Newbie 1906 | Fractals | Over

[Micc]

Hey everyone!

I'm the designated Inexperienced Challenged player for this game. This means I have volunteered to be a resource that newer players can use to answer questions about game mechanics or theory. The guidelines to my role as an IC are laid out in the wiki article titled Being a good IC.

My goals for this game are 1) to steer the game in the direction of being a reasonable representation of what you can expect from other games on this site and 2) to win. I will primarily be playing to accomplish these goals, but am more than happy to jump into teacher/mentor mode when players ask me questions about game mechanics or theory.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to take some time to read through the setup and game rules to make sure you understand them. Additionally, the mafiascum wiki is a great resource for learning more about mafia.

Best of luck and enjoy the game!

[Micc]

VOTE: Formerfish

Because wagon.

[Micc]

UNVOTE: FormerFish
VOTE: Alonzo

Choo Choo L-2

[Micc]

One vote is necessary to start the wagon. And as i said previously..

VOTE: micc
My wagon is better.

What makes your wagon better than the others available at this point in the game?

General-theory Q for Micc: as our resident IC, which of the 12 possible setups do you think most likely to benefit town? IOW, is it better to have more, relatively weaker PRs or a single stronger one? My own sense is that more PRs is generally better, as a single stronger PR could go to waste in a newb game. I realize that the same argument holds true for scum so it's prolly a wash.

I believe Rolecop vs Cop+Tracker and Rolecop vs Jailkeeper+Tracker to be the most townsided of the possible setups. There are nine total by the way so if you’re seeing 12 then you’re not understanding correctly.

In an open or semi-open setup like this one, more PR’s with less power favors the town. As a thought experiment, consider a setup contains seven townies each named A to G versus two Mafia Roleblocking-Godfather-Ninja-Tracking-Rolecops. Town has a deterministic win using day 1 mass claim despite Mafia players having much more powerful abilities in a vacuum. This effect is less noticeable in closed setups but I believe it to still hold true.

[Micc]

Forgot to add that this Mafia Discussion thread has an assortment of stats that have been compiled since 2d3 became the official newbie setup. I don’t think the sample size is quite there for anything interesting to actually be statistically significant at this point.

[Micc]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, 12 not 9 setups, my bad. The stats thread is intriguing; will be interesting to see if anything changes with additional data.

Things will almost certainly change over time. For example, town win rates for C2 and C2 have a hilariously large gap for how similar the setups are.

My question for you is: How are you intending to apply these theory discussions in a way that helps you win this game?

[Micc]

whoops. that should read C1 and C2.

[Micc]

My question for you is: How are you intending to apply these theory discussions in a way that helps you win this game?

I don't know atm but this is my first MS game and haven't played with this Chinese-menu setup before. Mostly just trying to get some discussion going.

Ahh but there’s plenty of interesting things happening in this game already and discussing this game is immensely more useful than theory.

What do you think of me putting Alonzo to L-2 for no reason other than to make a wagon?
What do you think of YellowSnow’s comment about your post looking unnatural?
What do you think of Alonzo campaigning for your vote?

(Note that these are actually rhetorical whereas the question I asked in post 29 wasn’t)

[Micc]

Well I'm behind already and busy at work so I'll see you all in about 5 hours when I can catch up.

[Micc]

So last night I got home from work late ate some food and passed out. But I'm here not and catching up.

[Micc]

Apologies for a quote wall but these are the things I wanted to respond to while reading.

Spoiler:

@Micc - are you thinking that some of this unnecessary bickering this early on day1 is manufactured?
yeah, me too

Probably. It's hard to push meaningful cases 3 pages into the game, but that's usually what is necessary to get the game moving. I've certainly been guilty of exaggerating my opinion in the early part of games so I guess that's manufactured.

Whenever you feel like actually playing the game that question will be there for you.

I'll answer it now (sort of):

This is a game of information
Scum starts with an information advantage
Town starts with a time advantage (manifested by their larger team)
Town wins if they gain equity in information before they lose their time advantage
Town only wins if they gain information (or get lucky)

When I am town everything I write serves one of three purposes:
1) To gain information
2) To lynch scum based on my best interpretation of that information
3) Lulz

Putting you at L-1 satisfies two of these requirements

What kind of information do you expect to get from putting Nikk to L-1 at this state in the game? I understand that it will generate a reaction, but I'm curious why you think that reaction is meaningful? It's not like you or anyone else is putting Nikk under the pressure of responding to a case or answering questions.

VOTE: Nikk

This is L-1
that means Nikk is one vote away from being lynched and you better not drop that last vote
until you've first declared your intent and giving everyone time to discuss the lynch

Easy way to lynch town and not get to much scumreads because of it.

This logic doesn't work for me. TTTT came into the thread and put a player to L-1 before even reading the game. If the lynch were to go through and Nikk flips town, surely TTTT's vote would be one of the first to be questioned right?

I mean what if I think you are scum but Nikk isn't?

Your perrogative but if you are going to be persueded by an argument as stupid as "player X is scum because he wants towncred" either you are scum or then you are town and then this will be a short victory for scum.

Isn't the reasoning you gave in post 112 a variation of "player x is scum because he wants towncred"?

TTTT - is this the case you're pushing or is there more to it?

[Micc]

UNVOTE:

Yellow's relative experience in the forum mafia setting may be showing through but I don't see his actions as scummy. He just seems unfamiliar with what scumhunting looks like and how to go about it.

TTTT's game theory opinions seem to line up with mine. I'd like some clarification on what exactly his Yellow push is based on. It doesn't hold water for me right now but I could be missing parts of it.

GrandWazzo planting his flag on flippy is interesting considering Child and I have been equally lackluster. I'm curious why he thinks flippy is most deserving of the vote and also what he thinks he'll get from the vote. The lack of questioning makes the pressure pretty no existent imo.

Alonzo is voting me for presumably not doing anything. That's fine. He's been otherwise unmemorable which is less fine.

FF/Child/Flippy are also pretty unmemorable.

Nikk falls into that same category as TTTT where I wish I understood his case better. I don't think Nikk's reaction to being on L-1 is particularly meaningful considering there wasn't ever any real pressure.

And that's where I'm at after one pretty hasty read.

[Micc]

VOTE: GrandWazoo

I find planting one's flag on a low activity slot to be pretty useless in actually getting them to change. If they're inactive enough the mod will deal with it and if they are around but not being useful then it's time to start asking prodding questions. Planting the flag and nothing more is just an easy under the radar push to make that sounds way more town than it is.

GrandWazoo expressed at least a small scum read on Yellow as TTTT was forming his push. I think GrandWazoo jumps in on that wagon if he's town and truly believes the push. As scum he's content to hang out on the low activity player's wagon.

Predit: ehh. I guess the same applies to you alonzo. What are you hoping to gain from that wagon?

[Micc]

What kind of information do you expect to get from putting Nikk to L-1 at this state in the game?

I didn't really have a

type

of information I expected
but it helps advance the game when players start respond to the unexpected
especially newer players
one thing we learned is that Yellow jumped off the wagon and started hard-defending Nikk

Is that meaningful to you though? I understand the desire to get things moving and I often employ this exact strategy (see my RVS vote). I'm just thinking at this that point in the game it's time to start putting a case behind the pressure votes so that people actually have something meaningful to react to.

I don't want to get caught up on that tho cause it's more of a "hey you could execute what you're doing here better" than me forming reads. Much better to leave that stuff for post game. Give me the three sentence or less case on why you think Yellow is scum.

[Micc]

I voted flippy RVS and regardless what little pressure it has I haven't seen a compelling reason to unvote him. Active lurking is anti-town and annoying, and often effective.

Perhaps you should ask him some direct questions. If he responds to them that's great - you've just earned more substance to form a read from and he's now more engaged to the game. If he ignore's you then you're adding to your case.


TTTT - I'll take another look at the early pages to examine Yellow's townread on Nikk after I make some lunch. None of the quotes strike me as seeking towncredit or survivalistic, moreso as new to forum mafia and scumhunting.

[Micc]

I'm not sure I'm explaining it well, but it doesn't seem like a normal faked townslip.

I don't think you're explaining it well. Can you start by defining how the post in question is a townslip because I don't even see that.

@Micc
how long does it take you to make lunch?

30ish minutes. That said I'm not going to hold my real life hostage just to play in this game so when things come up you're just gunna have to wait.

[Micc]

Is that meaningful to you though?

It is.

A newbie player with a strong unexplained TR on another player early in day1?
revealed when the other player is put to L-1?

I'm confused why this isn't meaningful to others.

I'm confused why you think this is indicative of YellowSnow being scum. You helped build a pressure wagon that YellowSnow happened to be a part of. YellowSnow garnered a town read on Nikk and a scum read on you from pressure wagon. YellowSnow voted accordingly. What part of this exchange makes YellowSnow scum?

TTTT - I'll take another look at the early pages to examine Yellow's townread on Nikk after I make some lunch. None of the quotes strike me as seeking towncredit or survivalistic, moreso as new to forum mafia and scumhunting.

Following up on this and adding to what I wrote above: I think calling Yellow's townread on Nikk strong is an over-exaggeration considering he never used that word himself. In fact you're pushing him for doing exactly what he's supposed to do and what you've done yourself - push players to create reactions and form reads. You even came to the same conclusion as him with regards to your read on Nikk.

I'd understand this push more if you were arguing that the reasoning behind Yellow's read is fabricated/not based on logic/exaggerated/ect, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

None of the quotes strike me as seeking towncredit or survivalistic

explain 168 from a newbie town perspective
I just can't get my head around that

I kinda just ignored that post cause I don't understand what Yellow's trying to say. Upon revisiting it I still don't understand what Yellow is trying to say. It doesn't make sense in the context of who was voting who. I don't think that's alignment indicative. Scum aren't incentivized to make confusing posts any more than town players.

posting this before I lose it. I'm on page 12 but I only glossed over Child's catchup for now.

[Micc]

In addition to my vote, I've stated several times that flippy needs to get his ass in gear and demonstrate he's invested in the game. Once he does I'll query him for reads. I would like to know what he made of the Yellow-Nikk interchange.

This is the equivalent of yelling at your kids that they need to do better in school. While you're probably right, you're not going to enact any change just by yelling at them.
Your push just isn't productive. I understand wanting to get more from that slot but you've got to realize that your vote doesn't mean anything to him if he's already not engaged.


I don't like that Child's catchup doesn't have much direction to it. Yellow's vote for "fence-sitting" seems reasonable, and I assume that's a significant part of TTTT's vote as well, but it's not clear to me. I like the GrandWazoo push more at this point and would be happy if people joined me.

[Micc]

And how dare you say my vote doesn't mean anything. Every vote matters!

Your vote doesn't matter right now. It certainly hasn't made flippynips miraculously become engaged with the game. If you're town your wasting your most valuable tool.

I'm not trying to justify active lurking. I agree it's bad for town. But this is me standing here with my experience of dozens of newbie games moderated/IC'd telling you that your vote isn't going to get flippynips engaged with the game if he isn't already.

[Micc]

Let me ask you then: what do you expect to gain from pushing me? I have been engaged with the game. You seem more focused on who I have/haven't voted for than anything I've actually said.

I expect you to react to my push and I expect I will be able to form a read on you from your reaction. This is in contrast to your push which is unlikely to yield enough of a reaction to form a read from.

I’d also like to argue that you're not engaged in the game. You haven’t actually said anything in your posts besides defend from my push and call out flippynips for lurking. I have no way to know where you stand on over half the playerlist.

[Micc]

That being said. If this flippynips catch up actually happens and is lackluster I’m in full support of the wagon.

[Micc]

You’re not wrong. That’s what I’ve been saying and why I’m voting Grandwazoo. Feel free to join.

[Micc]

You’re not wrong. That’s what I’ve been saying and why I’m voting Grandwazoo. Feel free to join.

Nah that's cool.

I get the feeling you have Townlean on Yellow (if you've outright said as much I blame me being tired). Is that accurate?

Yellow isn’t really a town lean, more just he’s in my still need to sort pile but low priority. These usually turn into
Town reads eventually but when I make it to lylo this is where the scum is. Still have a lot of work to do to sort FF/Alonzo/flippy and these are much higher priority because they seem more likely to be scum at this point. Im actively scumreading Grandwazoo obviously.

[Micc]

@Micc - is your SR on Wazoo fully captured in 230 or is there more to it?

I’d add in that his lack of active engagement with the players who are here is indicative that he doesn’t actually care about engaging people. He just wants to look like he’s being useful and protown which is a scum mindset.

[Micc]

Goodness does anybody read the setup before playing?

[Micc]

We need to note who isn't here for this meltdown because if Yellow flips scum
it's pretty clear his partner isn't here
or they'd be screaming at Yellow in scumchat to STFU

There’s a scum chat?

What are you actually asking here?

[Micc]

It’s the same setup as every newbie game. See post 2.

[Micc]

8 hours is too long. I’ll be checking back in before I go work in 3 and if the catchup doesn’t look promising I’m declaring intent then.

[Micc]

I'd say drop it now...
but I'm impatient
you should really wait until everyone on the wagon has a chance to unvote and/or chime in
bc it's still kinda early

Here's where I will use the Newbie format:

Is this a common courtesy on this site?

Yes. Common procedure (especially for day 1) is:

Player goes to l-1.
Someone gives intent to hammer.
Player claims.
People react to claims.
Wagon either dissolves or is hammered.

Note that this process is much more effective over a day or two than an hour or two. That appies in the case of quick hammers and deadline lynches.

[Micc]

8 hours is too long. I’ll be checking back in before I go work in 3 and if the catchup doesn’t look promising I’m declaring intent then.

Hold on, weren't you the one most opposed to pushing on people who are inactive?

That was before he came in and essentially scum claimed.

Intent to hammer in 24 hours

[Micc]

Oh I missed that.

VOTE: Flippynips

L-1

[Micc]

I'm here, have read and comprehended most of it. I am going to be honest, I space out after while of back and forth other people are having that isnt related to me at all in an immediate sense. I am going to take a look at some isos now. Anyone on?

I'm off and on while at work. What's your strongest read and why?

[Micc]

strongest read and why?

TTTT as town. Its hard to pull off what he has as scum, the amount of posting that is. And quantity isnt everything, but I think that theres a good amount of quality posts in that amount on content as well. I see a person playing the game in a way that moves it forward and done as a means to gather info. Scum doesnt need to do that and would have more of an agenda in place.

We are on the same page there although that feels like the easy one. I'll go next.

Flippynips as scum. I'm taking 346 as a scum claim. There's no reason for that to be his only comment about the first seven pages if he's town. There's especially no reason for him to disappear once people start pressuring him about it if he's town. I think that post was his attempt at making a "townslip" to get him off the hot seat quickly and easily.

[Micc]

Does that make it my turn or yours?

[Micc]

town

[Micc]

I don't think scum was on that wagon.

This is also my first thought.

Im traveling and will have limited access until the 25th. Expect a post or two a day but I won’t be online constantly.

V/LA noted. --P

[Micc]

yeah, I’m pretty familiar with FF from modding his games. This is our first time playing against each other. He might be scum here. I’m going to read back for interaction tells but off the top of my head he hits some of the things I’m looking for. Not being early on the wagon and confident enough to make that nightkill choice. Will also look at Alonzo and child interactions when I go back through. TTTT I’m still pretty happy to call town right now. Yellow and Nikk are out of the lynchpool but not necessarily town reads at this point.

[Micc]

Also please take care not to push a lynch through too quickly here. Our tracker presumably has an innocent here and should probably claim if that person is being lynched so give an opertunity for that to happen.

[Micc]

I feel like a nip scum flip would also help sort some of the newbies.

Now that it’s happened can you expand on this thought?

[Micc]

One last thing. Mic have you modded a scum game from me?

Not that I recall. My modded games are listed on my wiki page. I’d look myself but I’m tired and just trying to get my thoughts down before bed.

ok, question to alonzo, FF and micc:
Can you give us a link to one of your scum games, where i can see the mafia chat? i need to verify this for myself.
now that i remember, ive heard some people saying he was logging in frequently, so he was definetly communicating with the scumteam. so what you are saying FF, it is beetween me, yellowsnow and nikk?

Yeah I’m just going to refer you to my wiki page also.

[Micc]

NK analysis is generally a bad way to find scum
I often think I have it figured out based on the NK
and then I'm wrong

true - that's exactly while i am hesitant to make the push. i do think however that micc discouraging us to make the wagon on flippy is a tad scummy.

Why’s it scummy? Pushing players for not contributing in the early parts of Day 1 is not productive. I’m going to stand by that belief regardless of what the player happened to flip. Calling it scummy here is results oriented thinking.

[Micc]

VOTE: Alonzo

I just reread end of day 1 and his dance from being on the wagon to wanting the hammer to resisting from lolhammering, to lolhammering anyway feels like distancing that went wrong and turned into a bus. He also keeps voting me without saying anything and I don’t know why he thinks that would be productive.

[Micc]

If I misrepping here it’s cause I’m trying to solve this game with 15 minutes a day worth of trying to keep up on my phone. Also my point here is that even active lurkers aren’t worth pushing in the first half of day 1. Spend that precious time solving the 90% of players who are available. At some point your active lurker is going to get replaced or make some posts and that’s when you jump in with pressure like we did this game.

UNVOTE:

[Micc]

I don't like how micc says this is scum me. This is very clearly the me that was town in his games and is town here now. I don't see him pushing me though, just saying I could be scum. Let me iso him to get a better look.

I haven’t called you scum yet, but you are in my lunch pool. I also never used meta as justification for how I’m reading you so I’m not sure where you’re getting that from.

I don't see a town child case.

I don't see a scum case either. I was asked questions, i responded to them. Do you have any questions for me?

Waiting for Micc to get out of V/LA currently.

I’m driving home tonight. I’ll be able catch back up then or tomorrow morning depending how late it is. You’re welcome to compile a list of things you want me to respond to. Right now I have no idea what you want from me.

[Micc]

Feel free to hammer away. I don't expect to come up with anything meaningful to say between now and whenever the intent to hammer was for. Scum feels like it's in Child and FF but it's entirely possible I'm missing on that. Certainty hasn't been the greatest game from me and I'm sorry about that.

[Micc]

Yeah this didn’t go well. Not bussing early enough has been a weakness of mine in the past. Here I think my timing was good enough but getting to it from my earlier stances was never going to be natural. Hitting the cop with the nightkill was encouraging but there was still a lot of work to do. Perhaps I could have obv-town’d a little and driven some mislynches with a constant presence, but definitely not while out on vacation. Alonzo being the tracker clear was the nail in the coffin.

Town play this game was strong overall. My hope is to break that down into a review of sorts for each of you, but please know that I’m lazy and historically only bat around .500 on making that happen. If there’s particular things you’d like me to comment on or questions you have let me know and I’ll make sure to address them.

Thanks to Plotinus for a great job moderating. I’m ok for the mafia PT to be released.

[Micc]

Sooo... I still have confusion on calling hammer and how it works, but as I'm at work I can't really post too much on it. Long story short...

Why is it there are sometimes timeframes and sometimes people just cut in line? Seems counterproductive.

This game wasn’t a good example of how the process usually goes down. In general you can expect the person to claim when they go to L-1 or when someone declares that they intend to hammer. From there people either jump off or the hammer happens. When a timeframe is given that’s usually just an indication of how long the L-1 player is being given to respond before they are hammered regardless of their lack of claim. Note that hammering without a claim is extremely dangerous as hitting a town PR is nearly impossible to come back from. Many players will pursue policy lynches against players who unexpectedly hammer without a claim.

The process tends to fall apart in the game’s later stages. For example no one felt the need to wait for me to claim since all the PR slots were accounted for.

I hope that explination helps.

[Micc]

This is pretty much a Hail Mary but it hits enough of the check marks to maybe give me an outside chance.
He was on the flippynips wagon.
He's not a likely jailkeep or doctor target.
He's not a likely mislynch.
His death doesn't take away from the pool of "experienced players" that I need to hide in.
He's possibly dangerous to me considering my push on him and that I ignored his comments while jumping ship to bus.

Here's what I wrote in the mafia thread about the nightkill choice. It didn't feel like I could afford to go PR hunting - more so that I needed the person who I wanted to kill to happen to be a PR. That plan worked, but unfortunately for me nothing else did. I did not pick up on 36.

[Micc]

Spoiler:

Yeah this didn’t go well. Not bussing early enough has been a weakness of mine in the past. Here I think my timing was good enough but getting to it from my earlier stances was never going to be natural. Hitting the cop with the nightkill was encouraging but there was still a lot of work to do. Perhaps I could have obv-town’d a little and driven some mislynches with a constant presence, but definitely not while out on vacation. Alonzo being the tracker clear was the nail in the coffin.

Town play this game was strong overall. My hope is to break that down into a review of sorts for each of you, but please know that I’m lazy and historically only bat around .500 on making that happen. If there’s particular things you’d like me to comment on or questions you have let me know and I’ll make sure to address them.

Thanks to Plotinus for a great job moderating. I’m ok for the mafia PT to be released.

Why'd you gun for me?

I had to gun for somebody. Alonzo obviously didn't work very well and I wanted to save Child for later when the numbers got tight. The pool of potential targets was just too small.

I was excited to finally play a game with you until I rolled scum.