Newbie 1596: Exotic Birds (Game Over)

[saad]

@Argos That's what I think now too. When BBT was doing it it seemed like BBT knew what they were doing but I no longer think it was a good idea. The last paragraph of 183 is my current opinion on this technique. The post you quoted was an attempt to remember what I was thinking at the time at Wanderer's request.

What we got out of saad was not all that convincing, most people seemed to be dropping it not because they believed the claim but just because they wanted to focus on other people too.

Slight town lean on argos for now because I like his contributions so far. I am trying not to townlean him just because of that metaphor at the end of 182 because I know writing evocatively is not indicative of alignment but it's probably influencing my townlean anyway. He also hasn't said anything yet that I disagree with, which is also not alignment indicative but it's nice.

i like this guy and i completely disagree that argos has towntold.

[singersigner]

@Plotinus...if you think I might be next to go because I'm "the best scumhunter" (I assume that fallacy is due to my IC status??) then why do you think BBT was night-killed before me, since by your logic, I should've been first regardless.

With regards to your question in Post186: voting is absolutely good for pressure, and BBT said it exactly right when he proclaimed that you should give notice when you put someone at L-1, and also when you intend to hammer. We should be held accountable for our votes, when we do it, and if we can afford to without risking someone doing exactly what you did D1. Only vote if you're confident you can leave the day satisfied with their lynch. Pressure votes will come naturally and shouldn't necessarily be projected because that would defeat the purpose of pressure and gauging the reactions you're looking to analyze. They should also be "self-monitored" because if you're only voting for pressure, you should be willing to take it off the minute you're satisfied with what the pressure achieved if it's anything but a scumread.

Actually, I don't believe him at all. He claimed villager. It clearly states in the setup and the sample role PM's that the role is called Vanilla Townie.

I'm inclined to agree with this.

Also, just as a side note; this level of activity in a newbie is fantastic.

Hopefully it keeps up.

IT KEPT UP TOO WELL.

[Wanderer-nl]

(...)

Actually, I don't believe him at all. He claimed villager. It clearly states in the setup and the sample role PM's that the role is called Vanilla Townie.

I'm inclined to agree with this.

(...)

Could you elaborate on why you chose to add this quote to your post?

[Plotinus]

@Saad Townlean is weaker than townread. I don't have a list of towntells memorised and most of them can be faked anyway. I just have some early game positive feelings towards Argos for now.

@singer: Thanks for the explanation. I think I will avoid pressure votes until I have some idea of what I'm trying to accomplish with them, then.

About the "best scumhunter" thing: BBT was very enthusiastically scumhunting on Day 1. You weren't because you were at work and the day was cut short. However, as IC, and as a person with a green name, as someone who has been here for 4.5 years, we can guess that you know something about this game, that you have learned something about how to read people, that you know when to trust your feelings and when not to, that you've seen newbie scum in many different games and you have some idea of what to look for. Of course this is all conjecture because we haven't seen it in action, but it's an educated guess. As IC, your advice is more likely to help us pull off a town victory.

I'm not saying we should all sheep you because we do need to learn to think for ourselves (or I need to learn anyway), but I do think that if I were scum and if I didn't have any leads on powerroles, if nobody was mod confirmed town, and there was nobody I wanted to policy lynch for being annoying, then I would go after the best scumhunters, the IC, and leave alive whoever looked the most confused. I've given it some thought (especially the policy lynch part), but I keep drawing town-aligned roles so I can't actually test my thoughts.

So that's why I think both that you are more likely than the rest of us to be night killed and why I think you weren't killed night 1.

[Argos]

At the time, I thought BBT's point was better, 125 didn't convince me but it should have. Looking at it again, this quote from mofo jumps out at me: "I was planning to call you out no matter who you jumped to." it seemed like he was saying that he'd be suspicious of BBT no matter what.


Yes, it was carelessness, and that's separate from early voting. The earliness is why my feelings about everyone were still weak, in hindsight perhaps too weak to justify voting at all.

I guess I figured (sheeping BBT) that we'd get him up to L-1 and he'd squirm like saad did and then we'd be able to compare them with each other.

Skold, how are you doing? Who are you townreading at the moment?

The problem is what exactly did we get from saad squirming? A vanilla townie claim? I may be missing some theory point but the idea of cornering everyone one by one and threatening them with a lynch if they don't claim good for town at all as I think it's more likely for a power role to reveal themselves under pressure than scum just going "ok I'm scum."

"I don't find the idea of cornering everyone one by one and threatening them with a lynch good for town at all" sorry, kind of confusing the way I wrote it at first.

There was literally only a little over an hour between saad's claim and plotinus' unexpected hammer on mofo. There never was time to get something decent out of saad.

Yes, but why move on to pressuring mofo so quickly when we hadn't gotten much out of saad? I suppose it's a moot point now, because that sudden shift in 'pressure' came from one of the only confirmed townies thus far (BBT).

[Wanderer-nl]

Yes, but why move on to pressuring mofo so quickly when we hadn't gotten much out of saad? I suppose it's a moot point now, because that sudden shift in 'pressure' came from one of the only confirmed townies thus far (BBT).

Rereading that part of the thread, it sort of makes sense. There was high activity so things got worked out quickly. saad thought BBT was tunnelling too much and BBT agreed and later unvoted.

It would be a ballsy play to call anyone else like that. As far as your alignment, I am inclined to believe saad that you are town.

You're inclined to believe someone you're scum-reading?

What?

He was still questioning saad at the time too.

Then this

It would be a ballsy play to call anyone else like that. As far as your alignment, I am inclined to believe saad that you are town.

You're inclined to believe someone you're scum-reading?

What?

I guess believe is the wrong word. I agree with him (in thinking that you're town).

I'm also amazed by the activity level.

after which BBT voted mofo.

I really dislike BBT and plotinus didn't check votecount, there wasn't enough to read mofo yet. I don't think agreeing with a read that was made by (possible) scum is necessarily exclusive to other (possible) scum.

[Wanderer-nl]

That ^ was actually the awkwardness I was referring to when I unvoted saad.

[Wyvernite]

I'm not saying we should all sheep you because we do need to learn to think for ourselves

(or I need to learn anyway), but I do think that if I were scum and if I didn't have any leads on powerroles, if nobody was mod confirmed town, and there was nobody I wanted to policy lynch for being annoying, then I would go after the best scumhunters, the IC, and leave alive whoever looked the most confused. I've given it some thought (especially the policy lynch part), but I keep drawing town-aligned roles so I can't actually test my thoughts.

I'm agreeing with the bolded part, but wanted to elaborate. There are very few situations I've found where sheeping as town benefits town at all. Usually you'd be sheeping someone because

a) You don't have any worthwhile contributions of your own to make, but want to look busy/productive, so you sheep someone. (scummy)
b) if the person you're sheeping dies, and flips town, you want it to make you look better, because you defended them. Actively seeking for everyone approval, and trying to get a town read is in and of itself scummy.
c) You want to make someone innocent look bad by sheeping them, and then flipping mafia. (again, obviously very scummy)

Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, and you should use your own discretion, but in general those points stand.
------------------------------------------
The amount of activity in this game is crazy! I'll be posting my reads within the next few hours, unless something comes up which would prevent me from doing so.

[singersigner]

Yeah please don't sheep me for the sake of sheeping. I will offer what I can, but I'm certainly not infallible, and in fact have lost a lot of newbie games lately (minus the most recent one I was scum in).

That being said, I quoted BBT because I, also, "am inclined to agree" with that statement.

So. I basically have two theories right now:
1. Newbie scum tend to be fairly obvious when put under suspicion. I know people don't really agree with NKA (night kill analysis) that often, but there wasn't a whole lot of time to process much that went on D1, so they didn't have much to work with. I actually found BBT suspicious for the way he took control of the town because it resembled my last game with him where he was my scum buddy, but then he flipped town and obviously that went away. In that way, I want to lynch saad.

2. ICs often get NKed first. I find that I either get NKed first or make it to endgame in newbie games (this is all as town because I've only ever ICed as scum once). Granted, I didn't contribute much because of work and how long the day was, but the last time I had few contributions due to replacing in late, I was NKed anyway because scum wanted to get rid of someone who couldn't be used for NKA due to lack of information. Anyway! My other theory was that when not actively being scumread, maybe I was kept alive do to a townread I'd state that was wrong. In that way, I'd alternatively lynch Wanderer.

I think my second theory is much more shallow than the first, so unless I convince myself I'm wrong about my town read, I'm not going there yet.

[saad]

Yeah please don't sheep me for the sake of sheeping. I will offer what I can, but I'm certainly not infallible, and in fact have lost a lot of newbie games lately (minus the most recent one I was scum in).

That being said, I quoted BBT because I, also, "am inclined to agree" with that statement.

So. I basically have two theories right now:
1. Newbie scum tend to be fairly obvious when put under suspicion. I know people don't really agree with NKA (night kill analysis) that often, but there wasn't a whole lot of time to process much that went on D1, so they didn't have much to work with. I actually found BBT suspicious for the way he took control of the town because it resembled my last game with him where he was my scum buddy, but then he flipped town and obviously that went away. In that way, I want to lynch saad.

2. ICs often get NKed first. I find that I either get NKed first or make it to endgame in newbie games (this is all as town because I've only ever ICed as scum once). Granted, I didn't contribute much because of work and how long the day was, but the last time I had few contributions due to replacing in late, I was NKed anyway because scum wanted to get rid of someone who couldn't be used for NKA due to lack of information. Anyway! My other theory was that when not actively being scumread, maybe I was kept alive do to a townread I'd state that was wrong. In that way, I'd alternatively lynch Wanderer.

I think my second theory is much more shallow than the first, so unless I convince myself I'm wrong about my town read, I'm not going there yet.

so in the two games you've ic'ed in as scum, what sort of townies were kept alive? i see quite an influential townie in BBT was killed last night, explain that one to me.

[singersigner]

Wow, I'm dumb...I read the OP to confirm who the SEs were, and was like "when did Flying Around replace into this game?" >_>

ALSO. I changed my mind after reading Skold's ISO. It's pretty terrible! Out of 9 posts, he makes a couple of jokes and then ultimately shows up to throw out a random theory to land on something he hasn't even bothered looking into himself yet. Regardless of how long this game has actually been open (about two and a half real life days' worth of posting), he still hasn't bothered being actively engaged or providing anything substantial to the game. Reads a lot like flying under the radar.

vote: Skold

Preview Edit:
I've only been scum once (in my last game) as an IC. I also don't really feel comfortable answering that question because I feel like it's spoon feeding scum the right way to play. I think that even if you're not scum, the scum team could inadvertently be coached by my answer and therefore potentially not be caught based on an ideal play.

You're right that BBT was influential. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking me to explain to you...

[Wanderer-nl]

PEdit (yes in front) wow this post turned out big. It's my stance right now and would like everybody to respond (agree/disagree+reason)

Hey BBT. Been a very short while

short while is an oxymoron and an oxymoron is a contradiction between two words (the word oxymoron in itself is an oxymoron; with oxy meaning dull in latin and moron meaning sharp). only the scum contradict because THEY are the ones lying.

VOTE: Skold

Other way around, and greek, not latin

reason still stands, blame my source.

This thing is making me think saad and Skold aren't scumbuddies. saad seems very newb to me and I don't think he'd bus as scum.
Maybe saad and plotinus are scumbuddies. saad was overly defensive with my random vote, and also when plotinus was voted.

This sounds coach-y

I'm glad you didn't claim a powerrole. Way too early in the game for that.

And the only interaction they have is first when plotinus corrects saad with the oxymoron stuff, and later when she suggests to saad to replace into games. I think that's odd because saad was at L-1 at some point and to me it feels Plotinus was avoiding that bandwagon, and very happy to join on mofo. Her explanation on finding BBT suspicious to joining the bw to disliking his tactic after BBT flips town seems a little convenient to me.


Defending saad:

Actually, I don't believe him at all. He claimed villager. It clearly states in the setup and the sample role PM's that the role is called Vanilla Townie.

I'm inclined to agree with this.

Not a plays-the-game-on-some-other-site-too slip?

He may well do.

I find it more likely that he would use the terminology given in his role PM though.

fair enough.

re:94 I think it can be a good tactic for scumbuddies to fight each other early on and then make up. that logic would make more sense of saad was also scumreading BBT though, especially since he's doing OMGUS for everyone else.

To me this looks like Plotinus disagrees with BBT but is letting it slide. Plotinus is entertaining the idea of BBT and saad as scumbuddies but seems to come to the conclusion that saad sn't bussing BBT so that theory makes little sense. (That's my interpretation of her words)

Plotinus basically saying she doesn't suspect saad right now but might later:

It will depend on how they behave today. I think it can be hard to distinguish between newbie and scummy -- to use examples from our last game, ducks who seemed (to me) scum but was newbie and mainez who seemed newbie but was scum, but it's worth keeping an eye on them.

people only wanna play as town, if i replace i'd likely get a scum slot from a guy who lurked because he flipped scum.

So what I'm reading from this is that Saad doesn't want to be mafia, he wants to be town, and that if he were mafia he would lurk until he was replaced. I disagree with his premise about what other people want to play, but do think that he believes it. Him not lurking is not evidence either way (because he could have been lying), but if he does start lurking after this I'll be more suspicious of him.

I think if we're dealing with two newbie scum, then it's 2 of [skold, saad, argos] (mostly by process of elimination on "newbie" and "scum"). We've only seen 9 posts from Skold so far, and only a few of substance. We've seen even less of Argos (just 2 posts). It is entirely possible they were sleeping or at work like singer during the entire 7 hour day, so complete null read on them.

House said something last game -- even though he was scum I think he was telling the truth about this part -- about a good way to distinguish IC town from IC scum, so I think we can fairly confidently wait and see what will happen with singer and how she plays this week. If singer is town then I do think we're dealing with 2 newbie scum. If singer is not town it is entirely too early to be guessing who her buddy is but probably one of the candidates for newbie scum.

Anyway, I'd trust your instincts about who to watch.

who even is our remaining SE? *checks* oh, Skold. But he's only been on the site for a couple months so he might still feel like a newer player? I looked over his completed games very briefly and I didn't find a completed scum game, so if he is scum then i'll count him in the newbie category.

[Wanderer-nl]

Trying to prolong RVS ^^.

Scummy.

I have no bloody clue if this is serious. But it shouldn't be. Can't we wait until a couple more people have joined? Jesus I have to have OPINIONS already? Fucking OPINIONS? What is the world coming to?

You have to have them now, Skold. Shoot.

[Plotinus]

Disagree. I was spectating his last game, which is ongoing so I can't talk about it, but it gave me some pre-game impressions of him, and my early interactions with him, including the "coaching" were based on those impressions. I have impressions of you too from last game. As the game progresses, I'm forming impressions based on this game, which are more valuable than any pre-game impressions.

I do want players who are town to be visibly town enough that we can avoid mislynching them, but of course the flaw in that is that some people aren't town, so you're probably right that I shouldn't have been doing that. In our last game, you and starkmoon were the only two people I read correctly as town, and I was never 100% sure that you guys were town until the flips. And I was thinking that if everyone who was town could just clearly telegraph that they're town then the whole thing would be much easier. I know the flaw in that argument, that scum could just telegraph that they're town too, that then it would just come down to who was better at telegraphing. But I still feel that way. What I was trying to get across to saad in the RVS stage was "if you're town, please act like it." If he's not, then whatever.

By telegraphing I mean scumhunting with sincerity.

[quote=Wanderer]
I think that's odd because saad was at L-1 at some point and to me it feels Plotinus was avoiding that bandwagon[/quote]

I think by the time I was starting to think about joining the saad wagon, he was both at L-1 and I knew that he was at L-1.


I will probably be voting saad or skold at some point in day 2, probably soon after the next vote count.

saad, because it's really hard to find out why he thinks the things he does and he just puts up votes and takes them off with little explanation and it takes a long, tedious back-and-forth interactions to find out why he does things, and I suspect that he's capable of writing out logically why he thinks the things that he thinks, but he isn't, and maybe he's not giving reasons right away because it's easier to make up an explanation for your behaviour after the fact. I've certainly been finding that it's difficult to remember why I do things if I don't write it down at the time.

skold, are you out of RVS yet?



I am still townreading wanderer and wyvernite, and for now I am townleaning on argos and singer but want to hear more from pretty much everyone.

[Plotinus]

I'm not saying we should all sheep you because we do need to learn to think for ourselves

(or I need to learn anyway), but I do think that if I were scum and if I didn't have any leads on powerroles, if nobody was mod confirmed town, and there was nobody I wanted to policy lynch for being annoying, then I would go after the best scumhunters, the IC, and leave alive whoever looked the most confused. I've given it some thought (especially the policy lynch part), but I keep drawing town-aligned roles so I can't actually test my thoughts.

I'm agreeing with the bolded part, but wanted to elaborate. There are very few situations I've found where sheeping as town benefits town at all. Usually you'd be sheeping someone because

a) You don't have any worthwhile contributions of your own to make, but want to look busy/productive, so you sheep someone. (scummy)
b) if the person you're sheeping dies, and flips town, you want it to make you look better, because you defended them. Actively seeking for everyone approval, and trying to get a town read is in and of itself scummy.
c) You want to make someone innocent look bad by sheeping them, and then flipping mafia. (again, obviously very scummy)

Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, and you should use your own discretion, but in general those points stand.
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The amount of activity in this game is crazy! I'll be posting my reads within the next few hours, unless something comes up which would prevent me from doing so.

I wanted to come back to this. These are really good points that I hadn't thought of before. It's hard because one of the ways people (me, but I think others too) learn things is by copying people who seem to know what they're doing. It's how you get better at chess, painting, programming, etc. When I learned to paint, our teacher had us paint copies of famous artworks so that we could come to understand what was being done by doing it ourselves. To get better at chess, you replay games the masters have played, moving your pieces just as they did and trying to understand what they were seeing when they did that. And in programming it's outright encouraged to copy other people's work (not doing so is reinventing the wheel). The way we learn language is by copying other people's words until they start to mean something.

But I agree with you that sheeping in this game mostly has anti-town utility, even if done with good intentions because the person you're sheeping could be scum or they could just be wrong about their reads or whatever. I want to think about this some more.

[Wanderer-nl]

@Plotinus: how are you going to decide between saad and Skold?

[Plotinus]

It'll come down to who seems the most scummy after more activity from both.

If skold continues lurking and not having opinions, I'll vote skold. If skold becomes active and starts has opinions, I'll make a decision based on how genuine the opinions seem and how much scumhunting he seems to be doing. If there isn't much scumhunting despite an increase in activity, I'll still vote him. If he's doing better scumhunting and interacting than saad I'll probably vote for saad.

If saad starts posting longer, more detailed posts that contain his thoughts and the reasons for having the thoughts -- even if some of his reads are based on gut feelings, but not if all of them are --, and if his reasoning makes sense, so that even if we disagree with him we can understand why he thinks the things he thinks, and if he does some genuine scumhunting and interacting with everybody, then I won't vote for saad. That's a tall order based on saad's earlier participation in this game, and it would take consistent work to get it, but I do think townsaad is capable of it, so if saad is town he should let us know.

I think right now it's more likely I'll vote saad than skold but I do realise the things I'm asking for are easier for a more experienced player to fulfill than a newbie so I'm not sure what to do about that, but the solution isn't to just townread someone for being new (like with mainez last time).

Argos and singer are still in the "I like what I'm seeing so far but I really want to see more of it" category, so there's room for both of them to move up to the strong town read category or down to the scumlean category, and that's also going to be based on their behaviour, specifically the things I talked about with skold and saad.

[Wanderer-nl]

That feels like a rather passive way of scumhunting. What if they don't post?

[Plotinus]

Then they'll be replaced and we can see how their replacements behave.

*looks through saad's ISO again* saad, I guess, because there's more there that looks anti-town. skold is basically a policy lynch for inactivity right now, and process of elimination.

[Wanderer-nl]

Dammit where is everybody else? How am I going to get reads if nobody is responding to what is being written?

[Wanderer-nl]

*Nobody but Plotinus.

[saad]

[saad]

Wow, I'm dumb...I read the OP to confirm who the SEs were, and was like "when did Flying Around replace into this game?" >_>

ALSO. I changed my mind after reading Skold's ISO. It's pretty terrible! Out of 9 posts, he makes a couple of jokes and then ultimately shows up to throw out a random theory to land on something he hasn't even bothered looking into himself yet. Regardless of how long this game has actually been open (about two and a half real life days' worth of posting), he still hasn't bothered being actively engaged or providing anything substantial to the game. Reads a lot like flying under the radar.

vote: Skold

Preview Edit:
I've only been scum once (in my last game) as an IC. I also don't really feel comfortable answering that question because I feel like it's spoon feeding scum the right way to play. I think that even if you're not scum, the scum team could inadvertently be coached by my answer and therefore potentially not be caught based on an ideal play.

You're right that BBT was influential. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking me to explain to you...

what about that other newbie game you were scum in? Newbie 1596: Exotic Birds Edition?

[Wanderer-nl]

Why do you think singer is scum?

[Cephrir]

bumppppp