Tales of You (Endgame)

[Titan]

Yep! That's the one. I still blame regfan >_>

[CarbonFiber]

What are your thoughts so far on the last few pages?

~ F-16

[Titan]

I'm at work and briefly skimmed. There's a few things I'm mulling over.

I do wonder why mastin didn't just link your iso and call it "ragey" as there are some posts there that can only be called "ragey" if your dictionary defines "ragey" as inquisitive and reasonable sounding. >_>

Mostly I'm trying to think what I think about clyton as his posts sound kinda like wood. Wood I tell you wood!!! However, that might be play style and adjusting to a new site. Also, not really worried about a player based on logic reading me properly though; they typically do. There's something I'm trying to place my finger on though, so that will have to wait.

I echo DV's question about whether or not Nacho has said anything about them; I forget to ask that yesterday.

[CarbonFiber]

Do you think I am wrong about Mastin or should look at anyone else in particular?

Regarding Clyton's posts, they do sound unemotional but I am fairly sure that's his playstyle. I disagree with his view of the gamestate so that's something that should unravel as we get more content from him and he could be looking at it from a different POV.

~ F-16

[Titan]

Although Nacho will probably call DV town >_> I'm more interested in that he mentions DV and what he says as I want to see if it matches my thoughts.

One day I might talk to Arthur, but he hasn't been on aim so who knows, but we're not anywhere near being in the same book let alone the same page based on the reads list he posed last night.

I still need to put together my thoughts, which will have to wait until I get home.

[Titan]

I'm not sure what to think about Mastin. Last night I briefly looked back at Anything Goes to get reacquainted with his scum game, but what I do remember from that game was in the scum qt he was like once I get going I will be confirmed town to everyone and once that happens anyone who tries to push me will be mislynched by the people who read me as town. Something along those lines; that is definitely not a direct quote and our scum qt was over 1000 posts long there is no way I'm going to get the direct quote. But I definitely don't think that the look how town I am is a town tell for him as he's just as arrogant about being town when he's scum. The way he's reading people makes no sense at all, and it doesn't feel like he's actually trying to read people but is getting reads out there. Ugh I had something else and can't remember it now.

Natidrake - What do you think about cupcake panda and his scum read on mastin?

Oh I remember - The role crumbing thing is getting to me. I'm not sure what to make of it, but the hey yeah investigate me thing bugs me too. Cabd's put godfather's in both of the last tales games and though I don't know if he'd put in the godfather who chooses what role would be shown to a role cop again, I'd bet he'd definitely put in something that could interfere, so IDK

[CarbonFiber]

Nearly everything I do in games I do for multiple reasons. I don't generally keep checklists of stuff I expect to see from players when I play with them. When something seems off in someone's play, then I think about why - what they're doing that I haven't seen before, what they're not doing that I have seen, etc. Those kinds of observations become shorthand in my reads, but there's usually a whole cascade of detail I can post when asked. Mac and I have played in about 10 games, now. And I just realized that this isn't your first game with him. He was one of the heads in the Stuffed Crust hydra. The head I was mostly townreading. :/

You said something earlier about thinking that you had irritated me in the ny169 game by asking for more detail about my reads. IIRC I did get snappish about being asked for updated reads at one point, but it was the week my laptop bit the dust and I was posting from a netbook or a tablet for a few days. massive rereads, heavy analysis, and even documenting my thoughts with links was a huge pain that week and I put it off until I bought a new laptop. IIRC it was 4 or 5 days duration.

I meant to respond to this but was waiting to develop a few more reads. I forgot that Mac was in NY169. I mostly only recalled Varsoon. I am trying to reset and re-read again to make sure I'm not incorrectly townreading scum. Titan and Mac are the ones I am most sure of as town at this point. What were the footnotes about Mac that concerned you?
~ F-16

[PeregrineV]

Back from VLA. I'll catch up on the game before it gets out of my control.

OK, not a total fail, but busy work week.

[Mac]

A scumread on Tammy isn't sustainable because scum who scumread Tammy with shit reasons generally wind up dead. I don't know why he chose to scumread Tammy initially other than WIFOM or cred for going after high hanging fruit. He has to figure out a way to back out of the scumread and pretending to see eye to eye with Tammy and her suspicion of me was a perfect opportunity considering he was already working up a scumread based off of FT's initial post.

mastin's a fairly competent scum player and not afraid to go after strong players iirc, I'm also fairly certain he wouldn't ever take on a read he felt the need to back out of as scum. This feels to me like you're trying to manipulate mastin's play to suit your thoughts, rather than manipulating your thoughts to suit mastin's play. I don't like it.

Vote: CarbonFiber

Stalin - be around in 3 hours or so? I'm looking to discuss CarbonFiber, Hawkie & Clyton. Probably someone else too, but I've forgotten.

[CarbonFiber]

mastin's a fairly competent scum player and not afraid to go after strong players iirc, I'm also fairly certain he wouldn't ever take on a read he felt the need to back out of as scum.

Not being afraid to go after strong players has nothing to do with strategically backing down from a read. If you're competent scum, you adapt to circumstances. That means, you look for a way to back out of a read it isn't serving your interests anymore.

[CarbonFiber]

Mastin says he thinks Elemental is our partner based on the same reasons I provided for believing Elemental is Mastin's partner.

But that totally ignores the point of my analysis. The point was that Elemental is casting far more suspicion on us than Mastin. Think about it this way, if Elemental were our partner, why is he going after us instead of Mastin? The whole point behind the tell is that you attack your partner, but then vote for the guy attacking your partner. It's not that explicit in Elemental's post (Eleental doesn't quite vote for us yet) but that's the gist of what he's doing.

I never played with Mastin before, but from what I understand, shouldn't we expect better from him? He doesn't seem to be reading very carefully, or considering any sort of motivation behind posts.

-FT

[CarbonFiber]

Peregrine, did you catch up? What are your thoughts?

-FT

[Kagura]

re: anyone asking about Nacho:

I haven't been able to make any contact with him since he posted in our hydra QT (and I subsequently first posted his initial reads). If I didn't mention your slot in that post, he didn't comment about your slot.

-b

[Kagura]

Gonna need to be more specific than that. I've scumread lots of people stronger people are townreading; not sure who specifically you're referring to.

I mean you're giving me a paranoia attack when you say "that thing you called me town for? I'm not town for

that.

You should be townreading me for

these things.

"

-b

[Breakfast With Sandy]

A scumread on Tammy isn't sustainable because scum who scumread Tammy with shit reasons generally wind up dead. I don't know why he chose to scumread Tammy initially other than WIFOM or cred for going after high hanging fruit. He has to figure out a way to back out of the scumread and pretending to see eye to eye with Tammy and her suspicion of me was a perfect opportunity considering he was already working up a scumread based off of FT's initial post.

mastin's a fairly competent scum player and not afraid to go after strong players iirc, I'm also fairly certain he wouldn't ever take on a read he felt the need to back out of as scum. This feels to me like you're trying to manipulate mastin's play to suit your thoughts, rather than manipulating your thoughts to suit mastin's play. I don't like it.

Vote: CarbonFiber

Stalin - be around in 3 hours or so? I'm looking to discuss CarbonFiber, Hawkie & Clyton. Probably someone else too, but I've forgotten.

phoneposting at hospital. we'll be here a couple more hours probs. Will post my thoughts when we're home.

[Kagura]

A scumread on Tammy isn't sustainable because scum who scumread Tammy with shit reasons generally wind up dead.

Weren't you following Vesperia? Where all three scum did this on D1 and it didn't really backfire? (HKC was caught for being fucking crazy, ProHawk was caught via night actions, Orc was not caught at all)

None were really caught for having Tammy as a scumread.

-b

[MastinSSK]

How on earth do you interpret any of those posts as "ragey?"
~ F-16

Because ragey does not equal

bold,

italicized,

underlined, CAPS LOCKED,

LARGE

FONT

posting. That's a type of rage, sure, but ragey posting isn't the same thing. It's, I dunno how to say it. Aggression? Hostility? Snappiness? Fury-that's-not-furious? That's the best explanation I've got.

I will also have to hear Mastin's defense.

I've got no intention of defending myself.

It's as I said before. You either get that we're town, or you don't. Like, there's no better way to describe it. No tell. No defense. Heck, no role. No play. Nothing changes those. Perhaps those things contribute to the whole. But ultimately, you either understand or you don't.

I am as convinced as I can be at this point. I am rarely this confident in my reads.

And I don't think you're town making this post. 'Specially since it goes against everything my lessons taught to you.

(By the way, Clyton is hilariously town in his posts. Yes, his tone is robotic, but his content is pretty dang solid.)

I'm really, really, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally not liking Fox/Hound's posting, by the way.

In general, I think there is such a 'look how town I am!' quality to many of their posts that I actually have a pretty passionate scumread on them.

I've gone over this before,
Because this argument really smells,
For mastin, this isn't actually scummy,
If anything, it's a town tell

I wish. I faked it too much as scum for it to be a towntell anymore. Used to be, sure, yeah. Don't really think it is anymore.

I would expect that this,
Is something F16 should know,
For a meta-heavy player,
Why does his mastin read blow?

He goes on and on about mastin,
Forming a bad read on him,
But it's almost as if he's given mastin's ISO,
Nothing more than a simple skim

Yep, basically one of the main things about F-16. He's basically discarded everything he knows about me and treating me like a total stranger of a player.

Possibly in a game which is not a uPick, and not a Cabd game, I'd wonder if it makes that player town.

Actually, we didn't submit anything. I was busy at the time, highly V/LA that weekend. I saw the PM asking us to submit, and had an "Oh, crud" moment, since I thought SSK had submitted, I didn't really know what to submit, so I forwarded the PM to MafiaSSK, and basically left for the weekend. And returned to see in my inbox from him, "I'll let you pick.
Unless you want the mod to randomize choices for us."

...Which means unless he did submit something (I sincerely doubt it), it was randomly given to us. I like what we got; it

is

highly appropriate for us. But it wasn't something we actively chose to get. (I'm still figuring out how we'll claim one of our abilities, though; the mods wised up. Last time, I used TVTropes articles. This time, the name of the ability IS a TVTropes article, and I'm not sure I can link to that. )

I do wonder why mastin didn't just link your iso and call it "ragey" as there are some posts there that can only be called "ragey" if your dictionary defines "ragey" as inquisitive and reasonable sounding.

Because it's not the entirety of his iso that's ragey? I'm too lazy to explain why each and every one of the ones I linked to was ragey, but I CAN select the posts that have the rageyness strongest in them to give you a better idea of what I mean.

Do you think I am wrong about Mastin or should look at anyone else in particular?
Regarding Clyton's posts, they do sound unemotional but I am fairly sure that's his playstyle. I disagree with his view of the gamestate so that's something that should unravel as we get more content from him and he could be looking at it from a different POV.

This really.
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally.
Looks like scum manipulation to me. Like. I dunno how to best explain it. This is me, what I do as scum, trying to manipulate specific players? I'm not sure I can explain it better, but I can think of a game that kinda sorta can show what I mean. Read this post, and then read my posts in Too Many Heads, to see what I mean. This is the type of post I made towards the AP/ETL/Guyett hydra in particular, who I was mega-buddying mostly out of fear and necessity.

I'm not sure what to make of it, but the hey yeah investigate me thing bugs me too. Cabd's put godfather's in both of the last tales games and though I don't know if he'd put in the godfather who chooses what role would be shown to a role cop again, I'd bet he'd definitely put in something that could interfere, so IDK

Like I said. It requires trust on my end, that yes I'm town asking to be investigated and yes I know what I'm doing. But to re-emphasize. Any other role, I'd probably not ask. You can trust me that with THIS role, investigating me is a good idea, and if the investigation were successful, it'd be gamebreakingly powerful for the town. I'm well aware of what Cabd did last game. And that's why I said that investigating me requires trust, that I know what I'm doing, that if things worked out, I could address that exact concern. But I don't want to fullclaim. Perhaps D2, maybe later (like D3). I

could

claim, but again, think it'd be best to wait.

(Side-note, but one advantage of being in a Cabd game is that nobody's going to be able to figure out my role from the softclaims I've done. They may think they have. They're sure to have speculation in mind, and have plenty of ideas. But they'll never correctly figure it out. And yet when I pull the pieces together for a fullclaim, everyone will go, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That makes total sense now!")

This feels to me like you're trying to manipulate mastin's play to suit your thoughts, rather than manipulating your thoughts to suit mastin's play.

Also this.

Mastin says he thinks Elemental is our partner based on the same reasons I provided for believing Elemental is Mastin's partner.

Not exactly. I said my reasoning is

similar

. Haven't quite figured out how to properly express it, though. Kinda difficult to verbalize.

The point was that Elemental is casting far more suspicion on us than Mastin.

And you're casting more suspicion onto us than onto Elemental.

I never played with Mastin before, but from what I understand, shouldn't we expect better from her?

Welcome to reality, where Mastin is not nearly as competent as she is in theory. I wish. I wish I could come in. Name the scum. And be done. I wish I could do that, without it being arrogance and with it actually being correct. I wish I was a competent scumhunter. I wish I was a scumhunting goddess. But I'm not. I don't suck! By no means am I incompetent. But I'm not nearly as good as my reputation suggests; I'm overall mediocre. Perhaps mediocre-high overall, but still mediocre all the same.

She doesn't seem to be reading very carefully, or considering any sort of motivation behind posts.

'Course I'm not reading. I hate wallposts, 'specially wallposts that are hard to read thanks to bad paragraph formatting. But I am reading motivation. It's one of the main reasons that a lot of my reads have changed as they have.

I mean you're giving me a paranoia attack when you say "that thing you called me town for? I'm not town for

that.

You should be townreading me for

these things.

"

Ah. But I actually said "I'm not town for that. If you wanted to make an argument for me being town for similar, these things would be better...but even those kinda suck." And it's true. I'll shoot down bad reasoning for calling me scum, but in the interest of fairness, that also requires me to shoot down bad reasoning for calling me town.

[CarbonFiber]

I've been thinking about this game more and although I lean towards Mastin being scum more than town, I am not as certain as I was last night mostly because people who can actually read him and those who are obviously town seem to hold very strong opinions about him which makes me wonder if I am wrong.

I quickly re-read through Too Many Heads mafia where Rancid (Nati and Muffin) nailed down Mastin as scum with ease and their strong townread on him here gives me pause. I doubt Mastin would be able to manipulate them into lynching people that townread him. Rancid, I can see why certain things may not make him scum but what's the big picture? Can you elaborate on why he is so obviously town? One thing I noticed you picked up on in Too Many Heads was that Mastin can't replicate "whimsy" as scum. Is he whimsy here? Or has he done anything else that he can't replicate so far?

The other reason is Bork's read. Bork, are you still solidifying your town read on Mastin or are you sure about it? Can you explain your reasons for me? If town who should I be looking at instead? You mentioned Post 164 as very town. Can you elaborate on that? Also, what are your reads on Rancid and Breakfast so far? I am also having trouble reading Clyton because I was taking a much more different approach to the game that he was. Can you explain your townread there more in depth?

---

Other reads:

Bork's posting of

Kagura

feels very town on a re-read. I think by waiting for Nacho, I was missing the obvious. The way Bork engages with arguments gives me strong vibes from the first two Tales games and I didn't feel the same tone when following a scum game of his (We The Purple). His question to NotScience in Post 72 mirrored what FT and I initially wondered as well regarding NotScience's read on SSK. I also like his engagement with Rancid in Post 472 and it matches up with the critical thinking and assertively inserting himself into arguments that I've seen in Tales of Vesperia where he engaged Cait Sith on their arguments very specifically going over the details and he comes acrosss the same way tonally. I feel I was kinda missing the obvious with this read here. ffery, do you think I am on the right track? Because I'd probably bank more on my townread here than other previous reads which are growing a lot more stale. I am confident in this read even without hearing from Nacho at all.

Spoiler: Updated reads

Town (S->W): Titan, Bork, Mac, Fox, RedGyarados, LB

Pedit: Will get to the rest later.

~ F-16

[DeasVail]

Although Nacho will probably call DV town >_>

There is the odd occasion where he doesn't. Usually we're either townbuddies or scumbuddies though so it's ok!

re: anyone asking about Nacho:

I haven't been able to make any contact with him since he posted in our hydra QT (and I subsequently first posted his initial reads). If I didn't mention your slot in that post, he didn't comment about your slot.

-b

No problem Bork. When Nacho gets here he just needs to explain why he hasn't called us (me) town yet!

~~

Regarding MastinSSK, I think people are misunderstanding where I'm coming from (and this is my fault). By 'look how town I am', I don't mean the arrogance. I mean that many parts of their posts feel fabricated in order to look town without there being any other point to it. This is not something I've felt about Mastin at least in my other games with her.

[The Fox and the Hound]

Although Nacho will probably call DV town >_>

There is the odd occasion where he doesn't. Usually we're either townbuddies or scumbuddies though so it's ok!

re: anyone asking about Nacho:

I haven't been able to make any contact with him since he posted in our hydra QT (and I subsequently first posted his initial reads). If I didn't mention your slot in that post, he didn't comment about your slot.

-b

No problem Bork. When Nacho gets here he just needs to explain why he hasn't called us (me) town yet!

~~

Regarding MastinSSK, I think people are misunderstanding where I'm coming from (and this is my fault). By 'look how town I am', I don't mean the arrogance. I mean that many parts of their posts feel fabricated in order to look town without there being any other point to it. This is not something I've felt about Mastin at least in my other games with her.

Urgh noo! I am so bad.

[CarbonFiber]

Regarding MastinSSK, I think people are misunderstanding where I'm coming from (and this is my fault). By 'look how town I am', I don't mean the arrogance. I mean that many parts of their posts feel fabricated in order to look town without there being any other point to it. This is not something I've felt about Mastin at least in my other games with her.

What do you make of his early certainty in townreads and choices of players to townread for various reasons?
~ F-16

[Breakfast With Sandy]

Really now? Is my posting usually that bad?

What did you like about it?

I liked your tone, which felt pretty relaxed and confident and I liked the posts you chose to quotestripe and respond to. Sometimes in the early game you play more like a reflective surface than like a player who is engaged and thinking. That wasn't the case in your (as far as I know) first post of this game.

[Kagura]

The other reason is Bork's read. Bork, are you still solidifying your town read on Mastin or are you sure about it? Can you explain your reasons for me? If town who should I be looking at instead? You mentioned Post 164 as very town. Can you elaborate on that? Also, what are your reads on Rancid and Breakfast so far? I am also having trouble reading Clyton because I was taking a much more different approach to the game that he was. Can you explain your townread there more in depth?

re: mastin. Still solidifying, but I'd call it considerably left of null at this point. Mastin is one of a few players I try to read tonally more than interaction-y (this is partially due to the fact that she has rarely been alive late in games I've been in), and that is one of the few cases where I'm actually hopeful that introducing meta isn't going to totally fuck me over like it does when I try to meta shit like activity level or post length.

Look at Open 505. I fucked the read here up for a time but the way I recall getting back on track on it was reading another game. She achieves what I described to Nacho in the hydra QT for this game as the 'pinnacle of self-awareness' as town where she just gets a really good indication on how town is going to react to her continued survival and decides whether or not it is pro-town to behave in a certain way.

Compare to like Walking Dead - best described really as more straight laced and motivated by survivalism when attacked rather than keeping the gamestate healthy, as she was in 505. Maybe better defined as the lack of what I'm seeing in the other game I linked (which I recall is kinda what was on my mind when I voted her)

Anyway for this game, and the reason I pointed to 164 in particular - that seed of "I know what I'm doing sounds good to me and I'm calling out the flak I'm gonna take for it before I say it but I really do need to say it" is there, and is indicative of Mastin town. I feel like Mastin scum just wouldn't make posts where she needed to follow them up with posts like 164 at all.

(Apologize if I screwed up gender pronouns in there but I think I got em all.)

re: other slots you asked me about: I need to scour RBD (fucking read that as Rainbow Dash every time) just cause I tend not to do more than skim the rhyme posts.

I also need to think a little bit more about ffery outside of her interaction with me this game. I like her candor (such as about being able to fool me and talking about why she does what she does), but that is really all I have. Outside of what I summarized in #423 which I fucked up the execution of (and her pointing this out is actually a bit town, now that I think about it), #427 is maybe the only post that caused me to do a double take so far since it retroactively applies reasoning for a thing that she can't demonstrate was actually her intent, but I don't see any real sinister goal with that.

Apparently I have a minor town lean on her after considering everything I just typed. Less so than mastinslot.

-b

[Breakfast With Sandy]

Bork's posting of Kagura feels very town on a re-read. I think by waiting for Nacho, I was missing the obvious. The way Bork engages with arguments gives me strong vibes from the first two Tales games and I didn't feel the same tone when following a scum game of his (We The Purple). His question to NotScience in Post 72 mirrored what FT and I initially wondered as well regarding NotScience's read on SSK. I also like his engagement with Rancid in Post 472 and it matches up with the critical thinking and assertively inserting himself into arguments that I've seen in Tales of Vesperia where he engaged Cait Sith on their arguments very specifically going over the details and he comes acrosss the same way tonally. I feel I was kinda missing the obvious with this read here. ffery, do you think I am on the right track? Because I'd probably bank more on my townread here than other previous reads which are growing a lot more stale. I am confident in this read even without hearing from Nacho at all.

Yes, I do. Post 81 or whatever the number was - the post that nailed an early townread for me was probably not something that would resonate for most players. His posts since then have his particular brand of town openness, assertiveness and caution.

[Breakfast With Sandy]

I'm squelching an urge to mediate between some townreads because sometimes when I mediate it turns out one of the players are scum and mediating muddies some of the interactions that might otherwise be more alignment indicative. But, right now, I feel like the players are all probably town. :/

I dunno. I'll probably eventually meddle.