So, I'd like to throw this question out there, then: what is your read on people thus far?
As for myself, the only person I have marked off my list thus far (though that in no way means I'm not still going to be watching) is VE. I can see where Al is playing the town IC role, but at the same time, I'm still suspicious of him because of his IC role, and based on this:
bigAl wrote:With 7 townies and 2 mafia, it would generally be very bad for the mafia if they jump on a lynch real quick at this point.
I could see this as not only coaching town players into something to watch for, but I can also see this as coaching a newb-scum buddy into not doing something.
Everyone else is essentially a null tell for me thus far, with, perhaps, the exception of cy, but that's based off his "prove I'm scum" comment, which, more and more, I can see as just a typo (though I still can't really see HOW one would miss an entire word like that). But I don't think scum would be that stupid. However, I can see how it could have been a subconscious slip. JJ thus far has been null for me as well, but I'm going to be even more critical of her because in my last game, she replaced in as scum and they ended up winning. I'm not willing to place my vote on anyone thus far, however. Also, in my last game, two townies were lynched because of lack of participation (as JJ can back up), and I really don't want that to happen here. So those out there that are not really participating, please do.
AND FOR ALL YOU NOOBS OUT THERE THAT DON'T KNOW BETTER (I'm a noob too, but I learned this in my last game), VOTING SOMEONE DOES ADD PRESSURE, BUT PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T HAMMER SOMEONE OR PUT SOMEONE TOO CLOSE TO A LYNCH JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT PARTICIPATING. Perhaps the best thing to do there is to continue to pressure that person, and watch out for lurking (because if they're lurking frequently, I totally see that as scummy).
I could see this as not only coaching town players into something to watch for, but I can also see this as coaching a newb-scum buddy into not doing something.
As I was writing that quote, I thought to myself, "I bet someone is going to think that this is me coaching my hypothetical scum-buddy." But I wrote it anyway just to see if anyone would notice. :) Besides, if I were mafia, I would have gone over that with my partner pre-game.
It's past time for sleep though so I'll have to go over my current reads tomorrow after work.
bigAl wrote:Besides, if I were mafia, I would have gone over that with my partner pre-game.
That is, of course, assuming your buddy saw the thread pre-game.
My first actual game (that I ended up replacing out of due to IRL circumstances, AND IS CURRENTLY OVER) I didn't get a chance to read the qt and discuss things with my buddy beforehand. Just sayin'.
While I generally feel it's more productive to focus conversation on who we find to be scummy (it forces people subconsciously to look more critically at people), the question right now is "what is your read on people thus far?"
I'll bite, but only because everyone has either posted with a little content and an opinion on something, or has voted.
I'll start with
cymru96
because I've already given my limited read on him, so I can expand on it here.
Spoiler: cymru96 Unofficial Official Vote
cymru96 wrote:VOTE: bigAL because he's said that he's not necisserily town and then voted for me without saying his reason.
BTW my time zone is GMT so my posts will probably be early morning- early afternoon for most of you
cymru's initial vote put me off originally for 2 reasons. First, it appeared to be OMGUS vote, which is never productive for obvious reasons. Second, it seemed obvious to me at the time why bigAl didn't give a reason and claimed his vote was not random.
Every post since that one has been in defense of that vote, or has spoken the same message to me: "I have very limited experience with this game." As I stated, most of his posts have screamed "new" but none of them have screamed scummy.
....except for, obviously...
Spoiler: Newbie Scum-Slip
cymru96 wrote:I guess you guys are right, I should find scum not prove that I'm scum 'cause I appear to be good at digging holes!
Unvote
Vote Zihark
Not posting for ages and then suddenly voting as soon as VisceraEyes votes for you seems a bit dodgy.
This post has been answered for by cymru96. He claims that it was a typo and that he hadn't meant to imply that he was actually trying to prove that he was scum. Fair enough. I can only assume that when he says he didn't mean to type it, he didn't mean to.
Ultimately, my read on him is
Town
because he's not only willing to challenge this game's IC (I assume there's one in every game and 2 SE's as well?) implying an eagerness to start scumhunting, but also because he got lynched in his last game trying to scumhunt, which would amply explain his paranoia of appearing too scummy.
Zihark
...2 posts strong. Confirmation, OMGUS. I'm not even going to QUOTE it, it's so inconsequencial. Null-read. Not enough dataz.
In the case of
Grimmjow
, my read was a little easier. I had an initial scummy feeling from him because...
Spoiler: Grimmjow thinks it's bullshit.
Grimmjow wrote:
Vote: Yonzy
because of his
bullshit
reasoning.
Grimmjow wrote:Wow, very quick with the votecount, NS. I like it.
Also, I hate RVS, because I feel it doesn't really do anything to further the game. On top of that, no one else really has posted anything since the game started, and your logic is
bullshit
, I think. So, there's my rationale for the vote. I'll likely unvote as soon as more people are playing the game.
Also, one more time, since some people have confirmed, but didn't post anything else, please post your timezones.
Grimmjow wrote:Ok, so bigAl votes cymru, stating it's not random, but doesn't give any reasons. He also implies that he's town, but not to be sucked in, which the goal of all that is 1) to make people think he's town and 2) to make people think he's even more town by saying "But don't believe it just because I tell you I'm town," which frankly I think is
bullshit
.
Can anyone else confirm that the servers were down yesterday? They worked fine for me.
@Al, why is your vote on cymru not random?
I'm going to keep my vote on Yonzy for now, but
FoS: bigAl
He very clearly stated that he didn't agree with the statements in question, but didn't really say why. I also took his 'bullshits' as a sort of "chainsaw defense" of Workdawg from Yonzy's RVS vote.
As he's answered for this, citing previous games as evidence of his...abrasiveness?...and has been generally well-meaning and clear in his intentions, I get a
Town
read on him otherwise.
I'm going to conclude this post with
bigAl
. I had intended to do everyone, but this post has gotten WAY longer than I had anticipated and there's time to do everyone else later (when there's moar dataz).
bigAl is a special case, at least to me. He has the honor of being this game's "Inexperience Challenged" player.
Spoiler: bigAl, IC At Your Service
bigAl wrote:I don't know about anyone else, but the forums were down all of yesterday for me. So, sorry for not posting I suppose. >.>
Anyway, I'm the IC in this game, meaning in addition my normal goal of eliminating all the mafia from the town, I'm going to help with any game theory or strategy questions as much as I can. The Newbie Guide is a good place to start if you're not familiar with the game. The Glossary can be helpful too. Any questions, let me know. I played a fair amount on here several years back, but this is my first game in a while. This 2of4 setup is new to me, so it'll be interesting to see how the game plays out.
Note that I've already snuck in my first strategy, by implying that my role is pro-town in the previous paragraph. Now you all subconsciously assume that I'm some kind of pro-town guy. But don't you get sucked in! The more critical and suspicious everyone is of everyone else, the better we'll do!
Let's VOTE: cymru96 to start out. Not random.
Anyway, I'm in Mountain time, GMT-7. I'm busy most weekdays but I should be able to post a lot evenings and weekends.
Helpful poster by decree of the mods? Absolutely. He's been reviewed and certified by the keepers of the way. On the side of Town? WAY too early to say.
He votes for cymru96 in this post. His reason ended up being "because he didn't vote for anyone". Interestingly, only three people had when he posted this (not counting Miss JJ's unofficial and as yet uncorrected vote on Grimmjow, which would have put him at L-1...more on Miss JJ later!).
Spoiler: bigAl has a reason
bigAl wrote:Okay, work was rained out today, so I'm back quicker than I expected. Anyway...
Grimmjow wrote:@Al, why is your vote on cymru not random?
So a lot of mafia games start out with a few random votes, some idle discussion, chit chat or whatever, and it takes a while before anything meaty comes out. I decided to start the game with a strong provocative vote, and see where it leads. This kick starts the game and now we have something to look at. I voted someone for no stated reason and now I've gotten a response from two of you so far, and that gives me (and the rest of the town) more information. Doing this puts a bit of a target on me, I realize, but at the very worst, I get lynched and everyone tomorrow has a lot of data to move forward (though we're a long ways off from the lynching stage I hope). (I picked cymru96 to vote because he chose not to vote anyone. I'll be the first to admit that this is pretty
arbitrary
, but it's not
random
. It was probably just as a meaningful choice as a random vote, but it leads something more interesting.)
cymru96 wrote:VOTE: bigAL because he's said that he's not necisserily town and then voted for me without saying his reason.
Saying that I'm "not necisserily [sic] town" is not a reason to vote someone or suspect they are a bad guy - it is simply a fact. It is a fact that I simply have a 2/9th chance of being a bad guy - as does everyone else here. That's what I was trying to say in #32 - we're all possibly scum. Grimmjow called it bullshit - I call it logic and strategy. My vote was arbitrary so start with, but I'm happy with where it is now - stating facts is no reason to (try to) vote people.
What I found interesting about this post wasn't even the reason for his vote. What was interesting to me was how he was happy with his vote on cymru96, in spite of cy doing exactly what he was supposed to: demand a reason for his intentionally ambiguous vote. Grimmjow even calls his strategy bullshit, and bigAl doesn't mind a bit. It's interesting to note that bigAl has yet to remove his vote from cymru96. He must still feel he's scummy. Either that, or knows something I certainly don't.
Spoiler: bigAl delves into WIFOM
bigAl wrote:
I could see this as not only coaching town players into something to watch for, but I can also see this as coaching a newb-scum buddy into not doing something.
As I was writing that quote, I thought to myself, "I bet someone is going to think that this is me coaching my hypothetical scum-buddy." But I wrote it anyway just to see if anyone would notice. Besides, if I were mafia, I would have gone over that with my partner pre-game.
It's past time for sleep though so I'll have to go over my current reads tomorrow after work.
"...but time enough to defend myself with just a bit of WIFOM."
Ultimately, I get a
SCUM
read from bigAl. He always appears to be second (or third) out the gates in pointing out questionable acts of others, while sprinkling in a few IC tips to build town cred. Also, while this can't REALLY be used as evidence (technically), I find it highly unlikely that the disadvantaged Mafia team wouldn't have either the IC or one of the SE players
Spoiler: Warning, reads without analysis
Presently I feel green about Miss JJ, and there isn't enough to get a read on Workdawg...but I'm leaning green
. Again, the last bit is speculation and entirely baseless as I have no idea how random the team selection is.
As my audacity will likely prod him into activity,
VE a couple of clarifications on your post, please.
VisceraEyes wrote:
He votes for cymru96 in this post. His reason ended up being "because he didn't vote for anyone". Interestingly, only three people had when he posted this (not counting Miss JJ's unofficial and
as yet uncorrected vote on Grimmjow
,
which would have put him at L-1
...more on Miss JJ later!).
Did you mean my vote on Grimmjow was uncorrected at the time of the post you refer to by Big Al?
Where do you see Grimmjow being put at L-2? You say my vote would have put him at L-1 which would mean he had 3 other votes. I don't see any other votes for Grimmjow but mine.
I'll post more later but thanks in advance for answering these for me.
@Miss JJ
What I meant was that you voted for Grimmjow but not in the correct format, and haven't corrected it since. PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong.
You're right, I was mistaken as to what the L-X anagrams mean - I should have said that your vote on him would have put him at two votes, tying Grimm for the most votes so far in the game.
You know, you're right! When I saw your corrected vote, I thought it was Yonzy voting for him...which is why I thought that your corrected vote that "never came" would have put him at 2 votes. Thanks for clearing that up!
At any rate, my point on bigAl where I made this mistake is still valid - only 3 people had voted when he voted for cymru, for a reason that applied to HALF the town at the time. Not to say that there was anything wrong with his vote at the time...only pointing out the circumstances surrounding it.
@Miss JJ
You're very concerned about any posts regarding you are very accurate and clear. What I find interesting is that page 5 is going to be almost exclusively dedicated to my reads-post, and the only comment you had on any of it was clarification on you, someone I only gave a limited, non-analyzed read on in that post. This can be viewed a couple of different ways...The most obvious is that you're scum and you don't want ANY suspicion cast on you, no matter how little or inconsequential. The other (and the one I'm more inclined to believe) is that your posts have been used in the past by scum out of context and you're overly concerned about being understood entirely.
So what's your take on my reads? Am I way off? Am I full of crap? Am I some kind of Mafia prodigy with impeccable reads? Your opinion is important. Everyone's is.
Okay, first some to say about the Cymru slip/typo. Yes, it could very well have been a typo but I found it interesting to note some of the responses to it. I'll start with VE:
VisceraEyes wrote:@Miss JJ
Whoa, this time YOU beat ME to it.
@cymru
Huh?
Surely you didn't just noob-slip tell everyone that you're scum...I've got to be reading that wrong
.
Why do you have to be reading this wrong? This seems almost like a nudge to correct a possible slip.
VisceraEyes wrote:@Miss JJ
Nor should you
.
Nor should you...
VisceraEyes wrote:@bigAl
I know YOU have thoughts on this, Mr IC guy. What's your take on cymru?
Why are you asking bigAl for his opinion but not stating yours?
VisceraEyes wrote:@cymru
I would hope you wouldn't be that careless
, lol
Why would you hope someone would not be so careless, especially if you don't know their alignment?
VisceraEyes wrote:@cy (addendum from Grimmjow's post)
.....preferably reasons that don't involve playing the noob-card...it's been pretty much agreed upon that you're a new player, playing the noob-card at this point would only further incriminate you.
If you're town, I'd prefer to not lynch you based on that
.
What would you prefer to lynch town based on?
And then Grimmjow:
Grimmjow wrote:Ok, so I just got back from a winery (WHEEEEEE) so now may not be the best time to post stuff, because my thoughts are not exactly coherent. However, I will say this:
I do not in the slightest believe that was just a typo. I am not going to vote him right now because I don't want mafia coming along and hammering him just in case he is actually town, but I do NOT believe that
.
@cy: reasons why I should think otherwise, GO!
If you did NOT believe this was a typo you have absolutely no reason not to vote him AND put him at L-2 to at the very least turn the heat up on him and get more than a couple of sentences in response.
Grimmjow wrote:Everyone else is essentially a null tell for me thus far, with, perhaps, the exception of cy, but that's based off his "prove I'm scum" comment, which, more and more, I can see as just a typo (
though I still can't really see HOW one would miss an entire word like that
). But I don't think scum would be that stupid. However, I can see how it could have been a subconscious slip.
You seem to excuse it but still have suspicions of him.
My whole point in this is how easily this was either excused or explained away by VE, even before Cymru explained it himself. And then there's Grimmjow who expressly stated he didn't believe Cymru, but still excused the statement apparently. Possible scum partners of Cymru or scum who know Cymru is town? Maybe. At this point I have read Cymru's explanation, which is plausible, but I think reactions to his slip/typo are far more interesting than the slip/typo itself.
For now, I believe we've gotten all we can at the moment from the Cymru slip/typo so I will UNVOTE: Cymru.... however I don't think it should just be dismissed/forgotten completely. I will be back with more - including a vote - later today/tonight.
A couple of things I would like to note:
1. I don't think people should get so freaked out about putting someone at L-2 or even L-1 if it's warranted. That hasn't happened so far but I find people are very tentative with their votes in this game. See bigAl's #98, which I agree with.
2. Whether someone is the IC or not should have nothing to do with whether you suspect them or don't suspect them. Roles are chosen randomly and everyone's posts should be looked at individually and not judged because of their IC status or any other status.
Just popping in real quick to post what I found funny (hahah, not "huh" funny)
VisceraEyes wrote:Am I some kind of Mafia prodigy with impeccable reads?
Bullshit.
Anyway, I am going to reserve my judgements until more people post on their reads. I'm curious to see what everyone things. I already have some comments that I might make towards VE's post(s), but I would like to see a few more respond first.
Miss JJ wrote:Okay, first some to say about the Cymru slip/typo. Yes, it could very well have been a typo but I found it interesting to note some of the responses to it. I'll start with VE:
VisceraEyes wrote:@Miss JJ
Whoa, this time YOU beat ME to it.
@cymru
Huh?
Surely you didn't just noob-slip tell everyone that you're scum...I've got to be reading that wrong
.
Why do you have to be reading this wrong? This seems almost like a nudge to correct a possible slip.
It does, doesn't it? I guess my only response is that the smarter play would've been to let it go and hope that cymru96 corrects it himself WHEN people notice it, not bring attention to it myself, IF I were scum. Obviously WIFOM, but the statement reads how it reads. I can't deny that.
VisceraEyes wrote:@Miss JJ
Nor should you
.
Nor should you...
I haven't. I can assure you I remember it, even if I'm not viewing it as a scum-tell right now.
VisceraEyes wrote:@bigAl
I know YOU have thoughts on this, Mr IC guy. What's your take on cymru?
Why are you asking bigAl for his opinion but not stating yours?
I did. I was the first to point out that it looked like a noob scum-slip. That was my opinion on it, and I wanted to hear bigAl's.
VisceraEyes wrote:@cymru
I would hope you wouldn't be that careless
, lol
Why would you hope someone would not be so careless, especially if you don't know their alignment?
Well, from a team-standpoint you're right. I would hope that he IS that careless and that he just told us his alignment. From a game-standpoint (I'm a pretty fair guy), I would hope he wouldn't screw his partner over by announcing his alignment to everyone. We ALL want a fair game around here, right?
VisceraEyes wrote:@cy (addendum from Grimmjow's post)
.....preferably reasons that don't involve playing the noob-card...it's been pretty much agreed upon that you're a new player, playing the noob-card at this point would only further incriminate you. If you're town, I'd prefer to not lynch you based on that.
What would you prefer to lynch town based on?
Obviously I NEVER want to lynch a town, but if we're forced to lynch someone who ends up being town...I prefer it to be because of inactivity or trolling or uselessness...NOT because someone played the noob-card one too many times when they are, in fact, noobish.
VisceraEyes wrote:@cymru
I think it'd be more productive to ask the host to prod him and replace him if necessary. 2 posts in 5 pages is at the very least unacceptable.
I wrote a little song about who I thought was scummy...
/offtopic
I tried to write a song, but it turns out all of you guys have really crappy names to rhyme with. I will think on it.
/ontopic
I'll start off with a response to VE's big post and then move on from there.
Interestingly, only three people had [voted] when he posted this
Several reasons to choose cymru. Most importantly, he had posted but specifically stated that he was not going to vote because he didn't have any current suspicions. In some circles, I've seen this as a "I'm going to make sure to do nothing at all that could draw suspicion by voting someone without a legitimate reason." Mostly a very newbie line of thinking, one that we've seen throughout the game from cymru. It doesn't say much about his alignment (seeing as both town and mafia would be somewhat concerned about that), but it's something that stuck out to me enough to warrant a closer look at him.
Grimmjow even calls his strategy bullshit, and bigAl doesn't mind a bit.
No, I don't mind. Grimmjow can think what he wants but I for one believe that it was a valid strategy to get the game going. It seemed likely I would get some support from a couple other players so I let it be.
It's interesting to note that bigAl has yet to remove his vote from cymru96. He must still feel he's scummy. Either that, or knows something I certainly don't.
Just because someone is a new at the game, doesn't mean they can't be scum too. I know that when I started, I tried to play off my scum mistakes as newb mistakes and it worked. I don't feel he's excessively scummy, but a vote there is as good a place as anywhere else right now.
(Gonna grab some dinner, and respond to the rest in a bit.)
Besides, if I were mafia, I would have gone over that with my partner pre-game.
