Newbie 1726 (Game Over)

[foedufafa]

What's up, innocent? Wanted to give this another try.

I'm just catching up on the game right now. Looks like my predecessors were really inactive so I'll turn that around soon.

[foedufafa]

Expect a post from me tonight, sorry for the delay. I'm reading through this during my downtime at work up to page 7 right now.

[foedufafa]

I'm interested in the reasoning behind the votes on me? Pressure? I just got home from work. My slot has absolutely zero information up to this point because the last two people in it were complete absentees and provided nothing other than a vote in RVS.

[foedufafa]

I am trying to catch scum. Step one is asking why they're voting for me. I'm not offended by receiving votes, but I'd like them to not be naked. I'm finally caught up on the thread so expect more content within the next hour or two.

[foedufafa]

Spoiler: page by page gut reaction analysis

PAGE ONE

RVS mostly, not much to say overall. I like that Jack made a push to get conversation going in 14. I'm not bothered by Caston's 17 like others claim to be later on from the perspective of 'appeasing jack,' but I don't care for the fluffiness of his question. The entire conversation here with foxbird/caston/rach is so fluffy and doesn't contribute to the topic and again I'm liking jack at this point for his opposition to the fluff.

PAGE TWO

We get all the way up to 35 before the off topic conversation is broken up by Foxbird trying to actually get game-related conversation going. Again, really bothered by the fluff and appreciate the break from it. I don't like 38 too much because she complains about the lack of conversation without really trying to ruffle any feathers, but she had 35 and then again actually tries to make game related discourse happen in 45 which is more than most could say up to that point.

PAGE THREE

I'm not really on board with jaack's reads at the top of the page, but I like that it's actually transitioned into legitimate discourse. ecane's 64 seems to be grasping at straws a little bit considering fox was directly responding to criticism.

delta's play is soft scum to me. 65 I thought was a reasonable question although it wasn't much of a contribution to the game. Would have been fine if they had more opinions to share or questions to ask, but they leave it at this one simple question. Jumping ahead to page four I thought 80 was a strange bit of logic to explain their previous question. I think simply "they offered their previous opinion about jaack and now I'm curious how his newer posts affect your reads" would have been fine - this weird accusatory reasoning when Grat answered the question asked of them seems odd. Then they quit. Doesn't contribute much, offers strange logic, and then decides they don't want to play. I'm more inclined to view this as scummy than a strange town play, but regardless it just seems born of apathy.

I get scum vibes from nacho's opening. He contributes more to the game than pretty much anyone else had at that point and then contributes next to nothing for the following few days. There's expectation for him to contribute as IC, but as they said it's a very comfortable gamestate for scum and they contribute just enough here to appear to be shaking up that gamestate before disappearing.

PAGE FOUR

76 stands out as interesting because one of my town reads is making a push against one of my others. This vote comes off as pretty defensive. Jaack merely stated a gut reaction they had to something that Fox did and now I think fox is misrepresenting that as misrepresentation.

Ecane continues to not ruffle many feathers.

Not pleased with the way that fox spends so much time defending herself instead of trying to stir the pot a bit more. It's a reactionary play which isn't pro-town.

81 ecane starts to actually starts to throw some strong accusations around. I really dig this even though I don't feel as strongly about delta's play(in real time I might have been more bothered by their logic as well not knowing they're about to replace out). I also like their next couple of posts, for example 93.

PAGE FIVE

I love zorb's entrance into the game. Definitely a town read for me up to this point. Caston had been a nullread up to this point.

PAGE SIX

129 by Jaack strikes me a bit odd in his strong scumread of Fox. I understand that they had a bit of a feud earlier in the thread, but I haven't seen any real scum motivated behavior from her up to this point and yet he has the strongest read against her out of anyone without much elaboration. On the opposite note, I disagree with his scumread of Zorb and yet appreciate his skepticism on the subject.

I'm bothered by Rach's passivity in that they continuously lament how hard it is for them to make any reads because there just isn't the information out there and yet they make no attempt to get any additional information out there. It goes beyond "not being abrasive." It's straight up passive. Up to this point in the thread she's a strong scum read.

My town read on Zorb gets stronger chiefly because of this line "I do have good news though. It's pretty easy to get my vote off you if you want to. Just convince me that you're trying to catch scum. Like I said, my reads aren't exceptionally strong at this point so rather than spending effort defending yourself I'd recommend spending the equivalent effort showing me who else is scum instead. That helps the town more anyhow." In a gamestate where many are making little effort to scumhunt he's not only scumhunting but encouraging others to change their habits. While I could see scum motivation for this and I won't rule it out, my mind just isn't there at this point. This actually goes for their whole 140 I just pulled this quote out before I was done reading the post.

ecane reinforces my town read on this page.

146 it bothers me that jaack reaffirms his scumread on fox here but doesn't acknowledge the most content filled post she's made up to this point.

PAGE SEVEN

167 matches my feelings up to this point

Nacho's return shifts him to null in my readlist.

PAGE EIGHT

Not the most eventful page, or at least not a page where a lot pops out at me(also it's 4 am so I'm getting fatigued) but rach 195 do you at any point plan on engaging in this game and being a part of the town or are you planning on soloHolmesing it with meta reads? I'm so dissatisfied with all of your posting up to this point.

PAGE NINE

jaack's analysis of zorb reinforces my town read although I think it's a bit paranoid.

PAGE TEN

PAGE ELEVEN

PAGE TWELVE

PAGE THIRTEEN

Scum: rach
Leanscum: ecane
Null: delta, nacho
Leantown: Foxbird, jaack
Town: zorb

Sorry if some of my analysis wasn't the most hammered out or coherent. I was honestly getting really stressed out as I was trying to take in a lot of information and decided it would probably be best to just proved my immediate reactions to the thread without worrying about making any serious cases and then moving forward caught up on the events. If anything strikes me as a digest the information further I'll be sure to point it out, but at least now you have some actual thoughts from my slot.

I'm actually not that concerned about the votes on me being explained now that I've reread this thread to make this post. I was a little irritated by Rach jumping on with Nacho(she's too easily influenced by nacho's plays imo), but the pressure vote on my slot is consistent with her vote 117 when crab replaced into it so I'm not as bothered by the vote right now. I'll assess how I feel about that vote in relation to my read on her when I finish this post. you can see on my readlist that she's a strong scum read but I've only written this up to page 9 and my 8/9 assesment came after 330 in the morning so they were lazy.

I didn't finish this post. I'm tired as fuck. My readlist reflects what I analyzed up to in this post and is not indicative of where they will be on the list when I finish going through the thread. I've been moving people around on a page by page basis. I have work tomorrow and I need to sleep. I don't know if this is useful to you guys at all as an unfinished post but I figured you can have the first half tonight to see I'm actually working on it unlike my predecessors and I'll finish it tomorrow. It may have been a lackluster day one but it's still tough catching up. I'll may write more about 7/8 too when I look at them with rested eyes.

[foedufafa]

Again, sorry if that didn't really contribute anything. Now that I've slept a bit I'm thinking like "why the fuck did I even post that" but there's been nothing from the players in my slot so I figured it better to be incoherent and meandering then have another "lol I'll do something tomorrow guys trust me post." Anyway I work until 330 est so I won't be on again until after that.

[foedufafa]

Finishing my readthrough and reactions post now, but just an error I noticed in the other one. I said 167 matched my feelings up to that point. Not sure what post I meant to quote because that post definitely didn't resonate with me one way or the other. I may have been referring to 169? I agree with Nacho's assessment of Zorb's play and it matches my feelings towards his play. Not sure if that's what I was getting at. Again it was 4 am and staring at 13 pages of content was intimidating.

[foedufafa]

Spoiler: part two

PAGE SEVEN

One thing that strikes me about looking at this page after having slept is that Foxfire is at L-2 despite being one of my townier reads. My slot had a vote on her that I believe was still remaining from the RVS so that's irrelevant, but then we two other votes from Zorb and jaack and later on Rach jumps on, but I'm focusing on the other two for the next couple of paragraphs. I'm kind of uncomfortable with this wagon and see possible scum motivation there which shakes up my reads a bit right now as this is two of my townreads voting against my other town read. With as little information as we have up to this point I think it's a pro-town play to pressure reactions and information out of posters, but I think there are posters with less content that this could have been pushed onto(both jaack and zorb express suspicion towards rach who I've already addressed my issues with, for example). I'm inclined to see a strong possibility of one of these two being potential scum(everyone's potential scum, but you get my meaning I hope), but I don't find it likely for them to be a scumteam. I'm continuing to read them both as more town then not, but making strong note of this interaction and if either flips one way or the other I'm interested in reevaluating it.

If I had to make an argument for which one of these two I think are more likely to be scum motivated I point my finger towards jaack. I like that zorb has taken the lead here and I like his encouragement for Foxbird and all other players to continue scumhunting in an otherwise apathetic game in 140. This line in particular standing out to me: "I do have good news though. It's pretty easy to get my vote off you if you want to. Just convince me that you're trying to catch scum. Like I said, my reads aren't exceptionally strong at this point so rather than spending effort defending yourself I'd recommend spending the equivalent effort showing me who else is scum instead. That helps the town more anyhow." His vote switch at 162 indicates that he's reevaluating his reads and trying to pressure more information out of people. Not a tell one way or another from an experienced player, but it's a note that I'm on board with the town!zorb narrative more than the scum!zorb one up to this point in the thread.

Things flip for me on jaack, but that's a story for another page.

168 Rach jumps onto a convenient wagon citing OOG reasons. This is the post I cited in my previous post but in my tired state all that really bothered me about it was the reliance on meta reading over content(page eight me: lol that's not true I forgot I cited 195 but furthers my point that there's not a notable way to differentiate any of her plays). What bothers me this time is the bandwagoning on a town read of mine after they have been forced to respond to criticism without pointing any flaws in their reasoning or possible scum motive from their pov.

172 nacho makes a strong push against Grat who ended up flipping town, but I'm satisfied and can identify with all of his reasoning. I'm pushing nacho into the town category at this point but hold this post as being notable for later in the game depending on how things go.

ecane's posts seem safe and not huge contributions, but maintain active participation. I'm moving him from the leanscum position I left him in last night into a null read.

PAGE EIGHT

Uneventful

PAGE NINE

Let's look at 209 in relation to my analysis of page seven. This is what I had to say about it last night: "jaack's analysis of zorb reinforces my town read although I think it's a bit paranoid." Like I said, I think it's worth taking note of that wagon right now. I don't see a zorb/jaack scumteam but I see a strong possibility of one of the two being scum. This isn't a poorly reasoned post and I can see where town!jaack would be coming from, but this post actually seems a bit manipulative and misrepresentative to me. Like I said, I view zorb's change of vote as being appeased with new information and wanting to then extract information from other sources as a deadline approaches. That's my read of the situation. And without jaack's post here I have no reason to doubt his motives. Re-rereading page seven today after having reread page 9 last night painted the wagon in that context. If zorb was trying to cast suspicion on jaack for driving a wagon then he was unsuccessful from my read of the situation. I find it more likely that jaack tried to lead a wagon and when things got a bit screwy he chose to cast shade against someone he had been consistently scumreading. Not a fan of this post in the least. Jaack is now leanscum to me.

I'm so frustrated with my scumread on rach. I'm feeling stronger about her being scum than I am jaack, but a lot of my suspicions for her plays could be just related to being swamped. In addition to a question or two she didn't answer from Zorb on previous pages she dodges like three questions here. It's strongly anti-town play but is it scummy? My gut says yes but I need more from her. 220 is just such a weak post. She doesn't even provide any drive by opinions on wagons and feuds that have already formed between players and says she would be fine with a compromise lynch on my slot which had provided no information up to that point. I don't think that would have been a terrible idea, but if you're swamped why not spend the time you are in this thread engaging with the active players?

I have a nullread on inno's entrance.

PAGE TEN

230 again, not super into any assessment of my slot at this point. Not that fox was pretending to make a read here, but it's another call for a compromise lynch on an absentee spot when there's actual information out there and someone(me) may still replace in and actually help to illuminate on the spot more. Not a terrible road to go down, but I really don't care for it. This also applies to innocent's town comment on me later though I'll get to that when I get to it(not that I understand what it means).

234 is where rach puts grat at L-1. This post is sort of a wash. I would expect that from scum or town rach.

I don't understand what zorb is getting at at all in 238.

PAGE ELEVEN

I'm interested in examining rach/inno's discussion over PRs later on, but I don't have enough understanding of differing opinions on it to really parse that right now.

I strongly agree with the fourth paragraph of 266 targeted at jaack.

innocent's vote on zorb seems reactionary to me.

PAGE TWELVE

281 from zorb "I went into night one with fiddlercrabontheroof leaning scummish, though getting replaced makes that bit null. It's a very frustrating slot given that it's been replaced twice and we still have nothing. I hope to have something from foedufafa to work with soon."
lol why? As I said before a lynch on the position probably wouldn't have been bad play, but scummish? There's actually zero information to go on aside from a random vote up to my entrance.

That being said I do like the analysis of innocent's play in the following paragraph. I've got a pretty null read on everything else up to this post.

PAGE THIRTEEN

301 nacho: I agree and the framing of it reflects his 209 as well although that at least featured more content.

312 "I would explain it but I reallyyyyy don't want to unless foe is actually in danger of getting lynched. Just trust me on this for now. I'm okay with your vote there to make foe produce content, however." I don't understand this at all and find it offputting.

I got a little lazy towards the end.

final read list after that adventure:
Scum: rach
Leanscum: jaack
Null: inno, ecane
Leantown: Foxbird, nacho
Town: zorb

VOTE: RachMarie


In case anyone ends up just skimming this post I recommend looking at page 7 and 9 in particularly. I'm offput by the foxbird wagon from pages 6-9 and provide my gut reactions to that.


@RachMarie - I'd really like to see you address the question that Zorb asked you in 140. I understand that when it was asked you were busy with outside stuff(and judging by the V/LA tag may be now as well), but I don't want this unanswered. Your playstyle here seems to hinge on your ability to read other players and sort out reads without really forcing anyone to enter into discourse or really explaining your scumhunting process other than reminiscing about some games you played with others previously. Let's not let this go unanswered, I want more information about the way that you are trying to get a town victory in this game if you are town. The longer we go not getting that from you the more inclined I am to side with the RachMarie wagon. Note he says aside from aleks/fiddler but now that I've provided some content I'd like to see your reaction to that as well especially since you can't rely on a meta read of me(I only have one town game to my name that I rage quit out of to be completely honest lol)

@RachMarie, if you're using process of elimination, what are the town things that all the active players are doing that make you think they're more likely to be town than the non-play by the alexs/fiddlercrabontheroof play. Have you said what you like about the others here? I know you're not high on delta9 and are waiting to see if they get replaced so I don't need a town case for them, right?

I could potentially see a rach/zorb or rach/jaack scumteam with rach/jaack being much more likely to me and an intent by rach to incriminate nacho based on my page 7 analysis and her interactions with nacho in this game. It's a flimsy case right now and seems maybe a bit transparent if true, but I'm making a note of the possibility. Again, the other two have read more town to me so far but I'm open and aware of the possibility.


@Zorb - could you clarify your mindset in 238? You're stating that you don't like claims on day one so why state intent to hammer over simply hammering? I don't follow.



I'm not proofreading any of this so let's hope for the best on that front

[foedufafa]

That is a fair take on what I'm saying and figured it would come off as one of the weirder aspects of my post. Again, these are my gut reactions from my second readthrough of the topic. The intention of trying to identify a potential scumteam is me trying to identify potential narratives for how mafia could be playing this game so far. Rach is my main suspect for the time being, but I then have to ask what narrative makes sense for her to be a part of and the part of the game that caught my attention the most was the push on Foxfire from pages 6-9. The interaction between you and jaack raised a flag for me as I explained previously. He's a stronger possibility to me right now and you are my strongest town read because I see most of your plays so far as making good sense from the pov of a town player in your position, but I see scum!zorb as a legitimate possibility in this series of events despite my lack of belief in it at this point.

[foedufafa]

Completely avoiding the content of my post, typical.

[foedufafa]

General question - what are your thoughts on inno's town read of me and his answer to the question about it? "I would explain it but I reallyyyyy don't want to unless foe is actually in danger of getting lynched." I don't know how to interpret this.

Foxbird: What is your current read on inno? You unvoted his slot after his opening, but haven't commented at all on his plays since then aside from requesting an explanation about his ecane read. I'd also like to hear your case on jaack as soon as possible if you are feeling up to it. Game aside I hope you're feeling better!

[foedufafa]

I don't have much experience with the game. I first played it in person a few years back with my college's gaming club and thought it was fun so I found this site. Played one game, don't remember much about it or what my username was at the time. Don't remember if I was scum or town just remembered I died day one lol. Played a game on this account a little over a month ago that I replaced out of day one due to a blend of poor plays in that game on my part and personal issues making the game unenjoyable for me.

I do intend to press some issues, but I had hoped to get some reactions to my entrance first after dropping a pretty big wall of text... I knew this was a slow game and we do have a few people on v/la but I'm pretty disappointed in how little has been said since I started. Given that I have to leave for work in fifteen I won't have time until tonight to figure out where to start, but I'll find time during my shift to give you my thoughts on ecane. Honestly their posts just didn't stand out to me in my initial read through so I need to take a closer look at them anyway.

[foedufafa]

I did an iso for rach and made my own personal summary of her posts in this thread in an attempt to examine and solidify my reads on her. I marked each post that I considered to be game advancing content and out of her 54 posts in this thread I was only able to mark 13 of them as content, some of which was a bit of a stretch as I was being generous/giving benefit of the doubt to try and keep myself in check from just seeing what I want to see. There has been a lot of talk in this thread about what a great game state this is for mafia because town is not active so they're able to coast by. Rach has, pretty clearly in my opinion, been actively lurking through this whole game. True, she has been busy in real life, but while she has been trying to make this a reason for why she has been playing the town game she has been playing I think it's far more likely a convenient handwave for her approach to this game as scum!rach.

Here are some of the scummier things I see from her play in this game:

Posts 43 and 47 are the first posts we see from her where she actually makes an effort to get something out of another player, asking questions of grat. The questions are fine - I think she's got some flak later in the thread for asking pointless questions which I don't agree with. I think what there is to make note of here is that they're reactionary questions instead of proactive questions. She is responding to what she sees as an accusation from grat in a previous post.

In 115 she answers who on Troll's wagon she finds to be the scummiest. This doesn't sit totally right with me in that it seems like she picks the easiest target in that the poster barely provided any content, had received backlash from the other players as appearing scummy, and isn't in the game to respond. It seems almost like fake content to be applying pressure on a person that isn't around to respond to criticism.

In 117 she puts a vote on crab who had just entered the game. Again, pushing onto an easy target creates an illusion of contributing to the game.

In 121 she defends the pressure vote "I want to see some of these players who are not really contributing to contribute." but again this just seems like a way to appear pro-town without making any real efforts to scum hunt. Getting inactive players to post is GREAT, but it's an easy position to take.

168 just seems like a real non sequitur to me and I'm having trouble understanding the logic. 185 is a slight justification, but I'm still having trouble seeing how it applies to this game. 207 she reasserts her reasons for voting for Fox but I'm still not seeing how the things she's saying are being applied to this game. By 233 she's decided to drop the push on fox which I give her credit for, but it didn't come without pressure and it's still unclear how she came to the vote to begin with.

In 218 she declares that players are too inactive to make reads and doesn't attempt to ask any questions - in 260 "she says I stumbled around asking questions trying to get the activity up." although I don't see this as being consistent with her actual play in this game when you look at the ISO. I also find it ironic that she later says to inno "when in doubt ask questions."

I'm also bothered by the way that she tries to undermine votes against her without addressing the content. In 254 it appears as though inno can only be voting for her because she's lynch bait, in 286 and 288 she declares ecane's reasons invalid even though I don't see her explanation as relating to the reasons ecane listed, and in 324 she ignores my wall of text to declare my vote OMGUS.

@Rach - what was your plan for approaching this game if you had a scum read on nacho? how certain are you that nacho is going to play scum the way you predict him to given your affinity for meta reading and your telegraphed interest in their play? What is your typical approach for getting information out of players when you're not playing with someone like nacho? Let's say you are town, in that case I will make it clear here that I'm uncomfortable with your reliance on his play and your certainty with your ability to read him(195) it seems very easy to manipulate.

@Fox - In 292 you claim to have a reason to view rach as town, but don't want to explain it yet. Rach was a major wagon D1 and now has a wagon on her today. If you have a case for town!rach then I think it behooves you to explain it.

@anyone who has played with rach - is this sort of reactionary playstyle her MO for her typical town games? I question the application here. If this is how she tends to approach town games I can see where the mindset for her play comes from, but the major flaw here is that if enough content isn't being organically generated for her to make her more passive reads then she is making no effort to generate it. Maybe it works in a more active game, but it seems like she is content with the game state we are in.

[foedufafa]

I'm not saying she's using her work as an excuse! I don't want the game to get personal - I'm sure she has a lot on her plate. I meant that she is declaring her town play in this game as being what it is due to her business, but I feel like it comes off more as her scum play in this game being what it is due to her business. Some of the things I'm accusing her of are on the transparent side of things if she's scum.

[foedufafa]

*busy-ness not business.

[foedufafa]

In response to the ecane question I see her as being more town leaning than not. I see town motivations in 89, 89, and 93. They show a real willingness to get new information out there and to assess the play field. I especially like her questioning why someone would find her towny in 89 rather than just accept the town cred. I appreciate the cautiousness of 143.

I don't see any of her posts as seeming particularly scummy.

81 is a bit of a weird one. I don't have a read on it one way or the other - I'll just say that if she's town then I appreciate the boldness lol. On the flipside I really don't think that delta's question was a bad one at all so I don't agree with what ecane is implying.

I encourage more posting like I saw in the ones that I listed, but obviously we won't get anything until v/la is over. Her posts account for a small percentage of the posts in this game despite the quality of them. Town needs more of that type of posting.

[foedufafa]

Probably the most eventful moment of the game so far happened and we really didn't get any reaction from anyone...
I'm a bit disappointed that ecane switched their vote so quickly after we went to L-1. I didn't want a lynch this early in D2, but I feel like town was deprived of potentially useful information. In any case, ecane is a stronger town read for me now.

@zorb and really any experienced mafia player: what strategic advantage could be gained from a no kill on day one for mafia? I see in the PT you're referring to that inno was really into the idea in that particular game, but I don't know enough about the metagame to understand why that makes sense or if it applies here. I feel like I would want to just get rid of one of the more active town players.

[foedufafa]

Also, why are we assuming no kill? Almost certainly it was JK/Doc/BP/whatever that intervened. And NO I'm not antitown speculating about power roles here because that's not giving scum information they didn't already know from whatever night kill they may have chosen.

No one is assuming no killing. Zorb said something about no kills and I didn't understand.

[foedufafa]

That's what I was thinking you might be getting at with the townread on me, but I don't understand why it needed to be brought up in the first place.

It seems like at least one of these three is gonna flip scum and I would be honestly surprised if it were Troll right now. The way he's been pressuring me to get active in the conversation seems a little too above and beyond. It's not just that it appears pro-town - it seems actively anti-scum. I'm not ruling out the possibility of it being manipulative, but out of anyone in the game right now I want to see him lynched today the least.

[foedufafa]

Are you 100% confident in your town read on Nacho?

[foedufafa]

Because I want to know?

[foedufafa]

Are there other players that show that much confidence in someone else's reads and plays if they have a town read on them? You're being intentionally thick if you don't see a distinction. I wanted to know where you stand in her mind.

[foedufafa]

My post is two sentences long because I made it on a bus. Ain't been home all day to actually sit down and read through this shit and you're accusing me of being scum because I'm "playing both sides" lol ok dude your logic makes a lot of sense /s

[foedufafa]

And what the fuck both sides are you talking about? I don't know how to read IV and I've made my case clear on Rach. You think it's scummy that I think one of the three people that are going at each other's throats will most likely flip scum?

[foedufafa]

It is weird that you're bothered by that because it means the same thing as the other two things you said...

[foedufafa]

Sorry that I've been taking everything personally today. I'll sleep before I try to get involved in the game again.