Newbie 2050 | The End

[RayFrost]

VOTE: Malakittens

I'm voting you, as you're the only person here who could possibly remember who I am.

That won't do. I need to maintain my air of mystery. The 2009 should be

ominous

[RayFrost]

In reverse, I don't think what Alice said is particularly suspect. It's not the greatest reasoning because other people gave reasons (myself included), but people get feelings all the time. Having a dislike of a specific type of reason for this part of the game is fair.

I find Crab going "oh yeah I can totally see that" when Alice's reasoning is far from sound is more suspect to me.

UNVOTE: Malakittens

VOTE: Exquisite Crab

Harumi, is there a reason that you're suspicious of Alice, but you have no suspicion of crab who just sat on Alice's reasons without any of his own? I'd say it's flimsier to back up someone's flimsy reasons than to have flimsy reasons themselves.

Also, Alice: you said you dislike random voting but decided to go along with it anyway. Why do you dislike random voting, and why did you go along with it if you're not a fan of it to begin with?

[RayFrost]

Also, Alice: you said you dislike random voting but decided to go along with it anyway. Why do you dislike random voting, and why did you go along with it if you're not a fan of it to begin with?

I don't like random voting, because well... it is random, so it doesn't give any value. Often you can't distinguish if a person is still in rvs or started suspecting someone.

Well everyone before me voted someone, each one different person, I just held the pattern. I don't know how people would react if an only person would act differently. That's an easy way to being sus.

While being seen as suspect

is

something that should be avoided, I don't think that's reason enough to feel obligated to follow everyone's lead. Why do you feel it's necessary to do what everyone else does?

I acted differently, voting malakittens, and nobody reacted with particular suspicion. (I mean, surfer mentioned very slight suspicion off that, but that's too minor to be worth mentioning) Do you find me suspicious for doing so?

[RayFrost]

Hi Charles,

Thanks for being present in the thread.

Do you have anything to add to the current discussion that is actually related to the

relevant

discussion a bit more than defending your comedic ability and asking a question about an edit?

Perhaps... a reaction to some of the more "serious" votes? I'll ask the parrot if you don't want to talk.

[RayFrost]

Mod: If we could get a votecount at your earliest convenience, that would be most appreciated. I'm having trouble keeping track at this point.

Hey Malakittens,

It has been a while, but I don't think that's an excuse to ignore what I've pointed out so far. I thought we were friends. A penny for your thoughts about crab.

I dislike suspecting people based on replacing out. Replacement is not a directly game-related mechanic. It should be ignored with regards to reading people, as there's any number of reasons that replacement can be requested by someone (and going too deep down that rabbit hole has unhealthy consequences). I'm somewhat disappointed that your primary suspect comes from that.

Unless you had something deeper?

--

On Martian's entrance, I don't have any particularly bad feelings about it at this time. I think the level of confidence is cute, really, but not scummy. I think it's early to be saying the game's over in earnest, but simply saying it can create some content to read people with is useful. Everyone's reactions have been

enlightening

.

Martian, what are your thoughts about crab?

What are your feelings about Harumi?

--

Volxen:

welcome to the thread in earnest! What are your thoughts about my thoughts about crab? Your vote from the random voting stage is still on Harumi. Do you think Harumi is scummy, or is the vote there because you haven't decided where you actually want to put it?

What are your feelings about charles separate from the people currently voting him?

--

Harumi:

You said you'd wait another RL day to make a reads list, and that's fine. I would like to know if you think your vote on Alice is the correct place for it right now. Do you really think Alice is the most suspect right now? I don't care much for getting people's town reads (I feel it favors mafia to share this information, personally), but what would you say are you two strongest

scum

reads? Why?

[RayFrost]

Please never use yellow as the color of choice again.

[RayFrost]

Lunar's post here is a very clear posting of "why I voted charles", so I don't feel that your read on him should be as strong as it is.

I also, as stated previously,

hate

using replacement as a basis for any suspicion. Replacement is not something you do with relation to a game. And the level of pressure wasn't even as great as people are trying to make it out to be. The slot got like... two questions? Compare that to me harping about crab, and it's not even the same level. And crab hasn't even posted for me to dig deeper.

Hello everyone

VOTE: volxen
For no reason.

Hi RayFrost,

It is still pretty early for me to have strong reads on people, but I like your vote on Exquisite Crab.

The first post feels like it's overexplaining the RVS vote, which suggests there's a guilty conscience behind it. It's possible that a nervous Town would do the same, but it's more likely that Mafia would feel nervous. The second post buddys/sheeps RayFrost's read on Crab, but doesn't do anything to solve the game. In fact, the other three posts are devoid of any game-related content, so Charles is yet to do anything at all to try and solve the game, including flat out refusing to attempt to have reads.

[RayFrost]

While I don't agree with your assessment, I don't think it's necessarily a wrong assessment. Just one I don't share the view of at this time. Thank you for elaborating.

My priority for now is crab, though I have expressed concerns (primarily in the form of questions) about other players.

[RayFrost]

Quick note: Malakittens is female. Please be mindful of people's pronouns.

I'm working right now, but this game's momentum is somewhat hurt by lack of activity / need for replacements / etc. I'm limiting my posting right now specifically because I don't feel I have much to add that isn't repeating myself, and I'm not trying to clog the thread with more redundant posts that a potential replacement for crab + replacement for charles would have to deal with reading.

If you have specific questions or things you want me to comment on, bring it up. I am reading.

[RayFrost]

Fair enough. I'm posting to acknowledge that I've read what you wrote, and I don't have any real disagreement with what you're saying.

What are your feelings re: Lunar's posting up to this point?

Is there anything from the reads lists that you feel a particular disagreement / concern about?

[RayFrost]

Since it's looking like crab is likely to be replaced, I'm going to UNVOTE: Exquisite Crab

I'm still formulating some reads, and the potential interactions from Charles' and Crab's slots are important to finalizing some intial feelings.

[RayFrost]

Is that the entirety of what you have to contribute to this thread after 5 pages of content have been added, votes have been made, stances have been expressed, questions have been asked and answered, etc?

This was the most underwhelming "return" to the game you could have mustered.

[RayFrost]

Alice even expressly states in previous posts that they are suspicious of Lunar.

Have you actually read the thread? Do you have your

own

thoughts to contribute?

Who do

you

think is mafia?

[RayFrost]

Okay, so this is the time I indiscriminately hammer without waiting for anything right? I think that's new site meta. Smile

I do think everyone is reading a

little

too hard into trying to make connections between players at this stage of the game. I'd rather focus on individual tells than try to make connection-based reasoning with no flips and no confirmed information to work with.

Putting too much focus on "A could be connected to B and C" and sharing that in thread can actually hurt the town, as it shares information with mafia that could help them decide who to nightkill based on the "connections" people are seeing. I would like to request that we hold back on our "I think x and y are connected, but y and z may also be connected, so my primary focus is y" type of reasoning if possible. You can think it, but please refrain from sharing it for this game day.

----

RE: Disliking volxen's vote. I don't think it's bad. In light of crab's "exquisite" return of the game, I actually like it. (Obviously volxen voted first, but still)

I think it's strange that Lunar's vote parking on someone literally replacing out of the game (charles) while harping on Volxen's vote (which has more value just by its nature in voting someone that isn't guaranteed to leave the game).

I also don't understand why malakittens is okay with the above. I would enjoy an explanation.

I would like to explicitly state that I currently still do not suspect Lunar of being mafia greater than I suspect crab.

VOTE: Exquisite Crab

I took it off since I assumed crab would be leaving the game. This is quite clearly not the case.

Can we please not let crab literally skate by sitting his vote from random voting stage parked onto Lunar's slot and keeping Lunar at a closer-than-necessary level of lynchable?

This is ridiculous.

[RayFrost]

Mod: I'd like to request an extension of the deadline in light of needing a replacement of Charles.

[RayFrost]

Lunar: Your vote on charles is on a slot that is going to be replaced. Are you still more confident in that vote than a vote on anybody else in the game?

Like, say, crab?

[RayFrost]

Paopao promising thoughts "soon" and then not providing them at all is annoying, but nothing I've seen in the recent posts changes my mind about thinking that crab is the best lynch.

[RayFrost]

I'd like to be put on record stating that I strongly believe that posting a list of reads at the

end

of a game day serves more to hurt town than to benefit it.

You're feeding your thoughts primarily to those interacting at night, which is limited to power roles (who we should trust to have their own reads) and mafia.

The mafia are the informed minority and can use reads lists as a way to more precisely trim kills on town in a way that enables their plans for future game days.

[RayFrost]

Additionally, I think that end of day reads also aren't particularly helpful because people's views of the game should change post-flip (both from the lynch and the kill pending potential doctor protection etc) given the nature of confirmed information.

[RayFrost]

Can you please read the game and then post things instead of doing one liners about things with little context and ignoring like 75% of the people in the game in the process?

Thanks.

[RayFrost]

I don't need town reads. I do need to know who you think is mafia. Which is easier for me when it's not stream of consciousness.

For clarity: you think lunar is mafia because he's being defensive?

[RayFrost]

For new players who may be reading this, self-hammering is never the correct choice for any role that is not favored by their own death (jester, wild role games, etc).

If you're going to be lynched, take the lynch from someone else rather than "saving time" or whatever. From your perspective, you can always provide more to your faction by living on to a new game day even if the other players don't share that perspective.

Even if you're running the risk of no lynch, that's favorable to lynching yourself if you're town as there will at least be night play that can shift the layout of the game, and your insight will be able beneficial to helping sort people in the following game day.

[RayFrost]

Also a note, the mod has a strict bah post limit. Only noting this so cook doesn't get in trouble from an outside the specifics of the game perspective.

[RayFrost]

I don't agree or understand the logic of that, but I'll humor you.

Looking it up, my closest relation to Krazy was that he replaced into a bastard mod game after I died in 2011.

With that said, I don't think night kill analysis this early serves a purpose. Making assumptions on the mafia's logic in their kills, especially with no flips and so little information, is the type of rabbit hole that distracts from actually figuring anything out and gives mafia a free way to avoid actual, intentional hunting. Please don't do night kill speculation this early.

Why do you think Mala is mafia?

I'm going to hold back from making statements about who I think is what currently, as I haven't had time to review the game with how busy my work week has been. I have tentative concerns about a couple of playerslots, but I'd prefer to say those thoughts after I've seen how they enter this game day.

[RayFrost]

Malakittens - Can you reword your post? I am really struggling with comprehending the final sentence, specifically.

An SE is Mafia. Maybe both. My guess would be Mala, but I'm not sure. SEs: what is your relation to Krazy, and would you kill him?

I played some games with Krazy and in some games that he modded back in 2019. I would nightkill a townread player from day one over Krazy.

Why do you think that the Krazy nightkill points to Mala being scum?

I'm not a fan of self-meta posts like this. Why did you feel the need to defend yourself in this way?

[RayFrost]

Vote: Harumi

I'm working so I can't give a detailed thing right now. Stay tuned.

Also, yes, this post is being made instead of me doing my reasoning and explanation with the vote because I thought it'd be funny. The vote itself is serious.

[RayFrost]

So, I'm going to start off by answering the first question you probably have, which is "why not lunar?"

My answer to which is I do not think Lunar is mafia. Instead of looking at what you think of as poor or missing logic from Lunar, I ask you to look at what would

motivate

Lunar to post in the way that they're doing currently. Does it make sense for a mafia member to be so polarizing to start the day off, essentially putting themself into the spotlight, after a rough start to the game day 1 where they were under suspicion?

On top of that, if we're assuming Lunar is mafia, why would Lunar pick Mala of all people to antagonize? There's lower hanging fruit to try and focus. Even if you're only looking at the SEs, Volxen would be an easier target for MafiaLunar to focus. If you look outside of the SEs, you could argue that either of Alice / Harumi would be an "easier" target than Mala depending on your personal views of them.

Now, you could say "well, MafiaLunar's not angling at [player] because they're mafia together" but that only works for one player.

Further still, why would MafiaLunar, who has previous experience with Krazy, try to use experience with Krazy as the metric for why the kill makes sense?

It does not make sense to me to find suspicion in a player's behavior simply because it is at odds with the way you think the game should be played or handled.

I won't disagree that some of Lunar's methods are perhaps anti-town in nature. But anti-town and mafia are different things.

[RayFrost]

Now, on to why Harumi:

I ask you, what has Harumi contributed to this game?

A theory disagreement with Alice which was more distracting than revealing.

Some point scoring[

A reads list which essentially boiled down to "these people are not people I'm trying to push right now and they've posted, so they're town" - "neutral for not posting" - "Lunar's a popular vote right now, so I'm going to follow what other people say" and "this seems like an easy target"

Most of Harumi's posting attacks the argument but doesn't truly assign mafia motivation to the player

This post looks like someone trying to get points (

my

reads are based off of multiple posts!).

"We have to punish mistakes like these!" has to be one of the more blatant "making an excuse for when this person flips town" posts I've seen. "You couldn't possibly suspect

me

for voting them. After all, they was playing so badly. We had to get rid of them, for the good of the town!"

Harumi only gives up on trying to argue with Lunar when Lunar stops, even though it had passed the point of productivity. Which shows a desire to generate more noise (and score more points).

Harumi "doesn't like" crab's entrance but also sees someone they can push off to the following day and wants to try and push the Lunar lynch through on day 1 instead. This type of posting allows Harumi to sit back without contributing to the discussion.

Then, when the momentum of the Lunar lynch seems to be dying, Harumi's suddenly is all for moving over to crab as the tide (oceanic pun intended) seems to be shifting.

Harumi is consistently behind other people when it comes to pushing or suspecting players.

This "you were doing okay at the end of D1" stuff is superfluous. Harumi's vote on crab was almost unexplained and born from seeing other people vote crab and seeing that a Lunar lynch wasn't going to go through. The "he was looking a little bit better" in day 1 is just a light, touch-once excuse for the vote swap when it happened, and we can see how easily Harumi switches back.

[RayFrost]

Even in the vote on Lunar itself, we don't see Harumi truly interacting with what Lunar posted.

Even with interactions happening between Lunar and Harumi, we don't see Harumi interacting.

Harumi's interactions, unless directly poked (and even sometimes when directly poked) is more hands-off than is actually reasonable.

Most of the posts that aren't of this nature are superfluous, low-hanging fruit style points without much substance when it comes to proper mafia hunting. The noise to signal is high, and I think it's intentional.

[RayFrost]

Making your reads credible isn't done by trying to point out how credible they are.

Your vote for crab was literally you responding to Alice saying "I don't think crab's going to talk" with "well then I'll vote him to motivate" - which is as close you can get to a non-reason you can get to hop onto the bandwagon.

You then didn't respond to anything cook said in thread - no analysis of his posts, nothing. Instead, you just go "isn't deadline here?" and "nobody can think of a way to switch off you without seeming idiotic/scummy"

Which is a weird way to frame it. Personally, I like to think people stick to votes because they believe in the vote. People don't argue against votes they agree with. Not a matter of optics. But you seem very focused on optics.

Maybe you're just unlucky when it comes to post timing, but when a player's consistently behind on things and following the momentum of the town with little that seems to go against consensus, it appears to be coasting mafia to me.

I'm not going to try and convince you that you're mafia, as that would be a silly back and forth argument that fills the thread with more noise. I'll let everybody else check in with what they think, instead.

[RayFrost]

I'm still not the type of person who enjoys calling scumteams and looking for connections until I get a confirmed flip.

Instead of doing the scumteam analysis, how about your thoughts about what I said about Harumi?

[RayFrost]

I actually slightly suspicious of RayFrost right now.

That's great and all, but are you actually going to say anything of substance in response to what I posted or what?

[RayFrost]

Statue, are you wanting me to post a

full

readlist including my town reads?

You know I'm against that, but I will if you're

really, really

wanting me to.

[RayFrost]

And I'm only willing to bend on this because I like you. Surfing pikachu is awesome.

[RayFrost]

I feel like a lot of the narrative here is that Lunar is anti-town, therefore they should be lynched.

I prefer to look at how I'd expect mafia to try to play in a general sense:

slightly

pro-town, but with narrow vision to minimize connections / slip ups. Trying to keep as many options open as possible to be able to slip to and from bandwagons. Trying to keep a low enough profile to avoid notice on their behavior.

Obviously, people break from this, but the motivation to avoid notice is a big one because it's the simplest way to get by, relatively speaking. If you're too noticeable, you suffer from one of the two extremes: "he's so town but he's still alive???" or "he's so obviously mafia let's get this guy out of here."

I personally feel that harumi is the best fit for my expected behavior with variance to account for the overall lower level of activity from this playerlist than is probably normal in most games these days.

The argument between Harumi and Lunar this past page is essentially a rehash of their argument they had day 1 just with different words, and it doesn't really impact my read much on either of them.

[RayFrost]

I do agree with Lunar's assessment that the fact Harumi "promised" to do a dive on Lunar but, for some reason, didn't feel motivated enough to do it until after being pushed near lynch threshold is additional reason to be suspect.

You should'nt need spurring on to do something that you perceive to increase the chances of a lynch on a mafia member.

[RayFrost]

I still have to do a reread through the previous day and see what doesn't track, but I want to start the day off with this before people get too into things:

We are currently 6 alive, 4 town, 2 mafia.

If we lynch incorrectly here, we run a very high risk of losing the game (obviously, the kill could be prevented again, but we should not be banking on this).

So, we should

not

be lynching today unless we have

100% confidence

in the result.

There's two paths we can take with this game day with the no lynch in mind: one is we massclaim today. The other is we massclaim the following game day.

I personally feel that massclaiming today is best, as it avoids the risk of our power role(s) dying before they can share their information, but I'm willing to discuss either option.

I don't know how it's handled these days, but in my day we liked to do it popcorn style.

A popcorn style massclaim is where the town as a whole "votes" for the person they think is most likely to be mafia to claim first (as the earlier mafia claim, the less information they have to fakeclaim), and then that player decides who claims next (typically also choosing the person they suspect the most) until every player in the game has claimed.

Is anybody against this?

[RayFrost]

I believe I'm the last claim, and I don't counterclaim anything here.

I'm VT.

[RayFrost]

I have been fairly busy this weekend with work overflow. I'll be doing my analysis and actual content posting fully tomorrow night, Japan-time.

I don't agree with Volxen that the best play is to no lynch today. Reason being that mafia still have more control over the night game than the day game, and we aren't likely to get more information from the passing of a night phase than we currently have. Normally, I'd push for a no lynch, but given the spread of power roles, our likelihood of being able to gain anything isn't higher with the presence of a potential roleblocker (if we assume volxen is town and not fake claiming).

The most likely outcome from that scenario is that malakittens dies, and then we're set back to today's amount of information + the loss of a confirmed pro-town perspective on the game.

[RayFrost]

VOTE: StatueSurfer

Case with post links Coming Soon^TM, but I wanted to get this out so that people are aware that I'm present.

[RayFrost]

VOTE: Unvote

Just realized I was being silly.

[RayFrost]

So, I unvoted not because I think my read on Statue is wrong but rather because I acknowledge that I'm not perfect and don't want to risk coinflipping the game with both mafia immediately jumping onto the vote.

Obviously, if one of the mafia in this hypothetical scenario is Lunar (I highly doubt Lunar's mafia, but etc), it's not possible for the insta-lynch to happen. So it'd have to be exactly alice + volxen, which means no roleblocker (with volxen having fakeclaimed tracker), so it'd come down to whether mala could guess correctly which one does the kill come nightfall.

I'm not interested in the game going that direction simply because I was sloppy with my vote in a late game scenario.

Now, on why I think Statue is mafia:

This sequence of posts from Statue has a funky little dynamic.

Statue goes from "What alice said isn't compelling and is suspect" and "I find Ray suspicious, and I guess maybe Crab's suspicious, too but not really"

to

"Yeah, Alice actually made sense. Haha I thought it too. It was a test." and "What Ray said is such solid reasoning to suspect this person even though I thought it was hardly noteworthy to start with."

Using the "time since posting" reasoning to suspect someone is one of the easiest cop-outs possible. Inactivity is not inherently an alignment tell. You previously barely found Crab noteworthy, but then someone vocal says stuff about it, and you go "yeah. What he said!"

And it's a technique Statue uses in this game day and in other posts as well (like that one vote applies some ~magical pressure~ on me to post?). It's performative.

Statue's earliest "strong" read starts off, in game day 1, with suspecting someone on the basis of what is essentially just connection-based reading without confirmation. It's a lot more likely for mafia to throw this kind of thing out willy nilly because they're very focused on controlling the connections they can be seen to have. While it's not directly a Freudian slip, it is in the same family. I also have already explained my view on why it's anti-town.

Having "scum reads" on multiple people at the same time is basically just going "here's all the players I see as low-hanging fruit that I could shift my vote to if it's convenient for me."

When looking at Statue's posting more closely, it seems like there's a lot more smearing of dirt on other players than actually trying to figure out the game. Take this post where we can already see Statue softening the stance on Lunar. "I'm not as confident in this read as I might seem" and "you're making some good points" reads to me as "maybe you're not as free a lynch as I thought, and I might choose to shift my attention elsewhere."

This post is reaching for any point to put against Lunar.

This post has appeasement aimed at me to avoid suspicion (not gonna lie, it kinda worked), and then we see the shift to cook. Instead of any attempts to gain clarity from cook, Statue just goes with the town narrative that the slot is mafia. Completely gives up on trying to get the town to go with the Lunar lynch despite being oh so certain that Lunar was mafia.

Even this reads post shows an overall softening of Statue's positions. This is convenient toward what I can see as the planned narrative: "I was so hard on the Lunar lynch D1, I think it's an easy push D2, let's get it." And then the rest are slotted into "I think they're lynchable" outside of the town leans and "I don't think they're easy to lynch" in the town reads (with one stand out that's not like the others - I'll be referring to this later).

Statue took 4 days to post! In Statue time, that's basically a mafia claim in thread. (Yes, I am poking fun.)

Also, the reasoning for voting Lunar is essentially canned. There was a small add-on in response to the way Lunar started Game Day 2, but it's hardly a case.

It doesn't appear to me like Statue actually

looked

at the rest of the players over the night phase. There was no change in light of the flips. There was... nothing. Just a dusting of the hands and a return to business going after Lunar.

The only reason that gets shaken up is the fact that I post a case (mistaken) against Harumi. Someone that Statue claimed to have in the "town lean" section alongside me. Yet that "townlean" just gets... swept aside because there's an opportunity to mislynch a townie that seemed difficult to lynch before.

And this post doesn't even provide any individual analysis of Harumi. In fact, there's no analysis of Harumi from Statue at all. Just sheeping of my read. And this vote looks like a "what if I just... tip the scales a little here... maybe it'll go this way?"

Thinking about it from a statue-as-mafia perspective, this is actually pretty reasonable. The lunar lynch was on the verge of happening. That should be easy to push in the following game day. Just repeat the same thing that's been said for the past two game days. What could go wrong? If you regurgitate it enough times, it'll have to take eventually.

More antsy activity commentary in this post. The pairing analysis is whatever to me.

There is one thing that I don't like.

Statue asks for a full reads list from Mala. As mafia, this makes sense to get from a jailkeeper. With it, you can assess which people Mala would be likely to target come night 3. This would make it easier to dodge a jailkeep and have the game actually end after a mislynch.

We should be asking for mala to publicly assess the

individual

she thinks is mafia in this game day and that's it.

The less she shows of her hand, the better it is for us as town to have a shot at winning the game.

[RayFrost]

Also, I said I'd be referring to something later. Later is not in that post and not right now.

[RayFrost]

Not voting you on the off-chance that I'm wrong is a reasonable choice. It at the very least gives other people time to contribute to the thread if I'm wrong. Even if I don't think I'm wrong, being open to the possibility will avoid the whole issue of tunnel vision.

Honestly, I considered Volxen as the likely buddy (that was actually what the note was about in my previous post), but with how strong you're trying to push

away

from the possibility of it being Alice, it makes me lean toward Alice being more likely. Perhaps a bit on the WIFOMy side, but eh. I haven't done a deep dive into Alice's posts vs Volxen's posts to really get into it, but that's also something I can look at the following game day.

Fair enough on me misreading the "slightly less slight" sentence. I had to read it twice after you mentioned it to even realize I'd missed the second slight. Sometimes, my reading isn't too good after work.

The "performative" comment is about your focus on people's ~activity levels~ weighing so heavily on your reads on people. Maybe it's just you coming from a different, more real-time meta like you mentioned. Maybe it's just an easy way to shift things around. I think the latter is more likely than the former.

I'm not expecting you to have confirmation on day 1. I'm noting that ~connection reads~ without any confirmed information is superfluous at best. Like you admitted yourself, it's grasping.

Going after me at this point isn't about low-hanging fruit. It's about reading the room: I'm

going

to town read Lunar, as I already have been. Trying to convince me to vote for Lunar is going to be a lot harder than trying to convince other people. You've already shown a pattern of trying to catch both mafia without a flip in previous posting, so you'll be forced to say

someone

for the sake of consistency. And whoever you do say will be antagonized and less likely to vote with you. So, choose the person who you know isn't going to vote with you to begin with.

By pushing so hard on Lunar days 1 / 2, you as mafia can't rightly shift away from the read and let it die. So, you're stuck in a bad position of having to deal with it the best you can. It's tough. I sympathize.

The small shade you've thrown Alice is minimal, and the lack of any real bite behind the interactions between the two of you combined with Alice's random scum read on me when I stated I thought Lunar was town reads as Alice-as-Mafia reacting with frustration to things not going as planned. Furthering my belief that it's probably you two, though I haven't done a deep dive on "if Statue is mafia" yet.

You don't tell cook to save himself. You tell cook "if you don't convince me, I'm going to vote." They're different things.

RE: Not hammering Lunar on d2... removing Lunar from the game would force you to have to look at the rest of the playerlist in a more concrete fashion (as you didn't have anything concrete that wasn't Lunar), which makes the game harder for you to play. If you give the Harumi wagon a day, there's a chance that the momentum it gained will die from events over the night phase. My read likely caught you off guard and by surprise, and you wanted to take advantage of it while you could. Alice being the hammer on the slot only makes it make more sense to me instead of less.

[RayFrost]

Also, Mafia-Statue would want more activity because you'd be desperate to get the town to read your side of things and agree with it before a lot of activity can happen overall. You

need

the inactive players to vote with you.

Admittedly, Town-Statue would want the same thing, but I don't think you'd be so concerned about it happening before I had the opportunity to post anything in-depth (because you'd be standing righteously in the knowledge that you're town). That's just my take on it, though.

[RayFrost]

Oh, hello Alice.

Is that all that you have to contribute to this thread?

I see a pattern.

[RayFrost]

Alice, that's simply not correct in this case.

If you think that Volxen is town (which your statements make it seem like you do), then there's a roleblocker on the mafia team. Going into night essentially guarantees that Malakittens dies in that case.

If you don't think Volxen is town, then you're still running a gamble that Malakittens can jailkeep the mafia member that is designated to kill her.

In either case, our average result is Malakittens dies. This is bad for us.

[RayFrost]

This chain of logic is really confusing, Alice.

You think Lunar is town, you think Volxen is town, you think Statue is town, you think Mala is town.

So... there's only one mafia left or?

[RayFrost]

Okay. So, it's not mafia vs mafia.

If you had to choose one, who do you

think

is mafia in that case?

You think I'm confirmed to be mafia here, so who's my partner?

[RayFrost]

I debated with myself for a while on whether I'm confident enough to just bet the entire game on my vote here, and... I think I just have to go for it.

Vote: StatueSurfer

Either way this goes, good game everyone.

[RayFrost]

Good game, everyone.

[RayFrost]

I'm okay with the mafia private thread being publicly viewable.

[RayFrost]

The goal was to make sure people thought it was one or the other of us.

[RayFrost]

By that stage of the game, there was no feasible world where I get lynched by virtue of the fact Lunar was 100% on the Statue / Volxen read (but preferred statue), and Statue was 100% on the Lunar / Ray read (but preferred lunar). Mala wasn't going to look at me with any suspicion, and she wasn't going to live to see the following game day either.

You might've had a better chance of pushing for me if you went deeper than "he had mostly neutral interactions in day 1."

I would've pushed for the "taking a leadership position gives him the freedom to direct momentum and people's attention toward the things he wants. He doesn't talk about [volxen, etc] very often, but he's very willing to react to and interact with [lunar, statue] a lot. He doesn't actively push to follow up any of his questions toward people. Each question is an individual prod and then mostly ignoring the player afterward, which shows he's not really interested in the response. The mafia read on Statue is convenient to his narrative, but the way he talks about it as if he knows what Statue's thinking is strange. Putting thoughts into other people's heads / words in their mouth is an easy way to prime players to read things from your perspective, and it's also very hard to defend against without actually having a sound basis."

[RayFrost]

It was a fairly good theory, honestly.

I couldn't exactly push for it being reasonable, though. And the less I actively supported you (I could've put way more into backing up your ideas), the easier it was for people to continue to suspect you. Sorry, not sorry.

[RayFrost]

The balance for town is to focus on finding mafia without seeming like mafia yourself.

You were doing okay on the "focus on solving the game" bit but were a little too loose with the "seeming town" part of things.

Cooperation and a lil bit more energy into having people understand your point of view can really improve your success, me thinks.

[RayFrost]

By that stage of the game, there was no feasible world where I get lynched by virtue of the fact Lunar was 100% on the Statue / Volxen read (but preferred statue), and Statue was 100% on the Lunar / Ray read (but preferred lunar). Mala wasn't going to look at me with any suspicion, and she wasn't going to live to see the following game day either.

You're selling me a

little

short here... it's true I did think Volxen was town, but I definitely wasn't

100%

sold on it. It would've depended on his D4 result (which ended up being completely irrelevant). And honestly if I hadn't been turboed D4 I probably would've pushed you over Lunar (since it was obvious you were buddying Lunar, which only scum would do, while there was still a way, way outside chance that Lunar was town).

Of course even if I had done the smart thing and pushed you over Lunar, there's no chance he would've gone along with it, so the game was pretty much lost by D3.

Who would've thought the game-losing move was not hammering a town player...

It was a fairly good theory, honestly.

I couldn't exactly push for it being reasonable, though. And the less I actively supported you (I could've put way more into backing up your ideas), the easier it was for people to continue to suspect you. Sorry, not sorry.

Kind of funny I got suspicious of you based on an associative read with a townie... I actually caught onto the apparent connection between you and Lunar at the end of D2, but I didn't make an issue out of it because 1) I wanted to see Harumi flipped and 2) I feaed if I was right, I would get NKed.

That Harumi thing was something else entirely... in hindsight it's easy to see a lot of that "scumminess" was just noob mistakes.

The main point was that going into day 3, nobody saw me and volxen as being a likely scumteam. People suspected one or the other of us but not both.

This meant that, when it came down to people throwing scumteams around, there could always be a voice on one end of the push saying "we should lynch person Z instead of [our mafia teammate]" even without saying those exact words. You can see it with Volxen's behavior in going "hmm, yes, I could see this lunar + ray team I suppose... vote: lunar."

This was made easier by how much you and lunar antagonized each other. Lunar's lack of transparency versus your desire for full transparency, and the resulting arguments from that, meant you two were primed to go for each other if you thought the lynch was likely to succeed. Alice voicing suspicion of me probably opened you up more to pushing me in Day 4, though it was a little late.

Either the mislynch happens on day 3, and we win because I kill malakittens, or I'm asleep when the vote would've been possible, the no lynch happens, and we get a repeat on the day (because, like I said in a very reasonable way during the game, the no lynch does nothing for town).

Something that might've been a decent tip-off would be the fact that neither Volxen nor myself really tried to defend ourselves against the reads on us. We just pushed who we were pushing. As town, you should

want

people to not suspect you, so even if you think the person arguing that you're mafia is in fact mafia themselves, debunking their arguments allows you to more easily convince other townies to vote with you. Whereas mafia know they're mafia, and you can see that a bit more clearly in hindsight with how we both just took sides on arguments.