Open 646 - Semi Nightless - Game Over (D6)

[mhsmith0]

Day 5
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8297044

Trans
2362 - tentative vote on me, odd after the hard push on rosske/maria before. possible that this was a chastened trans after being wrong though.
2363 - follow up with a stronger take on it, a bit jarring in succession, though it's possible that this was a 15 minute rethink
2375 - discrediting post towards thor, tossing in an AtE bit about blowing 5 lynches
2413 - it's still kind of weird for transcend to do nothing to save karnos at 1.07. I guess it makes snese if he realized that Io was clear town and that saving his buddy there would look terrible going forward
2448-53 - fair points from thor. trans's reads this game have been bizarre and poorly supported. wouldn't go so far as to say "nonsense reads" but it's reasonable to slam him for them



Giga
2364 - interesting post given giga's later pivot to voting tenshii
2413 - that point about 588 still holds i think
2469 - really dislike this post, almost reads like they're looking for a guide to assign blame for NK's
2541 - ok defense there
2542 - Trans basically saying giga is mediocre as wolf ("fairly competent")
2599 - shows thought wrt thor (though it's a sheeped point by then). do dislike the "don't forget that I'm town too" implication of the post.


I'd actually say that Day 5 by itself doesn't strongly point to one over the other. Though the fact that thor and tenshii both seemed higher on giga being town than trans at least counts for something.

[mhsmith0]

what you call fluff i call content but sure

[mhsmith0]

well my FOS is definitely on trans. not really ready to vote but I'm just really struggling to see it as giga. some issues here and there, and the waffling bit is a fair point, but D1 really really didn't look like w/w between them, and there have been good posts from giga D2+ mixed in with the "let's build a town block" type junk.

[mhsmith0]

and this isn't just today you've been doing this.

you have walled nearly every player in the entire game making some sort of a case on them.

like i do not remember you walling rosske at all. forgive me if wrong it escapes my memory and i'm not reading your iso.

you walled tenshii quite a bit honestly.

yet your final vote on that day?

YOU FUCKING VOTED ROSSKE over TENSHII.

Oh but let's not forget about the time Wing voted me for two seconds then you hopped along

Then wing was like lol no and unvoted and you did not long afterwards

And then I said my case on Rosske and you laughed it off pretty hard, mocked me, berated me then you lynched the same person.

Your walls have been nothing but clumps of random posts and you've been happy to lynch someone you didn't wall.

@trans: except that's not what actually happened
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p8267916
was where I voted you, and then I later unvoted, with no actual input from wing. a bit odd you don't remember that given that it directly involved you.

[mhsmith0]

POST YOU FUCKER CLEAR YOURSELF OR WIN THE GAME AAAA I CANT HANDLE THE SUSPENSE

well at this point i'm curious too. if it's giga then well played and I guess I deserve the L for completely missing it.

[mhsmith0]

also the "voting rosske over tenshii" bit is kinda a cheap shot; I'd been clear I suspected them both, so the fact that I voted one over the other doesn't seem particularly notable or indicative tbh. like, that's a very plausible town process, so scum reading it is pretty sketchy.

[mhsmith0]

NOT HAMMERING

well in that case
VOTE: transend

[mhsmith0]

lol mispelling
VOTE: transcend

[mhsmith0]

if it's actually you slowrolling then lololol, otherwise gl w hammer. I think I've been pretty clear about my process all game long, but if you have ?s then ask.

[mhsmith0]

dude im conf scum to u

uc an stop waffling now

PEDIT I THOUGHT GIGA FLASH HAMMERED ME AND I HAD THE BIGGES MINI HEART ATTACK EVER

well you were conf scum once giga came on and didn't hammer. until then it wasn't certain. but yeah that was a stressful second for me. guess we both have the waiting game on now. second F3, first time I was the hammerer (and missed ).

[mhsmith0]

@trans: how did you redeem yourself again? You mean other than not being able to save your buddy D1 and then eventually making it to F3?

[mhsmith0]

ily giga

im sorry for being a shit but i'm not letting you lose this

no way

nuh uh

i had this guy as a scumspect for quite a long time

and he is NOT ESCAPING ROPE

LIKE HE HAS FOR 4 DAYS TOO FUCKING LONG

and here I thought that you only hard suspected me after rosske/maria's green flip

[mhsmith0]

Easy move to save karnos:

Vote Io. I gave logic that suggested Io would be lynched.

What I did:

Voted outside of both my townreads because I thought it was a TvT duel.

Easy way to out yourself: vote Io. That's not actually clearing dude.

[mhsmith0]

@giga: going back to
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8300914

1.03: karnos does NOT hop on to thor, despite shading him multiple times and it being a potentially easy way to move the conversation away from him. Why? Because his buddy was on there and it'd look bad to bunch votes.

1.07: why doesn't transcend if a wolf hop on io? Because karnos was already there, and momentum existed to eventually lynch karnos (even if he lived a day somehow), and if you're playing to win, that ties trans to karnos really badly

[mhsmith0]

Hypotehtically if me and karnos were scum and got Io lynched, that doesn't mean that karnos would be lynched the next day. Both of us are competent wolf players and probably could've made it to the end without getting lynched.

no, but it could tie the two of you together, so that when karnos (or you) flipped, the other would be implicated. a flagrant save attempt there is plausible but somewhat obvious. an attempt to push the wagons and discussions in an entirely different direction, though, is also an entirely valid approach either to save your buddy or at least to prep the way for future mislynches if he's going down regardless.

[mhsmith0]

Honestly tho Transcend's logic is so far out there.
That i hardly believe they'd try to mislynch me with it.
So maybe they're prob town.

This was when there was an early push on karnos. What is trans doing? Changing the conversation. It probably didn't even matter if he lynched Luna with the push or not; most likely the goal was to take pressure off of karnos and let momentum swing elsewhere, either to Luna or to some other slot that could absorb heat after town's attention drifted.

[mhsmith0]

Biggest mistakes this game

- Townreading karnos
- Focusing mmore on Luna Fox and Rosske when mhsmith's vote hop was terrible
- Stillfocusing on Luna/Rosske after KTS flip shenaningans from mhsmith
- Not sheeping wingbaack over myself on d4

I really can't think of anything else, I tried my ABSOLUTE FUCKIGN DAMNDEST 3 FUCKING HOURS to get mhsmith lynched and tenshii saved and i fucking failed and i'm fucking furious because

tenshii giga and thor were obvious fucking town.

^ odd thing to say considering that Trans was openly suspecting Thor. Giga being "obvious fucking town" also stands in marked contrast to trans's whole "I'm gonna solve this game today no matter how many questions I have to ask" bit.

[mhsmith0]

Consider this sequence.

Oh and also i fos luna fox for early defense on me before i had even allotment told.

Karnos' response to the questionnaire doesn't read fabricated to me.

VOTE: Luna Fox

[

Trans ignores Io's 75, and only makes a lazy read of karnos's RQS not being fabricated.

Then there's a lengthy back and forth between trans and Luna about her "buddying", followed by

Ok, now, do you have any reads other than your fos on me.

not really other than io leans town

What do you think about Karnos 96 then.

nothing at all other than his vote is probably wrong.
PEDIT: My luna case is srs bsns pls stop laughing at me.... (((

nothing at all other than his vote is probably wrong.

Are you srs.
He's boldly accusing your townread of lying.

Also I have no idea why, but everyone has a knack for mistyping my username.
PEDIT: i don't care if someone else foses my townread. like you said we're all gonna have different reads this game. his vote on io wasn't scummy to me, even though i think it's wrong.

He shows no real intellectual curiosity at all about Io v Karnos. Marked contrast to his typical town games where he bounces around between ideas and suspicions (see links I sent earlier today), and even without meta a strange reaction to an accusation of fighting to essentially hand-wave it away as TvT.

I agree it's wrong, i think its probably some misunderstanding/misrepresentation going around and i mentioned that earlier, but i wanted to know your opinion.

And then...

So, Thor, the vote on Karnos was just RVS?

No - what part of 'I townread you' is confusing?
You are a townread.
You're voting Karnos.
Ergo, if I'm right about you, statistically by voting who you vote I'm more likely to target scum.

HOLY FUCK THIS POST IS 20 LEVELS OF AWFUL
VOTE: Thor

Changes topic of conversation, once again deflecting attention away from karnos (and also away from his lack of curiosity about karnos) onto chainsawing a Thor vote. Remember, trans just said Thor was "obvious fucking town"... and yet trans spent most of D1 trying to get Thor lynched.

[mhsmith0]

just
i know one of you is confscum
but can we try to keep it civil... sorry, i woke up and got worried that this might get a little toxic.

likely going to make post discussing actual opinions when i decide to not phone post. it's harder to articulate thoughts on a phone

sure. i don't think either of us has stepped over any kind of line, it's a game, we're both trying to win, and we're trying to convince you. It's easier for me because there's an actual case but I don't think there's been a civility issue.

[mhsmith0]

@Wing

My read on Thor d1 before Karnos flipped:

Shifty as ****. His vote was horribly placed. I still am not ENTIRELY over it.

My read on Thor now:

Given I possess a scumread on Rosske and he's tunneling Tenshii right now. I believe he's misguided town. However due to his weird d1 and his weird vote, my lynch list would be Rosske > MHSmith > Thor. Meaning if your slot, Tenshii's slot or Giga's slot is scum, I will openly lose the game, given I get those lynches.

If it's tenshii vs thor I'm lynching thor

I still want to lynch Rosske

Oh yeah and wing is lock town too. Luna was a weirdo but I've concluded that i just didn't like their playstyle and was more prone to find their motives weird.

The thor / tenshii spat feels tvt but if one person in that duo is scum, it's thor. But I'd lynch ross and smith before touching thor. Which likely means I'll have to give a congratulatory hand shake to him if he's scum since i can't see him lynched here.

Combo of both. I think their pushes are both town motivated but just wrong. While I've had tenshii as town all game, and thor as lean town for a few days now.

assuming sonia flips vt and not wolf

1. Ira (I've decided there's no way this slot is scum. Period. Including the replace out, including Wing's analysis, including the little bit ira has said.)
2. Tenshii (This is my best townread that isn't confirmed town.)
3. Giga
4. Thor
5. Mhsmith

T>S don't see myself lynching the top 3 ever.

Giga's lock town. He gets a W if he's wolf. That's all.

Thor vs. Tenshii reads heavily town vs. town. If I'm ever forced to lynch in that cross, I'm going with Thor.

MHSmith was sorta manipulative. The way he placed his votes this game have been somewhat awkward. It's gotta be mhsmith.

Feedback?

thor is a big meanie >:(

i still feel justified.

i have openly welcomed rope around my neck since about D2. i'll still welcome it if you wanna policy lynch me, just don't fuck up LYLO.

imagine you guys being the town that blew 5 lynches and handed scum a game.

@smith

bc tenshii has been my tr all game. thor has not been my tr all game. i'm openly fine losing to Tenshii if he's bum-fucked me all game.

Thor's scum if you're not and I'm gonna get creamed by him if you flip green.

Luckily after carefully reading you and your predecessor, their actions seem the most scum-motivated.

i also don't understand why you're apparently upset with me about the way i have my reads. tenshii's been my best townread and nothing including all the cases made against him, and all the wrong votes he pursued has changed my mind. i don't think you're scum either thor. i don't think giga's scum either. i've given my stance. don't agree with it? fine. but it is what it is.

KTS, Rosske, and Transcend - I'm leaning towards a scum in that set.

urp looks like thor had rosske!scum thoughts as well.

this guy is an ass and i hope i don't have the displeasure of playing with him again.

more on "obvious fucking town" Thor. This is not how someone talks about an "obvious fucking town" slot.

[mhsmith0]

Like Thor's d1 was questionable

Giga's d2 was questionable

But the rest of the game they were obvious town and I really had no doubt that you or Rosske were final wolf after Luna replaced out the way she did.

Off topic but if I were scum I would've requested a fast night too. We had to wait 48 fucking hours just for one measly action. Every night should've been a speed night imo. Good call there mhsmith.

I always prefer speed nights. OTOH if we're going to go there (and hey you brought it up) I'm also not awake at that time, it's 5AM local. So either I did a request well in advance or I literally could not have been around to make that request. I think that's a cheap way to win though, would rather giga actually chose based on the more substantive stuff.

[mhsmith0]

oh and mhsmith and i will be cool after this game. he's been playing SUPER hard as scum the entire game and he's going 20 times as hard today. So extreme aggression will be seen from me and I will do nothing to stop it.

like i said, i mad respect the guy.

I respect your scum play Trans. I'm happy to match wits with you, and doubly happy to actually do it as town (seriously, you should actually read some of my scum games sometime, I'm like REALLY not good at it).

[mhsmith0]

I'll also remember for the record that I can't just get pocketed by you being "bad town". It's actually kind of funny that I recently had a game with Ranger where I was like "no way could she possibly be this bad as town" (she was ), which made me more sensitive to the possibility of competent players just playing badly as town (not explaining cases, being lazy w reads, etc).

[mhsmith0]

i don't think transcend's way of talking about thor contradicts that obvtown sentiment

it's more that tenshii and i were townier and luna was as good as conftown...

I'd disagree. He's keeping alive the possibility of a Thor lynch. If his read was that Thor was essentially conftown, he'd have hard sold that read, including the substance behind it, not just made Thor basically the #2 suspect. Like, if he was THAT strong on Thor, it'd be more like "it's just completely obvious it's smith, and in a bizarre world where it's not, I guess I can look at thor again, but I just don't think that's any kind of reasonable possibility"

[mhsmith0]

ughghfsgdg

you guys both outplayed me anyway so i should 100% take the blame for the loss if i choose wrong

FWIW I mainly blame the people who got lynched. I'm good at blaming my teammates like that
(but seriously there were a pretty good # of lynchbaits in this game, part of what made it harder to find the actual last wolf)

[mhsmith0]

That was the first time I'd ever seen her be utterly terrible town. I kept thinking "this can't possibly be town!" (it was lol). I think she used to be really good as town, now she's much better as wolf (as exemplified by my losing simultaneous scum sweeps in games with her, once she was town once she was wolf and I mixed up the reads both times )

[mhsmith0]

@giga: if you choose wrong, you choose wrong. I'd note that I've never ever played a scum game like this, but if you think this is my first time playing a really good scum game I guess I'll be flattered even if I get annoyed at eating ANOTHER annoying town loss.

[mhsmith0]

tbh i'm lynchbait as well

but i'm not letting myself be lynchbait this time lol

It's hard to be lynchbait when you get a red PM though

[mhsmith0]

FWIW I'd say that I'm actually NOT lynchbait as town. Like, I literally have ZERO mislynches as town outside of turbos, see http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Mhsmith0
I'm good at making it fairly obvious that I'm town (when I'm town anyway), and my record overall reflects it. Would be annoying to see that streak end here but w/e, I pretty much left it all in thread, the good and the bad.

[mhsmith0]

im surprised you didn't try to lynch me super hard earlier after you saw how lynchbaity i was in your mini mhsmith

pedit: i have legitimately 2 wins out of god knows how many games on this site as town.

I WILL NOT LOSE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^ almost like I saw you were potentially lynchbaity and got nervous about mistakenly scum reading you. You're right that if I was a wolf that'd be a potentially easier path to take though.

[mhsmith0]

Is Newbie 1714 your most recent scumgame? Trying to weakly meta you.

That's my most recent on this site. Off site I had multiball
http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... 9-Two-Fold
though that's multiball and not really the same thing (the biggest difference is I KNOW there are other scum so I can scum hunt in a relatively honest way... though it didn't work out in that one )

My other MS scum game was
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=66501

and I had a multiball neutral survivor faction (sort of) game
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=66512

[mhsmith0]

my other wolf games were
mafiauniverse.com/forums/threads/1337-Fruit-Salad-Mafia
(where I tried power wolfing and got shut down hard)

mafiauniverse.com/forums/search.php?searchid=288144
where I sort of tried it again, got shut down even harder

mafiauniverse.com/forums/threads/2163-Star-Fox-Galactic-Mish-Mash-Game-thread-Day-six
where I lurked with a bit of active lurking and an utterly ridiculous fake claim that somehow I lived through

[mhsmith0]

Actually Star Fox was the most fun I've ever had as a wolf. Had great teammates, really enjoyed it. That game in particular is why I usually have day chat in my games that I run, just because I think it's a much more fun and social experience.

[mhsmith0]

gigabyteTroubadour

well sry mhsmith but ima stick with my guns from the beginning

VOTE: mhsmith0

Oh my god you gave me a heart attack there dude. I don't even care that you're scum here that was awesome.

[mhsmith0]

it's pay back from double voting me >:)

?

[mhsmith0]

idk why, but it reminds me of your fake scum claim trolling bit in mini 1796
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8043738

very nice

[mhsmith0]

you typoed my name and i thought giga flash voted me

oh lol. I was just fixing it in case our mod was going to be a stickler for that kind of crap

[mhsmith0]

also mafiauniverse is very annoying to read through on my phone

i'll have to save that for later

Sure. Or you could just vote trans now, that'd be cool too

[mhsmith0]

Unfortunately for you I troll as both alignments because I'm just a goofball

Game over. Me Pers and Penguin were scum.

Enjoy your free death, MURDERCAT.

I kinda figured that tbh, though obviously I didn't know for sure

[mhsmith0]

Well that's a lie, I just trolled you hardcore and you know my alignment

Mostly made that post for Giga in case one of your bullshit meta posts captivated his eye.

Yeah that troll was solid, I definitely approve.

[mhsmith0]

Why did all my confidence for this game fly out the window? It's one thing when you have mislynches but now that we have no more I'm absolutely frozen. I've had fairly good reads sans karnos being scum. I still think that it's mhsmith but Giga had questionable actions as well. AFJFJSLSJSJSSS

@giga: remember, you were "obviously fucking town"
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 4#p8343414
If you want to know what changed, it's that I stated a suspicion of you in 2705. If you were "obvious fucking town" and that was a real read, then this post doesn't make any real sense. Trans is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He can't legitimately say you were any kind of lock town while also being open to the possibility of your lynch in LYLO. His "suspicion" of you in LYLO was for show.

[mhsmith0]

Biggest mistakes this game

- Townreading karnos
- Focusing mmore on Luna Fox and Rosske when mhsmith's vote hop was terrible
- Stillfocusing on Luna/Rosske after KTS flip shenaningans from mhsmith
- Not sheeping wingbaack over myself on d4

I really can't think of anything else, I tried my ABSOLUTE FUCKIGN DAMNDEST 3 FUCKING HOURS to get mhsmith lynched and tenshii saved and i fucking failed and i'm fucking furious because tenshii giga and thor were obvious fucking town.

Staying on this... does transcend SOUND "fucking furious" here? Because if you take this post and look at the ones both before and after, this isn't transcend raging. He's pretending to an emotion he doesn't actually feel. And fake emotions are pure scum tells. Villagers feel emotions and you can tell through their postings. Wolves state emotions or imitate them awkwardly.

[mhsmith0]

As I said

I respect the hell out of you to not instantly vote you

You were waffling between me and Giga so okay I took everything Giga done that was scummy into consideration and a bits of what you said but I didn't chew too much for too long. Your constant waffling which Giga has also done but his waffling felt more genuine led to me ultimately voting you and discarding any form of scumread on Giga and willingly handing him the game if he's scum like I said I would.

but I thought he was "obvious fucking town" right? So there was basically no actual doubt in your mind? I mean, that's what you SAID you read it as. It's just that your postings don't support what you say your actual read was. It's where you tripped yourself up.

[mhsmith0]

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL ...LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

You're using my day 1 scumread against me that I changed after the flip

Good 1

Except you didn't actually change it due to the flip. Day one you changed your primary target to Luna (i.e. changed BEFORE the flip), then day two you were STILL after her.

See
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 7#p8164327
before flip

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8174074
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8185864
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8185908
after flip

that's not any kind of hard town read of thor, that's a "well I have higher priorities" bit. Like, I look at your thor read and I don't see it materially changing in the immediate aftermath of the flip in any way that points back to the flip as being a driver. He was a suspect but not your #1 right before the flip, and he was in similar range after the flip.

[mhsmith0]

How dare you say that my anger was faked.

Put yourself in my shoes.

Say Thor was getting wagoned for w/e reason you TR'd him since d1 you did everything you could to get the lynch off of Thor for quite a long time. Let's say for keks and giggles Tenshii was the scum you were trying to lynch but stupid me and stupid Giga were like "naa tenshii obv town dodgeball kek vote thor". And then Thor flips after you were right after all that time. Would you not be at least a little bit flustered? I understand we're two different people but I was fucking fumed when Giga hammered Tenshii there after he was our solid townread that he doubted himself on.

Of course it's faked, your posts do not reflect anger

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 4#p8343414
there you say "I'm fucking furious". Except you're NOT "fucking furious" at that point, and your posts around there don't reflect anger. Nor do your posts at the start of the day - http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... start=2700 and immediate aftermath do not show anger at all.

So you weren't furious when you made the post saying you were furious, and you weren't furious when the day started. So yeah, that's fake anger.

Like, yes, if you were town I could believe you were legitimately upset about how it went down. That's not my point. My point is that YOU WERE NOT showing that emotional state in thread, either early in the day or when you talked about being furious, nor were you showing fury at http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p8329275, your post right after giga hammered.

In other words, you weren't actually furious. Which makes that it's a fake emotion that you were claiming without actually having. Which makes sense since you're a wolf and the tenshii lynch, while not what you wanted to see, did not prevent you from achieving your win con (plus it got thor out of the way too).

[mhsmith0]

Thor's vote on karnos was fucking weird okay? He just sheeped Giga and in the most neutral way. The vote looked tactical as opposed to genuine. Hence why I threw a vote his way.

As time went on and the karnos wagon grew larger I still really hated it until Luna Fox voted it and then I just deathtunneled her into oblivion. Then in twilight I announced that you voting right after Luna voted when you sussed her looked pretty tactical. Hence why Thor went on the back burner.

yeah but you didn't say he was back burnered, you said he was "obvious fucking town". But you didn't treat him like "obvious fucking town". Nor did you give giga that treatment early today. That's the in-thread evidence that your reads are fake. Like, it is literally right there for giga to see.

[mhsmith0]

Cool. So why didn't you show your anger when tenshii got lynched? Because NONE OF THESE are angry posts

Welp. Here's hoping both my top town reads were scum. I doubt it tho.

T, gonna participate in twilight?

Oh I meant Tenshii when I said T lmfao.

I get that -- I'm just a very impatient person and our mod takes forever to update the thread so I wanna hear what Tenshii says he is post hammer.

Hmm...

PEDIT: I'm sleeping soon then going to work so I was sorta banking on knowing relatively soon than having to wait til I get home to figure it out =p

You are lying about your reads, and you are lying about your emotions. Game-relevant lies that are basically outing. That's on top of night kills that make much more sense for you than for me, and a day 1 that showed a bizarre lack of interest/curiosity in the biggest wagon of the day, and a long series of attempts to drive momentum and attention elsewhere. I respect your game, and I respect the effort you've made to not give up, but you're outed and it's kinda obvious.

[mhsmith0]

did i ever lynch thor after d1?

my vote was never on him. I never thought about voting him once. I did say if it was him vs. Tenshii I'd vote him due to Tenshii being really obvious town, but I wouldn't have been happy with that cross at all.

You act like I'm not allowed to have a massive amount of strong townreads like I did this game {KTS, PC, Thor, Giga, Io, Tenshii, Lunaslotpostsub}

Obviously some townreads will be weaker than others

In this case, come final 5 Thor was my weakest townread. Still fairly strong though considering I didn't want to lynch him and I tried reasoning with him when he discredited my reads to no avail.

That's a misrep on your end, not mine. You're allowed to have strong town reads. Where you tripped up was in over-representing the strength of your reads in a way that very clearly jarred with your actual in-thread treatment of the slots.

[mhsmith0]

Sarcasm isn't the issue though. You said you were furious. But you weren't. You very very obviously weren't right after tenshii hammer, or at the start of the day, or when you said you were furious. Your emotion was fake. So the fact that you were being sarcastic, while I suppose interesting, isn't really relevant to the point. The point is you faked your emotion.

[mhsmith0]

In thread treatment of the slots:

"Hey guys KTS is probably town. Stop fucking lynching him. Here, there's 4 better options than him. Here's why" (i was slightly sring giga d2 so he was a reasonable candidate)

"Hey guys instead of lynching PC we should just replace the slot as he's obviously not in to the game anymore. I think these guys could be scum and we should lynch them for x y z"

Then taking 3+ hours to make a game winning case to defend Tenshii and attack you.

You cannot say that I am over representing the strength of my TRs.

Now each time they got flipped I played it very hopeful like always in that "hey maybe I was the idiot maybe he flipped scum"

So your point is moot.

Not really. You over-represented the strength of your reads in a massive way. You didn't treat Thor as obv!town, you treated him as your #2 scumspect. You sometimes treated giga as obv!town, but then early today, after I inidcated suspicion of the slot, you went after them and suddenly it was a really hard decision, and they were waffling, etc. That's how you treat someone you're hoping you can maybe get a cross-vote on, not how you treat an actual strong town read.

[mhsmith0]

The point is I didn't fake my emotion and I will not let you get away with having Giga thinkthat I faked my emotions after all that fucking effort to save him.

But you did. You very clearly faked it. You said you were furious. And you weren't. Like, that's completely obvious just from reading the thread.

[mhsmith0]

Welp. Here's hoping both my top town reads were scum. I doubt it tho.

Sarcasm can indeed be caused by fury. In this case, though, there is no sign whatsoever that it was actually the case.

[mhsmith0]

Tone is a perfectly valid way of analyzing play though. If you were legitimately upset but didn't show it in your posts, and feel that I've caught you for the wrong reasons, I apologize. But it's in-thread data that is legitimate to dig into for validity. You claimed emotions that your postings did not reflect, which looks very much like a game-relevant lie.

[mhsmith0]

Wagon hopping is not in and of itself alignment indicative though. Nor is expressing doubt about lynches. Nor is thinking that a PoE is legitimately down to two people. My being mafia here is borderline nonsensical; the only thing about my play that was at all questionable is my push on Rosske/Maria the day she got lynched, and even that was a process where I was clear about my thinking and why I was doing what I did. There's also nothing non-genuine about my reads or reads progression. I did the work to develop my reads, and consistently showed my work in thread. You can handwave the argument that I've been tactical, but stating I've been tactical and having evidence that I've been tactical aren't the same thing. You're handwaving because you don't have the evidence, just like you didn't bother to do the work to justify your reads or meaningfully engage with your critics becaues they weren't real reads in the first place.

[mhsmith0]

I had much stronger scum reads on kts, then rosske and tenshii, compared to you, yes. That was my mistake.

Some of the shit I have on you is literally from today, so obviously I wouldn't have had it before. As far as my walls being tactical, you're saying that it was tactical instead of actually providing backup, which is consistent with you being unable to provide backup because you know it's false.

You say

Sometimes you didn't even wall the leading person you just softly acquiesced to the leading person while discrediting other people's reads on them.

but you're really just talking about the rosske lynch here, and your only objection is to how I treated you in the context of that lynch. It's a nothing argument you're making here, and it's because that's what you're left with in terms of selling legitimate reasons why I'm a wolf. Hopefully giga sees through it.

[mhsmith0]

Ps today I went through the entire game from the framework of it being either you or giga. It's easier to reach that conclusion when I'm not distracted by scum reads on anyone else. And I'd note that I was pretty explicit on my process of evaluating you both, including evaluating my mental framework of you having a worse d1 and giga being worse after, which resulted in my discarding my earlier take on your d2+. It's all explainable by "he went back and read", which by the way was also how I changed my original d1 scum read on Luna into a read of karnos.

[mhsmith0]

Don't worry, I'll be the rude one

Frankly, you're correct that Thor/trans/me wouldn't be great for me as last wolf (no grouping really would be) but it's the most plausible one for me to get an easy mislynch if I'm the last wolf. Thor had been more suspicious of trans than me, and trans had expressed suspicions of Thor ("he was like totally obv town" bit aside).

[mhsmith0]

But basically Thor would be a bad n5 shot for me, just like io would be a bad n3 for me (killing someone TRing me there is lolol worthy), and the one aspect of my wolf game that is actually good is my night kills. When I'm a wolf I consistently put thought and care into my kills, and those are poor shots for me. Ditto Ira frankly, though at least you can make a case there.

[mhsmith0]

Like, a good paradigm for seeing me as a wolf in a game is "smith doesn't seem particularly villagery, and oh crap the cop just died last night". I'm actually legit proud of my night game, since as a wolf it's much better than my day game (partially because I like game solving, and pr/spk hunting is something I can actually do as an act of game solving). Here I'd need to have played well in the day but crappy at night which is like the opposite of my wolf meta.

[mhsmith0]

Gg then if you're conceding. Mad respect for your scum game though, karnos getting lynched d1 made it super hard mode for you and taking it to LYLO, even if the town wasn't great, is still really good.

[mhsmith0]

Meh sounded like a concession. As far as the anger goes, sorry if I hit a sore spot but it really did look fake, and pointing out what looks like fake emotion is fair game IMO.

[mhsmith0]

I mean, I'm not trying to tick you off, but if I have I apologize for it. Trying to make gigas decision easy. REALLY want my MS town record to go back to .500 and start up a new winning streak.

[mhsmith0]

my (genuine) anger in lylo has gotten me mislynched countless times due to it appearing scummy so take advantage of that.

i have no idea why i'm giving you winning tips anymore but after yesterday i just don't care anymore. i thought i would but i really genuinely honestly do not.

Nah it's cool. Like, here your anger doesn't look angry, and your WIM was high early this game day and faded once I wasn't going to vote giga and giga started to lean to vote you. It really sucks to fight through the game state to reach LYLO and then lose it at the very end, and I don't think you really deserve to lose given your effort here.

[mhsmith0]

Night trans. Hope next time we can villa together, would probably be fun.

[mhsmith0]

Trans and I voted each other, waiting on giga hammer.

[mhsmith0]

I'll be back some time tonight. Giga, if you have any questions, ask. Otherwise I'll probably mainly dig a bit more into my own ISO and the stuff kc said.

[mhsmith0]

Some additional notes

On KC
First reads
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p8125182
Thinking its karnos/kts, pushes on both, keeps pushing on both. His "I need to see vc first before voting karnos" bit is weird, sure, but I don't see it as anything other than being lazy about following who's voting who, which is basically NAI. It's also a ridiculous tack to take in terms of justifying not voting a partner; all you need is someone to say who's voting who and suddenly the excuse for not voting karnos is gone.
It's also notable that he's not just scum reading kts, he's actively asking questions about him and looking for feedback, see
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 1#p8126651
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p8127015
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8127018
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p8127766
That's not a strategic push to distract the town from karnos, that's a tunnel on a wolfy looking player, while actively engaging others on the read. I'll agree it was obnoxious at times, but that's the worst the can be said about it.
Also notable: active town read of Thor, which is an odd line to take as a buddy given karnos efforts to discredit Thor
Also see io on KC, http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p8128000, as well as her Sheeping kcs push on PC
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p8128035
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p8128035
Reinforcing the idea that his final post, being against PC, was also valid (though wrong)


On Luna
Transcend attacks her early for "buddying" in a case that she justifiably calls ridiculous. She then pushes him for thoughts on karnos-io and he basically gives a non answer and then changes the topic again to attack Thor, see
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8120814
And
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p8121440
And the stuff in between. That's a clear pro-wolf action given karnos's red flip, changing the conversation repeatedly, and looking for whatever to attack, that, if successful, would have taken the pressure off of karnos.

Compare that to my push on her, based partially on meta and partially on what looked like active lurking on her end, which she herself admitted was valid though incorrect
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p8154705
Also compare how I re-read, and move karnos up the suspect list while still suspecting Luna but moving her a bit off the top of my suspect list, see http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p8156550
And then eventually moved her up as her postings improved, see http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p8165836

Day 2

These posts in succession

if roping kts ends the game i will admit to being the third mafia this game and put in my sig "luna fox is a scumhunting goddess"

where in the world did the PC wagon come from? that's super left field to me and his lynch probably yields the mafia.

i assume that's PC

leaning towards final scum being luna fox, rosske, or giga now. giga's been happy to lynch anyone honestly and it's alarming.

Are just bizarre from a town perspective. He's stating opposition to two major wagons (kts and PC), but at the same time not actually doing anything meaningful to oppose them. That's where the disconnect comes in; a villagery attitude to take would be to actively oppose them, to argue hard why they're both town, and be aggressive in forcing the conversation his way. Instead he's subtly oking either villager wagon while being off of both. That's a non obvious, but still clear pro-wolf, way of handling the situation.

Also look at when kts was near a majority. He posts
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 7#p8197147
Which is a stated opposition, but at the same time isn't any kind of town read, or take down of the kts case that would ever be capable of convincing anyone. Instead of saying WHY the case is bad he just says it's bad. It's a way of logging opposition without actually derailing the wagon . Ditto
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p8197206
Which is a lazy summary of the case against kts, and again isn't really designed to convince anyone, it's just there to show he's against kts lynch without actually stopping it.

Similarly,
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8203218
Is him walking away from actually debating the point with Thor. Instead of actually working to convince Thor the case is bad, he just states opposition, while not actually doing anything that would actually derail the wagon.


Compare that to what I was doing around the time of the "town block" discussion.
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p8185896
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8186018
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8186478
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 3#p8186483
Not politicking to be on a town block, not bitching about not being on a town block, and not sucking up to people, instead actively working to figure out who should be cleared for valid reasons. If I'm a wolf this drastically cuts down my mislynch options, while if I'm town this helps prevent future mislynches and focuses the conversation on more plausible wolves.

Also look at
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 4#p8186484
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p8189382
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8190108
Which was actively creating content and trying to game solve in a different direction than the board had been going.

And
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p8206982
Which was a response to transcends invalid attack on me, which he didn't get around to responding to, despite being around and posting soon after (and which obviously I should have pushed on)

[mhsmith0]

Anyway that's what I got from re-reading. I do think this is a pretty easy call, but if you have doubts or questions ask away.

[mhsmith0]

Let me know if you have any final questions. I'm less available mid day so depending on when you post there may be a delay in response.

[mhsmith0]

God damn dude you need to learn to trust yourself

You're on your way to the biggest L of the century and it's all because you evaded your former town reads.

Like sincerely i don't know what to say. You bombed the f*** out of this game since d2 onwards.

^ manipulative, appeal to fear/embarrassment, does not actually address the substantive case against him. If you had any doubt remaining that should basically end it

[mhsmith0]

In the context of trans meta see

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p8342206

His wolf game isn't wildly different from his town game, but he's still playing his wolf game, most notably on day one.

[mhsmith0]

I'm relatively busy today will respond at lunch or tonight

[mhsmith0]

Some responses to transcend's recent points:

1) His point about the anger issue is wrong in a couple of ways. First, the fact remains that he declared he was furious without actually being furious in his posts. As he notes, he was openly angry when karnos was lynched, but not openly angry when tenshii was lynched.
Second, consider his counter-examples.
In the first, he claims that his treatment of Dunnstral in open 647 is comparable to his treatment of tenshii here, but that's nonsensical. Even looking at his 1406/1407 THAT HE HIMSELF CITED, that's a really meh defense of Dunn in terms of emotional investment, energy, etc (and if you dig deeper into his ISO, it was only a few RL days before Dunn's lynch that he was calling Dunn obv!scum). Compare that to his "I put in three hours of work just to find a bunch of quotes I already made" bit on Tenshii this game, and there's no reason to think that town!trans would have been nearly as invested in a Dunn town read than town!trans would have been in a Tenshii town read here.
And then consider Dunn's lynch. With multiple scum remaining, Dunn self-hammered (edit: he actually just self L-1'd, though I'm guessing that wasn't immediately obvious at the time). You know who self-hammers there? Scum. So a normal townie reaction would be to think "oh crap I guess I was wrong", or at the very least to have doubt. So why would Trans be furious at the town for lynching a town read (which he himself hadn't been super sure of - it seems more like he just had stronger scum reads, at least at a quick glance) in that situation? It'd just be a really strange reaction to have. Also look at 1535, where he basically tells karnos it's OK to hammer Dunn for real. So basically, there's nothing in there which suggests that Trans SHOULD have been furious at the town, and yet he's telling you that this is a comparable situation where "see, I wasn't yelling at people there either" therefore means that you shouldn't expect town!trans to be furious at the town here.
And again, lest you forget, HE CLAIMED HE WAS FURIOUS. Even though his actual posts didn't back that claim up.
As far as the second goes, it's one where he openly hammered his stated town read. I could dig into that if you want, but I'm not sure how useful it'd be.

2) He claims he's a serial busser, but even the game he cites was a mid-game bus. A D1 bus is a very risky play, because you have to duck a bunch of lynches, and if you're too much of a town read then you potentially have to justify being alive. It's far easier to get a mislynch or two in, and then bus later on if/as needed.
wrt "defending karnos when his goose was cooked", sure that's not good scum play. But his early D1 stuff, constantly changing the conversation, being totally disinterested in the substance of the case against karnos, that's where you see the scum intent. And then given that he'd already done all of that, representing a stubborn process of sticking to his read of karnos as town is perfectly defensible scum play, since a rapid change of opinion to get on that wagon could, if executed poorly, look really obvious as a bus. So that part is null. If he's town he can be consistent in opinion. If he's a wolf then he'd rather look like a stubborn townie than a cheap busser. What's suspicious here is represnting it as something he totally wouldn't do as a wolf. In that situation, where he was already committed to a town read of karnos (though not based on much of any substance), it's totally plausible as a play.

3) He's asking me to prove that my votes weren't tactical without presenting much of a case for why they are in fact tactical. I would say that I was working on developing my reads, that I presented my thoughts, and that I'd had reasons for each vote I was on (I'd also note that PC was hammered before I hopped on, and it was explicitly a mod error thing, as opposed to something that reads particularly tactical in nature).

4) Look at his approach to D6. He's super excited and high energy when I state suspicion of you and is totally willing to push you on everything. Then when I go back, re-read and get off the suspicion of you, that push goes away and he's just "convinced" again that it was very obviously me all along. His substantive reasonings are weak, and his main weapon is AtE and manipulation. He's not able to substantiate a meaningful case against me because he knows there isn't one he can make. He's trapped and he knows it.

[mhsmith0]

Your case is genuinely bad, anyway. Not sure how I can be ignorant if I'm supposedly a lying wolf, but that one I'll at least let go as being lazy language use.

By the way, it's been really fun to watch your giga read bounce around, see

But let it be known that whether you flip town or scum, I bestow the title of biggest waffle of this game to you, Giga.

(before he voted me, and was still "casing" you)

Like i said you're the biggest waffle this fucking game and you've doubted so many trs to lynch them. Today is no different.

(ditto)

I really can't think of anything else, I tried my ABSOLUTE FUCKIGN DAMNDEST 3 FUCKING HOURS to get mhsmith lynched and tenshii saved and i fucking failed and i'm fucking furious because tenshii giga and thor were obvious fucking town.

(now that he voted me... Thor, who Trans clearly didn't hard town read, and Giga, who trans was "sorting" early D6 were both "obvious fucking town")

This is not blatant imo I think smith is doing a good job at towning it up.

(i.e. it's just smith doing well, implication being that there's no shame to giga if they blow it)

God damn dude you need to learn to trust yourself

You're on your way to the biggest L of the century and it's all because you evaded your former town reads.

Like sincerely i don't know what to say. You bombed the f*** out of this game since d2 onwards.

(self explanatory)

You're obviously a very good player Giga with very good early reads. Your participation and effort recently declined due to other factors. I can say with great certainty that your townread on me was on point. You really need to trust yourself from what your initial thoughts were. Like I will not stop tantalizing you post game if you lynch me and that was the fourth time you waffled and fucked up.

(manipulative, appeal to fear/embarrasment, AND "you're a very good player, just playing like crap")

Giga, if you have any questions ask, otherwise it's basically just me smacking down Trans's BS arguments.

[mhsmith0]

well you could always just ask yourself why you haven't hammered trans yet

[mhsmith0]

nah i get it. I might very well do the same in your shoes (people have bitched about my pacing in games sometimes before fwiw). It'd be nice to lock in the W and move on, but if you need more time, take it.

[mhsmith0]

btw, relating to the earlier back and forth about trans's statement of anger, this is actually one of my favorite scum-hunting advice posts, from graveyard of a game I played a while ago from a really good player:

I don't have time to adequately respond to that post but one thing I can say quickly is that when I'm talking about emotions, I'm specifically excluding anger. It's the easiest emotion to fake and it's one that is often not alignment-indicative even when it is genuine, unless it can be traced to an origin in something distinctly villagery.

Emotions like pride, paranoia, surprise, suspicion, etc, are more difficult to fake. Wolves often fail to even identify spots in which emotion should be present in their posting, and their efforts at actually displaying more complex emotions are often quite clumsy, for example by stating their supposed feelings rather than displaying them.

But in the case of Cron, a lot of what was clearing for him was just the sheer depth and breadth of his reads and interactions. It's just hard to fake that much content so quickly and make it sound good. And few wolves are ever going to stalk other players' online statuses in order to catch lurkers.

People saying "I'm feeling ___" while their posts really don't seem to reflect it is actually something I've found to be a really cool scum-tell.

[mhsmith0]

I'm not going to re-read a 200 page-long ISO but key points that stuck out to me:

1) Mhsmith's case and jump onto Karnos is the only one out of everyone here that makes sense as a smooth hop onto a bus wagon. Everyone else has interactions that stick out in a way that is unlikely to be bussing (except Rosske but he has the nightkill going for him).

2) Mhsmith asking people what they thought of the evidence against Karnos is something I've seen scum do before when they are last-minute bussing.

3) Mhsmith is one of the few that doesn't react to the KTS scumclaim.

4) Mhsmith's subtle push on Transcend after I outlined suspicion of him without explicitly agreeing with me and using information he had for months is a scummy positioning move.

VOTE: Mhsmith


This is who I think will slip scum. There's no real reason I can find to townread him other than lots of effort but that's something I could see him doing as scum given how thorough and focused and determined to win he is in his other games regardless of alignment. I could see him kill outside Thor for the WIFOM and chaos.

I'm bringing this post up again.

I know you'll be like "lolfalcon lolbanneduser lolnocredibility" but he was dead on with his read. And his reasons are correct.

Smith outlined suspicion on me when Falcon had doubts about me, fairly sure he placed a vote as well.

However, when I don't become a possible lynch at all, he evades any of that logic that as Falcon said he's had for months to pursue scapegoat mislynches on the Rosskeslot and Tenshii. Which is ridiculous because his posts tended to learn towards Tenshii getting lynched vs. the Rosskeslot and both of them were positioned to being lynched on d4, but he went with the one he thought had "less a chance of being mafia" which coincidentally was the one with more momentum.

Giga, I cannot stress this to you enough. He is not town. I am. There has been no town motivation behind his play at all.

He's only been trying to sound towny by overfluffing his posts.

I don't even know why I'm still trying when you're a clear that's not even taking what I say to heart but man....

1) Instead of bothering to engage with the counter-points I made to wing, he just cites wing's case and leaves it at that. A villager would actually be able to engage with the back and forth, trans just dumps a "well see, wing thought he was a wolf", dressed up a bit
2) I'd actually had reason to push and then back off of trans. See my unvote post

The sheer contempt in transcend there is kinda interesting. Compare that to his iso in his scum game, notably

i'm so fucking pissed off that alpaca flipped town. i pushed his lynch super hard because i thought he was mafia and town would be in basically autowin.

also i reread the entire fucking game overnight, but ignored scout since i thought he was gonna die.

i concluded bacde/lowell mafia.

not voting yet.

Where he talks about being pissed off while pretty clearly not actually being pissed off. I think that's a hard engagement to fake as a wolf.
UNVOTE: transcend
Still suspicious of him, but his reaction there is highly consistent with a townie who thinks he's surrounded by a bunch of total idiots. I don't think he fakes the contempt dripping through his posts if he's a wolf there. It's really hard to do.

at that time, I was actively struggling to figure out who the last wolf was, and my posts reflected it. I was working on engaging people and trying to game solve. Trans is insinuiating that I just pissed off onto easier wagons, but that wasn't how that went down. I unvoted him tuesday, spent the next few days working to try and game solve (as well as defend against the bad case on me), and then SIX DAYS LATER I hopped on to Maria. The idea that I just lazily hopped right off of him onto an easy wagon isn't substantiated by what actually happened.
PS looking at that quote again, what I pulled from the other game is another example of trans as a wolf talking about being pissed off without actually being pissed off. @trans: that's a hole in your wolf game, probably worth fixing going forward.

[mhsmith0]

If you're scared about Night Kill analysis please don't be, I bet there's 1,000 games on this website where scum made a kill that didn't logically make sense but ended up giving them the W. So maybe the "illogical kill" is actually a "logical kill". I have one of those games in my records (Fire and Ice).

I know you're leaning towards smith being town because he's expanding on his meta and he's wifoming harder about why the night kills point to me and not him which apparently is what you like.

If I can be frank with you one more time, the iraona kill is not something I would have likely done. Tenshii would've been an easy mislynch for scum!me in 3 way lylo and iraona was leaning towards smith being mafia. I would've killed you or Thor to make the kill on smith super easy and then the mislynch on Tenshii being super easy in 3 way.

The night kills are evidence. They're part of the case. Trans's shots on Io and Thor point to him more than me, and he knows that he can't effectively argue against that fact, so instead he chooses to just try and discredit it as evidence. As far as the Ira kill goes, it easily could be a setup kill to make my mislynch easier. Ira wasn't making good points, he was just making them with energy. Far easier to lock in his read and have it point to me than to give me a chance to effectively argue against them (see Tenshii's response to my counter-points to win on D4 for an example of this). N4 Trans obviously could have shot you instead (and debatably that's a better shot), but to say that it doesn't fit what he could do in that spot is IMO silly.

[mhsmith0]

Also Mhsmith's reaction to KTS flip was nearly damning and I wish I pushed on it harder than I did because it was flat, basically a change of tone on his behalf. "Wow you guys fucked up even though I helped you lynch this slot, good job guys good job".

I really hope you can get to this game today because frankly it's getting tedious defending myself and attacking him and I just want a result.

I promise you, I will be mad for at most 10 minutes if you mislynch me. Our friendship will not go anywhere, I value it very much. I will only be upset not because my foe was bad but because you doubted yourself for the 4th time this game when you did that 3 times already and it fucked you. Mhsmith is a very formidable opponent and I've been happy to be in this 3 way lylo with him. Would've been happier if he got flipped yesterday!!! But yannoe, I respect good players and I always love a challenge.

Yeah no shit. What wolf bothers to dump final reads post hammer when his death ends the game? Also talk about your tenshii town read? What's driving that?

Giga seriously, look at this change of tone in this post vs. the rest of his game. He parked his vote on KTS and I'm fairly sure did not change.

This was extremely obviously a response to what KTS was posting after his lynch. His "scum claim" was half-assed garbage. If you want a good example of a fake scum claim, see
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p7983722
and his follow up posts. It didn't really work out (the wolves were BTD and kappy, and while BTD's reaction sucked, kappy's was really convincing) but at least it was a decent and believable attempt. KTS was flagrantly half-assed. "I'm a wolf, but here's my town block". That should have convinced nobody.
And look at the posts after the "scum claim". Trans is going along in a blah way, with a bunch of posts that are not difficult to fake as a wolf. Like, if you're a wolf in that situation, the obvious move is to try and hop on and get town credit for looking like you "fell for it".
Meanwhile if I'm a wolf, I tell people that they're being dumb for falling for KTS's crappy fake scum claim... for the town credit? Because I would as a villager? Trans is trying to twist my reaction to what KTS said as if somehow I knew he was a villager all along, or as if it wasn't obvious that he wasn't scum from the post, which you yourself noted

Town bloc as it stands is Tenshii, Townscend, Luna, Giga, and Io,

scum doesn't post this transcend

that's the 180

i was too excited to think straight lmfao

[mhsmith0]

night kills are all you have to rely on not getting hammered for. that's literally it. you can't properly defend your actions that everyone could visibly see for the past 2 months.

Yes, clearly there's no case on you other than night kills

Let's all pretend none of the following are out there:

1) Your lack of interest in the karnos case D1
2) Your constant attempts to change the conversation away from karnos and onto literally anyone else you could think of D1, including shitty cases on luna and thor
3) Your fake emotion
4) Your lying about people being obv!town
5) Your handling of giga today, from "I'M TOTALLY GONNA SOLVE THIS GAME TODAY GUYS" to abandoning your stated suspicion of giga once it became clear that I was back to thinking it was you
6) Your tacit consent to KTS/PC wagons (super bizarre as town since you'd indicated opposition to those)
etc.

[mhsmith0]

your case on me bubbles down to "tone"

which i've been known to have ridiculous tone changes in every single game i play and "he would make those night kills, not me". it's very fluffy and at the same time very flat.

my case on you is based thoroughly on the actions that you did throughout the course of the entire game. how EVERY SINGLE VOTE you made was tactical and not genuine. how you had flat reactions and tone changes upon flips. reading your iso you had fairly consistent tone throughout the game, which you did a good job of, however when kts was hammered your tone immediately changed.

Oh god that's hilarious. My case on you boils down to your actions. Tone is part of the case, sure, but it's very obviously not dependent on tone alone. That's an amazing misrep dude.

[mhsmith0]

1. That was giga who pointed it out

2. Fine, okay he posted a reads list which made him "obvious town". Your tone still changed quite a bit and you still knew he was flipping town whether Giga did or not.

Sure, my tone there changed because his after hammer posts made it really obvious he was town. This is completely consistent with what I said. You twisting it into some kind of scum slip is beyond ridiculous.

[mhsmith0]

I can honestly see the Dead PT exploding right now because quite a few people exited the game with a fos on smith or a TR on me and he's survived so many lynches.

KTS: "Why hasn't smith been lynched yet, he knew I was town before I flipped."

Tenshii: "Man I was voting scum yesterday and I still got horribly mislynched."

MariaR: "Transcend is really obvious town why hasn't Giga hammered smith yet?"

Iraona: "I said smith was scum and here I am in the dead PT. Maybe Giga will realize why I'm here and hammer him."

This is what I imagine the Dead PT will look like post game.

Yes let's ignore:

Luna who had me as strong town
Thor who was more suspicious of you than me
Io who town read me (BUT NOT TRANS), see

As far as I'm concerned Thor, Giga, Smith, and Luna are all exrtremely unlikely to be scum because of Karnos's basic interactions with them.

PS If you think that I'd kill Io, who had me as town with enough non-town reads that I could possibly have gotten her to push others and kept my hands relatively clean, over Thor who's the most veteran and accomplished player here, then you're crazy. Literally crazy. I would make that kill never. It'd be a really bad kill for me to make, and I don't make really bad kills.

[mhsmith0]

@giga: if you have questions ask. But trans was obv!scum today with the fake push on you, the endless AtE, the fake emotion, the reaching case of scum-reading NAI stuff like my KTS reaction, etc. This simply isn't a difficult call.

[mhsmith0]

It's hilarious that trans is representing the process where I went back and re-read, and firmed up my TR of giga and wolf read of trans, as if I was spending the day waffling, or as if my posts looking back on D1-D5 were nothing but waffling.

[mhsmith0]

Also, and I repeat, trans's repeated appeals to emotion, to fear, and to embarrassment are obvious. Note how much of his energy is devoted to this. It's because he knows he doesn't have a case, so instead he's trying to manipulate you into making a mistake.

[mhsmith0]

"wah wah wah i can't be scum because of night kills"

"i can't defend my sketchy actions in game so i'm just gonna shift blame for the night kills on someone else weahhhhhh"

PEDIT: FKAE PUSH LOLOLOLOLO

i never expressed any slight interest in lynching Giga as said in my case

. I was convinced all day that you were scum, but nice guy me wanted to give you a chance, you blew it and Giga responded really well. LOL LOL LOL.

@giga: This is an obvious lie, see his his early D6 stuff. He was trying to represent uncertainty about which of us it was, because he wanted me to vote you.

[mhsmith0]

You represented that you were seriously considering giga as being the last wolf.

[mhsmith0]

oh thank god

[mhsmith0]

also either trans is the last wolf or you spent a week trolling us

[mhsmith0]

I don't troll. I mean, in this game if I was a wolf I'd be totally tempted because I've never ever played like this as a wolf, but i'm not trolling.

[mhsmith0]

Nah I got crapped on well done to the town and mhsmith. BUT I WAS SO FUCKING CLOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gg trans, you fought really hard. i was impressed. and thank god it worked out

[mhsmith0]

I wouldn't have blacklisted you even if I was town. WP guys but I'm really fucking mad I lost that because I gave every ounce of energy in that.

yeah I could see that, although it really did seem like your energy was wolf-oriented. still, really well done.

[mhsmith0]

remember when I said after Io shot that if it was Thor, he might have shot me N3? F3 here was why. My mid to late game as town is where I shine, and Thor has seen me do really well mid/late game MULTIPLE times now.

[mhsmith0]

i think most setups on MS are town-sided, but there are a lot of bad townies who can't scum hunt or who are lynchbait, so it ends up "balancing"

[mhsmith0]

PS if giga mis-hammered, i'd probably be about 50% of my salt levels compared to fable's turbo screwup, http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... urbo/page8
and that was a SALTY postgame

[mhsmith0]

And now my "you simply can't ever mislynch me when I'm town" streak rolls on

[mhsmith0]

Oh and btw for my mhsmith and tenshii case, it took me 7 minutes to make as opposed to 3 hours. all i did was ctrl+f their names throughout my iso, dump it in a giant post and hope for the best. lol.

yeah that was sketchy. it felt a bit cheap to blast you on that though, but I remember being like "huh?????" with the 3 hour thing.

[mhsmith0]

I seem to have a talent for getting hammered on weekends while I'm away from my computer, second game in a row where this happened.

GL town. Make sure you lynch Io for me tomorrow.

this game doesn't end until vengeance is found. rip my friend. your lynch was honestly the most ridiculous thing i've seen.

You guys had lots of good points on me, but this is pissed off me talking to my partner

Yeah I figured at the time it could have been

OH and to anyone I may have offended in this game

IT WAS NOTHING PERSONAL ONLY STRATEGIC

SORRY FOR BREAKING THE RULES OF NO CURSING ABOUT 1000 TIMES.

I just wanted this W more than anything.

I don't give a shit about the cursing rules too late to get mod killed now

But I think I have a high threshold for being offended at stuff in games. I do have a bit of a temper w people who accuse ME of being inappropriate especially when I wasn't, but I think I'm usually pretty tolerant of all sorts of stuff.

[mhsmith0]

Swear on it.

I meant nothing I said this game.

Including "I am town"

[mhsmith0]

I also wasn't kidding when I said I'd have shot Thor n3 basically always. Spk pretty much always; if I wanted to wifom it a bit I'd have shot Luna maybe, but wolf!me wants Thor out of the game asap. Thor can be mislynched, but I'd be super nervous about screwing it up.

[mhsmith0]

You played well. Outside turbos I have yet to ever eat rope as town. Just too villagery and obv!town

[mhsmith0]

It's gonna be funny when some of you guys see me as a wolf. My level of game solving is something I really strugge to replicate as a wolf.

[mhsmith0]

@giga: one serious piece of advice: don't look for scum slips. Look for overall approach, inconsistencies between words and actions, etc. trans's "slip" easily could have been how he'd talk to an actual town read, for instance. Most "slips" are null mis-speaks, and the people pouncing on them are the actual wolves.

[mhsmith0]

I stop reading carefully when I don't have to game solve anymore

[mhsmith0]

@Tenshii: sorry about lynching you

[mhsmith0]

the derp was sometimes strong in the town. also it really wasn't obvious who it was, and I did think you were kinda coasting and not really scum-hunting

[mhsmith0]

sure, but you v karnos pretty strongly spewed you town. tenshii didn't have that luxury to back him up.

[mhsmith0]

Now I just gotta decide who gets HM I'm probably gonna give it to mhsmith here since he took an absolute shit on me, but Giga making the correct decision in the end was also pretty sweet along with his pouncing of karnosd d1.

The correct answer here is Io btw. She did probably the most work to get karnos lynched (really started the hard push on him), and every single person she cleared was actually a townie. If she'd lived, she might have won it sooner by PoE alone. Meanwhile everyone else had multiple wrong wagons they were on for various reasons. I did well D1 and redeemed myself D6, and had a very good D2 tbh, but my D3-D5 kinda sucked.

[mhsmith0]

I was surprised, still thought it was mhsmith0 even more strongly... Good job, gigabyteTroubadour!

Whoops

I told ya I wasn't gonna kill ira
As a wolf, it's really not that bad to be scum read by someone for bad reasons. Luna's showing made slot unlynchable but coulda still been argued against or discredited if I was a wolf.

[mhsmith0]

Since we won't see dead chat for a while (probably), how were things there in LYLO? By ira comment I'm presuming karnos didn't spoil at least.

[mhsmith0]

Btw trans, wrt nka in the fire and ice, it pointed against pjm but at the same time it could be that they decided to let him be bussed and/or go for the Hail Mary wifom play. It's really about looking at the pattern of who could have done it and for what reasons, and figuring out what does or doesn't fit. And, like anything else, sometimes you'll just be wrong about it. But it's still evidence and worth considering. If nothing else it gives you something to talk about and push people and see how they react to it. The more evidence that is considered and productively commented on by the town, the better.

[mhsmith0]

but now you announce the part where mhsmith won as mafia right

Spoiler:

in my dreams ;-;

Mine too lol. If I'd been mafia here and won I'd legit take a lot of pride in it.

[mhsmith0]

Btw for the curious (since there are some newer players in the game), here are some cool resources id found that I'd found helpful (it's basically my proto IC post):

Spoiler: Voting Analysis

Vote analysis is…vital
Nothing written in thread is as crucial as the names put in red and the reasons offered to justify those lynch votes. They are the best guide to player motive and thus to player alignment. And so it is the core of your scumhunting.

Vote analysis is huge in scope...
...because it encompasses everything from the micro-level of analysing individual votes to the macro-level of analysing voting patterns within and across multiple game days.

Spoiler: Micro vote analysis

Understanding how a scum’s motives and a townie’s motives differentiate their respective voting behaviours

So scum vote for townies right? Well, yeah…often enough, but that doesn’t get you very far. Firstly scum vote for other scum far more often than might be initially assumed, but your biggest problem is that townies vote for other townies…a lot!
So how does a townie tell the difference?
Well if each townie is bringing their best game then they should be intellectually invested in their lynch vote. They want that player killed. Consequently, they want to influence and persuade their fellow townies and drive their preferred lynch. In short, it matters to a townie who specifically is lynched that game day.
A townie might initially throw a vote or two around to see what happens, but essentially a townie lynch vote ought to be righteous

in the moment of being cast

.
Simultaneously a townie will be continuously reviewing their reads and triaging their suspects (everyone else in the game). They are genuinely searching for the best vote. That means if they change their vote…that process is righteous too.
…
Well preferably they [scum] want a townie lynched, but more than that

they want to blend in

. Ideally they also want someone else set up to take most of the heat for mislynches.
…
So…scum voting is therefore a part of their elongated active lurk – look busy, but don’t help. They want to surf along on the edge of your consciousness and low in your triage of suspects. Meanwhile townies throw suspicion at each other over misconstrued nothings.
…
So whether on or off the current leading mislynch, a scum in this mode is relatively passive and their lynch vote rationales underwhelming.
Also fake scumhunting is hard! It’s difficult to both contrive some reason to vote someone and then plausibly ‘sell' that contrivance. It is much easier to window-dress plagiarised arguments or just try and slip a token 'scumhunt' into thread without fanfare.
…
If a scum does try some fake scumhunting it will lack righteousness. It will smell feeble. You will struggle to see how or why this vapour is vote-worthy relative to alternative issues present in the thread. Knowing this some scum players might try and fake passion for their vote to disguise the deficit in intellectual integrity underpinning it. Then you are looking for a disproportionate level of zeal and/or confidence. A scum in this mode is not necessarily harder to spot, but can be harder to lynch since they can impress weaker-minded townies. They can shamelessly segue from one terrible vote underpinned by garbage to another and not miss a beat. Scum also tend to gravitate to this mode the closer they are to the win.

In summary

: If all is well for them, scum are just trying to find a quiet spot for their vote where they hope to avoid any scrutiny for their choice and its rationale and/or where they retain the maximum level of freedom to redeploy it if that suits their aims.
Either way,

it is a truism that a scum-advantageous town environment is one where it is an accepted norm for most lynch-votes to be cast for reasons other than the quality and history of the lynch target’s own voting choices

.
For example, scum might vote on people for alleged anti-town behaviours that usually amount to their (townie) lynch target saying/doing something daft about roles or mechanics. Or it might be some alleged incongruity woven from the target tripping over themselves in their mis-communication of something or other. Maybe even some misspeak that gets twisted into an alleged scumslip. All of this is normally absolute garbage! The reality is that most clumsy in-thread behaviour and expression labelled as anti-town is (regrettably) town-indicative. Typically, scum are more calculating and careful in what they say and how they say it.
…
The point is you want to parse out the difference between the player who really believes this guff is vote-worthy and the player who can hardly believe his luck that townies seem to believe this guff is vote-worthy.

Spoiler: Macro vote analysis

By definition, this is analysis in hindsight. It is looking into the past with fresh eyes based on the new information from death alignment reveal. Also by definition the further into the past you look the better the information you have because you have more death reveals on players active that game day.
This is why d1 in particular is gold-dust to any town. If you cannot spot all the pro-scum vote choice shenanigans I have listed above while d1 is happening you can

go back and re-read it

on subsequent days and spot those shenanigans in retrospect!
This approach is useful at any time, but really comes into its own on d3 and beyond.
Incidentally this is why townies should work really hard to get the maximum amount of data from the maximum number of players into thread on d1. As they play d1, they should be thinking about d3 when they and their team-mates will re-read d1 (and d2) both chronologically and after filtering by author to get an intensive re-read on their top suspects’ vote choices and behaviour on those days.
Only the very best mafia think of d1 in the same way whilst they play d1. More likely they have sort of drifted through d1 taking the high-odds easy mislynch with a minimum of effort. They often get away with that laziness during d1, but they can be exposed for it on d3 by a vigilant town!

So what types of Vote Analysis are there?

There are two broad types:
(i) Analysis within game days; and
(ii) Analysis between game days

(i) Chronological vote analysis within game days

What I will term type (i) vote analysis looks into the chronology of how votes came down and the fluctuations of different lynch trains rising and falling within a given game day. … Then colour it (red & blue) with known death reveals (and yourself in blue too is my habit). Next sub-divide it into key phases. Finally try and spot ‘events’ or transitions of potential significance.

Catching scum with type (i) analysis

You are looking for any signs of scum tactics – for example, trying to save a scumbuddy under a lynch threat. This is rarer than you might imagine even amongst relatively unsophisticated 3-man scum teams, but more likely when a team is down to two.

Spotting fellow townies with type (i) analysis

However type (i) vote analysis can also help you pick up on town-indicative conduct. I will give an example hypothetically at first. Let’s say the clear mid-point d1 lynch vote leader, Player Z, is now known (through subsequent death reveal) to be a townie. Later in d1, Player X drives hard an alternative lynch on Player Y who is lynched that day and flips town.

Odds are that Player X is likely town too. Why?

Because what scum motive would Player X have to so prominently drive a mislynch on townie Y and get his hands dirty when sitting tight and doing nothing would have provided him with a townie death anyway?
…

Be careful - narratives like this are bewitching. Nothing about Player X is definitive based on this alone. You must re-read at the micro level too and cross-verify for righteousness.

(ii) Vote analysis between game days

What I will term type (ii) vote analysis looks at lynch counts at ‘snap-shot’ moments in time and works on presumptions about how scum will want to place their votes in relation to one another. Overwhelmingly, these snap-shots are the final lynch counts of each game day. After all, it is the votes at game day end which really count. It can be useful to take other snap shots at game day mid-points, but for now I will just focus on end of game day.
Place these end of game day snapshots side-by-side, with known alignments in red and blue and look for signs of scum ‘parking’ their votes tactically. Places that – at the time - seemed nice quiet spots for scum to hide out but which in retrospect stick out when you layer in alignments from death reveal.
Health Warning!
Note my use of the word presumptions. Not absolutes. Be careful - narratives woven from these presumptions can be bewitching. You always also have to synthesise your macro analysis with micro analysis of your suspect’s vote choices and reasoning.

Spoiler: D1 scumhunting

...Seriously, I want you all to write down your personal list of behaviours in-thread that on d1 you consider scum-indicative and which town-indicative
...
Once you have your lists, now I want you to try a new approach to the game. You are going to catch a mafia d1! Instead of believing this myth that d1 is always a crap-shoot and mafia will likely get a townie lynched that day believe something akin to the opposite.

I believe that d1 is the mafia's hardest day. They will leave a legacy of clues on this day specifically that will help you throughout the game.

If things are going badly for a town as they move into d3, d4, d5 there is more and more 'sludge' in thread - townies posting garbage, getting into fights, confirmation bias written large etc etc. The mafia have all sorts of camoflage to mask their insincerity. So you go back to d1 and you read it again through the lens of all that has happened since...

Oh and that's the clue - you are looking for

insincerity

most especially in why they vote for who they vote on. (They may be insincerely voting on a buddy) How do you spot insincerity - their reasons make no sense or their move from one person to a new target 'jars' you cannot see the progression or evolution in their thinking that is characteristic of a clueless townie or their vote is lazy in its level of scrutiny when you know this person as town is diligent and even sometimes insightful.

So mid-d1 I want you to sort by author and re-read each person's opus. Pick your top 2. Vote for one of them and drive that lynch. See what flows from that. Something might happen that will change your mind, but mostly you will stick with it.

Then every day subsequently most especially when you feel lost and frustrated that you haven't a f*cking clue who the mafia are they are so well hidden. Do the same again and re-find the scum. Things that would not have led you to lynch someone on d1 will now stand out as a clue based on what has happened d2 or d3 etc. Always do vote pattern analysis every day
…
Either way, d1 is 'pure'. Insincerity has a sharp relief. Mafia don't have as much townie generated 'sludge' to hide behind. Fake scumhunting is hard. bk as scum team lead was doing a good job, but even then ultimately his solution to getting through d1 was to vote on a buddy. I don't blame him. It's one of my favourites too. It has so much long-term value and a good mafia knows that d1 is tough because he is thinking deeply about what it is to be a mafia.
…
So catching mafia based on d1 is easy? Well of course not. You have a problem. largely useless townies who don't know how to scumhunt drifting into inactivity or just jumping on a bandwagon since they are so unconfident in their own ability to scumhunt or relying on some lame linear reason to vote for someone or its opposite - something woven out of too much complexity as if mafia were masterminds

Spoiler: Theories about how scum place their votes

The following scum-tendencies are decently reliable since they are based on experiential data and because they are a natural consequence of the micro-level behaviours articulated in part I – that scum are placing their votes tactically and trying as much as possible to fly under the radar.

They provide a way of framing your micro-level vote analysis, but remain only narrative without the it.

So…

a) On the whole, scum teams like to spread out their votes early on in the game because they are trying not to associate themselves with one another.

b) It is very rare for a scum team to have all their final votes on the same player early in the game. This is especially true on d1 and pretty reliable on d2 as well. An exception would be if the whole town (or close to it) is voting on the lynchee.

c) This latter point hints at a variable – how many votes did the lynch ‘winner’ have? The more votes, the more likely it will be that the scum will be willing to accept some bunching. For example 2 out of 6 votes is ok, but not 2 out of 4 votes. That kind of thinking.

d) Less reliably, this potentially implies something about the order in which those votes go on. Votes #1 and #2 are less likely to both be mafia since they cannot know whether there will even be a vote #3. Whereas one amongst votes 1-3 and another at 5 or 6 looks more likely.

e) Another variable that impacts here though is the size of the scum team itself. Point b) is very good guidance against a standard 3-man team. Against a 2-man team it is harder to say since we are only talking 2-0 or 1-1 as options for deployment rather than options of 3-0, 2-1 and 1-1-1. In the latter case 3-0 is very unlikely, but in the former 2-0 is far more plausible.

f) As a related point, you can say that if a scum is lynched relatively early in the game then it is pretty likely that at least one of his team mates was on that lynch for the credibility boost and for the tactical option (not taken) of jumping off if to help save his buddy if that play seemed viable. Again this varies depending upon how many votes were needed to lynch the scum. If it was only 4 votes to 3 then may be all 4 voters are town, but even then I’d say better than 50% odds that one colleague was bussing. Then again this is also better guidance against a standard 3-man scum team. A 2-man team has far more to lose from bussing but also more credibility to gain. Ergo the deciding factor is what kind of scum player are we dealing with here…

g) If a scum is being lynched in a near landslide then his buddy or buddies are very likely to be on the lynch and perhaps prominently so…

h) Throw-away votes that had only an indirect impact on the final lynch outcomes are more likely to be scum votes. In final votes counts on d1 and d2 of 6-3-1 or 5-3-1-1 or similar …I am interested in looking for scum amongst those 1s. Those solo votes were effectively voting on the lynch leader but possibly trying to keep out of the way while it happened. If a townie cannot get their first-choice lynch but have a chance at their second or even third-choice over someone they don’t want lynched at all then they need to act - not sit on the sidelines. This scum tendency can be another by-product of point a) – the desire to avoid bunching…Ergo by the same principle only one of those throw-away solo votes on a given game day is likely to be scum. It is a lot less likely that both the 1s in a 5-3-1-1 are scum.

i) Related to point h)¬ ‘parked’ votes that were tucked away in a reasonably sized pack of votes at one point but have then been left high-and-dry when the tide on that candidate went out…are more likely to be a scum left clinging to a stale vote backed by stale reasons…

Spoiler: Crunkus List of Things to Focus on (irrelevant/joke ones removed)

Playing this game well is easy. You just need to focus on the following short list of things:

1. Identifying moments of townie sincerity.
2. Identifying moments of legitimate scummy insincerity (harder).
3. Communicating your process openly for your fellow teammates to better assess you correctly and therefore reduce the scope of their possible incorrect assessments.
4. Producing situations where moments of sincerity or insincerity bubble out either by design or indirectly.
5. Being persuasive enough to affect the flow of the game in a manner that's best for your team.
6. Encouraging others on your team to do all of these things more effectively.
7. Reviewing the words of revealed scum to look for aberrant patterns of interaction not easily explained another way, individual interactions involving that player which in retrospect seem decidedly odd that may have escaped notice the first time around, and may have escaped notice.
8. Identifying reactions to certain situations that deviate from any reasonably expected townie approach to the same information.
9. Noticing who is doing what and who is not doing what and who is possibly putting more effort into appearing to do what while not really accomplishing what they'd otherwise probably be doing if they weren't scum.
10. Not losing your shit.
11. Identifying when you need to take a step back from a firm position you have, look at how that position may be affecting the way you view other points of data, and taking a comparative and honest look at the other possibilities.
12. Comment on as many different trains of thought as possible and encourage the same from others. Then go beyond commenting, and encourage productive discussion on as many trains of thought as possible.
13. Go back and re-read.
14. Summon additional hours in the day through dark magicks.

15. If you're scum, try to forget that you are scum and that you know what you know whenever possible, unless it is important that you don't...and you're good enough to execute properly. Then attempt to win the game for the town. If you were town, you'd probably botch it up anyway.

16. Go back and look at the voting record and think in terms of moments and what tactical voting might look like or whether it would even be required in that situation. Don't accept common wisdom. Most common wisdom and thinking associated with voting is manure. Manure can be very useful in the right applications, but it stinks and is not something you want outside the correct context.
18. Never assume you cannot be understood. This is the first step toward not being understood. I don't care if you tried already and it didn't appear to make a dent. What do you know about that person's dents? What you've read in thread? Most of it is pointless blather. Keep trying, and try a different way. Maybe they are scum. I don't care. Don't give up, don't feed me that "the town is better off without me" tripe. The town is not better off without you. The town is better off resolving your drama...so resolve it.
19. Read your own posts once in a while several days after you wrote them. Bring a swear jar. You'll be needing it. We're all terrible at this and there's nothing like a bit of temporal distance to give you a big slice of how much. It's good to remember from time to time when you are trying to pick through who is opportunistically trying to get you killed and who may generally have no clue what you were actually trying to communicate.
20. Just because someone is presenting you as saying something you didn't does not mean they are purposely misrepresenting you. See #19. Clarify with more patience than anyone has a right to have.
22. Look for people trying to make a silk purse out of something you suspect from previous experience they know is a sow's ear. Scum love over-justifying what stated fairly and simply is just terrible reasoning.
23. Resist the urge to point out scummy behaviour right away. Give them rope. Caught a contradiction? You aren't in the slightest bit suspicious. Seek clarification and offer positive feedback. Let it crystallize. Then keep in mind that you are probably wrong about this. Also, don't take too long.
24. Don't lie to your teammates, excepting rule 24 and a half.
25. Put thought into your night orders. As GM one thing is clear...a lot of people treat most night orders as after thoughts. As a player who is always town, I notice a lot of people are made to look worse than they need to be the next day because they didn't put much thought into their night orders. Think about all the variables that might be involved in your decision. You likely have days to think about it. It's okay to send the GM a message saying..."thinking, will respond probably tomorrow".

Spoiler: Sample Scum-catch #1 – CTR on Thryfing

This is Thryfing's first post of the game. I want everyone town-aligned in this game to read it and try to tune-in to why I felt certain a scum wrote this

Thryfing wrote: ...

bkbkbk wrote:I wonder why certain players are painting Peanut as foolish or stupid rather than, perhaps, insincere for his enquiries? Surely to say a man is a "moron" is to say that he has honest intent, but lacks the mental capacity to act appropriately?

Ironhammer

If you think Peanut is being insincere for his enquiries, don't you think he should be the one fed to the Vagus instead of people mis-painting him?
......

bkbkbk

How about you or anyone else not voting for him explains how for even a second they believe that Thyrfing sincerely suspects that bk is mafia premised on the reason he cites for voting for bk? His whole post is a: "shit, I suppose I'd better get into thread and post something and dump a vote somewhere before going back into the shadows"...

Anyway, you see nervous scum stumble into the game this way all the time and thus accidentally announce: "Hi, I am scum". First, open up with a bit of an active lurk fake bonhomie thing, then....

Next latch on to some random snippet and twist it into some contrived BS to dump a vote on a townie. Then find some obvious but essentially trivial piece of vague pro-town mechanics to endorse to pretend you are interested in the town's wellbeing...

Oh yes, bk's point about IH's comments on Peanut are well-observed and sound and yet Thryfing manages to distort that into the idea that bk doubts Peanut's sincerity when he says no such thing. What bk is noting is that IH has potentially scumslipped by giving away that he knows for sure that Peanut is sincere since he only accuses him of being idiotic - ergo IH knows Peanut is town because IH is scum...

And all of these things you will find in Thingy's post. IH is likely his pal and maybe one other voting Peanut or finding reasons not to vote for Thyrfing.

...
Thyrfing didn't come into thread to make that one lousy post that ignored a host of things he might talk about and pluck out one quote to attach to a crappy vote to and another pro-town titbit that he randomly elevated above a range of others he might have endorsed or commented on because he is invested in this town's survival. He did it because its expected and he has to do something or other since he is invested in his survival...

Spoiler: Sample Scum-catch #2 – TWC on Harb

So catching up. Still no Harb. That's a shame. Since he may well claim d3 reaper and the sooner that is resolved the better.

Some of this maybe redundant if Harb does claim and is not countered, but I think it gives the full context to my day so far...

Harb & Pagane were my top 2 yesterday based independently on vote data. But Pagane flipping scum only made me suspect Harb more. The data point I thought relevant from day 1 I have quoted before on d3 and re-quote in my last analysis on d2. I just didn't pursue it yesterday because I did not want to hunt 2 scum at once. I think Harb already guesses what I was thinking. It's basically this section:

thewysecat wrote:
Transition from Point 2 to Point 3:
08:35 GMT:

Pagane

(1) by sjg11 off of Ugluk (2)
17:45 GMT: Unvote (1) by Phatality off of

pelagius

(4)
18:42 GMT:

Pagane

(2) by Phatality off of No vote (0)
20:07 GMT: Unvote (1) by Petunia off of

pelagius

(3)

Point 3 - Pel vote is collapsing as sjg11 leads the way

pelagius

(3): Ugluk,

thewysecat

, shadowfriend1
Ugluk (2): Harb,

Pagane

Pagane

(2): sjg11, Phatality
shadowfriend1 (1):

pelagius

Phatality (1):

Palin

No vote (2): Petunia, Dodgy

Transition from Point 3 to Point 4:
20:13 GMT:

pelagius

(4) by Harb off of Ugluk (1)

The mood had turned against a Pel lynch and sjg11's move also took the Ugluk lynch down to 2 and Pagane up to 2 and this made me think that scum might begin to worry about Pagane. It was at this point that Harb did a - to me- slightly surprising thing in comparing and contrasting Pagane & Pel and concluding that he wanted to vote Pel. Thus boosting that lynch over the Pagane move at what seemed a key moment. It also seemed contrary to all he had done of Pel up to that point.

As I say that may be redundant.

The other relevant data is of course end of d2

thewysecat wrote:
D2 end

Palin

(6): dodgy56,

Pagane

, Petunia, Phatality, shadowfriend1, Ugluk
dodgy56 (1): Harb
Phatality (1):

Palin

Petunia (2): sjg11,

thewysecat

If you make the assumption of not 3 scum votes on Palin, then one scum is outside. I retain a strong town read on sjg11 and so obviously I am finger pointing at Harb in that context. I did not rule out 3 voters on Palin the same way I ruled it out for Pel, but I still felt it a pretty strong data point. Obviously I am now backpeddling on that unless I want to vote sjg11, but I don't.
...

Sample Advice for Scum

Spoiler: Sjg's Advice to Scum Team

Post 1:
Alright guys, I'm here to pass on my wisdom regarding how to play as scum.

Now my normal tactic for new scum players is to lurk. Simple, effective way to win the game.

But this game is slightly different for two reasons that make lurking a less productive strategy:
1. It's a newbie game. Everyone will be a little lost and confused so being lost and confused isn't as strong an excuse as it is normally.
2. It's a newbie game. The main purpose is to improve as players not, necessarily, to win.

So for these reasons I'll suggests a different way of playing the game but, firstly, there's a mindset you need to get into before you start. You have to enter the thread with the desire to find scumtells from players. This will allow you to push lynches on town players and will allow you to effectively fake a town thought process, since you are legitimately hunting for scumtells. There is a small and subtle difference but it'll be almost undetectable in a newbie game.

Moreover it will allow you to lead the town which will give you the opportunity to lead it astray.

Post 2:

As for what a scumtell is, it's simple. A scumtell is something you think a scum would be more likely to do than a town. These can range from simple things like bandwagoning to more complicated cases.

Post 3:

Alright dudes, your resident Sith Lord is back. Let's get to work my minions. (Plays Emperor's tune thingy)

Con, keep up the level of activity and engagement. Good start.

Subotai, start posting when you get here. If you need something to allow you to get started you could discuss the plans con suggested, like character reveals. If you see anything you think looks scummy then point it out. The other players should like you for it.

Now win it for sjg. He's looking forward to being able to mock the town mentors in the AAR.

Post 4:

A good night kill target is someone who is:
1. Unlikely to be protected
2. Can contribute to the town in a positive manner
3. As a bonus, may have a power role.

Post 5:

You've come up with a plan to win the game. That's great. It's always good to have a plan in the back of your mind as scum, particularly in the end game.

But, what's your backup plan? What will you do if the plan goes wrong, as it likely will? You need to prepare an out for when things go wrong or it's probably wise not to try the ploy/play/plan. As scum it's normally better to err on the side of caution.

Spoiler: Behaviors, by TWC

I have made this point elsewhere often and I shall make it here. If all you have is anti-town behaviours then lynch on those if you must but sadly most anti-town behaviours are town indicative. Upto and including - so it turned out - Petunia's d2 behaviours. This - in my opinion - is what Palin was lynched on and was the basis of all the grief Ugluk took. They did something(s) you did not like and were unapologetic about it. Only a ballsy scum does that. They exist, but rarely. Ugluk to be fair might be one of them. But scum live more usually in the null-space. They are in the corner of your eye on the edges of awareness until suddenly you realise...in time? or too late? Lynch on pro-scum indicative behaviours - active lurking, hedging, politicking, weird votes or switches in logic, incongruencies in positions held/advocated and actions taken - things they are doing to stay in the null space. Palin just had a daft idea and didn't care what you thought about it.

Spoiler: On engagement, effort, emotion and tone

Spiff was doing stuff that you just don't see wolves actually do -- claiming a PR with still 24 hours remaining on d1 and openly antagonizing the people pushing him the hardest, rather than just slink away and wait for a shiny object to appear that drags the votes away from him

…

Cron was working super hard at developing his reads and he had the proper emotional investment in what he was doing. I don't feel like pulling up his posts to cite specific examples, so let's just talk again about the Trundle thing. He soulreads a guy as a wolf based on one post and has four reasons for it, and he's super proud of himself and patting himself on the back for it. Wolves aren't trying that hard to develop quick reads and they tend to struggle to come up with that level of insight and they aren't good at getting the subtle emotions right. And his whole day was full of things like that. Cron has played several wolf games on this site and his posting was bland and forgettable each time.

…

I don't have time to adequately respond to that post but one thing I can say quickly is that when I'm talking about emotions, I'm specifically excluding anger. It's the easiest emotion to fake and it's one that is often not alignment-indicative even when it is genuine, unless it can be traced to an origin in something distinctly villagery.

Emotions like pride, paranoia, surprise, suspicion, etc, are more difficult to fake. Wolves often fail to even identify spots in which emotion should be present in their posting, and their efforts at actually displaying more complex emotions are often quite clumsy, for example by stating their supposed feelings rather than displaying them.

But in the case of Cron, a lot of what was clearing for him was just the sheer depth and breadth of his reads and interactions. It's just hard to fake that much content so quickly and make it sound good. And few wolves are ever going to stalk other players' online statuses in order to catch lurkers.

Spoiler: Interactions

Scum have no genuine questions of their brethren, so it is difficult to appear to engage in earnest, and often they don’t even think to try, beyond light banter and distancing votes.

Spoiler: Game review of an EXCELLENT performance by the mafia, by one of the losing town (Sunbae)

I don't mean to fellate the wolf team too much, but being a day or two away and getting to think about this game from a broader perspective and feeling better made me want to come back and say more on this performance. Keeping in mind all this shit is just like, my opinion man, I got this.

Wolfing mishmashes can be broken down into 3 phases: Night Actions, Thread Presence, and Planning. With that in mind, if I ever wanted to show new people what I mean by this I would show them this game.

- The night actions were near perfect. Every single action they made had a positive impact. The people they killed were PRs. The people they peeked/isolated/reflected/redirected/etc all had a positive impact. They isolated dot and negated two angels. I believe they had mor kill himself? They vanillaized the seer. Just a great job of sifting through everything and finding the correct actions to use at the correct time on the correct people. Then you had their angel work in which Gamer was saved d2, roman took shots d3 and was angeled, and bop took shots d4 and was angeled (despite none of them being really outed the night before at all).

- The thread presence by the wolves at various stages was top notch. When it was lynch time they went hard to achieve mislynches. Lord was going nuts about Lissa being saved d1. Chart and all. Visor turned the lynch towards NAC and off of Lord on d2 by posting giant shields and yelling a bunch. Eod3.2 had 5-6 wolves going hard at weatherguy (and if exactly 6-7 villagers hadn't voted together there the game would have been over a day earlier).

When it was organization time, Bop was making charts. Visor was herding ita shots of like 7 villagers and an outed wolf. Lord was showing vote count charts and why that made lissa a wolf. Gamer was shaking peoples lists up. Wolves weren't clearing anyone that didn't need to be clear and presented a poe of mostly villagers for everyone to argue over knowing that as long as the focus was there, they were going to be fine. They also for the most part didn't mind just defending each other and turning convos elsewhere.

When it came to killing time, wolves shot villagers that were posing a problem, outed wolves, or wolves that were about to be an issue to get max credit. Roman came in and blasted jason (who had a great Roman case). Gamer blasted fakegamer to get max value (and beneh prodding him to do it in thread was a nice touch I thought). They were also helping create shot lists that had mostly villagers in it for the first few periods.

As for the lynch, they did an awesome job of creating a thread atmosphere to lynch people without taking any of the heat for it. The tortuga lynch was great work by benneh to set up a false mechanical scenario. Turning the d2 lynch from Lord to NAC vs IAWY was great work by visor. The eod3.2 lynch while unsuccessful also was a great job of benneh, bop, and monte pushing an idea that puts the blame on the villager rather than them if it goes through.


- Then the overall planning phase crushed too. While I touched on the night actions and general in thread approach already, this also includes the way they recognized it was correct to out themselves on day 4 since Bop was getting the most heat and make it more of a leveling game instead of a lynch bop the day vig game. Benneh outed himself despite not being fully outed, monte outed himself as well, and visor used his new villa cred to present the argument to lynch monte instead because the wolf vig wouldnt have outed themselves. The overall gameplan was just top notch.



I don't really post a ton of tl;dr shit in post games very often, but I wanted to give a lot of love to what they accomplished here. I nominated benneh for best wolf performance in the thread, but really everyone played their role great and it was more of a group performance than one person crushing. Dont you dare vote some random v+ team that sweeped over these guys at the end of the year, because that was basically the perfect wolf mishmash performance.

Spoiler: Game review of a poor town performance, by one of the winning mafia (CTR)

So this wasn’t the most successful of towns. Mostly this was because it was insane. It took ill with anyone using logic and rather than letting data drive its conclusions it preferred to invent enticing conclusions and narratives and then make the evidence fit those pet theories. We were in some sort of weird perpetual confirmation bias world. Again it took ill with anyone who objected. Of course, prominent townies will take much of the heat for this, but to be fair there was some mafia skill in fostering and harnessing this town insanity.

My own in-thread persona evolved from this town personality. The plan was always to get dirty enough that I could explain why I was surviving the night, but for the first day and a half – far from allowing the chaos to continue – I battled to try and make the town see sense exactly as I would have done as town. Personally, I feel I was the best townie the town never had. However, each attempt only made me more unpopular. Fairly quickly it became obvious that if I wanted to avoid the town doing something that would actually help it, I should just tell them the truth about what a good idea it was and they’d do the opposite. No one was reading my long posts properly anyway or they didn’t understand them. Thank goodness I wasn’t actually town; I’d have gone mad.

I dislike being mafia. My sympathies are normally with the town. By day 3, I’d officially given up any vestige of sympathy for this one. From my perspective, almost every nuance of this game’s mechanics seemed to elude the majority of this town. I kept telling them the best way to proceed and they just wanted to call me scum for it. I rolled with that.

Here are some things that I recall:
…
The offensive townie roles were therefore an extension of the town’s lynch. The lynch is always what kills a town, but it is also the only way it can win. Anything that is marginalizing the importance of that town weapon is town harmful. Imagine a town with no lynch ability and facing a night kill – it can never win. Therefore a town with a weakened lynch (offence) is a weaker town. It’s as simple as that.
…
Repeatedly this town was unable to interpret what was happening because it was unable to grasp the mechanics. Inexplicably it became entranced by the night game and completely ignored lynch data from the day. Again, the night game is the mafia’s home field advantage – why play us there? Our manipulations in thread to secure a day lynch is where we are vulnerable as we have to respond in real time without the thorough dialogue and planning that characterized our night play. For example, we had a bad day one. Bwlvych and Robert were both implicated in the sjg11 and Zebb momentums and Robert was early on Ironhammer. Only Ironhammer had as bad a day one record and so I had to nudge the town in that direction as the only way to scum up more townies for day two. Even then noob Bwlvych couldn’t resist a bandwagon and voted 6th on Ironhammer – right in the sweetspot. Zebb knew this and at least had enough sanity to base his day two vote on such thinking. We entered day two doubtful we could prevent a Bwlvych lynch and I offered up Palin and then myself as alternatives though the latter took off more than I imagined.

However, any day 2 lynch data was also thrown away. That said, of course, our strategy was premised on (i) Get a plurality or (ii) lynch one to make the other one golden. This was typical of our discipline as a team after an honest appraisal of our day one performance.
…
Oh, and allowing an alleged fellow townie to drive a lynch premised on something he knows to be a lie is

not

acceptable. It is a pure scumtell. I called it. Ignored. Amazing. The town spent the whole game entranced by its own narratives that it had invented and then anything that happened was interpreted through that lens of confirmation bias. Strategic Convergence was pure BS. The VIAP-HPW link the same. Palin’s alleged incongruity the same.
…

[mhsmith0]

@giga: take a look at example #1 wrt what a scum slip actually can be (although amusingly in that example bk was a wolf making a solid d1 case on townie IH)

[mhsmith0]

Wow that's interesting. I thought I'd made it really obvious that it was trans, guess not. I take it from this comment there was no actual dead thread as well?

[mhsmith0]

Btw why did you think it was me? I'd been substantively engaging every reasonable point against me, and made a number of points trans basically was forced to dodge since he couldn't really answer them. What swung your read over that?

[mhsmith0]

I have a new signature that's way less embarrassing WHOOOOOOOOOOO

My standard, btw, is it needs to come from a win. Part of my mini normal 1775 salt was I couldn't use the nice things said about me because lol town blew it after I died at night (having literally outed the last wolf w a clear case on her too)

[mhsmith0]

A win is a win though