Open 699 - Pick your Poison - Town Win

[Luca Blight]

I should probably work out if boring is scum. I had a weak scumread on Elmo.

In boring's replace-in post:
- She thinks I'm town *must suppress anti-OMGUS*. Her reasoning makes sense - it would be super-easy to have gone along with an Elmo lynch - but I'm not sure why this is applied to fitz and me and not other people off the wagon. Why is that, boring?
- Her reasoning for mutant-town really rings true with me in parts; particularly "He's cumbersome in a way that scum rarely are. As has already been pointed out by two players now, he's trying to policy me, and he doesn't even seem to realize it."
- I don't see her Luca scumread. I think Luca's early game in particular was really solid - asking sensible, scumhunting questions of a few people. I can see how you get to boring's analysis through a bit of an OMGUS lens.
- I disagree with Transcend that these are particularly convenient scumreads. LucaScum is

not

the obvious choice. I think a random set of reads could be spun in much the way Transcend does.

Since then - I don't really see any reason to think boring is scum. It's not an easy slot to replace into, 'cos Transcend (I'm not saying his behaviour shouldn't be allowed, but it doesn't look fun to play against). I think boring is doing as good a job of it as can be expected.

So yeah, let's defy the dog and not lynch this.

Are you townreading Boring based on this, or has she just gone from being a 'weak scumread' to 'null'?

[Luca Blight]

I'm stuck on DeasVail. I'm stuck because of the general impression that he's playing a good scum game. His posts are mild, his targets are easy, and his explanations seem good on the surface.

This post

Spoiler:

Deas, you said earlier in the game you were 'very torn' on IceGuy and I see you've now unvoted and excluded him from your lynch pool.

Can you walk me through your read progression of IceGuy so far?

12: I remember thinking that I might RVS this as it seemed slightly over-explanatory, but overall not that significant.

I became more concerned at 33, as I was pretty sure it was a usual thing for people to exaggerate "scumreads" in early game and so it seemed overly defensive. 48 had a similar vibe, as I didn't get that impression from Ectomancer at all.

However, I then liked his approach to mutant. He expressed suspicion of mutant's reads list but also took initiative in working out whether this was something alignment-indicative for mutant or not (a step beyond the other players in the game from memory)

Since then, I think his approach to the Elmo wagon has been fairly town, as was his suspicion of me followed by unvote.

He is a townread for me at this point in time.

Also, current lynch pool for me (in order of appearance on the playerlist):

Yuria
Fishy
Elmo
kelbris
Viome

Would you mind explaining why those people are in your lynch pool?

Elmo is the only person I explicitly have a scumread on (I am still of this opinion, as well, fwiw).

The other four stand out to me as people that have not made much of an impression. I explicitly do not read them as town, nor do I have another good reason for keeping them around. (E.g. I'm not sure about my read on havingfitz but I have played with him before and expect that I will have a better idea as the game goes on. Luca is someone that is very pro-town, but I haven't formed a solid opinion on his actual alignment yet. However, I would be unlikely to lynch him as I feel that his alignment will become obvious with time).

The lynch pool explanation in particular illustrates my concern. It's an easy pool. It's all people who aren't trying very hard (or are trying, but bad at fitting into the site meta). It's a pool that's pretty easy for most players to swallow too. Even those in it, as he's not actively gunning for any of them.

I would normally agree with such an evaluation, but I feel you're not really factoring in the game-state. No-one this game has looked massively scummy - a lot of players have held back, so I think a list like his is pretty natural given the circumstances.

I babble, and this looks like a babble post I might make, except he's not me. So unless we're soul brothas, I can't assume it was just aimless babble. Only, I can't figure out the aim

Spoiler:

Deas, what would be your thoughts if Elmo flipped Town?

I don’t have time right now to go through things with an Elmo-town mindset (and I tend not to read things with the assumption of a particular alignment until there’s a flip because I’m a slow thinker and also a bit lazy), but I would look at things like how people interacted around the wagon. With an easy mislynch I’d expect scum to feel almost guilty about being associated with it and see if that were betrayed by their posts. I’d also pay attention to more generic things that could be amplified by the situation, such as an increased self-consciousness and care put into how they look with anything Elmo-related. And if someone is avoiding the wagon, why are they avoiding it. Do the reasons feel informed? Are they trying to look town by not mislynching Elmo? It’s difficult speaking in general terms like this without examples, but that’s the best I can do.

I also think it’s very unlikely that Elmo is a town PR and I don’t think kelbris is as likely to be scum.

I picked DaesVail to review after Ecto, because I was expecting him to come out as a town lean. A good scum game looks like this. An okay town game looks like this too. This is completely unhelpful at the moment, I realize, but it may be helpful to someone later. Whether this is a good scum game or a "meh" town game should become more obvious over time.

I don't see what it is exactly you're scumreading here? There's no point quoting something if you're completely unable to explain why you're quoting it.

p-edit: @Fishythefish: I saw just today that Yuria also made a "wait for the replacement" comment, which I hadn't noticed before, but you and Fitz didn't just not vote me. I saw you both discussing my lynch in a way that would make it difficult for you to justify a sudden hammer. That suggests town motivation.

Can you point out exactly what you mean here.

[mutantdevle]

VOTE: kelbris

[Fishythefish]

@luca: boring is now around null to me - and I think it's quite likely the spot will be easier to read after more from boring.

[DeasVail]

Hey guys, sorry for being somewhat absent for a bit. I'm ready to get back into this though, and I think it's time to do a proper think through my reads. I'll try to keep things brief for the sake of readability (unless I feel elaboration is necessary). I may also ask questions of certain player's in another player's "section", so please at least scan for your name if not reading my post entirely thoroughly.

-

Yuria - Read Pending

First, now that I'm going specifically through your ISO, I realise I never responded to 420. There's not too much I can say other than that my instinct upon the replace-out request was to at least wait for the replacement, but then I realised that there was not all that much logical reason to do so. As for my read on the slot now? I don't want to lynch it.

I am also mildly concerned by the above line of questioning from Yuria, since I feel it was a reasonably obvious change of mind that shouldn't have needed much explanation. So, I'm not sure why the push, but meh, it's not a strong reason to think that Yuria is scum.

My read at this stage will largely depend on something that I'm waiting for from Yuria, and I don't want to disclose this yet. Feel free to make me explain it in a couple of RL days if I haven't by then.

Boring, I would appreciate hearing from you on how Yuria's posts that you quoted display a lack of care for what people think of her. (I know they aren't the exact words you used, but I don't remember exactly what)

-

Ectomancer - Weak Town

*This read needs to be revised if Boring flips town*

I generally like their posts. Particularly ~town~ things for me are:
- Thoughts on Transcend in 546, which largely aligns with my thinking at this stage of the game.
- The sudden vote on Elmo in 172 also seems unlikely from scum, but I may reconsider this in the event that boring is scum, as I could maybe see it coming from a scumbuddy.
- 199 is a nice post too, but I can't explain why very well.

-

IceGuy - Weak Town

What I said in 246 still holds for the most part. The weakness from the read comes from a lack of much else that is significant to me at the moment, as well as ongoing concerns regarding his first few posts of the game.

-

Transcend - Weak Scum

I can't explain this read very well, but I remember getting the impression at the beginning of the game that despite the trolliness and hyper-posting, there was a pro-town agenda there. I could see a strong town argument for how Transcend was approaching the game. However, now as I'm looking through his posts, I'm struck by the odd feeling that Transcend doesn't really have that much belief in his reads or what he's saying. It feels.... hollow somehow. I don't want to pursue this scumread (if you could even call it that) right now and it's probably the least confident of all my reads, but it's something I will be thinking about.

-

Fishythefish - Town

It's like a direct contrast from the the Transcend read above. His posts clearly come from the place of someone trying to work out the game, but also without any element of "showiness" that I might expect from scum.

-

Boring - Somewhere between town and scum

Elmo's play perfectly fit the mold of caught scum for me, but I need to account for the likelihood of confirmation bias there as boring's posts in isolation probably wouldn't lead me to a scumread on the slot. Elmo's play will always have an impact on my read here, but there are things from boring that I do like. I like that she took on Luca Blight, one of the more prolific and dominant posters upon entering the thread. As weird as it might sound, I like the back-and-forth that she's done on her read of me. The way she's done it feels town to me. Nothing SUPERTOWN, though.

(Mild niggle from her suspicion of me for putting "easy targets" in the lynch pool, when she came in attacking Luca Blight. Did she do that because she associates going after stronger players with town? Hmmm.)

I will be watching you!

-

mutantdevle - Town

My thoughts have largely been in line with those others have posted and so there's not much for me to add here.

-

Luca Blight - Weak Town

It may be needless paranoia that's holding me back from putting him as an outright townread here, but I originally had town next to his name and it just didn't sit right with me. I don't know why. In any case, he has consistently good scumhunting posts. Nothing in his ISO reads as scummy to me. There's also nothing where I go "scum wouldn't do that!", and I don't get that incredibly strong impression of authenticity that I get from fishy, but maybe the good scumhunting, probing posts/questions etc. should be reason enough. I will think on this too.

-

kelbris - Weak Scum

There's not much there and again, I have found myself agreeing with other people's posts on him. I don't think I'll be voting there right now though.

-

sheepsaysmeep - Weak Scum

In the interest of full disclosure, I've gone into this reads list thinking that this is where I'd end up voting. He's coasted by with very little attention while doing barely anything and it does get to the point where my previous town-lean for his blatant "I'm not reading the thread" does not really fly anymore. And I think this is that time. I feel like town would have gotten their act together and actually tried to contribute by now, especially considering the uncertainty following boring's replace-in. While I guess there's no reason for scum to if he's not in the line of fire for it.

VOTE: sheepsaysmeep

-

havingfitz - Pending

I just need more at this stage. Town lean at a guess, but I'm struggling to find much in his posts that I find to be significant for alignment.

-

Viomi - Town

I know that a lot of people are calling it NAI, but I actually find her posting druing the replace out to be quite town. I think scum would have been much more likely to replace out and leave it at that, whereas Viomi continues to post after her request. The reason for this is that I think there is a lot less investment in the non-game aspects of in-game posts as scum. You're scum and not going to be the real you, so naturally I believe the investment level is lower. But this is clearly not the case with Viomi who seems genuinely hurt and frustrated in a way that I don't think scum would be.

[DeasVail]

Reads list for convenience.

TOWN: Fishythefish, Mutantdevle, Viomi

Weak town: Ectomancer, IceGuy, Luca Blight

Something else: Yuria, boring, havingfitz

Weak Scum: Transcend, kelbris, sheepsaysmeep

[Rem]

I think I am allowed to post now.
Hello everyone o/

Is there anything i should know before reading the thread?

[davesaz]

Please welcome Rem, replacing Viomi.

boring(4) - Ectomancer, kelbris, Transcend, Luca Blight
kelbris(4) - IceGuy, Fishythefish, Yuria, mutantdevle
mutantdevle(2) - havingfitz, sheepsaysmeep
Transcend(1) - Rem
sheepsaysmeep(1) - DeasVail

not voting (1) - boring

With 13 alive it takes 7 to lynch
(expired on 2017-11-12 15:00:00)

[Rem]

UNVOTE:

Can someone explain the boring and kelbris wagons to me?

[Luca Blight]

UNVOTE:

I probably won’t vote for boring again unless it’s that or a no lynch.

I'm interested to know what changed your mind so profoundly here.

[Luca Blight]

UNVOTE:

Can someone explain the boring and kelbris wagons to me?

Boring's predecessor Elmo made a bad vote on Mutant with some very questionable reasoning, followed by unsatisfactory responses to any questions aimed at her before replacing out.

Kelbris has done nothing but coast and play it safe so far, and was the owner of the scummiest looking vote on the Boring wagon, in my opinion.

[havingfitz]

Well I just had a moderately large post lost in a horrible cut and paste fcuk up (i.e. getting distracted and cutting something else before pasting my initial cut).

Summary of lost post...

ISO'd sheepsaysmeep. Kind of keep forgetting they are in the game. Seems to be skating under the radar. Can't say I recall a single post from them that has sign of any thought given to it. Scum lean.

ISO'd kelbris. Lots of promised content iirc and nothing really delivered. Just here. Slight scum lean. Could be due to lack of anything but just haven't got any vibe to keep around.

"I'm not a fan of" Ectomancer. Their one post of note is a reiteration of suspicions towards Iceguy (who he is voting at this point) and a lovefest towards Luca sorting/shading me. Then in his next post he proceeds to put Elmo at L-2 and asks for a claim.

@Ecto

...what were the reasons you voted for Elmo and has boring done anything to change your "suspicions" towards that slot?

Will give other read refinement/thoughts as I am able. Here is my current rack n stack:

- Fish townlean
- Deas townlean
- boring townlean
- Iceguy townlean
- Transcend townlean
- mutant slight townlean
- Yuria tbd
- Luca tbd/slight scumlean
- Viomi tbd/slight scumlean
- sheeps scumlean
- kelbris scumlean
- Ecto scumlean

VOTE: Ecto

[havingfitz]

Actually...second guessing my kelbris scumlean. Drop it to slight.

[havingfitz]

UNVOTE:

Can someone explain the boring and kelbris wagons to me?

Boring's predecessor Elmo made a bad vote on Mutant with some very questionable reasoning, followed by unsatisfactory responses to any questions aimed at her before replacing out.

Kelbris has done nothing but coast and play it safe so far, and was the owner of the scummiest looking vote on the Boring wagon, in my opinion.

So you have been pretty consistent with your Elmo read.
What about kelbris' vote in support of a wagon you started, and are still on, is so scummy?

[Ectomancer]

OMGUS havingfitz is scum! (actually he probably is)

I voted Elmo because it was time for a claim. My suspicions now are that it is past time for a claim from boring so Mutant get your nubby little town butt back on the boring wagon so that we can get this claim.

People, town people that is. 22 pages with no lynch and not even a claim pressured is not a good thing for town. More posting <> more content but it does mean a greater noise ratio in the game. It makes it harder to sort out the actually scummy and gives scum more material to manipulate. It is a delicate balance. We need information to base our lynches upon. But we need it to be good, solid, info with no room for interpretation (manipulation). That's what a claim is. The rest of this? Just more material that can be warped into a mislynch down the road.

So enough with the long lists and constant "Can you explain this?" or WORSE, "Can you elaborate on this?" AKA "just keep'em talking and building up that fog of war".

So vote boring, get the claim, and then let's lynch IceGuy and have something to go on in the morning.

[sheepsaysmeep]

why should boring claim if we're not lynching boring

[sheepsaysmeep]

i'll post something good tonight while im pretending im doing homework

[mutantdevle]

so Mutant get your nubby little town butt back on the boring wagon so that we can get this claim.

Jeez fine, I will... soon.

I have my reasons for unvoting.


Also boring isn't going to claim anything. Both Elmo and boring have had plenty of chances to claim a PR by now but they haven't because they aren't going to. They are either VT or scum, no inbetween.

[mutantdevle]

Actually, why should I go back to the Elmo / boring wagon? Kelbris is currently at equal votes to them so why not lynch them instead? I'm actually really split on these 2 wagons right now.

I trust the people on Elmo / boring's wagon more but I feel like we have less to lose if we lynch Kelbris.



So I'm on Kelbris for now but if time gets low I'll changed back.

[IceGuy]

This is the kind of post that could spawn a game-theory dissertation. I understand the backlash.

I think it's pretty obvious from a game-theory standpoint that IC confirmation at that point is a bad idea - but I didn't know whether everybody in the game knew.

I also understand Elmo's reaction to Iceguy after this post. I disagree that it was a buddy attempt, though. It reads almost like blackmail. "As long as you don't fight too hard, I'll just sit back and let someone else take the blame for your lynch. But don't forget that I can fuck you up". I included the wagon breakdown, though because it's just so bizarre.

FTR, "pressure votes" are an easy excuse for scum to park on town without actual justification. And saying you want to "pressure" someone by warning them that your vote would be a hammer is all-around terrible.

It is blackmail. I wanted Elmo to start contributing to town.

Are you real serious?

Yes. This was true at the point I wrote this post.

Why do you townread Fish and Fitz?

Because they're helpful to town, and I don't see a scum motivation for any of their actions, really.

If you feel Deas is scum why not vote him?

Because I only have one vote and I consider kelbris scummier.

I agreed with your point earlier about Elmo lacking both town and scum motivation in her posts, but I don't think you can say the same about Boring; to do so feels like you're choosing to be non-committal on the topical slot of the game. I think there is enough content now from Boring to take a stance one way or the other, so which is it to be?

At the point I wrote this post, Boring was mostly engaged in useless back-and-forth. However, she's now started contributing in a towny way.

So vote boring, get the claim, and then let's lynch IceGuy and have something to go on in the morning.

What kind of justification is this? Vote somebody to get a claim, but lynch somebody else no matter what the claim is?

[Transcend]

[Transcend]

I'm masons with kelbris. Lynch boring.

[kelbris]

Here's the first part of my reads so far. Sorry for seeming like I am coasting, seems like every time I try to make a decent post, I have to go somewhere (or the post glitches out and doesn't post).

1. Elmo/boring-Whilst I did join the Elmo wagon initially, some of Elmo's later posts prior to his replacing out make me wonder if he truly is town. Reading Boring's posts puts him firmly in my townreads. To Elmo-if you are reading this, I am sorry for taking part in a wagon that ultimately gave you the need to replace out of this game. Anyway, back to boring-I completely understand where he is coming from regarding my posts, quite frankly-whenever I try to make a decent one, for some reason this site puts me into a login loop and I wind up losing all that hard work. I also appreciate the work boring put into his other reads. To be more specific-The way Elmo was focused on attacking those within the wagon on her (as in #235 and #247) was why I voted for her aside from wanting to see a claim.

UNVOTE:

2. Deas-as of right now, Deas is a town lean in my book. After reading through his entire ISO, I quite frankyl don't see anything that stands out as scummy.

3. Ectomancer-Me and Ecto have the same reason for voting for Elmo as per post #564. Ecto stated that he voted for Elmo in order to get a claim, which is actually the exact reason why I had done so. Let me take a quick break from the reads for a sec to explain-when I saw the large wagon on Elmo that was at L-2, my first thought was "well, maybe we can get a role claim and put an end to the tunneling", which is why I voted for him. I also like Ecto's content since I unvoted for him and am seriously considering voting IceGuy for now, therefore, Ecto is in my null/town list for now.

4. Fishythefish-town lean, I will admit that fishy made a point that I had not even considered when I was town-reading IceGuy. I didn't consider Transcend's claim a jokeclaim (thought the chile was a mistype) and was going off the basis that transcend was new to being an IC, having realised that this is not the case/it was a jokeclaim, IG's advice not to get the mod to confirm actually does come off as more of a "make me look good" post. I also like how fishy takes boring's posts into account rather then focusing solely on the slot as a whole rather then the players that have controlled it.

5. havingfitz-town. After ISOing fitz, I must say I like how he breaks down the way PYP normally works, since this is actually my first time in a PYP game. I also understand where he was coming from regarding the whole transcend situation, which he explained in post #146.

6. IceGuy-null/scum, whilst post #21 reeks of a "make me look helpful/good" mentality, his later posts have put him into my slight scumlean pool and out of the "definite scum" pool. I would be comfortable in voting for him, but I am not going to as right now-there is someone else who I believe is 100% scum and that is...

7. Transcend-scum, the fact that he tried to use a blatant lie to get the people that voted for me to join the boring wagon REALLY comes off as scummy to me. I am of course referring to post #571 where he claims to be a mason with me-I am NOT a mason with Transcend. You then have his pushing of images trying to get a lynch on Elmo/boring's slot with no regard for the actual content they have posted. Both of these things make me suspect that Transcend is NOT town (or at least willing to lie to get boring lynched).

As a result of all this, I am going to

VOTE: Transcend

and I am going to stay on him unless he explains why the hell he lied about us being Masons to get his boring/Elmo lynch. Mason is not even a possible choice for the mafia in this PYP.

[Transcend]

you're a fucking idiot die
i don't need shitbags like you in my town

VOTE: kelbris

we're lynching boring tomorrow i swear to god if that slot doesn't die this game i'm going to be very mad

[Transcend]

this vote is permanent until you unvote me btw