M 90: Shootout at the Pretty Good Corral

[sweetandcool]

Wagon analysis:

Currently voting an unCC PR are:

Bunny, Jamiet, Balki, and brainbomb.

Bunny and Balki are scum.

Jamiet is authentically NAI for it, but I think Town.

Brainbomb is just goofing around. Probably wants to make me more energetic. I will try, my dear brainbomb.

[President Eden]

President Eden, what’s your opinion on role crumbing? Not scans, just role.

My understanding is that Town loves to go wild on voting those people out. Is that not true?

I used to do it a lot myself, often in pretty brazen ways that amused me (and no one else).

Nowadays it’s pretty clear to me that crumbs have zero influence on whether anyone believes claims. So I think it’s just a subtle way to fuck with people (by faking crumbs) that can come from either alignment. I don’t even look for crumbs, and I don’t really care if they’re spotted.

I’m not sure what the broader meta is right now though.

[sweetandcool]

President Eden, what’s your opinion on role crumbing? Not scans, just role.

My understanding is that Town loves to go wild on voting those people out. Is that not true?

I used to do it a lot myself, often in pretty brazen ways that amused me (and no one else).

Nowadays it’s pretty clear to me that crumbs have zero influence on whether anyone believes claims. So I think it’s just a subtle way to fuck with people (by faking crumbs) that can come from either alignment. I don’t even look for crumbs, and I don’t really care if they’re spotted.

I’m not sure what the broader meta is right now though.

Well, I already thought we were dealing with a scum Bunny when I spotted the crumbs, so I'm going to count it as scum points.

[President Eden]

President Eden, what’s your opinion on role crumbing? Not scans, just role.

My understanding is that Town loves to go wild on voting those people out. Is that not true?

I used to do it a lot myself, often in pretty brazen ways that amused me (and no one else).

Nowadays it’s pretty clear to me that crumbs have zero influence on whether anyone believes claims. So I think it’s just a subtle way to fuck with people (by faking crumbs) that can come from either alignment. I don’t even look for crumbs, and I don’t really care if they’re spotted.

I’m not sure what the broader meta is right now though.

Well, I already thought we were dealing with a scum Bunny when I spotted the crumbs, so I’m going to count it as scum points.

Your epistemic rigor is awe-inspiring.

[BunnyGo]

President Eden, what’s your opinion on role crumbing? Not scans, just role.

My understanding is that Town loves to go wild on voting those people out. Is that not true?

I used to do it a lot myself, often in pretty brazen ways that amused me (and no one else).

Nowadays it’s pretty clear to me that crumbs have zero influence on whether anyone believes claims. So I think it’s just a subtle way to fuck with people (by faking crumbs) that can come from either alignment. I don’t even look for crumbs, and I don’t really care if they’re spotted.

I’m not sure what the broader meta is right now though.

Well, I already thought we were dealing with a scum Bunny when I spotted the crumbs, so I'm going to count it as scum points.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve never once seen me crumb in any game. If you go and look for games where I have crumbed, it was literally hidden in metadata and unmistakably a crumb.

I know you didn’t find anything like that because I didn’t do it.

I now leave 0 crumbs as PR.

You literally just saw a game like that.

But since people are posting long thoughts, I might actually write up my thoughts on “normative” good/bad play and “objective” good/bad play in games of teams with incomplete information. I think I may be the only actual expert of any such game here (we all suck at this one, I suck at bridge too, but have literally put in the 10000 hours of play and study and had moderate success) and I was realizing the other night sweet was pissing me off so much because he was conflating the two and insisting he’s correct while playing objectively horribly by imposing his normative beliefs and objecting to a normative team play (he’s not wrong the normative play could be different)


But I have homework to do and sitting in my hammock.

Sweet is still unCCd, huh?

Well…I screwed that up with Bona once.

##unvote. No need to vote him off for being obnoxious when we can just shoot him.

[sweetandcool]

I used to do it a lot myself, often in pretty brazen ways that amused me (and no one else).

Nowadays it’s pretty clear to me that crumbs have zero influence on whether anyone believes claims. So I think it’s just a subtle way to fuck with people (by faking crumbs) that can come from either alignment. I don’t even look for crumbs, and I don’t really care if they’re spotted.

I’m not sure what the broader meta is right now though.

Well, I already thought we were dealing with a scum Bunny when I spotted the crumbs, so I'm going to count it as scum points.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve never once seen me crumb in any game. If you go and look for games where I have crumbed, it was literally hidden in metadata and unmistakably a crumb.

I know you didn’t find anything like that because I didn’t do it.

I now leave 0 crumbs as PR.

You literally just saw a game like that.

But since people are posting long thoughts, I might actually write up my thoughts on “normative” good/bad play and “objective” good/bad play in games of teams with incomplete information. I think I may be the only actual expert of any such game here (we all suck at this one, I suck at bridge too, but have literally put in the 10000 hours of play and study and had moderate success) and I was realizing the other night sweet was pissing me off so much because he was conflating the two and insisting he’s correct while playing objectively horribly by imposing his normative beliefs and objecting to a normative team play (he’s not wrong the normative play could be different)


But I have homework to do and sitting in my hammock.

Sweet is still unCCd, huh?

Well…I screwed that up with Bona once.

##unvote. No need to vote him off for being obnoxious when we can just shoot him.

Hey! I'm literally an expert at chess.

Sorry was just screwing with you, I didn't find any crumbs. Just wanted the reactions.

[sweetandcool]

You bet your sweet bippy I'm unCCed!

I dare someone to CC me. Then we'll have verified scum up on the block, even if I lose the thunderdome somehow.

[President Eden]

Sorry was just screwing with you, I didn’t find any crumbs. Just wanted the reactions.

LOL

[dargorygel]

Do not trust the time on the bot

[brainbomb]

Went fishing caught a northern

[brainbomb]

One page ago Damo listed me as town.

Now he is voting for me because I won't vote the way he commands.

Tsk tsk.

You can vote for who you like as long as it's not sweet.

And tomorrow you can vote for who you like as long as it's not SNP or Alba

Who is SNP and Alba? Im not familiar with those meme names for ppl

[brainbomb]

This long night has been a real drag but at least Vecna did some next-level posting before he gets N1’ed

I mean… theres no way worcej says this as scum imo

[sweetandcool]

Guys, bad news, a Boeing 747 just crashed into my wife!

Darn, I don't think I'll be able to solve this game. Going to have to make my N2 scan a good one.

[Balki Bartokomous]

PART 1
@President Eden, I can't do this all day, but I have time for a response now:

It’s more that I think your weightings are off, and are off in a way that suggests a manufactured narrative rather than an organic train of thought.

It’s certainly true that sweet’s claims were hamfisted and difficult to take seriously. I didn’t take them seriously. But that fact also creates WIFOM about his identity as the actual PR. “No PR would do this” is exactly what you’d want mafia to think about you as a PR. And taking it one level down, “Wow, this guy who I know is town is really being showy about how he’s not a PR” is exactly what you’d want mafia to think about you as a VT. Especially if you’ve cultivated a reputation for unorthodox claim plays over recent games… I think this is a highly plausible account of why sweet might have done what he did. If your analysis seriously contemplated it, though, I don’t see where. You claimed it was different from how he normally fakeclaims as town, but that doesn’t mean it’s a mafia fakeclaim per se.

So, I am aware there is a wifom hole of despair to go down here, thinking that sweet might be doing this because X, but might also be doing it because people will think X, and on down the line.

This same wifom hole of despair is why I backed off my push on Sweet Day 1. I understand it is "plausible" for Sweet's behavior that it is a double, or triple, or quadruple bluff, and depending on how many bluffs are in there, he is a PR or a VT or a wolf.

I got tired of thinking along those lines, so during the night phase I began to think about it in terms of what actually makes sense in the post-game? What makes sense as a grand finale for this circus? And it just seems less likely to me that the finale is "yeah, I was Town, just goofing around" as opposed to "See, it's okay, I'm not an idiot, I was Scum."

I can't say I'm sure here. I don't like how you are saying I am sure. I'm not sure. But I think Sweet is the best shot we have right now to flip scum.

Meanwhile, when I asked you for the mafia motivations, we briefly discussed how things had played out for him. You described various benefits, and I dismissed them briefly earlier, but will explain why I don’t think they carry the weight they appear to carry with you:

[snip]

- I think sweet’s been plenty committal and solving despite the circumstances—and you notably didn’t levy the complaint that he wasn’t committal or solving when you scumread him.

I really don't. I'm surprised you hold this view. I am not saying he hasn't done anything, but so many of his posts have just been about his claim. Here are some of the examples that have stood out to me:

You made a fucking claim in the first hour of D1 under no pressure.

I assume you are fucking joking because why else would you?

I am playing optimally.

I'm either Investigative Sheriff (correct) or I am fake claiming.

Either way, I'm definitely not joking.

I am fairly certain sweetandcool was joking, and it is somewhat suspicious that BunnyGo did not read it that way.

I'm not joking.

Worry not, I use that term as well. There are lots of plays made in this game that are ego driven.

Ego is best avoided, but it can be fun.

Oh dear you are right.

Okay, I am going to scan Jamiet N1, provided he is not the DK.

Interesting that you are assuming I am fake claiming.

You draw your firearm and get the jump on your opp.

Unfortunately your firearm is a Bug-A-Salt.

rdrivera is lightly bruised and heavily annoyed.

You do not learn rdrivera’s identity.

Eden is FAKE CLAIMING

I want to hear SWEET say this, you explained it that sounds like a good reason but I dont think its SWEET's reason because SWEET didn't say it FIRST. Instead he chose to double and triple down

I am Investigative Sheriff.

there are LOTS more examples, but you get the idea. These are only the examples I pulled up to about page 25 or so (I think).

(NOTE: in assembling these examples, I did kinda notice that Sweet has been a bit more opinionated than I recall. There are examples of both. So, that is a thing).

…to be continued in Part 2

[brainbomb]

Would not shoot list

Brainbomb: damo
Sweet: brainbomb
Worcej: balki
Eden: sweet
Chaqa: bunny
Damo: chaqa
DemonRHK: brainbomb

[Balki Bartokomous]

PART 2

- The few hard townreads (what, me and who else?) are apparently outweighed by the scumreads (since he’s the lead wagon early).

I don't follow what you are saying here. Are you talking about my reads? My townreads are Flavius, Pirate, Brain, Chaqa, maybe Damo too now, and you too now.

- I’m not sure I agree that tightroping several fakeclaims in a meta so hostile to them is “easy.”

I disagree that the meta is hostile to fakeclaims in this context. So, we just disagree on that premise. But this point of yours also fails to account for this particular flavor of fake claim, which is new and unusual for the reasons I described.

- He may have gotten PR hunting leads, sure. Ironically, he’s posted that he was finding “fake crumbs” from Bunny. I would think mafia actually trying to PR hunt with this tactic would keep those thoughts to himself, but maybe not.

We're in that wifom hole again. I feel like your main analysis is just to talk about two sides of a wifom, and choose the Town side for no apparent reason. I find that Mafia frequently do things that they think look pro-town. Calling out "fake crumbs" would be a great example of that, but I can see both sides of this one for sure.

- Being able to bail on a plan isn’t really a benefit to it per se. It may make the actual benefits less risky to pursue, but if he were worried about an escape plan, he could just do something else altogether.

I agree with this, but it doesn't really tell us much. I agree that either could be true.

It’s also notable that none of these really fit into a team-focused view of the game. How’s this helping his team? I recognize this isn’t the fairest question (if you’re town you wouldn’t really know; if you’re mafia then it’s moot), but to be as confident as you seem to be in sweet being mafia, I would expect some kind of vision for how his gambit fits in with the rest of the team.

I have no idea. Frankly, I do not know if the default here is for Mafia to chat during a Night 0 before the game. But whether they do or they do not, I have no theory about "how his gambit fits in with the rest of his team." That isn't really the kind of thing I look for before we have found our first wolf.

Long story short, despite your objections, you seem to undersell the utility of sweet’s play as town and oversell it as mafia. And you seem very certain about it too.

I am not "fairly certain." I just think this is our best bet.

And I genuinely don't think there is "utility to Sweet's play" if he is Town. There are things that could possibly happen around him that could wind up being good for Town, but that is true of any action at all in the game.

I suppose town could feel that way, but I would expect more caution. And mafia pushing an agenda certainly would (pretend to) feel this way, so at the least you’re failing to stake out a position that must come from town here. And I think it fits a lot more into what I imagine the mafia vision to be, which is aggressively pushing for a couple of early miskills to get their guns online and then volley their way to victory. You can afford to be a lot more aggressive in pushing sweet if you’re mafia and you should be feeling a lot of pressure to get this right if you’re town. Your behavior fits the former profile, IMO.

This point doesn't really make sense. More caution? I am casing a scumread. I don't think this is bold or risky. I had a thought about his alignment, and I shared it. What is risky about that?

I do not gather that your townreads are committal at all, though. We can’t really know from the outside, and I guess they’re not being tested all that much since they’re not being broadly voted for.

I'm not sure why you say I'm not committal. I encourage you to read my ISO and bring out examples. I think I am probably being more committal than usual for this part of the game. That's a hard thing to gauge, but it is surprising to me that you take the opposite view, and I am interested to know how you drew that conclusion. Maybe challenge it yourself by looking skeptically at my ISO.

Maybe you could update me (us? if anyone is still reading…?) with some more comprehensive reads so I can see how your view is developed. Cuz it seems kinda “grab bag” to me.

I just think this is lazy by you. My reads are comprehensive in that I've shared my thoughts on most of the players in the game and I've guessed a full scum team. I have some pretty hard town reads that I don't think are going to change much without some flips. I don't think I've solved the whole game, but I think I have a solid set of town reads and decent POE. That would look like this:

POE: Sweet, Jamiet, rdrivera, Fish, Demon, Bozo, worcej, BunnyG in that order from flip first to flip last.
Town: Balki, Flava, Brainbomb, Eden, KPOP, Chaqa, Damo

I’m also not sure how you get away with claiming sweet is not a viable or easy miskill here when he’s the lead wagon halfway through lol. Obviously plenty of time for that to change, but there’s ample appetite to kill him.

If we're going to use this kind of "results based analysis" than I could respond with, "see, me trying to push a Sweet wagon has given me the most attention I've recevied all game! Look at that!"

I'm not going to say that. It's silly. Obviously I wouldn't have known what you or anyone would else would do in response to my push.

So for the same reason, please judge my case on Sweet at the time I made it and not based on the results. I started pushing Sweet at the end of night. He was not one of the leading wagons at the prior EOD, and I think it was fairly predictable that there would be some adamant Sweet defenders today, as the "in the spotlight" moves that he has made this game frequently earn defenders. I think that's why he made the play in the first place.

[Balki Bartokomous]

You bet your sweet bippy I'm unCCed!

I dare someone to CC me. Then we'll have verified scum up on the block, even if I lose the thunderdome somehow.

This is open wolfing.

[sweetandcool]

Diplomacy: Gives the impression of reading the thread. Weighs in on the drama by deciding Jamiet is right, the pushback against Jamiet for voting sweetandcool indicates that worcej and sweetandcool are scum. His reads don't evolve after that except randomly voting brainbomb briefly. Is consistently flashing worcej right now.

Diplomacy is scum. He seems to have learned the wrong lesson from last game and decided lurking is his best play.

Dip, on the extremely off chance you are Town, please don't be scared off by last game. You were doing the right thing by attempting to solve, you were just wrongly persecuted. It takes practice to solve better, and you won't get practice if all you do is lurk.

But yeah: DIPLOMACY IS SCUM
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Rdr: On one hand, I would expect him to scumread me, and so his defense of me is pretty suspicious. On the other hand, I like all of his takes so far. He hasn't really made a vote that feels real, but that's not all that unreasonable given it is D1.

Rdr is scumlean, maybe just actually scum.
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lfisch: Scum I guess? Started being buddy buddy with me since I unveiled myself as Desperado. Before that, no real content. Other than buddying, latched onto Flav's meh case on Food and sheeped it.
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Worcej: Town. His scumread of Jamiet felt authentic. Maybe he calls out his teammate Dip, but less likely.

Worcej is probably Town.
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RHK: Null. I want to town him for vibes reasons.
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Bozo IS TOWN and it would be insane to think otherwise.
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I really want to scumread Balki. His reaction to my Sheriff claim as hurting Town was obviously false. Balki is way too intelligent to erroneously make that statement, but I could very well see Town Balki saying that as a way to push his own meta of what he thinks is correct Townplay. That is authentically Balki.

Otherwise, he really hasn't left an impression.

Balki is Null.
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Food has been confusing to me, because he claims that I am obviously fake claiming, and it's NAI because I talked about how fake claims were not bad before this game.

But then he decides I am being anti-town and .just be voted. Which reads more of a policy vote rather than a sincere vote.

Still, on the whole he seems more Town. The natural interpretation to his response to my highly believable Desperado claim is that he believes it, rather than he was backing off to avoid being shot.

I think people pushing that narrative are actually pretty suspicious for it.

Food is Townlean. (If he happens to be Mafia then the people pushing that narrative look pretty good)
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I think damo is Town based on vibes, but I don't feel convicted necessarily.

Damo is Townlean.
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Running out of time, so in summary Chaqa is kind of Null maybe Townish. I highly appreciate their energy.

Chaqa is Townish.
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Urgh, I'm going to post now. Still have the top four posters to look at. But of them I am already reasonably sure Jamiet is Town.

Getting kind of tired of people saying I haven't been solving this game. I put a lot of effort into examining the game here.

It's true it's not up to the standards I enjoy providing when I am in peak performance, but it's pretty decent nonetheless.

It's true also that I haven't solved at all since then.

But my wife! You can't expect brilliance under these conditions.

[sweetandcool]

You bet your sweet bippy I'm unCCed!

I dare someone to CC me. Then we'll have verified scum up on the block, even if I lose the thunderdome somehow.

This is open wolfing.

Na this is open PRing, a new method being pioneered by yours truly.

[Balki Bartokomous]

Getting kind of tired of people saying I haven't been solving this game. I put a lot of effort into examining the game here.

It's true it's not up to the standards I enjoy providing when I am in peak performance, but it's pretty decent nonetheless.

It's true also that I haven't solved at all since then.

But my wife! You can't expect brilliance under these conditions.

Frankly, if you're Town, I'm guilty of this. I did see more solving from you when I just went back and read your ISO. There are also tons of comments that are not about solving; they are just about your various claims, and kind of toying with people as they talk about them. But there is also more discussion of alignments than I remember in real time.