Mini 1752: Back to December (Game Over)

[OceanWind]

1.)

TKoE, what prompted you to sign up for this game?

What did you get out of this question and response?

---

@Aj The Epic -

1. Why does it matter whether Alchemist addressed Elyse first or whether he finished his conversation with MattP before bringing up Elyse's post?
2. You keep saying that Alchemist demanding logic from MattP all but decimated the chances of a Llamafluff RVS wagon forming. So what? Why is a reasonless RVS wagon the only way to get out of RVS?

scum-elyse is a shade-thrower over an active accuser

3. Justify this in detail. What games have you played with Elyse in the past? Can you bring up examples where you felt she "threw shade" and how exactly you define "shade-throwing" and also point to the places in this game where you saw Elyse "actively accusing" in a way she doesn't when she's mafia.

You also twice said Elyse was "wrong" rather than mafia. Once in Post 97, and once in Post 131. You don't really agree with much of what Elyse is saying so I want a lot of justification for this read.

4. Why do you rail against curiouskarmadog for his Elyse vote even though you state that he is correct in his accusation? If difference in theory is a poor reason for a vote, your first vote on Alchemist doesn't make sense because Alchemist could simply have different views of RVS than you do.

---

@Alchemist (Post 94) -

This entire post is a huge stretch. In a nutshell, you are saying that Elyse is town because: If Elyse were mafia, she's be on the MattP wagon as opposed to the Supreme Overlord wagon because the MattP wagon is "easier" and she had better reasons for scumreading MattP than Supreme Overlord.

I find this whole read rather silly. Elyse is doing something that doesn't make sense. Instead of asking Elyse why she's voting Supreme Overlord over MattP, you wifom a convoluted series of scenarios why it wouldn't make sense for her to do as mafia and call her town for it. Other issues with it:

1. Elyse had voted Supreme Overlord pages ago and simply may not have thought to actively change her vote.
2. I disagree that MattP would be an easier wagon than Supreme Overlord. In fact, Elyse states in Post 92 that she believes MattP to be a strong player which in her eyes makes him a harder target to lynch.

While we're on the subject of bad townreads, correct me if I'm wrong but your townread on MattP comes down to the following: MattP is town because a) if he left Llamafluff alive to frame him, he wouldn't be the first to bring it up. b) You also don't believe that MattP would do this to a partner. Part a is one of many possibilities - it is perfectly plausible for mafia to push people they intended to frame right off the bat. Part b is an unjustified assumption. A hypothetical MattP/Llamafluff scumteam could easily have MattP opening the way he did just to kick up some chaos and fun.

My biggest problem here is that two of your most significant townreads (Elyse and MattP) involve you jumping through convoluted hoops of wifom to justify them.

Edit: I got to Post 137. So, what do you think of MattP's posts since the opening?

---

Is being over-defensive really not alignment indicative guys?

How much experience do you have playing mafia elsewhere? Have you read mafia games or the mafiawiki before joining? Judging by your posts so far, it seems you have at least some experience and have played mafia and scumhunted before. So why do you ask us whether it is alignment-indicative rather than argue your belief that it is?

Elyse vs SO is meh, probably TvT.

Explain in detail why "TvT."

---

I have zero read on OceanWind (which unfortunately won't change anytime soon, it looks), though of course I don't like that he voted for me.

1. Why are you so antsy about my vote on you? This entire sentence was completely unnecessary to write. It is understandable if you don't have a read on me. Who cares? I made 3-4 short posts so far. No one asked you about your read on me.

2. Explain your read on Raskolnikov as "newb-town."

Possible outcomes included Llama responding to Matt making that declaration, or Llama not playing strong town, which should lead to Matt calling him out as scummy

I still don't understand how the question "Llama, do you feel under any pressure at being considered something as a 'town power player'?" was useful. Llamafluff didn't respond. Why didn't you follow-up if you thought it useful? Llamafluff not playing strongly would be apparent whether or not you asked that question. Whether or not Llamafluff responded to MattP isn't affected by your question.

With that said, the reads on Elyse and TKoE have some depth which moves my read on Supreme Overlord slightly townward.

---

You still didn't really answer why you decided to vote there instead of your previous vote (or even why you voted Alch).

I actually see it as a mild towntell for Raskolnikov that he voted Alchemist right after Aj The Epic voted Alchemist and MattP called out Aj for casting an easy vote. I think mafia would have been a bit hesitant to cast what could be considered "easy votes" by vocal members of the town. Why do you think it is potentially scummy?

---

UNVOTE: Supreme Overlord
VOTE: Aj The Epic

That's L-2. Biggest reasons I want this lynch is that Aj The Epic started off with some really "set-in-stone" type stilted scumhunting (Alchemist is mafia because he derailed an RVS wagon which is anti-town and therefore worthy of a vote). I wondered if that was just playstyle or whether he's mafia trying to shoehorn reads. As the game progressed though, the way he develops reads is a lot different. He doesn't think curiouskarmadog should be attacking Elyse over a difference in what he perceives as theory. He goes through the Elyse wagon when it had three votes and does a wagon analysis without really any follow-up. I agree with Llamafluff's point on his question to Elyse regarding buddying. When I'm mafia, a lot of the time when a "townread" pushes or questions me, I tend to turn it around on them if I think I have smoother rhetoric because it strategically makes a lot of sense, but usually as town I'd double down on the townread, get annoyed, call them dumb or what not, and explain the read. The questioning of Elyse doesn't make sense considering that prior to her accusation, he seemed to have her as fairly town.

[Equinox]

Vote Count 1.07

Aj The Epic (4) - Alchemist21, petroleumjelly, Raskolnikov, OceanWind
TKoE (2) - MattP, Aj The Epic
Elyse (1) - Supreme Overlord
MattP (1) - TKoE
Raskolnikov (1) - LlamaFluff
Supreme Overlord (1) - Elyse

Not Voting (1) - curiouskarmadog

With 11 votes in play, it will take 6 to lynch.

The deadline is Sunday, January 17, 2016, at 2:30 AM EST (UTC-5), which is in (expired on 2016-01-17 02:30:00).

Moderator Comments

Alchemist21 and Supreme Overlord have been prodded.

[Aj The Epic]

When Alchemist addresses Elyse: Mostly flow. On page 2, you do have to nitpick a bit, but it made no sense to have to get a full answer from Matt on something unrelated before responding to Elyse. I think he was trying to determine whether or not he wanted a wagon on Mattp and thus waited until after he got the answer to determine he didn't. However, I still think the proper way would've been to address Elyse first or during the conversation with Matt.

It isn't the only way, but the quickest way. There was no reason to expose it when it could've given good information.

I can't explain a lot with Elyse because the games I have with her are ongoing. The meta reads were done in these games to check what her scum play was like. Throwing shade is suggesting someone is guilty but doing so in an obscure manner without acting on it.

Wrong/not scum: This is from the theory post "scum are defensive". As stated by CKD, it isn't true. However, just because Elyse is wrong in this doesn't make her scum nor does it justify a vote. I think Elyse is transparent enough a player to read and think she's town if not solely because reason 1. The more direct she is in her statements, the more likely she is to be town.

Because CKD is voting solely because of difference in theory, which while Elyse is incorrect, is not going to affect the state of the game. I felt alchemist's proceedings were against the benefit of the town by asking questions that didn't accelerate drawing the game out of RVS. To me, these two situations are not similar simply due to the implications behind either one. Elyse being wrong about how scum act may influence her vote, but alchemist's proceeding affected the state of the game.



The difference between then/now is information. When I find someone else I believe is scum, it will look a lot like the case on Alchemist but probably more logic. It's fairly predictable that the more sure you are someone is scum, the more 'set in stone' your style becomes. Was a bit of it feigned? Sure. But I wanted to push it as hard as I could because I thought I had something. Right now, I don't so I'm waiting until I see something I want to pursue. That's really all there is to it.

And to the last point, my last post showed two games where I did the exact thing I did with Elyse.

[Elyse]

I think OceanWind's 175 is pretty fantastic. The AJ wagon gives me good feelings and I rarely feel that way about early day 1 wagons. It seems town driven.

@TKoE and AJ
Why call out rask's vote and not pj's?

VOTE: Aj the Epic

L-1

Mostly for reasons already provided by others more articulate than myself and stilted, calculated play. Pings my gut hard.

[Supreme Overlord]

Rask's vote on AJ is hella bad; AJ is correct, the only things Rask has said about him all game are:

Maybe I'm giving AJ too much credit but I thought he exaggerated on purpose to try to bring the game out of RVS.

You still didn't really answer why you decided to vote there instead of your previous vote (or even why you voted Alch). Something changed and I want to know what actually changed.

Because first vote was pure RVS whereas this was partially-serious after what AJ said, which seemed like the first thing of some substance up to that point in the game. If you look at the game before the post previous to that vote (30) there was just a pretty silly exchange between Elyse and Matt which I didn't see as that serious at the time (17,18,20).

Petroleumjelly's isn't much better. Granted, he asked these questions of AJ, so it's not completely out of nowhere:

2.)

Aj The Epic, please answer Elyse's question:

I feel like scum-elyse is a shade-thrower over an active accuser. I think her post was more just wrong/lack of knowledge as opposed to scum.

What post of mine is a lack of knowledge? The one where I called Matt over defensive?

But AJ answered those, and dropping a vote without further explanation is bad form.


I've been looking over and over AJ's ISO, and it should not be on L-1. Alchemist's vote is way out of date (that's not to say he needs to remove it, but when he next posts he needs to update his reasoning on AJ), and Rask and petroleumjelly were without any reasoning at all. The only good vote on it is OceanWind's.

Elyse, how can you say this when two votes were dropped without saying anything else, and another is from back on page 2 with no follow up since page 3?

The AJ wagon gives me good feelings and I rarely feel that way about early day 1 wagons.

It seems town driven.

@AJ: Why are you still voting TKoE? Who are your top scum reads at this point?

(More on things other than the AJ wagon in a bit.)

[Supreme Overlord]

Another question, Elyse: You think Matt and I are scum together, correct? If either of us flip town, what does that imply about the other? (In other words, are we scummy only in association with each other, or are you reading us as scum individually and there just happens to also be stuff tying us together?) And now you've jumped on AJ; is that '1-2-3, found the scumteam'?

@SO: What is your opinion on Matt at this point? Do you think he has posted enough to satisfy his own asserted meta, and do you consider the content to not be problematic?

Good question. And the answer to 'has he posted enough content' is 'no'. His only posts that I would consider content are 147 and 148 - which mostly consist of a townread on me (which I admit, is great, but doesn't help my read on Matt); the only good part being the question to Elyse about AJ. This in particular is looking like saying something without actually saying anything:

If I were to make a generalized statement right now I would say that Aj's posting this page is bad in general.

So to answer what I think of Matt - well, I had him as vaguely town after the events of the first couple of pages, but if he's actively going to play towards his own claimed scum meta (in a way that is anti-town - lack of content - at that), I'm considering him vaguely scum now. If he continues to fail to post content ... well, I think I'd prefer to get a bad-content lynch Day 1, but if we have Day/Night flips and still Matt's not saying anything he'd be a strong candidate (of course, if he posts some actual bad content, he's fair game immediately).

@Matt, same question as AJ: Why are you still voting TKoE? Who are your top scum reads at this point?

@SO: What would you infer from my so called 'bet-hedging'?

Possibly that you're scum and wanting to lay a vote on a townie while late being about to come back and say, "Guys, it was Day 1 and I had no idea who was scum!" But more likely that you can't English, and have poor ability to flow when writing your posts ...

I have zero read on OceanWind (which unfortunately won't change anytime soon, it looks), though of course I don't like that he voted for me.

1. Why are you so antsy about my vote on you? This entire sentence was completely unnecessary to write. It is understandable if you don't have a read on me. Who cares? I made 3-4 short posts so far. No one asked you about your read on me.

I don't like being voted for? There was a degree of frustration towards you, I'll admit (I was

wanting

to be able to call you scum for it, but you didn't have the content to conclude that at the time); this was something of a passive-aggressive complaining/asking for more. Nobody asked me for a read? I'll give one anyway.

I explained my read on Rask as a 'newb' in 127. I should clarify, that I intended the emphasis to be on 'newb', not 'town' - in other words, I didn't find his vote on Alchemist to be inherently scummy (it was something I could believe a newb would do, regardless of alignment). His vote on AJ out of nowhere

is

scummy.

I still don't understand how the question "Llama, do you feel under any pressure at being considered something as a 'town power player'?" was useful. Llamafluff didn't respond. Why didn't you follow-up if you thought it useful? Llamafluff not playing strongly would be apparent whether or not you asked that question. Whether or not Llamafluff responded to MattP isn't affected by your question.

I didn't follow it up because we have had far more relevant things to address than redirecting back to a fluffy page 2 question. In hindsight, it was a distracting question to ask, and digging it back up would do more harm than good.
As it happens, I do think Llama has been playing fairly strong town, so follow-ups based on Matt's reaction if he wasn't are moot.


My top couple of scum picks at the moment:
Elyse (I've covered, and jumping on a shoddy wagon at L-1 doesn't help), Rask, petroluemjelly (dodgy votes), Matt (lack of content fitting claimed scum meta)

[Elyse]

The wagon speed in concurrence with AJ's posts seems natural. I don't think any of the jumps were such except maybe Rask.

You and Matt are scummy individually and have ties, so yes that's 1-2-3 scum. I'm just that good.

[Aj The Epic]

The wagon speed in concurrence with AJ's posts seems natural. I don't think any of the jumps were such except maybe Rask.

You and Matt are scummy individually and have ties, so yes that's 1-2-3 scum. I'm just that good.

There are two, as I will get to. PJ and Rask both have bad votes. As for wagon speed, over real life days I'd say it was natural. However via content/pages in here, it certainly isn't. Remember that I had 2 votes on me last page. Then, with a few hour separation:

Unvote: Elyse

Vote: Aj The Epic

VOTE: AJ L-3

Both of these votes are terrible. As I explained earlier, Rask's vote is obviously bad considering:

You still didn't really answer why you decided to vote there instead of your previous vote (or even why you voted Alch). Something changed and I want to know what actually changed.

Because first vote was pure RVS whereas this was partially-serious after what AJ said, which seemed like the first thing of some substance up to that point in the game. If you look at the game before the post previous to that vote (30) there was just a pretty silly exchange between Elyse and Matt which I didn't see as that serious at the time (17,18,20).

Context being his second post voted for Alchemist, where he states that the first substantive exchange of posts occurred. Essentially, this post signals he agrees with me since he also voted with me initially.

Maybe I'm giving AJ too much credit but I thought he exaggerated on purpose to try to bring the game out of RVS.

And in his next post, votes for one of the people voting for me.

Then suddenly wants the wagon on me? It's a very obvious jump in logic that exists here.

VOTE: Raskolnikov

I also already explained why I disliked the Elyse wagon, which PJ was apart of.

While I understand a bit of where PetroleumJelly is coming from, I read the first post basically tone deaf and didn't see it as condescending. Certainly wouldn't make sense considering VTs have no way to block NKs anyways.

So here's the thing: There is multiple ways you can interpret this:

2.) Since I did not like Elyse's first post ("Poor Marquis"), I decided to check up on her use of the phrase "poor [player]" in case it was a thing she often says when players die. It is not, unless she varies her phrasing. I found two other instances, though:

~ a.) Mini #1584, Elyse is Werewolf, taunting protown player in endgame ("Poor Aneninen").
~ b.) Mini #1596, Elyse is Mafia, taunting protown player in midgame ("Poor thing, sorry you got caught").

I would guess Elyse has a habit of taunting / antagonizing players as scum (and here, it could be a "nyah-nyah, I killed you"). If anything, I like her first post less after looking into it.

However, considering her vote on me, I'd say stretching would be a consistent pattern. At first, her vote in 13 seems RVS enough but this justification as opposed to looking at the six posts Elyse made inbetween isn't right. To say PJ has no case on me would be an understatement because the only thing even directed towards me was answered prior.

Both these two are exhibiting scum habits.

Now onto SO. Generally I don't like people waiting to L-1 to start defending them if they're going to do it. It's generally in the area of WK material. However, considering he was prodded there's not much to do with that. Also, his reasons are agreeable so I'd consider him as town. I disagree with both his Elyse and Matt reads.

[Alchemist21]

I still like my AJ vote. In addition to what was brought up earlier, his "what do I gain from buddying you" question was bad. Scum buddy Town a lot, and he knows the obvious benefits to scum buddying a Townie. To suggest there was no benefit to that seems like playing innocent to me.

Rasks jump onto the wagon is noted, but I'd rather it not distract from the AJ wagon. It's also worth noting that AJ thinks Rasks vote on him was worse than me because of the context of agreeing with AJ, but then again Rask didn't explain his vote on me until someone asked him, and I didn't see anyone ask him about his AJ vote.

@Rask; Why the jump onto the AJ wagon?

@OceanWind; My post about Elyse was more or less thinking out loud. I wasn't sure about her slot and thought about how scum might benefit from her play but I couldn't see it. There could be WIFOM involved but I think more often than not scum prefer to play safe and optimally before sowing wifom. I don't think Elyse would have forgotten who she was voting for this early. Your point 2 makes sense, but at the time Matt had brought up his meta thing and there were several people suspicious of him for it, so based on the events of the game around that time, I think Matt would have been the easier wagon for her. As for Matt, his unwarranted bringing up of his meta had me raising an eyebrow, but his explanation seems feasible and it wasn't enough to reverse my read on him.

[Alchemist21]

This is why I don't understand the bullshit of 'Oh looking at things from a scum perspective is bullshit." No, that's 100% how I think in games so I can find what a scum would do.


Rask's vote is also bad. Just sitting one in there to be a part of a wagon. In the comfortable slot right in the middle and hoping it becomes popular enough that no one will notice him. In fact, his iso only has neutral or positive things to say about me. His sudden change for no reason could very easily be coming from scum.

I agree with both points here. Scum-modeling is an effective and valid way to play, though I usually avoid posting in that mindset. And that vote was dodgy as all hell.

I read it as "I'm scumreading you and I don't want to be. Do this so I don't have to anymore."

Ah, right that makes sense.

TKoE I want to address you here. Thinking about how scum would think is a fine thing to do and pretty necessary for Town, but what about when a player blatantly ignores common aspects if scumplay for their own defense? Do you agree that there was no potential benefit for scumAJ buddying Elyse?

[Alchemist21]

@PJ; Same question as to Rask, why the jump onto AJ?

[curiouskarmadog]

You should've pressed it as false logic as opposed to voting outright.

you still did not answer all the questions, mainly about Matt...you avoided them twice now..noted.

[curiouskarmadog]

Elyse, what benefit do I gain from buddying you? You'd be the easiest lynch to dump on if I was scum because frankly buddying you wouldn't really get me that far.

okay you been around for awhile...this is a ridiculous statement.

[curiouskarmadog]

okay expressing my desire to hammer.

AJ claim.

[Aj The Epic]

Doctor. N1 Protected MattP

I also felt the question about Mattp was rhetorical.

And for fuck sake, I already explained I do that all the time.

[Aj The Epic]

Correction: N0

[Alchemist21]

Well fuck me in the ass.

UNVOTE:

VOTE: Rask

[Aj The Epic]

I still like my AJ vote. In addition to what was brought up earlier, his "what do I gain from buddying you" question was bad. Scum buddy Town a lot, and he knows the obvious benefits to scum buddying a Townie. To suggest there was no benefit to that seems like playing innocent to me.

Here's the thing: Elyse is not someone I trust to be moved by people defending her anyways. She's obviously paranoid but more importantly would've been a very easy wagon to take. Considering those two factors, I DON'T see any benefit to buddying her regardless of town or scum.

[LlamaFluff]

@AJ - How many games have you played with Matt?

[Aj The Epic]

Having just checked: 3 games, with an additional 1 where he replaced in and out and I'm not sure we ever overlapped. Most recently, he replaced in to a game where our scum team was doing awful and actually made a case on someone who was for-sure to die and nearly escaped death. I ended u[ replacing out because I was doing awfully (dragging the team down :/) and I felt overloaded.

[Raskolnikov]

In fact, his iso only has neutral or positive things to say about me. His sudden change for no reason could very easily be coming from scum.

Because you weren't scummy until then. I didn't like your 143 153 158 and especially 163. Too much meta, wifom, and trying to overcomplicate things. You had so much energy and put almost none of it into your scumhunt (of Tkoe at the time).

[Raskolnikov]

P.S. I thought doctors were supposed to always claim VT?

[Aj The Epic]

At L-1 and nearly be lynched? Lol.

Also then if you had expressed concerns, why not take the time to SAY something? Or could you at least form what about them bothers you in more specifics? Meta isn't scummy at all. Nor is any of it really complicated. Yes it deals with WIFOM but welcome to mafia.

[Raskolnikov]

It's not that writing long posts about side topics and is bad, but you were doing so at the expense of pursuing your then-lead Tkoe. It's like you wanted to stifle discussion when you dismiss the other wagons but you didn't really push alternatives with nearly the same effort.

Now since I have voted you and you disliked that, you are trying for me but I'm still not that convinced.

[petroleumjelly]

1.)

1.)

TKoE, what prompted you to sign up for this game?

What did you get out of this question and response?

I was concerned that TKoE might be an alt account for Supreme Overlord. They both signed up for the game around the same time (with TKoE having to wait for account approval), they both posted in this game within minutes of each other, and they are both from Queensland, Australia. I was trying to probe the subject as inoffensively as possible. I also sent a note to the Mod on the subject just in case. TKoE's response addressed my concern just fine.

2.)

All votes do not have to be immediately accompanied by reasoning, and it is

not

bad form to vote in such a manner. As for my Aj The Epic vote:

First, I do not like his exaggerated early Alchemist21 case, particularly the "I feel like your next post you'll declare there to be no scum in the game."

Second, he harped too much on "getting out of RVS" and "gaining information" as a justification for his Alchemist21 vote. He annoyingly tried to use a "logician" tone throughout this portion, not unlike Alchemist21. His reasoning ("Alchemist21 was stopping game progression" and being "counterproductive") for his vote was self-defeating. Namely, Alchemist21 asking questions

also

"progressed the game," just in a different direction from MattP's suggestion.

Third, he did not until recently explain his "shade-thrower" and "wrong/lack of knowledge" comments about Elyse. Granted the question towards him was technically "what post are you talking about," but I thought the fact that I wanted an explanation was obvious.

Fourth, he seemed overly concerned with the Elyse "wagon" (three votes).

Fifth, his "what do I gain from buddying you?" was awkward and seems written from the wrong perspective. As a note, although it came after my vote, his follow-up response with LlamaFluff on the subject (i.e., arguing that LlamaFluff must also think Elyse is Town because of the term "buddying" instead of "defending") is

also

awkward and

also

seems written from the wrong perspective. It's very "gotcha!" and ignores the point.

3.)

Aj The Epic, what did you mean by this post?

I'm not too happy with the Elyse wagon thus far. I had thought it just spurred up but the votes have been sitting there all game (besides CKD). On the wagon, Supreme Overlord is the primary offender of 'your vote is seriously outdated'. While I understand a bit of where PetroleumJelly is coming from, I read the first post basically tone deaf and didn't see it as condescending.

Certainly wouldn't make sense considering VTs have no way to block NKs anyways.