Open 842: Diffusion of Power [Postgame]

[imaginality]

Apologies, I didn't expect this game to start as soon as it did. I'm away on a family holiday returning home this evening.

I have at least read through the game to this point. If anyone has something specific they want me to comment on let me know, otherwise I'll share my own thoughts on what's caught my eye when I'm back home later. (Later being 12 hours or so from now.)

[imaginality]

So from my read-through, these are the players I'm suspicious of to various degrees:

Cephrir

looks a bit suspicious to me, there's been a few instances of Cephrir commenting negatively on something without following through on it. Seems like the intent is to stir up suspicion rather than scum-hunt.

I'm also suspicious of

Ydrasse

. Need to go back and get the quotes but I remember being pinged at least a couple of times.

I think if anything

fua

's claim today is slightly +scum rather than +town as fua hinted it's a late-day action so it seems like it could be designed to encourage us to keep fua around, while also making docs likely to target fua which is fua is scum gives scum freer rein to kill whoever they like. Definitely feeling a bit wary about that.

--

The players I get good townvibes from so far are

Shirou

,

morph

and

numberQ

. I feel okay about

GuiltyLion

too. I don't quite recall what the case was against him but I do recall it didn't seem great to me.

--

Having a hard time figuring out where I stand on

Amazonian

and

Tejate

. They will be my focus for digging into tomorrow

I was interested in the way

implosion

defended Ydrasse and NSG in post 632. This is more of an 'if NSG or Ydrasse flip scum, I'd look harder at implosion' thing. I don't see implosion as being as questionable as the players I mentioned above.

redtea

and

northsidegal

fall into TBC, need more data here.

--
Mech thoughts:

I'm on board with the 'cops claim results at daystart' plan.

On a different note:

Assuming a 5-5 split, we have on average 97% chance of at least one pair of Town cops (i.e. cops who have the same action on the same night), and 78% chance of two pairs (or one triplet). Even if it's a 4-6 split, the 4 town players have 81% chance of at least one pair.
The same analysis applies to docs, of course.
So objectively, for the town as a whole, we can't really tell a lot from the existence of any particular pair.

However, subjectively it's a little different. Subjectively, there's 1-80%^4 = 60% chance of you being paired with a town player if you're part of five town players with that role (and 50% if there are four of you, 70% if there are six of you). So someone claiming the same role and night as you gives you at least a slight reason to suspect them over baseline suspicion (3/12 = 25%).

[imaginality]

I (like to think I) usually play with more charisma as scum. Or at least with more silliness like my quirky posts like in Guardians and 8-ball.

I'm often slow to get going as either alignment (first days back at work post holidays also doesn't help). Never going to be an uberposter but I do get into things more once I get going.

Anyhow, enough about me, let's talk about me some more!

neither redtea nor imaginality have posted a single thought I think is more likely to come from town or something that feels like it's meant to do any real solving, and I definitely didn't like that massive imaginality reads wall, feels very much like a scum who missed the start of the game, doesn't have a footing, and trying to do one big reads post to keep scrutiny at bay. There's no vote, there's no pressure or serious attempt to open a dialogue with anybody, and the bit about "not remembering the case against GL" felt like it was meant to buddy me and it's decidedly not inquisitive in a Bad Way - town should be going back and trying to see who is voting me and why, if that's how they feel.

If you think that post was a wall then you're not going to like my posting style, I think.

The reads list was more to share where I am and see if people found any of it interesting.
Opening a dialogue would require me to be around for longer than I was at that moment. Well, not necessarily I guess, asynchronous dialogue is possible but I get more from back and forth when I'm online at the same time as the other player(s), especially in fastpaced games.

The not remembering the case on you was my way of saying "I didn't find it convincing or I'd have remembered the good point(s), but it didn't generate scumpings either, more just wrong town vibe."

[imaginality]

I think if anything

fua

's claim today is slightly +scum rather than +town as fua hinted it's a late-day action so it seems like it could be designed to encourage us to keep fua around, while also making docs likely to target fua which is fua is scum gives scum freer rein to kill whoever they like. Definitely feeling a bit wary about that.

How likely do you think this kind of play actually is?

The cop claim didn’t surprise me actually, they made a post some time back that I read as a probable cop tell.

I can see a single scum player in a team of three making that play. Like as a preplanned tactic. Fake a coptell, claim cop, it would be bad if it's a regular cop but one-shot it seems pretty doable.

It's not enough in and of itself to paint fua as scum, but I definitely don't think it should be getting read as a townpoint.
I do admit that fua's other posting hasn't worried so much.

[imaginality]

On whether to lim inactive slightly scummy players over scummier active players, I think I'd rather push to lim the active player if there's a risk of them driving the game too much.

Otherwise in general I'd rather lim an inactive player because if nothing else it annoys me if an inactive player can coast through to victory as scum.

I lost as town in XD! Mafia because we didn't lim an inactive player (Clementine) so I have recent history of being burned by that (especially annoying as I'd been pushing for their lim).

However! In this game we have cops so it's easier to get reads on inactive players if we want to. So in this game I think the better lim is whichever player's flip will give most information based on their interactions with others. That's probably more likely an active player but sometimes an inactive player might have been defended hard by someone for example.

[imaginality]

Whoever corrected me on the maths, I think this is a simpler way of figuring it that avoids the Bayesian logic:

There are 3 to 5 other townies who could be the same night and same role as me. Average 4.

There are 3 scum who could claim to be same role and night as me. Average 1.5 since they might instead claim different role to me.

Assuming scum claim their night at random then it's 1.5/(1.5+4.5) = 27.3% chance it's scum claiming it. So it is more likely than the 25% baseline chance, but only slightly, not significantly like I first thought.

The assumption that scum will claim their night at random (rather than e.g. being biased towards claiming later nights) is possibly questionable but that gets wifomy.

[imaginality]

Ebwop: 1.5/(1.5+4)

[imaginality]

I can't go in-depth on why but I'm actually reconsidering Tejate at the moment.

He's back to the "I want to see more from" pool except this time I think I can sort him better than the almost coin-flip read I had on him up to now (part of me before thinking he was towny for X and the other one thinking he was scummy for Y).

I see he's made a dozen or so posts since then. Are you still mid-reconsideration or have you come to a conclusion (for now)?

[imaginality]

@AL: I didn't say I don't like asynchronous dialogue but when we're getting like 15 pages in a day it tends to get overtaken by events.
And my other point about it is it gives people time to consider their reply whereas when you're both online and having a back and forth there's more chance for the person you're talking with to slip up.

Re. my games, my older ones are on my wiki, I played roughly 2008-2012 then barely at all til about six months ago.

[imaginality]

This purely reactive post makes me think you're caught up and perfectly happy with the game state / not doing anything.

Right now I'm rereading morph and implosion in iso so I can answer AL's question about implosion

[imaginality]

Also like how do you propose anyone have a synchronous dialogue with you if you are infrequently here.

This week in particular being first week back at work is less representative of me. In general 6am to 12pm UTC is the best time for me to be having back and forths

[imaginality]

This purely reactive post makes me think you're caught up and perfectly happy with the game state / not doing anything.

Right now I'm rereading morph and implosion in iso so I can answer AL's question about implosion.

As for the gamestate though, yeah.
-We're still like 10 days til deadline
-the game's active
-no danger of anyone I townread getting quicklimmed
-not worried that people aren't impressed by my posts so far as I expect to be able to change their view over the course of the day

I'm not 'not doing anything' but I don't feel the need to shake things up

[imaginality]

Feel free to explain it to me. I may well have misunderstood.

I believe he is saying that he is offput by morph and he can name the reason. Or maybe that he knows why morph is offput by him and it's because they're scum?

Oh, I bet you read this as talking about himself which actually is more directly supported by the text.

Instead of asking why he just says ‘I feel the same way’ which is just weird and an attempt to brush off suspicion through OMGUS and undermining Morph’s own statement, which I think is scummy.

Hero solve is Ceph/Implosion/Tejate. Clearly this is correct.

I first read that post the same way as Cephir's first sentence - that he distrusts morph for a reason he can name.

@implosion can you confirm what you meant?

[imaginality]

The implosion-morph interactions confirm for me that I was right to put morph higher than implosion in my reads.

Morph on implosion

:

There are several points where morph seems to be genuinely trying to sort implosion and conscious implosion could be either scum or town. For example, in post 1097. And the meta discussion in
post 731 where morph said implosion wouldn't know what morph was looking for felt like a town pov.

Morph didn’t comment on implosion specifically in their readslist posts
post 561 and post 1040. Though that is arguably explained by implosion being null in their first list, while before and after the second they said their reason for being suspicious of implosion was hard to put into words. Though in 1077 they said they 'feel strongly something's up with him' which seems stronger than a mild scumlean even if they can't put it into words?

implosion on morph

:

implosion seems to be relying a bit on "well my D1 reads are junk" to justify not efforting hard today. I didn't like the sequence of posts from 906 to 908:

Genuinely I think I haven't been putting all that much effort into actually figuring things out in this game, I've mostly been just vibing. And part of the reason for that is that I am convinced that my reads are like, <=rand on d1.

Followed up by a vote on nsg that felt performative:

VOTE: nsg

Out of principle rather than really feeling like it's a good vote.

I call it performative because it came right after:

I think it comes down to getting no sense he's actually trying to figure us out.

Does it matter if I figure you out right now? It's not like people would ever be on board limming you today. Can't I just be content with my vague suspicion that has a significant chance of being resolved via you being nightkilled?

Overall it seems to me like implosion is downplaying his ability to scumhunt D1 as a way of justifying why he's not tried hard to sort morph.

However at the same time implosion carries on stirring up concerns on morph:

Yes I meant that I found morph offputting and I know why because I've explained why.

and criticising others' reasons for townreading them e.g. post 1076.

Earlier in post 633 he says specifically he doesn't think he can read morph. In post 761 implosion also says he's "more concerned" about morph. It doesn't quite fit to me with #905.

I had initially thought implosion's earlier vote on morph could have been a move to read from morph's reactions but it wasn't really followed up on. And in post 520, implosion says the vote was partly because morph had been on the sidelines to that point, but a. I don't think that was particularly true, even if morph did say they'd been holding back a little and b. that sounds reactive rather than an attempt to elicit a reaction.

I do think implosion seems to be trying a bit more to sort some other players and implosion's best post in relation to morph is probably his analysis of morph's readslist in post 632.

Implosion is also more concerned with how morph is reading him than vice versa. He seemed to subtly fish for morph to townread him in post 325. And tries to dispel morph's doubts about him in the sequence from post 1083.

To be fair he is open about this:

You're not going to convince me that this entirely an exercise of jumping at shadows. If I come to that conclusion it will on my own.

And as for this I still am going to make every attempt to do so, partially because I still need to continue sorting you as well and partially because of a very primal need to nag people who are scumreading me when I can.

But I don't see how getting morph to townread him helps him to sort morph?

Overall, if only one of these two is scum my money's still on implosion. He's a good player but I have more questions about his play here than in Guardians where he was town and pretty transparently so (albeit I was scum that game so had an informed perspective).

I didn't see anything disproving the possibility of implosion and scum being buddies (the unexplained doubts on implosion could be a way for scum!morph to conveniently distance a bit, similarly implosion's vote on morph). I do feel good abour morph's play overall though.

[imaginality]

How are your reads from your first list holding up?

Quoted for reference:

Spoiler: first list

So from my read-through, these are the players I'm suspicious of to various degrees:

Cephrir

looks a bit suspicious to me, there's been a few instances of Cephrir commenting negatively on something without following through on it. Seems like the intent is to stir up suspicion rather than scum-hunt.

I'm also suspicious of

Ydrasse

. Need to go back and get the quotes but I remember being pinged at least a couple of times.

I think if anything

fua

's claim today is slightly +scum rather than +town as fua hinted it's a late-day action so it seems like it could be designed to encourage us to keep fua around, while also making docs likely to target fua which is fua is scum gives scum freer rein to kill whoever they like. Definitely feeling a bit wary about that.

--

The players I get good townvibes from so far are

Shirou

,

morph

and

numberQ

. I feel okay about

GuiltyLion

too. I don't quite recall what the case was against him but I do recall it didn't seem great to me.

--

Having a hard time figuring out where I stand on

Amazonian

and

Tejate

. They will be my focus for digging into tomorrow

I was interested in the way

implosion

defended Ydrasse and NSG in post 632. This is more of an 'if NSG or Ydrasse flip scum, I'd look harder at implosion' thing. I don't see implosion as being as questionable as the players I mentioned above.

redtea

and

northsidegal

fall into TBC, need more data here.

Implosion I have more clearly as a scumlean now.

Cephrir argued my suspicion of him is a playstyle thing. Well maybe but if so it's a convenient playstyle for scum to hide behind. Today's posts read a bit better maybe but I still have doubts whether Cephrir's really trying to solve.

I liked northsidegal's posts today, definitely leaning town on her now. I also liked Amazonian's recent posts and agree with the idea that if Amazonian and morph are both strongly townreading each other I can piggy back on their reads there, for now.

Ydrasse seemed pretty focused on numberQ so the readslist in
post 720, with redtea and morph at the bottom, seemed to come out of the blue a little. And there's still some other reason I don't like her posts, chalk it down to gut for now.

Tej seems fun and shouldn't be limmed today for that reason alone. But more seriously, in the to and fros he's had with other slots I've felt in tune with where he's coming from. So I lean town on Tej now. In contrast there's a few times I have felt confused by numberQ's take on things.

The discussion of how Shirou is scary good as scum has tempered my townread a little.

I'd say I'm now more like this:

Shirou, GuiltyLion
Tejate, Amazonian, morph, northsidegal
fua,numberQ, redtea
Cephrir,implosion, Ydrasse

Not Voting (6): imaginality, morph the cat, redtea, Tejate Raichu, Ydrasse, Shirou

hot take, not voting makes people harder to solve and gives less content to read them off of than the spectrum of activity/inactivity

I'd like everyone not voting to explain in their next post if they'd be willing to vote redtea and why or why not

So it wasn't my next post but I wouldn't have voted redtea yet even before Shirou claimed a strong town tell on him. I don't think wagons on low activity players really increase activity a lot. I'd want to watch how they play for a couple more days or see a bad post from redtea before voting there.

VOTE: implosion

[imaginality]

You folk are nuts.

Actually a couple of you are scum and the others are nuts.

Actually a couple of you are scum and the others are understandably not super-impressed by my play today.

Look at the speed of this wagon vs redtea though. I think the difference is potentially informative.

[imaginality]

Looking a little more at imaginality's updated reads list.

Cephrir argued my suspicion of him is a playstyle thing. Well maybe but if so it's a convenient playstyle for scum to hide behind. Today's posts read a bit better maybe but I still have doubts whether Cephrir's really trying to solve.

This reminds me intensely of how he was giving his reads in the guardians game. Specifically this post; there was a ton of stuff in that post that was essentially a list of reasons to read a player in both directions without an actual commitment to a read. Here his take on Ceph is "he gave this argument, but the argument seems convenient, but he's better today, but i have my doubts". He does give an ordered reads list but the wishy-washiness of the rhetoric is still there and feels like scum who wants to call someone scum while giving themself a rhetorical out of sorts. It's sort of an IIoA thing to a degree as well, describing the things that Ceph has done and what he thinks of those things but not exactly why he comes to a particular conclusion based on those.

This game is drastically different from guardians as a setup which is important to keep in mind in this comparison though.

Sue me for having a nuanced take. If someone was obvscum we wouldn't have waited 40 pages for our first wagon (and sorry to disappoint but we're going to have to wait even longer for our first wagon on scum).

As for description my posts are intended partly to share what I'm noticing and also convenient for me to refer back to (I don't have a notes PT). I understand that might seem waffly but when i actually have a case to push I'm more focused.

Also weird is he says that his Shirou read has been tempered a little, but then still lists Shirou as one of two people in his top tier of townreads?

Yep, I still see him as town but understand there is reason to be wary. So my confidence in my read being right has lessened a little.

[imaginality]

Tej seems fun and shouldn't be limmed today for that reason alone

this statement seems like, wildly out of tune with the rest of your play

If I'm going to have to wade through dozens of pages per RL day I'd rather they be at least somewhat entertaining. It's obviously not the only or primary factor, the above line isn't entirely serious as I said in my post. I also went on to say I get where Tej is coming from with his posts.

Tej seems fun and shouldn't be limmed today for that reason alone. But more seriously, in the to and fros he's had with other slots I've felt in tune with where he's coming from. So I lean town on Tej now.

And if your post was a comment on my posts not being entertaining this game so far, fair enough but I've only made like 10 posts so you can deal with it.

[imaginality]

Look at the speed of this wagon vs redtea though. I think the difference is potentially informative.

Informative of what - are you implying redtea is scum vs you being town with this, or something else?

That was my first thought. On reflection it could also be because we've had that discussion about the need for wagons.
I also noticed both Ydrasse and Cephrir got onto both wagons early. So if redtea is scum either my read on them is wrong or they were bussing (or maybe just distancing since it didn't seem super likely that the redtea wagon would lead to a quick lim).

Sue me for having a nuanced take. If someone was obvscum we wouldn't have waited 40 pages for our first wagon (and sorry to disappoint but we're going to have to wait even longer for our first wagon on scum).

There's a difference between nuance and what I'm describing; nuance is being able to point out different factors and then explain how they fit together. You're doing the first part but not the last - there's a missing step between "ceph is doing x things that are scummy, y things that are towny, i think he's better today but still suspicious because z" and him being in the bottom tier of your reads list despite thinking his recent posts are good.

"a bit better maybe" != "good"

Yep, I still see him as town but understand there is reason to be wary. So my confidence in my read being right has lessened a little.

So your confidence has waned, but he's still (roughly tied for) your most confident read in spite of that? Correct me if I'm misinterpreting.[/quote]

Like basically I'm not going to just assume he's obvtown and forget about him, since others have said he can play this well as scum.
Doesn't change the fact I like his play so far.

[imaginality]

I also noticed both Ydrasse and Cephrir got onto both wagons early.

i haven't even voted redtea lmfao

Sorry, I meant implosion. Knew it was two of my scumreads

[imaginality]

Well with Shirou also scumreading me it feels like I should claim now.

I'm a Night 2 Doctor.

That was why I was trying to figure out how much I should be concerned about Ydrasse's claim.

Anyhow it effectively means from an outside point of view there's not much downside to limming me since there'd be a chance Ydrasse and I would be targeting the same player that night anyhow. If Ydrasse is town.

From my point of view of course there is the downside of mislimming a townie.

--

A question for all those scumreading me: who do you think my buddies are?

(If I'm going to be mislimmed I'm keen to try to get as much information from my mislim as possible.)

[imaginality]

If I had to summarize, I would say that town!Imaginality likes to get right into engaging people, pushing and sorting slots, but scum!Imaginality likes to explain his arguments and thought process to the audience (in this case, the town), to appear as someone that has been "busy" solving the game.

To me, imaginality here seems more worried and focused on trying to explain his thought processes and voice all his reads and suspicious than he is in focusing in a few slots that worry him the most. Even when he does focus on certain slots like for example the most recent "case" on implosion, it always feels like he's trying to justify his read on implosion than he is trying to push and engage implosion to clear his doubts about the slot.

I think your read is more a reflection on me having been time limited lately and also having been mostly scum lately.

[imaginality]

This is kinda in fact common behavior though. Town generally doesn't act in so resigned about their own elimination this fast. I think that's still +scum points for imaginality but...it honestly does feel kinda too easy.

Town generally probably thinks they're playing well and don't deserve the pressure on them whereas I recognise my play isn't reflective of me at my best. So I have limited hopes of swinging it round. Especially in a game like this which is more meta heavy than event or mech heavy.

Not to say I won't try though.

[imaginality]

Your idea of "I recognize suspicious on my slot is reasonable" is...very reasonable indeed. However, the issue is that very rarely townies are reasonable. Even if they deserve the pressure and votes, more often than not they get frustrated by it. If you were town here and truly thought this way, you would be kinda the exception rather than the rule of how most people react.

I am a lot calmer than most players on here going by other games I've been in lately.

[imaginality]

So...how come when all your top suspects begin piling up on you, your reaction is to just imply "I'm kinda fine with my elimination as long as we get the most information out of it possible" rather than engage me (one of your top town reads) on why I shouldn't vote with them or something...?

Like, even from a non-meta perspective it feels more like a overwhelmed scum reaction rather than a townie that should be very frustrated and very suspicious of this sudden switch/pile-up on you?

I did say at least two of them are scum. But as I mentioned I'm probably the easiest wagon right now so it's not like it gives me much space to convince others they're scum from the fact of them wagonning me.

The exception is that implosion and Cephrir jumped on both wagons now, which I pointed out.

I also pointed out where implosion misrepped me.

I might have more to say later but this was my work lunch break so I mainly wanted to get my claim out since it's relevant information I think.

[imaginality]

Two things: first, I'd like to do this exercise once again since it seems like imaginality is going to be a very popular wagon. Let's make the assumption that right now, 2 non-voters vote for imaginality right now (which would be hammer) and he flips Doctor. Do you glean anything from this information? And what do you gain information wise if he flips mafia?

Also, is it necessary to really claim your night in this setup? I don't feel like it helps us very much at all.

Explains my early suspicion of Ydrasse and my interest in figuring out the odds.

Also if I'm scum would I be likely to deliberately pick the same night vs a different one? Up to you, I can see it both ways and it would be wifom if I give my view but IF people think it's less likely I'd pick same night as scum rather than pick a different night or claim cop, then that might make them question their vote on me.

[imaginality]

Yes, could say six of you unvote me please? To keep me extra safe from being hammered before morph has caught up.

(I'd like to get numberQ's thoughts about this wagon on record but I know he's away for a few days so not sure if I can forestall the rabid bloodlust of the rest of you for that long.)

[imaginality]

Also my cat puked all over my bed. How's everyone else's night going?

The same, except for "my cat" read "this town" and for "my bed" read "my playslot".

[imaginality]

Whoever corrected me on the maths, I think this is a simpler way of figuring it that avoids the Bayesian logic:

There are 3 to 5 other townies who could be the same night and same role as me. Average 4.

There are 3 scum who could claim to be same role and night as me. Average 1.5 since they might instead claim different role to me.

Assuming scum claim their night at random then it's 1.5/(1.5+4.5) = 27.3% chance it's scum claiming it. So it is more likely than the 25% baseline chance, but only slightly, not significantly like I first thought.

The assumption that scum will claim their night at random (rather than e.g. being biased towards claiming later nights) is possibly questionable but that gets wifomy.

Are you ScrewTheTells by any chance?

Nope. No alts, I haven't even changed my profile pic since I joined.

[imaginality]

Well, not necessarily I guess, asynchronous dialogue is possible but I get more from back and forth when I'm online at the same time as the other player(s), especially in fastpaced games.

We were online at the same time a little bit ago, and you're unsure of us, why no back and forth?

Went pretty quickly back into work meetings alas.

[imaginality]

I think if anything

fua

's claim today is slightly +scum rather than +town as fua hinted it's a late-day action so it seems like it could be designed to encourage us to keep fua around, while also making docs likely to target fua which is fua is scum gives scum freer rein to kill whoever they like. Definitely feeling a bit wary about that.

How likely do you think this kind of play actually is?

The cop claim didn’t surprise me actually, they made a post some time back that I read as a probable cop tell.

I can see a single scum player in a team of three making that play. Like as a preplanned tactic. Fake a coptell, claim cop, it would be bad if it's a regular cop but one-shot it seems pretty doable.

It's not enough in and of itself to paint fua as scum, but I definitely don't think it should be getting read as a townpoint.
I do admit that fua's other posting hasn't worried so much.

So the possible cop tell I noted is nowhere a definite tell and one that came from a tenor of a post that I thought sounded like it possibly came from a cop. Even if fua is gambiting as town or scum, I don't think the post I thought it came from was a planned fake cop tell. I think it would be odd for scum at that point to claim for the reason you're suggesting; I was starting to townread fua before that point, and the cop claim just made sense with what I thought of one of their posts.

I don't know if that makes sense. I did not eat edibles but it's past my bedtime and my brain is starting to go gooey.

I think I get what you're saying. Essentially their play felt like a cop would play. Which post was this based on?

[imaginality]

As in which post of fua's gave you the cop vibe?

[imaginality]

As in which post of fua's gave you the cop vibe?

oops meant to respond to this one then too. So, that's not important and I'm not going to share the little things I pick up on and look for when they're not relevant and might not even be right lol. I'm not trying to convince you that fua is a cop moreso I'm trying to understand why you were kinda sounding alarm bells when it seems unlikely for fua to be claiming cop as scum there and trying to determine how much you actually believed it.

In my head it was similar to what whoever it was did about Shirou. In that case it was "hey everyone who thinks Shirou is really towny remember they're really good as scum" which recalibrated some reads.

In my case it was "hey everyone who thinks this cop claim is unlikely to come from scum here are some reasons it could make sense as a scum play".

So not a "fua is scum" but a "I don't think this should be +townpoints for fua"

[imaginality]

Your imaginary pic is turtle-y awesome. Fintastic!

Okay that was a bad pun, in fact a terrible pun. A terri-pun.

Blame my dad for me liking bad puns, my siblings do too, he's the one who tortoise to.

[imaginality]

I've also liked imaginality's posts

What have you liked about them?

[imaginality]

Busy workday here so have just skimmed today's posts but this made me lol:

[Cephrir] keeps posting shit about us that has a casting asparagus from the sidelines feel to it.

It's the cauliflowers you really have to watch out for.

[imaginality]

That was why I was trying to figure out how much I should be concerned about Ydrasse's claim.

Where were you concerned with Ydrasse's claim? I see where you were suspecting her and where you were concerned about fua's claim, but I don't see where you were specifically concerned with Ydrasse's claim.

I deliberately stayed vague about the reason in my post #713 ("I'm also suspicious of Ydrasse. Need to go back and get the quotes but I remember being pinged at least a couple of times.") because I didn't want to out myself as N2 doc at that point. In the background I was trying to figure out how much her claim should make me wary of her hence the probability discussion.

[imaginality]

There seems to be quite a few people going "hmm well I guess imaginality is the best lim for today".

We still have another whole week to deadline, I think there's scum among the people who are taking that line and not continuing to look hard at other players.

[imaginality]

I'm also wary of Tejate proclaiming he was reconsidering me not for the reasons whoever said earlier about Tej being my scumbuddy, but rather with me being town, I see it as a way where Tej can look like he's unsure about my flip without doing anything to push another wagon and giving himself room to rejoin my wagon.

That said, I don't think the timing of Tej's reconsidering post is as suspicious as people are making out though (Shirou in #1494 and maybe someone else earlier?). Like Tej said it's not unreasonable to want to reread someone even in the absence of new content, considering it felt like the game was taking a breather at that moment.

Also, Shirou's argument that Tejate is trying to divert from me falls apart when I flip town. So to my mind there are three possibilities here about why Shirou is pushing this point:

1. Shirou is town and believes he's making a good point against Tejate.
2. Shirou is scum and thinks making it look like Tejate is a plausible buddy for me will help get my mislim over the line
3. Shirou is scumbuddies with Tejate and knows this attack on Tejate will be invalidated once I flip, making Tejate look better than if Shirou hadn't called him scummy over this, while helping them with distancing

(2 and 3 could both be true.)

[imaginality]

Also, Shirou's argument that Tejate is trying to divert from me falls apart when I flip town. So to my mind there are three possibilities here about why Shirou is pushing this point:

1. Shirou is town and believes he's making a good point against Tejate.
2. Shirou is scum and thinks making it look like Tejate is a plausible buddy for me will help get my mislim over the line
3. Shirou is scumbuddies with Tejate and knows this attack on Tejate will be invalidated once I flip, making Tejate look better than if Shirou hadn't called him scummy over this, while helping them with distancing

(2 and 3 could both be true.)

I think it's funny that you need to emphasize "2 and 3 could be true", which are the cases where I would be scum. You listed them as possibilities from the start, doesn't that mean they would all be technically possible anyway?

I mean those two aren't exclusive

[imaginality]

Why do you seem so confident that Ydrasse is telling the truth there?

Where did I say I was 100% confident?

If the maths had worked out that two players having same role same night was uber unlikely I was going to press her as to whether she was serious or not.

The maths showed it's marginal so I didn't see value in pressing her on it (outing myself).

I did lean towards it being true (and still do, though no interest in pressing her about it and in fact think it would be scummy to do so), because in general lying as a townie isn't good down the line, but I'm definitely not 100% sure.

[imaginality]

Didn't want to out myself being doc (until I got wagoned) because it helps scum narrow down who the cops are.

[imaginality]

You're right that adding an option 4 ("both 2 and 3") could have been a clearer way for me to express that point. I disagree that phrasing it the way I did overemphasises the scum!Shirou options any more than adding an option 4 would have, though.

[imaginality]

I'll vote redtea if it does come down to redtea or me, of course, but currently I would rather see implosion or numberQ limmed and I think there's time for that to happen.

numberQ's iso has a lot of caveats, to-dos and minor questions. He backed off his early suspicion of Cephrir. I'm not seeing anything strikingly towny in his posts.

He can prove himself town by voting implosion with me though - how about it, numberQ?

[imaginality]

I'll vote redtea if it does come down to redtea or me, of course, but currently I would rather see implosion or numberQ limmed and I think there's time for that to happen.

numberQ's iso has a lot of caveats, to-dos and minor questions. He backed off his early suspicion of Cephrir. I'm not seeing anything strikingly towny in his posts.

He can prove himself town by voting implosion with me though - how about it, numberQ?

I don't have a feel for the current gamestate except that there's something between you and redtea. How does implosion factor into that? Why do I need to prove myself town to you, and how does an implo vote do that?

If you help get implosion limmed today and he flips scum it would be extremely unlikely you were bussing him, considering how easily you (if scum) can get away with encouraging or acquiescing to mislimming me instead.

I think implosion has a better chance of flipping scum than redtea and I'm wary that people are trying to make this an imaginality vs redtea dilemma when there's still time to coalesce around a better option.

[imaginality]

I'll vote redtea if it does come down to redtea or me, of course, but currently I would rather see implosion or numberQ limmed and I think there's time for that to happen.

numberQ's iso has a lot of caveats, to-dos and minor questions. He backed off his early suspicion of Cephrir. I'm not seeing anything strikingly towny in his posts.

He can prove himself town by voting implosion with me though - how about it, numberQ?

I don't have a feel for the current gamestate except that there's something between you and redtea. How does implosion factor into that? Why do I need to prove myself town to you, and how does an implo vote do that?

If you help get implosion limmed today and he flips scum it would be extremely unlikely you were bussing him, considering how easily you (if scum) can get away with encouraging or acquiescing to mislimming me instead.

I think implosion has a better chance of flipping scum than redtea and I'm wary that people are trying to make this an imaginality vs redtea dilemma when there's still time to coalesce around a better option.

Hmm. From any perspective but yours the exact same thing can be said about you. If I help get you limmed and you flip scum, then it's unlikely I'm bussing there either. This argument is only helpful to anyone who has you as locktown I think, which is not me.

I disagree: because I'm more likely to get limmed there's more incentive for scum to bus me (if I were scum), rather than bus a better placed buddy. So the two lims aren't equivalent.

If you're town, and have suspicions of both me and implosion, supporting limming me is low reward for you, limming implosion is higher reward (in terms of your town cred). Although obviously if you think I'm much scummier than implosion then limming me makes more sense.

[imaginality]

VOTE: imaginality

yeah, I don't like the bargaining for numberQ's vote and I don't really buy the level of projected confidence in his implosion scumread, I think implosion's later play has felt quite townie and earlier whenever imaginality was casing implosion he sounded a lot more doubtful/uncertain than he is acting now

I'm more sure he's scum than I am

[imaginality]

This plea isn't improving my opinion of you

It isn't intended to.
Like I say, if you think I'm clearly scummier than implosion then say so and vote me. My point was if you see us similarly (which was the impression I got from one of your earlier posts) then it makes more sense to lim implosion.

If nothing else, if implosion does turn out to be town I'd almost certainly be tomorrow's lim whereas I have less confidence that implosion would be tomorrow's lim when I flip town.

[imaginality]

VOTE: imaginality

yeah, I don't like the bargaining for numberQ's vote and I don't really buy the level of projected confidence in his implosion scumread, I think implosion's later play has felt quite townie and earlier whenever imaginality was casing implosion he sounded a lot more doubtful/uncertain than he is acting now

I'm more sure he's scum than I am

What even? If you're town that applies to everyone.

Yes of course.

The point is the more it's me on the chopping block the less I need to be sure of my case on someone else to push for them hard. Because the equation in my head is less "should I push this person vs investigating these others" and more "if I don't get momentum going on someone else I'm gonna be limmed".

Or to put it another way, I am only somewhat confident that implosion is more likely scum than GuiltyLion/Cephrir/etc.
But I am greatly confident he's more likely scum than I am.

Idk. This makes sense in my head.

[imaginality]

for what it's worth I don't think imaginality trying to get a wagon on implosion like that is scummy. I would do the same thing regardless of my alignment if I was in his position.

I really do think it was more AI-revealing the fact he didn't react like this from the start

/shrug

Spoiler:

yes this is kinda a prod dodge disguised as content, how did you know?

p-edit: actually fua has a point. If it was only self-preservation he could vote redtea rather than implosion. The unique reason to not do that is if he was that much more confident on implosion flipping scum/redtea being town but...I don't know if I buy he has that much more confidence on implosion huh...

We're at an in between point timewise. If it was like less than four days to deadline then your and fua's point would be right, bur right now I just feel that I want to push for implosion a bit more rather than accept the redtea vs imaginality framing others are trying to funnel this situation into

[imaginality]

Or to put it another way, I am only somewhat confident that implosion is more likely scum than GuiltyLion/Cephrir/etc.

when did I become a scumread? You had me as top town in 1116

I didn't call you a scumread. I picked a couple of names at random since my point was just to illustrate that:
A-C > A-B
A = chance implosion is scum
B = chance any other player are scum
C = chance I'm scum (0% from my pov)

I do have a general sense that I've been less impressed by your posts recently compared with earlier, I wouldn't have you top tier town any more, but as I haven't been particularly focused on you, I think my impression is mainly based on my sense you're happy settling on me and doing less pushing of others.

also, what

exactly

is your read on redtea? You've been very null to scum on them whenever you've talked about them or given a read on them, but you seem Very Confident implosion is more likely to flip red than they are, why do you think redtea is more likely to be town? In 1173 you suggested redtea might be scum because your wagon sprang up much quicker than theirs.

I gave a different take on that in #1179:

Look at the speed of this wagon vs redtea though. I think the difference is potentially informative.

Informative of what - are you implying redtea is scum vs you being town with this, or something else?

That was my first thought. On reflection it could also be because we've had that discussion about the need for wagons.
I also noticed both Ydrasse and Cephrir got onto both wagons early. So if redtea is scum either my read on them is wrong or they were bussing (or maybe just distancing since it didn't seem super likely that the redtea wagon would lead to a quick lim).

Yet you aren't demonstrating any real interest in voting redtea, and saying things like this:

I just feel that I want to push for implosion a bit more rather than accept the redtea vs imaginality framing others are trying to funnel this situation into

as if people are trying to tie your alignments together instead of just independently scumreading/wagoning redtea?

It's not about tying our alignments together, it's the sense that the day is funnelling down into "do we lim imaginality or redtea" rather than continuing to look wider.

That's part of why redtea looks a bit better to me now, because I think if they're scum as well, scum would be keeping more names in the mix unless they're pretty sure of getting me mislimmed over redtea.

For me personally at least I haven't been trying to push for a "redtea vs imaginality" situation, I was pushing redtea cause I thought they were scummy and wanted to see whether people had reasons to vote or not to vote there, had nothing to do with your wagon.
But I do find it weird that you don't claim to townread redtea, yet despite being the leading wagon you're not voting a slot that several other players want limmed in favor of your vanity scumread - it doesn't feel very genuine to me, feels like you're resistant to voting redtea for reasons you aren't willing to share

Why is it a 'vanity scumread'? Isn't that in itself proof you see this as a me vs redtea showdown, despite your earlier demurral?

If I'm wrong and you have reasons to not want to lim redtea, correct me by all means, I just don't see any evidence of it in your ISO.

#1179 was one (players I saw as scummy on their wagon as well as mine). I've given another above. And a couple of their posts since my last readslist have come across as genuine, for example post 1323 doesn't seem likely to come from scum (since it's arguing against a point people were making against me) and post 1512 just felt like it didn't have hidden agenda behind it.

And I know I said this earlier but I also just don't buy your confidence in implosion, this feels very similar to many times I've seen him as town and I don't think the case/reasoning against him that you laid out in 1105 is all that scum-indicative. like how would you really boil down the case against him here when you get to the nuts and bolts of it? he downplayed his ability to play mafia and seems too worried about what morph thinks of him? I don't find it hard to imagine that coming from town

I'll come back to this but off the top of my head:

-feeling like there's hidden agenda to his posts
-feeling like he's less clear than he was in his last game as town, and more selfconscious about how he's being read
-him being on both redtea and me
-feeling like he's not really trying to sort me

[imaginality]

We're at an in between point timewise. If it was like less than four days to deadline then your and fua's point would be right, bur right now I just feel that I want to push for implosion a bit more

rather than accept the redtea vs imaginality framing others are trying to funnel this situation into

what others? and how are they doing so.

I feel like this is how things have worked out so far, but it's not at all clear to me that several players are efforting to make the game come down to you vs redtea.

So I've just reread from page 50 or so and got the quotes.

Though, to some extent, everyone has implicitly let this move towards me vs redtea, because there's been no votes that whole time except a couple on redtea and GL's one on me. So that has let the game drift on closer towards deadline, which implicitly narrows it to a me vs redtea dilemma if we remain the main two wagons.

In terms of explicitly pushing redtea v me, here are the posts I found. The majority come from Shirou and GuiltyLion:

imaginality (4): fua, Ydrasse, implosion, Shirou
redtea (3): GuiltyLion, Amazonian Legends, Cephir

Those are the current votes.

@redtea, NSG, NumberQ

hi I need your votes on the Imaginality's wagon. When you guys come around could you go into your read on Imaginality? I want to convince you three that he's likely scum if you already don't think so.

If you already do think so, please do vote him. We're nearing 60 pages by now and it's not bad even if it ends up ending the day.

Especially you redtea, it's either your or him at this point I believe.

In post 1452 AL said they want to lim me redtea or numberQ, while numberQ was VLA.

My opinion on redtea right now is annoyingly similar to Shirou's: they have the aesthetics in my mind of a slot that could easily be either alignment but is prone to being misread as scum if town.

I feel like imaginality is a better shot for actual scum

...

GuiltyLion continues the focus on redtea v me in post 1486.

A similar exchange in 1492-1516.

I don't think my goal here needs to be convincing you to give up on redtea for the rest of the game at all, I think I would be quite satisfied in simply persuading you that Imaginality may be the better D1 elimination.

yeh, this is fine, I see your point and I'm fine with opting for imaginality instead

once I get an updated VC I'll probably vote there

GL focusing numberQ purely on redtea v me:

If there's anything anyone feels I should pay particular attention to, let me know.

I most of all want your takes on redtea, imaginality, and everything Shirou is saying in favor of imaginality over redtea

@redtea you don't seem to like Imaginality slot that much so can you vote for him before I lose my patience and begin pushing your wagon myself? It's either you or him.

Please and thank you.

I'm interested to see what Ceph will decide here

@numberQ, you seem kinda whatever/neutral on redtea while kinda suspicious of some imaginality's posts. Are you willing to vote him in a redtea vs imaginality dilemma?

[imaginality]

Cephrir, removing redtea and myself from the list, who are your top one or two scumreads right now?

@others: same question

[imaginality]

for what it's worth I don't think imaginality trying to get a wagon on implosion like that is scummy. I would do the same thing regardless of my alignment if I was in his position.

I really do think it was more AI-revealing the fact he didn't react like this from the start

/shrug

Spoiler:

yes this is kinda a prod dodge disguised as content, how did you know?

p-edit: actually fua has a point. If it was only self-preservation he could vote redtea rather than implosion. The unique reason to not do that is if he was that much more confident on implosion flipping scum/redtea being town but...I don't know if I buy he has that much more confidence on implosion huh...

We're at an in between point timewise. If it was like less than four days to deadline then your and fua's point would be right, bur right now I just feel that I want to push for implosion a bit more rather than accept the redtea vs imaginality framing others are trying to funnel this situation into

So wait. Your main concern is pushing someone so that you don’t get limmed because you know you’re townie, but suddenly you can afford to choose who you push because there’s still time until the deadline? Does not compute.

I don't understand what point you think you're making but I thought my point was clear. I scumread implosion more than I do redtea and felt there's still time for me to push for my higher scumread.

If I saw them equally scunmy then I'd vote redtea already.
If I somehow knew redtea was inno (eg N0 cop inno result) I'd keep pushing for implosion over redtea all the way to deadline.

Reality is somewhere between the two so if no one wants to pursue implosion then in the next day or two I'll end up compromising with a vote on redtea.

[imaginality]

> That's part of why redtea looks a bit better to me now, because I think if they're scum as well, scum would be keeping more names in the mix unless they're pretty sure of getting me mislimmed over redtea.

This also feels like a perspective slip.

Wait lmao good catch, "if they're scum as well"

This is in the context of a post talking about people who are pushing for/okay with me v redtea. I'm saying if redtea is scum as well as the people narrowing it down/letting it drift to a 1v1, I think they might more likely have been keen to keep other names open as possible D1 lims, unless they're confident they can get me limmed over redtea.

[imaginality]

@Imaginality, I'm confused by these two posts.

Initially I thought you were saying that you suspect scum in the players who are pushing a you/red tea elim.

The second post sounds like you expect scum to want to widen the pool further?

I'm saying if redtea were scum I'd expect scum to be keeping the pool wider.
It's part of why I'm reluctant to vote redtea. It feels like no one has pushed back at letting things drift to me v redtea which to me feels more likely to be the case if redtea is town.
The second post is basically me saying "if redtea is scum then given there's two other scum who (whoever they are) seem happy with the game state, they must be fairly confident of getting me limmed over redtea."

Since I sorta doubt it's been that clear I'd be the one going down it's another reason why I doubt redtea is scum.

[imaginality]

In terms of explicitly pushing redtea v me, here are the posts I found

ah, so you had fuck all and had to go back and impute. thanks for letting us know!

When I was just reading through at work I came away with the sense that people were either passively happy with or actively encouraging me v redtea. Which I mentioned. And then I went back to get the exact posts (and count the days since anyone voted anyone except me or redtea) when someone challenged me about that claim.

To say that I had fuck all is just a lazy misrep.

[imaginality]

@mod can we get a VC please?

[imaginality]

Well it's now clear no one is interested in joining me with my suspicions of implosion so

VOTE: redtea

[imaginality]

This is in the context of a post talking about people who are pushing for/okay with me v redtea. I'm saying if redtea is scum as well as the people narrowing it down/letting it drift to a 1v1, I think they might more likely have been keen to keep other names open as possible D1 lims, unless they're confident they can get me limmed over redtea.

ah okay yeah that clarifies the phrasing

but you seem to be putting a lot of stock in the idea that scum wouldn't be bussing/distancing from redtea if they are scum

I dunno I was thinking about it a bit the other day and I think in a setup with a bunch of cops you're not going to see too much of scum treating each other with kid gloves, because your scumbuddies could get guiltied at any moment and you need to be setting up to play around that if possible

It's precisely because they're somewhat likely to lose a player or two to cop guilties on later days that I don't think they'd casually let a teammate go down unnecessarily on D1, in the context of a game that was in a relative lull and which still had plenty of time to deadline for other wagons to build.

Scum don't particularly have to worry about defending a buddy who gets guiltied later, I mean sure there's a risk but town can be wrong, it's not like they faked an inno on them. And scum bussing can be as obvious as scum defending.

[imaginality]

I think imag + redtea are both scum is sure, possible but there's no way the game's that easy in practice most of the time.

I think the most interesting thing in MegAzumarill's catchup posting is the annoyance at people townbinning fua, which in context I can see as a scum-going-against-the-grain-to-go-against-the-grain kind of thing. I'm interested to know if there's more to why Meg thinks fua is scummy beyond the self-awareness thing.

Meg's hard scumread on Ydrasse is also interesting, no?

[imaginality]

Meg if you catch up with the whole game you'll probably understand why we're voting Imaginality

I like how this can simultaneously be not only a perfectly justifiable descriptive statement ("I and some other people are voting imaginality currently") but also a rhetorical flourish that begs the question ("we the town have decided we are going to vote imaginality out of here").

[imaginality]

As a heads up it's my wife's birthday today so I'll be fairly absent for the next 24 hours.

[imaginality]

I played with Meg (before Meg replaced out) in To Tell the Truth. We were both scum.

[imaginality]

A: The wagon is on scum and the buddies are hoping for a reprieve out of apathy.

this is the theory I'm going with as imaginality has dialed back his presence/effort as well

I said I was away yesterday for my wife's birthday. I'm back today

[imaginality]

Oh for flip's sake

[imaginality]

I am hesitantly hopeful that we just had a scum "nope" out of the thread?

Nope

[imaginality]

Also if Shirou had ended up being the lim over NQ yesterday I think scum would have had a good chance of winning from there?

Well played town, good recovery from an atrocious* mislim D1

Thanks for modding, catboi!

Well done scum for trying something, I think this setup would be hard to win as scum without pulling something sneaky.

*not really, I know my play D1 was far from great