Newbie 1,276 (Game over!)

[nhammen]

Hello, I am the IC for this game. This is the first time I have ever been an IC, but I hope to teach you all the basics of the way we play the game of Mafia on this site. For those of you who have played this game on other sites, you may have noticed the 21 day deadline for Day 1. On this site we tend to have much longer day phases than on other sites. We are more focused on logical arguments and such than other sites tend to be.

For those of you who are new here, you should check out this site's wiki. It explains many things that you may need to know. If you have any other questions, or want clarifications on anything, or want to know the meaning of any acronym you see, all you have to do is ask me.

There are a few mistakes I often see newer players make, and so I would like to point them out to you ahead of time so that you do not make these mistakes.

1. Do not hammer a player without giving that player a chance to claim.
   
2. Do not hammer yourself as town. All this does is remove a player that you know to be town from the game. In fact, it is almost always a bad idea to vote for yourself at all. There should be no reasons to do this in a newbie game.
   
3. Do not lie about your role. Although you may think tricking the scum is a good idea, you are also tricking the rest of the town, and this will almost always hurt the town more than it hurts the scum, if it even hurts the scum at all.

It is also a good idea to let the town know if you cast the L-1 vote on any player, so that hammers do not accidentally occur.

[nhammen]

The start of any game is characterized by a lack of information for the town. Because of this lack of information, you may be tempted to not vote. However, this just means that you will still have a lack of information. At this stage of the game, the town's behavior should be focused on finding information. However, any behavior (other than not voting) that town makes has some inherent randomness to it, due to this lack of information. This is why we end up with random votes or random questions. However, there are ways to gain information faster. This thread describes some of the theory behind this, for those that want to know more. The main point is that, even while random voting, members of the town should always be thinking about how their actions can A) determine who is scum and who is not, and B) get more information for the town, so as to move the game out of RVS faster.

On that note:
VOTE: MissMaggot
I believe that a small early wagon is a good way to A) get a reaction that will help to determine an alignment and B) generate discussion to move us out of the RVS.

Hi everyone! This is my third game in the forums and ever since my first game here,
I became fond of the Random Questioning Stage. It is a way for people to talk more
about substantial things than voting people randomly. So here goes...

1. What made you decide to join Mafiascum?
2. Do you have any experience in playing the game? As Mafia?
3. How do you react to people attacking you?

Although random questions can work to move the game out of RVS, they are usually done in a way that does not actually achieve anything. For random questions to move the game out of RVS, the questions have to be questions that players might answer differently based upon their alignment. Otherwise, everyone will just answer the questions, and then once that is done, you end up back where you started with no information. These questions seem to be ones that players will answer the same way independently of alignment, so this wouldn't really help to move the game along. An example of random questions that might help to move the game along are:

• Cheery Dog, did you intentionally choose to place your random vote on a player that had no votes, rather than MissMaggot, who did have a vote on her? If so, why?
  
• Nekoko, were you paying attention to the other votes that had been laid down when you made your random vote?
  
• Nekoko, why did you feel the need to create a second post to explain your random vote?

However, to answer your questions:

1. I joined 3 years ago, so my memory isn't clear on the reasons. I think it was because I had seen the game on another forum (xkcd?) and then decided to join a site dedicated to the game.
   
2. Yes, I have played about 20 or 30 game on this site. If you want to see details, they are in the wiki-link you can see below my avatar.
   
3. That depends on whether I feel the attacks are valid or not. In general I tend to defend myself well, but if I feel I am being attacked irrationally, or if my defenses are not being listened to, I tend to get very frustrated.

[nhammen]

Vote: Wiibox3

I told you that vote would carry over into every game you ever play for the rest of forever. xP

I'm skipping entry questions, as the IC in my last game made it quite clear that it is harmful at worst and useless at best.

This post was written while I was writing that large post of mine, and I chose not to respond to it in that post. Note, I still like my vote to be on MissMaggot, even though there is another player with two votes now, because I am hoping that this will generate two competing wagons that will help to determine who is scum in later days. However, I did think about changing that vote to be a vote on Wii, before deciding not to.

Also, yes, entry questions do tend to have no effect, as I explained in my previous post. But that is not necessarily due to the fact that questions in general are bad, but more due to the fact that the specific questions that are usually asked are almost always bad. Also, the theory on the subject of random questions is not universally agreed upon. Just for curiosity's sake, I would like a link to this previous game you mention, so that I can see his arguments against random questions.

[nhammen]

Also, MissMaggot, when you made your vote on Wii, did you notice that there was already a vote on him? If so, did this factor into your decision to make your random vote on him?

[nhammen]

Both Wiibox and Paschendale are slightly scummy (but it is very slight) because they avoided voting for the competing wagons after I said that the competing wagons would help us find scum. Additionally MissMaggot's reactions are every transparent, so I give her major townpoints. CheeryDog asked a very relevant question which gives minor townpoints.
UNVOTE: MissMaggot
Now, the competing wagons are Wiibox and Nekoko. I could decide between one of these, or place my vote on Paschendale. However, my descision is made much easier by the following:

I didn't want to look all OMGUS. lol. Since it's random voting time I chose Nekoko.

In general, scum are more concerned with how they appear than town. This could quite easily be scum-motivated.

Anyone interested in adding more flavor, while we get to know eachother?
1. Are you a true Roman or did you move to Rome from one of the Provinces?
2. Which god does your family lay tribute to?

1. I was born in Rome, but my family is from the province. We came to Rome as traders and settled down when my father saw there was a need for mason work. I have been working stone since I was a young boy. My son will also follow in my footsteps.
2. Every fortnight we pay tribute to Volcanus the god of masons. He looks over us and makes sure our hard work brings us prosperity.

This post is entirely fluff.
VOTE: Wiibox

[nhammen]

I feel that the current Pasch and Neko interaction is a bit too scripted for my liking.

And trying to start up competing wagons right off the bat to distance yourself from someone, and claiming that it's all based on a past game isn't?

To be fair, I was the one that started the competing wagons.

Not sure how competing wagons could tell us much at this point. And since one of the wagons was for me and the other one was for a person that voted for me, it didn't make sense to vote for either at this point.

Competing wagons now tell us a lot later.

You point about me saying I didn't want to make an OMGUS vote could be scum motivated. Sure but you probably would have said the same thing had I voted for MM, so... What's your point?

No I wouldn't have. The reason it seems scum motivated is because your reason for not voting MissMaggot was to avoid the attention that comes from OMGUS. Scum want to avoid attention more than town.

Also, why are you uninterested into playing into the flavor of the game? If it's fluff, then you should call out the Mod for adding flavor in the first place.

Flavor isn't a problem. Flavor instead of content is. Asking other players to join in giving flavor instead of content is a BIG problem. There is a thread in the Mafia Discussion forum talking about roleplaying if you want more information. But remember that you cannot post about this game there until this game ends.

At the moment my top scumreads are Wii and Nekoko, far and away. Wii's fluff post seems particularly scummy - it fell right after pressure started to come onto him. Additionally, this post seems too defensive:

I didn't want to look all OMGUS. lol. Since it's random voting time I chose Nekoko.

Nekoko's uneccessary explanation for her random vote is in the same vein.

Neither Nekoko nor Wii supported wagons, which are essential to early play.

I understand this is a newbie game, but these seem like newbie mistakes, so it makes sense.

Maggot seems town to me, her response to a wagon forming on her (albeit a small one) was good, so I'm moving my vote.

UNVOTE: Maggot
VOTE: Nekoko

Your scumreads just happen to match the two people with random wagons on them? Seems a little bit scummy. But not much yet. Why choose Nekoko over Wiibox?

Your argument doesn't make sense.

I did exactly the same thing in the last game

Well, this is either town, or you are scum intentionally faking your town meta. However it does reveal that Paschen's case on you is null.

[nhammen]

Well im late. Seems 2 good places to put my vote, both ill have an explaination for...

IC bw, just for being an IC. IC makes good town, but much better scum!

RQS starter bw.
RQS-RANDOM QUESTIONING STAGE
RQS can help the maf in more ways than are obvious.
1.Questions on playstyle for one: maf might look at their answer, maybe find something off from how they are playing? People play different with different roles. Maf might sniff out a power role!
2.Answers containing accidental softclaims:
Not often, but ive seen RQS with an unintentional softclaim, then the maf killed them. Doctor died that way.

Out of these BW's, i go with 2.

Vote: Nekoko

THIS IS AN L-1 VOTE.
if i counted right.

The IC bandwagon idea is dumb, but not scummy. There are two reasons. One is it is premature. You should wait until there is at least some indication I am scum. Without no such indication, this would be equivalent to a random lynch, and then on D2 you would be in the same situation with no information. Two is that a town IC can be quite helpful, and an IC, by simple probability, is more likely to be town.

Your other idea for a wagon is also bad, because it has been established that this is Nekoko's town meta. Now this could be faked, but it does mean that it cannot be used as a scumtell. But, I agree that there are multiple reasons why it can be bad play. However, I prefer to find scum rather than bad play.

RQS is fucking idiotic.

Do you believe idiotic=scummy?

[nhammen]

McLucien18 hasn't even posted in thread yet. He confirmed but never posted. He should be getting a prod in 6 hours if this continues.

[nhammen]

Careful there. Everyone here has the same probability as to be town as you are.
But yeah both of venrob's case doesn't make sense.

Sorry, my logic wasn't properly stated. I was arguing against his logic, which was that an IC as scum is really bad. I was just saying that one reason this is dumb, is because it completely discounts an IC as town.

Honestly after rereading wiibox, it seems like he's just an inexperienced player, not necessarily scum. His RV in post 16 contains a vote-tag mistake, and his desire to implement flavor seems more genuine in an iso-read. His very first post plays into the flavor of the game as well. As a new player I can understand how he'd think players would pay more attention to flavor when it's really just something fun for the mod in a normal game like this one.

UNVOTE:

Ummm... Did you forget who you were voting for? Also, you seem to have forgotten to answer my question about why you chose the person you voted for.

Town: Cheery dog, Maggot,
Null: wii, nhammen, McLucien
Scum: Pasch, venrob, nekoko

You seem to have good logical reasoning behind this, so I wont argue with that, but I will say that the fact that your reads changed so that they yet again match with the current wagons strikes me as suspicious.

There was no night 0 phase in this game. There is literally no way that scum could have scripted an interaction without cheating. Her allegation is 100% impossible to be correct. Since the role PMs went out for this game, no one should have been talking about it outside this thread.

Mod: Could you tell us whether the scum were allowed to communicate during confirmation phase?

Don't be fooled, Wiibox. 2 of the 3 votes on me are nothing more than OMGUS.

I disagree with this. They see to feel their reasons are legitimate. However, I disagree with their reasons as well.

[nhammen]

Oh, right.
UNVOTE:
VOTE: ewo

[nhammen]

I'm honestly confused as to why everyone has stopped discussing Venrob

In my experience, idiotic usually means town.

[nhammen]

Mod: please prod Venrob in accordance with rule 13.
Mod: please replace McLucien18 in accordance with rule 13.

And the fact that we now have two replacements needed is why newbie games need to have the 3 week deadlines that they do.

[nhammen]

I happen to find this bit of your post to be the scummiest sentence so far this game, but it's not enough for me to move my vote.

If it is the scummiest sentence so far, and your current vote is not random, why is it not enough to move your vote?

As an IC have you actually seen that in newbie games before? Day-start games, as far as I'm aware, don't work that way. It strikes me as odd that you'd publicly try to verify something that I'm sure you know is almost certainly not the case - the only reason I can see for doing so is to help Pasch out by verifying that the "scripted" allegations are false.

That is actually the ONLY way that I have seen newbie games run before. I looked up in this game's ruleset and did not see anything, so I asked the mod to be certain. Also, this allegation of yours is the longest reaching I have ever seen.

Also, your vote change seems ill-supported, and I'm not clear on what post 80 actually means.

My vote change is based off of a few things. First off, your reads have been repeatedly been perfectly aligned with the largest wagons in the game. Scum sometimes use this tactic as a way to hide from the town. They don't have to give real reads; all they have to do is agree with the town, and A) they don't have to put as much effort into looking townie, because they are following real townies, B) they don't have to put as much effort into faking reads, because the reads are all right there for them. Secondly, you gave a whole list of reasons why your read on wiibox became a nullread, and then used this as your reason for unvoting nekoko. This indicates to me that you forgot who you were actually voting for. And I do not see any townie forgetting who they are voting for like that.

As for post 80, I was showing Pasch why someone would not be concentrating on Venrob, using Pasch's own words.

[nhammen]

I looked up in this game's ruleset and did not see anything

I apparently did not look closely enough, and this embarrasses me.

[nhammen]

Also, I think post 80 was chastising me for saying that stupid play is townie, and then essentially voting for Venrob for stupid play. I think loud, vocal stupid play is townie. But combine it with lurking, and I think that leans scummier. Either way, it's stronger than any other reads I have, except possibly Nekoko. I'd really like to hear more contributions (and not just defense) from the two of them.

First sentence is worded better than I could do myself. Also, I was also showing a slight contradiction in your thoughts. This could have potentially been a scumtell if not for what follows. Thank you for explaining the difference though. Even if I don't agree with it.

Well, consider this. If I had gotten a scum PM this game, I would have known that there would have been the chance for night 0 discussions. If I knew that, do you think I would have relied on other people not to have realized it? That's a pretty tricky gamble.

This is my thinking exactly. This is why I asked the mod.

it being a scumslip (which was via paraphase "crap, I missed talking to my partner during pregame"), but I saw it as being possible.

This is really the only possible way that he can be scum, in my opinion. And I don't find it very likely.

[nhammen]

And Nh, accusing me of following bandwagons when I have created and laid out good cases on the players I considered scum is stretching for a reason to vote me.

Your good cases have been restatements of cases put forth by other players. It's not hard for scum to fit in in this way.

I think your vote on me was OMGUS driven.

And now you are just making things up. You had a null read on me when I voted you. How can you POSSIBLY construe that as OMGUS?

In retrospect Nh's post asking the mod whether or not the scum could communicate before the game started is even more suspect given that they CAN, and nh had just stated that they had been able to in all of the other newbie games he'd played. I think as an IC, being as thorough as you have been, you'd have gone back and checked the first post and answered that question yourself, or you'd at least have said "scum are typically able to communicate before the game starts". ( I had the exact opposite idea because I've been playing at EM, where daystarts go right into the game). Instead, you deferred to the mod in what I see as a way of avoiding putting yourself in the spotlight as someone who might potentially be more aware of what scum could and could not do.

As scum, I would have not said anything on the matter, because it effectively confirms Pasch, and scum do NOT want there to be any conf town.

[nhammen]

and then had rule 13 fresh in his mind when asking for the prod.

Not quite. I knew that there was a specific rule with a number, so I looked back to get the exact number.

I just looked in your threads (on this site) and found that you were in newbie 1265, though I notice you were replaced out, it does show how you started another game as town.

It looks to me like his play in that game (where he is town) closely matched his play here. Other than the lurking from Tuesday to Saturday anyways.

also to see if anyone else thinks they're catching onto what I am.

I'm not catching onto it. I have seen a few things that might be connections, but it is waaay too early to speculate with any likelihood.

Maybe, or this could be a very good scum play. He may have read the rules closely and noticed pre-day 1 talk was only mentioned in the PM. So if someone asked the mod, or noticed the PM he could say he totally missed it. This would be a great way to clear him in the eyes of the town.

Are you worried about the possibility of Pasch being semi-confirmed?

[nhammen]

Venrob (2): Cheery Dog, Paschendale, Wiibox3
Not voting (3): jambecca, Venrob

?

[nhammen]

You only expressed suspicion of me AFTER I voted for you. There is NO WAY that what I did can be called OMGUS.

As for Venrob, I'm not sure. His play is more "village idiot" than legitimately scummy as far as I can see. So far my read on him is null.

[nhammen]

and your vote is still on me, that's my point. do you honestly think i'm the scummiest player right now? if not, your vote is in the wrong place.

First off, your reads have been repeatedly been perfectly aligned with the largest wagons in the game. Scum sometimes use this tactic as a way to hide from the town. They don't have to give real reads; all they have to do is agree with the town, and A) they don't have to put as much effort into looking townie, because they are following real townies, B) they don't have to put as much effort into faking reads, because the reads are all right there for them. Secondly, you gave a whole list of reasons why your read on wiibox became a nullread, and then used this as your reason for unvoting nekoko. This indicates to me that you forgot who you were actually voting for. And I do not see any townie forgetting who they are voting for like that.

Short answer: at the time of this post of yours, yes, you were the scummiest player in the game as far as I could tell. That is mainly because on D1 we have little info to go on, so even someone who is only somewhat scummy can be the scummiest player but there it is.

[nhammen]

nhammen, 57 caused me to notice that you haven't actually taken a stance on anyone yet. Your votes are only pressure votes so far and you haven't outwardly stated any opinion. Would you like to? (That's nice guy talk for gimme your reads. Ignore this if you actually did later)

nhammen is doing what skilled scum often do: ask a lot of questions without actually taking many stances. Quick, somebody tell me what he thinks of anybody not called rob or ewo? you can't.

Imma go iso myself to prove you wrong. One moment.

Both Wiibox and Paschendale are slightly scummy (but it is very slight) because they avoided voting for the competing wagons after I said that the competing wagons would help us find scum. Additionally MissMaggot's reactions are every transparent, so I give her major townpoints. CheeryDog asked a very relevant question which gives minor townpoints.

Note: this is before #57, where you said that I have not given any reads yet.

The reason it seems scum motivated is because your reason for not voting MissMaggot was to avoid the attention that comes from OMGUS. Scum want to avoid attention more than town.

Your scumreads just happen to match the two people with random wagons on them? Seems a little bit scummy. But not much yet. Why choose Nekoko over Wiibox?

Post 99 which you commented on, so I don't need to say anything.
And 102 gives my read on Pasch.

Thus, I have given the following reads before your post:
Town: MissMaggot, CheeryDog, Pasch
Null: Venrob
Scum: wiibox, ewo

The only 2 people I did not give reads on were the two people who were replaced. Thus, your allegation is false.
Note: So far I still agree with the reads I have given up to now.

[nhammen]

I do not like some of 132 for a few reasons. First off, Johnny votes me with a case that is not true, even after agreeing with my case on ewo. Now this could be my response to being attacked, so I will try to suppress that feeling for now. The other problem I have is this:

Scum:

ewo, nhammen

ewo and nhammen are not partners, but one of them is probably scum. I'm not confident pinning down the partner just yet.

If he is scum and we are both town, this is a great way to get a mislynch if the first lynch flips town. However, I can't definitively state that this is scummy, because the first thought that popped into my head after this is that to the rest of the town, at most one of the 3 of me, ewo, and Johnny is scum... So if I had a similar thought, I can't really fault him for having that thought either.

I just looked in your threads (on this site) and found that you were in newbie 1265, though I notice you were replaced out, it does show how you started another game as town.

It looks to me like his play in that game (where he is town) closely matched his play here. Other than the lurking from Tuesday to Saturday anyways.

But he does say he plays the same way as both. <_<

I'll probably re-examine my vote later when I have more time.

Oh yes, I agree that it cannot be used as a town-tell. He could be actively playing to his town meta for instance.

The more confirmed townies the better. I'm not sure how you can be semi-confirmed. Plus I'm not sure what you expected to get out of this question.

Scum tend to get nervous when there is a consensus among the town that a particular player is town. I have seen scum try to show why something that people agree is a town-tell should not be viewed as a town-tell. It isn't a strong scumtell (paranoid townies do the same thing) but it is something I wanted to see your reaction on.

In bold are things in the posts you yourself quoted that distract from any read you've given. You keep saying 'slightly scummy' or something 'seems scummy'. Language like that makes it easy to go back on a read later on, and I don't like it. Town shouldn't be afraid to commit to a read, because if that read changes they can give legitimate reasons why.

Ah. I see. Well that only removes wiibox from the list of reads I gave above. I had still given a read on 5 out of the 9 players in the game. That's hardly nobody. Also, you are not the first person to comment on the fact that I say things like "seems" or other such things a lot. I tend not to say things like "x is scummy" because I don't actually know if the player that did x is scum, so I usually say "x seems scummy" instead.

[nhammen]

Ok. I'll keep that in mind from this point forward. I'm still working on differentiating between "I disagree with you" and "You're scummy", and that particular way of speaking is a tad too cautious for my taste. A real easy way to get yourself off my suspect list would be linking me to a few recent town games of yours.

I will say that when I said "slightly scummy" it was a very weak read. But at that point in the game, that isn't a surprising thing. Translations: slightly or mild or leaning=weak, seems=moderate, is=strong. Unless I say something in the same post that says I'm not sure. You know, I'm trying to help, but I'm not sure that really worked. So here are my only two recent town games (all other games are a year old or more by now):
Mini 1341
Newbie 1252

As for the first part of 153, I'm not sure what you're trying to say so my response is nothing.

Essentially, I was saying that I could easily see scum going after two town players, saying one of them is scum. That says that your actions are consistent with scumplay, but doesn't say they are inconsistent with townplay. So at this point it is a nullread. Maybe I'm just getting too paranoid.

Because he isn't being helpful for all his "experience" and has now taken to lurking.

I disagree on both counts.

[nhammen]

That should have been clear, but I wasn't sure about what MissMaggot was talking about in the first place. There had been too many posts back and forth since then, I guess. Now everything makes sense, and I shouldn't have replied to something when I did not fully understand the topic of conversation. Now, a topic appropriate reply: I do not like policy lynches in general. It is bad play for the reasons that Maggot described.

[nhammen]

I can't really piece it together as well as I'd like, and I'm stuck typing my phone for now, but my feeling that I've been witholding was that Paschen and Nhammen are quite possibly scumpartners. I would give some specifics with links, but navigating with my phone is a chore and I don't have as much time as I would like to attend to this game. Just read Nhammen and Pasch together, especially from these last few pages, and let us know what you think.

I'll have to wait until you can provide links so that I can refute whatever hypothesis you think you have. The only thing I can think it could be is me getting a townread on Pasch from his "no communication" defense, but I wasn't the only person that thought of the idea.

Hiya everyone! I'm CityElectric, but I don't mind being called City.

Now, on to the game. I've already given it a quick skim after offering to replace in, but I'll be reading it in full tomorrow after I've slept and I've got access to my laptop.

If you've got any questions you want to ask me, feel free to do so!

I don't have any specific questions, but I am looking forward to see your opinions on the game. Your slot has been replaced twice now, and we have literally no information on that slot.

[nhammen]

It's not like I was witholding the information permanently. It was mainly to put the scum players on their toes and hopefully watch them scramble while encouraging the rest of the town to take a closer look at things. If there were sudden odd changes in play immediately after that statement, then we might have been able to bag a baddie.

This doesn't work. Before you gave out the information, scum wouldn't react, because they have no idea if they are even the ones you suspect.

Those kinds of tricks more often hurt town than catch scum. It's basically never a good idea for a town player to be deceitful. For one thing, it means the rest of us won't trust you anymore.

Also this. But I still believe MissMaggot is town, so that has little effect.

Not quoting this monster. I need to point out that you seem to give townpoints to some behavior that is not worth townpoints. Any good player can point out bad play and bad logic, whether or not they are town.

When i replace in i comment on posts that are scummy as i read them i don't see the need of going over every townie post (as god damn that would be long :/) and honestly the scum read flipped at about post #86 on the Paschendale/MissMaggot confrontation.

That is a good way to fall to confirmation bias. If you only carefully read the people that you think are scum, then you will only find scummy behavior from the people that you already have a scumread on. You wont see the scummy behavior that comes from players you have a townread on.

The other two replaces in you had done had you going over everyone in those games (but I guess they allowed spoilers and were about 4s bigger than this one (also I just noticed that you did both of them on the game post number)) except strangely venrob in 1265.

Yet he gave off the gave scummy vibe in that game as this one?

hmm... good catch. Can you show me those games?

He also sheeps nh at nearly every chance he's got. As stated, most of what Johnny says in that post is really not necessary, as the majority of his comments are just "I agree" or "I disagree" and don't provide anything new or shed original light on scenarios. He seems to be trying to establish himself in the game as a neutral player, and makes sure to sidle up to the players that are generally agreed upon as town - in short, nothing controversial at all (other than advocating a policy lynch, which I'll come back to), which makes his post seem more self-serving than useful.

Not only that, but he is sheeping me, when I am the player that he claims to have found most scummy at the time. Players don't sheep someone they are suspicious of in general. That post seriously bothered me.

nh's dispute of Johny's charge is just weird though - he states that "to the rest of the town", at most one of either myself, johnny, or nh is scum. Why is he speaking for the whole town? This seems like a slip to me - if he's got more info than the rest of us, I can see how it would be easy for him to step into the town's shoes.

I probably should expand upon the logic I used here. From the rest of the town's point of view, if Johnny is scumpartners with one of the two of us, he would not portray this as ONE of the two is scum. He would either say that you and I are scumpartners, so that if that the scum member were lynched, then the town member would be lynched as well; or he would say that neither of us was scum, so as to protect his partner. Thus, if Johnny is scum, then neither of the two of us are his partner. If Johnny isn't scum then... well actually I must have assumed something like if he is town then he is right, which is not true in general.

[nhammen]

EBWOP (edit by way of post):

Town

players don't sheep someone they are suspicious of in general.

[nhammen]

Although, I'm not sure scum would skim previous games to check if my meta matched.

[nhammen]

@MM - did you know that scum could chat before the game started before the mod clarified?

Do you think she will answer honestly if she is scum?

MM interjects right in the middle of that debate with Scum had N0 talk and she will be looked at for her knowledge of the Scum's PM

Not only that, but once the town knows that scum could communicate, Pasch would be pseudo conf-town. Scum would avoid trying to confirm town members even slightly.

Weak reasoning is enough to abandon the read Ewo has been so intent on before? That feels like opportunism to me. I feel fairly confident in my vote on Ewo.

Could very well be opportunism. But to be honest, I saw some issues with Johnny's post as well, and I even briefly considering moving my vote there, so I can understand ewo doing this as either town or scum.

In re-read this sticks out just a little, why not do a P-Edit? would that not be more beneical to explain to new players?

I can understand the wagoning though it just sticks out a little in my mind.

By all means explain things but their is always such a thing as over explaining, and in this case i think it is on the verge of doing so.

It was a few weeks ago, so I'm not sure I'm remembering my reasons correctly. I think I felt that separating it into a different post would draw more emphasis to this reasoning, which I felt would be a good idea to explain, both as a member of the town as an IC.

Wiibox and Paschendale are Scum because they didn't follow your train of thought?
I understand you are IC but your not the only one that can be right about everything and they made a competing wagon by both voting nekoko so what is the problem then?

No, they are (very slightly) scummy for avoiding taking a stance on the two wagons. And Pasch later made moves that made me feel he is town.

Post #73 wiibox3

Calls out Paschndale again but still doesn't change his vote, seriously he has a scum read over his RVS and he votes the RVS

Although this is normally a legitimate concern, I went and checked the post in question, and wii gave a reason that I can easily believe a newb giving. Although, if he just didn't want to L-1, he should have voted after others unvoted. What happened with this scumread of yours wii?

[nhammen]

hmm... good catch. Can you show me those games?

I can't decide if this is incredibly townie or incredibly scummy, but I just felt I needed to say something about it. Normally, this would be a townread, but Joyous Pooch is so firmly planted in all of our townreads that it kind of looks like you're looking for reasons to suspect him. Meh, null.

I'm not sure if you are reading this wrong, or I am reading your statement wrong. The him you refer to at the end is Jason or Dog? Because Dog stated the reason to suspect Jason, and I was stating that Dog had made a good catch.

Not only that, but he is sheeping me, when I am the player that he claims to have found most scummy at the time. Players don't sheep someone they are suspicious of in general. That post seriously bothered me.

I arrived at the same conclusions you did and have acted on them accordingly. I know nothing for certain at this stage, so to assume that I should form reads that oppose my suspects' is just silly, especially D1 when I can so easily be wrong.

Its not that your reads are not opposite. Its that your reads are almost exactly the same, except for the vote on me. Now, I find this a bit odd, but overall, I'm not sure what to make of it. It could be scummy, but I really don't know. I keep going back and forth on it.

Since the initial case on Ewo started forming, he's actually been recovering pretty well. He's been more in defensive mode, but he hasn't made any bad arguments. His reasoning has become stronger. It's a town move to admit to a mistake and move on.

Unvote

On the flip side, a lot of what Wiibox has been saying has been weak as hell. He looks like he's trying to find reasons to sheep other people. His statements have been very passive, and he really is only popping up when called upon. And I don't like how he's been acting over the hammer on Ewo. He's trying to push the responsibility off on others. Well, don't worry, you don't have to make that choice anymore.

Vote: Wiibox

Although I can see this point of view regarding ewo, and have been thinking about moving my vote off of him, I'm not sure wii is the best alternative. Some of wii's actions seem to be coming from newbtown. Newbtown can always be faked, but I don't think that is what is happening. Whenever I have considered moving my vote off of ewo, I couldn't find someone else that I would prefer to have my vote on. Cheery's catch on Jason (and Jason's reaction to it) seems like a good starting point, but he's had some other behavior that I am seeing as a town-tell. And this case on City seems like a good place to look as well, but I'm just not as confident in it as I am with my vote on ewo. The good thing at this point of the game is that I have more than half of the playerlist as townreads.

City's vote on ewo came after he was called out on not voting the person he considered his biggest scumread. Sort of a "ok, I'll vote him just so my vote matches my words" kinda thing.

Ok, Wii's little catchup doesn't really contain anything incredibly helpful. He's got an anti-town townread from me. I'm asserting, right now, that Wii's play is more newbie than scummy.

I have been seeing this as well.

[nhammen]

So, if my count is correct both ewo and wii are at L-1, and Cheery Dog is the only player that does not have their vote on either of these wagons. Seeing as how he is the player that is most widely regarded as town, he is the right person for us to have handed the hammer to.


I missed this earlier.

Johnny slinks off his idea of a policy lynch after he's been called out on it. Johnny also focuses a hell of a lot on sematics with regards to nh. He even does a reread of other games in order to clear nh for the charges Johnny himself made. To be honest this looks a lot like distancing, which nh looked to be doing with nekoko way back at the start of the day.

I see checking up on my meta as a towntell. So you are saying that he had this "plan", and then checked my meta to make it work. What if my meta didn't show what his "plan" needed it to show? I don't see this logic very well, and I think you are trying your best to push suspicion on the both of us.

@nh - you've been quiet on city. What are your thoughts?

Cheery's catch on Jason (and Jason's reaction to it) seems like a good starting point, but he's had some other behavior that I am seeing as a town-tell.

And this case on City seems like a good place to look as well, but I'm just not as confident in it as I am with my vote on ewo.

If you want me to expand upon this, I was unable to get a good read on City's behavior. But the case HerrRudi presented convinced me to some degree of City's scumminess. But I'm not as convinced as I am with you, even after including your recent improvements.

I think City would be my second choice, but it's much more of a gut feeling and I don't think I could articulate it nearly as well. There's definitely something off about him, but I can't put my finger on it as clearly and it's not compelling enough for a vote. I might have kept my vote on Ewo if it were just between him and City. It would certainly be close.

I agree with you on almost all of this.

I'm feeling more town learning on Jason, but mainly for absence of anything that sets off my radar.

Eh. I would feel the same, except I am reading a bit into Cheery's catch. Maybe more than Cheery himself is. The only time I have been caught as scum, it was due to something similar to this, so I counted this tell somewhat significantly. If I were to choose someone other than ewo to die today, it would be Jason, simply for this catch.


Anyways, it is time for me to get my drink on, so I will try to make another post in a few hours....

[nhammen]

The end of D1 made me think that a Jason/ewo team seems likely, with the way that Jason was attacking Cheery for his comments on ewo. But this supposes ewo scum to begin with. If ewo is town, then this is a null-tell.

I would like to point out that if we have a JK and not a Doc, the JK may not know for certain whether his JK roleblocked scum or protected town, but this hypothetical JK would know whether they targeted a scum suspect who would be unlikely to draw the NK or a pro-town player who would be likely to draw the NK, so they would have a good idea, even if not a certainty.

But, I must point out that discussing power roles like this is a bad idea. The scum can look at this discussion and determine who is speaking as if they have a power role, and who has let slip that they do not have any power. However, I will immediately proceed to disobey what I just stated, and say that a D2 massclaim may be a good idea. If we mislynch today, and scum successfully kill tonight, then we will be in MYLO. A massclaim at the last possible moment is probably a bad idea, so it might be a good idea to have a massclaim at some point before the end of the day. We have plenty of time left in the day, so we don't need to do this now if we decide to do this. In fact, I guess the above advice not to discuss power roles doesn't hold, because we have to at least discuss massclaim at some point. Just be very careful with your wording.

[nhammen]

Its been two days since I made my post in here, so I am a bit overdue on making one. Starting writing now.

[nhammen]

Also Nhammen I think it's usually a bad idea to do so before MYLO, At MYLO it's better to have a mass claim as it limits the possibility of mis-lynches (as we can decide where it is more likely to have scum cause everyone has claimed).

If we wait to massclaim until MYLO then scum can lie about their claims much easier. Before MYLO, scum have to worry about whether their claim exists in the town, because that means an auto-lynch, or have to claim vanilla, which confirms any PRs and explicitly describes the setup. In most games on this site, massclaim

before

MYLO is standard procedure. However, Newbie games can last as short as 3 days, and this means that pre-MYLO massclaim would have to occur on D2, which is a bit early. SO you only have a choice between too early and too late, and no choice of exactly the right time unless there are two nights with no kill.

As for me being in a scum team with ewo, how is just that comment against a policy lynch put me to a scum team?

It to me seems like a way for mafia to pull a second mis-lynch straight up on day 2.

How was there anything "policy" about Dog's suggestion? It seems like you were just trying to drive people away from an ewo lynch.

Not knowing that scum can chat pregame, and only having read his own pm.
That game's scum pms said that pregame chat was alloweded and had got to night 1 in which the quicktopic said "stop talking now" before he had claimed that he didn't know scum could pregame chat.
Basically, I think the whole surprise thing was a forgery.
VOTE: Paschendale

I personally highly doubt it is false, for the simple reason that I think that kind of play is above his level (no offense to Pasch). I think he missed it in both that game, where he was scum, and this one, where he could be. And he missed it in the QT, because he obviously misunderstands what your argument is, and if he had seen it from the mod's post in the QT, he would understand your argument. This misunderstanding of your argument could of course be faked, but as I said above, I think that is above his level. Note: it is entirely possible that he is scum, but if he is, he most likely did not see that he could talk pre-game, and so was hitting himself over the head when the mod stated he could.

Yeah, it's a bit weird. Since the setup is known, there aren't really any surprises to be had. The doc/jk can, at most, clear one additional person (the one who was targeted last night). Maybe it could be useful later on (like if the same thing happens again night 2 - not likely), but now would be a bad time for it.

If the same thing happens on N2, then D3 is the PERFECT time for a massclaim. No maybe about it.

Also, how are you voting pasch right now if his being scum is contingent on me being scum?

This is a good question to be asking. Especially coming from the player that he should be voting instead.

Herr is appealing to authority when she says that Cheery's hammer was automatically less significant simply because our IC said so.

I did not read his statement in that way. But now that you mention it, I kinda see where you are coming from. Not sold on Herrscum though.

For now I'll move my vote back to nh for the above reason. Massclaim, lol.

Voting me for suggesting massclaim? Really? Oh, in a later post you state that you still hold scum opinions about me from earlier. I'm pretty sure your case yesterday was completely ripped apart. I believe I was the one to do it.

What happened to this logic? You're voting Pasch, instead of ewo, who, by this logic is more likely to be scum than Pasch.

Repeating ewo's comment. Although scum tend to parrot, this is actually an example of a case when scum would usually not do so. Assume City scum and Pasch town for the moment. Assuming ewo scum, City would not comment on this, because that would be encouraging Dog to vote his partner. Assuming ewo town, City would not comment on this because scum-City likes seeing the most protown player to be suspicious of a player that had previously been seen as town. Thus, if City is scum, his partner must be either Pasch, and he is trying to drive the vote away form his partner, or Dog (I find this highly unlikely), and he is reminding his partner that there is an inconsistency. All told, I find this to be a town read on City.

I would have agreed D1 but honestly his play today is kinda just poor and it makes me feel like he was thrown off balance by the no kill (not sure if that is a null tell or a scum tell in my mind yet).

Spreading doubt about the most widely viewed townread?

[nhammen]

Realistically, there were two equally competing wagons. There's just as much chance that scum were on the Ewo wagon and were pushing for that than were on the Wii wagon.

That is only true if ewo is town. Do you have knowledge the rest of us do not? The rest of the paragraph is decent logic, but makes a faulty assumption that scum would organize who to wagon if both wagons are on town. Scum would independently decide which wagon would be more advantageous. They don't get to communicate in the day.

He said we shouldn't try to sort out who was which PR, but then said we might want to consider a massclaim.

No, actually I was suggesting we stop discussing PRs in general. One player made comments that indicate that they are likely not a power role, without realizing it. I will not say who until the end of the game, because hopefully the scum cant figure it out. But some discussion of PRs is necessary. Thanks for coming to my defense for no apparent reason though. It is almost as if you want me to see you as a friend...

Cop Claim assuming we have a Doc, Doc could be killed in the next night then we have no more cop and possibly only 2 innos.

We only have one more night unless we correctly lynch scum either today or tomorrow. In the case above, Cop would not die until after we have lynched scum. His information would help us greatly. And what happens if scum hit our PRs before they have a chance to give out their info?

at this point i can honestly see both mafia claiming VT, that doesn't help us much at all.

That's a good reason to do it today actually. If we wait until tomorrow, we let scum have complete choice over what to claim. Limiting scum choices is a good thing.

Mass claim tomorrow because your saying that a cop claim would be confirmed, for all we know there is a doc only or a JK only, meaning the cop is a fake and we go down the shit cause of a poor mass claim today, yes that doesn't change as much tomorrow but it puts Mafia in a tighter spot for claiming and they might claim wrong.

First off, 1 PR setups are one case in which a massclaim would be a bad idea. Secondly, claiming wrong could occur today as well. But today, they have to worry about the consequences of claiming wrong, while tomorrow they dont. Thus, they have a looser spot for claiming tomorrow.

Any amount of confirmed innocents (CI?) is useful. However, is it useful enough to trade it for a PR?

Yes, especially if that PR would otherwise only get to act tonight ANYWAYS. Then losing the PR changes NOTHING.

[nhammen]

Well, for a second time in a row, I have taken a few days between posts. This is not good behavior from your IC. And I can already say, with how this week is going, it will happen one more time, because I will not have a chance to post again for a day and a half at least. But after that, I should be back to regularly scheduled programming.


Anyways, to keep things organized, this post will be a rebuttal against Jason's posts, which mostly cover massclaiming. I will post another post immediately following this one, which will cover other topics.

I can understand that but a massclaim in this setup holds a rather major problem, unless there is only one PR then there is a possibility of a fake claim, not to mention the order has to be right to avoid mafia from knowing all the other PR's before they claim.

That's what popcorning is for.

I am Starting to doubt my town read on him, his play has been a bit more shakey today, he has slipped down to a leaning town for me for now, and i am still doubting that read a little.

But this last bit i wanna just hit you for, as an IC you know the most widely viewed townread could in fact be scum (i assume from experience) and this is a bit too defensive of cherry dog.

A) changing your reads is entirely valid. But the way you have done it seems to me like you are looking for excuses to not see him as town.
B) scum tend to be nervous about people that the entire town has agreed are aligned with them, because that means that the scum have to get rid of this person.
C) the most widely viewed townread is town more often than not. We are actually kinda good at reading town. Yes it is possible that I am wrong. It always is possible.

Agreed but your assuming way to much here.
a) your assuming a mis-lynch
b) your assuming the PR's will get hit and not have a doctor on them

Both fairly likely

There is no complete choice over what they can pick no matter when they claim.
We already have PR's so they know they can't do every claim.

They can on the last day. And that is my point. We could have a really scummy player be some role, and then the towniest looking scum counterclaims that person, and ta-da: instant scum win.

6 VTs, 1 doc, 1 JK = also nothing today (or ever), but they could chain defend each other for what it's worth.

No they can't JK would roleblock the docs protect.

And yeah reading is normally good.

Actually, JK-Doc is the most pro-town setup of any of the possibilities. The Doc protects the JK, and the JK chooses between targeting the Doc or targeting a mafia suspect (with more weight towards targeting a mafia suspect). If the mafia target either power role, they are risking no kill, but they have to try for the Doc or the PRs own the game.
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=21878
The Doc-JK setup has only been won by scum less than 1/3 of the time as of last count, and I know of multiple town wins since then.
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=22857
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=23025

However, this kind of thing turns into a logic puzzle. We can work this out if we turn out to be in this setup.




But, you seem to be getting VERY nervous about the massclaiming idea. And I am kinda thinking it might be because you are scum.

[nhammen]

What happened to this logic? You're voting Pasch, instead of ewo, who, by this logic is more likely to be scum than Pasch.

Repeating ewo's comment. Although scum tend to parrot, this is actually an example of a case when scum would usually not do so. Assume City scum and Pasch town for the moment. Assuming ewo scum, City would not comment on this, because that would be encouraging Dog to vote his partner. Assuming ewo town, City would not comment on this because scum-City likes seeing the most protown player to be suspicious of a player that had previously been seen as town. Thus, if City is scum, his partner must be either Pasch, and he is trying to drive the vote away form his partner, or Dog (I find this highly unlikely), and he is reminding his partner that there is an inconsistency. All told, I find this to be a town read on City.

I would have put money on someone commenting on this... What does it mean that nobody has? If I was right about the City/Pasch possiblity, Pasch would have commented. Therefore, either Pasch/City is less likely, and City is even more town, or City is scum with someone else.

Will be back later tonight with a solid post but I have to say something real quick - it might sound scummy coming from me (i.e. I can see you thinking I'm pretending not to have known about the setup) but I have already demonstrated at least twice that I know nothing about scum roles in this game, so if that's not a towntell I don't know what is. They were genuine mistakes.

One of those mistakes came after we had discussed mistakes possibly being a towntell. We have no way to know if it was faked or not.

Though I have to wonder why a mistake about the rules is a null tell for Ewo, but apparently an all-encompassing scumslip for me. What makes Ewo so special to you, CD?

It's the way the response is given which make it flip whatever way, also that you're an SE player and I am therefore expecting better of you.

To be fair, he has only played 4 or 5 games, so he is barely an SE.

--Jason's case on me is wrong, but he does seem sincere about it. I feel like this is a town tell so I lean town on him.

I'm not seeing this sincerity. Can you show where you see it?

[nhammen]

OK, my week of hell is over! Driving home, then dinner, then 3 hours to reply, iso, and post.

[nhammen]

So you think his play in day 2 hasn't wavered even a little bit?

I think it's good the entire town think someones town, assuming they are town, but never unless we have a full confirm that is undeniable, will i not suspect someone, is this what you are trying to make me do nhammen?

I don't know if you are being extra melodramatic here, or if you are strawmanning. I am not telling you not to suspect someone, but it seems to me that you are trying to force suspicion of an un-suspicious player. It doesn't seem like honest suspicion. It seems faked.

b) your still assuming way too much, likely or not, you can't assume anything.

I'm not sure what you think I am assuming. I am making sure everything works out even in the worst case situation.

Agreed that this is right, but it's just a big ball of WIFOMic crap honestly, not useful.

Do you even know what WIFOM means? There was nothing close to WIFOM in that statement.

I'm not nervous about massclaiming, my claim will be the same no matter when we claim, i just believe from my experience it is best not to claim until LYLO.

From my experience, claiming before LYLO is a good idea, and in fact is standard practice on this site. The only reason I haven't pushed massclaim harder is because in a newbie game, the day before LYLO is day 2, which is too early. In any game even slightly larger I would be insisting on massclaim before the end of the day before LYLO/MYLO, rather than suggesting it.

I'm sorry but i can't get away without the feeling that you are highly insinuating that i am scum, and it makes me feel more un-easy cause you are insinuating all this, yet your still not voting anyone, it makes me feel like your trying to push a mis-lynch without trying to hard that it is obvious.

You have a point on the not voting anyone. I probably should be this far into the game. But A) this past week has been busy, and I didn't want my vote used for a lynch when I wasn't fully aware of what was going on, and B) I am seeing a few newbtown tells from both of my scum suspects, and don't know what to make of it. And I guess C) some of your behavior could be bad play rather than scummy, and so that further conflates the issue.

As for the rest, you got that I was insinuating you are scum? Really? Was that hard to figure out? That is one of the methods I use to apply pressure. I do kinda like that you pointed out my no vote though. However, I do question how you could think that what I was doing could be seen as non-obvious.

nhammen i will ask this of you, what is your read list as of this post right now.

I think that Cheery and Herr are town; City, Johnny, and Pasch are null leaning town, and ewo and Jason are scummy. But I need to do some isos to see if I have good enough reads. I will do that over the next few hours.

[nhammen]

@nh - in your post at the top of this page, could you reexplain the post that you were concerned that no one responded to? It looked like word salad to me and I didn't respond because I couldn't make good sense of it.

What happened to this logic? You're voting Pasch, instead of ewo, who, by this logic is more likely to be scum than Pasch.

Repeating ewo's comment. Although scum tend to parrot, this is actually an example of a case when scum would usually not do so. Assume City scum and Pasch town for the moment. Assuming ewo scum, City would not comment on this, because that would be encouraging Dog to vote his partner. Assuming ewo town, City would not comment on this because scum-City likes seeing the most protown player to be suspicious of a player that had previously been seen as town. Thus, if City is scum, his partner must be either Pasch, and he is trying to drive the vote away form his partner, or Dog (I find this highly unlikely), and he is reminding his partner that there is an inconsistency. All told, I find this to be a town read on City.

I would have put money on someone commenting on this... What does it mean that nobody has? If I was right about the City/Pasch possiblity, Pasch would have commented. Therefore, either Pasch/City is less likely, and City is even more town, or City is scum with someone else.

OK, at this point Cheery voted for Pasch, instead of ewo.
City was trying to convince Cheery to vote ewo instead.

Assuming both ewo and Pasch are town:
--ewo is an obvious mislynch. Scum would want Pasch targeted instead, so that Pasch would be lynched today, and ewo lynched tomorrow.
--City suggested the opposite of this, therefore, he is either bad at scum, or he is town.

Assuming ewo scum and Pasch town:
--the above logic holds even more. Why would scum drive someone onto their partner, when they are suspecting someone else?

Assuming ewo town and Pasch scum:
--Here is where scum want Cheery to GET OFF OF THEIR PARTNER. This is the only case City could be scum, according to my logic.

Assuming both ewo and Pasch scum:
--City is town because only two scum in the game.

Note: All of the above assumes Cheery is town. If Cheery is scum, then if City is his scumbuddy, City would know that this statement doesn't change a town player's read. However, A) I believe Cheery is town, and B) this is an odd exchange for scumpartners to have.


However, I assumed that if the City/Pasch team was the truth, then one of the two of them would come in and attack my logic. This didn't happen. If another player is scum, then that scum would come in and try to remove my pseudo-townread on City, or would say "hey, they could be a scumteam" and give more reasons.

[nhammen]

Well, my isolation read provided nothing new on scumreads. It did help me to determine townreads. I now have Cheery, Herr, City, and Johnny all as townreads. Scumreads are still ewo and Jason, and I am still undecided about Pasch. However, Jason has become less of a scumread, so ewo is definitely at the top of my list.

I have a lot of townreads, so PoE should have this game locked down.

Why not work on lynching scum?

I am trying, but that doesn't mean that scum will be lynched. And so I want to make sure everything works well for the town even in the worst case scenario.

that is WIFOM, it isn't useful.

the JK, doc scenario is WIFOM, how can you not see that?

Oh, OK. I didn't realize that is what you were referring to, and now I feel dumb. But that WIFOM is very useful. Obviously, it shouldn't be used often. Maybe 1/20 of the time or something. Something small enough that scum have to be dumb to kill the JK, because the doc will almost always have a successful protect. But that small amount of the time, it screws the scum. Also, I should point out that the WIFOM shouldn't be done if an odd number of players are left in the game, for theoretical reasons. But even if without the WIFOM, the JK can act as an investigator, and so is as powerful as a cop, even in the worst case. But all of this is moot, because the town seems to have agreed not to massclaim.

[nhammen]

Also, I'd like to point out that Jason's only comment today about ewo is that he doesn't know about ewo, and he has been searching for other players to go after rather than ewo. If ewo flips scum, I will be voting Jason tomorrow based off of association.

[nhammen]

Also i have to ask, why the vote for paschendale over ewo?

Although, would a scumpartner have said this? I'm not sure...

Also, if ewo flips town, my Jason read bumps up to null because of a few comments he has made about voting. But actually, from PoE, scum would be Jason and Pasch... which fits perfectly with the above comment. Hmmm...

[nhammen]

Whatever the case, we have a consensus. Almost everyone agrees on no massclaim. A majority agrees on lynching ewo. I'm dropping the hammer now.
VOTE: ewo

[nhammen]

I would prefer either Jason or Pasch go first. This is based entirely off of PoE at this point.

[nhammen]

After thinking about it for a bit, I'd actually prefer Pasch to go before Jason.

Lying about claims is probably a bad idea. There are very few occasions that it can be useful, and this probably isn't one.

Also, I should state that when people claim, they should claim their role, their targets, and

the reasons they chose those targets

. Many people do not claim that last part, but it is important as well.

[nhammen]

I want Pasch to go first because of a few comments I saw from Jason during my iso read. There are certain ways that new players act that in my experience tend to indicate newbtown. I have seen a few of these type of comments from Jason on voting that suggest he is town, but I have also seen scummy behavior. This causes me to be undecided. However, the scummy behavior is believable as bad play. Thus, out of my two nullreads, I am slightly (and only just) more convinced that Pasch is scum than Jason.

[nhammen]

Also, yes, I did intentionally not mention what the tells are. But I guess I should say something on the subject. I'll just say that given my own uncertainty about the game, some of Jason's comments about being uncertain who to vote for are quite believable, especially coming from a new player,

[nhammen]

Well, I don't want him to, as Cheery is one of my two top suspects right now.

I'm the doc.

City goes next.

Keep in mind that I have two people to talk about, who I saved both nights.

Just to let you know, this wasn't exactly smart. If Cheery is scum, then who he chose as the next to claim would give quite a bit of information regarding who is scum. Additionally, if the choice is between yourself and Jason, then either you go first as above, or Jason goes first, which is strictly better than someone you know is town going first.

Well, if you're so sure of it being a Dog/Jason team, then why did you want me to claim as second, instead of Dog or Jason?

Yeah, this is quite odd.

No i was saying i don't buy his vote/reasoning for voting/protection reason, not the claim, the claim i am still waiting for everyone else to claim first.

Ummm... what? If he is town, then he is being honest about his reasoning. If he is scum, then he is lying about his claim. He is either lying about both or neither.

[nhammen]

The last claim. I am also a VT.

Note: this means that our Doc is confirmed town. Also, his protects are pseudo-confirmed (for us to not be confirmed, scum had to have intentionally chosen to no-kill even with no knowledge of a Doc in the setup).

[nhammen]

Also, now that Pasch is confirmed town, I have too many townreads. I need to rethink.

[nhammen]

I honestly don't think we should totally confirm the doc saves just in case there was a no kill, assuming that they attempted a kill N1 (which is most likely tbh) they may have risked being the doc's protect N2 for the WIFOM to seem confirmed.

I can understand the paranoia coming from town, but this looks a little scummy, even so. I will state that I will be considering Herr to be town for the time being at least. Even in the very unlikely event that Herr is scum, there is a partner somewhere in the unconfirmeds. Thus, until we have at least one scumflip, I will be considering Herr as completely confirmed. Additionally, even if scum no-killed, it is unlikely that Pasch happened to target scum that same night.

I realise this is going back to probability again, however I am seriously doubting that both members of the scum team would be able to avoid votes outside of the early stages of a newbie game.

Today is the first time I have been voted.
Johnny & Jason were only voted by ewo after they had replaced in. (one of which was by mistake).
This leaves me to suspect City is on the scumteam since she gathered some votes under her own stream.

Probability doesn't quite work that way. Scum could easily have been hiding under the radar.

VOTE: Cheery Dog

Where did this suddenly come from? You don't seem like you're buying Pasch's reasoning on Dog, so why vote him now, putting him at L-1?

For emphasis: Dog is now at L-1.

Now your trying to miss-rep me.

I am all for Cherry's play being bad after yesterday and him being possible scum, but really, because he was on both lynches he is scum?

I am saying i don't agree with the tells he is using not that cheery isn't scum, and he is a confirmed doctor now, i honestly didn't expect that (pasch wasn't exactly on the top of my town list).

Wait what? City never said that you don't think Dog is scum. City asked why you think Dog is scum. There was no mis-rep here.


---
CheeryDog's cases in #503 and onward will take a little bit of time to process; time which I don't have right now. Therefore, I will post more tonight. Because there are only 4 people who I will consider as scum, that means that there are only 6 possible scumteams. Over the next two or three days I will reread the game in the context of these possible scumteams, and see if any possibilities are removed.

[nhammen]

What doesn't make sense to me is that we only have a Doc who has no reason to lie about his targets, and we have a player who gets called town literally all the time in D1 and a lot of D2 (that's you CD), that apparently never gets targeted for the NK. This just does not make sense to me considering how this site plays. Universal town reads get killed, but you didn't nor has anyone claimed to protect you. I know this isn't rock solid reasoning but I cannot get passed it in my mind.

This is actually one of the few reasons that I am seriously considering the possibility of CheeryScum. The other reason, is that Pasch's successful N2 protect was based upon who Cheery would target if Cheery were scum.

[nhammen]

So wait, your possible scum teams are every combination that don't include the confirmed town or you? Man, that is some hardcore detective work!

the confirmed townies are confirmed town.. why should I be placing them in the supposed teams?

I think your sarcasm detector is broken. He's saying that your list of "most likely" teams is the list of all possible teams. Your definition of most likely doesn't mean much.

[nhammen]

I don't see Cheery and Jason as possible partners. On D1 Cheery attacked Venrob. OK, this can be distancing. Then he checked Venrob's meta, and... never described what conclusions that led him to? Could still be partners. But then he also checked Jason's meta.

The other two replaces in you had done had you going over everyone in those games (but I guess they allowed spoilers and were about 4s bigger than this one (also I just noticed that you did both of them on the game post number)) except strangely venrob in 1265.

Yet he gave off the gave scummy vibe in that game as this one?

Would scum Cheery make a meta case on his partner? It seems too strong to be distancing. OK, I did follow up on this case more than Cheery did. But I don't see Cheery making that case against a partner, even without following up on it. What do you all think?




Cheery's attacks on City on D1 also do not look like distancing to me. I think that if Cheery is scum, his partner is most likely Johnny.

[nhammen]

Jason has given some tells that strike me as newbtown, and at this point I consider him to be fairly town. In fact, every player seems to be individually town, which means that scum has done a good job of laying low. I think looking at connections is the only real way to go. From this, a Johnny lynch provides a lot of information. But that is very terribad reasoning. I just feel that I should be able to do something to get a handle on who is scum, but they've done a good job so far.

[nhammen]

The scum team is CD and Johnny, that is my call on this situation.

Well, I still think it's Dog/Jason, with favoring a Jason lynch over a Dog lynch.

I'm willing to vote either City or Jason.

Either one of these three is distancing from their partner, or the team is Dog/Johnny.

Note: CheeryDog's behavior is distancing from all three, and not giving much info of his own, which is smart scumplay if he is scum.

[nhammen]

If those town reads are correct, then you have determined the scumteam. I've been thinking about this a bit, and every piece of evidence I have come across is either confirmation bias or paranoia, and I'm unsure how to distinguish between the two in this particular game. I am a bit uncomfortable with Johnny. I would expect a town player to be more paraniod about Cheery at this point. For that reason, in addition to the reasons I have given previously:
VOTE: Johnny

[nhammen]

On the one hand, I am fine with a Dog lynch. On the other... did that look like City/Johnny to anyone else?

[nhammen]

I'm more sure of Johnny than Dog. But not by much. Johnny could be anybody's partner. Dog's connections give fewer plausible options.

[nhammen]

It would make a Cheery scumflip more useful than a Johnny scumflip, but a Johnny scumflip more likely than a Cheery scumflip. If I am right, anyways.

[nhammen]

Mod: you have my vote on Jason, when I had voted for Johnny

That's why. Also, because I do not agree that the team is Johnny/Cheery. I also see a distinct possibility of Johnny/City. The reason I am voting Johnny is because he is involved in both possibilities.

[nhammen]

Also before anyone does actually lynch me, could the three confirmed town please tell us what your plan of action is tomorrow on either way I flip?

For example if I'm town who is the most likely scumteam based on me flipping town.

and if I'm somehow changed roles and I flip scum, who is most likely my partner?

Especially need Pasch to do this since he unless some weird gambit by someone is going to die tonight.

I will probably be promoting a Johnny lynch either way. Which is another reason that I think a Johnny lynch would be beneficial. But I am curious how you think this information will help.

[nhammen]

I actually find Jason to be least likely to be Johnny's partner. This is in a big part because of their predecessor's behavior. In post #42 Venrob (who Jason replaced) put Nekoko (who Johnny replaced) at L-1. Now if Jason, and thus Venrob were scum, this would be a bus. However, Venrob would only bus if he actually believed Nekoko would be lynched. If this is the case, then it is a signiicant misjudgement on Venrob's part. However, this is not an impossible misjudgement, becase Venrob seems to have had some bad play regardless of his alignment, so I am not ruling out Jason as scum. Also, Nekoko did not vote Venrob for this. This could be unwillingness to vote a partner, or unwillingness to place an OMGUS vote.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to make judgements based on Nekoko's play, since he/she seems to have copy/pasted their town meta into this game. So, next I will look at Johnny's play. Here there is a little bit more information, but not much. His replace-in post contained too much information, so anything relevant to alignment is likely to be lost in signal/noise. I am very surprised he went back and looked at my meta in #169 after making a case on me earlier. He didn't need to, and this is likely something I would not have done as scum. Another wall from Johnny in #256 contains too much that could be lost in signal/noise. I think I found one gem though.

hmm... good catch. Can you show me those games?

I can't decide if this is incredibly townie or incredibly scummy, but I just felt I needed to say something about it. Normally, this would be a townread, but Joyous Pooch is so firmly planted in all of our townreads that it kind of looks like you're looking for reasons to suspect him. Meh, null.

The catch was a catch that Dog had made about Jason's play. However, when Johnny read this, he somehow assumed that I was starting an attack on Cheery. Is this a scum player being paranoid about an attack against their partner?


The following exchange also makes me believe that Johnny and Jason are not partners:

Jason, 207's reasoning for gaining nothing from the "scripted" debacle is hard to understand. Care to expand?

Re-read out of NOWHERE from Jason
Mostly decent questions or comments, nothing really interesting and nothing directed at me. The vote is just wrong. Wii hasn't give

much

content, but he has given content. He calls me town though~

1. i think i answered up there
2. wait what, cause he calls you town it's ok that he gives jack shit?

And the re-read was my second re-read, first one is brief overview of how i feel as i go, second re-read is a detailed kick ass bit that i have after i got to this point in the game.

I was actually happy about YOU calling me town in the post containing your vote. Sorry, didn't make that clear. (I've said that a lot this game, haven't I)

[nhammen]

@ Happy Mutt, did you read Jason's meta enough to see if he was this jumpy?

Also, I have never seen scum ask town to meta their partner. I am now OK with saying that Jason is probably town.

[nhammen]

So, my list from most likely Johnny partner to least likely is:

Cheery
City
Jason
Rudi

VOTE: Cheery Dog

[nhammen]

Nhammen and the other players, does this last city post change things for you? I think it does for me...

Oh I can definitely see City as scum. The way I see it, as long as I am right about Jason being town, then we have this game set.

I think this also still stands for a possible City/Johnny team
Coming in and calling your partner town with poor reasoning.

Hmmm... yes. Could be.

(that isn't a hammer)

Sometimes people get annoyed when players do what you just did. Just letting you know for the future. There are players that will vote, and then say it is a hamer when it actually isn't, as a way to get reactions.

Seems almost like coaching and we already have the one flip to have it as possible so with this i am confident enough to hammer

It took me a while to see why this could be coaching. For some reaon, I had been thinking that Cheery was the SE, when it was actually Johnny. But now that I remember, I can see this as a possibility as well.

I guess we are just waiting on the flip.

[nhammen]

Well, congrats. Everyone in this game played really well. It made finding scum very difficult, but it also made the game quite fun.

[nhammen]

Kills after Johnny was gone:

N3: Pretty obv doc kill
N4: nhammen said he had a set in rock read that city was scum, so i figured it wouldn't be prudent to keep him alive, not to mention that herr wasn't fully cleared after a lot of debate

P-Edit: Lols

To be fair, if I had lived, I would have most likely been wondering why I had lived, and would take another look at you. So that was the right kill.

[nhammen]

Can't even remember that...

Nhammen, could you do some comments on everyone's play? All my ICs have done that before, and I always got a lot out of it.

There's not much I can say. Everyone played really well. I can say that the long replace-in walls are quite counterproductive. They hide too much information and say very little. Of course, I tend to use those when I replace in, so maybe I should listen to my own advice. I guess I can say a few things about the two scum players.

Johnny did an amazing job hiding as scum. He was never the topic of conversation, until our Doc turned this game into PoE. I should point out that townies feel paranoia when a townread lives as long as Cheery does, and you didn't mimic that feeling of paranoia, which was a major point against you. But if your kill on Pasch had gone through, I feel that you would have had this game locked.

Jason did fairly well. I had noticed scummy behavior coming from him earlier, and he was a topic of conversation on D3, but I decided to ignore it because I saw a single towntell from him. Newbtown frequently cannot make up their mind who to vote, and have to be pressured just to put a vote down, and there was one point when I felt that Jason was falling into this mindset. Jason recovered from the earlier pressure very well, and wisely avoided any connections with Johnny.

Okay, I guess that was mainly me saying that both scum played quite well.

Also who was it that slipped they weren't a power on day 2?

HerrRudi. The fact that Rudi didn't remember how a JK worked pointed out that he wasn't a JK. But he also said in #312 "If it was indeed a JK I am conflicted as to whether he/she should claim and state their block." This was followed by #319 in which he said "If it was roleblocker, then claim may make sense if we knew there was no doc." If HerrRudi knew there was a Doc, then a JK claim would make no sense according to his logic, so he would not be conflicted about whether a JK should claim. However, this leaves the possibility of him being Cop. This is the only possible power role HerrRudi could be. And this was a bit less likely, because then he would know it was either Cop/Doc or Cop/JK, and so would have probably been more certain about the JK claiming idea. This last bit is not as concrete as the reasons Herr was not a Doc or a JK, so that possibility still existed, but this combined to mean that HerrRudi was much less likely to be a PR than a VT.