Newbie 2086 - Reaction GIFs | End!

[catboi]

Hai, I'm an SE~

A bit of background on myself: I've been playing on and off since 2010, starting off on (the now defunct) epicmafia before moving to forums. Took a long break from playing the game for several years but came back last year and became as

addicted

fascinated with the game as I was before.

My goal with this game is to make it an enjoyable and informative experience for the newer players, so that you will hopefully stick around and play more games here. My experience doesn't give me any particular wisdom to impart, but I will happily give advice on general gameplay and strategy if you're looking for it at any point.

Games here customarily start off with voting someone, typically for silly or frivolous reasons, before gradually turning to something more serious. Don't worry about it if you feel unsure about what to do, the start of the game is always a bit awkward, my advice is to post whatever's on your mind to keep the conversation rolling and trust that the awkwardness will go away eventually.

VOTE: GeorgeBailey to start, because GeorgeBailey.

Let's have a good game, everyone!

[catboi]

I had queued the vote before seeing your post but missed the opportunity to be first because I stopped to proofread my introduction. Well met, sir~

[catboi]

Here but I am busy rn.

Why did you feel the need to announce this?

[catboi]

This strikes me as slightly self-conscious!

VOTE: cape90

[catboi]

Please don't make references to what you are doing in other ongoing games, it's against the rules.

[catboi]

I like butterchurn, he's funny

[catboi]

So... anyone want to get in an argument over something minor that is probably a null tell, thus creating some content for everyone to discuss and react to? That's how things usually get started, right? Silence is good for scum.

Oh, and sorry if I get mixed up and use the wrong terminology (if I ever say "rogue", I mean "mafia"). Old habits. Y'all use "NIA" instead of "null tell", I think.

Game is slow-ish but I was being entirely serious that I found cape's need to announce his presence in the game right away to be overly self-aware in a scummy sort of way, that early in the game not having posted should hardly be a concern for anyone, that he felt the need to establish that fact might be a sign that he's scum worried about keeping up appearances (there's nuances to this but not really going to bother with that right now).

If I were to call upon my chat mafia background to torture out some alignment guesses based on minimal posting, I'd call you town for being humorous in a carefree sort of way and trying to keep the conversation going, zefiend town for the slightly serious vote on you with a question, and NK15 as town for poking at George to do things. The others are potentially mafia.

I don't strongly believe most of these but if I'm going to force content might as well go in on it.



(I still use "null tell" but it is perhaps because I am old, it's definitely fallen off in usage)

[catboi]

Hai noddy, make the game easy for me if you're town~

[catboi]

For context on why I do that, I usually play shorter games with more strict deadlines and obviously, that would mean that things move by faster usually at the SoD. Not like I expected things to move fast and all that. But eh.

I am aware, I've spectated champs on MU and know there's very different expectations regarding pace of play and that there's a lot more emphasis on real-time interaction (you still get that here in certain games, but more in large themes or games with certain player lists). Still it pinged me enough that I thought I might poke at it to kick things off.

I don't strongly believe most of these but if I'm going to force content might as well go in on it.

(I still use "null tell" but it is perhaps because I am old, it's definitely fallen off in usage)

I do get that certain feel of need to get the ball rolling in this game though. I don't know why it sounds like RIGHT NOW you are expecting yourself to have some really strong tell in the game so far, both the quoted strike me as odd in post 27.

Second post is literally just a discussion on terminology to butternchurn, since he mentioned being used to certain different words. First part part is me choosing to take a more active role and force some words out while acknowledging the silliness of such reads. Ordinarily I'd prefer to hang back and observe, leave the newer players to their own devices and see what they do, because I feel like it's easier to get reads that way and I don't want to be the one controlling the game, but I always seem to get stuck with the quiet newbie games, and this one was particularly slow, so, spurred on by butter's comment I've taken the role of being more talkative.

[catboi]

I somehow doubt it’d be that easy to pocket catboi.

History says I am in fact easy to manipulate.

But regardless, cape is probably fine.


VOTE: GeorgeBailey

Come out and play, George~

[catboi]

I noticed that as well. I personally don't think either are that suspicious of an action (the self-conscious mafia I think is somewhat balanced by the town-leaning-quality of wanting to give the most information and keep people up to date on your intentions). However, I agree that the fact that he voted over it (at least partially) while doing something similar himself is strange, and would like to hear why he thinks the situations are different.

And for that matter, does catboi see them as different? Considering the first one was vote-worthy, and the second didn't get a mention.

Qualitatively I think a replacement announcing their presence is different from someone doing it at the start of the day - my view is it's typically customary for a replacement to make a post to confirm that they are, indeed, in the game, but maybe not posting right away.

I also don't particularly think it's a strong tell in the first place and don't actually hate cape's responses, so I've moved on.

[catboi]

To explain, I did notice that even before you posted about it. I just did not think it was worth mentioning at the time since notscience did participate by calling those two out and it wasn't just a "busy, will post later" post like cape's. But I still did notice a similarity. I thought it was worth mentioning once I saw that someone else did notice it and there might actually be something there.

I guess I am trying to make reads from the little we have. As for leaving myself open, I do lean towards a scum read on cape but you are right I could go in either direction as I am unsure about it.

I feel like this type of wording comes from scum more often than not. Town can be uncertain about their reads but the language here feels overly cautious in a way that reads more like someone who doesn't want to have the "wrong" opinion.

[catboi]

I somehow doubt it’d be that easy to pocket catboi.

History says I am in fact easy to manipulate.

But regardless, cape is probably fine.


VOTE: GeorgeBailey

Come out and play, George~

Not sure how to feel on this.

I knew George was around but not posting so wanted to see if a vote would get him to talk more.

[catboi]

@Catboi, obligatory thoughts on all this. We have 8, 9? days to poke GB and the other lurkers. I want you to get in now while the getting's good.

Meh? Both your points with regard to notty and void feel like making a lot out of a little, and I say this while having literally just called out void for the wording in his posts. I don't much feel one way or the other about the stuff you're talking about.

Why ask me in particular?

[catboi]

RE: further VOID discussion, I was hesitant to let myself find his response suspicious partially because to me it seemed like it would be a particularly bold (read: dumb) scum play to respond to a charge of having wishy-washy and manufactured-sounding content with... more of the same tone, and even more extreme hedging. It certainly could be new player not sure how to effectively play scum, but to my eyes it also believably reads as new town who is lacking confidence in their own thoughts, and remaining consistent in that.

It does seem like an easy (albeit fair) thing to pick on, though, and I was interested to see who would.

I don't know if that really says anything to me, someone who's new isn't going to be so precise in writing their posts as to immediately change things up when called out on something, if he doesn't know how to fake reads convincingly he'll just keep on doing what he's doing.

To explain, I did notice that even before you posted about it. I just did not think it was worth mentioning at the time since notscience did participate by calling those two out and it wasn't just a "busy, will post later" post like cape's. But I still did notice a similarity. I thought it was worth mentioning once I saw that someone else did notice it and there might actually be something there.

I guess I am trying to make reads from the little we have. As for leaving myself open, I do lean towards a scum read on cape but you are right I could go in either direction as I am unsure about it.

I feel like this type of wording comes from scum more often than not. Town can be uncertain about their reads but the language here feels overly cautious in a way that reads more like someone who doesn't want to have the "wrong" opinion.

You are right to think that the wording/tone conveys one of being overly cautious. Because I was being overly cautious when I made those posts. But it was not that I did not want to be marked with having a certain wrong opinion as a scum. I guess I was just afraid of making the wrong read or messing up which seems silly now because making reads (that obviously could be wrong) is the only thing we can do as of now.

Being wrong is part of the game and if you're town there's no reason to be afraid of it, particularly on day 1

[catboi]

Are you trying to make this difficult to read with those colors

[catboi]

But regardless, cape is probably fine.

What are you seeing that I'm not?

Mrehh, I just didn't think his response to pressure was that bad. Looking over it again it's not as strong as I thought but not really interested in pushing him further right now.

I feel like this type of wording comes from scum more often than not. Town can be uncertain about their reads but the language here feels overly cautious in a way that reads more like someone who doesn't want to have the "wrong" opinion.

It read to me like someone entirely new to the medium not knowing what tells are and aren't important

and I like that Void listens to me

. I kind of see your point, though. I think it's a nuanced thing that will be clearer down the line in the game, but that comment kinda falls in line with how readily Void trusts me? You remember when you first started out, unsure of what exactly to look for? The word of the more experienced players carried more weight for me.

I suppose I'd be looking for a bit more gridlock/deer in headlights if he was scum here?

In my first game I deathtunneled one of the SEs for being a lurker day 1 and then OMGUS'd Nacho because I thought he was scum for pushing me day 2. I did not find the SEs very reliable at all but I also had a very bullheaded mentality.

I don't necessarily see how what he's done so far

can't

be taken as a deer in headlights look.

Is the game really this easy?

At the moment, my reads look like this.

Void
Butter

catboi
zefiend

GB
ahllo

NK15

Cape

Entirely

too soon for you to be having me as a townlean.

[catboi]

It’s a lean

I’m more confident about my top and bottom tiers anyways

Doesn't really particularly matter in the sense you should absolutely know better than to think anything I've done so far is particularly town indicative for me, and in fact having confidence in reads at all given the relative dearth of content is fairly suspect.

[catboi]

My read on ahhlo was that they were a troll (and potentially ban dodging) and unlikely to provide anything useful, but didn't want to say that while they were around as it'd come across as mean-spirited and would provide no positive effect on the game. Merciful luck that we don't have to worry about that now, I suppose.

[catboi]

I've been surprised by people's confidence as a general trend in games I've looked at, seems like the meta here is that there's a lot of people who like to jump to immediately solving the game. I know I personally don't put a lot of faith in my early reads (except for in live games), but I'm also used to much bigger and longer games. That level of somewhat pushy, largely unsupported confidence is something I'm used to reading with suspicion, but I see it from town a lot here too so I may have to recalibrate that.

In general the emphasis here is on dayplay which more often leads to a bit more forcefulness in arguing simply to get things moving as there's less in the way of mechanical information to determine people's alignment. I think in particular in a 9 player game you have fewer people to focus on and so it

should

be easier to get confident alignment reads on people - less space for people to hide in. In general I prefer it when there's some movement to a game rather than people mostly sitting around waiting.


112 was not an awful response but notscience is still a scumlean at the present moment. butterchurn and cape townleans. butterchurn has passed the threshold of acceptable posting for day 1, obviously experienced so not a full townread but doesn't seem to be content to spin his wheels as a skilled player in this environment might. Don't think cape's responses to notscience are bad and liked him trying to engage with other parts of the game at the top of this page. Would gladly vote basically anyone else in null territory, though.

[catboi]

Vote me then

VOTE: notscience

Don't expect me to not act on that.

[catboi]

[catboi]

also can we stop discussing substitutions, idk about here, but it's against the rules where I usually play

The ban's public knowledge and the rules are significantly more lenient here, although there's nothing to discern from it as far as in-game information goes, in this case.

[catboi]

Not Known 15 being pointedly useless is frustrating but not particularly alignment indicative either way. He's capable of faking stances as mafia so the refusal to do so isn't really a sign that he's frozen scum or anything. Not really thrilled with Greeting landing there with little else said.

That's telling of an experienced player who seems acquainted well enough with the way the game mechanics usually work, so much that they already got bored of it. I'm just wondering why did they feel the need to let everyone in the world know that. This could easily be an overinterpretation, but it's staying in the back of my mind.

Fair! At the least I've been a bit hesitant around the townleans a few people have been giving me, because I'm pretty sure I'd have acted fairly similarly if I had ended up as mafia. I guess, if I think about it, I

was

probably trying to let people know my level of experience, because I think that helps them have more accurate reads on me, and may give more context to future things I say.

I suspected as much which is why it's only a townlean, but you've passed a higher bar than everyone else at this point. If I couldn't pretend to have positive thoughts on anyone I'd likely fall into despair.

[catboi]

Hey catboi, you aren’t the least bit suspicious your wagon partners are the exact scumteam I have been championing?

Do I think that's likely to be the exact team? Probably not. I think that NK15's post sounds fairly artificial, though.

[catboi]

Not opposed to flipping NK15 atm, although if he's town and I get NKed, notscience should absolutely go Day 2. Don't think notscience is scum with Void, Greeting, or cape, though, butterchurn a general townlean, so if he is scum it's likely only with Zefiend or GeorgeBailey.

[catboi]

(There are reasons for those conclusions but it's not worth going into ATM)

Would like to hear more from zefiend and George here

[catboi]

Not opposed to flipping NK15 atm, although if he's town and I get NKed, notscience should absolutely go Day 2. Don't think notscience is scum with Void, Greeting, or cape, though, butterchurn a general townlean, so if he is scum it's likely only with Zefiend or GeorgeBailey.

Why are you repeating the exact thoughts I had in the game right now?

But I don't get the Greeting thing though I think they have been almost entirely NAI this whole time this game. This is coming from someone who was hard defending them last game we played together.

I don't townread Greeting individually. I don't think he comes in and immediately backs up notscience the way he has if they're scum partners, too on the nose, would expect he'd be more fearful of them seemingly obviously teamed and would take a cautious approach.

[catboi]

I'm always a bit concerned when people start talking about "if x flips this, we should do this the next day", especially in a small game like this, but I understand the town rationale/thought process behind it.

I'm specifically only bringing this up because my concern is that no one is likely to catch notscience as scum if I'm dead, wouldn't bring it up at all but had the initial concern because of his approach toward me

FTR, as scum I just take the townlean from him and nightkill him at the earliest possible convenience so I can coast to a win

[catboi]

"explain all your reads in detail or you're scum" is...pretty lame. And I don't think notscience would struggle to provide explanations as scum.

[catboi]

@Catboi, obligatory thoughts on all this. We have 8, 9? days to poke GB and the other lurkers. I want you to get in now while the getting's good.

Why ask me in particular?

Because you're talkative. Are you always a fluff-poster, or only in newbie games?

I don't think what I've posted was remotely close to fluff? Granted, I'm not really tracking my own posting, I'm more willing to engage in theoretical discussions in newbie games where normally I would bother because I like being instructive about that stuff, but generally I tend to play in a game-focused manner and don't know how you'd see it as "fluff"

[catboi]

Gut says zefiend's re-engagement with the thread is scumposting but nothing I can really express in a tangible fashion to anyone else in this game

UNVOTE:

[catboi]

I’ll listen to you <3

Meh I'm not even really that interested in casing it or wagoning him right now, it's just a feeling

[catboi]

Hai Dunn. Good gif choice.

GB flaking is disappointing given he's been around to post elsewhere but from what I know he's a lower activity player as both alignments so not particularly damning

[catboi]

I don't really see how this is all much different

Notscience gave reads with his check-in post.

Yours felt performative.

Are we still doing this? *rolls eyes*

If someone hadn't mentioned you were an SE I wouldn't have known because your activity is dreadful. Someone else mentioned your posts look "easy to make" as scum and I tend to agree. You come across as lazy scum at worst and lazy town at best.

---

...

omitted by zefiend

The choice of words of "almost certainly town seems really strong", over pretty weak reasoning in my opinion. Maybe I am missing something.

I tend to agree with this sentiment in general. But don't you also agree butter is town-ish? What do you think about three or four people rolling on you to be town despite your self-admitted mistakes? Any one of them seem suspicious?

@Catboi, obligatory thoughts on all this. We have 8, 9? days to poke GB and the other lurkers. I want you to get in now while the getting's good.

Why ask me in particular?

Because you're talkative. Are you always a fluff-poster, or only in newbie games?

To expand on that last point a bit -- there's certain tells that people tend to find "objectively" suspicious, as in, they don't really require any nuance or gut to notice, and they usually are immediately obvious to people with experience. It's certainly not bad town play to call these out (as giving them a pass can allow scum to get away with obvious mistakes), and some people like to play with that "see tell call tell" mentality. I read a couple newbie games before this and saw multiple cases of experienced town tunneling on newbie town for making a flagrant tell or two, so it definitely happens. However, especially in games with a mix of new players and more experienced players, focusing on these tells is a pretty safe place for scum to hide. The "mistakes" (as they are mistakes whether the perpetrator is town or scum, since it's either suspicious scum play or bad town play) tend to be more prevalent among newer players, and it's hard to argue against someone who is calling them out since it's easy for them to make a logically sound argument.

Now, most of this isn't suuuper relevant here, especially because I'm still leaning scum on VOID from that earlier post even if the later one didn't push the needle for me, and if he is scum then obviously this doesn't apply. But, especially later in the game once we know some alignments, if I'm still around I'll be keeping an eye on those who make a habit of relying on this type of play.

How would you "keep an eye on someone" for doing something that YOU are doing? What nuances can you point to that would make this activity scummy? If we win the game based on this style of play alone, would the "see tell call tell" mentality still be something worth keeping an eye on in future games?

What I'm trying to get at is; how can you resolve your stated read of scum!VOID with apprehension towards others who are using the same thought process? It kinda reads like hedging a bet or future-distancing from a lim on VOID.

...

omitted by zefiend

At the moment, my reads look like this.

Void
Butter

catboi
zefiend

GB
ahllo

NK15

Cape

What's the town-read on VOID based on?

If it's not based on tone, what do you think of VOID's tone this game?

If it's not based on the white-knighting thing, do you think there's any discernible difference between town white-knighting and scum white-knighting?

You can vote me if you like, I'm a fairly difficult mis-elimination but I always welcome the challenge

For the most part, I feel like this post commenting on a bunch of things is fine and I think I agree with what they were saying about Void and all that in terms of them probably being town.

But ew.

You seeing this? Usually I like defending LAMIST posts as NAI to leaning town, but this ain't it.

Will have coherent thoughts on this in like 5 hours or so

Why? If you explained this and I missed it, feel free to just quote it. But if not, why is this LAMIST post different?

Okay, looking at this with sort-of-fresh-but-also-tired eyes, what stuck me about this mostly is that this is very superficial questioning, it feels like easy engagement where he's just asking other people things about their reads but it feels more like questions just designed to be talking about something rather than anything purposeful, the closest he comes is saying butter'ds words "kinda read like hedging" (in and of itself a hedge, calling george lazy scum or lazy town is also hedgy in a way I don't like. None of this stuff gives me the impression that what he's asking about

matters

.

[catboi]

A part of me says Dunnstral doesn't enter a newbie game and immediately E-1 someone as scum because that'd be bad optics, although that's a weak feeling

[catboi]

My read on NK15 continues to remain aggressively neutral, the assessment he's "desperate" is maybe

true

but not alignment indicative, I don't think what he's arguing about greeting is impossible for him to believe, if that makes sense. If he gets flipped my opinion is basically *shrug*

I'm feeling tired (a bit overgamed at present) and am having trouble focusing on the conversation taking place right now

[catboi]

My read on NK15 continues to remain aggressively neutral, the assessment he's "desperate" is maybe true but not alignment indicative, I don't think what he's arguing about greeting is impossible for him to believe, if that makes sense. If he gets flipped my opinion is basically *shrug*

I'm feeling tired (a bit overgamed at present) and am having trouble focusing on the conversation taking place right now

Simple question then, what would you say is your strongest alignment opinion at the moment? Asking because I feel like I've seen a few "meh"/"shrug"/"neutral"s from you. I know you've stated some opinions, but I'm wondering what is strongest.

you/cape town, zefiend scum.

Everyone else is mostly a murky level of uncertain. Typically I have stronger reads in newbie games because there's usually a couple players who make themselves obvious town, which hasn't really happened here. I'm not exactly fretting over it at this moment in time.

[catboi]

I think Greeting is really towny from what I have seen

I do think he's coming closer to the bar for town-him

[catboi]

Looked over the recent pages again and find myself with little comment.

VOTE: zefiend

Still not terribly opposed to the NK15 wagon but not convinced it flips scum, if it goes through *shrug*

[catboi]

I think the fact that zefiend is seemingly behind in catchup mode but hasn't actually weighed in on the NK15 wagon, the single most significant thing in the game so far, to be fairly scummy, in addition to my earlier dislike of his questioning.

[catboi]

I think the fact that zefiend is seemingly behind in catchup mode but hasn't actually weighed in on the NK15 wagon, the single most significant thing in the game so far, to be fairly scummy, in addition to my earlier dislike of his questioning.

So... do you think they are scum together then? I agree it's strange that he hasn't commented on it, but if NK15 is town, I see no reason why scum zefiend wouldn't comment on his wagon, especially if he's not planning to vote there. That only leaves the possibility of them being partners for this suspicion to make sense to me.

I do not think that says anything conclusive about NK15's alignment. I simply find it suspect that zefiend is not addressing the subject at all.

[catboi]

I also want to point out that

V0ID

actually

is

lurking, I've seen them online a couple of times, but they rarely ever post. Keeping your RVS vote at this point of the game is just either

really

lazy or not an RVS vote anymore (RVS stands for "random voting stage"). If it's no longer an RVS vote then I see no explanation for it.

Lurking always brings my attention.

Hi. Yeah I have been lurking, mostly checking up on the thread every once in a while on my phone during downtime, and trying to keep track and digest everything (keep word: trying). I thought it would be fine to keep my RVS vote until I was ready to vote someone else for real, I guess I should either unvote or join one of the wagons. This is my first forum mafia game so excuse me for that one.
So some thoughts: I always thought zefiend's posts seemed kind of off, but I leaned more toward that was just probably just his personality. His posts just come off as very strong...or overcompensating in a way. But like I said, could just be part of his style or personality. I am still pretty suspicious of cape.

UNVOTE: butterchurn

As for the notknown 15 vote, greeting makes a pretty good case for it. There is something I am a bit confused about if someone could clarify for me. If I were to vote notknown15, that is final right then and there correct?
"When the hammer vote is cast, all players, including the eliminated may talk freely until the final vote count and eliminated player's card-flip have been posted." What is the final vote count mean exactly? Does that mean until the deadline?

When a majority of vote is placed on a player, that player is considered "hammered" and the day is over. That ends the day early, regardless of when the deadline is. The "final vote count" gets posted whenever the mod gets online to lock the topic.

[catboi]

Thought void was doing better but that most recent post is hitting a lot of the newbie-scum markers - excuses for not being active, vote hanging around from rvs, weak agreement with the leading wagon, not a lot in the way of anything that's his own thoughts

[catboi]

Everyone, wait for confirmation and don't comment on the claim. Scum basically never fakeclaim mason (because the claim would obviously get disproven and out them) but in the event this is some sort of fake, don't give away any role related info by commenting more than you need to.

UNVOTE:

[catboi]

I've never played with masons before. Is it correct that their only power is the ability to talk to each other?

They also know that each other is town

In the matrix thing, I see there can also be a mafia roleblocker in this whole setup. Why would that be there if the setup is the one with two masons having only this power? Red herring?

Yes, the idea is that mafia don't know exactly what power roles they're facing.

[catboi]

Wouldn't even be the first time town has gamethrown by fakeclaiming mason

[catboi]

I hope Not Known 15 is never allowed to play another newbie game

[catboi]

But looks like someone knew this was happening beforehand.

Wouldn't even be the first time town has gamethrown by fakeclaiming mason

The outcome of tonight shows that scums definitely know how to rolehunt, which points my attention towards the remaining more experienced players. I haven't seen half the enthusiasm from

catboi

this game I've seen in the other games, plus his earlier actions made me concerned about their motives.

VOTE: catboi

You'll need to learn that reading me off mood/emotions is a poor metric because these things fluctuate from game to game depending on outside circumstances. Right now I'm overgamed and unenthusiastic, and the game itself was slow and difficult to work with. I probably shouldn't even be playing because my motivation is mostly but I made a commitment so I'd rather stick it through.

However, I feel like my play here is not that dissimilar from Newbie 2081 where you were similarly on my case for not doing much early.

I think the point about someone on the scumteam being experiencd enough to judge for reactions for PRs is a fair one, though - I should note that I

tried

to dissuade people from giving away their roles in relation to the claim, but obviously it didn't work.

[catboi]

Greeting/Cape town, butter weaker town, scum in void/dunn/zefiend. I still think void's day 1 was incredibly scummy but if scum he undoubtedly has a more savvy partner

[catboi]

Yeah what NK15 was doing was obviously town LMAO. The self vote in 343, the legacy stuff in 344 & 347, the obvious backtracking in 346 of 345.

Look I understand what what NK15 did was bad and they should know better, but you all should learn to read between the lines and not just ooga booga it. Maybe that is me speaking on behalf of my personal experience with chat mafia where I see a lot of questionable fake claiming from town.

NK15 has fakeclaimed. Do not listen to the above posts or react, just hammer and move on to tomorrow. He’s trying to fish out PRs.

bro you said this as PR? What is wrong with you? I am going to be generous and be thinking it was supposed to be taken as a red herring, but geez.

Enough on the claim, what are your actual reads right now?

[catboi]

I am not a mason.

This is my first game back on the site in a long time. What I learned from other games is that too many people throw their vote around willy nilly. I am taking a new approach in play style overall, to try to use my vote more effectively.

It is why I ask so many questions and "stall" before committing. My Greeting vote was intentionally left naked. It was meant as a wrench in the spoke of the NK15 wagon, to see how people react.

I was not expecting this gambit from NK15. I have no experience with this sort of thing, personally. But my gut tells me that NK15 is scum trying to pocket me as hoping that I town-read them, to form some sort of "town-bloc."

I think NK15 was happy to see my vote on Greeting, as hopefully derailing the current wagon. I choose to interpret the fake-claim as pre-emptive while at E-1. And I pretty much agree with everything Butter's said about the slot.

No problem voting here now. VOTE: NK 15

This feels a bit overexplain-y.

[catboi]

Greeting/Cape town, butter weaker town, scum in void/dunn/zefiend. I still think void's day 1 was incredibly scummy but if scum he undoubtedly has a more savvy partner

I don't agree with most of these reads

Explain?

[catboi]

I am not a mason.

This is my first game back on the site in a long time. What I learned from other games is that too many people throw their vote around willy nilly. I am taking a new approach in play style overall, to try to use my vote more effectively.

It is why I ask so many questions and "stall" before committing. My Greeting vote was intentionally left naked. It was meant as a wrench in the spoke of the NK15 wagon, to see how people react.

I was not expecting this gambit from NK15. I have no experience with this sort of thing, personally. But my gut tells me that NK15 is scum trying to pocket me as hoping that I town-read them, to form some sort of "town-bloc."

I think NK15 was happy to see my vote on Greeting, as hopefully derailing the current wagon. I choose to interpret the fake-claim as pre-emptive while at E-1. And I pretty much agree with everything Butter's said about the slot.

No problem voting here now. VOTE: NK 15

This feels a bit overexplain-y.

I disagree, I think that this is their posting style and that a lot of people have commented on it this game but that it is not really a telling piece of information

I also don't think of newbie (?) scum as being overexplain-y

I fel like scum often go to lengths to overjustify a vote they know is wrong, is what I'm getting at.

Right now, I think catboi is coasting, and I also disagree with them.

Then vote me.

Then again, I have so much higher expectations of catboi's play that his apathetic behavior really doesn't sit right with me. Maybe not to the point that I'd want to eliminate him for it, but I'd like to pressure him to do more.

Learn to be disappointed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[catboi]

You keep pushing that scum has to be experienced to have made that kill. In my opinion, I would put cape90 in that category because they have experience on another site, as well as yourself since you pointed it out right at the start of the day. That ends up being most everyone anyway.

This is probably a fair enough point that theorizing on those grounds is mostly useless.

[catboi]

Had been feeling very down in the dumps the last week or so - slightly better today, will see if I can work myself back into things.

The potential candidates I see are: catboi, ɀefiend and Dunnstral.

I feel the same way with how I feel with cat being the weakest of these candidates.

VOTE: Dunnstral

This slot reads as really wolfy to me right now. Given they were more towny in their hydra game they played with me where they were mafia, I am comfortable voting this

In my experience he tends to try harder to project being town when he's mafia. If this weren't a newbie game I'd probably be scumreading him, but as it is I'm still iffy because I'd expect him to try to be a bit more transparent in a newbie game.

I read Greeting's posts and continue to believe as though he's sorting entirely in earnest. I don't find him publicly tallying suspicions to be a problem as butterchurn does, and somewhat doubt he'd be so overt as scum. Everything I've seen from him matches the same earnestness and thoroughness I've seen from him as town. No model for his scumplay but would be moderately surprised if he were able to replicate it so strongly.


On the other hand, 391 and 415 are complete waffly nonsense. Read those posts and ask yourself: does VOID have a single solid opinion about anyone in this game? I really cannot continue to turn a blind eye to this.

VOTE: VOID

[catboi]

What is wrong exactly with my post#391 catboi? And that is not me being defensive, I am genuinely asking.

I'm glad you asked. Allow me to demonstrate. Bolding for emphasis:

Hi, some thoughts I have:

It is a shame that notscience is gone as I was willing to work with him, as I said in post #152 his reads matched up with mine. Still willing to work with butterchurn for now, re-reading earlier posts I can't seem to shake the feeling even more that butterchurn is town but as zefiend says in post#380

there is the obvious possibility that butterchurn is scum playing a very convincing game.

I get pretty mixed vibes from greeting and dunnstral.

Something I did note from dunnstral was that he did enter the game joining the not known 15 wagon sort of easily and quickly in my opinion, although he gave his reasons. Could it be he wanted to get his vote in asap so he would not be the one to hammer?
Also, something I find kinda weird or maybe I am just misinterpreting: in post#340 when dunnstral is asked by cape why dunnstral's suspicions are on me Void, he says

I agree with 319 from catboi, especially with regards to the newbie scum markers and how newbie scum would play

I personally don't find agreeing with someone scummy inherently, but I was accused of parroting earlier and was seen as a scum marker so I thought it was worth noting that this seems like parroting a bit. But more importantly I found it odd that dunnstral says "especially" in regards to newbie scum markers and how newbie scum plays as if the that have more precedent or weight over other things but the entirety of catboi's #319 is just that. For some reasons to me that "especially" is out-of-place and unnecessary and

I could see that being part of a sort of manufactured read on me and manufactured agreement with catboi. Or I could just be looking way too into the wording of things.

Sorta suspicious of cape still. And also get some mixed vibes from catboi and zefiend but it is more like a struggling to get a read on them sort of thing.

In every line I have highlighted, you have essentially left your options open on every single player in the game, describing things as mixed feelings or saying you could go either way. To an extent, most players are going to have some uncertainty in their reads. I do this myself, there is nothing wrong with it. But there is a difference between uncertainty and refusing to commit to a meaningful opinion at all. What your post does is the latter. It's a very typical sort of trap inexperienced scum tend to fall into, they can't fake reads convincingly and want to keep their options open so they end up fence-sitting on most players. That's what I see coming from you.

[catboi]

Was going to say something about void writing so many words on dunn in particular but given dunn was a wagon when he made that post I don't think it's strongly partner-indicative necessarily if void is mafia. Don't really know who the teammate would be if mafia, don't like hunting for it pre-flip unless I have some very confident townreads, which I don't, this game. Too little to judge by.

[catboi]

Also, @catboi, @cape, @dunn and whoever else has a problem with my walls of text: you can go ahead and skip the entire post above if the logical argument is not interesting to you. It is mostly for myself and butter.

I have not expressed a problem with the formatting of your posts. I think they're perfectly fine. I am simply uncertain as to your alignment based on their content.

Right now, I think catboi is coasting, and I also disagree with them.

Then vote me.

Contrary to what you may believe, I do not vote people just because I disagree with them.

Saying I'm "coasting" has a heavy implication that said behavior is scummy. I was in a particularly surly mood at the time and don't care for suspicion being thrown my way based on my enthusiasm level for a game.

[catboi]

Digested that wall on Greeting, have thoughts but will wait to hear his response on it. Want to try to take a look and respond to some other things as well, have been less thorough than I ought to be.

[catboi]

It looks like a listmod error. It's not really a big deal or relevant to the game whatsoever.

[catboi]

I do not believe Greeting pursues this line of attack as scum. Flashbacks to him accusing Val89 of possibly being an unregistered hydra.

[catboi]

Alright, I see some merit to the argument that it doesn't quite fit for him to be self-aware enough to replicate a similar tone to what he usually has, while also being unaware enough to post something so overtly. I still see a lot of his behavior and responses as being pretty unlike his town playstyle. To me he looks like someone who is attempting to "play the same game" as scum and pretend to yourself that you are searching for scum (very common tactic), but not quite being able to replicate the town mentality or successfully search. The methods that he's using to search do not feel at all like how he searches as town, and that's what I keep finding suspicious. But I guess it's not as blatant as I thought it was, so I'll try to look elsewhere for now to avoid getting tunnel visioned.

I strongly do not agree and feel like he is acting in complete earnest even if you find his reasoning and conclusions disagreeable.

I believe he has been a target of suspicion every single time he has played as town, and this mostly befuddles me. There are some players who tend to make themselves obvious elimination targets through their play. I don't see that with Greeting, who gives a very strong effort and clear scumhunting process every game and, for whatever reason, gets utterly nitpicked to death every time.

I feel a significant degree of the conflict here is being dedicated to tearing down people's reasons rather than trying to infer whether they actually believe what they're saying.

[catboi]

I see, thanks for explaining more. Does zefiend's assessment of his uneasy feeling that butterchurn might be scum despite thinking butterchurn is most likely town and playing a town game also in that same vein? As in, does that also ring some scum bells for you? If I had said "I am willing to work with butterchurn, he seems more and more town the more the game goes on and as I re-read his old posts" but without (now looking back on it, unnecessary) bolded line of the "there is the obvious possibility that butterchurn is scum playing a very convincing game." made you feel not as bad about me as scum?
Sure I am struggling to produce reads maybe...it is my first game after all. I think it is worth noting that you also have been pointed out for a lot of "meh" "shrug" posts by at least 2 users, I noted but forget exactly when and who. The first person you seem to be going hard at is me, for reasons I understand but I don't find all that convincing.

I would be surprised if you admitted to finding my own reasons for scumreading you convincing. That does not really allay my suspicion.

As for the question, obviously without the line I bolded it's a less suspicious sentence. But I'm not here in this game to give you writing tips on how to appear less suspect. Asking me how to appeal to me does not endear you to me and in fact makes me feel like your primary concern is escaping my suspicion.

You gave a vague pushback against me but seemed to have dropped it. If you had to name a single player you believe to be most likely to be mafia right now, who is it, and why?

[catboi]

Somewhat suspicious of Greeting already from what I mentioned in 243 and 245. I would think that scum currently would be pretty excited due to the cop kill and generally being at an advantage at the moment, so

I was thinking that at least one of them would be posting early and would want to control the narrative of things from the start of the day

. Cape and greeting's posting early today both fit that bill, to some extent. Also still never was particularly satisfied by cape's answer to my line of questioning in 175, especially now that we know notscience was town. Would not be surprised for town catboi to be somewhat discouraged, feeling relatively neutral there.

Scum could also aim to lay low here. Would like to hear more from dunnstral especially, since his first post he's given a few opinions but with little to back them up.

This is the post I only noticed when zefiend quoted it and wanted to reply to.

The bolded is purely speculative reasoning that is not convincing whatsover. Not everyone thinks like you do and a more passive scum player would be more likely to hang back at the start of the day. Activity at day start is likely to be more of a matter of personality and availability at time of thread opening rather than anything related to alignment. In addition, scum couldn't have known they'd killed the cop, so the idea they saw the flip after furiously F5ing and immediately became amped up is rather nonsensical.

If you find the actual content of his posts scummy then say so by citing them, but vague arguments based on timing do nothing for me.

(as an aside my discouragement is unrelated to events in this game and should not be read into my alignment)

[catboi]

I don't have the time or motivation at present to address all of zefiend's arguments against greeting but I will just say that being illogical and at times inconsistent in reasoning is not a scumtell, and zefiend overly nitpicky and inflexible in his thinking. Scum can play that archetype but if I had to guess at that moment I'd say he's town, just a bit set in his ways.

[catboi]

I don't think whether zefiend is technically a newbie or not really matters as much as how comfortable they are with the game. (The newbie rules are kind of wonky now that it's been brought up, though).

I think Cape is the better vote right now, I don't see the 'conviction', I thought they were scummy day 1, and I don't think their arguments make sense on day 2.

VOTE: Cape90

Why did you think cape was scummy? What arguments of his don't make sense?

I don't see that with Greeting, who gives a very strong effort and clear scumhunting process every game and, for whatever reason, gets utterly nitpicked to death every time.

I agree with this. But Greeting has only been town in previous games. At some point he will roll mafia. Do you think, if he does in the future (or has this game), he will stop giving a strong effort and stop attempting to give an impression of scumhunting? I have a higher opinion of his abilities than that. My main suspicion of him is due to the fact that I feel like his approach to scumhunting and his interactions in general is not aligned with the approach that I've seen from him in previous games, and it feels like how scum!Greeting could attempt to imitate his usual style, while not quite hitting the mark. I understand you disagree on that point, but that's how I see it. I'm not trying to nitpick his arguments and his logic here, except for to see how he responds to that. I can see a world where this is just town Greeting, and some of his actions do read to me that way, but there's enough that just doesn't sit right for me to be willing to drop it completely.

You're right about the early posting today though, that certainly is not a scumtell on its own. That was more indicating that I would be keeping an eye on those two, because the way they started off the day drew my attention. I certainly was not expecting that alone to convince anyone of anything, I just wanted to share my thought process.

I think the reasoning and process he shows is difficult to fake as scum and I don't think the way he's going about things here feels insincere. I can try going into detail on this but don't know how more I can say on the matter.

[catboi]

Cape, I know I'm one to talk for multiposting, but quoting a bunch of massive posts and adding a one-liner to each is

really not it

as far as making the game readable goes

second quote makes zefiend obvtown

I'm not particularly sure at all why 438 makes him town. Feeling like his posting style is being disrespected surely is unrelated to his alignment.

Digested that wall on Greeting, have thoughts but will wait to hear his response on it. Want to try to take a look and respond to some other things as well, have been less thorough than I ought to be.

I actually think it is a pretty solid wall and ze looks a lot better today

I think it makes him more likely to be town. I don't find the case particularly compelling.

[catboi]

I see, thanks for explaining more. Does zefiend's assessment of his uneasy feeling that butterchurn might be scum despite thinking butterchurn is most likely town and playing a town game also in that same vein? As in, does that also ring some scum bells for you? If I had said "I am willing to work with butterchurn, he seems more and more town the more the game goes on and as I re-read his old posts" but without (now looking back on it, unnecessary) bolded line of the "there is the obvious possibility that butterchurn is scum playing a very convincing game." made you feel not as bad about me as scum?
Sure I am struggling to produce reads maybe...it is my first game after all. I think it is worth noting that you also have been pointed out for a lot of "meh" "shrug" posts by at least 2 users, I noted but forget exactly when and who. The first person you seem to be going hard at is me, for reasons I understand but I don't find all that convincing.

I would be surprised if you admitted to finding my own reasons for scumreading you convincing. That does not really allay my suspicion.

As for the question, obviously without the line I bolded it's a less suspicious sentence. But I'm not here in this game to give you writing tips on how to appear less suspect. Asking me how to appeal to me does not endear you to me and in fact makes me feel like your primary concern is escaping my suspicion.

You gave a vague pushback against me but seemed to have dropped it. If you had to name a single player you believe to be most likely to be mafia right now, who is it, and why?

I'm not trying to appeal to you or endear myself to you. I was just asking cause I wanted to understand more what exactly made that statement suspicious to you.

It's a toss up between you, dunnstral, greeting, cape. I am pretty comfortable in trusting (or reading as town) butterchurn and I think I'm starting to do the same to zefiend. I'd probably be willing to join the greeting wagon and put my vote there since my townreads and the people I am willing to play with have their votes there for now. I was always a little suspicious of greeting from an emotional vibe sort of abstract way...and I did note that although greeting did not lead the wagon against notknown15 or hammered: he did seem very keen on voting him out. Also he has suspicions on me which I still find sorta weird, which goes for you too. Like I said before I could see you saying these are scum markers/mistakes but I still feel like thinking my posts are

very

scummy is a bit out of left field.

I asked you to name one person and you named literally over half the game while angling toward the biggest wagon, just as you did toward NK15 on day 1 when he got pushed to E-1.


I am getting annoyed now because I don't think Void could be any more blatantly scum if he tried and my words get absolutely no traction while the game is locked around a very, very pointless debate over Greeting

[catboi]

I'm town and I think it's rather unlikely the scums are hiding amongst you, Cape90 and Dunnstral.

When did your view on me change?

[catboi]

I also want to point out that

V0ID

actually

is

lurking, I've seen them online a couple of times, but they rarely ever post. Keeping your RVS vote at this point of the game is just either

really

lazy or not an RVS vote anymore (RVS stands for "random voting stage"). If it's no longer an RVS vote then I see no explanation for it.

Lurking always brings my attention.

Hi. Yeah I have been lurking, mostly checking up on the thread every once in a while on my phone during downtime, and trying to keep track and digest everything (keep word: trying). I thought it would be fine to keep my RVS vote until I was ready to vote someone else for real, I guess I should either unvote or join one of the wagons. This is my first forum mafia game so excuse me for that one.
So some thoughts: I always thought zefiend's posts seemed kind of off, but I leaned more toward that was just probably just his personality. His posts just come off as very strong...or overcompensating in a way. But like I said, could just be part of his style or personality. I am still pretty suspicious of cape.

UNVOTE: butterchurn

As for the notknown 15 vote, greeting makes a pretty good case for it.

There is something I am a bit confused about if someone could clarify for me. If I were to vote notknown15, that is final right then and there correct?
"When the hammer vote is cast, all players, including the eliminated may talk freely until the final vote count and eliminated player's card-flip have been posted." What is the final vote count mean exactly? Does that mean until the deadline?

I want to bring this post back up because it was posted while NK15 was at E-1 and this was literally all void had to say about it - just bland agreement but no actual discussion of or elaboration on why greeting's reasons are good.

[catboi]

I'm town and I think it's rather unlikely the scums are hiding amongst you, Cape90 and Dunnstral.

When did your view on me change?

It is in the scums interest to steer townies into eliminating other townies and looking as clean as they can while doing it.

The pressure on me is moderately strong and I'm a rather easy target to eliminate today. I feel like if you were scum, you could easily echo

butterchurn

and

ɀefiend

and jump in, putting me at E-1 and making my elimination very likely. Instead, you're coming to my defense, like you did back in Newbie 2082, a game in which both of us were town. That shows that you're really using your knowledge of my play in a town mindset. The scums are undoubetly in a favourable position right now with one PR dead and both of them alive. I think the temptation to easily get a townie out would be too great, especially since in my opinion,

butterchurn

is the main drive of my wagon and my miselimination could make him look bad (and I think he's town).

Of course, there could be a strategy where you, being scum, are pocketing me with hopes that I'll turn the attention of others away from you on Day 3. It is a well-known fact that it's much harder to turn against someone who is friendly towards you. But I think it's unlikely to be happening because I have expressed willingness of pressuring you earlier and my views can, and sometimes do change. Plus, my impact in the game isn't, in my opinion, very strong. So I think this strategy would be moderate risk, uncertain reward.

Theoretically, why couldn't I be defending you as scum to make myself look better if you do get voted out? As scum here I'd probably feel obligated to defend you because you'd be significantly more likely to call me out if I turned on you. Your assumptions for what scum would do are overly specific and I'm not sure it's all that convincing to me.

[catboi]

Think you're being overly generous to me but whatever, answer is acceptable enough that I will continue to give you a pass.

Working on something a little different to try to give myself a fresh perspective on the game, will see if I can get to it in a bit

[catboi]

I don't think whether zefiend is technically a newbie or not really matters as much as how comfortable they are with the game. (The newbie rules are kind of wonky now that it's been brought up, though).

I think Cape is the better vote right now, I don't see the 'conviction', I thought they were scummy day 1, and I don't think their arguments make sense on day 2.

VOTE: Cape90

Dunn, your suspicions at this time (as best as I can gather) included Greeting, Cape, and Void. What made you decide Cape was the "better vote" out of those 3?

I'm not sure about greeting after the slapfight with zefiend. I feel that Cape's arguments don't make sense and they are overreaching in their push.

Asking again: Why did you think he was scummy day 1, and what arguments of his don't make sense?

[catboi]

OMGUS
Central argument of "Does this look like a person working through the game by 'association'?" is still ignored and in fact strengthened by continuing to cling to semantics and rules
Threatening to self-hammer. Seen this song and dance too many times from scum.

OMGUS isn't a scumtell. townies often respond poorly to being scumread.

I think your argument about "playing the game by associations" is significantly inflating a single post he made where he tried to take an different approach to looking at the game and using it as an argument against him whenever he deviates from it. I find this incredibly uncharitable.

Threatening to selfhammer is also a behavior that frequently comes from town. Do you really believe it to come from scum more often than not? (for the record, with greeting exhibiting a track record of doing this as town I agree with butterchurn that doing it here isn't necessarily a towntell. I'm not defending him on that basis. But arguing the behavior is more scum-indicative than not is demonstrably untrue in the case of Greeting)

[catboi]

I did not get a chance to do the project I wanted to do today but given that we are over halfway to the deadline, I believe some attempt to consolidate wagons should start soon. I will try to have more tomorrow.

[catboi]

I do agree that generally short posts are easier to digest, cape. I simply objected to you making so many in a row where a big chunk of the post was a massive quote, because then I have to scroll past a big block to get one line from you. Not that I want to dictate posting style, necessarily, but formatting helps in terms of getting your ideas across. Line breaks are helpful for separating ideas within a post. (and I personally like making separate posts for different subjects)

Let's talk about it. First, I already addressed 222 as I literally said that 208 and 215 have no connection to each other, I ignored the post when I made 215. But please shade me later on in 527 for that same post, you really are helping yourself to becoming outed mafia to me. Bolded already resonds to the second part of this funny post.

All right, but he only has your word that you ignored that post when you made it, it's not like it's something he can verify in any way, so I'm not sure why you expect him to take your word at face value here?

I find 323 pretty easy to fake. Just kinda feels like a nothing burger being like, "ah well, I played with these players before and they are town, therefore they are town exs dee, since I am busy spewing both of them as town with this, hopefully they will pocket me ". Yes I know this section is dramatized, I am just showing how I read this part, even if this isn't the interpolation here, if I am misunderstanding, I am sure Dunnstral is aware they are in a newbie game and should actually provide more details around this in order to back up their statement, otherwise, me and many others dunno what they are talking about.

He's read me well in a previous game and often doesn't explain things, but yes, that sort of post can easily come from him as scum.

Do I have to point out the last response in Dunnstral's 378? It is not very good. So Dunn goes right out shading catboi's 374 being like "oh I disagree with most of these reads." And you felt the need to point it out because?
I think 418 is really really compelling, good job. Really sold me on Greeting with your post there, another random suspicion that just so happened to pop up. Out of thin air edition. 420 doesn't explain it try again.
Do I have to laugh at how little conviction Dunn's postings have at all up to the point where Dunn shades me for having a lack of conviction 473? Honestly it's kind of offensive.

I mean, hmm. I don't see why him expressing disagreement with my reads is a scumtell necessarily, he can do tat as town. I would say that nothing he's done has blown me away with townieness and I could easily see him being scum here still.

[catboi]

To talk to myself here, I think cape going into overdrive here is always just town. Granted that the over the top hyperbolic response to dunnstral can easily be done by scum I doubt that's the route he takes over pressure from a single player. Too unnecessarily over the top. More likely to come from someone self-assured of their own towniness.

[catboi]

The inactivity isn't alignment related because he was in a very time-consuming game offsite. Which is a little irksome but it is what it is.

[catboi]

No specific comments in response to 534 but I will say the ramble on zefiend doesn't feel like it's conforming to a pre-planned conclusion, seems to be an organic evaluation.

well anyway, I shall return later, make sure mafia quake in their boots while I am gone. I am going to say this because I feel like saying this but butterchurn is mafia.

Elaborate?

[catboi]

It's just something I made a mental note of that you seemed to be the most vocal and adamant part of the notknown elim. I could see that being a bold scum play. Also, in my very casual very limited experience with irl mafia I get a red flag when someone proclaims: I am willing to be voted out for the good of the town. which I think you have posted twice so far.

As for catboi, in the same vein of a bold scumplay, I can't help but think that maybe him pointing out all my mistakes and scum markers

(which are fair observations by the way)

is a way to get a miselim on me. I think the general consensus is that scum seem to be hiding pretty well and there is nothing very obvious here... But my posts apparently have obvious mistakes and tells which people are reading as scum markers so catboi is using that. Because they are pretty transparent mistakes and fair observations, it is easy for catboi to throw it on me.

In your experience, are scum typically bold and aggressive? Because I find they rarely are.


I know you're probably tired of hearing this from me, but I feel like you admitting in the parenthetical that my observations are fair is another scumtell. Town tend to be more convinced of their own innocence while scum have the knowledge that they are in fact scum and so tend to respond more passively to accusations they know are correct.

[catboi]

I'm going to take a look later at all the scumteam possibilities and see which seem more or less likely. I don't often do that, but I feel like it could be helpful in this situation.

For the record, this was going to be my project as well, not a typical approach from me but given we're at 7 alive that limits the number of possible teams from my POV quite a bit. I think it's strongly preferable to focus primarily on individually scummy behavior rather than team hunt, but ruling out potential teams is a valid tool for helping to narrow your POE for scum (and on occasion I've correctly cleared some players for having no potential partners). I've typed up some notes but not quite ready to post them just yet.

[catboi]

This vote count is an absolute mess.

[catboi]

(strangematter uses they/them)

[catboi]

Let's talk about it. First, I already addressed 222 as I literally said that 208 and 215 have no connection to each other, I ignored the post when I made 215. But please shade me later on in 527 for that same post, you really are helping yourself to becoming outed mafia to me. Bolded already resonds to the second part of this funny post.

All right, but he only has your word that you ignored that post when you made it, it's not like it's something he can verify in any way, so I'm not sure why you expect him to take your word at face value here?

Oh right, I am supposed to have a 20 page legal document full of video evidence and what have you's backing up my statements, I forgot that we weren't just playing a game of mafia where literally the only way that I could back this up is through word of my own mouth. OH WHAT HEARSAY.

SMH I ain't calling Judge Judy to verify everything I say. I flip town = I tell truth, I flip mafia = I tell lie. I have flipped neither, but you can use that simple metric right there to determine that lmao.

Relax, I was critiquing your reasoning, that's all.

well anyway, I shall return later, make sure mafia quake in their boots while I am gone. I am going to say this because I feel like saying this but butterchurn is mafia.

Elaborate?

Because I want mafia to be afraid of the sheer towniness that I have bestowed onto the thread. That is what you are asking about yes?

I meant you thinkin butterchurn is mafia, not sure if that was a serious read or not.

[catboi]

Right, so...I don't typically do something like this, this is very much an experimental approach for me, but I thought I'd try something different based on the info we have to work with. With only 7 alive, that limits the number of potential scum team pairings considerably, and from my POV there are only 15 possible mafia teams. I want to see which teams I can rule out due to being unlikely.

In general I strongly believe that before players are flipped, you should focus on individual scumminess, as team hunting often leads people down incorrect paths (as it has for me on multiple occasions), but I do believe that being able to rule out potential teams and narrow down the possibilities for mafia is a useful tool for scumhunting. If a player has no potential partners in a game they're just town. If you restrict the teams down to a few people it gives you a better chance of hitting scum with your elimination.



Cape90/Dunnstral - don't see this ever being a thing. with the cop dead, bussing isn't a bad play but cape and dunn have been taking potshots at each other since day 1 and he vigor with which cape is going after dunnstral doesn't look like a bus.

Cape90/Void - I do not think this is likely to be a thing because of the way Void latched on to the early suspicion on cape in 40. Panic busses are a thing but this strikes me to be far more likely to be opportunism on void's part if he's scum. cape's own posts about void aren't as conclusive as he's very in between on them

Cape90/zefiend - 215 doesn't feel like a bus and I don't think cape tries for that on day 1 in a 9p setup.

butterchurn/zefiend - I don't think this is the team because of zefiend taking a chunk of his wallpost specifically to call out to butterchurn and discuss a logical argument. It's too oddly specific an interaction to be distancing and I don't see him reaching out to a partner specifically.

Greeting/butterchurn - was probably not a bus, greeting isn't interacting with butter like a partner being pushed

Greeting/zefiend - feels very unlikely. again with cop dead bussing isn't impossible but the sides are too intense and greeting specifically taking a line of attack on zefiend not technically being a newbie would be absolutely insane to do to a mafia teammate.

Greeting/VOID - I somewhat doubt that Greeting actively calls out void for lurking in-thread if they're teammates (305)

Void/butterchurn - This is maybe bold on my part, the early callout by butter on Void wouldn't be impossible as distancing, but void's response in 47 doesn't look partnery in the way he tries to explain himself, it feels like there's a level of caution to his words there you don't see between scumbuddies faking interaction. the "at the risk of sounding parrot-y AGAIN of butterchurn" also doesn't feel like something someone typically says about their scumbuddy, don't think based on his confidence level that he simply agrees with things his teammate says.


zefiend/dunnstral - the strongest point against is dunn coming to zefiend's defense when I expressed some suspicion of him, by meta dunn is just less likely to openly defend a partner like that.

Cape90/Greeting - greeting's read on cape is undercooked but going for the partner defense early would be bold and not typical of most newbies, can't strongly rule it out though.


These are teams I can see as being decently possible:

Greeting/Dunnstral - not totally implausible, have pushed at each other a little bit but not so much that

Cape90/butterchurn - strikingly possible, but both would have to be playing frankly excellent games and deciding to back each other up from the start while also interacting frequently and naturally.

butterchurn/dunnstral - not entirely implausible.

Void/Dunnstral - no reason this couldn't be the team.

Void/zefiend - 54 could easily, easily be a post made to a partner. I know people are too quick to theorize about "in-thread coaching", which rarely happens, but the post is critical of void but ultimately only pushes him to do/say more rather than saying he's scummy, and indeed there's never any followup on that and no further comments on void's alignment.


I'm not sure if this has been helpful, necessarily. I'm feeling like zefiend's interpretation of greeting's posts is very uncharitable but there is certainly an archetype of stubborn player who would get caught up in what he's doing. The interesting thing is that I feel like if he's scum, it's only with Void.

[catboi]

I guess I'll see down the line if this is even useful and whether I'm correct or not.


But for now, in this moment, the current votecount is unacceptable. We need to start forming an actual wagon. I'm willing to compromise and move my vote if no one else is.

butterchurn, you absolutely need to be making a vote at this point in time.

[catboi]

I don't actually think claims matter with the cop dead, ultimately - the doctor role isn't confirmed town and mafia never have to kill it if there's a roleblocker. I think this is somewhat unideal but I would have pushed for a hammer regardless of claim.

[catboi]

Kind of wish things had not sprung into motion while I was asleep but I guess that's what I get for making that post before I went to bed.

Sorry if this has been a bad tunnel on my part. If he flips town I think significant re-evaluation is necessary.

For the record, if there is a doctor in the setup, if this is wrong, they should not save anyone tonight.

[catboi]

I would probably get paranoid of butterchurn on a townflip but let's see what happens

[catboi]

Sigh.

[catboi]

I don't necessarily regret that vote as I was likely never getting there but it's still disappointing (for me).


My track record in late game is altogether miserable, mostly because I con myself into thinking very stupid things. As such I do not plan to do a great deal of overthinking this phase. My initial impression is that Dunn is very likely scum off that hammer and in general I don't think his play has been town. If I had to vote at this very instant in time, that's where it'd go.

The Greeting kill is somewhat unexpected for me. I had him as town fairly confidently but wouldn't have taken him as a likely nightkill. My initial impression is that the kill is +scum for zefiend, as that tunnel seemed quite strong, and I have difficulty imagining a world where the scumteam chooses to kill greeting if both are T/T. I had him and Dunnstral unaligned yesterday, but the reasoning toward that is fairly weak and not anything I'd bet the game on.

[catboi]

Pre-written analysis honestly always strikes me as scummy.

[catboi]

Brief conclusions: Leaning town on dunn.

Absolutely why

[catboi]

I think that's making too many assumptions given greeting was absolutely trashing him for his hammer.

[catboi]

I also just think there's been very little to townread in his play overall

[catboi]

In theory I hadn't voiced a scumread on Dunn and had in fact been rather in between on him, only mentioned being paranoid of you in twilight, possible he saw me as someone less likely to oppose him. Not remotely sold the kill is impossible for scum-him.

[catboi]

Eh. Don't know. If I had ruled out the actual team they might want to keep me alive. And if

every

town player was suspicious of dunn, I'm not sure at all there's a "better" kill from his POV?

[catboi]

I'm VT, for the record.

[catboi]

For the record, I do not care terribly much about finding a team solve. I have one vote today and will use it on the person I think is most likely to be scum.

[catboi]

lol ok dunn

[catboi]

I will give a customary wait for zefiend to post, and then I will vote you

[catboi]

Yesterday, they had 5 potential pairings, and I was in 3 of them. V0id is only listed as a part of two pairings, one of which I was also a part of. It technically makes a lot of sense for Catboi to have pushed for me yesterday, but instead they kept their vote on V0id who ended up being a miselim.

I should emphasize: this is wildly disingenuous. Firstly, I had already explained that that exercise was experimental and not a primary motivator in my decisionmaking. I found void scummy on an individual level.

Secondly, I had spoken of the need for consolidation when my vote was the single vote on the wagon. I made the post, went to sleep, and woke up with you hammering. I did not get a chance to negotiate or make a push, the whole thing happened while I was away from the game. I didn't have a

chance

to refocus.

[catboi]

please explain why I ever nightkill greeting

[catboi]

Your vote was on V0ID for a long time so saying you didn't get a chance to refocus is not true

I made that post and was given literally 0 opportunity to discuss it with anyone because of you

If you had an issue with me voting for void over you based on that post why would you not say it then?

[catboi]

Yesterday, they had 5 potential pairings, and I was in 3 of them. V0id is only listed as a part of two pairings, one of which I was also a part of. It technically makes a lot of sense for Catboi to have pushed for me yesterday, but instead they kept their vote on V0id who ended up being a miselim.

I don't see why this thought would only become relevant after you hammered void.

[catboi]

Claims aren't really terribly meaningful here but I don't oppose them happening.

I will be voting Dunn eventually.

[catboi]

Everyone's entrances to the day look scummy to me lol

[catboi]

If you are town I literally never kill greeting here, because you would be a free vote on him that would win the game for me because of your tunnel. Would be an outright gamethrow of a kill. That's to say nothing of the fact that even if you did somehow re-evaluate and decide he was town, Greeting was most reliably on my side out of anyone. Completely absurd to think I make that kill from your POV.

[catboi]

If you are town I literally never kill greeting here, because you would be a free vote on him that would win the game for me because of your tunnel.

Would be an outright gamethrow of a kill

. That's to say nothing of the fact that even if you did somehow re-evaluate and decide he was town, Greeting was most reliably on my side out of anyone. Completely absurd to think I make that kill from

your

POV.

A free vote, when literally nobody is voting ze. But now it is a gamethrow of a kill? What are you saying you and zefiend are mafia? what? Excuse me, do you know ze's POV? ze could be either of town or mafia.

I have many questions after reading this

I am writing that statement addressing him. When I say "from your POV" I am obviously speaking from a perspective that assumes the person is town, because addressing things from someone's point of view if mafia is obviously pointless. I don' know if he's town but I have to critique his ideas as though he were.

I'm...somewhat surprised you don't understand the language here? I don't think it's that atypical.

[catboi]

I feel like Dunn if they were mafia would probably go after me today and not catboi in 616.

That is entirely fallacious. It's very likely if he's mafia he expects me to vote for him no matter what here and as such I am easier to persuade people against than you.

Do you think that catboi is not pushing butterchurn because they think butter is unelimable?

If I had felt him unelimable, why wouldn't I nightkill him? The thought is absurd.

To be completely fair 617 is a good ol scumpoint for catboi

I've played enough wuith dunn to know the arguments he's pushing are crap.

Yesterday, they had 5 potential pairings, and I was in 3 of them. V0id is only listed as a part of two pairings, one of which I was also a part of. It technically makes a lot of sense for Catboi to have pushed for me yesterday, but instead they kept their vote on V0id who ended up being a miselim.

I don't see why this thought would only become relevant after you hammered void.

Dunn kinda dodged this but I don't see here why this thought wouldn't be relevant. This is a pretty silly comment, it's called, they probably looked back after V0id flipped town and were trying to solve from there who is actually mafia with this knowledge. They probably glossed over this detail until after the flip on V0id. Yes I am aware this is a sort of motivation of either alignment, if they are mafia, this would simply have different framing.

But he didn't frame it that way, and to not have thought about that at all seems entirely ridiculous, like what, he's just not thinking critically at all?

With the amount of water you're carrying for Dunn you'd think his house was on fire. I don't particularly think it makes you scum here, it's just incredibly annoying.

[catboi]

I think it's fairly obvious you'd be more threatening to me than Greeting here. (I also don't feel like your stances were nearly that solid)

[catboi]

I don't think his reasons are good at all although of course I'm biased

[catboi]

I don' know if he's town but I have to critique his ideas as though he were.
.

Well right now I am trying to do this with Dunn RIGHT NOW.

With the amount of water you're carrying for Dunn you'd think his house was on fire

But it's obvious you are not

That is fair, I suppose. I am mostly locked into the idea of him being scum because that was how I felt entering the day and his attack on me felt too unbelievable to come from town.

[catboi]

I don't care about solving for the exact team, Dunn. I never see it lead to good results and it never works for me, so I'm not going to bother with it.

[catboi]

Right, so...I don't typically do something like this,

this is very much an experimental approach for me

, but I thought I'd try something different based on the info we have to work with. With only 7 alive, that limits the number of potential scum team pairings considerably, and from my POV there are only 15 possible mafia teams. I want to see which teams I can rule out due to being unlikely.

In general I strongly believe that before players are flipped, you should focus on individual scumminess, as team hunting often leads people down incorrect paths (as it has for me on multiple occasions)

, but I do believe that being able to rule out potential teams and narrow down the possibilities for mafia is a useful tool for scumhunting.

I laid it out pretty plainly that I wasn't betting the game on that analysis. It was just something I wanted to try within the confines of a newbie game.

Anyway, inevitably when trying to find an exact team on ELO, the odds are worse, and if you get it wrong, townies tend to OMGUS and make the game unwinnable. I'm not doing that. I have one vote, I want to try to place it in the right place today. Nothing else matters.

[catboi]

VOTE: Dunnstral

Might as well make it official. Was unlikely I'd make any other move today, if I'm wrong I might as well find out now.

[catboi]

The amount of people coming to his defense actually makes me uneasy simply because I'd expect that to be the approach scum takes if I have the wrong idea. But I'm not in the mood for second guessing.

[catboi]

I come away from this a little more suspicious of catboi, I think, because I find his behavior slightly harder to rationalize as town, and closer to a pattern of scumplay that I would expect. It also looks like he ended up with dunn as a suspicion mostly by POE, which feels somewhat at odds with his emotion-tinged interactions with him toDay where he seems to be treating him like he sees him as obvscum. I know he finds the hammer suspicious, but besides that his reasoning seemed to be "he hasn't done anything towny" until dunn made a case on him.

This is gibberish, btw

[catboi]

This is gibberish, btw

As in, it doesn't make sense? I can try to clarify what I mean if you like.

No, I don't need clarification. I just find the reasoning outrageous.

[catboi]

I find these situations irritating as town and I have an inherent bias against people who write a lot of words because I always feel like it's done for the purpose of being showy, regarrdless of whether not it actually ends up being the case. Don't take it personally.
I feel like you're either minimizing or not really making steps to understand my reasoning for seeing Dunn as scum.

[catboi]

I should say: conventional wisdom in this situation is to re-read and re-evaluate, that's the standard spiel that gets tossed out all the time. You're in ELO for a reason, if you had the right reads you wouldn't be here, etc etc.

It doesn't really work. At least not in my experience. The more I reread the worse my accuracy becomes. That's why I'm sticking to my first impulse of Dunn-scum. If it's wrong, that sucks but I can live with it.


In general I think a lot of people could stand to recheck their assumptions at endgame, as I feel like too few do and they sleepwalk into the wrong vote. But do as I say, not as I do, I suppose.

[catboi]

I find these situations irritating as town and I have an inherent bias against people who write a lot of words because I always feel like it's done for the purpose of being showy, regarrdless of whether not it actually ends up being the case. Don't take it personally.
I feel like you're either minimizing or not really making steps to understand my reasoning for seeing Dunn as scum.

I really would appreciate a more thorough explanation of your suspicion for Dunn, and where it started. I think that would help.

If I haven't lost the game I'll try to explain it.

[catboi]

cape/butter ruled out provides some measure of relief. Will get to responding to things now.

[catboi]

Personally, I already think one of you or dunn is scum, so I'm going to continue as if the game isn't lost.

These are all of your opinions on the slot:

• - 220: "GB flaking is disappointing given he's been around to post elsewhere but from what I know he's a lower activity player as both alignments so not particularly damning"
  - 268: "A part of me says Dunnstral doesn't enter a newbie game and immediately E-1 someone as scum because that'd be bad optics, although that's a weak feeling"
  - 292: "murky level of uncertain" (along with most of the players)
  - 374: "Greeting/Cape town, butter weaker town, scum in void/dunn/zefiend." (given previous posting, I don't know how to read this in any way other than POE)
  - 387: Asking him to explain why he disagrees with your reads
  - 388: Clarifying a statement you made that he disagreed with
  - 423: He made a fair point
  - 426: "In my experience he tends to try harder to project being town when he's mafia. If this weren't a newbie game I'd probably be scumreading him, but as it is I'm still iffy because I'd expect him to try to be a bit more transparent in a newbie game."
  - 503: Asking him to explain why he found cape scummy
  - 526: Asking again
  - 539: "He's read me well in a previous game and often doesn't explain things, but yes, that sort of post can easily come from him as scum." and "I mean, hmm. I don't see why him expressing disagreement with my reads is a scumtell necessarily, he can do tat as town. I would say that nothing he's done has blown me away with townieness and I could easily see him being scum here still." (responding to cape)
  - 564: Various comments in the pairings post, mostly that the dunn teams are not implausible
  - 586: "I think this is somewhat unideal but I would have pushed for a hammer regardless of claim." (first reaction to dunn's hammer)
  - 595: "My initial impression is that Dunn is very likely scum off that hammer and in general I don't think his play has been town. If I had to vote at this very instant in time, that's where it'd go."
  - 599: "Absolutely why" (when I express a townlean on Dunn)
  - 602: "I also just think there's been very little to townread in his play overall"
  - 617: "lol ok dunn" (after he makes a case on you)

To me, that looks like things escalate pretty quickly once toDay starts, and that there wasn't really ever much of a basis for suspicion to begin with, at least not one that was at all well-explained. The hammer didn't seem to appear that suspicious to you immediately, but that's understandable since you were leading the push on void, but when the next day started you never really talked about WHY you find it so suspicious. I definitely agree it was strange play, but to go from "eh he hasn't not done anything towny", "him being scum is not implausible", what looks like POE, etc., to treating him as if you have no doubt he's scum is something that I feel like should merit at least a little more explanation.

Is it really not all that well explained? I had him as a POE slot from day 2 and never wavered from there, thought his hammer was scum motivated, and then he opened the day with a case on me with atrocious reasoning that was effectively a scumclaim to me. No, I didn't call out the hammer in the immediate aftermath because at that time in the immediate aftermath it could have easily been a scum flip, and it only really was scummy in my eyes on a townflip.

But still, my thinking was towards a POE on day 2 and literally nothing happened to change my mind. Why the hell are you acting like this was out of nowhere?

[catboi]

By the way, no idea when cape will check the thread next since he seems to disappear for chunks of time, but @cape if you're town I'm pretty sure it's correct play regardless of your suspicions here to not vote Dunn right away. Same goes for zefiend, I guess, as much as I doubt him being town? I'm not an endgame mechanics expert by any means, but that seems logical to me. We can at least wait and see if the game is over or not, because then we have more information.

Yeah you are right I should vote Dunn right away! Thanks for the tip!

Trust me after Newbie 2084, I will avoid plays like that.

Obviously one of catboi/dunn are mafia here. Every second this day ticks by, I am starting to lean a bit towards it being catboi

Okay, why?

I don't have the time or motivation at present to address all of zefiend's arguments against greeting but I will just say that being illogical and at times inconsistent in reasoning is not a scumtell, and zefiend overly nitpicky and inflexible in his thinking. Scum can play that archetype but if I had to guess at that moment I'd say he's town, just a bit set in his ways.

I have seen comments like this addressed from scum to town.

"zefiend overly nitpicky and inflexible in his thinking. Scum can play that archetype but if I had to guess at that moment I'd say he's town, just a bit set in his ways."

This sort of quasi defending of zefiend's thought process strikes me as really strange to me and makes me feel like catboi has more information on zefiend as they let on. I had this thought while continuing to read 667

Why does someone writing a similar sounding post as scum make me more likely to be scum? That's an incredibly silly way of thinking. The game isn't played by everyone making posts in neat little shapes and one post is a town shape no matter who it comes from and one is a scum shape. Oftentimes scum make posts that are imitating ones people make as town, anyway.

My thinking at the time was that zefiend's case on greeting was very bad in its reasoning (and surprise, it was!). But the thing is,

townies have bad thought processes all the time

. Part of the game is recognizing that fact and trying to assess whether another player really believes what they are saying. At the time, I felt his conviction in the read was sincere. As the day dragged on, I began to waver in that belief.

What is actually "really strange" about disagreeing with someone's thought process but thinking they could be town regardless?

That's a fundamental part of the game.

If you think that post implies zefiend is town, who is my partner supposed to be, exactly?

[catboi]

I've played enough wuith dunn to know the arguments he's pushing are crap.

I believe that this stance is made-up and cannot be supported.

catboi might as well avoid this comment we really got them on the ropes Dunn

I'm not sure what you actually want me to address in that comment?

[catboi]

Further, butterchurn, why does my read on Dunn escalating today make me more likely to be scum? Why can't that be an organic thought process? I had him as a suspect for a big part of yesterday, my primary read was wrong, he moved to occupy the spot of most likely scum in my mind. Dunn literally didn't suspect me at all before today and sheeped my vote, then came out the gates with a case on me. Your only engagement with it is to say he's "talking past" me in 630, but never actually address the substance of his argument at all.

[catboi]

I am going to question the reasoning of others and how they apply even if their approach differs from how I'm approaching the day. My goal in doing so is to try to understand and critique their logic. Cape very specifically gave a conditional of me-scum, zefiend-town, so I want to know who he possibly thinks I'm teamed with in that scenario.


And for the record, I am forming reads based off talking to people but reserve the to not commit to an exact answer at this point in time. My focus is on getting step 1 right. But asking questions and interacting is how I plan to figure things out.

I mean, it's not like you're really committing to an answer, either - you've left the possibilities as me/cape and me/zefiend, and have taken basically ~no steps to figure things out.

[catboi]

Also, I am literally interacting with everyone right now, so the idea that I'm afraid of "giving associative information" is patently false

[catboi]

Further, the idea that I'm unwilling to interact with or give opinions on teammates as scum when I'm locked in a 1v1 is flatly not true - it's incredibly easy to fake stances on, and as scum you can comfortably posture knowing that even if you lose you're setting up associations to win afterward. It's incredibly easy to do. As town I have less certainty and so need to be mor cautious in my assessments of other players.

[catboi]

I wasn't going to dive my whole ISO that game but even after the Briar flip I was posturing toward the wall in order to try to distance from my partner and confuse associations. It's not remotely a hard thing to do.

[catboi]

That link was a starting point. If people in this game would like to see how I act in a more conventional situation (I'm in a 1v1 with something_smart and my teammate is in a 3p with no clears until lukewarm gets given the hammer), you can start here instead.

[catboi]

It just struck me that there is probably a reason that cape is suddenly suspicious of me that cannot be discussed due to site rules. That is unfortunate.

Will try to respond to butterchurn later.

[catboi]

You know, I was kinda doing the same thing you were doing to where I was thinking of, you know, pressuring the slot I felt was the scummiest versus looking for partners, btw what happened to that ideology?

I...have no idea what you're saying? My focus is still on Dunn, but I am voting him, and he is close to confirmed scum to me. That means I move from trying to decide who is scum to talking to other people, trying to convince them Dunn is scum, and maybe, hopefully, get a read on them that way.

Well, the answer in that world feels obvious to me, but I don't think butterchurn is mafia right now. I mean, if you want to spew you and zefiend as both Mafia together go right ahead.

Yes I do know better then to think that 2 SE players would go out of their way to cross bus each other in ELO.

I don't think cross-bussing in ELO is nearly as invalid a tactic as you believe it to be. (thousands of chat games' worth of experience suggests otherwise). However, I'd be out of my mind to do it here when butterchurn was telegraphing his intention to vote zefiend.

That being said, this is incoherent? You won't commit to me being aligned with anyone here and in fact have seemingly dismissed any pairing, so why the continued suspicion of me? If you had the belief I could be partnered with someone, it'd be wrong, but it would least

make sense

. It's frustrating to not get a straight answer to a simple question like that.

[catboi]

I mean, strictly speaking, zefiend posted once this morning and not when either of you two were online. I'm not unvoting but I'm not treating it as fully confirmed until it actually is.

[catboi]

I reserve the right to be conservative in my language. If you think that's telling of my alignment you're delusional.

[catboi]

I don't think cross-bussing in ELO is nearly as invalid a tactic as you believe it to be. (thousands of chat games' worth of experience suggests otherwise)

I would say chat games don't exactly super translate to this format. Plus I feel like both of you could easily try to push zefiend or myself so

I think it's an entirely valid move strategically but wouldn't try it given what other people's reads were.

[catboi]

No, it really isn't well explained. Not once did you directly engage with any of dunn's posts and explain why you thought those were suspicious, until his case on you. The closest thing you got was a response to cape. My quotes in 679 weren't single sentences pulled out of longer explanations. That was literally the entirety of what you had said about dunn. You still haven't explained WHY you think the hammer was scum motivated. I think we can all agree it was very strange, and once void flips it looks bad on the surface, but what is scum!dunn's reasoning behind his actions? Why does he vote cape earlier in the day instead of void? Why does he bring up the whole role thing, then reason his way through it, and THEN vote? Why not just declare intent and let things happen the normal way? Why draw so much attention? I'm not saying that these are impossible things for scum to do by any means. I just want you to explain why they are more likely to come from scum than town, which you never did. And not just a plausible rationalization, I want to know why you were so convinced. You seemed to just come into the day taking for granted that everyone would find it suspicious, to the point where when I didn't, you seemed to get frustrated (which, I think you could easily get frustrated there as either alignment, for different reasons).

Why do I think the hammer was scum motivated? ffs, really? It was a quickhammer without a claim on town that shut down the day and sent the game to ELO. That's a golden opportunity for scum and one I absolutely believe he'd take.

He votes cape earlier in the day because he's interested in pushing back on cape and discrediting cape's scumread of him. Scum don't have to have a rhyme or reason for everything they do and the idea they just swarm to the best available wagon is silly. By keeping the wagons split for most of day 2 it prevented any sort of cohesion and made it likely we wound up on a compromise elimination.

It's very likely he legitimately suspected that void was possibly the doctor, and stayed away for that reason. It's something I've seen scm do befiore, and not really a towntell because they can have PR reads that are entirely legitimate. Why does he bring up that entire reasoning? To look like he's "thinking" his way through? If he declares intent, it's possible people get scared off and unvote, taking away the opportunity for him to hammer

so of course he quickhammers without stating intent

. As scum dunn lurks hard and akes that kind of play because he knows people will let him get away with it.


You are essentially asking "why does scum do this thing that is enormously beneficial for scum"? It's utterly outrageous.

I regret using the "carrying water" line on cape earlier because you really are making a ton of excuses for Dunn's play.

[catboi]

If you had him as a suspicion yesterday, why didn't you investigate further, look at any of his posts, or make any sort of push on him when the votecount was at 2 on him and 1 on Greeting? Or even later, when the vote is split at 1 each, and you've just finished a votecount analysis that puts dunn on 3 of your 5 most likely teams? If you were so worried about needing to consolidate the votes and bemoaning how the votecount was a mess, why were you not looking into one of the few people who had multiple people expressing willingness to vote them, when they had 2 votes on them at one point and were also one of your suspects? Instead you went down what felt like a "well, I HAVE to vote void at this point, he can't get a newbie pass forever" route. It doesn't feel like you were taking a genuine interest in solving the game and finding scum (or working with your townreads -- you were townreading Greeting and cape, the two votes on Dunn), and that's what I find suspicious. So either you do have him as a strong suspect yesterday, but you never really push or make a case on him despite it making sense to do so, or you didn't have him as a strong suspect, and then it escalated even more quickly.

I WOULD HAVE COMPROMISED.

I made that post at 1:30 AM my time. The intent was to discuss this

with other people

. By the time I woke up, the game was hammered. I WAS GIVEN NO OPPORTUNITY TO TALK WITH OTHER PEOPLE. You are willfully distorting the timeline of events here. I did not have him as a strong suspect. I had him as someone in my POE. I was uncertain. I always am. I would have gladly moved to put my vote on him but was cut off from doing so.

[catboi]

And for what it's worth, I completely agree with this. The behavior reads like someone who knows that in order to win, they only have to get one elim. It may seem like I'm talking about you more, but there's just more to talk about, especially because I had mostly been townreading you before this (and frankly, I think engaging with dunn would be less helpful and not make things much clearer for me, so I'd rather try to solve it from this side). I'm still conflicted. I preferred a zefiend elim today, but that's clearly not happening, and I guess in the end it doesn't really matter which comes first, so I'm just trying to work out who is more likely to be scum between you and dunn.

Why the hell would you not engage with someone who has provided decidedly less to work with this game? Why would you notangage with his reasoning at all? The hyperfocus makes absolutely no sense.

[catboi]

In a general sense dunn's scumreads this game prior to today have all been either opportunistic or survivalistic: he has either voted on the lead wagon at the time (as with not known/cape) or pushed back against the people who were pushing him. At precisely no point was he ever actually trying to genuinely evaluate people.

[catboi]

I should say: conventional wisdom in this situation is to re-read and re-evaluate, that's the standard spiel that gets tossed out all the time. You're in ELO for a reason, if you had the right reads you wouldn't be here, etc etc.

It doesn't really work. At least not in my experience. The more I reread the worse my accuracy becomes. That's why I'm sticking to my first impulse of Dunn-scum. If it's wrong, that sucks but I can live with it.


In general I think a lot of people could stand to recheck their assumptions at endgame, as I feel like too few do and they sleepwalk into the wrong vote. But do as I say, not as I do, I suppose.

For the record: This is a post and perspective I simply never make as scum. It doesn't happen. It has no value.

I have a harder time convincing people with something I intuitively

feel

in my head but haven't put into words yet. But as town I'm less interested in "showing" every step of my thought process and more in figuring things out for myself regardless of whether or not it all shows up in the thread. My success rate in ELO/late game voting is, without exaggeration, incredibly poor. I'd estimate something like 80-90% incorrect? Significantly below random. But that always came after doing "the right thing" and rereading. More often than not, my first impressions were significantly more likely to be correct and I talked myself out of them every time, wanting to believe there was a more complicated solution.

But the thing is: when no one here really knows me except for Dunn. I don't need to take that perspective as scum. I can play a much "cleaner", conventional game that would appear more appealing and "solvy" to players unfamiliar with me.

It is incredibly easy for me to fake analysis. Had I drawn scum, I could very easily put on a show of rereading the game, ISOing everyone, waste a ton of time, and make it look good. People townread the most foolish things.

Maybe I

should

adapt that to my play for the sake of convincing people but the concern was that I'd end up confirmation biasing myself into a bad read. My goal, first and foremost, was to make the vote I felt was right, because even if my success rate is poor I am always distrustful of other people and

hate

giving up agency and sitting back and waiting for someone else to do something. That's a play that is much less good for optics but it is one I have no reason at all to make as scum.

[catboi]

No idea. I thought I would be easily pulled towards scum!Dunn but with butter's behavior I am not sure AT ALL anymore. As the day goes on I must admit I am more comfortable with you hammering but as it stands I will NOT be voting before butter.

Whys his behavior making you uncertain?

[catboi]

This wasn't a major point, but I don't think this is likely. Me, you, zefiend, and cape have claimed VT (Dunn has effectively claimed VT as well by thinking that void could be doctor, although I don't think he ever said it directly). If he were scum, then all of town just claimed VT. I don't see why town would lie on their claims here, so that would mean that we would be in Column C, with no doctor, and the scumteam would be aware of that since they wouldn't have a roleblocker.

...it hadn't actually occurred to me until this moment that there was no PR and scum would have known. Blunder on my part. Then he either faked it to look town, or ignored it knowing that my tunnel on void was beneficial to scum and if someone else got eliminated, it would benefit them.

Do you remember any example games where this happened? I would very much like to look at them, if so.

mea culpa: had heard secondhand he does that stuff, couldn't find any record of him quickhammering a town elim as scum though, don't have the patience to dig. Do have an example of him making an opportunist vote on a town wagon that he'd previously been avoiding. Think regardless of player type your argument here is veering into "too scummy to be scum" territory, which is a logical fallacy.

[catboi]

I was referring to before that post, so no, I'm not distorting the timeline. I'm aware that you likely did not want things to move on void that fast regardless of your alignment. And if you didn't have him as a strong suspect, then that explains why you didn't push hard for him, although I still would expect you to look into him further earlier in the day when he had 2 votes from Greeting and cape.

What, exactly, is there for me to "look further into"? I questioned him briefly to try to get him to explain his tances, felt it inconclusive, and moved on. I did not feel particularly inspired to ask more and didn't have much to work with. I wasn't going to compromise and vote him up too early into the day.

Because I don't really trust my ability to read his responses or reactions. If you haven't noticed, I've had very poor reads this game (suspicions and votes on 3 of the 4 confirmed town), which is why I entered the day planning to approach things differently. And it's not like I'm ignoring him, I gave you each equal weight while I was rereading, I just don't really have specific questions for him. From my perspective, the only question is which of you or dunn is scum. I feel like I'm learning more from this than I would be if I took a different approach.

You have simultaneously criticized me for not "looking further into" Dunnstral while not having anything to ask him yourself.

Do you mean with not known/void? When he voted cape, there were 2 votes on Greeting, and 1 each on zefiend, dunn, and void. I assume you meant that cape fits into the pushing back against people who were pushing him category, but he suspected cape before cape suspected him.

False. Cape voted for Dunn in 403, and while Dunn said he disagreed with my townread of cape in 378, he didn't begin pushing back in earnest until Cape had him as a scumread.

[catboi]

Also, I know I'm pushing you a lot, but understand my perspective -- yesterDay early I was fairly convinced of Greeting being scum, and for the most part, you talked me out of it. Once I had come around on Greeting, I was feeling a lot of doubt in my own scumreads and suspicions, and you defending Greeting had me townreading you. So I decided to put some more trust in the direction you were heading instead. That backfired pretty badly. It makes me pretty hesitant to follow along with you again, because I REALLY don't want to make that mistake twice, and so I want to make sure I'm doing my due diligence and considering all possibilities first.

That seems a pretty drastic overreaction. Part of the game as town is being wrong. It's not to say I wouldn't have pushed void as scum, necessarily, but almost every town player, even particularly good ones, are frequently wrong on their scumreads (I am not particularly good town player, as I have repeatedly emphasized). I had precisely one scumread I was pushing for most of the game, which turned out to be incorrect. Why does that make me more untrustworthy relative to anyone else who's been incorrect? I understand skepticism and due caution at this stage of the game is warranted but it feels like you've put an unusual level of attention toward me.

[catboi]

You were decidedly lurky in chromatic ascenscion

[catboi]

But I also think it's not

that

significant a point

[catboi]

For what it's worth, a significant chunk of experienced players will fake townslips where they pretend to forget things about the the setup or the flipped players in order to get townread.

It's not really in my wheelhouse to do so, because I just don't think about that sort of stuff, although you can't really take my word for it while we're in this game. But it is something to be wary of.

[catboi]

I did ponder the question of who dunn's partner is, because my brain needs something to work on and I can only argue with people about him for so long. I don't really feel confident in an answer at all, though.

[catboi]

I suppose I'll just stream of consciousness off the top of my head, at the risk of it backfiring on me.

butterchurn's play today has pinged me pretty hard - not just in terms of him arguing with me but smaller things he's done, seemingly trying to get on my good side earlier in the day, wanting to direct the vote to zefiend. His read on Dunn throughout the game was fairly hinky, he kept trying to give him a townread for fairly strained reasoning. But I'm also biased against people whose reasoning irritates me, and I tend to get unreasonably worked up over it. Had a few such instances of that where I tunneled another player for not seeing eye to eye. In general prior to this day phase I'd been concerned he'd be playing the sort of scum game an experienced player with no meta onsite could get away with - a lot of nice looking words but overly cautious with no real pressure anywhere, an overly cautious game where his main concern is looking good. I haven't investigated to see whether that holds up.

does cape fit the profile? theoretically that sort of back and forth distancing between two teammates isn't really impossible and in these situations I get paranoid of it but I don't see why if he was distancing from Dunn all game that he'd abandon it at this moment - seems it'd be unnecessary when he'd look better

zefiend calling out butterchurn for fencesitting while pointedly doing so himself is...a look. I sort of bought his insistence he wouldn't kill greeting although that's very flimsy. In a lot of ways his cases felt like he was force fitting arguments and I found his engagement with the game suspicious on multiple occasions. Dunn slightly defended him while zefiend just slapped dunn with an uncertain/don't know read, which is

so cliche

i almost doubt whether it could truly come from a teammate. His play today probably fits the stereotypical scum profile, though, I admit.

So that's why I'm left uncertain. Hopefully this makes some sense, I'm not going to proofread it~

[catboi]

Eh. Don't know. If I had ruled out the actual team they might want to keep me alive.

Initial read of this is that it has me leaning slightly more town, since this is my thought process as well. I think scum you could easily stick to one of the teams you had laid out earlier. Doesn't hurt to express doubt, though, so eh.

This line in particular had me scratching my had because it had that sort of vague buddying feel that tends to be how scum play around me in late game, at a moment I was potentially opening myself up to a zefiend vote. The reasoning was very puzzling to me because I could easily see someone interpreting my backpedal on my analysis from the day as a way of keeping my options open, but you somehow concluded it was +town, which didn't really make sense to me

[catboi]

I like both of those posts for the most part. I also felt questionable about cape's latest, and it appearing potentially opportunistic is a good point that I hadn't considered.

Was leaning towards suspicion with GeorgeBailey, now trending slightly the other direction

.

That vote puts NK15 at E-1, correct?

Because of Dunn's intro or because of something else?

Yes, from the two posts he made. GeorgeBailey seemed generally useless at best, and low-effort mafia at worst.

Dunn's first posts on their own seemed insightful and I generally agreed with them, which to me is a much more positive sign for that slot's alignment.

It's not much content so it's not a strong lean at all, but essentially his posts took him from "still suspicious here" to "willing to give this a relatively fresh slate".

Somewhat suspicious of Greeting already from what I mentioned in 243 and 245. I would think that scum currently would be pretty excited due to the cop kill and generally being at an advantage at the moment, so I was thinking that at least one of them would be posting early and would want to control the narrative of things from the start of the day. Cape and greeting's posting early today both fit that bill, to some extent. Also still never was particularly satisfied by cape's answer to my line of questioning in 175, especially now that we know notscience was town. Would not be surprised for town catboi to be somewhat discouraged, feeling relatively neutral there.

Scum could also aim to lay low here.

Would like to hear more from dunnstral especially, since his first post he's given a few opinions but with little to back them up.

Forgot to conclude -- both of those feel like patterns of how I would expect scum to interact with this wagon. zefiend ignoring it is also strange, but I think it's less strange knowing that NK was town -- feels almost too obvious to me for scum to completely ignore a wagon on town that is dominating the discussion. catboi felt relatively consistent on his thoughts on it, which could go either way. void didn't say much, but a lot of his thoughts aligned with my own, so... shrug. dunn neutral, both readings are plausible.

What do you think of:

catboi

,

Dunnstral

and

ɀefiend

, three players I mentioned earlier?

Not very firm reads on any of them.

-

Slight townlean on dunn, as almost everything he's said has made sense to me and seems well-reasoned. Not enough posts to have a strong feeling, but nothing has made me suspicious as of yet.

- zefiend I feel like has just not really been on my radar for whatever reason. I've re-read him a couple times to try to get a read, and it just feels like we're on different wavelengths. My instinct is to find that suspicious, but the arguments against him don't convince me much. He's said a few things I agree with, and a few things that that just seem strange but not particularly AI.
- catboi I'm somewhat conflicted on. In general I would say slightly leaning town, but there's been a couple things that give me pause, and his reads don't align with mine at all.

I don't think whether zefiend is technically a newbie or not really matters as much as how comfortable they are with the game. (The newbie rules are kind of wonky now that it's been brought up, though).

I think Cape is the better vote right now, I don't see the 'conviction', I thought they were scummy day 1, and I don't think their arguments make sense on day 2.

VOTE: Cape90

Dunn, your suspicions at this time (as best as I can gather) included Greeting, Cape, and Void. What made you decide Cape was the "better vote" out of those 3?

Dunn would probably be my second choice, FWIW.

Have come around somewhat on both cape and Greeting, moreso on cape. Still planning to take a look at potential pairings as well tomorrow, although now some of it will be somewhat redundant.

Brief conclusions: Leaning town on dunn. My gut is much more conflicted, but I'm making the call not to trust it right now since it's been wrong so far. If I were to vote right now, it would probably be for zefiend. I mostly townread him before this, but he looks worse knowing Greeting was town. The question is, would scum know that killing Greeting makes him look worse?

Maybe not consistently but really your ISO looks like how I'd expect a partner to talk about dunn, you townlean him for very vague reasons early on ("insightful", "makes sense") and never really investigate much, ask him to do more but remain neutral, mention him as a secondary suspect but only when voting void, and then at the start of the day your stance suddenly flips back to leaning town on him. I don't get the sense there's much consideration of whether or not he could be scum.

[catboi]

Oh, I just thought to check GeorgeBailey's ISO and I don't think him and cape is a thing based on the early game, george jumped on the early suspicion of cape, he did distance/bus in Micro 1026, but it was significantly later in the phase, at a time when the scum felt like they were being POE'd and didn't have much in the way of options. I don't think his early jump on cape is similar to that.

[catboi]

Well, I'm just running through the thoughts in my head at this point in time because I've nothing else to do with cape and zefiend not being active at all.

As it is I'm not entirely sold, because, as far as hedging their bets on Dunn,

that's what literally everyone was doing

at the start of this day phase, which I found altogether bewildering, but clearly they didn't feel any risk of blowback there. Hypothetically in this situation as scum outside the cross vote, I don't think it's unreasonable to try to read the room and take whatever stance you feel is more likely to win at the moment rather than pressing for it yourself. At any rate, easy to posture about these things. But like I said, I do not feel strongly confident about this at all.


Can you explain to me what things dunn posted you thought were insightful/made sense?

[catboi]

Dunn being extremely selective in his responses here is essentially a scumclaim, yes

[catboi]

I *wish* there was more to read into from zefiend...as it is it's been over a day since he posted. I had this post drafted but wanted to wait for butterchurn to respond to my questioning first and possibly for zefiend to talk a bit more.

That was terrible... I can't even.

I think saying "at least one mafia must be experienced" is a hollow conclusion at best and just WIFOM at worst. If I think about potential scumteams, all of them include someone with forum/chat experience.

Like, if we can rule out VOID+butterchurn, that's great, but we're still standing around like Spidermen pointing at each other.

Right now, I think catboi is coasting, and I also disagree with them. I think both Greeting or Cape's day entrance could be performative. Feel good about butter. I haven't thought deeply about the "scum!VOID is getting carried by an experienced scum" theory, but I guess it could be by anyone.

And Dunn, I don't have a solid read on at all. Nothing screams town, but nobody lights up as a potential partner either.

There's also this gut wrenching feeling that butter is playing a masterful game and I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt because their posts are so coherent and thought progression is consistent. But I'm not gonna dwell on that unless I make it to ELLO. Definitely off the table today.

These are teams I can see as being decently possible:

Greeting/Dunnstral - not totally implausible, have pushed at each other a little bit but not so much that

Sure. I haven't given Dunn much thought since they don't say much. But nothing they've said has been scummy to me so I don't think so.

I would only vote VOID or dunn to secure a lim today.

zefiend's commentary on Dunn is very, very limited such that I really couldn't rule them out as partners based on anything in his ISO.

[catboi]

As things are I'd probably go with the notion that my earlier game reads are likely to be better than my ELO reads and say zefiend-scum, with the consideration that any other scumteam would be making a highly suboptimal kill in Greeting. I've seen scumteams make bad kills before, though.

It's not a high level of confidence at all.

[catboi]

This is your first post in days and literally all your attention is devoted to defending yourself and saying nothing whatsoever about the cross?

[catboi]

No idea.

I thought I would be easily pulled towards scum!Dunn but with butter's behavior I am not sure AT ALL anymore.

As the day goes on I must admit I am more comfortable with you hammering but as it stands I will NOT be voting before butter.

I already asked you this, but WHY does butterchurn's affect your view of the cross? Why were you thinking dunn was scum in the first place?

I need

something

to work with and you're making this incredibly hard

[catboi]

Let me parse this in-thread:

If you and Dunn cross, and Cape+butter are scum, then we lose.

If Cape+butter were scum, would they kill Greeting? I find it quite unlikely. Because, they would know me and Greeting are TvT, and Dunn is universally scum-read. Meaning a kill on Catboi is an easy win for them. Counterpoint: if catboi had died and Greeting had lived, would Greeting have reconsidered this? Would I? I don't think I would have, but obviously I don't know how to read Greeting.

Therefore, if I discount Cape+butter, and I discount catboi+Dunn (no reason to consider this today if this is the inevitable cross), then I have:

> catboi+cape
They needed either: (1)Butter to vote me or Dunn (likely), (2)me to vote Butter or Dunn (half likely as of end of D2), or (3) Dunn to vote me or Butter (seems unlikely) - so after a catboi/Dunn cross, (1) and (2) both apply

> catboi+butter
They needed either: (1)Dunn to vote me or Cape (idk), (2)me to vote Dunn or cape (probable), (3)Cape to vote me or Dunn (probable) - so after the cross, (2) and (3) apply

> Dunn+cape
They needed either: (1)Butter to vote me or catboi (idk, half likely?), (2)me to vote butter or catboi (improbable), (3)catboi to vote me or butter (half to full probable?) - so after the cross, NONE apply

> Dunn+butter
They needed either: (1)catboi to vote me or cape (idk, half likely?), (2)me to vote catboi or cape (half likely), (3)cape to vote me or catboi (at least half likely?) - after the cross, NONE to maybe half of one applies.

---

So all this means that based on Greeting kill and current game-state attitude, catboi is most likely to be scum. (if I assume scum killed for easiest/helpful LiLo today)

This is my mind's work. But my gut tells me that I'm horribly, horribly wrong. Catboi, please show me where I'm wrong and prove my gut right.

Like, I don't know. Nominally you can spin your wheels all day on hypothetical stuff like this, I don't find it at all terribly meaningful, but at the end you say your gut says otherwise, it doesn't go anywhere. I can't get a sense of why you're thinking what you're thinking, at all.

[catboi]

To put it another way: do you really think coming back and arguing with butterchurn is the best use of your time right now?

[catboi]

I was actually going to comment that I'm struggling to come up with more things to say on the state of things as they are. I think in all likelihood I get nightkilled after a Dunn flip, in the event of that I'm most confident in clearing cape still. Doubt he distanced consistently all game as scum (and if he did, I simply tip my hat to it). Stated my lean but am not dictating a choice because I'm not at a level of confidence or skill where I feel comfortable in doing so. Really wish zefiend had given something more of substance here.

I pulled out some bits I think are relevant knowing Dunn is conf-scum FMPOV, but have actively resisted doing a full reread because I think it'll do more harm than good. That limits the amount of things I can say here.

[catboi]

I just didn't really agree there. Not to mention 1. zefiend wasn't a popular candidate, 2. catboi was literally expressing that bussing in a 9p setup here is not good, however, they argue that themselves/Dunn were not out of the question today.
IDK, I could have seen my vote on ze as like a distancing thing, but whatever

The operative word you are missing here is "on day 1". A significant amount of the time, a day 1 scum elimination leads to a town win, often because the game gets locked up mechanically by power roles with only 1 scum left. Bussing day 1 is generally suboptimal for those reasons. Of course, not everyone plays optimally and distancing is possible, but my estimation was that you wouldn't try it given that there was at least some degree of suspicion on him that day. Of course distancing is always possible and I generally have a hard time spotting it, but the way you went after him didn't feel that way.

By contrast, I don't think bussing on 5P with no PRs alive is a bad strategy whatsoever.

Of course, this stuff is all just generalized strategy talk that I'd believe regardless of alignment. The question you have to ask yourself is if that read of an anti-alignment is one I'd actually believe. And I don't think that was an unreasonable conclusion to draw at all.

[catboi]

I don't have further comment. My general advice to town who ends up holding hammer in F3 is that you should always question both sides before making your vote.

Feel free to hammer anytime.

[catboi]

I don't think zefiend being inactive is alignment indicative, seems to just be busy. What he's chosen to say with the time he's had is disappointing, though.

Good luck~

[catboi]

Why have you done this to me?

[catboi]

I'm town

[catboi]

Go ahead and write it up, I'm going to give both of you time to make your case.

[catboi]

VOTE: Butterchurn

catboi, if you have any questions lemme know. As for a scum-case, there's definitely a lot of wishy-washiness from butterchurn I can pull up throughout the first couple days that smelled scummy but flew under the radar. Mostly everyone pigeon-holed him as a town-lean and never looked back.

As for my town-case, I will say, I didn't play a spectacular town game but I honestly lost a lot of motivation after Greeting flipped town. It sucks to try so hard and be so wrong.

If anything I've learned from this game, butterchurn has played the "off-site 'newbie' scum" extremely well. I hope regardless of the outcome, people will give his scumplay a little more credit.

I suppose I should ask: Why did Greeting being

nightkilled

hurt your motivation? I've had plenty of times where someone I suspected was NKed but the effect was some combination of bewilderment and

relief

, because it meant I wouldn't waste an elimination on that person. This is an understandable mentality when you you end up wagoning someone and they flip town, for a nightkill it makes less sense, and it doesn't really explain...not even trying to figure out the cross yesterday.

[catboi]

Alright.

- zefiend's push on Greeting. His case is largely composed of either poking at logical issues, or taking Greeting's stated approach of working by associations and then nitpicking places where he wasn't necessarily always doing that. There isn't really a lot of reasoning from him along the lines of "would this be more likely to come from scum!greeting or town!greeting?". Maybe I'm biased, but I think my suspicion being due to Greeting's game, approach, and responses feeling off compared to his previous town games was more valid. As time went on, I started to come around on Greeting, since I think he started to look more town and your defense of him helped sway me. zefiend stayed tunneled on him, which, incidentally, is what I probably would have done if I were mafia there. I was also going to mention that zefiend's vote on Greeting came when there were 2 votes on Dunn and 1 on Greeting, which looks pretty bad to me, but then I realized that to you, my vote on Greeting when there's 2 on Dunn probably is pretty comparable, so I guess that doesn't help you much. I think the second vote there to tie things up is more suspicious, but again, I'm biased.
- the nightkill on Greeting. If scum zefiend is stuck voting Greeting here, it makes endgame significantly harder, as he has to either come up with a convincing reason not to vote Greeting, or make the vote anyway and confirm one of him/Greeting as scum. I don't think he wins that in the court of town opinion. A scumteam without zefiend, however, would want to keep his vote on Greeting, as already discussed. I also originally thought a Dunn team wouldn't want to kill Greeting, because in theory that pushes both me and zefiend towards Dunn in our suspicions, but if Dunn is partnered with zefiend that doesn't matter. zefiend can go wherever he wants -- he can choose to try to bus Dunn (that's what I think the best play would have been), or read the room and see where else he can go (the greedier and worse play, imo). zefiend is the one partner where I think a Dunn team killing Greeting makes sense, although I didn't recognize that immediately. Especially since Greeting would likely move onto zefiend if Dunn died.
- his approach to yesterDay. After his initial posts, he didn't really seem to have any interest in solving the game, just in defending himself. He cared MUCH more about setting up a cross with me for the next Day than he did about getting the first lim right, even way before it was clear that Dunn was more likely. He also never particularly seemed to come to a conclusion between you and Dunn. Town in that situation have to be considering things a lot more carefully, because all 3 town have to vote the same target and get it right (which I think me, you, and cape did pretty well at). zefiend wasn't really participating in that, and didn't have any sense of urgency or much care at all what the result of that Day was. Because as mafia, he knew that if Dunn was limmed, there would be one more Day to worry about, and if you were limmed instead, he wins.
- his slip, as I discussed in 763 and 770. This was what convinced me. I don't see any way that town zefiend makes that mistake. From some other players, I could see it, but not from him. He was pretty clearly reading my posts only caring about the dunn/zefiend pairing, since that's the one that exists. He also, when arguing back against it, just completely fails to comprehend that other pairings including him FMPOV were possible.


Also, now that it's confirmed (to me), kinda funny that NK15 got it right with his last post of Day 1. If only he had any credibility left after the fakeclaim:

Lim zefiend and dunn, unless they are prs. Tomorrow.

Have finally put in the time to ead and consider this, don't have much to say in response.


I plan on giving zefiend a chance to make his own arguments, but my patience is not infinite.

[catboi]

Leaning toward voting zefiend, for the record. Willing to hear him out but should make my stance clear here.

[catboi]

I believe in giving everyone a chance to say their piece at endgame rather than cutting them off, so, no, I'm not dead-set on my vote. I will read what you write and try to give it consideration. The difficulty is that I can't really reset my mind and read the game with totally fresh eyes, I have prior assumptions I'm carrying into the day.

For what it's worth, I did take a look at some of your older games, but I don't really trust my own ability to meta read someone, especially when any relevant meta is years out of date.


It's not impossible for me to see narratives either way, given the relative lack of readable content to work with. The trouble is that I have to ask why butterchurn as scum leaves me alive when I was visibly paranoid about him yesterday, when cape clearly wasn't really considering him as scum. That's two straight nights in a row where the kills don't really benefit him as scum, but do benefit you.

[catboi]

been putting this off because thinking is pain but will try to get to responding in a bit

[catboi]

My view of 804 is that it's not really addressing butterchurn's arguments in a substantive way.

[catboi]

I'm trying to read the posts and I just can't think anything about them at all

my brain refuses to comprehend the words on the screen

[catboi]

I believe in giving everyone a chance to say their piece at endgame rather than cutting them off, so, no, I'm not dead-set on my vote. I will read what you write and try to give it consideration. The difficulty is that I can't really reset my mind and read the game with totally fresh eyes, I have prior assumptions I'm carrying into the day.

For what it's worth, I did take a look at some of your older games, but I don't really trust my own ability to meta read someone, especially when any relevant meta is years out of date.


It's not impossible for me to see narratives either way, given the relative lack of readable content to work with. The trouble is that I have to ask why butterchurn as scum leaves me alive when I was visibly paranoid about him yesterday, when cape clearly wasn't really considering him as scum. That's two straight nights in a row where the kills don't really benefit him as scum, but do benefit you.

Was Cape really considering me as scum? I don't know why butter killed him - maybe he felt that your turnaround on Greeting and working with him on the VOID lim was enough cohesion between the two of you. Maybe he thought Cape would be more likely to reconsider in ELO. Or maybe he noticed that you've had soft suspicion on me all game and that would be hard for you to shake off. To me, NK analysis in a vanillaish game is very superficial. I know a lot of people use it in ELO but I don't think I could even fake it if I were scum in a leveraged position. Butter used it a lot yesterDay but hasn't said much about it toDay.

Maybe just look at this ELO in a vacuum if you're having a hard time recontextualizing the game from the start? Don't ignore the past, obviously, just use it as reference for what we're saying now.

cape flat-out said he

wasn't

considering butterchurn as scum. And I think analyzing nightkills are

only

valuable when the game is effectively mountainous with no power roles or clears (whether true clears or simply de facto clears)

Looking at the game in a vacuum isn't really possible. My prior view is always going to exist, even if I only focus on the content today.

[catboi]

I will hammer tomorrow. Don't want to do it tonight.

[catboi]

bleh, know I said I'd get to this, have a lot going on right now

[catboi]

Been procrastinating. Don't want to deal with having to commit. Funny thing is I wanted to sleep last night without thinking about the result, now it's too close and I'm not going to be able to sleep without making a decision, because otherwise I'm going to be thinking about it.

I'm not the right person to be put into this spot, not at this moment in time. I believe that generally SEs in newbie games should serve as models for player to the newerplayers. There's a lot of stuff I was taught you

should

do in this situation - reread the whole game, ask both players questions, maybe test for reactions - that I haven't really done here. Not really going to do the whole spiel as to why, but something like I said yesterday, lack confidence in my own ability to get anything useful out of it.


I don't think zefiend's arguments have been convincing. I know voting for who "played better" is often a trap but I can't really justify voting otherwise. Even though I can look at things from both angles, don't really have a great way of deciding.

[catboi]

welcome to my livejournal

[catboi]

Nah I'm just musing to myself really, stalling while I take care of modding stuff. going to hammer zefiend and then not look at the result til tomorrow

[catboi]

Don't know if anything would be useful to you at this point, but I'm around if you have any questions.

Ah heck I'll try it: why aren't you scum this game?

[catboi]

Good enough.

VOTE: zefiend

https://c.tenor.com/4yHx3gtJb5UAAAAd/ma ... hunter.gif

sorry if wrong etc

[catboi]

Right, glad sticking to my first impulse and not trying to overdo it turned out to be the correct path - seemed like the obvious solution but been shell shocked enough times that I get so

nervous

.

GG everyone, thanks for playing.

[catboi]

[catboi]

I was typing up a feedback post, which I usually never do because I never feel like I have any real wisdom to impart, and then my laptop crashed and I lost the whole thing. So I'll give a condensed version instead.

NK15's play was completely unjustifiable, he has a history of playing against win condition but took it a step too far here, he shouldn't be allowed in the newbie queue.


butterchurn, cape90, Greeting, you all were fantastic and very townie and enjoyable to play with.

VOID, the fault of the misread is on me, not you. I got tunneled and felt like you naming four people when I asked for a single name was a cop-out. But I should have tried harder to see you as town and understand your perspective. Making reads can be difficult when you're new but just keep trying your best. It's okay to admit to uncertainty but try to avoid being too wishy-washy, because that doesn't get you anywhere.

zefiend, your Day 1 was awkward, but I felt your Day 2 was good, even as I felt your arguments against Greeting were no good, it was enough to give the appearance of a tunneled townie. I think on Day 3 your lack of a commitment to a stance between me and Dunn was costly - I think in situations like that you need to decide whether you want to bus or go all in trying to win that day, and work toward that goal. As it was I was just never going to allow you to get away with fencesitting like that.


I guess if anyone has anything specific they want me to comment on, feel free to ask.

[catboi]

Kind of surprised at the commentary both from butterchurn and in the dead thread that zefiend's ISO case was strong - I didn't think it was convincing at all (no offense). In general you don't want to make a deciding vote based on who has the better rhetoric anyway, as that's tied to player skill rather than alignment. But the time he took to present something made me think it was likely a fabrication, and the points within didn't build a convincing narrative.


Kind of baffled at the logic on the kill some people were using - it seemed a straightforward conclusion to me that if zefiend/greeting were T/T scum keep them alive in the hope that one votes the other.

[catboi]

Kind of surprised at the commentary both from butterchurn and in the dead thread that zefiend's ISO case was strong

Oh, also, cape's comment about it in DT was sarcastic. At the time, zefiend hadn't posted the ISO case yet despite saying he was going to.

yeah I picked that up on a reread >_>