Team Mafia 2020: Normal Game (Endgame)

[Plum]

it's party time

[Plum]

I will not stand for this thread being unlocked slightly later than the other ones!

Anyway, VOTE: skitter

it's party time

VOTE: Plum

Serious vote. The party time post rubbed me the wrong way.

we can dance my dude

but there's a little party hat

Why are you defending Plum? If it was a random statement they could say so. Now you’ve given them an out.

???

fwiw it is a party hat and that indeed is why it's party time

now go ahead and tell me that tris gave me an out

[Plum]

They did. Quite simply put the post is unnecessary. It fishes for what I was expecting then you can mirror. Garcia’ing in the early game is almost always bad.

"bad" as in scum equity from tris or "bad" because perceived reduced utility in grilling me over the phrase "it's party time"

[Plum]

Garcia = Answer a question not directed at you.

in the case of tris and me you didn't ask a question

just saying

[Plum]

They did. Quite simply put the post is unnecessary. It fishes for what I was expecting then you can mirror. Garcia’ing in the early game is almost always bad.

"bad" as in scum equity from tris or "bad" because perceived reduced utility in grilling me over the phrase "it's party time"

Bad as in denies reads which is proscum. Unless you have a good reason garcia’ing in the early game is bad as it tends to monopolize conversation through one spot.

Also bad because if denied me reads on you and if my gut was correct or not.

...

I'll tell you honestly the only reason for me to say "it's party time" there was a reference to the avatar thing me and my team have going on. However you read the choice to open with fluff, I'll tell you 100% NAI the reason that phrase came up is that

I'm saying this to try to help you get back your lost gut read in some capacity

[Plum]

basically got fed up with the idea that MathBlade might actually not believe that "it's party time" actually came from the avatar just because tris picked up on it and said it before I responded

[Plum]

I feel like MathBlade comes from an era with different expectations, which like I kind of get because I played in that era and with a lot of the same assumptions at that time

it's very retro and not exactly easy to read at this stage, which, fine

I assume that's part of what skitter was feeling

[Plum]

I ... kind of like skitter's vote on me here?

I ... kind of like RC's rejection of it too but that might just be narcissism

[Plum]

ok, why do you like my vote on you?

I like it in context of your reads on me being dynamic and you giving them voice casually as conversation flows. Doesn't seem forced.

[Plum]

... RC you've played with MathBlade?

hm

[Plum]

VOTE: MathBlade

[Plum]

Okay I took a step back

MathBlade suspected me and voted me

RC came in with a strongly worded vote on MathBlade

I vote MathBlade

MathBlade says nothing about this and proceeds to suspect and vote multiple other players

???

[Plum]

Going “omg I am being voted” is antitown.

no I don't think responding to/commenting on your strongest scumread moving their vote to you is "antitown" but depending on what you say it could look *scummy*, sure

PEDIT: Okay hm

UNVOTE:

[Plum]

y u unvoting just because i unvoted

my vote was half because I thought you were more capable of reading MathBlade through his playstyle than me and were indicating a strong read and half because I held out a faint hope that seeing how he responded to pressure might make him more readable to me in and of itself

your unvote means that neither of those is really incentivizing a MathBlade vote anymore, so

though I'm still a little 'eh' on the idea that commenting on or responding to my vote on him, or pursuing his read on me further after that vote instead of shifting to multiple other foci would be "antitown". Could look scummy or draw extra attention to his wagon. But that's really all I can say about how he responded to a vote from his top suspect

[Plum]

mm early townpings from mathblade are shrinkign

Lol the fact you have town pings at all is a bad look for you considering the powers game where you if I recall correctly said you’d be slower at giving them out. Like certain people townreading me fast is a bad thing. You’re one of them.

actually like this post, nice to find something readable here

moving on

VOTE: Aristophanes

tho I know we'll probably have to wait a bit there
super looking forward to teacher getting to play at desktop too by the by

[Plum]

worstie, thoughts on me?

[Plum]

worstie, thoughts on me?

i haven't decided yet. i feel like i should have an opinion but also looking over mathblade etc.'s takes on you i'm kinda like "sigh.. maybe". i don't think you're being pushed for very sensible reasons but i don't really think you're towny if that makes sense

okay

[Plum]

i think it's like... very much not okay

and not cool at all tbh

duck should be ashamed

don't we all feel more than enough shame in life though?

[Plum]

could you throw me like a very iconeum 20 word explanation of the plum vote ico?

plum overdefending against her party time opening didn't read great
voting mathblade wasn't amazing, it also came after RC voted Math so it feels like plum didn't feel safe voting for Math by herself?
making 169 and using that as a scumread for Math is yuck
also unvoted after RC makes me feel like Plum is trying to get in the shade, because the sun is burning hot like in aussie right now
209 is just an evacuation of the current gamestate which just says 'ok time to fuck off of my slot here guys', which is fine but I don't think an actual scumread on Math goes away from that post alone

did you read my posts

because

like you've missed reading the one post where I explained what was and wasn't a scumread on MathBlade from me

[Plum]

hi plum!

why did you wait to vote for Math?

my vote was half because I thought you were more capable of reading MathBlade through his playstyle than me and were indicating a strong read and half because I held out a faint hope that seeing how he responded to pressure might make him more readable to me in and of itself

"you" here is RC

MathBlade was opaque and null to me due to playstyle, but frustrating because of it too. RC supposedly having a strong scumread on him - in a meta context, no less - was enough for me to say, hey, maybe RC is right, and/or if I vote MathBlade here and pressure with a second vote and willingness to take RC's strong read seriously, MathBlade will react in a way I find more readable than his current work

which was a more productive direction than anything I had until that point

[Plum]

hi plum!

why did you wait to vote for Math?

my vote was half because I thought you were more capable of reading MathBlade through his playstyle than me and were indicating a strong read and half because I held out a faint hope that seeing how he responded to pressure might make him more readable to me in and of itself

"you" here is RC

MathBlade was opaque and null to me due to playstyle, but frustrating because of it too. RC supposedly having a strong scumread on him - in a meta context, no less - was enough for me to say, hey, maybe RC is right, and/or if I vote MathBlade here and pressure with a second vote and willingness to take RC's strong read seriously, MathBlade will react in a way I find more readable than his current work

which was a more productive direction than anything I had until that point

but you unvoted shortly after, again following RC
Did you learn anything about Math? You thought he was scum, and that changed?

my vote was half because I thought you were more capable of reading MathBlade through his playstyle than me and were indicating a strong read and half because I held out a faint hope that seeing how he responded to pressure might make him more readable to me in and of itself

your unvote means that neither of those is really incentivizing a MathBlade vote anymore, so

though I'm still a little 'eh' on the idea that commenting on or responding to my vote on him, or pursuing his read on me further after that vote instead of shifting to multiple other foci would be "antitown". Could look scummy or draw extra attention to his wagon. But that's really all I can say about how he responded to a vote from his top suspect

[Plum]

So Ico what's your take on me rn

[Plum]

Yes Ico. I kind of want to put you as weak town for the post you threw down a plum vote but I'm gonna put a pin in that.

Hi plum. Why was Math calling out TW the post you needed to back off math and why didn't that turn into you pressing TW over it?

Follow-up question that might have been answered, why the Ari vote without interacting with him?

To me it was mostly that he denied and blocked a would-be Townread of himself quickly and confidently ... but that doesn't mean I strongly agree with his interpretation of the worst's actions. The interaction reflected much more strongly on MathBlade than the worst, to me.

Ari is someone I had discussed with my team, actually. I had initially felt comfortable about him but on reflection I think that's just playstyle and the only thing that really stood out was being cautious with tris' Townread of him, calling himself an "easy pocket" but having thought about it I didn't think it was, as the kids say now, outside his scumrange. On reread, I agreed with a teammate. Call it gut, on both our counts. But I'll try to say what pings the gut, I don't love the tris vote (based on how "ruffled" she seems by MathBlade, but dependent on her own assessment of herself as an "emotional player" or not?), and feel that the response to MathBlade getting worked up about tris quoting RC without additions (something very commonly done in different forms - quoting without comment, quoting with "this" or "+1" appended) being that doing so was "negative scum equity" for tris ... it's kind of extra? Especially if he Townreads MathBlade, as he states shortly after?

I have another scumread shared with a teammate in teacher, which I'm holding for the moment in case the lack of desktop access was changing stuff there.

[Plum]

So Ico what's your take on me rn

UNVOTE:

care to expand on this a bit?

[Plum]

also have regular V/LA Friday and Saturday

Sorry, may not get the chance to post more until Saturday night EST.

[Plum]

Too many pages

I have another scumread shared with a teammate in teacher, which I'm holding for the moment in case the lack of desktop access was changing stuff there.

I have evolved to a different playstyle since I became a mostly mobile player, but I am a mostly mobile player so I dont think its going to be changing stuff. Im a slow burn generally.

You early behavior to that point was mostly throwing around jokes and non-content one-liners, and I and another of my teammates were inclined to scumread that behavior but you also indicated plans to do more meaningful content stuff once you had desktop access, so I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and see what you posted.

Generally RC's Ari case is basically along the lines of how I read most of his stuff (in b4 cases are scummy)

VOTE: rcenigma

Feels awkward and contrived. Too much theory talk as well.
Skim reading, need to go back and look at the Ari stuff. Like the rc/the worst interaction over the last few pages.

Xtoms entrance sucks.

Liking ico right now , is making reasonable points.

...

This entrance is mehhh, I have no idea what to make of it except that liking Ico is ... yikes

Ico should explain his progression on me, it is not a good look that he made a case on me that was explained entirely by posts I had made, unvoted when I helpfully quoted from my ISO, and has declined to acknowledge that I've asked him to discuss the matter. Just like pretending the issue doesn't exist and hoping it will go away on its own?

VOTE: rcenigma

Feels awkward and contrived. Too much theory talk as well.
Skim reading, need to go back and look at the Ari stuff. Like the rc/the worst interaction over the last few pages.

Xtoms entrance sucks.

Liking ico right now , is making reasonable points.

gonna be honest here

i liked xtoms entrance more then yours

Can't say I disagree tbh

i wouldn't say so. sometimes i guess.

Cool cool cool

I ask because while your initial post about the party hat was innocuous, your responses to Math calling it out were a little less so. I could see it from a newbie or someone like Nancy Drew (sorry my compadre but it's apt and I know you understand) who is more likely to take things more emotionally or personally on a quick read. You seemed a lot more ruffled by Math than you needed to be.

VOTE: Tris

I think this a decent start to the game and have a few decent reads already, which is nice

I thought this was a townie approach, even if i didnt agree with it ^

I read it the opposite way, feels like an artificial way of making the decision about a tone read look logical and impartial.

128 cool, rc is town

???

I also don't get your read on skitter

I also don't get why you like Ico and like his case on me

I don't know exactly what to make of skitter, like I mostly agree with her views on a lot of things and her reasoning is all quite *reasonable* but I don't know enough to say if that impression should give other than a null read on her right now

[Plum]

So Ico what's your take on me rn

UNVOTE:

This Unvote is ewww

Instead of answering they Unvote. No actual answer was given. Ico may scumread Plum may townread. People change votes for many reasons and plum doesn’t follow it up.

Likely one scum or more in Plum+Ico

I have asked Ico twice to discuss his reasons for unvoting and specifically mentioned in my most recent post that him ignoring my first request is bad and feels like he's hoping the issue will just disappear if he ignores it

[Plum]

I understand that stuff can happen incidentally (I'm V/LA Fridays and Saturdays so I get it and get how there's a long gap, page-wise, between my posts this weekend) but it's frustrating getting called out for supposedly not doing something I absolutely did do because I considered it relevant.

[Plum]

VOTE: Flopz

Some of the fakest looking scumhunting etc. I've seen in quite some time. Caveat that the worst look was just the line "Ari is a big SR for me, for the usual reasons, the Maths pocket attempt was not cool." and that alone looks like Ari-buddy material.

[Plum]

By "caveat" I mean I don't think Ari's likeliness of scum went down substantially even though I moved my vote from him for the moment.

[Plum]

Not for buddying you; it's just parroting what other people have said makes Ari look bad in the most unreflective way possible. I don't think it came from evaluating Ari's likelihood of being scum at all. I think he felt obligated to say something about Ari and just said "big SR for usual reasons". And doesn't vote.

Ari/Bella/Flopz - no reason to rule it out I guess? I mean my first instinct with that Flopz post was huge Ari-buddy read and I usually don't have strong feelings about that type of thing Day 1. I've been largely unimpressed with Bella as the posts flow but I need to read her posts through again and consider RC's Townread on her.

[Plum]

Yes, Flopz looks like scum with Ari.

[Plum]

I didn't mean buddying up to Ari.

I mean you look like someone who is scum with Ari.

[Plum]

@Flopz

, can you explain something? You were scumreading MathBlade but also scumreading Ari for supposedly trying to pocket MathBlade? How's that one supposed to work?

[Plum]

Okay, I'm really going to try to buckle down and put together a meaningful post here. I apologize for being disengaged the past few days. Some of it is just on me going back to school-work this week with a major sleep schedule change (and also getting sucked into Disco Elysium, that one is really on me) and some of it is that sometimes there are like 4+ pages of 2-4 players posting happening while I'm asleep. That's just hard to engage with. Like on the one hand I

do

think those are really useful and valuable, and have produced meaningful Townreads for myself and others of RC, skitter, and MathBlade simply by the way they interacted live over those pages. It doesn't leave me with much to say on those besides that they're there and they're good. Of the others who have posted very frequently I need to reread tw and RCEnigma to be confident in reads. However I am inclined to see tws frustrations and his responses to offers to take Day 1 off as Town-leaning in and of themselves (and would certainly encourage him to continue to take as much of Day 1 off as he likes) and this is again a reread space but I'm inclined to see RCE saying that he suspects RC at the moment but does not want to wagon him in a more Town light as well.

Re Flopz - I'm inclined to agree with RC that his posts of this morning are Town-leaning. UNVOTE: I was hoping to see if pushing him on scumreading MathBlade while accusing Ari of trying to pocket MathBlade as scum would tempt Ari to overcommit and show his hand (actually this was primarily hito's brilliant plan) but Flopz's subsequent posts and the more general Townread that formed on him (again, which I am inclined to agree with) kind of dumped that as a play.

So assuming all of the abovediscussed players are Town, whether lock or reasonable lean, we have the following:

Xtoxm - oh hell

why

like I remembered this guy's name as an oldie but I did not remember this - and I'm being exceptionally generous here - "playstyle"

oh and to answer this

i liked xtoms entrance more then yours

Can't say I disagree tbh

why?

Like an unforced nearly naked "RVS" vote well past RVS is not

trying

to look like something it isn't. It's not the backbone of any solid gambit that I know of or anything but I compared Bella's first post which seemed to be trying to look like it was *content* when it seemed really really low content as fake scumhunting from someone trying to look real scumhunting. See below for my overall impression of Bella though.

tris - nope
There's just no there there and it's definitely trying to look like there's some there there
Honestly I agree that tris is very scummy and I don't blame RC et al for thinking of me when they think of her because apparently I'm like the only one she can talk about in the game
Okay not literally but yeah her mentions and discussion of me are drastically out of proportion to most of the other players in the game and obviously

not

because she's doing a lot of heavy duty reading or pushing of a Plum slot she thinks is being under-investigated, I'm just someone she *likes* to talk about in vaguely positive/defensive ways all the time
So like I see where that's coming from

also to respond

I don't know exactly what to make of skitter, like I mostly agree with her views on a lot of things and her reasoning is all quite *reasonable* but I don't know enough to say if that impression should give other than a null read on her right now

if that's all you get from skitter, then that means she's probably scum. I find that when she's town, she has a little extra that comes through. that said, i think i saw a bit of town early on, but i'm not sure. it will of course be more clear when i've seen her post more.

Like on the one hand that might have some merit in a very broad general sense given the high general play caliber I've heard and seen from skitter and the fact that we might have some similar thought processes but I'm happy enough with what I've seen from skitter giving it more than a couple of days of seeing whether there's more there so.

Ico - Okay here is someone I have at least seen play scum in a Normal from Mod vantage point recently
I was frustrated that he made a whole to-do of making a case on me for my MathBlade vote and unvote (which I think in concept is something that makes sense in context) but it rested on him having read and torn apart every step of my MathBlade vote and unvote except the one post where I specifically explained the reasoning, and after I quoted it for him he just dropped it and ignored my requests for elaboration, though I think tw (?) said that not following that up was probably more NAI for Ico so sure maybe on that count

Everything else from him is a mehhh at best. Maybe slight thumbs up for his take on RC vs. skitter 1v1 if I'm being generous.

ico you have literally seen me be the nightkill target without exception in all the games we'd be together in. where do you get off saying stuff like I'm trying to create wifom

(To be fair to Ico I've seen him make some very questionable calls when it comes to NK choices recently ... okay sorry hard to resist that one)

Bella - Hmm. Yeah it's low energy and low-content etc. Reading it through the lens of trying to see what RC sees Town in Bella, I guess I would fairly say that what she has contributed feels haphazard in a way that seems agendaless. Her votes haven't been on really anyone I could imagine getting pushed (at the time she voted them and has been voting them) but not in a way that looks like she's just trying to avoid heat by placing her vote somewhere safely out of the way. She votes skitter and Mathblade consecutively in places where people are liable to go "what, why?".

teacher - I am going to tentatively give some points to for his explanation for stating a preference to Xtoxm over Flopz wagon his morning (that statement made shortly before Flopz's new posts)

Ari - Okay I'll be upfront for some reason I had it in my head that the V/LA was going to be more limited or partial and that he would have some access sooner, I don't know why I thought that except that when he started the V/LA period he said "Also signing off for the night now so eho knows when I'll be back" which I guess I wrongly interpreted as "I'll probably be around here or there" (e.g. enough that voting him would potentially get responses and generate stuff even if at a lesser and more sporadic pace). On the other hand nothing from him to that point or after looks particularly Town, so

Consider preferred order something like Tris, Xtoxm, Ari, Ico.

VOTE: tris

[Plum]

RC - Re tone idk, like I said I recognize that I have been disengaged and it's easy for that to become an anxiety/vicious cycle thing for a bit for me I'm pretty sure regardless of alignment (in the sense that it's harder to catch up and harder to engage the more there's been disengagement or just need to catch up in a game). Other than that I think you have as much current meta on me as anyone because aside from Perfect Masquerade as Lady 2 (until the worst stepped in for the last 36 hours or so) and as Town in a weird Bastard Mod Mini Theme with too many third parties to be proper Mafia I haven't played forum Mafia since 2014. I'm just saying that there's not much more resource there, like I get why you would find it potentially valuable.

[Plum]

I mean, okay?

[Plum]

Ohhh I was very confused, I thought you were saying that me and Ari as a team was similarly plausible to you as me and tris as a team based on associatives you're seeing. Which confused me based on what you had been saying to skitter about tris.

As for what you actually said, yeah, okay.

[Plum]

I can't play a game at this pace right now. Something close to 15 pages per day is not feasible for me, at least in conjunction with my IRL workload at the moment. It is demoralizing and frustrating. Especially because I would like to hear more and engage more with players who have said less this game, and having more pages of RC arguing with tw is the opposite of that.

I'll try to get real thoughts together today before my weekend V/LA starts, but I need to cook, commute, class, get the last stuff together to respond to reviewers for my paper we're resubmitting. So it may not happen until Saturday night. And if it's another 15 pages by then, I don't know what to say except that I need to go work again Sunday too.

Sorry for being so bitchy here. This game is like wading through jello at this point and I don't think it needs to be that way, which is the frustrating part.

[Plum]

...

f this

[Plum]

Okay I'm going to be upfront about my current situation and how I see it

I had a very busy, tiring week at work last week and I will have similar this week. I can refresh the game in real time as much as I want but have no time during the day to get my thoughts together because I have to focus elsewhere and get up every minute or so to arrange things I'm working with. At night, I'm close to having to choose two out of three of sleep, eat, try to focus on Mafia

I can't follow the game and can scarcely focus because the conversation is dominated by a few voices and median and lower-volume posters are drowned out completely. For heavens sake, another version of tw vs. RC is

not

going to help me or anyone else read it better, RC. It will just make it harder for me and a bunch of others to read and be read and get a fucking handle on the game. I'm with skitter, the game makes me want to die inside every time I take a look at it.

As a relevant aside, RC, I

do

think you're more likely Town than not here and moreover I think you in general have charisma that I respond to very strongly. Like in Perfect Masquerade, I found myself sheeping all your cases because all your cases felt really really good to me. I keep feeling the same here, and hell, you may be right on a lot of your cases, but goddamn is it frustrating to feel a strong agreement with cases from the guy who is also actively destroying the gamestate

which is what you are doing

I WANT to read teacher and Ico and Bella and Flopz (hell, I'm really considering that backing off on him may have been straight up incorrect) and hell, I want to read ARI and tris too

but

I want to read them in an environment where I can FUCKING TELL whether their reads and positions are BS because they're scum with an agenda

and I can't do that because in this state I will not be able to tell that from them not knowing what the hell is going on and/or just not being integrated into the game like me because of the volume taken up by other people

it is actively preventing valuable reads from being formed on these players

f this

[Plum]

UNVOTE:

I think that j should unvote since I am probably getting s replacement.

So RC+Ari practically confirmed by this post.

???

[Plum]

Let's see how this issue resolves before rushing anything

You WHAT mate

I don't think so buddy-boy

[Plum]

Let's see how this issue resolves before rushing anything

You WHAT mate

I don't think so buddy-boy

see how what resolves

you haven't said anything about Ari

why are you so keen to see the RC situation resolve nice and calmly first

[Plum]

Oh my gosh

Just let me drive home from work and get groceries without 7 pages appearing

I have to get up at 4 tomortow for work

I would love to have some input here but there's physically no way for me to play this game as things stand

VOTE: tw

[Plum]

Someone put tw to L1 please to enforce claim

DGB clause on claiming btw

[Plum]

Bingo

[Plum]

Ari spent pages saying RC vs. tw was TtC while voting RC???

[Plum]

Ari spent pages saying RC vs. tw was TtC while voting RC???

And you didn’t vote Ari because?

Friday RC was begging people to invite Ari off L1 so he could catch up Sunday

He was catching up today

RC was freaking out more

I agreed with skitter's assessment that lynching tw could unfuck the gamestate and lynching Sri could not

[Plum]

Huh. Well... I didn't quite catch that.

And then yes I didn't catch this in the fucking deluge until now

[Plum]

Ari spent pages saying RC vs. tw was TtC while voting RC???

Ttc?

Phone typo for TvT

[Plum]

Hot (like in dragonfire hot) take:

Lynching the worst (if he flips town), will lead straight to the lynching of RC, who will probably also flip town. This is the easiest and quickest path to a scum victory, taking out 2 of (what i consider) the strongest players in the game.

I feel like lynching either on D1 comes from fear of what they might do to town if let alive, something I'm feeling myself. But I can't justify a lynch on either of them based on fear.

Do you have a plan to rescue the gamestate from them if they are both Town? Personally I think if they are both Town they will keep doing this pretty much no matter who we lynch and what Night looks like; if they are Town they have consigned us to Hell and this is the worst TM of all

but if you have ideas and you really read them both as Town, by all means

but actually if you look here Ari makes a good point especially in light of

>: (
I'm still really not comfortable having the seal running around causing more chaos day two pals.

Wasn't this a strong 1v1 a moment ago? Now it's angryface cuteDuck But He's Going to Keep Causing Chaos?

[Plum]

I'm awake now

[Plum]

Also no

I'm interested in what Ari pointed out

[Plum]

duck: 1v1 me rc you're obvscum
also duck: voting outside is is stupid
also also duck: why would i ever start a 1v1 i'm going to lose
also also also duck: we're not ending this 1v1 today even if it means my lynch just lynch rc d2 easy game
also also also also duck: VOTE: plum

Well this is interesting!

[Plum]

Hi, I'm just letting everyone know that I'm going to officially request replacement from implo (my team checked that it was okay for me to make this type of post). My work schedule was far busier and more exhausting the past couple of weeks than I anticipated, enough that I could barely take care of the basics in my life, let alone a Mafia game. Apologies for the inconvenience to everyone. I appreciated the chance to play and I'm sorry I couldn't make it happen this time.