SUPP 2017 MAFIA: COMPLETE

[Ankamius]

Hey guys

I'm not going to go analysis mode on 146 pages, but I'll go through specific stuff as requested and otherwise look through whatever parts of the thread that catches my eye

Can I get a rundown on roughly what's going on in the meantime?

[Ankamius]

I'm wondering if we have to kill punreader today, not sure we can lynch scum today and wait until tomorrow to kill him...i think he would win. (assuming hes an sk)

There is a sufficiently large risk in me claiming this, but pun were supposed to kill you last night and they didn't, so I suppose I'll take the risk anyway.

I am indeed a third party.
I am not in fact a serial killer.

I claimed both to Dunnstral, and to the worst; the former, via neighborhood, the latter, via message.

My full role is much as I have claimed it.
I have a passive, Libel and Slander. 0s and 1s people give me are given double weight.
I have a passive, Stadium Status. This is in fact a conditional bulletproof, but I lied about the condition. The real condition is in some ways stronger but other ways weaker: as long as my D1 ranking is above half of the living, I'm bulletproof. Given as how I've been in the bottom 50% the whole game, I've been wide open to attack the whole time.
I have a passive, Chip Represent!. This is access to the neighborhood consisting of Commander Shepherd and Dunnstral. (I claimed to Dunnstral once Commander Shepherd was dead.)

My active ability, Spread the Word, is in fact a conditional vig. When I target someone ranked lower than me, I kill them. You're the only player ranked lower than me and I absolutely refuse to kill you at this point (if for no other reason than it'd render my win impossible and pun should want you dead anyway so I'm not doing their work for them when they screwed me over by not killing you), so I am not going to kill again.

However, I breadcrumbed yet never claimed that there is another half of Spread the Word: when I target someone ranked

higher

than me, I infect them. This infection does nothing; it doesn't kill them, it doesn't spread, it's completely and entirely harmless. But it is related to my wincon.

My wincon is for every living player to be infected. As all of my target claims have been truthful, what this means is the only player I have infected right now is Shoshin, and maybe not even Shoshin if Shoshin's role is immune to mine. If Shoshin's role is immune to mine, I am in a position where it's impossible to win.

I can win posthumously, and if I win, explicitly the game continues on after I win. (Specifically, it says that I win when everyone alive is infected and that I do not need to be alive to win.)

In my message to the worst, I asked him to claim his alignment to me, with y/d in place of t/s;

d

Right here he did so. I was specifically hoping to navigate the gamestate to a situation where I knew the identity of the last pun but could win without playing kingmaker. I didn't want to punside due to promising I'd help Dunnstral (and my natural inclination to help town the whole game) nor after the worst trusted me did I want to betray him and townside.

This means yes, I am fairly certain Espeonage is the worst's punbuddy. After all. With two kills you know there's pun left alive; you then have a choice: believe his punbuddy bussed him, or believe Espeonage is the punbuddy.

The options available to the town then are the following:

1. Lynch me. I can't win, presumably Vaxkiller is shot by the last pun, and you have a 3p lylo. If you assume Shoshin is town (which I would, by the way; I knew Shoshin was town yesterday due to knowing the worst was pun so I apologize for that push), that's a 50/50 shot but I'd strongly recommend the Espeonage lynch and can cite the worst's defense of him as proof.
   
2. Lynch someone else.
   • If you lynch the last pun, I lose because I am not a threat to the town and did not fulfill my wincon.
     
   • If you lynch town, then I target the player I haven't infected.
     • If Shoshin was infected and pun nightkill Vaxkiller, then I am removed from the game; presumably, this would result in a pun win.
       
     • If the pun doesn't eliminate Vaxkiller or Shoshin wasn't infected, then we get to a 3p situation; I may or may not be able to win but town's chances aren't great.
   Given that a mislynch today leaves the town's chances as fairly slim, you'll not want to take that risk I'd wager.
   
3. No-lynch. In return for having not lynched me, I'd target the player you want me to in {Espeonage, DeasVail}. (You want me to be targeting TOWN.) In 4p mylo, we'd lynch the other, and we can win together. This is effectively identical to the first option, in that you are taking a 50/50, it's just that this option allows me to win with the town as well.

In short, due to the actions of both town (lynching the worst) and pun (not killing Vaxkiller), I

am

being forced to choose a side.

I was already inclined to townside by default and double-downed on that with Dunnstral. I never intended to punside; I was simply aiming for a gamestate where I wouldn't need to choose a side to win. But since no matter what I do at this point I

will

be helping a victor, I made my choice and am selecting the town.

VOTE: No Lynch.

Okay, this claim is probably genuine

I don't think Pun would be fully against claiming something like this as scum, but there would have to be a very specific purpose to it. When you consider Shoshin's immediate push onto that claim (which can be believably foreseen) and the fact that Espeonage has been inactive enough to have the mod look to replace him, this kind of play is inherently risky at this stage in the game at best. The exception would be if it was impossible for them to stay alive otherwise, but from what I've seen, the kill aspect at least is confirmed. I don't think Pun would leave themself in a position to require a claim like that to win the endgame. They're good enough at predicting things like this to be able to avoid it if they can.

[Ankamius]

that's a lot of text

hold on while I read through it

[Ankamius]

I also don't see why we should believe anything you say, since we know you're not town.

Because anyone who knows my identity knows how I treat third parties; I absolutely

loathe

the mindset of treating 3p as if they're pun and am a strong pro-3p advocate who favors working with them whenever possible.

I do know specifically that you don't like treating 3p as scum via a game I followed sometime last year out of curiosity (the WWF game where everybody but one person was scum), but the rest I don't have a strong memory of offhand since we don't have any recent games with a 3p and anything from before my unretirement is pretty faded in my memory.

Unless you're referring to [REDACTED], in which case it's very easy to assume you hold this philosophy.

Furthermore, I am known to not lie. Mislead, naturally. Tell half-truths, of course I do that because I do it as town. I would not lie.

Also, those who know my identity know that my preferred alignment is town.

The first quote is 100% true.

The second one is guessably true in recent memory, although I do remember a particular scumgame of yours that you were absolutely thrilled to play a few years ago

My actions this game also speak to a town lean as I shot Fire Assassin and took the reads of the nightkilled into consideration. While I misread Commander Shepherd and I did have role-related reasons for it, my defense of him was in part due to me genuinely believing him to be town. I also promised to townside to Dunnstral explicitly in our PT, and even before having done so I made dual promises. One, I would trust whichever of my neighbors was the last alive and help their side win (and Dunnstral was said neighbor, and town).

Two, if I never got an opportunity for this due to both being alive, I would default to townsiding due to generally empathizing with town more.

Then there is how I, technically speaking, never agreed to work with the worst. I asked him to specify his alignment in my message to him and he did, so I didn't want to lynch him for it and didn't want to play kingmaker, but when the pun forced my hand via

not

killing Vaxkiller last night as I had asked them to (how more explicit can you get than "assume that no matter what, Vaxkiller is the nightkill"?) and left me in a position where I quite frankly may be unable to win at all, the obvious choice in every way is townsiding.

This is very very very Pun, I would trust this

Furthermore, there is a simple fact of the matter you overlook.

If I intended to punside, I didn't need to claim at all. I could continue the charade of a town vig, under the guise of "guacamole was the only person I could shoot, so I shot him" or something to that effect. I would also state my motivation for shooting guacamole was to prove that there's still pun alive, because if Vaxkiller and guacamole both died on the same night, then it's proof there's two kill sources rather than one.

I could, and would, get away with that.

I would point out how, as there is confirmed to be pun alive, lynching a player who is confirmed to not be pun is a mistake.

And this would all work, allowing me to quite easily punside by relying on the biases you have against me to get the town in DV/Espeonage lynched.

Instead I claimed openly, because I made my choice and am doubling down on it.

If you needed any more proof that Pun isn't scum, then here it is.

Pun is no idiot. Pun is a competent scum. Pun knows how to work the town in a way to push themself into as good a spot as they possibly can.

I don't see any direct issues with this, there would have to be some specific plan in place to make a 3p claim better than a town claim, or at least some advantage that I'm not seeing.

[Ankamius]

Thanks for your thoughts Ank.

But what I really want to know is,

Are you scum?

I'm town.

[Ankamius]

Hey ank, we think your scum, im basically confirmed town and no one is going to argue otherwise (prolly helping you out here, but meh)

We all think pun has a high probablility fo flipping SK so we dont want to take chances there and we are lynchign him today. There is one mroe scum (we are thinking you) and if we lynch Pun today I'm the obvious NK going into tomorrow so that leaves DV, Shoshin, and you.

Shoshin has shown a town mentality through the game and I dont want to think that is scum there, espy has been lurking hard and they can do that as scum, dv ive been on the fence about, but some of thier posts today dont really look like it comes from scum.

Before we lynch pun today I really want to decide who tomorrows lynch is going to be because i wont be around tomorrow, so I want to take our time today. I'm leaning you (ank) as the last scum.

Can you claim for us?
-Vax

Sure, I'm Sleepykrew, a Betting VT.

I made a bet with BipolarChemist (Dunnstral) as to whether Papa Zito (Vaxkiller) or ErrantParabola (Fire Assassin) would rank higher than the other; if Papa Zito ranks higher than ErrantParabola, I have a choice of what to do to BipolarChemist between killing them on night two, removing whatever active powers they might have, and making them immune to NKs.

I lost the bet and Dunnstral NK-immunized me.

[Ankamius]

We all think pun has a high probablility fo flipping SK so we dont want to take chances there and we are lynchign him today. There is one mroe scum (we are thinking you) and if we lynch Pun today I'm the obvious NK going into tomorrow so that leaves DV, Shoshin, and you.

Which slot started all this paranoia on Punreader being an SK? That's probably your scum right there.

Bonus points if they're also the reason that this slot is currently the highest scum equity slot in everyone's eyes; it's a pretty simple endgame to bring the slot that's having the least impact on the game all the way to 3p LyLo, especially with the suboptimal play of lynching the third party right before that.

[Ankamius]

That's a really interesting conclusion to be jumping to immediately.

How are you so sure that the approach you think I'm taking is the actual approach?

[Ankamius]

VOTE: Deasvail

[Ankamius]

Is this my cue to shade Deas back and claim that I'm more sure of him being scum or is it obvious that he is yet

[Ankamius]

Because if that positioning towards a future suspicion on me followed by a deflection from my response wasn't enough to show that my read on the gamestate is correct, then I'm not sure if town will win.

[Ankamius]

Because Pun isn't an SK

[Ankamius]

Because Pun isn't an SK

Who cares what Pun is as long as you know she's not town, she has the ability to kill Vax tonight, and she intentionally scum-sided last night by killing guac?

I know Pun well enough to be able to trust that they will town side in the worst case scenario.

As a quick question btw

Is Vax conftown?

[Ankamius]

I don't think you understand how I think if you believe I would be wanting to lynch Pun today

Because in no universe would I be going that route as either alignment

[Ankamius]

Are you disliking my responses because you think they're scummy or are you disliking them because I'm not agreeing with you?

[Ankamius]

We all think pun has a high probablility fo flipping SK so we dont want to take chances there and we are lynchign him today. There is one mroe scum (we are thinking you) and if we lynch Pun today I'm the obvious NK going into tomorrow so that leaves DV, Shoshin, and you.

Which slot started all this paranoia on Punreader being an SK? That's probably your scum right there.

Bonus points if they're also the reason that this slot is currently the highest scum equity slot in everyone's eyes; it's a pretty simple endgame to bring the slot that's having the least impact on the game all the way to 3p LyLo, especially with the suboptimal play of lynching the third party right before that.

This suggests that Ank believes scum would want to lynch Pun, which means Ank probably would want to lynch Pun as scum.

Yet when I called Ank on that, she says that's not true.

Ank's scum.

We can lynch her after Pun.

...What

You understand that I said the scum plan was to lynch Pun and then me, correct?

[Ankamius]

UNVOTE: DeasVail

[Ankamius]

Hey Pun

What's your opinion on that logic?

[Ankamius]

Yes, my point was that scum were banking on me being a prime lynch target in 3p lylo with Pun and Vax both supporting it, which is why scum would find lynching Pun today attractive.

This logic doesn't apply to me because I don't get that advantage from those two slots flipping... on top of it requiring me being tomorrows lynch

[Ankamius]

am I in the twilight zone

[Ankamius]

maybe I'm in an alternate universe where being able to get what I need from only a couple posts somehow makes me scum

or maybe an alternate universe where being able to read the game makes me scum

[Ankamius]

We all think pun has a high probablility fo flipping SK so we dont want to take chances there and we are lynchign him today. There is one mroe scum (we are thinking you) and if we lynch Pun today I'm the obvious NK going into tomorrow so that leaves DV, Shoshin, and you.

Which slot started all this paranoia on Punreader being an SK? That's probably your scum right there.

Bonus points if they're also the reason that this slot is currently the highest scum equity slot in everyone's eyes; it's a pretty simple endgame to bring the slot that's having the least impact on the game all the way to 3p LyLo, especially with the suboptimal play of lynching the third party right before that.

This suggests that Ank believes scum would want to lynch Pun, which means Ank probably would want to lynch Pun as scum.

Yet when I called Ank on that, she says that's not true.

Ank's scum.

We can lynch her after Pun.

maybe Shoshin really is scum and Deas is just derping

but it's probably not going to be a thing I can confirm since Pun has no real reason to ever pop into the thread anymore

[Ankamius]

I don't think you understand how I think if you believe I would be wanting to lynch Pun today

Because in no universe would I be going that route as either alignment

(hint: I know Pun better than anyone else here and there's a very very low chance that slot is scum)

(and even if the slot is SK, lynching it is suboptimal)

[Ankamius]

Vax you need to open your eyes because you're being duped hard

There's no way that Deas' weird shift onto me and Shoshin's opportunistic logic are both town.

I can read Pun better than anyone else here and I can tell you (regardless of alignment, it is never in my interest to lie about this) that Pun is both telling the truth about role and telling the truth about them wanting to town side in this game even with town basically screwing them over.

This isn't a gamestate that's hard to read. It doesn't take much to reach:

1. Scum want to have me be the town lynch to win the game
2. Scum want Punreader to be lynched today so that they can't townside in 3p and just lose them the game anyways
3. Having me in 3p lylo and just about anyone else is a very simple endgame for any scum to win.

Scum probably is just Shoshin, it makes more sense for her to be seemingly unsure about Deas and myself in order to try to stay out of the warpath between our slots than it does Deas jumping on ylmy entrance into the game (which is explainable by not really understanding how I play). You're falling right into the endgame plan that should be abundantly clear right now.

Do a reset and think about what I've said since I've replaced in, and how the others have reacted. I think that's the only shot we have here.

[Ankamius]

Ank thinks it's scummy to lynch Pun, so she's intentionally doing the opposite.

Lynching Pun is actually very safe for scum to be pushing for since there's no blowback from pushing it

But it's not inherently scummy either since town paranoia is a thing too

the problem is that there's an easy 3p victory with town afterwards that makes pushing Pun today very much a good play for scum

[Ankamius]

The scummy part is that when I called her on this, she says that even if she were scum she wouldn't be pushing Pun, which shows that her scumhunting logic comes from a scum perspective rather than a town one.

The only way Pun doesn't essentially ensure a lynch on me tomorrow is if I defend them today, which is completely irrelevant to my alignment, since... you know,

I will always see their claim as truthful when I'm town.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the gamestate itself, only with my mutual familiarity with them.

[Ankamius]

I'll be on the edge of my seat

[Ankamius]

Good luck Pun

I hope you get an opportunity to win at least since nobody else figured out how to play today

[Ankamius]

And btw

Your paranoia of Shoshin is justified, that logic is indefensible if you pay attention to what I've been saying

Pay attention to what I've said and why Shoshin wanted to lynch me today and it will be obvious.

[Ankamius]

Yes I'm town

[Ankamius]

Oh I forgot you were already on me

No that was a last ditch effort, the games over

[Ankamius]

I fully believe everything I said though, I don't think I'd ever be SK reading Pun this game and everything else falls into place afterwards

That really wasn't a hard deduction to get to and I'd have the pieces in place about as fast as town

[Ankamius]

That said... scum really are the only people that would want to kill Pun today

Town optimally wanted to no lynch regardless of Pun's alignment, I couldn't figure out how to try to steer the game away from Pun's lynch without pointing out that specific option since I never would have had a chance if it happened.

[Ankamius]

Well, if you listened to the person who knew Pun wasn't an SK, you wouldn't have had that paranoia

[Ankamius]

but the scenario I had in mind was forcing a no lynch, killing Vax, and then forcing another no lynch so that Pun as SK would be forced to kill scum.

it does take into account that Pun would be townsiding as promised, but at this point they would be able to get a 100% accurate read on me and either just shoot me dead as scum or probably shoot the target we end up syncing on

the only scenario I thought I had any chance in was specifically to go to bat to protect Pun and then in 3p lylo hope that's enough to sway them towards siding with me and no lynching in 3p

the gamestate was kind of impossible to sway that way without outing myself though

oh well

[Ankamius]

I think this game would've been doable if I had managed to replace in on day five like I was originally supposed to

the krazy kill really screwed us

[Ankamius]

<3 Pun

I tried to give you a fighting chance

[Ankamius]

Hey Shoshin

Can you unpack what you caught me with please? I still don't really understand it

[Ankamius]

You weren't scumhunting. The idea that scum wanted to lynch Pun just didn't make any sense from a town perspective, and it made even less sense when you said that you wouldn't have pushed Pun's lynch as scum. Town don't suspect people for things that they themselves wouldn't do as scum. And that showed me that you weren't actually scumhunting. There's other things but that's the one that made me 100% to the point of lynching you before Pun.

Mmm...

Any specific differences from Labyrinth? This by itself is hard to parse since I generally read scum intent in other ways (which does include things I wouldn't do as scum, like the Krazy kill this game)

[Ankamius]

The wild speculating in Labyrinth was primarily from me trying to fit my gamestate reads into a box that made sense

A lot of my scum hunting comes from trying to get a read into what scum are trying to do and fitting specific players into that mold; this is sort of the reason why my reads early on were actually very close to the correct answer (I had over half of the playerlist as town, all of whom except the traitor we didn't have to kill were town) but got worse over time. The confidence generally comes from how well I'm able to read the gamestate and get reads from it.

That's essentially the reason I went into a death tunnel on you after night 3; I was starting to realize my correct reads were on the town end and was shifting into that mindset... and then CShep died and it was really difficult to rationalize town allowing that, which drove my reads off a cliff.

You mentioned when duckling posted a quote from another game that it was far better than anything I had posted in that game; that's usually the kind of thing that results when I can get a good read on the game, although my role colored my approach to the game too.

My approach just varies wildly in every game, which... well, is a big reason my scumgame sucks and why it feels so random how I get caught every game

[Ankamius]

Wasn't from me if there was

[Ankamius]

Hey Pun

What do you think I could improve on from this game in future scum games?

[Ankamius]

Now that you've seen my scumgame twice in recent memory, hopefully it's enough to have some idea now