Newbie 1797: Space | Endgame

BlackVoid · Post Post #794 (isolation #0) » Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:17 am

Hi. I'll catch up over the course of today. Anyone want to give me a summary of claims/night actions to help my read-through?

BlackVoid · Post Post #799 (isolation #1) » Tue Jun 13, 2017 7:40 am

Thanks Drixx! That was really helpful. I read your last paragraph where you said you have an HS scumread and that you've been right before with similar reads. Just walk me through it. If you already did this, just point me in the right direction so I can focus on those posts.

Another question for you: who did you want lynched D1 and why weren't you voting them at the end of D1?

BlackVoid · Post Post #886 (isolation #2) » Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:55 pm

Hi, I've have a super busy week at work and barely had time to catch up. I'll be catching up as much as possible.

No one end the day until I've caught up fully and posted my reads.

I haven't decided whether to even support Drixx's lynch which seems to be the default. I'll explain my reads and we'll co-ordinate a lynch once I catch up.

BlackVoid · Post Post #902 (isolation #3) » Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:35 pm

Alright, I'm midway through catching up. Sorry about the delay but I've been extremely busy at work and probably should have kept that in mind before joining. Deadline seems to be on Tue at around 7:25 pm and I'm free all of Monday and Tuesday so should be around all day for deadline. I've got a few questions for people I'd like to hear from before developing my reads more.

@HS, hi! Remember me? We've played together in Town of Whispers. Can you go more in-depth about your 106? I don't see the relation between Dunker's and Drixx's alignments and I don't know why you are making that call so early in the game. Could you explain your townread on Skitter a bit more? I'm leaning more scum than town on skitter. Your 147 and 149 seem rather confrontational towards someone who's pretty close to conf-town. Why pursue TesXX here? I'm also curious: what alignment do you prefer?

esires' "confusion" in 117 gives me weird vibes which is a bit hard to put into words so I'll get to this later. It feels like he's trying to decide what opinion he can present himself as having as opposed to actually having an opinion. It feels unnatural. The HS vote for "lampshading" his own wagon hopping was also weird. What's the scum motivation to basically contradict himself on purpose?

@Paul, if you were townreading Dunkers before others suspected him, why don't you consider the fact that others could be scum who are pushing on your townread? This is in reference to 135.

Leaving for work in 20 minutes. I'll post more when I get back. But interacting with people in real time is the best so if everyone can give approximate times when they'll be online over the next few days, that'll be great. I'll be on tonight, tomorrow night, and all day Mon and Tue.

BlackVoid · Post Post #903 (isolation #4) » Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:55 pm

I like both 156 by skitter and 158 by HS. I'll continue from that point tonight.

BlackVoid · Post Post #909 (isolation #5) » Sat Jun 17, 2017 9:12 pm

I'm here. Going to catching up for the next hour or so.

BlackVoid · Post Post #940 (isolation #6) » Sun Jun 18, 2017 6:55 pm

Finally back from work. I'm completely free all the way to deadline so I should be caught up soon. Sorry for the delay but I've just been so, so busy irl.

BlackVoid · Post Post #985 (isolation #7) » Tue Jun 20, 2017 2:20 am

Oh man, I'd be pissed at myself if I was trying to read me from another slot. Joining this game in the middle of a busy week was probably a bad decision. I don't know what else to tell you other than I legitimately was busy. I don't think I've ever had a situation where I "lurked" before. Now that I'm free and caught up on my sleep debt by sleeping all day yesterday, I think I'll catch up now.

I'm here if anyone wants to discuss the game in real time though.

BlackVoid · Post Post #994 (isolation #8) » Tue Jun 20, 2017 6:47 am

In post 987, NotTheRealPaul wrote:@BV explain why you read skitters as scum. what do you think of drixx? What do you think of HS?

My impression from skitters' posts were that they wanted Drixx to get lynched but were also setting up contingencies in case he flipped town in a way that didn't feel genuine. If I'm right, that would point to Drixx being town but I otherwise don't have much of a read on Drixx. I think HS is probably town.

Also, if whoever we lynch flips roleblocker, it's not a bad idea to jail me since I've been struggling to find time to get into the game to play at my normal level.

BlackVoid · Post Post #999 (isolation #9) » Tue Jun 20, 2017 7:34 am

Don't hammer please. I'm catching up fast. I'll be here at deadline and if it's the only option, then I'll do it.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1010 (isolation #10) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 1:07 pm

I want to address this before everything else:

In post 1001, esires wrote:(if scum, he could NK and then claim to be cleared).

How exactly can I "claim to be cleared" after no-killing? The clearance only happens if we lynch the roleblocker, I get JK'd, and there is a kill. That would be impossible if I were scum.

At first glance, this entire post looked like a panicked reaction to losing out a potential mislynch but then I think about it, the other scum has to be the roleblocker so they would be arguing against an impossible hypothetical. I still want to know how you jumped to the conclusion that I could "clear" myself as scum rather than the more obvious possibility that I'm town who thinks it's optimal to clear me given I hadn't found time to read and be readable in this game.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1021 (isolation #11) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:57 pm

In post 1009, Human Sequencer wrote:VOTE: BlackVoid
Weird interactions with Drixx all game. Absolutely need content from this slot today, definitely the most likely to harbour scum in my eyes atm.

Yeah, content is coming. In the meantime, help me understand what "weird" interactions I have with Drixx.

If you are talking about me not just going along with the lynch that was already set in stone, that's not different from any other town game I've played. I don't just sit back and not try to work with people to get a lynch I can at least live with. There's never a scenario where I'd go "oh, it looks like Drixx is the consensus lynch, I'll just let it happen."

As far as my actual read on Drixx goes, I didn't have time to get one. There were a few weird things he did, I had some suspicion of Skitter as not a Drixx-partner, and I had a townread on you and Drixx was pushing you. But I didn't have the time to figure him out.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1022 (isolation #12) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:00 pm

In post 1018, Human Sequencer wrote:
In post 886, BlackVoid wrote:Hi, I've have a super busy week at work and barely had time to catch up. I'll be catching up as much as possible.
No one end the day until I've caught up fully and posted my reads.
I haven't decided whether to even support Drixx's lynch which seems to be the default. I'll explain my reads and we'll co-ordinate a lynch once I catch up.
I read this as 'Let me figure out whether or not I should try and bail my partner out!' in hindsight. It's possible Drixx realized this too, and decided to make the decision for them.

When you read something as innocuous as "don't end the day until I catch up and post" as "let me decide whether I should bail my partner out," you know you are spiraling into confirmation-bias.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1023 (isolation #13) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:07 pm

I feel pretty much everyone is just re-iterating their scumreads on me and reflecting each other's thoughts to get more and more convinced that I'm scum. My not being able to contribute for several days hasn't helped that very much but real life and my job has to trump online games so I can't really help that. I do have the time and energy to solve the game now though.

I want to stress not to add any more votes and put me at L-1 so early in the DP. Give me a chance to analyze the game and engage all of you so even if I wind up getting lynched today, I can have a good idea of who the final scum is and can make a case for the townies in lylo to consider. I want to ensure we win this whether or not I get lynched here.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1024 (isolation #14) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:25 pm

@esires, I explained a bit why I'd try to pull the jailer on me: my lack of contribution means I was one of the hardest slots for people to get a read on and combined with my predecessor's play makes me a huge question mark that people need to sort. If we lynch the RB, I get jailed and there is a kill, that makes the game easier for all townies by revealing my alignment.

The fact that everyone seemed to agree that Drixx was scum was actually one of the reasons I was wary about the lynch. It's rare for all townies to concensus-scumread a player - especially one as experienced/competent as Drixx. Something else had to be going on. Knowing now that he's scum, it's obvious someone bussed (at least from my perspective).

Did you have second thoughts about lynching Drixx because everyone seemed to agree?

As for my thoughts on D1, I didn't read closely enough to have solid opinions. Like I mentioned, I initially found skitter scummy but her later posts looked town and I hadn't made up my mind on Drixx. I'm going to keep posting content and elaborating on my reads though so you'll have plenty from me.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1027 (isolation #15) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:49 pm

@skitter, I haven't read the whole thread yet but I'm commenting as I read. I haven't figured out who I think is scum yet but I'm hoping to discuss the game with all four of you over the next couple of weeks.

Your 79 was what gave me the impression you were setting up a Drixx mislynch. There's some suspicion on Drixx and then you decide to a post by post analysis of everything he posted so far, say you don't like it and want to vote him but don't want to put him at L-1. Then you list two other people who could be scum in case Drixx is town. At the time I was reading, it looked to me like you wanted his mislynch and a scapegoat to push the next day.

Knowing he's mafia now, I still have a question for you: in that post, you say it's unlikely that anything Drixx says would change your mind. That confidence so early on in the game on page three just from a few weak posts feels weird. If you were that confident, why were you already discussing who you'd suspect in the event of a Drixx townflip? I'd expect someone so confident to be looking for Drixx's partners as opposed to who was jumping on a town-Drixx mislynch.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1029 (isolation #16) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:09 pm

They weren't in the thread because I was trying to catch up as much as possible and give something coherent before Drixx self-hammered. I wasn't implying you should just accept me as town and take me at my word. I'm laying out my thought process. It's on you to read me and figure out whether it's genuine. I'm not sure what you are trying to say: that I held off on giving reads intentionally so that everybody else could lynch my partner and then show up the next day and say that I didn't have a solid read on him either way? If I could make up reads now, I could make up reads then.

If you don't mind, walk me through your POE. You probably already outlined it somewhere in the thread which I'll get to soon enough but we have confirmation now that Drixx is scum which is new info so I'd like to see where you are coming from.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1032 (isolation #17) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:20 pm

@HS, I can understand why Skitter especially after reading the sequence of 156 and 158 and I assume there's more to come as I read.

Can you explain Paul more? I don't think being lynchbait says anything about his alignment. Sheeping is probably null and could be scum. What makes him town specifically? It seems like your read on skitter has stronger reasoning than your Paul read so why look at skitter before Paul?

You probably already pointed out the towntells that esires dropped but if you link them to me again, it'll save me time looking for them.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1033 (isolation #18) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:45 pm

@skitter, if you don't mind, can you give me links to your homesite and completed games as both alignments? I want to see an example of you thinking with a bunch of contingencies. You only seem to have completed one game as scum here.

I don't understand your suspicion of Dunker in 94. It seems that one part of your reasoning is that he accused Drixx of voting the 1-shot BP when Drixx hadn't actually done so. Why do you think scum would lie on purpose about something that can be easily disproven?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1035 (isolation #19) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:15 pm

I don't think Dunker was lying. I assumed he either thought that Drixx voted TesXX or he just meant to say he didn't like Drixx's suspicion of TesXX and said vote by mistake (the explanation that he gave in 97).

Can you expand on your scumread of me (and link me to where you explained it originally)? Can you also explain your reasoning behind your reads on everyone else?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1040 (isolation #20) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 7:46 pm

I haven't really liked any of NotTheRealPaul's early posts which is why I'm curious why you two (skitter and HS) are reading him as town. Your reasoning even seem to mirror each others (Paul is "sheepy" town) and it's going over my head a bit.

He gives intent to hammer Dunker despite reading him as town because other people suspected Dunker. When HS asks him why, he responds with 118 where he basically says Dunker could be "

scum trying to capitalize on newbie card, or just straight newb town.

" That reads to me like he's saying "either Dunker is scum or Dunker is town but I have intent to hammer" which is really weird. I also agree with what HS pointed out about his read being inconsistent and what skitter pointed out about him having played at mafiascum so his excuse of being used to faster game cycles doesn't resonate with me. 135 comes down to "other people suspected him so I might be off so I'll gave intent to hammer" which I also have a hard time seeing from town. The one explanation I could see is that he probably saw declaring intent as a substitute for pressure-voting.

This is based on my early impressions though so I'll have to see what he does later on that's so town. @skitter, how similar is his play here to the other game you played with him?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1041 (isolation #21) » Thu Jun 22, 2017 8:26 pm

I thought him having a "quick thought in the shower" that HS's vote on Dunker was distancing would be a really out-there thing to fake as scum though. I actually think that's a decent towntell.

BlackVoid · Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:06 am

There's a lot of content here so I think I'll do my catchup in sections. I've read up to page ten which is midway through D1.

Spoiler: Notes: Pages 1-10

I'd be floored if HumanSequencer is scum here. Even very early on in the game, the way he treated Drixx didn't feel like he decided to distance/bus for the cred but more like he was genuinely suspicious of Drixx's odd play but was second-guessing himself a lot because he'd expect even a scum-Drixx to do better here.

I'm less certain about the other three but hopefully, I'll get a better idea of them while I catch up. skitter comes across as the towniest but it looks like Newbie 1787 is required reading so I can get an idea of what her scumgame is like. I don't like Paul's interactions and mentions of Drixx at all. 186 could be signalling to a partner that he's treating him differently than he is treating a townie. With knowledge that Drixx is scum, I can see 196 as him potentially wanting credit for calling out his buddy first. I'm not getting where the universal Paul townreads are coming from but I'll see how things progress. esires looks like what I traditionally expect scum to post like: low-key, sparing posts, popping up once in a while with walls of thoughts as opposed to engaging and sorting people in the moment and his level of content is just much lower than everyone else's.

Heading off to work now but with any luck, I should be able to finish the rest of D1 tonight. Let me know if anyone has any questions/want elaboration on what I've posted so far.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1053 (isolation #23) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:33 am

@esires, I don't recall me or anyone else saying that skitter30 is too town to be town so I don't know why you are demolishing that particular strawman. I think HS is town, and skitter is probably town but less so. There were a lot of posts I liked but some I found questionable, details are in my catchup.

I don't think my contributions and yours are similar. I initially didn't find time to post at all but now that I do, I'm engaging the game fully. Yours is more of a consistent low activity throughout the game, a posting profile that I've come to associate with scum hanging back and keeping a low profile.

As far as Paul and HS go, anyone can be wrong. Experience doesn't always make someone right. While I disagree with your notion that HS is either right about Paul or scum himself, I've seen that kind of logic come far more often from town so I'm seeing it as a mild towntell. If you're town here, we'll likely lose the game by both of us getting lynched unless we solve it today so work with me here and help me figure out who it is. I'd suggest re-reading the game and engaging with my thoughts on other players as well, not just you.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1055 (isolation #24) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:28 am

Since you're online, I got a quick question for you: can you explain why you were assuming that Drixx is town in 331? I'd expect something like "if you are not posting content, the rest of us have no way of determining your alignment" from someone who doesn't know his alignment. But you are straight up just saying "Drixx, you might be nightkilled so you need to post content" and you aren't really considering the other possibility, that Drixx is scum.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1057 (isolation #25) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:40 am

In post 330, NotTheRealPaul wrote:Drixx I kinda get but Im set for lynching him D2 if he continues showing us next to nothing. Like im choosing to believe he starts slow but he needs to start contributing more D2 IMO.

Why exactly does Drixx get a pass D1 and why would you take him at his word that he "starts slow?"

BlackVoid · Post Post #1059 (isolation #26) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 6:56 am

Except Drixx's valid reason about not being great D1 and becoming better as the game goes on is something that applies to the majority of people that play mafia. Why do you just take him at his word? Are you against lynching experienced players D1 on principle?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1060 (isolation #27) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:38 am

Okay, this is up to page twenty or so - to the end of D1. I'll do a couple more sections for D2.

Spoiler: Notes: Pages 11-20

@skitter, towards the end of the day one after the JK claim, what happened to your suspicion of Drixx? You put Drixx on the backburner for a while, said you'll come back to him later but mostly seemed to have forgotten about him. After your biggest suspect claimed JK, you're at a loss of where to go (around ~ post 492) but never bring up the forgotten Drixx scumread again. In 495, Drixx is in your POE pool but you don't have any opinion of him? Why wasn't he considered? In 79, you said that esires and Dunker could be scum opportunistically hopping onto Drixx. With Dunker's JK claim, that increases the likelihood of Drixx flipping scum, right? Drixx is also completely missing from your analysis in 496. You don't think Cpt is scum, it's better than Paul, you'd prefer Not Chara but they're on VLA. What about Drixx then, your other suspect? No one was really townreading Drixx so that would be a lynch you could have pushed through without resistance.

@HS, same question for you ~ post 493. Why was Drixx not on the table to be lynched?

Regarding the page five intent to quickhammer by Paul, I've also played on sites with short deadlines and still I find it weird and scummy so I'm not taking that excuse at face value.

In post 451, Plotinus wrote:
NotTheRealPaul
(1):
TesXX

CptPicard
(3):
Dunkerdoodles
,
Not Chara
, esires

DunkerDoodles
(3): NotTheRealPaul, Human Sequencer, skitter30

Not Voting
(3):
Drixx
,
CptPicard

This VC is interesting because this is where both wagons are at L-1 and seem viable. Still trying to decide what to make of it. HS was pretty insistent that Dunker was town and Picard was scum but changed his mind based on meta and Picard replacing out. Skitter has been set on lynching Dunker for a while now although hasn't exactly been townreading Picard very much. Both HS and Skitter wondered if their target might be scum with the other. Paul has mostly been advocating a Dunker lynch. Esires didn't have strong opinions of either, sheeped skitter onto Dunker but went for Picard because Picard was lurking. Esires comes off the worst here, hanging back as town decides which townie to lynch.

This is pretty hard to parse because everyone seemed to have forgotten about their Drixx suspicion entirely. Based on interactions with Drixx, I still think HS's early play was the most genuine and he later seemed to have gotten sidetracked with Picard. Paul at least had a legitimate if incorrect excuse that Drixx is an experienced player who will be useful later on in the game. skitter actually comes off the worst here since Drixx was her backpocket scumread all along but when push comes to shove and she had all the influence to lead a D1 lynch (by way of Paul committing to sheep her, the Drixx suspicions that she's been putting off for a while now mysteriously disappears and she votes a townread). esires doesn't post at all after the claim and overall just comes across bad. I'm going to read through D2 to see what is it that makes Paul so town. This is hard because whoever is town has been putting aside their Drixx read as well and I'm not quite sure who it could be.

BlackVoid · Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:13 am

Okay, can you lay out your current reads right now? I'm especially curious about your read on skitter30 considering you just saw her scumgame. Do you see any similarities/differences here?

As for the "power players" comment, what I more wanted to know was how you think you'd play differently if you were scum against them here.

I think I have a few other questions about Drixx that I'll post in a bit.

BlackVoid · Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:34 am

I'll have to finish reading D2 to engage with this. I'm curious though, was there a reason you RVS'd Drixx instead of skitter? It seems you knew both of them from your previous game.

BlackVoid · Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:26 am

Can you explain your reads on me, Esires, and skitter in some more detail?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1076 (isolation #31) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:23 pm

In post 1071, skitter30 wrote:
In post 1053, BlackVoid wrote:While I disagree with your notion that HS is either right about Paul or scum himself,
Can you elaborate on this please?

I'm not sure what you want elaboration on. esires is saying that because HS, an experienced player was hard-townreading Paul, that points to either HS being town and right or HS being scum and "townreading" Paul because he knows he's town. Or at least, he thinks it's more likely than a newbie like Paul being scum and fooling HS into townreading him. I don't really agree with that line of thinking. Everyone has weak spots and players they'd overlook and being experienced doesn't necessarily mean your reads are right. But I don't think esires' logic was scummy. I could see town thinking like that.

And thanks for your explanation about the deadline. I hadn't realized that Dunker claimed hours before deadline. That definitely makes me see your end-of-D1 posts in a new light.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1077 (isolation #32) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:32 pm

@skitter, I'm reading through D2 right now (around page 25 where Drixx comes out with his readslist and asks everyone to do the same). Mind pointing out the specific posts where you thought he was trying to pocket/mislynch Paul?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1080 (isolation #33) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:38 pm

No, esires is ruling out option 2. I'm saying I disagree that it should be ruled out. It should be considered like everything else. I have some suspicions of Paul, yeah. I don't think HS is scum. I haven't settled on who I actually think is scum yet. I was hoping people would engage my reads and reasoning a bit more than just direct responses to stuff I wrote about them.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1084 (isolation #34) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 9:19 pm

My initial impressions from town to scum are HS >>>>> skitter >>> Paul > esires. The reason I keep pushing everyone (especially you and Paul) is to see if those impressions were right or if I'm missing something. If esires is scum, the game is pretty much won. He's unlikely to win the game. But if you or Paul are scum, you've set up the endgame quite nicely with me/esires lynches and town will probably lose unless I do something about it. So, that's where my focus is right now.

I don't see what's scummy about acknowledging that some posts from esires were scummy while others were towny and overall, I'm still trying to decide which ones outweigh. I'm leaning scum on him though.

I'm trying to catch up pretty fast. Got work all day tomorrow but I'm trying to cram in another ten pages tonight and tomorrow before I leave. I actually have much less trouble making up fake reads as scum than I do actually having reads as town. Because it's easier to read the gamestate and decide what reads would be convenient to have, than it is to actually solve the game. If you are into reading past games, you can read my last three completed games if you think it'll help.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1086 (isolation #35) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 9:44 pm

You can just click the link to my wiki and they are all there chronologically. I'm aiming to get caught up by Monday so that'll probably be a good time to discuss.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1087 (isolation #36) » Sat Jun 24, 2017 9:48 pm

I'm going to lay out where everyone was at for easy reference and to see how people's reads evolved with general consensus.

Spoiler: Drixx's readslist (616)

In post 616, Drixx wrote:
Paul
- The primary reason is that he appears to have been set up to be lynch bait. His posts read genuine and when I assume he is conftown, nothing in his posts introduces dissonance to that premise. If he's scum, he's doing a marvelous job of looking lost and new.

Not Chara
- This is more of a "I don't see anything scummy" placement than an endorsement that NC is town.

skitter30
- Skitter is competent as scum and I believe would have been confident enough to extend the game in order to get conftown out. Solid posting but nothing that screams town.

esires
- Not a lot of content. What I did see pinged me a bit. Feels a lot like he could be quietly trying to set the stage for me to be mislynched. Most likely a partner with HS if HS is indeed scum.

Human Sequencer
- This was null until HS suddenly had hard town reads for no reason and set up a lynch pool without explaining why the people in it are there either. This is further reinforced by the fact that HS did that but then
didn't vote
. This looks like HS is waiting for someone else to get the ball rolling on someone in that lynch pool. Since no reasoning is given and since someone else would start the push, this looks really quite a lot like HS has set up a pool for end game strategy and is avoiding making any posts or doing the heavy pushing so as to avoid responsibility. Classic scum play on display by HS here. Scum need 2 mislynches to win if we don't get one of them, and what HS has done so far today is subtly pocket (or attempt to) a couple people and put out a lynch pool without explanation. The only question in my mind is whether HS would put his partner in the lynch pool or not. There's even more, like #598 where he bizarrely feels the need to defend Not Char at the same time as saying there's not enough to sort NC by at the same time as complimenting NC. It's a really cognitively dissonant paragraph. Obviously at this point it's pretty obvious I'm fairly certain that Human Sequencer is scum.

VOTE: Human Sequencer

Spoiler: esires' "readslist" (617)

In post 617, esires wrote:Regarding
HS
's hammer, it was almost the deadline and he'd said all day that he wanted a lynch. Pretty much everybody wanted a lynch. The HS hammer is null. I am reading Human as a very frenetic player - constantly changing his mind but his willingness to re-evaluate would suggest town rather than scum to me... but at the same time, maybe it's just a well-calculated way of lampshading his moves, which is sorta what he did the second he stepped into the game and cast an L-1 vote. I feel like being open to new info is obviously a good thing, but the abrupt change yesterday was alarming after HS campaigned so hard for a Dunker lynch. I dunno, I am pretty unsure at this point on HS. But I'm sure you know, HS, that just because someone agrees with you doesn't make them town (as you suggest about skitter's mindmeld).

Which leads me to
skitter
, who is backing Tes up on the idea that HS quickhammered. This, to me, is crazy - HS was not quiet about wanting a lynch D1, and it really wasn't a quick hammer. If you look at 4 hours in the context of the timeframe of this game, it's just as likely that those 4 hours go by and no one shows up to hammer (since 4 of us were already on the wagon anyways) as it is that someone shows up right in the nick of time to hammer. 4 hours out is totally reasonable. At the same time I agree with skitter that some of NC's posting indicates that he didn't pay a ton of attention to the thread - lots of NC posts are "I'm catching up, will post later" without in-depth follow-up. So, skim-reading plus lack of follow-up does read scummy to me. As scum you would already know who town and scum are, so you might not think it's worth paying as much attention or contributing as much.

Drixx
finally delivers a meaty post - I guess the "bad day 1" thing wasn't a stall tactic after all. But you claim that I was trying to set the stage for a mislynch on you - I feel like everything I was saying was pretty accurate and agreed upon. I don't think anyone felt like I was pulling out flawed reasoning (or at least no one said I was), so are you sure you aren't just taking the pressure personally (returning to the snake comment earlier in Day 1)?

Paul
posts a lot of fluff. Sorry Paul, not trying to be rude. It's true though. I feel that Paul is drifting with the moods of the town, but that could be a new player doing so as either town or scum, so it's kind of null.

Spoiler: skitter's readslist (619)

In post 619, skitter30 wrote:
Town: Paul
- I already explained why I think so in 494, and nothing from his day 2 prompts me to change this read.

Null: Drixx/NC.
I've been saying for a while now that I don't really feel that you guys have provided a lot of content day 1, which makes it difficult to analyze you. The two of you are on the same level.

More specifically:
NC: I largely talked about them in 582. I dunno. I feel like they disappeared at the end of day1, and that they didn't really read the thread at the beginning of day2. I think they have read it since (based on their most recent posts), but there hasn't been a lot of content here, so yeah. I feel like they want after Picard early in day1 for kinda strange reasons (for placing a vote on Tess in RVS), but that's the main thing of interest in their ISO until the beginning of day2. So, I don't have an opinion yet, and I want them to engage more.

Drixx: Kinda similar? You have a lot of posts about scumhunting theory, or about how you personally play day 1. And because of your day1 playstyle, you didn't really push anyone or say what you were thinking. This makes it kinda hard to read you, since you didn't really, I dunno, visibly do much. I mean, clearly, you were thinking about the game and had formed opinions and suspicions, but since you didn't share them or explain how you arrived at your conclusions, it's hard to talk to you about it or read you since I can't tell what you were thinking for much of day1.

Somewhere between null and scumlean: Esires
- his(?) posts have content, but they're kinda . . . bland, I guess? I'm not sure if that's the right word. Like, there's nothing controversial, and a lot of their posts seem to simply echo town consensus. He never really pushed anyone, or said anything controversial. So, just kinda meh? Like, trending towards scumlean because they haven't really *done* anything despite having a bunch of posts with game-related content in them? If that didn't make sense I can try to explain it again.

Scummiest: HS
- I was reading him as Dunker's partner for most of day1, but since this apparently isn't a thing, I'm not sure who his partner is. I still don't understand the push on Picard that he initiated. (I don't have a problem with the hammer though) I don't like how he randomly switched votes from Picard to Dunker (a strong town read of his?). I don't like how I suddenly went from {probably picard's partner} at the end of day 1, to {probably town} to {strong town} within a few posts on day2, and he hasn't quite explained why he came to those conclusions. I was going to wait what he to hear what he said about that, but since Drixx said it first, I kinda feel like he was trying to pocket me (or buddy me? I'm not sure what the right term is. I mean that if he's scum, he's trying to get me to think positively of him for townreading me). I dunno.

This is my biggest scumread right now, but I also feel like I don't have much content to work with regarding NC/Drixx/esires, so yeah. If he's scum, his partner is here, but I couldn't say who atm.

I know Paul wants me to look at the white-knight thing, that'll be it's own post at some point.

Spoiler: TesXX's readslist (621)

Spoiler: esires' actual readslist (627)

Spoiler: Dunker's readslist (629)

Spoiler: Human's readslist (670)

BlackVoid · Post Post #1090 (isolation #37) » Sun Jun 25, 2017 6:46 am

I'm at the start of page 27. I'm going to do the rest when I come back from work tonight. Tl;dr, I'm starting to think it's just esires here. His interactions with Drixx have so far been the scummiest and everyone else's have seemed town. I'll post a more detailed summary when I finish.

esires

627 - The reasons for suspecting HS are really bad. "Controversial moves" and "huge swings of opinion" are actually towntells. I don't get why HS "wagon hopping" is suspicious when that means he drew so much attention to himself when he could have just pushed Picard and let town lynch Dunker without his help. I also don't understand why Drixx is just in your "possible scum" pile with "coasting" as the reason and you never mention Drixx's case and push on HS as factoring into your read on him. The HS/NC could be a team is also a pretty huge stretch and using that as justification for why Drixx is not a primary focus of yours is weak reasoning that benefited scum.
628 - Drixx saying HS and esires are scum and pushing HS seems like FOS buddy, vote townie but it feels a bit too obvious.

NotTheRealPaul

537 - Wondering why Drixx wasn't killed if he's going to start contributing feels naive but in a towny way.
585 - It bothers me that you and skitter seem to agree a whole lot. You do it more, like that offer to sheep D1.
642 - I like this suspicion of Drixx.
643 - I like the skitter read as well.

@esires, I asked you before but if you are town here, you really need to work with me. Talk about your reads and where you are at right now.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1091 (isolation #38) » Sun Jun 25, 2017 6:51 am

Everything that esires has done this game is to take the "reasonable stance." At first, I questioned whether a new player would play that way as scum but when I saw that he was actually an old player with a new account, it started to make sense. The hang-back-and-wait-for-town-to-tear-themselves-apart and then later pop in by taking the more reasonable stance is a pretty tried and tested strategy for floating under the radar as scum and not making waves. That's pretty much esires' play to a T.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1095 (isolation #39) » Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:34 pm

So, here's the timeline for how the tide turned against Drixx. It started with 675. Before that, HS was the leading wagon with TesXX, Drixx, and esires on it. skitter had him as scum and Drixx as null so that's another likely vote. Not Chara then engages with the argument but doesn't really take a stance saying that either Drixx or HS could be scum but not together. The first strong stance change comes from skitter in 704 where she calls Drixx's post legit horrible and then continues attacking Drixx's read of Paul in 706. esires reacts after this series of posts by switching his vote to Drixx in 708. A couple of things to note here: he semi-jokingly suggests that he wants to lynch both HS and Drixx for making him read about post aesthetics. Then he votes Drixx after paraphrasing skitter's reasoning. Skitter pointed out that even if Drixx thought HS's posting was abstruse (did not know that was an actual word btw), it would be a stretch to argue that it was deliberate. esires pretty much parrots that and says he's voting Drixx until Drixx can answer whether or not he thinks HS's post was a deliberate attempt at obfuscation. That's a really pretty weird reason to vote, not to mention he is basically saying "Drixx, answer this question and UNTIL you answer it, I'm compelled to vote you." The obvious implication being that once Drixx "answers" it, esires can move on. He also never suggests that HS is town or that Drixx and HS can't be partners or anything insightful. My guess is that he saw Drixx receiving negative attention and wanted an early spot on the wagon in case it turned towards Drixx. If it seems like Drixx was winning the 1v1 against HS, he put himself in a pretty easy position to hop back onto the HS wagon as it gained steam by saying "well, Drixx answered my question and HS is scummier, etc." As it happened HS won and esires has his vote on record as being early on the wagon but if you actually look at how his reads on the Drixx/HS 1v1 progressed, it makes no fucking sense.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1096 (isolation #40) » Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:36 pm

@skitter, I see what you are referring to now regarding Drixx trying to appeal to Paul. 675 and 677 where he says "Paul gets it" and then tells Paul that he's pocketed by HS does seem more like Drixx trying to appeal to a newbie who he was on good terms with to lynch HS as opposed to him fabricating a post to his partner to WIFOM us in case he got lynched. At that point it seemed more like HS was getting lynched than Drixx.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1097 (isolation #41) » Sun Jun 25, 2017 8:14 pm

In post 738, skitter30 wrote:Drixx has also said that he thinks esires is trying to subtly direct a drixx!mislynch in 616(although he wouldn't answer where he sees this in esires' posts in 628, point 2), which I think is a weird thing to about a partner?

Wanted to comment on this originally but forgot. This is actually a weird argument to make about a townie. I think it's a distancing attempt if esires ever flips. Drixx can then try to subtly paint the idea that scum was pushing his lynch.

BlackVoid · Sun Jun 25, 2017 11:06 pm

I like Paul's response a lot better where he actually takes a stance and pushes Drixx while townreading HS. I'm not completely sold on it being town because the Drixx wagon was picking up steam at that time and I'm not sure why he'd be offended at Drixx saying that he was pocketed?

713 is the type of reaction I'd expect from town when they see their two scumreads pushing each other. That's the other thing I found weird about esires' Drixx vote. If he thought HS was a strong scumread and he saw HS/Not Chara interactions as partners, how come he suddenly switches to Drixx based on weaksauce reasoning as opposed to trying to make sense of the whole situation? For instance, comment on whether they could be partners or not. Based off of his previous thinking, the Drixx vote he made at the time doesn't feel logical and there are a lot of possibilities that he should have been considering that he just doesn't. Also, minor point but the phrasing that esires used "compelled to vote Drixx" feels like exactly that: him not wanting to bus but feeling compelled to do so at that point.

I also found his continued insistence that Drixx and HS could be partnered rather weird. It was obvious to most observers that it was unlikely to be staged and it felt like scum hanging on to some faint hope that he could still mislynch HS even after a Drixx bus by tying them together. Even in 884 where the Drixx lynch is already set in stone, he leaves his vote on Drixx and re-iterates that Drixx is the scummier of the two. But still states that "we should take out either HS or Drixx today" leaving room to move to HS just in case Drixx redeems himself. 919, he throws out the possibilities of Drixx's partner bussing or being inactive in case Drixx was scum. Then in 965, the Drixx + HS scumteam theory suddenly disappears and if Drixx flips scum, he says he's looking at me and Paul. Also, him saying that he mentioned the weird interactions between NC and Drixx earlier (in 627) is just flat-out wrong. Because he didn't. The interactions he mentioned are between NC and HS, not NC and Drixx.

Paul's 944 and 953 made me slightly paranoid but then it clicked that he probably doesn't want to be seen arguing against a scum wagon after being mislynched in the Newbie 1787.

BlackVoid · Sun Jun 25, 2017 11:11 pm

So, I finally finished catching up (at least until the end of D2). This game was a really fun read. I'm going to take a short break and I'll give D3 a quick re-read and try to compose my thoughts and analysis and then try and address the suspicion against me. Basically, I'm about 95% confident esires is our final scum. I have very strong townreads on HS and Skitter and a townread on Paul. It's a little after 3AM where I'm at though and I worked all day today so I might just fall asleep. If I do, I'm free all day tomorrow to talk in real time with anyone. Especially looking forward to discussing the game with you HS since we haven't had the chance yet but I also want to finish my discussion with skitter.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1102 (isolation #44) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:27 am

I thought you said earlier that Drixx's self-vote could mean that either he doesn't want me to catch up and post thoughts or he wants to eliminate the need for me to do so. Now, that subtly shifted into being pretty sure he ended the day for the latter reason after you realized I'd be coming after you.

See the problem with your vote compared to everyone else's was that you felt like you were engaging Drixx or trying to figure out his alignment. That's the massive difference I noticed from how HS and skitter interacted with Drixx and how you did. Nothing you did felt like you were trying to engage him, empathize with his position, and trying to figure out his alignment. You gave a really, really weak reason: that you are compelled to vote him until he explains whether or not he thinks HS's post was a deliberate attempt at obfuscation. That doesn't make any sense. It looks like you loosely paraphrased stuff that HS and skitter said before your post, and used that as justification. It does make more sense to me from a partner-perspective where you anticipated the winds turning against Drixx and put your vote down for the record.

There's also the fact that you kept insisting that Drixx and HS could be scum together leaving you open to switch to HS if the tide turned (which it didn't) but you drop it for the most part once Drixx is lynched and it doesn't look like HS is a viable lynch.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1104 (isolation #45) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:39 am

Okay, this is stopping to be productive. I don't think you are trying to figure out my alignment here. Just re-iterating what you think are generally accepted reasons for my slot being scum.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1106 (isolation #46) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:15 am

I didn't really respond to that point because it stopped being useful. I tried more than once to try and work with esires and understand his viewpoints and where he's coming from but everytime he responded it just felt bland and robotic and didn't really feel like he was trying to solve the game. He like me has been similarly suspected during this game and he'd know that the biggest threat of town losing the game is if we're both town. But he hasn't actually tried to evaluate those possibilities or make sure that it's not the case or just scumhunt in general. He's just popping in from time to time to offer a token defense and re-iterating old stuff. It's that lack of drive that's strengthened my scumread a bit and also didn't feel it's all that useful to try to engage him at this point.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1109 (isolation #47) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:14 am

I think he's town but he's my weakest read because his style of play is very different from mine and I can't always figure out what he's thinking at each point. What struck me upon reading your previous newbie game with him was that he had pretty good instincts even if he couldn't always articulate them well. At the point he got lynched, he had his vote on you although he wasn't winning an argument there. I think it's more likely he had a gut instinct that Drixx was scum than that he was bussing. He also responds pretty harshly to Drixx saying that he was getting pocketed and almost getting offended and I don't know why he'd do that to a partner. There were some things that bothered me because he seems a bit too keen to take credit for pushing Drixx saying that Dunker copied his Drixx case and that he was the first on the Drixx wagon but I think those are probably by-products of the newbie game too - he wanted to make sure he was seen pushing his scumread so the same thing doesn't happen again. I think his latest post is a slight towntell. He'd have no reason to townread me and throw paranoia at HS when if he's scum, he's already in a decent spot to win by pushing me and esires.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1110 (isolation #48) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:18 am

I also thought his rationale for townreading you here for being more aggressive than in the Comics game was absolutely dead on. That was when it started to sink in for me that with the playstyle you have, being so aggressive as scum would be really difficult. I have a tough time seeing you tunnel Dunker all of D1 to the point of getting him to L-1 and almost lynched (except his claim saved him) as scum.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1119 (isolation #49) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 5:05 pm

@HS, can you go over what towntells you noticed from esires?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1120 (isolation #50) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:48 pm

In post 1113, NotTheRealPaul wrote:Like Im seeing a narrative where Drixx made a whole deal out of HS situation so when either flipped the other could coast to LyLo. When it became obvious he was the one who would be lynched his read changed despite the super hard push earlier and complete conviction.

Also he was pushing an HS/esires scumteam a bit and I dont get it. Scum needed two mislynches so if HS flipped town then he would have had a harder time pushing esires through.

I was considering this possibility all afternoon when I was thinking about the game. The surviving scum is the roleblocker so if Drixx and HS were setting up the bus, they would likely set it up so that Drixx is the one that goes down.

If esires and Drixx are the scumteam, Drixx would obviously want to make it harder to push esires so I could see him pushing a town-HS as his primary push and once he flipped town, he isn't really compelled to attack esires because his reasoning was that esires was HS's partner.

Our discussion this morning made me a lot more convinced that both you and skitter are town, and at the same time, I'm somewhat underwhelmed by HS's reaction to me and lack of engaging me. I need to re-read esires and HS really closely to figure out if I'm missing anything here.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1121 (isolation #51) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:56 pm

In post 910, Human Sequencer wrote:I do remember you. Your play was very strong, either you were obvtown or you made me believe you were obvtown. Were you Sharon's partner? I don't remember, that game is mostly blocked from my memory.

Since I'm your top suspect here and you have personal experience with me, why not go back and check what alignment I was and how I played?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1123 (isolation #52) » Mon Jun 26, 2017 7:18 pm

Based on the posts you made early in the game as I was catching up. I explain this in 1027.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1129 (isolation #53) » Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:41 am

Yeah, but now I'm getting paranoid of HS which means if I were scum I could push his lynch next...

Honestly, I don't think the number of suspects I have should be the reason I'm read as town. It doesn't always work out that I'll have just one suspect to focus on and I don't want to feel like I have to withhold my paranoia of other people in order to be read as town. I'd much rather just be completely transparent about how I'm feeling. It's more the depth of gamesolving that's different for me across alignments and I don't think I'd be able to do this much if I were scum.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1130 (isolation #54) » Tue Jun 27, 2017 9:38 am

I like HS's early posting and the scumread on Paul in 126 was pretty well-thought out and I really liked the reaction to skitter's suspicion of him in 158. I liked the approach to Drixx in 192 as he's not trying to jump to a conclusion on Drixx's alignment but was more wondering why the weird play when Drixx was competent as scum. 214 and 217 looks like he was genuinely trying to figure out what was going on behind the scenes. I skimmed through HS's ISO in Large Normal 200 really quickly and he was bussing his partner (Wraith) there but the interactions have nowhere near the nuance and level of genuineness as his interactions with Drixx here.

I'm not sure what to make of his townread on Dunker in 274 where HS is pretty set on Dunker being town because Dunker sheeped HS and that apparently read to him as "underconfident town." I could just as easily see it being "scum sheeping a confident townie" so I don't get the logic there. If Dunker is a townread, why say "Feel free to lynch it anyway, but Picard is the better lynch here." That's really not how I'd expect someone to treat a townread. As for 302, if you are concerned about the inactivity from Picard and Drixx, why push only Picard or he majority of D1?

I found 433, 434 and 435 to be pretty strong towntells where he feels like he's actually re-assessing his read based on Picard's meta at a point where it hurts his ability to push the Picard mislynch and he doesn't really need to do that. I have a similar question to you here that I asked Skitter: Picard and Drixx were your scumread. You backed off of Picard, why not Drixx here as opposed to your townread Dunker? How much time was left at this point? Why is Drixx not on the table in 493?

Coming into D2 (576 and 577), there's a lot more focus on Drixx. My worry here is that if HS is scum, he'd have time during N1 to discuss strategy with Drixx and plan the mega-bus but many people had suspicions of Drixx D1 that they never really pushed on and that's throwing me off. Why are you townreading skitter in 598 for Picard flipping town? It's not implausible for a scum-skitter to defend a town-Picard and whiteknighting is fairly common so I don't see why that read vanished entirely and it strikes me as somewhat mechanical.

The actual push on Drixx starts in earnest in 678 and I found the reaction incredibly genuine. Since that point, pretty much everything Drixx was doing was pretty illogical and the way HS reacted to it was far more reasonable and there was a lot of sorting of Drixx going on. I was slightly paranoid that Drixx's rationale pushing HS was about his posting style which felt like BS theater but then again, if Drixx wanted to sell an argument with a partner, he'd use semi-convincing logic as opposed to something completely ridiculous. I like that the argument from HS's side was always logical. I just don't know what Drixx's endgame plan would be if esires is his partner because it was very unlikely HS, skitter, or Paul were going to get lynched after this showdown. I'll go with thinking Drixx just didn't have the time to play well.

So, overall I think HS is town but I'd feel a LOT better about this read if you interact with my points and not just call me scum and shut me out because I'm trying to work with you here.

BlackVoid · Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:07 am

I was about to ISO esires but I blame skitter30's username for making me curious enough to google what the "worm" was and then getting hooked on reading the entire first chapter instead of continuing with his ISO. I have to leave for a few hours so I'll do it tonight.

BlackVoid · Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:21 am

Everything I do can be interpreted as "searching for the best mislynch opportunity" as opposed to "trying to figure out the scum" if you want to twist it that way. There's no indication in your ISO that you are trying to parse the distinction between the two as opposed to just going with the first interpretation.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1136 (isolation #57) » Tue Jun 27, 2017 4:34 pm

@Dunker, can you explain your read on Paul a bit more?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1137 (isolation #58) » Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:46 pm

@esires, I'm curious, coming into D3, what would you have considered a townie reaction from me?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1145 (isolation #59) » Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:25 pm

In post 1143, skitter30 wrote:I was working on a BV style analysis of esires, but I'm coming down with the flu and my head's a little bit fuzzy right now. Imma continue this tomorrow I think.

I'm also doing this. If you don't mind, I'd like us to both post our analyses at the same time. I want to read your thoughts without you being influenced by anything I wrote so I can firm up my read on you. And vice-versa. When you are online and ready tomorrow, let me know and we'll post them together. I'm leaving for work at around 3:30 PST so it needs to be before that unless you are a night owl, then we can do it past midnight.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1146 (isolation #60) » Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:28 pm

@Dunker, I'm going to go look at the Drixx wagon again after I finish going through esires' ISO and I'll respond then.

@Paul, if you want to post more detailed reads, go for it. More information and content to analyze is always better than less.

BlackVoid · Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:12 am

And if you are wrong, you're happy to lose the game over it? Because assuming you are town, even if you succeed in lynching me AND correctly figure who the scum is in lylo, you're going to have a hell of a job trying to convince the other townie not to vote you.

BlackVoid · Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:24 am

What's throwing me off is why you wouldn't actually try and figure out if you are wrong today. The fact that

I'll

have an uphill battle if I'm wrong is exactly why I've been spending so much time trying to verify if that could be the case to make sure we don't lose. But you don't seem the least bit bothered and are entirely comfortable basically saying nothing I did this DP has any relevance and that my slot is scum because of D2.

BlackVoid · Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:34 am

Question for you: why do you pretend you don't know that scum have a roleblocker in your opening post of D2 (617)?

BlackVoid · Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:39 am

Another question: can you explain what you think is the scum motivation behind HS "vote-hopping" by switching from Cpt, calling him town and voting Dunker and then moving back to Cpt instead of staying on Cpt throughout? Since they are both town, wouldn't it attract less attention to stick to one target because it wouldn't really matter to him which of them got lynched? This is in reference to your 627.

BlackVoid · Wed Jun 28, 2017 12:02 pm

Okay, wrote up my

thesis paper

ISO analysis of esires. Ready to post when I come back from work around midnight tonight.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1159 (isolation #66) » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:36 pm

I'm back and ready to post whenever you are.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1162 (isolation #67) » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:58 pm

Alright, posting in 30 seconds.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1164 (isolation #68) » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:59 pm

The biggest thing that worries me about esires' ISO is that there's extremely little original thought there. The first vote on Drixx coming out of RVS in 77 and comes after several people voiced concerns about Drixx and his 90 where he attacks Drixx is him continuing to blend into the crowd.

His next attack is on Dunker in 111 which basically mirrors the end of skitter's 94: that Dunker accused Drixx of doing something Drixx didn't do and opportunistically bandwagoned Drixx. After Dunker makes 113 and NC backs off of Dunker a bit in 114 and HS declares Dunker to be town in 115, esires then becomes "torn" on Dunker and WIFOMs himself a bit and ends with "dang, this is confusing." I sort of explain this in 902 and I still feel like he's trying to feign confusion than being confused. I also disliked his vote on HS but it is at least original content. Then Dunker makes 190 which is a post that caused a lot of discussion. HS starts it off in 191 saying that Dunker's earlier posts could be an act or he's an "exceptionally fast learner." esires paraphrases pretty much the same logic saying that there's a big difference between his earlier posts and recent posts in 197 and ends by calling out Cpt for lurking which Dunker already did in his 174.

The unvote on HS in 224 because he's participating is fine but the phrasing "at this stage, I don't think a vote on HS is justified" feels more like he can't plausibly push HS anymore and resigned himself to finding better targets as opposed to having a revelation that HS was town. Part of his reasoning was that HS isn't wagon-hopping anymore like he was initially? I don't even get why "wagon-hopping" is scummy or why you'd unvote someone who did something that's scummy in your mind just because they stopped doing it. Him accusing Drixx for having "reactive" posts is really weird as well since he said later that he himself is a reactive player. Why not switch your vote to Drixx at that point. It seemed like your best lead at that point after you unvoted HS. Instead in your next post (268), you vote Dunker while still accusing Drixx of "theory-crafting posts" which reads like you were distancing from him but never really backing it up with a vote beyond that initial RVS vote all the way until the Drixx-HS showdown the following DP.

In 268, you put your vote back on Dunker. Two posts earlier in 266, skitter voted him saying about his Picard scumread "Just, why? Why is he your biggest scumread? This vote seemed incredibly bandwagony and oppurtunistic to me, and I don't like it." And your reasoning two posts later was "wagon hopping and lack of much of an explanation for why Capt is a scumread." I know that townies tend to bounce ideas off of each other, agree, and get into sort of a hive-mind, but it feels more like your entire ISO is about paraphrasing other people's posts. There's no real investment in your reads and I read your posts about how this is a "warm-up" game for you. I don't get it. Why wouldn't you actually play the game and try to scumhunt on your own just because you haven't played for a very long time? What benefit would there be in "warming up" by playing a town role as if you were coasting scum? The follow-up in 269 and 270 doesn't seem to have changed your reads on Dunker/Paul at all despite you thinking that what Paul did was scummy. That feels more like you are trying to push a narrative on Dunker than look objectively at everyone who does anything you think is scummy.

Justifying his push on Dunker in 276 as Dunker sheeping HS is a bit hypocritical considering the "reactive" game that you say you are playing going off of cases you agree as opposed to making your own. That and if you thought HS was baiting to see who would jump on the Picard wagon, it makes perfect sense for you as scum to not hop on and instead call out Dunker who hopped on hoping that HS would agree with you. Your comment in 308 on Dunker is again something that TesXX mentioned in 292 about "who do you think my scumpartner is?" The rest of the Dunker case is really weak but I'll give points for it not being copy-paste/paraphrase. Were things like "easily hopping onto wagons" scumtells a decade ago?

The paragraph to Drixx in 331 was actually pretty good in that it could have betrayed that he doesn't know Drixx's alignment. Telling a partner "post your reads before you get nk'd" is not something I'd expect scum to say intuitively. But then esires was mostly scumreading Drixx so I feel something like "post your reads so I can read you properly" seems natural to say. What he said about Drixx getting nk'd makes sense if he's talking to a townread but as far as I can see, esires never townread Drixx. Saying Dunker and HS aren't a team is just copy-pasta of HS arguing that point.

In 393, you say you want to draw the line with lurking and that it's better to lynch a lurker than an active contributer. But then your biggest reason for pushing Dunker is his push on Cpt. Duinker where Dunker literally said "

Yeah, he is one of my scum reads, I think a wagon should pressure him to post a bit more. VOTE: cptpicard

" So, what Dunker is doing - pressuring the lurkers to post more is really awesome from your standpoint. How could you possibly read that as suspect? I hate the "HS's abrupt reversal is noted" in 448. You are pushing against him for what's actually a towntell - him reading through Cpt's past games and deciding that he may be wrong. Instead of trying to understand his viewpoint, you... ding him for changing his opinion? So, that's it for D1.

Moving onto D2, I already posted about his Drixx vote so this will be a bit brief. His setup spec seems like a towntell since it's rather obvious that scum have a roleblocker and they would have roleblocked Dunker and shot TesXX. But 32 shows that he understood the setup. 622 was a question I think he could have asked N1 in the scum thread. I don't know if he's the kind to fake a towntell though? I don't like the "Drixx finally delivers a meaty post" argument in 617 as it looks like he's trying to get Drixx off the hook.

The thing that makes this hard is that after the vote on Drixx, esires goes on V/LA and we don't really get a chance to see how he engages Drixx. When he comes back, he just ties HS and Drixx together as potential partners and is okay with either lynch. I like the characterization of HS and Drixx in 884 as them being unique players that are hard to get a handle on. You've said you've bounced back and forth on thinking HS and HS is "definitely town" but you never really put that in the thread. Thinking you are going to be nightkilled feels fake. You've played mafia before. You know that mafia pretty much are compelled to kill the PRs if they want to stand a chance of winning. Why would they kill a "reactive player" playing a "warmup game?" How do you actually believe that? Also, TesXX was throwing around the possibility of me being jailed so it's not like I was trying to sow "confusion" and pull the jailer on me at the last moment and what possible scum motivation could I have for that?

Moving to D3, I really don't like how in 1132, he basically said "Maybe I'm being led astray and the reality is that HS is trying to keep the lynch on BV, but I still feel that BV's D3 game doesn't clear the slot." If he's wondering about this, why not work with me and try to figure HS out? He throws in all these paranoid possibilities that someone else could be scum but doesn't actually do anything about it, investigate the matter, ask questions or try to solidify his reads. His reasons for suspecting me basically amount to "absence of a Drixx counterpush" and "vague suspicion of NC by Drixx." The first one is explained by bussing which I know happened and which should something he should be considering and the second is something you never talked about. The fact that he's so sure based on such weak reasoning where nothing I say D3 matters is weird.

As for towntells, I noticed a couple of weak ones here and there. Addressing Drixx like he's going to get nightkilled and he just didn't seem to realize there's a scum roleblocker as he accused me of trying to clear myself by no killing and he also theorizes at the beginning of D2 that scum no killed. I do want to read everyone else just to be doubly certain.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1166 (isolation #69) » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:19 pm

@skitter, wanted to ask you a few questions about your D3 posting:

1. You asked both me and esires for our reads on Paul and I said he was town. Why did you immediately say you thought my response was townie instead of waiting for esires to respond as well and then explaining which one you found more town? By stating your opinion, you pretty much made it so that if esires was scum, he would also have to call Paul town or risk getting scumread whereas if you said nothing, you'd have the chance to catch him making an opportunistic read. If I'm town for townreading Paul, shouldn't esires also be town for the same reason?

2. Can you clarify the last part of 1115 for me? If esires is scum (like you were thinking at that point), then Drixx obviously wouldn't want to lynch him and if it becomes harder to lynch esires after HS's townflip, that's good for Drixx, isn't it? When you say "Drixx could still push esires," you seem to be implying that esires is town which wasn't what your read on him was at that point.

3. In 1105, why do you dislike my post cutting short the interaction with esires even when you agreed that he wasn't trying to figure out my alignment? Were you expecting me to interact with him for the benefit of everyone else? If that's the case, wouldn't it make more sense to just talk to everyone else about esires rather than continue talking

at

him? I don't know if that makes sense but if I'm talking to someone directly, it means I'm leaving open room for them being town and taking in what they are saying, not just refuting their points for everyone else to see.

4. In 1085, you asked for links to my town and scum games. Did you get a chance to check them out?

5. I think esires didn't put me at L-1 because I specifically requested it. I didn't want anyone to lol-hammer and cut the day short. Why does that matter? Is there any scum motivation in not voting me until you took your vote off

BlackVoid · Post Post #1168 (isolation #70) » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:35 pm

I'm also curious why you decided to copy my "style?"

BlackVoid · Post Post #1169 (isolation #71) » Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:23 pm

I want to hear people's thoughts on the nightkills. Killing TesXX N1 over Dunker was always a risk because if the roleblocker is lynched the following day, the JK can start clearing people. Why would Drixx and his partner take that risk instead of taking out Dunker immediately? Dunker was also more confirmed town than TesXX since there's a possibility of a JK existing without a 1-shot BP. One way removing the BP would be beneficial for scum is that if the roleblocker isn't lynched D2, it gives them latitude to kill whichever conf-town they want. The second question is on N2, why would the scum roleblocker get rid of TesXX over Dunker? For one, I could see it being because TesXX is more active and aggressive while Dunker is keeping a low profile. Reads-wise, the conf-townies seem to be focused on Paul and HS the most and I don't really have suspicions of either of them so I don't know what to make of it.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1178 (isolation #72) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 5:15 am

If we mislynch and you are alive for 3P, there's a decent chance you'll make the decision so that's up to you isn't it.

But talk to me about reads a bit more.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1179 (isolation #73) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 5:24 am

In post 1170, esires wrote:Tbh having two people coordinate and gang up like this with walls of text just feels kinda shitty and not fun, so I'm sorta over it guys.

UNVOTE:

VOTE: esires

What was your thought process at this point? I asked skitter to post her analysis at the same time as me so I could read

her

. I think it shows that I'm still considering the possibility of you being town, still looking elsewhere to make sure we're not two townies being setup by scum.

For someone who refused to consider the possibility of me being town right from the beginning of D1, this feels like a very unfair reaction.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1180 (isolation #74) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:05 am

I decided to go ahead and dig up games from icemanE (esires' past life) to get a better sense of him as a player and this jumped out to me. So, eight years ago, you said this:

Subject: Mini 829 - Internal Struggle Mafia (Over)

icemanE wrote:TBH, I'm not a huge fan of big summarative posts. I prefer to reread the game as a base for my own understanding, and then jump immediately into the relevant issues at hand.

As far as the lynch today, I would have hammered myself based on Toro's self-vote alone. In my experience,
self-voting is almost always a scum ploy.
Additionally, calling for your own lynch as he did is a scare tactic. He also essentially disappeared when the pressure mounted, at least in terms of his actual participation in the game.

You said you didn't play mafia in the intervening eight years so can you go over what changed?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1181 (isolation #75) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:24 am

I don't understand how you misinterpreted the reason behind us posting at the same time - it was to read each other, not "gang up" on you whatever that means and I'm not sure what you thought was happening. But I can see that reaction from someone who thinks calling for their own lynch is a good "scare tactic."

BlackVoid · Post Post #1182 (isolation #76) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:34 am

You did the same thing in this game where you hard-pushed someone that L-1'd themselves on page one. Obviously, the circumstances are different but you do seem to think self-votes are scum-motivated. Your play your towngames also seems completely different to your play here. You are aggressive, pushy and there's very little of that "sheeping good cases" and going with the flow that you are doing here.

As to whether you just became a different person after so long, I'll have to check your scumgames for that.

Okay, this is you after a scumgame:

Subject: Mini 715: Legends of Literature Mafia (Over)

icemanE wrote:
Yeah, I've used that self-voting gambit a few times and usually it works a HELL of a lot better than that.
But I think I made too strong a case for my own lynch. Plus, wtf, despite the fact that we had 4 of us, three of us died before day 3 started. Town owned that game. I'm still kind of pissed that my claim seemed to be the main reason I got lynched, but not that pissed, haha. But it's freaking MOBY DICK! I didn't lie about the book, anyways. And yeah, we killed tenchi. Which pretty much did it for us.

Congrats everybody. I think this was my last game, at least for awhile. I'm pretty busy with school work, so thanks for the good times. Adios!

Well, it's not going to work now.

VOTE: esires

BlackVoid · Post Post #1186 (isolation #77) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:12 am

I have more paranoia of skitter than HS as I get more subtle setting-up/buddying vibes from her. HS is just being blatant - lynch these two people I'm checking out, game is solved. I don't know why skitter would say I've inspired her to do stuff and copy my posting style.

In post 1105, skitter30 wrote:I was *really* liking BV's content, and you've inspired me to ISO esires

In post 1143, skitter30 wrote:I was working on a BV style analysis of esires,

In post 1163, skitter30 wrote:Doing a BV style post-by-post thing:

It reminded me of this post by scum in a recent game and it started to weird me out:

In post 2881, Not Fury wrote:I've been very lazy lately, but void kinda inspired me to do some work of my own.

Also, something about the way she told me I was being transparent, saying that my push on esires was convenient, and that she didn't like me cutting the interaction short felt like her strategy was to buddy me today and get esires lynched, then set up a lynch on me the following day. Her ISO of esires confirmed this paranoia as she didn't seem particularly confident that he was scum with Drixx but was willing to vote him for what I felt were somewhat weak reasons. I also didn't think our analysis overlapped that much or that our thought processes on esires' ISO were that similar.

So, then I dug into esires' past games to see if I could find something that would clear him and instead I found that he is known to gambit self-vote as scum which makes him way more likely to be scum. So yeah, I think it's esires but I'd like to know why you are more confident on skitter than HS. I guess it's not out of the realm of possibility for Drixx to manufacture that argument and HS to coast after that but I found HS' reactions to Drixx a lot more genuine. I think the way skitter pushed Drixx is well within the range of her scumgame I read. She did "forget" about Drixx on D1 which is kinda weird.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1191 (isolation #78) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:23 am

Why would she "leave open" the possibility of HS-scum? If skitter is scum, she's already got two lynches (me and esires) set up quite nicely. That's all it takes to win and she doesn't need any more. Throwing shade on HS would mean that

he

would start to consider the possibility that she's scum which is pretty bad. Defending him and you and keeping both of you on her side while pushing suspicion of me and esires would the winning strategy here. If she's scum, she'd just go into D4 and 1v1 me. With the way HS is talking, there's a good chance he'll lynch me if he's the decider.

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:13 am

I'm actually going to be free today after about 5:30 or so to look over the game again. When you get here, would you mind also explaining your 1172? I read somewhere while digging through your games that you felt bad about mislynching players as scum and this one fit the mold.

On the other hand, I don't know why town would apologize so much because esires' post didn't make much sense to me. I just don't understand how he could interpret simultaneous posting to read each other as "ganging up on him." I also thought it was a bit unfair to appeal to empathy there when I've been trying to engage both him and HS since the beginning of the week and they both pretty much shut me out as "you are scum because of Not Chara and your D2 play and interactions with Drixx and nothing you do will ever change my mind" when I've posted more than twice the content in a week than Not Chara managed in almost a month.

I don't know what reaction I expected from you but that just stuck out to me.

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:44 pm

I'll address the latest post in a bit but skitter, was there a reason you skipped my questions to you while you responded to the others?

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:50 pm

In post 1195, esires wrote:BV I have a hard time swallowing that you can't imagine why two people coordinating giant posts against another player could be interpreted by that player as an overly aggressive move. "We were only listing off everything that sucks about George to evaluate each other! Stop whining George, you suck!"

I also have a hard time imagining that you don't think people change substantially over the course of nearly a decade. Do their mafia games change? I dunno, maybe? If they haven't been playing mafia and they're trying to get back into it, can you truly not imagine a scenario where they'd want to ease back into the game, and they maybe they aren't as in-tune with it as they were? Have you ever played a sport and then not played it for 8 years? It takes awhile to get back into it.

I'm perfectly willing to answer some questions but I can answer like, the top three from each of you. A post answering the questions you've both asked of me would, at this point, take me 4 hours to put together.

I'm not trying to say "you suck," I don't know where that came from. I'm analyzing your ISO to see if you make the most sense as a Drixx partner. I also have suspicions of skitter so I wanted to see if she was seeing the same things I did, hence asked her post simultaneously.

I'm trying really hard to figure you out here. I was hoping more for specifics than general stuff like "people change substantially over a decade." You had pretty strongly held viewpoints that self-voting is scummy and pursued anyone that self-voted in your towngames. In your scumgames, you used it as a gambit/scare tactic to get townread. Then you say you have a hard time imagining why I find your self-vote scummy. Let's talk about the specific issue rather than general changes over a decade.

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:54 pm

UNVOTE:

Don't want esires at L-1 at this point. I haven't finished discussing everything I wanted to discuss. @HS, you said that you'd reconsider my slot if I "obvtown." This is the closest I can come to that. You played a great D2 and I'm hoping to see you bring your best today.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1206 (isolation #83) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 1:09 pm

In post 1197, skitter30 wrote:Betweeen esires and BV, I feel like esires is independently more scummy, but NC has sketchy associative partners tells with Drixx (I still want to ISO them). BV has been supertown, but he hasn't really overlapped with Drixx, so those tells didn't really have an opportunity to form.

That's why I'm torn. I can see esires as scum, but I don't know if I'm seeing esires/Drixx. I see BV as town, but Drixx/NC seems like a realistic possibility. This is why I feel like I'm missing something. Of these two possibilities, I'm leaning more towards scum!esires, because of how strong BV's day 3 is.

(Yes, I'm fully aware of the fact that BV may now come and say that I'm leaving my options open for day4 or whatever, but I'm trying to be honest and this is where I'm at). So, in, short, I want to dual ISO Drixx/NC and Drixx/BV before I remove him from my lynchpool.

This is why I'm uncertain here, because I'm townreading BV, but NC has sketchy associatives with Drixx :/

I don't get why you'd be holding "sketchy associatives" in such high regard over my apparently super-town play. You just finished a scumgame where you mislynched Paul because he didn't vote the scum that was lynched D1. You are well aware that townies can get caught off-guard, defend scum, townread scum, have all sorts of potentially weird interactions and if I'm as town as you claim, your continued hedging doesn't make any sense to me.

It feels like you are lampshading my response by saying that's what you honestly felt. You literally just set up esires and me to be lynched. esires first but you have reservations about it. Then me for the "sketchy interactions." I also think you've been trying to buddy up to Paul pretty hard since the beginning of the game. Knowing NC was town, I just find it hard to believe that you are "torn" on me and I'm going to look over his interactions with Drixx again to see what the heck it was that people are interpreting as scummy.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1207 (isolation #84) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 1:15 pm

In post 1198, skitter30 wrote:Why is scum!me buddying you? You're one of my obvious mislynches, so why am I trying to buddy you exactly? How does it benefit scum!me to buddy town!you when scum!me wants to mislynch you? It's not like scum!me needs to manipulate you into voting esires or anything; you're doing it already.

I used the word 'inspire' because I could see you put tons of effort into solving this game, and I felt like the least I could is to do the same.

And I liked the way you organized posts like 1060, and I was doing an ISO, so I thought that would be a nice way to organize it. Overall, I really like your posts and I like the way you think; you clearly lay out your thought process, and it makes it easy to understand your POV and mindset. People like Paul are kinda hard to read for me, because he says things, but doesn't articulate his reasoning that well. I like get what you're thinking, and it's logical and makes sense. Hence, transparent.

And your push on esires *is* convenient, since it's your best mislynch option if you're scum. But I'm starting to come around to the idea that he may actually be scum though.

I'll do the esires ISOs similarities in another post in a bit.

There's a bit of dissonance here where you keep saying I'm super-transparent and clear with my thought process but I'm still apparently a lynch target for you whereas Paul who doesn't articulate reasoning well and is hard for you to read is such a super-confident townread that you're willing to let him win the game. I know you said NC's posts are what's holding you back but that just ties into my point about you being well-aware that townies have weird interactions and exploiting then in the past. If you drew town here, I feel like your perspective would be different and you'd be more careful/look deeper with how you interpret interactions of living players with flipped scum.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1208 (isolation #85) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 1:17 pm

And I mean, I'd apologize to esires but I don't feel like I crossed any sort of line there.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1209 (isolation #86) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 1:24 pm

As for why scum-you would buddy me, obviously if I townread you, you have the option to endgame me. Or you could have thought you have a better shot at winning by being universally townread and setting up me/esires lynches than by 1v1'ing me and someone like Paul recognizing that I'm obvtown or letting his paranoia over your previous game turning him against you. There are plenty of scum-motives there. I won't claim I know what you were thinking but I saw the kind of posts from scum before and it instinctively makes me suspicious. Even your response feels like it's focused on what benefit scum get as opposed to just stating why you made those posts.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1212 (isolation #87) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 1:54 pm

@esires, if you are town, you're in a ridiculously conf-biased tunnel and I don't know what else to tell you. I unvoted because I wasn't sure anymore who was scum. What do you mean when you say you wouldn't look at me as a suspect if I was here since D1? That wouldn't change my alignment, would it? So, why not?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1214 (isolation #88) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:12 pm

In post 1210, skitter30 wrote:1. I was originally thinking about asking you about Paul and esires about HS there, but I was trying to avoid framing the questions so as to belie what answer I was looking for, because if I'm not careful, I have a tendency to just spell out the purpose of the question. At the time, I was more suspicious of you, so I decided to switch the question to see what you'd say about Paul in particular, but I figured I might as well ask esires about Paul too while I was at it. I feel like esires' next mislynch is HS, not Paul, so I wasn't as concerned about what he'd say about Paul.

2. Last night, I had found where Drixx had said that. OK, thinking this through, I'm not sure why I said that because I don't think I thought all of the implications through at the time; I actually just spent a long time staring at this and trying to figure out what Drixx's motivation here.

This is actually puzzling me a lot. In a universe where the scumteam is Drixx/esires, and HS is town, why would Drixx in a Drixx/esires propose an HS/esires team and push HS first? By pushing esires first, Drixx gets towncred from the bus, and a mislynch in HS. By pushing HS first, Drixx gets ??? . The best thing that I'm coming up with is that when HS flips town, it invalidates his whole read on the partnership, so he needs to reevaluate everything? But if he's independently scumreading esires (for apparently pushing a mislynch on Drixx), I would find it weird if that indpendant scumread disappeared just because HS flipped town. I'm actually having trouble figuring out why Drixx did this in this context.

1. Okay, so assuming you are town, you can see how your stance of saying that the scum is between me and Paul would be the best path to a win as scum. So, how is it that you are asking me about my read on Paul to check whether I'd waffle there? And if I had said, "the scum is esires and if not him, it's Paul," then you'd have scumread me? Except that makes no sense because you'd know that having multiple suspects is a plausible town thought process based on your own reads. In fact, having only one suspect is also a plausible scum thought process. I've seen scum do that. I've done that as scum before (by the way, if you check my most recent scumgame, you'll see that I was in the same situation I was in here but with opposite alignment). I replaced in, tunneled one townie, never re-evaluated. So, that's not even something you can use to read my alignment.

2. The reason I asked this question is that I think you perspective-slipped. I'll elaborate on this in my next post.

I've been ISO'ing people, re-reading this game, and also finding time to look over other games. I'm skeptical that you haven't found time to look over my past games because even glancing at my ISOs will tell you that there's a definite difference between how much more involved I am as town over scum. I may be wrong but I can't help thinking that you did but don't want to say anything about it because it would make it hard for you to argue that I could be scum here. I'm way too involved to be scum here.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1215 (isolation #89) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:15 pm

In post 1115, skitter30 wrote:
In post 1113, NotTheRealPaul wrote:Also he was pushing an HS/esires scumteam a bit and I dont get it. Scum needed two mislynches so if HS flipped town then he would have had a harder time pushing esires through.
I don't remember Drixx suggesting a HS/esires team, but I'll look for it later. I don't think I agree here, since if HS fliped town, I think he could just say something like, 'well, I was wrong about HS, but esires is still scum, but now I have to reevaluate and look for his partner'.

Okay, so this post: at the time you made the post, you thought esires was scum and were refuting Paul's paranoia about HS. But you make the implicit assumption that both esires and HS are town. Because you're looking at how Drixx could continue to push a mislynch on esires even after an HS townflip. It stuck out to me because at the time, I was thinking from a perspective of a Drixx/esires team.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1220 (isolation #90) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:38 pm

Okay esires, just walk me through exactly why NC was so profoundly scummy that it outweighs everything I did today.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1222 (isolation #91) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 4:47 pm

@Paul, if you think me and skitter are both town, talk me down from the ledge here. It feels like she's trying to lock in lynches on me and esires and I don't really agree a lot of her reasoning even where she says esires is town. What about her is so town? You said earlier that you thought she was townreading me but her recent posts pretty much clarify that she's saying it's either me or esires.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1223 (isolation #92) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 4:50 pm

HS

completely

ignoring the game is frustrating and it's one thing to be too busy to post, quite another to claim that the game is solved and to just post in other forums.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1225 (isolation #93) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:06 pm

So, you just decided to trust skitter and you're okay losing the game if you are wrong? I'm asking because I really don't like losing towngames and wanted to see if there was some strong reasoning that you had. What do you think of my concerns about skitter?

BlackVoid · Post Post #1230 (isolation #94) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:22 pm

That was a typo. I meant scum. Even when you were said you found esires scum (or scummier than me), I couldn't really get behind your reasoning. I'm going to re-read your esires ISO again and explain what I meant.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1232 (isolation #95) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:26 pm

I guess it just surprises me that people apparently think I'm this strong as scum yet the best I could come up with to save a partner was to lurk out the day and allow town to lynch him without even trying to cash in buscred.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1234 (isolation #96) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 7:40 pm

I continued looking over that scumgame of icemanE (esires) and this quote by some townie after ice's partner got lynched made me lol:

Spoiler: esires old game

BlackVoid · Post Post #1235 (isolation #97) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:00 pm

In post 1210, skitter30 wrote:This is actually puzzling me a lot. In a universe where the scumteam is Drixx/esires, and HS is town, why would Drixx in a Drixx/esires propose an HS/esires team and push HS first? By pushing esires first, Drixx gets towncred from the bus, and a mislynch in HS. By pushing HS first, Drixx gets ??? . The best thing that I'm coming up with is that when HS flips town, it invalidates his whole read on the partnership, so he needs to reevaluate everything? But if he's independently scumreading esires (for apparently pushing a mislynch on Drixx), I would find it weird if that indpendant scumread disappeared just because HS flipped town. I'm actually having trouble figuring out why Drixx did this in this context.

Drixx has actually done this before. In Newbie 1784, he was scum with Loopdan. He pushed a case against a townie (StealthyNoodle) and then twice tied him to his partner.

Drixx wrote:Calling it now. Loopdan and Noodles.

Drixx wrote:Presuming scum!Noodle, I think Loopdan makes the most sense to be his partner.

His primary push was the townie and his "backup push/person he was calling the townie scum with" was his partner. I don't know exactly what motivated him to do it but I also don't quite understand why you don't think he would do it.

BlackVoid · Post Post #1236 (isolation #98) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:06 pm

This is in response to your 1163 (skitter):

You say esires continuing to push Drixx in 90 after you were about to put him at L-1 doesn't come from partners. That feels like a stretch. What do you expect a partner who was voting Drixx to do? Unvote in a panic and start defending him? It was page four. Drixx wasn't getting lynched then. If a partner decided to "pressure" him to distance, they're going to do that until the attention subsides.

You also said he might be "keeping his options open" in his 617. Why would he do that? I think normally scum would want to buddy/townread some people and push others as opposed to keep everyone in their lynchpool. If you were scum, which would you do?

The weird thing is, I don't know if 627 comes from a scumpartner. Scum would want to tie their partners to townies, not tie two townies together and call them the team. The former gives them more credibility in case the partner flips first and they can push on the townie. That and the HS/NC scumteam theory seemed rather well-thought out actually. He accuses them of distancing with arguments that go beyond just a surface-level (they were defending each other, etc). He talks about how they say that something is not right with each other but HS in the end doesn't push NC despite suspecting him. I could easily see town who suspects HS think that NC is partnered with him.

I still don't get what your issue is with him not voting me to L-1. If he's scum, he needs to get me lynched and he can't do that without a vote. He'll eventually have to vote so what difference does it make?

919 sounded pretty genuine I think. 929 considerably less so. After being so sure Drixx was scum, why end with "if anyone can provide a viable counterwagon, I'm all ears?"

BlackVoid · Post Post #1237 (isolation #99) » Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:17 pm

In post 1084, BlackVoid wrote:But if you or Paul are scum, you've set up the endgame quite nicely with me/esires lynches

In post 1191, BlackVoid wrote:If skitter is scum, she's already got two lynches (me and esires) set up quite nicely.

In post 1197, skitter30 wrote:All he needs is two mislynches, and he's set himself up nicely for that.

Yeah, so this part of why your posts keep weirding me out. There's a lot of parroting going on. I said this (almost exact phrasing) and then you say it about HS. But unlike me, you don't actually do much about your paranoia where I've been sort of wildly pushing at the entire playerlist to try and alleviate my concerns.

Same thing with the "transparent" stuff. I said that I was being transparent. Your later posts are all about telling me how I'm transparent and sort of pacifying me but setting me up at the same time based on NC's posts which is probably the less antagonistic way to push a mislynch (hey, your predecessor was scummy, not you, you are super-town and transparent but I'm lynching you next is esires isn't and esires doesn't make sense as a Drixx partner").

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:19 pm

^ Talk to me about that Paul. You're my only voice of sanity in here.

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:36 pm

932 to Drixx also seems oddly confrontational tonally for someone who's going out of her way to be non-confrontational.

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:01 pm

It seems like the big case for NC/Drixx is 978. It comes down to:

1. Drixx's partner simply wasn't around to deflect from the lynch

(esires came up with this point and skitter sheeped it): I mean either that or bussing and someone who bussed in their first scumgame should know that both scenarios are probable, especially after town mislynched Paul for not voting the scum (yes, I realize that

you

didn't mislynch Paul but it doesn't change my actual point that scum bus and townies get caught off-guard).

2. I pushed skitter D2 who was the most pro-town player in the game because I somehow needed to get rid of her

: Um, if I were trying to save Drixx, wouldn't I be pushing actual viable mislynches? Pushing a non-viable lynch on the "most pro-town player" while letting town lynch your partner seems like pretty horrible play.

So, I'm really looking forward to what these damning interactions between NC and Drixx are.

I'm going to re-read the whole game start to finish because I'm pretty lost here. I think Paul is town. I like Paul. He's the only one not setting me up to be lynched and the only one who's actually considering potential scum outside me/esires. I think HS is town for the genuine interactions with Drixx and hard-pushing for his lynch and I think the odds of that being a bus are pretty low. It's either esires or skitter. If we could lynch them both, I think town will win but I'd rather nail down who I think it is today and end the game. Getting into lylo with everyone out for my head doesn't sound fun.

BlackVoid · Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:46 pm

In post 1141, Dunkerdoodles wrote:
In post 1136, BlackVoid wrote:@Dunker, can you explain your read on Paul a bit more?
mainly his position on the drixx wagon, i feel like he bussed drixx.
drixx was one of the main scumreads d1, and i feel that overnight drixx may have told paul to bus him and he was already being scumread.
paul really defended his place on the wagon.
paul also "warmed up" to the idea of TvT, after i believe drixx said it might be TvT. paul might have wanted to go along with his partner drixx and maybe try and convince town it was TvT and that they should lynch someone else, but when no one really thought it was TvT (i was insisting the whole day it was TvS, which is probably why i don't like paul rn.) he went back to bussing. now i'm pretty sure i posted about this D2, and paul response was something like "i was only "warming up" to the idea of TvT, i still think it was TvS." now if town did indeed get persuaded and think HS vs Drixx was TvT, then paul could've said he was the one of the first people to come uo with the idea with his "warming up" post.

tl:dr I think paul bussed drixx D2

Okay, so what makes Paul different from everyone else that weakly suspected Drixx D1, forgot all about him and then pushed him in earnest D2? HS, Skitter, and esires all did this. Paul as well. So, Drixx could have been scum with any one of them and they could have co-ordinated the bus N1.

Paul defending his place on the wagon is a fair point and I have at times felt that Paul was a bit too keen to take credit for the Drixx lynch, first when he accused you of copying his read, and then when he insisted that he was one of the primary Drixx pushers. I've been somewhat paranoid about skitter pocketing Paul but I've wondered at times if it's the other way around and

he's

pocketing her. But it doesn't make that much sense to me as the other way around.

I don't know how damning it is for him to "warm up to the idea of TvT." I'll walk through the timeline tomorrow morning. It's getting late.

BlackVoid · Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:29 am

@esires, my top three questions for you. Please elaborate somewhat here because I'm condensing down most of my issues with your play into just three questions.

1. I need you to explain your Drixx vote a bit more. You said you were compelled to vote Drixx until he can explain whether HS's posting style was intentional which I really have a hard time following. Can you rephrase this using different words? I asked this before and your never actually addresses this directly.

2. Can you be more specific instead of general with your explanation for your self-vote. "People change over the years" is rather vague. You are a player that aggressively pushed self-voters and as scum, you voted yourself as a gambit. Why did you think it was unreasonable to suspect you there? What were you thinking when you self-voted?

3. Explain your townread on skitter if you can. You've generally just been saying "pro-town" and "I won't fall into the too town to be town fallacy." I don't see any solid reasoning there and now that I explained my scumread on her, it would be great if you could elaborate on why she's so pro-town to you?

BlackVoid · Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:30 am

@skitter, I post quite a bit but I don't know if I can match the novels that you write. Out of curiosity, do you prefer playing town or scum? I'll distill your main points down into a few major arguments. Let me know if I missed anything:

1. NC didn't commit to a read on Drixx early

: Drixx is a good scumplayer and is difficult to read. For someone who played with him before, is it more likely that they'd instantly commit to a read based on a handful of posts or just take it slow, try and see what content Drixx comes up with and try and evaluate him from there? This is exactly why I townread the hell out of Human Sequencer's early play and NC's cautious approach is also very similar and makes a lot of sense. So, I really can't see what's so concerning here and it's more of a concern that you just threw a "non-committal" label on it because it's easily attackable than understand that this is exactly how town that doesn't know Drixx's alignment would approach him early game. If I were in the game then, I most certainly could not have committed to a read so early.

2. NC likes the fact that Drixx is "trying" but Drixx wasn't actually trying

:
This is such a bs point. Let's look at the timeline again, shall we? Here's your post defending Drixx from Dunker:

Spoiler:

NC's post 379 came after yours. So, if you are defending Drixx from Dunker saying that Drixx's posts weren't irrelevant, how can now turn around and ding NC for saying Drixx was trying?

3. NC "forgot" about his Drixx scumread:

Well, so did you! Why is this scummy?

4. NC's engagement with the Drixx/HS tunnel:

NC townreads Drixx for the emotional display, and says the argument about posting-styles isn't alignment-indicative. I don't know if I'd agree with it but it just seems like he found it hard to follow the argument, but despite being paranoid of HS, didn't like Drixx's case on posting-style. NC didn't even need to post anything during that time. He could just wait to see which way the wind blows and then either bus or distance but he's actively engaging both players and trying to figure out what he thinks. Then he townleans HS. The followup on Drixx is right there in 728. He finished sorting one side of the Drixx/HS argument as lean-town. Now he's moving on to Drixx and asking him questions.

What motivation does scum-NC have to not "commit" to a read on Drixx when Drixx was getting lynched anyways? If a partner is bold enough, I'd expect them to try to derail the lynch. If not, bus. I mean, you seemed pretty sure about Drixx but you didn't vote him for a long while despite other people doing so (and this was before I replaced in and asked you to hold off). Why'd you never vote him for so long?

5. Interactions between me and Drixx:

How you interpret 795 as Drixx warning me to be obvtown when it's just as likely him trying to keep a townie in their lynchpool is eluding me.

Me asking Drixx for his HS case in 799 was me trying to read Drixx. I was responding to his 798 where he says he has a secret scumtell on HS by trying to get him to elaborate. HS was explaining his attack on Drixx and wasn't alluding to any secret tells.

NC being so high up on Drixx's readslist is weird, yeah. Drixx's readslist basically went from Paul -> NC -> skitter -> esires -> HS. There's motivation to put his buddy at any level there and unless you are talking about inexperienced scum, it's usually pretty hard to tell because they'd be trying to hide their partner. And Drixx is certainly experienced enough to pull it off. In fact, given his experience, I'd say his bizarre placement of NC clears more than condemns me.

BlackVoid · Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:32 am

I initially townread skitter for her aggression towards Dunker. But on thinking about it more, it was just one humongous and elaborate chainsaw to Drixx and mostly was based around calling him scum for "mis-repping" Drixx.

BlackVoid · Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:33 am

I actually have a weak townread on esires now. After reflection, I can see why he'd wake up in the morning and get frustrated at a pair of long walls and give in, also thought the logic for townreading Paul based on HS's read was very genuine.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 7:16 am

I really want to talk to HumanSequencer because I no longer have confidence in esires flipping scum. I'm re-reading the game, here and online for the next few hours if anyone wants to talk. @Mod, can you prod him?

Chainsaw defense.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 8:47 pm

Lmao at calling it "buddying." I mean, I think I've been pretty town here and it's nice to have someone recognize that and actually engage me and my reads as opposed to put down a vote on me and bail on the game because it's apparently "solved." Literally every other player in the game wants me lynched either now or if esires flips town and I think he probably will.

Your pivoting to attacking me right after I called esires town is pretty scummy since you know you might need to push my lynch first since esires will be harder if I defend him.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:01 pm

I was townreading you mostly for your aggressive D1 play, and the way you were keen to engage me when I started posting content. I started having slight worries about you being scum at around the time of my 1145. The "BV-style" analysis wording pinged me slightly, so I responded by asking you to post the esires ISO analysis at the same time as me so I could either put to concerns to rest or pursue them further. I also ISO'd you in reverse and saw other things that compounded my concerns so I put up a list of questions for you in 1166. From there you can see how my read evolved.

I just don't buy this cleanly crafted dichotomy that you created here: "BV is super-transparent and townie but NC had weird interactions with Drixx. esires is probably the scum but doesn't fit with Drixx." And then you go back and forth, "weigh" the evidence, lynch one of us, when we flip town, lynch the other whichever argument matches." When townies have reads, they are a LOT more messy, more chaotic, and have deeper thought processes. Your either/or reads on me and esires and reasons given feel extremely manufactured.

I actually don't think anything esires did is particularly indicative of not being a Drixx partner, my strongest reasons to townread him are actually independent of Drixx. I also think you'd be smart enough to recognize that NC's Drixx interactions were genuine. I didn't like your reasons for pushing esires even when I was suspicious of him. I didn't like your reason for townreading me based on my townread of Paul. It felt like you were boxing me into pushing just esires and if I expressed suspicion elsewhere, that'd be a reason to scumread me. I think you've been trying to manipulate me into hard-committing to an esires scumread so both our lynches go easier.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:48 pm

In post 1263, skitter30 wrote:Your pivoting to attack me right after you got the L-1 vote on esires is pretty scummy since you know you might need to push my lynch tomorrow.

Why in the world would a scum-me need to push your lynch tomorrow? Literally any other lynch would be easier to push. Paul expressed suspicion of HS and even you expressed paranoia of him. All he's done this DP is vote me and check out. Why on earth would I

need

to attack someone who no one suspects and who seems to be considering the possibility of me being town over someone everyone's paranoid of and I don't have a chance of convincing? That's a pretty scummy argument.

This is pretty similar to your argument D2 where I suspected you and you responded by saying scum

needed

some way of getting rid of you somehow which was a ridiculously twisted argument.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:59 pm

Oh man, how do you write so much? I have to get to work earlier than usual tomorrow so I'd better get to sleep but I'm going to respond to all of that stuff tomorrow night.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 10:02 pm

But that post was so scummy. "HS isn't doing shit, I think he's town but you should be scumreading him instead of me." Lol.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 10:11 pm

No, you dressed it up a bit so that's the impression I got from it.

And yeah, I'm definitely the type to post more content and I actually don't mind heavy content. Better than one-liners anyways.

BlackVoid · Sat Jul 01, 2017 10:18 pm

@HumanSequencer, if you read nothing else read this:

I've now spent multiple hours on this game over the past week. I'm pretty sure you're town and I suspect that at least a small part of the reason you don't want to engage me is because in our last game, I was scum and you backed off of me after having my predecessor nailed. I'm town here. I'm generally pretty town when I'm town and haven't been mislynched yet. All I'm asking here is that you spend 30 minutes to interact with me in real time before you break that streak. I think the game is far from solved. I'm suspicious of skitter and seem to be the only one. I think esires will flip town. I want to talk about those things and give you a succint summary of where I'm at if you don't want to bother reading the past several pages.

If you lynch me after I've spent so many hours on this game without giving me

30 minutes

of your time, I'm going to be pretty disappointed, dude.

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 6:39 am

I don't think I've characterized your play as lazy or "fearful." I don't need anything from you. I'm townreading you. If you want to get a better read on me, you're best off playing the game with me in real time. You've asked for content and I've provided it. As town, I'm not going to think about what benefits me as scum and then do the opposite. That's backwards. I just do the best I can to help town win. If some things are the same stuff that would help me if I were scum, then I'd just say those aren't alignment indicative.

In a nutshell, stuff I'm hoping to engage you on:

I think skitter is scum. She spent all of D1 pushing Dunker for bad reasons. I think she bussed Drixx D2. On D3, she's spent a lot of time setting up me and esires to be lynched often with reasoning that feels fake and manufactured.

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 6:51 am

Don't be sorry. Try and figure out the game with me and lynch scum (and it's not me).

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:20 pm

I'm back. Will respond to everything in a bit. Sad to see HS hasn't posted since. @Paul, would you say there's a marked difference in how skitter treated Drixx here versus mariomaniac in the previous game you played with her?

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:17 pm

@skitter, I'm going to spoiler this post since no one seems interested in reading back and forth walls and are tuning out. I'm writing this post for you basically on the off-chance that I'm completely wrong and you're town in which case it should help you understand my thought process.

Spoiler: For skitter

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:29 pm

Here's why HS is town: First consider Drixx as a player. Based on my limited experience/reading of his games, he has somewhat of an eccentric playstyle but tends to be competent as scum. If HS was bussing Drixx, I'd expect him to attack Drixx more and have interactions that look like distancing, perhaps be too sure about Drixx being scum, something that looks fake. Here's what I expect from town who knows Drixx: confusion. Not knowing whether Drixx is scum or town that's just drawing attention to himself with weird play. Needing more time to read him. HS's reaction is pretty much exactly what I'd expect from someone who doesn't know Drixx's alignment and is puzzled at his play. His 192 where he says "Drixx knows better as either alignment" while still querying him about his "barren posting" is exactly how I would have approached a similar situation. His D2 response to Drixx basically came when Drixx pushed a case on him and the weirder Drixx's arguments became, the more sure HS became in his read. HS only became deadset upon Drixx being scum when Drixx pushed a completely ridiculous argument against him. Nothing feels like HS had inside info about Drixx's alignment or planned to bus. In fact, it felt like he was genuinely confused at first and then had a revelation that Drixx was scum once Drixx started pushing him. I've looked over a scumgame of HS to see how he busses and most the genuine indicators I noticed here were absent there.

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:37 pm

Your reason to push me for suspecting you is completely nonsensical. Before I pushed you, Paul townread me, you townread my play or at least weren't willing to lynch me today. HS and esires on the other hand were dead-set on me. You are jumping through so many hoops to justify why I'd attack a semi-ally as opposed to the guy who Paul and even you were paranoid of who isn't reconsidering me in the slightest. Saying my townread on HS would be tougher to walk back on makes no sense given I was also townreading you earlier. If I were scum that decided to "walk-back" on a townread, it would be infinitely easier to agree with Paul that it's probably HS because of complete lack of posting.

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:42 pm

I don't think I've ever as scum try to "overwhelm" someone with information. When I'm town, I can't stop talking because there are just so many things that fall into place whenever I find a new lead and I just have to unload all of that.

I'm talking "about you" to other people because part of the game is convincing people to lynch your scumreads. I also suspect that part of your strategy is to create so much information overload by responding to each and every single point to make everyone skim the thread so that their reads remain static and they gloss over our argument. It's far more productive to try and assess where everyone else is at and work from there rather than provide point-by-point responses when we're the only ones posting. But I'm not just going to assume I'm definitely right and I have posted responses for your benefit on the off-chance I'm wrong.

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:50 pm

How does no one see that the timing of skitter's push on me just when I start townreading esires is scummy? She knows that as long as I'm scumreading esires, I'll be the fall-guy and the next lynch would likely be me. But once I started townreading him and refuse to vote him, she'd need to put a LOT more of her credibility on the line to drive home an esires lynch which would hurt her chances of winning in lylo. So, she slowly starts pivoting towards me because esires is still voting me which makes it easier to lynch him next.

@Paul, I swear if you don't lynch skitter when I flip town, I'll be really disappointed. Drixx was going down D2. Skitter doesn't strike me as the kind of scum player who'd go down with the ship. If a partner is doomed, she'd cut her losses and aim for maximum towncred, especially so if she's the roleblocker. By the way, if I were scum, I'd have bussed Drixx largely because I would have had the stronger role.

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:57 pm

Here's why esires is town:

1. His rationale for townreading Paul is something that I've seen from town many, many times but it's extra-ordinarily rare for scum to fake this kind of reasoning: he doesn't think that he can read Paul better than HS or skitter. Because they're both stronger players than Paul and are hard-townreading Paul, he's assuming that either HS is scum trying to pocket Paul, or HS is town and right. It's something that doesn't look good on the surface and doesn't give you town points so I don't see scum faking that. But I could easily see from town.

2. Him telling Drixx to contribute before he gets nightkilled. Scum might slip by betraying knowledge that their partner is scum. But I don't think they'd make an assumption that their partner is town. He's assuming Drixx is town there because he's giving him the benefit of the doubt and waiting for Drixx to make posts like a town-IC would. And when Drixx doesn't meet those expectations, he scumreads him.

3. His random comments about the nightkill feel like he legitimately hasn't already thought through the fact that scum shot the BP N1. He seems more confused than anything.

4. His ATE when he woke up in the morning and flipped out after seeing the cases on him felt a lot more like town who felt like they couldn't deal with the insane amount of posting rather than scum who were rightfully caught and gave up.

BlackVoid · Sun Jul 02, 2017 11:02 pm

About three and a half days left. Please don't hammer until I finish my re-read of the game. I really want to make sure I'm right in townreading Paul because I have a few things that weirded me out and I need to double-check them.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 12:54 am

In post 1288, skitter30 wrote:I was just about ready to vote esires until you started this push on me, just btw. You had me pocketed for a bit, but this push on me was ill-timed, imo; I think you should've pushed me tomorrow, after we lynched esires, not try to set it up today, because of course I was going to fight back.

@Everyone, this post does not come from town. If she were town legitimately thinking I was scum, she'd just make arguments for my lynch and give me advice on how to play better at endgame. Town does not give advice to their scumreads on how to play better in the middle of a game.

The only kind I can see doing it are townies with hyper-rhetoric playstyles and skitter does not come across as that sort of personality at all. This post is so fake.

The only reason she's posting it is to make it seem like she's definitely town but she's overdoing it.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:43 am

Wait, what? That's super-weird for you to say right after I said I needed to re-read the game to check whether my townread on you was accurate.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:46 am

I partly didn't want to bring this up because if I get lynched and skitter is scum, she could probably use it against Paul in lylo but there were some things about Paul that make me not entirely sure he's town.

1. He does seem to treat Drixx in a rather weird way, jumping to take credit for any Drixx pushes.
2. I felt like he was somewhat egging me on when I suspected skitter and giving lip-service to my suspicion but continuing to push esires. I think his confidence in skitter being town is rather too high and the way he's both dismissing the suspicion as well as agreeing is odd.

But I don't think it's HS. I don't think it's esires. If it's not skitter, it has to be Paul.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:51 am

In post 1301, Human Sequencer wrote:Disagree. I think her push on Dunker was on bad reasons, but I think it was genuine.
Interested in particular posts/quotes in which you feel Skitter was bussing Drixx.
I don't think her reasoning on you/esires is particularly fake nor particularly manufactured.

This is HS still expressing their disdain towards septuple wallposts.

I wouldn't need to make septuple wallposts if anyone else is actually engaging my points. What were you expecting from me? You start off the day demanding I post content, and when I do, you park your vote on me and check out of the game. That's no better than Paul's last post of "everything BV did could come from scum because as scum, he has no other choice but to play a strong game." I'll go look for the posts but I don't feel like anything I do is making any difference at all and it's really demotivating.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 12:23 pm

How am I trying to lock in two mislynches. I'm reading you as town. Also, why would I push skitter over HS here if my intent was to lock in a mislynch?

How am I locking in a mislynch by writing a case on why you are town when it was likely down to you or me and basically assuring that I get lynched?

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 1:01 pm

In post 1288, skitter30 wrote:You need a second mislynch though. Dunker is confi!town, you're now buddying Paul, and you came in the game hardtownreading HS, which would be even harder to walk back from than your townread of me.

Which left me, so yeah, you're pushing me. Scum in your slot has to find *someone* to mislynch, and it looks like you decided to run with pushing me.

If you're actually town and you wind up lynching me here, I'd really like you to unravel the logic behind this. "Walking back on a townread" is nowhere near as difficult as you are claiming it to be. Townies change their minds all the time and scum can pretend to do so as well. I've "walked back" on nearly every read I've posted. I thought at times that people were scum and then I changed my mind and thought they were town and so on and so forth, for you, esires, and Paul. Agreeing that HS is indeed lurking and exacerbating the paranoia would have been ridiculously easy if I were scum. I really don't understand why you think I would as scum think "oh, I said I'd be floored if HS is scum, now that read is set in stone and I can't change my mind ever." It's really not and to me, it feels like you're stretching to fit it into the theory of me being scum. I also wouldn't as scum push so heavily against someone whose vote I would need to mislynch esires. All the arguments I made against you today, I could have made tomorrow after acknowledging that I was "wrong" on esires.

I keep scumreading you because I feel like you are perceptive enough to see that I wouldn't push esires until it looks like I've avoided the lynch for the day and then blow it all up by attacking the most townread player in the game whose vote I needed and turn the lynch back onto myself. What's even the motivation for me to townread esires here as scum? Would people actually go "oh, BV was right about esires flipping town, he must be town too!" tomorrow? It just makes it more difficult to lynch him today.

I'm unhappy about this game because I joined when I saw all the analysis that you and HS were posting early in the game and thought this would be a fun game where people were actually thinking things through and not spamposting one-liners or quicklynching like so many other games. But one of HS refuses to read 90% of my posts and you, I'm very very skeptical of flipping town at this point.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:41 pm

Back from work. I'll start off answering skitter's questions first.

Spoiler: @Skitter

1. I'm not qualified to judge what you are capable of as scum. I'm just taking random guesses based off of your playstyle. I mean, if you started posting like Paul, I'd know something is up. Same if Paul started writing novels. You had a sort of uncertain, analytical tone to your posting and I expect players like that to be less aggressive as scum than as town.

2. Regarding the hyper-rhetoric playstyle, if I was playing with a spamposter from epicmafia, I wouldn't find it off if they started giving out advice to their scumreads on how to play better as scum. For some people, ridiculous rhetoric is a natural part of their playstyle. When you said it, it felt weird. It serves no purpose other than to posture.

3. I never said YOU specifically wouldn't have the thought process you did about me and esires. I said it doesn't look like a town thought process at all.

4. By "messy," I mean that natural thought processes don't fit as cleanly into categories as you made them fit. You ISO'd esires, then concluded that he was "scummy" but doesn't fit as scum with Drixx. Then you said I was townie, then ISO'd NC and said he makes perfect sense as a Drixx partner. In both cases, the reasoning you used felt like a stretch. I already made a post explaining why you are wrong about NC fitting in as a Drixx partner. In your haste to claim that I'm not responding to your points, you seem to have missed that I actually did. If anything esires' play towards Drixx made it hard to rule him out as a partner because it's all stuff I can see a scumpartner doing except for the things I mentioned in my towncase on him.

5. My Paul read: Mostly, I got annoyed that everyone's scumreading me no matter what I do and there was one person that I felt was in my corner and that felt good so I think I was overlooking him. When I thought I was going to get lynched today, I expressed my misgivings about some of his posts.

6. Between 1296 and 1298, I wrote 1297 where I detail my townread on esires. Once I managed to solidify my reasons by articulating them and narrowed it down to just you and Paul, I said so.

7. My esires read: I've thought about his self-vote and interpreted it differently after I've had time to consider it. Clearly, I thought he was my best mislynch option. Then I realized I needed to set up someone else to be mislynched because even I got esires lynched today, I'd be dead tomorrow so I started townreading him.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:50 pm

In post 1312, Dunkerdoodles wrote:Theoretically if you are scum, pushing HS wouldn't be a good idea for you. Lots of us expressed our opinion on drixx vs HS being scum vs town so your arguement would have to be pretty good. Same with Paul, most of us are town reading him (for the record, yes I still think he could be scum) and I'm confirmed so your 2 easiest mislynches to get are skitter and esires

Trying to read me based on what my "easiest mislynches" would be and checking whether my reads match will put you on the wrong track. Because as town, I'm going to have suspicions of other people. They may or may not be easy pushes. I'm going to want to play my best so I don't get lynched and lynch scum instead. No matter who I push, you could interpret that as a scum push. If I push esires, I'm scum pushing my "easiest mislynch." If I townread esires, I'm scum setting up my next mislynch. If I townread Paul, I'm "buddying" him. If I push Paul, I'm setting up my next mislynch. That's why this game makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and give up.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:55 pm

@Paul, my issue with you is that you townread me all the way through but the moment I said that I need to check back on Paul to make sure I'm not giving him a free pass, you suddenly changed your tune to "maybe BV could be scum playing well." If you're town, that's a pretty weird co-incidence. I'm bringing my suspicions up now because I thought I was going to get lynched and wanted it on record. When I thought esires was most likely scum, I was pretty sure we could lynch him and end the game, or if not, I can voice my suspicions in lylo.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:58 pm

For the record, I still think the scum is skitter. The way she initially called my posts transparent and super-town and slowly pivtoed into a full-blown attack on me after I started pushing her felt like a very calculated move. It didn't seem like genuine townie omgus (see HS's reaction to Drixx for instance). It felt like she realized that she needed to push my lynch before esires and started to work her way towards it.

BlackVoid · Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:03 pm

In post 1309, NotTheRealPaul wrote:Also, as far as skitters I have no idea. I need to look at it myself but I get where ur coming from and most of what u say makes sense.

And yet, you are voting esires. Does what I said about esires being town make sense? I'd like to see a follow-up to this.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:06 am

Whoops. That was supposed to go in my scum PT. Good catch. And good game town.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:24 am

I thought you played very well as town. I needed another mislynch and you kept both Paul and HS off the table and sometimes all it takes is narrowing down the pool of lynches to the point scum have no chance of winning. That's when I figured my best shot was to just attack you directly and see what shakes out. You had a good scum win on your record and I was hoping to see if the "paranoia" factor would help turn people against you.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:39 am

Okay, I was hoping to look for reactions but I probably shouldn't since it's a newbie game and people can misinterpret it. I'm going to write out my last thoughts on everyone. (I'm town.)

HumanSequencer

- I think he's town mostly for the Drixx push. I thought his initial reactions to Drixx D1 were very genuine too and didn't seem like he was setting up a bus. The reaction to Drixx's case on him when he just started pushing back hard was also town and felt natural. It sucks that he hasn't posted anything at all this day phase but from my previous experience with his towngame and following a couple of other games, I don't think it's unlikely he'd do it as town. He does seem to like playing town more than scum which could explain his lack of activity towards the end but he was also extremely, incredibly active early on which might point to him drawing the alignment he likes. If you want more explanation about this, ISO me for "HS."

Paul

- I still don't like the quickhammer and I still have weird feelings that he's giving lip-service to my skitter scumread while townreading me and continuing to push esires. It would obviously be pretty awesome for him as scum to lynch esires and set up a lylo with me, skitter, and himself. I do think his push on HS and townreading me hard earlier felt towny. It's possible I'm not being entirely objective here but I think he's town. If I were in lylo, I'd take a good, hard look at Paul to check that everything he did makes sense as town and I'm not really that confident.

esires

- If he's town, his play was really, really bad. If he's scum, his play of singularly tunneling me fits with what he perceives everyone thinks is town behavior. He thinks that if he pushes multiple people, everyone is going to call him out of setting up mislynches, so he's very consciously not doing this and only pushing me. That feels really fake but it could also be town that's afraid to push elsewhere because he thinks he's going to be mislynched. I'm going to laugh out loud if he's actually scum and I replaced in to almost save my slot and then give it away anyways with no real impact on the outcome. Just two weeks of running around in circles. But everything I said in 1297 still applies and I think he's probably town.

skitter

- My guess for scum. 1. Chainsawed Drixx D1 with bullshit reasoning. I think she pushed Dunker because she wanted to set up an alternative to Picard for the following day and "save" him for later. That way scum get two mislynches. She whiteknighted Paul all game. Agreed with esires that my slot was the most likely lynch and after the lynch started moving towards me anad esires, set me up so that I get lynched upon esires' townflip. When I pushed back, pivoted back to me to get me lynched. I'm debating whether I buy her reaction right now as genuine or faked. If I'm right and she's scum, she sunk her hooks so deep into this game and spun a massive web of bullshit that literally no one is seeing through. I could be wrong here but it's my best and final guess before I get lynched. If she's scum she played pretty awesomely this game. Please lynch next and don't let her get away with this.

VOTE: skitter

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:40 am

In post 1328, NotTheRealPaul wrote:I was with u mostly till u U-turned on me.

This is a pretty town reaction. A very, very town reaction. Because he's now acting like he was scumreading me all along.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:47 am

Skitter is scum. If you believe me, vote with me. Esires really isn't scum. If you think I'm scum as opposed to skitter, then hammer me.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:51 am

What discussion do you expect to have in the next two days that you haven't had in the past twelve?

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:52 am

I just want it to end because this game's starting to become painful to play and I want to see the dead thread and find out who scum was.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:54 am

I don't really care about HS's and Dunker's responses. I want to see how you'd justify a hammer here and then I'm good to go and get myself out of this game.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:59 am

It felt like every single thing I did this game was interpreted with a "scum" motive. Anyone that I pushed, I was pushing because I was scum pushing a mislynch. If it was esires, then I pushed him because he was the next most obvious target after me. If I pushed anyone other than esires, I was setting up the second mislynch. If I lurked, I did it because I was undecided on whether to bus Drixx and he hammered so I didn't have to take a stance. If I played a strong game, it was because I had no other choice. If I pushed skitter, I'm scum for pushing the most pro-town player in the game. I asked HS to give me 30 minutes of his time and he hasn't bothered to even do that. This feels completely pointless and I'm drained of energy. It's one thing if people were actually listening and considering what I'm saying but quite another if they just decided I'm scum and checked out. Inb4 ATE!

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:02 am

The part in the spoiler wasn't a reaction test. I was being sarcastic which for some reason you took literally.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:37 am

I just explained it in 1346.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:38 am

@Paul, just hammer me so I can see who the scum are before I go to work today. What do you do to a dying horse that just lost its leg? That's right, you shoot it.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:51 am

I was being sarcastic about the esires paragraph because I was frustrated at having to explain the same thing multiple times. I was looking for reactions by claiming scum after you voted me. I think Paul is town because people intuitively want to believe that they are right. Someone who was undecided on scum will after a flip say that they knew it all along. When I claimed scum and Paul implied a stronger scumread on me than he had, it showed me that he wanted to believe he was right and had inklings that I was scum all along.

I'm not self-voting because it's a bad example to set to newer players and in general it's a pretty anti-town play. I'm frustrated but not enough to play against wincon. Why are you trying to goad me into self-voting if you think I'm scum as opposed to telling Paul to vote me? I'll admit I've been tempted to do it several times though. But if I'm getting lynched, I want everyone unconfirmed town on the wagon for maximum information going forward.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:53 am

In post 1352, skitter30 wrote:@Paul: He conceded and is basically asking you to end the game.

Lol, skitter pulling out all the stops to make sure the lynch goes through. Can we please, please, please make sure she gets lynched tomorrow.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:28 am

@skitter, if I flip town, who are you going to lynch next knowing that my read on esires isn't bullshit?

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:34 am

I just addressed all the questions you asked. The rest weren't questions. I just want you to state your next plan in the event I flip town because that's going to happen.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:34 am

Also lmfao at how assuming I'm town is a leading question when I know for certain that I am.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:42 am

Leaving for work. Post actual question marks next to your questions and I'll answer them when I get back tonight.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:45 am

And if you don't remotely believe I'm town, why are you continuing to ask me questions?

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:49 am

@esires, who are you lynching next after I flip town?

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 11:01 am

Why do you need HS to read the last few pages. He's already voting me. I'm apparently scum. You've decided to the point of no return. In your mind, the game apparently ends once Paul or Dunker hammers me. What do you need HS for?

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:02 pm

In post 1372, Dunkerdoodles wrote:BV basically conceded. Town doesn't just concede, and if that post was supposed to be sarcastic and you're then that's borderline gamethrowing.

Intent to hammer.
If I don't hear anything by the time i go to sleep I'll hammer.

How about you try spending two weeks posting as much content as you can and re-reading the game multiple times and getting lynched anyways. I'm not gamethrowing. The lynch was basically set in stone. The only thing my sarcastic remarks and subsequent reaction test got were strengthening my townread on Paul.

Just hammer and end my misery. Either esires is scum and I can feel like an idiot, or Paul is scum and we can all admire his awesome scumplay, or skitter is scum and I can feel self-righteous and everyone can explain to me how my arguments were bad, or HS is scum and we can say "oh, well he bussed. Didn't see that coming."

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:57 pm

Just talk to me about skitter and esires man. I think he's town. Where am I going wrong?

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:01 pm

Well, the mod is here. If you hammer now, I can get to the dead thread immediately and figure out who scum are. Letting Draynth hammer isn't going to give town any more information and if you don't hammer, he will. There's no reason to not hammer right now. You are the last unconfirmed player who hasn't voted me yet. Just promise me you'll take a good hard look at skitter in lylo if you are still alive then.

BlackVoid · Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:10 pm

Skitter is never going to change her mind. If she's town, we've both misread each other pretty absurdly. esires has been calling me scum like a broken record since the start of the DP. He could be scum for all I know and if he's town, then he's played right into scum's hands.

BlackVoid · Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:03 pm

In post 1461, esires wrote:I also feel bad for BV because he was super-town and clearly got frustrated towards the end of D3.

Funny thing is I'm willing to bet anyone that spectated this game would townread me strongly.

(But hopefully no one did because this was flat-out embarrassing for me).

Counting this as a scum loss for myself. And esires, I set you up for success and you really let me down

This was like my best scumgame ever.

BlackVoid · Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:23 pm

In post 1475, skitter30 wrote:@BV: I'm sorry for the mislynch on you. I really didn't understand what you were trying to do at the end of the day, and everything you did just screamed 'caught scum' to me. I think we just really misread each other :/

No need to be sorry. You did everything that I could have expected from a good townie. You read and engaged all of my walls. You heard what I had to say and gave me a fair shot even if everyone thought NC was scummy. Even you read me wrong in the end, it's not a huge deal, and hey I was just as wrong about you as were about me. Also, there's definitely merit to being able to out 1v1 anyone that pushes you regardless of their alignment - you're just likely to win more if you're hard to lynch.

I wasn't upset or anything at the end. I "scumclaimed" because I thought my lynch was a foregone conclusion so my best shot at helping town at that point was to draw out reactions. I'm pretty sure you made your decision to lynch me before that happened though so it didn't change anything. Your reaction was extremely genuine but I didn't recognize it quickly enough. I found your analysis very deep and thoughtful, and if this is your first towngame, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what you'd play like with more experience under your belt. I love having insightful discussions with people who analyze games really thoroughly and the discussions with you early to mid-D3 definitely fit that bill.

BlackVoid · Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:30 pm

Overall, I'm pretty happy to have played this game. It gave some awesome psychological insights into my strengths and weaknesses as a scumhunter. I realized I mostly "townread" esires not because his play was town but because I was scumreading skitter which meant that with only one scum, everyone else had to be town. So, I stretched for any bit of reasoning I could to justify townreading esires while ignoring all the incredibly, solid logical evidence that pointed to him being scum. Also, the pressure of feeling like I'm going to get lynched next and lose town the game if we lynched esires and were wrong definitely hurt my ability to think logically and in hindsight, the way I overlooked esires scumminess in the pressure of the moment was absolutely fascinating and revelations like this is what makes mafia so much fun and worth playing - just to see if I can improve on it next time around. (That and my posts clearly amused the mods and if someone laughed, it's worth it).

BlackVoid · Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:00 am

You're kidding, right?

Just observe closely what I did this game and do the exact opposite. You'll win most of your games.