Newbie 963: GAME OVER

[Sotty7]

Seeing as there were no town power roles in this game there are no real night actions to reveal, just that the scum blocked CB on both nights.

Scum quick topic

Feel free to talk about the game. I'll be back with some thoughts tomorrow.

[McGriddle]

damn

[Thian]

too bad for the loss but it was fun trying.

Sotty thanks for hosting!

hopefully I will get to play with some of you guys again soon.

[CancerBottle]

Com'on Scotty, where are you?

I often wonder who this Scotty guy is. He seems to always be following me around... I have no clue who he is.

Vote count and junk coming up...

Yer kidding me! I swear I saw a "c" in there somewhere. Wait, I know, you changed your name!

....

Wow. What a great game. I feel like I'll learn a lot going back over everything. Tunnel vision was my biggest problem, I think.

Earlder1, you played great scum. I never really suspected you. Though I should have said something about this:

Let's rally togetehr and finish this. I just got my first loss (in newbie 958 where I was lynched day 1) and I don't want another. Come on.

LOL.

You were all a joy to play with. Even you, Ythill! And I can't wait to play with each of you again.

My final vote was pretty foolish, but I was so sure this time we had the scum.

[Thian]

*slaps CB with a scum glove* The glove does not fit me.

[imkingdavid]

Town Scum has this game in the bag

Fixed.

Anyway, good game everyone. I'm sorry I wasn't playing at my fullest; I normally would have been more active and actually done some more scum hunting (don't get me wrong, I actually really was working on a post like I had said), but the past few games I have played seem to have been less exciting. I should probably take a short break from newbie games.

In other news, good job Earl. It was fun being scum with you. This game was pretty intense, especially at the end. I saw CB vote, but I didn't want to vote because I wasn't sure when you would be on and I didn't want to be caught trying to quick hammer.

You pulled off that cop claim well enough; were I not scum and had we not discussed it some overnight, I probably would have believed you (minus the part about me being scum, in that case). That little bit about Sarali being town was a good way to get someone else to call you out without you having to claim for no reason.

Thanks Scotty7 Sotty7 for being a good, attentive moderator, and (if you didn't see), we're in the same /in-vitationals game, so I'll see you there.

@Sarali: don't come down so hard on yourself. This was your second game (other than the one you replaced out of), so no one expects you to be the best or anything. Just keep playing a game here and there and try and hone your skills as town and as scum. And don't worry, town didn't lose just because of you. Town lost largely because CB voted Thian so early in lylo, despite both scum players warning against it (oh the irony).

@ CB: Good game. For what it's worth, we RBed you both nights just in case. Not that it made a difference. You played fairly strongly as town, and had me on my toes. If I hadn't been so scared of Chimp there at the end of Day 2, I might have decided to NK you instead.

@ Thian: Well, too bad you had to be sacrificed for the greater goodbad. Good game as well. However, you didn't really make it easy on yourself. Go back through the game and see what ultimately lead to your lynch. There was stuff from Days 1 and 2 that contributed.

@ Chimp: Well, I was slightly worried that they would pick up on the NK spec/WIFOM where you were going at me and then the next day you ended up dead, but fortunately for me they didn't. You were easily the most pro-town player in my mind by the end of Day 2, so... for what it's worth, good job.

@ my predecessor, Calembeena (if you're still around/reading this): next time try not to make it so clear when you're obv scum; it puts undue pressure on your replacement if you ever happen to replace out. However, it was your first game, so we all have to start somewhere.

@ all: Sorry if I didn't write you a personal note. My memory doesn't serve me very well, so I feel its better not saying anything than saying something inaccurate. In any case, good game, and hope to see you around/in another game some time.

Cheers.

[imkingdavid]

EBWOP: Sotty should be nominated for the user title "Not Scotty".

[Thian]

@ kingdavid. you couldn't have said it any better. I did make a fool of myself through the game. It was hard for me to come across pro town and I am not surprised I became that target. Next time I will try to not be so flakey with posts and take a little time thinking. I am more used to playing mafia in person as conversations happen at that moment. Sleeping on something and then coming back to it and then flipping through countless of pages. It was hard for me to keep up but yeah, if I hadn't known any better, I would have pinned me as being scum LOL

Will have to agree with you as well. Sarali do not give up on the game, you clearly are intelligent and certainly able to hold your own. Otherwise you would not have survived so long.

Ultimately Chimp Pants had me pissing my pants same with Ythill, lol. Man I had never felt so nervous that saying something and worrying what is it now that is going to get me into trouble as town. So thanks CB for coming to my Aid even though I kinda got all crazy towards the end when CP got NK'd

I honestly had a feeling that there were no power roles in this game besides the mafia and roleblocker. It is why I asked for peoples opinions of what they thought the set up was. I thought it was weird that 4 townie roles were uncovered and no one hitting a power role. So ultimately when this whole scum claim came up I really thought something was fishy at that time but was too late to say anything.

[Ythill]

GG, scum. I skimmed the QT and was very impressed by Earl's PR hunting. The cop claim wasn't believable at all, but it didn't really matter. Your NK choices were excellent and you did a good job of walking the line between lynch-bait and too-townie.

Two very bad mislynches cost this town the game. I saw a lot of you witch-hunting, meaning that you focused on behavior that was annoying and anti-town but not actually scummy. Keep in mind that not every townie understands or is capable of optimal play. You're better off ignoring obvious bad play (like McG's hammer) and instead looking for subtle moves that further a scum agenda. Also, people suffered heavily from tunnel vision in this game. Vote movement is one of the most important aspects of scumhunting. If wagons form and fade quickly on a variety of players during D1, wagon analysis is more likely to reveal scum on later days.

The people who said that early votes are bad in LYLO were absolutely correct. At the begining of D3, the optimal move would have been to do a popcorn massclaim, form a voting bloc of likely town, reach consensus, and then vote as a group.

I noticed that lots of people posted WIFOM about my death. Not very useful. What would have been more useful is going back and reading my iso to consider my opinion. Though there was no guarentee that I was correct (and in some places I was flat out wrong) you all knew that my beliefs were honest. I think CB mentioned something like that just before the scum won. If he'd thought of it on D2, you might have refrained from milsynching McG.

Anyway... not trying to be overly critical. There was plenty of good play from the town. I just figure you're all here to learn and so I'm focusing on things that could be improved. If anyone has questions about things I did or whatnot, please feel free to ask. It was great playing with all of you!

[Chimp Pants]

Thanks Sotty7. Good job David and Earlder1.

Here's my thoughts and then some questions.

-Cal was obvscum. Lesson learned- don't let up on them or their replacements.
-I had a cop read on Sarali the whole game. By the time D3 hit, I was starting to embrace the adage, "if you think someone's a cop, they're probably scum." Had I survived, I probably would have been chasing Sarali, so I was completely turned around.
-By night 2, I was pretty convinced that Thian was town, despite my best efforts to create some action at the end of D2.
-Great claim Earlder1. When I read that, I though you had turned the game for us. It gave you a nice cover to set up David's hammer. It took me a while to think, "wait a second, some of your post doesn't exactly make sense." Your logic about the possible setups didn't seem right from a town perspective, but you had me confused enough that I briefly thought David's vote was a bus attempt.
-On Vezo: In both of my games here and most games that I've read, there's always a player whose play style is similar to Vezo's. They typically get lynched D1 and typically flip town. Lesson learned. Its good to know your blind spots.


-Shouldn't a mass claim (regarding cop status at least) have been the 1st thing to happen D3?
-Earlder1: Care to point out your breadcrumbs? I never once thought you were a power role (I might have been too convinced about Sarali).

I think YThill ninja answered one of my questions...

[Chimp Pants]

You're better off ignoring obvious bad play (like McG's hammer) and instead looking for subtle moves that further a scum agenda. Also, people suffered heavily from tunnel vision in this game. Vote movement is one of the most important aspects of scumhunting. If wagons form and fade quickly on a variety of players during D1, wagon analysis is more likely to reveal scum on later days.

Would you be interested in pointing out some of these subtle moves from this game? Thanks.

[Thian]

Just signed up in queue for a newbie game. Hopefully it will go differently this time.

[Thian]

Also I have a question for those who have played in newbie games before.

Do you often find that "newbie scum" will ask to be replaced because they do not like that role they got or are unsure on how to play the role given?

[vezokpiraka]

We should have lynched calembeena when the IC told us to.

Earleader. Great scum . I had no idea you were scum the whole game.

[Ythill]

@Chimp: Well, keeping in mind that hindsight is 20/20...

For lack of more information, I would probably place my vote on vezo simply because he has been the most consistently scummy player throughout the entire game. However, since I do not wish to be the hammer when there are still questions and fairly active discussion going on, I will withhold my vote for the time being.

Very similar to what I accused Thian of, but more subtle.

I might add that this is the exact same action iamausername took early day one. He voted calembeena (now me) with no reasoning, saying it was a "good vote" (Vezo always said "good wagon") "someone should join me".

I don't see it as a scumhunting move, since we have learned that the only person who followed his vote was townie, so I'm confused by it.

Creating suspicion on both Chimp and McG and using it to cast himself in the role of victim.

Hmm... well the only thing that jumps out to me in that is that Cancer was afraid of a quick lynch enough to unvote, even though it had been at L-1 for almost 2 days. And then he comes back later to place Vezo back at L-1. I'm not saying this is particularly scummy, just interesting behavior.

Sullying a townie's rep while avoiding OMGUS backlash.

Check out how he read his buddy in this post and how his analysis served a dual purpose here, allowing him to buddy to one townie while casting suspicion on the two most likely lynches. If you read david in iso, you'll see how careful he was playing: had an excuse everytime he lurked, lots of qualification, etc. This is how scum typically play, as opposed to being brash and thoughtless like vezo and McG.

@ Chimp

Thian's case against you is certainly contrived. It stems from an emotional OMGUS response to your case on him. I dislike it.

Pitting townies against one another.

This post scares me. You openly suggest that the lynch for today is someone no one has seriously brought up as scummy. I definitely he has no current case on Cal, but to say we should lynch him for it, pretty much out of the blue? This seems incredibly presumptious and spontaneous and I don't like it one bit. Slightly scummy vibe here.

This statement buddies him to the IC, distances from his actual buddy, and casts suspicion on a townie. Note the light touch created by using the word "slightly."

As for the lazy town vs. bad scum argument, I can see it going either way for Veso.

This was from a post where he was strongly in support of vezo's lynch, yet he's distancing from it.

David has an excellent point that no one should vote until the majority of the town reaches a consensus. If one town member dumbly votes another, the scum can double vote and end the game. Let's not make that mistake... Let's rally togetehr and finish this. I just got my first loss (in newbie 958 where I was lynched day 1) and I don't want another. Come on.

Telling his buddy to vote.

Look at how much Earl buddied to me here. Again, note how careful Earl was playing: a little more brazen than david but still being careful to qualify and excuse things. This is not to say that carefulness is a scumtell but that a distinct lack of it (especially under pressure) is a pretty fair indicator of town unless you're up against an advanced player.

[imkingdavid]

Ythill brings up a good point; scum usually do try and qualify every little thing they do. I do it a bit more than I'd like to, but it really just comes naturally. And tbh I think I do it as town almost as much (that's just how I am; I don't like it when people are against me in general). But I guess I do it as scum a bit more often. So that is definitely something to look into next time.

[Sotty7]

Thanks Scotty7 Sotty7 for being a good, attentive moderator, and (if you didn't see), we're in the same /in-vitationals game, so I'll see you there.

I did indeed see and was pretty happy to play another game with you. Can't wait for it to start.

This game was pretty good for the most part. Even the newbies were all pretty good players which made for an interesting dynamic. Don't beat yourself up too much sarali it's all part of the learning process that is mafia. You didn't play horribly at all.

I think that a big sticking point for the town was the McGriddle lynch. The game slowed down so much once there was a wagon on him and nothing really new was brought up for days and days. It was like you were all just sitting around waiting for someone to hammer him so you could carry on. This kinda play really hurts the town because it makes townies bored and unwilling to actively play the game. I was pretty surprised by the deadline explosion but happy to see it, even if it was just a group of townies arguing among themselves for the most part. Remember, scum wants the game to roll into a state of inactivity like that because it is easier to control bored townies. Don't let it happen in your next game!

And Thian, you'll find that people will replace out regardless of alignment. Especially in newbie games when there could be any reason for their flaking that don't directly tie into what role they drew. It is a null tell.

[Chimp Pants]

At one point YThill cited David's lack of OMGUS as a scum tell. YThill said that townies OMGUS him- scum don't. Is this a feature of YThill's play style, typical of most play styles, nonsense?

On the D2 doldrums. I find it amusing that Earlder1 (and Sarali) started to agree with me on David after I unvoted and stated my plan to hammer McG. I remember reading page 22 and feeling like I was reading a totally different game. All that agreement made me realize something fishy was going on, but I never figured out what it was. It was right there and I missed it- Bah, Earlder1 attacking his scum buddy when its safe.

I was also way too late in pushing for the claim. We all got wrapped up in protecting imagined power roles and waiting for the deadline. I kept asking about when its best to hammer and how the deadline effects that timing. I could see that we all had some preconceived idea of a day time line and that the deadline was effecting it. Its much better than games without deadlines- where things just die- but the waiting gave us a bit of inertia. It took too much to get the wagons rolling.

Had that flurry happened a week earlier, why might have figured something out. My specific plan was to bait Thian into hammering out of self preservation, but more generally, I wanted everyone to take actual positions (with votes). The agreement spurred me on. Had we done this with more time, it might have meant something. As it happened, it was mostly meaningless. I probably would have caught some votes doing it earlier, which also would have been good. I might have been held back earlier by a self preservation instinct- I'm not sure.

Thanks for the comments Sotty and YThill. Maybe we'll get it right next time.

[Earlder1]

GG guys. Sorry about not being around post-game but I am between internet sources, so I am currently on campus posting this. This was a lot of fun, and I glad I was successful at scum for my first time.

@Ythill
GG. You were easily the most intimidating townie. I thought I was in complete control and had the game figured out until you claim in and started prodding around. We definitely needed the NK because I have no doubt that you would have ruined us.

@Chimp
Definitely the most pro town player. Your questions and analyses were very good and you were pretty much the spark of discussion after YThill's death. It was definitely fun playing with you, and I would liek to be town alligned with you at some point because I think you played quite well.

@CB
GG. You were a solid player, but slightly led astray by tunnel vision. Your arguments and cases were quite logical, and I don't think we could have mislynched you if we tried.

@Sarali
Don't feel so bad. It's one thing to think someone's scummy but no one ever knows for sure. Everyone has their doubts and most people are wrong the first time anyway (take the Vezo lynch for example). Just learn from this for next time. If you were more vocal with your opinions, I think you would have been a force in this game.

@Thian
Lol. I had to. I was set up to claim cop the whole time actually, and I was pretty sure you would be my "guilty" read. Especially when the players left on Day 3 were who they were, I thought you were pretty much the only option for a lynch. I couldn't see town lynching Sarali or CB. My bad. It was fun playing with you.

@Everyone else
It was a fun game, and definitely a learning experience. GG everybody and I hope to play with you all again.

BTW
If anyone wants to see my "breadcrumbing", read the first letter of each of my posts on Day 2 and then Day 3. Day 2 should read out Saralitown... and Day 3 should begin to spell out Thianscum. I didn't worry about making it too intricate because I knew I would never get NK'd and thus have a chance to explain myself if needed.

GG

[Ythill]

At one point YThill cited David's lack of OMGUS as a scum tell. YThill said that townies OMGUS him- scum don't. Is this a feature of YThill's play style, typical of most play styles, nonsense?

My opinion on this matter is uncommon on MS, but I think it's valid. OMGUS is a natural reaction from a townie. Though veterans can control regardless of alignment, I find it comong from town far more often than from scum. "Real OMGUS" is more likley to appear in response to playstyles that are aggressive and lacking in explicit reasoning.

I kept asking about when its best to hammer and how the deadline effects that timing.

Like I said in game, the deadline is not a finish line. The town gets more info if they engineer a lynch and drop a hammer without the deadline hovering over them. In most games, this means hanging someone about a week before the mod is planning to force the day's end.

[sarali]

GG, all. Well done scum, I never actually did think seriously about lynching either of you. I do kind of want to apologize for my play just because I know I could have done way better if I hadn't been such a lazy bum for the whole game. That last post of mine was the tail end of a nervous breakdown, so don't take the whining too seriously. I'm not sure if I will play any more mafia, though, I just don't enjoy it very much. The only reason I didn't replace out was I just couldn't leave Sotty in the lurch again. I still feel bad about that.

I think I've learned more from reading the post-game posts (especially Ythill's) than I did in the actual game. That's not good, is it?

-I had a cop read on Sarali the whole game. By the time D3 hit, I was starting to embrace the adage, "if you think someone's a cop, they're probably scum." Had I survived, I probably would have been chasing Sarali, so I was completely turned around.

Lol, cop read on me? Where'd you get that?

@Thian
Lol. I had to. I was set up to claim cop the whole time actually, and I was pretty sure you would be my "guilty" read. Especially when the players left on Day 3 were who they were, I thought you were pretty much the only option for a lynch. I couldn't see town lynching Sarali or CB. My bad. It was fun playing with you.

I might've gone for a CB lynch if someone had put up a good case, and I think that's confirmation of how out of it I was. I was sure I had screwed up and was going to be lynched since halfway through D1 as well, though, so I don't think I had a good grasp of what was going on. I was certain that the minute someone looked closely at me I'd be done. Whoops.

BTW
If anyone wants to see my "breadcrumbing", read the first letter of each of my posts on Day 2 and then Day 3. Day 2 should read out Saralitown... and Day 3 should begin to spell out Thianscum. I didn't worry about making it too intricate because I knew I would never get NK'd and thus have a chance to explain myself if needed.

GG

I didn't notice that. At all. I just noticed that you seemed to take for granted that I was town. Please pick someone else next time. That was paranoia-inducing and kinda creepy, and actually made me suspicious of you.

[Chimp Pants]

Lol, cop read on me? Where'd you get that?

All of your comments about your "uselessness" in scum hunting made me think you were trying to get to the night phase so you could do your job.

[Vel-Rahn Koon]

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