whiteflame

Calling it a night soon. I don't love that it's largely come down to just Pie and I talking this close to the end of the DP, but I'll try to be on early so that we can get some final discussion and hopefully some claims.

In case Vader’s vote is on Luna, I don’t want any sudden decision resulting in a lynch without discussion.

Unvote

There’s a reason I’m fine with getting his claim. I haven’t said that he’s behaviorally town and he frankly isn’t. I’d prefer to get his and Luna’s claims, then make a decision from there.

It’s trying to do something. It was supposedly a reaction test, but he got nothing out of it, and I’m frankly baffled he thought something would come out of it. And it’s a weird one at that. It’s like he’s trying to do something to seem like he’s doing something.

It does come out of left field, no doubt. Can't say I read it as scummy, more way too in his own head.

It’s more likely than not that 1/3 girls is scum because of REF’s flip. It’s a perfect fake claim for scum especially considering one of em was doomed to die. And if the theme is the bad guys, then giving a shitty character is a very weak fake claim. Like you’re instantly going to be sussed if your fake claim was the animals. It’s practically a death sentence. Giving 1/3 girls solidifies the scum’s place in town.

I agree that it makes sense for the setup, but again, with a pool of named characters this small and the apparent split this obvious, pretty much every named character beyond the two animals is a given. Celine and Bobby being in this game, whether as actual characters or with one as a fake claim, is practically a given as were the three members of Huntr/x. All of them meet the threshold of providing a solidly town-looking character claim.

And that in itself fits with my theory. Imagine for a second you had one of the girls as your fake claim. You want to soft claim early cause you’re likely not going to be sussed till MYLO/LYLO. Especially when he’s being hesitant to say anything about his role or character, what’s the urge to soft claim that he’s one of the 3 girls besides to farm towncred and avoid being sussed?

That wouldn't be my MO, but I get your point. There's a WIFOM reason to softclaim that narrowly that early if you're scum, less obvious reason to do so if you're town. I'm considering it.

The whole hidden mechanic thing also screamed TMI. Also the fact that he’s adamant that there’s a TP in the game even though it would’ve been LYLO on DP1. He either is TP or somehow knows there’s a TP. There’s just so much that there’s no way you’re not scratching your head asking why’s he even bringing this up? It makes zero sense.

I agree that he's gotten into TMI on a couple of issues, though it's not unusual for him in any of these games to hypothesize about things he's nervous could be in the game mechanics. It's weird that this was his worry, it's just hard for me to scumread it. The TP thing falls into a similar camp. I don't buy it and I don't get why he keeps bringing it up, but getting stuck on weird theories isn't a first for him as either town or scum.

Plus, I assume that scum have a silencer or some ability like that. That + a doomed Roleblocker is weak af. We already have a confirmed doctor. There’s probably an investigative role. Topping that off with a shitty fake character claim? That sounds wayyy too weak, especially if the game would’ve ended by lynching REF’s partner.

We don't know what other roles the second scum has and, as I've already said, getting a fake claim that is one of the side characters is not a "shitty fake character claim," but I get your point on the balance feeling a bit off given the flip and what we currently know about the other scum's role.

The basis he's been using for sussing players has been all over the place.

He started the DP off by saying he'd sus whoever claimed to be RB'd despite the fact that we know someone was (hard to imagine Rex wouldn't use it). I agreed with him that it would stand out, but the skepticism followed by immediately hedging in the same paragraph stood out to me.

He then moved onto saying that an RB'd player wouldn't receive a message, only to later state that he asked whether they'd receive a message specifically about being RB'd. Considering I confirmed with Mharman that an RB'd player with an active role would receive a "your action failed" message and that was with a pretty basic question, it seemed like an effort to catch someone out and follow up on his view that we should probably lynch anyone who claims to be RB'd.

He then immediately moved into the "it couldn't have been me because I don't have theme knowledge" argument where everyone else could have executed the lynch on Kohai (except him and Vader, the Silenced player) because we all picked up on not-so-subtle cues that he was Healer Han.

He's also hedged pretty hard every time he's mentioned sussing Thoth, most recently with his post about Thoth being "over-defensive" while also saying that this is his usual play. Just comes off as very non-committal.

If I full-claim and one of Pie and Luna does, what order should we go in? Maybe we should agree in advance to both post our full-claims at a set time.

I don’t think it matters a lot since, regardless of whether scum is between you and whichever of them claims, we’re either going to get two real claims or a real claim and a fake full claim given by Mharman. We can work it out anyway, but it shouldn’t make much of a difference.

When I asked whiteflame if his PM mentioned any other characters by name and said that I thought one of the main girls was more likely to be the fake-claim than the other two, that was because my PM says I am Girl A and my friend is Girl B. I was wondering if whiteflame’s role says he is Girl B and friends with Girl A.

I figured that might be the case. I’ll abstain from clarifying mine, as either way, it would give my character away.

Given that there are only 4 of us who can talk this out and we need 3 to get a majority, we can't stay split like this. We have to come up with a plan.

As it stands, there's a pretty obvious split between how Pie and Luna are seeing the game and how Thoth and I are seeing it. Vader's only going to get one vote and he clearly hasn't cast it yet since Mharman said he'd let us know when it's posted, even if we won't know what it is.

We need to come to an agreement about how to proceed. I'm fine with getting Thoth's fullclaim (I understand the hesitancy to give your role, but I don't think we can hold back on that at this point) if that comes with one of yours. I'm good with making a decision at that point. Thoth can decide whose claim he wants to make this as balanced of an exchange as we can manage. How does that sound?

Wait, you didn't catch it either?

Nah man. It's been a while and that was the only time I'd even seen that role.

If we started with 5 town and 2 scum, the game would have ended day 1 if we hit the non-Rex scum. I think this is solid heuristic evidence for 4 town, 2 scum, and a third-party, in which case the remaining scum might not be super-powerful to counteract Rex's Doomed.

It's not impossible, but I can't say that the TP is obvious here, especially given that scum were given a full fake claim, which Rex obviously wouldn't have used. Beyond that, whatever role a TP would play in this game, it wouldn't prevent the game over at the end of DP1 if there are two scum and we lynched the other one. All it would potentially change is who won as a result.

One more thing before I get off of here for the night and try to sleep. I will gladly claim my character tomorrow if people want me to, but I'm not claiming my role unless y'all are totally willing to hold me over the lynch barrel for it.

At this point, one of the following is true:

A) There are 3 members of Huntr/x in this game and they are town.

B) There are 3 members of Huntr/x in this game and one of them is scum.

C) There are 2 members of Huntr/x in this game and the third is a scum fake claim.

D) There is 1 member of Huntr/x in this game and the other two are TP and scum fake claims.

I've said already why I don't believe B) to be true (I think the second scum is almost certainly Gwi-Ma), and I'm going to rule out D) unless we get some indication that there's a TP in this game (which would strike me as pretty unbalanced even with the Doomed role for Rex, which seemed to be there to balance the 5-2 split - maybe a slight overcorrection, but one that I don't think the TP solves).

That being said, I don't think there's much reason to believe the fake claim is a member of Huntr/x over just being another substantial character from the plot, which Luna has claimed and I'm sure Pie is. As I said last DP, there aren't that many characters that were bound to be in this game and any of them make sense as a fake claim.

Going to be spending some of today reading through everyone's posts to see if I missed something behaviorally relevant, but as of now, my preference is not to seek your claim. I'd prefer either Pie or Luna's claim and we can go from there. Do you have a preference?

I'm calling it a night soon, but I want to get out a few final thoughts.

For one, I don't really buy this whole Voodoo Lady test from Thoth. It's a weird one, but like so much of his behavior this DP, it doesn't come off as scummy to me. Luna's right that he tends to be very stream of consciousness with his posts, and posts like this just seem like more getting into his own head. I guess it's directed towards sussing Pie, but it's not doing a whole lot of work on that front. He could be scum and still doing this, but it reads as null to me.

If there's a good behavioral reason for pursuing Thoth that really separates him from his town behavior in the past, I'm receptive. I'm not really seeing anything distinctive from Luna, with that linked post only telling me that he thought something that clearly isn't happening would get him lynched if a flip demonstrated it. I can see how it's defensive, but it's especially weird to call this out if you know your partner's going to flip next DP. As for Pie's reasoning, I'd like to see him spell it out, but he seems to be banking a lot on a member of Huntr/x being a fake claim and I'm still not clear where that's coming from. It's more plausible balance-wise with what we've learned from Rex's flip, but that's about it. He did softclaim more specifically than he had to early on, but that's about all I can think of that stands out.

Gun to your head, who do you want to lynch right now

I don’t have any full claim yet and we have enough time to get it, so I think we should be getting as much info as we can first.

That being said, if I had to pick blind of roles and with my suspicions of your, Thoth and Vader’s character claims, I’d probably lynch Luna. It’s not a strong difference, but there are a few things about the ways he’s tried to narrow POE that set me on edge.

My issue is with the confidence you were saying it with. Anyways it’s a moot point at this stage. I want to lynch Thoth, are you with me or not? If not, what do you want to do next cause we’re just wasting our time right now

I’m going to need some clear reasoning for why Thoth should be the lynch, then. I can understand pursuing his role and we can go from there, though I can’t say my default at this point is to believe that one of the Huntr/X claims is more likely than, say, your or Luna’s claims to be a fake claim. I’d say the likelihood is about even at this point.

And people who are more likely to analyze the theme and focus on behavior are like... maybe pie only. It's safe to say you and Thoth just knew the theme to pick up on it.

I think enough of the information zeroing in on who Kohai was had become public information that it was practically impossible to miss, and I’ve pointed to the specific information that came from Pie, Thoth and Kohai himself that helped with that. Their information required analysis, picking up on what they were putting down didn’t require much.

That being said, this argument is getting us nowhere. I just don’t see a reason to focus attention on the people who gave the clues when they were already public information.

I can't be sure, but there's a decent chance that I know who that character is and who you are. You might be able to guess the same about me.

To some degree I might be able to guess your character, but it’s still pretty close to a coin flip at this point.

I’ll be back on in a bit to respond on this argument Thoth is making, just wanted to address a few points.

What bothers me with Whiteflame was his strong conviction that none of the 3 girls could be given as a fake claim as scum or not be scum themselves back in DP1.

This just seems like a deliberate misread of what I was saying last DP. Having one of the girls be a fake claim was something I outright said was possible. My beef was with your argument that scum had one or two of them as a member, which was the impetus for our back and forth. We now have good reason to believe that scum don’t include one of the girls as their actual character, though they may still have one of them as a fake claim.

I don't really care, I'll character claim. I am Celine. 

Alright, makes sense.

I am more looking at it for authenticity, so far it does look genuine so I am not eager to jump the gun on on a scum read for him.

The analysis is fair. I have been more aggressive this game, comes from my knowledge of the theme combined with just enjoying being back and wanting to be more active. I might have acted in a similar way regardless of affiliation, so makes sense that you’d be torn.

There wasn't any serious discussion about who to lynch until the EOD.

If that's the case you shouldn't have waited until EOD to pursue any major suspicions.

I’m not arguing that I played it well or even that I had a good scumread, I just don’t understand the mentality that it made the most sense to actively pursue a NL.

Verbatim I asked him "Do you tell people if they are roleblocked?" and he responded "I do not say 'you were roleblocked'" which indicated that response to me.

I’ll just drop this since it may have been a different phrasing of a similar question.

I didn't pick up on it, and I doubt vader did either is all I am saying. So the fact that the remaining pool knows something about the theme and also picked up on that and he also died indicates to me that its obvious to people who give a shit about the theme, which includes at least one mafia member.

Again, disagree that this required any kind of theme knowledge, just looking up the character list and seeing who matches those details. The people involved in uncovering the details of his role last DP had some insight into theme, but anyone who paid attention would have picked up on those details, and a two-person scum team definitely would. I suspect Rex did.

It mentions one.

Why does it matter? One of them is accounted for. You said yourself that the character pool is low. The odds are very likely that all 3 are in the game whether real or fake claim. I’m a male. So there are 2 girls between you, Luna, and Vader.

I’d still say it matters, but since whatever he claims will either be dictated by his actual claim or the fake claim, I might as well just say it: I’m one of the three.

Are you saying you’re not?

I’m saying that I won’t be the first between the two of us to state that. If you have reason to push me for that information first, be my guest.

For the sake of identifying the fake-claim if it's a main character, it might be worth having the other two main characters claim that they are a main character, but not which one. I won't push for it yet.

Considering that as a possibility as well. Luna, we can start there if you'd like.

Alright, we've got to make some moves this DP and that starts with narrowing POE.

I haven't seen any disagreement with my framing of the theme split so far, but if people have some reason to believe it's not Gwi-Ma and Jinu, please clarify who you think Jinu's partner is. I recognize that that's not super relevant because know scum have access to a full fake claim and we know they're not going to claim Gwi-Ma.

As for who is in the game, I'd say we can bank on at least 2 of the members of Huntr/x being here. I don't see a world in which all 3 members play some kind of role in this game. Note: this does not mean I'm dismissing that the third could be excluded as a character and simply be a fake claim given to scum. The movie even includes a moment where two members of Huntr/x are impersonated by demons, it's not a stretch and it's even less of a stretch now that we know Rex was programmed to auto-die.

The long and short of it is that I'm not dismissing Thoth as potential scum at this point. He's in my POE, but I don't believe pursuing him for a claim does much of anything for us at this point. If he is scum, he's got a full fake claim available to him, so unless we believe Mharman did a bad job making it and we can spot inconsistencies, there's not a lot of value in pursuing him. The only potential value we get is in learning his role, and that only matters if we have someone who can validate anything he says he did. The only night action we can attribute to the other scum is that they Silenced Vader, and since I haven't seen anyone speak up about Tracking Thoth or Watching Vader, it's unlikely we're getting any insight into who did that.

That leaves Pie, Luna and Vader. Obviously, we're not getting Vader's claim at this point, so I'm setting him aside for this DP as an option. I've pointed out that he's an odd choice for Silencing given he usually doesn't play a very active role in discussions. I still think that decision stands out and I believe the possibility that he'd just Silence himself as scum is a very real one, it's just not enough for me to pursue him for a lynch right now.

Which, again, leaves Pie and Luna. I can see reason to pursue either of you for a claim.

Pie's claim is narrowed down to a small set of male characters, but he's most likely Bobby. Given all other male softclaims are dead, I can't imagine he's just one of the unnamed Sajas and he didn't give any hint that he's two characters, which would be required for him to be Derpy & Susie (I think he'd have listed them separately if he was just one of them, but the Wikipedia page lists them together). I'm not sure what role Bobby would have, but given that Healer Han is a far more minor character than him, I can buy him being in this game.

As for Luna, I'm a little more uncertain. He could be one of the three members of Huntr/x, the pool of which has already been publicly reduced by Thoth's softclaim. There's a more than decent chance that he's Celine. Far lower chance that he's Mi-yeong Ryu for reasons I mentioned last DP (barely a character, only exists in Rumi's backstory). I'm less concerned at this point about the risk of having a member of Huntr/x claim (we're presumably at 4-1 and it could be a fake claim anyway), so I'm willing to pursue him since there are more options on the table and I'd like to nail him down.

VTL Luna

Do you agree with me now that it’s more likely than not that scum did get a fake claim of one of the main girls. With the way REFs role is designed, it’s only logical that one of the girls was given as a fake claim.

I'd say it's possible, especially given that one of the scum players was set to die by DP2. I could see Mharman giving scum a really good fake claim to balance the scales since they essentially had only one night to use Ref's role and use him for the NK (which I believe he did perform, since it didn't matter if he got found out), but I wouldn't say that's my default at this stage. At minimum, his flip reveals the likely theme split.

Before I go to sleep, I'll leave a Yes/No question for Pie: Do you think I have breadcrumbed a role (not character) at any time in this game?

I'll need to read back through the DPs to see, planning on doing that when I get more time later.

It was discussed that 2 mislynches would be game over if there was two scum. We theorized there was one, but didn't know. Knowing there is two I can say in hindsight it was definitely a good idea, but we didn't have very many strong conclusions where I had left on in the game, so I would have probably erred on the side of caution either way, leaning towards a no lynch.

I still don't get this perspective. I'm consistently overcautious when it comes to lynches on DP1, but I didn't see anyone suggesting a NL DP1 and if someone had, I would have pushed back. The scenario we all believed was plausible was 1 scum, 1 TP. That would have brought us to 4-1-1. That may not be LYLO, but given that we necessarily wouldn't know the wincon of the TP, it very well could have functioned in the same way, meaning we could still have been one mislynch away from game over. Sure, there was a risk of a mislynch DP1, but I'd much rather have gotten a lynch off and shaved down POE than just sat on our hands and hoped for the best.

I was told that magic does not give a "you were roleblocked" message.

So you specifically asked him if players would receive that message and not whether they'd receive any message? That isn't what you said initially (you said they "would not receive a message") and it's an odd way to frame that question.

Thats why I said I think it would be you pie or thoth. Vader I doubt knows a ton about the show, and I already said I didn't as well.

Again, though, the information I pointed to came out during the DP. Whether scum know anything about the show is largely irrelevant to whether they knew who Kohai was. It was pretty damn obvious that the character named Healer Han (Pie gave a full character list) was a) the only one with the name of a Chinese dynasty (Thoth said as much) b) the only character whose name would give away their role (Kohai gave that away). It doesn't take someone with extensive knowledge about the show to put the pieces together.

What is the justification for Jinu being doomed? That he turned from a human into a demon? Seems loose, if you ask me, which makes me think that the remaining characters might have roles that don't seem to fit them.

Does this mean the other scum is probably Gwi-Ma?

It's not stated and it's a spoiler, but Jinu does bite it at the end of the movie. He's already a demon, but in the end, he gives his soul over to Rumi as he protects her from Gwi-Ma's attack in his last moments. That's why I said you could argue that the scum team is either Jinu/Gwi-Ma or Jinu/Rumi, though the former makes more sense than the latter given that the character that "dooms" him is Gwi-Ma. It's not proof positive, but I think it's likely that it's just straight up demons vs. everyone else.

I noticed that the letters in our are next to Pie on my keyboard. I think that's what you meant to type.

Yeah, same. Either that or autocorrect.

For reasons I don't want to get into yet, the DP1 no-lynch might be less bad than it seems.

I still think it would have made more sense to lynch, but given the outcome, we're still in good shape.

Not to suggest you would know who scum is/are if you are town, but naming three out of four people as sus strikes me as scummily non-committal, especially because, in some sense, those are three out of three people since Vader is silenced.

Yeah, it is a little odd, though he then went on to townread me, so I guess he's between you and Pie. There are other things about his posts that stand out more to me, but I can see your point.

I agree that I think whiteflame is town, although, on second thought, that's entirely a behavioral read, and he's been reading so townie to me that I forgot that I haven't seen him be mechanically cleared.

Yeah, I'm not mechanically cleared nor should I be. I can claim if it's broadly desired. If I had to pick who I thought should claim first, my choice is between Pie and Luna. Going to sleep on it.

Sorry for missing EOD but it’s also not that surprising considering I’m usually sleeping in the morning and up in the evening and all night.

Figured as much, I don't scumread your absence.

That said I am not sure we really had a ton to go off of anyway and I likely would have supported a no lynch in a seven player game anyway. As pie pointed out we still have two mislynches which is an ideal spot unless mafia have some crazy roles.

Less amenable to this position. Going into this DP, we should have expected one NK. The fact that we got scum had everything to do with Rex's role, something we couldn't have known coming into it. So supporting a NL last DP would have been extremely odd since you would have expected a 4-2 or 4-1-1, i.e. either LYLO or awfully close to it with a TP. Going to need you to explain why a NL made sense as strategy.

i will say that I will probably be a lil skeptical of whoever ends up claiming roleblocked (I actually may have been the one to be roleblocked but idk, because I don’t think mharman tells you if your roleblocked) because if I was scum and knew my role would be outed publicly at the end of dp2 I would want to use that to farm town cred. But it’s not like solid proof the roleblocked person is scum obviously just something I will be a little weary of.

It would stand out to me as well, though I guess it would have to come with a role claim at this point since none of us have said we were RB'd. Would probably depend on the rest of the claim.

I confirmed roleblocked players would not receive a message

Just asked and he told me that anyone whose night actions failed would be informed that they failed. That's not a direct statement that they'd been RB'd, but that is a message they would receive if they had been. Not sure where you got this.

I think scum is an experienced player who either knows the theme or did research in the theme based on the night kill. My guess is it’s our or Whiteflame atm

...why? Pie literally laid out all the plausible characters in this game and Thoth pretty blatant about his character being the name of a Chinese dynasty. Not hard to figure out who Kohai was and intuit his role. And by "our" I'm guessing you mean Pie.

Doomed Roleblocker is brutal for scum. It means that the other scum has good abilities and serviceability (aka the fake claim will be amazing ie one of the three main girls). I doubt there’s 2 scum and 1 TP. It’s most likely 2 scum at this stage. 4-3 LYLO DP1 is just garbage game design and again goes against Mharman’s principles.

Yeah, I think the split was 5-2, so we're almost certainly at 4-1 now.

I’ll full claim if you get 3 people to ask for it

Let me think on it a bit. Right now I'm leaning towards getting that claim, but it's not a given.

I think you’re scum lol

So you think he's fake claiming then?

Yall have any results?

Nope.

Kohai was who and what I thought he was. I may bear some blame for outing this.

He pretty much gave himself away, you weren't the only one to recognize that.

Re: Why I was not around near end-of-day yesterday. As Lunatic can testify since we were scummates in Suikoden, I tend to be up late into the night, the corollary of which is that I tend to be asleep late into the morning. On weekends, I rarely roll out of bed before noon Central time. I would have been more motivated to set an alarm if I had known that reaching the EoD deadline without a majority vote would result in a no-lynch. I implicitly assumed that whoever had the most votes would be lynched and there was some tiebreak system.

Wouldn't have made much of a difference with just you and me pushing, but I appreciate the explanation.

When I asked yesterday if we thought Magic was above hidden role modifiers, I was wondering if Healer Han's Doctor ability might not work as stated since he is a canonical quack.

Was wondering about that.

I almost wonder if Vader silenced himself for towncred, assuming that the silencer is scum or TP.

He is an odd choice given he's not been that active. Something I'm considering.

I need some help on my physics homework! It says that light is made of EM waves. What does EM stand for?

Electromagnetic, I believe.