Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[Imperium]

but for real it actually pisses me off when people hold me to some absurd standard, e.g. PYP X/Y I/M, where i had a meltdown when someone asked me why i hadn't caught scum and wound up in a pathetic tunnel as a result: viewtopic.php?f=51&t=84707

frankly in most of those games i feel my play was somewhere between mediocre and dosghit

was gonna try to throw together a readlist but not really in the mood anymore

I'm not asking you why you haven't caught scum though. I don't think I'm holding you to some impossible standard. You know I have a lot of respect for you and your town game; like this isn't new. I'm looking for your wheels to be turning through a town perspective, and that's not what I'm seeing.

Like the interactions make no sense.

You bring up the Dunn argument about egging on, I point out my issues with that, and instead of interacting with that you say it's not fair to expect you to remember details. Dude, you're using that to scumread me and you don't even care to see if it's right.

You act like it's odd that I didn't have solid scum reads early in the game, and I point out an interaction with you in a previous game to show that it's not that odd for me and you know that, and your response is to say it's not fair for me to expect you to act in the same way in that game.

Do I expect you to get everything right, no. But I do think that if you were actually trying to solve the game, and if you were actually scum reading me, your interactions with me would be different.

[Imperium]

And I really really want you to be town peta, and I keep trying to find any reason why you are.

[unwnd]

Is it wrong to have empathy? Maybe. Maybe I could be more rigorous and go 'yeah Tammycho, you're absolutely right about Peta. Don't let him get away.' I don't think that however, and instead I want to give peta a chance (and in turn, you) to resolve yourslef before I have to make that costly decision. I'll say one thing about peta's responses and I believe right now they are not

indicative of alignment

. Like, I completely understand where peta is coming from 99.9% of the time. I don't see his response as grimy. It fucking sucks to have a few good towngames then just be forced into BoP because it makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. I play mafia and I want to be given the same opportunity as everyone else, good or bad. It just feels like right now you're bringing out a case on peta that would belong way way later in the game, maybe with associative in mind.

[Imperium]

was gonna try to throw together a readlist but not really in the mood anymore

Actually this response from peta signifies why I think BoP'ing him is a bad look. He's just going to get more defensive, and in turn even if your read is correct I'm pretty sure peta is at least halfway decent to retain spew if he's getting locked into a 1v1 with a charismatic townie.

I wish I were charismatic. Nacho makes sense when he talks, I just get really emotional and sputter nonsense that people easily dismiss because when I get frustrated I just sound like an utter fool.

[unwnd]

I wasn't just kissing your ass Tammy when I said I liked your walls. You have good diction and are understandable. I try to do the same

I really do think however now is not the day to bury peta, and you should let him prove he's townie. Like, that just gives all of us more to work with too. You're forcing him into a 1v1 and now he's just gonna continue to recoil

[MUSHSHAGANA]

My feeling while it was happening was that there was an effort by scum to get cakez shot to get him to shoot us for the win.

Yeah this is kinda what I'm thinking too and SirCakez said something similar I think. That is, if Nacho is right about his solve. Duchess, Norfolk, NM, and WhemeStar have all been pointing at SirCakez today. I assumed that is where he is getting that solve from but I see it has more to do with peta.

At first SirCakez being such a big center of focus made me think he is gf, but you guys are making a lot of sense.

I want to be the sanity check on this whole line of thinking, folks:

/I/ scumread SirCakez. I think he's a less excellent shot than petapan, but he's my second in line there. So if you're townreading me, but you're scumreading others purely on the basis of Cakez being their scumread, I'd say double-check your reasoning.

I don't like any of the slots being pointed at (well, I like Duchess's playstyle but they're pretty much an undeniable scumread for me at this stage) but that doesn't mean they're necessarily /all/ scum. After all, wouldn't that presume a very bad scumteam, to put almost all their people on the potential flip? That's a hell of a gamble, going just shy of all in on a not-even-guaranteed miselimination, since they can't simply wagon to completion and can only hope to /influence/ the shot, not to direct it. Not to mention the risk of Cakez twigging to the tactic and going on a venge-shot spree...
Or: Cakez could be the scum getting bussed on the back of a scumread from a couple strong townies. I and, if you're capable of humoring it (I am not), Duchess would be the town here -- I'm not about to claim it's /likely/, it's merely a possible world.
Yet another scenario is Cakez just being a very scummy townie that is mostly being pushed by town so scum can posture around the flip. Easily the least likely possible scenario, but it isn't impossible.

Just... Step back and double-check that line of thinking.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Also: no, unwnd, I also am hoping for petapan to eat lead. I just think my argument against his slot was ignored for a reason and isn't going to sway anyone at this point, so I'm waiting for petapan to do stuff I can actually convince people with.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Sorry, last should have been directed at RLotus. My memory is failing! Don't get old, kids.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Sorry, last should have been directed at RLotus. My memory is failing! Don't get old, kids.

[RLotus]

Under the presumption that both Imperium (who I read town) and SirCakez (who I'm kinda sorta starting to read town) are town, surely

some

of the scumteam would want to influence a shot on one of those slots. Since I had Imperium #2 town and SirCakez #3 scum on my reads list yesterday, it seems logical that trying for SirCakez would be the play.

[ScrewTheTells]

Why do you think they can't both be town?

Okay if we're judging this 1v1 without context then yes they could both be town. But I think the way they pushed for Cakez, us, and now peta is scummy, because I think that's 3 pushes where Imperium just doubles down effort on a new dubious target every time the last push fails. If my memory is correct, they only come up with the reasoning for the next target only after abandoning the last target. I think their attack on Cakez was bad. I think their attack on me was bad. So far it looks like a repeat with petapan, so if they get petapan to flip town then I'm not letting them get away with a simple "oopsie again". I'd say shoot them.

STT I thought I already said this but I was looking at bottom five for people in common and most had (Wheme, duchess, nm, imperium)

Yeah you did answer, at the time I was basically thinking "but those lists don't have those people all in common, the only ones they have in common were Norfolk and Duchess".

I just looked at the lists again and realized that they are at most only off from your own list by one suspect, it just happens to be different suspects between the lists. Okay I just made a mistake there. Thought I caught you in some bad deductive logic but nope, nothing here, it's a nothing burger.

No, no. I read it. Your reasoning presented to me just seemed perfunctory, so I asked you directly because raw interaction has it's purpose in-between walls.

Fair enough answer for that example, but what about when you asked Imperium for scum list when they already posted their whole scum team? I don't get that either. I don't understand your explanation in #1401. "Perfunctory" is a great word! That's how I feel about these from you actually!

Anyway don't interpret this as saying that unwnd is likely scum, I'm just dropping what stands out to me, before Lotus shoots.

If you're interested in meta, here's a few recent iso's of Peta's town games

Thanks, I plan to read them when I have the time and motivation.

[Imperium]

Cakes misrepped the tucking bell out of me, wouldn’t answer the questions asked of him and then moved the goalposts in his argument with me all while acting pompous like I’m the one with the problem.

I’m in the ticking twilight zone of poor comprehension and bad arguments are somehow right.

/(&7;6644578)(:/;()!’mmmjb

[MUSHSHAGANA]

For RLotus:

Some, sure. Almost the whole team is my thing: there are what, only 5 scumreads on Cakez if we take you out of the running? If you presume 4 of them are scum, you might as well go whole hog and throw me in there too. You'd be wrong and a fool, but functionally there's no difference in this setup under these conditions between gambling your entire team and gambling your entire team minus one, and the extra weight might tip the balance, right? Go big or go home?

Some things to consider.

Cakez was never a likely shot from where I'm standing. It's why I just sort of shut up about it; you have the wheel and you aren't going to be aiming the car at Cakez unless Cakez throws his hard-earned positioning out on some stupid gambit, case closed, time to sort other slots. Why would scum go /all in/ on one of the (if we presume Cakez is town) most stubborn and paranoid slots in the player list if they won't even get it shot?

Cakez is also one of the highest content slots -- Imperium, myself and STT are the ones who beat Cakez in wordcount, I don't think anyone else does yet (petapan might be aiming to). That means that if Cakez goes down... hey, remember the thing that caused me to flip my shit at petapan? The whole, "we might be able to sort some slots by interactions with Lotus now that we have alignment confirmation" bit? That gets so much worse for scum if any of the high content slots that were pushing the limit on Day 1 go down. Me, Cakez, Imperium, STT? Any of us flipping green would seal at least one red slot's fate, I think. Why go all in on that? Maybe they didn't think of it, but I did bring it up early in the dayphase, and if my read on petapan is correct, scum were aware of it. So if scum knew about that risk AND scum thought they stood a chance of getting the slot shot, why would they take /that/ risk?

Now, yeah. WIFOM applies. I'm not saying the world being posited is IMPOSSIBLE. I'm more just saying that I don't see many other /solid/ arguments for the non-Duchess slots being actually scum (so far it's been all "lurkers suck" and "bad reads"), and that it's an awfully huge gamble for the scumteam to make no matter WHAT their perception of the game state and their goal was. And that makes me think that something is wrong, that there is active misdirection going on.

I'm not saying don't continue down that road, I'm saying check for hazards on the path before you commit to that solve.

[RLotus]

Now, yeah. WIFOM applies. I'm not saying the world being posited is IMPOSSIBLE. I'm more just saying that I don't see many other /solid/ arguments for the non-Duchess slots being actually scum (so far it's been all "lurkers suck" and "bad reads"), and that it's an awfully huge gamble for the scumteam to make no matter WHAT their perception of the game state and their goal was. And that makes me think that something is wrong, that there is active misdirection going on.

Yeah, absolutely fair. I don't plan on going rambo, we will see as the game evolves.

[WhemeStar]

Word count =/ content

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Given my point was to do with the /amount/ of content produced, wordcount absolutely correlates. You'd have to argue one of us wrote almost nothing but fluff before it stops bolstering my point.

Which I absolutely encourage you to try to do. Because it will be /really/ funny to see those mental gymnastics.

[Imperium]

STT might be scum after all.

[Imperium]

It just feels to comical at this point.

[SirCakez]

honestly I feel like we are spinning our wheels this game
Lotus just needs to take the shot we can only talk so much before we need flips

[SirCakez]

Imperium's AtE towards me has gotten so strong that I honestly wonder if they would be pulling this as scum

[SirCakez]

and I don't remember feeling this way in Flying Scumsman way back when about them

[SirCakez]

also I still think it's so fucking shady that Norfolk tried to pile me in as scum with Duchess when I've wanted Duchess shot all day
That was a huge misrep

[SirCakez]

ow, yeah. WIFOM applies. I'm not saying the world being posited is IMPOSSIBLE. I'm more just saying that I don't see many other /solid/ arguments for the non-Duchess slots being actually scum (so far it's been all "lurkers suck" and "bad reads"), and that it's an awfully huge gamble for the scumteam to make no matter WHAT their perception of the game state and their goal was. And that makes me think that something is wrong, that there is active misdirection going on.

this is such a good point and it reminds me of something I was thinking about the other day
It just feels like scum are in control of this game in some manner
I don't know where exactly to ascribe this feeling to. It probably means my townreads are still off.

[SirCakez]

It just feels to comical at this point.

What is this in reference to?

[RLotus]

Imperium's AtE towards me has gotten so strong that I honestly wonder if they would be pulling this as scum

What is Imperium doing locking themselves into all these 1v1s then?