neat.

how does implo ever come into today as town saying he were STILL pretty sure it was Bella and not even consider how odd that would be

I never said this today. I said I was inclined to think it was Bella, and then I started digging in more to things; granted, digging into those things was making me lean more towards Bella, but I was definitely not sold yet.

[implosion]

I townread you on d1. I said in 829 that I could be convinced on you as scum but it'd be a hard sell. In 1110 that I needed to audit my read on you and then I tried to talk with you but you weren't around. I think the main reason it feels fast is just because I was pretty sold on the Titus slot as scum and then I needed to re-evaluate when that slot was town and I thought it was Hero over you and had various mixed feelings between the two of you (that I wasn't always talking about in thread but was sometimes) over the course of the day.

Also, not to be a dick, but where's your evidence that mer is this good at scum/would pull this?

I mean, I don't think I've played with her as scum so I'm not specifically familiar with her gameplay and I have a hard time really actually getting familiar with things from reading completed games. I think the vote on me is a going with the flow/opportunistic sort of thing - she felt like she could get away with it in the moment based on interacting with you and based on my rhetoric around her. She described her scumgame like this:

In general I've played two kinds of scum games on this site, very cerebral with a lot of posting and very lurky where I pocket early and try to always be the second choice instead of first for lim (with varying degrees of success).

And I think that this sort of in-the-moment cleverness is not really what she's describing here but in that sense it makes sense for her to think along those lines after describing her scum game differently (bc obviously scum aren't obligated to tell the complete truth).

To be clear if you mislim me here I don't really begrudge you. I think Merlyn has played a really good game. She just happens to also be scum here.

[implosion]

I think saying 'i never said I was pretty sure, I said I was inclined ' is kind of splitting hairs lol

Inclination is much weaker than "pretty sure". More relevantly you also said

not even consider how odd that would be

when I literally did consider in that post that it would be odd for Bella to leave me alive after I made that comment

[implosion]

Also, not to be a dick, but where's your evidence that mer is this good at scum/would pull this?

Like I get where this question is coming from but ultimately, I don't know, I think this kind of setup is the kind where it's entirely possible for someone to have a sort of break-out scum game, especially if she likes to bus (as she said she does). I also honestly don't think my scumgame is very good. I think I've been pretty far out of my scum range this game with things like the way my read on Hero shifted, the general way I've interacted with the game state, the way my reads worked on d1, etc. I think those are things I have trouble replicating as scum, I feel like if I were scum this game I would have been caught or suspected a while ago. It's really frustrating to have been correctly read as town for the first couple days and I feel like I was basically bound to be scumread after that just for being alive :\. That's probably a large part of why I felt like it was "3 viable candidates" going into today, because I feel like I'm being set up by being left alive the whole game after how d1 went. Like maybe Merlyn was always planning to push me in f3 and I'm overcomplicating things with the whole "she decided to go with you in the moment" thing

[implosion]

and yeah that's AtE, but etc. It's hard to provide hard evidence for something like "this player is capable as scum" when I don't know the player very well, I've played with her before but not much. But she is scum this game.

[implosion]

Anyway I'm heading out now but will probably be on more in a couple hours

[implosion]

Honestly I think I’m letting this game get to me more than I should so I’ll respond to stuff that Bella wants me to but I’m going to disengage at least for now

[implosion]

I will say one thing which is I don’t want to make it sound like I actually have a good idea what merlyns plan was coming in today or w killing aristeia, I’m kind of shooting from the hip. In practice she probably had some reason I haven’t/won’t figure out

[implosion]

That post is a pretty great coincidence in terms of the fact that both of us are in it.

Obviously I am biased but the straightforward reading of that post in the context of how the setup works is that Datisi + Merlyn are scum together. The setup in principle rewards scum for distancing or even hard bussing during the coalition phase, because if there's only one scum in the coalition then it's harder for town to get a correct lim within the coalition.

There is very much wifom there especially since it's still earlyish in the day but it looks like Datisi was actually the first person to add me to his coalition, which I think he'd be pretty disincentivized from doing if we were scum together, particularly when Datisi himself was already being Healed by several people and so was likely to be in the coalition. In fact given that he was at that point being Healed a lot it's very likely that he basically figured he could solo the game if he was the only scum in the coalition (since he is Datisi and he at least seemed to be getting widely townread) and so he made a relatively early move to make sure it'd be the case.

[implosion]

The point is he took Merlyn off of coalition and put me on it at a moment when it looked like he was going to be on coalition and therefore had sway over who would be on coalition with him. Doesn't matter if it was specifically distancing, or bussing, or how he was interacting with either of us. Actions speak louder than words.

Also, if Merlyn's take is that Datisi and I didn't interact at all, then I'd like to think that if I were scum with Datisi, we would interact a lot? Like, I don't think I'm especially *good* at scum but Datisi is very good at scum and I'd think we wouldn't be afraid of interacting with each other, if anything I feel like we'd do theater a good amount of the time. Whereas me not really caring about interacting with Datisi d1 in this game is entirely by design because I've historically been shit at reading him day one and good at reading him later, e.g. here, so I've learned to not really put a lot of stock in how I'm feeling about him early.

[implosion]

(Deadline is just shy of 29 hours from now, btw)

[implosion]

i said i agree with the statement that I didn't interact much with Datisi and that it's evidence that I'm town. Particularly if I am good at scum, I should know how to interact with a partner (especially a partner like Datisi) in a more convincing way than just ignoring them, whereas there's a very good explanation for why I ignored Datisi on d1 as town, as I said.

I'm sure that statement is true but I do not remember what game that is lol. It's possible I'm better at scum than I give myself credit for but it's entirely irrelevant to the argument at hand, if anything the better I am at scum the less my d1 play toward Datisi would make sense if we were scum together.

[implosion]

Like, what kind of master class scum that I'm being made out to be rolls scum with *datisi* of all people and then just ignores him d1 lol. I feel like if I drew scum with Datisi I'd be excited and want to do something out there, like hard-reading him one way or the other, dialoguing with him a bunch, or something like that. I feel like the last thing I'd do is ignore him

[implosion]

for reference (and I think this is good practice for both alignments in f3 when there's a crossvote) all my posting is directed toward Bellaphant, not Merlyn. Which is probably why Merlyn is saying we're going in circles, of course we are, we're crossvoting.

Bella, if you want me to answer anything in particular from Merlyn's posts that I'm not addressing, let me know, but I think most of the arguments are mostly devolving into pointless rhetoric. I brought up that I don't view myself as a particularly good scum player because I was arguing about being scum with Datisi, who is in my mind one of the best scum players on the site (though I probably put him on a pedestal in that way to some degree but etc etc). My self-conception of my skill at scum isn't really relevant to the argument which was more about how Datisi is very good and I am at the very least very experienced and so his and my d1 play toward each other would be unusual if we were a team.

[implosion]

I very much did try to solve Bella yesterday. I was waiting for a reply and then oops all deadline. I just didn't have a ton of time or energy for going back and analyzing stuff thoroughly at that time because, as I mentioned, i was doing stuff IRL.

[implosion]

Sorry, I will vote before deadline, I felt fairly certain yesterday and now am a bit confused again. I can hear the dead thread shouting at me.

I believe you but you are in fact making me nervous :p

If you get this wrong, no hard feelings. Merlyn has played a very good scum game. I'm more or less around until deadline if there are last minute things you want to ask about.

[implosion]

gg

I’ll have more to say when I’m home. Fine with scum topic being released

[implosion]

so my main struggle this game was figuring out nightkills. And of course I regretted every nightkill basically as soon as the following day started, I regretted shooting Drew as soon as Hero said they would have been pushing him, I regretted shooting Ari as soon as Bella said she'd have been pushing her. The main motivation for the THS and Drew kills was that I knew I was too townie coming out of d1/d2 and I needed it to not be that auspicious that I was being left alive, so I wanted to keep some of the other townier people alive with me. It *sort of* worked? I shot THS specifically because he was townreading me at the time IIRC and I wanted to shoot someone townreading me in the moment to play for the long game. I also wanted to shoot on the StD wagon. I shot Drew because I thought he was townreading me at that moment but was liable to go back.

I also don't begrudge the replace out, irl is more important.

[implosion]

for some really stupid reason i let the fact that he didn't hammer me confuse me and i didn't post it, even though it was in line with how he played scum not to actually hammer immediately.

Yeah I was definitely grateful for this. I am fundamentally a coward who is afraid to commit to anything in the game (really as both alignments). I definitely can remember like one time in a scum game that I tried to take what looked like a free cheap hammer, but iirc it backfired pretty hard.

One more interesting thing - there was something in my ISO that I was sort of afraid was going to be a smoking gun particularly when Bella asked about setup mechanics near the end, which is my admittedly weak attempts to replace Datisi with someone else in the coalition. As I (truthfully) said, it's beneficial for scum (quite beneficial) to have only one scum on coalition, and I thought if I was the only scum on coalition I'd be able to parlay that into a lot of mislims much more easily than with both me and Datisi, especially since we could just kill of coalition every night and not arouse any suspicion on me. It is something that I could have posted as town but of everything I did this game that was by far the most agenda'd thing.

[implosion]

I'm really glad you articulated your thoughts here, it's genuinely fascinating to go back and see how your thought process led to the right decision for you here

I definitely forgot that I said it'd be easier to get bella to vote you than you to vote bella lol. I think a tactic you could have taken in this last day (i have no idea if it would have worked but it's an interesting alternative world!) is to really try to push me to vote for Bella since I was vocally leaning that way, like for you to ask for the hammer explicitly. I considered at one point explicitly saying I wanted the hammer. Either you get me to vote Bella (in which case you get the hammer) or I'm reluctant to do so, in which case you can quite possibly score town points when you vote for me. Really I think voting for me was also a very sensible choice but it's an alternate way things could have gone that makes me curious, like it would have been quite challenging to respond to that pressure effectively for me.