Newbie 1779 | Spring | Endgame

[PenguinPower]

Vote Count 1.11

Ulti

(2): mhsmith0, aa-dono

mastina

(2): oldwino, DogWatch

-Grey-

(1): RadiantCowbells

mhsmith0

(1): mastina

Not Voting

: Icy, Ulti, -Grey-
With 9 alive, it's 5 to lynch.

Deadline

: (expired on 2017-03-15 06:05:00)

[oldwino]

This is my first post in a while because I've been reading and trying to make sense out of the smith-grey feud.
I want to respond to Mastina's question to me about Smith's wagon on Ulti. But first, I also want to restate my position on Ulti.

For what it's worth: the first potential sign I got that I'm wrong on oldwino is this post.

But on the other hand (yes, I like fences, early in the game anyway when few if any of us, me anyway, really doesn't have a firm read on anyone). Smith said

Why is everyone's role displayed below their name? Doesn't that make this game really easy for town to win?

Hello everyone! I will be your lynchbait for this game

I fixed your typos. I guess it could be scum with a buddy who didn't advise him (or he didn't bother reading advice, or he's just going for a super awkward derp-clear attempt), but lynchbait is my gut reaction to that bit

Incidentally, this is one of the first things oldwino's said in which I actually feel like asking him a question about it would be productive regardless of his alignment/answer. Specifically,

Hey, oldwino:

Given the above, what's your take on:

VOTE: ulti
choo choo

...This?

I was sitting on the fence re: Ulti and cited my reasons in 287 and 299. I'm not able to figure out embedded quotes yet, so will copy paste sections of those two posts. You can see 287 but not 299 in Mastina's posts above.

in 287 I said
I don't like ulti's responses or vote either, even though I think Mastina is scum and am keeping my vote on her for now. If the mod had counted ulti's vote, Mastina would have been at L1 on a Sunday when few players are active. I don't like that. Thanks to Smith for unvoting Mastina for the time being, anyway.

I think ulti is either avoiding questions and acting really naive, and therefore would be scum, or is truly very naive even for a first game or is just not mentally up for this game. No avatar, didn't figure out how to vote, can't link to something he read. No logic behind an L1 vote.

@ulti - If you want to play the game, you have to make an effort and learn. And stick your neck out. But don't take someone to L1 without some analysis, and not on a Sunday when very few are playing.

But on the other hand (yes, I like fences, early in the game anyway when few if any of us, me anyway, really doesn't have a firm read on anyone)
... in 116 Smith 'changed Ulti's typos' and basically said Ulti was lynchbait - I think because he was being so naive.

In 299 I said
I'm still leaning and voting on Mastina because I think Ulti is so new/naive and made his vote decision in a panic because he was being pressured to contribute and didn't know what else to do.

I'm not defending Ulti. I think he is just really weak, naive town, who hasn't read the rules (or responding to my 'prod' about not avatar, etc. etc.). He is contributing so little he wouldn't be much of a loss to town, but even a weak town player still in the game is better for town than his being lynched. And if Mastina is scum, she's a very dangerous one because she is so experienced.

That's what I was thinking several pages ago. Today, I still think Ulti is just too new and scared to participate. But, I ask myself, 'why would he be so afraid, basically frozen with fear?' I think he's afraid to post, to play, because he is scum. A new townie may be afraid to post, afraid they'd make a mistake, but not so afraid that they would keep so quiet. If a new townie is lynched on D1, there are still 6 more townies to carry the game. But if he's scum and is lynched, he's leaving his scum partner out there all alone. So, now I'm leaning scum on Ulti because of his apparent fear to post and play.

And why would Smith start a wagon on Ulti? Frustration maybe? Trying to get a reaction from Ulti, pressuring him to play? And maybe Smith really does think Ulti is scum. Or maybe, several pages ago, to get a reaction from others? But since Smith's vote is still on Ulti, and surprisingly to me not changed to Grey, I've got to believe Smith still thinks Ulti is scum.

[DogWatch]

Basically: Grey was pushing points with the attempt to do something with them and was visibly unsettled at the strong resistance to these points. That's something I typically think of as town since it's hard to fake as scum. mhsmith was bringing up points and not doing much with them aside from using them to counter Grey's points. This is an attitude I tend to associate more with scum.

That's interesting, because my initial read gave me the opposite impression. I sympathized with smith's side of the argument because he'd made what I interpreted as an honest mistake, and neither of us really grasped what Grey was trying to do with his past game example. It's true smith was mostly countering, but I could see town doing that if they felt they were being antagonized. And because I saw the argument about meta as largely unhelpful to the game, I felt Grey's push to use the argument to vote smith was just that: antagonistic.

[oldwino]

Now on to other thoughts.

I think the feud, as I called it, between Smith and Grey is NAI. I don't know either one, don't know anyone in this game, and don't have the time to dig into past games and try to figure out their meta play. So I'm just going on what I read in this game, including some of the posts they have embedded from prior games, but not much of that. Lots of skimming because, even though I am 'old' (not elderly, thank you very much) and retired, I have a busy life. I like spending and hour or so twice a day playing the game, but don't want to spend much more than that because I have so much else going on.

Anyway, I think the feud between Smith and Grey is NAI. Male ego, maybe more defensiveness from Smith than I like, but his overall play seems to be townish, helping newbies (who are mostly silent in this game) understand the game and themselves. I don't find Grey as helpful, but I believe him about not bussing except in an extremely rare situation. I am null to leaning town on both.

RC has been suspiciously quiet lately, and hasn't addressed my question about not voting Mastina, even though RC said at one point she couldn't see Mastina being town (said much more eloquently by RC in post 239). Still leaning town on RC, but not as much as early on.

Leaning town on Dog. I think her questions and observations are good, confident, cautious and she reflects my POV often.

JDW (and now Icy) are confirmed BP so town.

I'm still leaning scum on Mastina. I appreciate all of her teaching and in-depth posts to help us newbies learn and understand the game, but I am still suspicious of her early, what I think was weak, rationale for thinking I was scum. Maybe she was trying me out, testing me, trying to egg me on to be more decisive and a better player. But I think her read on me was weak and almost contrived. And, maybe, just maybe, she is overplaying her IC role to keep a lower player profile because she is scum. Maybe. I'm about 60% scum on Mastina and on D1, as a newbie, I am more likely to be wrong than right, but that's probably common on D1. But she and Ulti seem the most scummy to me. Sometwo have to be scum.

Leaning scum on Alti for the reasons I cited in my last post.

And leaning scum on AA-Dono because she's been so quiet and hasn't said much when she's posted. Another possible newbie scum not knowing what to do. Or a townie with not much time to play.

All my leanings on D1 are with extreme caution because we won't know much until we get someone to L1 and they claim JK or Tracker, if that happens, and until we lynch someone, most likely a townie, and see where the alignments were and how they got there.

For now
Townish to scumish
Me, of course
Icy
Dog
RC
Grey
Smith
AA
Ulti
Mastina (although I am about equally suspicious of Mastina and Ulti, Mastina would be much more dangerous scum to leave alive than Ulti)


Now I'm off again until later today.

[RadiantCowbells]

I am busy IRL. Sorry if I'm not posting much in thread.

[mhsmith0]

But since Smith's vote is still on Ulti, and surprisingly to me not changed to Grey

Why was it surprising to you that I didn't switch it to Grey? Grey's push on me came across as dumb much more than it did scum (see 372 for my calling it that explicitly, but you can probably pick up that perspective elsewhere in the back and forth), my questions to / engagement with him was primarily "wtf are you even doing here" as opposed to "I think you're scum for it"... so why would you expect me to be voting him there?

[RadiantCowbells]

So basically I kinda TR Mhsmith, Grey could be scum, Oldwino still a townlean, Dog is obvtown, I'm waffling on Mastina now.

[DogWatch]

@oldwino If you think Mastina and ulti are a scumteam, why do you think Mastina has barely mentioned the ulti wagon? She DID ask you what you thought of smith's vote on ulti, but the focus there was more on smith than who he voted for. Do you think she attempted to sway the wagon away from ulti in a case of mama-bearing him? And how does ulti's vote on mastina play into this?

[mhsmith0]

I don't consider it remotely acceptable to withold explanations indefinitely, ESPECIALLY doing so while demanding more clarity from others. And since you're citing being an IC as a reason to be LESS forthright, I'll cite the IC guidelines that you linked

The easiest way for newbies to learn is to watch good players playing at their best. Do not attempt to water down your game, or play any differently in terms of your objectives as you would in any other game. Make sure you're playing to win, and make sure you attack just as hard as you would in any other game. Do not attempt to coddle the newbies by playing down to their level, as that will not help them advance as players, and that's pretty much the point of the game.

So to the extent you're choosing to be less helpful than normal just becuase you're the IC, please stop doing that regardless of your alignment. "I won't bother explaining stuff until postgame" is completely unacceptable.

One: I don't recall saying I was going to withhold explanations indefinitely--quite the contrary, I was rather explicit in saying I was going to tell people at the appropriate time. The appropriate time would be now if I had the stamina to do so. (Instead it is ASAP--but still VERY close to now.)

As a result, I am indeed holding you to a different stance than I am holding myself to--from you, I expect explanations; from me, explanations aren't expected until an appropriate time (potentially as late as postgame, even!).

This implied that you, at the very least, are considering witholding explanations indefinitely, and maybe even as late as postgame. I do not consider that acceptable behavior. "Soon" is fine. "Never" is not.

Two: it is the very same passage you are quoting which is why I have played this way. I went to achieve very specific goals, goals I would accomplish in any game by using nearly identical methods. This IS my normal play, just slightly modified and exaggerated in a way which is convenient to a very specific teaching style. I did in fact achieve a fair number of those goals, albeit not as many as I was hoping for.

Please add "how the playstyle I have chosen to embrace and exaggerate has helped me achieve my goals" to your explanation list. Feel free to do just a cursory explanation of it D1 and a larger explanation postgame, but I don't want you to totally brush this one aside.

Three: I have been incredibly helpful, just not in an orthodox way, which is where waiting for the fucking explanation comes in. (And I do apologize for the delay--now would be the time to give it, but real life is real life. Shit happened and even if it hadn't--it's 3:30 AM as I type this, and the explanation I estimate will take 2-3 hours. I literally CAN'T give it right now even though I want to.)

FWIW, I don't care if your explanations are slightly delayed. It's not quite the middle of D1 yet, so RL/health/etc issues happen and i don't have an issue with it, provided that it's coming soon.

Four: I never said I wasn't going to explain things until postgame--simply that as an IC I am within my rights to do so. Why? Because if I were a scum IC, then holding back on a full explanation would simply be my wincon. Trying to get every player to play at their maximum possible skill level is arguably against the wincon of a scum IC. And so, an IC is allowed to hold back on explaining their actions until postgame. In said postgame, a scum IC should lay out why they did what they did, but a scum IC is not required to say anything sooner than then, and this is what I was referring to. People don't expect a scum IC to explain how they are playing and being a scum IC in the middle of the game, except possibly to scum partners during the night. They DO expect the explanation postgame, but not before then.

As an IC, you're a player first, and a teacher second. So no, I don't think you're within your rights to withold explantions or lean on "I'm the IC, I don't have to explain myself" as an excuse. If you're a scum IC, you should find ways to avoid explaining yourself that players can, in the future, attempt to imitate (and "I'm the IC, I don't need to explain myself" is pretty transparently not something they can get away with as scum in any standard game format they'd be in during the near future). Or you should do a good job providing fake (or incomplete) explanations, or you should do any number of other things that they can actually learn from as an example of good scum play.

That's why I said "potentially as late as postgame". But with that, was the implication that a town IC will explain prior to postgame: at the time THEY deem it appropriate, which is point five. An IC (especially a town one) can and will hold back from immediately explaining something to a newbie, if they deem it an appropriate play and/or an appropriate teaching strategy. (So long as they then go on to explain their action and what it was they were trying to accomplish, which I intend to do.) I deemed it both.

There was no implication there that a town IC in particular would be explaining before postgame. Perhaps you meant to say that, perhaps you thought it was understood, but it wasn't what you said.

[mhsmith0]

Grey could be scum, Oldwino still a townlean

Could you talk about these two in particular? Grey's been making some transparently bad pushes, but the manner in which he's done them seems reasonably villagery to me, though I admit I'm not super familiar w his scum game, and am curious how this compares to the game you two were scum together and/or anything else you expect from scum!grey.
Also, could you talk a bit about why you town lean on OW? You've stated that you do, but I don't think you've talked about why.

PS Don't need any kind of essay on either, but at least a couple sentences on each would be helpful.

[Icy]

Did one complete read through and hope to do another tonight, or tomorrow.

Yes I am the BP, and yes I think that removes some of the fun of playing the game!

[-Grey-]

helping newbies (who are mostly silent in this game) understand the game and themselves.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking helpfulness is alignment indicative.

It is very easy for scum to be helpful.

[-Grey-]

As an IC, you're a player first, and a teacher second.

Nah.

Flip those two around.

[mhsmith0]

helping newbies (who are mostly silent in this game) understand the game and themselves.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking helpfulness is alignment indicative.

It is very easy for scum to be helpful

.

Agree with this FWIW (at least for many scum). One of the nicer things that have been said to/about me was

Subject: Mini Normal 1857 Dead Thread

Essentially, IC's post a little bit about super basic theory stuff, and then people are more or less left to figure it out (or not) on their own. And so you get a newbie game where something like 2-6 players (depending on how "new" the newbies actually are, and whether it's 6/2/1 or 5/3/1, and for that matter sometimes some of the SE's really don't know what they're doing either) are just newbies who are more or less clueless, and then you get the fairly predictable result of scum doing very well in setups that SHOULD be town-sided, with occasional instances of newbscum teams just getting wrecked by more experienced players.

My first two newbie games on site both had scum ICs. Both lurked. The third I replaced into had a lurker scum IC. (for the record, mastin, I was playing my 2nd newbie alongside Fractals, iirc, and lilith's C9++ I played with Ranger, so it's hard for me to tell exactly

which

of those to count as my 2nd game overall, but in Fractals you basically had me as a fresh newb from a lurker IC that only told me I was good for a newbie or something like that)

Asking for post-game feedback netted me squat because "I was scum this game so I'm not sure" basically.
I asked both during and after my first game about VCA and still had no idea.

It was only when I spectated you (smith) playing

as scum

with Rask that one time in Ranger's first IC game that I started to understand the process, because you were doing what an IC should be doing. You manipulated the VC so that the VCA was useless that game but you still talked about your process and it was the process you would have gone through as town.

Basically, I ended up an SE that had never played scum nor had a town IC. The scum ICs were largely unhelpful in helping me actually learn the game beyond terminology that I hadn't already picked up from the wiki.

It's at the point where I see an unhelpful IC and I want it lynched. Don't IC if you aren't willing to teach the newbies. Teaching people how to play is not something that should clash with playing to further your win con. Adjust your play to suit. Don't just avoid giving helpful information or say it's not important to learn x thing. Encourage growth and trying different ways of reading people. State your opinion and make it clear that it's just your opinion and others have differing ones.

And I wasn't even the IC in that game

[mhsmith0]

As an IC, you're a player first, and a teacher second.

Nah.

Flip those two around.

Disagree fwiw, though both are important. There are, unfortunately, a bunch of people who seem to think that the IC is a teacher not at all (I.e. Vomit out a intro post or two and then act like just a regular player from then on), but I'd still say player first teacher second.

[oldwino]

@oldwino If you think Mastina and ulti are a scumteam, why do you think Mastina has barely mentioned the ulti wagon? She DID ask you what you thought of smith's vote on ulti, but the focus there was more on smith than who he voted for. Do you think she attempted to sway the wagon away from ulti in a case of mama-bearing him? And how does ulti's vote on mastina play into this?

My best explanation of Mastina barely mentioning the ulti wagon is to not bring any additional attention to it. Not sway anyone away from it, but not give it much attention. She could have asked me what I thought to draw me out more and give her a post to counter, either to work at discrediting me or give her something to counter to try to indirectly defuse the wagon. Ulti's vote on Mastina was null, never counted because he didn't vote correctly, nor did he ever go back and fix his vote so it would count. Why not?

Keep in mind I'm at best still just barely feeling over 50-50 on anyone, except myself and Icy.

[oldwino]

helping newbies (who are mostly silent in this game) understand the game and themselves.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking helpfulness is alignment indicative.

It is very easy for scum to be helpful.

I understand, thanks. Can't help but let it bias me somewhat, but I fight the urge.

[-Grey-]

As an IC, you're a player first, and a teacher second.

Nah.

Flip those two around.

Disagree fwiw, though both are important. There are, unfortunately, a bunch of people who seem to think that the IC is a teacher not at all (I.e. Vomit out a intro post or two and then act like just a regular player from then on), but I'd still say player first teacher second.

Those people are ignorant pricks.

There were a bunch of people that thought the world was flat once. Did that make them right?

[RadiantCowbells]

I think the 'teaching' half of being an IC needs to be taken more seriously and frequently isn't. That said you are always a player first and a teacher second.

[-Grey-]

I think the 'teaching' half of being an IC needs to be taken more seriously and frequently isn't. That said you are always a player first and a teacher second.

If that were true, it would justify lying about theory in order to accomplish your wincon.

No, the ethics involved in being an IC demand that the requirements come before the player's wincon

[RadiantCowbells]

let's not bog this game down in an argument over the role of an IC.

[DogWatch]

I think the whole concept of an IC is awkward. How am I supposed to confidently learn from someone who might be actively working against me?

This doesn't even feel like a newbie game anyway. Half the players are experienced and only two newbies are trying to contribute, oldwino and myself. Not very fun, not very helpful.

[RadiantCowbells]

:\

Anything I can do to improve your experience?

[-Grey-]

How am I supposed to confidently learn from someone who might be actively working against me?

What the IC says in their capacity as the IC has to be true to the best of their knowledge, regardless of their alignment.

That is what "being a teacher first and player second" means. Some people are so focused on the "IC has to play to their wincon" aspect that they completely disregard the ethical obligations of the IC to be truthful

even at the expense of their wincon

.

[oldwino]

I think the 'teaching' half of being an IC needs to be taken more seriously and frequently isn't. That said you are always a player first and a teacher second.

If that were true, it would justify lying about theory in order to accomplish your wincon.

No, the ethics involved in being an IC demand that the requirements come before the player's wincon

I would think the IC could and should separate the roles. Maybe even have two identities, one as ICname and the other as PLAYERname. Example,
ICMastina and PLAYERMastina. Or more simply, IMastina and Mastina.

It think it should be easy for an IC to answer questions about the mechanics of the game, explain some strategy in general, etc. in a fully truthful way, and still play the game as scum and lie as necessary for their wincon. In this game, it's sometimes hard to separate the two roles because Mastina has been so prolific in filling her IC role. Not sure where she's drawn the line. No offense, I truly appreciate her taking the time to write as much as she has about the game, in her IC role and previously in a blog, etc. etc.

For me, however, and I am speaking of course for only me, Mastina is overdoing the IC role but I have learned some things, gotten some ideas from her. In my first game, 1771, the IC basically just played the game like everyone else (he was a tracker). He was there if any newbies had questions but I don't think anyone asked him anything. If so, it was in a PM. We also only had two EC's in 1771, so there were 6 fairly new newbies in the game. Of course, as luck would have it, both EC's were scum and wiped out town on Day 3.