First off:
In post 1037, GuyInFreezer wrote:
Bodyswap:
At any point of the game, you may switch your role with your factional members by PMing the mod.
MOD: Say Player A started the game as the Factional Ability Swapper.
Say Player B started the game aligned with Player A and held the role of Hider.
Say Player A used the Factional Ability Swapper with Player B in the middle of D1.
If Player A was lynched on D1, what would they flip?
If Player B was lynched on D1, what would they flip?
I feel this is an important question which was neglected.
With that inquiry made,
In post 4134, Punreader wrote:HAS COMMON INTERESTS:
Kaede Akamatsu
Wilky
Dunnstral
REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE
Impossibear (EspeciallyTheLies + Jingle) (CAVEAT: Requires no serial killers as possible this game, which I believe from the wincon is the case)
HIGHLY LIKELY TOWN:
Ankamius
Alchemist21
hebichan/OnTheMark
verylazy/Kokichi Oma (CAVEAT: requires MariaR flipping pun)
LEFTOVERS:
Ramcius
davesaz
STRONG PUNREADS:
MariaR
Nero Cain/projectmatt
All of these are in my mind fairly self-explanatory, but I may need to unpack my process here a little so that everyone has a better understanding of these.
I decided to unpack my process here after all. From the top down:
Kaede Akamatsu:
Even if Kaede hadn't popped the IC, I'd have Kaede in my townbloc because this is solidly Kaede's towngame; Akam see it clear as day. The IC was frankly an unnecessary redundancy. But with it, at least this read requires no further explanation.
wilky:
While many suspect wilky, few fingering wilky can give any real reasons as to why. The few who have presented their evidence have a process I find absolutely loony. I keep on seeing the suspicion thrown and the cases there and none of it matches what I have witnessed; there is a disconnect between the suspicion on the slot and what the slot has actually given.
Because my own read on wilky's contribution is that wilky's content has been insanely town-motivated. His reads may be less than optimal and his style of posting may be such that players have an innate bias to punreading him, but when you look past the surface level and actually dig into the process he has outlined, the truth shines through. Sure, he may not have the best of reads, but bad reads doesn't make a player of his caliber pun. If you take the time to look at
how
he got those reads, the process is one which is
hard to fake, especially for a player who is both relatively new and reasonably unskilled.
Dunnstral:
If you have the extensive game history with him that I do, you can instantly tell this is solidly his towngame. Additionally, he is soft-cleared by MariaR. Regardless of MariaR's alignment, this result is something we can trust; if MariaR is town, the result is accurate and if MariaR is pun, the result is likely still not on a punbuddy, making him town no matter what.
One of these two metrics in of itself may not be enough to townbin him. If it were just a townread off of meta, the townread could be wrong; if it were just the result from Maria, it would be possible she was attempting to falsely clear her punbuddy (though I personally think that manifested in a different manner as I have indicated previously). However, both in tandem is enough to hard-lock him as town; this is a Dunn deal.
REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE:
I explained this before, but perhaps I can simplify; calling Jungle pun is a violation of occam's razor when you take motivations into mind.
To start, let's establish a baseline.
- The motivation of a town player is to further the gamestate such that town can identify who is town/pun and coordinate to lynch and shut down pun.
- The motivation of a pun player is to further the gamestate such that pun are positioned to control the town. In a typical pun player, this can be subdivided into three motivations in this approximate strength:
- Survive as pun
- Protect punbuddies
- Control the town
- Shut the town down
(That is not the strength they should be in, but it is the strength pun players play them in.)
Then, with these motivations in mind, examine REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE's actions.
REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE claimed a role which, if specific conditions were fulfilled, would reveal the alignment of a player.
As town, the motivation of this is self-evident; further the gamestate to identify who is town/pun.
As pun, this requires it to be a move for towncred, as a subset of survivalism.
REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE then failed to deliver on this promise.
As town, the motivation of this is self-evident; it was a human error.
As pun, this move would require REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE deliberately putting himself in harm's way (violating survivalism), remove his influence from the town (violating controlling the town), for the sake of not giving away a piece of information not likely to directly harm him (not contributing to protecting a punbuddy), which doesn't shut the town down as much as it denies them a service he had the ability to deny them simply by never using it/never claiming it.
If he were pun who intended to not give the service to the town, why not just neglect to claim it or even never use it?
By claiming it and failing to use it properly, he is placing himself in harm's way for no visible benefit.
This is furthered by his usage on Ouroboros.
If REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE is town, the motivation for targeting Ouroboros is self-evident. Ouroboros is the same type of player as Impossibear; a competent hydra in a strong position to gamesolve, and REALMEN had no way of knowing Ouroboros would be the nightkill.
If REALMEN ONLY JUNGLE is pun, the motivation for targeting Ouroboros requires giving up on surviving (as targeting the nightkill will garner further suspicion beyond the already-existing suspicion to come for the failure on Impossibear, setting himself up for the lynch), controlling the town, and protecting punbuddies for the sake of denying the town a service.
Yes, it is possible for REALMEN to be pun, but it requires navigating a labyrinth of justifications.
The simpler answer is he's town.
Impossibear:
I believe they hold a killing power and used it N1 on ManWithNoName. I believe they genuinely think (or thought at the very least) they were the N1 nightkill, saved by their bulletproof. Combining these two is the main source of the townread, but I can also cite strong potential for them gamesolving. However, upon unpacking my thoughts, I want to have them trade places with OnTheMark on my readslist. On the OTM side, you'll see why when I get there, but here for Impossibear, the reason for the degenerated read is that there are some potential red flags to them attempting to lead us astray. I still maintain they are more likely town than not, but it's not impossibear for them to be pun.
Ankamius:
This is a read based largely on me liking her thought process. The things she is doing look town. However, some element is absent which prevents me from locking her in as town. (What that element is, I do not know.) Additionally, separately from that, we're not synchronizing as well as I'd expect; I would anticipate her being my mius. This gives further hesitance, similar to my Impossibear feelings. All that said, she's still my strongest read I don't have as locktown.
Alchemist21:
My initial townread came from Ankamius's description of his play, which was one of the things I felt was dead on the mark in her analysis. Since then, I've had further exposure in the form of the first 20 pages of the game plus reading his content since I have replaced in; everything I've witnessed backs that initial assessment, with the tinders of a townread strongly present. Conclusion, strongly likely to be town, but not locktown.
OnTheMark:
I had OnTheMark as a hard townread because of a combination of his role (and play surrounding it) and general feeling around him indicating him to be town. I was kept from locktowning OnTheMark because my reasons were role and general feeling; there was no tangible reason I could point to, which was troubling enough that I wasn't willing to make that call at the time. I lacked hard evidence to prove it.
However, the process of unpacking my thoughts revealed one to me which I can lock onto. OnTheMark can now be locktowned because of OnTheMark's modus operandi as pun. If you assume wilky is town, then his failed action is hard, absolute proof of OnTheMark's innocence. This may seem counterintuitive; why does wilky as town with a failed action prove rather than condemn OnTheMark?
Because we are assuming that if wilky is town, his failure comes from pun. And if the source of his failure comes from pun, then OnTheMark would never abide by it in the first place. OnTheMark would never, EVER accept forcing a deliberate 1v1 with a player. He prefers subtle sabotage, not flagrantly blatant sabotage. If he sabotages a town action, he attempts to leave no trace of it, and being a claimed blocker with wilky's action failing is in no way, shape, or form subtle.
If OnTheMark were pun, he'd know wilky's failed action would create the 1v1. Yes, he may get wilky lynched by entering into that 1v1. Yet after having done so, he automatically earns himself a vig, and if he miraculously dodges the bullet, a lynch. That, not taking into account the possibility he
loses
the 1v1, getting lynched today, thus creating a player that otherwise would be a mislynch who is instead not only conftown but an investigative to boot.
As a result, OnTHeMark would adamantly, vehemently oppose any plan which would create the 1v1. I can cite past games if need be, but he himself any many others should be able to vouch for this description as accurate; avoiding giving the town confscum/conftown in the form of him/wilky.
Since wilky's action did fail, and I do think wilky to be town, you can thus conclude OnTheMark is by proxy also town, and as a result earns Impossibear's spot in my locktown.
Kokichi Oma:
Instead of describing what I like first, I'll start by raising why I hesitate to call him town. I was incredibly suspicious of his predecessor, and he is a skilled enough pun player to fool even those that claim they can read him, causing them to falsely clear him as town. In spite of those factors, I actually
do
hold some faith in Kaede's townread there. Additionally, I don't believe Kokichi-Maria is pun theater.
What I DO believe is that Kokichi Oma can genuinely read MariaR. I also don't believe he is lying about the read as town. Furthermore, I feel he wouldn't falsely punread her if he were pun. If he were pun, I strongly believe his strategy would be to hard-defend her, to white knight her if need be, and he is not doing that here, which is promising.
Ramicus:
I've basically explained this read already, but in short, while I haven't liked much of his content, I do like some of his more recent contributions and I feel like his interactions are not viable as pun bussing. That head-to-head is simply suicidal and I don't buy it.
davesaz:
When I started reading, I had foreknowledge that davesaz's miller claim was apparently retracted/changed into 'some negative utility' at a later point. This would explain his rather dodgy early actions and play, so I was willing to write it off as null. I would say that I would normally be heavily inclined to punread him otherwise. There is literally nothing town about him, but if I'm honest, the most daving thing is simply POE;
someone
has to be the fourth and I think he's the best candidate. Also, there is the chance he was in fact blocked N1.
MariaR:
My punread here is four-fold: Dodgy, sketchy play; setup speculation plus night action results; personal experience with her meta; trusting in Kokichi Oma's personal meta experience. Each of these, I can explain in detail.
MariaR is basically actively lurking through this game; she is frequently and consistently failing to provide pertinent game content and I can cite many instances including prod dodges which are absent in other games she is a player in. There's a bunch of posts I can quote but this is perhaps best done in a followthrough post as compiling the entire list here would make this post 20 times longer.
Setup speculation indicates we should have a pun in the investigative claims. We have MariaR's, we have the proven track from Ouroboros, we have wilky's delayed cop, we have Kaede's IC as conftown, we have Jungle's claimed ability to make another player's alignment revealed (even if he messed up on making it work), and in that pool you can reasonably expect there to be a pun.
It wasn't Ouroboros.
It's not Kaede.
I have townreads on wilky and Jungle.
Ergo, MariaR's role is likely a truthful investigative, just belonging to pun.
This is magnified by the outcome of events. Ouroboros just so happened to recruit MariaR at apparently the earliest opportunity. And then Ouroboros just so happened to die almost immediately after that. I feel the two events are in fact linked together. Yes, Ouroboros had other reasons to die, but I think that role contributed to it because pun knew what their role was.
My own experience with MariaR indicates this is far more likely to be her pungame than her towngame.
And then when you throw in that Kokichi Oma is perhaps the player on site I would most trust to be able to read her and he says she's pun, then I really think we should Maki this wagon happen sooner rather than later.
projectmatt:
I've been a close associate of Nero Cain's since before most of the players in this game even joined mafiascum. Over the years, I have gotten to know his play intimately. He can be aptly described as a ruder, more competent, more arrogant version of Creature.
By which, I mean, regardless of his alignment, he's going to be an ass, who presents a holier-than-thou attitude. Regardless of his alignment, his charisma is dismal. However, at his base, the same core tell always works on him regardless; when he is town, he is incredibly active to the point of being almost a spam poster, providing reads which are strong, confident, and accurate. He is in your face and always has something to say with what he says being game content rather than fluff.
When he is pun, he is a lurker. Mostly just lurking, since he does produce actual content when around (just at a far more infrequent rate), but he does a fair share of active lurking as well. I Cain tell you, having known him for the years that I have, this is squarely in the latter category. He was doing almost nothing the entire time he was around. If he were town, he'd have been all over Ventriloquist as well. His list of sins is great, and I'm not sure I can even properly describe all of them because as such a long-time associate these are things I just know rather than needing to explain to others.
I haven't gotten the chance to really read projectmatt content since then, but I wouldn't need to in order to conclude pun.
That having been said, the little content I have seen indicates pun as well. For instance, the Wraith defense at day end
did
seem like TMI, knowing he was going to flip town and hoping to earn town credit from not being on the lynch wagon.
