Newbie 1671 - Game Over (Scum win)

[PhantomCobalt]

No. I see you saying that it was a reaction test four times but I don't see you saying that once.

So your saying (sayingception) that I never said that it was a reaction test for times before I said that I said it 4 times. Fuck this sayingception I'm out.

[ConvergentConclusion]

Going after PC more will probably not yield anything useful so I am going to see what I can get from our IC. Your opinions thus far are pretty shallow, town reads to those that are posting things that look like they are contributing, and scum reads to those that do not look like they are contributing. Do you have any opinions that deviate from others on the recent discussion about PC? Where do you think we should drive the discussion so that we can get more accurate reads?

[KuroiXHF]

Right now, I can't find anything that looks to be much more than idiosyncracies. For example, Plot is talking a lot and I'm finding it to be quirky, and I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's not overly disruptive to the game. Jake isn't revealing too much. I get a big town read from Rask, though it is clear that he's quick to anger and emotion. Most others aren't posting enough for me to get a post on.

But you're right. PC isn't showing a lot, but it's the most I'm getting from everyone today. I'm not going to not vote because that's a day lost to Mafia and I'm not going to vote someone who isn't scummy to me because that's against all of town's logic. But the fact of the matter is PC is playing in a way that either way is detrimental to the town.

Lastly, I don't know what to say to drive the discussion. It's day one and we've milked it as well as any Day One I've ever been in. I could do what Plot does and ask everyone what they thought of everyone else's opinions on everything including their decision to eat Honey Nut Cheerios over Corn Flakes but I'm not interested in neuroanalyzing.

[Plotinus]

Catching up, then I'm going to circle back to some things.

Hello everyone! This is my first game of forum mafia, which I am excited to be playing. I read a game already so I have a general idea of what to do, but don't expect me to be very good. I probably can remain active over Christmas, so I might be able to make up for the lack of posts by other people. Once I read the thread and some ISO's, I will post my reads and replies to the people here.

Hi and welcome!

Heh, I think I can explain why I try not to make outright judgments.

Pretty much the only experience I have with mafia is through Town of Salem (the game itself, not the forums). In Town of Salem, each day is about 3 minutes long, and there is a quick discussion and voting phase after the night activity has been revealed. What I usually try to do there is put some ideas out there about who could be scum without explicitly stating "I think this person is scum," and then some other person would take what I said and make the accusation for me. At that point, since there isn't a lot of time to consider what's been said, the town will hastily lynch the person. Now, if that person ended up being town, whoever accused them would be blamed, not me (even though it was basically my idea). That's the kind of mentality I came into this game with.

I'm still getting used to the whole idea of scumhunting, so sorry if it seems like I'm not doing it enough in that regard. I guess it's a good idea to vote franksa and illicit some reaction.

That actually makes a lot of sense. I can see why you'd be employing this strategy if that's what you're used to. I think for the most part on this site, and this is of course an overgeneralisation and each specific situation is going to be different, but people recognise that being wrong isn't scummy in and of itself; scum are capable of being 100% right about their reads if they choose to be and town, by virtue of starting the game not knowing who the scum are, are going to sometimes scumread town and townread scum, and what matters a lot more is the process of figuring out where you've gone wrong in your reads and re-evaluating and stuff.

The town of salem strategy of trying to get someone else to take the fall for being wrong is going to come off as scummy here because it presupposes that you're wrong when you're making the push (which hints to hidden knowledge, that you already know that you're going after town when you're accusing them), and also scum have more reason to want to survive than town do; we can afford to lose a townie here and there if we must, so making a mistake isn't as bad for us as it is for scum. If scum loses their buddy they'll be in a more difficult situation.

I need to see more from you to make up my mind about you I think but we have time.

[Plotinus]

@Plotinus you said i used my newbieness defensively several times. Can you give me examples please?

First timer here!

Max is obviously a newbie like me without the experience I got from reading a completed game.

I dont see where your play is going to, but its not my task to teach you, since I am a newbie myself.

I think only the last one was defensive because the first two times there was no pressure on you, but still you did mention it 3 times and I wondered what is your motivation for mentioning this?

Maybe the first time you are just making conversation because it is only post 9 and you are introducing yourself, and if you didn't say it then maybe I would have asked it anyway so that is fine.

The second time, you are making a parallel between yourself and Max, that you have something in common and are both new at this, perhaps trying to ally yourself with him. I think as either alignment it is important to form allies in the town because then you can work together to lynch people or you can discuss other people together. Sometimes the person you ally with like this will be scum and sometimes you will be scum allying yourself with a townie and sometimes you will both be town, but in all of these cases it is okay to work together as long as you re-evaluate the situation now and then to make sure you still want to be allied together.

That said, scum have somewhat more motivation for seeking an ally the way you did here because you are reaching out to him as a fellow newer player not as someone you are townreading.

The third time was when you were defending yourself against Phantom.

Also,when phantom asked me to read my role pm again you said that we should not tell our role yet because scum can use it. Why do you accuse me for not claiming then?

Oh, there is some confusion. If you are town, I don't want you to tell him "I am a vanilla townie" or "I am the cop/doc/jailkeeper/tracker/bulletproof" because that should be a secret until you are at L-1. If you town and you tell us that you are vanilla then scum will know to kill somebody else if they want to get a power role. If you are town and you tell us you are a power role then probably you won't get to use your power role because you will be killed (or if there is a roleblocker then roleblocked).

But your alignment, whether you are town or scum, you should claim that you are town and there is no harm in answering a question like "are you mafia?" with "no" or "are you town?" with "yes". If you are town, scum already know that, so you are not telling them something new, and if you are scum, then you still want to pretend you are town.

Also, why do you care to bring up posts from page two when somebody mentioned he didnt like me? While creating pressure is fine, making people feel uneasy about me,remind them that they actually dont like me is something else especially when you derailed a wagon supported by sensible reasons and started a new one with no reasons at all?
This is a bit chaotic i dont have much time either but i hope i will get some answers and questions!
By the way,merry christmas for all of you!

If you think I am scum for doing this then you should vote me, or you should try to convince more people to vote Phantom if you think he is the most likely to be scum.


Anyway, I'm going to go back to page 4 now that the reaction test is over and try to explain what I think about what happened.

I'll let our active players here drag us out of this hell.

I am reading this as "okay i'm bored let's shake things up a bit". This is null; town can do this because they want to get reads on people and scum can do this to look like they are town.

Franksa, just making sure. Check your role, it says mafia yes?

This is a really obvious reaction test and outside of Rome I wouldn't imagine you will get many results with it. Most people know that the best response is or or "NO U" or some other lighthearted way of saying "nope i'm not mafia and even if i were you wouldn't catch me that easily".

You may be in hell but I am not. I dont even know what are you talking about?

Your first and only post where you actually gave us some information about yourself is the last one, when you said I am mafia. You forgot to tell us your reasons but never mind that. Your post so far would establish a pretty solid scum read on you anyway.

To give weight to my opinion: UNVOTE: Plotinus VOTE: Phantom

Instead, Franksa looks pretty panicked here. He doesn't say he isn't scum. He says "You forgot to tell us your reasons". He wants to know how Phantom caught him but he doesn't deny that he's scum. And then he votes Phantom in response. He looks really flustered here, like he's worried that maybe the mod added him to the PT by mistake because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong and yet here is an experienced player who has caught him anyway.

@Frank make sure you are reading the right role PM. Come back to me once you've checked. This game is Newbie 1671.

Slightly town-reading Raskol, this read will either gradually increase or fade the more posts I see from Raskol.

Phantom keeps pushing this. Of course it's a nonsense push and he doesn't have a real reason to think Franksa was scum before page 4 but he looks like he's pushing him to see whether he's scum or not. He seems to be looking not just at Franksa's reactions but also at anybody else who says something during the reaction test, which makes this reaction test a little better than it seemed at first. I doubt he's going to get much out of me and Jake either way but he's going to get something from the newbies probably and I'm getting something from all of this too.

I agree with this slight townread of Raskol here because Raskol doesn't seem to know that it's a reaction test but he's examining the motivations, trying to figure out why Phantom is picking on Franksa and notices that Franksa had previously been scumreading Phantom slightly. Raskol's next posts also look like he's trying to understand what's going on. I like that.

Phantom - I definitely have a scum read right now. It's quite possible that he's just an aggressive player, but having scum/town reads is hardly grabbing, let alone too much. Plus, explicitly asking Franksa's role is at best, naive. Either way, it doesn't help us. I think at this point, he's scummy enough to be voted, on Day One too.

So I agree that most of the time asking someone if they're scum isn't going to get a useful response because most people are just going to say "lol no" but Franksa didn't say "lol no". He looked worried. I think that means Phantom got lucky.

I don't think a reaction test of this calibre makes Phantom town because it's pretty easy to do either way, but I don't think making all of this noise and calling attention to himself like this is as scummy as people are making it out to be.

Wonderful. Tell us how because from what I know, townies and mafia will both claim they're town. The only difference is that townies are honest with that statement and mafia aren't.

This would be true with experienced players, but that's not what happened in this game. Franksa didn't claim to be town. He panicked and voted Phantom and demanded reasons for why he's scum.



I think that the people who were trying to get Phantom to explain what he was doing (Ras and Kuroi mainly) were town because they were confused by Phantom's behaviour and couldn't see the point of it. If Frank had just said "nope I am town aligned townsperson who can win with the town " then we could have all told Phantom that what he did was pointless. But as it stands I got reads on like 4-5 slots out of it and Phantom also seems to have gotten reads out of it, and the rest of you came out of it with a scumread on Phantom for behaving like this. So, rightly or wrongly, dumbly or smartly, we're now firmly in the part of the game where we're pushing on real serious things and aren't just nitpicking and trying to get the game started.

Therefore, Phantom's actions helped the town. This is not the same as Phantom being town, but it means that I don't think any portion of his reaction test was scummy.

I have separate reasons for thinking he might also be town, which I'll circle back to once I've finished catching up unless I accidentally write a novel for every single post on page 8 and 9 (I hope not but it's not something I can control easily.)

[Plotinus]

I will make a read list tomorrow, but for now I want to give preliminary read on PC. I originally thought that the scummy reads on him were overblown, but his recent posts are definitely scummy. I would prefer it if everyone fully explain their non-RVS votes. Also I don't need this vote anymore

UNVOTE:

Which poosts do you find scummy and why?

I am voting Franksa because I didn't like his response to Phantom's poking. I thought his response to Phantom was overly defensive.

Read up. This explains most of it. He's aggressive, doesn't explain why he does what he does and gives off a vibe I can't shake that screams, "SCUM!" Plus, I can't honestly see him as an asset to the town, if he does turn up Town.

Do you think that scum are more likely to be aggressive than town? If Phantom had said "I don't really think you're scum I'm just pressuring you to see how you respond and if you reply calmly then I will townread you and if you get defensive then I will scumread you okay? So franksa are you scum?" would that have skewed the results?

who have I been defending? I was directly questioning pc asking him to explain himself and he refused. Atm he's the only person I'm scum reading but it isn't strong enough to put him at l-1 (I guess with you unvoting he's not l-2 anymore) I'm also probably one of the more involved people in the game, which is impressive considering how busy I've been. Not really going to be any more involved until after the weekend.

You've been defending Franksa because you don't think that his reaction to being pressured by Phantom was as scummy as Phantom and I think it to be and you think that he's scumhunting and you think Phantom and I are making a big deal out of nothing. If you're townreading Franksa then that's a fine thing to be doing but don't deny that you're doing it.

1. It is when you jokingly continue to list non-reasons for aggression. I've asked more than once and you avoid it.
2. And you still haven't justified the purpose of the question. I sure hope you got what you were looking for out of the question, because it's helping no one and only serves to make you look scummy.

Following the reaction test, Phantom has given us reads on Rask, Max, you, franksa, possibly a few other people but I'm doing this off the top of my head. It seems that he is basing these reads on our reactions to his test. I have also gotten reads out of this exercise. Is that not enough to justify the question?

It's obvious you were reaction testing him so I don't really care if you said it was one or not but I'd love you to explain why you decided to use one, what your expected reaction was and why his was scummy. I'd also like a link to other reaction tests you have done, especially this particular one so I can verify 1. You do these as town and 2. You know how to interpret reactions effectively.


Merry Christmas folks. See y'all Saturday

It was obvious to you and it was obvious to me but it wasn't obvious to Franksa, Rask, or Kuroi. None of them said "obv reaction test is obvious " in response to it. Instead, they gave reactions which look genuine to me. Did you get any reads based on how Rask, Franksa, and Kuroi responded to this?

In my first game outside of Rome, scum faked a guilty on me. I was very very new and I had no idea what was going on or why my townread was saying something that wasn't true and I thought maybe he was just mistaken or there was a misunderstanding and I was so lost in that game (I'd replaced into page 209 of a large theme game) that I was getting used to just ignoring all the stuff I didn't understand, which was 90% of the posts, and just kept focused on the tiny portion of things that I did happen to understand. I didn't respond to the fake guilty at all because I didn't even realise that's what he was doing or how it differed from having a scumread on me. I just kept pushing somebody else as scum based on something I did understand (and I was right about the person I was pushing at the time!)

I was town in that game and most people didn't recognise my reaction as a town reaction because it was a newbie town reaction. Experienced players recognise that someone is faking a guilty on them and react accordingly. Newbie player just goes "huh?" or "yet another thing i don't understand".

An experienced scum player wouldn't respond the way franksa did, but I can definitely see newbie scum responding that way.

[Plotinus]

Going after PC more will probably not yield anything useful so I am going to see what I can get from our IC. Your opinions thus far are pretty shallow, town reads to those that are posting things that look like they are contributing, and scum reads to those that do not look like they are contributing. Do you have any opinions that deviate from others on the recent discussion about PC? Where do you think we should drive the discussion so that we can get more accurate reads?

Well it seems that most of the town thinks that PC is scum or useless and I think he's probably town, and most of the town thinks that we're picking on Franksa for no reason and I disagree with that too. Most people here seem to think that aggression is scummy and I'm sort of townreading them for thinking that because it seems like your usual newbie wariness, but aggression is a way of scumhunting and scumhunting isn't scummy.

[Plotinus]

Going to go through franksa's ISO and talk about it. Maybe I will have some questions for him too.

Hi everyone!

First timer here! Also, I am not a native speaker, I apologise in advance! If something is unclear in my posts, feel free to ask. ^^

VOTE: Plotinus

I have read a game where he was playing. He is the only one I have some info on, so my first vote must be him.

This entrance is okay and I'm okay with his RVS vote on me.

@Plotinus: Thats nice! Didnt think I would find a hungarian on this site so quickly!
I am reading "Newbie 1658: Mafia in Plain Sight", actually havent finished it yet, 5 pages left.

How did you choose this game to read instead of a different one?

I won't spoil the ending for you then.

Nicely done Plotinus, enjoyed reading that game!

Are we rating entrances now? If so, I give my oppinion.

I liked the posts of Kuroi, Plotinus, MormonCoffe, PhantomCobalt and Aurora.

I disliked Jake's and Raskolnikov's entrances.

Jake didnt seem to care at all, Raskolnikov simply didnt give reasons.

This in response to Jake and I talking about people's entrances and me asking some other people about other people's entrances. I do like that he gave his own opinion without being asked. The mafia have daytalk in this game, though, so I'm worried that he may have been prompted in private to give opinions too but I just realised who i was pairing him with in my head there and that's probably a mistake; this is very similar to a readslist except that instead of "town" it says "I liked the posts of" and instead of scum it says "I disliked" and as such I don't think Jake would prompt him in private to do that (but then Jake did prompt me to comment on people's entrances in response to my questioning other people so maybe Jake sees things differently) so he probably did come up with this post all on his own. I also think it's highly unlikely that Franksa and Phantom are aligned; if Phantom were going to fake a reaction test on his buddy surely he would tell his buddy in private how to respond townishly.

Also preflip associatives are bad.

What did you think of Jake's and Kuroi's later posts? What did you like about Aurora and Coffee's posts? What do you think of Max so far?

What did I like about Aurora's and Cofee's post? When you were asked the same question you said you wont answer it because others would start to do it as well. But fine, you are the IC so I will answer.

Aurora started with a jokey vote, gave a reason. This seems ok to me.
On the other hand, now that you made me reread it, I dont like Coffee's post any more. He joked as well, but didnt give a reason for his vote.
By the way, we are still talking about the entering posts, right?

Jake and Kuroi: Jake has an agressive style but he is trying to look for answers so its fine. Kuroi confuses me. In 23 and 48 he looks like he knows this game, knows what is happening on day 1 and then he asks questions about it. I mean, if he knows we can find scum on day 1, why would he ask a question like he did in 19?

Max is obviously a newbie like me without the experience I got from reading a completed game.

Why? Cause I didn't Rvs?

Yes. You didnt care to RVS.

His reasoning here is pretty shallow but it's early enough in the game that this doesn't bother me. Nobody is going to have really deep thoughts on page 1 and most claims to the contrary and just to get reactions. His logic is very mechanical here: didn't provide a reason for their rvs vote: bad; did provide a reason: good. His question to Kuroi is scumhunting and that looks good to me. It's interesting that he townreads Jake for his aggressive style; later he will scumread Phantom for the same thing.

Overall, I like this post more than I don't.

Well, if you were acting like this was your first game, while in fact its not the case, that would imply you have something to hide. So it was important to clarify this.

I'm okay with him continuing to push Kuroi here.

Wow Kuroi, I think you are defending yourself a bit too much. I ended our "arguement" and acknowledged that you are not a newbie and I misread you intention to act like one, then simply answered you last question and look at this now. This is at least weird from you...

Actually I like this post too because I went back to look at what he was responding to and it troubles me that in 59 Kuroi says:

You can't have it both ways. Either I know how to play this game, or I don't and if you know I'm not hiding anything, don't suggest I am. It just makes you look scummy.

It makes him look scummy? This sounds like you know that he's town who looks scummy. Why not call him scum?

Do you think town would be more likely to give a reason for their votes? What do you think of Coffee's response (or lack of one) to the votes on him?

No, by reading somebody's first post I cant tell a read. I simply meant what I said, I liked it, because he gave reasons.
The lack of Coffee's responses to the votes could mean he is town. If he was scum he would have defended himself. This is very straightforward logic, all of this can be faked, so I would only say I have a slight townread on him.
I have the same slight townread on Jake, as he is clearly scumhunting.
Slight townread on Raskol, he is not afraid to give reads early.

Also, I agree with him, that PhantomCobalt is trying to avoid writing any useful content in his posts, even in the last 2. He is my only slight scumread so far.

Plotinus
Aurora - No content at all.
Max - Very few content.
Kuroi

Null read on them.

My first response to this is that if you can't get a read from reading somebody's first post then why are you trying to but I realise I was the one who started it and I know that I employed "fake it until you make it" for the first 10 pages of my first 6 months of games so ok.

He townreads people for scumhunting and for not being afraid to give reads which is fine and unremarkable early on and I was using the same metric myself. I can understand why he'd be null on me after reading the game that he read. I can understand but disagree with the scumread on Phantom. This isn't a terrible post. It's not a great post but it's a post.

You may be in hell but I am not. I dont even know what are you talking about?

Your first and only post where you actually gave us some information about yourself is the last one, when you said I am mafia. You forgot to tell us your reasons but never mind that. Your post so far would establish a pretty solid scum read on you anyway.

To give weight to my opinion: UNVOTE: Plotinus VOTE: Phantom

This was where I started scumreading him because this was over the top defensive. I think his posts up until this point were basically fine and that if he is scum he was doing a good job of staying under my radar until then; however I did explain how I read newbies at some point during the game that he read and it's possible he was taking advice from that. He would have noticed that I townread both newbies who voted me in RVS and then he voted me in RVS here, for example.

@Jake

Do you still think that Kuroi is acting normal towards me? In 59 he said I contradicted myself, while I was simply answering his question, and now in his 83 post he says I am reading him scummy, despite my last null read on him. Am I the odd one out, to find this weird? I still wont read him scummy, but I dont understand him...

Not sure how i feel about him reaching out to Jake for help here.

My last post is for Phantom, sorry.

ok.

Right, interesting development in the game, interesting wagon on me. While its obvious why dir i put my vote on Phantom i read no reasoning at all when you voted me so actually i dont know what to react to. I havent been asked any questions either, everyone is voting "because he is scummy". What makes you think that? Why do you think i am scummy?
Im from mobile i cant handle quotes here so i will just adress what i want to ask.

@Plotinus you said i used my newbieness defensively several times. Can you give me examples please? Also,when phantom asked me to read my role pm again you said that we should not tell our role yet because scum can use it. Why do you accuse me for not claiming then? Also, why do you care to bring up posts from page two when somebody mentioned he didnt like me? While creating pressure is fine, making people feel uneasy about me,remind them that they actually dont like me is something else especially when you derailed a wagon supported by sensible reasons and started a new one with no reasons at all?
This is a bit chaotic i dont have much time either but i hope i will get some answers and questions!
By the way,merry christmas for all of you!

I responded to this post at length already.




Right. So as we can see not every post in his ISO is scummy, but that's rarely the case. In fact, usually if every single post in somebody's ISO bothers me it is a warning sign that they are probably town and I just hate their playstyle, because mafia is hard and scum aren't going to obvscum in every post they make.

I still think he's scum for the way he responded to Phantom's reaction test. I think he was doing okay until then but then he got scared and overreacted in an alignment indicative way. I think he's unlikely to be scum together with Phantom, so if Franksa does flip scum then Phantom is almost certainly town. Speculating about who his buddy is before he flips is a waste of time, though.

[Plotinus]

Phantom

I am not going to go through and quote all his posts like I did for Franksa because Phantom has 53 posts and Franksa only had 15. Instead I'm just going to quote the posts that I think are alignment indicative or that I have something more to say about them then "that sure is a post with English words in it all right".


Posts that seem to be scumhunting: 21, 25, 67, 76, 79 (there were more but i started quoting posts intead)

VOTE: Raskol for grabbing too much.

how is he grabbing too much?

I find this exchange interesting because later on Jake attacks somebody or other for grabbing too much.

Plotinus, while I like your activity I just can't help but get the feeling like you are trying too hard. Is this your first game as an IC? I don't remember you playing like this in the game I modded

oh hey it was me.

So basically Phantom attacks Rask for having too many reads in 66 and for having fully fleshed out opinions so early into the game, and Jake doesn't see this as a problem from Rask, who is new enough that he probably could get away with a few more pages of not having reads, but then he attacks me a few pages later for what is basically the same thing: trying too hard, overanalyising too little information, reaching, etc.

As an IC you are at least partially responsible for the flow of the game, because very often the other players in the game will not understand why more discussion is a good thing. You want to lead by example. Secondly, you want to give the newbies a good first experience. GAMES WHERE NO ONE IS POSTING ARE NOT FUN. Give them a fun game. Give yourself a fun game. Don't lurk.

Newbies get paralyzed all the time, trying to sort out what happens next. When ICs lurk, it provides an example that this is 'how it's done' on this site, which hurts every game they will be in in the future until/unless they learn otherwise.

It's my job as IC to keep the game moving, so if nothing is happening then I do have to make something happen and on page 1-4 that means reaching and nitpicking and overanalysing and pressuring until finally the game takes off and we no longer need to try to hard to get it moving because it's moving on its own.

So I think it's kind of weird that Jake pushes me for trying too hard but doesn't understand why Phantom pushes Rask for trying too hard with his reads list, especially since Jake doesn't like readslists to begin with. I don't mind Jake pushing me, but I do mind him minding Phantom's Rask push. Even though I'm townreading Rask now and was at the time, it seems inconsistent.

~

Not requoting the reaction test stuff, I've talked that to death already.

I can always rely on Plotinus that knows what's going on.

It was pretty obvious, dude

Shush, child. This isn't your battle.

I like that rather than explaining what he's doing right away, he keeps the reaction test going until he's got all the replies he wants and asks people who don't understand to give him time. I think scum are more likely to end their fake reaction tests too soon and explain what they were trying to do for towncred.

And Raskol's town read has completely disappeared, just like a magic trick.

My vote on him proves useful.

he provides some of the reads he's getting out of his reaction test in real time as they happen.

Townread on kuroi for trying to investigate motivation to find scum

Another example of this.

What do you like about Max's posts?

He admits that he can't find independent thought.

I think that scumPhantom would just push townMax for not being able to find independent thought. It's an easy enough thing to push on, most people would probably agree that it's scummy, maybe someone would think to ask if he could just be bad at being town, maybe they wouldn't, but it would be a fine push. I think townreading him instead for being honest about struggling to find independent things to say is townie.

Alright, I think I've found the scum pair: Frank and Raskol.

Frank is obviously scum, and Raskol doesn't want to defend Frank because then it would look like buddying.

Easy.

I think that if Phantom were scum, he would go after somebody defending Frank. Avoiding defending your buddy because you don't want it to look like you're allied is a higher level move than going to bat for them. I think scumPhantom has easier targets to go after than Rask, who is demonstrating that he's capable of depth of thought and will probably be able to defend himself coherently, and people tend to townread coherence even though it's mostly just a playstyle thing.

Knowing that we don't have a fool/jester role, why hasn't PhantomCobalt been voted more?

Idk, maybe because I'm not scum. :/

This is a very relaxed attitude to take towards his own wagon, and I'm not sure that Phantom is an experienced enough player to fake this kind of nonchalance, but I haven't metadived him either.

@Raskol I find it funny that I am town-reading Max and Kuroi who both admit that they are scum-reading me. Your logic is flawed.

I don't really like this post.

uh jake why are you timewarping

I don't like this complaint either because rereading the thread is a thing that people do when they want to get their heads into the game and want to see if they pick up on anything they missed the first time around. I think this is just a playstyle difference.

Plotinus agrees.

You say this like it means something :/

No. I see you saying that it was a reaction test four times but I don't see you saying that once.

So your saying (sayingception) that I never said that it was a reaction test for times before I said that I said it 4 times. Fuck this sayingception I'm out.

I don't mind this post because I also don't understand what Kuroi is saying in 198.



okay, so the case against Phantom seems to be that he's sloppy and aggressive and that he's wandering around the thread making noise but I don't see why scum are more likely to do than than town. I like that he's scumhunting, that he's townreading people that, if scum, he could get away with not townreading, that he doesn't look like he's trying to keep his lynch options open but is trying to narrow the pool and find scum, that he freely changes his mind when new evidence comes to light.

I don't agree that all of his methods are going to find scum in all games but I think he's doing okay in this one and is in fact behaving better than I was expecting him to behave.

[ConvergentConclusion]

I will make a read list tomorrow, but for now I want to give preliminary read on PC. I originally thought that the scummy reads on him were overblown, but his recent posts are definitely scummy. I would prefer it if everyone fully explain their non-RVS votes. Also I don't need this vote anymore

UNVOTE:

Which poosts do you find scummy and why?

I am voting Franksa because I didn't like his response to Phantom's poking. I thought his response to Phantom was overly defensive.

Thanks for the giant informative wall posts. I can see where you are coming from, but PC is much more scummy to me than franksa at this point. I can be persuaded otherwise, but I am getting stronger scum vibes from his latest posts than frank's posts. I agree that the reaction test isn't that scummy a thing to do, but phantoms last posts don't look town. Here is what I am thinking:

If PC is town, he would answer Jake's question and explain exactly what he fishing for as far as a response is concerned. The fact that he didn't answer and is misrepresenting post 196 in which kuroi aggressively requests the explaination behind the reaction test indicates to me that he just pulled the reaction test to look like town searching for scum. I agree that this is a pretty bad reaction for scum to have, but town would definitely have a reason behind a test and the fact that he doesn't seem to have one is very suspicious.

PC's most scummy posts are his last ones, where he responds insultingly to accusations and questions without really addressing then.

[PhantomCobalt]

@Jake sorry I missed your question. I can't link you to the game (offsite) because it's ongoing

[KuroiXHF]

So I just went through a shitload of commentary from Plot. A lot of them are asked to me. Please let me know if I've missed anything, because I just went through a lot.

Phantom - I definitely have a scum read right now. It's quite possible that he's just an aggressive player, but having scum/town reads is hardly grabbing, let alone too much. Plus, explicitly asking Franksa's role is at best, naive. Either way, it doesn't help us. I think at this point, he's scummy enough to be voted, on Day One too.

So I agree that most of the time asking someone if they're scum isn't going to get a useful response because most people are just going to say "lol no" but Franksa didn't say "lol no". He looked worried. I think that means Phantom got lucky.

I didn't see Franksa as worried. I saw him as annoyed. It annoyed me too, and I wasn't even asked.

Wonderful. Tell us how because from what I know, townies and mafia will both claim they're town. The only difference is that townies are honest with that statement and mafia aren't.

This would be true with experienced players, but that's not what happened in this game. Franksa didn't claim to be town. He panicked and voted Phantom and demanded reasons for why he's scum.



I think that the people who were trying to get Phantom to explain what he was doing (Ras and Kuroi mainly) were town because they were confused by Phantom's behaviour and couldn't see the point of it.

I understood the point, but I didn't understand the effectiveness, and I don't see it as effective. It's like asking a person suspected of murder if he did it when there's no evidence or anything pointing that person to the place of the crime.

Therefore, Phantom's actions helped the town. This is not the same as Phantom being town, but it means that I don't think any portion of his reaction test was scummy.

It was more of how he went about it that I found scummy.

Read up. This explains most of it. He's aggressive, doesn't explain why he does what he does and gives off a vibe I can't shake that screams, "SCUM!" Plus, I can't honestly see him as an asset to the town, if he does turn up Town.

Do you think that scum are more likely to be aggressive than town? If Phantom had said "I don't really think you're scum I'm just pressuring you to see how you respond and if you reply calmly then I will townread you and if you get defensive then I will scumread you okay? So franksa are you scum?" would that have skewed the results?

It all depends on the player. I've said that aggression by itself isn't scummy, but when you're secretive and appear to have a grudge, it shouldn't surprise when votes go your way. His explanation or lack thereof is immaterial as a defense when he wouldn't answer AFTER Franksa responded.

1. It is when you jokingly continue to list non-reasons for aggression. I've asked more than once and you avoid it.
2. And you still haven't justified the purpose of the question. I sure hope you got what you were looking for out of the question, because it's helping no one and only serves to make you look scummy.

Following the reaction test, Phantom has given us reads on Rask, Max, you, franksa, possibly a few other people but I'm doing this off the top of my head. It seems that he is basing these reads on our reactions to his test. I have also gotten reads out of this exercise. Is that not enough to justify the question?

Are you referencing Post #67 to Raskol? That's all I have for anyone other than Franksa. I can't find anything where he is reaction testing Jake - so yeah, I have to disagree with your assessment.

Well, if you were acting like this was your first game, while in fact its not the case, that would imply you have something to hide. So it was important to clarify this.

I'm okay with him continuing to push Kuroi here.

Feel free to push me. This game is a freaking moshpit and I'm excited to push back.

Wow Kuroi, I think you are defending yourself a bit too much. I ended our "arguement" and acknowledged that you are not a newbie and I misread you intention to act like one, then simply answered you last question and look at this now. This is at least weird from you...

Actually I like this post too because I went back to look at what he was responding to and it troubles me that in 59 Kuroi says:

You can't have it both ways. Either I know how to play this game, or I don't and if you know I'm not hiding anything, don't suggest I am. It just makes you look scummy.

It makes him look scummy? This sounds like you know that he's town who looks scummy. Why not call him scum?

You're playing a semantics game with this one, Plot. I've not called anyone and don't call people scum unless I have concrete proof. If I'm cop and have a guilty read on you, I'll call you scum. If I catch you in a law in a way that proves your mafia-ness, I'll call you scum. If you're giving me scum vibes, I'll call you scummy.

[Raskolnikov]

who have I been defending? I was directly questioning pc asking him to explain himself and he refused. Atm he's the only person I'm scum reading but it isn't strong enough to put him at l-1 (I guess with you unvoting he's not l-2 anymore) I'm also probably one of the more involved people in the game, which is impressive considering how busy I've been. Not really going to be any more involved until after the weekend.

Alright, you've satisfied me. I just wanted to know if you really scumread PC or just found his case for franksa bad (not necessarily the same thing).
UNVOTE:

As for PC/franksa, the Plotinus case has really shaken me up. Expect a big post soon.

[Raskolnikov]

Intent to vote: Franksa

Okay, this is really difficult. I really don't like PC's play because I find it gimmicky and relies on gambits. Attempting to draw out scum through making them emotional, but in doing so he looks terrible himself. I did meta him and I found he did this as both alignments though. This was before reading anything from Plotinus.

Now Plotinus makes a really good case on franksa, in contrast to PC's reasoning which I didn't like (even though the reasoning was common). I'll admit I probably discredited PC's reasons more than I should have because it was spread across one liners as opposed to Plotinus's latest objectively fantastic posts. Also because I was confident PC was scum and so didn't assign much weight to what he was saying. But Plotinus then agreeing with him early makes me think at least one of them is town, which is insignificant by itself but made me more open to the idea.

While the reaction test wasn't enough for me his mentioning of his newbiness so often (which I didn't notice before) betrays a bit of nervousness to me. I don't really like his exchange with Kuroi either, which I disagree with Plotinus on, since he actually liked it. It seems almost over-measured, like he wants to accuse but also do it safely without much backlash. So I do think there's a good chance he's scum.

Here's why it's really tempting though: the results that would come of it. Franksa lynched flipping scum would essentially confirm PC as town (99%), and for the most part Plotinus (~70%). The list for hunting scum would narrow and it would be a lot easier. One of them in that list I already suspect for different reasons. On the other hand if PC flips scum I'd probably be lost as to who it town or scumfirms (it would make me look good but that's only useful for everyone but me).
Why is this important? I'm scumreading both of them but one of them must be town, and I'd rather go for the bigger upside, as well as the case I'm probably less biased about. If franksa is actually town I'll be almost certain PC is scum, though. If the 2 people I find scummiest are both town that would be absurd.

So I intend to vote Franksa. I don't want to put him to L-1 right now though as I don't trust people not to quickhammer. If someone else puts him to L-1, let this be known as an Intent to Hammer.

@Franksa would like a role reveal (soft would probably be enough at this time)

[Zaicon]

Hey everyone, I'm your backup moderator while Jackal711 is away. If there's anything you need from me, feel free to PM me at any time.

---

VOTE COUNT 1.4

Maxspir_7 (0) -
ConvergentConclusion (0) -
Aurora (0) -
KuroiXHF (0) -
Raskolnikov (0) -
franksa (3) - PhantomCobalt, Plotinus, Maxspir_7
Jake from State Farm (0) -
PhantomCobalt (2) - franksa, KuroiXHF
Plotinus (0) -

Not Voting: Jake from State Farm, Aurora, ConvergentConclusion, Raskolnikov

With 9 alive, it's 5 to lynch.

Day 1 deadline is Sunday, January 3rd 2016 at 8:45 pm PST or in (expired on 2016-01-03 20:45:00)

Aurora is being replaced.

[KuroiXHF]

FOS: Zaicon

Lurking all game and suddenly the moderator? I don't buy it.

[franksa]

I hope I will be able to finish this post now, I may have to continue it later from mobile. It is going to be long.

It seems there is a growing wagon on me so I will try to go through some things, explain others as well as answer the questions directed to me. I believe Phantom that he was reactiontesting me (looking back now it is obvious...), I was fooled by him, I didnt know such a thing exist, so I dont think he is scum any more. It was clearly scumhunting from him.

UNVOTE: Phantom

I would like to talk about Plotinus instead. He was the one jumping on the wagon when Phantom started it. While Phantom didnt try to find reasons, because he just wanted reactions for his accusation, Plotinus launched a war against me. Hopping on the wagon started by Phantom started to convince people to vote me.

franksa - I really don't like his posts, his logic or how he's playing the game, but I don't believe he's scum based on it.

Rask, what specifically don't you like about franksa's posts, logic, and playstyle, and why do you believe he could be town in spite of these things?

I reacted for this:

Also, why do you care to bring up posts from page two when somebody mentioned he didnt like me? While creating pressure is fine, making people feel uneasy about me,remind them that they actually dont like me is something else especially when you derailed a wagon supported by sensible reasons and started a new one with no reasons at all?

If you think I am scum for doing this then you should vote me, or you should try to convince more people to vote Phantom if you think he is the most likely to be scum.

He didnt answer my question, but tried to make it look like he did. So he had a scumread on me, but he not only did vote me, he also tried to make other people feel they should stop thinking I am town. This is like a cop with a knowledge of somebodys allingment (which cant be), or like a scum knowing I am town. He sounds like he is sure I am scum and trying to convince others to think the same.

Since post 131 I have been watching Plotinus's playstyle and I noticed some interesting things. These things may not mean anything at all, but because I actually read him scum now I have to make a note of them.

203 - It could be an IC post helping Max or encouraging Max after he voted me. Before that post he scumread Max, then Max voted me and he started to be nice to him. It could be a conincidence I agree, this is just a note...

Then he is talking about me mentioning my newbieness 3 times. Its interesting that he brings up the topic saying

...he's mentioned his newbie status a few times defensively.

Then he says

I think only the last one was defensive because the first two times there was no pressure on you

Bringing up the topic saying something overstating it, then he explains that he didnt actually mean that. He did this for the 2nd times against me. Last time he said I am not scumhunting then admitting that I actually do more scumhunting than he thought.

Why would he do these as town? More like a scum trying to frame me.

Newbie status: Even he said that I only used the 3rd one to defend myself. In post 100 I actually wanted to lecture PC about how to play this game. I forgot that he is an SE I thought he is a newbie too. Important note: I said in post 100 that I actually have some experience playing mafia games, but I also stated it would look bad if I start to lecture now since I am a newbie myself. I actually thought PC plays bad, I didnt want to protect myself when I mentioned my newbieness I simply explained why did I not start to "teach" PC. This is clearly a missinterpretion from Plotinus, when he accused me for using it defensively, he intentionally didnt even quote the part when I clearly said I am not a complete newbie which implies that he wanted you to believe something that is not true. Even more scummy vibes from him.

From now on i am from a mobile...

@Plotinus a direct question for you: why are you pushing the idea that I looked nervous, panicked, frustrated after PC's questions? Your only reason for this is that i didnt say "lol no" as a response? Also,Nobody has seen it like that,only you. Do you really think i was nervous there? Or you use this as another reaction test?
You have been talking a lot about my reactions and my "panic" vote on Phantom. Read that post again, do you really think i was panicking there? I dont even know where did you get this idea from. My only explanation is that you are scum and you try to get me voted out.

How did you choose this game to read instead of a different one?

Finally a question! It was on the first page of Rome and it was marked as completed so I started to read it. No other reasons.

I do like that he gave his own opinion without being asked. The mafia have daytalk in this game, though, so I'm worried that he may have been prompted in private to give opinions too but I just realised who i was pairing him with in my head there and that's probably a mistake; this is very similar to a readslist except that instead of "town" it says "I liked the posts of" and instead of scum it says "I disliked" and as such I don't think Jake would prompt him in private to do that (but then Jake did prompt me to comment on people's entrances in response to my questioning other people so maybe Jake sees things differently) so he probably did come up with this post all on his own.

He is doing it again! First he puts the idea in our head that somebody is telling me what to do then he is admitting that this assumption is probably a mistake but he wrote it down anyway. He is an experienced player and i noticed him doing this for the 3rd time. I do believe this is intentional and I see this as a careful and very skillful "brainwashing" without the danger of being caught. He is trying to make all of us think the way he does.

At The end of his post where he analyses my ISO he says he thinks i am scum because not all of my posts are scummy only a few. He also says if all of somebodys post are scummy then that person is likely to be town. This doesnt make any sense. How is that even possible that somebody writes only scummy posts? What happens if somebody only writes town posts? Is he scum then? This seems like an explanation for why does he think I am scum even when reading my ISO doesnt generate scum vibes. Its like telling the newbies here that its doesnt matter if they dont think i am scum after reading my ISO, vote me because in my case not being scummy actually makes me scum. This is nonsense and obviously something a scum!Plotinus would do.

One last thing then i end this post. I have read the mafia forum of the game he played an IC scum before this game. He carefully planned everything,and he won the game by taking somebody to LYLO who was not active when the last day ended so she could not change her vote. Plotinus said he choosed her intentionally because he is always aware that who posts when and he knows who is posting at night or at morning. He is aware that I am on V/LA but he still comes at me with everything. He hopes I wont be able to respond properly so he can finish the wagon on me.
All of these together make me think he is an obv scum. I think he should get voted out on the first day.

VOTE: Plotinus

[PhantomCobalt]

I definitely think that Plotinus and Frank are of opposing alignments. So by lynching Frank, we learn the alignment of Plot.

[Raskolnikov]

If franksa is actually town I'll be almost certain PC is scum, though.

Actually I take this back. After sleeping on it, PC is probably town even if franksa is town as well. I'm increasingly suspecting plotinus instead. A wagon on him would be stupid today, but that's probably where I'll start if franksa flips town. I don't know if it's worthwhile talking about my reasons for distrusting plotinus right now as it would only be that important if franksa flips town, which I hope doesn't happen.

[Plotinus]

UNVOTE: franksa

I don't have the resources to engage with mafia today because of offline stuff. I'm usually v/la on weekends and this weekend is worse than usual.

But I think 216 was a townpost and I'm not feeling this wagon anymore. I will look at things with fresh eyes on probablyMonday and respond to the longer stuff then, but I didn't want to wait to unvote because I think I was wrong about franksa before.

[Plotinus]

I definitely think that Plotinus and Frank are of opposing alignments. So by lynching Frank, we learn the alignment of Plot.

this is what people have been saying about you and Franksa, too.

I think this is a bad way to approach the game. I've seen it many times that two people were thinking each other was scum but both of them were town. The solution is never to chain lynch both slots without reconsidering anything.

I think that you and Franksa are unlikely to be scum together, but you could either both be town or one of you could be scum. Why are you ignoring the possibility of town vs town here?

[Zaicon]

tictac replaces Aurora.

[tictac]

Hello all.
It's 5 in the morning here, I'll come back to this tomorrow.

[Jake from State Farm]

Sort won't be able to catchup til tonight or tomorrow. Daughter has basketball all day today.

[tictac]

I'm on 56 on my readthrough.
VOTE: Kuro

-I've yet to see scumhunting of any kind from him.
-54 asks the question "What is RVS". Before that the acronym was used in posts 31,27,25,22,21. Am I supposed to believe that the entire exchange about jake not RVSing was nonsense to him, yet he didn't feel compelled to ask about it before 54? As town? I think that shows profound disinterest in what others are saying in the thread. Contrast with 48 where he expresses belief that town can catch scum.
-He reacts to franksa's confusion about the matter as if it's an accusation. Almost as if he knew what he was saying was suspicious.

@Kuro: I'd like you to link some off-site games of yours.