Newbie 1889: Ice Cream (Game Over)

[Thor665]

tl:dr - this entire commentary block is all about introducing myself as the IC, blathering about my duties, and offering a basic idea of some of the strategy of the RVS. If this interests you, please read on (especially if this is your first time playing here) if not, feel free to skip.

Spoiler: IC Intro

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Greetings,

I am Thor665 and I am the Inexperienced Challenged (IC) player of this group. What this means is first and foremost - I am here to play this game with you in a way that will show you what it is like to play on Mafiascum.net. I am here to win and should be treated as such.

My goals and the rules governing my actions are covered in this handy article: Being a good IC
That article is part of our amazing MafiaWiki System. I *highly* recommend this system as a good way to get your feet wet and to find out what a lot of the common abbreviations mean. There is a lot of play strategy discussed in there too. A lot of players consider that advice almost all outdated now. I don't recommend trying to run verbatim with anything there, but a lot of the basic advice is very good to at least be aware of as it can help you avoid blatant pitfalls as you become familiar with the game play here.

Now, as an IC I am here as a resource for you to ask questions of concerning game theory. I WILL NOT lie about game theory answers and will answer them to the best of my ability. I will also offer you the following quick pieces of advice;

1. Don't self vote. (there are really no points during a Newbie setup where this is a good idea, please avoid it however logical you may think it is)
2. This site frowns on lying if you are a vanilla town role. I strongly advise against lying if you have this role as usually it will only hurt town in the end.
3. It's a game - have fun.

We are now starting what is known as the RVS (random voting stage). We are in a low information period because scum already know who they are, and even have a rough idea of what power roles may or may not be in the game. It is now town's job to root them out. Because the start of the game leaves us with no information to start with generally the way to start is to begin voting and questioning other people to see if you can catch them doing something scummy (scummy actions being acts that a scum player is more likely to do then a town player).

Vote: RCEnigma

Why would you want to lynch someone you know has a good town game?

[Thor665]

aren't you supposed to be one of the best scumplayers on site???

According to whom?
I imagine some would agree with you and some would disagree with you.

Should we be afraid of the possibility of scum you?

I would suggest as the theory most experienced player there is probably a certain increased value to trying to sort me early, which I can see as a valuable strategic play.
Not sure why you'd be generically afraid though? Do you think you should be generically afraid of me more than anyone else? In pure statistics I am more likely to be town than scum, so therefore should you not be generically trusting of me? (I submit the answer to that question is clearly no - but then suggest your inverse of fear is also clearly no and wonder why you want me to debate it like a valid concern)

Want to put your vote on RCEnigma with me? I think I'd like to put him to three votes.

[Thor665]

Thor, why do you want to put RC at L-2 so early in the game? Do you really believe that his vote for Reundo was serious rather than RVS?

Just to spare myself typing up some things;

Why I want him at L-2 = https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... _Your_Vote
A quick thought about what I think of his, and my, early votes = https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... _be_Random

To spell out some very simplistic things aka tl:dr;

1. I want to put him at L-2 to see who will support me in that push and who will oppose me and to see how he responds, and depending on that series of interactions I will either want to lynch him, not lynch him, or perhaps investigate someone else while I debate, or want to keep hounding him for a while.

2. I think his vote was both RVS and serious at the same time - to think that anything is 100% random lies madness - my vote was also both RVS and deadly serious, considering I have no scum reads *stronger* than him right now why shouldn't I want to get him to L-2? Does sitting at L-3 help me more somehow?

Who would you like to lynch right now?
And if the answer is 'no one' I submit you are scum playing poorly or town who fails to understand that we can't catch scum without lynching someone, and that you're allowed to reassess your vote regularly if you find a read becoming weaker/stronger, yeah?

[Thor665]

My short reply is I find it really funny how people are putting me to L-1 because of not liking me wanting people at L-2.
Also, as a bookeeping thing - anyone who wants to hammer me (cast the final vote to lynch me) should state hammer intent and request a claim from me. That will give me time to claim my role for people to assess, and also time for anyone who isn't confident in lynching me to state as such, prove they are wimps and unvote

Spoiler: Wall replies

Please don’t misinterpret my question, Thor. I’m all about aggressively putting pressure on someone when it is warranted. But who do I want to lynch

right now

? No one

yet

, as there is not enough content in this game yet, in my opinion, to develop a solid scumread (or townread for that matter) on anyone.

The extreme extension of that logic is everyone sits around and doesn't vote or say anything - that extreme extension leads to a rather unhelpful 1st day.
I think it is important for town to take stances early to elicit reactions to talk about, and if you don't you'll never get to the stage that something is worth taking as a scum/town tell, yeah?

I think you also read quite a lot into my question. I was legitimately asking you, in essence, if RC is a serious scumread for you, and if your vote for him was serious. You seem very eager to put pressure on him for what may have simply been a non-serious RVS joke vote for Reundo. I also disagree that a vote can’t be RVS, or at least non-serious. My vote for NotNova, for example, was a completely non-serious joke vote.

If you're not willing to lynch NotNova (or at least claim you're willing) then what's the point of voting them exactly?

At this point I want to simply start gathering as much information as possible and get reads on people and understand their motivations. But in order to do that, the game needs more content. Once I start developing some reads, I will be more than happy to start pressuring my scumread(s).

If everyone's motivations are "joke vote" then there are no motivations.
Note that me claiming my motivation was not a joke caused a reaction.

There's a difference between voting for someone and wanting them to be lynched, especially when we're still largely in RVS. Most accusations made at this stage are pretty flimsy and non-tangible, which is fine when there's not much to go on, but to want anyone lynched at this point, especially for the reasons you're pushing, is a bit far-fetched. Even if I hypothetically did have a rock-solid scum-read on RCE on page 1, it's still far too early for a lynch and I'd rather linger a while longer to find his potential partner.

What of any of this have I disagreed with? (besides the bit I'm about to question)
How do you expect to find his scum partner without putting pressure on him to try to find reactions? The only other answer I can think of is putting pressure on a town player to get reactions, which seems the inferior option of the two paths, no?

The fact that you correlate not wanting to lynch someone right now with skill level bothers me.

I actually correlated not wanting to pressure with skill level - just to clarify.
WHy does that idea bother you exactly?

RCEnigma responded to your initial question about why he'd want to lynch someone who has a good scum game, so why didn't you follow up with his response if he's your strongest scum-read? As far as I can tell, a no-response is as good as the issue being resolved, so I don't see why he's still a scum-read to you if this is the case, and if this isn't the case then I don't see why you would just let his response fly under your radar. I'm seeing a lot of telling but not a lot of showing from you, and if RCEnigma truly is a scum-read I'd expect you to treat him more like one instead of just stating he is one.

His explanation was that his thought process was a fallacy - why should that relax me or appease me?
How would you expect me to treat scum and why would you have that expectation? I don't think you know how I play the game at all - have you researched me? If you haven't researched me then why are you holding me to made up expectations?

Hypothetically, as scum, does it seem viable for me to come out strongly against one of the few players I recognize? Especially one that I have seen firsthand has a lethal town game. On top of that I do I add the RVS angle and then try to ride that to an end of day lynch? Certainly not, but I suppose it would make sense if I tried to work that angle with Reundo as a partner potentially. Reundo can confirm we are in fact, not scum partners.

You claim that you wouldn't do this as scum, but then immediately explain one (of many) reasons you would.
Maybe you are his scum partner and I caught you

The lack of follow up is troubling but even more troubling is your decision to talk around me to the rest of town, about me. Instead of interacting directly with me, which feels manipulative for one. Or this is a disingenuous read in the first place and your efforts would be better placed elsewhere. So let me take your
model a step further and ask what you think of Reundo and Volxen both of whom have soft defended me early. Do you find either of them to be scummy with me? They cant both be scum if I am indeed mafia.

WHat interaction did you expect after you admitted openly that your thought process was flawed and you did it anyway?
Why wouldn't you expect me to try to get other people to vote you by talking to them?

This also puts me off a bit. As town there is less reason to fear anyones town game, while being wary of their scum game. While I havent seen Reundo roll scum I know what he is capable of and can imagine him playing a town-looking game as scum, which is dangerous. Though I know what to look for when he is town, I dont know what to look for when he is scum and what he can artificially present.

But why fear him for that? Theoretically you could say almost the same for everyone you're unfamiliar with.
Why does it put you off that I suggest you shouldn't be empty fearful of people?

With that said it is perfectly acceptable for Voyager in this case to put more emphasis on his wariness towards your scum game since he can be disproved later with less risk than the inverse of accepting you as town when you could be Scum. Which has those immediate implications as well as skewing reads around it later.

Is that why you're voting me?

@thor: thanks for the explanations, just getting a bit of a feeling of defensiveness from your post about L-2..

What about my answer seems defensive?

i'm still new (2nd game) so im not sure what's the meta for L-1 so early into the game but i'll do it anyway..
i'm clearly sheeping reundo and RCE (for now, at least)

What do you like about each of their cases (I'm curious since neither actually made a case that I can spot)

[Thor665]

Lots of stuff all about me, I'm going to try to keep it succinct but the wall is as the wall does.

In a faction 1(Town) vs faction 2(Mafia) game, faction one is more or less going to behave like faction 1 naturally. Faction 2 is going to attempt to behave like faction 1 (mostly reactively). Your specific deviations as either in past games are not necessarily applicable to THIS game. Because you can choose to play however you want.

Fair enough.
So why do you have expectations of my play you're judging me on and where do you draw them from?

Well now that I've told you, it doesnt make it a very good reason does it? But fair enough, you solved it a page in.

It may or may not make it a good reason, but it does prove that your initial point against me holds no water because there *are* scum reasons to do what you did, yeah?
Those reasons can be true or not true - but you trying to claim that there isn't a reason while admitting you can see at least one proves that your attack on me for this point is baseless, yes?
If I'm wrong on that conclusion - how am I wrong?

In the part you replied to is the answer. Maybe interact with me about it.

You admitted you had bad logic and kept your vote where it was - I see no value in further interaction.
Are you saying you were open to being *more* convinced your vote was bad and I should have done that?
Eh...

vNow maybe you are absolutely certain I'm scum, which you can't be. Or you aren't voting who you truly believe to be scum. Because if you have the conviction you claim to have in that you found scum in post 1 then a mislynch is just a sacrifice you are willing to accept. Correct or am I off base? If you are making decisions already based on information you have, it leads me to believe you have more information available than the rest of us. which means, well you get the gist.

Where have I suggested absolute conviction exactly?
Sounds like you're putting words in my mouth and then calling me scummy for saying them, yeah?
Quote my expression of super conviction?

I'm voting you because I disagree with the way you are fabricating stances.

Quote the reads I'm fabricating?
The most you can say is "you're voting someone early for something that is arguably not scumtell" to which I'll reply, 'sure, but it *might* be a scumtell, and I'm being perfectly open about my thoughts, so...where's the fire?'

However the way its framed is that Voyager is wrong to be wary of your scum game, because odds say that you are more likely town than scum. That doesn't really stand when the same is true for every other person in the playerlist.

I agree with your conclusion that it's the same for everyone in the playerlist.
It's why I think it's oimportant for players to understand that too much fear and distrust is inherently poor play.
Why do you disagree with that?
If you don't disagree with that then I think you're agreeing with me.

Also I gather you have at least a townlean on Volxen but not Reundo?

I have not expressed either thought and am not sure where you're getting that.
I have a neutral take on both currently. I'd be willing to lynch either.

Do you really think people are suspecting you because of this? For me personally, I can say that I'm definately not voting you solely based on that -- that's hardly a driving factor for me at all, in fact.

I kind of do - people are assuredly talking about it a lot if they don't have an issue with it.
Of course, they aren't actually really describing their issues with me, so that is hurting my assessment

I agree that putting pressure on a player is a good way to glean reactions, but you can do that without wanting them lynched ASAP. It sounded like you thought that someone voted for a player meant they want that player lynched, so it seemed like you did disagree with my theory. Can you tell me what parts you agree with then, because I'm kind of confused tbh.

I have implied (and do believe) that voting a player shows you want to lynch them. I don't support voting players you aren't willing to lynch (or at least will go to your death claiming as such) because otherwise there's no reason or point in voting them.
Please quote me saying anyone should be lynched ASAP - you are making up that belief and applying it to me. If I had said that I would at least somewhat understand your issue with me.

Well, asking the question to "Who would you like to lynch right now?" then following up with more/less "if you say 'no one' then you're playing sub-optimally as both scum and town" reads very much like you're correlating the two ideas together, and asking someone who would they want to lynch right now at RVS when most of the players haven't said so much as "hello" and judging them negatively if they say "no one" is a ridiculous notion, and probably won't glean any AI responses when both scum and town can respond "no one" with the simple reasoning that "it's RVS". Not wanting to pressure is more related to skill level, I agree, but players can do that w/o calling for someone's lynch this early on, and that idea wasn't the one that was bothering me.

I barely understand your rebuttal here I admit.
I think you're confusing me saying 'state lynch desire' with 'lynch immediately, YOLO!' which, if you had read the links I provided or presumed I wasn't really, really bad at the game wouldn't make sense.
To clarify - yes, it is poor play if you can't express a lynch interest right now (or as early as Day 1 minute 1)
No, that is not a locked belief that you can't change (and I linked a discussion that directly explains that stance)
I think if you read me 'lynch interest' and replace it with 'apply pressure' my stance would become more clear and have less made up stances in it for you.

If you didn't like that his thought process was a fallacy, why wouldn't you call that out and strengthen your case against RCEnigma?

He openly stated it in answer to my question - I didn't call it out because I presumed people were reading and would know what his answer was and thus understand my issue, and if they didn't they would ask.

Why would you not reply to his post to something akin to "Why are you scum-reading someone based on a fallacy?" and gauge his response to your follow up?

Because I decided to apply pressure to him instead by asking for another vote on him.
I'll agree I could have done what you're asking, but why *couldn't* I do what I did? It's like asking me why didn't you eat a pizza when you ate pasta? The answer is I was hungry and wanted to solve the issue and I did so in a way different than what you would have done apparently - why does it matter?

I haven't researched your previous games, but what I've gathered from what you've posted so far is that you seem to care a lot about pressuring people and treat RVS more seriously than other players, which ftr isn't scummy in an of itself or inherently wrong, but the problem so far is that you haven't really been

pressuring him prior your recent post. You asked a question at the start of the game, but didn't asses the response to your question or even really go much in depth as to why RCE's post was scummy to begin with, and for someone who valued pressuring players so much the sheer lack of pressure against your own scum-read didn't make sense to me.

I think the issue here is desagreement on pressure style.
I would suggest that asking for more votes on someone after a scummy answer *is* pressure.
You apparently would have preferred pressure by more questions after an open admission of fallacy thinking (to which I reply, ehhhh)

I don't actually track any real scumminess from me in your answers or explanation here - appears to be, at literal worst, disagreement in how to apply pressure, yeah?

Thor, I do not believe anyone is trying to lynch you because of your playstyle: it's because of your inability to consistently and adequately apply pressure on what you claimed to be your scumread, RVCEnigma.

How have I not been consistant and adequately applying pressure?
Also, what is the theory scumcase if that is their belief, that I'm scum who is unable to pressure someone I want lynched? That he's my scumbuddy and I'm doing sloppy distancing? Neither of those make sense.

I would like Thor to answer a few of my questions: Who, if anyone, is scum in your wagon? Do you think the suspicions and overall development of arguments against you have been logical? Do you think you have mishandled your pressure on RVC?

There is absolutely scum on my wagon, I would tend to currently favor RCEnigma (who I am voting) as my top pick.
Could possibly do XWing, but I'm still scumhunting that slot. Wouldn't mind the speed wagon for lulz though.

I do not think there is much logic at all in the push on me, as this wall and my last tend to showcase. Even your theory explanation has massive holes in it. Do you think there is logic? Why even ask me this? As town or scum I, as the person the wagon is on, am going to disagree with the logic, yeah?

I don't see any issue with my pressure on RCE - can you explain any issue you see?
If you don't see one, why are you asking this question?

@thor: last night i read your L-2 beginning statement as [paraphrased] "before anyone questions me, here are the links as to why i did it.."..which on reread is wrong, so i apologize..that said, im still leaving my vote parked on you for the above logic (paragraph 1)..i would have placed it at ucvoyager because of his weird "vote" on you but i dont want to derail the current momentum..

lastly, i loathe rvs..as you said in your wiki, more info = better..so im satisfied with my vote right now..

If you agree tht you're making up things/being wrong in how you're attacking me, why are you happy with your vote on me specifically?

No one here is advocating taking it to the extreme that you mention (i.e., don’t talk or vote at all on day 1). But there also needs to be a reasonable amount of content before you can seriously start pushing someone towards a lynch and develop solid townreads and scumreads.

I agree that with more info comes more valid pushes.
The problem is it's a Catch 22 - because the info you need for people to make valid pushes is reactions to pushes.
So either you need people to make early pushes, or everyone sits around not pushing and you can't get real info.
Disagree?

Are you scumreading Reundo Thor?

No, why do you think I would be?

second paragraph last sentences, too much bravado and name calling, it just sounds like a poor sport (for me anyway, in terms of tone)..also, you cant expect people to be confident in anyone's lynch this early in the game..but as the discussion goes on, it's making me paint you in a more negative light..

What is bad about the tone exactly?
I'm actually being negative towards people who would unvote me - is that scummy somehow?

What do you like about each of their cases (I'm curious since neither actually made a case that I can spot)[/spoiler]

i'll answer this after you've posted your takes on the newer posts..do remind me to come back to this..

I am very good at reminding - consider this a reminder that I will want to see answered from the older posts.

[Thor665]

Spoiler: Messed up part of the above wall quote tags - here's a fix

Lots of stuff all about me, I'm going to try to keep it succinct but the wall is as the wall does.

In a faction 1(Town) vs faction 2(Mafia) game, faction one is more or less going to behave like faction 1 naturally. Faction 2 is going to attempt to behave like faction 1 (mostly reactively). Your specific deviations as either in past games are not necessarily applicable to THIS game. Because you can choose to play however you want.

Fair enough.
So why do you have expectations of my play you're judging me on and where do you draw them from?

Well now that I've told you, it doesnt make it a very good reason does it? But fair enough, you solved it a page in.

It may or may not make it a good reason, but it does prove that your initial point against me holds no water because there *are* scum reasons to do what you did, yeah?
Those reasons can be true or not true - but you trying to claim that there isn't a reason while admitting you can see at least one proves that your attack on me for this point is baseless, yes?
If I'm wrong on that conclusion - how am I wrong?

In the part you replied to is the answer. Maybe interact with me about it.

You admitted you had bad logic and kept your vote where it was - I see no value in further interaction.
Are you saying you were open to being *more* convinced your vote was bad and I should have done that?
Eh...

Now maybe you are absolutely certain I'm scum, which you can't be. Or you aren't voting who you truly believe to be scum. Because if you have the conviction you claim to have in that you found scum in post 1 then a mislynch is just a sacrifice you are willing to accept. Correct or am I off base? If you are making decisions already based on information you have, it leads me to believe you have more information available than the rest of us. which means, well you get the gist.

Where have I suggested absolute conviction exactly?
Sounds like you're putting words in my mouth and then calling me scummy for saying them, yeah?
Quote my expression of super conviction?

[Thor665]

If you're not willing to lynch NotNova (or at least claim you're willing) then what's the point of voting them exactly?

You suggested your conviction yourself.

You have successfully shown that I'm willing to lynch who I vote.
How is that a strange or too strong level?
Are you saying you vote people you don't want to lynch?

As far as fabricating stances, what I'm getting at is narrowing focus in a way that I dont feel is productive to town. Because it is in my opinion anti-town to have the playerlist focused specifically on one player rather than all of the town as a whole. I would be fine if your approach was to pressure me yourself, instead of pandering for votes, and interacting with the rest of the game to find out what X player thinks of the situation and from there links form.

You are fine with me interacting with people as long as I don't ask them to vote someone?
What is wrong about asking someone to vote someone else exactly?
Isn't that the point of making cases and stating reads - to convince others?

Regardless I'm conflicted every time I begin to think maybe Thor is leaning town I reread your posts or a line and I think ehh maybe not. Things like your response to Xwing about Tone and your negative view of unvoters. Is that inherently scummy? Not really, but you and I know that it could be. Or could be used in a way to benefit scum. That ties back to my stance statement. The problem is that I can see angles that you can take if the set up is there and I believe you to be capable of setting them up for yourself.

That is an issue that could literally be applied to anyone in any game at any time.
That makes it not a good scumtell, no?

[Thor665]

1. Theres a difference between aggressive and ...apathetic isn't really the word, indifferent I guess? What you are showing (not saying) is that you are willing to lynch based on 0 information, that doesn't scream town to me.

2. I'm fine with you interacting with people however you choose, but when I see it done in a manipulative way I will voice that I see it as such.

3. Um...no. If it applies to both town and scum then no that doesn't make it a good scumtell at all.

I am saying I can see angles from your perspective, and those are the ones I'm watching. I may be scrutinizing your words and play differently based on my read but thats what I think at this point.

1. How am I showing this in a way indicative of me being scum exactly? I understand this is an issue - you keep repeating it, what I'm curious about is why you think a scum would do it more often than a town via these "showing its" I've done.

2. You're changing the goalpost here methinks - how was I being manipulative? I was pretty clear about my intentions, and didn't actually try to drown them in reasoning but directly asked if they would or wouldn't do something - where's the manipulation?

3. Well, just to point this out to people (because some people seem to think it's scummy when I just find this scummy ) you are AGAIN admitting to using fallacious arguments *without changing what you're doing*.

Why should I not find that VERY scummy exactly?
Because I find that VERY scummy.

[Thor665]

I believe you are more than capable of applying pressure and the reason you might not have is because of all the fire coming your way in a short timespan.

At the point you are thinking I was called out for poor pressure (which I don't think I was called out for and am still uncertain why you think I was) I had two posts.

My reasoning about asking this went like this: if Thor is town, does he believe anything about his play could have led a townie to suspect him as scum? Naturally, you are going to disagree with a wagon on you, but I wanted to see your reads on members of your own wagon and potentially fallacious reasoning. You've certainly delivered in fairly detailed posts.

I would describe myself as fairly mild in how much analysis I've offered on my wagon (though I am sadly miffed people missed my thoughts on Xwing and applied them to you, but...eh, I'm full of myself so them's the breaks)
Why are you blowing so much sweet smoke at me though?
I feel like you're buddying me.

I think people are very much describing their issues with you.

People are saying lots of words - but they aren't painting a scumcase.
They're saying I didn't do 'behavior X' and did 'behavior Y' but I have seen nothing to suggest that X is less scummy then Y nor that Y is scummy at all. Have you? If you could quote it I would be highly grateful.

I didn't like your lack of follow up with RCE, RCE himself didn't like how you were talking around him and directly to him and felt it was manipulative

If I were to ask you to pass me the ketchup would I be manipulative?
If the answer is yes - why? If the answer is no - how is what I did manipulative?
I'll agree I asked someone to do something - I fail to grok how that is manipulative unless we're going with the theory that requesting anything is manipulation - and if so, then I dismiss it as remotely scummy at all.

And as far as you saying "anyone should be lynched ASAP"...

Who would you like to lynch

right now?

I don't think equating "right now" with "ASAP" is really that much of a stretch.

If you had a Dayvig and I asked you "who would you like to shoot right now" would you interpret that as whatever answer you gave requiring you to immediately use your power?

If I asked "are you hungry right now?" does it mean if you answer yes you must immediately begin to eat?

I'm pretty sure you have to admit that, however big of a stretch you're willing to admit it is, it's a stretch - yeah?

I interpreted this as you asking volxen "if you can end the day right now with a lynch who would it be?"

Good - it's exactly what I was asking.

which would make the answer "no one"

Then he should be voting no lynch and I would explain why that is bad play.

Except that RCEnigma calling his own response a fallacy clearly read off as a joke to me -- I'm actually struggling to find a serious interpretation to his answer. By that logic, you also didn't have to call out RCE's initial post, since it's obvious scum-reading someone for having a good town game is a petty case. If his response did ping you, I'd think it would be more natural as town to call out his response as a fallacy regardless instead of just assuming everyone has the same mindset as you -- town imo generally don't think about the latter that much at all in fact.

He just did it a second time, do you also read that one as a joke?
I'm reading it as a dodge.
A continued dodge, that is trying to excuse bad play.
You can take it as a joke, but I think you're wrong - and just because you disagree with me doesn't mean I think a wagon should be run on you for that point or for you not asking him why he was joking, or anything else that you theory could have done.

The problem is that it's a pretty indirect way of applying pressure, and I'd think it'd be more town motivated to engage with RCEnigma directly and build up your case against him instead of merely asking people to vote for him when the case against him wasn't that strong to begin with -- in fact, stating it in the way you did almost ruins the reaction test you seemed to be going for. Of course, it's entirely possible for you as town to not follow up with RCEnigma, but imo as town it would make sense to follow up to something that pings you instead of holding back because it's scumminess is "obvious".

Voting someone and trying to build a wagon on them is indirect pressure? Eh, I disagree with that.
How does it ruin the reaction test? I submit it doesn't. A wagon is a wagon, even if it's a derp wagon.
How is my "holding back" scummy? If not, all you're doing is voting me and walling with me as a debate about playstyle, yeah? That's kind of boring to me.

The thing though is that I don't think you've made your thought process very clear.

I supplied multiple links to theory posts I've made *and* described my process the instant I was asked about it.
How have I not been clear?

It wasn't apparent at all that you asked for more votes on RCEnigma because you thought his answer was scummy

Sorry, guess that might have been taken as me town reading him...?

In fact, what would be the scum motive in RCE admitting his own logic was fueled by a fallacy anyhow?

The scum motive is admitting bad logic and not changing behavior - that suggests either he really is lying about being aware his logic is bad (in which case he is a semi-literate rock with fingers and an internet connection) or he is not actually interested in divining the truth - in which case he is more likely scum.
Can you describe the town motivation for admitting your logic is flawed and continuing on the same path regardless?

As of what's been happening recently, I didn't like how in your original wall response a lot of your responses didn't relate directly to the questions I asked

Bullhooey - ask again, I'm answering directly.
Quote the answer and explain how it's a dodge and I'll un-dodge.

and I also don't see much town motivation in trying to minimize the case against you by claiming players "aren't actually really describing their issues with me" when they very clearly are.

The theory town motivation in explaining that the wagon on you is weak is to dismantle the wagon - town doesn't win by lynching town, and since I know 100% I'm not scum it behooves me to have town lynch a slot other than my own.
Would you advocate a town player letting the wagon advance on them easily?

Also - as direct evidence that the case on me is poorly explained, please reference NotNova's belief that the case on me is because I didn't push on RCE hard enough/constantly enough in my two posts.
Then show me who is claiming that other than NotNova.
The case on me *is* badly explained because it's a hash of emptiness.

[Thor665]

Because scum doesn't need information to be fine with a lynch? I'm not really getting your angle here, thats kind of self evident.

I had information though - does that make me town? Or is it now the amount of info I'm allowed to claim to make me fine with a lynch.
You were fine with my lynch after two posts - why couldn't I be fine with yours after two posts?

A few things jump out like goading the vote onto me to push specifically YOUR agenda, its not a stretch to view that as Personal gain > Town gain. Also as I've stated elsewhere, the issue around fearing or not fearing players as scum. It should, in my opinion be an IC tone to address that but it felt more like pushing Voyager away from that line of thinking because it isn't optimal to YOU.

So your idea is that I am scum who was manipulating Player A into not voting Player B because I wanted him to vote Player C?
Couldn't that be identical to saying I was town who explained to Player A why voting Player B was bad, and asked if he was willing to vote Player C?
It sounds like conversation, not manipulation.

I also fail to see how that point is fallacious, thats a bit of a stretch. Scum is capable of anything town is capable of and vice versa, so should you disregard any scum reads because town could also do the same as scum in a certain situation. Or disregard townreads for the same reason?

I disregard a lot of reads for those exact reasons - you don't? Every read is 100% infallible to your mind?

I'm actually being negative towards people who would unvote me - is that scummy somehow?

This is a loaded question since yes it absolutely can be. It feels like you aren't taking context into account at all. If the answer to your question is yes and no simultaneously then there isn't really a reason to ask it in the first place.

How is it scummy to suggest that people who unvote me are wimps?

I also note you avoided addressing your bad logic dodge again.
I begin to have doubts others will notice.
But I do.
I'd point it out to people, but then I'd be manipulative

[Thor665]

If you are basing your vote on the first RVS vote then no, I find it Anti-town. As opposed to your initial stance that you had all you needed to know who you wanted lynched. It is scummy at worst, extremely jaded at best.

I never claimed I had all I wanted to know, and despite the hysteria some people are making up, I never even asked you to be lynched, I asked you to be put at L-2.
But, yeah, if you make up stances about my beliefs not backed by my actions or statements I suppose I can look like a sloppy scum player.

Your second point is semantics. Yes that is exactly what a conversation is, yes you are swaying player A's vote in both examples. That's manipulation if it pushes your agenda.

How can I push my agenda without manipulation if conversation is manipulation?
Wouldn't then everyone be manipulating and your point be meaningless?

I'm not suggesting my reads are infallible don't take it to an extreme. Feel free to point out how I'm logic dodging, I'm still not understanding how that thought process was flawed. It's not even a process I applied. So please explain to me like I'm a semi-literate rock with hands and as internet connection.

By claiming fallacies and not changing behavior (as I have already said) that is logic dodging.
Does that make sense?
If not - where does it lose you?

[Thor665]

Basically I feel like you're playing roper-dope with logic.
I point out where you're wrong and you basically appear to reply "yeah, sure I guess" and keep on trucking.

[Thor665]

Like follow the manipulation claim from you.
Currently I'm manipulating by having an agenda (getting votes on a scumread) and talking to people about it.
Like...what?

[Thor665]

@Reundo - went back and looked at your progression on me. Something reads odd to it; I'm going to spell it out and want to see if you can make it have more sense. I'll number it - please let me know where you think I'm wrong or misunderstanding something;

1. Your case (or at least part of your case) for why I'm scum is that I didn't follow up with RCE when I found something scummy and instead applied pressure via a vote.
2. You have repeated this to me a couple of times, that I should have asked questions.
3. When I did this you considered it scummy.
4. You voted me and asked me questions in the same post.

This feels like a potential logic hole to me - if I follow the above correctly, if I'd asked for someone else to vote him and *also* explained why i didn't like his response in the same post I would have done exactly as you did (and, presumably, therefore have behaved like proper town).
What's the difference in explaining my reasons for disliking the post when asked as opposed to immediately that transforms me from proper town play to likely scum play?
No?
Or is asking for an additional vote in and of itself the highly questionable action even if I'd explained my issue immediately?

[Thor665]

To restate #1 "applied pressure via an additional vote request.

[Thor665]

You're basing that argument on the fact that anything in any game can be done by any alignment. By nature yes but that doesn't help me sus out your motivations. Take the question you gave Xwing for example.

Is it scummy to call out unvoters. No because you could argue scum is backing down from your lynch. Yes because you could then turn around and use that same argument to push a mislynch on town.

It's driven by your motivations. Am I logically flawed in thinking that way? Well if you could do it as scum or as town then I suppose I have to assume there's no scum motivation behind it ergo he must be town.

I agree, all things can be done by town or scum.
The point is to be able to explain why something is *more likely* to come from a given alignment if you use it as a tell.
You don't do that.

Why would I be trying to buddy up to you when you're the single most focused-on person in this thread? Assuming I'm scum, what possible benefit do I have from buddying up to you? If you get lynched and flip scum, all eyes are on me for defending you, which I see as a huge risk for something like this. If you're town and everyone turns their eyes away from you, you're the only one who might see me in a better light and I expect you to be far more intelligent than that. And why wouldn't I join in on the wagon if I somehow know you are town? You're already L-1, I can apply further pressure without much worry. If you're town and you get lynched, which without some serious predictive power I cannot possibly expect, then I might possibly get brownie points for defending town. I don't think this is an incredibly likely scenario, ergo the risk/reward ratio looks awful. I believe this would be a nonsensical way to play. If you think scum has good incentive to try to buddy you, I'd like you to explain your theory.

You dodged a number of potential possibilities in there, let's just run down a possible list of scum reasons to buddy me;

1. How likely do you think a derp flashwagon on Page 2 is to go through? (reality: low) so, for starters, buddying me now is decent to get me on your side.
2. If I am lynched you, as scum, know I'm going to flip town - ergo you get the points for being 'right' and chiding town on their bad play.

So, if I am lynched, you get a dead IC and a lot of ability to pull sway in Day 2's lynch decision.
If I'm not lynched you buddy the IC and arguably get me as an ally and/or not looking at you for lynch target for today.

Win/win, yeah?

This seems like a shocking and unheard of thought for you?

I don't having good gut-feeling regarding someone's alignment is one of my strong suits, which is why I value logical reasoning so highly in people's posts. Yes, it might give me some confirmation bias towards analytical players, but picking up on fallacious or unsupported reasoning is a lot easier for me. By no stretch of the imagination do I believe you to be cleared or playing a strongly pro-town game, I simply find the case against you unconvincing, which I have repeated several times.

It's not that you're disagreeing with the case being the buddying - it's how you're doing it.
When you're all like "oh, masterfully laid out info" to me when I know I haven't laid out much it makes me feel like you're blowing smoke.
I made that very clear.
Why aren't you addressing how I *did* do the thing you're blowing smoke for, thereby justifying the smoke as opposed to acting shocked at the very notion that buddying can exist in a white knight situation (which considering there's even a name for white knighting and buddying suggests both things are things people have seen scum do repeatedly).

[Thor665]

Okay Nova, you can be town for today.

Why do you find xwing's sketchiness more vote worthy than RCE's?

[Thor665]

again, notnova has dissected this already and i agreed it was a play style difference..i should step back and start reading your posts rationally..it's just that words have different connotations, which scum can use to their advantage and choke up to play style..

So when you said I had a bad tone what you meant was 'Thor is aggressive in a way I'm not used to'?
Why would you call that tone?
Or is there something else about my play that has a tone you think scum would have?
You make getting an answer out of you feel like trying to hold onto an oily fish.

during my first game, the players were scum reading me because i was playing "safe" and being overly cautious/paranoid..so here in my second game, i thought it would be a good idea to cast my vote on the biggest wagon (e.g. you), so that could be considered "sticking out"..

I would suggest that voting the biggest wagon and listing your reasons as 'what those guys said' is pretty much the definition of safe play.

on hindsight, i think they meant/implied to "stick your head out for something you believe in"..and obviously it's hard to attack someone when i dont have genuine suspicion of you yet..so maybe i should have stuck with UCvoyager, but i didnt want to derail the momentum on you coz i was sure it would generate content (it did)..though im unsure if it was helpful to town (i didnt find it too helpful personally..i think the arguments are mainly play style/semantics)..

The arguments are blatantly that for everyone who voted me, it's why you're getting heat for agreeing and sheeping it.

i believe there's no scum in the wagon (not counting clown coz his was an RVS vote)..the silent players should come out now and say something..there's a high chance there's scum there who are content to just sit back and let us shred ourselves..silence is still a reaction..

Silence is a lot of things.
Considering we had (if you count me, whom the wagon was on) over half the players involved in the game either voting me or being me - the odds that at least one is scum are pretty high. Why rule it out as a town wagon totally to then call out lurkers?

[IC Hat]
Let me also say, I think the players in your last game were being silly. Being non-aggressive with your vote is not much different from being aggressive with it. The actual issue is *Are you scumhunting*. The goal is to do "things to help you figure out alignments" If for you that is asking questions and not voting - great. If for someone else it's wildly voting, awesome. But the part that is bad is when you don't appear to be scumhunting - then you look like you don't care, then you look like scum.

As an example in this game; your push on me "hey, I agree with these guys, I'll tell you my answers later, no really!" didn't look like you were scumhunting, it looked like you wanted me to get lynched. That's why you look like scum (at least to me - others may disagree)

RCE is similar - "lol, me admitting to bad logic while continuing doing the same thing - it was a joke man, c'mon now...let me keep changing the angle of what I'm attacking you over" it makes him look like scum also.

Compare/Contrast with two other possibilities;

Reundo is attacking me. His case is at least generically his own whether I agree or disagree with it, and though I have some suspicion of hypocrisy and want to sort that he is currently sitting at neutral because he at least appears to believe what he's attacking me over. In other words, I can at least image that he believes he's attacking me for something scummy (even if he can't actually describe why it's scummy )

Nova has presented at least two thoughts that are generically mostly unique, and though he sounds a little uncutous to me he at least fielded the attack pretty well, and seems interested in asking questions about motivation and not just calling a surface level thing scummy because...well, it sounds sexy and easy to call it scummy, yay! That suggests that he is actually trying to game solve, which implies town - hence town read for today.

I might be wrong on any and all of these, but I suggest they are fairly functional universal realities of "what is scumhunting and how to do it".
[/hat]

You are still a scum read for me, your current stance just feels like an appeal to emotion to back out of a wagon you now realize is more empty than you thought.

[Thor665]

@thor: basically you scum read RCE because he voted reundo, whom RCE perceived has a strong town game..even if it was obviously a joke..did i get the gist right? you still think that action was scummier than me joining your wagon with no original reasoning at all?

I indicated both actions as scummy, I'll also add that jokes don't make votes meaningless - all votes have meanings. Otherwise I'd just make a pun with every vote and be uncatchable as scum.
I have also indicated deeper actions by RCE that I find expressly objectionable (and just outlined in my last post to you, as well as a back and forth with RCE and Nova or Renudo earlier as well - I don't think I'm being coy with my reasoning, are you skimming my posts for some reason?

why did you pick UCvoyager to be the one to join you in voting for RCE, and not someone else?

Because I was talking to him.

more importantly, how did you intend to strengthen your case against RCE by asking other people to vote for him?

You just got done saying you didn't want to weaken a wagon so you voted it - and now you're asking me to explain how a vote on a wagon can help it?
Short answer; it would help the same way your claimed reasoning for voting me helped the wagon on me.

[Thor665]

I think people are very much describing their issues with you.

People are saying lots of words - but they aren't painting a scumcase.
They're saying I didn't do 'behavior X' and did 'behavior Y' but I have seen nothing to suggest that X is less scummy then Y nor that Y is scummy at all. Have you?

If you could quote it I would be highly grateful.

To be fair, I don't really think you developed your scum case against RCEnigma all too well either. Most of it seems to be based around RCEnigma's opening, and there was another point that you mentioned that I'll address later down but other than that it just looks like you're just arguing with him. Maybe there's something I missed in between your and RCE's responses, but from what I know you've addressed I'm not too convinced. For the record, I have been explaining why I think your actions are scummy, and I don't really get how you think that I'm somehow not doing that.

Calls it clear. Proceeds not to quote it...
I'm just suggesting the communication breakdown is not as much on my end

Why are you addressing me about RCE's talking points?

Because you're taking the stance the case on me has been presented, and I'm pointing out its unsupportable flim flam.
If you agree with that, but want me to act like presented flim flam is a case, just say so.

I still think there's not a huge difference between "right now" and "as soon as possible" though, so I don't get why you're so focused on semantics.

I'm focusing on the semantics because your claimed issue with me requires those semantics to be true to have any validity.
And, as noted, if you'd read what I wrote and linked - nothing besides the semantics you decided are the real one supports your stance.
And I'm wondering why you're so focused on that, as opposed to trying to figure out my alignment.

Then why would you expect any answer other than "no one" given that no sane town player would want to end the day right now so early into D1 no matter how much they scum-read a player?

Because it's a hypothetical question that precludes the wimp answer.
It's like FMK - the point is you need to make a value call, not that the answer is locked in stone brilliant.

but the quote above is less admitting he's bad and more correcting his logic, at least that's how I interpreted it. Town can have bad logic too, and in this case I don't see how this lapse in logic is necessarily a scummy one.

I really disagree with that take.
Why do I feel like you're bending over backwards to semantic suggest I am scum, and then bending the other way to see him as squeaky clean?

The best reaction test is one that's unannounced -- that's all I'm saying on your second point.

I never claimed it as a reaction test, even now I'd still like to lynch him over all others - all I did was ask for a vote.
That's all I'm saying about your rebuttal.
It's flim flam, again.

It was only clear that you thought his initial post was scummy because you voted him for it. Afterwards it looked like you completely ignored his response and was set on wagoning him w/o assessing his response, which didn't make much sense to me.

I agree - that I ignored his post and decided to blindly wagon him wouldn't make much sense for behavior on my part.

and I want to know why you thought his initial post was scum-motivated in isolation

Don't you mean "wanted" since I've answered this in posts you're quoting here?
I'm not sure if you're looking for more info? Am I losing you somewhere or was it just a mistype in the tense you used here?

So, like here for example:

When it comes to "dodges" I don't need examples, I want em all.
I would think you would too...if I was fully convinced you were scumhunting me

RCEnigma responded to your initial question about why he'd want to lynch someone who has a good scum game, so why didn't you follow up with his response if he's your strongest scum-read? As far as I can tell, a no-response is as good as the issue being resolved, so I don't see why he's still a scum-read to you if this is the case, and if this isn't the case then I don't see why you would just let his response fly under your radar. I'm seeing a lot of telling but not a lot of showing from you, and if RCEnigma truly is a scum-read I'd expect you to treat him more like one instead of just stating he is one.

His explanation was that his thought process was a fallacy - why should that relax me or appease me?
How would you expect me to treat scum and why would you have that expectation? I don't think you know how I play the game at all - have you researched me? If you haven't researched me then why are you holding me to made up expectations?

My question was "why didn't you follow up with his response if he's your strongest scum-read?", and instead of answering it you explained that RCE's response didn't appease you, which didn't answer my question. You did something similar to this a few other times, but I don't care about your answers so much as the fact that you did question dodge a couple times like this.

I actually answered directly why I didn't follow up with a question.
I didn't follow up with a question because I followed up by asking for another vote to be placed on him.
That's not a dodge. That's a direct answer.
I agree you, for some reason, wanted me to question him - but I don't get why it's so confusing that I decided to respond via action as opposed to question outside of your disagreement in the playstyle choice.

How is this answer confusing or dodging?

[Thor665]

Why did you apparently decide to hold back your reasons instead of immediately addressing why you didn't like his response in the first place? Iirc I don't think I ever asked you this.

You never did. Maybe that's something you thought I dodged?
The reason I didn't advertise the thought is that, to a certain extent, I considered it fairly obvious, and to a secondary, at that stage of RVS all cases are thin enough that I like to sort of test people's willingness to move on and off cases that they are advancing that could otherwise be called "jokes" or "not that serious" in order to test the reality of how serious they are. It's amazing to me how often supposed joke case votes refuse to be moved.

Asking for an additional vote isn't scummy -- it's that to me it would make more sense as town to expand upon your case on RCEnimga instead of asking people for votes and explaining why wagons in general are good w/o explaining why the RCEnimga wagon in particular is good. Actually, you could technically ask for additional votes and expand on your scum-case -- there's nothing wrong with that, and in hindsight I don't think I made this that clear -- but if you had to choose one I'd say the latter would definitely be more productive than the former, and a route that I'd feel would be more natural for town to travel on.

I explained why wagons are good when asked directly why I was trying to make a wagon, so...

So me asking for the vote wasn't scummy.
The entirety of my scumminess is that I didn't respond about why I didn't like RCE's response before my third post of the game? (and maybe was demanding everyone lynch him immediately just because I said so - a tactic I'm sure I use all the time with great success as scum... )

But you voting me right away while not yet hearing my answer about what I did is totally cool?

Those things still seem really similar - you disagree?

[Thor665]

Thor I would argue that I'm attacking responses as they come as opposed to the same issues from different angles. Do you find that more or less scummy than a static approach?

I would find addressing new issues to be less scummy than trying to reword the same issue multiple ways.
I don't think it's the same (or different) than a static approach.
I'm suspicious you might be using different definitions of some of these words than I am because I basically feel you're asking 'is it less scummy to eat pasta or to penguin.'

To my mind a static approach is an unchanging position. It may or may not be scummy.
Attacking responses as they cam could be done with a static approach.
My claim that you're going with new angles is that I believe as each time your position is shown as weak you fuge your words or what you claim the words meant in order to maintain your core claim while changing the evidence/beliefs making you draw it - which I do find scummy.

Feel free to clarify to me if I'm still missing your question.

Volxen is a townlean

Why?

Also, since you narrowed yourself down to a few possible scum possibilities - why did you not vote one of them? You seemed very willing to RVS and to vote me, why being wimpy at this point?

Who would you like to lynch right now?
And if the answer is 'no one' I submit you are scum playing poorly or town who fails to understand that we can't catch scum without lynching someone, and that you're allowed to reassess your vote regularly if you find a read becoming weaker/stronger, yeah?

@Reundo - RCE's post made me look back, and in looking at my "vote now, right this second!" question I quite blatantly discuss the idea of saying 'no one' and also express that votes can be reassessed off reads.

I feel your stretch is bigger than you're admitting, yeah? Or did you think I meant only that you get to reassess after a flip or something, since we must lynch immediately, or only in the odd 24 hours till everyone slams a vote through?

Don't get distracted from my attack on you for hypocrisy though - that's the one I really want to see you unpack as to how my voting in one post and pointing out the issue later is scum intent and you pointing out the issue and voting in the same post is super valid.

[Thor665]

Allow me to showcase what I see as your changing reads;

viewtopic.php?p=10433039#p10433039
Here you claim I'm fabricating stances.
I ask what stances I'm fabricating.
You slip and slid away from this and never came back to it - now your issue becomes I'm being manipulative and showing too much conviction.
I ask what's wrong with the level of conviction I've shown (which, incidentally is voting you and asking one other person to vote you with me)

1. Theres a difference between aggressive and ...apathetic isn't really the word, indifferent I guess? What you are showing (not saying) is that you are willing to lynch based on 0 information, that doesn't scream town to me.

My conviction now becomes that I appear indifferent as to who I lynch - so it's not that I believe you're scum too strongly, it's that I don't care who I lynch.

You eventually clarify that to I'm likely scum because I didn't have enough info.
I point out I had info (about the same amount of info you had on me) and acted on that info.
You then shift your stance again here;
viewtopic.php?p=10434898#p10434898
Stating that I claimed I had all the info I needed and that such a claim was ridiculous.
I point out that I never claimed that.

You never address that issue and come back and unvote me citing it as playstyle differences (Reundo doesn't freak out that you are addressing a response by an action as opposed to directly ).

So, I was fabricating stuff, which is scummy.
Then I am showing too much conviction which is scummy.
Then I'm claiming full knowledge.
Then it's dropped.

What was actually shown in that interchange was, if *anyone* was fabricating info it was YOU. I have you dead to rights making up a claim (though I will agree you backed off from two claims twice as opposed to doubling down on them, which is a point in your favor) However, to go from fabrication, to conviction, to making up a claim I never said and being countered each time the argument kept shifting as to exactly what was the scummy behavior. You did the same in our discussion of my manipulations.

That's the shifting I see - you would get caught and try to softly swing away from the issue you were caught on without having to fully backtrack.
Do you see the above as a consistent communication from you with a clear core point?

[Thor665]

I'm not voting in a three man PoE because two of the three have one non game relating post a piece. If it's scummy of me not to place a vote with no basis then feel free to scumread me for it.

I would note you voted me with one RVS vote and one non-RVS vote quite comfortably.
Feels like, if not a double standard, at least not an equally assessed issue.

Voting you was natural since fmpov I know I'm town and a slot is trying to gather town against me for what I still consider was weak reasoning but better than no reasoning. Is that a fair reaction? I've already stated I waffled with reading you, since I'm not solid one way or the other my vote no longer reflected my view.

I think OMGUS is an understandable reaction, but not one that generates pro-town play and needs to be quashed to further yourself as a better player.
If everyone time anyone questions you your response is to attack them and call them scum it will generally backfire - as town vote and lynch fellow town quite a bit.

[Thor665]

I would suggest as the theory most experienced player there is probably a certain increased value to trying to sort me early, which I can see as a valuable strategic play.
Not sure why you'd be generically afraid though? Do you think you should be generically afraid of me more than anyone else? In pure statistics I am more likely to be town than scum, so therefore

should you not be generically trusting of me? (I submit the answer to that question is clearly no

- but then suggest your inverse of fear is also clearly no and wonder why you want me to debate it like a valid concern)

Want to put your vote on RCEnigma with me? I think I'd like to put him to three votes.

I dont like the argument that you shouldn't be assessed here as possible since anyone can be possible scum, thats what we play the game for. I specifically think the ending is particularly manipulative since it forces Voyager to back away by belittling his fear of you being scum. Which he as a player that claims to be familiar with your scum capabilities is justified in having. Can he prove it at that moment? probably not, telling him its not a debate worth having means he now definitely cannot.

I don't think I'm saying what you say I'm saying.

This has already been spoken on, again though the implication is "If you aren't voting your scumread right now then you're just playing bad." Knowing that a large portion of the players are somewhat experienced it isn't as much of an issue since they can easily disregard this as playstyle. However considering the setting of a newbies game, where it is possible that some of the players have no experience this doesn't sit well with me. Said inexperienced player could take this at face value. New players want to play well naturally. Telling them, if you arent doing this thing i'm doing or suggesting then you aren't playing well, is exactly what I'm talking about.

So my goal was to fool new players into voting their scumread?
I don't follow the issue - they *should* be voting their scumread. if they're voting a townread they're doing it wrong. If they're voting someone for no reason they're doing it wrong. That leaves them to vote for a scumread - which is doing it right.

Fabricating stances may have been a poor phrase or term but this is what I meant in terms of manipulation.

So my manipulation is;

1, Not saying what you say I'm saying.
2. Telling people to vote their scumread.
3. Telling people they're wimps if they are voting me and unvote after a hammer intent.

...am I missing something?

[Thor665]

I explained why wagons are good when asked directly why I was trying to make a wagon, so...

I meant to say you did explain why wagons in general are good, but not that the RCEnigma wagon in particular is good. It seemed counter-intiuitive to talk about your theory to playing the game instead of just playing the game (i.e. following up with RCEnigma, explaining your scum-read, etc.).

Except when I was asked why I thought the wagon was good I answered that question also.
You can argue maybe I should have been more self-motivated forthcoming - but to argue I was avoiding providing my thoughts is clearly incorrect. Am I missing something here? I feel like this point as I understand it is silly, but you seem very serious about it. Clarify?

As far as page 1 goes, then yes that was essentially the extent of your scumminess. I already explained numerous times how I don't find it natural for town not to follow up on a question they asked, especially if the answer is unsatisfactory. It was less that you were "demanding everyone lynch him immediately" and more that you were more interested in garnering support for your wagon instead of developing your scum-read.

Theory reality;
I ask - are you scum?
They answer - yes! (which is certainly possibly a joke, though in that joke they may be scum answering with a joke answer since jokes are playstyle, not alignment driven)
I ask for someone else to put their vote on them.

Is this not a natural progression?
Should I have a follow up question to that answer?
Does asking for additional support preclude an ability to develop my scum read?

I was debating whether or not to hear you out first, but your lack of follow-up pinged me enough as to where that alone was good enough of a vote regardless of your answer.

Pot meet kettle, yeah?
Or am I *not* allowed to be pinged enough like you were?
Why do you get to be pinged and I don't?

You just threw two completely different things together and called it hypocrisy. Explain to be how they're supposed to be similar exactly, because I'm not really seeing it.

You call me scummy for asking for a vote without a follow up question and/or explaining my read.
You vote me with a follow up question before hearing an answer.

Both indicate that it is possible to vote and feel scum intent from behavior without having discussion first.
That indicates you're holding me to a different level of play than you practice.
That's the hypocrisy I see.
How do you see the two actions as totally unconnected?

yeah I can see that you probably didn't mean "lynch immediately" in hindsight, but I already explained how I didn't really stand by this that much and that I was probably wrong, so I don't see what's the issue here?

I'm curious about your current stance considering your current vote.

>You're still trying to minimize player's concerns of you (points against you are apparently "flim flam") and trying to find a roundabout way to not admit that people have voiced their concerns about you.

People's points against me *are* flim flam and I have directly explained why I believe that to be so.
Why is it scummy to not agree that the case on me is good? It is assuredly possible to be town and have a case put upon you that is not good.
Even in your above comment you agree you attacked me about something that is probably not true.
RCE has done the same.
Xwing has agreed that he voted me for no reason other than to pressure me.
So - that appears to be direct evidence that the case wasn't good and was poorly explained.
Why are you acting like me being right is scummy?

>What you point out as "hypocrisies" aren't really that hypocritical at all. I mean, if the timing is completely different (me explaining my reasoning "immediately", you explaining your reasons "later") then shouldn't it be obvious I treat them on separate playing fields? (ftr, I feel the quality of the reasoning is probably more important than timing, but that's another topic
>I don't really understand your case on RCEnigma at all, and as a whole I think you're over-exaggerating his "changing reads".

So you disagree with me, but aren't actually discussing one disagreement and we literally just started the other - ergo I'm scummy?
Okay?

>You're still answering a lot of my questions in a roundabout way, and a lot of your responses and follow up questions force me to repeat stances I've already made or are just narrowing down on specific sentences w/o considering the context as to why I've said them.

I invited you to readdress your confusions - you came at me with one that I rexplained very directly and you haven't followed up.
If there is a communication breakdown i don't think it's in my answers. I'll agree I can be long winded, and I agree I can be precise - but note that you're complaining that I'm making you explain things a lot (almost as if I'm trying to understand your point) and are equally complaining that I'm being intentionally obfuscatory (while apparently you refuse to bother to make me clarify myself)
If you think that makes me scum I really disagree with you.
At worst that makes me bad at explaining things - maybe that's just me as a person, unless you can showcase how I'm trying to avoid stuff. Which I don't think you can.

[Thor665]

1. As scum you wouldn't tell town your intentions, agenda, or motivation. So just saying no that's not what you think it is just doesn't do anything for me.
2. You ignored everything around that point. It's implied town will vote their scumreads. New town area also prone to sheep players they believe to be strong. You've already sown doubt by saying their vote is useless if it isn't on your snap scumread, 20 posts in.
3. .....yes, that's anti-town if you are town in the position to be lynched. If they want to avoid being scumread for something so petty it's holding your own wagon hostage which is ????

You aren't missing anything you know exactly what you're doing. I tried to get away from the back and forth once already, I'm pretty over it honestly.

1. Well...I literally bolded my quote that shows that you're saying I'm saying the opposite of what I actually said. So unless your claim is I can see the future and headed you off at the pass...
2. Nowhere do I say what you're citing here as objectionable - why do you keep inventing stances for me and then complain about them?
3. So it's scummy - but only if I'm town? That makes no sense.

[Thor665]

to be fair, these guys have posted less content that volxen:
StandingWind (none) - you there?
horrordude0215 (will post soon..said latest Wed..which is today..so we're expecting..)
UC Voyager (will post soon..expecting today..)

Do you find them scummier than Volxen?
If not - do you find Nova objectionable for attacking him?

And to answer your head into wall - you quoted me answering your question (and asking you a question you didn't answer) and then acted like I hadn't answered the question.
This concerns me.
Are you skimming the game or do you not understand all the words I'm using? Is there another possible explanation I'm missing?

[Thor665]

Nope you're right Thor, I'm wrong.

Your joke ducks and weave make you feel like an oily fish.
Why do you town read Vloxin?

[Thor665]

How did you consider that he stuck to his game philosophy?
He asked me why I was doing what I was doing, I told him, he said 'carry on then'.
Did someone challenge him on his stance of "I'm not taking a stance I'm asking a question"?

PEdit - you are - or you aggressively like to misrep, and if you're town you really need to work on that.

[Thor665]

I mean, I'll admit, I'm starting to double check literally everything you say because I don't trust you to present factual reports of what happened.
Usually I just double check things when I disagree whole heartedly.
But you Vloxen case I was like 'that sounds reasonable, but now I need to ISO Vloxen to see if it makes sense and ask follow ups".

[Thor665]

@Xwing - how do you see ignoring my slot to help you win the game?

[Thor665]

@Xwing - how do you see ignoring my slot to help you win the game?

i'm not ignoring your slot per se, i'm ignoring you at the moment..there's plenty of back and forth with you and the others already and i believe there's even more content to come..

Okay.
How does "ignoring me for some period of time yet to be declared" help you win?
I feel it won't.

Unvote: RCEnigma
Vote: UCVoyager

RCE is starting to convince me he might be town. Let's lynch UCVoyager. (as a disclaimer for Reundo - though I do say 'let's lynch' which *could* mean 'immediately, like in the next 20 minutes' my lack of inclusion of timing does not actually clarify this as my goal, the better way to read this is 'let's lynch him in a general sense insomuch as I read him as scum, but I understand that other votes might take a bit of time to gather here, and I also appreciate the use of hammer intent and claim time for people to assess the wagon - and though I would like to see proactive advancement of that end goal within a short time, frankly within 48 hours having a hammer intent would please me immensely, it is not a statement that we must do it all immediately )

[Thor665]

@thor: it keeps me motivated to play the game..

Wow - I'm sorry reading my posts is that painful to you.
Frankly though, if you're town aren't you basically game throwing right now and being a jerk to all your fellow town team by not bothering to read posts to help catch a scum member or figure out a town member?

how exactly were you convinced of RCE's towniness?[/quote[
To clarify - I said starting to convince, not convinced.
For me the basic evidence is he doesn't appear to have a plan. Being lost tends to be a thing town are more comfortable with. Compare/contrast with Reundo who, even though he is admitting half his case on me might be wrong, is also still voting me and is ignoring that 2 players who were voting me are agreeing they had flawed reasoning while Reundo is attacking me for calling out flawed reasoning being used to vote me. If he's town, he's absolutely tunneled and not helpful. If he's scum - he's probably scared that admitting he was wrong and actually doing something different would 'look scummy' so he's digging in hard to avoid it. Either way it's not town minded. RCE is using terrible logic, but at least he seems generally interested to toss out a lot of town reads and also to (weakly) poke at new avenues. Makes it look like he might legit be trying to solve the game.

why is UC scum for you?

At this point - being purely unhelpful to town paired with not posting. If we can't sort him we might as well flip him because I wouldn't want him in lylo if this is how he'll be playing the rest of the game.
Want to vote him with me?
If nothing else it will allow someone to freak out that I'm asking for support on a wagon again.

[Thor665]

@thor: it keeps me motivated to play the game..

Wow - I'm sorry reading my posts is that painful to you.
Frankly though, if you're town aren't you basically game throwing right now and being a jerk to all your fellow town team by not bothering to read posts to help catch a scum member or figure out a town member?

how exactly were you convinced of RCE's towniness?

To clarify - I said starting to convince, not convinced.
For me the basic evidence is he doesn't appear to have a plan. Being lost tends to be a thing town are more comfortable with. Compare/contrast with Reundo who, even though he is admitting half his case on me might be wrong, is also still voting me and is ignoring that 2 players who were voting me are agreeing they had flawed reasoning while Reundo is attacking me for calling out flawed reasoning being used to vote me. If he's town, he's absolutely tunneled and not helpful. If he's scum - he's probably scared that admitting he was wrong and actually doing something different would 'look scummy' so he's digging in hard to avoid it. Either way it's not town minded. RCE is using terrible logic, but at least he seems generally interested to toss out a lot of town reads and also to (weakly) poke at new avenues. Makes it look like he might legit be trying to solve the game.

why is UC scum for you?

At this point - being purely unhelpful to town paired with not posting. If we can't sort him we might as well flip him because I wouldn't want him in lylo if this is how he'll be playing the rest of the game.
Want to vote him with me?
If nothing else it will allow someone to freak out that I'm asking for support on a wagon again.

[Thor665]

He's posting, they're not.

How do you see no plan from Reeundo? He's clearly tunnel locked. You can call that a bad plan, but it's clear what he's about and wants.

[Thor665]

I explained why wagons are good when asked directly why I was trying to make a wagon, so...

I meant to say you did explain why wagons in general are good, but not that the RCEnigma wagon in particular is good. It seemed counter-intiuitive to talk about your theory to playing the game instead of just playing the game (i.e. following up with RCEnigma, explaining your scum-read, etc.).

Except when I was asked why I thought the wagon was good I answered that question also.

You can argue maybe I should have been more self-motivated forthcoming - but to argue I was avoiding providing my thoughts is clearly incorrect. Am I missing something here? I feel like this point as I understand it is silly, but you seem very serious about it. Clarify?

I was talking about solely in RVS. You did explain why RCEnigma was good to wagon later on, yes, but not when you were asking other for votes during the start of RVS, and the fact that you didn't do this in that moment is what I thought was scummy, or at least not very town motivated.

I'm bolding the part you sidestepped in your answer.

The flaw in your theory is that I wasn't scum-reading you for "not having discussion" -- it was based on you neither following up on RCE's response nor explaining why exactly RCE was scummy to you, but I did both of those with regards to you. If, say, I were to ask you questions and then completely ignored your response yet still scum-read you, then you'd have a point with calling me a hypocrite, but as it stands what you're describing as hypocritical is again not actually hypocritical, and I'm really struggling to see where you're coming from here.

It's mostly the "Thor posting his vote in his second vote and his reasons in his third vote vs. RCE doing both in his second vote" thing.
Like, what was my scum motive of waiting to be asked my reasons and then being fine with presenting them anyway?
What did that gain me?
How is *that* scummy but finding something scummy and attacking it without waiting for answers is totally awesome?
I feel like you should think that either town is obligated to do a deeper dive, or that town is fine reacting to stuff.
Instead you claim both depending on the votes you wish to place - you don't see this at all? Let's look at timestamps, I'm curious about something...

At 7:56pm I ask for the extra vote.
At 8:30pm I explain the theory behind my push.
At 7:44am I explain my reaction to his response.

What did I gain my scum self by hiding the truth for less than 12 hours?
Is the claim that I needed to sleep on it to get my evil explanation in order?
Walk me through this slowly.

[Thor665]

what does scum!reundo gain from tunneling on you? if you were to sort him now, where does he lean?

I already described one theory - wherein scum Reundo would think it might look scummy to change course.
An easy second option is - by focusing consistently on me he is able to avoid giving other reads.
It can also be both of those together.
You see no possible scum motivation at all?

I'm still sorting him null for the most part because he isn't doing anything, but if we lynched him I'd be fine with that. People town reading him seem to be doing it for no reason other than that he agreed with them at one point.

Mostly yes actually.

Thor is unwillingly to acknowledge how any of these things COULD be scummy, no that they necessarily ARE scumdriven.

I came to the conclusion that it's just a personality thing and sorry Thor, but I'm in the same boat as Xwing. None of it was being helpful to town so I disengaged.

I admitted on multiple tiomes that things "could" be scum driven.
I happily admit I pointed out that you weren't backing up that they are scumdriven.
Outside of me pointing out your case was silly I'll agree it wasn't overtly pro-town.

[Thor665]

(Website and stroms decided to be disagreeable with me - so here's a slightly late addition)

- In the same breath, I dislike Thor's comment about claiming that you don't want to lynch someone on page 1 is in any way AI [alignment indicative].

I'd disagree with that also.
Good thing I never said it.

- (Quick side note, I actually really appreciate that this game appears to be more content driven without the spamposting that is the meta on most other parts of the site.)

It's one of the reasons I like playing in Newbies - they haven't become convinced that walls and analysis are sucker's tools and that the only solution is to random vote and post cat gifs.

In xwing's defense, they have stated that this is their 2nd game on the site, and it's already far more in depth and requires a lot more attention than I would say is standard for a newbie game. Even I've had to resort to some skimming to help get through my readthrough - I don't think you necessarily have to read and absorb every word of a game to be able to play decently.

I agree.
Good thing my issue was with him claiming he'd ignore a slot (since clarified, but...)

I'm okay pushing this button and seeing what comes out. There are some interesting associatives with xwing that I want to explore as well, so I would be good with a wagon on either right now.

What are these associatives?

Also, as just a general bookkeeping note to the thread.

And I know that basically you'll all disagree with me and claim I'm pushing too hard, but if I say it now I can say 'told you so' later.
Unless we get a time extension - we should really be looking to get a hammer intent and a claim...well...today.
That is because there is only about 4 days left in the phase. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to have time to debate the claim. Also, if we decide we like the claim I *really* love the time to be able to debate the alternate wagon. There will be cries of 'we have plenty of time' and 'we need to use all the time'. The people who make these cries are wrong, and you probably won't fully understand that till we're having to do a rush derp wagon. But I strongly suggest that all the people who aren't voting should get a vote in play and vote their scummiest read (as a clarification this doesn't mean insta-lynch them on a made up timeline my words never imply) and people who are currently voting someone with only 1-2 votes should start trying to get other people to vote their wagon of choice (which however much some people claim, is not an inherent scum action even if it "could" be a scum action )

Just my thoughts on that.
I'll reference back to them after we 'use all the time'.

[Thor665]

I already described one theory - wherein scum Reundo would think it might look scummy to change course.
An easy second option is - by focusing consistently on me he is able to avoid giving other reads.
It can also be both of those together.
You see no possible scum motivation at all?

Reundo had given reads on every person with relevant content. None of it has been questioned further by anyone so option 2 doesn't hold much weight.

Only if we count 152 which is basically him saying one of the lurkers is scum.
That he's calling everyone who is even remotely active, besides me, some variety of town read holds water to my point.

[Thor665]

@RCE - to clarify this, try to quote me Reundo attacking anyone beside me over anything they did.
Then note how many attacks on me there are in his ISO.
Then wonder why, apparently, I'm the only person doing anything scummy.

[Thor665]

Those are reads he's given regardless, so I don't see how he could be avoiding doing so. Do you disagree with those reads?

I'd be more excited with them if he'd posted them before I'd cited him for tunneling.
I do disagree with his reads on Wind and UC.
I also think him dropping Vloxen to null because Vloxen hasn't questioned me on stuff recently reads kind of shallow and odd.
Do you like his reads?

It wasn't about who he was attacking originally, just about his reads. But yes you are the only slot he's attacked, you're also his only solid scumread. Take yourself out of the equation and replace the slot with say, Volxen, is the tunnel plausible? I get there is bias involved since it is you he's attacking.

I would suggest any tunnel on Day 1 is inherently worrisome since the real goal of Day 1 should be to establish reads.

But it's concerning that Xwing is getting whipped for not actively pushing his top scum whereas Reundo is getting the same treatment for the opposite reason.

There is a large difference between not pushing your top scumread and doing nothing but nitpicking your top scumread.

I agree with this actually. But do you equate "hasn't posted" with scum? Even then do you think we get a response or is the wagon just getting slapped onto a replacement last minute?

You have me on record for calling UC more viable potential scum because he has been active (the quick explanation being - the other slots were probably more legit flakes, whereas UC could arguably be strategic). There is no evidence to suggest I think "hasn't posted" being a scumtell, and I think it's a dumb scumtell for anyone who would push it barring evidence of activity elsewhere on site.

I do think we'll get a response if there's a replacement.
I don't think we will if there isn't a replacement (though I'd expect the mod to sort that).

Let's also look at reality;

You are not calling any of the active posters scum.
Neither is xwing (not that he's pushing much of anything)
Nova has called xwing scummy (I and you have called him town, and Reundo did a bit of gibber talk that I take as a town read - it's at worst null)
Reundo has called all active posters except me town (he doesn't have the ability to push that wagon)
I have called active posters town and Reundo null (a wagon I don't have the ability to push through currently)

Meanwhile...
I have called UC scum and voted him.
You have called UC at least potential scum.
xwing has called UC scum and isn't voting him.
Nova has at least left UC neutralish - though I believe there is a soft scum lean there.
Reundo has UC in his "three people who might be Thor's scumbuddy - even though I think it's the most obvious pure flaked slot because once that happened elsewhere"

Where do you think a decent lynch option is if not one of the lurkers exactly?

[Thor665]

Why do you see UC more likely to lurk as scum over Horror?

Because UC is active lurking whereas Horror isn't.

To clarify the term I'm using - go look at their ISOs.
Horror disappeared for a while, then came back with (whether you find it impressive or not) at least a decent attempt at catching up and offering reads.
Meanwhile UC has been here and posted an RVS and two different promises of catching up and offering thoughts.
It is blatant that Horror is at least trying.
Now, does that assure Horror town? Nah. But I'll take effort over apparent avoidance any day.

[Thor665]

Fair enough, I'll post intent and we can decide after hearing from the replacement. However now the problem is that the replacement needs time to catch up and even when read up could still take more time to get posts together. Then it's a small sample size and already negatively skewed because they haven't interacted with the game like everyone else has. Even if that skew isn't intentional or is still present.

By definition we're playing in a small sample size game - since I believe it's possible to get reads that are better than random chance it behooves us to limit the amount of non participating slots.
If you don't 100% buy into that - don't offer intent.

[Thor665]

If your case against me is that I am more likely to be scum compared to the other low-content posters because of the timing of my “I’m getting caught up” post, then, to quote Reundo, I would say your case is pretty damn “flim flam”.

The thing about "waiting to be asked my reasons" is that as scum it allows you to only put forth as much effort as deemed necessary. If you can get by without explaining your reads, that's perfect, and if someone questions you on your read then you can just explain your read and drive suspicion away.

I don't follow this.
So, as scum, i have a reason - but I intentionally don't tell it to...avoid telling it, then, if asked, I can tell it and look town.
Why, as scum, hide my town looking reason in the first place then?
To avoid doing something that will make me look town?
This is sounding very much like a playstyle disagreement at best to me - why are you so convinced it's scummy?

{Thor, angel} are my priority lynches for the day, and I feel there's decent partner synergy in there as well.

Can you describe this partner synergy?
Clearly you are scum for not describing it immediately

[Thor665]

I'd also rather vote Angel here.

Why?

@Nova - if you can't see how I'm trying to keep the Reundo back and forth focused and minimized I got nothing for you.

[Thor665]

@Mod - considering what has come thus far and the current prods in place, I'd like to request a very mild extension to the day. At the very least giving us the chance to maybe have some of the new players provide 3-4 posts for slots that are currently ghost slots.

@Everyone else - just for the record, I generally find time extensions to be anti-town. I'm making an exception here because we have so much dead air. This is the sort of thing you can always request from a mod, they may or may not grant it. I tend to advocate trying to minimize it because I do think that on this site lots of people grind towards deadlines too much, and all this does is feed the bad habit and not teach people to get votes in play and make up their minds. That said, we are in a replacement quagmire,a nd even though I fear an extension could cause more prods and more game lag, we have an unreasonable amount of flake slots at the moment.

@Nova - you're dinging on Vloxen for reactively attacking you. You didn't agree with, but you appeared to consider it a townish reaction when RCE reactively attacked me. What's the difference between the two for you?

[Thor665]

isn't that essentially why you weren't impressed with my reads list?

No - I wasn't impressed with your reads list as a counter to my claim you were tunneling since it came out after my claim.
It's like if I said someone never changed their vote, then they change their vote, then someone else said 'look, you case is silly'.
That's different than 'someone is intentionally avoiding explaining something that no one has asked them to explain, and that it also requires me to stick to taking an answer as a joke to justify the explanation being fairly self evident.
Am I missing something in how those are different?

but you also made a point about disagreeing with my read on wind, which I don't get why you'd be so opposed to if both a)his inactivity was aligned with UCVoyager and b)I actually gave a reason behind why wind's flaking / replacing out could be scum-indicative, whereas you didn't offer much evidence that suggested that UCVoyager's flaking was something he was more inclined to do as scum than town. I guess it's not that strong of a connection, but it's enough to were I think it's plausible the two of you could be partners.

I don't think you get to eye roll me with that as your connection

Historically, much more newbie scum replace out than newbie town, so the most logical explanation for this spree of replace outs imo is that this is just a case of newbies not wanting to roll/play scum on their first game.

Where are you getting this data from?

For instance, in my last post I asked you how you thought I sidestepped in my response to you, yet you didn't bother to reply to it.

Because it was self evident - shown in the quotes - and I'm bored of arguing with someone who makes up stuff to advance their tunnel case.
Feel free to believe you didn't dodge it.

I also probed you to expand on why you thought me dropping volxen to null was "shallow and odd", yet you didn't answer those follow-up questions as well.

I believe it, probably, for the reasosn I explained, and your rebuttal of "but a Thor opinion is *huge*" just proves my tunnel point. You were handing me busy work to create another boring wall while acting like I hadn't provided info to an answer already explained.
It's almost like you're trying to create boring minutiae debates with no point and no basis in truth. I've got better things to do, and so should you if you're actually town.

Any other amazing ducks and avoidances by me? Or is this going to die dead like the last time you made this claim?

Reundo and Thor is scumreading each other? Am I understanding this correctly?

Reundo has based multiple reads off me being scum.
I have stated multiple times I find him to be null to slightly scummy.

How are we confusing you with our stances?

I'm asking, because at the very least, even on a skim, Reundo's read on me should be blatantly obvious. It's 90% of his ISO pretty much.

we got a lot of inactives this game so im still worried that townies still might be killing off each other as we've got a limited lynch pool.

Why do you think we have a limited lynch pool?
What's limiting it?
I'm pretty sure we're still allowed to lynch anyone.

trust my gut.

So is this your scum case on Angel?

[Thor665]

I was just trying to backtrack to where you said you'd "rather" vote Angel - I wanted to know why, and presumed there was some sort of case aka reason - no?

[Thor665]

As an aside, if most of the points you believe to be self evident ate constantly coming into question....they might not be so self evident.

Which is probably why I'm answering them immediately when asked?
I understand I'm in a Newbie game - doesn't mean I'm supposed to play down to you, it does mean I should clarify when asked.

I didnt like the lack of defense in UC's favor. Admittedly Ceejay's posts haven't really raised my opinion on the slot. Also Angel fell under the same criteria for a good lynch that UC did pre replacement. So I guess I wasn't really understanding your preference of one over the other.

Can you redescribe this as to why you prefer Angel over the others, which is what you said.
I'm not following this answer.

that's just a convinient shield that allows scum to skate by without having to provoke their scum-reads when they should be provoking them.

Bollocks and barely supported in my actions even if you do believe it.

Uh... I said myself that it wasn't a strong connection -- it's basically just strong enough to where I'm not like "there's no world where these two can't be partners", which made me feel better about voting angel.

You described it as "decent partner synergy" and "priority lynches"
I feel like you're backtracking on stated strength of read.

do you feel that newbie scum aren't more likely to replace out than newbie town, especially when it's a repeated occurrence on the same slot?

I consider it a pretty neutral tell unless the player in question is still playing on site elsewhere.
Of the three players who have occupied the slot;

Ismash has 1 post (an /in to Newbie queue)
Standing Wind has one post (an /in to Newbie queue)
Angel has 2 posts (an /in to Newbie queue and her one post in this game)

That is every single post, sitewide, by all those players. I don't see a lot of evidence to suggest that they are avoiding this game in preference of playing town - and am asking why you think this is true (my somewhat subtle implication is you are either scum shopping a non-true claim, or town/scum who just isn't actually looking beyond surface tells to advance scum claims).

It literally wasn't self evident though.

As long as you ignore that I explained it in my response to you - and decided that a half hearted acknowledgement responding to a different part of your case against me was self referential back to your dismissal I was discussing - sure.

Objectively speaking, how is having a Thor opinion not huge?

Objectively speaking - he had one.
How is not having one scummy?

The way that you try to give yourself the upper hand for question dodging is absolutely disgusting. Frankly, you're the last player I trust to give an objective view on who's towny or scummy, and that's true regardless of alignment, but it's clear that you care a lot more about winning an argument than actually taking what I say into consideration.

I feel like you're making this really personal - do you think that's affecting your read on me in any way?
I've been very polite with you.

You're basis for voting the original slot -- basically flaking out -- isn't very viable anymore, so do you still think the slot is scum or not?

I don't think the slot is indicative of town.
Do you?
At this stage, a null to scummy slot that is lurking is a pretty viable vote.

Why do you prioritize sorting me over the player you're actually voting?

Currently I don't - indeed you were the one complaining I wasn't directing enough time at you. I indicated I was seeking to spend less.
Can you quote where you're getting this idea from? Pretty sure you're asking me to defend another made up point.

a lurker lynch is the least likely to glean any associations, and it's especially bad if they do end up flipping town

I tend to disagree with this insomuch as a town flip is pretty much always equally negative - feel free to explain how associatives make a town flip less negative.
A scum flip, meanwhile, is always good. I'll agree a scum flip with associatives can be nicer - but I'd be happy with a scum flip regardless.

[Thor665]

Everyone being on board with UC dissuaded me from wanting to lynch him. I don't think it's an all town push.

Who do you think is the scum there?

Also yourself (Thor) and Nova trying to keep the lynch away from Angel rubbed me the wrong way. Makes me think there is something more going on there.

Suggesting I tried to keep the lynch away from Angel feels like a pretty aggressive stretch.
Where do you get that vibe?
Is that why you'd prefer an Angel lynch? Because two (one) people (person) defended them?

Meanwhile, volxen has a plethora of content to dive through if he's serious about thinking I'm scum. Considering he gave up on it a post after, offering me some sort of truce, I don't think he was. I interpret it as him trying to hastily defend himself by throwing shade at me.

Why do you think town wouldn't do that?

Also, Thor, do you still consider UC's slot the best lynch or do you consider the lurkers basically interchangeable?

They are assuredly not interchangeable.
I've also assuredly not offered a town read on any of them.

Experienced player prod dodging vs inexperienced player prod dodging isn't a great defense for slots that should be interchangeable.

But they're not interchangeable and the tell does only apply to one slot - so what's your issue with it as a tell?

[Thor665]

I disagree that it's a good tell is all.

Fine. I disagree with you.

Defending Angel may have been unintentional but I didn't feel UC dodging out if the game was more indicative than Angel dodging out of the game and I wanted to see what kind of resistance there would be in moving to a slot in a very similar situation.

By that logic everyone voting is, by definition, defending everyone they're not voting, yeah?
I'll agree it's "true" but also posit it's a pretty meaningless tell.
Is that the preference for Angel in a nutshell? Other people defended the slot by not voting the slot?

Also, you missed me asking you who you thought was the scum on the UC wagon.

[Thor665]

I'm excited to play with Thor especially after reading his interview with ffery!

At least my next answer will make a lot of sense to you;

what's your current read list, thor?

Who are you confused by my read on? I've clearly stated all my reads.
If I hadn't it's safe to presume null.

to be honest, i mostly skim on reundo vs thor walls..but i wanted to just put here what pinged me the post during my first read (i dont think i'll enjoy doing ISO reads for both thor and reundo..)

So, like here for example:

When it comes to "dodges" I don't need examples, I want em all.
I would think you would too...if I was fully convinced you were scumhunting me

context is, reundo is accusing thor of dodging questions..and gives one particular example..

thor's

partial

answer is as per above..

Fixed that for you.
Did you intentionally cut out me answering his 'for example' question?

Volxen feels better to me than CJ and Angel.

Can you briefly describe why? Nova has reasonably valid points on him, and though I think 'over defensive' is amongst the lamest tells in existence to change it to 'limited additional scumhunting' makes it feel pretty valid as an issue with the slot, no?

I use defend loosely, however you're doing that misleading/belittlement thing again. The parameters around wanting to lynch UC were also applicable to UC and Horror. Horror had one catchup with no original content so I guess that's enough to move him out of the pool?¿

If you keep having to admit you're maybe using words slightly out of context as your answer I'll admit to questioning your stance that I'm trying to mislead anyone by asking you to clarify what you meant.
Seriously - how can you say those two things at the same time?

So Angel became a better lynch option because multiple slots were guilty of the same things...eh, feels iffy. But your answer is enough on record I'm satisfied.

I think an angel lynch would do more bad than good right now. If we lynch angel and it flips town, we can't really analyze the wagon because all would be like "Hey lurker lynch. Heck yea".

If it flips scum, anyone could be scum with that slot, so that's tricky as well.

These are pointless concerns.

Also, you didn't address my question where I was concerned you were skimming. (which should be easy to spot because Reundo is convinced I wasn't addressing you and whined about it, so it was mentioned multiple times).
That you missed it makes me feel more confident I'm correct - why aren't you bothering to read the game? Seems like scum behavior as they don't need to analyze spit, yeah?

"Decent" doesn't really imply all that strong connotation imo. Like I said before, it was mostly made as just a side-remark, and me saying "decent partner synergy" can basically be paraprhased to "well, I can see a world in which they're scum together", which is all I basically meant by it. They were priority lynches, but then I realized that angel was probably a bad lynch and volxen's later posts didn't make him look all that towny.

Zip zap reverse of weak position when questioned, got it.

Well, I'm just saying that newbies in general tend to want to play town more than scum. I don't know about those newbies specifically, but in general it's been show that newbies replace out more than scum and town, and the more times it happens in a row like this the more likely it is that this is actually the case. One replacement is probably just a neutral tell, but how can you look at a slot that's replaced

three times

in a row and still not even have the slightest suspicion that there's something deeper behind the replace-outs?

I'm not willing to rule out the idea, nor do I care to follow it more than it deserves - didn't think I'd indicated it was a bad or good idea beyond questioning your reasoning and methodology.
Would you like to address my work in assessing your idea with investigation of the actual players in question, and answer if you did or didn't assess them before making the accusation?

Uh... volxen didn't

really

have an opinion on you at that time. The only time he engaged with you was during RVS and that

seemed

more like a disagreement than a scum-read

persay

, but otherwise he

seemed

much more concerned with how other players read you than actually reading you himself.

Distancing soft language is distancing and soft.
Is the issue that he didn't have a read, or that he didn't have a strong enough one?
Your earlier statement had me believing your issue was lack of a read.

You being "very polite" doesn't have any effect on my read.

Never said it should (please stop doing that to me, you and RCE both, it's tiring) - just found the disgusting comment and some of the language to imply a personal attack. if none was intended or desired then awesome!

I think this is kind of a standard concept as well, so I'm no seeing why you have an issue with this as well.

I'll agree it's a standard concept.
I'll suggest the standard concept is wrong.

and if you really still want the slot lynched you're going to actually have to read the newer replacement at some point, and the fact you haven't done so already is telling enough as it stands.

Yeah, it's almost as though I'm doing that though - it's not my lack of activity making it slow.

[snip]Pretty sure you're asking me to defend another made up point.

It's not what you're saying, it's what you're

doing

.

Uh huh.
Let's look at what I'm doing.
The slot is replaced.
I ask it a question.
You complain I'm not doing more (basically just disagreeing with the angle of my question).
The slot comes back and ducks my question.
Whoop dee doo?
At most your complaint is (again) that I scumhunt differently than you do.
I agree that I do.
I also suggest that is a bollocks case.

Also, I wasn't complaining that you weren't "directing enough time at me" -- it was more that I felt you were shifting the narrative in your favor with the posts you were responding to.

I agree that when I respond to your posts I shift the narrative in favor of my position?

[Thor665]

what's your current read list, thor?

Who are you confused by my read on? I've clearly stated all my reads.
If I hadn't it's safe to presume null.

it's easier to track if it's in one post..lemme try if i got it right from memory:
town: notnova
town lean: rce
null: all the rest not mentioned by name here
null/scum: reundo
scum: ceejay

You're overlooking that I called you a town lean.
But otherwise well done.

@Haylen - greetings, and I suppose welcome back.
Hell me lynch Ceejay?

[Thor665]

@thor: what's your case against ceejay?
i mean you had reasons for UC, but he's since been replaced..do you have anything against ceej that you could share with us?

Only the stuff I already said in my posts you're not reading and then making me waste my time repeating myself because your time is apparently more important.

I called him scum for skimming while not admitting he was skimming.
Incidentally, even though you've kind of admitted to skipping and skimming - it's still poor and anti-town play.
Or scum play.

[Thor665]

Additionally this following quote (addressed at CJ in your 288) came after CJ had already admitted to skimming in his 213 and there's no mention of your concerns over CJ's skimming in your iso before this point as far as I can tell (granted I'm relying on memory and ctrl+f)

but ceejay did admit to skimming as well? 213

Two points.

1. Ceejay admitted to skimming on his catchup - not on his ongoing reading which I have now shown he is likely doing.
2. He apparently wasn't certain that Reundo was scumreading me - feel free to tell me how, even on a skim, that's an appropriate uncertainty.

Does any of that strike you as town without being really bad town?
So he's either scum or town who doesn't care about winning. Why are we against this lynch again? Because votes fled away from this wagon.

Forgot to...VOTE: Notnova

Do you honestly see that wagon going anywhere today considering the stated reads?
Why are you sidelining your vote?

@xwing: My opinion of you has improved a fair bit in the last while. My scum lean is due to me still having issues with some of your play which I would like to hash out on D2 and see where everything goes.

I'll second xwing in wondering why the delay on this hashing.

[Thor665]

2+ days is plenty of time. I'm voting for scum not lurker lynch bait.

I agree it's enough time to get a wagon.
But considering your case and the presented reads on Nova I'm suggesting that you're wasting your vote and time.
Who do you see as the most likely player (outside maybe volxen...though even he seems to be townreading Nova to some degree) to back your play?

Ceejay is likely town imo

Why do you find Ceejay likely town?
That slot isn't doing anything pro-town unless I'm blind.

That said I'm busy this week btw but I'll post at least a few times a day

Awesome - will you bother reading anything before offering empty reads?

[Thor665]

What are your feelings on the sky/horror slot? Do you think this wagon is any more likely given the somewhat apathetic climate?

Gun to my head I would tend to lean the slot more town than scum, but I'd probably be willing to vote it near deadline to clarify the strength of that town lean.
I'd say you have vastly more chance of a Sky wagon than a Nova wagon.

who I've accused of active-lurking as opposed to just not being active

How do you find Ceejay's recent posting?

[Thor665]

Also, wasn't expecting to say this, but I miss Reundo.

[Thor665]

Ffs, Thor. What did you think I meant when I used the word "decent"

Having more evidence then no evidence.

if that's anything but a hard disagreement then maybe you need to work on your phrasing a little bit.

I can hard disagree with your conclusion without disagreeing with every concept you're using to draw that conclusion.
I've been very clear with my issue here - would you like to address the activity point I brought up?

This "soft language" baloney reads like an excuse to dodge the inital point I brought up.

It's a direct rebuttal.
He did have an opinion.
I agree it's not as strong as you apparently wanted.

When you did finally engage with ceejay, it felt like it was thrown into your wall as an afterthought

Considering my wall is in chronological order of the posts - why does it feel "thrown in as an afterthought" exactly?

what do you think of volxen's slot?

addendum: i know volxen's null for you, but care to share your thoughts as to why?

Because he's done little I would call either scummy or townish.

VOTE: Skygazer

Let's lynch this then.

Guys no time to respond atm. Will try later.

Also @Thor — can I ask you in advance for an IC-hat guide on Day 2 on how PRs should act? Thanks.

There are a lot of variables there.
I'd say the most important thing is, before claiming any info a PR should go and look at the matrix and ask themselves what other situations could create any information they think they have.
A second good strategy is that it is generally a good idea to not reveal anything for a bit of time just to see how people react to the lynch, the night kill, et al - give it time to percolate and *then* make any claims in order to see how people react.
If you decide not to claim info tomorrow (which is perfectly functional) but think the info might be useful later, it's always nice if you can try to leave some sort of clue to your info. Be careful with that though, as scum look for the clues too.

That scumteam is not outside the realm of possibilty considering that Thor appears to be creating a counterwagon on ceejayvinoya.

Can you describe the timeline of this "counterwagon" for me?
Pretty sure Volx is the counterwagon to Ceejay, not the other way around.

I'd like to know why people are unwilling to vote for skygazer?

Because you're not pushing the case with conviction or info, and are avoiding individual asks for group asks.

[Thor665]

I'm turned off by the Hay;en wagon being pushed by both Reundo and xwing at least in part on the rather unproven 'scum replace more often' point without either of them addressing my (I believe rather potent) rebuttal note that literally everyone who replaced out of that slot hasn't posted on site since (and functionally, not before either) which tends to suggest they didn't avoid the game to get a town game instead.

Ceejay isn't reading the game and I think CT's point about opportunistic voting is fairly valid.
I'm not likely to be around to flippity flop - but I don't think I want to.

I'll also note that everyone whining about wagon apathy as regards the Ceejay push is ignoring that Volx was the counter to CJ - meaning it is possible scum tried to swing off that wagon to a preferential one, and considering there's a reasonable chance the claim is legit that hardly weakens the value of Ceejay as a lynch option.

[Thor665]

Thor665

(4) - horrordude0215, Reundo, RCEnigma, xwing
NotNova (1) -

volxen

RCEnigma (1) -

Thor665

xwing (1) - NotNova

Not Voting (2) -

Haylen

, UC Voyager

Ceejay

(4) -

Thor665

, horrordude0215, xwing,

volxen

Thor665 (1) - Reundo
volxen (1) - NotNova

Not Voting (3) -

Haylen

, RCEnigma,

ceejayvinoya

volxen

(4) - NotNova,

ceejayvinoya

, xwing, Reundo
ceejayvinoya (2) -

Thor665

,

volxen

angel7399 (1) - RCEnigma

Not Voting (2) -

Haylen

, Skygazer

Haylen

(5) - Reundo, xwing, NotNova,

ceejayvinoya

, Skygazer
ceejayvinoya (2) -

Thor665

,

volxen

NotNova (1) -

Haylen

Not Voting (1) - CheekyTeeky

The above are for my own use because I like to see pretty colors and because I expect one to change soon

@Cheeky Teeky - pretty sure you asked about the impossible shift that I was claiming happened from Ceejay to Volxen, to answer your question it would be xwing as the swing vote and Ceejay as also suspect within the same concept. If it wasn't you then that's the answer to whoever was acting like Ceejay was the counterwagon to Volxen (which I know included xwing and I think Reundo made that claim also - both are objectively wrong).

I would like to hear the claims of both Power roles for their night target.

I think the claim ordr should be;

Ceejay
*then*
Volxen

If anyone disagrees please let me know why, but considering Ceejay was more likely to be blocked if he was town (and should have objectively the more suspect claim unless you're blind) he should claim result first.

@CT - why didn't you want his claim first, or at all? Just auto ignoring it due to theory block and not even wanting the info?

Also, just as an [IC hat] moment;

I'd like you all to consider how the lynch went down, and whether that played out in a pro or anti town way. Did you get as much time to discuss the claims as you'd like? Did it feel like town was stumbling around and scrambling a bit? Would it, perhaps, have behooved us to cut out a few semi-wasted days in the middle? I recognize that replacements and the extension comprised some of those days - but this is a good point to analyze so you can maybe get an idea of *when* it is good to get the first L-1 and claim of a day (and I will personally suggest it should be done at *least* a week before deadline, though will note many disagree with me...that said, they're wrong ) [/hat]

[Thor665]

i take back everything i said scum definitely must have no kill gambitted

Towny.

I read it as cheeky scum joking with us.

Having now read your theory explanation - did you consider the possibility that Sky is the Roleblocker - which would actually explain their behavior in a scum light very easily?

@Thor, I would like you to respond to the viability and likelihood of this whole no-kill gambit thing as both Thor the player and as the IC, if you don't mind.

That's a silly question since you're asking me a theory question and I have to answer that as the IC, and since I can't lie as IC if I'm scum my "player" answer is going to have to be the same unless I'm dumb, and if I'm town my "player" answer will be the same because I'm not lying.
So if you want "both" answers just pretend I wrote this twice;

In a purely competitive sense, the only time that no lynching is optimal scum play is if at least one (or both) of the PR claims are scum.
I find that unlikely - because everyone has posted and we haven't got any counterclaims.

That means we can know for an absolute fact that our Jailkeeper claim is town

For the record, if anyone out there has a PR claim that suggests the JKer is lying *NOW* is the time to make said claim. Any counter JKer claim after this day phase should be taken as a scum claim.

So, we now know for a fact the JKer is town.
That leaves us a question mark on the Doc, and a question mark on the target of the jail.

If the Doc is scum, optimal scum play was to kill the JKer and claim you were roleblocked.
If the Doc was town optimal scum play was to roleblock the Doc and kill the JKer.

So, the fact that no one died tells us for a fact that either scum didn't play optimally or that Skygazer is scum.

That gives us a 50/50 random for Sky to be scum, which makes him absolutely who we should lynch today because it's better odds than anyone else (this is predicated on a lack of counterclaim, natch).

This being a Newbie game I'm not fully willing to rule out the idea that scum played badly enough to no kill - I've seen that happen plenty.
But I don't see any value in leaving Sky alive based on that fear, as his slot has not otherwise been particularly townish.

Does that answer your question?

Okay wait, so if both claims are true and we are in fact in setup A2... then shouldn't the optimal scum play be to roleblock volxen and kill ceejay? I'm pretty sure scum!sky would've realized this as well and not put herself into this predicament, and it seems far too risky for scum to no-kill with both PRs outed. Either scum clearly didn't think this through or we aren't actually in a setup with a roleblocker. I mean, that would still probably mean Sky's scum unless scum intentionally no nked, which seems to be quite a lot of risk to take for a single mislynch, but that would also introduce the possibility of a Sky/ceejay team. I can't really wrap my head around both PRs being alive D2. Nothing's really adding up for me. I was initially going to vote Skygazer, but the more I look at the game the more mind boggling it becomes. I'm probably still fine with voting Skygazer since a lot of the scenarios running through my mind end up directing back to her being scum, but when I'm less tired I'm going to try to make more sense out of all of this.

Where is the current situation losing you?
You feel very lost from what I would expect, even though you very aggressively tossed out a vote while claiming so much confusion.

[Thor665]

I really just can't see a world where scum rb'ing doc and killing JK could possibly be better than scum rb'ing JK and killing doc or just scum no-killing outright.

No killing doesn't really benefit scum wincon in this situation unless your argument is that netting a Star mislynch is super helpful to them and they're planning to keep no killing in order to allow town to keep lynching suspect slots that are Jailed. If scum wants to do that I'm, personally, quite content with their play - why do you see this as optimal for them?
The point of killing JKer over Doc is that the JKer can be confirmed as town, whereas the Doc cannot - therefore 100% they can't get a JKer mislynch, but they could theoretically get a Doc mislynch. Ergo, you kill confirmed town.
I suppose I could see an argument of playing the long game as "safer" in exchange for confirming the Doc to town, I don't agree with it being optimal, but I can see the argument.

Just the fact that I can't see scum not rb'ing JK if we're in A2 or scum just no-killing in general in any setup. I mean, it's always possible scum is acting not optimally, but it seems like a silly mistake to make if my reasoning is correct.

So let's take that down the road - your theory argument is that the JKer is scum?
Wouldn't that require there to be someone who could counterclaim the JKer?
Where is this person?

If we accept JKer as town (which all evidence 100% supports barring a counterclaim, then you know scum didn't RB them - work forward from that point, yeah?

"Very aggressively tossed out a vote"??? What, do you think all votes are aggressive or something?

No, I don't.
But you casting one while claiming confusion and a need to re-read/re-analyze seems strange.

I don't really want to wallow around this phase not-voting,

Why not?

[Thor665]

If Thor's reasoning about optimal night-kills is correct and there's no CC today, either Sky is scum or UC is scum and we're in a no-doc setup.

It is possible for both Sky and UC to be town - all that would require is scum no killing.
Just because I have strong opinions of optimal scum play doesn't mean scum does them (just like town not doing proper town play all the time in my opinion).
The only thing we really "know" (and there's a reason even that is requiring town to play properly) is the JKer is town, assuredly.
Also, with the claims and the results, I support strongly the idea of a Star lynch because he's likely scum. If he flips roleblocker than we have two confirmed town, if he flips Goon we're still in a debate.

Is there any reason for Tracker/Doc not to CC in this situation? I can't wrap my head around why they would, so someone please enlighten me if there really is a reason.

None that I can think of.

and still isn't known tbh

It is, though. Basically without a doubt he's a JKer unless you see something I'm missing?

You're going to be lynched today barring really amazing town play or a new claim coming to light.
Do you have any final thoughts for us?
Who are your top scumspects?

It would be a bit weird for scum!sky to give herself no outs at all since she'd know she'd be the JK target once volxen claimed his save (unless she tried to kill volxen but somehow didn't roleblock ceejay, which doesn't make any sense at all), but then again the fact she was the one pushing the "lynch the JK target no matter what" angle the hardest and she just so happened to be the JK target as well is too coincidental for my tastes.

Theory situation;

Scum Sky is the roleblocker.
He targets the Doc.
His partner goes for the kill on the JKer.
No kill happens.
If I was Sky, I'd play the day about like they did - preparing to help lynch my buddy to look town.


Why do you find that scenario so unlikely and feel that Sky's play suggests town alignment?

@Ceejay

- regardless of Sky's lynch, your only job is to protect Volxen. If we come into tomorrow and you're claiming to have not protected him I'll take it as a scum claim from you. Feel free to present any argument as to why you should protect someone other than the confirmed town PR and I'll politely listen, tell you you're wrong, and insist on this plan again

@Volxen

- I'd like you to claim a target on the chance Stargazer flips Mafia Goon. If he flips town or Mafia Roleblocker you can target whomever you like, but if he flips Goon there is a chance you can die but your target can be confirmed as town. Feel free to change your mind as the day goes on - but whoever you posted last as who you'd protect in that situation needs to hold so town knows who their next confirmed town player is. Hope that makes sense to you, if not ask and I'll clarify (but name a target anyway, town is being oddly aggressive with voting right now)

[Thor665]

Anyone who votes Sky before people get on board with the night action plan are either playing poorly or are scum.

[Thor665]

I agree that CT is pretty objectively town.
I don't dislike the theory that Horror wouldn't bus like he did on CJ, but frankly CJ isn't being lynched tomorrow anyway barring claiming a protect on other than Volxen so it is relatively a meaningless realization for me.
I dodn't think Reundo makes a lot of sense as a scumpartner unless Sky does flip roleblocker - at that stage Reundo is in the running for me because of him being very mindful to put Sky on L-1 to help the self hammer.

[Thor665]

Anyone who votes Sky before people get on board with the night action plan are either playing poorly or are scum.

wanna take a wild guess at which one i am?

I should also probably say you played this right, so good work for your teammate.
Your're kind of being caught out by a slow mod though

[Thor665]

I'd like to hear who was jailed.

@Mod - I am a HUGE ice cream pick fan

[Thor665]

Thor665

(4) -

horrordude0215

, Reundo, RCEnigma, xwing

NotNova

(1) -

volxen

RCEnigma (1) -

Thor665

xwing (1) -

NotNova

Not Voting (2) -

Haylen

,

Ceejay

Ceejay

(4) -

Thor665

,

horrordude0215

, xwing,

volxen

Thor665

(1) - Reundo

volxen

(1) -

NotNova

Not Voting (3) -

Haylen

, RCEnigma,

ceejayvinoya

volxen

(4) - NotNova,

ceejayvinoya

, xwing, Reundo

ceejayvinoya

(2) -

Thor665

,

volxen

angel7399

(1) - RCEnigma

Not Voting (2) -

Haylen

,

Skygazer

Haylen

(5) - Reundo, xwing, NotNova,

ceejayvinoya

,

Skygazer

ceejayvinoya

(2) -

Thor665

,

volxen

NotNova

(1) -

Haylen

Not Voting (1) - CheekyTeeky

Skygazer

(5) -

volxen

,

NotNova

,

ceejayvinoya

, Reundo,

Skygazer

Ceejay

(2) - CheekyTeeky, xwing

Not Voting (1)-

Thor665

[Thor665]

Reundo really feels like a logistically likely to me scum due to wagon positioning across the board.
Xwing and Ceejay are also suspect.

Not feeling totally confident on Reundo due to thinking he's just a prickly sort who let himself play b;ind this game - maybe I'm wrong and my initial scumread is accurate, but that's where I'm at with that slot.
Still kind of like the logic clearing Ceejay due to the Horror bus - and in any case, as long as scum wants to play the "theory roleblock" game I'm content to play that.

Pretty much want to flip xwing today unless he was jailed in which case we can "theory" clear him for endgame with Ceejay. (if people are confused by this please ask and I'll walk through it on the presumption I'm dead prior to endgame). If xwing was jailed I'd say it's a debate between RCE and Reundo, I'd probably opt to flip Reundo since I feel less confident there.

[Thor665]

if we're in setup A where we have mafia RB, jailing RB!xwing doesn't mean anything coz i can simply block volxen and still do a night kill..

Correct.

if we're on setup C im virtually cleared, and i will lynch ceej..prob is we dont know which setup we are in.

Also correct.

how many times can town afford a mislynch at this stage, assuming nightly kills?

Twice as well as being able to no lynch repeatedly to force an additional kill if desired.

To clarify your questioning of which setup we're in - currently we sort need to play like we're in both of them. I'll admit my own personal money is actually on Ceejay being scum, but I'm also not daft enough as to want to gamble on that. However, since, if Ceejay is scum, he can't also be a roleblocker - the best he can hope for is to get to a final three players with confirmed town Volxen and will then be obligated to cross vote with the other person. 50% win chance at best and worst with that fear is okay by me (though, sorry if you have to go there Volx).

Why am I "unreadable"?
That sounds like a bollocks excuse to call me worthy of lynching without offering a reason, yeah?

[Thor665]

To clarify the "twice" that's actually total number of lynches we have, rather than total number of mislynches.

[Thor665]

There's probably also some value in debating why Star was the one submitting a kill on Night 1.
Though I'm suspicions my own conclusions will just make me want to lynch Ceejay more again.

[Thor665]

Notnova kill also makes sense from a Ceejay scum perspective.
Really, like I was saying since Day 1 - Ceejay is a good lynch.
That said, being a Doc claim I think catapults him till lylo for me because, hey, as much as I'm convinced I'm pure brilliance I have been wrong...occasionally

[Thor665]

I think we need to get to the bottom of why both PRs are alive today. We need to lynch CJ.

If there's a scum roleblocker - why would he care if both PRs are alive or not?

[Thor665]

Like why leave Volxen as conf town?? In what world does that help.

Leaving Volxen alive leaves Ceejay alive as a scumspect, then they could come into the game day, claim it's scummy PRs are alive, and get town to lynch the Doc for lulz, meanwhile he does shoot Nova who is generally the most townread player in the game.
You see that as a 0% chance of happening?

[Thor665]

@thor: by unreadable i mean i cant decide whether you're town or not..right now i'm more inclined to believe you're town..

So by unreadable you meant 'no read'?
That's not what unreadable means.

[Thor665]

whenever you're in a word-war with reundo, i tend to favor him and see you scummy..

That frustrates me because at least 25% of what he's accussing me of I've got him to agree he potentially read wrong (I'd personally call it 50% but I'm probably biased). So during our word wars I have to be direct winning around 1/4 of the time and I still look scummier?
Why?

i see it as a possibility but like I said I'm not leaving it until lylo to figure out.

What do you see as the advantage to sorting it earlier rather than later?
My argument for later is we still potentially have other scumspects that we'd want to flip also, and could do so now while leaving town in a better potential PR setup.
What's your argument for your way?

Why do you think xwing is cleared? If xwing is scum and Ceejay is doctor, the only person xwing could

NOT

kill was myself, because I jailed him, he roleblocked either myself or Ceejay, and Ceejay protected me. He could have killed Ceejay or anyone else except for me.

I never called him clear.
I called him "clear".

Of course I'm prickly for scum-reading you.

Maybe? You are coming off as kind of rude and mindlessly aggressive to me. By the time your case is based on random theories of how to play where the reverse is barely scummy in RVS and assuredly not scummy in relation to...like, the flipped scum or any of my actual play or actions it starts to feel personal. I think you're kind of like me where you like to be "right" and "win" in the debates - the problem is you're playing narf to do so.

I'm calling that prickly.

Also, what the hell happened between these two posts?

Looking again at the VCA your name was just too often in slots that feel likely to benefit scum. I had a hard time ignoring that and also have a better town feel on RCE than you.

and if we are going to lynch him it's better to do it now than later.

Why do you think this?

[Thor665]

volxen (4) - NotNova, ceejayvinoya, xwing, Reundo
ceejayvinoya (2) - Thor665, volxen
angel7399 (1) - RCEnigma

Not Voting (2) - Haylen, Skygazer

@Reundo - this is the big vote count that's bugging me.
Since we know for a fact that Volx is scum I would be beyond amazed if zero scum were willing to vote for him right here.
Nova was town.
That leaves RCE, Ceejay, and yourself - I'd wager $20 our last scum is one of you three.
RCE kinda feels town, Ceejay feels scum but has a claim on the table, that leaves you - ergo you become a top lynch option for me today.

[Thor665]

Volx is town*

[Thor665]

Yes, meant xwing - I was clearly even more daft than normal at that hour

[Thor665]

@Cheeky - is that an admission that you don't have an answer to my question of why we need to lynch Ceejay today?

[Thor665]

@Mod - I'mma do my bachelor party today. So I think I'm going to post tomorrow just fine, albeit maybe late, but then again maybe I won't, so little V/LA just in case

[Thor665]

You've dodged my questions repeatedly even after you claimed you weren't question dodging

That's iffy as a claim.
I invited you to point out what I dodged.
I answered it again when you pointed out one thing.
You keep whining that I'm dodging - while ignoring that the offer still stands and that I've asked you to re-ask anything you think I've dodged.
The issue is what you're calling a "dodge' is basically you just disagreeing with my answer. Which isn't dodging.

and all of your accusations against me are flimsy and not understandable at all. The only decent points you made against me were that I was "tunneling" and "town-read a lot of active players", which I don't necessarily view as scummy but I could see why you'd think that way. Everything else is laughable

The VCA is also an issue, and that means I at least have a few non-flimsy points against you so I don't get this complaint.

There's nothing you've done that I can't realistically see you doing as scum, and the interactions between you and Sky don't rule out the possibility of you being scum either. I've already told you my case against you isn't personal, and I don't know why you're trying to bring it back up again.

I'm bringing it back up again because the case is massively predicated on your opinion of what I'd do as town and the statement you just made that "there's nothing you've done I can't see you doing as scum"
Whoop de doo - that could be said about everyone in the game - it's empty.

If ceejay makes it to LyLo he's probably going to be lynched regardless of what happens. Granted, lynching ceejay now if he's the real doctor means we'd almost definitely lose volxen tonight, so maybe's that not as good as I thought. I'd rather have him lynched over any of my town-reads regardless of the claim. If we are in a role-blocker setup, then volxen's rb isn't going to do anything either, and ceejay's heal will be worthless as well. That still means we probably won't have a confirmed town in Lylo, which yes, is pretty bad, but if the lynch is 9 times out of 10 going to be ceejay anyways then it doesn't really matter who else is in Lylo.

So...you agree with me that it's not great to lynch Ceejay now or you disagree?
I feel like you're kind of saying both - are you neutral on it?

Trying to town-clear people off a single wagon is pretty rash, and the fact it also makes you look good in the process is all the more suspicious.

I highlighted the one wagon, but the info applies across all of them if you look at the bigger picture also.
I agree that the VCA doesn't make me look like scum and that you then decide that's a scumtell on me

The point volxen made about xwing being unable to kill the role-blocker is valid, and scum!xwing would also make sense in the context of the D2 kill, but otherwise their play doesn't make much sense from scum.

Why not?

The aggressive placement of me at L-1 Day 1 and then the weak excuse offered is easily a scum play.
The constant appeasement is easily scum play.
The going with the flow votes are easily scum play.

Why do you not see it as making sense as scum play?

[Thor665]

@ceej: what do you think of reundo, thor and CT? who among the 3 is likely scum?

pedit: @volxen: ask the same of thor on his case against reundo..go with both sides..and dont leave out CT just to be sure..i mean we both agree she's strong town but i wanna hear her thoughts as well..

viewtopic.php?p=10466472#p10466472
And the stuff Reundo mentioned here in his first paragraph;
viewtopic.php?p=10468141#p10468141

[Thor665]

Ceejay was basically doomed to lose the moment he claimed and his partner was caught.

Probably would have benefited them to have Ceejay perform the kill on Nova not Sky - that way at least if he was jailed he could have tried to argue the lack of the kill was due to him being the target. I think trying to kill Nova prior to Volx was a reasonable idea - they just lost track of which scum was never going to make it past lylo.

Pretty solid game all around, I think a lot of town played *really* strongly. Look forward to seeing you all catch more games.

If you'd like me to offer more specific feedback on your play this game feel free to ask and I'll do so.
I can also offer any insights you'd like on my play, or any lingering playstyle/game theory questions you may have - my IC duties don't end with the game

[Thor665]

That's correct, I thought CJ was much more likely to be jailkept than myself. Whoops :p

Yeah, but I would suggest it doesn't matter as you could at least argue that scum had shot at Ceejay (we still might have lynched him if he'd been jailed regardless, but by the time you're claiming a PR you're pretty much a dead scum slot anyways).
Conversely, you were moderately under the radar and at the very least were 100% more likely to be allowed to live through lylo than Ceejay's slot would have been, making you the more valuable scum to protect long term.

Make sense?

@thor: sorry for my early attitude towards you..dunno but i really felt really annoyed/exasperated at your slot early on.. :-s
i had a lot of questions during the game, i should have listed it down! i'll just jot down some that i remember..if you would be so kind..

1. why were you so adamant of not lynching claimed doc until lylo for this specific game, given the very suspicious nature of it?
2. near the end of D1, we were having trouble deciding who to lynch but universally didn't want to no-lynch..as town who is holding the swing vote, what's the play to make?
3. how do you ask the "right" questions as town? conversely, what do you use as a guide to call someone town or not? i notice you dont give these out hastily/easily..

No worries, I get that reaction from people semi-regularly when not in live or voice play situations. I think there's something about my way of phrasing things that comes across charming when you hear me but a bit dickish just in text format. I keep tossing in smilies, but it's still a struggle I am aware is on my end sometimes

1. Because even though I understood (and had scumread the slot since fairly early) how scummy the slot was, there was still a potential chance the slot was town, and I prefer to play the odds - so therefore taking a stab at the VT pool by figuring out who there was the most scummy remaining and lynching that slot today was no different than doing so after lynching Ceejay - unless Ceejay was indeed town, in which case it was massively more pro-town to do it first.

2. Well...I'd say the core answer is "sort that gak out WAY before deadline (like a certain sexy IC might have suggested). That said, as I've mentioned, most people on this site for some gawdawful reason disagree with that and consider my strategy not optimal (they remain wrong) and you will often end up in a lynch or derp situation. If you, as town, are in this situation I would tend to suggest the following;

a) Come up with your own personal list of "won't lynch" (at the very least it will contain you). Announce this info as the game approaches derp fail territory.
b) Look at the other available wagons and how large they are - if you're on the largest, hold still and try to convince people to join you.
c) If you're tied for largest and are okay with the idea of lynching the other equally large target - move immediately and make that the largest wagon.
d) If all else fails, be comfortable with the idea of lynching anything you don't town read - a flip can be good info and it's FAR better to lynch a null read Day 1 than to not lynch anyone in most setups.
e) I personally suggest never voting a town read, even if it means a no lynch - not everyone agrees with me (and there are some valid reasons to argue the opposite stance, I just find them lackluster) but I do think that town who votes someone they think is town is inherently playing poorly no matter what, and it screws with VCA and is the sort of derp thing scum would want to do, therefore town should never do it. Draw your own conclusions as you get more experience.

3. The "right" question is anything that will help you sort someone. It can be a lot of work to even begin to get a good feel for what is right and what is not. I, personally, don't think there is such a thing as a right or wrong question, only a right or wrong answer - so I'll ask anything (I tend to favor questions towards motivation and intent though - as I personally think that's where the most accurate scumtells lie) Sometimes it works great (I got to see RCE and Haylen as fairly townish easily) sometimes it's less brilliant (I was not happy with my sorting on the Reundo slot) but i do seem to generally be more accurate than random guessing would be, so that's a win for me. I suggest it is basically never a bad idea to ask someone why they did something - then try to look for holes in the logic they use and ask them about that. Then just gauge if the narrative feels legit - a lot of scum players have trouble sorting their personal narratives.

I am actually often accussed of giving out town reads too easily so maybe it was just this game. In any case - what makes me call someone town (something I do find generally easier and more accurate than calling someone scum) is to look for legit game solving/helping behavior. Stuff like when CT was being insistent on getting the JKer to establish a target on a roleblocker flip. That's a legit pro town move (now, scum might have been faking it knowing that the flip was going to be town, but if a given slot racks up enough pro-town plays it starts to make me feel really happy with them).

To (as usual) abuse Reundo more note my interactions with him versus a slot I townread, like CT or NotNova. I was citing Reundo as tunneling (he legit just wasn't paying attention to anyone or anything besides me for a questionable length of time, and literally everything I did was a scumtell, and every bit of new info from anyone's flip just fed into the case on me - no evidence ever changed the core position) I noted and poked at that because I saw it as potential scum play, and not particularly pro town. Compare that with CT, who tended to bang against everyone, and was willing to flip all of her reads on their head the very instant she got new info. She would make a strong statement, then find a new thing and reverse half her reads - now, as always, yes, scum can fake this stuff (heaven knows I like to believe I can as scum) but it does tend to be the sort of evidence that, as more of it mounts, you can get your town vibes narrowed in.

One of the best things town did this game, was not actually being that accurate in pegging scum (I got Ceejay, but support there was slow and haphazard) Volx pegged Star, but if he hadn't jailed him how functional could he have argued it. Ect. ect. ect. But, across the board, though some town (like take me and Reundo on each other) had boggles with town, on the whole town did a great job in identifying other town players and, more or less, cooperating with them (as an example, look at you and RCE and Reundo Day 1, or CT and myself Day 2, or basically everyone with Nova - who may have had the best personal reads of the entire game). That was really what was murdering scum - they didn't get into a town looking position and were being singled out.

[Thor665]

I kind of was starting to feel a little bit of doubt about you being scum, but I didn't want to say anything too early as I didn't want you to get too comfortable and think that you were out of the woods.

I also, CT was making a areally excellent town xwing case.

I probably would have argued to kill Reundo and then Ceejay though

[Thor665]

Woosh, post game finish wall incoming (or maybe to be nicer?)

Thor I think newer players tend to be more suspicious of ICs being scum. His tunnel on you could be construed as scummy but if you'd stepped back from his tunnel his thought processes were very townie particularly in the beginning of his ISO. No way scum can verbalise and be flexible in an argument like he was in your guys thunderdome.

The thing was, if you look at my play, I actually had him nullish to townish more earlier - what started killing him for me was the blind continuance the more days it went - and I have to say I think that's a pretty valid tell as it has worked out well for me in the past. I don't mind a tunnel per se', I tunnel a bit myself, but there is a point where the tunnel starts to lack other options and also to consider everything evidence for the tunnel - and that's a valid point to start lynching the slot methinks.

@anyone who knows:theoretically, let's say ceej kills you, and you jail me..does the jail ability still work? or does the kill take precedence?

It is generally good to double check with the mod (especially as the game mechanics become more and more complicated) but most games on site use NAR;
https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?ti ... Resolution
In your above example, you would be roleblocked by the jail and the JKer would die from the scum kill.

The only problem is, and I have to work on this myself, when you run into a scum roll and you have to figure out how to replicate that and still get town where you want it.

My general guiding advice and thought as scum is the following "town is really good at making bad choices".
What I mean by that is, for example, I consider myself a "good" town player, and lots of people agree with that assessment (man disagree, but let's ignore them for this example ) That said, I consider myself to be doing well if I do slightly better than random chance in my guesses, which means I'd consider anything <33% to be "good" ability to spot scum. That's actually not that impressive of a ratio, it means I would still mislynch like 2 times out of 3. As scum I really think the best core play is "play like your town self with an awareness you'd probably pick wrong, then murder the most pro town player at night". People often praise my scum game, so I think I'm on to something - feel free to crib note from my amazing system

@thor: im feeling shy but if you've got time to offer individual advice/comments, i'll take you up on your offer..

I think you were a mix of good and bad things.
As far as your reads, I'd like to note that you should actually feel pretty decent - you did a solid job of correctly identifying a handful of town and clearly stating this, then working to somewhat coordinate with those town reads. This is excellent play and was really well done.

You did keep grazing into scum tell territory for a number of people, and I think it came out of two core behaviors, I'll describe them and maybe you'll be able to catch something that will help you improve;

1. I called it your "appeasement" and the way I'd describe it is you would tend to say something like "X is scum" and someone would challenge your call and you'd sort of instantly switch to "yeah, X is town". Now, in a positive light, this was showing your ability to reassess, and cooperate with your town reads. But it also started to look like you would say anything to agree with those slots. My thought is either
a) you should be more comfortable with your own reads even if one of your town reads disagrees - after all, if your town read is good it's based on your own skills, so maybe your scum read is also good, yeah?
b) Learn to phrase your thoughts different. If you're legit not sure if X is scum don't say "X is scum" say "I'm thinking X is scum for these reasons, Y what are your thoughts on this case?"
I think either/both shifts would make you look a little less appeasing.

2. You commented early that you didn't want to blend in. I think you tried not to - the probelm was you were doing things intentionally not to blend in rather than because you believed in them. This makes your behavior come across as fake, which consequently makes it look like you're lying, which makes you look like scum. Now, I'll agree, "blending in" is something I agree is not pro-town. But that said, you don't need to go goofy to avoid it. All it takes to avoid blending in is to be able and willing to state your reads clearly. If you post at least once a day with a post that looks like this;
"I didn't like Post 126, Player X looks scummy in it because of these reasons - what do you think about that Player Y?

As stated in my last post I still think Player Y and Z are town.
X is now a scum lean.
I'm still happy with my vote on Player A and would move to Player B for deadline or Player X if people like my case."

That is a post that will never be called out as appeasing or blending in, and it's so easy to do that it still pains me that people manage to not do it (incidentally that is also a superlative scum style posting because you'll look hyper pro town and can avoid giving info if you're clever because town will start to feel you're already giving more info than you really are).

Hope at least some of that is helpful.
Naturally, at the end of the day, the real best advice is "play more"

@Thor, what gave you such a strong townspew feeling from our "buddying" exchange? I've wanted you to elaborate on that ever since you out and told me "you can be town for today"

To try to parse it down to a simple answer (the real simple answer would be 'gut' but I know it will be helpful to give you more than that );

You were coming across as generically townish because you were looking for info, weighing in on multiple things and players, and generally seeming like you were trying to solve the game. My one boggle with you was the buddying I felt - so I attacked you over it to see how you'd react. Your initial reply wasn't bad, but also could have been a deflection so I kept up the pressure (to a certain extent I think it's healthy to attack even a slot I'm soft town reading to just test the soft read, and also it can give more info in general) Your reply was an excellent job of self analysis and honesty - you looked at what you were doing and admitted you could see where I was coming from, you did your best to clarify your reasons, and even admitted potential errors, but stuck by your core concept after the clarification.

This is like a lovely trifecta of town tells;
You didn't attack me over something when it was clear that I had a reason for my attack on you.
You attempted to provide me more info into your thought process and freely gave as much info as you could, none of which sounded suspect (and some of which supported my point, which is a rare thing for scum to be willing to admit)
You then reworked your stance and justified your core belief and kept trucking forward.

It was just a good town style reaction at that point, and those are the things that pinged it for me.

Also, why did some of you get the feeling I was experienced? I think both RCE and Haylen said something to that effect and it's a little puzzling to me. I come from a mafia-background of heavy focus on nightplay, I didn't think daytime discussions in a low-info state would be my forte at all. I guess I can take it as a good thing, I might be on the right track as a player

Can't speak for others, but my personal impression of it was that you were just very comfortable with the lingo and terms of the game - that's what I figured they were picking up on.

Definitely want to stay around on this site, the emotional rollecoaster during the game was exciting - even the uncomfortable/nervous parts really made for a complete mafia experience. If anyone has any feedback for me, by all means, I'm all ears! Impressions, commentary, criticism, I'll take everything I can get

Overall you clearly played the game well - you were a VT who got a strong pile of people to correctly read you as town, and drew a scum kill. That's basically "how to play VT" in a nutshell right there.

I don't have a lot of good criticism for you off this performance because, at the heart of it, you did such a good VT performance. Probably in a general sense moving forward I'd suggest the biggest "hole" in your game was that, despite how town read you were, you seemed to have some issues pushing through a lynch of your choosing. Now, maybe you don't like to play that aggressive (I do, so tend to look at things from that angle) but you may want to work on trying to sound a little more confident once you settle on who you'd like to see strung up, and also being a bit more engaging to get people to pay attention to your lynch of preference. This sort of stuff will develop better over time, natch.

for thor, you were good both as an IC and as a player..i really appreciate your style of helping newer players without spoon feeding them directly and letting them think for themselves..i didnt get it at first and was seriously annoyed/exasperated coz i felt like you were deflecting using sarcasm/word play/rhetorics/playing to win the argument..you know with the oily fish and wimp stuff and wink face and all..but after cooling down a bit then re-reading, i felt the genuine desire to help us improve our play..especially when you called me out for not reading properly..and i think it's a good thing to be exposed to your kind of play style as not everyone is gonna play the way you want or expect them too..i refrained from thanking you in game coz it might be seen as buddying, but i really appreciated it.. but seriously though, give the newbies a little bit more slack, i seriously considered quitting the game and all you know!! and for unsolicited advice, try to use this --> (smiley, happy, friendly, makes heavy statements a bit lighter) and not this --> (sarcastic, cheeky, a bit condescending..makes heavy statements heavier or more sarcastic, especially with your style of writing) hahaha!!

Aw, thank you very much
That's an interesting thought with the smilies - the winky face is a wink though, isn't that friendly? I always thought winky face was supposed to mean 'the preceding is a joke'. Maybe I'll try to shift to , it might be interesting to see if that makes a change.

I don't give slack insomuch as I do want to get the Newbies into the mindset of understanding that the game isn't about being spoon fed, I think that's important for them to understand that most questions about theory should properly be answered with a question or an either/or. Let's hope a smilie change is enough to count as slack

Noted on the stubborness, I think I should have stepped back a bit earlier and reassess my read more readily. CT does it pretty well, I'd find it hard to just drop something on a dime in general — maybe I'm just an opinionated sort of person, after all! I'll try to work in it for sure.

It's very hard - I'm a lot like you, I don't like to think I'm wrong and that my process will get me to the right place. But I assure you, one of the most important things to be able to master in this game is some of CT's attitude towards reads. You can turn on a silver dollar instead of a dime if needed, but being able and willing to reassess is super valuable.

(until you get mind screwed because you'll catch a scum and then reassess them into a solid town read and whiff a game - then the real fun paranoia of this game will set in )

BTW you said you play cams, do you follow the dailymafia streams of play in Ryuzillas games at all? I started playing mafia through cams stumbling across a Pope stream by accident.

I don't, but that sounds like something I should consider looking into as my job often hands me rather open days.
I do like playing live and on cams - I think it hurts my skills at spotting scum, but it seems to increase my skill at being town read, so it's a bit of a sideways wash (or )

[Thor665]

@NotNova - I do think you went in too hard on Volxen, though I think you should have gone in hard on Volxen.
To clarify that, I see what you did as generally similar to my early Ceejay push at about the same time in the game - with the townreads being offered it was clear the actives were not functional lynches, and also it was hardly a stretch to expect at least one scum to be a lurksack. So attacking the inactives and forcing interactions was straight up good. As I hink I also said a few times, if you're going to pressure and not mean it - you're obligated to pretend like you mean it if you want to actually exert pressure.

I think the "error" you fell into was probably around 214-230 (I think I even poked at you somewhere in there because I thought you were looking questionable) there was a point where Volxen came out with a fairly reasonable question "why me amongst the lurkers" and you sort of turned that question into a scumtell on him. For that period I do think you were being a little tunneled. The nice thing is though you probably lost a lot of time there, you did crawl back later on and not stay tunneled to an unhealthy degree.

So I think your entrance was fine, and your focus was fine, and your ending was fine - but probably somewhere in the middle you let yourself get a little too excited about tells that probably were of iffy value.

I think the only way to battle a tunnel is to keep asking yourself to reevaluate your own thoughts (basically my personal rule of thumb is if every thing the person posts I argue is a scumtell - then I'm probably being daft and need to chill for a bit). This can be hard to do, and sometimes it can end up being bad to do. But it's my current best advice.

I do think your core read was justified - though it was also thin. The only danger was in potentially forgetting how thin the tell was.

@Volxen - you were a magical bird who actually improved their gameplay as you became more confirmed town (so many players go the opposite direction, and it is very offputting for me). I would say that you have a lovely chance to look at your play Day 1 and Day 3 and recognize that one is shining town and the other is pretty weaksauce. I think, really, what it mostly boiled down to was your early lurk - lurk can be very anti-town and it is especially so when you have a lot of town reading others as town early. That's what put you in the hot seat like it did, if you'd been more active I think you would have also probably been a town read because generally people *liked* your early posting, it was only the gap that made them squint.

So my big advice is my ol' "post once a day" advice. If you can come in once a day and say something you liked, something you didn't like, and ask one question you will provide a lot of info for relatively minor effort. I think that is always more pleasing than a dodge (I've even done stuff where I post a single post even 100 posts back as I'm catching up and had it work to keep me town read - effort is tech).

Other than that I think you played an excellent game.

[Thor665]

<3 Haylen

[Thor665]

So I guess my question is, is busing (or at least making a serious effort to bus) on day 1 actually somewhat common in newbie games? It didn't happen in my first two newbie games, which is why I think it threw me off a bit here and led me to giving some town points to Ceejay that he didn't really deserve.

I would say that largely depends on the playstyle of the player in question.