Halloween Mafia 2021 - The Party Trap - Day 7

[Wam]

@wam, why do you find Sniper to be scum? What's changed since your null read on him?

viewtopic.php?p=7165#p7165

I went back and forth on the reads list above this morning. I'm getting vibes of a newbie scum trying to make a reads list without showing TMI. Its missing what would expect from a newbie town but I can't articulate what it is missing.

[somitomi]

Note that somitomi avoided answering Heury’s question. Negative.

Um, no I didn't, it's right under the part you quoted, phrased as a reaction to a remark Wam made.

Looking at everything that's gone on so far...
[snip]

Can you try ordering people from most townie to most scummy? I find that this usually helps when I have a bunch of neutral reads.

BoomFrog was expected to have a gambit favoring the town and he didn't; my gut says that maybe he's doing a gambit for the mafia instead, so I have him at a very weak scum lean.

That must be some super-quiet gambit considering none of us noticed anything going on. What do you think the risky move was on Boomfrog's part?

It's interesting that both Heury and Snide Sniper seem to think Boom's done something sneaky today.

Because he is my current vote. Come join me on him, if you get bored voting for heuristically_alone.

I might, but my Heury vote didn't yet achieve the desired result. Just to clarify my earlier question: you didn't put Snide Sniper separately because you think he and Heury are not aligned?

[madge]

(please PM me if you have special requests for a facebook post, be it yours or someone else's)


Votals:
boomfrog (1) - heuri
suzaku (1) - Patzer
the snide sniper (1) - jimbob
heuri (2) - boomfrog, somitomi

11 players alive, 6 to eliminate.

Dusk starts in 3 days, 21 hours, 50 minutes.

[Suzaku]

What's happened so far:
This is ignoring conversations not directly related to the central conversatoin today, and even within that some peripheral posts are ignored.
I think I've captured the bulk of it pretty well, but if anyone thinks I've misrepresented them, then feel free to let me know.

Going in a spoiler tag to save space.

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

jimbobmacdoodle (jim)does some setup spec, and lists the Antisocial Survivor, Cult, and Mafia in that order.
LaserGuy (LG) asks about the ordering.
jim responds that it was the natural order.
boomfrog (bf) reads jim as town and LG as probably town.
The Snide Sniper (TSS) asks why 'we' think jim is town.
heuristically_alone (heury) answers that the question is a town mindset.
LG scumreads heury for preempting bf's response to TSS' question, townreads bf and moody (who hasn't involved himself in this conversation ark at all).
heury: Am I wrong?
Wam agrees with LG (about all the reads?) although he feels it's early on the town reads.
LG deosn't answer heury about agreeing or disagreeing, but restates their own initial question.
heury replies that that's his personality, and that he knew the answer so he gave it. Asks again if LG agrees.
LG says initial question is a null tell, and disagrees with bf's townread.
heury townreads LG for putting pressure on him (heury).
bf scumreads heury, no reasons given. Also neutral reads Wam.
bessie disagrees with heury that jim's original question is from a town mindset.
heury says no read on jim, but lots of 'we' in post so trying to appear town.
somitomi (somi) asks heury why he answered with a townread answer when he didn't have a townread on jim.
LG finds heury's "uses 'we' a lot" explanation superficial.
bessie questions heury further on his response and apparent townread. Asks opinion of bf.
heury says unsure of bf, but maybe slightly town. Asks somi's opinion of himself.
jim asks bf for reasoning, likes somi's thoughts (townread). LG is LG. TSS is scum (vote). Asks bf to answer the original question.
Wam asks heury why somi. bf is neutral, LG is LG, heury is town on meta.
heury townreads TSS based on response to bf.
heury doesn't answer Wam's question (about why somi) because 'obvious'.
somi questions heury's townread of bf. Also asks 'Why me?' Early for meta townread on heury. Asks jim for explanation of vote on TSS.
Reiterates question "if you don't have a read on Jimbob, why did you answer that question with a reason for townreading him?".
bf says he will explain after I post.
TSS asks jim "why?" about the vote.
heury will not vote for TSS.
Wam asks "Why?"
moody reads: bf town, jim town, LG town, somi town, TSS null, Wam neutral (but -ve score).
LG asks heury for explanation of TSS townread. Asks somi who he townreads. Asks patzer about jim.
jim townreads somi. No explanation (yet) for vote on TSS. Okay with bf not answering until I post. Asks TSS for a defense.
bf explains his scumread on heury (TMI and doesn't know why jim is actually towny)
heury says he won't vote for TSS because not scum. somi has a good scum game. Never claimed to be stating bf's view (assuming the reference to TSS in this post is an error - should be jim).
Just giving an honest opinion.
LG points out some inconsistencies in heury's comments. Asks for reasons on TSS townread. Agrees with bf's reasoning on heury scumread. Restates townreda on jim.
Wam doesn't like heury's last comment. Asks why TSS is not scum.
somi votes heury (questions not answered). Townreads jim, bf, and LG. Asks jim about TSS classification. Doesn't like meta comment.
patzer reads post - no strong reads. Asks LG why they asked about jim.
bessie points out that somi didn't answer heury's quesion. Asks for reason for the vote.
TSS townreads LG, Wam, and bessie. Weakly scumreads bf. Scumreads patzer. heury could be clueless town.
LG answers patzer. Asks for more details on reads.
jim asks TSS more questions. Notes bessie pointing out the unanswered question to somi. Still voting TSS.
Wam townreads somi (i.e. reads as not bussing). patzer, TSS, heury for scum, bf, LG, jim, and somi for town.
jim asks Wam about TSS scumread.
Wam answers.
somi says he did answer heury. Asks about gambit. Asks jim again about classification.

Commentary:
I don't see bf's original townread on jim. I find both the setup spec post and the answer about the ordering neutral. If I had to guess, I'd say town!bf picked an early poster and just pushed town on them to see if he could draw out some scummy reactions. And you all said there was no gambit
To address bf's question of what a mafia gambit might look like: bussing your scummate and getting them eliminated on D1 and then riding the inevitable town points to victory springs to mind. I don't really think bf would do this so hard on D1 in a multi-faction game, but I won't ignore the possibility.

On LG, at this point, I actually agree with the weak townread, as I think the question about the opder was genuine scum hunting. Follow up reinforces that read significantly, I think.

I didn't think heury's initial post answering the TSS question was particularly scummy (although certainly not towny) on first read. But his follow up reactions, coupled with the arguments made by bf and LG, certainly do cast it in that light. Reading back over his posts in iso, and he doesn't state a non-town read on anyone. Claims that on balance it's more likely bf is town, but still voting for bf, which is just a bit wierd.

I have no strong reads on anyone else at this point, so I'll just post my overall reads. Feel free to ask about why I put anyone where they are.

1. heuristically_alone - scum
2. moody7277 - neutral, very weak townread on meta
3. bessie - neutral, but I never could read bessie
4. laserguy - town
5. jimbob - weakly town as scum!heury's buddy target, honestly fairly neutral otherwise
6. BoomFrog - town or very gutsy scum
7. wam - weak townread
8. somitomi - weak townread - tunneling on heury a bit, but certainly nothing stands out as scummy.
9. patzer - needs more content. one RVS vote and one pretty weak reads post.
10. suzaku - Towniest townie that ever towned a town.
11. the snide sniper - newbie town

Recast into town-to-scum order

1. Suzaku
2. LaserGuy
3. boomfrog
4. somitomi
5. The Snide Sniper
6. jimbobmacdoodle
7. wam
8. moody7277
9. bessie
10. patzer
11. heuristically_alone

So:
Vote: boomfrog

OMGUS for this:

Sorry Jimbob, I'm busy. Maybe LG and Suzuki can help you out.

Unvote (boomfrog)

Vote: heuristically_alone

[Wam]

@Suzaku given your statement


"patzer - needs more content. one RVS vote and one pretty weak reads post."

Why is this not a stronger scum read?

[Wam]

Ebwop: suzaku can you also expand your bessie read?

[boomfrog]

Commentary:
I don't see bf's original townread on jim. I find both the setup spec post and the answer about the ordering neutral. If I had to guess, I'd say town!bf picked an early poster and just pushed town on them to see if he could draw out some scummy reactions. And you all said there was no gambit

Good guess, you are half right. Not as entertaining as some of my most famous gambits, but a classic for a reason. However, I specifically want to know what @Snide Sniper thinks the word gambit means, and what he expected from a town or mafia gambit.

Also, yes I suck, sorry Suzaku.

@Bessie and @patzer : What do you think of JimBob's setup speculation in his first post? What is your guess at the setup? To be clear for patzer what I'm asking is, what do you think all the factions are and how many are in each group and what are their win conditions? No research required, just from what we currently have in thread.

[Suzaku]

Why is this not a stronger scum read?

Apart from him being my second scum pick after heury? Mainly because it's only two posts (Hello kettle, my name's pot), which could be due to IRL issues and lack of time to read through the thread in detail. The same level of reads after more posts and clearly more time spent in the game would be much more scummy.

Ebwop: suzaku can you also expand your bessie read?

I find bessie incredibly hard to read, both in the "I can't tell if she's town or scum" sense, and in the sense that I actually have difficulty concentrating on her posts. Something about the 'quote a line or two, then add a question or comment' posting style just makes my eyes want to slide over it and not take anything in.
That said, and reading in iso:
She seems very much on meta - finding loose threads to pick at and putting pressure on people with questions to answer. I very much recall that she's quite capable of doing that as scum though, so this is not a super strong town tell from her.
Putting a vote down on the mod in her third post, when serious voting had certainly begun, and indeed following a comment that she doesn't do RVS, is interesting, but not sure what kind of tell it might be - at any rate thanks for making me go back and reread in iso, as I hadn't noticed that before.

[Suzaku]

Also, yes I suck, sorry Suzaku.

Apology accepted.

[Wam]

Why is this not a stronger scum read?

Apart from him being my second scum pick after heury? Mainly because it's only two posts (Hello kettle, my name's pot), which could be due to IRL issues and lack of time to read through the thread in detail. The same level of reads after more posts and clearly more time spent in the game would be much

Sorry I probably didn't explain what I was querying properly. I was querying what looked like a discrepancy between the very neutral read and them being 2nd from bottom of the list.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

Just to clarify my earlier question: you didn't put Snide Sniper separately because you think he and Heury are not aligned?

I don't (and didn't then) have any particular read on whether they're co-aligned or otherwise. That may change on a more in depth reread, when I've had more chance to think about it.

@Madge, that latest Facebook post is funny

@Suzaku, why do you think Snide Sniper is newbie town?

[LaserGuy]

Reads

BoomFrog: Often he prefers to keep his play very ambiguous, especially in D1, but here I feel he's been pretty open about his thoughts and opinions, and I feel that he and I are approaching the game from a very similar perspective. Town.

jimbob: jimbob seems really happy to be here and is throwing himself into the game in a way that I think would be very difficult to do as scum. jimbob is a very strong scum player so I can't discount the possibility, but I don't see any red flags from him at this point. Town.

Suzaku: Recap is very good, there's lots of original thought and they show their work. Town lean.

somitomi: I have had a lot of trouble reading him recently; his play is very consistent regardless of alignment. I like his pressure on heury and he's been putting in some original thought that I like, but I'd like to see more out of him before I commit to a strong read. Putting him at Town lean for now.

bessie: For vague meta reasons, I think this is probably her Town game, but she hasn't actually made a strong impression on me yet. NullTown.

moody: I liked his opening, but outside of that hasn't actually made a strong impression on me yet. NullTown.

wam: Hasn't really done much that has stood out to me. Kind of a PoE scumread. Nullscum.

SnideSniper: I don't really get a newbie Town vibe from them. Has been asking a few things, but doesn't seem interested in the answers and never follows up. Doesn't seem engaged at all. Scum lean.

patzer: Seems to be keeping under the radar. Reads very non-committal. Looking at her past record, she's decently experienced (~15 games, almost all Town), but rusty. I think she would probably be more engaged if she were Town. Shot in the dark is that she's the anti-social survivor and isn't quite sure what to do with the role yet. Scum lean.

heury alone: Discussed at length. Probably scum.

Town
LaserGuy
BoomFrog
jimbob
Suzaku
somitomi
bessie
moody
----null line---
wam
SnideSniper
patzer
heury
Scum

[moody7277]

Well, I was hoping to hear something from patzer before I re-evaluated him, but as of right now I am putting him at a rating of -1.5, making him just as voteable as heury. As for Snide, here's a post by post on him

post 1: previous experience
post 2: asks about jimbob read
post 3: asks about cult
post 4: response to jimbob's vote

All of this looks like a new to our media response, which jimbob decides has gone on long enough in his response to Snide asking why about jimbob's vote

post 5: falls back on his lack of experience in this format

Cynical View here: this is where scum_newbie!Snide sees he isn't going to be able to skate by any longer

post 6: a few reads here, LG and wam town, BF weakly scum, patzer more so

Most of the game is him trying to get up to speed, with only his last post having meaningful content, and that only after being prompted. Final placement is -0.5

[moody7277]

PS. Just read rattamer's post re patzer's pronouns. Apologies for last post, will remember for the future.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

Just a quick check-in to ask anybody who hasn't given their opinion on Snide Sniper to do so before tomorrow evening UTC time. No need toe explain it I'd you don't want to at this stage. I plan on revealing the why behind my vote at some point tomorrow evening.

[patzer]

Moody: Isn't anything for me to latch onto either way here, neutral.

I had a whole reads list that I put some effort into (although maybe not quite enough as bessie pointed out), that would seem like something you could comment on. Do you agree with my reads, or am I full of BS? For example, you have LaserGuy at neutral while he's my strongest town read, and you also describe him in glowing terms. Would you like to expand your read on him, maybe explore that intuition on him?

Your list looks reasonable, it can be hard to separate town reads from neutral. However, on the matter of LaserGuy...

The combination of this and this made me wonder as to either the possibility of a Laserguy-Heury scum team- Laserguy started off with a very strong targeting of heury which could have been at attempt at publicly distancing them, and heury's reply is also slightly odd- or alternatively a situation where Laserguy is scum but Heury isn't, and Laserguy tried to start things off by directing attention away from him.

This isn't anything strong and I could be overthinking it, but it's why I put him as neutral rather than town.

which could be due to IRL issues and lack of time to read through the thread in detail.

IRL stuff to an extent, though be honest, this game is way harder than I'd remembered it to be, so I've tried to read through everything in detail before commenting in case I miss stuff. That's why I haven't been more active yet.

Thank you for providing that rough game summary though; it does help.

I wanted to get you to talk about someone and give an opinion, and I specifically was wanting to have you give an opinion on someone who had a decent amount of content, but also that content hadn't already been analyzed in detail by other players (e.g. heury) so hopefully you could give some original thoughts on them. I felt jimbob looked like a reasonable choice. I'm not thinking about you and jimbob as linked or anything, I just kind of wanted to get a sense of your thought process. Why did BoomFrog end up on the Town lean side of things when other people pushing heury (me, somitomi) ended up as neutral?

reason for you is mentioned above; somi just didn't jump out at me.

Can you try ordering people from most townie to most scummy? I find that this usually helps when I have a bunch of neutral reads.

Hard to say but here's a very tentative list,

1) Jimbob
2) Boomfrog
3) Moody (putting him higher bc he did some decent analysis)
4) Somitomi
5) Bessie
6) Laserguy
7) Wam
8) Suzaku
9) Snide Sniper
10) heury

The ones nearer the end (except heury) are done based on activity levels as I don't have much else to go on. It's hard to know where to put Laserguy because I'm having ome suspicions but the town!laserguy argument is strong.

As for Snide Sniper (to respond to the last question)- I don't think there's anything in particular against him, but the lack of activity could be a sign in itself so I'll have to put him at #9 for now.

[Suzaku]

Why is this not a stronger scum read?

Apart from him being my second scum pick after heury? Mainly because it's only two posts (Hello kettle, my name's pot), which could be due to IRL issues and lack of time to read through the thread in detail. The same level of reads after more posts and clearly more time spent in the game would be much

Sorry I probably didn't explain what I was querying properly. I was querying what looked like a discrepancy between the very neutral read and them being 2nd from bottom of the list.

That's a function of not having any strong scum reads other than heury. I have bessie as genuinely neutral at 3rd from the bottom.

[Suzaku]

@Suzaku, why do you think Snide Sniper is newbie town?

Wait, why do we think jimbob is town?

Allowing that we accept that TSS is a newbie, I don't think newbie scum (who would know, or given multiple factions, at least strongly suspect, that you are town (assuming you are, of course)) would make a comment like that, especially so early in the game. When asked to expand he does, and gives reads. Nothing particularly original, certainly, but I get the impression that they come from an "I don't know anything and am trying to process", rather than an "I know who's who but don't want to let on" perspective.

Maybe I'm giving too much leeway for being a newbie, but I'll stick to my townread unless something happens to make me reassess.

[Suzaku]

EBWOP: For completeness; seeing a strong case for newbie_scum!TSS would potentially make me reassess.

[bessie]

I only had a few hours sleep last night so here’s my daily catch up post; reads and analysis will be this weekend.

am I full of BS?

Unfortunately this question is not directed at me.

I just realized that my new larp character is essentially my BoomFrog persona. I'm so much more excited.

Nothing game related to say, just excited.

NO NO NO NO NO YOU ARE BOOMFROG IN REAL LIFE DON’T RUIN THIS FOR ME!

LaserGuy and Wam seem like town; they've been doing a lot of reads.

BoomFrog was expected to have a gambit favoring the town and he didn't; my gut says that maybe he's doing a gambit for the mafia instead, so I have him at a very weak scum lean.

Participating is positive, but scum can do reads too.
And Boomfrog’s gambits are NAI, we all just look forward to the show. <3

Note that somitomi avoided answering Heury’s question. Negative.

Um, no I didn't, it's right under the part you quoted, phrased as a reaction to a remark Wam made.

Sorry I missed it hidden among the somisnark. Can you update your heury read now that there has been more posts?

Votals:
boomfrog (1) - heuri
suzaku (1) - Patzer
the snide sniper (1) - jimbob
heuri (2) - boomfrog, somitomi

Boo.

@Bessie and @patzer : What do you think of JimBob's setup speculation in his first post? What is your guess at the setup? To be clear for patzer what I'm asking is, what do you think all the factions are and how many are in each group and what are their win conditions? No research required, just from what we currently have in thread.

7 town (moderately powered because Madge likes overpowered games but Sabrar is doing the balancing), 2 mafia (both power roles, possibly immune to cult), 1 survivor, 1 cult (with limited recruitment power). I haven’t thought about specific power roles yet.

I find bessie incredibly hard to read, both in the "I can't tell if she's town or scum" sense, and in the sense that I actually have difficulty concentrating on her posts. Something about the 'quote a line or two, then add a question or comment' posting style just makes my eyes want to slide over it and not take anything in.
That said, and reading in iso:
She seems very much on meta - finding loose threads to pick at and putting pressure on people with questions to answer. I very much recall that she's quite capable of doing that as scum though, so this is not a super strong town tell from her.
Putting a vote down on the mod in her third post, when serious voting had certainly begun, and indeed following a comment that she doesn't do RVS, is interesting, but not sure what kind of tell it might be - at any rate thanks for making me go back and reread in iso, as I hadn't noticed that before.

I’m a reactive player. And that’s most of my play on weeknights. Hmmm, somitomi’s content so far in this game is much the same style, but interestingly it doesn’t seem to be causing you any issues.

And that wasn’t RVS it was a serious vote, to test the validity. And now we can at least rule out that we have a militant atheist in the game. And we can also rule out that Madge is a player in this game (and the same for Sabrar).

This is what had me thinking wondering if there were additional players in this game:

… among other things.

The Pizzazz Posse Facebook Group has 19 members.

The comment seems “forced” where it is, and oddly specific.

Just a quick check-in to ask anybody who hasn't given their opinion on Snide Sniper to do so before tomorrow evening UTC time. No need toe explain it I'd you don't want to at this stage. I plan on revealing the why behind my vote at some point tomorrow evening.

I think he’s playing like a newbie that perhaps was expecting the game to be more casual. Unless someone has a convincing scum tell that can’t be ignored, he’s not on my elimination list for today. AND AT LEAST HE HAS AN AVATAR!!!


Maybe more later if I don’t fall asleep.

[Suzaku]

I’m a reactive player. And that’s most of my play on weeknights. Hmmm, somitomi’s content so far in this game is much the same style, but interestingly it doesn’t seem to be causing you any issues.

As I said, exactly on meta as far as I can recall And a null-tell, as I'm sure I've seen you do the same as scum.
Good point about somi, though. Maybe just that his individual posts are shorter, or maybe my subconscience is saying "You'll never get a read on bessie so don't even bother'

And that wasn’t RVS it was a serious vote, to test the validity. And now we can at least rule out that we have a militant atheist in the game. And we can also rule out that Madge is a player in this game (and the same for Sabrar).

That's a valid reason in a game of this nature. I did think it was unlikely to be that whacky, but definitely worth testing.

Totally irrelevant aside - I now want to run a version of Adacore's old 'Adacore tries to kill you all' game.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

Disappointed to see that neither The Snide Sniper nor heuristically_alone have posted in over 24 hours by now, when they're the two I'm most interested in commentary from. In particular, I want an updated read from each of them on the other.

7 town (moderately powered because Madge likes overpowered games but Sabrar is doing the balancing), 2 mafia (both power roles, possibly immune to cult), 1 survivor, 1 cult (with limited recruitment power).

FWIW, this is my suspected setup spec, more-or-less, with the Cult limited recruitment possibly being replaced or in addition to the Cult leader dying meaning all Cult members die or are unculted. As implied by my initial post, I'm assuming the Cult are the Pizzazz group. I'm assuming Madge's "19 members in the Pizzazz group" comment was a background way of saying "The Cult has 1 member", and we're supposed to just arbitrarily map it, though I have no specific evidence beyond my setup spec and the 1 Cult member mod confirmation.

AND AT LEAST HE HAS AN AVATAR!!!

Sorry! I've not made a single game post from my personal laptop yet, hence the delay in sorting it (I was on my laptop on Wednesday evening, but completely forgot about avatar's then).

[Wam]

@patzer why do you associated activity with being town?

@jimbob waiting with baited breath for your case this evening.

[jimbobmacdoodle]

@jimbob waiting with baited breath for your case this evening.

Don't get too excited, I doubt it'll be a work of art...

[somitomi]

Ok, I like Suzaku's entry, good job finding the BoomGambit.

I don't (and didn't then) have any particular read on whether they're co-aligned or otherwise. That may change on a more in depth reread, when I've had more chance to think about it.

Fair, I just wanted to know where your head was at.

I have had a lot of trouble reading him recently; his play is very consistent regardless of alignment.

The ones nearer the end (except heury) are done based on activity levels as I don't have much else to go on. It's hard to know where to put Laserguy because I'm having ome suspicions but the town!laserguy argument is strong.

I think activity is a fairly unreliable scumtell, since it's influenced by so many other things, but I might be biased. What's the evidence for town!laserguy you're referring to and why do you think it's strong?

Allowing that we accept that TSS is a newbie, I don't think newbie scum (who would know, or given multiple factions, at least strongly suspect, that you are town (assuming you are, of course)) would make a comment like that, especially so early in the game. When asked to expand he does, and gives reads. Nothing particularly original, certainly, but I get the impression that they come from an "I don't know anything and am trying to process", rather than an "I know who's who but don't want to let on" perspective.

That's actually a fair point, newbie scum probably wouldn't stick their neck out like that, even if townreading someone like five posts into the game is weird. I'm not a fan of his reads, but looking back I don't really see anything damning and I'm all for giving newbies a little time to adjust.

Sorry I missed it hidden among the somisnark. Can you update your heury read now that there has been more posts?

He made a couple remarks that feel a little too cheeky to come from mafia, but otherwise ignoring my questions could go either way and I'm really hoping to reevaluate based on what he posts next. This silence is a bit concerning.

(It still kinda surprises me that I became the snarker in these games)