Mini Normal 2298 - Game Over!

[Ethel]

VOTE: Cephrir
Bet you didn't expect that!

[Ethel]

VOTE: Cephrir
Bet you didn't expect that!

et tu, erminé?

Vive la République!

[Ethel]

bob3141
Ethel
Elpis
ballpointpen

I think I've played with or known of everyone else at some point but for my reference how much mafia experience do you guys have? are you guys alts?

Not trying to ask in a condescending way (esp bc I haven't played in years) but want to get a sense of where everyone's coming from

I'm an alt of the elusive player known as 'Domestic Cat'. So elusive in fact that most players have never heard that name before, and only the most observant (and cute) players managed to even spot her subtle but stunning play in the single game she ever played on this site.

[Ethel]

you should pet cats

I've already located the cat and we've retreated to the kitchen together. Now it wants to go outside and meow at the moon so we're gonna go do that.

[Ethel]

Can we share the cat? Please? I have a little feather toy and everything

Hmm... I don't usually like to share cats, but she purred when I told her about the feather toy, so... yes, but I also want to get scratched behind the ears.

[Ethel]

VOTE: bob31415
If I learned one thing in school, it's that you can't trust people named bob.

[Ethel]

Ok I will give you both pets then, this is acceptable

Mm, an excellent way to pocket me... but can I be in your pocket if you are already in someone else's pocket?

[Ethel]

VOTE: ballpointpen
Marquis and Elpis seem town to me, so that looks like a wagon I wanna ride. (yay, I'm learning mafia lingo!)

[Ethel]

Hey Ethel

You expressed some reads day 1 in this game. This surprises me a little compared to our conversations about mafia. Is that because you're starting to understand where they come from, or because you feel like you have to have some?

So formal... am I in trouble, officer?

bites lip

A bit of both, I suppose... I still find it hard to read people I don't know over text, but of course I still have opinions and in this case I just wanted to give a bit of reasoning for my vote so it doesn't look completely random.

[Ethel]

From what i can see you never signed up to a newbie game, so how new are you really? Are you just using your newbie newbieness to lull us into a false sense of security?

This is my second game of online mafia. Ceph took me by my shoulders and gently shoved me right into the real action.

[Ethel]

Thanks for answering, I'm just finding I don't really suspect any of the high posters at the moment so feel like I need to consider alternatives

Aww, so you thought of me? How sweet of you! I'm sorry to disappoint, however much I secretly wanna get arrested by you - I'm just too honest to lie about it.

[Ethel]

VOTE: Andante
Slowly following the wagons around.

[Ethel]

Since I think I should give my own opinion once in a while, I don't feel like scumreading nsg myself. Her explanations made sense to me so far, and if it's true that nsg really doesn't like playing as scum, then this doesn't seem to be the case. Or at least, I couldn't imagine writing as much as her if I hated this game. Of course people are very different in that regard and I'm not saying nsg can't be scum, I just think that the arguments used so far don't necessarily indicate scum. Anyways, that's why I'm voting Andante instead of nsg right now. I don't think bob's slot was particularly scummy, but neither towny, and since other people are voting there who I think are townish, I can't be too wrong with that vote, right? And I don't want to be a straggler, if enough people feel like ending this day I want to give them the opportunity to do so.

[Ethel]

Since it's so quiet here's some real culture for you M'uricans.

Hey, vi er ikke alle Amerikansk!

[Ethel]

Alle utenom verdens navle Trøndelag er Amerikansk!

Aw, selv de i Nordland?

[Ethel]

Ah, yes... totally not about how we're gonna take over the world to sell more delicious cheese.

[Ethel]

who is townreading me? first ive heard of it. maybe std?

Certainly not me! You were charming in the only game we played together, in which you were scum, so naturally I can conclude that being charming is part of your mafia play and so you have to be scum here too!

[Ethel]

Ah, but my esteemed lady, surely a pure heart shines all the more brightly.

If you speak true to me, my dear
And darkness once obscured the truth
Of your pure heart - then I do fear

For if the evil taint of scum
That lessened your delightful charm
By now is well and truly gone -
Your radiance might cause me harm!

[Ethel]

source: trust me

I'm convinced.
VOTE: ballpointpen

[Ethel]

Oh, votes! Well, I'm not sure why, but maybe a bit of context behind my votes might help. Since I'm used to playing Werewolf, I've found that the votes, especially on the first day , are mostly random. Meaning, the majority of the time a town person gets the axe. That's because there's just not really anything to go of. Very few people have behavioural patterns that mark them as a liar with a reasonable certainty, and that's even when knowing them well. So, almost every group I've played with has decided to keep the first day for banter and the mayor election and skip the lynch vote, or go to the first night straight away. If it was up to me, I'd also skip the vote here, but I'm fairly sure that's not how mafia is played on this site, so instead I just keep voting for someone who I don't feel is more likely town than others and who others have already voted for, to give people the opportunity to move this game along if they so choose.
Side note: I am aware that I'm not an authority on online mafia and I don't mean to tell anyone that they're playing the game wrong, or to start a discussion about how this game is supposed to be played. This is simply an explanation of my opinion right now, based on my own experiences.

[Ethel]

but she genuinely believes D1 is borderline random

then why give 2 reads with 1 being "nsg not scummy" and the other is "bob/andante haven't swayed me 1 way or the other, so slot is scum!" like, that's just flat out not even trying

Since you keep bringing this up, let me correct you. I did not townread nsg, I simply did not scumread her. I specifically said that I'm not saying she can't be scum and that I'm just personally not convinced. And secondly, I did not say that I thought you/bob was scum. I don't know if you are misinterpreting me on purpose or not, but all I said was that I thought you were neither very scummy nor towny to me. And as I've said in my last post, I won't really scumread anyone in the first day, there's just some people who I think are more likely town than others. I don't know why you've been so hostile to me, but apparently you have some kind of reputation so I won't take it personally.

[Ethel]

unfortunately most mafia players think they are infallible geniuses and are not humbled even after repeatedly being proven incorrect

ive tried playing like this before. it actually works as far as getting people to listen to you and that's a little depressing

You think you can escape
My scrutinizing gaze
Which sees beneath the drape
And pierces through the haze?

You try to hide from me
Your feelings and your thoughts
You think that I won't see
And won't connect the dots?

Ha - don't make me laugh
It's all to no avail
I'm perfect in my craft
I never doubt nor fail

Await my judgement now
There's nothing to refute
With certainty I know -
You're lovable and cute!

[Ethel]

roses are red
violets are blue
my poems don't rhyme and have meter issues
vote for ethel

Aw, but why?

[Ethel]

i think you're likely to be scum just based on a vibe i'm getting but i don't have any concrete posts like "this is scummy"

And you genuinely believe, based on your experience, that this 'vibe' means I'm more likely to be scum than a random choice?

[Ethel]

Okay, I guess this will just be one more negative example towards that theory then.

[Ethel]

so unless someone wants to change their stance at this point, maybe she should claim

Do you want me to claim? If you ask cutely I will!

[Ethel]

I'm not sure how Ethels strange belief (728) about d1 being random excludes newbscum. I would like to challenge Ethel on having reads yet also calling D1 random like Andante does 742

Just because I think the first vote is

mostly

random (which I'm happy to change my mind about when my experiences support that) does not mean that I don't have my own opinions about this game - I just don't think they're very meaningful yet. I still mention them sometimes, both to try and explain my own votes since I feel like that's expected of me, and because I still wanna play the game after all. Anyways - I think if Morning Tweet was scum, it would seem better for her to just vote me instead of Andante (at least it seemed like that to me at the time I saw that vote), so... UNVOTE:

[Ethel]

I am very dissapointed by you all you should knew better!

This feels strange to me. Enchant replaced someone that was already suspected by a lot of people and immediately acted very annoyed when he got some votes. Mafia is a game where people rarely

know

anything, so why exactly should people know better here? I get that getting voted as town feels disappointing, but it's an unavoidable part of this game and this disappointment just seems exaggerated here.

[Ethel]

I can't tell wether that's an irrational but genuine reaction or scum thinking it's the only/best way to deflect the votes.

[Ethel]

i forgot about that

@ethel can you tell us your side of what's been going on in your neighborhood

Sure, I was obviously unfamiliar with that concept and didn't really know what to do with it, so nsg and I just confirmed to each other that we were town, which... didn't really seem meaningful at all, and then I kinda forgot about that chat. There's nothing really in it though.

[Ethel]

she spent the entire day joke calling you scum and you know it

Uhm... no? Unless you want to call the random vote at the start 'calling someone scum', and call that one time 'the entire day'. I'm not even sure what this is supposed to say but I'm just tired of people misinterpreting me.

[Ethel]

Also, in my two games so far it seems that just calling someone scum long enough gets you townread, but... why? Sure, I get that mafia probably wouldn't want to attract too much attention, but if this has been established as a reason for people to get townread then it's precisely what I'd do as mafia too.

[Ethel]

Gimli, I want to know why you said Ethel is neighbor.

Oh, I am. Enchant said so when he got voted - I think because he thought I was ignoring him - but I didn't think it was important anyways. As the wiki (and ceph) say, this role is not AI. I still wouldn't have claimed it here if people didn't bring it up, because... why? It doesn't really mean anything now.

[Ethel]

Ethel, I want to know who makes you suspicious right now. I appreciate your vibes and I want you to be town, so I want to hear your thoughts, please

Well... I think my strongest read currently is that you're town! Not just because we're both new to this and feel the same way about lots of things (okay, maybe that's part of it), but because you do a really good job of sorting through the heap of messages and asking the question that are important to you, and giving very insightful readings. So either you're town doing your best to help - or you're very good at making it seem so, and if that's the case you deserve it. But since you asked me about suspicions... I don't have anyone I'm super confident about, but I'd say my top suspect is Gimli right now. He was the one who hammered Enchant (well, technically NM but it seems well known that NM quickhammers anything), and while I don't think that alone was scum - because someone has to end the day after all - I didn't like his reaction the next day.

my confusion is with why yall yeeted enchant, but whatever, regroup!

im a bad player idk about anyone else

I'm very upset that I flipped enchant and I wasn't even scumreading neither enchant nor nsg

im an idiot who sheeps weak cases ig

Maybe it could be a genuine reaction, but getting things wrong in mafia is normal and most likely happens every game, so this seems too much. It feels like this is just an excuse to not take any responsibility for the vote. And now he is townreading Andante so that if he ends up voting me and I flip town, he can just hide behind her. Speaking of - the reason that Andante voted me the first time was that I supposedly voted her while saying that I didn't scumread her, the exact same thing Gimli said, the difference being that I clarified that I didn't scumread anyone but only felt townish about some people, something which I doubt was the case for Gimli. But Andante didn't seem to mind that at all, probably because she was too busy repeating 'Ethel is scum, vote Ethel'. Andante can not possibly be sure about it, not least because I

know

that it's not true, but she seems to be following the philosophy of 'repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth'. And if she is town, replace lie with assumption and then she is providing the perfect cover for actual scum to hide behind. Anyways - writing this helped me think about things, but I feel like that's enough for one post.

[Ethel]

it's not like I don't give reasons, I definitely do. not my fault yall ignore, thus "ETHEL MAF ETHEL MAF!!" gets the point across

Oh, please do give your reasons. I'm not gonna do an ISO of you because I want to preserve my sanity, but all I remember is "Ethel voted me but said I wasn't scummy, so Ethel is scum". Which I have explained more than once now but each time you ignore it, just as you have ignored my point about Gimli actually doing what you have accused me of.

enchant's dying words were "ethel is maf"

Funny that you mention that. Let's look at Enchants

actual

last words, shall we?

VOTE: enchant

this is e-1 etc

This is scum

Gimli knows about NM quickhammering atlitude. Therefore it was on purpose.

Get rid on him.

Incase you mean this post instead:

It's Ethel btw

It was about me being his neighbor. And if you mean this:

My prediction for mafia team is Gimli+Ethan+Firebringer/Brian Skies have fun (or don't i am laughing now)

This is hardly the "Ethel maf" call you make it out to be. Of course I don't actually think that any of these posts are of particular importance and I wouldn't give them as a reason for reading someone, but it just shows again how hard you are tunneling on me and that you will point at anything in order to say "Ethel scum" again and, unknowingly or not, take full advantage of the illusory truth effect. And no, I do not think you are scum, I think you are just unreasonable town, even though that doesn't make dealing with you any easier. That's because I think it's unlikely that both you and Save the Dragons are scum, and after giving it some thought it seems more likely that he is. At first he pointed out how Andante was just skipping over parts of my post, and even said this:

i dunno i feel like andante's push on ethel could be scummy

But then he started voting me because of 'the vibe'. And I get it as a reason for voting someone, especially on Day 1, but on Day 2 he immediately voted me again without giving any further reasoning. And my name seems to very small on his readslist. As an experienced mafia player I would expect him to be aware that 'vibes' are never this infallible, so the fact that he's still scumreading me this much means to me that either he's lying or he's doing this for some other reasons, and I really don't know why. So I think what happened is that he realized that Andante would just tunnel onto me and he could just vote me without taking much heat for it.
VOTE: Save the Dragons

[Ethel]

I'd really personally like a readlist from Ethel

Hmm... I wasn't gonna do something like that, but since you asked me nicely I'll give it a try, and it might help collect my thoughts.

Most town of all is Elpis still
And right below Marquis' name sits
Though as we all, I miss his wits
These haven't changed, nor likely will

Up next comes Cephrir, sweet as pie
He's one I don't want to suspect
But I'm aware of this effect
So some precaution should apply

Here Firebringer's meant to be
A lot of things he does discuss
And seems to be observant, plus
He's funny in our scum PT

Andante - well, what can I say
Still voting for me day by day
I've given up to try and sway
She'll just keep going far astray

I still think Gimli's fishy, but
He's also made a lot of sense
So as of now, I'm on the fence
I'll have to listen to my gut

Norwegianboy and Brian Skies -
Both seem a bit opaque to me
I haven't seen them spill much tea
And thus they're hard to analyze

Not_Mafia has not said much
And that was mostly void of points
So bottom of this list he joins
Until there's something more to judge

Beneath him, only one remains
Who has expressed uncertainty
Yet he seems sure enough of me
So I'm not sure what else he feigns

[Ethel]

I think we should actually elim Ethel.
I have good reasons for this.

Ethel said im funny in the scum PT.
But all ive been saying in the scum PT are hateful things about the country Norway.
These were not meant as jokes and Ethel laughing at them should make it so Ethel is cancelled by being voted out.

I think Norwee can agree with me on this

I can't believe someone would actually, in all seriousness, trashtalk the glorious country of Norway. This must clearly also be a joke.

[Ethel]

You will be dearly missed ; - (

[Ethel]

Oh right, two scum as neighbours would kinda make that role irrelevant wouldn't it, since scum can already talk to each other. I guess if a scum neighbour flipped then they could 'townproof' their partner, but that would feel like a weird way to buff mafia. So if Norwegianboy and StD claim they're neighbours (I'm not sure if they've dones so or if it's just assumed), I think it's much more likely that only one of them can be scum.

[Ethel]

It feels as though we're stalling out again, and to my knowledge voting is always more effective than not voting, so I would genuinely really like to organize us to determine not only who we want to vote as a town, but also why we're doing so.

However, StD, Gimli, and Marquis are currently all away for a bit, and Andante expressed low post levels too, so I proposition we wait to give this a lot of effort until they're all back and ready. At the time of this post we have I think almost exactly 9 days left, and it is the 15th. I would like to push into a strong discussion the 18th, and otherwise not worry too much about our discussions until then.

That is a very reasonable suggestion. Until then you could maybe help me find the answers to more important questions that I'm currently trying to figure out - like, what's the best kind of cake? How do tell if a cake contains peanuts? Where to hide a body? Fun party games to make people to forget about unfortunate accidents?

[Ethel]

Well, this makes me feel better about Gimli, and I agree with Ceph's suspicion about Brian. The way he votes just feels kinda... opportunistic. It's probably unlikely that three scum are the only people voting someone at the same time so that would make Norwegianboy more towny, which means that StD is currently the most likely third scum for me. I feel better about Brian right now though, so VOTE: Brian Skies

[Ethel]

Happy Birthday Elpis! May Firepup rest in puppy heaven (even though I don't know why he's called that)