I guess that post makes no sense without connecting it to the other thoughts I was having:
I kind of want to lynch Tom, but I think it's a bad D1 lynch as long as he's playing like this, because it's the easiest thing in the world for scum to push.
But I'd have no qualms about bringing the flyswatter down hard at night, heh.
Thanks for doing that, Newcomb. Not sure how much it helped me gain any conviction on the read, though. It's what he's /not/ doing that feels weird as much as it is what he /is/ doing.
I think the logic works on 'is this possible' level, but I've sort of come around to the possibility of Eco himself being town.
Like, do you legitimately think there's no world possible where only 1-2 of those 3 are scum, and Mal and Tom or something are in there? (Just naming names of people who haven't had major presence and could be MIA scum or hiding-behind-shtick scum)
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Sorry, Newcomb! I wasn't ignoring you - your post just didn't load for some reason. I do realize that my particular style of reading people is incredibly difficult to follow for a lot of people, but I think that's just a result of the way I hunt scum being inherently different from the way a lot of people do it. I'll talk to you about Eco/GJ/Cyan a bit later on, I don't really have the time to commit to a full-blown "getting into the nitty-gritty" at the moment. I realize that "oh we sheeped Iso and the game was a total blowout because he is awesome" isn't exactly the most exciting way to play Mafia, but if I'm right, it's another win to chalk up - and if I'm wrong, I can eat the humble pie and learn where I went wrong and become a better player from it.
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@Voxx: There's like a 13% chance that mal or tom or someone is the scum in the Eco slot I'm touting. My scum reads on the trio I'm pushing are far too solid to even look at the ??? slots. That's not a high enough number for me to consider another electron cloud until I learn where my current reads are. If I'm proven to be wrong, I'll gladly reanalyze what we have and consider another universe - but there's literally 0 reason for me to do that until I am incorrect, here. This is how I flesh out my reads. You know this.
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@Az: I mean, yeah, I didn't WANT to out you guys as being Masons, but if I didn't, this game was going to start going extremely poorly for the town. I also realize that I could be more diplomatic in my approach but I've long since stopped arguing points that people aren't going to come around on no matter how wrong they are or how right I am. People will convince themselves of anything they want to believe. I've laid out my arguments. They aren't changing. If you can't agree with my reads on a fundamental level, you're not going to until I make the scum die. So I focus my efforts elsewhere. Again, I only have to get the majority to vote for my scum reads - you, personally, don't have to be on that wagon. Screaming my scumreads at a player behaving as a wall would made me a very unpleasant person to play Mafia with for a long time, and very much contributed to my level of burnout. By not engaging with you, it's not out of disrespect for you, but out of consideration for my sanity and enjoyment of the game. I catch scum, I explain why, and that should be all I need to do - I've caught scum, so I'm obviously town, which means - at least, to me - that I don't need to project my shining beacon of townieness unto the game thread any more. My reads will speak for themselves when they have flipped. Could I be busing scum? Sure, but that's up to you to determine - and you won't know until I've either won us the game or you've somehow gotten me lynched. But that's your responsibility. The fundamental difference in the way people think makes it impossible for everyone to see eye-to-eye in absolutely everything, which is why I think arguing my cases to you is a lost cause; I don't think your brain is wired the way mine is, and maybe you'll eventually pick up on the flow of the game and see what I'm seeing, but I don't expect repeatedly talking to you about my reads is going to change that - because, again, the best cases don't need to be 40 paragraph long epic novels on the dynamics of scum interactivity. Again, I apologize if I haven't been the most personable about this, but as I said: Getting pushed on by someone you're hard-reading as a Mason from page 1 for having picked up on said Masonry and not being concerned about the state of the game as such (as well as the lack of concern for other reasons, such as the beautiful Eco wagon right off the bat) is irritating and inconvenient. Yes, I can be insufferably arrogant about Mafia stuff - and I don't think that's without merit. I do also recognize that I could be a lot more personable when people are disagreeing with me, but my spiritual views encourage me to take the path of least resistance, and sometimes that just means ignoring or demoralizing someone until they follow you. It's not the nicest thing to do, but it's effective. I have been trying to do that less lately, as I realize it makes me unpleasant to play with, but I used to be a lot worse about a lot of things.
If you want more insight on why I'm viewing the game the way that I am, please take a look at my narrative of my reads, the way they developed, and try to feel the mindset behind Eco and GJ's posts as I've described them. Also take into consideration my interpretation of the events surrounding the Eco wagon as it pertains to Cyan, and their utter lack of interactivity/Cyan's approach to the Eco wagon once he actually showed up.
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@Vaimes: Sorry, I forgot to respond to your question - what exactly do you want to know about Cyan's scum game?
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Also I think Vaimes was scum in a game when I was town before and I caught him, speaking of "you can't catch me Chris."
Will try to remember the game.
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Yeah, that's kind of my problem though. It feels like GJ and Cyan are both scum to you because of the way they reacted to Eco and his wagon - but then if Eco is town...they're still both scum?
Like, say we lynch Eco and he flips town, who do you want to lynch most, and why?
I feel like at one point I read a long post of yours - maybe it was in a QT actually? - where you explained what you meant by "electron cloud." Mind digging that up for me? It might help me crawl into your head.
I am multitasking right now, but Voxx you're a wizard: what games has Vaimes been scum in the past year?
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Iso: because I literally have no idea what his scumgame is like and wanted something for reference.
Sir Chris: we have not played a game together where I was scum and you were town. My first scumgame on here was Three Little Pigs.
You might be thinking of Ace Attorney where I was the Serial Killer. My Neutral meta is absolutely not indicative of my scum meta because I was townsiding hard that game with the intent to actually help town win.
Hmm, am I thinking of someone else? Completely possible I guess, I am a bit out of whack. Maybe so...
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Oh, yeah, it was when you were SK. I tend to think of scum as scum as scum etc. So I suppose that's different.
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He was Snowvon in that game. Newcomb was also in the game if you want to give D1/D2 a skim. Vaimes got lynched by Newcomb for being insanely obvious scum, which should help you understand why we view his play so starkly different here.
@Az: I mean, yeah, I didn't WANT to out you guys as being Masons, but if I didn't, this game was going to start going extremely poorly for the town.
You occasionally seem to back yourself into corners where a mistake was the "only" feasible line of play to your way of thinking. But there are quite a few different ways to play any given scenario in mafia, and many of them don't involve talking about things publicly that shouldn't be talked about.
Quote from Iso »
I also realize that I could be more diplomatic in my approach but I've long since stopped arguing points that people aren't going to come around on no matter how wrong they are or how right I am. People will convince themselves of anything they want to believe. I've laid out my arguments. They aren't changing. If you can't agree with my reads on a fundamental level, you're not going to until I make the scum die. So I focus my efforts elsewhere. Again, I only have to get the majority to vote for my scum reads - you, personally, don't have to be on that wagon. Screaming my scumreads at a player behaving as a wall would made me a very unpleasant person to play Mafia with for a long time, and very much contributed to my level of burnout. By not engaging with you, it's not out of disrespect for you, but out of consideration for my sanity and enjoyment of the game.
I can understand choosing not to get embroiled in a back and forth - if that were as far as it went.
Quote from Iso »
I catch scum, I explain why, and that should be all I need to do - I've caught scum, so I'm obviously town, which means - at least, to me - that I don't need to project my shining beacon of townieness unto the game thread any more. My reads will speak for themselves when they have flipped. Could I be busing scum? Sure, but that's up to you to determine - and you won't know until I've either won us the game or you've somehow gotten me lynched. But that's your responsibility. The fundamental difference in the way people think makes it impossible for everyone to see eye-to-eye in absolutely everything, which is why I think arguing my cases to you is a lost cause; I don't think your brain is wired the way mine is, and maybe you'll eventually pick up on the flow of the game and see what I'm seeing, but I don't expect repeatedly talking to you about my reads is going to change that - because, again, the best cases don't need to be 40 paragraph long epic novels on the dynamics of scum interactivity.
Yes, we both have different methodologies, but we've both played some very fine games, and so has everyone else playing here. And many of us have also demonstrated our capacity to change our minds when artfully persuaded, such as how many of us have responded to Newcomb's thoughtful analyses in this very game. If that's not your cup of tea, fine, but let's not pretend that the rest of us don't want to listen to you, or have the benefit of your input if you're town, because we do.
But that's not to say that the town's optimal play is to unquestioningly accept your reads, without sufficient detail, simply because you can decimate the players in our normal and mini queues on a regular basis. Sometimes you can have a good game, sometimes you don't, same as any other player. And sometimes, being up against a different set of players can completely and drastically alter your performance, as we have both learned on occasion. And the rest of us, not just you, are also trying to learn, improve, and test our skills also, which we don't get to do if we pick any single one of our best players and rely on them alone without any further discussion or information.
Quote from iso »
Again, I apologize if I haven't been the most personable about this,
I appreciate that, thank you.
Quote from Iso »
...but as I said: Getting pushed on by someone you're hard-reading as a Mason from page 1 for having picked up on said Masonry and not being concerned about the state of the game as such (as well as the lack of concern for other reasons, such as the beautiful Eco wagon right off the bat) is irritating and inconvenient. Yes, I can be insufferably arrogant about Mafia stuff - and I don't think that's without merit. I do also recognize that I could be a lot more personable when people are disagreeing with me, but my spiritual views encourage me to take the path of least resistance, and sometimes that just means ignoring or demoralizing someone until they follow you. It's not the nicest thing to do, but it's effective. I have been trying to do that less lately, as I realize it makes me unpleasant to play with, but I used to be a lot worse about a lot of things.
It's neither nice, nor effective, nor what we hope for out of the leadership of our community. Intentionally seeking to harass or demoralize other players, or goad them into emotional responses, are not things that any of us should consider as something that we are entitled to do to one another. I don't know what your spiritual views are, although I'm somewhat intrigued now, but whatever they may be, I would help that they don't justify choosing a path of least resistance that entails trampling over whoever is standing on said path.
If there are aspects of your character or things going on in your life right now that make this difficult, I can appreciate and understand that. But all the same, I don't want to see anyone rationalize this type of thing simply because they believe that being hostile to others is either more effective or more easy than other choices which they could make.
Quote from Iso »
If you want more insight on why I'm viewing the game the
way that I am, please take a look at my narrative of my reads, the way they developed, and try to feel the mindset behind Eco and GJ's posts as I've described them. Also take into consideration my interpretation of the events surrounding the Eco wagon as it pertains to Cyan, and their utter lack of interactivity/Cyan's approach to the Eco wagon once he actually showed up.
I will. Was already planning on it, before any of this unpleasantness began. I do respect your abilities, Iso, all of us do. But when respect isn't returned in kind, it withers.
full disclosure I don't find much value in masons being not outed, so I don't care really. Masons power, imo, is in and of itself. Now if you had outed me as mason cop oh boy...!
Anyway Iso if you're town you're really good so you're probably not 0/3 but you don't tend to be 3/3 either. Also I am firmly in the belief that Eco is town. If I am wrong about Vaimes, and let's just go with that for a moment, it does open up GJ and Cyan more as possible scum suspects.
If we're both town let's compromise and murder some scum. Can you set aside your Eco scum read?
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full disclosure I don't find much value in masons being not outed, so I don't care really. Masons power, imo, is in and of itself. Now if you had outed me as mason cop oh boy...!
Anyway Iso if you're town you're really good so you're probably not 0/3 but you don't tend to be 3/3 either. Also I am firmly in the belief that Eco is town. If I am wrong about Vaimes, and let's just go with that for a moment, it does open up GJ and Cyan more as possible scum suspects.
If we're both town let's compromise and murder some scum. Can you set aside your Eco scum read?
It's generally far better for masons to survive later in the game, to assist in POE, and also to garner additional reactions. Masons who get shot early don't help POE.
Chris, your scum-read was contingent upon Eco being powered. Iso seems to disagree, and I'm not sure I agree, either. Since Iso and I both read Eco as probable scum, that also seems like a good place to discuss.
Yeah, that's kind of my problem though. It feels like GJ and Cyan are both scum to you because of the way they reacted to Eco and his wagon - but then if Eco is town...they're still both scum?
Like, say we lynch Eco and he flips town, who do you want to lynch most, and why?
Thing is, I don't think scumCyan approaches the townEco wagon situation the way we saw. If you believe Cyan is scum, you can't believe Eco is town - the two ideas are hardlined together. GJ, I could be more flexible on, simply because he's not tied to the other two as hard as Eco and Cyan are to each other. If GJ is town, then I'd have to think about who Eco/Cyan's buddy could be, but it's probably mal's slot at that point. Slightly lesser possibilities are one of you and Vaimes, but only because you haven't been towning as hard as everybody else.
I feel like at one point I read a long post of yours - maybe it was in a QT actually? - where you explained what you meant by "electron cloud." Mind digging that up for me? It might help me crawl into your head.
SURE
I'll just post a synopsis of Electron Cloud Theory, my approach to Mafia.
Basically, a Mafia game is a snapshot of an atom at one point in time. At the core, you have the protons and neutrons that determine the make-up of the game - the roles, the number of players, any additional rules or mechanics, etc. The players, themselves, as well as their alignments, are determined by their position in the electron cloud. Electrons can jump between energy levels in a fraction of a second. Some electrons create ionic bonds with other atoms, and some electrons are just floating about in an unknown location. Because electrons are so volatile, always jumping from one energy level to another, we can't know where they're located in the atom short of freezing a moment in time - that moment being the Mafia game.
When you figure out where one electron is, that eliminates the possibility of it being somewhere else, and it distinctly points to other electrons being in other locations. So, solving a Mafia game to me is like drawing out an electron cloud in a single moment in time on a sheet of paper. I catch on to Az and Chris as Masons, and that eliminates the world where Chris is scum with Voxxicus, or Az is Masons with Seppel. As the roles, identities, and alignments of players start to take shape, one can plot out where the rest of the electrons in the electron cloud are going to be. So if I had some mystic way of divining that 8 of the non-Iso players in this game were town, I could then plot out the rest of the electrons - the last 3 players - located where the "scum electrons" would be found. With electron cloud theory, you're constantly re-evaluating the state of the game based on new information and determining which outcome of the shape of the cloud is most likely to be with the realm of existence you are in. You eliminate scum pairings and scum team possibilities by solid town electrons, and you create possible scum clusters with solid scum electrons. In approaching the game this way, the most important people to solve are the ones that are neither leaning heavily town nor heavily scum, which is why I'll sometimes take a few Days to solve the game. That said, this game seems pretty cut-and-dry, and there aren't really any ???s except in the mal slot, but again, I liked the early approach to Voxx there, so for the most part, I've been focusing on people that have actually been participating in the game.
Obviously I currently believe the Eco/GJ/Cyan scum cluster is the most likely to exist based on the interactions in the thread thus far, hence my current worldview of the game state. It's super important to me, toDay, to have one of these three flip so that I can either re-evaluate the game if I'm wrong, or to further validate my reads if I'm not.
Anyway Iso if you're town you're really good so you're probably not 0/3 but you don't tend to be 3/3 either. Also I am firmly in the belief that Eco is town. If I am wrong about Vaimes, and let's just go with that for a moment, it does open up GJ and Cyan more as possible scum suspects.
If we're both town let's compromise and murder some scum. Can you set aside your Eco scum read?
I can't accept a world where Eco and Cyan aren't scum together. It just doesn't make sense.
full disclosure I don't find much value in masons being not outed, so I don't care really. Masons power, imo, is in and of itself. Now if you had outed me as mason cop oh boy...!
Anyway Iso if you're town you're really good so you're probably not 0/3 but you don't tend to be 3/3 either. Also I am firmly in the belief that Eco is town. If I am wrong about Vaimes, and let's just go with that for a moment, it does open up GJ and Cyan more as possible scum suspects.
If we're both town let's compromise and murder some scum. Can you set aside your Eco scum read?
It's generally far better for masons to survive later in the game, to assist in POE, and also to garner additional reactions. Masons who get shot early don't help POE.
Chris, your scum-read was contingent upon Eco being powered. Iso seems to disagree, and I'm not sure I agree, either. Since Iso and I both read Eco as probable scum, that also seems like a good place to discuss.
Thanks for the response to my long-winded mostly OoG stuff; you're right in that I didn't really give you a chance to be convinced and just sort of said "**** it" when you didn't immediately see things my way, which probably wasn't fair to you; so, for that, I apologize. And yeah, like I said, I've been trying to let less negativity into my play in general - it's just not always easy to avoid when repeating myself is one of my biggest pet peeves IRL and I have to do a lot of it in Mafia games. As for my spirituality, I'm a Taoist. It's very "go with the flow"-y (which is hilarious if you consider my Mafia playstyle).
As for the Eco being powered thing, is your sole reason for thinking that the fact that he didn't claim at L-2? Because I think that's easily explainable as "Eco realized that there was doubt on several of the players voting him and felt that if he held steady and didn't budge on a claim immediately, that he could let the wagon implode on itself." He was right, for the most part. Eco not claiming is also actually another huge reason I think he has to be scum with Cyan - because townCyan always makes a big scene about people not following claim protocol and then tries to lynch them with prejudice anyway.
(Also, to the people thinking Cyan is townie in his exchange with me regarding the backpedaling accusation, I just don't think Cyan as a player has the energy to butt heads with me any more, and scumCyan didn't need any attention drawn to him at that juncture.)
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I will not lynch: Newcomb
I would rather not lynch: Seppel, malslot, Voxx, Az, Sir Chris, tom
I wouldn't mind lynching: Eco, GJ, Iso
I want to lynch: Cyan?
Yeah, the main problem here is that I'm coming up empty with hard scumreads. And even if I were asked directly who I want lynched, the best answer you'd get is "everyone but my townreads." My playstyle revolves around finding out whom I /don't/ want to lynch, and shrugkilling the rest. I know that rubs people the wrong way, and usually it's my interactions with everyone that clear me (because I don't fit on any viable team), or just my attitude or whatever, rather than making Big Posts about how right/confident I am. The little things.
And then there are some games where I do get a particularly strong scumread (like Sir Chris in Classics, that was a fun time; or Iso in OTG2, even though I flubbed that hard), but those are few and far between. Which annoys me, because that's when I get fired up and feel like I'm actually contributing, but c'est la vie.
Anyway, there's your metarant for the day. Back to game content.
I have a lot of townleans. All of these are people who, at some point, wrote something towny enough that I don't really want to lynch them toDay (among other reasons).
I'm pretty confident in Newcomb being town. There is, admittedly, a super slim chance that he's pulling all the stops to really shine in this game as scum, with the promise of "I'm never ever EVER going to play that well as scum ever again." Blah blah paranoia that I'm not going to acknowledge beyond that.
I've talked to death about Seppel. I also agree that his early convictions against Eco were +town. Can't specifically recall what he's done since then, but IRL mobile issues + his tendency to vanish makes me not feel that much worse about him, so. Lighter townread.
malslot is not a good D1 lynch. Voxx is not a good D1 lynch. Sir Chris is eh, gleefully pursuing my death, but it doesn't reeeally feel slimy or underhanded. More like he's forcing higher expectations onto me that I'm now obligated to adhere to or else he'll kill me? To which I say **** that, by the way.
I'm horribly biased on Az because he's been defending me, and people going into detail about why they're townreading me is like, the easiest easiest way to pocket me ever.
I'm really diggin' tom's spider shtick, because I can appreciate someone not taking the game super seriously (but also not goofing off to be antitown). I dunno, he seems like. Harmless. Not agenda-y. Just being a spider and also sharing his thoughts. And agree that lynching him wouldn't really tell us anything.
I'll just go ahead and say that Cyan is completely underwhelming, and I say that with absolutely no knowledge of how he's feeling OOG and junk. I wouldn't mind the lack of activity if his content were at least passable, but uh. He has literally only said "Vaimes is scum" and maybe a couple of other forgettable things. This is the same guy who was insta- and universally townread from like, his first post in Stargate. I don't even think it had anything to do with effort in that game. My impression was that he just...did his thing, no extra effort, just posting as he normally would, and I think his play was really admirable there, just being so, so obvious town like that. And now I'd be willing to wager that he's been bodysnatched.
Eco/GJ/Iso, ew, don't ask me for reads on them. My strongest feeling there is "I want to give Iso a chance," because. I scumread him for not believing his reads, for responding to attacks that don't exist (like when he attacked AG in OTG2 for trying to use Iso's lack of activity to mislynch him, even though AG literally never brought up Iso's activity, I'm still salty that I bought that garbage in hindsight), and just. There's a really, really subtle difference between Iso trying to control the game as town and as scum, and I'm going to look so stupid if I'm wrong here, but I feel like Iso is town here. I'm sorry I can't describe it better than that. It's like if someone played some random tune on the piano, where the major key is town!Iso trying to strongarm us into lynching what he believes is each member of the scumteam back to back, and minor key is scum!Iso just shoving fake scumreads at everyone and repeating ad nauseam that his scumreads are real. Either his play feels believable, or it feels slightly off, and right I think it's believable.
I just shoved Iso onto the "I wouldn't mind lynching line" because it's a real thin, waffly read. But yeah, Iso's no stranger to the entire scumteam wanting him dead, so s h r u g.
Which sucks, because I have no real oomph to my Eco read. I really need to reread Eco, but nothing's jumped out to me either way. And obviously I'm not gonna townread him for the same reason I did last time since he knows about it.
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This post might be a little all over the place, sorry. I don't have the time or patience to make it all formatted and neat and backed up with quotes right now.
The tl;dr is right now, I'd lynch Cyan for being severely lacking. Lacking in trying to figure anything out, lacking in progressing the game, lacking in even pushing what he claims his scumreads are (voting me and vanishing does not count as a push) with any sort of logical mindset progression beyond "Vaimes is scum because he is scum." And go from there.
If I had to pick someone to lynch whose flip would tell us more about the game, instead of lynching someone I believed would flip mafia, uh. I'd probably go Eco or Iso. I'm also probably a good candidate there, since I feel there's a decently even divide in who's shielding me and who's thirsting for my blood.
It's late, but I get to sleep in a bit tomorrow, so I'll stay up and have a little snack if anyone is gonna be around.
Oh, tom, I said you'd probably be able to catch me as scum because I've never believed you can't read me. You just say that to let me think I'm fooling you, which is nice, but also not necessary.
Proof: you always end up (correctly) siding with/defending me from like, Day 2 onwards in games where we were town together.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I'll just post a synopsis of Electron Cloud Theory, my approach to Mafia.
Basically, a Mafia game is a snapshot of an atom at one point in time. At the core, you have the protons and neutrons that determine the make-up of the game - the roles, the number of players, any additional rules or mechanics, etc. The players, themselves, as well as their alignments, are determined by their position in the electron cloud. Electrons can jump between energy levels in a fraction of a second. Some electrons create ionic bonds with other atoms, and some electrons are just floating about in an unknown location. Because electrons are so volatile, always jumping from one energy level to another, we can't know where they're located in the atom short of freezing a moment in time - that moment being the Mafia game.
When you figure out where one electron is, that eliminates the possibility of it being somewhere else, and it distinctly points to other electrons being in other locations. So, solving a Mafia game to me is like drawing out an electron cloud in a single moment in time on a sheet of paper. I catch on to Az and Chris as Masons, and that eliminates the world where Chris is scum with Voxxicus, or Az is Masons with Seppel. As the roles, identities, and alignments of players start to take shape, one can plot out where the rest of the electrons in the electron cloud are going to be. So if I had some mystic way of divining that 8 of the non-Iso players in this game were town, I could then plot out the rest of the electrons - the last 3 players - located where the "scum electrons" would be found. With electron cloud theory, you're constantly re-evaluating the state of the game based on new information and determining which outcome of the shape of the cloud is most likely to be with the realm of existence you are in. You eliminate scum pairings and scum team possibilities by solid town electrons, and you create possible scum clusters with solid scum electrons. In approaching the game this way, the most important people to solve are the ones that are neither leaning heavily town nor heavily scum, which is why I'll sometimes take a few Days to solve the game. That said, this game seems pretty cut-and-dry, and there aren't really any ???s except in the mal slot, but again, I liked the early approach to Voxx there, so for the most part, I've been focusing on people that have actually been participating in the game.
Obviously I currently believe the Eco/GJ/Cyan scum cluster is the most likely to exist based on the interactions in the thread thus far, hence my current worldview of the game state. It's super important to me, toDay, to have one of these three flip so that I can either re-evaluate the game if I'm wrong, or to further validate my reads if I'm not.
I confess, I was secretly hoping it would be more mystical and cool than that. I was kind of expecting something like, - "so first you put everyone's name in a jar, then you seal the jar and bury in behind your house, then you sacrifice ten goats to the Nameless One and dance around naked under the full moon (that's not part of the ritual, but it helps get you in the right mood.) After six days, you break into the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs with a wire cutter, a fake mustache, and a frozen haddock. There you'll find the world's most powerful microscope. After pelting it with the frozen tears of your arch-enemy, put the jar under the microscope. There, the SECRETS OF TIME AND SPACE WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU, and also the scumteam's names will appear in neon pink."
Instead, I got "Process of Elimination, but with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles."
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
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2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
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Oh my god. I haven't played in what, 6 months? More? And honestly, I probably shouldn't have bothered to come back, but how could I turn down an Az game and the Invitational, especially when Az went out of his way to notify me of them via FB. I'm dealing with a bunch of personal ***** right now, and thought this would be a nice distraction. Sadly, it hasn't been. But I'm just going to suffer through it.
And Vaimes, give me a break. I've dedicated most of my posts to explaining, citing multiple posts of yours as example, why you are scum. Just because you're ignoring them doesn't mean that I didn't post them. Now all of a sudden you want to lynch me, but you actually DON'T have a game-related reason. You just want to hop on another popular wagon. For that matter, according to your last post, you have no actual scum reads, even though you sat on Eco until he was in claim range. But yes, tell me more about how lacking my content is.
@Iso: FTR, I did in fact point out that I intended to join the Eco wagon once he claimed, when I thought he was at L-1 and hadn't done so. Other than that, if no one else is making a big deal out of it; why should I? Again, I haven't been around for awhile, maybe things have changed and this isn't SOP anymore.
I feel like Cyan is mislynch bait, if I am reading the flow of this topic correctly.
I've been thinking this over and I really, super don't think Eco is scum. None the least because when I told people to scatter on him they did just that. Cyan's point about Vaimes' vote being weak on him is very, very true and I covered it in one of my posts. Vaimes does something unnatural to me and doesn't really discuss that Cyan is trying to kill him, he kind of brushes that aside and attacks Cyan froma more 'neutral' point of view but when reading it I think it feels forced.
I tend to lean on my town reads more than my scum ones though, so I feel supremely confident in Eco being town. My mason buddy does not though, which presents a it of a problem for me.
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Also I could go through and demonstrate why the posts you highlighted aren't what you say they are, but...you're not going to believe me. You're too stubborn.
I don't really know what to do besides shrug and continue playing in a different part of the sandbox.
I'm wrong about Vaimes. I'm right about Eco. Given my day one history when it comes to suspecting people versus town clearing people, if I am honest at my win rate in early reads this is more than likely the scenario.
[4] Vaimes - Cyan, Gentleman Johnny, Sir Chris, Seppel
[4] Cyan - mallorean_thug, tomsloger, Vaimes, Iso
Vaimes is town. Vaimes was a wagon that is pushed along slowly. Cyan starts the wagon on a town vaimes, GJ follows that, I super follow that up, and then Seppel sheeps me onto it. From previous experience I know Seppel respects my game and doesn't mind jumping with me on adventures as town.
So I am mason with Az, I have successfully cleared a town member under fire in Eco, I have a misguided attack on a member of town in Vaimes, and Seppel is following along with me on an adventure because he has faith in my ability now that I made a splash, as town.
Iso's observation of the masonry means nothing to his alignment. I was putting it out there, and scum would be looking for such clues just as much, if not moreso than a town member would.
Scum Iso links scum buddy GJ to town members Eco and Cyan. When I ask about Eco, he mentions Cyan as a viable alternative, but not GJ. My biggest mistake day 1 is usually being right about something but not thinking about it critically. I said I really thought I had something in Iso/GJ. Iso and GJ are helping to engineer both of these wagons currently. Cyan and Vaimes, the victim of this manipulation, are playing their parts by voting for the other. How to break this? Give Iso what he wants.
##unvote: Vaimes
##vote: GJ
Okay so let's listen to Iso, an amazing player, and lynch GJ.
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Awesome. It is 4 AM for me but I go into work at 5 AM after waking up late on Sundays as part of my routine. I love getting an early start to the day and then going to bed at like 8 PM and sleeping for 10 hours and it makes my work week well.
Anyway no I am being serious. I was thinking about it and I think you're scum, but I've thought a lot of people are scum as well in the past on day 1 and have been wrong. I am not a scum catcher by nature, but rather a person who can tend to see the town in people. So assuming my main thrust is wrong isn't too much of a stretch and if it is I have noted the weirdness of Iso/GJ for awhile so why not cut to chase? If I am wrong about Iso well, he's Iso, he DOES catch scum, and I think Eco is town and Cyan is more town to me than GJ, ego GJ being scum makes sense regardless of my thoughts on Iso and that's a fun way to make the odds in our favor.
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I also see that GJ is in your wouldn't mind lynching list. See, this can work for both of us!
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What strikes a cord with me about Cyan is the voice in my head I have assigned to Cyan this game. Reminds me of town games. Cyan likes to tunnel and be snarky and gruff, and this is pretty classic town Cyan just lower on the energy meter. The heart of town Cyan is still there, it's heart beat is just slowed. He can fake this as scum and has, sure, but it isn't as if this some stark contrast and the things that are probably bristling you are within that town wheelhouse imo.
Also I think this lends credence to you being town because I was really put off by your thought process on Cyan, but I am starting to believe you don't really know him as well as I do (Cyan and I have had some very intense conflicts on all sorts of alignment spectrums)
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Actually, I'll go ahead and fire off some quick thoughts on it.
1. I don't have a strong enough townread on GJ to be averse towards voting him, compared to my other townreads. The "his scumread on me is genuine" read is super duper light, and given the following points, it's also not enough.
2. It's good for shedding some light on Iso, to see if he's bussing GJ and trying to chain lynch townies afterwards, or if Iso has, once again, won the game mostly by himself and is waiting for us to catch up. (I personally think Iso is town, but I also let him talk me out of lynching him in OTG2 so take that with a grain of salt.)
3. Other people I am townreading are in agreement that GJ may be scum. baa baa
Actually I just remembered he's not feeling well and basically V/LA, so
Unvote
for the time being. Nearly forgot Voxx was already voting him, dunno if anyone else is.
Man I just tend to think Cyan is like, everywhere or something. Look I am already re-evaluating and unlike Iso it doesn't require your corpse, cut me a break I'm rusty.
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Eco/GJ/Iso, ew, don't ask me for reads on them. My strongest feeling there is "I want to give Iso a chance," because. I scumread him for not believing his reads, for responding to attacks that don't exist (like when he attacked AG in OTG2 for trying to use Iso's lack of activity to mislynch him, even though AG literally never brought up Iso's activity, I'm still salty that I bought that garbage in hindsight), and just. There's a really, really subtle difference between Iso trying to control the game as town and as scum, and I'm going to look so stupid if I'm wrong here, but I feel like Iso is town here. I'm sorry I can't describe it better than that. It's like if someone played some random tune on the piano, where the major key is town!Iso trying to strongarm us into lynching what he believes is each member of the scumteam back to back, and minor key is scum!Iso just shoving fake scumreads at everyone and repeating ad nauseam that his scumreads are real. Either his play feels believable, or it feels slightly off, and right I think it's believable.
I just shoved Iso onto the "I wouldn't mind lynching line" because it's a real thin, waffly read. But yeah, Iso's no stranger to the entire scumteam wanting him dead, so s h r u g.
Which sucks, because I have no real oomph to my Eco read. I really need to reread Eco, but nothing's jumped out to me either way. And obviously I'm not gonna townread him for the same reason I did last time since he knows about it.
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This post might be a little all over the place, sorry. I don't have the time or patience to make it all formatted and neat and backed up with quotes right now.
The tl;dr is right now, I'd lynch Cyan for being severely lacking. Lacking in trying to figure anything out, lacking in progressing the game, lacking in even pushing what he claims his scumreads are (voting me and vanishing does not count as a push) with any sort of logical mindset progression beyond "Vaimes is scum because he is scum." And go from there.
If I had to pick someone to lynch whose flip would tell us more about the game, instead of lynching someone I believed would flip mafia, uh. I'd probably go Eco or Iso. I'm also probably a good candidate there, since I feel there's a decently even divide in who's shielding me and who's thirsting for my blood.
It's late, but I get to sleep in a bit tomorrow, so I'll stay up and have a little snack if anyone is gonna be around.
At no point in any of this does Vaimes talk about GJ. Of his 4 possible scum, he talks about EVERYONE ELSE. Nothing about GJ. The only reason I can think of that he even included him is 'other people have talked about GJ being scum'. Of course, the primary other person that did so was Iso, whom Vaimes has as a possible scum candidate, but he's not phased by that at all.
And yet. He just hops on board the GJ wagon, because SC asked him to.
I can only hope that this was a trap set by SC, whom will now move his vote back to Vaimes and never ******* unvote him.
I kind of want to lynch Tom, but I think it's a bad D1 lynch as long as he's playing like this, because it's the easiest thing in the world for scum to push.
But I'd have no qualms about bringing the flyswatter down hard at night, heh.
Hum.
Vote: Gentleman Johnny
But like. I think Vaimes is town.
Cyan could be scum, but I can see slightly apathetic/demotivated town if I squint maybe.
I'd vote Cyan over Vaimes if it comes down to that, but willing to go on a side adventure to another Not Town read.
Hum.
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Sorry, Newcomb! I wasn't ignoring you - your post just didn't load for some reason. I do realize that my particular style of reading people is incredibly difficult to follow for a lot of people, but I think that's just a result of the way I hunt scum being inherently different from the way a lot of people do it. I'll talk to you about Eco/GJ/Cyan a bit later on, I don't really have the time to commit to a full-blown "getting into the nitty-gritty" at the moment. I realize that "oh we sheeped Iso and the game was a total blowout because he is awesome" isn't exactly the most exciting way to play Mafia, but if I'm right, it's another win to chalk up - and if I'm wrong, I can eat the humble pie and learn where I went wrong and become a better player from it.
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@Voxx: There's like a 13% chance that mal or tom or someone is the scum in the Eco slot I'm touting. My scum reads on the trio I'm pushing are far too solid to even look at the ??? slots. That's not a high enough number for me to consider another electron cloud until I learn where my current reads are. If I'm proven to be wrong, I'll gladly reanalyze what we have and consider another universe - but there's literally 0 reason for me to do that until I am incorrect, here. This is how I flesh out my reads. You know this.
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@Az: I mean, yeah, I didn't WANT to out you guys as being Masons, but if I didn't, this game was going to start going extremely poorly for the town. I also realize that I could be more diplomatic in my approach but I've long since stopped arguing points that people aren't going to come around on no matter how wrong they are or how right I am. People will convince themselves of anything they want to believe. I've laid out my arguments. They aren't changing. If you can't agree with my reads on a fundamental level, you're not going to until I make the scum die. So I focus my efforts elsewhere. Again, I only have to get the majority to vote for my scum reads - you, personally, don't have to be on that wagon. Screaming my scumreads at a player behaving as a wall would made me a very unpleasant person to play Mafia with for a long time, and very much contributed to my level of burnout. By not engaging with you, it's not out of disrespect for you, but out of consideration for my sanity and enjoyment of the game. I catch scum, I explain why, and that should be all I need to do - I've caught scum, so I'm obviously town, which means - at least, to me - that I don't need to project my shining beacon of townieness unto the game thread any more. My reads will speak for themselves when they have flipped. Could I be busing scum? Sure, but that's up to you to determine - and you won't know until I've either won us the game or you've somehow gotten me lynched. But that's your responsibility. The fundamental difference in the way people think makes it impossible for everyone to see eye-to-eye in absolutely everything, which is why I think arguing my cases to you is a lost cause; I don't think your brain is wired the way mine is, and maybe you'll eventually pick up on the flow of the game and see what I'm seeing, but I don't expect repeatedly talking to you about my reads is going to change that - because, again, the best cases don't need to be 40 paragraph long epic novels on the dynamics of scum interactivity. Again, I apologize if I haven't been the most personable about this, but as I said: Getting pushed on by someone you're hard-reading as a Mason from page 1 for having picked up on said Masonry and not being concerned about the state of the game as such (as well as the lack of concern for other reasons, such as the beautiful Eco wagon right off the bat) is irritating and inconvenient. Yes, I can be insufferably arrogant about Mafia stuff - and I don't think that's without merit. I do also recognize that I could be a lot more personable when people are disagreeing with me, but my spiritual views encourage me to take the path of least resistance, and sometimes that just means ignoring or demoralizing someone until they follow you. It's not the nicest thing to do, but it's effective. I have been trying to do that less lately, as I realize it makes me unpleasant to play with, but I used to be a lot worse about a lot of things.
If you want more insight on why I'm viewing the game the way that I am, please take a look at my narrative of my reads, the way they developed, and try to feel the mindset behind Eco and GJ's posts as I've described them. Also take into consideration my interpretation of the events surrounding the Eco wagon as it pertains to Cyan, and their utter lack of interactivity/Cyan's approach to the Eco wagon once he actually showed up.
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@Vaimes: Sorry, I forgot to respond to your question - what exactly do you want to know about Cyan's scum game?
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2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
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Will try to remember the game.
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Yeah, that's kind of my problem though. It feels like GJ and Cyan are both scum to you because of the way they reacted to Eco and his wagon - but then if Eco is town...they're still both scum?
Like, say we lynch Eco and he flips town, who do you want to lynch most, and why?
I feel like at one point I read a long post of yours - maybe it was in a QT actually? - where you explained what you meant by "electron cloud." Mind digging that up for me? It might help me crawl into your head.
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Sir Chris: we have not played a game together where I was scum and you were town. My first scumgame on here was Three Little Pigs.
You might be thinking of Ace Attorney where I was the Serial Killer. My Neutral meta is absolutely not indicative of my scum meta because I was townsiding hard that game with the intent to actually help town win.
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He was Snowvon in that game. Newcomb was also in the game if you want to give D1/D2 a skim. Vaimes got lynched by Newcomb for being insanely obvious scum, which should help you understand why we view his play so starkly different here.
You occasionally seem to back yourself into corners where a mistake was the "only" feasible line of play to your way of thinking. But there are quite a few different ways to play any given scenario in mafia, and many of them don't involve talking about things publicly that shouldn't be talked about.
I can understand choosing not to get embroiled in a back and forth - if that were as far as it went.
Yes, we both have different methodologies, but we've both played some very fine games, and so has everyone else playing here. And many of us have also demonstrated our capacity to change our minds when artfully persuaded, such as how many of us have responded to Newcomb's thoughtful analyses in this very game. If that's not your cup of tea, fine, but let's not pretend that the rest of us don't want to listen to you, or have the benefit of your input if you're town, because we do.
But that's not to say that the town's optimal play is to unquestioningly accept your reads, without sufficient detail, simply because you can decimate the players in our normal and mini queues on a regular basis. Sometimes you can have a good game, sometimes you don't, same as any other player. And sometimes, being up against a different set of players can completely and drastically alter your performance, as we have both learned on occasion. And the rest of us, not just you, are also trying to learn, improve, and test our skills also, which we don't get to do if we pick any single one of our best players and rely on them alone without any further discussion or information.
I appreciate that, thank you.
It's neither nice, nor effective, nor what we hope for out of the leadership of our community. Intentionally seeking to harass or demoralize other players, or goad them into emotional responses, are not things that any of us should consider as something that we are entitled to do to one another. I don't know what your spiritual views are, although I'm somewhat intrigued now, but whatever they may be, I would help that they don't justify choosing a path of least resistance that entails trampling over whoever is standing on said path.
If there are aspects of your character or things going on in your life right now that make this difficult, I can appreciate and understand that. But all the same, I don't want to see anyone rationalize this type of thing simply because they believe that being hostile to others is either more effective or more easy than other choices which they could make.
I will. Was already planning on it, before any of this unpleasantness began. I do respect your abilities, Iso, all of us do. But when respect isn't returned in kind, it withers.
Anyway Iso if you're town you're really good so you're probably not 0/3 but you don't tend to be 3/3 either. Also I am firmly in the belief that Eco is town. If I am wrong about Vaimes, and let's just go with that for a moment, it does open up GJ and Cyan more as possible scum suspects.
If we're both town let's compromise and murder some scum. Can you set aside your Eco scum read?
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It's generally far better for masons to survive later in the game, to assist in POE, and also to garner additional reactions. Masons who get shot early don't help POE.
Chris, your scum-read was contingent upon Eco being powered. Iso seems to disagree, and I'm not sure I agree, either. Since Iso and I both read Eco as probable scum, that also seems like a good place to discuss.
*some proximity has meaning, some just fills up a web*
Surprise!
Also move me closer to the center.
(by the way I've decided to fully adopt the MTGS playbook, as seen in my last few posts. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!)
Thing is, I don't think scumCyan approaches the townEco wagon situation the way we saw. If you believe Cyan is scum, you can't believe Eco is town - the two ideas are hardlined together. GJ, I could be more flexible on, simply because he's not tied to the other two as hard as Eco and Cyan are to each other. If GJ is town, then I'd have to think about who Eco/Cyan's buddy could be, but it's probably mal's slot at that point. Slightly lesser possibilities are one of you and Vaimes, but only because you haven't been towning as hard as everybody else.
SURE
I'll just post a synopsis of Electron Cloud Theory, my approach to Mafia.
Basically, a Mafia game is a snapshot of an atom at one point in time. At the core, you have the protons and neutrons that determine the make-up of the game - the roles, the number of players, any additional rules or mechanics, etc. The players, themselves, as well as their alignments, are determined by their position in the electron cloud. Electrons can jump between energy levels in a fraction of a second. Some electrons create ionic bonds with other atoms, and some electrons are just floating about in an unknown location. Because electrons are so volatile, always jumping from one energy level to another, we can't know where they're located in the atom short of freezing a moment in time - that moment being the Mafia game.
When you figure out where one electron is, that eliminates the possibility of it being somewhere else, and it distinctly points to other electrons being in other locations. So, solving a Mafia game to me is like drawing out an electron cloud in a single moment in time on a sheet of paper. I catch on to Az and Chris as Masons, and that eliminates the world where Chris is scum with Voxxicus, or Az is Masons with Seppel. As the roles, identities, and alignments of players start to take shape, one can plot out where the rest of the electrons in the electron cloud are going to be. So if I had some mystic way of divining that 8 of the non-Iso players in this game were town, I could then plot out the rest of the electrons - the last 3 players - located where the "scum electrons" would be found. With electron cloud theory, you're constantly re-evaluating the state of the game based on new information and determining which outcome of the shape of the cloud is most likely to be with the realm of existence you are in. You eliminate scum pairings and scum team possibilities by solid town electrons, and you create possible scum clusters with solid scum electrons. In approaching the game this way, the most important people to solve are the ones that are neither leaning heavily town nor heavily scum, which is why I'll sometimes take a few Days to solve the game. That said, this game seems pretty cut-and-dry, and there aren't really any ???s except in the mal slot, but again, I liked the early approach to Voxx there, so for the most part, I've been focusing on people that have actually been participating in the game.
Obviously I currently believe the Eco/GJ/Cyan scum cluster is the most likely to exist based on the interactions in the thread thus far, hence my current worldview of the game state. It's super important to me, toDay, to have one of these three flip so that I can either re-evaluate the game if I'm wrong, or to further validate my reads if I'm not.
Oh.
Don't be lazy. Go read XKCD or something.
I can't accept a world where Eco and Cyan aren't scum together. It just doesn't make sense.
That said, I'll happily lynch Cyan toDay.
Thanks for the response to my long-winded mostly OoG stuff; you're right in that I didn't really give you a chance to be convinced and just sort of said "**** it" when you didn't immediately see things my way, which probably wasn't fair to you; so, for that, I apologize. And yeah, like I said, I've been trying to let less negativity into my play in general - it's just not always easy to avoid when repeating myself is one of my biggest pet peeves IRL and I have to do a lot of it in Mafia games. As for my spirituality, I'm a Taoist. It's very "go with the flow"-y (which is hilarious if you consider my Mafia playstyle).
As for the Eco being powered thing, is your sole reason for thinking that the fact that he didn't claim at L-2? Because I think that's easily explainable as "Eco realized that there was doubt on several of the players voting him and felt that if he held steady and didn't budge on a claim immediately, that he could let the wagon implode on itself." He was right, for the most part. Eco not claiming is also actually another huge reason I think he has to be scum with Cyan - because townCyan always makes a big scene about people not following claim protocol and then tries to lynch them with prejudice anyway.
(Also, to the people thinking Cyan is townie in his exchange with me regarding the backpedaling accusation, I just don't think Cyan as a player has the energy to butt heads with me any more, and scumCyan didn't need any attention drawn to him at that juncture.)
tom I love you
Unrelatedly, why am I so far away from you on this web
I'd say you hit the nail on the head.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I will not lynch: Newcomb
I would rather not lynch: Seppel, malslot, Voxx, Az, Sir Chris, tom
I wouldn't mind lynching: Eco, GJ, Iso
I want to lynch: Cyan?
Yeah, the main problem here is that I'm coming up empty with hard scumreads. And even if I were asked directly who I want lynched, the best answer you'd get is "everyone but my townreads." My playstyle revolves around finding out whom I /don't/ want to lynch, and shrugkilling the rest. I know that rubs people the wrong way, and usually it's my interactions with everyone that clear me (because I don't fit on any viable team), or just my attitude or whatever, rather than making Big Posts about how right/confident I am. The little things.
And then there are some games where I do get a particularly strong scumread (like Sir Chris in Classics, that was a fun time; or Iso in OTG2, even though I flubbed that hard), but those are few and far between. Which annoys me, because that's when I get fired up and feel like I'm actually contributing, but c'est la vie.
Anyway, there's your metarant for the day. Back to game content.
I have a lot of townleans. All of these are people who, at some point, wrote something towny enough that I don't really want to lynch them toDay (among other reasons).
I'm pretty confident in Newcomb being town. There is, admittedly, a super slim chance that he's pulling all the stops to really shine in this game as scum, with the promise of "I'm never ever EVER going to play that well as scum ever again." Blah blah paranoia that I'm not going to acknowledge beyond that.
I've talked to death about Seppel. I also agree that his early convictions against Eco were +town. Can't specifically recall what he's done since then, but IRL mobile issues + his tendency to vanish makes me not feel that much worse about him, so. Lighter townread.
malslot is not a good D1 lynch. Voxx is not a good D1 lynch. Sir Chris is eh, gleefully pursuing my death, but it doesn't reeeally feel slimy or underhanded. More like he's forcing higher expectations onto me that I'm now obligated to adhere to or else he'll kill me? To which I say **** that, by the way.
I'm horribly biased on Az because he's been defending me, and people going into detail about why they're townreading me is like, the easiest easiest way to pocket me ever.
I'm really diggin' tom's spider shtick, because I can appreciate someone not taking the game super seriously (but also not goofing off to be antitown). I dunno, he seems like. Harmless. Not agenda-y. Just being a spider and also sharing his thoughts. And agree that lynching him wouldn't really tell us anything.
I'll just go ahead and say that Cyan is completely underwhelming, and I say that with absolutely no knowledge of how he's feeling OOG and junk. I wouldn't mind the lack of activity if his content were at least passable, but uh. He has literally only said "Vaimes is scum" and maybe a couple of other forgettable things. This is the same guy who was insta- and universally townread from like, his first post in Stargate. I don't even think it had anything to do with effort in that game. My impression was that he just...did his thing, no extra effort, just posting as he normally would, and I think his play was really admirable there, just being so, so obvious town like that. And now I'd be willing to wager that he's been bodysnatched.
Eco/GJ/Iso, ew, don't ask me for reads on them. My strongest feeling there is "I want to give Iso a chance," because. I scumread him for not believing his reads, for responding to attacks that don't exist (like when he attacked AG in OTG2 for trying to use Iso's lack of activity to mislynch him, even though AG literally never brought up Iso's activity, I'm still salty that I bought that garbage in hindsight), and just. There's a really, really subtle difference between Iso trying to control the game as town and as scum, and I'm going to look so stupid if I'm wrong here, but I feel like Iso is town here. I'm sorry I can't describe it better than that. It's like if someone played some random tune on the piano, where the major key is town!Iso trying to strongarm us into lynching what he believes is each member of the scumteam back to back, and minor key is scum!Iso just shoving fake scumreads at everyone and repeating ad nauseam that his scumreads are real. Either his play feels believable, or it feels slightly off, and right I think it's believable.
I just shoved Iso onto the "I wouldn't mind lynching line" because it's a real thin, waffly read. But yeah, Iso's no stranger to the entire scumteam wanting him dead, so s h r u g.
Which sucks, because I have no real oomph to my Eco read. I really need to reread Eco, but nothing's jumped out to me either way. And obviously I'm not gonna townread him for the same reason I did last time since he knows about it.
---
This post might be a little all over the place, sorry. I don't have the time or patience to make it all formatted and neat and backed up with quotes right now.
The tl;dr is right now, I'd lynch Cyan for being severely lacking. Lacking in trying to figure anything out, lacking in progressing the game, lacking in even pushing what he claims his scumreads are (voting me and vanishing does not count as a push) with any sort of logical mindset progression beyond "Vaimes is scum because he is scum." And go from there.
If I had to pick someone to lynch whose flip would tell us more about the game, instead of lynching someone I believed would flip mafia, uh. I'd probably go Eco or Iso. I'm also probably a good candidate there, since I feel there's a decently even divide in who's shielding me and who's thirsting for my blood.
It's late, but I get to sleep in a bit tomorrow, so I'll stay up and have a little snack if anyone is gonna be around.
Proof: you always end up (correctly) siding with/defending me from like, Day 2 onwards in games where we were town together.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I confess, I was secretly hoping it would be more mystical and cool than that. I was kind of expecting something like, - "so first you put everyone's name in a jar, then you seal the jar and bury in behind your house, then you sacrifice ten goats to the Nameless One and dance around naked under the full moon (that's not part of the ritual, but it helps get you in the right mood.) After six days, you break into the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs with a wire cutter, a fake mustache, and a frozen haddock. There you'll find the world's most powerful microscope. After pelting it with the frozen tears of your arch-enemy, put the jar under the microscope. There, the SECRETS OF TIME AND SPACE WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU, and also the scumteam's names will appear in neon pink."
Instead, I got "Process of Elimination, but with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles."
And just like that, the magic is gone.
If I told you guys I did all that, you wouldn't follow me (even though it obviously works). So I obviously made up some hogwash about electrons.
Belieeeve.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
I may just have to break out the Monte Diamond of Wolfing.
And Vaimes, give me a break. I've dedicated most of my posts to explaining, citing multiple posts of yours as example, why you are scum. Just because you're ignoring them doesn't mean that I didn't post them. Now all of a sudden you want to lynch me, but you actually DON'T have a game-related reason. You just want to hop on another popular wagon. For that matter, according to your last post, you have no actual scum reads, even though you sat on Eco until he was in claim range. But yes, tell me more about how lacking my content is.
@Iso: FTR, I did in fact point out that I intended to join the Eco wagon once he claimed, when I thought he was at L-1 and hadn't done so. Other than that, if no one else is making a big deal out of it; why should I? Again, I haven't been around for awhile, maybe things have changed and this isn't SOP anymore.
I've been thinking this over and I really, super don't think Eco is scum. None the least because when I told people to scatter on him they did just that. Cyan's point about Vaimes' vote being weak on him is very, very true and I covered it in one of my posts. Vaimes does something unnatural to me and doesn't really discuss that Cyan is trying to kill him, he kind of brushes that aside and attacks Cyan froma more 'neutral' point of view but when reading it I think it feels forced.
I tend to lean on my town reads more than my scum ones though, so I feel supremely confident in Eco being town. My mason buddy does not though, which presents a it of a problem for me.
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
I don't really know what to do besides shrug and continue playing in a different part of the sandbox.
I'm wrong about Vaimes. I'm right about Eco. Given my day one history when it comes to suspecting people versus town clearing people, if I am honest at my win rate in early reads this is more than likely the scenario.
[4] Vaimes - Cyan, Gentleman Johnny, Sir Chris, Seppel
[4] Cyan - mallorean_thug, tomsloger, Vaimes, Iso
Vaimes is town. Vaimes was a wagon that is pushed along slowly. Cyan starts the wagon on a town vaimes, GJ follows that, I super follow that up, and then Seppel sheeps me onto it. From previous experience I know Seppel respects my game and doesn't mind jumping with me on adventures as town.
So I am mason with Az, I have successfully cleared a town member under fire in Eco, I have a misguided attack on a member of town in Vaimes, and Seppel is following along with me on an adventure because he has faith in my ability now that I made a splash, as town.
Iso's observation of the masonry means nothing to his alignment. I was putting it out there, and scum would be looking for such clues just as much, if not moreso than a town member would.
Scum Iso links scum buddy GJ to town members Eco and Cyan. When I ask about Eco, he mentions Cyan as a viable alternative, but not GJ. My biggest mistake day 1 is usually being right about something but not thinking about it critically. I said I really thought I had something in Iso/GJ. Iso and GJ are helping to engineer both of these wagons currently. Cyan and Vaimes, the victim of this manipulation, are playing their parts by voting for the other. How to break this? Give Iso what he wants.
##unvote: Vaimes
##vote: GJ
Okay so let's listen to Iso, an amazing player, and lynch GJ.
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
I have no idea what your timezone is, but I hope the next 24 hours are just as nice to you as the past day was for me.
---
I can't tell if this is a hypothetical exercise or if you're being serious.
Anyway no I am being serious. I was thinking about it and I think you're scum, but I've thought a lot of people are scum as well in the past on day 1 and have been wrong. I am not a scum catcher by nature, but rather a person who can tend to see the town in people. So assuming my main thrust is wrong isn't too much of a stretch and if it is I have noted the weirdness of Iso/GJ for awhile so why not cut to chase? If I am wrong about Iso well, he's Iso, he DOES catch scum, and I think Eco is town and Cyan is more town to me than GJ, ego GJ being scum makes sense regardless of my thoughts on Iso and that's a fun way to make the odds in our favor.
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
Unvote
Vote GJ
If Cyan is mislynch bait, then he'd better prove it.
(Because really, really doesn't strike me as anything-bait.)
But it is bedtime for me.
Also I think this lends credence to you being town because I was really put off by your thought process on Cyan, but I am starting to believe you don't really know him as well as I do (Cyan and I have had some very intense conflicts on all sorts of alignment spectrums)
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
1. I don't have a strong enough townread on GJ to be averse towards voting him, compared to my other townreads. The "his scumread on me is genuine" read is super duper light, and given the following points, it's also not enough.
2. It's good for shedding some light on Iso, to see if he's bussing GJ and trying to chain lynch townies afterwards, or if Iso has, once again, won the game mostly by himself and is waiting for us to catch up. (I personally think Iso is town, but I also let him talk me out of lynching him in OTG2 so take that with a grain of salt.)
3. Other people I am townreading are in agreement that GJ may be scum. baa baa
Actually I just remembered he's not feeling well and basically V/LA, so
Unvote
for the time being. Nearly forgot Voxx was already voting him, dunno if anyone else is.
I played with the guy twice, the end.
2014 - Best Mafia Performance (Individual)(Wu Tang)
2014 - Best Mafia Newcomer
2015 - Best Town Performance (Individual) (Predator)
2015 - Best Town Performance (Group) - Predator Mafia
2015 - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - 2015 Invitational
2015 - Best Town Player
2015 - Best Mafia Player
2015 - Best Overall Player
At no point in any of this does Vaimes talk about GJ. Of his 4 possible scum, he talks about EVERYONE ELSE. Nothing about GJ. The only reason I can think of that he even included him is 'other people have talked about GJ being scum'. Of course, the primary other person that did so was Iso, whom Vaimes has as a possible scum candidate, but he's not phased by that at all.
And yet. He just hops on board the GJ wagon, because SC asked him to.
I can only hope that this was a trap set by SC, whom will now move his vote back to Vaimes and never ******* unvote him.
*shrugs 2 shoulders*