NY 160B - Welcome to Castle Zar - TIME FOR FIREWORKS!

[MagnaofIllusion]

Welcome Arc. You may have my customary greeting gift for those with over-elaborate opening posts ...

VOTE: ArcAngel

[MagnaofIllusion]

Konowa - while that is the general reaction to most of Nobody Special's posts I'd like you to elaborate on why you "ugh"ed it.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Actually I agree - Empire is a good wagon.

VOTE: Empire

[MagnaofIllusion]

I will OMGUS you to the end of the ear--

=^o.o^=

Hmmmmm ... have to dig into Vi meta because

normally

Vi calls voting him a scum-tell ...

[MagnaofIllusion]

You stated that like you know me..

You stated this like people have to have direct experience with a player to judge whether they are scummy in their responses to pressure

[MagnaofIllusion]

Ok mehdi you are going to need to learn to use the quote function because I can't tell who you are responding to with that. It's ok to quote a post and frankly very Pro-Town so people can get a better understanding of your reasoning.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Oh, and LA as usual for weekend family duties til Monday.

Have phone access to make small posts as is warranted given the limited duration of Day.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Usually the last post or nearby one if it doesn't have a name attached. It was to you. She doesn't think people are currently scum hunting and she doesn't think someone who doesn't know her can read her well from pressure. Both imply less scum hunting wherever the site she played before is.

See that didn't hurt did it?

Honestly I couldn't tell if you meant to respond to Empire's post or mine.

Do you think anything can be taken from that given your assumption about her alignment?

[MagnaofIllusion]

Back from the weekend –

@Kingmaker

– Are you an alt?

@Nobody Special

– is Empire still a scum read for you?

Generating a small gut scum read on Johhog for his reaction to a single vote from Mehdi – feels outsized to me.

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I just don't like how it formed so quickly around the (bad) reason that you were being opportunistic.

So do you feel that going after ‘easy targets’ isn’t a scum-tell at all or do you simply disagree that Empire was not scummy in his suspicion of NS?

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I still believe that Empire's opportunism was a stronger scum tell but you just dropped another one, you're afraid of manning up and defending your reasoning.

So is your read that Empire and Mehdi can be partners, both can be scum but not aligned, or that the Scum flip of one reduces suspicion on the other in your mind?

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I’m interested that no-one mentioned in the Empire wagon discussion the reason that put me over the top to make him my vote – his comment to Vi in Post 31. Now NobodySpecial is generally perceived as a weak player despite his join date so going after him is always something worth looking at. I don’t personally think his reasons as later expressed on NS are necessarily a scum-tell. But I still have reservations about the initial little buddying “Hey Vi join me” and that reservation has expanded with Post 112. If the initial salvo to Vi was some sort of early game test to him (which is the Town motivation I could see) why didn’t the complete lack of said reaction show up in his run-down of suspicions post to Vi? What sort of reaction would have warrented anything other than “Null, dropped”?

Secondarily I have concerns about the following reasoning from his “ArcAngel is Town” summary

I very much liked AA9's entrance into the game, liked post #7's "finally!!" as people (especially newcomers) generally prefer to be town and I don't think she would have been so excited to start the game off as scum. Find the warm friendly hello post in #8 to be genuine and I feel like she would have been a bit more clammed up as scum. I also liked her being freaked out over the quick RVS votes as it came off like she was concerned people were rushing things and the implied "slow it down" attitude of #15 to be genuine. The call to push the game out of random voting #48 seems legit too, not really seeing the issue Vi was pointing out with his #71 as there was a bit more content between the first and the second quote there.

My issues are as follows –

1. The game was clearly well out of RVS by the time Post 48 came around – Empire’s own NS vote and explanation of such (links above) were not RVS and the wagon that had started forming on Empire himself for actual reasons.
2. The “most people prefer to be Town and thus these show Town alignment” reasons above are at best terrible. Applying a generic statement to a particular player (who specifically has said they are experienced as both Town and Scum) reads to me as fabricating a reasoning basis (and my suspicion of Mehdi rises with her blank agreement with Empire at Post 124).

Oveall I feel there is a level of over-explanation that read that at my gut makes me belive it is manufactured. Compare it to Mehdi’s Post 59 – while I don’t necessarily agree with Mehdi (in that I think it would be more applicable if Arc was under pressure herself) the reasoning is simple and makes sense in context of Page 3.

@Empire

– Are you a Westros regular?

@ArcAngel

– What are your thoughts about Empire’s read of you at Post 112

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@MoI: Did you follow up on the Vi meta research from #43? If so, what did you find?

As of the point you asked this question? Of course not since my LA should have indicated. But it was the first thing I did when getting access again this morning. The game in question is Experimental Roles Mafia.

I know Vi has (annoyingly) generally responded to votes for him with “Voting me is a scum-tell”. And in that game (where Vi was effectively a Modified Serial Killer) she made this post in regards to not doing such in that game –

Voting for me is typically a scumtell. But, it just never crossed my mind to vote pap-rat this time. IDK let me look at it again.

So similar reaction to a vote here as there. When I have more time I’ll need to do more digging into recent Vi games to see if there is more to that story.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Ok how do you know that?

And why are you immediately working so hard attacking the credibility of the wagon you just put at L-2?

[MagnaofIllusion]

I'm questioning Knowoa, that's not attacking the Mehdi wagon. Also, I don't even know any info about the Mehdi wagon since I haven't read up yet, so I don't see how I can be attacking the credibility of the whole wagon yet (other than what I've already seen of Konowa).

So ftr, you're cool with a wagon on a scumread of your consisting of all vote hopping, bandwagon votes, and no reasoning, right?

You may be questioning Konowa but the second quote indeed does attack the credibility of the wagon given you basically call out all the votes as 'baseless'. But let me know how you came to that conclusion since you are now saying you haven't read up on the Medhi wagon please.

Thanks for the information on Kingmaker ... even if it took a couple posts to explain it

[MagnaofIllusion]

Generating a small gut scum read on Johhog for his reaction to a single vote from Mehdi – feels outsized to me.

Holy shit. It's not like I'm complaining about his vote on me (although I'd obviously prefer that he didn't vote me), it's that he's too proud to admit that part of his reasoning is faulty.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was that it's only four days until deadline, for those that didn't notice the short deadlines.

So you are complaining that his reasoning is faulty when that is Null since it is entirely believable that Mehdi-Town doesn't agree that his reasoning is faulty?

And you earn some further gut scum for the "Faux Town" posting - Mod made it more than clear in Sign-up thread and with Maestro's replacement that deadlines were short.

You may be questioning Konowa but the second quote indeed does attack the credibility of the wagon given you basically call out all the votes as 'baseless'.

What? No, that was a hypothetical situation to see how Konowa WOULD respond to such a situation. Obv doing that to piggyback on my previous line of thought, that if konowa can be okay with one person blatantly bandwagoning, wouldn't he also be okay with all the others on his wagon, and so otherwise he's doing nothing to attempt to solve the game and only having a set people as a scumread and only pushing them regardless.

Nothing in your original post indicated at all it was hypothetical. Why would you assume people wouldn't read it by the plain language you used if it was intended to be hypothetical and not outright label it as such?

[MagnaofIllusion]

No, stop it really. Just read the thread. I already said I won't explain it again. ISO me or something.

No, I read the thread. That is what precipated my initial gut level read. Because your reaction isn't reasonable in my opinion. I've read your back and forth and frankly your "OH MY GOD YOU MORON" reaction (this is what I am parsing it as frankly) that is underlying those posts really doesn't seem to come from a Town perspective. I'll have to research our past games but primarily I don't recall you being this much of a dick. Perhaps that's because you haven't left an impression worth remembering ... not sure on that front.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Then your scum radar is hilariously off target. I didn't notice it myself, that's why I posted it.

Ah, you continue to prove that you can't read me for shit. Nice.

And I'm a dick? I'm known for being outspoken, but a dick, really? Because you, along with Mehdi, seem to be illiterate?

Mehdi said that part of his reasoning for voting me was because I didn't answer some question, I didn't post between the question and the vote (and less than a day passed). What is it that's so hard to understand?

Everything except for the last line is you being a dick. You clearly are comfortable with that and nothing inherently alignment attributable to it but please don't express surprise at being called on it when you are. I can find other examples in your ISO if you want to continue discussing it but I'd rather stick to hunting scum (and my guess is you being a dick is not relevant to your alignment but to your MS personality).

The point stands - you are focusing solely on the "timing" element (you didn't answer because you didn't post yet) and ignoring the more relevent and salient "Yours was the worst vote for Empire" element of Mehdi's vote. You've not disputed Mehdi's point that your vote was more justified than others (and frankly I think it can certainly be argued that based on the initial posts it was so was more supported than other votes). This (despite your attempts to suggest I can't read ) is why your reaction is scummy - you've latched onto the least important element of his post and are hammering away at it alone. What about the rest of Mehdi's play - do you have any other scummy behavior you think supports your position?

[MagnaofIllusion]

if mehdi flips scum i want moi's head on a platter

Actually Mehdi flips scum and we can 1v1 as this looks very much like inside knowledge being put together to pre-emptively push a mislynch.

[MagnaofIllusion]

i know, like said i haven't crossed my ways with all the players yet. we have this day phase going until the Friday. so i am not rushing in voting yet.

Here’s a bit of site meta for you to consider – MS in general regards withholding of votes til deadline to be at best anti-Town and with a scum-tell with enough players that it will get you heat regardless of whether it is your natural playstyle or not.

Also – when addressing Vi it is best to NOT capitalize the i. VI (both in caps) is shorthand for Village Idiot here on MS.

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Add the word a between Vi and vig. And yes I think the fact he's pushing on it is bad since so far it just seems like complaining about someone annoying (if it was someone really scummy then why is Vi not voting her).

Disagree that saying AA is a good Vig shot doesn’t make sense. This is a Large game (yeah, on the smallish side but a Large). The more players in a game the more it makes sense Night 1 for any potential Vig to not go “Hero Mode” and instead Policy shoot. And the roster as it stands is very, very light on good Policy shots outside of AA.

Your next line in this very post (AA’s reads are light on any commitment) support this, actually.

@Mehdi

– given you stance on Empire’s wagon please analyze who you think is most likely scum on your current wagon (6 deep).

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@Ser Arthur

– please link me to your common games with Vi. I need to see evidence that you think Vi’s playstyle (especially Day 1) is to be heavy-handed and rule the Town. Also why do you think Vi asking for the Vig to shoot AA was in any way not serious? It is a logical policy shot coming from Vi who understands that drawing a Vig role has a tendancy to make even the smartest player stupid (see EBHOBANWOOF).

Why do I have feeling that AA is a She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (for the sake of less confusion, BabyBlue) alt?

I now hate you for planting this seed in the back of my head.

I don’t think so … but …

I hate you.

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holy overreaction batman. must have struck a nerve. now i know i'm right.

Interesting analysis. Funny, but interesting.

Why is medhi scum? Please articulate your reasons in at least a sentence that isn’t fluffy rhetoric.

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Erm, thought I explained why in #112 but to elaborate a little more: when reading newer players,

I put more emphasis on tone than I usually do

. This is because, well, they're newbies - they often do dumb things and they often haven't developed their skill at scumhunting so a lot of the stuff about "passivity" is something I tend to see in newer players a lot. Hell, even if you've played elsewhere, you still need to get used to the site culture/meta (I know I spent months casually following ongoing games here before I even made an account).

Aha – now I see why I find you scummy – the bolded. I find tone to be a fluffy non-word that people use to justify reads that can’t otherwise be justified (aka more likely to come from scum than Town).

I also disagree completely with your “new players are passive” theory in that passivity is mostly a function of playstyle (I was damn active the second I joined MS and subsequently got Nightkilled in my first two games N1, meanwhile NS is an inactive lump of terrible-ness despite being on site for so long) and personality than ‘newbiness’.

- The Vi comment was basically me fucking around since he's a friend and one of the few people I talk to off-site so I just wanted to take a little jab at him. It wasn't meant to be any sort of reaction test which is why I never brought it up again.

Ok, I can see that as long as Vi doesn’t say “Screw that, I don’t know this joker IRL”.

- Over-explanation is what I do. The running joke is that I basically play like a version of Regfan and it's (embarrassingly) true. Here are some instances of me over-explaining stuff: Micro 34 (here and here, Micro 54 as a replace-in here, and Mini 1373 here and here (on my now discarded main, satire). Furthermore, given that we only have one week deadlines you better bet that I'm going to try and draw as much as I possibly can from each game day.

So if this your normal style I’m back to my original position – that I don’t see the reasons for your ‘Town clearing’ of AA to be logical and reasonable. I think it’s been put well that you are grasping for reasons to say AA is Town. Everything you put forth is either based on premises that are not valid (new players prefer Town and that in general new players all conform to behavior patterns when AA’s own posts refute that she should be considered inexperienced) or based solely on your own personal experiences (which apply to you not necessarily to others).

The only thing I think would be a strong Town tell for AA would be her constant antagonizing of Vi through calling him bad and saying VI instead of Vi. And even that is predicated on knowing it is stupid to do so as Scum which requires her to know Vi which apparently she does not.

- MoI, I asked you the question because my impression was that you still posted during your V/LAs, only less frequently (sorry for the mistake).

Sometimes I do. It depends on how much free time I have to myself which is very swingy. Currently with my daughter recovering from a broken wrist and holiday activities it is more constrained than usual.

Honestly, as against the grain as this is going to sound, I'm liking AA9 more for town.

1. How is this against the grain? I don’t recall anyone directly calling AA anything other than Newb Vigbait.
2. How exactly are you liking AA MORE for Town when Post 112 reads a pretty definitive?

[MagnaofIllusion]

@MOD – can you fix ArcAngel’s quotes in Post 305? I’m not sure how post 153 of mine is supposed to be involved in that quote.

~Done. ~Zar.

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I'd have claimed when the one time I did without a hammer intent I got yelled at? Yeah unlikely and I prefer forcing a hammer intent myself.

Link to this please … I don’t think it was me in either of our common games.

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Vi's whole attitude this game is his townself. It just is.

Meh. I think Vi’s play is dead Null.

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I haven't really had any direct games with Vi? (At least, not that I remember). But I'm more like that stalker who stalks people. And when did I say Vi is a "heavy-handed player who rules the town"? I'm stating that the "please vig AA" is the general reaction to AA's posts, but that does not mean it has to be taken by a grain of salt like mehdi took it.

You didn’t say that specifically but your “Vi’s joking” analysis is way off-base. Vi isn’t someone to strong-arm the Town Day 1 regardless of her alignment. The “AA is a great Vig Shot” posts Vi is making read to me as about as strong an push as you will see from Vi and should be taken seriously IMO.

Also you don’t get a gold star as you didn’t read the whole post. Better luck next wall!

Do you think scum just wobble in the thread and make themselves obv or something?

Well that’s what you are basically saying Mehdi has done with his Johhog interactions. And then you say the following –

Why is Baby chainsawing harder then Leatherface?

So not only is Mehdi obv-scum in thread but her partner BabySpice is obving it up also. I would think you believe scum do make themselves obv …

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I think it was too early to judge Empire and his vote based on the fact that NS is an easy target. Actually, Johhog using that argument gave me some bad feelings about him. Easy targets can be scum too, so putting a first vote on an easy target isn't being opportunistic.

Also, easy targets are easy for a reason, the mafia don't need to rush into trying to lynch them like that, because they'll get themselves in a possible lynch position sooner or later.

As for Empire's reason, I don't remember thinking it was bad, at least for the beginning of the game when we were just getting started.

Frankly it is never too early to judge a player’s posts in a game. Scum can and do get caught on page 1. I can link you some examples if you are interested.

The bolded to me tells me you don’t get the crux of why going after easy targets is considered a scum-tell. It doesn’t have to do with the timing of votes or pushing for a quick-lynch. It is based on the premise that scum don’t want to attack higher difficulty targets if they can avoid it. And going after easy (or softer if you prefer that term) targets like NS can be indicative of that sort of mentality. And as much as Marketplace is being thrown around here you can look at Storm of Swords as an example of Scum Magna being cognizant of this and going after Twilight Sparkle (a hydra of three experienced players) strongly in part to get not be viewed as attacking easy targets (and partly because it was fun to torment Mina).

Now I don’t necessarily think that is the best case against Empire (personally I think the ArcAngel Town overkill read is much more likely good evidence of scum motivation) but it isn’t something that should just be overlooked because it came early on.

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Think that's playstyle more than anything, dude. There are plenty of players who justify reads on the basis of gut/intuition and any time someone refers to a post/player as "awkward", "detached", "disengaged", etc. is certainly commenting on their tone. Surely any time someone refers to something being "genuine" or "ungenuine" is commenting on that player's tone. Don't really see how that's alignment indicative at all.

Maybe. I frankly don’t know you from Adam. Regfan (who you claimed to be a quasi-carbon copy of) does not, in my experience deal, in fluffery so that’s the standpoint I judged your posts by.

For the record – I never give one iota of credibility to any argument I see where someone says “Players X isn’t genuine / is awkward” etc as stated I find those fluffy arguments that aren’t alignment driven. If I had a dime for every time I saw that sort of stuff aimed right at Town I’d be retired very, very early.

You misunderstood me. I never meant to say that I knew Vi face-to-face (does anyone?) but rather that he's one of the few people I talk to outside the game via the Internet. Hell, when the game was up in sign-ups we talked about how excited I was that he joined.

No I got what you meant. Skype / Messenger / Face to Face are synonomous in my mind as far as “knowing someone in real life”.

1. Mostly extrapolating from Konowa's FoS here and at least half of Tammy's mind being rubbed the wrong way here.

Hmm. I don’t really see either of those as very strongly saying “AA is scum” personally.

MoI and Johhog, since you guys were both town this game, please let me know if there's anything wrong with this reasoning.

Frankly I’d have to really review to see if I agreed. I replaced in late Day 1, helped push through the Fujiko scum lynch quickly and NS was dead by morning. Other than properly linking Umbrage to NS via his posting I didn’t really read NS much at all. Then I died Night 2. So I don’t have a strong remembrance of his play.

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MoI - I haven't seen enough to be able to get a read on him, and wanting to see more contribution from him is one reason I didn't want the day to end right now.

Aside from me not SAD / Mehdi style spamming the thread do my posts not have enough content for you to make any sort of alignment judgement?

[MagnaofIllusion]

My repose quote was for your post not for SS, I dont know how to fix that

Actually you were responding to a point Snowstorm made not me (in Post 295) as far as I could tell.

What post of mine were you meaning to respond to?