Some Thoughts About Harlii in General (more of a rant about my feelings than any analysis, skip if you don't care)
Harlii is honestly one of the most difficult players for me to read correctly in my short experience (let's say 2 months of chatroom games and 3 of face to face?) of Mafia. I'm definitely more of an emotional thinker who tries hard to be logical, so something about the way Harlii writes seems like he's a genuinely nice person. Yes, that obviously is not a towntell or anything worth considering, but during the early game the combination of a genuine tone and neutral questions made it seem like he was testing the game's waters and trying to get a good sense of everyone's alignment. I have a really difficult time telling if he's a newb!Town who just doesn't know when he should take a stance of his own or a really tactical scum player who had me convinced really quickly. I feel
horrible
lynching a Town!Harlii because he seems like a nice person and I'd feel responsible for cutting his first Mafia experience short, even if it's well-deserved. If we do lynch Scum!Harlii, then I have to say that I think he played a really good game and I admire his ability to blend in, even if he is the first lynch.
I think it's notable that if town!Harlii is real, there seems to be a lot of frustration coming from his posts (#247 and all posts beyond #267) and I really feel like this is something that, after town!Harlii is mislynched, will be looked at as "proof we should have known." Being annoyed or drained from pressure just seems like a more townish way to react to it to me, but I lack both experience and Harlii-meta to make town/scumreads based on someone's tone. Either way, it's another thing that just makes lynching a town!Harlii give me that feeling of guilt you get when you accidentally trip on or kick a puppy.
Mafia, though, is not a game about one's emotions. It's easy for me especially to get tangled up in them, and I'm sort of going against my intuitions because I suppose I
want
to believe Harlii is town. But I think the case against him is pretty solid, so the logical side of me has no problem with lynching him, even if it somehow dismantles the town. I just really had to get this out of my system, especially because it explains why I was so stubborn to read Harlii as town. There are more townier players now and I feel less bad about it now though than I did earlier.
Thoughts on Post #267
For better or for worse, Harlii
finally
pushes his own wagon.
He begins the post with a fair point: MNS may not be the best lynch today because there's so little to get out of it. Its early play seemed scummy, but I see town motivation coming from #277, especially because it could have posted a much more lazy prod-dodge. This is more about Harlii so I'll get to 277 later.
I generally dislike survival instincts from a townie, and I know saying this makes me a massive hypocrite considering House's gambit. Yes, having 2 less townies gives the town less voting power, but it's so much easier to make a case on D2 that it nearly makes up for it. Considering the stats Harlii brought up (I posted them, by the way), town's chance of correctly lynching goes from 20% on D1 to 33% on mislynch/no protection!D2. A 1 in 5 chance to a 1 in 3 chance is a
really
good trade if you want to call it that. There's no better scenario than getting a correct lynch, but if we have to settle for a mislynch it's not the end of the world.
On my defense of being lynched, it was less about me being mislynched than it was House's confidence horribly backfiring on him. Note that in #227, where I try to give my motivations for my defensiveness, my biggest point is that House seemed too overconfident about a flimsy case. If it were RC pushing for my lynch, it'd be a different story because he has been consistently scumreading me and his case against me would be stronger as a result. If House's scumread on me was legitimate and he tunneled on me that hard, I think seeing the unexpected result would throw off his reads and most likely the rest of the town's too. I don't think Harlii's lynch would be
as
disruptive if it were a mislynch, but it's hard to prepare for anyone's mislynch (which is why I constantly ask people to give plans, even if I don't think I could come up with something safe).
The reason that I was more in favor of lynching DP than Harlii (at first) was that DP's theoretical mislynch would be far more informative – it would practically clear Racer without the need of pressure. Now, though, I doubt that it's necessary to rely on a clear like that.
I don't think the plan "I'm going to keep going with my current reads" is as horrible as Harlii makes it out to be. Unless there was an obviously scummy vote on Harlii's wagon, I don't really see any associations being changed with your possible mislynch. The town out of the wagon really seems to differ so I think I'm going to take a few steps back and reconsider that though. Anyway, it's not the theoretically best mislynch, but I don't think there is a mislynch in this town as informative as DP's looked like when Racer/DP looked like a possible scumteam.
House is honestly the last person I'd push a case against but that's because only from my PoV does he look unbearably town, and I
do
at least want to understand scum!House if that's how he flips at the end.
On 1, I agree that many of House's plays were pretty manipulative and shocking. Is that inherently bad? Probably not, but it does look a bit unfair if it's a townie victim. Scum!House did have a lot to gain by putting himself in such a position of power, which is why I started doubting House a little bit at that point. Assuming a scum motivation, it's a smart play on House's part. Thing is, House has taken a lot of risks this game and I see putting himself in that hammering position was also a powerful play with town motivation. Such a crazy reaction test was completely unpredicted by everyone, and that's why it was so effective. Perhaps too effective, seeing as though I stopped it early by agreeing with DP and unvoting him. It still allowed House to strengthen his case on the players involved in that gambit.
For 2, that was an even crazier reaction test. You can really make any dumb play and cry "It was a gambit all along!" but I think the fact that House's case against me was flimsy was an intentional move. If he had a stronger case on me and didn't tunnel so hard, he would look flip-floppy if he said "Just kidding! Giga's town guys!" after that. So, really, he had to look overconfident for his reaction test to work because it proves that it's, well, a reaction test and not a real vote.
For 3, I think 2 kind of gives enough for a justification but House should answer for himself.
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