Open 893 - 09:12 - Postgame

[Thomith]

With the way Puff's responding, I'm sticking with my vote for now. Assuming the head that posted 30 is the one posting recently, they've had ample time to respond to the questioning. Though they might be trying to do something.

Though there are statistical reasons for me to doubt they're mafia, especially since I'm not sure it makes sense for Kyouko to be Puff's partner. Unless she has a history of bussing? I'll research that sometime today or tomorrow. I'll definitely have more free time tomorrow.

With the way Puff's responding, I'm sticking with my vote for now. Assuming the head that posted 30 is the one posting recently, they've had ample time to respond to the questioning. Though they might be trying to do something.

Though there are statistical reasons for me to doubt they're mafia, especially since I'm not sure it makes sense for Kyouko to be Puff's partner. Unless she has a history of bussing? I'll research that sometime today or tomorrow. I'll definitely have more free time tomorrow.

What is there to respond to? I just said that to get attention going, nothing that serious.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "get attention going" and your motive for doing so? Or by "nothing that serious" are you claiming it was tongue-in-cheek?

These two posts happened quite early on in the day, after there were a lot of us questioning Puff at that point. As I mentioned before, when I realised there were so many people going after the Puff slot, it made me seriously consider that Puff could be town, and that there was at least one scum jumping onto the suspicions as this was an easy wagon to go down. Now that Cobb has flipped Red, I am almost positive that I was correct, and Cobb was the scum that was part of this push.

Hmmmmmmmm...

While I think Puff's death could give us the most information (i.e. if they flip mafia then Crabapple and Mizuki seem more like mafia trying to apply pressure elsewhere and if they flip town Crabapple and Mizuki hopping off the bandwagon makes them look townier), Puff's recent posts feel like they come from town to me, especially A's. I think the wagon has produced adequate info. Combined with the the statistical chance previously explained, I think scum's more likely to be laying low.

VOTE: Gamma Emerald

All their posts have been low content so far.

Even when unvoting, they make a point to say they think flipping Puff still isn't a bad idea, giving them an easy way to jump back onto that wagon if it picked up again, with the excuse of "trying to get information" because Puff still had heat on them at that point of the day.
The reason why I'm not 100% convinced that Gamma is scum, is the reasoning for Cobb's jump onto Gamma. It feels similar to Puff, where they were looking for an easy reason to latch onto something. Again though, if we

are

choosing between Puff and Gamma, I'm more confident that Puff is town than I am Gamma, so that's where my preference is.

Woke up early today and my mind got locked on the game. I guess sleep really does help process stuff. I didn't vote him yesterday because I wanted to make sure it wasn't just emotion fueling my vote, but I realized something: who are Imaginality's top scum reads? The two players who got to E-2 and the V/LA Enchant slot everyone else is also suspicious of by default. Why vote me when the only reason he gives for me being scum is that I was allegedly trying to defend scum!Puff? I think Imaginality is scum who decided in advance who he was going to vote: the non-RVS wagon of the day, so they go looking for reasons to vote me. But there's a problem, the only potentially scummy thing I've done is divert pressure off of Puff's wagon -- but it's only scummy if Puff is mafia. But he doesn't vote Puff despite having more reasons to vote them, instead he votes for me. Why? There are two possibilities: either Puff is mafia and he's voting me trying to manufacture evidence that Puff is town (he said that if I'm town, then Puff is town) OR Puff is town (more likely given Puff's pushback) and he's voting me because

I

was one of Puff's three votes AND Puff's wagon was mostly RVS.

VOTE: imaginality

This feels like Cobb knows they are in real trouble, knows that they and Puff are being paired, and so started playing into that pair to set up Puff when Cobb ended up flipping Red. This is more of a WIFOM reason than the rest I guess, but I genuinely feel like that easily could have been what happened here.

To me it genuinely looks like Cobb was trying to push Puff early on when Puff was being heavily suspected, and when it was clear that Cobb was probably going down, they tried to make Puff look as bad as possible to drag them down as well, which is why I'm inclined to think Puff is town here.

[ssbm_Kyouko]

seeing 425 reminds me Cobb was newbscum and probably spewed some townies

Owner's Market Blitz was not the game I'm remembering btw

[Thomith]

seeing 425 reminds me Cobb was newbscum and probably spewed some townies

Owner's Market Blitz was not the game I'm remembering btw

Did Cobb say they were newbscum?

[ssbm_Kyouko]

No but they definitely were, with peace and love

[Elements]

I've been through Elements' ISO in all of their completed games from this year.

When I say

evidence

, what I'm looking for are any references to meta. I try to start with a broad approach and if I notice a specific pattern I will try to hone in on that, but here there was not one (related to Elements using meta at least, there was a NAI pattern I found).

large 245:
no evidence, low postcount

booneytoonz: town
243: nothing you've done is out of your scum range (I later learned that Elements said this about a player they know IRL when reading another game they played together in where that player was town and Elements was scum)
1519: counts every post (53) in the iso of theta and categorizes it

grand idea:
74 post count replace-in, no evidence
fruit mafia:
replaced out, low postcount, no evidence

normal 2302: scum
119 "I'm not a fan of meta partly because most of the time I get bored reading other people's past games"
169 - are you gonna meta me or? (in response to being SRed for making up reads D1 and then claiming she always does this)
272 - self-metas to defend self against Morning Tweet suspecting
935 - "im not going to meta myself"

Mini 2291: town
replaced out, low postcount, but something to note that I found to be accurate was this bit of self-meta:
255 - Elements is a self-professed wagon-follower on D1 (like they like to vote for large wagons to push through pretty much any elimination) She was a a follower in this game so makes sense she just wanted nights, but she says this about herself in another game iirc and from reading her ISOs from this year I found it to be accurate as both alignments she vote hops a lot on D1.

HMS Mutiny: scum - lots of vote hopping like they do as town (no meta evidence)

Open 872 (Guardians of the fortress): scum
116: dont have a long enough memory to remember scum/town games unless it's recent

I'd say that overall the results are inconclusive. I'll retract that it's unlikely for that lazy read to come from scum!Elements though, in light of the Cobblerfone flip. scum!Elements would have had motivation to try to move the wagon away from Cobb. If anything Elements' NAI pattern of being vote-hoppy on D1 might indicate they had knowledge Cobb would flip scum and were trying to avoid it. My impression from their ISOs is that they just want to kill anyone D1 when they are town or scum. I don't have context on any of their votes from those ISOs though - like idk if as town they have been known to flip-flop off of a close-to-elimination wagon

This was an enjoyable read, thank you

[ssbm_Kyouko]

Tired of reading old games - found no evidence to support Gamma does WIFOM NKA as scum - disregard my 424

[Gamma Emerald]

If I remember correctly on Gamma I'm thinking of Owner's Market Blitz, maybe Mountain Dew Mafia, maybe Isekai uPick. She might not have been scum in mountain dew mafia. There's a plethora of unnamed Normals in my "My Games" text file wherein Gamma may have been scum, but I wouldn't recall those ones just from reading the game number and I don't track all the other players and their alignments/roles in my file - only my own. I'll take a peek at those ones. I should probably check Radio Buzz as well as I misread her in that game and

faked a guilty

I was town in Mountain Dew

[ssbm_Kyouko]

SNIP

normal 2302: scum
119 "I'm not a fan of meta partly because most of the time I get bored reading other people's past games"

SNIP

This was an enjoyable read, thank you

2302 post 119 was a mood. I used to love metadiving but it sucked today ngl. I don't think I have the energy anymore at 30. Gonna stick to that for parrot scumtells which are easy with ctrl + f

pedit: yeah I just scumread you in that game for a long time I think. Noticed you were town when I went to check it

[ssbm_Kyouko]

I'm rereading and am at 124 now. Mizuki has had ample opportunity to move off of Cobblerfone but has not let off the gas. I don't think this is a bus and am pretty confident Mizuki is just town so far on the reread.

I'm trying to look at this as though Puff is Cobb's partner and I'm really not seeing it.

I have a really hard time reading setup speculation without my eye's glazing over, but I think I ultimately followed it. I do think I generally get a town read on ssbm because of it though. Maybe also Mizuki.

UNVOTE:

What I do see here is a potential Follower crumb and since Cobbler claimed Follower, I could see scum thinking there is a follower in the setup and trying to draw a future counterclaim out of them with this plan. It's a common enough expression, but worth noting as a potential crumb I think.

With the way Puff's responding, I'm sticking with my vote for now. Assuming the head that posted 30 is the one posting recently, they've had ample time to respond to the questioning. Though they might be trying to do something.

Though there are statistical reasons for me to doubt they're mafia, especially since I'm not sure it makes sense for Kyouko to be Puff's partner. Unless she has a history of bussing? I'll research that sometime today or tomorrow. I'll definitely have more free time tomorrow.

This just reads to me as trying to look like he is contributing and I don't think scum wants to be sitting around on their partner's wagon at this point. Cobb is just latching on to 30 the way the rest of the thread did and coasting off of it, so I think Puff is probably just town here

[imaginality]

@Thomasina I don't see why Cobb feels the need to unvote Puff in 119 if Puff is town. Why not just stay on Puff there? Maybe you can argue it's NAI rather than my take of it pointing to them being aligned but I think it's a stretch to call Puff town because of it.

What did you think of my other points about Puff?

@kyouko you can see in the 'statistical reasons' comment in 101 that Cobb was already preparing to jump ship at a suitable time.

[imaginality]

I have a really hard time reading setup speculation without my eye's glazing over, but I think I ultimately followed it. I do think I generally get a town read on ssbm because of it though. Maybe also Mizuki.

UNVOTE:

What I do see here is a potential Follower crumb and since Cobbler claimed Follower, I could see scum thinking there is a follower in the setup and trying to draw a future counterclaim out of them with this plan. It's a common enough expression, but worth noting as a potential crumb I think.

Did you misread Celeboki as Cobblerfone?
I'm Celebloki's replacement, and this is not helpful speculation.

[Thomith]

@Thomasina I don't see why Cobb feels the need to unvote Puff in 119 if Puff is town. Why not just stay on Puff there? Maybe you can argue it's NAI rather than my take of it pointing to them being aligned but I think it's a stretch to call Puff town because of it.

What did you think of my other points about Puff?

@kyouko you can see in the 'statistical reasons' comment in 101 that Cobb was already preparing to jump ship at a suitable time.

If I'm honest I genuinely think you could be tunelled on Puff, the same way I think Puff is tunelled on you.
I think all of your points against puff could be very easily argued as either NAI, or Town motivated depending on the perspective you read the posts from.

81 - Could be town motivated by attempting to avoid people potentially misclearing based on something that isn't actively working towards solving the game.
204 - Reads can change - and this feels like a progression of their read on me, rather than randomly calling me town because I called them town. As far as I remember, Puff never outright suspected me, so it's not like they suddenly flipped their read out of nowhere, which I think would give this point more merit (I see where you're coming from though, so I could be wrong about this).
376 & 386 - to be completely honest, because Puff ended up hypoclaiming an action that was not in the roles that was listed in the hypoclaim plan, I genuinely could just see them not understanding the hypoclaim plan.

[ssbm_Kyouko]

I'm on 224 now and noticed a couple things - namely that the interactions between Cobb and Gamma are lacking teeth - I feel Gamma would have been justified pressuring Cobb harder or voting him much earlier, not sure if Gamma.ever did vote Cobb yet in my reread.

I also see though that Cobb refrains from expressing a read on Celebloki when Thomith asked Cobb what his thoughts on everyone were. See below how Cobb talks about Gamma and Celebloki:

@Cobblerfone, we have your thoughts on Kyouko and Puff, what are your thoughts on the other players in this game?

Admittedly you remind me of my scum IC in my first newbie game on the site. Way back long ago. So you give me scum vibes, but I'm actively choosing to ignore them, because I think it was probably mostly a personality thing. When I read your posts, I imagine an old man in a leather armchair hanging back and but asking questions with a point to them. Though when I check your profile you seem to be younger than me in reality, so apologies.

For Elements, their vote hopping sticks out to me RVS!Puff -> Thomith -> Cobblerfone -> Gamma. When I read their posts they have a more naive voice in my head, but whether it's naive town or naive scum, I'm not sure.

Gamma gives the impression of just hanging back until I called her out. First parcel of content is in ISO 5 in which she gives the opinion that hypoclaiming targets but not results will be better. Next non-setup post of substance is ISO 9 where she asks Adorable what she thinks of Gobs reads. And that's it until I vote for her low content posts. Then she becomes more active. IDK, maybe she's mobile posting, but overall her early posts gives the impression of someone who wants to appear to be posting but to also fade into the background without strong opinions.

Mizuki, I think of in terms of her tunnel on me. My gut gives me a slight town read because I have a history of attracting misguided town tunnels. She was also the first vote on me when there was still a plausible wagon on Puff, so unless Puff is mafia and Mizuki is their partner, I don't see her being mafia. Though if Puff is mafia, then Mizuki is scummier.

For Celebloki and Shadowez, there's not enough interaction from them. Them being V/LA is slightly annoying, but it's Thanksgiving so whatever.

Because it's lazy and that feels more like town than scum. The alternative is that you're scum scrambling desperately to push Gamma for {arbitrary reasons} and I don't think that makes sense in the gamestate unless the scumteam is exactly {Cobbler, Elements}, and even then that's a stretch because in that case there are still like 3 low-activity slots that could be pressured to divert attention from Cobbler instead.

Why couldn't it be mafia simply not feeling pressured and lazily throwing out arbitrary scumreads? You present the possibility of lazy!town and desperate!wolf but don't seem to consider the option in the middle.

-SNIP-

I won't get into the whole statistics part of this post because my opinions on statistics in mafia is that they're only useful for the theoretical side of mafia (e.g balancing setups) and have no use in actual gameplay.

I do want to know what you find in Puff's and Kyouko's posts that seems townie and what in Elements posts you find scummy, since those are basically the only reads you've given so far.

I'll assume you mean Gamma instead of Elements (unless that was a scum-slip and Elements is your partner?). For Gamma, see above.

For Puff, it's mostly Adorable. The way they've been answering questions directed at Gob seems more stream-of-consciousness rather than calculated. Adorable is also choosing to reply when they don't have to -- they could just wait for Gob.

For Kyouko, the setup speculation didn't seem calculated to influence the town to choose a bad option. It was also early at the start of the game where there's low information anyway and it got some discussion going, though it didn't really go anywhere. And while she's not asking questions, her reactions to posts feel genuine rather than calculated.

For everyone else that Cobbler provides commentary on, he also provides some kind of read. With Gamma he provides commentary (shade even) and doesn't outright say he scumreads Gamma. And before anyone says "but Kyouko, Cobb doesn't provide a read on you or Puff either", that's because the original question from Thomith excluded the 2 of us because Cobb had already made his stance on us clear

[Puffalicious]

From what I am understanding, the town reads on invisi are because he started the wagon on Cobb when the votes on them left and players doubt scum would do this to a scum buddy. Invisi vote on Cobb is not something you should town clear him for because scum can also bus.

In a completed scum game of mine a scum buddy of mine was in the same position as Cobb and he told me to bus him to make myself look good after his flip. I can imagine the same thing could have happened in this game just like what happened in a completed scum game of mine.

This is why mizukis town read on invisi is weak. Invisis read on my slot doesn't look genuine because he is suspecting me over stuff that are nai and I haven't seen him trying to engage with my slot.

- A

[ssbm_Kyouko]

Mostly now I'm reinforcing TRs in Mizuki, Thomith, and Elements, and want POE within Gamma/imaginality because Puff looks to be spewed town

[ssbm_Kyouko]

And yeah replacing in to a nullish slot and voting your suspected scumbuddy is definitely the strat if Imaginality is scum. That alone does not warrant anything close to a clear

[Elements]

Mostly now I'm reinforcing TRs in Mizuki, Thomith, and Elements, and want POE within Gamma/imaginality because Puff looks to be spewed town

agreed

[ssbm_Kyouko]

Snipped a lot

Granted, considering how we had two competing wagons with 2 votes on at the same time and neither even got to a 3rd vote,

I would not be surprised if one or (or even both scum) were in Shadowez / Celebloki.

Puff also only ever got to 3 votes. Although, I we guess we do have plurality at deadline. That might make scum less eager in general to hop on wagons.

There's the FoS on Celebloki finally. Scum, especially a newer scum without an active partner, would be self-conscious about leaving at least one partner in their pool. At this point Celebloki has pretty much painted himself into a corner by TRing so many slots as well and now can't hide scum!Celebloki from a poe without it being suspicious. Not 3 names here but this is pretty textbook rule of 3 and I expect that from Cobb.

Plurality is not enabled in this game

Also I think daytalk is on and maybe this mistake about plurality doesnt happen if Gamma is the last scum

[Mizuki]

Mostly now I'm reinforcing TRs in Mizuki, Thomith, and Elements, and want POE within Gamma/imaginality because Puff looks to be spewed town

This is mostly where I'm at, except swap Imagi and Puff's spots. I think there's a fairly solid town-block established and I think at this point just limming inside Gamma/Puff/maybe Imagi probably just nets us the win eventually.

[ssbm_Kyouko]

I'm just gonna

VOTE: Imaginality

His position after the catch-up is just too perfectly aligned with how scum should be playing in that slot. TRs on popular/consensus TRed slots, suspicion on the most nullish, the take on Cobb's recent post being well thought out just doesn't feel legit. I think the best shot Imaginality had was to counterwagon Puff but maybe he wanted a more natural progression where he has these 3 SRs/suspicious slots in Cobb/Puff/Shadowwes and wanted to move from Cobb to Puff over time, but the Cobb wagon was too fast for him to stop

[Thomith]

Didn't imaginality restart the Cobb wagon, or am I misremembering?

[Thomith]

Oh, I misread the last part of your post - I thought you were saying that they jumped onto the Cobb wagon because it was moving quickly, nevermind.

[ssbm_Kyouko]

Thomith's been asking good questions throughout and seems to be actually thinking about what people say.

Elements felt genuine to me when discussing their entrance and I agree that questioning people waiting around on Puff to answer felt like something scum wouldn't do.

Mizuki was my top town read early but there were one or two mistakes later which are probably genuine but just made me inch back from my earlier complete confidence.

Kyouko handled the pressure that came her way well, I thought

Gamma isn't a scum read but I did feel uncertain and want to watch more closely

Puff and Cobb I've mentioned. Shadow is there as kinda my alternative because if Puff and Cobb aren't scum together then my scumread on either of them individually weakens somewhat and then taking away my townreads that leaves Shadow down there.

I had meant to quote this in my last post to demonstrate the 3 "suspected" slots

[ssbm_Kyouko]

I have a really hard time reading setup speculation without my eye's glazing over, but I think I ultimately followed it. I do think I generally get a town read on ssbm because of it though. Maybe also Mizuki.

UNVOTE:

What I do see here is a potential Follower crumb and since Cobbler claimed Follower, I could see scum thinking there is a follower in the setup and trying to draw a future counterclaim out of them with this plan. It's a common enough expression, but worth noting as a potential crumb I think.

Did you misread Celeboki as Cobblerfone?
I'm Celebloki's replacement, and this is not helpful speculation.

No I didn't misread it, what I'm saying is Celebloki and Cobbler potentially coordinated to crumb follower so that in the event one was going down, they could try to bait a CC from what is probably the only role that could guilty them if Celebloki rolled strongman, which seems the most likely.scenario if Cobbler claimed specifically Follower. My guess is scum rolled strongman and because strongman can shoot through Babysitter, Roleblocker, and Jailkeeper, the only PR to worry about is Follower

[ssbm_Kyouko]

Feels like maybe you missed Cobbler's claim which is maybe a little yikes