New Year's Eve Masquerade Ball - [Game Over]

[mhsmith0]

Not flipping scum

. Vote Kagami/Dunn

Makes a post suggesting awareness of pressure level

I haven't read any of the last 6-7 pages and I've no idea what the VC is

. I just checked this page briefly and saw MDS voting me which is a bad vote.

Makes a post claiming lack of awareness of pressure level



Bonus points for wolfy pop in responding to mds vote
Double bonus points for not being able to (or not choosing to) explain why the vote is bad other than "it's wrong"

[mhsmith0]

i honestly don't scumread either of you rn

not like perfect strong town reads or anything but there are better lynches

Whis "either of you" here?

[mhsmith0]

I did.

[mhsmith0]

Before this post, Kagami gets called out for popping in between. Posting one liners and fucking off. Then this post comes at a convenient time.

I don't understand the MDS scum read.
She initially votes MDS-Jester. Then a lot of vote switching.
As scum its always good to get someone who is not getting scum read a lot lynched first and save the people being widely scum read for later lynches. It's just easier this way.
This feels a lot like that.

Given that you've been called out for popping in and out at convenient times, why is it worse on her end than yours?

Why is vote hopping suspicious? That seems if anything somewhat towny at an early stage, unless you think that she's empty bandwagining and is up to lynch anyone?

I also don't understand your point about pushing to get a non suspect lynched. Obviously it can be convenient to get someone outside the POE "scammed up" or actually mislynched, but why do you think that this is something she'd actually be likelier to do as wolf, as opposed to the town explanation of critically engaging w more players? I feel like if there's good evidence of her reaching to get a tougher mislynch, there'd be more substantive evidence than I've seen; what am I missing there?

[mhsmith0]

i honestly don't scumread either of you rn

not like perfect strong town reads or anything but there are better lynches

Whis "either of you" here?

mds + jester, was replying to the post directly above mine

K, thought that might be the case, but it almost looked like you were saying mds/shadow there which would have been bizarre.

[mhsmith0]

I swear I'm not doing it on purpose.

Fwiw I kidna believe you, still not really sure on jester tho.

[mhsmith0]

You're been called out for generally slanking after pressure on you came off, which is much different than "it's the weekend".

In fact, vedith game threw at 2225 http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 3#p8593723
Midday Wednesday, and your thread presence dropped a cliff from that point on.

[mhsmith0]

The shadow ISO between vedith suicide and his recent pop in

Cerb where will you be voting today?

VOTE: kagami

I'm sure there is one scum in Kagami/Dunn

Kagami continues to not address my questions

Then there is this

Spoiler:

VOTE: Jester-Pair

VOTE: Shadow Pair

VOTE: Gamma pair

VOTE: jester pair

VOTE: gamma

VOTE: No Lynch

That's a lot of hollow votes, and they all happen to be on the safest wagons of the day. The Shadow vote in 1622 is especially interesting because Dunn said Kagami was allegedly townreading that pair at the time.

The town-shadow explanation there is that he finds Cerb's behavior odd and was poking at oddities without really thinking through the implications of them, which weighs against the probability that scum-shadow was poking at him in an effort to appear townish and did so in a very clumsy way. I don't think it's quite the smoking gun Parama is making it out to be, but meh.

That was a pretty bad sheeping on the Shadow case and pinged me right away. Funny thing is she had been calling him scummy for a while at that point but not actually voting him.

I still don't like jester's early play and I don't have any terribly fuzzy feeling about MDS either. I think scum-MDS would probably have held out for just a bit, but if there was already a pre-established pairing plan, that may have itself looked suspicious. Jester's "In fact I know you do, therefore my question should be: are you brave enough?" bit makes a show of saying "I'm totes going to be sorting you (because I am town)," which is counterproductive to any real attempt to establish a read. I'm treating 17 as a joke, but I find it strange that no one jumped on that. It's exactly the sort of low-hanging-fruit comment that usually attracts a scumread nibble. I'm also concerned that pretty much everyone had jester/mds as some level of scumread, but they didn't get any real attention at dance-start.

I kind of wish I'd noticed this part earlier because that's literally the same sort of nitpicking that made me scumread Jester in the beginning and mhsmith in the middle of Yesterday. FYI: I admitted pre-dance that Jester can read me like an open book. The "brave enough" was obviously a joke playing on that. We were scum together recently and he noticed I was scum before even looking at his role PM. Like literally 2 pages into the game.


Regardless, Kagami's reads started looking suspiciously similar to Dunn's at that point and I voiced my concern, which Dunn agreed with. Then, this happened:

@Whoever mentioned read-cloning: my internalization is that dunn's reads followed mine, with mismatches as to who was scummy but general agreement on which pairs were likely to include scum.

"Whoever mentioned my read-cloning" was Dunn. Hi.
Does anyone seriously buy that explanation? Dunn scumreads my pair, so does she. Dunn scumreads Shadow, so does she. Dunn scumreads Gamma, so does she. Dunn thinks Vedith is town, she changes her mind and says he's town after having called him scum. No, Dunn's reads definitely didn't follow Kagami's, it was the opposite.

Before accusing Kagami in the village thread, I asked Jester in private something like (paraphrasing)...

Mini:

Is Dunn easy to fool? I think Kagami's either pocketing him or blindly sheeping his reads (because she *is* transparently agreeing with him)

And he said no, Dunn's a great player as either alignment, so I figured she'd be the one sheeping Dunn and I was right.

By the way Kagami, what happened to this?

I would be shocked if gamma and shadow are both town, I'm just unsure who should leave first, since one pair being scum somewhat implies the other town. Part of me wants to channel our charming mod, who would probably just want to lynch them all and let the mod sort them out.

HS, I think it's jester-gamma-?, though I don't disagree that shadow pair deserves death regardless of alignment.

Gamma's town. What does that make of Shadow? I thought your townread on that pair depended on Gamma being scum, but you said you'd vote them out "regardless of alignment". Why are you no-lynching right now?

I think we should just flip a scummo and work from there.

VOTE: No Lynch

Like, feel free to vote me off, but when you see I'm town, this is the lady you need to start looking at. And that includes you, Dunn.

The dude literally told someone.

In the middle of thread what translated to "Go ahead and leave the dance coward"

If it was literally anyone else who has not been acting like a complete asshole you would've scumread it right?

But no. He plays the "too scummy to be scum" card. And you're like "Shaddddddowwwww-samaaaaaa please shadddddddowwww-sama why are you such a beacon of innocence please say more nice words to me in the PT"

SAD's posts are just sad misreps.

Notice how SAD has completely ignored HS and Parama's cry outs for a lynch/flip.

I make a single line about asking vedith to leave(he was dead set on doing it anyway). I was confident of a Gamma scum slip ,and hell breaks loose.

I'm not no lynching because I'm certain there is scum in kagami/dunn

That's to Cerb who is pro NL.

Oh yes, of course, my entire case is that shadow scumslipped, that's all it is, and nothing more.
Nice misrep!

What else is there to it?

alright let's stop the misrep and see where my reads actually are huh?

lock town:
{arthur, parama}

probably town:
{smith, pie, scout, kagami}

unsure:
{dunn, cerb, mds}

scummy scum:
{shadow, mariar, jester}

that leaves a whole six slots to find scum in, and only 4 of them are paired.
are you going to rethink your stance now that you have more detailed information, or do you think 2735 is still a valid post with valid points?

Have you taken issue with one of your lock town voting the other lock town?

That's over the span of nearly four full days. "But weekend"

[mhsmith0]

Is*
This is going to be one of my last posts because I don't care anymore.
One scum in kag/dunn
One scum in Mh/pie
Not sure about 3rd scum
Maybe SAD, not sure.

My work is done here. Found the three scum now do what you want.

Anti-spew or OMGUS? Or both?

[mhsmith0]

Bleep bleep bleep.

[mhsmith0]

Also, when did Maria tell you that?

[mhsmith0]

Nah this happened

It's just one that tipped me off cause I'm getting such a emotionless vibe from you you don't feel like you really care for the answer or you're curious it seems just emotionless and cold.

[mhsmith0]

I'm just making sure my death isn't in vain and town stop derping. You and kagami need death asap.

I'd laugh my ass off if you flipped scum and then the last two were pie and Dunn or kagami.

[mhsmith0]

Do you think you're being wagoned for no good reason?

[mhsmith0]

Answer question first.

[mhsmith0]

No answer? Fine then I'll go first

1) your activity dropped off a cliff post vedith suicide (before then it was your pair vs his)
2) wolfy pop in
3) you seeming to be in anti spew under pressure

There's also something else that I want your answer on first before I discuss.

[mhsmith0]

Also lynching your pair is a decent world building lynch given how heavy your pressure was early game (when pairs were being made), as I feel like knowing your/Maria's alignment ought to throw propels interactioms w you two intombetter relief.

[mhsmith0]

Still not sold on Maria/Shadow, though Shadow seems to have disappeared when the heat moved on other pairs.

Wow it's almost like...

Shadow-maria is a cowbeaten to death already

I really am having a hard time understanding why is is relevant at all.

Like because he was suspected early on, managed to dodge being lynched by acting aggressive, insulting people, and playing the "too scummy to be scum" card, and his wagon lost steam, he automatically became town?

As I said before none of what he has done changes his original alignment. The only thing that happened is he made a big raging scene and now went back to lurking when he feels he's no longer in the ~danger~ zone of being lynched.

Like he's happy just sitting by right now while town continues to focus on other stuff. He's already done his job of dodging his lynch and AtEing to Maria in his PT. Not like he has to bother himself with solving the game or anything, because, yknow...

i will admit that the way shadow has basically vanished after the pressure disappeared from him is really bothersome

VOTE: shadow-maria
Choo choo

Oh right this happened. Almost like I was responding to the posts about you immediately before.

[mhsmith0]

It's almost as if he's the scummiest player in the game!

Lol missed one

[mhsmith0]

Do you think you're being wagoned for no good reason?

[mhsmith0]

So you think you're being wagoned for no good reason. Does this make you upset or are you just Ike "lol whatever these people are dumb"?

[mhsmith0]

So then you're being wagoned for no good reason and you're not upset about it?

That's really interesting since that's not what you told me when we hydrad together. It's private so I can't link but you SPECIFICALLY said that you get pissed when you get wagoned for no good reason (and it wasn't presented in a "only if I have a pr" manner).

So, if that is in fact how you react to these situations, why isn't that your reaction here?

[mhsmith0]

You're representing that you're not angry, more like "lol these people are stupid". Am I misreading you?

Not flipping scum. Vote Kagami/Dunn

Not angry

No I've said a million times I want a shadow pair flip so I can work from there.

If he flips scum I think much less likely you're scum as the competing wagon.

What happens when I flip town?
Will you accept you are horrible at mafia if you are town?

Nit really angry. More mocking/contemptuous (or attempting to broadcast it).

I haven't read any of the last 6-7 pages and I've no idea what the VC is. I just checked this page briefly and saw MDS voting me which is a bad vote.

Nit angry.

Will look back at earlier stuff.

[mhsmith0]

VOTE: mhsmith0
Will post more later but this is a bit obvious

VI or wolf. Hard to tell...

[mhsmith0]

Spoiler:

Not flipping scum. Vote Kagami/Dunn

No I've said a million times I want a shadow pair flip so I can work from there.

If he flips scum I think much less likely you're scum as the competing wagon.

What happens when I flip town?
Will you accept you are horrible at mafia if you are town?

I haven't read any of the last 6-7 pages and I've no idea what the VC is. I just checked this page briefly and saw MDS voting me which is a bad vote.

Game will quiet down when players start dying anyway.

SS, you literally just decided to defend yourself with 'Wifom' and now you've chosen to backpedal into something else.

That was a reply to "if scum don't kill her it would mean he is scum"

Stop being awful

Yeah I'm just gonna ignore usless fucks like HS.

Parama gave up too easily.
Just scum try to set up mislynches.

Can this OMGUS be any more transparent though?

Can this opportunism be any more transparent though?

Notice I was okay with Parama until she just completely gave up.

Shadow, the current proposal is that you're left out of the dance. Is there anyone you'd like to nominate as more-likely-scum-than-you, who we should consider instead? (And why)

Current proposal of 2/3 people? I don't give a crap.
I have something in mind which I discuss later.

Scum gamma flailing like crazy.

Kagami can you actually tell me what's scummy about me instead of just claiming I'm scummy. Thanks

Parama if you are town you really need to look at yourself. When the entire player list doesn't agree with you that it is a scum slip it probably isn't.

And I don't scum slip. Just FTR

parama i think you're town but that's really not necessarily a scumslip imo

just saying but what does me being town have anything to do with anything? this isn't about me this is about the scum who slipped. i have zero intention of shutting up about it until shadow's lynched

Go on then keep making the thread more toxic.

The point which I was talking about Cerb was his setup spec which Jester bought up.
Him asking what the setup was to other players was odd because it is a useless question. Setup spec is a nice way for scum to show like they are contributing when they're not.
Not the IC pairing thing.

Still doesn't change the fact you did the copycat thing.

Sorry I don't care what scum think.

MDS you are so deep in the tunnel that you don't realise you are scum reading me for exactly the same thing which you are doing. Telling Dunn to fuck off for scum reading you.

And what's your water tight case on me again Gamma?

Only thing in your iso is

is nobody else going to acknowledge the actual, honest-to-god scumslip from shadow

i haven't seen a slip that clean-cut in ages

I saw it
He doesn't make it past pre-dance, anyone who accepts his invitation is scum with him.

Which is equivalent to this fake over reaction.

OH MY GOSH PARAMA I JUST REMEMBERED THAT STRAT
ALSO THANKS TO RANMARU FOR TELLING ME ABOUT HOW IT WORKS
The deal is that Shadow just decided to go "oh yeah X is scummy!" after someone else made the same accusation. Ranmaru taught me that's a decent scumtell.

The only way maria is scum is if she's scum with shadow and behaved very suboptimally.

If shadow is town, there's no way maria chooses him over sicko. He's likely to get her lynched and she has to anger the town to pick him over sicko. If shadow is scum, she gains so, so, so much from bussing him there and loses so little.

This post makes no sense whatsoever. If you scum read me it shouldn't matter what Maria's alignment is at all.

1152

is a holy fucking misrep. I was scum reading Cerb because he wanted to pair with the IC, how the hell can you say that I already scum read him? BS
also please explain how scum! Me gains any town points by poking Cerb?

@HS first you are convinced I'm scum,

then you say clogging the thread up helps scum and

then you are trying to convince me that clogging the thread is a bad thing and I shouldn't do it cause it deters town.

If you think I'm scum why do you think I'd listen to you?
Should I take this as a slip that you know I'm town which is why you are asking me?

This is literally what Parama's case is.

SAD I've already said if you don't wanna read feel free to fuck off.
Transcend and I have caught scum just by that method. We ain't making shit up. If you don't like it, it's your problem.

1152

is a holy fucking misrep. I was scum reading Cerb because he wanted to pair with the IC, how the hell can you say that I already scum read him? BS
also please explain how scum! Me gains any town points by poking Cerb?

Kagami answer this and stop misrepping me. I said he had a point. I didn't agree with the whole bloody thing.

Etc

If anger is how you say you react to being wagoned/pressured for shitty reasons, I'm really nit seeing much at all of it. A couple posts that show hints of it, but overall nit seeing it.

[mhsmith0]

Thoughts on Dunn?

[mhsmith0]

I played with shadow when he was in a hydra with xkyfu
Agression was there, and yes i see where you guys are coming from, but like mhsmith is doing now is nitpicking. Are you really going to scumread someone more because they werent agressive enough?

Actually what I'm doing is picking at what he claims his emotional reaction to this situation would be, compared with what he's actually been doing here. That's not a nit.

[mhsmith0]

But you quoted posts that alao have enothing

If calling people useless fucks sounds neutral to you, ylu should definitely fix your language standarts

I quoted posts that were there to highlight his emotional reaction, or lack thereof. That was the point.

(He earlier one was "literally this is all he's done in nearly 4 full calendar days", partially in response to his "but it was just the weekend" defense).

[mhsmith0]

Nitpicking should be smith's second name

VOTE: Smith

you should've waited to hammer us before we could buddle that awful vote

[mhsmith0]

I would be very appreciative if everyone would reiterate their answers to the question that I've asked people a couple times this week namely:

Who are the T/T pairs you've identified?

What pairs are most likely to contain scum?

I'm sure this is all obvious upon a reread of your ISO, but I would very much appreciate a simple expression of the answers to these questions to use as a jumping off point as I examine things. Thanks.

Sad/scout likely villa pair
Pie seems confident kagami is town, I'm tentatively deferring that read until I actually get a better sense of pie herself
I'm also deferring your read until tomorow since little point to sorting your slot since if you're town you have great odds of dying tonight
Buying shadow as possible wolf, really nit sure about Maria but that looked like a survival or OMGUS on me, nit sure which yet.

I feel like if pie is town HS has decent odds to be, not really sure about parama (if shadow scum that helps her a good amount I think).

[mhsmith0]

Im not gonna bother fixing those typos, you understand me.

What im saying is that, whilere there are possibly good arguments against him, there is a lot of stuff that can easily be written of as bias.
He alao has been pushed all game long and nearly no counterwagon has come close (apart from gamma)

My scumreads have happily pushed this wagon as well which makes it worse for me
Long story short i dont believe in this, although they pribably need to flip sooner or later

Cool, push a counter then.

[mhsmith0]

Who are the T/T pairs you've identified?

What pairs are most likely to contain scum?

T-T
Cerb-nahdia
Dunn-kagami
Ss-maria

Scum
HS
Mhsmith
Probably mds,very maybe arthur

Thoughts on shadows push on kagami since you say she's town?

[mhsmith0]

Cool, push a counter then.

Read my iso and make your choice

I offer you HS, you and mds

Don't think it's mds, though it might be jester (I also don't especially see the HS case - I suppose he could be trying pocket me, and his defense was maybe a bit overdone, but it also showed critical engament w what I was actually doing in a way that seemed solvey enough for me to give him a pass for now). I'm also comfortable on Maria-shadow rn.

Ps if someone wants to make a great case for why pie is a wolf I might listen, but I'm obviously not going to take "lol smith is scum" seriously.

[mhsmith0]

Hes wrong

Kagami isnt doing anything, true
Is it scummy? No. If she wanted she'd come here and answer questions.
Its often easier to sort people in PT's, where is actually is active.
Its easy to write off inactivity as scum lurking but often its NAI

Period.

So nothing about that push makes you think that he's pushing her for the same thing he's being pushed for, and that it might be hypocritical? No suspicion at all, just clearly wrong town?

[mhsmith0]

Ps if someone wants to make a great case for why pie is a wolf I might listen, but I'm obviously not going to take "lol smith is scum" seriously

So everyone scumreading you is being ridiculous but pie (who everyone is townreading) would be a scumread you'd listen to?

Please.

Well I'm obviously not going to scum read myself. So when you say "you're on my list of people you're allowed to vote for" the OBVIOUS implication is "only if there's reason to believe pie is a wolf"

[mhsmith0]

Hypocrisy is scummy?
Is being pushed for a 'scumslip', (lack of) agression and reduced activity after vedith left the same as being pushed for refusing to answer auestions?

"Is hypocrisy scummy"

Like, no shit? Townies do it sometimes but hypocritical behavior is a scum-tell. Do you actually not believe this to be the case?

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 5#p8588675
Look specifically at this one, where he's accusing her of popping in and out at "a convenient time" when it's the same accusation leveled at him (the questions bit seems to be the only substantive difference)

Jeez your misreps.
My activity is low sitewide. Its a thing called the weekend. I don't think you're aware of it.

And this one in defense of his continual low activity when not under pressure, as if somehow it was actually a weekend specific thing.

[mhsmith0]

Ps if someone wants to make a great case for why pie is a wolf I might listen, but I'm obviously not going to take "lol smith is scum" seriously

So everyone scumreading you is being ridiculous but pie (who everyone is townreading) would be a scumread you'd listen to?

Please.

Well I'm obviously not going to scum read myself.

So when you say "you're on my list of people you're allowed to vote for" the OBVIOUS implication is "only if there's reason to believe pie is a wolf"

Scum claim

I almost want to say a real wolf wouldn't be that terrible... but that's just AWFUL

Go ahead and explain what THAT is a scum claim.

[mhsmith0]

boy Smith can't take a joke.

Yes, tying "scum claim" on someone you're wagoning is clearly a joke. How silly of me to miss that.

[mhsmith0]

I told you he's an emotionless robot.

he's also a b-bully

Mean ole smith at it again, making nice little robotik girls cry

[mhsmith0]

I mean, girls tend to do that when someone devours their grandma?

But what if grandma was mean?

[mhsmith0]

Ps if someone wants to make a great case for why pie is a wolf I might listen, but I'm obviously not going to take "lol smith is scum" seriously

So everyone scumreading you is being ridiculous but pie (who everyone is townreading) would be a scumread you'd listen to?

Please.

Well I'm obviously not going to scum read myself. So when you say "you're on my list of people you're allowed to vote for" the OBVIOUS implication is "only if there's reason to believe pie is a wolf"

But if you listened to what I said, you'd know I'm townreading pie.
Secondly, you're acting as if people wanting to lynch you are being stupid and reacht with the 'im not gonna take a 'lol smith is scum' seriously

But can you really not see any case on you? Do you think scumreading you is something ridiculous?

Hypocrisy is scummy?
Is being pushed for a 'scumslip', (lack of) agression and reduced activity after vedith left the same as being pushed for refusing to answer auestions?

"Is hypocrisy scummy"

Like, no shit? Townies do it sometimes but hypocritical behavior is a scum-tell. Do you actually not believe this to be the case?

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 5#p8588675
Look specifically at this one, where he's accusing her of popping in and out at "a convenient time" when it's the same accusation leveled at him (the questions bit seems to be the only substantive difference)

Jeez your misreps.
My activity is low sitewide. Its a thing called the weekend. I don't think you're aware of it.

And this one in defense of his continual low activity when not under pressure, as if somehow it was actually a weekend specific thing.

You said yourself that townies could do it, but often it's a scumtell. I think he's a townie. That's it.

I can agree that his defense is a bit odd, but again, can you only imagine scum doing this?
What about the other part of my question?

I think most of the pushes on me have been silly

1) "baiting vedith to suicide" (flagrantly false)
2) low activity (even tho it's inside my town meta)
3) pushing Maria on her defensiveness (even though that was a perfectly valid meta question to ask, and again, emphasis there was ASK)
4) a vaguely defined difference from my town meta that I don't recall ever really being clearly laid out

I feel like those were the highlights? And yeah those are shitty cases.

You also presented myself as one of the "allowed" options for me to be scum-reading, which is of course ridiculous.


Wrt shadow, I think "scumslip" is a silly case, but I think asking stupid questions is wolfy (that was something he's done on and off this game), and the activity read was a fair point, and I'm not impressed w his reaction to pressure.

Is that different than kagami not answering his questions? Sure. But I don't see how it's a WEAKER case on him, all the more since you yourself don't seem to think the kagami case is valid.

Mhsmith is not a bully, hes a nice dude

He just happened to draw scum

1) true
2) false

[mhsmith0]

WAAAAH MAKE THE MEAN MAN GO AWAY MINI ;-;

[mhsmith0]

Nice to see the shadow-Maria counter-wagon settling.

[mhsmith0]

At this point I think there's more people townreading Shadow than you, Smith.

Could be. Better keep hard-pushing my wagon then. Who knows, you might even get lucky and pie is actually a wolf (and if that happens, I will spend the rest of the game laughing at everyone who lazily town read her while thinking I was a wolf).

[mhsmith0]

There's something I'm wondering and I'm not sure if it's due to a playstyle difference or personality difference or alignment difference or what have you.

I've been a wagon since pretty much the beginning and at some point I thought fine, I'm never surviving to endgame, and that's probably a good thing because I'm a convenient lynch. Even though I'm townreading my lover, I've been OK with being voted because it would narrow the suspect pool.

Jester, Maria and Shadow have adopted pretty much same attitude as me. Which I think is totally understandable.

But Smith's wagon has been popular for almost as long, and so far he's been incredibly resistant to it, even though he's not townreading his lover. Where does this survivalism come from? Do you think it's scum-motivated? Or too invested in the game? Or some combination of ego (to not be mislynched as town) and pride (he believes he can solve the game for town)? I just don't understand where all that resilience comes from. On one hand I think it's super admirable and I know I'll never be as good a player as that. But on the other hand it does make me a bit uncomfortable because it just feels *unnatural* to me.

Every good player should fight his lynch regardless of alignment. I would actually say that I'm fighting my lynch here LESS hard than I would if flying solo, where the reason is that I'm not sure of my partner.

If you actually go through what I've done wrt the people on me, I've been making an effort to sort them and the validity/honesty of their pushes.

Shadow and to a lesser extent jester are my suspects other than those pushing me, and I think Dunn is the worst of those who are on me. Not really sure about Maria yet tbh.

[mhsmith0]

If you actually go through what I've done wrt the people on me, I've been making an effort to sort them and the validity/honesty of their pushes.

Smith has a point there. I have to concede that to him.

Now try and decide if that sorting process was genuine. If I'm town it was real, if I'm wolf it was fake.

But he's also a god tier player and I'm very reluctant to start townreading him just because he's doing stuff a villager would do.

You should, if you're curious, skim some of wolf games (click on wiki link). Haven't randed wolf on ms for quite a while, but I have a bunch on MU. If you're truly curious about sorting me, and have the energy for it, you might find it interesting.

Fml this game is so hard. What did I get myself into.

I should so stick to newbie games.

Nonsense, hard games are more interesting.

[mhsmith0]

*sigh*

UNVOTE: Smith

I think I'll invest some more effort into sorting you but I'm so tired now.

Team Hammerlust, please don't hate me for this.

PHASE ONE COMPLETE

But seriously, feel free to meta me if you're curious. Bizarrely, I'd say I'm running quite a bit lazier than normal for either alignment, and I still haven't gotten around to that full re-read I keep telling myself I need to do. I really should but it's just kind of a slog.

[mhsmith0]

Ps http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... 37-loluber
Was my most recent wolf rand. Turbo game so not massively relevant, but one of my best wolf turbos so maybe something pings. Lissa and I swept, including the cop getting himself lynched d1 (mainly lolwillage but we both had a good game too). For quite a while I was a real garbage wolf (go look at micro 610 for my WOAT) but am actually improving. Won newbie 1714 here w rask, but frankly that was lolwillage with a side of cop hunting. Made 30 posts all game (subbed d2), was considered "top town". That one was a nice confidence boost, ditto a few turbos where I've done very well (hard bussed Kami at http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... e-Will-LOL and fooled a competent player in LYLO, where he lynched the guy who was peeked villa by the cop n2)

[mhsmith0]

Im not going on the shadow wagon. If it gets enough votes, ill join in on mds.

I have my reads too. Okay i might be wrong, maybe not, we'll see, but at the moment it's antitown for me not to believe in what i'm doing (which i think is the righyt thing)

I was going to say this was wolfy, but I don't think an actual wolf would post this. Probably a villager who's paying zero attention to how awful that post makes him look.

[mhsmith0]

If asking stupid questions is scummy, why don't you scumread me? I've asked stupid questions in your opinion, no?

There seems to be more actual effort on your end to scum-hunt, and from your engagement with my case, I get the sense you actually believe it.

[mhsmith0]

Smith's assessment of Scout makes too much sense for him to be wolf tbh
Unless he literally read my mind and put my thoughts in the thread for me to townread him that is

Smith ELITE wolf

[mhsmith0]

Oh, so that's what they meant by 'god tier mafia player' :^)

As long as you're camped out in my pocket, would you mind cleaning out the lint that's gathered?

[mhsmith0]

yeah HS is staying in my pocket sorry smith

But... but... I want someone in my pocket

[mhsmith0]

Sorry, I've already built permanent residence in your partner's pocket tbh

wait... do you mean you're in pie's pocket then? Can I at least give parama shit on not being able to pocket you then?

[mhsmith0]

don't really think sad is scum though. shadow flipping red would be fun though.

[mhsmith0]

Sorry, I've already built permanent residence in your partner's pocket tbh

wait... do you mean you're in pie's pocket then?

yes

Can I at least give parama shit on not being able to pocket you then?

yes

[mhsmith0]

Is smith lynched yet?
No?
*lurks*

Remind me why you think I'm a wolf? I see

Smith you seem to be all questions with very likely substance you seem much more relaxed when I modded for you
this doesn't seem like your town game

So you think that asking substantive questions is my wolf game? Or did you mean "little substance" instead of "likely"?

oh I did mean little thank you

VOTE: Smith

you should've waited to hammer us before we could buddle that awful vote

and not much else. You also never bothered to explain why you think that "awful vote" was awful. I would normally expect that you could actually put into words what was wrong with a bandwagoning vote that came right after people were making a reasonable case on shadow (which strikes me as not awful at all), but maybe that's too much to expect?

[mhsmith0]

So I currently spend my days at work and after that in bed cause I'm sick and can't think at times, it gets worse the later the hour and I get back home pretty late... Gimme time until tomorrow, I'll post my final reads and after that do whatever you want.

>offering "final reads"
>isn't even the leading wagon

It's a terrible post, sure, but is it wolfy or lynchbaity? That post in particular feels like it could go either way.

[mhsmith0]

So I currently spend my days at work and after that in bed cause I'm sick and can't think at times, it gets worse the later the hour and I get back home pretty late... Gimme time until tomorrow, I'll post my final reads and after that do whatever you want.

>offering "final reads"
>isn't even the leading wagon

It's a terrible post, sure, but is it wolfy or lynchbaity? That post in particular feels like it could go either way.

It's fence sitting sure but is it wolfy or lynchbaity? This post in particular feels like it is.

My point was that Nahdia was reading into a post that, while bad, was essentially null. Your post here, meanwhile, is apparnetly just a shit post? And while you're here, could you answer my earlier post?

[mhsmith0]

Is smith lynched yet?
No?
*lurks*

Remind me why you think I'm a wolf? I see

Smith you seem to be all questions with very likely substance you seem much more relaxed when I modded for you
this doesn't seem like your town game

So you think that asking substantive questions is my wolf game? Or did you mean "little substance" instead of "likely"?

oh I did mean little thank you

VOTE: Smith

you should've waited to hammer us before we could buddle that awful vote

and not much else. You also never bothered to explain why you think that "awful vote" was awful. I would normally expect that you could actually put into words what was wrong with a bandwagoning vote that came right after people were making a reasonable case on shadow (which strikes me as not awful at all), but maybe that's too much to expect?

[mhsmith0]

Your vote came out of left field and was opportunistic as HELL

I'd expressed suspicion of shadow previously, so it's hard to say it was out of left field.

How was it opportunistic, other than "it's on a wagon that already exists" (which my jester vote also had been, but you didn't seem to mind that one)?

[mhsmith0]

Wouldn't mind lynching jester and having a couple days to read the thread without the volume of shit posts continuing to increase.
VOTE: jester

VOTE: shadow-maria
Choo choo

between when I cast the jester vote and when I voted for shadow, zero votes were placed on me. In fact, one of my voters, dunn, had hopped onto a different wagon in the interim

Can't you guys just all agree on a wagon and vote there? Right now the VC is all over the place.

Yeah, I'm down to consolidate our votes

VOTE: Parma-Human Sequencer

So if you want to argue opportunism, you'd have to argue my jester vote. But you didn't. You argued that my vote on shadow specifically was opportunistic, which doesn't really make sense given the game flow. So why do you think my shadow vote was opportunistic, but my jester vote wasn't?

[mhsmith0]

VOTE: Smith

you should've waited to hammer us before we could buddle that awful vote

^
Actual opportunistic hop onto my wagon, given the game flow (there was a push against me, dunn had hopped back on, and shadow-maria was still a relatively major wagon). When pushed, Maria cites as justification for her vote opportunism on my end even though that's a pretty silly argument.

[mhsmith0]

You say that like you hadn't already wanted to go?

[mhsmith0]

Smith should be a smart cookie.

I am. Both you and shadow look suspicious, for different reasons. Your push on me in particular looks like BS, and looks like you saw my vote as something you could push on for being "opportunistic" without thinking through whether that assessment actually made sense.

[mhsmith0]

You say that like you hadn't already wanted to go?

I WILL GO SONIA ATE ON YOUR ASS

Except I remember how you used the "Sonia ATE" stuff in the first mini I modded specifically to get townread for your anger, so that seems like it should basically be null behavior for you?

[mhsmith0]

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8244754
"my "rage" is getting ppl to townread me so got to keep going"

[mhsmith0]

obligatory

boy Smith can't take a joke.

[mhsmith0]

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8244754
"my "rage" is getting ppl to townread me so got to keep going"

OH HELL NO YOU DID NOT JUST TRY TO DO THAT YOU KNOW I ATE AS TOWN JUST AS MUCH AS MAF OH HELL TO THE FUCKING NO

Except I remember how you used the "Sonia ATE" stuff in the first mini I modded specifically to get townread for your anger,

so that seems like it should basically be null behavior for you?

[mhsmith0]

My ate is really easy to tell if it's real or fake though tbh

I'm not good at telling the difference fwiw. That's not a strength of my game.

[mhsmith0]

main:print
{{bleep bleep bleep smithbot reporting in}}
goto main

we must... do more... do more... do more...

Mh, town! You can make better cases on people in his sleep. I don't think you buy your own case.

In a board that doesn't have super obv scum, I make the best cases I can. Do you think many of the players here are bad enough at wolfing that they'd be really obvious?

[mhsmith0]

Mh, town! You can make better cases on people in his sleep. I don't think you buy your own case.

Also, what exactly about my case makes you think I don't buy it? I feel like that's a statement that ought to be substantiated by quotes/explanations that back up the idea that I'm somehow just going through the motions or faking my case etc.

[mhsmith0]

Shadow, what's your experience with smith?

One open game where he replaced in and one game as hydra.

We'll also always have that mini normal that you somehow thought was townsided

Spoiler:

I subbed into that game, died that night, and watched town derp its way to a loss

[mhsmith0]

Shadow, what's your experience with smith?

One open game where he replaced in and one game as hydra.

We'll also always have that mini normal that you somehow thought was townsided

Spoiler:

I subbed into that game, died that night, and watched town derp its way to a loss

It was!
You made a grand total of zero posts lol

The zero posts bit was the joke lol since we didn't actually play the game together

Also the set was completely scum-sided by MS standards. Town powers were garbage and scum powers were OP including a ready-made explanation (v cop) for a potential gunsmith guilty (on either scum power) AND a scum role (doc) that was a massive counter to gunsmith and vig (both of which were limited shot). Plus town had two absolute trash powers ascetic and 2-shot BG (cfj calling BG a "good power" and "better for town than a doc would have been" was kind of the tipoff that the setupwas lolreviewers). NY 198 was an actually town-sided setup (and badly so IMO, probably the most town-sided normal I've seen), and you can 100% tell the difference.

[mhsmith0]

Tracker is like the Bud Light of town power roles. It's not terrible, but it's also not really what you want highlighting your party.

[mhsmith0]

It's an implied possibility, except that vig getting roleblocked is highly possible too (as far as town goes). And tracker should almost never be in a game wtih multiple scum power roles that aren't roleblockers, because it has false implied innocent possibilities.

Anyway, that's kind of an old battle that doesn't really matter for this game

Spoiler:

though I'm still right

[mhsmith0]

Yeah, yeah, sorry. Old wound. Will move on.

[mhsmith0]

back to actual content

Mh, town! You can make better cases on people in his sleep. I don't think you buy your own case.

Also, what exactly about my case makes you think I don't buy it? I feel like that's a statement that ought to be substantiated by quotes/explanations that back up the idea that I'm somehow just going through the motions or faking my case etc.

[mhsmith0]

Your vote came out of left field and was opportunistic as HELL

very slight villa points for parama for 3202/3 btw. potentially fakable, but it looks like he actually gives a shit about it in his post.

[mhsmith0]

You can happily shit post about a prior game but can't talk about what makes you think I'm faking my case on you?

[mhsmith0]

Fine I guess but you better have good reason to support the idea that you actually believe I'm faking my push on you if you're gonna need a full day to put it together.

[mhsmith0]

Dunns push on me has been garbage and I could potentially buy the idea that it's faked. I'd have a better opinion on him but I don't want to read >400 posts by a guy who I'm not especially good at reading.

Pie seems to think kagami pretty likely town, and I'm since I'm still null on pie I'm ok w deferring to that idea for now.

[mhsmith0]

I'd say that just about everyone seemed to be lazy about who they were taking and why (and/or just going w someone they wanted to pair with regardless of alignment); why does kagami stand out in particular on that end?
Other examples: jester/mds wanted to pair together

Pie took me because I was getting taken anyway, she thought we were compatible, and why not (in PT she expressed a preference for being paired w scum so she could eventually die before endgame, fwiwi)

I don't recall why Maria took you do but I do remember her being clear on it being a useful source of a TR for her

If you think I picked shadow as scum to draw a giant target on my back Vedith that's really bad thinking when I could've went with 2 others.
Can you answer my question.

Pedit: I'm saying you're sudden call out on me was sus as fuck when you had nothing to back it up besides calling something fake and that's the easiest thing you can ever say as scum

It would be nice if I could get something useful from the accepts but enough seem lazy that it seems like a non productive avenue (I recall asking about it and nit really getting anything useful from the excercise). Do you disagree? Maybe you think a partuclar accept was especially towny in nature?


As far as scum!you goes, you certainly could be voting me, but maybe you are concerned with not looking opportunistic or OMGUS-y, maybe pie is your buddy, maybe you have a strategic reason to be pushing Dunn/kagami (possible distancing? Possible hoping to throw dirt on a town pair?). I don't feel like your non vote on me is especially clearing at this point; do you think I'm mistaken in this evaluation and your being elsewhere is an important point in your favor?

[mhsmith0]

Ps wrt kagami, I'd agree it's a shit reason to give a solid TR. Not sure it's that bad of a reason to de-prioritize sorting the slot tho.

[mhsmith0]

This game needs more voting, or more suicide.

The game needs more voting. Suiciding game-throwers can suck it.

[mhsmith0]

So you think me pointing out logical common sense is bad now?

[mhsmith0]

the way you used that quote of me trying to get a tr based off of picking shadow sounded to me like you were trying to dismiss it as a scummy thought.

It was slightly scummy, seemingly like your concern with picking shadow was how it made you look. I don't think it's a major point though.

[mhsmith0]

Mh, town! You can make better cases on people in his sleep. I don't think you buy your own case.

Also, what exactly about my case makes you think I don't buy it? I feel like that's a statement that ought to be substantiated by quotes/explanations that back up the idea that I'm somehow just going through the motions or faking my case etc.

the way you used that quote of me trying to get a tr based off of picking shadow sounded to me like you were trying to dismiss it as a scummy thought.

I wonder how many times I have to type "game throwing" before everyone eventually gets it through their heads that suiciding, especially in early game, is game-throwing and really bad.

[mhsmith0]

Also I wonder how many times the board's quote function will screw up and add stuff to my posts before I remember to hit preview before posting.

[mhsmith0]

the way you used that quote of me trying to get a tr based off of picking shadow sounded to me like you were trying to dismiss it as a scummy thought.

It was slightly scummy, seemingly like your concern with picking shadow was how it made you look. I don't think it's a major point though.

Do you want to know why I picked Shadow here let me tell you and listen closely now *ahem*

BECAUSE I WANTED TO FUCKING PICK HIM

Your picking him because you wanted to do so is relatively null; after all that seems to have been the norm, see

I'd say that just about everyone seemed to be lazy about who they were taking and why (and/or just going w someone they wanted to pair with regardless of alignment); why does kagami stand out in particular on that end?

Your discussion of the point afterwards was SLIGHTLY scummy in that you seemed concerned with how you were viewed in light of that decision. But like I said,

I don't think it's a major point though

[mhsmith0]

Are you saying I wouldn't care about the viewpoints of others on my pick?

I'm not a robot.

I'm saying it's slightly scummy, but also not a major point. Why does this seem unreasonable to you?

[mhsmith0]

Are you saying I wouldn't care about the viewpoints of others on my pick?

I'm not a robot.

I'm saying it's slightly scummy, but also not a major point. Why does this seem unreasonable to you?

Do you hear yourself?
YOU ARE SAYING. I SHOULDN'T CARE. IF PEOPLE FIND ME SCUMMY. ABOUT MY PICK CHOICE.

Given that I'm saying it's a relatively minor point, why do you continue pushing on it? Do you truly think it's unreasonable to think that a WIFOM self-defense is slightly scummy?

[mhsmith0]

Would someone make sure a horrible white knight of their partner? It almost feels as if you know Jester is just scummy town here. Hrrrrrmmmmmm............

I don't know whether he's scummy town or actual scum. I felt like that post in particular was non-indicative.

[mhsmith0]

ya this has gone on for way too long.

I want to look through this game mhsmith is talking about (even though I don't know if I'll get anything from it. I am not particularly good with cold meta), but who here disagrees with just chain lynching Jester -> mhsmith0 -> S_S and going from there?

I'm pretty sure all three of these pairs are widely marked for death and aren't making it to endgame in any universe, but we continue to sit here trying to argue about a singular best lynch from all of them.

seriously, who here disagrees with this?

Then help consolidate down to two wagons, either by pushing harder for jester or by self-voting. Or you could game throw by leaving the game like you occassionally hint at wanting to do.

[mhsmith0]

Would someone make sure a horrible white knight of their partner? It almost feels as if you know Jester is just scummy town here. Hrrrrrmmmmmm............

I don't know whether he's scummy town or actual scum. I felt like that post in particular was non-indicative.

I disagree.

And I don't. He's either town being super sloppy about making a post that is transparently bad, or he's a wolf pretending to do this. And I don't particularly see why that post should be considered a strong indication of one over the other.

[mhsmith0]

You think he's sufficiently incompetent as to make a transparently bad post for no reason at all, just dumping it out there with no thought attached to it? I mean, I guess it's possible, but I don't really associate that kind of extreme level of carelessness with wolves. I could MAYBE think it's an attempt to go levels deep and make a really bad post just for the sake of it being interpreted as town, but that strikes me as kinda tinfoily at this point.

[mhsmith0]

Holy crap I'm so incredibly pos mhsmith is scum from that. I just feel bad about murdering pieguyn before the intermission tho.

You made a lazy read of that post, got pushback from me for your lazy read, and now assume I'm scum because I put more thought into it than you did.

At some point this game I'll probably flip, and when that happens I hope you go back and look at this and realize just how dumb this is.
(inb4 "it was smith's fault he got lynched" becomes the consensus take)

[mhsmith0]

Extreme carelessness? I wouldn't call the post extreme carelessness, you're way overstating. It's just him being particularly fatalistic when its not appropriate, which can be alignment indicative.

Except there's no reason for him to be fatalistic given his vote count, which means that either he's

1) town being sloppy about paying attention to the game and about how bad his post made him look
2) scum being sloppy about paying attention to the game and about how bad his post made him look
3) scum intentionally making bad posts in order to WIFOM "would scum make bad posts like that"

I don't feel like #2 is the likeliest answer here. Either he's being really clever scum, or he's just being dumb lynchbait town. And the post itself doesn't scream out that it's one vs the other.

[mhsmith0]

How often do you see scum make transparently awful posts? Typically when scum make scummy posts they're the sorts of thing you actually have to think about before you realize it's obvious. Or have you played a lot with really incompetent non-newbie scum?

[mhsmith0]

Here, let me grab a portion of my IC post from newbie games:

Spoiler: Bad Posting vs Scum Posting

In a lot of games you can see people posting badly, whether it means lurking, saying really stupid things, being intellectually lazy about their engagement, or all sorts of other pretty transparently anti-town behaviors.
And, unfortunately, a lot of the time (though NOT always) really bad posting is done by townies instead of mafia. Sorting between “bad” and “scum” is one of the hardest things to do in the game, but it’s a tremendously important part of your development if you want to get good at scum-hunting.

Consider a few examples:
Example #1
http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... post722301

I'm back on but won't be very active until up to 3 hours before EoD because I'm going to an early fireworks event for Bonfire Night.

http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... post722309

I'm showcasing my lynchbait status the way a peacock showcases their feathers. I make awful posts day after day, daring you to lynch me.

I fixed your typos.

http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... post722312

Scum is not as demonstratably awful as sociopath.

In that game, both lulz and sociopath were town. Sociopath got mislynched essentially for making a parade of terrible posts (the cited post was just one of many), which is a fairly predictable outcome of that behavior. But it’s notable that she wasn’t actually mafia.

Example #2

DS is a mild scum read for me at this point. Not a huge priority sort but I don't see the obv!town there. MoZ just seems bad rather than obv!wolf to me, and the IMO self-vote continues along that vein. Some of that may simply be me being over-sensitive to that after watching Ranger pull similar shit as town in open 642 (including the shitty self-vote), but I'm starting to come around the idea that shit like that actually does come more often from town, even though it never ever ever should. In this case, it's conceivable that they're scum/SK giving up, but it's also plausible that they're town giving up. I know Ircher (who I think was making those posts) is bugged by being a lynchbait type, so I can reasonably see him getting pissy and pulling a stunt like that out of frustration at being wagoned. Obviously it could be him pulling a scam and faking it, but I just don't see why it's wolf-indicative instead of essentially null. I'd still much rather wagon RachMarie at this point.

@ Rach...

Why are we giving a pass to MoZ

I just read his ISO

VOTE: MoZ

This is the sort of thing that normally comes with something better than "their ISO sucks". What about their ISO sucks? You seem to not really be able to explain what exactly you're finding voteable.
You talk a bit about it in

@ Nacho
1. The way they are moving their vote around looks like they are looking for a good wagon, not looking for scumz
2. The freaky color vote thing looked like they were trying to appear to be town and trolling, it did not feel genuine the way Nero's trolling does,
3. The way they threw shade on KTS but did not vote for him seems scummy AF

but
1) you aren't addressing the possibility that moving their vote around might be part of a process to look for a good wolf wagon, or for that matter, separating them from anyone else's vote hopping.
2) The "freaky color vote thing" ( http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 7#p8421517 ) seems like the epitome of a playstyle thing; calling it AI just seems bizarre;
3) I presume you mean this

...
This totally not troll KTS we're seeing here. He's actually being useful for once, but I fear that is because he is scum.....
~Zanos ~Zanos ~Zanos

but I fail to see how this is AI. It's essentially expressing a mild scum read on the slot; failing to vote for what is presented as a mild scum read (and one that is essentially paranoia-driven) is not in and of itself suspicious

Frankly, none of those seem like particularly good reasons for voting them; to me it seems a lot more like you're going survivalistic and looking for an easy target to try and buy another day off of.

It is a tentative read so far but feel like KTS could be town he is already invested enough to get ticked off at the hyperposters and that means he is genuinely trying to sort shit out.

It is a tentative read so far but feel like Rach could be scum she isn't invested enough to make real reads and just drops off a lazy kts town read and that means she isn't genuinely trying to sort shit out.

VOTE: rachmarie

adding smith to my scum pile as well this pinged my scumdar this vote on me sucks, plus like MoZ she keeps flipping her vote around.

What about the vote sucks? Surely if you find my vote on you to be itself vote-worthy, you can actually explain what about it "sucks". I personally thought it to be a solid vote, mainly for the content (wolf-reading you becuase of the lazy read you made) but I also liked the snarky way I turned around your language relating to KTS. Nothing about it seems off, and it seems like you just want to shade it as somehow being a bad vote without actually doing the work to demonstrate that it's actually a bad vote.
I also don't see your point about vote-hopping (you were my 4th vote, with my 1st being a joke vote on the mod and the 2nd being near-RVS level). Nor do I see how vote-hopping is itself wolf-indicative, unless you think that I'm just lazily bandwagoning (which would be weird considering that I was the first vote on you), or that something else in particular about my vote movement seems wolfy. It seems like you're struggling to make a case on why your pushes make sense, which to me suggests that they're probably just made up.
PS I'm a he. You can see it right there in the box where my user info is.

In that game MoZ (Ircher/BTD hydra) was town, I was also town, and RachMarie was scum (bonus points: DS was also scum). What you can see in the quotes I made was
1) My sarcastic callout of her lazy pocketing read of KTS in my post #620
2) My pushing her on her inability to actually substantiate decent reasons for her reads, and the fact that she was pretty flagrantly pushing on MoZ for essentially being bad (which is largely null) and other null behaviors, in what was a survivalistic push to avoid her own lynch d1.
As it happened, MoZ got mislynched d1 (in a case that boiled down to “they suck”), but Rach was still scum, and she was the one actually being scummy and pushing an agenda, not MoZ. Again, if you look closely you can see the difference between simply being bad and actually being scum.

[mhsmith0]

Another one (look especially at the large/bold/underlined section that I'm highlighting for you):

Spoiler: Micro vote analysis

Understanding how a scum’s motives and a townie’s motives differentiate their respective voting behaviours

So scum vote for townies right? Well, yeah…often enough, but that doesn’t get you very far. Firstly scum vote for other scum far more often than might be initially assumed, but your biggest problem is that townies vote for other townies…a lot!
So how does a townie tell the difference?
Well if each townie is bringing their best game then they should be intellectually invested in their lynch vote. They want that player killed. Consequently, they want to influence and persuade their fellow townies and drive their preferred lynch. In short, it matters to a townie who specifically is lynched that game day.
A townie might initially throw a vote or two around to see what happens, but essentially a townie lynch vote ought to be righteous

in the moment of being cast

.
Simultaneously a townie will be continuously reviewing their reads and triaging their suspects (everyone else in the game). They are genuinely searching for the best vote. That means if they change their vote…that process is righteous too.
…
Well preferably they [scum] want a townie lynched, but more than that

they want to blend in

. Ideally they also want someone else set up to take most of the heat for mislynches.
…
So…scum voting is therefore a part of their elongated active lurk – look busy, but don’t help. They want to surf along on the edge of your consciousness and low in your triage of suspects. Meanwhile townies throw suspicion at each other over misconstrued nothings.
…
So whether on or off the current leading mislynch, a scum in this mode is relatively passive and their lynch vote rationales underwhelming.
Also fake scumhunting is hard! It’s difficult to both contrive some reason to vote someone and then plausibly ‘sell' that contrivance. It is much easier to window-dress plagiarised arguments or just try and slip a token 'scumhunt' into thread without fanfare.
…
If a scum does try some fake scumhunting it will lack righteousness. It will smell feeble. You will struggle to see how or why this vapour is vote-worthy relative to alternative issues present in the thread. Knowing this some scum players might try and fake passion for their vote to disguise the deficit in intellectual integrity underpinning it. Then you are looking for a disproportionate level of zeal and/or confidence. A scum in this mode is not necessarily harder to spot, but can be harder to lynch since they can impress weaker-minded townies. They can shamelessly segue from one terrible vote underpinned by garbage to another and not miss a beat. Scum also tend to gravitate to this mode the closer they are to the win.

In summary

: If all is well for them, scum are just trying to find a quiet spot for their vote where they hope to avoid any scrutiny for their choice and its rationale and/or where they retain the maximum level of freedom to redeploy it if that suits their aims.
Either way,

it is a truism that a scum-advantageous town environment is one where it is an accepted norm for most lynch-votes to be cast for reasons other than the quality and history of the lynch target’s own voting choices

.
For example, scum might vote on people for alleged anti-town behaviours that usually amount to their (townie) lynch target saying/doing something daft about roles or mechanics. Or it might be some alleged incongruity woven from the target tripping over themselves in their mis-communication of something or other. Maybe even some misspeak that gets twisted into an alleged scumslip. All of this is normally absolute garbage!

The reality is that most clumsy in-thread behaviour and expression labelled as anti-town is (regrettably) town-indicative. Typically, scum are more calculating and careful in what they say and how they say it.

…
The point is you want to parse out the difference between the player who really believes this guff is vote-worthy and the player who can hardly believe his luck that townies seem to believe this guff is vote-worthy.

[mhsmith0]

Then help consolidate down to two wagons, either by pushing harder for jester or by self-voting. Or you could game throw by leaving the game like you occassionally hint at wanting to do.

in addition to what Nahdia said, I just cannot believe that a mhsmith who is reading the game and thinking critically posts this.

like his posts are just all off and I want to attribute it to him being scum who doesn't need to think critically or scum hunt, just pick posts and invent reasonable-sounding comments to make in response to them.

Then self-vote if you're that sold on it. Because the idea that I'm not engaging in critical thinking is beyond ridiculous if you actually bother to read what I've been posting.

[mhsmith0]

PS my 3244 was a perfectly acceptable response to your empty complaint "ya this has gone on for way too long". Either it was a prelude to you game-throwing via suicide or it literally meant nothing at all, because lo and behold, you just said it without having any actual action resulting from it.

[mhsmith0]

Pie: "Yeah guys this whole thing has just dragged"

Pie then does nothing with/about that statement, whether pushing harder on jester, making an active attempt to dismantle the arguments against shadow-maria wagon, or vote her partner. But sure, it's scummy of me to tell her to actually bother doing something about her complaint instead of just dumping it on the table and leaving it there. Sure it is.

[mhsmith0]

^Upset scum.

Oh good, you're back to suspecting me again. Maybe you can actually explain why I'm scum this time?

Stop calling suicide game-throwing. It's not gamethrowing.

Yes it is, ESPECIALLY early. We're not in LYLO, and waht town actually needs is voting data to evaluate who's pushing who and why after flips.

Your inability to understand this very incredibly

BASIC AND OBVIOUS

aspect of this setup is itself a good reason not to take you seriously, despite your being a cleared IC. But of course, doubtless that's just discrediting or the like.

[mhsmith0]

You don't know what gamethrowing is until you've played with abc on Day 9 of a competitive round.

I've seen plenty of gamethrowing in games. I've seen plenty of incompetence in games. "Something else is even more gamethrowing than this" is irrelevant. Suiciding early in this game (and frankly, at any time before LYLO) is game-throwing. Vedith's action was shameful, and if people learn nothing else from my eventual flip, hopefully that will actually make it through their heads. My optimism that this will happen, though, is limited.

[mhsmith0]

No, it's not. You're wrong. Objectively.

Incorrect. Utterly and completely incorrect.

And this is obvious just considering the scenario where Vedith-Gamma was lynched instead of suiciding. Guess what? Those last few votes would have been very useful for evaluating the people voting them, both in terms of macro-level wagonomics and micro-level "did it look like they actually believed in that case" behavior. Instead we got a suicide and jack shit of useful data from it.

[mhsmith0]

I don't care about voting data, I just want a scum flip.

No shit that a scum flip is good. But voting data

1) Makes a scum flip even more useful
2) Helps mitigate the damage from a town flip

But apparently I'm back in Road to Rome and need to explain basic mafia mechanics and theory to people?

[mhsmith0]

Next up: everyone pretends that smith is good at communicating contempt for lolwillage's terrible play as a wolf.

[mhsmith0]

You literally don't know the definition of gamethrowing.

Gamethrowing: taking actions as a villager that are majorly and irretrievably antitown.

Did Vedith do this? Yes. Will some other VI likely do it at some point this game? Also yes.

[mhsmith0]

god mhsmith's posts on this page.

if anyone wondered why I was calling him "cagey and defensive", this is why. I'm pretty sure most people are in agreement by now, though.

I bet you're voting for me aren't you given that opinion. Oh wait you're not.

[mhsmith0]

You're crying about suboptimal play and calling it Gamethrowing. Stop it.

Extreme suboptimal play = gamethrowing. You're welcome.

[mhsmith0]

Gamethrowing: Playing against your wincon
what is the towns wincon? Lynch scum

Is bad play gamethrowing to you smith?

Consciously bad play is gamethrowing, yes.

PS towns wincon is to lynch ALL the scum. Actions that knowingly go against that objective (and vedith's action clearly was that, since even if gamma was scum [he wasn't], it prevented interactions from highlighting potential partners or non-partners) is gamethrowing.

[mhsmith0]

Not game throwing: fake claiming a role to save yourself or fish scum

Game throwing: Posting your role pm or self voting in lylo

Fake-claiming a role may or may not be gamethrowing depending on the situation. There are times when it borders on it though, and anyone who doens't know what they're doing should be SUPER careful about it, since 90%+ of the time it really hurts town.

[mhsmith0]

Pie: "Yeah guys this whole thing has just dragged"

Pie then does nothing with/about that statement, whether pushing harder on jester, making an active attempt to dismantle the arguments against shadow-maria wagon, or vote her partner. But sure, it's scummy of me to tell her to actually bother doing something about her complaint instead of just dumping it on the table and leaving it there. Sure it is.

see, if you were town you would realize that I've been complaining that a lot of what's been going on in this game has been unproductive since... practically the start of the game.

it has nothing to do with me suiciding or not and I think that really is completely obvious from an objective POV. and you would also realize that I have been on record multiple times as saying that debating a singular best lynch is stupid and that it's far more productive to identify pairs that are town and lynch everyone else indiscriminately - you are not reading critically at all if you somehow are making the posts you have been making on this page

I didn't say you should suicide, I said you should be voting me (we're nowhere near 8 votes for a majority right now). Or pushing jester. Or working to dismantle the shadow-maria wagon if you oppose it. Or working harder to identify potential town-town pairs, since you say that's your objective. Empty complaining about the gamestate is still empty. You made an empty complaint about the gamestate, didn't do anything with it, and are now shading me for my reaction without actually voting me.

[mhsmith0]

Gamethrowing is about intent you blithering ignoramus.

At some point, a sufficient level of incompetence is the same thing as gamethrowing. And since there seem to be people here who are actually tempted to embrace that incompetence, I feel motivated to constantly call it gamethrowing so as to make sure they get it through their heads how terrible that play is. But that makes me scum for just pretending to care about it, right?

[mhsmith0]

it's far more productive to identify pairs that are town and lynch everyone else indiscriminately

^ this is also an INCREDIBLY easy strategy for scum to embrace: point out 1-2 "town" pairs (regardless of whether it's correct) "indiscriminately" mislynch a couple times (and with town demotivated from really sorting what's a mislynch vs a good lynch it's easier to pull this off), and then town's up shit creek without a paddle

But of course I should be town reading you for

REASONS

... right darling? Because guess what, I think your strategy sucks and I can't tell if you're town who actually believes it or a wolf who's trying to get town to be lazy about gamesolving.

[mhsmith0]

I don't understand why you haven't been actively pushing people to place votes given your belief in the merits of vote analysis.

THAT is your objection here? Really?

[mhsmith0]

it's far more productive to identify pairs that are town and lynch everyone else indiscriminately

Bonus points for:

1) Pie says she embraces this strategy, has previously posted that jester-mds, me-her, or shadow-maria are all acceptable
2) Pie is voting the SMALLEST of the three wagons (discounting her vote, jester-mds is 2 votes, me-her is 3, shadow-maria is 4)

VOTE: Pieguyn

And now we're a bigger wagon closer to majority. Hop on board if you actually believe it Pie.

[mhsmith0]

oh shit smtih is actually town

i fixed your post

PS no shit

[mhsmith0]

there is absolutely no fucking way you're town.

like legit, there is absolutely no fucking way you're town if you actually just made these posts.

then hop on board and see what happens

[mhsmith0]

there is absolutely no fucking way you're town.

like legit, there is absolutely no fucking way you're town if you actually just made these posts.

UNVOTE:

double what the fuck

The contrast between these two posts is amusing. You two should actually talk about what you think of me.

[mhsmith0]

I'm starting to feel like this is some weird-ass deflection shit a la what Cakez did re: The MM D1 in yuri mafia.

for anyone who isn't named Nahdia: I feel like mhsmith knows he's not surviving to endgame and is hoping to distract everyone from another scum lynch that's currently on the table that has a greater chance of surviving (Jester or someone in S_S' pair).

And yet you're still not voting me, despite the fact that a red flip on my end would lend credence to that theory.

Tell me why that is again? After all, you're indifferent to which of the three pairs under discussion gets the axe, right?

[mhsmith0]

I don't understand why you haven't been actively pushing people to place votes given your belief in the merits of vote analysis.

THAT is your objection here? Really?

The question is whether you're town who is extremely passionate about people dying via lynch rather than vig, or scum who has latched onto this as a pro-town talking point.

Yes, that is a useful question to consider. Why do you think my interaction with the current non-voters (since one way or another we're going to eventually reach majority) is important wrt sorting the larger question of whether i'm sincere in my giving a damn about voting data or not?

[mhsmith0]

yeah, now you're being deliberately dense so I'm not continuing this conversation

Your theory is nonsensical though. If I'm scum and doing this strategically, then my red flip would prove you correct, and this would be part of your legacy, and only enhance the case against one or the other of the current wagons.

I fail to see how this leads to the conclusion that you shouldn't be voting me if you're town and actually believe this "deflection" nonsense.

[mhsmith0]

serious question: how much of the game have you read?

Some of it I've read carefully, some of it I've skimmed. I doubt I could give you an exact answer as to which is which. What's the relevance of that question?

[mhsmith0]

PS In case this wasn't already ridiculously obvious, with every post that you make shading me without actually voting me, I become increasingly prone to thinking your "suspicion" of me is bullshit.

[mhsmith0]

for the record, the only reason I'm on The_Jester and not mhsmith0 is that I'd like a chance to be able to discuss reads with Kagami with a scum flip on the table (and Nahdia if they're still alive).

if we lynch The_Jester (likely regardless of what he flips), or if we get a scum flip somewhere else, or if Kagami decides to ditch me and go ahead and vote us, then I likely will self vote (and SAD is correct that this approach kills me if I'm scum, since once one of these things happens I really have no option but to invent some reason to push someone else and I look like obvscum).

go ahead, presume I'm scum and discuss the gamestate with nahdia and kagami given that "knowledge".

[mhsmith0]

I'm on mobile and busy but:
Mhsmith is scum. Let's lynch him (I'm caught up.)
Hs-parama probably has scum hs
Jester mds can die

Shadow can stop pushing me and admit he wants to lynch kagami and we can talk about that

If pie-me flip and pie is town, then the next two lynches are shadow-maria and dunn-kagami in some order.

I doubt HS is scum, not a priority sort.

PS If Jester-MDS flip double town, powerlynch dunn ASAP.

[mhsmith0]

Smith pushing on pieguy looks like a last ditch effort to get townread

The incompetence of that read is truly extraordinary if you're town.

[mhsmith0]

@pie: guess what? you've said you prefer a jester lynch, but at the same time jester-mds, me-you and shadow-maria were in the "well they're dying anyway" category. And you're doing jack shit to push a jester lynch, despite the fact that you're vote parking on him. And you're not doing much work to find town-town pairs OTHER THAN sad/scout, despite the idea that finding a town/town pair is, to you, supposedly super important.

So if you want to game throw via suicide, be my guest. Then if you flip town you can complain in dead thread about how it was all my fault, when you coould have just voted for me, pushed my case and saw what happened. Because CLEARLY there is no reasonable middle ground between game throwing and parking your vote an a different slot.

PS pie-dunn probably v/w fwiw

[mhsmith0]

Smith pushing on pieguy looks like a last ditch effort to get townread

The incompetence of that read is truly extraordinary if you're town.

Disagree

And when I flip town it's going to be "damn smith was just scummy town and totally deserved to die", right? Because interpreting my back and forth with pie as going for a townread on me is completely fucking ridiculous, and if you're town it's an insanely lazy read of it. You're either conf!biased or scum, and I'd say scum is likelier.

[mhsmith0]

PS pie-dunn probably v/w fwiw

Based on what?

your bullshit read just now. also your bullshit push on me.

[mhsmith0]

And you're not doing much work to find town-town pairs OTHER THAN sad/scout, despite the idea that finding a town/town pair is, to you, supposedly super important.

This is such bullshit garbage. Not only do you only need one town/town pair that you feel really confident about to win, this isn't even true (anyone reading the game should be able to tell that I also think Kagami/Dunn is town/town).

And how much work have you actually done to prove that read? You've done a bit on kagami, and basically zero on dunn other than you saying you think the pair is town/town. So "people can tell I think it" and "I've actually done the work to prove it and convince others" are completely different, and I can assure you that you haven't done the second.

[mhsmith0]

Moreover, you *AGREED* with SAD/inspectorscout being town/town, so I have no idea why you're attempting to complain about it.

You've made ONE substantiated town/town read. Big whoop. You're bitching about my not having done much, while you haven't done much either. If you truly believe that finding town/town is super important, you should be investing your time into finding and demonstrating more town/town pairs. Because I can absolutely ASSURE you, that if you honestly believe Dunn is town, that your read there will not survive my flip, given how bullshit his push has been. So if you really believe that, you better do the actual legwork to show it, because I will be VERY happy to see him get the axe for his garbage push on me before game-end.

[mhsmith0]

And go on, feel free to explain why you're attempting to spin that "I'm pushing you without voting you" when you know full fucking well the reason I prefer a Jester lynch over a lynch on us if I have the option for it.

And yet you just threatened to suicide right? Because it's a perfectly normal town perspective to be like "I don't want to actually lynch my pair, but suiciding works great as an option" right?

[mhsmith0]

And how much work have you actually done to prove that read? You've done a bit on kagami, and basically zero on dunn other than you saying you think the pair is town/town. So "people can tell I think it" and "I've actually done the work to prove it and convince others" are completely different, and I can assure you that you haven't done the second.

Yes, because saying "if you all decide to lynch us let me know so I can talk about why I think SAD/inspectorscout is town/town" means I clearly have no interest in convincing anyone of either of these reads.

And you're being deliberately dense again. You know just as well as I do that this is a very chaotic game that is almost impossible to keep up with (which, surprise, why do you think I want a scum flip and the intermission before I cut myself off again?). I've been doing what I could, in terms of poking people at various points in the game and discussing reads with them, but acting like I should somehow be able to sway everyone over to my point of view in this game state is disingenuous and you know better than that.

Forget over the top effort, just show me where you've done ANY legitimate work on that dunn read of yours. "I read him town" doesn't count. If you're confident on that townread you should have backup for it. So far you don't, unless I've totally missed it.

[mhsmith0]

And yet you just threatened to suicide right? Because it's a perfectly normal town perspective to be like "I don't want to actually lynch my pair, but suiciding works great as an option" right?

Holy _fuck_, you cannot be serious.

1) You're voting jester
2) You're not voting me and are pretty resistant to the idea
3) You were fine with suiciding our pair

Those three things together lead to some pretty strange conclusions, unless of course the suicide threat was just a stunt.

[mhsmith0]

anyway i'm leaving work, will be back on in like half an hour.

[mhsmith0]

Those three things together lead to some pretty strange conclusions, unless of course the suicide threat was just a stunt.

so you did think I was serious. good to know!

How the fuck should I know? You're the one who keeps bringing it up.

you are scared that I will randomly suicide at some point and there's nothing you can do to stop it, so you hard push this "OMG SUICING SUCH GAMETHROW" really really really really hard because you think calling it suboptimal will make me apprehensive to doing it and the possibility that I'm wrong about it.

No, because it's gamethrowing whether it's you or anyone else. And as always, if you hard push my lynch instead of suiciding, that's better for town in all worlds, regardless of my alignment (this is where I'm supposed to remind you I'm town I guess). Your not getting this is either fake (because you're scum) or dumb (because you're town). Pardon me if I struggle to know for sure which it is.

[mhsmith0]

Like even then this entire angle is also bullshit.

I made 3328 (the post where I threatened to suicide again)

IN RESPONSE TO

all of your posts saying it was odd that I had my vote on Jester. Me wanting to "suicide" has absolutely, absolutely nothing to do with any of this, so no, it isn't a "strange" progression.

You tried to nitpick my choice of votes, despite the fact that you were clearly aware of why I have my vote on Jester. Answer that or abscond.

And it's still bizarre as fuck that you're voting someone who isn't me if you're supoosedly that sure I'm scum, especially without any kind of rock solid case on jester (and so far there isn't one). So yes, your choice of votes remains bizarre and it's utterly fair for me to attack you on that front.

[mhsmith0]

Like every time I read an mhsmith post and go "ehh this is not bad" pie then dismantles it in such a logical way there is no way scum would be taking such a self destructive play.

Unless jester/mds is a town pair and she wants to blow them up first and leave town with the task of analyzing her for spew, which there really isn't much of so far (or do you think she's been doing enough to have effectively spewed people town or wolf if she flips). Which strikes me as at least a reasonable scum strategy, even if she assures me that isn't how she'd normally play it.

[mhsmith0]

Holy moly pie is town af.

Like every time I read an mhsmith post and go "ehh this is not bad" pie then dismantles it in such a logical way there is no way scum would be taking such a self destructive play.

Please clarify, because I haven't been impressed with her responses for the most part.

[mhsmith0]

yeah you're not even reading my posts, you're just doubling down on this "your choice of votes is bizarre" angle because you know you're utterly fucked if you admit you were aware of why I want to lynch where I do

Of course I'm aware of the logic you posted. I even quoted it. I just find it non convincing, especially since I don't see the obvscum on jester. Maybe you should recase him since that's in your mind the optimal lynch right now? Because it seems like you're more interested in justifying why you're on jester than you are in actually proving he's scum.

[mhsmith0]

Forget over the top effort, just show me where you've done ANY legitimate work on that dunn read of yours. "I read him town" doesn't count. If you're confident on that townread you should have backup for it. So far you don't, unless I've totally missed it.

literally everyone besides like you and Parama already believes Dunn is town. I don't give a shit about you, you're scum, and I don't think Parama's meandering paranoia will go anywhere.

what exactly is your point here again?

"People believe Dunn is town, therefore I don't feel like evaluating that take or substantiating why I feel that way". This is essentially what you're saying here. Maybe you should get around to explaining why he's town at some point? Or is my stated suspicion of him itself enough to clear him, regardless of my flip?

[mhsmith0]

You made a case, it was an ok case, not an obvscum case (and its been a while since you even discussed it there). So work harder if you truly believe in it. Going to dinner be back soon.

[mhsmith0]

You made a case, it was an ok case, not an obvscum case (and its been a while since you even discussed it there). So work harder if you truly believe in it. Going to dinner be back soon.

Literally none of this is an answer for anything I've said.

Why would I need to recase someone whose play has not changed at all since I first cased him? He has continued to to literally fucking nothing and your defense of him is terrible.

The jester lynch has completely stalled out, so if you're serious about then clearly you need to be doing more work to actually make it happen, but instead you're putting more effort into bitching about me calling you out for your lack of effort there than you actually are putting effort into making that lynch happen since you're supposedly so serious about it.

[mhsmith0]

Like you literally have no answer for why you'd attempt to nitpick my choice of votes despite being aware of why I'm voting the way I am.

You literally are just blatantly dodging the question.

And yet your theory is that I'm scum making some kind of bizarre as fuck play to defend jester, even though in that case my flip would almost certainly doom him. Which strikes me as a completely made up theory that's nonsensical in this game state.

[mhsmith0]

Like MDS is over there hard defending Jester for some ~cosmic reason~. It isn't unreasonable at all to assume that you might have a good shot at reaching endgame with that, since she won't ever suicide or vote him, so it comes down to them just dodging the lynch until endgame.

But that doesn't make any sense. No ones really listening to mds, and "let's lynch mds-jester, smith-pie, shadow-Maria in some order" doesn't seem likely at all to die out after another lynch or two in a different direction, barring a couple town flips where town starts to tinfoil about the collective game state read having been massively wrong).

Like, in a world where shadow/Maria is town, I'm scum and jester is scum, then even given a shadow/Maria mislynch, it's pretty likely that me and jester are next to fall (especially given the first red flip).

I could conceive of this being real on your end, but do you really see "pie trying to push a ML there before she busts out since no ones TRing smith" is some kind of impossible read here? Because I feel like that's entirely within the range of what scum!you might want to do given the game state. Regardless of your personal read that I'm full of shit, do you truly look at what's happening here and think "it's totally unreasonable for town!smith to think this is bs" here?

[mhsmith0]

2. If you think that Jester is pretty much going to happen regardless of what happens today, then you have ABSOLUTELY NO reason to take issue with me not being completely invested in securing the Jester lynch right at this point in the game, as long as it'll happen at some point or another.

???

My issue is your vote is on jester while your push is on me and it's completely bizarre to me. Like, I get that (presuming you're town) ideal outcome is to lynch scum now and have the ability to kibbutz after. But I don't think the jester case is super strong ("he hasn't really done anything" seems to essentially be it - and nahdias read of his earlier post was IMO exactly wrong, as it seemed at least slightly town indicative), and I'm concerned that you're scum and are just trying to pick off an easy mislynch while it's still available.

Your point about the jester lynch having stalled and you not really being pushing it is actually kind of fair (since scum!you probably actually does work harder for the ML I guess), but I just really just struggle to see how this all makes sense from town!you. You say you want the jester lynch, but you seem satisfied to rest on the case you've made, and (to me this is notable) not really work to dissolve the Maria-shadow wagon (since that wagon dissolving seems realistically likely to end up on jester). And on the other hand, you also seem to (based on the posts made) have a much stronger case that you actually believe on me, and yet you're not voting me, and "personal preference for how the game goes" seems like a weak reason to be doing this, presuming you're as serious in your conviction as you seem to be representing.

And your occassional "maybe ill suicide" stunts really don't help me trust you either. I've called that gamethrowing garbage since vedith did it, before you were threatening to do so yourself, so the idea that it's just a response to your threats to me shows the same kind of disregard for what I've been doing as you claim I've been showing to you.

[mhsmith0]

Ps I still really would like that Dunn as town read substabtiated, because to me he seems to be full of shit.

[mhsmith0]

And yes, I absolutely could see everyone just forgetting about Jester after the me/Nahdia/Kagami bloc is no longer around to push it.

I've seen much, much worse happen in games.

Lol that point is certainly true.

[mhsmith0]

you literally have not read anything I've posted at all if you believe what you wrote in 3380 is correct. at all.

I understand you're scum and you need to obfuscate, but christ it's getting annoying

.

This is kind of my reaction too tbh. Maybe I do need to step away from it for a while.

[mhsmith0]

That's basically what I'm gonna do. This isn't productive at this point, and at any rate I think it'd be useful for others to weigh in. Another couple pages of us yelling at each other doesn't really do much IMO.

[mhsmith0]

Today is going to be a relatively busy day for me, will be back tonight. I saw pie had a wall post at me, but I want to actually have a clear head and time to focus when I respond.

[mhsmith0]

Honestly, I don't want to lynch MDS, and I lack cause to lynch Jester.

basically where I am. I'm pretty sure MDS is town, and I feel like "jester's doing jack shit" is maybe slightly scum-indicative, but not so much that I'd really want to string him up on that alone.

[mhsmith0]

he has not even attempted to do anything at all over the course of this entire game. he has had no serious pushes, besides his push on you right at the very start of the game which was thoroughly awful, and after that he's basically just faded away and done nothing besides sheeping what are basically near-consensus scum reads (GE and Kagami).

what about that do you read as town?

nothing, really. i just read it as null-scum, and have enough of a town-read on his partner that I'm not super stoked on potentially blowing a mislynch. like, it would be nice if there was something more concrete I could point to as actually being obvious scum, as opposed to "let's hope he's lurkerscum and not just useless town"

PS working on some of my responses to you on the other stuff btw, will take some time.

[mhsmith0]

So I finally got around to meta'ing pie.

Summer waltz (last iteration of this setup - pie!town)
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... er_sort=Go

Perfect Cherry Blossom (pie!wolf)
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... er_sort=Go

Badass women (pie!wolf)
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... er_sort=Go

Micro 488 (pie!town)
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... er_sort=Go

Not 100% (sample size of 2 of each alignment), but I get a sense that her town game is more emotional, more frustrated, more intense, compared to her scum game, where she sounds reasonable, asks decent questions, has ok tone, but basically plays a much more toned-down game, largely devoid of emotion and intensity.

So basically she's a lot like Titus. Which I suppose would have been useful to know about 100 pages ago.

UNVOTE:

PS Go look at mini 1821 and search for "fuck". It shows up a bunch, but in almost every case it's, for a lack of a better word, dry.

one example:
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p8195256
reads semi-emotional at first glance, but no emotional follow-up at all; her next post doens't touch kraska, and the following one is back to blah tone-wise

another:
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p8253440
double-swear, theoretically there's emotion, but you really look at it and it's actually a dry post

Micro 640, similar story
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p8287695
three fuck post, still dry as hell


Summer Waltz

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 1#p8129721
not dry, showing actual contempt for whoever she's talking to

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 3#p8134603
swears in the context of an engagement in a read

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 1#p8135991
very very very obviously a post with emotion

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 3#p8136093
frustraytion post

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p8149322
a post that would read as fake by a decent # of people (not really a hard ATE post for most to fake), but I don't see similar examples in her scum game

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8151444
obvious contempt in post
etc (though obviously there are counter examples of some dry posts too)

Micro 488
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p6952052
post with emotion

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p6952055
obvious emotion and contempt

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p6952466
frustration post

etc

[mhsmith0]

PPS go ISO pie in this one, search for "fuck". The first few instances more like her scum game posts. 3304 and on? Town!pie. 3328 especially, since I haven't see *any* evidence she actually fakes that kind of emotional reaction (or has a real one like that) as scum.

[mhsmith0]

So basically she's a lot like Titus. Which I suppose would have been useful to know about 100 pages ago.

you're trolling me, right?

In terms of your emotional connection to a game? Not really? Like, every game Titus is in (excpeting newbies) she's off the wall and super intense and arrogant as town, and as scum she's "fine", but her posts are kinda boring and she's more of a "make good posts that make sense" kind of player as opposed to just being kinda crazy like she is as twon.

Obviously not a perfect analogue, but in terms of being emotional and intense as town and not really doing that as scum, I think it's a reasonable comparison.

[mhsmith0]

Now, if you want to get into the specifics of her town play and how EFFECTIVE she is vs how effective you are, or various other differences in play, that's a different story (in rio soah basically spent a decent chunk of day 1 ripping her for being awful town, which was kinda funny). But in terms of the nature of engagement with the game, yes, I think there's a decent parallel.

[mhsmith0]

I mean, there's also a difference where a common town tell for Titus is being super derpy about something (espeically when it gets her scum-read by people), and I don't get that sense from you, but in the "bleeding emotion onto the page" sense where you don't do it the same way (or at least not nearly as easily) as scum? Yeah, comparable.

[mhsmith0]

yes I'll address it. I wanted to get around to looking you a different way before trying to look at it, since I wanted to both be a bit more removed from where i was yesterday as well as having a better idea whether I wanted to push harder or actually re-evaluate

PS There is literally no player on MS who I feel more consistently good about soul-reading than Titus. Which is kinda fun since she's pretty decent as wolf and gets pushed a lot (I think) as town

PPS
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 7#p8196397
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8196438
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 1#p8196491
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 3#p8198933

was i think the first time I really fleshed out my ability to read her. A completely and utterly miserable game on almost every front, but I was right aobut that

[mhsmith0]

btw if you were RC I'd probably still be saying you were just ATE'ing

[mhsmith0]

then in one game she pushed a bunch of ridiculous stuff that was completely incomprehensible to the point where I thought it was impossible anyone would think it as town,

That's a Titus town tell lol

[mhsmith0]

@Kagami: Still waiting on an answer to this by the way

I don't understand why you haven't been actively pushing people to place votes given your belief in the merits of vote analysis.

THAT is your objection here? Really?

The question is whether you're town who is extremely passionate about people dying via lynch rather than vig, or scum who has latched onto this as a pro-town talking point.

Yes, that is a useful question to consider. Why do you think my interaction with the current non-voters (since one way or another we're going to eventually reach majority) is important wrt sorting the larger question of whether i'm sincere in my giving a damn about voting data or not?

[mhsmith0]

it's usually a scum tell for her, if you evaluate based on my model of reasonability!

titus is good at being reasonable as scum. as town she sometimes does lol stuff
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 3#p8558253
^there's me town reading her for pushing an outed mason (with no cc! in an open setup!) on the day before LYLO, a push that helped get her mislynched

for some people reasonableness is a scum-tell, but frankly I'd say that stuff that's seemingly unreasonable but that the person actually believes is actually an incredibly strong towntell

[mhsmith0]

honestly, I've reread my interaction with mhsmith earlier now that I've had some time to calm down and think about it and I still don't think my criticisms of him are unreasonable at all.

first off, to put the context for all of this in one place, I've made it pretty clear at this point that I don't find it productive to sit here and argue about a single best lynch - I want to identify pairs that are town and lynch the remaining pairs, so as long as this gets accomplished, I don't care *too* much about what order we lynch and thus who gets lynched right at this point in the game. my preference for Jester is purely positional, so that I can talk reads with Kagami and/or Nahdia after what is hopefully a scum flip and the intermission, after the game has calmed down a bit, but I won't cry tears of blood if the lynch lands on someone else unless significant pressure starts to build on a pair I think is very town. there is also that this game is really fucking chaotic and it is very difficult to keep on top of it at the level required to create significant momentum sway, and I don't want to exhaust myself unless I really really need to, aka one of the pairs I think is very town becomes a potential lynch, which also plays into my choice of strategy here.

I think this is really really obvious if anyone has so much has read my posts in this game. there is absolutely nothing I've said that indicates I'm approaching this game in any other way and I do not believe that this approach is unreasonable at all. so what happened?

first, mhsmith comes in here and criticizes me for wanting to lynch Jester despite having a stronger scum read on him - if you read 3302, this is apparently supposed to be some smoking gun that gives him reason to vote me. when I point out that I had already said why I want a Jester lynch over a lynch on him, he ignores it and tries to say that "I'm not pushing Jester hard enough" or "I'm not working hard enough to derail the S_S wagon", so it's invalid.

then I come in and express that I don't think there is any way he'd be this oblivious to my approach as town, and that he should have been aware of the reason I want a Jester lynch and to make this push anyway despite knowing that is disingenuous.

Note: This is where I threatened to suicide on him.

The basic issue is that your jester push essentially amounts to "he's not doing anything", which isn't a nothing case, but is a pretty weak case to be just kinda sitting on the wagon for, all the more so since you'd expressed some suspicion of shadow/maria AND suspicion of me. It didn't make any sense to me why you'd be taking what was effectively a strong "we should only lynch here" position (via your continued voting there over other realistic options), compared to what you'd been saying about me, especially with what seemed like a relatively weak set of reasoning on your end. Scum!you finds a reason to not be on our wagon. Town!you? It felt to me like town!you should be voting us.

what he said after that has basically amounted to

- not doing enough to push Jester or derail S_S again. when I try to explain to him that I don't have much of a reason for doing either of these things, he ignores me and continues to push that I need to be doing more anyway.

- not doing enough to "prove" either of my town reads - again, when I try to explain to him that Dunn isn't anywhere near lynch, he ignores me and continues to push that I should explain it anyway, and moreover, he's agreed with me on SAD/scout (he almost certainly response to me saying SAD/rscout is town/town over and over), so I have no idea why he even complained about this.

- he tries to continue to push me choosing to vote Jester as odd, and if you look at 3341, he

uses me suiciding as a reason for my read on Jester being off.

see, Parama said mhsmith might have missed or forgot about why I'm approaching the game the way I am, and that's fine, but if you've forgot something, you don't fucking make this response when someone points out what you missed. there's no acknowledgement of what I said there - he read what I said and didn't back down, which he would not do if he accepted my explanation, which means he tried to use me threatening to suicide as some reason that what I was saying about my read progression wasn't valid, which is a disingenuous response because all of this stuff about threatening to suicide came *after* everything I said or did about Jester, not before it. I've asked for a response to this three or four times, nothing.

- me suiciding not making sense given my approach to the game - when I clarified that I wasn't serious about it, he ignored me and continued to say "I don't really trust you and your constant threats to suicide" anyway.

- continuing to needle me over "not doing enough", despite the fact I had explained it several times.

So here's my thoughts on the posts between us (double-ISO pie and me and go to 3241 and later posts)
P 3241 - looked like posturing without any follow-through
M 3244 - reaction to seeming posturing post, with a put-down of your posturing around suiciding as well (and ftr, I've harped on the idea that it was game-throwing a lot, not just relating to your threats on that front). I still don't see why this was an unreasonable reaction to what looked like a nothing post from your end.
P 3258 - reaction to my 3244. doesn't really address what's wrong with the post, just makes a larger point about my play, without any substantive support. to me looked like you were dodging/shade-throwing
M 3260 - I challenge you to self-vote and put your money where your mouth is
P 3261 - reads like "I'll do it eventually, but only after another lynch or two" (which to me read like "after another mislynch or two"). again read like empty posturing
M 3264 - I defend my reaction, again pointing out that it reads like empty posturing with no real action behind it
M 3267 - pointing out that 3241 came with no substance behind it. Just something said and essentially left out there to hang
P 3279 - reads like shade-throwing
M 3282 - I again called you out for not voting me given your stated suspicion
P 3290 - So looking at this again, the issue again is an incongruity. You say yourself explicitly that it doesn't matter what the singular best lynch is, and yet you're placing your vote away from the major wagon, not really doing anything to move the ball forward and it, and it felt weird as hell to me. To me that didn't make sense; why is town!you not voting on a higher vote wagon if it doesn't matter who we lynch, or doing something active to make the jester wagon happen if that's what you actually want? Yes, you made an explanation, but to me it felt like an excuse. And the "suiciding" point was answering something that I didn't actually say, since self-voting and suiciding are (in my mind) not the same thing at all in this format.
M 3294 - I push you on why you're not doing anything that would be in line with what seem to be your stated values (probably should have thrown in a "vote for a bigger wagon since you say it doens't matter who we lynch among the big wagons" option). But there were a bunch of things you could have been doing, and instead you weren't really doing any of them. This bothered me.
M 3299 - I point out a possible theory on why scum!you might want to embrace that strategy that you've used as an explanation for why you haven't done more. I also point out my disagreement with the strategy, including why I disagree with it
M 3302 - I throw down the "vote me if you're actually serious about this read" gauntlet
P 3304 - you respond with a "no fucking way you're town" bit
M 3306 - I challenge you to vote me if you're that sure I'm scum
M 3308 - I push for you and Maria to engage each other on the subject
P 3310 - you come up with a theory that (to me) looked like total made up BS where you're making an excuse for why I'm scum but aren't voting me (having your cake and eating it too)
M 3312 - I challenge you again on why you're not voting me under your theory that it doesn't really matter which pair gets the axe
P 3314 - rather than engage with my points, you call me "deliberately dense"
P 3315 - question about my game awareness
M 3317 - I challenge you on 3314 and your earlier 3310, since a red flip on my end would have only made your dying reads look stronger (and my "deflection" look worse)
M 3318 - I answer your reading question
M 3319 - I express further skepticism that your engagement with me on this front is real
P 3320 - you referenced an earlier post explaining why you weren't voting me (though interestingly, that didn't explain why shadow/maria wasn't a fair option)
M 3323 - i pull up that particular post and challenge you to actually game-solve presuming my scum flip (since as you said, you wanted a scum flip to discuss with nahdia/kagami first) (FWIW, i thought that this was a particularly good post, since it offered you the chance to engage in that kind of solving immediately, given that this was your stated concern)
P 3328 - you pull up a bunch of posts demonstrating that I should be aware of your earlier point about not wanting to self-vote and get hyper-angry that I'm supposedly unaware of the post (though I'd just cited it directly in 3323), even though if you were *really* sure of my scum flip (especially if you were NOT super sure about the jester flip, which is my sense rn given the lack of anything like a smoking gun), to me it'd seem to make much more sense to just be voting me even if it results in not your ideal game state (scum lynch but you're dead)
M 3330 - i challenge you on why you're not doing anything useful, either to push the jester lynch (if that's actually something you're sure on or strongly prefer), or find a second solid town/town pair (since SAD/scout could overnight, or you could be wrong about them), and then crap on your suicide threat (which to me looked like BS, since again you could have simply been voting me if you were actually serious about wanting me dead)
P 3332 - you defend yourself by noting you only need one correct town/town pair to win, and also note your t/t read on kagami/dunn (FWIW I'd note that you potentially need TWO correct pairs in case the first one is shot, and also if you happen to be wrong about that pair read, then if you hinge everything on it then you've blown the game)
P 3335/6 - you note that I agreed with your t/t read on SAD/scout and don't get why I'd complain about it, saying I'm "not thinking critically"
M 3338 - I accurately note that you haven't done much to support the kagami/dunn town read (which even given your theory world would seem pretty important in case SAD/scout gets shot or is wrong)
P 3339 - you restate that you had a reason for preferring a jester lynch and accuse me of spinning
M 3340 - I point out that part of your complaint on me is that I wasn't doing much, but that such a complaint equally applied to you, and that i substantively disagreed with your dunn town-read, and threatened that him/kagami could be a potential lynch after my flip (i.e. if you acknolwedge the possibility I'll flip town, leaving a legacy behind for a dunn town read should be a priority in case i flip town)
M 3341 - I challenge you on your seeming hypocrisy in threatening to suicide while not wanting to vote me (in the world where you're scum, best option is not to die, 2nd best option is to suicide, worst option is to actually get wagoned leaving behind a legacy of potentially useful voting data)
P 3342 - You make a post that responds to my "why aren't you doing anything about substantiating/convincing on the kagami/dunn" point by deflecting onto your SAD/scout town-read and accusing me of saying you should be somehow convincing everyone (as opposed to the much more realistic "you should be doing work to either convince some people or at least leave a legacy behind on that read" point I was making). this is actually a pretty scummy deflection IMO.
P 3343 - You again react to my post, without substantive explanation
M 3344 - i point out that, rather than doing massive effort, you're not doing anything useful wrt dunn/kagami
P 3345 - you're either deflecting or just emotionally reacting by saying I'm just bullshitting
M 3346 - I react to your post as if it was serious
P 3348 - You say that you haven't substantiated dunn/kagami because everyone believes it, and I'm scum anyway (my point was that your "it's unreasonable to think I'll convince everyone" was wrong, as I simply wanted to know why you hadn't done ANYTHING on that front)
P 3349 - you note it was a stunt
P 3350 - you accuse me of calling suicide gamethrowing just because you were talking about it
P 3353 - you point out that your suicide threat was in response to why you weren't voting me
M 3355 - I express my inability to know whether you're serious or not, and reiterate how it's gamethrowing regardless of who is doing it, and that if you were truly serious about wanting me dead you should be voting me
M 3356 - I point out that it's bizarre that you're voting someone you don't have a strong case on, while being supposedly sure I'm scum, and that it's legitimate to attack you on that basis
P 3358 - you push the idea that I'm not reading your posts, and that my entire argument hinges on me being unaware of your stated reasoning for why you're voting jester (as opposed to simply being skeptical about said reasoning)
M 3360 - I point out that I'm not convinced by your reasoning
M 3361 - i push you on why you weren't doing anything wrt your dunn town read
P 3362 - you note you made the case in the PT (which doens't address why i might find it a merely ok case)
P 3363 - Bizarre theory about what I'm trying to do here (at the time i thought it was just BS on your front, I guess in hindsight I can see it as being conf!biased towards me being BS'ing myself)
M 3364 - i point that you made an ok case, not (IMO) a great one (and given the strong preference for a jester lynch suggested by your voting pattern, it seemed very strange to me that you'd not have made a stronger case on him)
etc.

...

this is not fucking town. every single time I attempt to explain to him how what he's pointing out fits in with how I'm playing this game on a general level, he ignores me, and finds some trivial thing to nitpick over to make it look like he has a point. when I try to explain to him why it isn't necessary for me to do more in this game, he ignores me and says "you've still done nothing, you need to do more" (in contrast to this, I explained my approach to Maria after she started poking me and she understood my play immediately). when I try to explain to him why I prefer a Jester lynch over a lynch on him, he starts going on a tangent about "oh, your case on Jester isn't that good, you should rehash the case", despite this not having anything to do with my point and despite him not attempting to argue at any point in the game why Jester wasn't a good lynch (I've told him the Jester posts he called town weren't town in our PT, no response). he is not attempting to understand my mindset here at all: what he is doing is reading my posts sequentially, finding things to nitpick over in each one in order to make it look like he has a point, but he isn't trying to grasp how it all connects together and actually understand anything I'm doing, he's just interested in creating a gigantic argument that people read and go "o, this is town/town!".

this also fits with my assessment of his posts and how he has played this game in general, in that they all just seem really shallow and like he's floating through the thread, commenting on whatever is going on at the time but not displaying any depth of thought that indicates he's actually game solving here.

The big issue here is, I simply didn't believe you, and a substantial number of your posts at me looked like posturing, deflecting or just BS (and in fact you now admit that some of what you've done, namely the suiciding stuff, WAS posturing; and some of your specific posts at me WERE deflecting).
Like, if I didn't have a playstyle/tonal town read on you, I'd be fine with re-voting you, because re-reading our back and forth I really wasn't impressed. Even with a meta town read on you I really struggle to see some of the points you were making, and think my reactions to what you were saying were pretty consistently reasonable and understandable. I dunno, maybe we just don't get each other, but I thought I was being exceedingly clear in what I was doing and saying, and it seemed like you were either over-reacting or choosing to not actually address my points, and that only made me suspect you even more.

[mhsmith0]

You asked me to explain myself and my perspective, that's what I was doing. I thought that was pretty obvious. Like, you had a long "here is what smith is doing and it's total bullshit", and in response I explained what I was doing in rather substantial detail.

Frankly, I've reached the point where I've gotten a town-read of you independent of that series of posts, which I suppose is good since I still can't actually understand you there and re-reading it just reminds me of why I suspected you in the first place. Whether you like what I've done there or not is, to be honest, increasingly little of a concern of mine. You wanted my $0.02 and for me to explain myself, i did so. If you continue to dislike it, then either read me independent of our interactions or figure something else out, because our back and forths continue to be unproductive (unless my tonal/meta read of you is completely wrong I guess, in which case lol smith).

wrt Jester, he has under 100 posts. Is it really that hard to look at them and actually get into more substantial detail about why he's being actual scum instead of just shitty or baity? Why is that such a burden that you seemingly aren't motivated at all to bother? Why is it unreasonable of me to be concerned about the possibility that he's just another easy mislynch after the first easy death came through? Like, I'd say that this wagon is largely your baby; for most others, it seems to be more or less just a "well they're not really a town read, so I guess we can potentially compromise there if needed" (which is not exactly the kind of board perspective I'd normally expect about scum playing badly - if anything I'd expect some kind of bus, or maybe a harder push elsewhere, or really anything at all other than "well fuck it we can eventually go there if we need to I guess")

[mhsmith0]

More specifically, I explained in detail where I was reading you as being posturing or deflecting, and why that made sense at the time. And it absolutely did.

So if your perspective is "Smith needs to actually understand why I'm doing what I'm doing", well, I don't. I don't get it. I don't understand why you're choosing to play in the way that you're choosing to play. I think that your "find one town/town pair and fuck everything else" strategy is anti-town to the point of insanity (what if that pair gets shot? what if you're wrong about that pair? what if town actually takes your advice and sleepwalks right into LYLO and then incorrectly tinfoils about that pair?).

I think that your jester push has been lazy and weakly founded (and think your accusation that my defense of him was bad was even less founded since you've essentially just said "it's bad" without actually explaining why you think it's bad - EBWOP that's essentially it, he's doing nothing. Doing nothing to start with, doing nothing under pressure. He's not trying to fake up "useful" content to buy time, he's literally doing nothing at all, and to me the lynch amounts to "let's get rid of the useless slot that town is just kinda drifting off onto lynching" which does not exactly scream to me "Yeah that slot is super likely scum").

I think that your continual reasons (excuses?) you provide about why you're not doing more (while simultaneously accusing me of being "cagey and defensive) is either opaque or just hypocritical. I think that you're making a conscious choice to not be particularly useful, and it makes you difficult to read (and you yourself have admitted that you're not being as towny as usual), and the fact that I suspect you in that context seems sufficiently unsurprising that your over the top reactions seemed like fake histrionics (before actually meta'ing you to realize that this appears to be completely uncommon for you in particular as a player). I find your lack of interest in substantiating or critically engaging in your dunn/kagami town read bizarre and nearly impossible to understand, unless "I just don't feel like it" is truly the answer.

Shall I go on? Like, I've consistently said what I think and why I think it, especially in my back and forth with you. I truly don't understand what is actually unclear about it. If you want to actually understand what I'm saying, and something is actually unclear, try actually asking about it. Because I've absolutely answered your 3422. If you hand-wave it off as PBPA without critically engaging it, that's on you. If you hand-wave a whole bunch of my posts with responses like

Spoiler:

god mhsmith's posts on this page.

if anyone wondered why I was calling him "cagey and defensive", this is why. I'm pretty sure most people are in agreement by now, though.

there is absolutely no fucking way you're town.

like legit, there is absolutely no fucking way you're town if you actually just made these posts.

yeah, now you're being deliberately dense so I'm not continuing this conversation

Like, you literally are just straight up not thinking critically at all if you actually believe these posts.

And yet you just threatened to suicide right? Because it's a perfectly normal town perspective to be like "I don't want to actually lynch my pair, but suiciding works great as an option" right?

Holy _fuck_, you cannot be serious.

Like you're just flooding the thread with bullshit now and hoping people accept it as truth without thinking critically about it.

I'm stepping away.

yeah you're not even reading my posts, you're just doubling down on this "your choice of votes is bizarre" angle because you know you're utterly fucked if you admit you were aware of why I want to lynch where I do

Of course I'm aware of the logic you posted. I even quoted it. I just find it non convincing, especially since I don't see the obvscum on jester. Maybe you should recase him since that's in your mind the optimal lynch right now? Because it seems like you're more interested in justifying why you're on jester than you are in actually proving he's scum.

I have literally already made the case on Jester to you in our PT. Holy fuck you cannot be this dense.

Like you literally have no answer for why you'd attempt to nitpick my choice of votes despite being aware of why I'm voting the way I am.

You literally are just blatantly dodging the question.

You just keep repeating "durr it's still a bizarre choice of votes!". You cannot be so dense that you see me approaching the game in a way different from what you think is standard (the idea of voting your strongest scum read) and just write it off as that it clearly has to be because I'm scum.

Like holy fuck you are just flooding the game with nonsense in an effort to distract everyone from the Jester lynch.

The jester lynch has completely stalled out, so if you're serious about then clearly you need to be doing more work to actually make it happen, but instead you're putting more effort into bitching about me calling you out for your lack of effort there than you actually are putting effort into making that lynch happen since you're supposedly so serious about it.

Yeah you're not town.

Like god you literally cannot be this fucking dismissive.

then I'm not the one being unclear in my process. And I'm not the one being dismissive either.

[mhsmith0]

Okay you guys need to stop I don't even care if one of you is scum at this point the other needs to realize the other scums are sitting back enjoying the free coast. And if you're both town stop because this back and forth is just creating massive amounts of opportunity for scum to skate under the surface.

Please answer the following questions without a million words:

What is your read on the other person. IN ONE SENTENCE. And rank your lynch/wagon preferences.

I think pie is PROBABLY town, but the possibility that this is just bullshit designed to fuck with me and ATE instead of critically engaging with me bothers the fucking hell out of me.

Vote preferences
VOTE: shadow-maria
dunn-kagami
mds-jester

I think HS is pretty likely town, and while I don't mind seeing the back and forth between you and Parama and figure out if it ever gets to the point I'll get something useful, I'm not really in the mood to vote either of your pairs (I also don't know wtf to think about the mutual accusations between you and Parama of bussing shadow at this point either).

[mhsmith0]

Okay you guys need to stop I don't even care if one of you is scum at this point the other needs to realize the other scums are sitting back enjoying the free coast. And if you're both town stop because this back and forth is just creating massive amounts of opportunity for scum to skate under the surface.

Please answer the following questions without a million words:

What is your read on the other person. IN ONE SENTENCE. And rank your lynch/wagon preferences.

^slight town points for this for SAD btw since he actually seems to care about engaging with the situation. Unless pie is scum, in which case it's probably worth re-evaluating.

[mhsmith0]

wrt Jester, he has under 100 posts. Is it really that hard to look at them and actually get into more substantial detail about why he's being actual scum instead of just shitty or baity?

having absolutely no scum reads whatsoever falls below the territory of bad-town. town might go inactive at some points, but when they don't attempt to make any kind of push on anyone whatsoever even when they are there, that falls below bad-town territory and into scum territory.

and I can't exactly go into more substantial detail about content that _isn't fucking there_. what are you expecting me to do?

Frankly, I don't know at all. I feel like it's a lynch that's being backed into, and if he's scum it doesn't seem like he's being bussed (unless by you), and it doesn't seem like anyone is all that interested in saving him (FYPOV, that person could be me I guess). I literally seem like the only person here who is critically engaging with the possibility that he's just really shitty lynchbait, which really bothers me. Like, if he flips scum, great, I'm a dumbass, who cares. And if he flips town, we'll have learned not a whole hell of a lot, while the main benefit is that at least he's the most useless player alive, so things could be worse.

[mhsmith0]

so you push me because you disagree with my play style, without even bothering to understand it first.

you are not this arrogant. I refuse to believe you think "she's playing a way that I can't understand, I guess she's doing it because she's scum" is a valid argument.

I have tried to understand it, I have failed. I have tried to understand why you're not doing what would actually seem consistent with your stated goals, and have received in turn deflections, suicide threats, dismissive "you cannot be this bad" type posts, and accusations about my just not trying hard enough to understand you. SHOCKINGLY, this has not proven an effective strategy on your end in terms of getting me to understand you.

Frankly, and IMO this is pretty disgusting, the only thing I'm really town-reading you for is your emotional involvement, and even THAT came as a result of my push on you that you seem to think was somehow insincere bullshit, even though said argument rests on INCREDIBLY shaky things like "smith has to pretend like he never saw my reasons for acting like i have" (even though i literally quoted them and expressed skepticism) or wacky theories about what (essentially insane) things I might somehow be attempting to do as scum.

Meanwhile, i have played in a pretty fucking transparent manner, ESPECIALLY when dealing with you, and yet your read on me is somehow that I'm "cagey" and just not being clear in what i'm thinking. Like, what the serious fuck? How could you possibly believe THAT, and at the same time represent that you've been making a bona fide effort to understand MY play? Or is this a one-way street, where I am required to go the extra mile to understand you, but to hell with going the other way?

[mhsmith0]

I think HS is pretty likely town, and while I don't mind seeing the back and forth between you and Parama and figure out if it ever gets to the point I'll get something useful, I'm not really in the mood to vote either of your pairs (I also don't know wtf to think about the mutual accusations between you and Parama of bussing shadow at this point either).

Probably because I correctly called the scum strategy of bussing/distancing early for massive town-points that they can use to ride to endgame, and then called Parama out on doing it. So then she plays:



I'm too tired to put effort into creating a yugioh card myself.

Possibly but it's past midnight and I have a headache and don't really want to reread it and rethink. At some point, just like pie has asked HS for a second opinion, I'd just as soon have someone weigh in on whether the numerous posts I've made at pie are somehow unfair or unreasonable, because if they are I'm simply not seeing it.

[mhsmith0]

Frankly, and IMO this is pretty disgusting, the only thing I'm really town-reading you for is your emotional involvement, and even THAT came as a result of my push on you that you seem to think was somehow insincere bullshit, even though said argument rests on INCREDIBLY shaky things like "smith has to pretend like he never saw my reasons for acting like i have" (even though i literally quoted them and expressed skepticism) or wacky theories about what (essentially insane) things I might somehow be attempting to do as scum.

OK. it's frankly really terrible of you that every single time I try to walk you through my mindset this game and tell you why I'm approaching various things the way I am, you just handwave dismiss it as "I don't understand it so what you're saying is invalid, my point still stands", too, so I guess we're even.

just because it falls outside of your worldview of things you understand, you act completely incapable of reading my posts and realizing the way I've acted has been commensurate with my stared beliefs in the thread.

I have tried to understand it, I have failed. I have tried to understand why you're not doing what would actually seem consistent with your stated goals, and have received in turn deflections, suicide threats, dismissive "you cannot be this bad" type posts, and accusations about my just not trying hard enough to understand you. SHOCKINGLY, this has not proven an effective strategy on your end in terms of getting me to understand you.

I. Have. Tried. I have tried to understand you, not just whether or not it's consistent with what you say your aims or, but whether that seems a villagery process and how much I believe that it's not just a strategy.

"I plan to do x"
Does x

That? That's fakeable. Coming up with a "plan" (that I've made clear I don't think much of, and why i don't think much of it), and then following said plan, is completely wtihin the range of what even a semi-competent scum player can pull off, so reading you on that basis is not something I consider particularly legitimate or meaningful.

What I care about is determining your alignment, which is what I have attempted to do. My interactions with you have CONSISTENTLY been geared around that, or explaining myself to you. It's all I can do. Literally that is it. If that's the limit of my emphathy, or skill as a player, or whatever, well, it is what it is.

[mhsmith0]

I second guess whether mhsmith is the type of player who can feign frustration like this, at least. someone who knows mhsmith better than me can confirm or deny this or I can go look at his games myself.

http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?tit ... ith0/Games

Frustration examples as town
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=66731 (with basically everyone because I was completely fucking miserable as part of a town that literally did not give a shit)
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=66795 (mainly with ploben, but also with panther for not bothering to explain how the hell he was TRing ploben)
^two good examples of frustrating games as town

Frustration examples as scum
http://playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 40&t=52626 (crunkus was pushing me almost from page 1, and I got super frustrated about my lack of success [this came during a period of pretty consistently bad performances by me] - you may also note how I started to just lurk it out and more or less surrender any WIM, though it's old enough that you may not care)

mafiauniverse.com/forums/threads/1337-Fruit-Salad-Mafia
frustrated because I was suspected as early as d1

As scum I get frustrated because I'm playing badly, as town I get frustrated because I'm in a board that's playing badly or because I can't get through to someone (or many people), or because I'm struggling to understand things, etc. The nature and driver of my frustration are different. As scum i don't give a shit about understanding people and struggle to pretend to, and often don't even really bother to try and represent that kind of emotional engagement as a process (fortunately for me, in a decent # of town games that doens't especially come up as an issue so it's not necessarily glaring).

You can MAYBE come up with comparable cases in multiball, because I at least kind of try to play it like town (and I can actually scum-hunt) but this isn't multiball so that's irrelevant.


PS for bonus points, go look at newbie 1714 (main thread and scum PT) and see what my emotional reaction to towns playing badly is. Like, I never get frustrated by that either, which means that if I'm scum, then my seeming frustration over the game-throwing Vedith did earlier was totally fake, where my ACTUAL scum play there would probably be just to avoid making a comment there out of fear it would sound fake (since it would be fake and I'm not great at faking emotions)

[mhsmith0]

At literally no point in this game have I said that you must be scum. Literally never. I have on multiple occasions said I suspected you were scum, that your strategy was fakeable, that your explanations were unconvincing, etc.

The person who said the other must be scum? That's what YOU have said. Not me. You.

So if you're going to represent tha extreme level of ignorance of WHAT I HAVE ACTUALLY FUCKING SAID IN THE THREAD then maybe, just maybe, the problem here is you. Maybe what is needed is for a YOU to critically engage with what I've been saying, and do things OTHER THAN
-deflect
-misrep
-come up with insane theories about how I'm somehow being batshit crazy scum
-tell me "there is absolutely no fucking way you're town.

like legit, there is absolutely no fucking way you're town if you actually just made these posts." and then follow it up with the idea that I have been calling you lock scum instead of the other way around

Understanding? This a two way street. Maybe you need to start acting like it.

[mhsmith0]

for the record I don't even know if I believe you're scum for this anymore. at this point, I continue to comment on it because the way you're treating me is straight up pissing me off.

This is exactly how I feel fwiw.

[mhsmith0]

Anyway I'm going to bed. I'll check in sometime before EOD. I seriously need a break from this game.

[mhsmith0]

@pie: I suppose I disagree, primarily because of the stifling effect such exchanges tend to have on conversation throughout the thread. I believe it's an anti-town sentiment.

I don't agree with this mentality at all. in fact, I actually think it's far more toxic than anything I've said or done in this game.

if you don't want to read it, skip it - but there is no reason I or anyone else should be forced to play suboptimally just because other people find it unpleasant, especially when they always have the option to just skip over it if they don't want to engage it.

Yes

Sorry pie, I'm on cerb's side here. Even if you see some marginal benefit to posting all that out here, it's a behavior that benefits you add scum far more, so town-you shouldn't do it.

This is one of those things that begs for an explanation for how it benefits scum!pie in particular. Is it the "it creates apathy" theory? Is it her trying to look angry for towncred? Something else?

Pie and smith were both trying to sort each other out, and hearing others' thoughts on the interaction can help with that.
Having that conversation in the PT would be like really dumb tbh. They weren't even talking to each other for most of it, they were talking to town about each other.

I'd say we were talking both to each other and to town, but essentially yes. I completely fail to see the benefit of having the conversation in PT, fwiw.

Sorry pie, I'm on cerb's side here. Even if you see some marginal benefit to posting all that out here, it's a behavior that benefits you add scum far more, so town-you shouldn't do it.

had I kept this in the PT, what probably would have happened was I'd still think mhsmith is scum, neither of us would have got anywhere with our reads on each other, it'd be close to irreparable, and no one in the thread would be able to engage with it in any meaningful way because they wouldn't know what was going on. except maybe for brief relays from the PT, but that's nowhere enough detail to engage with it in any meaningful way.

if mhsmith is town, then what I did was better.

QFT

[mhsmith0]

@Kagami: Still waiting on an answer to this by the way

I don't understand why you haven't been actively pushing people to place votes given your belief in the merits of vote analysis.

THAT is your objection here? Really?

The question is whether you're town who is extremely passionate about people dying via lynch rather than vig, or scum who has latched onto this as a pro-town talking point.

Yes, that is a useful question to consider. Why do you think my interaction with the current non-voters (since one way or another we're going to eventually reach majority) is important wrt sorting the larger question of whether i'm sincere in my giving a damn about voting data or not?

[mhsmith0]

Keep waiting, smith, it's a ridiculous question with a false assumption.

It's not a ridiculous question, and if there's a false assumption it certainly isn't obvious what that is.

Me: I care about VCA
You: Why aren't you pushing non-voters - maybe you're just scum latching onto VCA being important as a talking point
Me: It's useful to consider if I'm serious about VCA. Why do you think that my interaction (or lack thereof) with non-voters is important wrt the larger question?

The only thing that COULD be a false assumption is that we'll eventually reach majority, but it's blindingly obvious that we eventually will, either before day end today or after the night kills happen, since the alternative is auto-loss (I suppose the other alternative is more suicide, but HOPEFULLY town isn't this dumb). So given that we will eventually reach majority, everyone will have a vote at that time, and "not voting" is itself a voting position (and can be scrutinized like any other voting position, and at any rate it's reasonably possible that current non-voters will actually vote before that point happens), which means that pushing non-voters to vote at this point in time is important because ______?

[mhsmith0]

More to the point, taking non-positions like not voting or vote parking off of main wagons without much of a push is something that comes into sharper relief after we get flips and see whether the main wagons were on scum or not. So the idea that valuing VCA is itself cause for putting special focus right now on people who aren't currently voting doesn't really jive w me.

[mhsmith0]

(^this is an invitation to the start of a townblock)

i mean i don't really do "official townblocks" or the like but I'm town-reading you and voting w you so I think we're doing ok on that front

[mhsmith0]

Smith, until this town learns to vote strategically, there will be no majority. There probably won't be one tomorrow either at this rate.

This setup simply isn't conducive to actually lynching, and to my knowledge there has never been a lynch in a Large Dance.

If you want to keep up the "omg, suicide is not the answer" thing, because votes are super important to analyze, you're going to have to put some effort into actually pressuring people to vote. You can start with yourself, and then follow up with jester, who conveniently is probably scum.

Out of curiosity, is it your impression that I'm not voting currently?

[mhsmith0]

I'm fairly certain smith's town. Not sure about pie but if smith's indeed town then he'll be a very important asset later on so I'm not lynching there today. I'm also pretty sure Maria's town, Shadow may be too but he won't be as useful as smith so I'll vote there before the deadline. How long do we have?

six hours. please try to be useful, if you fail to do so I'll compromise on you before EOD.

[mhsmith0]

It was!

lol mod

VoteCount 1.21

The_Jester - MiniDeathStar [2] - Nahdia, MiniDeathStar
Human Sequencer - Parama [2] - Ser Arthur Dayne, Cerberus v666
Ser Arthur Dayne - inspectorscout [0] -
Cerberus v666 - Nahdia [0] -
mhsmith0 - pieguyn [3] - inspectorscout, Dunnstral, MariaR
Dunnstral - Kagami [1] - Shadow_step
Shadow_step - MariaR [5] - Parama, Kagami,

mhsmith0

, Human Sequencer, pieguyn

Not Voting [1]

- The_Jester,

mhsmith0

With 14 alive it takes 8 votes to lynch

.

Countdown to deadline: (expired on 2016-12-15 17:00:00)

The "not voting" one is incorrect.

[mhsmith0]

"Shadow has to be the scum blah blah blah"

"Oh Maria is so town it's okay!"

-__________________-

wait maria was the scum? lol nice. that shadow leaving post looked flagrantly like he was the scum wifoming it up.

sorry maria you're basically always scum in games i'm involved in
(am now allowed to say that now that 1843 over lol)

[mhsmith0]

Wtf really?
Why would you choose me then!

"because i wouldn't do that as scum" I would think

plus you're a decent enough player, so she probably just thought you could recover your position given time. my first instinct was that it was town of her and then eventually i realized it was really null since she could do it as either alignment

[mhsmith0]

Smith is scum, look at smith-maria interactions.

Yes, please do. Tomorrow you can actually try and build a case beyond "those interactions are scummy but i can't be bothered to explain it, and hey let's lynch jester first anyway"

[mhsmith0]

"Shadow has to be the scum blah blah blah"

"Oh Maria is so town it's okay!"

-__________________-

wait maria was the scum? lol nice. that shadow leaving post looked flagrantly like he was the scum wifoming it up.

sorry maria you're basically always scum in games i'm involved in
(am now allowed to say that now that 1843 over lol)

No comment

Well you can't get angry at me randing you scum in this one

[mhsmith0]

well, S_S & maria can go below The JEster and MDS i guess.

Well I suppose that's reasonable at this point

[mhsmith0]

For Parama or HS? Pie was making an argument on Parama in PT, but I haven't bothered re-reading yet to really verify it. HS prob town fwiw.

[mhsmith0]

VOTE: parama
I doubt there's no scum in {parama, arthur} and his reaction to shadow/mariar flipping town in our pt is fake as fuck

PEDIT: oh hi parama don't take it personally

Talk about it a bit more? Obviously can't quote but give the overview of it?

[mhsmith0]

Also Pie is probtown because of the nature of how she's responded to me, specifically that she's pretty consistently pushed an anger-based response on our back and forth, where I feel like scum!pie PROBABLY tries to actually engage my points in a better manner, and because the whole tack of blaming me for how it went down (including in our PT discussion) more naturally comes from a frustrated townie than a scum, and because (IMO) it's kind of really obnoxious for that whole thing to just be an intentionally manipulative approach instead of just an honest visceral reaction, and I just don't want to think that she would actually act that way intentionally as scum (because if she was scum, then the whole thing was BS, both in thread and in PT)

[mhsmith0]

At any rate, I think I approve of jester vs parama wagons, not really sure which one I would rather be on. Do need to re-read at some point I guess, probably doing that tonight.

[mhsmith0]

VOTE: mhsmith-pie

This contains scum. I was just wrong about which one of the two.

talk about why you think pie is a wolf?

[mhsmith0]

Parama, let's make a deal; today mhsmuth/pie, tomorrow me/arthur

^ this pretty decent implies you think that jester is town since he's not on your kill list
Am I wrong?

[mhsmith0]

I don't think your progression was townie at all. You went from 'my partner is fine' to, when he got suspicion 'I can't believe he's town'

Only to flip that read - wisely spread out over a few posts - that he is town. Today, she comes out saying that mhsmith shouldnt be lynched before at least 2 town flips - that equals never.

Calling jester 'obvscum lurker' is also a very easy way to get people to vote for your wagon without saying anything useful.

When did she think I was fine? She was pushing on me since super early in her ISO

I have basically just accepted the fact that I will never get anywhere if I try to read the entire game before posting every time.

by and large, I definitely agree with Nahdia that we need to be town hunting here and that optimal play is identifying a town/town pair that should survive to endgame; I largely think that if we're debating what order to lynch the rest of the pairs in, it should be done for information purposes and not by serially identifying the scummiest pairs. for that reason, I don't particularly care *that* much about who the lynch is so long as I'm not reading the pair as town.

as of page like 50-something, I still think The_Jester is scum, and I largely agree with consensus that GE/Vedith needs to die before endgame (this meaning I agree GE needs to die before endgame). I'm sad to admit that I could also see mhsmith0 as scum pretty easily, just based on how passive he is, though I'm open to correction if anyone wants to point me to something town he's done in the past however-many pages.

I am still very wary of Parama, although I think they look slightly better than I thought before based on what I have seen from them.

Kagami-san, you called for me?

And I guess I'm curious what you see as unnatural about her read flip, starting

I second guess whether mhsmith is the type of player who can feign frustration like this, at least. someone who knows mhsmith better than me can confirm or deny this or I can go look at his games myself.

literally all of our interactions have been me trying to explain to you why I've been playing the way I have been, and then you just respond with what amounts to "I don't understand why you would do this, your explanation is invalid" and you effectively completely ignore my response and continue to push the same thing.

you just assume that if I'm doing something that you don't understand, it's clearly because I must be scum. that is a fucking arrogant mindset and my issue is that I don't know how much I believe you would be that arrogant as town. I don't believe you would truly think that your way of playing is the only valid way of playing and that when I tell you "this is why I'm doing X" and it falls outside of the List of Behaviors mhsmith Thinks is Reasonable, you say I must be scum for it instead of the alternate explanation - that you're just fucking wrong about the way I've chosen to approach the game.

that's where my issue with your play lies.

other than simply the fact that her read changed.