whiteflame

VTNL is not possible

Yay for public mod confirmation!

kohai apologized for forgetting to send it. He’s town confirm

All the more reason to believe it. Good spot.

1) eveyrthing about what I am is unbalanced. So I don’t think rolls are traditional

Not sure what to make of that, but alright.

2) my justification and character really make little sense. So if and when I claim. Warning in advance

My justification isn't obvious. It's not completely disconnected, but this is not a character I would expect to see with this role.

3) Luna is town lock. 15 mins ago he asked for his character and David said he forgot to message him. This is mod confirm.

That is a pretty good indicator. Scum would have received theirs without any additional prompting. It's not impossible that Luna used this as a tactic as scum, but considering the delay in starting the DP, I doubt Kohai would do that just to give a member of the scum team mod-confirmed towncred pre-game.

Alright, a couple of things for everyone to note if you haven't read the OP carefully:

1. There is an anti-claim mechanic in play. Softclaims will likely be fine, but unless you have a clearly SOP claim, absolutely do not claim unprompted. We can work through how and who to pressure for claims as the DP goes on, but please do not gift scum extra roles to use during the NP.
2. Keep in mind the specifics of voting that are mentioned. You can't vote and then unvote in the same post. You can unvote and then vote.
3. There's a mandatory lynch on the table. I haven't asked, but I'm pretty sure that means we can't abstain from a lynch even if we VTNL. We will eliminate someone every DP, regardless of ties or lack of majority votes.
4. There appears to be some mechanic in the game that can affect the day chat. Not clear if that just means for one player (e.g. a Silencer) or some broader mechanic, but if something interrupts the chat for this DP or any future ones, Kohai made it clear that such a mechanic exists.

I’m out and about so I can’t post much, but I’m checking in.

I grew up in the 90s, so the nostalgia is real for me. Very fond of my character.

I’ll get /in on this. Might be a little low involvement at the start, just FYI. Oh, and not that it matters, but I’ll pick Nostalgia too.

Thinking on it. I'll decide early tomorrow, was considering taking a break.

We went heavy on the gambits on this one and it turned out kinda crazy as a result. Pie was right that the Yakuza was a redemption of sorts for Casey and my failure to use it a good while ago (did not plan to use the Tailor on Casey initially, just kinda worked out that way), just without an actual Yakuza. Fun tactic, ended up keeping a lot of people in POE and creating some arguments about who was more likely to be OG scum vs. recruit, so I was happy with it. Great playing with Mikal and working through strategies, GG everyone!

I figured I was doomed.

Figured you might, so we timed it. Easy mistake to make.

GG

Well… didn’t expect that.

VTL Pie

Glad I could meet your predictions.

Damn, didn't include Pie/Wryly. Also very unlikely. Don't see scum Wryly, as Pie's partner, lending credence to Mikal's visit (similar to Wryly/David).

Pie/Mikal - Very unlikely. I believe either of them could be OG scum, but them as a team just doesn't make sense to me. Their back-and-forth looks genuine and, in particular, Mikal's efforts to soft his Motivator claim to Pie just reads as enough uncertainty that I don't buy it being manufactured. Pie would have every reason to use that to "confirm" Mikal's claim if they were a team.

Mikal/David - Very unlikely. It's possible that Mikal would just hard bus his own partner here, but the degree to which he believes David must be on the scum team based on so little just doesn't come off as trying to put distance between them, especially since it doesn't give Mikal an out if David did flip scum. I'd say it's slightly more believable than Pie/Mikal, if only because their exchanges have been less extensive and could be more easily faked.

Wryly/David - Very unlikely. It's a meeting of two low probability recruited scum. Wryly stands a slightly better chance of being OG scum just because she could be a scum Tracker, but I don't see Wryly giving Mikal cover after that, so that chance has gone down significantly.

Mikal/Wryly - Possible. That Tracker result on Mikal places these two together or not at all. Wryly remains a very unlikely pick for a scum recruit, but I can't dismiss her at this point. Scum could have picked a relatively new player specifically because they'd be written off as an unlikely pick. That paired with Mikal, whose claim sticks out to me the most as odd and who is almost entirely reliant on being Tracked to Wryly as an alibi for not having committed the NK, means I'm considering this pair.

Pie/David - Possible. I still believe David's very unlikely to be scum, especially given his stated willingness to be lynched next DP, but I also can't just write him off for something he's promising to do later. It's hard to ignore that his role is particularly beneficial for scum to recruit, that it can't be confirmed without lynching him, and that his CC of Thoth in DP1 made him look about as townie as possible from the outset. And Pie could very probably be OG scum. He keeps arguing that there are plenty of reasons why he isn't scum, but it all seems pretty loose when it comes to nailing down his role early and pretty weak when it comes to tests. Pie hasn't been Tracked, either. He has and can have no role validation, so he's relying mostly on behavioral choices like pushing the massclaim to carry him through.

If I had to pick, based on both the likelihood of the Yakuza being used on David vs. Wryly (Mikal couldn't have known that Wryly was the Tracker, so he and Casey would have been selecting blind) and the lower likelihood that Mikal and Wryly would tie themselves together that closely through a Tracker result, I go with Pie/David as the most likely of the two.

I'm a slow writer in the best of times, and I'm trying to inform these as best I can. Please be patient.

I'm writing up thoughts, give me a bit.

OK, I'm largely caught up on the big points made since I went MIA. I really want to dig into potential scum pairings, particularly after looking over Wryly's analysis. I'm going to eat and I'll come back to this afterward, I promise it won't be nearly as long this time.

You didn’t soft claim martyr. You soft claimed a power role.

because you are scum. Having an active power role doesn’t mean you can claim it. Your claim is convienent. Skep was all over this last dp as well but I dismissed it because of how dumb his role was. You also said you weren’t beloved and claimed a role that functions the same way. Not to mention if I motivated you as scum you could have got 2 night actions.

because the role is basically beloved and a reason for why you are alive

I've still got problems with Pie's role, but he didn't softclaim an active PR just because he suggested protective roles shouldn't visit him. And I believe he'd have every reason to confirm that you Motivated him if he did use an active PR, which suggests he either didn't use an active PR or didn't have one. I do think it's weird how much he's leaning on the DP1 softclaim as a strong reason why he's not OG scum. It's not a good reason why he can't be OG scum, just a restriction to what he could claim later.

gun to my head it’s

you David

or wf david

I don’t think David outright busses wf out of the gate when im pushing you. David as scum and if I’m wrong would just wait for wf and then push because I’m leaning you. Scum David and wf would win because I would vote for you

I don't get the fixation on David. I get that there's a non-zero possibility that he's the recruited scum, but that's extremely low probability for someone who has said repeatedly that they should be lynched first next DP.

The wiki said the informant's message was the same each night. Maybe I misunderstood.

I must have misread that. I assumed the message changed, but I just checked and it says "a predetermined message," so it must just be one. That's frustrating, it would have been nice to have someone confirm the message he sent me.

I just thought of something. The night kill only make sense if whiteflame is scum. If he killed castin he could never fake claim that he was a doctor and healed castin. Castin was the obvoius night kill so whiteflame avoided killing him to get fake town cred.

If I was scum, I could have claimed I targeted someone different and killed Wryly, or I could just have said I used REF's role to try to solve the game. I don't see what kind of town cred I get for targeting a player who was townread with my role, so I'm surprised you think I get any especially when Vader died instead.

If whiteflame is scum then I think scum really messed up the last night phase. Whiteflame should not have made any night kill, claim to be town who saved castin from being killed, and then everyone would be lynching mikal nowt hat it is confirmed he visited castin

So you think I was seeking towncred as scum, but then point out that I didn't take the most basic step I could have to ensure my role looked authentic? A little inconsistent, but fine.

I'll be posting my reads on everyone later. For now I'm brooding on why Vader was lynched instead of me. I can think of only a few reasons.

They wanted to gin up suspicion around why I was still alive

They wanted to keep the least experienced player in the game

They wanted to exploit my tracking somehow to farm town cred

I'd bet on at least one of these being a factor in your survival, though it's worth pointing out that Vader giving out more information could also have resulted in more suspicion targeted at scum. Your role can be manipulated by a wide variety of roles. Vader would either have to be RB'd or somehow overwritten, and the information he would have delivered is less predictable.

Why would an OG scum Kohai CC a townie and full claim out of the blue?

There is zero reason to do that.

I agree with the repeated argument that we should be aiming for OG scum, and I agree David isn't it. If he's scum, it's because he was recruited, and I still don't think that's likely due to his willingness to be the auto-lynch next DP.

The POE of who could be OG scum is exactly Whiteflame.

Obviously disagree.

Let’s say you think I’m the OG scum. I soft claimed Martyr in DP1 why? To avoid being interfered with? Protected?

You said that you weren't going to die and suggested protective roles not target you in DP1. In retrospect, that could suggest a Martyr. It's not the only role that could suggest and it suggests town players shouldn't visit you, but I'll give you credit that the soft works with your role claim.

Let’s say I’m the OG scum who has an active role. Why would I say no to Mikal supposedly motivating me? Let’s say I’m an OG scum that has a passive role. That sounds super weak with a Yakuza to begin with.

I agree, if Mikal did motivate you, you'd have good reason to support what he did. I don't agree with the view that having a passive role "sounds super weak with a Yakuza" as that role is inherently very powerful. It dramatically limits what you can personally do, but being able to convert a town player is a huge boon for scum.

If I was OG scum, why advocate and literally coordinate a mass claim and risk being caught vs getting individual claims to minimize CC risk?

...because it looked a lot townier to pursue the massclaim? A lot of us were agreed on that, and yes, it comes with a not insubstantial risk of being CC'd. Specifically being CC'd on this version of Martyr would be pretty surprising - there aren't a lot of roles in that category and I'd say it's pretty low risk when you're largely just concerned with the existence of a Beloved Princess - but sure, it's a risk. You weren't the only one strongly advocating for a mass claim, so the risk of CC was on everyone backing the strategy, but I'll give you credit for putting much of your weight behind it.

Alright, I finally have some time to dedicate to this. If someone has something they want me to respond to, point me to the post or quote it for me. I'm going to catch up and we'll go from there.

I did say earlier that I’d be slammed today with samples. I’m still not home so it’s going to be a little while yet before I can post more, but if you want to sus me for my absence, at least recognize that I’ve said something already to that effect.

I've got a bunch of samples to process today, so I'm not going to be able to spend the time on here that I'd like, but I do at least want to get some thoughts out before I eat something.

It's a given that I'm in POE. It doesn't make a lot of sense from a game balance perspective that there's so little in the way of protective roles, but no one else is able to validate my night actions, so that's more of a theory argument than anything else. I get that. I also get that Pie's in POE along with me almost by default. We have no information on his night actions, either. I think he's largely behaved in a way that makes sense for a town player with that role this game, especially given that Yakuza flip, but as I mentioned last DP, I would have expected him to be a little guarded about giving up his role given that it effectively makes his Martyr useless to claim it. I acknowledge that that's WIFOM, doesn't mean I can ignore it entirely. It's also interesting that he'd point out the Yakuza Casey and I failed to use in a previous game as scum (seriously, a third time with the two of us as a scum team together would be bonkers, but it was insane that we were together in back-to-back games), when a Martyr designed very much like this appeared in Pie's own Indian Politicians game a while back (he gave me the role).

And while we're the obvious ones, I can't remove Mikal, either. The Developer role stands out to me as more than a bit odd, his first role being a Motivator can't be confirmed and seems like a choice aimed at avoiding suspicion, and his decision to use the Follower on Wryly stands out as odd. Why choose to Follow Wryly when she was already a pretty strong townread last DP? Wryly confirmed the visit, so we can at least rule out an RB, but there's nothing confirming what he used on her. I see no reason to remove him from POE yet.

As for Wryly and David, I just don't see either of them being scum. There may be some world where Wryly uses her role to confirm Mikal, but I don't buy her as a recruitment target at all for reasons I've already mentioned (I just don't see scum recruiting her without knowing her role), and I don't see her as the original scum Tracker tying herself this closely to Mikal. She'd be much more likely to use her role to sus someone this DP. I could see reason to reconsider that if Mikal flipped scum, but without that information, everything about her including her behavior over the last two DPs just reads as town. I can't see David putting himself in a 1v1 situation with Thoth off the bat, either. There's some possibility that he was recruited, certainly more plausible than Wryly with that claim already on the table, but I think the fact that he's already brought up the whole "lynch me next DP and I'll use my role to kill Pie" strategy makes me townread him all the more. He's just too willing to be put on the chopping block.

Alright, low on blood sugar, will revisit this after lunch.

Before we make a decision that gives the game to scum, I'd like to understand why I'm the apparent given lynch for any reason beyond POE. I wasn't Tracked, so I have no validation of my night action. I get that, too. I was willing to claim my target before Wryly said who she targeted, but you can believe that was a calculated risk.

We have precisely one protective role in this game in Thoth. His Apportioner was a pretty weak protective role since it only delayed the NK, and I'm the only one aside from him with a role that can still be protective, effectively backing up his role. I don't want to engage in modpsych too much, but even with my role in play, town seems surprisingly weak when it comes to handling the NK. Really the only counters to it are Thoth's role and Pie's claim, and the latter is useless now that he's claimed it (and I don't think we could call it a protective role to begin with).

It's strange, especially compared with the number of informational roles that have come up, that the protective roles are so thin this game. That seems even stranger given David's role claim, which adds another kill to the mix if he's lynched. It certainly makes for a swingy game, but that seems excessively so if you excise my role from the equation.

Anyway, it's late and I need to get some sleep. It would be a huge mistake to lynch me and I'd like to discuss this in more detail after I go back and read through the previous DPs. Mikal or Pie are both better choices (Wryly's result on Mikal only suggests that he didn't perform the NK), but I don't think I buy them as a scum team, so I'll need to do some digging. Please at least wait until we've had a chance to discuss it before VTLing.

Behavior wise Mikal is my strongest town read.

You're going to need to explain this one. It's a given that I'm in POE at this point and if I wasn't Tracked, then no one can verify who I visited so you have no reason to buy my role. But I don't get the behavioral townread on Mikal at all.

Everyone needs to repost their justifications please.

Sought to make "the perfect organism," used black goo, faked my own death, took the place of Walter One.

What did yall do last night?

I used Thoth's ability again, this time on Wryly. I figured Wryly, who was widely townread and claimed Tracker, was more likely to be the target of scum. Guess I called that one wrong given Vader got NK'd.