Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Legacy (Game Over)

[Kublai Khan]

Morning.

Previous post feels naked without a vote for mastin2, but he's got two votes already and I don't want to rush things.

@pidgey - Everything you've said about jasonT1981 is legit. But the fact remains that Yates tried to PR-rolefish jasonT1981. I can explain away everything you said as jasonT1981-town being a dumbass. But I can't picture a scenario where one scum rolefishes a scummate.

[mastin2]

First, I don't quite understand where your reads are stemming from.

Primarily, gut.

What you see is what I've got.

As scum, I'm perfectly able to fake reasoning for scumreads when needed. As recently as my scum game inside the Calcifer hydra, you can see that. But if you look further back, you can see it in all of my recent scum games, such as Oversoul's Mini Normal, the last scum victory I had. The joke for the longest time was that logic from me is a scumtell, and there's a pretty dang solid basis for the 'joke'. As town, I can provide some incredible insight into things, but my reads are

incredibly

driven by gut. Yes, I know, that's not the best way to approach the game, but that's just. how. my. mind. works. I read the game, realize I felt something, and investigate the feeling.

As scum, I read the game, feel like doing something, and do it. And then I have to figure out an explanation for my actions, which makes sense from a town perspective. I have to show logic, show reasoning, in order to dodge suspicion. I have to play in a field where I am not comfortable, by necessity, or get lynched.

Much of the same drive exists as town, sure, yeah, in that I never ever want to be lynched (least of all in mylo), but...well...it's a lot harder, for the simple fact that...well...deep down, I just don't feel as much of a drive to do so. Believe me. Right now, I'd LOVE to be able to give clear-cut reasoning. I'd love to be able to say "This is the overall picture, as nicely demonstrated here, here, here, and here, but it's really all across the board. There are minor things which give me pause here and here, but I still believe that the overall picture suggests *insert read here*, thanks to *alternative explanation for the things giving doubt* and *reinforcement of the earlier points*." A strong scientific method post, showing good science in process. Presenting the conclusion (with some degree of uncertainty), presenting the evidence supporting the conclusion, showing the alternative theory, and presenting why I believe the alternative theory to not be accurate.

I know how to do it in theory...but when it comes to practice...I really just can't. Not as town, anyway. I just...well...just feel things. I give my best guess at explaining those feelings, but that's about as much reasoning as I get in a game. I can explain what the general feeling is, and often what it's about (e.g., "this post felt town", "this player is town", "overall picture suggests town"...), but while I can give reasoning (often narrowing it down, e.g. "for these lines", "for these posts", "for this trend"), it's more often than not me just guessing at why I feel that way.

I try to make the reads match the evidence, but my way of doing so just...doesn't make rational sense. I don't know how my thought process got to be the way it is, how it made that unusual train, but it exists.

And as scum, I know that the above gets me nowhere. "It...just is?" is a

horrible

way to dodge suspicion.
So I fake it. I fake reasoning. I fake reads. I force out some artificial reasons, taking from seemingly random points in the game. I go through the process. "Here, here, and here." I leave out a few steps, and the result is only pseudoscience, but it's convincing pseudoscience. If it works, I continue on as before, until I'm called out again.
If it doesn't, and people don't buy it, I typically realize that I am fighting a losing battle...and begin to lurk, so the suspicion will go away. (And that works really, really well. How much do you wanna bet that if I stopped posting every day, that it'd make me look less suspicious? When I was on V/LA, people were barely touching on me, and it was only upon my return to the game that pressure began to be applied to me.)

But as town, that's not an option. I can't lurk. I have to be proactive with my play, rather than reactive.
Oh, and that's another key difference in my scum play compared to my town play--as scum, I play INCREDIBLY reactive. Not initially, mind you; initially, I have to establish early towncred so that I can cruise by on reactionary play. So I spout out reads and don't give the reason why. But then, I stop. I keep those reads. I don't change them unless strong evidence presents itself which forces me to change them. I play an overall conservative and inactive game. More than that, my game almost never changes--I'm wrong? Push on, slightly altering my reads.

Whereas when I'm town, I'm incredibly proactive. The start is the same--I give reads, and I typically don't give reasoning. But those reads evolve. They change, off of new evidence coming to light. My viewpoint changes. I find myself in incredibly awkward positions where I have to force myself to admit that I was wrong before, and force myself to re-focus with the new evidence in light, but unlike my scum play (where I'll occasionally do so, only to stop there and not continue), as town I then go on to actually do so, refocusing my effort and redoubling my attacks. I play an overall aggressive game, attacking again and again. And my game almost always changes--I'm wrong? Examine why. Back down. Be paranoid. And only when I have found the problem do I push on. Could it be only slightly different reads, yes. But more often than not, my changing towards the game radically shifts. My scumteam can be the complete opposite of what it was before. (I don't think I've ever done that as scum, to be honest. No, seriously; you can check my games. See how little my reads change with time, and how I never have that 180. If I have, then I certainly don't remember it and it's the exception proving the rule.) Because I consistently second-guess myself and re-examine the facts.

And you can argue all you'd like that I know my meta, so can manipulate it. But these things are such fundamental aspects of my play that despite how much I'd LOVE to change them,

I really can't

. The overall picture for my play as town is always the same, the overall picture for my play as scum is always the same, despite how vastly different the specifics are. I've stagnated. I've hit that dead-end. I can't improve more than I have. You saw my thread in GD about that, right? Wall Comes Crashing Down. You know what that means. It means that I just. can't. get. better.

And if I were scum this game, that would all be a lie. I would have gotten better. I would have improved. I would have redefined my scum play. I would have achieved it. But that's the thing. I haven't. I'm not scum. It would be so much easier if I was. It would be such an accomplishment if I were. but. I'm. not. I'm just a mediocre town player who happens to be verbose. And who happens to have played a game

well

below mediocre.

The "air of legitimacy" comment is crap. At best, it's an indication that whoever is writing it has confirmation bias. At worst it's an attempt at discrediting. Either way, it's manipulative. He's not proving anything I said was wrong. Just implying it.

Wrong on preeetty much all accounts. It's instinct, gut. It's about as explicit as I can get in saying that I just don't feel like you have points which hold water. You hide under the guise of reason, but when examined, those reasons just don't seem to connect.

Why are you making it sound like I'm scrambling to join any available wagon?

Not any. Just the ones which aren't your scumbuddies.
And AP.

You're suggesting that I stayed off the Yates lynch wagon because... there was another scum on it and I didn't want to risk being together with another (or two other?) scum?

No. I'm explicitly saying you avoided the Yates wagon before then, since you didn't want to lynch him.

He's also made numerous "I wish I was scum" and "scum must be giddy to win" comments that sound like he's legitimately excited about finally getting a surviving win as scum.

Would probably be true if I was actually scum, but if you read my posts as

enjoying

the current situation, you have zero grasp of tone. I'm agitated. I'm frustrated. I'm annoyed, and angry at myself. Not at anyone else, mind you. But at myself.

This. is not. a good. game.

It'd be the SECOND game IN A ROW where I was mislynched in mylo for a scum win, stinging ALL THE MORE because it's identical to 1377, with three scum alive, and me on their trail, about to lock on and devote myself to it, but not quite there, with that oh so distracting and hindering doubt preventing me from it.

[Kublai Khan]

So yes, I'm fully playing to my scum meta

[mastin2]

btw (busy now), that's another difference between my scum and town play.

As scum, I'm never, ever, EVER frustrated. I'm giddy all the way. I'm happy. I'm -proud- of what I have done. Even if it's a horrible game, I treat every good action I do as a trophy. I'm incredibly nervous, yes, constantly afraid, definitely. But never frustrated. Always glad. The pressure as scum is higher, sure, but I take that pressure and get a good laugh from the experience, whatever it may be. The game will end as it will end, and win or lose, it was a good experience.

As town, I'm always frustrated. If I'm alive consistently not as a PR, then what went wrong?
Answer: everything. There's nothing to be happy as. The pressure is lower, but inversely, the failure feels much, much worse.

[Kublai Khan]

Oops. Hit submit before I could actually write a point there.

The point being I really don't care about your introspection and navel-gazing about your ability or lack of ability to yadda yadda yadda WIFOM.

Would probably be true if I was actually scum, but if you read my posts as enjoying the current situation, you have zero grasp of tone. I'm agitated. I'm frustrated. I'm annoyed, and angry at myself. Not at anyone else, mind you. But at myself.

Gosh, I don't know why I get the impression that you're not agitated/frustrated/annoyed/angry.

[AngryPidgeon]

@KK: Wait, what. Why am I town now?

[Kublai Khan]

Reaction to pressure.

[mastin2]

Reaction to pressure.

See this?

Yeah, this?

This...this is the exact type of thing which I, as scum, would use to justify my townread.


If it wasn't clear to you, I'm preeeeetty much calling this BS. There are PLENTY of reasons to have AP as town. "Reaction to pressure" isn't even on the list it's so bad a reason.

Spoiler: Oh, and a small correction is in order--

I made a comparison to 1377, the first time I was ever mislynched in mylo. I said that this game was roughly equal.

It's much, much, MUCH worse.

Why?

In 1377, the two town on me were derp--Cooldog in idiocy, and BBMolla in apathy.

Here?
Here?

...Not so much. It's still derp to vote me as town, but the players making the votes wouldn't be derp themselves. They'd have come from a far more solid base. They'd have legitimate reasons to vote me. They'd have legitimate concerns, have legitimately weighed the evidence, and ultimately come to the reasonable [albeit wrong] conclusion that I'm scum.

In 1377, there was nothing I could have done. Here, however...here, if I am mislynched...there's very little I COULDN'T have done to stop it. That makes it my fault. In 1377, it really was Cooldog and BBM's faults. Here...here, I couldn't place any blame on the two town players voting. I'd want to. It'd be all too easy to say it would be their faults that we lost. But that'd be ignorance to the point of arrogance, a flat-out falsehood to tell myself to make me feel better, when the truth simply is that I blew it.

Which is another reason why I quite frankly wished I was scum right now. If I was scum and lynched...no big deal! I fudged up a little and got lynched, but with perpetual mylo, no biggie! My team has a chance of winning every single day. And if we lost, it'd be just as much their fault as it would be mine.

But nope. No such luck. Mylo, as town. I'm lynched, I've lost. I can get a personal victory if I managed to nail the scumteam before my lynch, which I'm in the process of trying to do...but it's still MY fault for not convincing others that I'm town, and they're scum. Being right is worthless if you can't prove it before the game ends. "I told you so!" is worthless in the post-game.

[AngryPidgeon]

1377 was so awful. Eternal shame on CoolDog for that game. UberNinja had a hider guilty on him and STILL got someone with a claimed cop innocent on him lynched. wtf wtf wtf.

KK, could you give me a couple bullet points about my reaction? Don't quote, just quick stream of thought?

[Nero Cain]

Why is there no link to a scu game from you AP? You've never been scum on this site?

[mastin2]

He's probably been scum since then, but he does have at least one, in Thirsty Souls Mafia.

Oh, and now that the game's over, I can say this: part of the reason that my read on AP changed this game was thanks to me having a cop inno on him in another, where he was displaying much the same aspects of his play to here. Obviously, I couldn't use that reasoning, and it wasn't the best (since each game is different), but it was enough to sway me from my scumread on AP.

[mastin2]

And another piece of evidence for me being town: this QT, from the game in question I mention above. Cyber says, bluntly, in the mafia QT,

First time drawing a scum role. Any tips? Strategy?

I replaced Cyber in this game, so unless he had the foresight to think of a game he replaced out of when making that message, it

does

give strong evidence suggesting he wasn't lying, and therefore that his slot this game (mine) is town.

Yes, that's something which can be fabricated, and yes, it's something which quite frankly you shouldn't post if you've been in any ongoing games where you once were (you should instead say, "I don't have much/any experience being scum", or something along those lines, which while implying it does not explicitly say it), but he posted it all the same, soyeah. I'm town.

[mastin2]

Which means, AP, get yer dang vote off of me.

[Nero Cain]

Post 78: Yates is obvtown

In fact Nero and BC are scummy just for calling that scummy.

AP-Yates conection found.

[Nero Cain]

If anyone is actually paying any attention to anything I say you’ll note that I find outguess the mod to be lame so this’ll probably come off as hypocritical but I have serious doubts about the claimed roles. We know there’s 2-3 scum left so we should look at the setup and see if it helps us peg scum.


So yesterday I was thinkin’ that we had only 2 scum left but as I posted earlier we might have 3. If we have 2 scum then it’s a 16/4/1 setup and 3 scum would make it 15/5/1.


We have 7 confirmed vt claims and 4 unconfirmed for a total of 11. That seems way too high for me. VT’s are usually in the 50ish% range. With a 15/16 member town that would make 9/8 be half.


We know the scum team has a roleblocker and a goon and 1-shot bomber?/extra kill thing. And there was an SK.

Town has a confirmed tracker, cop, doc and neighborizer. (Yes I know my own alignment)

MYKO’S Messager claim is also confirmed but not his alignment.

I think the PPO and Ghost claim seem possible. Though with 3 scum a 9/6 town split means one of the prs are lying and I’d put my money on Jason. Which means that two of the vts are scum and I’ thinkin’ an AP/MASTIN.

Jason/AP/Mastin?

[AngryPidgeon]

All my shits on my wiki page..

Mastin linked one, this is my only other. Im excited to hear what revelations these give you. In TS I basically never mentioned my buddies except to call GG an idiot occasionally. In SJ I bussed the shit out of qwints all game and Jal all of D1.

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=23831

And Yates looked town for blatantly not giving a shit about doing things most people find scummy... Like rolefishing. This is the first time Ive actually ever seen someone get accused of rolefishing and flip scum. Ive seen townies get accused of that all the time.

@Mastin. I did something similar in the TS scum QT as my first time..UNVOTE: Mastin

That IS pretty solid.

P-edit: wow that was pretty contrived 'scumhunting'

Did you look at the link to my meta even? Or was that just for appearances?

[Nero Cain]

So you really think the town has 11 vts and 4 prs? lol

And yes I looked at the gae Mastin linked.

[AngryPidgeon]

So you really think the town has 11 vts and 4 prs? lol

What? Cop/Doc/Tracker is 3. Given the RB flip and assuming Ben was strongmanned, thats actually kinda scum sided. If there are 5 scum, then thats a little wack.

No one else has a really serious PR claim. Messenger/pgo/neighborizer/ghost are all kind of amusing but not any serious power.

Where did I say I think there are only 4 PRs? That would mean I think only ONE of you/Acosmist/Jason/Mykonian is town and the rest are scum?

Ok, what did you get out of thirsty souls then?

[mykonian]

oh fuck you mastin.

[mykonian]

see, this is exactly why wallposting works. You make a case and the longer you make the posts the harder it's to find something sensible in it and all tracks seem covered.

So, uhm, lets repeat a core question. Why weren't we supposed to question you the moment you wanted to push a jason lynch through just after he claimed?

[mykonian]

VOTE: Jason.

Yeah, we're testing that claim today. Zero ifs, ands, or buts.

for reference.

[mykonian]

FUCK YOU MASTIN I TRUSTED YOU.

And if you're town, you still can, but I'm preeeeeeeeeetty sure you're scum, here, myk.

Not just for the vote, though I'd be lying if I said that it didn't contribute. But for this

How the bloody hell could anyone think that at this point it would be a good idea to lynch Jason "to have him confirmed"?

As your reason when I have already switched votes from jason (having decided myself that it's a bad idea), combined with this

Because it served no purpose other then angering him. Nobody ever followed. That means at least couple townies apparently think someone who has no concrete reads right now (like, his only read, on me, he's weakened recently "because it might be the rage talking" or something like that) is a townlike character. I'd lynch him with all pleasure but you guys rather lose to pidgey scum, it seems. I wasted my days on him, now someone else can do the work if they want him lynched.

...Which doesn't seem pro-town at all, combined with MoI dieing after having pushed so hard on myk-scum, combined with a fairly anti-town usage of the role and anti-town version of it (annonymous messages) along with MoI's death after speculating about one of {Nero, myk} being scum (and me trusting Nero more), along with in general fairly scummy play, along with condemning interactions with Yates and Khan.

Soyeah. I think you're scum, but I'd be the first to admit the above is less-than-stellar reasoning. Go shoot it full of holes; I could use your defense against it to help me get a stronger read.

And why the smilie after the "preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure you're scum". This is the post where you switched your read on me. Tell me why mastin. And fuck off with the smilies.

[AngryPidgeon]

I think Cyber claiming in another QT that it was his first scum game AFTER this one is a pretty huge towntell for the slot.

[Nero Cain]

So you think we have two scum left?

I think its completely plausible but if you believed that then why are you yapping about it being LYLO when math says its not LYLO?

No one else has a really serious PR claim. Messenger/pgo/neighborizer/ghost are all kind of amusing but not any serious power.

EXACTLY. Town seems week.

IF

there were only two scum left that would make this a 16/4/1 setup. In that case couldn’t all the pr claims be true and we have 9/7 split? I guess I could buy a 10/6 split to which means 1 vt is lying and one pr is scum.

Where did I say I think there are only 4 PRs? That would mean I think only ONE of you/Acosmist/Jason/Mykonian is town and the rest are scum?

You didn’t but you did say

P-edit: wow that was pretty contrived 'scumhunting'

Which means you very much disagree. So I’d like your thoughts on the role distribution.

Ok, what did you get out of thirsty souls then?

Haven’t read it yet.

[Nero Cain]

ok, yeah, Mastin is town.