Tammy has said more than once that Azrael’s scumhunting is superficial pointedly referencing the garbage case against gentleman Johnny that was partly azrael fluffing himself about how scared of him Johnny was, that Johnny wasn’t trying to read him when he was, and some horribly superficial analysis. Also his pbpa against bur was commentary not analysis and was busy work designed to look like he’s scumhunting without actual analysis, which is a common scum trait. Azrael knows better than to call that actual analysis when it’s not.
the fact that he keeps ignoring that I’m calling him out for lack of depth in scumhunting and pretending it’s all about performance is e main reason why I’m not wavering on this anymore.
He's not ignoring you calling him out for lack of depth in scumhunting though is he? Pretty sure he has directly addressed that point.
Also, more importantly, the question that I haven't seen you answer (or I forgot lol) is why does that make him scum, vs. town that's possibly not having their best game hunting down scum? Az has also addressed most every other player in the game multiple times, so specifically pointing out GJ and Bur like that as poor feels like a bit of a strawman.
Yeeting Az is just not something we can afford to do, and realistically nobody has made a case against him. Like seriously, look at who's pushing the Az wagon right now.
Honestly Bur's aggro pushing for getting his ability up to speed makes me think more town than not, because I just remembered Mostly Mute Mafia where... Koza? did the same thing as town.
@Az: I'm not saying you should have spent moer time on stuff, I was looking for a summary of your reasoning on Sloth. A conclusion. What you gave me was the raw data. That is, literally, the exact opposite of what I wanted. What I extrapolate from your raw data isn't relevent to YOUR alignment. It tells me very little about your thought process. What data you chose to include might, but that's still me interpreting stuff without any real lead from you as to where you were trying to go.
So lets try this again, without the outburst please. Why is Sloth scum?
*eye twitches violently, shoves cantankerous grumpy old man back in the closet*
I did that big read-through post several days ago where I literally about-faced and said Sloth probably is NOT scum. And why. With post and quote analysis, conclusions, everything. That's what I'm referring to. Not the raw data-dump.
The big time crunch that I'm referring to is that you asked me if I could justify (in addition to Sloth) all my other town reads. So, like, eight people's worth of analysis. That's where I get super twitchy about time commitments.
Why do you think Az is still scum after this post? You never addressed his response, which pretty much shoots down what you were pushing against Az with. But you are still good with voting Az today?
But otherwise, Highroller, Sloth, Cuth, Tubba, this is not a wagon that any other town should seriously be considering.
I still want Az dead. Still debating what to do with my second vote.
At this point, man, just pick someone. You can change your vote later if you change your mind.
Sure. Vote Azrael, Vote Tubba
What is this vote? It's the definition of OMGUS, Bur just picks Az because Az has been pushing them, and Tubba for the easy vote after sitting aside for so long. How does anyone think this wagon is legitimate?
The biggest issue is that there's so many people just kind of hanging around, that the more vocal people are naturally becoming targets of scrutiny. Scummy players like HR are then taking the opportunity to force a mis-yeet once that target gets focused on a town member, and people are just coming along because its something to do I guess.
The worst part is I'm someone who is really bad at actually imposing will on a game. I can analyze and read okay, but actually conveying my thoughts in a way to get people to go along with it is something I have never been good at. But dammit I have to try because this Az wagon is complete horse*****. And if Az is still alive come like Day 6 or something, then sure maybe he actually is a wolf and we yeet him then. But otherwise there are like 7 other people that should be yeeted first.
@Vaimes Why do you feel like you are sleepwalking through the game? I remember you like taking games over in the past, and overall after the beginning of like D1 it feels like you are in a parade car just sort of waving to everyone else while the game happens.
I approve of yeeting: Tubba, Bur, HR, Cuth, KillJoy, Vaimes
I already talked a little bit about this with/at Bur, but I actually think all/most of these are villagers. With a ton of waffling, yes, but still.
I'm a villager.
I liked Tubba's claim and readslist, but he's also the sort of reactionary player who tends to get poe voted out all the time.
I don't like Bur, I just don't see him as part of any sort of team.
Highroller seems town via meta. I don't have any sort of base for how scum!HR would behave, but I think he can get more creative than chasing after a neutral. He doesn't seem the type to struggle with posting content otherwise, could be wrong, shrug shrug.
Cuth has his claim, and I don't think his activity means anything. It's just bad. I'd expect him to be a little more pushy [as scum] since he kind of has a softclear via a dead villager.
KJ just seems like his townself, I don't really have anything specific I can point to. I read a bit of his ISO however many days/weeks ago and he reads pure to me. The ultimate snow, maybe.
With me leaning town on basically all the LHF, I kind of want to kill Az and Boom. I hate having to decide if Az being like, the only person who actively cares about the game is a ploy to make himself unkillable. Sepple burned me with this kind of read so I am actively trying not to care about that specific argument. Maybe I want to kill Sloth too, since he fooled me pretty well last time.
Well if that's the case Az is doing a ******* terrible job at making himself unkillable so far, so I really don't understand where that point is coming from. That would make more sense for someone who is rather vocal with no votes, which doesn't really exist this game.
How did I miss this post?
I’ll address this when I’m at a computer again, but real quick. That is not what a straw man is. A straw man is misrepresenting an argument and then attacking the argument based on your misrepresentation.
Calling out his GJ and bur case for bring suoerficial and weak does not come close to strawmanning. I’m scumhunting his manner if scumhunting. You can say I’m cherry picking if you want to because I’m fixated on those two things, I guess. It’s where my original feeling came from concerning his analysis But I’ve not seen things to suggest depth.
But I’m going to eat this and respond to it when not on my phone because I can’t read.
The in a mafia azrael world, using a free action to try to get someone who is wavering on voting for him anyway to not vote for him is a smart move.
But...it was about Sloth. Az isn’t personally convincing me not to vote him, and it’s not like my vote is the deciding one.
Yeah I get that. Why not tell the whole town? If he’s town going down, and he wants to make sure people know why sloth should be townread, why not tell the whole town instead of skill you? Just looks like a manipulative tactic to me.
I mean lolme if it’s not and this is a super town move, but I keep looking at him trying to see him bring town and trying to talk myself in to him being town because he’s active, but I keep failing in that endeavor. My only one thought about why he might be town is because of this feeling that he’s alone here, but I don’t know how much I should depend on that. And I shouldn’t really I guess because pragmatic Tammy says we’ll be right back here tomorrow.
@Az: Ok that's literally a strawman. Not the kind that people usually use that word for, but literally the fallacy.
I didn't say that addressing multiple people in the same post is scummy. I said that doing so in such a way that you can't tell who you're actually talking to is. It's not natural. It's not how people formulate posts in Mafia. You have made hundreds, maybe even thousands of posts that did not have this problem.
You take shortcuts??? You oouldn't @Tubba or HR or whoever those other sections were addressed to? Don't insult my intelligence.
And I'm not lynching you for being different. I have a tremendous amount of respect for your style. Most if not all of what you do have some townie likelihood. So I have been trying to find some... idiosyncrasy that might come from scum Az. And this might be it. You really can't pass off "I didn't specify who I was talking to" as a town strategy to catch scum. Its not relevant to my argument. I'm sorry if you feel victimized, but that's not what I'm trying to do here. I'm just looking for something that you would do as some alignment. And I think I found one.
@Sloth: I'm sorry, but I'll have to address that tomorrow. I need to go to work now. I might be on before deadline, but I doubt it.
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.
KJ, my base assumption (maybe this no longer holds true) is that every player reads every post in this game, no matter who it's directed to. And that therefore, if I address a question that one person had, that was very much related to a question that someone else had, it will answer their concerns as well.
I understood exactly what you were saying - not a strawman - the same criticism applies.
I am not saying it's town indicative. I'm saying it's not indicative of anything. There is no special scum-based explanation that makes it more likely this comes from scum than town. That's what a tell is. We're dealing with some pretty basic definitions here, but they have pretty important implications. This is one of the most frequent ways that townies screw up their reads, through conflating oddities with tells.
What is the scum motivation for this activity supposed to be? What's my objective that I'm trying to achieve, as scum, from not flagging/addressing you directly, while still answering your question?
If you're looking for idiosyncrasies in my history, you will definitely struggle. Because I'm full of oddities and idiosyncrasies under either alignment.
The things that tend to be real tells on me are:
1) Lack of motivation. I enjoy playing as town, and figuring out the game. I get passionate and interested. That's a more complicated inquiry now that I'm also time-strapped. But traditionally, that's how people caught me. I would put in a ton of time and effort, but then just slowly decay in terms of interest, revising those reads, keeping up with appearances. Stamina just wouldn't last through the whole course of the game.
2) Wording. The final tell in that mafia article I cited earlier, was Nai absolutely WRECKING me with wording analysis. He was able to pick out exactly what the subtext of my post was, where I was discussing a POE elimination chain, that would have resulted in the town losing. The town didn't put enough creedence in it, so I escaped, but he used my own weapons against me to devastating effect.
3) I wouldn't recommend relying on emotional analysis too heavily. I'm so well aware of it from my own analysis work, that I sometimes go to the effort of seeding false tells there as scum, in certain posts. Usually not throughout my entire history though.
4) Inability to faithfully mimick my town playstyle. It's unique and different, but very distinctive. Tons of pivots, curiosity, confidence, and being highly opinionated. If I'm not making noises about having solved pretty much the entire game by a certain point, that's not a good sign. If I'm not paranoid about being killed off, that's not a good sign. Traditionally, there are also usually gambits and deception included whether I'm town or scum, and information-gathering stunts. That's perhaps something that may change if I join another game and roll scum at some point, because I don't think there are enough people familiar with my meta anymore to expect those gambits and conversation-gathering stunts and be alarmed by their absence.
5) Inability to town-read me. Generally speaking, in the past, people were able to town-read me pretty easily as I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I was a pretty well-known quantity. That seems to have diminished a fair bit, as my time/abilities have declined. Used to be that I'd be dropping very thorough PBPAs dissecting players in minute detail. More recently, I haven't had the time to do that, so instead of showing my work, I've pivoted more towards informing myself about who the scum are with the time I have, rather than a ton of time showing my work and progress with others. That's creating a series of problems I'm going to have to get creative about addressing, like posting a standard boilerplate disclaimer about what my meta is and what is/isn't alignment indicative for me, such as over-confidence, factual mistakes, easy town-clears, etc.
IDK that that's terribly helpful to figuring me out, thinking it over I think that basically just signals that I'm a much harder read than I used to be. There's not many people who are going to be using high-level wording analysis on me the way that Nai did, there's not many people familiar with me from a meta standpoint, my town/scum games have blended closer together over time. Wish I could think of more to help you give you some more tools there, but it seems like the most I can do is tell you the things that really aren't AI for me, based on my verifiable past meta.
Tammy has said more than once that Azrael’s scumhunting is superficial pointedly referencing the garbage case against gentleman Johnny that was partly azrael fluffing himself about how scared of him Johnny was, that Johnny wasn’t trying to read him when he was, and some horribly superficial analysis. Also his pbpa against bur was commentary not analysis and was busy work designed to look like he’s scumhunting without actual analysis, which is a common scum trait. Azrael knows better than to call that actual analysis when it’s not.
the fact that he keeps ignoring that I’m calling him out for lack of depth in scumhunting and pretending it’s all about performance is e main reason why I’m not wavering on this anymore.
He's not ignoring you calling him out for lack of depth in scumhunting though is he? Pretty sure he has directly addressed that point.
Also, more importantly, the question that I haven't seen you answer (or I forgot lol) is why does that make him scum, vs. town that's possibly not having their best game hunting down scum? Az has also addressed most every other player in the game multiple times, so specifically pointing out GJ and Bur like that as poor feels like a bit of a strawman.
Yeeting Az is just not something we can afford to do, and realistically nobody has made a case against him. Like seriously, look at who's pushing the Az wagon right now.
Tammy's pretty town, but the rest of this wagon is just terrible. KJ's hop on with #2608 is just awful, also KJ
I think this was on the page I didn't the rest of the posts on it purposefully.
Anyway, I wanted to address the rest of it.
The only time I remember Azrael mentioning my problem with the analysis is when he bemoaned the fact that a townie didn't recognize what analysis was.
The reason why I keep bringing up Johnny and Bur and the points I made is because every post that I remember that Azrael has made concerning my scum read on him has been just referring to the feeling theatrical or less than genuine thing. In fact, that very post you are quoting to say that he has addressed it is a response to this right here:
B) Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic, but can't describe that without reference to how it makes her feel, rather than any actual scum motivation or plan or any particular wording
In fact the reason I keep bringing up the Johnny and Bur thing, and growing increasingly frustrated although living in America right now is to be constantly living in a state of frustration but I digress, is because this is what I notice as a constant trend. That I haven't said anything but feels inauthentic or performative. I know I've responded more than once to one of these types of posts by pointing out that I've talked in specifics. I didn't just say oh it makes me feel this way but I can't ascribe any scum motivation to it.
Thinking someone feels performative or fake or forced or whatever word someone uses to explain the very subjective thing they're feeling by the way someone posts fits that above, and my comment that he feels like he's performing town rather than just being town is absolutely subjective and could just be me. I am not saying that my original scum lean didn't start because of my impression here, but it did not end there.
I have very specifically pointed out and discussed what I did not like about the Johnny case and the Bur "analysis", and I said why. (I didn't so much like his cantrip one either that came right after Bur's as it had the same issues as my Bur thing, but the ones right after that were a bit better. But considering I had just called him out about the Bur one the change in style felt unnatural.)
But the reason why I keep focusing on Johnny and Bur is because my scumread keeps getting misrepresented as only being that I think he felt performative rather than town, and then he keeps attacking that misrepresentation as if it's the only thing that existed. So every time he keeps reducing it to oh Tammy scum reads me because performance, I point out no that's not true etc.
I obviously know he did more than that. I liked some of his posts, but then when he goes back to this again, it's problematic because he's again ignoring that I actually did point out things I did not like about his scumhunting in that I said it was superficial and not actual analysis. He can disagree with that, and if the post above would have been something along the lines of "Tammy thinks my scumhunting is superficial but she's missing x,y,z and is just wrong in her thoughts" I'd be having a completely different reaction because it would be addressing where my actual scumread came from and yeah I could be wrong.
So yes I keep fixating on those two things because he keeps acting like they don't exist.
I'm not really getting your question on why it makes him scum instead of just having a bad game hunting scum. Yes, I get that he's addressed every other player in the game, but again I keep pointing out that I did give actual specifics because he keeps saying I haven't.
Yeah, I don't really get this other point. Are you thinking I'm boping him and that's the issue? I'm not. I don't expect him to have all correct reads all the time. I don't know where you're getting that if that's what you mean.
Everybody has bad games; I feel like I'm having one right now! In fact, I earlier said that maybe I was expecting too much or something different. Do you think he's having a bad game? If you do, why are you just writing it off as town rather than scum? And if he's having a bad game, why is it problematic to yeet him. Of course, you might not think that, but I'm trying to understand your read there.
But we would not be having this conversation right now if it weren't for the fact that yet again he's making my scumread out to be something it's not and downplaying it, which feels very scum motivated to me.
Tammy, I did directly explain that the Bur "analysis" was me not being certain how to take those posts, that I wasn't certain how to interpet some of them and was trying to get more info from him before I could come to any conclusions. It was never intended to be comprehensive, because I couldn't understand those posts at the time.
I went into a lot more depth on that and your other points on a previous post, and I don't believe you ever responded to it.
TL DR; I think you're mischaracterizing my positions in very similar ways to how I've mischaracterized your own posting history. But the threads of those conversations have been dropped before they went anywhere.
Heh. Self-ISO'd to try and find the stuff Tammy was looking for. I guess I do have some things that I'd consider to be my classically eager town self tells:
Quote from Az »
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeead it. Read it read it read it.
This is what I used to do. Not really who I am anymore, but it's who I was. Whole scum teams routed by end of d1 multiple times, etc. See if the analysis speaks to ya, and make up your own mind.
--
RE: Sloth, yeah, he's good. But I think I may be seeing some distinguishing marks between his playstle, some very subtle things that look like town tells in his posting here that are NOT present in his scum game. Gonna iso that to be sure.
That's not going to move anyone I expect, but that's the old essence of scum-hunting me. That's town Az, getting excited about the shiny information that he found and wanting to share. Still stuff like that in my history you can look at in future games.
Back to finding Tammy's stuff.
Looks like I addressed this point from Tammy multiple times about supposedly superficial analysis, but this is the most recent reply to that point of hers. Here it is:
Quote from Az »
GJ misrepped the case against himself heavily and you bought his spin. The case was never that he was afraid of me as an analyst. It was that he seemed too incurious about my alignment, too confident in my being townie. Much like KJ was questioning me on my read on him. Like, dude, where is this strong of a read on me coming from, is the sense of it.
And Bur was never intended to be a case. I've mentioned that two or three times already.
I don't arrive at fully formed cases and then try to back-justify them. I read posts, and I think about them, sometimes pondering for several minutes at a time.
Sometimes I think I understand the post. I recognize a pattern. Sometimes I don't, and I ask questions. On a few occasions, I'm just stumped and confused.
If you go back and read the Bur analysis again, you'll find no ultimate conclusions. No calls to take his head off. What you'll find, is a few bits of commentary, interspersed with questions. Because at that point in time, I wasn't sure what to think of him and those posts. Hence, lots of "hmms" and not much commentary.
It's not superficial analysis. It's incomplete. I couldn't get a grip on him.
Later, the lack of satisfactory answers, coupled with subsequent posts, and a very poor voting record, and an attempt to raise a very misplaced language issue as defense, haven't led to much that gives me confidence there afterwards, whatever the role info is that some have been given.
If you want a more accurate read on me, go back and take a second look at it, through that lens.
Correct reads depend on empathy, being able to put yourself in my shoes and understand what I'm thinking and why, whether from a town or scum perspective.
I know you don't respond well to lectures, not trying to be tedious. I wrote an article years ago that sets a lot of this out in more detail. It used to be easily found on the OP, and I suppose a version of it still is, although the nested quotes were broken.
But in it, I talk about how most players start off doing what you're doing, looking for things that seem weird, or anti-town. Tells.
That's fine as far as it goes, but the next level above that, which the best players I've met use, to considerable success, is mindset analysis. It's not dipping litmus paper into water and turning blue every time you see someone, for example, tell a lie. There's the old rule, lynch all liars, right? Seem like a decent rule to catch mafia, right? In actuality, terrible rule.
With mindset analysis, you are trying to think like your enemies, or friends, think. Put yourself in their shoes. Can you understand what they were thinking, when they made that post? Does it seem more likely to come from one alignment, or another? What kinds of emotions, instincts, feelings do you expect from each alignment? Does that change, based on your read of that individual, because every individual is different and unique.
That's where the beauty in the game of mafia comes in. The effort to understand on an intimate level the workings of another mind - even through nothing more than words on a web page. That's the magic. That's what's kept me coming back to this game - the thrill and the challenge of doing that, of trying to understand others.
But here, it feels almost as if I'm in a foreign country. Because most of the people who practiced this art, who know this language, who can pick up those telltale signs and see inside me - they're gone. Dead, retired, out of time, out of willpower.
And I know that without that art, the town is hopelessly outgunned. The rudimentary methods are heavily unsuccessful. When we started this sub, the towns were very unsuccessful. Hardly anyone knew what to look for, how to get a correct read. Town won maybe 20, 25 percent of the time.
Flash forward five or ten years, and the tides had completely changed. The game was well balanced, with even wins on either side. The town's had learned how to do this, how to read mindset.
And in our invitationals? Where you had savants like Iso at play? Multiple 2nd day victories. They literally killed the scum and won the games faster than we could lynch them. One game, we didn't even lose a single townie.
THAT is what an educated, skilled, mindset-analysis wielding town can do. They can work miracles. They can read minds.
I'll see if I can't link that article for you guys. We could use a little bit of that old magic about now.
Tammy, I did directly explain that the Bur "analysis" was me not being certain how to take those posts, that I wasn't certain how to interpet some of them and was trying to get more info from him before I could come to any conclusions. It was never intended to be comprehensive, because I couldn't understand those posts at the time.
I went into a lot more depth on that and your other points on a previous post, and I don't believe you ever responded to it.
Yes, you did right after I commented on it. I'm not talking about when you and I talked about it. I'm referring to whenever you talked about the reads on you, like in the quote above, it was always just a reference to the performative thought as if that's it, and when you say things like I couldn't put actual words to it when I have it's downplaying my thoughts and acting like they never existed.
Again, I wouldn't be bringing this up again if instead of Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic cut can't put words to why without talking about how it makes her feel, it was something like Tammy and I have disagreements on scumhunting methods and the usefulness of PBPA or Tammy doesn't understand my scumhunting style or anything that addressed that I actually did put words to something, I wouldn't still be pointing it out. The GJ and Bur points are old, and I don't quite care about them in and of themselves anymore.
Because my point is not my argument about your Johnny and Bur reads, my point here is that I did make these points which your statement suggests I didn't.
You know, sometimes I quote things that I'm not sure quite how to take them, but they're important nonetheless. There's a fair amount of that with Bur, given how short many of his posts are. And he definitely needs to reply to my queries there.
Tammy, I did directly explain that the Bur "analysis" was me not being certain how to take those posts, that I wasn't certain how to interpet some of them and was trying to get more info from him before I could come to any conclusions. It was never intended to be comprehensive, because I couldn't understand those posts at the time.
I went into a lot more depth on that and your other points on a previous post, and I don't believe you ever responded to it.
Yes, you did right after I commented on it. I'm not talking about when you and I talked about it. I'm referring to whenever you talked about the reads on you, like in the quote above, it was always just a reference to the performative thought as if that's it, and when you say things like I couldn't put actual words to it when I have it's downplaying my thoughts and acting like they never existed.
Again, I wouldn't be bringing this up again if instead of Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic cut can't put words to why without talking about how it makes her feel, it was something like Tammy and I have disagreements on scumhunting methods and the usefulness of PBPA or Tammy doesn't understand my scumhunting style or anything that addressed that I actually did put words to something, I wouldn't still be pointing it out. The GJ and Bur points are old, and I don't quite care about them in and of themselves anymore.
Because my point is not my argument about your Johnny and Bur reads, my point here is that I did make these points which your statement suggests I didn't.
Here's what my brain does as these exchanges as outlined take place.
1) I respond to a query in thread and explain the rationale.
2) I wait for a response to my post.
3) No response is forthcoming
4) This reply is labelled in Az's brain as resolved, and goes poof into the memory hole of things that no longer exist or are relevant.
So if these continued to be areas of concern for you, that wasn't evident to me or something that stuck out in my memory, so the fact that you seemed to have to points against me that you felt were not resolved, when you hadn't tried to reply or engage with what I felt were perfectly satisfactory and obviously townie explanations, makes me feel like your case is baseless and insufficiently supported. Because you haven't continued to contest those good explanations.
So basically the defense for Azrael has amounted to BoomFrog saying, "But he's really active." Which, if that's your defense, it's pretty much a concession.
And the case against me is...
A) I argued with HR about Wisp (Didn't even particularly disagree that we should consider killing him, but had ideas about when and what conditions, but HR disliked my reasoning so I'm scum) B) Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic, but can't describe that without reference to how it makes her feel, rather than any actual scum motivation or plan or any particular wording
C) ???
The scum team is going to wind up being HR, Bur, Cuth, and LW as neutral or mafia. And it's no accident that 5 out of 5 top scummiest players in the game (I'm including tubba there), all of whom I've pointed out to the town are problematic, are trying to push this mislynch.
Meanwhile, our confirmed townies are milling around aimlessly, waiting for their chance to have the most vocal among their number picked off like fish in a barrel during the night.
Have I moved into the twilight zone.
How is this not clear? When Azrael talks about the reads on him, he frames my read as this. Always this. I'm not referencing when we've had conversations, I'm talking about when he discusses the reads on him, he downplays my read to this.
Tammy, I did directly explain that the Bur "analysis" was me not being certain how to take those posts, that I wasn't certain how to interpet some of them and was trying to get more info from him before I could come to any conclusions. It was never intended to be comprehensive, because I couldn't understand those posts at the time.
I went into a lot more depth on that and your other points on a previous post, and I don't believe you ever responded to it.
Yes, you did right after I commented on it. I'm not talking about when you and I talked about it. I'm referring to whenever you talked about the reads on you, like in the quote above, it was always just a reference to the performative thought as if that's it, and when you say things like I couldn't put actual words to it when I have it's downplaying my thoughts and acting like they never existed.
Again, I wouldn't be bringing this up again if instead of Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic cut can't put words to why without talking about how it makes her feel, it was something like Tammy and I have disagreements on scumhunting methods and the usefulness of PBPA or Tammy doesn't understand my scumhunting style or anything that addressed that I actually did put words to something, I wouldn't still be pointing it out. The GJ and Bur points are old, and I don't quite care about them in and of themselves anymore.
Because my point is not my argument about your Johnny and Bur reads, my point here is that I did make these points which your statement suggests I didn't.
Here's what my brain does as these exchanges as outlined take place.
1) I respond to a query in thread and explain the rationale.
2) I wait for a response to my post.
3) No response is forthcoming
4) This reply is labelled in Az's brain as resolved, and goes poof into the memory hole of things that no longer exist or are relevant.
So if these continued to be areas of concern for you, that wasn't evident to me or something that stuck out in my memory, so the fact that you seemed to have to points against me that you felt were not resolved, when you hadn't tried to reply or engage with what I felt were perfectly satisfactory and obviously townie explanations, makes me feel like your case is baseless and insufficiently supported. Because you haven't continued to contest those good explanations.
This is stupid.
And yes, I didn't read the rest of that other long ass post about Johnny and I'm still not going to. I just reread your case against Johnny and the first part about fear of you and Iso. Johnny didn't spin that, I didn't buy into some spin Johnny put on it.
There wasn't anything to continue. I told you that I didn't like your Johnny or Bur case, and I told you why. You talked about your greatness at analysis and I didn't agree. I'm not going to continue interacting with you on those things. It was superficial analysis and you're not going to change my mind on that. I'm not going to keep on arguing with you on it. I made my thoughts and points known, that I didn't keep arguing doesn't mean my thoughts in evidence no longer exist therefore you're perfectly okay to keep misrepresenting my thoughts and case. In fact again, we'd not keep having this conversation right here if you even smeared my thoughts. You're just acting like they don't exist and that's scummy.
I haven't read the part where tammy claimed the specifics of her ability but I'm fine with skilling it up to private claim to a second person. Much better for town than spilling it publicly, as Anak and Tammy will be able to attest.
Anyone who is reading "performative" as outside my meta really, really needs to read virtually any of my meta, but maybe start with World Dom 2, where as town I gambited being a multi-vote third party serial killer, who gained one extra vote every post that was a multiple of forty, in order to garner reactions and info. Tons of maniacal laughter, emoticons and pot-stirring. The whole concept was quite ridiculous of course, and never would have been designed as such, but it was a good way to gauge hysteria and those willing to prey upon it, while being effectively town cleared as a multi-voter.
It worked beautifully too, right up until they got carried away a little too far and fast and I got lynched before I and the others familiar with my penchant for gambits could talk the rest out of it. But the town certainly got a town of good info!
I haven't read the part where tammy claimed the specifics of her ability but I'm fine with skilling it up to private claim to a second person. Much better for town than spilling it publicly, as Anak and Tammy will be able to attest.
Anyone who is reading "performative" as outside my meta really, really needs to read virtually any of my meta, but maybe start with World Dom 2, where as town I gambited being a multi-vote third party serial killer, who gained one extra vote every post that was a multiple of forty, in order to garner reactions and info. Tons of maniacal laughter, emoticons and pot-stirring. The whole concept was quite ridiculous of course, and never would have been designed as such, but it was a good way to gauge hysteria and those willing to prey upon it, while being effectively town cleared as a multi-voter.
It worked beautifully too, right up until they got carried away a little too far and fast and I got lynched before I and the others familiar with my penchant for gambits could talk the rest out of it. But the town certainly got a town of good info!
I don't feel good, so I might not get to posting today as I mostly just want to go back to sleep. I only skimmed real quick and did some of that while drunk, so I'm sorry if I'm commenting on or asking something that was already covered.
Azrael - Congratulations on your baby! You're again simplifying where I'm having a problem finding you as town. I know you have a performative type of playstyle; you've felt overperformative in way that doesn't feel real. I could be wrong, this might just be natural, but it's felt fake. But that's no the only thing that has bugged me. I'm also thinking about the way you claimed witted, and then said oh I thought LW had the names on a list when the way you laid out the plan for helping LW and getting people witted sure seems like you had an understanding that LW did not know who was witted, which makes it feel like your entire claim was about looking like you're town than claiming because you were near to being run up. I've just gotten very few townie vibes from your posts. Did you use your mystery confirmable role last night and did it give you information? Is today's gifts from you?
Tubba - Did you ever look at or respond to either Azrael's or GJ's post about you and why they thought you were mafia? I know you complained about getting run up because of popularity contest something, and I'm sorry if you really feel that way and especially if you're town feeling that way. But if you haven't responded to either of those pushes, can you? I agree that many of the votes on you were basically shrug votes, including mine when you didn't return, so if you could respond to that, that would be great. If you did, just ignore me or say you did and I'll find it when I actually read the past few pages when sober and not hungover.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the mass claiming to me through skill. On the one hand, I see the benefit in mass claiming to someone in private because then mafia can't really fake claim comfortably and it might help my understanding some, and that's enticing. But I don't really want to be the holder of all that information. I don't enjoy being the haha I know more than you know person, and I don't really want to know all those things as it's better to be evaluated by the whole game. I'll invariably talk to people differently or treat them in ways based on what they've claimed, which could be counterproductive. I know not everyone is taking that suggestion seriously, but that's my view.
All right be back later.
So, here you looked like you were downplaying reads for performative, and I addressed it with words.
I have my votes where I want the wagons to be. Tubba/Boom.
You know why I think you get town read so often Vaimes? People like you. Hell, I like you. And I am sad that covid happened, so no gen con (honestly, I am not going this year since I need to restock the ol bank account, plus not sure the time table on the vaccine + success rate. That might a cesspool, even if they have the conventtion in 2021).
My attitude is significantly less charismatic. I know I am a prickly old man, which is why I get wolf read so often, even when I am making points. I won't ever get you to wolf read yourself, but why is silver town to you, ignoring his giving vit to cuth ability? Maybe isn't a hard wolf, but he isn't dazzling me in a way sloth or Tammy is for instance.
Yes! This. Likeability is absolutely a factor. You can see Tammy getting misled in her reads by similar factors, who she agrees with versus looking for artificiality.
The issue isn't looking for people like you, it's looking for people who are authentic to both themselves and (hopefully) their role.
One of the easiest things for the scum to do to blend in is to parrot town reads back at them. That's not how you find them.
Me. Reading me incorrectly based on my thought processes not being liked yours.
As for the townie end of things, perhaps Vaimes, who is quite good that that regardless of alignment.
We've now reached the phase of the game where instead of being unreasonably confident in my reads, I rethink everything obsessively, look for things I've missed, and try to mull over who is in my town pile for insufficient reasons.
I thought there were more instances of downplaying why I suspected you. So either I'm misremembering how often it was or I'm bad at finding things in ISO.
But this is where I first felt like you misrepresented my thoughts. I had a feels performative but might be style read on you early but I very heavily suspected Johnny and I was having trouble with that read. When you gave your Johnny case, I hoped that it would solidify my scumread there because I suspected him. I had hoped that with your case, if Johnny was scum it would solidify it for me, and if you were town I'd see it in that case. However, I hated the case and through your case and after I started seeing Johnny in a different light and came to a lean town read on him. I also was more up in the air about Bur at the time that you started doing Iso's.
We had similar opinions at one time; I didn't like the cases even though I held similar opinions at the time, but you downplayed it to me looking for people who agreed with me.
This one might be a bit innocuous. I guess you could have legitimately thought that I disagreed with the read therefore scum read you for it rather than thinking the scumhunting wasn't real and was superficial and therefore scum motivated. But here is, I believe, the start of when it felt like you were making my read about something other than what it was.
I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around this Tammy/Az back and forth. I feel like they're all the same posts with slightly different words.
If it's TVT then Az dying is probably for the better.
I was just thinking if Azrael is town then we are having the biggest play style clash ever I think. Which sucks and then I feel like an ********. I don't even remember the last time I had a play style clash I couldn't read through.
So basically the defense for Azrael has amounted to BoomFrog saying, "But he's really active." Which, if that's your defense, it's pretty much a concession.
And the case against me is...
A) I argued with HR about Wisp (Didn't even particularly disagree that we should consider killing him, but had ideas about when and what conditions, but HR disliked my reasoning so I'm scum) B) Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic, but can't describe that without reference to how it makes her feel, rather than any actual scum motivation or plan or any particular wording
C) ???
The scum team is going to wind up being HR, Bur, Cuth, and LW as neutral or mafia. And it's no accident that 5 out of 5 top scummiest players in the game (I'm including tubba there), all of whom I've pointed out to the town are problematic, are trying to push this mislynch.
Meanwhile, our confirmed townies are milling around aimlessly, waiting for their chance to have the most vocal among their number picked off like fish in a barrel during the night.
Have I moved into the twilight zone.
How is this not clear? When Azrael talks about the reads on him, he frames my read as this. Always this. I'm not referencing when we've had conversations, I'm talking about when he discusses the reads on him, he downplays my read to this.
This.
This.
This.
This.
This.
I feel like this is almost a language or definitions issue, where what I mean by a "case" or a "tell" is fundamentally different from how you see those things. Let's continue with the Bur issue as our framework for this, as it helps track the origin of how these communication issues emerged.
In the system of thought I'm used to playing within on this site, nothing is relevant as evidence unless there is a scum explanation for it, that makes more sense than a competing townie explanation for it. Absent that, it's not a tell. It's not a case. It's a misunderstanding or disagreement regarding what a mafia tell or what a valid case even is, definitionally. That is the conceptual framework for playing mafia that I bring to the table. Logically, unless something is more likely to come from town than scum, it's not a tell. It doesn't help solve.
So, then, the Bur case, and how that plays out.
1. You allege that my case on Bur was "superficial".
2. I supply the competing townie explanation for what I was doing, and argue that from a factual standpoint you're mischaracterizing what I said and was trying to accomplish there. There was nothing to lead anyone to believe that I was trying to do anything definitive there.
3. No competing, scum-centric explanation is presented by you, and no reply is presented by you in response to my townie explanation.
4. At that point, under the conceptual framework I'm operating under, you haven't made a valid case. You've stated that something looks weird or off to you, but there's no logic connecting that thing that looks weird or off, to my being scum.
If we can take a brief detour into symbolic logic land, the case is missing its essential "warrant". The connective tissue between premise, and a conclusion, that allows you to flow from one to another. You have "Azrael's analysis was superficial" (Premise) and "therefore scum". But there's nothing explaining WHY Azrael's analysis being superficial, means that Azrael is scum. There's nothing like "Azrael's town explanation that his post was never intended to be a real and complete case was insincere and false, because he clearly X, Y, Z, etc., and the far more likely explanation is that he is trying to present artificial analysis as scum because he is struggling to be genuine as town." Something like that.
So how I interpret this sequence of events, when you state that something is "superficial" or "artificial", but don't supply a scum rationale which fleshes that out or makes that allegation make any sense as far as a scum rationale, or that fails to question/contradict the town explanation for what's going on there, is that you've essentially failed to state a coherent case. There is an essential logical element, that is altogether missing. It's logically incoherent, and/or you haven't completed fleshing out this argument.
5) And at that point, I tell you that your case is insufficient and is missing an essential piece, your scum rationale, and it seems as if you responded to that by feeling as if I'm misrepresenting you and being dismissive. Whereas me, I'm feeling like I've responded to your case, and it's logically defective, and worthy of being dismissed out of hand.
And yes, I didn't read the rest of that other long ass post about Johnny and I'm still not going to. I just reread your case against Johnny and the first part about fear of you and Iso. Johnny didn't spin that, I didn't buy into some spin Johnny put on it.
You're STILL perpetuating a misunderstanding of that post.
I don't know how many times I've had to clarify this to both you and GJ. The issue was NEVER that I expected Johnny to "fear" me. The issue was that Johnny was town-reading me without a clear explanation for that. I know why I do that to people. I have no people why Johnny would do that to me. And I called him out and asked for an explanation on why he was doing that, because if it was because of inside information, that's a scum tell.
He never did come out and actually respond to it - he just did what you're doing now, and misrepresented why I was even asking the question, instead of supplying an answer so I could get a read on him.
The only part of that equation where skill enters in, is that sometimes it's easier to town-read a player when you have familiarity with their skill level and meta. GJ does have familiarity with my skill level and meta. And because of that, that made it even more unsettling to me that he would try and quickly town-read me, when I didn't think I had behaved in conformity with any of my past town meta up to that point, and I'm pretty inconsistent on whether or not I'm an easy town or scum read.
The fact that he seemed to be assuming my alignment without showing his work, bothered me. Same way it bothered KJ, when I did that to him. If he doesn't provide me the townie explanation for why he's doing what he's doing, that means the only explanation I have on my plate, is the scum explanation, inside info. Therefore, he wound up in my scum pile for a while, until I found enough pro-town evidence in other areas to kick him off that list.
I feel like I'm being gaslit in lawyereeze, and man does that gavel style pumping do absolutely nothing for me.
Superficial or shallow scumhunting is a standard marker for scum. Scum already know who town is therefore their scumhunting is often superficial. PBPA which is commentary that looks like busy work is superficial scumhunting NOT analysis. I don't need to make an explanation for what should already be extremely clear to someone with a lot of years of experience.
You can't move the goalposts and say that my reasoning never existed because I didn't continue to "no, u" when you responded. I made my thoughts on what you presented, that doesn't disappear because I didn't continue to "no, u."
I'm not having this conversation anymore. I super hope you're scum and this isn't the way you actually interact with people in games as town.
AGAIN my point is that you keep acting like the points I've made don't exist when they do. Your rationale is lacking.
I'm not wasting any more time with this; it's a huge distraction that I don't care to continue with or have time for.
Alright, going to start with a few basic premises here.
Premises:
1. I'm playing scummy this game, particularly to those who are familiar with my town meta. There's really no good reason for someone like GJ to be town-reading me. For those who recognize my scum meta from past years, this is what it used to look like. Non-motivated, inactive Azrael.
2. GJ has played with me for years, and knows that meta.
3. I've laid into GJ repeatedly, and he's stated that he views my reads on him as poor and not credible, multiples times.
4. Nowhere in his posting history does he indicate that he believes that I'm scum, counter-wagon, or even *wonder* if this attack is coming from a scum-motivated Azrael.
5. I have gone GJ absolutely zero reasons not to be considered as a scum candidate, particularly while I'm calling for his head. But the thought doesn't even seem to cross his mind. Why?
6. GJ also knows that if he counter-wagons me successfully, and I flip townie, it will vindicate my reads and draw more suspicion to him.
7. If he simply calls my reads and abilities into question (by falsely stating I have an inability to read GJ correctly in the past, which is 100% untrue), he can defuse pressure against himself without flipping me and exposing himself or drawing extra attention.
Conclusion:
GJ is not seriously analyzing me as a scum candidate because as scum he already knows that I'm town, and he's selecting the defensive strategy that maximizes his chances of avoiding negative scrutiny.
Other points:
Quote from "GJ" »
Iso and Azrael in a game.
Boy howdy, this is going to be interesting.
Banter at the start of the game can be one of the deceptively revelatory phases of the game. Here, GJ tips his hand. In the past, Iso and I each had the ability to route an entire scum team in the first two game-days, demonstrated across multiple games.
If you pull scum, that's a daunting lineup to face. That sentiment, that bracing for impact, is written all over GJ's first post.
Quote from "GJ" »
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A Man of Many Masks
Gentleman Johnny's avatar
Join Date: 12/30/2007
Posts: 8,058
Member Details
If Iso hasn't solved the game by page 4, he is a wolf.
Other than that, no live reads Smile
Random fun fact: Jumped ship on teaching, and am now an accountant. Did this right before Covid so timing couldn't have been better.
See above. GJ knows Iso's rep, and fears him, even if we're both over the hill.
If GJ flips scum, this is major plus town points for Iso.
Quote from "GJ" »
Decent sounding tone, but it seems like you aren't even trying to push the game forward, as if you are wanting to stay in RVS.
Not inherently wolfy, but eyebrow raising from my perspective.
Hedging his reads in classically wolfy manner. This type of lukewarm positioning allows him to look as if he's contributing reads/material to the thread, but he's actively avoiding antagonizing KJ by NOT calling him scum.
Eyebrow raising isn't relevant. Scum reads are relevant. And, not trying to push the game forward IS inherently wolfy. However, that's not really a fair description of what KJ was doing there. This reads very much like one of those posts that scum make to lay the groundwork for an attack on a sometimes-vulnerable player (KJ), that they can point back to and say that they had been suspicious of them way back on D1 and they're being consistent in their stances - but without making an enemy of KJ by actually calling him scummy outright.
Perfect scum lukewarm.
Quote from "GJ" »
That makes me sadder. It means you lost you ability to read me or you are a wolf. I really hope it's the first. Frown
GJ's logic here doesn't track. Misreading a single post does not mean he's lost the ability to read a player. What this is, is an attempt to emotionally manipulate a non-aligned player (LW) with a false dichotomy.
Quote from "GJ" »
@Vaimes: My core of hunting as town is basically boiled down to one fundamental question: Is this person trying to solve the game? Yes, they are town. No, they are wolf. I'll snag the occasional townie, but honestly, townies that aren't solving should be lynched more. Or get better at faking it, or I don't know. KJ's posts bother me because he will ask questions, and then do nothing with them. I also think he doesn't try to get people to follow him, and in particular, his response to me about no one doing anything just reads disdainfully.
He has half the team defending him from even questioning, so I don't really see a point in continuing. But I just roll my eyes and move on.
This is about the 5th or 6th post where GJ has had to defend his crappy, unfair pot-shot at KJ, which multiple other players caught on to (good for them). And he doesn't stand by the read - he tries to handwave it and get everyone to move on and stop talking about his bogus reasoning.
Quote from "GJ" »
I almost immediately want to retract my read of Bur. Actually with KJ on this one, that it rings slightly fake to me.
Previous post was town-reading Bur. Look at this pivot, and read this together with his most recent Bur interaction. There's distancing going on here. He does NOT want to be tied together with Bur, but he's not prepared to seriously bury a dagger in him either.
Look at that change in adjectives here. He "almost immedately" wants to retract the read, but then ends by saying it's only "slightly fake". Contradictory. The first sentence is GJ thinking to himself that his buddy has noticeably screwed up and he has to "immediately" untie himself. The second is moderating that to not pile onto Bur and subtly defuse his buddy's mistake by calling it only "slightly" fake. But you can see the breakdown between his genuine mindset and his assumed posture as the adjectives he uses visibly change from one sentence to the next.
Also, what happened to that CC town-read?
Quote from "GJ" »
Vote Silvercry3467
Quote from "GJ" »
Silver is background noise for me. I can't actually tell if his takes are serious or not, and the few posts I have read just felt more like he is posting to coast and not posting to solve. Watching him.
Recycles that awful KJ vote reasoning. And against yet another obv-town player. *grimaces*
This man's scum-meter is turned off.
Quote from "GJ" »
Sorry, something broke in me yesterday. Working on catching up.
I like Iso, I dislike Az. Iso feels super solvey so far, even if I am not sold on CC being wolfy.
Az, from my bird brain memory of his posts felt really consensus. He also seems weirdly giddy which feels so out of character for him, but that is probably nai.
Wisp is bothering me for some reason, but I can't really put my finger on why. I will try to explore that when I have less work in front of me.
This is some of the posts where you start to see GJ being inconsistent with himself. He lays early suspicion on me, but when he sees that it could become a me vs. GJ death-match, he back-pedals off these early scum reads super hard, and won't touch me with a ten-foot pole.
Quote from "GJ" »
This doesn't strike me as someone actively hunting. This strikes me as someone looking to coast and join a wagon, not find a target to get other people to follow.
Unvote SIlver, Vote CropCircles42
How many times are you going to recycle this same bad read against obv-townies? CC, KJ, Silver - all of these were/are easy town-reads. *shakes head* One-trick pony here. Same case presented over and over against three different town players.
Quote from "GJ" »
To be fair, if there is a deep wolf, I am putting odds its you over say Rhand or Tammy ;).
...Worst. Scum. Reads. Ever. Period.
Quote from "GJ" »
Oh Jesus, right.
I am beginning to wonder if Rhand is right after all. The CC frustration only makes sense if they are upset with their wolf team. Like, I don't see that level of anger if it isn't happening, and while it's self serving as hell, I agree with Vaimes that bussing is incredibly unlikely. It's almost never Iso. I am one of the most blatant busers around, but even I wouldn't 0-60 someone like Iso did.
Frog/Bur/ one of Az/Cantrip maybe. Wisp could also be a wolf, and CC is incredible unhappy with how he played it out. Hmm.
...My, my, aren't we prescient.
I'm out of time for now, time to go see Christmas light with the kids.
Kill it. Vote: GJ.
Okay last one.
The bolded above where you mention how you and Iso used to be in games, and it would be a daunting task for him to pull scum against you. You mention that Johnny fears Iso in his post above.
THAT'S where you claim Johnny fears you. And then your extension of the Johnny's not reading you can be interpreted to be due to his fear of you because if you flip town and die your read on him will be validated and he'll be caught.
Those are your words above. That's what I'm interpreting.
I'm literally at a loss for what's offensive about that post.
Clearly, you're not following my logic. And that's fine.
But as a result of this, it seems like you can't even fully understand why it is that I don't think your case makes sense.
No, Tammy. I don't agree with you that sticking the label "superficial" on something makes it a tell. You take that as gospel. I don't. In fact, I vehemently disagree, have disagreed for years.
You're doing what I refer to in my mafia article as "Actus Reus" analysis. It's something I violently disagree with, to the point I wrote a very long-winded article about it that I'm sure you're not the slightest bit interested in reading.
And that's ok. But if you want to understand why I'm rejecting your argument as logically defective, that's where the answers are. You're scum-hunting in a way that I feel is extremely common to new players, but absolutely invalid.
Unlike other players, I don't agree that certain things are "universal tells". That if something is "superficial", that always comes from scum and is a "tell". I disagree with that violently. That's where we have a definitional/communication problem.
To simplify this to help make sure you're not thinking I'm misrepresenting you:
I don't believe in any standard markers for scum, Tammy. I reject that logic. That's the essential part.
I think the only valid scum-hunting method, is when something is more likely to come from a scum mindset, than a town mindset.
And that always requires an individualized exploration of the facts and circumstances surrounding the post. Is there a perfectly good townie explanation for what they did? If so, then it's not a tell.
For anyone who actually is interested in tracking what the hell I'm talking about:
Quote from Az Article »
How do we get better at playing mafia? At the end of the day, it all boils down to one thing: honing our behavioral edge. Role analysis and design speculation only get us so far, especially when the moderator designs his game well. Of course, behavioral analysis can be very difficult. Not only do you have to directly compete against another human being who is trying very hard not be discovered, but we also have to be able sift through the false leads created by our own teammates. We have to be able to distinguish between good evidence, and red herrings.
The Scum Tell Method: Actus Reus
But there is a common tendency among players not to approach the problem this way. Most players track of a list of behaviors that people generally say are mafia tells. Evasion, appeals to emotion, defending scum, snacking on babies, and so on. Most players refer to these activities as scum tells. The more scum tells a person has, the higher they are on your scum scale, and the higher the chance that they’re scum. If a player has a higher level of scum tells than you would expect them to have as a townie, they’re put on the short list for your vote. If they max out their scale high enough, the town eliminates them.
In criminal law terminology, they concentrate on the "actus reus". The actions of their fellow players, and whether those actions help or hurt the town, and whether those actions look like one of the traditional mafia tells. The mens rea element (mental state) is deemphasized.
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the scum tell method. It does a fair job of catching inexperienced players who haven’t learned that they need to avoid traditional scum tells at all costs, and can sometimes nab experienced players who slip up and commit one in a moment of weakness. It’s also a good introductory method for newer players, because it teaches beginners to what to look for, and it is very, very simple. You read through the thread, identify behaviors that might be scummy, and cast your vote accordingly. 1,2, 3.
But as times goes on, the weaknesses of this approach have become obvious. For one, may of the activities that were labelled as tells early in the game’s history may not actually be tells at all, or at minimum may be not be anywhere near as strong as we used to believe. Two, this approach is extremely predictable. It gives scum a clear and simple instruction manual of what behaviors to avoid if they don’t want to be lynched. It allows them to hide a guilty mind behind innocent-seeming actions.
But the greatest downside to the scum tell method is that if you choose not to evaluate whether your evidence is reliable, if often won't be. Town players can easily max out a scum scale with activities that have completely innocent and reasonable townie explanations. When that happens, innocent townies become collateral damage, and the scum reap the benefits of pointless and preventable mistakes.
Causation Analysis
The scum tell scale method may be a good technique for beginners, but other methods of analyzing behavior exist. As players become more experienced, they often begin to realize that the game of mafia is more complex than crime and punishment. There is a component of empathy.
Huh? Empathy? What do you mean by that? Are we supposed to feel sorry for the scum?
What I mean by empathy is that we have to be able to step inside the heads of our fellow players. What a player does in public is only one half of the picture. The other half, the more revealing half, is their motive for doing it. We want to figure out the cause of their actions, and their emotions.
This style of play means that I have an obligation, to you, as town, to provide a valid explanation for why I'm doing whatever the hell it is that I'm doing.
If I can't provide that town explanation for my behavior, then I've failed you and I've failed the rest of the town by failing to make myself clear. If I don't give you necessary information that you need to read me, I'm hurting the town.
That's all I've been trying to do here. You stated that you felt my dismissing your cases was a tell. That means it's now my burden of proof to respond and explain. Not bludgeoning - giving you a necessary tool.
If it's useless to you, because this isn't a thing that you do, I'm sorry. But that's the pattern of how I respond to every case that someone makes against me, by making sure that they have the info they need to reach correct conclusions. Under this system, that's what I'm supposed to do.
(#11 - I agree. I don't understand why that was so townie both from the person and the interpretation thereof. I don't understand why he viewed it as town. But I'm not sure it makes him scum?
#13 - I actually kind of like that thought. I'm not sure how much to depend on it, but I like your thought on it. Sorry I don't have more right this second on that. I translated the autocorrect lol!
#9 oh I forgot top of this one. I don't know. My understanding of the game state is such ***** right now that I just don't know.)
@Azreal
To be fair, I don't believe in scum tells, they are usually more of a tool, than a whole case. Everything is contextual in my opinion. I'm more a of a fan of meta, since I believe I am able to catch subtleties, when they exist, it's the reason why I can be more confident in my highroller read and why I was able to be confident in Silver being town. GJ was a little harder because I was rusty, but after now that I finished that micro, I'm pretty sure I can catch him everytime again
I will be here sporadically leading up to deadline, I’d like Az/Cuth, with Bur or Anak as distant thirds. I still think wisp should be an option, but that’s whatever.
Looks like no one is going to be compiling that "willing to lynch list", so the best available proxy for that is placing votes on the leaders who aren't yet near the lynch threshold who qualify. Cuth and LW are the two closest on my "willing to lynch" list.
How did I miss this post?
I’ll address this when I’m at a computer again, but real quick. That is not what a straw man is. A straw man is misrepresenting an argument and then attacking the argument based on your misrepresentation.
Calling out his GJ and bur case for bring suoerficial and weak does not come close to strawmanning. I’m scumhunting his manner if scumhunting. You can say I’m cherry picking if you want to because I’m fixated on those two things, I guess. It’s where my original feeling came from concerning his analysis But I’ve not seen things to suggest depth.
But I’m going to eat this and respond to it when not on my phone because I can’t read.
Yeah I get that. Why not tell the whole town? If he’s town going down, and he wants to make sure people know why sloth should be townread, why not tell the whole town instead of skill you? Just looks like a manipulative tactic to me.
I mean lolme if it’s not and this is a super town move, but I keep looking at him trying to see him bring town and trying to talk myself in to him being town because he’s active, but I keep failing in that endeavor. My only one thought about why he might be town is because of this feeling that he’s alone here, but I don’t know how much I should depend on that. And I shouldn’t really I guess because pragmatic Tammy says we’ll be right back here tomorrow.
I didn't say that addressing multiple people in the same post is scummy. I said that doing so in such a way that you can't tell who you're actually talking to is. It's not natural. It's not how people formulate posts in Mafia. You have made hundreds, maybe even thousands of posts that did not have this problem.
You take shortcuts??? You oouldn't @Tubba or HR or whoever those other sections were addressed to? Don't insult my intelligence.
And I'm not lynching you for being different. I have a tremendous amount of respect for your style. Most if not all of what you do have some townie likelihood. So I have been trying to find some... idiosyncrasy that might come from scum Az. And this might be it. You really can't pass off "I didn't specify who I was talking to" as a town strategy to catch scum. Its not relevant to my argument. I'm sorry if you feel victimized, but that's not what I'm trying to do here. I'm just looking for something that you would do as some alignment. And I think I found one.
@Sloth: I'm sorry, but I'll have to address that tomorrow. I need to go to work now. I might be on before deadline, but I doubt it.
Vote Az, Vote Tubba
I understood exactly what you were saying - not a strawman - the same criticism applies.
I am not saying it's town indicative. I'm saying it's not indicative of anything. There is no special scum-based explanation that makes it more likely this comes from scum than town. That's what a tell is. We're dealing with some pretty basic definitions here, but they have pretty important implications. This is one of the most frequent ways that townies screw up their reads, through conflating oddities with tells.
What is the scum motivation for this activity supposed to be? What's my objective that I'm trying to achieve, as scum, from not flagging/addressing you directly, while still answering your question?
If you're looking for idiosyncrasies in my history, you will definitely struggle. Because I'm full of oddities and idiosyncrasies under either alignment.
The things that tend to be real tells on me are:
1) Lack of motivation. I enjoy playing as town, and figuring out the game. I get passionate and interested. That's a more complicated inquiry now that I'm also time-strapped. But traditionally, that's how people caught me. I would put in a ton of time and effort, but then just slowly decay in terms of interest, revising those reads, keeping up with appearances. Stamina just wouldn't last through the whole course of the game.
2) Wording. The final tell in that mafia article I cited earlier, was Nai absolutely WRECKING me with wording analysis. He was able to pick out exactly what the subtext of my post was, where I was discussing a POE elimination chain, that would have resulted in the town losing. The town didn't put enough creedence in it, so I escaped, but he used my own weapons against me to devastating effect.
3) I wouldn't recommend relying on emotional analysis too heavily. I'm so well aware of it from my own analysis work, that I sometimes go to the effort of seeding false tells there as scum, in certain posts. Usually not throughout my entire history though.
4) Inability to faithfully mimick my town playstyle. It's unique and different, but very distinctive. Tons of pivots, curiosity, confidence, and being highly opinionated. If I'm not making noises about having solved pretty much the entire game by a certain point, that's not a good sign. If I'm not paranoid about being killed off, that's not a good sign. Traditionally, there are also usually gambits and deception included whether I'm town or scum, and information-gathering stunts. That's perhaps something that may change if I join another game and roll scum at some point, because I don't think there are enough people familiar with my meta anymore to expect those gambits and conversation-gathering stunts and be alarmed by their absence.
5) Inability to town-read me. Generally speaking, in the past, people were able to town-read me pretty easily as I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I was a pretty well-known quantity. That seems to have diminished a fair bit, as my time/abilities have declined. Used to be that I'd be dropping very thorough PBPAs dissecting players in minute detail. More recently, I haven't had the time to do that, so instead of showing my work, I've pivoted more towards informing myself about who the scum are with the time I have, rather than a ton of time showing my work and progress with others. That's creating a series of problems I'm going to have to get creative about addressing, like posting a standard boilerplate disclaimer about what my meta is and what is/isn't alignment indicative for me, such as over-confidence, factual mistakes, easy town-clears, etc.
IDK that that's terribly helpful to figuring me out, thinking it over I think that basically just signals that I'm a much harder read than I used to be. There's not many people who are going to be using high-level wording analysis on me the way that Nai did, there's not many people familiar with me from a meta standpoint, my town/scum games have blended closer together over time. Wish I could think of more to help you give you some more tools there, but it seems like the most I can do is tell you the things that really aren't AI for me, based on my verifiable past meta.
I think this was on the page I didn't the rest of the posts on it purposefully.
Anyway, I wanted to address the rest of it.
The only time I remember Azrael mentioning my problem with the analysis is when he bemoaned the fact that a townie didn't recognize what analysis was.
The reason why I keep bringing up Johnny and Bur and the points I made is because every post that I remember that Azrael has made concerning my scum read on him has been just referring to the feeling theatrical or less than genuine thing. In fact, that very post you are quoting to say that he has addressed it is a response to this right here:
In fact the reason I keep bringing up the Johnny and Bur thing, and growing increasingly frustrated although living in America right now is to be constantly living in a state of frustration but I digress, is because this is what I notice as a constant trend. That I haven't said anything but feels inauthentic or performative. I know I've responded more than once to one of these types of posts by pointing out that I've talked in specifics. I didn't just say oh it makes me feel this way but I can't ascribe any scum motivation to it.
Thinking someone feels performative or fake or forced or whatever word someone uses to explain the very subjective thing they're feeling by the way someone posts fits that above, and my comment that he feels like he's performing town rather than just being town is absolutely subjective and could just be me. I am not saying that my original scum lean didn't start because of my impression here, but it did not end there.
I have very specifically pointed out and discussed what I did not like about the Johnny case and the Bur "analysis", and I said why. (I didn't so much like his cantrip one either that came right after Bur's as it had the same issues as my Bur thing, but the ones right after that were a bit better. But considering I had just called him out about the Bur one the change in style felt unnatural.)
But the reason why I keep focusing on Johnny and Bur is because my scumread keeps getting misrepresented as only being that I think he felt performative rather than town, and then he keeps attacking that misrepresentation as if it's the only thing that existed. So every time he keeps reducing it to oh Tammy scum reads me because performance, I point out no that's not true etc.
I obviously know he did more than that. I liked some of his posts, but then when he goes back to this again, it's problematic because he's again ignoring that I actually did point out things I did not like about his scumhunting in that I said it was superficial and not actual analysis. He can disagree with that, and if the post above would have been something along the lines of "Tammy thinks my scumhunting is superficial but she's missing x,y,z and is just wrong in her thoughts" I'd be having a completely different reaction because it would be addressing where my actual scumread came from and yeah I could be wrong.
So yes I keep fixating on those two things because he keeps acting like they don't exist.
I'm not really getting your question on why it makes him scum instead of just having a bad game hunting scum. Yes, I get that he's addressed every other player in the game, but again I keep pointing out that I did give actual specifics because he keeps saying I haven't.
Yeah, I don't really get this other point. Are you thinking I'm boping him and that's the issue? I'm not. I don't expect him to have all correct reads all the time. I don't know where you're getting that if that's what you mean.
Everybody has bad games; I feel like I'm having one right now! In fact, I earlier said that maybe I was expecting too much or something different. Do you think he's having a bad game? If you do, why are you just writing it off as town rather than scum? And if he's having a bad game, why is it problematic to yeet him. Of course, you might not think that, but I'm trying to understand your read there.
But we would not be having this conversation right now if it weren't for the fact that yet again he's making my scumread out to be something it's not and downplaying it, which feels very scum motivated to me.
I went into a lot more depth on that and your other points on a previous post, and I don't believe you ever responded to it.
That's not going to move anyone I expect, but that's the old essence of scum-hunting me. That's town Az, getting excited about the shiny information that he found and wanting to share. Still stuff like that in my history you can look at in future games.
Back to finding Tammy's stuff.
Looks like I addressed this point from Tammy multiple times about supposedly superficial analysis, but this is the most recent reply to that point of hers. Here it is:
Yes, you did right after I commented on it. I'm not talking about when you and I talked about it. I'm referring to whenever you talked about the reads on you, like in the quote above, it was always just a reference to the performative thought as if that's it, and when you say things like I couldn't put actual words to it when I have it's downplaying my thoughts and acting like they never existed.
Again, I wouldn't be bringing this up again if instead of Tammy thinks I'm inauthentic cut can't put words to why without talking about how it makes her feel, it was something like Tammy and I have disagreements on scumhunting methods and the usefulness of PBPA or Tammy doesn't understand my scumhunting style or anything that addressed that I actually did put words to something, I wouldn't still be pointing it out. The GJ and Bur points are old, and I don't quite care about them in and of themselves anymore.
Because my point is not my argument about your Johnny and Bur reads, my point here is that I did make these points which your statement suggests I didn't.
Here's what my brain does as these exchanges as outlined take place.
1) I respond to a query in thread and explain the rationale.
2) I wait for a response to my post.
3) No response is forthcoming
4) This reply is labelled in Az's brain as resolved, and goes poof into the memory hole of things that no longer exist or are relevant.
So if these continued to be areas of concern for you, that wasn't evident to me or something that stuck out in my memory, so the fact that you seemed to have to points against me that you felt were not resolved, when you hadn't tried to reply or engage with what I felt were perfectly satisfactory and obviously townie explanations, makes me feel like your case is baseless and insufficiently supported. Because you haven't continued to contest those good explanations.
Have I moved into the twilight zone.
How is this not clear? When Azrael talks about the reads on him, he frames my read as this. Always this. I'm not referencing when we've had conversations, I'm talking about when he discusses the reads on him, he downplays my read to this.
This.
This.
This.
This.
This.
This is stupid.
And yes, I didn't read the rest of that other long ass post about Johnny and I'm still not going to. I just reread your case against Johnny and the first part about fear of you and Iso. Johnny didn't spin that, I didn't buy into some spin Johnny put on it.
There wasn't anything to continue. I told you that I didn't like your Johnny or Bur case, and I told you why. You talked about your greatness at analysis and I didn't agree. I'm not going to continue interacting with you on those things. It was superficial analysis and you're not going to change my mind on that. I'm not going to keep on arguing with you on it. I made my thoughts and points known, that I didn't keep arguing doesn't mean my thoughts in evidence no longer exist therefore you're perfectly okay to keep misrepresenting my thoughts and case. In fact again, we'd not keep having this conversation right here if you even smeared my thoughts. You're just acting like they don't exist and that's scummy.
So, here you looked like you were downplaying reads for performative, and I addressed it with words.
I asked who I was being misled by.
I thought there were more instances of downplaying why I suspected you. So either I'm misremembering how often it was or I'm bad at finding things in ISO.
But this is where I first felt like you misrepresented my thoughts. I had a feels performative but might be style read on you early but I very heavily suspected Johnny and I was having trouble with that read. When you gave your Johnny case, I hoped that it would solidify my scumread there because I suspected him. I had hoped that with your case, if Johnny was scum it would solidify it for me, and if you were town I'd see it in that case. However, I hated the case and through your case and after I started seeing Johnny in a different light and came to a lean town read on him. I also was more up in the air about Bur at the time that you started doing Iso's.
We had similar opinions at one time; I didn't like the cases even though I held similar opinions at the time, but you downplayed it to me looking for people who agreed with me.
This one might be a bit innocuous. I guess you could have legitimately thought that I disagreed with the read therefore scum read you for it rather than thinking the scumhunting wasn't real and was superficial and therefore scum motivated. But here is, I believe, the start of when it felt like you were making my read about something other than what it was.
If it's TVT then Az dying is probably for the better.
I was just thinking if Azrael is town then we are having the biggest play style clash ever I think. Which sucks and then I feel like an ********. I don't even remember the last time I had a play style clash I couldn't read through.
I feel like this is almost a language or definitions issue, where what I mean by a "case" or a "tell" is fundamentally different from how you see those things. Let's continue with the Bur issue as our framework for this, as it helps track the origin of how these communication issues emerged.
In the system of thought I'm used to playing within on this site, nothing is relevant as evidence unless there is a scum explanation for it, that makes more sense than a competing townie explanation for it. Absent that, it's not a tell. It's not a case. It's a misunderstanding or disagreement regarding what a mafia tell or what a valid case even is, definitionally. That is the conceptual framework for playing mafia that I bring to the table. Logically, unless something is more likely to come from town than scum, it's not a tell. It doesn't help solve.
So, then, the Bur case, and how that plays out.
1. You allege that my case on Bur was "superficial".
2. I supply the competing townie explanation for what I was doing, and argue that from a factual standpoint you're mischaracterizing what I said and was trying to accomplish there. There was nothing to lead anyone to believe that I was trying to do anything definitive there.
3. No competing, scum-centric explanation is presented by you, and no reply is presented by you in response to my townie explanation.
4. At that point, under the conceptual framework I'm operating under, you haven't made a valid case. You've stated that something looks weird or off to you, but there's no logic connecting that thing that looks weird or off, to my being scum.
If we can take a brief detour into symbolic logic land, the case is missing its essential "warrant". The connective tissue between premise, and a conclusion, that allows you to flow from one to another. You have "Azrael's analysis was superficial" (Premise) and "therefore scum". But there's nothing explaining WHY Azrael's analysis being superficial, means that Azrael is scum. There's nothing like "Azrael's town explanation that his post was never intended to be a real and complete case was insincere and false, because he clearly X, Y, Z, etc., and the far more likely explanation is that he is trying to present artificial analysis as scum because he is struggling to be genuine as town." Something like that.
So how I interpret this sequence of events, when you state that something is "superficial" or "artificial", but don't supply a scum rationale which fleshes that out or makes that allegation make any sense as far as a scum rationale, or that fails to question/contradict the town explanation for what's going on there, is that you've essentially failed to state a coherent case. There is an essential logical element, that is altogether missing. It's logically incoherent, and/or you haven't completed fleshing out this argument.
5) And at that point, I tell you that your case is insufficient and is missing an essential piece, your scum rationale, and it seems as if you responded to that by feeling as if I'm misrepresenting you and being dismissive. Whereas me, I'm feeling like I've responded to your case, and it's logically defective, and worthy of being dismissed out of hand.
You're STILL perpetuating a misunderstanding of that post.
I don't know how many times I've had to clarify this to both you and GJ. The issue was NEVER that I expected Johnny to "fear" me. The issue was that Johnny was town-reading me without a clear explanation for that. I know why I do that to people. I have no people why Johnny would do that to me. And I called him out and asked for an explanation on why he was doing that, because if it was because of inside information, that's a scum tell.
He never did come out and actually respond to it - he just did what you're doing now, and misrepresented why I was even asking the question, instead of supplying an answer so I could get a read on him.
The fact that he seemed to be assuming my alignment without showing his work, bothered me. Same way it bothered KJ, when I did that to him. If he doesn't provide me the townie explanation for why he's doing what he's doing, that means the only explanation I have on my plate, is the scum explanation, inside info. Therefore, he wound up in my scum pile for a while, until I found enough pro-town evidence in other areas to kick him off that list.
I feel like I'm being gaslit in lawyereeze, and man does that gavel style pumping do absolutely nothing for me.
Superficial or shallow scumhunting is a standard marker for scum. Scum already know who town is therefore their scumhunting is often superficial. PBPA which is commentary that looks like busy work is superficial scumhunting NOT analysis. I don't need to make an explanation for what should already be extremely clear to someone with a lot of years of experience.
You can't move the goalposts and say that my reasoning never existed because I didn't continue to "no, u" when you responded. I made my thoughts on what you presented, that doesn't disappear because I didn't continue to "no, u."
I'm not having this conversation anymore. I super hope you're scum and this isn't the way you actually interact with people in games as town.
AGAIN my point is that you keep acting like the points I've made don't exist when they do. Your rationale is lacking.
I'm not wasting any more time with this; it's a huge distraction that I don't care to continue with or have time for.
Okay last one.
The bolded above where you mention how you and Iso used to be in games, and it would be a daunting task for him to pull scum against you. You mention that Johnny fears Iso in his post above.
THAT'S where you claim Johnny fears you. And then your extension of the Johnny's not reading you can be interpreted to be due to his fear of you because if you flip town and die your read on him will be validated and he'll be caught.
Those are your words above. That's what I'm interpreting.
Clearly, you're not following my logic. And that's fine.
But as a result of this, it seems like you can't even fully understand why it is that I don't think your case makes sense.
No, Tammy. I don't agree with you that sticking the label "superficial" on something makes it a tell. You take that as gospel. I don't. In fact, I vehemently disagree, have disagreed for years.
You're doing what I refer to in my mafia article as "Actus Reus" analysis. It's something I violently disagree with, to the point I wrote a very long-winded article about it that I'm sure you're not the slightest bit interested in reading.
And that's ok. But if you want to understand why I'm rejecting your argument as logically defective, that's where the answers are. You're scum-hunting in a way that I feel is extremely common to new players, but absolutely invalid.
Unlike other players, I don't agree that certain things are "universal tells". That if something is "superficial", that always comes from scum and is a "tell". I disagree with that violently. That's where we have a definitional/communication problem.
What is going on?
Az (6): Highroller, Sloth, Bur, Bessie, Wisp, KJ
Tubba (4): Cuth, Bur, Wisp, KJ
Wisp (2): Highroller, BoomFrog
Bur (2): Az, Anak
Cuth (2): Az, BoomFrog
Anak (2): Bessie, Sloth
Sloth (1): Cuth
Highroller (1): Anak
Not Voting (3): Cantrip, Tubba, Vaimes
With 14 alive majority is 8.
Deadline for Day 3 ending is 0900 AEDT on the 12th. This is 5:00 pm EST on the 11th. This is in just over 2 hours.
Please message me if there are any errors. I did this VC on my phone and am not sure it's correct.
I don't believe in any standard markers for scum, Tammy. I reject that logic. That's the essential part.
I think the only valid scum-hunting method, is when something is more likely to come from a scum mindset, than a town mindset.
And that always requires an individualized exploration of the facts and circumstances surrounding the post. Is there a perfectly good townie explanation for what they did? If so, then it's not a tell.
I'm still voting you.
Not what I'm going for. *sigh*
This style of play means that I have an obligation, to you, as town, to provide a valid explanation for why I'm doing whatever the hell it is that I'm doing.
If I can't provide that town explanation for my behavior, then I've failed you and I've failed the rest of the town by failing to make myself clear. If I don't give you necessary information that you need to read me, I'm hurting the town.
That's all I've been trying to do here. You stated that you felt my dismissing your cases was a tell. That means it's now my burden of proof to respond and explain. Not bludgeoning - giving you a necessary tool.
If it's useless to you, because this isn't a thing that you do, I'm sorry. But that's the pattern of how I respond to every case that someone makes against me, by making sure that they have the info they need to reach correct conclusions. Under this system, that's what I'm supposed to do.
#13 - I actually kind of like that thought. I'm not sure how much to depend on it, but I like your thought on it. Sorry I don't have more right this second on that. I translated the autocorrect lol!
#9 oh I forgot top of this one. I don't know. My understanding of the game state is such ***** right now that I just don't know.)
To be fair, I don't believe in scum tells, they are usually more of a tool, than a whole case. Everything is contextual in my opinion. I'm more a of a fan of meta, since I believe I am able to catch subtleties, when they exist, it's the reason why I can be more confident in my highroller read and why I was able to be confident in Silver being town. GJ was a little harder because I was rusty, but after now that I finished that micro, I'm pretty sure I can catch him everytime again
Looks like no one is going to be compiling that "willing to lynch list", so the best available proxy for that is placing votes on the leaders who aren't yet near the lynch threshold who qualify. Cuth and LW are the two closest on my "willing to lynch" list.
vote: Cuthalion, vote: Last Whisper.
I think Bur is town and should be left alone.
Tier 1 Town (5)
Sloth
Anak
Tammy
KJ
Cantrip
Angry Elf (town unless faking anger) (1)
HR
Tier 2 Trees (4)
Boom
Vaimes
Bessie
Tubba
Scum/Neutrals (3)
LW
Bur
Cuthalion
Hey, Vaimes, you -1'd us. If you unvote for a bit, we can see if we can get someone else ramped up to lynch range instead of giving away a free lynch.
We have you, me, Tubba, and Wisp. Not counting Tammy even if she's here.
Anak can die too, but would be a waste of my charm