Open 899 - The Pizza Kids Coalition [Game Over]

[DeasVail]

The lasagna looks more delicious than the pizza, alas...

[DeasVail]

why appearance?

[DeasVail]

Anything in particular speaking to you yet, DV?

I agree with the general sentiment that T3 is more likely town.

that is all i've got right now

[DeasVail]

T3 townish.

I thought the same things from T3's first post

the "ok" one?

[DeasVail]

why appearance?

It's not a fully developed read so I'd rather keep it to myself until it develops.

Why did you ask about my Appearance read and not about my imp read?

Because of the nature of the setup.

Is it surprising that I would be more focused on your townreads than your scumread/s?

[DeasVail]

tbh i'm scared of scum distancing in this setup.

this was actually something I was thinking too.

Was it klick/dragoneater that pinged you as a potential distance as well, or more of a general fear?

[DeasVail]

ssbm, elements, t3 and appearance are all provisional townreads for me

[DeasVail]

Regardless, I disagree with you about the (implied) idea that we should focus on townreads more than on scumreads. I am of the opinion that it is much easier for scum to fake townreads than scumreads (because the person they are townreading is actually town, most of the time, and they could have good reasons to TR them), and by focusing on townreads we're letting scum blend in much more easily.

In other words, it's very easy to say "I love pizza and I think Klick also loves pizza", and doesn't really lead to any conflict, whereas saying "I think implo secretly loves lasagna" is bound to stir the pot, so to speak.

this is just the wrong strategy for the setup, and also if you think like this,

isn't giving out 2 townreads something scum is more likely to do?

I don't think this idea that "focusing on townreads let's scum blend in" is your actual opinion if you're giving out a TR to Appearance for giving 2 TRs early in separated posts. Pretty much everything you've posted so far feels like a performance, and to cap it off with this I just think you're trying to throw a wrench in the coalition phase.

Not really unless you think scum is more likely to give 2 TR's in regular mafia (which I don't think).

On the other hand this post feels really forced.

How would me having scumreads be throwing a wrench in the formation of the coalition?

If anything I'm the person working most actively on forming a coalition, considering I have 3 people in my coalition while you only have yourself.

HURT: Kyo, implo

This is not the point I'm making. In 46, you say that we should focus scumreads more than townreads because focusing townreads lets scum blend in. At the same time, you say Appearance is town and so far all he'd done was give out 2 unexplained TRs. If you think scum blends in by focusing on TRs, you don't also think that Appearance is town. You're claiming to have one philosophy on how to play the setup that contradicts your reads.

Actually let me just explain my Appearance read

I thought this:

hi y'all!
will post more later

Quickly followed by this:

implo and t3 prob town for now.

Was more likely to come from town. Felt like a towny who didn't plan to post a read or anything but had a thought so posted it.

I also think that having 2 reads is likelier to come from town than from scum, who (like implo did) would be more likely to have a single read.

Misrep.

I merely said we shouldn't have our entire focus on TR's, like DeasVail seemed to insinuate.

I don’t think it’s intentional, but I think it’s also a misrep to suggest that I want the “entire” focus to be on townreads.

As for kyouko, I liked the assertiveness of post 48. To tell someone that they are wrong like that takes a confidence that I think scum here are less likely to possess, especially since I think it could have been predicted that you would react in a similar way to what you did, which is not good for kyouko if scum here.

[DeasVail]

That’s alright

[DeasVail]

tbh i'm scared of scum distancing in this setup.

this was actually something I was thinking too.

Was it klick/dragoneater that pinged you as a potential distance as well, or more of a general fear?

Distancing? DragonEater ended our earlier exchange with a townread on me, and my stated read on DragonEater is ambiguous atm. I don't see how you come out of it thinking it looks like distancing.

I didn’t think your posting before this was particularly ambiguous but it also wasn’t a huge deal for me. Just a passing thought I had and was curious if it was what prompted Appearance’s post.

[DeasVail]

Town

Kyouko
Elements
Ydrasse
T3
Klick
Appearance
Dragon
Implosion

Scum

^this is a rough indication of my reads right now

[DeasVail]

Read on implosion is very much still in progress but there are some early things concerning me, which I will talk more on later.
I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that I’m concerned about with Dragon but I can’t identify a strong reason to townread him, and it feels like play that could be consistent with scum trying to be in a town core. (Not that this is a logical reason for scum-reading, but it forms part of my thoughts)

[DeasVail]

As for my read on Klick, he feels like he's not trying to be TR'd at all (unless he is playing a game of "let's pocket Dragon and get null'd by everybody else", which if it is the case then I wish him luck with that since idk how far it will get him), and I think that makes him pretty towny.

who do you think is trying to do that then?

he hasn’t posted a lot so i struggle to see how someone can very comfortably make that call i guess. there’s a part of me that thinks he could be playing a clever wolf game based on how he treated you by like… kind of uno carding you. i don’t know how likely this is but i felt it was possible, and if he was doing something like that he’s now got someone in his court without much loss. with what looks like recent history it makes sense to me that he might want to capitalize on that when presented with the chance, etc

implo is trying very hard to be TR'd.

So… this was actually my exact thought.

I think I might have been wrong on my read of you

[DeasVail]

On Ydra: I liked that her read on me was just vibes. It also made sense to me because I think my play has been mostly pretty boring and easily could provoke the thought of “this is where I think scum would be”.

[DeasVail]

btw, i just realised my browser messes up the font that prism uses for the vcs

Just checking: Is the latest VC readable for everyone?

Most mobile browsers render a different font than the one I use, which is fine by me, but if the VC is mangled or difficult to parse, let me know and I'll switch it up.

It’s been fine for me!

Also miscellaneous thoughts:

Klick moved up in my reads a bit because of him saying that he’d been ambiguous about his read on Dragon, at a time when I think he had only really expressed a scumread there. I think this is more likely from town because scum are more likely to be hyper-aware of the “positions” they are taking on people while town are more likely to believe that because they

felt

ambiguous about someone it would come across in their posts.

On implosion, there are specific ways in which I feel he has tried to look town, but I want to give implosion a chance to be able to properly engage with the game (and also see whether the things concerning me continue) before going all in on that.

When I go through my townreads (which I have too many of, I know), the one that least holds up to scrutiny at the moment is T3. I was doubting Appearance for a while but looking back I feel like the backtracking by saying that maybe Klick/Dragon didn’t look like distancing was more likely consistent with townie lack of confidence. Still not sure though, because the T3 read in particular doesn’t feel proactive, as if they’re taking the fact that T3 will be in the coalition as a given and not questioning it, but again… could be town struggling with confidence in their reads.

[DeasVail]

Wild that less than 3 pages have happened since my last content.

I have mixed feelings about the "implosion is trying to look like town" angle. I both want to say that it's probably a personality/playstyle quirk and that of course I'm going to try to look like town in a setup that is about finding and being found as town (which is I guess every setup that I've played since stepping down as listmod >_>). I don't think the latter is really being fair to the argument but it is just an annoying accusation to have levied when idk, I think I do fundamentally play the game with wanting to appear town in mind as town because I just enjoy the game more when I am found as town, it's probably not even out of thinking it's the best way to win, it's just the way I automatically think about the game.

I think probably something that does exist is being seen there but it's probably something you'd see in pretty much any of my towngames and it's telling that I'm being townread by Ydrasse (who has played with me very recently and also i think a second time semi-recently) and scumread by dragoneater (who i think has never played with me) and deasvail (who i'm pretty sure i've played with but probably not in something like half a decade). Though it is possible Ydrasse is scum

A few of your posts before this point have given the impression of not having enough time for the game/being busy with other things. So I’m interested in why your play before this point would be representative of your usual gameplay to the point where people’s experience with you would be so relevant.

To me, it feels premature to conclude that certain people townread/scumread you because of their experience with you.

[DeasVail]

I will also say DV is also a very good scum player in my mind and maybe I'm giving him a high bar but that might have been implanted out of nothing

It’s weird to me that you’d use the amount of time since we last played together to question the reliability of my read on you and then make an unsolicited comment on my scumplay (particularly since 5-10 years ago I was probably better known for strong town play than strong scum play).

I don’t actually know if it’s alignment-relevant in this case, but it gave me very strong “having your cake and eating it” vibes.

Though on that, I have often wondered why one can only do one or the other. What’s the point of having cake if you can’t eat it? How do you eat cake if you don’t have it? Life’s big questions…

[DeasVail]

@DV: Am I correct that you're trending fairly positive towards both Dragon and Ydrasse atm?

Sorry I meant to reply to your post but got distracted by cake

I would say so, yes. Ydrasse especially so. Dragon is someone I need to do another read-through of.

[DeasVail]

The reason you're not getting super dynamic here Dragon is because you've got players like DV and implosion as dominant players who just aren't going to be playing like that due to several factors fundamental to them

I don’t know what these fundamental factors are, even for me!

Laziness?

[DeasVail]

@implosion: Then what do you think of my post which was basically the same thing?

Your post is rhetorically very different and also I think your group has a much higher chance of being all town

I am confused, am I missing something?

[DeasVail]

Conflict isn't the friction that causes readable gamestates
Genuine engagement is

That's what I feel is lacking

I'll answer what you want though:

Feel pretty okay on you and VD, I would like you to sell me on Ydra though.

Like I think in a vacuum her posting is towny, BUT I

think

for her specifically it's NAI? I haven't ever played with her but I read a scum game and a town game of hers and couldn't really tell the difference.

Hey implosion and I have started the weird pseudo-conflict dance, give it time

[DeasVail]

@implosion: my confusion was because based on what your reads it didnt make sense to me that dragon eater’s group would be considered to be much more likely all town.

[DeasVail]

*based on what your reads were

I guess Appearance is a difference (I might have gone by dragon’s most recent group instead of the one with Appearance, but I was in both groups so it was still a bit surprising to me)

[DeasVail]

Wait, I think I’m missing appearance’s name being in the vote count on my phone

[DeasVail]

Never mind

[DeasVail]

I liked how Elements mentioned having the thought of not wanting to be in the coalition because that's a thought that I had early on as well.

Which I know is unfortunately not necessarily a reason to think someone is town, but something I have been thinking about is how scum would want to position themselves in/out of the coalition etc. It's probably premature to think too much about that but.

I've also been thinking a lot about the implo read. It's in some ways easier that we're in a coalition phase rather than voting for scum because I think there's a risk here of me just reading everything implo posts in this game with a scum-tinted lens, for whatever reason, and I need to keep that in check.

I'm looking back over the early posts to rediscover what my early qualms were. I think that posts like 76 gave me the impression of the focus being more on how implosion appears to others, rather than the read itself. Of course, town will want to explain their read to others in a way that is accessible and comprehendible, and I'm not sure that I feel as strongly about that now. It's just really interesting to me that DragonEater and I had very similar thoughts on it when looking back it no longer *strikes* me the same way. Maybe I was just annoyed by 78 because I still don't see what is so "interesting" about having [4 townreads, 2 not-townreads who have posted, 2 not-townreads who haven't posted] and in 81, the "This is a good question and I think the answer is that i'm not really sure and i should probably go to sleep" part of his post made me think there was an effort behind phrasing that to appear more transparent and town.
All of this is largely irrelevant now, and I'm not sure that I even believe in much of it anymore (well maybe except for the "interesting" part).


I think the main concern I have re: implosion at the moment is that he clearly has a very logical approach to thinking about the game and his reads etc., but it seems to me that there are examples here where he departs from this to make (what I believe are) less logical points for the sake of convenience. 165 really struck me as something like this because the point about Klick's rhetoric being different should have been enough. Klick's group having "a much higher chance of being all town" shouldn't be a reason why Klick's post was less concerning? Especially since I believe implosion as town would be the kind of player that would expect there to be some amount of error in his early reads in need of re-evaluation.

In any case, this is an ongoing consideration for me and there is a freedom in not having to consider ~eliminating~ implosion, but I think I am still at a point where I would prefer he isn't in the coalition.

[DeasVail]

I have a general liking for Kyouko's points and posts but I don't think I can rule her out as scum, really.

[DeasVail]

I think that a coalition with me/klick/dragon/elements/Ydra is probably fine. If anything I'm probably now least confident of Ydra but that's more because my confidence in the others has increased.

PEdit: I think it's an early timezone thing

[DeasVail]

Klick, I think Appearance could be a consideration for town? It's maybe more of a general vibe thing than anything specific, but I think Appearance would probably try harder to have more "solid" opinions here. I don't think the vagueness is necessarily scum-indicative for him.

When it comes to the read of me, I do have to say it was a mild surprise to me that I was in your initial town group. Like I said about Ydrasse's read on me, I didn't think I had played in a particular TOWN way and so I would have probably been more suspicious of Ydrasse if she were townreading me back then. I think for me it's not so much about scumrange but more an absence of things that I would try and make sure to do if I were scum.

[DeasVail]

*I think Appearance as scum would probably try harder to have more "solid" opinions

[DeasVail]

Yeah okay after reading DV's wallposts on the last page, I am pretty sure my coalition is either all town, or Klick is the deepwolf.

Can anybody here read Klick really well? DV? implo? Ydra? I'd like to know if you think Klick could be deepwolfing or nah

My thoughts on Klick being deepwolf are currently “nah”

[DeasVail]

@Appearance, considering that right now the most viable colaition builds seem to be something along the lines of Dragon/VD/Klick + 2 out of {Elements, Ydrasse, Appearance}*, would you endeavor to read both Klick and VD and tell me what do you think about adding them to the coalition?

sure.
i ended up hiking yesterday so i'll read dv's iso today.

Nice! It was good weather where I was so hoping it was the same for you

[DeasVail]

I struggle to get anything conclusive from T3 or Kyouko on this
I'm curious if {DragonEater, DV, Elements, Ydrasse} have thoughts on this

I feel the same as you re: Ydrasse, T3 and Kyouko

[DeasVail]

DV, do you know who Appearance is, or is 300 a more general scum playstyle read?

I'm pretty sure I do, but 300 isn't really specifically with that knowledge in mind

[DeasVail]

I’m pretty happy with Klick, Dragon and Elements being town.
Ydrasse and Appearance are sort of waiting in the wings, ready to break into my townreads but in particular I want to see Ydrasse’s l8r thoughts.

T3, Kyouko and implosion have not made a town impression on me yet. I thought kyouko’s entrance was particularly promising but otherwise the posts have followed a pattern of “what someone would think they should post” rather than posts that gives me the impression of town truly trying to sort the game.

[DeasVail]

that was my pet theory too, though I'm not confident in it

[DeasVail]

implosion's lack of read of me is a big part of what's concerning me. town-him should probably be scumreading me here, and I think that's been the implication, but why the hesitation?

[DeasVail]

also I do think that the scum strategy even if outside a potential all-town coalition would be to not rock the boat too much. It's in town's nature to become paranoid and second-guess.

[DeasVail]

I've reread through the game but I really don't have much to say

This is sort of strange given that the coalition phase deadline is approaching. Are you interested in trying to work out a coalition or nah?

[DeasVail]

T3 back to probably town?

[DeasVail]

HEAL: DeasVail, Klick, DragonEater70, Elements, Appearance

I could consider replacing Appearance with T3

[DeasVail]

actually maybe not

[DeasVail]

i still kind of think it's implo/kyo

[DeasVail]

I agree with your thoughts on implo, but I know that he is not scum with me and I don't think Klick is scum.

[DeasVail]

So what do you make of it? Do you think we should just do the coalition anyway?

I will share my thoughts on this in more detail tomorrow

[DeasVail]

so yeah 468 shows DV is not "agreeable" in this game, rather he's claiming he's already had the same thoughts that others have had before others posted them, in what I think is a clear but subtle attempt to pocket those "others".

Is there evidence from any of my posting that supports me having already had the thought, rather than it being a pocket attempt?

[DeasVail]

Meanwhile, I think your increase in vigor is indicative of seeing that you have a chance and taking it

This is a reasonable thought to have if you're town but it's not correct. 474 was for Elements but I think it works as a response for this as well.

I'd say you're either snowed by DV or are scum with him and playing up the familiarity you have

The “you’re either snowed by DV or are scum with him” part here appears excessively confident in the scumread of me, and actually not showing the critical thought that I would expect of kyouko as town here, who has shown that they are a critical thinker.

Me/Klick as a scumteam would possibly explain Klick’s increased motivation compared to other scum games (though even then I wouldn’t count on it), but otherwise we are playing very badly as a scumteam because we are trying to set up a coalition with both of us in it, that we are perceived as responsible for, which would obv fail in that world. If the coalition fails then klick, and especially me, become the natural next targets.

[DeasVail]

Dragon, it’s also amusing to me that your “mind melding” with kyouko is actually an example of what kyouko finds scummy about me

[DeasVail]

I think it does point to a broader discussion about mafia game approach. There are certainly town games (and scum games) I’ve played where I have more aggressively pushed a player/players as scum but I have found that my townplay is best when focused on bringing fellow townies together towards a common goal (my play at the end of TM 2021: A normal roguelike is a good example of this). In particular at the moment in this setup, finding common townreads seems more pressing than pushing a scumread.

[DeasVail]

I'm not certain that your posting is from a scum place, Kyouko, but I think that there is a lack of thinking about the reasons behind the behaviour of mine that has bothered you, beyond the thought that "DV does thing I don't like = scum". This could be town relying on pattern recognition scumhunting, or scum trying to push through with reasoning for a scumread, I'm not sure.

In the case of me having the same thought as Dragon, for example, I had clearly expressed a scumread on implosion prior to Dragon making any mention of scumreading implosion, yet that does not appear to have been a consideration of yours. The example of Elements is indeed not something I had made mention of beforehand, yet even the "i had that thought too" with Appearance I believe was kind of organic, where Appearance mentioned vague concern of scum distancing, and I went further on that and provided a specific example in DragonEater/Klick.

When it comes to me and Klick, the difference in interaction is probably best explained by our increased familiarity with each other (which Klick has clearly mentioned, so it's odd to me that this hasn't been a consideration in your interpretation of our interactions). I do understand that this sort of thing can make the game less fun for others, and so I haven't wanted things to become too... "cliquey" (lol), but it is probably natural that I would interact with him a little differently. Plus, particularly compared to appearance and elements, Klick has probably produced more content that I've been able to engage with on a reads level (and his reads appear to be aligning more with mine this game, hence the agreeing).

So on the read of me, I can see how it has come from an identified behaviour and can see why that would be considered scummy, but I feel like with a lot of the "case", there are points where one would think "oh actually this might be happening because X" (for example, Klick and I interacting differently because of increased familiarity with one another), and I wonder whether this actually comes from scum, who obviously need to make up reasons for scumreading townies, and are more likely to push on with a read despite flaws in reasoning, because as scum they know that their reads are inherently flawed.

[DeasVail]

I do think that the effort put into disproving that I am "agreeable" might be a townie thing though.

[DeasVail]

I am going to keep my vote as it is currently for now but will be around to vote for something else if need be.

[DeasVail]

hey i'm here

happy to sheep dragoneater or go with the current leading coalition

[DeasVail]

sorry about my accidental font messing things up

[DeasVail]

HEAL: ydrasse, dragoneater, klick, appearance, kyouko

[DeasVail]

Even though that result wasn’t exactly unexpected, I do plan on it being a trigger for a reevaluation for me. Particularly the implosion read is something I want to look more at, as his approach to reads here feels town

[DeasVail]

DE reminds me a lot of how I used to play scum back in like 2021-ish

It feels like he's spending the whole game flailing around and trying to get townread, if that makes sense??

It makes sense to me, but right now at least, I think there are enough things that go beyond what would be necessary for Dragon as scum to look town (e.g. the extent of paranoia about me +/- Klick, the efforts to derail a coalition that would have been perfectly fine for him as scum).

I think Kyouko is the most likely scum in the 5, because there was clear effort to change the status quo and I don't think her approach to the post-coalition phase so far is particularly town, nor does it feel like a natural continuation of her coalition phase opinions/play.

[DeasVail]

I wish DV were in instead of Klick tbh, would make this day a lot easier.

Does this give away that kyouko knew the coalition was going to fail anyway?

How does kyo know that the coalition still would have failed with me in it instead of Klick?

I know that klick is a consensus townread, but this still reveals a sort of thought process that I think comes from an informed perspective rather than uninformed

[DeasVail]

hmmmmmmm

VOTE: Appearance

[DeasVail]

At this stage I think I would go for either Appearance or Kyouko

[DeasVail]

gob
DragonEater

DeasVail
implosion
Appearance

T3
Ydrasse
ssbm_Kyouko

Is approximately where I find myself atm

I agree on gob.

Re: Ydrasse, I actually (possibly illogically) liked the timing of the dip in motivation. At least from my perspective of playing this setup for the first time, there was always the hope that I wouldn’t have to play anymore after the coalition phase, so afterwards was a bit of a slump for me. I expect scum would have been more energised by the coalition failing.

[DeasVail]

VOTE: Dunnstral

His entrance is not exactly impressive and I feel like Ydrasse was scum. I feel like the aspects of her posting that people were saying she'd have trouble faking as scum are actually things she definitely can fake over the course of her being in this game

T3 yfrasse seem good. implo will need to go some point soon. maybr dunn too

Do you realize Dunn replaced Ydrasse?

I get that you disagree with the reasons people have called Ydrasse town, but why was she scum, specifically?

[DeasVail]

UNVOTE:
Not sure this POE is as clear cut as I thought

What do you mean by this?

[DeasVail]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Kyouko

[DeasVail]

Huh? what you mean?

What is 756 based on?

It's just a white lie. I feel like you aren't being exactly towny here.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Kyouko

So you are voting Kyouko over DragonEater? You may be the slanking mafia.

I think I’ve been fairly clear about townreading DragonEater

[DeasVail]

You're voting me because I was your weakest TR. You remember my weakest TR don't you?

kyouko raises a good point imo.

What is the “good point” here?

[DeasVail]

Right, I'm here for an hour

There are some aspects of implosion's trajectory through the day that feel like they're how he would have played the day as scum.

Hard disagree

I do wonder how much of Dunn's post was snark rather than totally serious, but I actually do have some ongoing reservations regarding implosion that I'm happy to hold on today but they'll be swirling around in my mind in the meantime.

[DeasVail]

the thread trajectory of DV ending up in the fun car is really intriguing to me

I thought so too

.. oh wait

[DeasVail]

Like I feel fireisredsir has decided to scumread me before reading my posts and is now looking for reasons to scunread me.

Do you think fire is doing this as town or as scum?

[DeasVail]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Appearance

implosion, is there a point in time where you expect Appearance to be less inscrutable to you?

[DeasVail]

alright im caught up

i think appearance is fairly towny as well

I truly am not sure of the scumread there by any means, but of everyone on the coalition, I think Appearance has fit the most with what I expect from scumplay. I know that it is common to interpret appearance’s style of play as scummy, but I just don’t think it’s Dragon, and I agree that Ydrasse was townie.

[DeasVail]

alright im caught up

i think appearance is fairly towny as well

I truly am not sure of the scumread there by any means, but of everyone on the coalition, I think Appearance has fit the most with what I expect from scumplay. I know that it is common to interpret appearance’s style of play as scummy, but I just don’t think it’s Dragon, and I agree that Ydrasse was townie.

what makes you think appearance over my slot?

I think that reading Dunnstral and Appearance so clearly as town is less likely to be a scum approach here

[DeasVail]

alright im caught up

i think appearance is fairly towny as well

I truly am not sure of the scumread there by any means, but of everyone on the coalition, I think Appearance has fit the most with what I expect from scumplay. I know that it is common to interpret appearance’s style of play as scummy, but I just don’t think it’s Dragon, and I agree that Ydrasse was townie.

what makes you think appearance over my slot?

I think that reading Dunnstral and Appearance so clearly as town is less likely to be a scum approach here

I agree in theory. But their read on me seems to only be based on a joke post and I'm not sure they've commented on Ydrasse, so not sure how serious of a read that is. I'm guessing you think Appearance is town who looks like lim bait?

Indeed my concern is that Appearance is scum who looks like lim bait

[DeasVail]

ive been reading dragon meta and i have some thoughts but its somewhat difficult to summon the courage to make a post on it

it would be helpful to me to have someone to talk to about the game here but it feels like people aren't really in the mood for that. im not sure if it's the suspicion that was on my slot or if it's the gamestate itself or what

I think it's the gamestate.

Even though I suspected your slot (and still do to a small extent), it's not something that is super present on my mind.

I think, for me, Appearance is still the preferred vote.

[DeasVail]

I guess with Appearance I worry that there's a lot of talking about doing things but not really the follow-through, which isn't by any means impossible from town but I worry that there's been a lot of work put into SHOWING us that he's doing things.

I really do not have strong feelings here. I would settle for Dunnstral maybe but whenever I think of maybe voting there I kind of feel uncomfortable about it.

[DeasVail]

I feel like I can have an inclination to scumread active "town-looking" players, and so I'm incredibly sympathetic to the Dragon scumreads - I can see how one would think that this is Dragon-scum, but I'm not compelled that this is game represents Dragon-scum more than it represents Dragon-town, which is still a much more likely reality in my mind.

[DeasVail]

Save me from having to use my brain in order to discern whether fireisred is actually town or scum, that is.

Pedit: DV could you be less general and more specific here?

Not really. My thoughts are not super specific right now

[DeasVail]

Do we actually scumread Appearance or are we just voting him because he's not that charismatic and isn't posting much of substance

The closest thing I've seen to an actual scumread is DV's point about "Appearance is doing a lot of work to get townread with no follow-through" but I think this is more or less just a playstyle thing

He’s part of the failed coalition and I have more reason to believe the others are town. I’m aware that I haven’t posted a lot of substance on this but that’s because my thoughts are not based on deep analysis and I’m kind of at the point where I don’t think that would be helpful for me sorting my reads right now

[DeasVail]

I will change my vote to Dunnstral if required

[DeasVail]

Eh I’ll just do it now.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Dunnstral

[DeasVail]

Yeah that's what I get for voting without checking the votes first.

I mean, at this stage of the day, I would only vote for someone if I was fine with their elimination.

[DeasVail]

I will be able to look at this throughout the day.

[DeasVail]

I don't want to eliminate appearance anymore. I'm not usually one to analyse kills in great depth but I don't think the gob kill happens if gob was totally wrong. If gob was wrong on his reads, then leave him alive, let him steamroll through his pool or draw the ire of the rest of the town and get eliminated. As scum, I would NOT be expecting the town to sheep dead-gob, so all the more reason to.

Now, it is slightly problematic that gob's pool included 3 people on the coalition, but the fact is that gob clearly didn't want Appearance gone and so I don't either.

I... think I might need to just go for fireisred. There is nothing wrong with their play. They are totally reasonable and full of that townie goodness and all that, but with a lack of other options I feel good about, that is no longer really enough. Throughout my day of thinking anout the game I have swayed a little on DragonEater. There would be something satisfying about Dragon being scum, but I'm still not actually sure that this is it. There is a slight "unhinged" quality to Dragon's play at times that I think would be difficult to fake, whereas fireisred... I could see it?

Elsewhere, I do kind of like that implosion went a bit against the grain on DragonEater by calling him town for what I thought were good reasons.

I do want to be open-minded and so am interested to see where Klick goes on that read. After all, gob called Dragon scum too, but I'm not sure that I see it.

[DeasVail]

Enjoy!!

[DeasVail]

im feeling a little lost rn

this is around the time of day i usually talk to people but i think due to timezones in this list that doesn't happen

i guess deas should probably awake. deas are you around? i am interested in more elaboration on your thoughts

Sorry! I was probably frantically cleaning at that time because I'm about to move, which is also may be part of why I am not engaging as deeply as I sometimes do. It's one of those situations where more depth of engagement would probably not change my reads a great deal. The unfortunate part of longer posts is that they are more often to justify an opinion I've already arrived at, but I do think that the reasoning behind what I've been thinking has not been as clear as it could have been at points here.

Probably the biggest gap is my read on Klick. Part of the read is still (and probably always will be) influenced by personal familiarity. Of course there is a pattern of Klick being less engaged in scumgames, but as scum that has chosen this game to be more engaged, I would still expect Klick to be playing differently. I think he would feel a need to cater to his audience more, I feel like there would be more self-consciousness. I liked it how early on in the game he just casually explained to DragonEater the general pattern of play from people such as implosion and myself. Klick's approach to the game has been clearly thoughtful (e.g. the approach to forming the coalition, the pivot on DragonEater today), without it feeling like he is trying too hard to show us how town and thoughtful he's being. It is a read I will continue to monitor closely, but I haven't really had cause for concern yet.

[DeasVail]

I think I’m going to ask klick and Dragon to stop fighting

VOTE: fireisredsir

[DeasVail]

Something I liked about dragon’s play Day 1 was that there seemed to be a genuine conflict between him wanting his page 7 solve to be correct and him wanting his page x solve to be correct

[DeasVail]

I initially thought the gob death was strange but when I thought about it I realised that for most scum teams it probably made more sense than other options. Which unfortunately means that I’m likely to be quite forgiving of all sorts of reactions to gob’s death

[DeasVail]

I think I’m going to ask klick and Dragon to stop fighting

VOTE: fireisredsir

DV is such a sweetheart. And tbh if the scum team is Klick/DV, I'd happily lose the game.

Also I'll stop fighting with Klick if he apologizes. Yes, it's childish. But I feel entitled to being childish here, because Klick is also being childish in scumreading me for not prioritizing his questions over real life (yes, that's VERY childish of me. Sorry about that, need to get this out of my system. Also Klick should know that regardless of anything I am saying here I actually like him very much as a person and I'm just being salty).

Something I liked about dragon’s play Day 1 was that there seemed to be a genuine conflict between him wanting his page 7 solve to be correct and him wanting his page x solve to be correct

What is my page x solve? Or like what exactly are you referencing here?

By page x I mean whatever page the game happened to be on at the time :p

And I didn’t mean “fighting” as in truly fighting. I just think Fire is the best way to go atm

[DeasVail]

I’m going to have to say

V/LA for the next 24-48 hours

Shouldn’t affect prod/replace stuff but I’m going to be even lower activity than usual and I’m sorry about that.

[DeasVail]

idk if i have the energy to explain in detail but dragon/dv is actually making a ton of sense to me rn

Now that you mention it I do actually think dragon's posts @ and about me are weirdly partner-y but I know I'm not scum with him and it's probably going a bit too deep down the rabbit-hole to think that Dragon was intentionally making partnery posts at me (I kind of think in a Dragon/Me world, Dragon would not be planning for his elimination)

[DeasVail]

wait that doesn't make sense

I think I had it in my mind that Dragon was probably not going to be planning for his elimination here and then thought about a hypothetical world where dragon was scum with me and got my head all muddled.

[DeasVail]

fire, I need a world where Dragon is scum with someone other than me. I sometimes want to entertain the thought, but I'm not sure that he makes sense as scum with anyone else particularly so I'm left thinking that it's probably you that I should be voting for here.

[DeasVail]

I am not saying you are waiting. I am saying you are simultaneously pushing me and leaving the possibility of pushing Klick open.

like i feel like this blatantly obviously does not describe my play at any point today

am i completely off base there does anyone besides dragon see things this way

imo it's more that it's just a bad reason to suspect someone, in and of itself. One could say that I am leaving the possibility of pushing Dragon open. Should I not? It would seem irresponsible of me to not consider that he might be scum. This kind of reasoning does appear to me like coming up with reasons to suspect someone after already deciding that they're scum, but I do think this is a more common thing in town than one would initially think.

[DeasVail]

Hello!

I have done thinking about the probable scumteams in a fire!town world and have come to basically the same conclusion as fire has posted, that the most viable scumteam in that scenario is DragonEater/DeasVail. However, I am unconvinced currently that either of these players is actually scum.

I feel like fire's current approach to the game feels very much like it could be scum trying to suggest alternatives and the reasoning behind those alternatives in an attempt to get people to change their minds, without seeming like fire is directly arguing against his own elimination. Or fire could be town, doing this to try to have as clear a signpost for town to follow as possible upon his elimination (but then why is he saying 'probably don't sheep me'?).

I'm a bit tired of thinking about DragonEater's alignment in this game in general. Because there's a lack of clarity as to his perceived and actual scum range, and I haven't a clue what a DragonEater scum game would actually look like if he drew red here. Contrast that with feeling like I know what a fire scum game would look like - very similar to a town one, and what we're seeing currently. This description encapsulates why I am uncertain here.

I don't really think implosion is scum at this point. I've weirdly landed on this as my most certain townread.

I’m currently at fire/t3 in my mind

[DeasVail]

I feel reassured I think. Dragon's hesitation on fire being scum is another one of those things that feel unnecessary for him to do as scum, because I feel like he could pretty easily just go for the fire elim, and even if he

did

get eliminated the next day, I

probably

get mislimmed at the end in that world? I suppose I could see Dragon-scum wanting to keep fire-town alive to avoid fire gaining greater credibility in death, and I could understand that he wouldn't want to necessarily rely on me getting auto-limmed, but still, the way he's gone about his interactions with fire don't make that much sense in that case. Why be so exaggerated about fire being scum in earlier posts, only to not proceed with eliminating them?

I kind of do agree with the general thought of not being able to find a scumteam that makes complete sense here. The reason why I had landed at T3/Fire as a possibility was that, based on what T3 has posted here, I could see him as scum correcting past wrongs by

not

trying to look town early on, and kyouko's play did make sense from scum on the outside of an all-town coalition. They successfully fuelled paranoia on me in particular, which ultimately was what knocked me out of the coalition.

[DeasVail]

I think DV's play today is town very very frequently. Trying to undermine and dismantle a 1v1 between two people on coalition feels like very needlessly anti-wincon play if it's TvT, and if it's SvT then it's more possible but the way he's doing it feels like the way I'd expect him to act as town.

Dragon, why do you think T3/kyo is a very unlikely team? Based on coalition dynamics, or otherwise?

See, I see the possibility of DV being scum with exactly Klick, but I decided to just plain give up on that possibility because I don't see a world where we win if they are the scum team.

T3/Kyo couldn't be acum together because they just lurked for forever with no attempt to get anything done but I guess it did feel scummy for both of them individually and maybe I am in fact assigning too much credit to the idea that scum necessarily would have high WIM or a plan.

Like if fireisred flips scum here then tbh the person I am gonna lock as town as a result is DV, not T3.

I played this setup once before as scum and my WIM was very high, so high that it was very obvious I was just trying to get townread rather than solve the game - Enchant was my partner and I thought it would be absolutely impossible for him to get into the coalition so I tryharded and it backfired

[DeasVail]

The above post is what I was referring to, T3

[DeasVail]

i think ppl should vote

[DeasVail]

tbf I do think that Fire if scum needed to pivot here because the push on dragon clearly wasn’t working.

Re: Appearance, I still think the gob kill would have been weird coming from a place of Appearance being scum.

[DeasVail]

i don't have anything new to say and i don't really want to be making fire do stuff if we're just eliminating them anyway

[DeasVail]

I will probably lean towards voting T3 but am not 100% certain

[DeasVail]

I will wait 24 more hours

[DeasVail]

VOTE: T3

[DeasVail]

Lovely, I will have time for this later today

[DeasVail]

I thought he was scum, and I didn't have much personal interest in his responses because it was from a viewpoint of me being scum, which I felt should have been fairly obviously not the case.

[DeasVail]

also the 24 hours was up

[DeasVail]

I'm a bit more conflicted than I thought I would be. Every fibre of my being is screaming that implo is scum (which I've sort of thought the whole game but I let myself get distracted). It also really felt to me like Kyouko was

fighting

that coalition and succeeded in drumming up enough paranoia of me to get me ousted from it. Why the fight if she/firered was scum with Appearance who was already on the prevailing coalition?

On the other hand though, there's a reason why I wanted to eliminate Appearance instead of Ydrasse/Dunnstral, and with fire being scum, the gob kill unfortunately does not clear Appearance to the same degree as it did for me before. Reading through Appearance's ISO, I guess it

feels

scummy, but idk I still think it's implo. Maybe I just want to think it's implo. I will sort this out at some point.

Lastly, I had a dream that DragonEater was scum. Sadly, this was not helpful.

[DeasVail]

Meanwhile, a question for you, Appearance. Is there a reason why you have been cagey regarding your opinions during this day?

[DeasVail]

VOTE: Implosion

There!

I did it.

I’m sorry if this isn’t right. With Appearance there is a certain amount of… unawareness to the extent that I’m not actually sure he can be scum? But I just don’t know… but what I do know is that it’s looking like I’m not really going to have any more information than what I have now.

Aah!

[DeasVail]

Sorry implo :/

At this point I'm not sure I can go back! I'm pretty sure Appearance has been ~around~ but hasn't checked in here for whatever reason, and I'm always going to convince myself that he would have been more likely to just check the thread and hammer as scum, even though I know that is fallible reasoning.

[DeasVail]

how come?

[DeasVail]

in a world where you are town, i have the most egg-on-face

[DeasVail]

The egg will surely crack any moment now…

[DeasVail]

Oh phew

[DeasVail]

welp.

VOTE: DeasVail

I am town but I don't really blame you if you make the wrong call here. I guess T3 was right at least

Meanwhile Appearance, I

will

blame you if you make the wrong call, so there’s one option that results in no blame at all!

Just kidding, it’s all good no matter what you decide, but we’re so close!!!

If you are worried about me being scum/implosion being town, I do have some things I could say about that. For example:
- Klick knows me well and read me as town
- I like to think I had a decent role in diffusing the Klick/Dragon suspicion of each other to help push the fire elimination through
- my approach to this day would be much higher risk if scum. In a world where I am scum and implosion is town, it makes more sense for me to rely on implosion voting you than relying on you voting implosion.

When it comes to implosion, I think he has played a super clever game, and he kept making me question my scumread on him, but I do think there are signs there. For example the day where fire was eliminated, he kept saying that fire was the best elim but did nothing to help push that through as if he was hoping for something else to emerge, but he also did not push an alternative… he was just… there!

I also think a lot of the play since I voted for him has kind of been performance, which is why I didn’t unvote! The whole thing about egg on his face, struck me as something town wouldn’t naturally think, because I thought they would be more immediately worried about you hammering than me being scum. It was like he was preparing for the 1v1 with me before you had even posted.

That is my piece for now I guess. I am satisfied no matter how this goes, but I’m excited to have gotten to this point and hope we can pull through!

[DeasVail]

he's still scum though

[DeasVail]

I guess for me in deciding it was a similar process to the fireisred vote. In fact, I feel like I had even

less

specific reason to think fireisred was scum, but I refuse to be fooled by the "reaonable-ness" on the surface!

In the end, I just went with what I felt was right.

[DeasVail]

Nah, just do what you feel I reckon

[DeasVail]

it's cool, we're chill

[DeasVail]

Take your time. The longer it takes, the more hot takes we get to see from the dead thread.

I was thinking that too

[DeasVail]

inb4 it's just all silent because no one cares anymore

[DeasVail]

Good game!!

GG scum

I was really hoping we could lock down three town on D3, because the first thing I was going to do was make a DV town case and the second thing I was going to do was try to solidify Appearance's alignment

I have a lot to think about in terms of improvement from this game

It's the same for me. In this case, I really underestimated the chance of me getting miseliminated at the end there.

[DeasVail]

^just more on that. The hammer on T3 was because I didn't want him talking about how implosion was cleared because I hard-disagreed, but I also didn't want to talk about how I thought it was implosion if not T3 because I didn't want to die. But then I also thought I would be cleared after the fire flip, so that's on me.

[DeasVail]

^just more on that. The hammer on T3 was because I didn't want him talking about how implosion was cleared because I hard-disagreed, but I also didn't want to talk about how I thought it was implosion if not T3 because I didn't want to die. But then I also thought I would be cleared after the fire flip, so that's on me.

oop, this is referring to my earlier post rather than Klick's