Mini Normal 1843 - Endgame

[CloudKicker]

also, this

BlackVoid Post Post #291 (isolation #7) » Mon Dec 12, 2016 3:32 pm

It seems like the common trend among EM players is that they know how to sound "genuine" and the short games help them practice that aspect of their play time and time again. On most forums (depending on how long deadlines are), players place varying degrees of emphasis on "analysis." That's probably why as you said, EM players are weak as town with analysis but have perfected the art of sounding natural as scum. So, maybe a good way to read them would be to actually read what they say rather than how they said it and not play to their strengths.

[I Am Innocent]

Thanks to the mod for a fun game!

Overall enjoyed the game and most of the player list. Happy my reads came together day 2, and after Sotty's flip I had enough town reads, as listed in the mason thread, to win the game (jack, rask, creature, mason partners). As I said in the dead thread, the key to the game was not telling a 1 shot BG to save his shot for when there was only one mason left. Would have put cloud in an awkward situation.

[havingfitz]

VOTE: fitz

Ffs......

VOTE: Creature

[mastin2]

Basically Friends and Enemies -_-

Yes, which is a balanced game.

So if you have a setup which is "basically" Friends and Enemies, yet there is AN EXTRA TOWN PR CLAIM, that tells you......

...

what

, exactly?
(Hint: if it's Friends and Enemies, it's Friends and Enemies. If it's NOT Friends and Enemies, then something on

both sides

will be different: the scum will have something aside from all goons, and the town will have something of an appropriate strength to counter said not-goon. If it APPEARS that it's Friends and Enemies, yet only

one

side is different, wellllll......)

[TwoFace]

^save your breath. He hammers 26 hours into lylo. No hope for him

[mhsmith0]

wrt setup, I think the comparison to open setup friends and enemies is appropriate (fwiw original setup was wackier than this but 9v3 with extra explicit town power was rejected )

in terms of friends and enemies, it's an open setup, and masons are confirmed. In this game, it's not an open setup, but the masons are ALSO confirmed. This is substantially different than, say, cop/doc/1-shot BP (or whatever the three town prs might be), where it's realistic that one of the claims is simply lying. So in both this setup and that open setup, the masons are automatically confirmed, which means that one of the two standard advantages for town of open setups (actual PR claims are known to be real roles in the game) is irrelevant, espeically since it's virtually impossible for 3x masons to NOT be self-confirming (since only one can die each night, and it's a pretty notable advantage for town if all survive night one [which actually did happen]).

Moreover, the secondary town advantage of an open setup (you can't fake-claim a random role as scum) was ALSO not really a big difference here. On day 2, sotty claimed tracker (a fake claim that in many mini normals can be taken as reasonable and buy some extra time), and was lynched anyway (you can debatably make a case that her fake claim made it MORE likely she was lynched as it didn't fit in setup at all, even though she had no real reason to have known at the time that it wouldn't fit into the setup, which meant that it was town-POSITIVE that she ended up fake claiming the way she did).

Later on, cloud fake-claimed 1-shot BG (and it's notable that his wagon was more "just claim dammit" as opposed to "we really think you're mafia), and town made the conscious choice to treat it as conf!town without really scrutinizing either how it did (or didn't) fit into the setup or how his claim fit into the framework of "omg my role is super important" that he'd already established (and my goodness it didn't fit the outsize importance he'd pretended to have).

So in terms of setup, I think it was fine for balance. Town had three HARD clears (and lest we forget, the masons got early pressure, so that very plausibly prevented at least one mislynch), scum had chances to make self-dooming fake claims (and in fact one did), and the game went down to the wire, with some good plays and some bad plays by both sides, and the result wasn't due to setup balance. To me that suggests that balance was fine.

PS My apologies to all about the speed deadline error. I'm glad that in the end didn't impact the result.

[mhsmith0]

One other note: it's pretty normal for scum to have some level of PR, so I get the board's consideration that it was reasonably likely that scum would have some kind of PR here (which did help support cloud's claim here). But it really shouldn't be taken as inevitable that this would happen.

[BlackVoid]

On hindsight, I guess it was fine. Shouldn't have assumed that it would be different from that open setup. The outsized importance that Cloud placed on his role wasn't really something I found to be alignment-indicative. Cloud was an epic-mafia player. I wasn't expecting him to be rational. Delaying claims on weak roles I assumed was just one of those silly things that EM players would do.

[BlackVoid]

If it APPEARS that it's Friends and Enemies, yet only one side is different, wellllll......)

Except we didn't know what the last scum role would be. HavingFitz could have been a scum rolecop for instance. But you are right to an extent. When I saw MariaR flip second goon, I wondered if it was just all goons.

[mastin2]

[quote="In post 3832, BlackVoid"The outsized importance that Cloud placed on his role wasn't really something I found to be alignment-indicative. Cloud was an epic-mafia player. I wasn't expecting him to be rational. Delaying claims on weak roles I assumed was just one of those silly things that EM players would do.[/quote] Free tip: never attribute to stupidity what can be assigned to malice.

Sure, yeah! You'll actually hit town more often than not by taking that approach!

But it feels oh SO satisfying to claim the moral high ground in regards to "lynching the stupid", and in the rare cases where the stupid is actually scum, all the better!

(The sad thing is I'm only half-joking.)

[havingfitz]

Goodles game Cloud.

[BlueBloodedToffee]

I guess it was only me who thought scum were super obvious.

Cloud had a decent early game though.

[mhsmith0]

I did think it was funny how bbt, debatably the best town player on the board, replaces out, flips town via GreyICE lynch, and is never mentioned or read again.

[BlackVoid]

Nah, I took his reads into consideration. His case influenced my decision to go after Sotty7/MariaR at the beginning of D2.

[I Am Innocent]

Cloud had a decent early game though.

^this. I had a pretty strong town read of him day 1

[mhsmith0]

Rask is town everyone get off right now.
VOTE: Good morning
Everything they've said is cringy and seems forced to me

Why is Rask town?

Can you give some examples of GM's posting that you didn't like?

Feels like he started the wagon then panicked a little when it took off. I also remember BBTScum being very no nonsense cutting to the heart of the matter, were as townBBT being more open.

Couple of things; why does scum!BBT panic when a wagon takes off? Second thing, your meta-read is flat out inaccurate.

I'm having mixed feelings cause the first part of Scotty's post felt like BS but I agree with the BBT read started the bw and when rask towntold knew it wasn't gonna get far and got off rather quick
Of course could just be town who saw the towntell and got off but saying it's a scumread makes me seem smart so!

This is scum. The whole 'fence-sitting' thing looks like scum sitting back and waiting to see if a wagon takes off or not and then evaluating their options. Same question to you; why does scum!BBT jump off a forming wagon? And if you can see the action from both sides (town and scum) then surely the action becomes null and you have no justification for your scum read. Right? Because it looks like you're trying to buddy Sotty (syncing up reads) but trying not to be so obvious about it by slating the post first.

tbqh i just expect better of toffee by this point than 'oh, let's just bamdwagons'

I need to have time to invest in the game.

VOTE: Maria

Can this be a thing please?

I am leaning more BBTscum

I don't believe you have gave any reasons for this read. You should do that.

I THINK I like sotty now, although it really doesn't help that I saw her mentioned in the goat thread, and now that I check again its for scumplay no less.

Talk about why Sotty is town? I don't see it.

I think all the talk about the wagon on rask itself is really a wild goose chase and talking on it is pointless because it was a RVS wagon trying to think if scum were on the wagon or not is just trying to overthink when there are much more important topics you could be talking about

Maria has nothing else to comment on so decides to comment on a non-existent, no-longer-a-talking-point, RVS wagon on Rask. Why haven't we lynched this? Maria has very little in terms of reads and the ones she does have appear to have no progression to them. She is just idling, staying active whilst doing absolutely nothing.

Like, she says talking about the Rask wagon is pointless...whilst commenting on said wagon with not a word about anything else. Come on now.

Definitely disagree, his reasoning on BBT for example is actually pretty good.

What did you like?

sotty mostly only talks about it in 119, finding the bandwagoning scummy because... i'm not actually sure. she also says some stuff about meta but the things she says are different alignments look mutually inclusive. then she just harasses a lot of people to join the wagon.

idk if it really says anything about either of their alignments. sotty's disappointment at toffee's disappearance looked genuine but that's nai. didn't really get much else out of it.

Well it does, because Sotty was attempting to push a baseless scum read and instantly gave up on it when it wasn't going anywhere. She literally gave no reasons for why I was scum.

Jack was one of the 2 people I had a sr on and he hasn't done much to change it I think the fact he tried to look for scum on a RVS wagon pinged me the wrong way mostly because there was nothing to go off on it because it was a RVS wagon
Plus the disagreement we had so![/quote
More stale reads from Maria - no progression at all.

<3 : maria ( shes actually . leaning t)

Can you talk about your Maria town read please?

@BBT more recent reads, please pay attention. Also i def sr michel more than i did sotty and tf, tf is most likely town that is abrasive like it was pointed out recently.

Don't be a dick - I quite clearly had not read the entire game.

That's not fence sitting but okay
and I don't need to because if you were reading the thread you would see I already answered that question before you even asked.
Are you skimming or need to catch up or did you just "miss" the post?

Show me where you responded to my questions/comments that were said by other people.

That catch up however felt very forced and minimal and I don't like that Maria vote as a result. BBT what's your read on GM v Victor? Are you town reading Hoopla?

This is Sotty desperately trying to hold onto a BBT scum read. She is now justifying her scum read after the fact. What was forced about my catch up?

What don't you like about my Maria vote? Are you town reading her? If so, why?

See above for GM/Victor - I think Victor looks the better of the two if his latest post on the issue is correct. I think Hoopla could be town yeah but I haven't seen anything I would deem as strongly alignment indicative.

I'm happy to lynch Maria/Sotty.

Not considering anyone else for Day One.

Bbt was CRUSHING this game. It becomes totally different if he sticks around I think.

[mastin2]

If it APPEARS that it's Friends and Enemies, yet only one side is different, wellllll......)

Except we didn't know what the last scum role would be.

This is the GOLDEN RULE of setups,

especially

Normal ones. (It may apply to themes which aren't role madness, but it's especially prevalent in Normals.)

Occam's razor: assume the

simplest

explanation (or in this case, setup) is the correct one.

With most reviewers, this will prove to be true. (I mean, most mods come in with ridiculously-PR-heavy setups, but most reviewers tend to try and get them to basically cut the number in half--if eight or nine roles in the game are PRs for both alignments, it's not really a good game, whereas 3-5 roles for both alignments is the general standard.)

The simplest setup is USUALLY the correct setup.

Which is simpler: the game has three masons and no scum power, as it so appeared (a known, balanced setup)...
...Or that by some WEIRD convenience, it just so HAPPENS that the last scum is a PR (one that wouldn't overpower the scum--hint, with a claim of 1x BG, any of tracker/roleblocker/rolecop would do exactly that for them because 1x BG is no match for ANY of those), and that the UNPROVEN CLAIM which was BUILT to allow town to die (1x BG = can let the town masons die) is there as a counter to it?

To put it another way, you have a player who deliberately stalled their claim and strung it along while hinting at dozens of different things, only to when they finally claim claimed something entirely unprovable that would dissolve the pressure on them.

Which is simpler? That the player in question is town who claimed in the scummiest way possible for no foreseeable gain...
...Or that the claim was handled that way to serve a scum agenda?

[mastin2]

Also, mhsmith mentioned during the game that BGs are not a role he approves of--so he'd never put a ONE SHOT BG in the game. At least one of the masons actually bothered to do mod meta research on mhsmith, so someone

really

shoulda caught on to that fact.

[mhsmith0]

I wouldn't say I'd never do it, but given how pissy I was about subbing in as 2-shot bg and thinking it was an absolute shit role, at the least there should have been hesitance on the subject for people mod metaing me.

Like, in the actual review "maybe we should give town something that's just a cherry on top" came up, and in that context, a 1-shot bg is at least plausible I guess, especially since it has decent odds of being totally useless over the course of the game (like, maybe it visits the outed mason night one and then has nothing left). But the idea that it easily and clearly fit into the setup, and is worth anything close to a hard clear? That I'd disagree with.

[mastin2]

(There was also how Cloud lived to see lylo--Jaaack wasn't cleared by role. Only by play. Cloud was 'cleared' by role AND by "play"--his end-of-day stunt post-Rask mislynch was something which 'towned' him up. The fact that Jaaack, a known VT claim only cleared by play, died over Cloud, someone who "should" have been cleared on both play and role, should have been a hint, but the only two players who could have spotted this were havingfitz and Creature.)

[mhsmith0]

Ps what I disapprove of is the idea that a bg, especially a limited shot bg, is actually a useful role in most circumstances (it was damn near useless in the game I was in, especially compared to a doctor role). Like if there's a cop or a vig, or maybe a jk, then bg works fine to keep that role alive to continue being productive. With masons? Eh, maybe, since hard clears are still hard clears, but it'd really only be as that "little bit extra", and I'd have put it in with the expectation it probably wouldn't be useful.

[mhsmith0]

Cloud was also kinda nakedly pursuing his wincon by forcing through a rask lynch d5 since that rask-creature mutual town block HAD to go via lynch or they'd be in f3 on him or he'd have to make an obvious motive shot to break them up.

[mastin2]

Also, Cloud claimed to have not used the shot on like D3 or so.

The masons were outed D1.

That alone should have been evidence Cloud was faking it--a real 1x bodyguard, post-mason claim, would have used the shot up immediately.
The reason Cloud didn't claim to have used up the shot is because Cloud needed to be "helpful"--he needed to be relevant. He needed to have his shot be available, so that his life held meaning. A bodyguard who has used up their shot(s) and is still alive is 'too convenient', and would be lynched...but the fact of the matter is, a real town bodyguard would have used their protection WELL before Cloud claimed to have.

I could be mistaken since I didn't read the full game, but I don't think anyone grilled him on this, so much as asking, "So...why do you still have that shot?"

I can understand the thought of not using an X-shot role on N1 if there is no information available. But not using it for TWO days, when there IS information available, was basically a scumclaim in of itself.

[mhsmith0]

I'd actually say that holding it for the last mason alive, as mentioned in dead thread, is actually most optimal given that theory role. But then again no one really grilled him on why he didn't do that instead, so *shrugs*

[mastin2]

(Basically, this is why I strongly encourage looking at the motivation behind actions--what was the town motivation in Cloudkicker refusing to claim a role he hadn't used which was virtually useless yet he insisted was super-duper-mega-important, stalling for as long as humanly possible? I mean, I suppose you could come up with something, but it'd be contrived and convoluted.

What was the scum motivation in Cloudkicker refusing to claim a role which was virtually useless yet he insisted was super-duper-mega-important, stalling for as long as humanly possible, only to reveal it was one-shot yet on DAY THREE with masons outed on D1 he still had it available?

Quite obviously...so that he'd be able to survive longer.)