Thread: AmA

**Helz** · December 23rd, 2019, 08:08 PM

I have worked on mafia theory for a few years now and have had the intention of publishing some master work for some time but the more I work on any specific aspect the more I learn how little I know about it. I am not sure if I will ever have a finished product and I would like to share my notes so ask me anything, and I will give you an answer as in depth as I can so long as it is not something I believe damages game play.

For those that dive into the depths of reason remember that its the journey and the people you experience it with that maters more than the destination.

**OzyWho** · December 23rd, 2019, 09:14 PM

Are there any type of reactions or behaviors that you consider universally scummy or towny?
Tips on taking notes? Feels impossible thing to do in practice.
Are there any exercise type of things that make you better at reading people and their intentions?
Are there any exercise type of things that make you better at convincing other people?
List of traps that rookie players generally fall into?
What are some of the most common ways Mafia interact with one another in game thread? scumread/townread/no talk/lots of talk/ignore/..
Let's say you played in a very active game, but you can spend less than an hour on the game per day. How would you make the best use of your time? What if you were a reserve and just subbed into a game with 3k posts already and too had very limited time?
Only I have this problem question: how to keep being friendly, respectful and not engage in bigotry?
Silly question: how to not lose sleep from FM? Actually. I will address this question to @Marshmallow Marshall since he said there is nothing unhealthy about FM...
How do you know your theory works if you don't test it in practice?

**Marshmallow Marshall** · December 24th, 2019, 12:41 AM

Nice, Helz!

Here's my question. I believe that being seen as town is the most important thing in the game, because you can at least not be a hindrance to your team (whatever it is, unless you're neutral, and even then). It gives you much more charisma. Is playing to be townread, at least in the beginning, a valid style?

Originally Posted by OzyWho

Are there any type of reactions or behaviors that you consider universally scummy or towny?
Tips on taking notes? Feels impossible thing to do in practice.
Are there any exercise type of things that make you better at reading people and their intentions?
Are there any exercise type of things that make you better at convincing other people?
List of traps that rookie players generally fall into?
What are some of the most common ways Mafia interact with one another in game thread? scumread/townread/no talk/lots of talk/ignore/..
Let's say you played in a very active game, but you can spend less than an hour on the game per day. How would you make the best use of your time? What if you were a reserve and just subbed into a game with 3k posts already and too had very limited time?
Only I have this problem question: how to keep being friendly, respectful and not engage in bigotry?
Silly question: how to not lose sleep from FM? Actually. I will address this question to @Marshmallow Marshall since he said there is nothing unhealthy about FM...
How do you know your theory works if you don't test it in practice?

It's not my AMA :P I'll just say that: go to sleep if it's impossible. If EoD is in the middle of your sleep schedule, just say it and sleep IMO. Life and health goes first, and if FM actually is attacking your life, then it's time to take a break. FM is healthy and fun if well used.

**Frinckles** · December 24th, 2019, 08:35 AM

Where is the poison?

**Brendan** · December 24th, 2019, 10:45 AM

how to dragon execution

**OzyWho** · December 24th, 2019, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by Brendan

how to dragon execution

I don't believe it even exists tbh.

**Kenny** · December 24th, 2019, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

I don't believe it even exists tbh.

Helz is scammer?

**Efekannn02** · December 24th, 2019, 11:19 AM

Is there a godlike person that plays better than all of us together?

its not like I want to challenge him or something but im curious/scared

**Frinckles** · December 24th, 2019, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

I don't believe it even exists tbh.

It does.

**Marshmallow Marshall** · December 24th, 2019, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

I don't believe it even exists tbh.

I don't believe staff would keep lying to us like this. :P

also, the thread might be more active once the current game ends; it's hard to find topics that won't affect the game if they're asked about.

**OzyWho** · December 24th, 2019, 01:12 PM

Originally Posted by Frinckles

It does.

If that is true, why wouldn't the dragon executions trigger word be part of gv_executionMethodKeywords in MapScript.Galaxy?

Spoiler : .. :

Nor is it mentioned in any of these:

Spoiler : ... :

I can't read computer language. But it's obvious enough that Dragon is not grouped together with the rest of the execution methods. Nor does searching "dragon" in MapScript.Galaxy find anything else than DragonHead.

Are you really saying DR went through all that trouble to hide it? How many people would he expect to go search for it after fishing out the mapscript.galaxy out of the cache folder?
No way dude.
It's just an urban myth imo.

There is not even so much as a screen shot from the dragon execution.

@Marshmallow Marshall
You're naive. :(

**Kenny** · December 24th, 2019, 01:29 PM

scam exposed

**Frinckles** · December 24th, 2019, 02:33 PM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

If that is true, why wouldn't the dragon executions trigger word be part of gv_executionMethodKeywords in MapScript.Galaxy?

Spoiler : .. :

Nor is it mentioned in any of these:

Spoiler : ... :

I can't read computer language. But it's obvious enough that Dragon is not grouped together with the rest of the execution methods. Nor does searching "dragon" in MapScript.Galaxy find anything else than DragonHead.

Are you really saying DR went through all that trouble to hide it? How many people would he expect to go search for it after fishing out the mapscript.galaxy out of the cache folder?
No way dude.
It's just an urban myth imo.

There is not even so much as a screen shot from the dragon execution.

@Marshmallow Marshall
You're naive.

Of course. Its broken into multiple subroutines far away from the other executions. The reason you're not finding it is because the parameters for actually activating it are strict, and intentionally hidden. Hunk + Afro is a good place to begin.

**Helz** · December 24th, 2019, 02:57 PM

• Are there any type of reactions or behaviors that you consider universally scummy or towny?

Yes. This is a bit of a complicated question though.
I generally break tells into 3 categories- Perspective, Intention, and association. The most overt in perspective would be the ‘scum slip’ or TMI which is created by the individual’s gap in knowledge between what they actually know and what they pretend to know. This gap is often shown in the players presented certainty level when providing a read. A town players certainty level is based upon their reasoning so it will always match their reasoning while a scum player generally already knows the players alignment and must gauge how certain they should present their fake read. This aspect of knowledge is reflected in both consistency, person and certainty.
Consistency- You can generally follow a town players thought process while ‘flip flopping’ reads can indicate the lack of a thought process.
Certainty- When a player speaks as if they ‘know’ a players alignment it can indicate the existence of hidden information. When a players ‘read’ does not match their reasoning its usually a scum indicator.
Person- Scum players have to deal with who they are as well as who they pretend they are. Often less experienced players will reflect this in their writing. They will disassociate themselves from what they say using second or third person statements when a first person statement would be natural.

Intention tells are pretty basic. Scum have to do nothing to win because of their night kill while town has to lynch correctly. This aspect is reflected in some really basic ways. Waganomics or pegging the player who ‘hangs out’ are simple examples.

Association tells are overthought in 99% of my experience. More often than there is coordinated actions you will find a hard lack of coordination. Specifically I mean that most of the time a lack of interaction is more telling than interaction itself.

Past that there are behaviors that are specific to community’s. They are not idiosyncratic tells but are specific to the communitys belief structure. A perfect example for SC2 would be the concept of coaching. SC2 went though a phase years ago where it was a big deal if you coached another player and then 2 years later it went without comment. These kinds of behaviors have to be taken in context but hold value to the discerning eye.

• Tips on taking notes? Feels impossible thing to do in practice.

The issues most players have is that they gather information with no point. Your notes have to be useful so learn to ignore information you will not use. If you gather 100% of the information in front of you then your notes are pointless because you can just read the thread. Instead focus on the things that matter. SC2 has pretty crazy game compositions and its one of the few sites I have used straight up deductive information analysis. To do that I have to keep track of feedback claims and role claims while comparing them to the setup. Then in addition I use whatever scum hunting technique and focus on the information required to make that technique work.
As scum the critical notes you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS keep track of is the players bias. It does not matter what the vote state is- it only matters where the town votes are because you can shift scum votes to make things happen. Keeping track of the towns expressed lynch pool allows you to both manipulate lynches as well as shift the towns focus away from your team when you power wolf. If you are team scum and not keeping track of what town is willing to lynch some other town you are not playing right in my opinion.

• Are there any exercise type of things that make you better at reading people and their intentions?

Sure. Play a game and after the game go back and read the game. Think about how you felt while you played and consider what the scum players were doing. 9 times out of 10 the scum team is much less coordinated than you gave them credit for but identifying their intentions in context to your actions you can improve.

• Are there any exercise type of things that make you better at convincing other people?

This is something I harp on a good bit. I hate it when a shit town player brags about reading scum correctly after their town loss. Your goal as town is not to identify scum but rather to eliminate them. If you can’t persuade other players to use your read then it does not matter how good you are at identifying scum.
A simple exercise that is effective is to break down the communication process to 3 parts. Use this statement “I think A is B because of C.” If your arguing for a lynch or to avoid a lynch then you should be able to say “I think Jonny is Scum because he said X.” This runs into the critical flaw of meta hunting. Idiosyncratic tells are a great thing but its useless to identify a player as scum from their meta and then say “Jonny is scum because Meta.” This does nothing to build your case or push your read and post game when you rage at the lobby about how you were right and they should have listened you only have yourself to blame. Use meta to identify scum but for the love of god don’t vomit your meta reads on the town. It’s a trashy playstyle I have no respect for (/rant)

• List of traps that rookie players generally fall into?

My personal least favorite is the meta-meta. Its when a bad player points to their meta and trys to change their behavior to match meta reads instead of simply improving.
Another crappy issue is FPS. Everyone loves the elaborate trick/trap but more often than not its much more harmful to the town than it is beneficial. For a basic example consider if you have a 3/9 setup. If you are scum you only need 1 out of your 3 people to pick up on a piece of info to bring that information into your team. This basic concept makes it stupid to try to go all cryptic fancy pants with what you say. Town’s advantage is in numbers so just be honest.
I also wish more players knew how to be mislynched. It sucks but it happens. Keep in mind your win condition does not depend on your survival as town. Punishing the morons that killed you by flaming them only hurts your win condition so instead realize that the words you speak will soon be revealed as words from a confirmed town. Take a moment to give your reads before you flip and push your win condition instead of your ego.

• What are some of the most common ways Mafia interact with one another in game thread? scumread/townread/no talk/lots of talk/ignore/..

No talk/Ignore.. By far.. Like.. By a massive margin. High skill players can do complex interactions but you literally need 2 high skill players on the same team to do it right. Lack of interaction is my strongest association tell.

• Let's say you played in a very active game, but you can spend less than an hour on the game per day. How would you make the best use of your time?

Be honest about your time limitations and pick 1 player to iso in that hour. Or even better- don’t be a dick and sign up for a game you don’t have time to play : )

• What if you were a reserve and just subbed into a game with 3k posts already and too had very limited time?

I would ask why the hell you subbed into a game you didn’t plan on playing up front… But once again if your town give an original contribution to the town. Don’t get caught up in following the game state and who has what position on who. Keep it simple. Pick one or two players and give your thoughts on that player. The beautiful part of being a sub is that you don’t hold the bias the rest of the game does so use that to your advantage. Subs are the strongest counter to power wolfs imo.

• Only I have this problem question: how to keep being friendly, respectful and not engage in bigotry?

That’s not really a mafia question.. I personally strive to have a positive impact on everyone I interact with. I don’t always like the people I am around but it validates me to feel that everyone is better off for having had me in their lives.
For avoiding bigotry just try to accept lifestyles you don’t understand and avoid polarizing cultural influences (Like republican vs democrat.) That toxic kind of stuff will poison your life and create negative interactions with people you could otherwise enjoy spending time with.

• Silly question: how to not lose sleep from FM? Actually. I will address this question to @Marshmallow Marshall since he said there is nothing unhealthy about FM...

I always cut back to the ‘Don’t be a dick and sign up for a game you don’t have time for’ thing.

• How do you know your theory works if you don't test it in practice?

Im not sure if your asking if I have experience or if your asking the age old question of theoretical vs application. Either way I will let my words speak for themselves

**Helz** · December 24th, 2019, 03:10 PM

Originally Posted by Efekannn02

Is there a godlike person that plays better than all of us together?

its not like I want to challenge him or something but im curious/scared

Its a pretty subjective question. Firebringer and RLVG were probably some of the least readable players I played with here. Frog was crazy good but always went a bit far with FPS, Cryptonic and Elixer have probably forgotten more than I have ever learned about gamestate concepts..

Im not sure if I am even qualified to talk about the depth of some of the things Yayap messed with. I suppose he would be my vote for the most skilled player in light of the Anon/PR heavy concepts SC2 works with.

**Helz** · December 24th, 2019, 03:11 PM

Originally Posted by Brendan

how to dragon execution

Get lucky. It triggers a literal 1 out of 10,000 chance : P

**Helz** · December 24th, 2019, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

If that is true, why wouldn't the dragon executions trigger word be part of gv_executionMethodKeywords in MapScript.Galaxy?

Spoiler : .. :

Nor is it mentioned in any of these:

Spoiler : ... :

I can't read computer language. But it's obvious enough that Dragon is not grouped together with the rest of the execution methods. Nor does searching "dragon" in MapScript.Galaxy find anything else than DragonHead.

Are you really saying DR went through all that trouble to hide it? How many people would he expect to go search for it after fishing out the mapscript.galaxy out of the cache folder?
No way dude.
It's just an urban myth imo.

There is not even so much as a screen shot from the dragon execution.

@Marshmallow Marshall
You're naive.

DR had nothing to do with it. I put it in when I took over map development : )

**Frinckles** · December 24th, 2019, 03:19 PM

@Helz I could always use a helping hand developing

**OzyWho** · December 24th, 2019, 10:07 PM

@Helz
About the 1 hour thing questions - that's a lot of players here. Hence it's relevance to the community and why I brought it up.
The practice vs theory question. Well, this is how it looked from my perspective: I see someone, who I think hasn't played for years, say he has worked on theory during those years. Idk, that was just one of the first questions that came to mind.

Here is another question that I think is especially relevant for this community.
If we look at Town vs Mafia as Solvers vs Pretenders due to TMI, how do you catch pretenders when they don't have to pretend because half town doesn't try to solve either? I'm exaggerating, yes, but I believe this is core reason why meta is at the center of everything here.
I guess I answered the question myself. So I ask this - what's an alternative to meta in this scenario?

@Marshmallow Marshall
That "bad for sleep" wasn't about time constraints. It's about stress and in the middle of the night realizing that something that someone said during the game didn't make sense.

**OzyWho** · December 25th, 2019, 01:22 AM

Originally Posted by Helz

DR had nothing to do with it. I put it in when I took over map development : )

Why did you hide it though?

**Marshmallow Marshall** · December 25th, 2019, 02:50 AM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

@Helz
About the 1 hour thing questions - that's a lot of players here. Hence it's relevance to the community and why I brought it up.
The practice vs theory question. Well, this is how it looked from my perspective: I see someone, who I think hasn't played for years, say he has worked on theory during those years. Idk, that was just one of the first questions that came to mind.

Here is another question that I think is especially relevant for this community.
If we look at Town vs Mafia as Solvers vs Pretenders due to TMI, how do you catch pretenders when they don't have to pretend because half town doesn't try to solve either? I'm exaggerating, yes, but I believe this is core reason why meta is at the center of everything here.
I guess I answered the question myself. So I ask this - what's an alternative to meta in this scenario?

@Marshmallow Marshall
That "bad for sleep" wasn't about time constraints. It's about stress and in the middle of the night realizing that something that someone said during the game didn't make sense.

Helz is right about the 1 hour thing. If you know that you're never going to be able to put more than an hour per game day into the game, you should probably not sing at all and wait for a better time.

About sleep... well, you could say that about virtually everything

it's just that you need to "sleep when you sleep", and not do other stuff. That's not really related to Mafia.

**Mesk514** · December 26th, 2019, 12:32 PM

When are we getting shit faced and playing poker?

**Helz** · December 26th, 2019, 07:03 PM

Originally Posted by Frinckles

@Helz I could always use a helping hand developing

You are easily 10 times the programmer that I am but I would like to help you. I am not sure how to work around the issue that caused me to step back in the first place. I will help you in any way that I can with the time that I have left.

**Helz** · December 26th, 2019, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

@Helz
About the 1 hour thing questions - that's a lot of players here. Hence it's relevance to the community and why I brought it up.
The practice vs theory question. Well, this is how it looked from my perspective: I see someone, who I think hasn't played for years, say he has worked on theory during those years. Idk, that was just one of the first questions that came to mind.

Here is another question that I think is especially relevant for this community.
If we look at Town vs Mafia as Solvers vs Pretenders due to TMI, how do you catch pretenders when they don't have to pretend because half town doesn't try to solve either? I'm exaggerating, yes, but I believe this is core reason why meta is at the center of everything here.
I guess I answered the question myself. So I ask this - what's an alternative to meta in this scenario?

@Marshmallow Marshall
That "bad for sleep" wasn't about time constraints. It's about stress and in the middle of the night realizing that something that someone said during the game didn't make sense.

If we look at Town vs Mafia as Solvers vs Pretenders due to TMI, how do you catch pretenders when they don't have to pretend because half town doesn't try to solve either?

The tells I described will help you identify people who are trying to solve the game state from those who are not. If half the town is not trying to solve the game you are in an ugly situation. I do not have an answer for how to handle this in a game but I would strongly suggest you make joining a game and not playing a taboo behavior within the subculture that is SC2 mafia. You can push hosts to be critical on their signups and refuse to join games that have accepted players who sign up and dont play. Trust me when I say that hosts will want to have you in their games if you put in effort and given the choice between a hardcore player and an afk one they will go out of their way to keep you.
My counter to the necessity of meta reads in this type of situation is simply that I refuse to allow meta reads to be an excuse for a lack of effort. I put a lot of effort into games that I play and I call out players behavior as disrespectful to myself as well as the rest of the players when they sign up for a game they dont participate in.
In a word- Be as rude to them as they are cowardly and inconsiderate to you. The player who behaves this way is toxic to the community and you should show them no respect. Post game give voice to how their inconsiderate behavior hurt your experience. It will help prevent it from being considered an acceptable norm.

**Helz** · December 26th, 2019, 07:25 PM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

Why did you hide it though?

The dragon is a really ugly render from Warcraft 2. It totally breaks immersion when you see it..

**Helz** · December 26th, 2019, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by Mesk514

When are we getting shit faced and playing poker?

Im about 4 beers from being shit faced right now and have plenty of money to loose

**blinkskater** · December 26th, 2019, 07:40 PM

Originally Posted by Helz

You are easily 10 times the programmer that I am but I would like to help you. I am not sure how to work around the issue that caused me to step back in the first place. I will help you in any way that I can with the time that I have left.

This is pretty cryptic tbh, not cryptonic but cryptic..

**blinkskater** · December 26th, 2019, 07:53 PM

@Helz
Players are going to incorperate meta into their reads. I agree that a solely meta argument for town/scum reading someone is weak and holds little weight. But using meta to help substantiate a read works pretty well for me as town.

You may have touched on this already but I think individual player meta is not something to just ignore when say you've played 20+ games with someone. I think a player can be playing perfectly as scum, but there can be certain meta tells that can essentially give them away.

You would then need to build a case and show the thread your pov as to why they're scum, which may be controversial to the thread, but sometimes when you know you know eh?

Do you think incorperating meta into reads is more beneficial then ignoring it?

**blinkskater** · December 26th, 2019, 07:56 PM

Also... Do you think post restrictions are a good idea?

**Brendan** · December 26th, 2019, 09:28 PM

wdym with the time u have left helz do u have terminal cancer?

**Ash** · December 26th, 2019, 09:31 PM

Why did she leave me...

**rumox** · December 26th, 2019, 10:12 PM

helz using a euphemism to basically say sc2maf is cancer

tru

**Kovath** · December 26th, 2019, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by rumox

helz using a euphemism to basically say sc2maf is cancer

tru

Sometimes it goes into remission but it always comes back

**Helz** · December 27th, 2019, 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by blinkskater

This is pretty cryptic tbh, not cryptonic but cryptic..

Originally Posted by Brendan

wdym with the time u have left helz do u have terminal cancer?

Sorry. I say things in weird ways sometimes. No cancer here : )
More and more I have been setting targeted timelines for things and I kind of think of setting obligations in terms of the timelines I have set for myself. I do think quite a bit about how short life is and I usually have a negative idea of my future but thats part of a 'big-ol-box-o-crazy' that probably isnt worth me going into in a public forum.

For details I stopped programming in the mafia map because opening the map corrupted a significant amount of code. Im not a great programmer. I consider myself a kind of a shit one. I just think I am a clever person and I grew up scripting starcraft maps which allowed me to do cool stuff. Most of what I did in the map delt with bugs and security issues that players hardly noticed until hackers would break the game and I had to figure out how to unbreak it.
When the editor itself destroyed a bunch of stuff DR coded that I didn't understand I had to choose between updating and loosing that shit or not updating. It seemed like the good decision at the time and I was also constantly falling short of my goals for the timeline of development of the map. Then Freckles stepped in so I kinda let go of the issue.

Maybe thats more transparent?

**Helz** · December 28th, 2019, 12:21 AM

@Helz
Players are going to incorperate meta into their reads. I agree that a solely meta argument for town/scum reading someone is weak and holds little weight. But using meta to help substantiate a read works pretty well for me as town.

I don't mean to invalidate meta. I just specifically want to harp on using meta to push a read. Lets say you are 100% certain a player is scum based on meta but I have never played with them and when I ask you why you scum read them you just say meta.. That means next to nothing to me. At that point the only value I can assign to your read has to come from my confidence in your meta reads and my confidence you are town. To make matters worse that gives me nothing I can use to read you on which is the base concept in breaking RVS- (That by creating a chain of nonsense accusations and reads you can watch players reasoning and draw real reads on them.) I always push players to think of making reads in the format of "I think A is B because of behavior C" and this kind of action avoids giving reasoning to C.
Thats not to say it can't be done right. I have seen players say "I think joe is scum because as town he is more vocal. Look in game XXXX1(link) where he was scum vs game XXXX2(link) where he was town to understand where I am coming from." This gave me information I could use to both read joe as well as the guy that gave the read. I will say I still liked it much less than a normal read simply because to understand it I had to dig through multiple other game threads which is AIDS and violates the simple concept that as town, you want to decrease entropy. I would even advocate referencing multiple games as a strong scum move for this simple reason. The last game I played I power wolfed I was everyone's strongest town read and when asked to reference another game I literally gave a game where I did the exact same things as scum knowing that my providing a game of me being a town read wolf would look better than the incriminating information contained in the game that nobody had time to look at.
To scale back to the original issue the fact that towns objective is not to identify but rather to eliminate scum creates a situation where sharing information holds as much if not more value than obtaining information. With this in mind meta reads are hard to share.

You may have touched on this already but I think individual player meta is not something to just ignore when say you've played 20+ games with someone. I think a player can be playing perfectly as scum, but there can be certain meta tells that can essentially give them away.

I totally agree. Pretty much every tell I push functions from "There is whatever core difference between scum and town by nature of game state" which is not much different from saying "There is whatever difference in player X behavior as town vs scum" for identification. I would even argue that it is by far easier to identify idiosyncratic tells than it is to pick up on general ones; but this has the issues of requiring a history with the player as well as the substantial limits in communicating your thought process to advocate for an alignment read to other players.
The larger issue comes from an individuals progression as opposed to the technique. In large, meta reads function on something I call 'gut reads.' You play games with a player and get a 'feel' for them. When they end up as scum most players connect them with being scum to the 'gut read' or 'feel' of their play style as opposed to any logical reasoning and then assign rational to that feeling after the fact. Whats worse is that in a game most players will at some point get some instinct that every other player in the game could be scum throughout the game but sets in the moment a feeling is confirmed. The fact that the player had a scum feeling on 10 our of the 13 players is conveniently ignored and although their gut reads were so inaccurate they are better off shaking a magic 8 ball the fact that the gut read existed in the first place sits in the players mind and they start to structure confidence in their gut feelings. Fast forward 20 games and you get the player who post game talks about how he was 100% right on pegging every scum even though he scum read every player in the game at one point and lost.
This kind of crap creates bad players with a high confidence in their skill which not only cripples their ability to become 'good players' but also gives a terrible example when the veterans of a community pass on their knowledge. I always say "If you cant explain your reasoning you have no reasoning" and would also regurgitate the whole "Practice does not make perfect.. Perfect practice makes perfect" quote in reference to these issues.

You would then need to build a case and show the thread your pov as to why they're scum, which may be controversial to the thread, but sometimes when you know you know eh?

In context to what you said I agree. But it still holds the 'ifs' of 'if you are right,' 'if you can explain your read to others,' and 'if your read is actually a read to begin with and not a gut feeling perpetuated by confirmation bias.'

Do you think incorperating meta into reads is more beneficial then ignoring it?

100% yes. I just do not think meta reads are done correctly a large part of the time and the lack of understand in the way the game functions often leads to players depending on either meta or wagonomics.

**Marshmallow Marshall** · December 28th, 2019, 12:27 AM

As town, you want to decrease entropy.

I know that's not the main point of your post, and I agree with the general message of it, but do you see the entropy thing as a rule to follow without exception, or as a general guideline? I've seen intentional entropy pushed by townies (and defused later) solve games to different extents. It was risky, but I believe it almost always paid off.

**Helz** · December 28th, 2019, 12:28 AM

Originally Posted by blinkskater

Also... Do you think post restrictions are a good idea?

In a way. I think they force players to grow outside of their comfort zones.

I do not think they are a good idea when its a measure to ensure activity. Requiring 5 posts a day does not matter when you end up with the players who post a total of 10 words in their 5 posts. If you have to force your players to play why are you even allowing them in your game..

However it can be a really cool exercise when your limiting the guy who makes 100 posts a day to cap out. It forces people to consider how they share the information they want to.

I have greatly enjoyed some post restriction games.

**Helz** · December 28th, 2019, 12:49 AM

Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall

I know that's not the main point of your post, and I agree with the general message of it, but do you see the entropy thing as a rule to follow without exception, or as a general guideline? I've seen intentional entropy pushed by townies (and defused later) solve games to different extents. It was risky, but I believe it almost always paid off.

You make a beautiful point here. I think its a balance. Breaking RVS is all about creating information while building a lynch pool is all about consolidating the information available into a persuasive argument. So simply no- I wouldn't say town should eliminate entropy without exception.

I will say that in my progress as a player I went from going out of my way to generate any information into focusing on generating information I specifically felt was useful.

**OzyWho** · December 28th, 2019, 01:30 AM

I just love it that some players constantly do exactly what Helz's describing. The good old "I x read him because meta/gut".
You would think that the more people play the more they make arguments more often. It is for many. But the opposite turns out to be very tempting, huh?

Me personally. Last game I really loved when blink and mag both meta-hard-read MM to be town. Them both having high accuracy rate on meta-reading MM meant that he was almost always town there, no matter blinks and mags alignments. That was convenient. MM's alignment was as much proven as anyone could ever ask for in this game of uncertainty.

Ganelon · December 28th, 2019, 02:35 AM

I didn’t meta read MM

**OzyWho** · December 28th, 2019, 03:02 AM

Originally Posted by Magoroth

I didn’t meta read MM

I assumed it was a meta read because you made no argument/reasoning for this:

Originally Posted by Magoroth

don't worry, you're not getting played this game
but like I said, I think there's a risk of you being an anti-vaxxer this game

take that as you will
also if this isn't 100% town MM I will quite literally eat my hat and never play FM again

If a statement like that wasn't based on meta, why wouldn't you explain your read?
Was it just because of your role?

**OzyWho** · December 28th, 2019, 03:48 AM

@Helz
I was hoping you could give your own individual thoughts on these 2 posts?
#822
#973
Especially the 1st one.

That slot was the center of all attention for the entire last game, and it all started from those posts. (It's 1 post, the 2nd one is stating what the 1st one said)

Mind you it's Day1, so nobody knew anything more than you do about that game now.

At least 2 of us got tunnelled hard on that slot for not much more than those posts. It allowed the mafia to line up lynches by pushing for alternative lynches.

Hoping you reach similar conclusions as us.

Ganelon · December 28th, 2019, 04:19 AM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

I assumed it was a meta read because you made no argument/reasoning for this:
If a statement like that wasn't based on meta, why wouldn't you explain your read?
Was it just because of your role?

Yeah lol I made it up completely

**blinkskater** · December 28th, 2019, 06:09 AM

Originally Posted by OzyWho

I assumed it was a meta read because you made no argument/reasoning for this:
If a statement like that wasn't based on meta, why wouldn't you explain your read?
Was it just because of your role?

Yeah seems like a meta read to me.

**blinkskater** · December 28th, 2019, 06:11 AM

Also thank you for answering Helz.

Ganelon · December 28th, 2019, 06:43 AM

It wasn’t a read on my end at all I was full of shit lol

Ganelon · December 28th, 2019, 09:45 AM

Btw Ozy I’m not disputing your point at all. It’s certainly true that it’s more likely for a meta read to be true if multiple people agree with it. I’d argue it was even true in Efes case, nearly everyone who’d played with him before scunread him. He broke his meta last game.

**Efekannn02** · December 28th, 2019, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Magoroth

Btw Ozy I’m not disputing your point at all. It’s certainly true that it’s more likely for a meta read to be true if multiple people agree with it. I’d argue it was even true in Efes case, nearly everyone who’d played with him before scunread him. He broke his meta last game.

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT THAT I DO NOT HAVE A META AND ALL ATTEMPTS OF META FOR ME ARE JUST WIFOM!!

**Efekannn02** · December 28th, 2019, 09:48 AM

I Feel Like I Broke The Rules Of FM By Following The Rules Of FM And Im Ashamed Of It

Ganelon · December 28th, 2019, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Efekannn02

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT THAT I DO NOT HAVE A META AND ALL ATTEMPTS OF META FOR ME ARE JUST WIFOM!!

I don’t agree but I’m happy you tried to take the game more seriously

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