Newbie 2026 | Space | Over

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Hello! I’m reading through the thread. I’m most likely going to give up half way, and then start reading it backwards, just seems like the way the day is going. I tend to make big walls of text, and I am on mobile, so forgive me the uncounted typing/composition errors I will be making. Back to catch up!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

On a quick skim based on the first three and last two pages primarily: ClarkBar is not striking me as town at all, and neither is Sirius. I’ll explain why when I get to feeling I’m caught up.

Well.

I might NOT explain for ClarkBar, actually, but that’s a different subject altogether: you can see some of what I see there without my help, and I don’t want to coach ClarkBar on how not to be scumread by me. We’ll see if I can find a way to phrase it that doesn’t open him to fixing it. If not, I can at least point at the dots and let everyone else connect them.

In the meantime, Sirius is highly suspect and I will explain how. Soon. If I don’t change my mind after reading more of the game, but that’s a permanent risk.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Well, I’ve changed my mind. I have one more page to look at (page 4) and then I’m going to need to press on people. Here’s the thing: I’m going to need to reread and get some reactions before I can make any strong reads, because I think I’m missing something in a couple slots... and I think that what I’m missing is vital to making sense of the game state.

For now: VOTE: Ivyeo. I like to have a vote down somewhere and I like it here at the moment. Get talking, friend!

And more from me later

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Question: is there a clear town leader in this game? Does anyone have a near unanimous townread? Is there anyone who is just so town that even if you disagree with them you can follow their thought process at a distance and conclude that maybe they’re not acting pro town or whatever your issue is, but that they’re playing LIKE town? (I appear to have acquired this issue, which suits me fine.)

I want to identify the strongest town player this game and read their corpus of posts. A town leader is a REALLY good start. I want to sort three slots by interaction. But I don’t have a clear read on a town leader: everyone seems mildly suspicious once I wrench my brain over to “this is just Sirius’s playstyle, anti-town as it is,” and “ClarkBar is bussing too enthusiastically for that pairing to be functional.” So I need to figure out what everyone else sees and work backwards from there to make useful interaction reads.

I also want to start deciding on an elimination candidate for Day 1, because I am adamantly opposed to no-elimination on Day 1 and there doesn’t seem to be anyone that’s universally a target yet. Time’s getting to where that’s a useful chat to have, though I’m not feeling pressure yet. The less last minute cat herding necessary, the better: that’s all.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It’s part of sorting for me. If you aren’t willing to answer, that strikes me as it not being obvious enough to even bother answering, which makes my job much harder.

Unfortunately, that makes my reads much harder. Still, pressuring one of the players who refuses to take a stance and who everyone has sort of overlooked is a good start, so I hope Ivyeo shows up soon.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

And my inability to properly compose a reply on a tiny screen bites me again. Pretend that second “much harder” said something else, it bothers me that my composition skill is suffering this way.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Willowsaura, why are there votes on you? From your perspective, I mean. After all, I can read the game myself (and just did).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

A push gets results!

Not cool with that E-1, we have three days left. Take that down, I’ll hammer to avoid a no-slim if we need to later, but let’s not deny Town discussion and scumhunting time, shall we? That is exclusively to the benefit of scum.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

There’s a difference between “we should make sure to eliminate someone for the Day” and “we should eliminate someone right now”. Note that I stated outright I felt no time pressure... which implies there’s no need to actually eliminate. I also said that I’d hammer later if needed (be sure to take note of that part!) and that I want to maximize discussion time. This is a very spurious push based on... a contradiction that doesn’t exist. My, my. (Granted, I might have misread from the acerbic introduction of the prior post bleeding forward to this.)

As for your question: there are things some players do that, if you tell them, they stop doing. Some of these things are both harmless to town and alignment-indicative — and you’re likely to be blind to them. Why point it out? It should be enough to say that I have Suspicions. That said, they’re no longer releveant after I read the full game.



And ... what a bold statement, Kerset: acting pro-town being indicative of scum? Hmmm. That does imply the inverse — acting scummy being indicative of town. By that measure, we can simply give up on getting reads and just hammer the biggest wagon over and over until we get all the scum by pure chance or we lose the game: after all, there’s an infinite regress in “town is scum and scum is town”.

Or maybe you meant to say something else that didn’t lead to such awful things?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The more I think of it, the more I think I’d like to move my vote to Kerset, but I think I’ll hold off, because I don’t much like Ivyeo’s E-1 with 3+ days remaining.

But I’m trying to think of motivations, you see, and I’m having a hard time. Look, for instance: If scum try to play a pure town game, it’s arguably against their wincon: they’re most likely going to make a mistake and over share, which is to town’s benefit.

So that isn’t it.

And if a player comes into a stagnant game and contributes in a pro-town way, with concerns that are town concerns, that reminds other players of those concerns, which is pro-town regardless of that player’s alignment...

Hmmm.

But then we have, say, “keep your head down”. Which is like “I’m watching you but I might change my mind if you behave.” Which is something a cop might say (okay, not very worried about that) or scum might say (I.e., “keep it up and you’ll be the NK.”)

Kerset doesn’t strike me as a cop or other PR.

I do wonder if anyone else smells what I’m smelling here?



I didn’t vote Sirius because, well, what part of “more discussion and scumhunting time for town” is not making sense here? Also, I hadn’t finished reading at that time and when I caught up I had gotten the vibe that he’s just Like That, and the anti-town play isn’t AI for him on Day 1. He’s so low information of a player that I can’t read him without recourse to the anti-town behavior, so I’m setting him at hard-Null for now. I’ll worry about his alignment later, when it seems more AI.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It does, in fact! Thanks.

VOTE: Kerset

Ah, much better.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Should clarify, I still want more content from you, Ivyeo. Kerset is suspicious, but everyone is suspicious. Kerset is willing to take a stand, even if it makes no sense.

Are you willing to make a stand that isn’t just following the biggest wagon going or are you going to hunt scum?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Wow, I hate mobile. Pretend that last sentence said what it meant to say. Total rephrase: following the leader isn’t scumhunting, it’s quite possibly following scum off a cliff.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I only have a problem with it this early, and even then only while either of the players involved are inactive.

It’s good for pressure, but it would be easy to mistakenly hammer if you’re on the wrong page or something of that sort. While the player being voted is inactive, it offers no pressure. While the player voting is inactive, it’s pressure without direction, which can be good if there’s someone to vary that pressure with interaction, but ... well, when the pressure is a wagon full of players not currently actively playing, that doesn’t work too well.

Somehow I had a feeling you’d see Kerset’s push as townie, which might be to do with my suspicion of every slot in the game, or might be due to Kerset responding to my pressure on you in the first place. You decide! Either way, I’m scumreading both of your slots right now, and I think I want to hear more from both of you.

Let’s start with you, of course, since you’re /here/. You who has so few opinions on the state of the game that you don’t have anything more controversial than pushing the biggest wagon and poo-pooing the most abrasive and least cooperative slot in the game: in other words, safe play. You really don’t have a single word about anyone else other than a weak defense of someone who was defending you?

That’s pretty anti-town from where I’m standing, there’s been a lot of aggression in this game and that gives a lot of sorting information. How do you not have any meaningful input on any other slot? What have you been paying attention to in the game? Can you give me a single pattern of play from say, my slot? ABC? What about Willowsaura, who has a wagon already? Umlaut?

Nothing at all, I’m guessing. Indecision. Surprise me, I’m begging you.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

And here we have the reason I trust no player in this game to be town.

There are two scum. But three players who assume the game state to be true on no basis but wishful thinking.

ClarkBar’s posts are the least offensive in this way, since it’s a lot of assuming shared awareness instead of shared knowledge. Loss of perspective is the human condition, and when he acts like his opinion is the most obvious thing in the world, well, that just isn’t special. But I’ll come back to this.

Kerset is certainly the strongest of those, as the only way Kerset could know my alignment and be able to say I’m faking or telling the truth with certainty is if they’re scum. Town on Day 1 cannot know each other’s alignment. So Kerset cannot know my alignment except by being scum. Hm.

Dongempire is much closer to the Kerset side of the equation, however. Let’s point out the strongest point being made: that I’m trying to save Sirius.

Which is falsehood based on what I can only believe is wishful thinking. I only said I don’t think his anti-town behavior is actually scummy, to clarify my scumread on him. I said he’s the lowest information player and his only play IS anti-town, which makes him an excellent target for a policy elimination anyway. This should have been obvious from every post I made talking about him. I don’t /like/ him and I think he’s a detriment to the game: I just don’t think that’s AI necessarily.

Let’s go to the town leader thing: My problem is over half of the players strike me as scummy and that is simply impossible. I need to sort some of this stuff. I wasn’t here in real-time, my reread is different from what other people who were here in the moment were seeing. That means I need to sort out what was personality and what was crap play and what was scum. So I have to play to some of the players who cannot be the alignment I read them as.

I also have a very hard time at the best of times seeing a town leader, and this is not the best of times. Everyone in the game is miserable for me to try and sort, and the directionless hostility of this game makes it really hard to find any sort of dynamics to really pull on and decipher. It could be there is a town leader, but one that got buried and bullied into silence by half of the other players doing the attack dog thing. I wouldn’t know. Only someone who was there in real-time would spot that dynamic... which is a reason to ask.

Finally, the one that really bothers me: pointing out I said the same thing twice when trying to type a fancy phrase.

Because I recognized that immediately in my next post and rephrased it to make sense.

Because I cannot stand my inability to compose my way out of a wet paper bag on mobile.

Why would you point that out? There is no reason. It doesn’t benefit anyone anywhere anytime. Pointing out I fucked up my composition after I myself pointed it out and corrected it, after I made a point of how much I dislike that it happened at all, is just being hurtful for the sake of being hurtful. So I’m inclined to just give up on trying to read Dongempire for now, because my instinct is to push to eliminate it just to satisfy my own petty emotional balance. Not cool.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Whoops, forgot to come back to ClarkBar. Let’s not crucify me for this slip-up, shall we? I’m quite angry enough at myself, I don’t need anyone rubbing it in that I can’t post on mobile.

So, I’m getting flak for not sharing what I was seeing... when it was a pattern that did not actually matter AT ALL, and I only saw because I hadn’t read the middle of the thread yet. I actively said there was no point in sharing it. But now, near the top of my last post, it’s been shared: ClarkBar lacks perspective and presumes his reasons are obvious, plain as day to see. This comes across as arrogance when you recognize it, and as directed action when you don’t: and directed action stands out early on Day 1, because town is not purposeful the way that they are later at that point.

As such, I saw scum making purposeful moves.

But like I said, this was an illusion caused by my incomplete read of the thread, and it disappeared when I finished.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It isn’t actually a problem, I just was missing context. How many times must I rephrase myself?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Less than 48 hours in the Day.

Honestly, I don’t see much point in playing either, but for the opposite reason from Dongempire: because the only reaction anyone gets from anyone is pointless hostility. There is no cooperation or collaboration and attempts to build a collaborative framework end in being dumped on by everyone else. Town can’t win like that: scum can still work together to push miseliminations through, and town can’t even find itself. I imagine this has something to do with the low activity too.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I’ve been hostile by ... having a sarcastic voice and pressuring people to chat more? Comparatively, I’m one of the least hostile players I’ve seen so far. Abrasive maybe, but never mocking, angry or making strong assertions on no basis whatsoever.

If I try and make a point it gets ignored. Not refuted, ignored entirely. No one debates the value of the point. No one tries to figure out where I’m coming from at all, they’re set on “you’re new and loud so fuck you”. And it’s not just me: no one works with ANYONE in this game. Every single statement gets pushback from anyone else who sees it without exception. I think the only two points of agreement I have seen since joining is that Sirius is bad for the game (which is self-evident) and Ivyeo (obviously) agreeing with Kerset defending them (because why wouldn’t they).

If I am showing any hostility, it’s because I’m on the defensive around you lot. If I make a post, damn near ANY post, I become a target for all manner of garbage, a fair bit of which is just there for the sake of toxicity, as far as I can tell. That sort of atmosphere will kill any social game, and lo, it is dead. So, yeah.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

No one asked themselves why I might press on a largely inactive player for reactions, no one tried to follow my train of thought at any point. Meanwhile, until I basically gave up and decided that this game is the mean-spirited game and actual playing isn’t going to happen, every post I responded to I was questioning motivations, outlining the train of thought I saw, and generally trying my best to be an asset to town. Damn shame literally no one else is interested in analyzing the active players at all, just in creating the forum equivalent of a moshpit.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I did in fact ask myself that and I can’t see it. Sue me.

But I never claimed to be brilliant or gamesolving, if I had I’d be far more confident, instead of saying outright that I can’t get a read on anyone as town. So good job just inventing things I never said.

And I never stated that I was outsmarting anyone either, since that only applies to scum... Town kind of wants folks to follow along, because Town has to cooperate.

What was I looking for in my posts? What was it, begins with a C...

Oh! Right. Cooperation. And no one is cooperating with anyone. It isn’t exclusive to me, it’s THE ENTIRE PLAYER LIST.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That’s a nonsequitur. I don’t even know what you’re trying to point at here.

How does “everyone saw fresh meat and jumped” have anything to do with my claiming or not claiming to be intelligent?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The way the game looks, any pairing is possible currently as far as I’m concerned.

Also, given how apathetic you were, I feel like this is a reach to dodge the elimination. I’m not dead set on your head, but you contribute nothing and the other players are at least less obvious about avoiding giving any and all information. Also, you’re a prebuilt wagon and it’s the end of the day.... so dodging your elimination would all but guarantee a no-elimination, which I am adamantly against.

Sorry bud, you’re doomed. Normally I’d say spend your last hours scumhunting and maximizing public information on your thought process, but that’s useless in this game as it stands. Should still do it in case Day 2 is somehow less horrible, but if you ARE scum you can continue to have no input, if you’d like. Really it’s your choice, if you’re scum.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

E-1 now is definitely okay. But I don’t feel comfortable losing three and a half days of possible discussion, as was the case when Ivyeo did it.

I even said this at the time, that my issue was with how early it was... I have no idea how “let’s not throw away just about half of Day 1, thanks” is controversial, but hey! This Game, man. This Game.

Oh, and maybe you missed where I said that I don’t think Sirius is necessarily scum. You know, as I said multiple times. That was based on a partial, incomplete reread. As I said multiple times. As you should know if you read the actual posts.

I swear, I have to repeat myself every damned post in this game. No one reads corrections, no one cares if you changed your mind, they just see something shiny and smack it. It’s tiresome and doesn’t help anyone in the game, it just makes me want to be doing anything else in the world: painting wasp nests, say, or wrestling cassowaries. That sounds good.

Ahem.

I think LAMIST is a tell and this is a bad application of it. I see no cooperation or pro-town behavior from anyone, which means that ANY town actions stand out in this game state. So it’s bad on THAT side. But wait, there’s more! I’m worried about how far a perfectly self-loathing town will go, I’ve never played a game like this one before, so I wanted to ensure I put a stop to certain things that I feel are not just anti-town play, but actively pro-scum.

Given that there was, if memory serves, 3 days and 19 hours at the time of Ivyeo’s vote, I genuinely have no clue where the issue is with saying that we should try and go a bit further before we bear down on the obvious target and quite likely get no valuable information out of it.

For instance: Can you even VCA a policy wagon?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Yeah, which one? Vanilla Townie or that fact that it changes nothing at all?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I’ll contribute tomorrow, I am horribly ill today.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Don’t have too much in me to answer you, the worst, but I’m about to go to bed so you’ll get all of it.

I’d say that I think it comes across as someone who isn’t entirely sure they’re right about their read and wants to get outside input. Why go about it this way, though? It could be to have town build a case that it can push without having to do the grunt work itself or to sanity-check, “am I reading this all right?” (Which implies, in a Dongempire-as-town world, that Dong doesn’t wholly trust its supporters on the scumread to give it accurate feedback — pocketing concerns, etc.)

I have a lot of trouble sorting anyone this game, though your addition makes the game state lean a bit more toward a cooperative one that I can work with. (This is not a read of you and shouldn’t be taken as such.) Because of that, I can’t easily decide which world we are in, and thus what Dongempire’s push on me and asking for third party input on me ACTUALLY means. I do think it correlates with uncertainty (usually town) but in this case the uncertainty is with regards to /how/ I play, and how that play should be /viewed/ (much murkier).

I’d say watch how it reacts when people do engage — does it ever disagree with points against me? (If it does, more town than scum, otherwise NAI.) Does it use the points that others make to the exclusion of its own arguments? (Big scum points, special bonus prize for associative reads if there’s a player whose arguments it makes positive noises about and then never repeats while reusing everyone else’s arguments.) And so forth.

Regardless, I am going to need to reread again and play off of you and probably ClarkBar (the two most responsive and cooperative players so far I think, again this is NOT a read) before I’m comfortable giving real reads on people. Hoping that tomorrow works out for that.

Last thing before I pass out: might be the fever and the cluster headaches talking, but I feel like on the face of it, the NK failing is WIFOM and should be ignored entirely, no speculation, nothing given in response: pretend it didn’t happen. I think a few other players have said this, though their names have not stuck for me, but I generally agree with it. (Also, possible no one has already said this and I was hallucinating. I’m feverish, sue me.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Feeling a LOT better today and have been blessed with DELICIOUS burrito, and I’m going to give the credit to Dong’s well-wishes, since no one else on-site or off was quite as insistent on that point.

Ahem.

I agree with my analysis yesterday. I think the worst has strongly shifted the game state to a cooperative one that’s easier to play within, and I can actually start sorting players.

Dongempire comes across as town. There is a consistency to the play that doesn’t smell like insistence (e.g. it sounds less like it’s trying to push an agenda than it is trying to solve a problem, which tends to be a Town flavor of play vs. NAI repetitive assertion) and it isn’t tunneled on me as aggressively as I had thought it was (or perhaps it ACTUALLY was at end of Day 1). Broader scope paranoia is a slight town lean. I also tend to read separation of in-game aggression from personality (it plays a high-hostility game but seems pretty nice when it’s not directly game related) as town, because town has no reason to go too far, where scum absolutely does.

Kerset is unsortable for me. They say a lot of game-advancing stuff but are very terse and tight-lipped overall, I cannot read them. This is a personal failing, and I’m sure other players can in fact read them, but I naturally am biased to scumread slots like this and have to correct for it. In this case it seems like their playstyle is incompatible with mine from my POV, I won’t ever be able to sort them. I hope I’m wrong, but...

For the town’s sake, if I DO NOT end up being able to sort them, I’d suggest one of us needs to be gone before Melo or Elo, because no matter who you see as town or scum, if I am in the endgame with Kerset, the pairing lowers town chances. Hoping I can shift that over to being a non-issue before end of Day, but it needs to be said now.

The worst needs more time for me to read them by themselves. Combined with ABC’s posts, I’d call the slot town-leaning, but there is always a risk of being too biased by a good player who vacated a slot. I’m willing to work with them regardless of alignment while I get my footing in the game again, but as before: that doesn’t realize to my reads.

Willowsaura barely engages anyone at all and never answered my question on Day 1: why do they believe people are voting for them, from THEIR point of view? These answers are important to how I sort slots, I play a somewhat sideways game of Mafia and I sort alignment on criteria other players might find iffy or dismiss entirely. So now I want to know why I never received an answer to that question.

ClarkBar is a highly abrasive slot but is usually very responsive and has an odd cooperative streak. I feel like I’m seeing a conflict between personality (competitive, maybe?) and intended play. That strikes me as scummy, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be.

Ivyeo needs more meat. They’re on the sidelines and rarely engaging directly with high-intensity discussion. If they’re the focus, they tend to get bailed out by other players. I do not like this and I want them to take a stand, stir up some controversy, take a RISK with their play. Only then can I start actually sorting them properly. Of course, /failing/ to do so has its own alignment indicator.

I have nothing useful to say on Umlaut, because my assessment is currently unstable. If there are any quantum physics nerds: Umlaut is, for me, in a superposition of town and scum. I have a hypothesis and I’m deciding how to measure Umlaut, but for now the measurement is unmade and he could be either, and in some ways seems to be both. I’m hoping to make a skillful measurement that doesn’t influence his state too much, but if I misjudge I will misread him. I need time before I’m comfortable with saying something solid.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

very terse and tight-lipped overall

you can ask me to elaborate things, if you want

This is difficult to do. Not because of you somehow taking positions that don’t matter or make sense or something like that, but because you take positions that are easy to explain in a multitude of ways (even if some of them are controversial), and asking you to elaborate is less telling than if you do so yourself.

To rephrase, asking you to elaborate helps you cement yourself as town as a general rule REGARDLESS of your actual alignment. I don’t think this is solvable unless I can reframe your entire play in my head or if you change play (which would be scummy regardless, I distrust players whose play is too adaptive). I’m rotating your playstyle around in my head, I’ll keep you posted if I get a read that goes beyond “can’t understand, biased towards scumreading”.

For now, I think we are a bad match going into the endgame and will not help town as a Elo or Melo pairing. This is subject to change, but I need to keep the town informed (and also to correct Ivyeo’s statement that I’m specifically suggesting you to be removed, since even removing me improves chances over having both of us in the current situation).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Oh that’s a PRETTY picture.

Sorry, today was distracting, but an overall good and productive day.

Seeing more of the worst, I want to know more about how the fact that I am the AMG slot affects the overall read of my slot. What I’m thinking, viewing through the worst’s eyes, is that I may have inherited my predecessor’s scumread, which my personality and nature subsequently didn’t do me any favors with.

Now I’m wondering if the worst sees that as well, which would make me need to not just reread the early game (did again earlier) but also the part of Day 1 I was here for. I’m curious how much of the perceived hostility was misunderstanding combined with emotional (or epistemological, after a fashion) inertia aimed at my slot, which could explain how I was seeing something no one else did that now doesn’t appear to be nearly as strong.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Kerset is unsortable for me still, I really would consider anything I say about them to be unreliable. It’s not going to be total garbage, I’ll still follow a logical (for me) pattern of thought... but you should take it not just with a grain of salt, but the whole mine, because I am starting from somewhere way off in the void rather than somewhere relatively well grounded. If you still want those thoughts, say the word.

Your takes on me could be from town or scum currently. I was an embattled player with out of game difficulties as well, playing nice could be scum trying to pocket (fair warning, I’m not particularly susceptible to it) or town trying to give honest opinions on a slot they disagree with other players on. I think I can sort you, but it will take some more time.

As for comparing your reads to Dongempire’s, I think it’s probably a little easier to read Dongempire as town once I adjust for innate biases. This could be a factor of mild playstyle incompatibility between you and me, or you being scum, or an inability to properly connect your post history to ABC’s since there is a full night phase between their last post and your first. (That is to say, it’s difficult to tell how much of the difference is in each of playstyle, approach, and/or gamestate change.)

If I knew how you were seeing the game state around my slot’s transitional stage, I’d have much more solid reads on Dongempire, Kerset and yourself. You might be unpleasantly surprised to hear that your unwillingness to give that even a wild guess forces me to add a tick in the scum column for you... but I would hope that would be expected, given my existing play.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think Ivyeo is meatless. If that’s just how they’re going to play this game, it has scum stink and I won’t tolerate it. If they’re town, they need to add meat and become sortable.

Willow is suspect but I find that low energy slots are easy miseliminations for scum to push, so I want to draw out more interaction before we start the whole “drag ‘em to the gallows boys” thing. I’m not sold entirely on that slot as scum, but it is FAR from town play. So. I want Willowsaura to start playing... now. Immediately. Without delay. They are purely a detriment to town no matter their alignment if they play like this, and that cannot get to Melo or Elo. It is worse than me and Kerset in endgame to take that kind of energy to the final round.

If you really want my thoughts on Kerset: scum, scum, scum. Yes, they spearheaded a push on me, in order to Big Damn Heroes Ivyeo out from under pressure when no one was pressing that slot BUT me. Then they spin doctored half of my responses into some sort of pro-scum play that didn’t exist, nightfall hits, and Day 2 they’re pleasant and trying to work with me.



Follow with me here the logic:
In one world, Kerset is Town and they strongly believed in red-flip Sirius and me being an associative read DESPITE my willingness to eliminate on that slot. This smells, since I had just replaced in and their very first interaction with me was to remove pressure from Ivyeo.

In another world, Kerset is Scum. In this world, they saw me come in on a low-impact player that made zero-controversy contributions. This gives them a chance to pocket Ivyeo, and sets me up as weak to a last minute push in case Sirius weaseled out (which was impossible at that stage from a town POV). Come Day 2, they decide they can swap playstyle with me, pocket me AND Ivyeo, and coast to endgame. My rejection of any implicit offers of friendship does break this down, but it’s a plausible play.

In a THIRD world, Kerset is Scum still. But in this world Ivyeo is the scumbuddy, and this was a Chainsaw Defense par excellence to save a weak but easy-to-townread scumbuddy from pressure. By redirecting that pressure onto a stronger, more experienced player who is more active and much more comfortable with aggressive play, Ivyeo gets time to choose their response and shape the outcome of that conversation that would be impossible if the focus was still Me vs Ivyeo. Day 2 positivity toward me indicates following Dongempire’s associative Sirius read to reduce pressure on Kerset as well, returning both Ivyeo and Kerset to basic status quo and causing attention to direct elsewhere. This narrative spins the most likely to me: no plot holes.

But as I said before, I am not in reality when it comes to Kerset.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I am a reluctantly obligate carnivore, myself, because Crohn’s disease is terrible and combined with a ridiculously overactive metabolism, meat is a necessity. (Imagine that all plant based fats and proteins are worth maybe a third of their listed calories for you, and you need to eat 4000 a day... it’s not a pretty sight!)

That said, with great frustration I will ALSO accept suitably high-calorie meat substitute from Ivyeo, but I will not accept diet gameplay any longer.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

A point of note, Kerset, is that I’m really difficult to pocket.

I just don’t play nice with people who agree with me. Or play mean with people who disagree. I very much play based on what holes I have in my mental map of the game, and sometimes that means pushing slots that have been strong allies, buddying up to slots I scumread temporarily, anything. My particular brain and my approach to Mafia prevents most players from pocketing me.

Protip to players who want to try: it helps if you always give me information I ask for immediately, address all the nuances and possibilities when discussing the game with me, regularly disagree with me in a way that opens up large back-and-forth discussions about the details of a given slot’s play, and show awareness that no one in town knows your alignment by speaking in occasional counter factuals.

Unfortunately, this makes me very inefficient for scum to pocket since it demands big posts and pokes too many holes in their town mask, and leaks and scumtells become inevitable. Also, a scum player who is capable of pocketing me safely is a scum player who is more than capable of keeping their slot extraordinarily safe all around: scum that can pocket me has no need to do so.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

If I were you, I really wouldn’t get too comfortable yet. We are not friends in this game and you are not going to be safe around me until I want you to be.

I play a sideways game of Mafia. Death tunnels are part of regular sorting for me, and sometimes I press on one player to sort two other, unrelated players. I am just no fun at all if you expect to buddy me.

This is almost definitely just a joke, but a joke in this situation could be about building a rapport, aligning the gamestate against the butt of the joke (Kerset, here), shaping the general view of the gamestate around my slot or yours by fishing for a specific kind of reaction, and so forth.

A joke can hide a multitude of sins.

And I’m not trying to be too offputting or anything, I just want to make it clear that I am paranoid when I play Mafia, and my brain is all hopped up on criminal thoughts and More Fun Than I Really Wanted.

Think of it like some sort of brain leprosy, except the lesions are starving hyenas and you are soft and made of meat and standing right next to the only bucket of steaks in the enclosure. You make yourself useful, you don’t bare your teeth or move around too fast, you throw the steaks, and you hope that I’m not still hungry when you run out. Otherwise, well, soon you’ll be chewed on and have a head full of starving hyenas yourself. And no one wants that, TRUST me.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I’m practicing: a friend of mine offered a bet, and the wager was a three page hate letter. I upped the ante to four pages, took the bet, and lost dramatically, so I’m having to flex my writing muscles a little harder than normal.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I’m glad that I judged the audience correctly for that piece. I was a tiny bit worried about overdoing it, but it seems like I hit the right balance.

The general thrust of it is entirely serious (buddying and pocketing me just don’t work, you shouldn’t try it), and the tone was ... well, like I said, practice.

For the moment, I’m really wanting Willowsaura to talk. I don’t think I can overstate how much I want Willowsaura to talk. There is no engagement at all, literally zero, and I don’t like it. I’d say it’s worse than Sirius, because Sirius at least pretended to engage.... Willowsaura is not /present/. I feel like Sirius could have become a better force for town than this complete detachment that Willowsaura has. It’s too late to change the past, but every day with no engagement from Willowsaura makes me less happy about that slot sticking around.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That actually does help, and I agree that that world seems unlikely. Scum is more likely to be on the top two wagons, and I feel like they’re rarely not on the winning wagon. Putting both scum on my wagon of two votes is very unrealistic.

One scum I can accept, I’ll give that. Two feels ridiculous. And using it to derail the Sirius wagon instead of positioning for a back up wagon to push is entirely fantasy, since town loses a player both ways and I had a weak position when I joined the game that made me a worse target than a potentially scumhunting day 2 Sirius in the moment.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Also! I think I’m only a better backup scum target than Willowsaura if Willowsaura is scum.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Damnit, meant to clarify: on Day 1.

Today, I’m playing stronger and have better positioning. Willowsaura is a terrible scum target.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Point of order, I am not pushing Kerset, and I have no idea how you read that.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That’s ignoring the part at the end where I said that when it comes to Kerset, I’m not in reality.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

ClarkBar has also faded into the background as I caught my footing, which I think is being overlooked, and which I am not a fan of.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

This vote is pointless and will apply no pressure. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t catch that you don’t really have any actual backup.

And you can’t just follow my lead. I distrust people following my lead. I trust when people see separate but comparable reasons for our gameplay to match up, I distrust blindly letting yourself be led down an alley.

Nope, you get no backing from me on this. You have a context-free supposed scumread on ClarkBar, and you’re giving me boatloads of “yes so town!!!!” stuff. It feels like you think there’s a blind spot I have that will get me pocketed, and I won’t let you delude yourself like that. The more friendly you are to me the more suspicious I get.

Your play is not aligned with what I consider town play. Everything you have is the equivalent of head pats/scolding (me being nice, Kerset not being nice) or context free reads (yeah Ivyeo is town... yeah, ClarkBar is scum... but no reasons to back these reads). The only actual issue you’ve pointed out with play is the insistence of Dongempire’s scumread on me, which is comparatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

Most damningly, you haven’t come up with a single original observation that doesn’t revolve around direct interaction with you. You repeated what I or other slots had said already or made vague noises about alignment and waited for someone to elaborate — then agreed with them wholesale.

I don’t like your play so far. I think you might consider doing what I asked of Ivyeo and saying something legitimately controversial, forming an opinion when someone asks about something you had no investment in, or so forth. Your play so far stands in stark contrast to that of the other actives.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

FOR THE WORST:

Ah, and you think reflecting on what /other/ people saw in the earlier stages of the game is just as pointless? Consider Sirius: if Dongempire were to hypothetically start adopting a Sirius-like playstyle, wouldn’t it be instructive to revisit how people reacted to that with Sirius and hypothetically-now with Dongempire? Are you really saying you don’t think there would be any value in that comparison for sorting purposes, or is that an absurd assertion?

Now what about statements that YOU made about things in the earlier game? You don’t think you need to tell those people anything about what your thought process was, that you can just dismiss your earlier statements and pretend they don’t matter and that you’re focused on the here and now?

Because that is LITERALLY what happened with Kerset’s question. You took a stance, it was pointed out that that stance made no sense, and then you dithered and handwaved and squished out of the way.
It’s also what happened with my question about AMG and my slot: you take this stance of AMG being sorta scummy, then I question you about the what and why and the consequences of that, because of how that affects my relationship to the game as a WHOLE... and it’s like you suddenly can’t read anymore.

Can you take a stance that anyone cares about that ALSO belongs to you yourself at all? Say anything AI about the early game? Take any risks? Genuinely curious. Would love to hear it.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think I can say with confidence that one of Dongempire and the worst is town. They can’t be the scum team, they simply come across as too good of players to play scum so associatively. (If one flips red, the other becomes an obvious target in this gamestate.)

I’m also backing off the pocketing thing as a result. I saw a possible scum player who saw me assert that pocketing me is a waste of time and effort, and instead of taking that at face value, started probing for vulnerabilities. (Possible line of reasoning along the lines of “if you think you’re invincible you’ll never see the impossible coming.”)

Normally if you make a big deal of possible pocketing, town AND scum distance from your slot. I’ve never seen town just keep going, can’t really catch any possible town line of reasoning to do so anyway, and I reacted accordingly.

Turns out, the worst is just an extremely personable player and being overly friendly to any slot under any circumstances just seems like it isn’t AI for his play. Lessons learned.



I still think he misses the point of the Sirius/Me wagon question, and I don’t get how this is hard to grasp. He states that he thought I was a miselimination being pushed by scum in opposition to the Sirius wagon.

Thing is, both wagons hit town: scum has no reason to push my wagon in opposition to the Sirius wagon, ONLY as a backup plan. Furthermore, Day 1, if scum REALLY wanted a backup wagon ready, Willowsaura is a better target than me exactly 100% of the time that Willowsaura is not scum.

I was in a weak position upon placing in, and couldn’t grasp the gamestate because of how hard I was being shut out of it, making me an EASY push Day 2 from a Day 1 POV. (I had to bootstrap myself into position off of the worst, which was impossible to predict Day 1.) By contrast, Willowsaura’s policy elimination is a much easier narrative to push Day 1 than later on. Thus, Willowsaura is a better backup miselimination than me for Day 1.

If Willowsaura HAD been the backup wagon, I’d have expected more activity on that wagon. Instead it was stagnant and silent, with the de facto elimination target being one of the two votes on board. That suggests to me that scum had no backup wagon planned at all.

So by saying I was a scum-propelled wagon in opposition to Sirius, one has to conclude that you didn’t pay any attention at all to my Day 1 position and play. But it gets worse.

If my wagon was scum propelled, that implies that one or both votes on my wagon were scum, and (More weakly, but still implied) that the loudest voice pushing me was scum. Scum is almost always on the highest value wagon, not a distant tie for second place. Both scum are almost never on my wagon, because that’s ridiculous: Sirius was going down regardless, I was the closest thing he had to a defender and I said he’s the most anti-town player going and was a perfectly acceptable target (just that I thought his anti-town play was truly NAI).

The momentum was high for his elimination, and I had just replaced in and was going to get cut some amount of slack by the other players as a result, my wagon was never going to go anywhere that fast. Having both scum on board my wagon kills scum dayphase momentum at a crucial moment in the end of the first Day, and thus makes no sense.

Why would scum push me in opposition to Sirius? That is what Kerset’s question is, and I think it’s a reasonable one.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Willowsaura’s posts are really bad, not just low content. They refer to happenings without elaborating on those happenings, they don’t link or quote to make the terse wording help, this sort of posting is guaranteed to create confusion. I would not miss Willowsaura, if this is the best they have to offer. It’s still a policy elimination, but it’s better than JUST a policy elimination: their posts are trying to defend themselves by obscuring their point, which is purely scummy play.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I can live with thinking Kerset is scum, yeah. I just feel like I’m automatically biased against them in a way that makes my own scumread of them spurious and of low value. I’m trying to correct for the bias but it isn’t helping much, clearly.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I’m still working out my measurement on Umlaut. But I think that their reaction to these two votes will be instructive on the question to ask and the answers to expect.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think scum might say that to pressure out a potentially strong town player. Also, I don’t like following directions: a friend of mine once described me as “that worst kind of criminal: won’t do what you tell her, BECAUSE you told her”.

Pass, I’ll decide after I make my measurement.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don’t like the worst talking about solving. I don’t like it. I don’t like Kerset here, pushing to eliminate without any discussion on the response. I don’t even particularly like Umlaut here.

Umlaut, my measurement is being made now.

Counterfactual/hypothetical time.

Let us say that ONE OF THE SCUM must lie within Willowsaura, Dongempire, myself and Kerset. The other scum is NOT in that list. Umlaut (and no one else!): I want to know what one of those is scum if I put you in that situation, and I want to know who their most probable partner is. Remember that ONE scum is in that list and one is NOT, for the purposes of this hypothetical.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Having a complete solution feels absurd given that we have nothing but a policy elimination on a VT to work with so far. Adding another policy elimination is not going to help solve anything either when Umlaut and ClarkBar are less than excellent players right now as well. We can policy eliminate our way right into scum land. Pointless.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Waiting on Umlaut right now. I feel like I have enough information to make my vote once I sort him. After that, I’ll be locked into a Day 2 decision, effectively... so I want to make sure I have done everything I can to make a high quality decision.



Yes, I play a sideways game of Mafia, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. My play is off at an angle. This shouldn’t be news.



I do believe that’s the case, because if scum is in the bottom three slots of player activity then you’d expect them to squirm more: no one likes the bottom three. They have no fans. That’s a bad place for scum to be, even if they aren’t great scum they’ll realize they’re doomed and you’d expect them to pick it up. That has not happened. Their play is in fact showing the opposite.

Which makes me think at least one scum is reasonably high activity, letting their inactive buddy feel safe.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don’t see how anything there is unrelated to the sideways game I play. I make reads on different criteria and with different intent than most players, my confidence levels are not linear, and I focus on different aspects of the game state.

I don’t like what those posts are doing, but disliking something isn’t the same as scumreading it. (Disliking is PART of scumreading for me, but it’s not necessary or sufficient for a scumread, or else I’d have pushed your slot all day long.)

Speaking of: I’m not pushing anyone off of those posts, am I? Not to say I won’t, but I haven’t yet and it would end up being a part of a greater case I built if I started. So I’m not sure I understand the point you are making.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

And I ... did in fact unpack them. Didn’t you read my reply?



Something being normal doesn’t mean it can’t be indicative in context.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That’s the trouble, isn’t it? So much is NAI. Picking the indicative possibility is no good if it leads you blindly into miselimination, though...

I want to grab Umlaut and shake him and see what falls out. When I do that, I’ll have enough information to build a case, make a push and place a vote. Right now we’re at the “see what falls out” phase of things, so...

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I have plenty of reads, I just have little faith in them. Look at my Kerset read, for instance.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don’t like Umlaut at all, but I need to eat and caffeinate before I expand on that. For now: VOTE: Umlaut

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I’m awake and fed and have my laptop returning within the week.

Shellyc has been in a game with me, I think with activity I can sort her easily. Provisional townread, I can trust myself to sort that slot correctly later.

Umlaut’s reply is all the wrong slots for all the right reasons. I’m going to meditate on that response in conjunction with his other posts this game, and see what falls out. But the measurement has been made and the final read will be presented in under an hour and a half.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Someone give me thoughts on a ClarkBar/Umlaut team.

Also want thoughts on a the worst/Umlaut team.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Psh. You’re just biased.

(But I want some meat on the Clark/Umlaut pairing if you can spare it, one point for and against should do.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That’s fine, since you’re one of the possible suspects anyway I’d likely find your opinions unreliable.

Maybe Ivyeo can give me opinions on the Clark/Umlaut and worst/Umlaut team possibilities.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

So... I made my measurement.

Surprise! I got nothing. But it’s a very indicative nothing.

See, Umlaut has a VERY ambiguous playstyle in this game. There’s nothing too heavily town hanging out, and nothing scummy either.

Their reply to my weird hypothetical (carefully chosen lists to break up his apparent favorite matchup of Willow/Kerset and break the next two obvious ones in an Umlaut-is-town world) selects easy players to eliminate but with clear reasoning. This suggests disinterested town or nervous, mildly confused scum — which was the POINT, but I was hoping for less ambiguity.

So I hunted for two obvious Umlaut scum teams: the worst and Umlaut back each other up in a subtle way, with Umlaut quietly townreading and the worst goofing off around the Umlaut slot without committing (so far; we’ll see if this one sticks.)

ClarkBar is widely considered on the scummier side, hovering around a null on average, but Umlaut townreads and supports them while they largely dance around taking a solid stance on Umlaut, playing interference on Ivyeo vs Umlaut and generally not outright sorting Umlaut in the process.

And I realized: the only way to figure if these teams work is to confbias the hell out of my read of the interactions and see if it sticks (highly sensitive to false positives) or to get outside input.

And no one could say committedly “if Umlaut is scum this team could very well work” so far.

This leads me to believe Umlaut is probably scum, despite coming up with nothing. Nothing is highly suggestive sometimes.

If anyone here is familiar with Umlaut’s scum game, confirming Umlaut is good at misdirection and low-impact committal to fake reads (I.e. pushing a slot consistently but not heavily without getting caught doing it) would be ever so helpful. Confirmation that Umlaut isn’t a busser as scum is even better.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Realize I skipped a step there: the issue isn’t “he doesn’t necessarily work with these teams” but the uncertainty. No one can say anything for sure. That tends not to be town.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Clark’s pointing at meta seals the Umlaut scum thing for me. I don’t DO meta usually, but Umlaut is an enigma if I ignore it. The meta dovetails with his play here, and I don’t see Umlaut playing like scum when he’s town if he’s as well regarded here as he seems to be.

So normally I’d vote here, but I’m late to the party and I’m not gonna hammer until everyone else is ready for it. Let me know, folks, I’m very comfortable bringing Umlaut down based on available information, and admittedly I’m not entirely sure of the deadline anymore but I think it’s pretty tight.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Honestly, I was pretty sure I hadn’t voted yet today.

My memory is garbage. Seriously. Diagnosable. If my vote is on Umlaut, I’ve totally forgotten. Let me check...

Yep. Not having a good day with my brain it seems. Scratch the intent to hammer, ahaha.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I addressed the team thing literally in my very next post: I’d forgotten to elaborate on it. It isn’t that it’s any team, it’s about the two obvious teams. And it’s not that they don’t work but that people don’t know.

If they just did not work, it’d be frustratingly difficult to sort you. If they worked, it would be frustratingly difficult in the same way for entirely different reasons.

But the read is more like... “Eh. Maybe. I guess. I can kind of see it. Sure.” There’s no confidence or conviction around you, it’s like you’ve done nothing in the game despite having a lot of pretty big posts. That’s a serious red flag.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely NOTHING that you can do to fix it except for the entirely unhelpful suggestion of making people pay attention to your play.

You’re a nobody in this game, and that just does not make sense given how much content you’ve posted. How are you so difficult to grasp? How do you reach that state? How is it that no one can offer ANYTHING on you that suggests confidence or strong belief or even blind faith? That’s not a good look. Hence the scumread.

I’ll say the other part is possibly NAI, but that’s one reason I wanted time to cogitate on your ISO and consider your possible scum teams and even ask for meta (I must be clear, this simply DOES NOT happen) — which is what really solidified the read so heavily that I wanted to vote you even though I already HAD.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

ClarkBar, he’s a nobody within the context of THIS game. No one can make any hard statements on him. It’s pointless to push for opinions that don’t come with an escape clause when it comes to Umlaut. He’s unremarkable except for being remarkably unremarkable.

I really like when players shake the table with their play, at least a little bit. They stick in the mind, they let you ricochet other players off of them and see what sticks, they’re good for sorting everyone in the game regardless of alignment.

Umlaut does not. Does not stick in the mind, does not take hard stances, does not argue too much, does not show personality traits (which is NAI but helps for sorting others), does not reflect play aimed at them (hard to describe in a useful way, but if you play in this sort of way you know what I mean), generally just does not do much except hang back and be anonymously uninteresting.



And I DO, by the way, get townreads. Strong ones, even! I get the strong ones slow because my townreads are “sticky”, I tend to give a single townread and then never budge on that slot again, which is bad if I miscalculate. (Notably, really poor play will dislodge my townread: I’m starting to learn this is pretty indicative, if very rare.)

My scumreads are not sticky, I will attack anyone who gets my attention and adjust the intensity and target on the fly for my own arcane reasons: it’s more useful to start with scumreads and then go from there.

Finally! Particularly since I sort with lots of tunnels and I tend to attack my townreads to sort other players, it’s generally more useful to keep townreads under my hat until PoE dictates sharing them. I have a number of unsorted slots still, and a number of slots that I think my reads of are highly unstable and likely to waffle back and forth on, which is good for sharing Day 1, bad for Day 2 and onward (waffly reads are contagious). (Also, before it’s asked: I had no reads Day 1, really.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The only meta I really like keeping track of is my own. I push my boundaries a lot, and I try to approach every game slightly differently. That’s less helpful to others for sorting me (and is why I put little stock in meta as a rule), but it means I get a broad overview of what play works for what type of game.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed that some play Just Works for me, and things like the above are stuff I don’t see any reason to play around with. Sorting by tunnels and reflecting reads (or would it be refracting? Pressing one slot to sort another) is non-standard play and incredibly useful because it’s not easy to defend against for any alignment. It’s hard to tell who my eyes are on and it’s hard to tell what I’m looking for. Makes the persuasive argument difficult, but everything’s got trade offs.

I can’t see that part of my play changing unless there’s a whole game full of mysterious creeps like me, in which case you need someone willing to play the dumb brick in order to keep the cleverness from disappearing up its own ass. I might play that game then. Not here though.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Oh, you know his role? Oh boy, I’m either going to be very angry and have words with you Day 3 or you are scum, and both is extremely possible as well.

That’s just a SUPER gross post. Do not like that at all. Dongempire for top scum if Umlaut flips as a PR, I’m just putting that out there, who the hell says “oh I know his role and he’s town but yeah hang him”, that tastes precisely like a Mafia Rolecop slip up.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I actually agree.

Kerset is conftown as far as I Am concerned, I can’t see scum championing the wagon on their partner from an early stage and pushing for people to hop on board, it’ll be great, you gotta believe me.

VOTE: ClarkBar

Associative play puts the weight on this slot. Outlined that case already D2.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I have reservations about the worst, unfortunately. Not many, ClarkBar was a good scum ping from jump. I gave him the benefit of the doubt once I started being able to get into the game, but he hasn’t done much for town in that time either.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Sorry, just woke up a bit ago.

I meant to continue with: the main reservation I have with the worst is that there was some jumping back and forth. They were playing with the Umlaut slot rather than truly pushing it. Now, they seemed to catch that they were making that mistake later on, but that speaks poorly of the slot nevertheless. It’s quite possible the worst didn’t realize they had cornered themselves into destroying their partner with the type of distancing they used.

I tend to agree with you on Clark and Shelly, though.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I do NOT want a JK to claim today. I would prefer we keep them silent. We can use them to draw out the game for longer by reducing town attrition, with a good chance of identifying scum on top of that.

I don't know that we have a JK. I am saying, DON'T CLAIM.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

If JK claims... scum can kill THEM. Did you miss that part of your cunning plan somehow?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I distrust it on many levels. The JK has to be entirely on board and unwilling to deviate no matter the circumstances. Which we can do without them claiming, of course: we tell them "Hey, JK! Jail shelly tonight, okay? Thanks!" and just presume that they listened, because that's exactly as much info as we would get if they died overnight anyway. (They also don't necessarily exist in this scenario, but that's funny because of the N1 no NK. WIFOM city, but there's no antidote for that in a JK compatible setup, simplest explanation wins here.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

With worst and Kerset conftown, I think we can make a perfect solve if shelly's posting ramps up. With activity, shelly is an easy sort for me. Emotional rather than logical player, semi-aggressive, goes with her gut and justifies her reads after she makes them. Her town game is very distinctive and difficult to fake.

I don't see that happening, and shelly is very active as town. Could be distraction or V/LA, I don't know yet.

I actually am so confident that if there's any doubts on my slot that make a solve harder, I don't mind dying for a tighter endgame state. We have two slots in question (3 from a conftown perspective) and the faster we can eliminate ALL doubt, the easier a perfect solve. That said, I think shelly is a better hit right now for a tight endgame due to low activity, though hitting Clark is better NKA for doubtful conftowns because of the threat I represent to a scum Shelly (but remember WIFOM).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Nope, sorry. I'm VT and always have been VT. No point avoiding a claim on that count, since both PRs are out in the open ANYWAY, hope no one thinks I'm claiming under pressure -- there just aren't any secrets left in the town now.

This is just a common style I do, I split the possibilities up and frame them separately, because that lets me build possible narratives. Narratives with gaps (logical leaps required) can be ruled out, which lets me narrow even high quality WIFOM down to a minimum of possible worlds and take them at face value. Your style was my issue with you, as stated previously. But an Umlaut hit is conftown, regardless of PR or stylistic issues, so you're clear no matter what issues I have with your style. You could have been CCd on JK and I'd still have considered you conftown, honestly.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don't know if it is or not. But the rest of your play is very distinctive.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Is there any world from the two conftowns where Ivyeo is scum? I almost forgot she existed during the JK claim discussion, and I’m realizing my reads on that slot are ice thin.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Focus on survival, we’ll give you time before we throw you on the scum pile as a definite thing.

In fact, UNVOTE: — but do note, this isn’t a read or otherwise AI, just a gesture of OOG goodwill. I still think you’re one of the best eliminations for the day, I just want you to have a chance to defend yourself without putting too much pressure on you while you’re OOG vulnerable.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Point of order that increases town chances:

If I am pretty much universally townread (or if anyone else who isn't conftown is universally townread) then we don't need to list all three slots there.

We only need to pick a target for today, and a JK target.

Simple math. One scum remains. Three possible slots in Clark/Ivyeo/Shelly.
One is out as today's elimination regardless of alignment.
One is cleared OR most probable scum over Night.
Remainder is scum OR most probable town by simple PoE.
Therefore:
Whoever isn't the target of a "failed" JK (JK death) is functionally cleared.
If there's no kill tonight, we can react safely as if that IS the scum; a miselimination isn't game ending in 4v1.

If scum WIFOM, we get a slightly uglier win, but it's still a guaranteed win. We don't need to worry about an order of elimination, just our two targets for the day.

As per the above, I think we should maximize chances of hitting town with the JK and scum with the elimination for the cleanest possible win.



(And my apologies for not seeing this earlier, I legitimately did not realize the play utility -- I start generalized and go specific when it comes to my playstyle, and as a GENERAL rule, it's bad to out protective roles ever, unless you're about to steamroll them.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Should note that the point about hitting town with the JK only applies IF there is someone who is functionally considered conftown without the mechanical clear. I seem closest right now, but it really does require every single player who could be alive next Day to agree on a single slot, anything else opens up holes for scum to misdirect.

Unfortunately, without a mechanical clear, there's an unavoidable chance from a town perspective that I'm scum hiding in plain sight. But we don't get the perfect solve if the JK target is wasted on clearing the player who needs to be assumed town. That's a risk I, at least, would happily take (as I know my alignment) but I understand people having reservations, it's just a bad look. Which is why I'm open to discussing an alternative to me if anyone sees a sufficiently townie one and can convince me to play along.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Obviously if I'm the designated townie and PoE incriminates a slot, I don't expect that slot to stand by me being green at that point. If it's an actual townie then it's impossible for anything else to be true ipso facto: any other state of affairs is logically untenable. Knowing my alignment, that makes it guaranteed I'd be up against scum, who would throw the game away if they didn't give it the old college try... Which is entirely expected. In other words, I would be surprised if I didn't get a confrontation in the last day, presuming my survival.

I suppose it's more sound to say "conftowns (current and future) need to agree on a slot being town without a mechanical clear."

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I say presuming my survival, but scum would be downright foolish to waste an NK on me. The obvious choices are plain to see and I'm second or third on that list. Scum can't even get two more NKs before endgame, so I'm presumably functionally NK proof.

As proof:
If town miseliminates today...
...Night 3 is kill 1 -- putting us into 4 player MELo. (1 miselimination, 1 NK)
...scum skips or is blocked Night 3, and then if town miseliminates again, Night 4 is kill 1 -- putting us into 3 player ELo. (2 miseliminations, 1 NK)

I don't know if there's any real utility to me being functionally invulnerable to NKs for the rest of this game, but I wanted to deal with that mistake and point out that exactly two players have to even possibly worry about NKs for the rest of this game.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think Clark is a good first elimination because of a combination of factors.

Abrasive, rude play -- not NAI, but its awkwardly placed from my POV, coming across as "don't play with me, pretend like I'm not here", which is more scummy than townie usually.
Associative play with Umlaut, pointed out Day 2 alongside the worst's associative play (the worst's was proven wrong but then one of them HAD to be wrong).
Agreed with the point on the counterwagon.
And finally, simple PoE: I don't actively townread or trust myself to EVER townread ClarkBar. I can sort shelly, I vaguely townread Ivyeo (though I'm very uncomfortable with how much I townread her without having a reason). Clark... I don't get townvibes, and I don't think that's something that changes with exposure to his playstyle, and I especially don't think that's something changes with LIMITED exposure to his playstyle.



I still want to know why Kerset townreads Ivyeo. This is basically because I really, really don't like telling everyone to treat me as conftown so we can push it to a mathematically guaranteed win, it's play that makes me look like a scum slot angling for the safe spot and that could very well throw the game for town in the final day if scum kick up a stink and the final conftown buys it. I'd much rather be able to say "Let's treat Ivyeo as definite town", but my read is too shallow and too tenuous for me to safely do that. But I would prefer the mathematically guaranteed win over a 50/50 chance in the end game... so I'm in a bind, and I really need to figure out if we can trust Ivyeo.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

And the second powerrole is ivyeo. I assume umlaut knew, and was trying to counterwagon her and take down a pr today and die tomorrow. I dont know her role, but rest assured she slipped up, thankfully scum didnt catch up on it.

Pretend you die tonight. I need to know this slip.

Another potential scumtell from Clark.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I prefer an Ivyeo JK target, myself. Like I said, I want to hit town with this JK target. I also want to maximize the chances that if there is a 3 player ELo endgame, I can trust myself AND the remaining conftown to sort the remaining player. Shelly meets that criteria, we both apparently have familiarity with her play.

Unfortunately, Ivyeo, your play is not conducive to me sorting your slot. Flip side though: I trust you to be town more currently than I do shelly. Both facts make you a better JK target.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Why do we want to hit scum? That's open to WIFOM -- JK targets town, scum skip the kill to push us into a 3 player ELo where they can create doubt on me (or whoever is the presumable conftown -- but right now every player has agreed that until a 3 player ELo, I'm basically town... so that's the closest we can get).

Also, shelly is still the best to have in 3 player ELo with the obvious two survivors (me and you), since we can both sort that slot and shelly can sort my slot well. Best balance.

ALSO also, I'm doing a thing here. Don't look too hard behind the curtain, I'll pull it aside soon, but I want interaction with Ivyeo.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We don't need an extra elimination.

And yes: I did the work, I'll show my work after I've had some discussion time with Ivyeo. Give me some space here, I won't let the day end without explaining exactly what I'm doing. Ask shelly if this makes you doubt me, I do some shady stuff and it's pro-town and often very effective.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Honestly, the worst, I'll be surprised if I need that much time to do what I need from this.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Clark... if you don't know why Kerset and the worst are conftown, then there really is not any reason to avoid hitting you.

If you're town, you just proved you cant be trusted to have a handle on the game state. You're dangerous in a way we can't have going into the endgame.

If you're scum, this is a great setup to push a end game counterclaim and try and smear WIFOM and FUD all over the place. That's doomed by design, but scum is doomed by design at this point.

I could avoid explaining it, but it's pointless. There's an unCCed JK, whose Day 2 power use cleared another player. This is mechanical confirmation, by definition. Unless you want to CC now, which would be absurd (should have done it much earlier, it wasn't exactly a secret), there's no further discussion on the matter. If you didn't already know that as scum, it didn't matter. If you didn't already know that as town, it just locks you in for today's elimination: that little engagement with the game state cannot be allowed in the endgame.



As for the meta bit, Umlaut was beyond help by then. It was pointless to withhold meta information. It's a simple distancing tactic from a guaranteed red flip, nothing more. I reacted by reinforcing my read, around which time some friction surfaced in the town. Scum could see an opportunity to crowbar Umlaut free of the elimination there -- town friction is a good tool to create spurious scumreads for active scum.

At this point, you started accusing me of casting shade where that was clearly not the case, and generally acting strange around Umlaut: you avoided calling him town, but most (not all) of your actions were to attack scumreads of that slot. The point at which you gave up on that was when Dongempire played its gambit, only dropping in to ask about a PR tell.

And Umlaut flipped red.

This is incriminating.

The rest of your defense is not necessarily a good one. All it says is that you're capable of playing a long scum game, since no one else saw you were trying anything clever -- which is a big part of being sneaky and clever as town, you have to find a way to show your hand while you do it. (I'm good at that usually, I think the worst just has an automatic bad reaction to any sort of subtle play, which is understandable.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I have acquired some sort of horrid plague, so my posting quality and frequency might drop for a couple days. Not likely that they'd drop by much unless I land in the hospital, but fair warning that it's a risk.

Today they will DEFINITELY drop. No cough drops, no painkillers, and it's hard to swallow so I'm not eating. That should be fixed tonight, but by then I'm likely to be dead until tomorrow anyway. This post is basically end of the (IRL) day for me. Sorry.

That said, I'll still be aiming for at least one big catch up response every 24 hours, anything less would be simply rude.



Since I'm not likely to have it in me to post again today:

Shelly, I would expect you to get deep reads on me anyway. I don't think it's necessary to let us know: if anyone wasn't researching my post history this game right now, I'd be legitimately surprised.

And...

Ivyeo, I want your thoughts on you being the JK target for today instead of Shelly.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Now that Ivyeo answered me, I can say: you were half right, the worst, in that it is better to hit scum, but hitting scum is NOT necessary to aim for an extra elimination. I'll show the work later when my throat doesn't feel like it's being attacked by an orbit sander, but if we hit town with the JK there's a 50% chance of the game state being wrong, scum is 100% right (BUT always looks exactly like a town target being wrong -- which is the WIFOM). So yeah, we want to hit scum with elimination, second biggest scum with JK, and eliminate in order.

Or you can realize that since town has a 50% chance of being functionally identical to scum (when town is JKed this night and scum skip a kill) and a town target clears a player mechanically the other 50% of the time (by having a NK), that leads to effectively no difference between hitting scum and town with the JK in terms of number of eliminations needed. There's more nuance than that, but I'm sick, give me a break.

And what I was doing (I promised you I'd tell you!) was baiting Ivyeo on one hand, and trying to get sortable information on the other.

Drum roll...? Thank you.

I want an Ivyeo JK not because I think she's town, but because I think she's scum AND if I'm wrong, shelly's better scum to have in ELo. My conclusions are a LITTLE wobbly because of how hard the worst pushed back, but I feel they're strong enough to order things in a hierarchy regardless.

If ClarkBar isn't scum, I think scum gave up on influencing the game state for the time being.

I suspect Ivyeo slightly more than shelly currently because of the relative levels of paranoia involved. Ivyeo is holding the door open more to deviate from the mechanics of the plan than Shelly is. Hitting my ISO seems like a townie thing for shelly (though certainly easy enough to fake as well). Ivyeo's angling for degrees of freedom reads more like "I think I'm being suckered but I'll play along," Shelly's reads more like "I think this is the right move, but I want to make EXTRA sure."

Therefore I think Ivyeo is more likely to be scum than shelly based on both player's responses to being the de facto target, AND I would prefer a scum shelly in the endgame over a scum Ivyeo, for reasons I hope I don't need to elaborate on further.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Interesting to note that shelly lost a shade of trust in me AFTER I said I wanted Ivyeo for the JK target too. I actually think that's a slight townslip that scum couldn't have faked.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Just to elaborate a bit on that last part, because I realized after I hit submit that the reasoning might not be obvious:

The order things happened in suggests a town shelly who was all in on my (purposefully incorrect!) "we want to hit town with the JK", then realizing I was indirectly calling her more likely scum. There's a level of "I townread you but I'm worried I might be getting jerked around" to the flavor of that event.

In a scum shelly world, this is weirdly nonsensical. Why would shelly question me after I increase her chances of making it to endgame as scum? The right move would be to back me up, press on Ivyeo a bit harder (but not actually enough to create any friction) and start trying to accelerate this Dayphase.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Flipside: if I'm scum, then it's also distinctly beneficial to town to have shelly in the end game because shelly can read my slot better than average (and I play a sideways game of Mafia, so direct experience with my play should be better than not). And if I'm town, having shelly in the endgame is still beneficial to town, because you AND I both can read that slot. There is no downside to that match up in 3 player ELo: You distrust me and shelly can sort me, you and I can sort shelly, and YOU are conftown so it doesn't even matter.

I still think Ivyeo is more scummy than shelly.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Somehow, it seems we've reached the exact point I was worried about hitting: my play looking incriminating for me because of the nature of the closest perfect solve and the fact that other players had decided to trust me as a matter of course.

I did ONE sideways thing, and that was to try and sort Ivyeo. Shelly snipped the context where I explained precisely why I suggested something purposefully incorrect -- to sort Ivyeo. Everything else has been me being worried about scum casting doubt on me in the eleventh hour.

If there is this much doubt, I'll gladly take my elimination today. But I want the rest of the town to be VERY VERY SURE about who they take into the endgame. I genuinely think the best possibility for town would be a 3 player ELo with me, the worst and shelly. I think there is not enough self-confidence to sort other slots nor enough of a history nor enough paranoia in any other match up. This is all just so much crap right now, but a flip will make my point. It's sad that it will be too late, but it will get people realizing they need to be very sure about who they let live and who has to die.

On the other hand, I refuse to be JKed. I would rather be eliminated. A JK will hit town if it goes on me, and (as we've discussed) that is subpar. It also won't cast my play in a truly townie light the way a flip will, and thus my play will end up ignored rather than viewed as being very cautious (and thus highlighting pitfalls I see for town).

If I have to be one or the other, I absolutely demand the elimination.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Sorry, dealing with sickness still.

No real update, I stand by my prior statement. If I have to be jailed, it's a waste. I'd rather be eliminated for the sake of town. If I can avoid both, great. If I cannot, I choose elimination over being the JK target, so you can put that where it will land on red. I win with the town, my elimination to tighten the game state is fine by me, wasting a JK is not fine.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Not so! Observe:

If I'm town and town doubts me, and I make it into the endgame, scum has an easier time convincing everyone to miseliminate on me.
So I can understand wanting to clear me: mechanically or otherwise.

But there's two problems with that if I'm town.
1: A JK on a definite scum player is in fact better for town. We agreed on that already.
2: Scum has a card to play still: purposefully choosing no kill. This only works if a JK target is town, for obvious reasons.

Presuming I'm town, if I'm the JK target and scum no-kills, we wasted a JK use because I get miseliminated.

Contrast that with elimination.

If I'm scum, you win TODAY by taking me out, and if I'm town, the JK target can be a better slot for hitting scum -- Clark or Ivy, presumably. This increases chances in the next dayphase because a scum target for the JK is better.
I am NOT confident who is scum between Clark and Ivy, so I don't feel confident we hit scum today.
As I am being doubted, miseliminating one of the two major scum slots from my perspective gives scum a major advantage: choose no kill to get me miseliminated the next day, leaving a 3 player ELo with you, Shelly, and (Clark/Ivy). If shelly's scum (I have come around to thinking she is not scum), that's an actual scum win at that point. If shelly isn't scum, there is a better chance of a scum win there than if the JK was able to be used on the two scum slots, though not a guarantee.

Hence, I would prefer to be eliminated, not to be JKed.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I swear something is missing there. Let me work it out.

Format is something like,
Phase, number of players -- conftowns, scum (change in players/confirms, waiting on results from JK)

D3, 6p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N3, 5p--2c,1s (-1c, +1c)
D4, 4p--2c,1s -- 50% CHANCE
OR
D3, 6p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N3, 5p--2c,1s (0, 1jk)
D4, 5p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N4, 4p--2c,1s (-1c, +1c)
D5, 3p--2c,1s -- TOWN WIN
OR
D3, 6p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N3, 5p--2c,1s (0, 1jk)
D4, 5p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N4, 4p--2c,1s (0, 1jk)
D5, 4p--2c,1s -- 50% CHANCE

Yeah, seems like something is indeed wrong there. ... Oh. Because I was forgetting we have a solution for tight ELo if the JK survives. Ahem, that's MY idiocy there.

D3, 6p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N3, 5p--2c,1s (-1c, +1c)
D4, 4p--2c,1s (-1)
N4, 3p--2c,1s (0)
D4, 3p--2c,1s -- 50% CHANCE
OR
D3, 6p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N3, 5p--2c,1s (0, 1jk)
D4, 5p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N4, 4p--2c,1s (-1c, +1c)
D5, 3p--2c,1s -- TOWN WIN
OR
D3, 6p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N3, 5p--2c,1s (0, 1jk)
D4, 5p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N4, 4p--2c,1s (0, 1jk)
D5, 4p--2c,1s (-1, 1jk)
N5, 3p--2c,1s (0*, 1jk)
D6, 3p--2c,1s -- TOWN WIN

The asterisk means "enforced", no kill possible because of the roleblocking of JK. Legitimately forgot about using that for its intended purpose, that's my fault.

If scum no-kills, discussion doesn't need to happen except for the JK to announce their nightly target, and everyone to vote the other non-conf. No more reads or arguments mattering there.

But a N3 JK elimination is still concerning. I would want to be out of the game at that stage as town regardless, given that no one likes my slot for town anymore I'd be a distraction and we'd lose. So I don't change my mind here regardless: eliminate me, hit Clark or Ivyeo with the JK.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

... I have a feeling the long silence was to give me time to reach the obvious conclusion that me being JKed clears me on D4.

I'm not a GREAT or EXCEPTIONALLY SMART player, I'm just an unconventional one.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Ivyeo, it's concerning to /me/ that I didn't recognize it. There is no defense I have other than being sick.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I follow and agree with shelly's case on Clark, I just didn't have the energy to do it myself. It is missing the point around where I let my read on Umlaut be reinforced by meta: town had some minor friction there, and I was on the weaker side of that interaction. Clark immediately jumps in defending Umlaut, accusing me of casting shade. The town isn't with it, he gets pushed back on, and goes more or less lurky except to ask Dongempire for the tell Ivyeo had.

The whole Day 2 play incriminates Clark as part of an Umlaut-centered scumteam. He just doesn't have any good town play there.

I distrust Ivyeo because she's been under pressure very few times, and the cavalry have rode in to save the day every time. There's a lot of townreads about the slot but nothing specific, just a gut feeling or PoE. It's a bad look, and I trust a slot like that to hit endgame and use the low grade townreads to get town pitted against town for the scum win. So I think Clark is scummier, but I strongly distrust Ivyeo nevertheless.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

First of all, I didn't lie about the later parts of Day 2. It's in plain sight. (After writing edit: my memory failed me on one point. That still isn't lying.) Not a fan of being called a liar.

You specifically gave me the meta. Yeah. I said it reinforced my read. The specifics of the next part are escaping me, but let me check for you, because calling me a liar gets /personal/, and I do not handle it well.

First bit of friction comes as pushback from you, though I'll give it a pass, it was deserved. I'd forgotten that I had already voted Umlaut earlier, you questioned that when I gave intent to hammer... Fair. Pass.

Bit more low-impact interaction rolls around, and then I am explaining to Umlaut how he misunderstood my case on his slot. In that, I mention that, well, let's just quote.

You’re a nobody in this game, and that just does not make sense given how much content you’ve posted. How are you so difficult to grasp? How do you reach that state? How is it that no one can offer ANYTHING on you that suggests confidence or strong belief or even blind faith? That’s not a good look. Hence the scumread.

And you responded by accusing me of casting shade. That accusation was so out of bounds that Dongempire, who was my biggest scumreader aside from MAYBE Kerset (I couldn't tell) on Day 2, had to say that it wasn't casting shade. Around the same time, some slots that were null on me start to consider me maybe a bit more town-ish -- which locked you out of easily continuing a push on me. Admittedly, that doesn't exactly matter -- because...

Shortly thereafter, the hammer falls.

Then your next post of note:

I take some responsibility, Umlaut. Sorry! I needed to see you under real E-1 circumstances, it felt like the game was finally opening up a little. I guess this was the risk.

I have to sort out the possibilities here.

Distancing. Possibly also scum saying goodbye to their buddy in a public thread in case their buddy loses access to the scum thread before they can see the goodbye. It also could be townie, but it doesn't connect to the tone and style of your other posts, so I'm inclined not to give it the benefit of the doubt here.

And then, I admit I misremembered: you do some more of what can be generously called scumhunting, but not much. My mistake though, you DID in fact continue being active.

You bring up Ivyeo's possible PR crumb. I don't think this is AI at all, because it's a bad idea as town or scum. If it is AI, I lean toward it being high-risk scum play -- it can reward scum if they handle it right, town never benefits unless it's a fakecrumb and they can counterclaim. As a VT, a town-you couldn't. But I'm confident calling this NAI, you seem like a cautious scum player based on your personality.
You try to float a world where everyone who could be under suspicion is town. This is, in a world where you are scum, more distancing. It doesn't quite fit as town either -- you yourself note someone has to be lying, but you mention it being possibly unintentional. (That would require someone having a role PM that is not their actual role. This should be pretty obvious and would have been corrected.)
Then you ask Dongempire for the D1 Ivyeo slip it suggested. Obvious how that's scummy, and never townie.
Asked Umlaut for tracker results. Obvious thing to do (NAI), but Umlaut has got to be providing distancing cover for his scumbuddy here: when the hammer falls there's no more reason to humor town with fakeclaim results, the flip will happen regardless. So I'd expect scum to be interacting with the fakeclaim during twilight -- I think town is also sometimes interacting, but that scum ALWAYS interacts there. Only two people really interacted with the mechanical side of that fakeclaim -- one of whom was the worst, now confirmed town.

And then, end of Day.



I'll address the rest in my next post. But don't call me a liar.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think jailing Ivy hits scum if Clark isn't scum, personally. I townread shelly strongly, and rereading D2 gave me a more solid reason to distrust Ivyeo. I can elaborate shortly, but first..


As to the other question, ClarkBar, of where Ivy was saved by the cavalry, unfortunately you'll have to /deal/ with my vote on her being one of the two (yes, only two) cases. The other was all the pushback you yourself got when you voted her Day 2. If you are town, you should be more than aware of how fast the game collapsed in on that attack. Pressing Ivyeo is, in fact, one of the few MAJOR aspects of your D2 play which (after refreshing my memory) got me to consider a world where you might be town. Not because of the pressing, but because of the reaction from both Ivyeo and everyone else in town. It's surprising to me that people would run to her defense so strongly /without having an actual strong reason to townread her./



And now, for the case against Ivyeo, which is admittedly paper thin, but I have nothing on that slot but gut reads and this, so ...
After ClarkBar voted Ivyeo, Ivyeo started angling for ClarkBar in opposition to Umlaut. It was the most aggressive she's been all game long, by MILES. Leading questions, aggressive wording, the whole bit -- very much in line with a more pro-active scumhunting player, and totally out of alignment with her prior play.
Of course, when ClarkBar dropped the reason for the vote, Ivyeo stopped the push dead. But the uncharacteristic nature of the play and the timing (while the Umlaut wagon was at E-2) is suggestive.

Clark is MORE scummy, I think. But Ivyeo is my guess at runner up.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Well then. Who's the JK?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Yeah, I meant the target. Fair enough, fire away.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Here's hoping Clark's red or scum gives us a mathematical win. I'll be in the dead thread for it, but it'll be a guaranteed win anyway.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That's me cleared, then, unless there was a last minute switch I missed. (I don't think so, but Ivyeo's post last page made me pause.)

I walked away after telling everyone to let 'er rip on the elimination, and I didn't have anything to say anyway, in case anyone was wondering about that.



I townread shelly. Ivyeo has to be scum from where I'm standing. the worst, do you have any doubts on shelly's slot? Or did Kerset jail away from me and I just can't find a post about that?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

My Day 3 here was probably my weakest play ever. I legitimately blanked on a ton of mechanical elements of the game, and lost the plot as a result. There was simply no chance of recovering from that without dying or being cleared. And then I misunderstood the gamestate and pushed for the /wrong one/. Bad play all around, my fault.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Interesting fun fact: Ivy lied. Let me grab the proof.

--Snipped for size--

I disagree with the whole I started pushing back on Clark after I was voted for misses 2 Key aspects. 1, I voted on Clark

Before

they voted on me. My push on Clark lasted pretty much the whole day. The rest of what I said after pushing was in direct reply to Worst, and by the time I was able to check again there was a Hammer. While I admit I got really defensive, I started pushing on him first as I thought I had a read, but when people didn't go along I kinda lost confidence in it I Guess...

I just scrolled through the combined Umlaut/Ivy ISO from D1 to N2. Ivy pushed Clark /one time/. The time I spotted. There was not a sustained push. It's possible I missed it, but I didn't even see an Ivyeo vote on Clark /at all/ there. I'd quote, but it's hard to quote /an absence/. I'd like a second set of eyes.

What I /did/ see was a lot of "I don't like ClarkBar very much," being very careful not to scumread him. Then the teeth come out near the end of Clark's push on Ivy -- he reveals the intent, push ends. That's critical mass on the Umlaut wagon, Ivy's vote jumps. Hmm...



the worst: I want your thoughts on Shelly in detail, so I can second guess myself through your eyes.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Also, an interesting error made: Ivyeo pushed back on Clark not after Clark voted her, but after Clark UNVOTED her -- but before he moved his vote to Umlaut.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Looking through the Shelly ISO now. There's some stinkers in there for sure, but surprisingly few. Either this is a near flawless scumgame, or it's a town slot, I think. The stinky play is early, among the first 5 posts after shelly replaces in. One interesting element that Clark was right about is the Umlaut slot pushing an Ivyeo wagon as an alternative, which is iffy in an Ivyeo-scum world. Is Umlaut a risk taker? Seems likely. Is Ivyeo willing to play along? I ... don't really know. (And obviously we can't really take her at her word there.)

Unfortunate truth: Umlaut has few direct interactions with shelly's slot OR Ivyeo's. However, it's far less for Ivyeo.

This corresponds with the reason I scumread Umlaut to begin with -- lack of meaningful engagement -- and with my concerns around Ivyeo -- no solid REASONS to townread, just a lot of gut reads and PoE.

Porkens and Ivyeo do a little dance at the very start, then studiously ignore each other until Umlaut votes Ivyeo. This looks a bit more extreme in terms of distancing -- it stands out by comparison.

Shelly and Umlaut exchange reads once shortly before Umlaut gets ejected by nightfall, and the slot interacts with Tiramisu once or twice (along with a push while a mistake was made very early on, that Ivyeo follows up on with a vote while the Umlaut slot turns away from it). Willow gets a lot of headshaking from Umlaut, but there's no true interaction (which was a willowsaura problem all around, and I don't know it matters here). This is probably close to most player ISOs as regards Umlaut.

However, I think simple level of interaction might lead us astray. Particularly Kerset and the Umlaut slot had very little interaction from what I can see in Umlaut/Porkens's half of the ISO.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Also, thank you shelly for finding the vote. I didn't see it. In context, I can see why: it's as you say, weak and low impact. (I don't think it's OMGUS, however, and I'm curious how you see that. Symmetrical voting isn't an automatic OMGUS.) The only time the actual pressure comes out is after Clark unvotes, but before he explains in full.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'd much prefer to see your case on shelly first and to hear Ivyeo make her case. Also, I have got to sleep sometime, and sometime is in a few minutes here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That’s a defense. Hoping for a case on Shelly from both Ivyeo and the worst.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm still waiting on Ivy's case against shelly.

I have a list of points about the defense post Ivyeo made, but I'm sitting on them until I have seen the cases against shelly.



The way I'm approaching this right now, the worst, is similar to a courtroom. I'm viewing us as playing the parts of both the prosecution and the judge.
We're judge for the side we're fighting against -- you judge Ivyeo as scum, I judge shelly as scum. We push the opposite view of those -- even if we change our mind, at least until cases have all been laid out and we've had time to consider them.
Shelly and Ivyeo are both witnesses and suspects. They defend themselves and case their opponent.

The reason for this arrangement is that we get a chance to update any old information, refresh ourselves on old information that's been lost, and force new information into the open -- perhaps a piece of forgotten scumplay was actually a townie gambit, who knows. It also means the weight is symmetrical: there are two slots pressing on both targets. Each target has a defender and an attacker who cannot be scum, plus one possible scum slot in the opposite number. This is a stable arrangement that will shift only with the weight of the evidence and the persuasiveness of all player arguments, which minimizes miselimination risk.

It does mean stalling is a fair approach for scum to take. Town never needs to stall here, though it's hard to tell stalling from IRL commitments. I hope we can trust both of our non-confs to pick it up a bit, hmm?



Also. We still haven't heard shelly lay out a reason to townread her. Arguably harder than defending after the fact the way Ivyeo was able, but (if done correctly) far more impressive and effective. I think shelly, regardless of alignment, will find this exceedingly difficult. But if she can manage to build a case for herself being town with no information on why she might be scumread, and it actually fights the unseen scumreads, that is an incredibly powerful move in her favor. I also don't think scum ever figures out why they might be getting scumread in this situation save by blind chance... so I'm going to encourage this.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm putting a placeholder here. I have something to say about Ivyeo's return, but not now.

And yeah, you'd have to. The slot is always scum or always town, it doesn't change when the player does.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think you making a towncase for yourself has to come before Ivyeo's case against you does. Otherwise it comes across as a weak, off target defense instead of an actual pre-emptive town case. I think you lost this race. More on that later, but I wouldn't waste your time now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Making a towncase on yourself to disrupt a scumcase you haven't even seen is far harder than JUST making a scumcase. I think Ivyeo wins this race.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I also want to say:
20.
And also:
15.

This is part of something I'm putting together alongside my post explaining my plans to the worst and the placeholder. I don't think anyone second guesses this. Regardless, I have to take a risk with it: I want to keep my cards on the table even while I'm keeping the non-confs from viewing them. I'm clear, but still... placeholder 2 -- I'll come back to this.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Sorry, distraction busted my timing.

20 and 15 referred to Ivyeo not replying with the case 20 minutes from my time of posting (which is an accurate guess) and waiting 15 more to reveal what I was doing. Obviously, I'm late.

Second placeholder: I'm clear, but it's important that I'm able to draw attention to what I'm doing in a lopsided way. It's like a magic trick: follow the left hand, don't pay attention to the sleeves on the right. So I say I'm doing something, and then I purposefully msidirect away from it. That makes people react to it in a way that I can control.

First placeholder: THIS WAS BAIT.

Yes. It was BAIT. And Ivyeo bit.

Check out how I laid that out: I emphasized the /difficulty/ shelly would have and that Ivyeo had an easier time -- but that it would make shelly look much better.

Ivyeo instantly jumps in after hours of silence. This is possibly coincidence, but hold on.

Shelly starts to get ready to rumble, and Ivyeo is quiet. I purposefully put the brakes on here, and hit my timer. Check the timestamp where I say I think shelly lost the race first time: 7:30 CST.

Ten minutes later: 20. And 15. I chose this to say: I think Ivyeo takes over a half hour from my braking post to put the case together now, but doesn't exceed 45 minutes. This is because she can take her time to build a good one if she's not racing shelly, but needs to make it look like she had most of the case already -- so she can't take a full hour on it. For me, this meant I could reveal 15 minutes after the minimum time for her to post.

Sure enough, she drops the scumcase over 30 minutes after the initial braking move by me, but before my 45 minute (30+15) reveal.

How is the timing relevant?

Call this placeholder 3. I want to wait and see the worst's case against shelly first. I have an alignment conclusion on this basis, but I'm going to have to leave everyone in suspense, because it's one that is dependent on some of shelly's play as viewed by other players.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Waiting on you now, the worst.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm gonna say a Fun Theory that I think no one here will expect. Conclusions based on it STILL fall under Placeholder 3, but the theory is suggestive if you're following ahead of what I've revealed so far.

I genuinely think Ivyeo posting for the first time was legitimate based on that reaction.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Placeholder 3 is the reveal of what I think your alignment is based on the timing scheme I laid out, Ivyeo. It's dependent on details of Shelly's late game play -- end of last dayphase and beginning of this one. I want a fresh eye on those details, mine is not trustworthy right now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I can't talk about whether I feel it's an emotional appeal that's town or scum until later. However, you may amuse yourself by considering a situation in both worlds where the timing of the first post was /legitimate/ and the emotional reaction was too.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think shelly doesn't entertain counterfactuals regardless of alignment. Sound accurate to you, the worst?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

In that case, I'm basically done for now. You're the last puzzle piece remaining.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The only placeholder I won't talk about is 3, it's dependent on stuff we're all still waiting on. The rest are already in the open: 1 was basically "aha, gotcha!" -- stating "I saw this, the first part of this goofy thing I'm doing was successful". The second was the fact that even though I'm clear, it can be extremely useful to pretend like I can't afford to withhold information entirely in order to lead other players into doing what I want them to do presuming X is true or Y is false or whatever other hypothesis I want to test.

The third is the Grand Finale, the Curtain Call. It's not quite right to put it out this second.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Basically. I'm cool with that right now. Wish the mod gave us more of those cool space photos, though.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

A response is ... a nice thing to have. I think it's unnecessary, but it does make the process easier.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I spy, with my little eye, something treating future information as public knowledge before it was revealed.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

We're playing I spy right now, I'll leave that up to you.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Congratulations: nobody found it. I'll bring it back as part of Placeholder 3, because it's the wrong thing for my role (not game-role but role in this matchup) to be saying and I think the fact no one found it means it was probably not worth bringing up as anything important.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm up to solving tonight. My sleep schedule is wrecked anyway, I'll be here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'd like a bit of back and forth on the matter, not just "I have THE SOLUTION and there can be no other," just because I (like most people) trust something to be correct more when I work it out for myself. Also, I still have Placeholder 3 in the wings, and if you're going where I THINK you're going with it, I will definitely want to drop that.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

That's a reason I like forum mafia. It's psychological and strategic, most mafia games are charismatic and intuitive. I just do VERY POORLY with charisma and intuition.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Now, can you touch on the emotional reaction covered under Placeholder 3, and specifically the part of shelly's play that might very well affect the timing of Ivy's play? I think I see where this is going, but I want to be 100% certain we're on the same page.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Fair enough.



The Reveal!

Ivy smells like scum to me.

If you follow my argument from the timing scheme, she's pressed to jump on Shelly's bandwagon FAST when I hang out the juicy bait. Paraphrasing my bait, I said essentially that shelly can do a REALLY GOOD JOB getting townreads if she makes a towncase on herself. It's really hard to do but it looks better than if she knows /what her scumread reasons are/. Then I ended it with "I don't think scum figure out the reason they're being scumread." This was shelly's bait, even though I wasn't reading her off of that -- it was crucial she took the bait to get Ivyeo on board.

Ivy jumps in in MINUTES. Thing is, until now, this is all NAI. But there's more to come. I drop placeholder 1: I caught you jumping in fast, I'm watching. I delay to cover up what I'm pointing at directly, even though I call it out -- the lack of immediacy means it isn't obvious I have her under observation.

Meanwhile, I drop the second bait. I tell shelly: don't bother making a towncase on yourself, it'll be really hard and Ivyeo will beat you. I vastly underestimated a determined shelly's abilities, but that didn't /really/ matter: it was giving Ivyeo breathing room, a reason to not check the thread obsessively and just focus on typing.

I call that Ivyeo takes over a half hour and under 45 minutes to make her case. (The 45 minute mark was meant to be my reveal, but distractions won.) Reasoning: if she is town, she has no reason to shorten her time window for the case building. If she's scum, she ABSOLUTELY does. This isn't strictly AI for every player, but Ivyeo is a notably slow typist: a scum Ivyeo will be FEELING TIME CRUNCH.

And I nail it. 43 minutes -- its on the outside, but well within what I called.

Scum indicative. But if that was all, it would be flimsy because of Ivyeo's reaction. It was an emotional reaction to me calling her out for the timing of her preparation to make her case. That came off extraordinarily genuine, but! I had a scumread, and my take on that reaction was that she was legitimately posting there as a check in, and had been typing well before that point. But she disliked it not because it was calling her a liar (which it wasn't, but it was easy to make that pushback on it) but because she didn't get how I got where I did from where I was. She thought I was, in short, cheating. Somehow I had derived something fishy from the timing of a post that was ENTIRELY genuine, and not one of her scum-motivated posts -- she didn't like that. That's how I took that.

Why did I reach that conclusion? Well, you could say confbias, but it wasn't. I read that reaction as genuine, but the very next post had an identical reaction for a very different thing.

why didn't you prepare wtf

scum motives not going through ISOs

Because I thought it was GG ;.;
Besides, When I glanced over, It was really hard to look at it from a perspective taht you were scum, and obviously with that now confirmed I was able to much easier to actually make a case

And it still took me an hour

This comes off extremely fake. So fake that I had to ask myself WHY I thought the prior one was /real/. The problem is that if Ivyeo is town, she has /no reason/ to play AtE at shelly. Even if it's a legitimate emotional reaction, this actually only hurts her position if she's town, because a scum shelly never listens and always can latch onto it. Town Ivyeo plays that off like she did her push on Clark in D2: cold, distant, aggressive. Never this. Definitely not in this gamestate.

So I'm agreed on this being scum Ivyeo.



Finally, I promised I'd reveal the private/public information mistake I thought I saw. In shelly's town defense of herself, she brings up (and I missed it my first go around) that she "(correctly)" townread my slot. Before i was cleared. Indeed, before I had driven my towncred into the ground with bad play.

I think Ivyeo misses that more often as scum than as town. That's an easy mistake to make regardless of alignment, mind you, and it's an easy argument to push a miselimination, UNLESS you yourself forget what information is public at what times. And Ivyeo did in fact miss it -- I only caught it because while reading through shelly's response to Ivyeo's response to shelly's self-towncase (jesus christ that's a mess) because Ivyeo specifically failed to respond to it, and shelly claimed victory on that point. Ivyeo was doing line-by-line responses, I think she'd catch it if she saw it for what it was.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm sorely tempted to do just that.

Do you see any holes in my side of things here?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Plotinus is surely delivering what the people want: regular vote counts and pretty pictures. I think that's the first time I've seen that specific Orion Nebula image, very cool.


Ivyeo, you are misunderstanding the situation. The timing scheme was just to doublecheck against my own judgement. It was something town regularly would fall outside of, and scum ... rarely. I already scumread you. I already made a much more holistic case on you near the start of the day. I compared and contrasted your ISO with shelly's as regarded the Umlaut slot and concluded you looked more like scum.

This was simply revealing reinforcement for my reads. I checked against my doubts. I checked against the worst's doubts. And it came together this way regardless.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Oh, realizing I missed a spot.

The concern I had and was waiting on the worst for: Shelly is an aggressive player, and I was concerned I may have missed some hyperaggression (more than simple doubt) aimed at Ivyeo on D3. That COULD taint the timing read because of Ivyeo worrying about shelly having angled for her from a long ways back. That would cause a town Ivyeo to hurry up -- there could be all sorts of hidden habaneros back in the past that shelly could be digging up. But the worst's take agrees with what I saw -- fairly minimal interplay on Day 3, nothing so impressive as causing a shift in how much pressure Ivyeo feels from a scumcase written by shelly at that time. This is a fairly nuanced psychological play worry based on players with fairly stable playstyles, and it's fairly wimpy in either direction. I just wanted to feel very confident that Shelly had been appropriately read before I put it in the open.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Sorry about that, I got distracted handling some RL stuff. VOTE: Ivyeo

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm legitimately impressed. Shelly's scum game here didn't match my expectations. I try to avoid meta, but judging by the worst, it didn't match her usual scum play either. Impressed as hell.

On reflection, in this setup, I think the weakpoint in this town was me. Bad entrance, bad play on Day 3 meaning we couldn't clear elsewhere, and letting my paranoia about slots I gutread as town get away from me. Dongempire and Kerset were our strongest assets, it's a shame it went the way it did there, but they definitely are the reason we got as far as we did. Special shoutout to Dongempire's fakeclaim gambit, which absolutely rocked the town, smashed scum flat, and put us in a highly advantageous position for the coming day. I never would have let that pass if I had seen you plotting it, but it worked just about perfectly. Well done.

Clark was our second weakest player, but he had some really good reads in hindsight! His play mostly failed at convincing other players and coalescing with the town, which led to a vicious cycle of bad reads for him and others.

As for Ivyeo -- if it werent for my paranoia and shelly's stunning faketown play, I think that Ivyeo would have done fantastically. Again, I was a weak point in the town composition and shelly was playing top tier scum. I think this particular matchup was set in stone, unfortunately. Worse still, after I tanked my towncred on Day 3 I think there was no matchup that wouldn't have had a player who looked bad compared to shelly. You were by far the towniest choice available: remember, the other two were me and ClarkBar.

The rest of town did more than adequate, aside from elimination-bait Sirius. If his play had been more initially engaged, though, I think Day 1 would still have ended hitting green, and I don't know late-game Sirius would make up for any other target but myself in terms of improving town's chances.

Really close, and shelly earned that win for sure. Thanks for the game, everyone!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think we might need to give some credit to the earlier players in shelly's slot for that too: TiramisuCake and Willowsaura both colored the slot very townie in combination with shelly's play. Willow was playing a game that was a definite scum loss long term, but combined with TiramisuCake's weirdly aggressive really early bus on one side and Shelly on the other, the overall effect looked really, really good.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I stand by my assessment of Shelly's town game: emotional/intuitive, reactive, lots of post-facto rationalization of reads and actions. I just think she REALLY STRONGLY emulated it here, which makes her some scary scum. I honestly didn't get it when everyone said "oh no, Shelly as scum, that's horrifying" but now, well...