Open 646 - Semi Nightless - Game Over (D6)

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Hi everyone! I should get caught up over the course of the day.

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Okay, I read up to page 10. Got gigabyte as solid town. No other strong reads yet.

@Transcend, what's your read on Thor?

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Read up to the beginning of page 33 (the D1 lynch). Gigabyte is still my strongest townread. Have several leaning townreads.

Interactions-wise, given that there are only two scum, I doubt Thor would be so blatant about bussing since he would have to survive all the way to the end while also explaining why he's not dead yet each day from day four.

Transcend is probably town as well for how much he came across like he genuinely believed in Karnos being town to the point where his other reads were dependent on Karnos. I felt some of his twilight posts were a bit overblown (Post 680) but not unreasonable for someone who's been defending Karnos all along.

Tenshii is a leaning townread for similar reasons. He committed to tying himself to Karnos pretty hard and there was no hesitation in how he townread him (Post 176, Post 267, Post 300) and statements like "Karnos's posts are absolutely reasonable defenses" and "please don't lynch him" aren't things I can see scum being bold enough to say about a partner. I don't like his wall hackjob with Thor but given he was also posting content about other players, I think he's more likely than not, town.

I haven't seen anything strikingly alignment-indicative from mhsmith but the way he immediately jumped in and started scumhunting Luna Fox is I think slightly more likely to be town. I found his case on Karnos fairly null and could see it from either alignment.

A little background on Karnos - I've played with him once before (I was town and he was scum). He got a lot of pressure from several players D1 but I and another town player started townreading him once the wagon picked up and his posts started sounding genuine. My point is, Karnos has a unique playstyle that causes some people to hard-scumread him and others to hard-townread him. He can't make logical arguments as scum if his life depended on it but tends to look and sound genuine. People who look for the latter when scumhunting are the ones I see most likely to misread him while the ones who focus highly on logic tend to tunnel him. So, I can understand town players hard-pushing him and hard-defending him. Both seem reasonable to me based on what I know of Karnos.

Rosske is the only person I'm scumreading and this is partly a POE read. He never really commits to a stance either way on Karnos, and even when asked, he dodges the question. His contributions have been fairly minimal - mostly just annoyance/scumreading Transcend whenever the latter pushed him, and zero pro-active scumhunting of his own. He neither defended nor pushed Karnos which I can see from a newbie partner.

Going to skim through the rest of the game tonight but I'll start here:

VOTE: Rosske

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Still skimming the thread but Gigabyte, since you're pretty active elsewhere, I'd like to hear your thoughts on what I've posted so far and where you are at with your reads.

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Actually, going over the recent posts, I got a question for Transcend:

In Post 1699, you said that Rosske asking Karnos why his vote wasn't on Thor looked like he was pushing Thor as opposed to questioning Karnos's movements. But when he initially said this, you were scumreading Thor. How did you go from thinking "Rosske was trying to get Karnos to vote his buddy Thor" to "Rosske was signalling to his buddy Karnos to vote Thor?"

Also, disagree entirely that he wasn't questioning Karnos's movements. Given Post 430 where he says that explicitly. It seemed like Rosske was asking Karnos why he wasn't voting his top scumread. That doesn't necessitate that Rosske be voting Karnos's scumread because it's more an attempt to understand Karnos's thought process so calling it a "contradiction" is a pretty big stretch.

Going to unvote for now while I finish up.

UNVOTE:

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He was right though that Karnos was pushing Thor without voting him. Why couldn't he have been probing Karnos to see whether Karnos's words match up with his vote?

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You don't seem all that sure about him given you're also scumreading mhsmith and Thor as secondary lynches. Why those two?

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The reason I'm townreading Thor is not just that he was in the forefront of the Karnos push, it's that he established himself as the most pro-town player in the game by doing so. That's not a very smart strategy as scum in this setup since being too town since day one means you'll also have to explain why you didn't die N3, N4, or N5 over other less town looking players. For a player like Thor who seems to be able to shake off suspicion really well, it's actually better to be somewhere in the null-town range throughout the game not to mention the obvious leaving Karnos alive for a day or two makes a win more likely.

Curious to hear your thoughts on everyone else. Are you townreading everyone besides Thor?

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To be fair, I found it odd that Thor's contribution day one was to lock in on scum and tunnel him into oblivion. An uninformed townie would be more uncertain and willing to explore other possibilities I think.

But then again, given Thor's highly logical playstyle and Karnos's inability to make logical arguments, I could see that playstyle clash leading to Karnos getting scummier and scummier in Thor's eyes every time he posted.

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What are your reads mhsmith?

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What's your takeaway from that game you read of Transcends? When did you skim the game? Was it for this game or just general reading?

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That makes sense. Is there anyone else you are using meta to base reads off of?

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Meaning if your slot, Tenshii's slot or Giga's slot is scum, I will openly lose the game, given I get those lynches.

Why is Tenshii so town to you?

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Lol, typical Karnos. He cracks me up sometimes. I have no idea what that means though. Part of me wants to think he wouldn't be bold enough to present the possibility of a him/his partner team and then shoot it down. But there's stuff bugging me about all of Thor/Transcend/Tenshii/Rosske to varying levels.

I'm suspicious that Transcend's push on Rosske/mhsmith could be scum-motivated given a) Rosske's meta fits more with his towngame, and b) I have a hard time seeing mhsmith as scum. But he gets both of them lynched and kills us both (Wingback and gigabyte), he sets up a LYLO with Thor and Tenshii and wins from there. Out of all the players in the game, Transcend's the only one who's strategy seems like it nets him a win if he's scum. I suppose he could be town that just has Rosske/Mhsmith/Thor as suspects so I'm not really sure there.

If you are into meta, mind going over Rosske's completed games? He only has one completed game as town and one completed game as scum with short ISOs in both so they would be an easy read. I read them both and agree with Thor that his play here fits his town game. For reference Micro 624 has Rosske as town and Newbie 1720 has Rosske as scum.

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Not sure why you think I have a grudge. Haven't played with you before and the only interaction with you was you saying you liked my replace in post.

I'm suspicious because you simultaneously seem to have a lot of confidence in your Rosske read while also having two backup reads. Your strong townread on Tenshii could be scum-motivated. If you can elaborate beyond just "tone," that would help me see where you are coming from a lot better.

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transcend and i have been on rosske since D2

i just kept getting convinced to get off of him, I'm starting to think my original viewpoint on everything was correct

I haven't fully caught up but can you link me to the posts where you laid this out?

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People are scum reading me based on the level of my contribution versus my....you know....actual alignment.

Transcend is tunneled so hard on me that it really gives me a hard time believing he's town. In this game he lynches people that he is oh-so-certain that they're scum, and they the flip town. And he goes oops I f***ed up and keeps on floating by in the "town bloc"

Do you have reads on anyone else?

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gigabyte finding reasons to discredit my meta is scummy.

Could you answer the question I asked earlier? If you pop up from time to time with random comments without any care about going through the thread, and engaging with the content, you're likely going to wind up lynched and it would probably even be for the best. If you're town here, it would help a lot to actually participate.

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Went through Io's ISO and noted some interesting points:

1. Io was hard-townreading Rosske to the point of calling him obvtown (Post 931). Rosske was under pressure and not a very articulate player. He needed someone defending him at least for a while. So, killing Io over Thor makes no sense from him. He's also not experienced enough to take a bold risk and kill his biggest defender hoping that people townread him as that's always going to be a gamble. Io does put KTS above Ross though because of zero interactions between Ross and Karnos (Post 1134) but later says that she doesn't see Ross as scum (Post 1184). Her last post on Rosske was to defend him against Transcend's case (Post 1556).

2. Io clears several players in Post 1125 (Thor, mhsmith, Gigabyte, my slot). The former two are the more interesting ones, especially mhsmith. I think he too has a reason to leave Io alive and kill Thor. I also thought his over-analysis on why Thor wasn't killed seemed natural and not like he purposefully didn't kill Thor and then started spreading paranoia around because he just doesn't seem like that kind of player. In fact, there's nothing about mhsmith I find scummy which is part of the reason I hate that Transcend is lining up a lynch on him.

I've been thinking, Transcend is probably the one who gains the least from killing Io over Thor.

Killing Io while scum isn't Thor or Tenshii implies that Tenshii is being set up for a mislynch. But Transcend has been doing everything to keep Tenshii alive and is townreading him. I think that scum!Transcend would be trying to buddy Tenshii and lower his risk of dying by killing Thor.

I'm actually a lot more concerned about Transcend than any other player. I'll outline some of the reasons for my suspicion so you can go over it and if you think I'm wrong, show me where I'm going wrong.

The way Transcend has been playing by hard-pushing Rosske and mhsmith sets up a Transcend/Thor/Tenshii lylo which is the most winnable lylo there can possible be for Transcend.

If he kills Thor, we don't know what Tenshii's reads would be so "buddying" isn't going to be as useful. Transcend's reads makes sense from a scum perspective but there are so many reasons they don't from a town perspective.

1. Luna Fox was obvtown even before she replaced out and the early push on her by Transcend for defending him felt contrived in a "LAMIST, scum won't attack their defenders way."
2. Having Tenshii as a bank-the-game read in the same level as you and me also reads as off. Tenshii may be town but he's not that obviously town. There's no real basis behind that townread. I could maybe buy it if it's interaction-based because I found some good reasons why he's not partnered with Karnos but Transcend's read basically comes down to "gut" and "tone."
3. I simply don't get the scumread on mhsmith at all. I'll hunt through his posts to see the reasons but mhsmith has been very town to me although he makes strategic sense as a lynch target if Transcend wants to be in lylo with Tenshii and Thor and it seems like he pulled that mhsmith scumread out of nowhere.
4. The Rosske read. While I understand that you also have reservations about Rosske, I see two major reasons he's town: a) Meta, b) Io kill. Both are somewhat controversial but nka when there's only one scum alive is infinitely more reliable than nka when there are multiple scum left because the decision is an individual one. I don't see Rosske killing his defender given he desperately needed someone in his corner to have a chance of making it through the game.
5. I see the Io kill from Transcend in order to open up a mislynch possibility on Rosske.

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@Mhsmith, what's your opinion of Transcend's scumread on you?

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Went over Transcend's D1 ISO again (until Post 800/ISO #126) and I don't have a solid read locked down there. His basis for townreading Karnos seems to be that in a previous Newbie game that he and Karnos played, they were both town, he was right, and that Karnos' behavior here is similar because of "tone."

He then scumread Thor for pushing on Karnos which I could see from either alignment. If he thought Thor was pushing an easy mislynch, I'd expect the scumread. He spends a lot of time casting around for different wagons to save Karnos which also is null as that's what a town player would do to save a townread as well as what scum would do to derail a partner's lynch.

His play after the lynch leaves me conflicted. He claims mhsmith is scum for talking to Karnos like he's town (but doesn't change his read after Karnos flips scum). He calls 2/3 of Luna/mhsmith/Rosske as scum but also doesn't change those reads with Karnos' flip. I think his scumreads on Luna, Rosske, and mhsmith were all poorly reasoned which is why he's still on my suspicion list.

I'll go over everyone's ISO to see if I get a stronger feeling on anyone else. Tenshii is next.

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Decided to look for Thor's views on bussing first and found some quotes:

Subject: Newbie 1725 Scum PT

Thor I dont want to bus you. Im just trying to distance us. I hammered Peng yesterday because I felt like you would get lynched if I let him spill the beans about the similarity in your playstyle in Newbie 1724

There's actually a fine distinction between bussing and distancing - at the end of the day distancing is good, and bussing is (to my mind) noot a good play at all.
Thus far you're walking the distancing line pretty well, but have on two occasions actually made me a lynch wagon when I would not otherwise be, which toes it into bus territory.

The real goal is to do about what you did yesterday - be violent and aggressive towards the scumbuddy, but have a valid excuse and logic to, at the end of the day, not be voting them. I think bussing is a bad strategy because town *expects* scum to bus, and at that point you're weakening one of scum's biggest strengths (controlling votes) while doing exactly what town wants (putting votes on scum) for the gain of not looking like a buddy afterwards - which is why distancing is better, because it creates the only benefit of bussing, without the issue of actually helping the town wincon. You do have to be mindful however, distancing without ever voting or pressing will look fake, scummy, and stupid - so you can't go too soft either.

Subject: Newbie 1710 - Kittens (Post-Game)

And here's why I think bussing is a bad strategy.

Let's say I'm scum, and I'm desperate to not get lynched if my buddy is lynched due to our associations.
That's the goal of bussing, right?
To, after the death of the partner, look more likely town than scum.

Okay - after Zyf's flip, which I was a clear and strong supporter of, did ANYONE suggest I wasn't his scumbuddy due to how aggressively I tried to lynch him? ANyone at all? (the answer is no).

So, I basically called the guy scum Day 1. He attacked me Day 1. I attacked him back. On Day 2 I listed him as a top scum read, tried to lynch him, after I shifted a wagon off him I shifted a wagon back to him and got him lynched as he called me scummy to his last breath and...Everyone still finds it totally reasonable that I'm maybe his scumbuddy.

So, what we learned from this is, even with a VERY aggressive bus, the site has trained people to still think people are scum because people do aggressive bussing.
Therefore - we learn that bussing is meaningless, and you might as well hard defend your scumbuddy constantly, because, yeah, maybe they will get lynched and you will look suspect by association - BUT AT LEAST YOU AREN'T HELPING TOWN LYNCH SCUM, WHICH IS AGAINST YOUR WINCON AS SCUM.

Because people are married to the idea of bussing.
But bussing is dumb play.

Either Thor decided to in this game, change up his meta, or he's town. I'm going with the simpler explanation that he's town than the most complicated one that he decided to bus, hoped that someone would remember that Thor doesn't bus and townread him for it. I also think my reasoning that him explaining his survival late into the game would be challenging if he came off as pro-town as he did. He could have pushed Io or someone else instead of Karnos. Karnos had his defenders who would have helped Thor pursue a different wagon so it's not like it was unavoidable.

While I disagree with his push on Tenshii, it fits with Thor's philosophy on gameplay. He clearly sees hard-defending buddies as optimal scum play so I can see why he'd go for Tenshii and argue that Tenshii defending Karnos was scummy. Going to put Thor pretty solidly in my townpile for this.

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Reading through Tenshii's ISO, I have a couple of questions and comments:

VOTE: Kcdaspot

Some of you guys are finding this dude obnoxious to deal with. And all he's done so far is poke people for a few posts, then say "x y z is mafia and a b c posts are town" without giving any substance behind it. He's trying to give off the vibe he's being productive and scumhunting without actually proving it.

This is actually really, really bad. You're voting someone because some people find him "obnoxious?"

@ Phantom, I'm willing to temporarily unvote you if you temporarily unvote Karnos.

What's this about? Why do you need him to unvote Karnos for you to unvote him?

PC is the main lynch I want right now. Worst case scenario, non-contributing VI is lynched. Best case scenario, scum is lynched. Anything else, I'd have to reevaulate. I've kinda been debating on hopping on the Karnos bandwagon for the past few days, mainly cuz I do think that they plan on fighting to the death and they won't stop attacking each other until it happens, even to Day 2, 3, etc. So the sooner we can stop it the better.

I do think this would be an odd way to bus though. No towncred, just voting Karnos (a townread) so that the argument stops.

I don't like the focus on Phantom and it seems like a policy-lynched push dressed up as a scumread.

I don't like the diversion to dodgeball and the multitude of fluffing about everyone is dodging.

I don't like his putting himself in a townbloc in Post 1231 and suggesting lynching the rest given how much he defended Karnos.

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My current townreads are Gigabyte, Thor, and Rosske. Rosske primarily because the Io kill doesn't make sense from him, secondarily because meta points more to him being town but it isn't a strong meta read.

ISO'd Tenshii and Transcend and neither came off as overwhelmingly town. That still leaves Mhsmith on my list of people to ISO. Thought he was town earlier but will look into it very closely tonight after I grab dinner.

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Going to get to the recent posts later. In the meantime, I was looking over my ISO in Mini 1800 for mentions of "Karnos" to see why I was defending Karnos (I was town, he was scum) and it seemed so similar to Tenshii's defense of Karnos that it makes me wonder if Tenshii is town after all.

It re-inforces my belief that people who read tone and emotion over pure logic tend to townread Karnos' genuine posting as scum whereas the 100% logic people think he's the scummiest thing that ever existed. I suppose I

could

see Transcend's townread on Karnos as well given he mostly goes by tone although some of his twilight posting still gives me pause.

What I like a lot less about Tenshii is that Thor is right that he spent most of the game pushing a lurker for lurking and barely engaged anyone.

Still need to get through mhsmith's slot:

Starting with kcdaspot's ISO, I see a lot of overblown fake-looking reactions to Thor but it could be just playstyle. He mentions that all of page four is Karnos being bad and scum, finally concluding that Karnos and KTS are the scumteam and voting KTS. I question why he didn't join the Karnos wagon since it was clearly bigger but he says he can settle for a Karnos lynch in Post 247 depending on the VC. Claims he doesn't like the logic for Karnos and phantom being of differing alignments which could be a way to push a phantom lynch after Karnos. The biggest issue I have with him is his paying lip-service to a Karnos scumread but looking pretty intently elsewhere. I find kcda's playstyle off-putting and hard to get alignment-information out of. Going to comb through mhsmith's ISO in-depth to see what I find.

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@Thor, would you mind elaborating on your reads on Transcend and mhsmith?

I'm currently reading you, Gigbyte, and Rosske as town. I have Transcend as the most likely scum candidate but I could see it being Tenshii as well. Still need to do an ISO of mhsmith to lock down that read.

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Going to answer Thor's question about Gigabyte later and I want to double-check my read there as well just to be completely safe. But thoughts on Mhsmith:

Mhsmith's entrance and questions to Luna Fox read town and he seems genuinely interested in figuring her out. This is corroborated when Luna Fox admits that this looks different from her scumgame.

A couple of questions though:

@Mhsmith;

1. Were you following the game before you received your role PM? If so, were you suspecting Luna at that time?
2. Your initial posts towards Karnos does not look as though you suspected him (Post 568, Post 575, Post 579). You were questioning Luna about her scumread on Karnos and appearing skeptical. So, I can't follow exactly at what point you decided that Karnos was scum after all and made the case on him (Post 614). Also, a lot of the things you pointed out in your case were stuff from early game before you replaced in so if you found those scummy, surely you would have pointed them out. Did you suspect that Luna was bussing Karnos or did you think she was pushing a mislynch? If bussing, where's your follow-up after the flip? If you thought she was pushing a mislynch, explain how your reads flipped around from "Luna is pushing Karnos" to "Luna is town and Karnos is scum." What were the posts that caused these read changes?

Post 807 reads town given he's describing what he did hopping onto the Karnos wagon. If he were scum laying the groundwork to push on Karnos' defenders, he would have persued that angle.

Rest of his ISO also shows him genuinely questioning and probing multiple people. Looked through his one scumgame on site and I found his posting a lot more formal/stilted and he explicitly says that he isn't very good as scum. If he's scum here, he's definitely improved. Overall, I'm putting mhsmith as a fairly slight townread.

There's a lot of stuff he says that I agree with but there's something about the way he posts that reads off that I can't put my finger on just yet. He made a case on Karnos D1 and put him at L-1 which is exactly what I would expect a wolf in his place to do

(did I just subconsciously refer to scum as "wolf?" Probably came from poring over mhsmith's ISO so much).

But after Karnos dies, there's no real passion for any push anywhere. It's just a lot of hand-wringing, considering all the possibilities but going along with the lynch that the majority wants.

I haven't seen mhsmith say with conviction that a certain player is scum and push for their lynch. Given his references to his towngame, I feel like that's something he would do as town so I suppose a meta-read of a couple of his towngames is in order.

Finally, another question re: Post 1888:
3) When I asked you for your thoughts on Transcend's push on you, I wasn't asking you to refute it and tell me it's wrong. I wanted to know what you thought on Transcend's alignment - whether it was a town push or a scum push from your POV.

I believe I have outstanding questions from mhsmith regarding my Rosske townread and from Thor regarding my Gigabyte townread so I'll get to those two next. I'll look over Transcend's Rosske case as well though to make sure I'm not missing anything.

In my next post, I'm going to track down each read that mhsmith has to figure out whether it makes sense. He seems town but something's bugging me here and I need to figure out what it is.

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I am suspicious of Transcend's push on you but I found your lack of reaction to it equally notable. If I were in your place, I'd be very suspicious of someone trying to set me up to be lynched the next day. For most of the game, you deflect Transcend's suspicion of you as lazy or bad, never taking a hard stance on his alignment. Finally, you vote him today because he apparently didn't justify his townread on Karnos whereas Tenshii did. That's information you've had for a long time. So, the co-incidence between me pushing Transcend and you voting him a few pages later doesn't sit well with me especially since you didn't seem to agree with my reasoning for pushing him. It seemed like you saw a potential lynch opportunity in Transcend and came up with your own reasoning to push it through.

I also don't understand what you think happened with bussing on Karnos wagon. At some point, you clear people for defending him given you think scum would want to bus. But now, your main suspects seem to be the two people who defended Karnos.

As for Transcend, I am suspicious of the seeming disparity between Transcend's supreme confidence that Rosske if the final scum while at the same time suggesting not one, but two more backup suspects if Rosske does flip town. In addition to that, I don't really understand the extreme certainty in Tenshii being town given Tenshii is one of the players I'm considering as potential scum.

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Why do you think Rosske decided to kill Io?

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Going through Gigabyte's ISO and I really don't like their play post-Karnos flip. My initial townread came from how they treated Karnos and the interactions not looking like scum-scum. Examples are "no one's quickhammering you, Karnos, I'll fight them if they try" seems odd coming from a partner. Also, thought the reaction to KTS scumclaiming was town-looking on the surface.

The most troublesome thing for me is that while Karnos was alive, Gigabyte was tunneling him, but after he flipped, it's a lot of back and forth uncertainty. There's been a marked playstyle changed before and after. That's something I find indicative of scum because at one point they had a buddy to bus but after, it's just about looking town and not blowing your load pushing for a mislynch too early.

I can't see Transcend as scum so I'm reversing my read there. Lots of occasions where he genuinely looked like he was trying to sort the game. Tenshii's suggestion that he be lynched rings town as does his wondering if he could game the mod's activity although I do want it explained what exactly he was trying to do here.

Gigabyte's push on KTS solely to do something that Transcend wasn't reads fake. Gigabyte doesn't strike me as whimsical and if you are interpreting their action seriously, declining to vote someone just because Transcend is voting them is pretty horrible reasoning. Their switch around on Phantom after being so certain that he's town is another point of concern, as is their vote on Rosske while ignoring meta when most of their early reads are meta-based. Clearly gigabyte isn't against meta. I see the argument for Rosske only has one town and scum game but Gigabyte has gotten a townread on Phantom presumably based on one other game.

I've been thinkng about this game over and over and no one's really clicking as scum. That could be because I've been mostly ignoring the actual scum.

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Gigabyte's posting fading out is somewhat scum-indicative too as is the suggestion to make a townbloc including themselves and lynching outside of it. I much prefer mhsmith's proposal of just using every day to scumhunt and re-assessing who needs to be lynched. It's the pro-town strategy, and while I don't think it makes him town to suggest it, it's still the way to go.

If Gigabyte is such a good scumhunter that they could catch Karnos off of RQS, where's the same scumhunting drive to catch his partner? The townbloc idea is at odds for someone that caught scum so early and reeks of just hammering down a few mislynches so that the game doesn't go on forever and the drive to post fake-analysis drops down. Gigabyte continuing to post elsewhere but not here also fits into that mold.

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My biggest hangup with Rosske is why is going to kill the one person who's sticking up for him and calling him obvtown?

An experienced scum player could do it for the WIFOM and push the argument that he wouldn't kill his biggest defender. But a raw newbie at Rosske's level doing it when alone is something I see as very unlikely. When I first started playing mafia, I certainly didn't kill townies who could be allies to me. And at the level Rosske was playing, he needed all the help he could get.

Re: opportunistic voting. Read his ISO here in this towngame. It's only 27 short posts so it's not so tedious to read. Notice how he mostly pushed on TheNewEarth (basically omgusing him similar to what he's doing with you), and then out of absolutely nowhere in the tenth post of his ISO, votes an L-1 wagon (it was Karnos, funnily enough). There's no read progression, no suspicion stated, just simply an opportunistic vote. For someone that plays the way he does as town, your case doesn't really resonate with me. I think you should take a quick look at the game and re-evaluate mhsmith/Gigabyte because on balance, I find them more suspicious by virtue of being in the background than Rosske.

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@Gigabyte, 1) It may have been a joke but you used that joke to vote KTS rather than justify it with actual reasoning which is what strikes me as suspicious. 2) You did say plenty of times that you thought KTS was town too. 3) A quick glance at Rosske's only completed town game tells you he was lynched D1 so why is he not lynchbait when Phantom is? 3) I don't see what's ridiculous about suspecting you. You were involved in the Karnos lynch along with several others including Thor, Io, and mhsmith. Considering it's somewhat likely that someone bussed given how Karnos was the sole wagon that was gaining steam with no counterwagons, I think it's reasonable to consider the possibility that it was you.

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@Transcend, how does Karnos treat his partners in the other game where you saw him as scum? Does he bus/townread/distance?

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Wanted to see if he had any repeating trends with regards to how he treats partners. In the game I played with him, he was strongly scumreading one partner and weakly scumreading the other.

I think if Karnos was townreading someone, that makes them slightly less likely to be his partner. It's not a lock-in but I want to see if I can eliminate anyone from being his partner.

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Felt like I didn't have a good handle of the game so I went through all reads again to see what I found. Tl;dr, I think Thor, Tenshii, Gigabyte, and Transcend are all very likely town. I think our lynch today should be between mhsmith and Rosske. While I don't mind lynching Rosske, I find that the nightkill heavily points against him, and that the way mhsmith jumped on the Karnos wagon is the scummiest Karnos interaction of all players in the game. Gigabyte, and Thor pushed Karnos early and Thor deathtunnelled him. Transcend and Tenshii hard-defended him and put themselves out there. Rosske ignored him. Mhsmith started out pushing Luna and out of nowhere posted a Karnos case when Karnos was at L-1 and then started asking people if they disagree with the points brought up against him which I see as a moderately strong scumtell.

1. Thor - Town

a) Pretty much comes down to his meta of not bussing which he genuinely seems to believe in, his hard push on Karnos, the fact that he could find lots of distractions if he wanted.

b) The fact that coming off too pro-town means that he'd have to explain his continued survival. Better to soft-bus in a way that gets him a lean town read rather than be front and center of the Karnos bus. Especially makes sense when he as town pushed scum lynches in the past and got accused of bussing.

2. Tenshii - Town

a) Early scumhunting of Karnos came across as very genuine and was extremely similar to the reasons why I incorrectly townread Karnos in the game I played with him. Tenshii asked Karnos why he made Post 70. Karnos justified it well in Post 140. Tenshii's subsequent townread there seems very reasonable. Karnos has a tendency to explain things he's done in a way that fits well with his actions. It's one of his strengths as scum and why some people tend to townread him.

b) Given Karnos' flip, I find the entirety of Post 176 a very strong towntell. Have a hard time believing scum go to the extent of defending their partners that Tenshii did in Post 338 and Post 363 where he breaks down all of Thor's arguments and explains it for Karnos. Scum tend to perceive such a move as dangerous and it takes a very bold scum to go there.

c) Already mentioned this but Post 496 is an odd way to consider hopping onto a partner's wagon - simply because he wants the Karnos distraction gone. He already said he wasn't townreading Karnos so this fits. If he were scum wanting to cut his losses, I'm sure he could have found a reason to scumread Karnos amidst the mountain of evidence against him.

d) The fact that he was doing a lot of genuine scumhunting of the Karnos wagon lends credence to the idea that he truly thought that Karnos was a likely mislynch wagon that he could find scum from.

e) Non-Karnos related stuff: Suggestion to lynch him in Post 1503 is a minor towntell. Attempt to game the mod is another minor towntell although I don't know what exactly he was planning which makes this not as strong.

f) Suspicion of Thor reads genuine. This is not a very compelling point given it's basically omgus but I think a scum-Tenshii has a lot of easier targets to attack but the paranoia of Thor bussing and his being incredulous of Thor letting Rosske and Transcend get away with their play is town also. I see this as a newbie thinking that a good player like Thor would surely notice the other scummy players in the room rather than tunnel in on him. Pushing that Thor bussed Karnos is a pretty hard sell too.

3. Gigabyte - Most likely town, investigate more in LYLO

a) The part where Gigabyte assumes they won the game doesn't look fake and I went through another completed game of Gigabytes and they had similar reactions upon the final hammer starting from here over the next few pages. I wonder why they so easily bought that KTS was telling the truth though given that they had been trolled before and KTS gave out a list of reads. It seemed genuine enough but if Gigabyte is still alive in LYLO, they should be re-evaluated from scratch as opposed to assumed confirmed town for the reaction.

b) Initial push on Karnos out of RQS and interaction with him. My first impression was that Gigabyte was town and I didn't see anything contrived in the push nor do I think bussing at that point makes a lot of sense. Happy to put Gigabyte on the backburner.

4. Transcend - Most likely town, investigate more in LYLO

a) Initial townread came from how his lynch order made sense to me (Rosske + mhsmith) because I too was reading Tenshii as town upon replacing in and that townread is back. I think he was all over the place this game and that was confusing but on balance, probably likelier town than not. I think he makes a good point on Gigabyte and his read on Tenshii is very likely accurate.

b) This is more of a personality tell but someone as antagonistic as Transcend probably wouldn't want to put himself into the position of "the game's jackass" to use his words. He'd want more credibility. Although once he started defending Karnos, turning around at that point when his wagon was gaining steam would be a risky move.

c) Defense of Karnos makes sense if he tends to misread Karnos. Still found his twilight reactions rather overblown and saying that people will accuse him of knowing Karnos will flip town is a smart move as scum because once Karnos flips scum, people will assume that Transcend really did not know Karnos' alignment, and I think Transcend is decent enough as scum to pull it off. But it also makes a lot of sense from someone who genuinely thought Karnos was town that was lynched over his protests and anticipates being attacked the following day for "knowing that Karnos was town." Another player that needs serious re-evaluation in LYLO but I'm happy to call town for now.

I think our lynch today should be between Rosske and Mhsmith

[Wingback]

Rosske - Possible scum

1. I don't see his "Karnos, why aren't you voting Thor" as a scumtell at all contrary to Transcend. Given most of page sixteen was Karnos and Thor tunneling each other, I see it as a legitimate question to ask why Karnos isn't voting Thor. Doesn't matter that Rosske's vote was on KTS. I see this pretty clearly as him trying to gauge Karnos' motivations rather than asking for support on Thor. Post 430 makes it blatantly clear that that was what he was trying to do. NULL here.

2. Do find the vote on Io in Post 463 very opportunistic given that the Io/Karnos were the major wagons at the time. Vote count in Post 457 shows Karnos with three votes, Thor with two, and Io with two. Rosske's vote ties Io as a major wagon with Karnos. Given he was questioning Karnos earlier about voting Io over Thor, I'm not sure how his next logical leap is to vote Io. The fact that he gives zero reasons for it is a concern as well. Appealing to Luna to vote Io reads like a transparent attempt to kick up a counterwagon to Karnos. SCUMMY here.

@Rosske;

Really need you to explain why you pushed Io at the time that you did. You can't just be voting for "reactions" without giving reasoning. If that's all you have, I'm going to assume it's more likely you were drawing attention away from your partner.

Points in Rosske's favor:
1. Nightkill. This is the biggest one really. Have a hard time seeing him kill Io over Thor or Giga.
2. Meta. Upon a closer look, this is actually weaker than I thought. While I agree with Thor that he's more wordy as scum, and I also think more formal and willing to read the game rather than the idgaf attitude here, a lot of how he develops reads, and how he pushes scumreads isn't all that different from his scumplay so I'm willing to vote here today.
3. This specific post "How likely would it be for two town players to death tunnel in on each other like we've done?" seems like he's setting up to 1v1 Transcend and I don't see why he'd want to do that when he could just let someone get lynched and continue chugging along doing what he's doing tomorrow.

In summary, this guy has a decent chance of flipping scum and I don't want him around in LYLO. Percentage-wise, I'd say 35% each on Rosske/mhsmith. 10% each on Transcend/Gigabyte, and 5% each on Thor/Tenshii. Lynching him over mhsmith makes sense given how thoughtful and interested in solving the game mhsmith is and leaving around someone like Rosske in lylo isn't something that I'm okay with.

I'll try and re-read Rosske's ISO (it's short enough so shouldn't take too long) and try and nail down an mhsmith read tonight. Unless something super-scummy pops up, I'll vote Rosske. Otherwise, I'll vote mhsmith.

[Wingback]

Based on Karnos interactions, the fact that Karnos tried to bait Kcdaspot into hammering him (Post 231) points somewhat strongly to mhsmith being scum. Why ask a townie with a short fuse and an erratic playstyle to hammer? Kcdaspot might as well have hammered there for all Karnos knew. Then Karnos puts Kcdaspot in his scumreads along with Thor and Io. Fits with his bussing meta and also, he spent a LOT of time arguing with Thor and Io but in Post 386, kcdaspot and Io are his top scumreads with Thor as a lighter scumread.

Interaction with Rosske in Post 506 is actually the exact same thing Karnos did with me in Mini 1800 when I misread him which might point slightly towards Rosske as town.

The more I think about it, the more I'm feeling decently confident it's actually mhsmith.

[Wingback]

I'm not going to re-read a 200 page-long ISO but key points that stuck out to me:

1) Mhsmith's case and jump onto Karnos is the only one out of everyone here that makes sense as a smooth hop onto a bus wagon. Everyone else has interactions that stick out in a way that is unlikely to be bussing (except Rosske but he has the nightkill going for him).

2) Mhsmith asking people what they thought of the evidence against Karnos is something I've seen scum do before when they are last-minute bussing.

3) Mhsmith is one of the few that doesn't react to the KTS scumclaim.

4) Mhsmith's subtle push on Transcend after I outlined suspicion of him without explicitly agreeing with me and using information he had for months is a scummy positioning move.

VOTE: Mhsmith

This is who I think will slip scum. There's no real reason I can find to townread him other than lots of effort but that's something I could see him doing as scum given how thorough and focused and determined to win he is in his other games regardless of alignment. I could see him kill outside Thor for the WIFOM and chaos.

[Wingback]

@Mhsmith,

1) Re: evidence against Karnos, this was what I was referring to that pinged me:

Why do you town read karnos? You said he was similar to your newbie game meta; but

what did you think of the specific points raised against him?

And if you don't want karnos lynched, what is your lynch pool you're willing to vote on? I see Luna, who else? Pc/Ross?

2) That's right, you didn't react to KTS. Gigabyte reaction made them more likely town because it looked very much like a town reaction and that helped me solidify a townread there to POE the game down to basically just you. I'm not saying your lack of reaction is necessarily scummy. You just haven't done anything that's extremely town.

3) Your vote on Transcend came right after I pushed suspicion on him. But you never mentioned anything I said. That means you expect me to believe that it's a co-incidence that we've both arrived at a Transcend scumread at the same time. If my posting swayed you, town would be more transparent about it and agree. If not, I don't buy the co-incidence. Scum tend to be more afraid of overtly agreeing with something a townie said and would much rather change their stances but in a way that makes it seem as though they arrived there independently.

4) The unvote looked fake because it showed that your vote lacked conviction. I find many scum are more likely to not push an aggressive town player and to unvote more easily in the face of aggression because they are afraid that other townies will see it as obvtown and they're left with a stale vote hanging there. Not all scum players do this. For instance, I wouldn't expect Transcend or Thor to back down so easily. But you fit the profile of analytical scum who has trouble faking overt conviction in your pushes.

5) I read the one newbie scumgame you played on site where half your ISO was feedback to the town. The town game I read was Quaroth's game which went on forever with multiple no lynches. You were obviously town in the latter. In the former, the way you offered feedback, and how you talked about hating your losses so much that it forces you to become a better player showed me how thoughtful and determined you are to improve. In any case, that's not a reason why I'm seeing you as scum. It's just why I don't find your *effort* indicative of alignment.

Mostly, I have stronger reasons to townread everyone else and you fit a lot better as scum than Rosske.

[Wingback]

@wing: When have you seen karnos interact with a buddy in this manner? You've discussed his "bussing meta"; where have you seen him challenge a buddy to vote him like this?

I never said I specifically saw him challenge a buddy to vote. I think it's less likely he would bait a town player into voting him than a partner.

[Wingback]

I mean, I agree with the point that mhsmith's vote was the most likely to be a bussing vote, but I felt he naturally went into it. By your readslist, I'd want to push for Rosske.

I should mention that from rereading, I really dislike Tenshii's basises for his scumreads, but not in a "he's scum" way. They seem to be things new players believe are scummy, whether scum or town.

Not feeling Rosske as scum for a) the nightkill which has been hashed to death but remains a legitimate point. b) the way he asked Thor if Thor really thought that him and Transcend were TvT. He's setting up to 1v1 Transcend and I don't see it very likely for a scum player in this situation to do that. He'd be much better off just letting Tenshii get lynched and continuing the same tunnel with Transcend the following day.

Mhsmith's vote on Karnos wasn't one I found natural. Most of his case and reasoning uses stuff from before he replaced in but when he replaced in, all of his focus is around Luna Fox and he never gives off the impression that he's scumreading Karnos.

Mhsmith's predecessor kcdaspot has mentioned Karnos as a scumread several times but instead of voting the Karnos wagon which was bigger, he tunnels KTS. It reeks of knowing Karnos was town but trying to distract the wagon by pushing someone else. ISO him and Ctrl+F "Karnos" to see my issue with him. I also thought his "Thor man, don't let me down, breathe KC breathe" gimmick read as really fake but I wasn't sure whether I just found it annoying or scummy." Thor is a rather opaque player so I find that too-early Thor townread probably comes from knowing Thor was town.

[Wingback]

Wing your case on smith is basically paralleled with mine. It's just my case on Rosske is about 10x heavier.

I'm

really

not seeing Rosske make that nightkill but mhsmith's predecessor pushing KTS while having Karnos as a secondary read and ignoring that wagon just seals it for me not to mention mhsmith's case/vote against Karnos is exactly what I would expect from a scum-him at that point.

Compromise with me today? Haven't felt this good about a scumread since replacing into the game and I think your gut on mhsmith is pretty accurate. You just got distracted with Rosske and his cross-tunneling of you.