Newbie 2104 | Wikipedia Articles | Game Over!

[catboi]

Hai, I'm an SE~

For a little bit of my background, I've been playing mafia off and on since 2010. I started with chat mafia before moving to forums. I took a break for several years before coming back in 2020 and I've been playing a lot since then.

I want to make this game fun for the newer players, so they want to stick around. I also want it to be informative. I'm not a brilliant town player but I'm pretty decent and if people have any questions on general gameplay and strategy I'd be happy to answer them.

For now,

VOTE: ceejay

[catboi]

Actually ya know what? VOTE: Rose for making such a high-effort first post

Hi Thynhith! Sorry about miselimming you last time we played together >_>

I'm glad to see you're back, though! Hopefully things go better this time.

Why do you see that post as "high-effort"?

[catboi]

You're forgiven, and I've nearly forgotten how that game went. Man, can't help but think the face >_> looks sinister
I figured it was obvious - who tells random netizens about themselves?

Intro posts are actually pretty common in a lot of games. I'm just curious why you see it as "effort" other than, like, writing several sentences.

Hai, I'm an SE~

For a little bit of my background, I've been playing mafia off and on since 2010. I started with chat mafia before moving to forums. I took a break for several years before coming back in 2020 and I've been playing a lot since then.

I want to make this game fun for the newer players, so they want to stick around. I also want it to be informative. I'm not a brilliant town player but I'm pretty decent and if people have any questions on general gameplay and strategy I'd be happy to answer them.

For now,

VOTE: ceejay

Okay I am changing votes at lightning speed. I don't recall you being so talkative in our last game, Catboi, and you were town then. VOTE: catboi
Pulling the old SE hat trick, are we?

Very astute of you! However, I was actually pretty strongly unhappy with how I played that game and wanted to drastically alter how I approached newbie games after that. I think I played that early game in a bit too much of an opaque fashion. I also let my emotions get the best of me and got wayyy too abrasive, which I felt very guilty about.

This is also partly in addition to the fact that...the site has slowed down quite a bit, and we're not very good at retaining new players. So I'm trying to put on a more welcoming face in the hope that more people will continue to play games, because I like this community.

[catboi]

Theft I want you to think less when you post next time, just as an experiment bc I want to get a better read k thx.

I want to know, truly, how do you get somebody to like you IRL - share away!

Also catboi objectively aware of and admits adjusting meta

VOTE: catboi

Have you played any games with him as scum? Post a link if so
@catboi: Oh and the reference in their name - people like to proceed straight to random votes. But my vote for him was pretty jokey anyway

I don't think I've ever played with Maestro. Granted, I've forgotten more games than most people have played, but the name doesn't ring any bells.

Ah, thought the vote was at least semi-serious and wanted to pry at your reasoning because I didn't actually believe there was a lot of "thought" put into that post. I don't mind you coming at me like this though.

[catboi]

VOTE: No Lynch

fyi we aren't allowed to use the word "lynch" anymore

why that vote?

[catboi]

I'm confused, I was given a role PM but I don't see my name, anyways if I'm am in the game VOTE: hjbzc

hjbzc is the person you replaced, LMAO

[catboi]

I said I voted catboi bc they're expressing an awareness of their meta play and simultaneously have thought enough about how they would adjust their meta to actually bring this up in a game... it's about the self-awareness and why catboi would have that self-awareness or be thinking about their meta and how to change it; e.g. bc they're scum?

This is a really weird interpretation of what I said. I expressed specifically that I was unhappy with how I played

as town

in a previous game, and so have decided to try to play differently in the hope of both producing better results and coming across as more welcoming to newer players. I think that's a pretty natural thing to do, lots of people try to change how they play. I think if you're not in a constant process of trying to grow and improve, the game gets dull, and your play will start to decline as well.

The discussion of me being different was not unprompted - it was specifically brought up by Thynhith, the one player here I have experience with, pointing out that I was playing differently from our previous game together. I don't think that was a bad observation, I townlean him for pointing it out because it shows he's thinking critically about the game and was paranoid me having a more "formal" entrance might be a trick to look more towny. This is also not

the first

game I have tried to adjust my newbie game playstyle for, I did it in a prior game as well. I thought that game went slightly better and so decided to open more like that in future games.

Your interpretation is to accuse me of "being self-aware about meta", which is not really what I said, at all. It's framing a pretty straightforward explanation in a fairly sinister light. I said I want to try to play differently because of an unsatisfying performance in a past town game. You turn into possibly adjusting my own meta to deceive others. But if I was trying to deceive people, why would I admit to doing so openly on the first page? Further, if I was supposedly self-aware about my meta and concerned about how I would be read for it, why would I choose to act differently in a game where someone had seen me as town before? Isn't that completely backwards? Your whole thought process here doesn't really make sense to me. What scum thinks to themselves, "I am going to play differently to get townread" and then comes in the thread and says literally exactly that? (Bear in mind, that is NOT what I said, but just for the purposes of this exercise I want to show how this logic doesn't really hold up.)

[catboi]

Oh nvm you're right catboi, thought your post was @ faust for some reason

catboi, who is scum? Or alternatively, thoughts on umlauts or generational wealth?

My initial vote was not random, I thought ceejay's entrance was slightly more likely to come from scum than town. I'm withholding comment on faustiv for now. I don't know which player "generational wealth" is supposed to be.

[catboi]

Hi, sterling, can you explain why you tried to vote for hjbzc?

[catboi]

Oh nvm you're right catboi, thought your post was @ faust for some reason

catboi, who is scum? Or alternatively, thoughts on umlauts or generational wealth?

My initial vote was not random, I thought ceejay's entrance was slightly more likely to come from scum than town.

why? you have not given indication before now that your vote was not random, so this seems like new and relevant information

It's a

very

thin thing but in my experience scum are more likely to make that type of RVS post where it's "short statement"/vote, trying to do just enough to blend in while not getting directly involved, didn't really interact with other people. It could turn out to be absolutely nothing of course, but it's RVS.

[catboi]

Speaking of withholding info not being good during Day phase, if you feel this confident do share, it will prob get ppl not currently discussing in-thread much to hop in

We've got plenty of time. Personally I'd like to see people post a bit more before I real who I'm thinking about. My idea is that pushing for their elimination might be trickier given they know someone's already suspicious of them so early into the game.
They may yet weave me some more rope, so to speak.

I don't think you're being as subtle as you think you are, but I look forward to hearing it.

[catboi]

anyway, maestro always town regardless of sterling's alignment because I don't think scum seizes on to that line of reasoning thinking someone could have somehow slipped in thinking they were given the role PM of a mafia member. I want Sterling to explain himself as soon as possible.

[catboi]

faustiv, I have to ask - was the whole no lim vote just trying to get reactions? Figured you were just trolling to see if anyone would attack you for it.

[catboi]

I just voted randomly to see any reactions, also My role PM said "Welcome to the game, Sterling the steampunk!" so yes my PM did have my name on it, I can't show a screenshot as it's against the rules, so unless the Mod allows it you just have to take my word for it

since I've somehow voted myself I'll change to VOTE: Maestro

Then why did you say you didn't see your name in your first post? Not to get too deep into the details, but how did you miss it?

[catboi]

just felt like voting no one

Oh. Okay.

[catboi]

OH, lmfao, the "I don't see my name" was in the

player list

, not the role PM. That makes sense.


Anyway, you should move your vote - I don't think Maestro is scum here.

[catboi]

What does SRS mean?

Anyway, to answer this, it's just shorthand for "serious", nothing complicated.

(I wanted to see your response to maestro first because if you

had

potentially slipped I wasn't going to give you something else to talk about)

well who do you think is the scum?

Why is who I think who is scum important to you right now? I'd rather you provide your own thoughts!

[catboi]

what's your experience with mafia steampunk? as in what variants have you played and on what format (face-to-face, forum, epicmafia/town of salem etc.)

What did you think of sterling's explanation?

[catboi]

I don't think you're being as subtle as you think you are, but I look forward to hearing it.

Who do you think I am referring to?


Though I do have a question for you, whilst I'd agree that Maestro would struggle to come up with his line of reasoning wrt Sterling possibly scumslipping from the POV of an inexperienced scum, would you not say a player more au fait with the site procedures might have able to think that way as either alignment, no?
'Always town' seems a slight stretch to me at this point.

Well, I was the only one who anyone had actually expressed any serious suspicion of, so I could only conclude you think it's me.

Sure, "always town" might be an exaggerated level of certainty, but only slightly so in that I'd say it's maybe 98% confidence? Manufactured 'scumslip' arguments are pretty rare and the way the thought developed for Maestro in-thread felt very organic and the response looked like he believed he'd genuinely caught something.. I do think in particular the idea that sterling got a role PM the mod hadn't edited and so way the name of someone as mafia is

really

outside the box thinking that I wouldn't expect from scum.

I think in general if you use the thinking of "they're experienced so they could have faked that" in games you're going to end up second guessing a lot of reads unnecessarily. You shouldn't let paranoia overtake your mind, especially not on Day 1 when most of the players in the game are going to be town. Start with the simplest conclusion, and if you find real reason to doubt that read you can always re-evaluate.

[catboi]

well right now I'm just voting randomly VOTE: cat[\vote] I might check the backlog again to see if there's anything I've missed

BTW mod, what's the vote count right now?

also my last vote didn't go though because I've used a backslashVOTE: TheftofaRose

If you were trying to vote me why did you vote someone else when that vote didn't work?

well I used to play Town of Salem and I've played on the eurobricks forum once, also have a few game of camp cadaver under my belt, and I used to play amongus before it stopped working for me, why do you ask?

So you're more used to playing games where you find scum based on investigations and roleclaims, is that right?

[catboi]

well I'm still in the RVS so it doesn't matter if it's you, rose or VOTE: No elimination

as for your second question yes, I'm more used to finding scum based on investigations and roleclaims, which is why I didn't do well on the eurobrick game because in ToS it's common to claim publicly, even day 1 where voting is not allowed while on eurobrick nobody wanted to claim publicly. In amongus didn't have roles other than crewmate and imposter when I played, there we find scum based on seeing them kill or vent for the most part.

Okay, so, just so you're aware, the play on this site emphasizes dayplay over roleclaims which means the scumhunting is going to be based on words and argumentation rather than reports. The possible PRs in the game are not that strong and are unlikely to win the game in place of people making reads.

It's no worry, there's usually at least one person like that in every newbie game. It's likely to get confusing but follow along and just try your best.

[catboi]

I think sterling's reaction to maestro feels over the top but can just aseasily come from a newer player who's not used to people making social reads getting upset they'e being accused so strongly.

VOTE: faustiv

I do think trying to string up sterling for a "lack of reaction" to Maestro's scumslip accusation feels opportunist - it had been less than an hour since Maestro posted it and sterling was clearly still catching up. On some other site's there's a higher emphasis on real time interaction but on here that amount of time lag isn't really a big deal and him trying to act like it was incriminating doesn't sit right with me. I saw scum use a similar argument in a recent game (although they were actually bussing their buddy in that instance). Then when sterling did come back and provided an explanation I thought was eminently reasonable, faustiv didn't really comment on it, which suggests to me he wasn't that concerned with getting a response in the first place and was just looking for a target to push.

[catboi]

.................are you saying you have one?

[catboi]

kiri might've been onto something

[catboi]

Spoiler:

I said I voted catboi bc they're expressing an awareness of their meta play and simultaneously have thought enough about how they would adjust their meta to actually bring this up in a game... it's about the self-awareness and why catboi would have that self-awareness or be thinking about their meta and how to change it; e.g. bc they're scum?

This is a really weird interpretation of what I said. I expressed specifically that I was unhappy with how I played

as town

in a previous game, and so have decided to try to play differently in the hope of both producing better results and coming across as more welcoming to newer players. I think that's a pretty natural thing to do, lots of people try to change how they play. I think if you're not in a constant process of trying to grow and improve, the game gets dull, and your play will start to decline as well.

The discussion of me being different was not unprompted - it was specifically brought up by Thynhith, the one player here I have experience with, pointing out that I was playing differently from our previous game together. I don't think that was a bad observation, I townlean him for pointing it out because it shows he's thinking critically about the game and was paranoid me having a more "formal" entrance might be a trick to look more towny. This is also not

the first

game I have tried to adjust my newbie game playstyle for, I did it in a prior game as well. I thought that game went slightly better and so decided to open more like that in future games.

Your interpretation is to accuse me of "being self-aware about meta", which is not really what I said, at all. It's framing a pretty straightforward explanation in a fairly sinister light. I said I want to try to play differently because of an unsatisfying performance in a past town game. You turn into possibly adjusting my own meta to deceive others. But if I was trying to deceive people, why would I admit to doing so openly on the first page? Further, if I was supposedly self-aware about my meta and concerned about how I would be read for it, why would I choose to act differently in a game where someone had seen me as town before? Isn't that completely backwards? Your whole thought process here doesn't really make sense to me. What scum thinks to themselves, "I am going to play differently to get townread" and then comes in the thread and says literally exactly that? (Bear in mind, that is NOT what I said, but just for the purposes of this exercise I want to show how this logic doesn't really hold up.)

It's been a fascinating reread. Just want to note that I don't find this entirely satisfying, and Maestro has a valid concern.
1) It's plausible you weren't expecting me pick up on the change to your meta
2) Also plausible you made up an explanation after I pointed it out
Chuck me a link to your prior game and I promise I'll stop harping on

Do you think it's a "valid concern" when maestro admitted it was a "shit line of reasoning"?

I think you'll see this is basically the same opener. My intention is to basically make it a standard opener in my newbie games.

Finished catching up now. First impression is that there are few telling reads either way. But some interesting interactions.
@Sterling, I think most people want to get a better read on you, but you don't have much content. What are your reads right now? Even better, do you think anyone voting for you is scum?

Why are you asking sterling for reads rather than giving your own?

[catboi]

well my thought process is I'm used to playing in powerrole heavy games, where we get most of our info from claims, counter claims, and investigation reports, because in ToS there can only be one Jailor, so if two player claims jailor we know at least one of them is lying, also in Town of Salem we're told what role killed the player, eg. SK Mafia Vig Vet Jest ect. so really I'm used to the game mechanics to give use our information.

the reason I've latched onto Maestro is because I felt as if he's found an easy scapegoat in the new player and that's really the only read I got from this game

Why do you believe he sees you as an "easy scapegoat"? Why does that not apply to any of the other newbies in the game?

[catboi]

Finally I'd say I was a little taken aback when catboi assumed I suspected him from the opening. I think he's been somewhat defensive so far, and quite wordy, but I could see his frustration at being suspected by Thyn as coming from a town POV.
That said, I'd lean town on him, I think what he said to me about trying not to be too paranoid about more experienced players is quite interesting, I think as scum he might want to nurture a bit of suspicion about other experienced players [assuming he also knows Maestro is town]. I'll take him as being genuine that he wants me to share his townread for now.

I wasn't really frustrated by Thynhith at all? Don't know where you got that impression. I was pretty calm in my response. It takes a lot more than that to frustrate me. Maestro did irk me a little because I thought he was being kind of ridiculous but he admitted it was a reaction test (i think?)

Admittedly I assumed you were talking about suspecting me as scum because Thyn had said his suspicion of Theft was a joke, so I assumed it was about me (and, granted, if you're reading people off their entrances, I don't think mine is all that different from TheftofaRose's entrance). Just attempting to deduce things based on what you'd hinted. The actual entrance posts from Theft didn't strike me one way or the other, but the fact they made a wordy entrance and couldn't follow it up, and replaced out upon getting attention is...strange. Sometimes people decide they aren't interested or get bored but it feels a bit jarring with the entrance post. I'll wait until the player is replaced, though.

[catboi]

I think sterling's reaction to maestro feels over the top but can just aseasily come from a newer player who's not used to people making social reads getting upset they'e being accused so strongly.

VOTE: faustiv

I do think trying to string up sterling for a "lack of reaction" to Maestro's scumslip accusation feels opportunist - it had been less than an hour since Maestro posted it and sterling was clearly still catching up. On some other site's there's a higher emphasis on real time interaction but on here that amount of time lag isn't really a big deal and him trying to act like it was incriminating doesn't sit right with me. I saw scum use a similar argument in a recent game (although they were actually bussing their buddy in that instance). Then when sterling did come back and provided an explanation I thought was eminently reasonable, faustiv didn't really comment on it, which suggests to me he wasn't that concerned with getting a response in the first place and was just looking for a target to push.

i mean sterling's reaction is the first thing that pinged me this game, so naturally i'm going to push that slot. in terms of sterling's response, i'm still unsure of his alignment. i'm just concerned that he didn't defend himself as vehemently as i would expect from a town player given maestro's reasoning behind his vote. i'm happy with where my vote lies at the time being.

when do you consider RVS to be over? because I'm just not as good at getting reads due to the way the game is played on amongus and Town of Salem so really I don't have a good reason to vote anyone, Also isn't it your job to help new players out? instead you just started a bandwagon on me due to a confusion, also what about my confused comments did you glanced that I had a private thread? because the player list haven't been updated when I first posted. you know, trying to start a bangwagon on a new and confused player is pretty sus to me therefore VOTE: Maestro

what do you mean by private thread?

UNVOTE:

I kind of like this sequence from faustiv. I think he'd be less likely to make that unvote as scum.

...which ironically actually makes me more disposed to vote sterling, as I think other people have been townier.

UNVOTE:

VOTE: sterling

[catboi]

Explain that thought, please? What is unscummy about his unvote?

It's more that I get the feeling he's actually trying to figure out sterling and had doubts about him being scum based on that reaction. more likely to come from a solving mindset. I

personally

see the reaction as more playstyle-indicative than anything, but I would expect faust-scum to continue pushing sterling there. the unvote just doesn't really make sense for scum to do.

[catboi]

Catboi - I would like to town read you, but I'm getting too much of a defensive tone. Im sure it will become more clear though. And your latest vote on Sterling - surely as SE you should know better than pushing newbies who have slipped up?

not this *again* - where have I been defensive? I really don't think I have been. It's possible I've just completely lost sight of my own tone in text. But, like, I haven't been worried about pressure I've received at all?

Anyway, I'm not voting Sterling because he's "slipped up" it's because i feel like I see other players who are looking for scum and he just...isn't doing much, really. It's not a guaranteed read because it's more based on him not having towntold but I saw no point in pressuring in AFK slot like Theft or Rockhopper.

[catboi]

Catboi/Thynhith - I want to see more between these two. to me, this could be TvT but to me, it seems more likely that this is a TvM, but there needs to be more interaction to gauge this.

What in particular makes you say that about our interaction? To me usually the "v" in TvT/TvM suggests "versus" but I haven't been scumreading Thynhith.

[catboi]

I should probably actually read all the posts before instantly asking a question. Nevermind.

[catboi]

Response to Kiri - I said that TvM Is a highly likely possibility, but not a confirmed thing. If you randomly take 2 people if you are town, You have around a 50% chance to have a scum inside of that, right? With their interactions, to me its more likely than that 50% chance, but not a confirmed thing, you understand that? Also, to me finding that suspicious (To me, I found that suspicious too before entering actually!) Is a normal, town response. The thing is, To me: If one of Cat/Thy is Scum, One of the people basically sleeping on this game is probably, the mafia partner.

The thing is, while your math is technically correct about a random pairing of players having ~roughly 50% chance of containing scum, that is true for literally any pairing of two players, so I'm not sure why you chose to highlight us two in particular. I thought initially there was some

particular

reason you thought there was a scum between us but by your description it sounds rather arbitrary.

Like real shit here. Can some of you game-sleepers start talking? Because its basically an 90% chance that one of the sleepers is Mafia,

for. fucking. sure.

Oh and the sleepers to me are mainly, Cee and Rockhopper, and you can probably safely extend to Faustiv and Maestro, but they are less sleepy. Its only been like 2 days yes, but still, all people talking seem kindaaa towny in a lot of ways, Kiri is reasonable, Sterling is the Village idiot, and Cat/Thy despite being a possible TvM have actually done some things, thus why I do feel its basically a certainty there is mafia between those 4, and maybe one between Cat/Thy, but it could also just end up being 2 of the sleepers, who knows.

For what it's worth, game activity on here ends up declining on the weekends, I don't really think anything of people being less active then. ceejay has actual content, what do you think of what he's posted?

I think it's entirely possible that inactive players could be scum by POE but you seem rather hesitant on your read of the active players as well so I'm less certain why you think scum has to be a 'sleeper'/lurker.

[catboi]

@catboi well I was the most confused (being the one without his name on the player list) so I was the easiest scapegoat out of all the new players

Okay, but why do you think it's more likely maestro is trying to scapegoat you as mafia rather than being town who legitimately thinks he caught a slip?

[catboi]

you know, I could see a Fennec+Sterling scumteam being quite plausible.

Fennec's insistence on Sterling being 'the town dumbass' seems like it'd be the go-to justification to try to absolve them as their maf partner, and I think with mine and Thyn's suspicion also falling on Fennec's slot, they'd try to protect their partner rather than throw them under the bus to gain towncred at this point. They also clearly had to say something about them in their list of reads, since Sterling's posts have stood out, for better or worse.

I'm also not keen on Fennec's justification for their reads, and him placing me as town could be an attempt to try to win me over and flip my vote, though to me this is a secondary reason for me keeping my vote on him for the time being. Ceejay's reads list also seemed a bit thin and watery.

on another note, @Fennec, sorry, I didn't notice you were here, I often miss new pages, and I have a very important question for you, are you Mafia?

Lol

[catboi]

Steampunk is town. I did want to push on him to get more of a feel for his slot, but his playstyle is more in line with newbie town rather than newbie scum. Steampunk is clearly not considering the content of his posts, which has lead to confusion around his role PM in #22 and the private thread in #80. His haphazard voting style is also in line with newbie-town rather than newbie-scum. From experience, newbie scum are more likely to be more tepid and reserved and try and resist placing votes (especially ones controversial in the gamestate such as the Maestro vote who is a widely townread player) as they don't want to fall under suspicion. Whilst Steampunk's reasons for his votes don't make much sense (imo), the fact that he is throwing votes around on a whim suggests that he's not overly concerned on what he posts and whether his posts are coming off as scummy. I also believe that if Sterling is mafia, then his partner can only be Fennec (TheftOFARose) or Rockhopper as I believe everyone else in the game would have at least coached him on how to play the day as mafia to avoid arousing suspicion.

Theft, being a new player himself and Rockhopper being inactive are the only two possibiliites I have for his partner with the above logic in mind. Therefore, with this in mind, coupled with me believing that Steampunk is town, means that he should be immune from today's vote as we don't gain a lot of information from his elimination.

While I can see where you're coming from with this read, I don't think the logic holds up. The thing s while yo view the maestro vote as contrversial it's basically an OMGUS vote, which newbie scum are pretty prone to as well, and beyond that he's not actually made any votes he actually meant anything by. Also, your theory about "he'd be coached more" doesn't really mesh with reality - and you should know, you've been scum in newbie games before. From having played in a lot of newbie games and modded a couple, scum usually...just don't talk to each other that much. You're imagining a greater degree of planning than most scumteam in newbie games actually put iin. Lastly, your final point falls apart for me - If you believe sterling's only possible partners are the slots that were inactive, then

he still has viable partners

. From my point of view I have absolutely no reason to clear him based on that. If he actually flipped scum, wouldn't you then have information on who his partners are? If you just stop and say you think he's town, full stop, that's fine to argue, but I don't like the "no information" defense. Too often that leads to people not killing scummy players for being scummy as they instead go for hero eliminations.


Additionally, as it concerns your theory of sterling's potential teammates, Here is my current view of the game, in short:

I believe Maestro is town who is looking for scum.
I believe kirigiri is town who is looking for scum.
I believe Thynhith is probably town who is looking for scum
I believe you are probably town who is looking for scum but is mistaken (or you've fooled me, in which case, congratulations)

You might say "is looking for scum" is a low bar, but in newbie games thinking about the game on a basic level will usually work. For newer players it's

usually

easier to figure out when they're town because the genuineness shines through. I have a ~fairly decent track record of locating scum in newbie games in part by identifying who is obvious town. I can elaborate on these reads but I feel pretty good about them right now and if I'm right on all my townreads then the game is basically already won.


Now, maybe it's not sterling who scum, and the scum are within ceejay/fennec/rockhopper. That's totally possible! But at that moment in time I felt my vote was most useful in pressuring sterling. Fennec had only just replaced in. ceejay's posts so far have been very "whatever" but I figured I'd give him a little more time. I thought sterling was a little awkward in response to maestro and I actually feel like a townie would have protested their innocence a little more strongly.

[catboi]

My primary FOS is on catboi.

As stated by Maestro, catboi openly claiming that he changes his meta makes looking at his previous town/scum games moot because nothing useful can be deciphered and any argument you could make based off of his behaviour in a previous game can be argued away.

This is a big post so I'm probably going to break it down point by point. Apologies for the length in advance.

To start with, I already gave a rebuttal to this argument, which you seem to have ignored. I think interpreting "I am trying to play differently" as an attempt to make myself more difficult to read is ridiculous. I'm frankly a little bit insulted people keep pulling that interpretation.

I ALSO am not attempting to discourage anyone from meta reading me! If you want to try, I encourage you to do so! I'll even provide links.

[catboi]

Catboi's initial posts read as if he's trying to appear reasonable and not step on any toes:

#11:

Hi Thynhith! Sorry about miselimming you last time we played together >_>

I'm glad to see you're back, though! Hopefully things go better this time.

Why do you see that post as "high-effort"?

#18:

I don't think I've ever played with Maestro. Granted, I've forgotten more games than most people have played, but the name doesn't ring any bells.

Ah, thought the vote was at least semi-serious and wanted to pry at your reasoning because I didn't actually believe there was a lot of "thought" put into that post.

I don't mind you coming at me like this though.

Bth of those posts are addressed to a singular player - Thynhith. The first one is me apologizing for mis-eliminating him on Day 1 in our last game. I felt incredibly bad for doing so because I had initially townread him and then second guessed it, and he didn't play again after that, so I thought it might have made him leave the site entirely. Me greeting the only player in the game I've played with before is not "trying to appear reasonable and not step on any toes".

Secondly, on that page, Thynhith tried to call me out for my intro. I actually thought it was towny for him to do so, for reasons I've gone into. Shows a little bit of pattern recognition and a scumhuntin mindset, and I think he'd be less likely to try to push me here. I don't think it's unreasonable of to think my response there could be scum motivated - I probably wouldn't want to push back too strongly on Thyn if I was scum. But the thing is, I'm town and I don't think Thyn had scum motivation in attacking me. So you need to tell me - why does that post make you think specifically that I as scum trying not to "step on any toes"? Why ca't I be town who is townreading Thynhith?

[catboi]

Then in #51 he justifies his vote on Ceejay with the below:

It's a very thin thing but in my experience scum are more likely to make that type of RVS post where it's "short statement"/vote, trying to do just enough to blend in while not getting directly involved, didn't really interact with other people.

It could turn out to be absolutely nothing of course, but it's RVS.

He claims his vote on Ceejay is a legitimate vote but uses an excuse "could be nothing, it's RVS" to give himself justification to jump off his wagon.

Yeah, so? It was a page 1 RVS vote where my reasons were incredibly weak. What's the big deal about having justification to jump off from an early vote? No one else at the time had struck me as scummier but a vote from page 1 is basically a dart throw. Like, yes - you are correct that I was allowing myself to move my vote off ceejay at a later point in time. But why is that

scummy

?

[catboi]

#81 irks me, not because of the vote, but because I was a scumread player at the time. This isn't so bad in isolation, but he then jumps on Steampunk based on my reasoning, which I found perculiar at the time. His reasoning for agreeing with me seems flimsy and his progression on the Steampunk read seems kind of off. Steampunk had a wagon forming him on that point and whilst catboi was tiptoeing around the issue and asking Steampunk questions, he never felt really committed to the scumread until he placed his vote on him and I don't think the reason behind the read is super strong. Sterling's ambiguous explanation behind the role PM thing also gives scum a good opening to perhaps misrepresent him and get a bandwagon on him and personally, I think catboi's behaviour is that of a player who is looking for mislynches and not scum, therefore:

VOTE: catboi

You're right that my explanation wasn't that strong. I got lazy in my reasoning rather than fully explaining myself. Thats my bad. But I explained it up above - I think Sterling has a high chance of being scum by POE and your arguments for townreading him don't do a whole lot for me. Is that a little bit clearer?

[catboi]

Insert a sigh here because that’s exactly what I’m feeling
Response to cee - I. fucking. Explained. It. In. one. Of. My. Last. Posts. They feel as a pair way more likely to have a scum between them. And about the resasonable thing, is that before I EVEN realised I was replacing rose (I was looking through the thread before looking specifically at who was being replaced) I AGREED WITH THEM. Now, I know they were town because I’m town now (Fuck, I’ll even claim if you want me to!) also about the sterling thing IT WAS 125 POSTS IN. How the fuck do you say someone is out right TOWN when all they have done is be clueless, and how do you get that from the label POSSIBLY TOWN. It literally means, Possibly town.
Response to Kiri - I haven’t even confirmed sterling is town to me, it just gives off VI vibes. And the scum pm thing, is simply: Kinda fucking stupid, because That thing was completely, FUCKING NAI.
Response to Faust - It isn’t calling him a dumbass out right, like I mentioned: Not a dumbass specifically, but the most clueless out of the player list.
Response to whoever called my math wrong - of fucking cause it is, (And maths shouldn’t play a part in mafia too much, I used it as a tool to explain my actual thoughts on it) but the way you debunked it, was also wrong. who the fuck would ever put there own self In to their own scum reads, into a group of people they think are scum, and shit like that when they already know their own alignment (One big facepalm) there are 8 People other than me, I know I’m town (You may not unless you are mafia, also why would I outright claim maf if I was maf) so I know from my pov: It is very very fucking roughly, 50/50 to find a scum in 2 people
Response to the people mentioning the thy/cat thing: One of them just seems like mafia at least, their interactions to me set off the fact despite the supposed “TRs” on each other, someone was playing as scum most likely. Thy and Kiri kinda already gave reasons for cat being possible scum, and thy, well I’d call him possibly town, not outright town, but possibly, so to me cat’s the most suspicious from my view. I’ll go In depth in like 20 Minutes, I’m not at my computer.

This is a

REALLY

disproportionately emotional response to a completely innocuous question by ceejay. I hardly think it warranted this level of frustratinon and to me it looks more like fennec is using a lot of swearing and "emotional" posting to try to get ceejay to back off - it reminds me of how people used to play as scum way back on epic mafia

(also I don't think Thyn is townreading me still)

[catboi]

Alright, I'm at the computer.

Scratch going in-depth on my catboi reads, literally everyone has done it for me. Just look at faust and kiri's posts, then look at thy outright KNOWING that cat changed his meta (And also said that he did) and also a few things he also mentioned, You can already see why the fuck I find cat as a possible scum player. so doing it now: VOTE: Cat

So I wanna go into some reads of the... more sleepy people.

Faust - Seems the most town, Pointing out a lot of important details that needed to be mentioned and that I agree with is one thing, but his explanation of everything is generally, quite good, and not scummy. If you wanna know why, J U S T R E A D it is literally all in 2 pages before this post and the page it is on.
Maestro - More of a response type thing here: If your mentioning 1 scum is in Cat/Faust/Sterling, to me, your basically claiming Cat is scummy to you. you thought Sterling was suspicious for a kinda weird reason, think more in-depth about it, it is a scumread based on an obvious NAI set of posts. For now, I do think you are somewhat town for sure though.
Cee - I can't even get myself to think of you as EITHER town or scum. You don't even warrant a Null. Could turn up as the scum-partner of what maestro mentioned
Rockhopper - Literally has done fuck all. With POE though, I'm kinda thinking that this guy MIGHT end up being the scum-partner of what maestro mentioned. Rockhopper, please do something. and if you eventually get replaced which I think you will, can the replacement send some actual content so we can actually see what you think, and actually get some material?

If there's an opportunistic scum trying to take advantage of the pressure on me, it's fennec - I think the vote on me looks very convenient when I'd already expressed suspicion of the slot and sort of loosely suggested it could be aligned with sterling - sterling's "are you scum?" question to fennec was incredibly awkward.

Contrast this with what fennec said a few hours prior to this:

Cat - Null - Not a good null! Null to me means you've acted both scum and town around the same amount! town should usually, be playing a lot more town! this one is more of a "Feels both scummy and towny, too early to tell" Type thing, so it isn't that bad!

The read was basically an in between one, maybe framed as a slight negative in that I wasn't being towny enough. That doesn't look at all like how fennec acted when faustiv outed his read on me, where he just goes, "yes!! good case!!! i agree!!!!!1!"

To me, it looks like fennec decided I was a good wagon the second someone gave him an excuse to hop on.

[catboi]

Where'd everyone go?

[catboi]

Basically, I think he's town and probability also suggests to me that he's town too. If we lynch him and he's town like I believe, then we don't really get much information from his lynch.

I can think of some uses for elimming him. We get to clear the air, so to speak. So long as we have him in D2 he will continue to be the center of discussion, and later scum will use him as a convenient lynchee. Besides, I still feel somewhat uneasy about his towniness. After getting everyone stirred up with his "scumslip", wouldn't a newtownie be working to regain trust and contribute discussion? Any townie, in fact. It's suspect that he laid low after those first few days, only emerging to post insubstantial comments.

The only other person I'd be comfortable limming at the stage is Fennec, he's only made his slot look worse since replacing - I agree with what catboi and kirigiri are saying. How many days are left? I will drop my vote soon, but I want to see more from those slots.

We have 6 days left, there's hardly a rush to get anything done. I'd like to hear from the replacement before anything else.

And with regard to voting sterling - I don't think it's ever a good move to vote someone out of a feeling of obligation that someone is always going to be the center of discussion, that just leads to people compromising on players most people think are town. You should only be okay with voting sterling if you think he's scum.


I will get to respond to faustiv in a minute but I wanted to respond to this first so it was faster for me to do so.

[catboi]

Based on my experience of being scum in forum mafia, there is at least a bit of interaction at the start of the game where the two mafia strategize etc. No mafia chatroom is going to be completely quiet.

I just don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this point, because I'm telling you in my experience almost no mafia teams are that coordinated

You might say "is looking for scum" is a low bar, but in newbie games thinking about the game on a basic level will usually work. For newer players it's

usually

easier to figure out when they're town because the genuineness shines through. I have a ~fairly decent track record of locating scum in newbie games in part by identifying who is obvious town. I can elaborate on these reads but I feel pretty good about them right now and if I'm right on all my townreads then the game is basically already won.

This is speculative. You even said yourself that players alter their playsyles game by game.

That doesn't really address what I'm saying, like, at all? That's a fairly ridiculous rebuttal, in fact - I'm suggesting

newer players

are easier to read, which means "players alter their playstyles" is a

complete non-sequitur

. Under this basis it feels like no read would have any validity at all? And of course it's speculative, because what isn't on Day 1?

I believe Maestro is town who is looking for scum.
I believe kirigiri is town who is looking for scum.
I believe Thynhith is probably town who is looking for scum
I believe you are probably town who is looking for scum but is mistaken (or you've fooled me, in which case, congratulations)

I would like to see you elaborate on these reads as any scum can 'scumhunt'.

For Maestro I just mainly don't believe the scumslip case on sterling comes from scum. The only thing I could ding him for is falling off a bit after that initial burst but that wouldn't be fair when pretty much everyone has.
kkirigiri has been probably the most analytical poster out of everyone. 105, 135, 136, and 153 all strike me as sincere efforts at analyzing the game from a newer player - she's prodding at people, investigating their wording, getting suspicious of people. For a newer player this is basically sufficient for a townread.
thynhith i already said I feel doesn't act that way toward me at the start of the game as mafia. I've just had decent vibes from his posts, it feels like the effort is there. I might b biased because of my last game with him but nothing he's said has struck me as off.
You, I think if you were scum you'd be much more likely to push someone other than me, because I would not look like an easy targe to most scum. I wouldn't expect you to back off sterling the way you did when he had not received any additional pressure, it didn't look like a backing off to grab towncred but a genuine change of mind. I also don't think your case against me is in bad faith - it's wrong and incredibly misguided but the way you're arguing it feels genuine to me.

[catboi]

So I'm new to this site and all. But play ALL the time elsewhere on forums. This thing bugs me a bit.

"Think less when posting, nobody will get mad if you're slightly unclear, just answer questions and show genuine interest, but I will get annoyed by Day 2 if I can't get read on you just fyi"

Where I normally play, we have players who I can't read by D5 or D6. But then again a day lasts like 8 hours normally there. D2 seems a bit impatient to me?

Considering this is a 9 player game and will likely only go to day 4 at the most, no that's not impatient

[catboi]

Bth of those posts are addressed to a singular player - Thynhith. The first one is me apologizing for mis-eliminating him on Day 1 in our last game. I felt incredibly bad for doing so because I had initially townread him and then second guessed it, and he didn't play again after that, so I thought it might have made him leave the site entirely. Me greeting the only player in the game I've played with before is not "trying to appear reasonable and not step on any toes".

Secondly, on that page, Thynhith tried to call me out for my intro. I actually thought it was towny for him to do so, for reasons I've gone into. Shows a little bit of pattern recognition and a scumhuntin mindset, and I think he'd be less likely to try to push me here. I don't think it's unreasonable of to think my response there could be scum motivated - I probably wouldn't want to push back too strongly on Thyn if I was scum. But the thing is, I'm town and I don't think Thyn had scum motivation in attacking me. So you need to tell me - why does that post make you think specifically that I as scum trying not to "step on any toes"? Why ca't I be town who is townreading Thynhith?

It's not in relation to Thryinth specifically and I don't really care about any previous games you've played with him. The tone came across as someone who is trying to appear reasonable and not try to create any sort of 'controversy' as I stated in my post:

I don't think I've ever played with Maestro. Granted, I've forgotten more games than most people have played, but the name doesn't ring any bells.

Ah, thought the vote was at least semi-serious and wanted to pry at your reasoning because I didn't actually believe there was a lot of "thought" put into that post.

I don't mind you coming at me like this though.

It's a line that pinged me, hence why I brought it up. Scum will try to look reasonable and make out that they're not afraid to be scrutinized to gain town trust.

okay but why can't I be town saying that? you're not actually answering anything I'm asking you're just tunneled on an idea of what scum will do on page 1

Then in #51 he justifies his vote on Ceejay with the below:

It's a very thin thing but in my experience scum are more likely to make that type of RVS post where it's "short statement"/vote, trying to do just enough to blend in while not getting directly involved, didn't really interact with other people.

It could turn out to be absolutely nothing of course, but it's RVS.

He claims his vote on Ceejay is a legitimate vote but uses an excuse "could be nothing, it's RVS" to give himself justification to jump off his wagon.

Yeah, so? It was a page 1 RVS vote where my reasons were incredibly weak. What's the big deal about having justification to jump off from an early vote? No one else at the time had struck me as scummier but a vote from page 1 is basically a dart throw. Like, yes - you are correct that I was allowing myself to move my vote off ceejay at a later point in time. But why is that

scummy

?

It's that comment about "it could be nothing, it's just RVS" which stood out. It gives scum an out to move onto other wagons as, if questioned, scum can just argue that it was just part of RVS as an excuse and use the post as evidence to back up their reasoning.

lol why would someone not want to move onto other wagons from a vote on the first page of the game? are you suggesting everyone has to be glued to their vote? that's not how rvs works

i'm sorry this is the most ridiculous thing i've read all week

@kk

Thing is, he may be new to this particular site, but as he has mentioned, he is not new to online mafia, or even forum mafia specifically.
In fact, if we were to accept his justification for bringing up private mafia threads, then we also have to accept him being already familiar with forum mafia and its conventions.

I admit that I don't quite follow his rational for voting Maestro, but I don't really see it as a towntell, and not all scumtells relate to being overly self-conscious.

Yes he is, but he's clearly a new player and he highlights that he's not used to forum mafia and I think I can believe him. I'm honestly a bit concerned that so many players are focusing on Steampunk's supposed slip and not his actions past the slip which I think give a bigger indicator into his alignment than the supposed "scumslip" does.

I'm not sure that's true; Sterling came late into the game and as such, their mafia partner might not have had time to address them personally before they started posting in the main game thread, and even if they did (or had posted similar advice for the original player in the slot, who was also new), it's not certain that Sterling would have taken said advice on board.

We don't know, but there was ample time in between gamestart and Steampunk's initial post. I'm also questioning why his playstyle hasn't really changed over the course of the game and I believe that it;s either because he's town and doesn't care what he's posting or he's scum and has an inactive/inexperienced partner. Steampunk knows now that separate mafia threads are a thing, so why has no one had a word in his ear? I've addressed this in a response to catboi.

Basically, I think he's town and probability also suggests to me that he's town too. If we lynch him and he's town like I believe, then we don't really get much information from his lynch.

this is ~fine enough in terms of insight but i'm not super solid this makes him town, although i'm not confidentit's a slam dunk or anything. mostly I'm just wondering what he's doing now

but I feel like this isn't going anywhere so I'd rather talk with you about other players in the game. What's your read on kkirigiri? on thynhith? on fennec?

[catboi]

oh, and on ceejay too - i literally forgot he was in the game when i was writing that post

[catboi]

I mean your posts so far have been very unmemorable

[catboi]

Spoiler:

Alright, I'm at the computer.

Scratch going in-depth on my catboi reads, literally everyone has done it for me. Just look at faust and kiri's posts, then look at thy outright KNOWING that cat changed his meta (And also said that he did) and also a few things he also mentioned, You can already see why the fuck I find cat as a possible scum player. so doing it now: VOTE: Cat

So I wanna go into some reads of the... more sleepy people.

Faust - Seems the most town, Pointing out a lot of important details that needed to be mentioned and that I agree with is one thing, but his explanation of everything is generally, quite good, and not scummy. If you wanna know why, J U S T R E A D it is literally all in 2 pages before this post and the page it is on.
Maestro - More of a response type thing here: If your mentioning 1 scum is in Cat/Faust/Sterling, to me, your basically claiming Cat is scummy to you. you thought Sterling was suspicious for a kinda weird reason, think more in-depth about it, it is a scumread based on an obvious NAI set of posts. For now, I do think you are somewhat town for sure though.
Cee - I can't even get myself to think of you as EITHER town or scum. You don't even warrant a Null. Could turn up as the scum-partner of what maestro mentioned
Rockhopper - Literally has done fuck all. With POE though, I'm kinda thinking that this guy MIGHT end up being the scum-partner of what maestro mentioned. Rockhopper, please do something. and if you eventually get replaced which I think you will, can the replacement send some actual content so we can actually see what you think, and actually get some material?

If there's an opportunistic scum trying to take advantage of the pressure on me, it's fennec - I think the vote on me looks very convenient when I'd already expressed suspicion of the slot and sort of loosely suggested it could be aligned with sterling - sterling's "are you scum?" question to fennec was incredibly awkward.

Contrast this with what fennec said a few hours prior to this:

Cat - Null - Not a good null! Null to me means you've acted both scum and town around the same amount! town should usually, be playing a lot more town! this one is more of a "Feels both scummy and towny, too early to tell" Type thing, so it isn't that bad!

The read was basically an in between one, maybe framed as a slight negative in that I wasn't being towny enough. That doesn't look at all like how fennec acted when faustiv outed his read on me, where he just goes, "yes!! good case!!! i agree!!!!!1!"

To me, it looks like fennec decided I was a good wagon the second someone gave him an excuse to hop on.

@catboi, I am still concerned with this post of yours. You make decent points about Fennec's possible scuminess, but you fail to add a vote for him.
Do you truly find him less scummy than Sterling? I'll get the ball rolling for you;
VOTE: Fennec

At the time I wanted to see how fennec would respond to me, because while my initial reaction was his vote on me was scummy I didn't want to overreact out of a dislike for him pushing me. I'm still waiting on that response.

[catboi]

You could be, I'm just highlighting something that pinged me. Sure, it's not 'strong evidence' and not a line that's directly indicative to a particular alignment, but it's something that caught my eye and so I felt I should question it. You claiming it to be 'tunnelling' seems like a bit of an overreaction to me.

No, I was specifically highlighting the 'it's only RVS' line in that. I never suggested that players shouldn't move to other wagons, I was merely highlighting the fact that scum will put something in a vote like the 'it's only RVS' line so that they can jump onto other wagons without much heat coming to their slot because they can use that 'it was only RVS' as a defense. Again, not directly alignment indicative, but it's something I've see scum do often. That second line is again, a bit of an overreaction to what I've said whilst also misrepresenting what I've said. Part of your case on Fennec is his overreaction to being scrutinized, yet you now seem to be doing it.

is it an overreaction when you're set on reading sinister intent into literally everything I say? I feel like you're being very unreasonable here. You're not even meaningfully addressing what I'm saying.

Why is it a bad thing to move a vote off from someone after RVS? Why is that scummy? Don't dodge, answer me clearly.

[catboi]

like I was thinking you were sincere but misguided but this current argument suggesting saying "it's only RVS" about a page 1 vote is really bullshit and you've played here before, you should know how early game voting works, trying to attack me for that is nonsense

[catboi]

You could be, I'm just highlighting something that pinged me. Sure, it's not 'strong evidence' and not a line that's directly indicative to a particular alignment, but it's something that caught my eye and so I felt I should question it. You claiming it to be 'tunnelling' seems like a bit of an overreaction to me.

No, I was specifically highlighting the 'it's only RVS' line in that. I never suggested that players shouldn't move to other wagons, I was merely highlighting the fact that scum will put something in a vote like the 'it's only RVS' line so that they can jump onto other wagons without much heat coming to their slot because they can use that 'it was only RVS' as a defense. Again, not directly alignment indicative, but it's something I've see scum do often. That second line is again, a bit of an overreaction to what I've said whilst also misrepresenting what I've said. Part of your case on Fennec is his overreaction to being scrutinized, yet you now seem to be doing it.

is it an overreaction when you're set on reading sinister intent into literally everything I say? I feel like you're being very unreasonable here. You're not even meaningfully addressing what I'm saying.

Why is it a bad thing to move a vote off from someone after RVS? Why is that scummy? Don't dodge, answer me clearly.

like I was thinking you were sincere but misguided but this current argument suggesting saying "it's only RVS" about a page 1 vote is really bullshit and you've played here before, you should know how early game voting works, trying to attack me for that is nonsense

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm trying to say.

You making the RVS vote post pinged me and I wanted to explore it. My point isn't exclusive to RVS; scum could place an FOS/vote on a player for example like the below:

I think catboi is scum. He's overreating a lot and I find that scummy,

but I could be wrong.

I think catboi is scum. He's overreating a lot and I find that scummy,

but I guess town could do it too.

Your "it's only RVS" is in similar vein to the examples listed above. It pinged me and I wanted to question it. I'm not saying RVS is scummy or moving out of RVS is scummy, I'm just making the point that scum can say something as an excuse to 'back out' of a vote, which I've seen scum do numerous times. In your case, it was the "RVS" which I picked up.

No, I'm not misunderstanding.

you're saying it's scummy I wasn't fully committed to a

vote I made on page 1

. I have fully admitted I wasn't attached to the vote. I think it makes perfect sense for me to not be attached to the vote. You keep dodging actually acknowledging this. You can't possibly explain why that makes me scum. Why should I over-represent my attachment to a fairly meaningless vote? Why is me leaving the possibility of changing when I don't have a solid case scummy? Is everyone who makes a vote they aren't committed to on early Day 1 scum? Plenty of people do this. It's not a scumtell.

[catboi]

sterling's vote on fennec is definitely not great


I don't like how ceejay popped in immediately after I mentioned him and then did basically nothing. Like, has he been reading this whole time and just avoiding saying anything?


starting to get more and more annoyed with faustiv repeating the same terrible argument ad nauseam


wingfan feels kind of clueless townie on gut but that's not a read I would bet the game on or anything

[catboi]

VOTE: faustiv

[catboi]

Nah what I think happened is when I called out the shoddiness of your argument you realized you couldn't back it up

[catboi]

No you literally are dodging my questions because you can't justify your arguments- I'm not ignoring anything, you just can't back up your terrible case that you obviously don't actually believe. It shouldn't be hard to actually explain why you think me not committing to a vote

from Page 1

is scummy, or at least admit you were wrong, but you continue to be evasive

[catboi]

There's someone here dealing with pressure awfully and it's not me

[catboi]

There's someone here dealing with pressure awfully and it's not me

OK.

If I'm scum, who is my partner?

probably not sterling because it feels more like you're defending someone you know is town with your defense of him

fennec or ceejay would be my guess off the top of my head

[catboi]

UNVOTE:

I realized I was voting emotionally last night which is never a good thing. I apologize for acting in such a manner, it was inappropriate for a newbie game.

VOTE: ceejay

I think ceejay has been going under the radar while doing very little and would like to direct some more attention his way

[catboi]

Catching up to the game properly now, ceejay dropping a catchup with no depth but just following on my vote on faustiv while giving an empty +1 to suspicion on sterling feels really bad. happy with my vote on him.

[catboi]

Fennec's currently in another game which I can't really comment on any more than check his posts out in that game and come to your own conclusions.

Hey, don't do this, FYI. Not even obliquely.

I don't really find the rest of your reasoning for fennec-town all that convincing if I'm being honest. I actually ouright disagree with the assessment of fennec not giving himself an out, I felt more then than not in his language he WAS refusing to commit fully to most of his reads which struck me as scummy.

[catboi]

meanwhile if Sterling flips *scum* I would never in my life leave Faust alive until endgame w how he's been defending Sterling

sheep me today and if Thry flips scum i'll sheep you tomorrow.

BTW what do you by "sheeping" in this context?

Do you have...literally any thoughts on what people have been discussing in the meantime? This is a really underwhelming post.

[catboi]

I'm reading the case in 310 And I don't find it all that persuasive - there's a lot of picking at semantics and assessing statements by Thyn as

weird

, but none of it points me toward him actually being scum. I still get a sense Thyn is showing some sort of solving process with his play. faustiv, a lot of your reads seem to be semantics-based and while admittedly there's not much to go on on day 1, in my experience those types of reads don't have a particularly high success rate and I'm really just not seeing it here. I think Thyn's defense is entirely reasonable and don't want to eliminate him still.

[catboi]

I dunno this game feels like mostly I'm hearing from the same people over and over and that's not very helpful to me lol

[catboi]

Asking for votes on anyone who isn't Fennec/Sterling/ceejay seems like you're just committing for the votes to be split.

@catboi is it common in newbie games for town to fail to eliminate anyone in the first round? Just getting wary that we might be going down this road as it stands, we've not got anyone to E-1 so far, and only Fennec has faced E-2, and only for a few hours.

Very rarely. It often takes until the last minute, but

usually

people realize the need to make an elimination happen and get things done. My last game was abnormally inactive and nearly missed the Day 2 deadline but they still managed to vote through an elimination. I think the players here are present enough that we are not at risk of no elimination happening.

I agree though that at this point we need some manner of consolidation. I'm fine with a wagon being on sterling, ceejay, or fennec at this point.

[catboi]

Would be coming up to about two years since I last played a game with him there (the site is now defunct)

Wait, are you talking about epicmafia? lmao

[catboi]

sterling's defense is underwhelming to me - he still isn't even really trying to address anything that's being said or give reads on anyone.

Thyn, are you willing to move to sterling? I want to get a claim out of him.

[catboi]

Would be coming up to about two years since I last played a game with him there (the site is now defunct)

Wait, are you talking about epicmafia? lmao

yeah, I played there for about ten years on-and-off. I was always considered somewhat of an outsider there; I never got in with the site's 'in-group', and I think in general the site was run pretty poorly.

I miss it very much though, though I miss it perhaps against my better judgement, to paraphrase Werner Herzog.

I don't think there's a single person who would disagree with you that the site was run

terribly

. I started there back in 2010, had some good times, did a few trophy runs, wound up quitting in early 2016 although i did re-visit it during pandemic times before it shut down. Still always surprised to bump into people from there elsewhere. I always feel a bit of an instant bond with anyone who played there. I do miss some aspects of the site, but honestly given the inability of the site deal with its most dangerous users or protect its users at all it's for the bset it stays dead. To say nothing of the actual community that played games there withering.

sterling's defense is underwhelming to me - he still isn't even really trying to address anything that's being said or give reads on anyone.

Thyn, are you willing to move to sterling? I want to get a claim out of him.

I'm actually in favour of him claiming right now honestly, putting him at E-1 I don't think is gonna make any difference to his behaviour.

It's moreso that I want to make sure we actually have the votes to put a wagon through, but yeah, point taken.

[catboi]

i'll address things in a bit but in short, i really like ceejay's most recent posts.

would like to hear this

[catboi]

ceejay's progression on sterling actually makes no sense, looking at it

It's weird but I'm not really seeing anything yet that catches my attention, except for faustiv who I have no idea how to sort.

catboi feels like town.
maestro feels like town but I wouldn't mind seeing more.

Kyouko hasn't really done anything yet except sit on her early read. Might check again later.
Sterling? idk could be town.

Rose and Thynhith disappeared.

Rockhopper didn't show.

I'd rather push Thynhith for now.

VOTE: Thynhith what do you think of the game so far?

oh, and on ceejay too - i literally forgot he was in the game when i was writing that post

I usually like this because there is less pressure on me but this almost feels weird.

I wasn't included in any reads lists so far and I haven't interacted with anybody either since Thynhith.

No complaints though.

out readlist

Probably town. idk I'm not good at mafia:

kkirigiri, catboi

in that weird state between "probably town" and "I don't want to elim these today":

maestro

I don't want to elim these today:

wingfan, Thynhith, fennec?

Everybody else:

faustiv, sterlingsteampunk

Fennec isn't voting anybody? That's a bit unusual. It's starting to get late.

I sort of want to vote fennec but sterling is on the same wagon and I don't know how to feel about that...

VOTE: Sterling

Looking back on it now I feel like doing anything involving faustiv today is probably not a good idea.

Like, I could maybe get the "idk could be town" on sterling early on degrading as time went on and other people have been doing more than him, but still go there and put a vote on him with no real explanation doesn't sit right with me.

[catboi]

It's more the fact that there's no elaboration at all? Like, yes, it

could

be coming from town but I could just as easily see it as scum hopping on the easiest wagon available. I can't tell because he

didn't actually comment on the discussion or explain his stance at all

. And I'd expect a SE to not be completely opaque in that regard.

[catboi]

I didn't want to put a target on my back, I'm the cop

welp


do you have...literally any reads still, besides suspecting maestro?

I didn't want to put a target on my back, I'm the cop

game just got interesting.

that's one way of putting it

[catboi]

I didn't want to put a target on my back, I'm the cop

you know I had half a mind to fake-cc this just to ensure you went down and sell the mafia a massive dummy, but I'm aware that such arrogance could end up backfiring.
Instinctively though, I think this is a lie.

Never do this, I've seen games sunk because town fakeclaimed a power role, it's in the instructions at the beginning for a reason.

If he

is

mafia fishing for the cop, he gets outed anyway and that's good for us.

well, I've just found my lead, and I didn't even need to check backlog, I think kkirigiri is mafia because only a mafia would fake a CC, Also I have to take a walk

she's not actually CCing you.

[catboi]

cool i love when VIs roll PR this isn't infuriating at all

[catboi]

sterling, part of my frustration with you this game is that you've refused to actually address what people were saying about you or engage with others in a substantive way. This made it impossible to tell if you were actually trying to do anything this game. We'd go a day and you would just give 1 line asking a really irrelevant question while ignoring everything else. Please, for the rest of this game and in future games, you need to actually try to communicate because if you don't do that it's impossible for anyone to figure out your alignment.

Again, kkirigiri

is nt actually counter claiming you

and your vote on her is incredibly unhelpful. I need you to realize this and make an actual useful vote, please.

[catboi]

Never do this, I've seen games sunk because town fakeclaimed a power role, it's in the instructions at the beginning for a reason.

If he

is

mafia fishing for the cop, he gets outed anyway and that's good for us.

If this was EM then I seriously would have done it, sure it's risky but I felt like I had good results choosing when to trust my instincts and go for it. I just had in the back of my mind that when I said I wanted him to claim, that he'd claim a PR, and 'cop' sounds like what a mafia new to this setup would pick as a claim when put under pressure, knowing that at least some of the time they will go uncced, given the information their roles give them.

I agree that it's probably not necessary in this scenario, I'm just toying with the idea that we should ask the town PRs to not bother cc him and eliminate him anyway, he's still just as likely to be scum to me as he was previously.

there's actually

no

chance a cop claim goes unCCed in NewD3, it used to be possible in old newbie setups but not in this one. If he's faking he'll be outed eventually. I agree the way he outed felt kin of flat but I've seen a lot of bad PR claims from town in my time.

[catboi]

there's actually

no

chance a cop claim goes unCCed in NewD3, it used to be possible in old newbie setups but not in this one. If he's faking he'll be outed eventually. I agree the way he outed felt kin of flat but I've seen a lot of bad PR claims from town in my time.

Yeah, I realised that when coming up with my cc procedure. Does it make sense to you?

as in, we'd claim in this order, and stop when someone outs that they can contradict Sterling's claim, and vote in between the ccs.

• 1. Fennec
  2. thewingfan
  3. faüstiv
  4. kkirigiri
  5. Thynhith
  6. ceejayvinoya
  7. Maestro
  8. catboi

I don't think we need to have a formalized procedure, if someone is going to counter claim they should just do it because there isn't a ton of time left in this day phase

[catboi]

Doctor please protect me

Why should doctor protect you? Since scum know you're untouchable, the doc should aim elsewhere to stop the night kill.

But I'm the cop

What if the doc doesn't believe yiu?

Thyn, I have to ask you why you believe this is the most important thing for you to talk about, rather than literally anything else.

[catboi]

UNVOTE: want some stuff from fennec/maestro first.

I doubt Fennec is getting replaced before EoD

typically if a player is getting replaced the mod will extend the day

[catboi]

VOTE: sterling

[catboi]

I do want to hear from the people who haven't posted since the claim but I decided based on what thyn is saying I'm okay with taking the risky path and voting sterling today.

[catboi]

I'll wait for the flip first. I'll have more to say Day 2.

[catboi]

shit we lost our jailkeeper

Why is that your reaction, lmao?

[catboi]

I don't want to necessarily jump to conclusions here. faustiv does look bad based on his play on Day 1 but there's no need to rush things, I want to take the time to evaluate everyone here because it ought to be easy enough to win this game by POE after a Day 1 scumflip.

(I also had the thought that Thyn might have jailed faustiv after his posting at the end of the day but realized that if mafia have a roleblocker that's totally irrelevant)

[catboi]

I was busy yesterday doing mod stuff for a game so didn't have the time to post properly, will be catching up now. Late to this discussion but I don't think a mass claim today is beneficial, if we are in a setup with the tracker staying hidden right now is more beneficial than outing as it allows for the potential to possibly get another report. friendly neighbor just isn't important enough to out at 7 alive.

The way I see it, I don't want to focus too much on the kill, but an experienced scum made that kill because I did kinda suss he was a power role towards the end of the day (which is why I was a bit tunnelly, sorry bud). I don't think thewingfan makes that kill.

I don't think it's kkirigiri or Maestro.

Coule be catboi but tbh I'm not feeling it.

It's either Wayward Son or ceejay. At the moment, I'm tempted to believe that ceejay voted his doomed scumbuddy to gain towncred, but I'll reread D1 again to establish a more solid read.

I don't remotely understand why you picking up he was a power role means you'd be "tunnely" against him? That makes less than no sense. Why would you continue to push him as scum if you believed he might be a power role? that would make him...you know, a counter claim to sterling.

[catboi]

or to summarise (meeting delayed):

1. Sterling makes the claim.
2. Catboi's initial posts read to him "believing" the claim and acting annoyed about Sterling's contributions.
3. Sterling asks doc to protect him out of the blue (imo a coached line to flush out PRs)
4. Catboi does a 180 on believing Strling is newbie cop once he sees Thry's 431 and gives the reasoning of, "Having seen what Thry's put, I'm inclined to believe the claim to be fake." I believe he did this because he realised that Thry was a PR at the point he makes his final vote on Sterling and chooses to sac his partner, kill Thry in night and then can push a lynch on either me/fennec slot/ceejay (three FOS'sed players).
5. Ceejay in comparison, unvotes and acts more hesitant towards voting Steampunk once he's in danger of being voted out (given he's uncc PR). Is this what Sterling's partner does? I'm not feeling it.

I also want to ask others - why do you believe I am Sterling's partner?

And, going out of order here to address this:

Yes, I picked up that Thyn was a power role, obviously. That was why I voted sterling, and I tried to be subtle and not reference this directly, but I probably failed at this. None of this actually makes me scum. If I were scum with sterling, I could have easily pretended to

not

get what Thyn was doing and push elsewhere, or push on him, to force him to hardclaim. Voting Sterling there would have been incredibly unnecessary as scum. It makes basically no sense why you think this makes me scum, rather than town who (correctly) figured out that Thyn was counter claiming sterling.

And just, in general, I don't throw my partners under the bus on Day 1 of a 9 player game. In NewD3 the setup is slanted toward being town-favored and losing a teammate Day 1 carries a significant risk of autoloss. The suggestion I play the way I around sterling as his partner is ludicrous. I am generally capable as scum an don't shoot myself directly in the foot with a play like that.

[catboi]

immediate thought is faustiv as scum here seems less likely to try to go after me because, well, that's a losing route for him, scum who are in a POE position are going to try for an elim they can actually get

but that explanation for how he handled thyn reads so much like ex post facto ass covering that makes legitimately no sense as a genuine thought process

[catboi]

If you are Town Tracker or Town Friendly Neighbor you should probably claim now, honestly we can probably massclaim popcorn-style* so we can have any potential CCs locked in and out in the open to solve this game. We're in Row 2 of the setup, if some peeps haven't noticed, so us doing the claims as a Town is helpful for figuring out whether we just have 1 Goon to worry about or whether there is another Mafia PR who could mess up Night action(s). Everybody should be looking over what happened with the relatively quick Sterling hammer yesterday and who was trying to lead us away from that kill over the course of the Day. Ceejay is not automatically cleared; it should go without saying but SEs have the sense to make a quick hammer play to shut up an unhelpful or obviously-doomed teammate.

I'm a VT, and I would popcorn to Faust bc the whiteknight of Sterling yesterday looks as bad as I said it did. We're almost certainly getting rid of you today, bud. Sorry.

Are mass role claims the preferred method here? If so I'm likely to not play on this site again. I personally detest them. It takes the fun out of the game for me.

I got hanged for standing on a table on this and refusing to do it at my home site on principle and I was town then.

These are basically always the norm, especially in a semi-open setup. In this setup, based on the potential roles remaining, it's impossible for us to get anything game-breaking by claiming. There is a *very small* chance a tracker can lock the game for us day 3, if it exists, but that would require us to get very lucky.

I don't really understand why some people have such a rigid objection to something as basic as role claiming, or why you consider playing optimally to be 'less fun'. That is maybe understandable if you're playing in role madness games where the game is broken by claims but setups on MS are designed in such a way that claiming rarely, if ever, is going to break the game. I have seen games on other sites that have anti-claim mechanics designed to prevent massclaim, but they are almost never run here and it feels ultimately like a perversion of the game, introducing a rule solely to punish players for doing something rational because a game mod can't be bothered to make an actually balanced setup.


Basically, we're not going to win this game through role claims, and I actually find the frustration that the suggestion we claim to be suspicious? It has a hint of scum salt at what he perceives as an unfair strategy.

[catboi]

I don't really understand how mass-claiming here helps the town.
We're eliminating faust in this phase, no two ways about it. If anyone still needs convincing then I can think of three separate reasons why he makes overwhelmingly the most sense as Sterling's scum partner, and will elaborate on them if asked.
And if on the off-chance his play is him being town in some idiosyncratic way that I have not accounted for, letting the scum have a stab at the PRs with a chance of missing is beneficial to us in Day 3 scenarios (at that point claims

would

make more sense).

If you don't think my D1 was me trying to solve the game rather than me trying to blend in then I don't know what to say tbh.

Besides, the sterling vote was bad even though he flipped mafia.

We should always vote outside of PR claims for potential autowin.

The way I see it, I don't want to focus too much on the kill, but an experienced scum made that kill because

I did kinda suss he was a power role towards the end of the day (which is why I was a bit tunnelly, sorry bud).

I don't think thewingfan makes that kill.

I don't think it's kkirigiri or Maestro.

Coule be catboi but tbh I'm not feeling it.

It's either Wayward Son or ceejay. At the moment, I'm tempted to believe that ceejay voted his doomed scumbuddy to gain towncred, but I'll reread D1 again to establish a more solid read.

??????????????????????

[catboi]

A miscellaneous thought:

It is possible that Thynhith's night power is relevant here: I had a scan over his posts in Day 1 and couldn't find anything compelling that concretely suggested who he'd have been jailing, but I don't think it would have made sense for him to have jailed catboi in this instance, and I doubt Maestro either. The mafia could have roleblock-killed Thyn (if that were their role) making his jail target irrelevant, but in that case, with a tracker report to come that could spell an immediate defeat, I feel like they'd most likely hedge their bets here and used their power on who they read as tracker.

Given he's the last person who he mentioned, possibly he obliquely hinted that he was jailing thewingfan? He did suggest earlier that he thought faust was 'town who he was unable to work with', rather than being scum, so maybe he held that thought going into the night phase...

Just thinking that if we knew, then we'd have an almost cast-iron clear here amongst the town.

Point me to this? I looked at the last few posts of his ISO and I couldn't find anything regarding that.

I actually had the thought he

might

have jailed ceejay, based on one post he made near the very end of the day, but it feels very reachy on my part.

[catboi]

again, that reasoning strikes me as really outright nonsensical - you had been pushing thyn for most of the day, so the scumread was pre-existing. kirigiri puts sterling to E-1 in 442. You at first think he's hammered and fos kiri, but then realize he isnt and start trying to push onto thyn:

ok i misread. yeah he's not hammered.

I'm not voting uncc cop.

I dislike your vote.

prove you are town and vote thryrith with me then.

like i get that someone could be softing a cc of the setup (one which cop does not appear in) but still, sterling is uncc cop atm and so we should vote outside of him.

like even if there is a cc, we should lynch outside anyway, especially if it's the setup with no doctor

VOTE: Thrynhith

sheep me. this is scum.

So, no, I don't really buy at all that you thought he was a PR and were trying to protect him - looking back, kiri actually made it regrettably obvious there, and you continued to plow ahead trying to push thyn anyway. Are you just making things up now? That looks like an entirely serious attempt to try to wagon him, your explanation doesn't match what you were actually doing at all. It doesn't really make sense at all in the first place that a townie would arbitrarily try to push someone he thought was town to protect them in the first place - obviously if sterling flipped scum, thyn would be assumed cleared by everyone regardless. I don't believe a townie would actually think pushing a player the way you did would protect them from being killed. Your explanation reeks of a hastily made up excuse to try to cover your ass. If you had just said, "I was wrong, my bad", I would have had no problem with that explanation, because everyone is wrong sometimes, but instead you have this elaborate explanation that is self-contradictory.

[catboi]

His following #459 and #460 seem like posts he'd only make if he were thinking from the frame of mind as mafia trying to seem like his continuing naturally; i.e. to try to consciously look like his views are consistent. Ironically, this was the cue to me that re-ignited my suspicion in him.
Again, if he were town he'd at least be considering my sharp change of tone was based on picking up on something that I'd rather not potentially share with mafia (he gives this very benefit of the doubt to catboi, who he never mentions), and not automatically assume I'm scum. He also knows me well enough, and my play-style to know I don't play scum-sided roles like that.

I don't have a ton to add here, but I do think this raises a good point about faustiv's behavior at the end of the day. I had thought overnight scum wouldn't put on such a display when their partner had just been hammered (normally scum are a little more self-conscious and that type of meltdown is more often from townies), but I think the big issue is that faustiv's claimed motivations for his end of day posting don't really match at all with what he actually did. Most likely answer that I can think of is that since he wasn't getting towncred for the flip the best he could do is play it up in that way as a last ditch attempt to appear uninformed.

[catboi]

Though having looked at it again, I think ceejay makes more sense given #439. It's possible that either way I'm trying to get blood out of a stone, and he really didn't consciously leave any clues (I think he should have done FWIW). The reason why I think it's useful again is that 1. roleblock-killing the jailkeeper risks losing on the spot if the tracker's targeting you, 2. we haven't got any indication that we have a tracker with a report on a live player. Therefore either we're in the setup with two goons or the tracker was roleblocked; tracking Thynhith after Sterling flipped scum would be such a bad play that I'm discounting its possibility, and a tracker hiding and hoping both not to be nightkilled and his Night 1 and 2 targets to be spared also seems like a poor choice here, especially given that one player has already claimed VT!

This (to me) seems really speculative, but I do believe the last scum is faüstiv or ceejay.

Do you mind going into a little more detail on your reads? The previous holder of your slot gave us very little to work with and while I'm thinking faustiv is the most likely at this point it'd be helpful if I could get more confident in my read on you. Why is ceejay your secondary choice, why are you confident on wingfan as town?

[catboi]

we've 7 days. fellas, show your fellow townie some compassion.

i'm a waste of a vote. at least let me defend myself.

get me after the 7 days then. a short day just helps scum.

like i think maestro is just policy voting me here. wayward son jumps on the BW without much elaboration. kkgiri, at least give me a day to defend myself. i've got a bit of a headache atm.

please unvote.

This just looks like flail to me. I know faustiv has snapped out of it and has cased me but no one was going to hammer and I don't think a townie in this spot shows this level of panic - we're ahead, the game isn't going to end if he's town and gets flipped here. It comes across as survivalistic.

[catboi]

i'd still rather ceejay but if it's not him then get maestro. i'm still doubting that sterling puts his partner (fennec slot) on L-2.

Like I know this isn't a great defense but whatever. You're better than this (yes I know Maestro, I'm appealing to emotion) and you are usually more considered in your analysis than you are here. It's disappointing to me that you're choosing to pigeon-hole me into the remaining scum slot when my overall play doesn't make sense as scum and there are players on the table who make far more sense logically to be sterling's partner such as ceejay.

@ faüstiv If I shouldn't be sussing you (there's only one scum) who should be sussed?

if it's not you then it's ceejay or maestro. i think ceejay is more likely.

VOTE: Catboi

yeah I've read everyone's ISO's again and I think it's you. I'll explain a bit later.

if Catboi hammers me, turbovote him tomorrow.

Yes, okay, nevermind, now that I actually have context here I don't think pushing me is towny. faustiv is flailing. He's accusing anyone and anything in the hopes of getting a wagon on someone that isn't him, and since pople weren't biting on ceejay, he switched tack to try to push me.

[catboi]

Now look here. If I'm mafia, the least I could have done yesterday is wait for a cc or something, and THEN hammer Sterling.

I would have at least wanted some info in exchange for a doomed partner or something.

Sure this certainly doesn't auto clear me, that's fine, but I just want to say I'm no dumbass and would certainly try to play optimally whenever I can.

Why did you hammer Sterling, out of curiosity?

It was mostly peer pressure, ngl.

I also scumread him and thought his claim was fake, so I would have voted him anyway once someone cced.

ugh i actually townread this...

This, also, is a ridiculously shallow reason for a townread. It's completely implausible that someone sees these two lines and decides to back off a previous scumread. It's basically a nothing explanation that I could see coming from either alignment, and I think someone genuinely solving the game would be more skeptical of this answer. More likely it's just an attempt to pull an unexpected/'surprising' move to get people to go "but why would scum do that?" (which tbf i am susceptible to)

[catboi]

Yes, okay, nevermind, now that I actually have context here I don't think pushing me is towny. faustiv is flailing. He's accusing anyone and anything in the hopes of getting a wagon on someone that isn't him, and since pople weren't biting on ceejay, he switched tack to try to push me.

You did this with me on Day 1 by the way. You misrepped my argument, voted me then changed to ceejay when you realised you couldn't get me voted off day 1.

So if the way I'm playing is scummy then the way you're playing is also scummy.

Okay now you're literally lying lol

I changed off you because I realized I was voting you more for being annoyed at you than anything else

further the way I played it was not while directly under threat of being eliminated

[catboi]

The fact that Thynhith was the NK also adds another

Have you considered the possibility that he's not the baddie and whomever is killed Thryn as a framejob?

I mean he screamed up and down late D1 that Thryn was bad. Steampunk got hanged. If he's bad why the bleepity bleep would he go off and kill the player he wanted to hang?

Either he didn't kill Thryn or he'd have to have schemed out being able to point to that argument, which he hasn't.

This logic really doesn't hold up, because Thyn was

very obviously

killed for being a power role and faustiv has shown he was aware of this. the scumread on him is basically irrelevant, Thyn was obviously never getting flipped and I think scum-faustiv would be aware of that.

quite literally no one makes that type of "frame" kill you are proposing happened. This is just overthinking hoping for a complicated answer because it'd be more interesting.

[catboi]

Basically, we're not going to win this game through role claims, and I actually find the frustration that the suggestion we claim to be suspicious? It has a hint of scum salt at what he perceives as an unfair strategy.

Hang me for it then. Didn't care when I got hanged for it before. Don't now. It was an honest question about game philosophy on this site. If I can expect every game I enter to jump to role claims I have no interest in playing here.

I'm used to games that are much less formularic. I prefer to get into the nuts and bolts of a game, figure out who's who through pressure and detective work. Mass claims in my opinion always favor the town. Don't have to be town to consider winning unfairly to be not cool. If you don't mind games like that that's cool and all.

Also-I like chaos. Have a reputation for being chaotic, and mass role claims take chaos out of it.

tl;dr. I care less about winning than I do having fun and the game being fair.

Okay, I see where you're coming from here. I understand now this is probably a legitimate perspective.

I do want to address this stuff, although this is probably mostly inessential to the game at hand. It's not going to tell you anything about anyone's alignment.

First, have you looked at the post for this game that shows the setup? It kind of feels like you haven't. No shame if so, but really go back and look at it.

This setup is not one that can be broken by mass claiming. It's designed that way. So any concern about it being "unfair" is out the window. That is the way basically all games are designed and run on this site, and there is a lot of knowledge that has been passed down through the years on how to do this. I understand that in other communities, setups are often not as balanced as so can often be broken by claiming, so people develop a resentment of claiming that leads to them essentially throwing against their team. It happened on epic mafia, it happened in the public lobbies I've seen for mafia.gg. I don't really think this is a good way of playing the game, though. It's essentially choosing to play badly to compensate for the fact that you're playing a poorly designed setup.

I personally find intentionally hamstringing yourself to make a game 'fair' to be

incredibly unfun

. my idea of a fun game is one where both teams try hard to win and make the game challenging for one another. Going "I'm going to play badly so scum feel they have a chance" feels wrong and I'd be pretty upset if I played someone who said that.

At any rate, games being broken by mass claim is not even remotely a concern here. Even with claiming being a perfectly accepted strategy, the normal queue still runs something like a 60% scum win rate. You are never going to have to worry about claims making games unfair. towns have a hard enough time here as it is.

[catboi]

Now look here. If I'm mafia, the least I could have done yesterday is wait for a cc or something, and THEN hammer Sterling.

I would have at least wanted some info in exchange for a doomed partner or something.

Sure this certainly doesn't auto clear me, that's fine, but I just want to say I'm no dumbass and would certainly try to play optimally whenever I can.

Why did you hammer Sterling, out of curiosity?

It was mostly peer pressure, ngl.

I also scumread him and thought his claim was fake, so I would have voted him anyway once someone cced.

ugh i actually townread this...

This, also, is a ridiculously shallow reason for a townread. It's completely implausible that someone sees these two lines and decides to back off a previous scumread. It's basically a nothing explanation that I could see coming from either alignment, and I think someone genuinely solving the game would be more skeptical of this answer. More likely it's just an attempt to pull an unexpected/'surprising' move to get people to go "but why would scum do that?" (which tbf i am susceptible to)

Or rather you are attacking my townreads because you are mafia, just like how you misrepped my arguments D1, just how you attacked my Fennech TR in post 328, like how you attacked ceejay's reads etc.

bullshit dude, there's one scum so what are you even trying to imply with me trying to "attack your townreads"? I'm not pushing ceejay, I'm pushing you BECAUSE your townread on him makes no sense

and the only rebuttal you can offer is "nuh uh ur scum"??????????

[catboi]

I don't know why I'm doing this actually

I think flipping faustiv here ends the game

his arguments right now are legitimately some of the worst I've ever heard in 12 years of playing mafia - he is very obviously unable to string together coherent reasoning for his reads and they fall apart at the slightest questioning

going back and forth with him is pointless and no one else is doing anything

i'm going to hammer if no one comes in here screaming any objections

[catboi]

First, have you looked at the post for this game that shows the setup? It kind of feels like you haven't. No shame if so, but really go back and look at it.

This setup is not one that can be broken by mass claiming. It's designed that way. So any concern about it being "unfair" is out the window. That is the way basically all games are designed and run on this site, and there is a lot of knowledge that has been passed down through the years on how to do this. I understand that in other communities, setups are often not as balanced as so can often be broken by claiming, so people develop a resentment of claiming that leads to them essentially throwing against their team. It happened on epic mafia, it happened in the public lobbies I've seen for mafia.gg. I don't really think this is a good way of playing the game, though. It's essentially choosing to play badly to compensate for the fact that you're playing a poorly designed setup.

I personally find intentionally hamstringing yourself to make a game 'fair' to be incredibly unfun. my idea of a fun game is one where both teams try hard to win and make the game challenging for one another. Going "I'm going to play badly so scum feel they have a chance" feels wrong and I'd be pretty upset if I played someone who said that.

At any rate, games being broken by mass claim is not even remotely a concern here. Even with claiming being a perfectly accepted strategy, the normal queue still runs something like a 60% scum win rate. You are never going to have to worry about claims making games unfair. towns have a hard enough time here as it is.

See its the other way where I play I would guess 60% of the time the town wins out where I normally play. I don't think the issue is balance. But I think everyone crafts their games with the intent that the number one advantage for the baddies is their ability to hide, and I would say that 95% of the time no one suggests a mass role claim unless either things are extremely dire, OR the game is so badly crafted that yeah it needs to be done to jailbreak the game.

I'm just not interested in playing games were every single time this discussion comes up. So I'll see this one out and then after that, I'm done here.

I think this is an incredibly immature mentality to approach a game with but suit yourself

[catboi]

I don't know why I'm doing this actually

I think flipping faustiv here ends the game

his arguments right now are legitimately some of the worst I've ever heard in 12 years of playing mafia - he is very obviously unable to string together coherent reasoning for his reads and they fall apart at the slightest questioning

going back and forth with him is pointless and no one else is doing anything

i'm going to hammer if no one comes in here screaming any objections

You

are

flustrered and I don't get why, since you're clearly not being voted off today. I've refuted everything you've said, you're the one choosing to ignore my points and just cry out "bad argument!" You have also completely ignored the case I made on you.

I'm dying today but I urge everyone to reread catboi's ISO tonight. I'm pretty certain he's the last scum.

I'm not flustered by anything you've said, I'm flustered that I'm going back and forth with you and your horseshit arguments while the rest of the game seems to have stopped playing entirely

and you haven't refuted jack shit, you're just acting like you have while providing non-arguments, the same shit you pulled on day 1

[catboi]

Like catboi nitpicks at little bits and cries "your argument is bad!" and that's all he does.

He makes no effort to answer more damning elements of my scumread on him.
He makes no effort to refute the case I made on him.
He makes no effort to make any sort of rebuttal on any of my points.

He manucfactures arguments by misconstruing what people say to use those things against them.

Like now he has just 'attacked' thewingfan. He has to, because he needs to create doubt as to the legitimacy of his town alignment.

literally none of this is true and you're just baldly asserting it without actually backing it up

and I am not attacking thewingfan right now. I briefly considered him as scum because his complaining about a possible mass claim had a hint of scum bitter about possibly getting defeated by a strategy they consider unfair, but now that I understand his mentality I don't think that's the case. I think his approach to the game is a childish one but not scummy.

this is disingenuous as hell; the one misconstruing things to suit his own purposes here is you

[catboi]

He also hasn't stated why he thinks I'm sterling's partner.

LOL FUCK OFF

[catboi]

i'm sorry that was inappropriate of me in a newbie game but that is the single most BS argument in a heaping pile of BS

I have explained multiple times why I think faustiv is scum for how he's arguing, I shouldn't have to reiterate what other people have pointed out about his defense of sterling on day 1

this is just throwing shit at the wall at me, trying to get anything to stick, making ridiculous demands

[catboi]

He also hasn't stated why he thinks I'm sterling's partner.

He chooses which parts of my case/posts to attack and parts of my case he feels he can easily refutre and completely ignores other, more damning elements of my case. He has completely ignored my #585 for example.

I stopped responding because in general this 1v1 is not actually accomplishing anything and you're very clearly arguing against me in bad faith

you're not going to prove to me I'm scum and as I think you're scum I have no obligation to convince you I'm town. If people want me to I can shred every single argument you've posted but I wan to hear from

them

, not you

[catboi]

just one thing - do people actually townread catboi and if so, why?

might as well get this out there before me 'ed gets chopped off.

Thing about catboi that I'm struggling to place is that his vote on Sterling is possibly the turning point that seals his fate. I don't think Sterling's 'doomed' otherwise, as you put it.

If he's mafia, does he really think that that's the only move he has to win from that position? Also, earlier in the game, what could his motivation for discrediting your reason for townreading Sterling be?

I don't think it's the 'only' move he had, but it's a move which puts him in a stronger position and a move which made sense in the gamestate.

I think him discouraging my TR on sterling is largely irrelevant.

What's your thoughts on sterling barely acknowledging catboi's FOS on him whilst attacking others such as yourself and Maestro for scumreading him?

This is circumstantial and best but is not really accurately representing the facts at all - maestro was the most aggressive sterling pusher so of course he OMGUSed him but sterling in fact ignored kiri and didn't push back on her UNTIL he had made his fakeclaim and was clearly in desperation mode. I also wasn't

as

aggressively scumreading him, and it makes sense that he wouldn't push back on every single voter

this theory also doesn't really gel with the notion that I coached sterling specifically to say the "doctor protect me line" but also somehow was too absent minded to tell him not to interact with me?

all of this stuff is logically fallacious - you're just arguing that

because

a move would have been good for me to make as scum, that makes me scum

and that's not how mafia works

more often than not the person doing the protown thing is going to be town

[catboi]

He also hasn't stated why he thinks I'm sterling's partner.

LOL FUCK OFF

Explain it to the room then. If you think it's because I defended him then that's a horseshit, myopic view. If you think it's because I scumread Thry then it's also horseshit. I can be town and have these opinions.

Your response to everything is "horseshit", "dumb argument", "flustered scum" without actually addressing any of my points beyond that. You have still failed to address my theory of Sterling's two coached lines and why I believe that it was you who coached him to say those lines.

Whatever, I just have to hope that the town remember my arguments and votes you out tomorrow. One person on my BW hasn't even posted since D2 start. It's frustrating but what can I do.

it's not that you had those opinions it's that your logic for justifying your reads was incredibly poor such that is far more likely to be a manufactured read than a genuine one. your explanation for why you were scumreading thyn is internally contradictory and looks like you making something up after the fact to try to cover your ass, it does not make sense as a legitimate view. your reads today have shifted all over the place in a way that looks like you are desperate for a wagon to stick to someone that isn't you and you are trying to find a case that people might actually follow. I do not believe your reason for reversing your read on ceejay, it is incredibly shallow and looks more like an attempted pivot when you realized that was getting traction. I do not believe your scumread on me is at all genuine given how contrived your arguments are and how you are relying primarily on rhetorical to argue i am scum rather than actual logic. your play thus far is indicative of a survival-oriented mindset that suggests your main priority is simply living to another day. if you were town who was truly confident I was scum I think you'd be perfectly okay with going down here because after all you've already solved the game for everyone, right?

you have been able to explain none of your reads in a satisfactory fashion

you keep accusing me of not actually answering your arguments but you're not actually making real arguments

[catboi]

i'm sorry that was inappropriate of me in a newbie game but that is the single most BS argument in a heaping pile of BS

I have explained multiple times why I think faustiv is scum for how he's arguing, I shouldn't have to reiterate what other people have pointed out about his defense of sterling on day 1

this is just throwing shit at the wall at me, trying to get anything to stick, making ridiculous demands

1. townreading mafia is not scummy.
2. defending mafia when you think they are town is not scummy.
3. I couldn't partner sterling with anyone d1. Now I think I was wrong with my initial theory and think he wasn't coached until #364.
4. I had no reason to doubt the cop claim. If you think that I should have then lol. I think it's clear that my reaction to sterling's cop claim comes from an uninformed viewpoint.
5. my vote on Thry comes just before the hammer. Yes I pushed on him because he was either PR or mafia. If he's PR, then I thought that mafia wouldn't notice and may keep him alive, then I could 180 my read once sterling is killed and a villager is offed.

yes mafia never defend their partners

next you'll say "iF i WaS mAfIa I wOuLd HaVe BuSsEd"

you tried to argue sterling had no partners when it was convenient for you but that's because the very obvious answer is that he was partners with YOU

I had no reason to doubt the cop claim.

Yes I pushed on him because he was either PR or mafia

This, in and of itself, is reason to doubt the cop claim. I think if you were actually town you would have realized this. But you can't keep your own story straight.

[catboi]

I went to look up a post I saw that has stuck with me about how you almost never see scum voting on a Day 1 wagon that kills scum in a 9 player game, but it doesn't cite any actual evidence unfortunately. to me that's where faustiv's defense of "defending mafia isn't scummy" falls flat - in a 9 player games losing a partner Day 1 is extremely costly and so I think he had every reason to try to defend sterling the way he did, and once he did so he was pot committed and had basically no believable way of changing his stance so he had to go all in. the reasoning was basically atrocious, let me pull it up again:

hi

Steampunk is town. I did want to push on him to get more of a feel for his slot, but his playstyle is more in line with newbie town rather than newbie scum. Steampunk is clearly not considering the content of his posts, which has lead to confusion around his role PM in #22 and the private thread in #80. His haphazard voting style is also in line with newbie-town rather than newbie-scum. From experience, newbie scum are more likely to be more tepid and reserved and try and resist placing votes (especially ones controversial in the gamestate such as the Maestro vote who is a widely townread player) as they don't want to fall under suspicion. Whilst Steampunk's reasons for his votes don't make much sense (imo), the fact that he

is

throwing votes around on a whim suggests that he's not overly concerned on what he posts and whether his posts are coming off as scummy. I also believe that if Sterling is mafia, then his partner can only be Fennec (TheftOFARose) or Rockhopper as I believe everyone else in the game would have at least coached him on how to play the day as mafia to avoid arousing suspicion. Theft, being a new player himself and Rockhopper being inactive are the only two possibiliites I have for his partner with the above logic in mind. Therefore, with this in mind, coupled with me believing that Steampunk is town, means that he should be immune from today's vote as we don't gain a lot of information from his elimination.

Look at how contrived this is. He's basically bending himself into a pretzel trying to justify that read when none of it really holds up. There's a lot of very bad an incorrect assumptions about how newbie scum play, and stuff like "he is not considering the contents of his posts" doesn't actually

mean

anything - why are scum more likely to consider the contests of their posts? I have seen

plenty

of careless newbie scum. The argument of coaching was bad at the time and I called it out, is still bad. It relies on a theoretical assumption that just...isn't true to how scum in newbie games operate. The idea that sterling's partner would have micromanaged his every move was obviously wrong and in general most scum aren't nearly that organizaed, but it's really just a "too scummy to be scum" argument, but dressed up in more words than that.

The entire thing reads like faustiv set out

wanting

to write a paragraph calling sterling town and then looking for reasons to justify it.

[catboi]

Going back reminded me of this sequence:

VOTE: Sterling

wait, though... actually follow me on this:

"I got a role PM with a name that isn't mine"

*votes that name*

e.g. Role PM received by Sterling, which they didn't realize was also theirs, or for their slot's predecessor, made them vote their predecessor's slot

Sterling got a scum role PM

VOTE: Sterling

I don't think it's a scumslip, but Sterling's lack of reaction to your accusation is concerning me.

Also I think Maestro is town based on the above.

what's your experience with mafia steampunk? as in what variants have you played and on what format (face-to-face, forum, epicmafia/town of salem etc.)

well I used to play Town of Salem and I've played on the eurobricks forum once, also have a few game of camp cadaver under my belt, and I used to play amongus before it stopped working for me, why do you ask?

feel it's important information in terms of trying to sort you as i currently have my vote on you and you do come across as an inexperienced player (and don't take offense to that as none is intended, we all gotta start somewhere).

I think sterling's reaction to maestro feels over the top but can just aseasily come from a newer player who's not used to people making social reads getting upset they'e being accused so strongly.

VOTE: faustiv

I do think trying to string up sterling for a "lack of reaction" to Maestro's scumslip accusation feels opportunist - it had been less than an hour since Maestro posted it and sterling was clearly still catching up. On some other site's there's a higher emphasis on real time interaction but on here that amount of time lag isn't really a big deal and him trying to act like it was incriminating doesn't sit right with me. I saw scum use a similar argument in a recent game (although they were actually bussing their buddy in that instance). Then when sterling did come back and provided an explanation I thought was eminently reasonable, faustiv didn't really comment on it, which suggests to me he wasn't that concerned with getting a response in the first place and was just looking for a target to push.

i mean sterling's reaction is the first thing that pinged me this game, so naturally i'm going to push that slot. in terms of sterling's response, i'm still unsure of his alignment. i'm just concerned that he didn't defend himself as vehemently as i would expect from a town player given maestro's reasoning behind his vote. i'm happy with where my vote lies at the time being.

UNVOTE:

This is actually fairly blatant early-game distancing from faustiv. I think the ealy vote about sterling "not reacting" to maestro is a bit panicky - the comment about "lack of reaction" is fairly telling, as not much time at all had passed between maestro accusing sterling of scumslipping and fausiv making that post - (I noted it was less than an hour) I think that reaction shows a bit of panic that sterling might truly HAVE slipped and was a dead man walking and he was trying to get out in front of it. When he came back and actually started posting, faustiv shifted gears and made some very awkward comments where he didn't commit to the read - "i'm still unsure of his alignment but he's not defending himself as strong as i would expect a town player to", and then unvoting him a short time later when sterling really had done nothing worthy of being unvoted. These were the posts between 88 and 102:

Spoiler:

when do you consider RVS to be over? because I'm just not as good at getting reads due to the way the game is played on amongus and Town of Salem so really I don't have a good reason to vote anyone, Also isn't it your job to help new players out? instead you just started a bandwagon on me due to a confusion, also what about my confused comments did you glanced that I had a private thread? because the player list haven't been updated when I first posted. you know, trying to start a bangwagon on a new and confused player is pretty sus to me therefore VOTE: Maestro

what do you mean by private thread?

like mafia or mason chat

well my thought process is I'm used to playing in powerrole heavy games, where we get most of our info from claims, counter claims, and investigation reports, because in ToS there can only be one Jailor, so if two player claims jailor we know at least one of them is lying, also in Town of Salem we're told what role killed the player, eg. SK Mafia Vig Vet Jest ect. so really I'm used to the game mechanics to give use our information.

the reason I've latched onto Maestro is because I felt as if he's found an easy scapegoat in the new player and that's really the only read I got from this game

.................are you saying you have one?

no, but it's common thing in Mafia for informed players to have their own private chat where they can chat without anyone else hearing, so I assumed this game have one.

I'm not going to claim those posts were massively scummy but there's nothing someone should be townreading off them and it doesn't really feed into faustiv's argument for sterling being town at all. none of these look like someone who is "not considering the contents of their posts". The switch feels incredibly forced.

On another note, that line I bolded is almost word for word an exact copy of the one posted by scum!Titus about her partner in a recent game:

Spoiler:

I don't give a rat's ass about 5 scum or 4 scum.

What I do care about is Ircher freezing. Ircher's last log in was today this morning after he was first asked about the question regarding his assumptions. While it may not be a slip, the freezing doesn't look good.

Notably it's a similar thing: downplay the slip, but call him scummy for other reasons to make it look like you're adding your own original thoughts to the game. it betrays a psychological unease with the actions of their partner but not really wanting to go all-in in case their partner is able to argue their way past the slip accusation

Also worth noting is that sterling

literally does not react

to faustiv voting him/suspecting him - I hadn't realized this but faustiv is really telling on himself by making that accusation that sterling didn't push back on me, likely because he is significantly more self-conscious about who sterling did/did not interact with

[catboi]

ven a TOS player surely understands the concept of claiming a power role when under immediate threat of elimination.

I've never played TOS but I'm pretty sure that's the exact meta there so it would be the standard expected play

[catboi]

and actually faustiv, honestly, i admire the spirit you're showing here, I think it'll serve you well in other games

[catboi]

I don't really want to explain why I believe sterling was bussed just yet, but I will at some point.

why delay it?? what benefit does that possibly serve other than you stalling to buy time?

[catboi]

Based on my experience, sterling's play is more likely to come from newbie-town. Sterling was newbie-scum this game. I got it wrong, but I don't think it was a terrible thought process to have at the time. Through experience, there is some communication between scum in game, and as I have stated, I believe this has been the case in this game, albeit not at that moment in time.

You're just using analysis I made on a player against me because said player has now flipped scum. It wasn't a terrible analysis to have on the player at that point in the game.

Also this is literally a non-answer - "yes I was wrong but I believed it was right so it was good analysis and not bad and scummy"

you keep accusing me of not answering my points but you can't give a satisfactory answer to anything I'm saying

[catboi]

are't TOS games role madness

the difficulty in approaching these games is in relation to making reads based purely on dayplay rather than mechanics

I think the setup is dirt simple compared to that game

[catboi]

catboi suggests that my suggestion that faust could have been framed by another baddie with a kill of Thryn doesn't make sense. As immature or childish as my play might be if I were the baddie its exactly what I would have done.

This displays a fundamental lack of understanding about how the game works, and also ignores the point that has been brought up repeatedly that Thyn was almost certainly killed for being a power role, a point which you completely ignored

[catboi]

But I get the sense you're not really actually reading what's being said, just skimming over stuff atp

[catboi]

But I get the sense you're not really actually reading what's being said, just skimming over stuff atp

My views are immature and childish apparently. (yeah that's not going away) We disagree on ALOT. I'm telling you what I would do. The narrative I am suggesting makes sense to me. Because as I said

its what I would have done

.

"it's what I would have done" is an incredibly poor heuristic for solving games. Why would you assume everyone plays exactly the way you do? People's experience and background with the game all differ. There is no reason to believe someone else would think that way. I'm telling you that I have seen almost no one who does make kills that way. So why should I listen to you on this?

[catboi]

But I get the sense you're not really actually reading what's being said, just skimming over stuff atp

My views are immature and childish apparently. (yeah that's not going away) We disagree on ALOT. I'm telling you what I would do. The narrative I am suggesting makes sense to me. Because as I said

its what I would have done

.

"it's what I would have done" is an incredibly poor heuristic for solving games. Why would you assume everyone plays exactly the way you do? People's experience and background with the game all differ. There is no reason to believe someone else would think that way. I'm telling you that I have seen almost no one who does make kills that way. So why should I listen to you on this?

And yet you want to assume everyone is playing the way you would? Its fine that you want to say you don't think someone here wouldn't play that way. Despite my fear I'm going to get some snide commentary on how I'm childish or an idiot.....I'll ask.

Why wouldn't a baddie find a convienient fall guy to cover a kill?

And for that matter since you said I hadn't addressed it. Thryn hinted at being a power townie and that's why they were killed. Then its 2 birds with one stone. baddie kills a power townie, and then has a fall guy.

No, I am literally not saying everyone is playing the way I did. You're putting words in my mouth. I am saying that far and away the most rational explanation for Thyn being killed is because he was a power role. That is what the mafia were looking for when Sterling claimed cop. The motivation is fairly simple to understand.

So then, if you acknowledge that, the notion that the kill was a "frame" goes out the window, doesn't it? Soyour point is completely null and void.

Get a clue.

[catboi]

Nobody plays at this time? I do like conversations that don't take hours.

@ faüstiv I know you want me to believe catboi is scum. I'm almost completely convinced it's you or him.

If we (Town) get it wrong Today, either it's mountainis or we have a PR. I'm counting this as a soon to be win.

At the time you were posting, anyone in America was soundly asleep.

Why are you suddenly saying it's me or faustiv? I thought you said you thought it wasn't me?

[catboi]

Spoiler:

Ok, first thing I want to say is that the back and forth between us yesterday got a little heated from both sides so apologies for that.

This is actually fairly blatant early-game distancing from faustiv. I think the ealy vote about sterling "not reacting" to maestro is a bit panicky - the comment about "lack of reaction" is fairly telling, as not much time at all had passed between maestro accusing sterling of scumslipping and fausiv making that post - (I noted it was less than an hour) I think that reaction shows a bit of panic that sterling might truly HAVE slipped and was a dead man walking and he was trying to get out in front of it. When he came back and actually started posting, faustiv shifted gears and made some very awkward comments where he didn't commit to the read - "i'm still unsure of his alignment but he's not defending himself as strong as i would expect a town player to", and then unvoting him a short time later when sterling really had done nothing worthy of being unvoted. These were the posts between 88 and 102:

catboi is adding 1+1 and coming up with 11 here. Let me explain my thought process:

Maestro makes the accusation in post #45. Sterling's first post after the reaction was

What does SRS mean?

(#49). My thought at the time was that a townie would have defended themselves immediately against the accusation and #49 struck me as evasive which I found to be an odd first post at the time. I then thought that, on the chance it

was

a scumslip, I could ask probing questions to try and get him to 'slip' again if he's a scum unsure about game mechanics.

My 68

what's your experience with mafia steampunk? as in what variants have you played and on what format (face-to-face, forum, epicmafia/town of salem etc.)

Was me trying to ascertain if he'd ever played forum mafia before as, which I've already highlighted, forum mafia games are different to live mafia games. If he is a first time forum mafia player and made some sort of townslip in any of his responses then sure, I could clear him. Alternatively, if he doesn't know the game mechanics he could scumslip and then we could vote him out.

This exchange I had with you (catboi):

In post 82, catboi wrote:
I think sterling's reaction to maestro feels over the top but can just aseasily come from a newer player who's not used to people making social reads getting upset they'e being accused so strongly.

VOTE: faustiv

I do think trying to string up sterling for a "lack of reaction" to Maestro's scumslip accusation feels opportunist - it had been less than an hour since Maestro posted it and sterling was clearly still catching up. On some other site's there's a higher emphasis on real time interaction but on here that amount of time lag isn't really a big deal and him trying to act like it was incriminating doesn't sit right with me. I saw scum use a similar argument in a recent game (although they were actually bussing their buddy in that instance). Then when sterling did come back and provided an explanation I thought was eminently reasonable, faustiv didn't really comment on it, which suggests to me he wasn't that concerned with getting a response in the first place and was just looking for a target to push.

i mean sterling's reaction is the first thing that pinged me this game, so naturally i'm going to push that slot. in terms of sterling's response, i'm still unsure of his alignment. i'm just concerned that he didn't defend himself as vehemently as i would expect from a town player given maestro's reasoning behind his vote. i'm happy with where my vote lies at the time being.

Votes are the best way to pressure players. I disliked Sterling's "What does SRS mean" and wanted to push the slot.

90

In post 78, Sterling the steampunk wrote:
when do you consider RVS to be over? because I'm just not as good at getting reads due to the way the game is played on amongus and Town of Salem so really I don't have a good reason to vote anyone, Also isn't it your job to help new players out? instead you just started a bandwagon on me due to a confusion, also what about my confused comments did you glanced that I had a private thread? because the player list haven't been updated when I first posted. you know, trying to start a bangwagon on a new and confused player is pretty sus to me therefore VOTE: Maestro

what do you mean by private thread?

Was me trying to see if I could get him to town/scumslip in case Sterling was unsure about forum mafia mechanics.

I then unvoted because I got a good vibe off him and townread him for other elements of his play, which I highlighted in my 159. I also like to prod different players during D1 so I can sort them, hence why I jumped off the Sterling wagon. I didn't think that concentrating on Sterling alone would have helped me with sorting the other players, hence my unvote.

Notably it's a similar thing: downplay the slip, but call him scummy for other reasons to make it look like you're adding your own original thoughts to the game. it betrays a psychological unease with the actions of their partner but not really wanting to go all-in in case their partner is able to argue their way past the slip accusation

Also worth noting is that sterling literally does not react to faustiv voting him/suspecting him - I hadn't realized this but faustiv is really telling on himself by making that accusation that sterling didn't push back on me, likely because he is significantly more self-conscious about who sterling did/did not interact with

What a scum does in another game doesn't mean that a town can't have a similar thought process in another. That Titus post is NAI imo.

He only really reacts to Maestro's vote, and even then he barely mentions it, despite other players such as myself, kkirigiri and ceejay all voting him at other points in the game. This again feels like you have a read on me and are trying to shoehorn in whatever logic makes sense in your head to convince yourself that I am scum. My point was that he barely acknowledges you at all D1, despite you questioning him on numerous occasions.

This all is really a fairly meaningless post by faustiv, mumbo-jumbo word salad masquerading as an explanation, over-inflating its length like a college studen turning in an essay desperately trying to hit the page count. If you cutthrough the noise to the relevant bits, it's really hollow:

Was me trying to ascertain if he'd ever played forum mafia before as, which I've already highlighted, forum mafia games are different to live mafia games. If he is a first time forum mafia player and made some sort of townslip in any of his responses then sure, I could clear him. Alternatively, if he doesn't know the game mechanics he could scumslip and then we could vote him out.

This as an explanation for a question says nothing at all, asking about experience level is pretty banal. The fact he he specifically asked sterling's experience level, and then went on to defend him for being a noob, looks like he was

trying

to set this up to find an excuse to defend him.

Was me trying to see if I could get him to town/scumslip in case Sterling was unsure about forum mafia mechanics.

And again, this is a super meaningless statement for a weak question. I don't really believe that was the intent, no oneasks stuff with the intention of trying to get someone to scumslip/townslip and I don't believe anyone could think "what d you maen by private thread?" is an effective question for sorting someone.

I then unvoted because I got a good vibe off him and townread him for other elements of his play, which I highlighted in my 159. I also like to prod different players during D1 so I can sort them, hence why I jumped off the Sterling wagon. I didn't think that concentrating on Sterling alone would have helped me with sorting the other players, hence my unvote.

This says

literally nothing

. It's just repeating the same bad arguments faustiv has made ad nauseam, "I got good vibes" when I've already highlighted how contrived his explanation was. He's just hoping by being repetitive and overwhelming the thread people might actually start to fall for this. I've already shown his read on sterling was a complete crock, "I like to move my vote other places" is a plausible defense in terms of playstyle but also a good excuse to try to kill a bandwagon on your partner as scum.

None of this really bothers to address the fact that his jump on sterling was over-anxious and the fact thatthe posts he unvoted sterling for

weren't actually townie at all

and did not show the behavior he was townreding sterling for. It's a non-answer.

[catboi]

why are you sheeping the same arguments made by other players?

I'm so confident, I'd say put me up for next if I'm wrong. I think if it's not you, then ...

Catching up.

When I flip town, would you be happy then to be turbovoted tomorrow?

But I thought you ere sure I was scum? Why are you trying to intimidate wayward now?

[catboi]

To be honest, I'm not really as interested in what the destination of your thinking is, more the journey you took to get there - I'm confused as to why you think it's the fact that Thynhith died that implicates faust (or that he was framed, in your words).

I think both your answers have been helpful though.

Taking names of on it

-We have Player X (faust) who near the end of D1 said Player Y (Thryn) was bad.
-Thryn was nk'd and revealed to be the town cop.

Thryn winding up dead was suboptimal for for Player X because it was obvious that Player X for whatever reason was trying to start a train on Player Y.

If you don't believe Player X, than none of this really matters.

If you do buy what Player X is selling, or aren't sure you do, then I think you need to consider that anyone with half a brain as bad likely would nk any other townie other than the one they were trying to start a train on?

Simply this, if one thought I was likely going to have to answer some hard questions to begin with on D2, why would one add more hard questions to answer for?

I really don't understand why this is a hard concept to discuss.

and after sleeping on it, so I didn't do this in the heat of the moment....

VOTE: catboi

I don't appreciate the insults, but outside of that, other than calling it stupid and suggesting no one plays like that here, he's pushing very hard against this argument without a heck of a lot of substance. My stubborn Midwesterner is coming out here but I'm not moving.

Now I'm out for the day. I really don't want to get into a heated argument again, and after yard work I just intend to watch some football and take it easy today.

If you want to become a better player, I strongly suggest you get over yourself and not vote someone simply because they hurt your feelings. You will literally never catch scum playing the way you do.

And with regard to the argument, reading into the motivation for the mafia nightkill is

purely speculative

. I can't tell you what scum were thinking, I can only provide my best guess. You entire argument resides on assuming a motivation for the nightkill which I have already said is A) almost never why anyone makes a kill on this site B) rendered entirely irrelevant by Thyn being a PR who had been read as a PR, a point which you have acknowledged.

So, in total, your argument is already null and void, with nothing further to argue about it!

What """substance""" am I supposed to provide here?

[catboi]

Prodding ceejayvinoya and Maestro.

I'm going to be blunt: I strongly believe the game is already over and that faustiv is the last scum. I have had to wait around for 2 days doing nothing but arguing back and forth with him as he tries to flail his way out of this. (his recent post to wayward demonstrates his scumread on me is entirely unserious). I have had to wait around for 'final input' from 2 players who have likely both abandoned the game. If we hit the threshold for them being replaced, I'm going to just end it because I think it's a waste of everyone's time to wait for replacements in a game that's already over.

[catboi]

I'd really ask thewingfan to maybe look at Mafiascum's other threads. Not all games are Rome!

I like themes (where flavor

may

play a part, I like Opens, Normals, etc. I feel your critique is really unfair. Even from a kid.

Back to the game.

Yeah I'm not doing that for a few reasons.

1. I'm not having fun so after I see this out I'm not playing here again, so.....why waste my time?
2. I can read until my eyes bleed and I don't think it'll tell me a whole lot. Personally I need to be invested in a game, else I find it incredibly boring.


To respond to your other posts, yes all the games I've played to date are themed and based on a book/movie/etc. I much prefer those games to this. Also as I've said before I'm used to games where there are 20+ players and 3-5 baddies with a lot of different mechanics going on.

As far as the time I am on Eastern Time you posted at 5:30 AM local time.

I will say that this place does run more themed games with larger numbers of players, but based on everything I've learned this game I strongly doubt the playstyle here will interest you. Sorry it didn't work out for you. (although there are fewer and fewer themed games these days, too much work for most people...)

[catboi]

Prodding ceejayvinoya and Maestro.

I'm going to be blunt: I strongly believe the game is already over and that faustiv is the last scum. I have had to wait around for 2 days doing nothing but arguing back and forth with him as he tries to flail his way out of this. (his recent post to wayward demonstrates his scumread on me is entirely unserious). I have had to wait around for 'final input' from 2 players who have likely both abandoned the game. If we hit the threshold for them being replaced, I'm going to just end it because I think it's a waste of everyone's time to wait for replacements in a game that's already over.

this post is unnecessarily combative/rude. I happen to agree with you and have no huge addtl input from my skimming; Faust is Scum and my preferred vote for today; that has not changed; I don't know what even

could

change that if we're being honest and realistic, and perhaps it's tunneling best solved by a replacement but if I am being replaced fine, I am on PT at the moment, which is off for me, and caretaking for a friend and I had very much thought a PM I sent counted as being considered V/LA buuut ok with me either way!

I didn't meanintend for that post to be rude to you and I'm not sure what caused it to be taken that way, if it was the suggestion you abandoned the game I'm sorry, I made an assumption based on 3 days of absence, again was not my intention to do that to you

[catboi]

VOTE: Faustiv

I'll respond to stuff in postgame that feels relevant but kind of disappointed in myself this game, I wanted to set an example and I don't really think I did well in that regard.

[catboi]

I'm really frustrated and annoyed with myself for how Day 2 played out. I said I was going to re-read everyone in the game but I let faustiv's awful tunnel distract me. That's not to put any of the blame on him; while his read on me was bad and full of logical flaws I still reacted over-emotionally and let it cloud my judgment. I should have done better than that and I'm sorry for how I reacted. However, there's no use in moping over it now, there's still a game to be played. I've gone to the trouble of exhaustively re-reading every player overnight, like I should have done yesterday, and I figured out who the final scum. I've written up every player in detail in my notes and I'll present my conclusions in the following series of posts.

[catboi]

Fennec

's content in the game is limited, and I could certainly take issue with it as I did on Day 1. The performative cursing, the vague, hedgy reads, the fact he was unable to keep up with the game are all +scum behaviors in my eyes. His defense of Sterling as "town dumbass" makes my eyetwitch:

I only recognise Catboi, but as I haven't been on this site for long at all and half the players here are also new, that was kinda only expected to know 1-2 people.

Reads and bullshit like that
Everyone else not listed: Has done the equivalent of fuck all content, so reads = Basically impossible for them

Sterling - Possibly Town -

Doesn't give off scum vibes at all, just gives off

Town Dumbass

vibes. Still too early to call him specifically

Town

yet. (Your not a dumbass, but compared to everyone else, you'd be specifically the most clueless)

Kiri - Possibly Town -

Currently seems like a reasonable person. In general, voting my predecessor wasn't a shit move I'll give you that, but they didn't really send much besides that so still not giving me fully

Town

vibes. For now, I consider you as well, You can see the thing next to your name.

Maestro -

Can't read you currently,

but kinda confused on the whole,

Scum

pm thing. Faustiv, I don't agree nor disagree with your idea with this guy being

Town,

but would be nice to have a slightly bigger explanation of the

Supposed Townness

of that thing.

Catboi/Thynhith - I want to see more between these two. to me, this could be

TvT

but to me, it seems more likely that this is a

T

v

M

, but there needs to be more interaction to gauge this.

Oh and yes, I'm gonna continue to color shit as much as possible because why the fuck not

However, the fact that sterling was the ONLY person Fennec committed to a townread of strikes me as far more bold than newbie scum typically are. That on its own gives me a slight pause.

What gives me more pause is sterling's vote on Fennec:

seeing how kkirgiri who played mafia on other sites before, and judging how she was able to get a read very early, I guess she's more used to playing by reads rather than power roles, I'm inclined to believe her feels. as well as Cat having suspicions and groups being able to make better guesses than individuals VOTE: Fennec

I still personally have stronger suspicions on maestro but the group is stronger than the induvial

The rationale is weak and sheepy, following along with mine and kiri's logic. If I had to guess, I would say this is NOT a bus vote, and merely an opportunistic one on a competing wagon that Sterling saw as an easy target. I think the dynamic makes less sense if fennec were trying to defend sterling and sterling was bussing - more typically you see scum either both defend or both attack one another.

I don't have as much to comment on about

Wayward Son

, the issue is that it's much harder to get a read one someone when they're replacing in with only one scum left. I got slightly worried his posts were going with the flow and not adding much to the conversation but that was kind of how the whole day went yesterday.

I'd like Wayward to elaborate a little more on his reads but right now my leaning is that the vote from Sterling is not a vote on a partner.

[catboi]

ceejay is a troubling one because there are worlds where I

could

see his progression on Sterling as being on a partner: putting him as town initially and quietly moving him to a scumread without making too much noise about it.

However, looking again through his IS I think these post are critical:

Fennec isn't voting anybody? That's a bit unusual. It's starting to get late.

I sort of want to vote fennec but sterling is on the same wagon and I don't know how to feel about that...

VOTE: Sterling

Looking back on it now I feel like doing anything involving faustiv today is probably not a good idea.

Asking for votes on anyone who isn't Fennec/Sterling/ceejay seems like you're just committing for the votes to be split.

@catboi is it common in newbie games for town to fail to eliminate anyone in the first round? Just getting wary that we might be going down this road as it stands, we've not got anyone to E-1 so far, and only Fennec has faced E-2, and only for a few hours.

I've never seen it happen, and in theory we should do everything we can to avoid it. Usually any elim is better than none. Ceejay and Sterling are still my preferred elims for the day. I'll be interested if Fennec returns from inactivity just to hammer someone.

Well no one seems to be in hammer range for now. Truce and let's vote Sterling?

The vote here is a critical one, because ceejay avoids voting Fennec and puts Sterling at E-2, while trying to get more votes on Sterling, leading to sterling's fakeclaim. I think if they were scum together ceejay would be much more likely to try to push fennec as the counterwagon.

I don't think him doubting the claim is necessarily alignment indicative, if I squinted really hard I

could

see this as an instance of TMI/him being aware he claim would get countered and wanting to look good when it did.

I don't really like this claim btw. If he really is a PR I think he would have been more proactive to protect his role and I don't really feel like laying low is town cop behavior even if he's new.

However, I think his responses to being questioned by kkirigiri and me on his sterling read actually erad as incredibly genuine:

Fennec isn't voting anybody? That's a bit unusual. It's starting to get late.

I sort of want to vote fennec but sterling is on the same wagon and

I don't know how to feel about that

...

VOTE: Sterling

Looking back on it now I feel like doing anything involving faustiv today is probably not a good idea.

You say you don't know how to feel about it, yet you vote Sterling anyway, which suggests that you kinda do?

How sure are you that Sterling is scum, personally? I'm not trying to undermine you just for the sake of it, I still want to vote Sterling myself, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you had come to that conclusion independently and were more sure of yourself.

This will sound bad to you but I probably didn't scumread him as strongly as you do.

The way I play is mostly to collect townreads and help elim the rest, though sometimes if I'm reasonably sure someone could be mafia I try to push that.

ceejay's progression on sterling actually makes no sense, looking at it

It's weird but I'm not really seeing anything yet that catches my attention, except for faustiv who I have no idea how to sort.

catboi feels like town.
maestro feels like town but I wouldn't mind seeing more.

Kyouko hasn't really done anything yet except sit on her early read. Might check again later.
Sterling? idk could be town.

Rose and Thynhith disappeared.

Rockhopper didn't show.

I'd rather push Thynhith for now.

VOTE: Thynhith what do you think of the game so far?

oh, and on ceejay too - i literally forgot he was in the game when i was writing that post

I usually like this because there is less pressure on me but this almost feels weird.

I wasn't included in any reads lists so far and I haven't interacted with anybody either since Thynhith.

No complaints though.

out readlist

Probably town. idk I'm not good at mafia:

kkirigiri, catboi

in that weird state between "probably town" and "I don't want to elim these today":

maestro

I don't want to elim these today:

wingfan, Thynhith, fennec?

Everybody else:

faustiv, sterlingsteampunk

Fennec isn't voting anybody? That's a bit unusual. It's starting to get late.

I sort of want to vote fennec but sterling is on the same wagon and I don't know how to feel about that...

VOTE: Sterling

Looking back on it now I feel like doing anything involving faustiv today is probably not a good idea.

Like, I could maybe get the "idk could be town" on sterling early on degrading as time went on and other people have been doing more than him, but still go there and put a vote on him with no real explanation doesn't sit right with me.

One of my problems with him which made me hesitate to slot him as possibly towny was that his early posts feel like newb town to me but as the game progressed he got stuck in that state and I don't really see any motivation for him to participate or play or whatever.

It feels like something newbie mafia could do, lose motivation to play the game earnestly because they already know who's mafia.

Something like "this will sound badto you" feels genuine because scum are usually less willing to admit they know their reasoning sounds bad - they can make up any reason so they usually

try

not to sound bad. The explanation for his progression on his read and the decay of it also feels believable, I don't think it's impossible for scum to fake but he stands by his early read rather than shying away from it and feeling a need to distance himself from it which suggests not feeling guilty about it. Generally speaking when scum bus they try to take credit for it but ceejay's vote was so low-key that Im disinclined to believe it was a bus.

Now look here. If I'm mafia, the least I could have done yesterday is wait for a cc or something, and THEN hammer Sterling.

I would have at least wanted some info in exchange for a doomed partner or something.

Sure this certainly doesn't auto clear me, that's fine, but I just want to say I'm no dumbass and would certainly try to play optimally whenever I can.

I also think the fact that ceejay opened Day 2 saying he would have waited for a counter claim reads genuine - I think if as scum he was legitimately aware thyn had CC'd he wouldn't think to play ignorant about it, and the "I'm no dumbass" line carries a bit of personal pride to it that I think is less likely to come from scum in that situation but scum don't usually tend to brag about how they would have played better as scum.

I guess the other concerning thing is that sterling literally never so much as acknowledges ceejay's existence. Scum can do weird things sometimes though, that's a circumstantial point at best.

I wish I could say I'm super confident on this, I'm not, but I think ceejay's slot is more likely to be town than not. I might metadive him later to shore up the read when I have time but that could take a day or two.

[catboi]

I think there's basically no way

Maestro

is scum. Calling out his partner Sterling for slipping would be egregious play as scum, tunneling Sterling persistently the rest of the day would be outright gamethrowing aand I doubt he attempts such a risky play as scum in a newbie game. If he were intending to merely distance I don't believe he'd be so persistent in his callout of sterling, making posts like this:

seeing how kkirgiri who played mafia on other sites before, and judging how she was able to get a read very early, I guess she's more used to playing by reads rather than power roles, I'm inclined to believe her feels. as well as Cat having suspicions and groups being able to make better guesses than individuals VOTE: Fennec

I still personally have stronger suspicions on maestro but the group is stronger than the induvial

hoo boy this post, feels like ultra-sheep scum flying under the radar to anyone else? "The group is stronger than the individual but I have done no work to try to convince the group of my individual assertion that Maestro is Scum, so now I will just sheep somebody else who has been more nice to me than mean ol Maestro who is Scumreading me so I Scumread them back..."

like what

@ Faust you have to stop using the L word, I'm surprised mod hasn't warned on it yet tbh

I will post more when you all are more interesting, why the votes on Fennec? Maybe I missed something

Here he dosen't let his scumread of Sterling rest as it is and attacks a newer post he made, continuing to give him no space whatsoever. If Maestro were intending to merely distance I'd expect him to not be that loud about his read but he continued to aggressively pursue it and push others to vote Sterling. I would expect scum in this scenario would be more quiet and allow town to get distracted by other votes. For instance, he didn't have to intervene into me getting into a fight with faustiv if scum:

and bc of Catboi/Faust going at it like they did this page and last, POE says Sterling so c'mooooooooooooooooon Faust you have to know why I was going down on this and it's bc of the scumslip anymore

Even if I were to allow myself the paranoia that Maestro was making an aggressive play, I think Sterling's reaction to him is outright clearing:

when do you consider RVS to be over? because I'm just not as good at getting reads due to the way the game is played on amongus and Town of Salem so really I don't have a good reason to vote anyone, Also isn't it your job to help new players out? instead you just started a bandwagon on me due to a confusion, also what about my confused comments did you glanced that I had a private thread? because the player list haven't been updated when I first posted. you know, trying to start a bangwagon on a new and confused player is pretty sus to me therefore VOTE: Maestro

wait, though... actually follow me on this:

"I got a role PM with a name that isn't mine"

*votes that name*

e.g. Role PM received by Sterling, which they didn't realize was also theirs, or for their slot's predecessor, made them vote their predecessor's slot

Sterling got a scum role PM

VOTE: Sterling

here you accuse me of having a scum role PM, which if true would means I have a private thread, however thinking back was still in the RVS, so you'd be fogiven for, however since I don't have anyone better to vote I'm sticking with my vote

well my thought process is I'm used to playing in powerrole heavy games, where we get most of our info from claims, counter claims, and investigation reports, because in ToS there can only be one Jailor, so if two player claims jailor we know at least one of them is lying, also in Town of Salem we're told what role killed the player, eg. SK Mafia Vig Vet Jest ect. so really I'm used to the game mechanics to give use our information.

the reason I've latched onto Maestro is because I felt as if he's found an easy scapegoat in the new player and that's really the only read I got from this game

The immediate OMGUS and attacking maestro back for pushing him just isn't from a partner, ever. This is newb-scum getting frustrated at being caught. The only possible cause for concern I have with Maestro is that he seems to have fallen off a little bit after Day 1, but the explanation about being busy makes sense and I would

only

get paranoid if he continues to be not very active. I think Maestro being scum is a very unlikely scenario that's not worth considering.

[catboi]

I actually think

thewingfan

is really obviously scum here and it became apparent the moment I actually took the time to reread the game. Other people were townreading him for stubbornness, and I think ultimately tha's a mistake, because I think these are personality traits, rather than alignment tells. Reading players that way is a mistake. I've been fooled in other games by writing off pro-scum behavior and bad arguments as being tunneled town. It's not a good way to play the game because you're just relying on attitude and I think that style of play is not that hard to fake.

If you bother to look instead at what wingfan has

actually done

this game, his play is extremely scummy and there's basically no justification for it.

So I'm new to this site and all. But play ALL the time elsewhere on forums. This thing bugs me a bit.

"Think less when posting, nobody will get mad if you're slightly unclear, just answer questions and show genuine interest, but I will get annoyed by Day 2 if I can't get read on you just fyi"

Where I normally play, we have players who I can't read by D5 or D6. But then again a day lasts like 8 hours normally there. D2 seems a bit impatient to me?

So I'm new to this site and all. But play ALL the time elsewhere on forums. This thing bugs me a bit.

"Think less when posting, nobody will get mad if you're slightly unclear, just answer questions and show genuine interest, but I will get annoyed by Day 2 if I can't get read on you just fyi"

Where I normally play, we have players who I can't read by D5 or D6. But then again a day lasts like 8 hours normally there. D2 seems a bit impatient to me?

Just fyi, D1 is 10 days and every game-day hence is 7 real days. So games can drag on for a looong time (but tend to speed up when we have more info). By the time D2 starts I have a good read on maybe half the players.
Anyway, welcome to the game! Looking forward to hearing fresh thoughts

Thanks, but i don't know how much help I'm gonna be. Other than wrapping my head around a single day here, being as long as an entire game where I normally play at. I largely play with the same core group of folks over and over so kind of know how everyone plays so that's a challenge too. Add in trying to learn a whole new set of terminology. and my long time stance that D1 is for excrements and giggles.

Gonna be a STEEP learning curve.

wingfan opens the game by talking about playstyle things and pre-emptively making excuses for his play. I actually think this is really scummy, because it serves to enter the game by lowering xpectatins for his own play. I think this is more likely to come from scum because scum tend to be self-conscious about their inability to contribute to the game in a way townies aren't. By opening and painting imself as useless he has a built-in excuse for not contributing later on.

The reason I find this so unnatural is that somehow, talking about himself was the FIRST thing that came to mind for the wingfan - not trying to commont on any of the cases being made or make any reads. It doesn't ead like a natural thought process at all - think about it, when you replace into a game, what's the first thing you do? Try to catch up and comment on everything. That winfan chose to argue about stuff pertaining to his own playstyle betrays a lack of interest in solving the game.

Finally, when we do get content from him, it's this:

So I'm new to this site and all. But play ALL the time elsewhere on forums. This thing bugs me a bit.

"Think less when posting, nobody will get mad if you're slightly unclear, just answer questions and show genuine interest, but I will get annoyed by Day 2 if I can't get read on you just fyi"

Where I normally play, we have players who I can't read by D5 or D6. But then again a day lasts like 8 hours normally there. D2 seems a bit impatient to me?

Just fyi, D1 is 10 days and every game-day hence is 7 real days. So games can drag on for a looong time (but tend to speed up when we have more info). By the time D2 starts I have a good read on maybe half the players.
Anyway, welcome to the game! Looking forward to hearing fresh thoughts

Thanks, but i don't know how much help I'm gonna be. Other than wrapping my head around a single day here, being as long as an entire game where I normally play at. I largely play with the same core group of folks over and over so kind of know how everyone plays so that's a challenge too. Add in trying to learn a whole new set of terminology. and my long time stance that D1 is for excrements and giggles.

Gonna be a STEEP learning curve.

do you have any initial reads?

Apologies if this is a double post.... but I wanted to make sure this got answered and even though I hit submit and was told it did get posted.....I don't see it.

VOTE: Maestro

I don't like how quick he was to jump on Sterling for what looked to me to be newbie confusion. I could very well be projecting my own confusion on to Sterling but this forum system doesn't make any sense-yet

A fairly straightforward chainsaw defense of Sterling, attacking Maestro for pushing him. This is the kind of mistake I think inexperienced scum are more likely to make, attaching themselves to their partner too strongly and over-reacting to suspicion on them.

VOTE: Maestro

I don't like how quick he was to jump on Sterling for what looked to me to be newbie confusion. I could very well be projecting my own confusion on to Sterling but this forum system doesn't make any sense-yet

I think Sterling's continuation from when he was first voted by Maestro is more telling than Maestro's scumslip theory.

I haven't cleared ANYONE as 100% town. At home site it takes me 3 game days (72 hours) for me to get an idea on who's bad and who's town. Also remember this is with a core group of folks I know relatively well so.....might take me longer.

What I did read Sterling as was a confused newbie to this site that asked an unfortunate question in the forum instead of PMing the Mod.

He could well be bad, but its not something I would think to hang him over.

Right now I'm just trying to poke a hornets nest to see what comes out. Which is is my preferred tool when I have no idea what the heck to do.

As for others outside of wanting to hang people for making me figure out mathematical equations I've got nada.

Bolded line is a dead giveaway - he openly hedges on his read of sterling after getting called on it, going "well, he

could

be scum". This is a typical newb-scum blunder - he's attacking Maestro but won't commit to fully calling Sterling town because wingfan aware of Sterling's alignment and doesn't want to call him town. So wingfan gives an awkward half-defense but tries to leave himself an out with the possibility Sterling could be scum. He calls sterling "an unfortunate newbie" but never actually explains why that makes him more likely to be town than scum.

Yeah the time to vote me for "jumping on newbie confusion" as some kind of punishment is long past

If you're talking about my vote. Keep in mind please that I JUST GOT HERE. I don't mean it to be a punishment. It was the one thing from my skimming of eight pages of discussion that stuck out. No one has to agree, and I am likely to move as we go along.

Immediately starts making excuses for his vote. This is ++scum because he doesn't want to be held accountable for his own vote, he made a fairly serious vote but his immediate fallback is "I just got here". Als, desopite the game only being eight pages, he claims to have "skimmed" it, which is showing a lack of actually attempting to read the game seriously.

I like those analyses by faust, at the very least I feel like I can firm up my estimation of him as town.

@Thynith, ceejay, what are your reactions? Do you feel as if he's arguing in bad faith, or do you think he's town who is simply wrong about you?

I know this wasn't directed to me but I found my self nodding along to faust's reasoning also.


VOTE: ceejay

I find it intriguing that you go for ceejay specifically though, especially when you're basically announcing that you sheep his reads, and then not vote the person that faust is actually voting.

This was more to create a 3 way tie. I know its a bit early given we have what 4ish days left but I was interested to see how things shook out.

Then he makes a bad vote on ceejay, with his only reasoning being "to create a 3 way tie", with no actual rationale as to how this is supposed to be useful or what it's going to achieve. If you look at the vote count prior to that vote, it looked like this:

Spoiler:

VC 1.4

Mini scule

Mini scule is a species of microhylid frog endemic to Madagascar that was described in 2019. The scientific name of the species refers to its size, being a pun on the word miniscule. It is very small, measuring only 8.4 to 10.8 mm (0.33 to 0.43 in) in snout–vent length. It has bronze underparts with a brown groin and back of the thigh, cream upperparts with brown flecking, a dark brown side of the head, and a red iris. It is known only from the Sainte Luce Reserve, where it inhabits areas with deep leaf litter near semi-permanent water bodies. Specimens of frogs from Mandena, the Vohimena mountains, the southern Anosy Mountains, and Tsitongambarika may also be of this species. Like other species in the genus Mini, it received media attention when first described due to the wordplay in its scientific name.

votes

[2] Fennec

:

Thynhith, Sterling the steampunk

[2] Sterling the steampunk

:

Maestro, kkirigiri

[1] faüstiv

:

ceejayvinoya

[1] Thynhith

:

faüstiv

[1] Maestro

:

thewingfan

[1] ceejayvinoya

:

catboi

[1] Not Voting

:

Fennec

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to eliminate

The Day 1 deadline is in

: (expired on 2022-10-31 21:18:19)

Mod Notes

: Please be more mindful of this rule: "For many years, the word “lynch” was used to describe the person who was voted out by town in a mafia game. We no longer allow this word to be used."

What this looks like to me is wingfan attempting to create a viable counterwagon to Sterling but having nothign to back it up with. He could have voted anyone, however:

- people had just called out Sterling's vote on Fennec as being bad, and that wagon was unlikely to be successful because of that. faustiv was hard defending sterling, so wingfan wouldn't have pushed him. The maestro vote was clearly a flop. Despite claiming to like faustiv's analysis, he instead votes ceejay with me, andnot Thyn with faustiv. If he's aiming for a tie, why does he not vote with the person he likes? Best as I can figure, several other players had expressed suspicion of ceejay, while few were scumreading Thyn and the reception to faustiv's case on thyn had people not buyin it. If there was any chance to a viable counterwagon to sterling, ceejay was it.

Also this @wingfan. It really is curious that I got voted in place of Thynhith without mention as to why. Do I look worse than Thynhith? Is Thynhith townier than I am? Are you convinced were both mafia?

I just answered this in my post to kk. I found myself nodding with faust a lot, and after looking at the counts I wanted to see who moved where in a 3 way tie scenario.

Again, the "create a tie" excuse feels super hollow given wingfan NEVER actually revisits these votes and tries to analyze them at all.

Then when sterling makes his claim, wingfan very blatantly tries to deflect again:

I do want to hear from the people who haven't posted since the claim but I decided based on what thyn is saying I'm okay with taking the risky path and voting sterling today.

Sorry for my absence yesterday. Unexpected dryer drama-as in it broke and we spent the day finding a new one and getting it installed....

And today I need to dispose of about a gazillion leaves-color me excited....

At any rate. I'm caught up tp this point.

Couple thoughts as I get caught up.

1. I have the philosophy that we shouldn't hang the scouts. Granted I'm used to games with more people and more roles and stuff. I did see people asking Sterling who he scouted. Question-Since we are still in D1, Has he had an opportunity to scout?

2. kk's fakeclaim. They didn't and said they thought about it to try to see who jumped. They didn't do it. Last game at home site, someone actually did this and we didn't believe anyone would be brazen enough to do this, but they did and it worked. Had kk done this and we hanged Sterling, and Sterling were revealed to be the cop after all we'd have had a MASSIVE distraction on D2 if not a runaway train. I feel better that kk said that they just considered doing it, and didn't, but I've ticked a question mark there.

VOTE: Thrynhith

sheep me. this is scum.

Personal rule when someone you think is town stands on a table....follow.

VOTE: Thryn

Again this feels typical newbscum, trying to buy another day for their partner. While I don't necessarily think believing the claim is damning in and of itself, the attempting at discrediting kiri doesn't sit right with me at all because it's not actually attempting to read into her motivation, and is taking a mild statement of

considering

countering but not actually doing it and making it out to be more than it is, which is fairly ridiculous. We then get the

third

attempt from wingfan to protect sterling by voting on a counterwagon to him. Notably, there is basically no reason whatsoever that wingfan has ever given for his townread on faustiv - simply that "I like his analysis". This is another typical newbie-scm mistake. I think wingfan was simply seeing that faustiv's posts were long and that he was defending sterling and decided to buddy up to him. Noermally when a newbie gives some agreement to a player and townreads them they can explain

what

they like, but there's none of that here. The townread on faustiv isn't a real thought from wingfan, there's no depth to it whatsoever.

In addition to all that, I think sterling's interactions with wingfan are incredibly awkward and don't really make sense as scum/town dialogue:

welcome thewingfan, now before we start, are you mafia?

welcome thewingfan, now before we start, are you mafia?

Thanks I've already posted some. No I'm not a baddie, and I'm not all to interesting either. But then I don't think anyone would freely admit to being a baddie would they?

thewingfan, I like you already

thewingfan, I like you already

Give it time. Not that I'm unlikeable but I come from the school of Spenser.

And Spenser's Crimebusters Tipbook since when you don't know anything annoy someone.

This feels...robotic. It doesn't make sense as scum buddying up to a townie, because wingfan hadn't actually posted anything of substance. and wingfan feels like he doesn't know what to do with it, the comment about annoying someone feels like awkwardly trying to push sterling away a bit by acting tough in response. The thing about these interactions s: I don't get the sense wingfan is trying to solve stering at all. There's no curiosity to what he's doing, he's not questioning sterling or trying to figure anything out about him. There's no concern even at being asked such a useless question It really feels like wingfan already knows sterling's alignment and doesn't see a need to really talk to him at all.

Then, notably, after he's hammered, sterling posts this:

it looks a bit sus that faust and wing fan are trying to start a bandwagon together, like more sus than anything I've seen so far, VOTE: thewingfan

oh I've already been hammered, GG

This "I've already been hammered" comment reads INCREDIBLY fake. People had discussed that there was a hammer on that page. Sterling attempting to come in and attack one of the people voting him also makes absolute NO sense as scum trying to save himself. I think it's significantly more likely that sterling came in and pretended to not know he was hammered to do some last-minute distancing by fosing his partner. That kind of move is incredibly typical of newbscum, they think that by attacking their partner when they're near dying it will make their partner look better.

Then, we get to Day 2, and it opens up with the bitterness over a potential massclaim. I had written this off as being townie but I realize now this is more likely than anything a playstyle trait, and while I had thought his "I don't care if you hang me for it" attitude was towny, I now realize it can just as easily come from scum who is bitter at possibly losing to a method they see as 'unfair'.

I also thnk again wingfan's buddying up to faustiv is fairly blatant TMI in hindsight, he's unable to give a single coherent reason for faustiv being town:

The fact that Thynhith was the NK also adds another

Have you considered the possibility that he's not the baddie and whomever is killed Thryn as a framejob?

I mean he screamed up and down late D1 that Thryn was bad. Steampunk got hanged. If he's bad why the bleepity bleep would he go off and kill the player he wanted to hang?

Either he didn't kill Thryn or he'd have to have schemed out being able to point to that argument, which he hasn't.

his "framejob" defense is self-contradictory and nonsensical. His defense of faustiv yesterday was very clearly setting up to push me today using faustiv's own scumcase against me propping it up. wingfan has been unable to provide even a single shred of original thought or reasoning this game. This is what he gives about his possible scumreads yesterday:

Both wingfan and Wayward look like votebait and I hope I get answers to them before the phase is hammered.

Votebait?

I still don't think faust is bad.

catboi suggests that my suggestion that faust could have been framed by another baddie with a kill of Thryn doesn't make sense. As immature or childish as my play might be if I were the baddie its exactly what I would have done.


Chaos bringer remember?

Bad TWF kills of Thryn and hopes for a chaotic dayand hopes faust gets hanged and then kills off a target hoping to frame someone else and so on.

My leans for the baddie are catboi and ceejay.

No elaboraion, no reasoning at all. And conveniently, ceejay and I were the two players others had been suggesting as possible scum on that day. wingfan is only latching on to popular reads and not adding any meaningful analysis of his own. By his own words, this is how he described his own playstyle a few posts earlier:

Basically, we're not going to win this game through role claims, and I actually find the frustration that the suggestion we claim to be suspicious? It has a hint of scum salt at what he perceives as an unfair strategy.

Hang me for it then. Didn't care when I got hanged for it before. Don't now. It was an honest question about game philosophy on this site. If I can expect every game I enter to jump to role claims I have no interest in playing here.

I'm used to games that are much less formularic.

I prefer to get into the nuts and bolts of a game, figure out who's who through pressure and detective work.

Mass claims in my opinion always favor the town. Don't have to be town to consider winning unfairly to be not cool. If you don't mind games like that that's cool and all.

Also-I like chaos. Have a reputation for being chaotic, and mass role claims take chaos out of it.

tl;dr. I care less about winning than I do having fun and the game being fair.

Does it feel like wingfan has been playing the game through "pressure and detective work"? I don't think so. The most he's been able to give are lazy, half-assed reads that are sheeping others. He didn't try to pressure me, he simply complained about the site meta here and got defensive over it. He didn't try to pressure ceejay at all. He did nothing in the way of "detective work" or pressure on Day 1. I think the way wingfan describes his playstyle is

probably

true of his town game - but he's exhibited absolutely none of that here. wingfan is fairly blatantly not attempting to solve the game. He is obvious scum.

[catboi]

VOTE: thewingfan

[catboi]

I know that's a lot but I feel like I've been playing pretty terribly lately and it felt really important to me to be able to solve this game. I want to play better than I have been because I feel the duty of a SE in a newbie game should be providing an example to other players of how to play and I don't feel as though I've been living up to that. I want to show the absolute best I can play as town.

[catboi]

I don't appreciate the insults, but outside of that, other than calling it stupid and suggesting no one plays like that here, he's pushing very hard against this argument without a heck of a lot of substance.

Bear in mind, this is the full extent of wingfan's scumread on me. It is pure projection. I have provided more substance in a single post than he has all game. This is not a real scumread, this is not how a townie acts. He's purely setting up to blame me for misreading faustiv.

[catboi]

I don't appreciate the insults, but outside of that, other than calling it stupid and suggesting no one plays like that here, he's pushing very hard against this argument without a heck of a lot of substance.

Bear in mind, this is the full extent of wingfan's scumread on me. It is pure projection. I have provided more substance in a single post than he has all game. This is not a real scumread, this is not how a townie acts. He's purely setting up to blame me for misreading faustiv.

Or your argument of you've never seen a townie framed on this site is BS and its case of I'm right and he doth protest to much. As much as I want to get out of here hanging me while not the worst thing for the town, its not great either.

Let's be real, I'm the ONLY one to stand up for faust. If I was the baddie, why would I bother to do that?

You're very funny.

I have never seen scum kill someone who was scumread by another player in order to frame that player, across well over a hundred games of form mafia. Why would I lie about that? Sometimes frame kills happen because of the

reverse

- scum killing Player A, and then using it to push player B, who was player A's scumread. But not the opposite. It's illogical. And again, as I have repeated ad nauseam, thyn being the kill was for being a PR. All other possible motives are irrelevant.

Also, your appeal to emotion here is noted.

I HAVE seen, in dozens of games, scum defend a townie who was doomed and being tunneled on to try to look good the next day when they flipped town. It's called "white knighting". It's incredibly basic and obvious and I already dissected why your townread on faustiv was you blatantly buddying up to a townie who was wrong about literally everything.

[catboi]

Sorry for my absence yesterday, got very busy IRL and didn't have time for this game, will get to things now.

VOTE: Faustiv

I'll respond to stuff in postgame that feels relevant but kind of disappointed in myself this game, I wanted to set an example and I don't really think I did well in that regard.

gdi I actually can't decide if this post is from Scum or Town but it's 1 or the other catboi, you're either my ride-or-die or we're killing you today like this hammer is just amazingly confoundingly impossible for me to parse, BBT plz help I have been v/la

I dunno what qualms you have with it, I said I'd hammer, people asked me to hammer, I went ahead and did it, but if you have something you want to ask me about, shoot, I'm an open book. I don't particularly care if I get voted today, I'm fairly confident I found the last scum and the game's won regardless as long as people don't get stupid.

[catboi]

you're both so self-righteous, on reread I rly think it might be possible that catboi/TWF are TvTing here, let's all 3 drop some pressure on Fennec/ceejay's slots?

the true inactive beetches?

I bet Scum is newScum who left 3 SEs alive to WIFOM eachother to death after an early hot potato fuck up by their partner or that Scum is BBT/catboi laughing at me but either way fuck you, you know exactly how to get me invested in

outcomes

Welp for me to be bad you have to be willing to believe that from the outset that ALL of the following is true.

1. Sterling and I were partners.

-This is possible. I defended him. Not a good look for me.

2. Upon Sterling's death I then killed off Thryn despite following faust in voting for them.

-Also Possible, but I really don't know if doing so-or not is bad or good.

3. I then NOT ONLY left faust alive, but then stood on a table and said he wasn't the baddie and refused to vote for him. Even when you asked me to drop the hammer. You'd also have to believe that I went ahead and told you all what I was doing.

-This is where this theory falls apart in my mind. Because yes I would have absolutely left faust alive after the Thrynh kill. Know what I wouldn't do? Call attention to it.

If you really want to vote me for funsies go ahead. It'll just put me out of my misery. Won't help the town though.

Again, "why would I defend a townie as scum" is not a particularly compelling defense to me. Scum defend town all the time. The fact is I do not find your townread on faustiv to have been credible.

[catboi]

My apologies, we've been installing wood flooring (bamboo) in my youngest's house. We're almost done, but I'm so sore.

I made a post last night, right before Maestro's posts, but I left it i preview.

I really, really think both catboi and Maestro are Town. That leaves us with 3 slots.

thewingman is my best choice. If I'm wrong (this time), it's just gotta be BBT.

Be back later

@ catboi If you fail me (by being scum) everyone is gonna start voting my Town leans! jk

I thought you were considering the possibility it was me Day 2? What changed?

[catboi]

OH WWS and Fennec are also Rose's slot? I had no ideeeeea

VOTE: Wayward Son

catboi/TWF whichever is Town don't vote first but one of you should also vote lol (this request is a trap, yes)

My problem with the theory of wayward being scum is that I don't think Sterling's vote on Fennec looked like a bus vote, at all. Do you really think it could have been? The weak excuses he made for hopping that wagon just didn't scream newbscum distancing, normally they tend to have more confidence if they're pushing a bus.

[catboi]

I thought you were considering the possibility it was me Day 2? What changed?

A lot. I at first thought it was faüstiv with a slight chance of ceejay being scum. faüstiv made me doubt my Town read on you a bit.

I've decided you're Town, and I think Maestro is Town.

I have been fooled by high posting scum (Greeting), but I think I'm right this time.

IMO it's got to be thewingfan or BBT>

I'm more looking for

why

you changed your mind, this doesn't really tell me that.

[catboi]

BBT waiting room I guess

[catboi]

BBT just got here. I'm having real trouble picking apart the people who join mid game pot calling kettle since i did it, and since arely posted I can't get a read on them, and since they replaced someone who wasn't very active.

Just vote for me if you think I'm bad. Its fine, you're wrong but it is what it is. At least you haven't tried to talk down to me.

I'll keep trying to point out where you're wrong. Also it probably won't and shouldn't matter to you when I say be very careful trying to put me in a conventional box. I play a lot less conventional than most and I think that's what's got me more frustrated than anything here. That said what for some may be a baddie tell isn't exactly one for me.

You asked earlier why I was frustrated or unhappy or miserable I think the overarching answer is. I get the sense that those who deign to play an unconventional type game are severely punished for it. I also recall having the same problem in my first few games at the home site. THe difference is of course as i kept playing because i was playing wit hthe same people they began to realize that they have to read me differently.

A site like this because i'll be playing with people I don't know everytime. I just am afraid that every time this is going to happen.

Again, I have to say: you're making statements about your play that don't match up with how you've actually acted this game. You say your play is "unconventional", but other than disliking the idea of a mass claim everything you've done is solidly conventional. You say you figure people out through pressure and "detective work", but you've done absolutely none of that. You've mostly been a lump who's made occasional passing comments and sheeped others.

[catboi]

I've read 6 pages and we can honestly just elim Wayward and win the game, no?

*sigh*

I want to see you draw your own conclusions rather than spoonfeeding them but I don't agree with this. Maybe we can talk about it when you've fully caught up.

[catboi]

Uhh...did you mean to type something there and forget to?

[catboi]

I'm more looking for why you changed your mind, this doesn't really tell me that.

Surely you've read the exchange, it was only faüstiv's posts that made me doubt your Townieness.

I'm signing on and I'll be here for a few. Tomorrow is Veteran's Day and I'll be V/LA.

I'm catching up, but I think the voting pool should be us three. BBT, thewingfan and me.

Okay but, uh, faustiv flipped town so I don't know why that would remove the doubt...?

[catboi]

I'd rather push Thynhith for now.

This whole post reminds me of posts I've made as scum. Notice the quoted.

Gut feeling is I should probably look into faustiv more but I don't really feel like doing that yet.

Does a Townie ever say this?

Another gut feeling is that your entrance felt rather awkward but looking back on it I think this is just how you post.

Or this.

Woah thereee. It's annoying to see that instead of reasoning something out so he could see where you're coming from, you indirectly try to get other people involved to dodge the problem. Also nothing to say on fennec here?

I think this was an attempt to pour gas on a fire. He wanted faüstiv to be suspected.

...It's not right but I actually like it. I'm annoyed that it makes sense if you look at this game from maybe his point of view.

I'm more and more convinced this is scum. I know BBT can't answer for any of this, but I think his slot is scum.

I have too many tabs open, I'm going to close them all and start again.

I'll say that while I don't especially like those posts I'm not really sure that stuff is all that damning and indicative of scum intent rather than being awkward/lazy. Like, I can see what you're saying about this stuff I just think it relies a bit too unfavorable interpretations of things he said, I can see why a townie might make that post toward faustiv, for instance. Really one of those cases where it might be helpful to do that meta dive I've been putting off.

[catboi]

I… don’t know what to say to you TWF but yeah, BBT I’ve had my eye on that post for forever don’t worry. But now I’m worried it’s youuuuuuuuuu bc you didn’t have to do shiiiiiiit this game just let other ppl be shittier

It's really not me. I'll contribute more soon, now that I have some time this weekend, but that post was pretty awful.

And with that I'm done. Mod can find someone new. I'm tired of this. Peace out folks.

I assume you're probably gone but I just want to say I'm sorry for coming across as demeaning toward you on Day 2, that wasn't really appropriate.

(However, my stuff today is purely because I think you're scum. Exactly none of it is personal.)

[catboi]

I have some errands to run, I'll get to the rest of the posts later.

[catboi]

Uhh...did you mean to type something there and forget to?

I replied twice and it said My message was successful. So I have no idea why it didn't go through...

YOu don't get to have it both ways. Either my therory about faust being left alive so they can be framed and thus hanged the next day is bupkus because according to oyu its never been done here (read unconventional at least for this site), or its not.

But what I will say is I'm about done replying to you. Its not worth the blood pressure meds.

fwiw none of this actually convinces me his slot was town, he's completely evading my actual point that his play was passive and sheeping and displayed none of the qualities he supposedly had

like I'm super sorry to the new replacement but posts like this scream salty scum to me

[catboi]

I can see the idea behind WS/BBT being wildcard slots that would be difficult to sort between but I haven't seen good reason to think wingfan was town where the other two had at least

some

things going for them

[catboi]

I only recognise Catboi, but as I haven't been on this site for long at all and half the players here are also new, that was kinda only expected to know 1-2 people.

Reads and bullshit like that
Everyone else not listed: Has done the equivalent of fuck all content, so reads = Basically impossible for them

Sterling - Possibly Town -

Doesn't give off scum vibes at all, just gives off

Town Dumbass

vibes. Still too early to call him specifically

Town

yet. (Your not a dumbass, but compared to everyone else, you'd be specifically the most clueless)

Kiri - Possibly Town -

Currently seems like a reasonable person. In general, voting my predecessor wasn't a shit move I'll give you that, but they didn't really send much besides that so still not giving me fully

Town

vibes. For now, I consider you as well, You can see the thing next to your name.

Maestro -

Can't read you currently,

but kinda confused on the whole,

Scum

pm thing. Faustiv, I don't agree nor disagree with your idea with this guy being

Town,

but would be nice to have a slightly bigger explanation of the

Supposed Townness

of that thing.

Catboi/Thynhith - I want to see more between these two. to me, this could be

TvT

but to me, it seems more likely that this is a

T

v

M

, but there needs to be more interaction to gauge this.

Oh and yes, I'm gonna continue to color shit as much as possible because why the fuck not

Everybody read this post, knowing what you now, and tell me this slot is town.

Couple of things to note; Read on Sterling is 'possible town' however they 'don't give off any scum vibes at all.' This doesn't gel, Fennec didn't want to call his buddy outright town because his play had been horrific to that point but he wanted to call him town enough that he a) didn't have to push him and b) could try and alleviate some pressure.

Additionally, there is the appeasement of Kkiri. I feel like Kkiri had their finger on the pulse of the game and I liked their early posting. 135 is a beauty. 136 isn't bad either. It's also relevant that the first two reads Fennec thought about explaining were these two.

I admit I don't like that post and didn't like it at the time before Fennec flipped. But if your worst point against fennec is "townread the flipped scum" then that applies to other players, and they can't all be scum. I still think a newb-scum townreading only their partner is more bold than I'd expect. And there's also this post to account for:

seeing how kkirgiri who played mafia on other sites before, and judging how she was able to get a read very early, I guess she's more used to playing by reads rather than power roles, I'm inclined to believe her feels. as well as Cat having suspicions and groups being able to make better guesses than individuals VOTE: Fennec

I still personally have stronger suspicions on maestro but the group is stronger than the induvial

Yes, scum can bus. But that doesn't look like a bus to me. It's so wormy and underhanded in trying to find excuses to vote Fennec, leaning on the reasoning from kiri and me rather than adding anything of his own. No one has given me good reason to think it could be a bus.

Additionally, is that literally all you have to add by now? Have you read any more of the game past the first 6 pages?

[catboi]

I really didn't understand thewingfan's reason for leaving. I hope he follows the game, and maybe we'll see him again.

I'm still hard Town reading catboi, and I feel if Maestro's scum we're sunk.

@ catboi Because there's only one scum and I don't think you're it.

I'll be here for a few.

sigh

I was hoping for more elaboration than that but but it feels like I'm not going to get it. I meant - why did you think I might be scum when faustiv is posting about me, but not now? He's dead and flipped town and now you're not considering what he said?


(I don't think wingfan is coming back, I think I came across a bit too rude to him personally)

[catboi]

I explained what my point was and it definitely wasn't just that? It's not the town read on flipped scum that's the problem, it's the wording of it. It's also the fact that it's the very first read he chooses to focus on which indicates it was potentially an important read for him, perhaps even subconsciously. I obviously can't ask Fennec this now, but how did he differentiate between town dumbass and scum dumbass? It doesn't make sense and the first part of the read is worded quite strongly for a read he didn't seem ready to commit to.

I'm oversimplifying but I'm not really sure this stuff is that compelling to me? Like, scum finding it more important to give a read on their partner first isn't really a thing in my observation, and it feels significantly more likely that he felt giving a read on sterling was important when sterling had been the main object of focus? the point about the wording is fair enough I suppose, I disliked the wording of that whole list, but I dunno, it's one post. I don't think it's a smoking gun is what I'm trying to say.

[catboi]

the way catboi has handled day 2 and 3 are just so scummy to me

to be specific here's what I latched on to:
1. faust argues catboi is scum in 543
2. faust and catboi go back and forth over day 2
3. faust is limmed and flips town, kiri is NKed
4. day 3 starts, catboi mentions they reread and they lay out their thoughts, coming to the conclusion that my slot is the likeliest scum

the main issue I have with this is that it feels to me like catboi comes in at the start of day 3 trying to control the conversation, which is exactly what they need to do at this point in order to win as scum
i think after 543 scum!catboi has to push faust, as catboi somewhat mentions in 745 it generally looks somewhat scummy to defend town with bad reasoning and imo it looks even worse in this case when there are multiple obvious townies pushing for faust's lim

while 718 may be true I think it regardless is a good excuse for scum!catboi to change their reads from d2 and hard push a slot today
the next few posts are the important ones, kiri had imo been controlling a lot of the conversation in d2 and with her gone, catboi is able to come in and focus the topic of today on my slot rather than necessarily on what happened yesterday, which I think is beneficial to scum!catboi; suspicion, i think, naturally falls on catboi for their conduct in d2 and by making these posts so quickly after d3 scum!catboi is able to get ahead of some of that

again i still have some major qualms about reading catboi's slot as scum but this is my thought process, which is why i'm currently conflicted on the slot

I think what you've laid out here is a plausible explanation for why my play

could

make sense as scum but the thinking is flawed. The problem is it comes

only

looking at whether my play makes sense as being from scum and not whether it can come from town, and judge which is more likely. I think if you try to approach games from the angle of "whose play makes sense as scum" you're going to end up with a lot of false positives. It's very easy to convince yourself someone's play

could

make sense as scum - nothing is ever really truly certain that way in games, and everything can seem possible, even the most far-out scenario. And looking at things from that perspective means more often than not you'll convince yourself of an incorrect case.

So wht I have to ask is, why does my opening today look like an attempt to "control the narrative" as scum, rather than being analysis from a town POV?

[catboi]

I wish that, like, one of WS or BBT would actually town it up because then I'd feel like the game was locked but the actual play this day has only made me less confident on both of them

please give me something to work with here because this game really should be a lock

[catboi]

I haven't read a word. My son's car got stolen while were at the concert. Been a BAD night. We confirmed with the police, it was stolen. With more than $1000 in well used tools for his trade.

I may be on later, but Daniel (my oldest, wants a little emphathy) and I really don't blame him.

This is all fluff, but unfortunately true.

wow I'm sorry man that's awful, you have my sympathies

[catboi]

I think what you've laid out here is a plausible explanation for why my play could make sense as scum but the thinking is flawed. The problem is it comes only looking at whether my play makes sense as being from scum and not whether it can come from town, and judge which is more likely. I think if you try to approach games from the angle of "whose play makes sense as scum" you're going to end up with a lot of false positives. It's very easy to convince yourself someone's play could make sense as scum - nothing is ever really truly certain that way in games, and everything can seem possible, even the most far-out scenario. And looking at things from that perspective means more often than not you'll convince yourself of an incorrect case.

So wht I have to ask is, why does my opening today look like an attempt to "control the narrative" as scum, rather than being analysis from a town POV?

To be honest (and I realize that term alone is a scum tell in some Towns) about the only thing even remotely making me doubt my Town read on you is the way you've been trying to make me come up with a reason for Town reading you. I've seen this before in play and I'm pretty sure I've said similar myself (as scum).

I still think you're Town, and after rereading Tapiocaphobe's posts (the new girl ), I don't see me switching votes anywhere in the near future.

I get the feeling Maestro knows BBT.
@ Maestro Do you think BBT is playing his Town game?

That post wasn't even addressed to you, but -

I'm not trying to make you come up with a reason for town reading me, I'm trying to

understand your thought process

. This is one of the most fundamental aspects of scumhunting. Anyone can give any sort of read, faking

reads

isn't particularly hard to do. What is hard is faking

reasoning

. And so what I like to do in games is to question people and try to get them to explain their reads. Obviously I know I'm town, that's not interesting to me. But I want to see if your explanation for the read makes sense or if it sounds like something you just made up.

The reason I get a little ~concerned~ is you seemed to be angling toward the possibility of voting me yesterday when there was pressure on me and suddenly today when I'm not a potential elim you go "whoop he's town never mind" and that sets off a little flag for me because I was honestly expecting more followthrough from you. The fact that it didn't happen leads me to go - wait, was he suspecting me for real? Or was that a convenient read when I was a potential wagon, and now I'm not so he gave it up? I get paranoid about stuff like that.

[catboi]

I wish that, like, one of WS or BBT would actually town it up because then I'd feel like the game was locked but the actual play this day has only made me less confident on both of them

please give me something to work with here because this game really should be a lock

I have.

I've literally told you who is scum

Can you pick out a single Fennec post that looks town?

I admit, I haven't looked at WS in any proper detail but it really doesn't feel like I need to.

............................


we've been here a week and this is all you have to offer?

[catboi]

I wish I hadn't typed up all that stuff about being sure it was wingfan at the start of the day because now my confidence is shot. tapioca has been

fine

and BBT looks like he just isn't trying to find scum at all, just go after the most convenient target he can.

entirely possible I made a fool of myself rage-tunneling a newbie again over a playstyle clash, which I feel...really terrible about. Like, I always say I want to do better in these games and be more helopful and I just keep falling into the same bad habits. I feel like I need a vacation.

[catboi]

We have 9 hours to deadline. If anyone has any further input please speak up now. I do want to hear from Maestro again before ending the day.

[catboi]

I have to leave and I'm not sure I'll be back before deadline, not risking a no elim so I'm voting now. fingers crossed.

VOTE: BBT

[catboi]

*sigh*


I really, really, really hate being in F3.

[catboi]

Immediate gut feeling snap take is that I'm alive and maestro's dead because maestro thought it could be WS and I was defending his slot.

that is a very simplistic take but a lot of the time in ELO I overcomplicate things for myself and choose wrong as a result.

I'm in no rush, though, I'm going to reread first.

[catboi]

*sigh*


I really, really, really hate being in F3.

yeah

I have a history with 3p ELO, and it is not a good one, usually

[catboi]

I'm sorry, I was too busy to get to this yesterday, will do so soon but I have to sleep first

[catboi]

its definitely ws now

I've been going over Day 1 and

if

catboi's play was scum theater, it was very convincing.

Tapiocaphobe had a case on catboi in 818 with catboi's rebuttal in 825.

All three of us have been 100% wrong on our limms. This is my first lim-lo in forum Mafia in about a decade. I'm not sure what to do. I know I'm Town, but I've been wrong every lim this game.

I think I know who I'm leaning towards, but the Day's still early.

angling towards the possibility of me SRing catboi to keep options open

It looks like it's gonna come down to catboi. Right or wrong I just don't see me voting for them.

Tapiocaphobe seems to have been WKing and setting up who made it into lim-lo Today.

@ Tapiocaphobe If you're Town, we both got it wrong again

immediately retracts and says I'm scum after I say its probably him

My gut feeling is that Tapiocaphobe kept me around hoping to convince me to vote you. My tinfoil.

weird assertion that doesn't really hold up to any scrutiny, i think the idea behind this post is to imply he's town for being alive

I feel like your interpretation of those first two posts is reaching here, I don't really see that stuff as damning, I think he made his intentions clear.

I also, as a rule, don't put much weight on posts actually made during F3 because my belief is the most important evidence is on the prior days. This might be a problem given both of you replaced players who were not especially high volume but I'll try regardless.

[catboi]

I procrastinated actually rereading this game by meta diving WS. Reads tend to be understated as either alignment, but shows more active suspicion as town I get a little more sense of thought process in games like newbie 2100 and Mini Normal 2280. I can see in those games asking people questions to sort them, providing actual reasoning for suspicions. Was more hesitant with his reads in Newbie 2103, a lot less willing to push on people, spends a lot of his time trying to buddy up to people. Got caught off being wishy-washy and making a bad vote. That kind of feels like how he mostly seemed to go along with the popular suspicion in this game and didn't have a lot in the way of his own thoughts.


There's another thing but I can't talk about it right now.

[catboi]

went to check tapiocaphobe's only completed game and saw she had 13 posts in it which is definitely not something I would confidently base a meta read on, surface level glance does seem similarish though to the extent that it's not ringing glaring alarm bells of play being wildly different

[catboi]

I unfortunately thought I was right every Day in this game. That's why I didn't spend nearly as much time as I should have in investigating other slots. Live and learn.

Okay

, but that doesn't do anything for me - like, why should I be seeing you as town here?

[catboi]

Okay, this is what I was waiting for: the large normal fennec briefly played in is over. His slot in that game was town, and I feel like there's a massive disparity in terms of his pay between that game and this one - he was able to give reads that actually

made sense

in that one whereas here he struggled to put together a coherent sentence.

[catboi]

@ catboi I agree that Fennec's posts in this game looked bad, yet he was Town.

I think that if Maestro would have came into Today, Tapiocaphobe would have been able to convince me to vote him. It might work out for her anyway.

I'm gonna be really busy for the next several days. Apologies for blowing this game for Town.

please if you're town give me something here and not just this

[catboi]

sorry didn't have time to get to this because of the holiday, will do so tomorrow

[catboi]

Acknowledging the votes, I'm town.

[catboi]

VOTE: Tapioca

My head says to vote WS but my gut tells me it's wrong so

[catboi]

[catboi]

first of all congrats to steampunk and catboi. both played relatively well and deserved the win.

secondly, i played like trash this game and i apologise for that. usually i'm a better player but i think rustiness+getting too emotionally involved in this game cost me, especially d2. also apologies if i rubbed anyone up the wrong way etc. i don't think i learned anything from this game but this game reminded me about certain elements of mafia that i'd forgotten, such as being too obstinate towards what were loose theories and attaching myself to said theories because they made sense in my head (which happened especially on d1).

thirdly, commiserations to town. no individual player played badly, but as a collective i think we all made errors and it's what led to catboi eventually soloing the game after steampunk was L'ed d1. i was a bit disappointed with the general activity d3 onwards, felt town were playing a bit lethargic and weren't really pressuring slots but as i say, we all made errors and significant errors were also made d1 and d2 so don't think i'm trying to absolve blame from myself by saying that.

fourthly, thanks for modding dannflor and datisi.

fifthly, would be open to playing with anyone in here again at some point.

For what it's worth I don't think you were awful - you had a correct read on me, and I think your process of elimination for settling on me was more or less solid in terms of your thinking. The issue was that your reasoning for casing me was shaky, and I did what most experienced scum players do, which is pick your logic and debate you endlessly and turn the argument into a slog. Most players will tune out that arguing after a while, and unfortunately you were getting tunneled by a lot of the thread for being wrong on Sterling on Day 1. You gave me a good fight though and it was about one of the only times in the game I was strongly motivated.

I think in a playerlist where more people are familiar with my meta I basically never get away with burying you that way.

[catboi]

Good Game! I think I learned a thing or two. This is the second time I've been fooled by high posting scum. But that is what makes me want to try again (and again). I guess I might be an easy mark?? I'll keep working on getting it right.

Meat World threw me a lot of curve balls this game.

catboi's insistence on me giving him a reason to Town read him was my main (only) reason I doubted him. Sterling and catboi deservered this win (IMO).

FWIW that element of my game was more or less attempting to channel my townplay in that if I find someone giving a townread I find suspect I will press them for their reasoning on it. But I've been doing this for a long time so I'm decen at appearing 'conventionally townie', so to speak.

[catboi]

Yeah, apologies @Tapioca for not outing my reads at the end of Day 2, I kind of expected catboi to kill Maestro and not me on N2 if he were scum.
Not sure who I'd have ended up voting on Day 3, suppose that will forver remain unknown.

Well done to catboi for doing his best to get out of a sticky situation, can't begrudge him the victory too much, even if it's a painful one from my perspective to lose.

I chose to kill you because from my perspective you were significantly more involved in the game and actively scumhunting and were a bigger threat to re-evaluate. beyond that, when you died activity in the game tanked which made it significantly easier for me.

[catboi]

Anyway, nice playing with you all, this was really a challenging game for me at the start but I'm a pretty determined scum player


unfortunately right now I'm kind of fatigued when it comes to playing mafia (the game, not the alignment), and I really felt it here. Will probably be a while before I /in to any new games.