You're already losing, and I'm out of my misery, no longer tasked with doing endless work for a town who doesn't care. At this point, I put in my best effort, my work is finished, it's just a relief.
The trajectory is correctible mathematically, the POE issues don't seem impossible, but there's no willpower to take any of the necessary steps to find scum and direct votes into the correct POE.
You've still got a fair number of people who can be town-read. That's helpful. But starting to place votes early, doing actual analysis. Kinda hard to win without that stuff.
We have you, me, Tubba, and Wisp. Not counting Tammy even if she's here.
You already said you're sticking around though. So there's no use in you placing your vote on me early.
In fact, if anything, that makes it more difficult for you to hit 8 votes on me if someone who doesn't want to be the one to end early goes away. The 7th spot should go to that person, if anyone, but I doubt there's going to be any problem getting me to 8. Hell, I'll probably pile on myself to help you avoid another no lynch. This town is clearly stuck in sequential mode and isn't going to be able to hunt multiple scum reads/comprehensive teams all at once, so that's the lesser evil given the personnel we have.
But given how far beyond you're going to be, you need that extra lynch today. Don't play fast and casual and give up that advantage.
Looks like no one is going to be compiling that "willing to lynch list", so the best available proxy for that is placing votes on the leaders who aren't yet near the lynch threshold who qualify. Cuth and LW are the two closest on my "willing to lynch" list.
This style of play means that I have an obligation, to you, as town, to provide a valid explanation for why I'm doing whatever the hell it is that I'm doing.
If I can't provide that town explanation for my behavior, then I've failed you and I've failed the rest of the town by failing to make myself clear. If I don't give you necessary information that you need to read me, I'm hurting the town.
That's all I've been trying to do here. You stated that you felt my dismissing your cases was a tell. That means it's now my burden of proof to respond and explain. Not bludgeoning - giving you a necessary tool.
If it's useless to you, because this isn't a thing that you do, I'm sorry. But that's the pattern of how I respond to every case that someone makes against me, by making sure that they have the info they need to reach correct conclusions. Under this system, that's what I'm supposed to do.
For anyone who actually is interested in tracking what the hell I'm talking about:
Quote from Az Article »
How do we get better at playing mafia? At the end of the day, it all boils down to one thing: honing our behavioral edge. Role analysis and design speculation only get us so far, especially when the moderator designs his game well. Of course, behavioral analysis can be very difficult. Not only do you have to directly compete against another human being who is trying very hard not be discovered, but we also have to be able sift through the false leads created by our own teammates. We have to be able to distinguish between good evidence, and red herrings.
The Scum Tell Method: Actus Reus
But there is a common tendency among players not to approach the problem this way. Most players track of a list of behaviors that people generally say are mafia tells. Evasion, appeals to emotion, defending scum, snacking on babies, and so on. Most players refer to these activities as scum tells. The more scum tells a person has, the higher they are on your scum scale, and the higher the chance that they’re scum. If a player has a higher level of scum tells than you would expect them to have as a townie, they’re put on the short list for your vote. If they max out their scale high enough, the town eliminates them.
In criminal law terminology, they concentrate on the "actus reus". The actions of their fellow players, and whether those actions help or hurt the town, and whether those actions look like one of the traditional mafia tells. The mens rea element (mental state) is deemphasized.
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the scum tell method. It does a fair job of catching inexperienced players who haven’t learned that they need to avoid traditional scum tells at all costs, and can sometimes nab experienced players who slip up and commit one in a moment of weakness. It’s also a good introductory method for newer players, because it teaches beginners to what to look for, and it is very, very simple. You read through the thread, identify behaviors that might be scummy, and cast your vote accordingly. 1,2, 3.
But as times goes on, the weaknesses of this approach have become obvious. For one, may of the activities that were labelled as tells early in the game’s history may not actually be tells at all, or at minimum may be not be anywhere near as strong as we used to believe. Two, this approach is extremely predictable. It gives scum a clear and simple instruction manual of what behaviors to avoid if they don’t want to be lynched. It allows them to hide a guilty mind behind innocent-seeming actions.
But the greatest downside to the scum tell method is that if you choose not to evaluate whether your evidence is reliable, if often won't be. Town players can easily max out a scum scale with activities that have completely innocent and reasonable townie explanations. When that happens, innocent townies become collateral damage, and the scum reap the benefits of pointless and preventable mistakes.
Causation Analysis
The scum tell scale method may be a good technique for beginners, but other methods of analyzing behavior exist. As players become more experienced, they often begin to realize that the game of mafia is more complex than crime and punishment. There is a component of empathy.
Huh? Empathy? What do you mean by that? Are we supposed to feel sorry for the scum?
What I mean by empathy is that we have to be able to step inside the heads of our fellow players. What a player does in public is only one half of the picture. The other half, the more revealing half, is their motive for doing it. We want to figure out the cause of their actions, and their emotions.
To simplify this to help make sure you're not thinking I'm misrepresenting you:
I don't believe in any standard markers for scum, Tammy. I reject that logic. That's the essential part.
I think the only valid scum-hunting method, is when something is more likely to come from a scum mindset, than a town mindset.
And that always requires an individualized exploration of the facts and circumstances surrounding the post. Is there a perfectly good townie explanation for what they did? If so, then it's not a tell.
I'm literally at a loss for what's offensive about that post.
Clearly, you're not following my logic. And that's fine.
But as a result of this, it seems like you can't even fully understand why it is that I don't think your case makes sense.
No, Tammy. I don't agree with you that sticking the label "superficial" on something makes it a tell. You take that as gospel. I don't. In fact, I vehemently disagree, have disagreed for years.
You're doing what I refer to in my mafia article as "Actus Reus" analysis. It's something I violently disagree with, to the point I wrote a very long-winded article about it that I'm sure you're not the slightest bit interested in reading.
And that's ok. But if you want to understand why I'm rejecting your argument as logically defective, that's where the answers are. You're scum-hunting in a way that I feel is extremely common to new players, but absolutely invalid.
Unlike other players, I don't agree that certain things are "universal tells". That if something is "superficial", that always comes from scum and is a "tell". I disagree with that violently. That's where we have a definitional/communication problem.
The only part of that equation where skill enters in, is that sometimes it's easier to town-read a player when you have familiarity with their skill level and meta. GJ does have familiarity with my skill level and meta. And because of that, that made it even more unsettling to me that he would try and quickly town-read me, when I didn't think I had behaved in conformity with any of my past town meta up to that point, and I'm pretty inconsistent on whether or not I'm an easy town or scum read.
The fact that he seemed to be assuming my alignment without showing his work, bothered me. Same way it bothered KJ, when I did that to him. If he doesn't provide me the townie explanation for why he's doing what he's doing, that means the only explanation I have on my plate, is the scum explanation, inside info. Therefore, he wound up in my scum pile for a while, until I found enough pro-town evidence in other areas to kick him off that list.
And yes, I didn't read the rest of that other long ass post about Johnny and I'm still not going to. I just reread your case against Johnny and the first part about fear of you and Iso. Johnny didn't spin that, I didn't buy into some spin Johnny put on it.
You're STILL perpetuating a misunderstanding of that post.
I don't know how many times I've had to clarify this to both you and GJ. The issue was NEVER that I expected Johnny to "fear" me. The issue was that Johnny was town-reading me without a clear explanation for that. I know why I do that to people. I have no people why Johnny would do that to me. And I called him out and asked for an explanation on why he was doing that, because if it was because of inside information, that's a scum tell.
He never did come out and actually respond to it - he just did what you're doing now, and misrepresented why I was even asking the question, instead of supplying an answer so I could get a read on him.
So basically the defense for Azrael has amounted to BoomFrog saying, "But he's really active." Which, if that's your defense, it's pretty much a concession.
And the case against me is...
A) I argued with HR about Wisp (Didn't even particularly disagree that we should consider killing him, but had ideas about when and what conditions, but HR disliked my reasoning so I'm scum) B) Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic, but can't describe that without reference to how it makes her feel, rather than any actual scum motivation or plan or any particular wording
C) ???
The scum team is going to wind up being HR, Bur, Cuth, and LW as neutral or mafia. And it's no accident that 5 out of 5 top scummiest players in the game (I'm including tubba there), all of whom I've pointed out to the town are problematic, are trying to push this mislynch.
Meanwhile, our confirmed townies are milling around aimlessly, waiting for their chance to have the most vocal among their number picked off like fish in a barrel during the night.
Have I moved into the twilight zone.
How is this not clear? When Azrael talks about the reads on him, he frames my read as this. Always this. I'm not referencing when we've had conversations, I'm talking about when he discusses the reads on him, he downplays my read to this.
This.
This.
This.
This.
This.
I feel like this is almost a language or definitions issue, where what I mean by a "case" or a "tell" is fundamentally different from how you see those things. Let's continue with the Bur issue as our framework for this, as it helps track the origin of how these communication issues emerged.
In the system of thought I'm used to playing within on this site, nothing is relevant as evidence unless there is a scum explanation for it, that makes more sense than a competing townie explanation for it. Absent that, it's not a tell. It's not a case. It's a misunderstanding or disagreement regarding what a mafia tell or what a valid case even is, definitionally. That is the conceptual framework for playing mafia that I bring to the table. Logically, unless something is more likely to come from town than scum, it's not a tell. It doesn't help solve.
So, then, the Bur case, and how that plays out.
1. You allege that my case on Bur was "superficial".
2. I supply the competing townie explanation for what I was doing, and argue that from a factual standpoint you're mischaracterizing what I said and was trying to accomplish there. There was nothing to lead anyone to believe that I was trying to do anything definitive there.
3. No competing, scum-centric explanation is presented by you, and no reply is presented by you in response to my townie explanation.
4. At that point, under the conceptual framework I'm operating under, you haven't made a valid case. You've stated that something looks weird or off to you, but there's no logic connecting that thing that looks weird or off, to my being scum.
If we can take a brief detour into symbolic logic land, the case is missing its essential "warrant". The connective tissue between premise, and a conclusion, that allows you to flow from one to another. You have "Azrael's analysis was superficial" (Premise) and "therefore scum". But there's nothing explaining WHY Azrael's analysis being superficial, means that Azrael is scum. There's nothing like "Azrael's town explanation that his post was never intended to be a real and complete case was insincere and false, because he clearly X, Y, Z, etc., and the far more likely explanation is that he is trying to present artificial analysis as scum because he is struggling to be genuine as town." Something like that.
So how I interpret this sequence of events, when you state that something is "superficial" or "artificial", but don't supply a scum rationale which fleshes that out or makes that allegation make any sense as far as a scum rationale, or that fails to question/contradict the town explanation for what's going on there, is that you've essentially failed to state a coherent case. There is an essential logical element, that is altogether missing. It's logically incoherent, and/or you haven't completed fleshing out this argument.
5) And at that point, I tell you that your case is insufficient and is missing an essential piece, your scum rationale, and it seems as if you responded to that by feeling as if I'm misrepresenting you and being dismissive. Whereas me, I'm feeling like I've responded to your case, and it's logically defective, and worthy of being dismissed out of hand.
Tammy, I did directly explain that the Bur "analysis" was me not being certain how to take those posts, that I wasn't certain how to interpet some of them and was trying to get more info from him before I could come to any conclusions. It was never intended to be comprehensive, because I couldn't understand those posts at the time.
I went into a lot more depth on that and your other points on a previous post, and I don't believe you ever responded to it.
Yes, you did right after I commented on it. I'm not talking about when you and I talked about it. I'm referring to whenever you talked about the reads on you, like in the quote above, it was always just a reference to the performative thought as if that's it, and when you say things like I couldn't put actual words to it when I have it's downplaying my thoughts and acting like they never existed.
Again, I wouldn't be bringing this up again if instead of Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic cut can't put words to why without talking about how it makes her feel, it was something like Tammy and I have disagreements on scumhunting methods and the usefulness of PBPA or Tammy doesn't understand my scumhunting style or anything that addressed that I actually did put words to something, I wouldn't still be pointing it out. The GJ and Bur points are old, and I don't quite care about them in and of themselves anymore.
Because my point is not my argument about your Johnny and Bur reads, my point here is that I did make these points which your statement suggests I didn't.
Here's what my brain does as these exchanges as outlined take place.
1) I respond to a query in thread and explain the rationale.
2) I wait for a response to my post.
3) No response is forthcoming
4) This reply is labelled in Az's brain as resolved, and goes poof into the memory hole of things that no longer exist or are relevant.
So if these continued to be areas of concern for you, that wasn't evident to me or something that stuck out in my memory, so the fact that you seemed to have to points against me that you felt were not resolved, when you hadn't tried to reply or engage with what I felt were perfectly satisfactory and obviously townie explanations, makes me feel like your case is baseless and insufficiently supported. Because you haven't continued to contest those good explanations.
You know, sometimes I quote things that I'm not sure quite how to take them, but they're important nonetheless. There's a fair amount of that with Bur, given how short many of his posts are. And he definitely needs to reply to my queries there.
The trajectory is correctible mathematically, the POE issues don't seem impossible, but there's no willpower to take any of the necessary steps to find scum and direct votes into the correct POE.
You've still got a fair number of people who can be town-read. That's helpful. But starting to place votes early, doing actual analysis. Kinda hard to win without that stuff.
And skipping the extra lynch? That's just...lol.
You already said you're sticking around though. So there's no use in you placing your vote on me early.
In fact, if anything, that makes it more difficult for you to hit 8 votes on me if someone who doesn't want to be the one to end early goes away. The 7th spot should go to that person, if anyone, but I doubt there's going to be any problem getting me to 8. Hell, I'll probably pile on myself to help you avoid another no lynch. This town is clearly stuck in sequential mode and isn't going to be able to hunt multiple scum reads/comprehensive teams all at once, so that's the lesser evil given the personnel we have.
But given how far beyond you're going to be, you need that extra lynch today. Don't play fast and casual and give up that advantage.
Tier 1 Town (5)
Sloth
Anak
Tammy
KJ
Cantrip
Angry Elf (town unless faking anger) (1)
HR
Tier 2 Trees (4)
Boom
Vaimes
Bessie
Tubba
Scum/Neutrals (3)
LW
Bur
Cuthalion
Hey, Vaimes, you -1'd us. If you unvote for a bit, we can see if we can get someone else ramped up to lynch range instead of giving away a free lynch.
vote: Cuthalion, vote: Last Whisper.
Looks like no one is going to be compiling that "willing to lynch list", so the best available proxy for that is placing votes on the leaders who aren't yet near the lynch threshold who qualify. Cuth and LW are the two closest on my "willing to lynch" list.
Not what I'm going for. *sigh*
This style of play means that I have an obligation, to you, as town, to provide a valid explanation for why I'm doing whatever the hell it is that I'm doing.
If I can't provide that town explanation for my behavior, then I've failed you and I've failed the rest of the town by failing to make myself clear. If I don't give you necessary information that you need to read me, I'm hurting the town.
That's all I've been trying to do here. You stated that you felt my dismissing your cases was a tell. That means it's now my burden of proof to respond and explain. Not bludgeoning - giving you a necessary tool.
If it's useless to you, because this isn't a thing that you do, I'm sorry. But that's the pattern of how I respond to every case that someone makes against me, by making sure that they have the info they need to reach correct conclusions. Under this system, that's what I'm supposed to do.
I don't believe in any standard markers for scum, Tammy. I reject that logic. That's the essential part.
I think the only valid scum-hunting method, is when something is more likely to come from a scum mindset, than a town mindset.
And that always requires an individualized exploration of the facts and circumstances surrounding the post. Is there a perfectly good townie explanation for what they did? If so, then it's not a tell.
Clearly, you're not following my logic. And that's fine.
But as a result of this, it seems like you can't even fully understand why it is that I don't think your case makes sense.
No, Tammy. I don't agree with you that sticking the label "superficial" on something makes it a tell. You take that as gospel. I don't. In fact, I vehemently disagree, have disagreed for years.
You're doing what I refer to in my mafia article as "Actus Reus" analysis. It's something I violently disagree with, to the point I wrote a very long-winded article about it that I'm sure you're not the slightest bit interested in reading.
And that's ok. But if you want to understand why I'm rejecting your argument as logically defective, that's where the answers are. You're scum-hunting in a way that I feel is extremely common to new players, but absolutely invalid.
Unlike other players, I don't agree that certain things are "universal tells". That if something is "superficial", that always comes from scum and is a "tell". I disagree with that violently. That's where we have a definitional/communication problem.
The fact that he seemed to be assuming my alignment without showing his work, bothered me. Same way it bothered KJ, when I did that to him. If he doesn't provide me the townie explanation for why he's doing what he's doing, that means the only explanation I have on my plate, is the scum explanation, inside info. Therefore, he wound up in my scum pile for a while, until I found enough pro-town evidence in other areas to kick him off that list.
You're STILL perpetuating a misunderstanding of that post.
I don't know how many times I've had to clarify this to both you and GJ. The issue was NEVER that I expected Johnny to "fear" me. The issue was that Johnny was town-reading me without a clear explanation for that. I know why I do that to people. I have no people why Johnny would do that to me. And I called him out and asked for an explanation on why he was doing that, because if it was because of inside information, that's a scum tell.
He never did come out and actually respond to it - he just did what you're doing now, and misrepresented why I was even asking the question, instead of supplying an answer so I could get a read on him.
I feel like this is almost a language or definitions issue, where what I mean by a "case" or a "tell" is fundamentally different from how you see those things. Let's continue with the Bur issue as our framework for this, as it helps track the origin of how these communication issues emerged.
In the system of thought I'm used to playing within on this site, nothing is relevant as evidence unless there is a scum explanation for it, that makes more sense than a competing townie explanation for it. Absent that, it's not a tell. It's not a case. It's a misunderstanding or disagreement regarding what a mafia tell or what a valid case even is, definitionally. That is the conceptual framework for playing mafia that I bring to the table. Logically, unless something is more likely to come from town than scum, it's not a tell. It doesn't help solve.
So, then, the Bur case, and how that plays out.
1. You allege that my case on Bur was "superficial".
2. I supply the competing townie explanation for what I was doing, and argue that from a factual standpoint you're mischaracterizing what I said and was trying to accomplish there. There was nothing to lead anyone to believe that I was trying to do anything definitive there.
3. No competing, scum-centric explanation is presented by you, and no reply is presented by you in response to my townie explanation.
4. At that point, under the conceptual framework I'm operating under, you haven't made a valid case. You've stated that something looks weird or off to you, but there's no logic connecting that thing that looks weird or off, to my being scum.
If we can take a brief detour into symbolic logic land, the case is missing its essential "warrant". The connective tissue between premise, and a conclusion, that allows you to flow from one to another. You have "Azrael's analysis was superficial" (Premise) and "therefore scum". But there's nothing explaining WHY Azrael's analysis being superficial, means that Azrael is scum. There's nothing like "Azrael's town explanation that his post was never intended to be a real and complete case was insincere and false, because he clearly X, Y, Z, etc., and the far more likely explanation is that he is trying to present artificial analysis as scum because he is struggling to be genuine as town." Something like that.
So how I interpret this sequence of events, when you state that something is "superficial" or "artificial", but don't supply a scum rationale which fleshes that out or makes that allegation make any sense as far as a scum rationale, or that fails to question/contradict the town explanation for what's going on there, is that you've essentially failed to state a coherent case. There is an essential logical element, that is altogether missing. It's logically incoherent, and/or you haven't completed fleshing out this argument.
5) And at that point, I tell you that your case is insufficient and is missing an essential piece, your scum rationale, and it seems as if you responded to that by feeling as if I'm misrepresenting you and being dismissive. Whereas me, I'm feeling like I've responded to your case, and it's logically defective, and worthy of being dismissed out of hand.
Here's what my brain does as these exchanges as outlined take place.
1) I respond to a query in thread and explain the rationale.
2) I wait for a response to my post.
3) No response is forthcoming
4) This reply is labelled in Az's brain as resolved, and goes poof into the memory hole of things that no longer exist or are relevant.
So if these continued to be areas of concern for you, that wasn't evident to me or something that stuck out in my memory, so the fact that you seemed to have to points against me that you felt were not resolved, when you hadn't tried to reply or engage with what I felt were perfectly satisfactory and obviously townie explanations, makes me feel like your case is baseless and insufficiently supported. Because you haven't continued to contest those good explanations.