Mini Normal 2187: PIFiMDM [game over!]

[Kazyan]

Best game as town or scum?

Nicknames?

How is your activity going to be this game?

N/A; 'Kaz' is okay (but Kazyan is preferred); and...much much less than NPOM, I guess? I'm new. This is my first game.

VOTE: Papa Zito

[Kazyan]

Does anyone else automatically assume any new person is a Hectic alt?

All the time.

[Kazyan]

So what I'm hearing is that Lunar is a goober, I'm a Hectic alt, and that wagons are a touchy subject.

[Kazyan]

I don't have any solid reads because I'm drunk on that Noob Juice, but the assessment of Elements seems plausible based on similar behaviors I've observed in Mafia-adjacent games.

UNVOTE: Papa Zito

VOTE: Elements

[Kazyan]

I don't have any solid reads because I'm drunk on that Noob Juice, but the assessment of Elements seems plausible based on similar behaviors I've observed in Mafia-adjacent games.

Which behaviors are those?

Baby's first theory: If someone does something disruptive to the smooth flow of the game (but isn't actually scummy), the scum can be quick to rally against them, because that looks like a safe way to go through the motions of sticking their neck out and not be a lurker. From what I've observed, a scum-led "kick this person out" movement feels a little different than people just voting on the disruptor independently.

Now that I'm typing that out and have gone back to check each post, it appears that I've already gotten some wires crossed here on the why-who-and-when of accusation, so my whole point above doesn't apply here even if it applies generally. These are straight-up mistakes on my part; I mixed up earlier vote reactions with the Lunar vote reactions and probably something else, too, so I'm not going to make any more claims about Elements. That has been discussed to death anyway.

I do think that the actions of Lunar, as a disruptor, are less important than the reactions to that disruption. And there has been a lot of reaction.

[Kazyan]

What do you make of the reactions?

Ben was pretty insistent on giving LM a chance there. Possibilities:
1) Ben and LM are both scum. If Lunar went down and it became obvious that they

were

scum, then Ben would be next on the shopping block. In addition to that, this is statistically unlikely.
2) Ben is scum and LM is not. Not really sure if we can weight this one more heavily or less heavily yet. Ben would be sticking their neck out pretty far this early, but Ben seems intelligent enough to WIFOM it and go for the play that makes them seem more trustworthy.
3) LM is scum and Ben is not. We've already discussed LM's actions. But Ben appears to be townhunting?
4) Both are townies. This is consistent with the experienced player reading the newbie as town correctly.

Gamma seems pushy about LM, but not in a way that reads scummy to me. Gamma was also pushy on me about being a Hectic alt. I think that's just how Gamma rolls; they seem townish to me.

No clue about NPOM. It's harder to follow why they're thinking what they're thinking.

Your inquisitive posts, Alchemist, make me slightly lean scum for you, since a low-info Socratic method seems like a good way to stir up suspicions. But it's such a slight lean that I'm not gonna talk myself into it.

No comment on Elements, because...yeah.

I'd like to hear more from 2ndchosen1, Hayker, and HeWhoSwims.

[Kazyan]

Ah, okay. Good to know.

[Kazyan]

Ok, so now that you've re-evaluated Elements, what is your opinion on that slot?

I can't come up with a reason (WIFOM-based or otherwise) that an experienced townie would act the way that Elements has. Any one (or two) of the things Hayker has cited would just have just been a normal and routine judgment error. But all together, it adds up to either scum, a wacky role combination, or me not knowing what I'm talking about.

Which of the four scenarios do you think is most likely? None of this post really has any analysis.

It does, though. It has as much analysis as is appropriate to portray based on the small amount of evidence we have. Probably

more

than is warranted, even.

[Kazyan]

Can you break down and ELI5 what exactly Elements has done that is out of line with expected experienced townie behavior?

Exactly what Hayker said.

Does anyone

else

want to push me to steer the discussion back to Elements repeatedly, or are we done?

[Kazyan]

VOTE: Kazyan

What part of what Hayker said do you agree with? Can you tie what Hayker said with "expected experienced townie behavior"?

I'm very comfortable with my vote on elements right now. He pushed someone elses vote, opportunistically hopped on the lunar wagon, OMGUS voted me. I feel the pressure is where it is needed for now.

Can you explain your last two votes elements?

Pushing this early seems weird, since there wasn't really anything to push about. Wagoning on an early disruption is vaguely scummy, as I've explained in a previous post of mine. There's no reason to OMGUS if you're town.

I'm happy to give more information to the town, but I'm not sure what to say besides repeating myself.

I don't like this either. You and Hayker aren't buddy-buddy's.

I'm feeling LM is town now from his recent posts.

Hayker was the one who prodded me into joining Mafiascum.net, so I'm overcohering to his post. It does, however, appear to be a good summary of Element's choices that I'm skeptical over. Additionally, after my previous goof, I don't actually trust myself to get a good understanding of Elements's actions without some sort of outside validation. So I keep gesturing vaguely at Hayker because they said something that I completely agree with, and I don't know what else to say besides what Hayker said.

[Kazyan]

It's not weird in the least. You're not giving any indication of your thought process here. Pointing to someone else's post and saying "yeah that" doesn't tell me what

you're

thinking. I have to sort your slot. I have to figure out if you got a green or red role PM. The only way for me to do that is to get inside your head. Currently you're doing your level best to prevent me from doing so. The pushback and hand-waving only makes me more suspicious.

I mean. What exactly could I possibly say, at this point? You say I'm giving no indication of my thought process in a post where you've straight-up quoted my thought process. I've directly stated that I don't trust my judgment on Elements without external confirmation, which is what Hayker provided, and then I used his post as an outline to describe my thoughts. That pairs with the initial post I made:

I can't come up with a reason (WIFOM-based or otherwise) that an experienced townie would act the way that Elements has. Any one (or two) of the things Hayker has cited would just have just been a normal and routine judgment error. But all together, it adds up to either scum, a wacky role combination, or me not knowing what I'm talking about.

I've given my full opinion and the ideas behind it.

"It's not weird in the least", is a normal disagreement, but you're treating it like it means there must be additional layers to my opinion. And there aren't. I'm sorry. There just aren't. I would help you of there were. And people keep acting like the absence of additional layers is proof that there are more.

All I can do is repeat myself.

[Kazyan]

I still disagree with Dannflor's assessment of Elements, but:

1) I would rather not do this again,
2) Discussing such old posts isn't advancing the play state or anything,
3) Putting pressure elsewhere will get us more information,
4) When we have a lot of newer arguments to deal with, there are bigger fish to fry, and
5) Even if we get down to brass tacks, the Elements wagon isn't happening.

With all that in mind: UNVOTE: Elements

Penguin is now talking, but not actually saying much. I don't like it.

I'm willing to call Alchemist and Hayker as light scumreads. I know I used Hayker's post as a template with which to lay out my thoughts, but that doesn't remotely mean Hayker is town.

I don't know which of the three would be productive to put some info-squeezing pressure on--Hayker, Alchemist, or Penguin. They all have one vote each. The NPOM wagon is tempting, but I'd like more information from the sources that aren't giving as much of it; I might switch to NPOM if we get to 6 votes there. So...I'll just pick one. VOTE: Penguin

[Kazyan]

Baa.

[Kazyan]

I'm not exactly a fan of this post, specifically the omnibus of reasons to unvote Elements. It looks like Kazyan is quite worried about the optics of that move.

100% correct. Previous posts by me have largely drawn an unexpected amount of shade because my rationale wasn't completely exhaustive, so I gave an exhaustive rationale this time. I'm comfortable with being called scummy for giving as much information as I can to the town.

[Kazyan]

My explanation was a confirmation of Gamma's guess. Therefore:

1) Gamma has voted me because of the suspicion that I am worried about optics.
2) Alchemist has voted me because of the suspicion that I am

not

worried about optics.

These cannot both be correct lines of reasoning, regardless of alignment.

[Kazyan]

That seems understandable but there's also the sheeping issues and I feel like it's a bit excessive even then?
I'm curious where Alchemist said anything about lack of optics concern though. Alchemist, if that is correct, why do you find that scummy of Kazyan?

1) I mean, yeah. I sheeped. That happened. I'm not going to defend it, because I definitely sheeped.

2) My post confirmed your claim that I was concerned about optics. Alchemist does not buy my post's explanation that you are correct. Therefore, Alchemist does not buy that you are correct. You claim is that I was concerned about optics, so Alchemist does not buy that I was concerned about optics. This is subject to change based on whatever Alchemist tries to backpedal on.

In the future--assuming I don't get eliminated--is there something I can do to make my lines of reasoning more clear? Between the two rounds of Elements debacle and this confusion, it's apparent that I'm not great at clarity. Dannflor's earlier null read on me seems to corroborate this.

[Kazyan]

@Kazyan: It seems wierd that you voted for PP, which I pushed, AND you said my wagon was tempting. Do you think I am bussing PP?

Your vote did not factor into my decision. I do not know, or care, if you're bussing Penguin.

[Kazyan]

You don't think potential mafia interactions are an important thing to consider?

They are, but the fact of the matter is that I didn't consider them. I hear that Day 1 interaction analysis isn't good.

[Kazyan]

The jury is still out on me being a Hectic alt, I see.

[Kazyan]

*they
sorry for misgendering, I have to review my posts now with so many "they" in the site now

'He' is also fine; 'They' is simply preferred. No need to change anything. I actually care more about swapping the Z and Y in my name.

[Kazyan]

In case this was missed.

My statement is in deference to what Ben said after I did IA the first time:

The reason that interaction analysis is bad before we have any mod confirmed evidence (hardclaims, flips, innocent townies, etc.) is because you are very likely to encounter bias if you find a interaction that makes the most sense to you. This is bad since without one guaranteed or near guaranteed alignment, anything can really happen, and since interaction analysis is very powerful people can get sucked into the bias really easily and will never take a second look. Right now it is best to just make some good fabricated reads alone rather than in pairs or triplets of people.

This is the entire basis of me saying that Day 1 IA is bad.

[Kazyan]

I think the fact Kazyan is so receptive to criticism rn seems a bit scummy, but could also be a newb thing, though I feel like they’d get a little defensive about something they’ve up to now but the trend seems to be entirely deference.

Nice bait.

[Kazyan]

UNVOTE: Penguin

Even though my aforementioned pressure placement didn't tell me much about Penguin specifically, I feel like it got the job done in giving us more information.

[Kazyan]

I placed pressure, but I don't actually know whether Penguin felt it. We got more information, though.

[Kazyan]

What information have you gained?

Basically, this post did it for me:

I think their post was a bs reason made to hide that they’re sheeping the IC.

Two things happened here: 1) Alchemist

accused

me of something that I

admitted

to before that post. 2) Alchemist expressed no confusion about how to read me. Basically everyone else ranges from "Kazyan is hard to read, but I think they're scum" to "I have no clue what this twerp is trying to say", but Alchemist seems confident.

So it kinda looks like Alchemist is so focused on pushing me that any extra posts I make aren't relevant. The only way that makes sense to me, as the confusing-to-read newbie, is if he's not actually an uninformed vanilla townie.

[Kazyan]

Kazyan, where is your head at? What are your reads at?

It looked like you wanted to vote Alchemist in your last post but you held off, is there a reason for that?

My head: kicking myself for mixing up the order of events again, re: admission of sweeping, when the posts are public record and I was directly involved in it. I didn't vote Alchemist because I wanted us to talk about him. If I had voted, we would have just had the sheeping debate again.

Reads:

Lunar is my top townread.
Gamma is second.
Papa Zito, 2ndchosen1, and NPOM lean town.
HWS and Hayker are null. I decline to comment on Elements.
Penguin leans scum.
Alchemist is my top scumread, but I'm not confident.

2ndchosen1's position is the most interesting of the 'lean town' group, I feel. 2nd pointed out my mistake after Alchemist did, and it would have been really easy to join the wagon on me. But it would have been

too

easy, and that a 2ndchosenScum would have realized that. It's not super clear.

[Kazyan]

How do you feel about Gamma's place on your wagon?

Gamma voted me for sheeping. Whatever.

Maybe it's kind of weird that Gamma hasn't moved his vote and instead has made fluff posts in the meantime. That could be scum-indicative of comfortably sitting on a wagon, but I still say he's more likely to be town and just genuinely thinks my sheeping was a scum tell.

[Kazyan]

VOTE: Penguin

We have now.

[Kazyan]

I mean, we heard complaints about wagons in this game when there were

two

votes on one person back-to-back, so there is clearly some disconnect on what the word actually means.

[Kazyan]

Since Day 1 is getting close to done, I guess we should pick a wagon and stick with it. Votes are really split, though. The top voted people are Alchemist, me, and Penguin, so I guess decide which one of us you want gone. Unless one of the other pushes look most helpful.

[Kazyan]

VOTE: Hayker

AGar's "screw Hayker" masterpost is convincing. I basically have no idea what Hayker's broader reads are.

Willing to switch to Alchemist at a moment's notice, though.

[Kazyan]

I still very much feel elements is scum, since Friday he has asked for support on two wagons, supported another, and then a silent vote on Alchemist. One of the votes is basicslly asking dann is he'd like to wagon with him. This seems to be an empty persuit for now.

Of the current wagons, i like penguins Iso a bit more every time I read the posts. My biggest sus, elements, has pushed the alchemist wagon several times heavily. I also think Kazyan played rather nervously when the pressure was on them, and I'd like to know why.

vote:kazyan

Do you have an example of any particular posts that read too nervously to you, and what more information you'd like?

[Kazyan]

I mean, sure, but I still don't get why that makes me scum.

Hammer is in hand, but I'm gonna listen to another post or two from NPOM in case he talks us down.

[Kazyan]

Dislike this.

Then vote for me, dayvig me, or shut up. I'm done being yelled at for talking strategy.

[Kazyan]

Per Alchemist's post:

I crumbed in my very first post which is why I have reason to believe scum could have picked up on it and avoided my wagon.

Since he was bulletproof, if this breadcrumbed fake role had worked, he would have been shot during Night 1--and then Bulletproof would have negated that. The plan seemed to have been to make the Mafia waste their shot and then to detect who reacted to the breadcrumb before he made it public. This would explain his reluctance to state a role during the first E-1.

Either way, VOTE: Hayker.

[Kazyan]

I await PZ's deeper dive to figure out where the WIFOM went.

In addition to the three confirmed townie roles and the doctor claim, there's also the vigilante. Role madness is sort of plausible at that point, but wouldn't there be more Night actions going off if that were the case?

[Kazyan]

So it's not just me who thinks nothing about this game makes sense. Ack.

[Kazyan]

Upon going through Hayker's iso:

PenguinPower - 2 Confirmed town
Alchemist21 - 2 + V Confirmed town
HeWhoSwims - 0
NoPowerOverMe - 0
AGar ben dover123 - 2 Confirmed town
Papa Zito - 4 + V + TR
Elements - 6 + V
2ndchosen1 - 0
Dannflor - 1 Confirmed town
Gamma Emerald - 1/2
Lunar Martian - 1
Kazyan - 4 + V

The only progression on anyone is Papa Zito from voting in RVS to a town read due to meta from [over a decade ago].
Pushed me the entire day without rlly looking at anyone else until the Alch wagon.

13p so 2/3 maf, I'm leaning three given the flips so far + vig shot.
Given the associations here I'd be looking in [NPOM, HeWhoSwims, 2ndchosen1, Gamma] as partners

I wouldn't cast an equal amount of shade on 2ndchosen1 and HeWhoSwims as the other two, simply because 2nd and HWS have not been as chatty. I'm coming around to the "Gamma is scum" idea, honestly. Pointing finger of suspicion at Gamma, but we have a Hayker fish to fry.

HeWhoSwims, any thoughts on the situation?

[Kazyan]

Idk. Maybe I believe too much in the good side of people or whatever but it would seem outlandish to me to fakeclaim a full doctor of all roles, place the hammer, defend the claim up and down and especially in a game where we already have 3PRs on the table right now -- would scum dare to do that? Would it be worth it to ask a possible other protective to "counterclaim", seeing if we have a doc its out on the table already, or is that incredibly dumb?

What? Hayker made that claim

before

three confirmed power roles happened. He's holding onto the claim because backpedaling would just be confirmation that he lied and is Mafia. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

[Kazyan]

So what's your take on the history, NPOM?

[Kazyan]

Going to partially object to Section 5 in the gamesolve post, here, and shine a light on 2ndchosen1. He is the only other player who cast some kind of doubt on Hayker being scum, in 820. This was a WIFOM argument, and PZ's defense of the "neither Hayker nor Dannflor died, but that was all according to plan" is

also

a WIFOM argument. These ideas feel like they're following the same side-chat playbook. Further, HWS has offered a reason for not voting for Hayker tonight, while 2nd has merely made commentary, the same way that PZ has.

My vote is already placed on Hayker. Everyone in this conversation aside from PZ has also done so. To the next person to show up: please hammer before the end of the forum page.

[Kazyan]

Yeah, fair; I've been lazy for Day 2. I thought I didn't need to provide any input when we're kinda just passing time until we yeet Hayker.

I'm going to do an analysis on Lunar now, since that might push things forward for PZ and unwnd's conversation.

[Kazyan]

unwnd, I might be an idiot when it's Day 1 and we have nothing to go on besides he-said-they-said arguments about intent, but on Day 2, Hayker is obviously scum for reasons based on game mechanics. I don't have to be any good at understanding how people think in order to observe the math and the obvious lie--three confirmed town power roles showed up and no one could have expected that. Like I implied even before the gamesolve post, we'd expect more night actions if this were a role madness game, and for a non-madness game, a doctor is just plain implausible given the number of roles we already have on the town side. My grievances about Alchemist were based on my social intuition of their Day 1 behavior when I knew nothing about anyone except for Dannflor.

Unrelatedly, I think I found a thing when digging through Lunar's ISO: the whole exchange up to post 190. If I've got this right, the scene went something like this:
1) Lunar introduces himself with elimbait vote. Gets voted on by Gamma.
2) ben defends Lunar early game. Lunar votes for Gamma.
3) Lunar throws shade on ben for putting words in Lunar's mouth.
4) Gamma thinks Lunar's post is okay, and votes ben.
5) Reiterates vote on Gamma because, to paraphrase, "that Lunar post was okay" is not a good reason to vote ben.
6) Lunar asks Gamma to explain the reasoning for the ben vote.
7) Gamma's response is, paraphrasing again, that town!ben wouldn't defend Lunar so righteously, while scum!ben would be personally invested in defending scum!Lunar.

Here's the thing. We know that ben is town, since AGar filled Ben's slot and then flipped as Vanilla Townie. So we can simplify this interaction analysis to...

Town!Lunar

and

Town!Gamma

: Standard town-on-town violence. It's Day 1.

Town!Lunar

and

Scum!Gamma

: Why pick a fight with ben while siding with Lunar? At that point in the game, that's a ton of risk on discrediting yourself for, like, zero reward.

Seems unlikely.

Scum!Lunar

and

Town!Gamma

: There are no other major wagons at this point, so going after Gamma would make sense here.

Scum!Lunar

and

Scum!Gamma

: This would be a heck of a performance. It looks organic, there was foreshadowing, and they'd be actively pushing against each other on whether to discredit ben or not. Plus, we probably don't have that many mafia members to go around.

Seems

very

unlikely.

Based on this analysis, where there is no non-galaxy-brain way for Gamma to be scum, I retract my suspicion of Gamma. Gamma is almost certainly a townie.

[Kazyan]

I agree with the idea of scum just watching and waiting right now. There are a lot of people here that are big blurry question marks, and lot of town-directed arguments on day 1 (Alchemist, Penguin, and ben/AGar for sure). So what does scum do in that situation? Hide among the lurkers? Would there suddenly be a lot more activity from scum if Hayker stopped looking like a lost cause, in order to force a miselimination or no-elimination?

Also, what exactly do we mean by 'pushing' Elements, here?

[Kazyan]

2nd, I'm not sure how my post 873 doesn't count as a response to 871. To both you and unwind, I don't actually know what you want me to re-evaluate about the Alchemist situation--I was just plain wrong, and Hayker's situation is totally different, because there's actual game mechanical substance behind it. I guess I'm just confused as to what information you want.

Regarding Gamma, I keep going back and forth on him. I still think Gamma is more likely to be town than otherwise; Gamma's play leading up to post 190 still looks like scum wouldn't do that. Getting quiet all of the sudden could be suspicious, but two similarly-cantankerous players lost interest in this game already; I wouldn't be surprised in a third. I'm also thinking LM is town--there hasn't been any change in LM's behavior of swinging at everyone. You would expect him to get more protective if he were scum, given how scum is on the back foot right now. Except, you know, actually ignore me on this because it's closer to the Alchemist situation than the Hayker one.

Unrelatedly: hello, northsidegal! Welcome to the argument!

[Kazyan]

By the way, do we still want to put a delay on the hammer?

[Kazyan]

Aight, bet. UNVOTE:

[Kazyan]

It's a fair suspicion to look at those four votes and think there's scum in there, but I don't think it holds water. Remember, our theory for why that's scummy is that the mafia is trying to end the town's discussion early, but...

1) It's a bad trade. They'd be cutting off the town's discussion and the cost of forcing one of their own members into elimination, and this trade is even worse at the beginning when it wasn't totally clear that Hayker was a 90%-likely elimination. Why irreversibly inch towards losing the game, just to get the town to shut up for a second? If Hayker is ejected, the game has to go through another day/night cycle for scum to have a chance at winning anyway.
2) It's not guaranteed that a longer discussion period benefits the town instead of scum. It's more chances for arguments to go the town's way, but also more chances for them to go scum's way. The town could talk itself into eliminating someone that they become convinced is a second mafia member, but who isn't--or just get so stuck with split wagons yelling at Lunar or whoever that there's a no-elimination, and Hayker lives another day.

[Kazyan]

I think it's worth noting that Gamma withdrew some on Day 1, so this behavior on Day 2 isn't necessarily in response to the flips or to Hayker.

[Kazyan]

'Rushing' implies that we haven't taken the time to be thorough. But is there anyone, or anything, else we want to discuss?

VOTE: Hayker

[Kazyan]

Are we sure these second night kills come from a vigilante rather than a serial killer?

[Kazyan]

Since Hayker was informed, I'm thinking that the information had to be the fact that Dannflor was a Jailkeeper Enabler. It's plausible that the Mafia just avoided killing Dannflor on day 1 to back up Hayker's doctor claim and only figured it out on day 2 when Dannflor went public with that fact, but I don't see how any other piece of information would make sense. Unfortunately, I don't think this tells us much.

I'll try to go through ISOs later tonight when I'm not burned out at work and figure out what possible pairings make sense. There are 5 undetermined people left besides me, which is 10 pairings, so it's feasible to take a pass on all 10.

[Kazyan]

Not part of my intended pairing analysis, but:

There was a grand total of 1 interaction between NPOM/unwd and Hayker day 1 and that was NPOM begrudgingly voting near the end of the day.
Scumbuddies!

This random post, given apropos of nothing in the middle of the "Gamma and Elements are scum" discussion, is living rent-free in my head.

[Kazyan]

Okay, wait, one more thought. If the mafia has a regular goon and a jailkeeper left, the goon can play a little aggressively to make moves, but the jailkeeper needs to avoid rocking the boat as much as possible. We should expect unusually safe, non-pushy play from the jailkeeper, right? So who does that?

NPOM/unwnd: Not pushy, but active.
Lunar: Rocking the boat is Lunar's thing.
Elements: Handed out votes on day 1; pushed for the NPOM/unwnd thing.
HWS/northsidegal: northsidegal gets a partial pass for being so fresh, but HWS played extremely safely and accused no one.
2ndchosen1: Has fair analysis, but avoids making any definitive accusations and pushes for nothing.

[Kazyan]

VOTE: 2ndchosen1

[Kazyan]

VOTE: 2ndchosen1

I don't hate it

But where does it come from exactly? As in, your posts to me didn't seem like they had a thought process I could follow

2ndchosen1's posts look really safe and inoffensive to me--even when he disagrees with someone, the points are more the vein of providing nuance/completeness than 'you are wrong because of reasons'. This makes me think he might be the jailkeeper laying low.

i would like to hear people's thoughts on the merits of a massclaim today

I see no way that this would benefit the town.

[Kazyan]

This also feels like Mafia throwing out an idea that would benefit them, and then backing off immediately when the idea gets shut down.

i think that your understanding of the way that scum plays is flawed. you also assume—and i say this while knowing full well that i am not very good at scum—that i am an absolutely

terrible

player. i'm not stupid. if i were scum proposing some idea to benefit me as scum, i wouldn't propose it without any sort of at least plausible justification. i wouldn't just throw some plan to benefit scum out with no reasoning and then back down the instant someone says "i disagree". i think that my progression there really only makes sense as genuine, and my lack of elaboration was deliberate.

and, again, on the "role fishing", i'd point you to 1142. i may not be great at scum but i am certainly not stupid, and stupid is what i would have to be in order for that to be me "role fishing" as scum.

This line of argument isn't convincing. "You're accusing me of a bad move, but I don't make bad moves" is some seriously weak tea.

for the record, I have also been pondering the merits of a mass claim today

My dude. Why.

As for "Nuance" I'm not doing IIoA as I do list my conclusions and reasonings in my posts. As for completeness, I would rather hear someone's thoughts to completion as to make a better judgement and as such provide what I think to completion as much as I can in my posts, to the point that I quote or put post number so that my posts are easier to context in ISO, especially since I'm not regularly on. Considering the lack of questions on my stuff until now, I'd like to think I accomplish that.
as for not pushing stuff see below

Hm. I'm not fully convinced, but this explanation seems okay on the surface.

[Kazyan]

Update: work and away-from-work obligations have taken a lot out of me this week, so no promises on the 10-pairs dive anymore.

unwnd is my top townread, for what it's worth. I

think

Lunar is okay? But I don't know who within 2ndchosen1, Elements, or northsidegal are town. My guess is that the remaining scum are 2ndchosen1 and Elements, but that's just it, a guess.

There's a reason I didn't continue to pressure northside. It's interesting that Kazyan is piggybacking off of me to continue the pressure there.

Yep; I saw what I

thought

was a bad/generic argument, which looked empty in a way that reminded me of Hayker's appeal to "don't eliminate the doctor", but then I got the clarification and we're good now.

[Kazyan]

Kazyan is the strongest read for Town I've got. We've got similar reads in 1123. I generally like his reasoning and thought layout. Motives seem solid and explained. I would like to know what he sees in 1122 that it's living in his head.

Okay, so here's the post:

There was a grand total of 1 interaction between NPOM/unwd and Hayker day 1 and that was NPOM begrudgingly voting near the end of the day.
Scumbuddies!

If you go back from that about 3-4 pages or so and skim all the way up to Elements's post, the arc of the conversation topic is largely "We were thinking Papa Zito is scum, but we're starting to think that second slot might be Gamma, actually?". So, in the middle of all of that, right when Dannflor is changing his mind, Elements pops in and asserts that NPOM/unwnd is scum based on some vaguely-plausible reason. And it's not, like, drawing a parallel to the reasons that PZ and Gamma are being discussed or anything; it's an unrelated thing. It's spontaneous and also doesn't go anywhere that day.

I think it's more likely that scum does that than a townie. If you're town, and you genuinely disagree with the current topic, do you really just make an accusation without comment? Or do you tell the confirmed townie that drives the entire game that he's barking up the wrong tree? If the town is debating between two different people and your top scumread (besides Hayker) isn't in that pairing at all, to the point where you're throwing out a full-blown "NPOM/unwnd is scum" accusation...the reasonable move is to ask your town friends to stop trying to kill each other for a second. Right?

But if you're scum, and the town is driving that train off a cliff, you can perform how totally town you are by making an accusation and backing it up with an analysis that sounds plausible.

[Kazyan]

This old post really rustles my jimmies:

Idk. Maybe I believe too much in the good side of people or whatever but it would seem outlandish to me to fakeclaim a full doctor of all roles, place the hammer, defend the claim up and down and especially in a game where we already have 3PRs on the table right now -- would scum dare to do that?

Would it be worth it to ask a possible other protective to "counterclaim"

, seeing if we have a doc its out on the table already, or is that incredibly dumb?

Emphasis mine. Dannflor has survived two nights by now, and the only good explanation is that the Mafia are still hunting down PRs in order to use their Jailkeeper--which, at the time of writing this post, was a secret. Dannflor only went public with it in #829. If HWS had gotten his way, then they could have targeted that hypothetical real doctor (or other PR) with the Jailkeeper, then point their Mafia kills somewhere consistent with whatever fake-doctor Hayker's plans were. Something like that. The possibilities are wide, here. I know HWS isn't here to defend himself anymore, but this is so darn scummy considering what we now know.

That said, HWS wasn't all that engaged, so this could plausibly not be within his range as scum.

---

Unrelatedly, excluding myself, here are the possible scum parings:

• unwnd/Elements
  
  
• unwnd/Lunar
  
• unwnd/2ndchosen1
  
• unwnd/northsidegal
  
• Elements/Lunar
  
• Elements/2ndchosen1
  
• Elements/northsidegal
  
• Lunar/2ndchosen1
  
• Lunar/northsidegal
  
• 2ndchosen1/northsidegal

I think we can rule out unwnd/Elements, because Elements started attacking unwnd's slot on Day 2 and has continued that crusade into Day 3. That would just be absurd play for a scum team.

[Kazyan]

I think we can rule out unwnd/Elements, because Elements started attacking unwnd's slot on Day 2 and has continued that crusade into Day 3. That would just be absurd play for a scum team.

Why can't you do that with Hayker's attack on me and rule me out as scum completely?

This is a good point. Hayker spent much of Day 1 leaning on Elements and reiterating the point, which

could

just be distancing, but then he re-voted Elements through Day 2 and held onto that position. I feel like it would be within his range to try to save Elements with heavy distancing, but it's weird that he then committed seppuku-by-hammer instead of trying to yell at Elements some more. That's a strange combination of things to do if you're trying to save a scum partner.

[Kazyan]

Going back through 2ndchosen1's ISO, I'm gonna UNVOTE: 2ndchosen1. These three posts are why. You've obviously just gonna have to take my word for it when I color myself green, but:

I'm awake mod, I swear

Whether

Ben

was hiding AND not interested or just not interested is still a bit iffy to me. I have to admit that LM has a point on the aggressiveness,

Agar

comes in and seems to immediately know exactly who is best to Wagon pointing to some posts that don't entirely give scum indictative to me on D1. While I'll acknowledge some of the reads seem to fit for me, like

hayker

. Others seem off to me, like

GE

and

Kazyan

.

Could you expand on those reads? I acknowledge they are your D1 reads and subject to change but I'm wondering what got you to such a list.

I'm looking forward to the promised

hayker

expansion too.

This is quite a complex position and doesn't seem to point towards distancing. Note that Agar's reads were, basically, GE as town and me as a scumlean.

I feel the argument was hardly wayward, but I just...don't like that

penguin

and elements both jumped on that wagon so quickly together.

why should I think that this doctor call is even legit

hayker

?
I'd like to hear

Penguin

's and Element's reasoning or if it's just sheeping

Agar

?

there is 1 day as of this morning remaining. I've intent to hammer tonight at midnight if elements and

penguin

can provide said adequate explanation or if

hayker

doesn't provide one

...and

if

2ndchosen1 was distancing, he had to be really really committing to it and coordinating with Hayker like crazy, here. But if he

were

coordinating...

I'll wait for PZ's thoughts, I'd like to hear them. If possible, I'll also wait on Kazyan.

A town doctor and a town machocop in the same game? Are you kidding me? I sincerely doubt such a setup would get cleared these days on this site. A town doc/cop combo can be powerful enough as is. I hammered for the obvious lie it was. How was I to expect it was a bad townie lie.

This is where I'm going to wish I had more experience on the site.

How are power roles generally distributed?

is the Macho cop/doctor combo to strong for most minis? I realize it's a closed setup but I'm unsure how the site balances. These questions are for Dann since he's only one that can give me a guaranteed town view.

Then he would know this, by talking to Hayker. Emphasis mine. He wouldn't have to ask this question to the town; he'd just bring it up in the mafia thread.

I'm not 100% confident in clearing either 2ndchosen1 or Elements, here, but this does reduce my most likely suspect pool to Lunar, northsidegal, and unwnd.

[Kazyan]

Looking through the remaining three ISOs--Lunar, unwnd, and northsidegal--I don't have a clue. If you forced me to pick one of them to vote, I'd go with Lunar. Dannflor and 2ndchosen1, do you have any specific thoughts on these three?

[Kazyan]

Also, this is circumstantial, but treatment of the NPOM/unwnd slot has been weird and dicey across the board. Regardless of who is scum, I could picture them with unwnd as a partner I guess

[Kazyan]

I don't like it either, per se, since we're running out of leeway on miselims. But I'm trying to sort people here. I'm willing to listen to unwnd's case on Elements, regardless.

[Kazyan]

So, to clarify, the case on Elements is that he doesn't seem to have an idea about the scumteam, just a particular person?

In that case, I've gone through everyone's D3 reads, and this is what they look like to me as of post 1242:



(I'll make a colorblind version upon request.)

Of course, this chart immediately gets outdated because I have to update my own reads based on what I see in it. And what I see is VOTE: northsidegal, followed possibly by Lunar, unless Elements actually does flip as scum and I look like a fool.

[Kazyan]

It's based on how NGS is the only person besides Elements who doesn't appear to have an opinion on who the other Mafia member might be--NSG does not have any scumreads besides Elements. I'm giving Lunar some side-eye, but ultimately a bit of a pass because he's been pecking at everyone for the entire game and I'm just gonna chalk that up to playstyle for now.

[Kazyan]

Well yeah, but what do you want me to do, vote Dannflor?

[Kazyan]

Datisi pls you're making me hungry

[Kazyan]

NSG drinking that Posting Juice at 11pm and ready to roll like a boss

It's fair to say I have motivated reasoning for voting you: it's because I dug through a bunch of ISOs and made an entire chart to try and find that mythical final piece of information needed to decide between the pool of {unwnd,northsidegal,Lunar}. And I need that information to be there, because my position of "Elements is town" is obviously a hot take right now, which requires a strong alternative.

[Kazyan]

If we keep getting more concrete reasoning like this in favor of yeeting Elements, I could be swayed from my position that Hayker did not try to sink his scumbuddy on both days that he was alive--but the chart says you don't actually need my vote tbh.

[Kazyan]

the reason I haven't been voted off yet is both scum don't want to be on my wagon

This is a pretty spicy claim.

[Kazyan]

That's because I don't have a counterargument.

[Kazyan]

Yes, I'm agreeing with you about what I'm doing. I'm not claiming scum; I'm just bad at forming logical arguments and am not always aware of when they're terrible. But then someone shows me why they suck and, oh, right. The reason that I'm folding is because my argument is logically incorrect, even though I have a gut feeling based on all of the posts that I've looked at that you're scum, but, like, I can't say that, because we're trying to have an adult discussion.

There's also the meta-point that, historically, the after-the-fact of situations like this is that people end up getting on my case for not being "confident" when I do eventually turn out to be right. So I'm reluctant to move the vote for personal reasons, and I've already been harped on for sweeping. But I'll do it anyway.

VOTE: Elements

E-1

[Kazyan]

*for sheeping

Onionade; it's what's for breakfast

[Kazyan]

...Well, I'll be darned. Opportunistically bargaining to move the wagon onto your one and only townread for the game? I guess Elements is scum after all.

[Kazyan]

Who do you suspect, Elements?

Not Kazyan

[Kazyan]

i guess the point i am really trying to make here is that i would really prefer in a lot of cases to just see someone else's thought process clearly rather than beat that person in an argument, because the former helps a lot more with actually gathering reads on people. it doesn't help me at all when elements looks at everything i wrote and says "i can't argue against this". it might be gratifying to some people to have made some great argument that even the subject has to admit to, but that isn't my end goal – my end goal is to have good reads. similarly, i barely even know how to react to me posing that whole line of questioning to you and you saying "yeah, i guess that was kind of illogical". what i'm actually interested in is

why you thought what you did

, even if you now think it's illogical.

Okay, so here was what I thought:

1) If "not looking for a scumteam" is a valid reason to consider Elements scummy, then it's a valid reason to consider other people scummy if they follow the same pattern, all else being equal.
2) The chart indicates that there are three people who behave in accordance with 1): Elements, northsidegal, and Dannflor. Therefore, these people are more likely to be scum.
3) Dannflor is town, by mod fiat, and can be excluded from consideration.
4) I have, or had reason to believe, that Elements is town. This is, or was, due to Hayker's D1 and D2 behavior.
5) I do not have any reason to believe that northsidegal is town. Therefore, northsidegal is now scummier to me.
6) All else being equal, I had previously considered unwnd, northsidegal, and Lunar to be equally scummy.
7) northsidegal is now the most scummy person. Therefore, I should vote northsidegal.

[Kazyan]

Okay, here goes.

Process of Elimination Argument

We know Dannflor is town and I know I'm town, so by process of elimination we know that there are two scum (or maybe one, but let's assume two) in this group: unwnd, northsidegal, Lunar, 2ndchosen1, and Elements.

I am confident that 2ndchosen1 is town because of the reasons I outline in 1224. for 2ndchosen1 to be scum, we would have had that sequence of unlikely events from a scumteam that go deep undercover, but also will just roll over and self-hammer. It's going over the tinfoil budget even before considering who the last mafia member is.

I then sorted Elements as town based on the reason I gave in [urlhttps://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?p=12520161#p12520161]1223[/url]. Did Hayker really fight his scumbuddy the entire game? At the time, I thought "nah". Now I think "could be".

This narrows the pool down to Lunar, unwnd, and northsidegal. I looked through the ISOs of these three around that time, and none of them had anything concrete I could point to as a post-flip associative for sorting as town or as scum. Looking at weaker evidence, I feel like Lunar is making way too much of a scene to be a Mafia member, and is repeatedly both scumhunting and townhunting. That's fakeable, but it looks more towny than scummy to me. I'm not really sure about unwnd.

Argument from HeWhoSwims

HeWhoSwims had your slot, and HeWhoSwims was not even a little bit towny. I point out a particular case of this in the first half of [urlhttps://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?p=12519289#p12519289]1220[/url], but he also just lurked hardcore. He had to be prodded a lot--his ISO is only ten posts.

Argument from Not

Quite

Reading The Room?

We've already gone over how [urlhttps://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?p=12508870#p12508870]1131[/url] was obviously not a naked attempt to ask the town to throw the scum a bone. No one does that. At the time of posting, however, it seemed plausible to me that this was an attempt to post something that looked towny, but without actually being in the town mindset, scum!you missed something. If you're scum, you could have successfully picked up that having an extra confirmed town role is good for the town on Day 3, since it'd help the town eliminate someone. But you might have missed that, if the town has one PR left and the mafia is presumably looking for it (so that they can finally give Das Boot to Dannflor), it has a good chance of stopping the town from getting one more town-directed kill. At the time: I was thinking something like this: during a no-massclaim Night 3, the mafia shoots an unconfirmed townie and jails another, hoping that one of the two come up as the vigilante. During a massclaimed Night 3, the mafia jails the vigilante for certain, but then it just kills Dannflor. Either way, the Town ends up with one confirmed townie on Day 4, but in the massclaim case, it has a good chance of losing its Night 3 vig shot.

Writing it all out like that, though, the sequence of late-game events gets a little thorny with probabilities and I'd have to actually math it out, but the above is what I was thinking at the time, even if I've talked myself out of it by putting it into words.

[Kazyan]

BBCode > Kazyan

1223
1220
1131

[Kazyan]

[Kazyan]

VOTE: kazyan

I like the cool-story-bro about what I was thinking, but this is another case of brains working differently. Given a situation where I have to defend a point textually, I tend to concede in a very non-internet-argument way, which was what happened there. (I had to reconsider my reads a lot over these past few pages, though, obviously.)

Lunar is the only other person that is still parked on an Elements vote, so, uh. Are we switching wagons to me?

No offense to nsg, but this game is beyond the range of any scum game I've ever read from nsg, and I've read a few.

Town!NSG pretty much reduces the possibilities of the third Mafia member to Lunar and unwnd, and those two don't have a serious case on them either, unless I'm nowhere near paranoid enough about 2ndchosen1 and he's playing us like a fiddle. Elements is still scum according to my most recent waffling, though; posts 1289 and 1290

really

look like overacting to me, unless that's just another way Elements's brain works differently.

[Kazyan]

lmao yeah

[Kazyan]

like this genuinely makes me upset here and maybe that's misguided because you're scum but only two people can be scum and yet more than two people are playing in just a really pretty annoying way!

we've spun our wheels here for six days straight and now here in the eleventh hour your reads still seem to be shifting on a dime like some (hilarious programming joke incoming, this is how you know i'm really trying to get through to you) markov chain. shifting your reads isn't a bad thing in itself but i think that i and the rest of the game—especially with 24 hours left—deserve a little more justification than

one single line

. where's the

trajectory

? where's the

process

?

i really just can't help but feel bitter when i've put an absolute ton of effort into this game reading, re-reading and going through people's metas but nobody except the one other person who's already confirmed seems willing to even

try

putting a similar kind of effort in.

This is partially an experience asymmetry. I have been making an effort to explain myself better over the course of the game, and I've been doing more in terms of analysis as the days progressed, but the fact remains that this is my first game and I don't actually understand how to play yet. The lines of analyses that appear to be obvious to you are opaque to me, and the things that you might want me to put effort into can be things that haven't even occurred to me.

Anyway, we're running out of time, and fence sitters can pick a side now.

[Kazyan]

If it helps you figure out more about how I think, my only Mafia-like experience is with Among Us, where "reads" isn't even common terminology and you can't go back to look at posts older than like 12 messages. The key question in that game is "where were you", not "what were you thinking", and Mafia doesn't have an analogous concept of location.

I'll agree to take the earlier posts with a grain of salt, just so that I don't end up supplying salt of my own lol

[Kazyan]

I'm in favor of hammering within that timeframe, yeah.

[Kazyan]

NSG instead of Dann? Really?

...You know what, It actually doesn't change my opinion. I did some looking and thinking over the night. We need to jettison Lunar.

Seriously, What Was That Day 3 Play?

Lunar got a ton of early towncred in Day 1 for his playstyle of making frequent attacks. On Day 1, that's what you're supposed to do because you have nothing to go on as town, and all you have is scummy wording and votes to play with. But that's only good play on Day 1. The problem is that 1) he has continued to do this well past its expiration date, 2) his attacks don't really go anywhere, to the point where they're not indicative of reads anymore, and 3) his mental process has gradually disappeared. I've referred to this as "pecking" in a previous post.

For examples, Lunar pecks in 1137, 1139 and 1140...but then he vote Elements for some reason, instead of the person he was focused on. He then pecks me in 1161, despite trying to assert earlier that NSG is scum while also voting Elements. Pecks 2ndchosen1 in 1209, which goes nowhere. Pecks me again in 1235, drops it, and eventually does a verbal shrug in 1377 and 1378. That's a lot of numbers, but here's the jist: he voted Elements and stayed comfortably on that wagon for all of Day 3, but didn't peck at a single Elements post despite an abundance of them to work with. So...did he really think Elements is scum? No. I say he was just keeping up appearances while waiting for the miselim that almost everyone agreed on.

Process of Elimination

There are only three pairings left

These pairings are Lunar/unwnd, Lunar/2nd, and unwnd/2nd. The latter is very unlikely to me, because:

2ndchosen1 is

probably

not scum...

This is for reasons that I outline in 1224, with the addition of the Hayker self-hammer I mentioned in 1302.

...and if he is, then unwnd is

probably

not his partner.

Go back and read that whole exchange between unwnd and 2ndchosen1 on Day 3. They are playing tag and asking each other for clarity over and over again. There's no good reason for scum partners to do that--it accomplishes nothing. It doesn't convince the town that they have reads, nor does it help steer the conversation away from a 2ndchosen1 vote. A point of comparison, in Mini Normal 2183, unwnd has a long conversation with their scum partner Flavor Leaf--and in this conversaiton, unwnd is not only more engaged, but makes more attacks and accusations.

Therefore, the only remaining scum pairings contain Lunar

Lunar/unwnd is the likely pairing. Lunar/2nd is the unlikely one. Either way, Lunar is scum.

[Kazyan]

Yeah, obviously. Quickhammers and all.

How sure are we that there are two mafia members left, though? If there's only one, then it would make some degree of sense for them to keep hunting for the vig instead of just shooting Dann and getting it over with, and it makes no sense for a two-remaining-mafia to WIFOM that when they're so close to their win condition.

[Kazyan]

Dang, I guess this

does

affect my opinion, because if there's only one Mafia member, then everything in the Process of Elimination half of my post doesn't apply.

[Kazyan]

I worked on that post, you know

Had a draft saved in my PMs with a section on NSG and everything

[Kazyan]

I'm rather embarrassed to still be alive

Mood but like not in Mafia

[Kazyan]

The town is getting walloped. We're all bad, here.

[Kazyan]

You're asking me for to explain my PoE-based position without using PoE. Can't help you there, chief.

[Kazyan]

Also, I think the vig should claim now

It's me. Hi. I breadcrumbed it in 1372.

Sorry about the bad shots.

[Kazyan]

VOTE: unwnd, then.

[Kazyan]

Guess this is gonna come down to who 2ndchosen1 believes, then.

[Kazyan]

The breadcrumb is the first letter of every sentence, including those in quotes.

At any rate, I'm done here. I've said my position. Everything is in the rest of your hands.

[Kazyan]

I didn't shoot last night because I followed NSG's advice. If I shot Lunar and was wrong again, we'd lose.

[Kazyan]

Why wait to crumb until day four?

I do want this answered though.

I didn't do it on Day 1 because I was still figuring out how to play, and kept quiet about it thereafter because we figured out that scum was looking for me. Day four is when it became feasible to math out the endgame, and I realized that a strong town confirmation would be necessary in the event that exactly this sort of thing happens. unwnd is counterclaiming me because unwnd doesn't need to convince

both

of 2ndchosen1 and Dannflor, just one of them, whereas I need both of the other two townies to believe me.

Day 1 shot was Penguin, by the way.

[Kazyan]

*Day three is when I realized

You know what I meant

[Kazyan]

This is my first experience with forum Mafia.

[Kazyan]

Gamma was indeed a townread, but I shot him anyway because my Day 1 was a disaster--I got a Bulletproof Townie eliminated and shot our JOAT. So the second time around, I went with the "just shoot whoever town is going to eliminate next" strategy instead of relying on my judgment. I figured it would advance the conversation even if I was right, since people were digging into pre-flip associatives with Gamma.

[Kazyan]

I'm pretty annoyed at that in retrospect, because unwnd was leading that Gamma conversation, so it looks like I did the Mafia's job for them.

[Kazyan]

I've played in several sessions of voice chat Among Us with a friend who is brutally effective at deduction work. That voice chat also included Hayker, who uses Mafia terminology and theory (look at his join date), so I know about e.g. not voting on 4 people left, which is called MELo here.

In addition, I once played in a nearly-freeform sci-fi tabletop RPG where the premise was to find the double agent. It happened to be me in that game, so I spent a lot of time in a Mafia mindset, including deflecting suspicion onto an NPC. I know that saying these things really don't help my case in proving that I'm town, but they're true, and I'm saying true things even when they're inconvenient. Ben apparently didn't like it. Neither did NPOM (unwnd's slot), nor Lunar.

I also like to read the wiki. After a few weeks, I pick up the jargon.

[Kazyan]

Hayker invited you here? I'll give you some credit: You seemed to at least recognize that Hayker existed in this game as just lazily Ctrl+F'ing you there's about 60 results.

I mean, yeah. He told everyone this in 422.

I also like to read the wiki

I'm guessing this is where you got the idea to crumb?

Sort of. I learned what breadcrumbing was on Day 1 because I had to look it up in the rules. Alchemist's crumb also made an impression on me, and figuring out the whole "why would a townie lie about their power role?" conundrum made the concept stick better.

Why did your progression change here? I get how stupid this is but just entertain me

I don't remember. that was weeks ago.

[Kazyan]

I guess one question is why NSG was killed over Lunar if the team is something like unwnd/2nd, and the only really satisfying answer I can think of barring extreme WIFOM is that lunar would have to be scum... But I'm not sure I really believe they are aligned with anyone here.

I'm fairly sure that unwnd is the jailkeeper, because that leaves Lunar to take the shot, and Lunar is the only one here who seems eager to make confusing decisions like that.

Your read on Lunar starts off as strongest townread but then you make a post like #873 that seems to entertain an idea that contradicts your own thoughts, postulating on different teams. You do this again in #1220, with an interval between stating that you think is 'just okay' now. Lunar turns into someone you're willing to elim over the course of D3. Why did this read change and why do you think I'm lunar's partner? Is it because I think he's town, something you mostly agreed with up until about D3?

1456 basically answers why I think Lunar is scum, and your counterclaim confirms that you're scum to me.

Regarding posts 873 and 1220, the interaction analysis on 873 entertains the idea of Lunar being scum in order to be exhaustive and to better support the point about Gamma being town. 1220 is similarly written out that way in order to be exhaustive. I was trying to find reasons based on interaction analysis that were stronger than just relying on "reads".

[Kazyan]

There's such a dissonance between you three. The only reason I'm asking you directly is to present my case as to why I'm town and nothing you've done makes sense. I don't know, I really do just think Lunar is town and that maybe that feeling I had on D3 was because RNGesus decided that 3 people who really knew each other happened to be scum together. It's the same argument I gave 2ndchosen, but if you guys were so attuned to one another through experience then why does it seem like the content between you three was so barren.

This argument about us not having content together is reaching. I can tell because you just remarked on how many times I mentioned Hayker over the course of this game.

[Kazyan]

I got a Bulletproof Townie eliminated

Did you really? You were voting Hayker at the end of day 1

Are we sure these second night kills come from a vigilante rather than a serial killer?

also Kazyan I feel like I need an explanation on this

I'm the one who started the argument with Alchemist, so I feel like it was my responsibility.

The explanation is "they're still looking for me; better play dumb to throw off their trail." I came around to the idea of breadcrumbing later.

[Kazyan]

Any paranoia you have towards my slot I'd prefer to be resolved through conversation instead of reading stuff and being like 'oh is Dann gonna vote me cause he thinks AGar died for reads'

Dann, I know it's my word vs. unwnd, but if there's anything that should convince you, it's this post. Town has nothing to hide in their ISO.

[Kazyan]

I don't know if you've been paying attention but I am very keen on the interpretation between scummy behavior and misunderstanding. If town all played a perfect game then mafia would never win and we'd be able to sort out who's scum and who's town just by fundamental tells. It's not like that however, therefore you end up killing some of your fellow town. I think for me personally, I want to give someone the chance to prove their innocence. I tried this multiple times with 2ndchosen but at some point I have to just make a decision. This is not necessarily related to me, but it does envelop my behavior towards other players in the game, where it's not that being wrong makes me feel bad, it's being wrong and knowing if I just understood someone a little better I could've been right.

For what it's worth, I do believe that your stance on intepretation/misunderstanding is genuine, and that you actually do that in both your towngame and scumgame.

But, to Dann, notice that this policy--prioritizing the cleanup of misunderstandings--does not actually preclude looking over ISOs. You can do both, and looking over ISOs to figure out where a misunderstanding started would actually help.

[Kazyan]

again sorry for spaghetti quotes. I've no clue why it went again

I'm almost sure that it has to do with that Q+ button.

[Kazyan]

Okay, so I did some extremely self-referential thinking. I think it's advantageous (or at least neutral) for the town in every possible scenario for the remaining votes to be submitted in the following order:

2ndchosen1 (third vote)
Lunar (fourth vote)
Dannflor (hammer)

Is everyone okay with voting in this order?

[Kazyan]

The point is that if the scumteam is somehow unwnd/2ndchosen1, the order is maximally inconvenient for 2ndchosen1 to surprise-change his vote to hammer me. He would have to wait for Lunar to vote, and then change his vote before Dannflor decides what to do. This order also does not get in the way of town's goals in the case of any other team.

But the actual purpose of the proposal was to gauge reactions. If 2ndchosen1 questioned it and Lunar didn't, that would tell me I needed to more seriously consider the case of unwnd/2ndchosen1 instead of death tunneling on unwnd/Lunar. But that didn't happen--instead, everyone except for Dannflor questioned the order, and with all respect to Dannflor, his reaction to the proposal would not provide me with any information about the scumteam. So I didn't gain any extra information about the different motivations between Lunar and 2ndchosen1.

Therefore, go ahead and do whatever, I guess. I'm going to stop quietly tearing my hair out over the "but what if it

is

2ndchosen1???" possibility and just accept that if we execute unwnd tonight, I will use my last shot on Lunar and leave the rest to Datisi.

[Kazyan]

I think Dann might faint from the pressure if we keep arguing

This is one hell of a hot seat to sit in when you apparently expected to be killed during Night 2 at the latest

[Kazyan]

For the record, I said "last shot" because I'm a 3-shot vigilante (not that it actually matters how many I have left), and I already used my first two shots on Penguin and Gamma.

[Kazyan]

For the record, I said "last shot" because I'm a 3-shot vigilante (not that it actually matters how many I have left), and I already used my first two shots on Penguin and Gamma.

why didn't you claim this before?

It wasn't relevant information until unwnd reached super hard to spin a word choice into a scumtell.

By the way, are we seriously going to let that "monologuing without purpose" comment about me go, when my post was directly answering Lunar's question? (From unwnd's scum partner, no less, so the discrediting is extra indicative of unwnd being scum.)

[Kazyan]

I looked into your wall Dann and I imagine a lot of the conclusions you make is that it makes sense for Kaz but like

What if I was the one doing this? Claiming 3-shot. Asking if there's a SK. Saying stuff like 'we typically don't vote the claimed doc' just add 2ndchosen into this. You'd probably think it's scum right? Or at the least, off my fucking rocker.

This would be an interesting point if you were the one saying these things, but you aren't, so this is another reach that doesn't actually matter. I'm the one saying them, and these things do make sense for me as town, because that's what I'm doing.

[Kazyan]

The crux of unwnd's argument about 2ndchosen1 appears to be that there's a failure to create dynamics among the hypothetical Hayker/Kazyan/2ndchosen1 scum team, because we're all familiar with each other. (unwnd did not specifically say that the dynamics would be among us in 1601, but does in 1540, so that seems to be the implication.) There are multiple problems with this point of view. Firstly, you'd expect this scumteam not to have as much of a problem creating dynamics with town if this is the case, so to point out a lack of dynamics in that group, you have to assume (or show) that there

are

dynamics with the rest of the hypothetical town. unwnd focuses on 2ndchosen1 specifically. The reason that you can't find 2ndchosen1 having long conversations with me or Hayker is that 2ndchosen1 is quiet

overall

. here are the number of posts in the current remaining players' ISOs at the time of writing:

Dannflor: 270
unwnd: 173
Kazyan: 117
Lunar Martian: 105
2ndchosen1:

51

So, if course 2ndchosen1 looks suspicious if you're speculating about total possible-scumbuddy content instead of the possible-scumbuddy-to-townie content ratio--he has less than half as many posts as literally every other remaining player in the game. Looking for a lack of dynamics with scum buddies as compared to townies is thus not indicative of any team.

Secondly, if you go through my ISO, a lazy Ctrl+F brings up 2ndchosen1 45 times. It brings up Hayker 64 times. (These numbers are immediately outdated by me publishing this post, though.) Hayker has been long-since eliminated, but in his 27-post ISO, he mentions me in six posts. We have no shortage of content between us, so the suggestion that we do is unfounded, except for in the trivial case of 2ndchosen1 being quiet overall.

[Kazyan]

I'm preparing a wall o' text too, but I'll wait for 2ndchosen1 to answer Datisi's prod before saying anything, and will shelve the wall if Dann makes his final decision before I can post it.

I agree that the last look at the game should, in fact, be the last look. If we hold off on voting for much longer, the remaining time in the day will approach one prod interval.

[Kazyan]

unwnd is attacking 2ndchosen1 not to show the lack of a partner, but because unwnd has run out of options with which to attack me. The options have run out because you've found the proof, in my behaviors, that I am town. So 2ndchosen1 is the last resort of a losing scumteam.

Will still wait for 2ndchosen1's input before walling, though.

[Kazyan]

I'm starting to wonder if it even matters at this point tbh, because 2ndchosen1 still hasn't responded to the prod, and I know what timezone he's in IRL. He's probably going to miss the replacement deadline, and if that happens, we might end up with a no-elim because I doubt the replacement would be willing to make a snap decision.

[Kazyan]

If I were scum, I would have asked who unwnd thought it was. But I kept quiet to continue avoiding vighunting attention, as I did with the SK questiin.

[Kazyan]

The ramification is that it's a BOGO if a townie takes the bait. You say "hey, I know who it is", and a townie says "who?", and you tell them it's someone you want gone. Then you nightkill them that night, and then next day, you point out that such person mysteriously died after being suspected of being vig. Thus, the townie who asked about it suddenly looks very suspicious, and you get that townie voted off.

[Kazyan]

Dann

I'm getting exhausted after arguing with unwnd for days, and 2ndchosen1 is clearly not showing up

How much do you want your homework to be done

[Kazyan]

I'm not doing this for another three IRL days, or however long this gets extended for a newcomer to get up to speed on a 67-page game.

[Kazyan]

I'm just happy it's over, because these last few days have been killing me.

I apologize to the town for doing the wrongest possible thing every step of the way and getting into an Ultimate Final Battle that was doomed from the start. I guess that's why people normally start with Newbie games.

[Kazyan]

Byt man, the chaos strategy is ridiculously effictive. I'm a lot happier that it's that, rather than Lunar simply killing everyone who scumread him, because this forum has had a decade of metagame evolution amd if

that

still worked...

[Kazyan]

Penguin, I give up. What's this D&D reference you mentioned repeatedly in the dead thread? i can't find the crumb

[Kazyan]

Wait, I just got it. Bard. Jack of all trades. Ok.

I'll stop stressposting now

[Kazyan]

It was a good setup, yeah. Thanks, Datisi. I liked the IC Jailkeeper Enabler combination; hiding from the Mafia to protect Dannflor seemed cool at the time, even though we were bamboozled.

[Kazyan]

On late D3 and D4, I kept trying to come up with something to help distinguish between players, but there's this hard-to-break symmetry between town and scum when you're deeply speculating, and a layer of WIFOM between every single step of what-ifery. The best I could do was that post-order suggestion--I had like three layers of theory of mind on an Excel flowchart before I finally found something that could possibly break it. So this game required a tremendous amount of brainpower to help me narrow the probabilities at all, and even then, I went into D4 saying we should yeet Lunar.

How does this compare to the Newbie queue?

[Kazyan]

I'm definitely going to review dead players' reads in the future.