Newbie 1449: Return of the Van [Game Over!]

[fferyllt]

hi guys!

catching up

[fferyllt]

Also, I don't offhand recall playing with you-scum, but I am positive I've modded you-scum. And this is it, I'm pretty sure.

I need to go look (but that won't be until late tonight).

Are you thinking of the River City newbie game? He was town in that one. Replaced cAPSLOCK.

[fferyllt]

^Actually, I doubt Grimsgroove is mafia, since he did that shrink act which sort of implied he is Doc. However, that would be unlikely because claiming that role this early is suicidal and just asking the mafia to kill him. He can't also be mafia claiming doctor, because it's also too early for them to be doing that, since it would only cast suspicion upon him. Therefore, he is likely to be just a VT.

This kind of speculation written "out loud" is not a good idea if you're town. Scum don't need any help narrowing down the list of players who might have power roles.

[fferyllt]

@thiscantgowrong:

Anyway, I'll unvote you eventually, I'm just waiting for that one thing that will tell me you're town.

This sounds like you already know he's town.

[fferyllt]

Nobody Special is a scumread. Maybe him being motivated can change that, but I'm very happy with my vote right now.

I could be biased because I was reading day 1 with the knowledge of TNE's alignment, but I really didn't understand the impetus of his wagon.

And, I am surprised GiF voted him. Really surprised. There's other stuff I don't like about GiF's play as well.

NS can't answer for any of that, but this isn't a situation where I'm willing to let a replacement start at null.

If NS is scum, who is his partner?

[fferyllt]

Both votes on Cervantes today are very weird considering the motivations that precede them.

No reaction to this?
Last chance...

Missed it the first time, but rather than directly talk about that I've been thinking a bit so I'll share that.

The more I've thought about it the more I think the case against Cervantes is weak. The lack of response in this case is probably not a scum tell and IRL stuff is the most likely explanation. But I've been thinking about the zipperflesh NK.

Going on what happened yesterday, who would I have chosen to kill? The two most important elements I can think of (since no PR has been claimed as of yet) are eliminating skilled scum hunters and not drawing attention to scum players (maybe in the best case putting attention on a town player). So to go down the list:

Hayato has mostly been involved in asking questions without definitively stating who he suspects as scum. This hasn't really led to any bandwagons and mostly just seems to cause fights between him and the person he questions to no other effect. Not a threat, though also not likely to draw attention to any particular target either.

Trisania has been active and voting, but has primarily followed the lead of other already established bandwagons. Not really a threat though might put a little attention on zipper or myself due to her earlier distrust of us.

WBO has also pretty much just followed the leads of others, so null on the threat consideration, maybe light suspicion put on myself due to the vote he cast against me earlier, but like Tri it's kinda weak.

I also have mostly followed bandwagons caused by others and so also pretty low on the threat scale. As an added bonus (one Tri seems to share) I'm good at getting suspicion drawn to me. Killing me might bring attention to Cervantes given my stubborn voting of him the last game day.

GiF is a game veteran. Along with Grimsgroove he's been very influential towards directing the votes of other players and starting lynch wagons. Once he starts getting accurate scum tells that's incredibly dangerous. Killing him doesn't attract attention to anyone in particular (maybe zipper?) but does eliminate a potentially powerful town player.

Grimsgroove is similar to GiF in this regard. He helped form the nucleus of the previous day's lynch, and killing him may not leave an obvious target for scum hunters (his main focus yesterday being TNE and calling most of the newbs as town).

Cervantes did start a bandwagon (against me) so has some influence when he speaks up but hasn't for some time. I've also called that scummy the previous day meaning he could be viewed as a potential lynch target for day 2 and thus useful for scum as a distraction. Killing him might have attracted attention towards me due to his accusations against me.

And finally, zipperflesh. Zipper had some potential for danger, he was able to focus suspicion on Cervantes and Trisania for a time. And he was willing to be decisive and be the hammer of a lynch vote. Killing him would perhaps make either Cervantes or Tri more obvious targets due to his accusations against them.

The above doesn't really address your premise, which was that scum would kill someone that doesn't point to them, and preferably points to someone who is town. Who does the zipperflesh kill point to? Is that person(s) somewhat cleared in your mind as a result?

Given these options, I would probably have killed either Grim or GiF last night unless one of them was my scum partner.

A common kill strategy is to eliminate threats. Threats include players who are on the right track, players who are likely to figure things out (which usually translates to experience, but not always), and players who could be PRs. If scum have an experienced player among their team, then eliminating other experienced players is sometimes avoided because being the last experienced player left in the game can look a little suspicious.

Another common strategy is to kill someone who was in the middle of the pack suspicion-wise because that sort of kill can sow a lot of confusion.

As a point of interest, I find that night kill analysis doesn't get a lot of traction at MS. I think there's value to it, but I guess maybe at some point in the past kill-obfuscation was so intense here that "NKA is a waste of time" became axiomatic.

I don't think both are likely to be scum. They kind of budied up a bit against TNE and for the innocence of newbs like me or Tri. I don't think scum would make in the minds of the other players as the two team members as on a team, not in a newbie game where the newbs might be too inexperienced to think that's not what scum would do. So which one do I think is more likely scum?

Experienced players might do this precisely because it's counterintuitive. It's less likely to happen on day 1 of a newbie game. IME the play complexity increases in newbies over time due to replacements and people warming up to the game.

GiF mostly worked with fairly short explanations for his reasons for suspicion or lack thereof.

That's GiF's style. It's not alignment indicative. The stuff that is indicative is his lack of scumhunting and (IMO) his vote on TNE, especially since it wasn't deadline driven.

Zipper and TNE exhibited similar tactics and both are now known as town making me think that might be more of a town than a scum tell.

I don't know about zipper, but TNE's short-on-explanations style is not alignment indicative.

Grims isn't as long as what I pull but seems a bit more comprehensive.

I need to review some of his newbie games, because some players do play differently in Newbies, and I have only one Newbie game with him. My experience is that he plays forcefully and works pretty hard to make his preferred lynches happen. He also interrogates pretty intensely, which I didn't see too much of in day 1.

That could be an attempt to seem more transparent and therefore more town. His activeness in trying to find scum should be supportive of town-ness, except that if it's directed away from scum it can seem town while being rather anti-town (and the three votes he put down were against two people I know to be town, zipper and myself, and one maybe town, GiF which his death could be very bad if he's town). So right now, Grimsgroove is my big suspect.

Maybe. If I were making a scum case for Grim right now, I'd probably base it on his relatively soft day 1 approach. But, I dislike GiF's day 1 play even more, and I wouldn't expect a hypothetical scum-Grim to take such a strong stand against a partner on day 2.

[fferyllt]

I just remembered, GiF had to replace out of a bunch of games at about this time. I'm going to notch my read back to null for now. I'm not sure what I'm seeing is that alignment indicative.

[fferyllt]

@fferylltHi. =) Nice to have you here. I can’t really share the suspicions you have for Grim or GiF, because your arguments were mostly from meta. Maybe when there’s less player around, I could spend more time meta’ing players.

Yeah, I've played a ton of games with GiF, and we play as a hydra pretty often. Hydra is a user account that is shared by 2 or more players. They sign up as a single player in games (non-newbie games) and share the role PM, vote, night action, etc. He still fools me as scum sometimes. It would be easier to read his play in this game if I had interacted with him.

[fferyllt]

Also, I don't offhand recall playing with you-scum, but

I am positive

I've modded you-scum. And this is it,

I'm pretty sure

.

I need to go look (but that won't be until late tonight).

You know Nobody Special, I'd love to attribute this to an honest mistake from your part, but the stuff in bold really bugs me.

UNVOTE:

I'm curious about your catch-up though.

Hi fferyllt! Interact with me.

Did you miss my 298?

fferyllt, I couldn't help but notice the jump in posts you commented on between 296 and 298.

Could you explain your approach when catching up with this game?

My approach was pretty sleepy. I dozed off before I got completely through day 1 and picked back up this morning. But, that's not the gap you're talking about. The early posts that screamed for IC-type comment caught my eye. I went forward a few posts to see if some got comment, but figured I'd forget about them if I read on before replying. Then I started running into signs of teaching mode in the thread, and didn't stop at any more teaching moments.

I'm going to need to do a 2nd read-through because the section where I was fighting sleep is a little fuzzy.

Mostly I watched the build of the TNE wagon.

Why did you vote him?

[fferyllt]

Did you read Day 1 before knowing about The New Earth's flip or after it?

I knew his flip before I started reading.

I just remembered, GiF had to replace out of a bunch of games at about this time. I'm going to notch my read back to null for now. I'm not sure what I'm seeing is that alignment indicative.

I can see the replacing out itself being a nulltell given those circumstances, but didn't you say there was something off about his play prior to that? Why does a null action make the scummy stuff go away? Could you expand on "the scummy stuff"? All I see is that GiF pushed a case on someone who flipped town. Considering I did the same thing I'm disinclined to take that as a scumtell.

There were signs, but they could be signs of preoccupation or getting overwhelmed with too much going on across the board, which ties into his replacing out of several games at once.

GiF wasn't scumhunting much. His content was mostly IC-related. His vote on tne didn't have the trajectory I'm used to seeing in GiF's votes. If it had been a deadline-driven lynch his play would make a lot more sense to me.

[fferyllt]

fferyllt, if you have read Day 1, my reasons for voting The New Earth should be clear to you, no? I think 158 represents the central element for me, plus The New Earth's negative disposition towards answering questions and simply giving a shit whenever he was here.

Lack of sleep during my first read I guess. I didn't remember that post, and I couldn't find it with ctl-f since it didn't quote TNE or mention him by name.

I have some concerns about your TNE vote, but I'll hold off digging into that until I've done a full contextual reread and know for sure that the concerns have a basis.

[fferyllt]

Nobody Special is a scumread. Maybe him being motivated can change that, but I'm very happy with my vote right now.

I could be biased because I was reading day 1 with the knowledge of TNE's alignment, but I really didn't understand the impetus of his wagon.

And, I am surprised GiF voted him. Really surprised. There's other stuff I don't like about GiF's play as well.

NS can't answer for any of that, but this isn't a situation where I'm willing to let a replacement start at null.

If NS is scum, who is his partner?

I didn't realize this question was directed to me, since apart from the quote nothing really hinted at anything I was talking about.

I don't know, I haven't seen any clear links between GiF/NS and any other player. But I also have a scumread on thiscantgowrong for instance. I liked him during day 1, but his Day 2 start felt really scummy to me. Same for Hayato actually.

Small question to Hayato: just so I know you're not buddying me by removing that vote over the meta-study: can you point out the crumbs I left in the game I pointed you to? Like, explain the mechanic behind them? Given that crumb made you change your mind about me, I'm supposing you found it.

It was a springboard from your post. And since you have concerns about GiF/NS, it seemed like a good start to compare notes with you.

[fferyllt]

I've reread the game, and written up a sort of narrative of my reactions to posts as I went along. I was collecting my reactions to Day 1 on a player-by-player basis, so that's how I'm presenting it here. Day 2 I'm going to treat as though I've been here from daybreak, and will make comments on a post by post basis rather than a narrative approach.

Every time I replace into a game lately, I try a different catch-up/report-findings method. If this turns out useful (from my perspective, anyway), I may try it again. I did find that my opinions of players was changing as I went along.

Living

Trisania

post 28 reads like she knows tcgw is town. "don't worry, I'll change my vote."

Comments on "dr crumbs". This has an earnest newbtown feel, and it's kind of early for a wily scum to point something in thread as a heads up to a hypothetical partner. It seems like this would make sense as a late comment if under lynch pressure rather than dropped on page 2 or 3.

49 has a town-paranoia sense to it.

57 has a newbtown Ah Ha feel.

78 bothers me for the same reason that 28 did. It's like she knows tcgw is town.

118 is goodposting.

I don't know why, but the rant in 142 doesn't feel genuine. Could be the word choice, which could be non-native-english. Overall, it feels like the sort of rant that a scum player might direct at their buddy. But, that's a more experienced sort of play than Trisiania has exhibited so far.

good pushback to grimgroove in 163.


thiscantgowrong

He's a waller. puts a lot of thought into the game. assumptions are naive at times. He doesn't like rvs, then votes cervantes in post 14 after zipper's argument.

"But it's been a year and a half since I played last (and that was in person not over a forum) and before that I'd only played a handful of games." - this makes some sense of his post content.

54 has a town outrage feel to it, though scum don't like to be misrepped either. The fact that he got temperish about it has a town feel.

56 is the infamous scum day chat "town tell". It's a reason to think town, but not a strong one. Lately I've been seeing "townslips" like this one show up in new-to-MS scum players. Starting to wonder if experienced scum aren't coaching their newb buddies before the game starts. Or maybe it's newbs who do a fair bit of prereading.

His later posts maintain that earnest feel. Not calling any out individually.


hayatoBL

Montosh

21 Montosh sheeps grimgroove's tcgw vote. (hmm).

post 125 and 126 - this is pretty meticulous. Compare to his catch-up post after replacing in to newbie 1430. He's played 2 more games since that newbie which could account for the change in catch-up approach. Or could be the thread length at the time. Or maybe he's experimenting with different approaches to catch-up.

160 is goodposting. I agree with his vote here.

194 is also a good question to tcgw.

I liked 215 and the argument for scumhunting among newbies as well as experienced players. (I was "newbie" scum in my first MS game and although it wasn't easy, it seemed almost inevitable we'd win because I was severely underestimated.)


WBOCampfire1104

post 25 knows GiF, knows he's an asset, votes him. hmm.

post 42 looks like he's not really reading the thread, since tcgw's second post indicated he has past experience with f2f mafia.

71 marks a tone change of sorts. He's getting pushback and posts in more detail. I dunno why exactly, but this post bothers me a little. I think it's the way he opened the back door on his vote.

Reads list 94 - townreading trisania, scumreading tcgw. I had the idea at this point that a wbo/trisania scumteam miiiiiiight make sense, but wouldn't bank on it.

184 TNE unvote was good. No reason for scum to unvote at that point.

191, 192 In a way I like these posts, but they still bother me a little. They're angry. But there's maybe a flail feel to them.

205 also feels a little flaily but maybe a little town?

The turnaround in 427 and 431 bother me, but t seems more like a town reversal than a scum one.


Grimgroove

says thiscantgowrong isn't as newbie as he acts. not sure about this. like I said, naive assumptions look newb, but tcgw does own some f2f experience so meh.

post 39 is a good newb catch. Would scum-Grimgroove point this up? Maybe. Depends on who he's decided he wants to lynch. Still, townpoint.

Naked vote on TNE. 147 is the explanation. "Got time to talk?" at the end of that post has an odd feel given it's addressed to the person he's voting.

149 is goodposting. The back and forth with TNE feels...I dunno? A little hollow. TNE tends to be easy to mislynch, which is why I was surprised to see both GiF and GrimGroove go after him to the exclusion of other stuff. But, maybe it's knowing he was town that makes me think this should have come off as a bad lynch. :/ TNE's vote on tcgw was pretty bad though.

162 is sorta maybe but kinda not goodposting - trisania has been talking about what she will do, but he has also been getting stuff done. The snappish irritability has a town feel to it, though.


Nobody Special GiF (IC) - 111 distinction between abandoning theory and abandoning reads is goodposting.

120 - tne probscum is not goodposting. He never does make a strong case for tne-scum. He spends more time back-and-forth with Grimgroove than in efforts to sort the person he votes.

Dead

thenewearth, Vanilla Town, lynched Day 1
138 was a particularly town-soundng post from TNE. But, really all his posts had a sort of fuck you I'm town deal with it feel to them.


zipperflesh, Vanilla Town, killed Night 1

Zipper voted trisania in 85. hmm.

176 and earlier indicates preference for wdo wagon.

^^ This ties into that vibe I had about a WDO/trisania connection. The kill could point to wdo as well?

[fferyllt]

Town

tcgo - transparent play, mostly
hayato - despite a twitch on my part here and there, I found myself agreeing with him a lot as I read through day 1. Especially as he pushed the WDO wagon in the face of near inevitable tne lynch. Given his level of experience, this wasn't something I'd expect.

Maybe a little bit less town

trisania (mostly because of that tenuous feel of a connection with WDO. I usually want to take this sort of play, call it newb obvtown, and never look back.)
Grimgroove (mostly because I feel like he's not picking up on the right stuff so far, but maybe I'm the one who's off.

Not very town

WDO - bits of flail here and there, maybe a "fosed for the wrong reasons" feel to his anger about being called out for inactivity due to the ipod trouble. Also, interestng that zipper dead given his vote following hayato. Which of those two would look scarier to newbscum?
NS - GiF's play was underwhelming. There were ~reasons~ but I really need to see some serious town play from NS to wash those concerns out of my mind.

[fferyllt]

Hi WBO,

That's an interestingly non-responsive post comng right after my reads list.

[fferyllt]

trisania who are you thinkiing is scum given tne's and zpper's flip?

[fferyllt]

trisania who are you thinkiing is scum given tne's and zpper's flip?

Actually, if you don't mind, I'll answer this.
Basically, zipperflesh and thenewearth were the two players that were "useless posters"; they just did random votes, or, as fferlit said, "his posts had a **** you I'm town flavor". zipperflesh did little, hard-to-explain votes/reasonings and when asked to simplify, doesn't respond. So I think that anybody would vote or NK them.

Scum usually don't NK players who look easy to lynch. Not unless some other factor is in play.

[fferyllt]

I can’t really share the suspicions you have for Grim or GiF, because your arguments were mostly from meta. Maybe when there’s less player around, I could spend more time meta’ing players.

It sounds like you expect to be around when the player list has thinned out more.

[fferyllt]

^True. If I were scum, I wouldn't kill zipperflesh either.

On that note...
@WBO:
I get it now. Scum probably killed him to make YOU, the person zipperflesh voted for, as a guilty party. But that's just my theory. It's more likely scum are among those who went along the TNE wagon.

1. It could be both - scum on TNE's wagon could have chosen to kill zipperflesh.

2. And WDO

could

be scum who killed him. I feel like you are excluding possibilities in this post. The facts we have in hand don't really support those exclusions - they should still be on the table.

[fferyllt]

@MOD if prods haven't gone out yet, could you prod anyone who's due?

Thanks!

[fferyllt]

ISOS:
TRISIANA
I really don't have anything to say about Tris's playstyle. I don't know why. So I'll

NULL

it.
THISCANTGOWRONG
Seems to be an overly excited or nervous voter. He rants a lot, but It's all in the name of good scumhunting.

TOWN

CERVANTES/FFERYLIT
He seems like hayato-7, which will make sense later. He asks quite a few of questions with good reason.

NULL

MONTOSH/HAYATOBL
He seems to be that guy that rocks everyone off balance. He asks TONS of questions (hence "hayato-7") and seems like scum concerned to rock everyone off balance.

SCUM

GRIMGROOVE
Always takes the weirdest wagons. Constantly starting new ones, he convinces with good, orderly reasoning.

NULL

GUYINFREEZER/NOBODY SPECIAL
Somebody, I think Grimgroove, said this guy was a lurker. He kind of pokes around uselessly, reminding me of zipperflesh, kind of. But GIF's playstyle was entirely different in this game, compared to 1339, a scum game. So

NULL

Heh, all nulls. Here's an order:
thiscantgowrong
Trisiana
Grimgroove
fferylit
Nobody Special
hayatoBL

You're comparing me to hayatoBL here, saying that I'm questioning with good reason. But, you're saying that hayato's asking tons of questions to "rock everyone off balance".

Why do you think asking questions and rocking other players off balance is scummy?

What are you doing to scumhunt?

[fferyllt]

2. And WDO

could

be scum who killed him. I feel like you are excluding possibilities in this post. The facts we have in hand don't really support those exclusions - they should still be on the table.

I know. I would have to reread everyone's ISOs for that. I reread TNE's last night, because I can't help but wonder why he's so determined to lynch tcgw on D1. He doesn't explain it much, except summarizing tcgw's walls as "I'm not scum because... So I'm probably town."

I also couldn't get the wagon on him. He was mostly rude, which is quite suspicious, true. But scum being rude on D1 AND about to be lynched? That's town tell for me. As town, he won't have anything to lose except his own life. It is little loss on town's part if a townie dies on D1. But it would put scum as a major disadvantage. So it's quite disappointing why no one has considered his reactions given the circumstances. It was like his lynch was rushed. That's why my focus for now on who the scum are lies on TNE's wagon.

I'll read the other ISO's waaaaay later in the day.

Why do you think scum are more likely to be rude than town?

[fferyllt]

ffery, I think it's disingenuous for you to ask for blanket prods. Why not just ask for individual prods by name? I place that type of action solidly into the camp of 'scum desperately needing to look town.'

I was lazy and didn't want to check!

So, I did just check and tcgw is the only living player who hasn't checked in within the last couple of days. When I looked at the activity page a couple days ago there were 3 players beyond prod range IIRC.

[fferyllt]

I'm still going to look askance at Grim, as he just looks scummy to me, but I could be wrong.

WBO is not looking very good to me, either.

Can you wrap some words around these reads? What about grim looks scummy? What about WBO is not looking very good?

I saw you do some decent analysis in the Dr Who game. The bar has been raised!

Also, why am I the towniest player in your list if you can't read me? Shouldn't I be null or something?

[fferyllt]

So why didn't you ask for prods then?

Because I wasn't in the game yet. I was checking the activity list to see who I might be replacing.

[fferyllt]

Why do you think scum are more likely to be rude than town?

Defense mechanism. Just that. But it's only a tiny scum tell. It is more likely that a townie who's about to be lynched would AoE dramatically or give some really smart retort.

Which supports my earlier theory TNE is town. On hindsight, I should have spoken up and asked his voters to reconsider. Scum wouldn't be suicidal on D1.

It varies by individual, but I find that in general scum tend to be more controlled and conciliatory than town, up to a point. Scum don't want to make waves, and don't want negative attention. So, scum tend to be somewhat non-reactive to pressure at first, and then maybe overreact if the pressure gets intense. When town-on-town scuffles happen, scum tend to either sit back and let it go on (because it's a good distraction from finding the real scum) or maybe even stir the pot gently.

The problem is, "in general". For every rule there are exceptions. And there are players who react counter-intuitively intentionally or without realizing that's what they do.

[fferyllt]

I see. In his case, considering his flip, TNE was acting like town. Tell me, if you were already playing on D1, would you lynch him?

It's hard to say since I knew his alignment when I started reading the game. But, probably not. In fact I just finished a game where he and I were both town, he came under lynch pressure on day 1, and I was unwilling to lynch him because I thought he was too easy to mislynch and his play had a townvibe to it.

if you were scum, what would have been your stand and who would you have NKd?

Unless I had picked up some PR tells from a specific player, I would have gone for an experienced player I didn't expect to be protected. So, assuming I weren't scumbuddies with one of them, I would have considered GiF or Grimgroove and to a lesser extent zipperflesh. But, zipperflesh wasn't on the TNE bandwagon, so I might have discounted him for that reason.

The other thing I would consider is sowing confusion with an off the wall lynch, and that could basically be anybody, though I have a personal dislike for targeting true newbies on night 1 because it cuts down on the time they get to spend playing the game.

[fferyllt]

OK, so I'm chilling and reading some manga when I realise it's high time to check mafiascum again. Looking over the last pages, I facepalmed at his posts.

In post 269, he talks about how Cervantes got more pressure than I did. Not true. I had a wagon (zipperflesh and hayato) more than Cervantes.

Let's also look at his post 346 analysis. This is his order:
SCUM
thiscantgowrong
Me (WBOCampfire1104)
NULL
hayatoBL
Trisiana
Grimgroove
TOWN
fferylit

His reasonings for the scum (me and tcgw) are nomexistent for tcgw, and

he thinks I'm scum because I don't get attention

(not true). Besides, we'd have to be ignorant of each other, because we all saw (including NS

[fferyllt]

oops. wasn't ready to post that. Can you point out where he said the bolded? I missed that.

[fferyllt]

Will have a look.

I'm not a he, btw.

[fferyllt]

In 269 he's talking about the start of day 2, and the comment is accurate. You didn't have any votes on day 2 at that point, and Cervantes had picked up a a couple votes (afaik you still don't but I'm not really paying attention to votes yet, the Day is still pretty young).

[fferyllt]

Also, I'll be pretty surprised if that's the basis of his case on you, WBO.

[fferyllt]

WBO, have you played forum mafia before?

[fferyllt]

@thenewearth how does cervantes post give him town pants?

btw jsyk I'm wearing the town pants now.

[fferyllt]

@fferyllt
I like Post 324. You really saw things that I wouldn’t have seen. And I like the way you judge each post separately. I’ve tried looking for something that I could argue about but I couldn’t.

What do you think about TCGW leaving your slot’s wagon for TNE’s, while maintaining a 1st choice-lynch on your slot?

Right now, I'm pretty meh about it. I want to see how he explains it when he gets back to the game.

325. Category “Not very town” doesn’t mean scum right?

"Not very town" is my scumpile.

341. Wrong usage of 'when'. It should be “Maybe IF there’s less player around”.

Ok.

[fferyllt]

Ok. How about some Grim-posts that ping then?

[fferyllt]

BTW if there's someone in this game who's town and who can see reasons why my itch about tenuous connections between trisania, WDO and zipperflesh don't hold together I'd be really happy to see the sense of it and move on to something else. Reading a town-oriented explanation of why I need to take the tinfoil hat off might net you a townread, too.

[fferyllt]

Unless I had picked up some PR tells from a specific player, I would have gone for an experienced player I didn't expect to be protected. So, assuming I weren't scumbuddies with one of them, I would have considered GiF or Grimgroove and to a lesser extent zipperflesh.

But, zipperflesh wasn't on the TNE bandwagon, so I might have discounted him for that reason.

zipperflesh was TNE's quickhammer.
But assuming you were right about the facts, why would zipperflesh not being on the lynch-wagon be a reason not to kill him?

There may not be a doctor or jailkeeper in this game, but in thinking about who scum would want to kill, I was considering the possibility of there being one. In choosing a kill target scum-me would be thinking about what players are most likely to be protected/jailkept, and what players are most likely to be tracked/ copped. The experienced player who contributed least to the mislynch would fit my profile for protection.

[fferyllt]

GrimGroove, why do you think zipperflesh was the kill target?

[fferyllt]

--SUGGESTION FOR EVERYONE NOT RELATED TO GRIMGROOVE--
We should start rolehunting, and see what part of the system we have. Kapeesh?

Disagree. We should not do this.

[fferyllt]

GrimGroove, why do you think zipperflesh was the kill target?

Now that I've answered this, I want to ask you: What was the use of this question?
Coming right after me mentioing your drop in inquisitiveness compared to other games I saw you in, that looks like a question more for form rather than content.

The use of the question was to see how you are considering the NK wrt to your scumpile.

I'm a little perplexed about your observation about my inquisitiveness. I feel like I almost overwhelmed the thread after replacing in, and put the brakes on a little yesterday.

[fferyllt]

ISOS:
TRISIANA
I really don't have anything to say about Tris's playstyle. I don't know why. So I'll

NULL

it.
THISCANTGOWRONG
Seems to be an overly excited or nervous voter. He rants a lot, but It's all in the name of good scumhunting.

TOWN

CERVANTES/FFERYLIT
He seems like hayato-7, which will make sense later. He asks quite a few of questions with good reason.

NULL

MONTOSH/HAYATOBL
He seems to be that guy that rocks everyone off balance. He asks TONS of questions (hence "hayato-7") and seems like scum concerned to rock everyone off balance.

SCUM

GRIMGROOVE
Always takes the weirdest wagons. Constantly starting new ones, he convinces with good, orderly reasoning.

NULL

GUYINFREEZER/NOBODY SPECIAL
Somebody, I think Grimgroove, said this guy was a lurker. He kind of pokes around uselessly, reminding me of zipperflesh, kind of. But GIF's playstyle was entirely different in this game, compared to 1339, a scum game. So

NULL

Heh, all nulls. Here's an order:
thiscantgowrong
Trisiana
Grimgroove
fferylit
Nobody Special
hayatoBL

You're comparing me to hayatoBL here, saying that I'm questioning with good reason. But, you're saying that hayato's asking tons of questions to "rock everyone off balance".

Why do you think asking questions and rocking other players off balance is scummy?

What are you doing to scumhunt?

WDO, re the bolded, if you answered these questions, I missed it. Plz answer or tell me what post addresses them.

[fferyllt]

ISOS:
TRISIANA
I really don't have anything to say about Tris's playstyle. I don't know why. So I'll

NULL

it.
THISCANTGOWRONG
Seems to be an overly excited or nervous voter. He rants a lot, but It's all in the name of good scumhunting.

TOWN

CERVANTES/FFERYLIT
He seems like hayato-7, which will make sense later. He asks quite a few of questions with good reason.

NULL

MONTOSH/HAYATOBL
He seems to be that guy that rocks everyone off balance. He asks TONS of questions (hence "hayato-7") and seems like scum concerned to rock everyone off balance.

SCUM

GRIMGROOVE
Always takes the weirdest wagons. Constantly starting new ones, he convinces with good, orderly reasoning.

NULL

GUYINFREEZER/NOBODY SPECIAL
Somebody, I think Grimgroove, said this guy was a lurker. He kind of pokes around uselessly, reminding me of zipperflesh, kind of. But GIF's playstyle was entirely different in this game, compared to 1339, a scum game. So

NULL

Heh, all nulls. Here's an order:
thiscantgowrong
Trisiana
Grimgroove
fferylit
Nobody Special
hayatoBL

You're comparing me to hayatoBL here, saying that I'm questioning with good reason. But, you're saying that hayato's asking tons of questions to "rock everyone off balance".

Why do you think asking questions and rocking other players off balance is scummy?

What are you doing to scumhunt?

WDO, re the bolded, if you answered these questions, I missed it. Plz answer or tell me what post addresses them.

[fferyllt]

Asking questions can help a player find scum. The answer to a question will either come from a town pov, a scum pov or a neutral pov. Rocking a player off balance is also helpful in figuring out their alignment.

Is it a particular type of question that you find scummy?

[fferyllt]

It's holly, and no, I added it a couple days ago.

[fferyllt]

@ffreryllt

382
I don’t think WBO is scum. WBO-scum would know that Zip and TNE were town. WBO-scum’s changing vote from Zip to TNE doesn’t make sense. He put Zip on L-4, unvote Zip and then he put TNE on L-1. Isn’t that very counter-intuitive?

Why do you think it's counter-intuitive?

@WDO

You keep skipping over my posts to you.

Asking questions can help a player find scum. The answer to a question will either come from a town pov, a scum pov or a neutral pov. Rocking a player off balance is also helpful in figuring out their alignment.

Is it a particular type of question that you find scummy?

--TCGW REPLACEMENT RUMORS--
Our Mod asked in the newbie queue, with no reply so far. Since tcgw has a newbie slot, no SE or IC can replace him. All I saw for noobs was shark-something. He looked like another TNE or zipperflesh.

^^ That is not how replacements work. Experienced players can replace into newbie slots, and often do. In fact, I think my slot was originally a newbie slot. Newbies can't replace into SE or IC slots.

ALSO:

PLEASE STOP SPECULATING OUT LOUD ABOUT POWER ROLES.

Thank you.

[fferyllt]

Replacements PM the mod and volunteer to take the open slot. Except for newbies that never pick up their role PM, they don't come out of the 2nd post of the Newbie Queue.

Speculating about who might be the replacement is pretty much a waste of time. I have no idea what you think is gained by watching the queue for player names.

[fferyllt]

Town

tcgo - transparent play, mostly
hayato - despite a twitch on my part here and there, I found myself agreeing with him a lot as I read through day 1. Especially as he pushed the WDO wagon in the face of near inevitable tne lynch. Given his level of experience, this wasn't something I'd expect.

Maybe a little bit less town

trisania (mostly because of that tenuous feel of a connection with WDO. I usually want to take this sort of play, call it newb obvtown, and never look back.)
Grimgroove (mostly because I feel like he's not picking up on the right stuff so far, but maybe I'm the one who's off.

Not very town

WDO - bits of flail here and there, maybe a "fosed for the wrong reasons" feel to his anger about being called out for inactivity due to the ipod trouble. Also, interestng that zipper dead given his vote following hayato. Which of those two would look scarier to newbscum?
NS - GiF's play was underwhelming. There were ~reasons~ but I really need to see some serious town play from NS to wash those concerns out of my mind.

Two questions:

1. "he's not picking up on the right stuff": What is "the right stuff" in your eyes? I haven't seen you pick up much yourself. What have I picked up that was wrong?

The whole TNE is town stuff, that was something you didn't pick up that seemed pretty clear when I read day 1. But, you know, if you and I did have strong agreement on the game state that would probably be a first and it would freak me the hell out and I'd probably decide you're scum.

2. Noticing that Nobody Special is your main scumread, I'm very surprised with the tone that you take with him in your interactions with him afterwards, let alone the glaring lack of said interactions. Compared to the way you're putting pressure on WBO, you're giving Nobody special much more leniency. Why is this? Or why is my observation in this regard wrong, in case it is?

And yet, oddly enough my virtual vote is on NS and barring something earthshattering my actual vote will be on him in a few hours. There's nothing to really grapple with in his posts. If he posted the case he promised, I missed it.

WDO is making me crazy, though. There are so many red flags in his play, but it's also so chaotically newb that as much as I want to track every inconsistency down and shake it, I've concluded it would be a complete waste of time.

It really bugs me that he doesn't answer questions.

[fferyllt]

With thiscantgowrong needing replacement I think we should get an extension actually.

@Mod could we get an extension for the replacement?

[fferyllt]

VOTE: Nobody Special

That is L-1.

If you intend to vote him, then post intent first and give him a chance to claim.

By my count it's just under 28.5 hours to nightfall at the time of this post.

[fferyllt]

@ffreyllt Because scum-WBO has no reason to shift to TNE’s wagon. Was there any indication that TNE might be a PR? I don’t think so. Could WBO have foresaw ZF’s quickhammer? No. Would he get town points by making that change? I don’t see any.

bolstering the town wagon with more legs does make sense from a scum perspective. There is always the chance that when wagons sit idle for a while that they'll sort of spontaneously weaken as something else catches town players' eyes. And the something else could be a scum player.

I missed out on the sense of pacing that comes from being in a game from the starts, so I don't know if the wagon movements started to feel stale and ready for change.

[fferyllt]

Take a look at fferyllt for example. She's known to wait a very long time before placing a vote. She posted 48 times without voting, before putting her vote on NS very recently.
Why was this not a problem for you? Why did you not interpret that as fferyllt not wanting to make enemies?

I didn’t know that fferyllt is known to wait a very long time before placing a vote. I just don’t see how an experienced player could make an ‘afraid of making enemies’ mistake. I see that as an ‘only a newbie mistake’. And comparing to the other two brand newbies (WBO and TCGW), Tris is the least aggressive, which reminds me of my first game as scum recently.

I have about 50 completed games at MS. In the majority of those games I didn't put votes down quickly, but I have put down non-RVS votes as early as page 1 or 2 in a few games. I vote when I'm ready to vote, and I vote for someone I want to see lynched. Until both of those conditions are met, I don't vote.

[fferyllt]

‘Someone you want to see lynched’. Not someone who you think is the most scummy?

The way I phrased it is accurate regardless of my alignment in any particular game.

When I'm town, those are equivalent statements. When I'm scum, I look for town players who should be lynchable. When I'm 3rd party, I do what furthers my win condition, whatever that may be, but have a predisposition to favor town if I can.

[fferyllt]

^I smiled when I read that. That was more of a question on theory than scum-hunting tbh. I was wondering, perhaps there are other reasons to lynch somebody as town.

Information lynches are a thing, but not a thing I care for. When I can't get my strongest scum read lynched, then I compromise. Usually at the 11th hour. There are a few games lying around where I posted a compromise vote within three minutes of nightfall.

[fferyllt]

Last theoretical question, Isn't deciding on a compromise lynch that late in the game, may lead to lynching an unclaimed PR?

It can. It sometimes does.

But, hammering with 3 minutes to nightfall, the player really should have claimed whether intent to hammer has been expressed or not. Almost always, the information from the lynch, flip and bandwagon analysis trumps the concern about mislynching a PR.

[fferyllt]

Today, I am thankful for the deadline extension that allows me to spend more time this weekend on my WBO case.

I am also thankful for lots of food.

See you tomorrow!

It's the day after tomorrow.

In other news, hayato's apparent complete lack of paranoia about me is making me a little nervous.

[fferyllt]

^hayato is tunneling me. So it's less likely he'd notice anyone else unless it's hammer time.

He's noticing me, and he's interacting with me. He's probably addressed me directly as much or more than Grim has. The thing that pinged was how quick he was to say in essence "that's not what I meant, I wasn't suspicious of you. It was a theory question."

[fferyllt]

Why did you use me as a point of reference there?

Because I think you have initiated interactions with me more than anyone else in the game so far.

[fferyllt]

And it dawned on me last night that hayato is right up there, too, but the interactions have no bite to them. He's not questioning my alignment at all.

[fferyllt]

From my perspective he's fine, since he heavily questioned mine.

I'll be frank with you fferyllt: you're my second biggest scumread this game. My concerns from when you arrived have still not been dispelled.

I can tell.

I'm not impervious to signs that someone is suspicious of me.

To be frank in return, I'm more concerned with figuring things out than with dispelling your suspicions.

[fferyllt]

:/

WDO's posts are a huge cloud of irrelevancies for the most part, and I'm really struggling between calling him newbtown/moving on and wanting to chase down every minute inconsistency, dodge, fallacy and misperception.

Grim, in further frankness, you might find this interesting.

When I saw the request for a volunteer, I read the (then) last page of this game, where you jumped on Nobody Special for claiming to have either played with or modded scum-you. I thought that your posts about it looked like a bit of a stretch and I figured you could be scum.

Then I looked at the activity list and saw that tcgw was beyond the prod range and figured that was the slot that I would replace into if it hadn't been filled. I ISO'd him and did a really quick non-contextual scan. I came away thinking "maybe scum". I thought there was a good chance that I would be either replacing into a slot that was scum with you, or that was town to your scum.

It wasn't until I read the game in full that I entertained the possibility of you being town, and I still had/have minor doubts because on day 1 you were less aggressive about scumhunting and less "take charge" than I've seen you elsewhere. I think it's because you're maybe less aggressive overall in newbie games (though "less aggressive" doesn't spring to mind when I think about your play in Newbie 1389).

It's not an uncommon pattern from what I've seen.

Anyway, I still flash back occasionally to that initial impression of both you and tcgw. And although tcgw also came off looking a lot more town in context, I am pretty worried that I have zero interactions with that slot atm.

[fferyllt]

From my perspective he's fine, since he heavily questioned mine.

I'll be frank with you fferyllt: you're my second biggest scumread this game. My concerns from when you arrived have still not been dispelled.

Coming back to this, he's fine because he questioned you, but he doesn't appear to question your second biggest scum read. This seems ok?

[fferyllt]

I was talking about hayato, not WDO, but your point is maybe a good one.

You mean utterly convinced Grim is scum?

[fferyllt]

I was talking about hayato, not WDO, but your point is maybe a good one.

Sorry, I was thinking about WBO and Grim.

But I guess that also applies to hayato, since he is convinced I'M scum. But he's willing to hammer NS. Why? And why hammer NS if he claims VT? We don't even know how many PRs there are in this setup. Hayato can't expect an actual VT to roleclaim.

Role claims cause strange things to happen in the minds of mafia players.

Conventional wisdom is that VT claims get lynched, but that's not always the case.

[fferyllt]

^I figured PR claims are more likely to fail, since there's a risk of drawing out the actual PR and having the claim challenged. Scum would have to be really careful on what role to claim. I'd rather claim VT if I'm scum.

On another note, I checked Grim's wiki. It's interesting to note that out of the 18 personal games he finished, he was town-aligned in 14 of them. And only three mafia-aligned games. So it's highly likely he's town here. Though the roles are random, it appears that the odds are with him 77.7778% of the time.

A scum player who's one vote away from hammer often decides to see if they can lure a PR out of hiding by fake-claiming.

The odds of him being town in this game are exactly the same as the odds of anyone else in the game being town: 7/9 or ~77.8%. It looks like his actual town/scum ratio is approximately that.

[fferyllt]

This post would be more comforting if it hadn't been prompted.

@ffreyllt

Today, I am thankful for the deadline extension that allows me to spend more time this weekend on my WBO case.

I am also thankful for lots of food.

See you tomorrow!

It's the day after tomorrow.

In other news, hayato's apparent complete lack of paranoia about me is making me a little nervous.

I’m going to interpret that as “Why are you not suspicious of me?”.

Why are you, a new-ish to MS player, not suspicious of me - a player whose style leads to body of work reads - and those take time to tilt to town, especially among new-ish players.

^hayato is tunneling me. So it's less likely he'd notice anyone else unless it's hammer time.

He's noticing me, and he's interacting with me. He's probably addressed me directly as much or more than Grim has. The thing that pinged was how quick he was to say in essence "that's not what I meant, I wasn't suspicious of you. It was a theory question."

You’re misrepping me here. I already expressed on 467, that it was an honest theoretical question. Hence, I admitted it and was pretty amused that you responded it in a very defensive manner. Though, I noticed that my post could be seen as an attack, after you responded.

How did that post indicate that I have little (or none) suspicion on you?

Suspicions lead to questions about stances, votes, lack of votes, etc. Until this post, you haven't questioned me about stance, votes, etc.

Why are you expecting town to be suspicious of you?

Experience. When I get easy townreads it's usually because I either get an early toehold in a game (which leads to lots of obviously town-minded posting), or because there are some players in the game who are really good at reading me.

My reads on you are hazy. Your arguments seem sound, which doesn’t really indicate much since you are an experienced player.
Both of you (ffreyllt and Tris) jumping on that NS wagon after I promised I will help push that wagon is suspicious.

My trajectory on NS is pretty solid IMO. My vote was drawn by the deadline approaching. Now that it's there, I'm leaving it because NS is dragging his heels.

Two times (on post 444 and 485) you expressed, that you want to pursue WBO, but not really doing it. That could be an attempt to seem like scum-hunting, but not wanting to really push that wagon, because it is clear most of the players town-read WBO.

My read is mixed, and it's mostly an early sense about the interactions between zipperflesh, WDO and trisiana that gave me the odd vibe. I've documented that. I've tried to engage WDO, but getting him to answer questions is an exercise in tooth-pulling and as you note, it's not going anywhere today. NS is the almost certain lynch at this point. If he flips scum (and I think he will) then I'll wonder about whether his promised case on WDO-scum was distancing or not. If I'm alive on day 3. If not, then other players can take up that torch if it makes sense to them.

Why the need to express that for the second time on 485? It feels very out of context.

Because it's on my mind and I'm having trouble moving on from it

On the other hand, you asking Mod to extend the time, seems townish. But if NS were to flip scum, then it would seem scum-partnerish.

My desire for more time has to do with wanting something from tcgw's slot. To me, that's the biggest question mark in the game and there's nothing I can do to address it but hope we get a replacement before there's a lynch today.

^I figured PR claims are more likely to fail, since there's a risk of drawing out the actual PR and having the claim challenged. Scum would have to be really careful on what role to claim. I'd rather claim VT if I'm scum.

On another note, I checked Grim's wiki. It's interesting to note that out of the 18 personal games he finished, he was town-aligned in 14 of them. And only three mafia-aligned games. So it's highly likely he's town here. Though the roles are random, it appears that the odds are with him 77.7778% of the time.

A scum player who's one vote away from hammer often decides to see if they can lure a PR out of hiding by fake-claiming.

The odds of him being town in this game are exactly the same as the odds of anyone else in the game being town: 7/9 or ~77.8%. It looks like his actual town/scum ratio is approximately that.

So, why do you think scum-NS postponing his role-claim and reads?
I think, if he’s scum, he’s waiting someone to somehow stop this wagon and direct suspicion to someone else before making his appearance. And I’m very interested in this someone and somehow.
If he’s town, then this move is very anti-town. Or there’s something I’m not understanding.

To me, the move is very anti-town. NS has a meta of hardcore lurking as any alignment. From what I've seen in the other (2?) games we've played this is over the top. And there were problems with GiF's day 1 play.

[fferyllt]

I think this is correct.

Trisania

thiscantgowrong

SafetyDance

Cervantes

fferyllt

Montosh

hayatoBL
WBOCampfire1104
Grimgroove (SE)

GuyInFreezer

Nobody Special (IC)

Thanks for replacing in, SD. Long time, no play!

[fferyllt]

I didn't like the TNE lynch. Would have opposed it if I had been in the game at that point.

[fferyllt]

It's 6 am. I haven't started a pot of coffee.

It's probably the ideal time to 1v1.

[fferyllt]

Something suddenly came up at work, back now, hope you found time for coffee.

So yes, fferyllt, why the repeated emphasis on the TNE-lynch and you not liking it? Why do you keep bringing that up?
Could you also say "why"' you would have stopped that lynch and which arguments you would have used in order to do so?

I tend to perseverate about stuff. The TNE lynch is a stake in the ground, and the player it most incriminates is GiF because I feel like he should have known better and recognized the town-defiance in some of TNE's posts. It's the main reason I'm voting NS.

My argument would have focused on that tone - the town-defiance. What I'm not sure about is who I would have found more suspicious if I had been in-the-moment during day 1. Possibly GiF, though I think he would have played the game a little differently if I had been present.

[fferyllt]

From my perspective he's fine, since he heavily questioned mine.

I'll be frank with you fferyllt: you're my second biggest scumread this game. My concerns from when you arrived have still not been dispelled.

I can tell.

I'm not impervious to signs that someone is suspicious of me.

To be frank in return, I'm more concerned with figuring things out than with dispelling your suspicions.

That's just the thing: I haven't really seen you try figure things out like I'm used of you.
The interactions you've been having in this game look far less meaningful than what I'm used to of you, and give the air of windowdressing.
What have you figured out so far?

We have two games together, one of which was a complete clusterfuck, and the other of which I think I played quite solidly, though town lost in the end. I can see expecting competence from me, and I think I've brought competence to the game. The problem is that for the most part, players I want to sort further haven't been present. Though at this point, I don't expect NS to wow me with his towniness and turn the game on its ear, the question of where the second scum (assuming NS is scum) is hiding maybe should be consuming me, but I want certainty about NS before moving onward.

[fferyllt]

We have two games together, one of which was a complete clusterfuck, and the other of which I think I played quite solidly, though town lost in the end. I can see expecting competence from me, and I think I've brought competence to the game. The problem is that for the most part, players I want to sort further haven't been present. Though at this point, I don't expect NS to wow me with his towniness and turn the game on its ear, the question of where the second scum (assuming NS is scum) is hiding maybe should be consuming me, but I want certainty about NS before moving onward.

So you think the people who are present don't need further softening?

Hayato has yet to reply to my last post to him.

Can you explain your townreads on those people?

I'll update my reads list later today.

[fferyllt]

Something suddenly came up at work, back now, hope you found time for coffee.

So yes, fferyllt, why the repeated emphasis on the TNE-lynch and you not liking it? Why do you keep bringing that up?
Could you also say "why"' you would have stopped that lynch and which arguments you would have used in order to do so?

I tend to perseverate about stuff. The TNE lynch is a stake in the ground, and the player it most incriminates is GiF because I feel like he should have known better and recognized the town-defiance in some of TNE's posts. It's the main reason I'm voting NS.

My argument would have focused on that tone - the town-defiance. What I'm not sure about is who I would have found more suspicious if I had been in-the-moment during day 1. Possibly GiF, though I think he would have played the game a little differently if I had been present.

I don't think this adds up.

"He should have known better" implies there was a strong argument for TNE-town, but there wasn't. Town defiance is not a strong argument and you of all people know that fferyllt. When did defiance become a town-tell? Can you show me where you used that before as a towntell?
And even if it were a towntell, how does it incriminate people not considering it as such, and why GiF specifically?

GiF specifically because I know that he has played other games with TNE and I think he has a similar level of caution to mine when it comes to scum-reading TNE for being TNE.

The last game I played with TNE (and GiF as part of the Psychlone hydra) http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=32587

TNE came under fire on day 1 of that game. Here are a few of my posts about him.

btw i'm pretty sure TNE is town here. or at least his play here is totally unlike the play from when i was scum with him.

I was also recently scum with him. Cabd was town in that game (Chef Mafia). I think it was the 3rd or 4th game I've played with him. In the others we were both town IIRC, except for hunterxhunterx. I've found that his play is very much dependent how much time he has for mafia. In general, looking back at earlier games that I didn't play but meta'd during the first game or two we played together, being (relatively) involved and serious about the game is associated with his scum play.

I'm going to review hunterxhunterx. The scum game we recently finished he only made 2-3 posts iirc and was the day 1 lynch.

Gonna quick throw my read changes in:

Mac - Town.
TNE - leaning town.
Slight niggle about Mastin for that claim demand given the caution in bork's post.
Kinda like GiF but he needs to step it up if he's town.

TNE ISO Highlights

I liked his entrance into the thread, and the first post that really gave me a town sense was actually pretty early: 291. I liked that he wasn't avoiding GiF. He didn't back down about Varsoon's early AtE. The question mark, really was his assertion of familiarity with Varsoon's xenogears play. I have'nt really seen TNE as a meta-heavy player, and this was a game he didn't play.

350 is a pretty strong stance on BRO.

356

and next post in ISO are pretty cheeky responses to being scumread by thezmon.

630 reads list is pretty iconoclastic in some ways.

885, 886 cases on his scumreads. This is way more detailed and thoughtful than what I'm used to seeing from TNE. If he's town I hope he'll play like this more often.

Subsequent back and forth with BRO feels very much like someone who thinks they are talking to scum.

I'm townreading the fuck out of this ISO.

I imagine I would have put together a similar defense in this game.

My hydra partner wasn't convinced, but we did wind up voting elsewhere.

TNE was a town PR in that game.

[fferyllt]

Here's some poking at believed town players (short, negative explanations that accompany the scumlist)
HAYATOBL: Why do you ask so many questions? It's not because I can't answer them (putting @WBO in front of the paragraph or bolding the question helps), but you seem to have a tendency to always rock players off. This is starting to seem like a more town-tactic than scum-tactic, but you could really screw your PR's if you aren't careful. PR's can act scummy sometimes.

Rocking players off balance and seeing how they react is a fundamental scumhunting tool. There are other tools: including doing the complete opposite - not rocking the boat and observing what sorts of ripples other players make in the game without interference.

NOBODY SPECIAL: Why don't you post much? And when you do, it's practically useless? This is getting you lynched. Your don't care attitude comes from either having strong trust in a scumpartner (still for GG) or having some type of partially-invincible town role. Which would call you for NK's, if possible.

There is no town role that protects from being mislynched. I wish you would stop speculating out loud about power roles. Day 3, especially if we don't lynch scum today, is when town's PRs can make a huge difference in how the game day proceeds.

TRISIANA: I don't really have much to say (and haven't for a while), but you seem to get rocked off balance easily. Beware. A hayato-assault might get you a lynch.

Your certainty that she's town, and your blantant buddying her, are two of the aspects of your play that look scummy to me. Newbtown players almost always retain suspicions about other players.

FFERYLLT: You seem to have a "I'm the boss" attitude. You kind of peck on everyone's TNE-lynch mistake, and get everyone else off balance. Kind of like hayato; a fferyllt-hayato team? Unlikely but possible.

I'm assertive in my own way, I guess. The TNE-lynch annoys me because it should have been averted/avertable, but I'll eventually get over that aspect of day 1. It stays on my mind because it's hard evidence about who is town and who is scum in this game in much the same way that Zipperflesh's NK is. I'm not primarily a hard-evidence based player, but it's something tangible from the days when I wasn't in the game and couldn't interact.

[fferyllt]

@ffreyllt

Why are you, a new-ish to MS player, not suspicious of me - a player whose style leads to body of work reads - and those take time to tilt to town, especially among new-ish players.

Suspicions lead to questions about stances, votes, lack of votes, etc. Until this post, you haven't questioned me about stance, votes, etc.

I have a certain amount of suspicion towards every player in the game. Towards some greater than others. Though, I prioritize and choose which argument, I would like to present. My way of posting should already indicate that I spend only a fixed amount of time for MS. Thus, the argument which I think is more important comes first.

I had a disagreement with you about your move towards WBO. Besides the WBO case, the NS case and other case which include a lot about meta mainly about GiF, I don’t recall you having any other case which you strongly addressed.

My other case is pretty tinfoil hat, and I'm treating it as such. It involves WBO, but I'm not pursuing him on that basis.

I tend not to do a lot of scenario-based research until I have reason to think the scenario could be real. I'm usually in the middle of 5-8 games at once, and this game is no exception. So, I have to prioritize my meta lines of inquiry.

IF

NS flips scum, then I'll do a deep dive into his scum games to see what his tendencies are toward his scumbuddies - ignore, townread, scumread, etc. It's possible that my suspicions about WDO will shoot through the roof if NS is scum, but it will be based on something more than my tenuous sense that there's some sort of connection between WDO (and possibly trisania) and Zipperflesh's NK.

My trajectory on NS is pretty solid IMO. My vote was drawn by the deadline approaching. Now that it's there, I'm leaving it because NS is dragging his heels.

Your trajectory on NS is as solid as on WBO IMO. Now that you’ve voted for NS, it just seems like there was no (or a weaker) trajectory on WBO.
Are you denying this?

In mafia, trajectory means something pretty specific to me. And my trajectory on WDO has more of a trail mostly because he's been around at times to at least talk to. If my vote on the GiF/NS slot came as a surprise then you really need to look at my ISO again.

You didn’t vote on WBO to apply pressure. Maybe applying pressure would work. According to your meta, you vote on someone when you want that person to be lynched. Why not be flexible about it? Why must you follow your own meta?

I don't follow my meta. My meta follows me.

-------

If you were going to make a 2 sentence case on trisania what would you include?

Who do you see as her partner and why?

[fferyllt]

It has to do with 172 and the fact that he was still happy with his vote on you but decided to sheep hayato. Grim immediately suggested he sheep Grim and GiF and Zipperflesh declined. Then in 176 he declined again and said there was something in play that he didn't want to discuss. Your reaction, voting him, for "Because you annoy me and you're the only player leaning scum on my list. Also, you refuse to share you reason for wanting to sheep hayato, which is reminiscent of you changing your votes twice without proper reason." struck me as the sort of reason that newbscum come up with for voting. My newbscum partner in the most recent newbie game I played was giving similar reasons for voting, and I was in-thread coaching him to back it the hell down right under town's nose.

some examples:

Spoiler: recent newbscum reasons for FoSes and votes

Wow. So many posts while I'm sleeping. -.-;
Anyway, I'm gonna
VOTE: agi
Because I'm getting rather annoyed by him.

@GM: sorry for the late response, was sleeping. Honestly, Sakura has given more actual intelligent content in 5 or 6 posts than Notsci has given in idk how many posts.

Then Zipper voted WBO in post 186

WBO's reaction was pretty good:

I'm starting to understand how people feel when they get voted: REALLY PISSED. I'm trying not to be a jerk and always countervote, but zipperflesh, you are on my list, as I checked our ISO and it's mostly meaningless remarks or votes without major explanation. I'll still read all the ISOs. It's not my fault my iPod broke down.

Except for bringing up the broken down iPod again. It looked like searching for an excuse for zipper's vote that could be countered, when zipper hadn't given any reason himself.

Zipper gave some beautiful examples of garnering reactions with naked votes. Which is why I sometimes make naked votes, myself. Reverse trajectory is a thing.

Both of your reactions looked off to me when I reread the game thread and put together my catch-up opus.

It could be newbtown nervousness on both your parts, but your reactions raised my neck hairs when I read them, and I have not been able to shake that impression.

[fferyllt]

Your reaction, voting him, for "Because you annoy me and you're the only player leaning scum on my list. Also, you refuse to share you reason for wanting to sheep hayato, which is reminiscent of you changing your votes twice without proper reason." struck me as the sort of reason that newbscum come up with for voting. My newbscum partner in the most recent newbie game I played was giving similar reasons for voting, and I was in-thread coaching him to back it the hell down right under town's nose.

It was an OMGUS vote at first, because he DID annoy me. I was in a bit of a temper that time, and he was sort of tunneling me, so I countered him. But I stood by my vote because he really was scummy for me, specially with his shifting votes.

Your posts to Zipper, and your overall contribution are by far the less scummy of the two. But, there's this slight feel of entanglement.

If this weren't a newbie game I'd be thinking about town roles that could lead to in-thread entanglements. I recently spotted a dethy in a game I was playing. I didn't know what a dethy was. I just knew that the interactions between several players was off, entangled, but not entirely scummy. I was thinking neighborhoods, which was the closest analog I'd ever encountered in mafia.

In a newbie game, it's pretty tinfoil hat stuff. :/

Both of your reactions looked off to me when I reread the game thread and put together my catch-up opus.

It could be newbtown nervousness on both your parts, but your reactions raised my neck hairs when I read them, and I have not been able to shake that impression.

It is very unlikely that WBO and I are scum together just because we had the same reaction. It would be bad enough that we'd both be newbscum, much more that we are displaying the same characteristics. It would then spell doom for both of us if we are scum, since we slipped on D1. My reaction was genuine annoyance. I don't know about WBO, but it seemed real to me too. I admit it's not a desirable behavior, though, regardless of one's alignment.

WDO's reaction mostly seemed real, but bringing up the iPod when Zipper hadn't said why he was scumreading WDO looked a little like guilty conscience, especially in light of all the questions he's completely ignored until they've been asked multiple times. Volunteering something extra, defensively, sticks out a little bit compared to his play since I joined the game.

Sometimes newb scum players come to each others' defense. The more typical reaction is to distance. And this is probably the strongest argument for you both not being scum. It's considerably more likely that only one of you is scum. The question is how much more likely compared to scum being somewhere else.

[fferyllt]

http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Dethy

It was like a game inside a game. 4 town cops of varying sanities and a scum (in this instance traitor) rolecop. They had a neighborhood, and also had daytalk until the scum encryptor was lynched. That out-of-thread dynamic made them stick out a little in their in-thread posts.

2 of the cops were in my first set of townreads, and the rolecop was one of my first scumreads, though I wound up talking myself out of him being scum.

Eventually I had 3 of the 4 town dethy players as town. Then the dethy was outed in the game thread and someone actually argued that I was scum because I had so many of the dethy players in my townpile.

[fferyllt]

I'm going to back slowly away from this entanglement read and leave it alone. if it makes sense to pick back up later in the game, I've documented it twice with increasing level of detail.

Taking it out of the picture takes trisiana pretty much out of the frame. WDO bothers me because of his apparent reluctance to answer questions (or maybe he just doesn't see them until they're bolded and large-font), but otherwise his play is within the parameters that make me think newbtown.

tcgw/SD is mostly a question mark because it's an extremely stale read, and at least my read was based only on catch-up - no direct interaction.

I'm going to try to work in some meta dives today on players that I haven't focused as much attention on so far.

[fferyllt]

Interesting. But this is a newbie game. There can't be any dethy here.

My point exactly. There are other things that could lead to that kind of sense of entanglement, though. And although I sometimes pick up on that kind of stuff in a game (the dethy game being a really awesome example), I also sometimes make mountains out of things that don't even qualify as molehills.

[fferyllt]

@ffreyllt

You didn’t vote on WBO to apply pressure. Maybe applying pressure would work. According to your meta, you vote on someone when you want that person to be lynched. Why not be flexible about it? Why must you follow your own meta?

I don't follow my meta. My meta follows me.

Exactly. That is the problem I’m seeing in you. You had suspicions towards WBO. You questioned him. He ignored you. I think, in that situation it was clear a pressure-vote was necessary. The way I’m looking at this, a suspect can elude you by ignoring you.

So the answer to “Why aren’t you putting a pressure vote?” is, “That’s not your meta.” It feels like in this case, your meta is giving you some convenience and allows you to not pursue a case without arousing suspicions.

It feels like you’re taking advantage of everyone thinking “Hey, ffreyyllt is not vote-pressuring WBO. But that’s a non-alignment indication for her since it’s her meta.”

My meta is shaped by my theory and philosophy regarding the game. And that's my point. My meta changes when something causes me to change my approach to the game.

I don't pressure-vote and I don't RVS vote. Having a reputation for not pressure-voting makes the votes I do put down much more weighty and srsbzns and that is good for my scumhunting. You may argue that in certain corner cases, this doesn't work well. We'll see how it works in this game. I've seen some pretty decent signs that I've focused WDO's attention a bit.
Case on Tris.

IMO, Tris avoids ruffling up feathers, which mirrors myself in my first game playing scum. Her vote on the passive-Cervantes and then unvote you seems like someone who is afraid to make enemies.

Maybe. I almost routinely unvote when someone replaces in, unless I feel there's nothing the new player could do that would shake my conviction about the slot's alignment.

I haven’t really dive into partner-reads. If Tris flips scum, I might have more suspicion towards…

(SD)TCGW. They suspected each other early Day 1. After Gif puts that transparency read on Tris, TCGW dropped the case and since then they town-read each other.

SD's first game-relevant post was (among other things) a FoS of trisiana. Does that affect your thoughts about TCGW and trisiana being possible scum partners?

[fferyllt]

We have two games together, one of which was a complete clusterfuck, and the other of which I think I played quite solidly, though town lost in the end. I can see expecting competence from me, and I think I've brought competence to the game. The problem is that for the most part, players I want to sort further haven't been present. Though at this point, I don't expect NS to wow me with his towniness and turn the game on its ear, the question of where the second scum (assuming NS is scum) is hiding maybe should be consuming me, but I want certainty about NS before moving onward.

What is your plan B for a lynch today if NS would claim a PR? Or would you simply proceed with lynching him?

PR claim isn't an automatic lynch repellant. :/

I read through your last scum game earlier this week, and that pretty well laid to rest my concerns that you could be scum.

Although I'm still a little meh about hayato not really questioning me until I pointed out that he seemed oddly unsuspicious of me, his questions since then haven't been bad.

trisiana's probably town.

I won't bore you with a rehash of my WDO suspicions. I would think pretty hard about moving my vote to him if I move it.

SD is still a big question mark over a very stale town read. I'd also consider voting here by PoE, but I liked tcgw's day 1 better than WDO's.

What is your plan B?

[fferyllt]

I'm sick of anime avatars, I'm sick of

no

avatars. I'm really sick of walls, made the pages too long than they should have and thank goodness tcgwn didn't meet ffery. WBO, get an avatar, it's not hard to resize a pic you like.

Disappointed NS hasn't resurfaced, would have liked more reads than a one-post tunnel on WBO.

Hayato and WBO are town. Scum is definitely in the other quartet, so NS may be a good lynch, for info if nothing and the fact an IC or anyone should not be lurking like he does. However I'm pretty confident Tris is scum. There's too much role speculation from day dot, I'm not seeing the scum hunting process, her read on TNE was bad, she follows onto wagons and her general play appears to be to tread on as little eggshells as possible.

There's reasons I don't trust ffery or Grim either, so wouldn't be surprised if they flipped scum.

For example Ferys hindsight analysis of TNE is ridiculous and

GG appears more focus on his appearances

, getting into arguments with anyone suspicious of him, tonally the aggression today comes off as insecurity and worry.

Vote: Trisania

Not sure if there's time to get a wagon forming here but vote needs to be live. Will try and post more if I can get to a qwerty keyboard before deadline, will try and be around to lynch if needed as well, presuming the day is still on course for NS.

Re the bolded, that was one of the indicators from what I picked up on in his scum game (Kanye's fast and furious game), but it was so pronounced that it was to the exclusion of scumhunting most of the time. Grim's posts in this game have a lot more balance in that respect.

WDO's aggressive day 2 PR speculation doesn't bother you?

[fferyllt]

@ffreyllt, Grim

Hold it. Why is there the need to voice out our plan B? Isn’t it much better to keep scum in the dark?

Let me give you a scenario.

Let’s say, we make a plan B and agree to lynch Player XXX(who is by chance the scum partner of NS). NS would know, if he fake-claims PR in this situation, his scum-partner would get lynched and if somebody counter-claims, he will get lynched the next day. Knowing this, NS will probably claim VT, get lynched, but save his partner in the process. So, by making our plans early, we miss the chance from this, well, ideal situation.

So isn’t it much better to make our plan B, after NS claims PR? Or is Plan B just a fancy way to ask for reads on all the players? If so, then carry on.

It's a way to flush out who are the other scumreads and what their strengths are. That's how I took the question, anyway.

[fferyllt]

I'll also say that with less than 2 days to deadline, I feel like if NS is scum he could be waiting it out before posting (and maybe fake-claiming) so that town doesn't have a lot of time to consider what to do.

[fferyllt]

And fferyllt, I appreciate the comments on my scumgame. I will keep them in mind .

And I will note that you maybe didn't already know that about your scum game.

The arms race never ends.

[fferyllt]

THIS IS IN GENERAL, ESPECIALLY FOR FFERYLLT AND HAYATOBL
Often, when I bring up a previous scenario, I don't remember when it happened. I remembered Trisiana setting up weak walls beginning of day 2, but not exactly when. I'm lazy. Avatar might come soon, SD.

Why is this especially for me? I don't remember asking you anything or saying anything about you that this would be an answer for.

[fferyllt]

Go town!

[fferyllt]

Well done, Tris and Hayato!

[fferyllt]

because he counterclaimed WDO.

[fferyllt]

Me? yeah that looked faked.

And there were a couple other minor pings, which I mentioned when I noticed them. But the overall noise from town players covered you well.

[fferyllt]

Finally read the scum QT. I was hoping to make you guys think I could be a PR! I wasn't unhappy to be the n2 kill. But, I'd hoped that town would be able to figure out the claims.

I thought hayato's claim looked super-fake compared to WDO. But, I would probably have picked SD as hayato's partner rather than Tris at that point.

The reason I walked back my suspicion of WDO near the end of day 3 was because I suddenly facepalmed when I realized that his day 1 super-prickliness and excuses could be newb-PR. That was a really bad call on my part. Though I was right about the entanglements with Zipper. Just had the wrong entanglement sorted as the scummy one.

[fferyllt]

Yeah but hayato's counterclaims did NOT match his in-thread play. And WDO's did. That's a huge hell-no to me because especially newbscum don't usually set up a fake claim well from the start of the game, and also aren't that great at picking through their earlier stances to piece togather a narrative after the fact.

[fferyllt]

Scum-paranoia is a thing. You'd be amazed at all the stuff I find to be paranoid about when I'm scum. :/

My post wasn't a trap, and I thought Grim's question was a good one, and that he was mostly trying to figure me out.

I felt like the game was basically missing an IC at that point. I posted a lot more general strategy and tactics info than I usually do, though I tend to get a little pedantic in newbie games.

The comments about me being a waller amused me until I ISO'd myself. I have a longstanding reputation as a somewhat terse player. I've been doing more quotestripe cases recently, though, and even if my own content is pretty short about each quote, the post itself becomes pretty long. I prefer to play mafia in conversational mode rather than leaving a long reply for people to go through piece by piece a day or two later, but I've adjusted somewhat to MS realities.

[fferyllt]

Yeah but hayato's counterclaims did NOT match his in-thread play. And WDO's did. That's a huge hell-no to me because especially newbscum don't usually set up a fake claim well from the start of the game, and also aren't that great at

picking through their earlier stances to piece togather a narrative after the fact

.

But I was doing just that. I realized that I have failed to provide suspicions towards you on D2. So, I pretended to have fabricated suspicion towards you. So, basically, I faked being a cop, who "had an 'innocent' investigation on you and was forced to provide suspicions when you promted me to do so in order to survive the day".

You left no crumb about me though. I'm probably not the best person to give lessons on crumbing, but a cop needs to leave something unambiguous but subtle about their investigations. Something that scum will miss but will be obvious to town after the fact if you die without claiming or if you claim and town have counterclaims to sort.

In some games, multiple town players will leave what could be an investigation crumb in an early post each game day. scum have to decide who is faking them out and which crumb is real.

[fferyllt]

Scum-paranoia is a thing. You'd be amazed at all the stuff I find to be paranoid about when I'm scum. :/

My post wasn't a trap, and I thought Grim's question was a good one, and that he was mostly trying to figure me out.

I felt like the game was basically missing an IC at that point. I posted a lot more general strategy and tactics info than I usually do, though I tend to get a little pedantic in newbie games.

The comments about me being a waller amused me until I ISO'd myself. I have a longstanding reputation as a somewhat terse player. I've been doing more quotestripe cases recently, though, and even if my own content is pretty short about each quote, the post itself becomes pretty long. I prefer to play mafia in conversational mode rather than leaving a long reply for people to go through piece by piece a day or two later, but I've adjusted somewhat to MS realities.

I skimmed over Grim's post. I thought it was his Plan B post you were talking about.

Now I'm not sure why you thought that could be a trap.

[fferyllt]

You left no crumb about me though. I'm probably not the best person to give lessons on crumbing, but a cop needs to leave something unambiguous but subtle about their investigations. Something that scum will miss but will be

obvious to town after the fact if you die without claiming

or if you claim and town have counterclaims to sort.

Hmm...what kind of crumb could serve as that? How would you have done that, fferyllt?

Grim has taught me his soft-claims. But that can only work if he is alive to point to those soft-claims.

As cop, my strategy is to claim immediately and out my results if I get a guilty. My shelf life in most games doesn't extend past day 1 or 2, unfortunately. If I get an innocent, my reads list will reflect that. I may or may not post something else indicative in my first or second post.

If I'm another sort of investigator I usually don't have enough info to unambiguously say town or scum, but if I get a result that is incriminating (say I track a player to a corpse one night) I have never let the next game day end without claiming.

As far as soft-claiming goes, I don't follow site meta, I guess. I learned mafia in an environment where people didn't crumb their roles, and where players developed skills at reading PR tells rather than looking for crumbs. I'll crumb results, but hardly ever crumb my role. I hydra a lot, and my hydra partners often drop role crumbs even when I don't. I should make a new years resolution to crumb more.

[fferyllt]

Yeah but hayato's counterclaims did NOT match his in-thread play. And WDO's did. That's a huge hell-no to me because especially newbscum don't usually set up a fake claim well from the start of the game, and also aren't that great at picking through their earlier stances to piece togather a narrative after the fact.

Why? He did ignore your slot after all which you yourself mentioned. WBO's play matched up to his previous stuff even after he claimed, in short he was only consistent in averageness, I mean it helped that his n1 investigation died, that was amazingly convenient and he didn't change or start trying to press/sound convincing after the fact.

You left no crumb about me though. I'm probably not the best person to give lessons on crumbing, but a cop needs to leave something unambiguous but subtle about their investigations. Something that scum will miss but will be obvious to town after the fact if you die without claiming or if you claim and town have counterclaims to sort.

In some games, multiple town players will leave what could be an investigation crumb in an early post each game day. scum have to decide who is faking them out and which crumb is real.

As I said in game, what crumbs did WBO leave as well? He came in late Day 2, there was nothing in his early posts even mentioning Zipper at least...

Two points:

- He came off much more newb in this game than hayato did. My expectations of his play reflected that.

- Why in hell would a cop crumb a result on a player who died? It's useless to the game state and could alert scum on the lookout for PRs.

With hayato there was a constellation of behaviors that I pointed up on day 2 and that should have been taken into account when he used my fosing him for not suspecting me as evidence of his cop result.

Anyway, you play the game with the skills you've got and the evidence you can collect.

I thought all three new players did well at lylo. lylo is tense as hell. And the mafia QT was a very interesting read. Those two put a lot of thought into their kills and into their plans for the next day. That really impressed me.

10/10 would play again.

[fferyllt]

Yeah but hayato's counterclaims did NOT match his in-thread play. And WDO's did. That's a huge hell-no to me because especially newbscum don't usually set up a fake claim well from the start of the game, and also aren't that great at picking through their earlier stances to piece togather a narrative after the fact.

Why? He did ignore your slot after all which you yourself mentioned. WBO's play matched up to his previous stuff even after he claimed, in short he was only consistent in averageness, I mean it helped that his n1 investigation died, that was amazingly convenient and he didn't change or start trying to press/sound convincing after the fact.

You left no crumb about me though. I'm probably not the best person to give lessons on crumbing, but a cop needs to leave something unambiguous but subtle about their investigations. Something that scum will miss but will be obvious to town after the fact if you die without claiming or if you claim and town have counterclaims to sort.

In some games, multiple town players will leave what could be an investigation crumb in an early post each game day. scum have to decide who is faking them out and which crumb is real.

As I said in game, what crumbs did WBO leave as well? He came in late Day 2, there was nothing in his early posts even mentioning Zipper at least...

Two points:

- He came off much more newb in this game than hayato did. My expectations of his play reflected that.

- Why in hell would a cop crumb a result on a player who died? It's useless to the game state and could alert scum on the lookout for PRs.

With hayato there was a constellation of behaviors that I pointed up on day 2 and that should have been taken into account when he used my fosing him for not suspecting me as evidence of his cop result.

Anyway, you play the game with the skills you've got and the evidence you can collect.

I thought all three new players did well at lylo. lylo is tense as hell. And the mafia QT was a very interesting read. Those two put a lot of thought into their kills and into their plans for the next day. That really impressed me.

10/10 would play again.

There was something I meant to add to this reply and forgot. If scum can't find a PR on day 1 (and it can be difficult in the setups where there is only one PR), the next best target is someone you think a PR may investigate, because you can hopefully cut down on the rising tide of cleared/semi-cleared town that way.

I didn't see that as part of their strategy for targeting Zipper in the QT, but it was an unintended benefit and something to actively think about in future games where they draw scum.

[fferyllt]

There was something I meant to add to this reply and forgot. If scum can't find a PR on day 1 (and it can be difficult in the setups where there is only one PR), the next best target is someone you think a PR may investigate, because you can hopefully cut down on the rising tide of cleared/semi-cleared town that way.

I didn't see that as part of their strategy for targeting Zipper in the QT, but it was an unintended benefit and something to actively think about in future games where they draw scum.

I understand the why, but I don't get the how. Why kill someone who may be investigated? To kill conf town before the next day, thus render the cop's investigation useless. I get it.

But how do we do that? Isn't the target of an investigation the preference of the investigator? To know who would be targetted by the cop, we need to know who the cop first. WBO-cop would investigate ZF on D1. But TCGW-cop would perhaps investigate Cervantes.

If you don't have a clue might be cop, tracker or JK (the three roles likely to find scum outright, or clear/partially clear town) then all you can do is think about who a generic PR would find suspicious. And you also want to think who a generic PR would find worth protecting. I noticed in the QT that you guys thought I was doc because in my final sentence about who to JK/doc I was thinking only about protecting, not blocking. That's because unless I have a really strong scum read (and sometimes not even then), I treat the JK role as a protect until I'm down to about 6 players to choose from. Somewhere around 8 or 9 players, I start to think in the "asset if town, dangerous if scum" zone.

As town, I like the JK role a lot better than a pure roleblocker.