Open 715 - White Flag Mafia (Game Over)

[Quick Maker]

I have read and understand my Role PM.

Maker

[Quick Maker]

/Confirm

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

@Quick Maker – What is the nature of your hydra communication? Did you two have any discussion or do any strategizing during the confirmation stage?

My vote on korina wasn't random, by the way.

Maker and I have discussed this.

We have a PT that we share dedicated to this game.

Yes, we did strategize some about the time this game started (I confirmed as soon as I knew the thread was up). We didn't come up with anything conclusive.

Maker views this question as Null, though I personally think it shows Town mindset.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

Maker and I have discussed this.

We have a PT that we share dedicated to this game.

Yes, we did strategize some about the time this game started (I confirmed as soon as I knew the thread was up). We didn't come up with anything conclusive.

Maker views this question as Null, though I personally think it shows Town mindset.

~Quick

About what time in the day did you two strategize? This may seem meaningless – I assure you, it is not.

Also meant to ask you about your vote (I forgot). You said it wasn't random.

I told Maker I would talk about my TRs at like 9:xx PM on 03/10 and I followed that up with my first post about strategy at 1:xx AM 03/11 CST.

[Quick Maker]

I see my reputation precedes me. In that case:
VOTE: Athena

Serious OMGUS vote until Athena explains herself in a satisfactory way.

I voted you because the humor in 5 felt forced, though saying it was serious was more for reactions than anything else. Not entirely sure yet what to make of yours yet.

Athena had already stated the reason behind their vote (so we didn't need to ask). But anyway, they thought Korina's post had forced humour. It seems that something like that would be something that someone would do regardless of alignment (not everything a player does is about alignment, especially in RVS) and so on its own it is null in my opinion

What I am more interested in is whether it is Towny or scummy to think that that post is scummy, however weakly, and then vote based on that, then claiming that your vote was non-random. I would say that this is very weakly Towny. Scum may make null posts just as often as Town, but actively announcing that your vote in RVS was non-random doesn't seem to accomplish much for scum. It draws attention to yourself, and scum could just go with the flow during RVS. Indeed, Athena would be under more scrutiny than Korina here, as Athena's vote was explicitly non-random, whereas Korina's post was a typical pre-game joke post and thus people wouldn't read anything much into it (and I don't think there is anything to read into in that post). On the other hand, if Town Athena notices something, even if it is in actual fact completely null, they have more of a reason to point it out and less of a reason to hide it.

Athena keeps options open here, which is consistent with either undecided Town or fencesitting scum. Here, though, I doubt scum really need to fencesit much. They may simply be able to change their reads to whatever is convenient later and no one would notice much as this was a read based on pre-RVS. (Of course, provided they look genuine when they actually do post their updated read).

I currently read Athena as being null-weak Town based on this, but LQ has a somewhat stronger Townread.

Now, onto Korina.

Korina started off as a chaotic player who also seemed to be very sensitive to any votes or criticism of them. Is this in itself necessarily scummy? Town very often notice criticism of themselves much more than criticism of anyone else. Perhaps scum may be more likely to do it, and may also react to criticism of their scumpartners more often if they are not careful. But it does seem to be some sort of cognitive bias and weakly scummy at worst. It's more of a tell of what type of player you are.

Korina then claimed that it is something that they just do, causing chaos at the start of the game when they get bored and want the game to get moving. If this is indeed what they normally do regardless of alignment (which can be checked), it is likely null for them. They are generally chaotic at the start of the game then calm down fairly soon after RVS. But if not, what is the motivation for making this post? Do they feel a need to defend themselves? Town often do, but they would generally not resort to lying. Perhaps Korina is overestimating the number of times they have acted like this. But anyway, Town tend not to lie unless it is in a gambit where they think they can get something out of it, and this doesn't look like a gambit. I would say that it is this post, the change in behaviour, which is the scummier, unless this is habitual for them.

I have a weak scumread on Korina, provided this is not typical behaviour for them.

Could Athena have predicted that Korina would play like this? If so, it is possible that Athena was acting to try to get a rise out of Korina intentionally.

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

Going to catch up and then make a post.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

A few things that I feel I should address. Be aware that these are explicitly MY opinion and I have not talked to Maker about this.

fist off, IDK if you guys have played with Maker or not, but he is usually a pretty busy guy and/or he doesn't post much. I am the opposite. We have agreed to discuss more or less every post we make. Naturally, if one of the players is typically doesn't post much and they have to work with someone else, this is going to mean there are not going to be many posts by that slot. I will talk to Maker to see if we can make at least one post per day, but no guarantees on this.

Secondly, Maker doesn't develop reads as fast as I do. He takes a much more carefully thought out approach and as such, doesn't throw reads/votes around nearly as much as I do. I am more or less trying to adapt to him, but he is listening to my PoV and taking that under consideration and most of what we post will be things we both agree on.

As a complete aside, Almost's method has wholes in it. I don't say this to shade him, I say this because I came up with a method very similar to this and I have had very variable results doing so. See post 1685 and post 3784.

[Quick Maker]

Some questions that we decided it was worth asking (we have not yet discussed some of the most recent posts):

HavingFitz: You mentioned that you found us and Athena suspicious because of our reactions to Korina, who you have a gut Town read on. You have not explained any of your reads in detail. Could you please point to sample posts by us/Athena/Korina and explain why you read them the way you do? (LQ finds it mildly suspicious that you are making associations based on one player coded on gut reads, but we would like some specific responses first).

Flubbernugget: This is based on 93. At that time, what did you think on other players' pushes on Korina? Specifically, were you intending to push Korina in that post and why? If you have experience with Korina, were you trying to see how they would react to your post? Of course, we now know that you scumread Korina and why but this is what you thought at the time.

Athena: Where do you currently stand on Korina and the pushes on them? Also, your vote on Alchemist is naked. Can you please explain your reasoning behind that vote, as it appears that you barely mentioned them previously in your ISO?

Anyway, we now have a Townread on Korina after it was revealed that causing chaos at the start of the game is typical for them as Town. Our scumread was conditional on this being rare for them. We still have to discuss the most recent posts by them, such as the fact that they claim to self-hammer in MyLo if their lynch seems inevitable.

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

We have some questions.

@Alchemist, you seem to be voting on a pretty narrow basis. Did "Also, I don't think light posting at the beginning of the game is necessarily bad (yes, I know, I'm a pot). But maybe Alchemist just has nothing helpful to say yet?" factor into your vote? Why do you think your vote is justified?

@Not_Mafia, We need you to explain more. I believe your way of playing is unacceptable, and I have in fact PLed you before based on how you play. Maker thinks what you are doing is hard to get an idea if you are Town or Scum and I completely agree. You need to explain why you are doing what you are doing. Explain your read on us and the vote you made at the beginning of the game.

We feel AnonymousGhost's behavior this game is more Town indicative than Scum indicative. I noticed that you had been doing a lot more question asking when the rest of the game was more or less just providing analysis and that is a good look. Maker thinks that it's more likely that Town tries to "police" the game asking the mod for prods and whether Korina should be taken out of the game. This is all with the caveat that AG plays a more Townie way as Town and not Scum, and isn't the type of player who tries to Scum hunt more as Scum.

@HavingFitz, we asked you some things in our previous post, please answer those.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

@MOD

, Can we get a VC?

@Alchemist, could you please answer the question(S) we directed at you in our last post?

Still waiting on a Fitz answer.

@Not_Mafia, are you actually playing in a way trying to win?

[Quick Maker]

@MOD

, Can we get a VC?

@Alchemist, could you please answer the question(S) we directed at you in our last post?

Still waiting on a Fitz answer.

@Not_Mafia, are you actually playing in a way trying to win?

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

I have not heard from Maker in a while. I have a few posts in our PT that he hasn't addressed and since I was under the impression that we would talk about all the posts we make and since Maker hasn't posted in our PT in a while, I am not really sure what to do....

Tired of his bullshit.

>whines about nothing getting done
>does something "drastic" w/o any game solving content
>rinse and repeat

@Quick Maker

- I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think your town read on me is crap. Do you have any thoughts on my case against Shadpearl? Have any of your reads changed based from when you last posted them?

I was under the assumption that you were a very inexperienced player/didn't have a very good understanding of the game. After Meta Diving you, I can see that you are quite competent as either alignment and I agree that TRing you based on what you had done wasn't a fantastic read. Still, I am left with you questioning a TR on yourself. To put it more plainly, Occam's Razor would say you are probably Town given your play. The two options are between you being authentic and are Town or you are faking things to get TR. It's my understanding of the game that Scum always have an agenda to push, and as such, are much less concerned with generating a TR with "cheap tricks."

I was waiting for a "Big Post" from fitz because I Meta Dived him as well and it seems he is generally a slow starter to games, but ends up making some lengthy posts. I don't have enough Meta on fitz to say if he is Town or Scum based on Meta, however, I can say he is still within his Scum range. Based on play, however, I am slightly SRing fitz based on him not explaining his reason for his vote on us in the post that he voted us.

I wanted to point out that Korina, while could make for a decent choice for PL given they self hammer in LyLo, I will say that to PL someone it should really require a clear pattern of behavior. Because of this, I don't think I am willing to PL Korina because they only have a single completed game on site.

I think Not_Mafia's play is unacceptable and impossible to read. Therefore:

VOTE: Not_Mafia

[Quick Maker]

We haven't done a full meta dive, but I have had experience playing with Not_Mafia when they did indeed play in this manner. They were scum, but I don't think it's very AI for them. At best, it might be weak.

However, Not_Mafia has all but explicitly confirmed that they are not trying to win. They are now unlikely to actually be helpful in this game, so their play now certainly is unacceptable. Our only scumreads at the moment are weak so even if Not_Mafia is null to us their lynch is worth it, in my opinion.

-Maker (last post was Quick)

[Quick Maker]

@Quick: Did you not take note when I said N_M actually town-told? Ir do you not trust in my ability to read him?

Going back through my reads I realized I could actually write off CoA as well. (Check why I TR'd him in the first place). That's 3 players I have already dashed out completely, which is even better than I would have ever expected on D1.

My problem with this statement is the same problem I have with NM's play. I can't trust you because people lie and mislead you and if that isn't happening, then they may not even be right.

The lack of context that NM provides for his actions leaves little to digest what his motivations are. There is virtually nothing there objectively, and if someone's play is strictly subjective, then should never make it to LyLo. This is a rule that applies to not only players like NM, but some very competent players as well. Players who leave things open to interpretation based on their playstyle in such a way that reading them is an impossibly arduous task and I would lynch them D1 based on principle any day.

I don't care how you frame it, without a

given

context from NM, we are left completely in the dark into the motivations of them in any objective way.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

VOTE: Korina

None of yall cowards unvote

This is just me speaking here.

This is the worst play of the game, and very Scummy as well considering I view NM play just as bad as Korina's.

VOTE: Not_Mafia

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

Spoiler: Not_Mafia ISO

12 posts! Impressive.

Post 4…confirm. zzzzzz

Post 20…fluff

Post 52…naked Shad vote. :/

Post 103…naked RR vote :/

Post 105..reasoning for RR vote. ok.

Post 188…naked QM vote. :/

Post 214…naked Korina vote. :/

Post 218…facepalms QM request for more reasoning.

Post 257…naked QM vote. :/

Post 287…tells QM their read on him (N_M) is wrong.

Post 307…naked Korina vote with request no one else unvotes the slot. meh.

Post 367…naked QM vote. :/

Town

Still just me.

Notice how no one is actually giving reasons for TRing NM because it's pretty much impossible to do so.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

Not_Mafia is now at least answering questions and may get more helpful as the game progresses. A policy lynch is no longer warranted. Not_Mafia, please explain the reasoning behind at least one of your naked votes.


Almost50 said that we ignored them when they said Not_Mafia Towntold. I don't think they ever explained their Townread, just claimed that they Towntold and that we did not take note. They presume that just saying that Not_Mafia Towntold without at the very least being specific should be enough to convince us or claiming that we do not trust their ability to read. The key point is that if they are challenging us for not believing their Townread then they should be expected to provide evidence for that Townread which we can then judge. At the very least, be a bit more specific than just saying that they Towntold.

Almost50 said that their read is not gut but they won't say anything about it. They have a reason which they can tell and, if we are sceptical about their read, should, at least if they want to convince us. A Townie wants to explain reasons for reads whenever possible unless there is a clear reason for not doing so, and there doesn't seem to be one.

Almost50 also has a tendency to confirm people as absolutely Town which again fits into your point that Town should want to reevaluate players and Almost50 doesn't seem to want to do that and even suggests that others should trust their reads, even without evidence. This in itself is, I would say, slightly scummy as, while it is certainly consistent with very biased Town it is more likely with scum that want to seem like they have more legitimate reasons than they actually do. If scum Almost50 wants to rule someone out right now and later they want that person lynched, they can explain that they changed their mind. If they don't want that person lynched later, they can refer back to this. They can use this current method to essentially have it both ways.

At this point, we agree that Almost50 is a moderate scumread of ours.

VOTE: Almost50

[Quick Maker]

@QM: I have a way of reading N_M. Now why should I tell HIM how I can tell??

The reason for explaining your reads is that it would allow others to judge for themselves whether the reasoning makes any sense at all. If you keep your reads to yourself you cannot expect anyone else to simply trust your reads as you have given no reasoning.

Thus, if you choose to keep your reasoning secret, you can do so but there is no sense in expecting anyone else to follow your reads.

@Quick: Did you not take note when I said N_M actually town-told? Ir do you not trust in my ability to read him?

You said Not_Mafia Towntold without any reasoning. Why would anyone else take note when your secret "reasons" could, even if you are Town, just be random noise? No one has any reason to trust your ability to read them just because you said so.

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

I prepared a post, but I want Maker to okay it.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

QM - too much pot stirring. Lack of coordination between 284 and 286 is really, really odd.

What do you mean by saying we had a "lack of coordination" between posts 284 and 286? Do you think we contradicted ourselves? You are going to be hard pressed to provide evidence that we were actually more coordinated than what appeared between those posts. As far as I see it, Quick had made a judgement call choosing to make a post with a vote we had somewhat talked about earlier, and then I decided to back Quick up on his decision. I don't see this as a lack of coordination, as much as a lack of communication between Quick and I, which is altogether different from a lack of coordination. But supposed that there was a "lack of coordination". Why would this make us scum, exactly?

As far as "pot stirring" is concerned, you have to understand the nature of this hydra to understand how/why we do not have a lot of strong reads at this point in the game. You can reread post 164 to see the reasons for this. We were upfront and honest about this coming into the game so I do not think it is acceptable to SR us based on playstyle when we are far and away not the most anti-Town player in the game.

I haven't revisited in the sense of a reread, but considering that the game is crawling even slower than it already was without Dino, it's safe to say my original nka was bad.

Yes, I still find QM scummy for other reasons. As of recent, their vote trajectory is terrible. NM was a coasting vote and when you started breaking the feasibility of coasting there, they gave a really weak read on a50.

Do you scum read A50 for more than the shad read? Shad is still the proper lynch in that scenario, with A50 being the correct subsequent lynch if shad flips scum.

Flubber, your original reasons for scumreading us were weak. You then say you have found "new" reasons to SR us which I assume produces the leeway for you to keep your vote on us. Yet, you say you SR us for "other reasons" but you only give one reason that came up recently. What is the purpose of not showing your full hand against us at this point in time?

Our vote on NM at the time was based on policy and we said as much ITT. I think SRing us for wanting to PL a player who had yet to give a single reason for their actions and given a failure to cooperate when asked, and given that this player has had a pattern of this behavior, I do not think a SR on us for this reason is justified.

You have simply stated that our reasons for SRing Almost50 were weak yet your reasons for stating such are not weak, but rather, nonexistent. I would like you to repeat our reasons for SRing Almost50 back to us and say why these reasons are weak.

-> this is D2 w/ 15 pages of content. I don't care how slow QM says their reads are, there is enough here to have solid scum reads. Couple that with how they came to the conclusion that A50 was scum and its pretty easy to see quick maker pulled that read out of their ass.

This point doesn't hold water. There may be plenty of content, but content is never unambiguous and each single post (excluding things like certain PR claims, of which there are none in this game) could come from Town or scum. What is then necessary is to judge the probability that the post came from Town or scum. Given that players will almost always have a balance of both Towny and scummy posts, this will give a probability that tends not to deviate massively from the average.

This is how we play. You can see clearly in our posts that we do consider how something can come from Town or scum. We then make judgements based on the probabilities (is scum more likely than Town to do this or not?). Thus your point does not hold. Even if it did, how would not having strong reads imply that the reads we do have are "pulled out of our ass"?

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

I think the reason we have shown our reasons more for TRs is because I am involved with this hydra, honestly. I tend to focus more on TRs because I am better at making good TRs than good SRs. You can also say that I have more or less been the person to initially state a read I have in our PT (or at least that I did earlier in the game). I mentioned that I focus more on TR early in the game or something close enough anyways:

Maker and I have discussed this.

We have a PT that we share dedicated to this game.

Yes, we did strategize some about the time this game started (I confirmed as soon as I knew the thread was up). We didn't come up with anything conclusive.

Maker views this question as Null, though I personally think it shows Town mindset.

~Quick

About what time in the day did you two strategize? This may seem meaningless – I assure you, it is not.

Also meant to ask you about your vote (I forgot). You said it wasn't random.

I told Maker I would talk about my TRs at like 9:xx PM on 03/10

and I followed that up with my first post about strategy at 1:xx AM 03/11 CST.

Maker has this to say about it:

Perhaps it is that there are so many different possibilities for scum motivation (they could want to attack any given Townie, they could want to bus, they could want to buddy etc.) whereas with Town in this game the primary motivation is the same: to identify who is most likely scum, and try to lynch them (although they will have very different opinions on who this likely scum is). Perhaps that is why when we say that something is more likely to come from Town it seems more clear than when we say it is more likely to come from scum, as we can identify Town motives a lot more clearly than scum motives.

We more or less agree with what MoI has said.

@AnanymousGhost,

We have not talked about Shadpeal with any kind of extent yet. I will run it by Maker.

[Quick Maker]

~Quick ^

[Quick Maker]

Hey, it's just me, Quick until the 10th of April as maker is V/LA.

UNVOTE:

Fitz's responses to MoA and AG definitely ring town. I don't think scum admits to mental lapses the way Fitz did. I definitely don't remember seeing him do that as scum.

Pine, you seem to have close to an opposite read trajectory on Fitz, going from town to scum. I'm not sure what you're seeing as scum in the more recent posting.

I disagree with this a lot. I thought Fitz response on the surface looks Town, but only due to effort. I found the actual retort lacking a lot.

I might be doing a bit of Stream of consciousness as I get caught up.

[Quick Maker]

Don't really like this vote – I feel like it comes at kind of an opportunistic time. Is any part of this vote coming from MoI's push or was this a read of your own? The distinction matters.
 I feel like it comes at kind of an opportunistic time. Is any part of this vote coming from MoI's push or was this a read of your own? The distinction matters.

100% jumping on the MoI push.

I think what MoI has posted has been extremely solid, so I don't blame people following that lead at all.

[Quick Maker]

Willing to switch to Fitz given the points made against them by MoI have been very solid and I found his response lacking and very OTT. I don't think more words means Town and if you do (looking at Flubber here) then you should probably be reading our slot and MoI Town as well.

[Quick Maker]

Earlier, I had the thought that AG was shading me while TRing me. I then had the theory that AG was just trying to tie up a few loose ends with our slot to put their mind at ease about our slot so they could feel more comfortable giving us a strong TR. I see AG is more or less defending us at this point so this has made me vies AG as a strong TR. Given AG has started off playing Pro-Town by "policing" the mod to make sure prods go out, and then later saying that this was not a good reason to TR them (in which upon a meta dive I saw this was accurate) and not that AG has settled on a TR of our slot after asking some probing questions, I feel very comfortable placing AG as a strong TR.

Still agree with pretty much everything MoI has said.

These posts have all been by me.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

I feel pretty good about the wagons at this point. I don't mind being a wagon because I feel in the event we are lynched that this will provide Town with a lot of information about the players who were on our lynch.

I understand the Suspicion placed on Flubber that some players have mentioned and I am more or less TRing the players questioning Flubber. My read on Flubber is pending until I do an ISO. Flubbers stances have not been very good IMO. He seems to be SRing players who are more analytical rather than players who are coming up with reads at a faster pace. I understand This perspective even though I don't think it is an accurate way to read people. I can see it as a possible Town PoV because Flubber may be thinking Town should not be "pulling any pushes" and he might be reading a cautious approach to the game as Scummy since Town shouldn't be reserved to give their opinion. On top of this, knowing Flubber has a bit of meta on me also bolsters that I am playing in a way that Flubber isn't used to. That said, this too isn't a correct way to read people considering I believe Flubber has seen me as a high volume poster as both Town and Scum, so Flubbers meta read on me must be that I am doing something he hasn't seen from me before. If I am acting in a way he hasn't seen before, this should default to a Null read rather than Scummy from a logical PoV but the fact he doesn't Trust me could be seen as a Town PoV. I also find Flubbers deliberation over who to lynch as either a white flag gambit or Town just not really knowing where to go here. I am talking about his vote on Fitz and then later voting our slot.

I believe Pine made a strong entrance and his word choice in how he tends to seem more or less astonished by certain things in the game seems to indicate a Town frame of mind. I do not know whether I agree with everything in his wall post (I will have to look over it more carefully) but upon a first glance, I believe it shows Pine is actively trying to sort people in the game.

A matter concerning to me is that Almost50 never inquired about the method that I came up with where I linked two games where I did something similar to what Almost50 is trying to accomplish. I mentioned that this method has very variable results. I would have expected more curiosity about the method I came up with and what the results were if Almost50 was genuine with his method to solve who is Scum. What's more is that it doesn't seem like Almost is even taking their own method seriously considering he had at one point cleared our slot from being Scum. Perhaps I don't fully understand the method, but I am not sure where his head is on our slot and why he seems to think we are Scum based on his method. Since he has stopped posting what he is considering about his method leaves me thinking it hasn't worked out the way he wanted and has hence scraped it without explicitly stating such. I also feel the tone in which Almost has replied to what MoI has stated about them has been a bit nervous and/or tense, which is and indication that he does not want to get lynched. If Almost50 had stuck with his method and been confident in the result of this, I could understand the frustration of not being able to see the method through, but given what I said earlier about Almost50 appearing to give up on his method, that is no longer a viable explanation.

Nom_Mafia's play still has much to be desired and I regret that we unvoted them at the time we did given that it looks like they are not any more engaged with sharing any kind of in depth thoughts about the game and they seem to continue to just make naked votes, which I feel are unreadable because there is pretty much zero context you can read into his posts. That said, I would feel a bit better if he managed to be on a Scum lynch because I don't think he is the type of player to bus in this game considering I don't think he can carry/lead his team as Scum and almost surely shouldn't make it to LyLo IMHO.

As far as Shad goes, and pardon if this looks like a contradiction based on my NM read (it is not), but I feel that Shad has really just provided enough content to be more or less "care free" in how they are approaching the game. The certainly have been no where near as thorough as some players like AG, Pine, and MoI, but they still have an aura of not really caring how they come across. Given they have fallen under some suspicion, it will be interesting how they react to the pressure. Their tone seems very relaxed and I am willing to assume this means they have nothing to hide until I see what they do when questioned more intensely. I will do an ISO here as well as on Flubber.

I really need to take a better look at Alchemist because at this point Maker and I haven't really talked about them at all. I will try and add them to the ISO list.

CoA, is more or less on the back burner for now. If they end up on a Scum lynch, like NM, I will feel better about them. I feel a lot of CoA's content is pretty NAI. I will probably end up trying to get a read on them next game day given we survive.

OK this is getting a lot longer than I thought it would. This should suffice for now, I think.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

After ISOing Flubber, Alch, and Shad, I kinda want to switch my vote to Flubber. Alch I have no read on - they haven't done too much that is actually AI. Shad I like for Town. I can follow their thought process and they are making pushes I can see coming from Town. They seem to push as a form of Scum hunting. They seem to like to put pressure on people and see how people react. This is a pretty Townie way to play and because I can read their play as such, I'm inclined to think they have Towns best interest in mind with what they are going after. They have also make a few good points (can't remember what they were exactly considering I ISO'd these players as soon as I made my last post).

I know how Flubber plays as Scum given I shared a Scum Chat with him at one point. He tries to make sure that his progression on players makes sense. This is his biggest downfall though because he does little to actually change his reads much as Scum because he wants a consistent narrative. I also saw their recent questioning of Fitz as fake Scum hunting considering he didn't have his facts straight when he questioned him. I know Flubber to be a bit more on the ball than that as Town so I think this adds another reason for SRing Flubber. The biggest tell that tells me Flubber is Scum though is that as Scum he come across as incredibly stale and out of touch with what Town is doing. I don't see anything that really resonates with me in terms of what Flubber is saying and that is a sign he has ulterior motives in his perspective of viewing the game. Also, his over gusto with the points he is making is well within his Scum range and he is typically a lot more level headed as Town.

I know it's very hard to trust a meta read simply by a description alone, but if anyone else has any meta on Flubber I encourage you to look at your past games you have played with him to see if what I am saying matches up with what I am saying about him. I think he has a pretty obvious Scum game and I am pretty sure this is it.

VOTE: Flubbernugget

[Quick Maker]

So... we need a lynch...

[Quick Maker]

[Quick Maker]

When you're all done whining you can AMA.

Why did you self hammer?

[Quick Maker]

No oops. Deadline ends today. Almost 100% chance of scum being on my wagon, which means there's a chance they can manipulate it to try and force a no lynch.

I made the correct play.

So you're posturing, yeah?

Who is Scum on your wagon?

[Quick Maker]

Lazy mod *sigh*

[Quick Maker]

I have some thoughts...

The short of it is that we are kinda TRing Fitz atm...

[Quick Maker]

As for MoI, to them the apparent "slip" by Havingfitz seems to be a disproportionately strong piece of evidence. It is a lot easier to momentarily forget non-standard mechanics (such as White Flag - the typical Mafia game is not White Flag) and so often, at least momentarily, the Town wincon effectively gets simplified to "lynch scum", from which Havingfitz's mistake seems reasonable. I find that, in my experience, forgetting the Town wincon in this way does not occur significantly more often as scum than as Town, so it cannot be taken as strong evidence for Havingfitz being scum. If anything, it's very weak at best. "Ignorance of the Town wincon" is actually roughly as likely to come from Town as from scum, particularly when it is a non-standard wincon such as here.

Just because someone has read their Role PM does not mean that they will always have their exact wincon at the front of their mind while playing. Very often, all they need is the gist, such as "lynch scum", so any apparent "slips" are not actually strong evidence of anything much.

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

Please don't hammer yet. Maker and I are discussing some important things and we would like more time.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

I like Havingfitz's thinking. They remain suspicious of us even though we expressed that we now Townread them and also defended them from MoI.

If they are scum, why would they do this? They would need to want to lynch us, which to them would seem viable as we were a major wagon yesterday. But then they would probably try to say that our defence of them was actively scummy, as opposed to just not actively Towny. It's certainly possible that this is their motivation, but it would make more sense to attack stronger. Scum Havingfitz could also have started expressing more of a Townread towards us, buddying us so we continue to Townread them.

On the other hand, Town Havingfitz is presumably trying to work out whether we are scum, based on our defence of them (and other things, of course). They can see that we Townread them although we had previously scumread them, which could be either a Townie updating reads or scum who no longer want that lynch. But for the defence itself, again it could just be that we, as Town, think MoI is making a very bad argument, but it could also be that we, as scum, want to buddy Havingfitz in order to try to get a Townread from them.

This thought process makes a lot of sense from a Town perspective, which strengthens our Townread on them somewhat.

-----

Now, so far you may have noticed that while we have made comments about MoI we have not explicitly stated any reads. This is intentional. (This is not what happened with Almost50's read on Not_Mafia - the difference is that they were trying to persuade others of already-formed reads, while we are trying to form reads).

When MoI had first joined the game, we discussed amongst ourselves what to do. Their earlier posts resonated with our own thought process so we were inclined to weakly Townread them, but it would also have been plausible if they were scum and trying to buddy us. We came up with an idea, which was to, at that point, make posts suggesting that we generally agree with what MoI is thinking, but without giving explicit reads, and see how MoI continues.

We considered certain responses and how they would reflect on MoI. They could start to question whether we are buddying them. From their perspective, this would suggest a Town mindset, as they may think that we think they are convenient to buddy and so start to question whether we are buddying. On the contrary, they could try to keep on agreeing with our reads and doing what we do (such as pushing the same people we push), which would be a mild scumtell as it suggests that, since they probably are aware that we agreed with them on most things, they are trying to continue to agree so that we Townread them, and perhaps make us more likely to sheep them.

Another key thing that Quick mentioned was the need for having useful content in order for Town to win. This play was intended to make Town think more critically, as they would have to think more about what was going on here.

However, in Day 3, we had to reevaluate many of our reads. We were wrong about both Flubbernugget and Not_Mafia, and ended up reevaluating a lot of other slots as well. Quick first considered the possibility that MoI was a likely NK and so making an unusual NK (if they are scum) could be used to obscure the NKA.

What I noticed, though, is MoI's insistence that Havingfitz was scum based on a slip, which could reasonably be explained as momentarily forgetting a non-standard rule in this setup. While this could come from Town being mistaken as to how often other people forget things like this (it does seem to be like the fundamental attribution error) it seemed more plausible that, as scum, they wanted to push this lynch and so looked for any slip they could use as evidence, because if they find a "slip" and can convince the rest of the Town that it's genuine, they have succeeded.

A further piece of evidence Quick found against MoI is that 711 seems to line up lynches. MoI is effectively committing to lynching one of the four in their lynchpool if Havingfitz is Town, MoI can lynch them and try to decide the next day's lynch as well (they can push whichever of the four seems most convenient tomorrow), while today they can keep pushing Havingfitz. Again, this seems more plausible from a scum mindset, as Town would tend to be more open to evaluating what happens once the flip occurs rather than trying to commit right now.

Currently we suspect MoI, although I would like to confirm with Quick whether we should vote.

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

Maker wanted me to ISO both CoA (because I was thinking of voting that way near EoD yesterday which is why you didn't see our vote on MoI) and AG (because I had a pretty damn strong TR on them and maker just had a weak TR on them) and I have done so during NP.

I will discuss with Maker and hopefully come to some kind of consensus and post what we have after that.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

Maker more or less agrees with my ISO of CoA and AG saying CoA is Scummy and AG is Townie. Here is what I got:



51 - I don't think Scum have much motive to make this play considering it was fairly obvious that Korina was getting lynched. Scum often can tell who is going to get lynched. Even I as Town had a pretty good idea that Korina was probably getting lynched.
71 - CoA was SRing Korina before this post I think. If that's the case, why would they point out that what Korina did was not "intentional" when they were acting TSTBS... That implies a TR. Will have to look at how CoA read Korina going forward and if they were on his lynch.
107 - I find it highly unlikely that Scum look this far into things just to try and clarify a read on someone who said the read was based on gut. I could see the angle that they might want to shade the person who has the gut Scum read on them, but we had that conversation earlier about if AG continued to shade us then we can look at them more closely. But barring WIFOM, this just looks like a Townie action.
90 - This looks like the first time CoA kinda sheeps what AG is doing. They do it at least one other time that I saw.
126 - Here is the second.
171 - And here is where CoA's read on Korina gets really confusing. The originally SR them, then the said something that implied Korina was Town and now they are saying they Null-Scum read Korina. This doesn't look like it adds up much.
266 is noteworthy where AG rescinds their request to replace out. They had previously made a post saying the game is slow and they weren't having fun... Given these were the reasons for replacing out, I think this points to AG wanting to replace out because they are unsatisfied with the amount that there is to "figure out" in the game so far. I am inclined to think this comes from Town since Scum don't really have any motive to want to replace out because there isn't enough to figure out in a mountainous setup.

Also, at this point in the game, CoA seems to suffer some sort of cognitive dissonance in that their stances in the game seem to be a bit more impulsive than I would expect from them based on their analytical nature that was displayed earlier in the game, notable when they made a poste surrounding our slot and the timing of when I knew the game was being played. On second look, that kinda looks like busy work.

316 CoA says they are going to catch up. We don't see another post from them until 409 which doesn't look like a catch up post and then we don't see them until 487. This is where CoA had supposedly been replaced but came back to the game... I am inclined to think there is more Scum motive for this considering where the game state was at the time... I think you could argue that CoA saw that they and their team was really in no danger so there was really no agency to really do anything.
423 AG asks a very good question to Flubber that looks obviously like AG is trying to figure out what Flubber is saying. I don't see much motive for Scum to really try with that much effort to understand where someone is coming from and it's not something I would expect Scum to do to try and generate a TR on themselves.
510 AG challenges MoI. This is a good look considering AG previously mentioned MoI made a "good post" It shows at the least they are not Scum who is stuck in their reads. Also what they bring up there seems rather poignant and is a very good question to ask. This is a repeatable done behavior by AG at this point and I'm inclined to think it shows a lot of Town thought process at this point.
536 shows AG def has shown progression on CoA which is good and means they are not just throwing reads around but actually critically thinking about the game. This may not be AI, but it shows they are putting in effort in this game and that is admirable.
537 is the best post I have seen from CoA and I think this shows they are critically thinking about the game given they are also challenging MoI and bringing up new and interesting points on the game. It's at this point that I am reconsidering if they are Town.

In the ISO posts of 134-136 this seems to be pretty classically a TvT engagement between CoA and AG.

666 seems to be yet another "I will catch up" post by CoA. In 749 they address the NK and how strange it was. Their next post in 750 is back to making some solid posting. Though this is not very AI, I think it kind of discredits the point I made earlier about CoA not doing anything because as Scum they wouldn't have to. Fitz was a wagon at that time I think so no reason for CoA to engage with solid posts since Fitz flipped Town. Actually, after reading 750 carefully, it's not really that great of a post in all honestly. So at this point I have CoA as pretty solidly Null.
754 CoA votes Fitz and the biggest thing about this is that there is pretty much zero progression from CoA on Fitz prior to this. It looks incredibly opportunistic IMO.
774 AG raises some pretty good points against CoA and I'm inclined to think this is a pretty good vote.
798 looks like a blatant OMGUS read and given CoA didn't address any of the points against them, this looks pretty bad for them.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

Oh there won't be a quickhammer on this vote, one way or another.

In fact I'm tempted to vote Pine right now. I think he understands which way the wind is blowing. As I said, I'm curious whether bus or just an attempt to win today.

As A50 pointed out, I've been suspicious of Alchemist pretty much from the start.

What, suddenly consistency is scummy? Get the fuck out.

This is an interesting post. We do indeed think ourselves that consistency is more likely to come from scum than Town, in that Town have to constantly reevaluate (and may thus change their reads often) while scum want to push an agenda as well as make sure that their reads fit into a consistent narrative (which may mean that they change reads less often). Provided Town changes reads more often than scum does (which we consider likely) consistency of reads is indeed scummy.

However, it seems very unlikely that GreyICE actually thinks that consistency is scummy, due to their case on us with regards to our vote on Flubbernugget. It seems like Pine's post is essentially a strawman of GreyICE. Furthermore, Quick considers the tone of this post to be more likely to come from scum.

-----

As for 859:

The Flubbernugget did have actual reasoning behind it. Town should frequently change their reads and reevaluate, throughout the game, so it makes sense to say that Flubbernugget rarely changing reads is evidence that they are scum. As for "reads progress logically", what we said in that post was essentially that Flubbernugget, as scum, tries too hard to make their reads fit a consistent narrative (and you have experience of that) instead of reevaluating reads naturally. Thus both "I think not"s have flawed reasoning behind them, as both inverses are actually natural consequences of our reasoning (and, given the inverses, what we provided is actual evidence for scumminess, by Bayes' Theorem). While it is a moot point now that Flubbernugget has flipped, it does show that GreyICE's reasoning is very faulty.

However, GreyICE otherwise seems to be trying to lead the Town onto a lynch as opposed to going for a consensus lynch. Quick finds GreyICE's play to be a particularly brazen one for scum to attempt and so, while we consider GreyICE's read on us to be based on confbias, we do think that they are likely Town.

@GreyICE: Would you be able to provide other examples of posts where you think our reasoning is bad?

Anyway, we currently Townread AnonymousGhost, Grey, and Almost50 and scumread Pine, CultOfAthena, and Alchemist.

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

You are giving very bad "translations" that seem to miss the point.

It wasn't just that Almost50 was giving Townreads without giving reasons. It was that Almost50 appeared to completely confirm people as Town and then expected us to trust their read, questioning us for not doing so, without giving reasons. That was left out of your translation. Given that Quick made the post on Flubbernugget (I was V/LA) they would probably be in a better position to explain what you have left out of the translation.

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MOI?

The flip.

[Quick Maker]

@QM: Almost50 questioned people who had reads that disagreed with his. The horror. If you mean otherwise, feel free to quote and make your points in an intelligible manner. And you're saying that your MOI reread was derailed by... what? The flubbernugget mislynch you were on? So you let it take a backseat so he could push the Havingfitz mislynch in peace? So much derailed you never even mention it again and never did it?

Yeah you be scum, my dudes. You logic posters get fucked when I actually bother to read your shit and realize it makes no sense.

Really, really tempted to vote Pine. If I assume that Almost50 is town (which feels almost certain) and AQ is town (less certain, but I trust her tone and play) then I'm down to 1 in 4 as town, and boy Bellaphant was doing so very very little.

@Quick: Did you not take note when I said N_M actually town-told? Ir do you not trust in my ability to read him?

Going back through my reads I realized I could actually write off CoA as well. (Check why I TR'd him in the first place). That's 3 players I have already dashed out completely, which is even better than I would have ever expected on D1.

This, to us, seemed to go beyond just questioning. The implication here is that Almost50 expected everyone to take note and trust the Townread, while not giving any reasons, essentially making an appeal to authority and then expecting everyone to follow it.

And for the MoI reread, that was because MoI was killed and flipped Town. There was no reason to give a case on MoI after they flipped.

[Quick Maker]

I myself don't quite think "impossible to read" was the best phrasing, but the main point was that Not_Mafia was deliberately playing in a completely unacceptable way that prevented us from reading them.

"Or do you not trust my ability to read them" seems to imply that, by default, we should. At least, that is how we interpreted it at the time.

I think we saw that but didn't count it as a reason because no explanation was given as to why the vote was a Towntell. If no explanation is given then it would be possible to take any vote and declare it a Towntell or a scumtell regardless of whether it really is.

[Quick Maker]

Spoiler: Grey's big post

@Almost50:

You're echoing my thoughts. I was actually avoiding posting recently because you asked me not to post, and there's people who STILL haven't responded. I mean geriatric game, restricted posting capacity, yadda yadda, but I'd like to expect more than a post every fortnight. Alchemist has been sitting with a vote on him for ages, and Pine's case to lynch him is "why the hell not"? Like if you or AG were scum, I'd be fine handing the game to you, because FUCK this lurk stuff.

@Quick Maker:

If that was a strawman, good job. If it wasn't though, you need to grasp the difference between "bad reasoning" and "shallow reasoning".

Shallow Reasoning

Almost50 also has a tendency to confirm people as absolutely Town which again fits into your point that Town should want to reevaluate players and Almost50 doesn't seem to want to do that and even suggests that others should trust their reads, even without evidence. This in itself is, I would say, slightly scummy as, while it is certainly consistent with very biased Town it is more likely with scum that want to seem like they have more legitimate reasons than they actually do. If scum Almost50 wants to rule someone out right now and later they want that person lynched, they can explain that they changed their mind. If they don't want that person lynched later, they can refer back to this. They can use this current method to essentially have it both ways.

Okay, now lets parse this borderline-unreadable paragraph for a second (is Titus one of your heads? Because fuckchrist the word to content ratio is painfully high):

Nonsense Decoded

Almost50 posts townreads without giving reasons. This is scummy.

Like holy shit man, that's awful. That's shallow, surface level, trivial shit. It's exactly what I'd expect a scum-hydra with a "reasoning" gimmick to post when they were forced to make fake scum reads.

And that was your better day 1 vote.

The NotMafia vote was:

I think Not_Mafia's play is unacceptable and impossible to read. Therefore:

VOTE: Not_Mafia

Now lets get on to what gives you away as scum, and why I'd happily drive home a wagon on you any time, any day:

After ISOing Flubber, Alch, and Shad, I kinda want to switch my vote to Flubber. Alch I have no read on - they haven't done too much that is actually AI. Shad I like for Town. I can follow their thought process and they are making pushes I can see coming from Town. They seem to push as a form of Scum hunting. They seem to like to put pressure on people and see how people react. This is a pretty Townie way to play and because I can read their play as such, I'm inclined to think they have Towns best interest in mind with what they are going after. They have also make a few good points (can't remember what they were exactly considering I ISO'd these players as soon as I made my last post).

I know how Flubber plays as Scum given I shared a Scum Chat with him at one point. He tries to make sure that his progression on players makes sense. This is his biggest downfall though because he does little to actually change his reads much as Scum because he wants a consistent narrative. I also saw their recent questioning of Fitz as fake Scum hunting considering he didn't have his facts straight when he questioned him. I know Flubber to be a bit more on the ball than that as Town so I think this adds another reason for SRing Flubber. The biggest tell that tells me Flubber is Scum though is that as Scum he come across as incredibly stale and out of touch with what Town is doing. I don't see anything that really resonates with me in terms of what Flubber is saying and that is a sign he has ulterior motives in his perspective of viewing the game. Also, his over gusto with the points he is making is well within his Scum range and he is typically a lot more level headed as Town.

I know it's very hard to trust a meta read simply by a description alone, but if anyone else has any meta on Flubber I encourage you to look at your past games you have played with him to see if what I am saying matches up with what I am saying about him. I think he has a pretty obvious Scum game and I am pretty sure this is it.

Lets translate that, and I'll show why this is shallow shit:

Bullshit translated

Flubbernugget doesn't change his reads much, because as scum he likes having a consistent narrative. He also didn't have his facts straight when questioned, which is an inconsistent narrative. Flubber is also out of touch, stale, and shows too much passion. If he were town he'd be less passionate.

Seriously, just look at that. Read the translation, read the original, realize they're the same thing. Fucking shitballs.

Now lets break down a longer post, 796:

HavingFitz is a townread because he's antagonizing us rather than buddying us, and I think as scum he'd buddy us.

We concocted a genius plan to pretend to buddy MOI and see if he noticed. We can't draw many conclusions from it. We think MOI has a weak case on HavingFitz, because the scumslip is weaksauce, and MOI is lining up lynches. I'd put down a vote, but

I want to talk to quick.

Post 849: Hi, quick here!

Maker wants me to ISO COA and AG.

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MOI?

Seriously man, you say "I want to talk to Quick about MOI" and 100 posts later, Quick doesn't even remember that? Are you two really talking? Or is this theater?

I honestly do not really know what your gripe with me is here... Is it Scummy to be "wordy"? If so, Why? I am functioning a LOT differently due to being in this hydra which you should be able to gather given ~raisins~. I have been open about operating differently due to being in this hydra since the beginning of the game.

What happened is that before EoD was over, Maker asked me if we should vote for MoI. I said at that point that I was debating sheeping AG onto CoA. Since Day ended before I could really sus out my read on CoA, Maker then asked if I would ISO CoA and AG during NP.

Some things you are ignoring in your translation of my read on Flubber are things such as my sharing a PT with Flubber when we were Scum together. When we were Scum together, he explicitly said that he likes to keep a consistent narrative as Scum, that is where that read comes from. Then, because I noticed the same kind of play from him in this game, it lead me to thinking he was doing the same thing here. You don't get the full story saying it the way you have said it, and in fact, there are things I omitted to make my read on Flubber to be more to the point. In short, what you are doing, is slighting on context, which IME is very important. If I would have just said what you had as an interpretation there, there is little if any chance that Flubber ends up as the lynch. Context is pretty damn important.

I am playing in more than just this game... Given I am approaching this game worlds differently than I normally would (partially because this game is Geriatric and partly because I am playing with Maker who generally doesn't post with much frequency), that would be the reason I "haven't gotten back to you in 100 posts." I am giving this game much less constant attention than I normally would and I don't even check in on the game every day I don't think.

~Quick

[Quick Maker]

CultOfAthena, who were your partners? (I am presuming that this was a scum quickhammer. If not, ignore this post.)

-Maker

[Quick Maker]

AG is pretty damn competent in the Scum category. Might be time to get to that Scummy I have been looking to do.

[Quick Maker]

Here is our PT.

-Maker