Finally back from holiday travel/family time/catch-up work and ready to play Mafia again. I need to do some re-reading and fully examine D3, but two quick things from skimming the day:
1) @Asta
I *AM* protecting you, but there is definitely nothing in my role PM about mod confirmation of my ability. I just double-checked to make sure I didn't miss it. Is this a specific Oberon/Titania interaction? Can you provide some more clarify on what you were told?
2) Regarding Axelrod's PM/post/quote/thing
I'm wary. This reminds me of something one of my scumbuddies did in Big Red Button (I think it was DV) where he posted a rant in the thread from one of the lynch QTs. It was super fake and scummy and I couldn't believe he didn't get run up for it.
You give us a top 2/3 of your choice, and let us make cases for which one you should shoot, rather than everyone just spinning their wheels or not really doing anything.
OK, sure, you have a point WRT you not really being the person to badger your scumreads (forgive me; this is an area that Voxx and I disagree upon and I haven't played with you in forever).
TBD. I was really confident Proph and I have discussed this exact subject before, but I thought it was in our TMNT mentor chat and I was wrong. I need to look through a couple other QTs and PMs when I have a chance.
I don't want my misgivings surrounding you to be based around meta analysis, but you can still see an active reads progression when it comes to your KJ read. You first started with "this doesn't add up" and then expanded further by highlighting issues with his recent posts that made you uneasy. In this game.. all I've got is:
- Starting the vezok wagon
- Doing some cursory wagon analysis on your own flash wagon
- More issues you did not like about vezok
- After vezok claimed, you switched to KCC
- ????
I guess one could argue that you had solid progression on your vezok scumread but your progression on KCC is just Not There. I don't know if that's because you've been busy with holiday season/unused to this style of playerbase, but what I want from you is something like this post in Modern Mafia where you have solid conviction behind your reads and I just haven't been seeing anything like that from your play this game.
You’re not wrong I guess, I don’t have a ton of conviction right now. This game has frustrated the ***** out of me. I don’t know this playerbase at all, and the general feel/style of this game is decidedly not MTGS-like so I’m wildly out of my comfort zone. I missed chunks of D1 and I’ve rarely been able to have real-time interactions with anyone because the game is much more active in evenings/overnight. The reads I have felt strongest about (other than vezok) are town reads, and 2 of my biggest scumreads have been effectively blown up by mason claims.
Nacho's weird dramatique performance YesterDay was aggravating but feels so over the top and dumb in a vacuum that I can't imagine any mafia letting him do it since they have Day Talk. At the very least, KCC and Nacho couldn't be same team.
I brought this theory up earlier when talking to Silver and the more I think about it the more it makes sense. If KCC is town, Nacho ran the CC gambit to try to get her lynched without his buddies needing to get on board, which probably also points to an inactive/lurker scum team.
dk, did it occur to you that you could’ve saved Gemma? Like, did you leave the thread immediately after claiming, or something?
Actually, yes. If you look back, that was my last post D1.
You aren't familiar with me and you replaced into this game, but I'm not a high activity player in general and I'm virtually never around on weekends. I was neglecting other things I needed to do to check in on this game that Saturday because I knew deadline was approaching, and that's why I went ahead and claimed when I did even though I only had 4 or 5 votes. I needed to go so I had to get it out of the way.
This is almost the same thing Rhand said about dkings, and it's still just as completely wrong. Why are you so wrong here? You modded that game!
Dude, you need to let this go. You and Chris were the only two town players who thought I was scum, and Chris even gave up that read before Tom shot me.
dkings: My issue with dkings is that he hasn't really done anything notable this game as opposed to Modern, where he was very quickly townread and got to be such a huge problem for the scum that scum!tom had to kill him in plain daylight. People have noted that his posts are sterile, and I agree with them. In this game, he started the wagon on vezok, After vezok claimed mason, he kind of floundered for most of Day 1. My issue with him is that, even though he states that he's having trouble engaging with the game, he's not really going through the effort of talking with his scumreads in order to get better reads on them. He's mostly playing passively with regards to them, stating they are mafia without directly questioning them or interrogating them. He hasn't really directly questioned KCC (his main scum read Yesterday) and he seems more content to quiz Vaimes on how his role works, and he hasn't really pressured fulcrum at all despite having her as someone he "wouldn't mind to see die Today".
dkings, why are you not directly questioning/grilling your scum suspects? Why are you content to treat them at arm's length rather than showing everyone why you think X or Y is mafia?
Proph, I find it especially suspect that you of all people are side-eyeing me over this. You’re well aware of how I play. You mentored me years ago and I’ve always modeled a lot of my game from you and Voxxicus.
Much more often that not, I talk to the playerbase at large. I do ask questions to people when I’m trying to get a handle on them, or when something strikes me as odd but I can’t see clear motivation from it. I’ve done it this game... I’ve needled Grape several times but he just ignores it, and I tried to ask Mindreaver questions before he replaced out. But once I’ve nailed down a scum read on someone, I normally just explain it out loud. I’ve never been the type to aggressively badger my suspects or get into quote wars no one wants to read.
Hell, I can pull up examples from how I handled Killjoy in Modern, a game you just hosted *AND* complimented me on how well I projected towniness.
- Not liking Azrael or KCC. Azrael for things mentioned above, KCC because I feel like Fuwa is low-hanging fruit right now and also something about her cheeky demeanor and vote hopping just reads weird to me. That's primarily gut, though.
- Is Axelrod's scum meta to lurk heavily? It's been literal years since I've played a game here but I seem to recall him being a fairly high-content poster as town.
- Killjoy makes me most uneasy of anyone so far. Post 52 has an assertive tone when asking KCC about the switch from Vezok to Fuwa, but then in 59 he doesn't acknowledge her response and says he agrees with her. There is something off about the way he approaches Fuwa in 59 as well... it's wishy-washy and feels like he's tossing a softball out there to see if anyone else picks it up and runs with it. Also, this:
Additionally now, I like the clapback from dk in 106. He didn't just accept my townread lying down. He stopped and analyzed it and said "wait, I haven't done anything townie yet! Where is this coming from?" Scum might prefer not to put themselves out there and draw attention to the townread on themselves which they would know to be wrong (and therefore could collapse under scrutiny).
The bolded part is overexplanation. I don't think anyone, including me, would have questioned this sentiment at all if he had just stopped at "Where is this coming from?"
Tom made post 148 which is annoying to me because it's not analytical at all. It's just like "heres why scum makes that post" withoutany actual thought. It didn't actually come from me, btw. It was Voxx, post 77 of his mentor thread with Proph. " It's very, very rare that 5 town will be on a lynch in a row, especially on town." The reason I said it in the first place is it's something I look for when wagons reach 5 or 6.
There is a huge dose of OMGUS here toward Tom, and more overexplanation with the quote of the Voxx-Proph mentor bible.
Typical scum response. Calls out several people as being possibly scum, yet votes none of them and questions people for the sake of questioning. Like what kind of question is "What else do you have opinions on?". This seems extremely forced even for Kj.
Vezok made a really solid point here. KJ threw a TON of shade at tom in 154, but doesn't put down a vote. He then weakly walks it back in 162...
Typical scum response. Calls out several people as being possibly scum, yet votes none of them and questions people for the sake of questioning. Like what kind of question is "What else do you have opinions on?". This seems extremely forced even for Kj.
Actually that is a good point, @KJ: why no vote in that post?
Unvote cause I’m not quite ready to force a claim.
Because at current none of them are more likely scum than the others. Tom's closest because 148 but he's also Tom who would absolutely make that Post as town as well.
I'm frankly kinda surprised no one else has hit on this yet.
Everyone has either glossed over or ignored the other point I made against Killjoy in the post where I voted him. In 52, he uses a assertive tone toward KCC when he says "walk me through this". He wants an answer. Then, when KCC gives him one just a few posts later, he doesn't acknowledge it and just agrees with her re:Fuwa, with a "toss this out and see if it sticks" vibe.
I'm also back to a lean scum read on Killjoy. He has had a few recent posts (primarily 551 and 578) that have him back on my radar. The first paragraph of 551 feels really unnatural and forced, and KCC picked up on something from 578 that I disliked. Also, KJ kinda disappeared for a while after the pressure on him fell off.
I can’t quote the posts right now because I’m on mobile... Azrael hand-waved my Killjoy case multiple times during D1, then in post 997 he made a point of saying I was upset because people were ignoring my “good” reads. The read in question: the Killjoy case he ***** all over.
Plus KJ’s late day posts about Azrael were super scummy, as was the way he dodged both wagons.
But anyway. I am definitely spinning my wheels here. Part of this is a cop out because I am not deciding who dies today. Part is because the most concrete thing I am looking at (people who voted for me) seems maybe a teeny bit self-indulgent.
I feel like we're all doing this to a large extent. It feels just like D2 of Modern when Tom hijacked the game with his daykill. People are less invested because they don't have a "vote", so people are just talking in circles/yelling at each other, and overall activity level is drastically lower than it was D1. Plus vezok essentially shut down conversation on two players already today.
I think Tom's idea of getting everyone's top shots out had merit, and it gives us something for posterity to look back on once we have some more flips.
But I'd like to propose a drastic change of trajectory for the lynch today: I think vezok should give us her top 2-3 choices for the lynch, and allow all of us to present cases/arguments as to which one we believe is the best option.
I feel like his Vaimes read specifically seems more like someone told him that Vaimes is in his wolf range and should be pushable than it does something he like, arrived at by observing Vaimes in other games and compared to the way Vaimes is playing now, and his frustration that no one agrees with him is genuine either way
Didn't Vaimes say this is a recurring thing though? That makes me think the bolded isn't likely to be the case.
Is this something specific you see, or is it just, "not cleared from interactions with me"
Mostly the latter, I thought he was fairly townie D1. I don't love that he's faded as the game has progressed, but I'm certainly not in position to criticize anyone's activity level and a week before Christmas probably isn't the best time to analyze posting momentum anyway.
1) The way he keeps getting upset about not enough paranoia in the thread
2) His frustration over his Vaimes read vs. everyone else who isn't scum-reading Vaimes feels real
3) He's not posting as much fluff as he did in Modern when he was scum
4) He's pushed against the grain multiple times (Me on D1, Keldeo today) when it would have been extremely easy/convenient for scum to just ride the wave, or at a minimum just leave it alone and see what happens.
I skimmed the linked town game a bit, he does seem pretty not-paranoid I guess
But, okay, if Keldeo is a villager who are the wolves? Even if Nacho is (and I'm far from convinced of that) there's definitely 2 more and almost certainly 3?
Like, look at this vote count (right after Nacho retracted his counterclaim)
I'm town, Gemma is dead town, Vezok is a mason, Keldeo is town (given), Killjoy is spewed town, Grape is a hard town read, dkings is town (bodyguard)
Has to be like, [Proph] + 1 in [Asta, KCC, Nacho] + 0-1 in [tom, Axel] + 1-2 in [Rhand, fulcrum, Vaimes, Last] right?
If I color in my other reads here I get something like, exactly [Proph, Rhand, Lastwhisper, Axelrod] I think? And those aren't even wolf reads just people who are ~less town~ than everyone else. Like... it's a world, don't think it's impossible from interactions and stuff. I probably need to reread the whole game, just don't really have time right now.
I guess, someone talk me to me about this lol.
I'll bite since you want to talk it out with someone, but herein lies the problem with too-early VCA: a lot depends on KCC's alignment and even then there are a couple big question marks.
If she's scum:
- HER wagon becomes pretty clear, and it's very likely pure. Axel was on her all day, there is no way that's a bus vote. Tom's D2 posts make me feel very good about him. Last was on her and jumped off after Nacho retracted the CC, but I'll be pretty damn surprised if he is scum
- MY wagon becomes a muddled mess. I'm the designated counterwagon, and there is a decent-to-high probability one of her teammates is on there with her. Frankly, no one there is off the table, and I'd say [Grape > Nacho = You > Asta].
- I'm actually very conflicted on Nacho in this world. On one hand, he did shade my claim multiple times after people started unvoting me, and he stuck to me when momentum swung back onto KCC toward EoD. But on the other hand, Rhand looks really bad if KCC flips red based on interactions, and Nacho was where he tried to push at EoD and that's quite the risky play if they are buddies since people were not happy with him and it *could* have gained traction.
- The other scum are likely Rhand and someone hanging out being useless, which would mean something like 1 of [Proph + Keldeo + Vaimes]. KJ is pretty much lock town if KCC is scum based on some early buddying, and I don't see Rhand/fulcrum being W/W and hanging out back-to-back on a secondary wagon that close to EoD.
If she's town:
- Axelrod could be a scum vote, but it's also very possible that Nacho is scum who ran the whole CC gambit to try to jam through the lynch without any of his buddies needing to pile on. This could also indicate he's on a team with lurkers/low activity players. I feel no different about Tom or Last in this world.
- My wagon isn't really any clearer, although maybe Nacho being more likely to be scum makes the other 4 look less likely?
- There are almost certainly still scum hanging out being useless, but KJ joins the potential pile.
So... basically I just spent like 20 minutes spinning my wheels to conclude there are scum somewhere.
@Silver I don't think DK is town. And I definitely an not town reading him for the claim, why is that enough for you? Or is that a supposition you're attributing to Keldeo?
Anyway the DK votes are alarming to me. So I scanned his ISO to see if they were justified by earlier stuff and they don't seem to be.
@Gemma and Nacho what am I missing? I've reas Nachos catch up series twice now and I can't point to a reason why DK was grouped with tom, Jack, and KCC. I'm seeing DK as actively townie.
Gemma, DK, Vaimes, Nacho, and Fulcrum are players I'm not interested toDay at all. They've given enough that they either impress me as generally townie without a defining moment or have a moment that gives me doubts they're scum but no overall impression. Vaimes is the closest falling out of that group mostly by peer pressure and self doubt.
Definitely tom more. Going to DK is compromise because I don't have a ton of strong thoughts and I'm running out of time. While I initially pushed back on the sterile idea it sounds a lot more reasonable now after a night's sleep.
I would do Fulcrum but going to keep my vote on DK for now.
Man, you are really starting to remind me of your D1 play in Modern. You aren't keeping your reads straight and are jumping around without giving contextual reasons for it.
You also waffled on KCC multiple times, but I don't feel like pulling up more quotes. You were basically playing follow-the-leader with your "intentions" at EoD but never moved your vote.
I do not think that Vez is confirmed because she claimed Mason. She might still be scum. It requires a bold gambit, and another scum to tie himself into it, and it might not be extremely likely, but I have seen it before. And it seems like bold scum gambits are becoming more and more frequent these days.
The biggest thing that makes me feel confident it's not a scum gambit is her multiple hints that we should be able to figure out who her mason partner is. I think if vezok was scum who decided to fakeclaim Mason, she would have kept her poker face on as long as possible so the scumteam could follow the flow of the game and strategically choose the right player to claim second mason when it becomes necessary. And this is especially the case knowing they have daychat.
1) @Asta
I *AM* protecting you, but there is definitely nothing in my role PM about mod confirmation of my ability. I just double-checked to make sure I didn't miss it. Is this a specific Oberon/Titania interaction? Can you provide some more clarify on what you were told?
2) Regarding Axelrod's PM/post/quote/thing
I'm wary. This reminds me of something one of my scumbuddies did in Big Red Button (I think it was DV) where he posted a rant in the thread from one of the lynch QTs. It was super fake and scummy and I couldn't believe he didn't get run up for it.
You give us a top 2/3 of your choice, and let us make cases for which one you should shoot, rather than everyone just spinning their wheels or not really doing anything.
TBD. I was really confident Proph and I have discussed this exact subject before, but I thought it was in our TMNT mentor chat and I was wrong. I need to look through a couple other QTs and PMs when I have a chance.
You're confusing KCC's claim. She claimed a bus drive, not a redirect. Bus drive swaps abilities that target two players.
You’re not wrong I guess, I don’t have a ton of conviction right now. This game has frustrated the ***** out of me. I don’t know this playerbase at all, and the general feel/style of this game is decidedly not MTGS-like so I’m wildly out of my comfort zone. I missed chunks of D1 and I’ve rarely been able to have real-time interactions with anyone because the game is much more active in evenings/overnight. The reads I have felt strongest about (other than vezok) are town reads, and 2 of my biggest scumreads have been effectively blown up by mason claims.
There's no way Axel and KCC are scum together with the way he was gunning for her on D1.
I brought this theory up earlier when talking to Silver and the more I think about it the more it makes sense. If KCC is town, Nacho ran the CC gambit to try to get her lynched without his buddies needing to get on board, which probably also points to an inactive/lurker scum team.
Actually, yes. If you look back, that was my last post D1.
You aren't familiar with me and you replaced into this game, but I'm not a high activity player in general and I'm virtually never around on weekends. I was neglecting other things I needed to do to check in on this game that Saturday because I knew deadline was approaching, and that's why I went ahead and claimed when I did even though I only had 4 or 5 votes. I needed to go so I had to get it out of the way.
What are the odds vezok and Grape are actually neighbors and Grape convinced her to claim mason if she got run up?
(Don't laugh, it's happened to me)
Dude, you need to let this go. You and Chris were the only two town players who thought I was scum, and Chris even gave up that read before Tom shot me.
Proph, I find it especially suspect that you of all people are side-eyeing me over this. You’re well aware of how I play. You mentored me years ago and I’ve always modeled a lot of my game from you and Voxxicus.
Much more often that not, I talk to the playerbase at large. I do ask questions to people when I’m trying to get a handle on them, or when something strikes me as odd but I can’t see clear motivation from it. I’ve done it this game... I’ve needled Grape several times but he just ignores it, and I tried to ask Mindreaver questions before he replaced out. But once I’ve nailed down a scum read on someone, I normally just explain it out loud. I’ve never been the type to aggressively badger my suspects or get into quote wars no one wants to read.
Hell, I can pull up examples from how I handled Killjoy in Modern, a game you just hosted *AND* complimented me on how well I projected towniness.
I feel like we're all doing this to a large extent. It feels just like D2 of Modern when Tom hijacked the game with his daykill. People are less invested because they don't have a "vote", so people are just talking in circles/yelling at each other, and overall activity level is drastically lower than it was D1. Plus vezok essentially shut down conversation on two players already today.
I think Tom's idea of getting everyone's top shots out had merit, and it gives us something for posterity to look back on once we have some more flips.
But I'd like to propose a drastic change of trajectory for the lynch today: I think vezok should give us her top 2-3 choices for the lynch, and allow all of us to present cases/arguments as to which one we believe is the best option.
Didn't Vaimes say this is a recurring thing though? That makes me think the bolded isn't likely to be the case.
Mostly the latter, I thought he was fairly townie D1. I don't love that he's faded as the game has progressed, but I'm certainly not in position to criticize anyone's activity level and a week before Christmas probably isn't the best time to analyze posting momentum anyway.
1) The way he keeps getting upset about not enough paranoia in the thread
2) His frustration over his Vaimes read vs. everyone else who isn't scum-reading Vaimes feels real
3) He's not posting as much fluff as he did in Modern when he was scum
4) He's pushed against the grain multiple times (Me on D1, Keldeo today) when it would have been extremely easy/convenient for scum to just ride the wave, or at a minimum just leave it alone and see what happens.
Why do you think he's scum?
I'll bite since you want to talk it out with someone, but herein lies the problem with too-early VCA: a lot depends on KCC's alignment and even then there are a couple big question marks.
If she's scum:
- HER wagon becomes pretty clear, and it's very likely pure. Axel was on her all day, there is no way that's a bus vote. Tom's D2 posts make me feel very good about him. Last was on her and jumped off after Nacho retracted the CC, but I'll be pretty damn surprised if he is scum
- MY wagon becomes a muddled mess. I'm the designated counterwagon, and there is a decent-to-high probability one of her teammates is on there with her. Frankly, no one there is off the table, and I'd say [Grape > Nacho = You > Asta].
- I'm actually very conflicted on Nacho in this world. On one hand, he did shade my claim multiple times after people started unvoting me, and he stuck to me when momentum swung back onto KCC toward EoD. But on the other hand, Rhand looks really bad if KCC flips red based on interactions, and Nacho was where he tried to push at EoD and that's quite the risky play if they are buddies since people were not happy with him and it *could* have gained traction.
- The other scum are likely Rhand and someone hanging out being useless, which would mean something like 1 of [Proph + Keldeo + Vaimes]. KJ is pretty much lock town if KCC is scum based on some early buddying, and I don't see Rhand/fulcrum being W/W and hanging out back-to-back on a secondary wagon that close to EoD.
If she's town:
- Axelrod could be a scum vote, but it's also very possible that Nacho is scum who ran the whole CC gambit to try to jam through the lynch without any of his buddies needing to pile on. This could also indicate he's on a team with lurkers/low activity players. I feel no different about Tom or Last in this world.
- My wagon isn't really any clearer, although maybe Nacho being more likely to be scum makes the other 4 look less likely?
- There are almost certainly still scum hanging out being useless, but KJ joins the potential pile.
So... basically I just spent like 20 minutes spinning my wheels to conclude there are scum somewhere.
Erm... what?
Man, you are really starting to remind me of your D1 play in Modern. You aren't keeping your reads straight and are jumping around without giving contextual reasons for it.
You also waffled on KCC multiple times, but I don't feel like pulling up more quotes. You were basically playing follow-the-leader with your "intentions" at EoD but never moved your vote.
The biggest thing that makes me feel confident it's not a scum gambit is her multiple hints that we should be able to figure out who her mason partner is. I think if vezok was scum who decided to fakeclaim Mason, she would have kept her poker face on as long as possible so the scumteam could follow the flow of the game and strategically choose the right player to claim second mason when it becomes necessary. And this is especially the case knowing they have daychat.