Townie Responsibilities

[BNL]

So previously I asked here if it's the right thing to do to just post your reads, regardless of how scummy it may seem.

Now I would like to ask the other extreme. Is it a responsibility for Townies to try to act somewhat town-y, or at least to avoid acting very obviously and extremely scummy?

[Wisdom]

Nah. You can do anything you feel might help you get reads as long as you can avoid getting mislynched.

[BNL]

That's what I thought until Micro 576. Linked post basically lost me the game.

[wgeurts]

People should stop trying to act townie intentionally as town, due to that a meta can form with "how town should act" which scum players of a certain level can easily replicate as their scum-game. People should just play as they do naturally. That way people are forced to look genuine as scum which is harder and not just meet a set of standards.

[BNL]

I can agree. What I'm asking is, should you avoid things that can make you look so scummy it can get you autolynched?

[Cheery Dog]

Not getting lynched is usually a good start

[BNL]

I've been lynched on D1 in 3 of my 7 completed games...

(Only once outside that, and I was a Jester)

[Plotinus]

If you can avoid getting lynched as town, you are making scum's job harder, because they have to they have to lynch somebody who isn't you.

looking town shouldn't be your primary goal as town, but consider what things look town: scumhunting, trying to solve the game, trying to figure out who the scumteam is and trying to figure out who the town are and work together with town to lynch scum.

you should be doing all of those things as town, and if making your thought process a little more transparent and showing a little more of your work helps other people see that you're a town then that's a good thing.

looking town shouldn't get in the way of scumhunting or getting reads or getting reactions or figuring things out. you should look town as a result of your town activities. don't be afraid to be a bit sloppy but once you've got all that you're going to get out of whatever it is that you're doing, share your results with the rest of the town.

[Plotinus]

it is true that a good scum player can fake scumhunting, but even a bad scum player can fake doing absolutely nothing.

[Accountant]

Just act naturally.

If acting naturally gets you mislynched then you need to reconsider your nature

[Majiffy]

Don't get lynched
Find scum
Don't fake claim


That's it

[callforjudgement]

Looking town is definitely often at odds with scumhunting; the easiest way to look town as town is to be completely open about your motivations for everything (which is hard to fake), but this makes scumhunting difficult as you can't set traps. I normally prioritize looking town more (especially if I'm scum!, but somewhat even as town), and more so if I'm being scumread (e.g. I replaced someone at L-1).

The best medium here is, AFAICT, to be open about your motivations for everything to do but with a time delay (after you've got a response to your post, or after 24 hours or so). That way you're unlikely to be mislynched but you can still get some decent scumhunting in. (Because I play this way as town, I have to try to fake it as scum. I am not always successful, especially later in the game. OTOH, early in the game it's easier to look townish as scum than as town, because you have a better handle on the game.)

Doing a gambit that brings a lot of suspicion onto you is nearly always a bad idea (although not as bad as a gambit that might expose other hidden information from your faction, such as the identities of town power roles when you're town). The exception is mainly if you're an activated Innocent Child or have some other way to prove your alignment.

[Cerberus v666]

It is your responsibility to, first of all, find and remove all the scum before they can win the game. Second, don't be mislynched. There are some limited scenarios in which the first responsibility means you have to let yourself get mislynched, but...it's SUPER SUPER SUPER unlikely and requires power role stuff and PoE processes that are unstoppable and guarantee town victory. So yeah, super unlikely.

So, basically, no, you are under no obligation to avoid SUPER SCUMMY things, but if your super scummy things make you an impediment to the rest of the game solving going on, either because you are a massive red herring, or because those scummy things involve you NOT working to solve the game yourself, then you need to stop doing that.

[Antihero]

"looking town" varies so much from playerlist to playerlist that it's pretty impossible to try to outguess it

i can play the exact same way in two different games, get mislynched in one and get universally townread in another

[Majiffy]

Shouting profusely at your wagon almost always gets the wagon to disappear, though.


Except every once in a while when there's someone on the wagon shouting louder and more frequently than you are.

Or if you're playing with the same people a lot, and they're

tired of your shit

[Zachrulez]

Be town, don't try to look town.

[kuribo]

Shouting profusely at your wagon almost always gets the wagon to disappear, though.


Except every once in a while when there's someone on the wagon shouting louder and more frequently than you are.

Or if you're playing with the same people a lot, and they're tired of your shit

I've literally spent nine years proving this and only been mislynched twice.

[callforjudgement]

@kuribo: Out of interest, how many times have you been lynched as scum?

[kuribo]

@kuribo: Out of interest, how many times have you been lynched as scum?

My gameplay is usually divided among pre-2011 and post-2011, since I took a two year hiatus from the site and my style had changed when I returned. Anyway, here goes:

Three lynches out of nine scum games since 2011 (5 wins, 4 losses), if my wiki is accurate- A Large Normal which is mostly lost forever to the crash, Graveyard Shift, Gay Mafia, and Author Mafia where I replaced into a pretty awful position. I also had a yearlong stretch in 2011 / 2012 or so where I wasn't scum at all, and I wasn't scum at all in 2015 (because I didn't play in 2015)

Before 2011- 3 lynches and 1 dayvig out of 6 scum games. (3 wins, 3 losses)

So just about 50-50?

Since I'm diving into my wiki, some town stats:

Town has never won a game where I was mislynched.

Eight wins, nine losses from 2007 - 2011. NK'd eight times, Suicide bombed myself against scum twice, Endgamed four times, survived three times.

Ten wins, ten losses from 2011 - the present. Hard to have concrete stats for some of the 2011 - 2012 stuff since there was a significant crash that obliterated like six months of game posts from the site. I've only counted that which I can remember. From best I can tell, it's NK'd 15 times, Endgamed two times, survived three times. My reputation for being impossible to lynch resulted in me getting NK'd a LOT. Town has won 3 out of the six games where I was town and alive at the end (counting the one where I was mislynched at LYLO). Scum has won something along the lines of 11 out 15 games where they killed me at night. One game I was treestumped after the scum tried to kill me, and they lost after I came back from the dead.

[callforjudgement]

That's actually a pretty impressive record (taking into the account that the site's meta as a whole is scumsided, i.e. scum win more games than town total).

[Killthestory]

play what works best for you

[Hoopla]

I've been lynched on D1 in 3 of my 7 completed games...

(Only once outside that, and I was a Jester)

perhaps you should consider a change of username...

[JohnnyDavids13]

How Townie you look really is pretty irrelavant. At that point it is basically just like Has X player done Y thing, if no, then get rid of them. Once you start thinking this way even if they do make solid arguments after you accuse them you think hmm, well they didn't seem townie before, why would they now.

[kuribo]

Expecting every town player to do the exact same things seems like a great way to mislynch people

[Killthestory]

Expecting every town player to do the exact same things seems like a great way to mislynch people

play what works best for you

As long as someone seems to have towns interest in mind, and they read well but wise, then content means absolutely nothing.