Newbie 1596: Exotic Birds (Game Over)

[Plotinus]

@Wyvernite I had this problem last game too that at one point I was townreading 8 people or something. I think at that point the only person I was scumreading was town. Having only two scum reads doesn't mean I'm sure them. It just means the rest of you haven't made me suspicious and that I'm not that great at re-evaluating my reads. It's true that you haven't posted all that much yet, but everytime you do you have something to thoughtful to say that advances the game and displays genuine scumhunting. I think you're incorrect about me but I think it's understandable. If I didn't know I was town-aligned I'd be suspicious of me too because in our last game scum lolhammered every day and managed to convince us it was just his personality. So, I think it's okay that you and wanderer don't believe me. It's good to think critically about these things and to remember that two of the people in this thread can be lying to you. It's fine that you think I'm one of them even though it's incorrect. If you haven't made up your mind about me and there are any questions I can answer that would help that, feel free to ask.

@Wanderer I don't know why saad does the things he does. I don't know why he wanted me to react to a single naked vote or why he unvoted after I did respond. After a while, I got used to House last game enough that I could sometimes understand his posts, but he was scum anyway. I haven't reached that stage where I think I see what saad's doing yet, and the House comparison could be a good one.

VOTE: Saad because if Skold's not here then my vote isn't doing anything where it was.

[Wanderer-nl]

Now that Wyvernite has posted I feel comfortable sharing my reads too.

Argos:

townish-null, didn't need to be pressured into posting reads/thoughts so I like that. But not enough content to make a good read on. Would like Argos to comment more on current discussions. Also doesn't seem to suspect saad too much but hasn't given any other strong scumreads.

Plotinus:

scummish-null. No real scumtells yet but again she avoids voting saad by putting her vote on Skold and then leaving it there even though she knows he's V/LA. Voteparking much?

Wyvernite:

townish, mainly because of 121. As scum he could have just let the terminolgy-thing slide. And he was already voting saad so it's also not reluctancy to vote either. I just realized I have a question, will ask at the bottom of this post.

saad:

scummy, he doesn't respond to questions, he leaves statements but doesn't explain anything about it. I think saad is a good vote for today. I'm not voting yet because I don't want the day to end yet.

Skold:

no content yet, lurkynull. Hopefully he gets replaced soon. I won't vote him, except to prevent a no-lynch. I want to hear from this slot first.

singersigner:

null, because there isn't really much content. Right now I think if saad flips scum, I'll have a more towny feeling with singer, but if saad flips town I'd get a more scummy feeling. I'm not sure but singer could be hiding behind IC-status to appear helpful and active.

@Wyvernite: you said you liked singer's post 228 and that it screams town. The first half was questioning my thoughts on Plotinus, the second half singer seems to agree with what I wrote. Then you end up voting Plotinus yourself. I don't really get how you dislike my posts, but like singer's quotepost of my quotepost. I think I was also pretty clear in what/how I was thinking, but I know I tend to sometimes skip points because they look so obvious to me, but then for someone else it looks like a gap of information that is needed to follow my thoughts. So do you have any questions regarding my post 211? Or any of my other posts? And how does singer look town with a post like 228, while you think I don't look as good with my posts?

[Wanderer-nl]

Plotinus:

scummish-null. No real scumtells yet but again she avoids voting saad by putting her vote on Skold and then leaving it there even though she knows he's V/LA. Voteparking much?

Plotinus voted saad while I was writing this so no more avoiding.

@Plotinus: If you can't see why saad is doing what he does, then what makes you think he's scum enough to vote?

[Plotinus]

Mainly because I think it would be townier to explain himself and we've been asking him for days to do that and he doesn't. He's promised us an explanation of singer vote soon and I'm looking forward to that, but it would have to be really well argued to change my mind. I can go through his ISO and point stuff out if you want. The things that are holding me back on him are all things that are not really alignment indicative: argos saying maybe his english just isn't that good. His grammar looks okay to me but maybe it's hard for him to explain his thoughts. his behaviour in post 84 already caused me to flipflop from suspicious to null.

maybe he's just not good at communicating. maybe he's one of those unlucky people who gets scumread for his personality no matter what. But at this point I feel like all of those things are too much benefit of the doubt for someone whose alignment I don't know. If the only things about a person that make me think they could be town are "what ifs" i've made up in my own head, that seems like it means something.

In favour of townsaad we have my imagination. in favour of scumsaad we have most of saad's posts. at least scumsaad is visible outside of my own head.

[Wanderer-nl]

Yeah okay, I really don't like saad avoiding to explain his scumread on singer either.

[Cephrir]

I will replace when I feel it's necessary. I will feel it's necessary if he's not posted by midday tomorrow.

[Plotinus]

Spoiler: literally every post in saad's iso, but not quoted just linked

6, 7. I thought it didn't mean anything when BBT was talking about it, and maybe it doesn't, but i was browsing some games and there have been times where scum make a joke about being scum in their RVS post and then at the end of the game everyone laughs about how ironic it is. I think town can do it too and it can be a personality thing but I think it's a thing.

12, 46, 56, 60 rvs which he claims is serious but the reason he gives is the guy's age. Also, to find out Skold's age he must have gone to Skold's profile to see it. Skold is so far the only one of us that saad has given evidence of checking up on like that before the game. If they are scumbuddies, maybe that's why.

15, 42 early game fluff, but we have to break the ice somehow, so I think that's okay for posts below 100.

38 asks why BBT is voting him. null (he had 2 votes on that point and BBT was claiming it was serious)

40, 47, 71 looked suspicious to me for reasons i don't want to talk about, but I also disagree with him, because wanting to progress the game isn't scummy. 84 allayed those suspicions bringing it back to null.

51 I don't understand what he means by safeguard here. He says mofo was jumping to conclusions but was he? Saad did start defending himself really early. I do agree that's a reason to be suspicious. It's one of the main reasons I was tunnelling ducks last game because she was squirming. I was wrong about ducks but I don't think I'm wrong that being upset about a couple votes is suspicious. But I don't know? Is it really suspicious or am I just failing theory of mind again? When people vote me I mostly think "well you're wrong but it's understandable because I'm wrong a lot too, maybe you'll see the light later, sometimes I do if something knocks me out of my tunnel." I was being townread for that last game but scumread for that this one. it's probably better to nullread me for that.

54 He quotes wyvernite saying "you're misinterpreting", wyvernite interprets that to mean that wyvernite is misinterpreting, then saad says he wasn't talking to wyvernite but to wanderer. what? if he was talking to wanderer why didn't he say @wanderer or hey, wanderer what do you think of this quote. throw this one in the bad at communicating jar I guess. Trying to find scum motivation here, it could be that he didn't like wyvern's point and is backpaddling to say he wasn't talking to wyvern after all. but I can't read his mind so who knows.

59, 66 looks like he's not scumhunting but just trying to call everybody scummy and see where he can get it to stick. wyvern made good points here too, and saad looks like he's trying to deflect them but it's clumsy.

68 it's kinda weird that he was squirming a lot at L-4 and L-3 and then at L-1 claims not to be feeling any pressure.

71 i thought he was gearing up for a fakeclaim of a powerrole here but he didn't. Anyway I actually agree with saad here that trying to get people to claim stuff on page 3 is overzealous and could have gone all kinds of badly. In the 66.67% of setups that don't have a doctor, that's just going to get someone who claims honestly nightkilled.

76 he seems thinks wyvern scumslipped by saying the word scum when talking about saad's scumreads. If this argument is as serious as he claims his other arguments to be (the one on skold for being 14, the one I'm expecting about singer), then it's really weird. and scummy. and then he complains when mofo does it to him in 93 and gets angry about it in 99.

77 wishywashy, hedging his bets.

84 he claims villager. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that but other people seem to think it's undeserved and especially singer says it's more likely he would have used the words in his role pm. I was happy he didn't fakeclaim a powerrole. his read on bbt was good. he was wrong about mofo but so were the rest of us. i believe he was wrong about wyvern and i disagree with saad's reasons. his point about singer here might have been a good one, i don't know enough theory. i also think wanderer is town but for different reasons than saad seems to.

85 no one likes to be killed on the first day. Feeling dejected at the prospect of being lynched on day 1 feels townier to me than being angry about it.

90 if he's town he says he's playing against his wincon. "I'd rather play than have my faction win."

97 he is townreading BBT because BBT is pushing really hard against him which he thinks newbie town would be more likely to do. But BBT has been here for more than a year so he wasn't a newbie. In 105, his argument is that BBT is SE so isn't a newbie.

108 he's really wants us to know that he hates being scum and doesn't want to be scum. Wanderer pointed this out earlier in 165 and I agree with the conclusions we came to in our discussion there: he's telling us something about how he would behave if he were scum. Either he's telling the truth (and lurking would be suspicious from him) or he's lying to get us to townread him for activity. So this was null for me at the time, but i'm leaning towards the second now because i'm not townreading him.

112 i can't really parse this but it looks like trying to deflect attention off of him onto mofo.

114 claims to have refuted some points by BBT. BBT wasn't satisfied with this post.

115 fluff

118, 119, 124 claims he would have claimed villager-i-mean-townie if he was scum, which is what he did. claims that it would have been suicide to claim a powerrole on day1. it worked pretty well for house last game, but I disagree with this. He could have softclaimed. He could have claimed that he had something to claim and left it at that. It would be a bad move for town to lynch a claimed powerrole on day 1. he'd be suspicious the next day when he wasn't nightkilled, but he couldn't have known that wanderer and I had just seen a fakeclaimed scum live until to LYLO and wouldn't buy it so soon again. So, I disagree both that it is suicide to fakeclaim a powerrole on Day 1 (worked for house for 3 days x_x) and just in general. I think the town would have been a lot more hesitant to lynch a claimed power role on day 1. "at least he's just a villager-i-mean-townie" is what we would have said when we eventually lynched him. Anyway, I'm really suspicious whenever one says "As scum, I would do ____" and then goes on to do it.

138 naked unvote in twilight.

143, 144, 166, 168, 170, 173 even after all that back and forth i'm not sure what to make of this, but in twilight he made sure to be suspicious of BBT, then when BBT flipped town I thought he was claiming that he was trying to keep BBT from getting nightkilled, but instead he said he thought scum would try to get to get BBT lynched on day 2, and i just find this whole exchange really confusing and it makes more sense if i read it as him trying to distance himself from the planned nightkill before it happens.

176 one of the few posts of his that i genuinely like. he's actually explaining his thoughts and his reasoning here. anyway i've replied to this post already.

190 naked unexplained unvote of me.

191, 194. he wants to ask the moderator a question, and then instead of just asking the question he says he's going to do it here in this thread. Anyway, I hope he got the answer he was looking for. These posts are null.

200 looks like he's buddying me. he's been flipflopping between voting people and then befriending them.

209, 222, 242 out of nowhere scumread on singer. I mean, it's great to be considering everybody, that's what we're supposed to be doing, but a lot of his opinions seem to come out of nowhere and that's troubling.

221 a smiley that doesn't appear connected to anything, so I'm interpreting this as "Hey i'm here but i'm not participating"

241 claims that Argos suggesting that saad is a nonnative speaker is a towntell.

so while there's a lot here that I don't understand, there's a lot of times where what I don't understand is what the town motivation could be for his posts. My vote on him stands.

[Wanderer-nl]

saad's reason to vote looked a little too fabricated to me. Definitely on the scum-side of null for me. But I am considering the fact that he's new and that the first random vote fell on him, which could have scared him a little, so I'm very curious to read more from him. So my vote stays for now.

BBT wants to get out of RVS, that looks very townie to me.

Skold isn't in a rush to get out of RVS, and at this stage this doesn't really alarm me. Not much more content to work with. Still null.

About plotinus: let me say right now we just finished a game together (I'm not a big believer in meta myself but if anyone is curious, here it is: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=61104)
@lotinus: I don't really understand what you mean with town voting block. Didn't want to ask before you got an answer, but that is still not making it too clear to me. And I also can't find it at the wiki.

Everyone else still reads null to me, so I hope they start posting (more) soon.

not townie at all lol. seems like thats an excuse for an early tr to me.

So I've looked back to this and what I think this meant is that saad was critisizing my 'town'read on BBT.

Spoiler: quote

not townie at all lol. seems like thats an excuse for an early tr to me.

Saad had seemed null up until this post. It could be nerves, as wanderer I believe pointed out, due to him being first vote. This however seems to be scummy. He doesn't really provide an argument/defense of his own, and instead just tries to deflect suspicion onto BBT for pointing a finger, which isn't really anything to get overly wound-up about. I feel like he's subtly trying to start a BW on BBT. All of this is theory ofc, it's a bit too early in the game to be incredibly sure of ones' reads/accusations.

you are misinterpreting what i am saying.

saad wasn't looking to put suspicion on BBT, but on me.

saad, it would be nice if you could explain yourself some more instead of having us figure out by ourselves what you are trying to say.

[Wanderer-nl]

BBT seemed to pick up on that though, don't really understand why he went for mofo instead...

[Plotinus]

oh, I think you're right about 54. That makes more sense and fits in with his behaviour elsewhere. I misread what he was saying about who those posts were directed at. null on that post i guess.

[Wanderer-nl]

Does it make you feel different about saad at all?

[Wanderer-nl]

I mean: how do you feel about 40 now that you see it in a different light, and does that change anything to the big picture of what saad is protraying?

[Wanderer-nl]

I feel like I'm being too cryptic so lets just share my thoughts right now. Then everyone can say whether they agree with me or not.
saad pointing out the 'excuse for an eary tr' looks towny to me, and I felt BBT parked his thoughts about this while figuring saad out some more and then got distracted by mofo. Then the day ended prematurely and BBT died so he never got a chance to follow up on this. And that's too bad because it could have provided more discussion and maybe even stronger reads.

[Plotinus]

somewhat. I'm not actually sure whether wanting to get out of rvs soon is protown or not. I think that being eager to get onto scumhunting and

then following through on that

is protown. I'd be interested in hearing what singer thinks about that in general, but saad being wrong about mafia theory is a newbietell not a scumtell.

But since he was trying to deflect criticism off of himself and onto you, that fits in with an overall pattern of behaviour of trying to make other people look scummy and then checking for reactions. He did it to you in that post, and to mofo in 51, and wyvern in 76, and to BBT, and me at the start of this day phase which I thought was for the obvious but it turned out not to be, and now singer. He did RVS with skold but otherwise left him and argos alone (except to townread him for saying saad might not be a native speaker).

I'd like to hear from Skold or his replacement, but Argos has also been consistently inclined to give saad the benefit of the doubt, though he also is describing saad as seeming scummy.


preview-edit: you're probably right about 40 but i need to get some food so i'm going to leave what i wrote and think some more. I also wish BBT were still here.

[Wanderer-nl]

@Plotinus: maybe you are the one who's right. I'm going to check saad's iso later since it's dinnertime here as well. I hope in the meantime there are some others that can give some thoughts/opinions.

[Argos]

ill explain singer scumread tomorrow. you're going down sunshine

It would be great if we could actually get to see this anytime soon, saad.

[Wanderer-nl]

So I read through saad's ISO and I'm just getting so frustrated by his anti-town play. But I don't think of him as scum as strongly as I did before. And that really sucks because that is really not going to pressure him into doing more. So if anyone could change my mind again by actually responding to the stuff Plotinus and I were discussing earlier, that would be superawesome.

[singersigner]

@saad...what experience do you have with Skold to know how old he is?

Would still like a response to this.

ALSO, that damn derphammer onto mofo, I just can't ignore that even it it's a mistake

VOTE: plotinus

If it was a mistake, what makes you think it was one coming from scum?

Here's what I think about it: I had a game last year where this exact same thing happened, and the offending party was town, so I can't really assume it was scum. Scum I think are more careful to not make those kinds of mistakes, especially on D1. The entire exchange of it being a mistake, and even Mofo not even realizing he was at L-1 seemed genuine.

BBT seemed to pick up on that though, don't really understand why he went for mofo instead...

This is exactly why I thought BBT could've been scum. >_>

somewhat. I'm not actually sure whether wanting to get out of rvs soon is protown or not. I think that being eager to get onto scumhunting and

then following through on that

is protown. I'd be interested in hearing what singer thinks about that in general, but saad being wrong about mafia theory is a newbietell not a scumtell.

But since he was trying to deflect criticism off of himself and onto you, that fits in with an overall pattern of behaviour of trying to make other people look scummy and then checking for reactions.

He did it to you in that post, and to mofo in 51, and wyvern in 76, and to BBT, and me at the start of this day phase which I thought was for the obvious but it turned out not to be, and now singer. He did RVS with skold but otherwise left him and argos alone (except to townread him for saying saad might not be a native speaker).

I'd like to hear from Skold or his replacement, but Argos has also been consistently inclined to give saad the benefit of the doubt, though he also is describing saad as seeming scummy.

preview-edit: you're probably right about 40 but i need to get some food so i'm going to leave what i wrote and think some more. I also wish BBT were still here.

The bolded are statements that seem like genuine scumhunting in that they're looking for the kinds of patterns and motivations that scum would be using right now. I particularly like the first assertion of deflection, since that's a pretty common defense mechanism for scum. The second bolded part I'm actually glad he brought to my attention since I don't remember anything particularly substantial from Argos.

I do really like the line of dialogue between Plotinus and Wanderer. They're both easy to admit where they could be wrong and understand each other's arguments to narrow down the scum pool. I wouldn't expect that if either one of them are scum, with the rare exception that they're defending a partner, but with saad being one of my stronger scumreads, I don't feel that's the case.

[Wyvernite]

@Wanderer, your last line in 249 reads kinda scummy to me, I don't think you should TRY to be doing anything to get me to read you town, unless you're mafia. This is very scummy to me, but to answer your question about why I like singer's post but not yours, is the content in post 211 that are your own thoughts, I find to be lacking. You have 5, quotes, which all average out to be fairly large, but don't have that much content following up on the quotes. I think using quotes in posts to back up your own reads is good play, but I'd like there to be more of your thoughts than other peoples quotes in your own posts. well..... If i'm really thinking about it, as long as you bold or otherwise narrow the focus of the quotes, so that it's more readable I don't care how much you quote, as long as you have your own content/thoughts to back them up.

Most of your posts are questions, and while questions can be useful, I feel like at this point its a bit much. It can be seen as leading town, and when you aren't confirmed, it's a rather scummy play. I'd like more of your own thoughts, and less questions about everyone else's.

[Wyvernite]

ALSO, that damn derphammer onto mofo, I just can't ignore that even it it's a mistake

VOTE: plotinus

If it was a mistake, what makes you think it was one coming from scum?

Here's what I think about it: I had a game last year where this exact same thing happened, and the offending party was town, so I can't really assume it was scum. Scum I think are more careful to not make those kinds of mistakes, especially on D1. The entire exchange of it being a mistake, and even Mofo not even realizing he was at L-1 seemed genuine.
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BBT seemed to pick up on that though, don't really understand why he went for mofo instead...

This is exactly why I thought BBT could've been scum. >_>

I added the dashes to separate the quotes a bit better.

I'm not gonna outright say the mistake was scum, but it certainly was anti-town. That's all I'll say on the matter, it's something I think is worth pointing out, not something I find worth tunneling someone over.

I also don't like anecdotal evidence from previous games to support your claim there. If it happened in a previous game, it was also a grave mistake then, as it certainly is now. If I were scum I would take the opportunity to do so, as it is very believable that you miscounted, or didn't see other votes, etc.
While the questions are pertinent, I don't think they're necessary. It seems like you're trying to soft-defend plot, which I don't like at all.

It could all be a fool-hearty accident, but I have to entertain the thought that it wasn't. Completely disregarding possible scenarios is a great way to be caught by surprise when anything unexpected comes up. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst right?

--------------------------
This could be ignorance on my part, but seeing how quickly d1 went, and how most people were probably just getting the ball rolling on their reads, is it really useful to speculate on reasons why we may have thought a dead person who flipped town (BBT) may have been scum? Not trying to be accusatory or rude here, genuinely wondering.

[Wyvernite]

Now that Wyvernite has posted I feel comfortable sharing my reads too.

I meant to address this in my post I made to you, but I skipped over it. Don't ever EVER, feel uncomfortable sharing your reads. Don't wait for someone else to post their thoughts. It could be the key that someone else needs to unlock a scum pattern someone has, or anything else really. I can't find a scenario in my head where posting your reads is a BAD thing.

[singersigner]

@Wyvernite...
1. It certainly was anti-town, but anti-town =/= scum. The anecdotal evidence was to prove that of all the games I've played on site, the only other instance I can ever think of someone making that kind of mistake came from town. Not to say that it can't ever happen as scum, but you're hypothesizing something you think scum assume they can get away with. Note, Plotinus was under a lot of fire for his mistake. What makes you think that's something scum want to subject themselves to? And I'm not soft-defending Plot. I've clearly stated I think he's town by now. This is me actually defending him, which is something you can, and should, do with town reads.

2. It may or may not be useful to speculate on the alignment of the flipped town. I find it useful to the extent that there was a reason he died and we've already commented on such. It doesn't

prove

I wasn't the one who killed him, since you could just claim I'm lying. I was just offering why it wouldn't have been in my benefit to. This would've been more supported had I come back before the hammer to comment on such.

[Wanderer-nl]

@Wanderer, your last line in 249 reads kinda scummy to me, I don't think you should TRY to be doing anything to get me to read you town, unless you're mafia. This is very scummy to me, but to answer your question about why I like singer's post but not yours, is the content in post 211 that are your own thoughts, I find to be lacking. You have 5, quotes, which all average out to be fairly large, but don't have that much content following up on the quotes. I think using quotes in posts to back up your own reads is good play, but I'd like there to be more of your thoughts than other peoples quotes in your own posts. well..... If i'm really thinking about it, as long as you bold or otherwise narrow the focus of the quotes, so that it's more readable I don't care how much you quote, as long as you have your own content/thoughts to back them up.

Most of your posts are questions, and while questions can be useful, I feel like at this point its a bit much. It can be seen as leading town, and when you aren't confirmed, it's a rather scummy play. I'd like more of your own thoughts, and less questions about everyone else's.

I question people. That's how I scumhunt. If you want to know what I think about something and I haven't said anything yet, just ask me. Don't go waiting around until I (or anyone) posts something for you to analyze.

[Wanderer-nl]

Now that Wyvernite has posted I feel comfortable sharing my reads too.

I meant to address this in my post I made to you, but I skipped over it. Don't ever EVER, feel uncomfortable sharing your reads. Don't wait for someone else to post their thoughts. It could be the key that someone else needs to unlock a scum pattern someone has, or anything else really. I can't find a scenario in my head where posting your reads is a BAD thing.

I wanted your reads for my read on you. If you want me to play in a certain way, send me the manual.

[Wanderer-nl]

By the way, singer I want your reads too.
And saad, an update of your reads please.