Newbie 1916: Epic Music [Game Over!]

[roomy]

VOTE: LewisMCYoutube

never trust a youtuber

[roomy]

One IC-ish point -- you should all get Avis - it is a courtesy form of “facial recognition” for posts.

@TemporalLitch, thanks for reminding me of epic; thats good fun for marathon procrastination

And I kinda want to expand on Flippy's question with some self-meta and hunting questions as well

1. What is your experience at Mafia
2. How do you play as town
3. How do you play as scum
4. What do you think gives away a player as scum or town

1. played some epicmafia as well
2. scumhunt
3. scumhunt but you make it up
4. I read an article in the wiki teacher linked to regarding scumhunting based on interactions; I think they're vital too. might sound trite, but it bears keeping in mind that the scum team knows everyone's alignment; their interactions with people are all deceptive. I wouldn't say that scum, or at least good scum, just want to "repeat information that everybody knows" -- scum can post real, fresh, and well-reasoned analysis towards a false target just as easily. but what they can't do is honestly treat each individual as if they are blind to their alignment, and that's what forms cracks in the facade.

[roomy]

@teacher -- what's your experience been with clem?

[roomy]

it strikes me as odd that some answers to the scumtell question are themed around scummy = playing like bad town (e.g. "being present without advancing town wincon" / having incomprehensible play). especially in a newbie game, this seems like a dangerous line of thinking; scum can play like legibly good town, and town players can lurk / be unhelpful / not explain reads.

[roomy]

@clem — what was your experience like with teacher?

[roomy]

@skellen — why not snap vote clem?

also, what is “pocketing” am I missing something ? just like buddying or something else

[roomy]

UNVOTE: Lewis
VOTE: TemporalLich

wanted to get this in before bed — weird comment above, after going so far as to unvote me because he “didn’t want to be on a town’s wagon” — note the language there, it’s assured (re: my comment earlier about scum knowing alignment) — I don’t think that’s a straight up scumslip but that earlier level of confidence combined with the above waffly post is sketchy enough for a vote for me.

Lich, what changed about your reads on skellen and I? what about Clem gives you a town read?

[roomy]

I wanted to explain this more last night, but my vote was not just for reneging/forgetting town reads (@Birdy) -- there's a difference between forgetting a townread and saying that somewhere in between him explicitly getting off my wagon because it was "a town's wagon" and my vote for him (during which I had not made a post) I "regressed to the mean." that part makes little sense to me, and when asked to justify his townread on Clem here he provides a tautology -- "I have a town read because I feel like he is town." I understand gut, but idk it's just weak to me

crazy part is I'm also leaning a bit towards overwhelmed town, not enough to unvote since I think a wagon on lich is more productive than a wagon on a lurker

[roomy]

@clem, I think I asked you earlier, but when you played with teacher, what was he like, particularly regarding his interactions with newer/more inexperienced players?

@teacher, what conclusions, if any, did you reach from your conversation with Lich last night?

this is pretty WIFOMy, but I'm getting a gut feeling that teacher doesn't believe his own arguments. and for someone suspicious of blendy reads, his pressure on Lich hasn't actually moved the needle much, IMO. not that this is implicitly scummy, but his logic has followed my own pretty much turn-for-turn; coupling that with some uninformative questions gives me the feeling that he is primarily concerned about the appearance of pressure, especially in his IC role.

@Lich -- who's the scummiest player in the game to you, right now? if you had to pick, etc.

[roomy]

@skellen, mostly #93, although again this is almost entirely gut at this point. he linguistic analysis seems superficial; I would not call 'to be honest' an AtE.

[roomy]

UNVOTE: TemporalLich

not ready for a hammer tbh

@person, what do you think about me

[roomy]

I'm ideologically skeptical of treating teacher like he's obvtown because he puts in effort, but his response to me in #123 is good. I do want to say that:

Ummmmm, no? I know you dont like the language focus/disagree with the ATE language, but my first post on Lich - 93 - made that unique contribution. The subsequent interaction was not based on anything you said, but more chasing down each of Lich's new responses in real time.

in my original Lich vote here I did in fact focus on language; I'm a big fan of linguistic analysis. maybe you just overlooked this? but my issue was that I had discussed Lich's language in a way that I felt was more concrete than yours, and (as I pointed out, this is WFIOMy AF) it struck me that you could be appealing to my and others' shown interest in scummy language without actually digging very deep.

that being said, I'll admit to being hyperbolic about "following my logic turn-for-turn," especially regarding your realtime conversations with Lich.

[roomy]

I think you might have misread me -- my earlier posts were reminding people that scum can play

well

. I saw comments to the effect that "scum will post reads not backed up by evidence," and while that might be true in a newbie game, it's a double-edged sword; more experienced scum can easily post reads backed up by evidence towards convenient town targets, which are much more prevalent in newbie games, and that's something we should be aware of too.

I do see where you're coming from re: it being preferable to discuss this in a more defined context, but I want to be clear that I wasn't making those statements out of nowhere.

[roomy]

@person: I've read a lot of previous games on this forum, actually. great entertainment for me but I was too IRL busy to ever feel like I could adequately participate. circumstances changed and here I am

like you pointed out, I read a lot of mastin articles too. some of them were more directly focused on scum play, but I feel like her writings are mostly on topics that apply to both alignments abstractly; the interactivity tell article I talked about earlier is a good example. they're tools for town and things to watch for in your own play as scum.

@nips:

VOTE: Emperor flippyNips

can you explain your lich read/vote in more detail? what of the stuff he's said have you particularly had a problem with?
also interesting to me that of your descriptions of your town play / scum play in #31 you are playing exactly to your self-described scum meta. in fact, you haven't asked anyone a question at all this game !

[roomy]

tbh @person I thought you were just referencing the big list of "how to play well" articles teacher posted in his IC intro, which have plenty of good scumplay articles, but anyways.

to your question, mostly the latter; definitely would not say I have a town read on Lich. I'm mostly confused; I can easily see Lich's play coming from town not prepared for strong early-game pressure, but almost nothing about his play gives me town vibes. maybe that in itself gives me town vibes, weirdly? like I said, confused. I do think lynching him at this point would be a big mistake; some slots have barely posted (*cough* Birdy *cough*), some people are still voting for their RVS pick (*cough* CatStar *cough*), and while I'm not necessarily uncomfortable with the prospect I would prefer to wait for more people to chime in.

but flippyNips talking plenty about how he's going to catch up with the thread and then coming through with a superficial, bland, and unprovocative recap post where he jumps on the biggest and most obvious wagon after describing his scum playstyle as being wagon-based is certainly ticking a lot of suspicious boxes for me.

[roomy]

@person if your townread on me was entirely based on your gambit (?) I'd argue that it shouldn't have existed in the first place. I'm not exactly convinced by your arguments towards Lich; I think that he could be "inclined to believe" your statement that "it's probably fair to give roomy a town read at this point" without needing to take your thoughts on me into account. and if you're just figuring out now that he's skimming...

[roomy]

I’m sure I’m missing something but I’m not quite sure how what you said relates to what I said, person?

[roomy]

gotcha, thanks. makes sense

[roomy]

on mobile, but I’d like to get some others’ impressions of Nips. I don’t understand his “everyone is playing to their meta” response to my pointing out that he was playing to his self-described scum meta. ??? I don’t think that’s a very solid tell in itself, but his weird shrugging off and then asking a softball question towards Lich after I had called him out for it is just so scummy to me. plus, he’s had plenty of time to “go through the thread,” it’s 7 pages without many walls. His ISO is pretty much entirely him avoiding pressure and giving nothing back in return.

[roomy]

the not very solid tell in itself was meant to refer to Nips describing his scum play and then playing in that exact fashion, for clarity

[roomy]

every time I check back in my faith in nips lynch > lich lynch is strengthened

[roomy]

like I feel like I’ve said before, I’m not super opposed to a TempralLynch for a lot of the reasons teacher mentioned; if anything his flip will certainly be informative. I still think nips is more likely to flip scum but with two days left I don’t think it’s worth going all out for him today.

again on mobile today/generally will be a little slow this weekend, I have some old friends coming to stay with me. apologies in advance