Newbie 1896 - Cats, whambulances & more. [Game Over]

[CheekyTeeky]

To make you more paranoid, I'll lynch pretty much anyone over Implosion today

[shortaru]

I'll take you up on that.

Let's lynch Emrys!

[CheekyTeeky]

Maybe. Let me see how he pleads.

[shortaru]

I poked our lovely mod and asked for a k9 rep, btw.

[Malakittens]

Flavour

I moved away from all the pictures of ambulances because I'd figured you guys would be sick of it.

announcements

Mewtaph replaces k9soccer immediately:)

Official Vote Count

shortaru: [1] stan1ey
theslimer3: [2] implosion, Broxul
Emyrs Baneheart: [1] shortaru
Mewtaph: [1] CheekyTeeky

Not Voting

(4): Mewtaph, Emyrs Baneheart, theslimer3, ariane

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch.

Deadline

: (expired on 2018-10-30 22:15:00)

[Malakittens]

I poked our lovely mod and asked for a k9 rep, btw.

Just going to put this in the thread. I really don’t mind this, but remember all my PMs go to my email which then goes to my phone and can potentially wake me if I’m on call or if I had a long night.

[Mewtaph]

Hi all. You can call me Mew if you want.

Let's get started.

Some opening thoughts:

The wagons on Emyrs and theslimer3 are weird (mostly Emyrs) and it's also strange how long it's taking for players to move focus away from these two slots. I also think that this combined with the hypoclaim fluff in the first few pages has helped slow the game a bit so far and made it generally harder to evaluate early interactions (but they are still there, just getting past the hypoclaim stuff makes it harder to evaluate because MafiaxMafia can easily interact with each other over "hypoclaim mechanical stuff" so it seems like they are less likely to be mafia in the future. Just something to note.

I also think that theslimer3 wagon was pretty weak as a way to get out of RVS but do see that most of the game's content has touched this player at some point - I am fine that implosion stuck with it, don't like that others looked at other options.

I think that the lack of consideration to switch off of this wagon from the three people that were sitting in it for most of the VC history (implosion, Cheeky, shortaru). In the order of motivation for joining the wagon, I dislike Cheeky > implosion > shortaru for their approach towards the wagon during their participation while their vote was on theslimer3, then after it. I think implosion's original vote was good, and I liked how shortaru played around the wagon, but I don't know where Cheeky fits in this exactly. Something to maybe look into for the future.

General interactions with Emyrs on first glance seem to suggest that it's a bit more of busy work for other players to engage with given that his first two posts were relatively short. He's posted three posts thus far. Probably the best question to ask him would be "How often can you post, do you tend to phone-post or post through desktop, etc." then just leave it until there's enough content there to engage with.

The biggest shift away in focus that I've seen in a reasonable chunk in pressure was shortaru just now on implosion but this is also bad timing because implosion mentioned in his last post that he has to check-out for the weekend, which makes the ISO analysis a bit wasted. Also, shortaru, your vote doesn't reflect your content. Most of your recent content is focused on why implosion. Noone ISO's somebody and goes through with it through its entirety because it takes ages to do unless they have a strong hunch that they're going to find something.

Momentum was pushed away from theslimer3 towards Emyrs through 267 and 268 even though the votes remain the same; shortaru votes Emyrs from a previous vote of theslimer3 and Broxul votes the following post theslimer3 from Emyrs.

That being said, I do want to see more activity from theslimer3 in general. I think that theslimer3 could be trying a bit harder to make an activity spurt if they were town instead of just questioning implosion's wording (which was clear to me what he was trying to say) and not really pushing anywhere or offering an alternate person to wagon on.

The thing that's sticking out to me right now is that I don't think Broxul's votes are doing anything. His post 268 sticks out to me the most because it strikes me as someone scared of putting theslimer3 to L-1 and holding their vote out on Emyrs in the meantime. The original intentions for the vote (and votes on Emyrs in general) are sound but just don't create pressure and keep the game state moving. It's the prolonged holding of the Emyrs vote that bothers me - why not move it around in the meantime?

Broxul is appearing to me like someone that is trying to look busy and getting into the town's good side while these wagons are shifting around in a way that is convenient for him to join in and not get his hands dirty by jumping on the inferior wagon whenever these two players have swapped priority.

VOTE: Broxul

[Mewtaph]

Actually, I could be convinced on implosion being scum tbh. His interaction with it (theslimer3 wagon) is a bit weird and I'm a bit put off by the wording of some of his responses such as in 197.

As shortaru mentioned, there's nothing for me to follow up; right now my best theory is that scum are slimer + one of the lurkers, and so there's not a whole lot for me to do other than continue explaining why my townreads are the way they are, which I've been doing.

I feel like he should know that the wagon's core reasoning is weak and not devalue his reads into "scum is slimer + one of lurkers". It's not a good reason and I don't think town!implosion has much incentive to deny Ariane here, even if he gave just a little bit more interest in engaging with her.

Gonna go out here and say now that stan1ey is strong lean town, Ariane lean town as a general first vibe.

Gonna take a closer look at Broxul's ISO - I know that I didn't like his lack of vote until a few posts in, but I don't think that's necessarily AI, and the vote too but I haven't been following his thought process specifically throughout the entire game - what appears as jagged may have appeared as otherwise a smooth transition if I didn't replace into seeing that in an early read of the thread.

[Mewtaph]

Okay, so the ISO didn't give me too much to do work with unless I did it with somebody else, which I don't think quite fits. I like implosion a lot better on a reread, mostly because he started thinking about Broxul trying to blend in with the players around the same time I was starting to. Probably will never retract my general doubt on the slot because I don't want/like to fall in the trap of overlooking or overanalyzing the IC slot but he comes off as more town than scum. First few posts are content deficient, but also somewhat necessary from an IC point of view to prevent a mass hypoclaim before it even starts.

Broxul's vote was obviously heavily telegraphed, but I'm not really convinced that immediately takes away from my suspicion of him. He still hasn't offered a stand out post or moment that has appeared to me as something scum wouldn't do. He said he townreads mostly everyone that was participating but then casts doubt on shortaru. But it's all in a quite diplomatic manner which I don't like because if you suspect someone you think is "accepted" or "glossed over" as town I don't think you go about that in that way as town. His general vibe I'm getting is that he's always trying to do something - again, a reread didn't help to shake this feeling, if anything it just strengthened my initial impression. I'm leaning towards that being more of a bad thing than a good thing because of how I'm reading it. Would be interested to see what Cheeky thinks on this since she said she is more of a tone reader.

To reiterate on my current thoughts: Don't like theslimer3 and Emerys wagons as much as everyone else has so far in the game, and I want to push Broxul right now.

[shortaru]

Also, shortaru, your vote doesn't reflect your content. Most of your recent content is focused on why implosion.

Yes, it does.

I've said several times that I'm not interested in lynching Cheeky or implosion TODAY.

Doesn't mean I consider either one "forever Town". My posts reflect this.

[stan1ey]

Most of what ive posted revolves around Cheeky and Short so I will make a post talking on what i think of everyone.

Broxul:
There is a few things I don't like. for example in 268 he phrases his question to Short in a way that makes it seem like he has caught Short out on something but it's obvious Short just misread what I wrote. He could have pointed that out instead of making that post. But most of his posts I can tell he is thinking logically about his reads so I think its likely he is town.

Emyrs Baneheart:
Emrys has only made 3 posts. first one was just a hello. 2nd post he seems to be following my thought process. 3rd post I get the feeling like Emrys is scared to commit. Similar to the 2nd post he makes 3 paragraphs criticizing Cheeky and Short but then says he isn't getting any scummy vibes. Each paragraph begins by calling them out then in the last sentence says that he may be misunderstanding. It looks like Emrys wants to make it seem they are scummy without being the person to do it. This makes me think he is scummy,b ut we haven't seen enough and I could easily be very wrong.

theslimer3:
Slimer is a tough one for me to read. A lot of they're post dont have any real content. I get the same feeling I do with Emrys in a way, but not nearly as much.

implosion:
I agree with much of what he posts. I think it's likely Implosion is town.

I still think Cheeky and Short are scummy. Cheeky a lot less and Shortaru a lot more now however. Won't go into that since as i said I have a lot already. RN I think Ariane and Mewtaph seem towny, but I will wait for more posts that aren't catch up posts.

[shortaru]

Noone ISO's somebody and goes through with it through its entirety because it takes ages to do unless they have a strong hunch that they're going to find something.

Don't call me noone, it's demeaning!

Also, I was bored because nothing was happening so I started reviewing ISOs.

[stan1ey]

Lol i just read through everyones ISO to make that post

[shortaru]

(see, Cheeky? k9 slot is town. Please join me on this Emrys wagon Mew hates!)

[shortaru]

If he IS scum, my best guess at this point would be that he plans to NK Cheeky and I, and pocket stan1ey all the way to MYLO.

implosion:
I agree with much of what he posts. I think it's likely Implosion is town.

[CheekyTeeky]

VOTE: Broxul

[shortaru]

{Shortaru, Stan1ey, Implosion, Ariane}
{Emerys}
{TheSlimer, Broxul, K9soccer}

I see you've been scumreading Broxul for a while, but I can't find any reasons why?

[CheekyTeeky]

I will go more in depth at some point but basically the beginning of his iso is bad.

61 is a bad entrance - focuses on the set-up spec, no sorting via RVS or otherwise. Feels a tad LAMIST.

62 - more waffle without taking a stance on anyone, straight IIoA, and they say they've caught up.

74 - They literally have to be asked by Implosion before giving a stance. And the stance is a "weak town lean"

94 - votes Emrys to encourage content whilst activlely avoiding sorting people that already have content. It feels like a safe vote that won't ruffle any feathers/get people looking into him

107 - Says short v me isn't SvS. But doesn't elaborate on his read of short so it could be svt/tvt etc, still adding nothing useful in the way of sorting.

110 onwards a bunch of please explain/why are people voting slimer followed by a readslist with slimer as a scumlean. The shaky start and following empty busy  work feels like scum trying to discreetly maneuver the game.

[shortaru]

62 - more waffle without taking a stance on anyone, straight IIoA, and they say they've caught up.

Hmm.

So during the read, I

didn't think that shortaru had a PR

. I just figured that hypo-claiming was something he's thought about in the past and wanted others' opinion on it.

I don't think Cheeky pointing it out seemed scummy though.

I don't understand why mafia would point out a PR crumb (or loaf) if they saw one, like why wouldn't they keep that to themselves?

Anyways, I'm caught up..sorry for the delay but I probably won't be very active on the weekends. Is that generally acceptable on this site?

Are the underlined statements not results of analysis?

Also, considering this post (and 61) were made on a weekend, which he stated to be a low activity time for him, are you sure you aren't placing unreasonable expectations on those two posts?

[shortaru]

74 - They literally have to be asked by Implosion before giving a stance. And the stance is a "weak town lean"

It's page THREE!

94 - votes Emrys to encourage content whilst activlely avoiding sorting people that already have content. It feels like a safe vote that won't ruffle any feathers/get people looking into him

This is fair.

107 - Says short v me isn't SvS. But doesn't elaborate on his read of short so it could be svt/tvt etc, still adding nothing useful in the way of sorting.

Kinda, but there's not really much meat on the bone here.

110 onwards a bunch of please explain/why are people voting slimer followed by a readslist with slimer as a scumlean.

Now this, I remember. Rereading after my original FoS on Emrys for defending slimer, I noticed that Broxul actually defended him first and I was wondering if I was going to be asked how I felt about Broxul defending slimer when I was voting Emrys for doing so.

Okay, fair vote.

Still like Emrys better, though.

[implosion]

I return from far too much testing and will probably completely crash later today like i did last night but am oddly lucid right now so.

I don't know exactly how I'm going to refine my reads. I have tried re-reading and trying to see how people would approach the game if they were a certain alignment but that hasn't produced really different results. Any tips (from anyone) on some good methods you've found of sorting people would be appreciated. I've tried to read through some of the newbie materials but always like more and differing opinions (maybe this is a better conversation to have after the game?)

Some of the better/more popular tools in pretty frequent use in the current meta:

-Motivation reading. I use this a fair amount, or well, it's sort of my main method of reading; essentially, look at a post, and ask yourself what it would take for town to have posted it, and ask yourself what it would take for scum to have posted it. In many cases, there are posts where for scum to have posted that post, they would have had to have a very complex/indirect motivation for doing so (which is why I gave some town points for, e.g., some of stanley's early reads iirc).

-Tone reading. In one sense it's just playing by feel, but it can also be very effective. Often more art than science. Look at post, ask if it feels natural or genuine. Works differently with different players, and differentially well on different players.

-Meta reading. Notice a peculiar behavior, look at a player's past games to see if they tend to exhibit it more often as one alignment. More generally, look at how a player reacts to certain situations like pressure or how they make pushes etc, and compare how they do those things as each alignment. Usually fairly subtle, because obvious differences are usually obvious and players will account for them when playing as scum.

Something about implosion is making me uneasy. I still have him in my lean-town pile because almost everything he's said I've found agreeable, but I can't help but feel like that could be mafia trying to pull the wool over town's eyes.

For what it's worth, agreeability isn't particularly alignment-indicative for me - I've had players correctly read me as town and badly misread me when I'm scum for it.

[implosion]

Spoiler: Point by point response to shortaru

Cheeky, I'll respond to you momentarily... I want to get this in the thread while I'm alive to do so.

It's not "a case" on implosion per se, but my overall thoughts of his ISO.

---

-- snip --

That said, I don't particularly think Cheeky is scummy for what she's done. I don't really think anyone has done anything particularly readable yet, really. Which is pretty boring. shortaru giving up on the Cheeky wagon is interesting, but I can see it from either alignment. slimer staying on the edge of things is notable, but also pretty reasonable given half the player list yet to check in. I don't really buy into cheeky's stan vote either.

You can't get much more noncommittal than this.

Also, why did you not take the opportunity to pressure Cheeky after the last line?? This is a very underwhelming post.

Yeah, it is noncommittal, because I had no reads - I'm not going to make up reads 3 pages into the game if I don't have any.

I didn't pressure Cheeky because me saying "I don't really buy into her vote" doesn't mean I thought her vote was scummy; it means I thought her vote was bad/specious. Specious logic is very, very much not a scumtell.

I'm willing to call Broxul and Cheeky town, but neither is strong at all,

even

for a page 3 read. I like the way Broxul described his thought process on Cheeky in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of 74; I agree generally with shortaru's arguments about Cheeky being town.

@Everyone: What's everyone think about RVS as a means to scumhunt?

What specifically are you hoping to get out of people's answers to this question? Have you gotten any useful info from answers that have been given so far?

"Even" for a page 3 read? That sounds informed.

I would have expected "especially" for a page 3 read.

I actually have no idea what you're referring to here. That would be synonymous.
Paraphrase it to "Even compared to a typical page 3 read, neither is strong" if it is more straightforward? But I have 0 idea what about the word "even" implies informedness.

shortaru, how much mafia experience do you have in general/what context is it in?

I've played a fair amount in person, and tinkered around in the app for a while.

I tried an email ring, but that pretty much fell apart after a couple games.

I find forum mafia to be much easier to read/follow than the email ring, but much slower than the pace I'm used to in person/app.

Cool. Reason I ask is that the way you're talking about your thought process in e.g. 85 is definitely something difficult to fake for very new players.

Right now I'm gonna lay this down:

VOTE: theslimer3

I'm not especially interested in voting stanley, though I don't take any issue with it. slimer's 76 feels a little bad in a couple ways, looking at it more; tonally there are a couple things that feel minorly off, like the slightly longwinded explanation for why they were being mixed up with someone. The mention that the RVS question could gain interesting information also feels potentially disingenuous; as I alluded to with my question, I have no idea what concrete useful information can be generated by asking people what they think of RVS. It's not a scummy thing to ask in and of itself, but the fact that slimer gives this line about it potentially giving "interesting information" may be scum alluding to them trying to advance the gamestate.

All of this is very, very minor, to be clear. But it's something.

I lean slightly town on shortaru as well.

Here, he's starting to dig into the game. Not crazy about the unexplained town lean on me, however.

Why wouldn't a town IC want to proactively inform us newbs why I might be town after he went to so much trouble to explain why he thinks slimer is scum? I can certainly understand why a scum IC would make us explicitly ask for justification of a town lean.

I've mentioned that this is mostly out of habit. In general, there are two main pieces of utility that I see in explaining my townreads: one is the potential for showing myself to be town by exposing my thought process, but it's generally plenty enough to explain the ones people ask explicitly about. Two is to defend someone that I think is being incorrectly wagoned; you'll see plenty of examples of this in my town meta, where a townread of mine comes under attack and I will be much more explanatory of why they are town.

Did I? I thought you didn't care about mechanical talk. Tell me why scum would publicly announce who they suspected to be a PR?

I'm a bit skeptical of this question. Do you actually not see the obvious answer of "to gauge their reaction to try to figure out if they actually are a PR"? Or are you just being rhetorical?

Really not a fan of this post. Again, as mastina points out in the wiki: town deals in probabilities; scum deals in possibilities

Scum is most probably NOT going to go calling a player a cop in the first couple pages of a game in the Newbie Queue because it attracts WAY too much unwanted attention, and even if they manage to flush the cop out, it's likely to turn into a 1 for 1 trade WHICH HURTS SCUM. I know I wouldn't shoot myself in the foot like that as scum.

I don't disagree with you here, but this is a non sequitur to my point in the quoted post.

I did not think that Cheeky was likely to make that play as scum; nonetheless, it was really strange that she asked a question with what I saw as such a blatantly obvious answer, and wanted a clarification on how she thought it was a reasonable question.

I don't really want to go off of him claiming that analyzing interactions is productive in a game where he was scum and might have been lying or saying things that were convenient for him; I am interested in hearing his response to this part of the argument, though.

Providing an explanation before claiming you want one IS NOT TOWN POSTING.

Counterpoint - I am town, and did exactly that in this post!
I basically thought there was 0 chance he would actually claim he had been lying in that game - if anything, you can consider this post a slight bait where if he does claim that he had been lying in that game, I would have become suspicious that he were lying about that because it would be such an odd thing to have been lying about at the time. But mostly I just didn't care because I assumed he wasn't actually going to claim it because it made no sense for him to do that as either alignment. Tbh I'm not even really sure why I gave it as an excuse.

What are people's takes on Broxul right now? He's the most active slot that I don't have at pretty likely town right now. His last reads list was pretty much echoing the table (though that isn't necessarily bad).

Echoing the table isn't necessarily bad, right?

It's ambiguous because I'm not sure what to think of Broxul, because I see some things that are somewhat scummy (echoing the table, meaning that his reads list looks like he just took the reads that the loudest people were espousing and repeated them)

Wait... now echoing the table is scummy? Makes me wonder if 178 wasn't just an effort to test the waters.

Twas a simple clarification, as Ariane literally said that she didn't know what I meant by echoing the table.

So something about this line actually feels super scummy to me:

This is almost enough for me to push you L-1. Did you seriously believe this? And think that no one else had caught it? I have trouble believing that.

The first sentence in particular. It just feels so unnecessarily posture-y. It sounds like scum who is specifically afraid to put anyone at L-1 because they think it'll look bad. Caution around putting someone at L-1 is fine, but this line is potentially a very easy thing for scum to jump on to join a wagon, and the entire line just looks like scum trying to look like they're having original thoughts about things. Idk.

Hold the phone... he's voting slimer, so shouldn't the natural assumption be that he's considering Broxul being hesitant about putting his buddy at L-1 instead of basically treating slimer like he's town in this post?

Why would putting slimer at L-1 "look bad" if the assumption is that slimer is scum? It wouldn't.

He knows slimer is town and accused Broxul of not wanting to look bad by putting a townie at L-1.

So a few things here.

One, you are projecting your own reasons for finding that post scummy onto me inaccurately.
Two, it can absolutely look bad for him to put slimer at L-1, and he could absolutely be scared to do it for that reason, even if they are both scum.
Three, as Cheeky has already mentioned, you're projecting the way you approach the game onto me inaccurately as well. I very infrequently have associatives at the forefront of my thoughts when those associatives are between unflipped players. There are 28 possible scumteams in the game from my perspective; the odds of any thought about "maybe x and y are scum together" at this point in the game actually having any correct meaning is 3-4%. So I don't really think about it because it isn't productive to think about. Plus associative reasons for players to not be scum together can be wrong in much the same way as normal reads can be wrong; I see no reason to privilege them in how I approach the game.

[implosion]

I actually have a lot of weird paranoia that broxul is actually acting townish and it's just being missed. It's weird. Like 273 feels townish possibly? There's a solid chance I'll join the wagon later. I just still don't feel great about slimer. Cheeky's summary on Broxul is pretty solid.

[shortaru]

Yeah, I'm not wall warring.

You were voting slimer. Presumably, that means you thought slimer was scum. But you treated slimer like town in your push on Broxul.

That's not an associative. That's an inconsistency.

And the difference between using "even" instead of "especially" is painfully obvious to anyone that hunts motives. The two words are not synonymous. "Even if"/"Even though" = despite of; "especially if"/"especially though" = because.

If anything, they're closed to bring antonyms, which is my point.

Your counterpoint on 160 is thoroughly rejected because providing the answer in the same post as the inquiry (or before the other person can respond) completely negates the whole purpose of asking it.

Specious logic is certainly not a scumtell (those uniforms are rare, anyway), but it IS a fantastic opening to pressure a player in order to develop a read.

[shortaru]

(well, not QUOTE wall warring)