Mini Normal #1838 - Game Over

[Zoronos]

What makes you think Grendel is town?
I could be wrong. I've been wrong plenty this game and I'm not afraid to admit it.

[Prism]

Trimmed a lot of this down to maximize readability. If you think something needs more exposition or if I missed a question, let me know. My vote and explanation comes in the next post.

@penguin - please provide a case against me.

Ok. This is going to be a long one so:

Spoiler: The Case

You're scum.

Stop doing this. You've recognized that a significant number of people are townreading your brash behavior and at this point you have to be exaggerating it for effect. It's already starting to backfire. Flesh out your case, because nn30 isn't scummy to me.

Jailkeeper stuff

Jailing offensively was the right play. If they have a roleblocker, you were already getting blocked and couldn't both save Gamma and block the kill simultaneously. If they don't have a roleblocker, saving Gamma is useless anyway (would just die N3 reportless) and you instead get a potential guilty ie. If roleblocker you were already 100% negated, if no roleblocker an offensive jail is the best jail. More on this in a bit.

Would you be convinced by this vote analysis, then? I'm looking specifically at the LUV votes and Prism. We could also add boring to this but you and I are in agreement with her it seems and Gamma is dead so I'm leaving him out of it.
This is the first vote count that includes Prism voting LUV. His vote stayed there the rest of the day (even though there were a number of opportunities to hop off). Is that enough to clear Prism?

I think scum needed to bus LUV there regardless, especially if my scumread on boring is right. I'd look more at why I voted rather than just the fact that I did so.

I thought your case was dumb because I understood it as 'you agree with me but have me null that's impossible you're parroting my read'.

My read on LUV was two parts, the first that you're responding to: The point was not that he had me null, but because he specifically said "Nothing to go off of." immediately after plagiarizing a large part of my reasoning. A read worth stealing may not be enough for an alignment read but it is definitely "something to go off of." LUV himself recognized it as a telling mistake-why else would he deny it? The second is that his read on me seemed pretty bullshit, and he couldn't give any examples of "posts that rubbed him the wrong way" when I questioned him on it. Maybe LUV will come in the postgame and tell me that he really didn't mean to do XYZ but with his flip I'm inclined to believe I was on the right track.

I think the weirdest thing about Prism yesterday was that he didn't seem bat an eye over LUV's Doc claim. That said, he's still a town lean.

Shocker: I'm not surprised when someone I am 99% sure is scum claims a PR. And how am I going to bat an eye anyway when I wasn't even there to post? This is my first post after his claim and he was already cc'd by Zoronos:

I was starting to scumread Zoronos so I'm glad he's the one cc'ing LUV. Between the two I'm still voting LUV and I'd be surprised if I was wrong.

Lynching outside isn't a bad idea, if we decide to do it my vote is probably going to be for boring. In boring's position as scum I would definitely be looking to bus to get some credibility back after that Day 1 and Maria kill. My next favorite choice after boring isn't really clear, I can see any of Gamma/PP/Dierfire/Grendel and I'm not voting Gamma today.

@Prism - what's your current read on implosion? I think I asked this before and didn't get a response.

I figured he was town with the Gamma claim, if Gamma turned out to be scum I was going to revisit it later. Before Gamma outed that I was starting to scumread him again after initially returning to neutral with some thinking over the course of N1. My reasoning on this is given in #1933.

@Prism

Can you link some games where you bussed as scum?

I know its offsite, and unless the meta is drastically different I don't really mind that.

I prefer to stay private. One thing that doesn't require me to link anything is that I have virtually 0 experience playing forum mafia, and the last time I did so was approximately five years ago. If you want me to describe my own scum meta, I can do so on request, but I suspect it will not be helpful due to the credibility issue.

[Dierfire]

I'm getting close to committing to POE here.
I have more reasons, but I think that their claims are sufficient to have Shadow_step and Zoronos as Town.
I think that Prism is unlikely to be Mafia given the protracted conflict with Lil Uzi Vert. More powerful than his reasons for voting Lil Uzi Vert is the reaction that Lil Uzi Vert has to those reasons and the way that Prism follows up in conversation. In the quotes below, Prism is pursuing Lil Uzi Vert while Lil Uzi Vert appears to be evading Prism rather than engaging with him, which is an unusual pattern for Mafia partners.

Spoiler: Quotes

I don't see how I haven't made it clear why I started scum reading Snake towards the end of Day 1. Why are you implying that I was scum reading Snake for the majority of the day?

I never implied that you did it earlier. Your statement implies that you held both reads simultaneously at the end of Day 1. It still makes no sense to have ever had both.

As for Prism, I reread his ISO and something about his reads feel fake to me. I'm not sure if that's correct way to put it but basically the stances he is taking on everyone seem very safe. It feels like he can easily fall back on them or conveniently change them at a moments notice with little to no scrutiny.

Can you give examples of my reads that feel fake to you?
Can you give some examples of safe stances I've taken on people?

If anything I've been contrarian for a large part of the game-it took me a lot longer to come around to thinking nn30 was town than it did anyone else and I was the only one pushing Implosion yesterday...and even now that others are today I've changed my focus for reasons described in #1664. I also switched off of boring shortly before others started scumreading her, and never hopped back on, again for reasons described in #1664. If you're defining convenience as going with others, I've changed my reads at some really inconvenient times.

Why does it make no sense?

Tone and gut for me, at least what I got from what when I reread your ISO last night.

Why does it make no sense?

The premise was that they were direct counterclaims, for one?

Tone and gut for me, at least what I got from what when I reread your ISO last night.

Okay, but can you give examples of the reads you feel are safe or convenient?

Looking at your ISO I'm more skeptical of your interpretation of my reads, and even more skeptical of your reads.

In the meantime I'm going to VOTE: boring whose #196 left me wondering if she was trying to find inconsistencies or trying to find scum.

My original read on boring. A few posts later we get LUV reading boring...

I don't know how to put my feelings about her [boring] into the words but I can't shake this vibe from her. I think it's mainly her vote on Zoro, which read more to me as nitpicking about inconsistencies rather than looking for scum.

And in the same post...

Prism - Just subbed in. Nothing to go off of.

On the surface, it seems like you're the one being convenient between following me on boring and flopping on snake when he hit L-1.

On a deeper level, it seems really strange as town to directly plagiarize my reasoning on boring then subsequently claim, in the same post, that I had given "nothing to go off of."

More votes on LUV.

Nitpicking about inconsistencies =/= trying to find inconsistencies.

Also another thing I noticed, you seemed concerned about how you look. A few posts in your ISO if I recall you were frustrated at people for their reasoning for town reading you. It's as if you worried someone will go back and wonder why you're so widely town read by the majority.

Nitpicking about inconsistencies =/= trying to find inconsistencies.

If you haven't voted LUV and need a reason, read my #1689 and this response.

Also another thing I noticed, you seemed concerned about how you look. A few posts in your ISO if I recall you were frustrated at people for their reasoning for town reading you. It's as if you worried someone will go back and wonder why you're so widely town read by the majority.

Is this a scumtell?

I'm quoting both of our statements and showing that they're not the same thing. One is saying she was nitpicking about inconsistencies, the other is saying she is trying to find inconsistencies.

A brief overview of the VC also supports Prism for sticking to Lil Uzi Vert throughout D2 (while I see that boring also does this, I don't trust this alone as proof that boring is Town, because she was nearly lynched D1 and might therefore have seen a need to create some distance).

Therefore, I'm strongly reading implosion, Zoronos, Shadow_step, and Prism as Town.

I next compare the wagon on boring in 1150 with that on PenguinPower in 383. PenguinPower receives votes from all other players outside my Town pool; boring receives a vote only from nn30. I would vote for boring before I would vote for PenguinPower.

I'm ambivalent about nn30; certainly the D1 VC were suspicious if boring is Town, but nn30 spends a lot of time on the wagons of players in my POE lynching pool and I don't find the Shadow_step wagon after his claim a likely place for two Mafia players to stack. At any rate I will say that nn30 should not be Mafia with boring (because nn30 and Lil Uzi Vert should not have been stacking on Shadow_step in 900 if eagerSnake is the main alternative to boring). I also may want to rule out a team of nn30 and PenguinPower based on the VC in 2079 (if nn30 were to vote for a partner, the one about to be lynched makes more sense).

So, I'd like to vote for Grendel or boring today.

VOTE: Grendel

[Prism]

VOTE: boring

I do not get the boring townreads at all. Boring was coming off a borderline disastrous Day 1 where she got herself into a 1v1 with someone who flipped town, then had someone who hard scumread her nightkilled. It makes a lot of sense to bus Day 2. Reading boring does nothing to convince me that this isn't the case. The Day 1 pushes people are widely citing are offhanded comments here are there while she pushes someone else. Her end of day suggestion to go on LUV over eager was in #1452, when the vote was 5 eager 3 boring with Eager yet to vote. It was already locked between her and Eager and whether or not she'd lose seemed up in the air. A lot of these newfound townreads on boring are just reflexive reactions to the LUV flip, and at least one of them is coming from scum. I still think Maria dying wasn't a coincidence.

Then there's this:

I was expecting you to be dead today too, since going for Gamma would be a huge gamble, but here we are. I agree that it would have been unhelpful to block Gamma on his last productive night. I'm thinking that roleblocker is more likely, by the way.

It's unhelpful to block Gamma last night, and thus Zoronos isn't going to do it. She acknowledges this. If a random town knows it scum knows it. Why did she expect a Gamma death?

It doesn't help that her posts have come off the wrong way to me all game as that just makes me more prone to confirmation bias.

My other top votes for today so far would be Grendel and PP, still need to reread Dierfire. If boring turns out to be town then I'm pretty lost.

[nn30]

@Prism - Cool, thanks for answering my question.

Please ISO boring and look for her interactions with LUV. Does her scumreading / pushing for his lynch a significant portion of day one and all of day two change your read on her?

p-edit - not even how early she wanted LUV on day one?

@Zoro - I asked prism about implosion because I thought Gamma had the potential to give incorrect cop reads (crazy cop or w/e that role is). I now realize that doesn't make sense since we have Gamma's role now. :/

I'll give you more on Grendel tomorrow. I need to go to bed.

[podoboq]

Official Vote Count 3.03

Lynching

With 9 votes in play, it takes 5 to lynch.

nn30 (3): Shadow_step, PenguinPower, Grendel
Grendel (3): Zoronos, nn30, Dierfire
boring (1): Prism

Not Voting (2): boring, implosion

Deadline: (expired on 2016-11-14 13:30:00)

[Dierfire]

The above reminded me of the quoted post below.

Assuming MariaR's vote from 354 is counted without the tags, Penguin is at L-1 right now.

These are evidence to me that nn30 is playing alone in this game, not supported by comrades providing input/advice (Daytalk). This moves nn30 lower on my list of lynch candidates and strengthens my inclination to lynch Grendel or boring.

[Zoronos]

@Zoro - I asked prism about implosion because I thought Gamma had the potential to give incorrect cop reads (crazy cop or w/e that role is). I now realize that doesn't make sense since we have Gamma's role now. :/

I'll give you more on Grendel tomorrow. I need to go to bed.

As I noted previously, I believe (though am not positive) that all the 'cop gives wrong results' roles are banned on this site in Normal games.
I'm not positive though. Someone with more experience on this site would have to pipe up.

(I haven't digested Dierfire or Prism's cases yet, and I'm going to sleep. I will get to that tomorrow.)
I know I promised Boring a readslist, but at the moment the short version is:
Town:
Implosion, Prism, Boring, ShadowStep

Townish:
NN30

????:
Dierfire

Scummish:
PenguinPower

Scum:
Grendel

I need to re-review Diefire, but that's on my 'to do' list for tomorrow. My gut is he belongs in the town-ish bucket.
I think I disagree with Prism's assertion that Boring felt the need to hard-bus from her situation. Certainly after the Gamma train spun up. The thing I'd look for there is if Boring was contributing suspicion to gamma without contributing a vote. I haven't gone in depth to know whether that's true or false. If she did, then maybe it was a bus. If she did not, then almost certainly town. Her behavior around the hammer is also not what I'd expect from scum - She seemed to display honest confusion about the setup meta that would lead to LUV's claim being scum. Scum (in my experience) tend to play with a lot more certainty, since, well, they know it's a fake claim.

Having exactly two scum and one ???? means probably that one of my other reads is wrong or someone is playing scum in a way that I don't expect.
Anyway. G'night folks.

[Dierfire]

As I noted previously, I believe (though am not positive) that all the 'cop gives wrong results' roles are banned on this site in Normal games.

I wasn't aware that this was still in question, but I can answer this definitively.

The role that Gamma Emerald had, Town Cop, follows the guidelines below.

Sane Cop is considered Normal on mafiascum.net, while all other sanities are banned from Normal games. A Cop (or Seer) in a Normal game must return the same results for all non-town roles (excluding Godfather or Investigation-Immune Serial Killer) and for a Miller. Trying to investigate an Ascetic role should return "No Result", the same as if the Cop had been blocked.

Note that, despite the reference to the Godfather role in the description, that role is explicitly prohibited in a Normal game (black list).

Godfather was considered Normal on mafiascum.net until an update in April 2016, when it was added to the "explicitly non-Normal" list.

Combined with the result given by Gamma Emerald (quoted below), there should be no Normal mechanism for implosion to be aligned with Mafia.

I'm a Town Cop with a Night 1 Town result on Implosion.

I'm uncertain as to whether a Normal mechanism exists for implosion to give that result as a Serial Killer, but I see no reason to suspect that this is the case.

[implosion]

Gaaah. I meant to post today and then got distracted.

I'll iso LUV tomorrow and figure out what I think of his connections; I think nn's play today so far reads gut town and am not sure about Grendel but will have more tomorrow.

We also need to think about when we're going to massclaim. If anything, the death of the cop over the jailkeeper lends credence to scum not having a roleblocker; if they did they could kill the jk and block the cop indefinitely, which is safer than the alternative of leaving the jk alive and possibly getting roleblocked at 1 scum left.

[PenguinPower]

Stop doing this.

Um.....no.

Flesh out your case, because nn30 isn't scummy to me.

I kinda did. I mean it's not like my posts are long, WoT-style like yours, so you should have picked up on it.

His entire end of day tunnel on me for using the word "lie" seemed like an attempt to distract and divert the LUV wagon which became scummy upon LUV's flip.

[boring]

VOTE: boring

I do not get the boring townreads at all. Boring was coming off a borderline disastrous Day 1 where she got herself into a 1v1 with someone who flipped town, then had someone who hard scumread her nightkilled. It makes a lot of sense to bus Day 2. Reading boring does nothing to convince me that this isn't the case. The Day 1 pushes people are widely citing are offhanded comments here are there while she pushes someone else. Her end of day suggestion to go on LUV over eager was in #1452, when the vote was 5 eager 3 boring with Eager yet to vote. It was already locked between her and Eager and whether or not she'd lose seemed up in the air. A lot of these newfound townreads on boring are just reflexive reactions to the LUV flip, and at least one of them is coming from scum. I still think Maria dying wasn't a coincidence.

In both these arguments, you're suggesting that I've completely changed my scum-play (and possibly suffered brain damage in the interim). Hard bussing from Day 1 is idiotic. Especially when there are so many bad town running around to provide easy counter wagons. So is killing the person most vocal against you, by the way. Not to mention it being crazy for a scum team to allow that kind of reckless killing pattern.

Then there's this:

I was expecting you to be dead today too, since going for Gamma would be a huge gamble, but here we are. I agree that it would have been unhelpful to block Gamma on his last productive night. I'm thinking that roleblocker is more likely, by the way.

It's unhelpful to block Gamma last night, and thus Zoronos isn't going to do it. She acknowledges this. If a random town knows it scum knows it. Why did she expect a Gamma death?

I can't even.

Okay, assuming that was a typo, and not a senior moment, there's a difference between suspecting and knowing. There's no way that scum would risk a no-kill night. Unless the scum team can't math. Of course, your assumption that I'm scum seems to be based on the belief that I'm stupid, so maybe simple arithmetic is beyond me.

[boring]

Honestly, Penguin, your push on nn30 is part of what's making me drag my feet on him. Sure, you hammered LUV, but that was after the gambit, when it was clear he was getting lynched anyway. In fact, I'm more than a little surprised that Zoronos wasn't more suspicious of you, based on the votes, than Grendel.

First, you went after Gamma. Then, when he was revealed as cop, you went after Zoronos. LUV continued to get pressure, but you didn't vote him. I think it's very conceivable that the scum team told him to gambit to flush out any protectors. Then, when he got to L-1 again, and the gambit got its results, you hammered with little warning, to cut off further discussion.

VOTE: Penguin

[boring]

We also need to think about when we're going to massclaim. If anything, the death of the cop over the jailkeeper lends credence to scum not having a roleblocker; if they did they could kill the jk and block the cop indefinitely, which is safer than the alternative of leaving the jk alive and possibly getting roleblocked at 1 scum left.

That might make sense, if they're allowed to target the same player two nights in a row. That is, for a team with an RB/JK to be killing Zoronos first. I still think it's more likely for a PR-weak mafia team to kill Zoronos first too, just in case he did decide to Keep Gamma.

[Zoronos]

Honestly, Penguin, your push on nn30 is part of what's making me drag my feet on him. Sure, you hammered LUV, but that was after the gambit, when it was clear he was getting lynched anyway. In fact, I'm more than a little surprised that Zoronos wasn't more suspicious of you, based on the votes, than Grendel.

First, you went after Gamma. Then, when he was revealed as cop, you went after Zoronos. LUV continued to get pressure, but you didn't vote him. I think it's very conceivable that the scum team told him to gambit to flush out any protectors. Then, when he got to L-1 again, and the gambit got its results, you hammered with little warning, to cut off further discussion.

VOTE: Penguin

Grendel over Penguin was simple; in my experience, scum love being on scum lynches.
Penguin sat off, Grendel did not.

(As noted above, I look at the pre-reveal VC, not the post-reveal)

[boring]

@Dierfire - Can you explain why you are certain about Shadow being town? I still have some doubt, based on the facts that he's unconfirmed and eager really was town ascetic.

p-edit: you didn't think the post-reveal had anything to offer? What's stopping PP from joining Grendel in your fully scum pile?

[Zoronos]

p-edit: you didn't think the post-reveal had anything to offer? What's stopping PP from joining Grendel in your fully scum pile?

I talked earlier about what I feel was most instructive in the post-reveal period - Anyone that immediately slammed down 'LUV clearly scum' gained scum points in my book.
Town in that situation, in my experience, will see a moment of confusion where they weigh the claims and decide what to do. Maybe even balk a little at the prospect of lynching a doctor, because what if they're wrong.
Grendel showed no such reservation.

I think there's plenty that's instructive in the post-reveal period; just not the VC.

I'm not sure what's really stopping me from putting PP in the fully scum category. I kinda feel that LUV+Penguin+Grendel as the scum team is just a bit too easy and there must be something I'm missing. My scum case on him hasn't changed much from yesterday. I never got traction on him in the face of a scum lynch, which is really weird.

[Dierfire]

@boring

@Dierfire - Can you explain why you are certain about Shadow being town? I still have some doubt, based on the facts that he's unconfirmed and eager really was town ascetic.

A few of the posts that Lil Uzi Vert directed at Shadow_step seemed like unlikely partner interactions to me.

Good this should be an easy game. I have a couple of town reads too.
Need to hear more from Slandaar/Maria/Diet to sort them out.

You keep implying this game will be easy. I seriously hope you have a backup plan for when I flip town.

This reads to me like ATE, which is a technique used against a Town player rather than a partner.

Calling me a VI? Okay that is just bullshit.
Esp since you have no idea with am I talking about.

Never called you a VI, I thought you was one though. Why so angry?

And you're right, I don't know what you're talking about, but no one else does either. Mind sharing what knowledge you may or may not have to determine how you're finding this game easier then the rest of us?

This seems a little too confrontational to be staged. Also the "do you mind sharing" bit seems like Lil Uzi Vert is legitimately probing for information rather than teeing up a partner.

Yeah I honestly don't know what the hell happened the last 5 pages, just seems like poorly calculated move by Shadow regardless if he's telling the truth or not.

This makes it seem as though Lil Uzi Vert was not in on the plan if Shadow_step is Mafia with an elaborate claim strategy.

[PenguinPower]

Honestly, Penguin, your push on nn30 is part of what's making me drag my feet on him. Sure, you hammered LUV, but that was after the gambit, when it was clear he was getting lynched anyway. In fact, I'm more than a little surprised that Zoronos wasn't more suspicious of you, based on the votes, than Grendel.

First, you went after Gamma. Then, when he was revealed as cop, you went after Zoronos. LUV continued to get pressure, but you didn't vote him. I think it's very conceivable that the scum team told him to gambit to flush out any protectors. Then, when he got to L-1 again, and the gambit got its results, you hammered with little warning, to cut off further discussion.

VOTE: Penguin

Conceivable. But, your statement is incorrect and a misrep. I was off Gamma and on Zoronos before the Gamma reveal, and hopped of to unvote status after the Zoronos reveal. I voted LUV once I felt more certain he was scum than town PR.

[Shadow_step]

I've been giving boring a free pass so far because people seemed to be a soft target and people voting her because of her previous games as scum.
When I attacked LUV on day 1, boring had a "problem" with it.
I think one of [boring, prism] has to be scum because of LUV's readlist.

[nn30]

I've been giving boring a free pass so far because people seemed to be a soft target and people voting her because of her previous games as scum.
When I attacked LUV on day 1, boring had a "problem" with it.
I think one of [boring, prism] has to be scum because of LUV's readlist.

I think you're reading way too much into LUV's read list.

[nn30]

Let's talk about Grendel. Last night I flip flopped on my stance on him a bunch. Truth is I just don't know what he his and my uncertainty is reflected in my flip flopping. I'm going to ISO him and LUV and see if anything that happens strikes me. I will not edit anything I write down as I go through this process - the intention is to show you my thought process and reactions to the ISO as I do it. I will make a conclusion statement at the very bottom.

Spoiler:

Hi, as this is my first post I'd like to say that I look forward to matching wits with you all!

His post of the game - so I'll come right out and acknowledge that this is thin. The way this is worded feels like a me vs. them mentality ("...matching wits with you all!") I read this as scum.

Spoiler:

I re-read his RQS analysis. Originally it felt towny (lots of effort) but on re-read it could also be scum faking content. I didn't quote it here for space reasons.

Spoiler:

Zoronos: He is clearly underestimating my ability to read between the lines. He didn't submit answers to the set, but I value peoples reactions to RQS highly, and use them as part of my RQS analysis. I find that it is common for scum planning to go deep to try and play the “voice of reasoning”, they’ll either treat me like mislead town and correct me, or they’ll correct me while throwing a light scum read my way. Often the ones who choose to paint me as misleading scum are not going to push me. The ones opting to town read me will dig their heels in when I, or they, are questioned about their stance. Clearly Zoronos is falling into the first category. He insists RQS is pro-scum, throws out a light scum read my way, but doesn’t show any desire to push said scum read. In fact if appears that he is back tracking in his next post. If in this instance Zoronos is scum there is a good chance that he is the ‘leader’ of his posse, and that his scum buddies are less experienced players then he is. Scum.

His RQS analysis on Zorono is interesting. The bolded sentence slightly parallels my own interactions with Zoronos this game. 1) Zoro is absolutely being the voice of reason this game and 2) he's corrected my play a few times. This is interesting and makes me want to re-read Zoro. It's possible that Zoro / Grendel are a scum team and Zoro told Grendel his play style in scum chat - which is reflected here. A Zoro/Grendel team is possible to me since neither of them are in my hard town category at the moment.

Something else from his RQS analysis - of the 3 dead townies, Grendel had 2 of them pegged as town from RQS and one null. Of the dead scum, he had a null here as well. The lack of inaccuracy on these four is interesting. If Grendel flips scum at some point refer to this post - it may be useful. I think his scum partners would be in the town or null reads.

Spoiler:

Oh and, I'm about to get really busy on something, and won't be on tonight.

See you all tomorrow... evening?

Putting the answers to the random questions completely aside, can you point to why Penguin is scum, based on things he's posted in game?

His wagon on Lil Uzi Vert is easy. Lil is non contributing and anti town, but his play is a largely null tell for me because he did this exact same thing as town last time I played with him. Heck I, as scum, pushed to get Vert lynched with the same reason that Penguin is here. That Vert is “fence sitty and his lack of stances make him scum lordz”. Lil is a great wagon for scum!Penguin because he can push this wagon through with little consequence once Vert were to flip town.

His move to Gamma isn’t much better because Gamma is known for taking things at face value. Like Gamma is hard town reading, and defended me because I opened with RQS. This is because I played a game as scum where I didn’t open with RQS. When the reason I didn’t open had more to do with me subbing into a game with 20+ pages then my alignment. It’s the same thing with Vert, Gamma has an experience with town!Vert being fence sitty and non-contributory, so he thinks Vert is town here. Penguin’s biggest reason for voting Gamma is because Gamma tr Vert, everything else seems like that Penguin seems to find scum about Gamma looks like pretty normal Gamma play too honestly.

Basically Penguin has only pushed for wagons on easy players.

I also don’t care for announcing I’m town without explaining why. All the more awkward considering that he seemed to think i was scum, (or bad town), just one page earlier. I only posted a couple thought in between those points. I don't see how Penguin would have come to that conclusion as quickly as he did based solely on that. All I really did was defend my RQS, and tell Penguin that calling me "scum, or bad town" is an ugly knee jerk reaction. I could totally see Penguin as scum backing off because he decided I wasn't an easy lynch.

I think this singlehandedly removes Grendel/Penguin/LUV as a scum team. As scum I don't see myself putting myself and my two buddies in the same post with this much meat in it.

I've bolded Grendel's defense of LUV. At the time of this defense there were zero votes on LUV - making the likelihood of Grendel attempting to defend his scum partner higher than if LUV was about to be lyched. Relevantly, this also came after LUV's (in hindsight) terrible 246 where LUV fails to provide proof that he was trying to solve the game and instead summarizes what has already happened. Grendel still chose to defend him. Feels scum.

Spoiler:

I've been trying to hunt for the whole team all at once so I can avoid tunnels.

This is an easy way to fake content as scum.

Spoiler:

This is hard.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should look outside of these two for a bit.

I guess I'm not reaching a conclusion tonight.

I guess I'm not reaching a conclusion tonight.

These three quotes occurred 30 minutes apart. This is either really detail oriented scum who is methodically leaving breadcrumbs, or towny. This post feels towny to me.

Spoiler:

@LUV Lets chat a bit:
How do you feel about the two leading wagons, as well as the individuals on them?
And if this were EoD which wagon would you join?
In this hypothetical situation where would you look next if the one you picked flipped scum? if they flipped town?

I want you to take more active stances. Your note taking, and your otherwise low key posting is not helping me get a hold on your alignment friend.

The only example I've found of LUV and Grendel directly interacting. LUV did not respond to it and Grendel didn't push him further.

Makes me feel like Grendel is town. If my scum partner asked me a question, I'd answer it because #teamwork. LUV could also have just missed it. Still, I'm leaning town Grendel on this this post/interaction.

Spoiler:

Luv looks worse in retrospect then I first thought.

LUV was tied for the largest wagon at two votes when Grendel said this. Scum testing the waters for a bus or town identifying a scum read? To me, I think Grendel feels towny here.

Spoiler:

Luv is all over the place and I'm having trouble pacing him. I definitely didn't like his hammer, or the unnatural transitions in his reads. I can't help feeling like it is all to easy though.

More thoughts on LUV. Feels appropriately cautious - bread crumb again and town again.

Spoiler:

I'm a little disturbed by Penguin's push on Zoro. It reads as if he's not been reading what Zoro been asking and thinking. Just skimming. Zoro has been sorting like a mad man and his conclusions and observations have been worth the read so far.

As I near the end of this ISO, my feelings on Grendel are leaning fairly hard town. Which brings me to needing a Zoro re-read. LUV fawning over Zoro here is definitely alignment indicative, I'm just not sure in what way. The first thing that comes to my mind is that LUV hard town read me a while back. Assuming LUV is consistent in his deception attempts, this makes me think Zoro is town rn.

Spoiler:

I'm okay with LUV getting lynched, but my top priority right now is Gamma.

Another post about LUV from Grendel with the "I'm okay with a lynch here, but I want to look elsewhere" feeling. Either he's prolifically leaving bread crumbs as scum or he's town.

@Grendel - please look at the following spoiler. It has stuff in it specifically for you.

Spoiler:

-The way the Penguin Power handles LUV feels off to me. I may need to look into this more in future.

Funnily enough I would like to see Penguin lynched now that Gamma is highly likely town. But I don't trust you at all. I mean I'd be just as content with yours as Penguin's lynch right now.

I'd like your current thoughts on these statements, Grendel, now that we know LUV was scum and Gamma was town.

Spoiler:

VOTE: Zoronos

Flailing scum are unlikely to go down by attempting to send votes to their scum buddy. Gives Zoro town points. Granted, Zoro feels intelligent enough to tell LUV to plant this seed once he recognied LUV was going to die for sure. Still, this gives Zoro town points in my eyes.

Conclusion:

I started this read with a bit of Scum!Grendel conf bias in action. As I went through the ISO, I found more and more reasons to town read him instead. The biggest one is that there are a number of thoughts about LUV which he posted which, if Grendel were scum, were deliberately placed bread crumbs. I may be underestimating scum skill levels on this site, but this level of foresight is unthinkable to my own abilities so I'm discounting it here.

Tangentially, I found a few reasons to town read Zoro whereas I had him as null before this.

That being said I think it's very important that we have a pretty locked and loaded consensus on Zoro being town. He is such a persuasive and logical voice that if he's scum, and he's misleading us, it would mean the game for us.

[nn30]

Coincidence.

I've been raising hell all game.

Please, go through and find scummy reasons for me to be tunneling Gamma, Boring, Shadow, you, and briefly Implosion.

Would you do me a solid and quote your reasoning for tunneling each of these people? (I honestly don't feel like slogging through iso's tonight)

I can't speak for the others, but I seem to recall you were on the tail end of the Gamma wagon, and that your biggest point against him was his inability to keep his reads straight. Right?

I just spent 2 hrs on my last post (isoing you and LUV), so I'm going to wing this one from memory rather than quoting past me. I too do not want to slog through iso's.

Gamma - forgot his reads a whole bunch. A meta read on him where I found in his previous town games he didn't make an effort to state his town reads (which he did a lot of early in day one).

Boring - the easy flip on Eager snake is what did it for me. Once Shadow countered him, Eager dropped from high town read straight down to top scum read.

Shadow - I thought Shadow's conclusion that Eager couldn't be a town ascetic was based on too many unlikely assumptions. At the time, Shadow was assuming that 1) Eager was lying about being ascetic which means that 2) Eager chose to lie specifically about being town ascetic (instead of a more common role such as Miller) and 3) the mod ALSO gave Shadow the very same obscure role that Eager was choosing to lie about.

Instead of seeing the two of them as town, I chose to see Eager as town and Shadow as gambling scum.

Penguin - he reacted weirdly to my having him in a pile of "not town" based on a meta read. He then accused me of lying about my meta read on him which I took as a scum action.

Implosion - I don't know this one from memory (this was a month ago after all). I'll give you the iso quotes instead.

Spoiler:

VOTE: Implosion
Serious vote. He doesn't talk about LUV at all but then votes him. Trying to flashwagon are we?

I'm trying to figure out if I agree with you on this one or not.

Implosion's logic and stances seem, to me, to be very confused.
It seems like he's holding contradictory opinions and trying to justify them after the fact because he was playing off gut and didn't think through whether they made sense together (which leans towny).

My gut doesn't like his post, but I think that's because a lot of it is talking about himself. I want to call him scummy for that, but he's responding to a direct question about his behavior, so talking about himself makes sense. He's answering a direct question after all.

So basically my head and my gut disagree on that slot.

I'm inclined to agree.

In 61 Implosion makes some really thin analysis based on well... not much.

Also, in 61 he gives a reason for snake being scummy. In 62 snake calls him out on it (why don't you vote me then?) and in 64 he goes on to ask Zoronos why he didn't follow up his scumread with a vote. He ends 64 by voting Zoronos.

Here's what the problem I have with that exchange - he doesn't vote anyone in 61 himself (which contradicts his line of questioning to Zoronos in 64). After snake calls him out in 62, he claims to have a "number of reasons" to not vote for snake (wut?) and then goes on to vote Zoronos.

The play feels reactionary - he felt afraid of snake being so direct with him so instead of going toe to toe with Snake, he deflects and votes for Zoro.


VOTE: implosion

Spoiler:

Also, implosion went dark after leaving his vote on luv. It's been ~18 hours since he last posted (compared to some pretty heavy activity on his part early on).

He could just be lurking for legit reasons.

Or he could have started lurking in response to getting some heat and just let the thread move past thinking about him.

[Dierfire]

@nn30
That's a lot to process! One quick correction: Lil Uzi Vert did respond to the "let's chat for a bit" section (604, response at the bottom of 762).

[boring]

When I attacked LUV on day 1, boring had a "problem" with it.

You're incorrect. It was the beginning of Day 1, and I was questioning you. My line of inquiry was trying to solve you as a played. You had voted brazenly which I thought was preemptive. I also wanted to understand why you were willing to just accept that your scum read was voting your other scum read without flinching on either. I concluded by your answers that you were town with an over-inflated ego. If it weren't for the fact that I'm still not sure about there being 2 ascetics, you'd still be squarely in that peg.