Large Normal 247 - Postgame

[Psyche]

not ruling it out but atm don't see snow redoubling so robustly at this moment as scum — however naeyrs flips

guess big countervail to this take would be if oblivion or another real alternative is scum and he feels like another nudge is necessary. maybe someone pairs me and snow based on that rationale if naeyrs flips town? meh idea overall — i'm pretty unlikely today despite idle talk

omg psyche focussss

[Psyche]

last several hours of yesterday were pretty productive despite everything
if we don't hit scum today i'll take it personally

[Psyche]

snow's had a fun little strategy in mind with his self vote earlier

[Psyche]

oblivion seemed to double down on ranger in a way that definitely wasn't forced. and really committed to this naeyrs push too. i suppose it's technically possible from scum but i'm inclined to disbelieve as much.

can you walk us through how you ended the day with a vote on that slot?

[Psyche]

think calling out the snow/davesaz dissoc yesterday is probably a good sign that thomith really is town

[Psyche]

Daveslot is also the only person to invoke such strong reactions from oblivion, i wonder why

oblivion did give some reasons for this in its post and at least the factual parts seem verifiable

[Psyche]

agree though that it's wrong to interpret 44 as potentially throwing dave under the bus; there's not enough pressure conveyed by the post to have that effect

[Psyche]

I'd argue that oblivion also pushed Naeyrs reasonably strongly. Lines like "Naerys needs to be the elimination for today. Bottom line."

[Psyche]

Now, I did kind of find its basis for pushing Naeyrs kind of weak when I first looking at the wagon...I remember being fascinated by its strong hostility reaction after I critiqued this basis. But in retrospect, it just looks like a symptom of tunnel vision plus a chip in its shoulder about being ignored for some reason.

It notes they popped in only to defend themselves and are now scrambling to find alternative targets.

imo this is close to consistent w my play atm (i guess i'm asking questions sometimes too) and i'm just busy town with thread email notifications turned on

naeyrs has admitted to lurking because of other interests

so isn't this null since it could be honest from either version of naeyrs?
or do you see signs she's lying?
or do you think it doesn't actually matter?
(if so, why'd you bring it up?)

[am not at all closed to joining the naeyrs wagon. just think these questions will help assess (and document) your vote basis/confidence]

Then it has no interest in answering your questions. Your posts already read like they are trying to setup onto voting it, and if you're never changing your mind, then it has no interest in wasting its breath with you.

Either you're town and so wrong it will never convince you, so it's efforts are best spent elsewhere.

or you're scum and chainsawing Naerys, which would require some thought processing from it, but is solvable just from that.

In either case, answer your questions provides it with exactly zero value, and given your stance on it already it doesn't feel it owes you even a lick of effort in trying to show it is town. It frankly doesn't care.

[am not at all closed to joining the naeyrs wagon. just think these questions will help assess (and document) your vote basis/confidence]

Then it has no interest in answering your questions. Your posts already read like they are trying to setup onto voting it, and if you're never changing your mind, then it has no interest in wasting its breath with you.

Either you're town and so wrong it will never convince you, so it's efforts are best spent elsewhere.

or you're scum and chainsawing Naerys, which would require some thought processing from it, but is solvable just from that.

In either case, answer your questions provides it with exactly zero value, and given your stance on it already it doesn't feel it owes you even a lick of effort in trying to show it is town. It frankly doesn't care.

this is a pretty oddly hostile response to some pretty solid qs imo

It isn't hostile, it's just correct. It sees no benefit to itself in answering the questions of someone who doesn't ever plan to change his mind, nor does it see a reason to pitch itself as town to such a person when they clearly already scumread it.

Why would it waste its energy on that conversation... ever?

well then what's the stance you think i'm resistant to changing? i haven't said i scumread you and i've specifically said i'm open to voting naeyrs

but idk not seeing much sortable in this exchange. at least nothing that goes against baseline guess that slots that push early to get scum limmed and keep pushing until the lim succeeds are usually town.

[Psyche]

massclaiming would be a good call i think. still feel reasonably committed to stance that oblivion's not the one for today.

[Psyche]

What's the way to distinguish a well-executed bus from someone having a scumread and pushing it over?

[Psyche]

I guess I can allow that a hard bus was not an impossible strategic call there.
But it wasn't forced either; it seemed like pressure really was turning away from Ranger after the claim until Oblivion redoubled.
The main question though is still -- what in obsidian's iso should lean us to think it was bussing instead of pushing a scumread?
Without a good answer, I feel like we should townlean the slot by default. And honestly I probably more than townlean atm.

[Psyche]

first instinct was to fos enchant over targeting lycanfire but i'll stay open-minded

[Psyche]

2.15

Votecount 2.15

Ranger (3): Random Nurse, Titus, Oblivion
Hu Tao (3): Ranger, Naerys, PenguinPower
Snow2697 (2): Thomith, Gypyx
PenguinPower (2): KayJayQueue, Hu Tao
Thomith (1): Snow2697

Not Voting (2): geraintm, Lycanfire

With 13 players alive, it takes 7 votes to secure an execution.

The day deadline is in (expired on 2024-04-07 10:29:00).

Mod Notes: The combined mod ISO is here.

Ranger's claim is so many levels of BS.

Does no one except it remember when Ranger bragged about how surprised it woupd be about her claim and then claimed the least surprising most obvious bait claim in the world that didn't match that tone at all?

What is going to happen is that Ranger will live today if you let her, live tomorrow on promise of shooting someone but you will never get that shot. Either they will claim to be roleblocked or shoot a townie and then if you go "okay time to sort ranger" it is MELO and you won't have space to do it.

Now is the time to murder this suspicious player with a suspicious claim. Town does not need a N3 Vig or a N4 Jailkeeper, and more likely it is a scum fake claim.

We should not be running up other players to claim to feed the scum more info on our roles.

Murder Ranger with it, they will flip scum.

ehhhh. naw.

[Psyche]

Not talking to Nurse anymore

think this is fine to commit to!

[Psyche]

had some reasons to townread titus that ill review but ive always thought she was a more likely ranger busser than oblivion

[Psyche]

sure. and make sure to think through who you'll have claim next

[Psyche]

but go now or you'll look scummy

[Psyche]

time to claim, enchant

[Psyche]

ok you forgot the popcorn part

[Psyche]

also tell us the exact role name please

[Psyche]

VT

now geraintm claims

[Psyche]

that slot claimed vt ages ago

[Psyche]

is the argument for geratown mostly meta? would be cool if i had more

[Psyche]

it's actually really useful for weighing possibilities like gypyx/thomith being in a team with ranger

[Psyche]

it's actually really useful for weighing possibilities like gypyx/thomith being in a team with ranger

From the claims just doesn't seem viable? Town has basically nothing to respond to a United scum team. Or am I misunderstanding?

right, but this is exactly what the setup reasoning you're discounting clarifies. that the gypyx/thomith/ranger team is all the more unlikely.

[Psyche]

it's actually really useful for weighing possibilities like gypyx/thomith being in a team with ranger

Really feels like you are wasting time

and imo you're all talk
did you do anything to prosecute that vote on me you placed yesterday?
at minimum it would have been nice to have more people around when deadline was getting closer

[Psyche]

actually im misremembering your posting yesterday.
you were useless because you misread my "snippy" posts but you were also chatty about it

[Psyche]

it's actually really useful for weighing possibilities like gypyx/thomith being in a team with ranger

From the claims just doesn't seem viable? Town has basically nothing to respond to a United scum team. Or am I misunderstanding?

right, but this is exactly what the setup reasoning you're discounting clarifies. that the gypyx/thomith/ranger team is all the more unlikely.

emphasizing deductions like these is especially important this game because there is a pretty good chance that RN survives to any prospective melo

[Psyche]

it's actually really useful for weighing possibilities like gypyx/thomith being in a team with ranger

This take is awful?

what am i missing?
how is it so awful?

[Psyche]

this is what i am talking about

[Psyche]

rn why did you push for the massclaim if you weren’t going to use the info to calibrate your reads at all

[Psyche]

there's one or two clear lims of least resistance today but i'm concerned that they aren't on the mark

if there were scum among the slots that are more productive this game, how would we find them? how would we avoid the bait?

this type of q is sort of essential to my ability to enjoy mafia but for now im at a loss for a reliable answer

i guess responsible thing to do first is the legwork to confirm that we really are in such an ambiguous scenario. caffeine is kicking in. might as well spend the boost on a game instead of the job i took it for...

[Psyche]

it looks like you misread my 2656 as conveying a belief that gypyx/thomith have a chance of being scum

[Psyche]

rn the biggest lesson of this massclaim should be that there's little to no chance of gypyx/thomith being scum
is that what were you seeking with this massclaim? to test your pet theory that they are lying about being pseudo-masons?

[Psyche]

am about as scum as naeyrs was

[Psyche]

i struggle to see how. it's typical from him even in this game

[Psyche]

could you elaborate on why 2689 was interesting if it lends to prediction of "same shit on a different page"

[Psyche]

Odds of Enchant lolcatting because the scum PT is filled with posts such as "we need a mislim on gypyx or thomith OR we always take them to melo"? I can see this reveal or at least bothering the two of you in private to be an avenue to build suspicion.

Which would be a terrible use of the slot. Reeks of desperation and someone that would have only read the scum PT but not the game thread.

this doesn't seem to make much sense..? why don't scum just kill gypyx/thomith ahead of melo if they are such a threat?

[Psyche]

still feel reasonably convinced that the solve is best narrowed to

geraintm
KayJayQueue
Enchant

am convinced by the towncase for all the others, maybe most controversially lycanfire and oblivion

and i'm probably still inclined to take kayjayqueue out of this pool, but i can't say i have strong reasons for it
what i want to look for atm are any details that could convince me that this poe is wrong
if not, i'll focus on presenting why it's probably right

[Psyche]

well, i'm time/effort-constrained.

[Psyche]

ok, a little catching up to do.

start here

VOTE: Snow

this vote, combined with them jumping on late yesterday raises concerns. if there was a bus then this is where i think it was, following up with trying to direct day 3 so obviously.

post 1412 is almost like they have set up snow for a while to take the fall today. lycan has also been setting snow up.

(i kinda want to flip snow because it gives so much info about people)

Snow's entry is very defensive.

FWIW this is where I think I am right now:

Lycanfire
Snow2697

[/b]

this is so weird, these 3 are locked in a weird death spiral with each other. strongly think there is at least 1 scum in there. just doesn't make sense otherwise, feels like someone has been caught and scum is lashing out in the group

It will only kill Naerys today.

why?

If not the hood, an option can be to look at Naerys-geraintm (both did not vote scum!Dave, but voted town!NAS) and also at Wisp-Naerys conflict dating back to D1 (Wisp looks more town due to his vote into Ranger on D2).
Penguin voted scum!Ranger, so some details on why he is scum might be helpful.

you do know day 1 i will just vote the biggest thread?
yesterday i had no strong view on who was scum or not, certainly i had nothing to indicate Ranger was scum, hence my not voting.

If I was scum why would I swing the momentum back to execute Ranger when it seemed that momentum may have begun picking up elsewhere?

what momentum elsewhere? it was clear Ranger was going yesterday from early on, there was at least 1 scum on their wagon if not both.

It is considering a Mass Claim at this point. We have had 2 nights of actions, it wonders if a third benefits us over forcing claims.

It would like to do this in a Popcorn styling.

i think i am in favour of this, feels like some good claims will trap scum with nowhere else to go. ranger already got done with a bad claim so i dont think scum are good at coming up with good claims between them

We will see. It is most amused you believe you get to dictate today.

Snow is off the table.

I'm not stating I get to dictate the day. In fact I said I'm willing to go outside the hood because I may be tunnelled, I'm just voting my biggest scumread right now.

your snap vote post 1 today certainly gave the mpression you wanted to

i think though VOTE: naerys. the way they jumped off Ranger straight after the claim and gave the impression they did not want to go in thehood. also things like this

Any further thoughts on this yet?

Not fond of the way Titus and gera switched to dave tbh
also kinda dont like Penguin´s position on Wisp, but also i dont like Wisp himself and the way he "suspects" me

On the other side i think dave could be town, he doesnt really feel different from his previous towny games. So i think looking into those, who think dave could be scum is warranted

is this the kind of post that has people townreading gera?
i'd really like to start working toward a shared perspective on him but so far it looks we've been trading in truisms and/or missed messages

[Psyche]

personally i think there's very little substantive reasoning in gera's wallposts and that it might be overlearning to expect him to be similarly inactive across all his scum games

yeah i hate that you do that day 1 thing but i understand that as NAI for you
even beyond that though all of your votes have probably always been on town, and also not super well motivated
not knowing about ranger's neighbor posts is some kind of excuse, sure, but there are other scum in this game and your votes haven't help find them

but hmmm actually the naerys vote

could

turn out to be prescient good luck out there

Sorry I missed this.
I'll reread later

ok, ignoring the bit about my interaction with you that you did reply to (i brought it up because i needed to remind mysel what i thought about you previously)
(not looking at every posst)

2205- defeatist post
2201 - wants now to sheep Gypys.thom

2194 - snips at me for my read on lycan being poor and how i will look bad after they flip (though there would be 5 other people on the same wagon, wont they all look equally bad?)

2188 - zero content interaction with Kay and Naerys

219 - defeatist post
2175 - very deafeatist post

2170 - snippy

2168 - snippy

2156 - frustrated post

2148 - very defeatist post

so i stand by my view that your last series of posts are snippy. you just have the vibe of someone who has relaced in to a scum slot and cannot change the narrative. coupled with scum going down yesterday i wouldnt blame you.


i note in your 2194 you don't actually bother to dispute my read on you

like this looks thoughtful if you're skimming it, but it's just a really wordy expression of a gutread, and quite mechanical and superficial in its analysis
is maybe harsh to put it this way, but none of gera's votes or posts have meaningfully advanced the game and all of his votes have been away from scum

he was really evasive around ranger too, avoiding meaningful takes on how scummy his and dave's iso were, and eventually flatly accepting the pr claim with little to no scrutiny
at best he explains his opposition to the wagon in terms of disagreement with the idea of limming inside the neighborhood, never providing a read on the slot based on its content in the thread
the final gypyx vote was both doomed and listless

think listless is the key summary for all of gera's iso, including his D3 push on me
this pattern stands in sharp contrast to readiness to jump on anyone D1 -- which, while well-known as his policy, should say something about his personality and approach to mafia that i don't see past that
imo it's totally consistent with an iso that's pretending to be sorting

[Psyche]

his sole contribution to D1 was to volunteer that NAS has lurked as scum without any further reflection
but we are supposed to give him a pass for that

[Psyche]

Yeah, but it isn't useful. It is the ekuivalent of my daughter asking me if I would prefer to be a flower or a tree.

I think the question was busywork. Firstly the question is just overlying blegh, I don’t agree with Thom but also Oblivion just dipped immediately after wanting a consistent back and forth.

This is a goodnsummation of some of my thoughts. It just pads the game. It doesn't meaningfully help

It feels like a.lot of bad faith voting going on at the moment.

I just can't work out who

Sites back, yay!

I cannot deal with Ranger. Endless.posts of read lists give me nothing to work with.


Do they normally post like this??

what is useful content for geraintm? will this thread ever see it?

[Psyche]

i thinkk a big difference is that you're not a busybody in the same way
but we'll see if it's a big difference

[Psyche]

yesterday i had no strong view on who was scum or not, certainly i had nothing to indicate Ranger was scum, hence my not voting.

for future reference, this is gera's explanation for his D2 play.
(except rather than not voting, he actually voted gypyx on D2, and recommitted to the gypyx wagon the next day soon after this post.)

[Psyche]

could start by engaging w reasoning about why we all think it's not thomith/gypyx

[Psyche]

don't think it needs the entire thread's energy, but obviously getting RN on the same page about this would be very valuable down the line

[Psyche]

i wonder how scum-RN plays though, how does he try to mimic his town game?
maybe the posting would look more agreeable. at least about thomith/gypyx

[Psyche]

let's talk it over before we commit...i think there's stuff in titus's iso that might cue town.

[Psyche]

actually a lot of titus's posts cue town. wasn't this a more common view just yesterday?

[Psyche]

hmm guess not. where do i start

[Psyche]

not trying to give enchant a free out, but if my trouble getting through 60 pages yesterday was within the norm then it'll be a while before enchant is even equipped to say anything useful. feel like it's wiser to sort based on titus's play or wait for more throughput

[Psyche]

so i'll just start posting things that give me pause from titus's iso

for example...

I haven't changed my mind but I am wanting to give Ranger a chance if wrong. Dave Snow works for me.

why are you voting together with Ranger then titus

Because I have more faith in Naerys being scum. However if no traction in a bit, I will move. Shocked how static the game is.

am i crazy, or do posts like these not seem to suggest much self-consciousness on titus's part about her distance from ranger?

[Psyche]

the transition from the above string of posts to this recommitment to a ranger vote also seems rather organic

let's stay on ranger until it's clear it's not doable

I don't like Random Nurse.

VOTE: Ranger

We can do Ranger now. Ranger's response to me voting Snow was horrible. Ranger sees Gypyx and Thomlith won't be divided so she's moving them up her reads list.

Ranger, the difference between you and Willow is my townreads are active and people are posting now. If you think my theory on Wisp also applies to you, who are the scum that don't give a damn.

Frankly, it's easy to post a series of names gradually moving people where you want them to be over time with no reasoning.

When you do post reasons, they are clearly bad.

Ranger Snow +1 inactive calling it

[Psyche]

i agree that titus's

townplay

doesn't usually have much self-consciousness

[Psyche]

it honestly could be both of them but

VOTE: geraintm

[Psyche]

what's not to like? it's like a game of telephone but if you had to choose someone in the line to

shoot to death

send home from the house party at 7pm

[Psyche]

Argueing with town leaders frustrating.

I guess i just jump for counter, hehe haha.

VOTE: Gera

UNVOTE:

unsettling

[Psyche]

um enchant could you just like read the thread and tell us who you think is scum pretty please

[Psyche]

careful lycan very well-meaning townies get scumread all the time for pushing people for disingenuous reasons

[Psyche]

is enchant the type to believe in neat little scumslips

[Psyche]

oh maybe i'll ask him!

enchant: could you point us to other times scum slipped in the way you say lycanfire did?

[Psyche]

enchant id just like need one example to convince me that you're this type of person and maybe even to be open to sheeping with you (lol)

[Psyche]

gosh if it turned out to be gera/kay all along id feel amazing. but im not allowed to be happy therefore at least one of enchant or lycanfire has to be scum

[Psyche]

sry enchant but ive mislimmed quite a few town who instead of "slipping knowledge only mafia have" were just town who jumped to conclusions based on limited but suggestive information

[Psyche]

ive seen a few actual scumslips, even kind of recently! usually they were signs that someone was lying about why they "scumread" someone. alas even town can do those. looking at you lycanfire

[Psyche]

You just sound butthurt that I pushed you yesterday

i knew you didn't scumread me! but id been burned! so i didn't scumread you back! do you know the self-restraint that takes?

it takes a moderate and totally doable amount

[Psyche]

ok but if it's svs can i bus lycanfire instead of vice versa

[Psyche]

at deadline of course. so i have an excuse to vote for a townread

[Psyche]

right. paranoia. not opportunism. paranoia

[Psyche]

hmmmm. do i just dislike how gera plays? that's always the question in these games huh

[Psyche]

well someone has to be scum and it's not me and it's not gypyx and it's not thomith and it's not me and it's not RN and it's not oblivion and it's not lycanfire and it's not me. so who is it gera??

[Psyche]

nah. when i townlock someone they are definitely town. unless they are kay or ausuka and certainly not an unknown third person or fourth person.

[Psyche]

it feels RN is trying real hard to direct suspicion to others. Anyone else feel this way? #2800 in particular looks very suspicion-directing

[Psyche]

I still believe

this is where i wrap gera's name in a vote tag

[Psyche]

ahhh im pretty bad at setup spec. can't other people be in charge of that part of the game?

[Psyche]

well what

[Psyche]

I think they can be readily townread independently of their claims. For example, scum thomith doesn't casually clear snow by disassociation w davesaz like he did yesterday.

[Psyche]

don't think the bar should be "can only town do this?" but rather "is it reasonably plausible that scum would do this?" and imo the answer is no.

[Psyche]

I think they can be readily townread independently of their claims. For example, scum thomith doesn't casually clear snow by disassociation w davesaz like he did yesterday.

Well it had told them Snow was never dying even on Day 2. It had fended off like 6 snow wagons this game. At some point why not flip then murder them at night once you make that assertion to give credence to why they were shot over you?

don't really see why this would be a big factor in their decision-making around snow as scum given that you have only one vote and also were nearly limmed yesterday

[Psyche]

I think that misses my point. I'm saying that it's very unlikely that your behavior convinced a hypothetical thomith/gypyx team that snow was unlimmable at the point in D3 where thomith cleared him.

[Psyche]

anyway yeah i'm pretty convinced that gypyx/thomith are town. i have seen a lot of posts from them that convince of genuine attempting to solve.
gypyx is a bit harder to sort, and the oblivion trajectory then remains questionable, but imo thomith's iso doesn't have those flaws and he and she are luckily a 2 in 1.

imo this dynamic is central to why them claiming pseudo-masons together was so risky. it did not at all absolve them of suspicion and either slot's flip would doom the other.
furthermore, at the time of their claim, they had no way of knowing whether town had an investigate or killing role (like snow's) that could readily sidestep the lim threshold to blow up their fakeclaim.

a pair with gypyx/thomith was always going to have better odds by playing distanced from one another, especially given the information they had D2.

[Psyche]

Even if gypyx were scum and thought she'd had a reasonable chance of being limmed yesterday, I think her most natural and reasonable decision is not to tie herself to thomith by claiming pseudo-mason, but to either survive or die alone.

[Psyche]

can you remind of the exact-ish information conveyed by your role pm?

[Psyche]

think gera comes out of this exchange looking the scummiest again...

[Psyche]

idk though. why does scum gera even chime at this moment with a post like that? comes off as somewhat incautious

[Psyche]

ughhh i just want to feel confident that someone is scum

[Psyche]

id be careful of that. i am biased to townread people in general

[Psyche]

don't tell me you're caught up in it too

[Psyche]

let's stay on ranger until it's clear it's not doable

[Psyche]

i just don't get how you find these posts compelling but not oblivion's

[Psyche]

where is your mind on the overall gamestate enchant? i feel like that vote was a bit superficial

[Psyche]

oblivion and gera are two different people

hope this helps

so it just reduces to vague meta feels or is there any way you can elaborate in a way that might make me feel like i can check over your work

[Psyche]

can you give stances on the slots that you think have a chance of being scum? like how scummy you think they are and why

[Psyche]

i'll take another look at their interactions before i go "i just don't see it" i guess

[Psyche]

is there a lim that would be a super efficient test of your overall set of reads? like it would either make you feel sure you're right about the entire team or that you have to go back to the drawing board about everything?

[Psyche]

asking bc from here i suspect that like two mislims are potentially lined up, whether i decide to push harder for my pov or relent to yours

[Psyche]

all the options have a lot supporting a townread to me
would have to do the equivalent of blocking one of my eyes if i want to push someone forcefully
or figure out which town signals i should be ignoring

[Psyche]

i guess i'll try reading some other games where bussing happened

[Psyche]

rambling mood i guess...
This sort of paranoia has been a big factor in even my successful games.
Guess the strategy then was to embrace paranoia as part of the process -- as a force that helps you think through all possibilities -- but manage it by preferring consolidation with known town, and eventually put it aside once you're sure you've found the most reasonable decision you can make given the circumstances.
For example, it's been quite easy at points in this game to feel paranoid about Gypyx/Thomith, and the possibility that they planned a vast gambit might in some circumstances nag the town until things are over. But even after indulging some rumination over it all, it's clearly unlikely to ever be a reasonable call to lim one of them.
More positively, we want to look for the least bad lim, where it's possible we're making the wrong call, but we can feel confident we've weighed all possibilities pretty thoroughly.
Insisting on certainty and consistency...might be useful as a source of motivation to keep revisiting our grasp of the game...but probably hinders decisiveness. But I guess that's what deadlines are for.
We want to try consolidating well before deadline this time though.

[Psyche]

maybe we consider step my step
which pairs are reasonably plausible under your current understanding of the game?

[Psyche]

maybe just a first draft guess without doing further research or reflection. if something's ambiguous just leave it. can gradually refine from there.

[Psyche]

still a rather reactive presence

[Psyche]

I'm actually kind of more ok than before with going enchant. Not sure how much more okay, but I'm definitely moving in opposite direction than others here.

overall i don't find this act all that persuasive. #2940 nor the vote for kay really give vibe of "this person is trying to sort/solve the game they very recently made the active decision to start playing". feels like best reason to townread it is the suspicion that scum might exert more to give precisely that vibe, but that sort of WIFOM is potentially what motivates this style. i've definitely played that angle as scum before.

just generally feel like someone who'd skimmed the game would take a more active stance than "ok does anyone have questions for me"

[Psyche]

so you're unsure about everything too?

[Psyche]

want what

[Psyche]

you kind of don't like answering questions do you

[Psyche]

the questions seem pretty straightforward to me

anyway, i got one more: do you think im scum?

[Psyche]

hmm but then the answer could have just been "yes"

[Psyche]

VOTE: geraintm

[Psyche]

why

[Psyche]

honestly, i think that's a very bad pool. maybe we lim in it for the reality check

[Psyche]

by all means

[Psyche]

oblivion would be the biggest surprise for me. how many other people are scumreading that slot?

[Psyche]

you find the "sorry" scummy?

[Psyche]

so are you voting for a null read? or are there other things you find scummy about the slot?

[Psyche]

enchant never actually scumread me. choice to follow me on preferring obsidian with the weak basis in 2975 over kay similarly makes even clearer that he was never very interested in his vote for her either.

[Psyche]

kay would actually be an okay test of the rationale for my push on her yesterday. i was mostly overwhelmed by her response to me. am curious if i should be letting my interpretation of the sincerity of a post's emotions outweigh more concrete read basis. might inform how i should be thinking about other slots.

[Psyche]

i guess ranger looks legit unhappy with kay in some of her posts

[Psyche]

yeah i feel like recommitting to my stance that kay is a distraction motivated in part by my paranoia about her tonal skill

[Psyche]

great! i now want to go on the record as feeling confident that the solve is these two:

geraintm
Enchant

if these two aren't the scum, i'll feel defeated this game, even if we win.

[Psyche]

but of course titus's iso still gives pause

[Psyche]

so are you voting for a null read? or are there other things you find scummy about the slot?

[Psyche]

really don't like psyche's recent posting

this suggests less confidence in your previous pair of reads than i interpreted

[Psyche]

i'm not super motivated to go through another tug of war atm. am ok to go along today and hope for new openness tomorrow. but maybe i'll feel differently after the saturday morning sleep-in

[Psyche]

if the reality check is my lim that'd also be interesting. but your language emphasizing a distinction between solve and consolidation suggests you'd still feel like you're on the right track even after i flip.

[Psyche]

proposal: give me one of my preferences today and if the slot flips town i'll turn you into a doublevoter for the rest of the time we're both alive

[Psyche]

i just think these current reads are wrong. have read your reasons for holding them and am not convinced. but am ok to make room to see one tested.

[Psyche]

sorry that offer's only for confirmed town

[Psyche]

so are you voting for a null read? or are there other things you find scummy about the slot?

[Psyche]

and whyd you choose oblivion over kay to sheep gyp with

[Psyche]

just feels like if enchant scumread kay but nullread oblivion and gypyx explicitly announced openness to either slot, town-enchant might have tried to exercise a little agency

[Psyche]

maybe back in the time for agency time would've helped to share some reads instead of waiting for someone to ask you for them

[Psyche]

this what

[Psyche]

id bet yall 1 million in game currency that this is just scum playing at being breezy

[Psyche]

doesn't have to be

[Psyche]

provide a take that improves town's understanding of who might be scum

[Psyche]

So, oblivion was arguably a major force pushing the ranger wagon over the finish line. How do you square that with your other stances on the slot?

[Psyche]

in general i wonder if you could review your idea of what went down on D2 because i wasn't there and didn't really scan timestamps and knew the outcome as i went

[Psyche]

okay. and just so i understand: how does the post flip stuff connect to a possible scum wincon for you?

[Psyche]

going around saying it is obvtown for the push and that we must listen to it’s solves and the forcefulness of it’s views thereafter

I'm asking why you think these behaviors in particular suggest a scum win condition. Why do you think oblivion would be less likely to say these things as town?

[Psyche]

Hmmmm. I'm kind of ambivalent about how much I believe this answer. Overconfident town are relatively common and I'm sure you've had a lot of experience them. And it seems sort of natural that validating someone's take on their game w/ a flip would increase their confidence in said take. Furthermore, Oblivion was already really confident on D2 as well re: Ranger. In addition, you had yourself as an example of profound confidence on D3 while you were developing that scumlean. But I guess I can see how seeing someone express confidence about a clearly wrong opinion can make you wonder if the opinion was genuine. Still, on the other hand, Lycanfire whom you townread also seemed quite confident that Naeyrs would flip scum. Overall unless you have some sort of grudge against oblivion for putting you on the defensive yesterday, I'm still having trouble seeing why you'd rank it so lowly compared to other slots. Especially given its role in the Ranger wagon you sort of stood against. Either way, we'll definitely continue not seeing eye-to-eye about how town the slot is.

this post needs more line breaks. oh well

[Psyche]

if yall actually lim me, i'm not accepting any of the blame. you're just bad at reading slots at that point.

[Psyche]

has gypyx suggested any reasons why im scummy yet

[Psyche]

I felt similarly as demotivated as oblivion yesterday when Gypyx-Thomith took over the game.

they have thrown the whole game for me. i got into a fight with them, then they claimed and i felt bad for not having been clued up into what i was meant to know. then i felt later i got push back on that i don't want to let them live right into the end game so there is that too.

now psyche is scum reading me because of stuff that i havent done but someone else has so i have zero way of interacting with that except to go Nu huh! and i am never going to be able to out post them to win an argument with them so that leaves me cold too.

i've basically got 3 players i don't want to go near today, which leaves 5.
oblivion, kay, enchant, lycan and psyche.

I'd disagree of course that I'm scumreading you for stuff you haven't done. I just don't believe your account of things.

What have you done today to find a good preference order among these 5?

[Psyche]

I’m not saying town can’t be wrong. I don’t know what else you want me to say. Well I guess I do, you want me to agree with your reads. I don’t feel good about Oblivion but I don’t have strong reads on others. Gera and RN - I have no idea how to sort them. I know gera has votes but i don’t even know if I fully understand why. I’d love to figure these two slots out but I can’t. Whereas I have reasons, however much you disagree with them, for feeling wary of Oblivion and Enchant, so that’s why they’d be my top choices to vote today.

Motivation was about desire to persuade you about oblivion, and more about determining whether you really believe what you're saying. I'm trying to clarify whether you really scumread oblivion or are just scum trying to look that way.

[Psyche]

I’m not saying town can’t be wrong. I don’t know what else you want me to say. Well I guess I do, you want me to agree with your reads. I don’t feel good about Oblivion but I don’t have strong reads on others. Gera and RN - I have no idea how to sort them. I know gera has votes but i don’t even know if I fully understand why. I’d love to figure these two slots out but I can’t. Whereas I have reasons, however much you disagree with them, for feeling wary of Oblivion and Enchant, so that’s why they’d be my top choices to vote today.

Motivation was

less

about desire to persuade you about oblivion, and more about determining whether you really believe what you're saying. I'm trying to clarify whether you really scumread oblivion or are just scum trying to look that way.

EBWOP

[Psyche]

the least believable thing is the idea that oblivion's confidence D3 came off as scummy to you
but i think there are a few good reasons to treat this as NAI -- top two are 1) you evidently found the idea of naeyrs being scum this game unthinkable and also 2) it seems from key posts in this thread that you took oblivion's criticism of your naeyrs townread kind of personally
the first could make scumreading naeyrs look scummy by default, and the second could create a scumlean via halo effect alone
fact that you are only vaguely scumleaning oblivion matches with the small effects these factors could be expected to have on a read, so the overall profile looks consistent

[Psyche]

has gypyx suggested any reasons why im scummy yet

The way you're playing feels deliberate and idk... fake? I'm not talking to someone who needs to figure out the game

for instance, you suddenly putting so much weigth on my shoulders is making me feel weird

unfortunately this is still too nothing for me to meaningfully engage with
if i do flip today maybe it'll provide a useful lesson about basing votes on vague idk feels

[Psyche]

i know i shouldn't but stuff like this makes me blink. just gotta ignore it

[Psyche]

gera's summary of the difference between kjq's play in this game and her scum game with us is mostly accurate imo. she's mainly more confident in some key reads (e.g., naeyrs) but otherwise seems to post and play kind of similarly.

[Psyche]

i kind of doubt i'd be able to read a whole other game meaningfully enough for that sort of comparison

[Psyche]

if there were a more concrete question to answer i'd look for time to do a dive though.

[Psyche]

viewtopic.php?p=14163175&f=2&t=92440&us ... #p14163175

this is where in my iso i start digging into gera. 2702 goes into the most depth.
gist is that he makes a lot of noise about sorting, a lot of complaining about others' approaches/heuristics, saying this or that is useless, unsubstantial, fluff --
but does little real sorting on his own and producing wallposts that only look substantial if you're not paying attention
all this makes all the talk look pretty hollow and performative in retrospect. i used the word "busybody" when you and i were discussing this earlier.

maybe most striking gap is in his positioning around ranger on D2
he never gets around to expressing even one read on the slot or on others' reads on the slot.
the closest he gets is expressed dissatisfaction with the idea of limming inside the game's neighborhood.
his excuse D3 was that he was always null about ranger (and everyone?), but we don't even see any effort to clarify his read on ranger that day.
mostly just drifting and drifting -- but performed as if not that.

lots of slots have drifted this game and avoided active work to clarify nullreads but gera's has signs of disingenuousness to it

[Psyche]

gera's reply is a reasonable answer to the criticism that he seems to drifting around.
but i don't scumread everyone who's drifting around.
wrt gera, i specifically suspect a lot of his posts are performative and exist to mask that he's just drifting around.
i'd in fact disagree that he's avoided generating reads when he's had little to go on.
and on the other hand, i think his iso is missing not just reads -- which he says are missing because he has "nothing to go on" -- but also real searching for stuff to go on.

but yknow, maybe i'm tunnelling at this point.
i'll take a closer look at gera's iso and see if there's really anything left after you take away the "just drifting" critique, and highlight what i find

[Psyche]

(also the shift from "i'm voting for the top wagon no matter what" to "woah there partner i don't have a specific read on this slot but we should be looking off-neighborhood" still gives me whiplash, i'm typing this to remind myself of that for later)

[Psyche]

gera is the guy who doesn't care who is limmed D1 and just votes to end it quickly
i suppose it makes sense that he depends a lot on flips and night action reveals to get a handle of the game

[Psyche]

suppose im curious how you are this sort of person if you're not generally flippant about phase outcomes. why not be thoughtful about who to lim on D1? the only difference D2 is that two slots are dead

[Psyche]

ok. was d2 a non blind position?

[Psyche]

above post is a little off

[Psyche]

above post is a little off

Why? Because you’re desperately looking for a reason to think I’m bad? Lycan has put forth a ton of effort in his recent posts and it feels very town on top of me already feeling better about him after our mass claim. Why do you think it would be off for me to want to hear his opinion for what we should do today?

i think it's the way you sort of hang on his opinion that put me off there. the reasoning is that the post could be laundering a preference to coast through the game. but i gotta say: i've been towncasing you harder than anyone else itt and have all but staked myself to a solve that excludes you. it feels unfair to suggest i've only been looking for reasons to vote for you. i'm mostly just checking over my work here.

[Psyche]

ah! besides what gera volunteered, this is another thing that's different about kay's play this game than in her scum game. she's wayy more reactive to scrutiny than she was in her game as scum. i remember her responses to people weighing her as scum was almost kindly in the other game.

[Psyche]

am a bit disappointed to have not seen more from thomith or obsidian today. think we'd all have better reads this game if it weren't just lycanfire and imo me cooking.

[Psyche]

just to whine a little more — i think their absence is main reason we're about to feel forced to lim haphazardly because of deadline reasons again.

lycanfire your posts reviewing d2 are mostly impenetrable to me. can we get back to just debating slots again?

are there any reasons i shouldn't be happy with my poe to enchant/gera? how confident are you in the dissocatives you found around titus/ranger?

[Psyche]

what can i say
getting you to share sortable content feels like getting my dog to eat his dinners

[Psyche]

maybe food is issue

[Psyche]

note: think is easy to overrate how confident i am in my solve from how attached i am to it.

i think it's decidedly the best possible solve atm and is close to the limit of what i can do today. i'd bet the whole game on it rn if i could. but none of this is the same as me feeling absolutely certain that the solve is true. like, for example, i'm okay betting the game on a possibly wrong solve in part because it's just a game and there's only so much i can do to find another solve to bet the game on.

overall, the evidence standard for absolute confidence in a sort is way higher than for absolute commitment to a sort, even if the two have the same implications for how one would behave next. and i'm not even being super consistent with the "absolute commitment to a sort" schtick anyway — ive indulging my paranoia about the solve being wrong by for example, and i still ask questions or say things w primary goal to help sort people. reasonable safeguards imo, though perhaps impolitic?

this is one of those posts i got a pt for maybe

[Psyche]

31 hours to deadline

I never would’ve believed this if you told me day 1, but I think you’re one of my strongest townreads now lol

What do you think is the best course of action at this point? I feel like if you, Gypyx and Thom are all on the same page, I’ll feel really good about our decision. If not, I’ll have to see what feels best.

other thing i dont like about this is the fact that it's so transparent what lf's opinion of the best course of action is.
lycanfire has

placed a vote

and the votecount was updated very close to the post above this.
his idea of what's the best course of action is public info even for people who haven't been reading his posts.

and if you're reading his posts and gypyx/thomith's posts it should be clear that the group is not at all on the same page about who are even plausible lim candidates. lycanfire has mostly narrowed to rn/gera and gypyx had kay/oblivion before deciding i'm scummier than both of these.

the fact of this transparency of the answer to kay's question puts me off because it raises the possibility that the post is performative, just there to look like kay is trying to find a good vote.

guess ill reiterate that i have my other reasons for TRing her though, and that there is obviously a reasonable explanation for why her posting here and elsewhere could have come from town

[Psyche]

ah! besides what gera volunteered, this is another thing that's different about kay's play this game than in her scum game. she's wayy more reactive to scrutiny than she was in her game as scum. i remember her responses to people weighing her as scum was almost kindly in the other game.

eg on reflection this impression of her meta seems more town-indicative than null. (but i guess it's hard to say.)

[Psyche]

You're reasoning about busses how I would. My intuition is that scum bussing seeks a reward for what it's trading -- towncred.

Is hard to find positive evidence for bussing from this framework since town is frequently also quite motivated to seek reputation -- they also don't want to be scumread, they can use towncred to get their reads limmed, and they have ego-based reasons for seeking credit.
This is why I can't interpret Obsidian's clout-seeking after Ranger's lim as a meaningful sign wrt bussing.

Instead, I've looked for proof that someone's not bussing.
I seek out evidence that they're not setting themselves up to receive credit for a scum lim -- that they're not trying to put their signature on it, so to speak.
You look like you're doing the same thing.

But besides WIFOM,
where scum -- particularly scum sensitive like VCA like Titus -- can anticipate this reasoning and try to outplay it),
the problem I've found with this reasoning is that "not trying to put their signature" on a wagon looks really similar to being genuinely ambivalent about whether one wants to commit to wagon
town and scum can both be ambivalent about a wagon, but at best this observation renders null the info that your/my approach are seeking

should get more concrete:
how do you rule out from the posts you're quoting that titus is not just ambivalent about whether to bus ranger?
waiting to see whether the slot is as doomed as she's suspected it is?

[Psyche]

instead of saying goal of bussing is towncred, is maybe more concrete to say that the goal is "distancing",
which of course converts to towncred when the distanced-from slot is scum and gets flipped scum

anyway reminds that in general if we want to be able to really bet on a potential tell we've found,
it has to be something subtle enough that we can believe scum (at least the scum being considered) wouldn't think to fake it
we can't just ask if something is town-indicative. we also sort of have to do a second-order analysis.
a lot of people seem to think the question then is if the something is fakeable, but it feels like that's the path to only ever having null reads.
everything is fakeable in forum-based mafia.
but at same time ive found that "would scum think to fake this?" can have some surprising "yes" answers
good scumplay in part involves consistently doing these second order analyses on one's own play and peppering in subtle "towntells" that other town might think you wouldn't bother or think to drop as scum
(incidentally, kay is kind of good at that sort of scumplay)
how do you solve around that? i haven't decided yet. atm i let good scum get away until poe saves me or doesn't.

how's that connect to this titus/enchant thing?
i guess on reflection it's sort of unlikely that titus reasoned that her bussing would look more convincing if it ebbed and flowed.
the stuff above is not relevant about titus!

under the scenario where she was scum, the more likely reason she might ebb/flow on ranger might be that:

yeah, she's ambivalent about whether to commit to the bus.
here's why i think this is possible.
first, ranger definitely wanted to survive through most of the day. it's like you said, ranger tried to live.
ranger tried to cajole or bully people into re-evaluating their reads on her. she tried to look like she was sorting people, developing reads. and so on.
in a scum pt, this might have looked like her soliting room from teammates to let her try to live.
and in voting patterns/positioning, it might have put her teammates into a holding pattern around her.
Unwilling to push her hard, but also unwilling to be associated with her,
with leaning one way or the other based on trust in ranger's ability to carry out her goal,
but also on a guess about how much commitment to ranger is really necessary to get credit for bussing her.

so again, to me, this is consistent with titus's and gera's play.
a balance between distancing and bussing that you make while a teammate's fate is unclear.
ranger's fate was arguably unclear for a long time.
gypyx/thomith even timed their votes to hammer from L-2 because they were worried that the wagon might be abandoned if they left on L-1 for a while.
the above is proof that even to town eyes, ranger's fate was up in the air.
scum might be disincentivized to hardbus in that scenario if they still prefer a world where ranger is alive over one where ranger dies and they get credit for pushing scum.

it can also be imagined that town would be in a holding pattern around ranger because they, like, aren't able to get or stick confidently to a read on her or whatever.
hence the question:
what do we have to interpret titus's position on ranger as not "trying to get anything out of it" instead of as taking the safe position on a wagon whose success would at best have ambiguous consequences for her wincon?

[Psyche]

I don't think Ranger was doomed. I've been in worse situations as scum:

Town's hurting themselves by not resolving any of the problems present. Why would we give them a scum l***h when they all blundered into an L-1 wagon? They don't deserve it. Fuck them.

Titus would have loved the challenge?

ok, we agree that ranger wasn't doomed
i guess you think titus would have defended ranger under the scenario where she's not doomed

[Psyche]

other important context is that there was momentum against ranger's slot even D1.
feel like the fact that it was a constant feature of the game starting from like page 2 might have induced some fatalism about the slot even if concretely town were open to going another way.
is definitely clear that

ranger

didn't think her slot was all that doomed.

[Psyche]

2.11

Votecount 2.11

Ranger (4): Hu Tao, Random Nurse, Thomith, Gypyx
Naerys (2): PenguinPower, Naerys
Hu Tao (2): Lycanfire, Ranger
Thomith (1): Snow2697
Snow2697 (1): Titus

Not Voting (3): Oblivion, geraintm, KayJayQueue

With 13 players alive, it takes 7 votes to secure an execution.

The day deadline is in (expired on 2024-04-06 10:29:00).

Mod Notes: The combined mod ISO is here.

VOTE: Ranger

We can do Ranger now. Ranger's response to me voting Snow was horrible. Ranger sees Gypyx and Thomlith won't be divided so she's moving them up her reads list.

Ranger, the difference between you and Willow is my townreads are active and people are posting now. If you think my theory on Wisp also applies to you, who are the scum that don't give a damn.

Frankly, it's easy to post a series of names gradually moving people where you want them to be over time with no reasoning.

When you do post reasons, they are clearly bad.

Ranger Snow +1 inactive calling it

2.16

Votecount 2.16

Ranger (E-2): Random Nurse, Titus, Oblivion, PenguinPower, Lycanfire
Hu Tao (2): Ranger, Naerys
Snow2697 (2): Thomith, Gypyx
PenguinPower (2): KayJayQueue, Hu Tao
Thomith (1): Snow2697

Not Voting (1): geraintm

With 13 players alive, it takes 7 votes to secure an execution.

The day deadline is in (expired on 2024-04-07 10:29:00).

Mod Notes: The combined mod ISO is here.

I feel like I’m defending myself for trying to play the game.

What a coincidence, so am I!

My argument in part is that the wagon on me, with no counterwagon, is

deliberately designed to prevent players from playing the game

.

It warps the game around me and makes the game entirely about me.

I didn’t sign up for that, nor did I cause it. My efforts have consistently been to

dissuade

that gamestate, as there’s never anything good to come from focusing entirely on one player.

My question to you is

why have my efforts failed?

Why is the game entirely still about me?

I certainly would prefer it otherwise!

So why do I remain the sole focus of players

despite

my efforts?

It’s almost like me remaining the focus is beneficial to scum.

I know which alignment that implies for me.

I've made this exact rant as scum.

Also, side eye on the claim

Titus could be scum I guess but idk

If you think Ranger is scum, why are you not voting there?

hmmm this does seem like a serious commitment to the wagon actually
my whole memory of her position around ranger is off, just because she gave ranger some breathing room at the start of D2 (the posts you reference)

from here it's totally plausible that she sought to "put her signature" on the wagon after waiting to see how the wind blew.
idea that she didn't try to "get anything out of it" doesn't seem too relevant here. if she's scum, she definitely did!

on the other hand, it's also totally plausible that she recommitted to a scumread after seeing a replacement of her scumread keep being scummy

[Psyche]

edit: breathing room wasn't "at the start of d2". more accurate to say it was "at the replace-in".

[Psyche]

ok after all this i feel inclined to think lf's interpretation of titus's trajectory D2 is off, separately from whether it's scummy or not

now have to decide again if i think the actual trajectory was scummy!
...
am at a loss

[Psyche]

can we change topics?
why do you think geraintm is scum?
i'll assume it's not because my case on him is so good

[Psyche]

rn's paranoid style seems cleanly town to me

i had some more concrete examples somewhere, but they are mostly just wild thoughts that i keep feeling like a scum wincon would suppress

[Psyche]

ok. we have roughly same reasons for scumreading gera. reassuring. i'll open myself up to RN-scum if gera flips town. i'll also drink a fireball. as a form of self-harm. otherwise tomorrow looks around as grueling as today. find myself even wondering if i should reconsider oblivion. (but probably not.)

[Psyche]

is this your first game with RN or no

[Psyche]

asking because this thing where he sometimes looks like a bad character actor is something he does as town, and so presumably a constant of his play. not familiar with his scum game though.

[Psyche]

i dont think you get how bad it gets
in my last game, he was IC so there was no chance he was scum the whole time
guy was repeatedly scumreading -- in his batman voice tone -- literally confirmed town in phase after phase
rest of town literally planned our play around the possibility that he might survive to vote this slot in MELO

[Psyche]

at minimum im like totally sure this "the pseudomasons are scum and everyone has to take this possibility seriously or i'm gonna go nuts" paranoia is completely consistent w his meta

[Psyche]

i really don't understand the setup design process, which seems required for really good takes on whether designs are possible.
there's a human element to it beyond quantitative evaluation of balance/swing/etc that i'd need to run more games before i'd feel an intuition for.

but assuming there are no town fakeclaims and the pseudomasons are real, i think the most natural explanation for why game is categorized as complex is because Informed is a complex-only role, and mod was really interested in the idea of (pseudo)masons embedded in a neighborhood.

do feel like a traitor in the neighborhood would complete the set though

[Psyche]

it's like the mafia version of the showerthought where you reasonably define a chair as "a separate seat for one person, typically with a back and four legs" and realize all the weird non-chairs that the definition includes. i can imagine having that thought about masons and thinking "wow let me devote a part of my life to that". therefore...complex normal.

[Psyche]

sry rn ur vry cool. hope a doctor at your hospital dies one day and you take his job.

[Psyche]

"his" job? maybe i should be limmed

[Psyche]

im trying to make a joke about the mafia role "nurse" but instead i am polluting the thread with insensitive remarks that variously sexist and demeaning to socially valuable professions i am sorry

[Psyche]

woah interesting

[Psyche]

It would kill KayJay Titus RN Gera today.

why this order? don't think ive seen you talk about the relative scumminess of these slots

[Psyche]

gypyx a bit frustrating here. i need more help than "i don't think scum!gera makes this sort of stuff" if im going to see why he's town

[Psyche]

think you misunderstand or mischaracterize the basis of my position against you, even after ive tried to clarify.

[Psyche]

you think lf is scum?

[Psyche]

am open to reconsidering you gera if you can give me reads in a way that convinces me that you have them

[Psyche]

dislike that oblivion's reads haven't progressed since dissuaded from scumreading gypyx

[Psyche]

lf said he had a kay towncase
did he share it?

[Psyche]

i guess i don't "understand" why you checked out instead of working to either improve, continually evaluate, or convince others of your reads

[Psyche]

still feel pretty good about oblivion being town