Open 482: Popcorn Mafia {Game Over}

[Bumfuzzled]

For those who don’t know, we’re a hydra of Regfan and Awestfie. I got to speak to Awestfie a bit after getting a role PM but haven’t had a chance to talk with her since the game actually started so no real idea where she is reads wise or whether or not she agrees with me on mine so hopefully we can carve some time out tonight to get to that. The one thing we did talk about though is tactics, here’s a summary of what we decided upon:

This game being nightless means that we can win this with just a few strong town-reads; while it may take 4 strong town-reads to instantly win it with every scum that dies the number reduces and we attain free mslynches so there’s a good chance the game will end up that if we have 2-3 agreed upon strong town reads we’ll win. It also means that scum are going to have to fabricate reasoning to town-read their partners since bussing is near-suicidal in nightless games which means we'll likely be able to catch scum in groups ie. If we nail one scum we'll be able to look through their reads and reasoning and probably find another one or two so we can go 1-2-3. So

rather than just solely focusing on scum reads I’d prefer if people made clear what their strong town-reads are and provide reasoning behind them

– the more strong town reads we all agree upon the better position we’re in and running us through your thought process behind getting reads helps get us a stronger read on you (And there’s no reason to withhold anything re: Reads and reasoning in this setup since there’s no harm in stating them and a lot of potential gain).

---

I have a few weakish town-reads at the moment and no real scum reads I'd bank on yet but want to talk over a few things with Awestfie.

I think HatMadder focus on the number and the win condition in Post 9 is a slight town-tell. I think scum would be less likely to be focusing on that at this point and think they'd have done it through PM rather than out in the thread. Also think his 'conditional PM' suggestion in Post 11 while flawed due to the the deadlines not being something as minimal as 48 hours but rather being three weeks is him genuinely trying to help.

Cherry Nogs reasoning behind who they'd shoot early-game is actually really sound (Shooting competent players is somewhat optimal in that worst case it's a strong player with a gun) and comes across as a weakish town-tell. Want his reads on things that are unrelated to setup tactics / strategy though.

Jukes consideration and re-consideration on her town-read on Limo in Post 36 is a slight town-tell too. The fact that she was willing to actually analyze her own town-read without anyone prompting her about the reasoning shows genuine scumhunting. I can kind of follow her reasoning behind the read / retraction of it too. Not following her reasoning on her Mcqueen town-read in Post 61, I don't see any lack of knowledge shown by Mcqueen at all (I actually have a scummish read on him but I think it's somewhat gut based and I try not to trust my gut since it's wrong more than not, if he posts more I should be able to get a stronger read).

[Bumfuzzled]

Just putting this out there, mcqueen appears to have a playstyle of a somewhat "full steam ahead" bravado. That effectively reduces my read on him to null.

I think I've played with him when he's been town and scum, sad thing is it was ages ago and I don't remember the games that well. I'll probably end up going through his meta sometime in the next few days and see if I can remember if he has any strong tells but I really do need him to post a lot more to get a good feel either way.

Pedit: Juke, I don't really see that as 'lack of knowledge about the setup' more-so just stating that it's a weird setup which I think he'd state regardless of alignment.

[Bumfuzzled]

Cheery (I assume it's still N posting), I want(ed) your reads / stances on everyone at the moment, you even quoted where I asked and didn't respond.

I managed to catch Awestfie online earlier and have a discussion with her about initial impressions, she said she was going to post her thoughts in here but I think she fell asleep while typing up the post so I doubt she'll mind if I beat her to the punch. She agrees with both of my HadMatter and Juke town-reads though her Juke town-read is much weaker than mine but she found that Limos opening into the game of a reaction-test in Post 5 with his "Mac would be a good shot" to be a fairly strong town-tell since she thinks mafia wouldn't wouldn't be instantly so open in trying to direct the gunholder, looking back at it I actually agree with her (Feel kind of stupid for not noticing it earlier since I'm meant to be the one teaching her forum mafia not the other way around..)

She has a weak scum-read on Mac, she thinks his reaction towards the reaction test in Post 8 was contrived and awkward - something about the "Good work, Limo" part she found really scummy and she thinks that his Post 34 where he states town-reads on the people pressuring him is him attempting to appease them to re-direct their attention elsewhere while adding the "you could still both be mafia" bit so he can back-track on it later.

[Bumfuzzled]

awestfie here, I've discussed shortly with Regfan regarding my reads, and this is currently what I have.

HadMatter

: You are currently our strongest town-read. Your concern about the win condition over on Post 9 came across as fairly townie to the both of us, mainly due to the fact that scum wouldn't be concerned about this. I also feel like his interactions with

CDB

, starting on Post 25 shows that they are most likely not partners, for the sole reasons that scum would try and move away from bussing in this setup, especially this early on.

Limo

: I feel like Limo's reaction test over on Post 5 was townie; scum would be less inclined to do a reaction test like this, especially when no one had said anything prior to the test.

Regfan

didn't think much of the test, until I brought this up to him, which he then agreed with my thoughts.

Juke

: We’re both getting town vibes from you because of the fact that you are actively scum-hunting and thinking things through, specifically Post 36 and Post 61, which

Regfan

already pointed out in Post 64 in more details. The only thing I didn't really like about you was Post 19 due to the fact that you didn't want to instantly explain your read, and wanted someone else to figure it out, for some reason.

Mac

: I didn’t like your reaction in Post 8 and Post 16, your reaction itself was bad and you followed it through trying to weaken it by saying it was a joke reaction.

Regfan

already pointed out how I felt about Post 34 in Post 78.

[Bumfuzzled]

I got some offline messages from Awetfie saying that she really didn't like Mantis's entrance into the thread. There's not really any unique content or reads from her at all, just fluff based questions and theory based discussion that doesn't lead anywhere. Think best chance of scum is inside her and Mac at the moment.

Also Reg, if you're town, this is going to be the game where I make up for Timeshift Mafia.

To be fair I still have some making up for that game to do as well. I found Sucroses lylo posts to be very genuine and started getting townish vibes from her which is why I really wanted Sora first but couldn't push myself to be more aggressive in asking for unvotes. Anyway for what it's worth I think Jukes town at the moment - his scumhunting is coming across as incredibly genuine, specifically his reconsideration of his town-read unprompted in Post 36 and his stubborness in letting go of his read on Mcqueen in Post 70 matches what I remember of his town-meta (I should probably go through a few of his games tonight though just to make sure I'm remembering it right though - bug me if I forget to get around to it). Him voting the mod is fairly null, think he'd muck around like that regardless of his alignment.

Could you please sign your posts, since you're a Hydra? Because I have no idea which head posted this. But I don't remember playing with either head of your Hydra, Regfan's name seems familiar, but I recall only seeing his name, not playing with him, and if I have, it's only been a game or two, I don't remember playing with him as Town and Scum.

It should be obvious whose posts are whose if you're reading them (Awestfie can sign her posts and all unsigned posts are mine if it's really that big a deal) and I hunted down the game that we played together because I wanted to give it another read through to remember what your meta was like but it looks like the crash ate the majority of it and only left the cotroversial ending to the game - It's NY 145 where I played as a hydra called Black Panther.

[Bumfuzzled]

Mine. (Sorry mod, won't post from the wrong account again).

why could she not post that herself?

She wanted to hydra so she could 'learn' from me which means discussing reads and seeing if we're seeing things eye-to-eye rather than playing the game as two separate players. Can you run me through your Mcqueen town-read please because the phrasing of your Post 112 doesn't come across as you reading him as town.

also bumfuzzled, speaking of fluff, what about your last 2 paragraphs?

There's no way you can be reading that as fluff at all, none. It's a response to Mcqueen asking where we've played in the past and trying to get HD not to shoot a town-read of ours by explaining it to him. Your "Speaking of fluff" just comes of as an attempt to de-credit us since we have a scummish-read on you.

[Bumfuzzled]

i'm not trying to de-credit you. though i do have a tendency to get my back up at ppl who look like their trying to find scum reasons for my posting.
and you *did* talk quite a lot about other games in that post. yes, you said that jukes looked town to you. but other than that it was just ..stuff that didn't have much to do with this game.

The 'other games' things were responses to people asking me questions about other games ie. Mcqueen wanting to know where we've played together before and wanting our posts to be signed and HD talking about our last game we played together. So again not seeing any possible way you can consider that as 'fluff'. I'll take a look at your games to see if you are more inclined to FoS people that have scum-reads on you as town tomorrow though.

[Bumfuzzled]

Mcqueen, if you don't think HatMatter is scum then what are your current reads?

Siveure needs to get in here and post because his Post 80 really doesn't do much for me and I just checked his online history and he's been posting elsewhere so it's not that he's 'inactive' and 'unable' to post here but rather seems to be avoiding the thread. That said I remember him being very active early game in Newbie 1256 where he was scum and fooled me big time so actually want some reasoning behind why he hasn't been posting here as well as thoughts on everyone in the room.

Bum, I'm in agreement of not liking Mantis' entry, but what makes her less suspect is that I think she actually does suspect people that have scum reads on her more. The same happened when she was town in the game I played with her in.

I'm going to boil a pot of tea and go through her completed games later tonight (3-4 hours from now) to see what her opening posts are generally like and see if she really is more inclined to suspect people pushing on her as town but if you have a link to the exact game and situation would save me quite a bit of time.

[Bumfuzzled]

Mcqueen, please don't ignore us, we want to know what your current reads are.

Not entirely sure what to make of Sievures posts yet. Will probably go for a run and mull on it, initial instinct is that his "You want to give the gun to someone that isn't scumhunting" is more likely to come from town than scum though.

---

Carved out time and divided it up with Awestfie and we finally finished getting through Mantis's meta.

Her town games first: In Micro 88 she’s incredibly active (300 posts within a month period) and begins the game with a lot of fluffish and filler based questioning though you can see where her thought process is at during it. There’s a lot of emotion in her play and while I don’t think she reacts to anyone suspecting her. In Micro 118 she’s incredibly active (310 posts in less than a month, that might be a record in a micro game) her opening is very fluffy but she does throw down a vote. There is a lot emotion and genuiness behind the posting in this game and caught this post here where she states she hates playing scum which makes sense given the activity level of the town games. In Open 465 (300 posts in two months) her opening again involves questions that I don’t think really lead anywhere super deep but the emotional connection behind them are there. So really the trademarks of her town play are high level of activity, fluff / filler questions to get into the game and a lot of emotion behind her posts (ie. Can really tell what she's thinking / feeling about the game as she's fully open with it).

And her scum games: In Micro 86 she’s still active (130 posts within 2 months) but not as active as her town games and her opening still has some fluff and filler questions but she seems to working towards people to ‘suspect’ in it with her posts rather than really getting reads. There’s very little emotion behind the posts and it comes across as very mechanical. In Micro 99 she plays quite passive this game, and doesn't really let her thoughts be known - as a matter of fact, she doesn't really try to do much of anything, since she barely posted anything. For the most part, she was just sitting back and agreeing with most of the table. She ends up at L-1 without really defending herself much at all - she did bring up some meta on another player to try and say he was scum, but really nothing solid and it was just more of a "I played with X in Y, and he seems to be playing different this game." Overall she just looked like she wasn't reading the game, and that she had no solid reads whatsoever throughout the whole game, she was at L-1 twice and she never really attempted to defend herself. In Micro 116 she was questioning people, and she was actually voting, however, she never really explained her reads and votes much, she doesn't really show her thought process much at all.

I think her play thus far matches her town play more than her scum play. Her reaction towards us FoS'ing her has emotion behind it that I don't see in her scum games but do see a lot in her town-games and the questions she's stated seems to be more towards getting an idea of things rather than subtly moving towards FoS'ing players to push for mslynches which seems to be what I noticed in her scum games.

[Bumfuzzled]

HD, I know you're clear and probably happy doing jack shit but can you actually participate, every time I see you post inside another thread that's not here it's irksome because we need as much activity in this game as possible and you not assisting generate it is making this really difficult.

bumfuzzled - what are your thoughts on mcqueen? town/scum

Conflicted with him at the moment, discussed him a bit with Aweftie and we really didn't get anywhere with it. I think his vote on HatMatter and calling him scum in Post 56 combined with his explanation of it in Post 126 saying that he was 'trying something new' is genuine in that I don't think he'd be experimenting as mafia and stating that is what he's doing but at the same time he's avoiding taking any real stances or making any real reads, waiting for him to actually share his thought process because I think it'll become much easier to read him.

[Bumfuzzled]

Posting this quickly, since I need to go in like 10 minutes; to let you all know that, Regfan and I have been quite busy over the weekend and we haven't had much of a chance to talk lately, so I'm unsure as to what his current reads are, or if he had any chance to catch up for that matter. With that being said, I like RedPanda's replace in posts; but I'm not quite sure how many of your reads I agree with.

[Bumfuzzled]

Sorry about my lack of activity the last few days, had a really busy weekend. Awestfie isn't online at the moment but I think she will be in the next few hours so hopefully we can carve out a good hour or two and go through everyone one more time. Worst case we'll end up doing it tomorrow (12ish hours).

HD, can you run me through what about Post 34 by Mac you like because that post is probably my biggest issue with him; for the most part he hasn’t really scumhunted and moreso just reacted to peoples reads on him but in that post he was asked what his reads were on CBD and Limo (The people who were pressuring him at the time) and town-read them both which comes very much across as appeasement.

HatMatter thinking it’s 3 scum and not 4 inside Post 185 as well as his anaylsis and thought process being incredibly genuine really solidifies the fact that he’s town. I think everyone can agree that

he’s not for shooting ever.

[Bumfuzzled]

Red and HD, I don't see what's 'transparent' / 'townish' about that post from Mac at all. Please try and explain it clearer for me.

Anyway I'm completely brain dead at the moment an about to go to sleep so should get to this game properly tomorrow.

[Bumfuzzled]

It's probably a good thing I didn't get on last night. I think I'd have probably convinced Red to not shoot Mantis or at least probably to have gone with Mac or maybe even Cherry first. Given the current situation Jukes not wrong in that we just need two strong town-reads to make this automatic win if we don’t hit scum and just one if we can hit scum in the next few days. I think we can all agree that HatMatter is supersupersupertown so we just need one strong town-read or scum-read.

Town (Strongest to weakest):

HatMatter

is a town-read that is incredibly obvious so I’m not even going to go into this one in depth, summary though is; Mixing up number of scum in the setup, suggesting that we send in shots in case we’re not here in time, genuine as fuck scumhunting.

Jukes

entrance of stating that Limo is very town and requesting someone should guess the reason why in Post 19 is a fairly big town-tell given that he retracts it himself by stating he was thinking about it wrong in Post 36 since it shows real-thought-process (Will admit though that Awestfie didn’t like the “Someone tell me the reason bit” as she thinks it was him trying to get someone else to do his work for him but I’ve found that never really to be the case in the past). I think his stubbornness and insistence that Mcqueen is town in Post 57 and his following posts up until Post 70 is a fairly big town-tell especially given that Mcqueen flipped town. I liked him pointing out the “Never shoot HatMatter” in Post 187 and his suggestion that we only need two strong town-reads (Which is actually spot on) in Post 261 but him stating that scumhunting is useless in Post 283 really doesn’t make any sense at all. If he thinks that one scum lynch is autowin given HatMatter!Town then scumhunting wouldn’t be ‘useless’ it’d actually be very much needed. That said not sure if he’d suggest and propose a “Autowin” strategy as mafia here, think he’d be more looking for mslynchable people and thus feigning “scumhunting” rather than refusing to do it.

Limos

reaction-testing entrance saying Mac wouldn’t be a bad shot in Post 5 is a relatively big town-tell; he’s looking to get straight into reactions and scumhunting and it’s a post that can attract negative attention that I think scum would attempt to avoid doing. His Post 130 and Post 132 gives me some pause though because he tries to use an ongoing games meta to state that she’s possibly town here and it’s something he’d know I can’t read into, quote or use other than his ‘summary’ of it. His Post 176 really fits in what I was thinking at the time; the two people I’d have probably shot then were Mac or Siv and probably Mac first and I think scum getting into the mind-frame and thought process of a townie is one of the hardest scum-tells to fake so I think that’s a relatively strong town-tell from him.

Scum (Strongest to weakest):

Macs

appeasement in Post 34 still really bugs me and I don't understand how I'm the only one seeing it (Well other than Awestfie but to be fair I don't know if she's just saying that because she doesn't want to get into an argument with me about it or if she actually agrees with me) since it's really his only statement of reads in the game and other than that post he's been spending majority of his time posting defensive statements like in Post 124 and the first half of Post 166. The second half of 166 revolves around him stating a scum-read on Mcqueen that reads as if he's just mimicking what others have already said and just bandwagoning on it to try and blend in. There's no real desire or motivation from him to stick his neck out to do anything or to scumhunt and get reads. It's just survival and filler posts.

CDB

is actually really hard to get a solid read on, I like a lot of his posts and can see them leading towards him garnering opinions and stances but at points it feels like he’s just going-through-the-motions. His Post 125 mirrors a lot of my thoughts on Mac and his statement that he wants bot Siv and Mac shot in Post 137 comes across as townish. That said the argument between Siv and CDB over “Shoot someone who isn’t scumhunting vs shooting for scum-reads” in Post 138, Post 140, Post 141 and Post 153 comes across as distancing, the debate seems entirely pointless in that it’s a theory-based discussion which CDB wanted to avoid having in Post 76 but seems to go along with it with Siv. Think it makes a lot more sense as him trying to set-up looking good post-Siv flip rather than a legitimate discussion. I also think him stating that he didn't read Pandas replace in as town in Post 203 and adding Juke to his list there reads as opening-up-options for later.

[Bumfuzzled]

Bumfuzzled, how much have you two discussed which of you gets to shoot and who you'd shoot and your likelihood of getting to shoot?

We've joked around discussing it quite a bit but never really sat down having a fully serious discussion over it. I'd probably let her shoot though because she was itching and praying hoping we'd somehow start with the gun or end up with it at some point and I'd be a pansy with it and try and never shoot until deadline. I don't think there's really any doubt on who we'd shoot though - Mac. But had we got the gun D1 I don't think we'd have followed up a Mac shot with a Sievure and a Mantis shot so it's likely a good thing we didn't start with it. We haven't discussed the odds of us getting shot thought but we did agree that if people were starting to get paranoid of us it'd be much better to get shot the day before lylo and I think we can trust ourselves and our reads enough to bring it home from there.

[Bumfuzzled]

Sorry, we've both been incredibly busy over the week-end, we'll try and get something posted in the next ~24 hours.

[Bumfuzzled]

awestfie here, I've discussed shortly with Regfan regarding my reads, and this is currently what I have.

{SNIP} - A bunch of reads, doesn't mention Siv, click link in quote if you want to look at the whole thing

Italics mine.

I would have expected a comment on Siv's extraordinarily brief entrance from Regfan if he were town here.

Post 80 was the only thing Siv had posted when I posted those reads, and I don't generally gather reads from a single sentence, so I simply ignored it and didn't make much of it; which is why I didn't point it out in my reads.

Juke: We’re both getting town vibes from you because of the fact that you are actively scum-hunting and thinking things through, specifically Post 36 and Post 61, which Regfan already pointed out in Post 64 in more details. The only thing I didn't really like about you was Post 19 due to the fact that you didn't want to instantly explain your read, and wanted someone else to figure it out, for some reason.

Bum needs to be burned at the stake for this awful read, regardless of Juke's actual alignment.

What exactly is wrong about my read there?

I'd actually be most for a Bunfuzzled shot.

I'd honestly be happy to get the last gun that actually matters, although I'd also love to know as to why you want to give us the gun here.

[Bumfuzzled]

Think I'm still in favour of shooting Bumfuzzled next but do want to reread Limo just in case; feel like I've forgotten a significant reason why he was supposed to be town.

We're shooting you if we get shot - I realize my reads were off this game, however; this is my first game of forum mafia and Regfan hasn't been around for a week now, so I have no idea what his reads are - I'm really not familiar with forum mafia yet, and I was hoping he'd teach me with this game, however; he's just not there. Not trying to use this as an excuse, just pointing out how I'm feeling.

Anyways, still fairly confident on HadMatter's slot being town, and I don't really have anything solid on AP right now. I'd shoot CDB before Limo, I felt like Limo's early game was fairly townie, and I still feel like he's leaning town.

[Bumfuzzled]

@ Awesti based on interactions I would definitely put AP in the town pile. That was not a bus on Juke. Buses tend to be more subtle not screaming froo froo you are SCUM Kill it with fire type talk.

Chances are AP is town, upon re-reading; I think scum would avoid to bus in that situation, since with the amount of people being town-read they would just be setting yourself up into auto-lose; the only people who I can see being scum is CDB or Limo - if Cherry/N can get a solid townread; they should just voice their opinion, and shoot - there's no reason to delay the game if you're confident of someone being town. For now, can we all agree on Rach being town? Cause if we can, then Cherry/N should just go ahead and shoot - we are in an excellent position.

[Bumfuzzled]

...with the amount of people being town-read they would just be setting yourself up into auto-lose...

Lemme re-phrase that: I'm fairly confident that most people here town-read Rach, so if we shoot outside of Rach, we should easily hit the mafia, since it would end with: Gunbearer, Mafia, Rach - and then Gunbearer can easily just shoot someone that isn't Rach. So, why would AP bus into an auto-lose situation like that, if he were to be scum?

[Bumfuzzled]

...since it would end with: Gunbearer, Mafia, Rach...

And that would be the worst case scenario, so... we've pretty much won this if we can all agree on someone being town, and I'm fairly confident of Rach/AP being town here.

[Bumfuzzled]

So, why would AP bus into an auto-lose situation like that, if he were to be scum?

Does this mean we should also right of CBD due to Juke being his preferred target?

Looking at the other reads of Juke before we shot him, you Limo and HM were the ones who weren't in support. If HM hadn't disappeared from the enitire site, I'd consider AP's attack on Juke to mean something.

I don't think it's something scum would do in this situation, unless they really want to risk it and try to gambit - it's possible that AP bussed in this situation to get town cred, but even if he did - all we need to do is agree on a town-read, and then you can go ahead and shoot. I honestly won't be putting all that much thought into this game since it's pretty much auto-win for us, so.

[Bumfuzzled]

Although that post is remarkably similar to Juke's "plan".

And that's why I town-read him for the most part of this game, I felt his early game was townie, due to him actively scum-hunting a bringing out the fact that we should focus on town-reads rather than scum-reads. He had the right idea, even if he was scum, he knew that all town needed was a few town-reads to win, it's not because he flipped scum that his "plan" is a bad one. I don't remember why Regfan town-read him, and I don' think it really matters all that much at this point.

I honestly feel like one of you is over-thinking the situation, if not both.