Cerulean

>Come back after a few months

>Be weird about SOP claim

>Be mostly inactive throughout the game

>Make game-losing LYLO vote

Truly another Cerulean moment.

(And that's the last of my "woe is me" about this game.)

In some alternate universe, Pie carried the kill Night 1 and everything is sunshine and rainbows.

So I suppose it's Barry as Ninja and Monroe as some manipulative role, right?

Oh, there was one other point I had- by end of Day 2, the only real Watcher possibilities were Wryly and Vader, so I thought part of the reason why Wryly was killed was because Vader was scum, so they would've already known for certain.

But that's also just explained by Wryly being essentially locked as Town, so.

That wasn't really pushing me, was it? He called it an "outside shot" and didn't pursue it. Though that was mainly because of Rex pushing him instead.

(This is why I tell people that I'm experienced at Mafia, not good at it.)

TLDR I thought you were scum and made a Rex/Vader pairing fit together by seeing some things that looked odd.

+ Despite having you in scum for decent chunk of D2 I don't believe Vader really pressured you which I thought could have been paired. Maybe I misremember.

I thought a lot of Day 2 was trying to leave me open for a lynch without fully committing to it, and I thought it would make sense if the person who was defending Shining (at least somewhat) was paired with a person who was pushing Shining.

I want to blame it on the fact that I've been wanting to see a scum Neighborizer for ages but I think it's more I was focused too much on the micro moments and not enough on the macro "Pie was running the whole game".

Blegh. I had the Rex Vader world set up so perfectly in my head that I didn't consider the Pie Thoth world enough. Great.

Thoth voted Rex in #128, which I assume means we've lost.

Interesting fact: Did you know that it's actually been years since I placed a correct LYLO vote in a long-term game?

I don't think I'm going to be able to convince myself otherwise, quite frankly, so let's run it and I suppose we'll see if that streak continues. Hopefully not. You can feel free to crucify me in endgame if it does.

VTL Rex

My big issue is that we quite literally just proved with Shining that Town can do and say non-optimal things.

But I'm still stuck on D2 #140 (and surrounding posts). Rex is online, wants Pie dead or at least pressured, can see that the reaction test on Vader hasn't done anything, explicitly calls out that Pie is in multiple scum piles but just... Doesn't vote there?

If anything, that reads more like the "cautious scum" stereotype mentioned earlier. What's the point of saying he's in reach if you're not even going to bother throwing down the gauntlet yourself?

The thing is, there's definitely some case to be made about Pie. His character makes sense as an evil manipulator type. He did lead the discussions in a macro sense, though I still think his points on Shining were reasonable. He did resist claiming even when it was obvious multiple people were against him.

However. It's difficult to ignore Rex's Greatest Hits, including "I'm too cautious to use a scum Neighborize ability" and "I hard defended Shining" (with a total of 10 posts and never actually voting a more viable wagon in Pie).

The question is, do I want to make a snap judgment, or do I want to spend hours waffling about this?

Which I am going to continue to pick at because I have no shame and asking questions is easy.

What was the deal with the Vader vote? You never explained it and it was clear that you wanted Pie dead more, but you never changed that vote even though you thought Pie might be "in reach." The votes never stacked beyond 1 until very late in the phase, so he could have been a viable wagon, so why not vote there?

(Also, sorry if it looks like I'm picking on you specifically- it's moreso that you have more individual micro nits to pick at whereas I think the Pie case depends more on the macro "This gamestate is what things would look like if a scum were leading the game.")

To be frank, I don't know exactly how holy people treat "confirmables" like Neighborizer, Fruit Vendor, etc. here. Rex says that it would be a "shitty ass role" for wolves, but it does seem like it could be useful- on some level, Rex got through Days 1 and 2 partly because of being a "confirmable" role that's "usually Town," right?

Let me ask you this. What behavioral reason do you have to townread REF over me. I’ve literally led the entire game.

(I will say that this is not a good defense when we're currently on the verge of being swept.)

None of this requires Wryly telling scum!Rex that they're Watcher/Tracker, just an investigative hunt. Especially considering p62 today shows that Rex has at least thought about Wryly softing.

Although, the one flaw in this theory is the potential existence of a roleblocker/redirector. If you had that, why would you kill Wryly instead of just roleblocking or redirecting and hoping to instigate a wrong result?

Wouldn't it be easier to just figure out who she town read most and have that person carry out the kill if there are two scum?

The problem is that we have zero information beyond your word about how much you and Wryly were talking in the Neighbor chat. They didn't seem to think you were particularly stellar during later Day 2.

I could see claiming that I opened a line of communication to manipulate Wryly and gain information (which, this is wifom/selfpsych, but I would not do. Anyone who ever played scum with me knows how cautious I am).

In a scum!Rex world, the intention behind opening the comms line could be to gain information/manipulate, sure, but it's more likely the purpose was to pick someone widely townread who could "confirm" you. Anything after that would be gravy.

It’s literally Thoth, Rex, or Pie in the POE at this point. Whoever of Rex and Pie is scum is likely the locking the other.

So your perspective at this point is that Thoth is 100% evil?

To be blunt, my take at the moment is Rex/Vader, but I want to be sure of it because there's a reasonable shot of Pie/Thoth or Pie/Vader being the team as well and I haven't fully explored that world.

Well, yes, in that scenario, 3 of Town's roles don't really do much (Hider, Informed Townie, Gravedigger), one has to get pretty lucky to be useful, (Strengthener), one has two roles that actively work against it (Watcher/Tracker hampered by Gravedigger and hypothetical Ninja, and the other two have drawbacks (Dreamer being 1-shot and stoppable in multiple ways, Jailkeeper roleblocking when protecting). If scum has a Ninja and possibly a Manipulative JOAT with Neighborize/Redirect/Roleblock, I think that might make reasonable sense.

We have a whole dang Mafia segment of this website and still no ISO function?

If I wanted to mislynch Pie this DP, why kill Wryly, who townread me and was willing to lynch Pie?

Hypothetically, because your scum team has a 1x Ninja that was already used, you knew that a Tracker or Watcher had to exist because you knew I was telling the truth, so you had to hunt that PR to make sure you didn't get caught in the kill.

Hypothetically, of course.

Hm, WF's other game *did* have a vanilla and a negative utility role (Enabler)...

I have a team in mind right now, but I think I'll have to take a look back to see if it makes sense.