In post 201, Enter wrote:Alright. So I've been pretty back and forth on my read for Thespio, which is why I've been really rather hoping to get a Loopdan lynch today so we can re-examine Thespio tomorrow.
The biggest part causing me to reconsider my scum read on him is how quickly the wagon formed. One thing that is often good to look at in mafia games is who is pushing what wagon and when. Day 1 wagons are often really quite hard to work up to a lynch, especially w/o scum. This is one reason why very often townies are lynched on day 1; scum controls a little over 20% of the vote and they both know who they want lynched - anyone but them. The Thespio wagon built pretty quickly after my arrival, which is somewhat surprising, since I didn't really push him at all. My thought is that town was looking for someone to push that wasn't a lurker, but was under the influence of loopdan/Thespio => didn't really want to try to solo push one of them against the crowd. So, considering Thespio is at a potential L-1 right now, let's look at who's on this wagon:
And for the sake of analysis, we'll consider Thespio's
193 as a self-vote.
Munchmellow doesn't have very many posts this game, but the ones she does have, I follow and share a thought process with. She suspects Loopdan in 70, reexamines her read and explains why Thespio feels off in 137 (which I agree with, BTW, the whole "self -vote" thing is a level of AtE that shouldn't be accomplished by anyone other than a newbie, IMO)
[BTW, Thespio, if you're reading this and you still think for some reason that Loopdan's 92 was serious, you should notice that Munchmellow responds as if he's asking about you and he still doesn't notice, which should trigger the thought in you that it's pretty apparent loopdan is asking questions to ask questions and has nothing he's looking for] Anyways. Munchmellow posts reads in 140 - which I agree with, and it makes me happy that it's a pretty full reads list. I feel pretty solid on Munchmellow for town.
Elements follows Munchmellow. ISO-ing him and one could easily see how you might think you're ISO-ing the same person. Again, I agree with his thoughts, his reservations on the whole self-vote thing, his questioning of double-bussing. I like him for town.
PvtUrist - This one is weird, because it does still feel, in the slightest way, a bit weird to me that he has maintained his vote on Thespio since game start. But. Here's why I think he's town: He was the first player to drop reads. Loopdan's vote on him is super weird and he avoids responsibility for his PvtUrist vote (which loopdan would WANT responsibility for PvtUrist flip if he was bussing his buddy). When PvtUrist did drop those questions in 112, they were pretty decent questions and indicate some small amount of town - motivation. Yes, my town read on him is weak. No, it doesn't matter, because my scum read on Loopdan is ridiculously strong, and there isn't two scum in [PvtUrist, Loopdan]
Finally, Thespio:
I disagree with the idea of lynching yourself. Let's start there. Yes I was ok with it when I started mafia, but I've grown and changed a lot, I think. You have a role-pm from the mod that says you're town. That is the largest confirmation you will get and the first piece to the logic puzzle that is mafia. (it's a little more than a logic puzzle, but bear with me). The only time you should ever be ok with yourself being lynched is never, IMO, because you should always be doing your best to be the largest asset to town when you're alive, and when you're dead, you have no control over the game. I have seen so many times where it looks like town has won because everything is set up perfectly and some charming mafia goon wins over the heart of the guy heading off his lynch and all of a sudden town loses in a 3p LyLo. Sure, at the end of day yesterday, everyone agreed that if you self-voted then they would lynch the mafia goon you were so certain should die if you flipped town, but people change. People's read change. A lot. Especially over night. However, I will not lynch based solely off the fact that people are willing to play sub-optimal town games in this way, because I'm pretty sure there are mafia players that will disagree with me on the self-vote being suboptimal. Whatever.
Let's get to the next issue: Self-vote threats: This is an entirely different matter because it is the lowest of low AtE. While talk of lynching yourself can be considered mafia theory, threatening to self-vote is a spastic response of emotion that belongs nowhere except every once in a while, from a newbie, in a newbie game. Then the threat should be squashed by the IC and everyone should move on with their lives, because it's bad. It is very bad. I view self-votes in mafia games like I view threats to wreck your own car because it would get attention. Will I lynch for it? Not always. Did it make me think he was almost definitely scum for a moment? Yes. This is one of the very few places that meta-ing someone does come in handy for me. When I see someone make dumb newbie mistakes like this, I go back and look at past games and see if they make the same mistakes in those games as town. So, let's see what we can find:
In Newbie 1640, Post 190
viewtopic.php?p=7160867#p7160867, Thespio says:
This helps no one. if you honestly got him lynched and he was town, then its likely a scum driven lynch and thus if you are town you will have scum backing as well. Ultimately you could both be town.
Indicating an understanding that self-flipping and threats of such are rarely reasonable.
And in Newbie 1625, Post 982
viewtopic.php?p=7160867#p7160867, Thespio says:
There kill last night is basically WIFOM. I think its odd you countered immediately... But I also think Jorams timely absence is quite mysterious too... So im lookin @ Jorams post about being investigated a possible scum slip. I also think Aku is lurking pretty badly... Anyone have any think aku might have used Bulba as a train after we all were questioning him?
Again indicating how much WIFOM surrounds a kill. Sure, he's talking about a night kill here, but the point is across that once you're dead, you're not as effective and it is so easy to WIFOM everything out. Even if PvtUrist was scum, day 2 when we tried to lynch him, he would start explaining everything for Thespio and Thespio wouldn't be there to correct him. I've seen it so much, and Thespio seems to understand this, too, which makes me think he's prolly scum, using AtE.
Up until this point, I had been doubting my read on Thespio, but the threats to self-vote is so bad and talk of self-lynch over no-lynch is so bad, I don't think I can fathom him flipping town.
In addition he had some weird interactions at beginning of day, his teasing flip w/ his read on elements was weird, and his pushing of lurkers is bad. I also don't like how he dismissed the Skellen v Loopdan as TvT and Loopdan chimed in. Anyways, I'm super distracted right now, so I will get back to this later, but as of right now, I feel pretty solid on my scum read on Thespio.
