Mini Normal 2311 | FIN

[AnimatedWiz]

Due to needing more bodies for their funeral parlor, Hu Tao’s motive makes them clearly the most logical choice to eliminate as of now.

VOTE: Hu Tao

[AnimatedWiz]

heipzhu4, BlueSnakelet, ZZZX, Passenger, Hu Tao, AnimatedWiz and TheHoldSteady need to step up their activity

I feel called out!

VOTE: NM

heipzhu4, BlueSnakelet, ZZZX, Passenger, Hu Tao, AnimatedWiz and TheHoldSteady need to step up their activity

I feel called out!

VOTE: NM

I fear we may have a Doublevoter D1 claim—careful everyone.

[AnimatedWiz]

Snake bite?

No—that’s how he got his piercings, though.

[AnimatedWiz]

heipzhu4, BlueSnakelet, ZZZX, Passenger, Hu Tao, AnimatedWiz and TheHoldSteady need to step up their activity

I feel called out!

VOTE: NM

heipzhu4, BlueSnakelet, ZZZX, Passenger, Hu Tao, AnimatedWiz and TheHoldSteady need to step up their activity

I feel called out!

VOTE: NM

I fear we may have a Doublevoter D1 claim—careful everyone.

Doublevoter isn't normal.

VOTE: BlueSnakelet

Ah, I was just making a joke about the double-post, that’s all.

[AnimatedWiz]

VOTE: ZZZX
Scummy-ish hop on

Id vote you but I forgot what that term was called... time to get back to the wiki.

But I will bite, why is it scummish?

If I remember correctly, the term you're looking for is OMGUS.

And I think joining a wagon quickly is often considered a bit suspicious due to it being a bit of an "anyone but me" sort of vote, but I mean—we're the only people who know our own alignment, so I think both the Village

and

all the evil people would logically want to vote anyone but themselves, especially right now when we know so little. So, it technically

can

be a tell, but it's not super strong (especially not this early).

[AnimatedWiz]

To me, it mostly reads as someone having a bit of fun during random voting—sure, I’m the target, but I don’t see it as really anything incriminating.

Also, Not_Mafia

also

just slid in as the second vote for ZZZX while making a joke, even though this time the first vote was actually serious.

[AnimatedWiz]

And I think joining a wagon quickly is often considered a bit suspicious due to it being a bit of an "anyone but me" sort of vote

This is usually true, but during RVS process, it's actually nice to form a wagon on someone, so we can

see who embarks the wagon and who tries to stop the wagon. From there we can start to deduce pairs of people who seem to act together in some way. Then later in the game we can use this knowledge to infer whether someone is scum or town based on how they acted during those random wagon early on.

That’s a good point—I’ll have to remember to ask you if you notice any particular pairs later on.

[AnimatedWiz]

And for the sake of just documenting a current read, I will VOTE: Not_Mafia for now.

[AnimatedWiz]

Hu Tao, what reads have you generated so far? I would love to hear what someone experienced with death finds suspicious here.

[AnimatedWiz]

Hu Tao, what reads have you generated so far? I would love to hear what someone experienced with death finds suspicious here.

You expect me to have reads 3 pages in?

Well, a decent amount of us have made public a read or two—I figured you might also have one, even if it’s rather undeveloped.

[AnimatedWiz]

Hu Tao, what reads have you generated so far? I would love to hear what someone experienced with death finds suspicious here.

You expect me to have reads 3 pages in?

Well, a decent amount of us have made public a read or two—I figured you might also have one, even if it’s rather undeveloped.

Don't have one yet, and not going to force myself to make one just to appease.

If you don’t have any, that’s fine—I just hadn’t heard a lot from you yet and was curious as to how everyone here operates. I’ll have to jot down that you’re a bit more thorough about your reads and such.

[AnimatedWiz]

Um, let’s see… previously, I was reading you as a bit scummy due to the reluctance to give out info, but you explaining your process means I’m back to neutral for you.

In contrast, Not_Mafia makes me feel as if they’re intentionally trying to obfuscate being read, which I intuit as scummy—obviously, could be the same case as you where you don’t have much info to give out, but it just feels different to me.

Uh, I don’t think I have many townreads currently. I definitely need to work on that.

[AnimatedWiz]

I suppose even a Villager might try to be hard to read—still feels off to me, but I concede I have less experience with them.

I’ll keep my vote on them for now, but who knows how this elimination will end up?

[AnimatedWiz]

Oh, lovely—it’s now a game of chicken. I will say, at least the rainbow text is quite pretty.

[AnimatedWiz]

Oh, lovely—it’s now a game of chicken. I will say, at least the rainbow text is quite pretty.

Don't worry. Not_Mafia is already on the wagon. No one else would risk a premature hammer.

Honest curiosity, but who would benefit from an early hammer—whoever did it would immediately look suspicious, right?

[AnimatedWiz]

What do we think of Random Nurse quickhammering? I have to admit, encountering some WIFOM trying to decipher the reasons he would have to do so.

[AnimatedWiz]

I feel like, even though Not_Mafia was doing a lot of weird things and literally asking to be eliminated, it was still scummy to actually eliminate that early on. Some extenuating circumstances, but most of us only had one or two reads.

Not because he is necessarily scum, but just because he did something scummy, VOTE: Random Nurse. I just ask that

no one else vote on this

so that we can prevent another quickhammer—we need 3 more votes to eliminate, and the scumteam almost certainly has 2 of those votes ready to use.

[AnimatedWiz]

Shoot, didn't see your vote.

UNVOTE: Random Nurse

[AnimatedWiz]

While I hate that we lost so much time D1 and I do find Random Nurse’s insistence on sweeping this under the rug suspicious, both him and ZZZX make valid points that we can’t just keep going in circles arguing about one of the few moves made so far. If we want to avoid ELo D3, we really need to get a correct elimination this time—does anyone else have anything we can work on figuring out?

I will mention, BlueSnakelet and ZZZX have voted together twice so far (an n=2, sure, but it did help put Not_Mafia to E-1). Could be that they were working to push a miselim and found Not_Mafia a convenient target to get people to vote for—a target who did most of the work for them. I can’t say it’s a bulletproof theory, but I would to hear their defenses to see what shakes loose.

[AnimatedWiz]

Yeah, this game doesn’t have too much talk—not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it difficult to get a read on anyone due to how little most of us have said.

If I might ask—BlueSnakelet, what reads do you have? You’ve had several votes but not spoken too much about what motivated them.

[AnimatedWiz]

Can we all please put aside our egos and stop blowing up the game on Day 2? We just got done getting upset with Nurse about hastening an elimination and now y’all are doing the same thing. Trying to get anyone else eliminated extremely early just results in less time we could use to develop reads is just ridiculous.

Just stand down

and angrily type at each other without the threat of another quickhammer looming over our heads. We really need to vote with our heads

after

we thoroughly sift through the information available to us.

[AnimatedWiz]

Blue, you keep on swinging around with your votes, and this time you’re actively courting another quickhammer, all while trying to place the blame on someone else—asking someone else to vote for Nurse and then saying you’ll go after whoever does is either some sort of weird power projection or just blatant attempts to mislead and then miseliminate.

[AnimatedWiz]

Blue, you keep on swinging around with your votes, and this time you’re actively courting another quickhammer, all while trying to place the blame on someone else—asking someone else to vote for Nurse and then saying you’ll go after whoever does is either some sort of weird power projection or just blatant attempts to mislead and then miseliminate.

Please link me your most recent Scum game.

If you feel that my inexperience is leading me the wrong way here, I would be happy to hear your theories are—can’t learn without hearing other perspectives, after all.

[AnimatedWiz]

Blue, you keep on swinging around with your votes, and this time you’re actively courting another quickhammer, all while trying to place the blame on someone else—asking someone else to vote for Nurse and then saying you’ll go after whoever does is either some sort of weird power projection or just blatant attempts to mislead and then miseliminate.

Do you think someone would quickhammer again under these conditions?

Yes, and—in addition—I think scum have obvious motive to lie in answer to your questions, and also the total ability to do so. I don’t think that we can really know who would or wouldn’t quickhammer aside from Nurse, who did.

[AnimatedWiz]

Blue, you keep on swinging around with your votes, and this time you’re actively courting another quickhammer, all while trying to place the blame on someone else—asking someone else to vote for Nurse and then saying you’ll go after whoever does is either some sort of weird power projection or just blatant attempts to mislead and then miseliminate.

Do you think someone would quickhammer again under these conditions?

Yes, and—in addition—I think scum have obvious motive to lie in answer to your questions, and also the total ability to do so. I don’t think that we can really know who would or wouldn’t quickhammer aside from Nurse, who did.

Therefore, if someone says "No, I wouldn't quickhammer", and they go ahead and quickhammer, we'll know they are scum for sure. Right?

Well, I suppose that—while it is a trap laid out in the open—it is still a useful trap if someone does actually fall into it. Like, um, zoning in a fighting game—defining the zones someone will be punished if they enter can really limit opposing tactics.

[AnimatedWiz]

Blue, you keep on swinging around with your votes, and this time you’re actively courting another quickhammer, all while trying to place the blame on someone else—asking someone else to vote for Nurse and then saying you’ll go after whoever does is either some sort of weird power projection or just blatant attempts to mislead and then miseliminate.

Please link me your most recent Scum game.

If you feel that my inexperience is leading me the wrong way here, I would be happy to hear your theories are—can’t learn without hearing other perspectives, after all.

I asked you for a link.

This is my first game—you know this. Please stop trying to discredit me based solely on my inexperience and help me figure this game out.

[AnimatedWiz]

Ah, hm—seems I misread you asking for information on how I play for intimidation instead. I think my natural issues with understanding people might be exacerbated in a format like this—so little information in a text format with the added hurdle of people trying to not give out more information than necessary.

Thanks for your patience with me—I appreciate it.

And yeah, first game ever here. I’ve played in Meatworld plenty, but this is a far more developed and derived meta.

[AnimatedWiz]

NOW, what do you make of the idea of a mass-claim? We are what, two mis-lims away from defeat? I need more information to work with and I think now is the time for all of us to put our cards on the table.

I think a mass claim will go how BlueSnakelet mentioned it thought the quickhammer question would go—maybe not useful immediately, but the second someone deviates we have a target to go for. Honestly, I think it’s great zoning, so we should probably try it out.

In that case,

I’m a vanilla Villager.

[AnimatedWiz]

vanilla Villager.

is that the wording of your role PM?

Just “Villager,” technically.

[AnimatedWiz]

I would like to state, regardless of whether this is truly the set-up or not, having two scum Neighbors with a back-up Village Neighbor would be really funny.

[AnimatedWiz]

WITH THAT SAID:

We are in a 9 player game. We have 2 dead VT’s and 2 VT claims.

4 VT’s is the minimum number of VT’s in a 9 player normal.

Thus, ZZZX and AnimatedWiz are completely clear.

Actually, isn’t it the case that there just needs to be

at least

one vanilla Townie in a game to be considered Normal? I mean, it’s possible we could only have three (Not_Mafia and Hu Tao) and it would still work, right?

If that’s the case,

ZZZX and I aren’t technically clear

, even if we almost certainly are.

[AnimatedWiz]

Sorry, I meant two—I think the late hour has fried my math brain.

[AnimatedWiz]

Isnt a scum Neighborhood technically useless (outside of the backup neighbor) since they already have a chat?

Well, it could be negative utility (due to the possibility of being exposed by the Back-up Neighbor if they don’t play Villager theatre well enough) to balance out power roles or modifiers, like Unstoppable or Roleblocker.

Also, there’s a possibility that if they do play the theatre well, the surviving scum might be able to convince the Back-up to be on their side (to prevent a very swingy back-to-back scum elimination).

Essentially, it would be an additional skill-based modifier on the scum team—if they use their Neighborhood well, they can get by the Traffic Analyst and also possibly recruit the Back-up. If they don’t, they could get punished with the possibility of being exposed as quiet Neighbors.

…then again, this all relies on the unproven assumption that both Neighbors are scum, so who knows?

[AnimatedWiz]

Can we please wait to eliminate Zhu?

I don’t want us to lose more discussion time again, especially since we just got a decent amount of information to work with.

[AnimatedWiz]

I would like to at least hear from him before we just unceremoniously get rid of him—because if he is Village-aligned (or even if not), it could be really useful for us to go off of.

[AnimatedWiz]

Animated appears to be acting incredibly pro-town and for now at this point in the catch-up I'm inclined to believe them town. It could be because the lack of overall content that wolves are able to control the early game a lot more and they appear to know what they're doing so I am of course cautious but this is a great thing to keep in mind. I like them a lot.

I am flattered, but this is my first game ever, so I wouldn't say I fully know what I'm doing.

P.S. I appreciate the detailed catch-up thoughts—means we can get a sort of outsider look on what's been said here so far.

[AnimatedWiz]

Personally, I feel like ZZZX and Blue might be the scumteam? They did vote together on Day 1, and Blue did wrongly state that ZZZX was guaranteed to be a Villager due to him claiming to be a vanilla Villager like I did (though it might just be an honest mistake of logic). ZZZX also said that he thinks Blue is town—I think this was right before the massclaim? Additionally, Blue said that Passenger should be eliminated next if Zhu flipped green, and Passenger early on chainsawed ZZZX for joining on my bandwagon early on during the voting stage.

Honestly, all of that is a bit circumstantial, but those two lean Wolves for me (in addition to Passenger, who is also very gung-ho on another quick elimination).

P.S. Personally, I was already rather townreading Zhu (my strongest townread, actually), so it's nice to have that read strengthened by Jackson's wave of analysis. Hopefully that helps pause the wave for another quick elimination.

[AnimatedWiz]

Also, rather impressive that we have enough posts in a short enough timeframe to deny Bianco and Alianna's usual tactic of having a vote count at the top of every page.

[AnimatedWiz]

I think we may need them to respond to all the commotion we just made in order to see how our reads and theories pan out. It might be up to 48 hours before they're able to give us a response, but we have a good amount of time before this day is over—we can wait if needed, I feel.

[AnimatedWiz]

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Yeah, this game doesn’t have too much talk—not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it difficult to get a read on anyone due to how little most of us have said.

If I might ask—BlueSnakelet, what reads do you have? You’ve had several votes but not spoken too much about what motivated them.

At some point Yesterday I made this list, though I can't remember the exact thought process behind it:

Annie
ZZZX
Heip
Passenger
Steady
Nurse
Tao
Not_Mafia

The game was barely out of RVS, so none of these were particularly strong.

Fine... I'll bite.

VOTE: Not_Mafia

Call me hypocrite, but I can't think of anyone else.

why not tao? it seems you were actually thinking of other people if you bothered to make that list.

What are you saying here? The list was like 200 posts later

he said he made it at the beginning of the game

Beginning of the game or not. The posts you quoted were 67 posts apart, and the list was posted after the vote you quoted. I'm not following what you're meaning here

i'm asking if he made that list towards the beginning of the game why did he say "can't think of anyone else". he shared it much later but said he had made it around the end of the rvs stage.

I can't speak for him but the day ended on page 4. That's 100 posts for the entirety of day 1 and him having 67 posts between your vote doesn't say much. That's literally almost comparing the start of the day to the end that and the end of RVS is where you form the initial reads. If the list was formed at the end of RVS aligns with genuine thought processes. There's nothing wrong with those two posts

Honest question here: is it possible that, due to the list being posted far later after the time he claimed to have come up with the reads and that he didn't have an explanation for any of them, it's possibly not an accurate reads list? I mean, even if he really did have those reads at that time, we don't even know what reasons he had for them.

You could even extend the logic to say that it's a fake list posted later to match what everyone else ending up read, but I'm not sure if that's too far out on a limb.

[AnimatedWiz]

That’s totally fair—I also think I’m likely overcomplicating things here. I appreciate the insight.

[AnimatedWiz]

Wiz? Nurse? Snake? Can you read Jackson's case against Passenger and tell me what you think?

As far as I can tell (you'll have to forgive me for my lack of clear insight, fibromyalgia has made my brain soup this morning), Jackson's case is rather convincing for one made primarily made on a single piece of evidence—it's a pretty good piece of evidence to be fair, and the rest of Passenger's posts have also made me scumread them somewhat, so I feel like Passenger isn't a poor choice of elimination for this day.

However, I would like to see what others have to say (especially ZZZX) before I jump on the wagon here—no real reason to take someone out early again, in my opinion.

[AnimatedWiz]

I'm going to drop this role claim list here so that everyone can refer to it later as needed:

Not_Mafia: Villager
Hu Tao: Villager

AnimatedWiz: Villager
ZZZX: Villager
BlueSnakelet: Neighbor
TheHoldSteady: Indecisive Doctor
Random Nurse: Lazy Traffic Analyst
JacksonVirgo: Neighbor
Passenger: Backup Neighbor

P.S. This is in order of claim, with me claiming first and Passenger last. Not_Mafia and Hu Tao are included to be thorough.

[AnimatedWiz]

Actually. I want the Traffic Analyst to check Passenger. That'd solve them easy, I'm gonna then switch to ZZZ

VOTE: ZZZ

So, here's the issue: according to NAR, nightkills happen before investigative actions. So, if Random Nurse checks out Passenger and one of the Neighbors is nightkilled in the same night, I believe he'll still get a positive result due to Passenger getting access to the Neighbor PT automatically after the nightkill.

Actually, I should check that statement's validity—

@mods, would a Village Backup Neighbor show a positive result to a Traffic Analyst if one of the Neighbors was nightkilled that same night?

[AnimatedWiz]

I can see arguments for both interpretations (since the access is

technically

granted right after the kill, but is practically granted after the entire night ends). However the mods decide this issue works affects the vote for me, since we might not be able to rely on Random Nurse getting useful info on Passenger.

[AnimatedWiz]

Oh wow—I really need to double-check the wiki when I try to look this stuff up. Thank you for the clarification!

[AnimatedWiz]

So far, I feel like I townread Jackson and Steady decently enough—you both seem to be actively attempting to figure this out, and that reads as very trustworthy for me. I don’t feel like I can say anyone is definitely town, but it would surprise me right now if either of you flipped red.

Nurse is reading as town, but like that one townsperson who lives all the way off in the woods—distant and hard to understand, but not too untrustworthy. I’ve been a bit flip-floppy about him the entire game, but over Day 2 I’ve begun to feel like I can trust him—just at at arm’s length away from me.

ZZZX, BlueSnakelet, and Passenger all read as scum to me, but it’s odd—a big part of the reason for those reads is just how little information I feel I have about them. What information I do have feels incomplete, but suspicious, and I wonder if the lack of information is deliberate. Realistically, they all can’t be scum, so I hope I’m able to get more information to form a better read on them.

Notably, Passenger’s claims make me very suspicious of him—I don’t feel like their arguments have come together as a solid defense, but I’m fine to not eliminate them today so that we can get more information through Nurse.

[AnimatedWiz]

To be quite honest, ZZZX hasn't posted anything too in-depth (mostly a lot of one-sentence reads), which is why I don't feel I have too much to add onto your questioning of them. Obviously, the lack of information they've provided makes me a bit suspicious, but I do feel as if they're the least scummy out of the three I mentioned? It feels like Blue is really trying to work with ZZZX (claiming they were confirmed Villager, for instance), but I don't seem to see that same behavior coming from ZZZX (even before Blue became a prime suspect), which makes me feel it could be Blue trying to pocket ZZZX? Could certainly be wrong, though. Overall, I just don't feel strongly about ZZZX like I do about Blue and Passenger.

Checking the Doctor claim seems fine to me since it can help confirm our town core, but I wonder if checking out ZZZX would allow us to get a better idea of who to eliminate on D3?

[AnimatedWiz]

I think considering tomorrow will be limlo if we're wrong here, the priority should be limming who is the most likely scum (which is probably Passenger, their response to the accusations were terrible). With RN not being clear (but I lean town) any report on limlo would still be something we'd have to work through.

For checks tonight I think ZZ would be a good choice because we can try to clear them if our suspicions are wrong.

I agree with pretty much all of this—I suppose I’ll just VOTE: Passenger now since I have a feeling they won’t be posting their reads for a good while, and I don’t want us to delay so long that we don’t eliminate anyone.

[AnimatedWiz]

You know, I’m at least glad we waited to get more information in the first place. It seemed like we were actually going to eliminate your spot right before you hopped in, Jackson, and then you helped turn it around and someone else is against the wall instead.

[AnimatedWiz]

Did it bother anyone else that when I led on Jackson's predecessor it went to E-1 almost straight away? This bandwagon seems a lot slower in comparison.

Honestly, I was a little shocked at how fast we were moving to elimination then considering we had pretty much all said we weren’t fans of how early Day 1 ended—to be fair, a lot of the people we’re reading as scummy were very active then in pushing the early elimination, so that was likely the biggest reason for how quick it moved along.

[AnimatedWiz]

Honest question: why do you think Steady would be the nightkill?

[AnimatedWiz]

I would just hammer at this point, honestly. Seeing one or two additional flips will likely help generate more discussion, since we can be better sure which path is leading us where we need to go.

[AnimatedWiz]

It's nice to see you back, ZZZX—I hope the surprise of the thread almost tripling in post count was a nice surprise after a few days away.

[AnimatedWiz]

That’s totally fair—if I had to guess, it might be the switch from being very anti-quickhammer earlier in the day to being far more willing to end the day earlier now. I honestly just don’t know how much more info we’ll get out of today aside from hearing from ZZZX, but that’ll happen soon enough.

[AnimatedWiz]

That’s totally fair—if I had to guess, it might be the switch from being very anti-quickhammer earlier in the day to being far more willing to end the day earlier now. I honestly just don’t know how much more info we’ll get out of today aside from hearing from ZZZX, but that’ll happen soon enough.

This post pings scum to me because it shows you've been thinking about reasons why people might suspect you, despite being in a slot that until now was widely town read.

These are things to note for later, but I don't think they eclipse the Passenger case for me.

To be honest, I’m just a rather anxious person—I tend to be too concerned and hyperaware of what people think of me in general, so I think that’s coming into play here. I totally respect being suspicious of me though, and I’ll happily answer any questions y’all might have for me.

[AnimatedWiz]

Random Nurse—who did you investigate last night? I think that’s the only real way we can proceed today.

[AnimatedWiz]

Take your time, worst—I’m also operating under the assumption that one of the people in the Neighborhood is scum. To be frank, I’m more inclined to believe it’s your spot at the moment based on your predecessor’s actions, but I’d like to hear what you have to say as well.

[AnimatedWiz]

Well, while it’s nice to be confirmed by you, I fear we still have the main choice between the neighbors just as difficult to make. I personally feel like it’s the worst and ZZZX, but I can’t discount the possibility of Jackson being scum instead—but at least one of the neighbors is certainly scum.

[AnimatedWiz]

I'm going to drop this role claim list here so that everyone can refer to it later as needed:

Not_Mafia: Villager
Hu Tao: Villager

AnimatedWiz: Villager
ZZZX: Villager
BlueSnakelet: Neighbor
TheHoldSteady: Indecisive Doctor
Random Nurse: Lazy Traffic Analyst
JacksonVirgo: Neighbor
Passenger: Backup Neighbor

P.S. This is in order of claim, with me claiming first and Passenger last. Not_Mafia and Hu Tao are included to be thorough.

Here you go!

[AnimatedWiz]

The false Neighbor wouldn’t trigger a positive result until a Neighbor has died, since it wouldn’t have access to any communication channels until then—could help confirm that claim, I suppose.

[AnimatedWiz]

i also think blue was really towny? their day one posts weren't exactly groundbreaking, but i don't think their reads presented as made-up and i think it's noticeable that they were approaching this game from a perspective of sorting alignments, not a perspective of making friends and getting by. their day two posts also feel really pure from where i stand - they read as someone who was manipulated, not the manipulator.

If you don’t mind me asking, who do you feel manipulated Blue?

Also, it seems to me like the general consensus is some combination of ZZZX, Jackson, and worst is our scumteam, which isn’t horrible odds for us to pick from—2/3 is better than 2/5 for sure.

[AnimatedWiz]

Replacing heipizhu4.

Please do not discuss this action.

I’m pretty sure this is the reason Random Nurse is alluding to—we can’t speculate on the reasons people have replaced.

[AnimatedWiz]

This is truly a frustrating choice for voting, because it feels like all my choices have been a bit scummy.

Jackson’s been posting so much that it feels like they’re actively attempting to bury other arguments, worst’s predecessor generated little but scumreads for the whole game, and ZZZX has voted a lot but said little about it. Even Nurse has played his cards so close to his chest that I can’t even read him too well, though I do feel like I can trust him still.

[AnimatedWiz]

I mean, I still read you as town more than the other two, and I’m definitely not saying my feelings are facts, but at this point I have to be suspicious and think critically about everyone—I don’t want to eliminate the wrong person for a third time.

[AnimatedWiz]

Well, mostly I just am trying to figure out what pairings make sense, since that’s probably the best tool here.

I feel like ZZZX and Blue working together since early on makes me consider them as a likely scumteam, but I can’t discount the possibility that Bianco would

definitely

consider having a double-scum neighborhood for how funny that would be. I suppose that, since both of those possibilities include the worst, he’s not a bad choice as a target.

Plus, if he flips as an Informed Wolf Neighbor, we know it’s almost certainly the second possibility—eliminating ZZZX just doesn’t seem to be as reasonable right now.

[AnimatedWiz]

So, it seems like the main suspicions of everyone so far are:

Animated Wiz: the worst
JacksonVirgo: the worst
Random Nurse: ?
the worst: JacksonVirgo
ZZZX: JacksonVirgo and the worst

Seems like we have a mostly split town as far as I can tell. I still think going for one of the neighbors is best—personally, I think the worst would be the best choice here, but I don't want to start voting just yet still.

[AnimatedWiz]

Okay, I’m catching on this morning’s posts now—I hope nothing too crazy happened while I was asleep.

[AnimatedWiz]

What in the hell happened? So, apparently we have a Messenger who sent both ZZZX and Random Nurse messages? I’m not that Messenger, so I’m not sure who it is, because any of y’all could claim to receive a message but just be the Messenger instead.

[AnimatedWiz]

That would make sense. Based on all I’ve read here…

VOTE: the worst

[AnimatedWiz]

Wait, couldn’t JV not hammering also mean that they’re both scum? And just trying to finish D3 instead of risking a D4?

[AnimatedWiz]

Oh wait, you said Jackson and ZZZX, not Jackson and the worst. I need to double check this stuff.

[AnimatedWiz]

It could be possible that there aren’t any actual Neighbors if both Jackson and the worst were scumteam and one was informed about the existence of a Backup Neighbor. This way, one could be a Werewolf Messenger and the other could be a Informed Werewolf, and they would still have good defense if a TA checked either.

[AnimatedWiz]

I’m not saying it’s definitely the case, but I’m countering the argument that it could only be ZZZX and Random Nurse.

[AnimatedWiz]

I’ll be quite honest, I’ve started to feel that Jackson is scum alongside the worst. If it’s the case, I would be rather upset that I went along with Jackson’s reasoning on D2, but it would be stupid to bury my head in the sand and not have my reads fit the evidence so far.

You seem like a lovely person and a good player, but I don’t feel like I can trust you any more, Jackson. I feel like you’re protecting the worst here and it’s just not adding up for me.

[AnimatedWiz]

I think one Wolf plus a Traitor might be rather weak and swingy, as one lucky elimination D1 ends the game immediately since the Traitor gets endgamed.

[AnimatedWiz]

I just… ugh!

This is really hurting my head, but to me, your logic hasn’t been as ironclad as it was on D2, Jackson. You don’t seem to be acknowledging my actual arguments here, and discounting them for reasons that don’t feel secure.

I’m still focused on going for the worst as our elimination here, and you seem to be adverse to that elimination despite it agreeing with what you’ve said in the past—that’s why I’m starting to scumread you now. An Informed Wolf is far more likely than a solo Wolf in my opinion, and my suggestion neatly explains a lot of the information we have so far. I’m not going to discount my gut, but I’m also doing my best to not solely rely on it.

To me, the worst makes the most sense as scum, and either ZZZX or you are the fellow scum. Please stop standing in the way.

[AnimatedWiz]

Wiz I'm not sure how much experience you have at Mafia so PLEASE don't take offense:

If you're in endgame PLEASE take your time, analyze everything from votes to inactivity, and grill both of them to get as much information as possible.

I'm fairly certain I WILL be the kill tonight because I can just use Traffic Analyst again.

Thank you for the advice—I appreciate it.

I don’t think your elimination is guaranteed, as you’re going to lose your night ability due to us only having one Wolf left, right (unless Lazy works differently than I’m remembering)?

[AnimatedWiz]

I think we’re both getting really heated about this, and I really do apologize for my part in this—I’m also currently having a flare-up, and I think that might be affecting my mood and critical thinking here.

I, uh, think that maybe we should both take a step back for a minute and focus on our RL stuff for a day or so—then we can come back with more focus and less emotion and try to figure this out.

I think I’ll be stepping out until later tonight so that I can nap and get my brain cells into working order.

To help make sure that we can all take a break, UNVOTE: the worst.

[AnimatedWiz]

I will say one thing: the neighbor claim would be proved upon seeing the worst flip. If the worst is a Neighbor Wolf and not a Mailman or Informed or anything, then I’ll gladly concede that I was wrong. I am not deadset on you, Jackson.

Okay, break starts now.

[AnimatedWiz]

My nap is over and I feel much clearer-headed—yay!

Okay, so, I’m still thinking the most logical course of action here is to eliminate the worst, since it helps give us more information and works with both major theories of who could scum.

If the worst isn’t a Neighbor, then Jackson lied about being a Neighbor as well, which is confirmation that they’re also scum. This is an easy elimination here, but I’m unsure if this is going to be what we discover—would neatly tie everything up, though.

If the worst really is a Neighbor, then my theory about Jackson being a scumteam with them falls apart, and it’s more likely to be ZZZX then—after all, I feel like Blue and ZZZX were working together earlier on. Obviously, we don’t have anything super certain in this case, but we can probably have Jackson and ZZZX make defenses and dissect them before the hammering vote D4.

If Nurse gets nightkilled instead of me, I’m not going immediately tunnel anyone D4 if the worst flips as a Neighbor. I’m not stupid, and I really dislike being called that—I know that my theory makes sense with the evidence presented to us so far, but I never claimed it was the only possibility that works.

I would love to work with you all to get a clutch town win D4, but please don’t sling mud at me if you want me to trust you—not cool.

Let’s find out if my theory carries water.

VOTE: the worst

[AnimatedWiz]

That’s fine by me—I’d like to have us all have a good discussion before we vote anyone.

I admit, currently I am more suspicious of ZZZX since, if you were scum and truly convinced I’d go immediately for you, you would not have left me alive for D4.

[AnimatedWiz]

Okay, so, I'm going to read all of this, but first off, I'm glad your real life stuff got settled and that everything is better now. I figured that you might be acting differently due to that stress, but I didn't really make the connection that it could possibly affect how I would perceive you in a game sense, which explains a decent amount of your scummy behavior.

[AnimatedWiz]

So, let's see...

Spoiler:

Like ducky flipping informed is such a kick in the teeth considering the whole tinfoil around double scum in the neighbourhood

Okay, so, my main theory of there being two scum but no Neighborhood is disproven—technically the Informed modifier allows for you and the worst to still be scum but Neighbors with them getting the extra information of there being a Village Backup Neighbor, but it also could just tell the worst that there's a Traffic Analyst (which is actionable knowledge considering the scumteam consisting of a Werewolf Messenger and a Werewolf Neighbor), meaning that it's not really important at this point any more. I hope I'll be able to see what the information was eventually, but that'll have to wait for the postgame.

Spoiler:

I would like to start by saying that I am extremely good and especially consistent at scum, I know that's probably going to come full swing and bite me in the ass but I am not one to make myself appear paired so obviously. Any scum worth their weight in gold would cut their losses and push their confirmed scum partner, but I didn't. I pushed against it because of the long-game (today, me vs zzz that I don't believe I'd win because of your reads), do you think scum of my caliber (I hate sounding this stuck up, please get my intention) would actually pair this hard on a scum partner that was 100% going out? I feel that's quite an insult to my skill to assume such a thing

I agree with getting rid of the worst far sooner being a reasonable choice of action for scum to take—it means we can get onto D4 sooner and you don't risk me or Random Nurse getting more suspicious of you.

Spoiler:

In 51 they are incredibly and overly cautious around placing their vote. They specify that it's a serious vote, in which why would Town ever need to disclaim that? I know, because they aren't Town and they're acting incredibly cautious as a way to save face. He also contradicts himself in this very post as he is saying that it's a genuine read with reason behind it BUT also only a vote because he has no other read elsewhere which at raw value is a logical contradiction. He then acts LAMIST (if you don't know, that means they're posting in a way that pretty much says "Look at me, I'm so townie", aka doing things for the image) with the E-2 statement which is both unneeded and just reeks that he's being overly self-conscious because he is afraid of harming is image.

I admit, while the part where they say it's a genuine read is likely not-indicative (since they had been accused of trying to sneak in a vote on me while joking earlier), the wording on the actual questioning of Not_Mafia felt very odd at the time, and it was the second time that they had been the second vote on someone in just 3 pages.

Spoiler:

In post 108ZZZ also has a completely different appearance vs his actions, especially surrounding him wanting to wait to discuss around EoD2 but as soon as he appears, he says his thoughts and then

immediately

hammers it without even waiting for anybody to hop on and discuss. It took him 30 minutes since he started catching up after wanting to discuss to his hammer. There is absolutely no way a Town has such a perspective contradiction.

Yeah, it was rather odd how ZZZX showed up to hammer. I know I've mentioned in the past how I feel ZZZX tends to vote often for how little they talk or explain themselves, and I still feel it's never been the right ratio for an invested Villager.

Spoiler:

ZZZ is also the only logical person to be the Mailman. There is no reason for a scum neighbour (which would be me in that world) to have both a Mailman AND a neighbour shot. What's the purpose? There's a Traffic Analyst, I assume it would be primarily to keep the scum outside of the neighbourhood to not be able to get red-checked as easily and the TA is purely a means to clear Town as opposed to incriminate Mafia. It is his problem that he did not claim it when a mass-claim came around, but if mafia neighbour had a mailman, would they not also claim that as it's part of their role? And claiming it does not incriminate them at all? (To clarify, it was my pred that claimed, not me).

It would be rather weird to have a Neighbor Messenger in general, especially in a set-up with a Traffic Analyst. Bianco seems to have some wacky and fun ideas, but I find that one player would be needlessly a bit overloaded.

[AnimatedWiz]

And, personally, I would find it an odd strategy for you to go after ZZZX and the worst to go after you if you both were scum—it's possible and unexpected, but likely a particularly fragile strategy where stuff could go wrong easily. Still, WIFOM, and if the worst did get eliminated, it could both help clear you and make ZZZX look like a valid target it the stars aligned and all that.

[AnimatedWiz]

Also, I'm taking a trip to Fallingbrook this weekend for my anniversary, so I'll be here infrequently during the next few days—I'll still respond to questions and everything, but the responses will just be somewhat delayed.

Noted.

[AnimatedWiz]

By the way, ZZZX, take your time on your defense—I want to give you a fair shake before we vote in a few days.

[AnimatedWiz]

That’s definitely sounds fair, yeah. Good luck with the move!

[AnimatedWiz]

Considering we do have a little over 4 days left, I think if ZZZX is able to get their defense in tomorrow, we should have enough time to go over everything and vote before we have one day left—at least, I think so?

[AnimatedWiz]

Thank you Bianco—we really appreciate your patience with us.

[AnimatedWiz]

Ah, so it seems I have the unenviable role of choosing who is eliminated here—nothing like the crushing responsibility of having to pick correctly to really jolt the sense, y’know?

I’m going to look through this backlog now and give some overarching thoughts.

[AnimatedWiz]

Ah, well, it’s a little too late for me to go through everything here right now and have detailed comments on the arguments from the last day, but everything from both of you seem to have reasonable alternate explanations—which is to say that there doesn’t seem to be any unmistakable smoking guns, which isn’t my favorite sort of endgame to have.

I think, uh, based on the info we have, there’s not going to be any open-shut cases, so I might have to go off conjecture in the end—however, I can at least use some logic on the set-up by analyzing Bianco’s previous set-ups to hopefully figure this new one out.

So, uh, basically—ZZZX also has a good defense, and basically nothing upon this first, somewhat cursory glance over both arguments seems particularly unexplainable to me. I might’ve missed something while reading through, but after work tomorrow I’ll do my best to thoroughly analyze all of this and then organize my thoughts for y’all.

[AnimatedWiz]

So, some notes on the most important things in ZZZX’s arguments:

Spoiler:

ii-

Jackson was reading the thread, proven by post #604 where they commented on my reads, in the same page where you can see they were voted by TW, yet they have nothing to say except that post. They had nothing to comment on TW when it was put to a situation where only they or TW are the prime vote for the day. In fact they casually ignored the entire situation

I will say, Jackson did say that they had to go help their mom in an area without signal/wi-fi around this point, so I’m unsure about this being able to be reasonably associated with anything but legitimate V/LA—at least, I think assuming it’s V/LA before anything malicious is probably best—so we can’t really take the lack of posts here as proof of anything, I think.

Spoiler:

iv-

Jackson, despite the entire situation, despite it being a clear situation where either they or the worst are scum, DID NOT VOTE. Even once in the entire day phase. When it was Elim-Lo. Wait, correction, they did once, then immeditely unvoted when they found it is not the hammer. What?

It did find it really weird how Jackson only voted when they thought it would be the hammer—sure, we can say it was due to frustration, but it feels odd to rescind the vote based on it not ending the elimination right there. While we can’t really extrapolate much from the lack of responses earlier on in D3, this refusal to vote (and refusal to keep their vote) was super odd to me even at the time, and I’m glad you also noted it as weird.

Spoiler:

b- TMI (Too much information)

Logically, in every possible normal world, you expect the confirmed townie to be the lim, and the logical action is to then play around and expect the remaining players, however Jackson's end of day was also very interesting. Where they went to talk to Wiz, and TRY TO CONVINCE RN TO TELL WIZ TO NOT BE BAISED OR WHAT NOT.

In normal situations, this doesn't make sense, why be focused on Wiz? You can have an assumption or an answer to that point, and it might be fair, if not for the method that it was done.

Jackson had a very clear pin-point focus on me, with very, very little anything regarding TW, in fact looking at #762 and other posts, you can tell that it was a given that TW was scum for them, even though... well, I can't see them talking about TW much if at all? In fact, you spent more time discussing ME, discussing Mailman, where they somehow became an expert at the topic, AFTER me and RN brought it up, over the last 2 days. Just look at #501, his "earnest scum-reads" are me, and passenger. TW? Who is TW even?

If Jackson is town, it should be obvious that Worst is scum, and in that case they would defend their case their hardest, town would not not-care in lim-lose, scum would not not-case in Scum v Town, the only explination for this dont-care behavior is a planned SvS.

They spent half the day talking about me, limming me, or me being scum, but didn't bother voting. You might ask, why? Well, because after TW's vote, it would result in their being scum being aparent, when none quick hammers me, or Jackson, then by a simple PoE it would mean 100% that jackson is scum. And with the other pairings we had found, it would be a solved game.

I hate to use this, but I feel there’s a burden of proficiency on Jackson here. Jackson had a lot of wrong reads the entire game (especially scumreads), which is rather suspicious—not conclusive by any means, but still, they did lead the town to the wrong target on D2 and did not assist much, if at all, during D3.

Spoiler:

c- Setup information

Now, setup is interesting. And other than TMI, multiple people, including you Wiz, mentioned how the setup can work with 2 Maf-Neighbors, with the backup neighbor and the informed modifier. Their neighborhood catch up that we requested was not organic, the entire "interaction" of "regretfully" finding out that one of them will be scum or what not felt fake, and jackson did not act with that in mind. In a sense, it can explain his "confidence" in TW being scum, sure. But will it explain that he took no action, and instead settled to non-care for TW, not even defending himself?

Next, is the mailman, which we have established exists, yet somehow questions that the mailman can be a neighbor (#710) EVEN WHEN HE HIMSELF, MENTIONED THAT COMBINED ROLES EXIST IN THE SAME CONTEX!! #828, its not simply about changing their mind, but about finding an excuse to discredit me, even at the cost of discrediting their own post 30 minutes earlier (!).

Next, back to #828, he mentions about me avoiding claiming it,

when in reality it was me who even set the topic in motion, and the only other person to even mention it was RN, and that was AFTER I mentioned it.

In fact, I will add an interesting sauce to the mix, why were the Mailman messages very unhelpful, nor trying to really set anything up? I believe it is because it is compulsive to send to a non faction member. You might say, ZZZX, isnt that TMI? How would you know?
I find it interesting that I have recieved an empty mail today, with RN recieving one D1, and me on D2. To be fair this isn't as strong of a proof, because it turns back to my words, but would a scum-me not claim a non-scum looking role (Mailman is usually more likely to be town aligned, and it makes sense for it to exist as a scum-claim with the way we saw the roles in this game, or to saw confusion).

In fact, you can tell with both me RN, the moment none claimed mailman, BOTH OF US AGREED THAT THERE WAS NO NEED TO DISCUSS IT FURTHER, it was clear the mailman was scum refusing to claim, and there were no tools in the game to find said Mailman, so it would make more sense to avoid any chaos or bs from the topic. Yet you find Jackson very deep in this topic, hence why I went into it here.

Oh jeez, can you imagine Compulsive Disloyal Messenger Neighbor Werewolf as a role? I know it’s possible (and not that unlikely given this set-up), but gosh, what a funny idea. I think that, personally, it’s odd to have two communicative roles on one slot, which is a major factor in my trust of Jackson—but at the same time, the Informed modifier on the worst means is likely for some sort of information, right?

Jackson was rather weird about my theory, which could be due to frustration or something along those lines, but I also have to consider how it could also an active attempt to discourage a real solve. Interestingly, multiple people (including me) noted the possibility of a double-Neighbor scumteam D2 after the massclaim, so it must be at least something notable.

Plus, based on Bianco’s previous games, it’s very clear that some wild stuff tends to happen with roles when he mods—we have to consider even the oddest possibilities as perhaps more realistic here than a “standard” set-up.

[AnimatedWiz]

I admit, at this point at the end of the game there’s so much information to comb through that it’s rather overwhelming. There’s good evidence for both sides here, and it’s so incredibly hard to try to figure out what the best choice is—I feel I might have to go with my gut most of all.

ZZZX has been quiet a lot of the game and consistently rather suspicious. Jackson has been so active in leading us away from the correct eliminations.

I… think I may have to vote soon if I want to make a decision that I stand by.

[AnimatedWiz]

If I could just ask y’all to make your final arguments for me in the next day, that would help me a lot.

[AnimatedWiz]

I think in that case, I just have to be honest and vote here.

Jackson, I feel like you keep antagonizing me, even when I’m confirmed as a Villager. You don’t just disagree with my theories—you say I’m in dreamland and that there’s no possibility of me being right. You say you’re just one of the greatest scum players out there, but also that you had very little options this game as a Villager, and I can’t really sort you out. If you really want me to believe you, I can’t say it’s working.

My gut says it’s you… and I really hope it’s right.

VOTE: Jackson Virgo.

[AnimatedWiz]

I... I wasn't asking to be worshipped or anything. I just wanted to be treated like I knew what I was talking about... and in the end, I think I mostly did? I'm glad I was able to figure out that I was being manipulated in the end, and that we were able to finish such a close game. Thanks to everyone for playing with me! c:

[AnimatedWiz]

I, uh, can't really speak for everyone here, but I didn't really think much of the replacement at all—this might be due to me townreading heipizhu heavily when it occurred, but I just thought they were busy and didn't think they could play much.