Originally Posted by Mag1cman on 9/21/2026 at 4:17 PM (post #172)
Originally Posted by Lunatic on 9/21/2026 at 4:25 PM (post #168)
I want to go back to magic because the more I look at his game, the more I don't really like what he's doing.
I don't think there's one huge smoking gun here, but his overall progression feels really safe. He's got a lot of thoughts and a lot of possibilities, but he doesn't seem to actually want to lock himself into anything until he knows where the game is going.The Pie/Kohai stuff is probably the biggest example of this.
Brother, half the people in this game haven't posted much at all. Of course, the reads are going to be early, and of course there are a lot of possibilities.
It's not as much about non-developed reads as it is about "keeping mislynch options open". I mean, I don't think this is a terrible response, but I also don't think you've really answered the part of my case that I actually care about.
I'm not saying you're not allowed to change reads. Obviously you are. I'm not even saying that changing your Pie read is inherently bad. If you reread him and realized you had confirmation bias, then sure, that's a perfectly reasonable reason to change a read.
The problem is the way you're handling uncertainty in general.
You keep saying "I'm not sure yet," "I don't know what to do with you," "there are a lot of possibilities," etc. And yeah, that's fine in isolation. But at some point I need to understand what you're actually trying to solve for.
Like, your response to my Pie point is basically "pre-lock-in vs post-lock-in Mag1c will have different reads."
Okay. That's fair.
But what specifically changed your mind about Pie? What did you find on the reread that made you think your original read was confirmation bias? Because if the answer is just "I reread it and it didn't look as bad anymore," then that's not really a process I can evaluate. It just means your read changed.
And the same thing applies to Kohai.
You say I'm trying to frame you as keeping both Pie and Kohai open so you can push whichever one is convenient.
Your answer isn't really "here is why that isn't happening." It's more "my reads are allowed to change."
Yes. I know.
I'm questioning why they are changing in the direction they're changing.
Magic starts out with:
"If I were to suspect two players based on what I've seen so far, it would be Pie + Kohai again"
Which is a pretty convenient spot to be in. Those are already the two people involved in the main conflict, so magic gets to have both of them as potential scum without really having to pick one.
Then he votes Pie to get a claim, spends a decent amount of time entertaining Pie as a possible scumread, and then suddenly gets to:
"Pie - solid town"
And honestly, I don't really buy the reasoning for that switch.It's basically just "I went back and reread it and nothing really struck me as off anymore." That's not really a strong reason to go from voting someone and wanting their claim to calling them solid town. And then what happens? Kohai becomes the obvious person to focus on. That's what I don't like about the progression. It feels less like magic is actually solving the Pie/Kohai situation and more like he's keeping both sides available so that he can move onto whichever one becomes easier to push. The claim stuff also bothers me. Magic keeps wanting claims from people, but the setup specifically tells us scum can fake one role/character claim. So I'm not sure why getting a claim is being treated as some kind of major way to resolve these reads. It feels more like a reason to put pressure on someone than an actual method of figuring out their alignment.
Pre-lock-in vs post-lock-in Mag1c will have different reads. The more I read Pie the second time around, the more I realized I had started with a bad confirmation bias on him. And so I flipped the read.
I also think his read on Thoth is worth looking at. Magic has Thoth as a pretty strong townread largely because of the role PM stuff, but we've already seen that the PM information itself isn't necessarily reliable. So I don't really understand why that should carry as much weight as it does.
You'd have to assume he'd have a claim ready that early. Maybe scum were given a full claim, maybe they were given a character, maybe a role. We don't know, but it is obvious that his soft draws a lot of attention to himself. "My role PM contradicts something in the OP"... just isn't what scum says.
I'm not saying "Thoth is obviously scum because of the role PM thing." I'm saying I think you're giving that interaction a lot of weight, and I'm not convinced the reasoning you've given for doing so is very strong.
You say "scum wouldn't say this because it draws attention to himself."
I don't really buy that as a strong town tell. Scum absolutely can make a statement that draws attention to themselves, especially if they think the statement itself will make them look town. And we don't know what scum were given, so I don't think we can really use "scum wouldn't have done that" as confidently as you are.
And then there's me.Magic's read on me is basically just "not enough on Lunatic" / "need to see more from Lunatic," and eventually I'm sitting in the same general pool as Kohai and Jen. But I don't feel like magic has actually tried to solve me. He's mostly just left me as a possible suspect because he hasn't decided what to do with me yet. That's the part that keeps bothering me. I'm not saying magic can't have wrong reads. Obviously he can. I'm saying his reads seem very easy to change depending on where the game is going. If Pie is scum, he can point back to all the times he suspected Pie.
I don't know what to do with you yet because I you've done a couple things that could be scummy and couple things that could be towny. I'm not swayed one way or the other on you yet. Not that deep.
If Pie is town, he's already moved away from that and can point to the fact that he reconsidered.
If Kohai is scum, he's got the Kohai suspicion ready.
And if Kohai is town, well, he was only a "tossup" for most of the game anyway.
There's not much risk in any of these positions.
Any bad townread, I'd argue is risky for me. Riskiest one is clearly Thoth based on you sussing that one. And you're ignoring that I've already put scumreads on Vader and Whiteflame.
As for Vader and Whiteflame, sure. You have those as scumreads. I wasn't ignoring them because I think they're irrelevant. I'm saying I don't think having two scumreads automatically means you're not playing it safe. I can have five names in my scum pool and still be playing safely if I haven't actually committed to why one world is more likely than another. And honestly, the "any bad townread is risky for me" argument doesn't really convince me either. Yeah, obviously a wrong townread can hurt you. But that's not what I meant by "risk." The risk I'm talking about is actually taking a position that can come back to bite you. If Thoth flips town, you can say "well, I had a bad townread." If Pie flips town, you can say "I corrected my confirmation bias." If Pie flips scum, you can point back to the fact that you suspected him. If Kohai flips scum, same thing. That's not me saying you're literally immune from being wrong. I'm saying you've managed to construct reads where almost every outcome leaves you with a reasonable explanation for why your read made sense at the time. That's what feels safe to me.
That's what makes me uncomfortable with him. I expect town to eventually have to put themselves out there a little bit and say "this is the world I think we're in, and here's why."
Magic seems to be doing the opposite. He's keeping multiple worlds open and letting the game tell him which one is safest to pursue.
Maybe I'm wrong on that, but that's the thing I'd want magic to actually answer.
Because right now I don't really feel like I'm seeing someone trying to solve the game. I'm seeing someone trying to make sure he has a reason for whichever way the game ends up going.
VTL Magic
Yeah, this is not a genuine case at all. I might vote you.
Why isn't it a genuine case? That's what I'd like you to actually explain. Because you've responded to basically every individual point by saying "that's not necessarily scummy" or "my reads can change," but you haven't really addressed the larger pattern I'm pointing at. You don't have to agree with my case. You don't even have to townread me. But if you think the case isn't genuine, tell me what part of it you think I'm manufacturing or misrepresenting. Because right now it kinda feels like you're more annoyed that I'm putting pressure on you than actually interested in figuring out why I'm putting pressure on you. And if your response to being pressured is "I might vote you," that's fine. But I'd rather you actually make that case than just threaten the vote. So yeah. If you think I'm wrong, make me wrong.