Open 869 | Fight for the Winter Court [Game Over!]

[MathBlade]

At the Gate, one Nutcracker Soldier player is chosen by the Minions of Summer overnight to be publicly confirmed as a Nutcracker Soldier. The Nutcracker Soldiers must vote to eliminate the Minion of Summer to win.

Based on this then whenever Tempest hammers that day ends, not when scum decide to hammer or an unknown entity does.

[MathBlade]

That game ends*

[Coral]

We could, it's a formality really. I think we just both haven't bothered yet. I doubt Tempest is going to rush into a hammer but arguably not voting allows for the town to share final thoughts before flipping the minigame and not being able to talk anymore.

[MathBlade]

I’d like it if you all did soon ish.

Then if Tempest wants to end the day Tempest has control. Especially if there is some weird scum shit they want to interrupt.

I’d prefer if control was in Tempest’s hands when they are ready.

[Coral]

That's reasonable.

VOTE: absinthe

[Coral]

This is going to be a lot of probably hard to parse words for a relatively small amount of meaningful thought. I'm aware of this, I tried and I can't be concise on this, forgive me. I won't be offended if you skim it, I'm not very happy with it, but I committed to trying to explain my thoughts here and so I'm going to try.

Anyway. Reading back, (as I mentioned already) it's entirely possible that I placed myself in Chara's pocket rather than it actually doing anything specific to put me there

Pocketing is maybe not the right word for what I found suspicious initially, anyway. It's just an approach to the game that centers a lot more on interactions and sending out little feelers to make connections with people, compared to an approach that is focused more around internal solving and worldbuilding. I townread the early game initially just on the pleasant vibes, it felt excited to be here and talk to people, which I think is in a vacuum a good sign. I first got concerned around post 547, where I started trying to track where this thread had begun, and then found some of the early posting to be more suspicious than it had felt when reading it live.

I went to reread some of Chara's games to make sure this wasn't out of range, and instead found that it matched a lot closer to the approach in scum games than in town. I thought the scum games had that distinctive focus on engagement and making connections, while in the town games it was more content to do its own thing. I'm not especially interested in doing a in-depth meta case, I generally try to avoid it, but I'm mentioning it here because that did spark my interest. I'm also going to note here that Isis said this game matched closer to town meta than scum meta, so I might be wrong anyway on meta. Regardless, I think it's at the very least in range.



A couple specific points that stood out to me.

1) The lines of engagement with others. These, to me, feel like they are meant more to get into a conversation, or establish a connection with someone, or appear friendly, or portray itself as comfortable. Early examples include 29, 123, 171, 173, 257, 358. What pings me about these is they feel like the question being asked (or point being made) is not really the goal of the posts.

Okay, but why can't they just be Chara trying to sort people, and genuinely being comfortable? That's what I struggle with explaining here. I don't really have a good answer for you beyond "I don't believe that they are". I guess it comes from a place of feeling like it needs to be the one to move things forward itself. While moving the game forward is Good and Towny, I get a sort of need to prove itself from the posts, which I don't think is a typical town priority.



2) The approach to Isis. I think the framing of it in 1363 as Isis being the one motivated to put them together is inaccurate to what actually happened. Isis mentioned wanting to be in the same game in 261, Chara responds in a somewhat joking manner.

The actual serious push for them being in the same game begins in 425 and for the most part Chara felt like it was the one herding Isis along, certainly not the other way around. Especially with Isis being disengaged with the thread during this time period due to the flight and etc. I think in all of the interactions between the two, Isis comes across as quite uninformed and without a major plan behind her actions, and happy to follow Chara.

The other puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit for me is that Chara outed an Isis scumread in 413, just before declaring that it wanted to be with Isis. The progression

almost

feels relatable to me, from finding a scumread, to getting excited about pushing for a location sort that allows you to take advantage of that scumread and win your minigame, to then revealing the secret read at the start of day 2. But revealing the read beforehand doesn't fit quite right with the rest to me.

~

For the record, I think Chara is playing very well if scum here. I'm also extremely tempted to delete everything I've written every time I read one of its posts, which is making this quite difficult and making me grateful I didn't end up in the Isis/Chara game after all. I don't think this is a slam dunk case or anything. I am more concerned than I would like to be about demona. I feel pretty good about Isis, but not 100%. I wish I could feel the confidence that I felt overnight on this group, but I don't. Maybe it's better that I don't. The fact that Chara seems to be pushing for catboi and absinthe as scum seems like a losing play from it if I'm right and that is making me heavily doubt that I am. I'm just going to hit send anyway though because I've put it off for long enough.

[skitter30]

I disagree with skitter and absinthe being for sure S/S. I think S/T is more likely. An S/S swap would likely be for the goal of hoping catboi and Faker turn on each other and vote the third, knowing they're more likely to do that with skitter than with absinthe. That's a possibility worth considering, but on play I think it's less likely.

Sorry, to clarify what i meant: svt and also tvt is possible, there's nothing ruling out either

[skitter30]

What I find really odd is both you and Skitter disagree and one of you is scum. And only one. But you disagree in different ways. Which means something is close for one of you.

Math, there's nothing mechanically indicating that there has to be one scum in me/coral

We all know there's one town in each of the groups now, and that preswap is was 1/1/1 or 2/1/0. Any deeper mechanical conclusions is immature and you'll probably get pushback

P mich everyone in this pl has played with each other before, and we spent most of day1 trying to figure out what were the optimal matchups based on different people's abilities' to read each other mostly. You'll probably have better luck sorting this by reading though

[skitter30]

Sigh

I was already leaning this way but I am a little tempted to just locktown skitter for this, as poor form as that is to do for a one-word post :shifty:

It was my exact reaction, and I don't think she gets much out of responding this way as scum considering she probably needs Math on her side. It makes it feel honest, and I think as scum her honest reaction would be more concerned or appeasing.

Never ever read Skitter honest as town.

Skitter has one of the best scum games on MS. And I’ve seen some doozies.

Skitter (and myself) are both top tier scum who do honest lying really really well.

I have no doubt that’s skitter’s emotion it’s a matter of why to sort her

I also think this isnt especially fair to me, but ok

[skitter30]

I think coral is p townie in the last few pages

I'm leaning p strongly towards ffery-scum now, so my next step is to reread ffery's iso at some point later today

[MathBlade]

Done with airport drive. Gonna sleep and look at this later. Driving to airports at night sucks.

What does each of you consider the biggest “event” in day play? (Define “event” however you like)

[Ydrasse]

Seeking replacement for demona.

[skitter30]

More sadz :/

I would conisder the big events to be:
- demona choosing wall
- chara and isis wanting to be played together
- faker putting pressure on ffery to choose keep
- daystart
- play in keep today

~

Fwiw my optimal resolution to keep is catboi voting me if town

[catboi]

catboi can you talk about how your Faker read developed?

Sure. I think mid-late Day 1 I started to feel no one was super obviously scum and when thatthat's the case it's usually because someone is doing a convincing job of appearing town. That made Faker a plausible suspect, but I wanted to wait and see what became of the swaps. I felt there was basically no chance scum allow a highposting town-Faker to stay in the keep. I thought the pivot against me was a very plausible scum narative arc, even if I enabled it with my play, it still suits the scum wincon to suggest going to a location with me and acting buddy-buddy only to turn on me down the line. I think mostly from there his arguments when we were actually in the keep were incoherent and seemingly not coming from a town perspective at all. I don't really want to revisit all of that if possible though.

[Isis]

But revealing the read beforehand doesn't fit quite right with the rest to me.

Is this a mechanical objection to the idea town!Chara revealed info that would let scum!Isis ship Chara away, or more of a flow objection that town!Chara would throw out and igmeoy with no force and just slunk into making good on the threat when the minigame started?

I think there's at least a little playstyle clash going on but I want to dig up the part that can make the most sense to me.
I'd probably like the EoD FoS better at if it was either fully developed, or completely holstered for this phase.

[Ydrasse]

Herta replaces demona.

[Herta]

Herta replaces demona.

I know this excites everyone.

UNVOTE:

[Ydrasse]

GUMDROP GATE

[1]

absinthe: Coral

[0]

Coral:

[2]

Not voting:

absinthe,

Tempest

WAFER WALL

[0]

Herta:

[0]

Isis:

[0]

Chara:

[3]

Not voting:

Herta, Isis, Chara

KRAMPUS KEEP

[0]

MathBlade:

[0]

skitter30:

[0]

catboi:

[3]

Not voting:

MathBlade, skitter30, catboi

MOD NOTES

• The day will end in (expired on 2022-12-31 09:19:18)

• have fun!

• v/la: absinthe

• free candy cane

[MathBlade]

catboi can you talk about how your Faker read developed?

Sure. I think mid-late Day 1 I started to feel no one was super obviously scum and when thatthat's the case it's usually because someone is doing a convincing job of appearing town. That made Faker a plausible suspect, but I wanted to wait and see what became of the swaps. I felt there was basically no chance scum allow a highposting town-Faker to stay in the keep. I thought the pivot against me was a very plausible scum narative arc, even if I enabled it with my play, it still suits the scum wincon to suggest going to a location with me and acting buddy-buddy only to turn on me down the line. I think mostly from there his arguments when we were actually in the keep were incoherent and seemingly not coming from a town perspective at all. I don't really want to revisit all of that if possible though.

I think your premise “There’s no way a scum team allows town Faker to stay in the keep” flawed for the same reason my “strong players should be in either space against Tempest” argument flawed.

If there was only one scum in the Keep and two scum in another, then they’d have to swap elsewhere.

Since I am about to read that though I hope there’s more to your conclusion than that. Because it sounds like you’re starting with my slot scum and how to justify it.

[MathBlade]

More sadz :/

I would conisder the big events to be:
- demona choosing wall
- chara and isis wanting to be played together
- faker putting pressure on ffery to choose keep
- daystart
- play in keep today

~

Fwiw my optimal resolution to keep is catboi voting me if town

Assuming the “Chara and Isis wanted to play together” is true (as it wasn’t corrected I am going to call it so)
Then it’s unlikely Chara and Isis were ever teamed. Given the matchup they’re in that’s necessarily true. So at least one TR’d the other.

The rest I will have to read as I get to it.

[MathBlade]

I think chemistry between people will matter more for games than like "put a consensus townread in game x" because townreads can be wrong if you get them all right you win anyway. Maybe picking scummy players for certain games kind of like gerrymanders your EV though? Maybe that's more impactful.

It seems like a nontrivial setup, brainwrinkler. Which can make me worried about dayplay health.

Coral should just solve the strat and then we should play mafia

the second sentence here makes no sense to me but it does sound very intelligent.

but i think i agree on the point that the important thing is finding scum and finding town and the rest will fall where it falls.

So the important thing is win the game then you win the game?

[MathBlade]

I'm not familiar with you, Demona.

I wanted to go to the keep last time for similar reasons, I tend to townhunt/POE most games. And I felt pretty confident I could obvtown even as an unknown alt.

I blew the unknown part with my second post. Still managed to obvtown, not that it mattered.

You said you obvTowned here. What do you make of having sus now?

[MathBlade]

This is way too fast for my brain atm LMAO

I know you're mostly joking but any game with me/you/skitter would be the biggest shitshow, but ~we'll see~

Not sure who the “you” is due to the rapid posting but the deliberate choice of me and Skitter is weird. Unsure if 3 for 3 on that.

[MathBlade]

This is way too fast for my brain atm LMAO

I know you're mostly joking but any game with me/you/skitter would be the biggest shitshow, but ~we'll see~

either you're scum and get your shot to humiliate me or we have a nightmare 3p that will ruin us both emotionally this sounds ideal to me

Apparently it’s Catboi. This makes me really sus of Catboi. Can you explain please?

[MathBlade]

It’s either Skitter scum saw the scenario and took advantage or Catboi always wanted that three way situation. So it’s a big ol bottle of wine which.