Newbie 1805 | Emperor | Endgame

[Keychain]

Hi all. I'm replacing tranlyvu. I'm a newbie, played one game here a couple of years ago. Later today I'll share my thoughts on what I've read so far. But first:

I will comment on everything after work (pinky promise, I actually have some reads) but I think we should claim. Like I said before, the point is to win.

This would be very refreshing. Please do post these reads.

[Keychain]

HOLD UP. Is Slingshot at L-1?

[Keychain]

@Fire Starter: that was a rather rash move. Not only did you not actually tell us

any

of your reads that you claim to have had at post 107 (since the tracker post happened afterwards), you put Slingshot at L-1 for what could have been an honest mistake. And didn't call it.
At least I saw it as an honest mistake. To explain - if you're at step 1 of the BP/Not BP claim strategy, you look for a BP claim. From my perspective when the claim happened and step 1 finished, Slingshot went into step 2 of the strategy. It was just the wrong step 2 and the mistake seems believable.
You, on the other hand? That was much bigger slip up. You had "some" reads before this happened, so out with them. This concealment is making alarm bells go off for me.
VOTE: Fire Starter

@Slingshot: I'm also terrible at picking up jokes in text - please tell me that your PoS at the claimed BP is another joke.

[Keychain]

Fire, I don't expect anyone to remember the exact number of votes on every player in the game but I would expect you to check the vote count to prevent any accidental lynchings. That's the mistake I meant.
The reason that I want you to at least give some indication of your reads is that the town is the uninformed majority. Without working together to hunt scum, we're just bumbling around in the dark. If we communicate, we can better work out who is most likely to be scum and lynch them - and if we insist on communication, we force scum to pretend to be hunting for scum as well and we have a better chance to catch them out.

I was asking for your reads because you had promised they existed, and your shady response distracted me from the point I originally intended to make when I had the time.

I think Acid's vote on Ferastical is well placed, if not really well reasoned. Ferastical has stuck to Draynth like glue for three instances now: when Draynth first joined the game he unvoted before his read through. Ferastical immediately dropped his RVS vote on Brandi based on uncertainty, which seemed out of the blue to me. When Draynth opposed the BP/Not BP claim strategy, he promptly followed suit with a slightly overboard attack and a vote on Slingshot. And when Draynth finally agreed to the claim strategy, Ferastical immediately questioned whether they were going to be claiming. Looks like a pattern to me.

But I'm happy with my vote on Fire for now. He's just kind of nitpicking posts, which seems not very productive and rather more like a way to seem active without actually helping us determine who to lynch.

[Keychain]

I also dislike Ferastical's Townie claim. If you're claiming to be town-aligned, that's a bit redundant. If you're specifically claiming your role, that is a really bad idea since it narrows down the field for scum to try and take out the other PR. You aren't under nearly enough pressure to be claiming that, surely.

Lets just say,

I'm a newbie townie

who didn't know what the **** he was doing back then, but that's a good notice. Also - Not claiming would have drawn suspicion on me and Dyranth, which it apparently did and as I didn't want to get lynched so quickly I decided to claim. Honestly, I don't like claiming in the early game, but I didn't want to people to think of me as a scum.

(bolding mine)

What?? You literally just posted about your experience with gamebreaking (by which you seem to mean claiming, based on your explanation), and say you have died like 16 times which suggests at least some experience, somewhere, to me. Am I missing something? I don't know if I'd be keen to dismiss you as newbie town. And I also wonder why you're worried about bringing suspicion on Draynth. Do you reckon he's town?


@Prism:

I mean we all got to get our votes done, right?

And yeah, ofcourse, me and my buddy picked you out. Yeah.

Mind explaining this post a bit?

What.

Actually by clicking submit it would show you all of the new posts and then you would have to click submit again. Ignoring that in case for whatever reason it didnt, to what were you replying and who is your buddy?

Maybe nitpicking isn't the right term. These are the posts I'm talking about, as well as the followup on Slingshot's mistake. Maybe this series of instances just stuck out to me since I was doing a full read and it was easy to understand what the buddy comment referred to, to the point of Fire seeming to deliberately misunderstand in order to be saying something. Then again, with the tracker thing. Maybe it's just the sort of person he is, to ask lots of questions. But it seems weird to me.
And while Ferastical's actions weren't in themselves necessarily odd, it was the fact that they were made in-step with Draynth that stood out.


Hopefully Brandi reappears. It would be nice to have the IC in the game.

[Keychain]

I mean I'm not forcing anybody to believe I'm a Townie, it's just my claim, and it's up to the others if they believe it or not.

I'm not that stupid to claim my role.

You confuse me.

Though that makes sense about playing mafia in real life and ToS, I get it now. Very different to here. Also I realise I'm doing something similar to what Fire Starter did, with the questions, so maybe I was a little off the mark with seeing it as scummy. Glad it provoked some discussion though. UNVOTE:

About Dyranth - I would not like to risk it. I'd better not lose a fellow townie (bad claiming again, ik)than lynch him in thought of a scum. The risk is too high. 2 on 9. (I'm not saying his townie, I'm saying, that if he is, it's better not to kill him.)

Now it might sound like me and Dyranth seem to be scum buddies and I'm just trying to protect my colleague. No. I could vote on him anytime.

I do not like this. And I'm finding it hard to articulate why. Yes, we need to lynch someone, so we're looking for the scum, even though they're only 2 of our 9 players. We really don't want a no lynch, which was discussed earlier, though that seems to be what you're suggesting here.

What made you so sure he's town, so sure that you'd try to deflect suspicion away from him instead of letting him fend for himself - but at the same time unsure enough that you would "vote on him anytime"? Sounds like you're scum, which would mean you know his alignment but you're now trying to backpedal from that surety. Whether you're trying to defend your scumpartner or buddy a town member I don't know. But it does very much seem like you're digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole, without doing much in the way of hunting for scum.

VOTE: Ferastical

This puts Ferastical at L-1, please state your intent to vote him before you do

[Keychain]

derpity derp, my bad, acid isn't voting him anymore so it's L-2
More reasons why I may have been a bit tough on Fire Starter...

[Keychain]

Welp, back to L-1.

No need to abandon all hope, Fera - if you're town, your wincon is town winning. Not your own survival. So if you're truly a frustrated townie, your best bet is to try and help out town as much as you can before you get lynched, right? Part of the reason that I'm keen on getting you lynched is that you seem more interested in keeping yourself alive than supporting the hunt for scum. If you are scum, of course, it's probably more important that you stay alive since there's only two of you.

So please unvote and do your best to point out who you think the scum are, or at least the town. If you do get lynched and somehow flip town, we can use that information to help town win in the end, which means you'll win even if you died.

I still think you're scum but I didn't mean to drive you to such despair at your situation that you'd self vote. Regardless of your alignment.

[Keychain]

Ugh, and the new IC vanishes. I'm inclined to agree that it was probably more in concern of the new player and not Brandi's actions over D1. Though it occurs to me that if you (Draynth) were scum, you'd still be concerned about someone replacing in with new perspectives and also more likely to make that observation since as I understand it, you're not a newbie yourself.

draynth since I just saw your question rereading I thought the post seemed to a large degree to be buddying me w the introduction of his vote being associating it with mine even though my post was fairly clear about it not being intent to lynch
+ it seemed opportunistic with the timing since the only thing that had changed around when he placed his vote was that ferastical had a vote on him, and not one with swaying reasoning

Is this talking about me?
If so, the other major thing that had changed was that I had just replaced in and had read through the whole game. I made a quick mobile post about getting Fire's reads since they hadn't yet happened and he had promised them, then got distracted by his response and focused on that instead of the point I wanted to make about Ferastical pocketing (never heard of that term, it's very cute) Draynth. I mentioned your post since it had happened and so I thought I should acknowledge it, but I don't think we had anything in common with our reasons. You said you were voting him because he wasn't cleartown and hadn't responded. I didn't vote him until later, and it was based on his early buddying and later his odd defense. I didn't really care whether you voted him "without intent to lynch", because I voted him for my own reasons.
You also weren't even voting him when I ended up doing it. You were voting me. I voted Ferastical shortly after Slingshot did. Not sure what you mean regarding "swaying reasoning".

It would have been much better if you'd warned us before the hammer, Bob. I would have liked to get a response from Ferastical, Prism and Slingshot on that one.

Though the fact that Ferastical self-voted does narrow things down - unless the scum scored a bloody big win and managed to pull off a mislynch without even being on the wagon, I assume that since Fera flipped town and Bob is BP, there is probably scum in the remaining three. For me that means I'm now suspicious of Slingshot and Prism. Since I was leaning town on both of you, this means I seem to be backwards since I was also so fricking sure on Ferastical.

Summary of final opinions of Ferastical: Draynth and Brandi both said they thought he was newbtown, I don't think Fire Starter took a stance one way or the other, and Acid didn't like the look of him but put his vote elsewhere. The rest of us were on the wagon.

[Keychain]

I don't think it was AI.

What is AI?

Also, Prism, while I'm wary of putting myself back in the firing line, I'm finding it kind of weird that after really not liking the look of my posts since I arrived, you've decided to go after Slingshot instead today. I was fully expecting to be top of your list after Ferastical flipped town. Am I somehow looking more towny to you or is Slingshot just that suspicious?

Slingshot, I've gone through but can't actually find any real arguments of yours against Bob's vote on you. Unless you mean this:

VOTE: Slingshot
Lets not kill tracker.

Uh. What? Opportunistic.

PoS scum.

I'm sure you had something more than that, you'll just have to point it out for me.

Draynth, you're asking about people's opinions an awful lot but being pretty quiet regarding your own - that change on Ferastical was so softly phrased that I didn't even notice it in my skim through. I don't really see a huge amount of townness (definitely a word) in your intention to vote when we were close to lynch, since you would only have been preventing a no lynch, and I'm not really inclined either way right now on what it means that you decided to point it out.
What are your reads, particularly regarding Acid, who was early on quite a strong scumread for you? And what do you think about there being scum on the Ferastical wagon, and if so who do you think it might be?

Acid, why are you townreading Draynth?

Given that we're now down to ten possible scumteams, discounting Bob and myself, I'm going through every possible pairing to see if I can find anything on that front. If anybody has any advice for finding scum through their interactions, I'm all ears since all I have is old wiki articles to help me.

(also, since it's happened a couple of times now - I'm a she)

[Keychain]

2 + 2 = 5, the game was not locked!
I think Fire Starter's got only a couple of hours left until his third prod, so hopefully we get a response from him before then.

[Keychain]

Alignment Indicative

Ta. You're so polite and for some reason it makes me suspicious. I don't know if that makes me a terrible human being or not, but... still suspicious. Though to be honest I'm so suspicious of everyone now that I think it might be worth focusing on townhunting for me so I can try and narrow that down a wee bit.

I mean, I dunno why I'd 'subtly' change my stance as scum and then point it out the following day when I could easily get away with it.

My automatic reasoning was that while doing something that scum wouldn't do is definitely towny, it wouldn't be quite as much so if you're so aware of it that you then point out why it's towny afterwards. Too self-aware. Another player doing it to you does the same thing in my head equally, since scum have just had their night of planning and so are likely to be much more coordinated until things get a bit messier. Prism did the opposite thing - doing something they consider scummy, then saying it is scummy. Pointing out the stuff you did and how alignment indicative it is just seems odd, unless I consider it was done specifically for teaching purposes. Maybe I'm just running myself in circles.

Now that it seems everyone surviving (except Fire?) was leaning scum with Ferastical, the wagon itself seems less useful. Maybe scum kept themselves off the wagon at lynch to avoid the attention that a mislynch would bring on them. In that case Draynth's volunteering of potentially incriminating information would be more positive since he's choosing to put himself in that group of "people who wanted the wagon to go ahead but weren't on it".

I'd also like to ask people when they consider us to be out of early game, because if we screw up again with the lynch and there's also a nightkill, we'll by in LyLo Day 3 from my understanding.

@Prism: another question I had for you about your final read of Ferastical - I didn't unvote, even when he got super frustrated, because I figured that even as scum if he thought it was a lost cause he would rather leave the game than drag out what he figured was his inevitable lynch. And as Slingshot pointed out, scum can try and hammer themselves to deny information to the town, therefore making it a viable strategy though still really bad as town. Do you disagree with this? Do you think that trying to quicklynch yourself is not something scum would ever do?

And please do continue to comment on my posts if you think they're weak. I might be approaching things a bit too robotically, and I appreciate any help. Even if I shelve it until I can look back on it post-game with a better idea of your intentions.

[Keychain]

Um. Hello. Arriving with a splash much? Thanks for the IC post, given that our replacement IC got NKed - I particularly like that it was made by the PenguinMod in a previous life as an IC. Nice sense of poetry.

I did just read that argument between you both, and I will probably go through it again later because Prism's right regarding it being difficult to parse.
I also now have no idea what they think of me, I thought it was that I was posting weakly and now it's possibly unexpectedly competent scum.
But for the most part that whole page, page-and-a-half seems to be a clash of two personalities, both trying to dominate the game. Sure livens things up a bit though.

Can I ask of both of you what you considered the worst part about Day 1? RC says it was toxic, Prism said it was a shit show.

My answers to the questions, spoilered for being too much text and also kind of tangential:

Spoiler:

1) When a player gets mislynched, do you feel that it's fundamentally the player's fault for being scummy or do you feel it's the town's fault for lynching them?

The point of the game as town is to figure out who is scum so you can lynch them. If town failed to do that, I'd therefore say it's probably their fault. Though at the same time a mislynched player is also part of town and so also shares that blame.

2) Do you prefer (think you would prefer) playing as town or scum? Why do you feel that way?

I think both would have their cool and their frustrating points - as town you lack information, which is difficult, but it's much more a "trying to do something" kind of game if that makes sense. As scum you have more information, which is cool, but you're playing on the defensive by trying to make someone else screw up. Plus you're under a lot of scrutiny - I'd find that stressful, personally.

3) Do you think that tactically lurking (not posting) as scum is an acceptable way to play the game?

If you're doing it to the point of being prodded, no. And if it hurts the game itself and the players' enjoyment of it, no. But if scum do it and town do not (because it seems like a bad thing to do as town, deliberately not posting...), then it would start to become a reasonably good tell for scum and useless for them.

4) As town, what do you feel the most important skill in a town player is?

There's a bunch of skills that would be useful. The idea of being able to coordinate others is good. It depends on how many things you can put together into one skill. Being able to identify scum is good, but not if you can't share that knowledge. Being able to persuade others is good, but not if you lead them to mislynches. So a combination is necessary, I suppose.

5) As scum, do you feel like bussing is a good strategy? Why or why not?

Like bussing them to the point of lynching? No. Not in a game with only two scum, to take out half your team seems excessive. I'm sure it can be useful though. Especially if no one suspects it, because if the bussing scum is not getting a pretty darn solid townread from most townies, it won't really be worth it.

And please...

Something about Keychain might point to

him

being more likely town, too.

(also, since it's happened a couple of times now - I'm a she)

Keychain's analyses and observations have been reasonable, and

he's

been observant

IT'S STILL HAPPENING
I do not mind 'they'
but definitely not 'he'
just because I'm a faceless person on the internet doesn't mean I have to be male
please


And I'll have a think about my reads, RC, and get back to you on that. Bob's confirmed town unless there was a spectacular gambit that managed to pay off. I was swinging back to null on Fire Starter, so you've got a reasonably clear slate as far as I'm concerned.

[Keychain]

Mobile right now, but BOB: You have been asked multiple times for your reads bro
Could we get a bit more in depth? Why do you feel so strongly about RC? Is it because he's scumreading your top townreads?

I'm also a little bit puzzled regarding RC missing the BP claim. Because after the actual claim, we had the tracker thing, and Bob has been referred to as BP and confirmed town multiple times since then.

Nice to hear Draynth's response, would like to hear from Acid.

[Keychain]

Liking Acid more and more for town.

RC: now that we have learnt what a godly scumhunter you apparently are in your newbie games, please share whether you act the exact same in your newbie scum games. Because while we might be biased towards logical posting (though personally I seem to be biased more towards people like Slingshot), I bet you we're also biased towards people who try to convince us they're town through a powerful personality and domination of the game. Prism was using the same technique before you replaced in.

And I agree with Acid - this 1v1 has ceased to do anything productive and is now just making everyone sad. You've both made your points.

[Keychain]

I did ask for those games. Because if anybody's going to do meta research on you it does not help to look at all your town games and go "gosh, he's doing pretty much the same thing" if they can't also look at scum games to see if you act the same way as scum. I did read through some of the doc counterclaim just because it was hilarious, but I'm of the opinion that unless you act the same way in every game, which I'm sure you don't, I'm not going to get a big enough sample size to be able to help me in this game.

I wanted to talk to you and get your reads

My reads. Sure. Who hasn't had enough wall posts?

Since I'm so uncertain we'll go by certainty, shall we? Citations are in spoiler tags for your fact-checking convenience.

Bob is confirmed town. Lucky for him. I have heard the BP claiming strategy tends to make confirmed town players disengage with the game, which could explain the seriously lackluster play here.

Acid looks more towny from his intervention on your 1v1 - he's posing good questions regarding things you've said and contradictions you've made or seem to have made, which I generally agree with.

I've been reading Slingshot as town mostly for the unconcern at the wagon on them D1, even when it reached L-1. Reading through their ISO, post 251

Spoiler:

This is still a valid and understandable vote I can't think of a way to argue.

FTFY

I already stated my arguments.
If you are going to ignore them or not believe them, then okay.

It's still crap lol.

strikes me as particularly so.

Draynth, as I mentioned earlier, kind of strikes me as keeping out of the water, the opposite of what Acid has just been doing. He's been sticking to the outskirts, asking questions but rarely voicing his own opinion except late D1 when he gave a slight push to a wagon without getting on it. It also got my hackles up when he corrected me regarding how he felt about Ferastical at day end, and then Prism pointed out how gosh darn towny his post was. It felt artificial and wiped any goodwill I might have had for Draynth after making the voluntary admission. I suppose it's the same thing Prism says about my reads - even if it was towny, it seems like he could have faked it easily enough. Especially after scum just had a night of planning. That was why I agreed with you that Prism/Draynth would make a lot of sense. Prism distances from the mislynch while Draynth does the opposite.

Prism uses impressions as a double edged sword - on the one hand they're weak enough to be able to easily ditch them

Spoiler:

Why focus on discrediting something that I made very explicit was entirely gut and therefore extremely weak and borderline meaningless?

but later on they become a major point in your 1v1 (though I understand the reasoning on Slingshot was more than this please let's not hear it again) as well as a good reason for putting Draynth as town. The fact that they find it necessary to filter everything

Spoiler:

I've got the conundrum of "Can't focus on RC, but if I let him go by his bullshit to other players goes uncalled"

is kind of concerning. Who are the "other players" you're concerned about, Prism? Bob doesn't like RC. Acid's questioning him on his own. Draynth seems to be questioning him as well. Which leaves me and Slingshot, who you're scumreading anyway. If we were scum there'd be no reason to try and convince us of your rightness. So... who are you talking to?
So I'm unsure on Prism but they don't strike me as particularly town. By process of elimination they are on my scum list.

And that leaves the Fire Starter/RadiantCowbells slot. It was null for me before and now I'm not quite sure what to think. I'm leaning town, since I agree with quite a few things you've said and find they make a lot of sense, but at the same time that thing I said before about Draynth's politeness rubbing me the wrong way applies here to you.

Do you have any questions?

[Keychain]

Oh yay, Draynth reads! This will be interesting.

Also I'll just point out that scum!RC also uses links to past town games to explain the way he's playing, because it was part of his salvaging the situation when he was counterclaimed by the legit doctor.

[Keychain]

I've read through it and I've got some points of clarification. I'll respond when I get back.

@Mod: V/LA until 5am Monday GMT (5pm NZST), if that's all right

[Keychain]

Back.
Bye Slingshot...
Round of applause for Acid and Prism, who were here at the start and are still living and in the game!

One of the things I wanted to clarify from Draynth's reads:

It would have been much better if you'd warned us before the hammer, Bob. I would have liked to get a response from Ferastical, Prism and Slingshot on that one.

This doesn't sit right with me.
You said in 200 that despite his self-vote and despair you still thought he was scum.
You could've unvoted to try prevent the lynch to wait for opinions of others, but you didn't.
You say in the post below that you were 'fricking sure' that Feras was scum, so why would you want bob to wait before hammering?
You saying this after the fact just feels hella fake.

I didn't want to unvote, because I thought he was scum. But Prism's vote had been on there for a good while (can't remember but I think Prism hadn't really been around to say whether or not they still wanted it there), and Slingshot (post lynch) expressed some remorse for not being able to unvote. Maybe one or both of them would have unvoted. Maybe Ferastical would have unvoted himself. Maybe you would have gotten on the wagon. They weren't really given the warning to respond. There was so much information cut out of there because of a premature hammer, and I would have liked that information. Maybe the wagon would have died and the day would have ended differently, with a scum lynch instead.
(also that post was hell to quote from)

The other thing that I wanted to clarify, though I'm not going to try and dig through for another quote, was my intention to look for the potential scumteam. I started ISOing, realised that I was coming up with the most useless information, and shortly after announced my intention to focus on trying to find townreads. And look how well I did at that!

However - you are not one of them, my friend. And because this game has started to stall out again, and it's making me quite sad, I'm going to take a chance and go for my strongest scumread. I'm not convinced that there

has

to be scum in RC/Prism. I think there probably is due to PoE, but I also think it's an unnecessary forced choice for today and while I consider that:
VOTE: Draynth
This doesn't mark a sudden deepening of my suspicions so much as it marks a desire to push the game forward. But I didn't feel that your big post swayed me away from my earlier feeling, though your stated lack of confidence did make me write you a pep talk that I'll save for later.

RC, everyone else, thoughts? I'm more inclined towards this than a Prism lynch right now.

[Keychain]

My process of elimination: I think Acid and Slingshot are probably town, Bob is conftown, which leaves you and them. So that suggests to me that it's likely that at least one of them is scum, but at the same time I'm not a wizard so I could be wrong on Acid, Slingshot or both.

I have no experience to draw on to determine whether it's TvS or TvT, that's why I didn't answer your question. If I've ever encountered such a heated argument, I don't remember it, so I'm just putting the argument itself aside and focusing on the people involved. Just because two people are convinced the other is scum doesn't mean one of them has to be right, right? Maybe they're both scum. I mean, I don't think that's amazingly likely considering how het up both of them seem to be getting over it, but both of them have pretty good scum play as far as I know. It'd definitely throw me.

And about my post after the lynch - I suppose it's not tremendously helpful to this game to point it out, but learning is important.

[Keychain]

@Draynth: You're still my top scumread mostly because the way you kept well out of sight during day 1, even if you claim to have explained that - I didn't really see a response that would allay those suspicions. In ISOing you just now I also realise I completely missed your post 270, which was reasonably substantial and also mostly directed at me. Sorry.

I hadn't checked the time until deadline, we might indeed be cutting it quite fine. Out of the two, I think I'd rather lynch Prism than RC, if no one is interested in lynching Draynth. I'd still like more details on RC's scumread of Draynth before any lynching though.

[Keychain]

Draynth avoiding declaring me/RC as town/scum makes a lot of sense from a scum perspective with RC, I think, for different reasons than the case presented for him/me. If either of him/RC got lynched first, though I think I'm by far the most likely lynch today, they'd be in a really bad spot.

This is a really good point - if he's got a scum partner in the argument, and the town one of RC/Prism gets lynched, then he's going to want to do all he can to dissuade people from believing the other

must

be scum, but without making people believe that it's definitely TvT and so looking elsewhere for the lynch. Showing some disbelief now would really help that argument later.

So right now I'm sticking to my Draynth vote, though I do think the other is one of Prism/RC.

Keen to hear Huntress's reasons for the Prism vote though, since I'm really not averse to a Prism lynch. (Hi Huntress, thanks for replacing in)

[Keychain]

I appreciate what you're doing here, Prism, regarding activity. I'll probably be around a bit more on the weekend so I can be a bit more active as we near deadline.

If I were scum, you'd probably die tonight if I flip so guess what-this is presumably your last chance to influence the game as well.

So effectively RC would be so town it hurts if you flipped scum. Took me a couple reads to figure that out. This comment gave me this anxious twinge, like "yo partner, if I get lynched, kill RC tonight". It's a good point when I think about it, but that's the feeling I got from it.

@Huntress: what do you think of acidphoenix and Draynth? I'd like to get thoughts out of you and RC before any lynches, since the last NK went for our replacement IC and I worry for your life expectancies. I want to hear from everyone else as well, of course, but you in particular.

Also - whoever said it, I forget (Prism maybe?), but good point regarding a potential Draynth lynch. If he flips town it leaves us in a pretty awful kind of situation. And since I don't really want us to be scrambling at deadline:
UNVOTE:
VOTE: Prism

That's L-1 if I've learnt to count. Please declare your intent to hammer before voting.

(also - every time I use unvote tags I wonder - am I supposed to put the name of the person I'm unvoting?)

[Keychain]

Will revisit after testing side theory.

Definitely imagining a laboratory right now. Keen to hear the results.

Totally fine getting lynched, but I want my reads down pat before I go.

You are so fine getting lynched that it's making me doubt everything.

I get the thinking here but I'd say keep in mind that this is addressed to RC, using you/your twice, nestled in a bunch of other random shit, and my partner has little reason to read my posts that closely. It's pretty clearly meant just for a townRC.

... If you had a partner you were trying to communicate with, and you didn't want to completely scumclaim, I'd kind of expect you to nestle it in a post shortly after an L-1 vote, address it to someone else, and hope your partner saw it and acted on it. If you weren't able to get online between a hammer and night it would be your only chance to pass that information along.

[Keychain]

Spoiler: Just a response to Prism's... intense self reflection

Well.

Man rereading that it feels like I'm one of those journeyman boxers making one last shot at a title and then promptly die in the ring.

That's exactly what I thought.

Really interesting reading, as someone at the starting line of the whole Mafia thing and with a very different reason for playing. It's good you've found a way to improve and the motivation to do it, but I would also argue that if you'd spent all your time on MS you would have stagnated in a different way, so don't regret your history.
Some games are "allowed" to be taken more seriously than others - people dedicate their lives to being excellent enough in their game of choice to compete in the Olympics. Feeling passionate about something,

anything

, is a good thing (unless it becomes addictive or otherwise harmful, necessary disclaimer). I appreciate you sharing this. Hopefully things continue on an upward trend for you.

Keychain because her playstyle is the one that I am most systematically prone to misreading.

For future reference, what is my playstyle?

Normally I would heavily townread the amount of investment that you've done in the last bit of the game with little chance of not getting lynched but I feel like you're the kind of player for whom its entirely a null tell.

I'm inclined to agree with this. I also feel it could be a way for Prism to try and breathe life into the game for day 3, because with a flip of either alignment it gives us quite a lot to discuss.

I'd be really, REALLY surprised if Keychain was scum after seeing some of their more indepth looks (ex. Actually going through some of your meta).

Let's not get carried away - I think I opened all of them, but only read the one with the fakeclaim because I really wanted to see how it went down, not for any actual investigative reasons. I just mentioned RC's frequent tendency to back up anything he does with about a bazillion links to past games because I happened to notice it.

Full disclosure: I'm up to like 98/99% sure you're scum and just want more confirmation of it. Help me dig your hole!

I'm getting hyped here how do I bridge that last 2%?

Ahahaha I much prefer this kind of back and forth between you two.

Also if you're both town I'm going to be very upset. And surprised. If you're both scum, many kudos.

[Keychain]

Keychain, can you summarize a bit exactly why I'm your vote over RC? You said you leaned town on the RC slot and made some astute observations that don't look great for me but I'd appreciate something a bit more cohesive.

By cohesive, do you mean all in one post? You summed it up pretty well there - I'm leaning harder scum on you, so I voted you. I think Draynth is more likely to be scum but if I'm wrong (always a possibility, I eagerly await a day when I'm not) and he flips town, we end up in LyLo with the exact same dilemma.
Potential alignments for you two:
T/T: I don't think you're both town - I said this earlier, to Draynth.
T/S: This is the one I'm going with, but that still leaves the question of which is which. I haven't read back over the whole thing for this post so this is working from the top of my head but right now, it feels like RC is too willing to offer himself as an autolynch if you flip town for him to be scum. It doesn't seem like a fantastic strategy - you flip town, we lynch scum!RC the next day. I was already leaning scum on you so of the two of you, you are my vote.
S/S: At some point during this game I went from "keep all options open" to "meh, it seems unlikely". Otherwise I become paralysed by indecision. I don't think you're bussing each other and I'm leaving it at that.

Is that the kind of summary you were looking for?

Prism's Journal Excerpt, Day 25.

I never thought it'd wind up like this. I never imagined I'd be the last one standing, the last one stuck here with these...these replacements, these

animals...

I'm the last bastion of hope. The last

original

...

I'm stuck here with a bunch of filth. A bunch of dirty replacements. They weren't here from the start. They don't

know what I know

. Worse yet, they don't know what they don't know. They can't understand. And soon, I too will be gone. They'll be left all alone to tear each other apart, limb from limb, like the pack of wild monkeys they are.

rude

I'm going to simply describe you as similar to Tammy because trying to explain it beyond that is difficult.

Um, okay.


@Acid: You've stuck pretty hard to your tonal scumread of me. I townread you hard though. And agree with you regarding Draynth. Do you think that my interactions with him suggest that we're partnered?

I don't like 469/470- "we should lynch here" into questioning the plurality read that one of them is scum is really weird, as is saying that the Lynch pool is correct for information with only one mislynch

I couldn't quite get what you were trying to say here. And what is "srs"?

[Keychain]

"Seeming to care"? Que sera sera and all, but I do care, don't worry about it. It's fun talking to you as you do... whatever it is you're doing. Huge amounts of research and soul searching? I did say I'd have some time over the weekend to dedicate to this. I thought I'd be on a computer but I'm currently fighting with an internet connection, so I've resorted back to mobile, hence lack of quotes.
It does seem rather like you live here though, and the rest of us are just visitors.

Back to game-relevant things...

I'm really torn on my vote now. I can't fathom someone playing scum going to this much effort - but at the same time I have really high expectations of scum!Prism, so I sort of can fathom it maybe. I want to vote Draynth but I'm more worried about the worst case scenario of a Draynth lynch and townflip than I am of a Prism one, I think it just leaves us in a better position if it happens. Plus it's so close to deadline, and I have to go to sleep shortly. When I wake up we'll be even closer. So I'll leave it.

I didn't read too much into RC's meta. From that fakeclaim business I know he can bullshit his way out of impossible situations, but again - you're both good players as scum, and I can't spend all my time studying both of you and what you do under pressure and what you will or won't promise. So I'm left with what I can see scum and town logically doing. If he is scum, gets a mislynch on you and somehow wriggles out of a lynch tomorrow and town loses, I'll be that much more cautious next time. But for now, I'm going to take him at his word because it's what seems logical to me.

[Keychain]

Someone, Draynth/Ruler/Acid, needs to say that they'll hammer with X time remaining.

Whoever is last I'm dragging with me straight to hell.

Sending some mixed messages Priz.

[Keychain]

Shit that's a pagetop, 624 is a lot more important/should be the one more visible.

I saw it. Bolding is effective.

@Keychain:

You should really see this considering the main point of your read on RC seems to be that you don't think RC would be willing to run this risk as scum.

Here's 3 posts from scum RC hardpushing a townlynch Day 2 in a Newbie, offering himself up in the same way he is here.

Ugh.

I'm getting a really awful feeling about this lynch now. And I did type out an unvote and previewed it and was about to do it. But I don't think we can really mobilise in the eleventh hour and also don't know where we would mobilise to.

If you do flip town, I'll remember that evidence in case of RC mind games later, and I'll go back through your investigations. I still disagree with you regarding Draynth - if you're not scum, he and RC would be my pick. RC first, of course.

You should probably claim at some point as well.

[Keychain]

keychain why wouldn't we be able to mobilize to, say, draynth, right now on your opinion?

when the two next most popular scumreads are your top two why are you unsure of where wed mobilize to?

If I'm wrong and Draynth flips town we're left in a really terrible situation. I'd rather clear this up first. RC would be another option, especially after Prism did the meta research for me, but:

Your vote is the only difference-he's at 2, I'm at 3.

Bob unvoted, iirc, and his vote was on RC as of last votecount.

To be honest and also reiterate something I'm pretty sure I've said multiple times by now - I think one of the scum is in RC/Prism. So I want to sort that out. Lynch one, if they're town lynch the other one.

I can almost half-see a Draynth/Huntress team, but less likely than the alternative.

...

Well, I'll be around in the hours before deadline to remedy it if necessary.
UNVOTE:
VOTE: RadiantCowbells
The meta argument

was

convincing, but the votecount and what I can gather from opinions suggested that a lynch on RC might be difficult to get going. That's why I didn't change it. I guess I didn't convey that as much as intended when I rewrote my whole post.

PEdit: That'll be 4am for me, I won't be around, but you can vote then. I'll hammer a few hours later if needed. Are you still open to lynching RC?

[Keychain]

And in my timezone, the deadline is now approximately midday on Tuesday...

I have strep and a burnt thumb and am too sick to spend time on this game.

Feel better soon.

@ Keychain:

Why do you trust Prism?

Probably the sheer amount of effort they're putting in. It comes across as pretty genuine as an attempt to make sure that they have given town as much help as possible if the lynch goes through.

why would I not be pissed off rn

like forget everything you were obviously getting lynched but then I had to step away from the thread for 4 days and all of a sudden Keychain's voting me

I am upset by that. you did not read as much as you claim to on my meta and not realize that I don't need to fake offense to be pissed off in a situation like this. You're getting off the hook because of my personal situation and while I don't blame you for trying to abuse it there's a lot less terrible ways than trying to spam me with questions and then inevitably call me out for not responding.

... Sounds like you're blaming Prism for my vote. I'm not voting you because you're sick or because you vanished or because you didn't answer Prism's questions. I'm voting you because, again, I think one of you or Prism is scum with Draynth, and Prism has managed to get me to townread them for now. I didn't think you'd do the 1 for 1 trade as scum. I got evidence that you would.

we both know that I'll be hammered before I can post.

Who by? Draynth? Acid? Huntress? Penguin?

PEdit:
No, I'll leave it, I like it there. I explained why the meta seems fine to me, since all it does is prove that you do use a hardpush strategy as scum. I don't think anyone will hammer, especially if you're promising more information tomorrow.

But I'll bold it just in case: Please don't hammer RC until he's had the opportunity to defend himself.

[Keychain]

Hi.

dammit keychains reads are basically "I think draynth is scum huntress town acid town which leaves one scum in prism/rc and prism did this one towny thing"

Accurate. Sorry. Huntress suggested it might not be necessarily towny, but it feels like that to me.

I'll trawl back through and get some evidence for my view on RC. If you're right and they're both town, I'm probably going to lose the game for us in LyLo.

Also, Draynth is apparently into the watching and waiting business, so I wouldn't expect him to jump into a hammer on anybody until this whole thing has run as much of its course as it's going to.

[Keychain]

Like idk man people take my reads pretty seriously. I find it very difficult to believe that you've heard nothing about me, having started in 2015.

Found the quote!

So from what I can tell, you are the one who first brought up your reputation. You also did it a little bit before this, but this quote shows it better. The way you've been going back on that comes across badly.

I think one of you is scum. So all that matters to me now is trying to figure out which one, because if we're wrong I'm just going for the other one tomorrow. You might be right that newbies townread wall posts but the level of effort that Prism seems to be going to to try and solve the game means that between you, Prism looks more town.

Also your reliance on meta tells. Saying that you never do something as scum (in this case, emotional buddying) is pretty much a trust tell as I understand it, so I can't consider it. All meta is inherently cherry picked, Huntress is the only one who has actual experience with you. Despite what the two of you keep saying, I have done extremely little meta research.

[Keychain]

And if nobody has done anything by then I'll switch my vote to hammer Prism several hours before deadline, to ensure a lynch.

[Keychain]

The game will cope without your presence for a bit, Prism.

See I was townreading you when I replaced into the game but because of this post alone you're the #1 person that I want lynched before endgame.

Prism is your #1 lynch. I'm sorry you don't like my reasoning, it's not exactly airtight and I know that. But what a quick re-evaluation that was on my slot!

And if you've done no meta research, wouldn't that incline you to trust the person who has actual meta?

Huntress? She said she's leaning town but would follow up if she didn't get a stronger read. Do you want me to townread you off that?

[Keychain]

Draynth
Bud
Wtf is going on with you and your voting

[Keychain]

After Prism, yes.

Erm. Quick re-evaluation?

Though Keychain is the read I'm most interested in reconsidering right now.

among a pile of different times where I've been saying that I think that I'm concerned that you're scum based on Prism's play specifically

Sorry, I inferred "reconsidering" in post 777 to mean that you hadn't come to a conclusion, not that you were now scumreading me (it's hard to tell precisely from a list), and the #1 lynch thing seemed like you very suddenly coming to that conclusion without much in between. I don't know that a scum Prism would suddenly hard townread their partner, but that's neither here nor there since my speculation on that isn't likely to convince you.

Also every time you say Cyberbob do you mean rulerBob?

[Keychain]

Draynth unvoted.

[Keychain]

...
I'm not exactly a drinker, but you know Penguin's current time well enough to know twilight will last for a while, you typed very well, and you caught a drunk post pretty damn quick after it happened...
And you somehow didn't see his unvote?

[Keychain]

I'm ridiculously paranoid that that was a scum gambit trying to get some serious towncred

[Keychain]

So you don't think it was a gambit?

The complete switch from normal Prism with perfect typing and impeccable grammar (though apparently drunk) to complete psycho typing and cat pictures makes me think it's a gambit.

Also fixed your picture Priz.

[Keychain]

I think I'm going to hammer, because that felt orchestrated as heck. If Prism's town, we lynch RC tomorrow. If RC is town as well, I'll be very sad.

I've got time, though.

[Keychain]

Draynth is my second scum pick and has been for some time

[Keychain]

If I was partner with either I would've hammered by now, no?
Like I'm being heavily scumread by most people anyway so wouldn't it be better to just commit to getting to day 3 and going from there?

Nah. You watch and you wait, and I really wouldn't be surprised by you waiting until the very last minute. With the Ferastical wagon, you even said that you were going to wait for him to be at L-1 for a while longer before you'd hammer. It's not enough for me to believe you're not scum. If the hammer would be game ending, then yeah you'd be town, but it's not and it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility for you to be waiting.

But your reasoning does suggest Acid is probably not scum, unless he's really scared of being the hammer.

[Keychain]

and no god comes out of nowhere and slaps my shit

Draynth you've been upgraded to god

I did say I was going to hammer you Prism, we could have had a nice chat with the assumption you were town. Then you probably would have flipped scum and RC would have gotten me lynched tomorrow if he wasn't NKed for being conftown

Anyone wanna guess who my scumpartner is because rn nobody makes 0 fucking sense as far as I can fell

RC says me in post 796

Keychain can you explain why Draynthscum with me might vote me here

Draynth voted you to L-1 then unvoted later
He could have hammered RC (and still can) but it seems to fit that he didn't, especially after RC going on about scumpartners hammering the other wagon
He decided against hammering you after your bizarro attempt to selfhammer
There's been no committed bussing anywhere

[Keychain]

"??? Idk who's scum someone help???"

I always feel like this, for example I'm back to having no flipping clue which one of you/RC is scum again and with my track record it's probably neither of you

[Keychain]

Sorry, tangent - Draynth do you think I'm likely to be scum? I seem to remember you saying something along those lines earlier
Also

Okay Draynth I'm not getting this your reaction to 701 and 702 seem to be negative/think RC is scum.

That's because right now I think he is?

...?
We are not far from deadline, he's at L-1, why haven't you hammered him if you think he's scum? I mean this is absolutely feeding my theory that you play the long game here

[Keychain]

Yeah... Thoughts on Huntress from both of you? I might not have been paying enough attention to her

[Keychain]

The deathtunnel makes sense to me in that she'd just replaced in and had enough material to justify it.

I thought it was weirder that she scumread you but never gave a reason. Or even a hint of a reason.

All caught up now, but some of that was heavy going.

Top scum reads from Day one posts were Prism, Keychain and Draynth.

@Huntress: what do you think of acidphoenix and Draynth?

As I've already said, I'm scumreading Draynth.

I don't have time to write up my notes on Draynth tonight.

She posts a couple more times after that in the same time period, hasn't been back since. But since her comments on Acid and myself in that post were about the same length as that sentence, why wouldn't she just give a similar summary?

I can almost half-see a Draynth/Huntress team, but less likely than the alternative.

And I come back to this. If this is the case, RC and Prism's argument was the best thing ever to happen for scum.

[Keychain]

Probably the sheer amount of effort they're putting in. It comes across as pretty genuine as an attempt to make sure that they have given town as much help as possible if the lynch goes through.

Do you think he wouldn't do the same as scum? I get the impression he would be equally as energetic as both alignments.

How was his meta argument convincing? Especially in view of what he said about it in 656.

I skipped most of the meta argument - the bit I referred to was that I said (paraphrased), "RC is promising we can autolynch him if Prism is town, a 1 for 1 is in town's favour so he's likely to be town who's very sure because scum wouldn't make that bargain when they know they'll get lynched the next day". Then Prism linked to a game where he made the same kind of push as scum, which meant that it made no sense to see him as town for it.

Regarding Prism's energy - I don't know what they'd do as scum, but it comes across as very town to me. What did you think of their apparent attempt to selfhammer?

By "deathtunnel" I meant that you picked a read and weren't letting up on it. Maybe a terminology error on my part.

Can you explain your scumread on Draynth now please?

@Draynth: Prism and Acid? Do you really think that Acid wouldn't have taken the opportunity to hammer RC by now, instead of continuing to push on the two of us (and Prism, out of the two current wagons)? That seems a really odd pairing.

[Keychain]

I can't engage right now, but I was just checking in to see if anyone had been lynched and to see Huntress's response to my post.

@ Keychain: I'll get to your post after I've had something to eat.

*responds to Acid and reiterates scumread on Prism*

*announces that Draynth may not be scum, still without any explanation for why he would be in the first place*

???
Why are you avoiding responding?
I can see Huntress as a very viable partner for RC.

Acid, I didn't unvote because someone has to get lynched and I'm still happier with my vote on RC, though I would have hammered Prism if it would have made this goddamn day end and they hadn't unvoted themselves.

want to see keychain and draynth vote because right now it looks like they're dodging having to be held accountable for a vote

I'm not?

[Keychain]

Well played, scum team! I townread Acid for ages and completely missed the about turn on reads. That's the second game I've lost as town without lynching scum a single darn time (in the exact same setup) but at least this time I was a little bit better (by which I mean I got serious cold feet on the Prism wagon and stuck with the RC wagon), and also survived a bit longer. I should have tried harder for the RC lynch and I should have stuck to my "lynch one then the other" thing, though also I didn't really have the opportunity for that one. Sorry for forsaking you Prism!

Aaaaannyway, anyone have any advice for me? I know keychain said she had a post after my big readslist. I feel like my proactive scumhunting sucks balls at the moment. Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reminding me! I don't have any advice, because I'm not exactly star scumhunter here, but I did have a pep talk because I swear to god my takeaway from that readslist was that you have no confidence, at all. I wrote most of it after the original post, so it sounds a bit strange in places.

Spoiler: Pep talk for Draynth!

Draynth. I have a single completed game apart from this one. I was dead most of it, and it was a while back, but I don't believe I called either of the scum team through the entire game (including while dead) and they killed me N1. I was the jailkeeper. Town lost. Yay.
I'm looking for scum but I have barely any idea what I'm looking for, I'm taking stabs in the dark based on feelings and trying to piece together clues which could mean anything and seem to usually mean nothing (such as my case on Ferastical). I get that you're not confident, don't buy that you're a weak player (you just linked a game you won as scum, internalise that shit), but unless you're saying that we should do the opposite of your reads or not take them into account at all it doesn't really help anyone. This is a newbie game, by design most of us are inexperienced (well, some of us), and at this point I don't know that any of us are going to take your word as gospel so you don't need to worry about newbies being waylaid by your "weak play". You're not even in an SE slot! So thanks for the reads but they really didn't need that emphatic disclaimer. Whether you're truly a weak player or not is kind of not at all relevant, and looking for advice is one thing but deliberately qualifying yourself with your lack of confidence is another.
I mean, I'm not that confident in most of what I say and I think it comes across, but you just took it to another level.

Also can't believe you didn't jail me haha, I didn't even bother reading through the game again I was so sure I was going to die. If anyone has advice for me as well, that would be cool.

I'm a bit short on time right now but I plan to read the mafia thread sometime today.

For Penguin, because I was planning to post one in the dead thread as thanks for running the whole shebang and then the game ended so it got locked:


I got really involved in this game thanks to you guys, it was awesome playing with you all and I hope to see you around!

[Keychain]

Keychain was great. She tried her best. She tried her best to get the right answer. She tried her best to care. Town MVP.

Aww <3

[Keychain]

Wrong type of penguin! The horror! Mod killed! Neutral survivor!

I asked! I said "how do you feel about other species" and you said nothing so you get what you get and you don't get upset. Besides, that's my national penguin you're hating on, it's on our $5 note

[Keychain]

Yeah, sorry about that post explosion, Huntress.

except Macaroni, those bastards

Come at me
Also I couldn't find any cute pictures of little blues, they have creepy eyes

[Keychain]

You realize I have mod powers in this thread...right?

It's like a rabbit taunting an eagle. Or a penguin taunting an orca. I found this game rather emotionally draining with how invested I got in it so the relief of having it over is making me more silly than usual

I can give individual feedback tomorrow.
...
At the end of the day, if people enjoyed the game, my thoughts are "Great!" I want a game to flow smoothly, where people are enjoying it and are learning something. If those objectives were met, I'm good.

I'd really love feedback, whenever you get around to it.
And it was emotionally draining but also fun and educational, so objectives achieved in my case despite being mostly IC-less and having the second day be dominated by the densest "he said she said" that I never want to read again, ever.
I tend to be pretty reserved as a general rule so I'm half surprised I got so into this.


Reading the mafia PT was an experience. The amount of time you two spent debating your actions is impressive. I thought the RQS bussing communication was sneaky, I should have paid more attention to that. Acid was pretty excellent overall. Also RC I saw you call me a slimy git, don't you dare think you got away without me noticing that

I agree!

You were scary. There was a reason I tried to buddy you right away

Patently untrue, but appreciated and I will hang this quote on my wall because you scared the crap out of me and I was town. I really don't want to run into you with positions reversed.

Questions for you which you may have already answered somewhere: Can I ask why you were so certain Huntress was JK? And why you were so sure Draynth wasn't?
Also, why did you come in trying to lynch Prism in particular?

[Keychain]

It could be, but it seemed too strong for that.

Also

Here you go

this link (and the train of thought it led to, and the shift in how I approached the game afterwards) contributed a lot to my enjoyment of the game, so thank you so much for posting it. I don't think I said much if anything about it at the time but I thought about it a lot.