Newbie 1768: Party Mafia - Game over!

[Titus]

bowdown, that defeats the purpose of a naked vote.

[bowdown]

bowdown, that defeats the purpose of a naked vote.

When the time comes, then I would love an explanation of it.

[JaeReed]

@bowdown RE: Titus naked voting. Why do you believe Titus voted EccentricLemon at this stage in the game? What do you think Titus may have seen that would prompt a vote?

Those questions extend to others as well, btw, if you want to take a stab.

[bowdown]

@bowdown RE: Titus naked voting. Why do you believe Titus voted EccentricLemon at this stage in the game? What do you think Titus may have seen that would prompt a vote?

Seeing who jumps and doesn't jump on the lemon wagon and their reasons for doing so could be illuminating. Extreme case is that two others quickly jump on Lemon with poor reasons - d2 we look strongly at them.

I'm not impressed with Titus so far and I want to hear more from him and what he eventually learns from this. So far all I see from him is generic ideas/strategy and nothing specific to this game.

[nancy]

She did justify it by saying "votes are meaningless at this stage" - which I disagree with. I find it curious that she is now pressing Titus for vote rationale beyond gut - Nancy why is it okay for you to have had a scumread on tojam due to gut but Titus can't?

I would hardly describe 94 as pressing. You're also putting words into my mouth, as I haven't said that it was okay for me to have a gutread with no explanation. I tried to find one and couldn't, although one did end up coming later. Whether or not I should reveal a potentially useless piece of information that may or may not be influencing my read is debateable, I'm sure, but in the interests of learning I'm going to be tending towards full discolure throughout this game. The IC and SEs here have already been great in providing insight and perspective.

'm pinged by Titus for the second time entering the thread and not posting anything of much worth.

I found the content of her posts pretty helpful and interesting, so I don't understand this comment.

I read #9 as "hey noobs, don't post right away that you are excited you got an awesome role" from a more experienced player.

You seem to be discarding the opportunity to maybe learn something from him about why he emphasized "regardless of its towniness".

I don't really care that Titus and Jar aren't voting yet

You seem to be discarding the opportunity to maybe learn something from them about why they are no voting and potentially build up your reads for future scumhunting. This lack of caring is especially weird if you dislike Jae's other behavior.

I care that Titus's posts have been crappier than Jae's, while Jae has a strangely knowledgeable tone (scummy) but is also the IC and is supposed to play the knowledgeable role.

I don't understand. How is it strange for an IC to have a knowledgeable tone? Could you please explain this more, it seems very muddy to me. The only thing I find strange about Jae so far is their preoccupation with my vote.

[nancy]

Somewhat. The issue is when someone gets a scumread they should be voting for said scumread, not parked on a null.

Even when they have no sound backing for their gutread and know it? I would've thought this was more a tell of personality than anything - how heavily do I follow my gut / how heavily do I rely on reason/logic? I've also seen town players who have scumreads but don't vote on them. The strategy of voting seems to be more complex than simply voting with your strongest (or only) scumread, especially at the early stages of the Day. Would you mind commenting on this?

[bowdown]

Nancy, I'm on my phone and will fail at breaking your post up into a bunch of mini quotes.

Gut scumread: You posted to the thread you had a gut scumread on tojam without being able to explain why. I don't understand how if you are town, that isn't implicitly saying that it's okay for someone to have a gut scumread with no explanation - after all town-nancy had the same kind of reaction. I would have been totally satisfied with a response from you of "i see that Titus is doing some kind of play so it's okay that he cites gut as his reason."

Titus's posts: Helpful and interesting, sure. Actually attempting to solve this specific game? No way. Could change depending on what happens with this baked vote but right now no.

#9: Not disregarding the opportunity to learn - I read "regardless of its towniness" as "don't post your role, whether cop/other good special or mafia". I'd be disappointed if the first post on page 1 was a serious "cool I got mafia" from someone - that's not a fun or rewarding game to play in.

Titus/Use not voting: This early on D1 I care way more about who is saying what, who is questioning who, how are people responding etc. than I do about a lack of votes from two players. Thats how I like to hunt and from reads - by talking with people.

Jae: Look at 26 and 41. Jae is both hunting/making reads, but also usng it as a teaching moment as the IC. They know more about the game than we noobs, which comes across in their post. But the Mafia also know more about the game than the village because they know who is good and who isn't while we don't. That knowledgeness (is that a word?) can shine through their post sometimes. Some of Jae's posts also feel like that - the last paragraph of 88 is another example of combibing IC-ing and playing.

[nancy]

'Knowledgeability' is the correct nominal form you were looking for, but 'knowledge' alone fits equally well in the sentence.

Thanks for the reply. You're misinterpreting my response in both cases. If I post a gutread, like any read, I expect it to be questioned. I'm sure Titus expected the same.

[JaeReed]

Somewhat. The issue is when someone gets a scumread they should be voting for said scumread, not parked on a null.

Even when they have no sound backing for their gutread and know it? I would've thought this was more a tell of personality than anything - how heavily do I follow my gut / how heavily do I rely on reason/logic? I've also seen town players who have scumreads but don't vote on them. The strategy of voting seems to be more complex than simply voting with your strongest (or only) scumread, especially at the early stages of the Day. Would you mind commenting on this?

It's a personality tell if you're withholding your vote while you still gain confidence on voting your scumread, or if you're sheeping another player because you townread them and think they might have better reads than you (I wouldn't recommend doing this too often, though, because you usually don't know for sure the alignment of the person you're following if you're town, so you could well be following mafia's votes - it's always best to think for yourself).

The issue with the vote on me is that you stated a scumread on one person for posts prior to your vote on (presumably) a null read, which isn't ideal when you should be wanting to scumhunt.

Would you like to take a punt on why you think Titus is voting for EccentricLemon?

[JaeReed]

The issue with the vote on me is that you stated a scumread on one person for posts prior to your vote on (presumably) a null read, which isn't ideal when you should be wanting to scumhunt.

To elaborate, in a normal game I would have voted you for this, because it has two flags I like to look for:
A) Seemingly too much knowledge on someone's alignment when there's little to go off.
B) Stated scumread on one person while voting for someone else.

Those combined can sometimes be partner tells. That said, pre-flip associations can be bad if you get too caught up in them. It's good at times to note them, poke at them a bit, then make a decision as to whether you believe those people are genuinely trying to gamesolve or just going through the motions, and whether they're evaluating each other in a genuine manner or not.

All that said, it's harder to tell sometimes with newbs because they can make genuine mistakes like misunderstanding when RVS has stopped and such, given there's such a wide range of newbies with different experiences in mafia (some pure newb, others with an extensive background on other sites).

[tojam2]

Sorry, that's my mistake that I didn't reply to that comment.
I meant that no one was scummy so far. I was interested in where that vote might take the discussion. It didn't reveal that much new info to me, so keeping my vote there wouldn't do much and

might have even hurt me down the road

.

What do you mean by this? Why did you say it?

I can vote and unvote at any time, so unvoting wasn't an issue if I was trying to prove I'm not trying to be accusatory.

Why not be accusatory?

Well keeping my vote for GuiltyLion if I was trying not to be belligerent would have been a bad move because it would seem like I'm trying to throw him under the bus. Which is not what I'm going for. I'm not sure if I'm articulating what I'm trying to say correctly. I'll try to elaborate if my explanations don't make any sense.
We all know that at this point, everyone's basically out for themselves so there's no harm I think in pointing out that I did it in self-preservation.

I don't want to be accusatory because a mistake will likely make me seem scummier. If my aggressive actions get him hanged and he turns out to be town, people are going to come after me because I'm already suspicious. I mean, it seems like everything I say is making me more and more suspicious anyway.
Also I'm a newbie and I'm still learning how the game works and I don't want to try anything too (emphasis on the too) risky until I've had some experience. I'm seeing that posting what I said that early was a bad idea (?).

@GL, I've never been a fan of p.1, baseless gut, having opinions prior to the game is noobscummy to me.

I never said anything that would allude to me having opinions prior to the game. At least I don't believe so. Attack me all you want for that, but I think I made it pretty clear that all of my observations are pretty nebulous but have at least some sort of basis in what people have said.

I was talking about nancy and GuiltyLion

[tojam2]

- Jae, how concerned are you with Nancy's vote parked on you?

Somewhat. The issue is when someone gets a scumread they should be voting for said scumread, not parked on a null.

I'm not going to make that mistake either:
VOTE: nancy

[bowdown]

Nancy, I'll get back to you later after thinking further through your response in 107.

Jae, I want to separate IC-Jae from player-Jae. Are the questions at the bottom of 87, 88, and 108 questions you'd typically ask if you weren't the IC?

[Titus]

Hey, GuiltyLion, you there?

[Agent Sparkles]

Sorry I was absent, I started to post yesterday and ran out of time.

In general, I don't like unexplained TRs Sparkles. Yet, there are players who do that. Naked reads can be playstyle, crumbs, confidence or any number of things. Pressing to understand is ok, but don't press to demolish.

I may have worded my argument poorly. Pressing to demolish is an exaggeration of what I was getting at, but the problems with people's reads should at least be called out, if not to put the person being townread in question, then at least the person doing the reading. Purposely trying to wreck people's townreads is extreme, but putting them to the test is necessary.

Jae, I honestly can't work that out myself. Unless that's your way of stirring up conversation and starting the hunt, which I'm going to read you as Towny for.

This doesn't really resonate with me. Stirring up discussion alone is something that anyone can easily do, and in my opinion, not a very good basis for reads. JaeReed also earned some townie points with me for that post, but it's because of the way he purposely didn't explain himself and left it up to everyone else to think about, which seems like a genuine town strategy. I do think it's possible that you were thinking along these lines and just weren't as specific about it.

Sure, when we get to day 3 and page 60, the fact that someone "stirred up discussion" on the second page shouldn't impact your read in a player. Page 2 though, absolutely it can, especially when all the reads are going to be so nebulous.

I'm curious why you decided to give tojam an out on his thinking. Why not instead simply ask "what were you thinking?" and evaluate the response?

I guess you're right about all of the reads being hazy early on. It just struck me as odd that he was willing to townread Jae that quickly on something so flimsy and generalized.

As for giving toejam an out on his reasoning, I still wanted him to explain it himself; I was just making it clear that I wasn't assuming things yet, since what I said could've been meaningless depending on what he really meant.

Most of the people in this game are newbies, and I think some of you are reading too far into everything. Then again, I tend to be the kind that likes to wait a while before making any decisions and am a newbie myself.

I don't think nancy is consciously attempting to prove her innocence and at this point, I lean toward the fact that she's just more outspoken and trying to incite conversation. Personally, I don't think what she's said is enough to incriminate her.
However, at this stage of the game, everyone is suspicious and outspoken people tend to draw more suspicion. Which is to say while I don't believe nancy is attempting to divert attention, I'm not completely certain of her innocence as well.

I voted for GuiltyLion hoping to receive some information from him or other players discussing him but I'm a little disappointed that there isn't a lot of debate going on about him. Also as soon as people started voting for him, he hasn't posted much. Which seems a little shifty to me, like he's lying low and letting it blow over. I mean, I don't know his personal life or playing style so I might be wrong.

The fact that Jae and AgentSparkles haven't voted against nancy and are trying to get information instead of straight up voting for her kind of tips me toward assuming they are probably town. However, Jae is a seasoned player and that makes me trust them less.

Again, this is only my speculation from what I've seen.

Are we not supposed to read far into everything, especially this early on? We have absolutely no solid evidence to go on, and there's no telling if we ever will.

Nancy does seem to care more about the town in general than her own survival, but I can't shake how she brought up a scum gutread on toejam (which there had been no previous mention of) and then couldn't explain why when she was asked. I haven't voted her yet because I'm waiting for the game to progress so that I can get a better grip on my reads before I start playing more aggressively. That being said, I'm going to UNVOTE: because there's really no point in having my vote parked on GuiltyLion anymore.

The argument about Guilty being quiet "once people started voting for him" doesn't really work, because Jae and I voted him almost instantly at the beginning. This would be more convincing if there was an example of him posting a lot when he wasn't being voted.

And here I was rearing up for a reply only to find that GuiltyLion essentially wrapped up everything I wanted to say about EccentricLemon in post 76. From my experience in in-person mafia, being accusatory, making mistakes, and seeing what unfolds amidst the successful or unsuccessful attempts at finding scum is the best way of winning for town in the long run.

This post is a bit fillery and I'm not crazy about how it piggybacks off of guilty instead of giving an original opinion. What about the rest of us? Do you have any other reads/opinions?

- GuiltyLion, I'd love to hear more thoughts about this game specifically other than "sparkles why are you acting like a mod?"

I have been mulling over whether I think Jae's 24 is sincere, as it's a bit of a curveball question to answer if you're scum. I know as scum I've bragged about my scumgame before (start here and read the subsequent discussion), because it projected a certain town-esque indignant attitude of "how dare I be [correctly] scumread, if I were scum you would think I was town", so the fact that they pointed out a shallow feature of their scumplay may indicate they're working with a town frame of mind. Regardless of their alignment in this particular game, it's probably a true self-assessment, so I'd keep it in mind later in the game (after a few game-Days) if you're town and you get the sense that they're faking emotions or forcing reads, and bring it up again.

Jae's reaction seemed towny enough to me. As scum, he would've been consciously pointing out the flaws in his own playstyle, which could be risky in the long run. Also, could you elaborate on what LAMIST is?

Jae, I honestly can't work that out myself. Unless that's your way of stirring up conversation and starting the hunt, which I'm going to read you as Towny for.

This doesn't really resonate with me.

Stirring up discussion alone is something that anyone can easily do, and in my opinion, not a very good basis for reads

. JaeReed also earned some townie points with me for that post, but it's because of the way he purposely didn't explain himself and left it up to everyone else to think about, which seems like a genuine town strategy. I do think it's possible that you were thinking along these lines and just weren't as specific about it.

Your read only applies if everyone on mafia has the same personality or playstyle.

You could use this logic against countless types of legitimate reads. Just because not everyone has the same playstyle doesn't mean you should ignore the subtle differences in the styles of people's messages. People aren't computers; there's almost always some kind of sign that people are genuine or pretending.

@toejam I don't see that as a TR. Saying you've read him a Town for starting discussion seems to me like the start of buddying up, which I would read as scum

Maybe. I'm a bit hesitant to scumread him for that because of reasons I mentioned above.

I'll finish replying to messages after I eat dinner.

Anyone can do it, but what reason does scum have to actually do it?

To look towny. To convince people to follow you. To make the game more interesting. The only problem is if they give themselves away early on.

[nancy]

To elaborate, in a normal game I would have voted you for this, because it has two flags I like to look for:
A) Seemingly too much knowledge on someone's alignment when there's little to go off.
B) Stated scumread on one person while voting for someone else.

Those combined can sometimes be partner tells. That said, pre-flip associations can be bad if you get too caught up in them. It's good at times to note them, poke at them a bit, then make a decision as to whether you believe those people are genuinely trying to gamesolve or just going through the motions, and whether they're evaluating each other in a genuine manner or not.

All that said, it's harder to tell sometimes with newbs because they can make genuine mistakes like misunderstanding when RVS has stopped and such, given there's such a wide range of newbies with different experiences in mafia (some pure newb, others with an extensive background on other sites).

Interesting, so it's a flag for you because you're reading it as a potential "objective mafia" being overly sensitive to scumtells? Tojam still hasn't addressed the question, though.

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't vote him because the gutread is very weak. Is that not viable behavior? I'm beginning to be bothered by his lurking, but even that wouldn't qualify for a vote in my mind. Care to comment tojam?

Jae, are you saying that when RVS ends we should NV? I'd also like to hear the answer to bowdown's question.

To respond to your question about Titus' naked vote, I take it as reaction testing. EccentricLemon has been awfully quiet, which doesn't seem like a good thing when you're at L-2. But it wouldn't only be testing the reaction of EccentricLemon. I have no idea how other SEs would've reacted in a non-newbie game, but no one seems to have grilled her about it, found it scummy, or turned up the heat further on Lemon. Now that Lemon is back to L-3 I'm comfortable saying that if someone else had voted Lemon to take him to L-1 I would've FOS'd that person immediately because a) Lemon is reading more like a Town unable to give off good towntells than scum, and b) at L-1 you're almost forcing Lemon to out, which benefis only the Mafia. Appropriate townie reaction at that point would presumably be to promptly unvote in order to remove that threat, even if a hammer is unlikely at that point (hammering would be very scummy).

[nancy]

her*

[bowdown]

- Jae, how concerned are you with Nancy's vote parked on you?

Somewhat. The issue is when someone gets a scumread they should be voting for said scumread, not parked on a null.

I'm not going to make that mistake either:
VOTE: nancy

Why are you just now making this vote after Jae expresses their concern? Most of your posts throughout the game have to do with nancy's lack of a vote on you, yet you don't vote on it until now. Feels like you're skimming along and piggybacking off of Jae, especially when Jae expressed their concern about Nancy's vote before you did.

[bowdown]

Tojam, it's also very hypocritical of you to have a scumread on someone for leaving their vote on their first random vote, and then do the exact same thing.

[EccentricLemon]

I was talking about nancy and GuiltyLion

I'm so sorry, I misread that GL as an EL. My bad. Sorry I called you out on it.

EccentricLemon has been awfully quiet

I just got home from school plus a 5 hour meet. Just to clarify.

My take on Titus' vote is that if she is scum, she is trying to jump on the bandwagon to further people's distrust of me, since I'm already suspicious. If Titus is town, she might perceive me as a real threat.
However, I am concerned about the lack of explanation past:

VOTE: EccentricLemon
My bad. I am showing off the naked voting strategy, so not yet.

and

VOTE: EccentricLion
Gut

We're already into some good discussions and there's quite a lot to base a reason off of. I've said quite a bit and so have other people. Just saying "Gut" seems a bit weird if you ask me.

[SirCakez]

Votecount 1.3

EccentricLemon (2) - GuiltyLion, Titus
JaeReed (1) - nancy
Bulbazoor (1) - TriangleShark
TriangleShark (1) - bowdown
nancy (1) - tojam2

Not voting (3) - JaeReed, EccentricLemon, Agent Sparkles

With 9 alive, it takes 5 votes to lynch someone.

(expired on 2017-01-16 11:14:00) remain until day end

[SirCakez]

Prodding TriangleShark and GuiltyLion.

[tojam2]

- Jae, how concerned are you with Nancy's vote parked on you?

Somewhat. The issue is when someone gets a scumread they should be voting for said scumread, not parked on a null.

I'm not going to make that mistake either:
VOTE: nancy

Why are you just now making this vote after Jae expresses their concern? Most of your posts throughout the game have to do with nancy's lack of a vote on you, yet you don't vote on it until now. Feels like you're skimming along and piggybacking off of Jae, especially when Jae expressed their concern about Nancy's vote before you did.

I normally play from mobile because I'm short on time, so I change my vote less because reaching the square brackets is more finicky than on a computer, I've got a sinus infection so I'm home-bound for now, meaning that I can change my vote more easily on my computer, it's a 'can't be arsed' style situation. Also, that's not the first time I'd expressed my concerns about nancy so don't try and call me out for sheeping the IC.

[tojam2]

Tojam, it's also very hypocritical of you to have a scumread on someone for leaving their vote on their first random vote, and then do the exact same thing.

Erm, that's not why I scum read her. Is this just being unobservant or are you deliberately not reading everything in the thread?

[bowdown]

First of all, tojam, I'm not buying you not changing your vote because you're on your phone. Most of my posts have been from my phone too, it's not very hard to put [s in or just click the vote button on top of the reply box.

Now, you tell me where I'm drawing the wrong conclusion in this.

19: Nancy votes Jae for telling her how to vote, while getting a gut scumread from you.

27: Jae asks her why she voted for them and not you for the same thing.

39: You post that you agree with Jae and read them towny for it.

47: Nancy reveals she has a gut-scum read on you for 7 and 9 that she can't explain.

81: You say that having opinions prior to the game (7 and 9) is noobscummy of nancy

85: Jae says they are somewhat concerned with Nancy not voting her biggest scumread (you)

111: You quote Jae expressing concern over Nancy not voting a scumread and vote her.

I have two primary issues with what went down.

First, yes I am accusing you of buddying/sheeping the IC. Almost all of your content that is specific to this game is repeating stuff that Jae already has expressed.

My bigger concern is that your post where you vote Nancy quotes Jae expressing concern that Nancy left her vote parked in a null and didn't move it to a scumread. I'm assuming that is the actual reason you are voting Nancy because you quoted that in your post. The problem is that you did the exact same thing - 39 and 81 both are displaying a scumread of Nancy and yet your vote was left on Lemon, who you voted in your very first post.

If 81 is your actual reason for voting Nancy (noobscummy to have opinions prior to the game): the game had certainly already started, Jae had pointed out that it's common for people to start hunting from the getgo (in 41), and you still never moved your vote to Nancy!

So yeah, I feel pretty good with a VOTE: tojam.