Newbie 1797: Space | Endgame

[BlackVoid]

So, you just decided to trust skitter and you're okay losing the game if you are wrong? I'm asking because I really don't like losing towngames and wanted to see if there was some strong reasoning that you had. What do you think of my concerns about skitter?

[Plotinus]

VC 3.09

Fast Stars and Rogue Planets in the Orion Nebula

Explanation: Start with the constellation of Orion. Below Orion's belt is a fuzzy area known as the Great Nebula of Orion. In this nebula is a bright star cluster known as the Trapezium, marked by four bright stars near the image center. The newly born stars in the Trapezium and surrounding regions show the Orion Nebula to be one of the most active areas of star formation to be found in our area of the Galaxy. In Orion, supernova explosions and close interactions between stars have created rogue planets and stars that rapidly move through space. Some of these fast stars have been found by comparing different images of this region taken by the Hubble Space Telescope many years apart. Many of the stars in the featured image, taken in visible and near-infrared light, appear unusually red because they are seen through dust that scatters away much of their blue light.

Image and text credit

---

BlackVoid

(2): Human Sequencer, esires

L-2

esires

(2): NotTheRealPaul, Dunkerdoodles

L-2

Not Voting

(1): skitter30, BlackVoid

With 6 alive, it takes 4 to lynch.

The day 3 deadline is in

: (expired on 2017-07-06 19:59:10)

Mod Notes

Hi, I'm the backup mod!

-ThinkBig, the moderator, is V/LA on weekends and on Jewish holidays. Plotinus, the backup moderator, will be modding during this time.
-skitter30 is V/LA on shabbat and Jewish holidays.

[skitter30]

K, I'm back. I'm going to do a NC/Drixx ISO now, but BV, if you like want to talk, I'm around.

[NotTheRealPaul]

since i kinda gave a skitters read might as well do u and esires since u asked

with esires I dont like hsi recent posting especially the self-vote. I think esires as town wouldnt do that (based on what Ive seen from his personality), and his vote for Drixx was really bad. That combined with his safe opinions and my town reads of everyone else (that Im kinda paranoid of but fuck it), means he is most likely scum in my eyes.

for you I was set to lynch u coming into D3. Like ur D2 was weak af and drixx's self-vote and explanation made it seem like he was denying u the ability to make any associative stuff/give reads which might be used against u. However ur D3 has been really strong which I like. Ur predeccessory was like nullleanscum since NC didnt do much. Im pretty sold on u as town, although this strong game could be scum motivated Like I know I said I thought it was toqny but it could be both (I know im waffling kinda). The thing is I dont see another option but to pkay strong for scum!BV as u were most likely lynch for D3. That said, Im gonna kinda discount/not choose that option (cant find right word for thoughts there), as I feel like u've been really genuine.

pedit: At the end of the day its a game of mafia. Of course I dont wanna lose, but the world wont end if I do. Im gonna trust skitter because if I let paranoia set in I'll start questioning everyone. If esires isnt scum then Im going back and looking over everyone skitter included, but for now Im trusting her.

Your concerns are semi-valid. Truth be told I think I missed the post about her TRing esires so could u gimme a number real quick? Her locking in lynches is kinda scummy but I feel like we are all doung it to a certaine extent, so I cant really fault her for it. For me its Esires or HS, for Skitters and HS its Esires or you. I think Esires' recent AtE might be getting to her (?), and HS just TRs everyone else.

[skitter30]

I don't really agree a lot of her reasoning even where she says esires is town

Um, where do I do this exactly?

[BlackVoid]

That was a typo. I meant scum. Even when you were said you found esires scum (or scummier than me), I couldn't really get behind your reasoning. I'm going to re-read your esires ISO again and explain what I meant.

[NotTheRealPaul]

D3 end: 4-1 or 5-0

D4 start: 3:1 MYLO

D4 end: 2:1 or 3:0 or 3:1

D5: fuck hope we dont get here 2:1

D5 end: 2:0 or town loses

Checked my math we can mislynch once. So im looking at lynching esires today. If its a mislynch we discuss D4 and see if we can find something rlly super scummy on someone. And if not we let scum narrow down our pool by no lynching. Then D5 starts and I assume I'll be des because no one suspects me so its up to u guys. Could be skitters ded too considering how much she has been involved in game, and BV is certainly easier to mislynch.

[BlackVoid]

I guess it just surprises me that people apparently think I'm this strong as scum yet the best I could come up with to save a partner was to lurk out the day and allow town to lynch him without even trying to cash in buscred.

[skitter30]

I guess it just surprises me that people apparently think I'm this strong as scum yet the best I could come up with to save a partner was to lurk out the day and allow town to lynch him without even trying to cash in buscred.

I mean, you said you weren't around because of IRL stuff. I'm quite sure that if you weren't busy, you would have played day2 rather differently, no matter what your alignment is.

[BlackVoid]

I continued looking over that scumgame of icemanE (esires) and this quote by some townie after ice's partner got lynched made me lol:

Spoiler: esires old game

Subject: Mini 715: Legends of Literature Mafia (Over)

lets just clear up the apparent misunderstandings on rice's claim.

rice-scum claiming to have gotten a negative track result on slysly is a (very clever, actually) way of trying to put a protown spin on his position re the sly wagon on day one.

rice-town-tracker following iceman makes very little sense after the slyscum cardflip.

ice was early on the sly wagon, and really never looked anything but pro town.

rice also hasn't given any sort of explanation for why he would choose to track ice (or did i miss that? someone can point it out to me if i did)

rice-scum claiming to have gotten rbed last night makes perfect sense if he is the mafioso who was sent to make last nights kill and he thinks it failed because he got nailed by a town rb. its also a pretty clever way to maybe a) get the hypothetical town rb on his side or b) at least get the hypothetical town rb to claim

the timing of rice's claim is also suspect. he was at l-3. hardly appropriate time for a claim, unless he looked at the state of things and went, "well shit i guess its time for a gambit."

It just reminded me so much about the reasons people were townreading him here (esires was early on the Drixx wagon hence town). I know that's not indicative of much but I think there could be some intuitive desire to hop onto partner's wagons early if he's scum here.

[BlackVoid]

This is actually puzzling me a lot. In a universe where the scumteam is Drixx/esires, and HS is town, why would Drixx in a Drixx/esires propose an HS/esires team and push HS first? By pushing esires first, Drixx gets towncred from the bus, and a mislynch in HS. By pushing HS first, Drixx gets ??? . The best thing that I'm coming up with is that when HS flips town, it invalidates his whole read on the partnership, so he needs to reevaluate everything? But if he's independently scumreading esires (for apparently pushing a mislynch on Drixx), I would find it weird if that indpendant scumread disappeared just because HS flipped town. I'm actually having trouble figuring out why Drixx did this in this context.

Drixx has actually done this before. In Newbie 1784, he was scum with Loopdan. He pushed a case against a townie (StealthyNoodle) and then twice tied him to his partner.

Calling it now. Loopdan and Noodles.

Presuming scum!Noodle, I think Loopdan makes the most sense to be his partner.

His primary push was the townie and his "backup push/person he was calling the townie scum with" was his partner. I don't know exactly what motivated him to do it but I also don't quite understand why you don't think he would do it.

[BlackVoid]

This is in response to your 1163 (skitter):

You say esires continuing to push Drixx in 90 after you were about to put him at L-1 doesn't come from partners. That feels like a stretch. What do you expect a partner who was voting Drixx to do? Unvote in a panic and start defending him? It was page four. Drixx wasn't getting lynched then. If a partner decided to "pressure" him to distance, they're going to do that until the attention subsides.

You also said he might be "keeping his options open" in his 617. Why would he do that? I think normally scum would want to buddy/townread some people and push others as opposed to keep everyone in their lynchpool. If you were scum, which would you do?

The weird thing is, I don't know if 627 comes from a scumpartner. Scum would want to tie their partners to townies, not tie two townies together and call them the team. The former gives them more credibility in case the partner flips first and they can push on the townie. That and the HS/NC scumteam theory seemed rather well-thought out actually. He accuses them of distancing with arguments that go beyond just a surface-level (they were defending each other, etc). He talks about how they say that something is not right with each other but HS in the end doesn't push NC despite suspecting him. I could easily see town who suspects HS think that NC is partnered with him.

I still don't get what your issue is with him not voting me to L-1. If he's scum, he needs to get me lynched and he can't do that without a vote. He'll eventually have to vote so what difference does it make?

919 sounded pretty genuine I think. 929 considerably less so. After being so sure Drixx was scum, why end with "if anyone can provide a viable counterwagon, I'm all ears?"

[BlackVoid]

But if you or Paul are scum, you've set up the endgame quite nicely with me/esires lynches

If skitter is scum, she's already got two lynches (me and esires) set up quite nicely.

All he needs is two mislynches, and he's set himself up nicely for that.

Yeah, so this part of why your posts keep weirding me out. There's a lot of parroting going on. I said this (almost exact phrasing) and then you say it about HS. But unlike me, you don't actually do much about your paranoia where I've been sort of wildly pushing at the entire playerlist to try and alleviate my concerns.

Same thing with the "transparent" stuff. I said that I was being transparent. Your later posts are all about telling me how I'm transparent and sort of pacifying me but setting me up at the same time based on NC's posts which is probably the less antagonistic way to push a mislynch (hey, your predecessor was scummy, not you, you are super-town and transparent but I'm lynching you next is esires isn't and esires doesn't make sense as a Drixx partner").

[BlackVoid]

^ Talk to me about that Paul. You're my only voice of sanity in here.

[BlackVoid]

932 to Drixx also seems oddly confrontational tonally for someone who's going out of her way to be non-confrontational.

[BlackVoid]

It seems like the big case for NC/Drixx is 978. It comes down to:

1. Drixx's partner simply wasn't around to deflect from the lynch

(esires came up with this point and skitter sheeped it): I mean either that or bussing and someone who bussed in their first scumgame should know that both scenarios are probable, especially after town mislynched Paul for not voting the scum (yes, I realize that

you

didn't mislynch Paul but it doesn't change my actual point that scum bus and townies get caught off-guard).

2. I pushed skitter D2 who was the most pro-town player in the game because I somehow needed to get rid of her

: Um, if I were trying to save Drixx, wouldn't I be pushing actual viable mislynches? Pushing a non-viable lynch on the "most pro-town player" while letting town lynch your partner seems like pretty horrible play.

So, I'm really looking forward to what these damning interactions between NC and Drixx are.

I'm going to re-read the whole game start to finish because I'm pretty lost here. I think Paul is town. I like Paul. He's the only one not setting me up to be lynched and the only one who's actually considering potential scum outside me/esires. I think HS is town for the genuine interactions with Drixx and hard-pushing for his lynch and I think the odds of that being a bus are pretty low. It's either esires or skitter. If we could lynch them both, I think town will win but I'd rather nail down who I think it is today and end the game. Getting into lylo with everyone out for my head doesn't sound fun.

[BlackVoid]

@Dunker, can you explain your read on Paul a bit more?

mainly his position on the drixx wagon, i feel like he bussed drixx.
drixx was one of the main scumreads d1, and i feel that overnight drixx may have told paul to bus him and he was already being scumread.
paul really defended his place on the wagon.
paul also "warmed up" to the idea of TvT, after i believe drixx said it might be TvT. paul might have wanted to go along with his partner drixx and maybe try and convince town it was TvT and that they should lynch someone else, but when no one really thought it was TvT (i was insisting the whole day it was TvS, which is probably why i don't like paul rn.) he went back to bussing. now i'm pretty sure i posted about this D2, and paul response was something like "i was only "warming up" to the idea of TvT, i still think it was TvS." now if town did indeed get persuaded and think HS vs Drixx was TvT, then paul could've said he was the one of the first people to come uo with the idea with his "warming up" post.

tl:dr I think paul bussed drixx D2

Okay, so what makes Paul different from everyone else that weakly suspected Drixx D1, forgot all about him and then pushed him in earnest D2? HS, Skitter, and esires all did this. Paul as well. So, Drixx could have been scum with any one of them and they could have co-ordinated the bus N1.

Paul defending his place on the wagon is a fair point and I have at times felt that Paul was a bit too keen to take credit for the Drixx lynch, first when he accused you of copying his read, and then when he insisted that he was one of the primary Drixx pushers. I've been somewhat paranoid about skitter pocketing Paul but I've wondered at times if it's the other way around and

he's

pocketing her. But it doesn't make that much sense to me as the other way around.

I don't know how damning it is for him to "warm up to the idea of TvT." I'll walk through the timeline tomorrow morning. It's getting late.

[NotTheRealPaul]

i have to take an act practice test tonight and im volunterring for two hours so i dont have time to do much here today. if im responsibile then saturday i'll iso/reread.

BV im starting to worry about skitters.

i swear to god HS needa to engag. Like Im hating how he is sitting with his townbloc of unconfirmed town and sayibg, "okay scum is here and her im done"

[skitter30]

I fell asleep, sorry. I will get to your posts, but you write even more than me and I have work. I'll look at them when I get home.

NC/Drixx

35 - Worries about Drixx being a scum IC, which, of course, he was.
69 - Not about Drixx, but this push on Picard is weird too??? I think I mentioned this multiple times also.
42 - the qualifier of 'provided you're town' is weird here? Doesn't want to imply a townread on him too early?
95 - NC just doesn't weigh in on Drixx's first wagon. I literally stated that I was willing to put Drixx at L-1, and they just don't comment with a read on Drixx (I nearly everyone else had some opinion at this point). Like their only reaction to the whole thing was to townread me?
226 - 'the problem with Drixx is i really can't read him on day 1. it takes him a while to get going, and while nothing screams town, the actions he's taken that are pinging me are ones i could see him taking as either alignment.' Again, not committing to a Drixx read, and doesn't really elaborate on the things that are pinging them.
227 -spoke too fast. Complains about Drixx's 183. Major problem with it seems to be that they don't think an IC should be addressing a newbie like that.
379 - likes the fact that Drixx is 'trying'. Where exactly? Drixx's recent posts are just more defense about how he usually plays a poor day 1.
534 - literally forgets about the fact that they're suspicious of Drixx.
692 - townreads Drixx for that argument???
693 - then says the argument is NAI???
695 - paranoid of HS, doesn't want to definitely townread them. Despite this, calls Drixx out on his 'case' of HS.
697 - suspicious of both HS/Drixx. But once again, implies they're on Drixx's side because his writing was more 'real' than HS's (they're arguing about posting styles ffs. It's incredibly easy to display genuine emotion here . . .). So, they townread Drixx, say the argument is NAI, leaning towards town on HS but is paranoid of HS, worries about HS's posts because they're 'calculated', thinks Drixx's posts are 'real'/less calculated, which makes them inclined to think Drixx is town, but at the end, at least one of them is scum??? Like what is this post/sequence of posts?
703 - townleaning HS; earlier said believes one of HS/Drixx is scum. If HS is town, where's the follow up on Drixx?
728 - wants Drixx to be town, wants to work with him. Drixx's case isn't convincing, but they can't read Drixx, and have to read him again. Again, never outright says Drixx is scummy. Just says that they dislike his case. I'll just quote what I wrote earlier:

Like, here you say you're willing to entertain the idea of town!Drixx. But, you're objecting to the posting style thing, and you say his argument on HS is unconvincing. But you don't commit to saying you think Drixx might be scum, and also say you haven't read him. Like, this is very noncommittal and implies a bunch of different things within short post.

Like, I can see a scumpartner saying this when they're partner is under attack. Directly saying that you think he's town would be dangerous if he flips scum, you don't want to commit to a scumread and further the case, and so you're trying to walk some vague middle line where you can say you always thought he was scum if he flips scum without flat-out saying it.

They literally never outright say they think Drixx is scum, even when it was apparent at this point. The closest they come is saying 'one of HS/Drixx' is probably scum, but when they townread HS, they never follow up with Drixx.
748 - In response to what I wrote above, Drixx is now a scumread. 'I'd absolutely vote him over HS right now

if I wanted to do that

'. What does the bolded mean exactly? Still won't commit to voting Drixx, again wants to talk to him first . . . but still never does. Dislikes his case on HS, his townread of Paul, and

never talks to him about it

? Just tells me about their suspicions after I push them on this.

Drixx/BV
795 (Drixx) - now Drixx is familiar with NC's game (in contrast to his readlist below), and worries that they haven't been obv!towning? This is Drixx talking to BV, kinda seems like he's warning him that he needs to obv!town because people (me) have been suspecting this slot.
799 - upon hearing Drixx's summary, you don't seem to suspect Drixx much, but rather want to hear Drixx's case on HS. Like, here I'd expect you to say something like 'OK, I'll look at both you and HS'. You sort of neglect to say you'll look into Drixx?


Drixx's readlist.
616 (Drixx) - why the hell is NC this high up in Drixx's reads again? They were lurking day1 and provided like no content. And I'm literally lower than NC since I have the 'competence' and 'confidence' as scum to hit Tess. NC is a SE and has played in lots of games, and an earlier comment of NC implies Drixx/NC had played together before, so Drixx is familiar with their playing style. Why does Drixx credit me, a newbie with precisely one game under her belt, more competence as scum than NC? (Yet another problem I've been having with Drixx's readlist).
628 (Drixx) - After I call Drixx out on this. How does he know I have the 'boldness' to make this play? Yes, he modded Comics, but I didn't pull anything that I would consider 'bold' there. And in 795, Drixx implies that he knows NC's game well enough to identify their towngame. Like, this read of me/NC just doesn't make sense???

BV, I'm not asking you to explain your predecessor's actions, but can you see why I'm saying this is concerning? Literally no one else has such bizarre interactions with Drixx.

[NotTheRealPaul]

My teacher let me out 3 hpurs early! HELL YAAAAA!

Might take some time to do this.

[BlackVoid]

@esires, my top three questions for you. Please elaborate somewhat here because I'm condensing down most of my issues with your play into just three questions.

1. I need you to explain your Drixx vote a bit more. You said you were compelled to vote Drixx until he can explain whether HS's posting style was intentional which I really have a hard time following. Can you rephrase this using different words? I asked this before and your never actually addresses this directly.

2. Can you be more specific instead of general with your explanation for your self-vote. "People change over the years" is rather vague. You are a player that aggressively pushed self-voters and as scum, you voted yourself as a gambit. Why did you think it was unreasonable to suspect you there? What were you thinking when you self-voted?

3. Explain your townread on skitter if you can. You've generally just been saying "pro-town" and "I won't fall into the too town to be town fallacy." I don't see any solid reasoning there and now that I explained my scumread on her, it would be great if you could elaborate on why she's so pro-town to you?

[esires]

1. I said that I was voting Drixx because it looked to me like Drixx's argument was that HS was intentionally obfuscating his points and making his posts hard to read as a scum tactic. That argument came across as a BS nit-picking stretch, so I moved my vote to Drixx. And once it was there, nothing Drixx did made me feel like I should move it off of him. He got scummier as the day went on.

2. I didn't mean for "people change over the years" to serve as an explanation for my self vote - that was just a general argument against the idea that anything from 8 years ago is particularly relevant since I haven't touched or thought about the game in that time. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time remembering how algebra works because it's been years and years since I had any application for it. My explanation for my self-vote comes in that same set of posts - I woke up to what felt like two people targeting me, felt shitty about it, and voted myself in resignation. After I cooled off I unvoted myself. That's about it.

3. Skitter comes across as town because I've seen good reasoning from her all game, most of which aligns with my own reads on a situation. It never feels like skitter is trying to make a case out of thin air, it feels like she is genuinely trying to find the right answer.

[BlackVoid]

@skitter, I post quite a bit but I don't know if I can match the novels that you write. Out of curiosity, do you prefer playing town or scum? I'll distill your main points down into a few major arguments. Let me know if I missed anything:

1. NC didn't commit to a read on Drixx early

: Drixx is a good scumplayer and is difficult to read. For someone who played with him before, is it more likely that they'd instantly commit to a read based on a handful of posts or just take it slow, try and see what content Drixx comes up with and try and evaluate him from there? This is exactly why I townread the hell out of Human Sequencer's early play and NC's cautious approach is also very similar and makes a lot of sense. So, I really can't see what's so concerning here and it's more of a concern that you just threw a "non-committal" label on it because it's easily attackable than understand that this is exactly how town that doesn't know Drixx's alignment would approach him early game. If I were in the game then, I most certainly could not have committed to a read so early.

2. NC likes the fact that Drixx is "trying" but Drixx wasn't actually trying

:
This is such a bs point. Let's look at the timeline again, shall we? Here's your post defending Drixx from Dunker:

Spoiler:

most of drixx's posts have been either defending himself

or other irrelvant stuff

.

Again, besides the first two posts about the flavor, I don't see how any of his posts were *irrelevant*. They don't per se have as much content as I would have liked, but they weren't irrelevant. And this is completely ignoring his part in the BP/Tess thing. Paul did also say that he feels Drixx isn't contributing as much, but he hasn't written off a bunch of Drixx's posts like you did.

NC's post 379 came after yours. So, if you are defending Drixx from Dunker saying that Drixx's posts weren't irrelevant, how can now turn around and ding NC for saying Drixx was trying?

3. NC "forgot" about his Drixx scumread:

Well, so did you! Why is this scummy?

4. NC's engagement with the Drixx/HS tunnel:

NC townreads Drixx for the emotional display, and says the argument about posting-styles isn't alignment-indicative. I don't know if I'd agree with it but it just seems like he found it hard to follow the argument, but despite being paranoid of HS, didn't like Drixx's case on posting-style. NC didn't even need to post anything during that time. He could just wait to see which way the wind blows and then either bus or distance but he's actively engaging both players and trying to figure out what he thinks. Then he townleans HS. The followup on Drixx is right there in 728. He finished sorting one side of the Drixx/HS argument as lean-town. Now he's moving on to Drixx and asking him questions.

What motivation does scum-NC have to not "commit" to a read on Drixx when Drixx was getting lynched anyways? If a partner is bold enough, I'd expect them to try to derail the lynch. If not, bus. I mean, you seemed pretty sure about Drixx but you didn't vote him for a long while despite other people doing so (and this was before I replaced in and asked you to hold off). Why'd you never vote him for so long?

5. Interactions between me and Drixx:

How you interpret 795 as Drixx warning me to be obvtown when it's just as likely him trying to keep a townie in their lynchpool is eluding me.

Me asking Drixx for his HS case in 799 was me trying to read Drixx. I was responding to his 798 where he says he has a secret scumtell on HS by trying to get him to elaborate. HS was explaining his attack on Drixx and wasn't alluding to any secret tells.

NC being so high up on Drixx's readslist is weird, yeah. Drixx's readslist basically went from Paul -> NC -> skitter -> esires -> HS. There's motivation to put his buddy at any level there and unless you are talking about inexperienced scum, it's usually pretty hard to tell because they'd be trying to hide their partner. And Drixx is certainly experienced enough to pull it off. In fact, given his experience, I'd say his bizarre placement of NC clears more than condemns me.

[BlackVoid]

I initially townread skitter for her aggression towards Dunker. But on thinking about it more, it was just one humongous and elaborate chainsaw to Drixx and mostly was based around calling him scum for "mis-repping" Drixx.

[BlackVoid]

I actually have a weak townread on esires now. After reflection, I can see why he'd wake up in the morning and get frustrated at a pair of long walls and give in, also thought the logic for townreading Paul based on HS's read was very genuine.