A-Deirdre

Alright, with limited time to figure shit out this DP, it's time to figure out a lynch. I'll start with an unvote.

UNVOTE

I really don't love that Llewella's excuse for lower investment/less detailed posts/limited reads (the closest they've gotten is segregating some players into "not interested" and "interested" for a lynch today, which is something, but even that only included 8 players) has changed from an attempt to challenge themselves to just being straight up busy, but it's not enough reason for me to pursue their lynch this DP.

As for who to lynch from here, I don't mind pursuing either Fiona or Bleys largely based on inactivity, though if I had to pick one, it would be Bleys. He pinged me a few times earlier in the DP and while Fiona.

Apart from them, much as I don't like picking between the VT claims just because they have claimed VT, I can at least see a case against Martin, albeit I think there are behavioral reasons to pursue others over her. I can't say I fully agree with Flora's reasoning for pursuing VTs, particularly in the numbers game, but I get it well enough that I don't think he's scummy. I'd like a third claim and I wouldn't mind if it's him, but he's not my priority atm.

You said in #49 "I asked him this already in private, apparently there can be roles not on that list in the game", which contradicts the Deirdre quote above.

Beat me to it.

A-Gerard wrote:

A-Oberon wrote:

A-Deirdre wrote:

I have it confirmed by Magoroth that the list of roles provided in the Setup thread is exhaustive, so yes, that pool of 7 roles specific to town is the extent of it. Fair enough, I appreciate the correction. That does make it harder for scum to fake claim actual roles in the game.

Well then Gerard needs to explain himself

Explain what I’m confused?

Calling it an earlier night tonight, but better to just clarify this. I believe Oberon is asking you to explain why you thought there were roles that weren't announced in the Setup thread, believe it was post #49.

I have it confirmed by Magoroth that the list of roles provided in the Setup thread is exhaustive, so yes, that pool of 7 roles specific to town is the extent of it. Fair enough, I appreciate the correction. That does make it harder for scum to fake claim actual roles in the game.

What’s the other option? I mean it’s clearly high risk high reward right. If they yolo and go for a PR, they cruise for a couple of DPs. Or they get CCed and you immediately go down. Only a couple of people would yolo and Martin/Caine don’t strike me as those people

Or we just end up outing town players in groups of three until they get sufficient role info to avoid a CC. I get the basic premise that scum are less likely to claim a PR in this scenario, but that only lasts so long as we don't start outing too many PRs. I also get drawing some attention to Martin and Caine given that Vanilla is a clearer safe claim right now, even if I'm a little lost on any other factor that distinguishes them.

You can also confirm in DM if you don’t want to go look for it

Waiting on an answer from Magoroth.

And that’s my point. Either way you have to consider the trade off. More claims or go with the tactic I described

I'm fine getting at least one more claim at this point, less fine with just lynching one of the VT claims straight up.

If scum want to yolo and be caught, they can be my guest, I’ll take it. But taking that risk makes zero sense, especially when you can claim Vanilla and blend in this early. Keep in mind that I didn’t even reveal this strategy till after 2 people claimed Vanilla.

It's possible one or even both of them did go for the Vanilla claim as scum. I get that scum could have seen it as a low risk move. That being said, it's not like "claim Vanilla" or "YOLO" are the only two possibilities scum have for claiming this early.

They don’t, Mago publically confirmed it

Didn't see the post, but I'll take your word for it.

This is not true either. Mago confirmed that all the roles in the game have to be in the thread

Not according to Magoroth, apparently #49. Haven't asked him personally, though I trust that Gerard has.

And that’s why we limit claims to 3 today. Tomorrow the strategy can change depending on people claiming PRs. But this early in a game i don’t see why we inherently just keep looking for more claims. Brands wagon has stalled. Mine has accelerated, which is fine. I’m fine being the third person to claim and no one else, but that limits your options.

Don't see why 3 is the magic number. Is the idea then to necessarily lynch among this group because there might be a 1 in 3 chance of hitting scum within it?

I never said all Vanillas should out.

I apologize, you were responding to Brand who said it.

If the third person we sus claims a PR, it dramatically reduces their odds of being scum. Helps with POE either way.

I would agree that if someone claims a PR from within the group of town PRs, that would be strong evidence in their favor. I'm more hesitant to say that it should lead us to necessarily lynch one of the two claimed VTs as a result, which is where you're headed with this.

Vanillas should absolutely in no circumstances out themselves. This just gives away who the PRs are.

I've now argued several times against mass claims. I'm pointing to an argument Flora made and responding to it, that's all.

I thought I was being pretty clear in my posts. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that in a 13 player game, there are 3 scum. Let’s also assume for the sake that out of the 10 remaining townies, 6 of them are Vanilla, which is a oretty liberal assumption. All the 6 Vanillas are going to claim that they’re vanilla and the 3 scum this early are gonna claim Vanilla cause otherwise they risk a CC. Then if we get 3 vanilla claims this early, probability wise 3/9 or 1/3 are scum prima facie. But we can take it a step further and force them to fight one another to help the rest of us generate reads. And worse case we read all 3 as town, but that still helps towards POE

So why are we assuming that scum will claim Vanilla? Like, I get it, that avoids a CC and there are obvious CC landmines in this game. That's a WIFOM reason for scum to claim Vanilla. That doesn't mean they will. I mentioned this earlier, but as far as I can tell, it wasn't stated that scum don't have access to fake claims. We also know that roles can come from outside those stated in the "Setup" thread, or scum could simply refuse to out and wait for the pool of CCable roles to dwindle as more PRs are forced to claim and more Vanillas are eliminated in an attempt to find scum in that set.

I see earlier that you suggested all Vanilla players should out themselves, so at least you're talking about generating a larger pool of Vanillas to lynch from rather than just lynching among the two players who have claimed. It's not a guarantee that we'll get scum to claim Vanilla, but I get where you're going with it if we assume they do claim VT. But as of right now, with the claims we have on the table, there is no 1/3 chance that either of the claimed Vanillas are scum, and I don't see how lynching either of them necessarily helps with POE anymore than selecting a widely sussed player who hasn't claimed.

So there is two different roles on the set up list that can physically take over a persons account and post as them. A scum role called the "disguiser" which is like a yakuza. They flip as Disguiser, but then basically possess the person they killed's account. Then there is a third party role called Rogue Ty'iga that takes over a persons account.

So basically with all these "Identity theft roles" and the mod allowing cryptography to be used, the idea is you make an encrypted message using something like AES that only unlocks this with a code word. You put that code word in your will. If we suspect someone of being disguised, we can force them later to out this code word. If they cannot provide the code word, if proves they are not the original owner of that account and therefor scum.

Alright, guess I can do this before the end of the DP.

I’ve already explained fundamentally why last game is different compared to this game and how I could say/do whatever I wanted in that game. As for Ruyi Zhuan, everything I’ve done is NAI. There’s nothing about my Vanilla strategy that is scummy. A 33% chance this early in the game is great. I think your concern is the two players I’ve chosen, which is just paranoia. I townread one of them and scum read the other. You and everyone else can choose the third person if you’re not comfortable, but prima facia 1/3 are likely to be scum at the worst

I really don't get the math here. I've read back through your previous points about how you got down to that number of 33% and it's still not clear. Are you presuming that scum will all claim VT at this point? That there's 6 actual VTs? If you could lay out the scenarios you're thinking on here, that would help a good deal.

VTL: A-Llewella

At least for the time being, I'm fine putting my vote here in hopes that it will result in some reads. Still plenty of people who haven't posted them, but I need something more than mechanical insights and frustrations with the way we handle wagons from you.

I know it's been mentioned a few times and I'm a bit lost on the aim of these "disguiser codes" and how they'll function. If we're doing something like that, we need everyone onboard and clear on their purpose, so if someone could clarify, that would be great.

The mechanical analysis is cool and all, but I don't love the discussion of the need for a wagon and counter wagon just to not post a single read. We're 21 pages in and I get that your focus is more on the kinds of roles in the game and how they could play into it, but Gerard has asked multiple times for some reads from you and I'm mostly just seeing distractions instead.

A-Gerard wrote:

A few thoughts about your reads:

WRT the Llewella read, I am a bit surprised you and Oberon aren't really concerned about the strategy of not participating. I am wondering if it's a combination of two things. 1. Post traumatic mislynch disorder from Solo Leveling, and 2. Not knowing how to read them after only playing with them once.

On both counts I would say I at the very least understand. Here's the thing, strategically, this isn't good. I think we can agree on that. I offered them the option of posting multiple reads in single lines even if its a bit spammy. But I was ignored at every turn when I asked them about game direction and reads. So outside of it being just anti-town, or a bad strategy, how is what they are doing indicative of town alignment? I asked them directly to tell me why I should town read them and they basically told me I have no reason to, and that I should view them at best as a third party. This person is now DIRECTLY telling me not to town read them. This was not a vibe I got from them last game where they were bleeding town the entire game in the mason thread. On top of this person directly telling me they like to make ballsy plays as scum, it just gives me an immense amount of pause. And then they turn the conversation around on me despite giving them multiple outs to take the game in literally any other direction, they make it a 1 v 1 thing and basically say "How about I don't tell you shit because I don't trust you." As if there is 0 benefit in doing this for the sake of their own team, assuming they are town.

So you and oberon having a null on them pings me funny. While there isn't a metric ton of things to read into here, they have provided a considerable amount more than other players you have given stances on like bleys/oberon. I guess I think it would have been less awkward if you took any stance even a town read, but coming to a null stance makes me get tingles that you may be paired with this person, and trying to draw attention away from them by dismissing them as a null, and oberons stance of treating them like an inactive doesn't ease that suspicion.

TL;DR My question is do you think there is any readable behavior in Llewella, or do you truly, actually believe out of all of this individuals posts, they are just a complete null read?

I wouldn't say it's PTMD, more just hesitancy to scumread a strategy that we've already seen them deploy in the previous game. That's been my only experience with Llewella, and given that the behavior is largely consistent if more stand-offish and less cooperative, I struggle to put them in either camp. I believe I mentioned in my reads that Llewella is either town being anti-town or scum, and I know I mentioned later that I can see the case against them, I just can't decide if they're more likely to be one or the other. That indecision wouldn't prevent me from pursuing their lynch in the absence of a stronger scumread, though. Even if all they are is anti-town, it's still damaging to town.

WRT Caine, I'm confused how you arrived at null/slight town here.

"The early push to get him to claim and his response to it come off as pretty consistent with this normal play, even if I can't get out of my head that having to claim first makes it more likely he's going to just out as VT to avoid a CC."

This line specifically seems like you have more of a negative stance on the claim than a positive one, as the positive only says his response seems "consistent" and consistency for the most part is kind of NAI to a degree.

That was my knee-jerk response, mainly because it's not a CCable role. I'm still not happy with it, but that gut response has largely subsided the more I've read through the game and seen Caine's and a completely unrelated player's posts throughout the game so far. Long story short, based on my experience with him on a scum team, I'd expect more signs that he's scum by this point. Relenting to pressure to claim and giving a claim that comes off as "safe" isn't enough to counteract my behavioral read.

WRT Oberon also confused about the town read. A lot of that stems from the buddying bleys comment, and you thinking thats abnormal for them, but that doesn't explain why you think an abnormal approach being used = them being town. Usually straying from behaviors yields the opposite response. Maybe my paranoia about the shared Llewella null stance is seeping into my paranoia about your stance on oberon though, but if you are able to explain this one a bit further that would be cool, especially since this player has made an official stance against bleyse, so wondering if that effects your read on them at all.

This was mainly based on what I'd expect to see from this player and how carefully I think he'd play it as scum. That's WIFOM, but I don't have a lot else to go off of for Oberon's posts so far. That being said, his turn back against Bleys and statement about using the "inactivity rule" rather than his own reads as a basis for a lynch rubs me the wrong way. The former was particularly strange since I don't think you pointed to anything particularly striking about Bleys' behavior (I flagged the inconsistency too, but calling it a scum slip is a stretch), and the latter feels like an excuse to delay providing reads and to then push off on their importance after the fact. Change him to a null/slight scum.

I am good with the rest of the reads, and thanks for providing them.

Cool. Again, apologies for my lack of activity. Increased pressures at work and more to handle outside of it came at a bad time, but I'm aiming to step it up.

A-Gerard wrote:

Last post for the night. I'm less concerned with Brand just outright calling for a mass claim and more with how he's chosen to defend it, which is in line with the arguments presented so far for lynching between the VTs we have so far (he's basically doubling down on that and hoping to get more VTs in that pool to consider). I get the point about the cryptography, just doesn't stand out to me as much.

Fair enough. Glad we got you in time for your reads, too bad that was basically all you were able to post today. Do you think you will be much more active tomorrow? I think I am gonna be talking to myself again all night and I am going crazy.

That is my intention. Don't think I'll have as busy of a day today at work, so I'll have the opportunity to post more. That being said, it is Shabbat and people shouldn't be expecting me to post much after work until later this evening.

A-Gerard wrote:

I kind of don't like everyone harping on Brand being scummy for simply suggesting a mass claim. Like if he is scum its for other reasons, and I do lean scum on him atm, but I don't think scums strategy was to oust all the power roles, and thoth of all people thought his grand idea suggestion as scum would be the one that was accepted. That said I won't debate it super hard either because I do suspect Brand for the interaction between him and the mod posting about cryptography.

Last post for the night. I'm less concerned with Brand just outright calling for a mass claim and more with how he's chosen to defend it, which is in line with the arguments presented so far for lynching between the VTs we have so far (he's basically doubling down on that and hoping to get more VTs in that pool to consider). I get the point about the cryptography, just doesn't stand out to me as much.

Gave general thoughts in that post, but yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of what Llewella is doing. Don't know if they'd draw this much attention to themselves as scum,

The problem with being in an unfiltered mason PM with this person is that I got to hear a lot of their thoughts both about that game, but how they play. And from my understanding, this person is capable of high level plays to induce that exact same logic that you just used to clear them. They in multiple instances in that Mason thread humble bragged about their abilities as scum, and how they would emply and use crazy strategies for fun. This person enjoys a challenge I think as either affiliation, and high level wifom isn't beyond them. So them doing this and then going further to purposefully ignore my many requests for reads or any sort of direction to the day phase at all, not only just doesn't make sense strategically, it seems like this is a ploy to get us over thinking about mislynching them after what happened in the last game.

I'll have to consider that. Since I wasn't in that chat, I'm going to be deferring a lot to you and one other player in the game who was, so I'll sleep on it.

I expect some more from dierdre.

Posted my reads in #540. Always love when the page changes immediately after a big post.

What are your thoughts on Llewella? Both general thoughts and specifically about 398

Gave general thoughts in that post, but yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of what Llewella is doing. Don't know if they'd draw this much attention to themselves as scum, but that's only because I've never seen their scum game. Certainly isn't helping the rest of us.

Alright, here are those reads.

Bleys - Slight scum. I'm tempted to view the paranoia over people on the scum team pretending to be each other as townie, though in general, Bleys has felt a bit less scattershot and random than I'd expect from him, particularly in a game like this. I really don't love that his last post is basically just him throwing up his hands and claiming he doesn't know who anyone actually is. It really shouldn't be that hard to pick up on basic clues, especially given his earlier post about how Banana types. It's dismissive and I don't get it.

Llewella - Null. By their own admission, and especially after watching their last game, they're employing a strategy that is essentially just an attempt to make the game more interesting for their playstyle. Fine, but it's NAI. I disagree with the statement that this makes them third party at worst - pointing out ways to trap scum that may never be used or be effective doesn't move the needle for me, especially since others have pointed out that there are separate roles in separate pools before Llewella pointed it out. Wouldn't be a first for me or several other people in this game to try to look townie by suggesting what looks like an anti-scum strategy.

Brand - Slight scum. My thoughts on Brand haven't really changed because Brand hasn't posted much today. I still have big problems with floating the mass claim idea. He has since argued that the pushback being automatic is somehow odd, despite the fact that it's been floated several times in previous games and has received strong pushback in all those instances. This being in DP1 makes the case worse, not better, and arguing that he has Random on his side to some degree doesn't make his case stronger. There's a chance it could help us hone in on scum, particularly if it creates a larger VT pool or results in a CC, but especially given that we don't know if scum have fake claims, that seems like a lot to bank on while outing every town PR. This is either anti-town or scummy, can't say where I'm leaning right now.

Caine - Null/slight town. To a large extent, I'm giving Caine a pass because he's been very clearly distracted from the start of the DP and I don't think he goes through all this while simultaneously working on a plan in scum chat. Otherwise, he's pretty null to me. The early push to get him to claim and his response to it come off as pretty consistent with this normal play, even if I can't get out of my head that having to claim first makes it more likely he's going to just out as VT to avoid a CC.

Martin - Null. The more I've thought about my initial read on Martin, the less I've bought into the scum-sided view. Would be odd for her to out that quickly after another claimed VT just to give the same claim. I'm not the biggest fan of her claiming with one vote on her, but she did just come off of a scum game and I can't say I blame her for wanting to come off townie on the early side this time around. I agree with her that pushing the two VT players blindly is off, and I'd at least look closely at anyone who's pushing that (more on that later).

Fiona - Null. Lack of posting, mainly. Just no real contributions beyond stating some very generalized thoughts and feelings about the game so far.

Flora - Null/slight scum. Largely good behaviorally, and I get where he's coming from on the reads he's provided. That being said, this business of pushing the two claimed VTs is rubbing me the wrong way. I get the idea he's going for with it, but Flora can't seem to pick a lane when it comes to how many VTs are likely to be in this game, let alone at what point we should be near certain there's scum among them. And with two claimed so far, I just don't get the perspective that lynching between the two of them will give us a good chance of hitting scum. The later reads he provided nixed any mention of Martin or Caine being VTs, so that's pulling me back towards null.

Julian - Null. Not a lot to go off of so far, just mainly focusing on posting style, looking for people who are mimicking, and the amount of fluff/not contributing posts from various players. It's something, and at least there is a shared read on Flora and Random, but it's not enough for me to build a read on them.

Oberon - Slight town. It's a minor read, but I don't think he buddies anyone that early or that openly as scum. Call it WIFOM, but it's unusual for him to do this at all, let alone so quickly. Pushing back on the Martin wagon that developed after Caine also comes off as pretty townie, as it did seem like several people were making that jump almost automatically.

Random - Null. The more I keep reading back through his posts, the less clear I am on a solid strat in here. He did say that Martin was scummy coming in and claiming VT after Caine, though I don't really see any analysis of the choice beyond that and he seems to drop it almost entirely. The push against Brand makes more sense, though it doesn't really distinguish Random for me. Seems to be noting some timing discrepancies, so that's something.

Gerard - Slight town. The most prolific poster in the game so far. His reads look pretty straightforward and well thought out to me, and he's been focused pretty heavily on engagement with other players. I get his frustration with Llewella in particular, particularly if they're just out here to make things more difficult. He's come off as a little impatient and annoyed, but as someone who hasn't been particularly active this game (sorry for that, hoping I can do more tomorrow), I get it. There does seem to be an awful lot of people just honing in on the two claims we have and venting about the game setup. I read all that as pretty genuine, though I've been fooled by Gerard before.

Alright, I can finally sit down and catch up. I promise full reads tonight.

A-Gerard wrote:

Can we get some reads when you wake up? I know its still early in the game, so if you don't have a ton of fleshed out ones that's fine, but as one of the stronger players it would be ideal in helping us crack down a lynch today.

I actually did post a few reads before I went to bed last night in #313, but I can see I'm now behind by a few pages. Once I get a break at work, I'll catch up and expand on them.

Alright, I at least got caught up so I can give some basic reads. Not going to put something down for everyone, but I at least want to get out some initial thoughts.

I don't really get the decision by Martin to claim so quickly after Caine, but I'm pretty null on both. I would not be surprised if there were at least 2 VTs in this game, so while claiming Vanilla early in the game does come off as a little safe, it doesn't seem unrealistic. Caine claiming under real pressure and Martin being a little more hair-trigger about it mainly comes down to their different playstyles, so I don't get jumping on Martin after their claim. In particular, Flora's willingness to just go ahead with a lynch on the VTs and pushing Martin just seems weird and opportunistic. Random's not far behind.

Harder for me to dismiss the push for the mass claim by Brand. It's weird that it came up after two VT claims as though that somehow moved the needle towards discussion of a mass claim. Not unusual for someone to bring it up at some point, but the timing plus it still being early DP1 doesn't help how this looks. It's just one post broaching the topic, but it rubs me the wrong way.

I like Gerard's activity so far, even if a lot of it has taken him down rabbit holes that have served as distractions. I'm still digging through posts to understand some of his reads, but I think his activity largely looks good and he sees to be deriving what he can from each player. It's way more than I can see atm, and while I'm not as sold on the same players as he is, I still think it all leans slightly town to me.

I’ve been busy much of the day, apologies for the delayed posting. I’ll catch up and give some thoughts tonight when I get a chance.

Didn't really care to keep my identity hidden here. Whether it helps or hurts me, my writing habits will always give me away.

Kind of meme’ing you for the “your always scum” thing but at the same time, statistically it is kind of accurate lmao

lol, fair enough!

Love probabilities, would be great to know where this one comes from.

Given that people had roughly 12 hours to login and change their avatar leading up to the game, I’m not sussing anyone who did that. It’s NAI. If people want to sus me for doing it after the DP started and waiting a couple of hours to post after I got caught up, go for it, but it seems like a pretty weak reason.

Alright, got some time to post this morning.

Haven’t read much of the DP yet, but to be clear, I received my login info yesterday at 1:08 PM yesterday, hopped on to change my avatar this morning (no, I didn’t stay up until 1 AM to see the DP go up) so I could get an actual avatar up, and waited until I could catch up, post and respond this morning to do anything else.