NY 164: Maniacal Street Mafia (Anticlimatically finished.)

[CrashTextDummie]

/confirm

[CrashTextDummie]

We should massclaim. I am not joking.

Raise of hands, everyone in favor.

[CrashTextDummie]

Did you intend to claim anyway or was this triggered by my suggestion?

[CrashTextDummie]

Vote: Oversoul

[CrashTextDummie]

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about CTD's suggestion anyway...

He tried to do this in the Team Mafia game which caused Glork to suggest it in OGML's New York game in which scum ultimately won... I don't remember a scenario where mass claim Day 1 actually lead to anything fruitful other than KKB's OP town setup game.

I wanted to nip CTD's plan in the bud because I think it would be highly detrimental to the town.

I was not aware that Glork took the suggestion to another game and that they actually went through with it. Having just skimmed that game, I reject your implication that D1 massclaim lead to a scum win. They actually managed 3/4 scumlynches on the first 4 days as a result of it and with the exception of one scum who managed a somewhat creative fake-claim, all the anti-town roles were uncomfortable as fuck and uniformly claimed VT. The mod acknowledged in post-game that the scum was handicapped by the massclaim. It's actually a great example in favor of D1 massclaim.

For those not in the loop, here are some of the benefits of D1 massclaim:
1. The most immediate benefit is obviously a good chance to catch scum outright via counterclaim or set-up analysis.
2. Scum absolutely, positively hate it. They are forced into long-term commitments before they have a chance to get a grasp of the game.
3. It rules out any kind of mid-to-late game claiming shenanigans, which severely hampers the scums strategic options.
4. It allows for better synergy between power roles, which is especially beneficial in a complicated set-up, which Oversoul is suggesting is the case here.
5. It allows for a much better informed D1 lynch as is usually the norm.

People have a knee-jerk reaction to D1 massclaiming that is entirely dictated by tradition and I've never seen a convincing argument that outweights all those benefits. I urge everyone to consider it with an open mind.

-----------------

Meanwhile, I'm voting Oversoul for essentially soft-claiming with no apparent benefit to the town (as Nacho has put it, we don't need a claim to know of the presence of more than one killing role), and inconsistent framing of his intent behind the claim ("was planning to all along" vs. "was trying to nip massclaim in the butt").

[CrashTextDummie]

While yes, it did eventually result in the scum lynches, it also resulted in a large amount of town lynches.

I obviously didn't read the whole game, so I don't know why the town stopped lynching scum after D4. Fact is that the game was incredibly and unusually front-loaded with scum lynches, and massclaim helped with that. D1 massclaim very rarely outright breaks a game, but it's an excellent strategy out of the gate, and that game proves it.

And also gives scum a road map of who to kill.

If the at least 2 killing roles you claimed are in the game belong to different flavors of scum, giving them a map of who to kill is actually not that bad at all. It improves the chances of double-kills and leads to inter-scum WIFOM on the juicy targets.

What if there are masons or other wise roles that can't really interfere or directly catch mafia? What then?

The lynch pool gets reduced by however many masons there are. Masons are pretty safe from being killed as long as there are more imminent threats to the scum around and confirmed innocents become more of a hassle for them as the player count decreases.

-----------

Why

did

you want to soft-claim pre MC-suggestion, Oversoul?

[CrashTextDummie]

Oversoul, answer this:

Why

did

you want to soft-claim pre MC-suggestion, Oversoul?

[CrashTextDummie]

CTD, I believe you put forward the notion of mass-claim when you were a traitor in invitational... 14? What was your motivation in that game and why can I trust you mean what you say this game?

I made the play in /Invitational 12 for consistency's sake. The general reaction was "oh, CTD always does it", I didn't push it at all and it went nowhere. And I always mean what I say.

[CrashTextDummie]

I will provide reads and general thoughts on the game once the following players have checked in/are caught up:
BabySpice, Rondar, Thor, Syriana, Seanald

@mod

: The latter three should probably be prodded.

<<< Seanald has been given an unofficial prod. Thor and Syryana both posted before today. >>>

[CrashTextDummie]

I would have preferred doing this after everyone was accounted for, but I'm itching to move on and Seanald might need to be replaced.

My general rule of thumb when analyzing reactions to a D1 massclaim suggestion is that the most likely scum reaction is no reaction. This applies to the following people in this game:
-BeautyAndTheBeast
-DLG
-Mac
-Nero Cain
-Bacde
-BabySpice

There are several scum in this list and I believe

very

strongly in this tell: While it may be up for debate whether D1 massclaim generally benefits town or scum more, there is absolutely no questioning whatsoever that scum despise the concept and would rather not not dwell on the issue. You'd think that it's no bother to them to drop a line on the subject, but I've seen a majority of scum outright ignore it in every game I've seriously pushed the idea in:
- In Purified Mafia, I divided the game into two piles based on this tell, and 3/4 of the remaining scum landed in the scum pile. Just one (StrangerCoug) slipped through the cracks, and only because I was lenient in applying the tell.
- In Team Mafia, literally every member of the town reacted, while all the scum didn't. If this game hadn't happened in the experimental phase of me making this play, I could have called the entire scum team on D1 (this is the game that compelled Glork to try it out elsewhere)
- In TV U-Pick, the entire scum team also fell into this tell

B&B is the worst offender in this game, because they've been very active throughout. The rest is mostly people who were late to the game or undercontributing, which doesn't mitigate the tell at all in my mind. Massclaim discussion has been one the main points of interest so far and should warrant a comment from any and all town players.

--------------

I have never personally seen scum support D1 massclaim. The following players did:
-Nachomamma8
-Desperado
-Om the Destroyer
-Thor
-ActionDan
-fuzzy

Roughly in order of how strongly they supported it. I debated putting fuzzy on this list, because as has been pointed out, he didn't actually give his own opinion on whether we should massclaim, only stating that he wanted popcorn if we did massclaim. Nachomamma, who arguably pushed the idea as hard as me or harder, would be playing a

very

gutsy game if he's scum in my opinion and is therefore very likely town. But really this whole list has a strong chance of being all town with the possible exception of fuzzy.

-------------

Opposing D1 massclaim is the most frequent pro-town reaction I've seen by virtue of most scum not reacting at all. The list for this game is as follows:
-Bulbazark
-ArcAngel9
-Oversoul
-Cephrir
-Slandaar
-AmethystKitty
-Syriana
-RedRyu
-Eddie Fenix

Bulbazark and ArcAngel reacted quite passionately to the idea, which I associate with town play. I've seen it only once from inexperienced scum and strictly from town otherwise. That makes them both town reads. Oversoul is a special case I'll get to in another post, the rest go in the null-leaning-town pile pending closer examination.

-----------

That leaves only Rondar and Seanald unaccounted for.

[CrashTextDummie]

I will comment on other points of discussion tomorrow when I should have time to do more than skim thanks to the holiday, and I will likely move my vote to B&B, although Oversoul really should be voted to oblivion for persistently ignoring this question:

Why did you want to soft-claim pre MC-suggestion, Oversoul?

People have been asking about the case against him. It has been repeatedly pointed out what the scum motivation is behind a claim like his, and he has so far provided zero town motivation for doing it. I really struggle to think of any.

He is also guilty of soft-claiming, which in general is shady at best and a common scum tactic, and the appropriate course of action is to force a full claim.

[CrashTextDummie]

CTD you're not reading enough of the game, you're basing too many of your reads on how people reacted to massclaim and not their actual motivations for doing so; you're also not reading the game closely enough because Bulbazak is fairly obvious scum.

I disagree.

I have provided links that prove the strength of this kind of analysis. It's strong

because

it ignores all the behavioral bullshit and focuses on an aspect of play that scum typically don't expect to be scrutinized that happens to be very telling.

I invite you to provide a pro-town reason for ignoring a main point of discussion in massclaim, particularly in this game where support for it actually seemed potentially strong enough to make it happen. The tell applies most strongly to the group that is guilty of this.

I agree that I need to read the game more closely to solidify these reads, but as a general assessment of everyone's alignment, I feel very confident in this method.

[CrashTextDummie]

Hmm. Ok.

I ignored it again because I wanted to see your reaction to me ignoring it and whether or not you would expand beyond just suspecting me.

My claim was a gambit. I am not an informed townie. I made that claim because I wanted to see the reactions and judge whether or not anyone would jump down my throat to get me lynched for it and so far only Nacho really committed that crime.

As to why I contradicted myself, I did because I legitimately wasn't thinking when I answered the first time. I kept being vague or outright not answering the question because I wanted more people to react to my claim and unfortunately only a handful of players did.

CTD's analysis of the mass claim tell looks very town motivated and the fact that he is moving forward with his scumreads when I figured he would sit by and wait for me to respond or try to further a case against me seems very town. I am happy to call him town in this game.

Yes, my Informed Townie claim was a gambit. I do not have any special information about the setup. My extra tid bit of "I have more information" was to further the gambit more until more people had commented on it.

Color me skeptical. Acting purposely scummy (and soft-claiming useless information unprompted

is

scummy) generally sucks as a town gambit, since calling you out for it is a natural response from both scum and town. I also think you've done too little to analyze what reactions you got considering how long you've been playing this charade. If the amount of support surprised you, it probably wouldn't hurt to look into that.

But ok, it's an explanation that at least works in terms of motivation and there's not enough support for your wagon. Moving on.

[CrashTextDummie]

-BeautyAndTheBeast
-DLG
-Mac
-Nero Cain
-Bacde
-BabySpice

B&tB did.

Yes and no. B&tB did give a stance on massclaim when specifically asked by Nacho, but ignored it before that. Answering a direct question is not the kind of reaction I'm looking for.

However, having caught up with the intricacies of this game, I don't consider them a top priority anymore. Their posting is solid compared to some others.

You are misinterpretting Fuzzy's 'agreement' he didn't support it at all he said 'if it happens' that is in no way an opinion on if he wants to or not he didn't actually voice what he prefers he was in fact the worst offender of your tell by far.

No, not really. While he didn't explicitly embrace massclaim, he implicitly approved of it. He acknowledged it and set terms under which he would be okay with it. I do find his ISO pretty unappealing (fluff:content ratio is off the charts) but I haven't seen anything outwardly scummy from him. Why do you read him as scum?

-------------

While we're on the subject of the list, I do have to take DLG off it since I missed that he actually commented, but his stance bothers me for non-tell related reasons. He states that early massclaim is functionally better for town than for scum, but it's kind of buried in his Nacho analysis and doesn't translate at all into a desire on his part to support massclaim in

this game

.

I also noted that he spends an inordinate amount of energy arguing with his town reads (most notably B&tB, AK to a lesser extent) which to me looks like a lack of interest in scumhunting. I thought his reasoning for the ArcAngel9 vote was shallow and the vote looked lazy in the context of his efforts.

Lastly, he is not the least bit pro-active in using his vote:

{Amethyst Kitty, Bacde, BeautyAndTheBeast, Cephrir, Nero Cain, Om the Destroyer} --> Players I have no interest in lynching.
{ArcAngel9, Bulbazak} --> Players I would instantly lynch given the chance.
{Desperado, Nachomamma8, Slandaar} --> Players I'm uncertain about.

[...]

So, anyway, I'd really like to see more votes on ArcAngel9 or Bulbazak. I really don't like what is coming across as Bulbazak white-knighting BeautyAndTheBeast.

Bulbazak - 2 (Om the Destroyer, fuzzybutternut)
ArcAngel9 - 1 (DLG)

Why isn't his vote on Bulbazark? This was shortly after Om/Destroyer launched their assault on Bulbazark and DLG did not contribute at all to the momentum of this wagon on a person he "would lynch instantly given the chance", electing to sit uselessly by himself on AA instead.

[CrashTextDummie]

While Nacho isn't my strongest townread anymore, he is still a townread and therefore a bad wagon.

I am having legitimate trouble understanding what Red Ryu's deal is and I'm beginning to feel like it's a language or experience issue. I don't like the current make-up of his wagon and think he's looking like an easy lynch at this point. Mac's vote in particular was opportunistic as hell.

Slandaar joins AA and Bulbazak in the town pile.

vote: DLG

Mac, Bacde, Nero Cain would be acceptable wagons as well.

[CrashTextDummie]

Hey, moron, go look at my early posted reads around that time and look at who was actively involved in which side of the mass claim arguments.

I realize that abrasiveness is en vogue these days, but I personally do not appreciate being called a moron.

Does this include scum being the initial voice for the idea? Because if so, look at Aunt Jemina in YCBA Probably at least one other scum on that team also supported the idea.

No, it doesn't. I have never seen scum support massclaim when I've suggested it as town. We've already established that scum are capable of suggesting massclaim.

[CrashTextDummie]

Does this include scum being the initial voice for the idea? Because if so, look at Aunt Jemina in YCBA Probably at least one other scum on that team also supported the idea.

No, it doesn't. I have never seen scum support massclaim when I've suggested it as town. We've already established that scum are capable of suggesting massclaim.

So how can I know that your "reaction test" wasn't just a failed scum gambit that you're now trying to play off in a town way? Your reads certainly sucked and lacked a level of depth, and you've cleverly avoided commenting on something like half the game.

The fact that you've seen me use this kind of analysis as town before might clue you in that I'm not "playing off" anything. But really I don't give a damn what you think on this matter and I'm not going to discuss the merits of it with you. It served its purpose in that it gave me information I find valuable and that has helped me find scum in the past and it's the closest I've gotten to actually make a D1 massclaim happen. Do with it what you will.

If there's anything specific you want me to comment on, ask.

-----------------

Nacho's lack of posting is a problem. It severely diminishes the information to be gleaned from his wagon if he flips town. It also weakens my town-read on him somewhat. Does Nacho lurk as scum? Does he avoid posting when under pressure? Show me this and I will reconsider my stance on him.

----------------

OS, I didn't comment on your Gambit because I thought it wasn't helpful. I though it was an obvious fake-claim and that it was obvious that you were looking for how people would react, one of the reasons why I believe Nacho to be scum is because of how he reacted.

How did you determine whether he was scum fake-claiming or town fake-claiming? Why do you think it's scummy to attack a fake-claim?

---------------

I'd like to hear more thoughts on DLG, my case against him was severely overlooked.

Spoiler: <<< Mod-edited-votecount >>>

Nachomamma8 - 8 (Red Ryu, Bacde, Nero Cain, Amethyst Kitty, BeautyAndTheBeast, Slandaar, Desperado, EddieFenix)

Red Ryu - 6 (Oversoul, Thor665, Baby Spice, Mac, Bulbazak, Syryana)

Bulbazak - 2 (Om the Destroyer, fuzzybutternut)
DLG - 1 (CrashTextDummie)
Oversoul - 1 (Nachomamma8)
BeautyAndTheBeast - 1 (Cephrir)
ArcAngel9 - 1 (DLG)

Not Voting - 4 (Seanald, ActionDan, Rondar, ArcAngel9)

[CrashTextDummie]

I think I've posted an argument for why I think you're scum. You could try commenting on that.

Your argument for why you think I'm scum is very vague, but I'll humor you.

Argument: You think my reads suck and lack a level of depth.
Comment: Considering we don't fundamentally disagree on a whole lot of players and that I'm pushing a guy you've expressed a scum read on, that's an awfully broad statement. The reads that matter are deep enough.

Argument: You think I have ignored certain events/I am not playing the game.
Comment: I have commented on every major wagon in the game and I have otherwise commented on whatever seemed important to me. Your hydra's interaction with Om the Destroyer and Bulbazaur is part of why you looked better to me upon analyzing the game. They gave me no reason to change my town reads on Om/HD and Bulba and I've communicated as much. I see no point in disseminating wall trading between slots I have no interest in lynching.

Argument: You think my massclaim suggestion might have been a scum gambit.
Comment: Deal with it.

------------------

Bacde's evolving stance on Nacho doesn't sit right with me. I could pass his initial push off as him being overly zealous (which I don't find alignment indicative for a player like him), even though his argument was more "Nacho isn't playing like Nacho" than "Nacho isn't playing like town-Nacho" based on the evidence given. But that he then suggested that a Nacho lynch would be good even if he was town is outrageous. A good player that is underperforming can improve, it's a function of effort. His declaration that "Nacho is useless this game, he's a detriment to the town regardless of alignment" is so wildly beyond common sense it's not even funny.

The feeling I got is that Bacde sensed weakness in Nacho and wanted to lynch him simply because it looked feasible. It's like he's running a bet on whether he can D1-lynch him and tried to strongarm it with a kind of bravado I've seen from confident scum playing with people they're very familiar with before. That he's now easing up, "settling" for a Nacho-vig instead, fits with this: Nacho came back, started effort-posting and doesn't look like such a feasible lynch anymore. I strongly question the legitimacy of his Nacho scum read to begin with.

Urge to lynch rising.

-----------------

Speaking of Nacho, the most compelling argument I've seen against him was Slandaar's. It is kind of jarring for him to change his stance on massclaim so completely, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that he came into this game as scum knowing that I'd suggest it and decided to play off of it. But the possibility is small enough that it doesn't really concern me: a) it's much more likely that he legitimately reconsidered the merits of early massclaim, b) I fail to see the scum angle when making this play opens him up to exactly this kind of questioning and c) he was pushing a play I maintain is benefitial to town.

I question his current vote, not just because it's on someone I read as town and unlikely to lead anywhere, but also because there's a good wagon waiting to happen on his second choice, DLG.

[CrashTextDummie]

DLG, Bacde, Mac/replacement. Lynch from this group.

I'm going to reread Cephir, because his name has been thrown around by quite a few people and he's been under my radar despite high activity. Eddie Fenix is another player I I want to get a better grasp of.

[CrashTextDummie]

Fenix first, because his ISO is shorter:

He spent most of his time so far going after Bulba, pushing a case mostly based on meta that looked reasonable enough not knowing their past history. In contrast, he never bothered to explain his suspicion of B&tB, didn't question them and made no move to convince anyone to vote them. He does seem appropriately inquisitive, posing decent questions, though only to a select number of players (fuzzy, OS, Bulba). He seems to have a very narrow field of vision and I would like for him to post a substantial list of reads. He should also explain his short stint on the Nacho wagon.

I can see him as scum (his worst offense being his conduct towards B&tB), but it's not a particularly strong read at this point.

[CrashTextDummie]

I haven't looked into your past history at all, I've just gathered that you have one based on Fenix's argument against you.

[CrashTextDummie]

Cephrir is a mixed bag.

On the whole, his play does seem a tad light on scumhunting and a bit heavy on one-liners and defending himself, though I'd have to look at the context of how severely he was attacked. Main thrust was against B&tB, with which he traded extensive quote walls with accusations going both ways. I thought he came out of the exchange looking worse because he was pushing weaker arguments, but I don't think it's very alignment telling. The self-depreciation in his ISO 32 sounds the kind of genuine that is hard to pull off as scum. His one big analysis post/read list is of average quality in terms of reasoning and has some points that warrant questioning (i.e. Mac in null sounds more like nullscum and Fenix sounds like a solid town read but is placed in nulltown).

I disliked that he singled out Red Ryu for mindless Nacho pushing while giving Bacde a slide on the same offense. Disliked this post:

Tried meta'ing AA9. Didn't see much difference between her town and scum games except for one tell that makes me think she's scum here. However I've noticed she seems to flounder at the beginning of the game on either alignment so I'll keep giving her a chance for now.

Unless it touches on ongoing games, there's no reason not to share this tell.

I would like to hear his current read on DLG and Thor.

Not a terrible lynch.

[CrashTextDummie]

DLG, Bacde, Mac/replacement. Lynch from this group.

I'm going to reread Cephir, because his name has been thrown around by quite a few people and he's been under my radar despite high activity. Eddie Fenix is another player I I want to get a better grasp of.

wrt the bold: I think that list sucks

Your most current list of reads is this:

Town

{

Bulba

,

Thor

, Slandaar,

Oversoul

, AA9,

Bacde

,

Red Ryu

,

Nero Cain

, }

Null

{The rest}

Scum

{CrashTextDummie,

Cephir

,

Nacho

, DLG,

Fuzzy

,

Om

, Fenix}

Updated reads. Bolded are strong, italicized are weak.

DLG a scum read, Mac a null read. I realize you have a strong town read on Bacde, but that hardly justifies such a blanket statement.

[CrashTextDummie]

This is why I hate playing with hydras.

majiffy and I disagree on slaandar, thor and cephir.

And how many other players?

Give consensus reads on DLG and Mac, please.

[CrashTextDummie]

Is it also scum whining if I once again complain about your slot being less than cordial? I didn't demand reads, I asked nicely.

I have made my distaste for hydras clear in the sign up thread and I'm not insinuating anything wrt my read on you or anyone else. I can keep the two of you apart pretty well based on tone, but it's kind of hard to apply this to a naked list of reads.

Bacde stopped pushing a sound meta case the moment he started arguing that Nacho would be a good lynch even if town. What

town

does this? If you had actually read my thoughts on him and not just glanced at the short list of my preferred lynches, you'd know that the original case wasn't a deal breaker for me in spite of me not agreeing with it. And it's kind of ironic that you're suggesting that scum would avoid doing something that's completely in the spirit of the game for fear of ill feelings bleeding over into future games when you seem to go out of your way to make me not want to play with either of you ever again.

[CrashTextDummie]

Bacde:

I didn't try to misrepresent your play.

B&tB We can't worry about lynching nacho because of "what if he's town"

if he's town he's even more worthless this game because he's pushing stupid cases

I'm no longer going to worry about lynching my scumreads just because I read a stronger player as scum, I can depend on myself

I'm not arguing that nacho is a good lynch if he's town

in fact, I believe the opposite

but nacho isn't a worthless player when he's town, and for some reason this game he's playing worthlessly

do you get the picture? There's a reason that I scumread nacho right now

The quoted post reads to me "if Nacho is town he's worthless this game, ergo there's no reason not to lynch him regardless of alignment". I did not see this as another argument for why you read him as scum, as you claim was your intention. You also claim that your "vig Nacho, let's discuss other lynches" post was a reaction test, and that your intentions to lynch Nacho didn't diminish at all. Well there you go, you got a reaction. If you're purposely misleading, don't be surprised when people are mislead.

I checked out your ISO, and while you've certainly been single-minded, your play isn't actually as mindless as it appeared to me as I read through the game initially. After a certain point, all I saw was a constant chorus of "lynch Nacho, lynch Nacho" but on closer inspection I can see that your case against him has actually evolved and grown, and I can even see merit to some of your arguments. A lot of it looks like confirmation bias to me even at a second glance, but you've pointed out a couple of things that look legitimately scummy to me.

I think I may actually be coming around on Nacho. His insistence on voting Desperado is terrible. Desperado has rightfully pointed out that parts of his case are factually incorrect and what's left is awfully weak. It's hard for me to swallow that

this

is Nacho's strongest read to the point where he's unwilling to compromise on a secondary suspect. I guess that means I should actually reread his posts more closely now.

as to your "what town does this?", why are you going after bc for it when nero has been saying in every other post (and is anyone else as sick as I am of his hard on for me? jesus christ) that he would sit on the sofa and eat bon bons if we could be lynched. why are you leaving him alone?

Nero Cain's conduct towards you I assumed is stemming from personal animosity, and struck me as part of a general trollish pattern. I certainly don't find it pro-town or helpful (or pleasant), but I don't think antagonism is a scum-tell per se. He's on my massclaim analysis shit list, meaning I have no intention of leaving him alone in the long term. My focus is elsewhere at the moment because he hasn't done anything that screams scum to me in the meantime. He's high on the list of people I want to reread though.

[CrashTextDummie]

If you read my Iso, I did have a list posted. Not a full explanation for EVERYTHING, but it's still there.

The only list I saw in your ISO is a week old and was based on pre-game. Are "players of interest to you" actually people you suspect? i.E. is this a list of scumreads?

B.) Player(s) that have my attention as far as MY interests go when it comes to my reading (Bulba, OS, Fuzzy, B&TB, Bacde, Nacho, Cephrir, etc.)

As far as my stint on the Nacho wagon, the thought that ran through my mind when Nacho was avoiding the thread was that yes, he WAS mafia because it's a tactic I've seen before. I wanted to add to the pressure of that Nacho wagon to get him in here to start talking so he can plead his case and everyone (minus Bacde...) can start microscopically picking apart his posts to make heads or tails of him. It's passive of me, yes. But, I digress.

Bit of a mixed signal here. If you thought he was legitimately scummy for lurking, I don't get why you'd remove your vote so quickly. You say you wanted to add pressure so everyone could analyze his posts, but I don't see

you

microscopically picking them apart.

[CrashTextDummie]

Eddie Fenix moves into the scumpile. He doesn't practice what he preaches. He wanted to pressure Nacho so his posts could be "microscopically examined", but he's not doing any examining. He thinks Nacho should be asked tons of questions, but he's not asking any. He has Nacho as a scumread, but he's not voting him.

Thezmon also rubs me the wrong way. He's all "your points are good, but I need just

a little bit

more to get me to vote him". It feels forced. He hasn't expressed a town read on Nacho, so I don't see why the existing arguments shouldn't be enough to turn him into a scumread. Nor why he's not rereading Nacho himself to figure out if he's a good lynch. Right now it looks like he's just hedging his bets, hesitant to join the major wagon in the game. I did have a scum read on his predecessor which probably makes me biased when it comes to reading his posts, but this looks plainly scummy to me.

I'm a little surprised to see people eyeballing OS

now

, based mostly on the stuff that got him wagoned in the first place. I thought his big analysis post was decent (and it was much longer than what he posted a second time) and I had pretty much decided to leave him alone for today. I wonder what Bacde thought his motivation was for making the fake-claim, if not fishing for reactions. At least the "WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, OS DID WHAT?!?!" post, which is pretty much the mafia equivalent of a spit-take, legitimately made me laugh.

Reread Nacho. Still think the massclaim push and the OS push were pro-town. Hasn't done anything else that gave me serious town vibes. Phase of limited activity didn't struck me as particularly scummy (he says he has access problems and I have no reason to doubt him on this RL claim) but aspects of his contributions since have. Push against Desperado is the biggest point for me. I agree with Bacde on matters of tone and perceived intent. There

are

instances in his play that look and feel manipulative and his efforts look exceedingly survivalistic and weak on the "catching scum" front. Plus I rather like the current make-up of his wagon and several people not on the wagon are being shady as fuck.

Unvote, vote: Nacho

[CrashTextDummie]

I had a crazy extended weekend, fell way behind and only got to skim the last 20 pages or so. The following are mostly surface observations I'm going to investigate more fully tomorrow when I should have time:

Desperado comes out way ahead in the Nacho/Desperado argument, and I don't see any appeal to the Desperado wagon other than it being the most viable counter-wagon to Nacho's. It's backloaded with townreads, which makes me want to check how well those hold up on a reread. Thor's bulk of contribution is most fresh in my mind and didn't really give me cause for concern, and his reasoning for voting Desp is up-front and feels right. Om/Destroyer is the only player apart from Bacde who moved Nacho -> Desperado, and rather suddenly at that. ArcAngel9's big analysis post has problems (her respective attacks against OS and Red Ryu being the most serious: She suspects OS for defending Ryu who she calls "null as any other lurker" only to turn around and vote Red Ryu basically for said lurking) and her vote was pure OMGUS. Bulbazak's vote felt more sheepish to me than I think he wanted it to look. Need to figure out to which extent I'm being paranoid about these three.

Nacho wagon looks pretty dead right now, and based on what I've gathered, I think that's too bad. My biggest issue, his push against Desperado, still dominates his play, though to an extent, I think that's to be expected regardless of his alignment, once Desp emerged as a viable counter wagon. Skimming lends itself to confirmation bias, so I definitely need to take a closer look (particularly with an eye to his non-Desperado related activities), but the general feeling is that his wagon is still good. His flip would also help a great deal in getting a better grasp on a whole swath of players.

Mostly liked Kublai Khan's entry into the game, and he makes me want to revisit OS. I missed that he softclaimed again. Fuzzy also kind of softclaimed, but I wasn't as bothered by it because it fits the general pattern of a player who wants a chance to play the game and for some reason hasn't found the time or energy to do so until now. He's no worse to me than Seanald. Thezmon has yet to explain why he has the latter as null if he takes so much offense with the former's lack of contribution. OS is limply pressure voting. Both are scum reads to varying degrees. Means fuzzy can be town.

Cephrir's AA9 meta tell fell extremely flat. He cited meta reasons for suspecting AA9, but wasn't willing to share them when specifically asked because he hadn't seen enough to confirm a pattern (on page 55 of the game). He then eased up on her (stating that he still suspected her, but was going to give her a pass because her play was "typical") and then moved her into solid town after her big analysis post because it turns out

that

was his meta tell ("she's more thoughtful and posts more and better reads as town that go against the grain"). I've already pointed out that her thoughtfulness can be questioned, but regardless of how you read her analysis post, Cephrir's stance on her feels fabricated to me. The whole "I've found something meaningful, but I'm not going to share" spiel is most commonly a scum ploy, and the payoff in this case was particularly weak.

I'm not sure what's going on with Bacde, and I don't think it's fruitful to try to find out.

I think that should suffice as a "don't replace me" post. I'll have more tomorrow.

[CrashTextDummie]

OS needs to claim.

[CrashTextDummie]

You made me check. He's a L-2.

[CrashTextDummie]

I believe Oversoul's claim. It resonates too well with his awkwardness around his fake-claim gambit ("Why would anyone shoot me?", "I don't need protection because I am useless and if scum just want a kill in general at a later time they know my death won't be interfered with.") and I agree with Bacde that the claim post sounds town. SK is of course a possibility, but I'm not willing to pursue that possibility on D1 without having any indication that an SK is in the game to begin with.

Oversoul - 10 (Desperado, penguin_alien, Kublai Khan, Syryana, Nachomamma8, Cephrir, Bulbazak, thezmon221, Haylen, PeregrineV)

Nacho, Cephrir, thezmon, PV. Anyone wanna take a bet on how many of them are opportunistic scum?

[CrashTextDummie]

I've been thinking about this long and hard after having seen the flip, and I've come to the conclusion that I should claim.

I am in a neighborhood with Slandaar.

I've had a solid town read on him, but Syryana flipping neighbor freaks me the fuck out.

This now being all but confirmed multiball, it makes an awful lot of sense to have two neighborhoods with a member from one scum faction in each, in fact it is the only way I can see scum neighbors be balanced in this game. The only alternative would be two separate all-town neighborhoods, which I don't find likely at all.

I've been completely snowed by a scum neighbor before. The fact that Syryana's flip didn't faze Slandaar at all tells me he's not thinking with the same mindset as me.

Vote: Slandaar

I'll go summarize our QT.

[CrashTextDummie]

Um...Syryana flipped Friendly Neighbor, not Neighbor.

There's a difference.

~

What?

[CrashTextDummie]

So I check the wiki and I've never heard of this role before. I feel like a colossal idiot now.

[CrashTextDummie]

I feel that I should go smoke a cigarette and/or bang my head against the wall.

[CrashTextDummie]

@CTD: Do you still feel that your point has merit?

Yes, just that it means the opposite wrt Slandaar's alignment.

Since the cat is out of the bag, it's worth pointing out that we don't have day talk.

unvote, vote: Cephrir

[CrashTextDummie]

So CTD, you were about to paraphrase ya'lls talk from last night.....

Not without the go-ahead from Slandaar.

Dear CTD,

Why?

Love,
Ceph

You were a scumread yesterday. Your Red Ryu interaction analysis feels extremely surface to me (for example, you have thezmon as null when his one interaction with Ryu, an opportunistic vote on him by Mac, pretty clearly indicates they're not scum together) so I went looking for mentions of Red Ryu in your ISO and you look like a good bet for being his buddy yourself. You started out wavering on him and having him as null, then moved him to "officially scummy" when he started emerging as a counterwagon to Nacho's without contributing your vote (you were sitting alone on B&tB pretty much for the duration). You then gradually shifted him back down your list of suspects (he was a "question mark" among players on Nacho's wagon) for no discernible reason other than he wasn't posting much. In hindsight, you singling him out for "mindless Nacho pushing" bugs even more, because his attack against Nacho was more confusing than anything else in my opinion and only really obvious as a scum play to his scumbuddies.

[CrashTextDummie]

I got really excited when I saw ThAdmiral's neighbor claim, but Desperado claiming in suit muddies things again. I still think balance between the scum factions dictates an even number of scum among the neighbors, which probably means two and allows for an all-town neighborhood. ThAdmiral's motivation for claiming is confusing to me and bordering on scummy. He says he was intrigued by my argument of symmetrical neighborhoods and claimed to put "things in an interesting light", but he then went on to speculate that there was "at least 1, probably 2" scum in the neighborhoods, which kind of puts into question whether he

really

bought into the argument to begin with. I can see some town motivation in trying to make things more clear (though I could see infinitely more town motivation if the turn of events caused him to actually suspect his neighbor), but there's also strong scum motivation if he thought his neighbor might be spooked into claiming himself and decided to preempt that in an attempt to look pro-town. I'm gonna take a look back at Team Mafia to check where scum landed in the cascade of neighbor claims in that game, and go from there.

CTD, given your presumed interactions with Slandaar, what's your take on his current back-and-forth with Thor665?

It's certainly consistent from Slandaar's end considering what we discussed in our QT. I told him there that I really struggle seeing Thor as scum, but that I would keep an eye on him considering how accurate I've seen Sladaar's instincts be in the past. Their interactions today are frustrating to read. Slandaar is tunneling and Thor seems to be mostly arguing for argument's sake. I've yet to see any heinous crimes on Thor's part, which I'm putting off the dynamic as town vs. town for the time being.

-----------------

Very pleased to finally see interest in Thezmon. I think the contradiction Bacde pointed out is even worse than in the quotes he provided; Thezmon flat-out said that Bacde "shot up in scumminess" a little while earlier, which is about as unambiguous as it gets and doesn't correspond with a "dumb, useless town" read at all. I think Cephrir is also scum, though probably from the other faction. Doesn't matter much to me in which order we string them up.

unvote, vote: Thezmon

[CrashTextDummie]

@CTD what are your thoughts about these players? slandaar, desp, bacde, nacho, KK? Who are you reading as strongly town atm?

I read all of the listed players as town except Nacho.

If Slandaar is scum, he's playing me very well. He's unafraid of how he looks to others, willing to take strong stances even if they go against the grain, pro-active with his vote and his attempts to get wagons going. In our QT, he's been more open to discuss reads than his in-thread persona and legitimately engaging me on those reads we disagree on. I'm not going to consider him unless neighbor-flips dictate it.

Desperado was among my strongest town reads yesterday. I thought the fact that he considered the massclaim suggestion with an open mind and supported it based on my argument strongly indicated a town mind-set and he followed this by stating pretty much what i was thinking at the respective moment in time on several occasions (most noteworthy in his attack against DGL). I thought the case against him as presented by Nacho was weak and that he defended against it as reasonably as can be expected. Hasn't done much of anything today except claim and wagon Thez, but I'm not really concerned.

With Bacde, all I saw was noise for the longest time, but once I went back and looked closer and saw that there was actually meat to his argument against Nacho, I changed my opinion of him and basically accepted him as town from then on out. This was encouraged by the fact that he had no trouble finding another bone to grind after he got over Nacho and he's been doing the grinding on the right bones for the most part. I'm probably over-explaining this because the fact of the matter is that I've simply realized he's town at some point.

KK is probably the weakest town-read out of these and mostly based on tone, strength of argument and consistency, all of which can be faked by competent scum (which I know he is). I don't think it's fruitful to try to figure him without some more bodies to judge him by, so I'm just going to take him at face value for the time being.

I never got around to reread Nacho, so my read on him is probably somewhat out of date. You can reference my ISO for why I thought he was scum yesterday. He was very vocal and active while under pressure and at the end of the day, and it feels like now that he's been given room to breathe, he's blending back in a bit, not displaying the same kind of drive. This is mostly based on memory and may not be a very good representation of his play, but I have stronger reads now and can't really be bothered to go back and check.

Other town reads are Thor and Haylen, for reasons I'm pretty sure I've explained before.

-------------------------

I'm obviously skeptical of Thezmon's claim. It's convenient (no danger of being contradicted), more or less impossible to prove and stretches believability (in my experience, back-ups are typically informed when they inherit a power and 2-shot BP is certainly an unconventional power to back-up). The only thing that makes me think this might be a truthful claim is the fact that he's claiming pretty much the same thing OS got lynched for yesterday, which makes it seem very low-gain in terms of scum gambits. Maybe that makes sense in a game with two scum factions though.

In other news, Cephrir is transparently scum regardless of Thezmon's alignment.

At start, this role is effectively an ordinary Townie. However, whenever the first power role dies (i.e. Doctor, Cop, Vigilante, etc.), the Universal back-up inherits that power role and can use it themselves.

If thezmon was town he would be a Friendly Neighbor. Die scum die.

I guess that counts as a power role but the point remains

No, the point doesn't remain, it has to be reconsidered from another angle (even if the conclusion stays the same). This is classic scum-pushing, narrow-minded and inflexible. I have no reason to doubt that Cephrir legitimately believes Thezmon to be scum, but he's not going about it in a remotely town way.

I'm fine with a Thezmon lynch, but the day is still young and I'd like Cephrir sorted out.

unvote, vote: Cephrir

[CrashTextDummie]

Because they were asking, I forgot to mention that ffullisade is a town read as well and a strong one at that. They've had a ton of interaction with a wide variety of players, both engaged by themselves and forced on them by others and their side of the argument almost uniformly felt town to me. There's also been a large number of people who have stated strong meta reasons to read the slot as town, to the point where I feel they can't all be wrong.

[CrashTextDummie]

I've spent the weekend and then some in the hospital and am still woozy from painkillers. I'm also having trouble sitting down, which limits my capacity to read substantially. Didn't really get a chance to really chat with Slandaar as a result.

Haylen was a town read and watcher is a tough fake-claim to maintain. Scum Watcher is a theoretical possibility, but the ninja flip makes it much more likely in my mind that it's a town role. It's also consistent with fuzzy's play, who softclaimed having a PR before replacing out. Barring a counter-claim, she's off-limits to me.

PV/ThAd neighborhood is a puzzle I think we should solve sooner rather than later. Neither of them have played in such a way that the other should have such a strong town read and I really can't think of any way a neighbor could confirm themselves as town in the pre-game. They've both pinged my scumdar (PV harder than ThAd) and I'd be willing to run either of them up.

Cephrir has once again bothered me with his play today, though at this point I think I'm a fair distance into confirmation bias territory. I'm going to write up a comprehensive case against him (as soon as my health permits it) and will bounce it off some of my stronger town reads to figure out how far off track I am here.

Nacho is playing more forceful again and looks more town to me in the process. The paranoia is there, but not to the extent where I want to lynch him, I think.

I'll try to post some more after I've lain down for a bit.

[CrashTextDummie]

Desperado, why do you think Seanald is likely town?

Cephrir, did you look at Mac's portion of the game at all in your buddy analysis (both Mac's play and interactions with him)?

*yawn*

Wake me when I get to -1

We're getting there.

Vote: ThAdmiral

[CrashTextDummie]

I'm struggling really hard with ThAd's vig claim.

Really

hard. My most pressing issues with it:

1. Peregrine's whole "love at first sight in the pre-game" spiel. I can only conclude that ThAd or one of his predecessors claimed vig at some point in the neighborhood QT. Why? What did Peregrine/DLG do to earn that kind of trust?
2. ThAd's motivation to out the neighborhood. I thought it was odd to begin with ("I don't think my neighbor is scum, but I'm intrigued by the 1 scum per neighborhood theory, so I'm claiming to add an interesting twist to the game", paraphrased), but by outing himself as a neighbor specifically to fuel a "scum in the neighborhoods" argument, he put himself on a shortlist of potential scum, which seems really counter-intuitive if you're playing a power role.
3. ThAd's play today (and PV's by extension). He did

nothing

to stop the wagon on himself, barely any scumhunting (none after his wagon started getting steam), barely any defending. Pretty much "lemme know when it's time to claim" all the way through. It feels to me like he

wanted

to claim. He certainly didn't put any effort into protecting his role today.
4. The revolving door of players in ThAd's slot. This is kind of a meta argument, but it's really odd to me that two players replaced out of a very popular role as claimed. This is a very demanding game so it's possible that they were both just overwhelmed, but vig is about as low maintenance as it gets; just follow along and take your shots, no case-making required to get your suspects dead and an easy out if you get wagoned.

1 and 2 just plain don't make sense from a town point of view, 3 points towards ThAd being an SK with NK-immunity. 4 makes a lot more sense as well if he's SK (SK is always an uphill battle and requires a ton of effort in a game as gargantuan as this).

Bottom line, I don't think ThAd is town. All those propagating a "we should eliminate a NK" angle should take note. Vote stays.

[CrashTextDummie]

Desperado, I asked you why you think Seanald is likely town. Please indulge me.

[CrashTextDummie]

Desperado, I asked you why you think Seanald is likely town. Please indulge me.

Most of the same reasons PV/Thad give except I'm not proclaiming him obvtown. He isn't active in the QT but when he is his thoughts and mine largely line up. We trust the same people.

And given the two scumflips and plethora of other suspects I don't anticipate a scumflip from his slot.

I take it you disagree?

To me, Seanald is a player that blends into the background. I haven't seen anything from him that straight up makes me think he's scum, but then I don't think I've seen all that much from him period. Given this, I was curious how you came to take such a strong stance on him and whether your read on him was informed by stuff that's not on public record. I can accept your reasoning, but it's not really something I can build on.

Really like your Thad points btw. But if there actually is a vig he'll be dead by tomorrow, and if he isn't dead as a claimed Vig we lynch him. Where do you stand on Kitty?

We have no indication that there is a vig in the game other than ThAd's claim. The general assumption has been two scum teams based on the blue scum flips, and kills have been consistent with that theory. If ThAd is fake-claiming, I don't see any reason to expect there to be a counter-by-kill.

I'll have to get back to you wrt to Kitty. She's done stuff, I just haven't really been paying attention.

-----------------

These arguments are disturbingly good. But it would be very easy to mostly confirm Thad via the appearance of a third nightkill, so I think giving him a chance to shoot someone is the best idea. I don't think it's likely he's an SK, unless the mod colored the one scumteam blue just to fuck with us.

There doesn't have to be mod trickery for him to be an SK. I fully expect there to be a third kill if we let ThAd live (barring kill-prevention). It's possible that he tried to kill but failed, or that he refrained from killing to support the x-shot aspect of his claim. X-shot is really convenient to add to a fake-claim, because it disincentivizes rival-scum from cross-killing him to a degree (limited-shot vigs are fairly low-priority NK targets once they're out of shots). It would be interesting to know at which point and in what fashion he claimed to his neighbor.

[CrashTextDummie]

I see that you are putting your hand up to die tonight. Excellent.

I suggest you start working on your defense now if you want to go down this path, cause you'd be making a better argument for your lynch tomorrow than any I could make myself.

-------------

Not feeling the AK lynch. Some people have called their defense manipulative, but it sounds sincere enough to me. Most of the stuff they're accused of don't really register as scummy with me.

Doesn't look like there's enough support for a ThAd lynch, though there's plenty of people who seem to doubt the claim. I really have to question the wisdom in letting a claimed killing role live when you don't think they're town. Probability dictates that he's more likely to shoot town than scum, so essentially you're just postponing the issue while allowing town numbers to go down faster. At least he's motivated to try and shoot in town's favor regardless of his alignment, I will grant that.

-------------

Nero Cain has pinged me hard lately and I think there's some interest there, so let's try that.

unvote, vote: Nero Cain

[CrashTextDummie]

killing at night:
crashtextdummy

Why?

Honestly I'm leery that everyone thinks he is town (even though I used to). Looking back I don't see much to imply he's as towny as everyone says he is.

And here I thought it was just because I dared question your claim.

You haven't given any reason to think I'm actually scummy so there's nothing for me to address except for the post you interpreted as me "putting my hand up to die". It should be beyond obvious that I'm not scum with either one of Slandaar or Nacho, the two people you said you were going to shoot between, giving me every incentive to leave you alone for today if I was scum. If you want to see a legitimately scummy reaction to your claim, look no further than Nero Cain's (who happens to be absent from your list of reads).

You obviously aren't interested in engaging me in an argument, so I guess that's that.

--------------

I'd like to be given a day or two to post my full thoughts on the game before we go to night.

[CrashTextDummie]

The Seanald wagon seems like somewhat of a "least common denominator" type of thing to me. The most appealing aspect of it is that his neighbor is on board, but there are certainly better lynch candidates in my view.

-----------------

Cephrir's argument for keeping ThAdmiral alive is terrible. He's giving him a pass for not giving a shit, when such an attitude is strictly alignment neutral. It's bad play if he's town (in that he makes no effort to help his faction), but can work as a strategy if he's scum, as evidenced by Cephrir's argument. And then on the same page, he offers up this insight into Seanald's play:

I think that could be something scum might do to look town (unafraid of looking anti-town) but I have trouble imagining town caring little enough to vote for such a dumb reason when they are supposedly actually suspicious of someone else. Plus, why does Seanald care if someone is annoying when he barely seems to be reading the thread?

So ThAd can't be SK because he's unafraid of looking anti-town and not giving a shit, but Seanald can be scum because he's doing it to look town and would be giving a shit if he was town. He's essentially making the same argument for both players, but reaching completely opposite conclusion.

Meanwhile, Cephrir hasn't said a peep about the fact that ThAd is planning to shoot one of his strong town-reads. If he was town, I would expect him to at least acknowledge this in his rampant white-knighting of ThAd.


----------------

Nero Cain's stance on ThAd is just as bad. He flat out stated that he thought ThAd was scum, but that he should be kept around "because he could be useful". From a town-perspective, I can't follow this reasoning at all; if you think someone is scum, you lynch them. An additional killing role has just as much or even more of a potential to further devastate the town than it has to be "useful", and if you actually think the player in question is scum there's no reason to believe that their actions are going to be in town's favor.

Nero-scum

knows

if ThAd is going to be useful to him based on the people he expressed a willingness to shoot. It's exactly the kind of stance scum would want to take if they're not aligned with the people in the crosshair. Keeping ThAd lynchable ("I think he is scum") while letting him do your dirty work. Unlike every other person who's waffled on ThAd, he doesn't want to keep him alive so he can prove his claim or because he actually believes the claim, but simply so he can be "useful".

----------------

Those two (in addition to ThAd) should be our top priorities for a lynch.

[CrashTextDummie]

Once again, if Nero flips scum I will reconsider my case on nacho

Only one way to find out.

[CrashTextDummie]

Nacho's Nero case is awesome. Nice catch on the D1 multiball comment in particular. Sheep him.

Yeah 'cause those 2 extra lynches via kill sure wouldn't help town at all. Its not the first time I've been willing to leash a scum (sk?) killing power. Thad is obviously lying/trolling about being a neighbor AND a vig. That last line is fucking horrible.

a) Kills carried out by scum are not extra lynches.
b) You haven't done fuck all to "leash" ThAd until after I called you out.

[CrashTextDummie]

I actually share AK's desire to sort out the neighborhood issue and I have my suspicions in terms of set-up design, but with caught scum in Nero to lynch and no solid scum reads within the neighborhood (other than ThAd), it's definitely not the right time or place.

The fact that she brings this up now without giving any real insight into the issue herself does strike me as odd.

[CrashTextDummie]

Nacho's Nero case is awesome. Nice catch on the D1 multiball comment in particular. Sheep him.

I'm not convinced. I think in large games it is not unusual to assert it might be multi-ball.

I did a bit of digging in Nero's completed New York games and you have to go back more than a year to find a proper multiball game with two mafia factions.

NY 163: open set-up, one scum faction
NY 161: single scum team
NY 160: scum team + SK
NY 151: scum team + SK
NY 150: single scum team
NY 143: two scum teams

So I don't see why Nero would just randomly assume that this game has more than one scum faction. Quick ISO-skim of his posts in those games reveals that he considers mafia + SK multiball. But I don't think the possibility of an SK would influence his scumhunting the way the multiball assertion did in this game.

It also turns out that his multiball thoughts in this game are inconsistent:

As for my read on you. I think your play has been pretty scummy. I don't think that everyone has a town read at you and those that do have it 'cause of meta. I have never played with Mala and my experience with Mara is limited so I'm willing to listen to other players that have more experience with ya'll and besides you are helping me kill Nachoscum so you get to ride in my null pile until I find out that this is multiball.

This, but its also likely multiball so OS could still be scum.

He's giving Mala a pass until he finds out it's multiball. He doesn't give OS a pass because it's likely multiball.

Either Nero is town who arbitrarily decided this was multiball somewhere between these two posts, or he's scum who knew this was multiball from the beginning, scumhunted the opposite faction in terms of this knowledge and let it color his play.

[CrashTextDummie]

I'm surprised the Nero wagon has stalled, but maybe I shouldn't be. It's made up almost exclusively of strong town reads. Nacho's case i think was a very solid piece of scumhunting and it's starting to really make me comfortable with him. The only person on the wagon I have issues with is Cephrir (and those issues have nothing to do with him being on the wagon). It looks to me like scum are reluctant to bus.

I haven't heard a good argument for why we shouldn't lynch Nero. AA9 thinks the wagon is bad because it's a counterwagon, which is a pretty wtf argument. HD is bored by the wagon. AK is against it because she has a meta read on Nero, I think? All these people need to give better reasons for why they aren't voting Nero right now.

Question to AK specifically because she's expressed a solid town read on 4/6 of the people voting Nero: If he's town, why aren't scum jumping at the opportunity to mislynch him?

Ffulisade, I disagree that Nero's defense hasn't been scummy. He's very selectively defending himself, hides behind theory discussion and is sidestepping most of the actual issues. Cases in point:
- His defense for dropping the D1 multiball tell is that he considers all 20+ player games likely multiball. But I've quoted an earlier post that's clearly designed to give the opposite impression, that Nero

didn't

just consider this game multiball without any supporting evidence. He didn't address this point at all because there is no defense for it. It's damning evidence.
- He's arguing back and forth about the merits of leaving a killing role alive, but he doesn't doesn't address the fact that he failed to do the one thing that actually makes the strategy feasible for town, the leashing. He meekly stated that we should give ThAd a pool of players to kill from, but only after I called him out.

[CrashTextDummie]

Someone needs to explain to me why we are letting Nero Cain get away with lying on a fundamental level. Preferably Desperado or Ffulisade, because I know they're paying attention.

You've already pointed out that I use multiball interchangeably. I generally find Mala/Mara to be scummy. I did not know if we had scum team + sk or scum team + scumteam.

No. That does not match up at all with what he said at the time:

I have never played with Mala and my experience with Mara is limited so I'm willing to listen to other players that have more experience with ya'll and besides you are helping me kill Nachoscum so you get to ride in my null pile

until I find out that this is multiball.

"

Until I find out that this is multiball

". There is zero room for interpretation here. Nero did not, at the time of this post, want to give the impression that he was considering this a multiball game by default.

He even admits to the fact that he changed his tune depending on who he wanted to push: "I didn't want to pursue AK, so I said A", "I didn't want to derail the OS wagon so I said B". Who does that as town? It's a quintessential scum tactic.

This point alone should be enough to lynch him on the spot.

And this is just getting silly:

So what am I supposed to do to leash him? Yell at him in all caps that if he shoots outside the acceptable targets 'cause he already knows that's how I feel. I've been giving my reads all day and deadline is a week away and there's no point in finalizing my pool this far away. Why are you so curious to see who I want vigged?

Nero is the one advocating a "leashing" strategy. I think it's a terrible practice, so why should I be telling him what he's supposed to do to leash ThAd? I've already pointed out how this play makes perfect sense for Nero-scum and I still fail to see how it makes any sense for Nero-town. He's pleading that he couldn't have done any more to leash him, but if you can't do more than nothing, it's really not much a strategy, now is it?

-------------

The only argument I've seen in Nero's defense is that his play here reminds people of other town games of his. I find this to be a very unreliable use of meta, because it assumes that Nero-scum is incapable of emulating his town play. I think the manner and style of his defense here is par for the course for anyone who's invested in the game regardless of alignment, though it's worth pointing out that at various points in the game and until recently, Nero gave the impression that he wasn't terribly invested in the game. The

content

of his defense on the other hand is terrible.

Thoughts on other players coming up in a separate post.

[CrashTextDummie]

HD, why are you not the least bit interested in lynching Nero-scum?

Slandaar, please drop whatever it is you're doing and sheep me.

I'll have that post up tonight so Bulba can place his vote again. Sorry for the delay.

[CrashTextDummie]

Desperado, you are spooking me a great fucking deal. It's like we've entered bizzarro land.

You vote Nero Cain, and all it takes for you to move on is him showing up to defend himself ("stop flailing like a wuss", as you so nicely put it). It's enough for you to move him into the "likely won't lynch" pile even. I'm beginning to question why you voted him in the first place, he certainly hasn't defended well against the most pressing issues at hand. And now you've started defending him with arguments that are just astonishingly bad to me:

1. This is a normal game. Giving the scum team a color distinction when there's not actually a second scum team to match it is tantamount to bastard moddery. It's at the very least mod trickery, which is already against the spirit of normal games, and I'd be severely pissed off with Mastin and whomever greenlit the game if that was the case. In addition, we have had two kills a night and a third killing party claimed in ThAd. There is every reason to assume this is a multiball game at this point.
2. Even if it wasn't a multiball game, it doesn't have

any

bearing on Nero Cain's scumminess. He said something that directly contradicts his claimed game theory stance, to defend a player of questionable alignment (AK, who you read as scum). He claimed having this game theory stance to defend a

very

questionable line of reasoning he used to help lynch OS-town. There is

not a single thing

about this whole story that adds up to Nero being town and it doesn't make a lick of difference whether he knew this was multiball, thought this was multiball or knew the opposite.

Not only did you do an almost complete U-turn on Nero, you also apparently threw the big issue you had with the Seanald wagon out the window. The vast majority of your strong town reads still don't support a Seanald lynch, while the vast majority of your other scum reads does or did at the height of the wagon. I reread your case against him, and it's still not as strong as you make it out to be. The totality of your valid points doesn't even come close to matching the one huge point against Nero in scumminess, and there are other strong points in favor of Nero scum in addition to that.

Seriously, get a grip.

[CrashTextDummie]

I hadn't realized we were getting close to deadline. Nero lynch not happening makes me sad, cases don't get more slam-dunk than this.

AK, I read your Nero town-case, and although it doesn't convince me, I think it reflects well on you and I can see where you're coming from. I think you are suffering from selective reading, only seeing the stuff that reminds you of his town-play and blocking out the stuff that doesn't fit this view. I still haven't heard a convincing argument for how the whole multiball thing could conceivably come from Nero-town. How familiar are you with his scum-play?

------------

I'm spooking you because we don't agree on one person?

You are spooking me because I don't get the change of heart and I don't get why you're making such an awful argument to defend him. You say he towntold, but I don't see it. All I see is "he stopped playing like a wuss and engaged his wagon", which is intrinsically town how exactly? It's not hard for scum to engage a wagon, and it's not hard for scum to make good points either when you just look at the softball arguments. He hasn't made good points on the damning arguments.

You are spooking me because this kind of play strikes me as something a scumbuddy would want to do. Sheep the wagon to distance, allow buddy to "towntell", move him into townpile.

If it's not as strong as I'm making it out to be, tell me where it's weak, don't tell me to "get a grip."

I think it's bad practice to defend players against cases made by others before they have defended themselves, particularly if you don't have at least some semblance of a town read on them. In writing this, I ask myself why the hell exactly Seanald hasn't addressed your case on him because it's been a while and it turns out his wagon pretty much imploded without any intervention on his part. That is an issue.

-------------------

Nero being scum doesn't stop him from making some pretty compelling points against Bulbazak. I do have a hard time swallowing his ThAd plan in particular. I don't consider myself an indispensable member of the town and I don't see why he would, strongest town read or not. Directing protective roles is just awful on every front. Last I knew he was questioning the truthfulness of the vig-claim, and on the whole, I struggle seeing this as a way a pro-town player would address the issue.

I remember having instances of doubt wrt to Bulba, but I'd have to do some rereading to check what they were. There seem to be some meta-related reasons people are suspecting him (Desperado in particular, if memory serves), and I'd like for someone to summarize these reasons, as I most certainly don't have time to read any of his other games.

---------------

I don't know why CTD is rushing me and yelling at me to out my list when there's still lots of time left on the clock.

I don't know where you got the misconception that I want you to do anything except eat rope. I was making an observation on your lack of action, not a request for action.

Thad already knows how I feel about him and beyond that there's NOTHING to do.

"But I can't control him! Whatever am I supposed to do?!" HE'S SCUM, according to you and me, you can control him by lynching him. If you can't leash him, why do

want

to leash him?

The thing that's puzzling me about the level of failure in "leashing" ThAd is that no one is taking what I would consider to be the most obvious approach: "Kill X, or we lynch you". It's the only thing even approaching "an additional lynch for the town". Not that I think it would make any difference. You could probably get a majority of his town reads to ask him to shoot Bulbazak, except:

@ thad

who is in your town pile. I would like to know plz.

quite a few actually:
peregrine
cephrir
kk
bacde

bulb

ffulisade
nero
desp

Don't try to direct night actions. I think Nero might be right about you, you're a bad egg.

Clearly he's not even paying attention to what he's writing himself.

[CrashTextDummie]

Was going to make another last-ditch effort to get Nero-scum lynched, but clearly that ship has sailed. I'm

very

certain he is scum and the evidence is all there. Lynch him tomorrow.

Strongly dislike most of Bulba's arguments against Slandaar, particularly the "4 scum per team" argument:

The typical scum to town ratio is 1:3, which would make the number of scum in this game 6. Using that logic, there would be 3 scum per team in a multiball situation, which we seem to be in. However, you assume that there is 4.

The only way I could see anyone coming to this conclusion is if they were on a scum team and knew that there were 4 players on the team

, which means that they would anticipate 8 scum. Therefore, your statement stating that there are 4 on each team is a scumslip.

So the only way Bulba can make sense of the situation is that Slandaar is himself on a 4-man scum team. But if that is his suspicion, why then is it impossible for a pro-town player (i.e. Slandaar) to make the assumption that we are dealing with 4-man scum teams? It's a completely illogical and circular argument and so far removed from being a scumslip it's not even funny.

He then went on to argue that it's better for town to assume the best-case scenario of 3-man scumteams, which is a highly debatable theory stance at best, but the implication was that only scum would take the worst-case scenario approach, and that simply doesn't hold any water.

I personally haven't put much thought into into the make-up of scumteams, as I don't think it's terribly relevant at this point, and likely to be counter-productive (several people have made arguments along the line of "X is scum but not on the team I want to lynch from", which to me just reads like a bogus excuse not to pursue scummy people). Fact is that scum:town ratios are not set in stone and can be balanced by the power-level of the town. This line of attack is completely cooked up.

I have my own reservations about Slandaar. I think his play today has been noticeably different from the first 2 days, he's been a much less forceful presence and I strongly disagree with several of his reads. I do not however see this as a strong indication of him being scum in itself and no one has pointed out any actions of his that clearly read as scum-motivated to my knowledge. Balance speculation wrt to the neighborhoods should come into consideration, but not before we actually

know

anything solid based on flips. Bulba's case against Slandaar is all assumptions, some of which don't make sense to me. If he was doubtful of ThAd's claim before, I don't see what happened to change his mind, and he's basing a whole string of arguments on this (ThAd vig -> PV not a killing role because "balance" -> two scum total in the other neighborhoods -> not CTD -> Slandaar scum). I get the strong impression that he's tailoring his assumptions to the desired conclusion, and not the other way around.

Lastly, I agree that Bulba's "two blue neighbors would be unfair to red" looks like a slip. He's tried to play it down by stating that "unfair to town" was his main point and "unfair to red" merely a balance after-thought, but i really don't think that fairness between scum-teams should ever enter a town-player's mind at all.

Unvote, vote: Bulbazak

[CrashTextDummie]

Notice how your names are both at the end? Yeah, that's because I added you and didn't edit the stuff that was already there. Pretty simple really.

Ever the delightful mystery you are:

Will not lynch:

pere

cephrir
kk
bacde
bulb
ffulisade

quite a few actually:

peregrine

cephrir
kk
bacde
bulb
ffulisade
nero
desp

Pretty simple indeed.

[CrashTextDummie]

No, I agree with Bulb here. I don't really buy Slandaar's excuse that "we should assume the maximum amount of scum" + Scumthez already speculated on there being "7-8 scum"

+ there's atleast one scum in the neighborhoods and Slandaar makes a good bet. CTD might be scum afterall. He's ignoring discussing his neighborhood big time.

vote:Slandaar

Khan
Slandaar

So nero and bulba are scum together. Both attacking each other hardcore, then magically ending up on the same bullshit wagon. Nero's reasoning is even more terrible and illustrates a glaring flaw in bulba's as well: if thez already slipped that there are 7 to 8 scum, how is it scummy for Slandaar to go with this assumption as town? For that matter, if Nero thinks thez slipped the number of scum, why is he playing as if he was assuming 3-men teams?

If Slandaar is lynched over Bulba and Nero, it's a travesty.

[CrashTextDummie]

in fact I was blocked from being investigated as well, what role does that?

Alien, a Jailkeeper variant. I've personally seen it used once in a large normal as a town role.

KK has to be considered when analyzing ThAd's and Rena's reports, though I very much doubt he would have targeted either of them. If he wanted to keep ThAd from shooting me, I believe he would have targeted myself, and I don't think he had strong concerns about Rena. Moderate chance he targeted Bulba though (VT-claim and a townread for him). That would leave one scum PR to account for Rena's lack of result for everything to make sense.

CTD, in light of Slandaar flipping town, a) why shouldn't we have you at the top of the scum list, and b) what's your take on the other neighbors?

a) would you like to present a case on me that doesn't involve set-up speculation?
b) I don't know why you're asking me this question, as very little has changed from my perspective.

----------------------

AK just had her strongest scum read flip town. AK also urged the town to look into the neighborhoods, and she got her wish. I would very much like a little more input from her than just announcing a willingness to sheep.

----------------------

Bulba's push against Slandaar still doesn't sit right with me, but his approach today seems reasonable enough.

Vote: Nero Cain

[CrashTextDummie]

The reason that most of us were town reading CTD is ‘cause of his outting his neighborhood, when the friendly neighbor flipped. He’s experienced enough to know how to fake this, there’s also the possibility that he could just be scum and not know this. I don’t like it when my questions are ignored and CTD is avoiding discussing his neighbor hood actions for some odd reason. And in yet another bout of hypocrisy, Bulb is now calling me scummy for being suspicious of CTD while he is also suspicious of CTD.

Note to self: Look at CTD’s recent games, if there’s a friendly neighbor in it them he’s scum faking.

Note to the town: Nero has no intention of ever following up on this. If he thinks I'm good enough scum to fool almost the entire town with my play, it's completely nonsensical that he'd even entertain the idea that he could find a friendly neighbor in one of my past games. He's throwing around a bunch of theories with no regard for whether they actually make sense. Pseudo-scumhunting at it's finest.

Nero, I've ignored your incessant probing into our neighborhood because it was none of your business. If there was anything in our QT I thought the town needed to know, I would have mentioned it. You just got done mislynching Slandaar, who was even less interested in discussing our neighborhood QT than me, so why do you insist that this is scummy? I also don't remember you being anywhere near as interested in questioning any other neighbors about their QTs. I wonder why that is.

Re Bulba buddying me:
Maybe we have differing notions of what "buddying" means, but I didn't get the impression that Bulba was doing what he was doing to placate me in particular. If he truly believed in his theory yesterday, a certain amount of paranoia makes sense. Though it's just as likely (or maybe more so) that he was simply overreaching with his argument yesterday to save his own hide and now has to backpedal to maintain a semblance of reason.

The whole Bulba/Nero argument reads highly farcical to me. Nero is once again throwing out a wide net of conflicting theories ("Bulba is buddying CTD!", "Bulba reversed his read on CTD!", "Bulba and CTD might be scumbuddies!") and Bulba's arguments aren't much better. I think both their reasoning for changing their stance on me to a degree is independently questionable, but arguing over who's most guilty of trying to set up a lynch on me when no one is actually trying to lynch me is beyond silly. Their play today reinforces my suspicion that they are scum together. They magically ended up together on the Slandaar mislynch after being at each other's throat (more suspicious from Nero's end, who had every reason to vote Bulba since he was arguing for his lynch for a significant portion of yesterday, and pretty much had no reason to vote Slandaar after he conceded the scum-% point) and balls-to-the-walls crossbussing seems like a very appropriate follow-up. Whoever suggested that their argument felt forced was spot-on.

--------------------

CTD, it seems unlikely to me that a JK would protect the counter-wagon target after a town flip. Is Kublai Khan the type of player who would do that in your experience?

I have very little experience playing with Kublai Khan. I agree that jailkeeping the counter-wagon to a mislynch seems counter-intuitive, but from KK's perspective, Bulba fits everything you look for in a JK-target. No danger of blocking a town-PR and protecting a strong town read (also potentially blocking a scum kill/PR if he's wrong). It can't be discounted as a possibility and I'm therefore rejecting arguments like you've made against Rena.

---------------------

I am generally not averse to a PV lynch. I read his predecessor as scum and I agree that some of PV's play has been fishy in its own right. I'd like to see a concise summary of the case from Nacho (no quote-fest) before I consider moving my vote there though.

---------------------

Unvote, vote: Bulba

If you decide to finally stop giving Nero a pass, I'd much prefer lynching him still.

[CrashTextDummie]

????

Why is it nonsensical? I'm fairly certain that I'm able to read. Lets say I go through your games and find a FN. Why or why not should we auto lynch you?

Then why don't you? It would take you all of 5 minutes to check every game I've played in the last 3 years. If you actually thought there was a possibility of catching me with my pants down, there's no reason why you wouldn't have investigated it already.

Maybe 'cause no one else was like "I'LL PROVIDE THE CONTENT OF MY QT!!!" So I'm confused as to why you said you'd do this, then didn't and why you wanted/needed Slan's permission.

So it's a matter of principle is what you're saying, "CTD said he would, so it's scummy that he doesn't". You don't have any particular interest in the content of our QT vis-a-vis the others. Am I getting this right?

I was going to summarize our QT in the interest of full disclosure because I wanted to lynch Slandaar at the time. When i realized my mistake, there was no reason to go through with it anymore. Slandaar shared some reads with me on N1 that he didn't want out in the open, hence why I wanted to discuss it with him first.

Again, tell me why you find this scummy.

Are you REALLY giving a reason that Bulb would backtrack? Context says you two are full of it. He's STILL town reading Thad and PV BECAUSE of his theory. AND he's still believes that Sean is scum and in his theory he thinks both teams have a undercover hoodling. So if he believes that and is unwilling revisit THAD or PV then you are the POE scum. I think its likely he has a buddy in you or PV. I'm also not arguing about him setting up a lynch on you. I'm saying that in his theory he has you listed as scum and now he's backing away from calling you scum for some reason.

We are in agreement that Bulba adjusted his reads in a way that doesn't feel kosher, but your deductions don't make much sense at all. Specifically, I don't see any reason why you're not considering Seanald/Despo as Bulba-buddies. The fact that he's not trying to get Seanald lynched despite having him as a scumread along with you strikes me as odd because it would give him further insight into the validity of his theory. This could mean that he's scum with Seanald, but it also makes sense if he's scum with Despo (not wanting to lynch into his neighborhood because it reduces his breathing room).

The fact that you don't even consider this tells me that a)you are not actually thinking things through in a pro-town manner and b)you are going out of your way to tie people to Bulba.

Furthermore, Bulba's play is pretty obviously designed to keep me lynchable down the road (or rather make me lynchable in the first place), making it even more dubious that you'd zero in on me as a Bulba-buddy.

If you feel this way why do you feel the need to move? Deadline is still aways away.

Because there's an uncanny resistance to your lynch in spite of damning evidence that you're scum.
Because I think Bulba is likely scum as well.
Because I'm willing to compromise in the interest of maintaining momentum (which is low atm).
Because I think the town forces in this game are too fractured and I'm trying to find common ground.
Because while deadline is still not terribly close, I really want to avoid another deadline scramble.

I think it's hilarious that you're questioning the fact that I moved my vote off of you and onto the guy you're trying to lynch tough.

Answer this question straight up, because you've dodged the fuck out of it, Nero:
Why was your vote on Slandaar at the end of the day and not on Bulba? You had to concede the only reason you had given to suspect Slandaar and you had been making a strong case and push against Bulba up until the deadline frenzy.

Additionally, what's you're read on Seanald? I saw him missing from your latest list of suspects and a quick Ctrl F of your ISO reveals that you've largely been ignoring him (the only thing close to an opinion you've voiced was that you preferred neither of you to be lynched when you were competing wagons).

[CrashTextDummie]

2.) My reads are probably askew somewhere. I'm not sure what to think about you and Bacde anymore, especially after your posts at the end of d3. I was getting some genuine emotion from you. Same goes for HD, who, after going through his ISO, still confuses me when it comes to the intent behind his actions. AK essentially sucker punched me yesterday, so I'm not quite sure where I stand on her. I suspect that she's town, but I'm not sure whether I really care if she lives or dies at this point. I'm just going to leave her alone. Finally, Slandaar's flip has made me really paranoid about CTD. He still reads town to me, but he's not as strong of a townread as he used to be.

I still have 2 strong scum reads, which I still trust. However, if I end up being wrong about them, then town might as well put me out of my misery, because I am obviously no use to them.

Read: Bulba is bussing one or both of Nero/Seanald.

[CrashTextDummie]

Townzorz are Nero, CTD, Bacde, AK, Ceph

Scumzorz are Bulbazak, ThAd, Rena

The rest of you wish you were cool, but really aren't so much.

Rena
bulb
ctd
Cephir
nacho
bacde
^
the last 4 scum be in there

Replace Ceph with Peregrine and Nacho with ThAd and I'm happy with this list.

Explain Bacde/CTD.

[CrashTextDummie]

CTD, which would be more incriminating for the other IYO: a Nero scum flip or a Bulb scum flip?

Bulba scumflip should seal the deal on Nero Cain considering where his vote was yesterday (and his reasoning for being there).

---------------------------

I think it's hilarious that you're questioning the fact that I moved my vote off of you and onto the guy you're trying to lynch tough.

Why? I've always considered that a town tell. If Nero was worried about Bulba being lynched after you put your vote on him, he would have unvoted. Instead he's analysing other peoples votes on that wagon.

Please tell me that's not the only thing you've taken away from my post, you've managed to quote about the least important sentence from it. To say that he's analyzing my vote against Bulba is a stretch. To call such a throwaway question a town tell in the face of everything else he's done is a bigger stretch. Aren't you the least bit bothered by his play as outlined in the rest of my post?

What's your read on Bulba?

--------------------------

I was burned yesterday after being so sure that Slandaar would flip scum. I'm not too keen to stick my hand back in the fire today. Also, between the two, Nero is the more social threat, while all Seanald does is lurk, sheep, and occasionally stir the pot.

Does your scumread on Seanald stem solely from your neighborhood spec? This is something that's bothering me about your list of reads, it still seems to be informed heavily by your neighborhood theory but you're not willing to vote according to said theory, which is giving you an awful lot of gray area inbetween what you say and what you do.

Also, your argument here that Seanald is the more harmless out of the two reads as a rather cheap excuse to me, considering how paramount his flip allegedly is for several of your other reads. I don't even know what "social threat" is supposed to mean here.

-----------------------

Ffullisade, it seems to me like your case against PV largely depends on Bulba flipping scum. At least your primary reason for suspecting him (herding votes onto Slandaar) does in my opinion. Please consider moving your vote there.

[CrashTextDummie]

Bulba, you said you didn't want to poke into the neighborhoods unless there were legitimately reasons to suspect someone:

There's a small voice in the back of my mind that keeps whispering to me about my neighborhood speculation, which if we find scum in the neighborhoods I still stand by. However, after Slandaar's flip, I really don't want to go aimlessly poking around in the neighborhoods for the sole reason of proving my theory. I want to find scum for actual scummy reasons, not just theory. Therefore, if we go after one of the neighbors for legitimately scummy reasons, and they flip scum, only then will I evaluate given my theory, but until then, it's too dangerous to try on that reason alone, making it more in line with a policy lynch, which I'm not especially a fan of.

You claim to have legitimate reasons to suspect Seanald, but when asked why you're not going after him you said:

I was burned yesterday after being so sure that Slandaar would flip scum. I'm not too keen to stick my hand back in the fire today.

Which seems rather contradictory to me.

Nero is more active than Seanald, and therefore more influential and harmful to town. He's also the most likely to get away if not pressed. Seanald has no original thought of his own, which means he is not harming the town to the extent that Nero is. Seanald can wait. Nero needs to be lynched.

Why is someone who's active more harmful to town than a scummy lurker? Someone who's sheeping a harmful wagon is just as bad for the town as someone who's creating and pushing a harmful wagon. Seanald was voting you at the end of yesterday and he's voting you now, so if you were town, you of all people should have some perspective of how harmful he's being.

Your argument for why Nero needs to be lynched before Seanald quite frankly doesn't make any sense.

[CrashTextDummie]

Ffullisade, I'm quoting this because I think you might have missed it:

Ffullisade, it seems to me like your case against PV largely depends on Bulba flipping scum. At least your primary reason for suspecting him (herding votes onto Slandaar) does in my opinion. Please consider moving your vote there.

[CrashTextDummie]

Oh my god.

If I am constantly wrong, especially on my strongest scum reads, then I am essentially useless to the town. Add in the fact that I make a popular wagon, which can prove to be a distraction, and there is no reason why scum wouldn't want to keep me around as long as possible, which makes me a liability to the town.

Bulbazak: "Scum want to keep me around as long as possible."

His two strong scum reads are both trying to lynch him. Two out of three of his weak scum reads tried to lynch him yesterday. Even his null read HD wanted to lynch him yesterday and was on his wagon today. The people resisting a Bulbalynch are almost exclusively town reads for him.

Almost all of Bulba's scumreads want him dead or wanted him lynched over Slandaar.

Come the fuck on, this literally couldn't be more obvious.

[CrashTextDummie]

CTD, it's like you're purposely being obtuse. Scum wouldn't want to NK me. I never said that they wouldn't want to get me lynched, especially since that'd be the only reason to leave me alone during the night phase. Any actual research into any game I've ever played in will tell you that this is the case (except for Newbie 1337, where I apparently JK slipped and was killed n1). And my reads have nothing to do with who is or isn't on my wagon, especially since I've been clear about my reads since the beginning, and have been calling the same people scum all game.

Your wording was unclear then. "Keep around as long as possible" is pretty much the opposite of "try to lynch at the earliest opportunity". I think it's believable enough that you were talking about NK though, so I'll drop this point.

I have literally no idea why Rena is not being instantly lynched at the moment, though. ThAd was blocked and Rena was blocked last night. ThAd's power is easily confirmable once he actually uses it (AKA he's not going to live if he keeps getting blocked OR Rena flips town), Rena's power is not. There's absolutely no reason for KK to protect Bulbazak last night, no reason for him to be antitown as fuck and block ThAd. Meaning Rena is lying about being blocked and needs to be lynched pretty badly.

Hate this post a lot. I disagree that there's no reason for KK to protect Bulba, but that's not why I hate it.

Nacho suggests that ThAd should be lynched if he keeps getting blocked, but his entire point here is that ThAd was blocked and Rena was not, so there should be no reason to assume that he won't be blocked in the future (unless Rena flips roleblocker herself). If we lynch Rena and she flips town, we actually make it easier for scum to block ThAd because they have one PR less to juggle. Nacho also suggests that ThAd should be lynched if Rena flips town, which is convenient as fuck if my suspicions are true that scum blocked Rena last night.

Even if you can't fathom that KK had a hand in this, there are possibilities for both claimed PRs to fail that don't involve two scum roleblocks (mafia doc on Bulba, ThAd lying about his target, etc.).

Nacho is basically setting up lynches on both our claimed power roles.

[CrashTextDummie]

Ffullisade, I'm quoting this again because I'd actually like a response.

Ffullisade, I'm quoting this because I think you might have missed it:

Ffullisade, it seems to me like your case against PV largely depends on Bulba flipping scum. At least your primary reason for suspecting him (herding votes onto Slandaar) does in my opinion. Please consider moving your vote there.

Even if you think Rena is scum, why does her being on the Bulba wagon make you dislike it? Multiball, etc.

[CrashTextDummie]

i don't think ThAd is lying about his target.

But you think ThAd should be lynched if he keeps getting blocked.

CTD, what are your reads?

Scum:
Nero
Bulba

Higher likelihood of being scum:
Seanald
PV
Nacho

Lower likelihood of being scum:
ThAd
Despo
Human Destroyer
Penguin Alien
Cephrir

Town:
Rena
Bacde
AK
Ffullisade

Based on interactions, I suspect the top end of this list to be populated mostly by red scum. Probably some blue scum in the lower likelihood pile. ThAd has been bumped down because his fake-out actually makes some sense as a town play. Cephrir has been bumped down because I think his play has looked rather town recently. Rest of those players I haven't really been paying a lot of attention to in while.

[CrashTextDummie]

Any power role should be lynched if they "keep getting blocked". You understand the reasoning for that, don't you?

Of course I do, that's how these things go.That's why I don't think it's a good idea to eliminate the only player who has the potential to stop scum from blocking ThAd indefinitely. If we have another night where both ThAd and Rena fail to produce results, then we can talk.

Talk me through it again why you don't find it feasible that KK targeted Bulba, a claimed VT and a strong town read for him (the two primary factors in JK targeting). Keep in mind that there was in fact an attempt to kill him.

[CrashTextDummie]

not if they have a watcher power

What's your theory here exactly? Rena is a watcher who's scumbuddies with a roleblocker who targetted ThAd, and she claims to have targeted him as well with no result?

Why do you find Rena town?

I thought fuzzy's play was consistent with having a power role and reasonable enough for a player who seemed to be under time constraints/unable to keep up with the game. I don't remember any action of his that strongly indicated scum, though admittedly I haven't looked at his ISO in a long time. To my knowledge, Rena hasn't done anything heinous either (except under-contribute, which in her case is more likely the result of her never really getting into the game but sticking around because she drew a PR, than of her being scum, in my opinion). And although it's been a long time ago that I remember playing with her and her meta has changed considerably, her thought-processes and mannerisms still remind me of her town play.

Bottom line though, I trust her claim.

[CrashTextDummie]

Nacho, explain your Bulba town read, please. All I remember you saying is that "HE HAS BEEN TOWN ALL GAME" at the end of yesterday, and while I thought he was town in the beginning as well, a couple of things have happened in the mean time.

Also, hiding behind other people's reads on Nero is weak coming from you. I've made a post pointing out some more things that are wrong with his play, to which yet has to respond. You aren't bothered by any of it?

[CrashTextDummie]

What's your theory here exactly? Rena is a watcher who's scumbuddies with a roleblocker who targetted ThAd, and she claims to have targeted him as well with no result?

Rena's redscum and a watcher, probably NOT scumbuddies with roleblocker. She found a juicy power role to kill last night, didn't want to claim no result on someone random because that's risky, didn't want to claim actual result because that would mean that her team couldn't kill that juicy power role during the night.

So her scum team didn't mess with ThAd at all and she didn't actually target him (arguably the easiest target to sell as pro-town from her PoV) and catch opposite scum in the act? Risking being caught out by a tracker, etc. in the process?

[CrashTextDummie]

Since when is lurking scum more dangerous to the town than scum that makes waves? Nero can do more damage with his influence than Seanald can, because all Seanald is doing is following others and staying in the shadows. Lurking scum can be countered effectively if identified. Scum such as Nero is more difficult to take care of, because they act like an infection in the entire organism.

Posts like this are far more likely to be coming from town than scum. Town wants to take out the big threats as opposed to the small fries usually because it's easier to have stronger conviction on active players than it is on less active players (more to go on v less to go on). I understand when he says that he's not willing to jump back into neighborhoods again today, and I don't see the scum motivation in not wanting to jump back into neighborhoods again.

When using scum is in a certain group of players, it's pretty fucking easy to use that as extra ammunition for your scumreads (not only is X scummy, but he was on the lynchwagon yesterday!) and sort of chainlynch through the group.

Bulba backing away from that to protect Seanald??? Doesn't really make sense. Bulba's push on Seanald, if they were scum together, shows that he doesn't give a shit about bussing him. Why does he suddenly want to protect him now? Oh wait. There isn't a real reason for that.

Please rephrase the underlined because I can't make sense of it.

I still disagree on the "big threat/small threat" distinction, I don't think it makes sense from a town PoV and it looks to me like a fabrication on Bulba's part to justify his inconsistent behavior. Scum is scum. You've pointed out yourself that Seanald would be easier to lynch because of strong resistance to a Nero lynch. Bulba doesn't seem interested in reaching a consensus.

I don't understand at all his unwillingness to jump back into neighborhoods today, he claims to have a strong read on Seanald independent from his neighborhood status and he's already playing the "woe is me, I'm useless and a mislynch waiting to happen" card, which makes it completely counter-intuitive for him not to try to validate his beliefs wrt to the neighborhoods. It's not like he has much to lose in his purported state of mind.

I believe that Bulba and Nero came into today with a firm plan to crossbus for town-cred. They both claimed VT and have no other real means to do so except through scum-hunting success. Voting Seanald (buddy or not) doesn't fit the narrative.

Your turn.

[CrashTextDummie]

I see two p much mutually exclusive reasons for Peregrine to try and get votes onto Slaandar if he is scum. He could have been other-team hunting. Or he could have been protecting Bulba.

How do you make the distinction between other-team hunting and pro-town scumhunting? I agree that these are reasons he'd try to get votes onto Slandaar

if

he is scum, but you're using it as a reason to suspect

that

he is scum, which I still think only works if he's scum with Bulba.

[CrashTextDummie]

To my knowledge, Rena hasn't done anything heinous either (except under-contribute, which in her case is more likely the result of her never really getting into the game but sticking around because she drew a PR, than of her being scum, in my opinion).

You don't have a problem with her saying that she was getting suspicious of me because of the cases against me and then being completely unable to come close to summarizing any of the cases against me?

This was huge, CTD.

Nacho gave her 10 minutes. She replied after 9 minutes and change. It's worth quoting.

"that whole case made against you".
Summarize it, 10 minutes. Go.

I can't find why people were voting you o.o I've got the buddying Bulbz (possibly) thing.

That didn't answer my question, why all of a sudden has your read on me changed?

I don't remember this, let me check it out.

[CrashTextDummie]

To my knowledge, Rena hasn't done anything heinous either (except under-contribute, which in her case is more likely the result of her never really getting into the game but sticking around because she drew a PR, than of her being scum, in my opinion).

You don't have a problem with her saying that she was getting suspicious of me because of the cases against me and then being completely unable to come close to summarizing any of the cases against me?

Hm. I suppose the implication here is that she's fabricating reads/inventing reasons to suspect people and I can see that. It's hard to picture this coming from a pro-town mindset and I concede that it's a point against her.

This being multiball, she shouldn't have to invent reasons to suspect people as scum. It does look like bullshitting though, and that's more likely coming from scum not giving much of a shit than from town not giving much of a shit.

Still don't think she should be lynched today, as she's keeping ThAd from being messed with either way.

[CrashTextDummie]

lets not lynch until I can reply to all the shit from Bulb, Despo, CTD and Rena.

Says not to lynch, but doesn't unvote.
Takes almost a week to answer questions.
Is active in other games.
Lurks unabashedly:

hehehe. 3 days and no prod. This mod team blows.

Is scum.

[CrashTextDummie]

Why make that post if you don't care?

I can't quote the post where you claimed VT, because it didn't happen. I remembered two VT claims, but it was actually Slandaar and Bulba.

[CrashTextDummie]

I'm the second most active poster and I think I have a good amount of content. Though CTD is quite right that I've been lazy and "lurking". Its a shit statement 'cause there are far worse lurkers than me but he's scum so its not like his accusations have to make any sense.

You are the only one gloating that you've managed to exceed the activity limit without getting prodded. Yeah, you've generally been active but that doesn't change the fact that you've stalled on answering questions recently. Bacde has the most posts out of anyone and you're accusing him of lurking. Pot, Kettle.

You are admitting that I'm right in one sentence and claiming that my accusations don't make sense in the next. Why am I scum?

[CrashTextDummie]

Nero, please address Post 5006. You tried to marginalize it by calling it "silly accusations", but there's questions and observations in there that are critical to understanding your motivations (and therefore to figuring out your alignment) and I want them answered. Enough with the posturing.

[CrashTextDummie]

Arguing against Rena's lynch is getting tiresome when she is barely doing anything about it herself. But I'm nevertheless going to reiterate that lynching her is strategically a very dumb move regardless of what your read on her is. Even if she's scum, she's severely limiting the extent to which the other scum team and her own can tamper with ThAd tonight. This is the scum's mess to sort out and I really don't see why we want to make life easier for them while very possibly cutting into our own flesh in the process. The only scenarios in which this doesn't apply is if Rena is herself a roleblocker or the last member of blue scum, which would be extraordiny luck.

The more I think about it, the more I can't get over how little sense Nacho's speculation/justification for pushing this lynch makes. Nacho suggests that ThAd was blocked by the scum team Rena isn't a part of. This would have been a tremendous, tremendous risk on their part considering that ThAd was Rena's logical target. Nacho suggests that Rena lied about her target because she caught a town PR and wants to keep it secret so her team can safely NK it. This is just plain illogical, because a) she wants town cred (which a successful watch would give) and b) outing a PR doesn't interfere with her possibility to kill it (unless she thinks there's another protective role in addition to KK).

The alternative theory in which Rena is scum is that her own team blocked ThAd, in which case her claim to have targeted him herself with no result makes no sense at all, for similar reasons. All theories involving Rena-scum basically assume that she's falling on her own sword for no apparent reason, and I really don't see why this is supposed to be more likely than scenarios that have KK in the mix and allow for her to be town.

--------------

Nero, I hate to be pendantic, but I'd like this answered as well:

????

Why is it nonsensical? I'm fairly certain that I'm able to read. Lets say I go through your games and find a FN. Why or why not should we auto lynch you?

Then why don't you? It would take you all of 5 minutes to check every game I've played in the last 3 years. If you actually thought there was a possibility of catching me with my pants down, there's no reason why you wouldn't have investigated it already.

pretty much the bolded. *I* didn't understand why you said you would and then didn't and then kept on ignoring me when I asked for an explanation which made me feel like you were hiding something, idk. I just felt it was strange but this explanation is sufficient. Dunno why you are being defensive about it but me.

Defending against an accusation =/= being defensive

I think your theory that Bulb is bussin' one of Desp/Sean is sound and to be honest I never though about it. But I think its really fucking odd that you are calling me scummy for that especially when you are all "woe is me, Bulb is trying keep me lynchable" So why do you think I'm scummy as opposed to "falling for his trap"?

You tried to draw connections from Bulba's play, so obviously you did think about it. You didn't think it through, which is exactly my point. I call it scummy because it looked like you were spin doctoring the situation to push an agenda, cherry-picking aspects of his play and omitting those that disagreed with what you were pushing. You are right that you not seeing what I consider obvious doesn't have to be a scum tell. But applying twisted logic to a situation is in my book.

I don't think I've ever dodged this. I think Slan's explanation that "we should assume the max # of scum" was craptastic and the fact that scum already tried to push a 7-8 man scum game made me fairly suspicious. In hindsight, I goofed but its ok 'cause we can lynch Bulbscum today.

Yeah, I know why you voted Slandaar. The issue here is why you thought this made him a better lynch than Bulba after you posted this:

yeah, I just did the math. 6 is only 25%. 8 is 33.33333333333%. So 8 is more likely than 6. Slandaar is prob red scum with Cephir and two of Khan/Nacho/Rena/CTD/Bacde

So blue is probs Bulb with one of CTD/Bacde/khan.

That's the part you've been dodging.

[CrashTextDummie]

CTD, is Rena paying you for acting as her defense attorney? Or is is a pro bono case?

I'm acting as the town's defense attorney. I'll accept non-terrible lynches as payment.

I don't have an awful lot of faith left in my Rena read, but that doesn't change the fact that lynching her is a strategic mistake. I'm perfectly fine with lynching her if we find ourselves in a similar situation tomorrow. Might even be fine with lynching her tomorrow regardless.

I'm pretty sure I said that I didn't really care who dies. Is this one of those "y u no vote my buddy?!?" 'cause I've seen those from scum before.

That's the most honest sounding statement you've made all game. Of course, not caring who dies is generally a scum trait (unless you truly think there's an equal chance of two players flipping scum, which I frankly don't buy in your case based on the reasoning you've given to suspect them). You having this mindset makes it less likely you're scum with Bulba though, so at least there's that.

And I suppose there's also the possibility that there is no scum roleblocker and ThAd/Bulbazak got jailkept [...]

So when I suggest that ThAd missed his action because of KK interference and Rena missed her action because of a scum roleblock, you throw it out the window because "KK wouldn't have targeted Bulba", but now you happily speculate that KK had a hand in last night's result yourself in another attempt to implicate Rena.

You are using awfully twisted reasoning to push a lynch you claim you'd rather not have happen today.

[CrashTextDummie]

I count 7 votes. +1 makes 8.

unvote, vote: Seanald

[CrashTextDummie]

Bulbazak's Hierarchy of Reads (D5)

Town

ThAdmiral
Desperado
Nachomamma8
PeregrineV
Ffullisade
Cephrir

Null/Town

Amethyst Kitty

Null/Scum

Baezu

Scum

Penguin_alien
Human Destroyer
CrashTextDummy

Vote CrashTextDummy

I can take an educated guess at why you're voting me, but elaborate on some of your other reads. Looking at your list at the beginning of yesterday, you've moved PA from null/scum to scum, HD from null to scum, Ffullisade from Null/Scum to town. I would like all of these explained.

You think he's red scum Bulb? Because I'm pretty sure I was wrong about one of CTD/ffullisade and that they are red scum

Why?

But this we feel sure of Bulba is town. We know that Rena was not a scum PR so there was NO FUCKING REASON for SCUM-BULBA to stay off her wagon yesterday. No biulba wagon today.

I disagree with this reasoning. Bulba had her as his strongest town read and reversing his stance on her to get her wagon ahead of his would have looked hugely fishy. Because she claimed a PR and he claimed vanilla, he couldn't use the "I know I'm town and I don't know for certain that she is" argument either.

Are you now convinced that one of Bulba/ThAd was targeted by KK on N3 then?

VOTE: Bulba It's just all to incredibly forced, the walls, the buzzwords, and the painfully forced reasoning. It just isn't real it's scum.

and considering I still have a strong scum read on Cephrir, I believe cephrir was totally trying to save his buddy at the end of yesterday there, basically begging for votes to be moved off bulba.

The suggestion is, then, that Bulb has scumslipped the knowledge that there aren't 4 scum neighbors out of 6 neighbors, in a normal game...
Get real.

Hi Bulbas buddy.

Serious question: How isn't Bulba hammered already?

scum buddies don wanna bus dude.

This probably isn't scum with Bulb.

Disagree with this as well. He was trying to tie Cephrir to Bulba, which is very much in line with a bus.

Seanald flipping scum doctor puts a new light on Bulba's unwillingness to pursue him yesterday. He was stuck on Nero for the whole of yesterday despite repeated prodding from Nacho to move to a consensus choice, for stated reasoning "Nero is the most dangerous of all scum, he must die before anyone else", which he dropped awfully quickly once the tide began to turn against Seanald.

---------------

Rena - 6 (Cephrir, Nachomamma8, ffullisade, PeregrineV, Baezu, Desperado)

The peak of Rena's wagon. Baezu removed his vote shortly afterwards and was replaced by AK. Pere dropped off shortly afterwards. Baezu reapplied his vote and then Nacho opened the floodgates on Seanald.

Nacho acknowledging that he was making a terrible push against Rena doesn't really mitigate the fact that he was making a terrible push against Rena, but the way half the wagon followed him onto Seanald like a flock of sheep makes him not the worst offender on this list.

I really hated the timing of and the reasoning provided for Baezu's second Rena vote. Feels like he danced around the wagon for a bit and only really went for it when it seemed to be losing some steam/resistance kept growing. Most people started seeing the wisdom in not lynching her around this time, and he went in the completely opposite directionfor a really weak reason. Doesn't feel protown in the least. Strongly reconsidering my Bacde read.

Cephrir stuck around a little too long for comfort. Questioned me for defending Rena only to shortly after admit that I had a point. Didn't let that persuade him to unvote her though until after Nacho took the lead.

PV's Rena vote came after a bit of posturing and some goading by Nacho. He then dropped off without a word and parked his vote on AK by his lonesome, effectively removing himself from the decision making process for the remainder of the day. I'd really like to hear the thought process behind this, because as it stands, it doesn't make much sense to me.

The others involved don't look too bad to me.

If people aren't going to reconsider Bulba, I'm willing to lynch within this group of people.

Vote: Bulbazak

[CrashTextDummie]

I didn't poopoo your D3 case against Seanald. Now that he has flipped, it's easy to see that it was good, but that doesn't change the fact that at the time, the strength of your argument didn't measure up against others. It almost feels like you're taking this as a personal sleight.

I acknowledged at the time that him not defending against your case was actually scummy and I admittedly didn't follow up on this amidst all the hubbub. Mea culpa.

I joined the wagon wordlessly because no words were needed after his claim.

What are your thoughts on yesterday's Rena wagon?

[CrashTextDummie]

I "stuck around a little too long for comfort"? I was convinced Rena and Seanald were both scum yesterday. I wanted to vote whichever of them was more likely to be lynched, initially. You had a good point about it being a good idea to leave her for a day, but in my mind lynching scum was more important than such considerations, and deadline was approaching. Then, I was the first one after Nacho to switch, so others stuck around longer than I did. Before I switched, it wasn't clear whether the Seanald wagon had enough momentum to get to a lynch.

More importantly, you should have just read my argument that AK is redscum. Do you disagree?

Yeah, you were the first to follow Nacho. When asked by Rena why you made the switch, you stated that you agreed with me that waiting a day on her regardless of alignment was the smart play, which kind of contradicts what you just said.

Nacho voting Seanald actually marks the point where it became obvious that the Rena wagon

didn't

have enough momentum to get a lynch and it feels to me like you hung on until that point in spite of my argument which you couldn't refute. That I find scummy, as well as you questioning my defense of Rena even though it was on the money in what looked like an attempt to marginalize it.

I read your Seanald quote-wall and then kind of skimmed your follow-up post. The way you describe it, AK's part of their interaction does indeed read like they're potentially buddies. I'd want to check out the relevant portions of their ISO myself though, since I haven't been too impressed by your similar posts after the other scum flips. I've had a strong town read on AK for a while now, but I'm willing to reread with an open mind.

[CrashTextDummie]

Explain AK-town to me.

I've been strong town reading them since they made their huge defense of Nero Cain. AK went above and beyond what I'd expect scum to do in defense of a player not on their team, in multiball no less. It's one thing to claim a strong town read on a player, and scum does that. It's another to go all out to stop a lynch from happening that would be advantageous to your team. It's completely believable to me that AK genuinely didn't want Nero Cain to be lynched, and it didn't feel like a ploy to me at all.

I also have a weak meta read on Mala's portion on the hydra, and I generally felt that they had good consistency of thought.

Mind you, I haven't found the time to reread the Seanald interaction yet, I'll get to it.

I appealed to Bulbazak so many fucking times yesterday, CTD. While Bulbazak was getting death tunneled by pretty much half of the town, I begged the shit out of him to please please vote Rena with me. Please, Bulbazak, just vote Rena with me. Bulbazak, like the good fucking townie he is, told me that he didn't give a shit about my begging and pleading and (correctly!) told me thousands and thousands of times that fuck that he was going to attack Nero until Nero died. He told me that he would join a SEANALD wagon if one appeared, but he wouldn't join my Rena wagon. Tell me what scum wouldn't jump on the Rena wagon with the perfect fucking excuse to. None of them. Do you think he was really that eager to protect the Mafia doctor? OK. Then why the hell didn't he protect the mafia doctor and lynch the watcher?

I remember you begging him more to place his vote on someone other than Nero, rather than placing his vote on Rena, but maybe that's off.

I still don't think Bulba had "the perfect excuse" to vote the person he claimed as his #1 town read at the beginning of the day. Voting Rena would have been a blatant scum move on his part.

VOTE: ThAd

oh please

you're telling me he's gone 4 nights without a single successful kill?

I call bullshit

Pretty terrible post. We've firmly established that there's a scum roleblocker.

Also, I'm pretty sure on who the last scum is via PoE, which I've outlined multiple times. I have actual reasons for going after CTD rather than another member of the neighborhoods, and I think I'm right on the money. If you don't think so, then please explain why I'm wrong.

Do you have actual reasons other than neighborhood speculation?

First, Nero was a stronger scum read for me, so of course I was going to pursue him before Seanald. Second, I told Nacho that if he was able to get a Seanald wagon going, that'd I'd join it in a heartbeat. Lastly, I started considering moving my vote onto a compromise wagon during the weekend, since no one wanted to go after Nero. However, the only major major wagon at the time was Rena, and I would have rather kept my vote where it was and have been yesterday's lynch than put my vote there. Closer to deadline I noticed that 3 people had voted for Seanald, so I moved my vote there in order to lynch my other scum read.

I get rather getting lynched than placing your vote on Rena. That makes perfect sense.

I don't get not moving your vote off of Nero when it was very clear there was support for a Seanald wagon, lynching Seanald should have been a very desirable outcome for you and you made no attempt to make the day about anything other than Bulba vs. Rena.

What you're really saying here is "I would have rather myself or Rena be lynched than try to start a wagon on Seanald myself".

[CrashTextDummie]

Lots of people telling me Bulba is town and they can't all be scum. AK's read in particular is rather compelling after the Nero flip, and I'm begrudgingly going to give it a rest for now.

unvote, vote: PeregrineV

[CrashTextDummie]

I didn't like the way you pushed me yesterday. Your primary reason was that you thought I was scum partners with Nero and that we were distancing from each other. Yet, with your primary case on Nero, you were voting for me instead. Later, you said that you still thought Nero was scum, but that we were not partners. However, you still kept your vote on me. All your reasons for voting me yesterday were repeatedly countered, yet you continued to push them almost out of desperation.

Thinking you were scum with Nero wasn't my primary reason to vote you. I voted you on D3 because of your scummy push against Slandaar and only after Nero joined you on his wagon did I start to think you two were scum together. I kept suspecting you because you continued to present arbitrary reasons to justify your actions. I maintain that your alleged theory stances look like excuses to support a scummy agenda rather than them actually informing your reads. These include:
- We have 2 3-man scum teams and only scum would suggest otherwise, used to push Slandaar
- We have two scum within the neighborhoods, one each between my neighborhood and Desperado's, used to push Slandaar and myself, but not Seanald
- Active scum is more dangerous than lurking scum, used to push Nero over Seanald

There is not only a strong trend of you placing bad votes almost exclusively based on theory stances that are at best debatable, but it's clear to me that you change your stripes depending on what suits your purposes at the time.

That's

my primary reason for voting you, and none of it was countered in any way.

On hindsight, I also no longer feel that the plays I thought made you town came from a town mindset. Your wanting time to post final thought was a survival mechanism, since ThAd was going to shoot you during the night, and although you commented on everything else in the game, you purposely held off on delivering any final thoughts whatsoever. If I was town in that position, my primary focus would be getting those final reads out first, followed by commenting on current events. You stalled for the entirety of d3, and in the end, you still didn't deliver any final reads, although I think people had forgotten about it by that point.

Based on memory, I asked for time because it felt like the game was very close to getting to night and I hadn't yet had a chance to formulate my thoughts. As the day went on, I did get a chance to post what at the time was relevant to me and after that it was implicit that I was okay with the day to move on. You were all "welp, I can't do anything because I don't have permission from CTD", which is entirely your problem, not mine.

What you're accusing me of makes zero sense as a "survival mechanism", because it doesn't do anything to improve my chances of not getting shot by ThAd.

I also feel that my initial gut read of the massclaim suggestion was correct in that it was rolefishing. Sure, you eventually came out with reads based off of it, but given the time between the initial call for a massclaim and your analysis, that would have been easy to fake.

This is a silly accusation not only because I've made this exact play several times as town, but also because you generally can't analyze reactions without allowing for time to pass in order for those reactions to actually happen. Why don't we look at the quality of that "easily faked" analysis?
I was right on:
Mac, Thor, fuzzy, ArcAngel, Oversoul, Slandaar, Syryana, EddieFenix
Wrong on:
Nero Cain, Red Ryu
Not wrong on:
Kublai Khan, Seanald

One scum slipped through the cracks, one false positive among the suspects vs. one caught scum, eight accurate town reads. That's pretty fucking solid for a page 30 analysis and a powerful demonstration of how thinking outside the box can lead to scumhunting success.

Looking at your current list of reads, it matches up surprisingly well with that same list I posted nearly 200 pages ago. Switch Ffullisade with HD and there you go. If you had actually looked at the analysis again instead of just throwing accusations at me, you would have recognized it as the great piece of scumhunting that it is.

I also no longer feel that you outing your neighborhood was town driven. You saw an opportunity in Syry's flip, and you essentially threw your neighbor under the bus for towncred, and subsequently suggested this line of investigation, which you are now trying to refute. I think that you saw it as a chance to gain towncred, and as soon as you realized that Syrys' flip wouldn't help you in that regard whatsoever, you quickly withdrew it, which I'm not sure you would if you were town.

Something else that doesn't make any sense as a scum ploy whatsoever. If I get my neighbor lynched based on this line of reasoning, I've just made the case for my own lynch the following day. It does the opposite of garnering towncred. And my neighborhood spec at the time doesn't compare at all to yours, because I had more information to go on or at least I thought I have. I knew I was town in my neighborhood and I thought another town neighbor just flipped. Yes, I made the assumption that there wouldn't be two all-town neighborhoods, but a) the issue became much more complex once we were dealing with 3 neighborhoods and b) you were only willing to go with your assumption on days 3 and 5, but somehow not on D4 when it would have been Seanalds turn under the spotlight.

Finally, the notion that I wouldn't withdraw as town after it was pointed out that I made a factual error is laughable.

I moved my vote off of Nero, because it was close to deadline and no one was willing to lynch Nero with me. To be honest, I would have preferred a Nero lynch, but since no one was willing to vote him, I switched to my other scumread, whose wagon was building up.

By "close to deadline", you of course mean the day before deadline, which we all know from personal experience is the best time to start actually start working towards a lynch.

Okay, someone needs to give me a PV-scum case right now, because, honestly, I'm not seeing it.

I can only speak for myself:
- Involvement in the Rena wagon
- Failure to address concerns about the Rena wagon
- Scummy predecessor
- Play feels generally off (lots of quoting stuff from long ago without doing much to analyze it, little involvement in what's currently going on at any give time, etc.)

[CrashTextDummie]

Had two huge exams this week (and a couple last week), the same exams whose preparation have kept my time rather limited for the past 3 months, and I really should have announced V/LA this time. My apologies to all the players and the mod. Needless to say, i kind of lost touch with this game.

I'm even more confident in this given CTD's actions yesterday concerning my wagon. He was really trying to push it through as quickly as possible. He probably knew that once I died, my line of inquiry died with me, and as today has shown, even with acknowledgment that scum is likely in the neighborhoods, the majority of the town wants to hunt elsewhere.

This is basically the same argument that "I was desperately holding on despite being countered" which I have already refuted. It wasn't my intention in my last post to get you to restate your whole sermon, as indeed you've said it a million times already. I was demonstrating that I wasn't countered at all. To recap, your excuse for everything is that you have weird game theory stances. That is

my opinion

. Even if I didn't think they were weird, I'd find it suspicious that they just so happen to align to get you to push town lynches and avoid scum lynches.

Your new spin on things is that I tried to "push your lynch through quickly", which is a complete fabrication. First, what you're suggesting doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because people not buying into your theory with you alive shows that there would have been no pressing need for hypo-scum me to get rid of you. Secondly, people strongly push for their suspect's lynch all the time, and you interpreting this as me wanting to lynch you quickly is nothing more than you arbitrarily projecting your case onto my play. Case in point: You don't suspect Nacho for "quickly wanting to lynch" Rena, despite the fact that her being lynched would have 100% benefited scum. Thirdly, and this is the main problem with this whole line of reasoning, I actually

had

a reason to be "desperate", if that's what you want to call it, because I very strongly felt that Rena shouldn't be lynched, and being on your wagon and making sure it stayed ahead of hers was the only way I had of preventing that.

The only thing that's left of your case on me is the "stalling on giving reads" accusation, because quite frankly I don't remember the details of what was going on enough to refute it further. I don't believe for a second that much of what you've accused me of are actually reasons you suspect me, because it's all interpretive (and in most cases actively blocking out the very obvious pro-town motivation behind my actions). You are twisting my actions to fit your read, and that's what scum does.

---------------

This current HD wagon is almost an exact repeat of yesterday's Rena wagon. Minus PV, it has all same people as in that vote count I quoted, and as previously mentioned, I strongly suspect that there's scum in that group. On the other hand, it's also a repeat of yesterday's Seanald wagon, with Nacho leading and a whole bunch of people sheeping in quick succession, and that resulted in a scum lynch, so meh. The actual case looks decent enough.

I just told you why. Because math. Although I did realize partway through that I was probably wrong and it depends on how many scum are left.

Also, the neighbor scum is probably blue and probably doesn't have a partner, so... nice try?

That last statement depends on how many scum are left just as much as everything else so I'm not sure why you'd make it.

I have some more stuff to address, but I have to run.

[CrashTextDummie]

"Weird" theory stances? Not scummy, but weird? Then you back that up by just saying that it's your opinion. Seriously, the wording here is really wishy-washy. It's like you want to continue pushing me as scum but are now afraid of the backlash that would come after my flip. Also, where did I say that this was my "excuse for everything"?

The wording isn't wishy-washy, you've just entered full word-twisting mode. We've long established that I find your theory stances scummy. I've said more than once that I struggle seeing them as part of a pro-town mindset. You have repeated them and defended them, and

in my opinion

, it doesn't change the fact that you are scum. You claim that I've been countered on everything, and that I am therefore scummy to continue my push against you yesterday and this is my retort. And no, you didn't say this was your excuse for everything, that is firmly my interpretation of your defense.

Your new spin on things is that I tried to "push your lynch through quickly", which is a complete fabrication.

No it's not. Everyone else that day was taking notice on how strange you were acting when pushing my wagon.

Show me quotes.

Secondly, people strongly push for their suspect's lynch all the time, and you interpreting this as me wanting to lynch you quickly is nothing more than you arbitrarily projecting your case onto my play.

True, but normally when they push a lynch, they don't talk about someone else the entire time.

It's no secret that I would have preferred a Nero Cain lynch yesterday, but unlike you, I was willing to compromise. It's also a huge stretch to accuse me of talking about someone else "the entire time". I had ample reason to vote you and have communicated this sufficiently.

Thirdly, and this is the main problem with this whole line of reasoning, I actually

had

a reason to be "desperate", if that's what you want to call it, because I very strongly felt that Rena shouldn't be lynched, and being on your wagon and making sure it stayed ahead of hers was the only way I had of preventing that.

Nice try. The Rena wagon didn't really become a thing until AFTER I was brought up to L-1. Saying that you were on my wagon to protect her is a lie.

Your original accusation was that I continued to push you "almost out of desperation". There is your explanation. You were the leading wagon for almost the entire day and a lynch i strongly supported, giving me zero reason to remove my vote until Seanald's claim. When the Rena wagon built up, I naturally intensified my efforts to get you lynched over her.

You are twisting my actions to fit your read, and that's what scum does.

That's funny, because I had a town read on you for the longest time. It was PoE and your actions following Slandaar's lynch that made me reconsider my read on you. Nice try.

Exactly my point. The very same actions that made me your #1 town read to the extent where you would have preferred being vigged over me you now present as reasons to suspect me. If you had stuck to just your PoE, it would have at least sounded consistent, but you retrofitted my entire play to accommodate your PoE in order to cook up a case against me.

This current HD wagon is almost an exact repeat of yesterday's Rena wagon. Minus PV, it has all same people as in that vote count I quoted, and as previously mentioned, I strongly suspect that there's scum in that group. On the other hand, it's also a repeat of yesterday's Seanald wagon, with Nacho leading and a whole bunch of people sheeping in quick succession, and that resulted in a scum lynch, so meh. The actual case looks decent enough.

What are you trying to say here? Because it looks like you're both for and against the lynch.

He's not my preferred lynch, is what I'm saying, and I suspect there's scum on his wagon. Scum on his wagon doesn't make him town though and I could see him as scum based on the case presented and his reaction to it.

Who do you think was scum on yesterday's Rena wagon, and why?

[CrashTextDummie]

Unvote

Need to regroup. I have a couple hours to reread tomorrow.

[CrashTextDummie]

I'm beyond pleased with this result. Believe it or not, I haven't won a game as scum since 2007 (!).

Didn't think it was possible. PA played a fantastic game. Town didn't play half bad either. Tough endgame for Nacho and PV.

Dead QTs, since I know at least PA is anxious:
http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/z748TWKYbhbG
http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/6dC6zTFWkFh

I have more thoughts a bit later.

[CrashTextDummie]

The red QT is an entertaining read. A personal highlight is Cephrir stressing over me "nailing him in every post" when all I thought I was doing was fake a case on him to pass the time. You guys scumhunted well and had a better grasp on the set-up than we ever did. Interesting that we mostly considered the same people for kills/PRs and kind of a wonder that we never overlapped.

There was quite a lot of frustration in the QT about the endgame situation, but it shouldn't be forgotten that town was incredibly lucky to make it to endgame to begin with. You were

this

close to losing on D7 when PA unvoted Nacho with 30 minutes to go before deadline. I thought the town played a decent game; 4 scumlynches vs. 4 mislynches is not a bad track record, and particular props to Nacho and Ffulisade for figuring the game out when they did. But I don't think it can be argued that we stole this win.

One thing I think should be brought up is that town almost certainly would have benefited from D1-massclaim. They got virtually zero mileage out of their power roles, not the rolecop, not the BP, the JK, the watcher, the friendly neighbor. And the vig only got one shot out (on town). It's hard to envision a worse result on that front if all the cards had been put on the table. I also think it would have made for a fascinating game, with lots of interesting synergy between roles and exciting problems and possibilities for red scum in particular.

I've retired the D1-massclaim suggestion as a game opener, mostly because this game has probably shot any possibility of it ever leading anywhere productive again. But I really

do

think it's a very viable town strategy, and I do believe in the kind of analysis on it I did in this game. You may have noticed that I didn't discuss this with my scumbuddies in pre-game, and consequently 2/3 of them ended up in the scum pile (and IIRC, I kind of cheated to keep RedRyu out of there). Bulba just so happened to have strong feelings on the matter (which dictated what he perceived to be the "town-him" reaction), leaving Cephrir as the only scum who instinctively reacted in a pro-town manner. Notably, not a single scum supported the scheme, lending credence to my assumption that scum

really

hate D1 massclaim. If you had taken my strong town list from that analysis and ran with it, a lot of problems could have been avoided (naturally, I was inclined to "doubt" those reads myself... ). Some food for thought.

Ultimately, this game ended up being a rollercoaster of emotions, which, win or lose, is my favorite kind of game. Thanks everyone for playing, and thanks Mastin for modding and particularly for the brilliant flavor (your scummy nom will be posted as soon as you make your flavor QT available :p)!

I may have some thoughts on the set-up once Mastin has posted his own.

[CrashTextDummie]

Bulba just so happened to have strong feelings on the matter (which dictated what he perceived to be the "town-him" reaction)

I really dislike mass claims. Just so you know.

Yes, I've gathered that from your QT. Do you agree that town would have benefited if they went with it in this game? :p

[CrashTextDummie]

(CTD's response? "Oh you have GOT to be kidding me. I hate, hate, hate the neighbor role. Hate it. HATE it. And scum on top of it. Rage." He had noooooooooo clue. )

And Mastin's response to that?

Sorry?

You had no clue either. But thanks for bringing that up. And rubbing it in. *grumble*

More flavor please! And post-game Mastin-thoughts. It's one of the main reasons I signed up for this game. :p

[CrashTextDummie]

Mastin, god damn you! It's been more than a month. I still care.

[CrashTextDummie]

Don't be so hard on yourself, Mastin. Depression is a bitch. There's plenty of reason for you to be proud of this game.

Now that I was able to read the rest of the flavor, I could finally give you that well deserved flavor nom. And maybe that'll motivate you to make it more easily accessible.

Also, I quite enjoyed reading some of the development process of this game and I think more mods should make this kind of information available. a) it's informative and b) it makes it easier to analyze where things went wrong (and right!) in set-up design.

Interestingly enough, you had the right idea very early in the process:

Basically, from a technical standpoint, daytalk makes the Red Mafia scumteam a LOT stronger than the Blue Mafia scumteam.

Not quite sure where along the line you were swayed, but there you have it, succinctly worded and 100% accurate. :p