M1007 — "Mafia, She Wrote" Game Thread

[xorxes]

And the thought that xorxes would try so hard to mislead town...in order to mislead NK from noob!scum means that he thinks (or thought) that the newbies were scum?

emc, can you please try to say that again? I read it like four times and I still can't figure out what it says.

[xorxes]

And the thought that xorxes would try so hard to mislead town...in order to mislead NK from noob!scum means that he thinks (or thought) that the newbies were scum?

emc, can you please try to say that again? I read it like four times and I still can't figure out what it says.

Nevermind, I figured it out. I thought "he" was xorxes, but it was teacon from the previous paragraph.

[xorxes]

I don't know teacon's usual style, + he hasn't played for awhile (so he's essentially a blank slate for meta),

I play pretty lurky when I'm scum. I won m22 as sleeper cell scum by leaving TrPrado and Jamiet tunneled on each other until mylo. I got scumread for the next several games for it. I'm rather disappointed in this game, that durga, ND, Moscow, and Xorxes have failed to mention this.

Ah! I had completely forgotten about that game! Yes, the one where all you posted about was that you were looking for a replacement teacher!

So the plan was to make your behavior this time diametrically opposite?

[EspressoPatronum]

Yo EP, can you explain how you went from teacon and Durga to being your top scum reads to voting for neither of them and letting wagons go 3 wide with 20 minutes left in the day?

http://mafia.peterlund.se/e/web/msgs?g= ... soPatronum

First D2 post says they're my top 2. The posts after gradually tell a story of indecision. Teacon fought hard and I didn't get the answers I needed to confidently lynch him. Durga's defence changed my mind on her. You were the only other wagon.

My vote against you was twofold:
1. Killing you was better than killing Durga
2. I wasn't as sure about teacon anymore.
2a. The teacon wagon was dead. Even if I wanted him lynched, it wasn't happening

[xorxes]

The fact that he (ed. note: damo) copied reads, or used one that was really similar to a past one isn't necessarily alignment indicative, just extremely lazy (or he's been rereading past games, which is rather unlikely). iirc Darg did something similar when he was the alien cop and got quite literally blasted for it lmao. In hindsight, he was probably trying to draw scan, but happily it worked too well and failed.

(also no offence damo, if you're still reading), but generally in the first few days he gives off a vibe of being mostly useless too.

THANK YOU

The list of people who noted that similar sounding reads are NAI:
teacon
moscow
bozo (iirc)
emc

The list of people who were - somehow - certain that damo's copied reads was scummy:
xorxes

"Similar sounding" and "copied" is not the same thing though.

You're and English teacher, you're probably the one person here that can detect when something is copied and when something is the same thought expressed in different ways. I can understand that people less attuned to language use can miss my point, but you dismissing it the way you did was the first red flag for me.

[EspressoPatronum]

I think fairly high. A lot of ppl hopped on the Durga train without much resistance. If Durga isn't scum, then I think 2 scum are in the votes against her right now.

Just want to highlight this now that we know Durga was town.

At the time of that post, teacon, ND, Moscow, Percy, and Vash were on Durga.

I think we can all agree ND is probably town, but the others are viable scum options.

Wait, why is ND probably town? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want an explanation.

He had a good explanation for his weird plays early.
^ He's contributed a lot to the discussion since changing back to a normal playstyle
He hopped off the Durga wagon and helped start up the Vash wagon again.
He's in my town core and at least one other (maybe Vapor). I haven't seen his name listed in anyone's scum reads since D1 and maybe early N1

[xorxes]

Are you saying it is impossible that both you and teacon are town?

Yes, it's pretty much impossible. He would not manipulate my arguments the way he has if he was town.

You are really really going up in my suspicions as his partner with all the distrust you place in every single thing I say as if they had second intentions, but I still think Flavius is more likely.

I'm flattered xorxes, but you're assuming perfect play on both of our parts.
It's not impossible that I'm misreading you and you're misreading me. It's not impossible that you're not saying things as clearly as you think, and I'm not saying things as clearly as I think. Are you capable of making mistakes?

I make mistakes all the time, yes. And you are very good at sounding towny in a lot of the things you say. But, in some instances, you were being dishonest not just mistaken, and that can only mean you are scum.

[xorxes]

I do not think anything teacon accused you of claiming was an example of either of the logical fallacies he cited, and that is a reasonable point against him, but I can't be sure of what he really believes.

You can't be sure but you can have an opinion. Is it likely, in your opinion, that he really believes that I would be arguing what he claims I was arguing?

[bozotheclown]

I do not think anything teacon accused you of claiming was an example of either of the logical fallacies he cited, and that is a reasonable point against him, but I can't be sure of what he really believes.

You can't be sure but you can have an opinion. Is it likely, in your opinion, that he really believes that I would be arguing what he claims I was arguing?

It is not completely clear to me what teacon is claiming, but I think he is saying that his vote for damo is a possible consequence of him being scum who accidentally locked himself into a vote for damo between damo and ND, but that it also a possible consequence of other things, such as him being town who scum read damo. To argue a logical fallacy he would be claiming that you are concluding he is scum who accidentally locked himself into a vote for damo because he voted for damo. I think that is a misrepresentation, but I do not think it is outside the realm of possibility that teacon is town and making the point that you are so sure he scum that you are not considering other possible reasons why he would vote for damo.

[e.m.c^42]

And the thought that xorxes would try so hard to mislead town...in order to mislead NK from noob!scum means that he thinks (or thought) that the newbies were scum?

emc, can you please try to say that again? I read it like four times and I still can't figure out what it says.

Nevermind, I figured it out. I thought "he" was xorxes, but it was teacon from the previous paragraph.

Yep, I was questioning why teacon would assume that the newer players were scum, but not poke them in-thread to validate or invalidate his reads/feelings.

[teacon7]

"Similar sounding" and "copied" is not the same thing though.

I didn't think it was as big a deal as you did. At the time, it looked like a nitpick. For all I knew, that could have been damo's voice too.

What's so bad about that?

In retrospect, it looks like damo respected you so much that he copied scum!phrasing from your last game.

You're and English teacher,

fwiw I'm an administrator who teaches Latin on the side, but w/e

you're probably the one person here that can detect when something is copied and when something is the same thought expressed in different ways. I can understand that people less attuned to language use can miss my point, but you dismissing it the way you did was the first red flag for me.

Each writer has a unique voice, so being able to recognize similarities like that often requires knowing their unique voices. I don't know damo, for all I know this could have been the way he would say something too.

I dismissed the intensity of your read on it, not the validity of the point. I wasn't the only one who thought so.

You can't be scumreading me for not having the same read as you d1. What did I say in response that looks scummy to you? Let's figure this out.

[e.m.c^42]

Mild town points to Bozo, for asking valid questions calmly. :clapping:

Bozo is calm in general lol
I'd say "mild town points for having scumread damo for his own reasons, as well as not being as obsessed with pr, and having mostly consistent reads/cases on people, since referencing last game he did not.

however, he's a very controlled person, so there's a possiblily of it being calculated, but ehh....meh. Points anyways.

[teacon7]

I do not think anything teacon accused you of claiming was an example of either of the logical fallacies he cited, and that is a reasonable point against him, but I can't be sure of what he really believes.

You can't be sure but you can have an opinion. Is it likely, in your opinion, that he really believes that I would be arguing what he claims I was arguing?

It is not completely clear to me what teacon is claiming, but I think he is saying that his vote for damo is a possible consequence of him being scum who accidentally locked himself into a vote for damo between damo and ND, but that it also a possible consequence of other things, such as him being town who scum read damo. To argue a logical fallacy he would be claiming that you are concluding he is scum who accidentally locked himself into a vote for damo because he voted for damo. I think that is a misrepresentation, but I do not think it is outside the realm of possibility that teacon is town and making the point that you are so sure he scum that you are not considering other possible reasons why he would vote for damo.

I can get behind this.

It looked to me that xorxes was unwilling to consider alternate causes for my damo vote, and building a case on that. There's names for fallacies like that. I can't remember the exact one that applies here, but it involves failure to consider alternate causes. Other people mentioning fallacies were doing so quoting me... I don't think anyone else argued the same thing I did here.

Code: Select all

Some S is P
therefore: All S is P

Code: Select all

Some {reasons teacon votes damo} are scummy
therefore: All {reasons teacon votes damo} are scummy

That's what I thought xorx was saying.

He's said, and I think you've elucidated, that the root of the issue is prior to the damo lynch.

I've tried to explain why xorx would bus (vote+kill) damo if he's scum ("for towncred")
xorx is trying to explain why I would bus (vote+kill) damo if I'm scum ("forced")

I think both of us spent too much time on this, and ended up missing the root of the issue. The explanation for the damo lynch is important, but in both of our thinking that explanation (of the unlikely lynch) is contingent on prior gut reads.

[teacon7]

Yep, I was questioning why teacon would assume that the newer players were scum, but not poke them in-thread to validate or invalidate his reads/feelings.

Recall that:
a) I had a party on saturday, and
b) right or wrong, but play was to lay low and give what I thought was a town xorx some space for NK-dodging theatre

[teacon7]

Espresso:

You asked. I wrote something. If the post is too long, skip to the end for the tl;dr.

I'm intentionally omitting quotes from this post for style reasons.

I. The Prologue - On Mafia Theory
II. The Story - My story of scumreading xorx
III. The TL;DR Case - Why you should look into this


I. The Prologue - On Mafia Theory
The way this game is set up for town is as a puzzle. we have one bit of information (our own alignment), and we have to deduct/induct what we can of other players' alignments through interaction. Because scum are capable of lying, we can't have perfect information. This is why new players tend to hedge their reads : they're not certain of things, because they're really, genuinely, still trying to figure out the game.

Scum, on the other hand, have the opposite problem. They know the majority of the information in the game (they don't know PR identity, but that's immaterial here). Scum have to pretend they don't know anything, when in fact they know quite a bit. It's difficult to compartmentalize one's mind like that.

A "scumslip" is what happens when a mafia member accidentially indicates knowledge of something they should not know. Easy examples are slips in speech (i.e., saying "we" for the scumteam, etc). Harder examples are things like: willingness to switch to any vote wagon but X (because X is their scumteam mate).

Because town does not possess perfect information, they make cases based on probabilities and gut reads and guesses. Mechanical PR roles tend to help that along, like when the cop gets a scan off. Otherwise, you have to infer from harder data like vote records, or softer data like what someone is saying and how they're saying it. It's good methodology to look at the data first, then infer models of player alignment from it, rather than guess/assume an alignment first, and filter the data through it.

Doing the latter is called tunnel vision - the illustration being that the town mind is in a tunnel, and thus can only see things in one way. I've repeatedly stated that tunnel vision is town's worst enemy. We have to be agile in our reads, able to imagine "what if so and so is scum" and also "what if so and so is town" to match with new data and reviews of old data. The truly scummy will persist in being read, because more data will continually lead point us in the same direction. However, just because we have some data and a hypothesis... doesn't mean we can be certain of a player's alignment before a flip. The cases we make are still conjecture, hypothetical models to explain what we're reading. This is why new players tend to hedge their reads - because they legitimately don't know. It's only certain when the player finally flips.

Teacon/Xorxes have repeatedly accused each other of misrepresentation and making cases dishonestly. Xorx has said he's certain I'm scum. I have not said I'm certain the xorx is scum. I've had to defend myself against his very persistent attacks, and I think what suspicion we've had for each other is getting amplified by the exchange. I want to be careful to avoid tunnel vision, however, because as I've said before: tunnel vision is bad for town. (How many games have been won by scum because town got tunneled? M45 and M22 come to mind, but I'm sure there are others.)

The next couple sections list what I'm putting down for Xorxes. There is a chance this is Town vs. Town. There is, I think, a higher chance that Xorxes is scum. I'm willing to entertain all these because I don't have perfect knowledge. Consequently, I find it both poor methodology and rather suspicious to suggest that anyone can have "certainty" about one's scumreads.

Speaking in terms of certainty and absolutes indicates one of two things:
a) that a town player is tunnelled. They've substituted their model for the actual data, and now they're interpretting everything through their biases. This generally happens to town when they get an impression from something... usually a gut read... and then they start finding evidence by way of confirmation bias.
b) that a scum player is scumslipping. Scum has to pretend they don't know everything. They have to pretend they have imperfect knowledge and be careful to avoid the impression they know something they shouldn't. If a scum player starts talking like they're certain of someone's alignment, it's because they're not being careful enough to factor in that they shouldn't know. There's a tradeoff, however: Speaking in terms of certainty can be quite useful as scum in persuasion. Repeated use of langauge like "certain" or "absolutely" etc signals a kind of confidence that confused town doesn't have, and by nature of their imperfect knowledge wants.




II. The Story:- My story of scumreading xorx
I did not scumread xorx at the beginning of the game. He was asking decent questions and looked like he was trying to get information to solve the game.

D1 xorx latches onto damo for rather specious reasons. xorx (pg22) saw similar wording between how scum-damo(m1007pg20) read bozo, and how scum-xorx(m45) listed a read on bozo. damo was in my lynch pool already, and I considered what he said (even pulling up the quote for him pg 23). It was a pretty good match for the wording, but xorx' inferrence seemed to go a bit too far for me. xorx asked what I thought of damo - we crossposted and I responded a couple times, saying more or less that he was in my lynch pool but I didn't think the similar wording was as big a deal as he thought. I was not the only person to point out that xorx' was an oddly specific case. Moscow said so. so did town-durga. read page 28. I believe bozo questions this very point later on. I didn't really scumread xorx for his move here. Poor reasoning isn't necessarily scum indicative, it just means the case isn't very good.

EoD1 damo swings. bozo, rdriv, xorx, ND, teacon, emc, moscow all voted damo. each had their own reasons. xorx was calling for people to pile on damo. He looked more town.

N1.
durga and vapor assign credit to xorx for the lynch. this rubs me the wrong way - why xorxes alone? sure, he talked it up, but it looks like the opposite of shading someone. durga wants to make a scumbuddy look good cos he just bussed for towncred.

xorx immediately starts pushing a case on me. I had RL stuff on Saturday (N1), and I thought I looked pretty townie at EoD1. I thought town!xorx was trying to misdirect an NK so he'd live to see d2 (if town!xorx made it look like he'd push me all day, scum would know we were both town and let us live to misdirect everyone else). At this time I was guessing xorx was town, because he'd just nailed scum d1.

EoN1 I post my copypasta of reads and reasons. Now I can post again.

D2 xorxes continues his case. He's intent on lynching me, not solving the game. He ignored the case on durga and considered no other options D2 (is that pro-town?). I respond to various points, and the discussion escalates. His evidence really puts the cart before the horse. "hey teacon was forced to bus" is not the core of his case, for example, but a circumstance he had to explain in order to get me lynched. I'll revisit that point in particular in a different post because a couple people have been wondering whether the use of logic is scum-indicative.

EoD2 Durga's flip messed me up. I was evisioning a scenario in which a confident xorx decided to bus for cred d1 because he had durga to back him up, then got cornered when durga turned into a major wagon d2. I'm less confident on him now because of this point. Vapor also singled him out for cred for the damo lynch. idk.

N2
Now he's painting everthing I do as scummy no matter what. It shows confident certainty that is uncharictaristic of town psych. This shows intention to lynch, rather than intention to solve the game. He's not clarifying his arguments where he thinks he's misunderstood, he's simply firing back with more assertions that what I'm doing now is scummy. I'm willing to admit the possibility that I'm wrong and re-evaluate. He doesn't seem to be. That looks like scum rhetoric - trying to communicate confidence rather than trying to solve the game.


What's interesting is that he's accused me of doing the same sorts of things that he's doing. I think this is a brilliant scum strategy... it disarms critiques of his case by making them look like omgus. He misrepresents me, then says "you're mispresenting me!" so if I fire back, it looks like a big ol' "NO U" grade omgus response. Someone please come up with a shorthand term for this.

I'd also point out that xorx would know my past scum meta (lurky), compared to my town meta (chatty). Is he taking that into account?

I think it's notable that when I ask xorx aobut "under what conditions would scum bus their godfather d1" ... he avoided the question. First, he answered a question I didn't ask. Then, he said "they wouldn't." His case on me though was built on saying "the bus was forced." In all that, he left out the main and primaryy reason scum decide to bus: "for towncred." I asked him the question on purpose, thinking that a) he'd avoid it, and b) he wouldn't be able to say "scum bus for towncred." Acknowledging that opens him up as a valid target, when he is at the same time trying to look town for finding the damo needle-in-a-haystack.








III. The tl;dr Case - Why you should look into this
1) Xorx inferred way too much about one phrase of one line from damo. That's a scumslip because he knew too much.

2) It's possible that frustrated xorx bussed for towncred what he saw as a liability to his wincon.

3) Xorx was being painted as untouchable town by people I also scumread. This point on him is somewhat mollified by durga's flip, but this was my rationale d2.

4) When asked about bussing the gf, he avoided my question twice, and then didn't list "towncred" as an option. Opening up the possibility of "bussing for towncred" exposes him.

5) His attacks on me are scummy: overconfident, unquestioning assertion, aimed at securing a lynch rather than solving the game, built on assumption, the evidence for which is circumstantial supporting points that only makes sense if you buy his initial assertion. He's coupled it with the tendency to accuse me of procedural things that he himself is doing ("misrepresentation!!!1"), to make it look like omgus if I call him on it.

6) I'm less confident on him after durga's flip, but from what I know of his problem-solving abilities, I still find it hard to admit that he'd get this tunnelled as town. Town has no business being this certain about a case, much less one built this way. Xorxes' failure to examine himself could be a massive lapse of thoughtful humility, but more likely scum needing to project confidence to win others over to his vote. How can he think it's impossible that this is TvT?

[e.m.c^42]

Yep, I was questioning why teacon would assume that the newer players were scum, but not poke them in-thread to validate or invalidate his reads/feelings.

Recall that:
a) I had a party on saturday, and
b) right or wrong, but play was to lay low and give what I thought was a town xorx some space for NK-dodging theatre

I'm aware, just restating for anyone else since I do get unintelligible at times :D

[FlaviusAetius]

"Similar sounding" and "copied" is not the same thing though.

I didn't think it was as big a deal as you did. At the time, it looked like a nitpick. For all I knew, that could have been damo's voice too.

What's so bad about that?

In retrospect, it looks like damo respected you so much that he copied scum!phrasing from your last game.

You're and English teacher,

fwiw I'm an administrator who teaches Latin on the side, but w/e

you're probably the one person here that can detect when something is copied and when something is the same thought expressed in different ways. I can understand that people less attuned to language use can miss my point, but you dismissing it the way you did was the first red flag for me.

Each writer has a unique voice, so being able to recognize similarities like that often requires knowing their unique voices. I don't know damo, for all I know this could have been the way he would say something too.

I dismissed the intensity of your read on it, not the validity of the point. I wasn't the only one who thought so.

You can't be scumreading me for not having the same read as you d1. What did I say in response that looks scummy to you? Let's figure this out.

Liar.
You do know damo, quite well in fact because you said yourself you watched last game. We all saw you watching as well, you admitted in this game you saw it.
You know how damo played, you either choose to have blinders on, or knew he was your teammate.
I think your smarter than that, so he was your teammate.
You've been exposed.

[e.m.c^42]

continuing on, now that food and sleep has been obtained satisfactorily;

Going on to Vashta, I will admit I'm not too sure how his wagon spawned, except for him being afk/lurky? Going through his posts, it is true that he hasn't done much at all...and he has been here, just not active. What I haven't liked (now spending peterbot time since he became a rather competitive wagon yesterday)

He's been low-content/low posting. Granted, Moscow/Percy/me also fit that this game so far, but him stating "I'll be active endgame dw y'all", hmmm. Don't like that excuse so much, but not sure why yet. The casualness to almost being lynched could be forced, since how uninvested can someone actually be...unless he's like bo lol, selfvoting and lynching himself as town.

On the other hand, I don't feel like any of this is super scummy enough for him to turn into a viable wagon this early? like, maybe I'm too lenient/hopeful towards lessened activity...

[e.m.c^42]

Flavius is so cocky lol

his absolutes kinda rub me the wrong way, but not sure if this isn't a personality thing.

[teacon7]

You do know damo, quite well in fact because you said yourself you watched last game. We all saw you watching as well, you admitted in this game you saw it.
You know how damo played, you either choose to have blinders on, or knew he was your teammate.

I read half a game.
That doesn't mean I know how damo plays every game.
Even if I read the full game, I would only know damo's style in that game.
That's too small a sample size.

I think your smarter than that, so he was your teammate.

Thanks I guess, but your proof here is what you, flavius, expected me to be. Not what I actually am.