In post 1352, Porkens wrote:Ok, that’s awesome Hoopla. I’m really impressed by the statistical analysis you’ve done it’s inspiring and your analysis of the wagon is, I feel, very much in the right direction.
Im willing to trust starbuck if she has a good reason for not outing the info yesterday. Otherwise I’m scared of losing 4 townies.
I think what I need to do here is be brutally honest about my lived experience. I think that if I can spew enough of my own truth it will be clear that I’m not scum here. It’s going to be embarrassing for me, but here goes.
I started playing mafia scum I. 2008 with my IrL friend spyrex. You know him. He quickly became really, really good at forum mafia. He’s like that in all games. Tactical, game breaking strategist who figures it out theee steps before I could. That made me feel really inferior to him in mafia. Because of his skill, he was quick to make really good friends here too. I didn’t. I wasn’t good at reading for scum and I couldn’t follow mechanics and I was constantly being called a shit player when I was really trying, and that sucked. I’m not a dumb person, but for whatever reason mafia doesn’t click for me the same way it does for people like spyrex. This made me feel pretty diminished, and I quit. Now I think spyrex is a great guy with a good heart, and I don’t lay any of this on him - it’s me, but that’s his part in this story. And here’s the part that hurts: I was jealous. I wanted to show him I was as good, smart, skilled and I tried to take him on in a couple games, but he knew he had so much clout he could flip it on me no matter what, and he did, and it made me mad.
So I took a long break and came back some years later to try playing again. I wanted to become a better player, and I tried to learn. I had a little success; my win rate was a little better, but what I found was that I still couldn’t play the way most really good players do. I can’t analyze a wagon or line up lynches. I have a hard time seeing players working together or distancing. What I did find that worked was making a jackass out of myself, spouting off with random theories, lolhammering, and seeing who jumped on my wagon. Eventually, this became part of my reputation. I also started reading the game almost peitou emotionally and tonally. Focusing on how someone writes rather than what they wright. And sometimes I fucking nail it, and hit the scumteam early on. Unfortunately that doesn’t do much for my ego because the best players still call it shit meta. Which I alnowledge it is.
Another feature of this time in my mafia career was new superstars. Radient Cowbells, mastina, Others, and some of the players in this game to name a few. These people could fool others as scum, and catch the scum as town. I was so intimidated and jealous of these players that I would go after them I games sometimes, trying to prove I was just as good. But I wasn’t. They played layers of games while I was stuck at the very surface. I have tried to play like that, but I can only do it for very short bursts before my confidence shatters and I revert back to “clinically insane” porkens. Sometimes I post in pink text as another voice from my head
(which I am, and it’s my head not his)
and sometimes I just pick a theory and run with it no matter how unlikely it is, ESPECIALLY if it’s against one of these really good players. And you know what? It kind of worked. I had a better record as both maf and town in that era. I couldn’t be a great mafia player, but I could play a character, and sometimes that was good enough to win and have fun. I think of it as pro wrestling. It’s all a work until it’s a shoot, it afterwards it’s can all be a work again. So I had some success but I still wasn’t what I wanted to be, I still wasn’t ever going to win a scummy.
So now I come back in 2020. I decided to play again when farside came back and I was like hell yeah. Now I’m having a good time, got a good win rate, makin some friends, seeing some old faces, and this game show up and I’m like “hell yeah” again. Let’s see if I can make a good showing. (Stop laughing)
Like I said before Albert made a fool of me in our last game together. Then he started doing funny business in this game with the VP wagon. I got a theory in my head and went full bore on it. None of you would even acknowledge what he was doing was in any way scummy, or explain it to me, and I got pissssed offfff. All those feelings of being out of the cool kids club and being shit at the game came flooding back. Everyone knows what alberts doing except me. I don’t get it because I’m the shit player, the dumb one. This is how I felt. Albert can say “I’m never lynched day one because I’m so strong” and that makes him sound town. God damn it just makes me so JEALOUS. So, taking that emotion, and trying to get some agency in the game and maybe accomplish something g with my tiny insignificant self, I vote for Albert. I don’t want to fall for his shit, I don’t want to cower before his strength, I don’t understand his gambit and god damn it I’m not going to be bullied or cajoled into following it and I’m sure as hell not going to be ignored.
I had moments of lucidity in this rage haze. I thought “well if Albert is town and I let myself throw this shit fit, maybe scum will reveal themselves somehow. When Blair and CLAP got on the wagon I said “there’s one” and “that’s two”. In my head I said “there’s one scu” and “there’s two scum”. Now at this point I knew there was no way Albert was getting lynched and I was just being petulant, but since I was already so ramped up I figured I could maybe use that pestilance to some good. Play the part, work the scum, pro wrestle it. But simultaneously I’m still thinking if Albert is scum I’m not going to be tricked and I’m stating it now so I look smart after the game
not kidding in many cases this is what he cares about most!
So this brings me to the hammer. I hammered because...sigh...I wanted to have done something meaningful in the game. I wanted something to be about me instead of about Albert. I wanted to be the center of attention. I also thought it might Cause some ripples that someone, maybe even me, could see scum standing out in. Sadly, once I realized I was fulfilling everyone’s worst expectations of me, I felt terrible. I reread the votecou t and missed tripods in-line vote, which made me think “oh god I didn’t really hammer that’s great now it looks like an epic fake hammer and we can get some reactions and everyone with think I planned it and I’ll look smart and good at the game” . This is where most of the banter post hammer took place. I actually thought that others were in on it and playing along, really meme of it up with me. Then when things quieted down I counted again and realized no..Tripod voted in his paragraph...jokes on me. When auro flipped, I was so grateful not to have fucked it up. I dumbhammered, but at least it was scum. If he was town I would feel 1000% worse. But he wasn’t he was scum. And a scum tracker at that. Too bad I didn’t have anything to do with it other than fucking in the last 6 possible days of discussion. And make me an easy lynch.
Well. I think that’s about it.
Thank you.