Mafiascum.net

I'm sorry, I know I've said so many times I've been going to reread only to procrastinate, and especially promised to tonight because we're getting so close to deadline and I haven't done all I wanted, but I was really blown away by something unexpected, and this is one of those days you want to have woken up and had never happen.

I really will get to it in the morning, but I can't think straight right now.

Take your time Prism. Clearly something big happened. This is only a game - do what you need to.

I'm not really sure what to make of nn's meta and trying to sort it has just served as a point of confusion rather than a point of bringing clarity.. Newbie #1741 is the game I'm talking about here.

The scum sample size is one game and nn has gotten noticeably a lot better as a player since it. but from what I see nn's attitude in general has been very different. I gave some of my original thoughts in a prior post:

In post 3194, Prism wrote:That was me, and I did pick up on the increased aggressiveness in this game, or rather how much you bent over backwards in your other game (#133 was the one that stuck out to me). One of the reasons it's taken longer (besides me obviously getting entangled elsewhere in the game) is because whereas at first I thought that style of posts was nonexistent in your scumgame, when I saw #174 which suggested that it was more complex than it first seemed. Glancing through now I don't see any others as aggressive but the fact that my initial conclusion was wrong is the reason it's taken so long, but I agree that so far it points to you being town. It's expected that you'd play the games differently even if you were scum in both but that's not what I'm looking for here.

#174 was really the only post of its kind as far as aggression goes, nn has been significantly more aggressive this game but some of that can be chalked up to just the sheer fact that we had to deal with Shadow for awhile (ex. #1549)
nn liked to push on inconsistencies that game, ex. this post, and posts like #542 in this game do the same but seem a lot better thought out and more precise about what made it a tell, and in general makes a lot of sense to me in hindsight even though I can no longer remember the read I had on Gamma.

The more useful thing to me was just a chance to go over more of nn's posts. #542 above is one I liked, but there is a whole host of posts large and small trying to get a boring lynch, in particular #1238 (a promised case a few hours before if people would hold off on hammering eager) and when he still didn't switch in #1473. I'm not going to go through and make links for them/quote them all because that'd take all day, but you can look at the ISO for yourself. There was a point at which nn said something along the lines of "When boring flips red, we need to take a hard look at Shadow" which is sketchy in hindsight, as it looks like it could be setting up for an Eager/Shadow back to back mislynch, but nn later winds it back and agrees to work with Shadow when he really didn't need to. There's a lot more to this, such as the tone being off in some posts but really on in others and me thinking it's a me problem, but in general I still am leaning nn town. He pushed boring Day 1, he continued to push her a bit even in possible autoloss (though there were two posts trying to get me/Implosion on Grendel). He pivoted after the LUV flip but posts like this #2279 are not the type of posts I'm expecting from a scum partner here, and he comes around pretty quickly by #2354.

I agree that nn's reads this week have been really strange, and I'll get to that in a second, but really this feels more like just waiting for me/nn to implode given the sequences on pages 127 & 128 more than anything else. You're asking nn why he's not rereading, despite the fact he just did a pretty significant one on me/Shadow even though it was incomplete, and you've yet to really give the results of any of yours. I'm failing to see what makes nn's prior days scummy.

As for what I want you to answer nn this is the thing that bothers me the most:

In post 3175, Prism wrote:

In post 3167, nn30 wrote:He began D3 with a fairly strong scum read on Boring (2278). Yet, directly following that vote, he spends 2336 a lot 2338 of time 2421 and energy 2423 on other people 2472 until finally he switches over to Grendel 2545.

The chain of posts I just linked to were in chronological order starting with his vote for Boring in 2278 and ended with his vote on Grendel in 2545.

For somebody who felt strong enough to vote for Boring, he didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to gather votes onto her. He mostly just argues with other people about unrelated things.

This isn't true at all.

#2236 is almost entirely dedicated to boring, with only the first and last quotes being unrelated. The rest is all me questioning/explaining my read to boring, telling you why I didn't agree with your townread on boring, and encouraging Zoronos to reconsider his read.

#2238 was purposely separated from #2236, people were pushing you over boring and I wanted to make it clear I wasn't going to go along. "Thank god for Implosion" is also referencing him coming back and voting boring, because nobody else was agreeing with me until he rolled in 3-4 posts before.

#2421 also dedicates significant time towards explaining more of my scumread on her to boring and more convincing Zoronos boring is mafia. The only thing unrelated is me trying to convince Shadow to stop tunneling you...again so he'll vote boring.

#2423 is a direct response to Shadow and still is me trying to convince him boring is scum.

#2472 is the only one completely unrelated and it was to give Shadow an ego check because he was making it impossible to work with him, and the posts that you've linked here show that I tried very hard to.

I'm not going to dispute that my Grendel read was off the mark, he was the first person I got a chance to reread between him and Dierfire and I found a shit ton I didn't like, and it wound up costing us a lot, and that's my fault. I've been the first to own up to me likely costing us the win that day and have listed it myself as a reason against me. The biggest thing I can say here is to actually go through and evaluate my reasoning on Grendel and see that it's coming from a town point of view. This is what I've been saying all game.

In post 3167, nn30 wrote:This line of play could obviously come from town. But... the more I read it the more it feels scummy to me.

You didn't even read them.

In post 3185, Prism wrote:

In post 3184, nn30 wrote:I did read them.

Mentioning Boring/talking to Boring and pushing townies to vote for boring are not the same thing.

No, you haven't, even when I've explained why.

These are all in the posts you quoted:

In post 2336, Prism wrote:

In post 2279, nn30 wrote:p-edit - not even how early she wanted LUV on day one

I think it means nothing when it was halfhearted at best up until Day 2.

In post 2308, nn30 wrote:Boring (wanted LUV's booty for two days)

I really, really don't feel like this is the case. When was the last time you ISO'd it? I see no realistic pushing on LUV until boring was a 50/50 for the lynch.

In post 2311, Zoronos wrote:I find scum tend to mark their scum buddies as 'neutral' and will constantly express mild to moderate suspicion on them *while not pushing them*. That is classic distancing. "Yeah A is scummy but let's all vote B" is scum play 101. So those things you flag as 'breadcrumbs' to me are potential setups to join the bus in case LUV goes down. Which is basically what happened yesterday. Those were specifically the things that led me to conclude he might be scum with LUV.

What you are describing is what boring did Day 1 with LUV.

In post 2421, Prism wrote:

Zoronos wrote:What is the rest of the case, beyond 'a bunch of town voted for her D1'?

I guess I'm missing the thrust of the case kinda other than the bussing part but maybe I'm the dumb.

Only speaking for me but a few of the reasons I'm voting her are:
-Maria death
-Acknowledging why Gamma wouldn't be jailed but claims to be confused about why he died
-Voting LUV with me really doesn't convince me given the timing. LUV did something incredibly scummy and it doesn't take a town to see that. This may be confirmation bias speaking but a lot of her votes both today and other days seem opportunistic, ex. #1763 gives the possibility of her switching to Gamma. Kind of hypocritical of me to point out as I've said numerous times to make sure your vote is somewhere it counts, but the who it is question is still there.
-LUV voting Shadow then quickhammering Eager rather than just voting one of Eager/boring in a natural way to begin with is really strange if they're both town.
-Part of it is just me staring blankly at my computer, blankly looking at the names Dierfire/Grendel/boring/PenguinPower, and asking myself who's the most likely scum out of the 4.

In post 2423, Prism wrote:As far as your read on boring/me goes-I don't really get the dichotomy but going with it: What incentive do I have to bus LUV that boring doesn't? If anything boring had everything I did, and a lot more.

This is a complete mischaracterization of my posts, and you even followed up by defending it further, and I find them practically impossible to miss unless you already knew what conclusion you were going to draw to begin with. This doesn't seem like someone who read my posts thinking I was town, this reads like someone who wanted a reason to scumread me and took the first one they thought of. I think the way I phrased it in one post put it best, the rest of your game reads very town, but that case on me reads like you didn't even try to consider me as being town, despite thinking I was all game and regurgitating my "town or god at a keyboard" line. I also really didn't like the olive branch case for why you were town, because as BV said it seemed like a power play, especially coupled with the ??? case on me.

Most of the posts were me angrily defending myself or tearing into your case for Shadowtown, and reading them I think will be helpful, but I don't think they're anything requiring response in hindsight.

In post 3229, Prism wrote:but that case on me reads like you didn't even try to consider me as being town

I feel like this is the biggest issue you had with the series of posts.

In short - I've been doing that all game. Look at my case on Zoronos / Grendel from a while back: Zoro - 2992 and Grendel 2296. I probably did it to Penguin too now that I think about it...

My town play needs some work.

@BV -

In post 3229, Prism wrote:but that case on me reads like you didn't even try to consider me as being town

I feel like this is the biggest issue you had with the series of posts.

In short - I've been doing that all game. Look at my case on Zoronos / Grendel from a while back: Zoro - 2992 and Grendel 2296. I probably did it to Penguin too now that I think about it...

My town play needs some work.

@BV -

In post 3205, nn30 wrote:Prism, I want to draw your attention to 3122 once more - but this time read starting at the beginning of the day (starts on 3045). This was his first meaningful contribution to the day beyond 'I'm going to re-read and get to it later.' BV basically lurked his way through the day, waited for town to talk itself into lynching another townie, and then hopped on at the last minute in 3122 with some weak attempt to join the consensus (which he did absolutely nothing to help form).

Today, he's even stolen some of the same logic his predecessor (at least, I think it was Shadow) used to scum read me.

The previous use was when Boring was still alive. Shadow (I think) used VCA to point at the wagon full of dead townies, and me, and say 'whelp I doubt that the entire wagon was made of townies, NN must be scum then.

Now that Boring is dead he's just recycling it.

Most of his attempts to scum read me are cherry picking events and interpreting them through the lens of conf-bias. He's not actually trying to get at the motivation of anything - he's just stating plausible ways that a scum!Nn30 would have made that move. It's not an attempt to solve the game - it's just weak.

I get the first paragraph and can definitely see how scum BV makes the posts (especially with the lukewarm approach to DF that can indicate prior knowledge of the flip) but don't really find them convincing that he was scum. I don't think asserting that it wasn't an all town wagon is damning, either, even though I think it was an all town wagon.

My biggest issue here is that you're skeptical of BV going through the motions and forcibly mashing in the puzzle pieces until they fit the narrative, but to me this just makes me think of your case on me, because that's definitely something you were doing there, town or not.

P-Edit: Your Zoro post reads more like setup speculation and your Grendel post gives reasons for both alignments before saying you leaned town on him. Your post on me didn't read to me like considering things from the perspective of me being town. (Ex. Didn't look at boring's reaction to me like you did for yourself/BV, didn't give my posts towards boring a fair light) I don't think these are the same at all.

Re Zoro: - may have been setup spec, but it was still 'I think Zoro is scum for sure' the post.

Re Grendel: - I may have given you the wrong Grendel stuff. Hold on.

2577

There's what I was thinking of when I sent you on the Grendel stuff.

In post 3232, Prism wrote:My biggest issue here is that you're skeptical of BV going through the motions and forcibly mashing in the puzzle pieces until they fit the narrative, but to me this just makes me think of your case on me, because that's definitely something you were doing there

I don't think you quite understand what I'm saying about BV's play.

The difference between him and I is that he's making very little effort to arrive at the conclusion that I'm scum whereas I'm airing out my thought process for all to see. For example: 3153. Specifically, I say 'yeah, I'm seriously considering this path.' This is because I had just finished ISOing Shadow and the result was that I couldn't see a scum player behaving like he did. Compare my 3153 with any of BV's attempts today (or ever, really) and you'll see what I mean.

Okay. I'm going to go over the game bit by bit and analyze. Hopefully I'll be able to put down a vote with at least 48 hours to go so I can spend time convincing whoever is town.

Day 1, Part 1 (Pre-Shadow's counterclaim) - Pages 1 - 26

My read on nn30 is conflicted. He dug through Eagersnake's completed games in 20 minutes which is superficially townish. But there's a general tone of being overly agreeable that I don't like. For example, he questions why Zoronos is town in 187, then agrees with Zoronos on Implosion in 229 and votes Implosion. Then there's him calling Grendel's post scummy in 117 but agreeing with PenguinPower that Grendel is town in 243. I thought 289 was townish in an "am I the only one who sees this?" sense and I don't think his suspicion of Boring in 638 is all that bad.

On Prism, I don't like the suspicion of Implosion not just because I think he was very town, but the subtle ties to Boring there. In 591, he claims to be scumreading both Boring and Implosion while also implying that Implosion and Boring are partners by calling it "half-hearted opinion fishing." His position is basically that Boring shares his Implosion scumread but for completely different reasons. I see this is potentially distancing from a partner while voting town but also could be a townie who thinks Boring and Implosion are partners. Given this, it's odd that he never votes Boring though when a wagon springs up. I'll have to check how this read progressed.

As far as interactions from Boring's side, I think 622 is more likely to be talking to a partner. The overblown type reaction to stir up theater. Whereas in 639, it seems like she's trying to persuade nn30 and calmly explain her read. Going to do my next bit of analysis later tonight.

In post 476, boring wrote:Rainbow time!
Because I get bored going so long without a splash of color.

Shadow_step - Has an aggressive town persona. A hint of grandiosity. I haven't seen this behavior before with scum.
eagerSnake - He's got a most-likely-town claim. If he's still alive tomorrow, he'll probably be bumped way down because he's pretty useless
nn30 - Awkward, but in a townish way. Provides good observations.
Grendel - His line of speculation appears faulty, but not scummy. Probably town.
Gamma Emerald - Acting like he did in the last game, which was town.
Zoronos - Still feels off, but in consistent ways. I'm beginning to suspect part of it is personality. Doesn't seem survival-oriented.
MariaR - At least she admits that she's been coasting. No solid read yet.
DierFire - The vote-and-disappear thing, even during RVS, is pretty scummy. His one post was decent.
Lil Uzi Vert - I know people seem mostly over him now, but he's remains one of the scummier posters today. Might be personality.
Slandaar/Prism - Because prod dodging with no content. Sub-outs are more likely scum than town.
implosion - I get the impression that he's trying to blend in, and stay out of trouble. Reactive.
PenguinPower - Bad votes, reactions lack a feeling of authenticity, posts lacking substance, and dismissive in a way that I only see with scum.

@BV - what are your thoughts on Boring posting this? Generally, where would she put her buddies?

@Prism- take a look at 1046. What does this look like to you?

Even better, 1601

@BV - What do you make of 1195?

@BV - what do you make of 1678 and 1679 being back to back from LUV?

@BV - good find on 622. Let's presume you're correct on that and Boring is talking to a partner and overblowing it for theater. Prism responds in 627 and for someone who has been pretty long winded all game, he doesn't have a lot to say here. Interestingly enough, Boring doesn't respond any further - her next post is 634 and totally ignores Prism's 627.

I'm also having trouble with Shadow's ascetic counter-claim (and Boring's reaction to it). See, Shadow has to fly pretty close to the sun in order to have the balls to counter-claim ascetic anyways. On top of that Boring just sheeps it in 645. Boring is either 1) acting opportunistically here or 2) the plan was to sheep it all along.

2 doesn't seem very likely because I feel like she'd at least pretend to 'think' about it a bit before hopping onto the Eager wagon. Scum like to put lots of logic into what they think and do (since it makes them look like they're trying to solve the game). Nothing of the sort occurred here.

(Sorry for the spam posts guys)

@BV - 1812 is interesting from my POV. See, the last two people LUV addresses in that post are Boring and Prism. In combination with what I've pointed out in 3241, it smells like the scum clan decided that the best course of action was a LUV bus and he's playing the part swimmingly.

Another parallel I pointed out earlier - check out 1266 and 2853. Boring defends herself in exactly the same way in both of those posts: "are you even trying?" and "so, you haven't been paying attention, like, at all?"

More on LUV's 1812. The reason the ordering is interesting is because, from a psychological perspective, it's not out of the question that LUV would put his responses to his scum buddies last on accident and, in doing so, be committing a very tiny scum slip.

He could also have hidden Boring 2nd from the bottom by responding to Prism.

I suppose at this point it's fairly clear that my re-read of this game always points back to me suspecting Prism. BV, when you scum read me, I implore you to make an attempt to read me like a VI rather than a scummy mastermind. I've only been playing forum mafia a short while (joined in August). My town game needs a lot of work and frankly due to the way a couple games have ended (newbie 1749 and 1741) I kind of deserve the VI crown for a while. I understand why you'd scum read me, I really do. I bounce around a lot, I'm inconsistent, and it's fairly easy to find scum play in that. But please please please try and at least consider that it could be coming from a confused townie.

Think about it BV.

I'm going to keep digging tonight. Maybe I'll find a nugget that points back to Prism town but I dunno.

1985 more of LUV linking Prism and Boring.

1965 Boring asks Prism a question which Prism's next two posts blow off: 1978 & 1986. He never answers Boring.

Interesting find:

In post 2267, Prism wrote:For all the people pointing out that my reasoning on LUV was "odd" or "weak", I've had no one tell me why this is the case.

His reasoning being 'odd' or 'weak' would be consistent with him trying to bus a partner without giving his other partners away.

2278 provides the best reason to town read Prism I've found in a while. That said, Boring was on and pushed the LUV wagon. Our scum in this game are not averse to bussing & the entire point of the bus is to make it to LyLo, right?

2319 is interesting - Prism trying to pocket Grendel? He certainly pocketed me all the way to LyLo.

2286 more theater coming from Boring -> Prism. She follows it up later by saying that Prism was suggesting that she had the intelligence of an 'easter ham' in 2384.

Boring asks Prism for a run down of what she's done that Prism thinks is scummy in 2430. It's worth noting that Prism was voting for Boring at this time. Prism's next 2472 three 2473 posts 2545 totally fail to respond to this. Wouldn't you focus on the person you were voting for if they asked you this question if you were town?

2458 yet another Boring question addressed to Prism which he somehow misses (despite his vote being on her when she asked).

2887 seems reasonable in hindsight. Shadow goes to the conf!town Implosion and asks his opinion.

I see what @BV is saying about Prism asking for a sub out being the height of unsportsmanlike conduct. That said, Prism himself said this:

In post 488, Prism wrote:3) Can you describe your play style concisely in one sentence? Whatever it takes to win.

Maybe his plan was always to pretend to 'cool back down' and come back to the game?

And, @BV, I have to ask you to take another look at 2891 again. Shadow is on his way to subbing out of the game here. He no longer cares about the results. This is his last will and testament. Scum!Shadow doesn't piss on me on the way out the door, but Town!Shadow certainly does. I suppose there's the possibility that Town!Shadow is pissed at Scum!Nn30 here (for playing the part of idiotic townie so well) but from my POV this obviously isn't the case.

I asked @BV a series of questions above. Here are my thoughts on the posts, in spoiler tags so BV can come to his own conclusions without looking at mine first.