[Game Over] Newbie 1900 - Robocalypse

[volxen]

VOTE: white candy

We meet again, white candy. I hope you are town this time, unlike our last game together!

[volxen]

I had always been bothered by the rumours that a few early M.A.F.I.A prototypes had been released into the populace. Word was that it was *very* hard to distinguish them from a normal human -- an ever so slight thirst to annihilate the rest and conquer. Maybe the manufacturers changed that for the robots they released? No one knows.

One thing always bothered me, though. What if I was one of them? What if I wasn't born a simple, free, human; but a bloodthirsty robot who lacked any true identity? This single thought had always taken a backseat in my mind. It increasingly began to have a greater effect on my daily life, leading to an eventual obsession. I could not invest my energies in anything else, and lost everything I had.

When I was offered a chance to 'volunteer' for the experiment, I was told that I would know my identity -- whether I was human, or a bot --- before the experiment started. Apparently RandomAccess, one of the volunteers, had failed to read his instruction card (a malfunctioning robot or an unwilling human, there was no point keeping him) and I replaced him instead.

Miss Star repeated the instructions for me, and guided me to the glass room. I saw that most others had taken their cards from the tesseract table, and proceeded to take my own and read it.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I finally knew what I was. Or to be more precise, who I am.
And then it hit me that if I did not find out which ones were the M.A.F.I.A, I'd... probably die anyway.

I had a good, hard look around the room. I recognized a few of the volunteers - Lamees, Volxen, and Not_Mafia, from before. Volxen's avatar looked like what they called a "Transformer" to me. A sentient robot. It seemed obvious what my starting point should be.

VOTE: Volxen

The tone of this post is fairly robotic. Seems more likely to come from robot!Auro than human!Auro.

VOTE: Auro

[volxen]

Now, you might be wondering as a reader - When did I write all of this?
Truth is, I'm writing this long after the experiment was conducted. I'm not allowed to talk about what happens after my part in the experiment. Obviously I already know how the experiment ended, but there's no fun in spoiling it for you, is it?

Anyway, back to the experiment. The transformer had voted me minutes after I noticed the oddness about him, on a tonal judgment; I later learned this might have been a possible "OMGUS" of sorts. This behaviour usually came more from robots than humans, or so I heard. Maybe my gut feeling was right. Maybe. However, I wanted to question him on it further, and said:

Volxen, what makes the flavor tone more likely to come from robot!Auro?
Is it a pure, isolated tonal judgment you're making, or are you comparing it with my previous scumgame?
Motivation-wise, do you see anything that makes it more likely scummy?

I'm not certain of your alignment yet, but sorting your slot is one of my top priorities in this game. You had an incredibly good scum game in Newbie 1893, even though it was your very first game on site, so if you are scum again this game, I would rather find that out sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, in that game I was distracted by all of the people falsely accusing me of being scum (i.e., BB, Egix, Trendall, etc.), to the point where I didn't evaluate your slot as critically as I should have. For example, I found your reason for voting for me on day one in that game to be incredibly reachy/sketchy, but because of how heavily I was being attacked BB/Egix/Trendall, I didn't question you about it as I should have. I won't be making that mistake again. Your overall tone in your posts in this game is similar to the tone of your posts in Newbie 1893 (where you were scum), but I haven't seen town!Auro yet (I don't believe you have any completed town games on site), so I don't know yet if your tone in and of itself is alignment-indicative or not. I made the comment about your tone partly in jest (which is why I said robot!Auro as opposed to scum!Auro) in response to your role playing, and partly to see how you would react, so I can get a better read on your slot.

I do think it's possible you could be testing the waters so to speak, using the "role playing" as an excuse to vote for me, to see how many other people you could get to quickly follow suit. After all, you did directly solicit Lamees to vote for me. It seems like you are trying to flashwagon me. Why? Is it because you are seriously scumreading me, or is it merely to see how I would react?

What are your thoughts on Flavor Leaf's slot so far, and his sheeping of your vote? It's kind of interesting, because Thor (as IC) started Newbie 1893 by sheeping BB, which led to him eventually voting for me in that game. And now Flavor Leaf (as IC) is sheeping you in voting for me in this game. Do you think Flavor Leaf's sheeping of your vote is AI or do you find it to be NAI?

[volxen]

The Transformer's behaviour towards me, given our last game together, seemed very natural. This also seemed like the only decent attempt at engagement in the experiment so far, so that was good.

I have a completed town game (Mini 2040), although the circumstances there were pretty different. You could give it a read. There's a lot of content from my profile that you could use to judge the AI-ness (Heheh) of my tone in general *by yourself*. What do you make of my reaction, though?

My vote was an RVS vote, I could've simply replaced the roleplay with "Hey, a robot avatar! VOTE". The voting and subsequent hopeful flashwagoning was to generate content and test for reactions, yes. Not a result of a scumread. I do find Lamees' reaction to the OMGUS part interesting.

IMO RVS sheeping at least isn't AI at all, I think it's a good thing actually. At least in terms of a starting point for serious play. Thor's sheeping was contextually different, he was clear that he townread you after your defence and moved his vote.
What do you think? How do you think scum!sheeping would play out over the course of a day? You don't have to answer the second part, just keep that in mind.

I think you are a hard-to-read player in general, but I can buy the logic that you voted for me to generate content, as this game has been quite... slow. But the reason I asked you about the sheeping is because in my experience, when wagons start to form against townies, scum are often in the middle or the end of the wagon, as opposed to being the initiator of the wagon. This has happened in several of the games I've played, and I think the one major exception to this was when I initially got up to L-1 in Newbie 1893 with no scum on my wagon (before you joined my wagon). Off the top of my head, in all of the games I've played I think that was only time I've seen a townie get up to L-1 without any scum being on the wagon. Of course, I haven't gotten up to L-1 in this game, but I'm always wary of people that are in the middle of the wagon. That being said, I'm still going to be very critically scrutinizing your slot, given what you managed to pull off as scum in Newbie 1893.

I think it's hard to read Flavor Leaf, given how little content he has at the moment, so for the time being I'm considering his sheeping NAI. At the moment, I'm most interested in Lion's vote for me. Whereas you and Flavor Leaf are claiming to have voted for me for purely RVS reasons, Lion is claiming to have voted for me for serious reasons. What do you think of Lion's vote for me?

[volxen]

Volxen's long-winded paragraph in #51 where he mentions that auro played rvs similarly in a previous scum game but then also mentions that he doesn't really know auro's meta having only played the one game together bugs me a lot. He's going back and forth on whether or not he wants to go after auro for a weak (at best) meta read. Also, he backs up this meta read with some mudslinging about how auro is really good at being mafia and we need to be afraid of him! I understand we're barely out of rvs so it's hard to have much but why bother with all of the mudslinging and wishy-washiness?
UNVOTE: Yuriko_Jasmine
VOTE: Volxen

Feels like the posts between auro and lamees are auro reaction testing and getting nothing. I didn't get anything from it either really.

Yuriko popping in to be like "why lamees" still has me unhappy but not worth a vote when I feel the way I do about volxen's post. To elaborate on why I find it suspicious though, in effect Yuriko sees auro attempting to make discussion happen very early in the game and tries to poke holes in it in a very non-committal way. This is especially bad because it happened so early. If at the time we had several active players and lots of content auro going for a specific person's vote could be scummy depending on the situation. At the very beginning of the game with less than half of the game posting he's clearly just messing around seeing what will happen and yuriko's post sets her up to either say "ha I knew that was scummy!" or "yeah that wasn't a big deal."

I was not "mudslinging" at Auro, I was merely stating the fact that sorting his slot is something that I am going to prioritize, because I have firsthand experience with his scumgame. That is not the same as me automatically coming to the conclusion that he is scum based on our past game together. I will be evaluating him based on what he does in this game.

My vote for Auro itself was to see how he would react, just as he voted for me to see how I would react. In our back-and-forth conversation, we both admitted as much. You seem to be suggesting that I am trying to push a case against scum!Auro based on our previous game together, which is not the case. He is still a nullread for me at the moment.

Also, I think you really overreacted to Yuriko's "Why Lamees" question to Auro. I believe she literally was just asking, "Why are you asking Lamees specifically to vote for Volxen?". I did not at all read that as her trying to stifle discussion or discourage Auro from trying to get people to vote for me. I think she was just genuinely curious why Auro asked Lamees specifically (as opposed to someone else) to vote for me.

[volxen]

Why not engage with Lion in that case? At the moment I'm interested in seeing how that interaction goes.

I asked you about this because I would like to know your thoughts on Lion's case, and the back-and-forth that has now started between us. I still would like you respond to this, as it will help me to read your slot.

[volxen]

I was not "mudslinging" at Auro, I was merely stating the fact that sorting his slot is something that I am going to prioritize, because I have firsthand experience with his scumgame. That is not the same as me automatically coming to the conclusion that he is scum based on our past game together. I will be evaluating him based on what he does in this game.

My vote for Auro itself was to see how he would react, just as he voted for me to see how I would react. In our back-and-forth conversation, we both admitted as much. You seem to be suggesting that I am trying to push a case against scum!Auro based on our previous game together, which is not the case. He is still a nullread for me at the moment.

Also, I think you really overreacted to Yuriko's "Why Lamees" question to Auro. I believe she literally was just asking, "Why are you asking Lamees specifically to vote for Volxen?". I did not at all read that as her trying to stifle discussion or discourage Auro from trying to get people to vote for me. I think she was just genuinely curious why Auro asked Lamees specifically (as opposed to someone else) to vote for me.

So I did clarify that a better word would be fearmongering and this was one of the reasons. Broadcasting to the entire game that Auro is good at being mafia and deserves special attention would qualify as fearmongering. I consider fearmongering very scummy. Especially when, as you say yourself, you're nullreading the person in question.

The Yuriko post is definitely not a strong point but it's something that I found scummy so I brought it up.

And why automatically jump to the conclusion that it was “fearmongering” to paint Auro in a negative light? All I said was that I, personally, would likely have a hard time accurately reading Auro based on our past experience together. I was not suggesting that everyone else would have a hard time reading him, nor was I saying that I would be making a decision on his slot based on our past game together. If I had said something along the lines of “Auro had a really good scum game in our last game together, and he is probably scum here again”, THAT would be fearmongering, because I would be using his past scum game to argue that he is likely scum again in this game, which is not a reasonable argument since him being scum in a previous game does not increase his chances of being scum again in this game.

But that’s not what happened. All I had was a one-on-one exchange with Auro where I commented that I would probably have a hard time reading his slot. Auro didn’t have a problem with me saying that and understood where I was coming from. As far as I can tell, no one else took issue with it either. You are the only person to come out and label it first “mudslinging”, and now “fearmongering”. I think you are overreacting to this, just like you overreacted to Yuriko’s “Why Lamees?” question. And I think it’s fair to say that some people are harder to read than others. So why couldn’t this be town!me publicly commenting that Auro will probably be one of the harder players for me to read, which was then followed by me engaging him to try to get a better read on his slot?

[volxen]

I asked you about this because I would like to know your thoughts on Lion's case, and the back-and-forth that has now started between us. I still would like you respond to this, as it will help me to read your slot.

I don't think I'd want to hijack an exchange that barely started just to help you form a read on me, at this point.

My own thoughts on his case wouldn't be different depending on my own alignment

, though, so I'm not quite sure how you were intending to read off that.

I'll give my views at a later point.

You wouldn’t be hijacking it, though. You can still comment on Lion’s case and the exchange between Lion and I while it is ongoing. You joining in on the conversation won’t get in the way of Lion and I having our back-and-forth.

And I’m going to have completely disagree with the notion that how you might respond to the exchange between Lion and I would not be alignment indicative, or that you would respond to his case in the exact same way regardless of your alignment. For example, if you are town, then you aren’t 100% certain of either Lion’s alignment or my alignment, so you have to evaluate both of our arguments on their merits to help you develop reads on both of our slots. On the other hand, if you are scum and Lion and I are both town, and our exchange is TvT, then you already know both of our alignments and you could choose to side against whichever one of us you think would be an easier mislynch (as just an example). So why would you say that your response to Lion’s case would be exactly the same regardless of your alignment? I do think how you respond to the exchange between Lion and I is definitely something that would be readable and potentially alignment indicative as well.

[volxen]

So back from my overnight hiking and have reread this thread twice.
As my first game I and not knowing any of you from a bar of soap I cannot judge your character, only thing I am looking for is two or three players moving in the same direction as the mafia need only two of us to believe them to get a lynch.

Any thoughts on my exchanges with Auro and Lion?

[volxen]

@mod I will be V/LA until 11/20/18 (tomorrow)

[volxen]

No, I'm going to expect him to be checked by an investigative and cleared/guiltied in future days.

What's your approach towards someone who lurked all game till now? Would you lynch them, or would you hunt for someone who's posting and looks scummy?

I agree with you in so far as I don’t think Not_Mafia has posted enough content to have a strong read on him either way, although the fact that that is the case really bothers me because it seems deliberate. From what you and FL have said this seems to just be his play style regardless of alignment, but he really needs to start producing serious, readable content so that he does not indefinitely stay in nullread territory.

That being said, we cannot necessarily rely on an investigative role to deal with Not_Mafia during night one. There are several setups that don’t have a cop or neapolitan (tracker is an investigate role as well, but it’s a lot harder to catch scum with tracker compared to cop or neapolitan, especially if both scum are still alive):

	A	B	C
M	Mafia Roleblocker	Mafia Rolecop	Mafia Goon
1	Town Cop Town Neapolitan	Town Cop Town Tracker	Town Cop Vanilla Townie
2	Town Jailkeeper Town Doctor	Town Jailkeeper Town Tracker	Town Jailkeeper Vanilla Townie
3	Town Doctor Town Cop	Town Doctor Town Neapolitan	Town Doctor Town Tracker

Beyond that, even if there is a cop and they do investigate him on night one, they might not want to out themselves over one clear on day 2 if he turns out to be town.

Unless you are suggesting hypoclaiming? I’ve never done it before, but my understanding is that with hypoclaiming, everyone on day 2 would say something to the effect of “I investigated Not_Mafia and got an innocent”. That way, if Not_Mafia is town, the real cop is not outed, because everyone (including the cop) is making the same claim: that they got an innocent result on Not_Mafia. So this allows the cop to share the innocent result without outing himself/herself. But if the cop actually does get a guilty on Not_Mafia, then of course he/she would end up outing himself/herself because their claim would be that they got a guilty on Not_Mafia, while everyone else would be claiming to have gotten an innocent result. Although the downside to this is that there are setups with no investigative roles (e.g., jailkeeper and doctor), so the results of hypoclaiming could be misleading.

But in any case, I agree with you that Not_Mafia is all around null, but we cannot necessarily rely upon a investigative TPR to deal with his slot for us. So while I don’t agree with Lamees’s scumread of Not_Mafia (simply because he hasn’t posted enough content), I find the reasoning that we should just leave his slot to be dealt with by an investigative TPR to be highly flawed.

Getting an accurate read on his slot, based on his content (or lack thereof if he doesn’t pick things up), is something that you need to be prepared to do.

Mod edit:

fixed bbcode error

[volxen]

Volxen, what do you make of the whole FL-Me-Lamees interactions? Are you scumreading me?

None of you, Lamees, or FL are townreads for me. I’m still highly skeptical of all three of you.

In FL’s case, I’m not sure his motives in voting for Not_Mafia are as honest as he claims them to be. He’s claiming here that his vote for Not_Mafia was a reaction test: the idea being that if enough people sheeped him, he would likely find scum among those who joined him on the Not_Mafia wagon. If he’s town then such a reaction test makes sense, as Not_Mafia is arguably low hanging fruit in this game (a low content poster who is unlikely to really defend himself), and a flashwagon against Not_Mafia would have been highly suspect.

On the other hand, if FL is scum and Not_Mafia is town then getting said flashwagon against Not_Mafia would be precisely his goal, and if it led to Not_Mafia actually being lynched, then on day 2 after Not_Mafia flips town, FL can start to go after the people who sheeped him onto Not_Mafia’s wagon, and potentially line up the next mislynch from that group.

Reactions tests are a thing, but if FL is scum it gives him an easy out because when questioned about his vote for Not_Mafia he can just say, “Oh, I was just waiting to see if anyone would sheep me on the wagon so I can catch scum”, when the real reason for the vote was to push for an easy lynch against Not_Mafia, which he then quickly abandoned after realizing it wasn’t going to happen.

In general, if someone does something that’s sketchy and then claims after the fact that it was just a reaction test, I’m going to be very skeptical of that unless it’s coming from someone that I already strongly townread.

The only player in this game that I feel is truly towny at this point is Lion. And even that is more of a townlean than a full-blown strong townread. As I mentioned before, I didn’t like his early game vote and attack against Yuirko for her “Why Lamees?” question, and his subsequent vote and attack against me for supposedly engaging in “fearmongering”. However, in the process of our back-and-forth conversation, he reassessed his read of me in light of new information. He is still skeptical of my slot, but he conceded that everything I said could be coming from the perspective of town!me, which gives at least some indication that he wants to sort my slot as opposed to just wanting to push a lynch through. He could be faking it, but it came across like a genuine reassessment of his read on my slot based on new information, which is towny.

So basically Lion is somewhat towny, and I am highly skeptical of everyone else.

I’m not sure yet where I want to place my vote at the moment. I feel like I need to reread the last several pages, or perhaps the whole game, and see which one of you (everyone besides Lion) has the most scum equity currently.

[volxen]

Lamees, your engagement thus far has mostly just been to answer my questions.

That's why I said you seem to be comfortably settling in to a Not_Mafia tunnel. Gives vibes of scum pushing an easy ML.

Can you show me any genuine instances of engagement apart from answering my questions, and asking FL why he's sheeping me?

Also, I'm going to sheep Ariane.
VOTE: Flavor Leaf

This post is just... bizarre. On the one hand, you talk about how you are getting scum vibes from Lamees (for voting/tunneling Not_Mafia), but then you turn around and Sheep Ariane and vote for Flavor Leaf instead.

nb I find the whole 'I'll see what happens with person x vs person y' thing a bit weird, rather than just wading in, particularly if there's the worry of tvt

that is, like it's passive I guess

also nb, if FL is mafia I might wanna look at Yuri, that sudden vote was weird timing wise, tho I'll feel better if she gives justification

auro, why the sheep?

@Ariane:

I was noting to myself that it's interesting that people seem to be more interested in other players pitting against each other (or) reads on exchanges, than wanting to engage by themselves.

I'm sheeping you because I'm townreading you, and agree with your reasons on FL's vote.

And then only after Ariane questions you on the sheeping do you give more information about the vote. Still, even with Ariane being one of your townreads, if you were getting scum vibes from Lamees, why not just vote for her and put some pressure on her to see how she reacts? Would you have still voted for Flavor Leaf if Ariane had not done so? It just looks incredibly odd how you talk about someone that you are getting scum vibes from, but then decide to sheep one of your townreads instead of voting for the person that you just called out on being scummy. It's concerning because at the time you placed the vote you gave no indication that you were actually scumreading Flavor Leaf on your own.

[volxen]

I've already explained why I haven't voted Lamees - She often makes scummy posts and gives off those vibes, but it's not AI enough to actually lynch her.
I'd rather have a lot more content from her to dig in to her motivations and establish whether it's more likely to come from scum!Lamees than scummyTown!Lamees.
I was engaging with her and pointing out how her behaviour is anti-town/scummy, to see whether she changes her mind -- and if so, how.

I wasn't quite reading Flavor either way, but:
1. The case Ariane made on him made sense
2. I was TRing Ariane

Are these not sufficient to place my vote?

But going by the posts you made up to the point where you voted for Flavor Leaf, you listed something that you found scummy from Lamees (her potentially trying to push an easy mislynch against Not_Mafia), whereas you never mentioned anything scummy with respect to Flavor Leaf up to that point. You make a point to call Lamees out on it, and in the same very post sheep one of your townreads and vote for Flavor Leaf.

Yes, Lamees does anti-town things as town, but that shouldn't preclude you from voting for her to see how she responds to the pressure. After all, one of the reasons you claimed to have voted for me at the beginning of the day was to see how I would react, before you had any read on me at all. You identify something that she has done that you find to be scummy, but you aren't sure if this is coming from town!Lamees or scum!Lamees. Wouldn't it then make sense to vote for her and pressure her and see how she reacts, to help you come to the conclusion on whether her push against Not_Mafia is coming from town!Lamees or scum!Lamees? And it's not like you couldn't later change your vote to someone else if Lamees convinced you that she was town.

Why call her out on something you find to be scummy, only to not follow up with a vote to help you get a better read of her slot? What's the point of calling it out only to follow it by saying "Well I don't know, Lamees does this kind of stuff as both alignments..."? The point is that you need to determine whether this is more

likely

to come town!Lamees or scum!Lamees, and voting for her and pressuring her would arguably increase your chances of accomplishing that goal.

And to answer your question, if you are getting clear scum vibes from someone, I don't think it makes sense to sheep one of your townreads in favor of voting for someone else. Especially since, as you said yourself, you weren't even scumreading Flavor Leaf on your own at the time that you voted for him.

[volxen]

Not liking volx, FL, or snowbeast, I reckon there's scum there somewhere

Will give more detailed reasons later (at work rn),

but they all seem to be playing to/from mechanics rather than reads

, which seems like an easy way to explain a misslichen if they're on it /advocate for it

dunno if that makes sense, I'll be on later this evening

I literally have one post on mechanics/setup (post 236), which I made because Auro was talking about relying on an investigative role to sort Not_Mafia's slot.

Based on the content in the game so far, no one except for Lion is even remotely close to being obvious town, so getting townreads beyond Lion is not going to be an easy task. Perhaps that will change between now and the deadline, but my focus between now and the end of day one is really going to be on determining who I think is the most likely to be scum.

Part of that may be playstyle, as I have always had an easier time explaining scumreads versus townreads, and I generally just directly scumhunt as opposed to finding scum through townhunting + POE.

[volxen]

I believe that pressured Volxen's reactions are pretty useful, in comparison.

What did you learn about my slot from the wagon that you started against me?

[volxen]

@Volxen:

I repeat - Pressure on Lamees isn't useful, and she flails as either alignment. It would only add to the entropy behind her posts, and make it even more difficult to sort.
I still assert that optimum Lamees-reading strategy is to observe her activity *without* pressure over a longer duration.
Acting scummy doesn't imply scummy if acting scummy is playstyle.

Agree?

No, I completely disagree. I don’t believe anyone should be given “special” treatment (such as not voting them when you otherwise normally would) based purely on meta reasons. Especially in the case of Lamees, who has only completed five games and been on the site for two months.

Your position is basically making the assumption beforehand that voting for Lamees would be a pointless endeavor because in previous games she has flailed as town, and thus nothing useful or potentially AI could possibly be gleaned from how she would react to the pressure

in this game

. I disagree with making such an assumption without even trying. Yes you had a back-and-forth exchange with Lamees, but I think it would have been far more useful if you had actually pressured her with a vote while still questioning/engaging her (as you did with me earlier in the game). Maybe she would have “flailed”, or maybe she wouldn’t have – we don’t know for sure from the handful of games that she has completed. But either way, it’s entirely possible that there *would* have been AI things in how she responded to the pressure. Even if she ended up flailing, there is a difference between town flailing and scum flailing, so it can still be potentially AI. But the point is, if you truly were finding her to be *very* scummy, what did you have to lose by voting for her and pressuring her? I would argue nothing, but you could have potentially gained a lot. So why not do it? And that’s what I find suspicious with respect to your voting – you identify Lamees as the person you currently find to be the scummiest, but then you don’t vote for her based purely on meta reasons.

It’s the same thing with respect to your stance on Not_Mafia, although it’s *slightly* more understandable in his case because he has been on the site for well over four years and has a *much* more established meta than Lamees. Still, even in his case I don’t agree with giving his slot special treatment, or the notion that his slot doesn’t need to be read because an investigative TPR will deal with that for us.


I do find it highly suspicious to throw a lot of shade at someone and then claim that you aren’t voting for them because of meta reasons.

What are your thoughts on Flavor Leaf currently?

[volxen]

Just pointing out how Volxen countered something in a defensive way since he has a wagon brewing on him, said nothing about my slot, but wants to hear other’s thoughts before stating his own.

To me, it looks like he’s looking to follow a mislynch Flavor plan if can, say he’s town with an incorrect read if can’t.

You are the only person voting for me, so I don't see how me responding to a question Auro asked me is "defensive".

And I did comment on your slot earlier:

Volxen, what do you make of the whole FL-Me-Lamees interactions? Are you scumreading me?

None of you, Lamees, or FL are townreads for me. I’m still highly skeptical of all three of you.

In FL’s case, I’m not sure his motives in voting for Not_Mafia are as honest as he claims them to be. He’s claiming here that his vote for Not_Mafia was a reaction test: the idea being that if enough people sheeped him, he would likely find scum among those who joined him on the Not_Mafia wagon. If he’s town then such a reaction test makes sense, as Not_Mafia is arguably low hanging fruit in this game (a low content poster who is unlikely to really defend himself), and a flashwagon against Not_Mafia would have been highly suspect.

On the other hand, if FL is scum and Not_Mafia is town then getting said flashwagon against Not_Mafia would be precisely his goal, and if it led to Not_Mafia actually being lynched, then on day 2 after Not_Mafia flips town, FL can start to go after the people who sheeped him onto Not_Mafia’s wagon, and potentially line up the next mislynch from that group.

Reactions tests are a thing, but if FL is scum it gives him an easy out because when questioned about his vote for Not_Mafia he can just say, “Oh, I was just waiting to see if anyone would sheep me on the wagon so I can catch scum”, when the real reason for the vote was to push for an easy lynch against Not_Mafia, which he then quickly abandoned after realizing it wasn’t going to happen.

In general, if someone does something that’s sketchy and then claims after the fact that it was just a reaction test, I’m going to be very skeptical of that unless it’s coming from someone that I already strongly townread.

The only player in this game that I feel is truly towny at this point is Lion. And even that is more of a townlean than a full-blown strong townread. As I mentioned before, I didn’t like his early game vote and attack against Yuirko for her “Why Lamees?” question, and his subsequent vote and attack against me for supposedly engaging in “fearmongering”. However, in the process of our back-and-forth conversation, he reassessed his read of me in light of new information. He is still skeptical of my slot, but he conceded that everything I said could be coming from the perspective of town!me, which gives at least some indication that he wants to sort my slot as opposed to just wanting to push a lynch through. He could be faking it, but it came across like a genuine reassessment of his read on my slot based on new information, which is towny.

So basically Lion is somewhat towny, and I am highly skeptical of everyone else.

I’m not sure yet where I want to place my vote at the moment. I feel like I need to reread the last several pages, or perhaps the whole game, and see which one of you (everyone besides Lion) has the most scum equity currently.

I found your whole vote for Not_Mafia and subsequent "it was just a reaction test" explanation to be highly suspect.

As I said previously, Lion is the only slot that I find to be truly towny. Auro has been throwing shade at me all game, and I don't find your push on me to be genuine. Especially when you say things like "a wagon is brewing on you" before you have even presented your case. I think its highly unlikely that you and Auro are both town.

VOTE: Flavor Leaf

[volxen]

The OMGUS.

I believe there to be scum on the Auro wagon alongside the Me wagon.

You have officially become the first person to be on both the Auro wagon and now the Me wagon. I don’t think Lamees does this bit she’s been doing as scum. I know I’m town. I understood what Auro said about snowbeast seeming newb town.

That effectively leaves you, and now as a defense you’re pushing me again as an OMGUS and forcing a 1v1.

Also, your posting towards me completely leaves out the scum motivation of me unvoting Auro as the second biggest wagon, effectively collapsing his wagon, where I didn’t push Lamees even though she was pushing me as scummy for reasons other has stated were not scummy, alongside your mention of saying it’s “highly unlikely” that both Auro and myself are both town.

If that’s how you feel, why did you switch from Auro to me? Auro was the leading wagon.

You are acting like me being scum is the only explanation for both Auro's wagon and your wagon. It's not.

First of all, you never even got up to L-1. Only Auro did. These were the wagon compositions when both of your wagons were at their highest points:

Auro (L-1): volxen, Flavor Leaf, Lamees, snowbeast

Flavor Leaf (L-2): Ariane, Auro, Not_Mafia

I was not on your original wagon when you got up to L-2. There is no one who was on both of your wagons at their highest points.

And beyond that, your wagon only got up to L-2. Why are you convinced there had to be scum on your wagon with only three voters on you? If you got up to L-1 then I would agree it's highly likely that there was scum on your wagon, and I've made this argument in multiple games when doing wagon analysis (although In Newbie 1893 I did get up to L-1, as town, without any scum on my wagon so it can happen). So if anything, Auro's wagon is the more likely wagon to have contained scum, and you were on that wagon.

Yes I am voting for you now, but at the moment only Ariane and I are voting for you, so it's misleading when you say that I am the only person to be on both of your wagons, when I was never on your original wagon when you got up to L-2 with three votes.

So your wagon previously was {Ariane, Auro, Not_Mafia} and now it is {Ariane, Volxen}. If you are convinced that you didn't get up to L-2 without scum involvement, then why are you fixated on my slot when I had nothing to do with you originally getting up to L-2?

Do you believe all three of Ariane, Auro, and Not_Mafia are town?

And by the way, my original wagon was {Auro, Flavor Leaf, Lion}, so fmpov I could make the same argument about you since you were on both my wagon and Auro's wagon at their highest points.

As far as why you left the Auro wagon, I'm not going to claim to know your full agenda if you are scum, but there are logical reasons for you to do this if you are scum. If you and Auro are scum together then your motivation is clear: the both of you cross-voted each other to do some distancing, but neither of you actually wanted to bus the other.

But even if you are scum and Auro is town, you could have left his wagon because you determined that I would be a safer day 1 mislynch for you going into day 2. My slot has taken a fair bit of heat in this game, perhaps more than Auro's overall (and I also was the first wagon), so perhaps you concluded that I would be a safer day 1 mislynch that would result in less scrutiny towards your slot on day 2. After all if you are scum you don't want to just pull off a mislynch, but you also want to set yourself up to look good going into day 2.

The fact that you left Auro's wagon in favor of voting for me and presenting a case against me does not in and of itself clear you as town.

[volxen]

As I said previously, Lion is the only slot that I find to be truly towny.

:Getting major scum vibes from this.
:Volxen's clearly meta-aware.
:He looks like he's trying to copy town meta.

I'm not solid at all on this, but if there's someone who can do a more comprehensive meta-evaluation, do go ahead.

Why do you keep bringing up meta so much? You know the irony is that I started this game off by saying that I would have a hard time reading your slot due to meta (our one previous game together), but you by far have used meta more than anyone else in this game to justify your actions (e.g. not voting Lamees, saying Not_Mafia needs to be sorted by an investigative TPR, etc.). You are over relying on meta in my opinion in your treatment of various slots. Yes... if you look at my town games, you will see that I have townreads/townleans in some cases.

How is me saying that I find Lion to be towny indicative of scum!me trying to purposefully copy my town meta?

[volxen]

@mod With the deadline for day one quickly approaching, is it possible to get a 24 or 48 hour extension to the deadline in light of the Thankgiving holiday? I know extensions are not usually granted except for in extreme situations, but I thought I would at least ask.

[volxen]

Super busy, slight VLA until Monday, but I’ll still be able to like ‘post’. Maybe even often sometimes, but I am going out of town.

Also busy today last minute for having to help setup some thanksgiving stuff at a buddy’s.

I think my last bigger post is better reasons for ScumVolxen than the other stuff I was going to point out, but I can put together a case, but I think things have just evolved past that.

My last Volxen post blows my case out of the water for explaining why he’s likely scum

.

Lamees could be doing it as scum, sure, but at the moment, I don’t have any reason to believe so, and I can see genuine townie reactions in her posts. If enough actions happen that shows otherwise, then yeah, get on her.

I’m happy with Volxen

Your last post about me is really bad (and misleading) VCA where you try to establish that I am scum because I was on Auro's wagon and your wagon, which is not an accurate representation of what really happened:

The OMGUS.

I believe there to be scum on the Auro wagon alongside the Me wagon.

You have officially become the first person to be on both the Auro wagon and now the Me wagon. I don’t think Lamees does this bit she’s been doing as scum. I know I’m town. I understood what Auro said about snowbeast seeming newb town.

That effectively leaves you, and now as a defense you’re pushing me again as an OMGUS and forcing a 1v1.

Also, your posting towards me completely leaves out the scum motivation of me unvoting Auro as the second biggest wagon, effectively collapsing his wagon, where I didn’t push Lamees even though she was pushing me as scummy for reasons other has stated were not scummy, alongside your mention of saying it’s “highly unlikely” that both Auro and myself are both town.

If that’s how you feel, why did you switch from Auro to me? Auro was the leading wagon.

You are acting like me being scum is the only explanation for both Auro's wagon and your wagon. It's not.

First of all, you never even got up to L-1. Only Auro did. These were the wagon compositions when both of your wagons were at their highest points:

Auro (L-1): volxen, Flavor Leaf, Lamees, snowbeast

Flavor Leaf (L-2): Ariane, Auro, Not_Mafia

I was not on your original wagon when you got up to L-2. There is no one who was on both of your wagons at their highest points.

And beyond that, your wagon only got up to L-2. Why are you convinced there had to be scum on your wagon with only three voters on you? If you got up to L-1 then I would agree it's highly likely that there was scum on your wagon, and I've made this argument in multiple games when doing wagon analysis (although In Newbie 1893 I did get up to L-1, as town, without any scum on my wagon so it can happen). So if anything, Auro's wagon is the more likely wagon to have contained scum, and you were on that wagon.

Yes I am voting for you now, but at the moment only Ariane and I are voting for you, so it's misleading when you say that I am the only person to be on both of your wagons, when I was never on your original wagon when you got up to L-2 with three votes.

So your wagon previously was {Ariane, Auro, Not_Mafia} and now it is {Ariane, Volxen}. If you are convinced that you didn't get up to L-2 without scum involvement, then why are you fixated on my slot when I had nothing to do with you originally getting up to L-2?

Do you believe all three of Ariane, Auro, and Not_Mafia are town?

And by the way, my original wagon was {Auro, Flavor Leaf, Lion}, so fmpov I could make the same argument about you since you were on both my wagon and Auro's wagon at their highest points.

As far as why you left the Auro wagon, I'm not going to claim to know your full agenda if you are scum, but there are logical reasons for you to do this if you are scum. If you and Auro are scum together then your motivation is clear: the both of you cross-voted each other to do some distancing, but neither of you actually wanted to bus the other.

But even if you are scum and Auro is town, you could have left his wagon because you determined that I would be a safer day 1 mislynch for you going into day 2. My slot has taken a fair bit of heat in this game, perhaps more than Auro's overall (and I also was the first wagon), so perhaps you concluded that I would be a safer day 1 mislynch that would result in less scrutiny towards your slot on day 2. After all if you are scum you don't want to just pull off a mislynch, but you also want to set yourself up to look good going into day 2.

The fact that you left Auro's wagon in favor of voting for me and presenting a case against me does not in and of itself clear you as town.

In case it needs to be repeated once again:

Auro (L-1): volxen, Flavor Leaf, Lamees, snowbeast

Flavor Leaf (L-2): Ariane, Auro, Not_Mafia

I am not the common denominator between the original Auro wagon and the original FL wagon. And that was your premise: that you believe that there was scum on both Auro's original wagon and your original wagon (we don't know this for certain), and that I was the common denominator between both original wagons (not true).

There was no common denominator between Auro's original wagon and your original wagon

, but you've been insistent that you believe that you didn't get up to L-2 without scum involvement, because you believe that scum wouldn't pass up the chance to flock to your wagon because you are the IC. Based on this you previously concluded that there had to be scum among {Ariane, Auro, Not_Mafia}, which you then narrowed down to {Ariane, Not_Mafia} after saying that you thought Auro is town. And yet, you aren't talking about Ariane or Not_Mafia anymore, but are instead focused solely on me. This doesn't make sense if you are as convinced as you claim to be that scum absolutely played a part in you getting up to L-2.

Yes, I am voting for you at the moment. Your 2-person wagon is currently {Ariane, Volxen}, but I will remind you that Auro and and Not_Mafia had both already unvoted you at the time that I switched my vote from Auro to you. If you meant to argue that you think I am scum because I was on Auro's wagon and because I am voting for you *now*, you should have worded it that way, but you made it sound like I was the common denominator between Auro's original wagon and your original wagon.

At best, this is just really bad VCA that doesn't prove anything, and at worst you are being deliberately misleading and are trying to connect me to your original L-2 wagon that I was not a part of.

This is why I am now more suspicious of you than I am of Auro.

[volxen]

Volxen, I'm not buying that.

You voted Flavor in 359.
Flavor's "VCA misrepresentation" was in 360.

Why did you unvote me and vote for him *in 359*?

I'm aware of that timeline. I was already suspicious of him at the time that I voted for him, especially when he uses language like "a wagon is brewing on you", where he is talking as if my lynch today is a foregone conclusion before he even presented a "case" against me. His follow up with the VCA misrepresentation just further cemented my suspicions of his slot.

I changed my vote to him because that is where I currently want to apply pressure.

[volxen]

Given Not_Mafia's track record of quickhammering, if I get up to L-2 intent to place me at L-1 should be stated before actually putting me at L-1.

[volxen]

No other defense? Volxen, give us a detailed reads list.

At the moment my sorting of everyone is:

Town: {Lion, Ariane}
Null: {Lamees, Not_Mafia, Snowbeast, Performer/Yuriko}
Scum: {Flavor Leaf, Auro}

[volxen]

@Auro, you seem to be convinced that scum was on your L-1 wagon. If you are town, you already know my stance is that I would agree that this is likely -- it is unlikely for any townie to get up to L-1 without scum involvement, and I still say this in spite of the fact that it happened to me on day one of Newbie 1893. What I'm not understanding is, if you are convinced of this, then why haven't you taken a more critical look at the buildup of your wagon:

I placed an RVS vote for you on 11/14/18 at 10:20 P.M. PST in post 28:

I had always been bothered by the rumours that a few early M.A.F.I.A prototypes had been released into the populace. Word was that it was *very* hard to distinguish them from a normal human -- an ever so slight thirst to annihilate the rest and conquer. Maybe the manufacturers changed that for the robots they released? No one knows.

One thing always bothered me, though. What if I was one of them? What if I wasn't born a simple, free, human; but a bloodthirsty robot who lacked any true identity? This single thought had always taken a backseat in my mind. It increasingly began to have a greater effect on my daily life, leading to an eventual obsession. I could not invest my energies in anything else, and lost everything I had.

When I was offered a chance to 'volunteer' for the experiment, I was told that I would know my identity -- whether I was human, or a bot --- before the experiment started. Apparently RandomAccess, one of the volunteers, had failed to read his instruction card (a malfunctioning robot or an unwilling human, there was no point keeping him) and I replaced him instead.

Miss Star repeated the instructions for me, and guided me to the glass room. I saw that most others had taken their cards from the tesseract table, and proceeded to take my own and read it.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I finally knew what I was. Or to be more precise, who I am.
And then it hit me that if I did not find out which ones were the M.A.F.I.A, I'd... probably die anyway.

I had a good, hard look around the room. I recognized a few of the volunteers - Lamees, Volxen, and Not_Mafia, from before. Volxen's avatar looked like what they called a "Transformer" to me. A sentient robot. It seemed obvious what my starting point should be.

VOTE: Volxen

The tone of this post is fairly robotic. Seems more likely to come from robot!Auro than human!Auro.

VOTE: Auro

Then

six days later

, Flavor Leaf and Lamees vote you back-to-back in rapid succession. First Flavor Leaf voted for you on 11/20/18 at 11:19 A.M. PST in post 166:

NM is the easier wagon based on playstyle, and I could have targeted people who jumped on for jumping on him for NAI reasons.

VOTE: Auro

More likely scum than Ariana. Auro’s sheep was opportunistic.

Less than 1.5 hours later after Flavor Leaf voted for you, Lamees voted for you on 11/20/18 at 12:47 P.M. PST in post 205:

VOTE: auro

Yeah yeah I know, opportunistic. I mean, we need 5 votes so of course any vote after the first or second one is now gonna get called opportunistic as a defense mechanism and because it's the in-word. Good luck getting 5 votes without being called opportunistic though lol.

I just don't think auro has taken this vote pressure from FL well. He is kinda flailing imo, he was all about votes for pressure but when it's on him the pressure was a bit too much. Pair that with the feeling I have that he has been prodding me all game in hopes I say something scummy for him to latch onto. High chance we got scum here. Also I really dont mind auro vs lamees too. So we can do that. By all means vote me if you think I'm scum.

And a little bit over 18 hours after Lamees voted for you, Snowbeast hopped onto to your wagon and put you at L-1 on 11/21/18 at 7:05 A.M. PST in post 285:

UNVOTE: not mafia

VOTE: auro

So my vote is on you for six days before the next person votes for you (Flavor Leaf). After that, Flavor Leaf and Lamees vote you back-to-back within less than 1.5 hours of each other, and all three of Flavor Leaf, Lamees, and Snowbeast voted for you within a 20 hour window that started six days after my vote for you was placed. Flavor Leaf is arguing that the only possible explanation for all of this is that I am scum. Do you really believe that to be the case: that the only possible explanation for the build up of your wagon is that scum!me started it, and three different townies all flocked to your wagon six days later within a 20 hour window (two of them within a 1.5 hour window)?

If you put so much stock in doing VCA on your wagon as you appear to be, then I'm not understanding why you haven't done this type of analysis on your own wagon. This VCA is of limited value to me because I don't know your alignment, but you do. If you are scum then your wagon being all-town is very likely; if you are town it is very unlikely.

Either you believe that doing VCA on a day 1 L-1 wagon is worthwhile or you don't. This is your wagon, and you are by far in the best position to do VCA on it if you are town. But you haven't really talked about your wagon beyond reminding us that it was {Volxen, Flavor Leaf, Lamees, Snowbeast}. But why haven't you looked beyond that and taken a look at the actual buildup of your wagon? That's equally important to looking at the wagon composition itself.

[volxen]

Performer's reads are very safe reads but the way he describes them looks townie enough. He wasn't a lynch candidate today anyway but I would say I lean town on him rn.

Look like lamees and I will be the final votes to hammer volx since we've both announced intent to get a hammer. I don't think we get a ton out of further responses from volx because all he's really done all game. Also if the lynching wagon on volxen is auro, FL, Performer, lamees and myself I think there's a decent chance (>60%) that it's 5 town lynching, based on reads, and that increases my opinion of the lynch. If anyone wants to say something they should do so soon because I vote in 2 hours at the latest.

If volx flips town it's incredibly likely scum is somewhere in this group of 5. If volxen flips scum I think ariane is almost the towniest person in the game because she's the other vote on FL and there's just no way in my mind the scumteam bands together on an impossible D1 lynch down the stretch when a lot of people are already skeptical of them both.

I'm currently at L-2, but since Not_Mafia is known to quickhammer, I am treating this effectively as an intention to hammer. So I have no choice but to make a full roleclaim.

My role is

Town Tracker

[volxen]

If one of you is the doctor, you need to protect me tonight.

If one of you is the jailkeeper, you need to put me in jail tonight.

[volxen]

Alright, time for me to come clean. I fakeclaimed tracker because I didn't want one of our two allotted mislynches wasted on my slot. I am a vanilla townie.

[volxen]

LMAO YES

VOTE: volxen

volxen and FL?

Lamees you know from firsthand experience that it happens -- you and FL have firsthand experience with a VT who fakeclaimed tracker, no?

I don't think I should just be autolynched.

[volxen]

VICTORY!!! Well done, partner.

[volxen]

@mod it's OK with me to release the Mafia PT. I'm assuming my partner is OK with it as well, considering 95% of the posts in the Mafia PT were made by me.

[volxen]

LOOOL, so Not_Mafia was scum, great, riding on our terribly low expectations xD

lolol, you guys sure him easyyyyyyy townreads. "oh look Not_Mafia unvoted FL, hes probably town". He did a good job of taking advantage of his meta to make himself look more towny though.

[volxen]

EBWOP sure gave him*

[volxen]

Well I mean, there was 0% chance to convince anyone NM was mafia. Wrong town pool I guess.

Hey, I never doubted your NM scumread for a second.

[volxen]

But seriously though, once again Lamees has very accurate reads on day one, but no one listened to her about Not_Mafia. Lamees has a track record of having extremely accurate early game reads, which was one of the first things I mentioned to Not_Mafia in the Mafia PT:

Lamees is interesting, because in the two games that we played together (we were both town),

she had extremely accurate reads early on (i.e., she had both scum in her scumreads)

, but at the same time she has a tendency to inadvertently make herself look

really

scummy, we we might be able to take advantage of. In both games, she got mislynched early on:

Newbie 1893 (she was mislynched day two): viewtopic.php?f=11&t=77453

Newbie 1894 (she was mislynched day one)*: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=77508

*To give you an idea, in this game she made what appeared to be a “scum slip”, where she made a post that suggested she had the setup narrowed down (to column C if I recall correctly), which she couldn’t have possibly known at that point in the game as town. It turns out it was an honest miscommunication on her part about the setup, but her reaction to her “scum slip” was pretty bad, and she ended up advocating for her own lynch (as town) instead of defending herself.

So depending upon how accurate her reads are this game, she might be a good person to push towards a mislynch on day one.

White candy was also in Newbie 1894 with Lamees and I, but wc was scum in that game. In my opinion she did a lot of fairly obvious scummy things in that game, but I haven’t seen her town game yet. If she acts as scummy as town as she does as scum, then she could be another potential mislynch candidate for day one as well.

Do you think that Flavor Leaf will be one of our toughest opponents? I’m wondering if it will be difficult to secure a townread from him. Also, any tips on how to accurately sort the town power roles from the vanilla townies?

[volxen]

Lamees was also the only townie who correctly identified Snowbeast as genuine newb!town.

[volxen]

Jeez, Auro will argue with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

[volxen]

I've been following this game because MiniDeathStar's flavour caught my eye (

good job

! I especially enjoyed the "lunching"!), and because there were two players with whom I've played. I was curious to see these folks played in new games.

Auro was right when he said it's hard to read Lamees. I suspected her, again, just like in the game I played with her. I was surprised when the moderator offered to extend the deadline on Day 1, and Lamees said "noooo". In the game she and I played, the extension of Day 1 really helped town, so I thought it was interesting she didn't want the extension here.

I laughed when Volxen claimed Town Tracker. In Newbie 1895, Varsoon wrote a whole thesis as to why that's a bad idea. I imagined him in this game, giving Volxen a good talking-to for this claim. I double-laughed when Volxen started Day 2 with "yeah, I was just kidding...."

No no, what Varsoon was talking about was completely different. In Newbie 1894, the actual town tracker (Doughboy) made a full roleclaim at the beginning of day one when he was

under absolutely no pressure of being lynched

. THAT is what Varsoon was critical of -- not the fact that he claimed tracker, but that he outed himself as a TPR when it was completely unnecessary to do so (although town did end up winning that game).

	A	B	C
M	Mafia Roleblocker	Mafia Rolecop	Mafia Goon
1	Town Cop Town Neapolitan	Town Cop Town Tracker	Town Cop Vanilla Townie
2	Town Jailkeeper Town Doctor	Town Jailkeeper Town Tracker	Town Jailkeeper Vanilla Townie
3	Town Doctor Town Cop	Town Doctor Town Neapolitan	Town Doctor Town Tracker

Here, I had no choice but to fakeclaim a TPR to stop my lynch from going through on day one. Because we were in column A, tracker was the only sensible TPR for me to fakeclaim. In column A, a tracker fakeclaim only has a 1/3 chance of being CC'd. But each of {cop, jailkeeper, neapolitan, doctor} fakeclaims has at least a 2/3 chance of being CC'd (a cop fakeclaim is actually 100% guaranteed to be CC'd column A, since jailkeeper is never paired with cop). Neapolitan is also never paired with jailkeeper, so it still has that bad 2/3 chance of being CC'd.

So in my situation fakeclaiming tracker was by far the best move for me to make.