Mini Theme 2116 - Undertale S Open

[Replica]

Given what I've seen during the game and the lack of accessible meta, I think it'd be useful to give a brief introduction on myself as a player.

As a player, I have two mostly complementary but occasionally opposing motivations. First, I find mafia aesthetically pleasing and view it as a work of art. The best play in my book are the things that I find subjectively beautiful: I love plans that come together, masterful improvisation in the face of them falling apart, clever insights and teamwork like a well-oiled machine. Second, I am fiercely competitive and have a relentless drive to win. Generally, I would rather lose a game that pushed me and my friends to the limit rather than win a snoozefest, but the tradeoff is different for every game!

This is relevant so far in two ways:

First, I'm not opposed to lynching at some point despite it being mechanically suboptimal. Player engagement is important, both in order to have fun and to win, and I agree that town is likely to be more motivated, active, and having fun while scumhunting than townhunting. I will have more thoughts about when we should do this shortly.

Second, like others I'm having a hard time reading gimmicks, especially Sherlock. I'm not a playstyle evangelist. If you're having fun, and playing this way keeps you more engaged and enthusiastic, in my book this is a strength to be leveraged and not discouraged. I'll do my best to read through it, and hopefully even grow fond of it. In return, though, I think it would be good to keep my limitation in mind for two reasons: If you need to impart something important to me specifically, loosening the gimmick for a second might help communicate with me more effectively. I also would ask for the benefit of the doubt if I don't get through a gimmick-heavy post in a timely or correct manner.

If you want to know more about me, let me know, but otherwise let's get started!

[Replica]

Two different uses of the phrase: I fully recognize the value of flips, information, and the fact that mafia is not played in a random number generator.

[Replica]

The best word I can put to some of the behaviors I've seen so far is "bizarre".

The first are Nacho's mechanical suggestions. Nacho acknowledges that sparing is good at times, but is adamant that we spill some blood, and in another post advocates doing it early. He is opposed to sparing Day 1, but is open to sparing townreads/the neighbor as becomes convenient. It is unclear how many total spares he has in mind, but the number is not 4. There's a coherent thesis in the center here: Town needs information and motivation to be successful and engaged. The best way to get both of these things is not through strictly townhunting but through scumhunting. I agree with the thesis. The implementation of this thesis, though, is incredibly bizarre.

The reason is this principal:

The odds of correctly sparing and the odds of correctly lynching are inversely proportional.

Pick one of two scenarios:

1) Lynch when we have a 2/11 chance of hitting scum, spare when we have a 5/7 chance of sparing correctly.
2) Lynch when we have a 2/5 chance of hitting scum, spare when we have a 9/11 chance of sparing correctly.

There are a few confounding factors (ie. IF we spare incorrectly, IF we do lynch correctly, I don't factor neighbor) but it's pretty clear what time is the best to lynch. Nacho's suggesting more than we lynch despite it being mechanically worse, he's suggesting we do it at

the absolute worst possible time.

There's an argument for weight of a Day 1 flip vs. a Day 4 flip-If we're talking info/engagement, how useful is it to only start your engine Day 4?-but I adamantly oppose lynching Day 1. I believe it is only slightly better than throwing the lynch in the garbage. Smart players are not above advocating mechanical garbage as scum, either, so don't give me that.

Skim Hectic's posting in this game and compare it to his posting in this game. There are some stark differences (some more obvious than others), but in particular, I want you to focus on the difference in tone. How free and willing to take crazy swings in one game versus the other? Can you see where he seems very focused on his self-image in one versus the other?

Second is this meta. These appear to be taken from Hectic's very first two games onsite. Checking Hectic's wiki, the scumgame you linked isn't listed, so I'm not really sure how you chose that scumgame to compare against. The first scumgame I found from checking his posts is this.

Here is a quote from his very first post in that game, in reply to the question "Are you town or scum?":

1) Scum. My strategy this game will be to start off strong and post often. I will make allies while dropping the occasional joke, and will focus on pushing 1 or 2 people who are likely to be newbie townies that are simply apprehensive. After a few days of this, I am likely to peter my activity and start lurking, avoiding any attention and allowing the town to follow the predetermined path of chaos I have set them on. If someone points to this post and accuses me of being transparent scum, I will retort that they simply do not understand the humour.
Here is an example:
MamaTort: "Isn't Hectic doing exactly what he said he would do as scum? Isn't he just... scum here?"
Hectic: "I pity you. You are oblivious to my dangerously high level of humour and wall-breaking meta play, and as a result, I will now affectionately call you 'Torty'."

I'll save the space quoting, but the counterexample completely demolishes your meta argument. This is a sample, but it was not a one-off for the game. Poor meta work by town is so common as to be null, but how you got here in selecting the games, and how readily you drew on it despite the glaringly obvious red flags-first scumgame onsite?-is extremely questionable.

[Replica]

Second, some thoughts on Chara:

Thank you. Aside from the slot I replaced, I was not able to see anything; however, I will re-read Hectic's post with a focus on removing his jest from his points.

your repeated thanks is making it hard to want to fight you... stop that.

I really struggle to see the motivation behind things like this. Saying "Stop doing X, X makes me not want to lynch/scumread you" comes off to me as always two-timing. It's at once facetiously giving advice to the speaker's scumread, while also imploring that the thing they're doing is at least helping their case, if not an outright towntell to the speaker. If it's a towntell you want to wait and see it develop more fully on its own, without intervening. If they're still a scumread telling them to stop towntelling/making them doubt it is absurd. "Not as eager to lynch" isn't quite equivalent to towntelling, but you get the gist.

Bluntly, to me statements like this come off as aiming to subversively ingratiate yourself with the subject.

Artist who formerly was not Chara, a towncore is nothing if not tested. Games with limited flips are decidedly anti-town. Please don't get lured to the "we find town and we win! easy game!" siren call.

while i prefer townhunting, i don't believe that makes this "easy". you do make a good point i hadn't fully considered, in that only sparing our supposed friends leaves the possibility that they are not so loyal as they appear, with no way of knowing the truth.

After being gungho for townhunting, Chara gets reined in by the revelation that...the townreads might be wrong. No flips does indeed complicate things, but this is so bizarre to not even think about. Chara had to have done at least some thinking given that they leaped to classifying it as a townhunting setup. On the surface this is seems slightly scummy, more just bizarre, but I feel like there's more in my gut that I can't quite get to.

Finally, more abstractly, Chara's way of interacting with the posting gimmicks bothers me. The others use their gimmicks to push game-related points. Some people have complained about them, others are indifferent. Chara in general has been pretty eager to roll with them-commenting a lot on the skeletons, the flowers, Hectic misspelling something in one of the pictures, etc.-but significantly less about the content. #193, well after they've been interacting with Chara all game, is the first time it notes that there is plenty of content from Hectic...which is really surprising for someone who regularly read Hectic's posts and interacted with them.

[Replica]

I have more thoughts than those-I had townleans on Chemist, Sugimichi, and Hectic from what I remember on my skim-but I've written enough for the game at the moment and don't want to flood it at once. Digestibility is more important than what you say. I'll put a heal vote down pretty soon.

Do you think nacho and hectic are scum together, replica?

No, but I'm not anywhere close to speculating on teammates and a million other qualifications that this question begs for.

[Replica]

Hoo boy.

Replica, are you an alt?

Yes. Not to be intentionally abrasive, but this is the only post - other than linking back to this one - I will ever make in any game responding to or acknowledging my

alt

replica status. Sorry in advance to all, I get that can be frustrating.

[Replica]

Thanks for the fast correction Hectic, and my apologies to Nacho. Foot, meet mouth. And you're right; most manipulative in red was exactly what got me.

what do ya think of Asriel's "awkward" posting so far?

I don't think it's very alignment indicative, and the only post I would really call awkward is the start. Their resistance to activity, and in particular the flippant question of #191, is annoying. Generally, I favor the pressure then lynch if they don't improve and give good content approach. This game's mechanics tell me not to do that, and my priority in the opening was elucidating my thoughts and getting engaged. Nothing challenges you to dig deeper into feelings of things being offcolor like trying to describe the source.

or the detective's attack on alim in 258?

The substance of it is that Alimdia pushed to figure out why Sherlock followed the RVS vote. Sherlock seems to think this is a fruitless endeavor, and that it's common for scum to push this type of thing to feign scumhunting. While it can be fruitful, so far I don't see any reason to scumread Sherlock's vote with Theophrastus. I disagree with Sherlock that Alimdia's questioning means Alimdia is a good push. As much as I hate to take the middle ground and say "You're both wrong", I don't find either convincing. Weak presses and hunches become stronger reads and foundations down the line, but this isn't where I specifically should be looking right now imo. (Not that it's wrong to bring my attention to it, just a statement of trying to figure out where I should be looking instead)

I'm happy to have Alimdia and your #227 pushing and investigating until you're content, but barring further interactions neither angle interests me very much.

[Replica]

I have more thoughts than those-I had townleans on Chemist, Sugimichi, and Hectic from what I remember on my skim-but I've written enough for the game at the moment and don't want to flood it at once. Digestibility is more important than what you say. I'll put a heal vote down pretty soon.

Do you think nacho and hectic are scum together, replica?

No, but I'm not anywhere close to speculating on teammates and a million other qualifications that this question begs for.

What, pray tell, is the scum motivation for nacho to manipulate meta to call Hectic town?

The answer is the easiest and most noncommittal one, and fortunately it's completely true: Nacho has motivation to put up an illusion of scumhunting and meta diving period, regardless of who his partners are. There's a reason I didn't leap to call Hectic town or scum off its basis, especially when the meta seemed to me so obviously flimsy.

The reason I described Nacho's behavior with the meta as bizarre was that I thought the poor meta would be astonishingly poor play and imitation as scum, but I didn't think he'd attack it with such flagrant negligence as town either. It better fit in scum, but it didn't cleanly fit in either. Revelation that I was the one who messed up means that I really don't agree with his use of meta given all the red flags, but it's not longer willfully and obviously blind. This is less bizarre, and while I disagree that the game is likely to be useful to Hectic's current meta, this is a debatable point and is rational to hold.

In general your style is inviting me to play the game of "if-then" conditionals based off things I weakly believe to begin with. I get that this is your way of scumhunting, thinking there's value in sending scum down a labyrinth of with a blindfold and see if they get out, but there's little incentive for me to investigate motivations that take as assumptions two alignments, neither of which I'm confident in, even in a world in which I assume you are town.

The scum response that tends to dominate this strategy is this: Go into the labyrinth with slight reservation. A little later find something with one of the people asked about, preferably one in and one out, to get falsely enthusiastic about. Frenetically increase your energy over the course of a few hours, you've found something but what does it mean? Start haphazard multiposting, thinking you've found something, you're trying to connect the dots but getting noticeably a bit lost and confused in the convolution. Instead of being a chore this thing that you started out disliking is starting to look like a complete map, a sign from God, if only you could just get that final dot. Do this for like, a few irl days, zeal decreasing slightly but still a believer. Seeing this, they treat you like a puppy dog, throw you a bone, try to refocus you onto something that actually makes sense, and bang: you're in the townbloc.

[Replica]

Let's wind that back a bit. My biggest weakness as a player is that my attitude isn't as conducive to playing cooperatively as I'd like. In particular, anytime I sense condescension I tend to bite. I can't think of any reads or thoughts in particular I want to ask you about right now Amrun, but I'll revisit after I catch up with Chara/alimdia and see if I can think of something.

[Replica]

the optimal mechanics walls.... here they come.

Have no fear, that was the extent of my mechanical comments for the most part. My stance is that we should spare Day 1 for sure, and 3/4 times overall. My preference is to have FN claim Day 1/Day 2. That's it. I think for the most part people know that this is the "correct in a mechanical vacuum" play, what we do is up to us. Sermons are a great way to put people to sleep and keep town out of the game.

275: me? two-timing? i'm the most honest child you could ever meet.
the way my conversation with Sujimichi went made me like them more. they were very matter of fact with their read on me, and i felt like i was being figured out some.
it feels either short-sighted or assumptive (is this a word? i'll make it one anyways) to say there are only two ways to approach someone you scumread, towntelling.
and more importantly... thanking me a couple of times didn't have much to do with the read getting better. that'd be pretty

bizarre

, wouldn't it?

I think what you're saying is pretty close to my point: You gave your rebuttal to them, but rather than more directly stating your thoughts you embarked on that weird joking "Stop, you're going to make me not want to lynch you anymore!" sideshow. These always strike me the wrong way. The bit about the thanking not being alignment indicative is a big part of what made it so strange and seen by me as an attempt to ingratiate yourself. I tried to give some sense that I knew that "wanting to lynch less" doesn't neatly equate to "towntelling", that there are more than two options and so on, which apparently didn't come through-but I think the point that there appears to be some level of dissonance in thoughts/action is valid.

From what I can tell in comparing your ISOs Sujimichi only gave his read on you a day later, but all our memories fail us. Parsing the posts I'm really struggling to see what you mean about "figuring you out", given that Sujimichi more implied that he couldn't understand much of your play.

now if we're getting into bizarre takes...

what is your point here? that it's strange i didn't say "that annoying dog has been contributing this whole time" earlier?

except that 192 happened because Sujimichi claimed nothing on the early pages was real content, to which i replied there was plenty. and i'm pretty sure i mentioned Hectic specifically as someone who's been 'doing things', so to speak, epecially considering we had discussions before 192 about how things were going with the gaggle of friendship-hopefuls that were gathered.

i don't really know how to word this... that it's both incorrect, but also a strange thing to focus on. who needs to be told Hectic is producing content?

...admittedly, Sujimichi. but who besides Sujimichi would need to be told? you can just read Hectic's posts.

I totally agree with you here; that post makes considerably more sense in context. The core idea I had skimming was that you seemed to be eagerly rolling with the flavor without commenting as much on the content it held. I think that's true at the start (#36 #61), but I really misinterpreted this one when I switched to ISO while making the post. #63 also definitely doesn't fall under this category. It's been awhile since I've been in the saddle, but between this and the Hectic meta, these are some really sloppy mistakes on my end with no excuse. Gotta stop playing like garbage while other people pick up the slack.

[Replica]

Regarding

Replica

, I would reserve comment until they respond to Amrun's question.

When you address this, do you mind including where you were at before the answer, and what you were hoping for/received specifically from the response as you think relevant?

I set out for tonight with a goal to get a townread and a heal vote down to match, as productive as poking at things I don't like about Nacho/Chara is that's only half the game right now (Though Nacho or Amrun might argue it's more). I remembered really liking Chemist and so skimmed them again. I liked #27 being pretty enthusiastic about Hectic, the impatience lining up well with the rest of Chemist's play, and #29's reaction to Billy's meta was solid. The middle parts are lackluster, and then the Heal vote on Asreel in #62 confuses me: A light instinct to TR Asreel is fine, but switching the heal vote from Hectic seemed wack.

HEAL: Hectic There's a chance this stays but it's the best I can see without reading more, especially given the votes already on it. I need to sleep for now, hopefully can revisit specific players and reads more clearly tomorrow now that I'm caught up and have answered all the questions I see.

HURT: popsofctown, removing a vote placed by my predecessor. I might use it for reads if I feel it'll be illustrative, but I'd be surprised if I placed a hurt vote the rest of the day unless absolutely required to hammer.

[Replica]

Nacho and Chara are both of the other heal votes on Hectic oh good god

Well tomorrow Replica it's all you champ I'm tagging out. Probably doesn't matter but lmao

[Replica]

For Nacho: I think the strengths of the adapting as you situationally get townreads strategy is self-apparent and agree with you there, my question is "Why lynch Day 1 specifically?" I mentioned before that I think there's something to be said for starting your engine Day 1 over Day 4 in the engagement, flips value, etc. theory, but I think the principle I outlined strongly indicates that we should spare Day 1 and lynch later if we do so at all. Odds for correct spares and correct lynches are inversely proportional. My view is that Day 1 lynch we might as well be throwing it in the trash. Why not spare Day 1 and lynch Day 2 or Day 3, with the addition of a nightkill?

Secondly, you quoted one of Hectic's town games. I believe I linked Hectic's only scum game in the post you're referring to.

Yeah Hectic told me-my mistake, your selection of the other game is at a minimum rational even if I disagree that it's useful. Sorry about that. On a separate-but-similar note: Do you still think it's useful/indicative given the level of play we've seen from Hectic?

Replica, how would you have expected Nacho to approach Hectic’s meta differently as town?

This was previously answered in the second paragraph of #297. The almost willfully bad review didn't fit cleanly into either towny or scummy, but fit better in the latter. The corollary is that as town I would have expected an attempt at finding a more representative selection. This is now a counterfactual given my mistake in Hectic's alignment that game (There were no other selections)

[Replica]

Pine and Asreel

being deadweight is a lot more frustrating to me now than it was yesterday. The mechanics of this game do not give us the luxury of clearing out lurkers early. Asking 8 other people to count on you to win the game when you only start trying later (Day 3? Day 4?) is absurd. This game will wind up to be very unforgiving of you later. Catch up and get involved now, when it's 13 pages, instead of when it's Day 4 and there's 90.

Chemist:

I was a little confused when you switched to Asreel from Hectic to begin with, do you mind talking more about the thought process behind the switch?

I like Sujimichi's posting, and agree with him completely on FN, but I want more of a sample size. His reads are okay but the thought that went into them (#154 reaction to Amrun, "unless you truly believe..." line of #217 to Chara) is good, but I really want evidence that that thoughtfulness is alignment-indicative. The most town thing is the progression on FN I think. Push comes to shove, I'd spare him, but I want to wait on this one. Sujimichi feels like the type of person who I have to look more for extended patterns and opportunism than tone/single reads.

I thought I'd switch my heal vote but I'm fine leaving it on Hectic. Tracing through his progression in thinking on Sherlock is pretty good. I also agree that alimdia's posting is good, despite disagreeing with most of it (Rejection of meta, their read on Amrun, inadequate (? not quite the right word sorry) sidetaking by Hectic, Asreel/Pine attention implications, we kind of agree on Chara and I'm neutral about most of the rest)

I've posted enough for now and really want other people to get into gear so we can jam.

[Replica]

Given that you didn't even read my posts the very first few times you responded, this is getting really annoying.

Replica, how would you have expected Nacho to approach Hectic’s meta differently as town?

This was previously answered in the second paragraph of #297. The almost willfully bad review didn't fit cleanly into either towny or scummy, but fit better in the latter. The corollary is that as town I would have expected an attempt at finding a more representative selection. This is now a counterfactual given my mistake in Hectic's alignment that game (There were no other selections)

[Replica]

Nacho and Chara are both of the other heal votes on Hectic oh good god

Well tomorrow Replica it's all you champ I'm tagging out. Probably doesn't matter but lmao

Why do you continue to place your Spare vote there if you have a concern with who is voting there with you? Why express concern if you are not actually concerned with it?

It didn't matter for multiple reasons: First, the reads aren't strong. Second, it doesn't actually matter as much in a game with two scum who you're voting with, especially on Day 1 and especially with sparing. If one scum is with you, there's only one other out of all the possibilities. Presumably they're more likely to spare their partner, but it's really not a given that they'd do so. Lastly, even in a magical world in which my initial thought spitballs are both spot on...that leaves no others, and it's a safe spare. The real concern is if they're both town (2 other town -> Less likely Hectic town), and even then voting with two other town would be pretty ideal.

I posted about it both because I thought it was funny, it was something I saw previously only to forget about, and remind myself to look again the next day in case there

was

cause for concern. I don't think there is.

[Replica]

Replica’s more recently posting seems better to me

What, pray tell, seems better about my posting?

[Replica]

We have 3 days. This town is completely lethargic, and these almost invariably lead to losses. I'm trying to strike a balance with giving content for people to engage with while keeping the game accessible and digestible for others to take up the torch.

We have two players who have not even vaguely attempted to play the game in a week and a half. I'm about ready to give up on sparing and move to lynching, either to force them to get content or to let us move forward with players who want to be here, or at least understand that they have a duty to their fellow players to participate.

I hope Pine follows through on the above, but this needs to happen now, not later.

[Replica]

Do you have any thoughts on Alimdia, Amrun?

I was being unnecessarily hostile by mimicking the "pray tell" piece, but it might be good to talk about what you got from the Q&A from me despite my being an ass.

@Rep
I switched to Asriel from Hectic because I wanted do be doing something new with my vote

Really I don’t remember having a reason but it was probably something like that

I think the reads you've shared so far have been the ones on Asriel/Hectic; do you have any others? I'm wondering what you think about Chara or alimdia.

A letter from Watson would be really cool right now, come to think of it.

[Replica]

Will respond to everything when I get in in a bit-really happy to see people pick up the pace. Proud.

[Replica]

Can you rehash the bits you don't like about Chara and I? My impression was that the thrust of your read on both was mostly due to things that were misinterpreted.

This is really strange to me. I'll rehash my points on you at the end, but you responded to most of my initial read on Chara just a few posts earlier, and none of the parts you addressed involved the misinterpretation.

I don't really vibe with this post.

1) Saying the "stop doing this" as opposed to "this is scummy" is a stylistic choice and doesn't really have anything to do with a difference in motivation, IMO. It has a slightly more aggressive edge I guess, but the point overall here seems fairly nitpicky - your in depth bit on not liking giving scumreads advice because it allows them to adjust also seems to be a much too serious interpretation.

First, you got it reversed; it was a "stop doing this" about something that was town/otherwise made them not want to lynch Sujimichi. Second, it is definitely nitpicky: this fits into a style of behavior I've always found weirdly ingratiating or two-faced.

2) Your framing of Chara's change of heart on mechanics is a bit disingenuous; Chara's mind changed because they didn't realize the impact of playing a limited flip game, which I'd argue is significantly different from "realizing townreads are wrong".

I acknowledged within the post that limited flips complicates things:

After being gungho for townhunting, Chara gets reined in by the revelation that...the townreads might be wrong. No flips does indeed complicate things, but this is so bizarre to not even think about. Chara had to have done at least some thinking given that they leaped to classifying it as a townhunting setup. On the surface this is seems slightly scummy, more just bizarre, but I feel like there's more in my gut that I can't quite get to.

I don't know what motivation scum Chara would have for the switch, but my point was that it was a strange thing to think about sparing people, and classifying the setup as a townhunting one, without properly considering that they don't flip. The theme of my early posts really centered around the one word that kept cropping up in my mind: "bizarre"

As for my feelings on you, that day I really didn't know how to feel on you at the end. The meta part was mostly negated, coming down to a plausible disagreement. What remained was my skepticism of your push to avoid a Day 1 spare and insistence on lynching early, but I had a lot of thoughts swimming from catching up that day and my early engagements. I went to bed wanting to look at you again the next day, but didn't come up with anything else. I didn't know what to think about you that night before I went to bed, and I still don't really now.

[Replica]

Just hopping off the plane now - I will make a concerted effort to do a solid catch-up tonight because I will have time to do so. Chemist's townreads are extraordinarily strange if he's scum - I don't think he has good reasons for calling Pine or Asriel town, but I don't see him sticking his neck out for either of them regardless of his alignment if he's scum here.

This is really bad; townreading both of the lurkers without reasons points to a classic newer scum mistake: Knowing someone is town and working in reverse.

You seem to dislike or not understand most of my posts so far, as opposed to just having disagreements in play style or interpretations. You still have me as firm town. The only plausible explanation I can really think of myself here is that you like my tone and push for engagement and activity. You are much, much better than to readily drink that kind of Kool-Aid. That Chemist read is so bad.

I do think it's useful to keep the "if Hectic is scum here, this is is first significant scum game" and I think that it's useful to see that Hectic's initial scum game WAS an extremely conservative one and is a harsh difference from the play we are here. It's not the main thrust of my read - I'd still be pressing for the spare on him even if that one scum game didn't exist.

The first part I buy, the second part is off. As far as I can tell the successful use of the gimmick is the main thrust of your read on him. That isn't dependent on the other game existing, you're right, but the overall effect is that you seem to not think Hectic capable of pulling a stylistic choice off successfully as scum. There's a shared thread of "expectations" The substance, which seems to relate to his push on Sherlock and reactions towards Chemist/Billy, seems very secondary.

[Replica]

To be honest, I don't have a good read on Hectic. I'm very bad at getting townreads, which is what this game really asks us to do. I saw some good continuity on a read iirc but I'm very dependent on expectations, and I don't see why scum Hectic

doesn't

play like this.

Things like this though are exactly why I love sparing Day 1: We get the most leeway in our spares today.

[Replica]

Sherlock's opium binge has lasted almost 5 days now, would really be great if we could get some news from Watson here

[Replica]

I wanted to wait until I get home but the earlier this gets nipped the better.

Farkran-you really, REALLY need to do the math on sparing strategies before going on a posting spree about how it's mechanically bad. As far as I can tell, your opposition to it is that it seems mathematically and not coming from pragmatic concerns (How I'd classify Nacho/Amrun)

The win rate for playing it mountainous is upperbounded by 11:2's known win rate of 39%. The win rate for 3/4 spares are in the low 40s. I didn't calc 2 spares and 1 spare is awful. I back of the envelope did it on a napkin at lunch but I'll draw it up again if I have to.

[Replica]

That's fine then, similar to other concerns that I think are valid. My concern was a completely wrong interpretation of the mechanic's theoretical effect.

[Replica]

It genuinely pains me that neither of you is engaging with the wealth of content that I just produced

I will when I get home, very glad to have you join us!

[Replica]

I disagree with the conclusion of Farkran's #444, I buy most of Sujimichi's #420 in explaining their reaction. I do think #456 is a bit delusional about the divorce bit, but I come out of this still liking Sujimichi over others. It might be helpful to try to order people somewhat; I'll try and circle back to that in a bit. Their mention of town Sujimichi also makes me want to go back and read them.

For multiple reasons Sujimichi is very low on my list to lynch. First: Willingness to hammer the spare. Second: Their playstyle strongly hints to me that we have to look for voting/pushing patterns over tone. Farkran's started to delve into the latter, but this is not my pick for the day.

P-Edit: The "I do not respond to pressure" is again failing to recognize their own limits I think, which is a shame. That's a liability for us, but it's also a big liability for them as a player more broadly.

[Replica]

At first I really wanted something more thought out and cohesive from Sherlock, but as it went on I appreciated the impulsive and jumping nature more.

Overall, I'm conflicted but lean town on Sherlock.

The few problems I had with his recent posting are: First, #457's progression on alimdia seems weak to me. Alimdia's posting has noticeably improved, but the continued holding onto the read at the start is a mistake imo. I imagine Sherlock has seen plenty of town players with similar reactions to Alim's, which is why I thought this was a big nothing burger. At the start, this is fine, reads are weak, but holding to it in roughly equal weight to alimdia's progressions since is poor. Second, his locktown on Suji involved meta but was made with a ~6 minute time difference. I echo Amrun's comments about just outing it already, and think Sherlock's #488 is poorly reasoned even if not scum motivated. Third, his Chemist read is a lot better than Nacho's but is still bad imo. This might come down to an experience thing-the interaction with alim reinforces this.

Combined with Farkran's comments on Sujimichi meta I really want to do a dive soon.

I further think it’s unlikely that (nacho, replica) are SvS so if nacho flips scum then replica should be cleared and hectic should be reconsidered

This is good for me and you're right, but I think this gives me an excuse to highlight a a broader principle of the game imo. Scum have to worry a lot less about a lynch/bus gone wrong, especially from the perspective of someone who is pro-sparing. Specifically, splitting up the factions sacrifices the double spare chance for a better one at exactly one of you getting spared.

[Replica]

Could you expand upon how failing to respond to pressure is a liability? First, to clarify, I am not saying I do not respond at all, but you will not get an emotional reaction from me.

Sure thing, it's not the "failing to respond to pressure" that's a liability. It's the insistence that you can be perfection in your response: you

do, have, and will

respond to pressure. It will creep into your thoughts and posts, and you will react to it in some way. Pretending it is not there, or minimizing its effects, is itself a reaction. Standardizing it is possible, but only with great effort and an extensive record.

Logicians in general like to take stances that purport to remove their humanity or biases, but they're not so easily separated.

In short: Your ideals are admirable, but being a complete mafia player means recognizing your limitations, playing with them in mind, and even willfully letting others exploit them when the time is right.

[Replica]

Like, you recognized that you don't "not respond at all", but there's this underlying thread that it doesn't get to you or that it won't make significant effect, if that makes sense.

The comment from me was last second springboarding off of the "divorce" comment about Asriel/Farkran, which I was very skeptical of, after seeing the new post while previewing.

[Replica]

Rough ordering of players for me, scum to town. More because it's a good thought exercise to challenge me with than anything else:

Scum
-------
Nacho
Chara
Chemist
Psyche
Amrun
Sujimichi
Hectic
Farkran
Alimdia
Sherlock
-------
Town

The bottom is a weak cluster of townleans, the only one I'd call a real scumlean is Nacho, Chara I'm still skeptical of but not to the point I'd lynch them anytime soon. I was neutral on almost all of his posting this game but that Chemist read was absolutely awful. I also read a bit of the original Undertale before bed last night hoping to see more on his spare opinions, which were consistent with this game, but I wound up being struck by the difference in tone. I'd need to go further in and a 1 game sample size isn't great, but for now that read on Chemist is so singularly terrible that I really would shed no tears for him.

I know I didn't like something from Chara last night, will try to find it but might not get to it before I go for the night.

[Replica]

Sorry, regarding the game I skimmed it wasn't the first one, 1.1 Either way this is more of a marker for me to do this later than anything right now.

Found the bit on Chara I didn't like:

i'd like to be careful about it, but Nacho deciding to defend me here is something i can't help but like. i do wonder about his list of reads, because from calling Replica "disingenous" (with negative connotations?) i didn't expect a strong townread.
not that i disagree with the conclusion, obviously, but i would like to know where it came from.
i also forget if he talked about why Sherlock is scum, but i still need to put some effort into Sherlock anyway.

Personally, anytime the question "What do I expect from this person as town?" doesn't line up with reality, I start doing the math. Liking it might be an instinctual reaction, and investigating it further a next step, but this is again very different from how I think as town.

@Pops:

Sorry to highlight it but you've had me double sparing for every VC since I initially picked Hectic.

[Replica]

Replica, in what way is that different than how you’d expect Chara to handle that thought train as town?

I'm not familiar with Chara. I don't know how they'd normally handle it as town. I highlighted it as something very different than the way

I

think as town, and exactly what this difference was.

To more explicitly outline what happened for you: Chara did not expect Nacho to townread them. Nacho townread them. Chara "can't help but like it". I post about how different this is from my style of thinking: I don't like when something surprises me or doesn't match up to my expectations.

[Replica]

Honest question: Do you know what the word "I" means?

The irony of that post is that I'm expecting a lot more multidimensionality to Chara than your post is.

[Replica]

Honest question: Do you know what the word "I" means?

The irony of that post is that I'm expecting a lot more multidimensionality to Chara than your post is.

Yes, I do. But I don’t follow your train of thought, clearly, which is more concerning to me than following the train of thought and disagreeing with it.

Reconsidering someone just because you townread them is the most basic of the basic. It is a bad mistake to make as town from my perspective.

I, personally, meaning Replica, operate a lot off of expectations as town. This can come from meta, or from observed level of play. When someone does the opposite of what I expect them to do as town, this is a problem. The implication is that either my expectations of their townplay are wrong, or they are more likely to be mafia! Emphasis on the latter!

I have not played with Chara. As town, do they play like the world's most basic player, do they play similar to me, or neither? I don't know; I haven't played with them! I must guess. I feel like they might do similar to me, and be skeptical that goes against their expectations for someone's town play! Maybe I am wrong!

[Replica]

@Replica: Yes, and none of that is contrary to what I’m saying. What I don’t understand is why you think Chara thinks nacho townreading him is not what he would expect of town nacho.

Probably because Chara said in the post that the townread was unexpected, if I really dug deep and had to guess.

Granted, Chara could have technically been referring to scum Nacho. This would be a valid reading of the post iirc.

[Replica]

Rough day, sorry all but I'll be back tomorrow.

[Replica]

This isn't well fleshed out but skimming today I'd put scum as something like lying in Nacho/Psyche/Farkran and the rest are town, next guess probably being Chemist.

Chara I'm still feeling out their playstyle but their interaction with me/Amrun's inability to communicate with each other is really, REALLY good. I don't think mediation is quite the right word but this is the type of thing that scum absolutely don't want to defuse or convince one of us to bring to a close. The mutual annoyance of me/Amrun is absolutely the type of town dysfunctionality you let fester.

[Replica]

Something about seeing Amrun call my play black/white is actually really funny to me tonight. I would classify myself as living and breathing in the grey area both in general and in this game. To me their views seem much more black and white than my own (I do a lot of meta, I strongly distrust my ability to toneread players no matter how many games I've had with them, I focus more on matching player perspectives to behaviors+demonstrated process, with more than one way to skin a cat, the list goes on and on)

I'm really surprised I think this is funny and went "Of course!" with a nostril laugh instead of making me really peeved, maybe having a bad day outside the game helped me approach this one with a lot more levity. Either way, this is great.

Amrun at some point I'll probably be snappy or get into a slapfight again but for now I'm just going to breathe and appreciate this moment.

[Replica]

Spoiler: Proof Replica can lighten up and meme

I wanted to double nest the spoilers for the fakeout but IT DOESN'T LET YOU DO IT

Alright now it's time to sleep, this game rules and I'm glad I'm here with everyone. Thanks for letting me go to bed smiling, it's small but I feel a lot better now.

HEAL: popsofctown this one's not just an unvote, it's really for you, the MVP for all the work you put into running this and for letting me replace in.
HEAL: Hectic but ONLY FOR A SECOND WE STILL ON THE SPARE TRAIN CHOO CHOO

See y'all tomorrow

[Replica]

Paradigm shift!

There are so many other ways to start the game than reading back and summarizing immediately. You could try to verbalize exactly what you think is making you struggle. You could also just start with one specific player; I think ISOing Alim or Chemist would be really accessible places to start. Alternatively, 8/10 chance of sparing correctly isn't bad for Day 1!

[Replica]

It's still worth asking though, why point 2 would be indicative of town!suji? You are implying he is low on your lynch list because of that, but i don't see atonality as town points.

The points weren't making a case for town Sujimichi, they were making a case for why I don't think he should be lynched today. I'm more confident in being able to read him later on than I am now. He was very low on the lynchlist, and still is.

i had a look through his loser game and it seems like he spams a lot of useful looking questions without giving much analysis of his own while he's a loser.
not in this game though.
he's given detailed thoughts and analysis - like in his interactions with Nacho - and his questions have been more pointed.
he's a real pal.

I agree with Hectic. The game is singular and short, but recent and there's an extremely noticeable difference in how forthcoming Sujimichi is with their thoughts here.

I do not have much of an opinion on the cited PT. It came 4 days after the start of this one. I can see Sujimichi saying it either way, particularly when looking for more guidance. Despite that, I agree with the conclusion-Sujimichi is probably town and remains a bad lynch.

[Replica]

Say you need to pick exactly one scum in {nacho, amrun, chara and suji}. Who do you pick and why?

Nacho and it is not close.

Suji is tackled above. I have not seen a reason to scumread Amrun, nor felt from reading a post that it was more likely as scum. They might be scum, but they're not where I'm looking and figuring that out I think would require me to dedicate more time than I'm giving to all of the other players combined right now: meta, patterns, whole shebang. The only thing I can think of that points this way would be a specific scum strategy to pocket Nacho. I'm happy letting them be town for now and coming back later if PoE says I should. Chara was a scumlean but I concur with my thoughts from yesterday: Their interactions with me/Amrun are worth the server they're stored on. Big townpoints.

After I realized I made the meta mistake, Nacho was a blindfolded dart throw based off of what he was advocating mechanically. That Chemist read (Probably town because why would Chemist defend the two lurkers) was so singularly terrible that it shot him way up. Definition of half-assed, and I strongly, STRONGLY doubt that it matches up to what he's seen from town/scum respectively over the years.

[Replica]

Like, y’all aren’t even reading his posts, so how can I trust you to understand the gamestate? This is only the first and most clear time it’s mentioned. Anyone scumreading nacho without acknowledging this is automatically suspect.

This doesn't mean anything for alignment I'm pretty sure, so I'm going to separate this post, but is painfully ironic from someone who regularly responds to posts without reading them (evidenced by <1 minute timestamps), and has publicly acknowledged not reading the thread.

[Replica]

Still finishing up some other things-will circle back to you Farkran, I also missed an earlier question of yours so I'll come back to that too.

[Replica]

I don't like the reliance others are making on Nacho's reputation, but in general I agree with their push. His reads to me have been very suspect, not from an effort viewpoint but from a "Would he really not see or acknowledge the red flags here as town?" perspective

I really hate to do this, in that I really despise people worshipping players, but there's an easy solution here that doesn't involve a lynch. It's called...spare someone and grill Nacho later. 3 spare is a great strategy, and we can lynch him later. If he's town let him work for us. The setup to me is such that scum should get left alive until Day 4 anyway.

I will reiterate that I will not be voting to hurt today unless it becomes clearly required (eg. Sparing is clearly eliminated as a possibility, competing lynches of which one will be imminent)

[Replica]

Pedit: where did you notice the differences between that scum!suji and this suji? Because if we're talking about the same game (Micro 917 saga stuff), he fakeclaimed a PR, no wonder why he was using a more determined tone. Plus, that's also a very nice scum game from him, and i don't see anything in this game that would be outside of his range.

His posts in that game were very short and limited in both how deep their thinking went and how forthcoming they were with that thinking. This is the post from Saga containing the most reasoning/longest train of thought Compare this to the thoughts of this game's #154 (very early), and the pairing of #213 and #217, where Sujimichi is very clear in how they've traced Chara's thinking and have clearly thought about it a lot.

It might be within Sujimichi's scum range, but that is a noticeably different Sujimichi than this one, and these games have been simultaneous.

Pedit2: ok, thanks. Question though, is there a reason why you specifically do NOT want to fight your scumreads? Why am i the only one who thinks that all the spare route rewards except the instant town win actually favor scum? In all of these, mafia gets to remove X people from the remaining list, it's not like we gain players. The 3 Spared scenario is especially bad because mafia gets to remove 2 players unflipped and we do NOT get to know if they were forced to remove one of them or not. Also what happens in the 1 Spared scenario if that spared player is scum? Is that an instant scum win? Because ... how can an unlynchable scum be removed otherwise?

I'm really not eager to dig into mechanics again but I've said a few times why I don't believe in lynching Day 1 specifically (odds). The chance of correctly sparing 3/4 are much better than you think, and the bonuses more valuable than you think. From my perspective I don't think the counterpoints offered by Nacho/Amrun/you outweigh these, and I don't think that activity, information, and mechanically optimal play are as mutually exclusive as you make them out to be.

There's a lot of personal perspective that goes into that. It sounds like you're wondering if there's more than a strategic basis for me specifically opposing the lynch. Fortunately, there is: I'm someone who doesn't believe much in the accuracy of my, or

literally anybody's

reads. Statistics bear out that town really does tend to gain advantages, but I suspect this doesn't come from players being godlike but from being only

marginally

more accurate than the RNG.

[Replica]

Like, y’all aren’t even reading his posts, so how can I trust you to understand the gamestate? This is only the first and most clear time it’s mentioned. Anyone scumreading nacho without acknowledging this is automatically suspect.

This doesn't mean anything for alignment I'm pretty sure, so I'm going to separate this post, but is painfully ironic from someone who regularly responds to posts without reading them (evidenced by <1 minute timestamps), and has publicly acknowledged not reading the thread.

I do not respond to posts without reading them... what an asinine assertion. How could anyone respond to a post without reading it first? Also, saying early game “hey, haven’t read the thread yet, catching up ASAP” and then doing so is completely and wholly different than trying to lynch someone without reading their ISO enough to realize they’re on v/la. A lot of people seemed to have missed it so maybe it was less obvious than I thought it was, but this post rubs me the wrong way, but not in an alignment way. It’s just annoying.

#274 responds to a gigantic post in a minute. #319 exists, highlighting that you missed it

twice

. #536 says that you hadn't read the thread at the time of (I think) #489. There are valid reasons to do the first, the second was incredibly frustrating but it's not like I don't do the same sometimes, the third is differing in its importance. I found it ironic but I don't think it's AI.

We both think lynching Nacho is awful, granted if lynching becomes imminent he's who I'm voting. As I wrote the above posts, I felt our goals aligned but that difference means their intersection could be a lot nastier than I hoped. Maybe I was too optimistic. Either way, highlighting the irony was unnecessary and I need to go back to not letting my ego take offense at your ego.

[Replica]

Psyche is down to spare Hectic. Chara seems like they're still down, though they're unsure which strategy to take more broadly. Sujimichi is pro-sparing. Chemist is open to sparing Hectic. Alimdia was open to sparing Hectic earlier.

Pretty sure we have the majority still intact despite the "impending no action scum deferral" doomsayers.

[Replica]

Oh that was another question I missed, my sparing Hectic despite my scumleans Chara/Nacho being on it. I think you're the one who asked it Farkran but I can't remember. #301 and #322 addressed this.

I'll investigate your worlds more deeply in a bit.

in favor of Sparing a bit too much, with "ending the day without consensus" as an excuse for it

? Do you realize how bad it is to boycott decisions as town? Just to illustrate the principle behind it, say 5 town want to spare, 4 town want to lynch, and neither will switch sides. Guess what alignment is guaranteed to get spared/lynched?

[Replica]

Unless you think I'm pushing for a spare because of deadline? That's the force I'm trying to counteract on the other side (Pushing people to place hurt votes because deadline ticking)

[Replica]

I forgot to answer the one I did remember earlier, which was if I scumread something in your (Farkran's) posts specifically or if you went down for another reason. Answer is that I didn't see anything I dlsliked, but my thoughts shifted in two ways. First, I initially liked your activity/eagerness to give reads, but I increasingly think you're a player who is likely to take that same energy as scum, if not even moreso. The way to deal with this is to delve deeper into the process and pattern of your reads specifically, which will be a project, but hopefully I'll get to it. Second, Chara specifically drastically improved while the rest you leaped I just had lumped into this "I guess they're probably town but it's not a strong feeling and has no solid basis" pile (Sujimichi, Chemist, Amrun)

[Replica]

Yeah Amrun I think blaming you for quickresponses was petty, and the significance of the third point really differed contextually/in its importance and relevance even though they can hypothetically be stripped to a single facet.

[Replica]

For Farkran, the point of my exception is that yes I won't boycott: your post I interpreted as postulating that I was preemptively giving myself an excuse to change to a hurt vote. What I was saying was "I'm not voting hurt until it becomes obviously detrimental to hold out"

I also don't have any publicly available meta. I doubt how useful it'd be and would spoiler it but if you want insight into my perceptions of myself as a player - how I approach scum, how I approach town, what my weaknesses are, etc. - I'll answer.

[Replica]

I think I might be focusing way too much on the existence of my/Amrun's struggles to communicate effectively, getting annoyed and frustrated when it persists or I fail to overcome it. At some points we feel really similar and it really seems like what I don't like is some of my own medicine.

I'm really wondering if I should be looking for strengths that complement first instead of focusing solely on overcoming the mutual abrasion and pedantry as a hard prerequisite to cooperation

[Replica]

As far as outcomes of the day goes, this doesn't seem to be possible for me to really meet Amrun in the middle either, only for one of us to completely give: I'm not lynching unless I absolutely have to, and the preference then is Nacho. I'm open to sparing others, but Amrun wants to lynch, and have that lynch not be Nacho. She'll only spare if we have to. Our desired outcomes are really just too different here, one of us has to get dragged kicking and screaming to the other side.

Some theorists in international relations are really into advocating "linkage", meaning any cooperation/deviation in one realm should or will necessarily be responded to in another. Nixon/Kissinger were a big fan of this: No progress on arms talks until the Soviets tossed them a bone in Vietnam. Linkage has its day in the sun on occasion, but has a big problem: It frequently deadlocks. In contrast, a lot of the Reagan years, specifically when George Shultz got involved, were spent doing the opposite: sectioning different areas off, not letting stalled talks in one area get in the way of incremental progress in another. The latter, whether by circumstances or strength of theory, turned out to be really effective, and I'm a big fan.

We probably can't really agree on who to spare/lynch Day 1, just bludgeon the other into submission and revisit the possibility Day 2, so that really leaves reads as the main prospect for progress here.

How do you feel about Chara's response to us Amrun? I think it's probably the single most town reaction in the game so far.

[Replica]

I get that it's annoying to not play a card ourselves but I'm satisfied seeing what the reveal they play to give us tonight.

I didn't look at your join date. I assume you are an alt? I remember someone saying they were an alt but not willing to reveal their main, is that you?

#279

I believe the post you're referencing though is actually to Sherlock.

[Replica]

Spoiler: Personal opinions/perceptions of my play

As town, I'm good at being active. I'm bad at motivating others to do the same. I'm very bad at reads, and in particular I have a bad habit of sticking to a single thing. This works really well when it's correct, really terribly when it doesn't. To make this worse, recognizing it and trying to correct for it ingame seems a 50/50 for bad results, making me feel stupid when I do. I can be very irritable if I think someone is being condescending. I was always the youngest in every group growing up, and it's an artifact that has stuck even as I've grown older.

As scum, I often have a dilemma in that I really don't take much pride or joy in bringing out the worst in others, but consider it the easiest way to win. I don't think in terms of trying to get people to townread me or avoiding a lynch except as a means to an end; I just think of the number of mislynches we need and how to get there. I think this is different than most people who have delusions of grandeur, thinking that the best scumplayers are the ones with the EPIC THREE WAY HARDCARRY. I'm very good at setting my teammates up well and in standardizing my tone, attitudes, and reasoning; differences are invented in the course of new towngames but I make sure to cash them in strategically. It is very difficult for me to stay motivated and engaged with a game as scum unless I consider it especially challenging: I am more inclined to just sit back and let the town beat itself, waiting for another game where I flip town. I manage to stay about as active as I do when town, but it's usually spent miserable. If I had to guess what a different weakness is, it's that I'm transparently opportunistic when I feel assured that people aren't paying attention.

In general, I think people are too selfish in their play. I never live up to it, but I dream of being an amplifier: As town, for the strengths of my partners. As scum, for the same but also for the worst traits of the town.

A lot of these attitudes are pretty apparent this game: Of course my scum description is the antithesis of how I've been this game! I think a healthier balance might be better but it's no surprise the fears I have for my own play and those of the town more broadly are exactly the ones I'm obsessing over internally

[Replica]

Alright, a bit over 36 hours, now might be the time for some others to kick into gear. I'm excited for alim to get back from V/LA, Chara's been posting gold, and maybe Nacho will find some life in him a bit early instead of staying checked out until Day 2.

[Replica]

Spoiler: More playstyle comments

None of these are as in conflict as you think, the question isn't "How does Replica compare to the average player in these traits/fears?", but "How does Replica this game compare to

Replica

?" This is impossible to actually do, hence why I was skeptical of it's usefulness. Walls and wordcount are an easy example; regarding your question about our comparative levels of activity I have been very intentional to maximize how readable and accessible both the game and my content are. This is part of the dream of being an amplifier and working more with others. In posting, this has meant doing far, FAR less than I would consider my typical.

The only one of those I think I should respond to is the "I lurk as mafia" reduction. This isn't an oversimplification, it's drastically wrong. If I want a town to be lethargic, it's not that I stop posting-I will purposely make it as difficult as humanly possible to play, and that often means being the most active one in the room. Modernity teaches us well the best way to deceive isn't misinformation or censorship: It's letting the truth be drowned out in worthless noise. The difference is occasionally in activity, but very rarely. It's in attitude. I am more likely to be

miserable

as mafia. This doesn't even mean I make the misery known. Comments like my having fun are absolutely the type of thing I'd make while internally dying for it to end.

To be blunt, I wanted to speak to specific strengths/weaknesses as each alignment without comparing how strong I am at each. It will become apparent in future games even if I try to hide it, however, so I might as well: I hope to be a better townplayer, but it won't happen in a single game. Whether by skill or by circumstance, I do not sweat in many scumgames, and actually losing is a joy to me not unlike that of seeing Halley's Comet.

My reads work in place of a hurt vote without the danger of others trying to use it to start wagons. No thanks.

[Replica]

In other words, what keeps me playing mafia is that I like challenges and I like bringing the best out of others. My strengths may lend themselves towards the opposites. We want most what we do not, or cannot, have.

[Replica]

I think Psyche is too sure about Sujimichi and it might make him scum. Whereas Sherlock I think is extremely town for how they went about it.

I thought a lot about this yesterday, I agree with you. The only issue for me was trying to figure out the scum incentive for him to push for 3/4 spares incl. Sujimichi/Sherlock. I think it makes sense if he thinks we won't actually spare the 3/4 people like he advocates, instead using it mostly to posture. That seems very plausible to me.

[Replica]

My reads work in place of a hurt vote without the danger of others trying to use it to start wagons. No thanks.

This line in particular is the most dangerous thing you have slipped out so far. This means that you don't trust your own reads enough to see them fulfill their purpose. "The

DANGER

of others trying to use it to start wagons"? What's up with that thought process? You have scumreads because you want to remove scum. You use wagons to remove scum. You are NOT afraid of people wagoning your scumreads - you WANT them to, that's the purpose of scumreading someone.

No way i believe this. I don't buy that you put "being fiercely competitive and having a relentless drive to win" in the same line as "i am so afraid that my reads are wrong that i don't even want to risk putting weight into them", especially when you have such strong conviction about sparing being the absolute best strategy and about our spare targets being correct, without even having a flip to confirm. This thought process is conveniently exploited to validate any past, present or future error that you make in this game, which means you will likely place your partner as one of your sparing targets during the course of the match.

This post is really awful and to me is blatantly working backwards.

I'll start in reverse, with the asserted conflict that I can't have an ego and be relentlessly competitive while simultaneously distrusting my own reads. Possessing a characteristic is not the same as thinking it a strength. I have spoken at length this game about the necessity of recognizing one's flaws and not letting them overtake you. My style of playing scum is literally taking advantage of people who don't.

This is applied to "Why won't Replica try to lynch their scumreads?". "You don't trust your scumreads enough to see them fullfill their purpose...You have scumreads because you want to remove scum" is willfully missing the point of how I view this game; lynching scum in this game is my Plan B. My scumreads exist so that I can

select town correctly

. I have

absolutely no intention

of removing scum this game except as a last resort and perhaps on Day 4. Of course I don't want a wagon to start or for people to perceive that a lynch has become marginally more possible by seeing me place a hurt vote. #685 and #689 both make clear that while I'll push and scumread Nacho, I adamantly oppose his lynch today.

You double down on this here:

the reason stated is "it is dangerous to cast a fight vote because other people could use it to create a wagon." This is in stark contrast with his profile of an above average self-esteem person, displayed in lines like "i do not have fun as scum because it is too easy", and even more in contrast with "i am strongly convinced my strategy is optimal and my townreads are correct". That's the problem.

To you, the fact that I possess an ego seems to preclude my having any recognition or sincere attempt to fix it. The latter characterization is blatantly awful; you yourself have hounded how I keep saying that I distrust my reads. My strategy is optimal to me

precisely

because I don't trust my reads on two fronts. The first is that my statement that if we lynch, it should be later rather than sooner, and that if we spare, it should be sooner rather than later. This is to leverage probability, and is made even more explicit,

in the context of me being bad at townreads

in #379. The second is that even if I am so bad that my reads might as well be random...3/4 spares wins me more games. There is absolutely no dependency or even displayed thinking that I am confident in my townreads but not my scumreads like you're trying to assert here.

This seems like a very intentional attempt to exploit the gap between self-perceptions and reality, that you absolutely know exists for every one of us, rather than an earnest attempt at understanding how those fears/ideals have manifested this game.

[Replica]

i wonder if i could compute an EV comparing a blind spare strategy against a blind lynch strategy and from there try to guess the relative value of differently confident townreads against differently confident scumreads in this game

meh there's no way i get that done before deadline

#419.

39% win is the upper bound for all lynch by comparison to 11:2 mountainous. Hitting this upper bound would require treating the FN as equivalent to an extra mislynch, the real probability is closer to 36% if I had to guess (Lower bounded by 10:2 mountainous's 33%). 3/4 spare gives us something like 42/43%. It is worth noting that these did assume FN spare Day 1 iirc.

If you really do agree at least with the

intuition

that Suji is probably town, along with SH and Hectic, then I don't know how you square the scum motive for earnestly advocating their sparing with the concrete losses to the faction associated with these outcomes. It's just not a calculation that makes sense fmpov. If I were scum, I imagine I'd commit to obfuscating rather than insisting on the significance of the Sujimishi revelation - unless he (or SH) were my scumbud or something I suppose. Is that the read of the gamestate you're leading yourself into? Because I just don't know how you do that, I don't.

The word "earnest" here makes me think you missed the point of my post:

I think it makes sense if he thinks we won't actually spare the 3/4 people like he advocates, instead using it mostly to posture.

My other theory was betting on getting spared yourself, but I don't think that's plausible. If you're scum you're banking on the fact that only 1/2 of the spares you listed will happen max.

I will also readily admit that I don't think the PT post means much from Sujimichi. I put a lot more emphasis on the difference between the two games in depth of thought and how forthcoming he is in this one. If you're worried that I say that with the intent of obfuscating as you suggested you would as scum, have no fear because I can put it to rest:

HEAL: Sujimichi

[Replica]

@Sujimichi: I'm pretty sure we can get a heal here; I placed that forgetting some people had put heals on Sherlock but we should easily be able to get a coalition around any of you/Hectic/Sherlock.

[Replica]

i'm more confident in sparing Hectic than Sujimichi or Sherlock.

My preference is something like Sujimichi>Hectic=Sherlock.

Sherlock's done a great thing for us, Hectic hasn't been, like, very town recently but has just played really cleanly. He's not making me townread him more, but he's not making any mistakes if he's scum.

As a claimed VT I think there's value in leaving Hectic and sparing Sujimichi. If Sujimichi is also a VT, it forces scum to choose between shooting a likely townspare or shooting to hit the FN.

[Replica]

I'm pretty sure someone lumped me in with the people who scumread Nacho for activity then backed off at the V/LA at some point.

I've been scumleaning Nacho because that Chemist reasoning was steaming hot trash. It's not about how much he's posting, and my insisting we don't lynch him is not backing off because of the V/LA but because lynching anyone today is awful imo.

[Replica]

being confident in townreads =/= having the same confidence in scumreads or wanting to pursue them.
i don't like Farkran's angle here at all and i don't find it a contradiction in the first place. Replica said as much already about why they want to spare and you acknowledged that. i also can't conceive of what scum Replica would achieve by discrediting their own scumreads or themself, except as a way to lower responsibility for mislynches. but they aren't going for mislynches.

I think one of his points is that by downplaying the confidence in my scumreads, and combining it with not lynching and getting no flips, I'm hoping to skirt any responsibility, which is a fair point imo.

The more egregious thing is that he conflates the possession of an ego with the requirement that I let it rule me, becoming the type of person who refuses to use my brakes while driving because I'm so good I can just dodge everything. That whole post came from working backwards.

pedit: i find the denial of hammering the spare to be still significant, along with the followup. Sujimichi is not a bad choice either, but i'd rather be more sure than not with something like this, and it's similar with Sherlock. there's the possibility of scum making one big towny move, but i find Hectic being scum and making the decisions he has to be much less likely.

Have you read the first part of #688? Slash agree with it? The brevity of both the game in general and Sujimichi's posts make it really easy to compare his scumgame to this one imo

[Replica]

LOL.

Not an argument, this is free shade.

It's a good thing there's two paragraphs that follow the introduction.

You cannot simultaneously have a profile of high self-esteem,

high level of certainty townreads while doubting your scumreads

so much that you call wagoning on them "dangerous" and actively impair other players from doing by denying your vote.This is not about optimal strategy, this is about the

immense gap in the amount of faith you place in your townreads as opposed to the amount you place in your scumreads.

You cannot be simultaneously certain that we are going to spare 3 non-scum players and extremely unsure of your scumreads. This does not make any sense. If you believe your scumreads are weak and likely wrong, you should also assume that at least SOME of your townreads could be wrong.

To be honest, I don't have a good read on Hectic.

I'm very bad at getting townreads, which is what this game really asks us to do.

I saw some good continuity on a read iirc but I'm very dependent on expectations, and I don't see why scum Hectic

doesn't

play like this.

Things like this though are exactly why I love sparing Day 1: We get the most leeway in our spares today.

Please, PLEASE quote anywhere I have said I am confident in ANY of my reads, or even ANY of my townplay lmao

This whole paragraph doesn't even try to take into consideration what I just said. I explicitly outlined why sparing is better even if I am so bad as to be completely random:

My strategy is optimal to me precisely because I don't trust my reads

on two fronts. The first is that my statement that if we lynch, it should be later rather than sooner, and that if we spare, it should be sooner rather than later.

This is to leverage probability,

and is made even more explicit, in the context of me being bad at townreads in #379.

The second is that even if I am so bad that my reads might as well be random...3/4 spares wins me more games. There is absolutely no dependency or even displayed thinking that I am confident in my townreads but not my scumreads like you're trying to assert here.

You do try to tackle it here, but it's just circular:

3/4 spares wins you more games

when you are correct. Otherwise, it's a disaster.

To reiterate: 1. you cannot assume a strategy is optimal based on random results only, this is a very flawed premise in a social game led by living people; 2. you cannot assume your strategy is optimal when your displayed certainty is contradicting itself.

This response is akin to saying "A coin that flips heads 60% of the time doesn't mean that it's less likely to flip tails". 1 is what me/Amrun/Nacho have been talking all game, you've recognized the opinion difference as valid repeatedly. 2 is both circular and depends on the certainty existing to begin with, which it plainly doesn't.

[Replica]

You have a bucket of balls.

You have two options:

1) You can draw 4 balls, and they have a 30% chance of being all black. You win if they are.
2) You can draw 6 balls, and they have a 20% chance of containing two that are white. You win if they are.

You pick 1. "Wow, are you that confident in being able to identify the balls that are black by touch?"

[Replica]

The analogy between touching a ball to tell its color and scumhunting is obviously not a good analogy.

I'm trying to highlight the general statistical ideas here which is that

placing a bet and having someone assert that you must be very sure you have a way to win it if you're picking that one over the one with the lower EV is absolutely absurd

[Replica]

As much as I hate spamming, for emphasis, since neither Farkran nor Chara acknowledged this:

To be honest, I don't have a good read on Hectic.

I'm very bad at getting townreads, which is what this game really asks us to do.

I saw some good continuity on a read iirc but I'm very dependent on expectations, and I don't see why scum Hectic

doesn't

play like this.

Things like this though are exactly why I love sparing Day 1: We get the most leeway in our spares today.

To be honest, I don't have a good read on Hectic.

I'm very bad at getting townreads, which is what this game really asks us to do.

I saw some good continuity on a read iirc but I'm very dependent on expectations, and I don't see why scum Hectic

doesn't

play like this.

Things like this though are exactly why I love sparing Day 1: We get the most leeway in our spares today.

To be honest, I don't have a good read on Hectic.

I'm very bad at getting townreads, which is what this game really asks us to do.

I saw some good continuity on a read iirc but I'm very dependent on expectations, and I don't see why scum Hectic

doesn't

play like this.

Things like this though are exactly why I love sparing Day 1: We get the most leeway in our spares today.

To be honest, I don't have a good read on Hectic.

I'm very bad at getting townreads, which is what this game really asks us to do.

I saw some good continuity on a read iirc but I'm very dependent on expectations, and I don't see why scum Hectic

doesn't

play like this.

Things like this though are exactly why I love sparing Day 1: We get the most leeway in our spares today.

[Replica]

As much as i love being compared to a ball in a bucket, this does not and will never apply to a social game made by living, sentient beings. I said multiple times that the EV are comparable - the wrong premises are that 1. Probability alone is not a good meter to discern an optimal strategy; 2. the risk/benefit ratio is horribly high.

I will give you a counter-example:
1) You can draw 4 balls, they have 30% chance of being all black. You gain 1 dollar if they are, you lose 1 million if they aren't.
2) You can draw 6 balls, they have 20% chance of containing two that are white. You gain 1 dollar if they are, you lose 2 dollars if they aren't.

Now tell me you still pick option 1.

I didn't include the betting terms to keep it simple. Since you insist, the numbers actually do matter here.

We're wagering to try to win a single game, keeping hold of the single dollar in our hand, not risking our savings: The outcome of the game is the only thing at stake.

1) You can draw 4 balls, they have 27% chance of being all black. You win if they are. If they aren't, you have one chance to draw a white ball at 20% odds.*
2) You can draw 6 balls, they have a 36% chance of containing two that are white. If they aren't, you lose immediately.

*This simplifies to a 41.6% chance

You pick 1. Does this imply that you have a method to ensure they are all black?

[Replica]

There's a little bit more numbers actually, that was rushed, but the point is to outline the principle and not be a pedantic asshole.

Your principle is wrong, the assumptions that underlie it (That I must have a method for black) are wrong, and flooding it with a statistics thesis that boils down to "Literally the safest way to play the game if you don't have confidence in your play whatsoever is the one given by RNG" is begging to have everyone check out of the game.

[Replica]

Agree, gambling odds are a sideshow, the imprecision/reductions of the reasoning causing more confusion than needed. TL:DR: Sparing over lynching has a higher town win % in an RNG machine. This is directly analogous to casino games. Betting on higher EVs doesn't imply you believe yourself especially skilled at the game of choice.

Awful part was the working backwards and the conflating ego/weaknesses with the requirement that I must view them as positives and that acknowledging my weaknesses and working on them is a scumtell.

It's aiming to exploit the existence of a gap between my fears/ideals and my reality, that I am neither the player of my dreams nor one ruled by my worst traits, and presupposing its existence is scum. It's not aiming to investigate or ponder what it means, what dilemmas I face when playing, or how I choose to handle these strengths and weaknesses.

[Replica]

No, but your example implies that i have no means other than RNG to determine if they are all black. Or better yet, that i have no means to raise my odds of catching the two white balls in the other scenario.

Hmmmm, so if you're confident you means to shift the odds in your favor, you should play to that one...If you aren't confident you have those means, I wonder what you should do haha?[/quote]

NoAlso, my example is only worth if you think the outcome of this game is important to you (hence why i exaggerated it by saying 1 million dollars - obviously it has nothing to do with our irl savings). If the outcome of the game has no importance to you, that's another pair of shoes - but again, given your introduction as a "fiercely competitive, etc" player, i don't believe this is the case. I just think you are scum.

Ah yeah, losing the game by sparing is very different than losing the game by mislynches. In one I lose the game. In the other I lose the game. These are very different outcomes. One of these has a stastistical failsafe to my advantage, but that doesn't matter haha, I can lose the game both ways so I can safely ignore it.

[Replica]

i still think there is no way you can place THAT much certainty on your townreads

It is almost like

the point of #827

is that the logical proposition "If someone bets on a game with a higher random EV, they must be more confident in their ability in that game" is FALSE

and has been pointed out REPEATEDLY

and you have directly ignored every evidence around that principle being wrong

I'm very bad at getting townreads, which is what this game really asks us to do.

[Replica]

Well for starters we're getting at least one more spare in the next few days which is great in my book

[Replica]

This is my tl;dr about the stupid stats.

Agree, gambling odds are a sideshow, the imprecision/reductions of the reasoning causing more confusion than needed. TL:DR: Sparing over lynching has a higher town win % in an RNG machine. This is directly analogous to casino games.

Betting on higher EVs doesn't imply you believe yourself especially skilled at the game of choice.

The EV is only marginally higher, and besides, in a game of roulette you cannot improve your chances to guess the next number correct based on your knowledge of the previously rolled number. In mafia, you can.

The point of contention between us isn't the EVs. Farkran completely ignores the part in bold, which is actually what his argument is about, and instead keeps trying to restart the "But is the RNG really like practical mafia?" debate because it's confounding garbage no one wants to read.

In what world does a Farkran, who

recognizes the EVs

, and whose entire point instead is that

I must believe something about my skill outside them

, completely ignore the part that is actually relevant to why he supposedly thinks I'm scum and keeps trying to circle back to whether or not the EVs are practical

[Replica]

Psyche is currently on Sherlock, either way we have time.

[Replica]

Man, I wonder why it is you're so desperate to get out of this and keep trying to switch the ground to discussion over EV vs. human play.

This is so fundamentally different than what you were saying earlier.

Earlier, you acknowledged the strategies were different but my perspective valid.

Later, you used the proposition you now acknowledge as false to make the case that I

absolutely must

place confidence in my townreads. This doubled with postulations about how it'd interact with my personality.

Proposition got proven wrong, quotes reinforced that I absolutely do not place confidence in my townreads, and you're back to square one where you're stuck saying "Yeah but other factors make this bad" and talking about the difference in practicality/application, no longer talking about my behavior or beliefs which was the crucial point in your scumread on me. Saying "Replica town should put more faith in reads over EVs and play accordingly and is scum for not doing so" is a huge walkback from "Replica must and absolutely does put more faith into reads and is scum for not having it"

[Replica]

I have gotten thoroughly smashed, Replica is still scum, and obviously I would have been very gungho about lynching them, but I no longer have any interest in engaging or discussing this unless anyone asks me a direct question.

No, my points were never what I'm on the record for. Thank you for your time.

[Replica]

Most of the recent content between Farkran and Replica has been a non-productive rehashing of the debate between Sparing and Fighting (though more in-depth in analysis)

Congratulations, you arrived at exactly where Farkran wanted you to be at.

[Replica]

I get that it's incomprehensible garbage but it's very much by design; that conversation is not about whether or not sparing is best. The conversation is about whether or not I'm being deceptive about how confident I am in my reads, and Farkran asserting that I am scum for it. The switch to make it unreadable was intentional.

[Replica]

Again, that conversation is not about whether or not sparing is best: Farkran's choice to ignore the statements on my behavior and respond strictly by introducing mechanical contentions was done to get out of the commitments he made earlier.

Either way, this is probably about the right time for me to stop. The less accessible it gets the worse, and focusing on a scumread isn't a good strategy in this game.

[Replica]

Here is where i bring out the fact that you cannot possibly tell me you expect you trust the players (and by extension, yourself) to nail 3 or 4 town spares in a row when simultaneously you DO NOT trust the players (and by extension, yourself) to scumread properly. This is completely inconsistent and illogical, which is what led me to think you are hiding a scum agenda behind math, where math only gives you ~7% higher EV

I'm glad you bolded this and am more than happy to let it speak for itself.

[Replica]

It is INCONSISTENT and ILLOGICAL that you would advocate the strategy with a higher town EV when you DON'T trust the town to have better than random reads.

Oh howdy Nacho welcome back.

[Replica]

I've made my point; somebody help me get my mind on something else.

Where I'm at is Sujimichi/Sherlock/Chara town, good chance of Hectic and then Alim being in there, Chemist/Amrun next up, then Farkrun/Psyche/Nacho holding the scum.

Is there anyone who wants to talk about some of these/point me somewhere of interest to them? Right now personally I really just want more from Alim/Chemist/Nacho.

[Replica]

Looking primarily at what you've said on Amrun, I don't agree with the read. There seem to be a few points of contention, but the ones that stick out to me are 1) Amrun's push when you entered the game, and a bit of the waffle between you/Asriel 2) Her defense/townread of Nacho.

It's easier for me to start from the second.

Spoiler: Quotes

I don’t scumread you for A [Posting only as necessary]. I scumread you for B. [Tone/Buddying Nacho] A was a response to alimdia, whose response to me did not make sense. Also, making quiet but infrequent content posts is NOT the same thing as not reading the game and then catching up.

And yet, you did B as well.

No I didn’t. Nacho literally wrote me a poem to summon me, so, clearly we know each other. In sign up thread I joined to play with nacho, explicitly.

This exchange and explanation to me seems very plausible from Amrun's viewpoint. They clearly have a history and friendship; Amrun is right when she says later that two people can do the same thing and only have one be scummy. Mafia is a lot about expectations: The mutual respect and history Amrun/Nacho have is something to be leveraged when she flips town; her dearth of experience is also worth noting in that it means she knows the tropes of newer players well. In contrast, you had no history with Nacho, and it is very expected for newer scum to buddy those perceived as stronger. This doesn't mean that you

are

bad player new scum, but I don't think you can blame Amrun for starting there.

I think Amrun's townread of Nacho leaves a lot to be desired on explanations, but given their history and Amrun's clear and demonstrated desire to work with him I find it very plausible. Despite her lack of explanations, I think there are some deeper clues here, too: I thought Amrun's interrogation of me about potential alignment implications between Nacho/Hectic arose mainly out of a gut tone feeling I was scum, and so she reacted with the rapid fire questions, but I don't think that's all it was anymore. It seems like she really liked the Nacho read on Hectic period, and this is reinforced when she called me counter to it "busywork" later.

Your best summary probably comes from #559. Taking it step by step, I found her points on tone fine. We start with weak foundations, and tone is a common one people use (Including me! Though I mainly look for backhanded intent). Her rejection of meta is annoying and I'd say would probably be scummy to me if this came from a brand new player, but it's not. Instead, it's coming from someone with a long history of opinions on the value of meta and play. I really, REALLY disagree with her, but it's almost certainly her view (I haven't checked it, but lying about something like this in a game where players know you and your history is easily accessible is suicide). I didn't share her feeling of the importance of #489 until #576. What she said about you seeing that Farkran could be too tough of a fight, and searching for easier waters, is definitely possible,

especially

for someone like Amrun who seems to start with the bread and butter scum strategies for newer players and only builds outwards when they've proven themselves.

The only thing I'd say I don't like is the switch to Asriel, not wanting to let up and your contributions being better and so on. Her explanation much later that the extent of that improvement was just a perception that you "seemed less concerned about optics" isn't good but it's something I think I'd expect from her so far.

[Replica]

I dunno, you've got the answer for your tone: It's NAI or town. Amrun's holding a deck of cards that seems very dependent on tone, pressure, and capitalizing on very run-of-the-mill weak scumplay rather than anything fancy.

It could be you liking Nacho and logically liking the voteswitch, or it could be classic opportunistic voting and buddying the active players. It's easier for you when you know the answer, and I think Amrun's methodology isn't wellsuited to giving benefit of the doubt to so-called "classic" scummy behaviors.

[Replica]

Chemist just like, needs to do something. His reads are plausible but there's so little to them that of course they are.

I never liked or agreed with his lurker reads and was confused why he switched to Hectic, but I don't scumread them at all and I really just wish he'd come out swinging. Someone to spare, someone to scumread, not constantly promising something and then giving us like, 10 words that amount to "x seems town" every 3/4 days

[Replica]

So I'm going to bet that like, nobody actually is going to fulfill their promises of catching up before the deadline.

imo we should hammer and call it a day rather than wait until the 3/4 hour mark and hope people are on. Americans won't even wake up for like, another 5-6 hours so I'd rather those people vote ASAP and not put it off hoping they'll remember after lunch or while at work

[Replica]

Why is anyone townreading this again? There are 2 people who have explicitly said they would speak before deadline, and at least 4 more people who are fine with spare-hammering the currently L-2 Sujimichi. Including me.

Nacho was the one we were waiting on and given that he's apparently in Chicago it was obvious his catchup wasn't coming as he promised, given that it was 4 AM. That was fine, there was a lot of ground to cover and he's obviously been busy, but it wasn't happening. You're in Italy and had plenty of time before the people I was looking to hammer got up (as mentioned, at 7/8 AM)

It takes exactly one missed deadline before you promise to fucking never do that again.

Instinct is to look to Hectic/Chara for the spare, both are reads I'm really desperate to nail down instead of relying on "They're playing consistently" or "Had a really good interaction" respectively.

[Replica]

The positions where Chara, Replica and Hectic are placed by their counterparts are not the result of reconsidering. There is nothing in-between my quoted posts that justifies the high jumps in their readlists.

Two of these posts are direct responses to Farkran's questions

Replica, could I hear why your read on Chara changed from 2nd highest loserread to strong town?
curious to hear your progression on it.

I think the above answers this, but to summarize I really, REALLY liked their posts responding to me/Amrun. My early scumlean was feeling out tone and playstyle, and really just looking for a place to start.

[Replica]

I don't think Hectic is hardtown, he was playing okay and had a nice progression on someone, I think Billy Pilgrim, early Day 1 and has just been playing very crisply since the spare.

As mentioned before, I'd really rather have a better reason for a Day 2 spare than "Isn't making mistakes if he's mafia". Day 1 I'm very willing to play the odds with spares. Each day worsens those odds and I become significantly less inclined to spin the wheel.

[Replica]

Farkran’s case is BONKERS, but almost maybe too bonkers to be scum.

Disagree. Yesterday was a very blatant attempt to hide the fact he was shifting the point he was making by making them so long and convoluted no third party would be willing to trace them.

He was all over the place, "Replica's statements say their ego is too big to not trust their own reads, and that conflict is incompatible with sparing" to "If you believe in sparing you have to think you have really strong townreads" to "Anyone who pushes a spare for valuing 7% EV over flips is scummy so that means Replica" with all sort of hoops to jump through along the way as I provided numerous back references to me displaying exactly the opposite attitudes he was attributing to me.

Horrible example of working backwards, and even if people double down on bad reads as town I really doubt many intentionally contort and misrepresent their previous points instead of making new ones.

[Replica]

The people that are really active aren't the ones I really want to hear from right now.

I really need Bingle/Chemist/Nacho to weigh in instead of plowing through Hectic's ISO for the tenth time.

[Replica]

I don't think Hectic is hardtown, he was playing okay and had a nice progression on someone, I think Billy Pilgrim, early Day 1 and has just been playing very crisply since the spare.

As mentioned before, I'd really rather have a better reason for a Day 2 spare than "Isn't making mistakes if he's mafia". Day 1 I'm very willing to play the odds with spares. Each day worsens those odds and I become significantly less inclined to spin the wheel.

Does this mean Hectic was an ok d1 spare, but now that we are in d2 he isn't anymore?

I mean, i'm kinda to the point where i'm sorry for arguing against your every post, but i just find it... impossibly high levels of hard to understand how you are approaching this game if you are town.

Classic. One of the posts I literally just linked to you was opening the day by saying this, and even started out addressing you. You aren't even trying to understand my point of view, just working backwards.

Here I am in #379 saying exactly the same thing.

[Replica]

"I can't understand how these reads are genuine"

Doesn't open any of the six posts, which he apparently had no idea existed, that addresses the hole he was looking for.

[Replica]

I could really talk about this all day, but I'd rather focus on getting spares and getting the people who aren't involved and need to be up to speed. If anyone that isn't Farkran has a question for me, I'll answer, but otherwise I'll be back either when the missing/recently replaced players join in, or if I find something new that I think is valuable.

Priority imo is getting Bingle caught up and Nacho in the game.

[Replica]

He's getting at "If you're willing to take a random bet Day 1 with an 8/10 chance of hitting it correctly, why would you be less willing to take it in later days?"

The answer is the probability of sparing correctly goes down every day. Day 1 -> Day 2 is a pretty negligible decrease (8/10 -> 6/8) which is why I'm still looking to spare him and am actively looking to nail down and get a solid read on.

P-Edit: Strange, I don't remember him falling down my spare list. Can you quote where I suggested I'd rather spare someone else?

[Replica]

None of that says there is someone I want to spare over Hectic.

At no point Day 1 did I ever give a hard townread on Hectic.

This dude is not reading, period, and refuses to open any of the linked posts.

I really struggle to believe this is town.

[Replica]

Even better that he's supposedly been reconsidering the read on me but STILL doesn't sincerely engage or investigate any of the posts I linked to that addressed his concerns, nor engaged with any clarifiers.

It's almost like he's concerned more with making sure he doesn't get perceived as throwing in the towel than with actually investigating my alignment.

[Replica]

Person who does not have a strong townread Day 1 and defaults to sparing a townlean wants a stronger read Day 2, more breaking news at 11.

[Replica]

Calling my shot, the next point is going to be something like "How come you still try to get townreads if you think you're bad at it?"

[Replica]

If you townread Hectic hard enough in d1 to spare him, you would also spare him in a 3p lylo with you, hectic and anyone else. Otherwise you do not spare him. Period.

This should actually be hung in the Louvre.

[Replica]

Well, looks like it's about to toss my computer out the window, so much for keeping my content accessible when what the people really want is incomprehensible garbage and a lot of it.

This isn't a statement on this game, just a statement on the state of modern consumerism.

[Replica]

Am pretty busy today, will try to stop in tomorrow.

I've been trying to keep my mind off the game so that I can take a fresh view looking at ISOs, real life has cooperated so we'll see if it pays off

[Replica]

I feel like I don't really understand your post Hectic. It seems to boil down to why push to spare you as mafia Chara, especially over Sujimichi/Sherlock. This doesn't really seem convincing to me, given that Chara voted you earlier and was skeptical of the PT post's strength. 180ing isn't a good look at all, and in both 3/4 spare cases you want people whose alignment is in question to get it over strong consensus townreads.

I was happy to see Chara react with more content in response to my "posting gold" comment, but I had also made it clear that responses like that (Successfully getting others engaged) were exactly what I've been hoping to achieve this game. That unfortunately makes the desire very exploitable.

[Replica]

This is in direct contrast to my current gamesolve of Hectic/Chara though, and might be pointing towards Psyche and Replica more than anyone else. Why aren't those two voting towards their supported reads, given how strong they say they feel about them?

Tying back to your speculation that scum might be sitting and waiting for wagons to hop on, I think I've been pretty explicit why I've been hanging back. I strongly felt like I needed new angles and content to really make progress, one way was from Nacho showing up and giving a dearth of content, but now I've more settled for taking a step back to take a new perspective to ISOs. I'm very conscious that I tend to plow into the same ISOs over and over and run myself in circles; I'm trying to be more cerebral about how I approach reads.

The only strong read I also have is from Chara's interaction with me/Amrun, and as mentioned in my opening post I want more. I think you have a point that I'm nervous to commit to it. My goal for the day has been to get 1/2 really solid townreads, and not getting them has led to me being less proactive with my vote than I probably should be.

HEAL: Chara, still not eager to commit to it but Farkran is right that I should be making use of my vote.

[Replica]

I really disagree with Amrun's Alimdia read-they were a townlean for me and going back through the ISO this seems true to me.

Comparing Alimdia's posting here to a recently completed scumgame makes me feel better about the slot, too. There's a lot of throwing out loose speculation and accusations with a lot less emphasis on Alimdia not understanding points or trying to get to the bottom of them.

Posts like Alim's #129, #202, and #211 show a lot more genuine confusion and interest in understanding someone's thinking imo.

I feel a lot better about the slot now. I think Bingle generally isn't framing the argument correctly with the nature of Amrun's read. It might be in reaction to Amrun's #1161 uses hyperbole that can imply it should NEVER be townread, rather than focusing on it not being a great universal tell/it being specific to the player.

I'm solidly off board with either of their approaches.

[Replica]

chara seems a weird spare choice for today
i don't know how anyone can be

that

certain he's town

There's a good chance you've said this but like, who would you pick for the day?

My instincts have been Hectic/Chara. In both cases I want more. I'd be willing to throw Bingle in there now, entirely based off the alimdia slot.

[Replica]

Going through the timeline more explicitly again yeah Bingle is definitely in the wrong here, and his reaction w/r/t his read on Farkran is very secondary.

[Replica]

you've gotta know we can't afford to spare even ambiguous slots how do you even bring alimdia into the conversation about sparing

and "instincts"?? we can't spare based on rough gutreads

I disagree on both counts, but the good news is that.....I really don't want to spare a gutread! So we at least have the desire in common, even if we disagree on the willingness to.

[Replica]

I was really curious what your answer to my spare question was Psyche, but reading your day I'm a bit confused now. #1055 says Hectic would be fine but you seem to think there's more work to be done here. You seem to generally be in favor of sparing today.

I guess I almost got caught by the word "ambiguous" in 1055, which I initially didn't understand the importance of it being used in a very different sense, about how forthcoming with your reads instead of how likely the slot is to be town.

Am I right to think your spare choice would be Hectic? What's the nature of your belief about him?

[Replica]

I feel like I don't really understand your post Hectic. It seems to boil down to why push to spare you as mafia Chara, especially over Sujimichi/Sherlock. This doesn't really seem convincing to me, given that Chara voted you earlier and was skeptical of the PT post's strength. 180ing isn't a good look at all, and in both 3/4 spare cases you want people whose alignment is in question to get it over strong consensus townreads.

I was happy to see Chara react with more content in response to my "posting gold" comment, but I had also made it clear that responses like that (Successfully getting others engaged) were exactly what I've been hoping to achieve this game. That unfortunately makes the desire very exploitable.

a lot of people were reading Suji and Sherlock both as strong town at that point.
SPARING me means one of those is very likely to get SPARED the next day.
it's not a good plan for loser!Chara who at that point knows all 3 of Hectic, Suji, Sherlock are town.
and doesn't know who the FN is who is another potential free SPARE.

I see a lot of problems with this. I think the most obvious is that they get to nightkill, paired again with mafia preferring non-locktown spares to locktown spares (As they will someday reenter the lynch pool in 3/4 spare scenarios)

[Replica]

Why was Sherlock killed last night?

I appreciate that, failing a full catchup, you've switched gears to trying to pick up the pieces as you go.

Respectfully, though, I think you need to start at the "What am I confused by, what am I struggling with, and why am I finding it so difficult?" questions rather than trying to grab hold of the first thing you see.

[Replica]

The amount of self-importance you place behind your opinion of the spares leading to nightkills is misplaced a problem for both actually reading you and for getting others to concur in your reads.

[Replica]

Manna has fallen from heaven and the 'Cho has returned. Hype!

I'd really encourage you to look into alimdia meta. Bingle's posting, despite having a really bad understanding of the Amrun argument, hasn't been bad but alimdia's posting is heavily underrated imo and I don't get Psyche's scumread there. This is very likely a townslot imo.

I've got to keep it short tonight, and could probably let the posts stew, but I would say real fast that the "single thing" hangup isn't really applicable to you. I was using the Chemist read as a starting point, and starting somewhere and waiting for more is fine. If anything it applies to Farkran...but I kinda doubt it.

You townread the timing of Farkran's shove on me but the chronology really suggests you shouldn't. #500 followed by #605 represented a change towards me being more skeptical of him. He picked up on this in #616 and asked why he moved from townlean to null but potential scum. I explain that I think he'd be this forceful as mafia and I don't trust tonereading him, instead trusting more his votes and patterns He asks for my perceptions of my own play after I offer them, and 12 hours later comes back with a comprehensive attack based on the gap between my ideals/fears and my actual play. I'll skip how his point changed over time from those personality exploitations to "well spare is bad idk why you go for that over flips" for now since I've been over it enough.

It smacked completely of someone who feared a war coming and decided it would be advantageous to be the one to launch the first volley.

[Replica]

I'm glad to see you flip your read on Chemist but feel like you might have taken it too far the other way, I think metaing him of all people should actually be really useful.

I think defending the lurkers+once when he asked a "Is that why you...?" question over a more open-ended one were the only things of his that have made me frown. Thinking about it, I could see him trying to pocket Farkran by only tackling his half of our exchange late in Day 1 but that's really tenuous and goes against my single strongest read atm.

[Replica]

I've been putting off diving again into the Hectic ISO but if anything that should probably be top priority...

[Replica]

Just elaborate the quoted post, i'd like to hear about your strongest read and your read of chemist specifically.

Chemist is in nullpile, reading him before was just "This dude needs to give us something", which has since happened but I had no real reaction to while reading the thread through. Strongest read refers to scumreading you (ie. the Chemist tenuous assgrab would assume you are town)

It does fit you a little better though, after i noticed that your talk is mostly about about

government conspiracy

and war analogies, but please. Don't do that.

? This isn't really game-related but is this part referring to #703?

"Conspiracy" has very negative, paranoid connotations as a word. It brings to mind far-fetched things like "The moon landing was fake" or "9/11 was done by the CIA". The approaches to diplomacy are very settled and consensus history, and those descriptions Kissinger and Shultz would not only agree with but even applied to themselves.

[Replica]

At first I thought that post was pretty yikes but it's better than I thought going through your reads.

I think your Farkran read is bad; my interpretation is very far from "batshit insane" scumplay, and closer to "it's terrible execution", but this is a war for another day as long as he's not up for a spare.

Amrun/me you really don't seem to be concerned with I guess is my criticism; like I really struggle to understand how you think this is in both of our ranges but are willing to just handwave it off for now.

And like, agree to disagree on Alimdia/Bingle, it's the slot I would most prefer to spare atm. Chara second, Hectic third.

[Replica]

What initially threw me about that post is that I think your Chemist read is too strong given what he's actually done and what's actually happened.

Combining with your other townreads it makes more sense, but the reason scum post little content to begin with is that it doesn't give you much to go off of. I picked up on the "Defending lurkers=likely to be working backwards" immediately but still slot it as "more likely to come from scum but depending on the player..."

PoEing as an approach makes more sense to this than strength of feeling on Chemist I guess is what intrigued me here.

[Replica]

Oh Hectic's at 3 and hasn't even selfed, yeah looks like it's time to ISO dive again.

[Replica]

I doubt it will matter much but I'm also really curious as to where your perception of my scumrange is coming from: Like, you're right, but is it from my self-description, something intuitive about my approach to the game or the experience I must have, or...?

[Replica]

Well that was as productive as ever. Read progression on Chara isn't great but the rest is just...fine. 1183 makes sure to follow the telegraphing of 925 but something about the reinforcement with other points feels off, in particular the Chara sparing them period, but I can't see through it yet.

Chemist meta time I guess

[Replica]

This........is enlightening. This has not been even remotely helpful in figuring out Chemist's alignment, but this is a man dedicated to signing up for games and posting <100 words for their entirety, a patron saint of the Laconic tradition, absolutely dedicated to winning games with the least amount of effort and words possible.

This is by far the most effort he has put into any mafia game ever, I apologize for any previous complaints, godspeed.

[Replica]

Reporting live on ABC: "Human runs headfirst into brick wall for 8th time; shifts attention to concrete. Says to brick wall "I'll be back", plans on 9th attempt in future"

[Replica]

Scumreading you for what I think is poor scum execution as opposed to...scumreading you for good scum execution?

The fact you actually got offended over that is hilarious, and as town being accused of poor scumplay in this game, in this moment, shouldn't have bothered you whatsoever.

[Replica]

"Arrogant scum" is pushing it, I think he's more risen to the challenge of the game. Letting town continue to rack up spares is death, and most scumplayers think that unless they take control and lead they're not really proving themselves as players.

[Replica]

Yeah, you respond very well (by well i mean, in a towny way) to pressure - at this point i think you would know that i mentioned you in the post you quoted here basically just to "summon" you back to the thread, am i correct? Yeah, i'm fairly confident Replica is town now. I will reread that Chara exchange with Amrun to see if you can have a point. Can you help me by highlighting the posts where you think there is almost conclusive evidence that Chara is worthy of your spare over any other player? I don't even want to bring back the spare vs fight argument, that's something we will probably never agree about - i just want to see we can find some common ground to work with because i no longer think you have enough scum equity to consider fighting you soon.

I actually don't remember seeing this post at all, my bad. #564 and #596 were the ones that caught my interest, though there are a few more of Chara asking Amrun more about the read on me scattered around.

This whole paragraph is really curious. I didn't really consider that you were trying to "summon" me, so much as just question why town Replica wouldn't do something even if your focus had switched by this point. My response was addressing an unquoted point before returning to the quoted and saying "Yeah, you're right, I should be doing this". Like, of all the posts of mine, this one is by far the strangest to townread: scum are insanely reactive to summons/incongruities like these. Responding in a towny way to pressure is also just incredibly vague, and I can only think that you would be getting at the idea that town often reactionary tunnel.

The most promising thing we have in common as far as I can tell would be sparing Bingle.

[Replica]

I have no idea why anyone wouldn’t want to spare today, unless they specifically want a 1 spare route, tbh.

Mathematically, the shift from spare to lynch should only reverse if we hit scum. We have the same information for d2 as we would have from a traditional lynch and a diverse enough pool of people who others think should be locktown that we can actually get information from who is shot. We should probably lynch tomorrow, but sparing here seems like a no brainer with the combination of strong townreads and gamestate.

Speaking purely from random chance, we have a 7/9 chance to hit town today. That is a good set of odds.

Ding ding ding, for any number of lynches you want, ask yourself "When is statistically the best time to use them?" and you get "Lynch later spare earlier"

[Replica]

I looked at Guns n Roses alimdia, stronger/more assertive play but I still didn't see the same level of investigation they do in this one. Scum alimdia really likes to unleash the accusations/scumcase all at once rather than laying out a more nuanced process over time. Granted, I only skimmed like half the game and need to double check, but I like the slot and think it's really underrated this game.

[Replica]

"Arrogant scum" is pushing it, I think he's more risen to the challenge of the game. Letting town continue to rack up spares is death, and most scumplayers think that unless they take control and lead they're not really proving themselves as players.

And please, Replica. Please, please understand that if i was scum here i would meet pretty much no resistance whatsoever in sparing me or my partner. "Letting town continue to rack up spares is death" is completely nonsensical.

When i replaced in i could pretty much quickhammer Hectic, kill random town, spare the FN d2, kill random town and still easily push for a spare on my partner. The way the gamestate is, i could probably push for a spare on anyone right now. Just look at how many people are townreading any random slot. Literally any.

Ah, yeah, give town two free spares and you easily get your scum partner on the third. This would have been very trivial for you, Day 1, replacing in and getting almost universally scumread until people started assuming your reads were too bad and nonsensical to be scum.

[Replica]

The fact that people are townreading this slot for effort and "pushing the unpopular lynches" is so atrocious.

[Replica]

I hate everything about this day. As much as I don't want to spare Hectic right now, the way the last few pages have been going God do I just want to heal Hectic and have him rectify his day 1 mistake by instahammering it.

But TEAMWORK and PATIENCE WITH OTHERS, Replica! That's your whole goal for the game isn't it? Working together? Bringing the best out of others? Not putting them down? Isn't that the strength you're trying to build? Isn't that the only reason you're playing right now?

Ah, but darkness, my old friend, how you call me...

[Replica]

I can't get over the fact that someone just said "If I was scum, please understand that I would have just given town two free spares and got my partner on the third/fourth." and nobody else bats an eye at this.

This doesn't even make the top 10 worst posts of Farkran's this game alone.

[Replica]

I see...absolutely nothing in this game that is not a natural extension of Farkran's scumgame of Newbie 1958, which had a giant focus on pushing perceived inconsistencies in progressions, accusatory/loaded scenario assertions, and positing teams.

A lot of that perspective follows into towngames, I don't really feel confident in metaing him over what he's done this game but I'd say he generally seems to take a lot more account of motives and perspectives than he's done here, and seems less inclined to make cases and hardpushes than when he's scum based off of that game and Mini 2106.

There is literally no reason to townread this slot, at all, and at this point I kind of just have to accept that people are going to refuse to read into anything but appearance of effort.

[Replica]

HEAL: Bingle

This does double duty, spares a town and gets rid of a Farkran stan.

[Replica]

chara look deep into your heart

very deeply

we spare hectic today

we roll into tomorrow, trapped in a room with bingle, psyche, farkran, and nacho

it will be dark days

town farkran stans are a DISEASE and the only way to quarantine is a spare

[Replica]

there is only one spare that can bring us salvation, only one man that will save us, this man's name is bingle

he does not yet realize or accept his destiny, but he must be made to

over all protests, over all insistences that he may want to stay

#SPAREBINGLE

he's like jesus but better

[Replica]

I have personally seen Bingle kiss a sickly, green-tinted baby on the forehead and watched as it became instantly enveloped in a golden glow, convalescing instantly into a heavenly model of life and vigor

[Replica]

okay you're right the glow was like, the most disgusting shade of orange and smelled like vomit and that's not how we like to think miracles look/smell but the baby was a little hercules out there running around

[Replica]

there is absolutely no way i will ever get the votes for this and i should be trying harder on hectic again instead of shitposting but i'm hiding behind it as a coping mechanism

[Replica]

I'm sorry popsofctown but I'm taking over as moderator effective immediately

This game is no longer an Undertale game, the flavor is changed IMMEDIATELY and new role PMs are headed your way

Mini Theme 2116 is officially a CATS: THE MUSICAL SEMI-OPEN GAME

Now, instead of spares, we are picking one very special Jellicle townsperson to get sent to the Heaviside Layer and granted a new life! Yay!

Fortunately, there is only one very special cat who is worthy of this great honor!

[Replica]

I've got a lot to tackle today, hopefully I'll be back in force tomorrow. Some housekeeping until then...

Ah, yeah, give town two free spares and you easily get your scum partner on the third. This would have been very trivial for you, Day 1, replacing in and getting almost universally scumread until people started assuming your reads were too bad and nonsensical to be scum.

Did you just say that i would be scumread for quicksparing town? Twice?

Did you just say that scumpartners could not put solid distance between each other and pilot the gamestate that way, in case i get scumread for my quickspare?

Did you just say that quickhammers in general are always lynched the day after their deed?

You misread this. The first sentence reduces the strategy you suggested you'd do. The second pointed out the absurdity of doing it in the context of

what your scenario was on replace-in

Day 1. The loaded questions are also really terrible and nonsensical even under your misinterpretation.

This clearly shows your evident lack of experience with this game and psychology in general. Good luck playing with the assumption that town is always good and scum is always bad. If you are town in this game, you're doing a terrible job with your reads and strategies. If you're scum in this game, you are actually being good at getting townread because you are displaying what looks like genuine frustration. That's just how wrong you are regardless of your sincerity in this post.

Normally this is the type of thing that you shouldn't bother responding to but given your repeated statements about skill and drive to prove yourself to others, it might be worth highlighting that...I really don't care in the same way. I think the validation or praise of others is almost completely worthless. I have declined to participate in any sort of nomination or award process for the last 9 years of the 10 I have played. I have always only played for myself, and only in the last year or so started enjoying the teamwork aspect/socializing with others in a mafia context.

In short, I'm pretty okay with being an inexperienced mafia player, and uh, not well-versed in psychology, compared to you. Thinking that your scumplay in this game would be poor really isn't a personal insult-especially in a game in which you are purportedly town-and the fact that you continue to take it as such is honestly humorous.

[Replica]

Amrun has actually turned into probably the best friend I have in this day, minus maybe Chara.

My preference for spares is Bingle -> Chara -> Amrun/Hectic. Amrun is never sparing Bingle which is unfortunate. It sounds like Hectic is the most likely, with Nacho/Chara also willing to spare there this should give us 5.

I really don't feel superb about Hectic but at some point I guess I just have to toss the dice again here. Even assuming I'm right on Farkran I don't think Hectic is 100% town even if it helps.

My lynch choice if there is no spare coalition is obviously Farkran, with being open to Chemist/Nacho/Psyche in that order if the alternative is a lynch on a TR (Sorry Amrun, not getting a Bingle vote from me)

[Replica]

I guess with Hectic I just really wish he had more depth to his reads; the angles he's taking with reads on Chara, Nacho, Farkran, me, etc. have all been very straightforward with a little progression but not much nuance/life to them. They're flat but plausible, which is what makes me think them very easily fabricated. He's not making mistakes if he's scum, he's just...not very town.

Chara I feel better about even if I'm not 100% confident. We should have 4 votes there between me, Amrun, Chara, and Hectic, 5th comes from ?. Nacho has them as a tier 2 townread over Hectic but I can't remember where Psyche/Chemist/Bingle would stand here.

[Replica]

under Hectic*

[Replica]

I really have no clue what is going on in Psyche's head but like, I guess I'll take it

[Replica]

what is happening

I dunno, but you had alimdia/Bingle slotted as null and not having read their ISOs and you could do both me and Amrun a huge favor by trying to sort them

[Replica]

Yeah I remember you waffling a few days ago, my confusion was more from the timing of it, given that it came shortly after my/Amrun's discussion and I think it's your first spare vote all day. "Open about it" also really just means open that it might have existed, less so than, like, actually trying to make a case for it.

The first thought that popped into mind was that were trying to run interference on a Hectic/Chara spare coalition but I don't think you'd be that blatant and I think you'd know it wouldn't really work.

[Replica]

Do...do you like Cats Chemist?

[Replica]

Looking at your readslist, it looks like you're thinking spare Farkran/Hectic or lynch Nacho. Are there any others you're thinking about?

That is very unfortunate, both in not wanting to spare Bingle and in not having seen the best movie of the 2010s, but if you change your mind please consider this your Formal Invitation to the Jellicle Ball

[Replica]

My seven ticket stubs from opening day are dated December 20th, 2019, and I have thirty five others bearing different day but same year

[Replica]

I know, and it kills me inside

[Replica]

Chara mysteriously disappearing from Hectic's spare pool is literally the worst and this slot is now awful but this day is on the brink of complete and total disaster

HEAL: Hectic
HURT: Farkran

[Replica]

Wait I missed a word Chara is there

[Replica]

Alright we're fine, this is FINE, haha WE ARE FINE

someone help

[Replica]

Pedit: i love how replica predicates that i am desperate, while also pushing a spare on a slot he isn't even townreading any more. Talk about being desperate to avoid a flip. Am i wrong on replica and the team is exactly Bingle/Replica? Oh my god.

? I don't remember calling you desperate.

This behavior is...exactly what you literally anyone, such as a Farkran who really believes I am town, would have expected. Farkran has seen that Bingle is my strong townread. Farkran knows I am adamantly against lynching and pro-sparing. Seeing that I call pushes to lynch Bingle+spare Farkran the "brink of disaster" should be the most expected thing in the world for town Farkran.

Instead...it's a chance to be performative and peddle more garbage.

[Replica]

I think that, if Chemist is scum, it has to be with me or Psyche. I see how you could buy a Chemist/Farkran team, but imagine a town!Farkran world for now - you will draw your conclusions later. I think it's possible that scum!Chemist would place a spare vote on me, hoping that the day would end differently. I can only see him partner with Psyche though, and i have little reason to scumread him.

Someone that is not Farkran please look me in the eye and tell me he can plausibly eliminate Chemist/Chara, who would have been one of the first pairings he thought of as town.

[Replica]

Yeah. Or scum!Replica in team with bingle. Why not? Why is lynching bingle "the brink of disaster", exactly?

"Why is lynching your top TR when you're vehemently anti-lynching the brink of disaster?"

Supposedly, this dude has thought I was hardtown the last, like, 30 pages.

[Replica]

Re: Bingle TR

I don't think I need to justify why lynching my top TR is a "disaster" and the fact that you're acting as though it were a scumslip for a me/Bingle team and would immediately lead to my scumloss, speaks for itself. Literally anyone who townreads me should not at all be surprised by that reaction. People don't have to townread me, but acting like THAT of all things is out of alignment with how I've been all game long is a hoot.

[Replica]

I have been very explicit that I want 4 spares but am willing to do 3 if town really wants, and very, VERY clear that I want the lynch later, ie. Day 3/4, and not sooner.

[Replica]

Friendly reminder that this dude again THOUGHT I WAS TOWN until I expressed horror at the thought of my repeatedly expressed townread and spare vote instead getting lynched.

[Replica]

So, right now you have enough confidence in yourself that:

- i am the worst player that ever existed, both as town because i have terrible reads, and as scum because you caught me immediately
- amrun has shit-level reads
- psyche is the worst town player that ever existed for giving momentum to my spare wagon
- bingle is so town that his flip will glow like pristine elucidated emeralds

So much that you are willing to:
- spare a slot you don't like over Chara or Bingle himself
- concede your strategy, that you promoted with such vehemency ever since you joined, by lynching a slot in d2

To prevent a bingle flip.

Yes, absolutely yes. Yes to all of these loaded questions and assertions.

Psyche if you're listening you are the worst town player I have ever encountered for this single read in a single game and I don't know how you live with yourself. You are rivaled only by Amrun, whose reads match up with mine completely minus one, because her reads are OBVIOUSLY SHIT

[Replica]

I went back to quote it only to realize I missed the "Am I wrong" part of "Am I wrong and the team is exactly Bingle/Replica"

Between that and missing the giant "Chara" in Hectic's post the lesson here is take a shower and put in your contacts when you roll out of bed instead of grabbing your phone first thing.

[Replica]

it was in RED goddamnit

[Replica]

lmao, this dude, of ALL PEOPLE, calls a potential TR lynch/SR spare the "brink of disaster" is being assertively manipulative.

first part still isn't worth responding to until someone else can't figure it out and asks me themselves

[Replica]

I really need to stop switching which grammatical structure I'm going for halfway through the sentence goddamn

it's SHOWER TIME i gotta get ready for the jellicle ball and my 98th viewing of cats in theater

[Replica]

In 4 spare, sparing a scum instantly tanks our chance of winning below 25%. The strength of the strategy comes from how likely all-town spares are. In 3 spare, sparing a scum means that they won't be forced to remove one. I do not want my strongest scumread spared. I would rather take the spare I'm not sure about but can get a coalition behind than risk a scumread being spared or a bad lynch going through.

Lynching at all removes the possibility of 4 spare. For 3 spare, lynching wrong wastes a mislynch. Lynching my strongest TR means it is both likely to be wrong FMPOV and removes my ideal spare candidate. If a lynch does happen, I want it to be on my top scumread, not on my top townread.

The fact that it does not instantly lose the game does not exclude the day being labeled a disaster. I really don't know how much more obvious I can make this.

[Replica]

What makes the level of Farkran's taking offense so repeatedly great is I'm the only one who says "I don't think he's a townsperson with horrendous reads and awful pushes, I think he's a scum who isn't executing his strategy well." I've said literally nothing about how good his play is if he's town; if I'm wrong I'm not even in a position to judge his reads to begin with. I'd have plenty I could say about his playstyle/points, but I'm not looking to go out of my way to either praise someone's town ability nor put it down. There's a reason I haven't sent verbal affirmations up to the good lord Nacho, the patron saint of townplay, about how good he is.

Other than one line at Nacho he hasn't blinked at all of the "these reads of Farkran's are batshit crazy he can't be scum" lines. Somehow me saying "Yeah if he's scum he's playing poorly imo" has caused the steam to rise considerably.

[Replica]

also Replica, i replied to your Bingle towncase and wanted to know if you had anything from this game.

I don't really have anything from Bingle, alimdia I was townleaning from this game alone but I'd have to go back and reread them. I also doubt there'd be anything "decisive" to show anyway in a vacuum.

I don't think I can sell the Bingle case; Nacho I was hoping would interpret the meta the same way but I had no expectations elsewhere. The reason I asked Chemist to just read the slot and see if he could sort them himself was because I'm banking on people independently coming to the same conclusion.

[Replica]

ie. I'm very confident that alimdia showed a much more investigative and pondering mindset than they have in their scumgames, and am pretty sure the slot is town for it.

I have seen nothing from Bingle that makes me say "Yeah this guy is totally town", and at this point trying to lay out a case for it would be working backwards.

[Replica]

I see mice in the flavor.

I see no Cats (2019) starring James Corden.

Therefore the posts and flavor, while well-written, funny, and made with love, completely disgust me.

This votecount is DISCARDED

(also sorry but Psyche is doublecounted I appreciate u despite ur resistance to the feline new world order I swear)

[Replica]

Some words from our good old pal and unfortunate Farkstan Nacho would be nice right about now.

[Replica]

Psyche is the dude who purposely orders your favorite food and then offers pieces to everyone at the table but you

I know why he's doing it but this is still torture

[Replica]

Most of the case is based on Almidia's meta and posting, which i also townreaded at the time, so i largely agree with that. Bingle is occupying the same slot, but is behaving very differently, and not in a good way. His resistance to engage with the gamestate, and his progression about slots and which strategy to use is not pristine either.

I don't see how Replica could be "feeling better" about the slot when he entered d2 sheeping me with a hurt vote on hectic (sheeping Replica's highest scumread, no less),

or at least not to the extent Replica is townreading him right now, i.e. describing his lynch as "the brink of disaster". The problem is not the townread itself, it's the level of confidence displayed.

I had not meta'd alimdia Day 1. The "feeling better" comment comes exactly at the time that I first chose to metadive alimdia.

What's individually scummy about the Almidia/Bingle slot is almost entirely Bingle. Replica, have you meta'ed Bingle (or Jingle)?

Nope. Read enough Jingle games to know the amount of effort here isn't worthwhile, unlike alimdia/Chemist/Sujimichi who were worth a shot.

Why do you find that much unreasonable that scum!Almidia was engaged enough with the game to produce good content, while scum!Bingle doesn't want to?

First, it's not about them being engaged enough, it was that the way they questioned players and sought to investigate their motives is a world removed from their scumgames. Second, Bingle shares the same alignment as alimdia, but that is all. If I don't have an alignment read on one, the other suffices. Third, willingness to reread correlates more with cynicism, experience, and flippant approaches to the game more than it does being scum.

Why is town!Replica so confident in town!Bingle that you can't even imagine a Bingle/Farkran solve, same as Amrun does? Can you explain town!Bingle sheeping scum!Farkran, or even town!Farkran for that matter, just to 180° both his Hectic read and his solve strategy, with Almidia meta alone?

The fact that I think Bingle town is extremely likely suggests that I would find any team with Bingle very implausible, yes. Me/Amrun fundamentally disagree on Bingle.

I don't find Bingle scummy. Going through your points, resistance to rereading is indicative of cynicism and not taking the game as seriously, which correlates heavily with how long you've been playing, moreso than alignment. The strategy is obviously in line with my own.

The only point I find here is really that he 180'd on Hectic, but looking at it he was early sheeping you, made it clear he didn't really scumread Hectic but was just rolling with his TR, then moved to sheeping Nacho and buying the meta case. That's not great, but I really don't see a reason to shift this read.

[Replica]

#1569 and #1571 lay out my thought process pretty clearly: I don't have many thoughts on Bingle, at least not about his alignment, but I don't really have to in order to read the slot. It's a bonus, and if he does anything to really outweigh the alimdia meta I'll revisit it, but for now....I don't see why I should doubt this slot, especially not over any other.

[Replica]

I'm still floored that I am actually being asked to justify why I think it would be a bad idea to follow my strongest scumread in a lynch on my strongest townread

[Replica]

Really Replica? Can you not

even imagine

a world where we are in fact both scum? Why are you opposing this lynch so much?

somebody please kill me

[Replica]

It's true, I'm really just killing time waiting for either of Nacho/Psyche to decide to put their weight behind something. Psyche's in a position to where he can get a Hectic spare if he wants, Nacho's in a position to remove that possibility, and Chemist is a wonderful wildcard that can make someone's dreams a reality but god only knows who.

[Replica]

Bingle can also get the Hectic spare iirc

[Replica]

Respectfully, I think the most concise point I can actually make on why Farkran is actually scum is that he has a horrible tendency to decide what he wants to push, then work backwards, rather than having any of it come about organically.

#1488 is a pretty prime example where he identifies Amrun is a crucial swingvoter, decides to sheep her, but then...makes a convoluted explanation to immediately back it rather than showing any sort of organic progression on Bingle over time. All of #1587 openly admits to looking to Amrun when in doubt, making me suspect the backwards motive even more. #1319 I explain why his timing on me was deeply questionable, and in #802 I go more indepth specifically on why the case he made at that time was working in reverse. #1416 I looked and found that overly convoluted, loaded explanations and sudden readturns were essentially Farkran's bread and butter his first scumgame.

[Replica]

I really need more from Nacho here, I'm just kind of treading water and should just take a break until he comes back.

[Replica]

The joke was that there is obviously a world in which you can bus. This is very, VERY different from finding that world plausible or worth pursuing.

[Replica]

both town!Bingle AND scum!Farkran

If the first is right, a Bingle flip is a terrible idea.

If the second is right, there are two possible worlds. The first is that you are bussing. A Bingle flip is fine. The second is that you are not bussing. A Bingle flip is a terrible idea. These are not equally probable worlds.

It's not logical AND, it's logical OR.

[Replica]

If neither are right, then yes, I have a huge problem...but of course you do when your two biggest reads are wrong. This does not mean "Let people lynch whoever lol"

[Replica]

Alright, it is time to PUT THE COMPUTER AWAY and GO OUTSIDE. If I post again before Chemist/Psyche/Nacho do something noteworthy someone slap me

[Replica]

It's a shame that there haven't been two or three people reading and engaging with Farkran's content significantly in more than a superficial manner, and a shame that no one has bothered to see how this game compares to his scum ones.

Chemist scum fits fine with my worldview that it's Farkran+one of you/Chemist/Psyche.

That was a lot of words basically stating...I want the same lynch and don't have any additional thoughts on anything at all. Bonus that for some reason you somehow think that appointing a crack squad of dedicated Farkran metadivers is the proper way to test his alignment, whereas for others the tool of choice is a lynch.

[Replica]

Like the fact that you say "With Bingle it takes time", whereas for Farkran it would just...take an entire team of dedicated Farkran readers...to justify why the lynch is acceptable for Bingle and not for Farkran.

[Replica]

Straight up lynching Chemist doesn't accomplish anything you're suggesting. He has so few associatives and is in nearly everyone's null pile minus your own. If he's scum it helps but if he's town it basically tells us jackshit. How that flip would solve anything between me/Farkran, who have discussed nothing about him at all, is a complete mystery to me. It tests your read and basically only your read.

[Replica]

It is a very good thing that I explicitly said I wasn't comfortable making a case based off of meta, and instead was just highlighting that it suggests there's 0 reason to townread the slot for his pushes or convoluted bad points.

I don't blame you for not wanting to ram your head into the wall a thousand times but yeah, I absolutely expect better than a glorified proddodge. Chemist lynch isn't awful but inherently-on account of his playstyle-has little basis. This is a dude we are probably going to have to PoE. You were the one that townread his Pine/Asreel reads to begin with, I had to

point out to you

how awful townreading him for it was before you kicked it in reverse. I do not see the strength on Chemist at all and do not see why his townflip will say literally anything to anyone except that your scumread was wrong.

There is plenty more to do for you that doesn't involve me/Farkran at all. It's called actually trying on Bingle, actually trying on Amrun, actually trying on Chara, actually questioning people and trying to get into their heads, or actually trying to sell us a lynch with something that is not blatantly self-centered garbage.

[Replica]

Like, now you say you want another day to dig deeper, and I hope you deliver. There was 0 reason from your posts earlier to suspect you were going to do anything else today other than go through the voting flowchart.

Bingle just got here today. There's a chance he does something that make people change his mind on him. That's not going to happen on Farkran; either people on one side of the fence get taken out of the game or people convince other people on his alignment; I don't think that engaging him on things is particularly useful since it's just more of the same.

And like, this goes completely against your point-this gives much more reason to test my or Farkran's alignment via lynch than Bingle's, who can be townread or scumread at a moment's notice than permanently sitting in the controversial, divided ether.

You say you've solved this game but I see literally no reason to think you, Nacho, have believed yourself to have solved this game. There is 0 passion, 0 investigation, 0 initiative, and 0 doublechecking beyond "we'll see when Chemist flips"

[Replica]

I missed the point a bit earlier that you did want the extra day for Bingle, even if you're still willing to lynch him. I guess that's fine.

Rest stands.

[Replica]

That kill makes no sense, I'm highkey mad it wasn't me, and this means another day of Cats (2019) for everybody.

I'm probably looking to spare Bingle today then lynch in Fark/Chemist/Nacho tomorrow.

[Replica]

I guess in honor of Psyche I actually have to try to read Amrun for alignment now instead of coasting off of us having similar reads

Thanks, I hate it

[Replica]

Sparing been the right avenue for winning but it has absolutely not the right move for my sanity

I am learning this the hard way as I stare down into the abyss, the thought of actually being alive Day 4 with all 3 of Chemist/Nacho/Fark

I willingly voted to remove Sujimichi and Hectic from the game. I did this. I personally chose to do this.