JOAT uPick | FIN!

[Relativistic Harmony]

Good news everyone, I’m a tree stump forever when I die.

that's amazing.
btw, have you confirmed with ffery on what happens if you were to be killed but you are protected by a rolestopper or something?
~rh

[Relativistic Harmony]

i meant doc.
~rh

[Bell]

I can’t tell if Dunn was serious with their early push on Ircher. I’m not complaining, but I can never read that guy.

I was serious, I think Ircher was being weird.

My experience with Ircher is that they’re always weird. They were remarkably atonal at the beginning of the game though. The voice sounded the exact same throughout it was guileless, which isn’t Ircher. Who is full of guile.

I dunno what to make of it. Which is why there they sit. In my neutral pile.

[Relativistic Harmony]

wait.
both doc and rolestopper.
how would your ability function in each scenario?
~rh
p-edit: @bell

[Relativistic Harmony]

or say if you use your witness protection and scum tries to kill you (cause they're super dumb).
what happens then?

[Bell]

If I was protected I wouldn’t die and I wouldn’t be able to choose to activate it and would just continue the game day.

If I’m killed and role blocked.
I dunno. Are you asking for a friend?
I refuse to wink.

[Bell]

or say if you use your witness protection and scum tries to kill you (cause they're super dumb).
what happens then?

Nothing. Because I can’t be affected, they could shoot me over the second night though.

[Relativistic Harmony]

this was me btw.
~rh
p-edit: it's mostly out of curiosity and because of one of our abilities.

[Relativistic Harmony]

or say if you use your witness protection and scum tries to kill you (cause they're super dumb).
what happens then?

Nothing. Because I can’t be affected, they could shoot me over the second night though.

i see.
~rh

[Bell]

You should consult with TL before giving away that sort of information. They’re good at the role stuff. Let them benefit you by relying on their strengths.

What’s that? You didn’t ask for advice?
Well, I never.

[Relativistic Harmony]

You should consult with TL before giving away that sort of information. They’re good at the role stuff. Let them benefit you by relying on their strengths.

What’s that? You didn’t ask for advice?
Well, I never.

tl is thinking of claiming that ability publicly d2.
it is confirmable though.
~rh

[Joyboy]

TRYING NOT TO TALK ABOUT DEVIL FRUIT POWERS CHALLENGE

[Bell]

I’m asking. Are you sure you want me to answer that though? Well, I guess the scum team could just ask since they know all the parameters of my role and FF would tell them the truth, so it doesn’t really matter. It’s spilt milk.

[Relativistic Harmony]

true.
~rh

[Bell]

*crosses finger*
Role blocking works. I will not tree stump if role blocked and then killed.

[Doctor Drew]

I’m sure you’re all thrilled.

I was an IC Tree Stump once.

The most boring game of mafia I ever played.

[Doctor Drew]

so i'm interested to hear if you think they're genuinely voting for pressure or are just using it to justify themselves.
p-edit: @drew
~rh

There's a level of importance most people place on role or value because as you can tell people probably submitted "good" or "fun" roles (maybe both) so it's sort of a moot point.

Bell is simply saying that they used the information in a "pro town" way. Now, is that true? Eh, for debate and not one I care to engage on.

Let's talk about how Doctor Drew deserves pressure.

VOTE: Doctor Drew

Ehh, kinda feels like they feel they can get something out of me with some votes. The fact they talk about Bell, and then Bell attempts to start to case me could be something maybe. But in a vacuum nothing more then poking and prodding imo.

As I hinted with Bell though, seems like the start of a real case/push they wanted on me.....one which feels kinda half hearted, almost like he feels he can push a half assed case against me and expects me to dig my own grave or others will just blindly follow.

[Joyboy]

I WAS ONCE A DOCTOR ONCE. I NEVER DREW IT THO

[Joyboy]

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

[Doctor Drew]

There's a level of importance most people place on role or value because as you can tell people probably submitted "good" or "fun" roles (maybe both) so it's sort of a moot point.

Bell is simply saying that they used the information in a "pro town" way. Now, is that true? Eh, for debate and not one I care to engage on.

Let's talk about how Doctor Drew deserves pressure.

VOTE: Doctor Drew

Ooooh here we go

How can I be of service?

Lol, forgot I did respond to it.....was(am still am) hoping we can dance a bit.

Pre Edit: Heyo, we got a regular Mitch Hedberg over here

[Relativistic Harmony]

I’m sure you’re all thrilled.

I was an IC Tree Stump once.

The most boring game of mafia I ever played.

~rh

[Relativistic Harmony]

*crosses finger*
Role blocking works. I will not tree stump if role blocked and then killed.

i see.
~rh

[Doctor Drew]

I’m sure you’re all thrilled.

I was an IC Tree Stump once.

The most boring game of mafia I ever played.

~rh

Oh wait, was that a game you modded?

Tbf, the setup was very unique......just being the IC treestump was the boring part(and specifically being an IC, I hate being super obv town lol)

[Hu Tao]

I can’t tell if Dunn was serious with their early push on Ircher. I’m not complaining, but I can never read that guy.

I was serious, I think Ircher was being weird.

I agree

[Ircher]

Forget it.

Tldr: Yes and no, it was in reference to Titus, not Ircher.
Insert Ircher meta. I think he's goal oriented when he isn't getting himself killed by trolling and not knowing where people's tolerance lines are.

Ate my post twice. smh.

In reference to this game, there's a point to what Ircher is doing and it's probably AI, I just don't know how to interpret what he's doing. What was funny to me is that unless I misread what he wrote, his recent response to why he thought I might be scum is that when you controlled for scum v town roll rates it would probably be 50/50 or, in other words, it would be completely random. It was a very weird way to try to justify why they leaned scum on it. Rather, the conclusion doesn't fit their own words.But maybe I misread what they were saying. Back to paper.

The odds of being scum by random guessing is quite a bit lower than 50%, so it could still be a useful tell. For what it's worth though, I'm not putting high weight on the perspective slip. I am simply arguing that it is not as non-alignment indicative as others would have us believe.

catchup page 1-5

i am striking against the capitalist overlords by refusing to produce content without compensation

based and breadpilled

agree w the person against day one massclaim bcos I'd prefer us not to give scum the pick of the best roles to kill off

bell's RVS claim (11) seems fine tho ig? idk why people are commenting on this in particular in terms of reads

lady terminally offline sounds like me when I was newbtown AND actually trying to effort (which wasn't often so good for u)

firebringer outed themself as cringe and capitalcucked i remember that part

the next relevant posts are continuing discussion abt bell's softclaim, agree with HST's (52) and disagree with RH's (56), that seems like a weirdly strong scumread considering we are talking about a role madness game and this is RVS.

I don't think being in RVS detracts from the expressed strength of the read. If anything, people are more likely to express a (weaker) read strongly early in the game to help get us out of RVS.

i guess i could see an argument for bell fishing

I don't think Harmony was arguing this.

but i don't buy thats whats going on here
continuing from this I don't understand RH's reasoning in (62) at all? why is this a "trivially confirmably scummy" ability pls explain if u haven't already in the posts I haven't read yet

(68) i agree with ircher re miller claims but we *haven't had a miller claim yet*. this is common sense though so saying it doesn't mean much

lots of RVS/RPS fluff I'll sort thru once I have more than like 2 reads

Comrades, while unions are essential for an equitable work environment, it is still fundamentally a capitalist system! Our union is only the beginning! We can seize the means of production and establish an anarcho-syndicalist council to distribute resources democratically!

I salute you comrade

LTO's (110) and (121) also read newbie town putting in effort <3

Already wrote about Dunnstral and my mixed feelings of them correcting for their interpretation and being generally accurate. It's weird seeing someone cut through the bullshit and articulate themselves better than I could. Maybe they're informed, maybe they had a good opening.

I think from my experience with Dunnstral, the more "on point" and nit-picky he is, the more likely he is scum.
Lemon: Their positioning is unique, it doesn't come off as scummy to me. Some of their approach reminds me specifically of townie things I've seen players or myself do in the past. I'm not sure what advantage they gain by approaching people's reads of me by saying that Pooky's reasoning sucks and changing position on it.

Luffy: I dunno. My patience is running out but I'm not really reading into them. there's only so much focus I can have and they're just kind of randomly voting people. It's normal for me not to focus on everyone.

While not having a strong read on someone is generally fine, this kind of reads as actively making excuses to not have a read on Joyboy.

VERY strong townread on LTO right now (152), like i don't think this post is *good logic considering the range of metas on the site* and i cannot remember the number of times i've come a cropper because of the "this play isn't helpful so it's scummy" mindset, but in someone completely raw to the site? this is very townie

I disagree. Anyone could make that post regardless of alignment. It seems more a factor of newness than alignment.

161 is a little sus from bell

I actually must sleep so imma stop here for now

What did you find suspicious about 161?

Where is Hu Tao?

Other than sitting with an empty unfulfilled promise to catch up and zero content.

As someone that's terminally offline, you should know people have lives outside of mafia. It's not ever been 8 hours at this point

To be fair, we had like 15 or so pages then, and TerminallyOffline is new to this site. There's also what Bell said in 730.

hey titus, as of now could you maybe look somewhere else that isnt bell?

I have. Joyboy and broccoli are acceptable.

Note comrades, that after I call out Titus's words as being anti-union, she now casts aspersions on my vegeacious self! There is no supporting evidence in her words. Engels himself described this very action in his work

Behaviors of the Modern Capitalist

as an "OMGUS"

It's interesting that no one has an issue with lap role playing but issue with joyboy

Maybe because Laplacian's role play is easier to read by a very large margin...

Spoiler: Long Post

This post is going to be a long one, and I'm going to be making an effort to be detailed. Making this case is also helping me settle my feelings about Bell overall. I'm not sure where exactly the me that is writing the closing paragraph of this post will end up on his alignment, but the me that is starting it thinks Bell is a member of the mafia.

Assumptions made:

-This game contains at most (honestly, exactly) 4 members of the mafia faction
-There is only one mafia faction
-Any potential third parties are non-killing in their roles OR can win with other factions
-Rule 5 of the Game-Specific Rules exists to enforce the above assumptions
-Rule 6 of the Game-Specific Rules exists because at least one role like Bell's claim exists.
-Rule 2 of the Game-Specific Rules in Bell's case does not apply, as his role PM contradicts it.
-The primary objective of the Town faction is to find Mafia
-The primary objective of the Mafia faction is to stay alive (I.E. this game does not have roles that make mafia want to die early)

Before I start citing specific posts and examples, I did want to clarify that Bell's emotions are genuine, and that frustration is a valid thing to feel when being wagoned. However, I do not feel that frustration is something that is unique to one alignment. Frustration as mafia being hunted down is a very common thing, and it is what I am arguing is occurring.


My argument for Bell being a member of the mafia faction in this game takes several different points into consideration.

Firstly, Bell's lack of meaningful scum hunting (or reads) and recurring focus back to the issue of his emotional state.
Secondly, Bell's evolving claims of his role.
Thirdly, Bell's use of a straw man argument to deflect arguments made against him.
Fourthly, Bell's use of discrediting towards his accusers.

Bell's lack of scum hunting and recurring focus back to the issue of his emotional state

Bell as of the writing of this post has 106 posts in the game. In them, I can identify exactly zero explicit reads of a player. I can see a "What's wrong with Joyboy" in post 569, and I can see a "Hu Tao is doing nothing" in post 586. There's what appears to be a town-leaning read of Sakura Hana for indeterminate reasons in post 591, and even that is weaseled out of by denoting that it's mostly applying other people's opinions. 651 appears to be the start of a mafia read of Laplacian, but once again, there's already an out provided in the same post of "that might just be because it’s day 1". At no point is there a read expressed with any conviction whatsoever. Bell is not voting anyone new since post 70, where he voted Relativistic Harmony. Bell deos eventually expand upon his reasons for this vote in post 358, which is never followed up again after that.
However.....
Of the current 106 posts Bell has made. Take a guess on how many revolve around his reported emotional state and "ease of being read" or the back-and-forth that caused it? Come up with your guess, then go ahead and reveal the answer.
Before the "perspective slip" post:

15 or so

After the "perspective slip" post:

20 or so

And I was somewhat generous on erring on the side of "not" if a post was borderline for counting or not. That means that of the 106 posts Bell has made, and being generous,

33.01%, or about one third of his total posting

is about this issue instead of any effort to discern alignments whatsoever.

Bell's evolving claims of his role

Bell claims in his second post, post 11, that he has an ability that takes both himself and another player out of the game for one game day. He then asks for people to share if they could possibly gain from that ability. Then, after some pressure from PookyTheMagicalBear and others, in post 410 a claim comes out about a second ability that allows him to post after he dies. Note that due to special rule 6, we know at least one ability of this sort exists in the game; so even without any sort of additional mod-given safety information, a mafia-aligned Bell can claim this sort of role without being contradicted by the rules.

Bell's use of a straw man argument

Titus claimed that eliminating Bell was better than a generic Town role. Bell then turned around to claim and argue this as "Titus is claiming that an elimination on Bell is better than hitting Mafia" instead of Titus' actual argument.
We can see this interaction starting in post 544, where Titus states that at a game play level specifically, eliminating Bell is less of a downside. At no point does Titus espouse anything other than a mafia read of Bell here. Titus does, in this post, note that she also has a mafia read of Joyboy, and that Joyboy personally may be slightly more mafia to her.
We then see the perspective flip specifically, in post 564, where Bell asks Titus why killing town is "better than letting them live" which is a complete straw man argument, and NOT what Titus' argument entailed.

Bell's constant discrediting of myself, without calling me Mafia

Bell has, at several points in the game, attempted to discredit my ability to play the game rationally, but has not once called me mafia, or even seemingly entertained the idea that I could be mafia pushing him.
In post 171: "LTO’s approach is hard to differentiate between hard nosed because they’re role playing a hard nose or an actual hard nose. "
In post 238: "The only thing that is slightly eyebrow raising is the way you’re noticing pooky doubling down. The wording feels strange. But there’s not much to be said about it. Other than that it feels vaguely round about."
Again, in post 239: "In other words I was asking those questions to gauge if you were genuine or not."
Post 249 is the closest I can discern to a read of me, wherein I am called "Honorary Scum" for..... Posting a double negative? This is never followed up or explained further, nor acted upon with a vote.
Post 419, where Bell notes to "You guys better correct him because I’m at work. *pissed*" (Bell then fixed the gender but at no point even stops to think this could be scum taking advantage of him?)
Post 422, where Bell claims I "failed to realize everyone has multiple abilities I.e., a joat, jack of all trades. Etc etc." (Which was NOT my point, and once again, why couldn't I be mafia pushing this incorrectly?)
Again in the second half of that post, "There are few explanations for why they decided to go down this road. That don’t involve unfamiliarity with a core component of the game." What explanations are these? How many times do these questions expire into the void? A lot.
Post 426, where he just directly calls my reasoning "really bad reasoning." I hate to hammer this point, but why is it explicitly bad reasoning and not just, you know, me being a member of the Mafia exploiting him?
Finally in post 591, we get the weakest "If you're town" fadeaway line. As best I can tell this is the closest to evaluating me Bell has ever gotten. is it followed up at any point? We all know the answer to that one by now.
In post 648, Bell pushes back against calling me quick or intelligent with "Wasn’t LTO the player that said they thought I was scum because I claimed a miller-like role." (Which was not me, as bell then notes in....)
Post 649, where Bell calls me... "Having my own issues" and "getting up to speed"


Hi, post-writing Lady here. I started this post hoping to clarify my thoughts, and I think I pretty much have with a solid mafia read on Bell. Note that I wrote this before the most recent burst of activity, so some of my points may have additional clarity or items provided to judge Bell on based upon his most recent set of posts.

I would like feedback. (No, Bell, not from you, go do the task you're procrastinating on)
Am I playing with tunnel vision, or with blinders on? Is this me reading too much into things?

First two sections seem accurate. I don't agree with the 3rd section. The last section seems like it may be veering towards confirmation bias.

They're going to put you there because you deserve pressure for not existing as other players go up, players that aren't doing anything tend to go down. It's a rat race for scum and even Pooky scum knows that.
Next question

Well other players at that point had barely contributed as well

Yes, there

existed

at least one player other than yourself that had barely contributed at that point. No, not

everyone

had barely contributed at that point. I really don't get why you are arguing against this point using this argument.