What is inherently scummy?

[James Brafin]

Yo, I'm a bit of a newer player onsite and I'm still learning the ropes a little bit. One thing I've noticed in my games is I have a hard time distinguishing from scummy/non-scummy behavior at a glance. So, is there anything you all find inherently scummy? Like, I know it's not the same for everyone, but if there is a trend or common agreement, it might help me to improve both my town and scumgames!

And for anyone who is interested, here is what I find inherently scummy:
Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

If any of those are wrong, I'd love to know why.

--JB

[mhsmith0]

Yo, I'm a bit of a newer player onsite and I'm still learning the ropes a little bit. One thing I've noticed in my games is I have a hard time distinguishing from scummy/non-scummy behavior at a glance. So, is there anything you all find inherently scummy? Like, I know it's not the same for everyone, but if there is a trend or common agreement, it might help me to improve both my town and scumgames!

And for anyone who is interested, here is what I find inherently scummy:
Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

If any of those are wrong, I'd love to know why.

--JB

None of those are inherently scummy; villagers do all of those things with enough frequency to make them null-scum at worst. A subquote from my standard IC post:

For example, scum might vote on people for alleged anti-town behaviours that usually amount to their (townie) lynch target saying/doing something daft about roles or mechanics. Or it might be some alleged incongruity woven from the target tripping over themselves in their mis-communication of something or other. Maybe even some misspeak that gets twisted into an alleged scumslip. All of this is normally absolute garbage! The reality is that most clumsy in-thread behaviour and expression labelled as anti-town is (regrettably) town-indicative. Typically, scum are more calculating and careful in what they say and how they say it.

Things that are inherently scum-motivated tend to include:

Opportunistic voting: this can include survivalistic behavior (tho that also can be PR-indicative or just lazy player indicative), as well as glomming onto some lame case on some random villager that others have created

Lying about your reasoning for your votes/reads: sometimes you can see villagers lying about this shit, but when that happens it's usually more that they're lying to themselves about it and/or are just in denial about what they're doing... but IN GENERAL, there's some validity to pushing on this. You can also push people about disconnects between the stated strength of their reads/pushes and what they've said in thread. Is someone claiming some other guy is "obvscum", but you have no clue at all why they think this? Maybe they're just being cagey, maybe they'll explain it later... or maybe they're trying to mask the lack of substance in their push by just saying stuff in strong language and/or yelling a lot to seem like they believe what they're saying.
You can also see people lying about what they're feeling and what their emotional engagement in the game is. Is someone saying they're angry, or offended, or whatever, and their posts are tonally dry as a desert? They're probably lying about their headspace... and it's probably not because they're town.

Sitting out situations where they have no need to get involved: if you have dueling town wagons, and you have one person not voting or just kind of being happy with his lazy vote on someone where he doesn't really care if said vote is going anywhere... solid odds that's a wolf

Active lurking: is someone participating but not helpful? Is someone making posts that at first glace seem useful and helpful, but the more you think about it, the more insipid or sheepy what they have to say really is? Probably behavior worth pushing.

I'll sample some stuff about posts that were scum-indicative, also from my standard issue IC post:

Bazza did one of those classic summary posts but had implausible and illogical reads on almost everyone. They all jarred with me. That is because he was being insincere. He had to have in-thread positions that might justify him voting on some townie later on while claiming continuity in his thinking.

h) Throw-away votes that had only an indirect impact on the final lynch outcomes are more likely to be scum votes. In final votes counts on d1 and d2 of 6-3-1 or 5-3-1-1 or similar …I am interested in looking for scum amongst those 1s. Those solo votes were effectively voting on the lynch leader but possibly trying to keep out of the way while it happened. If a townie cannot get their first-choice lynch but have a chance at their second or even third-choice over someone they don’t want lynched at all then they need to act - not sit on the sidelines. This scum tendency can be another by-product of point a) – the desire to avoid bunching…Ergo by the same principle only one of those throw-away solo votes on a given game day is likely to be scum. It is a lot less likely that both the 1s in a 5-3-1-1 are scum.
i) Related to point h)¬ ‘parked’ votes that were tucked away in a reasonably sized pack of votes at one point but have then been left high-and-dry when the tide on that candidate went out…are more likely to be a scum left clinging to a stale vote backed by stale reasons…

Spoiler: Sample Scum-catch #1 – CTR on Thryfing

This is Thryfing's first post of the game. I want everyone town-aligned in this game to read it and try to tune-in to why I felt certain a scum wrote this

Thryfing wrote: ...

bkbkbk wrote:I wonder why certain players are painting Peanut as foolish or stupid rather than, perhaps, insincere for his enquiries? Surely to say a man is a "moron" is to say that he has honest intent, but lacks the mental capacity to act appropriately?

Ironhammer

If you think Peanut is being insincere for his enquiries, don't you think he should be the one fed to the Vagus instead of people mis-painting him?
......

bkbkbk

How about you or anyone else not voting for him explains how for even a second they believe that Thyrfing sincerely suspects that bk is mafia premised on the reason he cites for voting for bk? His whole post is a: "shit, I suppose I'd better get into thread and post something and dump a vote somewhere before going back into the shadows"...

Anyway, you see nervous scum stumble into the game this way all the time and thus accidentally announce: "Hi, I am scum". First, open up with a bit of an active lurk fake bonhomie thing, then....

Next latch on to some random snippet and twist it into some contrived BS to dump a vote on a townie. Then find some obvious but essentially trivial piece of vague pro-town mechanics to endorse to pretend you are interested in the town's wellbeing...

Oh yes, bk's point about IH's comments on Peanut are well-observed and sound and yet Thryfing manages to distort that into the idea that bk doubts Peanut's sincerity when he says no such thing. What bk is noting is that IH has potentially scumslipped by giving away that he knows for sure that Peanut is sincere since he only accuses him of being idiotic - ergo IH knows Peanut is town because IH is scum...

And all of these things you will find in Thingy's post. IH is likely his pal and maybe one other voting Peanut or finding reasons not to vote for Thyrfing.

...
Thyrfing didn't come into thread to make that one lousy post that ignored a host of things he might talk about and pluck out one quote to attach to a crappy vote to and another pro-town titbit that he randomly elevated above a range of others he might have endorsed or commented on because he is invested in this town's survival. He did it because its expected and he has to do something or other since he is invested in his survival...

Spoiler: Sample Scum-catch #2 – TWC on Harb

So catching up. Still no Harb. That's a shame. Since he may well claim d3 reaper and the sooner that is resolved the better.

Some of this maybe redundant if Harb does claim and is not countered, but I think it gives the full context to my day so far...

Harb & Pagane were my top 2 yesterday based independently on vote data. But Pagane flipping scum only made me suspect Harb more. The data point I thought relevant from day 1 I have quoted before on d3 and re-quote in my last analysis on d2. I just didn't pursue it yesterday because I did not want to hunt 2 scum at once. I think Harb already guesses what I was thinking. It's basically this section:

thewysecat wrote:
Transition from Point 2 to Point 3:
08:35 GMT:

Pagane

(1) by sjg11 off of Ugluk (2)
17:45 GMT: Unvote (1) by Phatality off of

pelagius

(4)
18:42 GMT:

Pagane

(2) by Phatality off of No vote (0)
20:07 GMT: Unvote (1) by Petunia off of

pelagius

(3)

Point 3 - Pel vote is collapsing as sjg11 leads the way

pelagius

(3): Ugluk,

thewysecat

, shadowfriend1
Ugluk (2): Harb,

Pagane

Pagane

(2): sjg11, Phatality
shadowfriend1 (1):

pelagius

Phatality (1):

Palin

No vote (2): Petunia, Dodgy

Transition from Point 3 to Point 4:
20:13 GMT:

pelagius

(4) by Harb off of Ugluk (1)

The mood had turned against a Pel lynch and sjg11's move also took the Ugluk lynch down to 2 and Pagane up to 2 and this made me think that scum might begin to worry about Pagane. It was at this point that Harb did a - to me- slightly surprising thing in comparing and contrasting Pagane & Pel and concluding that he wanted to vote Pel. Thus boosting that lynch over the Pagane move at what seemed a key moment. It also seemed contrary to all he had done of Pel up to that point.

As I say that may be redundant.

The other relevant data is of course end of d2

thewysecat wrote:
D2 end

Palin

(6): dodgy56,

Pagane

, Petunia, Phatality, shadowfriend1, Ugluk
dodgy56 (1): Harb
Phatality (1):

Palin

Petunia (2): sjg11,

thewysecat

If you make the assumption of not 3 scum votes on Palin, then one scum is outside. I retain a strong town read on sjg11 and so obviously I am finger pointing at Harb in that context. I did not rule out 3 voters on Palin the same way I ruled it out for Pel, but I still felt it a pretty strong data point. Obviously I am now backpeddling on that unless I want to vote sjg11, but I don't.
...

I have made this point elsewhere often and I shall make it here. If all you have is anti-town behaviours then lynch on those if you must but sadly most anti-town behaviours are town indicative. Upto and including - so it turned out - Petunia's d2 behaviours. This - in my opinion - is what Palin was lynched on and was the basis of all the grief Ugluk took. They did something(s) you did not like and were unapologetic about it. Only a ballsy scum does that. They exist, but rarely. Ugluk to be fair might be one of them. But scum live more usually in the null-space. They are in the corner of your eye on the edges of awareness until suddenly you realise...in time? or too late? Lynch on pro-scum indicative behaviours - active lurking, hedging, politicking, weird votes or switches in logic, incongruencies in positions held/advocated and actions taken - things they are doing to stay in the null space. Palin just had a daft idea and didn't care what you thought about it.

Spiff was doing stuff that you just don't see wolves actually do -- claiming a PR with still 24 hours remaining on d1 and openly antagonizing the people pushing him the hardest, rather than just slink away and wait for a shiny object to appear that drags the votes away from him

(talking about a villager here... but note the contrast to what a wolf is likely to do in that situation)

Well, here we go again. I'm glad there is not 100 pages in the first hour.
Based on post count alone and higher aggression, different tone in his lost, Emberguard is very likely town.

I agree with the ember read but your first post this game does not impress me like it did in Transformers.
If trundle flips mafia, consider ember town.

Why trundle is mafia based on 1 post:
1. Relieved there isn't a flood of posts to read yet gives hardly any content.
2. Only gives an easy tone read on ember, easy to fake as mafia.
3. Content is very lacking compared to his town game in transformers
4. Still has yet to respond to me calling him mafia.

(trundle was in fact mafia - there were other relvant posts, but I'm showing highlights here)

Smith catches RachMarie being super opportunistic:

Spoiler:

DS is a mild scum read for me at this point. Not a huge priority sort but I don't see the obv!town there. MoZ just seems bad rather than obv!wolf to me, and the IMO self-vote continues along that vein. Some of that may simply be me being over-sensitive to that after watching Ranger pull similar shit as town in open 642 (including the shitty self-vote), but I'm starting to come around the idea that shit like that actually does come more often from town, even though it never ever ever should. In this case, it's conceivable that they're scum/SK giving up, but it's also plausible that they're town giving up. I know Ircher (who I think was making those posts) is bugged by being a lynchbait type, so I can reasonably see him getting pissy and pulling a stunt like that out of frustration at being wagoned. Obviously it could be him pulling a scam and faking it, but I just don't see why it's wolf-indicative instead of essentially null. I'd still much rather wagon RachMarie at this point.

@ Rach...

Why are we giving a pass to MoZ

I just read his ISO

VOTE: MoZ

This is the sort of thing that normally comes with something better than "their ISO sucks". What about their ISO sucks? You seem to not really be able to explain what exactly you're finding voteable.
You talk a bit about it in

@ Nacho
1. The way they are moving their vote around looks like they are looking for a good wagon, not looking for scumz
2. The freaky color vote thing looked like they were trying to appear to be town and trolling, it did not feel genuine the way Nero's trolling does,
3. The way they threw shade on KTS but did not vote for him seems scummy AF

but
1) you aren't addressing the possibility that moving their vote around might be part of a process to look for a good wolf wagon, or for that matter, separating them from anyone else's vote hopping.
2) The "freaky color vote thing" ( http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 7#p8421517 ) seems like the epitome of a playstyle thing; calling it AI just seems bizarre;
3) I presume you mean this

...
This totally not troll KTS we're seeing here. He's actually being useful for once, but I fear that is because he is scum.....
~Zanos ~Zanos ~Zanos

but I fail to see how this is AI. It's essentially expressing a mild scum read on the slot; failing to vote for what is presented as a mild scum read (and one that is essentially paranoia-driven) is not in and of itself suspicious

Frankly, none of those seem like particularly good reasons for voting them; to me it seems a lot more like you're going survivalistic and looking for an easy target to try and buy another day off of.

It is a tentative read so far but feel like KTS could be town he is already invested enough to get ticked off at the hyperposters and that means he is genuinely trying to sort shit out.

It is a tentative read so far but feel like Rach could be scum she isn't invested enough to make real reads and just drops off a lazy kts town read and that means she isn't genuinely trying to sort shit out.

VOTE: rachmarie

adding smith to my scum pile as well this pinged my scumdar this vote on me sucks, plus like MoZ she keeps flipping her vote around.

What about the vote sucks? Surely if you find my vote on you to be itself vote-worthy, you can actually explain what about it "sucks". I personally thought it to be a solid vote, mainly for the content (wolf-reading you becuase of the lazy read you made) but I also liked the snarky way I turned around your language relating to KTS. Nothing about it seems off, and it seems like you just want to shade it as somehow being a bad vote without actually doing the work to demonstrate that it's actually a bad vote.
I also don't see your point about vote-hopping (you were my 4th vote, with my 1st being a joke vote on the mod and the 2nd being near-RVS level). Nor do I see how vote-hopping is itself wolf-indicative, unless you think that I'm just lazily bandwagoning (which would be weird considering that I was the first vote on you), or that something else in particular about my vote movement seems wolfy. It seems like you're struggling to make a case on why your pushes make sense, which to me suggests that they're probably just made up.
PS I'm a he. You can see it right there in the box where my user info is.

In that game MoZ (Ircher/BTD hydra) was town, I was also town, and RachMarie was scum (bonus points: DS was also scum). What you can see in the quotes I made was
1) My sarcastic callout of her lazy pocketing read of KTS in my post #620
2) My pushing her on her inability to actually substantiate decent reasons for her reads, and the fact that she was pretty flagrantly pushing on MoZ for essentially being bad (which is largely null) and other null behaviors, in what was a survivalistic push to avoid her own lynch d1.
As it happened, MoZ got mislynched d1 (in a case that boiled down to “they suck”), but Rach was still scum, and she was the one actually being scummy and pushing an agenda, not MoZ. Again, if you look closely you can see the difference between simply being bad and actually being scum.

Three eaxmples of perspective slips (amusingly, one by a villager)

Spoiler: Perspective slips

So if “scum slips” in terms of “things scum shouldn’t know but do” are generally a waste of time to look for and pursue, what kind of slips are productive to hunt?
The answer is perspective slips. This is when a player says or does something that simply doesn’t make sense from a town perspective. Oftentimes this revolves around empathy and the sudden loss of it in pursuit of an agenda, but there are other examples as well.

Example 1

Well, either I screwed up and scum will quick hammer soon enough or I actually got it right. Guess we'll see.

If you actually are town(which I very much doubt, since that would have to involve either Loopdan!scum or a Manuel-Tweet team), we are going to have Words after this game.

Fwiw this reads like at least a mild perspective slip
1) smith and accountant don't make sense as both town
2) smith made a horrible mistake
Accountant, what am I missing? You say you agree that we're probably not both town, so what exactly did I do that was some kind of big mistake? Or are you just trying to have your cake and eat it too?

Here you can see a decent example of a perspective slip. This was day 3 LYLO in a newbie game, I’d subbed in on a scummy town slot, while Accountant was scum. I’d voted Accountant (not locked votes, but with a majority a scum team not involving him could have potentially quick-hammered, though I’d been keeping an eye on the thread in case of such an outcome), and he basically attacked me for making a supposedly terrible move, despite a game state that, in his own stated view, strongly indicated that we couldn’t reasonably have us both be town.
It just doesn’t hold together as a reasonable town perspective. If he was a townie who thought I was scum, then nothing improper happened, and he might be a bit nervous that he was wrong about me, but overall there’s nothing there to criticize. And if he was a townie who thought I was town (which he expressly said he didn’t, and moreover that was due to the same game-state read that town!smith would have likely been seeing) then being upset made sense (although notably there’s no actual emotion in that point that indicates genuine anger or frustration), but scumreading me didn’t make sense.
So as a townie perspective it was all warped and contradictory. As a scum perspective? There it made sense. A bit of manipulation (maybe I’d unvote), a bit of reminding everyone that I’m still supposedly scum (maybe someone would vote me), and a bit of “townie anger” from being voted in what theoretically could have been a game-ending move.

Example 2

SR just scum-claimed. Now looking for partner.

That sounds utterly ridiculous. How is voting YOU a scum claim?
Is anyone seeing smith as so towny that it would take a wolf to vote him?

@mshsmith What are your reads?

wolf claims

only one was by a wolf tho lol

idc that SR was a villager
thats an appalling perspective slip and i blame no villager for voting that
alette was howling though

This is an interesting counter-example, where there was a perspective slip by a townie (i.e. these are tells, but like any other tell, it’s not close to 100% reliable).
Here, Visor and I were discussing the game after it completed, but the in-game quotes discussed were from 5p LYLO where votes were locked (i.e. only your first vote counts and you CANNOT change your mind, which is a MU-specific mechanic for LYLO). There, SR voted me early in the day phase without very much justification, and then justified it in an incredibly weak/self-defense-y manner AND disregarded the (theoretically) villager-y perspective I’d offered of his vote (i.e. if he was town and I was town, it was game over so it HAD to be a scum claim from my perspective [presuming I was town, which in this case I wasn’t] ). Overall it was a major loss of empathy and was probably a contributing factor in why Zack (also town) eventually hammered him at end of day.

Example 3

Thought there was an hour left for some reason

Is there?
90% caught up

Great
Let me get my laptop and I'll be here to the end

Ok, my cellphone sometimes fails to account for the DST, and the clock on the top was saying 5 minutes until a lynch so I was trying to reach the post minimum as I don't want to be replaced, as I'll actually have more time to dig into the game the next game day, though I would understand if the host decided to do so. Sorry everyone.
Am mostly caught up and have opinions on most players, which I'll try to write really quickly - didn't want to participate not fully informed and ended up reading the whole of my free time today - ask me anything in the meantime.

soah - shows the most care about the game, which is generally townie, and evolution of the reads is always believable. Expecting him to have a wide scumrange, but there are some phrases he would nevr use as scum I think - like the one yesterday where he told me 'I'm an excellent person to listen to imo' is too cheeky to fit with what I vaguely expect his scumgame to be. Too early to start tinfoiling here. Unlikely partner to Titus, RA and possibly Phighter? as I may expect scum!soah to bus there
mhsmith0 - when he's here, I like what he's saying. His tone is hard for me to read in any direction, but his reads have been consistent and isn't afraid to push strongly. Not w/w with RA, not a likely partner with Yellow of the top of my head.
Azure - liking his tunnel on ML/Phi slot - feels townie in seeing a push early on himself and developing a scumread in response. Liking also the fact that he is clearing RA (don't think it's a blatant w/w defense) and didn't self-pres yesterday. My eyes glazed over at least a third of that wall of his, but the amount of effort there is another slight townie point. A bit lower than the other two due to some inconsistencies in posts I'd like to work out in real time tomorrow. Not w/w with Phighter, bopolis, possibly RA?
Yellow - a good tone insofar I can read it, believable suspect progressions, would like her to participate more for me to be able to solidify the read. Not w/w with smith, Phighter

Figured I'd give half a list and not keep you waiting
Thank you for the vote soah

SR - same as Yellow, mostly liking him when he's here, and although I can sympathize with his problems about the game being slower than he's used to, as it was what made me procastrinate catching up the first half of the day and then got swamped with work the latter, but would still expect him to be more around and a felt presence in the thread as town, and he's shown he's capable of logical progressions and a good tone in GoT Mafia. Townie side of null. Not w/w with Phighter
mmmBop - liking the entrance, effort, and the questions he asked while entering. Doesn't feel afraid. Not higher for me seeing the Azure push by ljtrigrl a bit suspect and bop hasn't done anything really amazing yet.
Titus - I may have some issues with her playstyle along the lines of her early argument with soah - I don't think she shows much depth in her reads, which I find easily replicable as scum - she hasn't shown breadth which imo is harder to fake than depth of pushes. She's not lower as I appreciate smith's comment on it being her meta, but would like her to give broader thoughts tomorrow if possible

OK so we actually need to consolidate this shit. Who is willing to vote who, or not willing to vote who. I've stated my preferences; what are everyone else's? I'd like at least one of the Phighter/Titus wagons dissolved and pushed elsewhere at this point, more preference towards dissolving Titus wagon than Phighter.

I'd vote the three I haven't given reads on yet - RA, pisskop and Phi, in that order probably. Self-pres does factor in it as in I will vote anyone not me, but I also believe them to be the scummiest players around - or the least townie. Phi would be maybe at the top if not for the soft and my belief I'll be able to read him accurately tomorrow.

Spider, I think it's pretty weird that you decided to catch up on the whole thread before posting anything when it was this close to EOD.

I don't value my thoughts as much when I'm not fully or at the very least mostly up to date. Last EoD felt awful in that way, I felt mostly lost, and decided not to repeat it this time, which resulted in me cutting my night out short after catching up on the phone most of it. Bad time management on my part, but didn't want to clutter the thread I had no feel on yet.

VOTE: Phighter

Bus!

Explain
I hope you can

Spider, I think it's pretty weird that you decided to catch up on the whole thread before posting anything when it was this close to EOD.

twice in a row too. But do you have meta that this is more his wolf game to do it? Or is he just a lazy player in general? I don't know him well enough to have a tangible opinion there.

I'm vaguely aware of him because of Skype chat, and iirc his job makes it impractical to play any games with phases faster than like 72/24. That's about it.

This is wrong - I feel the most comfortable playing 36/12 and this is my first long game. Combination of the 'I can catch up in a game so slow' mentality and being burned out after modding a monster of a game is what kept me from coming the first half of the day, unexpected work for the latter.

Spider, I think it's pretty weird that you decided to catch up on the whole thread before posting anything when it was this close to EOD.

I don't value my thoughts as much when I'm not fully or at the very least mostly up to date. Last EoD felt awful in that way, I felt mostly lost, and decided not to repeat it this time, which resulted in me cutting my night out short after catching up on the phone most of it. Bad time management on my part, but didn't want to clutter the thread I had no feel on yet.

Your thoughts feel pretty generic, though.

I usually need a strong reason to deviate significantly from the town consensus, and am usually more active in shaping it. Will only have hipstery reads after more realtime/iso-ing.

I wanted to give Phighter another day for the claim
But that unexplained bus post
I'd ask him to claim but pretty sure he would have by now anyway? and not sure I'd believe him anyway unless he also explains the bus post
And I kinda see no town justification there
VOTE: Phighter

(note: this was a hammer on Phi, and on MU hammers automatically lock the game thread and put it immediately to night)

Instead of going into the above in more detail, I’ll just leave it to Soah’s graveyard commentary:

Ignoring for the moment that Spider selectively showed up precisely at the last moment both phases, and that he read the whole thread in radio silence the second time, which in themselves raise all sorts of alarm bells --

he had 40 minutes left in the day to be productive and he spent that time writing out all of his extremely generic and unhelpful thoughts on all of the people that neither he nor anyone else wanted to lynch, before concluding by saying that he'd lynch any of the other people that he hasn't talked about. No villager would ever use his time that way. Every villager in the world would start with the most important topic, which is who he wants to lynch. The stuff about why he thinks I'm a villager would never even get posted at all, because every other possible thing that he could be doing in that moment is plainly far more important than that. Instead, that was what he prioritized first. That entire sequence of posts could not possibly have been more completely inverted from how you would always expect a villager to behave in that situation. And his words and actions with Phighter look like typical bad bussing. He says that Phighter is his top suspect, but that he wants to give another day because of the soft claim. He's having his cake and eating it too. Then he casts the hammer vote when, as a villager, he'd have no reason to want to trim off the last two minutes of day. His actions are only barely plausible from a village perspective and look exactly like what wolves frequently do in those types of situations.

And, finally, Phighter broke consistency with what he'd just posted a little bit earlier in order to discredit the wagon on Spider, which was strongly counter to his own interests at the time. His words weren't chosen in a way to make himself look better if Spider were too get lynched in the spot yet while doing nothing to actually discourage it from happening, which is what you'd expect from a wolf talking about a village wagon in that spot (assuming he bothers to comment on it at all). Instead, his words were chosen to discredit the wagon itself, in order to actually discourage people from voting there. It's similar to when I called him a wolf and he responded by discrediting me.
All in all, he's pretty toast.

A final couple of notes to remember:
From dead thread (on discord) of a massive town stomp, in a game where all of the wolves were basically lurking

i ascribe the werewolf philosophy of
1. lynch the wolfy people
2. if the game's not over, buckle in
as opposed to
1. identify the wolfy people
2. lynch ~villagery people for spicy reasons(edited)
the biggest issue for the wolves this game is that pretty much every villager has been villagery at least for a spurt of posting and many for the course of the game
whereas (at least from my perspective. i know other people nailed her) the only wolf i felt was ever remotely villagery was DT, who imo had some good spurts of real time posting

From postgame of a relatively easy town win, 9/3 and town won on d4

Most scum work actively to win, and can be caught for doing so. Some scum prioritize performance over strategy, however, and cannot be caught that way. That is rarer and riskier and it leads to a fairly simple course of action for me as town:
1) Lynch the people who are doing what scum need to do to win; townread the people who are not doing things the scum need to do to win and/or are actively making their lives harder as scum
2A) Win, or 2B) Freak out; abandon all existing reads
3) Lynch UDC, sjg, shadowface, or Telleo; and now, Nanook.

[RadiantCowbells]

the wolfiest thing is for people to disagree with me

[GuyInFreezer]

the wolfiest thing is for people to disagree with me

Yeah just shoot this guy at night instead.

[Lycanfire]

Yo, I'm a bit of a newer player onsite and I'm still learning the ropes a little bit. One thing I've noticed in my games is I have a hard time distinguishing from scummy/non-scummy behavior at a glance. So, is there anything you all find inherently scummy? Like, I know it's not the same for everyone, but if there is a trend or common agreement, it might help me to improve both my town and scumgames!

And for anyone who is interested, here is what I find inherently scummy:
Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

If any of those are wrong, I'd love to know why.

--JB

all of these tells for you can be townie.

reaction test is hilariously vague. you could overcommit to someone just to see who is perceptive to the push. scum know who towns are, and naturally feel inclined to believe they are town. towns are more critical of town, and scum are likely to overrate a townie's scumminess if another town calls them out on it. that's just one example that could go many ways.

policy lynches are pro-town is applied globally. they aren't. the last few policies i've seen suggested have been from town. i'm of the opinion "if you're suggesting a policy lynch, you have a good case already so why are you asking for a policy lynch?"

as for the last one, it's scum that worry about justifying themselves. towns can always town up, scum are forced to look town and can be called out on it.

[RadiantCowbells]

as for the last one, it's scum that worry about justifying themselves. towns can always town up, scum are forced to look town and can be called out on it.

disagree. think you'll find that some people have the game get to a point when just "towning up" isn't something they can do any more and preventing being a mislynch is an immensely frustrating game long enterprise

like this idealistic 'town can just show that they're town!!!' is not true at all, or why do mislynches happen with such regularity? People are bad at towntelling and bad at finding scum.

[Raskolnikov]

So my thoughts. Maybe some of those "scumtells" are more likely to come from scum but for each individual player it can be stylistic so I'd treat them mostly as warning signs to look at someone closer.

I think it's maybe better to talk about mindset.

Being overly self-conscious: very weak but I think comes more from scum who have a guilty conscious, but also might be PRish. If I see self-conscious focus/panicky over scumhunting I MIGHT slight leanscum but mainly consider how normal it is for them. Some people are just more self-conscious than usual by default, especially something I see from new players, or people who have a really long history of being mislynched or people just hating on their style (e.g. poor LQ).

Having a survivalistic mindset: related, generally I think this comes more often from either scum or PR than not but some people are just naturally survivalistic via style. Possible too if they just have are the type to have ego and think town lose without them, sometimes justifiably.

Low profile: again related and a scum-or-pr kind of thing but some people just lurk, as an actual indicator rather ask if this player is keeping a low profile relative to their usual towngames and not just busy out of game.

Lack of gamesolving: this is the huge one obviously, though in this case gamesolving doesn't refer to scumreads exclusively but if they're realistically townhunting either. Or even trying to solve via mechanics/VCA for some players, which I think is more null or even scummy especially if thats the dominant focus but some people default gamesolve like that and certain situations warrant it. This comes up the most though with active lurking, if someone is paying attention to the game but not making efforts to gamesolve, ask people questions or meta research or push towards any plan in the future at all I'd think they're either scum or very occasionally invest that wants to rely on that instead of their play. If someone has bad/murky reads, are they okay/complacent having the reads or are they annoyed at it or trying to do something?

Tonal/emotional tells: this is very tricky because it can be so subtle, but you can definitely catch scum for exaggerated tone or emotion in situations it doesn't make sense. The key isn't to just assume that any strong display is scum though, rather you have to ascertain if it's realistic for them given their POV or not. Also there is a difference between someone's emotion coming out through their tone and them stating it "I am really upset by this development", if I see the latter and it contradicts the vibe they actually give off (someone saying they're really angry but not seeming to actually be mad or care) it reads more fake. But a final caveat is sometimes people might genuinely get angry or emotional as scum, some AtErs particularly, so genuine also doesn't always mean town. You can make judgments on what's in or not in the scumrange on a lot of people with some level of familiarity though.

Obviously claim kind of stuff: claims and actions, but also if the justifications for the claim and/or actions sound legit too and all related. Like for example I think only pretty competent scum do something like come up with their fakeclaim early d1 and subtly soft it then and a few more times. Otoh I wouldn't like softs in the lol not serious rolefishy kind of way as much. But think this category almost goes without saying.

There's way more but eeeh. I feel like looking at someone altogether in every single way and maybe averaging out how realistic their POV and play is from town is better than solitary scumtells which seem inherently unreliable.

edit: dammit smith ninja!

[mhsmith0]

edit: dammit smith ninja

[RadiantCowbells]

I would upfront consider 0/3 of the things in the OP scummy

[Raskolnikov]

edit: dammit smith ninja

It's not fair when you have the massive mhsmith prepared copypaste archive

WRT reaction tests, I'd wonder if it's reaction test or just a justification, and ask if it looks like a towncred grab or if they knew it was something that people would find scummy but they did it anyways, also history.
Reads without Explanation I'd always drill down into, even if it's just making them label a gut read or tonal read as such, because even that's important and very doable. Then try to understand their perspective again. Though sometimes you have to just try to judge via the reads themselves and maybe the progression. Again though, history.
Policy Lynches, if anything I have a lot of games where I regret NOT policy lynching where either a player screws town over later or they were actually scum, so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask on this. Again, is it realistic for them; pushing a policy lynch on someone they think flips town when they have legit "strong" scumreads is kinda garbage, but a partial policy on someone they have reasons to scumread anyways especially if again they have a style of being okay with that type of lynch is more fine.

tldr complicated, everything is complicated, nuance and meta, almost no magic bullets

[Raskolnikov]

It's not fair when you have the massive mhsmith prepared copypaste archive

I'm now calling this the mhsmithsonian, a museum full of scum/town play and VCA exhibits

[Mathdino]

Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

what the fuck

these are all standard towntells i use for the majority of the players i play with

[Mulch]

Nothing is inherently scummy

I wrote a long post about how lynching villagers constantly is inherntly scummy but then I remembered edit: some people to which I consider lynching wolves a scumtell

[Mathdino]

i get scared every time a post like this is made in MD

because then the tells become shit on anyone who reads or comments on the thread and is reasonably capable of messing with their scum meta

[mhsmith0]

Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

what the fuck

these are all standard towntells i use for the majority of the players i play with

idk they're more like "bad play" tells than anything fundamentally AI. Though they're certainly the sort of thing I might look at for easy targets where people (especially those who should know better) are pouncing on for easy pushes...

[Mathdino]

Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

what the fuck

these are all standard towntells i use for the majority of the players i play with

idk they're more like "bad play" tells than anything fundamentally AI. Though they're certainly the sort of thing I might look at for easy targets where people (especially those who should know better) are pouncing on for easy pushes...

reaction tests aren't bad play. certain tests are straight up out of people's scumrange. reaction tests are hilariously easy to motivation-read tbh

policy lynches are fantastic idk what you're talking about

reads without explanation, again, depends on the player and their general trajectory
not_mafia is an example of a player that can be read off his reads sans explanation

[Gamma Emerald]

none of these are scummy with the possible exception of the third and even then it's not 100%
I prefer other methods. sometime I tone read sometimes I motivation read, I dislike limiting myself to one method
tone reading I'm not sure of any tips, but for motivation reading you gotta think of stuff like "why would x do this now" and "why hasn't Y made note of this post"

[Ircher]

Yo, I'm a bit of a newer player onsite and I'm still learning the ropes a little bit. One thing I've noticed in my games is I have a hard time distinguishing from scummy/non-scummy behavior at a glance. So, is there anything you all find inherently scummy? Like, I know it's not the same for everyone, but if there is a trend or common agreement, it might help me to improve both my town and scumgames!

And for anyone who is interested, here is what I find inherently scummy:
Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

If any of those are wrong, I'd love to know why.

--JB

All 3 of these are wrongs. Short reason is because context is important, so there are really no absolute rules. I'll edit in a longer answer later if I remember to.

[Zachrulez]

Yo, I'm a bit of a newer player onsite and I'm still learning the ropes a little bit. One thing I've noticed in my games is I have a hard time distinguishing from scummy/non-scummy behavior at a glance. So, is there anything you all find inherently scummy? Like, I know it's not the same for everyone, but if there is a trend or common agreement, it might help me to improve both my town and scumgames!

And for anyone who is interested, here is what I find inherently scummy:
Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

If any of those are wrong, I'd love to know why.

--JB

I don't really think any of these things are inherently scummy. But if I were to play a game with you this post would tell me something about you as a player that would allow me to form an expectation of how you might play town vs scum. That's really what you need to figure out. Who you're playing. Not what's inherently scummy.

[Wisdom]

And for anyone who is interested, here is what I find inherently scummy:
Reaction Tests (Super convenient excuses for super scummy behavior)
Policy Lynches
Reads withour Explanation

If any of those are wrong, I'd love to know why.

all of those are commonly done by town

[Mulch]

Jesus fuck he gets it

None of those are inherently scummy

all of these tells for you can be townie.

I would upfront consider 0/3 of the things in the OP scummy

what the fuck
these are all standard towntells i use for the majority of the players i play with

Nothing is inherently scummy

none of these are scummy

All 3 of these are wrongs

I don't really think any of these things are inherently scummy.

all of those are commonly done by town

[AnonymousGhost]

Nothing is inherently scummy

Support.

More detail posting later. I think this a good thing to discuss.

IMO "inherently scummy" should probably be labeled "culturally scummy" since behavioral patterns can change over time.

[AnonymousGhost]

Reaction Tests

- TBF this is more LAMIST-y than anything else.

Policy Lynches

- Motive reading. Scum generally want to stay out of the spotlight. Advocating a PL does the exact opposite.

Reads without Explanation

- This is a difference in play style rather than inherently scummy.

[nancy]

In general, I think a lot of people mistake "being scummy" for "being likely to actually flip scum".

Think about all the things you've seen town do, that you've done as town. Town can absolutely be hypocritical. Town can absolutely be wishy-washy. Town can absolutely forget things about the game, not pay attention, lurk, misread people, and just generally play bad, sometimes all at the same time.

Sometimes, if a player is too many of those things, you just have to bite the bullet and lynch them, because if a player is under a certain threshold of effort/transparency it becomes really, really, really hard to tell their alignment, and losing to shitty mafia feels terrible, so you kinda have to just close your eyes and shruglynch sometimes. It's not great, but it's good for game health overall. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

That said: when I started playing, I was thinking of it like a detective video game or something. Carefully parsing everything everyone had ever said, looking for "clues", looking for contradictions, looking for the glimmerings of a dastardly Scum Agenda.

But as I've matured as a player, I've learned that it's both a lot more simple and kinda more complicated than that. I mean, at a basic level, every single time someone who's scum posts something, they're lying to some degree. They have all the information (or, whatever, "extra" information in SK/multiball games but let's just keep it simple), and they're representing with every "could", every "if", every "think", that they actually do not have that information.

That's why solid reads all stem, for me at least, from really swishing a post or two around in my head and trying to evaluate the mindset behind them. It's really a matter of imagination. You put yourself in their shoes, with the reads they've been representing, the information they purport to have, and then you think, "if I were town, would I post that?"

And it works both ways. You can get a very strong townread on someone by thinking, "if they were mafia, would they have posted that?"

[Plotinus]

posting stuff you meant to post in scumchat

quickhammering in lylo