White Flag - TM2020

[KittyMo]

VOTE: wgeurts

Not sure there's room for two wiki dictators in this town!

[KittyMo]

@everyone, why did everyone choose this game?

Lots of reasons! I like smaller games, I'm more interested in the day game as both alignments, and I don't have to worry as much about not knowing the current site meta of closed game design. I also like not having to stress over whether my top scumread is going to turn out to be an investigative PR (this happens to me well above chance).

Will you answer this too?

[KittyMo]

I didn't I wanted to be in the other open game, but I think I was too heavy handed my own personal blacklist and bob got pushed into it instead
I specifically didn't want this game because it is particularly difficult to win as town

I mean, apparently the random lynch EV is almost 48%. I suspect the team aspect can fix some of the issues that cause towns to do worse in practice.

[KittyMo]

VOTE: Dann

Anyone not voting here is scum or town that needs to die.

I think he's pretty likeable so far. Whether that's worthy of an actual read is most of what I had to mull before you blew up the thread.

[KittyMo]

I kinda felt like this was her subconsciously admitting to being afraid of being investigated and found out to be scum, so knowing that she couldnt have that happen here to her would be a benefit to her.

That's not my baggage; the last time I even specifically recall being the target of an investigative role was in 2009. I can dig up proof that I have a problem trying to hang PRs if that's of interest.

[KittyMo]

I’m trying not to explode the game because I already have a lot of posts and a sizable portion of the game still hasn’t even checked in

Have you considered trying to consolidate your posts so they're not mostly one-liners?

The big fan comment to NSG after she voted with you guys is something that pings me too. Like you are trying to gain her favor by pandering to her after she sheeped your sheep.

I did take that as a bit of fanboyism, hence my big fan post. I didn't take it as AI at all though, just unsure of the sentiment.

I'm having some trouble seeing how these fit together. It might help if you expanded on how you're "unsure of the sentiment."

I kinda felt like this was her subconsciously admitting to being afraid of being investigated and found out to be scum, so knowing that she couldnt have that happen here to her would be a benefit to her.

That's not my baggage; the last time I even specifically recall being the target of an investigative role was in 2009. I can dig up proof that I have a problem trying to hang PRs if that's of interest.

This is relevant?

His read/pings that I was addressing were very, uh, Freudian. But if he's pinged by his assumptions of my subconscious and I can prove otherwise, I think that's pretty relevant.

Why was this something you felt the need to wait to reveal?

I didn’t actually But it is helpful to see what people pick and choose to respond to. Like do people ask legitimate questions are do they ask empty questions like Cephrir’s wood question

Why did you see it as an empty question?

That is a fair assertion. I had two main reasons for asking the question. 1) I wanted to understand the types of players in this game. I wanted to see if it was going to be a lot of people with big personalities or people who thought highly of themselves a la RC/Mastina/Kuribo, etc. It appears that this playerlist is not like that at all, judging from the responses. Save for probably Dongempire. 2) I wanted it to get us out of RVS by giving us SOMETHING to talk about.

Huh, #1 isn't really what I expected. For me, I liked the line of discussion because it generally gives information about people's values/perspectives on the game. I think knowing how content people are to be in this style of game can be informative about mindset, too. Anyway: Formerfish's response in #28 isn't indicative of a big personality to you?

[KittyMo]

I like Ceph. It seems like he's exploring things without being concerned about how he's being perceived. "why are you made of wood" in (#60 transitions pretty well to the PBPA in #81, I can see it as genuinely putting words to a feeling. The suspicion of gobble for big words is a great meme because...they're not very big words, but again, I think his handling of it fits with it being a genuine impression he had. I feel decent about the balancing his Formerfish thoughts with his teammate's too.

I didn't even see that post, but yeah that is a big personality.

So by page 3 you're expressing that you're sad no one is posting, that you feel like you make up a decent proportion of the posts, and even later commenting that it's interesting what people pick and choose to respond to. I guess I'm interested in why you didn't comment on anything from page 2 that wasn't a direct question toward you. Like, the amount of posts is clearly not being a barrier to you being able to analyze what was there. What was your mindset?

Fence sitting on Gobble.

When I got off the fence, I won't be shy about saying it.

Not getting involved/commenting about me (the hydra thing)

Aw, I'm sorry for not giving you more attention.

#73 was one of the more interesting posts in the thread for me this morning actually. I went back and looked through Dann's posts because "casual" was not the vibe I initially got. I can see how you would think that, but don't necessarily agree. Last quote was bad reading comprehension, but seemed best resolved without Garciaing. And this one I would like to dig into more, just forgot:

How does the answer to "Why White Flag?" give any useful information? The reasons would have been established prior, and there's no picking games after role assignments anyway.

Well it speaks to the type of person you are generally which is what I want to explore. It is helpful for me to know what type of people I am dealing with since I haven’t played with many of you.

Do you think it is a bad idea to try and introduce discussion into the game?

Not a fan of this. The first part feels like the 'make up a technically flawless answer that perfectly explains why I asked a question when I absolutely wasn't thinking about that logic when I asked it' that I used to catch myself doing as scum a while back. It feels semi-over engineered/too prepared for someone asking.

Second point is oddly hostile. Not really a question since it's rhetorical and nobody is ever really going to say 'yes I wanted to stop us introducing discussion into the game.'

I don't think your takes on "the first part" are great. Like, you seem to be arguing it's both "too prepared" but also something he didn't think through enough when he asked it which is why he had to overprepare later? Along Occam's razor lines, even if he is scum I don't really think that's probably the actual mindset.

Are you interested in unpacking to what extent you see the apparently hostile tone as alignment indicative?

As far as the hydra stuff, I was uncomfortable with Elements so I'm appreciative of the outcome regarding it.

Spoiler: Dannflor/Auro quotes, re: RQS

How does the answer to "Why White Flag?" give any useful information? The reasons would have been established prior, and there's no picking games after role assignments anyway.

Well it speaks to the type of person you are generally which is what I want to explore. It is helpful for me to know what type of people I am dealing with since I haven’t played with many of you.

Do you think it is a bad idea to try and introduce discussion into the game?

Why was this something you felt the need to wait to reveal?

I don’t think your question is necessarily scum motivated but RQS can be an easy thing for scum to hide behind in order to look like they’re doing something. “Discussion” or any type is not always a net positive and your question to Auro feels a little leading? Do you see why people might be so suspicious of what could be viewed as an empty question?

My only problem is the amount of defensiveness you've shown gobble, and why you've jumped so quickly to Cephrir making a bad faith read on your slot. I get it if you don't think your posting has been bad at all (which is a purely subjective thing), but do you at least see why Auro/me would interpret your question as empty? Also, do you have any reads beyond Cephrir at this point?

Do you think there is scum motivation for asking that question?

There's motivation to ask it as both town and scum. I'm only interested in what you've learned from the rest of our responses.
I can see scum motivation in posting a question designed to appear towny while not having any real justification for it, maintaining secrecy when asked why you did, and giving a tame explanation much later.

Dannflor asked gobble twice something along the lines of whether gobble gets why people might be concerned he's asking an empty question. Ironically, I think concerns that someone initiating RQS is scum "hiding behind" it has been overblown

every single time

I have ever seem an RQS. It's of course good to know why gobble asked the question, but I ironically think overly nitpicking RQS is an easy thing for scum to do to look like they're doing something. In turn, I have a small amount of beef with Auro in particular for opening with the assumption that it will yield nothing useful, and also with Dannflor for seeming to try to overly emphasize

it's only reasonable

to be suspicious of gobble. I do, however, appreciate Dann's analysis that the wooden tone from gobble fits with tryhard town, which is evidence Dann is trying to get a real read from this.

[KittyMo]

@Formerfish

The big fan comment to NSG after she voted with you guys is something that pings me too. Like you are trying to gain her favor by pandering to her after she sheeped your sheep.

I did take that as a bit of fanboyism, hence my big fan post. I didn't take it as AI at all though, just unsure of the sentiment.

I'm having some trouble seeing how these fit together. It might help if you expanded on how you're "unsure of the sentiment."

---

Dont want to come off like im parroting gooble but cephrir sucks man. Most of his posts are quick one liners that you cant say much to and he seems afraid to engage properly, especially 81 is awful.

What's the problem with 81? My impression of almost everything Ceph-related is pretty opposite of yours! 81 seems to have a good trajectory from his initial wooden impression, doesn't look overblown but does feel like it shows where it came from. I feel like he is intentional about how much he's engaging but I don't think the motivation is fear. Reading it as someone who recognizes it's early in the game and is playing with some ideas without trying to force things. And sure, half his posts are one liners, but just because you specifically can't think of a response to them doesn't really give me the vibe they're, like, designed that way.

Also Dongempire, is your vote serious?

Sure, you can consider it as such. What do you make of it?

I dig this sentiment.

Minus points to Dunn for continuing to push there.

MINUS POINTS. Based on this comment in particular, combined with the follow-up, I think it's likely Auro genuinely believes gobble is town and thus that is - points for that as a scumpairing.

Overprepared is probably less the term I'd use than 'overengineered'. Something that sounds like it was backed by a solid amount of logic due to thinking you need to have a good justification so you invent the perfect one afterwards.

I've caught myself doing the same thing a fair bit (irl mafia) a couple of times when I accused someone then created a strong argument to back it up that closer inspection would have shown that wasn't something I was thinking when I put it together in the first place.

Hostile tone is personality indicative, but worth following up.

I think your re-explanation of the former shows that you really are connecting his statement with a personal experience. So with that you've cleared up my impression that you were being contradictory. I definitely think "this sounds like me when I'm scum" is a useful type of read because it's more likely to be based in what scum are actually motivated to do than plenty other types of reads. The very like, English lit analysis of tonal stuff that I see in those two comments about gobble from you in #73 is ironically something I lean into a lot when I'm scum. I think it's hard for me to have a full picture of things that feel real for me when I already have the answers, and so I end up going really deep into analysis. And I do it more as scum because I also do it as town, but I guess as town I recognize that overanalysis on tone can accidentally lead me to suspect someone because

I personally wouldn't write it that way as town so they're clearly scum

. So I can appreciate your acknowledgement that the hostility part is interesting to you but something you need to track to discern. But you're kind of on my radar in that I think what you've produced is fake-able, and I'm interested to see how you develop today.

I note Dongempire quite likes #73 from you and that Team Dannflor really likes you overall, am curious if that's meta-based from anyone or just different valuations.

Do you have any experience playing with auro?

Nope

I don't think the post above your vote was indicative of scum them, I think they tend to post like that regardless, in a way that I read as kind of scummy looking

This...feels really over-explainy? Sounds like you're projecting with minimal context to justify it, which to me reads like you're shoehorning trying to look like solving. Furthermore, the post above his vote (url=viewtopic.php?p=11480218#p11480218]#127[/url]) isn't even talking about Auro.

VOTE: Dunnstral

I'm going to let gobble respond to you first before I get into your other content, but I def have thoughts!

[KittyMo]

Do you have any experience playing with auro?

Nope

I don't think the post above your vote was indicative of scum them, I think they tend to post like that regardless, in a way that I read as kind of scummy looking

Ohhhhh I misread the word "them" as then. That changes my view of this entirely. Sorry!

[KittyMo]

Like how I read it, was that you would have specifically found Ceph scummy for voting if Ceph had played with Auro before because you've incorrectly suspected Auro before.

You essentially just telling him you think Auro is null is whatever.

[KittyMo]

This is I guess a prod dodge shaped post in that I am in too bad of a headspace to dig into this game as much as I ideally would be. I guess I'll give a team update since it's something I'd like to hear about from other players. I have two teammates that aren't prioritizing this game at the moment and I don't think have even opened this thread. Gammagooey read some last night and gave a townlean on Dongempire and scumleans on Formerfish and Dunnstral with ~no reasoning, plus some generic meta commentary on a couple of people for future reference that I'm not going to share. I'm basically just riding solo until team priorities change. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This post is weird when you posted this earlier:

What makes it weird?

First you posted the following:

1) I wanted to understand the types of players in this game. I wanted to see if it was going to be a lot of people with big personalities or people who thought highly of themselves a la RC/Mastina/Kuribo, etc. It appears that this playerlist is not like that at all, judging from the responses. Save for probably Dongempire.

I think that the above response implies a disdain for these types of players.
A short while later, replying to something else, you post the following:

I'm just tired of being the day 1 lynch. It's been like 6 games now and its uber frustrating because I would say I am above 60% for catching scum but it doesn't matter people just do not understand me and kill me.

Which is you thinking highly of yourself, which is a sort of lack of self awareness. And that's weird.

I can't tell if you actually think this is scummy or this is just a point where you're not getting his mindset and are kinda just looking into it, but the way it's presented seems like more of a "gotcha" than I think it deserves to be. You can wait til he comes back or not to talk about it more, it just is something I want to discuss.

[KittyMo]

Correction: My teammate had a town lean on Formerfish. I misread.

I must say I'm loving this game - less spam, a lot of walls, a slower pace

Yes, Gobble did replace into both of those scumgames perhaps, but the tone is still very different. Even with some amount of early game content Gobble's tone has remained the same; so I'm not interested in any attacks there. Minus points to Dunn for continuing to push there.

I'm liking Dann more now, specifically that he had TW giving him insights and the explanation didn't seem post-hoc-fabricated.

[Snip]

Regarding cancel food and meta: it sounds to me like you believe the worst had this reasoning to begin with. Is there a reason that makes it specifically town indicative for their slot, though? Like why is the scenario that Mr. Duck had the reasoning to begin with less plausible if the slot is scum?

Spoiler: gobble and meta and minus points to Dunnstral

VOTE: auro

?

VOTE: FormerFish[/quote]

Dunnstral, the difference in those conditions is irrelevant.

I admit I've just skimmed, but see for yourself - he's very directed in his posts in that game, and mildly aggressive. It feels like a stark contrast from this game, where there's clearly enough content to start making pushes but he's on the fence, with no aggression. It's reasonable to infer that he'd carry the same general mindset at game start, which would reflect as forced pushes.

The biggest variable in tone is alignment, especially for someone who hasn't played many scumgames. I don't think the other variables matter much.

I haven't had a look at his towngame for comparison, I'll do that.

I never alleged it's a sinister scum tactic. I just awarded a few minus points for attacking a townread of mine, why is that unreasonable?

quote="In post 243 , Auro"]

On a second look, FF had mentioned earlier about seeing Dann as 'trying too hard to make friends' with North at the start. Want to look at this as I catch up/reread as calling it a TvT is obviously reasonable for town legit thinking that, but also in character for scum who wants friends.

Is there more to this for your Dann scumread?

I don't really get the mindset underlying this vote 24 hours into the event. Could you explain your mindset. Did you have any other scumleans here at all?

I explained it in the very post you quoted - FormerFish's content was unimpressive, unlike in my previous games with him. Why was this hard to understand?
Mild on Dunn at that point, no real reads on anyone else at that point AFAIR.

I don't get how you're concluding on his meta when you've only looked at the scum and forming a conclusion strong enough to be actively debating it with Dunn like that. It feels like a disengage at the end/get out of jail free 'whatever I say here is fine/I'm leaving myself open to changing it since I've barely read his meta.'

The difference I noticed on a light skim was enough to make a decently strong conclusion. Debating it also helped read Dunn to an extent.
Everything is open to change :shrug:[/quote]

The problem imo with not alleging it's a scum tactic is that it's not clear how carefully you're weighing Dunnstral's arguments to try to determine his alignment. Seems like you're kind of hand-waving them to stick with your initial leaning, and criticising him with generic mild minus points for not approaching it exactly the same way you are. I say hand waving because despite it being an extended conversation it doesn't feel like you're trying that hard to develop your thoughts on Dunn/the game through it.

From a theory perspective I take issue with giving people "minus points" for disagreement in and of itself. People are wrong a lot in mafia. Is there something in his rationale that seems especially disingenuous and makes him "continuing" to push scum indicative?

Further, did you follow up yet and look into a town game like you mentioned you wanted?

[KittyMo]

I'm sorry, tags should be fixed this time:

Correction: My teammate had a town lean on Formerfish. I misread.

I must say I'm loving this game - less spam, a lot of walls, a slower pace

Yes, Gobble did replace into both of those scumgames perhaps, but the tone is still very different. Even with some amount of early game content Gobble's tone has remained the same; so I'm not interested in any attacks there. Minus points to Dunn for continuing to push there.

I'm liking Dann more now, specifically that he had TW giving him insights and the explanation didn't seem post-hoc-fabricated.

[Snip]

Regarding cancel food and meta: it sounds to me like you believe the worst had this reasoning to begin with. Is there a reason that makes it specifically town indicative for their slot, though? Like why is the scenario that Mr. Duck had the reasoning to begin with less plausible if the slot is scum?

Spoiler: gobble and meta and minus points to Dunnstral

Dunnstral, the difference in those conditions is irrelevant.

I admit I've just skimmed, but see for yourself - he's very directed in his posts in that game, and mildly aggressive. It feels like a stark contrast from this game, where there's clearly enough content to start making pushes but he's on the fence, with no aggression. It's reasonable to infer that he'd carry the same general mindset at game start, which would reflect as forced pushes.

The biggest variable in tone is alignment, especially for someone who hasn't played many scumgames. I don't think the other variables matter much.

I haven't had a look at his towngame for comparison, I'll do that.

I never alleged it's a sinister scum tactic. I just awarded a few minus points for attacking a townread of mine, why is that unreasonable?

On a second look, FF had mentioned earlier about seeing Dann as 'trying too hard to make friends' with North at the start. Want to look at this as I catch up/reread as calling it a TvT is obviously reasonable for town legit thinking that, but also in character for scum who wants friends.

Is there more to this for your Dann scumread?

I don't really get the mindset underlying this vote 24 hours into the event. Could you explain your mindset. Did you have any other scumleans here at all?

I explained it in the very post you quoted - FormerFish's content was unimpressive, unlike in my previous games with him. Why was this hard to understand?
Mild on Dunn at that point, no real reads on anyone else at that point AFAIR.

I don't get how you're concluding on his meta when you've only looked at the scum and forming a conclusion strong enough to be actively debating it with Dunn like that. It feels like a disengage at the end/get out of jail free 'whatever I say here is fine/I'm leaving myself open to changing it since I've barely read his meta.'

The difference I noticed on a light skim was enough to make a decently strong conclusion. Debating it also helped read Dunn to an extent.
Everything is open to change :shrug:

The problem imo with not alleging it's a scum tactic is that it's not clear how carefully you're weighing Dunnstral's arguments to try to determine his alignment. Seems like you're kind of hand-waving them to stick with your initial leaning, and criticising him with generic mild minus points for not approaching it exactly the same way you are. I say hand waving because despite it being an extended conversation it doesn't feel like you're trying that hard to develop your thoughts on Dunn/the game through it.

From a theory perspective I take issue with giving people "minus points" for disagreement in and of itself. People are wrong a lot in mafia. Is there something in his rationale that seems especially disingenuous and makes him "continuing" to push scum indicative?

Further, did you follow up yet and look into a town game like you mentioned you wanted?

I will also add that like...something a bit scummy about the handwavey attitude is the focus and rigidity on "I went to this effort and formed this conclusion." Highlighting your effort rather than trying to build on it is more likely to be a feature of fake solving.

[KittyMo]

So you want to lynch Gobble?
Can you help me see town Cephrir?

Is there a reason that makes it specifically town indicative for their slot, though? Like why is the scenario that Mr. Duck had the reasoning to begin with less plausible if the slot is scum?

Yes. I think the scenario where Duck makes up a small reason to suspect me and has Damn post it is ess plausible than Duck actually telling him to keep an eye on me, given I find the reasoning provided later genuine. Dann could've just said it and made up a reason post-hoc, but it would've looked fake.

You didn't ask me if I did form thoughts on dunn from that conversation which I did, and it's hardly an "extended" conversation. You'll notice I backed off from pushing Dunn right away.

I'm surprised at how serious people take "minus points" to be. If someone's at 100, and they push me or a townread of mine, that's reason to knock them down to 95. Of course people are wrong in Mafia; it's just ever so likelier that scum might be pushing someone I think is town to my eyes given I don't like the attack. I don't see why "minus points" translates to "especially disingenuous", why are you guys stressing on it this much?

Haven't looked at a town game yet, but I'm not really interested much either at this point. The expected result of my looking there is to end up at a nullread on gobble, and not a scumread. Given I have stronger scumreads, I'm interested in pushing there.

It's not clear to me what your read is on Dunnstral based on the convo or that you intentionally backed off. Do you mind clarifying a bit? My understanding was that your read of him was more or less the same after it, and so I was asking you if there WAS anything seemingly disingenuous about his reasoning. Or if there's anything else you don't like about how he went about it other than he's pushing your townread.

[KittyMo]

I spoke too soon that I'm riding solo - my teammate hitogoroshi let me bounce ideas off him for a bit last night and it helped me gather my thoughts.

Yeah i also agree that the punishment to both the game and elements was too severe for something as common as that, s warning should have sufficed but im not a mod. Even if elements did it intentionally to clear his name thats bad play rather than rulebreaking demeanor.

I would caution everyone against getting too deep into what can be interpreted as ongoing game discussion by discussing this too substantively in public.

you guys this game is so boring.

Consider: being the change you wish to see. My homie thinks you're just null, by the way, which is interesting to me!

I answer questions. I just don't feel the need to engage with your or Auro's attacks on me because they're weak, I don't think there's any point in me wasting my time trying to change your minds (especially considering that Auro is scum) and I believe everyone else can see that.

Is "everyone else can see that" in reference to finding Auro scummy?

---

Spoiler: notice me

She made a lot of comments but what she left out gives me the impression she was avoiding getting into the noisiest/messiest/most visible parts of the game. Fence sitting on Gobble. Not getting involved/commenting about me (the hydra thing) and the gobble/Ceph conflict that were both going on at the time.

Hop 'Hoppers' Hopkirk

is elements doing a bit or something? idgi

This feels kind of odd contextually. Cephrir had just done a fairly long rundown on Gobbles (iso basically) to go through the 'wooden' read that he was expressing. Feels like he should have noticed I'd posted as 4 different people there quite visibly. I don't get why he'd go into depth on Gobbles when it also feels like he either didn't iso me, or is acting confused to avoid stuff. This is a question btw Ceph, I'll let you decide which bit

is

the question.

I'm townleaning Hopkirk at this point. My thought on his tone reads hasn't really changed. The main aspect from him that I think fits better from a town mindset is that it seems like he thinks he's doing important things that are worth weighing in on, and that avoiding those things may be advantageous to scum. I don't think it's over-the-top, and I think it shows self-confidence that what he's doing should be conversation starters/worthy of analysis. Hopkirk seems to

want

attention and have an eye out for people who don't know what to do with him - it's certainly more natural to have that perspective on the game state as town, I think.

---

I think 91 is more likely to be a faked post because of 98, and that his omgus behavior when he seems to acknowledge that people don't get him and kill him doesn't really make sense to me

Mmk. I'm putting a pin in this specifically in this until he actually exists (or until I get bored of him not).

You've never seen town ask other people questions about other peoples scumread on themself?

I don't like the strawman here, but your follow-up on it in #300 is ok.

Not trying to impede the gobble wagon by arguing semantics or complaining about the game = towny

Joan naked voted and you're pulling this out of that. Are you implying that her posting any kind of content alongside a second vote on a wagon would be

impeding

it?

And I guess to speak to my overall read here: I find Dunnstral's play to be measured and reasonable, with his responses to my poking holding up to scrutiny. I'm still looking for something that reads to me as "town" as opposed to "reasonable," though.

---

I haven't played with North in a while but I think I heard somewhere she's strong town. Is that why you'd avoiding lynching there, or is it because you think she's easier to sort later, or something else?
Think you said FF was strong town (though may be twisting your phrasing here when you just meant like 'active') so is there a difference there?

Didn't NSG's lack of effort come after the FF exchange? Her early posts didn't really specify anything of that sort.

Yeah, that alone is a reason I'd avoid lynching her D1. She is

also

easier to sort after some gameplay, I guess (although I have lost to scum!NSG before).
Also, I feel that the nature of Team Mafia and the game setup might make it easier to read her as well.

The main notable thing to me at this point with NSG is that she left her random vote on someone in her townbloc while implying she had a real scumread. It's passive at best.

---

Spoiler: Auro quotes

Dann, can you ask the worst about what exactly pinged him from my entrance?
I almost always tend to wagon in RVS.

Sleeping now, will give thoughts on other stuff tomorrow.

I dont have a problem with you responding to his question, but why did you feel the need to mention that there could be a town agenda also without providing an example for that? Thats what bugs me.
And you may take the most controversial, extreme opinions later in the game, but right now i stand by saying that you're playing it incredibly safe.

Then you've not read my post properly. I was calling out scum motivation in maintaining secrecy about the reasoning behind the question; not scum motivation for the question itself.
Even then, this is such a small point to be concerned about -- that I'm not providing an 'example' of town agenda -- I find it odd that this of all things bugs you.
Incredibly safe? I've openly attacked FormerFish, Dunnstral, Cephrir; I've hard-defended Gobbledygook in the last few pages, which stances of mine do you find 'incredibly safe'?

Your entire attack on me is grasping and empty, and not reminiscent of the time we played together last.
VOTE: Dongempire

It reads like scum who sees something town does that looks really scummy on a surface level and thinks it's a safe vote, when in actuality if they were town they would've taken more time to consider why scum!Cephrir would behave this way

Do you get the same vibes from me?
I know it's not hard for scum to engage and bullshit, but still, the lack of meaningful engagement is a good enough reason to scumread someone, no?

I made an aggressive attack at Dong primarily to see his response. I'm not sure that's a line of attack scum would take against me ("playing it incredibly safe"), and his response in 201 seemed to set things in additional context. I felt his thoughts were genuine, and I liked his reaching out to work together - where scum in that position could easily continue to attack.

You didn't ask me if I did form thoughts on dunn from that conversation which I did, and it's hardly an "extended" conversation. You'll notice I backed off from pushing Dunn right away.

I'm surprised at how serious people take "minus points" to be. If someone's at 100, and they push me or a townread of mine, that's reason to knock them down to 95. Of course people are wrong in Mafia; it's just ever so likelier that scum might be pushing someone I think is town to my eyes given I don't like the attack. I don't see why "minus points" translates to "especially disingenuous", why are you guys stressing on it this much?

Haven't looked at a town game yet, but I'm not really interested much either at this point. The expected result of my looking there is to end up at a nullread on gobble, and not a scumread. Given I have stronger scumreads, I'm interested in pushing there.

I think my main problem with Auro at this point is that the way he responds to pressure tends to give me "caught for the wrong reasons" vibes. Initially with the "I always wagon" bit...there are townier and scummier ways

of

doing that, and saying you tend to do that implies he should also be doing it as scum. Not necessarily a bad thing to ask about the reasoning for, but it did give me the aforementioned vibe. I don't think he really understood what I was asking regarding my follow-up to his read on cancel food related to this, uhhh, but I can see the strength of the read potentially be trying to placate them. I thought his handling of the Dongempire push was odd along similar lines, and that him switching off it so soon felt a little forced to not look like he's holding onto OMGUS. I now see he's since claimed him going in on it so hard was actually a test. I'm going to have to mull over how that shifts it. "Why didn't you ask me if my read changed" is...I'm again not a fan, I didn't see anything in Auro's posts that implied the needle had moved there. (Am I expected to constantly ask him if his reads changed?)

[KittyMo]

V/LA until Saturday, January 11

[KittyMo]

I don't expect I'll fully catch up until I'm off V/LA but I'm gonna get a start on it.

@"caught for the wrong reasons": Read up *any* of my prior town games, and see if you get the same vibe.

@Dunn: Ceph is in your townbloc why..?

@the Joan of Arc point: I think Dunn's reasoning actually makes sense here, and if Gobble's actually scum this would make Joan very likely town to me. However I can also imagine scum!her being coached into naked wagoning and lurking...

RE: the "why didn't you ask me if my read changed" discussion, I think I accidentally deleted your follow-up on it from this post but I feel that we're splitting hairs and no longer really care about that.

If you want people to read your old games get a wiki page.

I may or may not get motivation to dig into meta later. I have so little meta experience on people in this game that I worry that trying to meta dive, particularly early on, is going to actually lead to me forcing things with developing reads or otherwise thinking I'm reducing my biases more than I really am. Or maybe that's just what I tell myself because I probably cbf to read more threads rn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At the point she voted it wasn't a dying wagon, she simply hopped on the biggest one. I said I agreed with his reasoning at least to not want to lynch her for now, not that I think she's town.

Let's not get this misconstrued. She voted gobble, who had only 1 vote, while 2 other wagons had 2 votes. Dunnstral's take on the blank vote was "Not trying to impede the gobble wagon by arguing semantics or complaining about the game = towny". Which I do think is reading too far into a blank vote, and very clearly from the ~yay gobble vote~ perspective. (Which... the ~yay~ bias arguably corroborates Dunnstral's scumread on gobble being more genuine. lol) I feel like you morph into putting increasingly more stock into pulling stuff from her post the more you bring it up (see above quote for where you used to be at w/ it). My concern being more with the logic than with it necessarily being Deliberate Scum Strats, though I won't rule that out.

Lurking as a scum strat has a much higher negative impact than lurking right now as town, though.

As I see it: the scumteam can afford to lose exactly one of their members, and the more townies they appear obviously unaligned with the more of an uphill climb it is for their remaining teammates. So, specifically being non-interactive/having limited focus is pro-scum behavior. nsg's overall activity level is unlikely to be very alignment indicative, but her lack of attempts at engagement now that the Day is about half over is an orange flag for me. Still waiting for the follow-up on what the scumread she alluded to having on Sunday was (...which is for me why it's notable she left her vote on a townread in wgeurts), and am way more interested in hearing about anything that's actually happening than positing about how supposedly if she was scum, RC would run the slot.

[KittyMo]

Also it is quite unfortunate because

I purposefully lurking at the close of the weekend to see if this game would pick up activity if I was not at the center of it

and then I had a 20 hour monday and time has just continued to slip away from me. Looking back I shouldn't have purposefully removed myself from the discussion, but live and learn I guess.

Bruh, be real with me, did someone coach you to do/say this? You prodged Friday (promising stuff Saturday), Sunday (promising stuff Tuesday), and then again on Tuesday. So what I get from that and this explanation is that you had stuff you thought was worth addressing over the weekend as of Friday, then on Sunday went "ehhh I'm going to take this opportunity to lurk to watch

activity levels

" instead, and then got actually busy. What would an activity level change have indicated to you? I've never really been in a position where I cared about watching activity levels in relation

to myself

- because I know my alignment already, so I don't know what there is TO watch from that? Like if there's a defined narrative involving other people and no one's challenging it, that's a game state worth examining and can be telling. If you wanted to stop posting to let pressure on you taper from everyone's boredom, I'd rather you just admitted it. Otherwise: please clarify.

Ok. I am caught up. I don't think I am actually going to wall anything, I'm just going to give reads.

Spoiler: KITTYMO ADDED THE SPOILER FOR BREVITY PURPOSES

Town
KittyMo
Auro
Dann
Dunn
Cephrir
Hopkirk
Espeonage
Joan of Arc
DongEmpire
Formerfish
Wgeurts
NSG
Scum

You can view the Joan of Arc line as the official null line because I have no read on that slot and it is odd that others do have a read on that slot when it has two posts with no content.

Principally, the things that I am most suspect about are...

Dunn being able to extrapolate so much from a Joan of Arc vote on me. I feel like he is projecting and has entered the Death Spiral to get me killed.
NSG stating that Wgeurts was one of the three people in her town block and then not moving her vote despite having ample to time to post several more times after that fact.
Dongempire backing off Cephrir seemed like he realized he went down the wrong path trying to get people to scumread Cephrir. I also feel like Hopkirk is reaching with some of his analysis (particular when it comes to me), but he is very funny so I will townread him to keep him around longer.

I want to vote NSG because she is playing into her scum meta that I saw in Alternative 9P. I find it odd that no one else is commenting on that. It seemed like it was common knowledge across the site since other payers in that game also made that observation.

VOTE: Dongempire

Main things that I don't see a progression for and would like to know where they're coming from - why wgeurts/FF are lower than Joan in that order, why Ceph is above null. Other than that, I feel generically positive about this post. lmao @ the Hopkirk bit.

Dannflor asked gobble twice something along the lines of whether gobble gets why people might be concerned he's asking an empty question. Ironically, I think concerns that someone initiating RQS is scum "hiding behind" it has been overblown every single time I have ever seem an RQS. It's of course good to know why gobble asked the question, but I ironically think overly nitpicking RQS is an easy thing for scum to do to look like they're doing something. In turn, I have a small amount of beef with Auro in particular for opening with the assumption that it will yield nothing useful, and also with Dannflor for seeming to try to overly emphasize it's only reasonable to be suspicious of gobble. I do, however, appreciate Dann's analysis that the wooden tone from gobble fits with tryhard town, which is evidence Dann is trying to get a real read from this.

My point in asking that question to Gobble was to determine whether his rather OMGUS push on Cephrir and suspicion of Auro came from an incredulous town place or awkward scum. Based off tone, I feel like gobble is town who has come in and made some awkward posts/flubs that they're having trouble recovering from. The problem is, I don't have solid reasoning for why they aren't just scum instead—besides gut—soooooo very not confident read. Except for the fact that I think it's just not that easy.

I don't know. I'm waiting on him to respond to Dunnstrall's walls hopefully with a bit of a cooler head.

Overall, I think he's been a bit too careless/hyperactive to be scum here. Like I see the points others are making about his tone being more defensive here, but my gut is saying frustrated town.

And I've kind of delayed giving explicit thoughts on gobble, and so I'm going to attempt to write that up, and I wanted to call back this post because it's adjacent to some of my own thoughts.

He started with RQS, and while I do acknowledge that it's something people may consider doing to some degree before the game thread opens, all of my previous personal experiences with RQS are (1) the person who does it is town and (2) they are inevitably pushed on by people because it's a safe starting point to look at motivations behind, moreso than it being an easy thing to look like you're doing something. So weak read, but this game fits the second half of the pattern at least and I think doing RQS is more town than not because it is ballsier than it looks.

His stated motivation for the RQS (besides getting to know people he doesn't have much of a feel for) is specifically looking at who's going to be a big personality. If that's an actual concern for him as scum, he has plenty of people to privately ask about it - posted role PMs confirm day talk. I don't...necessarily know why it wouldn't become obvious through natural interactions who is a big enough personality for it to be relevant, but kinda in that sense it also feels like a weird basis to "fake solve" around?

This loops me back here:

I'm just tired of being the day 1 lynch. It's been like 6 games now and its uber frustrating because I would say I am above 60% for catching scum but it doesn't matter people just do not understand me and kill me.

This post is weird when you posted this earlier:

That is a fair assertion. I had two main reasons for asking the question. 1) I wanted to understand the types of players in this game. I wanted to see if it was going to be a lot of people with big personalities or people who thought highly of themselves a la RC/Mastina/Kuribo, etc. It appears that this playerlist is not like that at all, judging from the responses. Save for probably Dongempire. 2) I wanted it to get us out of RVS by giving us SOMETHING to talk about.

I think 91 is more likely to be a faked post because of 98, and that his omgus behavior when he seems to acknowledge that people don't get him and kill him doesn't really make sense to me

Like...I think you can think you have good reads/insticts without relating to those kinds of players/playstyles. I take it as more that he feels like he should be valued more than he is, more than he thinks he's better than other people. Not quite sure I am looking at this from the same angle you were, but I think these viewpoints can coexist.

I don't really see the OMGUS bit as contradictory. Like, I wouldn't say he OMGUSed Auro/Dann really for pushing him regarding RQS, and he implied his interactions with Ceph were giving him flashbacks to a situation where gobble was TvS (odd thing there now for me is, as mentioned earlier, progression on Ceph).

Do you think it is a bad idea to try and introduce discussion into the game?

Why was this something you felt the need to wait to reveal?

I didn’t actually But it is helpful to see what people pick and choose to respond to. Like do people ask legitimate questions are do they ask empty questions like Cephrir’s wood question

gobble's reactions to pressure like...are reasonable in sentiment but somehow didn't quite land well with tone/wording. Which with the context that he's been getting killed a lot D1 made me feel like that was going to make him touchy regardless of alignment and that over-pressuring him may actually make it harder to read him??

I kinda vibe with Dannflor's "hyperactive" take in that gobble's initial approach to the thread initially feels ...frenetic? brazen? in a way that I don't think unconfident scum hoping to just set up his teammates for the win tends to come off. I wish this was a stronger read??? I'm a little tilted by the admission of the intentional lurking (first quote in this post) but also definitely don't get the mindset behind it. If I set that aside, overall, I like him better than I don't.

[KittyMo]

i apologize if this is frustrating, but my team unanimously agrees that it's best for me to spend my time elsewhere. if i don't get nightkilled this game will be my first priority tomorrow.

I have more negative feelings about this than just frustration that are probably best left unexpressed. I will say, if you are town, don't kid yourself that avoiding interactions to this degree is a #ProStrat. If you have time to make excuses of this nature 3 times in ~24 hours, you have time to post something content shaped.

KittyMo, do you want to lynch one of NSG/Joan?

I mean, I do stand by my belief that scum!Gobble would make a case for town!Joan. Where should my read on her be? It's just a smidge above null.

Joan slot's off the table at the moment, I certainly don't have strong enough reads on the rest of the game to justify lynching there. NSG's playstyle leans pro-scum, but to an extent we're being forced to read around her unless we call the bluff and run her up, which...is an option, but an option I will moreso weigh when I hopefully feel less bitter!

[KittyMo]

Ok. I am caught up. I don't think I am actually going to wall anything, I'm just going to give reads.

Spoiler: KITTYMO ADDED THE SPOILER FOR BREVITY PURPOSES

Town
KittyMo
Auro
Dann
Dunn
Cephrir
Hopkirk
Espeonage
Joan of Arc
DongEmpire
Formerfish
Wgeurts
NSG
Scum

You can view the Joan of Arc line as the official null line because I have no read on that slot and it is odd that others do have a read on that slot when it has two posts with no content.

Principally, the things that I am most suspect about are...

Dunn being able to extrapolate so much from a Joan of Arc vote on me. I feel like he is projecting and has entered the Death Spiral to get me killed.
NSG stating that Wgeurts was one of the three people in her town block and then not moving her vote despite having ample to time to post several more times after that fact.
Dongempire backing off Cephrir seemed like he realized he went down the wrong path trying to get people to scumread Cephrir. I also feel like Hopkirk is reaching with some of his analysis (particular when it comes to me), but he is very funny so I will townread him to keep him around longer.

I want to vote NSG because she is playing into her scum meta that I saw in Alternative 9P. I find it odd that no one else is commenting on that. It seemed like it was common knowledge across the site since other payers in that game also made that observation.

VOTE: Dongempire

Main things that I don't see a progression for and would like to know where they're coming from - why wgeurts/FF are lower than Joan in that order, why Ceph is above null. Other than that, I feel generically positive about this post. lmao @ the Hopkirk bit.

Anything you want to add on these subjects?

Also it is quite unfortunate because

I purposefully lurking at the close of the weekend to see if this game would pick up activity if I was not at the center of it

and then I had a 20 hour monday and time has just continued to slip away from me. Looking back I shouldn't have purposefully removed myself from the discussion, but live and learn I guess.

Bruh, be real with me, did someone coach you to do/say this? You prodged Friday (promising stuff Saturday), Sunday (promising stuff Tuesday), and then again on Tuesday. So what I get from that and this explanation is that you had stuff you thought was worth addressing over the weekend as of Friday, then on Sunday went "ehhh I'm going to take this opportunity to lurk to watch activity levels" instead, and then got actually busy. What would an activity level change have indicated to you? I've never really been in a position where I cared about watching activity levels in relation to myself - because I know my alignment already, so I don't know what there is TO watch from that? Like if there's a defined narrative involving other people and no one's challenging it, that's a game state worth examining and can be telling. If you wanted to stop posting to let pressure on you taper from everyone's boredom, I'd rather you just admitted it. Otherwise: please clarify.

By commenting on stuff I meant like things that Dunnstral was needling, but I didn’t think it was worth it for the game state to get into a post by post quote strip war. I don’t have the time for it at least

Also why do you think I would be coached to say that?

Referring to it primarily in terms of you wanting to watch activity levels didn't seem to make sense contextually and thus seemed like an excuse. Which sticks out to me especially because it seems brazen to be making the admission that you were tactically lurking after promising to do stuff; it's a strange juxtaposition where you seem to be trying to make your tactic sound fancier than it is, while also being more honest in part of the admission than is probably necessary. I don't know if it fits better from "suicidal" scum gobble or "worn out yolo" town gobble, but it feels like a post that should be AI in that way. It crossed my mind that it being influenced by outside of thread chat could be relevant to your mindset in doing that? And in general it's not clear from your posts what role, if any, being able to talk to other people about this game has on your game, and it's something I'm generally curious about for you. From the follow-up response it seems you meant that you thought you wall-responding to Dunn COULD have problematic effects on activity levels/game state rather than it being, like, a reaction test to the thread (as I initially thought you were framing it as). Which makes more sense, but somehow...isn't as telling of a response as I hoped, I guess.

[KittyMo]

I lied about reading, because I went to make more food first. NOW I am reading.

I voted him because I was frustrated with the gamestate (see: VC's with everyone voting a different person) and wanted to build an actual concrete wagon on someone since my pushes on you and Dongempire were going nowhere. I also was the least sure about him of the leading wagons at the time so it was the best place for my vote to go I thought.

The people I feel I have a good grasp on are Hopkirk and Auro, and I think I'll have a pretty solid grasp on FF and Cephrir once I'm done reading.

I have a grasp on why you like Hopkirk, but I don't on why you like Auro. (Fun fact, his name shows up in your iso 38 times). The way he handles suspicion still pings me as "caught for the wrong reasons" with misplaced valuations, though I'll admit theory differences seem to exist.

I am also wondering on what basis Dunnstral is trying to read Auro himself, since a lot of his content around Auro is pointing out things Auro is being attacked for that appear to be in Auro's town range. Maybe I should like Auro more for living in the thread.

To provide actual works to answer Dunn's question.

The point I am making is that there is a right way to ask about suspicion on yourself, and just asking and getting

ammo on how to fix it and be town read

is not the way to do it. That is why I am scum reading Auro. All of the mentality stuff I am reading in Auro's posts reads to me as working out how to be town read not how to convince others of their own reads to work with others. This isn't even town ego either which I would admit is probably townie despite being a shithouse way to play the game that I am a hypocrite for calling out.

The entirety of my reasoning is Auro cares more about being town read than finding scum.

In spite of me not liking how Auro handles suspicion, this is not really how I see it and I'd like more context from you on how you see this happening. Like, do you see evidence of Auro weaponizing this ammo / adapting based on the answers he's getting?

If it helps, I think I meant to say Dann if I said Dunn. And also I forget why it was so there's that.

How about you try to refresh your memory on it?

Fuck I lost a huge post.

Basically I had this big thing that there's probably 1 and maybe 2 scum in the lurkers because of wagon reasons and it ended in me asking for cliff notes on the lurkers from Hopkirk and Auro and my mirroring some points Ceph made.

Bummer, would be interesting to get more in-depth, wider focused takes from you.

I don't care! If he doesn't use meta, that's his prerogative.

Let's try to figure where we disagree.

1. Esp said I'm scum for a reason X.
2. A cursory glance at my town games would show X in those games.
3. Dunn also says I do X as town.
4. Therefore, scumreading me for X is not valid.
5. Therefore, Esp should re-assess.

(I don't think X is scummy by itself anyway, but that's a different issue)

Can you tell me which point you disagree me with on?

Dunnstral has implied he's not exactly an Auro whisperer. Does cancel food have a better track record?

Yes, and Dunn's reasoning is that for *her* it's more town indicative than scum indicative - if she were scum she'd drum up some opposition to the wagon, etc, wouldn't sheep and lurk away.

Would you want to lynch her, if not me?

Do you have any meta experience with her? Where exactly were you getting that as scum would she "drum up opposition" to the wagon? Prior to finding out she was going to be replaced, but after I corrected you on the context of the wagon, to what extent did that move the needle on your read there or willingness to lynch her?

KittyMo: I forgot what I thought of this player before.

What, you haven't done a full meta report on me yet?

[KittyMo]

Esp I am really surprised by you treating NSG like she's a run of the mill lurker while you're going so heavy handed on what you think the

right way

to play team mafia is (which seems to be pretty similar to what you think is the right way to play normal mafia).

Spoiler:

dann, what exactly do you think my plan is as scum here? you know that i actually CAN play scum, right? i've endgamed as scum before in white flag (i'm CultOfAthena). i have the capability to put words to paper as scum, especially if it were team mafia, and especially with RC on my team. (personally i would say that the reason i say less as scum in general is more due to lack of interest rather than lack of ability, but that's neither here nor there)

this game is just as important to my team as the others, and that's exactly why we're going with this strategy. i would never be doing this if i wasn't confident in my ability to show that i'm town when the time comes.

voting me is a mistake and won't make me play differently. with the time left in the day and my focus on other games if i switched now then i likely wouldn't get an optimal lynch but i would still paint a target on my back.

i apologize if this is frustrating, but my team unanimously agrees that it's best for me to spend my time elsewhere. if i don't get nightkilled this game will be my first priority tomorrow.

Scum or not, she's basically banking on her paragon reputation to prod dodge to delay her slot contributing anything substantive until d2, and pretending that this is pro town. For the purpose of "priorit[izing]" Other Things for her team. Besides being disrespectful, I find it pro-scum and scummy because positioning herself as a "No info kill" is more important to her than doing anything besides MAKING WIFOM SELF-META CASES or MOVING HER RVS VOTE ONTO THE SCUMREAD SHE CLAIMED TO HAVE. As scum she is forced to walk an awkward line in this player list of it making sense for her to live a while, without being scummy enough to lynch. In my mind that is better reason for this strat than whatever the deluded "pro town" value is she's claiming.

Clear up for me why, of the lurkers, she is more likely to be town for you.

[KittyMo]

EBWOP: *NOT moving.

Hopkirk: Cool your jets mate, me laughing at gobble was not about you. gobble was questioning townreads on you and then pivoted to saying something like "I'm gonna pretend to townread him more than I really am for being funny" and I found that amusing, and very slightly town indicative from him.

I didn't ask you about any of your comments related to why you can't post more because they didn't really stick out to me and I don't have concerns about your activity level. Like I do remember kinda frowning that you made it sound like you were going to be inactive, but then you ...weren't actually lurky.

Also: Feel free to ask me anything that you feel might help you better understand my approach to the game. I feel that you, and to a lesser extent others, may be making the assumption that being "pleasant" and somewhat passive is, like, my generic playstyle that would present itself similarly regardless of alignment. I probably like that I haven't found more to feel passionate about less than you do! My playstyle this game does result from me figuring out how to play at MafiaScum pace again, and it's a bit of a journey.

[KittyMo]

[snip]

That said, it seems like people are more interested in protecting their scum games by playing blatantly anti town and claiming it's their town meta. So idek any more.

What in this game actually prompts this rant?

[KittyMo]

My impression is that her team wants her attention on their games and she'll get in to this one later. Given that I would expect her to create readable content later on, there's no reason to doubt that she is telling the truth and will produce content later.

At least she has been open about it.

[Snip]
Bounce ideas of them sure, but play your game, don't be a conduit for someone to just play four games.

She is implying that she is being conduited to play other games while not playing this one. You being cool with it seems really hypocritical to me.

[KittyMo]

Re: 717, that angle would make more sense to me if it had no effect on this game, but she claims it does.

Dunn 346's counter point to Kitty's claim that Auro is posturing as caught for the wrong reasons was to say yeah but he does this all the time. Which was one a found as soon as I started looking.

Yeah and since Dunn implied he isn't good at reading Auro I don't get why he cares so much about trying to bring in Auro meta. He at least isn't using the "I always find him scummy" as an excuse to throw suspicion on Auro, which is probably the more standard angle w/r/t that. But I still have no clue what Dunn actually thinks of Auro which is a problem.

[KittyMo]

Yeah and since Dunn implied he isn't good at reading Auro I don't get why he cares so much about trying to bring in Auro meta.

Meta works in two ways.

1. Auro does X as scum and never as town, he must be scum (or) Auro does X as town and not as scum, he must be town
2. X is an invalid reason to scumread Auro because I've noticed it in his towngames

You don't need to be good at reading Auro to make the second point.

Please don't cut the most important part of my quote to mansplain how meta works again. I'm well aware of your opinion on it, and frankly it does not help me read you.

[KittyMo]

Other musings before I leave:

- Would like to see Dannflor explain the Dunnstral town core read at some point

- I have been joking with my team that Dannflor hands out townreads like candy. However I have determined I actually townlean him, because I think that I see a throughline in his posts of trying varying tactics to resolve that that appear genuine (expressing that he feels the game state is wrong and seeming to try to figure out why, various attempts at re-weighing reads, trying out pushes). Also I'm I guess bored of everyone saying he's too good at scum to deserve to be townread or whatever with minimal elaboration

- My strongest townread is still Cephrir and it's not close

- I have some thoughts dropped by my teammates I will probably share but I'll hide them in a wall Esp won't read

- I like both the replacements so far which is leading me to think on what I may be missing with others

- I like Hopkirk less from the Cheeky interactions but I don't want to kill him or anything

- My instincts tell me that the current game state is fairly likely to lead to a Dongempire lynch which I feel pretty ambivalent about, but he's probably who I'd most like to hear from now. I'm struggling to follow the thought process on some of his votes (the Auro vote and discussion that wasn't a "push", the Ceph vote was a "push" but not bc he scumread Ceph)

[KittyMo]

UNVOTE: Dunnstral
VOTE: northsidegal (L-3?)

This is not a pressure vote.

I feel that I need a reset from focusing on Dunnstral. I did find his reaction to the Return of Gobble surprising but kinda agree with Dannflor that I don't find that trajectory off gobble and then back to be "agenda-y."

Auro asked about BBmolla. One piece is that I feel less ...weirded out by things centering around Joan with the context that it's Yume/Jeanne11 and that meta reads were being made. Other than that, just liked his energy. I know the feeling of expecting to roll scum as a replacement and feeling relieved not to be, and at least for me it's not something that's ever been on my mind to fake when I have subbed in as scum. Needs to be followed up with content obv but.

Dann asked about Ceph, and I think his posts still reflect the mindset I brought up in 147 / 204. I just don't believe he knows who the scumteam is. It seems he sees what he's doing as the best he can for how early in the game it is, and I sense a range of feelings of cynicism/skepticism/nihilism about the game that continually make more sense from someone who doesn't have the answers. The read is pretty visceral for me and hard to translate, which is the only reason I haven't talked about it more.

[KittyMo]

Spoiler:

Fuck I lost a huge post.

Basically I had this big thing that there's probably 1 and maybe 2 scum in the lurkers because of wagon reasons and it ended in me asking for cliff notes on the lurkers from Hopkirk and Auro and my mirroring some points Ceph made.

I see the opposite as true if Auro flips scum in that it implicates Dann and if he's town that implicates Espeon.

What advantage would Dann have in pocketing Auro?

Auro is argumentative and vocal. Both strong qualities in someone town reading you.

My breakdown is that I doubt the entire scum team would jump on to a wagon all together, which is why I would not expect a prominent three person wagon to contain more than 1 or 2 scum.

Are these the posts you think you asked for feedback on your hypotheses on?

Personally I feel pretty frustrated with you based on our communication prior to the game never reaching resolution, the fact that you purportedly have a gut read on me based on skimming my posts (that I acknowledge are long, but I did organize intentionally) and the extent to which you're talking down to everyone. I'm getting that off my chest partly because I'm worried my reads are starting to increasingly overlap with likeability and idk, I'm not enjoying being annoyed with you. I do think you should consider that you may be creating a self fulfilling prophecy with regards to not being able to bounce ideas though.

I had been thinking Dann and Auro were below chance of being aligned, solely based on things on Dann's end that don't really fit the model of past scum defenses of partners I've thus encountered. Dann's liking of Auro is an axiom for him, but he's neither ... weaponizing it or justifying it to the degree I would expect? Somewhat independently of the associative read, it's ...funny to me that Dann keeps narrating that he just loves Auro and wants to figure out who's pushing Auro disingenuously without asking that many specific questions surrounding suspicion of Auro. Like I guess that comes off as higher % LAMIST concern w/r/t Dann than a concern for buddies.

[KittyMo]

Yes, and Dunn's reasoning is that for *her* it's more town indicative than scum indicative - if she were scum she'd drum up some opposition to the wagon, etc, wouldn't sheep and lurk away.

Would you want to lynch her, if not me?

Do you have any meta experience with her? Where exactly were you getting that as scum would she "drum up opposition" to the wagon? Prior to finding out she was going to be replaced, but after I corrected you on the context of the wagon, to what extent did that move the needle on your read there or willingness to lynch her?

Last bit might be harder to answer now that Cheeky's been here a bit which is unfortunate. But I remain bothered by the "drum up opposition" part in that I have no clue what the basis of that was.

[KittyMo]

Oh wait Joan=molla not Cheeky.

Idk if you were trying to answer me yet but the quote above is about your read on Joan.

[KittyMo]

Yes, and Dunn's reasoning is that for *her* it's more town indicative than scum indicative - if she were scum she'd drum up some opposition to the wagon, etc, wouldn't sheep and lurk away.

Would you want to lynch her, if not me?

Do you have any meta experience with her? Where exactly were you getting that as scum would she "drum up opposition" to the wagon? Prior to finding out she was going to be replaced, but after I corrected you on the context of the wagon, to what extent did that move the needle on your read there or willingness to lynch her?

I am still looking for specific insight into this specific statement you made about Joan.

If you're not able to dig to get the context back then whatever, come back to it later.

I just want to make it clear that "I'm not concerned about BBmolla right now" is not answering my question.

I already brought up to you that you were wrong about the vote count when making this read. Your response was basically that your thought that she was very slightly town and not someone you wanted to lynch, regardless. And then I looked back at it and realized that you had gone even further than I realized in terms of making logical leaps about what Joan's motivations were for blank voting. Reminder: Dunnstral's read was "Not trying to impede the gobble wagon by arguing semantics or complaining about the game = towny".

[KittyMo]

The current exchange literally made me facepalm.

This is the same sort of premise that I think Dunn responded to me with earlier without addressing

on what merits he is instead reading Auro on that are more worth looking at

. It's useful to know that being Auro being hyper-focused on self-defense is purportedly in his town range and that does inform my thinking, but like it's...also just a data point that I have to figure out how to best integrate with many more. I'm not interested in getting sucked into this circular argument, but that's my take on it, anyway.

I am still looking for specific insight into this specific statement you made about Joan. If you're not able to dig to get the context back then whatever, come back to it later. I just want to make it clear that "I'm not concerned about BBmolla right now" is not answering my question.

I have some meta experience with Joan. I trust Dunn's reasoning given he has a lot more meta experience with her (to my knowledge). I recall that Gob was being pushed at that time, even if he wasn't the biggest wagon.

Yes, it's somewhat a logical leap. And because it was a leap, it only took her to "very slightly town". What about it?

Because I'm trying to figure out if it was a real read or if you were buddying Dunn or what.

The context that it felt like there was a lot of pressure on gobble prob explains why you were treating it as a wagon without fact checking though.

[KittyMo]

No, but: you should realize that there's at least one reasonable town perspective that thinks Auro is being pro-town, and reassess whether your accusations that he's anti-town carry as much merit as you think it does.

Can you clarify who you're referring to with "at least one reasonable town perspective"?

[KittyMo]

.

I have no evidence against you if it makes you feel better. If I had to take a guess on it, it would be that I agree with you the most which feels really damn weird in this oddball game. Which is why you are one of the only people who I feel is playing the game at the moment.

Huh. Why is it weird for us specifically to agree?

I took Gobs 344 way differently than you did. I'll wait for Gob to chime in before I give my 2 cents though.

Is now a good time for this? In his current absence I'm pondering that the early rudeness with you two may have been theater. :b

[KittyMo]

How does the answer to "Why White Flag?" give any useful information? The reasons would have been established prior, and there's no picking games after role assignments anyway.

Any

question can get a town-but-incriminating or scum-but-lying response, that hardly makes the questions themselves useless. Especially since the intent of that question wasn't to weaponize it and look for holes, rather to just develop an insight into their playstyle from their own words. You're spending a lot of words here saying nothing.

[KittyMo]

I think Espeon is the best info lynch today with some scum equity based on the two groups I'm starting to see around Auro and nsg.

What information would it exactly give you on a green flip if we agreed to "info lynch" him?

[KittyMo]

I am about to exist but I see posts on this page that in my opinion seem to skirt the ongoing game rule from certain people and so this is just a friendly reminder to be careful.

[KittyMo]

i apologize if this is frustrating, but my team unanimously agrees that it's best for me to spend my time elsewhere. if i don't get nightkilled this game will be my first priority tomorrow.

KittyMo, this is from this game.

Right, I'm just suggesting being careful about wording and making sure it's clear that that post and other posts of hers are exactly what we are talking about.

[KittyMo]

VOTE: nsg

You do not get to coast through this day on reputation. That's unfair to everyone involved. Be town or die. We can solve this game without whatever magical scumhunting powers you supposedly possess.

i'm slightly distressed that the idea that i'm attempting to leverage my "reputation" or "bank on being paragon" is a thing. i've never once brought it up and never would, because i don't think of myself that way. i'm very sorry if that's the image of me that you've gotten, as someone who thinks herself better than others. please trust me when i say that's not the case.

i apologize if this is frustrating, but my team unanimously agrees that it's best for me to spend my time elsewhere.

if i don't get nightkilled this game will be my first priority tomorrow.

[KittyMo]

No, I'm just letting it speak for itself. How about you answer Dunnstral's more relevant question?

[KittyMo]

@Formerfish

I took Gobs 344 way differently than you did. I'll wait for Gob to chime in before I give my 2 cents though.

Is now a good time for this? In his current absence I'm pondering that the early rudeness with you two may have been theater. :b

Still pending.

---

I've just gone through a full multi-iso of you/Cheeky/wgeurts. This entire post is going to about you and I am going to do my best to make it not a nightmare to read.

Auro/Dann/Dunn/Dong/Hop all go after you a bit for your early posts, which I don't think was especially deserved except I guess by PoE, what you were doing was fine for page 2.

Looking at the big catch-up: far from IIOA, content is there. There's good things, some less good things. Hopkirk townread has the least established progression in your posts.

Spoiler:

Gobble is the scummiest player at this point in the game.

If you have meta info on scum NSG you should share it, I don't know what you are talking about.

VOTE: Formerfish

Gob is the scummiest player to Dunn. Gob claims to have info on NSG that makes her scum. Dunn votes me while asking his biggest scum read what makes NSG scum. That totally makes sense.

At this point Brad stood up from his computer and went into the kitchen. In the back of the cabinet there was a bottle that had grown a bit dusty over time. Some ol' kentucky rye whiskey sloshed in the bottle as it was removed from its forgotten home. See the only time that Brad ever drinks from this bottle is when he has read something that makes his head literally hurt. Brad used to go the hospital in the past when things like this happened. He would explain how he felt and the doctors and nurses would listen and they would run some tests. All of those actions were in vain as what Brad was suffering from was not something that could be deduced by any tests known to man. Brad was suffering from an allergy to other people and the things that they say that make no sense at all. Brad has been doing good, staying on the right path, avoiding politics and any discussions of religion. Playing Mafia was playing with fire though, and deep down Brad always knew that this would be the ending given enough time. Well what the hell, I know the medication says not to drink with it, but thats just a suggestion right?

This is by far your weirdest take. You have totally lost the nuance here that Gobble was gone for fucking ages, and that Dunn in the same catch-up style you are literally doing yourself, comments on the re-entrance and then ends up flipping his vote to you. This looks like a clapback for moving onto you. Because if what you quoted is the entire progression, that's probably worth digging into more than it seems like you ever do. But somehow you've gone to the effort of cutting up the quote to narrate it like this without analysing the situation fully. If this is your honest reaction to the post than frankly I don't get why you don't suspect Dunn more from it.

[snip]

And its cool man, i do better in figuring people out by talking to them in real time because they have less time to try and figure out angels and you get more honest answers. If you hunt differently, then do you.

This kind of makes me feel worse about your manner of posting today (as in when I'm writing this post). Because I feel like there was a lot of thread activity to dig into and I don't feel the energy of you suddenly having more of a real-time opportunity than you usually have in the game.

oh i see what you mean, you made those shorter posts while that one was in draft. That makes sense

Hop 'Hopenhop' Hop

Aaaaaayyy, he got there.

And I'll answer CT here as well. Your slot dropped off because when I read the thread in one go i liked that slot, then i realized how dormant it went after bitching at someone for saying they might not give 100% attention to this game.

CT, did you iso me, because if you did you would have seen the post i made about why my read changed on geurts and why he went from a townleanish to a scumlean.

Thats why i said you had a whole to climb out of as soon as you came into the thread.

I feel like both arguments Hoppy and CT are using against me are bad premises because they either missed info crucial to their basis or they ignored something i totally said.

They're bad premises, but are they scummy ones? I feel like addressing it as a pattern that is happening against you is the more defensive and less productive angle to take. Rather than looking at the motivation behind them individually. And while the full explanation of his wgeurts slot read is prompted by Cheeky, it doesn't sit that well with me. Acknowledging that Hopkirk misunderstood you and now says you "make sense" but still writing him out as arguing against you with a "bad premise" is sorta odd shade toward an apparent townread while Cheeky was scummier for you. Overall, just a tonally weird post.

Spoiler: NSG stuff

I was going to wall again, but Im high and feel a little wordy and like things might not flow if i bunched everything together. Enjoy this next few hours postings.

despite what I've said I don't actually want to lynch nsg day 1, I was just hoping wagoning her would be effective in getting her to play and ehhhhhh

I've been thinking about this a little bit. If NSGs team is pulling her to other games where they need help do you think that they would do that with her as scum or as town? If she is scum then wouldn't her team make shes in here making noise so she doesnt take this heat? If she is town then they probably assume that they can borrow her for the time being with the idea that she can come in here and town it up when she needs to.

This is all kinda working under the idea that we are incapable of finding scum on our own and that we need her to come save us.

I think that we have a good deal of info going into this first lynch and that we will have a better understanding of the game state when we see a few flips.

If she is scum then wouldn't her team make shes in here making noise so she doesnt take this heat? If she is town then they probably assume that they can borrow her for the time being with the idea that she can come in here and town it up when she needs to.

I've addressed this.
If she's scum she'd be held accountable for her pushes, she'd take heat for driving a mislynch.
If she's town she's a prime target for a N1 kill, meaning she'd want to have some impact on the game - making her refusal to play D1 strange.

I dunno, I think there is a good chance that if she really thinks shes going to die tonight that maybe her not doing anything d1 is a decent strategy.

Think about it. If she try-hards today and comes up with a bunch of solid reads, it almost certainly seals her fate tonight. And then we move on and who really listens to dead people when they die?

If she lays low and lets us progress the game scum is going to be forced to make a choice between taking out a vocal town leader from today, or NSG who could potentially be a leader in the future. This gives her the best chance to get to d2 as town imo.

I complained about this in my team discord back when it happened, which launched into a bit of a convo about what that meant in terms of TvS/SvS etc., from that noticed you'd made a point of saying you didn't know NSG well multiple times earlier. I'm not entirely sure this is a logical following from your earlier expressed thoughts on her including that.

That aside, you've 'been thinking' about it and have these long paragraphs that reflect... the level 1 base interpretation of accepting NSG's premises... My personal viewpoint is that this is a WIFOM argument that is being presented as though the rest of us somehow didn't consider it. I definitely didn't like this, how much of that is differences in perspective is something I'm unsure of.

Spoiler: Problematic progression?

FF has been tiptoeing around what could be deemed the strong town players Dunn, Dann, Kitty and town reading the not so towny people. When he decided to attack Dann he was constantly throwing shade and acting like he was reassessing but he wasn't, he left dann in his scum reads after saying he felt better. His jump on the Auro wagon was opportunistic, ceasing on the game trajectory that was running in his favour. These are the main points I'll be elaborating on.

FF is interacting with Dunn in a way that feels like he's trying to stay under the radar. It's what and who he's picking and choosing to respond to. You're not giving his town game enough credit if you think this is it.

Cheeky I don't know if you're looking for a formal invite for us to interact, cause I'm not sure why you are unable to ask me whatever you wanna talk about.

Like I said go read my iso and to come back with questions about my reads or anything you wanted to talk about, did I miss a response to that or are you still just trying to compare my play here to how I play as an SE in newbie games?

This is a very different game for many reasons. First of all I have 3 other players looking at the game and giving their takes and opinions on people so I dont have to do all my hunting here since I have some good fucking partners helping me there. Second, the last time i did a TM i played horribly and Im trying to not repeat that performance. Third, sue me If I wanna take this game a little more serious since im having some issues with inadequacy on site and maybe if I actually play well here and show people im not some chuckle fuck that ill feel better.

I can go back to shotgunning anything that moves if you really want me to, but I think that time is gone in this game and you missed it. We are here now and you wanna talk but whenever you talk to me it doesnt seem like you are talking about what you want to talk about.

I will hang Dann or Auro right now, CT maybe her arguments against me feel very contrived, but she claims a case is coming, so...

I dunno if you missed this specific post, but given she did make the beginnings of a case there, the meta bit is not the important thing to be focusing on. Not that I don't agree that you playing differently in Team Mafia than a newbie game doesn't make sense, it's just also pretty NAI.

Quote the multiple people explaining why it's anti-town.

People don't need to explain things to your liking for it to be true, your role pm dictated that long before you opened your mouth and let us all see which color you got as clearly as you did when you opened the pm.

I have two shoulder angels in this game, and the one that doesn't like you was put off by you in real-time this 1v1 argument. From a theory standpoint I side with you, and yet what made me facepalm was not that I felt Auro was being disingenuous, it was him being seemingly so genuinely obstinate for the umpteenth time despite me not agreeing. But the bigger issue is that I don't know if I see this as you genuinely becoming more convinced he's scum, or that that tracks onto how you came back to the thread afterward. Like, you've clarified you prefer Auro/Dann/Dong lynches. But your re-entrance is very...calm toward those people, main reaction to goings-on is that Dunn is the "sane one."

Anyway: These are my concerns about you, feel free to clear any of them up.

[KittyMo]

She means Esp green would imply strong Auro red, and in turn Dann, etc...?

Gobble townslipped methinks.

I think Esp is the best lynch regardless today.

I think it is a mistake to assume that me and auto is SvT both potential ways.

I agree that there needs to be analysis of mid day wagons, the resistance they both had and how me v Auro shaped that phase of the day.

I still think Dann looks bad on both sides, but I'm not enjoying my own lines on that read.

I don't like the ... roboticness of this, there's been a lot to you vs Auro and so this is oddly...emotionless rhetoric. It would bother me more without certain theory context!

I hate reads lists but I think I'm a bit all over the place so I might hand draw a little mind map or some shit for this game.

I've kinda been stuck in not necessarily liking the lack of uh...detail? with some of your reads ("FF did iioa" "kittymo is gut scum cuz i didn't finish reading her posts") and wanting to scumread you for you being, um, sour. And then another part of me wants to townread you because your salty posts don't seem like something that you should think would make you friends and influence people. With your salt you are projecting, like, a whole belief system that in a way seems more difficult to fake than your actual reads.

But uh, this fucking post, is literally me two days ago. I even felt really shitty that I couldn't force myself to make a reads list that would actually represent how I view things in spite of myself and specifically thought that I would need to make a mind map in order to do. It's bizarrely touching that someone else has the same problem. I don't think I can kill you today.

[KittyMo]

Skimming the last two pages I like BBmolla for town too, but I don't remember him from the early game at all.

This statement in particular seems to come from a town viewpoint.

I'm not at all sold on a Gobble lynch.

FF, your team was giving you inputs: can you specify what exactly?

Why is it implausible disengaged scum Gobble would forgetfully post this?

I didn't like gobble's vote there, though.

Is there something in the progression of his vote that you don't like or is it more bad news bears because you think he's scummy in general? I'm very unsure on gobble right now because there's sort of a black hole in progressions for how he got to his original big read wall. WATCHING ACTIVITY LEVELS was bizarrely political phrasing for the absence. Now he uhhh, apparently likes everyone he used to dislike more besides Dongempire. I thought him liking FF for the burden of proof thing was random because it seemed like one of the more nai things in FF iso to me, but the overall progression on the read doesn't come off implausibly to me on face.

[KittyMo]

Why is it implausible disengaged scum Gobble would forgetfully post this?

Premised on Gobble being coached, or at least discussing things in the scum PT before posting.

On his last thread entrance before this he was called out for possibly being too coached/tactical, and then came back the opposite. He does come off better in reentrance #2 than in #1, but it's ... also a little jarring.

Because FF is scum probably. I'm really uncomfortable with how badly Cephrir wants to lynch NSG.

I think he had his hopes up that she'd be replaced and the slot would exist in a different capacity, and he felt genuinely betrayed that she wasn't - I'm not upset because I expected it, but I suspect he feels similarly to how I did a few days ago just now. Literally my one piece of advice for if I'm not here tomorrow is that the warthog should not be killed by town this game. Granted that new shit happens.

[KittyMo]

I haven't even remotely caught up and won't until tomorrow evening at the earliest.

VOTE: Dunn

[KittyMo]

As for nsg, it's sadly a pleasant surprise she broke character to make a game relevant vote. I'm mulling on that and her other stuff, not married to my vote, we'll see.

[KittyMo]

I'm at the point now that if nsg is town and lynched I don't really care because today most people seem fixated on it and that is going to mess up how the game reads D1.

Ugh.

I mean it is possible that she’s scum and had these real life obligations, but I rereading her iso she said she was choosing to ignore this game which is really weird to me

Can you explain this more?

[KittyMo]

What part do you want me to explain more specifically

I guess the "weird" part, why is it weird, how did it develop your thoughts on her slot?

I'm really concerned about assuming we must have solved this day one and just going with a consensus lynch. It feels like there's no resistance whatsoever to my scumreads and that doesn't make me feel that confident in the lynches. Maybe we're just doing that well since it's team mafia, but I'm not convinced that everything is as easy as it looks here.

Hop 'hopalop' hop

I mean I'm definitely not going at this with the approach that "we've solved this," I'm just trying to do my best to holistically weigh who has behaved in ways that are easiest to fake. And it's hard because there's so much WIFOM from the setup about whether someone being lynchable is a towntell in and of itself. I feel like that's constantly gnawing at me but that I don't know how to use that information. I can hope that later in the game there's more information to make it...less WIFOM and more events based takes on that. Rather than just something that makes me feel nihilistic and stressed.

[KittyMo]

Hey molla, would you care to sell me on why your wagon is the way to go?

[KittyMo]

@Gobble

where are you at with Ceph? I feel like that's the main progression from you I don't understand and that the window for asking about hasn't sorta passed on

[KittyMo]

I don't think anyone on my team has read any of the other games.

Only Nancy read my game and had the same thoughts so there's nothing much in terms of discussions, but yeah, I'd like to hear whatever FF has to offer.

@FF or is there nothing and you guys haven't discussed at all? That's okay too, except it's the most likely thing that'll convince me not to lynch you.

I've mostly been venting about what's been going on in the game and they are talking me off the ledge of doing stupid things. We aren't reading each other's games, but we use the topic to talk about things and get their reads on what I'm seeing here.

1153, feel free to skip the nsg bit.

[KittyMo]

You should at least talk to Auro even if you're mad at me.

People who want to talk to me: come with a specific topic.

Again: 1153. Please feel free to ignore the nsg part.

Bit ironic you're again not acknowledging the post.

[KittyMo]

I mean why explain it as scum when you could just not post like NSG, Joan and Geurts for weeks without dying?

I mean, 551 is my take on it, which is to say I agree him admitting to tactically lurking came off as more honest than he needs to be, but I disagree that watching people was the real motivation there, which is what throws me off.

Is there nothing else in 1153 you wanted to address, or is that in progress ?

[KittyMo]

Hito thinks Molla fits better as partnered with FF than with nsg based on molla putting more content toward talking about nsg despite suspecting FF more (hito sees it as molla maybe wanting credit for being on the FF wagon). nsg red he thinks is good for Molla