Mini Normal 2304: Conway's Game Of Life [GAME OVER!]

[Quiet Owl]

VOTE: Not_Mafia

clearly the head mafioso. only the head mafioso would think to hide amongst the townfolk.

[Quiet Owl]

hi hello

why

do we have a wagon forming this early

[Quiet Owl]

hi hello

why

do we have a wagon forming this early

Do you think page 1 *wagons* are serious?

What I do wonder is why you appear concerned for humaneatingmonkey.

the man-eater is fine. it is odd to see a wagon form on page one though, and particularly odd that you took that so personally so quickly. why is your immediate response an attempt to discredit me and then deflect my point by misinterpreting it?

[Quiet Owl]

hi hello

why

do we have a wagon forming this early

Do you think page 1 *wagons* are serious?

What I do wonder is why you appear concerned for humaneatingmonkey.

the man-eater is fine. it is odd to see a wagon form on page one though, and particularly odd that you took that so personally so quickly. why is your immediate response an attempt to discredit me and then deflect my point by misinterpreting it?

Guess I'm trying to parse through what you mean by he's "fine."

Doesn't sound like you've been playing that long if you think three same votes on page 1 is odd, tbf.

What does kind of ping my radar is you saying it was taken personally—could you share where, because this does sound like you're adding something that isn't there.

Again, it seems like you're adding things by saying I'm attempting to discredit you. Three same votes on page 1 does not a wagon make, and they are rarely if ever serious.

And what I said to you, Sir, is that it appears to me that you are concerned over HEM's safety. That's just how it seems to me so if you react defensively I can't help that.

oh that's a good logical post, this'll be a fun game. was getting really tired of having to read through walls of fluff in other ones.

"what you mean by he's "fine."" my lawyer has advised me not to comment further. he's me in a suit. he's demanding a raise. our budget doesn't allow for this. he may go on strike halfway through the game
"taken personally, you're adding something that isn't there" that's true actually. mostly, my original post wasn't directly addressed at anyone, so i wasn't expecting it to get jumped on that fast. pleasant surprise that it did
"attempting to discredit you" did not like the tone of "Do you think page 1 *wagons* are serious?". seemed more like "hey this post is 100% definitely silly and irrelevant, trust me and ignore it immediately" to me rather than "this is a flawed and suspicious assumption". the first is a lot more scum-typical.
"concerned over HEM's safety" more focused on poking people over votes at the moment. way more interesting. occasionally things explode!

[Quiet Owl]

Am in a surrealist performance piece?

unfortunately, yes. put on the clown outfit or you'll stand out

[Quiet Owl]

Maybe I'm not seeing the overeager part because he turned real quiet since and have actively tried to be less aggressive when called out onto it. (the clown joke) Not consistent at all.

i try and confine mafia to my evenings so it doesn't leak into the rest of my life, and if i see opportunity for joke, i make joke. it's a tragic flaw.

your skepticism is better thought out than everyone handwaving me as town though. "this is too stupid to possibly be mafia" is a bad mindset.

[Quiet Owl]

What do you mean by eagerness to control the game?

It's like a pace setting thing. Especially like last night's posting. I touched on this with the going aggressive on reads early, especially when so little of the game has gotten to play yet as a potential pitfall, I believe I said that it can lead to TvTs bc we might all be arguing without a single mafia player around.

Add to that how they were posturing around the owl narrative and trying to coax votes out. I see that as trying to take a town leading stance which is a nice spot for experienced scum players.

here's the thing: i was uncharacteristically aggressive really early on in the game, but apparently that makes me look towny, instead of fairly obvious alternatives such as whiteknighting, or planned theatre with a scumpartner.

meanwhile monkey's aggression is read by you as scummy. going to need some elaboration here

[Quiet Owl]

What do you mean by eagerness to control the game?

It's like a pace setting thing. Especially like last night's posting. I touched on this with the going aggressive on reads early, especially when so little of the game has gotten to play yet as a potential pitfall, I believe I said that it can lead to TvTs bc we might all be arguing without a single mafia player around.

Add to that how they were posturing around the owl narrative and trying to coax votes out. I see that as trying to take a town leading stance which is a nice spot for experienced scum players.

here's the thing: i was uncharacteristically aggressive really early on in the game, but apparently that makes me look towny, instead of fairly obvious alternatives such as whiteknighting, or planned theatre with a scumpartner.

meanwhile monkey's aggression is read by you as scummy. going to need some elaboration here

I don't read your aggression is town because it's aggression, I'm reading you as town because the V part of VI.

and the distinction you make between idiotic aggression and scum aggression is...?

[Quiet Owl]

no idea how anyone could read Hu either way. they have exactly two posts: a hello, and sheeping espeon. these don't strike me as alignment indicative

[Quiet Owl]

peregrine how much mafia experience do you have

same question to quiet owl I think

VOTE: bob3141

science

unsure how this is relevant. i join games here roughly once every four months when i feel like i haven't been questioning my life choices enough lately.
you can probably get an idea of my experience from my two hundred-odd posts compared to most people's several thousand here.

[Quiet Owl]

I disagree about the setting up lims thing. idk, it's probably not scummy of you, but I think "at least one mafia in these people" or "these ppl could be partners" is like insanely ridiculously common in early pages. for a lot of people it's just how they express reads, + if anything it's towny to me just for having complex thoughts lol. like you said, it's like page 5 and everything is based off of so little, no one actually thinks theyre setting up multiple lims in practicality

Disagree with this. I don't think it is common to state there is mafia within 2 players at the start of the game. I don't recall seeing people "express reads" that way either.

i have seen people try to call scumteams really early on. i did this once. generally people get the supposed team completely wrong though, and someone with experience shouldn't be doing that.

[Quiet Owl]

dr drew seems very disengaged from the game. his posts are just kinda vaguely following the thread and what everyone else is saying, rather than original thoughts. i'm not sure if he's just busy with life or if he's deliberately lurking.

it's weird that he's swinging around calling people informed, first bella and now bob. why hunt for the informed rather than the mafia?

[Quiet Owl]

hu and bob seems like town vs town. having looked closely at their interactions, drew's behaviour looks even weirder. a really really awkward pocketing attempt maybe?

[Quiet Owl]

in this case being informed is the scumtell because scum would be informed on who's town and who isn't. would you disagree?
is there anything you want dr drew to engage on that makes you feel like he's missing opportunities to give his thoughts on?

oh i agree, it just strikes me as a bizarre way of phrasing it. suppose i could go look at past games he's played to see if that's how he usually speaks.

at the moment i can't think of anything specifically that drew has missed. what stood out to me was that he mainly was just agreeing with / paraphrasing things that other people had said.

though his response to the remainder of this post could be interesting.

"Why is he calling the vote on him OMGUS?"

because Hu's response was to vote the first person to lightly pressure them?

"...like he knows you are town..."

weird phrasing. seems like stirring the pot / seeding paranoia.

"is trying to discredit you"

hey it's the same phrasing i used earlier! but this is being directed towards someone else, to encourage them to attack, while i was directly attacking someone to generate interesting content.

"but going out of his way not to call you scummy in any way."

NAI? yeah mafia does try and distance themselves from eliminations. but also this is the same weird phrasing i mentioned earlier.

[Quiet Owl]

hu and bob seems like town vs town

would you elaborate?

bob didn't read hu's post here properly, cue grumpiness from hu about having to repeat themselves. it is odd that hu insists that bob poking them for an answer is a scumtell, but i don't feel like that's alignment indicative.

I like Espeonage so far for being town. I've had that thought before of scum doing the lining up thing.

What makes you think that Espeonage is town. Is it just one thought he had and if so what is that specific thought as he is the top poster

Bob I literally explained this in the post you quoted...this reads as pretending to look busy and pretending to scumhunt.

VOTE: bob

No you explained that you think Espeonage was town because he had a thought that you would have as town but this was after Espeonage had a great many thoughts. I want to know which thought exactly it was

The thought that scum likes to line up elims. It's not something scum seems to think about especially early on. If that clarification helps

Yes it does. My gut says your town

Even your vote on me though misguided does feel like omgus town. But most votes this early are pretty much a shot in the dark

[Quiet Owl]

hi hello

why

do we have a wagon forming this early

Do you think page 1 *wagons* are serious?

What I do wonder is why you appear concerned for humaneatingmonkey.

the man-eater is fine. it is odd to see a wagon form on page one though, and particularly odd that you took that so personally so quickly. why is your immediate response an attempt to discredit me and then deflect my point by misinterpreting it?

Guess I'm trying to parse through what you mean by he's "fine."

Doesn't sound like you've been playing that long if you think three same votes on page 1 is odd, tbf.

What does kind of ping my radar is you saying it was taken personally—could you share where, because this does sound like you're adding something that isn't there.

Again, it seems like you're adding things by saying I'm attempting to discredit you. Three same votes on page 1 does not a wagon make, and they are rarely if ever serious.

And what I said to you, Sir, is that it appears to me that you are concerned over HEM's safety. That's just how it seems to me so if you react defensively I can't help that.

oh that's a good logical post, this'll be a fun game. was getting really tired of having to read through walls of fluff in other ones.

"what you mean by he's "fine."" my lawyer has advised me not to comment further. he's me in a suit. he's demanding a raise. our budget doesn't allow for this. he may go on strike halfway through the game
"taken personally, you're adding something that isn't there" that's true actually. mostly, my original post wasn't directly addressed at anyone, so i wasn't expecting it to get jumped on that fast. pleasant surprise that it did

"attempting to discredit you" did not like the tone of "Do you think page 1 *wagons* are serious?". seemed more like "hey this post is 100% definitely silly and irrelevant, trust me and ignore it immediately" to me rather than "this is a flawed and suspicious assumption". the first is a lot more scum-typical.

"concerned over HEM's safety" more focused on poking people over votes at the moment. way more interesting. occasionally things explode!

So, reading this, I'm interpreting this as a deflection, because you didn't actually respond to my question about what you meant by him being "fine." I'd like you to simply explain what you meant instead of not actually answering me.

Just so we're on the same page, I was responding to you saying that I had taken something personally, where nothing of the sort was in any of my prior four posts. When you ascribe things to me in your opinion that didn't actually happen, it does make me stop and question why you would add things that weren't there.

Could you please clarify the part in yellow so I don't misunderstand you?

As I see it, I saw it more as being concerned that someone had 3 votes on page 1, and that Scum tend to be more concerned with self-preservation. 3 votes for the same person on page 1 isn't uncommon, and I don't think it's worth worrying about an immediate lynch at the very start of the game over that. The apparent concern (at least as I saw it) worried me a bit more, because it smelt a bit like trying to protect someone else.

you responded to a comment that wasn't made directly towards you with a level of aggression that i thought was odd. for this reason, i matched it to see how you'd react. the result was that you seem to be town, so i attempted to disengage so we wouldn't be clogging the thread with bickering.

"Do you think page 1 *wagons* are serious?" the use of "you" here means this is generally interpreted as an attack on the player, not the post. though i think now you probably meant this incredulously?
trivial to rephrase though, e.g. "Page 1 wagons aren't serious." not sure how else i can clarify the yellow bit, but if you have specific questions i'll answer them.

"fine"
hem had a

mere three votes during rvs.

they were

nowhere near being in danger of elimination.

i was, as i am sure i've said earlier, interested in the people who were piling on top of each other. poking those people has let me start sorting everyone into piles, which is the whole point of the game?

[Quiet Owl]

VOTE: Hu Tao

would like to see more from them. perhaps their thoughts on drew?

[Quiet Owl]

hu and bob seems like town vs town. having looked closely at their interactions, drew's behaviour looks even weirder. a really really awkward pocketing attempt maybe?

Also why the vote on Hy Tao when as far as i can tell the only really prior stance on him is this one. going from hu looking liek town to a vote.

On the back of dunns vote on Hu Tao. Looks very opportunistic and with little progression.

VOTE: Owl

"opportunistic" opportunistic would be going after espeon at this point.
i would like to be able to sort hu's slot confidently, prior to voting i was giving them a weak townread, but their catty behaviour since isn't alignment indicative and just makes me dislike them as a person.

hu, please reconsider your approach to the game?

[Quiet Owl]

I don't appreciate your defensiveness. Your recent posts come off as frustrated, short, and lashing out.

You weren't like this earlier.

being scumread for being absent due to a nasty cold is generally a universally frustrating experience.
i don't appreciate the lashing out, but i suspect this explains it quite well.

[Quiet Owl]

for being absent

no one is saying this

oh?

Sure. Lots of huff and puff about me controlling the narrative. Control it yourself then. Show us why I'm scum.

It's been days of you on the back foot and not much interaction with the other slots.

Show me why I'm wrong.

[Quiet Owl]

To be clear, I'm describing his behavior in the past days - only coming up to address me and defend himself. It was not what was scummy about him.

thank you for the clarification

[Quiet Owl]

i think the game would benefit from a flip at this point. here are the top options as i see them.
- espeon
- me (quiet owl)
- humaneatingmonkey

pick someone for gods sake and stop going at each other's throats. i'm going to iso esp and hme and then pick and stick to a vote.

[Quiet Owl]

please know that i use the phrase "going at each others throats" to describe behaviour such as the arguments my younger siblings get into over minecraft. i have no interest in judging people's conduct at the moment, and if i thought i needed to call out verbal abuse i would quite literally use the phrase "verbal abuse." in that sense, i have moved on.

i am still pushing for an elimination. this gamestate is unproductive.

[Quiet Owl]

go quiet owl show us the push

give me a moment to do this.

i'm going to iso esp and hme and then pick and stick to a vote.

[Quiet Owl]

part one of the isoing: hme

Monkey's eagerness to control the game feels scum-motivated. And this is only exacerbated by the fact that they have really gone hard on the proverbial low hanging fruit.

The lining up of [eliminations] is also always something I am watchful of. In both cases, if owl is town, monkey is just being negligent if town, and if owl is scum it's a very aggressive theater strat. The common thread being that monkey lining up [eliminations] is poo poo.

vote: humaneatingmonkey

earlier i thought this was most likely to be scum trying to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of a town player.
- i do not like the contradiction in aggression based reads. (me being town but hme supposedly being scum for doing something quite similar. it'd be reasonable to think i was trying to control the game with my post #2, but no-one seems to have thought of that.)
- really starting to see why espeon got this impression though.
- hme hyperposts, asks a lot of questions that intentionally or not seem to stall alternate wagons to espeon, but doesn't often make statements with reads in them.
- let's look at some of the statements they've made.

this is a plausible and well thought out post. it's also quite easy to come up with as mafia because you'd know definitively if the mafia were doing this and you wouldn't have to come up with a convincing lie.

Spoiler:

bob walk me through your wagon analysis and i'll walk you through mine.

let's say Espe is scum - do you think all three of them will combine into one wagon in case Espe flips scum?

for me, obviously not.. right? so of course, they'll probably scatter. in this situation, espe is still on me - so there are only two people making that effort into creating new wagons. now... how many counterwagons have been made in the past days, and how many of them make you think they're actually hitting scum?

So far, there's been you. Would you claim mafia?
Then there's Hu Tao. What's your read on Hu Tao?
Then there's a sheep counterwagon forming. What's your read on sheep?

So now it's your turn bob. Walk me through your wagonomics.

this interaction that strikes me as weird. i don't see how bob snapped at hme here. this just looks like bob calling out hme for something that is in fact +scum behaviour.
so why try and reframe it as "woah there buddy! it is unreasonable to question me about me questioning people! stop doing that!"???
this seems really hypocritical to me. by all means, correct me, but i don't think i'm exaggerating things here.

Spoiler:

Difference between pushing as scum and simply pushing against anothers ideas. ive seen town do it and scum do it. but doesnt chnage that you heavily responding to anything that runs counter to espe is scum. As your 2 two posts were in response to a question to sheep which was also proceded by one to dragon. Dragon vote is odd, i can certainly see him not voting espe based on his read list but if he was to move his vote of drew i would of expected it to move to me first. He paints me and drew most likely to be scum yet he goes to one his neut reads.

one that is actively pushing agaisnt espe rather natural progression of his reads which would be to vote me. I just dont get it


in and old game scum pt. his meta could of changed since was many years ago (2019) around the time i still played but pretty much says he has tendancy to bus day one

but doesnt chnage that you heavily responding to anything that runs counter to espe is scum.

Well that's kinda what the game's about, isn't it? You have your ideas. I have mine. We talk it out. Why does this bother you?

in and old game scum pt. his meta could of changed since was many years ago (2019) around the time i still played but pretty much says he has tendancy to bus day one

You played with him before?

Let's start over.

Instead of you snapping at me, can we discuss our reads?

Read #232 and #233 again and imagine I'm Mr. Rogers or something.

actually, there don't seem to be many statements from hme at all??
"a big shrug is what I have with Quiet Owl" is not a statement though i do believe it to be a sane reading of my slot.

Spoiler:

basic, or wooden?? And I tend to assume the better of people's mafia play!! To my own detriment!!

He posted a lot better on his return. I'm not sure what to make of that. I would have given him the townread if he acted a bit more consistent, but I'm not even sure that's a realistic expectation to set for his slot. A big shrug is what I have with Quiet Owl.

I'm more interested in Espe now, but I've been in trapped in ego showdowns before because my N A T U R A L L E A D E R S H I P S K I L L S make people paranoid. I'm not sure I'll be very good at sorting Espe with his current angle, but I won't miss him if he's gone. Somehow an itch scratches behind my head: Could scum!Espe have targetted me because I'm the anti-low hanging fruit? Maybe scum!Espe would have framed scum attacking the low hanging fruit and cheekily do the opposite here.

this doesn't make any sense to me. this looks like a theory outside of the realm of plausibility without proof to back it. not nearly as implausible as "the claimed mason pair are ACTUALLY a serial killer duo", which i saw in a different game from a different person recently, but it is reminding me heavily of their posting style.

Spoiler:

Also I would ask that we not call other people’s play bad or poor!! There’s no need to do that even if it’s a strategy, and I think there are better ways to approach talking about someone!!!!!

I agree. I also read the situation as scum!Espe calling the players on his wagon bad as a strategy. Perhaps to discredit.

First, I'm not sure it's believable to be calling sheep bad town here. sheep should be suspicious in his eyes for his position in Espe's wagon -- sheep actually generates new ideas to fuel Espe's doom.

Heck, I feel suspicious about sheep's place in Espe's wagon. Scum has historically gathered behind me to push me into eliminating town. But I'm not sure that's what's happening here.

I also find his reframing of his push as unbelievable. He went from describing me as experienced scum pace setter and narrative controller... to a bad player that he doesn't want anyone to listen to because of ego? So does that mean he sees me - his primary vote and suspect - as town now? Help me here, as I'm not sure why he'd reframe his position otherwise. Does it mean he doesn't really see me as scum?

Nevertheless, I will not remove my vote. At this point, I heard enough. I will give the town a favor by not continuing to cross-examine Espe as that might be endless spam and will make an environment where scum can cover up easily. Although I hope those who disagree with me will try their best to dissuade me and those who agree with me to vote with me.

i will not vote until after i post and write up espeon's iso, but man. i am heavily leaning towards voting hme at the moment.

[Quiet Owl]

So Owl if the first spoiler post could be made by town or scum. Why do you simply not think that it isnt AI and not worth mentionin

Owl why do you think im calling HEM out as scummy in your second spoiler when I specifically state " ive seen town do it and scum do it". Certainly wasnt scummy action but a non AI one. It was only annoying as it was late and it was was during my working week. Feels like your trying to put words in my mouth to justify your own read



Also i dont get what you mean by HEM not makign many statements. Regardless if you think HEM is town or scum i cant see any one honestly being able to come up with that HEM hasnt many statments. IS it just stamenents regards to you or all game your claiming?



On your fourth point/spoiler what HEM is claiming is something that happens quite often in different ways. In the past ive tried pushing scum and they would respond with deflections and Espe calling sheep bad town could be considered a delfection here. So it entirly plausible town would make such a post even if you dont agree with it.

here is a summarised version of that post.
1. HEM is widely townread.
2. HEM's posts appear to mostly be NAI.
3. HEM has a habit of rephrasing what people said so that it means something plausibly different.
4. the majority of HEM's posts are questions. they do not often post reads or analyse other people's posts.
5. sticking to asking questions seems like a good way to hide as scum. it is harder to ask a bad question than it is to make a bad false read.
6. focusing fire on a player doing a bad job of explaining their suspicions is a good way to prevent people from hunting your teammates.
7. i need to reach a conclusion about espeon before i can figure out HEM. i am doing that at the moment


first spoiler: my point

is

that it's NAI

and

that it was also one of the few posts to catch my eye as ones where HEM isn't just questioning people.
second spoiler: i saw "but doesnt chnage that you heavily responding to anything that runs counter to espe is scum." even though you did say "ive seen town do it and scum do it", i don't know how that could've been interpreted in any other way than "i am currently scumreading you."
third: see point 4 of summary, "the majority of HEM's posts are questions. they do not often post reads or analyse other people's posts."
fourth: i will note that HEM never claimed that to be a deflection, just a "strategy, perhaps to discredit", but your reasoning for HEM's suspicion makes sense.

[Quiet Owl]

the isoing part two
(woohoo)

the main driving point behind the espeonage wagon is "setting up HEM as a boogeyman + failing to answer questions well + generally being snippy"
i think suspicion of HEM is warranted, given their hyperposting without much substance. mostly they just ask a lot of questions, which seems to be giving them townpoints that are undeserved.
originally i thought HEM and espeonage's interactions were town vs town tunnelling, but i have realised that their focusing on espeonage would also be a good way to prevent mafia from being spotted.

so i'm going to see if there's anything about espeonage that personally pings me as scummy.

i find that scum often claims to townread me for some reason. but i have also never made an entrance like this before, so i suppose it is reasonable to expect people to read me differently.

Spoiler:

Gonna go and say I'm soul reading owl as town here. Feels like someone that doesn't play forum much, but plays irl or something and isn't used to shit hitting l-1 before they even post in the thread bc it's fucking funny.

i had the same thought before this was posted, so i was inclined to townread him. however i think this is an easy post for scum.

Spoiler:

Nurse has good measured probe. Either town or good scum posturing. A+

this made sense to me, but again this is easier to come up with as mafia? you'd be informed and would know exactly what's going on.

Spoiler:

But to be more specific.

People who aggro easily are usually in my experience bullheaded town that are too inexperienced to realise that town needs to be townread too to do their job. (need to be townread to be believed and theres such a drop off of belief in dead people because mafia players are narcissists)

Of course Mafia get defensive, but the main focus of a mafia, especially a new mafia is to not make waves. So the vibe check says dumb town.

this seems to clarify things if i assume that it means "constantly aggressing everyone is +scum" but also i don't agree with that take. isn't the whole point of the game to push people? how else are we meant to sort anyone?
from bella: "Leading town is town-y so scum want to do it?" yes? i was in a game where the mafia pulled this off masterfully. they didn't even lose a single member if i remember correctly.
noting that espeon was calmer here, though i don't know if that'll have any relevance.

Spoiler:

I might be wrong but don't the two halves of espe's post contradict? Aggression is good but also bad? Leading town is town-y so scum want to do it?

You might be misunderstanding.
Espe's post describes me as a pacesetter, a narrative controller, and a boogeyman mastermind experienced scum trying to influence everyone to agree with my Night Owl observations so early in the game when we're still trying to have fun and be silly. Therefore scum.

pretty much this but without the adhom, yes.

To respond to Bella as well. There's nothing wrong with leading the town, but there is something wrong with trying to forcibly establish it. I don't think anyone should be 'leading town' regardless, but monkey's lines of question and aggressive tone choice read to me like someone trying to fight their way to such a position. And that's the bit that's scummy.

i'm going to stop quoting things and just skim at this point. i have been at this for too long.
- a skim later -
i genuinely cannot find a post that makes me go "hey that's weird." there's just suspicions that seem reasonable, and are seemingly only suspicious themselves because they're in opposition to HEM.
sixteen pages and you two have just backed the whole thread into your own tunnel. jesus christ.

i'm not confident enough in HEM's alignment to seriously try and eliminate them. i feel like it'd be 50/50 odds and those aren't good enough for me, so if the people on my wagon would start pushing it along, i'll hammer it myself.