Mafia of Revelations ~ Game Over!

[Hoopla]

so, should we massclaim our revelations? fuck it, i'm just going to post mine and get the ball rolling;

Spoiler: my revelation

turns out i am extremely cute

[Hoopla]

VOTE: KMD

[Hoopla]

Hoopla I'll unvote u if u form an alliance with me

tell me who you're an alt of and i will consider it;)

[Hoopla]

i don't have a main, i just make new alts whenever i feel like it or people start to typecast my old alts.

not to tip my hand too early, but i've been told by my advisers to never accept the first offer. that is the art of negotiation. if you wish to try again later, have your people get in touch with my people and we'll schedule brunch.

i intend to wait patiently for an impressive townie to step up with some revelatory insight before i pledge my allegiance anywhere.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: blair

[Hoopla]

My PM has something different for the bold. It's two words. I'm interested to know if this is different for everyone...?

not that i condone role PM based scumhunting, but yes, mine is different

i guess you're town for even bothering to go there.

[Hoopla]

what a fascinating non-sequitur

[Hoopla]

Disgusting.
Auro can have Agar's place on the scumteam.

i commend his chutzpah.

@auro, don't let this square cramp your style

[Hoopla]

Thx bb

what does this one mean? i can't find it listed on auro's netspeak glossary

[Hoopla]

Scum have trouble evenly mixing interactions with other scum to interactions with town.

yes, simulating randomness is tricky business. when it comes to distancing, it's always too much or not enough. hard to spot before flips, though.

ok, enough theory chat. a question:

why pontificate about 5+ players alignments in your posts, when the most interesting and alignment-indicative post that's happened so far is porkens' post 50. no commentary on that?

[Hoopla]

we got him on the ropes

[Hoopla]

i've enjoyed llamarble's fervent insistence on cutting through the dense layers of jokes and naval-gazing theorycrafting permeating our early-game. actual attempts at analysis? how refreshing!

he's been the one player that's done the most to push the game forward, and on an intuitive level, his reads roughly mirror what i am seeing - especially at the extremes. my biggest disagreement is that of the early game cuteness harvesters/alliance seekers, morning tweet seemed least sincere - or at least, seemed to be opportunistically using the screen of jokes-y cuteness to shield herself from potential early scrutiny.

i don't think abr's opening is suspicious for him. he's a polarising character that is always going to attempt to reinvent the wheel in some way or another early in the game, and probably as either alignment.

kmd has the unfortunate habit of presenting himself as a target. i say "habit", because it appears self-imposed to me. i have to reign in my suspicion of him, because i think he always looks scummier than he actually is.

farside also looks town to me.

[Hoopla]

You gonna get on this wagon with me or....

ok, blair can wait.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: morning tweet

[Hoopla]

Is this vote based on more than a hunch?

it is intuition.

but lets not downplay my fiercely honed intuition with diminutive terms like "a hunch".

[Hoopla]

don't know how to respond to this sort of criticism. Is there something that seems insincere about it? Sure i couuuld be playing a gimmick so i don't have to pretend to scumhunt or so i can "avoid scrutiny", but also i could just as easily try to fake a bunch of reads and put on my towniest face if i were scum

is there a specific reason you think that's what's happening here?

pedit: your intutition is off then !

one of the lamentable things about intuition is converting those subconscious rumblings into words. here's an attempt:

opening games tend to fragment into themes - jokers/questionnairers/wagoners etc. alliance crafting/cuteness riffing seemed like the dominant theme on page 1. i expect that scum upon observing the main narrative, tend to play along with it, as its the safest entry into the game. the continued adherence to the established running joke being an exercise in avoidance. a shield, if you will.

[Hoopla]

s odd, when one of Llama's 'extremes' is that ABR is the scummiest player.

alright, i'm in.

VOTE: Hoopla

the reason i elaborated on abr was because he was my biggest disagreement with llamarble. literally every other player is in the correct area of the spectrum, in my eyes.

[Hoopla]

like it too.

Now pounce! Who’s going along to get along?

on a reread, i think auro found a comfortable niche in baiting llamarble into theory-based back-and-forths. during the whole sequence, llamarble was posting reads and appearing to improve his interpretation of the game, while auro was pontificating aimlessly.

another shameful display of avoidance. 25 posts in his ISO and i'm still none-the-wiser as to where he stands on anyone.

[Hoopla]

So why not push him if your feeling this way? Or push those you don't have reads on?

piecemeal observations and catty potshots from sidelines is my day 1 modus operandi - at least until i have collected enough data for proper meta-analysis.

[Hoopla]

hoopla, can you tell me what play from MT you're referring to here?

opening games tend to fragment into themes - jokers/questionnairers/wagoners etc. alliance crafting/cuteness riffing seemed like the dominant theme on page 1. i expect that scum upon observing the main narrative, tend to play along with it, as its the safest entry into the game. the continued adherence to the established running joke being an exercise in avoidance. a shield, if you will.

Because idgi.

have you ever had an experience where a word just sounds

off

? so you repeat the word out loud, over and over, each iteration sounding more and more absurd, until its lost all its meaning.

i feel like that's what's happening with this whole cuteness introspection.

my attempt to filter an intuitive response through the ugly kaleidoscope of words was an olive-branch. a compromise of sorts, to show my reasoning, when it didn't really come from a place of reasoning in the first place.

the focus on this specific event almost seems like another version of what pinged me about morning tweet to begin with: an easy narrative to look busy participating in.

[Hoopla]

here is another piece of intuition that will shock and dazzle the readers;

so you don't believe i would actually commit to that sort of bit without some kind of ulterior motive other than just enjoying it?

......well i would ;c

I get what you're saying though which is why i dont reeeally want to join your wagon

on closer inspection, my gut says this sequence of posts comes from town. i think scum would offer more of a defence and be more careful about resorting to passive wifom, and just... meek acceptance of others' suspicion. looks like plaintive town.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: green crayons

[Hoopla]

you missed the boat on morning tweet, agar.

be a doll and jump on green crayons. i sense a groundswell of support for this wagon. you don't want to miss out - HUGE town points on offer for those who invest early.

[Hoopla]

^that was BIG

agar, you better get on quick. it'll only be diminishing returns later!

[Hoopla]

He is correct that i was, in fact, the one who started the cute nonsense and you saying that i was just playing along with the main narrative doesn't make sense.

no, sorry. i'm going to have to assert that cuteness was my intellectual property, as evidenced by my opening post. it was such a charming post, you simply couldn't help yourself in tagging along.

We've been making a big deal out of this bs for a while now

yes we have. it's almost like we need a speedwagon on scum to cut through the noise... but who? hmm. may i interest you in green crayons?

[Hoopla]

battle to the death!

green crayons vs iamausername

exciting times. i must say, what a treat for mafia enthusiasts watching along witnessing such a high level of play

[Hoopla]

Also:

i've enjoyed llamarble's fervent insistence on cutting through the dense layers of jokes and naval-gazing theorycrafting permeating our early-game. actual attempts at analysis? how refreshing!

point to examples

llamarble's post 90 was an earnest attempt at dissecting the early game - the first person to really do so in any meaningful way. that, and his handful of subsequent posts (when he wasn't being lured into theory-chat with auro) were perhaps the catalyst for transitioning us into a more serious discourse.

if you can't notice the difference in the tone of the game from page 1-3 compared to ~post 90 onward, i don't know what to say.

[Hoopla]

Im trying to figure out if you’re genuine or buddying.

i think of it less as buddying, and more like an intricate dance. we're moving at the same tempo and in the same direction; perhaps even listening to the same song. there's a small part of me that hopes it will last forever, but the cynical part of me knows its fleeting.

until the illusion shatters, i just want to have this dance.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: Auro
Honestly you have a certain similarity of way of thinking to mine. And 275 is pure early-mid d1 scum me.

this actually may be the first misstep. can you explain this?

on first parse, it read well to me.

[Hoopla]

@ABR

do you have any thoughts on our two main wagons? seems weird of you to be posting during the formation of this battle and not bother addressing them at all.

[Hoopla]

I dont even start reading the game until page 25 these days.

Explain to me what's going on and I'll give you my opinion on it.

town heroine hoopla dazzled onlookers with a stunning moment of divine intuition, powering the wagon on GC-scum.

in response, shady antihero blair rustled up an uninspired counterwagon on lurking easy-target iamausername. her motivations? god knows.

[Hoopla]

Do you always write like this?

i'm in between personal assistants at the moment, and my chief editor has run off to the amazon to "

find herself

" - whatever that means.

sadly, you are stuck with my flowery prose... unfiltered.

[Hoopla]

@farside

i have no qualms with auro jumping on the wagon. i mean, he was probably too late to gain any town cred - that was snapped up by the early adopters.

but if you have a problem with it, why aren't you asking him yourself?

[Hoopla]

green crayons stock is plummeting! sell! sell! sell!

UNVOTE:

a shame. my intuition says this was the right way forward.

[Hoopla]

what to do now?

it appears starbuck and auro are the current flavour of the month, so let me weigh in on them.

it looks to me like auro has been deliberately subverting the expectations of the typical townie blueprint on D1. the no-lynch joke, the theory discussion in lieu of actual scumhunting, the early spamming seemingly devoid of depth. these actions can easily be interpreted as suspicious, because his entire posting appears to go against the grain. but the fact he is self-aware that he goes against the grain and does it anyway seems like a town mindset. a town mind resolute in playstyle, come what may from people's reactions - the following quotes from post 275 being prime examples;

Scumhunting here seems difficult for me because of what I feel to be a big difference in playstyle and methods of scumhunting. For example, I can see the point behind the entire "cuteness as a shield" argument, and I can see that many of you actually seriously believe that... but to me it's just NAI and somewhat silly/amusing. If this were a normal game I'd be pretty aggressively pushing at anyone arguing that line.

Perhaps efforts should be made to see that some of us newer players play mafia with a stronger social element and begin evaluating the game from that perspective?

seems he's aware of the metagame/playstyles that are successful with this crowd, yet doesn't warp his behaviour to fit the mold.

~~

as for starbuck, i tend to agree with abr;

Starbuck is always scummy in my experience. I think you guys are getting a false positive.

this is perhaps a more intuitive read than the auro one.

[Hoopla]

doot -de-do

VOTE: VP Baltar

[Hoopla]

I think you expressed why Auro reminds me of me-scum.
I intentionally do some blatantly atypical things that I (or preferably some hapless townie) can go and say "really, scum would do that?" and post reads-reasons that tend to share a lot of structure with Auro's 275, particularly including a bit of introspection.
One main (and pretty obvious) difference from how I town is level of relentlessness in figuring things out.

interesting.

i value this perspective and will keep it in mind.

[Hoopla]

Llama - It's weird to me that Llama plays like he has only a day to live -- However, seems like a strategy that would fail in the long term for scum. there's other stuff i like but that's one thing i wanted to note

the attempt to solve the game day 1 with associations is a good sign imo.

i don't really agree with the concept of game solving d1 in a game this big, but the fact he's trying it at all strikes me as sincere.

[Hoopla]

a post in which hoopla adds two more townreads to the bucket; reck and agar.

initially, i was slightly scumreading reck in the same way llamarble was. i have a good chunk of town-reads, so from a PoE perspective reck fits the profile of good-scum-player metrics i keep an eye on. but this post sold me;

i suppose being coy adds nothing. i received a piece of game information in my role PM. i was also told that the mafia were aware that i know a piece of information about the game. i assume that will put a target on my head.

seems like a rather creative softclaim to concoct as scum. much more likely that unprompted claims like come from town, as they have a genuine reason to do so, unlike scum who have to think up an angle that will make a softclaim tease make sense from a town-perspective once more info comes into the game.

~~

contrary to llamarble's insistence that agar's timeline clarifying is goodposting, but not overtly town - this is in fact the correct take:

in other news, AGar has now thoroughly ingratiated himself into my town reads - can't imagine this post coming from scum - there are clear benefits for scum to not alerting everyone to the source of the misunderstanding, pretty much regardless of Blair/Starbuck alignments.

i agree with iamausername. the desire to get down & dirty in the weeds of the blair/starbuck back-and-forth to quell a potential multipage shitfight of confusion is in fact town. i could barely be bothered to read it all and form an opinion on it, so the fact he was willing to make heads or tails of it in first place is a valuable contribution, probably powered by town curiosity.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: VPB

Completed my iso so I feel better with some reads.
Null to scum:
Agar
UT
Kmd
Auro
Iam
CLP
MT
VPB

you've been on my case most of the game - even listing me in your top 3 scumpicks in 360. all of a sudden i am no longer on your radar without any reason why your suspicion has subsided. why?

you also made these comments about the VPB wagon and its constituents in post 596:

Some of the votes on VP come from players I haven't seen say much in regards to this game and are sheeping along (like Iam and UT). I'm staying the hell away from it.
I will say within regards to UT if he continues the lurking I would vote for him. He only gets a free pass for day 1.

then in post 605, essentially changed your mind;

Okay so on the ISO of VP I found him to basically just sheep reads and have no follow through with pushing any reads. I don't even know why he voted Auro at this point and he pushed MT and dropped it, which looks for pretty freeking weak reasons.

VOTE: VPB

that was a rather sharp turnabout. can you explain your mindset in further detail given you didn't like the make-up of the wagon to begin with?

also, is your lack of suspicion on me now related to this?

[Hoopla]

hoopla do you have scumreads instead of just townreads

i have a handful of scum leanings, but generally speaking i find it easier to townhunt on d1, and will usually be willing to lynch anyone not a townread.

i'm working on organising my thoughts more today, as i do have a read one way or another on more than half the game.

[Hoopla]

I'm somewhat convinced MT is scum.

can you explain? my read on her has flipped and she's currently in my townbucket.

[Hoopla]

because there has to be some artificial inflation here in this group (aka, the bad ones, aka, those whose names shall not be spoken, aka SCUM)

*gasp*

...

overall, i like your take on your wagon. if you are town, i agree with where you view the potential manipulation has occurred. you also read my vote correctly. you're simply a player i haven't picked up any town tells from yet - this post being the first one i've liked.

thinking...

[Hoopla]

pedit/ Probably one of the strongest things i've felt so far is that Blair feels like she's attacking Starbuck way too hard. It feels a tad fake. But also i don't exactly see why she tunnels that hard as scum, it's not making her look good imo

i agree with this. at a certain point, it has started to look like blair is simply using her starbuck-gotcha-moment as a device to avoid participating in other conversation threads.

[Hoopla]

I tend to get scum read a lot as either alignment. I think it's my face.

i used to have a terrible case of resting-scumface too. i have since learnt to let the purity of my town essence flow through me.

[Hoopla]

the good folk of the town:

hoopla
porkens
llamarble
reck
agar
morning tweet

neutral-townish/don't want to lynch today:

abr - sedate start to the game. unsure if this is just due to mellowing out over all these years, but i find his reluctance to be a dominant voice in the game town for some reason. looks to be working his way into a voice of influence now.
farside - had her as town earlier, but less sure on her recent movements. seems everyone is uncritically townbucketing her also, which gives me pause
cantlynchapuppy - somewhat low-profile, but i've liked most of the times where he has chimed in. most recently, his consolodation vote on auro is the kind of game-forwarding play i like seeing players make.
starbuck - i agree with auro's declaration that some of starbuck's emotive responses feel town - though, i am a sucker for these sometimes. i think she's a player who has high transparency later in games, so not willing to guess her alignment today when she'll be easier to read later.
auro? - i keep flip-flopping on this one, and feel i am relying on others' experiences to get insight into how he actually behaves as either alignment (something i don't like doing). it's clear he operates on a different frequency, so i'm unsure how i'm supposed to be reading him and what tells apply to him given he's expressed ability and desire to deliberately subvert some. at the moment, i'm defaulting the group wisdom on him and won't resist his lynch if the town deems him worthy. but personally, i'd rather get a good secondary wagon going on someone in my lynchpool until i figure him out.

current lynchpool:

vp baltar - i liked his analysis of his wagon. could be faked; his picks of who is scum on his wagon are probably the obvious ones. but i think i'd prefer to lynch from the following players:

blair
kmd
green crayons
untrod tripod
iamausername

will do more in depth analysis of my lynch-pool later...

la-la-la

UNVOTE:
VOTE: blair

[Hoopla]

find it interesting that hoopla described her null / don't lynch reads more than her town reads and scum reads. i think that's a kind of weak town tell because anything that isn't strictly "by the book" is more likely to be town than scum faking it

all my town reads i've talked about in earlier posts.

my main objective of that post was to clarify my non-town reads and construct my lynchpool.

now that i have figured out who i actually want to lynch from, i'll be breaking out the microscope. i feel like i don't have the stamina to properly scrutinise every slot on D1 in games this size, so some sort of filtering process is necessary to know where to focus. i think i am zeroed in now.

[Hoopla]

i think you're wrong about blair but the rest of your lynchpool seems full of nulls to me. id ask you to elaboreate on those, but you make it sound like that's exactly what you're going to do. i'm not sure what the point of this post is

- who are your actual scumreads/townreads?
- why are you asking me to elaborate, when you've offered less explanation for reads than me?

i had memories of you chiming in with useful/interesting comments, but upon a reread of your ISO, i think i was premature in discounting you as a good lynch.

[Hoopla]

the ol' puppy dog eyes, huh?

cuteness only gets you so far in this game!

[Hoopla]

to be honest,

uh oh

[Hoopla]

to be honest, im not really a puppy

good post-content to post-number synchronicity

[Hoopla]

I think we're reaching a point where whoever the scum are, they have a few posts they can point to and say "yeah! That is gonna look pretty town and I did a good thing"
Like IAAU's readlist where he anticipated a lot of peoples' reads so that we all think "he is seeing this game the way I do"
Agar's very good explanations of the BlairBuck affair
Auro's vote movement and a few mini-moments like requesting postgame MD
ABR's control-seeking / arrogance and general signs of caring who gets lynched
Porkens' going there and then 'I don't get why are people townreading me so hard for this'
Starbuck's heart-on-her-sleeve intensity
UT's... well, nothing. I guess that's probably why UT has a wagon. Although I think UT is also the type to rarely drop major towntells and therefore a d1 mislynch risk.
Blair's path re: Auro
CLAP's unapologeticness and mindset
etc.

I need to go through and assign probabilities or such for 'could they fabricate this' for each of the things that has made me go 'eh maybe but I'd rather look someplace else.'

we truly are participating in an extraordinary exhibition of forum mafia. thrilled to be a part of it, really.

[Hoopla]

Vote VP Baltar guys. Let's go. We don't need 80 pages to end day 1.

this is true.

a major pet peeve of mine in forum mafia is towns inability to compromise when they have a pretty good lynch organised. everyone wants to be the hero and see their top pick strung up, so it creates an atmosphere where everyone waits too long, players lurk or sit on vanity votes, and it kills the flow of the game. then, before you know it, you're close to deadline, a player claims a role, town gets cold feet, and they've only left themselves with 24-48 hours to rustle up a new lynch.

when i was researching mini normal data a few years ago, 30% of day 1's ended with a lynch on an unclaimed player.

the single most important thing that can happen on day 1 is a roleclaim. it changes everything. everyone needs to chime in and debate it. then everyone needs to decide if that wagon should go through or dissolve - and if it does dissolve, you need time up your sleeve to organise a new lynch. the reason towns end up lynching an unclaimed player is because they never leave enough time for themselves after a roleclaim. a deadline panic ensues, then scum can either lurk or justify any vote in the chaos. if you get unlucky that some of your town players are busy IRL in the last 48 hours, it becomes very hard to follow proper claiming protocols in a deadline panic and town will just lynch anyone, often not even waiting for a claim.

in my view, optimal d1 play should see their main target at L-1 and claiming before the halfway point of the Day. you need at least a day or two to debate the claim and whether or not to hammer, and you want extra time in case you don't. i suspect most of this playerlist is aware of this to some degree, so i may be preaching to choir here, but it needs to be said.

~~

the composition of the vp baltar wagon is mostly good, so i'm jumping back on.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: vp baltar

[Hoopla]

some more numbers:

i haven't released this data-set to the public yet, as i only researched it this month. this is the D1 lurking frequency of scum in 3:10 mini normals over the last two years. i chose d1 of these games so the scum:town ratio is consistent across the entire data-set (~50,000 posts) - this way we know exactly how often scum (as a collective) should be posting.

in a 3:10 game, scum make up a shade over 23% of the players, so ~23% of all posts should be scum. across that data-set only ~18% of posts made were scum. if scum can lurk and get away with it on d1, they can and they do. here are our posters flying under the radar:



^two scum there imo

[Hoopla]

Is there a version of that data set that measures word count or only post count? Asking for a friend.

just post count.

word count is on my list of potential future investigations.

[Hoopla]

Also, one of those five is the mod. Are you saying 2/4 scum?

three of those four were in my PoE'd lynchpool anyway, so it would not shock me. i'm not brazen enough to pick scumteams on d1, so i'm not going to hypothesise on who partners well with who until i have flips, but yeah.

vi is also scum.

[Hoopla]

firebringer has a similar theory that he used in a game that ended not too long ago, based on some sample of games, but it was from the opposite perspective about most active posters are most likely town

yes, i think scum have the tendency to do what is required of them, but few will go the extra-mile - so to speak - and attempt to look the most active/obvtown player in the game. there is actually risk in doing so on D1/D2. i used to attempt to play scum that way in my heyday, but if you obvtown too early as scum, then are alive on D4 onwards, you end up becoming a suspect anyway from a "why are you still alive?" angle.

the most active players will have a higher than random concentration of town, and the least active, scum, more than random.

you don't want to base the entirety of your lynch choice based on that, but this metric is often a pretty weighty factor that goes into my choice on D1.

[Hoopla]

scanning the ISO of our under-the-radar players, i'm drawn more to iamausername and KMD.

agar's had some moments of useful/unique contribution and UT has a slightly more obstinate/unapologetic air about him.

scum know when they're underperforming and caught behind the 8-ball. when they know that and

feel

that, they tend to resort to more surface-level participation in an attempt to blend in, ticking the boxes of expected town behaviour -the stuff they think the town wants to see from them. i see this behaviour more in iamausername and KMD.

[Hoopla]

also, someone complained that looking obvtown as scum is a bad strategy because then players wonder why you haven't been killed. (i lost the postnumber)

but it's really easy! you just keep all the other obvtown players alive. if anyone questions the NKs you just gesture at PR hunting. then by day 4 or w/e all the best townies turn on each other

most scum don't have the pizzazz to take up the mantel of town leader or deceive in creative ways - especially when it's so easy to win as scum through attrition. it's why townhunting is so effective. there are things that scum simply don't go out of their way to fake, because a) they don't have to, b) they can't, or c) don't even think to.

[Hoopla]

HOOPLA, when did you start to townread Llamarble?

it's been a slow burn.

in the same vein as llama's feelings about me, i doubt my ability to ever fully clear him based on behaviour alone. i expect his alignment to solve itself soon enough; either soaking up an early NK, leading enough scumlynches to put it beyond doubt, PR's catching him or the walls of PoE closing in on him.

that isn't to say i find it pointless attempting to read him - i still am. but he started the game well enough, and with enough vim and vigor for me to put him on the backburner for a while. i think there is also a part of me that believes his self-meta arguments about his town vs scum play. and i don't often buy self-meta.

[Hoopla]

guys yall put in 9 fucking pages overnight are you goddamn serious

i was going to chime in right now but im prepping for D&D and this is going to require way more dedicating than i want right now, so. coming later.

this is becoming a problem imo.

now that abr has remembered he's abr and the blowtorch is on auro, pages are exploding. for me, i usually have enough time each day to read them all, catch up and make useful posts, but those most active should recognise that every time they post, they contribute to the bottom third of the playerlist falling behind. these players are less likely to chime in with thoughts or game-forwarding votes when there's a lot of pages still unread or only skimmed. if you care about a balance of voices (and we should - we need their votes!), you have to put in effort to keep the game readable.

i would say try and be and more succinct, but really the best solution is to just get on with lynching someone so day 1 doesn't become an unreadable tome that nobody wants to analyse on later days. we haven't even got a claim yet. less waffling, more killing.

[Hoopla]

it's time for blair, starbuck, reck, KMD and CLAP to pick between our main wagons.

[Hoopla]

But I hate both of them.

*shrug*

you've had your chances throughout the day to convince the town on your pet read, and you didn't. you can always try again tomorrow.

from your ISO, it looks like you favour VP as town and Auro as "

confusing

" - confusing is good enough.

[Hoopla]

hoo boy, this is going to be a hot take because no one asked for it and im not going to really explain it beyond "gut feeling"

but im thinking 2/4 scum in this group: [ llamarble, farside22, reck, kmd ]

thought goes like this: day reads to me like lots of town infighting, main wagons town (vpb, auro), some of the bigger drivers (blair, abr, gc) don't feel like scum drivers. so im kind of looking for players who are skirting around the main wagons and main discussions and that's what i feel at least. (actually llamarble is 3rd most active player which surprised me because i don't remember much of what he has said / done all game, this is probably the first iso ill do when i get around to that stage)

if you want to be a hero and wrangle the town in a new direction, it's going to take more than gut feelings.

again, you've had your chances. you missed your window of time to be a voice of influence. choose the lesser of two evils.

[Hoopla]

we've got a week left, that's plenty of time for me to do an iso or two and for other players to try other wagons. why do we have to accept these two wagons, what's the rush?

we have 6 days left. once a claim (or claims) come into the game, we'll need a day or two to analyse them. if we don't want to hammer, you want at least 3-4 days to create a new wagon from scratch that isn't a panicked deadline speedwagon.

by compromising sooner rather than later, we avoid worst-case scenarios of late-speedwagoning on random folk. remember, ~30% of D1's end on an unclaimed player due to this very phenomenon. it's worthwhile to get on with it.

[Hoopla]

^1036 is goodposting.

fuck it, i'm switching

UNVOTE:
VOTE: auro L-1

CLAIM TIME

please fill out this form auro:

I, mafiascum user auro hereby officially claim ________ <----

your roleclaim/fakeclaim goes here

I apologise to the good people of the town for my pattern of devious behaviour and hope the town can see it in their hearts to forgive me. I acknowledge that forgiveness is out of my control and if my fellow townsfolk so wish to have my head, I humbly accept this fate. All hail the glorious and wise town of Revelations!

Signed ____ <----

your username goes here

[Hoopla]

I'll be happy when VP Baltar is put to L-1 and claims.

But you could do that and aren’t.

This doesn’t seem strange to anyone but me, huh?

Stating non-zero possibility that I lolhammer if I don’t get a fucking answer from someone

somewhat.

probably worth a revisit once we have confirmed alignments to work off.

[Hoopla]

porkens, i'm personally fine with either lynch (pending claims of course)

[Hoopla]

Explain why you are OK with ABR here

he seems to be of the same school of thought as me: getting everyone to chime in and make a stance on the two main wagons is useful information.

[Hoopla]

Vt

now, just to clarify; is this a fakeclaim or is it your real role?

[Hoopla]

yes, but are you lying or telling the truth?

[Hoopla]

mmm he's good...

he's good...

[Hoopla]

when i used to collect data for mini normals, D1 VT claims occurred at about a 8:1 ratio of town:scum - scum rarely claim VT when towns will just hammer them blindly, and will generally opt for a PR fakeclaim on D1. in the past, i've been able to clear certain players based on this tell, essentially outWIFOM'ing the situation and assuming it's highly likely to be true. this play is more worth considering when you're sure the player (and playerlist in general) aren't thinking on this level.

in a game with high calibre players willing to challenge orthodoxy (including players like auro), i'm not able to give as much credit to a VT claim, despite it probably being more likely town than not.

[Hoopla]

@Vi - do scum have daytalk?

[Hoopla]

I mean, I feel as though I am trying to articulate many ideas that I feel are unintuitive and not being understood by many players in the p-list, and even my "long rambling" feels insufficient.

sounds like someone's got a case of the mastins.

if you are town, rest in peace dear angel.

[Hoopla]

I think MT is the scum.

blair and morning tweet take first and second prize in "suspicious twilight auras"

how will this factor into reads tomorrow?

to be continued...

[Hoopla]

Who cares?

Tell me I'm wrong. That L-1/hammer was atrocious. We had a plan (I thought?) and it was crumpled up and thrown in the garbage.

the plan was to have extra time up our sleeve as insurance in case we got an obvtown claim, and we needed to start a wagon from scratch.

could we have talked about this one longer? sure. but sometimes towns just need to take the game by the scruff of the neck, and not shy away from actually dealing justice.

enough people suspected him or had him null. lets not lose sleep over losing a (probable) VT. this lynch will yield good information.

[Hoopla]

a moment of silence for fallen town hero ABR. he knows no other way, and it cost him his life.

and shame on auro for his malicious ways. i hope he reflects on his wrongdoing in the graveyard.

[Hoopla]

does anyone find it strange that auro fakeclaimed VT instead of Tracker?

what are these scumbags up to behind closed doors?

i'm suspecting this was a rogue play by auro, thinking he knew best. implies a weaker/less active scumteam. perhaps even a scumteam without daytalk.

[Hoopla]

i used to be known for vehemently defending VT claims on D1 upon them being wagoned to L-1. scum very rarely fakeclaim VT in a do-or-die situation on D1.

in many games gone by, i would derail these wagons with a brute force tsunami of statistics, calling on the town to take on the WIFOM.

i suspect of this playerlist, the only one that would remember this about me would be llamarble. i can see him as scum saying to auro, "if you get to L-1, claim VT and there's a good chance Hoopla will derail it on WIFOM grounds".

this is a tinfoil conspiracy theory, i admit. but i want to get this off my chest before i look elsewhere. if this is actually

why

auro claimed VT for that level 2-scum WIFOM, let me say now, I knew you knew I knew, and was on level 3 all along. aha!

[Hoopla]

hmmm

VOTE: iamausername

[Hoopla]

*tents fingers*

may i suggest that porkens is in fact too scummy to be scum?

...

wait, someone said that? ok, carry on.

[Hoopla]

does porkens have the acting chops to pull off the unfettered "Townie-in-Despair" act late on day 1?

not according to this observer.

[Hoopla]

Go ahead, the bit of information that I received is one of you or farside are scum. I think it's you. So no, my vote isn't moving and you shouldn't be been so obvscum yesterday with your reactionary stances.

please explain, starbuck.

[Hoopla]

starbuck, i appreciate the sass. how about i ask more directly;

is this information you received pre-game? if so, why didn't you claim it D1 so we had a 50/50 to lynch from.

[Hoopla]

If his scum plan was seriously "Be as blatantly scummy as possible, make the most obvious counterwagon in existence and give the only reasoning as 'ABR switched wagons', and stage blowing a fucking vein over it" then i could possibly go insane. I can easily see town Pork thinking he's onto something, blowing a fuse over it then hammering Auro out of bitterness, though.

Is this just too scummy to be scum? God damn it. He actually pulled too scummy to be scum out in a game of ours recently, but in a WAY more minor way. Check here. Basically he was taking on pressure and his first response was "Oh my god it's not me guys" and he voted for the highest counterwagon which he hadn't expressed any scumread towards. This.. worked out for him. I'd call that a 4/10 whereas this is like a fucking 9/10 on the scales but it is something that popped into my head just then.

If Pork is scum here, that'd mean he actually faked 50. Is that even possible?

this is the sort of meta-digging i like to see. it does appear he's willing to dabble with "too scummy to be scum" games. a rare breed.

perhaps scum have info about how the town PM's/roles are structured allowing him to fake that towntell.

[Hoopla]

seems weird from a design perspective to give two townies two different 50/50's.

but i found starbuck fairly town on D1, so i'm willing to go along with it and will reread porkens/farside.

[Hoopla]

i am tempted to just say lets massclaim and attempt to blow this game wide open.

[Hoopla]

i am tempted to just say lets massclaim and attempt to blow this game wide open.

actually, i take this back.

there must be some counterbalance in play for scum in the event a lot/all of town's revelations come out. this game was reviewed by callforjudgement. i doubt he allows an early massclaim of powers and/or revelations provide too much PoE potential.

[Hoopla]

VP makes a decent point that this is a bad play by scum!Starbuck since they already lost a team member, though. I was kinda thinking maybe it was feasible since that's two free mislynches if we follow her but even then it seems unlikely.

i almost think it wouldn't be a bad play for scum!starbuck to set up two mislynches in a row of townies, even though it would result in her lynch on D4. you end up waking up on D5 in a (likely) 2:7 configuration (assuming no other kills), with hardly any scum associations to go off since d2/d3/d4 is essentially just going through the motions.

nightkills of the three best/most obv townies + two mislynches on fairly universally townread players (porkens/farside) + three low-information day phases is more than adequate compensation for your own lynch on D4.

[Hoopla]

hoopla, maybe this isn't a question uve researched but since uve talked about research

any thoughts on when scum is most likely to hop on a bus? L-1? L-2? hammer? i guess it kinda doesn't matter, but i'm trying to figure out how much the auro wagon has scum and how much the off wagons have scum

i only look at 3:10 games in mini normals. the reality is, scum lynches don't happen frequently enough to have a big enough sample size.

for sake of interest, there has been 20 D1 mafia lynches in the last two years in mini normals. of those 140 votes to lynch scum, only 19 have been bussing votes (+3 scum self-votes). since you asked, here's the distribution of where the buddies that lynch scum end up;

Spoiler: Wagon position of mafia teammates on D1 scumlynches

2-scum ON lynchwagon

2119 - 3, 5
2076 - 1, 7
2060 - 3, 6
2030 - 2, 6

1-scum ON/1-scum OFF

2132 - 2
2124 - 2
2115 - 4*, 5
2082 - 6, 7*
2045 - 6
2038 - 3, 7*
2023 - 7
2015 - 7
2013 - 4
2010 - 7
1996 - 5

0-scum on lynchwagon

2114
2057
2054
2048
2002

Bussing votes by position:

1st - 1
2nd - 3
3rd - 3
4th - 2* (one self-vote)
5th - 3
6th - 4
7th - 6* (two self-hammers)

Expected scum on wagon if votes are random (+ scum don't selfvote) = 1.166

Actual amount of bussing votes per lynch observed (19 from 20 lynches) = 0.95

~~

small sample size, but if anything, scum tend to underbus on D1, with a slightly higher concentration towards the end of the wagon. interestingly enough, if you went purely by those numbers, you have better odds of finding the scum NOT bussing, than the one(s) bussing.

this is a large game, so the numbers are less applicable here. but i'll make some comments about some of the different votes throughout the day, from an intuitive perspective. more and more, VP is starting to look town in my eyes. him being town makes a lot of sense in relation to how auro's wagon was pushed. i see yesterday as a classic town vs. scum wagon battle.

lets pick things up at page 34 with the votes looking like this;

VP Baltar (L-3)

~

Albert B. Rampage

, iamausername, Untrod Tripod, farside22, Llamarble, Hoopla

Blair (L-7)

~ Morning Tweet, Starbuck

Auro

(L-7)

~ VP Baltar, AGar

Untrod Tripod (L-7)

~ Blair, Green Crayons

Green Crayons (L-8)

~ xRECKONERx

Starbuck (L-8)

~ Kmd4390

farside22 (L-8)

~

Auro

Not Voting:

Porkens, CantLynchAPuppy

VP had been the main wagon for a while, and there was still some jostling off the wagon as to who would get pushed forward as his main rival. for that reason, i tend to like green crayons vote;

I’m feeling a bit rudderless this game and that doesn’t seem to be a unique feeling, so idk what that’s about—but whoever said it first is prob more likely town

I get what ABR is saying but it’s not doing it for me. VP sounds pretty reasonable. The big thing for me is, is that this conflict in perspective about the VP/ABR interaction isn’t toward any end. VP described ABR as combative, which is true, and then said it was null. Which is a pointless reason for VP-scum to purposefully lie about (and so suggests this is a legit difference in perspective l).

I do think hunting off the VP wagon is a good baseline

And I don’t think UT is really worth voting

VOTE: Auro

^this was a good vote and pushed auro's name into contention, the heat starting to rise a little. it was right around this time that the major players in the game were attempting to consolidate votes. ABR in particular was attempting to funnel everyone into a VPB/Auro dichotomy. it was at this point morning tweet jumped on VPB;

I would not be surprised at all if this game is harder to get into for him. I suppose he could be scum but because of the likelihood that this is just a difficult game, it doesn't make me feel like he has any extra chances of being scum

VOTE: VP l-2

i find the timing of morning tweet's joining of the VPB wagon suspicious - it's almost as if she was preemmptively keeping this wagon ahead before the auro wagon took off.

a few pages later, i too was now bullying people into consolidating votes. the votecount looking like this;

VP Baltar (L-2)

~ iamausername, Untrod Tripod, Hoopla, Morning Tweet, Porkens, Llamarble,

Auro

Auro

(L-4)

~ VP Baltar, AGar, Green Crayons,

Albert B. Rampage

, farside22

Untrod Tripod (L-8)

~ Blair

Blair (L-8)

~ Starbuck

Green Crayons (L-8)

~ xRECKONERx

Starbuck (L-8)

~ Kmd4390

farside22 (L-9)

~ (Auro)

Not Voting:

CantLynchAPuppy

in succession, starbuck and blair both jumped on auro, making them both at L-2. throwing a spanner in the works, i switched from VPB to auro, to take him to L-1.

i am mostly suspicious of blair's vote here as she had been chasing pet reads all day, calling VPB town when he had little competition, and then when i called her out to pick between the two leading wagons, she had no choice but to pick auro given her stance on VPB. in my opinion, she gets no credit for bussing auro (especially when she jumped off to promote an ABR speedwagon), and given starbuck looks pretty good, i think blair is a good candidate for a bussing vote.

in actuality, we almost certainly should be lynching farside or porkens (both of these players being on auro's lynchwagon), but i thought i'd share some thoughts on the other players on/off the wagon while things are quiet.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:

for now...

[Hoopla]

if i was capable of feeling emotions, that would be a sensational appeal to them. bravo, porkchop!

now lets hear farside's life story before we decide today's lynch.

[Hoopla]

re: Hoopla's theory on Starbuck -- I mean, maybe? It'd be a really genius level play by scum and a worthwhile trade I suppose. I have a hard time buying that's what is going on though. I would NEVER have thought of that as an actual play worth trying. Maybe I'm dumb. I sort of read Starbuck as a pretty earnest and straightforward player. That's not the type of deception I'd expect from her, which is why I believe she's being honest about her info.

well, i don't expect this type of deception from her either. but she could have scummates who have suggested this play to her.

the reason i am doubting it, is it just seems like a cheap design mechanic to give someone a 50/50 cop investigation pregame. it also seems weird not to claim it D1 and take the 50/50. but these are probably just overly paranoid rumblings. and yes, i have read her explanations. overall, starbuck has felt town, so i guess we follow her.

~~

if we're picking between these two players, i lean more towards farside. the way she pegged me as scum on D1 then completely dropped me as a scumread for no apparent reason felt ingenuine to me. like, there was no town thought process to observe that transformation.

porkens' unusual outbursts earn him another day.

VOTE: farside L-3 i believe?

[Hoopla]

Just an fyi i had some info too, which was why I believed star. My info helps scum more then town tbf.

would revealing this information make it more likely we believe you to be town?

or are you planning on taking it to the grave?

[Hoopla]

wow, are scum even trying?

pathetic.

i feel sorry for them. i almost want to sacrifice a townie today to make them feel better.

[Hoopla]

petition to kick up our feet and have a relaxing day culling the lurkers.

plz respond

VOTE: KMD

[Hoopla]

iamausername also needs more scrutiny.

who feels like impressing me by investigating his slot? BIG town points on offer to any intrepid reporter.

[Hoopla]

saucy post, UT.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: iamausername

[Hoopla]

also, i have a revelation.

i've been hanging onto it because it's not super useful, and there was a part of me that suspected there would be some hidden countermeasure to punish people for revealing revelations unnecessarily.

does anyone have any reasons for or against claiming revelations?

[Hoopla]

That also happens to be post 766, which is the other post I reference in my notes. Notice the blame for thinking Auro is town lies at Hoopla's feet rather than his own

clearly i have false positives, because there are definitely going to be more than two scum in a 17 player game, but i figure on later days my town-sieve will have smaller holes. or i might actually find some scummy behaviour. either way, i am not especially concerned about it right now.

Auro is one of the more likely false positives, i guess. i found Hoopla's explanation for her townread on him in 462 convincing more than anything Auro has done himself.

i agree with this.

a shameless display of passing the buck onto ol' hoopla; the convenient scapegoat.

[Hoopla]

Day 2. Case in point.

having a 50/50 on scum seemed kinda overpowered which was the only thing holding me back from just voting farside immediately,

i've been quietly ruminating on what this mechanic actually is. is it just random setup info for a handful of players? or is there something more that meets the eye? giving a guaranteed 50/50 on scum D1 seems a strange piece of info. not necessarily overpowered per se, but it seems somewhat inelegant for a classy cat like vi. i'd be ropeable if i drew scum only to be 50/50'd before uttering a word.

there is a part of me that still believes this could be a gambit from starbuck-scum. no, that's crazy.

anyway...

Spoiler: my revelation

there are 4 anti-town players in the game

[Hoopla]

not sure if i've ever played a vi-game before.

does vi have a history of modding surprise-cult games? 3 mafia + a cult leader seems like the only possible anti-town combination other than four mafia that could work, since it looks like we don't have a SK.

[Hoopla]

you play the apathetic town martyr role well. i am almost believing it.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, did your revelation say 4 mafia or generally 4 people with non town goals?

i was told there are four anti-town players in the game.

[Hoopla]

sorry to lay down the law

but...

cheekiness is not a substitute for content.

[Hoopla]

is anyone here good at sensing auras?

i tried to ask my ouija board if cantlynchapuppy is scum, but there were too many letters.

[Hoopla]

It's in the Game Rules. Post 1. Seriously, I don't know what's so hard about reading the rules and seeing what the mechanic is all about.

mmm mmm but there is a

twist

you know.

[Hoopla]

what to do

what to do

UNVOTE:
VOTE: morning tweet

[Hoopla]

sound the horns!

[Hoopla]

an observation from left-field apropos of nothing;

well, for whatever it's worth, i'm not living long in this game because scum know something specific about me.

Just an fyi i had some info too, which was why I believed star. My info helps scum more then town tbf.

farside opted for a similar style of revelation-softclaiming as reck earlier in the game.

though scum should be thinking about their strategy re: revelations, my intuition suggests that two scum wouldn't both soft a revelation D1.

could reck/farside both be so crafty?

[Hoopla]

no

also good catch bc if farside actually had a revelation that means everyone else who has one is town per the ruleset

hmm

i was under the impression you were a town drunk type of character, but some have heralded your acting chops as scum. i haven't seen it.

~~

a question for the readers:

surely reck isn't savvy enough to plant such a delicious softclaim seed there as scum, is he?

[Hoopla]

he is

he's also very good at either subtlety or more often not subtlety pushing wagons away from scum and onto town though when he's scum

And I have a hard time thinking he'd sit around on GC for all of day 1 as scum when a scumbuddy was in danger of being lynched the whole time

hot tip, kid

[Hoopla]

presumably there's a Tarhalindur in the game b/c this is a theme Vi game and if it's scum they could easily claim something like 'I know Tarhalindur, over Mafia is in the game and is a mafia or something like that for a revelation.

presumably? i didn't presume that!

i'm a simpleton used to the vanilla ways of the normal queue. i have no idea what goes on here. what is this 'tarhalindur' idea?

[Hoopla]

1350 - some reasonable wagon analysis. this is basically the only part of the Morning Tweet case that i find at all compelling.

my wagon analysis was pre-farside flip, who turned out to be the mid-way bussing vote of the wagon. i think MT looks a little better, and i want to revisit our D1 wagons later.

i've actually changed my mind on morning tweet. there's no way scum is stupid enough to claim VT for a third time at L-1, especially after we hammered VT-claiming scum the first two times.

lets be bold enough to take on the WIFOM.

UNVOTE:

reevaluating...

[Hoopla]

UT im lynching you tomorrow FYI

i actually have intuitive rumblings in this direction, and will team up with reck if/when he wants to go there.

[Hoopla]

VP Baltar

(L-2)

~ iamausername, Untrod Tripod,

Hoopla

, Morning Tweet,

Porkens

,

Llamarble

,

Auro

Auro

(L-2)

~ VP Baltar, AGar, Green Crayons,

Albert B. Rampage

,

farside22

,

Starbuck

, Blair

Green Crayons (L-8)

~

xRECKONERx

Starbuck (L-8)

~ Kmd4390

Not Voting: CantLynchAPuppy

light green = probtown

this was the vote count at the critical juncture of yesterday.

auro was actually on L-4 a few posts prior. starbuck and blair both jumped on auro to push him to L-2, then i switched and pressed a claim from auro at L-1.

given we had a long period of VPB as the leading wagon with little energy elsewhere, i suspect some scum early on the VPB's wagon. iamausername and UT make sense from this perspective. there is definitely scum on that wagon before auro jumped on - they didn't all just decide to bus him when VPB was a fine option. my intuition suggests there was some relaxed scum parked early on that the wagon; positioned opposite to farside who was the scum pushing auro. scum tend to take a mixed approach re: main wagons on D1. and VPB's wagon felt like a classic case of scum quietly expecting it to go through, with players like iamausername/UT happily parked at the base of that wagon.

vanity voter/lurker KMD, and non-voter CLAP are also suspicious. overall, i think we have a fairly inexperienced/unmeticulous scumteam, given auro's and farside's claims, so i think characters like UT/CLAP/KMD fit the profile of whimsical/detached enough to allow auro free-rein to play in his way and claim in his way unchecked.

VOTE: UT

[Hoopla]

so you think that with two scum remaining I'm going to aggressively bus my remaining buddy with basically no prompting after having ignored him the rest of the game

this is your big spicy take

no, i think it's probably one or the other.

with the fourth scum in KMD/CLAP, OR possibly one sneaky scumbag playing an excellent town-looking game.

[Hoopla]

how dare you call me probtown

i didn't.

i called the cut-out of llamarble's face you're holding in front your own prob-town.

[Hoopla]

Hard disagree. Also wouldn't this be counter to your theory that we have an unorganized/inexperienced scumteam?

i think even the simplest of simpletons would wise up and fakeclaim something other than VT after witnessing your two previous buddies go down in that way.

my thoughts that we have a lackadaisical/unthinking scumteam is precisely because of auro's claim. tracker is a perfect town-looking claim there - it could easily buy you another day or two, and it's even potentially provable. i can't imagine a scumteam led by some old pro like llamarble/reck would endorse that VT claim. even if scum don't have daytalk, i imagine an experienced/thoughtful team would be discussing fakeclaims pregame - at least, i always do as scum.

[Hoopla]

if you have performed some level 3 WIFOM as scum and are now gloating about it publicly to my face, bravo to you, MT.

[Hoopla]

and I'm, what, a newbie?

you're more a whimsical, shoot-the-breeze type character.

i don't perceive you painstakingly plotting out possible permutations privately pre-game.

[Hoopla]

how does me voteparking on VPB because it's a sneaky scum thing to do fit in with the fact that GC asked me to look at him, which is what led to my vote

it's not a sneaky thing to do per se.

it's more that on D1 scum often seek positions that are hard for others to critique and have a tendency to sit on votes - especially votes deemed kosher by the collective hivemind - when the gamestate allows it. GC giving you an excuse to park safely does nothing to challenge that rationale.

[Hoopla]

I'm gonna be honest Hoops this case of yours is lazy and full of holes

this isn't a "case" on you - i'm not going to pretend it is. as a wise mafia philosopher once said:

"cases are scummy"

this is more a read forged from the fires of PoE and wagonomics. i'm making a number of assumptions elsewhere independent of you.

i expect scum to take a mixed approach to the VPB/Auro wagons. your behaviour fits the blueprint of where i expect scum to be in a VP-town/Auro-scum universe. if this is truly a case of wrong place at the wrong time, i apologise, but i'm not really in the business of arguing back-and-forth with PoE targets.

i leave my conclusion laid bare for the town to judge themselves.

[Hoopla]

having said all that;

you're scumreading iam, which is fine, but opened the day by fishing for someone else to make the case on him and responded to me digging through his ISO with "oh yeah this is a good case" and voting with me.

maybe someone else will make a case for me again"

you seem miffed that i didn't award you the afore-promised town points for doing the gruntwork on iamusername. i apologise for my capricious change of heart - but i do appreciate the effort.

if it comes down to you vs. iamausername today, i will be very happy.

[Hoopla]

I'm gonna be honest

get him!!

[Hoopla]

@Hoopla - You know how I asked Blair for her SPICIEST scumread earlier? You're that spicy read for me. I think more likely than not you're town and I'm being paranoid, but I think you're a good enough player to pull off bussing Auro day 1 and tbf you signaled your vote switch onto Auro with literal sirens to make sure everyone would see it.

usually it takes a couple of misyeets before the hoopla-paranoia starts seeping into the game, but i understand. ol' hoopla pulling the strings behind the scenes is a natural conspiracy to gravitate towards.

You also think my slot is town, and I feel like I've been pretty open about thinking MT is the best scum option I can think of but I'm not 100% convinced of it. Given both of those things, can you point to some things that you think makes MT town that couldn't be explained post-game with a single sentence saying either 'Ha, GOTCHA Hoopla' or 'Thanks for the claim advice Hoopla'? You could be right about MT but I'm not planning on switching off of her unless you or someone else can point to reasons why her dayplay is more likely coming from town than scum here.

when players display a certain level of skill and self-awareness about what looks town and how to do it, i prefer reading these players off singular events, rather than a body of work. i don't know her well, but it's clear from other people's comments, her behaviour could go either way. people are scared to dabble with WIFOM - but with a little intuition and courage, you too can outguess the scum in intense moments - moments when their life is on the line.

[Hoopla]

why are llamarble/gamma and reck probtown? seems a little off to put them on the same level as vpb / starbuck, even if you have them as townreads. (reck was also on a vanity wagon) personally, if i was looking for scum on the vpb wagon, i think UT / MT / Llamarble are all on the right spots

llamarble's interplay with auro was very nuanced and he was a big reason for his downfall. he gets some points for that.

reck is prob-town for his softclaim-revelation.

[Hoopla]

hmm, looks like i got no bites on the UT ticket.

KMD vs. iamausername it is then. both fine options.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: iamausername

[Hoopla]

I'm here. If anyone has questions for me I'm all ears

what is your star sign?

[Hoopla]

Aries.

some things are bound to get lost and be left behind as you move along. it is important to stay confident and in tune with your successes, no matter what once happened, or you thought should happen but never did. there is truly no point in crying over spilled milk.

show how thankful you are to people who stood by your side in difficult times and when you lost your energy or your way. still, make sure that such contacts allow new ones to blossom in your life as you move along.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: KMD

[Hoopla]

hmm, the old "

don't read any of the game upon replacing in

" idea.

haven't seen that for a while. bold from chkflip.

[Hoopla]

chkflip, if you are going to act like a sheep, then you shall be treated as such.

seems a lot more likely that it was actually motivated by Hoopla's 1691, which has big flashy colours and looks like it's probably persuasive and therefore makes a username wagon look more viable.

^iamausername is correct. please read my flashy coloured post. it was designed with sheep in mind.

the main options are KMD/iamausername. blair/UT/CLAP are probably the next tier. realistically, i'm happy to execute any one of those listed, but in the interest of getting on with game, chkflip; please switch to KMD like the good sheep you are.

thanks in advance.

[Hoopla]

and if i fucking vote off of that ill just get called a "vanity voter"

the further out of the mainstream deliberations your target is, the more you need to offer a convincing argument to move the town in that direction.

so, as it stands, yes, this is textbook vanity voting.

[Hoopla]

blood blood blood

blood blood blood

[Hoopla]

BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD BLOOOOOOOOD

[Hoopla]

very interesting. perversely, i kind of believe it.

claim the results.

if he's scum, he could get caught out by claiming someone went nowhere, when they in fact did.

[Hoopla]

yah

UNVOTE:

for now...

[Hoopla]

o you know how I said that Auro might have not wanted to claim tracker b/c scum might have a revelation regarding it

Something like "you are not the only tracker in the game" would make a lotttt of sense ya know

oooh, i like this. great thinking!

[Hoopla]

i'm happy confirming that i went nowhere last night.

i believe KMD.

[Hoopla]

this is great!

why haven't i been playing in vi games all these years...

[Hoopla]

all you trackers stalking me at night, back off!

[Hoopla]

3 town trackers + 1 other maybe PR is duuuuuumb powerful

eh, in large games, trackers have super low odds of catching scum until the game is smaller.

and once the first one was claimed, they were all likely to be outed early in the game, and are less useful now as scum can just pick them off. i wouldn't be surprised if scum have some sort of roleblocker/X-shot ninja type role too.

3 trackers + extra power isn't a game-breaking amount of power.

but obviously i have no idea what to do at this point. i am rattled!

[Hoopla]

i think at most there is one scum in the three trackers, but wouldn't be surprised if all were town. i also agree that KMD is the most likely of the trackers to be scum. agar's and GC's moments surrounding KMD's claim were very pure - looked like they were in gotcha mode, just itching to CC and catch lying scum.

i think if GC or agar are scum, they are more likely to be hesitant about CC'ing. given auro didn't claim tracker, i imagine GC or agar might have similar reservations as scum. they certainly wouldn't be so fervent in thinking they had KMD on the ropes.

~~

the game is likely (pending future twists) 2:11 right now - as such, we have time to test the tracker claims. i have a sinking feeling they're all town, but if there's scum there it's KMD.

[Hoopla]

now that the tracker party has been exposed, i think it is quite obvious scum's revelation must be tracker related.

next protocol before we yeet:

green crayons should claim his N2 track

if

they went nowhere.

there were only two scum alive on this night. revealing someone as (essentially) VT/goon is worth it, as we reduce this slot's odds of being scum by half (as there's a 50/50 chance they would have made the kill). this info is worth outing the slot as non power, as there is still a large enough pool of players for other town power to hide in.

agar's N2 results i'm less sure about. i trust his judgement to reveal his info as he sees fit. there are probably some combos of 'player --> player' that are worth revealing, and some not. if his info wasn't a player tracked to a kill, risking taking the info to the grave (by being the NK) is probably worth it, to hide other potential town power.

[Hoopla]

Mm. I thought the argument was "Hoopla can't be scum." Carry on.

oh, people will always find a way.

i could be a mod-confirmed innocent babby and someone would still suggest i have bribed the mod or that green actually means red if you deconstruct the words to its pre-latin roots.

[Hoopla]

consider me very impressed!

[Hoopla]

This wait is likely worthwhile

yes, let the puppy speak forth.

he's running the show for the next page or so.

[Hoopla]

follow the puppy's orders please.

we'll be the judge of that.

[Hoopla]

it appears we can largely solve or at least gain good info about the puppy slot by some exchange of information here.

the only risk i see from this is outing a protection role. so, if it makes you feel more at ease; just claim who the person was tracked to, not the player you tracked. that protects the identity of potential town power, while also gives puppy something to work with.

puppy, will this information be useful to you in terms of revealing yours?

[Hoopla]

agar, given this is some potential info we can glean about the setup;

Let me put it like this

I have information that leads me to believe 3 town trackers is plausible

i think an exchange of info should be made here.

are you being stubborn because this might force you to reevaluate your KMD scumread?

[Hoopla]

I don’t see how giving up a player who has a role is related to CLAP telling us he has info about three town trackers.

we're only giving up where a role targetted - not the role itself.

i don't know where puppy is going with this, but intuitively, i think it will be useful to learn more about the setup (clarify the tracker situation) or learn more about puppy (clarify his slot).

there's little downside in revealing a hidden PR's target. we're not outing a PR here.

[Hoopla]

i think agar is too attached to his scumread on KMD to see the forest for the trees here. we only narrow the PoE on a town PR a little. scum have a lot of work to do at night to kill off any/all town trackers - they won't risk shooting into a pool of unknowns (though shrinking).

i get he thinks KMD is scum, but puppy has claimed potentially contradictory information apropos of nothing. puppy is probably town - scum don't run such nuanced interference out of the blue.

this means the value of agar's information has since plummeted, and i think it's more important for everyone else in the town to get a better read of the situation, than for agar to cling to his info that may well be leading him in the wrong direction.

[Hoopla]

okay, that's fine.

do you believe puppy is town here?

[Hoopla]

i think this game has scrambled my brain.

i don't really think chkflip is scum, but i feel like i need to completely reevaluate the game in light of all this new info, and i suppose i could be wrong; my morning tweet read on D1/D2 was perhaps my most volatile.

lets just get the inevitable over with, see what shakes out tonight.

i endorse a hammer for the sake of letting the game breath for 48 hours and giving everyone a chance to start tomorrow with fresh eyes.

[Hoopla]

Morning Tweet and UT and maybe oddly Hoopla are my biggest suspicions atm

another wouldbe night stalker. i'm glad you displayed some courtesy and resisted the temptation to spy on ol' hoopla!

[Hoopla]

@mod

is it possible for roles in this game to target the mod?

Yes.

am curious about this to be explained tomorrow, or if puppy wishes to spend the dying hours of today informing us.

[Hoopla]

how curious.

i don't know what to make of it.

lets hear some results from our tracker friends.

[Hoopla]

it seems pretty obvious to me that puppy is town.

i'd also be fine with massclaim if everyone is up for it.

lets get all the cards on the table.

[Hoopla]

If there's wacky mod bullshit happening, this seems at least worth a try:
VOTE: Vi

hah, i was actually thinking this might be a good idea the very second you posted this.

tis a shame vi has quashed this angle.

[Hoopla]

i'm going to sheep the puppy, our brave new leader, while i meditate on all this new information.

i do get the feeling that all of this is a giant red herring stew that won't see us be able to confirm anyone mechanically. as such, i agree with puppy that scum were likely sitting back during the whole tracker fiasco, seeing which way the cards will fall before committing to an angle.

reck is a decent pick, if we're executing based on this behaviour.

VOTE: reck

~~

if this is a shaggy dog story of a setup, massclaim doesn't carry the usual downside, ie; the risk of outing town power that could win the game at night if kept secret. i think putting everything on the table now is best.

in the interest of getting things moving, i'll start a popcorn massclaim;

i am indeed VT. i softclaimed it somewhat when i confirmed i didn't go anywhere on N1/N2.

reck can go next. i believe he has an undisclosed revelation he's hanging onto?

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: blair

claim please.

[Hoopla]

hah, two trackers targeted iaau because they were so desperate to impress me. think for yourselves!

still thinking about what to do next...

[Hoopla]

Maybe. Given the trackers are all neutered (assuming your revelation is truthful), I'm considering this a vanilla setup. I think scum could be anywhere.

I still think kmd is probably the most suspicious of the trackers, but he was truthful about his night action

i agree with this post - i think scum could be anywhere, and we should be executing with an emphasis on behaviour as opposed to what makes sense from night play.

KMD is probably the tracker i want dead most, but i'm happy sitting on my blair vote for now. hers is a slot that hasn't received enough pressure throughout the game.

[Hoopla]

still trying to wrap my head around this game. i have been adrift for a while, and feel lost.

so if we assume 2 mafia trackers (which fucking honestly seems likely) then we're pretty evenly divided into:

one scum in {me/blair/clap/hoopla/starbuck/ut}
one scum in {agar/gc/kmd/gamma/vpb}

right?

on a reread this is a take i agree with.

[Hoopla]

in the mean time i am offering my vote to any noble town shepherd requiring sheep.

only nice, honest, dreamy candidates prepared to lead with earnestness apply.

[Hoopla]

i agree with these two reads;

AGar is willing to fight everyone in his early game posts and attacks Auro when Auro's posts are garbage while also not going into big explanations about it for potential towncred, GC feels genuine in his scumhunting and his reactions to people, (example from my notes: I like GC's posts on page 9 for town even though if I went into why deeper it would wind up being something like 'lazy at first but checks and corrects himself' being slightly more likely to come from town than scum which is dumb but I still like it).

agar's and GC's reactions during the tracker claiming fiasco seemed most town, and i would sheep either of them.

i would sheep you also gammagooey.

who are we kiling?

[Hoopla]

my revelation could be associated with the word "smoke"

that's all i'll say on it

smoking gun? smoke and mirrors?

there's no smoke without fire?

put that in your pipe and smoke it?

[Hoopla]

maybe KMD would be a better direction, as he is the standout choice amongst the trackers imo.

whereas the non-tracker pool i'm much less sure about. three or four of those slots i see as having a reasonable chance.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: KMD

[Hoopla]

i just received a very rude and nasty prod.

my contribution: BLOOD BLOOD BLOOOD BLOOOOD

someone wind up and hammer.

[Hoopla]

wow, it seems we truly are a gifted town with our fingers on the pulse. no doubt this last scumbag is sweating bullets.

CLAP should probably die soon to quell conspiracy theories, but given we have all the time in the world, i would prefer to go for the town sweep today for style points. as such, today i will be voting who i believe most likely to be scum.

VOTE: UT

i side with blair's proclamations from earlier today. he seems to be the last piece.

[Hoopla]

oh wait, i forgot misyeeting

morning tweet

chkflip. that was a whole thing. it seems this town hasn't quite been as perfect as i recall.

[Hoopla]

maybe hoopla is just playing a fantastic scu game?

sadly, after all these years, i never passed the test for my bussing license.

[Hoopla]

don't tell me i'm going to have to actually think about who is the last mafia!

[Hoopla]

hmm, i have been in cruise control for the last couple of days thinking this was neatly wrapped up.

i owe this game a reread.

[Hoopla]

ho ho ho!

that's-a spicy meatball!

[Hoopla]

if vpbaltar is scum, it does throw out the notion that ABR had a starbuck-esque 50/50 he was working with.

[Hoopla]

what were vp's claimed actions on previous nights? were any of those confirmed?

[Hoopla]

so, are we assuming vpbaltar is a scum tracker who now has had to make the NK and not track - and perhaps he was freed up to actually track these targets on earlier nights?

or are we assuming he is a goon who felt it was a better bet blending in with a tracker rather than a VT claim?

[Hoopla]

i'd also like the puppy to chime in.

[Hoopla]

FWIW, I am skeptical Gamma is scum here. The short term gain of my misyeet seems more risk than it's worth if he was the last scum. There would have been easier misyeets for him to go after than elaborate story that would end in backfire within a day or two.

i agree with this.

this would be some unnecessarily high-level 5D chess from gamma if he is indeed scum. there's no need for such gambits when he is universally being read as town.

...but perhaps that is just what he wants us to think?

[Hoopla]

we really can't not test gamma's results.

it is the correct play.

[Hoopla]

yeah my secret info absolutely has nothing game related at the moment in it

and actually i guess it can't hurt to reveal it since i will clearly never be a nightkill target hrmmmm

based on play, vpbaltar has been quite town, and my brain keeps wanting to find reasons to believe this is all one big misunderstanding. so, if you can reveal some info that will put to bed some conspiracy theories, i say let it out.

[Hoopla]

I want to say that Hoopla's takes on every discussion have been perfect

aw shucks!

[Hoopla]

> Hoopla pops in to remind us all that the optimal play today is to vote for VP Baltar

> Hoopla doesn't vote for VP Baltar

whether or not this is the correct play (it probably is), it can't hurt to meditate on the gamestate for a day or two - especially given how gung-ho we were yesterday.

[Hoopla]

What in particular makes you think that VPB is likely town at this point? Have you reread day 1 since farside was yeeted? I'm probably going to be posting a decent amount less than usual in the next few days but I can put in the effort to be the foil to your arguments since I do believe fairly strongly in VPB-scum.

it is perhaps a tone thing.

a confession: this game i've been reading along and chiming in where i can, but i have rarely been looking back at the thread once new posts come along, so i'm basing a lot of things off old thoughts & feelings. i don't usually play the game this way. this has been partially a voluntary experiment, and partially a situation forced upon me by other creative projects chewing up time (though these are all wrapping up swiftly).

i expect to have a more focused approach in the coming days.

[Hoopla]

a last comment before i rest my weary eyes;

reck's revelation claim is top comedy. given what we've seen of the setup so far, its absurd nature clearly comes from vi's brain, and not reck's. reck is a funny cat, but he's not

that

funny.

reck is town and that is a true revelation.

[Hoopla]

alright, i've spent all morning rereading the most pertinent parts of the thread and feel much more acquainted with the comings and goings. i have been shooting the breeze and trying to listen to my intuition much more in this game, but it is time to think logically;

~~

while i was rereading, this observation about reck and his revelation came to light;

Hawt New Game Mechanic Rules:

1)

A Revelation.

Some players begin the game with additional information about the game setup. All but one of these players are Town-aligned.

so when i said my revelation had something to do with "smoke" what i meant was "smoke and mirrors"

my revelation is literally that scum know i know something about the game
the thing i know about the game? is that scum knows i know something about the game

[insert infinite rabbit hole of wifom here]

if scum only have one revelation between them, reck's revelation is claiming that scum's revelation is "reck knows something about the game". do we really believe that

this

was scum's one piece of information about the setup? if reck's revelation is true, it means that scum weren't given any info about the trackers, or possible NK screwiness.

earlier in the game i was operating under the assumption posed by blair & gammagooey;

So you know how I said that Auro might have not wanted to claim tracker b/c scum might have a revelation regarding it

Something like "you are not the only tracker in the game" would make a lotttt of sense ya know

reck's revelation claim means the above (or something similar) can't be true.

it could be that gamma's theory was off, but there is so much screwiness in the game, i find it hard to believe that giving scum a red herring as their only info was all they received (especially when the town was gifted a 50/50 about one them).

my next thought was;

i suppose since CLAP's revelation is mech#2 he

could

be scum and not invalidate the notion that only one scum player has a revelation (according to mech#1) - that would be some cheeky ruleslawyering from vi if that is indeed the case.

i would explore that idea more, but the way CLAP dripfed his revelation seems quite town, and the clinker? KMD tracking CLAP on N1, and trying to execute CLAP on D4 before the tide turned on himself. that would be a rather convincing bus if KMD/CLAP are scum together.

~~

i wanted to explore some of these ideas before committing to testing gamma's info (just in case i was overlooking something). i'm uneasy and perhaps feel a little sorry for scum if all the info they were given about the setup was a red herring about reck's role, but we simply can't ignore gamma's info. it's as close to a guilty as we can possibly receive in this setup.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: vpbaltar

if you are the last scum, well played.

your deceased buddies should be proud of you.

[Hoopla]

i mean, revelations aren't revealed upon a flip, so someone like ABR/porkens/IAAU could easily have taken some info to the grave. although, if vi is selecting the kill and not randomising it, i don't think she'd let a role with key info about the setup be offed early.

[Hoopla]

if you're not scum, i think it probably is reck.

but you are the percentage play today.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla because, at this point, she would have bussed all of her partners (she's on each Elim) and Blair given the opportunity of the last few lynches and (for me) that KMD connection that I can't shake.

why does me being on every scum execution (and off one of the mis-executes) make me a suspect?

and why are you discounting vpbaltar exactly?

[Hoopla]

Theoretically one scum player could have multiple bits of info on the setup

actually that's a good point.

one scum could have info about reck + other stuff about trackers.

ok, back to the drawing board.

[Hoopla]

I always felt he was town, even before ABR revealed his gambit. I've figured ABR had the 50/50, too. Hence why he pitted Auro vs VPB.

If VPB is scum, I'll eat my damn hat, but out of everyone in this game. He'll never get my vote.

a lot of people have been speculating about possible revelations; scum having tracker info, scum knowing/not knowing about NK mechanics, ABR having a 50/50 etc. these are just theories and not guaranteed to be true.

i mean, they're good to consider, but why prize a theoretical ABR-revelation but ignore gamma's info on vpbaltar? that seems a lot more concrete than mystery revelation speculations.

what do you make of gamma's info today?

[Hoopla]

Because theoretically there's more than one scum alive at the point and there's no way that there's only one scum on Auro's elim and none on farside's elim. I think the common denominator, between you and VPB, is you.

i've claimed there are only four anti-town players in the game.

so if you believe there are 5, i must be lying.

this makes me an auto-execute if the game continues if we execute a scum today/tomorrow. why would i put myself in that position for no reason?

[Hoopla]

if ya'll have anything else to say you've got 24 hours to say it

i'm done talking, lets move on with it.

[Hoopla]

WHAT?

starbuck didn't even have a true 50/50? did you misread your role PM? or were you gambiting? that could have ended badly if both farside/porkens were town.

[Hoopla]

setup was unique and had some great moments of madness. i enjoyed it, despite not really expecting something so abstract.

well played to the scum, especially vpbaltar!

i suspect things would have gone down to the wire had gamma not caught you!

[Hoopla]

I will go down as one of the greatest players to have ever played this game!

ABR sent me three pairs of potential scumpartners and all six of the people named were Town.

regression to the mean;)

i like abr's bombastic style - it's entertaining. but he can spare us the histrionics.

[Hoopla]

*Information as currency - So I'm actually kind of livid about reading a respected Mafia theorist say that Neighbors are worth almost nothing for Town power.

this person is a goose. quite often, the value of a powerrole isn't always the actions it succeeds in doing: a tracker who finds out nothing, or a doctor who makes no correct saves doesn't mean the role was useless. being able to assess a player's motivations in relation to their role can sometimes confirm them and remove them from the PoE pool - as can confirming them via setup spec. this is often more useful than the actions they succeed in doing - if anything, a successful action is a bonus.

Was the setup balanced? Who knows? It's too swingy to tell based on this single run. farside thought it was 95% Town-sided; cfj's last comment was that it was still scum-sided enough to be concerned about. And, honestly, that's kind of the point - because so much of the game's balance was intentionally not based on roles and (standard) mechanics.

we will never know.

it is tempting to be results oriented and base conceptions of balance based on what happened. we had good fortune this game; starbuck misreading her role could have ended in disaster with us chain-executing two or three townies in a row. instead it hit mafia and pseudo-confirmed two other townies. that was by far the biggest inflection point of the game.

*Revelations - It's been said that people are easiest to read when something surprising happens. This game was designed to facilitate those moments.

i 100% agree with this.

if you wanted to argue that this game was town-sided, it would have been because there were

too many

of these moments. the way reck and CLAP trickled out their revelations, and the way agar and GC played when the tracker claims all came out made it fairly obvious they were all town. it takes a creative scumbag to simulate something surprising or to thrive in chaotic gamestates - most of the time scum will be reactionary when something surprising is unfolding, rather than be the instigators.

it still requires savvy town members to parse these moments and draw the right conclusions, and there is still room in the setup for scum goofiness if they wanted to be proactive. but i think most scum won't, and that ought to be factored into balance considerations.

it's easy to say in hindsight (because it kind of happened this game), but with the potential for these surprising moments to confirm, removing scum's ability to kill obvtownies could have boxed them in more than they were.

i don't necessarily think this game was unbalanced though. an interesting corollary to consider with large games; all is takes is one scum to play a blinder and scum will win if town don't lucky with PR choices. and the larger the game, the larger the scumteam - more of a chance of drawing

one

really good scum player.

but as i said, we will never know the true balance. and that's okay. it was a fun game, and i think both sides did have a reasonable chance of winning if things fell their way.

i do feel sorry to farside, and felt that was a strangely inelegant design for someone like vi. i'm glad to see that wasn't the case, and it was just an unfortunate railroading.

[Hoopla]

The MVP of this game was easily Gammagooey. Replaced in, remembered the Tarhalindur meta, was on the right side of the CLAP argument, and came up with the Tracking scheme that ultimately bagged the last Mafia.

agree with gammagooey for mvp. even without nailing the last scumbag, he played great and was a beacon of towniness throughout the game.

his predecessor in llamarble also was a great town influence. i wonder what happened to him? vi?