Man I'm a bad apple neglecting this game all weekend. Bit surprised to see I'm not getting more flack for it, but I'm gonna take that as this community just being a generally forgiving and tolerant place when it comes to activity. I have kind of a bad rep for being lurky so it's refreshing to be given the benefit of the doubt, which I appreciate, though I'll admit that my activity has been abyssal thus far given the fact that deadline fast approaches.
With that said, here's my general assessment thus far:
Town:
Yoloswag - really the only player in this game I can get a meta read on considering he's the only player here I've ever played with before (unless Zyth goes by a different screen name on smashboards, in which case please forgive my ignorance), and on meta alone he's playing true to town form. I feel genuine scum hunting vibes from his posts and like the fact that he's grouping me in with his scum reads. Oftentimes I can get easy reads on players in communities that I have a reputation in when they give me too much deference or generally shy away from calling me out due to fear of retaliation. It's been my experience that sometimes I can act a little scummy/lurky, see who hesitates to call me on it, and then suss out who was fearful of drawing my attention and ire in order to uncover scared scummies. Now, Yoloswag certainly isn't the type of scum player that I'd expect to shy away from attacking me, so ultimately him not holding back and grouping me in his scum reads doesn't exonerate him, but it shows me he's getting down to business in this game and isn't going to just give me homie cred for free. This distrust coming from him is a good sign IMO.
SDK - My read here is almost certainly colored by the fact that I love to have an "urchin" or two in every mafia game I play. You know, the type of player that is deliberately uncooperative and antagonistic, sticks to his guns, doesn't go out of his way to explain and/or justify his every move, etc. (a la BabyJesus for vets of MafiaScum) I think it adds a distinct flavor to the game that keeps the game from feeling overly mushy. Always love to see a player who isn't afraid to frustrate other players, which always opens one up to attack. Baiting scum to attack you for bad reasons is always a strong scumhunting tactic and though I'm not sure if that's SDK's MO here, I'm liking his no nonsense approach. Bonus points for the unambigiuous demand that dimochka claim in the face of a lynch. (A demand for what I agree is the obvious choice)
Bessie - Perhaps I'm being played by her overly bubbly, accommodating, non-antagonistic style. I probably am, but I'm confident I'll be able to shake the wool off before late game if we both make it that far. She's not afraid to put her thoughts out there even if they aren't the most analytical or earth shattering observations. Her affability is making me feel like she's particularly transparent, but again maybe I'm falling victim to a ruse of naive innocence. I guess I just don't see a scum player with her personality putting herself out there so much while under virtually no pressure to do so. I'd expect more reserved play from a player of her presented personality if she were scum, just as a general tactic to reduce exposure and avoid the spotlight.
Town Leans:
Boomfrog - Nothing has seriously pinged my scumdar from him but he comes off as experienced and savvy enough that I ought not rely too much on instinct when reading him. In particular I don't believe scumfrog would have bothered to make this post:
BoomFrog wrote:
plytho wrote:
Some people have been reading me as newbie (town). Can you say what makes me seem newbish? Am I making some basic mistakes?
Quite the opposite, it's your enthusiasm that reveals that you are new to the game. Newbie town are extremely helpful and transparent, newbie scum have difficulty pretending to be that because of their lack of experience. Therefore newbies are the easiest to read.
On the other hand, his overly congratulatory assessment of Carlington's opening post is a bit disconcerting. Basically gives Carlington a ringing endorsement with no explanation which seems strange to me given the fact that he (boomfrog) basically bent over backwards explaining to us his whole "I lied deliberately to create lynch train parity and bait opportunists into trying to be opportunists" gambit. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea behind this move of his, it just seems to me that going through all that, being all transparent about it, and then coming down with such a hard town read on someone sans reasoning isn't exactly concomitant behavior.
HBC Zyth - again, no bad scumdar pings from him. Has had meaningful and seemingly genuine engagement with the material available. Mostly a gut read here tbqh. @ Zyth, do you go by a different screen name on smashboards btw? Have we ever played in a game together before?
Neutrals:
Carlington - not sure what to make of his opening post. A whole lot of fluffy fanfare and what seems to be a synopsis of what each player has done/how he characterizes each player without much if any assessment of each player's actual play so far. Comes off as a lot of hot air but maybe that's just how he starts games? I find it interesting that Gopher of Pern has pointed out that this type of activity is reminiscent of past games where Carlington was scum. Not sure if we have the time to unpack that this late in the phase but I'm hoping GoP elaborates on this if his meta read pings again.
This also comes off as overly accommodating:
Carlington wrote:
Wait, bessie, is your ongoing issue with my reads just that I don't put some exact label on every player? Because like, I feel that the tone I write each player's read with and the things I like for them are enough to convey my thoughts on each player, is that not the case? I guess it's more obvious to me because I'm in my head when nobody else is, I'll try to communicate more clearly.
Not sure if that's because he's feeling pressure from even the smallest of critiques, or if he's genuinely surprised that his message wasn't clear. So yeah very unsure of my read here.
Plytho - Comes off a bit shady for some reason but generally unobjectionable content thus far. Definitely liked his presentation of this meta knowledge related argument:
plytho wrote:
Mpolo: "forgot" that mafia can coördinate during the day. @regulars: would scum!mpolo post stuff like that to mislead town? I don’t have much of a read on him. Neutral for now.
Comes off as genuine scumhunting. Rest of that post had the same feel. Really struggling here on whether his decent content outweighs his seemingly minimalist approach.
Gopher of Pern - Truest neutral read. Have absolutely no idea. Going to have to wait to read more content from him because what he's posted so far has gotten me no where. Not even trying to say that his content is useless but for me personally just nothing jumps out at me so I'm really struggling to make any read.
Jimbobmacdoodle - My read on jimbob is kind of born of the curiousity I have for jimbob and LaserGuy's early exchanges this game. Ever since LaserGuy wagon reached four, LaserGuy has been sort of picking a fight with jimbob. It's nothing explosive, but Laser throws these little jabs at jimbob.
LaserGuy wrote:
jimbobmacdoodle wrote:
LaserGuy wrote:
Hi everyone! Four votes on D1? I didn't realize I was so intimidating.
YOLOSWAG, SDK, FrozenFlame, why did you decide to vote for me? jimbob, IGMEOY for keeping your joke vote on me after a wagon formed around it.
Shrug. I was interested to see how you reacted before removing my vote after others piled on. If you'd been at L-1, it might have been a different matter, but at L-3 votes, why are you bothered by me leaving my vote on?
You didn't seem the least bit interested or curious about the fact that a four-person wagon formed around your random vote almost instantly, despite the fact that isn't the usual meta for these boards. I'm still trying to decide what to make of your subsequent reaction. You
shrug, but then go on to defend the entire wagon unprompted, which seems like a bit of an overreaction. Now, you've read my reaction, yet your vote is still there.
LaserGuy wrote:
#HBC | Zyth wrote:
Laserguy, what are your reads on SDK and jumbob?
SDK is probably town. jimbob is leaning scum.
Basically I see this little back and forth where LaserGuy is coming at jimbob and jimbob kind of shrugs off his offensives. I don't take this interaction as being forced, jimbob is too unfazed to be doing a role play here. Their interactions just come off as TvS, though I'm much more confident that its not SvS than I am about ruling out TvT. I find it a bit peculiar though that Laser has parked on dimochka so solidly with no real showing of true interest to hop onto jimbob now that he has a couple votes. Makes me think Laser is settling here for the dimochka lynch, where it's because he felt compelled to get on the bus early and stick too it to sell it, or because he's not trying to rock the boat too hard and pick up an easy mislynch.
So yeah this jimbob neutral read should probably be classified as a neutral-slight-town read, but again, that's only because its the product of my scummy read on Laserguy and my view of their interactions as feeling TvS. So naturally I should follow this up with...
LaserGuy - leaning scum. He just seems too on edge, like he has a bone to pick, since the early game wagon. This read stems mostly from the tone of his prose. When I read his posts I get this feeling of slight indignation that gives his posts this oddly pushy feel. I mean like, to sum my feelings up, who the hell puts an "unofficial vote" on someone?
LaserGuy wrote:
BoomFrog wrote:
LaserGuy wrote:
Any opinions of your own that you'd like to share BoomFrog? Feels scummy to me.
LaserGuy
why did you ignore the fact that I was the very first person to raise attention to dimochka's scumminess and unoffically the first vote on him?
You weren't. SDK placed a serious vote on him before your "unofficial" vote. I had also previously put IGMEOY on dimochka for his early wine comment. Regardless, simply pointing out scummy behavior in one player is not necessarily indicative of you being town, nor does it change the scumminess of your subsequent play. The fact that you've made a post pointing to this one line of content as defense of your play is honestly not helping your cause.
Consider this my unofficial vote on you.
It just seems like he's posturing a bit too much. Like he's trying to subtley establish some kind of dominance or authority over some players. Feels scummy to me frankly. He'd be my pick but for dimochka.
Mpolo - neutral slight leaning scum. Comes off as having this lack of agency and detachment from potential outcomes. Like this:
mpolo wrote:
I honestly jumped into this without noticing the nightlessness. Bessie is then right, we might be able to detect some collusion, if we get lucky. I just got back from vacation, and should be posting more regularly, but i have a (stupid) computer problem to solve right now, so will have to wait, probably until tomorrow, for something more substantive.
What do you mean we might be able to detect collusion if we get lucky ? What does luck have to do with us being able to do this? Unless the scum aren't collaborating at all, surely there is always the possibility to pick up on tells and coordinated crafting of false reads. If collaboration is in fact occurring, whether or not we pick up on it and exploit it to quickly connect scum flips certainly won't be an exercise in luck. This comment makes me think mpolo has subconsciously, whether my virtue of being scum or whimsical town, minimized the importance and likelihood of "detecting collusion" in his mind. Seems to me like a subconscious desire to avoid meaningfully engaging with what it might mean to actively "detect collusion" or an actual apathy toward it being a potential tool for developing future reads. It's really just the "if we get lucky I guess that'd be cool" type attitude to me that comes off as evasive.
The conclusion of his big "reads" post only reinforced this non-committal, agencyless vibe:
mpolo wrote:
I don't have any extremely scummy reads up to this point. I think the one I'm going to vote at the moment is:
Vote: BoomFrog
Look at that phrasing. Lots of hedging. "I think" and "at the moment" particularly. It's like there's no soul to this slot. Just feels like he's going through the motions and isn't invested in really scumhunting. Could be mistaking apathetic town here but it doesn't feel that way.
Dimochka - Likely scum. SDK rightly points out that people are likely bussing dimochka. The ease at which the wagon grew I found off putting, made me think all the scum had quickly bandwagonned an easy mislynch but when I considered the possibility that scum felt the growth was inevitable without their being any real wagon with true parity in attention, and thus decided to bus quickly to snag up whatever town cred they could salvage. Comfortable lynching dimochka today given all the attention on the wagon and resulting interactions that will provide great leads upon flip. Willing to hammer if that's the consensus, but want to here claim first. No sense in not claiming with deadline so close, unless you have a particular type of role that would provide the scum with particular strategic benefit knowing it was out of the game. Hopefully you can deduce what I'm getting at. Basically if your role is as weak as you claim it to be, it's better for town to know what it's allegedly lynching pre-night phase if we aren't going to get your flip immediately from the lynch.
Basically dimochka just rolled over too easily for any true townie. It really feels like dimchka just isn't putting up much of a fight so that the wagon just rolls along quietly, thus facilitating less debate over the wagon and allow his teammates to bus easily without too much exposure. It's like "leads triage." Don't put up a fight and make your partners REALLY have to justify their bussing of you. Just let everyone slide with easy reasons so as to minimize the number of meaningful connections that rigorous engagements evoke.
Like have you ever read more flatfooted defenses?
dimochka wrote:
SDK wrote:
dimochka is probably scum, Take 1.
Sorry, nope. Town all the way. But poking the bear(s) on D1 is usually fun.
I do have to agree that, in retrospect, I backed off my last vote for no good reason and as such whatever I tried was a complete waste. However, I planned to post a serious note and got distracted by work.
I think bessie and boomfrog are town. Those are my main reads so far. But I'll have some opinion on everyone later today (or almost everyone, if carlington never posts).
dimochka wrote:
Aah this is great. I'm so glad we have so much content on D1, and all focusing on me! Gives me a lot to work with.
First, I'm town. And not exactly an exciting role. I don't plan to claim because I'd rather me lynched than someone else with a stronger role, unless my fellow townies agree with my reads that I'm posting next. Sidenote: What I did looks like a great play for a jester, I'll try it next time!
This half hearted jokey resignation just feels off. "Its cool guys just lynch me, I'm not even that great of a role, no wait haha maybe I'm jester
" is just so uninspiring. Like why actively play this WIFOMy whimsicalness about your survival as town? It's meant to play to your doubts and insecurity re: D1 read weakness an associated risk aversion. It doesn't present any affirmative evidence of townieness, but just tries to play to your sympathies by virtue signalling though offering to be a sacrificial lamb and then joking about how that offering could be a bait. It's a bizarrely passive yet subtly manipulative defense.
And lastly to address this:
SDK wrote:
jimbobmacdoodle wrote:
I'd like to see the rest of FrozenFlame's reads. What he has posted look reasonable so far, although I find it interesting that he has obviously already categorised all the players into town/neutral/scum, before writing out his reads on each, implying he's already made decisions on people before analysing their content in depth (
F
FrozenFlame
, can you explain why you did it this way, please).
Nice catch, jimbob. I'm also interested in seeing an answer to this, FrozenFlame.
The answer is simply that I had already organized my thoughts generally into who I felt was town/townleaning/neutral/scumleaning/scum and started writing the post from the easiest to explain cases to the ones that needed more time for me to sort out. My town reads I thought had pretty simple reasons, so I wrote those first and started from there. I gradually worked down the list until I hit my lunch break. I didn't have time to finish the whole list and needed more time to really articulate my scum leaning reads. Gopher was a holdover because I was so unsure of how I felt and needed to reread some of his posts. Tried and still came up with nothing. So yeah, basically I needed more time to flesh out my feelings on LaserGuy v. Jimbob, and then lay out my scum lean cases for mpolo and dimochka.
I'll be paying close attention to the thread tomorrow morning so I can answer questions people have before deadline. Also hoping for a dimochka claim. Please forgive lack of organization and what I'm guessing will be copious typos as I was rushing to get this up before it got too late.
BoomFrog what are your thoughts on Mala's 'sorry boom' hammer?
Wam what do you think the scum team is?
