S-FM 208: Black Flag Nightless

[DarknessB]

-vote Iced_Monopoly

[Mesk514]

-vote Iced_Monopoly

[The Godfather]

Iced_Monopoly has been lynched! Stand by for the host's review and day-end post!


Iced_Monopoly (4 [L-0]): Spruance, Calix, DarknessB, Mesk514

[The Godfather]

Iced_Monopoly has been lynched! Stand by for the host's review and day-end post!


Iced_Monopoly (4 [L-0]): Spruance, Calix, DarknessB, Mesk514

[deathworlds]

Iced_Monopoly was lynched! He was a citizen!


Congratulations to Calix, DarknessB, and Mesk514 for winning!

Post game analysis will be posted shorly.

Pirates Aboard (living players):
1. Calix
2. DarknessB
3. Eggy
4. Mesk514
5. Never Unlucky
6. Sprunace

Pirates that have walked the plank (Dead players):
1. secondpassing Citizen
2. Kovath Citizen
3. Unknown1234 Citizen
4. Iced_Monopoly Citizen



Pirates with Scurvy (reserves):
1. Kovath
2. MattZed

There are two types of pirates you scallywags (role list):
Goon
Goon
Goon
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen

[Mesk514]

HORRAAAAH FOR ALWAYS BEING TOWN

[Calix]

How the fuck did we even pull this off in a setup this town-sided?

- Having to mislynch 4/7 townies
- Having no mafia-controlled kill so had no way to prevent town blocks from forming
- Having to defend at least one scum buddy due to the town win condition

Had town been more coordinated, we would have been outed via POE by Day 2-3. Only so many mislynches you can pull off before the scum become obvious.

[Mesk514]

-vote Spruance

thanks boo

[Spruance]

Lol darknessb and calix were mafia... town didn't stand a chance

[deathworlds]

Town lost all of its cohesion by day 3. Looking back onto it the setup really is town sided, while mafia had a lot of voting power, they had to be spread out to not draw attention to themselves, which somewhat negated the voting power that the mafia had (over half of majority). This setup was designed so that town would still have cohesion because mafia would have a very hard time trying to eliminate town leaders, however there was no town leaders that effectively led the town, which allowed scum to manipulate town. That is until day 3, when the entire town went batshit crazy. The town completely lost every ounce of cohesion during day 3 and it actually hurt the scum more than town, scum had a very hard time trying to pull off the lynch that they wanted, mostly because there was (at one point) six different trains.

Scum did an exceptional job at subtly controlling the lynch and I believe that Calix deserves this MVP more than anyone else, she practically carried the scum team and she led the town into destruction while still being town-read by the majority of the actual townies.

Changes I would like to make to the setup include giving the scum team a one time use overriding lynch that they can use to lynch a person of their choice, this way the scum team can take out an important leader or get off that last crucial lynch.

100 votes to hammer.

[Yukitaka Oni]

Noob town. 10% fault
All normal player die 30% reason
Too many veterans mafia 40%
The rest: no TPR, gee.gee

[DarknessB]

How the fuck did we even pull this off in a setup this town-sided?

- Having to mislynch 4/7 townies
- Having no mafia-controlled kill so had no way to prevent town blocks from forming
- Having to defend at least one scum buddy due to the town win condition

Had town been more coordinated, we would have been outed via POE by Day 2-3. Only so many mislynches you can pull off before the scum become obvious.

Agreed -- I think one or two mislynches is eminently doable, but four is nuts and we started feeling the pressure creep around us due to POE, if nothing else. The win condition was also rough so we couldn't easily sacrifice a Mafia member to get Town credibility without putting us on the cusp of a loss if the Town lynched correctly again.

I was honestly shocked that no one really went into VCA at all -- given this game involved just votes. Also, everyone forgot what an ISO was this game. Three or four of you kept pushing the "Darkness is Neutral" angle (Iced, NU, Unknown among others), but no one bothered to actually take my posts or make a case beyond the one-liner and a very simple "feels" sort of a read. If the Town had been more intent on pushing and scumhunting, I feel like we would have been in far deeper trouble.

[deathworlds]

I was honestly shocked that no one really went into VCA at all -- given this game involved just votes.

This is what really confused me about town behavior. It might just be a newb town thing, but I really expected some form of vote count analysis.

[DarknessB]

Town lost all of its cohesion by day 3. Looking back onto it the setup really is town sided, while mafia had a lot of voting power, they had to be spread out to not draw attention to themselves, which somewhat negated the voting power that the mafia had (over half of majority). This setup was designed so that town would still have cohesion because mafia would have a very hard time trying to eliminate town leaders, however there was no town leaders that effectively led the town, which allowed scum to manipulate town. That is until day 3, when the entire town went batshit crazy. The town completely lost every ounce of cohesion during day 3 and it actually hurt the scum more than town, scum had a very hard time trying to pull off the lynch that they wanted, mostly because there was (at one point) six different trains.

Scum did an exceptional job at subtly controlling the lynch and I believe that Calix deserves this MVP more than anyone else, she practically carried the scum team and she led the town into destruction while still being town-read by the majority of the actual townies.

Changes I would like to make to the setup include giving the scum team a one time use overriding lynch that they can use to lynch a person of their choice, this way the scum team can take out an important leader or get off that last crucial lynch.

100 votes to hammer.

We sort of said it to you in our chat, but had multiple Mafia members been voting together, I think it would have been pretty obvious. I tried to keep some distance from Calix this game in terms of reads and votes so that there wasn't an obvious block pushing the same agenda. I thought that worked pretty well toward the end, especially with her being pro-NU and me being skeptical to anti-NU. The only place that we converged was on Iced out of necessity, since we wanted to keep NU in during LYLO to fracture the Town.

On the point of pushing different people, not a soul pushed Spruance the entire game which I found odd. Yeah, he didn't end up being Mafia, but it was very dangerous / risky of the Town to essentially leave an empty slot where Mafia could be. I know Spruance isn't the most articulate with is responses, but people tend to respond when some pressure is put on them -- look at SP during Day 1. Same with Mesk -- everyone talked about how scummy she was, but no one ever really tried to vote her so that she would talk more. I caution everyone to read Camp Mafia to see the danger of ignoring a slot in a small game.

The lack of a Town leader was brutal -- NU tried to assume that role, but ended up tunneling either Townies or AFKer, which created a further rift between him and Eggy (the only other person acting in a Town-sided way). Iced was sort of apathetic when the Town needed him -- the Day 1 lynch, Day 2 push on Calix, and Day 3 CFD being key moments where the Town needed a strong voice to push process forward and no one stepped up. The Town also had a lot of voting power throughout this game and while plenty of people kept saying Darkness is scum, Mesk is scum, etc., no one made an effort to get a block of voters together.

[DarknessB]

This is what really confused me about town behavior. It might just be a newb town thing, but I really expected some form of vote count analysis.

Yeah, I had put together a VCA chart going into the LYLO day in case I needed to draw some trends. I know IIOA tends to be a mild scum tell without analysis (Iced's various charts being a great example of that), but my hope was to suggest that Spruance and NU were voting on bad trains a lot and especially Spruance had never been called out for that. Anyway, for what it's worth, here's what I had for reference:

Day 1:

1. secondpassing (4 [L-2]): Calix, TheDarkestLight, Unknown1234, Never Unlucky
2. Eggy (1 [L-5]): Iced_Monopoly
3. Spruance (1 [L-5]): DarknessB
4. Never Unlucky (2 [L-4]): Eggy, Mesk514
5. TheDarkestLight (2 [L-4]): secondpassing, Spruance

Day 2:

1. Kovath (4 [L-1]): Never Unlucky, Iced_Monopoly, DarknessB, Unknown1234
2. Iced_Monopoly (2 [L-3]): Calix, Spruance
3. Never Unlucky (2 [L-3]): Eggy, Mesk514
4. Unknown1234 (1 [L-4]): Kovath

Day 3:

1. Unknown1234 (4 [L-1]): Eggy, Never Unlucky, Calix, Spruance
2. DarknessB (1 [L-4]): Unknown1234
3. Iced_Monopoly (1 [L-4]): DarknessB
4. Mesk514 (1 [L-4]): Iced_Monopoly
5. Never Unlucky (1 [L-4]): Mesk514

Lynch Votes:

• Never Unlucky (3) - Days 1, 2, and 3
• Calix (2) - Days 1, 3
• Unknown (2) - Days 1, 2
• DarknessB (1) - Day 2
• Eggy (1) - Day 3
• Iced_Monopoly (1) - Day 2
• Spruance (1) - Day 3
• TDL / Kovath (1) - Day 1
• Mesk (0)
• secondpassing (0)

Town EOD Votes:

• Never Unlucky (3) - Days 1, 2, and 3
• Calix (2) - Days 1, 3
• Spruance (2) - Day 1, 3
• Unknown (2) - Days 1, 2
• DarknessB (1) - Day 2
• Eggy (1) - Day 3
• TDL / Kovath (1) - Day 1
• Iced_Monopoly (1) - Day 2
• Mesk (0)
• secondpassing (0)

[DarknessB]

Here's the updated version with full green / red trends too. One thing I was very proud about was the Mafia splitting their votes almost every single day and avoiding suspicion of being on the same side. We also never had anyone even close to a lynch during Days 1-2 and during Day 3, the trains on Mesk and me never picked up either.

Day 1:

1. secondpassing (4 [L-2]): Calix, TheDarkestLight, Unknown1234, Never Unlucky
2. Eggy (1 [L-5]): Iced_Monopoly
3. Spruance (1 [L-5]): DarknessB
4. Never Unlucky (2 [L-4]): Eggy, Mesk514
5. TheDarkestLight (2 [L-4]): secondpassing, Spruance

Day 2:

1. Kovath (4 [L-1]): Never Unlucky, Iced_Monopoly, DarknessB, Unknown1234
2. Iced_Monopoly (2 [L-3]): Calix, Spruance
3. Never Unlucky (2 [L-3]): Eggy, Mesk514
4. Unknown1234 (1 [L-4]): Kovath

Day 3:

1. Unknown1234 (4 [L-1]): Eggy, Never Unlucky, Calix, Spruance
2. DarknessB (1 [L-4]): Unknown1234
3. Iced_Monopoly (1 [L-4]): DarknessB
4. Mesk514 (1 [L-4]): Iced_Monopoly
5. Never Unlucky (1 [L-4]): Mesk514

Day 4:

1. Iced_Monopoly (4 [L-0]): Spruance, Calix, DarknessB, Mesk514

[Never Unlucky]

Lol darknessb and calix were mafia... town didn't stand a chance

You realise this setup is heavily town-sided? Town stood a chance, but between me tunneling SP, giving Calix a free pass 'cause I felt like it, and having a mental breakdown day 3, Eggy tunneling me for 4 days (zzz) and town-reading, you being an empty slot, Iced, TDL and Unknown being semi-active slots, and SP slipping day 1 -- we failed.

I tried leading the town and failed at it. I apologize @secondpassing . I feel so ashamed of letting Calix a free pass... I'll never do this again. I could tell she was trying to manipulate me by day 3.

DB, sometimes cases aren't necessary to read a player. This game I learned that tone and gut often mean more than content.

[DarknessB]

Oh goodie -- more wall responses to NU.

You realise this setup is heavily town-sided? Town stood a chance, but between me tunneling SP, giving Calix a free pass 'cause I felt like it, and having a mental breakdown day 3, Eggy tunneling me for 4 days (zzz) and town-reading, you being an empty slot, Iced, TDL and Unknown being semi-active slots, and SP slipping day 1 -- we failed.

Why are you so lackadaisical about giving Calix a free pass? You should never give anyone a free pass and this game was a perfect example of why not. The Town had no good leader and wanted someone like Calix to lead it. Too bad that Calix was scum. You and Eggy saber rattled a bunch but he didn't start tunneling you until after the multiple mislynches, which I can't blame him for honestly.

I posted just as much as Iced and your entire "neutral" vibe that you got for me was just as present with him, if not far worse -- IIOA, only posting when he was poked by Unknown and then Calix, literally saying I'm too lazy to try to shift the SP train so I'm going to take a nap, etc. While I certainly agree that players should try to be active, it's not scum's responsibility to lead the discussion and I felt like I posted frequently enough that people could interact with me, aside from part of Day 3 when I was drowning with work.

Also, even post-game, you call me an empty slot and have NOTHING to say about Spruance? Did you forget he played this game, lol. Despite me being scum and him being Town, I posted something like 3x as much as he did in just post number, plus with a ton of multiquote responses, whereas he went with his classic one-liners. Lastly, you didn't even respond to my giant post about your read on me and thoughts on Day 3 at the beginning of it. If you weren't going to bother responding to me, then why should I stick around exactly? Not responding to posts that make good points against you is a bad habit because then they sort of just stick around against you.

I tried leading the town and failed at it. I apologize @secondpassing . I feel so ashamed of letting Calix a free pass... I'll never do this again. I could tell she was trying to manipulate me by day 3.

If you've learned a lesson about blindly Townreading someone, then that will help you in the future.

DB, sometimes cases aren't necessary to read a player. This game I learned that tone and gut often mean more than content.

I completely disagree with this. Many players (myself and Calix included) HATE gut reads because there's literally nothing to discuss. You have a gut read that I'm scum. That's great, but other people don't. Where does the discussion go from here? Nowhere because it's literally a read based on the vibe that you get vs. something that you can explain or persuade people with. It's basically saying "trust me guys -- I just feel this".

Other players who use gut reads a lot are extremely unpersuasive and I really hope that wasn't the lesson you got out of this game. How well did those tone / gut reads work out? Resulted in SP being lynched, Kovath / TDL being lynched, Unknown being lynched, and zero pressure on Calix, Mesk, and myself. Gut reads suck ass man -- they don't persuade anyone of anything. Tone reads without actually digging into the posts stink too. Had any of you actually bothered to ISO me, maybe you would have got a train going. Instead, people were off the charts lazy with the one line neutral meme.

Literally, this game shows the failure of gut / tone reads as opposed to content reads. No one did any ISOs so no one got pushed by any actual case as opposed to people's hunches. I'm sure Calix has strong feelings on this which you'll hear about tomorrow when she reads this, lol. If you become a tone / gut read player, you will be less effective at scumhunting.

[secondpassing]

I don't think people realized that daychat was a thing. GGWP
Sorry for my erratic behavior, though, it may just be a personality thing- that I'm going to have to suppress.

This game was immensely enjoyable. Thank you again deathworlds.

[secondpassing]

I think I'm going to stop trying to read lurkers. Though my accuracy at it might be higher than say 30% (which was the expected random lynch percentage of hitting scum), it loses me so much town credibility to try to explain it to other people.
@Never Unlucky don't be. You tried to win. I can't take that against you.

And Calix...

-vote Calix

people need to stop trusting you :P

[secondpassing]

I really should have paid attention to more of the null reads people were throwing around. OMG they were so obvious in hindsight. Blind in foresight.
I also should have listened to my gut when DB when out from not posting to vote me as well.. but TDL did the same thing. I'm not sure how I could have read this game better.

Well played DB, I'm probably going to use meta reads on you from now on.

[Unknown1234]

Eggy what the fuck.

[DarknessB]

I don't think people realized that daychat was a thing. GGWP
Sorry for my erratic behavior, though, it may just be a personality thing- that I'm going to have to suppress.

This game was immensely enjoyable. Thank you again deathworlds.

SP, some tips for you -- please think about how OTHER PEOPLE will regard your posts before you make them. Merely because something is a good idea in your head doesn't mean it's a good idea to the rest of us. Townreading TDL because he posted ^^ and seemed happy was an insane read for a number of reasons which were explained in great detail. As was your odd justification of why you had voted Calix to start the game. Your scumhunting instincts aren't bad -- it's just the persuasion thing where you faceplant in many games.

Also, the game goes beyond just you -- the fact that you seemed to scumread everyone who accused you and Townread the people who didn't was extremely odd, as was the important you put on yourself this game. Try to think of the game in a broader sense beyond your own survival and you will do better. Some of your meglomaniac type comments about the scum having a conspiracy to lynch you really rubbed people the wrong way. And as you can see, most of the voters on your train were in fact Town (neither Mesk nor I voted you).

[DarknessB]

I really should have paid attention to more of the null reads people were throwing around. OMG they were so obvious in hindsight. Blind in foresight.
I also should have listened to my gut when DB when out from not posting to vote me as well.. but TDL did the same thing. I'm not sure how I could have read this game better.

Well played DB, I'm probably going to use meta reads on you from now on.

I think you are confusing me, SP? I never actually voted you during Day 1. My RVS vote on Spruance stayed the way it was throughout the entirety of Day 1. Also, meta reads are shit -- please don't use meta reads... Meta reads are terrible and are usually made up opportunistically. Everyone threw around the neutral crap on me, but guess what -- I USUALLY play neutral regardless of alignment. People also played up the inactivity card -- I've been very busy at work. Meta is crap and will make your play worse, not better. It should only be used as a last resort. All of the meta reads in the world resulted in no case against me because no one took the time to ISO or say anything in detail.

[Never Unlucky]

How well did those tone / gut reads work out? Resulted in SP being lynched, Kovath / TDL being lynched, Unknown being lynched, and zero pressure on Calix, Mesk, and myself.

Those weren't my gut/tone reads.

Spoiler : Correction :

They were -- Town: Unknown, SP, Iced, Eggy / Scum: Mesk and DB. Those were based on gut and tone. I understand that they do not make the discussion progress, but they seem to be more AI than slips/scumtells for me.

I really hope that wasn't the lesson you got out of this game.

I've learned plenty. Expect me to change my play style / personality in the upcoming games -- I felt guilt and shame during and after this game, I do not want to repeat these mistakes, and I do not want to see myself/be seen as a cocky asshole anymore. I'll pick myself up and try to evolve as a player and as a person for the better. This game was the wall I needed to hit face first to realize I am not who I want to be.

Sorry for aggravating everyone, especially you, DB.

[secondpassing]

@DarknessB How do you normally go about making these ISOs anyway? Everytime I try to make them, I end up losing focus (they have a bunch of town tells here and a bunch of scum tells here).
It seems to me that ISOs are more for making up crap so that your actual gut read can have some substance to them.

I hope next couple games I get to live longer.

[DarknessB]

Those weren't my gut/tone reads.

Spoiler : Correction :

They were -- Town: Unknown, SP, Iced, Eggy / Scum: Mesk and DB. Those were based on gut and tone. I understand that they do not make the discussion progress, but they seem to be more AI than slips/scumtells for me.

I've learned plenty. Expect me to change my play style / personality in the upcoming games -- I felt guilt and shame during and after this game, I do not want to repeat these mistakes, and I do not want to see myself/be seen as a cocky asshole anymore. I'll pick myself up and try to evolve as a player and as a person for the better. This game was the wall I needed to hit face first to realize I am not who I want to be.

Sorry for aggravating everyone, especially you, DB.

You can have gut reads, but don't expect anyone to listen to you if you say DB is scum because he just seems that way. It's perfectly fine to use a gut read as an initial means of orienting yourself to do a more detailed analysis on a player, but no one is going to listen to you if you are relying on just that. Newsflash -- Mesk always comes off scummy and people try to lynch her in many games, and she's usually Town. I play more neutrally and you've scumread me in both games we've played together. In contrast, you didn't scumread Calix at all and she was scum this game.

I hope you change your playstyle / personality for the better. You need to tunnel less, take a step back sometimes, be willing to change your reads, and not succumb to trolling / raging in games. You also need to consider that merely how a player comes off doesn't indicate that player's alignment. SP usually comes off scummy, I usually come off Neutral, Mesk usually comes off scummy, Calix usually comes off Town, Kovath usually comes off Neutral, etc. -- doesn't mean that's how we're going to roll. The better players are the ones who look beyond the low-hanging fruit and try to be critical with their reads.

You didn't aggravate me -- it's more like I felt you were going after me for meta reasons (like activity level) as opposed to actually reading how I was playing, especially given Iced was an even more Neutral-feeling slot and you Townread him for basically not OMGUS voting you. Yeah, I was a little bit more Neutral this game, but IC was a crazy outlier for me because of the rage. That's not how I usually play to be fair.

P.S. I would also work on trying to respond to questions with more than one line glib answers since that was a lost chance to make a case to someone. Sometimes when people were asking you questions, you resorted to stuff like "Because I'm Town", etc. That just doesn't help you make a case and feels like filler. View every post as an opportunity to make your case. Too many fluff posts or troll posts or standoffish posts kills your momentum.

[DarknessB]

@DarknessB How do you normally go about making these ISOs anyway? Everytime I try to make them, I end up losing focus (they have a bunch of town tells here and a bunch of scum tells here).
It seems to me that ISOs are more for making up crap so that your actual gut read can have some substance to them.

I hope next couple games I get to live longer.

Well, you use multiquote and then you collect a bunch of posts from a player that you're attempting to ISO. Then you read through them and comment on how you are feeling about them, hopefully with some sort of common link among the threads you pick. I.e. if the player is being evasive, contradicting themselves, made a slip, is buddying a certain other player, etc. Essentially, you want some purpose to the ISO or else it will get all scattered and disorganized which is why you should look for posts that suggest what you believe is the case.

I feel like if you take the time to think about how your posts will come off to other people, you will survive longer. It's just an issue of making comments that fail the smell test and come off like you have some other weird agenda that isn't scumhunting / helping the Town.

[Calix]

DB, sometimes cases aren't necessary to read a player. This game I learned that tone and gut often mean more than content.

Oh yes, I wish you the best of luck with that. If there's one thing we need out of this, it's you turning into the next Unknown or secondpassing where you hone your instincts but are too busy getting your arse mislynched to actually fulfill your win condition of eliminating the mafia.

And no, "my reads were accurate in X game" means jack shit if you survive yet end up losing. Town's job is not to find mafia. It is to eliminate mafia and if you found the mafia but failed to sway anyone, you played WORSE than someone whose reads were just off.

Well played DB, I'm probably going to use meta reads on you from now on.

Please stop forever for I guarantee that this will make your intuitive reads WORSE. Meta should be used to establish a groundwork for NORMAL behaviour for a specific player. It's the cherry on the cake, not the whole fucking cake.

I've learned plenty. Expect me to change my play style / personality in the upcoming games

This is the most intelligent thing you've said today. If more people actually worked on changing up their play then we wouldn't have chumps thinking that meta meta meta will solve the game for them.

[Eggy]

Eggy what the fuck.

What?

NU im sorry for tunneling you but I just found your behavior so against town interest that I couldn't possibly imagine you were town.

Calix won the game for them but at the same time I feel like she could have been a lurker and still won, there was so much TVT going on that to me it really seems like we lost this game for ourselves.

-vote spruance

spruance is probably my least favorite player on this site his whole play style annoys me so much I dont even know what to say, his meta is to lurk and not even care and place random votes with no explanation.

It is almost impossible to read him because he does the same thing as scum as he does as town. spruance needs to really work on his town play, he is so unhelpful to town it is crazy, his is an ideal scum player though because he can lurk through the whole game and no one really has a read on him because of his anti-town behavior being his meta.

He literally placed a random vote when scum could quick hammer and left it there.... We discussed how votes should be held off until all of us reached a decision but I bet he didnt even read that. He just placed a vote and left.... I was so sure NU was scum but I still removed my vote because I knew of the danger of a quick hammer If I was wrong, the fact tht spruance doesnt care at all really bothers me. I dont even think he had a hard scum read on ICED he just didnt even care if we won or lost.

[DarknessB]

What?

NU im sorry for tunneling you but I just found your behavior so against town interest that I couldn't possibly imagine you were town.

Calix won the game for them but at the same time I feel like she could have been a lurker and still won, there was so much TVT going on that to me it really seems like we lost this game for ourselves.

-vote spruance

spruance is probably my least favorite player on this site his whole play style annoys me so much I dont even know what to say, his meta is to lurk and not even care and place random votes with no explanation.

It is almost impossible to read him because he does the same thing as scum as he does as town. spruance needs to really work on his town play, he is so unhelpful to town it is crazy, his is an ideal scum player though because he can lurk through the whole game and no one really has a read on him because of his anti-town behavior being his meta.

He literally placed a random vote when scum could quick hammer and left it there.... We discussed how votes should be held off until all of us reached a decision but I bet he didnt even read that. He just placed a vote and left.... I was so sure NU was scum but I still removed my vote because I knew of the danger of a quick hammer If I was wrong, the fact tht spruance doesnt care at all really bothers me. I dont even think he had a hard scum read on ICED he just didnt even care if we won or lost.

I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident for Spruance, but he has been in two other LYLO games as Town and in both instances, he planted a vote early which allowed the scum to quick hammer and win the game. To put it in the most gentle way possible, it would be nice if Spruance could try a little harder in these games, if not for himself, at least for the other players. I know everyone plays FM differently, but such heavy lurking and lack of contribution is always unhelpful to the Town and makes the game less fun to play for everyone involved. For example, I don't ever recall having seen a multiquote-type response from Spruance or even a post that was longer than say 2-3 sentences from him. From the parts I followed of the M-FM, Spruance seemed to step up his game in there a little bit -- it'd be nice if he could try to build on that vs. regressing back to a low and disengaged level of play.

[Spruance]

I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident for Spruance, but he has been in two other LYLO games as Town and in both instances, he planted a vote early which allowed the scum to quick hammer and win the game. To put it in the most gentle way possible, it would be nice if Spruance could try a little harder in these games, if not for himself, at least for the other players. I know everyone plays FM differently, but such heavy lurking and lack of contribution is always unhelpful to the Town and makes the game less fun to play for everyone involved. For example, I don't ever recall having seen a multiquote-type response from Spruance or even a post that was longer than say 2-3 sentences from him. From the parts I followed of the M-FM, Spruance seemed to step up his game in there a little bit -- it'd be nice if he could try to build on that vs. regressing back to a low and disengaged level of play.

btw how did you all manage to vote at the same time lol

[Mesk514]

the power of communications, as masons we can always chat.

[Mesk514]

Spruance, don't let these haters bring you down... you did awesome this game!!! i can always count on you when I'm scum <3

[Mesk514]

Spruance, don't let these haters bring you down... you did awesome this game!!! i can always count on you when I'm scum <3

[DarknessB]

btw how did you all manage to vote at the same time lol

The Mafia had a continuous chat -- we just timed when we were going to hammer, lol.

[deathworlds]

btw the vote is for player mvp.

[Mesk514]

btw the vote is for player mvp.

Spruance was key. Never Unlucky as well... give these people a sticker plz

[Never Unlucky]

NU im sorry for tunneling you but I just found your behavior so against town interest that I couldn't possibly imagine you were town.

No worries, mate, you had a bad game and so did I. I'm not holding a grudge against you.

Calix won the game for them but at the same time I feel like she could have been a lurker and still won, there was so much TVT going on that to me it really seems like we lost this game for ourselves.

I agree with the latter one. Calix could've lurked, and I still would've protected her for no reason. We 100% lost the game for ourselves. There are LVP nominees but no MVP nominees for me.

And no, "my reads were accurate in X game" means jack shit if you survive yet end up losing. Town's job is not to find mafia. It is to eliminate mafia and if you found the mafia but failed to sway anyone, you played WORSE than someone whose reads were just off.

That wasn't my point. I was saying that I personally seem to read players better using tone and gut than other scum-hunting methods.

Changes I would like to make to the setup include giving the scum team a one time use overriding lynch that they can use to lynch a person of their choice, this way the scum team can take out an important leader or get off that last crucial lynch.

That sounds overpowered. I'd suggest removing 1-2 town slots or adding a scum slot instead. Other than that I liked the setup a lot. There needs to be more nightless games like this one.

btw how did you all manage to vote at the same time lol

When you realize that mafia had a day chat once the game's over... Not only did you not read what happened in the game, you didn't acknowledge the simplistic setup.

Spruance was key. Never Unlucky as well... give these people a sticker plz

Mesk, you did nothing this game. Don't try bringing down players.

[Calix]

I agree with the latter one. Calix could've lurked, and I still would've protected her for no reason. We 100% lost the game for ourselves. There are LVP nominees but no MVP nominees for me.

How about no.

I was instrumental in helping town turn on each other as well with my tunneling on SP (thus getting a town lynched while leaving Kovath open as a ML option the next day) and getting Unknown mislynched on Day 3. Unknown was the only player who was even remotely clued in about what the scum were up to - good thing I didn't even have to make a 'case' against him...

Speaking of which, Day 3 was a bloody pain in the arse especially when my scum buddies were eating bonbons in a flooded basement while I was trying not to get my arse lynched because "lul RNG".

Saying that "Calix could have lurked" makes zero sense when that would have gotten me auto-lynched for "going against my meta"

That sounds overpowered. I'd suggest removing 1-2 town slots or adding a scum slot instead. Other than that I liked the setup a lot. There needs to be more nightless games like this one.

4 Mafia in a 10/ 11 player game...are you mad?

Being scum in a marathon game is draining. Maybe it was just the fact that I couldn't solo it as scum, but I don't know wherever I'd want to do it again.

[DarknessB]

NU, you've read Mesk as scum in just about every game you've played with her, in terms of "gut" -- Mesk's playstyle comes of scummy. You've also scumread me hard in both games that we've played together -- apparently, my "neutral" playstyle comes off scummy to you. If you become one of those "gut read OMG" type players, it's going to be to your detriment.

Literally, you becoming more reliant on gut reads is the absolute worst lesson you can take out of this game. If anything, one of your biggest weaknesses is your tunneling of players once you have a sense that they might be scum. Seriously dude, no on the gut reads -- if they are a means of picking who you want to investigate re: conventional reads, fine, but I feel like you're giving yourself way too much hindsight credit here. If Mesk and I were really your "gut scum reads", why did you push three other lynches and never make a real push on either of us?

If anything, the lesson of this game is make critical cases on different players vs. getting stuck just pushing one. I had craploads of content this game and you barely interacted with me, including my wall post to start Day 3. Mesk at one point posted a weak reads wall as well. I don't recall you substantively responding to either -- definitely not my giant post and if you responded to hers, it was with a glib sarcastic response rather than one where you challenged her credibility on the actual reads. I just feel like it's very easy to assume you were correct after you know who the scum are -- classic hindsight bias. I feel like you also did this after IC as well (despite your major pushes that game being me and Simple Joy) so I caution you on thinking your instinct is dead on, especially given your track record.

Just work on being more flexible with pushes and engaging more players more substatively (real, not sarcastic / glib responses to POSTS). Amorphous declarations of people being scummy without evidence are useless as are gut reads. If you want to improve, try to get better in terms of how you engage / push players during the game, not to assume your gut / instinct is great and should be relied on above actual player interaction.

[Never Unlucky]

@deathworlds , will you link the mafia chat?

NU, you've read Mesk as scum in just about every game you've played with her, in terms of "gut" -- Mesk's playstyle comes of scummy.

2/4 games I've played with her.

You've also scumread me hard in both games that we've played together -- apparently, my "neutral" playstyle comes off scummy to you. If you become one of those "gut read OMG" type players, it's going to be to your detriment.

Noted.

Literally, you becoming more reliant on gut reads is the absolute worst lesson you can take out of this game. If anything, one of your biggest weaknesses is your tunneling of players once you have a sense that they might be scum.

What should I do when I get a sense that someone might be scum then?

Seriously dude, no on the gut reads -- if they are a means of picking who you want to investigate re: conventional reads, fine, but I feel like you're giving yourself way too much hindsight credit here.

I probably am.

If Mesk and I were really your "gut scum reads", why did you push three other lynches and never make a real push on either of us?

ftr, I pushed two other lynches, and I was against Unknown's. I did try to push for Mesk twice.

What do you mean by 'real' push?

Thanks for giving me tips. It is much appreciated.

[Calix]

@deathworlds, will you link the mafia chat?

Have fun. We used Skype after Day 1 so it's around 10-15,000 words long.

What should I do when I get a sense that someone might be scum then?

You reread their posts and interactions with other players to see if you are onto something.

You ask them questions about sketchy posts they've made.

You ask other players (e.g., people you scum-read) what they make of X player.

I probably am.

You 100% are, pal. Confirmation bias was also a huge problem. You ignored things that went against your narrative, same as Eggy.

[DarknessB]

I added a couple of paragraphs to my post after you responded. Feel free to read those as well.

If you have a gut read, use that as a STARTING POINT meaning, hmm, maybe I should interact with this person to see if they slip or if their responses aren't satisfactory. Mesk did post at various different times during this game and I feel like you were more intent to get into the mud with her re: insults vs. trying to glean anything from her or make the case to the other players on why she was most likely scum. You're not a low volume poster either so there wasn't an excuse not to put together an ISO on Mesk. Even I did that as her groupscum teammate -- at least re: her reads wall, it wasn't that hard.

A good push is making a detailed case, often supported by quotes or examples, not meta, as to why someone is scum and should be lynched. The entire Town, yourself included, seemed to forget that. If you had dived into my posts, pulled out what you thought was scummy, maybe you would have had a better chance to lynch me. Everyone who scumread me (Iced, then you, then Unknown), neglected to make an actual case based on my posts or what I was saying. It was just some amorphous sense of "being neutral". Without digging into things, people aren't likely to go along with you. Any of you could have flagged posts to me showing when I was neutral and asking me to explain what I was thinking, etc.

Given scum compromise usually 1/3 or so of players, 50% scumread on Mesk is high, is my point. It's easy to scumread Mesk given her playstyle, especially early, but you're not doing yourself any favors if you don't substantiate it in the game with what she's actually doing. Look, I get the hindsight thing as well -- I just feel like once you know who the scum are, it's easy and comfortable to say "of course I suspected them", but the more telling part is who you pushed and when in each game. You (really all of us) should work on engaging as many slots as we can during the day and trying to tease out alignment that way. People giving townreads / scumreads within 5 posts of the game starting (like SP did with TDL and you did with Mesk is far less convincing or helpful). Let your reads develop as you interact with people.

[Iced_Monopoly]

Scum did an exceptional job at subtly controlling the lynch and I believe that Calix deserves this MVP more than anyone else

NU STOP FUCKING AROUND AND VOTE UNKNOWN.

SPRUANCE SWITCH TO UNKNOWN

Those subtle maneuvers of hers ;)

[Calix]

Those subtle maneuvers of hers ;)

I laughed when Unknown kept harping on about "CALIX IS REALLY MANIPULATIVE GUYS"

The most manipulative thing I did this game was defend Kovath so that the idiots who thought "Kovath/ Calix are scum guise" would become more convinced and thus ensure that mislynch went through.

[Unknown1234]

I laughed when Unknown kept harping on about "CALIX IS REALLY MANIPULATIVE GUYS"

The most manipulative thing I did this game was defend Kovath so that the idiots who thought "Kovath/ Calix are scum guise" would become more convinced and thus ensure that mislynch went through.

Ew. You took my beginner game strategy ;)

[Calix]

Ew. You took my beginner game strategy ;)

What was that about everyone kissing my arse again?

You wish I copied you

[Unknown1234]

What was that about everyone kissing my arse again?

You wish I copied you

Even the people who "scum-read you" (Eggy in particular, somewhat Iced) didn't want to vote you. They can argue they scum-read you, but did nothing. You are their queen.

[DarknessB]

I laughed when Unknown kept harping on about "CALIX IS REALLY MANIPULATIVE GUYS"

The most manipulative thing I did this game was defend Kovath so that the idiots who thought "Kovath/ Calix are scum guise" would become more convinced and thus ensure that mislynch went through.

You also deliberately defended NU so that people would make the NU/Calix association and think he was even more scummy. Otherwise, there was definitely enough rope to hang NU, especially by Day 3.