Newbie 1915: Africa [Game Over!]

[MaryJoLisa]

I'm sorry, Skitter. I'm typing it up but I've got some RL stuff on my plate that I'm dealing with. I want to answer your questions thoroughly so there's less room for ambiguity. I'll have it posted soon.

[skitter30]

Fair enough, fair enough, i just don'r want this to disappear and get forgotten about

[NotMySpamAccount]

So at this point reading through everything I would say TTTT, Salami, and BBmolla are town, in order of certainty, while MJL, cby, and skitter could be scum, also in that order. Elements is close to null, but I'm leaning town a bit. DR is inactive, so null there, though I might want to lynch just to get rid of the dead weight if y'all think that's a good idea. All of this is pure gut, but it's the best I've got.

there's no reason he can't be scum with someone experienced
and he just posted dumb before getting a chance to be coached

that's my point, I imagine scum would chat before their first post, and everyone else was active enough to have given spam a quick rundown or some hints and tips. except for salami and tall/RD

Have you cansidered that I might be town, and that nobody coached me on what to say because I don't have a way to do so outside of the main thread?

[Elements]

Have you cansidered that I might be town, and that nobody coached me on what to say because I don't have a way to do so outside of the main thread?

that's my reasoning for you not being scum. If you were your partners would be one of salami and tall/DR. obviously i have no read on DR but i town read salami so that rules out that option for me. Plus the more scummy people like MJL and bbmolla who i don't think would be partnered with you.

[Elements]

My town reasoning for you is more "these are the only possibilities you could be scum in. They don't work IMO so you town"

[Elements]

Elements is close to null, but I'm leaning town a bit.

Would you mind elaborating on this?

[skitter30]

while MJL, cby, and skitter could be scum, also in that order.

why cby?

[MaryJoLisa]

Questions asked in post 354

"i don't understand how you can argue both of these at the same time you realize that quite a lot of your push on me isn't actually based on me doing anything scummy, right?"

I can argue multiple perspectives because I’m aware that I don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle. I feel that making statements of assertion could block myself off from exploring alternate scenarios that might better fit the information that I have on hand. I’ve learned in this game that expressing that I can see two sides of the coin puts me at a disadvantage because people see it as being indecisive.

you have:
-> the fact that i'm not really *present* in the game (again, i moved this weekend)

She should know very well why that reeks of scumminess. It was beyond LAMIST and Spam was rightly called to account for his actions. In this post, I dismissed her actions as being ic. I presumed that she was trying to prod us into thinking things through, but I read the IC guide on the wiki page and it instructs ic’s to be present and helpful (which she has been), but it says not to keep kid gloves on. I'm now operating with the expectation that her kid-gloves have been off from the beginning.

If I said elsewhere that you were not present, please let post 330 stand. I acknowledge that you have been present, and I really appreciate the job you’re doing as IC. You’ve been very helpful to me and other newbies here.

-> me at once defending town lynches to avoid being criticized for jumping on townies who you later say might be scumpartners (you can't have both of these at the same time)

I explained above that I can see multiple possible outcomes. For right now, I’m focusing on you and not any scum partners you may or may not have.

-> some stuff about me being ic that i don't understand the relevance of to anything

Your being IC confused me at first. I didn’t fully understand the role and even though you said you’re here to play the game and achieve your wincon, I still imagined that you’d be handling us more delicately here than you would on a different part of the forum. I no longer think that’s the case. I believe that you’re playing to your wincon.

-> apparently my strategy is making people second-guess each other but i don't know either where you think i'm doing that or why you think this is a scum strategy of mine and not a playstyle thing for me to ask a lot of questions

I believe that your posts have not advanced the narrative for town and are largely causing us to second guess ourselves. I haven’t evaluated your posts in any other game to determine if you’re sticking to your usual town or scum self.

I am reading you as scum.

-> that i disagreed with people calling nmsa's entrance scummy (why is a differing of opinion here scummy? if you think it's because i'm his partner what does the first quote in this post mean?)

I do suspect that you’re mafia in this game, but I can see narratives where your scum partner could several different people. The distancing that I perceived early in the game (when Elements jumped on Spam for the LAMIST post) may only have been a display of being pro-town in case we lynched Spam and he came up green.

like i'm at once scummy for defending townies but also criticizing my potential partner elements but i'm potentially defending my partner spam who i've avoided criticizing so that i'm not seen as jumping on town wagons?

Criticizing your potential partner, Elements, makes sense if you’re trying to put a little distance between you and him. If we had lynched Spam and he flipped green, then you can point out how you said the wagon was no good in the first place. As I mentioned in point 1, I am going to back off voicing multiple perspectives because it’s confusing to people. I get that so I’ll stop. I do not view you as scum for this event. I view you as scum because I don’t see you advancing town’s narrative.

i don't know.
it feels more scummy to me rn on balance because i honestly don't think i've ever seen town be *this* cool with a lynch like this; it doens't feel liek a really thought

I’ll lump my answer to this one into the next post.

[MaryJoLisa]

i don't know.
it feels more scummy to me rn on balance because i honestly don't think i've ever seen town be *this* cool with a lynch like this; it doens't feel liek a really thought

are you saying that you think that lynching you soonish and curtailing discussion would put town in the best position going forward?
or am i misunderstanding this? (ie that you think *a* lynch should happen soon, but not one on you?)

i want her to answer this ^^^^ it's relevant to how i think about this

I think I’ve been clear that my position is that *a* lynch will provide town with some new data to uncover so town can evaluate it in light of what conversations have taken place. I’m not playing the game from a survivalist perspective. I’m playing as a member of a team that is trying to work together toward a shared goal. I still win if my team wins even if I get lynched.

I’m playing to my wincon to the best of my ability, not my personal agenda and I’m prepared to put my money where my mouth is. I’m town. I can prove it. If people feel the need to call me on that, when I flip green, remaining town can use my insight (good or bad) to formulate new hypotheses in light of the information gathered from a confirmed town's POV.

townie: smpa, elements, salami, bynumber
nulltown: you
scumlean: bbmolla
idk: maryjo, probably scum
null: dick richards

followup:
what specifically makes you think scum!maryjo over lynchbait?
why haven't you moved your vote out of RVS?

didn't have a strong enough scumread to (i don't vote super much day1 till i get a strong enough scumread really)

her actions aren't really internally consistent and don't make much sense to me as coming from a coherent thought process, as highlighted by the thing i pointed out last night where i'm apparently partners with spam and elements for opposite reasons but also scummy for defending town!spam and town!salami. like holistically it sounds good but it doesn't really make much sense if you actually think about it; like if she thinks i'm scum with elements for criticizing him why did she drop that line when other people brought up the notion that i could be scum with spam and telling him? it doesn't seem to be a thought that's driving her reason for scumreading me, but rather it seems to be soemthing she's using to call me scummy.

ike i don't really get the vibe she actually *believes* most of what she's saying given that when you look at her stances holistically she's being fence-sitty and i don't really see consistent threads/trains of thought underlying most of her posts really

it's possible i'm missing those, and i know people don't like my questions but i use them to figure out the implications of what people have said and to see if what they're saying makes sense together as a whole and if they actually believe what they think

she's been ignoring most of my points/questions for a few irl days now (ie not just the last round of it) so i can't really see that if she's doing it

I realize that you’re repeating these thoughts from your previous post and I recognize that I hadn’t addressed them before this post, but let me reiterate a few points. The inconsistent thinking that you’re picking up on is because I’ve been thinking out loud. I’ve been trying to bounce ideas off people and I see now that this causes confusion. I will answer direct questions if I’ve got enough information to support my answer, but I will otherwise reserve my developing views for when they’re more well formulated or if my neck is on the line.

So I’m going to get off the fence right now. I do feel that you’re playing scum this game and my judgement isn't based on your being ic and it's not based solely on the distancing and cover I've observed.

I don’t see you advancing town’s position and contributing to the scum hunting and I find that your primary objective seems to be distracting us and asking questions to make us second guess ourselves

.

As a side note, regardless of what side you’re on, you’re doing a good job of ic’ing this game and I’m grateful for the direction and help you’ve provided.

(But I still think you rolled scum this game)

[MaryJoLisa]

Sorry for the delay, but delivered as promised.

[skitter30]

I can argue multiple perspectives because I’m aware that I don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle. I feel that making statements of assertion could block myself off from exploring alternate scenarios that might better fit the information that I have on hand. I’ve learned in this game that expressing that I can see two sides of the coin puts me at a disadvantage because people see it as being indecisive.

so the thing is that to me this belies a lack of conviction, of pov, of approaching the game from a consistent thought process

you're throwing out a bunch of scenarios wherein i might be scum, including various teams and various strategies i might be adapting, but i don't think you actually believe any of them. they're all theoretical possibilities to you that *could* be; i don't really get the vibe that you think any of them actually *are*

you seem to have a conclusion: i'm scum. and within that framework you're bringing up different points of what i might be doing, but you dont' seem to think that any of them are more likely than another. like it just doesn't make sense to me that you can really at once think that i might be scum with two different people for exactly opposite reasons. i think you're arguing possibilities that make me look bad, not actual opinions you hold.

i also dont' think that making assertions blocks you from exploring other scenarios; i do it all the time. the thing that's bothering me here is: you say X and Y are both possibilities, but you don't really pick a side or explain why you think one or the other is more likely.

If I said elsewhere that you were not present, please let post 330 stand. I acknowledge that you have been present, and I really appreciate the job you’re doing as IC. You’ve been very helpful to me and other newbies here.

i mean you were saying that i was not scumhunting; i was explaining that for the past couple of days that wasn't my priority for this game (yay i'm done moving now)

idk what you're trying to wrt kid gloves or what it means wrt my alignment for them to be off

Your being IC confused me at first. I didn’t fully understand the role and even though you said you’re here to play the game and achieve your wincon, I still imagined that you’d be handling us more delicately here than you would on a different part of the forum. I no longer think that’s the case.

ah ok
i'm being slightly more polite, less blunt, and a bit less aggressive than i often am (the latter is a function of moving + being ic both)

ie i don't want to make this game about *me*; when i'm not moving and i full effort a game i'm very good at making myself a *presence*; i get townread usually fairly quickly and my opinion often determines the direction of the game, but that's not really my goal for this game here, it's more to make sure you guys see what a game on this site looks like and to ensure that the game experience overall is a pleasant one.

i'm doing questions and dialogue-trees a bit more than i usually do also instead of being aggressive or super opinionated; new players sometimes approach things differently than older players and i want to give people more room to explain their pov because they may be doing something that i'd consider scummy in a vaccum but might not be scummy given how they view mafia in a general sense based on experience on other sites or irl etc

i'm answering questions and providing guidance wrt to site meta etc but i'm also playing the game and want to win; i'm doing both at the same time. i consider the former to be more important to this game tho; ie i'd rather help you guys acclimate to the game and the site and hopefully leave a positive impression of the site that prompts you to stick around than win; if changing my playstyle slightly to accommodate that gets me mislynched so be it (i mean not really; i hate being mislynched, but like i won't make a thing about it if it happens); if i don't have a lot of time i'll still skim and follow along and make sure i address any questions directed at me or any theory questions/definitions etc

like i want to win and i don't want to be mislynched but more important to me rn in this game is being a good ic

so it has affected my play, and i have toned down the aggression a bit, but idk if i'd go so far as to say that i've left the kid gloves off the whole time? idk i hope that explained how i'm approaching this

==

I explained above that I can see multiple possible outcomes. For right now, I’m focusing on you and not any scum partners you may or may not have.

quite a lot of your reasoning for why i'm scum is how i may or may not be treating potential partners - players you don't know the alignment of, mind you; in a general sense day1 pre-flip associatives (ie guessing the alignment of player B based on the alignment of player A when you don't yet know player A's alignment) is not such a great idea given that it's based on assumptions - like player A's alignment - that you dont' know to be true

==

If people feel the need to call me on that, when I flip green, remaining town can use my insight (good or bad) to formulate new hypotheses in light of the information gathered from a confirmed town's POV.

ok, so: you think that since the dayphase is dragging that a lynch on *someone* a good idea to end the day and get info from the flip and nk, is htat accurate?

if no, please correct me where i'm misunderstanding.
if yes, in the specific context of this game and previous wagons, who would you suggest the someone be in order to get the best info from flips?

(i'm not suggesting an info-based lynched here or that it's a good idea or that we should do this before people complain)

==

I don’t see you advancing town’s position and contributing to the scum hunting and I find that your primary objective seems to be distracting us and asking questions to make us second guess ourselves.

ok:
for the former, i'm not sure why you're assuming my lack of 'advancing town's position' or scumhunting is a function of my alignment and not, say, of being busy irl

for the latter: where do you see that my primary objective is to distract people or make people second-guess themselves? like what have i specifically done that makes you think i am purposefully doing this?

i know long post is long
this section in particular is important and i'd like you to address these two points specifically out of all the points i've made here

(i mean theoretically i'd like you to address all of them but like i'm very aware that i write a lot and said a lot and don't really expect people to go line by line through what i've said.)

==

Sorry for the delay, but delivered as promised.

tyty

i'm def cool with you taking your time at this stage of the game; sorry for being insistent about it and highlighting this; i wanted to make sure this dialogue continued and didn't fade away as people got distracted by other shiny objects

==

As a side note, regardless of what side you’re on, you’re doing a good job of ic’ing this game and I’m grateful for the direction and help you’ve provided. (But I still think you rolled scum this game)

tyty, this is important to me and i'm happy to hear this

[skitter30]

and now i need to vote you unforunately

VOTE: maryjo

[cbynumber]

Have you cansidered that I might be town, and that nobody coached me on what to say because I don't have a way to do so outside of the main thread?

that's my reasoning for you not being scum. If you were your partners would be one of salami and tall/DR. obviously i have no read on DR but i town read salami so that rules out that option for me. Plus the more scummy people like MJL and bbmolla who i don't think would be partnered with you.

Just so I'm not misunderstanding, you:
1) Think NMSA is town based on the fact you can't pair him up with anyone
2) Don't see a case for him to be scum independently from other players? <- that is to say, looking at him in isolation from everyone else, you come down on the side of town for him?

[cbynumber]

Aaaand I just lost my skitter post.
Essentially:
Skitter defending NMSA initially in the newbtown- scum- LAMIST debate at the start is not indicative of her being scum necessarily, the fact that she was willing to pile onto NMSA should he not be able to shake off his initial suspicion is.
Skitter tried to buddy up to me in order to push for a TTTT lynch tomorrow should MaryJo have been lynched today.
Attempting to go after TTTT for his vote on Salami was opportunistic, and something you'd set up if you already knew MaryJo wasn't going to flip scum.
NMSA is taking his cues from skitter, so when she's away for long periods of time he's kinda stuck on what he should be pushing (see previous post).

i don't think this is an entirely fair characterization of what i've said

i don't think i was willing to pile onto nmsa and i'm not sure where you're getting that from. i may have said something like *for right now i think xyz* - that was me saying what i thought right then, not leaving room to . it's always possible that i'll change my mind as new things develop in a general sense but i don't remember doubting the townread much at that time

i don't think i was buddying you to push a tttt lynch tomorrow; i also don't know where you think i'm buddying you

i don't think me questioning tttt about his salami vote was oppurtunistic; without the explanation, it was an opportunistic third vote on an awful wagon; the explanation was kinda too involved and convoluted and drawn-out to come from scum i think; i think scum would have just given an explanation after being pushed for it over a few irl days. sticking to his guns there was kinda townie

and i don't think there's much reason why i'd go after tttt tomorrow in particular if maryjo is town

Skitter tried to buddy up to me in order to push for a TTTT lynch tomorrow should MaryJo have been lynched today.

^Now that this isn't happening, she's attempting to do the same to Elements in order to push a vote on BBMolla today.

i also don't think this is an accurate represenation of what i'm doing
-> i'm not buddying elements
-> you seem to think i'm latching onto elements' giving a nullish read on bbmolla to promote a lynch there. ie that i saw elements' read ans so decided to push bbmolla.
you have it backwards. i'm scumleaning him, and so i wanted to know what other people think about him and if they see the same thing i do; i specifically asked him because he had bbmolla around null and i wanted to know if his opinion had changed.

Buddying is probably not the right word. It definitely felt like you were posturing in the event that the MaryJo lynch had gone through (a strong possibility that it may have happened if the DR slot had shown up given that MaryJo already had 3 votes and both you and elements had stated your intent to vote for her). This signals to me that you knew MaryJo alignment, and were taking preparatory steps in shifting certain player's (myself included) mindsets for the next day.

If you're approaching your perspective that the Salami wagon was being driven by scumMaryJo, how does TTTT's vote read to you as coming from scum in any way?

[Elements]

Have you cansidered that I might be town, and that nobody coached me on what to say because I don't have a way to do so outside of the main thread?

that's my reasoning for you not being scum. If you were your partners would be one of salami and tall/DR. obviously i have no read on DR but i town read salami so that rules out that option for me. Plus the more scummy people like MJL and bbmolla who i don't think would be partnered with you.

Just so I'm not misunderstanding, you:
1) Think NMSA is town based on the fact you can't pair him up with anyone
2) Don't see a case for him to be scum independently from other players? <- that is to say, looking at him in isolation from everyone else, you come down on the side of town for him?

Yea in a nutshell.

[cbynumber]

Follow up to 2): is that based solely on his play at the beginning of the day, or are there other factors?

[Elements]

Follow up to 2): is that based solely on his play at the beginning of the day, or are there other factors?

the scum partner thing is based on that. my town read on him is mostly other stuff

[TTTT]

@Elements - your take on skitter v. maryjo?

[TTTT]

also you know I'm a Loopdan alt, right?

[Elements]

also you know I'm a Loopdan alt, right?

Ooooooh, I had no idea

[Elements]

@Elements - your take on skitter v. maryjo?

I have scum reads/leans on both of them.
Skitter has been v/la and used that as an excuse for not pushing the game forwards or actively scum hunting as much as others. Could be true, hopefully now it's ended they can do this more and persuade my they are town. I'd rather not lynch a town IC day one again.

I see MJL as a a wild card. You never know what her reaction is going to be to anything. I don't like her non committal posts (unsurprisingly) nor her reasoning of "bouncing ideas of people".

Most of their interactions seem to end in either an apology for not responding because of IRL stuff, "thanks for help", or "DW i get you have irl stuff". I'm not rlly sure what to make of that.

atm, id rather lynch skitter hence me not changing my vote

[northsidegal]

Prodding BBmolla.

[Elements]

So I’m going to get off the fence right now. I do feel that you’re playing scum this game and my judgement isn't based on your being ic and it's not based solely on the distancing and cover I've observed. I don’t see you advancing town’s position and contributing to the scum hunting and I find that your primary objective seems to be distracting us and asking questions to make us second guess ourselves.

I was of the opinion you thought skitter was scum since your vote in 289. I agree with skitter that the biggest problem is your reasoning in 330. If you have come off the fence could you clear your now thoughts on that up?

[Elements]

My current view is that the 2 scrum are in:
Skitter
MJL
Tall/DR
Bbmolla

[northsidegal]

-