*frowns* and the questions posed to Syrenz and LW are simply behaviors for which the town lacks an explanation, which apparently is enough to disturb people into pressure votes.
Which, actually, is half the intention of them to begin with. It's a very old, very traditional tactic which somehow never seems to stop working, no matter how many times I trot it out.
Go back over 14 years, peruse some of those town games, and you'll see a consistent pattern of me doing mildly (or extremely) odd things for the sake of garnering reactions, and seeing what reactions those odd things elicited from townies. When people see things that are odd, they talk about them and take positions. When people take positions and talk, the game moves along, you can create reads. The first trick in my town game, and feel free to ask any of the old codgers like Axelrod who are familiar with it if you're not interested in reading fifteen years of mafia games, is to intentionally make myself a conversation piece using activities that are innocent, yet odd and out of place. Frequently, the scum will seize upon those things as opportunities to attack, or the town will just kind of tilt their heads at them, think real hard, maybe overreact a little, and you can get a window into their mindset from that. So it does work on two levels. Lastly, the enemy of the town is boredom and stagnation, and my first objective is to make sure we don't fall into a situation where we have a dearth of genuine reactions and info to base reads on. Generating reactions, intentionally, is often just as important as reading those reactions correctly.
Now, I'll frequently attempt to mimick the same thing as scum, because I have an obligation to stay self-consistent with my town meta, but the activity itself is a pro-town tactic aimed at moving the game along.
In this particular case, the *frowns*, etc. have the added purpose of note-marking for myself which are suspicious, without yet explaining what the tell is. Reason being, the minute you explain to scum suspect what it is that they're doing wrong, you've now told them exactly what to avoid doing in the future. If I see something that's wrong in a post, but don't yet have sufficient time or evidence to put together a case that's going to put them down for the count for good, I don't always share with the class what it is that I'm seeing. Here, where my time is more strapped than in the past due to the life-stage I'm in, that's definitely the case.
Now, in the case of Grapefruit, who is a town-read, that reasoning doesn't apply. I have no problem freely sharing the explanations on any town-reads I have, because I'm not giving him any information on scum-tells to avoid, and that's information the town can immediately make use of.
As for those of you who are eyebrowing at the fact that I can have that Grape read so quickly and state it so confidently, again, that's what I'm used to doing again and again for literally 15 years. There was some ridiculous number of games that I reposted earlier in which the town won on game days 1 or 2, because at the time I was really deeply tapped into the site's meta, had played with all those guys a ton of times, and could pretty quickly arrive at townie reads, and use POE effective from there to narrow the field and find the scum quite quickly.
Since then, I've stopped playing quite as often, and I'm less familiar with individual players' metas, and time is far more of a luxury, so I'm a bit less ambitious these days in trying to do the entire playerbase in one fell swoop. But my primary skill-set is always quick and early town-reads, and from there transition to POE. So if you're voting me for that, you're voting me for playstyle and due to lack of familiarity, not for something that is foreign and unusual to me in this game due to alignment. For some of you, that's not surprising to me. Others, I would have thought they'd know better by now.
Also, not all RVS-style posts are created equal. There was some post or other that some of you noted that I frowned, that was similar to one when I posted myself. Again, it's not what you do, but the way you do it. It's quite possible to catch scum just from their RVS posts being slightly off; I've seen that happen more than once. A long time ago, a mafia friend of mine who I greatly respect once quipped that he could catch scum from the way that they talk about their favorite movies. That was definitely something that I took to heart, and I learned that he was completely right about it. Tone, attitude, emotion - oftentimes, these will tell you far more about a player than just examining the bare actions that they take. Our mafia articles/theory thread has some theory posts on precisely that topic, also, that might be worth perusing if you're not familiar with them.
In Grapefruit's case, he has a completely open, straightforward, thoughtful attitude in the post I called out. In shadow's posts regarding sir chris, it's combative, venomous, derisive. He's looking to score cheap rhetorical points damage Sir Chris's reputation, refuse to answer basic questions, deflect criticism against both others on his wagon, and also those attacking him. These are standard scum emotional tells and defensive tactics that you see again and again and again in scum behavioral patterns. I don't think it's too hard to see that for what it is, if you take a good hard look at it.
You don't want to throw your vote around just anywhere, but you threw it on a wagon that you didn't want to happen? Like I said there were other options than just Shadow or Az at that stage.
There are 3 people I have a strong enough read on that I'd be willing to vote here. Az is one of them. I wasn't saying I was against an Az wagon happening, I just have enough experience with him that I wasn't excited about having to do it. If I'm right about Chris, I'm sure I'll hold the same sentiment there in the future.
Okay that makes more sense. Thanks.
@Cantrip his trying to fly under the radar which was Vaimes issue with Az. I still don't see it as fitting for Az on the whole (his whole wall of votes against LW was kind of the opposite of flying under the radar) but it fits that post.
@DK point to me saying my scum read of you was only because of that awkwardness with Vaimes. I'll wait.
Anyway can we go back to tom? I think I feel better about him being scum than Shadow here. I doubt they're buddies (they wouldn't throw so much heft behind Beeboy together as buddies) but I think that there was scum on that wagon. And it probably isn't Rhand or KCC. Vote: Tom
• beeboy - I've liked a lot of his recent posts, mild town lean. Beeboy, say that Shadow is off the table and you also can't generate enough interest in Tom; who would you want to lunch?
DK probably? My wagon wasn't pure and I fully intend to do something about it.
Fuwa and Az as far as people not voting me are concerned.
Az, I accept that you like generating responses, and that you sometimes make odd choices in that pursuit. Since you're unlikely to gain insight into Syrenz now that he replaced out, what were you attempting with that method of attack? That's where my suspicion comes from, not that you made odd choices, but that your attack seemed malicious. It would be all too easy for you to paint Syreze's response as scummy no matter what he said.
Fake V/LA
My wildcard game on MU is starting now. I'm still going to be playing here but given the faster pace on MU it's going to soak up more of my time. Apologies for the divided focus.
@Az do you have any opinions beyond me townie and shadow scummy?
Where I see an issue is that the only reason Grape has articulated in this entire thread for his scum read on me is that pairing. So Grape still listing me as a top scum read while thinking Vaimes is town doesn’t track.
It further strengthens my town read on you that you are so hung up on this, but I can tell you, from the outside, that doesn't look as bad as it might feel to you.
Where I see an issue is that the only reason Grape has articulated in this entire thread for his scum read on me is that pairing. So Grape still listing me as a top scum read while thinking Vaimes is town doesn’t track.
Note to myself to look at this later also.
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
KoolKoal: Feel free to take this with a grain of salt since self meta isn't particularly helpful, but I think I get scumread mostly for style over substance, but also for a certain lack of substance over style. It's not so much what I AM posting most of the time (though sometimes that can seem bad) but what I'm NOT posting. I've been told I come to non-obvious conclusions a lot, so when I post, quite a bit of the time there's jumps in logic that people can't follow and they think that's scummy. I get that accusation about a lot of questions I ask specifically. People call them "busy work" when the questions are legit etc.
As far as things to ignore, I can't think of anything. I would suggest you focus less on what I'm doing and more on how I'm doing it. That's probably more likely to be accurate. Like I've just said, what I do tends to come off a little weird, but if you look for how I do it, mindset comes into play and maybe you figure out something useful.
@Cantrip his trying to fly under the radar which was Vaimes issue with Az. I still don't see it as fitting for Az on the whole (his whole wall of votes against LW was kind of the opposite of flying under the radar) but it fits that post.
• beeboy - I've liked a lot of his recent posts, mild town lean. Beeboy, say that Shadow is off the table and you also can't generate enough interest in Tom; who would you want to lunch?
DK probably? My wagon wasn't pure and I fully intend to do something about it.
Fuwa and Az as far as people not voting me are concerned.
Do you have reasons for thinking your wagon couldn't have been pure other than "five people don't dogpile on me, a townie, like that"? Do you have reasons for suspecting DK other than that he was on that wagon?
To tack on to my 760, if [not something], then I'll probably [some third thing].
Also, I'm waiting on [someone] to respond to [someone else] (other than Grape looking at my reasoning for voting Az).
Az, I accept that you like generating responses, and that you sometimes make odd choices in that pursuit. Since you're unlikely to gain insight into Syrenz now that he replaced out, what were you attempting with that method of attack? That's where my suspicion comes from, not that you made odd choices, but that your attack seemed malicious. It would be all too easy for you to paint Syreze's response as scummy no matter what he said.
It's an attempt to put him on the spot and see how he reacts to a difficult task. Think of it like the mafia version of a rorschach test, only it's also self-directed. If you want to get to know someone, find a way to get them to talk about themselves.
@Grape - I'm slated to look at some of my frownie friends in more detail at some point, and I also think this is Vez's town version.
@kcc- HOW DARE YOU SUMMARIZE FOR I, THE GREATEST, MOST TERRIBLE, MOST FLATULENT WIZARD IN ALL THE NINETY NINE SUBFORUMS, INSOLENT MORTAL. MINUS TEN AZRAEL POINTS.
I don’t disagree that self wagon analysis can be useful, but I can do that much later, and the wagon exists to analyze, it doesn’t need to keep existing. And frankly (and sorry if you’re town) you’re wagon analysis was pretty lackluster, regardless of your alignment.
And yes, me shooing you away is a townie reaction because I’m town and that’s my reaction.[/quotw]But, wagons only really matter if they occur naturally. So what does it matter if it continues, as lomg as you don't actually get lynched as town? The longer it lasts, the more information you can get out of it. I can see maybe closer to deadline you being like "Ok, it's time to get serious" but this was like a week out. You feel more like scum trying to evade suspicion than town trying to solve the game because of this. [quote=Shadow]The bravado ain’t false, I was mislynched in secret agent and I will not let that happen here. I have a relatively good idea as to why it happened there, and I’m not about to make the same mistake.
I'll look into that to see if that's real. But for future, bravado doesn't deter me. I don't take being told what to think or do very well in that way.
Quote from Shadow »
It’s not though, it’s good Mafia theory. Lynching the top poster day one is bad, and anyone who has played long enough will tell you that’s true, even if they really want not to. I was actually talking to...Voxx I think, and over the course of MU’s long form games, average mislynch percentage for day 1 is about 50%, and average mislynch percentage for the top poster on a day 1 is about 4%. Plus, if you really think the top poster is scum, giving them even more time to say a bunch of crap that can hang their buddies or clear townies is good play.
(*My numbers may be off, but not by that much, I’m going from memory though)
And if that top poster is town then it'll show.
Amount of posts can have significance depending on the person. Last, for instance is an example. Tom, on the other side , is not. Last posts more gerneally as town. That's a thing I know about him. Tom would post a million posts without looking at his role if that were allowed.
I dislike this argument becasue you're trying to say 'regardless of my alignment, don't lynch me because I'm posting a lot.' which is independent of your alignment. It doesn;t make sense to me that there would be a reason independent of alignment except like... mechanics to not lynch someone.
Re; Beeboy read: I'm feeling beeboy as town. I dislike your pushes against him.
Re: Chris's defense: Can you quote what specifically you're referencing?
So let me get this straight. You think that because the three wagons are on people who are good at being scum, they can't be all on scum. Never mind the fact that even if these wagons on people who haven't posted once and were just zombies that didn't speak the chance of being all three on scum was zero. So yeah, you just made a big post where you said absolutely nothing.
Town KJ makes insightful posts that even though I might not agree with them, actually make some sense. This is just posting for the sake of posting and is very indicative of scum kj.
I'm still liking my vote on chris, but goddamn if I don't want to lynch this slot too.
Dude... I don't 'post for the sake of posting'. That's never been true.
I do occasionally make insightful posts, but I also have been known to make bad posts. Like. really bad.
KoolKoal: Feel free to take this with a grain of salt since self meta isn't particularly helpful, but I think I get scumread mostly for style over substance, but also for a certain lack of substance over style. It's not so much what I AM posting most of the time (though sometimes that can seem bad) but what I'm NOT posting. I've been told I come to non-obvious conclusions a lot, so when I post, quite a bit of the time there's jumps in logic that people can't follow and they think that's scummy. I get that accusation about a lot of questions I ask specifically. People call them "busy work" when the questions are legit etc.
As far as things to ignore, I can't think of anything. I would suggest you focus less on what I'm doing and more on how I'm doing it. That's probably more likely to be accurate. Like I've just said, what I do tends to come off a little weird, but if you look for how I do it, mindset comes into play and maybe you figure out something useful.
Grape: Why is Vezok really townie? I specifically wanna hear from you here.
@DK: Dude work is infinitely a nightmare. Whem I'm not there I'm tired. I'm not "disappearing when pressure is off". I've been posting pretty regularly. So can you not accuse me of such?
KoolKoal: Feel free to take this with a grain of salt since self meta isn't particularly helpful, but I think I get scumread mostly for style over substance, but also for a certain lack of substance over style. It's not so much what I AM posting most of the time (though sometimes that can seem bad) but what I'm NOT posting. I've been told I come to non-obvious conclusions a lot, so when I post, quite a bit of the time there's jumps in logic that people can't follow and they think that's scummy. I get that accusation about a lot of questions I ask specifically. People call them "busy work" when the questions are legit etc.
As far as things to ignore, I can't think of anything. I would suggest you focus less on what I'm doing and more on how I'm doing it. That's probably more likely to be accurate. Like I've just said, what I do tends to come off a little weird, but if you look for how I do it, mindset comes into play and maybe you figure out something useful.
I haven't re-read any of Beeboy's stuff yet, but the argument that he was sneakily fishing for vanilla townies by stating this was a "role madness" game is dumb.
i doubt it was intentional fishing regardless.
But he did find one in cantrip (by his own logic, doesnt matter if right) and didnt care at all
After looking back over everything, Beeboy's explanation is completely consistent with how things happened. And it's too fluid for a lie.
Unvote vote Chris
For reaching that conclusion in a way that makes no sense without inside info.
I'm glad someone else caught this.
vote sir chris
It felt like I was reading beeboy's lawyer response.
as good as that "his lawyer" characterization is, chris doesnt need to believe in something to defend a wagon. Hes gonna [semi arbitrarily] defend wagons because when hes right he gets to act super superior and if hes wrong hell just pretend it never happened hes chris and thats what he does.
Im assuming hes self aware enough to do it as scum too but thats not gonna work for reading chris
Cantrip probably can't be read on a micro level but I am stubborn, I'll probably do a full analysis of his posts at some point as well as the rest people I haven't had a reason to talk about
My Cantrip read is hard to put into words.
scum!Cantrip would be blasting us with walls by now just to show his engagement.
town!Cantrip makes walls too, but only with a purpose.
not quite
Its more that the walls get tailored for who theyre for. Towncantrip (read: this game cantrip) puts them out for the world
Everything about that post is wrong. First off you hand Beeboy the epic 'probably town if chris is scum' knowing I will flip town. Then you follow up with "KCC has the right of it" so when it turns out she has the wrong of it you can turn on her next.
My Beeboy defense was a genuine read and I am glad people are peeling off the lynch, but this post is what is garbage tbh.
As for the two highlighted posts, prerand or not since he is posting that in topic it means his role did not disabuse him of the notion that his prerand thoughts were right. It is a needless, silly thing to spurt out even if you think it is true. Scum lie, deceive, have motives. Towns just...sometimes stay stupid stuff that looks weird.
And Shadow is a sneaky fellow who can never be trusted.
Also because it seems like the entire case I am reading against Sir Chris is that he got an early "too strong" read on Beeboy as Town. That is incredibly underwhelming. I don't exactly have a strong "Town" read on Chris or Beeboy for that matter, but I have no issue if he supposedly got one from what Beeboy posted. As someone else (Rhand?) said, it's better than the Town read Az. supposedly got on Grapefruit from what Grapefruit posted.
</blockquote>[quote from="beeboy »" url="/forums/community-forums/mafia/812915-modern-mafia-day-1-spine-of-ish-sah?comment=415"]I just want it to be clear if I do get mislynched it's because I was misevaluated not because I tried to fish for VTs as town.
Liars stick to their story, people remembering give variations.
I've got your back.
Wut? I don't track this read, from that post, at all. I originally thought this was sarcasm and was confused why there wasn't an accompanying vote and reread it a few times to see if I was misunderstanding something.
>pre rand join this game for cool roles thinking theme games are role madness for some reason.
>Get role pm [redacted]
>See non VT sample pm.
>Think of various modern decks and what roles they can be.
>Never be presented with any info to make me rethink a thought I never overly thought about.
Like to fully explain why I thought this was role madness I have to explain why everything up until this post did not make me even consider the option I was wrong. That's because I never really thought about why this game was role madness in the first place. Which isn't even a solid memory because again I wasn't thinking about it.
I also don't believe that Beeboy's statement was some kind of "slip" which happened from him being scum - and having a role - and seeing his fellow scum - also having roles - and then making an assumption based on that that the whole game was "role madness." That is an almost equally bad argument and I am now giving Cantripmancer the for making it.
I mean, it could be. Is that a surefire thing I want to base a lynch off of in its entirety? Nah. Does it make me want to reread beeboy more thoroughly? Yes.
@azreal
speaking of which, is there something you want from me? why exactly is your vote still sitting on me? make a case or kindly go else where
I cant be expected to evaluate what my past slot holder did or said, without it just being my own biased assumption
I prefer to vote Tom right now.
I'll give Sir Chris a chance to do something new before I'd be willing to vote me.
Not saying Sir Chris is town for defending me because he wasn't even the first person to do it but might as well give people a chance to breathe first.
*Scoffs*
I’m pretty sure I’ve correctly read you in everything but twilight of secret agent Mafia.
Harrumph.
Oh, now that you’ve unvoted, join the Chris wagon. His Beeboy defense is garbage, regardless of BeeBoy’s alignment (and probably means Beeboy is town if Chris is scum). KCC has the right of it, and that subsequently makes me like her a bit.
@Chris: These are the posts from Beeboy you claim are guileless:
This was my response (which I stand by):
So tell me, why was Beeboy town at that juncture. Where are you really inferring that from. Break down some actual behavior and show me your thought process. (FYI: this is 100% about you, not him( don’t mistake my purpose.)
Also, get your vote off of me, go put it somewhere useful and think about what you’ve done. I want you to catch scum, don’t even care what your alignment is for that, so go do that.
I hate these two posts. Calls the b-boy defense garbage, which ok, maybe it is, but being a garbage defense doesn't mean Sir Chris is scum. Oldest trick in the book, to try to get townies to lynch people for something "bad", instead of scummy. And the emotional tone here just drips with the desire to character assassinate.
I think I am team Sir Chris in Sir Chris v. Shadow, if only because this is funny and true:
And Shadow is a sneaky fellow who can never be trusted.
Also because it seems like the entire case I am reading against Sir Chris is that he got an early "too strong" read on Beeboy as Town. That is incredibly underwhelming. I don't exactly have a strong "Town" read on Chris or Beeboy for that matter, but I have no issue if he supposedly got one from what Beeboy posted. As someone else (Rhand?) said, it's better than the Town read Az. supposedly got on Grapefruit from what Grapefruit posted.
Et tu, Axelrod?
OK, so grape and vez town. Beeboy, syrenz, shadow potentially wearing fedoras and eating lasagna. None of the rest of you are special and interesting, and you should be ashamed and do more noteworthy things.
how did you cone out of this post with no opinion on last or chris?
@kcc- HOW DARE YOU SUMMARIZE FOR I, THE GREATEST, MOST TERRIBLE, MOST FLATULENT WIZARD IN ALL THE NINETY NINE SUBFORUMS, INSOLENT MORTAL. MINUS TEN AZRAEL POINTS.
OK, so grape and vez town. Beeboy, syrenz, shadow potentially wearing fedoras and eating lasagna. None of the rest of you are special and interesting, and you should be ashamed and do more noteworthy things.
We have only 2 town reads here, the guy we're all giving a bit of a pass to for the early claim... and a town clear based on a single over-analyzed post just outside of RVS. -That's all!
On the scum side we have Syrenz, who he now claims he was half poking just to get reactions. Beeboy, who Az says Chris was defending with garbage logic and... Shadow? Not Chris who defended this scumBee with garbage, but Shadow who pointed out the awful defense? Shadow who attacked Chris for defending his scumbuddy bee?
I mean, I've seen scum try to tie townies to impending scum lynches, but that's clearly different from what happened there, and Az wasn't making that argument anyway. He was arguing that... IDK, some inconsistent incoherent nonsense.
Town but I was too lazy to put in effort of finding quotes to explain why so I kept that to myself.
The fact that he was expecting VT to correct him (from the first quote) and it didnt show up in his cantrip read when i asked
So yeah i think beeboy was role hunting and isnt even using it for reads.
Vote stays
Vote: Tomsloger
I don't believe that you believe this.
sup
Where in Beeboy's post does he say or imply that he was "expecting VT to correct him?"
And, it also appears you are taking the position that Beeboy should have viewed Cantrip's post as a VT hint, yes? And then you are attacking Beeboy because he didn't say that/use that as part of his Cantrip read?
Three posts up you just said you doubt Beeboy's post was "intentional" fishing. You think he was unintentionally role-hunting?
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Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Az, I accept that you like generating responses, and that you sometimes make odd choices in that pursuit. Since you're unlikely to gain insight into Syrenz now that he replaced out, what were you attempting with that method of attack? That's where my suspicion comes from, not that you made odd choices, but that your attack seemed malicious. It would be all too easy for you to paint Syreze's response as scummy no matter what he said.
It's an attempt to put him on the spot and see how he reacts to a difficult task. Think of it like the mafia version of a rorschach test, only it's also self-directed. If you want to get to know someone, find a way to get them to talk about themselves.
I feel like there are better ways to go about that that don't give you as much free reign to interpret the response in multiple negative ways. I've seen players do this and a) attack that the target didn't name the specific scummy thing(s) they saw; b) attack that the target DID name the specific scummy thing(s) they saw; c) attack that the target said they weren't going to respond to such a bad question; d) attack the target just for responding to the question (and saying they shouldn't have).
But Syrenz is an established player, so I was going to wait and let him respond before I called you out on it, but then he replaced out.
Any particular reason you called the Syrenz/Wisp slot "Syrenz" in 522 (after going out of your way to vote Wisp twenty times)? This isn't a "wow, that's scummy!" thing. This is a basic communication thing.
Tom, Az did have an opinion on Last (Syrenz) in that post. Also, I'm getting a little weirded out by your constant towning of me. I'd love to think you're town and just accurately reading me, but paranoia keeps hitting me across the back of the head.
Why are you voting Axel?
Just over 3.5 days until deadline, people. Come join the Az wagon! It'll be fun! We have cookies!
Azrael (5): Cantripmancer, shadowlancerx, KittyCupCake, Vaimes, Rhand
shadowlancerx (4): Sir Chris, Azrael, killjoy, beeboy
Sir Chris (2): Fuwa, vezokpiraka
tomsloger (1): Axelrod, Grapefruit21
Grapefruit21 (1): dkingsland967
Axelrod (1): tomsloger
Abstain (0): Lastwhisper
Those in red are V/LA-announcing lurking lurkers and can't be counted on to place timely votes.
Killjoy, I get why you're voting Shadow. Come over to Az for now and we can explore Shadow later.
Dkings, You too.
Tom, your singleton wagon on Axel isn't accomplishing much, especially without more push from you and this close to deadline. Do something productive with your vote (like voting Az).
Fuwa, haven't heard from you for a bit; Chris's wagon has faltered. Who else do you want to pressure? (Could it be....Azrael?)
Az, what's your read on me? Misguided townie tunneling your lunch, or malicious scum trying to get you mislunched?
As far as Tom goes, he’s said a few things that I think line up with town Tom. Unless he’s exactly partners with Cantrip (which I doubt) then his Cantrip read is a bit too prohibitive for scum!tom. Also, I think he’d be making more useless posts if he’s scum.
To add onto this; he’s not playing in a goal oriented way. There not any fights he’s stoking fires on, he’s not prodding at people who are otherwise engaged in the way he might to distract pressure from a buddy, etc.
Yeah, he could be scum, I’m not locked into this, but it would be a very lazy version of his scum self.
Killjoy, I get why you're voting Shadow. Come over to Az for now and we can explore Shadow later.
Can you explain why in your own words and give a strength rating on the reasoning?
I think he started suspecting you from how you responded to his 376 (saying he was shading whole groups of people), he thinks your attack on Beeboy is bad/insincere, and he interpreted your 565 in ways that I don't think I agree with. He thinks you're open wolfing by tossing wine around and admitting it. I don't think his reasoning is super strong, but it doesn't surprise me that he's voting you/suspecting you for it, given that he thinks you're attacking him.
As far as Tom goes, he’s said a few things that I think line up with town Tom. Unless he’s exactly partners with Cantrip (which I doubt) then his Cantrip read is a bit too prohibitive for scum!tom. Also, I think he’d be making more useless posts if he’s scum.
To add onto this; he’s not playing in a goal oriented way. There not any fights he’s stoking fires on, he’s not prodding at people who are otherwise engaged in the way he might to distract pressure from a buddy, etc.
Yeah, he could be scum, I’m not locked into this, but it would be a very lazy version of his scum self.
I feel like Tom has been pretty low-impact; do you agree, and if so what do you think that indicates?
(Wisp, it was a joke. All y'all people going V/LA until after deadline is mildly frustrating, even if some of you are still here off and on.
While you're here, though, current reads list? Or top two town/top two scum if you don't have time for a full list?)
Me and several others from my community are heading to Montreal, but I don't ignore games, I'm usually always reading when I can, I very rarely miss deadlines, and would definitely not miss one were the Lynch requires a majority of 9
Wisp, sorry, I probably shouldn't joke about that kind of thing. Absolutely understand that you have real life to attend to, and I don't find you (or Beeboy or Grape) scummy at all because of that.
Shadow, what did you think of my response to you in 741?
My experience with Tom is that he's very active. Period. Both Town and Scum. So this is not like I've seen him play before, and that isn't indicative of anything. Except that my baseline is that lurking is scummier.
Also, my experience with Tom is that he makes better posts. Period. Both Town and Scum. He's snowed me before as scum by sounding very genuine and logical and reasonable, and he's done the same when he was Town. He's not doing that here. So, again, that might not be indicative of alignment in and of itself for Tom, except that my baseline is that this is scummier.
If someone wants to opine that Town Tom is lazier, makes poorer posts and is more prone to checking out then I guess I will hear you.
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Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Me, a pretty well known prolific poster was hoping that one of my first posts would draw... no attention? And when it did I was caught or something? KCC, welcome to the tunnel lol.
Also I see no reason to be scum reading Azrael at present. No one has really done a good job of refuting the Shadow wagon beyond 'top poster' which is honestly trash logic.
He was weak and slanky last game.
He's happy and actually cares about the game.
He's town.
Which game was this? I absolutely hate researching other games. But maybe for a comparison. I'm not sure this would tell me anything though, as I know one Shadow scum game already where he wasn't "weak and slanky" so if your point is that (this other game) is how scum-Shadow always plays then your point is already invalid.
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Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
And it’s not the weak and slanky play so much as straddling the neutral zone. It’s why I think Az is scum here. shadow was kind of doing it last game, not really townread and not really scumread.
It’s a specific kind of scumplay. Be active but don’t rock the boat.
Because I’m town.
Because I’m not going to be the lynch.
Because trying to lynch the top poster on day one is a bad idea regardless.
Shall I go on?
Ok so I immediately dislike this post. Like. If you're town, then being wagoned isn't necessarily bad. See me earlier today. I'm using it to help me solve the game. You're trying to shoo me away is not a townie reaction.
The false bravado is probably NAI. Maybe you actually believe you won't be the lynch today, or maybe you're just saying that to try and deter further wagoning, idk.
That last bit is.. what is it, AtE? Fearmongering? You're for sure telling us not to lynch you for reasons that have nothing to do with your alingment there, possibly hinting that the game will stagnate without you? Yeah that's fearmongering.
So, no. I'm not gonna go elsewhere. You take my vote and you like it.
Is there anything in Az’s wallpost about who he thinks is scum? Especially among those pushing him? Which slot does he want to run up and/or kill? He knows he’s a major wagon heading into deadline, right? Who cares about defending the Grape read at this point, it’s been a billion years.
Which, actually, is half the intention of them to begin with. It's a very old, very traditional tactic which somehow never seems to stop working, no matter how many times I trot it out.
Go back over 14 years, peruse some of those town games, and you'll see a consistent pattern of me doing mildly (or extremely) odd things for the sake of garnering reactions, and seeing what reactions those odd things elicited from townies. When people see things that are odd, they talk about them and take positions. When people take positions and talk, the game moves along, you can create reads. The first trick in my town game, and feel free to ask any of the old codgers like Axelrod who are familiar with it if you're not interested in reading fifteen years of mafia games, is to intentionally make myself a conversation piece using activities that are innocent, yet odd and out of place. Frequently, the scum will seize upon those things as opportunities to attack, or the town will just kind of tilt their heads at them, think real hard, maybe overreact a little, and you can get a window into their mindset from that. So it does work on two levels. Lastly, the enemy of the town is boredom and stagnation, and my first objective is to make sure we don't fall into a situation where we have a dearth of genuine reactions and info to base reads on. Generating reactions, intentionally, is often just as important as reading those reactions correctly.
Now, I'll frequently attempt to mimick the same thing as scum, because I have an obligation to stay self-consistent with my town meta, but the activity itself is a pro-town tactic aimed at moving the game along.
In this particular case, the *frowns*, etc. have the added purpose of note-marking for myself which are suspicious, without yet explaining what the tell is. Reason being, the minute you explain to scum suspect what it is that they're doing wrong, you've now told them exactly what to avoid doing in the future. If I see something that's wrong in a post, but don't yet have sufficient time or evidence to put together a case that's going to put them down for the count for good, I don't always share with the class what it is that I'm seeing. Here, where my time is more strapped than in the past due to the life-stage I'm in, that's definitely the case.
Now, in the case of Grapefruit, who is a town-read, that reasoning doesn't apply. I have no problem freely sharing the explanations on any town-reads I have, because I'm not giving him any information on scum-tells to avoid, and that's information the town can immediately make use of.
As for those of you who are eyebrowing at the fact that I can have that Grape read so quickly and state it so confidently, again, that's what I'm used to doing again and again for literally 15 years. There was some ridiculous number of games that I reposted earlier in which the town won on game days 1 or 2, because at the time I was really deeply tapped into the site's meta, had played with all those guys a ton of times, and could pretty quickly arrive at townie reads, and use POE effective from there to narrow the field and find the scum quite quickly.
Since then, I've stopped playing quite as often, and I'm less familiar with individual players' metas, and time is far more of a luxury, so I'm a bit less ambitious these days in trying to do the entire playerbase in one fell swoop. But my primary skill-set is always quick and early town-reads, and from there transition to POE. So if you're voting me for that, you're voting me for playstyle and due to lack of familiarity, not for something that is foreign and unusual to me in this game due to alignment. For some of you, that's not surprising to me. Others, I would have thought they'd know better by now.
Also, not all RVS-style posts are created equal. There was some post or other that some of you noted that I frowned, that was similar to one when I posted myself. Again, it's not what you do, but the way you do it. It's quite possible to catch scum just from their RVS posts being slightly off; I've seen that happen more than once. A long time ago, a mafia friend of mine who I greatly respect once quipped that he could catch scum from the way that they talk about their favorite movies. That was definitely something that I took to heart, and I learned that he was completely right about it. Tone, attitude, emotion - oftentimes, these will tell you far more about a player than just examining the bare actions that they take. Our mafia articles/theory thread has some theory posts on precisely that topic, also, that might be worth perusing if you're not familiar with them.
In Grapefruit's case, he has a completely open, straightforward, thoughtful attitude in the post I called out. In shadow's posts regarding sir chris, it's combative, venomous, derisive. He's looking to score cheap rhetorical points damage Sir Chris's reputation, refuse to answer basic questions, deflect criticism against both others on his wagon, and also those attacking him. These are standard scum emotional tells and defensive tactics that you see again and again and again in scum behavioral patterns. I don't think it's too hard to see that for what it is, if you take a good hard look at it.
Okay that makes more sense. Thanks.
@Cantrip his trying to fly under the radar which was Vaimes issue with Az. I still don't see it as fitting for Az on the whole (his whole wall of votes against LW was kind of the opposite of flying under the radar) but it fits that post.
@DK point to me saying my scum read of you was only because of that awkwardness with Vaimes. I'll wait.
Anyway can we go back to tom? I think I feel better about him being scum than Shadow here. I doubt they're buddies (they wouldn't throw so much heft behind Beeboy together as buddies) but I think that there was scum on that wagon. And it probably isn't Rhand or KCC.
Vote: Tom
DK probably? My wagon wasn't pure and I fully intend to do something about it.
Fuwa and Az as far as people not voting me are concerned.
My wildcard game on MU is starting now. I'm still going to be playing here but given the faster pace on MU it's going to soak up more of my time. Apologies for the divided focus.
@Az do you have any opinions beyond me townie and shadow scummy?
It further strengthens my town read on you that you are so hung up on this, but I can tell you, from the outside, that doesn't look as bad as it might feel to you.
And... Just in case you needed any further clarification: do you see that nonsense up there? That's exactly what I didn't want to start.
Anyways unvote
It's a monolouge version of Chris's dialouge with Shadow. I'm tired of people proclaiming how townie and smart they are. Show don't tell.
That's the whole point! Don't encourage him
Here, tldr:
I like to wave my arms around mysteriously, don't ask why, no one but I can comprehend. Grape good, shadow bad
VLA until August 20th
Any posting I will do until then will be on mobile and far and inbetween
So much to catch up on.
Do you have reasons for thinking your wagon couldn't have been pure other than "five people don't dogpile on me, a townie, like that"? Do you have reasons for suspecting DK other than that he was on that wagon?
To tack on to my 760, if [not something], then I'll probably [some third thing].
Also, I'm waiting on [someone] to respond to [someone else] (other than Grape looking at my reasoning for voting Az).
Woo, this is fun!
It's an attempt to put him on the spot and see how he reacts to a difficult task. Think of it like the mafia version of a rorschach test, only it's also self-directed. If you want to get to know someone, find a way to get them to talk about themselves.
@Grape - I'm slated to look at some of my frownie friends in more detail at some point, and I also think this is Vez's town version.
@kcc- HOW DARE YOU SUMMARIZE FOR I, THE GREATEST, MOST TERRIBLE, MOST FLATULENT WIZARD IN ALL THE NINETY NINE SUBFORUMS, INSOLENT MORTAL. MINUS TEN AZRAEL POINTS.
Amount of posts can have significance depending on the person. Last, for instance is an example. Tom, on the other side , is not. Last posts more gerneally as town. That's a thing I know about him. Tom would post a million posts without looking at his role if that were allowed.
I dislike this argument becasue you're trying to say 'regardless of my alignment, don't lynch me because I'm posting a lot.' which is independent of your alignment. It doesn;t make sense to me that there would be a reason independent of alignment except like... mechanics to not lynch someone.
Re; Beeboy read: I'm feeling beeboy as town. I dislike your pushes against him.
Re: Chris's defense: Can you quote what specifically you're referencing?Dude... I don't 'post for the sake of posting'. That's never been true.
I do occasionally make insightful posts, but I also have been known to make bad posts. Like. really bad.
The binary tone of this post just isn't accurate.
@DK: Dude work is infinitely a nightmare. Whem I'm not there I'm tired. I'm not "disappearing when pressure is off". I've been posting pretty regularly. So can you not accuse me of such?
4 minutes to spare!
But he did find one in cantrip (by his own logic, doesnt matter if right) and didnt care at all
This catchup method will never work here with multiposting rules...
as good as that "his lawyer" characterization is, chris doesnt need to believe in something to defend a wagon. Hes gonna [semi arbitrarily] defend wagons because
when hes right he gets to act super superior and if hes wrong hell just pretend it never happenedhes chris and thats what he does.Im assuming hes self aware enough to do it as scum too but thats not gonna work for reading chris
Preserving this votal for posterity:
Chris (4): Kcc, vezok, shadow, Last
tom (4): Rhand, Axel, vaimes, beeboy
beeboy (3): dkings, tom, cantrip
Grape (2): Chris, Fuwa
Last(1): Azrael
Fuwa (1): Grape
Abstain (1): Killjoy
~~~~~
how do you intend to read him on a macro level?not quite
Its more that the walls get tailored for who theyre for. Towncantrip (read: this game cantrip) puts them out for the worldwhy do you think hell do any of that?
Whos saving me?
I'm not wrong, though
This indeed might be one of the greatest mysteries of our time...
On the scum side we have Syrenz, who he now claims he was half poking just to get reactions. Beeboy, who Az says Chris was defending with garbage logic and... Shadow? Not Chris who defended this scumBee with garbage, but Shadow who pointed out the awful defense? Shadow who attacked Chris for defending his scumbuddy bee?
I mean, I've seen scum try to tie townies to impending scum lynches, but that's clearly different from what happened there, and Az wasn't making that argument anyway. He was arguing that... IDK, some inconsistent incoherent nonsense.
And, it also appears you are taking the position that Beeboy should have viewed Cantrip's post as a VT hint, yes? And then you are attacking Beeboy because he didn't say that/use that as part of his Cantrip read?
Three posts up you just said you doubt Beeboy's post was "intentional" fishing. You think he was unintentionally role-hunting?
But Syrenz is an established player, so I was going to wait and let him respond before I called you out on it, but then he replaced out.
Any particular reason you called the Syrenz/Wisp slot "Syrenz" in 522 (after going out of your way to vote Wisp twenty times)? This isn't a "wow, that's scummy!" thing. This is a basic communication thing.
Tom, Az did have an opinion on Last (Syrenz) in that post. Also, I'm getting a little weirded out by your constant towning of me. I'd love to think you're town and just accurately reading me, but paranoia keeps hitting me across the back of the head.
Why are you voting Axel?
Just over 3.5 days until deadline, people. Come join the Az wagon! It'll be fun! We have cookies!
Azrael (5): Cantripmancer, shadowlancerx, KittyCupCake, Vaimes, Rhand
shadowlancerx (4): Sir Chris, Azrael, killjoy, beeboy
Sir Chris (2): Fuwa, vezokpiraka
tomsloger (1): Axelrod, Grapefruit21
Grapefruit21 (1): dkingsland967
Axelrod (1): tomsloger
Abstain (0): Lastwhisper
Those in red are V/LA-announcing lurking lurkers and can't be counted on to place timely votes.
Killjoy, I get why you're voting Shadow. Come over to Az for now and we can explore Shadow later.
Dkings, You too.
Tom, your singleton wagon on Axel isn't accomplishing much, especially without more push from you and this close to deadline. Do something productive with your vote (like voting Az).
Fuwa, haven't heard from you for a bit; Chris's wagon has faltered. Who else do you want to pressure? (Could it be....Azrael?)
Az, what's your read on me? Misguided townie tunneling your lunch, or malicious scum trying to get you mislunched?
@Shadow and Chris: can you provide full readlists?
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Staffshadow
Town
vez
Vaimes
Town lean
Cantrip
KCC
dkingsland
Above neutral
Tom
Axelrod
Rhand
Last
Neutral/mixed
beeboy
Sir Chris
Below neutral
Fuwa
killjoy
Scum lean
Grapefruit
Azrael
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StaffYeah, he could be scum, I’m not locked into this, but it would be a very lazy version of his scum self.
I will most likely be around for EoD as long as I keep it in my head, currently packing for my trip and other things
I feel like Tom has been pretty low-impact; do you agree, and if so what do you think that indicates?
(Wisp, it was a joke. All y'all people going V/LA until after deadline is mildly frustrating, even if some of you are still here off and on.
While you're here, though, current reads list? Or top two town/top two scum if you don't have time for a full list?)
And sure give me like an hour
Shadow, what did you think of my response to you in 741?
Also, my experience with Tom is that he makes better posts. Period. Both Town and Scum. He's snowed me before as scum by sounding very genuine and logical and reasonable, and he's done the same when he was Town. He's not doing that here. So, again, that might not be indicative of alignment in and of itself for Tom, except that my baseline is that this is scummier.
If someone wants to opine that Town Tom is lazier, makes poorer posts and is more prone to checking out then I guess I will hear you.
It’s a specific kind of scumplay. Be active but don’t rock the boat.
wouldnt be mad at all if the entire shadow wagon just explodedvote az
Choo choothis is a really towny kj post