I like Tom's 101 (although not in an alignment-indicative way). Vaimes mentioned earlier that he saw Tom providing reasons to scumread me while expressing a townread; in this specific case it reads more like Tom playing Devil's Advocate in an effort to get Ophidia to keep posting which is something I do often in newbie games on MS so I certainly don't think that it's a scumtell here. The "perhaps it means something" is very noticeably a tom response.
Re: Pozzai:
I agree with (Regfan?) that Pozzai's early focus seems to be strange; in 125, questioning Delphi's approach to Regfan's mindmeld point is weird, and trying to use Tom's playstyle change as a point against him seems like something that's extraordinarily anti-fun or scummy. To answer your question, I would qualify this as Tom's "normal" play. You seem to imply that he's adopting this playstyle as scum in order to find new reasons to townread people, but even if the style of scumhunting and maybe a difference in mindset has changed (and only barely), the reads that he's brought up so far seem perfectly reasonable ones to have. I could understand your push better if you were criticizing him for specific reads, but attacking him for weird reads before he's given any is silly.
RE: Grapefruit's #139:
I don't want to overstep my bounds here, but distrusting a read because "you can't get a read that early" is an approach that misses out on a decent chunk of the game and takes away a good portion of your effectiveness as a town player. As scum, I am most uncomfortable in the early game; the biggest difference between my scum and town games is a difference in how proactive I am and that's the most glaringly obvious when I don't have anything to respond to. In this case, Regfan's only played a few games with me but he's read more games with me in them with that and also comes from a group of players who have heavily influenced my play to the point where I'd expect him to understand my approach. I agree that he probably gave my scum game too little credit, but that doesn't mean that his entire post was crazy talk.
Does any of this make sense or did I sway too much into a rambling world?
Tom, out of curiosity, was this posting style born of being something you wanted to try out or is it to mesh with this playerlist specifically?
I like Vaimes's 147 a lot; I think that tonally it's fantastic and I think that as a whole his push on Regfan (while he did oversell Regfan's read a bit) looks quite town. In particular, I like that he zeroed in on the same piece of the read that I did (I found Regfan equating my early push on him with the Wedding Invitational push to be a bit of an overly generous comparison), and I really like the "you have to be aware of how ridiculous and empty that looks"; I think that this stands out a lot from his play in Three Little Pigs where it never felt like his scumhunting quite reached this level of "bite", if that makes sense.
RE: Ophidia's 149:
As a general rule I don't like it when people try to blame not contributing on factors like "people are talking about meta too much!" or "this is a theme game; I've only played normals" and feel like it's something that I see coming from scum more often than normal. That being said, I'm not a soulless dictator like Tammy so I absolutely understand getting lost occasionally; Ophidia, a piece of advice that I'd give you is to not necessarily focus on providing analysis (even though most people will be pressing you for it) and instead ask questions to clarify things if possible. You can't provide good analysis if you don't understand what's going on, and if you try to provide a bunch of commentary on things you don't really understand, then you probably won't find anything ground-breaking and people probably won't be able to see that you're making a genuine effort when providing it because it will come off awkward and strange.
I will continue after dinner; not going as quickly as I'd liked but as I started to write the post I felt all Newcomb/Regfan-y and suddenly it's become a goal of mine to out Newcomb-Regfan both of them.
Hi all life has reared it's ugly head and I'm on unexpected v/la. Hopefully things will snap back to normal soon as I'd like to stay in the game. Won't be around much for the next 48-72 hours though. Sorry everyone.
Regfan's not wrong that my initial push was geared towards making him uncomfortable and that I figured I'd be able to get a read off him for it. It didn't go how I'd hoped since I did that thing where I bit off more than I could chew and was basically not around at all when all the interesting stuff was happening, but joke-pushing and forcing people who are uncomfortable playing scum and you know how they're uncomfortable playing scum to react to your push is a remarkably reliable way to read me if you know me well enough (the first player I ever worshiped used to do it frequently enough). I don't think the concept behind the read was bad, I just think that he was reading too much into it.
I actually agree with the Ophidia comment that you pointed out; missed it on first brush. I don't think that it's necessarily that scum would write it and then erase it; I think that nervous scum tend to view that nervousness as scummy and try not to include it in their posts (hence lower risk posting) whereas nervous town feel more obligated to express it since it's part of their approach to the game.
I think your Vaimes interaction point has a good chance of being a silly reason to townread him.
I also don't understand why you think that Grapefruit is "spewed town" - I see him town on his own merits, but I think me/tom/Regfan at least are comfortable enough providing a hard townread on a scumbuddy, especially a new one playing well. When I'm scum and I'm playing with a newer player who gives me anything to townread I tend to oversell it because it shows I have confidence in them which usually results in better play. I'm sure that most experienced player who sees newbie scumpartner :goodposting: would respond similarly.
I like Ophidia's response to Newcomb about Grapefruit a lot, actually. I think that if Ophidia was scum here, they would fit the "nervous low risk scum" archetype and scumreading the guy that pretty much everyone has townread so far is a pretty good look for going against the grain points alone. Continuing off something Newcomb mentioned, think "skittish" scum is a better way to put it and pushing back against that read doesn't really fit "skittish" so well.
I'll be honest, I glazed over most of the walls and the spam.
Pretty sure the scum team is Grapefruit, xequalsy, regfan, and Vaimes.
You're welcome.
-
@tom, Nacho, & Pozzai: Hi! Wanna be in a townbloc with me?
I shouldn't townread Iso for the "oh wait this is a basic thing" because I've seen scum do dumb crap like that in the past but I'm hoping Iso as scum wouldn't I guess?
Initial reads seem pretty random; I think that I'd expect scum!Iso to try to form more convincing scumreads whereas town!Iso is going to get his reads when he gets them, but this is a instinctual guess and not at all based on anything concrete or vaguely real.
Vaimes, Grapefruit, Ophidia are all shaping up to be decent townreads for me so far, am guessing Regfan will join them shortly based on what I've skimmed from him on bathroom breaks but want to read his posts more closely before I slot him in as town.
I'm iffy on my love Newcomb at the moment, but it's probably due to lack of context; I like his most recent wall in general (of course the only thing I really care about is the read on me and that looks good for now), but I think the Ophidia read was kind of lame and want to see how it deteriorated when he was reading through the game because where I left off on my catchup (page 4) I thought we were vibing on an Ophidia townread where everyone else was scumreading and now suddenly it doesn't feel like that and his reasons for feeling trepidation seem meh (a player making null posts ala the "he stopped fluffposting" comment aren't a reason to doubt a townread, and obviously strength of content isn't going to be there and I hate the "we'll probably have to lynch him eventually" reasoning since it seems like he's doing a decent job of seeming genuine as hell so far).
Pozzai is the only other thing resembling a scumread but it's literally only because of the tom thing and nothing else so expecting to see a little more from him when I can scrape together some time.
X=Y (had no idea what regfan was referring to that until very, very recently) I liked early for reasons that probably have nothing to do with alignment but it wouldn't surprise me if the curse continued and Tammy's mentee slot was scum.
I've pointed out before some of the small things I see as town from him; stuff like "Yeah, hopefully this is a good enough explanation for you, Reg." There's kind of an awkward earnestness to Ophidia's posts that I associate with newbtown.
However, I'm really not loving the amount of excuses he's got, and the effort it takes to get him to analyze things. Playstyle / newness accounts for some of this, probably, and needs to be taken into account, but at a basic level, I'm not seeing the interest / inquisitiveness I'd expect from town of any stripe. This might be a case of something /feeling/ really scummy without it actually making it more likely he really is scum, though. That "don't worry Vaimes, I have a mentor" snapback was a pretty good tonal note.
RE: Ophidia's 149:
As a general rule I don't like it when people try to blame not contributing on factors like "people are talking about meta too much!" or "this is a theme game; I've only played normals" and feel like it's something that I see coming from scum more often than normal. That being said, I'm not a soulless dictator like Tammy so I absolutely understand getting lost occasionally; Ophidia, a piece of advice that I'd give you is to not necessarily focus on providing analysis (even though most people will be pressing you for it) and instead ask questions to clarify things if possible. You can't provide good analysis if you don't understand what's going on, and if you try to provide a bunch of commentary on things you don't really understand, then you probably won't find anything ground-breaking and people probably won't be able to see that you're making a genuine effort when providing it because it will come off awkward and strange.
I think the Ophidia read was kind of lame and want to see how it deteriorated when he was reading through the game because where I left off on my catchup (page 4) I thought we were vibing on an Ophidia townread where everyone else was scumreading and now suddenly it doesn't feel like that and his reasons for feeling trepidation seem meh (a player making null posts ala the "he stopped fluffposting" comment aren't a reason to doubt a townread, and obviously strength of content isn't going to be there and I hate the "we'll probably have to lynch him eventually" reasoning since it seems like he's doing a decent job of seeming genuine as hell so far).
I'd also really like you to figure out the reasons for your Pozzai read.
I'm sure you would! I'll probably re-read the game eventually after some flips and re-establish to myself why I'm townreading Pozzai (or start scumreading him, depending). I'll be glad to share if and when that happens.
No, that's not acceptable.
Pozzai is the top wagon, and we're less than 300 posts in.
Your choices are figure it out and elaborate, or remove the read.
Explain why Pozzai isn't:
1 - A mislynch you want no part of
2 - A teammate you can't think of a real way to defend
Nah, that sounds like effort. I don't need to expend that until later, as that requires re-reading, which I am 100% disinterested in at this stage of the game.
I will not be moving my vote for the rest of the Day.
Cool, thanks for letting us know.
You're welcome!
Quote from xequalsy »
But answer my question please - you basically just declared your scum team your second or so post of the game, did Vaimes's push on Regfan seem like distancing to you at the time? Who do you think are scum now (apart from me), since you seem to have recanted your Vaimes and Regfan read?
It's almost as though you haven't been reading my posts.
Nacho is a delight and one of my favorite people to play with. I find he tends to have a harder time faking his typical demeanor when he's scum, and as such, I think he's town.
What is his typical demeanor?
The post you quoted here literally has the answer to your question. Please don't waste my time. Thank you!
Iso, I'd love to be in a townblock with you but I tend to be the type that likes to see things happen naturally; if we are meant to be, then we are meant to be.
At any rate: With regards to Vaimes, I make my posts as I read along. If a stance in a post contrasts a stance posted earlier in that same post, it's because I've taken in new information and adjusted my view to reflect the most recent thing I've posted. I rarely ever go back and change anything in a post as I've read new stuff unless a question I ask earlier in a post has been directly answered since then. I think you're town, so I'm willing to accept your Vaimes townread.
With regards to Grapefruit, I'm not sure what you want me to point out. His posts feel directionless and uncertain. How much clearer can I be about that short of actually going back and quoting him and pointing out where I see this?
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
At any rate: With regards to Vaimes, I make my posts as I read along. If a stance in a post contrasts a stance posted earlier in that same post, it's because I've taken in new information and adjusted my view to reflect the most recent thing I've posted. I rarely ever go back and change anything in a post as I've read new stuff unless a question I ask earlier in a post has been directly answered since then. I think you're town, so I'm willing to accept your Vaimes townread.
With regards to Grapefruit, I'm not sure what you want me to point out. His posts feel directionless and uncertain. How much clearer can I be about that short of actually going back and quoting him and pointing out where I see this?
Hm, okay. I'd say that my townread on Vaimes here is not as strong as it was D1 in the Invitational. It's more like, "I think he's town, but regardless I don't want to lynch him D1 because I'm nearly certain I'll know for sure later."
Like. If you're town and I'm shot N1, don't just take my Vaimes read to the bank.
The Grapefruit thing is like... I mean, yeah, I kind of wanted that clarity of knowing the specific quotes you thought felt that way, because I didn't pick up on that vibe really at all, so maybe if I knew where you were seeing it, I'd be able to get into your head a bit more. Because right now it's just like -
Iso: Grapefruit's posts feel directionless
Newcomb: No they don't.
The rest of the game: Yay?
I guess let's talk about it from this angle - why do you feel like a player being directionless and uncertain makes them more likely to be mafia?
At any rate: With regards to Vaimes, I make my posts as I read along. If a stance in a post contrasts a stance posted earlier in that same post, it's because I've taken in new information and adjusted my view to reflect the most recent thing I've posted. I rarely ever go back and change anything in a post as I've read new stuff unless a question I ask earlier in a post has been directly answered since then. I think you're town, so I'm willing to accept your Vaimes townread.
With regards to Grapefruit, I'm not sure what you want me to point out. His posts feel directionless and uncertain. How much clearer can I be about that short of actually going back and quoting him and pointing out where I see this?
Hm, okay. I'd say that my townread on Vaimes here is not as strong as it was D1 in the Invitational. It's more like, "I think he's town, but regardless I don't want to lynch him D1 because I'm nearly certain I'll know for sure later."
Like. If you're town and I'm shot N1, don't just take my Vaimes read to the bank.
The Grapefruit thing is like... I mean, yeah, I kind of wanted that clarity of knowing the specific quotes you thought felt that way, because I didn't pick up on that vibe really at all, so maybe if I knew where you were seeing it, I'd be able to get into your head a bit more. Because right now it's just like -
Iso: Grapefruit's posts feel directionless
Newcomb: No they don't.
The rest of the game: Yay?
I guess let's talk about it from this angle - why do you feel like a player being directionless and uncertain makes them more likely to be mafia?
Sure.
So, I think in this case, scumGrapefruit feels out of his depth. He stated that this is his first game of forum Mafia, and he's in an unfamiliar meta. The fact of the matter is that while yes, this can also happen with town, the underlying vibe I get from his posts is not that of a town mindset. It feels like he's trying to look townie but doesn't know how - which, again, doesn't vibe well with me.
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
Regfan just doesn't know what he's doing. He should read this post. Then he, too, can have correct votes. And maybe even colored ones, if he advances that far.
---
I thought that thing Pozzai did with Regfan was ~weird. Getting in a huge huff at tom when he asked Pozzai if Regfan was his scumbuddy, then immediately throwing down a vote on Regfan.
Tom would totally vote iso here. It's not a terrible vote, but it wouldn't really do anything. I've got some personal experience that some pressure will not make Iso give a crap.
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
@Newcomb, finally got to a laptop to go through your Post #314, few thoughts;
1) I'm glad that you see where I'm coming from re; Pozzais stance on Tom being a thought process that doesn't look organic. I disagree with his OMGUS on me coming across as town, I think it it's a move that makes sense for scum to make in that it allows them an easy avenue to push (And I think in a playerlist like this scum finding someone to push on is one of their harder tasks) while similarly being treated as a response to the scum-reads against them. Agree that his follow through question to Vaimes looks better but that's pretty much the only thing I like about his posts. I like you point about him ruling us out as not W/W being something that makes little sense given his reasoning at the time.
2) I follow your thought process re; Tom timing of dropping the gimmick coming across as town, it's not why I have a town read on him and that action isn't something I particularly find as strong an alignment tell as you do but I can understand where you're going with the read and agree with the conclusion though I think my town read on him is stronger than yours at the moment. Your read on Ophidia, Nacho, Typh, Grapes and Xequals mirror where my head is them pretty closely too, found myself nodding along when reading through your reasoning on them though I have less reservations on Grapes than you do I think.
3) I agree with you on Delphis reads posts on you in Post #220 coming across as town, was my initial impression of it too. I'm not seeing your point about her Post #231 at all? The post does absolutely nothing for me. Can you elaborate on that a little further fo me please? I did like your point about her Post #281. But overall I don't see the solid town read you are on the slot, I can see perhaps a weak one there but that'd be about it. It's possible that I just suck at getting a read on her at all given that I had no read on her really in the SVM game (And she's claiming that's her more active D1 game) but my read on her is super weak here.
@Newcomb - Mostly like the way you're attempting to sort me in your reads wall as well, think the cautious approach behind it makes you slightly more likely town? I think as scum you might just town read me to appease/pander to me and don't think you ever think you can get me mslynched? I also have a weak town read on you based on play so far (I read through your 'mentor' QT with Vaimes and your thought process behind how town should play/sort games and you seem to be following it so far) but I'm slightly worried that you could be snowing me here. My #205 was actually moreso for myself than for anyone else. Intention behind it was mostly to reread the thread and see if any of my reads / thoughts on posts changes and to update my reads on everyone in a singular post so I can actually see where my heads at and where I think scum are most/least likely, like doing that by having a reads list with (S->W) included in it, find that comparing the strength of my reads to each other allows me to work out where I need to reevaluate.
Going to cook dinner then I'll get to Nachos posts (And good luck attempting to mimic mine or Newcombs playstyle).
1) I like your point in Post #316 about Pozzai not actually critising Toms specific reads but attacking him for changing to a playstyle that gives out more town reads before he's given any that Pozzai has an issue with; that point actually strengthens my scum read there. I similarly like your analysis of Vaimes there.
2) I also really like your point about Grapefruit inside Post #320; I'm actually not a fan of the use of "Spewed" at all, it was something that was pushed forward about Fluff in SVM and think it's plausible for a) Town to misread a player collectively and/or b) Scum to join in or be pushing the town read on a partner. I think Grapes is town here outside of peoples stated reads on him but I like that your thought process re; the spewed section mirrors mine very closely. That said I don't think it's a scum-tell for Newcomb to put it forward that he's spewed given I think I've seen him use 'spewed' in a similar manner in the past.
3) I also like that you commented on Iso's "Wait this is a basic" post as it's something that's got me really conflicted on him, I think I've talked myself into think he's town and scum for it in the last 24 hours, it's a rather frustrating section to analyse. I think it's slightly more likely to come from town overall?
4) I don't share the strength of your Ophidia town read inside Post #321 but do agree with the strong town reads on Grapes/Vaimes. I think I agree more with Newcomb about Ophidia than I do with you in that there's a lot from him that I think makes sense as scum but there's also certain posts and sections that come across as genuine and town.
@Newcomb - I don't have a super strong town read at all on the X=Y wagon and the Pozzai one at the moment consists of two of my three strongest town reads and myself, want to join? There's a cookie on offer for you.
@Tom - Tom would also be asking to be vigged, sometimes it's better not to listen to Tom.
Feel pretty good about my vote at the moment, feel better about Nacho and Newcomb after their recent posts too.
@Regfan
Do you have thoughts that aren't a restatement of someone else's?
@Delphine
I modded Ophidia's "scum" game. It wasn't exactly mafia, but he was the assassin in a palace guards setup and it's close enough (Link here.
Ophidia answered one direct question about experience, saying it was his second game and never bringing it up again. He was pretty easily caught off voting the king, but the reactions to becoming a wagon was omgusing the first vote and then just saying "wut."
Did you read this one (yeah, I know. He made 9 posts in that game) or just town ones?
@Regfan
Do you have thoughts that aren't a restatement of someone else's?
I think you'll find that's called a conversation about reads; puts forward where my head is at about players while asking them to focus and elaborate on parts that I disagree with them about. I mentioned most of my updated thoughts on Non-Nacho & Newcomb walls in #313.
My strongest impression of town Iso is competence. He's really good. He's got his electron cloud theory and he has to know what's going on in all aspects of the game for his method to even work. He may not actually explain it until forced, but he's got something.
Here, he just doesn't seem like anything special. He's still calling his scumteam, because he's Iso and that's what he does. But he's not beating us over the head with it, he just put it out there and is sort of... trying not to talk about anyone. The way he feels here matches much better with what I know of his scumgame, which is to try to deal a bunch of damage before he goes, never planning to be the "deep wolf". It's... yeah, it could be just being too busy or whatever to really sink his teeth into this game. But if this sort of thing continues, there's a real shot Iso is scum.
I think I also already sort of said this, in the form of snarky questions to Iso, but his approach to Pozzai has scum motivation regardless of Pozzai's alignment. If Pozzai is that Grade A mislynch that he could absolutely be, Iso gets to say "I told you so" without ever having tried to stop the lynch. And if they are buddies Iso has taken the least accountable position possible.
I am very hesitant to actually try to figure the probability of them being aligned, but suffice to say I would not mind seeing either of their flips.
It's honestly the worst vote you could make at this juncture.
Have you considered voting for scum, instead?
What a strange reaction to post saying I didn't want to vote you.
Iso. Hey, Iso.
Why isn't my vote currently on scum?
Because you're not voting X=Y and are instead choosing to vote town.
I understand that you think I'm taking a scummy approach to Pozzai, but I'm curious as to why you're focusing on this one particular read of mine that I'm choosing not to explain for [reasons] as opposed to any of my other reads, like, say, the person I'm voting.
Why are you hung up on Pozzai instead of attempting to understand my approach to this 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
I understand that you think I'm taking a scummy approach to Pozzai, but I'm curious as to why you're focusing on this one particular read of mine that I'm choosing not to explain for [reasons] as opposed to any of my other reads, like, say, the person I'm voting.
@X=Y RE; #287, I disagree; I think missing large sections of information (You may have missed part of one post of mine but would have been able to pick up what's been said re; the context and conversation that follows) is something that makes more sense from mafia. It's also a case of I think most areas he commented on when catching up don't help him determine anyones alignment and look like throwaway questions.
Eh, let's agree to disagree on the first point (not really getting anywhere with that to be honest and I think the second point was more important anyway). Gonna do a re-read of Pozzai, so expect something on that front in an hour or two.
Quote from Newcomb »
This, however... doesn't? It's sharp and aggressive and OMGUS-y and everything, but the specificity kind of works for me. I think scum!Pozzai would be more... something. Reasonable. Like, this argument doesn't do much for me. I feel like scum!Pozzai would feel a little exposed by it. I could be giving him too much credit, I suppose? But I don't feel like this is the kind of thing you type as mafia and go, "yep, this is airtight."
I'm not sure about this read - Pozzai being under a bit of pressure from multiple people in the thread might make them post a little less tightly, especially if they don't have an "airtight" defence lined up and still feel the need to say something.
Leaving aside my reads of each of you, I'd expect there to probably be one scum (or more, I guess but probably only the one) on the wagon.
I have a town read on Typhon from his entrance, and his push on Ophidia, but I think his vote on me was pretty weak to be honest, not even counting the activity tell part of it. Like, I'm not really sure why he focused a ton on the RVS entrance. But also the way he did it - by asking a lot of questions instead of really presenting much of a case on any of it. I think part of that was having to VLA pretty soon afterwards though so lack of follow up on it is null for me atm.
I think the scum is either Iso or DelphiBlue. Iso, because of his over dramatic vote park - especially when my vote on him was fairly early D1 (in what I assume will be a fairly long D1 RL time wise). I don't feel votes have to be for particularly strong reasons at the start of D1, so his response is a bit of an over-reaction. Delphine because she is taking a back seat, and it was a bit surprising to me that she hadn't even voted (especially when she had proffered opinions on me throughout the thread already).
For the scum not on my wagon right now, I would say Regfan stands out a bit for the whole shtick of commenting his approval of votes for me but not really pushing me in any of his responses to my questions so far. Like he's focused on Pozzai right now sure, but as I'm apparently his second top scum read after Pozzai, his interactions with me have been fairly surface level reiterations of his points about Pozzai. Feels like he's setting up swapping over to me after seeing which wagon is more easily pushed for.
(Also - and I appreciate it's probably down to me personally - but I was making a super rough 2 min "read" list in my QT, but his name was the one I forgot, even though we've interacted a fair bit so I'm definitely going to be read over him again in detail as well)
Quote from Iso »
It's almost as though you haven't been reading my posts.
I know your thoughts on Ophidia, but since you were happy to throw out 4 scum reads earlier, who else do you find suspicious? Surely you can't think you've solved the game? (Clearly you were already wrong once).
His RVS(?) vote on Vaimes even though the thread had long ago moved on is interesting but overall null I think - clearly his posts were as he was reading along.
In terms of his questions to people:
His question to Delphine in of itself seems fairly throw away - something to keep an eye on. (fake edit: eh, he followed up on his question to Vaimes about Newcomb, but not really this one.
@Pozzai: throwing your questions back at you - why did you ask that question and what did you hope to get from it?)
I sort of get what he's thinking of about asking tom the question he does. From the point of view of someone who did miss tom planning to play as someone else's playstyle, it does seem (depending on his level of familiarity with tom - @Pozzai/tom, have you and tom played together before?) like it's useful to work out why tom is doing what he is.
His question to Von about Newcomb seems fairly standard. His Grapefruit question seems pretty standard too.
Overall, it's certainly fairly fluffy, but I'm not really familiar enough with the way Pozzai plays to say whether that means anything in particular. I do think I disagree with Regfan still though (though other people very familiar with Pozzai feel free to disagree), I can't really tell yet from just the questions he asked whether he was attempting to solve the game at all with his entrance.
I do think tom did bring up a good point about his entrance though - it was interesting that he didn't really seem to remark on Regfan at all. His response to tom's prod is ok - like it's not awkward or anything, but it's kinda an easy cop out of having to engage much with Regfan (at that point).
His vote on Regfan I can buy coming from town!Pozzai, a little frustrated with Regfan. Null overall.
I like his follow up on Vaimes/Newcomb (as well as him continuing to throw out questions).
So overall, I like his tone so far, the varying amounts of follow-up (like his development of his Vaimes/Newcomb read is good, but everything else is eh/missing) are a bit iffy. Slight town-read overall. Nothing concerning me too much, but I think I will definitely try to read some of his other games to try and understand his meta. That would definitely help me clarify exactly what is down to his style of play and if this game is particularly different from his town game.
So, I think in this case, scumGrapefruit feels out of his depth. He stated that this is his first game of forum Mafia, and he's in an unfamiliar meta. The fact of the matter is that while yes, this can also happen with town, the underlying vibe I get from his posts is not that of a town mindset. It feels like he's trying to look townie but doesn't know how - which, again, doesn't vibe well with me.
Hm. I didn't get that underlying vibe from his posts.
If Grapefruit's a wolf here, then we've got kind of an odd situation on our hands though, right? Like, in the first 100 or so posts of the game, Grapefruit picked up townreads from Vaimes, tom, Nacho, Reg and me. (Maybe others that I'm forgetting? The point is he picked up a bunch of townreads pretty quickly.) That means either one of both of his partners either started that train or unreservedly latched onto it - despite them not really knowing if a newer play would be able to keep up that level of engagement (which, currently, he really hasn't).
Like, let's say the gamestate is Grapefruit/Xequalsy/X. Meaning at most, one wolf between Reg, Nacho, tom, Vaimes. 3 of those people, all town, just all hard misread newbscum? It's not impossible, but on balance it just doesn't seem likely.
That being said, I have had the thought that I cleared him off the spewed town argument kind of hastily. It was kind of a combo of that and not disagreeing with others' reasoning on him, but the way he's fallen off kiiiiinda pings me on the archetypical level of "gets townread early, peaces out" - like Uber, @Nacho, in that aborted yogsloth game.
But, THAT being said, your particular "case" on him, Iso, is not one that really does it for me at all. "Trying to look down but doesn't know how" is not the impression I have at all. Like, if Grapefruit's a wolf here, I'd say he's actually doing a pretty good job of looking town? His early game is inquisitive, paranoid of townreads on him, and open/organic. Like, if you think you see where some of those things are fake, by all means, point it out. But if it's just this holistic impression, then I'm really not sure what to do with it.
I thought that thing Pozzai did with Regfan was ~weird. Getting in a huge huff at tom when he asked Pozzai if Regfan was his scumbuddy, then immediately throwing down a vote on Regfan.
Mmmmmmmk. Do you think in wolf!Pozzai worlds that that specific sequence of events makes Regfan more or less likely to be Pozzai's partner?
@Newcomb, finally got to a laptop to go through your Post #314, few thoughts;
1) I'm glad that you see where I'm coming from re; Pozzais stance on Tom being a thought process that doesn't look organic. I disagree with his OMGUS on me coming across as town, I think it it's a move that makes sense for scum to make in that it allows them an easy avenue to push (And I think in a playerlist like this scum finding someone to push on is one of their harder tasks) while similarly being treated as a response to the scum-reads against them. Agree that his follow through question to Vaimes looks better but that's pretty much the only thing I like about his posts. I like you point about him ruling us out as not W/W being something that makes little sense given his reasoning at the time.
2) I follow your thought process re; Tom timing of dropping the gimmick coming across as town, it's not why I have a town read on him and that action isn't something I particularly find as strong an alignment tell as you do but I can understand where you're going with the read and agree with the conclusion though I think my town read on him is stronger than yours at the moment. Your read on Ophidia, Nacho, Typh, Grapes and Xequals mirror where my head is them pretty closely too, found myself nodding along when reading through your reasoning on them though I have less reservations on Grapes than you do I think.
3) I agree with you on Delphis reads posts on you in Post #220 coming across as town, was my initial impression of it too. I'm not seeing your point about her Post #231 at all? The post does absolutely nothing for me. Can you elaborate on that a little further fo me please? I did like your point about her Post #281. But overall I don't see the solid town read you are on the slot, I can see perhaps a weak one there but that'd be about it. It's possible that I just suck at getting a read on her at all given that I had no read on her really in the SVM game (And she's claiming that's her more active D1 game) but my read on her is super weak here.
1) I think the OMGUS-y thing Pozzai had on you wasn't like, super town, it was more that in town!you, scum!pozzai worlds, it struck me as kind of a clumsy way to attack you. Like, calling that an easy avenue to push... idk. He leaves himself open to OMGUS-type accusations, and he's attacking /you/ - like, do you see yourself as an easy target here? I do agree that in this playerlist pretty much regardless of the rand, scum are going to be hard-pressed to find people to push on. That's why I'm a little leery of the easy world where at least 2 of Pozzai, xequalsy, and Ophidia are wolves. Because all three of them have some "low-hanging fruit" markers. Like, if any of those 3 are town, those are absolutely mislynches scum need to win this game.
And yeah, the "Pozzai rules out the two of us as w/w" is something I'd really like Pozzai to address, because it does seem pretty telling as to his mindset there.
2) Fair enough. If you had to sum up your tom townread, what would you point to? Surely at this point in the game if he's that strong of a read, it's got to be more nuanced than just the times he's mindmelded with you.
My reservations on Grapes have to do with some of the stuff I mentioned above to Iso; see that section for details. I'm not at all interested in lynching Grapes toDay, but there's an element of complacency to my read on him and I was pretty surprised when I went through everyone by post count that he was so low. There's a degree to which I think he's falling through the cracks.
3) The thing about Delphine's 231, is like, does she even think to fake that as mafia? Typhon's point was that scum tend to play the newb card more often than town, and scum!Delphine not either discrediting that or going along with it, but instead having the thought that she'd actually do the work to verity if he's right or not, seems implausible. Granted this isn't a super strong indicator, but it did ping me as unlikely. I think the way she approached her read on me is probably the strongest peg I have on my townread of her. Re: read strength; I wouldn't call her lock town or anything, but I went into reading her ISO feeling basically null on her (from reading her posts as she made them) and came away surprised that I had a read on her at all, is what I meant. So, it was strong relative to how weak it was at the time.
Well, you are just putting words in my mouth now tom. Wouldn't like you doing that again as it is quite scummy to me.
Is weaksauce and doesn't feel like he's trying to read tom.
From what I can tell, his passivity in this game is intentional/learned, not a baseline personality thing. I do agree with whoever pointed out that "hope this works" is town indicative for a newbie. But I find his approach to this game very inorganic b/c he's spent so much time in isos/answering specific, sometimes repetitive questions, and giving excuses for why he's not posting more/better, and thus hard to sort.
My strongest impression of town Iso is competence. He's really good. He's got his electron cloud theory and he has to know what's going on in all aspects of the game for his method to even work. He may not actually explain it until forced, but he's got something.
Here, he just doesn't seem like anything special. He's still calling his scumteam, because he's Iso and that's what he does. But he's not beating us over the head with it, he just put it out there and is sort of... trying not to talk about anyone. The way he feels here matches much better with what I know of his scumgame, which is to try to deal a bunch of damage before he goes, never planning to be the "deep wolf". It's... yeah, it could be just being too busy or whatever to really sink his teeth into this game. But if this sort of thing continues, there's a real shot Iso is scum.
I think I also already sort of said this, in the form of snarky questions to Iso, but his approach to Pozzai has scum motivation regardless of Pozzai's alignment. If Pozzai is that Grade A mislynch that he could absolutely be, Iso gets to say "I told you so" without ever having tried to stop the lynch. And if they are buddies Iso has taken the least accountable position possible.
I am very hesitant to actually try to figure the probability of them being aligned, but suffice to say I would not mind seeing either of their flips.
Do you feel like Iso's doing that? Because I don't. In terms of impact on the game, the only thing he's actually pushed that has any reasoning behind it is scum!Vaimes, which he ceded to me, and scum!Grapefruit, which, like. If Grapefruit's town, that argument isn't doing anything for anyone. If Grapefuit's mafia, all he's done is draw focus onto someone who was getting pretty much written off as town.
Like, straight up, what is Iso's gameplan here, as mafia? Float by until he's PoE'd out on D3, then win because he's got two partners in the towncircle?
Re: his approach to Pozzai. If Pozzai flips town here, you don't think Iso looks pretty freaking terrible? The guy who didn't fight the wagon enough to stop it, but who knew all along it was a bad wagon? How does that not look like TMI?
I could kiiiinda see it as a w/w thing where Iso's trying to fabricate an interaction that's just too ??? to be aligned, but. That's a little too tinfoil-y for D1 for my tastes.
Like. There's zero reason to townread Iso at this point, but I don't see at all how you could think Iso is scum here based on the narrative of doing a bunch of damage and not endgaming. It doesn't match Iso's play at all.
I understand that you think I'm taking a scummy approach to Pozzai, but I'm curious as to why you're focusing on this one particular read of mine that I'm choosing not to explain for [reasons] as opposed to any of my other reads, like, say, the person I'm voting.
vote: Iso
Right, I forgot why I'm townreading Pozzai and I'm choosing not to go back and read to remember and explain. Please explain how this is a contradiction.
"Why are you focusing on a scumread you have that I'm obfuscating my own read on."
You could be not purposefully obnoxious sometimes.
Come on, Vaimes. How long have you known me, now? You know full well why I'm not re-reading at this point.
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@Newcomb: Sure, I can see where you're coming from, and that's a reasonable stance to take on it - but I also have a penchance for catching scum that everyone else is hellbent on believing to be town.
Alright, let's try this approach. Is X=Y scum, and if so, do you think my reasoning for voting him is ill-founded, or have you not figured out any of the many reasons I'm voting him, yet? Additionally, what are your thoughts on the possibility of X=Y and Ophidia being scum 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
Hey, xequalsy: Why do you think I was "clearly wrong once"? Vaimes hasn't flipped. Do you expdct me to believe that you've grokked a better understanding of the gamestate than I have at this point when you've pressured absolutely nobody and the best vote you could come up with is on me?
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
Cool. Any reason in particular that you waited until p7 to vote for someone?
The core of it is that I want my votes to really mean that I feel the person I'm voting is someone I want to lynch. There's more to it than that, but the only angle my brain seems to be able to come at it from rn is an incredibly long-winded narrative of my experience of trying to read you this game, and I'd rather not go there right now.
I mean for a person you're really wanting to lynch, you've not really presented much of a case here. Like you've made some comments on me before, but for this vote you didn't even bother to sum up how you arrived at it, nor whether it was anything in particular that made you finally vote for me (or if it was a summing together of lots of things at once). Don't buy that at all.
Hey, xequalsy: Why do you think I was "clearly wrong once"? Vaimes hasn't flipped. Do you expdct me to believe that you've grokked a better understanding of the gamestate than I have at this point when you've pressured absolutely nobody and the best vote you could come up with is on me?
Well I'm town so you're still wrong. It doesn't matter if Vaimes has flipped or not, you were "pretty sure" that the scum team was Grapefruit/me/Vaimes and now you're more Grapefruit/me/Ophidia. You're wrong for one of the teams.
And yes, since your basic premise of the game so far has been - xequalsy is 100% scum and I'm not moving off him for the rest of the day. So I by default have a better understand of the gamestate since I'm in the position of being the main wagon at the moment knowing the fact that I'm town.
The vote on you was a prod to see what you'd post. Yes, there probably could have been other people I found suspicious at the time I could have voted - but I didn't choose to use my vote that way. Currently, the vote is staying for your vote on me.
@Newcomb: Sure, I can see where you're coming from, and that's a reasonable stance to take on it - but I also have a penchance for catching scum that everyone else is hellbent on believing to be town.
Okay, but like. I know you know that that argument combined with your "he seems like he doesn't know how to be town" argument is not even going to produce a vote on him, much less a lynch, so...
Alright, let's try this approach. Is X=Y scum, and if so, do you think my reasoning for voting him is ill-founded, or have you not figured out any of the many reasons I'm voting him, yet? Additionally, what are your thoughts on the possibility of X=Y and Ophidia being scum together?
As to my guess at X=Y's alignment, I know you've frequently expressed frustration with having to repeat information you feel you've already given, so I'm sure you won't mind if I direct your attention to #314, which contains my vote on him as well as my reasoning for it.
As to your reasoning for voting him, you haven't given one. You named him in your potential 4 person team, then called him your "strongest scumread" despite not differentiating him from Vaimes, Grapefruit, and Regfan in your initial team read. You called his vote on you "pitiful." You responded to a question of his with "It's almost like you haven't been reading my posts". None of which are anything resembling analysis. I'm not a mind-reader, nor am I interested in trying to divine or guess at your reasoning. I'm interested in looking at your reasoning, reading the tea-leaves in that and seeing what I agree with, and seeing if I believe you believe it, and figuring out what alignment I think you are based off all that, but I'm not playing mafia to play "let's all try to figure what Iso's thinking!" Quite simply, I've got bigger fish to fry.
I don't have any specific thoughts linking xequalsy and Ophidia together or seeing them as unaligned. That is, nothing has jumped out to me unprompted. Question for you, though -
@Typhrous: Ophidia has an extremely bad habit of seeming like scum when he's town. I still haven't found a way to distinguish him as scum simply because I always think he's scum when he's town. That said, I suppose it couldn't hurt for you to check his game history to see what I mean? What are your thoughts on the possibility of Ophidia being scum with X=Y? Also, hi! Did you finally get the fleas to go away?
So this is obviously something that's been on your mind. Why this pairing in particular?
Do you feel like Iso's doing that? Because I don't. In terms of impact on the game, the only thing he's actually pushed that has any reasoning behind it is scum!Vaimes, which he ceded to me, and scum!Grapefruit, which, like. If Grapefruit's town, that argument isn't doing anything for anyone. If Grapefuit's mafia, all he's done is draw focus onto someone who was getting pretty much written off as town.
Like, straight up, what is Iso's gameplan here, as mafia? Float by until he's PoE'd out on D3, then win because he's got two partners in the towncircle?
Re: his approach to Pozzai. If Pozzai flips town here, you don't think Iso looks pretty freaking terrible? The guy who didn't fight the wagon enough to stop it, but who knew all along it was a bad wagon? How does that not look like TMI?
I could kiiiinda see it as a w/w thing where Iso's trying to fabricate an interaction that's just too ??? to be aligned, but. That's a little too tinfoil-y for D1 for my tastes.
Like. There's zero reason to townread Iso at this point, but I don't see at all how you could think Iso is scum here based on the narrative of doing a bunch of damage and not endgaming. It doesn't match Iso's play at all.
First of all, I never said he was doing a good job of it. Some shades of [redacted]. But the plan would be get some people lynched before him and not leave much for us to go on after his death. No he's not convincing anyone, he hasn't even pretended to try. But he's still called the team and cast his vote and I feel pretty good about there being 2-3 town in the 4 names he said.
I was paraphrasing some self-meta Iso gave at some point, maybe in a game, maybe in discord. I took it as sort of justifying to himself that he gets lynched as scum and figuring out ways to put his team in a position to win. Right now, Iso doesn't seem to be succeeding at that regardless of his alignment. So doing damage is not the main thing. It's just about townIso being better. This Iso is just floating towards getting lynched... eventually. Like, you said.
The thing that made me move my vote is just thinking about that Pozzai "stance". If Pozzai were to be confirmed town, I would want to vote Iso for that read. I can already see the "I told you so" and him just smirking to himself in whatever Italian Restaurant he hangs out in. And if Pozzai were to be confirmed scum, Iso would be my first suspect looking for his partners. So... why doesn't it make you think he's scum?
Hey, xequalsy: Why do you think I was "clearly wrong once"? Vaimes hasn't flipped. Do you expdct me to believe that you've grokked a better understanding of the gamestate than I have at this point when you've pressured absolutely nobody and the best vote you could come up with is on me?
Well I'm town so you're still wrong. It doesn't matter if Vaimes has flipped or not, you were "pretty sure" that the scum team was Grapefruit/me/Vaimes and now you're more Grapefruit/me/Ophidia. You're wrong for one of the teams.
And yes, since your basic premise of the game so far has been - xequalsy is 100% scum and I'm not moving off him for the rest of the day. So I by default have a better understand of the gamestate since I'm in the position of being the main wagon at the moment knowing the fact that I'm town.
The vote on you was a prod to see what you'd post. Yes, there probably could have been other people I found suspicious at the time I could have voted - but I didn't choose to use my vote that way. Currently, the vote is staying for your vote on me.
Can somebody explain to me how this guy hasn't been lynched, yet?
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@Newcomb: I'm sure you've no doubt picked up on the fact that I enjoy being cryptic to compel people to think about what I'm seeing. It's really just a lot easier to figure out both where I'm coming from and to develop scum reads that match my own (and realistically, who doesn't want that?) if I respond quizzically to things I see that are scummy. The entire purpose of my playstyle is to get people to come to my conclusions organically and to allow me a paradigm shift in my views on the gamestate when I decide it's time to re-assess the gamestate. When somebody posts something and I respond to it with a vote, I fully expect people to go, "Huh, wonder what Iso sees?" and mull over that person's posts.
If you look back shortly prior to my post, I'm sure you'll have no trouble seeing the interaction between X=Y and Ophidia that led me to consider them as a scum pairing.
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@tom: Hi! I asked you a question. Also, please reconcile "The impression I get from Iso is competence" with "I didn't say he was doing a very good job of it." Thanks!
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
@tom: Hi! I asked you a question. Also, please reconcile "The impression I get from Iso is competence" with "I didn't say he was doing a very good job of it." Thanks!
The line was "My strongest impression of town Iso is competence." The word town is pretty important there. I've never seen you play particularly well as mafia.
Your question for me was why were those two posts I quoted in #351 contradictory. Showing, of course, your guilty conscience because all I did was quote two posts and vote. But I digress.
The first time you townread Pozzai but forgot why. The second, you implied you had reasons but weren't sharing them. I am almost entirely certain at this point you have no read on Pozzai, and have pretended to twice. And they aren't even internally consistent.
When somebody posts something and I respond to it with a vote, I fully expect people to go, "Huh, wonder what Iso sees?" and mull over that person's posts.
Look at the playerlist.
Then look back at yourself.
Then look at the playerlist again.
Back at yourself.
That is to say, this isn't really that kind of game.
Are you familiar with the phrase, "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain"?
Tom, I completely understand your approach to Iso, and I agree with most of the points you bring up.
There are a few parts where we differ - first of all, Iso as town doesn't start out as a big beautiful shining star in every game that he plays; sometimes he takes a little while to get rolling and dominating as he usually does and he's lazy a good amount of the time until he feels confident about the game.
I don't think his scum game is as bad as you're selling it to be; while scum certainly isn't his stronger alignment he's not completely helpless and has learned to do basic things by virtue of being an experienced player. While I'm certainly not willing to bet the farm that he's town here, I think the 4 scum in a basic thing is probably townier than not and I think that his current "**** you guys, read my mind" mindset is pretty typical of town!Iso.
If I had a bigger and more beautiful town circle, then I'd probably be more inclined to help you sort Iso right now but as it stands it doesn't feel like one of those "everyone is super town" games and so I'm willing to give him a little more room to work, especially when lynching Iso this early on is a pretty high risk low reward situation.
@tom: Hi! I asked you a question. Also, please reconcile "The impression I get from Iso is competence" with "I didn't say he was doing a very good job of it." Thanks!
The line was "My strongest impression of town Iso is competence." The word town is pretty important there. I've never seen you play particularly well as mafia.
Your question for me was why were those two posts I quoted in #351 contradictory. Showing, of course, your guilty conscience because all I did was quote two posts and vote. But I digress.
The first time you townread Pozzai but forgot why. The second, you implied you had reasons but weren't sharing them. I am almost entirely certain at this point you have no read on Pozzai, and have pretended to twice. And they aren't even internally consistent.
Or instead of a guilty conscience like you're suggesting, I read between the lines like good Mafia players do and gleaned that you felt my statements were contradictory. Golly, it's almost as though I've played Mafia before! What are the odds of that?
When somebody posts something and I respond to it with a vote, I fully expect people to go, "Huh, wonder what Iso sees?" and mull over that person's posts.
Look at the playerlist.
Then look back at yourself.
Then look at the playerlist again.
Back at yourself.
That is to say, this isn't really that kind of game.
Are you familiar with the phrase, "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain"?
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
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I like Tom's 101 (although not in an alignment-indicative way). Vaimes mentioned earlier that he saw Tom providing reasons to scumread me while expressing a townread; in this specific case it reads more like Tom playing Devil's Advocate in an effort to get Ophidia to keep posting which is something I do often in newbie games on MS so I certainly don't think that it's a scumtell here. The "perhaps it means something" is very noticeably a tom response.
Re: Pozzai:
I agree with (Regfan?) that Pozzai's early focus seems to be strange; in 125, questioning Delphi's approach to Regfan's mindmeld point is weird, and trying to use Tom's playstyle change as a point against him seems like something that's extraordinarily anti-fun or scummy. To answer your question, I would qualify this as Tom's "normal" play. You seem to imply that he's adopting this playstyle as scum in order to find new reasons to townread people, but even if the style of scumhunting and maybe a difference in mindset has changed (and only barely), the reads that he's brought up so far seem perfectly reasonable ones to have. I could understand your push better if you were criticizing him for specific reads, but attacking him for weird reads before he's given any is silly.
RE: Grapefruit's #139:
I don't want to overstep my bounds here, but distrusting a read because "you can't get a read that early" is an approach that misses out on a decent chunk of the game and takes away a good portion of your effectiveness as a town player. As scum, I am most uncomfortable in the early game; the biggest difference between my scum and town games is a difference in how proactive I am and that's the most glaringly obvious when I don't have anything to respond to. In this case, Regfan's only played a few games with me but he's read more games with me in them with that and also comes from a group of players who have heavily influenced my play to the point where I'd expect him to understand my approach. I agree that he probably gave my scum game too little credit, but that doesn't mean that his entire post was crazy talk.
Does any of this make sense or did I sway too much into a rambling world?
Tom, out of curiosity, was this posting style born of being something you wanted to try out or is it to mesh with this playerlist specifically?
I like Vaimes's 147 a lot; I think that tonally it's fantastic and I think that as a whole his push on Regfan (while he did oversell Regfan's read a bit) looks quite town. In particular, I like that he zeroed in on the same piece of the read that I did (I found Regfan equating my early push on him with the Wedding Invitational push to be a bit of an overly generous comparison), and I really like the "you have to be aware of how ridiculous and empty that looks"; I think that this stands out a lot from his play in Three Little Pigs where it never felt like his scumhunting quite reached this level of "bite", if that makes sense.
RE: Ophidia's 149:
As a general rule I don't like it when people try to blame not contributing on factors like "people are talking about meta too much!" or "this is a theme game; I've only played normals" and feel like it's something that I see coming from scum more often than normal. That being said, I'm not a soulless dictator like Tammy so I absolutely understand getting lost occasionally; Ophidia, a piece of advice that I'd give you is to not necessarily focus on providing analysis (even though most people will be pressing you for it) and instead ask questions to clarify things if possible. You can't provide good analysis if you don't understand what's going on, and if you try to provide a bunch of commentary on things you don't really understand, then you probably won't find anything ground-breaking and people probably won't be able to see that you're making a genuine effort when providing it because it will come off awkward and strange.
>tfw a challenger appears
Regfan's not wrong that my initial push was geared towards making him uncomfortable and that I figured I'd be able to get a read off him for it. It didn't go how I'd hoped since I did that thing where I bit off more than I could chew and was basically not around at all when all the interesting stuff was happening, but joke-pushing and forcing people who are uncomfortable playing scum and you know how they're uncomfortable playing scum to react to your push is a remarkably reliable way to read me if you know me well enough (the first player I ever worshiped used to do it frequently enough). I don't think the concept behind the read was bad, I just think that he was reading too much into it.
I actually agree with the Ophidia comment that you pointed out; missed it on first brush. I don't think that it's necessarily that scum would write it and then erase it; I think that nervous scum tend to view that nervousness as scummy and try not to include it in their posts (hence lower risk posting) whereas nervous town feel more obligated to express it since it's part of their approach to the game.
I think your Vaimes interaction point has a good chance of being a silly reason to townread him.
I also don't understand why you think that Grapefruit is "spewed town" - I see him town on his own merits, but I think me/tom/Regfan at least are comfortable enough providing a hard townread on a scumbuddy, especially a new one playing well. When I'm scum and I'm playing with a newer player who gives me anything to townread I tend to oversell it because it shows I have confidence in them which usually results in better play. I'm sure that most experienced player who sees newbie scumpartner :goodposting: would respond similarly.
I like Ophidia's response to Newcomb about Grapefruit a lot, actually. I think that if Ophidia was scum here, they would fit the "nervous low risk scum" archetype and scumreading the guy that pretty much everyone has townread so far is a pretty good look for going against the grain points alone. Continuing off something Newcomb mentioned, think "skittish" scum is a better way to put it and pushing back against that read doesn't really fit "skittish" so well.
This is a town!Vaimes post!
It's also exceedingly silly, as is the next point.
I shouldn't townread Iso for the "oh wait this is a basic thing" because I've seen scum do dumb crap like that in the past but I'm hoping Iso as scum wouldn't I guess?
Initial reads seem pretty random; I think that I'd expect scum!Iso to try to form more convincing scumreads whereas town!Iso is going to get his reads when he gets them, but this is a instinctual guess and not at all based on anything concrete or vaguely real.
I'm iffy on my love Newcomb at the moment, but it's probably due to lack of context; I like his most recent wall in general (of course the only thing I really care about is the read on me and that looks good for now), but I think the Ophidia read was kind of lame and want to see how it deteriorated when he was reading through the game because where I left off on my catchup (page 4) I thought we were vibing on an Ophidia townread where everyone else was scumreading and now suddenly it doesn't feel like that and his reasons for feeling trepidation seem meh (a player making null posts ala the "he stopped fluffposting" comment aren't a reason to doubt a townread, and obviously strength of content isn't going to be there and I hate the "we'll probably have to lynch him eventually" reasoning since it seems like he's doing a decent job of seeming genuine as hell so far).
Pozzai is the only other thing resembling a scumread but it's literally only because of the tom thing and nothing else so expecting to see a little more from him when I can scrape together some time.
X=Y (had no idea what regfan was referring to that until very, very recently) I liked early for reasons that probably have nothing to do with alignment but it wouldn't surprise me if the curse continued and Tammy's mentee slot was scum.
The LEAVES of the YGGDRASIL SPLINTER have WITHERED and FALLEN AWAY. If you LOOK from JUST the RIGHT ANGLE, you can make out the following MESSAGE:
VOTECOUNT
Iso - 1 (xequalsy)
Pozzai - 2 (Vaimes, tomsloger)
Regfan - 2 (Nachomamma8, Pozzai)
Vaimes - 1 (Ophidia)
xequalsy - 4 (Typhrous, Iso, DelphiBlue, Newcomb)
Not Voting - 2 (Grapefruit21, Regfan)
With TWELVE ALIVE, it takes SEVEN to LYNCH.
In the DISTANCE, but NOT SO FAR as you might THINK, you hear a WHIRRING, as though something has POWERED DOWN.
You feel as though the SCUM may no longer CONVERSE OPENLY until NIGHTFALL.
Vaimes is not happening toDay; if you had sole control over the lynch but couldn't lynch Vaimes, who you got?
xequalsy - 4 (Typhrous, Iso, DelphiBlue, Newcomb)
Is this an all town wagon on you?
Talk to me about your vote on Pozzai.
The **** is going on here with the vote count, how has none of my 3 votes counted.
vote pozzai
If that doesnt work imma choke a *****.
I consent.
Nah, that sounds like effort. I don't need to expend that until later, as that requires re-reading, which I am 100% disinterested in at this stage of the game.
You're welcome!
It's almost as though you haven't been reading my posts.
The post you quoted here literally has the answer to your question. Please don't waste my time. Thank you!
I consent.
Ooh! Ooh! I know this one!
...
But the question isn't directed at me.
At any rate: With regards to Vaimes, I make my posts as I read along. If a stance in a post contrasts a stance posted earlier in that same post, it's because I've taken in new information and adjusted my view to reflect the most recent thing I've posted. I rarely ever go back and change anything in a post as I've read new stuff unless a question I ask earlier in a post has been directly answered since then. I think you're town, so I'm willing to accept your Vaimes townread.
With regards to Grapefruit, I'm not sure what you want me to point out. His posts feel directionless and uncertain. How much clearer can I be about that short of actually going back and quoting him and pointing out where I see this?
{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
Pretty sure you're missing the ":"
Needs to be Vote, then a colon, then the exact username.
Hm, okay. I'd say that my townread on Vaimes here is not as strong as it was D1 in the Invitational. It's more like, "I think he's town, but regardless I don't want to lynch him D1 because I'm nearly certain I'll know for sure later."
Like. If you're town and I'm shot N1, don't just take my Vaimes read to the bank.
The Grapefruit thing is like... I mean, yeah, I kind of wanted that clarity of knowing the specific quotes you thought felt that way, because I didn't pick up on that vibe really at all, so maybe if I knew where you were seeing it, I'd be able to get into your head a bit more. Because right now it's just like -
Iso: Grapefruit's posts feel directionless
Newcomb: No they don't.
The rest of the game: Yay?
I guess let's talk about it from this angle - why do you feel like a player being directionless and uncertain makes them more likely to be mafia?
You get the FEELING that the HEAVENS didn't hear your PLEA.
Please TRY AGAIN at the TONE
*beep*
"Hello, this is R-" *click*
But who knows this may be the one that works.
Vote: Pozzai
Sure.
So, I think in this case, scumGrapefruit feels out of his depth. He stated that this is his first game of forum Mafia, and he's in an unfamiliar meta. The fact of the matter is that while yes, this can also happen with town, the underlying vibe I get from his posts is not that of a town mindset. It feels like he's trying to look townie but doesn't know how - which, again, doesn't vibe well with me.
{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
VOTECOUNT
Iso - 1 (xequalsy)
Pozzai - 3 (Vaimes, tomsloger, Regfan)
Regfan - 2 (Nachomamma8, Pozzai)
Vaimes - 1 (Ophidia)
xequalsy - 4 (Typhrous, Iso, DelphiBlue, Newcomb)
Not Voting - 1 (Grapefruit21)
A PHONE rings.
Regfan just doesn't know what he's doing. He should read this post. Then he, too, can have correct votes. And maybe even colored ones, if he advances that far.
---
I thought that thing Pozzai did with Regfan was ~weird. Getting in a huge huff at tom when he asked Pozzai if Regfan was his scumbuddy, then immediately throwing down a vote on Regfan.
Have you considered voting for scum, instead?
{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
1) I'm glad that you see where I'm coming from re; Pozzais stance on Tom being a thought process that doesn't look organic. I disagree with his OMGUS on me coming across as town, I think it it's a move that makes sense for scum to make in that it allows them an easy avenue to push (And I think in a playerlist like this scum finding someone to push on is one of their harder tasks) while similarly being treated as a response to the scum-reads against them. Agree that his follow through question to Vaimes looks better but that's pretty much the only thing I like about his posts. I like you point about him ruling us out as not W/W being something that makes little sense given his reasoning at the time.
2) I follow your thought process re; Tom timing of dropping the gimmick coming across as town, it's not why I have a town read on him and that action isn't something I particularly find as strong an alignment tell as you do but I can understand where you're going with the read and agree with the conclusion though I think my town read on him is stronger than yours at the moment. Your read on Ophidia, Nacho, Typh, Grapes and Xequals mirror where my head is them pretty closely too, found myself nodding along when reading through your reasoning on them though I have less reservations on Grapes than you do I think.
3) I agree with you on Delphis reads posts on you in Post #220 coming across as town, was my initial impression of it too. I'm not seeing your point about her Post #231 at all? The post does absolutely nothing for me. Can you elaborate on that a little further fo me please? I did like your point about her Post #281. But overall I don't see the solid town read you are on the slot, I can see perhaps a weak one there but that'd be about it. It's possible that I just suck at getting a read on her at all given that I had no read on her really in the SVM game (And she's claiming that's her more active D1 game) but my read on her is super weak here.
Going to cook dinner then I'll get to Nachos posts (And good luck attempting to mimic mine or Newcombs playstyle).
1) I like your point in Post #316 about Pozzai not actually critising Toms specific reads but attacking him for changing to a playstyle that gives out more town reads before he's given any that Pozzai has an issue with; that point actually strengthens my scum read there. I similarly like your analysis of Vaimes there.
2) I also really like your point about Grapefruit inside Post #320; I'm actually not a fan of the use of "Spewed" at all, it was something that was pushed forward about Fluff in SVM and think it's plausible for a) Town to misread a player collectively and/or b) Scum to join in or be pushing the town read on a partner. I think Grapes is town here outside of peoples stated reads on him but I like that your thought process re; the spewed section mirrors mine very closely. That said I don't think it's a scum-tell for Newcomb to put it forward that he's spewed given I think I've seen him use 'spewed' in a similar manner in the past.
3) I also like that you commented on Iso's "Wait this is a basic" post as it's something that's got me really conflicted on him, I think I've talked myself into think he's town and scum for it in the last 24 hours, it's a rather frustrating section to analyse. I think it's slightly more likely to come from town overall?
4) I don't share the strength of your Ophidia town read inside Post #321 but do agree with the strong town reads on Grapes/Vaimes. I think I agree more with Newcomb about Ophidia than I do with you in that there's a lot from him that I think makes sense as scum but there's also certain posts and sections that come across as genuine and town.
@Newcomb - I don't have a super strong town read at all on the X=Y wagon and the Pozzai one at the moment consists of two of my three strongest town reads and myself, want to join? There's a cookie on offer for you.
@Tom - Tom would also be asking to be vigged, sometimes it's better not to listen to Tom.
Feel pretty good about my vote at the moment, feel better about Nacho and Newcomb after their recent posts too.
What a strange reaction to post saying I didn't want to vote you.
Iso. Hey, Iso.
Why isn't my vote currently on scum?
Do you have thoughts that aren't a restatement of someone else's?
@Delphine
I modded Ophidia's "scum" game. It wasn't exactly mafia, but he was the assassin in a palace guards setup and it's close enough (Link here.
Ophidia answered one direct question about experience, saying it was his second game and never bringing it up again. He was pretty easily caught off voting the king, but the reactions to becoming a wagon was omgusing the first vote and then just saying "wut."
Did you read this one (yeah, I know. He made 9 posts in that game) or just town ones?
Here, he just doesn't seem like anything special. He's still calling his scumteam, because he's Iso and that's what he does. But he's not beating us over the head with it, he just put it out there and is sort of... trying not to talk about anyone. The way he feels here matches much better with what I know of his scumgame, which is to try to deal a bunch of damage before he goes, never planning to be the "deep wolf". It's... yeah, it could be just being too busy or whatever to really sink his teeth into this game. But if this sort of thing continues, there's a real shot Iso is scum.
I think I also already sort of said this, in the form of snarky questions to Iso, but his approach to Pozzai has scum motivation regardless of Pozzai's alignment. If Pozzai is that Grade A mislynch that he could absolutely be, Iso gets to say "I told you so" without ever having tried to stop the lynch. And if they are buddies Iso has taken the least accountable position possible.
I am very hesitant to actually try to figure the probability of them being aligned, but suffice to say I would not mind seeing either of their flips.
I probably wont be back till Saturday. Fell free to ping me if there's something you'd like me to immediately focus on at my return.
Because you're not voting X=Y and are instead choosing to vote town.
I understand that you think I'm taking a scummy approach to Pozzai, but I'm curious as to why you're focusing on this one particular read of mine that I'm choosing not to explain for [reasons] as opposed to any of my other reads, like, say, the person I'm voting.
Why are you hung up on Pozzai instead of attempting to understand my approach to this game?
{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
vote: Iso
You could be not purposefully obnoxious sometimes.
Cool. Any reason in particular that you waited until p7 to vote for someone?
Eh, let's agree to disagree on the first point (not really getting anywhere with that to be honest and I think the second point was more important anyway). Gonna do a re-read of Pozzai, so expect something on that front in an hour or two.
I'm not sure about this read - Pozzai being under a bit of pressure from multiple people in the thread might make them post a little less tightly, especially if they don't have an "airtight" defence lined up and still feel the need to say something.
Leaving aside my reads of each of you, I'd expect there to probably be one scum (or more, I guess but probably only the one) on the wagon.
I have a town read on Typhon from his entrance, and his push on Ophidia, but I think his vote on me was pretty weak to be honest, not even counting the activity tell part of it. Like, I'm not really sure why he focused a ton on the RVS entrance. But also the way he did it - by asking a lot of questions instead of really presenting much of a case on any of it. I think part of that was having to VLA pretty soon afterwards though so lack of follow up on it is null for me atm.
I think the scum is either Iso or DelphiBlue. Iso, because of his over dramatic vote park - especially when my vote on him was fairly early D1 (in what I assume will be a fairly long D1 RL time wise). I don't feel votes have to be for particularly strong reasons at the start of D1, so his response is a bit of an over-reaction. Delphine because she is taking a back seat, and it was a bit surprising to me that she hadn't even voted (especially when she had proffered opinions on me throughout the thread already).
For the scum not on my wagon right now, I would say Regfan stands out a bit for the whole shtick of commenting his approval of votes for me but not really pushing me in any of his responses to my questions so far. Like he's focused on Pozzai right now sure, but as I'm apparently his second top scum read after Pozzai, his interactions with me have been fairly surface level reiterations of his points about Pozzai. Feels like he's setting up swapping over to me after seeing which wagon is more easily pushed for.
(Also - and I appreciate it's probably down to me personally - but I was making a super rough 2 min "read" list in my QT, but his name was the one I forgot, even though we've interacted a fair bit so I'm definitely going to be read over him again in detail as well)
I know your thoughts on Ophidia, but since you were happy to throw out 4 scum reads earlier, who else do you find suspicious? Surely you can't think you've solved the game? (Clearly you were already wrong once).
His RVS(?) vote on Vaimes even though the thread had long ago moved on is interesting but overall null I think - clearly his posts were as he was reading along.
In terms of his questions to people:
His question to Delphine in of itself seems fairly throw away - something to keep an eye on. (fake edit: eh, he followed up on his question to Vaimes about Newcomb, but not really this one.
@Pozzai: throwing your questions back at you - why did you ask that question and what did you hope to get from it?)
I sort of get what he's thinking of about asking tom the question he does. From the point of view of someone who did miss tom planning to play as someone else's playstyle, it does seem (depending on his level of familiarity with tom - @Pozzai/tom, have you and tom played together before?) like it's useful to work out why tom is doing what he is.
His question to Von about Newcomb seems fairly standard. His Grapefruit question seems pretty standard too.
Overall, it's certainly fairly fluffy, but I'm not really familiar enough with the way Pozzai plays to say whether that means anything in particular. I do think I disagree with Regfan still though (though other people very familiar with Pozzai feel free to disagree), I can't really tell yet from just the questions he asked whether he was attempting to solve the game at all with his entrance.
I do think tom did bring up a good point about his entrance though - it was interesting that he didn't really seem to remark on Regfan at all. His response to tom's prod is ok - like it's not awkward or anything, but it's kinda an easy cop out of having to engage much with Regfan (at that point).
His vote on Regfan I can buy coming from town!Pozzai, a little frustrated with Regfan. Null overall.
I like his follow up on Vaimes/Newcomb (as well as him continuing to throw out questions).
So overall, I like his tone so far, the varying amounts of follow-up (like his development of his Vaimes/Newcomb read is good, but everything else is eh/missing) are a bit iffy. Slight town-read overall. Nothing concerning me too much, but I think I will definitely try to read some of his other games to try and understand his meta. That would definitely help me clarify exactly what is down to his style of play and if this game is particularly different from his town game.
Hm. I didn't get that underlying vibe from his posts.
If Grapefruit's a wolf here, then we've got kind of an odd situation on our hands though, right? Like, in the first 100 or so posts of the game, Grapefruit picked up townreads from Vaimes, tom, Nacho, Reg and me. (Maybe others that I'm forgetting? The point is he picked up a bunch of townreads pretty quickly.) That means either one of both of his partners either started that train or unreservedly latched onto it - despite them not really knowing if a newer play would be able to keep up that level of engagement (which, currently, he really hasn't).
Like, let's say the gamestate is Grapefruit/Xequalsy/X. Meaning at most, one wolf between Reg, Nacho, tom, Vaimes. 3 of those people, all town, just all hard misread newbscum? It's not impossible, but on balance it just doesn't seem likely.
That being said, I have had the thought that I cleared him off the spewed town argument kind of hastily. It was kind of a combo of that and not disagreeing with others' reasoning on him, but the way he's fallen off kiiiiinda pings me on the archetypical level of "gets townread early, peaces out" - like Uber, @Nacho, in that aborted yogsloth game.
But, THAT being said, your particular "case" on him, Iso, is not one that really does it for me at all. "Trying to look down but doesn't know how" is not the impression I have at all. Like, if Grapefruit's a wolf here, I'd say he's actually doing a pretty good job of looking town? His early game is inquisitive, paranoid of townreads on him, and open/organic. Like, if you think you see where some of those things are fake, by all means, point it out. But if it's just this holistic impression, then I'm really not sure what to do with it.
Mmmmmmmk. Do you think in wolf!Pozzai worlds that that specific sequence of events makes Regfan more or less likely to be Pozzai's partner?
1) I think the OMGUS-y thing Pozzai had on you wasn't like, super town, it was more that in town!you, scum!pozzai worlds, it struck me as kind of a clumsy way to attack you. Like, calling that an easy avenue to push... idk. He leaves himself open to OMGUS-type accusations, and he's attacking /you/ - like, do you see yourself as an easy target here? I do agree that in this playerlist pretty much regardless of the rand, scum are going to be hard-pressed to find people to push on. That's why I'm a little leery of the easy world where at least 2 of Pozzai, xequalsy, and Ophidia are wolves. Because all three of them have some "low-hanging fruit" markers. Like, if any of those 3 are town, those are absolutely mislynches scum need to win this game.
And yeah, the "Pozzai rules out the two of us as w/w" is something I'd really like Pozzai to address, because it does seem pretty telling as to his mindset there.
2) Fair enough. If you had to sum up your tom townread, what would you point to? Surely at this point in the game if he's that strong of a read, it's got to be more nuanced than just the times he's mindmelded with you.
My reservations on Grapes have to do with some of the stuff I mentioned above to Iso; see that section for details. I'm not at all interested in lynching Grapes toDay, but there's an element of complacency to my read on him and I was pretty surprised when I went through everyone by post count that he was so low. There's a degree to which I think he's falling through the cracks.
3) The thing about Delphine's 231, is like, does she even think to fake that as mafia? Typhon's point was that scum tend to play the newb card more often than town, and scum!Delphine not either discrediting that or going along with it, but instead having the thought that she'd actually do the work to verity if he's right or not, seems implausible. Granted this isn't a super strong indicator, but it did ping me as unlikely. I think the way she approached her read on me is probably the strongest peg I have on my townread of her. Re: read strength; I wouldn't call her lock town or anything, but I went into reading her ISO feeling basically null on her (from reading her posts as she made them) and came away surprised that I had a read on her at all, is what I meant. So, it was strong relative to how weak it was at the time.
Agree with this point, FWIW.
Do you feel like Iso's doing that? Because I don't. In terms of impact on the game, the only thing he's actually pushed that has any reasoning behind it is scum!Vaimes, which he ceded to me, and scum!Grapefruit, which, like. If Grapefruit's town, that argument isn't doing anything for anyone. If Grapefuit's mafia, all he's done is draw focus onto someone who was getting pretty much written off as town.
Like, straight up, what is Iso's gameplan here, as mafia? Float by until he's PoE'd out on D3, then win because he's got two partners in the towncircle?
Re: his approach to Pozzai. If Pozzai flips town here, you don't think Iso looks pretty freaking terrible? The guy who didn't fight the wagon enough to stop it, but who knew all along it was a bad wagon? How does that not look like TMI?
I could kiiiinda see it as a w/w thing where Iso's trying to fabricate an interaction that's just too ??? to be aligned, but. That's a little too tinfoil-y for D1 for my tastes.
Like. There's zero reason to townread Iso at this point, but I don't see at all how you could think Iso is scum here based on the narrative of doing a bunch of damage and not endgaming. It doesn't match Iso's play at all.
Right, I forgot why I'm townreading Pozzai and I'm choosing not to go back and read to remember and explain. Please explain how this is a contradiction.
Come on, Vaimes. How long have you known me, now? You know full well why I'm not re-reading at this point.
-
@Newcomb: Sure, I can see where you're coming from, and that's a reasonable stance to take on it - but I also have a penchance for catching scum that everyone else is hellbent on believing to be town.
Alright, let's try this approach. Is X=Y scum, and if so, do you think my reasoning for voting him is ill-founded, or have you not figured out any of the many reasons I'm voting him, yet? Additionally, what are your thoughts on the possibility of X=Y and Ophidia being scum 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
{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 mean for a person you're really wanting to lynch, you've not really presented much of a case here. Like you've made some comments on me before, but for this vote you didn't even bother to sum up how you arrived at it, nor whether it was anything in particular that made you finally vote for me (or if it was a summing together of lots of things at once). Don't buy that at all.
Well I'm town so you're still wrong. It doesn't matter if Vaimes has flipped or not, you were "pretty sure" that the scum team was Grapefruit/me/Vaimes and now you're more Grapefruit/me/Ophidia. You're wrong for one of the teams.
And yes, since your basic premise of the game so far has been - xequalsy is 100% scum and I'm not moving off him for the rest of the day. So I by default have a better understand of the gamestate since I'm in the position of being the main wagon at the moment knowing the fact that I'm town.
The vote on you was a prod to see what you'd post. Yes, there probably could have been other people I found suspicious at the time I could have voted - but I didn't choose to use my vote that way. Currently, the vote is staying for your vote on me.
Okay, but like. I know you know that that argument combined with your "he seems like he doesn't know how to be town" argument is not even going to produce a vote on him, much less a lynch, so...
As to my guess at X=Y's alignment, I know you've frequently expressed frustration with having to repeat information you feel you've already given, so I'm sure you won't mind if I direct your attention to #314, which contains my vote on him as well as my reasoning for it.
As to your reasoning for voting him, you haven't given one. You named him in your potential 4 person team, then called him your "strongest scumread" despite not differentiating him from Vaimes, Grapefruit, and Regfan in your initial team read. You called his vote on you "pitiful." You responded to a question of his with "It's almost like you haven't been reading my posts". None of which are anything resembling analysis. I'm not a mind-reader, nor am I interested in trying to divine or guess at your reasoning. I'm interested in looking at your reasoning, reading the tea-leaves in that and seeing what I agree with, and seeing if I believe you believe it, and figuring out what alignment I think you are based off all that, but I'm not playing mafia to play "let's all try to figure what Iso's thinking!" Quite simply, I've got bigger fish to fry.
I don't have any specific thoughts linking xequalsy and Ophidia together or seeing them as unaligned. That is, nothing has jumped out to me unprompted. Question for you, though -
So this is obviously something that's been on your mind. Why this pairing in particular?
First of all, I never said he was doing a good job of it. Some shades of [redacted]. But the plan would be get some people lynched before him and not leave much for us to go on after his death. No he's not convincing anyone, he hasn't even pretended to try. But he's still called the team and cast his vote and I feel pretty good about there being 2-3 town in the 4 names he said.
I was paraphrasing some self-meta Iso gave at some point, maybe in a game, maybe in discord. I took it as sort of justifying to himself that he gets lynched as scum and figuring out ways to put his team in a position to win. Right now, Iso doesn't seem to be succeeding at that regardless of his alignment. So doing damage is not the main thing. It's just about townIso being better. This Iso is just floating towards getting lynched... eventually. Like, you said.
The thing that made me move my vote is just thinking about that Pozzai "stance". If Pozzai were to be confirmed town, I would want to vote Iso for that read. I can already see the "I told you so" and him just smirking to himself in whatever Italian Restaurant he hangs out in. And if Pozzai were to be confirmed scum, Iso would be my first suspect looking for his partners. So... why doesn't it make you think he's scum?
Can somebody explain to me how this guy hasn't been lynched, yet?
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@Newcomb: I'm sure you've no doubt picked up on the fact that I enjoy being cryptic to compel people to think about what I'm seeing. It's really just a lot easier to figure out both where I'm coming from and to develop scum reads that match my own (and realistically, who doesn't want that?) if I respond quizzically to things I see that are scummy. The entire purpose of my playstyle is to get people to come to my conclusions organically and to allow me a paradigm shift in my views on the gamestate when I decide it's time to re-assess the gamestate. When somebody posts something and I respond to it with a vote, I fully expect people to go, "Huh, wonder what Iso sees?" and mull over that person's posts.
If you look back shortly prior to my post, I'm sure you'll have no trouble seeing the interaction between X=Y and Ophidia that led me to consider them as a scum pairing.
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@tom: Hi! I asked you a question. Also, please reconcile "The impression I get from Iso is competence" with "I didn't say he was doing a very good job of it." Thanks!
{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
The line was "My strongest impression of town Iso is competence." The word town is pretty important there. I've never seen you play particularly well as mafia.
Your question for me was why were those two posts I quoted in #351 contradictory. Showing, of course, your guilty conscience because all I did was quote two posts and vote. But I digress.
The first time you townread Pozzai but forgot why. The second, you implied you had reasons but weren't sharing them. I am almost entirely certain at this point you have no read on Pozzai, and have pretended to twice. And they aren't even internally consistent.
Look at the playerlist.
Then look back at yourself.
Then look at the playerlist again.
Back at yourself.
That is to say, this isn't really that kind of game.
Are you familiar with the phrase, "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain"?
There are a few parts where we differ - first of all, Iso as town doesn't start out as a big beautiful shining star in every game that he plays; sometimes he takes a little while to get rolling and dominating as he usually does and he's lazy a good amount of the time until he feels confident about the game.
I don't think his scum game is as bad as you're selling it to be; while scum certainly isn't his stronger alignment he's not completely helpless and has learned to do basic things by virtue of being an experienced player. While I'm certainly not willing to bet the farm that he's town here, I think the 4 scum in a basic thing is probably townier than not and I think that his current "**** you guys, read my mind" mindset is pretty typical of town!Iso.
If I had a bigger and more beautiful town circle, then I'd probably be more inclined to help you sort Iso right now but as it stands it doesn't feel like one of those "everyone is super town" games and so I'm willing to give him a little more room to work, especially when lynching Iso this early on is a pretty high risk low reward situation.
Or instead of a guilty conscience like you're suggesting, I read between the lines like good Mafia players do and gleaned that you felt my statements were contradictory. Golly, it's almost as though I've played Mafia before! What are the odds of that?
Nope.
{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