Let's reread our first game

[Something_Smart]

I just reread my first game yesterday, primarily as a procrastination mechanism. And it reminded me all over again how terrible of a game it was.

Newbie 1663

Not counting a pregame replacement, the game had nine replacements. Two were voluntary replace-outs due to toxic behavior on Day 1. One was due to the player being banned for being a troll alt. And six were due to flaking-- in five different slots (including both scum slots).

I replaced into a scum slot that had made a total of 2 posts, both in RVS, by page 15.

In addition to causing two replace-outs, toxicity led to the cop (town's only PR) claiming Day 1, with a scumread on my also-lurking scum partner that was right but for weird reasons; he was ignored and NK'd N1. (He also received a tempban for some of his comments in the game.) It also led to an easy mislynch on the other player who was being abrasive D1.

D2 saw several more replacements, including that of my partner who was still lurking and got put at L-1 with intent to hammer because of deadline. His replacement came in and pushed a mislynch (on a player who at that time had made 11 posts in 23 pages, despite being on the game's original playerlist), which was derphammered by another replacement in his first post. Then we cruised to an easy victory mislynching him in LYLO.

I was pretty proud of my play, but in hindsight it was pretty bad and the only reason I didn't get called out on it was because everyone else was worse.

Spoiler: Excerpts

(uncolored names are town)

My first substantive post:

Wow, what a mess I had to read through. Here are my initial ideas:
Alita- hard to tell. Seemed town but hasn't posted a lot recently.
TheLhix- similar. I think Jake's actions were personality driven not alignment, so null.
Punkweight- slightly scummy for posting unsubstantial posts and votes, but again, hard to tell.
Rubidium- hasn't done anything scummy, I would say somewhat town.
Smithereens- somewhat argumentative but her logic makes sense. I would say town, but the day 1 claim was not smart.
Smudger (now Jester)- somewhat scummy for being too critical of Smither, but we will see if that was just his personality as he is replaced.
Jason- leaning scum but I can understand your anger with Smither. Also, arguing about proper strategy rather than what was actually done strikes me as slightly scum.

notscience

- Not sure. Has good thoughts, but the self meta did seem slightly scummy.

Again, this is just my humble newbie opinion based on one readthrough.

A town player's reaction to that post, and my response:

Welcome to the game, you two!

Something Smart, first of all, I LOVE your avatar. Saturn is my favorite planet!

Anyway in your first post you called yourself a newbie, which IMO seemed irrelevant to the topic at hand. And in your second post you said you have a "humble newbie opinion".

So what drove you to say these things?

Since I'm not experienced at making reads, I'm afraid I'll read something wrong.

Later in the day:

I want to hear a defense from Jason and/or a readlist. I want to vote him but if I'm not mistaken that would put him at L-1 and I don't want a premature hammer.
Intent to vote: Jason

20 posts later:

Intent to hammer: Jason

Anybody have an objection?

Jason's response:

What changed my opinion: The likelihood of which no-use player will be lynched in order to progress the game

Just so we are clear, you can honestly thank Smithereens for my "non-usefulness" it's a terrible thing to say, but her whole fucking act has demotivated me from this game,

Hoping i can get motivated to read the game tomorrow

, but it's very likely i will skip every Smithereens post so i don't have to read her shit.

Yep just hammer me this makes fucking sense.

You fucking wonder why i am infuriated with your posting smithereens.

7 posts and

10 hours

after my previous post:

I'm doing it. My intent to hammer has been up almost 24 hours, and everybody not on the wagon has had a chance to speak up. Nobody seems to mind, including Jason.
VOTE: Jason

(Also completely missing Jason's sarcasm-- for real, not even faked because I was scum )

First post of Day 2 (emphasis is mine, and not in the original post):

I have an idea. I think Rubidium is scum.
There are several reasons behind this:
1. She has tried very hard from the beginning to appear pro-town. Harder than some town players, in fact. It seemed to work: most players (including me) townread her. However, a lot of this pro-town feeling comes from her style of challenging players and asking questions. But the answers to these questions haven't really helped town. They only gave Rubidium towncred.

Jason, why have many of your posts been arguing with Smithereens? What were you trying to gain from that? And why do you want to go as far as to policy lynch her?

Really, I should have posted here with some explanation but ultimately I wasn't available to get into the mind-state required for IC posting (my normal posting is somewhat erratic and hard to follow, so when I am ICing I try to be as transparent as possible)

I know this is from pages ago but whatever. Can you elaborate on this?

It's not wifom since nobody counterclaimed. I think Smither's logic is sound. I don't like Jason for attacking her and NS for trying to get on her good side.

This sounds like you're trying to agree with everyone at the same time. Which is kind of understandable, since it's easy to be undecided in Mafia. But so far who would you lynch and why?

Welcome to the game, you two!

Something Smart, first of all, I LOVE your avatar. Saturn is my favorite planet!

Anyway in your first post you called yourself a newbie, which IMO seemed irrelevant to the topic at hand. And in your second post you said you have a "humble newbie opinion".

So what drove you to say these things?

You should wagon and free me

Elaborate, please. And why aren't you answering my question?

2. I started suspecting her after the Jason unvote:

Why would you say we're "throwing s*** at the wall"? And why ask Smithers specifically to help you?

Anyway, I'd prefer to use all the time we're given. What if Jason DOES come back? I want to hear his answers to our questions. Or at least hear from his replacement.

WAIT. JUST NOTICED SOMETHING.

I say we hammer NotSci

If you help me hammer Jason

What happened between these two posts to change your preferred lynch?

Pedit: UNVOTE: JasonWazza

Concerned about a premature lynch.

This unvote did not seem town motivated to me.

Jason was an obvious lynch target

and it wasn't likely he would contribute more. And the day was more than half over so I wouldn't call it premature. However, I do see a scum motivation for this: not wanting to be caught on a town wagon.

3. After Jason was hammered, she made several posts that seemed like scumslips to me. Remember that we didn't know if Jason was town until he flipped. But Rubidium, as scum, did:

I guess we'll wait for the flip. We better make something good out of it *Cough* Lhix

This doesn't sound town to me. It sounds like a forced way of saying "I know Jason was town, but I need to act like I don't."

...Jason, may you give us a final readlist before the Night?

And this also assumes Jason was town. It seems like you want to tell people "See? I told you he was town!"

4. The Lhix vote. With Lhix saying what he is, he clearly is making himself an easy lynch to see who falls for the opportunity lunch.

Vote: Lhix

I agree with this vote. VOTE: TheLhix

I shouldn't have gone along with you all. Should've just waited and used all the time we had like I had originally intended. Oh well, now I know; mistakes are lessons.

Anyway, I'm thinking Lhix's argument that we have to end Day 1 might have been an excuse to lynch a Townie and blame it on Day 1 "uselessness".

Lhix, we now have more information. But I don't see you analyzing anything... Tell me. What can we draw from the fact that Jason was Town?

Rubidium was very quick to jump on this wagon, thinking it an easy way to get another mislynch.

Overall, I think Rubidium has done a few too many scummy things to pass them off as mistakes.
VOTE: Rubidium

Entire quote is cringey, but the blue is a literal scumslip IMO. It was pointed out but not dwelled upon.

Later day 2 after a major apathy spike:

I'm not worn out, but there's been nothing for me to respond to. Honestly I'm disappointed in

notscience

, makesnosense and The_Jester. They made a commitment, and the game will die if they don't honor it.

On the other hand, a mass replacement will be equally frustrating. If half the town isn't playing I really think our only choice is to abandon it and join another where people will actually try.
@Mod what does it take to abandon a game?

When Kerkorrel and makesnosense (both town) start a deadline wagon on my absent partner I pull out the most massive chainsaw ever:

You both bring up a fair point about

notscience

. But the way you both jumped on his wagon seemed surprising and almost planned, and it gave me a crazy theory that you two are scum together.

And the craziest thing is, it actually would make sense.

First, neither of the players you replaced did much to help the town. When you replaced in, Kerkorrel scumread Punkweight, but not heavily, and makesnosense nullread Kerkorrel, calling him a mix of towny and scummy- and scum want to avoid taking a position on each other one way or the other.

But it was the voting patterns that really caught my suspicion: Kerkorrel voted makesnosense with little reason (just one post that seemed maybe null-scummish to me). He used an absolute- "I can't believe". Well the only way he could actually not believe it is if he knew it. So this very well could be a distancing tactic from a scummy partner.

Then, I switched to makesnosense because the wagon on Rubidium was going nowhere. Almost immediately, Kerkorrel switched his vote off of makesnosense and onto an easy target without a very convincing reason. And then makesnosense immediately followed, with no justification at all.

Then in the responses to my question, makesnosense blamed

notscience

for being inactive, and Kerkorrel makes the "three person town" comment. This sounds more manipulative than anything else- meant to make me feel as though it's "us versus them"- an enemy from without, rather than within, so that I would easily give in to a

notscience

lynch.

This is, after all, just a theory. But it seems very plausible, and unless you give more specific reasons for voting

notscience

than "he's scummy and inactive", I would have to support no lynch, since there's no way I could get either of you lynched.

And then I make an argument for why I'd rather NL than lynch. In 5:2. (In my defense, I knew lynching was better and this WAS me intentionally playing the newbie card.)

Voting someone who you don't think is scum is just anti-town ..

Yet if I'm not mistaken, you both did exactly that. Both of you referenced the inferiority of MYLO over LYLO , which I simply don't see. And in doing so you clearly indicated you don't have a compelling case that he is scum. So why would you want to lynch him?

With so many inactives, it will take this town time to either regain interest in the game or get replaced. So why would we give up our chance to no lynch? If we lynch

notscience

and not enough players become active before the end of the next day we will lose. On the other hand, if we no lynch, we have four weeks to get back on our feet.

But even if we assume that we won't need that time, it seems all-around better to have 4 town versus 2 scum rather than 3 versus 2. In LYLO the scum only have to mislead one town, whereas in MYLO they need to mislead two. And requiring an extra vote to lynch better ensures that the town will actually all agree on the person they are lynching. Not to mention we no longer have to worry about a quickhammer.

Don't get me wrong, I would prefer a lynch to no lynch. But I want a lynch on a person who actually has a decent chance to be scum. And I just can't join a wagon whose members expect the lynch target to flip town.

Five posts later, after one other person joins the wagon:

I still get the feeling that you're not necessarily expecting a scumflip, but with Alita on the wagon it removes the possibility that this is solely scum-led. So I feel a lot better about this lynch now (and the article about no lynching did help). But since we have the extra time we should at least give the other players a chance to return or be replaced. So:

Intent to hammer:

notscience

My last post of the game, in LYLO right before Kerkorrel hammered Tojam and won us the game.

So now Tojam is confirmed scum, otherwise makesnosense or Kerkorrel would have hammered.
Kerkorrel, it's good to be paranoid, but the more we talk today, the more info the scum will have for who to kill.
And

Drixx

, I don't think Kerkorrel should post his reads; all that does is give the scum more possibilities to throw us off with a WIFOM kill. I think we already have enough information to lynch correctly tomorrow.

And the newbie retention rate was terrible. I think of the 9 newbies that were in the game at any point (and that weren't alts), only 4 even played another game, and only 3 (me, Frozen Angel, and tojam2) are still active on the site.