Micro 508: MafiaMafiaNotMafia (Bins' Soup Sucks)

[Parama]

declaring your group as the all-town group undercuts any shred of scumhunting you do today, because if you think your group is all town, how are you going to push for a scumlynch?
as well it's buddying to your groupmates, and it's an easy thing to declare without really substantiating it.
declaring your group as the town group when scum also means you can push on the actual all-town group easier bcuz your justification is that your group has no scum, so the other two groups do. and if all three people in one group flip town you can fall back on the "well i thought my group was town so the scum had to be in that group, but i was wrong" excuse pretty easily
and yes i did notice that both scum in the game i read did this too, but i was already figuring it was a scum a scum move to do, especially day 1, even before they both pulled the trigger on it
really declaring any one group as the all-town group d1 is a bad idea but it's the worst when it's your own group. i see literally no town benefit to declaring it even if you believe it, because now i can't take any scumhunting you do seriously, especially if one single post is going to make you go back on that opinion. on the flip side there's a lot of scum benefit for declaring your own group to be the town group.

[Rainbow Unicat]

page 6 thoughts

i actually haven't, but fortunately reading over the other thread solidified my initial setup thoughts and gave me some J U I C Y as hell information on how to really figure out both town and scum day 2, should we even need to

great. looking forward to day 2.

honestly even if i'd been more theory than scumhunting in your ratio, what would've been wrong with that? it's a setup that's a good degree different from a standard mafia, and literally nobody else is trying to exploit it to make scumhunting easier, i'll theory-dump if i feel like it if it gets everyone else on the same page as me

In general, I find setup spec/theory talk scummy when it comes at the exclusion of scumhunting, because it's an easy way to coast and to look like you're adding something protown to the game state without actually having to push people and try to get reads or make waves BUT this is such an unusual setup and I did once win a scumgame by preventing the town from learning any mafia theory whatsoever so I think ultimately that increasing the mafia theory knowledge of the town is important in this situation, especially since in your case it's accompanied by scumhunting and in the case of you vs chamber you seem to be getting reads from the theory discussion.

Also, I spent a good deal of n1615 pretending to be the IC when I was just an SE and coasted by on coaching all of the newbies (to make it less obvious which newbie i was trying to coach) and helping out with theory talk and then I just buddied everybody until they lynched each other and it worked and I won. So that's where I'm coming from on that.

This is one of those situations though where I get suspicious but then I regret saying something, like the first time I was town on the offsite forum that I sometimes play on, I admitted that I had only posted unofficial votecounts + countdown gifs for towncred in the previous game because the mod only provided final votecounts at the end of the day and it was a good way for me to be present on every page without actually doing anything. But once I said that and voiced suspicion of a player who was doing it in this new game, people became scared of posting votecounts and the town still did actually need regualar vote counts, we just needed to be careful not to handout towncred for it like in previous times.

So uh basically we need the mafia theory please keep doing it but I can't give you towncred for it; I only hand that out for other things.

was the “good enough or me” in 17 directed at notmafia since you said you didn’t mean to quote irish pope but i couldn’t figure out who you were talking to then.

in which direction is the irish pope’s meta thing swaying you in 71?

directed at NM
swayed towards scum, because it's a scummy way to start a game

Thanks for answering these btw.

bins97 yeah, apparently neither of us were feeling it yesterday. it’s not alignment indicative. please read on based on what we are doing not what we're not doing.

ugh

that's pretty much my point
i didn't unvote because i

didnt

get a read

I know. sorry. i'm a bit overextended but that's no excuse. Do you want to try interacting with me? I'm a bit out of my depth because the main scumhunting tools I rely on don't really work in this stage of the game or in a setup of this size but maybe talking will help.

--Plotinus

[Parama]

i do appreciate you keeping your vote on the person you read as scummier in spite of calling both of them town, tho, hmm. if you'd unvoted after the town declaration i'd have had you strung up faster than [insert really fast thing here]

and then plot posted but i really don't have anything to say about that post, except that retelling your life story might not've been necessary

[Rainbow Unicat]

page 7 thoughts.

Do you really think there's such an large amount of "effort" to out in to hunting in your own group that hunting outside of it encroaches on it?

This isn't entirely clear as a question because of some typos I think, but I'd go with yes, yes it is.

why is scumhunting out of your group so arduous?

yeah so PlotCat's catchup just looks like a lot of IIoA which makes my eyes glaze over every single time

I've heard this before and I think it might just be something about the way I use language because I feel like I'm taking stances in every sentences I type. I think most of what I write can be boiled down to "this person just wrote a town post" or "that person just wrote a scum post" or "what's the message you're conveying i still don't know what you're saying".

--Plotinus

[Rainbow Unicat]

vague order of scum->town reads on the lucky/edo/NM group, go

Edo and NM are equal in scumminess, and I think lucky is being genuine?

irish it's because i personally have to decide between you and chamber

and again it doesn't matter which group is the town group because we're lynching in all three groups either way
i'm glad you suspect one of the two people fypov that you should suspect

The point isn't that I have to suspect one of the two, the point is that it doesn't matter if we're split up in groups, I'll still scumhunt like this was a regular game of mafia. Suspecting one or both of you two is not necessary as I could call you both town, but you and I know that's not true.

I am having trouble generating opinions about page 8 that haven't already been stated beyond disliking edosurist's readslist.

@Parama I'm just trying to communicate and explain what I'm thinking. I'll stop, I guess.

--Plotinus.

[Rainbow Unicat]

i don't know why that was quoted.

[Parama]

the first paragraph of your story was fine but the other two are really unnecessary

and welcome to the "omg accidental quote" crew

[Rainbow Unicat]

Yeah, still working on the oversharing thing.

--Plotinus.

[Rainbow Unicat]

@mod, the bella head is vla 'til monday, plot's got this covered.

[chamber]

but you and I know that's not true.

Is this you calling parama scum?

[Bins]

sorry I'm really sick

been in and out of doctors office all day


should be able to get to this tonight

[Parama]

but you and I know that's not true.

Is this you calling parama scum?

or he could be calling himself scum too

i like how your sole contribution is to pop in with "oh hey the other guy who can vote parama might suspect parama now, i should push him on it"
no comments on literally anything else then?

[Edosurist]

declaring your group as the all-town group undercuts any shred of scumhunting you do today, because if you think your group is all town, how are you going to push for a scumlynch?

I don't understand your point. How would seeing my group as town would change the quality of my other reads? And even if I did think I was in the town group, I'm not stupid and I'm still gonna vote for the scummiest person, as I did.

as well it's buddying to your groupmates, and it's an easy thing to declare without really substantiating it.

I think "buddying" is such a moot point here. Someone could then argue that anytime you call someone town, you're buddying them, and therefore you're scum. And I guess you're right about the second part. Once you asked me to explain, I did end up changing my mind.

declaring your group as the town group when scum also means you can push on the actual all-town group easier bcuz your justification is that your group has no scum, so the other two groups do. and if all three people in one group flip town you can fall back on the "well i thought my group was town so the scum had to be in that group, but i was wrong" excuse pretty easily

This is possible, assuming that I'm scum. You can't assume that I'm scum then justify your read by saying I did something that "when scum" would be scummy.

and yes i did notice that both scum in the game i read did this too, but i was already figuring it was a scum a scum move to do, especially day 1, even before they both pulled the trigger on it

I feel like this still hasn't been properly elaborated on...

really declaring any one group as the all-town group d1 is a bad idea but it's the worst when it's your own group. i see literally no town benefit to declaring it even if you believe it, because now i can't take any scumhunting you do seriously, especially if one single post is going to make you go back on that opinion. on the flip side there's a lot of scum benefit for declaring your own group to be the town group.

I have multiple issues here.
1. Again, I still don't understand why it's a bad idea. Nor do I understand why that makes any scumhunting moot. I guess I can concede that whatever this bad idea really is would be most detrimental when it's your own group, but that's only because I don't even know what it is.
2. Would the town benefit not be that you're talking up your opinions?
3. And why are you expecting that reads be so confident D1? I think if something changes your mind, it should be said.

Basically, please elaborate.

[Parama]

if you read both other players in your group as town, you aren't going to be lynching one of them on suspicion of being scum. because you read them as town. if you do lynch them, it'll be because they're "less town" and not "scum".
buddying on its own isn't inherently scummy, but it's part of the bigger picture here
something is scummy when it primarily benefits scum and rarely if ever benefits town. it's not "when scum, then scummy" it's "scummy, thus scum". the point i was making is how it benefits scum and doesn't benefit town to call your groupmates scummy.
what hasn't been properly elaborated on, i spend all of that post before that line explaining why it's a scummy thing to do.
if you don't understand why announcing a towngroup day 1 is bad when

we're lynching in all three groups anyways so there is literally zero reason to figure out which group is all-town on d1

then i don't know how i'm ever going to make you understand the rest of my argument though

you're being cheeky as hell right now and that's not helping either. you fail to understand a fairly basic premise that i've pretty much spelled out point-for-point, then argue that it's bad simply because "i don't understand it" then you ask me to literally just repeat myself like it's my problem that you're daft.

[Bins]

by the way pie's my strongest townread atm

how

and why


meta?

what am i missing?

like what did you get from his whole exchange between him and i
because it was like "what" to me
so how that = town is ya

[Bins]

ok that's all i have time to say before i pass out

[Parama]

I'm going to try spelling this out in as simple of terms as humanly possible.

One group does not have any scum, but we have no way of knowing which group this is. This is a fact.
No Lynching in any group means the mafia choose the lynch in that group, guaranteeing a mafia-chosen mislynch. This is a fact.
As the above are true, there is literally zero benefit to no-lynching in a group.
Thus, we are lynching in all three groups today. This can be treated as a fact.

If a group is all-town, then a mislynch in that group is guaranteed.
Declaring a group as all-town implies that a player believes a lynch in that group will result in a mislynch.
How are you going to scumhunt in a group when you believe all three players to be town? How are you going to decide a lynch in the group? If you push someone, while believing they are town, isn't that a contradiction? The only read you can push is "less town" rather than "scum", which is:
1. A much weaker conviction than "scum" if the player is town, and much harder to justify. It's a lot harder to build a case on why someone is "less town" than to build one on why someone is "scum".
2. Incredibly easy to hide behind as scum, since "well I thought they were town anyways but we had to lynch someone" is an easy excuse, and not really a scummy one, more a fairly logical one.

In regards to the other groups it basically gives you a free pass to not scumhunt in that group because "they're all town anyways and I can't vote so I'll let them come to their own conclusions". It distances yourself from the group and their lynch.
If you declare your own group as town, then you're likely to spend less time focusing on your group and more time focusing on the other groups. If you're scum and thus know your own group is not all town, you've just given yourself a free pass to push a lynch between three players you know are all town and not suffer the repercussions.

All three groups should be treated as having one scum in them on Day 1, and therefore claiming a group as all-town is meaningless. You can believe it, sure but announcing it either muddles things up as town or gives you an easy shield as scum.

I probably missed some important point here because I haven't looked at this from every possible angle because I don't want to be here all night but this should be enough to show the general concept of "has no benefit as town, has lots of benefit as scum".

Keep in mind this is SPECIFICALLY for day 1.

[Parama]

hi bins

i actually don't keep reasons for my townreads in the back of my head because there's no point in elaborating on them tbh
i imagine it's becuase i liked his reaction test and his posts have generally good analysis, i can see where he's coming from w/ a town point of view but i don't necessarily agree with him on everything either (bad pie announcing a group as town, bad)

also i need to stop giving a damn about arguing theory because everyone believes their theory is right and thus mine is wrong and it's a massive waste of my time, sigh

[chamber]

but you and I know that's not true.

Is this you calling parama scum?

or he could be calling himself scum too

i like how your sole contribution is to pop in with "oh hey the other guy who can vote parama might suspect parama now, i should push him on it"
no comments on literally anything else then?

I'll get back to this once pope actually elaborates, but I was being critical of him in that post. If you are town, you're the one suffering from confirmation bias.

[Parama]

even if i read you as town right now i'd want you to be posting more content than you are

[InflatablePie]

to be fair I said their group is most likely to be all town.

I think.

I mean obviously we lynch the most likely scum in that group regardless because I can be wrong, so

I've heard this before and I think it might just be something about the way I use language because

I feel like I'm taking stances in every sentences I type

. I think most of what I write can be boiled down to "this person just wrote a town post" or "that person just wrote a scum post" or "what's the message you're conveying i still don't know what you're saying".

116 - all useless except a waffle read on NM's 16
117 - waffle-y edo read, light townread on me, everything else useless
118 - townread on parama, not much else
119 - actually a few reads
120 - reconfirm lucky read, other posts useless

then parama iso and a reads list

but most of that is information, and definitely not 'taking a stance on each post'.

one of you two gets to answer 181 btw. I said PlotCat's catchup was IIoA and my eyes glazed over (that was a bitch to do that dissection above btw) but then launched into multiple reasons why their early post gave me a scumread on them (despite pushing Bins instead for ~reactions~). and then I got misrepped by BellaCat, "most of my issues are with Plot's playstyle". Despite BellaCat making the post I went into detail on.

I'm really interested in hearing a reason for that response.

[Parama]

thinking it over i get the feeling i'm prob overreacting to something i perceive as potentially really really bad but hasn't actually had any negative results -yet-

not that that makes me dislike it less, but

[Edosurist]

Spoiler: Post 213

if you read both other players in your group as town, you aren't going to be lynching one of them on suspicion of being scum. because you read them as town. if you do lynch them, it'll be because they're "less town" and not "scum".

I understand that, and I don't see this as a problem.

something is scummy when it primarily benefits scum and rarely if ever benefits town. it's not "when scum, then scummy" it's "scummy, thus scum". the point i was making is how it benefits scum and doesn't benefit town to call your groupmates scummy.

I think you meant "not scummy" in that last word there, but I see where you're coming from in general here.

if you don't understand why announcing a towngroup day 1 is bad when

we're lynching in all three groups anyways so there is literally zero reason to figure out which group is all-town on d1

then i don't know how i'm ever going to make you understand the rest of my argument though

Of course every group is lynching. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. But if you think your entire group is town, for the sake of giving your reads and having other people better understand where you're coming from, you should state that.

Post 216 - I got you now. This wasn't all immediately apparent from what you said earlier.

[Edosurist]

I'd like to see more from the other guys in my group.

A reads list, more specifically.

[Rainbow Unicat]

to be fair I said their group is most likely to be all town.

I think.

I mean obviously we lynch the most likely scum in that group regardless because I can be wrong, so

I've heard this before and I think it might just be something about the way I use language because

I feel like I'm taking stances in every sentences I type

. I think most of what I write can be boiled down to "this person just wrote a town post" or "that person just wrote a scum post" or "what's the message you're conveying i still don't know what you're saying".

116 - all useless except a waffle read on NM's 16
117 - waffle-y edo read, light townread on me, everything else useless
118 - townread on parama, not much else
119 - actually a few reads
120 - reconfirm lucky read, other posts useless

okay, let me translate then. not clicking the links so some of it might be "agree about setup spec" instead of "this is town", but I'll stand by the translation anyway.

Spoiler: 116 - 4 stances

Plotinus head finally checking in. sorry about yesterday; it was offline stuff that i'm not talking about outside the speakeasy.

page 1

5 I appreciate this post from Parama because I’ve never played this setup before and it appears that they have, but I’m wondering why they didn’t hold back this information until they could catch someone behaving incorrectly.

6, 8 ugh.

This is scum posting

7 chamber discourages scumhunting outside groups. hmm.

This is scum posting

9 hiiii bins!

greetings, friend

16 i think i’m always going to be tempted to scumread not_mafia, but I know he’s always like that and it's not alignment indicative for him.

This is scum posting but I don't think he's scum

20 yeah, but we’re a pretty scary town combo, too. i’m getting night killed

a lot

lately.

This could be scum posting but I don't think she's scum yet

(wanting to lynch someone because they're a good player is bad)

24 I’m still appreciating the mafia theory from parama because I’d be lost in this setup without it but I’m going to ISO him when I’m done catching up to double check the scumhunting/mafia theory ratio.

This is a note to self to examine something in further depth later.

--Plotinus

Spoiler: 117 - 6 stances

page 2

parama25 yay an early reads list

This is town posting

lucky26 weak entrance from lucky2u

This is scum posting

Edo28 and I love how I found a plugin that makes gifs not autoplay. I just wish the plugin worked in the browser I use on my main account.

I find you annoying but you might not be scum.

Edo31 reachy but meh, it’s page 2

This is scum posting or it would be if we were past page 2, here is some benefit of the doubt for you

Pie36 i think i like this post.

This is town posting

ugh this is going to be one of those games innit. where everyone’s posting style is completely incomprehensible to me and everything feels like shifting sands. at least people are taking stances that i can try to make sense of later.

Plotinus' playstyle and usual scumhunting tools are probably useless in this setup and I don't think I'm going to sign up for any more micros in the future. D:

Chamber49 why?

This is scum posting

--Plotinus still

Spoiler: 118 - 5 stances

page 3


edos51 HURT: edosurist

This is scum posting

tip53 it’s lame tho.

This is scum posting but you might just be bad at being town

bins54 what was his alignment in the games you looked at? i think i’d probably only fake an “i promise i’m town and i never lie as scum” trust tell as scum, too. so there is that.

This is town posting. Help me figure this other person out.

para59 i like this post from parama because think i’m more likely to want to complain “that’s not why i’m town tho” as town (though i try not to because i know it’s distracting). as scum it’s more like “lol they think i’m town for

that

whelp i’m not going to complain!”

This is town posting

para61 haha yeah i’m getting town vibes from this.

This is town posting

chamber67 a bunch of people asked about that parama vote but this is not an explanation of the parama vote. it looks more like a defence of parama. is it?

What's the message you're conveying I still don't know what you're saying

--Plotinus

Spoiler: 119 - 6 stances

page 4!

lucky77 i agree, but that’s it for the catchup post? that’s all of it? nothing else to say about the 75 other posts before yours? HURT: lucky

This is scum posting

notmaf79 happy with this vote

This is town posting.

pie83 why? for all of these reads but especially for our group since that’s where i have to vote because i don’t know what to make of either of you and i want to figure out if ours is the all town group or not.

This might be scum posting because your reads list is very different from mine and I don't understand where you're coming from.

bins85 and 86 this is pretty similar to how i am thinking! Because I’m town reading Parama and TIP is sort of null scum for me and I liked not_mafia’s vote on lucky and and both lucky and edos look pretty bad to me but they can’t both be scum and i think lucky is more likely to be scum than edos. and in my own group bins and pie are incomprehensible but at least i can understand bins’ reads!

This is town posting and also a readslist from me

parama89 i only do unofficial vote counts when i need towncred sometime when i’m less busy i need to make a study of this to see if it’s just me.

This is scum posting but my scum meta is pretty weird and people I think are playing my scum meta keep flipping town and I think Parama is town too.

parama92 why does disliking pie’s reads means he’s town?

This is town posting but I don't understand what he's saying so plz explain

pie95 ok. were your other reads just kidding reads too and if not can you explain them?

This is confusing why do people say things that aren't true halp.

bins97 yeah, apparently neither of us were feeling it yesterday. it’s not alignment indicative. please read on based on what we are doing not what we're not doing.

This is an olive branch.

--Plotinus.

Spoiler: 120 - 1 stance

page 5!

lucky102 on the surface, this is a good push against edosurist but you’re still scum tho which makes him town.

This is scum posting

chamber112 lying about theory is really fun if you can get away with it tho. i won an offsite game by actively preventing anyone from learning mafia theory and it was glorious. (if you’re curious, post 53 in the scumposting thread in mishmash is a towncase i made for myself in lylo in that game and most of the town tells i listed are actually scumtells i just knew i could get away with it and i did.)

I disagree with Chamber

parama115 yeah i agree with this, it seems like ignoring everything outside our own groups is just a way to get into a confirmation bias tunnel the next day.

I agree with Parama.

--Plotinus

then parama iso and a reads list

but most of that is information, and definitely not 'taking a stance on each post'.

one of you two gets to answer 181 btw. I said PlotCat's catchup was IIoA and my eyes glazed over (that was a bitch to do that dissection above btw) but then launched into multiple reasons why their early post gave me a scumread on them (despite pushing Bins instead for ~reactions~). and then I got misrepped by BellaCat, "most of my issues are with Plot's playstyle". Despite BellaCat making the post I went into detail on.

I'm really interested in hearing a reason for that response.

Okay, Bella's on V/LA so she can try to answer it when she gets back and I'll answer it now.

You said you gave me reasons for why you didn't like Bella's first post. Her first post was 19. so i went through your ISO to find where you mentioned post 19 and it's in post 181. lol. forgot who Cat was.

yeah so PlotCat's catchup just looks like a lot of IIoA which makes my eyes glaze over every single time

reads explained:
- Cat's first post (19 pinged me as scum. lack of vote, instead an FoS @ Bins, commenting on a few things in a generic 'scum faking involvement' fashion, and mainly the comment about NM being 'fluffy' ~14 posts into the game. 'sides, to NM's credit, he did comment that TIP's entrance was bad, so I don't even think that's particularly fluffy.

vote Unicat

I told her to use hurt tags instead of vote because we didn't understand the setup or whether it was safe to vote yet.

Both heads of this hydra have trouble telling when things are literal and when things are joking and we both find jokes confusing. Like we can get as far as "someone's using sarcasm here maybe" and then we get stuck. Why are they saying something that isn't true? If someone is claiming scum in RVS is that haha just serious or haha just kidding? We can't tell. I always scumread someone who says they're conftown unless there is modconfirmation.

We both find the first few pages of games to be overwhelming incomprehensible noise. We both tend to scumread people for overly jokey entrances into games but we know that's not alignment indicative for not_mafia.

This is the last micro I sign up for. Micro games seem to condense all of the parts of the game that I don't understand into one piece and then the game is over before we get to the part where I know how to play.

--Plotinus