Anything uPick? (Endgame)

[Espeonage]

Against NSG for role related reasons.

I really want to post success kid in the morning. So pls.

[Mathdino]

Against NSG for role related reasons.

I really want to post success kid in the morning. So pls.

Wait what? I don't think I understand what you meant there

[Chickadee]

Against NSG for role related reasons.

I really want to post success kid in the morning. So pls.

Wait what? I don't think I understand what you meant there

Sorry, eh

[Mathdino]

I meant what he meant by "against NSG for role related reasons"

[Gamma Emerald]

Espe says Fire didn't die from vig
VIG yume says they shot fire
????

Mastina,Ginnie,OFG Hydra town!
Chick town too cause role

Someone quoted the Hindu post where he said Mastina & Chick are town but he also feels good about North

North is his partner

Smocaine also scummy for acting like Mastina is lying
Mastina got lied too, and ate it all up. Probably claimed Mason because she really believed Hindu was 3p

Nah I'm townreading north for Creature's interactions with them

[Ginngie]

In other news

[Ginngie]

I’m now a proud owner of a street sign

[Yume]

I’m now a proud owner of a street sign

I am a proud owner of this baby.



Ha!

[mastina]

[mastina]

Spoiler:

On pins and needles we are waiting for the fall
We count the days scratching lines on the wall
Wait in the wings at someone's back and call
No longer recognize the place that I call home
No longer recognize this face as my own
Somewhere this fate, I lost control
We backed down, we took no for answers far too long
We felt those walls close around
I don't want to be here anymore
I know there's nothing left worth staying for
Your paradise is something I've endured, whoa whoa
See I don't think I can fight this anymore
I'm listening with one foot out the door
And something has to die to be reborn
And I don't want to be here anymore
On hand and foot we answered every single call
Weathered every day like passing storms
But when we break we will all be gone
Won't back down, won't take no for answers anymore
These walls close, we pace back and forth
I don't want to be here anymore
I know there's nothing left worth staying for
Your paradise is something I've endured, whoa whoa
See I don't think I can fight this anymore
I'm listening with one foot out the door
But something has to die to be reborn
I don't want to be here anymore
The point where we break is closer everyday
But where do we go? But where do we go?
I don't want to be here anymore
I know there's nothing left worth staying for
Your paradise is something I've endured, whoa whoa
See I don't think I can fight this anymore,
I'm listening with one foot out the door
But something has to die to be reborn
And I don't want to be here anymore
Anymore

[Mathdino]

I'm ever so slowly inching towards the "Policy lynch mastina" theory of gameplay.

[mastina]

Btw song is a pretty apt description in many ways albeit some less and some more. Disassociating hard, no control, not wanting to be here today but needing to thanks to the damned restriction, the main way I could have contributed to the game was taken out (more on that in a post I'll be making below), I've no will to fight at the moment (it'll come later I'm sure I just don't have it RIGHT NOW), I have one foot in the door rather than one foot out in that I'm more out than in (also, I'm not listening because listening = reading and rather explicitly I've read nothing since the earliest stages of the game, I will but not until Friday at earliest), a little bit broken already and easily more so, not sure where to go atm but right now still don't want it to be here.

I'll get better, later. Just not today, as in, this Thursday. (I'm sure that I'll get better this day PHASE, assuming we actually have a proper fucking day phase.)

[mastina]

I still don't understand why Hinduragi did what he did and I don't think I can. It just makes no sense to me on any level. PRIOR TO HIM HAVING EVEN POSTED, I said that I had full trust in him. (More on that in a post below.) He could have just claimed delayed roleblocker, who upon the lynch of a scum player would become motivated, and just lied and omitted the parts about him being scum. That is actually a really fucking awesome role and a ridiculously plausible claim! A role rewarding competent townplay, in that by lynching scum you can get an upgrade to your role. I'd have bought that instantly.

Instead, he decided to claim 3p to me, and asked about my alignment which I don't understand. If he knew who the scumteam was, why would he have asked that in that way with him going to claim 3p? It just makes no sense for him to have done at all.

...Even IF you can explain that (I can't in spite of knowing that's apparently exactly what happened)...then there's still no explanation for what followed. After his initial claim, I said I fully trusted him and wanted him to win. He could have committed to that claim as it was. He could have stuck to his initial 3p claim, and not changed it at all, because I said I trusted him and would go so far as protecting him, so there was zero need to change it and doing so would in fact risk me changing my stance.

...Yet he did so ANYWAY. He changed his claim to something arguably even less believable. I'd have bought his role as town. Him being 3p as claimed was believable enough albeit not as believable as him as town. But then he claimed something even more elaborate. He claimed something ridiculously complex. He didn't so much "change the details" as much as "completely reclaim with a different role altogether". I still don't have an explanation for that, and I just don't understand why he'd go with that route when it's ridiculously complicated compared to just a simpler, "I'm town" he could have done. He didn't need to do more.

But all the same, he did do the more, while apparently knowing who the scum were. His actions make sense to me if he didn't know the scum. Claiming what he did to test if I were scum and then claiming the role he did when he thought I wasn't scum made sense if he had no clue who they were, but apparently he did. And I just don't understand it, given that.

That being said, I will be able to move on. It's a mystery we'll have to wait until postgame to see, though I'll see it much sooner I suppose once I die. (More on that in a post below.)

[mastina]

But ANYWAY. It should be pretty damn apparent I'm town--useless town, yes. Deadweight town, sure. Given this fucking posting restriction and me being behind on the game so me not being able to even give game-relevant content/spam at the moment ridiculously anti-town town, undoubtedly, yeah.

But still undeniably town.

Which means scum can't afford to let me live forever. Not when they're two scum down. How many scum could a 19-player game, realistically speaking, have? Six would be a shitload. Even five is pushing it (albeit plausible given semi-traitor who was apparently scum proper).

And they're down TWO of those starting scum.

So mathematically speaking, they cannot afford to keep me alive. Even anti-town conftown can't be kept around until lylo, especially if they lose another member or two along the way. (Also I get stronger when I've got more information on hand to analyze and am more "grounded" in the game, as it were, so it'd only be a matter of time--get enough spamposters to die off, and the pace of the game will slow to a reasonable enough level wherein I am capable of keeping up and contributing.)

7p lylo with a conftown is dangerous to them. Not INHERENTLY necessarily disastrous if they count on town voting town, but still a big risk.
5p lylo with a conftown, doubly so.
Heaven forbid 3p lylo with a conftown.

What I'm saying is, they have to kill me at some point.

It won't be immediately. GOD no. They've got bigger fish to fry, far larger threats than what I am. They'll want to avoid it for as long as humanly possible, because an anti-town player alive is better than an anti-town player dead to them.

However, at some point, they will do so, because EVENTUALLY, there is a tipping point in the scale where antitown conftown alive < no conftown alive.

...Still, though. I can maybe encourage it to happen a bit sooner than it would be otherwise with this:

Protective roles and any Watcher we may have: Absolutely do not target me.

(I mean. As if they would anyway. But I'm telling them not to.)
I'll leave myself wide open for scum to kill should they choose to. No need to waste a strongman or a ninja, even. My role has no kill immunity (I've already claimed all there is to my role more or less, except the modification of the rolecop and the condition for lovederizing someone), so this is no trap I'm laying. I do love me some plans, but I have none at the moment, not really, which is why I'm giving the invitation. My plan died with Hinduragi (more on that below in a future post).

[Smocaine]

S p a m t h e n e i g h b o r h o o d

[Mathdino]

Why would you want scum to kill conftown instead of killing potential suspects?

You must have played inno child before right???

[Gamma Emerald]

Smocaine, I'm like 80% certain mastina's hood is locked too

[Smocaine]

Does rc normally do that?

[Gamma Emerald]

It's more based on Mathdino saying his hood was locked and inferring mastina's should be as well

[mastina]

To explain what I mean about my main way of contributing no longer being around, it's simple.
Even with Hinduragi as scum who knew his scumbuddies, him being dead when he was dead was him being dead too soon especially given the rapid nature of the D1 Creature lynch.

Yeah

, dead scum is better than no dead scum.

But what I'm saying more or less is that he was dead scum

too soon

.
He made one fucking post in-thread.
One.
Just the one public post.

He didn't give anything reads-wise in the PT, not really, because he hadn't read the game. (I see no reason to doubt that as having been the case, because there's no incentive to lie about it as scum. If you haven't read the game, it will be really fucking obvious you haven't read the game; if you HAVE read the game, then it's much harder to fake having not done so and it gives you little in terms of gain. But even were you scumbag enough to doubt his claim, it's irrelevant to the point because even if he lied and HAD read the game, he CLAIMED he hadn't, he was ON RECORD as having not done so, and thus his posts were under the visage of having not done so if nothing else--meaning, for all intents and purposes, he hadn't read the game even if he had, because what matters is his stated stance. He would not be able to get away forever with the stance of "I haven't read the game", and that's what I'm getting at.)

What I'm saying here is that he should have been given the opportunity to feed us more information. We had, what? Less than 24 hours of game content? Certainly less than 48 hours. We didn't need to draw things out until deadline, sure, but we should have spent at least one fucking week on D1. This would have meant that Hinduragi would have posted vital content in the game thread, rather than one fucking post, allowing us to have more information with his flip.

FURTHERMORE, this would add weight to the neighborhood PT interactions. Hinduragi gave me nothing, but with one week's time worth of content, he'd have had no choice BUT to give me things. If he believed he had me thoroughly pocketed--and given my posts in relationship to him plus my reputation (although, there's a caveat to that which I'll talk about in a future post), he had no reason to think I wasn't--then he could attempt to manipulate my stances and guide me. But he had no chance to do so, none whatsoever, because the day ended and he was set to die that night. (And he knew it was distinctly possible, too. Knowing you are likely to die gives you good reason to not interact freely with someone not aligned with you, for fear of your death revealing info.)

We needed more time. With that time, the neighborhood would have meant something, because Hinduragi's posts in there could be used to help me maybe discern the alignments of other individuals off of his stated positions. He would have said positions, too, given one week. But given 24-48 hours, he didn't have those positions. Thus, any information I COULD have gained from having a neighborhood with scum was wasted.

[Mathdino]

It's more based on Mathdino saying his hood was locked and inferring mastina's should be as well

my hood is locked because i'm a vanilla townie, not because it's daytime

it was open during the day yesterday

from this i can infer that mastina also has daytalk

and tbh probably means scum have daytalk too

[Gamma Emerald]

No I know why your's was locked, and I figure since one of the people in mastina's is dead, it's locked as well

[Mathdino]

mastina how many minutes has it been taking you to write walls that reflect on how much this game sucks and how much your hood sucks

you're THAT IC that writes walls all the time on dead players for no reason

like hell even if you haven't read the game you could at least start asking questions and shit

i've asked you some questions to actually get us started on sorting and you're literally not responding in order to wallow in your guilt

please budget your time

[The Flat Earth Society]

At approximately 10:50 pm, RC created the topic.

Out of curiosity, what day and what timezone?

[mastina]

Btw, it's at this point I should go into detail about my philosophy on the mason claim. Contrary to popular belief, my stance is not, "Oh, neighborhood? I'll call it a masonry". I do however let people think so, because that is convenient for me both as a scumhunter and in the case where I legitimately draw mason (which I do surprisingly often) and people roll their eyes and think I'm doing my normal gambit (except...LOL MASTINA WAS ACTUALLY A MASON).

I start off by stating I will treat the neighborhood as if it were a masonry. This is true enough, but most people think the mason gambit ends right there--it doesn't. There are many reasons why I take the belief I do about treating neighborhoods as if they are masonries, and it has to do with my rich history with the role and how I react. For a start, to understand this, you have to know that I've been the role disproportionately often. I've played by now 300 full, proper games on mafiascum. (I lost track of the exact number long ago.) I don't mean including-Marathons. I don't mean "total games even off of mafiascum". I don't even count the blitz games on the fallout shelter.

I mean, 300 full-length, weeks-long day phases, well and true, proper games, here on this site, mafiascum.net.

...Of those? In the upwards of 40 or 50 games, I've been either a mason or a neighbor or an -izer of those roles. (It's still impossible to get an exact count, but I can get a more precise estimate in a bit, after I've done my spiel, because I still have a post quota to make and getting the exact numbers will be helpful for you to understand what I'm getting at here.)

The VAST majority of the time, this has worked out.

In all of those games. INCLUDING THIS GAME. There has been a grand total of three times where said "masonry" contained scum...and two of them were

all-neighborhood games

. (As in, EVERY player was in a neighborhood, with there being at least four distinct neighborhoods.)
I exclude from this Green Day UPick, wherein my hydra was a scum reflexive-loverizer and a neighborizer targeted us N1, because both of us had claimed our respective roles D1 and thus we were publicly known to be not-masons from the get-go.

Even those games where the said masonry had scum featured extenuating circumstances.

In SMITE Mafia, Drixx's slot had claimed 3p. The 3p wincon claimed was something which, with how the game was turning out and our particular roles, was reasonably easy to coordinate circumstances by which we could trigger that wincon--had Drixx been given the opportunity to use his claimed role yet didn't, I was all too happy to lynch him as a scumfuck. So the whole time, the idea was that we would orchestrate a scenario where he had no choice but to prove his 3pness, and if he didn't, I'd readily lynch him. But since his claim WAS something that should have theoretically been easy enough to have tested, I did in fact trust him to be essentially-town. (I am the poster child for trusting third party because I fucking HATE with a passion the ideology of "claimed 3p dies". Like, I refuse to lynch serial killers if they allow themselves to be leashed, trust in 3p claims.)

In Biochemistry, I was a replacement and the idea of a masonry was already impossible from the get-go. I did suggest treating each other as town for one day phase, even entrusting Ginngie with my invention in spite of my read on her tanking, but this was both laughed at, AND was for the strategic reasons I'll mention below. As far as Spiffeh, the second scum goes, there were circumstances surrounding the N2 night actions which gave huge credence to the idea he'd be town, AND he claimed tracker-inventor when there were only two scum left alive...AKA, "lynch one more scum, and tracker becomes cop". Which made him be someone I needed to exploit their role out of, since we could clear town players by coordinating jailkeep + invent tracks and so on and so forth and if scum no-killed, great for us, free lynch. So I had role-related reasons OUTSIDE OF IT BEING A NEIGHBORHOOD to protect him, even though I didn't

trust

him per se.

In both situations, it was known we were not masons, and it was known that everyone had a neighborhood and the situations surrounding the claims were such that I was giving people TIMED passes. Not indefinite ones. My belief is that role != alignment. Play > role. HOWEVER.

When you can afford to

, you still utilize claimed roles even if the person claiming the role could be scum. And in both situations, at the time I died in those games, we could AFFORD to utilize the claimed roles, and my play protecting the scum was me protecting the roles because we could use those roles and were in situations where it was ideal to do so.

...So of all of my games wherein I have done the mason approach. Only the smallest fraction have had it backfire on me. We're talking, less than 10%. And that 10% being questionable given the specifics therein. So it is an approach which, by and large, statistically speaking, has worked out well for me. Trusting my neighborhood to be town is something which has disproportionately been a good decision of mine in that it was a correct read to have done so in almost every situation.

Statistically speaking, neighbors are more likely to be town than scum, so it makes sense to treat them as town.

This is compounded by a taboo around scum neighbors--they are weighed as a strong PR for scumteams as far as the NRG is concerned (by the way, RadiantCowbells is a member of said NRG), and yet town neighbors are considered net-neutral for balance, contributing nothing, neither strengthening nor weakening the town. So a scum neighbor is +EV for the scumteam; an all-town neighborhood is net-neutral. As a result, moderators tip the scale even further towards neighborhoods being primarily town, and this is a self-feeding loop of sorts--the more neighborhoods are all-town, the more powerful a scum neighbor is; the more powerful a scum neighbor is, the more taboo it is for a scum neighbor to exist; the more taboo it is for a scum neighbor to exist, the more neighborhoods are all town.

There's more behind my actions than the numbers, though.

My belief has always been that in a neighborhood, it is RIDICULOUSLY easy to get the read of your neighborhood mates wrong. It is simpler to read them as being town and bank on the probability of numbers to be right, because this way, you don't get to deal with the paranoia of whether the person in the 'hood is manipulating you.

That having been said

.

And this is the heart of the matter, and what I was getting at before.
Just because I expect to get the read wrong does not mean I don't try altogether. In fact, I exploit it. I tell a lie of sorts, in that I say I will treat them as town...but in actuality, I evaluate them just as any player, no different than any other, just with the extra information the neighborhood provides. The hope being that with me having stated to them that I am treating them as town, I can get a more genuine, absolute read on the slot which is accurate.

...And in the case wherein I do land with a scum neighbor. That when they flip as being such. I have the entire PT's worth of information to work off of, knowing they were trying to exploit my generosity. Knowing they were trying to manipulate me and them believing it would never backfire. Thinking they had me pocketed with impunity. Thinking that I was never going to call them scum, they would be free to share revealing reads, giving insight into their scumteam composition.

In other words...

I tell a lie and say I'm treating them like town, in order to lure them into a false sense of security

, and divulge information they would never otherwise have shared with me. (This is what I was attempting to do with Ginngie in Biochemistry, but the town fucking lynched her before I could and thus why I was so ticked off.)

But with how this game worked out, that wasn't fucking possible.

I do not blindly go in and say, "Oh neighborhood? Let's make it a masonry!"
There is extensive thought put in each and every time I make the gambit. It is meticulously planned out, such that I always try to leverage things to the advantage of the town. But I was unable to do that this game.