whiteflame

Thoth wrote:

Am at trivia night atm, will respond when at home

It's 11:30 PM here and I'm tired. My vote goes up tonight and I'm not waiting past midnight. I tagged you asking for your thoughts 7 hours ago.

Shining wrote:

Again, sorry for the late response. Third shifter lol. Its difficult for me to keep up with games. It would be different if I had another night owl to bounce off with, but its honestly frustrating to wake up to potentially pages of content that may or may not be fluff, especially if you are behind in ISOs. I admit I probably could have played my role better, but at the same time I felt like if I changed my behavior too much that would tip off mafia, so sorry there mate. Lunatic was scummy bro. He basically went "dude just trust me" and led a mislynch for basically no reason. Thats a scummy thing to do. I also wouldn't put it pass Thoth to gambit claiming Ogannsium and claiming the town cred while he can freely claim whatever benefits scum. Could be why he dragged his feet full claiming. His interactions with Helz is also bizarre from a town perspective because Helz basically admitted he was scum and shitposted for the second half of DP5 and Thoth seemingly didn't care. And if that wasn't enough, again, Vaporizer slip. As for you, with Rex flipping town, there is no reason for you to lie about being vanilliaized. If nothing else, thats some town cred for you.

Alright, that's something at least. I can't say I have a problem with sussing Luna at the time you were, though it didn't have anything to do with the mislynch. His claim was just off, though as soon as he claimed his justification (which was also the moment he ensured he'd be modkilled), that changed. Basically agree with your thoughts on Thoth.

As for the read on me, at this point, it seems entirely unnecessary. If I was scum, Thoth would have been lynched the moment you posted a vote on him and I'd be celebrating.

Well, I’m back and I don’t see anything new. Decision gets made tonight, so if you two have any responses to the above or additional reasons I should townread you, you’re running out of time.

Ugh, it transformed all the bullet points into numbers. Oh well, looked good on my screen. I'm done for now, likely for much of the evening as I'm going to Shabbat services tonight, so you have plenty of time to go over this and respond if you wish. Regardless, this ends tonight.

So I spent some time earlier working on ISOs for both of you. I found reason to sus each of you for different reasons, but lo and behold, Thoth has given me more to talk about... none of it good for him, but hey, it's something. Here come those ISOs:

Thoth –

1. Claim:
2. Reminiscent of previous games (e.g. Soldier, DP4 activation)
3. Nevermind. Thoth lied about the DP4 reveal and the connection to the DP4 Innocent Child
4. Delayed timing doesn’t look great
5. Given that we know scum had two questions about characters and roles, and given that Mikal claimed Cobalt and Helz claimed Nitrogen, there’s a more than decent chance the third scum claimed without a question
6. Initially townread the claim of Oganesson because it was so out there and so early in the game, also came with a justification of it not being well understood yet
7. Nevermind. The justification has just come down to “it’s the heaviest, therefore Soldier,” which seems baffling
8. Behavior:
9. ISO:
10. DP2: Gave some basic reads on Rex (town), Luna (unsure) and Casey (scum) before pushing the Casey lynch, partially on the supposition that the “minor difference” in Casey’s role would be an out for them in case they were visited. Similar logic for lynching Casey to Mikal.
11. DP3: Starts chat with Helz, says he’s incontrovertibly town. Starts to sus Bullish behaviorally, considers Mikal as “a reasonable choice out of the three”, but then selects Casey and stays there.
12. DP4: Stalls on the claim, publicly wonders if he’s too solidly townreading Helz, gets defensive of Helz’s claim and strawmans my argument for why their lynch should be on the table.
13. DP5: Claims Soldier, spends a lot of the DP evading or holding off answering questions about what was communicated between him and Helz in chat, giving sometimes contradictory answers (“Helz told me that he was 2x Rolestoppper” vs. “He did not use the term Rolestopper in our chat” vs. “I did ask him if he was the Rolestopper and he confirmed that he thought that is what his role is normally called on here”), stating the role “Vaporizer” for the first time publicly, and giving weak reasons for townreading Helz.
14. DP6: Immediately defensive and points out the oddity of him being left alive despite being the Soldier. Bases his early sus on me in large part on his newfound mistrust of Helz before just VTLing me. Took his time explaining his actual read, but basically just blanket null reads Shining because apparently he hasn’t posted enough to get any reads (not accurate)
15. When pressed, stated that he’d known all along he was the Soldier and that both support for his claim and much of his justification were faked.
16. Helz/Thoth-specific Thoughts:
17. Do I believe that he’d continue to solidly defend Helz even when it became clear that Helz was the consensus lynch?
18. Do I believe that Helz would continue to insist his own partner is solid town when Helz had become the consensus lynch?
19. The explanation remains baffling. Too much confidence in his bluff yielding accurate results, too much certainty that Helz was town.
20. And yeah, I’m going to sus what looks like a scum slip when Thoth literally was the first to use the term “Vaporizer” as a role claim publicly. I can’t verify that Helz used it that way in chat with him, and even if he did, the decision not to look it up after Helz said it that specific way is beyond me.

Points in favor of Thoth as town:

1. Sheer obviousness. Going so far out of his way to defend Helz and back up everything he said publicly, then having Helz exclude him from the scum pool. Both of them would have to be absurdly blatant about buddying each other.

Points in favor of Thoth as scum

1. Literally everything else. Thoth backtracking on his claim makes no sense, nor do any of the blatant lies associated with doing it. I can't fathom any town player taking these actions, much less declaring that they had in the final DP. The lack of consistency in his posts throughout the game, but particularly in DP5, is baffling. Defending Helz so thoroughly comes back around to looking sus given how much of that rode entirely on the belief that Thoth thought he actively fooled Helz into believing he had a crazy role no one would believe.

Shining –

1. Claim:
2. Looks pretty basic. Uranium to Bomb is such an obvious 1 to 1 that I’m wondering if this is another “Cobalt is Magnet” situation.
3. Closest he gets to a softclaim is stating that his justification “at least draws from the chemistry”
4. Late claim doesn’t help his case. Shining was one of the last to claim.
5. Mechanically:
6. Can’t ignore that Bullish didn’t see any movement from him NP4
7. Also can’t ignore that no one has been Vanillaized since NP2, so it’s possible he just doesn’t have any more night actions
8. Harder still to ignore the results of NP1 actions
9. I know I was Redirected by Mikal to Shining
10. Would scum Redirect me to other scum?
11. I know either Shining or I were Vanillaized
12. Would scum Redirect and Vanillaize me on the off-chance that OoO let me get a night action off?
13. Or would they use the night action and evidence that I had visited a target who was Vanillaized (Shining) as a basis for pushing me?
14. This is the strongest point in Shining’s favor
15. Behavior:
16. ISO:
17. DP2: Sussed Luna after the Mago mislynch that he joined
18. Most insight I saw him give all game into a player’s behavior
19. DP3: Sussed Casey, me and Rex before just hopping on the Casey wagon late in the DP
20. DP4: Claimed relatively early in the DP before sussing Mikal and giving light, evasive reads on Thoth and Bullish
21. DP5: Puts attention on Helz out the gate, which is where his attention stays throughout the DP apart from telling me he’d ISO me
22. DP6: Once again says he’d ISO us and then just kind of not doing that, spent most of this DP so far parroting thoughts

Points in favor of Shining as town:

1. Mainly mechanical. I don't see a world in which scum decided to Vanillaize me and Redirect me to Shining. It's such a baffling move that I can't say I buy it. Mikal also seemed initially perplexed that I had been Vanillaized in chat, and now I think I understand why. Shining also gets some credit for pushing the right lynches, though he's pretty good at bussing from my experience, so that doesn't say much.

Points in favor of Shining as scum:

1. Lack of much in the way of material to behaviorally read and the obviousness of his claim. I want to put the former in NAI but there's so little to read into that it's hard not to scumread the aversion to providing more analysis, at least a little. The "Uranium is Bomb" claim is not great, either, as it looks most akin to Mikal's claim out of all the ones we've seen so far.

I'm going to give time for each of you to at least look this over and respond to it just so that I don't feel like I'm writing solely for myself and because Thoth had asked for an ISO to respond to. Here you are. My inclination right now is that Thoth is scum, but hey, you might surprise me with your responses.

Thoth wrote:

So explain to me how this makes you more town to me now.

I was serving up whoppers with the intention of using Soldier. Yes, I lied my ass off repeatedly, but you can see in hindsight that it was all to maximize the possibility that my role could win the game.

If this is the kind of strategy you use to maximize your odds, then I'd hate to see what you'd do to make them worse. You're blatantly admitting to lying about multiple elements of your claim, none of which would have increased your odds of survival that I can see. If you are the Soldier, scum had nothing to fear from you before this DP, so they absolutely would have just let you live. So I'll ask the obvious question:

Why do you think scum let a claimed Soldier survive into the final 3? They're the only ones who would have absolute certainty you were town and therefore likely telling the truth.

Shining wrote:

Then why would a town Thoth decide to switch votes...?

Because your vote basically confirmed to him that I was town, though you're right that that shouldn't matter. If he's the Soldier like he says, the lynch target should be irrelevant as long as it isn't him.

Thoth wrote:

whiteflame wrote:

So pointing to the DP4 Innocent Child earlier as support for your claim was a red herring, then? And you're telling me that part of my townread on your initial claim, which was based on the element being relatively new and not "seriously studied," is gone now? I missed the part where that makes me townread you more.

Yeah, it was kind of a red herring, but keep in mind that Pie did still put an Innocent Child and a Soldier together in MAGA Mafia. I think the townreadable part is that I set up my claim from the start to use Soldier.

Lol, seriously?

So you acknowledge that the Innocent Child was a red herring, which means when you pointed to the DP4 Innocent Child from a previous game and said "see, that makes it more likely I'm telling the truth," you weren't just actively lying, but proving that you'd looked back to that previous game to find extra reasons to justify your lie as more likely to be town. You're also breezing past the fact that you added an element to your justification that wasn't real, and considering that justification was part of the reason I was townreading your claim, that's a problem.

As for why this is "townreadable," I only have your word that you set up your claim from the start. You've given me no evidence to show that you knew you were the Soldier back in DP1 or anytime before DP4. So explain to me how this makes you more town to me now. I'd love to hear it.

Shining wrote:

How does Soldier work again?

At least based on one of Pie's previous games, it works like this:

"Thus, you are the Soldier. If you are the last living Townie, the Town will win."

Shining wrote:

Thoth has been voting WF for like a day now. If I was scum, I would have just hammered WF lmao. Thoth then decides I'm scum after being wishy washy? Like bro.

If he was actually town and the Soldier and you were scum, you'd be holding out to lynch Thoth since lynching me would net a town win. So, no, this is incorrect.

Thoth wrote:

whiteflame wrote:

Where did you softclaim?

The hidden role ploy was the soft-claim. Soldier works best when kept under wraps.

So pointing to the DP4 Innocent Child earlier as support for your claim was a red herring, then? And you're telling me that part of my townread on your initial claim, which was based on the element being relatively new and not "seriously studied," is gone now? I missed the part where that makes me townread you more.

Thoth wrote:

Aren't you supposed to be at work btw? Next time I get food poisoning, I'm blaming your Mafia addiction

I am at work, but there's not a lot going on. I have time.

Thoth wrote:

Also, I gotta say that I would do a lot of incautious things as scum, but I can't imagine many scenarios where I would have tied myself to Helz as unreservedly as I did.

That is one of the points I've found in your favor.

Yes, because it means that, in a sense, I breadcrumbed my role ab initio. That was just a cover to keep attention off of me until it mattered.

Where did you softclaim?

Thoth wrote:

whiteflame wrote:

Do you think that's a reason for me to townread you? Can you give a clear set of reasons for me to townread you? A set of reasons to scumread Shining? Something, man. Anything.

Look at the reason I was scumreading Shining, though. How often do you get a good set of reads out of Shining? Don't you think the mob was feeding him something, or at least that he was reading the Cliffnotes in scumchat?

I have no idea, but again, pulling a single post from the middle of DP1 and pointing to what was probably Shining's best set of reads in the game tells me nothing. He's posted somewhat detailed reads before as both town and scum, and his vanishing from the game for long stretches and not posting full reads is also common, so it would be NAI anyway.

Thoth wrote:

I would like to point out that I sussed Shining in Day 1 #496

DP1 is ages ago and the reads from then are practically useless in informing how I should see you now, not to mention your reason for sussing him at the time was that the reads were "something resembling decent" and, since then, Shining hasn't provided much in the way of reads beyond giving his thoughts on single players. This doesn't mean much of anything to me.

Thoth wrote:

So Shining is scumlock from my perspective. That means all I can do is play defense. Any specific things from my ISO that you want to grill me about?

I have a lot of thoughts written out here about both of you. I'd love to get some analysis from you before I post it.

What if I told you that I made up the hidden role as cover for Soldier?

I would tell you you aren't doing yourself any favors. Do you think that's a reason for me to townread you? Can you give a clear set of reasons for me to townread you? A set of reasons to scumread Shining? Something, man. Anything.

The only possible reason I can think of why you wouldn't hammer me if you were is scum is that you have some role that counters Soldier. I guess it's possible, but extremely unlikely. So flip a coin and hammer. I am fine with that.

If I was scum and I had a role that somehow countered Soldier, I'd still lynch you. Game over regardless. Again, I'm solid town to both of you at this point. There is no world where I'm scum and haven't hammered you yet.

Thoth wrote:

Yeah, go ahead, flip that coin, but do it between yourself and Shining.

...The coin flip would be between you and either of us (the choice between Shining and me seems unimportant unless there's some counter to the Soldier, which I'm just going to assume there isn't - if you're Town, we win either way). You should stop assuming you're solid town to me because from where I'm sitting, you aren't. You're on one side of that coin until you give me a reason to take you off.

Thoth wrote:

Shining pretty much townlocked whiteflame by voting me and not getting a quickhammer. All that's left for me to do now is imagine any scenario where whiteflame doesn't quickhammer.

Yeah, I'm not seeing it. But then why would scum!Shining vote me, knowing that?

I don't understand the question.

From where you're sitting, if you're town, he's solid scum by POE alone.

From my perspective, he could be either.

If he's scum, he knows you're telling the truth about your role and wouldn't VTL me, which means his only choice is you.

If he's town, he didn't know either way, but determined that you were more likely to be scum out of the two of us.

At this point, it doesn't matter whether you're voting me or him. By virtue of your role, it would result in a town win either way as long as I hammer. What matters is convincing the only town confirmed player that you're town and Shining isn't. Shining has incentive to do the same comparison. I'm still waiting to hear from both of you on that front, otherwise you're leaving the entire decision up to my own analysis. It's your call if that's what you want. I'm half tempted to just flip a coin at this point.

I've written up some pretty extensive thoughts on both of you, but considering both of you should have town locked me at this point (could literally end this game anytime I want just by voting Thoth if I'm scum), I'd rather hear your thoughts first. Shining has already said he'd provide them later.

@Thoth I'm not going to take "Shining is null because he hasn't posted enough" as an answer at this point. I've ISO'd him and I have thoughts on what he's said this game, even if there's not as much there as I'd like to use.

Thoth wrote:

I think it's 70/30 of you/Shining being scum

So I have to ask: do you still believe this? What incentive do I have to refuse to hammer you immediately after Shining VTL’d you if I’m scum?

Shining wrote:

Bro, I work nights. I don't really have the time or energy to comb through an entire game. I don't need to bother with say, Casey. I was bothered by how nonchalant you were with Mikal, but I remember the palpable agitation you felt last DP. And you being vanilliaised isn't some far left field play to happen. So if you are scum wp, but you seem town to me. I'm in my bed, so we can talk more when I get some sleep, okay?

Fine. I’m going to provide what thoughts I have when I get to work, but I’ll hold off on a vote until the end of my workday (5 PM EST) to give you time.

Shining wrote:

Alright, I'm pretty sure you are town at this point. Couple this with your thoughts on the vanilliaizer and how you are willing to self vhammer,

VTL: Thoth

I'm going to bed. I'm tired right now, but Thoth has been acting off and slipped. It has to be Thoth.

Whatever happened to that ISO you said you were doing? I saw a few posts and then a decision that largely echoes what’s already been said by me this DP. This is the first time you’ve brought up something different and it’s still based on something from this DP after expressing a lot of uncertainty over both of us in previous DPs.

I guess get some sleep man, but it’s frustrating that neither of you are making a decision easier.

Thoth wrote:

Part of it is that there's so little to ISO from Shining that he might as well be null. My scumread on you isn't that strong, but it's, like, the scale is tipped mildly towards you being scum when there's nothing really swinging Shining one way or the other.

I get that Shining hasn’t posted much, but having an effective null read on him at this point is not the take I expected and it doesn’t help me read you at all.

I would ask that nobody hammer until tomorrow evening so I can ISO, but town wins if either of you two die, so hammer away if you feel like it should be hammer time.

And this doesn’t help, either. If you’re town, you know one of us has incentive not to hammer because of your Soldier role, while the other is sitting here questioning if you’re scum and this is a gambit to get one last mislynch. If you’re scum, you know that doing this effectively just stops any further efforts to understand your thinking. It’s not like Shining’s doing better, but come on man, there’s got to be more you can do than just wash your hands of the DP.

Alright, I'm seriously done for the night, lack of sleep isn't helping.

Last thing I'll say is this: I'm fine with Thoth having his vote on me, and if I decide that he's town, I'll self-hammer rather than trying to convince him to go over to Shining. Town still wins.

Automated Vote Count

This vote count was generated by the mafia vote bot.

whiteflame (1/2): Thoth (p#6)

Not Voting (2): Shining, whiteflame

With 3 players alive, it takes 2 to lynch. Day phase ends in 1 day, 20 hours.

Thoth wrote:

I think it's 70/30 of you/Shining being scum

Alright. Where's your read on Shining coming from? What are you considering there?

I gotta say that whiteflame has been more abrasive and apparently frustrated this game than I've ever seen him before, and I kind of get the impression that it's leaking from scum chat, like he's pissed at Mikal getting mod-killed and Helz leaking that he had an exclusively scum role.

So there at least is some kind of behavioral read in all this at least. If you'll note, I've been very publicly abrasive, specifically towards Mikal and Helz. If you think I can fake this shit, I'll take that as a compliment because I cannot see myself getting this thoroughly annoyed to make a bus look good.

Thoth wrote:

whiteflame wrote:

I can't say I would have just claimed it if it was my actual role and was revealed in DP4, but I'm not going to hold that against you. That being said, if Bullish had somehow survived the NP, Shining would have been lynched by now. No way he was scum.

I was kinda afraid that I would look that much scummier if I took extra time to concoct a plausible fake-claim that would keep me alive until today.

Alright.

So Helz actively gave away the exact spelling of his role with a capital letter at the front? Straight claiming an obviously scummy role like that was certainly a choice, just a shame we didn't force an explanation out of him sooner. Strikes me as odd that you didn't think to look it up.

Call me retarded if you want, but it didn't occur to me to look up that role since I was under the impression that Helz made that name up based on his justification, not that it was an accepted name for a longstanding role.

So many things about your chat and your interpretation of what was said therein are beyond me, dude. Trying to get a read off of that is damn near impossible, but I also don't think that you as scum would be so defensive of someone who was nearly certain to be the lynch last DP. That's the main point from all this in your favor, I just don't buy you so thoroughly refusing to bus as scum.

It's still unclear whether you're sussing me or just doubling down on winning this game with your role. Which is it?

At this point, I think it's more likely you than Shining, but, given my track record of gutreads this game, that's almost evidence that Shining is scum lmao. Yes, I am trying to win, possibly by using my role.

I would love to get some insight into why you view me as scum because the only reason I've seen so far is that I trusted Mikal for too long despite a pseudo-CC and that the possibility of two redirection roles in the game is just something you feel is off. Is that it?

Quick thought: Why did they kill Bullish instead of me, knowing that I am Soldier? From my perspective, the only reason I can think of is because they were afraid Bullish could get a result that would implicate Shining or whiteflame. That's worth thinking about.

Maybe because he was very confident that Shining in particular was scum? He said so multiple times last DP.

I'm heading off for the night. I've got my opinions and I've stated many of them already, so here's what I'd like to see from both of you.

Who do you believe is scum right now? All I'm seeing is a lot of uncertainty. I kind of get that from Thoth because, if his claim is real, it doesn't really matter who he thinks is scum. He wins either way so long as the lynch isn't him. That being said, it's not an excuse to avoid giving clear reads, and so far, I don't know where his head is at.

For Shining, all I'm seeing is uncertainty and that doesn't help me get a read on him. He's been almost entirely unwilling to give detailed reads all game outside of the major target of any given DP, so I don't have any readwalls to use with him. I need something, and I hope these ISOs he's doing will actually provide it. With two people left in the game, it shouldn't be that hard to cover all the bases.