Team Mafia 2018: Game 3 - Random GIFs Game Over

[Bulbazak]

Couldn't find the quote I was looking for. I swear it's in that thread, but I can't really find it. If you can, please post. But Smith does show a tendency towards thinking larger town power is balanced. The thread's worth it to look over, and I'm sure someone will get more out of it than me. Regardless, this is worth a look:

TLDR:

1) Non-vanilla roles seem to be generally over-valued, especially roles that don't actually do much of anything useful (town neighbor, bodyguard, 1-shot whatever).

2) 3 goon setups in particular seem to tend to attract nowhere near enough town power needed to make games tossups. One decent power (tracker, JK, watcher, doctor, vig - obviously some of these are better than others) and two mediocre powers (bodyguard, hider, vengeful, 1-shot anything) is simply not enough. Ditto one good power and just ONE mediocre power (like just a night 1 doc in 1701). Even against an all-goon team, you probably need TWO good powers out of 3-4 overall power roles in order to achieve balance.

3) If the goal is to have a balanced win rate in 10v3 mini normals, then towns need to keep getting boosted even beyond the current norms, especially when it comes to what level of power to apply against all goon teams or how heavily to value five town PR's solely for the sake of HAVING five town PR's.

[Bulbazak]

But the mod designed the setup, so his thoughts on what is balanced need to be considered. 4 PRs feels about right for a game this size where scum have day talk. And that's before we consider what's on the scum side of things.
But "game has been balanced around the expected level of play for this event" makes backup tracker more dicey, as that would suggest a setup that could fall into a potential follow the cop type scenario. It could depend on if scum have any PRs or not, and what they are.

[Bulbazak]

Oops, my bad. Here's where I'm at:

Dunkers still town partly because I think Boon's influence would be more visible if he were scum, and I think I trust Elena's final read on him.
Bulba strikes me as town.
Still townreading Radja :/
Ugh maybe Bins is actually scum, I can't remember why I was townreading her and moreover I can't remember why she's townreading me so solidly at this point in the game.
The only reason I'm really townreading Archwing is the sync up with UCV, but I did read 3841 and the consistencies are not as strong as they first appeared. Potentially Arch could have gotten them from a read through UCV's ISO and non-Creature teammates.
DV claimed PR so he can be sorted out later, doesn't lock him as town (my ability to detect real/fake claims based on setup spec is like nil) but if he is we'll see if scum are willing to give him a night to track.

Final reads from Key. Probably worth going over more than something from the start of the day.

[Bulbazak]

But that's assuming that DV knew what Bins was. FMPOV one of you is scum with Dunker. I'm just trying to figure out which one. And I don't want to ramble right now, because I'm waiting for certain responses both in here and in my team PT in order to get a better handling. Right now it's evidence of you as scum vs. balance issues. And I'm like:

[Bulbazak]

@Bins: I know that. I've been wrestling over whether to just vote Dunker, since I know that's scum. But I also know that then we'd be back to Arch v. DV again, and I'd have to be the one to decide. No matter what, we need to figure this out. I just don't know whether it's best to do so now or later.

[Bulbazak]

Also, there's the fact that things aren't so clear cut for you. So it might be better to just figure out the 1v1 that needs figuring out, knowing that the other falls into place later. Although, again, that's just from my perspective.

[Bulbazak]

arch is the only one to mention the possibility of me being scum this whole game

I started considering it d3 after your interactions surrounding the Xyzzy wagon.

[Bulbazak]

Archwing's explanation has the whiff of bull crap to it. Man, the question of balance is bugging me, but I just can't see how it isn't Arch. All the evidence is literally pointing in that direction. It literally explains his play from d3 on, as well as UCV's play and Fitz vote.

[Bulbazak]

Bulba.

Pretend I am scum. Who is my partner?
Dunker, Bins, Bulba..

You're...kidding, right? I think I've been pretty clear that Dunker is the second scum.

Why would Deas track me out of the remaining players,

AND WHY WOULD I MAKE THE KILL?

. Honestly, that is a really big scumslip. I really don't give two shits about tracking the same target twice, that's whatever. What I am getting at, is that if I was scum, why would

I

make the night kill? I was the most suspect target yesterday aside from Radja. It really doesn't make sense.

I have my own thoughts on why he'd track you, and I think they're backed by my reread of d4, but I'd like to hear what he has to say first. As for why you'd make the kill? First, this is getting into the area of WIFOM, but second, I think I said why you might:

You seriously think me, the potential counter wagon to radja, everyone's secondary lynch target yesterday, would make the night kill?

After having already been tracked once? Yeah. The likelihood of being tracked again is smaller, and the chance your buddy gets tracked is higher.

Archwing's explanation has the whiff of bull crap to it. Man, the question of balance is bugging me, but I just can't see how it isn't Arch. All the evidence is literally pointing in that direction. It literally explains his play from d3 on, as well as UCV's play and Fitz vote.

then vote him

I've been going back and forth about it for awhile. I was wondering if I was just completely wrong and reading too much into things. It was a question of mechanics vs. actual reads, and whether my read there was any good, even though I was feeling really really strong and good about them. I could really see both of them as scum for completely different reasons based on two completely different ways to play the game, and I really didn't want to screw this up. I was waiting on certain responses for just those reasons.

Anyway, mastina has actually just responded to me, and I'll be sharing that in another post, but to summarize:

but deas essentially conf!towned themselves by being the only town PR claim yesterday.

So he was just lucky, or are you trying to infer that he knew he could get away with it?

if you don't want to believe i'm scum why are trying to convince yourself and others?
your mindset is not making sense to me

at that time, I was doing a smaller late-game reaction test, of sorts. I wanted to see if anyone would "take the bait" and follow me on a scum!dunker wagon. obviously that didn't go very far. I'm not trying to convince myself you're scum. I wanted to see if anyone else wanted to believe you were scum.

Okay, so I'm the only one thinking Dunker might be scum. I say to you "Hey, here's why. Can someone take a look at this?". You go "Sure.". Then after some more questionable Dunker plays you say that the more Dunker posts the more you doubt your townread. All of

that

was just supposed to be a reaction test? For what benefit? Everyone was pretty solid in their Dunker reads. I'm not sure how that would have accomplished much.

Like, out of LQ (game still active), Assembler/Mulch (scum), Sheep (scum), and creature (town)... how does UCV take scum here?

Well, we don't know the result of the first game, and Creature never takes scum unless he has to. Man, it sure would suck if your team drew 4 scum PMs. Wouldn't leave a lot of choice, would it?

Bulba has been setting up my mislynch since late yesterday and all of this day now. He's just slow-rolling it until another townie votes, and he'll quick hammer.

Riiight...Like I haven't been actively saying you're scum since d3 and expressing suspicion on the placement of the vote on the Fitz wagon since d2. Yep. Just been slow rolling and being very loud about the read. Every. Single. Day.
But hey...

Spoiler: Speaking of Setting Up Mislynches

Day 3:

New lynch/check order if I die (assuming Elena townflip):
Elena > Bins > T-Bone > Titus > Bulbazak > Radja/chesskid

Do not let Bulbazak live to LyLo.

There's a very specific reason for this that I can't talk about. I once again encourage people to think about why I claimed there was an exactly 50% chance Bulb was scum, about a week or so ago. Rethinking, it would've been more accurate to say 33%.

Lynch Keychain in the end if RC hardpushes town repeatedly. Same goes to chesskid. Both of their teams are capable of solving this game by the end.

If Elena scumflip, gut says:
Titus > T-Bone > xyzzy > chesskid > Radja > Bulbazak > Keychain > CDB

Obviously you'll only have 5 lynches, but when the massclaim hits you'll be able to remove names from both lists.

Never lynch under any circumstances: Dunkerdoodles, Archwing.

GL is back, thoughts from him incoming.

Seeing dino flip town fruit vendor gives this post more validity to me.

@Archwing: why do you have such a strong seeming townread on Bulba? We can't find an origin, especially after quoting the Math post that says he shouldn't live to LyLo.

I mean, if I've listed Bulb as hard conf town, then I've misrepped how I feel, and i'm sorry about that.

I'm not interested at all in lynching bulb today, and I do know that Math said he should not live to LyLo for... reasons? I dunno. But i super hard trust math's reads, I know he's a great player.

My team is pretty much all town reading bulb right now, so I guess I'm just not really interested in sorting that slot at this time?

Do I want bulba to continue with us tomorrow? yep. Should bulba die before lylo? probably, if we follow what math said.

"Bulba is super duper town guys! He's in my town bloc and everything! Oh, but we should probably kill him by the end, because conf. town Math says so."

Day 4:

ugh, I was just thinking about bulba's slot and I just remembered how Mathdino said not to carry him to lylo. fuck.
tbh right now I can't conftown anyone, but I think i'd wanna lynch within
{radja, keychain, dunker, deas}. gun to my head, the scumteam is in there.

Also, was that

really

supposed to be a reaction test?

Hmm...I really wonder why I'm alive at this point?

It's ~crazy~ and ~wild~ but I just want to vote Bulba because I can't figure out Arch and DV.

Please don't throw the game, Bins.

P-edit:

[Bulbazak]

I mean, to reiterate my p-edit: There's no way anyone can really think that is town.

[Bulbazak]

Mastina gave a quick reply of the following:

She said that if we compared this game to Ether's (Doc, Backup Doc, Neopolitain), Tracker is weaker than Neo, making a setup of Tracker, Doc, FV significantly weaker than that game. She said backup tracker would be the same as backup doc there, and looking at it that way, it kinda makes sense.

She then told me that even if I was to ignore that, play trumps role, and that I should stop doubting myself and just vote Arch.
She's going to give a more in-depth response when she gets home.

Vote Archwing

I'd still like an answer from DV, though.

[Bulbazak]

If You were town bulba you wouldn't have voted me, saying you're waiting from more from mastina. We're in lylo, and mislymching me is a loss. If mastina has more to say, town!you should not have just voted there.

All mastina said was that she would write a better response when she got home. I imagine I just got the cliff notes version, and she'll go into more detail later. And she outright told me to vote the scummier of the two, which was you.

Also, Bulba... why rush? Implo is HEAVY SUS.

Because I'm that confident that Arch is scum? My hangups on DV were mechanical and not based on play, and mastina essentially told me not to worry about that, that the setup does make sense, and to focus on outright scum hunting over mechanics spec. And after Arch going "Well, I have DV who should be 100% scum in my eyes, but I'll lynch this other person if you do Bins.", there should have been no doubt he was scum.

Tell Implosion that I'm not impatient as scum. If he doubts that, have him read Hunger Games II. I literally told my team not to quickhammer in Lylo in case there was some sort of governor, and to wait for town to hammer themselves.

[Bulbazak]

I definitely noticed how strongly and consistently you were on Arch-scum when rereading d4. So it kinda made sense in that regard, but I still wanted to hear it.

[Bulbazak]

So got the detailed reply from mastina. And I'm really not sure how to paraphrase all that... tldr is that it is essentially the same as what I gave earlier, only she goes into more detail about why. I'll get to it tomorrow if we're still going. I should be more with it and awake by that point.

[Bulbazak]

Going to respond to everything else later when I have the time, but Ginngie wanted me to post that she finds that it's a hilariously scummy perspective for Arch to be fake guiltied in Lylo and vote someone besides DV. She says that "Bulba is a hunch with no damning evidence.". She says that to vote me over DV when the damning evidence for that is a lie that he has evidence for, that only goes to show that Arch is lying about his actions and still looking for a Lylo lynch, even when conf. scum is supposedly right in front of him.

I was just going to say that there's no way, ever, that Arch goes away from a 100% scum lynch to vote someone who's not (I believe he said 90%?) as town. The only reason he's doing this is because Bins expressed interest, and he's afraid he won't win the 1v1 with DV. He's hoping that if Bins votes me, Dunker won't have to bus and can just hammer for the win.

[Bulbazak]

Only in this game can someone get guiltied and scum claim, yet still not get lynched...

Okay, I should finally have time to go over everything when I wake up. In the meantime, I really recommend checking out Arch's Iso and watching how he positions himself throughout the game. Look at the stances he takes and whether they're his own or not. Then I want you to ask yourself how Archwing benefits from moving the 1v1 away from DV and onto me.

[Bulbazak]

Look how quickly this LyLo wagon formed on me. This has been planned and set up.

If a fake guilty on you was planned, both scum wouldn't be on the wagon immediately. That's not how it works. If this was a nefarious scum plan, scum would want to take their time and do it right. Oh, but while we're on the subject...

Spoiler: Speaking of planning and setting up lynches..

New lynch/check order if I die (assuming Elena townflip):
Elena > Bins > T-Bone > Titus > Bulbazak > Radja/chesskid

Do not let Bulbazak live to LyLo.

There's a very specific reason for this that I can't talk about. I once again encourage people to think about why I claimed there was an exactly 50% chance Bulb was scum, about a week or so ago. Rethinking, it would've been more accurate to say 33%.

Lynch Keychain in the end if RC hardpushes town repeatedly. Same goes to chesskid. Both of their teams are capable of solving this game by the end.

If Elena scumflip, gut says:
Titus > T-Bone > xyzzy > chesskid > Radja > Bulbazak > Keychain > CDB

Obviously you'll only have 5 lynches, but when the massclaim hits you'll be able to remove names from both lists.

Never lynch under any circumstances: Dunkerdoodles, Archwing.

GL is back, thoughts from him incoming.

Seeing dino flip town fruit vendor gives this post more validity to me.

I'm not interested at all in lynching bulb today, and I do know that Math said he should not live to LyLo for... reasons? I dunno. But i super hard trust math's reads, I know he's a great player.

My team is pretty much all town reading bulb right now, so I guess I'm just not really interested in sorting that slot at this time?

I stand by the team I put in the townblock. but as the game evolves, that changes. Do I want bulba to continue with us tomorrow? yep. Should bulba die before lylo? probably, if we follow what math said.
if you've made a decent-sized townblock, someone in there will surely have to go before lylo, or you've fucked up your townblock hard. like, if all that is remaining in the game is the townblock, you're already at a disadv.

ugh, I was just thinking about bulba's slot and I just remembered how Mathdino said not to carry him to lylo. fuck.

You've essentially assured that I'd make it to a Lylo situation, and given that, I've known for a long time that I was likely being set up as the final mislynch, given that you and Dino wouldn't shut up about it. You might as well have hung a giant neon sign over my head reading "Scum Team: Keep this guy alive!". But if you had really been sincere about making sure I wouldn't make it to endgame, you would have made sure to lynch me long before this point. Instead, you townread me at every opportunity, putting me in your town bloc, and outright saying that you were not interested in sorting me, even though you took an opportunity every day to say how I shouldn't be kept alive. So I find it kinda funny that you are trying to say that you've been set up as a mislynch ahead of time, when that's exactly what you've been doing to me since Math died.

especially how deas came out of the gate at me with a fake guilty

Look, I get that you have to attack the guilty. This is expected from anyone who gets guiltied, and I'm not sure why everyone is acting shocked about it. But I'm not sure why you think a town investigative would slow roll a guilty and not vote their guilty right after a mass claim. There'd be no reason for DV to even think that his result would be questionable.

and bulba has been slow-rolling setting up my mislynch.

I have? I mean, I can say that's what your plan was, but I've been pretty adamant that you're scum for awhile now. In fact, if I was slow rolling you, my vote wouldn't be on you right now. That's not how slow rolling works.

no, i can definitely see you making the kill over bulba
for one you might think deas might track someone more townread like bulba
or you could think he won't track the same person twice.

Why would I expect a townread to be tracked. You don't track people you think are town, especially after that mass claim. I was the next in line, after radja, yesterday. Maybe I would just make a shitty tracker, I dunno... But what deas is claiming jist doesn't make sense.

It really must suck to have been caught.

Bulba and Arch suddenly being at each other's throats makes me think that with me tracking Arch, Bins claiming Doc, and people not being that suspicious of me, they've sort of freaked out and decided to hard bus each other as a hail mary.

I'm not sure if you've ever played with scum me, but that's not how I'd play this. Bussing Arch at this point leads to a loss 100% of the time. The best chance at winning would be to act conflicted between the two of you and hold off, hoping that town actually votes you (with slight prods from me) so that I can hammer. Maaayybe a change in the 1v1 with us as partners makes sense, but it's still not the best shot at winning. And nine times out of ten, Arch would get lynched just because switching off of you would be seen as a scum claim. Then we're back to a 100% town win as your result nails me either way. So no, that really doesn't make sense, and shouldn't be the focus of today.

Deas, you've played a great game. And you not fake guiltied me, I think I'd be town reading you right now. If you end up winning this, well played friend.

I'm not sure how this makes sense. Are you saying that you would have town read DV if he hadn't claimed a guilty on you? Who would be your scum team then? Because assuredly, Bins would have still claimed. Would you have called that a scum claim, or believed her? And apparently, that scum read of Dunker yesterday was a "reaction test". Or were you just lying, because you had planned to maybe push him? Really, I'm not sure what your play would be as town here, because this statement doesn't make sense with your stated reads, regardless of the guilty.

I don't think Bulba votes with DV that quickly as DV's buddy.

Take it a step further: I don't vote that quickly as scum. I wait for town to make the next move and hope they vote town.

Yeah, my team and I all think the Bulba rushed vote was sort of odd and I can see it coming from a scum buddy. With you saying you think it's probably Arch, the partner might think he's doomed and then vote in that scenario. The one thing I don't get then is that Bulba has been pretty much bussing for the last two days.

Look, I know you can't follow my thought process as much, because it was internal, and I wrestled back and forth at work about it. I did mention that I was struggling a bit, but I also said that Arch was read-based while DV was mechanics-based. Two things made me actually put my vote down. 1.) No matter which way I looked at it, I kept coming back to Arch-scum. Every fiber of my being screamed he was scum, and for DV it was just the "I'm not sure Smith puts a 'follow the Cop' mechanic in his game". 2.) Mastina outright told me that the setup wasn't as farfetched as I thought, and that when in doubt, you prioritize play over role. It reminded me of what she said in the Night & Day postgame, and I've been getting moments of deja vu anyway. It sort of confirmed where I was at, and at that point I felt good about the scumread.

I voted Arch because I was so confident in my scumread that I was willing to lose if wrong. That's the short answer. I just didn't see a game state where he was town. So at that point, there was no reason to hold back voting. As I've mentioned before, if I was scum, I'd still be fence sitting on the vote and be going back and forth audibly in thread. Quick voting at this juncture does not help me as scum. And given that Dunker is holding off, pretending to think things over, while saying he scumreads Arch, that tells me that I made the right choice.

Regarding Bulba/Arch, from memory I think something pretty compelling is Bulba's approach to Arch over the last couple of game days, particularly the day xyzzy was lynched. I thought something was wrong and that xyzzy might be town and that Arch was scum, and I actually tried to push for an Arch lynch over a xyzzy one. Bulba made a big deal about how uncomfortable he was with the xyzzy wagon and his main suspect was Archwing, but didn't do anything to change it, and most importantly didn't do anything to push an Archwing wagon. I also think it was a similar deal with the Radja lynch, and I think it was a pretty intentional way to avoid looking bad on the town wagons while also not actually doing anything to change them. This was my main reason for coming up with the Bulba/Arch theory in the first place and I'm feeling pretty good about it now.

I've already told you why I didn't vote Arch then. I wanted to double check and look at that timing post he talked about, but I just didn't have the time or willpower to do so, and I didn't want to just vote him when I was unsure about that. I did get around to that dive the next day, and I was pushing Arch heavily after that. So I'm not sure how you're saying my push on Arch is wrong. Also, if I was trying to get townpoints from the Xyzzy lynch, I would have actually stayed off of it after expressing doubts, instead of jumping back on and hammering.

k so there seemed to be some interesting "coaching" almost from bulba to Deas at the time of the tracker claim. like the way bulba was asking Deas about the exact name of it seemed kinda weird to me? he was pushing deas about it and sus of it, but never really did much about it?

There's day talk. There'd be no need for me to coach him, and if I was trying to set something up, I'd definitely give DV the "right answer", instead of having him dance around my question.

Fake guilty, bulba.

Aren't you supposed to be scum reading me? Why are you talking to me as if I'd be unaware of the actual status of the guilty?

Creature wanted to say that mulch couldn't have faked it all for UCV cause hr didn't do shit for sheep (who was actually scum)

I mean, it's not like UCV was in a game where he was constantly being pressured to give his team mates' thoughts or anything...

Might do some more in-depth stuff tomorrow. Depends on how I feel.

[Bulbazak]

One:

DeasVail is definitely well known and strong enough player to fake a guilty on a town player. Well within their range of play.

WIFOM

Two:

There was already a backup on Ether's normal. Seems weird that for team mafia, they would have two backups in both the normal games.

sigh

I guess I should get around to figuring out how to paraphrase that long mastina post.

Three:

I know, Bins, you don't wanna hear the "look, this is town!me" argument, but maybe hear it from creature right? He is able to hard defend himself to the point he's conftown. Please just wait a few more minutes, and listen to everything else.

WIFOM

Four:

Creature would like y'all to know he's salty af that he wasn't allowed to swap in this game, btw.

Why wasn't he allowed to swap in? This sounds like an excuse along the lines of "I'd love to have come here and conf. town myself, but...".

If you want proof of this, viewtopic.php?p=9936827#p9936827 Look at this post

Okay:

Don't hammer Ghostlin yet btw.

Wait until I come tomorrow.

How is this supposed to prove how upset he was in not being able to join this game? It looks like he just doesn't want Ghostlin hammered.

and if my slot really was scum, why the fuck would town!creature want to swap into scum!creature?

There is zero evidence of Creature wanting to sub in besides your say so, and I'm still not seeing any evidence to how he was unable to sub in.

For reinforcement, look at this: viewtopic.php?p=9970105#p9970105 this should prove to you that this is not being faked.

I think I looked over that post:

Spoiler: For Your Sanity

Okay, I'm going to go line by line here and try to match with my notes. It's been several days, so hopefully I still know what this means.

k so, game started on 20th of Jan.

Actually, the game started on the 22nd. Looking back at our Team PT, we were given all the role PMs on the 19th and took the better part of the day to assign them. I'm not sure how that went for other teams, but the game thread did not open until the 22nd. I looked at the Invention Scum PT to get an idea of when that one opened up, and the first non-mod post wasn't until the 21st. So I'm not sure what this line is in reference to. It's easy to say "Welp, Arch just screwed up and let it slip he's scum.", but that's assuming that the mod opened up the Scum PT that early and Arch's team started posting in there on the 20th (hence game starting). But again, I don't have any way to verify that, and everything I do have points to that still being potentially too early. I also don't think that Arch is talking about team comp discussion here. He'd say so. So not sure what the answer is here, but I am noticing that this is a major time discrepancy in Arch's post.

on 22nd creature wanted UCV to push LLD and skirt skirt.

I have a note here that says "Skirt discrepancy". Not sure what that means, so going to look real quick.
...
Okay, so best that I can tell, it has to do with the way UCV pushed Skirt. Arch says that Creature was the one that wanted UCV to push Skirt, but UCV repeatedly says it's Mulch. The focus is actually incredibly Mulch-centric, and Creature is left out of it until after Dino starts hounding UCV. UCV explodes on Dino, specifically asking if Mulch is not good enough, but you'd think with a focus from the playerlist on what Creature is thinking, that if Creature was actually giving feedback, UCV wouldn't have a problem just giving that straightaway. I don't know. It just doesn't feel right.

Also, for those I asked about if UCV was a clinical player: He gave percentages on how sure his team mates were on Skirt being scum. They're all 100%, except for Creature, who is 99%. He repeats this again later. I've played with Creature, and I've never seen him display that level of doubt if he had a strong scum read. Maybe I just haven't played with him enough, and I've been wrong before, but I don't think Creature is one to say "I'm 99% sure this guy is scum.". He'd just scream "X is scum!" over and over again.

early town reads on dunker bins and a50.
keychain looks bad, thus he makes the first scum team guess of {lld, skirt, keychain}

This is where Mina gets that UCV and Arch are consistent. Compare the above to this UCV post:

I'm not asking you to have Creature read the thread literally this second.

I'm asking you when he has provided input in the past, and if he has been reading this thread.

I've twice requested specifically him to be reading this game.

) Elena is most likely to choose scum from her team 2) eddie succesfully pocketed someone 3) Mathdino's reads seem pretty good 4) We want eddie cane pushed but I'm not 99% 5) Keychain was scummy but then he thinks he must be misreading them 6) LLD is scummy 7) Early game called LLD, skirt skirt, keychain 8) bulba is town 9) almost50 is town cause playing like open 707 10) Bins is town 11) Dunkerdoodles feels town
all posted by creature



here

Scum reads and town reads are the same. I didn't really see it at first, but that's because you have to rearrange what's being said about the town reads. This is also consistent to what he said earlier about Creature's strength on Skirt (something I just covered), but again, that seems like a really weird thing for Creature to say. And given how much Dino had to push to get this, I'm really not sure about the whole thing.

25th says {elena LLD transcend}
also thinks TBone doesn't pick scum and then lurk 'til lynched.

I checked the timeline here, and this doesn't match up. I'm not sure about the team suggestion, but more on the suggestion that Creature thinks T-Bone is town. If that was the case, apparently UCV didn't get the memo, because he started pushing the slot on the 25th.

29th thinks bins being dino's top lynch is wtffff
thinks NSG and dino are the most likely people on your team to pick scum.

I looked all over the UCV ISO from the 29th on, and there's no evidence of a Math scumread.

on the first of feb, thought about pushing chess for scum, then retracted and said stay on havingfitz.

The Chess scumread lines up here. UCV was scumreading Chess at the time. Other than that, "stay on Havingfitz" makes zero sense. UCV wasn't voting the Fitz slot at the time, and hadn't the entire day phase. In fact, his vote was still on Titus at the time. UCV wouldn't vote Fitz until the next day, at which point the wagon was gaining a lot of attention.

A50's post 2053 has a solid case on chesskid scum.

Here's the case being referenced:

CK not using the alleged program in this game is pinging me, and the swap in itself could've been strategically done to play down suspicion on Smocaine (maybe Smocaine couldn't handle it anymore. I don't know). CK may have felt he's done a good job already and could now try to bring his team the in in here.

I actually had to do a Chess ISO dive for a reference, as I'd only read the Inventions scum chat, so thanks for that trip into the jaws of insanity (although it was slightly amusing). Finally found it, and I'm not sure how A50 thinks it'd be any use here. 1.) It was made clear that Chess did not have access to the program, but had seen info on certain select players that were likely to be in the tourney. 2.) He only had the info on those players. 3.) The info was on high level players that would be difficult to read. I'm not sure if anyone thought we actually had anyone that would fit on that list and that Chess/Elli would have tried looking up. T-Bone maybe? CDB? The list would be very small, and that's assuming those names were one of the few that he looked up before Elli took over the tourney.

It makes sense that A50 would be zeroed in on it, since he was trying to break the tournament via tourney-wide VCA. It's conceivable that Creature would have expected something similar, but again, in that same game, Chess made it clear that his having info on Mastina from the program was a fluke and likely not repeatable. In other words, the application of such knowledge was limited, and it was unlikely to be useful again. If Chess did have information to use in this game, he'd likely push it, although he did seem to want to do so at a minimum, as he wasn't sure of the legality of the whole thing. When he brought it up in Inventions, it was more of a "Hey guys! I actually have more proof than what I've presented, and I'm 100% sure, but I can't go any further on this. Just do what I ask, because I didn't want to bring this up in the first place.". So not something he's going to rush in this game and advertise if he did have such info.

Also, he was on vacation at the time. So...

The big thing I took away at the time and after going through ISOs was how hard it was to get any sort of supposed Creature response. It was like pulling teeth. And when UCV finally relented, he acted all angry about it, asking why Mulch wasn't good enough.

six:

in creature's game, town!chesskid caught scum!mastina through his so called "program."
why did he not do that in this game?

This was in the spoilers, but just in case anyone missed it:

I actually had to do a Chess ISO dive for a reference, as I'd only read the Inventions scum chat, so thanks for that trip into the jaws of insanity (although it was slightly amusing). Finally found it, and I'm not sure how A50 thinks it'd be any use here. 1.) It was made clear that Chess did not have access to the program, but had seen info on certain select players that were likely to be in the tourney. 2.) He only had the info on those players. 3.) The info was on high level players that would be difficult to read. I'm not sure if anyone thought we actually had anyone that would fit on that list and that Chess/Elli would have tried looking up. T-Bone maybe? CDB? The list would be very small, and that's assuming those names were one of the few that he looked up before Elli took over the tourney.

It makes sense that A50 would be zeroed in on it, since he was trying to break the tournament via tourney-wide VCA. It's conceivable that Creature would have expected something similar, but again, in that same game, Chess made it clear that his having info on Mastina from the program was a fluke and likely not repeatable. In other words, the application of such knowledge was limited, and it was unlikely to be useful again. If Chess did have information to use in this game, he'd likely push it, although he did seem to want to do so at a minimum, as he wasn't sure of the legality of the whole thing. When he brought it up in Inventions, it was more of a "Hey guys! I actually have more proof than what I've presented, and I'm 100% sure, but I can't go any further on this. Just do what I ask, because I didn't want to bring this up in the first place.". So not something he's going to rush in this game and advertise if he did have such info.

Again, pretty sure this is a red herring that scum want to focus on. The narrative that Arch is trying to spin about "the program" isn't real, and was taken out of context in the original game.

why, instead, did he lay low as he did in other scum games (ie: Beneath the Mask)

Pretty sure Chess wasn't laying low from d2 onward and actively pushed his scumspects.

Seven:

Bulba doesn't bus. ever.

Um...Isn't your whole argument that I bussed Fitz?

[Bulbazak]

So I never ever bus. But somehow, scum me bussed Fitz. So which is it, Arch? Do I bus or not?

P-edit: Sounds like a change in story. And I'm pretty sure if I looked hard enough I'd find an instance of bussing in Lylo under the right cicumstances. But you're right, I normally try not to bus in Lylo. But it's that I don't think anyone should bus in that circumstance unless they have no choice.

Why didn't he try swapping in earlier? I'm pretty sure Inventions was locked down by that point.

[Bulbazak]

Like d1 of this game, there was no reason why he shouldn't have swapped. If he wanted to swap, that was the time to do so: When Math was making a big fuss about it.

[Bulbazak]

And yeah, let's talk about what you've posted, because it's just noise.

[Bulbazak]

Okay, so what mastina said in-depth:

Smith's game is meant to be comparatively balanced to Ether's game.
Ether's game had a Doctor, Backup Doctor, and Neapolitan--this allowed for a game-winning follow-the-cop, and is one of the numerous reasons why Smith hates cop-type roles. The scum were all power roles, including two 1x roleblockers to break the follow-the-cop strategy. But while the scum might have held power, that power was made specifically as a counter to the existing town power.

In Smith's game, we have a Fruit Vendor and a Tracker, with a Backup Tracker and a Doctor claimed--this does not allow for a game-winning follow-the-cop, unless there is only one scum left alive. Smith's balance/design philosophy IS in fact, more or less--"if scum let themselves get into that position/town manage to get in that position, they should be (respectively) punished/rewarded".

There is no scum power flipped, but this is not in of itself damning because MOST Normal games with three scum only have one scum power role (and said scum player is usually who the scum team protects the most)--thus, the town probably only had an AT BEST 1/3 chance of lynching a scum power role, assuming one even exists; the setup's balance works fairly similarly either way with scum power we haven't witnessed or without scum power. (Given a lack of block, the most likely scum power would be a rolecop of some kind, likely gated with an even or odd night modifier.)

Smith's game, without either the Backup Tracker or the Doctor, is still significantly weaker than Ether's game. You CAN make that work if all scum are in fact goons, which is why it's not an absolute surefire thing. The game CAN be made to work with only three PRs...but this is incredibly unlikely given the fairly limited strength of the PRs. Fruit Vendor is a power easily used by scum, so claiming it is not inherently town. It proves that the fruit vendor didn't perform the kill, but this is redundant with the tracker, rather than being augmented by the tracker. (The tracker tracking a VT to nowhere serves the

exact same function

as a fruit vendor giving out fruit does.)

[editor note: mastina went on a tangent where it seems she forgot that scum can both kill and perform an action. I've cut anything related to this speculation out.]

Basically, the tracker serves as the town investigative; the doctor serves as the town protective...but this still leaves the town underpowered, especially if the scum manage to take out the tracker early-on. If the scum manage to take out the tracker on, say, N1...then how is the town ever meant to win if their only other PRs are a (now-useless) Doctor and Fruit Vendor?

...Thus, the backup tracker helps to reduce swing. One of Smith's main problems with cops IS swing, in that if they live long enough to produce results the scum are screwed; if they are taken out too early, the town is screwed. The role being a TRACKER solves the former; the role having a backup solves the latter. YES, this does boost the town to levels of strength which are a little bit on the higher end of things...

...But this is both
-Comparable to Ether's game,
-Acceptable given town general competency level in Normals,
-And doesn't account for how scum very well COULD have that scum PR.

More or less, the answer when boiled down to it remains the same.

The setup CAN make sense without one of the two claims being genuine...but it makes MORE sense with both being true.

While I feel this analysis is good, setup spec is not an exact science. You can get a general feel for a game, but the exact specifics aren't possible to reliably pin down. Which is why I strongly recommend playing off of play rather than roleclaim. If the PLAY makes more sense as coming from town, then it makes more sense coming from town.

In short--setup spec does LOOSELY suggest DV is town, but can't confirm it. Given that it's ambiguous on whether he's town via the setup, play should determine this, and his play is by FAR more likely to be town than Archwing's.

[Bulbazak]

also chess knows you pretty well, bulba. it seems kinda odd that Chess never really wanted to work with you in this game.

I'm pretty sure Chess thinks I'm garbage. Sure, he has more respect for me after Surreptitious, where I nailed 3 of the scum, but I figure that just accounts for him not mocking me and being generally toxic, which I'm thankful for. I think he tried to get me to join him on a wagon a couple of times, but that's going to be the extent of our working together. There's no way he's going to ask me about reads.

as well as being teammates with Mastina, you also are a pretty good candidate for his tell-system.

Nope. I'm more independent than some of the other players, and I think Chess would know that. If I was scum, I'm pretty sure he'd expect me to filter my team mates in a way to eliminate potential tells, if I listened to them at all.

re: Inventions Quote

creature was going to say his final words, and then swap in. "tomorrow" in that context refers to the start of d2 in this game.

its makes so much sense from scum!your perspective to push me and leave the hammer to bins or dunker. they're both really likely to game throw in this situation with a lazy hammer.

If I was scum, I wouldn't leave that up in the air. Bins especially is unpredictable (seriously, most towns would have hammered after you scum told). You don't vote and hope town hammers. You make sure you control the hammer, because towns are stupid and fickle.

i need you guys to just take some time and read through all of this.
don't make any hasty decisions.
still >8 days on deadline at this point.

don't let this quicklynch through... we have time on our side.

We're halfway through the day. I think trying to frame this as a quick lynch is disningenous.

Oh, and you're still not voting the player you should think is 100% scum.

P-edit: I can drop the links, but it looks like Smith is pretty consistent in his design philosophy.

[Bulbazak]

Links:
viewtopic.php?t=68243&f=53&st=0&sk=t&sd ... er_sort=Go
viewtopic.php?t=67307&f=5&st=0&sk=t&sd= ... er_sort=Go
viewtopic.php?f=123&t=68864&hilit=hider%2A
viewtopic.php?t=68863&f=123&st=0&sk=t&s ... er_sort=Go
viewtopic.php?t=70108&f=94&st=0&sk=t&sd ... er_sort=Go
viewtopic.php?t=69499&f=123&st=0&sk=t&s ... er_sort=Go
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=69237&hilit=hider%2A
viewtopic.php?t=72962&f=94&st=0&sk=t&sd ... er_sort=Go

[Bulbazak]

What? Do you have a result on Dunker that you've told no one about?

[Bulbazak]

and it's pretty easy for you to say you'd like to control the lynch, but aren't you controlling the lynch by putting me to L-1? it's a common fallacy to think that the person closer to the lynch is more likely to be scum.

In that case, whoever voted you second would be controlling the lynch. What if it was Dunker or Bins?

[Bulbazak]

Making a few quick notes:

k so heres the scoop.

creature believes there to be a mafia-bulletproof-traitor, and he believes its bulba.

we pretty much spent all night talking about it.

but again, it's setup spec. and besides, if that's true, we're better off lynching Deas anyways.

I'm pretty sure Arch just committed the Jester tell. He's so desperate, that he's throwing anything he can to see if it sticks, but more than that, he's trying to call me scum without coming right out and hardcore calling me scum. Did anyone notice that? "I think Bulba's scum, but not part of the scum team.". That's essentially what he's saying here. And that's just ignoring that this is Team Mafia, where scum across all the games are going to be on the same footing and that there's day talk, meaning that traitor appearing in the game is pretty much 0%. Consider it a non-normal role if that helps. The point is that this is not a town PoV. Town would just call me scum and leave it be. Arch, being scum, wants to call me scum, but he also knows that to be false and he wants to be somewhat truthful, so he says that he thinks I'm a traitor, so that he can say I'm scummy, but not directly call me scum.

Dunker I'm OK with hammering if you have anything else to say

una in our pt said he would read the game and give his thoughts, but really it doesn't matter

bulba is lockscum, we can hammer there and i can deal with dv vs arch tmr

or we can just lynch between dv and arch today knowing that bulba is lockscum for tmr

i'm good with either honestly

^This is not a town mindset. Dunker just said that he thinks Arch is scum, but he'd rather just hammer me if he gets the chance. So essentially, he'll hammer me in a heartbeat, but he has to really think about hammering Arch, and he's just going to drag his feet on it. In case this isn't clear to you Bins:

Dunker is scum with Arch and doesn't want to hammer his partner!

Just go with bulbas lynch today. Like he js literally conf scum to all of town right now

I've already pointed out multiple times that Arch has been keeping my mislynch warm since d3. Here's the narrative taking shape. Here it's "Everyone thinks Bulba is scum, so it must be true!", which is a fallacious argument. All you need is scum pushing the same argument enough times and town to be wishy washy to reach that state, and then scum can just preach it as truth.

Bins this is exactly why you have been kept to lylo. DV and bulba knew you'd lazy hammer their target

Arch is the only one pushing this PoV. The fact that Bins hasn't hammered and has been conflicted shows that she does not lazy hammer. If anything, I'd say that Bins is unpredictable. This narrative is provably false, but apparently it's good enough to keep Bins off of Arch.

and now look at bulb. He's essentially conf scum. He isn t even trying. All he cares about is setting up a mislynch today or tomorrow.

Apparently not posting for 1 day is not trying. Or is he talking about my posting? In which case I go:


I'm pretty sure I've posted more substance than Arch has today.

[Bulbazak]

I'm not sure how coherent that was. Had to start and stop multiple times due to work, and I think that affected my train of thought.

[Bulbazak]

You're scum. Deas is town. Bins is town. That leaves Dunker. So yeah, Dunker is conf. scum to me. How is this supposed to be a revelation or a scum claim? I've been saying this since the guilty.

Nice job with the distancing, though.

[Bulbazak]

Also Arch, are these a scum claim?:

Bins.

Any world where Deas isn't scum to you?

Well, yeah.

Right now, the possible teams are:

{Archwing or DV}, {Bulba or Dunker}

No idea.

If you believe my claim, Bulba is pretty much conf. the other scum to you. Same with Bulba, if you believe my claim, Dunker is scum to you.

Also, the game is over if DV is town and we win. So.

[Bulbazak]

So are you arguing that I'm supposed to think both you AND Deas are scum?

[Bulbazak]

I mean, I get that you're trying to distance from Dunker AND soft bully Bins, but that line of reasoning was pretty wtf. Especially since I've been wary of Dunker for a couple days now, and you even tried to back that reasoning last day phase.

Oh. Wait. That was just a reaction test, right?

[Bulbazak]

[Bulbazak]

I mean, I get that I'm not using "distancing" in the traditional sense, but you're trying to apply distance to Dunker to make it look like there's no connection (only in this case it's less attacking and more making it look like you're sucking up to him). In that sense, I think it's still accurate.

[Bulbazak]

And I get it. You realized that you lose the 1v1 with Deas, so you decided to move the 1v1 to me, since you have a greater chance at pulling that off. You've essentially moved the goal posts, and it looks like it might work. And lucky for you, neither Bins nor DV have thought that hard on why you might do that.

[Bulbazak]

You're doing that thing again where you say you scumread me, then treat me like town. You might want to look into that.

[Bulbazak]

Bins, stop trying to throw the game.

[Bulbazak]

I guess this comes down to whether you believe the guilty or not. Because if you do, you're essentially throwing away a guaranteed scum lynch just to roll the dice because "lol. I want to be different.".

[Bulbazak]

Uh, no. That's not how 1v1s work. You having a townread on one does not equal a guilty on the other person. It just means you think that one is more town than the other, and that's something that you need to at least reexamine in a Lylo situation. There are some huge reasons why me being scum here doesn't make sense, and there are inconsistencies from Dunker that need to be examined. And I know that in a Lylo situation with me and Dunker, I can at least grind things out enough so that DV at least listens, and that could be enough to get scum Dunker lynched. I just didn't feel the need to grind things out today, because today should be about solving Arch v. DV, and I think it's fairly obvious that Arch is scum if you take a good look at his ISO and watch how he positions himself throughout the game. But if you want to grind it out now, fine. I can go over everything in detail if need be and ask you the hard hitting questions to actually make you think. And maybe, just maybe, you'll actually try to sort me instead of falling into the "well everyone

says

X is town/scum" which is really BS when you stop and think about it. But in order to do that, you need to unvote me. If after everything is said and done, you can revote if you don't feel satisfied and just want things to be over. I won't blame you at that point.

[Bulbazak]

I’m saying it’s like if Dunker was claiming a guilty on you
you still have to figure out which is the right one

If Dunker had claimed a guilty on me, I'd be voting Dunker and wouldn't be considering anyone else. I could then probably guess the second scum from there, but Dunker would be 100% scum, and I wouldn't want to distract from town nailing him.

[Bulbazak]

[Bulbazak]

@DV: I was wary of your claim for good reason at the time: I didn't think it made sense. Given what I was told of the mod by mastina, Backup Tracker seemed incredibly unlikely, and that made me think your claim was kinda sketchy. It wasn't until no one else claimed a PR that I admitted it was legit. After Bins's claim today, I then had to struggle with the claim for the same reasons, mainly that I wasn't sure about the balance situation and whether it made sense in this setup. Now most of this struggle was behind the scenes, so I'm not going to be able to point to a series of posts and go "Aha! See!" like I'd want to. The first thing I did was reread the last dayphase, mainly to see if you tracking Arch again made sense. Given that your suspicion on the slot increased as the day went on, I felt that the track made sense. Also, the more I mulled things over in my head, the more and more I felt solid on Arch-scum. Add in that mastina then said that I was wrong and that Backup Tracker actually made sense in this setup, and I was solid on your slot. Then Dunker refused to vote Arch after I voted there, and I was essentially fist pumping about making the right choice.

Oh, and if you want to look at reactions regarding your claim, check out Arch last day phase. He's the only one besides Bins that super pushes massclaim, and he only does so after she brings the idea up. Then, once you claimed, he shows no hesitation or doubt and immediately treats you as conf. town. Frankly, my expressing doubt about your claim shouldn't seem out of the ordinary. You should be more concerned with those who didn't express any doubt, especially considering the type of role you claimed.

[Bulbazak]

@Bins: What do you think of Arch trying to make me doubt your claim?

[Bulbazak]

Being conf. scum "because everyone says so" is still not how it works. That's a narrative, not definitive proof that someone is scum. Keep trying to avoid the rope, though. It's actually starting to be entertaining.

Although, now I'm curious about who was the first to bring up the T-Bone crumb in thread. Going to check that out.

[Bulbazak]

It was Chess. Cool. Also, that post where he does so is worth a look again, knowing what we know.

[Bulbazak]

I guess we're going to find out who makes assumptions on what I'm saying and who actually goes back to look at that post and see what I'm saying.

[Bulbazak]

Bins, I'm trying to find a youtube video to post before the mod closes the thread. What kind would you want?

[Bulbazak]

[Bulbazak]

[Bulbazak]

Do you need a hug, Arch?

[Bulbazak]

[Bulbazak]

@Arch: Sounds like me d1 against Skirt. I found myself physically shaking and feeling sick. I don't think it was this game's or Skirt's fault, just that I was under extreme stress from work, rl, and this. I really needed that weekend to relax and destress, and I didn't look at the game at all.

P-edit: That was mastina. I don't know squat about the mod's meta.