Newbie 1955 - wikihow mafia [game over]

[the worst]

i've got some good news

[the worst]

hi emps. why did you roll scum against me? i'm sincerely disappointed.

[the worst]

why aren't you concerned about the stagnancy of the gamestate in that case?

[the worst]

don't worry, i'm here now. \o/
the excitement begins here!!

what are your reads? gimme a quick synopsis of strength of town/scumreads and any bits of reasoning you've got handy. i'll do my catchup then jam with you

[the worst]

i'm on pg 2 and i'm calling emps/mackenzie the scumteam

i don't expect to be right BUT if i am i want lots of bread post-game as a reward.

[the worst]

I need to finish this catch-up asap and get a case down. Not much time to play with. Do you want me to dedicate time to showing my pg2 findings? If it'll help your reads, I'll do it.

[the worst]

sadly need to bookmark at post#150 for the moment. gotta work.

[the worst]

ClaimNow and Dongempire - why aren't you voting?

Aisa & Robbnva, I'll need to work out why you're voting me and jam a bit. I don't think we'll have enough time in 48 hours, but I also sincerely doubt that I am today's lynch. I am very capable of producing enough content to read me by in the next ~48 hours. Could I ask that you consider voting your other scumread to keep the gamestate moving while I catch up?

[the worst]

If not, feel free to treat #664 as a call to action: who is my partner?; why was Doctor Drew scum? I think he's been intensely transparent in posts 1-150 but I'm obviously spoiled on that.

This opening probably feels quite unconventional for a newbie game. Just trust I'm working towards something rewarding. :> if I was on the edge of the spotlight, I'm asking it to be redirected into my face.

[the worst]

yeah definitely i'll be around for a while yet. since we're both catching up it'd be cool to talk a little.

[the worst]

Sure, that's fair.

wrt emps, a series of pings and a fairly large hole in where I'd expect his towngame trajectory to be. it's still an early scumread, but like as early as 8/13 he's unusually unfocused. something that irked me a lot was his immediate reaction to being "confused" by Cyrus' posting style. he's aware of the way Cyrus posts and has also seen Cyrus absolutely kick ass as town before. I think it's just a faintly negative/"back foot" type perspective which I wouldn't expect to see from town!emps towards Cyrus.

kick on to 24/27 he's remarkably defensive and instantly switches to discrediting Cyrus rather than making an effort to advance the gamestate. like he shades Cyrus for pressuring low content slots (and encouraging newbies to do the same) which is objectively a good play; emps is too defensive here and lacks his usual kind of erratic irrational energy. too focused on self preservation and throwin shade.

last post I saw from him before I made my post was his nakedvote on eekveek in 40 when he'd been 1) proposing a scum motive for Cyrus, and 2) holistically ignored everything else happening itt

Cyrus caused this rvs to be a high content, fast moving couple of pages. I get where you were all coming from with the scumread; and this is my issue. Emps has had experience with Cyrus. There's a baseline respect and "admiration" where I think town!emps makes an effort to engage with this erratic version of Cyrus to parse his alignment. I don't understand emps drive-by shading Cyrus this early.

Mack is a weirder read I'll actually grab posts from his ISO because I think that can illustrate what I'm getting at a bit better brb.

[the worst]

Hello everyone. First ever game for me. Should be fun. I can see getting in on the voting is the way to fit in.

VOTE: doctor drew

Also I'll look to get an avatar sorted.

so I want it noted (not striking alignment indicative but it's still something to consider): right off the bat Mackenie's coming from a perspective of fitting in rather than one of pursuing a win condition. he is present and occupying his slot but doing nothing to advance the gamestate. I get some of these are newbtells not scumtells so if Mack wants to swing in and help me see inside his brain I'm so ready for that. I think emps is more likely scum than Mack atm.

Robb idk if you remember my first game onsite where you got UnaBombaH lynched d1 and then caught in lylo via POE/vote shenanigans. Remember that one guy replaced in d2 and really heavily scumread me for being survivalistic/not doing anything to lynch scum? Part of me is wondering if I'm doing that to Mack. But I digress. You want to see my p2 logic for now.

Mackenie rvs mode we cast random votes yes but why the 2nd vote on doctor percy why the 2nd vote on me . you two are pinging me but thanks.

I get the rvs, need to get the action underway. I acted hastily in my first post and my intention was to rvs someone without votes. I then noticed my error but figured it was way to soon to start changing votes. Also pointless unless peeps all start jumping on doctor.

Reading this post made me realise that his rvs vote was actually considered (this is rare in newbies, which prompted me to think through his vote a little further).

He's elected not to vote another newbie. He's also elected to vote the more passive of the 3 SEs who have voted so far; I'm prejudiced by knowing that my slot is town but that's quite beside the point.

If I was a newbie scum I can see myself considering and deciding to vote for 1) an SE, so to be seen as comparatively bold/townie, 2) a less vocal SE so as not to invoke unnecessary ire

This is inductive reasoning. I'm working from a perspective of 'what if he is scum?' rather than explicitly 'do I think this is scummy in isolation?' But it still makes me crack out the emoji.

at the time I *hadn't* read 44 which I actually liked. it seems to advance the conversation with Cyrus in a reasonably organic way when compared to e.g. emps.

[the worst]

Sorry this is a wall of reach and inductive reasoning. the hot take sprung to mind and I said it, you wanted the reasoning for it, so you get my pretty bad reasoning.

I have quite a lot of questions I'd like to ask Mack while it's still fresh to see it I can split whether his reasoning comes from coasting under the radar scum, or town who is simultaneously well-researched and nervous about making big waves. I don't have time to this today and I don't think I have enough confidence to want to aggressively scumcase Mack.

I think emps is actually scum. I have no read on ClaimNow yet; u glanced through his iso and I didn't see anything that struck me as poignantly towny or scummy in isolation. so I'm kinda indifferent on that lynch.

last thing before I turn off my brain and queue up some music:

If you can produce enough content, that'd be great. I hear you're a good player though, so why should I trust you and how will I know how to read you?

Voting my other scumread now would mean voting claim, which is L-1, I fear someone will just hammer out of boredom then.

What have you heard? These rumors are GROSSLY exaggerated.

It's up to you whether or not to trust me (or any other player. particularly one who walks into a thread and starts throwing down walls).

Just break it down as much as you can.
Do you agree with what I'm saying?
Do you think I believe what I'm saying?
Do my actions line up to the agenda I'm pushing (sorry this one is a bit useless since I haven't done anything of value and I'm a dozen pages behind)?
Remember win conditions: at the crux of it, scum need to live to endgame and achieve mislynches. town need to find and lynch people who are trying to achieve the former. do you have any intuition about which win condition I'm trying to achieve?

these are just examples of things that I'd challenge myself on if I were in your boots trying to read me. unfortunately for now I think it's a challenge: I just got here. I literally need to survive as either alignment because as town I don't have a lot of time left this phase to effectively find scum; and as scum I need to secure mislynches and find a path for myself and/or my buddy to endgame.

sorry there's no easy answer but you knew that when asking the question! if you're reading any of my posts and going "hhhhhrrrmmmmf?" just talk to me and see if my reasoning helps you get a level deeper. I don't bite. though I may steal your bread.

[the worst]

Is it bad that I think Robb is obvtown off the first 6 pages, think it's kind of towny that you reached out to me immediately, and think Aisa is town from a quick glance through her ISO? I'd currently be comfortable with any lynch in {claim,emps,mack} with a firm preference for emps.

[the worst]

You know me Robb. I'm usually pretty serious about winning, and I think we're both town. Is there anything else you want to know from me?

Sorry, could you quote the post where Claim slipped? I'd like to have a look at it. Far as I can tell his ISO is a catch-up then random comments. I'm a bit drunk to find it in a hurry.

[the worst]

we picked up on a lot of the same stuff. I wrote waffly walls in my notes about a lot of the posts you're talking about there (and some others).

VOTE: emps

[the worst]

Two posts where he seems attentive to the gamestate, what players are around, etc.:

Interestingly I actually had 40 down as another red mark. The most lucid he's been in this game is while focusing on activity-based tells, which really aren't any easier to focus on as either town or scum.

If he's town, he definitely could have seen this and gone "yeah that concerns me" and made that vote. If he's scum it's still quite easy for him to see that and go "wow that looks bad". I'm aware that you're playing devil's advocate so I don't intend to put your case down at all. But looking at this as an example of one of the towniest posts in his iso makes me think he's far more likely to be scum, as it's not really a post I think is more likely to come from town. :c

Either alignment can have a glance at post#0 to pick somewhere to push so that they seem busy.. I think it takes quite a lot more effort to actually snap back to the game and focus on analysing players' intentions and play in the thread. Things were in motion in the thread, and emps didn't pick up on them (I've already spoken quite a lot about what I was picking up come pg 2 -- emps is usually very astute).

Here he's saying almost the exact same things I was thinking while catching up. Like I agree that the rest of his posts are not that good but it just seems weird to me that scum would be so in tune with my pov:

These quotes are interesting as well. To give a shorter answer, I think you'll find town scumhunting find it easier to focus on specific things which happen in the thread. On the flip side, scum trying to look like they're scumhunting will focus on more general tells and tend to struggle to really analyse specifics in detail.

As for the rest: I think his defensiveness and inability to focus on what he's pushing are tells of a guilty conscience. Townies pushing scum tend to pick up a bit of fire because they feel that they're right.. Emps' ISO is void of fire. Another sample is like his advice to Mack in 90. At a surface level it looks like protown advice, but in practice it's not really easier for either town or scum to explain something posted on the wiki. When it sits in an ISO with very little engaging nuanced scumhunting, I think it's usually a scum ISO.

[the worst]

VOTE: ClaimNow

This is L-1. Please give intent to hammer and allow ClaimNow to claim (following his namesake! )

The quote tags and pt slip are likely as bad as they look. I agree him reaching 85 posts on his own is pretty improbable. I haven't read his ISO deeply critically yet, but there is a noted lack of solving in there. Given he's comparatively new and hasn't had a lot of success as scum recently, it checks out that he'd be interested in getting a second pair of eyes on his posts. On the flipside, I can't really see Claim using a personal private topic here. If he did, the outcome was reaching the point of quoting posts and asking why people thought things. It's a perfectly fine start to a game, but I don't think it's the kind of questions you're still restricted to after talking to yourself for 3 and a half pages, you know?

I'm pretty interested in a d3 where there's a prospect of {emps, mack} + at least one of {dong, myself} alive. I also think this game is solvable via process of elimination. At post 150, and from what I've seen in the last couple of pages, I'm at around:

{[drdrew/tw]} confirmed town (just from my perspective)
{[robbnva]} strong town
{dyrenz/dong} townread
{Aisa} leaning town
{Mack} I'm putting as a nullread. Please see below.
{} no scumleans allowing for PoE
{emps} is a a scumread via sheer play
{ClaimNow} is strongly scum given they appear to have slipped from the scum pt

[the worst]

I'm pretty interested in a d3 where there's a prospect of {emps, mack} + at least one of {dong, myself} alive.

Why?

No matter how Claim flips, I think it will be a spicy phase.

If this is a scumflip: because I think the partner is emps. If not, I think it's Mack. I believe I'll be able to sort Mack with a conversation.

If ClaimNow is actually town: because I think everyone other than emps and Mack are town and I also believe I'll be able to sort Mack with a conversation.

Based on what Dong has been picking up from emps' slot, I trust him to reevaluate his read on emps and reach the right outcome as well.

[the worst]

Mack, let me know when you're around.

emps, if you're town now is the time to start spewing town.

[the worst]

I'm the Doc slot. Hi, hello.

I want to work with you to crunch down the next tier of your read list (work out "if emps is town who out of myself and Mack is more likely to be town"), but as of right now I think emps is more than likely just scum.

pedit: agreed, Robb is definitely town. When you do have a bit of time Mack, let me know. I can see people's souls so I wanna question you a bit. >:3

[the worst]

Emps on the other hand as scum is very talkative based on his scum game. He even encouraged his partner lay low. Claim was eek. Eek did eventually confirm his role pm which means he probably made a couple of posts in the scum pm.

This is also very true. Just reading the day one gamestate, we had very vocal slots fighting with Cyrus which eventually lead to his death.

cyrus62 (5): Saint Percy, Robbnva, Doctor Drew, Mackenie, Kerset

This is his wagon at the time of being lynched. This was pushed by Aisa's slot, you, and my slot. The final votes by Mack and Kerset. I don't feel like a full vote count analysis of this game is probably necessary but:

Saint Percy and Robb are more than likely town for the way this wagon formed. It was against a strong vocal townie, who was posting slightly off-beat. It takes a lot of guts to try and gun this kinda person down as scum.

The more opportunistic votes are in {me, Mack}--these are votes which are conceivably more likely to come from scum. This is the point where scum see that a wagon is the real deal and realise that it's a viable lynch target.

I know I'm town (and would argue that Doc's stances on Cyrus made it really clear that he would be voting there). Which leaves Mack as the highest scum-equity here by wagon position alone. There is more than one reason for him to be in this wagon position, though.

Kerset we all know was town, so...

[the worst]

Doctor should claim today. They will be counterclaimed if this game goes into 3p. Claim order I would suggest:

Myself
emps
Asia
Mack
Robb

I'm happy to be shifted til later if people are comfortable with me going later.

Clearing someone from the PoE probably wins us the game. I have a solid read on who the doctor is, so gonna be interesting to see.

[the worst]

Yeah, I kinda forgot power roles were a thing and got sidetracked when I mentioned Kerset.

What I wanted to say is I agree with your reads. The strong townies vs. a vocal townie mislynch on d1 is consistent with a gamestate of town self-destructing. Scum who comes into the thread and sees town just lynching itself for them don't tend to play too hard. I sincerely agree scum were more likely to have coasted day one.

For me it's just a matter of determining which style of coasting they would have adopted. Mack had a lot of reads and stances but didn't commit to any. Emps didn't have as many reads which require a lot of criticality.

pedit: me asking for Claim's claim was bait. If he claimed doctor I would have wrecked him, without the doctor counterclaiming. He hammered because he knew it was scum and nothing else was gonna happen d2 (except like, maybe you and me becoming more obvtown. but I'm not concerned about that)

It was early but the hammer was inevitable so I'm probably not gonna lose sleep over it.

Dong was also v unlikely to be aligned with ClaimNow. He also synergised well with me, and apparently jarred you. He's a good nightkill in order to throw off the predictability of the game if scum want to hope that we panic and mislynch.

I think the night-kill makes sense from you, emps or Mack. Not particularly from Asia or I. You're town independently. So the circle completes itself.

[the worst]

If I were scum, Dong was firmly in my pocket. Closing games as a scum replace-in is really my only skill. Going into lategame with a skilled pocket when I could have night-killed you is firmly against my m.o.

I'd argue scum!Asia is probably along the same lines. Obviously I don't know her scum meta, but I can't see her deciding that taking Dong out of the game is a good idea.

If you're scum, you made the NK entirely for chaos. Emps or Mack make the NK to hope that we fall apart and destroy each other.

[the worst]

That sounded bad. Didn't mean to imply you're unskilled and Dong is skilled. I think you're a lot harder to pocket.

[the worst]

That's fair. Just SEposting quickly for posterity: discussing "IF I WERE SCUM...." scenarios is generally unwise at length. It leads to a lot of discussions with a lot of fairly easy answers which can just be avoided in favour of playing the game by reading what people have actually done.

On this occasion it's just another small piece of evidence which makes me think that I'm on the right track, as I can't think of a realistic reason for my townreads to have made the night-kill.



First step in today's challenge is working out which one of emps and Mack are town. If we can knock a PoE down to 1 probable person, we're basically on a highway to winning the game.

I hope the last scum doesn't concede! This final run home is deliciously fun. I live for it.

[the worst]

Wait shit claim flipped rb I retract my doc claim

I'll explain why I fakeclaimed doc next post, on mobile rn

I was thinking that if no one cced, no pr would be able to claim later, but if there was a cc, they would be conftown because scum wouldn't cc a claimed pr as the last scum the day before lylo

is this a teaching moment? is this my read? who knows, I guess we'll find out soon!

what we have here is one of:
a) emps forgetting that Claim flipped mafia roleblocker. This would mean that emps has gently slipped his alignment and is probably town, and his case above is valid. This would also be what some call "fancy player syndrome", where town!emps is trying to outplay his opponents--but then fell on his butt.

b) emps engineering a post to look like it is a slip. this might be scum or might be town motivated. but his purpose is deceptive, in that he wants us to to believe he has less information than he has. so this usually comes from scum. usually you can spot a fake slip by looking for something that just seems too silly to be real.

I don't really have a strong read on whether this is a or b. I think fancy player syndrome is something emps has as both alignments. I do somewhat think that town!emps is capable of double-checking that his gambit would work before trying to execute it so... In a pinch, I'd say that it's certainly not town indicative, and is possibly scum indicative.

over to you guys if you disagree. I really want to see a town!emps countercase if anyone's in the mood.

[the worst]

Myself - vt
emps - vt
Asia
Mack
Robb

I am a vt, I'd like to hear from Aisa next.

[the worst]

how's my solve, emps?

[the worst]

alrighty who's scum to you? can you towncase Mack for me or scumcase them?

[the worst]

Yeah, I do think Mack is scum if it's not emps. I think emps is the last scum though. I can explain my claim order later if you want.

And yes, weighing up claiming today vs. tomorrow I have a strong preference for today. Given we are half way through mass claim are you comfortable with the prospect of finishing it, discussing reads, and then having me explain it? I know I'm playing fancy now but there are particularly valuable tells which are basically instantaneously exhausted if I justify them now.

[the worst]

My soul is burning here Aisa. I want to explain my reasoning right now but it's technically -info to blast into it until at least massclaim is over. :@

[the worst]

UGH it hardly materially matters but I have this weird nagging gut feeling like I shouldn't speak yet. There's a thing I'm considering very heavily about a certain tell which I'll circle back to later.

[the worst]

Crap. I had the doctor down to either Asia or Mack. I thought Mack's survivalistic/noncommittal style might have been him trying to keep a low profile to avoid the nightkill -- if he was the doctor we could've pretty safely dogpiled emps without hesitation.

emps hasn't played in a way which is geared towards ensuring his survival, so much as a way which is geared towards explicitly not solving the game, if that makes sense. Mack had made more effort to poke the gamestate: he's just doing it in a way which looks like he doesn't actually want to make waves. This behaviour at surface level looked to me like it came from a town power role.

Robb is transparently playing too assertively and painting too much of a target on his back to be a TPR. A doctor in this situation is pretty unlikely to try and draw this much attention to themselves.

This is still ok. To me the only unknown alignments now are {emps, Mack, Robb} and I really think Robb is town. so suspect my theory is just right. To the rest of you my alignment is also unknown. Basically if we can determine who is town in {emps, Mack} we win with a big gold star.

[the worst]

I'd love to like, both set an hour aside and fire posts at each other it that's possible Mack. But to start off with - I see that you've pretty consistently had reads across the game. The problem I have is that when the crunch comes, you sat through the game without a vote cast for quite a long time. To me this looks like someone who wants to look good, but is scared to actually push people's buttons in case they get their hand bitten.

Can you talk me through why you're comfortable talking about your reads but kinda petrified of actually voting for them?

This one I can wait a long as I need for. I want to ask a few more things but getting quick replies to those without you considering them for too long will help me work out if you're town.

[the worst]

how's my solve, emps?

alrighty who's scum to you? can you towncase Mack for me or scumcase them?

as an aside, still want this from emps.

[the worst]

Lucky last:

@Asia one of the huge reasons I pushed for massclaim today is if Mack counterclaimed doctor tomorrow (and he was the last scum, obviously) it would be a fair bit harder to work out which of you was actually the doctor. :< you're townier by play but I don't have a strong read on who I'd trust to vote with or against you. There's one more reason which I'll explain before the curtain falls.

[the worst]

That's assuming you both lived, as well. You're high NK equity even without the claim.

[the worst]

I'm gonna go do some legwork now. Sorry for all the consecutive posts. Waiting for Mack and emps, but if anyone is reading any of this like "wtf does that meaaannnnn....." just quote it and ask and I'll swing by and explain myself. /o\

otherwise like definitely any thoughts you have on the game fire them off here. Asia in particular, if you feel I'm pushing a scum wincon, talk about what you're seeing. also consider emps' alignment from the perspective that I am scum and he is town: if you can reach a deductive townread on him (by analysing his slot and independently thinking its town) I'd be really interested in seeing what you're seeing. ditto if you can reach a deductive townread on Mack.

[the worst]

mm ok. if I've seen your TPR play I can't recall it right now. most people unconsciously let off survivalistic tells though, which I haven't felt from you at all. still not a huge deal and stuff.

[the worst]

Robb how do you feel about me townreading you? we've been engaging in pretty good faith I think but you haven't really spoken about my slot much.

[the worst]

Alright. I was going to play this a little fancier, but I don't think that'll really get me anywhere. The more I read, the more paranoid of you I'm getting. I'll go reread our first game together and some other stuff because I want to check your emotional range as scum. But I'm starting to think your late d1 is consistent with your scum m.o. and I'm worried I might have undervalued your scum skillset.

[the worst]

Yeah, that's what's got me grinding my teeth. I can tell some things have ground your gears at a policy level regardless of alignment. In my delirious reading this morning I'm actually starting to townread Mackenie. Once I'm done note-taking I'll drop a case with my read trajectory. I'd be pretty interested in seeing how you Aisa and emps feel about it.

[the worst]

Ftr, and somewhat for the sake of nostalgia.

Rob and I as a scum team(FuDuzn and Jake).

Compare and contrast folks.

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=30021

quick break from note taking to say:
can't believe Doc successfully rick rolled us while making a substantial meta case.

[the worst]

Mackenie rvs mode we cast random votes yes but why the 2nd vote on doctor percy why the 2nd vote on me . you two are pinging me but thanks.

I get the rvs, need to get the action underway. I acted hastily in my first post and my intention was to rvs someone without votes. I then noticed my error but figured it was way to soon to start changing votes. Also pointless unless peeps all start jumping on doctor.

This feels like an excuse because there's nothing wrong with having 2 votes on someone during RVS. He seems to be just going along with what cyrus said.

[/quote]

unless emps is scum and deflecting from mack or trying to pocket. btw until i am lynched i will share my thoughts and scum hunt

What do you mean by "deflecting from mack"?

well lts see scum could be in mack,rob or doc so 3 scum leans emps is town . dyrenz null and then you have others not posting hardly at all. however . rob why the vote even if its rvs why didnt you vote in your 1st post or 2nd . you wait till after some one else votes me?

Please explain all your reads.

Cause I usually don’t vote with my first couple of posts. Majority of the time I just do nothing until there’s something to be done.

my read on doctor is solely on the idea that you can only roll town so many times before you scum. mack is now scum due to defending doctor and saying hes town even though doctor hasn't posted much yet and i see you as 50/50 as of now till i get other post from you.

Those reasons are pretty weak. Also, what's your reasoning for rob?

well lts see scum could be in mack,rob or doc so 3 scum leans emps is town.

Funny u should say that. I was thinking Emps scum lean. Based on being mostly afk but making sure to post a number of times without seemingly offering anything.

So my scum lean names my other scum lean as his only town read. Food for thought.

your post would look better if you looked at everything posted before shadeing others

IMO, this looks like you're trying to buddy with emps.

Scum: cyrus
Slight scum-lean: Mack
Slight town-lean: Emps
Everyone else null.

Okay, I've finished my recap. Based on what I've read I'm pretty sure cyrus is scum. Cyrus hasn't stayed on one read the whole time. He seems to vote on whoever he wants and doesn't really push them. In addition, his posts don't seem town motivated and he never follows up on his questions. I also think mack could be scum because he seems to be buddying with emps.

I still think mack is scum. I'm starting to think doc is scummy

it's a pretty light tell, but i get the feeling claim isn't scum with Mack from his posting.

he's obviously not particularly invested but I don't get the feeling he's positioning his scumbuddy. the way he moves from his scumreads being cyrus > Mack into his scumreads being Mack > doc is interesting.
don't really get the feeling it's coming from a place of cheekiness
more like a place of "must pretend to have reads, yes, let's churn through my scumreads"

not sure how much sense this makes. sorry. i've finished notetaking for prior to my replace-in and need to focus. i still really think it's emps; unfortunately, failing that, i think it's probably robb before it's mack at this point.

this game is a lot harder to solve than i thought it might be on my first look at rvs.

[the worst]

this didn't come from my scum pt...



i promise...

[the worst]

hi hi! i'm around for a few more hours if you'll be active.

hmm interesting. i think throwing votes around is inherently +town. people start to act more intuitively/in a less considered way when they have votes on them. people also show their true colours in response to wagons. for example scum seeing a townie run up with votes tend to start wanting that townie dead (in this case, i think emps has exhibited this tell with respect to cyrus on d1)

[the worst]

could you throw me your reads atm?

i'd be interested to see who you think the last scum is and particularly whether it's a read you've been developing a while, or something that's pretty new.

if you have a particularly strong townread, mind throwing me a quick explanation of where it came from?

[the worst]

had to psyche myself up for this
VOTE: emps

a part of me is kinda boiling to kick off a big 1v1 today but i think it's really just emps :/
decent case to follow; still at work, still can't realistically make a big wallcase from my notes

[the worst]

from your perspective i suspect there's three pertinent pushes (emps, robb, mine)
be interested in seeing whose you think are more vs. less likely to come from scum or town

i have some pretty strong (unsurprising) opinions about them if that'll help

[the worst]

Yeah, I think we're kind of pivoting to the same outcome (possible exception Mackenie, who is the person I most want to chat with). I'm reaching a point where I can see a very plausible towncase for Mackenie, particularly through the middle/end of day one. His solve and handling of the cyrus lynch is a lot more consistent with inexperienced/uncertain town than it is with inexperienced scum--I don't really have the feeling that he knows it's a mislynch. There isn't any opportunity. He's either genuine, or engineered his handling of the wagon to look genuine (and succeeded resoundingly). Usually that just means he's genuine.

I can also... more abstractly... see a case for town!Robb. I'd forgotten how vexing it actually is to read him with a level of certainty. But his early posting has a fair bit of weight to it in a way which I think is kind of of exhausting to fake. He's been consistent, and while I could see his current exhaustion coming from running out of mislynch steam... I can also see it coming from town who is just frustrated at a policy level. So I think it's not particularly alignment indicative. On the flipside, I think he's showed an holism and lack of opportunism which probably comes from town slightly more often than scum. His m.o. is largely the same (he tunnels things he thinks are scummy as either alignment. he's semi-reserved with his non-policy reads as either alignment) but he keeps making these little comparisons between players and situations which makes me think he's thinking critically about the game.

Again, it's not an explicit towntell. But it's different from what I've come to expect from scum!Robb. Scum!Robb wants his lynch at all costs, where town!Robb actually wants to sort people. He isn't using people this game to get lynches across the line exclusively. He's laying down his cases very passionately, but he's dropping signs that he's reading slots other than the one he's tunnelling.

If we were in a large game I'd call it a null, or a nulltown read. But we have one scum left and I think it's emps. Kinda gotta work with what we've got, you know?


If you want any of this cased out more passionately and verbosely let me know. These are just my towncase synopses, obviously not my scumcase for emps (that comes later, if needed).

The prospect of emps being town, and having to read Mack/Robb correctly, makes me anxious. Which from experience means I'm probably trying to work out which one of two townies is scummier.

[the worst]

We find different parts of his ISO towntelling but that's making me think I was probably too critical on his opening posts - townhunting is a flexible sport after all.

I'm not really seeing anything I object to in your post. Just a different perspective to the one I had on my first read, and I'm actually kind of being swung by it given what I saw later in the thread.

Still would like Mack and emps to pop in and weigh into the discussion as much as they can. I'm looking for a certain tell this phase (sorry if we run a little dry on things to discuss without retreading the same ground; I wouldn't mind an emps hammer at any point, but I'd really rather wait for some emps/Mack content first).

[the worst]

Well played guys.
If anyone wants some feedback just hit me up!

[the worst]

tw and aisa were cleared by a claim scumflip because their slots wouldnt have been able to get to post 85 in scum pt

mack and rob are both tred and theres no way i become the one person who doesnt get lynched.

i have like no way to win this.

i concede.

I'm usually pretty anti-concede but I think this is a reasonable move, and I was waiting for you to basically not post due to

scum despair!!

Aisa being the doc basically didn't materially matter too much, because yeah, her slot was clearly town and also wouldn't have posted two and a half pages in the scum pt.

I think the path to victory here was probably playing to the paranoia/difficulty in reading Robb, then hoping for a Mack mislynch in 3p. It was a gruellingly hard path to victory though, and I think your assessment is right. We usually just lynch you today, then agree to battle it out in 3p if you are town.

Well played for the most part. The main feedback I'd give wrt your early game is to commit to something. I had you as scum off d1 largely because you didn't give a toss about the cyrus lynch. Given your history I would've expected you to feel more urgency wrt sorting his alignment.

[the worst]

Day 1 was such huge mislead och dear.

I enjoyed your posting a lot. I wanna be alive at the same time as you in a game soon.

[the worst]

I like feedback so if anyone has any, fire away.

I promised some feedback - here I go. This is actually abnormally difficult because you just played a really solid game.

You replaced into a TPR slot who was at risk of falling into the PoE pool and potentially being lynched, just by virtue of your predecessor's posts and lack of activity. The best thing to do in this situation is to post enough to be townread, but without either: 1) underselling it, being overconfident in your entitlement to survive, or focusing too much on your survival (these are town power role perspective slips); or 2) kicking down doors and painting a target on your back. I think you did this pretty much perfectly, whether incidentally or by design. your opening readlist was:

Leaning town on:

Mack

emps

Null:

Dyrenz/Sera Masumi

eekveek/Claim

Leaning scum:

Rob

Doc

Some things I really liked about this post:
- your take on Mack was elegant and effective. One of the things that prompted me to heavily reevaluate my read on him was that other newer folks were just like "this dude is town". I kind of recognised that my initial read was equally attributable to newness and scumminess, and you should definitely feel that you played a big part in Mack being taken off the table as a lynch

- your reaction to Claim didn't look like you were scum. Robb tunnelled Claim for policy reasons (which is something that could come from either alignment, whether pushing a mislynch, earnestly pushing a lynch, or bussing). emps immediately flipped on Claim, as though he has prior knowledge that the posts came from the scum pt ("TMI" was the soft scumtell for emps here). In a world where either of these guys were scum, they were trying to dramatise the pt slip situation in order to look like they weren't scum with Claim. if you look at something and have a feeling like "this person wants to look like they aren't associated with this caught scum", I'd always encourage reevaluation. now we come to the inverse: you nullread Claim by his ingame content, and asked the mod a question to try and clarify whether or not it was a scumslip. In a world where you are scum with Claim, you have seen him hard scumslip, then tried to nullread him through the situation. This is like, the typical spot to look for scumbuddies in readlists. Which means you didn't try to capitalise on the scumflip to look towny. This is a pretty abstract tell, sorry for the long-winded explanation, but I think the considered approach you took to this was ironically anti-associative.

- within 4 hours, you reevaluated your read on Robb using both ingame reasoning and supporting meta. this was within 5 posts ingame, as well. I think scum in this situation let their readlists simmer a little longer before heavily reevaluating. your reevaluated read on Robb was also correct which is a huge bonus.


the main critique I'd make of the reads is the read on emps, obviously. you should take this as a feather in your cap though for a few reasons. firstly, you reevaluated this read and reached an entirely correct conclusion. but also the fact you were willing to talk to me (former scumread) about emps (former townread) in such good faith come d3 was really impressive. actually you handled my replace-in in incredibly good faith; paranoia is very easy to have, and very easy to fake as scum. what I liked about your paranoia is that you stated it, we had a quick chat about it, then you went back to reevaluating my slot's alignment at face value. this breaks down tunnels; it's really solid townplay.

ok back to the emps read.

you cited 152-159 as the main posts which you agreed with - I think he raised some points, but I think the way he conducted himself in them was pretty scum indicative. 152 is a good starting point; at a policy level he's not wrong about Cyrus. but when he talks about Cyrus pushing everyone, he is really conspicuously talking about Cyrus' towngame. emps continues to use townreading language around Cyrus' slot, despite having no stated stance on it and being comfortable with the lynch going through. this isn't immediately obvious from this post alone, but when sitting back and thinking about his ISO up to this point, I found his stance on Cyrus to be opportunistic.

after emps' vote on doc he also waits thru Cyrus posting then Mack posting once, until Mack posts a second time criticising emps' vote on doc. within 3 minutes, emps has reappeared to defend himself and his reasoning for the doc vote; this has signs of someone who is actively checking the thread, but not looking to actively engage others in solving discussions and advance the gamestate. I agree with Mack's take here that doc's posting was pretty transparently misguided, but I understand I was spoiled on Doc's alignment ; the most scum indicative part of emps case against doc is that he feels doc was trying to pocket Cyrus.

so from a cynical duck's pov this series of posts was:
> shading Cyrus without trying to sort his alignment
> voting doc for nulltells
> lurking until called out on the vote
> scrambling to find a reason to justify the vote afterwards


again this is from the deep dark recesses of my paranoia; the fact you checked yourself on emps and evaluated against my read in good faith is actually a huge pro.


I've talked at great length about this, so I'll keep the rest of my commentary brief (it's mostly just net positive): I got the feeling through the game that you really believed in your reads. the way you'd play devil's advocate when we were all dogpiling the scum!emps theory, the way you'd chime in to defend your Mack townread, etc.

you consistently engaged with other slots in good faith, and then reconsidered their alignment outside of real-time interactions. this makes you much less likely to fall for scum smooth talking, and much more likely to pick up on more nuanced alignment tells.

you were present in the game and kept the gamestate moving in the right direction, without explicitly being LOUD (a la myself, dongempire, Robb) and painting a target on your back as a town power role.



you should be very proud of this game. it wasn't exactly a super hard solve, but a win is a win: you were quite fundamental in keeping town cohesive and advancing the late gamestate into a town win.

[the worst]

that got long winded :U
I'm prone to waxing poetic. if any of that makes no sense at all, just met me know.

[the worst]

definitely keep me posted about the game you're designing!

i don't really play large games all that often so if it's over ~13 people i might struggle
i'll let you know at the time, though

[the worst]

Ahhh, that's understandable. Checking yourself on that read in that instance was smart. Sheeping consensus while you catch up or get invested in a game isn't always a bad thing, I don't think - as long as you're ready to keep your reads fluid and keep a keen eye for any first hand tells.

I definitely don't think the d1 emps scumread was "easy" to get; I think I arrived there by luck and by having experienced his hyperactive towngame, more than much else. hopefully the contrarian read helped put that in perspective a bit, though.