Hey Guys- Wiki

[The Fonz]

Hi, newbie here,

was cruising the Wiki and noticed there wasn't an article on scum tells, thought it was one that should be there, so I created a stub and thought it might be an idea if someone experienced ran over it and tidied it up and added their two penn'orth. I know there's already one on 'finding mafia.'

I was more thinking of defining the concept. If it's redundant, of course feel free to delete.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

Try this:

https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Common_Tells

[The Fonz]

Seen it, was kinda more interested in defining what a tell was, but like I said I'll defer if that seems entirely unnecessary.

[Primate]

A scum tell is just something that scum do more often than townies. It has nothing to do with an inherent impression. There's probly dozens of scumtells that people haven't noticed yet.

[The Fonz]

If you have a better definition, fine. I was working on the impression that tells were things that people in particular roles did that hinted at their role to other players. If I'm wrong, that just shows the need for an article on the subject, as that's the impression i got from the use of the phrase in past games.

[JDodge]

jeep's Common Tells articles are a good place to start.

[Yosarian2]

Sure. It's a term that comes from Poker, where in Poker a person's "tell" is the way you can tell if he has a good hand or a bad hand due to some behavior they don't notice they're doing (hmmm, Joe always scratches his head and tries to look like he's thinking when he's got a REALLY good hand, I'd better fold.)

In mafia, it means kind of the same thing; a "tell" is any sign where a person inadvertantly gives away their role. Usually good guys are looking for scum tells, signs that a person might be scum; scum might be looking for cop tells or doc tells, but they won't talk about it, so it dosn't get discussed much in mafia games.

There are certain things that many people agree are pretty much universal scum tells (that is, anyone is more likely to do it when scum then when town); there are some things that people argue are scum tells in some situations, and there are certain things that might be scum tells for just one specific person. A fair amount of most mafia games come down to arguing if X is really a scum tell or not.

[Primate]

I remain resolute in my belief that asking for a votecount is a scumtell the majority of the time.

[Glork]

I remain resolute in my belief that asking for a votecount is a scumtell the majority of the time.

I disagree 100% with that assessment.

[Yosarian2]

I remain resolute in my belief that asking for a votecount is a scumtell the majority of the time.

I donno, i think randomally piling onto a bandwagon without asking for a votecount and "accidently" lynching a person in the process is a much bigger one.

[jeep]

I remain resolute in my belief that asking for a votecount is a scumtell the majority of the time.

I don't believe it, but maybe I could be shown evidence.

-JEEP

[Adele]

If you have a better definition, fine. I was working on the impression that tells were things that people in particular roles did that hinted at their role to other players.

That's breadcrumbing. Usually not outright unless there's some specific code that can be passed back and forth (eg. in cheese mafia when the masons couldn't speak at night, they both mentioned the idea of "openness" as that had flavour relevance only to them. The other players completely missed it.

On the other hand, I was in a game (on GL) where I could send anonymous messages to the town. I suggested day 1 that everyone who had this ability should use it daily, then used it to say mgm was scum (i was also a cop) and then said that if people were trying to figure out who the person who sent the message was, they might try looking at the votecount to see who was voting mgm (yes I was voting mgm, one of two who were - and amazingly the town

and

scum missed all this at the time and I wasn't NK'd - but it made the roleclaim easy 3 days on when mgm had been lynched and found scum).

Actually, I reckon you can lay breadcrumbs on relatively thick (short of docs congratulating docs because that's a total gimme) because breadcrumbs always seem more significant to the breadcrumber and town remains oblivious 'til it's spelt out. I've seen that happen so often ("honestly guys if you don't know what i am by now then you're clearly just hopeless I made it so obvious" is practically a word-for-word quote from a few different games).

[Kelly Chen]

I agree that asking for a vote count is a weak scum tell. At least when that's all you say, and especially when you could easily figure out the current count if you had 60 seconds and truly cared. It's in the category of "things you can do that look like you're trying to be helpful but you're not really."

[The Fonz]

If you have a better definition, fine. I was working on the impression that tells were things that people in particular roles did that hinted at their role to other players.

That's breadcrumbing. Usually not outright unless there's some specific code that can be passed back and forth (eg. in cheese mafia when the masons couldn't speak at night, they both mentioned the idea of "openness" as that had flavour relevance only to them. The other players completely missed it.

So basically it's a tell if it's unintentional, and breadcrumbing if it's meant?

This has been useful guys, thanks.

[Yosarian2]

I agree that asking for a vote count is a weak scum tell. At least when that's all you say, and especially when you could easily figure out the current count if you had 60 seconds and truly cared. It's in the category of "things you can do that look like you're trying to be helpful but you're not really."

(shrug) If there hasn't been one for a few pages, it's a good idea to ask for a vote count to make sure you and everyone else knows how many votes are where. Sure, it's one of those things scum can do to post while not really doing anything, but on it's own, I don't think it's a scum tell at all; town do it at least as much, I would think.

[Mr Stoofer]

I do it just as much as town as scum. I always make mistakes in my own vote counts so I like to have an official one to work off.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Actually, I reckon you can lay breadcrumbs on relatively thick (short of docs congratulating docs because that's a total gimme) because breadcrumbs always seem more significant to the breadcrumber and town remains oblivious 'til it's spelt out. I've seen that happen so often ("honestly guys if you don't know what i am by now then you're clearly just hopeless I made it so obvious" is practically a word-for-word quote from a few different games).

That really depends on the player group though. Some people are quite adept at picking out breadcrumbs.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

If you have a better definition, fine. I was working on the impression that tells were things that people in particular roles did that hinted at their role to other players.

That's breadcrumbing. Usually not outright unless there's some specific code that can be passed back and forth (eg. in cheese mafia when the masons couldn't speak at night, they both mentioned the idea of "openness" as that had flavour relevance only to them. The other players completely missed it.

So basically it's a tell if it's unintentional, and breadcrumbing if it's meant?

This has been useful guys, thanks.

Yes. A tell is a subconscious action, whereas breadcrumbing is a conscious decision to try to tell someone "Hey! I'm a Cop!!" without actually saying it (kinda makes the role useless if you're gonna be the Scum target that night).