Death Curse

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I think Pooky is right, and that is PRECISELY what I'm aiming for. In the process I'm aiming to create a dozen or so strong reads that town can use to create an absolute game winning POE -- "line up and catch your curses here folks, fresh curses, hot off the tongues of blasphemers" sorta deal, so that we can win no matter who we hit or in what order. Ideally, it'll be something that trundles along merrily even if the hard-townbloc gets picked off. In the best case scenario I want to also identify the top 4 most likely red targets and have town hit there first, so we can hit S->T->S twice in a row and scum learn to fear me in mountainous setups.

In the meantime, Pooky owes me a towncase on Tayl0r. No, I will not accept flattery. I still can't read because MURDERCAT is so willing to leave me illiterate.

PEDIT: Toog was scrolled because of time pressure, being pretty middle of the road till that point, and lack of any other viable target. Pretty much /everyone/ agreed that slot was green after the wagon got rolling, but most also agreed that building a different wagon was unlikely to happen in 30 hours with so many lurkers.

Day 1 should be super instructive now in general. Mega-scummy Zdenek was being defended by Shelly, which means even bus-happy Shelly was aware that scum can't afford to sacrifice too many people too quickly. Fred was insanely scummy, and she had to scumread Fred despite townreading Zdenek, but she tried to derail. That does make me wonder who else Shelly defended or tried to derail scumreads on during Day 1? Anyone? Anyone?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Pooky, now you have double homework. I want a Noraa scumcase AND a Tayl0r towncase.

HURT: Pooky

(Don't think I've forgotten you, Fidget.)

See you in the morning!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I caught up and I have my first two favorites. I need two more to really feel safe, and then I need to order them and sanity-check the remaining town.

Fidget and Pooky /still/ owe me homework. The horror. (Gloria does not, I need to meditate on the submission for a bit.)
Let me be clear for both of you: this homework is less about what I think you are trying to say and more about forcing you to consider alternate possibilities and to try and convince /me/ of those alternate possibilities. There are like 3 different things I'm trying to do with it and at least two of them are pulling in opposite directions. This isn't busy-work, this has a purpose.

Flea has played High Priest without my say-so, and for that there will be punishment. I don't have a tiger pit available, but I do -- oh, he's already doing Titus. Okay, I can live with that.

Noraa, it is time for your reads list. The full one. The non-consensus one.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Gloria, I have a response to your list and a verdict on your alignment, but it is going to need to wait. Suffice to say, as I am putting together a POE, I want to be absolutely 100% certain of where slots can go. Obviously, this is going to be highly dependent on how other slots react to posts like this one and how /the slots being sorted/ react to posts like this one. There are two red slots I absolutely see here, that I will not name. And you are a slot I have decided on but will not publicly assign alignment to. There may or may not be overlap and at least temporarily we will all have to live with that fact. Yes, it sucks and I'm horrible. Sue me. This post is important to make regardless, as a simple matter of cause and effect.

PEDIT: Flea, you need to remember the "mad god" bit. I will contradict myself, stamp on people for doing exactly what I asked, and generally act like a tyrant. There is no hope, there is only the big laughing worm in the sky, crowned in fire.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Gloria, your concerns have been noted and I have discarded them in their entirety. Bluntly put, I do not care. I am a titan of irrationality and you are but a mote in a sea of Stuff I Have To Deal With. You will be judged on whatever basis I see fit and everyone will applaud me, because that is the reality I choose to inhabit and you can't make me change my mind except by methods both arcane and unwritten of.

I am /still/ waiting on Adorable to convince me that she's town.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Gloria, it's very interesting to me that you haven't understood that the entire point of this exercise is to get a specific kind of reaction on a specific kind of play and you're basically throwing a fit over being, uh, being told that my take on your alignment is a secret and that you can only influence me in ways I won't explain. Did you forget scum is still in the game? Why would I hand them the keys to the kingdom? Why would I tell them how I read you when I'm using this to decide how I read them? Pray explain. Humor me.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

AUDIENCE! HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT NULL ON MURDERCAT?

Rotten fruit to the left, bouquets to the right, thank you, make sure you pick the right door...

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Did I say it was based on your homework? I'd like you to point that out for me, Gloria.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

MURDERCAT, it's going to keep working. I want to go two red today, though, because that puts us in the winner's seats and it will be EXTREMELY difficult for scum to recover.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Tayl0r, how about I shoot you. How would you feel about that? Because right now, I hold extraordinary power, and there is time to spare -- it's technically still scroll twilight, did you know?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Your saying that is meaningless, as scum would say the same.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I've gotten plenty of sarcasm out of Pooky. Doublecheck D1.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Pooky, when the homework is "just case these folks" I'd expect that to be easy. If you can't case anyone, how do you expect to convince anyone?

I'm not upset with you, just disappointed. Once I get the scroll I'll have to hurt Hectic again for realsies (gotta keep up appearances) but after that you can have it again until time begins to run out or I have a solve.

STILL WAITING ON ADORABLE.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I do find people making those claims to be /extremely entertaining/, so I encourage it. I simply also encourage MURDERCAT and others to keep yelling about how it's a bad idea.

Adorable, your role is not to disprove my finding you scummy, your role is to convince me you are town. These are different things. If you do not understand how they are different, please remember that I am a mad god. I am not asking for defense of your actions or for redirection to scummier slots. I am asking why town does not crush you.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I trust UNOwen's judgement. I also think that Gloria is right and Shelly puts out town names in that list exclusively in this game.

Or do I? Mystery and intrigue, etc.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I have a solve already. But I wouldn't be a terrible tyrant if I didn't make anyone dance, and I want to have a backup.

Titus: scumcase Gloria. I wanted Fidget to, but Fidget isn't complying. This has very little to do with any of the three involved and much more to do with me being a merciless monster. It also helps me narrow down my 4th choice, which isn't Titus, Gloria or Fidget: ask anyone who's played with me how I press on one slot to sort another. They may or may not be in the first three: consider the suspense here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

It's a shame. A shame that NO ONE does a damn thing I ask in this house. What have I done to you all? I asked for unreasonable and unrealistic nonsense! And what do you thank me with? Poo and dirt. Why, give me just one reason not to vote-tag Hectic here and now for your ungrateful behavior!

Oh, wait, I forgot to hurt the innocent.

HURT: Hectic

There we go, now I'll get some respect around here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Okay, joking aside, my solve is the same one the rest of you hit upon, and Tayl0r is my backup if one of those goes green. Titus, DGB, Flea. If we hit green in there, kill Tayl0r.

Titus is the most likely one to derail, I'm hitting them first. Last words are requested, scum.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Sorry, did I say Flea? Meant Adorable. Flea's garbo backup in case you somehow go TWO green, but Titus and DGB are so red scented that I feel like that's impossible.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Also, for the record, Tayl0r is backup because Pooky refused to help, Tayl0r jumped in both feet without even questioning. In this setup, in this gamestate, scum could not afford to refuse or even put off my wishes until sufficient townies had done so. Fidget refusing to scumcase Gloria was the impetus needed for scum to start refusing me, and Fidget was clearly on a different train of thought from Pooky. Titus was just following the Fidget train -- "why scumcase a townread of mine". I'd have accepted "I don't have the time" better than that.

That isn't a black mark on Taylor overall, but it gives Pooky tremendous townpoints and she gets absolutely fuck all out of the deal.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Noraa, Adorable beats Flea because Flea doesn't look like scum flailing when I bear down with the hobnailed boots like Adorable does. Flea has a sarcastic, joking tone, and I felt the "chaotic gods" thing was a detail scum wouldn't think to throw into that reply to my rebuke -- that felt like a townie legitimately having fun.

Adorable, meanwhile, doesn't have any idea what she looks like from the outside. Sure, neither do town. But town have a stubbornness when you present them with an impossible request based on their own play that is seemingly simple to solve: they make assumptions, based on what they see reading their own posts, and they just thrust all of that on everyone else's read of their posts -- projection, basically. Scum don't have that. Scum have a deep lacking in awareness of what their posts look like when /fully/ uninformed. Adorable doesn't strike me as particularly well-versed in scumplay, and Adorable's play has been bang-on-the-dot for scum under pressure: artificial sounding rationalizations, clunky and machine-like language around emotionally driven play, etc.

And then asking for any sort of hint given the wording and tone I was putting out there? That was desperation.

Compare Gloria -- it was an incorrect read of the situation, but immediately "goddamn it there's no hope you're a monster". No attempt at getting anything out of me that would change my mind, she knew what was up -- that's TOWN desperation in this situation, it looks hopeless, I'm telling everyone off, I'm leaning hard, I'm giving no ground, WHAT PRECISELY can be done? Nothing but griping and hoping you can get town back on the rails after a green hit.

Adorable... did not have that.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Disagree, Noraa. If I felt it was a redder slot than Titus or DGB I'd throw the vote down right now to show it, but look, put it like this, yeah?

Here's your unordered townbloc. Yes, it is yours. It is everyone's.
Noraa, Pooky, Bell, UNOwen, MURDERCAT, Gloria, me.

Here's what's left over.
Fidget, Flea, Tayl0r, Adorable, Titus, DGB.

50% of that remainder MUST be town. Fidget's obvtowning at this point, let's take that slot out of there.
Flea, Tayl0r, Adorable, Titus, DGB.

Okay, still 40% of the remainder has to be town. Let's take the scummy slots and separate them out, they're functionally solved.
Titus, DGB.

Leaves us with 3 "maybe"s.
Tayl0r, Adorable, Flea.

We /STILL/ have a 66% chance of hitting town in there. We have to break it down, to prioritize somehow. So, how do I rank these slots? Like this (percentage is strength of my read):
Adorable (60% scum)
Tayl0r (40% scum)
Flea (35% scum)

Now let's add in our two definite scum there.

Titus (90% scum)
DGB (90% scum)
Adorable (60% scum)
Tayl0r (40% scum)
Flea (35% scum)

So I'm not going to put my money where my mouth is on Adorable. Town gets /WAY/ ahead of the game if we smash red today, so I'm going to smash the definite red. But Adorable is a /really/ strong contender.

I'm going to all this effort because if you end up with the scroll next dayphase, you need to consider who you hit. It's the difference between a Day 4 town-win and scum potentially re-entering the townbloc. If /everyone in town/ agrees on a POE, scum WIFOM stops working, period. It doesn't matter who gets the scroll, the game will solve itself or it won't and scum has no more bearing on the outcome except for /who/ is doing the cursing. This is ideal. It means that town can reframe if they're missing shots and identify scum in the townbloc WITHOUT SCUM INFLUENCING THOSE DECISIONS, because there is no chance of scum fake-clearing a buddy (like seems to have nearly worked for Adorable).

[MUSHSHAGANA]

DGB, nice try. It's pass 2, no power for you. Props for effort, though. Titus is a better slot for town to hit right here and right now, I'm not going to take the risk of playing Asshole Genie, no matter how much fun I'd have.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Boy, I sure am glad I have a lot of time to hold onto this scroll, because I need to argue bad ideas out of town and stop DGB from getting townread off of a nice pleasant personality in the meantime. In fact, I think this might help: HURT: DGB

Titus is more worrisome, but DGB has more potential to recover. Titus has try-harded her very best this game and look what happened. DGB? Gee, that's some risk. Do not like that risk. I need to keep bad ideas out of town's head before I can trust them to deal with that.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

MURDERCAT, let's talk about POE and the value of being a remorseless, thoughtless robot who reacts solely to commands input long ago and can only update when the green ERROR light turns on enough times.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Look, the exact reason I want town's POE to be ABSOLUTELY BULLETPROOF!

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Right. Which is why making it so no one can second-guess it is /very/ important.

PEDIT: What part of "mad god" did you miss, DGB?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I do hope to hear an apology from scum DGB in the dead thread. This playing dumb stuff is not working out very well here, and it doesn't even have the excuse of being entertaining the way my whole "the villainous queen in a fantasy adventure movie" schtick was.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I just woke up, Tayl0r. Give me a break, I'm collecting my final thoughts here.

Ahem.


I'm hitting DGB here first because while Titus has a higher chance of actively derailing, DGB stands a higher chance of passive escape by ATEing their way out of trouble. I think this particular town is MORE susceptible to the second one, as long as Gloria makes sure to treat anything and everything from POE slots as pure WIFOM from now until flipped.

I've also done the detailed assessment and DGB is scummier than Titus -- Titus has RL excuses, DGB replaced goddamn Lapsa. Titus is STILL super scummy, don't get me wrong there, just... DGB is more so.

The most likely risk I see in my POE is mistaking a scum slot for locktown. If we hit two scum after this (which DGB->Titus feels VERY likely to hit two red) then we can steamroll by POE effortlessly, almost zero chance of failure even with that risk.

The most serious risk I see for town is trying to adjust the POE mid-run pre-flip. Hitting your preferred slot is a bad idea unless it follows the POE. This is because scum can cast doubt in the townbloc, fake town-confirm scum, and perform all manner of WIFOM operations if there is any dissidence within the town. If town acts as a unitized robot with absolutely zero problem solving power up until it runs out of POE targets and has to eat /itself/, scum have no power. Think like this: if scum knows that EVERY SINGLE TOWN MEMBER is effectively interchangeable until they run out of targets, then ANY WIFOM they drop loses its power.

Let's say Noraa doesn't agree to this -- they could give it to her anyway in the hopes that given power she hits her target instead. Even if /both/ of them are green, this helps, because it gives town scum-provided information on who they choose to hit and then town hits another green next phase and starts to doubt. If one or the other is red, it's always a gambit, but scum /still/ gets to gambit based on what they think Noraa does -- and Noraa has to decide if she's going to follow her heart or follow the POE. There's a chance scum can overtake the game there.

Let's say Noraa and everyone else agrees to follow the POE. Scum can no longer influence the outcome. No matter what, the SAME slots will fall, in the same order. This could be good or bad for scum, we have no way of knowing, but if they only have one scum left after Day 4, town WILL win this anyway. Moreover, if town decides to pivot, it is PURELY A TOWN DECISION. Scum don't get to influence the pivot except by choosing who makes it, and I trust this town to pivot only based on too many green flips if they agree to follow the POE. That is always going to be a town-favored decision. I especially trust the townies who are adamantly agreeing on this POE to pivot based on appropriate flips and hit red if and when they pivot.

If you're town and you're earlier in the POE, you should hit the target next in the POE with a vote. Do not hurt-tag it, do not discuss, do not let doubt linger. This signals to town that they did indeed hit green and lets them make a meaningful pivot on that basis without waiting for flips. This is optimal play in this scenario, and it denies scum power to an enormous degree. I'm making sure town moves from here with absolute certainty and denies scum even the tiniest foothold in the gamestate, please listen to me.

You don't need to follow my exact POE, but town DOES need to agree on a POE, period, and I feel like if it deviates too far from mine it will impact town's chances. Noraa's is acceptable, if everyone else agrees, but I really must stress that it must be universal agreement here. Remember this is a game that will be extremely town-favored starting when Titus goes down, and slight disagreements in the POE really do not matter, the time for your favorite target will come if you are right. It's more important to deny scum any influence at this stage.

I'll be voting DGB in the next hour.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

ehhh ok I mean I think it flips scum and I guess it makes the vote target clear

There is way more evidence for Titus though

That's one of the reasons I'm going with DGB here, actually. DGB has a better chance of survival if left to live to Day 4.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Noraa's POE can be it. Gloria is unquestionable at this stage until town needs to eat itself. (Hint: if you get to that stage, Gloria dies first.)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I still think Taylor is scum btw~

Tayl0r is number 4 in my POE, buddy. DGB->Titus->Adorable->Tayl0r->Flea. Though I'm considering throwing Flea up higher now.

As for Titus.... Hmm. I think not. Look at DGB and tell me it isn't scumflailing when they have a chance of survival here. Nope. DGB can convince people they're town, Titus can't. I will not have it.

In fact?

VOTE: DGB

Yeah, so, there you go. Cursed. Titus is ALWAYS going down next dayphase, DGB has a chance of worming out of it with effortposting and playing dumb.

Well.

/Had./

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I am /positive/ both slots are scum. The fact that you all were too at first and then changed your minds implies this was the right move.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm still pretty confident DGB is scum. There's a psychology play for scum here where they break town momentum before the POE gets rolling. Then there's too much in-fighting and garbage before the flip for town to re-coalesce and focus on the POE post flip. Please let's not fall into that trap.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Honestly, Flea, I'd hit Fidget before Gloria -- but again, agreed, Gloria's scummiest in the townbloc. That's the stage town has to eat itself, may as well feast there.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

What part of "this slot is to me the scummiest in the game and you guys are probably being taken in by a high school level psychology game" is passing folks by here? If DGB gets townread at this point, with town already starting to fall apart, IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT THEY FLIP RED IN THE END, town's still broken.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Okay, sure. What happens if town's doubting each other now, and DGB flips red in the end anyway? What happens is town doesn't follow the POE, town is too busy following up their suspicions from right now.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Anyone who doubts me when I say DGB can be scum breaking apart town before the POE steamroller gets moving, please read: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Penultima ... h_syndrome

In particular: "And those who do read that far may have trouble accepting it due to the cognitive dissonance brought on by the intended outrage created by the main body copy. Research into this sort of bias has shown that people who read contrary information may even see this as reinforcing their previous belief - and so placing it at the end sets up these clarifying remarks to actually back up the opinion of the article."

Same concept comes into play here.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Goodbye DGB - it's a shame you replaced the worst slot in the game and had to die for it.

Probably not trolling here, so that's an even greater shame. Means there is definitely scum that's reasonably well hidden still.

Anyone who doubts me when I say DGB can be scum breaking apart town before the POE steamroller gets moving, please read: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Penultima ... h_syndrome

In particular: "And those who do read that far may have trouble accepting it due to the cognitive dissonance brought on by the intended outrage created by the main body copy. Research into this sort of bias has shown that people who read contrary information may even see this as reinforcing their previous belief - and so placing it at the end sets up these clarifying remarks to actually back up the opinion of the article."

Same concept comes into play here.

I don't see how "I see this player, the scummiest one in the game to me, starting to get town treatment from other slots. I will kill them before they can worm their way into the townbloc" is more of a gamble than "I see this player, the scummiest one in the game to me, starting to get town treatment from other slots. I will kill the second scummiest player in the game and trust the town already giving the first player townpasses to kill them instead."

[MUSHSHAGANA]

GOddamnit mafia scum i didnt quote those what are you doing

[MUSHSHAGANA]

This forum software is the death curse that kills me I swear it

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I don't see how "I see this player, the scummiest one in the game to me, starting to get town treatment from other slots. I will kill them before they can worm their way into the townbloc" is more of a gamble than "I see this player, the scummiest one in the game to me, starting to get town treatment from other slots. I will kill the second scummiest player in the game and trust the town already giving the first player townpasses to kill them instead."

Edited for sanity because the quotes before were too much.

I'd have done the same if it was Titus people were treating like unfairly persecuted town. Those two slots had to go down, I was not going to chance it that town would give one of them a pass. But look at it from my perspective here: DGB was scummier looking, to me, and was also getting the passes? No. Nuh-uh. Titus will go down, DGB could worm out, I had to put a stop to that.

And I'm /still/ unconvinced that we hit green. As quoted in my quoted post somehow (no I still don't get it), there's an effect where you tell people a lot of bullshit and then quickly blip the truth at them, but they're all already /so/ emotionally invested in the garbage that the truth, /even/ if they accept it, does not remove all the bad signal they've been swamped with. In fact, they can even start rationalizing how the truth /supports the lies/. If DGB flips red, this town is going to cannibalize itself ANYWAY if it doesn't watch out.

Scum are capable of being subtle. The last time I had to reference RationalWiki to point out my reasons for scumreading someone, they were scum -- 2028, Day 1, word321. That doesn't make it a guarantee, but it does mean I'm not off in some other world of my own invention when things hit this stage, and I don't appreciate being called a gambling moron who isn't thinking of town for making a perfectly reasonable decision from my POV.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

ehhh ok I mean I think it flips scum and I guess it makes the vote target clear

There is way more evidence for Titus though

MURDERCAT, remember this? Remember when I said that /that is a good part of why I want to hit DGB first/? I know you ISOed and decided that you disagree with me, okay, fine. Did you include Lapsa in that ISO? Did you consider that DGB has been a nonentity until the time came to decide, then effortposting from left field and manages to swing around the Lapsa reads in the 11th hour?

Did you consider that from my POV, there was scum dodging a bullet and derailing the POE for Day 4, and that I had the power to stop it immediately even if everyone else could not see it?

Did you consider that your emotional reactions will last BEYOND WHEN THE FLIP HAPPENS? Did you consider that scum can bank on that shit and shade a ton of other slots as they go out and cause the town to deflagrate messily before the POE even gets rolling?

Please. Wait for the flip before you react like this.


PEDIT: Tone doesnt fit with the apology, but thread's moving too fast for me to want to edit it. Consider this a "please read the above in a pleading tone of voice" post-script. Apology accepted, BTW.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Mush is about to die. The least everyone could do is be nice. Even if she scrolls wrong, SO?!
Everyone here is human. Blaming one person for a mistake is not the way to go especially if you dont even know if its a mistake.

Yeah, I still feel bad for going off on her the other day. I was just really frustrated that she couldn’t see that nothing I’ve done so far in this game makes any sense if I’m scum. Fortunately she did finally see it, even if she’s still paranoid about me for being wrong on Fred and Shelley.

Wrong take. I was pressing on you because you were reacting in a way that didn't fit with standard town, so I could calibrate reaction range off of you to decide my scum reads. You were a townread from start to finish.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I absolutely /loved/ this game.

Bar none, some of the strongest performances I've seen from town or scum ever in here, and Noraa's positively unbelievably deep pocketing of Pooky and the absolute /struggle/ everyone else had wrenching their brain around to Noraa scum despite /not/ being deeply pocketed -- that performance is easily topping that list.

Top of the list for town, I want to make sure it's on the record that Bell was an undeniable MVP. Bell's the one whose eleventh hour effortposting was phenomenal and would have been gamechanging in, I'd hazard, literally /any/ other Mafia game that was running this close. Bell's the one who got my head on track for Day 2 leading into the rolling red flip mid-game we had going, and I kept watching Bell's reads for my next pushes to keep those slots coming up red. I wanted Bell and UNOwen in the end game, because I felt like they together would be 100% guaranteed to hit the deepwolf -- Bell had the innate sense for scum-stink and UNOwen had the innate sense for non-stinky scum, between them they were damn near an unstoppable force (too bad about UNOwen, though...).

Bell and Noraa, the Death Curse MVPs. Outside of and on top of alignment wins, these two deserve to feel like winners individually. This was great stuff, my favorite game ever easily.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Check what I had to say in the spec/dead-thread about my performance being worth literally anything. Spoiler: like 60% of that credit, MINIMUM, belongs to Bell, UNOwen, Gloria.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I deserve a bit more blame. I didn't cast enough doubt on her slot, or hammer in the deepwolf theory hard enough, or really stress that UNOwen going down should have been considered a scumclaim unless UNOwen got to pass the scroll. I was suspecting Noraa, Gloria and you, MURDER, but I wanted to go out with a strong message that the town could rally behind and just saying "okay so deal with the high doubt slots and then CANNIBALIZE LIKE YOUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT" felt like it was too anxiety laden and shaky.

So what do I do? I set up some Rube Goldberg shit to try to kill Gloria fast, force Pooky in to push MURDER down the stairs, and expect that Bell and UNOwen can pinpoint Noraa for the winning pass.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

The Final 5 I was aiming for when I was setting up the last words posts for the town were:
UNOwen/Bell (Scumhunting Dream Team)
Pooky (Disposable Executioner)
MURDER/Noraa (Highly Suspect)

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Murder don't look at the dead thread

spoiler: they thought it was Shelly/DGB/Fred/Noraa/Murder

I mean a large portion of it is me yelling that murder is scum even when it should've been obvious that wasn't true LOL

I also got a real kick out of the flips coming in for Day 3 and "I'll be damned" just below pagetop.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

God, rereading my dead thread ISO, the dumbest words I said in that thread were in post 367:

Eh. Obvtown for Tayl0r is still easy to misread. Like I said, I put her in my POE because people would agree to it, my real POE inside the town bloc revolved around MURDER, Noraa and Gloria. Gloria goes down first every time town starts to consciously cannibalize, and without her in the mix, Noraa follows swiftly. The remainder won't step in front of a MURDER bullet except Bell, and I think Pooky is a strong enough personality to push that bullet through anyway. Backup was Pooky, which is why I slipped him into the townbloc without announcement or discussion -- that makes his positioning weak, so he can't hang on too much longer.

Tayl0r was really not a big loss here. Town was never going to coalesce around her the way it did for even UNOwen, who had a lot of friction preventing him from joining town until I put my foot down. I'm certain Titus went green at this stage, so this cleans up the hangers on outside of the townbloc quite tidily, giving town a path to cannibalize to victory after the flips.

Look at that. The only things I was right about remotely are town never coalescing around Tayl0r well enough to find a path to a solve, and Gloria going down when the cannibalism begins.
-Everyone defended Noraa.
-Seriously, she went down HARD and it was tooth and nail, inch by bloody inch scraping and clawing to bring her down. Absolute polar opposite.
-Bell was not about to step in front of a MURDER bullet.
-Pooky didn't have the conviction in a MURDER kill I had read from him.
-Pooky's positioning was rock fucking solid.
-UNOwen /did not make it into the townbloc/.
-Titus FLIPPED RED.
-Hangers on outside of the townbloc left after Day 4: apparently UNOwen and Flea, and people were still shading Fidget too! WHOOPS.
-Town did not cannibalize to victory, town cannibalized to damn near a loss and only proper scumhunting in the eleventh hour saved it.

That post is probably the most embarrassing post made this game.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'd love to see a Bell post-mortem on me.


Also! I think Theta might be on to something in adding, say, 3 townies, but every red flip gives the scumteam another dayvig. Good for flavor, too. I think it ends up making the setup even swingier in the end though, where right now it's townsided but otherwise fairly stable mechanically.

Thinking on other solutions, I see room to adjust rules of scroll passing to more strongly empower early players in the scroll-passing order. Maybe I'll find you on Discord, Hectic, and talk at you about my setup ideas, and we can see what happens. PM me if you're up for that discussion -- my game design history is in videogames, but I think we could figure something out.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I just did a reread of the front half of the game. In hindsight, I really should have been harder on myself for the lazy reads on Tayl0r, Noraa and Shelly. I ended up reading all of them independent of their meta in the end, and falling back on trash reasoning to justify them was absolutely gobsmackingly stupid of me. I have more skill than that and I might have figured out Noraa was not as townie as she seemed BEFORE I was the scroll-bearer if I had done it right the first time.

Also realized I passed up some outrageously good towntells from Fidget on D1 and Flea on D2. I might have started yelling about Fidget Town before Toog's wagon started, and might have gotten Flea in the townbloc before my untimely demise, and ahead of Gloria at that. Might have also been a better move to not hold my UNOwen townread close to the chest on D2. So: look for reads early and yell about them often. Usual pitfalls there don't apply for me since I'm near pocket-proof and always junk my reads and re-eval in the endgame and/or after a run of bad flips my reads depended on, so I should be more aggressively confident in my strong reads. Lesson learned.