Mini 1316 - Last Will Mafia IV (Over)

[Fishythefish]

IIoA: Think about your last will, particularly at night. It's really, really important that votes go to townies.

VOTE: Sleepless Assassin - he's had a vote for 2 posts and noone is bandwagonning him. Why? Because they're his scumbuddies, of course.

[Fishythefish]

IIoA: Think about your last will, particularly at night. It's really, really important that votes go to townies.

Why do you feel it was necessary to state the obvious?

vote: fishy

Why not? People are lazy, and some of them will forget their wills need maintenance at some point. Just because something's obvious doesn't mean people will remember it.

I don't intend to reveal my will, and nor should other people. I don't see any benefit at all, and if scum know you are giving a vote to them, they can kill you for it. That's not something to be paranoid about - my recollection from previous last wills is that the scumkill wasn't really targeted by that - but if we go around saying who's top that's just asking for it

[Fishythefish]

Oh, scrambled the word order into "who is in your last will". Well, there's no harm in that - Alicewondering. I copied and pasted the OP, and moved some people to the top.

[Fishythefish]

Damn. Rhinox is scum. And I'm never going to convince soberFishy, let alone anyone else.

Note to self: you made this post for a reason. Work out what that reason was, and then meta Rhinox's very early game play.

[Fishythefish]

Damn. Rhinox is scum. And I'm never going to convince soberFishy, let alone anyone else.

Note to self: you made this post for a reason. Work out what that reason was, and then meta Rhinox's very early game play.

Hmmm. I think I can see what I was getting at - Rhinox is very flippant and friendly here, without any attempt to get things going. Might just be his style, I'll check out his meta later today.

@SA: any particular reason?

[Fishythefish]

@Rhinox: I certainly remember playing with you (and enjoyed it every time), but my meta of you isn't good enough that I have a feel for your likely page 1-2 play as town and scum. That's true of everyone, probably including myself.

Anyway, going through some games I don't think RVS flippancy is a particularly good scumtell for Rhinox. Actually, he seems to play seriously pretty early as either alignment, so it might be a Rhinox-is-an-impostor-tell. Still not feeling very good about Rhinox, though. The "I don't have you the top of my last will" seems calculated to remind me that I should want Rhinox to think I'm town (which, of course, I do), and so should back off attacking him. I'm going to

UNVOTE: VOTE: Rhinox

@SA: what do you mean by me being "on edge"? How does it make me scum, and more specifically why with Malee? Seems a fairly generic accusation you can throw at anyone doing anything at this stage of the game.

[Fishythefish]

@fishy: just curious, which games of mine did you use to meta my early game play?

I just went down your topics list. Open 338 was the only scum one, and there were plenty of town ones including LWIII. The game most reminiscent of your play here was called something like Round Table Mafia, and you were town - so the meta gives you a mild towntell.

Rhinox's post 54 reeks of town to me. The sentiments are convincing and townish - particularly "hard to seperate wrong from scum" and "this sort of thing encourages town on town BS" (though I'd modify it to "alignment independent BS" to pick a nit). I think scumRhinox would be fighting Lastsurvivor harder - it's a fight that it feels like he could win - rather than this.

UNVOTE:

This game needs more voices.

[Fishythefish]

VOTE: funkybike

Do you have nothing to say about the game other than unvoting?

[Fishythefish]

Sorry for double post.

LS is being very appeasey generally. He prodded Rhinox, and only voted when I agreed with him. Rhinox replied, and I backed off, and so did LS. Nacho asked why he was still voting Rhinox, and he unvoted.

None of those actions are poorly explained, for me. But I don't like the way they line up with scum avoiding conflict.

[Fishythefish]

@Rhinox: I didn't look at the LW games before III. In III, you did joke around on page 1, but there was also content - you talked about mechanics, and asked who wanted your vote. Here, other than answering DDD, you were completely contentless for several posts.

[Fishythefish]

Alice's bolded is certainly the good point on Malee for me - calling someone scummy while placating them is a scumtell, because it's trying to avoid conflict.

[Fishythefish]

In fact,

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Malee

I think Malee's prod at Nacho is the scummiest thing in the game so far.

[Fishythefish]

Last, on fish it was a vibe I got from the tone of his posts that looked like scum to me. Let me pull up his ISO and see if I can figure it out:
-ISO 0. Telling everyone at game start to think about wills seems unneccesary and kind of like he's trying to appear helpful, but at that stage really doesn't help anything.
-ISO 1. When asked about the above, he tries to say people will forget if he doesn't remind anyone. A reminder on Page 1 though? Nah, he just wants to appear useful town. The reaction to being questioned about it as well as the will reveal thing are what I saw as "on edge". He seemed pretty defensive for someone not really being pressured or anything.
Everything after that can be summarized as "rhinox is scum, never mind. Bike isn't useful so here's a vote but no one cares so I'm gonna vote malee and just kind of agree with what everyone is saying there."

Malee didn't seem genuine with the over reaction to one thing (nacho) and lack of much else.

On DDD, I honestly don't feel I elaborated a ton. More of that section of the post was me trying to recall Nacho's style.

@ISO 0/1: I was hoping to put the will mechanic in everyone's minds a bit, so that they would think about it. It seemed a better thing to say than nothing. For a full explanation, though I'm not sure it makes things much clearer, I'd been planning to say something less trivial about the will mechanic (such as "don't reveal your townreads" or "don't cluster votes"), but on refreshing my memory on the other LW games I wasn't at all sure that it's worth doing anything except playing normally and sticking your top townread up there. Noone would ever think "oh, that's so useful, he must be town" about ISO 0, and I'd never expect them to, so I'm not really seeing the conniving scum explanation.
@Everything after that: yep, I changed my mind on Rhinox. Yep, I was just following on Malee. Are these scummy things or just things?

Lots of faint townreads on people who feel genuine, which is nice. LS, SA, hiplop and Rhinox are in this category. I don't have any scumreads atm, but I'll spend some time on the game and try to cobble one together tomorrow.

[Fishythefish]

@Vincent: I just feel they believe what they say, and that they are trying to catch scum. For the second part, particularly SA and LS - those reads are stronger than Rhinox and hiplop.

@SA: what's scummy about changing your mind? About agreeing with someone else's point?

@funkybike:

Rhinox

has changed his behavior from previous games quite a bit, he's played here like a decent townie.

What did you mean by this? How has Rhinox changed his behaviour?

@Malee: In 78, you said:

Just because there's a small number of posts doesn't mean that you should put down a serious vote if you don't believe there's scum intent. I also foresee myself speaking with every member of the playlist that posts, so it probably would've been better if my discussion with you didn't start with suspicion, don't you think?

But you never said, was your Vincent vote a serious vote? It just seemed very odd, even for a RVS. I'm not suspicious and I don't read you as scum per se due to that vote, it was just an awkward moment, and it doesn't sit with me.

Here, it doesn't sound like you have a scumread on Nacho for the vote on Vincent. Did you have a scumread on Nacho at all? Why were you voting him?

nacho...didn't vote vincent?? (now who's not paying attention )

I admit, I'm confused :p

That makes it a null case UNVOTE:

This post implies that at some point your case wasn't null, but that Nacho never voting Vincent made it null. What I want to know is:
- When did you think Nacho was scummy (even slightly), and why?
- Why did this change when you discovered Nacho didn't vote Vincent? To me, it looked like your point on Nacho was for "skimming", which made him wrongly think Vincent hadn't voted.
At the moment, 83 looks to me like scum caught in an argument they aren't enjoying and hoping they can get out of it by dropping their suspicions.

(Nothing in the above on Malee is new, but I'm putting it together so she can answer better and so my thoughts are clearer).

[Fishythefish]

[Vince, I was more concerned with the fact that if he called half of those names either town or scum in his next post, it wouldn't be a contradiction.

Fish, in detail, what made you change your mind about rhinox? And about malee, while people don't buy bandwagoning as a scumtell these days, it's still a valid scum tendency in my experience.

I thought Rhinox was scummy initially for something that doesn't seem to be a scumtell for him, and then for trying to put me off by making me want him to think me town. That still doesn't sit comfortably with me, but I really liked his response to LS. Rhinox is a decent arguer, and his early game spat with LS was going well - I felt he was looking more convincing, and that that was probably going to be true regardless of alignment. But in 54, he didn't press the matter with LS, instead backing off and said he didn't want to spur on town-on-town arguments. That for me was a very pro-town sentiment, and one I don't think scum would be likely to fake - I felt that Rhinox could have more easily got out of that situation looking good by escalating things with LS.

Is that clear?

On BWing - scum do it, town do it, and if it's a scumtell at all it's a weak one. If I see somebody making a good point, and I don't have anything better to go, I'm going to jump on it. If nobody sheeps, it's pretty difficult to get a scum lynch.

[Fishythefish]

Malee flaking sucks. I really wanted her explanation, and now instead I just have an unsatisfying suspicion on someone who won't be able to explain anything. Maybe we should just lynch her.

@DDD: you said you didn't like the case on Malee because her point against Nacho was sound. But that's not really the case against Malee, at least not for me. When she unvoted Nacho, she:
- Implied she had found him scummy, which hadn't previously been stated.
- Said it was now null because he hadn't voted, which made little or no difference to the point against him (skimming).
It's pretty clear to me that Malee was panicking and backing off without really thinking about what she'd actually said/thought about Nacho. This kind of contradiction seems more likely from scum than town for me.

[Fishythefish]

As for Malee wagoners, I'd like to see justification for staying on the wagon.
Do you really feel your case was that strong?

I think the case against Malee is strong. Sure, there's only one point, but it's a pretty good one. I definitely want to work out what out people think of it before I move on.

[Fishythefish]

@DDD: you said you didn't like the case on Malee because her point against Nacho was sound. But that's not really the case against Malee, at least not for me. When she unvoted Nacho, she:
- Implied she had found him scummy, which hadn't previously been stated.
- Said it was now null because he hadn't voted, which made little or no difference to the point against him (skimming).
It's pretty clear to me that Malee was panicking and backing off without really thinking about what she'd actually said/thought about Nacho. This kind of contradiction seems more likely from scum than town for me.

To a large degree I'm working on a basic calculus of "I think Nacho is cruising and thus likely scum, noob isn't going to immediately bus and they certainly aren't going to panic and remove their vote like that; thus nachoscum = Maleetown". I think your second point is reasonable (I think the first is something that makes sense to assume) but how much of that can be explained by a player out of their depth?

I agree that this is more likely to come from someone out of their depth - but it still requires either lying or forgetting what you'd thought very recently, and both of those are pretty decent scumtells. I think this is more than "sloppy play". And yes, I tend to agree that Malee most likely wouldn't have played like that if scum with Nacho. For me that's not very important atm - I have no real read on Nacho at the moment.

@funky:
- Why did you think Nacho was scum?
- Where is his "decent explanation for his behaviour"?

[Fishythefish]

Malee flaking sucks. I really wanted her explanation, and now instead I just have an unsatisfying suspicion on someone who won't be able to explain anything. Maybe we should just lynch her.

WTF. You're suggesting lynching her before a replacement is found?

FoS

, man.

Only semi-seriously. I'd genuinely be up for lynching her - I think she's very scummy, and that her actions will be totally forgotten once someone replaces her - but I know there's no chance of that actually happening. It's fairly hard to persuade people when part of your argument is that they are about to do something stupid.

Last, correct. I was judging by the vote count where malee had five votes. But at this point I don't really care whether malee or bike gets lynched. Both are pretty scummy.

Some advice: start caring. Even if you think they are much of a muchness, choose one and run with it. If people have this attitude and exactly one of malee and bike is scum, the town one will be the lynch.

@funky: can you please answer my questions in 196?

I think hiplop is pretty likely town. He seems to be trying to catch scum, and his last point - that Nacho is avoiding his meta - is the sort of complicated scheme that town dream up and scum don't fake often.

[Fishythefish]

I'll have phone access only this weekend. I'll be reading along, but don't expect much content.

[Fishythefish]

@LS: sure, both could be scum, or neither. In either case, it doesn't make much difference whether you gun for one or shrug and say either will do. But in the pretty likely case that you've scored 1/2 on your scumreads, not caring between them is really bad.

[Fishythefish]

@mod:

are you looking for a replacement for Malee? I haven't see you mention it anywhere.

~I have been looking for a replacement and at this point am contacting other mods directly and willing to cross replace if you know any games that need it.

@LS: not on its own. But his posting looks like he's picking out little things that are easy to make stand-alone comments on, which feels more like forced content than any kind of scumhunting.

@funky

: if you don't answer these questions in your next post, I will vote for you:

@funky:
- Why did you think Nacho was scum?
- Where is his "decent explanation for his behaviour"?

[Fishythefish]

Fishy:

IIoA: Think about your last will, particularly at night. It's really, really important that votes go to townies.

I found this to be seriously off It reads as an attempt to claim "I'm town" in his first post, but that said, I feel most of his posts after this come across as town, until...

Malee flaking sucks. I really wanted her explanation, and now instead I just have an unsatisfying suspicion on someone who won't be able to explain anything. Maybe we should just lynch her.

WTF. You're suggesting lynching her before a replacement is found?

FoS

, man.

Only semi-seriously. I'd genuinely be up for lynching her - I think she's very scummy, and that her actions will be totally forgotten once someone replaces her - but I know there's no chance of that actually happening. It's fairly hard to persuade people when part of your argument is that they are about to do something stupid.

It feels like a call for a quick lynch on Malee (from now on Me, as I'm in that slot now) watered down with a vague sentiment of dissatisfaction.

Overall I'm reading null on Fishy because these two post leave a bad taste, otherwise I'd think town.

I've said enough about the first bit. For the second - it's pretty clear what I'm saying. I'd have been happy to quicklynch Malee/you, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. What would I be hoping to achieve as scum by
saying that? Your lynch? Town cred in some obscure way?

TBH, I'm quite liking this catchup post from themoaner - lots of it has me nodding along, and it doesn't seem particularly self interested. Bleh. I hate weighing my reads of two different people in one slot.

@tm:
- How does 4n come out as null? Sounds like town.
- Why is Alice probably town?

I feel that there's another game going on between Rhinox, hiplop etc., that I've really been tuning out of. I'll stop doing that now.

[Fishythefish]

And then there's Fishy, who is being fishy as hell, as per usual. Feels to passive, too lost in this game without Malee here. Please change this soon and be the Fishy we all know and love.

I don't have much time today, but just a quick "here's where I am" post - I feel like I've been pushing and found no resistance, first on Malee (who replaced out) and now on funky (who isn't answering). In both cases I had questions I really wanted/want answered to firm up or dissipate my scumread. So yeah, I guess that does make me feel fairly lost. I think I can find myself again by engaging more with the you/Rhinox/hiplop/whoever situation, and I'll do that tomorrow.

[Fishythefish]

OK. I'm glad to say I've sorted out the hiplop/Rhinox situation. After hiplop answers a question, I'll tell you their alignments.

@hiplop:
- In post 218, DDD was on your scumlist. You later clarified that this was for lurking, which I will happily agree is a weak scumtell. Still, by 241 you had decided to focus on Nacho/Rhinox, though only Nacho of the three had posted in the meantime, and not in a way you criticised. What made you change your mind on things between these two posts?

More later.

[Fishythefish]

Oh, and @DDD: what is an Amished-tell? And fair enough re: my play in this game.

[Fishythefish]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Alice

I've finished catching up, and this wagon is the place to be right now. I'll give lots of reads and crap like that after hiplop replies to my question above.

[Fishythefish]

OK, cool. That was pretty much as I expected.

Time for a wall post.

TL;DR

If you are hiplop or Rhinox, read at least the first section.
Rhinox/hiplop is town v town. Nacho is town, largely for trying to make them realise that (so Rhinox and Nacho are both town! Hooray!). LS is town a bit for that and more generally for scumhunting. Alice is probably scum.

Rhinox vs. hiplop

I think this is pretty clearly a town v town argument, where hiplop in particular has gone off the rails and started replying to Rhinox assuming he's scum rather than actually answering things. Events as I see them:
- hiplop's early vote on Rhinox is essentially for not believing Rhinox's posting - thinking it was forced, and an attempt to look town. I thoroughly disagree, but don't find it particularly unlikely from town.
- Rhinox replied "yeah, can't really respond to that" - which seems fair - and asked hiplop why he commented repeatedly before Rhinox responded, which is also reasonable. Hiplop's reply was unilluminating.
- hiplop 177 asked if anyone had a deep Nachometa, because Nacho was trying to avoid his meta. I found that a pretty town question and said so at the time - it's the sort of contrived point scum don't make. This continues to be true through hiplop's attacks on Nacho and the Nacho/Rhinox link; hiplop seems to be convincing himself of things, which is something only town can do.
- hiplop 218 seems to think "DDD, Rhinox and Nacho are scummy, and Rhinox and Nacho are connected". If anything, you'd probably say Rhinox > DDD > Nacho from it.
- hiplop 228 is

weird

in its reply to Nacho. He says that his mind is lapsing on the connection between Nacho and Rhinox, and that for why Nacho is scummy he is working on it, having to make a jump on this case and build a "bridge" from Rhinox to Nacho to do it. That's bizarre - it reads an admission that his Nacho hop is forced, and simply doesn't bother to justify the connection that then becomes even more crucial. It doesn't read remotely like hiplop is trying to make his scumhunting sounds good, and it seems really unlikely from scum. I read hiplop as town with a stretched case he's convincing himself of here.
- Rhinox 257 argues with hiplop about Nacho - tbh, I think meta is a really difficult subject and have little idea who is right. Neither side of the argument is nearly wrong enough to be scummy. He also asks why the switch to Nacho; hiplop replied that Nacho had more interest and Rhinox was away.
- Rhinox 266 is the first post that worries me in this exchange. The reasoning isn't very strong at all. Rhinox says that hiplop has moved onto Nacho despite reading Rhinox as #1 scum, and having said "not too long back" that Nacho and DDD were vying for second place. But that's not how I read hiplop at all - he'd made several posts since 218 (where DDD/Nacho was expressed), and they pretty clearly show hiplop plumping on a Nacho/Rhinox scumteam. I don't see anywhere in his posting that Rhinox is comfortably number one, and him going with the flow on Nacho didn't seem at all unnatural.
- hiplop 272 has an air of frustration culminating in a pretty bad dismissal - "Essentially rhinox's points are based on his lack of comprehension, i can't fucking reply to lack of competence". I usually expect these discussions to have gone on for longer, and got rather more ranty, before town start saying things like that. This is the start of hiplop's descent from actually arguing with Rhinox.
- Rhinox 274 clarified, saying that he was concerned about hiplop's dropping of DDD for Nacho/Rhinox. Well, that reads like a change of tack to me - 266 was pretty clearly saying that the problem was that hiplop wasn't going for Rhinox, his #1 scumread. Not particularly scummy - the points are related, and I can see 266 just being a poor expression of Rhinox's views. The new point is much better - DDD dropping off hiplop's radar needs an explanation.
- In 280 and beyond, hiplop is not good at separating "arguing with me" from "scum". He starts accusing Rhinox of using wiki-tells, which is not at all fair, and of just calling Rhinox scum, which is unproductive. I read this as town who gives up arguing with someone because they are convinced they are scum. I can't see scumhiplop doing this tactically. Rhinox's explanation is that scumhiplop has got flustered after being called out by Rhinox - but Rhinox's points just aren't that scary for him. The case is essentially:
a) The move to Nacho, voting the #2 suspect over the #1 suspect - hiplop addressed this, and his posts bear his claims out.
b) The unexplained dropping of DDD; well, hiplop was happy to explain that as soon as

someone else

asked him. He clearly wasn't scared of the point itself, and it was just being asked by Rhinox, who he was convinced was scum, that made him respond badly.

I'm practically certain these two are town. I really understand hiplop's posting - he displays confirmation bias in an unwise but entirely townish way, slowly convincing himself of his grand Nacho/Rhinox theory. Rhinox just reeks of town in this argument and elsewhere. They should really, really take a step back and vote someone else.

Other townies

Nacho reads hiplop/Rhinox wonderfully, and attempts to defuse. He is not scum without one of them, and so he is in fact town. LS does the same to a lesser extent – though he doesn't really explain enough that he's at all likely to help. More to the point, I'm pretty much certain he's trying to catch scum, so he's very likely town.

Alice is scum

Alice's move to hiplop is really bad:

Do you think a replacement provides more/better information if they aren't under any pressure, or if they immediately have to face a bandwagon full of voters who found their predecessor scummy?

Townie replacements will certainly have motivation to post better content, but they are likely to become frustrated with being judged on their predecessor's actions. Scum replacements faced with a bandwagon will carefully post content that may appear to be good, but will actually be very misleading, so there's not really a lot of information to be gleaned by welcoming someone with a bandwagon.

DDD, I want more reads from you. Besides Nacho, what do you think about the players in the game?

Stole this quote from Rhinox, who quoted Hip.

You, and nacho are about equal in my books. Can you really not grasp basic connotation? I used "maybe even DDD"...because my only thought on him is hes kinda lurky.

I'm refering to this:

DDD and Rhinox are scum, imo. Maybe even Nachomama instead of DDD.

Nacho is doing what every player who has been "Scum-meta'd" does, "CHANGE THEIR PLAYSTYLE" in heavy air quotes (its more fashionable that way). And quite bluntly, I see a connection between rhinox and nacho. DDD feels independently scummy, some for his lurking, some for his actual posts.

LOL Hip can't even remember his reads.

UNVOTE: VOTE: Hiplop

She tries to parrot Rhinox, but oversimplifies to the point where I struggle to believe she understood or believed the point - in her repetition, the point just becomes "reads changed -> scum". If Rhinox vs. hiplop is town v town, Alice is stirring the pot, and that's scummy as hell. LS's case on Alice is a mixed bag. Hypocrisy forms a central role, and that's just not remotely scummy. “You didn't apply that tell to everyone” just doesn't do much for me. Of the 4 points, only 2) and 4) do anything for me – Alice's contrived explanation of the simple fact that defending scum is scummy feels off, and not trying to get a read on themoaner is also bad. Also, Alice's backing off from hiplop in the face of pressure looks scummy. All in all, Alice is looking like scum here.

Kortul hasn't done much. He asks relevant questions, but doesn't take many stances, much less controversial ones, and doesn't seem to follow up much. Scummy side of neutral.

Funkybike is worse than a standard lurker - I can't see satisfactory answers to these questions:

@funkybike:

Rhinox

has changed his behavior from previous games quite a bit, he's played here like a decent townie.

What did you mean by this? How has Rhinox changed his behaviour?

@funky:
- Why did you think Nacho was scum?
Where is his "decent explanation for his behaviour"?

Particularly the first – it looked to me like he was parroting my fairly tenuous meta on Nacho, without really understanding it. Feels very much like he's trying to force some reads he doesn't really have, and that is a bit scummy. For the second post, he backs of Nacho very fast when he's criticised. He says “Nacho managed to provide a decent explanation for his behavior; I find it believable.” - but it's not at all clear to me where that explanation could be.

Themoaner's content so far has been fine. Malee's scumminess is rapidly fading from my mind, but it shouldn't be – this slot is still pretty likely scum.

DDD hasn't done much, and I don't have much of a read on him. If themoaner's scum, so is DDD:

Can't say I'm really interested in a Malee wagon right now since I think the fundamental point she made was a sound one about Nacho.

Here, DDD is saying that the Malee case is poor because she made a decent point against Nacho. But that's not the point at all – DDD expressed the actual case

himself

here:

It was a good point (not a strong point or a scum point) you had but it says more about you than DDD.

I'd love to know why it was a good point other than pandering to LastSurvivor because even you recognize the point was easily addressed.

VOTE: Nachomamma8
Malee is pathetically shrimping away from this, but I like the point. Nacho's an above-average player and when he's on cruise control and not reading things deeply that suggests to me he's not really looking for scum that deeply.

Malee's “pathetic shrimping” is pretty much the issue with her attack on Nacho. I said that I thought the case wasn't about the actual point, and DDD's answer was that Malee wouldn't bus Nacho. So, we have DDD basing a Malee townread on a Nacho scumread. That seems pretty tenuous – particularly since it seems unlikely that by post 136 DDD had a very strong scumread on Nacho.

4n hasn't done two much. His main actions have been a vote on Alice, which was ok, and one on Rhinox, which isn't terribly reasoned but could be scum stirring the pot. Possible under-the-radar scum, but pretty null atm.

Vincent: not terribly active, but what content there is is pretty sound.

SA: he's done quite a lot. Lots of it feels town, nothing scummy there. Pretty likely town.

Town:
hiplop, Rhinox, nacho, LS

Probtown:
SA

Null:
Vincent

Leaning scum:
kortul, DDD (probscum so if themoaner is scum)

Probscum:
Alice, themoaner, funkybike

[Fishythefish]

i have yet to make a mountain out of a molehill, folks.

@Rhinox: I can't see your scum-hiplop posting this in reply to a long account of why your interaction is town v town. If he's flailed his way into an argument after screwing up with his fake reads, he must

know

he's made some mistake, and must be itching to withdraw. I'm not saying he'd go "yeah, you're right, unvote", but he'd at least weaken his position. This doubling down is the not the move of a scared scumbag.

@hiplop: I'm going to reply to the post itself, but don't have the time right now.

[Fishythefish]

I'm not really in a fit state to post, but there I hope I'm better than nothing.

@DDD: my insticnt is that that tell doesn't work. As scum or as town, I stress massively about my replacee. I replace in a lot, and I'm really worried about the situation of replacing in to a town slot where the previous occupant is really scummy. I never even slightly think "he was town, so all his actions must be reasonable" - town do unreasonable and scummy things. Possibly I'm not the typical replacement, but I'm struggling with the notion that replacements find their slots beyond criticism.

@Rhinox: can you give a more detailed analysis of Alice? I think that some of the points against her are fairly compelling, and I don't really see why you'd think she was town.

[Fishythefish]

VOTE: Alicewondering - You're giving horrible, inconsistent reads.

What do my wagonmates think of this?

I hate it. funky pops up and votes Alice with no explanation - it feels like he thinks he can get away with the vote just because other people are voting for similar reasons. It's scummy as hell. He also continues to ignore all the questions that people have asked him.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: funkybike

@funky: If you're town, you need to try harder. Answer questions, and give reasons for your vote.

[Fishythefish]

okay I took a look at the cases agains alice and don't find them very compelling, definitely nothing lynchworthy imo.

The only thing that struck me as odd was the "loldefense" followed up by "ls points are vaild". Alice, which specific points were valid?

@Fishy, how does funkybike's vote affect your read of alice?

Not all that much. It's not particularly unlikely that scumfunky would be bussing here - his partner would be in trouble, and I can easily see scum not bothering to make much of a case because they know they're right. And if funky is town, his vote says nothing about Alice's alignment.

[Fishythefish]

OK, so we're not lynching Alice today. Her recent posting feels fairly convincing - her explanation of which points against her she sees as valid makes sense to me - and more importantly the other two scummiest people are two of the three voting for her.

Come and vote bike. He's scummy, he's a lurker, and he needs to die. Sure, if he flips town it's not good information-wise, but that's always going to be true with a player like funky - it's more than made up for by the fact that he's likely scum, and that if he's not he's useless town. We have to lynch him in the end, and later there may well be other things we want to do more.

[Fishythefish]

I don't see how its a forgone conclusion we will inevitably have to lynch him at some point. Maybe there's a vig? Maybe there's investigations? Maybe we lynch all the scum before lylo (assuming funky is not scum)? I think its easy to say "oh he's a lurker, he's useless, he's not answering questions" and rally a lynch for that, but none of that means he's scum. I think if you look at some of the things he has been posting, it looks like genuine town trying to figure out scum. It may not be effective or helpful to the rest of us, but that doesn't mean we should lynch him.

It's true, there could be a vig or a cop, and I wasn't thinking about that. I agree, it's important whether he's scum - his uselessness is a bonus, but not the central issue. I was somewhat posting that because of the multiple people who've gone "yeah, he's scummy, but we won't get any information if he's town" - this implies that a lurker is a worse lynch than another equally scummy person, which is not at all true.

As to funky's scumminess - where do you see him looking like town trying to figure out scum? I'm really not seeing that. For why I think he's scummy - see my wall post. Particularly his early game parrot of my meta on you. That screams to me that he was flicking through the game finding opinions he could steal - it's pretty unlikely anyone else would come up with that meta on their own. And that's something I've done on occasion, when I'm struggling for reads - but only ever when I'm scum. It's a very pure form of wanting to post content more than wanting to catch scum. There's also the terrible hop onto Alice (although I'm never sure to what extent blatant self preservation with no thought about lynch target is scummy).

Definitely want to hear from theo about the Alice flipflop. Actually, I take back some of the strength of feeling in my last post. Alice is still not the right call, but depending on what I hear from funky and theo I could go either way there.

[Fishythefish]

I think it's just L-2.

@Rhinox: thanks very much for that post. It changes my thinking quite a bit. You seem to have a pretty solid meta of him - and since I think you're town and competent, I'm going to go ahead and trust you on that.

I'd still like to hear from funky what he meant when he said you'd changed. But if you've played together a lot, and once together as scum, I can more easily imagine that that actually made sense for him. OK, I'm going to

UNVOTE:
VOTE: theomoaner

L-1.

[Fishythefish]

UNVOTE: , because of the following.

@Macro: you are most probably going to get lynched today. Bad luck, and please be scum. If you are town, the most important thing to do is to check on your last will. You want to give your vote to town, and preferably competent town. If you have time to read the game, great. If not, pick from this list of townies:

Me, Rhinox, LS, Nacho

Particularly me.

[Fishythefish]

Hmmm. Not particularly liking Vincent's reaction here. What's the problem with the vote or with 408? And note the options he gives us - the vote was scum or OMGUS. No possibility of it being serious for any reason other than OMGUS.

Haven't really seen anything from Macro that alters my read on that slot.

[Fishythefish]

@Macro re: Malee quicklynch. Well, firstly I never thought we were going to get a quicklynch - which makes it a bit less serious because I didn't have to weigh the pros and cons. But the reason I might have led a quicklynch on Malee if it was plausible is that everyone always forgets replacees (case in point: noone's mentioned Malee for pages, and I bet hardly anyone is really thinking about her when voting you), and I thought Malee was too scummy to be forgotten.

@Rhinox: yeah, meant Voided. What do you think of him, here and in the rest of the game?

[Fishythefish]

Hmmm. Not particularly liking Vincent's reaction here. What's the problem with the vote or with 408? And note the options he gives us - the vote was scum or OMGUS. No possibility of it being serious for any reason other than OMGUS.

Well, at the time he was like, "Hai, I'm here, btw, vote voided" and there was no indication as to why he voted me, hence my reaction. So while it could've been just a joke, I had no way of knowing that. Then in 408 he's like, "chillax, it's just a joke!" and quite frankly, I don't know why you'd throw at a joke vote at this point because they make no sense. I don't care if you're going to call me some sort of hard-hat or whatever, but we're at the point where we really can't just say "lolol vote: x lolol" and expect it to be pushed under the rug or somesuch.

So, why do you think he voted, and why do you think he's more likely scum than town for it? When you say you were trying to work out if the vote was scum or OMGUS, why did you think those were the likely options?

I don't get at all why you think that Macro's vote on you is scummy. ATM, it looks very much to me like you want to dismiss his vote and attack him, and you did this rather carelessly because he's widely regarded as scum and you thought it would be easy.

Voided is right in that the wills aren't revealed. The key thing is to have a townie at the top; preferably two at night, in case of vigs and such.

[Fishythefish]

Yeah. I think I'm with you on that one. I don't much like Voided's recent play, but it's not enough to change my mind. Macro's play has been fine, but there's nothing there that makes me think he must be town.

VOTE: Macro

L-1 again. Macro should get his will in order, and then claim, and then get lynched.

[Fishythefish]

I'm tired, and I don't want to think about things until tomorrow.

UNVOTE:

@Macro: your will should be in order even if you don't intend to die. You can change it at any time.

[Fishythefish]

So, the way I see Macro is that everything he has done looks fine, but that's sort of unsurprising. I wouldn't expect halfway competent scum to be trying to drive an alternative lynch here - clearly Macro's only way to survive is to defuse his wagon by looking as town as possible, which makes it a hard situation to read someone. And his content is ok, but "independent thought" just isn't that hard to fake as scum, and there's nothing there that really makes me sit up and pay attention.

Not-VT claim is unacceptable. The main points of a claim is that if it is likely to get confirmed or (less so) shot at, we can leave you alive. If you have the option of making up a claim to fit the facts later, that's no good to us at all.

VOTE: Macro

This is still the right lynch. I want a full claim.

@Macro: that turnaround from theo looks bad to me because it didn't make sense. He'd called Alice the "voice of reason" in the game, and then because of one thing he found "a little strange" he turned round and voted her. I feel he's scum who'd forgotten how much he'd said Alice was town - possibly rereading only his catchup post, and not the explanation he gave me. That kind of townread just doesn't evaporate that fast.

[Fishythefish]

Fishy: Did you always think a non-VT claim was unacceptable or did it take you a while to decide?

When I first posted after your claim, I was too tired to want to think about the game. A non-VT claim is fairly non-standard, and I don't think I've seen one before. I wanted to think about a) if it made you town and b) if it was something I can live with. I decided mildly scummy for a) - the only time I've softclaimed vaguely similarly was as scum, but I don't know how well that holds up in general, and no for b).

The follow up VT claim makes me think you're town. I'm lost for scumreads in this game, though my townreads are pretty awesome. Tempted just to follow Nacho, who is town and seems to have things under control, but annoyingly he's voting for someone I think was town. Though I really can't remember why - I should try to work that out.

UNVOTE:

More later.

[Fishythefish]

The universal positive reaction to Macro's claim makes me worried that's what he planned

Looking at LS, I no longer think he's particularly townish, but tbh I don't really get the case on him. I'll give it another go tomorrow. For now, I'm just going to sheep Nacho.

VOTE: LS

[Fishythefish]

What do you now think of LS's previous posting that led you to believe he was town?

Early on, I thought he sounded like he believed what he said and was trying to catch scum. I can still see where I was coming from, but I don't see anything very townish in his posting after that.

The original case on LS doesn't do too much for me - sitting on a Malee read made quite a bit of sense in the context of LS's posting, and his lack of content wasn't particularly bad, and the hypocrisy of asking for content is not at all scummy. The reaction is bad, though. LS's eventual explanation:
- He was already planning some rereads.
- Nacho's vote made him go - internally - "yeah, that's fair, but I'm going to do some rereading anyway so it's ok"
- He did some rereading, and produced some content.
But I don't think that ties in well with the actual post:

@Nacho: Hum. If your vote is only based off of a joke I've been making based off of Rhinox's post 254 (read the last sentence and his use of the word "placate," and then look at my avatar and scroll down to #258 where I first used the joke if you don't get it), and a slight disappointment that I haven't changed my vote in awhile, then hopefully you won't mind if I disregard your vote for now.

@Kortul: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got it right. If she were talking about her own posts, wouldn't she say "That's very townish to say,

and

it's genuine"? If I'm understanding what you're saying, anyway.

Gonna spend the afternoon doing ISOs. Just replying to stuff directed at me.

This isn't the post of someone who thinks that Nacho has a point. It's too dismissive. If someone has a point and you're going to improve on that score, you should admit it. But failing that, you at least don't call their vote a joke.

Then LS posts some content, and then this:

The hungry wolf comment was quoted as an example of one of the times you demanded more content. That would've been clear to you had you read my posting. As for "slight disappointment", it's more than that. I never suggested it wasn't.

Honest question: Do you really think I haven't been providing content since you've been gone? Your argument's irrelevant ATM.

(Also, don't even think about replying that your prodding made me provide content.)

So, LS knows that Nacho's argument wasn't irrelevant when he made. He

must

also know that what happened could easily be construed as Nacho's prodding making LS provide content. Again, if you agreed with an argument and think you need to do something, you don't do that thing and then call the argument irrelevant.

Can you explain those for me LS? I don't get while you would reply what you did while thinking what you said you were thinking.

I think I'm going to stick with this vote.

@Macro: Hmmm. DDD has done exactly nothing all game. Scummy. Would vote him over you, I think.

[Fishythefish]

Frankly, after you brought that up last night I've been worrying that that conclusion might be drawn if LS flips scum. Our votes are very similar. Mostly it's LS sheeping me. I guess we can talk about it if LS flips scum. Which I hope he does, though it would make me rather dread tomorrow .

For my townread on LS, it was an early game one that kind of got stuck. I realised recently that I haven't really reviewed LS for a while, and my town read on him was rather unjustified. In 322, I think I already was just going "yeah, I've got an LS townread, looks like content, this guy's town" - the "length=town" fallacy combining with confirmation bias. 404 was just me restating that to advise a replacement to make a will - no new information there.

For pushing the major wagons - yes. They were pretty good wagons. Lots I've started or pushed before they became popular (Rhinox, Malee, funky mostly). Some others I've sheeped on. Is any of that scummy?

For myself, I don't really know what to think of the voting patterns. If LS is town, it's an almighty coincidence. If he's scum, it doesn't feel like buddying - it's not like he actually addressed things to me.

Possibly

it could be a deliberate attempt to create a link, but that's not actually what scum do.

[Fishythefish]

For pushing the major wagons - yes. They were pretty good wagons. Lots I've started or pushed before they became popular (Rhinox, Malee, funky mostly). Some others I've sheeped on. Is any of that scummy?

Sometimes wagons are too good to be true. Having spent some more time looking at the wagons here is what I think of them.

Malee/theomoaner/Macro:

Malee got nailed for a mistake she made in RVS thinking that someone had voted when they hadn't. Nacho did the same thing but no one has been on his case. The face that Malee got confused after presusure and Nacho didn't probably contributed to that. Also the level of involvement wasn't that great from Malee which didn't help her case. This is more a case of Stupidity/forgetfulness does not equal scumminess.

Funkybike:

This is more of a lurker hunt as opposed to scumhunt. If I had not replaced for Funky I think a lynch on him would be justified.

Alicewondering:

I'm having a hard time understanding the reasons for this wagon, what I did notice is that both you[fishy] and LS abandoned it to jump onto the next wagon. LS was the first on the alicewagon, you were the third and you sheeped, theo and LS in voting Alice. Then you jump off when Alice gets to L-2, LS jumps off when Alice gets to L-2 again. Had you both followed through on you vehement "alice is scum" reads, Alice likely would have been lynched.

The fact is that both you and LS have seemed rather opportunistic in jumping on the person that is "most scummy" at the moment rather than actually trying to get someone lynched. The scumhunting being done by both of you feels fake. You both leave before a lynch can happen each time.

I think funky was more than a lurker hunt, and Malee was scummy, not just forgetful. See my iso.

I think that last paragraph is massively unfair to me. Other than on Alice, I've been early on those wagons - unless my picture of my play is radically wrong, my play just can't be described as opportunistic. Seeing scumminess before other people do is hardly a crime. And yes, I've left before lynches happen. I've changed my mind. Same goes for pretty much everyone.

This isn't the post of someone who thinks that Nacho has a point. It's too dismissive. If someone has a point and you're going to improve on that score, you should admit it. But failing that, you at least don't call their vote a joke.

I reacted that way because I was being stupid. At this point I really don't know how to boil it down any other way. You and Nacho are looking for some pro-town motive behind that reaction when it's clear that there wasn't other than the fact that I was irritated and felt like being a dick. Nacho's "out of place complimenting" is bad point irritated me and I just decided to dismiss the entire case because of it.

Yeah, it was a brutally stupid thing to do. But why would scum do it? How is scum furthering his agenda by disregarding a case like that? If the above paragraph isn't good enough for you, I ask you to answer those two questions for me.

OK, so you felt like a dick and dismissed the case. I can sort of see that, once. But what about the second quote? When you said that Nacho's point was "irrelevant" because you'd posted content, and told him not to think about saying that was a reaction to him. Surely, at that point, you knew that his point hadn't been irrelevant, and that thinking your content was a reaction to him was pretty plausible - so why the dismissal again?

(I hate interacting with someone after people link us. It's so hard not to think about how things look.)

[Fishythefish]

Yes, that what's I'm referring to.

IDK. If you accuse someone of not posting content, and they post content, that doesn't mean your argument was irrelevant and dismissing it is still strange.

Bleh. I'm kind of liking LS's responses here. Strike me as town genuinely trying to explain himself after making a mistake. I wish my scumreads didn't keep falling apart.

[Fishythefish]

OK. I'm flip-flopping like crazy here. I can't convince myself of anything at all. I'm not really seeing the LS case - his recent responses to me are pretty convincing. For the Macro wagon, Malee was scummy, theo was mixed and Macro's been solid. But his claim really puts me off - claiming non-VT and then VT seems unlikely to stop a lynch, as opposed to say claiming cop or doc outright. It's not the sort of thing I've ever seen scum trying to pull. Here's my final answer (up to deadline shenanigans):

UNVOTE:
VOTE: DDD

Read DDD's ISO. It won't take long. There's nothing in there that looks like he's trying to catch scum - the closest he comes is with the Amished tell, when he wants the support of others. He's never really pushed anything.

My access will be pretty poor for the next couple of days. I should get on to vote near deadline if necessary.

[Fishythefish]

Just a quick check before going out with a family again, so extensive reading would be in the evening.

I don't really understand why Alice and Fishy think that after the VT claim Macro is town. I mean, the fact that scum less likely to do a VT claim doesn't instantly make this claim town. If he claimed to be some PR, would you lynch him instead? I see possible PR hunting motives here, which makes me even more suspicious of Alice (and Fishy), at the same time it means that there's chance that i am wrong about Macro after all - PR hunting on a scumbuddy isn't exactly productive.

Macrophage held the belief that a VT claim was going to equal certain death, as you can tell by the way he claimed. So, claiming non-VT was clearly a move of survival. As scum, once he had already laid that claim down, there was no reason to rescind on it at all. If he were PR hunting, then he might as well claim a specific PR, or else it would be useless. The only reason he would rescind that claim is if he didn't want to be counterclaimed, and scum who were pretty certain they were gonna die really don't give a shit about being counterclaimed.

Nacho, you got me wrong, just read again. Of course i understand that Macro isn't PR hunting after such a claim. I suspect Alice and Fishy of PR hunting, since after the VT claim from Macro they are more interested in other wagons. All others who say that they believe the claim weren't interested or pushing Macro wagon.

Alice, Fishy, what would you do if Macro actually claimed to have some PR? Keep the heat on him, or go elsewhere?

Depends on the claim. If it was both confirmable and powerful, maybe go elsewhere. But I tend towards lynching PR claims, because scum very frequently claim to be a PR.

So, you think that I and/or Alice are scum who aren't satisfied with a VT lynch? That's kind of unlikely - scum are generally happy with any town lynch. I suppose if all three wagons are town it could work.

Someone-or-other's DDD meta (he always plays like this) is noted. It's not my impression of DDD, but I may be misremembering. At any rate, with the options we've got here someone who is never going to do anything and is not going to be easy to read seems a solid lynch.

I'm sorry, but I just don't have time to read everything that's been posted. I currently don't really believe that either of the other wagons is on scum. I'll be voting LS over Macro if it comes to it.

[Fishythefish]

And now I find it funny that the player I've never played with and the player I've played with once as scum have a better handle on my meta than Fishy.

Yeah, I realise that me not having a meta on you is pretty unimpressive. I tend to assume that people I've played with a lot are a bit better than they are.

I probably won't be on again before deadline - although just possibly I will very close indeed to deadline. I won't hammer, since LS is going to come back and (presumably) claim and adjust his will. Don't no lynch.

[Fishythefish]

I'm not up for lynching Macro. DDD seems an ok choice, but no more than that. I have bad feelings about DCL and Alice I can't really pin down. I owe this game a serious chunk of time, and I'm not sure when that's going to happen. Sorry.

[Fishythefish]

On my bad feelings: that was very quickly posted. Giving it a smidgeon more time, I don't like the way Alice went under the radar the moment the wagon on her dropped off. She really just went along with things for the rest of the day. My feelings on DCL are even more wishy-washy. In his argument with LS, I just feel DCL is arguing to prove his points are justified, rather than to figure out LS's alignment.

RL situation has clarified, but not really improved. I'm sorry, but I'm probably going to be low on time and making short, poorly thought through posts for the next week. After that, things will be much better.

[Fishythefish]

This is prod avoidance. In fact, I'm

V/LA until Monday

I might manage to post before then, but quite possibly not. From next week, I'll have good access. Sorry again.

[Fishythefish]

I'm back. Reading, thinking, stuff soon.

[Fishythefish]

Firstly, dealing with stuff addressed to me:

UNVOTE:
VOTE: DDD

Read DDD's ISO. It won't take long. There's nothing in there that looks like he's trying to catch scum - the closest he comes is with the Amished tell, when he wants the support of others. He's never really pushed anything.

DDD seems an ok choice, but no more than that.

???

This intervening quote is also relevant:

Someone-or-other's DDD meta (he always plays like this) is noted. It's not my impression of DDD, but I may be misremembering. At any rate, with the options we've got here someone who is never going to do anything and is not going to be easy to read seems a solid lynch.

My DDD scumread has never been very strong. In that first quote I'm saying he is useless, which for me is a minor scumtell. When somebody said this is null for him, and I realised my memories of his play are very vague, that became even weaker. When I said he was an ok choice (and now, at least before my catchup) that's because he's a player who I don't see being useful, I don't see any reason why he's town, and I don't see his alignment becoming much clearer.

fishy, you've played with DDD before right? have you seen him tunnel as either alighnment?

Sorry, I can't remember DDD's play well enough to answer this. I *might* have a look over our games together some time, but tbh I probably won't any time soon.

So, the case on Macro. I think it sucks. Points I can find against him:

- His original vote on Voided. I see nothing scummy about it at all.
- His turnaround from thinking Voided is scum to town. I can't see a scum motivation for this at all - Voided was dead set on Macro, and appeasing him wasn't going to do Macro any good. And the timing makes it really fit with Macro-town-giving-up at that point; I can really see Macro thinking that the argument he'd had with Voided made Voided look ok, and he just didn't care about consistency.
- The claims. I don't think they look scummy. I don't think scum are likely claim not-VT and then VT - that's just not how you
getting lynched.
- His turnaround back to thinking Voided is scummy. It happened a while after he attacked Voided, and they'd interacted in the mean time. I don't see why this is scummy at all. How is this a particularly scummy change of opinion?
- Defending himself by saying he is town. This isn't typically scummy, and I can't find any scummy examples of it in Macro's play.
- Calling DCL town with poor reasoning. This is pretty weak; DCL's response is what a townie *should* say, and to call it townish is hardly unlikely.

I think Macro generally looks town. I find his frustration today convincing; there's clearly some serious confirmation bias going round - a lot of the above looks like the result of assigning the scum motivation to something which has perfectly good scum and town motivations. His predecessors still count against him, and that's the only thing that gives me pause, but I'm not interested in that wagon.

For the people on it, I'm actually swinging round to think DCL is town. Mostly because of his LS-me link. Group scumhunting is a pretty solid towntell. (I had that reaction at the time, but forgot about it until a reread).

hiplop is still looking like town to me. See my hiplop/Rhinox wall for why he was town there. Lately, he's wrong about Macro but looks like genuine convinced town.

Voided is on the scummy side of neutral. I didn't like his early posting on Macro - looked like he was using Macro's bad position to write off what he said about him. Since then he's looked pretty tunnelled, in a way I've found tough to read. Recently, he said that Macro's 756, in which he criticised DCL's vote, was good. This looks kind of forced to me. Voided doesn't give any analysis of the post - which is odd because it's mostly a refutation of DCL's case, which overlaps with Voided's and is obviously relevant to Voided thinking Macro is scum. And, generally, I think it's pretty rare to see someone nod and say "yeah, townie post" to someone they are attacking go after another of the attackers. It feels more like Voided is trying to show he's not tunnelled than like he actually agrees with Macro.

@Voided: what was it you found townie about post 756? How did it affect your read on DCL?

DDD is doing more today, which is nice. I can't say I've got much of a read on him atm. I'll try harder soon.

kortul I don't really know about. His posting reads fine, but there's nothing really controversial in there.

On other people; SA is still town, as is Rhinox. Hooray! Alice and 4n I need to have a think about, and I'll do that later tonight. Then I'll vote for one of them, or Voided, or just possibly DDD.

[Fishythefish]

@Alice: please do expand on your SA vote.

Hmmm. SA's early case on 4n is ok. 4n's response is pretty bad. He ignores the case at first, which I really don't know what to think of (it's pretty alien to me). But the bad bit is after that; when SA asks him why he's ignoring it, he says

So... you . . . Don't defend yourself ever in a mafia game or...?

don't be ridiculous, I wouldn't be playing the game if I never had to defend myself. Just not a priority of mine to dispel every accusation thrown at me, especially when that person already has it cemented into their head that me and funkybile are scum.

Ew. SA hadn't at all shown that he had anything of the kind "cemented into his head". He'd made one post, saying why he thought various things from SA were scum. It's pretty implausible that that post made 4n write SA off as hopelessly tunnelled, which is what this implies.

@4n: if you remember, what were you thinking about SA's case at this point? Later, you responded to it, and you had pretty reasonable explanations. Why didn't you post them at the time, to try to convince SA you were town?

I'm going to wait on the answers to these questions before voting.

[Fishythefish]

I’ve already trapped him with his own words; he knows what a vanilla townie SHOULD have done and yet he has no explanation for what he did other than, "uh, but I'm vanilla". Busted.

Are you serious?

I don't know what to think of this post. What do others think?

@Fishy: I'm starting doubt my 4nx townread, but despite what has been said, I do think I have good reasons to think him town. What do you think of them?

@Voided: Imagine I've been lynched and have flipped town. How do you see the game then?

*Looks up 4n reasons*.

Well, myself I haven't experienced the "yeah, that's exactly where I am" tell from 4n's posting at all. And the others seem pretty weak. 222 and 743 "scum wouldn't do that because it's too scummy", which I don't think works at all well. 452 is a decent post defending you, but if you are scum it's not something that would be particularly unlikely from scum. It does make me think you unlikely buddies; scum are rarely brave enough to push back at a correct lynch at L-1.

@4n: if you remember, what were you thinking about SA's case at this point? Later, you responded to it, and you had pretty reasonable explanations. Why didn't you post them at the time, to try to convince SA you were town?

overly ambitious association scumhunting. why should I be worried about convincing every single person in the game that I am town D1?

So, what made you think that SA was hopelessly tunnelled on a you/funky team? That's what's weird to me - you basically said you weren't going to try and persuade him because he was beyond reason, and I don't get that at all from his posts. Looks like an easy way to write off a case.

OK. I'm reasonably comfortable with the image of voided as a tunnelled town whose tunnel slowly petering out into dissatisfaction with the game. That takes my lynch pool down to 4n, DDD and Alice. I really want to hear Alice's case on SA, and a reply from 4n to the above. On DDD, for some reason I feel like it's something I can crack by thinking harder, and I'll have another bash at it today. For now,

VOTE: 4n

[Fishythefish]

So, what made you think that SA was hopelessly tunnelled on a you/funky team? That's what's weird to me - you basically said you weren't going to try and persuade him because he was beyond reason, and I don't get that at all from his posts. Looks like an easy way to write off a case.

...I never said he hopelessly tunneled on a funky/me team... I never said I wasn't going to try and persuade him... And I never said he was beyond reason...

I "wrote off his case" by: not responding to it D1 and than responding to it D2 (eventhough he never followed up on his request for a response)

Actually, my last post does exaggerate things a bit. What I'm talking about is this post:

So... you . . . Don't defend yourself ever in a mafia game or...?

don't be ridiculous, I wouldn't be playing the game if I never had to defend myself. Just not a priority of mine to dispel every accusation thrown at me,

especially when that person already has it cemented into their head that me and funkybile are scum.

Not arguing with someone because something is "cemented in their head" reads to me as dismissing them by saying they are too tunnelled to persuade - and that's the only actual reason you give for not defending. Am I reading you wrong?

[Fishythefish]

the main reason is the first part of that sentence; D1 I prioritize looking for scum over dispelling every accusation. The second part of that sentence is me attempting to get SA to realize he had an idea cemented into his head that is wrong.

Can you go into detail about why you think DDD's play is nicer than yesterday?

I still don't really understand what you meant. The bit I bolded really reads to me as saying SA is tunnelled, not just that he's wrong. I guess there's not much more to say on this.

I think DDD's actually doing stuff today. I haven't really got a read on that stuff, but I'm hopeful that I can, whereas yesterday he was a big useless blank.

[Fishythefish]

Meh. 4n's responses make me less than keen about my vote.

UNVOTE:

What specific stuff has DDD done today that is good and what specifically about his play yesterday was a "big useless blank"?

Can you sum up what alice has done D1 & D2 to be in your scumpool?

I'm not ignoring this, but don't have time to address it now.

[Fishythefish]

@Fishy - do you see Macro case as a separate case from Malee and theo? Ie does Macro or his slot look town for you? Because it isn't Macro himself but his predeccesors are the main reason why i see this slot scummy.

Macro looks town to me, not the slot. The other occupants of the slot look scummy, and overall I'd say that the slot is on the town side of the scales. It's the parts of the case that are against Macro I find really bad.

What

specific

stuff has DDD done today that is good and what

specifically

about his play yesterday was a "big useless blank"?

Can you sum up what alice has done D1 & D2 to be in your scumpool?

Yesterday, DDD voted Nacho, for one not very big reason, and just sat on it for most of the day. Then he voted theo on the Amished tell, and when he did he asked me and Rhinox for support. He never made another point against either of them, and never pushed either of these wagons more than saying "yeah, I still think this guy is scum". Other than that, he barely took a stance. It didn't feel like DDD was either trying to catch scum, or even really trying to lynch the people he was calling scum.

I haven't said that DDD has done anything good today, only that he has done something. As for what that is, for a start he actually did a reread of everyone, in 648. It makes decent, but rather isolated, points about people. And he really stops pushing after that - you never see DDD chase up any of the points he makes. It feels like he's made an effort to say something about everyone, but more for show than anything else - after that's out of the way, he's content to sit back and relax on the Macro wagon, as well as defending himself against Rhinox. That defence is ok.

So yeah, having thought more about DDD's posting I think he's reasonably likely to be scum. That seems to be as well as I'm doing at the moment, and his wagon not taking off is a good sign - since I'm pretty sure Rhinox is town, and the only company he's had has been Alice and Macro, who have wandered off into lone wagons. I think scum would be all over a townDDD wagon here - particularly if Macro is scum.

VOTE: DDD

Re: Alice. Well, I thought she was scummy for a while day 1. TBH I can't remember why, but it's still in the back of my mind. And a big reason I dropped that suspicion was because the scummiest other people were on her wagon - but LS was town and Macro is no longer high on my scumlist. I also didn't like the way her play really dropped off when the heat was off her day 1 - it felt like scum who only tried when in danger. And to some extent there's PoE going on here - the list of people who I think are townish to some extent is rather long. Her recent play actually seems pretty townish, though - the sudden and shortlived suspicion on SA would be an odd thing for scum to fake, and her scumreads (or not-town-reads) are unpopular enough that they are likely to be the result of genuine thought.

[Fishythefish]

Valuing of meta comment is interesting and noted for further thought.

Why should I be all over the place when the top wagon is on my top scumread? I just don’t get how this meshes with your day one criticism; on D1 I’m not pushing things hard enough and then on D2 when I’ve decided to entrench and push I get accused of not looking around enough. I can agree with the theory behind your D1 argument even if I think it ignores some context, but your D2 criticism is nonsense that flies in the face of that.

Actually, this is probably pretty fair. Doing a reread covering everyone and then concentrating on one suspect isn't really scummy. It makes the reread look rather forced, but thinking more about it that could equally just be that nothing showed up to rival your main scumread.

I realise than in talking about the Macro case I haven't really covered either of you main points. As I've already said, I don't set much store by the Amished tell. In this instance, it refers to theo saying "[Malee] left me in a big pile of poop". What does that mean? Either that Malee was scummy or simply that there was a big wagon on her. Since he reads the wagon as very forced, I'd say the latter. I think this barely even

is

a negative reference to his predecessor, let alone a scummy one. "Well, this is a big pile of poop Malee's left me in" is a perfectly natural sentiment for town or scum replacing under pressure.

As for your more specific thing about Macro condemning himself, I really don't see where you are getting it from.

@Debonair & Voided: Claiming VT is what VT's generally do too, in case you forgot that... And voided, the read changes aren't scummy because I'm town- more reasonable than any explanations for me being scummy.

Sure I’ll accept that; but what does that make you guy who claimed non-VT and then revised it to a VT claim?

He says that claiming VT is what VT's generally do. More context: Voided and DDD were discussing possible scum motivations, and Macro wanted to remind them that there was a possible town motivation. He doesn't say that claiming VT first is what VT's always, or should, do. This isn't a post of Macro's I particularly like - the sentiment is "I'm town because I'm town", which doesn't do much for me - but reading it as saying Macro would claim VT as VT is forced.

[Fishythefish]

Fishy: But the point kinda gets turned around, as that then implies that he's not a VT because he didn't claim VT right off the bat. And since I find him being a power role to personally be highly unlikely, what does that make him then?

I don't really know what you mean by this. Put simply - why is it that you think Macro can't be a VT who decided to claim non-VT to save his skin? As far as I can see, that's neither stupid nor antitown (unlike claiming any specific non-VT, which is both), and nothing he's said implies it's something he wouldn't do.

[Fishythefish]

@DDD: what is your read on SA generally?

Unless I'm much mistaken, Macro said why he made that claim ages ago; to save his skin.

[Fishythefish]

And he really wasn't responding to "why did you do that?". He was responding to "this is a scum move", which makes quite a difference - it's not evasion, it's just saying what (from Macrotown's POV) is true - he made the move as town, and there's a town explanation.

[Fishythefish]

And he really wasn't responding to "why did you do that?". He was responding to "this is a scum move", which makes quite a difference - it's not evasion, it's just saying what (from Macrotown's POV) is true - he made the move as town, and there's a town explanation.

Unless I'm much mistaken, Macro said why he made that claim ages ago; to save his skin.

But, crass survivalism isn’t a town move even if it’s admitted up front; it’s a move both town and scum make and usually if you do assign it to one side of the equation or the other you assign it to the scum side of things.

@DDD: what is your read on SA generally?

I had nothing positive to say before and his vote is MASSIVELY bad news; go look back at his last dozen posts; there’s absolutely nothing about me being scum while be fiddles away at 4nxiety being scum and he even calls Malee scummy and solely depends on Macro’s claim switch as the sole reason to oppose his lynch. In #791 he says, “I want my voice to reflect my opinions”. If that’s the case then it’s pretty clear in his opinion I’m not scum because he hasn’t said a word about me, but now that you’ve put me in the danger zone and he’s got an excuse from hiplop he lays down a L-1 vote.

1. I don't disagree with anything in that paragraph on survivalism. I don't think Macro's way of doing it - non-VT and then VT - looks like survivalism.
2. It's a big overstatement to infer from his posting that he thinks you're not scum. I agree that he's said nothing to suggest he thinks you

are

scum. While I suspect I know the answer, I'd still like to hear it:
@SA: why the DDD vote?

I don't think DDD should be claiming right now. There's noone ready to hammer AFAIC, and there's no great time pressure.

[Fishythefish]

The non-VT bit was survivalism. But pressed for more, I would expect scum to specify a non-VT, not claim VT.

Yes, it's clearly you or DDD. But it's not clear which, and until it is a claim from DDD is unnecessary.

[Fishythefish]

Hai guyz.

I've read zero of this thread aside from this page, so I'm just curious: why is it Macrophage or DDD?

Macro replaced a slot widely regarded as scummy, including by me. At L-1 (pretty sure), he claimed "non-VT", and when pressured further claimed VT - opinions vary on whether this sequence is scummy, townish or null. He wasn't lynched. In my opinion, he has been consistently townish, but many disagree. I also am coming to the conclusion that there just hasn't been a concerted push anywhere else today that I can see as coming from scum, and I really doubt the scumteam would just let Macro die this easily.

DDD is a decent lynch. I'm not sure that anyone thinks he's hugely scummy - Rhinox comes closest, but hasn't said much about anything of late, and I suspect doesn't have any confidence in anything right now. On the other hand, there's no reason I can see to think he's town. Personally, I think he's mildly scummy and I'm very much enthused by the way his wagon is packed with townie goodness.

Overall, there is a lack of strong scumreads in the game, except for those on Macro (which are probably wrong).

[Fishythefish]

Oh, and I'm V/LA for 24 hours or a little longer.

[Fishythefish]

Macro replaced a slot widely regarded as scummy, including by me. At L-1 (pretty sure), he claimed "non-VT", and when pressured further claimed VT - opinions vary on whether this sequence is scummy, townish or null. He wasn't lynched. In my opinion, he has been consistently townish, but many disagree. I also am coming to the conclusion that there just hasn't been a concerted push anywhere else today that I can see as coming from scum, and I really doubt the scumteam would just let Macro die this easily.

So, you think Macro is town.

DDD is a decent lynch. I'm not sure that anyone thinks he's hugely scummy - Rhinox comes closest, but hasn't said much about anything of late, and I suspect doesn't have any confidence in anything right now. On the other hand, there's no reason I can see to think he's town. Personally, I think he's mildly scummy and I'm very much enthused by the way his wagon is packed with townie goodness.

His wagon is: Rhinox, you, and Sleepless Assassin

Why do you think Rhinox or SA are town?

1. Yes, I do.
2. I've felt like they're scumhunting and believing what they're saying all game. For Rhinox, there are a couple of specific things I don't think he'd have done as scum - one early when he stopped arguing with someone, and today I think he'd be trying to take control of the town.

[Fishythefish]

Oh and Magua the long and short of it is that Rhinox and Fishy both have double votes and so despite the fact that no more than four people really think I'm scum I'm apparently under the gun. Rhinox tossed down his vote and has completely gone missing from the game for the latter half of the day; Fishy by his own words only finds me "moderately scummy" but votes me because he's too lazy to find someone who is actually scummy and Macro is a town read of his; SA is basically identical to Fishy except at least he made a token push on 4nxiety before lazily slopping a vote onto me. Macro's vote on me was shameless self-preservation and I think DCL just got bored and wanted to force a claim. All in all it's a terrible wagon populated by at least two scum and a few negligent town players.

That's the truth for me, except that it's failure despite trying rather than laziness. Also, the more I play this game the more I value the company on the wagon over the target, and the company here is pretty damn good.

Who are the "at least two scum" on your wagon? I can't see any of them in your summary except for Macro.

Speaking of shameless self-preservation, I think DDD is guilty of it in a much more scummy way than Macro. DDD has been going after Macro's slot for a long time, based on exactly one thing - the Amished-tell. But since DDD has been the leading contender for the lynch, he's really ramped up his attacks:

Really, the pushing on me from DCL, Debonair, Kortul, hiplop and voided are what I'd expect from scum- using my predecessors' stuff aginst me while also pulling out stuff about me that's magically scummy to keep me as a target.

Yep, this is pretty clearly a five scum game and you've nailed our team; kudos.

I think this is a pretty blatant towntell from Macro - no scum ever comes out and says "Yeah, my whole wagon is scum" - that's just not the way you defuse a wagon. This? It's clearly frustrated town. But DDD's reaction is a snarky little dig at Macro. He can't actually call him scummy - just points out that he's wrong, and doesn't care about alignment.

DDD then attacks the notion that Macro's claim is town, culminating in

I’m not saying he’s scum because of his claim; I’m just refuting the idea that he has to be town because of his claim. Try this on for size: he’s scum and he makes the non-VT claim to see if he can shake his wagon without opening himself up for a counterclaim; when that doesn’t work instead of making a claim that doesn’t work or gets counterclaimed he revises it to a VT claim knowing that people like you will probably defend his unorthodox play and he still might not get lynched because a VT claim is not the instant death sentence some suggest it is.

OK, fair enough. But this seems really incongruous:

I’ve already trapped him with his own words; he knows what a vanilla townie SHOULD have done and yet he has no explanation for what he did other than, "uh, but I'm vanilla". Busted.

So, how does DDD read Macro's claim? Well, on the one hand he's not saying he is scum because of his claim. On the other, he's trapped Macro, who's outright denied that's what he's do as a VT. So, this was a change of stance after Macro said something stupid, right? Nope; from DDD's posts, he was thinking both in 764. He defended this attack like so:

Fishy: But the point kinda gets turned around, as that then implies that he's not a VT because he didn't claim VT right off the bat. And since I find him being a power role to personally be highly unlikely, what does that make him then?

I don't really know what you mean by this. Put simply - why is it that you think Macro can't be a VT who decided to claim non-VT to save his skin? As far as I can see, that's neither stupid nor antitown (unlike claiming any specific non-VT, which is both), and nothing he's said implies it's something he wouldn't do.

I guess he did use the phrase "generally" in his point but I think the point still stands because it reveals that he made a conscience decision to not behave like a VT and when it's been brought up about why he'd do such a thing he's been all mumbles about being town and using circular logic.

Hip is probably right. This day has run it's course.

unvote, vote DDD

Paraphrase: Somebody else is bored; good excuse to get a town player lynched instead of my scum partner Macro; got it.

DDD is still bullshitting here. Nothing Macro has said remotely reveals that he made a conscious decision not to behave like a VT, but the second half of the accusation is particularly bad. The drive of Macro's thinking for me is clearly this:

I agree that the PR-followed by VT claim was bad, and if people still thought I was scum for that, I would at least understand, but I am happy I did it, as it ended up stopping me from being lynched right after replacing in and

I hate it when people say that I'm scum having done it without considering me doing it as town.

The sentiment that screams at me from Macro's posting is "yeah, ok, there's a scum explanation. But what's wrong with the town explanation (which is true)?". I think accusing Macro of mumbling about being town and using ciricular logic is willfully missing the point of his posting.

Also, note the little dig at SA here. He's voting DDD, so he's a scumpartner of Macro. No need to think about SA himself to discredit the argument. If he had, he'd have noticed that SA has had DDD in his top few scumreads for a very long time. Then there's prod at Macro here:

Sorry about being away for most the weekend; no matter what Macro wants I'm not claiming without being at L-1 with someone expressing intent to hammer. I still intend to see him swinging from a noose and I'm not going to hand his scumpartners bonus information just because he asked.

I read DDD, and I just don't believe the strength of scumread on Macro he is expressing at this point in the game. It feels really, really forced.

It's possible I'm being a bit unfair on DDD here. I'm a little bit drunk and feeling ranty because I'm so sure Macro is town and somehow there's a big wagon on him.

[Fishythefish]

Rereading my play, the above looks like a pretty big exaggeration to me. But I suppose the core's not totally wrong - I agree I've changed my mind a fair amount this game, and that I've not had any really firm scumreads I've been happy to push for a long period of time. Why are either of those things scumtells?

[Fishythefish]

Rereading my play, the above looks like a pretty big exaggeration to me. But I suppose the core's not totally wrong - I agree I've changed my mind a fair amount this game, and that I've not had any really firm scumreads I've been happy to push for a long period of time. Why are either of those things scumtells?

Because they're not how you play as town (see: Last Will III). You're not a noncommittal town player, and here you are. See also: Trader Mafia, where scum-you throws your vote around willy-nilly and in general tried to spread mud everywhere. That's what I'm seeing here.

That Trader Mafia comparison is bollocks. I was much more focused and consistent in that game.
- On Day 1, I pushed the VV lynch for the majority of the day (he was lynched).
- On Day 2, I had exactly two scumreads (NS and SK), and pushed both quite hard. NS was lynched.
- On Day 3, there was a guilty on Andrius, and I voted him, and nothing else happened.
- On Day 4, I only ever pushed on Zang (although I ended up quickhammering my scumbuddy... Day 4 was a complete mess, and trying to get a meta on me based on it would be foolish).
So, I pushed all my major scumreads hard, and I had 2 in the 2 days where things were normal. Yeah, that's really like my play here.

As for my town meta - sometimes I get the bit between my teeth, sometimes I don't. LWIII was one of my better games from that point of view - I had some pretty firm reads which I was happy to push. If you can be bothered, check out my meta. I'm pretty sure that (when in a game and active - I've had a few games where I've had crap access that probably aren't relevant) I'm usually more consistent than this as town, and

always

more consistent than this as scum. The feeling of being lost in a game and not being able to settle on any strong scumreads isn't one I've learnt how to fake.

[Fishythefish]

Really? Where else have I been unhelpful while still appearing to be helping?

I didn't mean to insinuate you didn't check my meta. Clearly you did, to some extent. I'm saying that your meta picture isn't accurate, and you should look deeper if you are going to base a read off it. By "if you can be bothered", I really meant to acknowledge that meta'ing people is a time consuming activity, and I understand if you don't do it.

As for finding you a game where I was crap as town, I'm sure I can find you a similar game if you want me to (actually, I'll go do that now), but I'm not claiming I'm usually this way as town. Really, the more important part of the meta is that this isn't at all my scum game.

[Fishythefish]

Reading all my meta from the last ages turned out to be surprisingly fun.

OK, have some meta. First, town games which to some extent show me having weak scumreads and changing my mind, usually early on.

Town

Open Source Mafia - I was inconsistent in my reads and unable to get into the game (although there was role craziness that may account for that).
Tech Tree Mafia - I replaced in on day 2, and changed my mind a lot for that day. After that, I settled down a bit more.
Elite Scumhunting Unit On day 1 I didn't do very much, and changed my mind quite a lot.
Town Hall Mafia I changed my mind quite a bit D1.
Camn's Temperamental Day 1 I went back on my scumreads repeatedly, in a way that seems similar to here. When people answered me, I changed my mind a lot of the time.

And all my scum games from the first page of my "View your posts" (the same period the above town games are cherry picked from). This is much the more important part for me; I think it's well worth following the links to see how much this is not my scum game. As scum, people think I'm town because I'm scumhunting convincingly.

Scum

Real Time Mafia - I was consistent and focused, leading the mislynches each day.
Trader Mafia - as discussed previously, I went after people and pushed for their lynches (which happened).
NY 120: Flash mafia 2. GAME OVER - I hopped around a little in a D1 deadline situation. Other than that, I was consistent, had solid opinions, and pushed hard on my scumreads (on townies and scumbuddies).
Open 1084 - I wasn't in this game very long, and there was information which made scumhunting secondary.
Txt Mafia - the one scum game on here I'm not at all proud of. I lurked, could never get into the game, and had no fun at all. I didn't move my reads around a lot - I basically had no reads to move around.
Driving Mafia - consistently went after my reads, pushed hard.

[Fishythefish]

Deadline is in 2 days. DDD should be claiming.

[Fishythefish]

Oooo, a non-standard role.

UNVOTE:

Because DDD being at L-1 doesn't seem a great idea right now.

I probably want a claim today. Some questions before I decide for sure.

1) Is your role one that would make no sense at all for scum in a one-scumteam game? To give you an idea, I'd count miller, cop, vig, mason among standard roles here, and no others that I can think of.
2) Will you use it tonight (or by halfway through tomorrow's day phase if it's a day action)?
3) Is it confirmable, in that when you've done it we'll know?

[Fishythefish]

Is there any restriction on when you can use your power (as in, "odd days/nights" or "not day one")?

[Fishythefish]

Finally: if you use your role in a confirmable circumstance, and don't say anything about it, would we know something had happened? Would we know you had something to do with it?

[Fishythefish]

OK. I think I know approximately what is going on with DDD's claim. I don't want to lynch him today, because I suspect he's town. OTOH, I want to see his power used and claimed as soon as possible - preferably by tomorrow, and if possible confirmably/so that it's pretty obvious.

I'm still totally uninterested in lynching Macro - I'd rather DDD. I need to check out DCL more carefully, to see if he's an acceptable alternative. I'll vote him unless I get a townread there.

[Fishythefish]

Rather DDD than Macro. Both are bad lynches, but Macrotown I'm more sure on.

Oh yeah, I remember. DCL was the one who made the me-LS link, and so is probtown for me. Scum rarely hunt for multiple scum day 1, and probably if they do they connect a townie to a buddy, not two townies. OTOH, I think his push on Macro isn't great, and funky was scummy. Pretty mixed feelings (sorry Magua ), but I think I prefer this lynch to either of the others.

VOTE: DCL

I'd also be up for voided/4n - but I don't really think there's long enough to get it going.

[Fishythefish]

DCL was the one who made the me-LS link, and so is probtown for me.

<snip>

VOTE: DCL

??

I'm unkeen on all these lynches. DDD's role is pretty obviously last will shenanigans. Essentially, I'm guessing that DDD rewrites a will - fits with the rolename - which is way OP for scum (particularly near endgame). Macro is one of my firmest townreads. Yes, there is something that makes me think DCL is town, but other things make me unsure. Overall, I've got a bit of a town read on him, but I'm more comfortable with his lynch than the others. I don't think anyone else in the game has received enough attention that they could actually get lynched here.

[Fishythefish]

OK, let's do it. Kind of forgot I was a double voter.

UNVOTE: VOTE: 4n

[Fishythefish]

Well. We don't lynch masons. We don't even make them claim their mason buddies at this stage.

I expect you've already thought about it, but you might want to consider

not

leaving your vote to your buddy. Second mason is still a powerful claim later; the balance between that and giving a known townie two votes is not clear.

UNVOTE:

And seriously? I finally have an avenue to avoid bussing my buddy? Read my damn ISO. If DDD was my buddy, and I didn't want to bus him, I've have had plenty of opportunities to stick to my reads on other people to get other lynches.

Thinking about what to do.

[Fishythefish]

And seriously? I finally have an avenue to avoid bussing my buddy? Read my damn ISO. If DDD was my buddy, and I didn't want to bus him, I've have had plenty of opportunities to stick to my reads on other people to get other lynches

there is always an oppurtunity to lynch someone else. Your post immediatly after ddd's claim had more vibes of relief and excitement than frustration and sadness about your top scumread possibly being wrong. This is the second day you have adamantly voted ddd yet have backed down later.

I was taking issue with the "finally found an avenue to avoid bussing your buddy" line. It's pretty clear that I'm not scum who's somehow been pressured into voting DDD - this wagon has never had much momentum, and I've contributed a fair amount of it - and that was the vibe I got from your post.

Excitement is fair - I like claims (and information-ish situations generally), because it's a part of the game I enjoy. Frustration and sadness about my scumread? At that stage I hadn't thought very hard, and hadn't decided that DDD was probtown yet, so I wasn't sad or frustrated. Actually, I don't feel those things now either - though it's obviously not great to be in a deadline lynch scramble without any scumreads, it is quite fun . You may be misreading my unvote - it was a "L-1 halfway through claims is a bad idea" unvote, not a "DDD is town" unvote.

I neither voted DDD adamantly yesterday, nor backed down. Today, I've consistently had a mild to moderate scumread on him, and he's made what I think is a very townie claim.

What do you think of my take on that claim? I think it's pretty likely - a Secretary, who writes out wills, gets to alter someone's will by not typing it out right. This power would be really huge for scum - particularly as the game wears on - and so I doubt they have it.

Where have I waffled?

[Fishythefish]

VOTE: DCL

Best lynch going.

[Fishythefish]

Meh. I doubt it's an engineered claim. Scum don't tend to dream up new and exciting roles very often - much less often than mods. And if they do, they are probably quite keen to actually tell you what they do. I'm not saying this one couldn't be balanced, but giving the scum a too-powerful role and then rebalancing by stacking the town doesn't seem like Llama's style to me. Outguessing the mod, I know, but in a pretty reasonable way.

Fair enough about your suspicions of me tainting the claim. Although actually, if I was scum with DDD, I'd be absolutely terrified of saying anything at all about this claim, for fear of it not seeming like a natural reaction from someone who didn't know the truth.

Waffle? What I see you quoting is me changing my mind, and/or adapting to circumstances. I think of "waffle" as "posting without content" (which I also think is a decent scumtell) - that's pretty much all content. Just not consistent content.

Which read changes do you find odd? I'd be happy to try to explain them to you.

The defacto lynch that will benefit the game dynamic the most? What does that mean?

[Fishythefish]

Hey Magua, I see you're online. Deadline is really soon - you should come and vote DCL or Macro. Preferably DCL, since Macro's town.

[Fishythefish]

@DCL: You're the best of a bad bunch here. I'm not going to not vote on the lynch just because I don't like the options. A no lynch is worse than any of the available lynches.

Yeah, that's not exactly inspiring. But it's not BS.

Pedit: aw. Hope I'm wrong .

[Fishythefish]

Hey, Rhinox, let's make a pact. In the morning, we come back with some actual scumreads, and go lynch them.

[Fishythefish]

I need to get this out there before any real speculation starts. Magua was at the bottom of Macrophage's list, not the top. Fishy had the right idea when he realized my ability let me do "last will shenanigans" however he wasn’t right in that I couldn’t re-write anyone’s will at will; instead my ability made it so that I could have someone’s will processed backwards (hence why I opened the game asking about the bottom of everyone’s lists).

I was expecting to find myself or DCL on the bottom of Macrophage’s list and hand a vote to a town aligned player; instead Magua was apparently at the bottom who I consider more of a question mark.

~~

As I made clear yesterday I think Rhinox and/or SA is the right call for Macro’s scumpartner(s). I need to do a quick game review to see who is the more likely of them but I expect my vote to end up on one of them in short order.

Magua is the bottom of the playerlist. I (and I expect others) sometimes do last wills by taking the playerlist and editing a few people to the top, so this may be completely null.

If anything, a mild towntell for Magua - I can't see scum putting other scum at the bottom of a will if it's something they are thinking about.

@Magua: did you check out the meta I posted? I think it shows strongly that this is not how I play as scum, which seemed to be what your read is based on. Why do you think I'm scum (other than PoE)?

DDD's role is not very town any more (it's not particularly overpowered as scum AFAIC), but DDD himself is pretty obvtown - we didn't get two scum to L-1 or close simultaneously. Macro seemed genuinely keen to get a DCL lynch, and I doubt he is scum either.

More tomorrow.

[Fishythefish]

This is just a nice easy response/defence post. I'll get down to some scumhunting later today.

@Magua: did you check out the meta I posted? I think it shows strongly that this is not how I play as scum, which seemed to be what your read is based on. Why do you think I'm scum (other than PoE)?

I did. I still think you're scum. Hence, my vote.

Given that your big townread flipped scum and you now think one of your scumreads is town, I'm curious who do *you* think is scum now?

Your scumread on me was for "Way too much equivocating, vacillating, way too little in terms of actual reads or trying to do shit.". When I and someone else said that that wasn't a scumread, you said it was

for me

- you brought up LWIII as a town game where I didn't play like this, and Trader Mafia as a scum game where I did. I said that the Trader Mafia example is nothing like this, and that my other scum games aren't either. If you really think I'm scum because this flopping around matches my scum meta, that should be highly relevant, and responding simply that you read my meta is totally inadequate.

If you read those games, focus on one (excluding txt Mafia, where I'm sorry to say I lurked in a way obviously incomparable to this game). Trader Mafia, if you like, since you already said that was similar to my play here. Go though that game, day by day. How much do my scum reads change? How much do I equivocate? How does that compare to here? The answers are clear if you read my meta, and your only stated reason for thinking I'm scum is actually a strong reason why I'm town. Tarhalindur once described me as having an "inverted meta" - I look more town as scum than town. The reason for that is that as scum you can control your reads to look good - as town you have to say what you actually think, and if that's not particularly interesting/useful you end up looking like scum.

Right now, I've got no clue who's scum. I need to do a reread in the light of new information. I've set aside a good chunk of time for that in about 12 hours time - you'll have an answer after that.

Two reason I find fishy scummy:

1. His defending of macro

So, the case on Macro. I think it sucks. Points I can find against him:

- His original vote on Voided. I see nothing scummy about it at all.
- His turnaround from thinking Voided is scum to town. I can't see a scum motivation for this at all - Voided was dead set on Macro, and appeasing him wasn't going to do Macro any good. And the timing makes it really fit with Macro-town-giving-up at that point; I can really see Macro thinking that the argument he'd had with Voided made Voided look ok, and he just didn't care about consistency.
- The claims. I don't think they look scummy. I don't think scum are likely claim not-VT and then VT - that's just not how you
getting lynched.
- His turnaround back to thinking Voided is scummy. It happened a while after he attacked Voided, and they'd interacted in the mean time. I don't see why this is scummy at all. How is this a particularly scummy change of opinion?
- Defending himself by saying he is town. This isn't typically scummy, and I can't find any scummy examples of it in Macro's play.
- Calling DCL town with poor reasoning. This is pretty weak; DCL's response is what a townie *should* say, and to call it townish is hardly unlikely.

Fishy didn't just say something along the lines of "I think macro is town, or I think the case on him is bad" instead he went through and refuted it point by point he really did not want macro lynched.

2. He was on all the counterwagons.

Fishy voted for DDD, got off after the claim.
Jumps to 4nxiety, gets off after the claim
Then jumps on me, and calls for my lynch despite having previously called me a town read multiple times. He was desperate for a lynch other than macro.

Vote:Fishythefish

this is our scum, lynch him.

So, two things. Firstly, why don't you think I'm town? Sure, you have an image of scumFishy, and it's not totally stupid, but what's wrong with the other (correct) scenario - that I'm a townie who thought Macro was town? You say I refuted Macro's case point by point because I "really did not want Macro lynched". Yep, that's bang on. The

reason

I really didn't want him lynched was that I really though he was town. Similarly, I supported every wagon against him, and it's even stronger than that - I actively voted you over him while calling you town in the same post. You say I was desperate for a lynch other than macro - again, that's bang on. Thinking Macro was town, I wanted other people lynched, even people nowhere near the top of my scumlist. Why shouldn't I feel like that just because Macro was town to me? What do you do when people are wagonning your townreads?

Secondly, and less importantly, I think the picture you have of me as scum is unlikely in a couple of ways. Having ridden the Macro wagon to L-1 day 1, it would be creating a huge and unnecessary link to defend him so consistently and insistently late day 1 and day 2 - particularly when he was both a) always a likely lynch and b) not a powerful scumbag. I'd have to be so desperate to save Macro that I had no interest at all in trying to look good when he died - and with Macro probably going down eventually, and me looking ok, why would I be that desperate? And if I

was

going all out to save Macro, I think my play on DDD would be rather unlikely. You said this:

Scum were trying to get a counterwagon to Macro, they went at DDD, then Anxiety, luckily for town they had good claims, scum then went for me. With my VT claim it seemed like I was going to be lynched.

But you might want to reread DDD's "good claim". He claimed his role name, and that's it. I unvoted immediately, and then I asked DDD questions to tease out relevant details of his role. I then called him town, and later explained what role I thought he had and why he was town. I think it's fair to say that I'm the reason that wagon fell apart without even a claim. If I really was scum who was prepared to save Macro at any cost, why would I do that?

[Fishythefish]

First, analysis of people's interactions with our dead scumbag. IMO, Macro's play is fairly dull, as is his predecessors'. Makes me think DCL and DDD are town, but doesn't really point to any scumbags. Much more interesting is what other people said about him.

Alice/Magua

Alice attacked Malee early with a serious case in 96. But then she said "hmmm, I'll think about it" to Malee's rather weak response of "I wasn't paying enough attention", then declares intention of moving off to funkybike before actually doing so, with this rather weird post:

Nacho makes an excellent point on funky. Also Kortul. Consider me persuaded, though I'll keep my vote on Malee for now. I'd probably be willing to switch to funky whenever.

Reads like possible distancing - the serious seeming case gets abandoned pretty quickly without any more pushing, and in this rather forced way. She also says, very early "If Malee flips scum, LS becomes scummier". Could be an attempt to put LS in trouble after Macro goes down. And then Alice doesn't mention the slot for ages, until she

thinks it's been lynched

when she supports the lynch:

Actually, hiplop's post was hammer by my count O___O

That said, I'm not too upset with a Theo lynch. I think that between Malee's poor case-pushing, Theo's amish tell, and Theo's hop onto my wagon, Theo is scummier than Bike. There's more concrete evidence for Theo being scum. While Bike may be scummy (especially with a wagon hop and no explanation), I still feel a bit more uncertain because there's so much lurking going on. While Bike is slightly scummy, I'm paranoid also that he's just an easy target for scum to latch on to. So I will think about that a little more.

For D2, DDD definitely needs to put more effort into scumhunting. I want to see an expanded set of reads from you. Funky should also be examined closely.

This looks like scum trying to distance a bit from theo, by calling attention to her scumread on the slot. She keeps up pressure on theo and then Macro after this, saying she's willing to hammer, and driving home her newly remembered scumread. I can easily imagine this from scum - when her partner is going down, she tries to hop on for late town points. As soon as the pressure on Macro eases (after the VT claim), she hops off.

None of that is impossible for Alice town. But it all fits really, really well with Alice scum with Macro. Magua didn't have much interaction with Macro - called him town and then moved on, essentially. From Alice's play, there's a pretty decent link here for me.

DCL

Something else that looks town to me:

Really, the pushing on me from DCL, Debonair, Kortul, hiplop and voided are what I'd expect from scum

I wouldn't say that I have been pushing you much.

@Kortul/hiplop/voided/debonair/DCL: Are you likely to continue seeing what I post as scummy or do you think you could come to see me as town?

That really depends on you. If you act like town I hopefully will see you as town. If you act like scum I will most likely see you as scum. I don't see you as definite scum right now.

I just can't imagine scum denying attacking their buddy like this - scum usually want to appear more on the case of a buddy than they really are.

DDD

I thought there was a strong Malee-DDD link early on. Here's me from when it was more fresh in my mind:

DDD hasn't done much, and I don't have much of a read on him. If themoaner's scum, so is DDD:

Can't say I'm really interested in a Malee wagon right now since I think the fundamental point she made was a sound one about Nacho.

Here, DDD is saying that the Malee case is poor because she made a decent point against Nacho. But that's not the point at all – DDD expressed the actual case

himself

here:

It was a good point (not a strong point or a scum point) you had but it says more about you than DDD.

I'd love to know why it was a good point other than pandering to LastSurvivor because even you recognize the point was easily addressed.

VOTE: Nachomamma8
Malee is pathetically shrimping away from this, but I like the point. Nacho's an above-average player and when he's on cruise control and not reading things deeply that suggests to me he's not really looking for scum that deeply.

Malee's “pathetic shrimping” is pretty much the issue with her attack on Nacho. I said that I thought the case wasn't about the actual point, and DDD's answer was that Malee wouldn't bus Nacho. So, we have DDD basing a Malee townread on a Nacho scumread. That seems pretty tenuous – particularly since it seems unlikely that by post 136 DDD had a very strong scumread on Nacho.

This still looks pretty bad to me - DDD is strawmanning the case on Malee in order to dismiss it. Other factors make me pretty certain DDD is town, though - I just don't think you get the wagon pattern we had yesterday if both wagons are on scum. DDD's claim of his power and how he used it makes good sense, and I doubt he'd have used it there as scum. These firmly outweigh this link for me.

kortul

kortul listed Malee/theo/Macro as scum throughout day 1, without ever voting until threatening to hammer at L-1. There always seems to be someone a little bit scummier - SA, then bike, then Alice, then bike. This constant second scumread seems reasonably likely scum-on-scum - wanting to distance from your partner without putting them in too much danger. Fits with his posting on the slot as well - while he kept reiterating his scumread, he never gave much in the way of reasons and didn't do anything to put much pressure on the slot.

After the claim, kortul thought the VT claim was fairly null, and said he hated reading replacement slots. Doesn't fit so well with what I'd have expected of scumkortul, unless Alice is also scum - if Alice is town, he could have taken the opportunity to back off Macro in the company of myself and Alice. Very much FMPOV, of course. Day 2 kortul looks much better. He was consistent on Macro all day, and switched back to him at a key time - when the three wagons (DCL, DDD, Macro) all had 4 votes. He could have stuck on DCL easily, and the move back was important in getting the lynch.

Overall, kortul's play could be bussing, but I'd guess not.

hiplop

hiplop didn't mention Malee/theo for a surprisingly long time, and when questioned said things like this:

While going through his ISO today, i noticed that he never commented on Malee or funkybike1. hiplop, what are you reads (or just thoughts) on them?

Heavily neutral. Which kinda scares me, for that rarely happens. I have a feeling one of them is scum, I just lack the competence to pin point which one

Mentioning the slot for pretty much the first time, he said:

VOTE: moner

Eh, forced due to time restraint

This seems weird given that his favoured wagon (Alice) was joint with theo at this stage.

@hiplop: can you remember why you felt a theo vote was forced here?

hiplop reacted very badly to Macro's claim, and just called him confirmed scum after that. It seems a bit too strong - the claim takes him from very neutral to totally tunelled immediately. Then, extraordinarily, he say this:

DDD's death isn't something I'm against, i was pretty vocal early on , I think. I'm open to hammer, just I believe we should wait a bit.

This looks very much like trying to save his partner. Given that Macro was the second candidate here, and he'd been railing against him so firmly, I struggle to believe hiplop was actually happy for DDD to die - if you thought Macro was scum, DDD was an obvious counterwagon. I think hiplop's a very decent candidate for bussing Macro.

Voided

Pretty simple one. Voided's attacks on Macro look sincere, and like they were intended to get Macro lynched. I don't think they are likely bussing.

Rhinox

Rhinox didn't say much about the slot for most of Day 1, and then made a good a new point and voted theo. Then this about Macro seems unlikely from Rhinoxscum:

@Rhinox: yeah, meant Voided. What do you think of him, here and in the rest of the game?

Idk, I'm having a tough time being confident of reads in this game. Its like, I see big posts from mac up there and now I'm starting to have doubts about lynching the slot, even though big posts shouldn't mean anything about alignment.

I can't really see Rhinox scum admitting that he's dropping his scumread on a buddy for a bad reason. It would take some balls. He then seems to be floundering towards the end of day 1, but in the end tries to go for a Macro lynch. I feel like Rhinox-scum would be taking a firmer stance here - either get some credit for bussing Macro, or actually do something to avert the lynch. Then again, his play doesn't feel like scum day 2 - he changes from Macro to DDD as #1 suspect based partly on the reads of dead townies, which is just the kind of thing that gets negative attention. Again, I don't think Rhinoxscum would use this reasoning, which most people think of as weak, to justify a move on his buddy. The only reason to post this, like the quote above, is if Rhinox is just trying to tell us what he's thinking. Or faking that, rather brilliantly - but I doubt that. He then goes for DDD, and later DCL, all day (insofar as he was doing anything), before finally hammering. That hammer took the votecount from (DCL 6, Macro 5) to (Macro 7, DCL 4) - so it was critical in deciding the lynch. This line of play from Rhinox gets Macro lynched, without getting Rhinox much credit. Doesn't look like bussing scum.

SA

Twice on Day 1, SA said things amounting to "X is scum. X thinks Malee is scum. Malee is probably not scum." - first with me early on, then later with 4n. This seems a stretch - it's excluding the possibility of SA's Day 1 reads being wrong - and it's a convenient way to not have to either vote or defend her. His read on the slot fluctuates, and I tend to believe it, if only because his feelings mirror mine pretty accurately on Day 2. We both moved towards Macro town, and that was partly because we thought the wagon was really weak. And yeah, DDD, I am going to say "scum wouldn't defend their partner so blatantly" - or, at least, it's not very likely. Perhaps likelier than going all out for his lynch and trying to convince people, but not a particularly convincing fit for a scumbuddy.

So, to summarise, how well people fit as scumbuddies for Macro:

Pretty well

Magua/Alice
hiplop

Neutrally

SA

Pretty Badly

kortul
Rhinox

Very Badly

DDD
DCL
Voided

My next step is to focus on the people at the top of this list individually - so Magua, hiplop, SA. Perhaps kortul. I'll try to get this done tonight, but tomorrow is probably more realistic.

[Fishythefish]

Sorry - by "very badly" I meant that you disliked the claim, not that you were wrong or scummy.

The bits of your interaction I'd like explaining are the other bits. Firstly on day 1, when you voted him, why did you feel you needed to because of "time constraints", when your preferred lynch was equal with him? Secondly, and more importantly, on day 2 you railed against his lynch, saying that he'd claimed scum. So why on earth were you happy to settle for a DDD lynch?

[Fishythefish]

Also, why did you only address one bit of what I said about you? It smacks of cherry picking the weak point to ignore the rest of the argument.

[Fishythefish]

@Fishy:

How is it that I am at the top of your "probably partners with Macrophage" list and yet you're still not voting me?

@hiplop:

How had Macrophage claimed scum?

That post was about interactions with Macro. I also need to reread people individually (which will happen today), and then I'll vote.

@hiplop: sure, the Macro wagon had dropped off a bit. But if you think he's claimed scum, I'm still struggling to see why, with 3 days to go, you gave up on the wagon. It's not like we were anywhere near getting a no lynch. With your professed reads, I'd expect you to have carried on pushing on Macro at that stage.

OTOH, I've just realised that when hiplop made the post saying he could hammer DDD, Macro wasn't on the DDD wagon and DDD was at L-1. So a scumpartner assisting him by hopping off the Macro wagon wasn't really necessary, and so may be quite unlikely.

[Fishythefish]

Gave kortul the same treatment as I did SA earlier.

Saw the same thing fishy pointed out, macro slot was always scum but never voted. SA, funky, alice, funky, alice, LS - all received votes when they could have gone to macroslot.

Post 141 caught my attention, seemed like a softball question to Malee, could be a bit of coaching.

What I really don't like, and this is what makes me think kortul is scum, is voting LS at D1 deadline. LS was his strongest town read most of the day and the first time he said anything negative was when he voted him in that post at deadline. Actually he said he couldn't decide between his scum reads so he trusted his town read and sheeped nacho. That could be an attempt to distance from the decision.

D2 is different, as fishy pointed out, but a lot can change after talking with scum partners overnight. Started out voting macro, switched to DCLX at one point, then back to macro at deadline. Kortul does not get credit here for setlling on macro at a key time, or at least it has to be analyzed in the context of not settling on macroslot at ANY time on D1. Being on the macro lynch on D2 does not excuse D1 is what I'm saying. I mean an easy explanation is that kortul decided he didn't want to risk avoiding macro 2 days in a row and/or just decided D2 was the time to bus.

786 was a post that stuck out to me on D2: "@Macro - thank you for the explanation." - seems odd to be thanking the player you're voting and had though was scum the whole game.

I think kortul fits pretty damn well with macroscumpartner

vote: kortul

Good point about the LS vote, it does look pretty awful. I take your point about scum talking overnight, but I still think kortul's D2 is a relatively unlikely one from a partner - if he's going to deviate from "bus Macro" to put the

first vote

on DCL, why come back to the Macro wagon when things get interesting? That's the bit I can't really reconcile with kortulscum.

[Fishythefish]

Oh. Somehow I had kortul voting Macro

after

I shifted to DCL, which isn't what happened at all. OK, kortul goes shooting up to near the top of the scum-with-macro stakes.

Currently iso'ing my scumpool for non-Macro play.

[Fishythefish]

Reading more generally my current scumpool of {Magua, hiplop, SA, kortul}:

Alice/Magua

- I thought Alice's early play on hiplop was pretty scummy; it looked like Alice was trying to stir things up between Rhinox and hiplop, which I read (then and now) as town v town. I dropped Alice as a scumread because funky and theo (my other scumreads at that point) were voting her. Actually, that's a point I missed yesterday; this post from theo:

Going back to post 304. I find it interesting that after being questioned on the lack of interaction with me Alice asks

exactly

the same question as Last, and nothing else. Especially of note is

Ugh Malee.

@Malee's replacement: I want a list of reads from you ASAP

and then no comment on my reads at all (original emphasis). I find this a little strange. I've revised my reading of Alice.

VOTE: Alicewondering

Scum pointing out that their interaction with a buddy looks forced and not genuine? Seems pretty unlikely.

I don't have many strong feelings about this slot. I don't much like Magua's stance on me, but that's a) not uncommon when people call me scum and b) a matter for another post.

hiplop

Yeah, I still think hiplop is town because of his play in his early game argument with Rhinox - it's a very genuine looking tunnelling. See my 322 - there are things in hiplop's play on Rhinox that only townies with a severe case of confirmation bias do. I can't see scum saying

Nacho, my mind is lapsing atm, on the connection :\

On the latter, im working on it. I'm having to make a jump with this case, and I feel I need to make the bridge before doing so.

In the context, this amounts to "I don't know the connection between the two people I linked as scum. One of them isn't scummy, so I'm having to make this link and then call him scummy". It's not something scum would ever admit to.

Outside of this, nothing jumps out at me. I don't really know what to make of his recent responses to me - both times he replies to "why did you do [some weird thing]?" with "I guess I misunderstood how the game was". I suppose that's plausible. It even smacks a bit of hiplop remembering his motivation (and hence it being genuine) - scum would be more likely to go back and justify themselves.

kortul

I still feel essentially the same as I did here:

kortul I don't really know about. His posting reads fine, but there's nothing really controversial in there.

Nothing kortul says is particularly scummy. But nothing feels "risky" - there's nothing there that could really start an argument with anyone. Also, this just jumped out at me:

Fishy is back and kicking, after he voted DDD his wagon skyrocketed to L-1 in less then a day, but that's more because of last will mechanics, since Fishy + Rhinox together weigh 4 votes.

I wonder if this is kortul telling Macro to hammer? I really don't know why kortul would make this post otherwise. It's the only bit of "commentary" I can find in his ISO.

SA

SA's made a few decent cases on unfashionable targets. It feels like he's scumhunting - as scum, his choice of targets would be pretty odd. If it weren't for some fairly serious PoE, he'd be nowhere near a scumlist.

So. I'm thinking it's Magua or kortul for me. And wagons are better than not-wagons.

VOTE: kortul

[Fishythefish]

Your scumread on me was for "Way too much equivocating, vacillating, way too little in terms of actual reads or trying to do shit.". When I and someone else said that that wasn't a scumread, you said it was for me - you brought up LWIII as a town game where I didn't play like this, and Trader Mafia as a scum game where I did. I said that the Trader Mafia example is nothing like this, and that my other scum games aren't either. If you really think I'm scum because this flopping around matches my scum meta, that should be highly relevant, and responding simply that you read my meta is totally inadequate.

I find it rather adequate. I've discounted the list of people who I have reason to believe are town. I have left a very small list of people who I think can be scum. Of those, I find you are the most likely to be scum. This lasts until I find some reason to think that you're not scum (hasn't happened yet) or I find someone to be more likely scum than you (also hasn't happened yet).

As is, what you've posted is a defense of yourself to me and to DCL, but again without any indication of who you think is scum. And it's D3 with 4 flips.

Will reevaluate when you actually post scumreads.

The PoE is completely reasonable. So is demanding content, which I had promised and have now delivered.

The only reason you've given for me being scum is here, where you said that I did "Way too much equivocating, vacillating, way too little in terms of actual reads or trying to do shit.". Here you clarified that this was a scumtell because it's a meta-scumtell for me. I think that is wrong, and drastically wrong - equivocating and vacillating are not at all in my scumgame, as I pointed out here and here. Out of my last 6 scum games, 4 make reasonable comparisons, and in all of them I was consistent and focussed.

Do you still think that "Way too much equivocating, vacillating, way too little in terms of actual reads or trying to do shit." is a good meta-scumtell for me? If so, you should be able to justify that by pointing to a game where, as scum, my play could be described as that. If not, why do you think I'm scum other than PoE?

[Fishythefish]

Still too much work after the vacation to finish the analysis. So just a quick answer to rhinox/fishy "accusations".

For me vote isn’t an idol, but a working tool. I use it to grab an attention, apply pressure, make a statement, choose a lynch near deadline. I place it where I feel it is needed at the moment. Other tools are observations, questions. If I am sitting on someone for a long time, it means that other tools suffice, my vote isn’t needed somewhere else and this player is my main suspect atm. In all other cases I explain why I vote for someone, ask a question with a vote, or make a case. So look at the context of my votes, not statistics.

Don’t have time to do an ISO on myself, from memory during the day 1 Malee replaced and theo disappeared after I asked them questions, so voting them to catch an attention was useless, I used my tool elsewhere. Macro was all the time at L-2 or L-1, was answering questions willingly, and he wasn’t my main or only suspect, so no additional pressure was needed there, and I am always against ending the day earlier.

Post 141 – asking for thoughts and reads is a coaching now? I asked the very same thing half of the players through the course of this game.

Rhinox, don’t tell me about voting town reads near deadline, just look at yourself and fishy. I didn’t blindly jumped on LS, it took me more than a day to reassess the cases on him and whether I still believe him. LS was my town read for most of the day 1, our thoughts on who is suspicious were the same, he was actively searching. I had some doubts after his switch from Alice and said so, and after Nacho interrogation I found out, that LS lied about some things, and my doubts increased. The last blow to my read was his switch from Macro after Macro voted him – it didn’t fit my picture of LS town at all, especially the explanations. Since it was a day before the deadline, and all three wagons were on those whom I suspect, I decided to follow Nacho, who seemed to have a better picture of what is going on.

And forgive my ignorance, I wasn’t aware that courtesy is frown upon on this forum. If I suspect someone in a game, he/she is still a human being, and i talk the same way as I do in real life. I asked Macro

to do

something, he did, so I thanked him.

Fishy is back and kicking, after he voted DDD his wagon skyrocketed to L-1 in less then a day, but that's more because of last will mechanics, since Fishy + Rhinox together weigh 4 votes.

I wonder if this is kortul telling Macro to hammer? I really don't know why kortul would make this post otherwise. It's the only bit of "commentary" I can find in his ISO.

Fishy, you are strawmanning here, what Macro has to do with this comment? He was already sitting on DDD at that moment. Why i made this post? I express my thoughts/feelings/concerns all the time, and this caught my attention - the first time i saw lastwill mechanics in action (your wild jumps to 4nx and DCL are pretty good examples as well).

Re: the last bit. You're quite right; I was confusing the situation with the other time DDD reached L-1 (when Macro wasn't on the wagon). My interpretation doesn't make any sense, and I don't think your post is scummy.

About LS - the problem isn't voting a townread to get a deadline lynch. The problem is voting a townread

over a scumread

at deadline when both are viable lynches - from absolutely everything you'd said in the game that point, I'd have expected you to vote Macro rather than LS at that point. And your reasons for going for LS at that point aren't that great - the main point seems to have been his move onto DDD, which you billed as "appeasing Macro and moving to a weaker target". Well, Macro was the leading wagon at the time, so it doesn't look much like a move to an easier lynch. And appeasing Macro would be pretty secondary when he was a lynch rival. So, I'm struggling to see your thought process as town here, and it's a very convenient move for scum.

[Fishythefish]

Not hammering kortul. Not interested in a claim from kortul at the moment, either.

I don't think kortul is scum, but even if kortul is scum, he's bussing scum, which I'm ok with. Much more interested in finding the non-bussing scum in the very small group of (fishy, DDD, SA), and I don't think it's DDD. So.

Do you still think that "Way too much equivocating, vacillating, way too little in terms of actual reads or trying to do shit." is a good meta-scumtell for me?

Yes.

If so, you should be able to justify that by pointing to a game where, as scum, my play could be described as that. If not, why do you think I'm scum other than PoE?

TBH, I can't be fucked to go through your previous games because after reading Last Will III and Trader Mafia I just don't care anymore. Your posts have been so far today a defense of yourself, you saying that kortul is a very strong townread, and then upon being pointed out that one of his votes was timed differently, being all over his lynch. It's so very meh.

You say that SA has been reasonably scumhunting. What reasonable scumhunting has he been doing D3?

@kortul:

Kindly be voting.

OK, Magua doesn't give a fuck whether I'm scum.

1. I replied to his meta about Trader Mafia, which is totally wrong. Even if he can't be bothered to check out my other scum games (which he said he had), he should at least be able to say why he thinks that one is like here. He's got one point on me, which is that I've been changing my mind and having weak reads. This isn't a scumtell, and it absolutely isn't a scumtell for me.
2. On kortul. kortul is a "very strong townread"? Where? How on earth does Magua reach this conclusion? I had kortul as mildly unlikely to be a buddy, and one of the big reasons (his switch back to Macro) was based on something that was factually inaccurate.
3. The summary of my posts today. Seriously? Today, I've defended myself, sure. I've also posted analysis of every single player in the game. I don't think that analysis is at all bad. What more do you want from my posting?

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Magua

This total garbage of a case on me, plus Alice's strong day 1 links to Macro, make me think Magua is scum.

---

On SA: that's fair, he's done bugger all today, and it would make sense that he'd want to keep his head down as scum.

@SA

: who's scum? Why haven't you been doing anything recently?

[Fishythefish]

No stances or reads? Bollocks. It's pretty clear from my posting that DDD, DCL, and Voided are all very likely town, that you and kortul are scummy, and that SA and hiplop are possible but unlikely scum. Sure, there's nothing I've said that says "X is 100%, definitely scum" - I don't think scumhunting is that easy - but I'm drawing very clear lines between people. What is scummy about that? Do town always think there's one person who's ridiculously scummy? Why do scum gain from taking firm stances, but posting "Meh" analysis?

My response on SA: IMO, SA's done some good scumhunting on other days. You asked "what scumhunting has SA done today". I was all like "well, none today". What the hell else do you expect me to say?

@SA

: any idea when you'll have time to do a reread?

[Fishythefish]

I left Rhinox out of the above list of reads, because TBH I'm not sure what I've said about him recently. He's also a very firm townread, for the same reason he has been through the game - there's lots in his play that's very unlikely from Rhinoxscum.

[Fishythefish]

@Magua: do you have any response to this:

No stances or reads? Bollocks. It's pretty clear from my posting that DDD, DCL, and Voided are all very likely town, that you and kortul are scummy, and that SA and hiplop are possible but unlikely scum. Sure, there's nothing I've said that says "X is 100%, definitely scum" - I don't think scumhunting is that easy - but I'm drawing very clear lines between people. What is scummy about that? Do town always think there's one person who's ridiculously scummy? Why do scum gain from taking firm stances, but posting "Meh" analysis?

My response on SA: IMO, SA's done some good scumhunting on other days. You asked "what scumhunting has SA done today". I was all like "well, none today". What the hell else do you expect me to say?

@SA

: any idea when you'll have time to do a reread?

Which players in this game is currently clearer in their stances and reads than me?

[Fishythefish]

You misunderstand. I'm not saying "being equivocating" is a general scumtell. I don't, as a rule, believe in general scumtells. I'm saying it's a scumtell for *you*.

The guidelines I'm using to judge you, and, say, hiplop, are so radically different it beggars the imagination. hiplop's "Fishy wagon isn't moving, time to vote someone else" is so entirely completely illogical that were you, or Rhinox, or DDD to make that statement I'd be all over them like bacon on more bacon. But it's hiplop, so I'm all meh.

As to this conversation, I know you're scum, you know you're scum, you're not going to convince me otherwise, so let's move on to a conversation that might be productive: Who, besides myself, do you think is scum? Not "has a chance of being scum" or weasel words like that, but actually believe is scum?

OK, that's fair. I mean, it's kind of strange that you are holding me to a standard which I suspect

noone

in this game is meeting, but there we go.

I'm not scum. I'm also not convinced this conversation is useless; you've talked an enormous quantity of bullshit about me, and even if your read on me is set in stone I need to figure out if that's because you are scum.

First, to answer your question; I think you and kortul are very likely scum. If those are weasel words, call me a weasel; I'm not 100% sure, and I'm not going to tell you I am to please you.

Now, here, again, are my unanswered problems with your case:
1. You accuse me of equivocating, of not taking stances, having reads, etc. That is somewhat fair on other days, though I think you've exaggerated that, but today is a bizarre accusation. There are two people in this game I think are head and shoulders scummier than anyone else in it; there are two more in the middle; and there are four I think are all town. Those are some pretty firm stances. And why do scum equivocate and have flimsy reads? The only real reason is that they want to be flexible in who they can vote for - which I am absolutely not here.
2. You say that 1) is a meta scumtell for me. You cite Trader Mafia. I have gone through Trader Mafia day by day, showing that the comparison is terrible. I've also linked to all my recent scumgames. For someone who is relying on meta to make their case, you effectively ignoring these posts is horrible. My typical scum game can be summarised as "Pick a target. Get them lynched. Repeat until town is dead.". You are attacking me for a meta-scumtell that's actually a huge meta-towntell.

You've also really be stretching to try to make more points on me. There have been a couple inaccuracies in your recent attacks on me, first on my kortul read, and secondly on SA (where you went after me for answering your question). These mistakes aren't scummy in themselves, but show that you are trying hard to find extra things to add to the case on me. That could be tunnelled town, but you don't really strike me as tunnelled here - there are things I'd have expected tunnelled town to make into a point against me (particularly the way I called Macro town over and over again).

@Everyone who isn't Magua:

Read me and Magua in double iso. He's consistently avoided engaging me on my meta, which is the bedrock of his case. His accusation that I haven't had reads or stances and/or that they've changed a lot is exaggerated for D1 and D2, and today is complete nonsense. I think it's pretty blatant that Magua isn't currently thinking about I'm saying or why, but instead looking for anything he can pick at, any way at all to keep up is spin that I'm not doing anything.

---

@Magua: I disagree with your "low hanging fruit" (though I am voting for one of them). While there is a smallish scumpool of people off the Macro wagon, lots of the ones

on

it are very likely town, so if you think it likely that someone bussed that person is very likely to be kortul. In this position, 1/3 just isn't good odds.

[Fishythefish]

@Magua: I disagree with your "low hanging fruit" (though I am voting for one of them). While there is a smallish scumpool of people off the Macro wagon, lots of the ones on it are very likely town, so if you think it likely that someone bussed that person is very likely to be kortul. In this position, 1/3 just isn't good odds.

I don't actually think that Macrophage was bussed at all.

Or to put it another way, there's a 100% chance in my mind, and as far as I can tell, everyone else's, that (Magua, Fishy, Sleepless, DCL) contains at least 1 scum.

There is a non-insignificant chance (for me, personally, > 66%) that it contains 2 scum. If this is the case, kortul is, of course, town.

So, FMPOV, for someone to vote kortul over (Magua, Fishy, Sleepless, DCL) should require like some next-level leap in confidence that kortul is actually scum, because lynching someone from the pool, myself included, who is town, still helps in reducing the size of the pool that I feel that both of the scum will be found in. Lynching kortul, if he's town, does nothing.

OK. Why don't you think Macro was bussed?

VOTE: Fishythefish

I think that equivocating/not taking stances/not having reads is correct description for Fishy play in this game, and even today it was true before Magua called him on this - after that me and Magua are his firm scum reads. What i find even more strange now, that while his scumreads were weak, his town read on Macro was strong enough to defend it. His defense of himself by giving a list of meta examples that his scum play is different is rather meh, since if the playstile changes are obvious, and he is aware of the difference, he can play against this meta whenever he likes. But such a playstile allows activity that i see from him for two days already - claim hunthing. During day 1 Fishy was following LS, but all those wagons died except for Macro. Next day was more productive, since he got 2-3 claims under the belt until the day ended (depending whether DCL is scum or not). Today he found two new targets.

A few questions/comments on this:
1) What exactly do you mean by equivocating/not taking stances/not having reads? I think I've taken quite a lot of stances throughout the game. If you mean that my reads haven't been that strong, and have changed quite a lot, then that's not too far wrong.
2a) Whatever your answer to 1), why is that a scumtell? As in, why do scum do it, and why aren't I just town whose scumreads haven't been that strong?
2b) You seem to think my play today, specifically, is scummy. I think I spent a few days catching up - and saying I was - and then started posting good content that took firm positions. Do you disagree with that assessment? Why is my play today likely to come from scum?
3) What's the contradiction between having weak scumreads and strong townreads? That's where I've been all game, and I don't see why it's unlikely or scummy at all. I find it much more common for people to do things that scum wouldn't do than things that town wouldn't do.
4) On meta: I only gave a meta defence because Magua's attack is entirely

a meta attack

- check out his posting on me. I've never asked anyone else to look at that meta, although if they do I certainly won't complain. What should I have done when Magua said "X is a meta scumtell for you" and I know that to be completely false?
5) So, you think I'm scum who wagons people for claims? Scum's main activities (IMO) are a) trying to look town and b) trying to lynch townies. How important do you think getting claims is compared to those? Imagine yourself as scum. Would "getting claims out of townies" ever be the principle that dictated your entire strategy?
6) A minor point, but if you check your D1 facts you'll find I did hop around a lot, but a lot of the time the wagons followed me rather than the other way round (IIRC on Rhinox, Malee and one other I was leading or early on the wagon). Characterising me as wagoning scum (or wagoning town) isn't accurate for a lot of the wagons I was on, so your picture of claim hunting scum doesn't fit that well.

@DDD: I don't see a problem with SA's play near deadline. Compromising in a deadline lynch situation is sensible, and the fact that he was wrong (assuming you're town, which I pretty much do) doesn't make it scummy.

Sorry I'm so focused on my own case right now. I'm hoping to get some reads out of it.

[Fishythefish]

But... don't you think I'm scum? So scum

would

have secured two votes?

A quick answer.
1)I remember you giving reads only once or twice during the first two days, and flip-flopping a lot.
2a) Did i tell it to be a scumtell? I said that it allows you to perform claim hunting, and that is a scumtell for me.
2b) Today your style is changing, but even when you voted me, your opinion on me was "Nothing kortul says is particularly scummy.", and you picked some commentary that later admitted to be not scummy. Your opinion on Magua was "I don't have many strong feelings about this slot". And once Magua called you on not taking stances and having firm reads, you said your scum reads are strong.
3) Again, did i tell it to be a contradiction? Just now looking back, i find it strange that Macro town read was strong enough to defend it, but scum reads were not strong enough to stick to them or pressure them.
4) Hmm, i'll check Magua and your posts again, i was writing from memory and thought his suspicions were mostly based on you being the experienced mafiascum player. Still, i remember that you posted several links pointing that your town and scum plays are different, so if such a difference exists, you can easily play around it. For experienced players tells based on meta are not reliable, that's why meta defense isn't reliable either. I just explained why i don't take your meta defense into consideration, but at the same time i don't take into consideration meta scumtells either.
5) I am relying on my RL experience, where finding power roles earlier is important for scum survival. Lastwill mechanics means that votes stay in the game, so i doubt scum would be happy to find too many conftown at the end of the game. And Macro flip was

One shot

vanilla cop, which means that scum is limited in a ways of finding who is dangerous for them.
6) Maybe i am wrong on this one, i don't remember exact vote order. But claim hunting can be done with starting wagons as well, though it is usually less productive.

Thanks for this. So, a good summary is that you think I'm scum because I've flip-flopped a lot, and you think that comes from scum because they hunt from claims. Well, I have flip-flopped a lot, in fact because I'm town who's had weak scumreads for much of the game. I guess I don't have much to say in response; I don't think I've ever seen scum sticking their neck out significantly to get a claim, but that's my experience not yours. One thing that definitely doesn't tally with that picture - my play on DDD's claim. I went out of my way for him

not

to have to fullclaim.

Is there anything in particular that you don't think I'd have done as town?

I'm cool with you not taking the meta into consideration; I thought you were attacking me for posting it. On 3), I'm trying to work out why you find it strange - it's not that uncommon for people to have strong townreads and weak scumreads.

I was half ready to jump on kortul for what looked like a rather weak sheep of Magua, but this post makes me feel quite a bit better. His case is coherent, even if it's based on something I don't think is a scumtell at all, and I can see easily it coming from town.

[Fishythefish]

But... don't you think I'm scum? So scum

would

have secured two votes?

I even say this: but you weren't voting him.

Mmmm, rereading, there's a brainfart there, I'm assuming that only the scum with two votes would be doing the bussing, which isn't necessarily true. But the way my mind was working, the scum with the votes would be the busser because they'd be doing it for towncred, in order to get more votes given to them. Pretty sure it's in the scum's interests to centralize the votes, especially if one of the scum is trying to appear uber-townie.

So if there was a bussing scum, I'd expect it to be you, and it's not, so I don't think there was a bussing scum.

Very roundabout rationalization. I do what I can.

OK. I was wondering if you'd accidentally revealed you don't actually think I'm scum, but the bit about me not voting for him means that's not right. Impressively convoluted logic (in a pretty alignment-neutral way, since you're not pushing anything with it).

[Fishythefish]

The problem isn't so much the compromise lynch (which is bad but understandable) but the fact that there was no reason I was the compromise lynch choice for him other than convenience. There's absolutely nothing in his posts in that time period that really suggested that he thought I was scum. Add that to his woefully inadequate play today and the things I mentioned in 969 and I'd still love to have a SA wagon.

Sorry, missed this.

At that point, it was you or Macro - no other wagons had more than a vote. SA didn't have much of a stance on you, but he had talked about a serious Macro townread. In fact, I asked him at the time and he said

Fish, it's down to macro and DDD for today's lynch. DDD is a slight scum read for me and Macro is a strong town read. Easy choice.

Although, I actually now realise this was a fair way out from deadline.

@SA: why did you move onto a "better than nothing" lynch with quite a bit of time left in the day?

On his play today: I don't think doing nothing and admitting it is a good scumtell. Sometimes you just don't have time for a game. It's frustrating, but I think it's much more commonly genuine (from scum or town) than tactical from scum.

[Fishythefish]

@Rhinox, DDD: what do you think of my argument with Magua? I'd value your opinion on whether he looks like scum in it.

[Fishythefish]

@SA: why is me mirroring you "probably not coincidence"? Why I couldn't I just have been thinking the same things as you? IIRC, there was a point where you said something like "Fishy said what I was thinking about the Macro case, but better". Why does us being wrong change that so much?

@DDD: thanks. Yes, I've been puzzling over some things about Magua's attack on me here. There's the way he's not backing up his meta, and the way he's not pushing anything else (ie my staunch defence of a scumbag). To me, the second feels townish, and the first scummish.

I won't have great access this weekend (but should get on occasionally).

[Fishythefish]

I'd much rather SA not be lynched until about Tuesday. I've got stuff to think about in this game - on him, on Magua and perhaps on other things - that I won't be able to do until then. If this hammer-happy town can hold off, that would be great. SA certainly isn't a terrible lynch, but I don't see why people prefer him to the other possibilities (kortul and Mag, basically, and I suppose me) - his lurking today is crap, but why is it scummy?

[Fishythefish]

I'm really struggling to see a decent case against SA. He hasn't done anything today, but I don't see that as saying anything about his alignment. He "settled" on a DDD vote early yesterday, but not ludicrously so. Actually, I really think he's town for this exchange:

DDD, right now, probably fish, then magua, then me. Like I said, fish mirroring me when I was so wrong probably isn't coincidence. Magua is next because he fits as a macro buddy if I take everyone else's word for it. I'm last because I know my role.

@SA: why is me mirroring you "probably not coincidence"? Why I couldn't I just have been thinking the same things as you? IIRC, there was a point where you said something like "Fishy said what I was thinking about the Macro case, but better". Why does us being wrong change that so much?

Fish, I don't know honestly. I've just got a funny feeling about it.

Because I exactly get a "funny feeling" that makes me want to think SA is scum because we shared the same wrong opinion. I think it comes from wanting to shift the blame for being wrong, and I've been trying to suppress it because I'm pretty sure it's illogical and doesn't reflect on SA's alignment. I can't see scumSA thinking to make this up, since it's pretty massively weak as a point against me and doesn't help him at all, so I think he's town on the same wavelength as me.

Reviewing Magua, I still think that his attacks on me are absolutely awful - I won't rehash why here, just see my ISO. But I really can't see anything else that makes me think he's scum, and other people who I think are town and think can think don't see Magua's play on me as hugely scummy. So, I guess I'm all out of strong scumreads - scumpool remains Magua, kortul, SA, hiplop in about that order, but I'm not particularly enthused by any of them.

I'll try to think about things in more detail tomorrow. After that I fear my access will be bad until deadline.

[Fishythefish]

Missed/forgot a couple of things:

Forgot to answer Fishy.

One thing that definitely doesn't tally with that picture - my play on DDD's claim. I went out of my way for him

not

to have to fullclaim.

I think you would do this regardless of alignment, because of this:

Excitement is fair - I like claims (and information-ish situations generally), because it's a part of the game I enjoy.

This was a challenge for your imagination, so not asking for full claim doesn't make you more town or more scum.

Sure, wanting to figure out the role is definitely alignment neutral for me. I was just thinking that the evil claim-hunting scumFishy would want DDD to claim - although I can't say for sure, because he doesn't actually exist.

That was the "Malee flaked maybe we should just lynch her" comment. Could have been distancing / for town cred. I don't think if I made that statment I'd be thinking anyone would actually take it seriously and lynch someone who's being replaced. In 203 he admits it was only semi-serious.

That statement was a half-hearted bitch at the way people forget their scumreads when someone replaces in, and saying we shouldn't let a very scummy slot off the hook. Which I then, of course, proceeded to do. It's hard to see how it would get towncred (or how I'd think it would) - it was never going to look like a serious attempt to lynch Malee.

@SA: yeah, I didn't see Macro's ramblings as as useful as you do - I really don't think many of those one line quotes say much about the alignment of the players concerned. I think people's play on Macro is far more useful - because the wagon was on him, and so the decisions scum took about whether to bus were important - and so my Macro-links are based pretty much entirely off that. Plus counter-wagons - it's likely that DCL and DDD are town because they were the serious rivals to Macro yesterday.

Voided is correct that Rhinox isn't getting lynched.

[Fishythefish]

I'm afraid I'm

V/LA until Sunday

. I'll definitely get on at some point if I'm needed to vote, but I don't know when and probably won't be for long. To recap where I stand, at the moment it looks very much like Magua vs. SA; I'd much prefer a Magua lynch, because he's a great fit with Macroscum and his case on me is the worst thing ever. I don't see much of a case on SA; the wagon seems spurred on to a large degree by his uselessness today, which is annoying but AFAIC not scummy. The thing I pointed out recently is a pretty serious towntell for me; SA expressed an emotion that scum wouldn't have, wouldn't think to fake and didn't help his position, so I can only see it coming from town. If there was a last minute kortul surge I'd prefer that to SA.

[Fishythefish]

Fishy, Magua, DDD and hiplop replacement - what are your thoughts on DCL and my case on him?

@Voided, as far as i understand you are not going to vote DCL today, so can you at least give a feedback to my case?

Your analysis of DCL - particularly on D2 - is rather different from what I've been thinking. I'll go back and take a look at him next time I have a decent chunk of time for this game - which will almost certainly be on Monday. I rather doubt I'll be voting him today.

What do you think of his wagon on D2?

[Fishythefish]

A 3 man masonry in a 13 player game? Seems extremely powerful - 3 confirmed town out the blocks is huge. And more so with this mechanic. The way the dead masons both left Voided their votes is the only thing that makes me wonder if it's real - he's definitely

not

obvtown if not a mason. I think for now it's best to wait and see if he's alive tomorrow.

So. People who I'd consider voting for, in order:
- Magua. His slot has excellent links to our dead scumbag, and his attacks on me - and his way of addressing my replies - was appalling.
- kortul. I think he played a really townish yesterday - he was pushing an unpopular wagon in a genuine looking way, and just seemed to be scumhunting. His defence to me/Rhinox was ok. My instinct is that he's town, but not so hugely that I can rule him out in this PoE-tastic game.
- DCL. The main reason I've been dismissing DCL is that he was a potential counterwagon to Macro. But at this stage, it's certain (FMPOV) that if he was

only

Macro voted him from the scumteam. That seems fairly odd if it was an attempt to save Macro. I definitely need to have a good read of DCL's play - I don't really have much of an opinion right now.

I'm pretty certain I want to
VOTE: Magua

I'll have another weekend of poor access this weekend. Sorry about that.

[Fishythefish]

On further reflection, I'm not sure about my last post. A 3 man masonry seems way too strong.

UNVOTE:

@Rhinox, Magua, anyone: my feeling is that 3 masons would be very unbalanced in a 13 player game where solid townreads are awesome things to have. Do you agree?

[Fishythefish]

OK, I'm up for trusting the opinions of all the people who think Voided mason makes sense.

I don't think Rhinox's reaction says very much - it was an obvious fakeclaim, and I don't know how I'd expect town and scum reactions to it to differ at all. When asked today, it would be weird for Rhinox to say anything other than "I knew it was fake, and was just playing along".

I'm a bit nervous about putting Magua at L-2 when we have a few double voters and I want to read DCL more thoroughly, so I'll hold off voting until I get a chance to do that read.

[Fishythefish]

What do you guys think about massclaiming today? Maybe it could give us something to talk about.

Seems like a good idea - I can't see it helping the scum much given the claims we already have.

[Fishythefish]

My prodding on Fishy was two-fold -- one, I can read him, from another site we used to play on, and I did (and still, to a point, do) find his posts to be scummy, hence my initial posts.

If you can read me using my play on that site, I am... astounded. I can't think of a more different format.

I'm a VT. kortul, you're up.

[Fishythefish]

Spoiler:

End of Day Vote Count

Lastsurvivor (7)

-

nachomamma8

,

4nxi3ty

, DCLXVI,

Macrophage

, Alicewondering, kortul,

hiplop

Macrophage

(3) -

Voidedmafia, Debonair Danny DiPietro

, rhinox

Debonair Danny DiPietro

(3) -

Sleepless Assassin,

fishythefish

,

Lastsurvivor

Vote Count

Macrophage

(7) -

Voidedmafia

,

hiplop

,

Debonair Danny DiPietro,

kortul,

4nxi3ty

, rhinox

DCLXVI

(4) -

Sleepless Assassin

,

Macrophage

,

fishythefish

fishythefish (1) - Magua

Sleepless Assassin

(1) - DCLXVI

Vote Count

Sleepless Assassin

(8) -

Debonair Danny DiPietro

, Magua,

Voidedmafia

, rhinox
Magua (2) -

fishythefish

rhinox (1) -

Sleepless Assassin

DCLXVI (1) - kortul
kortul (1) - DCLXVI

So in my research that led to one of the biggest reasons I’m clearing Fishy I’ve actually found a reasonable amount of evidence for some of the basic VCA assumptions; namely that scum won’t be all on or off a wagon; violations of that principle happened exceedingly rarely in my dataset whether there be two scum or three (didn’t look at large games). Given my other assumptions this really makes rhinox stand out on that D1 vote count.

First thing is more numbers and while rhinox promises more content in his first post on D3 and he does provide it compared to his non-existance at the end of D2 he’s still under the average in terms of posts and a quick check says I had more posts than him and I’m never a paragon of activity.

966 is IIoA, 977 pulls the same “don’t give me town points for that” that I mentioned earlier today, 1060 he gets caught having gone several days without posting again, next two posts are prod talk, his kortul read apparently falls apart and he goes missing again for several days on end; I can’t blame him for his V/LA but I’m having a hard time squaring the fact that he was ready to hammer in 1122 on 5/18; he has one wall post that doesn’t really move the game at all before hammering anyways in 1233 on 5/28. I mean if you’re going to delay things shouldn’t you make use of that time somehow instead it just looks like he’s waiting for a different wagon to emerge or someone else to hammer to keep himself off the wagon.

On re-analysis I gave him town credit for some things on D1, but I think my first instincts were correct and he’s scum.

VOTE: rhinox

I don't agree with this case. Rhinox's (sometimes) poor activity doesn't make him scum - the worst bits were (for me) convincingly explained by Rhinox being slightly lost town. I don't see "that's not really town, actually" as a scumtell at all - as town, I often feel like someone isn't reading me properly if they think I'm town for a poor reason, and if it's strong enough I'll point it out. Particularly if someone else is arguing about whether it's town, like with the end of day Rhinox reaction yesterday - there's no point Rhinox letting you and whoever-it-was fight over whether his reaction is town when he knows it's because SA was obviously fake. Rhinox's end-of-day wait on SA I don't see the scum motivation for, and I don't think is implausible from town.

Also, I figured it would be more likely that I'd be seen as soft-claiming some investigation on him that way, and if I was right (I always think I'm right), more likely that I'd be NK'ed over someone who was actually a PR. (In retrospect, that was never going to happen with the masons, but whatever.)

This feels like town.

On DCL: I didn't like some of his play day 1 - funky was scummy and DCL's push on LS felt wrong to me. OTOH, the strong LS-me link he saw is definitely a towntell - I think group scumhunting is something town do much more than scum fake.

His play day 2 reads weirdly. He doesn't do much for a while, then goes after Macro strongly, and then backs off. One previous post had this tl;dr:

Basically, macros's "case" against me is pure OMGUS fluff aimed at drawing attention away from his wagon and onto to one of his accusers.

There are a lot of claims made in his case that aren't backed up, macro calls parts of my case unatural and another part of it bad and neither time does he try to back up those claims. There is a lot of rhetoric, and little logical analysis and proof behind his attack on me.

and the next was:

...my head says macro is scum, my gut says he is town...dang it I'm going with my gut on this, I'm getting cold feet about lynching macro, this post doesn't feel like scum:

Unvote: Debonair

Can you claim?

unvote:macro
Vote:DDD

While there was a longish break between these, the first doesn't read like someone you are likely to get a gut townread on any time soon, and the reason given in the second feels fairly minor. Can you say where your gut townread came from, DCL?

Meh. Maybe DCL is scum after all. My Magua read is drifting into a gut townread, so I'm really struggling to find two scumbags in this game atm. I should probably read kortul/DCL/Magua in pairs next.

Incidentally, given the post it was made in I think this line is pretty funny:

maybe because I didn't want to start a wall post war. I made my case, you gave your defense, I don't always feel like I need to have the last word.

[Fishythefish]

@Rhinox: what did you think of kortul's play yesterday? Right now, that's what's holding me back from voting for him - I think it looks like town.

[Fishythefish]

I have my internet back, working on finishing the research on Alice/Magua, will think over gathered data and post together with conclusions tomorrow. I begin to think that forum games are not for me - i hate replacements! I find Alice play scummy, and Magua play mostly town with some odd posts. I could easily see DCL-Alice team, but don't see DCL-Magua team. Logic is smoking in the corner...

@Fishy, i wonder, did you have a feeling yesterday that Magua had some kind of investigation on you?

Nope, it never crossed my mind.

[Fishythefish]

Wait, what makes you think Mag even has an investigation?

He doesn't. Rather, Mag was exaggerating his scumread on me in order to appear to have one, in order to get NK'ed when I (theoretically) flipped scum. Plausible, I think, because a) it's exactly the kind of scheme townies produce and b) there have certainly been times when I've been a credible lynch.

So, I don't think soberFishy has the guts to take the plunge and
VOTE: DCL
TBH, I've wanted to do this for a little while and been worried about appearances. It's a bit OMGUSy, it's a bit U-turnish, and I'm just about on the radar enough that I'm concerned about lynched. But at this stage, DCL is about the last person I can vote for without my gut crawling up my neck and strangling me.

[Fishythefish]

3 votes, I think?

[Fishythefish]

And really, "out of curiousity"? Whether you're town or scum, that's just unnecessarily scummy. Who feigns disinterest in their wagon?

[Fishythefish]

Actually, 1313 wasn't calling you scummy. Not sure it came across well, but it was supposed to be pointing out a generic scumtell I'm amazed anyone actually does and think probably doesn't work well.

I don't think kortul's case on you is pitiful. Your day 2 play on Macro does look pretty off, and your day 3 play was very meh - never really felt like you actually cared who got lynched. Sure, I don't have much of a case (though I suspect I've said more about you than vice-versa), because it's mostly PoE. Can you answer the question I asked here about your D2 play?

[Fishythefish]

The only one in which DCL-scum makes sense is if DCL is too scared too hammer DDD to save his partner, but is not, for some reason, too scared to vote DDD when his partner unvotes. That is, the only potential DCL-scum case involves this thought process:

DDD is at L-1, DCL is voting partner
DCL: Man, if I hammer DDD I'll look hella scummy.
Macrophage unvotes DDD
DCL: I better vote DDD so that my partner can hammer, that won't look scummy at all!

This is nonsense. A quick mod/DCL iso shows DCL went on V/LA with the count at Macro 5 (including DCL), 4n 3, DDD 2. He returned at Macro 6, DDD 5, SA 1 and switched his vote. You're crediting DCL with making decisions at times he was definitely not online. I think the actual events fit really well with him being scum; as soon as there was a viable alternative he went for it.

As for your other defense of DCL, I think his wagon doesn't point to him being town, particularly if you believe I'm town. Only Macro joined it who could be scum - not exactly a serious counterwagon, and could easily be a flailing bus from Macro.

[Fishythefish]

@Magua:

1. Interesting. DCL not posting here for two days could just be because he wasn't up to speed and couldn't be bothered to become so, but it definitely seems less likely he'd have done that as scum.
2. Again, interesting - points to DDD scum, although Macro did move to DDD (with "intent to hammer") pretty fast. But I don't see how it says anything about DCL's alignment.

[Fishythefish]

Also, Voided, allow me to *strongly* suggest that you order your list so that it has a townread in both the first and the last spot.

This seems very sensible (for everyone, and particularly for Voided).

[Fishythefish]

My reads atm:

- Voided and Rhinox are still town. A note on Voided - if he's real he's dying tonight, since everyone believes him. So if YOU die tonight (and you aren't Voided), Voided may well be fake. Despite being probtown, he's probably therefore a silly person to have at the top of your will unless you are being lynched today.
- DDD is probtown. Macro not hammering him is a decent point against him, but it's outweighed by the wagon on him at the same time as the one on Macro, and the claim which I think is likely town.
- Nullish read on kortul. His play today and yesterday has looked genuine and protown, and until then I had no strong feelings about him. Fits well with Macro scum.
- Very mixed feelings on Mag. Alice fits really well with being a Macro partner, and Magua fits fine. But most of his play in the game has felt townish, except his attacks on me. He's my no. 2 scumread right now.
- DCL's play day 2 fits well with him being scumpartners with Macro - he went hard after Macro, but only until it looked like Macro had a chance of surviving, when he backed off quickly. This looks exactly like you'd expect from scum trying to save their partner, and failing that look good.

Urgh. Just looked at 518 again in Rhinox's post. Do I

really

believe that DCL as scum did a comparative wagon analysis of two wagons on scumbags (him and Macro) in order to link two townies (me and LS)? No. I just can't see scum doing that. Scum don't draw attention to similarities with their partner, scum don't group scumhunt, scum don't like wagon analysis.

UNVOTE:

Bleh. I think the right move here is

VOTE: Magua

Links with Alice, dishonest case on me, and seems clever enough that my gut read on him could be wrong.

[Fishythefish]

That's a great claim from DDD. Well done all three scum, a really neatly played game.