AmA

[Efekannn02]

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

Implying That I Never Took The Game Serious Enough...

[OzyWho]

Helz,
Are all these statements true in your opinion?

• Town has a higher winning chance if they focus on putting all wolves in a lynch pool and create a strong town core, instead of trying to catch individual wolves one by one.
• Everyone would increase their persuasion skills by removing the words scummy and towny from their vocabulary.
• Bussing is bad, it puts the mafia in a "all-in deep wolf" strategy, it's caused by fear of being wrong and it should never get to that point in the first place.
• Correctly evaluating a players potential (or as Yayap wrongly called it "using meta") is essential for being able to read a player.
• Being loud wins games for scum.
• There 2 ways to combat getting meta read.
  1. Playing erratic - each game completely different.
  2. Playing with a game face on - each game the exact same that is completely different from your normal behavior.
  The first one makes you harder to get meta read than the 2nd one, but the 2nd one makes it easier for you to catch scums when they try to fake a case against you.
• Spamming is anti-town behavior. The game is solved primarily by reading and thinking. Large quantities of low effort posts lower everyone's ability to solve the game.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

As town, to which extent should one use logic, and to which extent should one use eristic? In other words, when should you have the primary goal to convince others over seeking the truth? There is at least one situation where this is valid, which is the one where someone is mechanically confirmed scum to you, but not to everyone. On a very related topic (it's actually the same question), is manipulating people scummy per se, or is it scummy only when there is "wrong intent"?

[OzyWho]

Would great scum players make for great politicians?

Instant majority lynch being a town favored mechanic. Would you agree that it requires Scum to have a day chat for balance against it?

[OzyWho]

Let's say someone had 500 posts in any player sized FM game of your choosing. And they had thoughts behind each and every post. Would you say it's too much posts and they've become anti-productive for Town?

[Voss]

Would great scum players make for great politicians?

Instant majority lynch being a town favored mechanic. Would you agree that it requires Scum to have a day chat for balance against it?

instant majority lynch is a scum favored mechanic.

[OzyWho]

instant majority lynch is a scum favored mechanic.

It's the first time I hear this opinion tbh.

[Ganelon]

It's the first time I hear this opinion tbh.

It’s bc it makes it possible for scum to scuttle away from a lynch just by convincing a few people to unvote. Making the lynch vote less meaningful overall.
Hammering is also pro scum

[Ganelon]

Idk why you’re trying to turn this debate over overposring into an anti-town v pro-town thing it’s just painful to read, but info is always useful and idk how you made the logical jump from ‘heavily active’ to ‘low effort posting’, look at my posts last game and you’ll see they were the complete opposite of low effort, I actually put a lot of effort into it.

[Ganelon]

Anyway enough about me, my point is that having many posts doesn’t mean you’re doing low effort posting, just as it doesn’t mean you’re actually posting useful content. It’s all about the content. If the town can’t read your posts, either your presentation sucks or the town just isn’t interested.

[Ganelon]

I don’t want to come across as aggressive or anything but I don’t understand your insistence on high activity posting being anti town. Sure if you spam the same ideas over and over it’s anti town, but like otherwise I don’t see why not, if you have millions of things to say about something, as long as they’re correct, sound and rooted in reality, I don’t see why not. Granted people don’t want to read it but honestly, if you do that as scum you only end up hurting yourself and your team. A good town player will always out you and lynch you even with low effort blending in.

[Ganelon]

Logic isn’t an exclusively a town weapon, it is also a scum weapon. It’s the truth that counts.

[Ganelon]

Anyway, IMO scum can never win if the town take a hold of themselves and start pushing the right people, asking the right questions, and abstain from anti-town behavior. Also, the goal of the game, IMO, as town, just as Hell said, is to eliminate, or rather to reduce, entropy to a minimum. This holds for WIFOM. For the most part WIFOM is anti town, and WIFOM doesn’t go as deep as the town believes it to be. Usually scum strats are fairly simple, and quite often logical.

one thing I’d like to add to what Helz has said here is that indecisiveness is a much bigger tell than anything else. Indecisive people are scum. Part of the reason scum are indecisive is because they can win the game at night; they only need to make it though the day, therefore they are less tempted to engage in traditional town behavior - like daychat analysis, scumhunting, interacting with others, pushing trains etc. Now good scum know that it’s difficult to win the game if they don’t have control of the day chat, bc there’s always the risk of a good town player outing them and lynching them, in spite of their lack of aciticty

[Ganelon]

I don’t want to come across as aggressive or anything but I don’t understand your insistence on high activity posting being anti town. Sure if you spam the same ideas over and over it’s anti town, but like otherwise I don’t see why not, if you have millions of things to say about something, as long as they’re correct, sound and rooted in reality, I don’t see why not. Granted people don’t want to read it but honestly, if you do that as scum you only end up hurting yourself and your team. A good town player will always out you and lynch you even with low effort blending in.

Do that as scum :- low effort posting

[Ganelon]

It’s also a lot more difficult to fake scum/townread a on people as scum. And you’ll notice lots of scum have shitty reads list where they either try to fit the consensus or they have strong scumreads on other scum and (weaker) townreads on the town. Okay, by weak:strong I mean that they present their reads in such a way that seems certain reads could go either way, whilst being extremely sure of (usually) their scum reads.

[Helz]

@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.

I haven't read game spoilers or any other part of the game but yeah, I would have poked that post a good bit. He calls the slot FPS Citizen with a gut read of scum then advocates for ignoring the slot but then says he has a gut feeling it may not be FPS. Its super hedgy. This does not represent a clear thought process to me and I feel like if I had interacted with that player that post could have helped me solve him.

That second post helps a bit for me. His quantification of how he thinks the player will flip matches his first post and his reasoning looks better.

I do look at a player who lines up lynches as scummy -but- I dont consider direct reasoning on a single slot to be doing that. When I do it as scum I shade players days in advance while pushing town bias in their direction. I keep track of the town players reads and if enough of them have voiced a negative feeling on a player I push them into a 'could easily be lynched' kinda place. Stack up a few of those and unless your scum team has unlucky night actions the day phase can stay T/T or T/T/W on trains.

[blinkskater]

I disagree that indecisiveness is a scum tell because scum are informed, where the town are not.

About activity, i've played a lot recently on other sites, and in my opinion i find it more helpful and protown when there are less oneline posts about this and that, and more solid lengthy posts on player analysis and reads. It's more down to personal preference I think and how you enjoy playing. Lots of players have some time to commit to the game, not a lot. And the majority of the players end up rolling town because scum generally has 2-3 players. So if 3-4 of the players whether they are town or scum are pumping out tons of posts, it turns other town players off because you wake up and there is 500 posts in a 8 hour period sometimes. This can greatly reduce the will of a random town player with minimum time from scouring through every post to solve the game.

Good arguments can be made on either side of the activity spectrum and i really think it comes down to what type of game the player enjoys playing.

[Helz]

Helz,
Are all these statements true in your opinion?

• Town has a higher winning chance if they focus on putting all wolves in a lynch pool and create a strong town core, instead of trying to catch individual wolves one by one.

There was a clever guy who posted a wall that basically explained why that strategy works mathematically years back. I saw it on 2P2 but it was x-posted there. Basically your odds are much higher in being correct on a town read than a scum read so by creating a town core you then have players you can triangulate your reads with. This also has the added benefit of making it much more difficult for a power wolf to run around wild causing chaos.
I generally think creating pools is great and I pretty much always do it on either side. As town it works well to identify and nail down your scum while as scum it allows you to bus and avoid wagonomics pushes while setting up a series of misslynches.
In a word I agree with this in general but playing is all about figuring out what works for you personally. Different people are successful with different strategy's so I would not ever try to force players into doing something that does not work for them.

[*]Everyone would increase their persuasion skills by removing the words scummy and towny from their vocabulary.

I disagree with this. I got into semiotics last year because I believe its the intention behind the action that holds value as opposed to the action itself. When people hammer on specific words without reasoning I just dont like it. Its one thing to hear someone say "This guy is speaking in a dissociated person which can reflect the gap between who a scum is and who they are pretending to be" or "That guy is specifically hunting neutrals because he is teamscum and therefore cant naturally hunt;" but thats very different from eliminating specific words. Im actually curious to see how someone would try to push a lynch without using words that indicate alignment..
I think placing limitations on the way you communicate can get you to try new things and make you more capable by forcing you to innovate and try new things but it will probably hinder you when you first try it and I dont see eliminating alignment terms doing anything.

[*]Bussing is bad, it puts the mafia in a "all-in deep wolf" strategy, it's caused by fear of being wrong and it should never get to that point in the first place.

Most very good players would agree with that but I am in the weird school of "I love the hardcore bus." I seriously love to see team self lynch and float on the immunity that came with "Im the one that lynched that wolf." Its just a hilariously entertaining play. (I will say its only viable if solving TPR's are not an issue though.)

[*]Correctly evaluating a players potential (or as Yayap wrongly called it "using meta") is essential for being able to read a player.

I totally agree with this. If you do not understand what a player is capable of its hard to consider their actions. Knowing I am comfortable busing all over the place will allow you solve me better when I point back to where I bussed a teamscum.

[*]Being loud wins games for scum.

This is a really vague statement. I will say that by posting a lot you open yourself up to being read but it can also make players avoid reading you when you have ugodly amounts of content to read through. I think you can cause just as much chaos in few posts as you can with many if you are manipulative but bogging the game down in posts itself is meh.

[*]There 2 ways to combat getting meta read.

1. Playing erratic - each game completely different.
2. Playing with a game face on - each game the exact same that is completely different from your normal behavior.

1. Theres many more than that. You can violate your normative behavior intentionally which uses meta against the people using it. Or you could use alt accounts or play across multiple sites making it difficult for people to have enough information to use on you.
   I think most players are way too dependent on meta and don't take the time to actually look at how accurate their meta tells are. They just throw 900 things out there and point to the few that were right to say what they are doing works.
   I can very honestly say that I look at players as being more skilled and more effective when I see them show understanding and use of mechanical game concepts.
   

The first one makes you harder to get meta read than the 2nd one, but the 2nd one makes it easier for you to catch scums when they try to fake a case against you.

Sure, although I would say for that 2nd one setting a trap is just as effective without bringing meta into it. I have often done really scummy things at a games start to help break RVS faster.

[*]Spamming is anti-town behavior. The game is solved primarily by reading and thinking. Large quantities of low effort posts lower everyone's ability to solve the game.

I agree with this.

[Helz]

As town, to which extent should one use logic, and to which extent should one use eristic? In other words, when should you have the primary goal to convince others over seeking the truth? There is at least one situation where this is valid, which is the one where someone is mechanically confirmed scum to you, but not to everyone. On a very related topic (it's actually the same question), is manipulating people scummy per se, or is it scummy only when there is "wrong intent"?

I like this question.

I always hammer on the fact that your objective as town is not to identify the scum, it is to eliminate them. I would say that I would shift my focus hard to persuasion if I had a mechanically confirmed scum while also seeing if there was a way to set a trap. I usually don't look at it as trying to convince people the slot is scum but rather as convincing them of the lynch. You always have to have your own reads and such to push but I would say if you were only going to do one of the two persuasion is more important than reads.
You can work around this by triangulating reads though. If you are not great at pushing your read but someone who is holds your reads in high esteem they can push the case for you while you focus on gathering information.
I dont consider manipulation as scummy but I do think its viewed as scummy. I am self aware of how I am viewed in games but I look at it as a reputation. Heres some random words from something I wrote a year or two ago along those lines:

These are some behaviors that will generally alter the way the town reads you for surface reads. They are not necessarily scum or town tells; they are only things players often ‘perceive’ as town or scum behavior.

Town
-Effort
-Activity
-Honesty, especially when its bold
-Responds to questions directly and consistency
-Firm and direct about reads / provides reads without being asked
-Having the same perspective on multiple things as the town player reading you
-Generating conversation and providing original thoughts

Scum
-Troll/Gambit post style
-Lurky/Low contributions
-Odd/irrational reasoning
-Forced posts that seem out of place
-Caught in a lie
-Failure to explain reasoning, especially when not done openly
-Lining up multiple lynches
-Hypocrisy

Generally when I see manipulation I always ask why because town totally has reasons to lie and manipulate. Intentions are indicative of alignment and not actions kinda thing.

[Helz]

Would great scum players make for great politicians?

I dont know. I think politicians are more about marketing. I would say that great scum players are probably great at debating.

Instant majority lynch being a town favored mechanic. Would you agree that it requires Scum to have a day chat for balance against it?

Not at all. Theres a thousand ways to balance any setup and I have seen scums having day chats really screw up players because they are then interacting much more and can easily slip. I have probably seen that happen much more than I have seen scum teams effectively coordinate.

[Helz]

Let's say someone had 500 posts in any player sized FM game of your choosing. And they had thoughts behind each and every post. Would you say it's too much posts and they've become anti-productive for Town?

No. I would say they could be a pain in the ass to read but that they have probably helped reading tons of players. They have also placed themselves in a position that their flip can solve a large portion of the game.

Anyway enough about me, my point is that having many posts doesn’t mean you’re doing low effort posting, just as it doesn’t mean you’re actually posting useful content. It’s all about the content. If the town can’t read your posts, either your presentation sucks or the town just isn’t interested.

I agree with this. And theres honestly nothing you can do when your playing with players who dont want to play..

[OzyWho]

No. I would say they could be a pain in the ass to read but that they have probably helped reading tons of players. They have also placed themselves in a position that their flip can solve a large portion of the game.

I think I would agree with you most of the time. But tbh, I had a game in mind where at least 3 townies in a S-FM had very little time to spare.
Would such a hypothetical scenario change your answer?

I agree with this. And theres honestly nothing you can do when your playing with players who dont want to play..

Both of you made a logical error here. You assumed that "if someone can't read your posts then they're not interested". For example, in a 40+ player mash game - nobody would assume that everyone who didn't read all posts isn't interested.
FM's of every player size can become ridiculously active.

[Helz]

I think I would agree with you most of the time. But tbh, I had a game in mind where at least 3 townies in a S-FM had very little time to spare.
Would such a hypothetical scenario change your answer?
Both of you made a logical error here. You assumed that "if someone can't read your posts then they're not interested". For example, in a 40+ player mash game - nobody would assume that everyone who didn't read all posts isn't interested.
FM's of every player size can become ridiculously active.

Depends on the game. I think there are totally games where its understood that its going to be low post count. Some games run 7 day day cycles which are perfect for people who are stretched for time. Also nobody expects people to read every post in a 40 player game. But this is understood and accepted when the person signed up.
Its different when people come to a game expecting to play and then they are with players who dont have time to play and even ask them to play less to cater to them. I feel like its inconsiderate to the other players. Their experience is now worse for having played with that person. Its great that they want to play but there are setups designed for that kind of thing.

Im not saying theres a specific level of obligation but I look at it as a community respect kind of thing. When the same person drags down game after game with their lack of participation its just disrespectful. When its someone who usually participates and just had some stuff to handle nobody takes issue with it.

I will also say that I am on the insane try hard side though so I am a bit biased. I get pretty unhappy when I spend 60 hours on a game thats ruined by someone who by all appearances did not even enjoy playing and looks like they didnt intend on spending time on the game in the first place.

[OzyWho]

Its different when people come to a game expecting to play and then they are with players who dont have time to play and even ask them to play less to cater to them. I feel like its inconsiderate to the other players. Their experience is now worse for having played with that person.

Yeah, I agree. It's a perspective I wasn't thinking about tbh.

My thoughts were from the view point of adapting to the situation and using any means necessary to make the thread as productive as possible, where limiting yourself is just a tool like any other.

It's unfortunate to find yourself in such a situation that your game experience is worsened by inconsiderate people.

But I still believe in my opinion - that if you do find yourself in that situation where you have a relatively large portion of the players only having up to 2 hours per day max to spend on the game, then limiting yourself is the way to go to make the thread more productive. Because otherwise those slots are, frankly, useless.

[OzyWho]

Yeah, I agree. It's a perspective I wasn't thinking about tbh.

My thoughts were from the view point of adapting to the situation and using any means necessary to make the thread as productive as possible, where limiting yourself is just a tool like any other.

It's unfortunate to find yourself in such a situation that your game experience is worsened by inconsiderate people.

But I still believe in my opinion - that if you do find yourself in that situation where you have a relatively large portion of the players only having up to 2 hours per day max to spend on the game, then limiting yourself is the way to go to make the thread more productive. Because otherwise those slots are, frankly, useless.

Scrap this post. It was disingenuous from me. Idk why I posted a belief of mine that is not true.
I do hold the opinion that too much posting is anti-town.

But I understand that people's opinions on this differ from mine and I respect it. So I will just drop this topic altogether.

@Helz
If you're interested. My opinion why too much posting is anti-town (even if there are thoughts behind all of those posts) is based on this guide.

I think it's one of those things - whichever perspective or idea you learn first remains as the one true for you forever.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I completely agree with Magoroth's points about activity, effort, and logic.

I disagree that indecisiveness is a scum tell because scum are informed, where the town are not.

About activity, i've played a lot recently on other sites, and in my opinion i find it more helpful and protown when there are less oneline posts about this and that, and more solid lengthy posts on player analysis and reads. It's more down to personal preference I think and how you enjoy playing. Lots of players have some time to commit to the game, not a lot. And the majority of the players end up rolling town because scum generally has 2-3 players. So if 3-4 of the players whether they are town or scum are pumping out tons of posts, it turns other town players off because you wake up and there is 500 posts in a 8 hour period sometimes. This can greatly reduce the will of a random town player with minimum time from scouring through every post to solve the game.

Good arguments can be made on either side of the activity spectrum and i really think it comes down to what type of game the player enjoys playing.

I agree that it depends on the type of game the player enjoys playing, but it also depends on the players around yourself. If noone is active, you'll need to create as much activity as you can. In a spammy game, you don't need to do that at all.

[OzyWho]

Lots of players have some time to commit to the game, not a lot. And the majority of the players end up rolling town because scum generally has 2-3 players. So if 3-4 of the players whether they are town or scum are pumping out tons of posts, it turns other town players off because you wake up and there is 500 posts in a 8 hour period sometimes. This can greatly reduce the will of a random town player with minimum time from scouring through every post to solve the game.

Damn you @blinkskater
Like 2 months ago I created a topic called: "Apathy. A weapon for Mafia only?" - with having in mind exactly what you described here.
I got greatly misunderstood regardless of my effort. And you just describe the same thing more clearly, with no effort at all.

Though, there I also had in mind many additional tactics to achieve the same goal. For example, arguing with an emotional player. Or putting an analytical player on a wild goose chase with random questions. (The last one doesn't create apathy though. And as MM described it to me - it's just sidetracking)

Also I didn't consider the additional requirement of a townie having little spare time for the flooding tactic to work.

[blinkskater]

Damn you @blinkskater
Like 2 months ago I created a topic called: "Apathy. A weapon for Mafia only?" - with having in mind exactly what you described here.
I got greatly misunderstood regardless of my effort. And you just describe the same thing more clearly, with no effort at all.

Though, there I also had in mind many additional tactics to achieve the same goal. For example, arguing with an emotional player. Or putting an analytical player on a wild goose chase with random questions. (The last one doesn't create apathy though. And as MM described it to me - it's just sidetracking)

Also I didn't consider the additional requirement of a townie having little spare time for the flooding tactic to work.

Heh i actually understand what you are saying and happen to agree with you

[yzb25]

To what extent do you agree with the following POV?:

"The more a scum talks and the more stances a scum takes, the more likely they are to give away scumtells. The only reason scums do not constantly lurk is for the following reasons:

-They sometimes need to sway the game to prevent their teammates deaths.
-They sometimes need to contribute and/or behave aggressively to earn the town's approval.

Hence, the goal of a scum is to essentially minimize how much they talk and play it safe, with respect to these two caveats and a few other complications. Rocking the boat may make the best scumgames, but it does not make the best scum."

[10 marks]

[Kenny]

To what extent do you agree with the following POV?:

"The more a scum talks and the more stances a scum takes, the more likely they are to give away scumtells. The only reason scums do not constantly lurk is for the following reasons:

-They sometimes need to sway the game to prevent their teammates deaths.
-They sometimes need to contribute and/or behave aggressively to earn the town's approval.

Hence, the goal of a scum is to essentially minimize how much they talk and play it safe, with respect to these two caveats and a few other complications. Rocking the boat may make the best scumgames, but it does not make the best scum."

[10 marks]

IMO that's a terrible POV. The goal of every player in every game should always be to control the lynches and the general course of actions others take. To do that you need to be active and manipulative.

When a player gives away a million scumtells, but still survives, gets others lynched and makes the town dance to his fingertips, that is amazing play.

A player who's giving away no scumtells, maybe even becomes confirmed town, but still holds 0 influence and just gets ignored on the other hand is playing terribly.

The towny player is also always gonna lose against the scummy player with the votes in his control.

[Kenny]

Another thought in that direction is that a player with a high presence and influence can use that to convince others of scumtells being towntells, or vice versa.
Gambits, WIFOM, meta for example are words that can be used for such arguments.

[Ganelon]

Personally, I don’t necessarily agree with that conclusion (of the text yzb quoted), but nevertheless I do have to agree with the premise. The quote tho takes the premise to mean that you should, as scum, try to limit your aciticty to a minimum. I don’t agree with that POV. If the town is too towny, you will absolutely need to expose yourself to being scumread; you need to control the day chat if that happens and you can’t do that with minimal activity.

[Ganelon]

IMO that's a terrible POV. The goal of every player in every game should always be to control the lynches and the general course of actions others take. To do that you need to be active and manipulative.

When a player gives away a million scumtells, but still survives, gets others lynched and makes the town dance to his fingertips, that is amazing play.

A player who's giving away no scumtells, maybe even becomes confirmed town, but still holds 0 influence and just gets ignored on the other hand is playing terribly.

The towny player is also always gonna lose against the scummy player with the votes in his control.

I don’t fully agree with your third paragraph; if you become confirmed town, unless the game is such that you will be outed mechanically at some point, then you’ve essentially achieved your win on already, so long as you manage to convince everyone else of your towniness, or if you manage to blend in really well. Now, whether that is an unsportsmanlike play or not is an entirely different question.

[DJarJar]

I do think it’s easier to win as scum if you just talk less. At least in our current meta, we rarely lynch the afks until like D3, at which point if the whole scum team has been afk, it’s often mylo or lylo. I think we operate on a sort of honor system where it’s expected that you won’t intentionally afk cuz that’s.. lame.

[Kenny]

I don’t fully agree with your third paragraph; if you become confirmed town, unless the game is such that you will be outed mechanically at some point, then you’ve essentially achieved your win on already, so long as you manage to convince everyone else of your towniness, or if you manage to blend in really well. Now, whether that is an unsportsmanlike play or not is an entirely different question.

Sure ofc that can work out, but the thing about this kinda situation is that ultimately from the passive player's pov the game becomes a coinflip. The players deciding who is going to win there are the ones who actively influence the votes. It's then up to them to let one survive for this passive "towniness" (which btw influencial players can redefine) or to decide to drop that read.

Letting someone else decide on the outcome of one's game, in my opinion, just isn't skill. Even if they do fail the coinflip and you do end up winning, imo the ones who decided that are definitely the better players than the one who let himself get into that dependent position. It's also just cowardly. If you're sure of your standing ingame, you can use it, actively.

And to drop my 2 cents on the postcount discussion: I've read your post around 3 hours ago. I generally try to make some time pass before responding in-game, too. I don't actually sit there and think all that time, but immediately responding while not being convinced about one answer, and then maybe posting 5 different things as a result of that, would just result in me discrediting myself. Often posting my immediate thought would also just be counter-productive for what I'm trying to achieve, as any alignment.

By that I do not mean there is no value in mindstream posts, I do see how an open thought-process helps for some things. But nearly noone does think in exactly the same way as another, and frankly I don't believe people actually want to put themselves through all that. It's better to just give it some time and then post once the mind is settled, if necessary with a shortened summary of the thoughts behind the result.

[Ganelon]

I agree tbh, it’s not very good play at all. It only works when the towns relatively bad/inactive to begin with.

that’s a fair point, it’s always a good idea to post a summary of your thoughts, I will try to do that in future games, limiting your ‘dribble’ to your private notes and only posting the summary is an interesting idea

[Ganelon]

I do think it’s easier to win as scum if you just talk less. At least in our current meta, we rarely lynch the afks until like D3, at which point if the whole scum team has been afk, it’s often mylo or lylo. I think we operate on a sort of honor system where it’s expected that you won’t intentionally afk cuz that’s.. lame.

also true

[yzb25]

I agree tbh, it’s not very good play at all. It only works when the towns relatively bad/inactive to begin with.

that’s a fair point, it’s always a good idea to post a summary of your thoughts, I will try to do that in future games, limiting your ‘dribble’ to your private notes and only posting the summary is an interesting idea

I noticed when I started doing that I started getting much more rep from the town for obvious reasons lmao. I personally enjoy reading people's stream of consciousness. You can really get a feel for the player and build some solid reads on them. But a lot of people seem to just end up scumreading anyone who thinks differently to them because they think "different agenda = different role".

[yzb25]

I noticed when I started doing that I started getting much more rep from the town for obvious reasons lmao. I personally enjoy reading people's stream of consciousness. You can really get a feel for the player and build some solid reads on them. But a lot of people seem to just end up scumreading anyone who thinks differently to them because they think "different agenda = different role".

When I was scum against you in Cold War I clocked quickly you have a disorganized and fast thought process which made you easy to misrep. Even if people are vaguely aware "oh that guy gets misunderstood a lot" it doesn't stop them from continuing to misunderstand that player.

Sorry XD

[yzb25]

of course you seem a lot better now tbf

[Ganelon]

of course you seem a lot better now tbf

Yeah I’ve calmed down a lot lol, a lot of it was just due to anxiety
and thanks

[Ganelon]

I noticed when I started doing that I started getting much more rep from the town for obvious reasons lmao. I personally enjoy reading people's stream of consciousness. You can really get a feel for the player and build some solid reads on them. But a lot of people seem to just end up scumreading anyone who thinks differently to them because they think "different agenda = different role".

Same, I don’t mind reading streams of consciousness either honestly

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I do think it’s easier to win as scum if you just talk less. At least in our current meta, we rarely lynch the afks until like D3, at which point if the whole scum team has been afk, it’s often mylo or lylo. I think we operate on a sort of honor system where it’s expected that you won’t intentionally afk cuz that’s.. lame.

Exactly. However, that might not be fun to do, and if you do it too often, the site's meta will adapt against it. Another issue with that strategy is that not everyone can use it; for example, I definetly could not use that, EVER. People scumread me for being offline for 10-12 hours and being in the 4 highest post counts, usually. That's for me, but the same goes for some others, namely Magoroth and Distorted, back when he was playing.

[Helz]

Scrap this post. It was disingenuous from me. Idk why I posted a belief of mine that is not true.
I do hold the opinion that too much posting is anti-town.

But I understand that people's opinions on this differ from mine and I respect it. So I will just drop this topic altogether.

No worries. If it helps I will point out that I believe its a 2 way road on what I said. I think its just as rude for a player to slam a game with 200 posts per day when there is an understanding that it will be an extremely casual and low effort game.

@Helz
If you're interested. My opinion why too much posting is anti-town (even if there are thoughts behind all of those posts) is based on this guide.

I think it's one of those things - whichever perspective or idea you learn first remains as the one true for you forever.

I largely agree with that guide. I do think generating information is key D1 and and breaking RVS is a must but spamming it in unproductive ways is anti-town. There are 2 things I would disagree with on this though.
1- The guide is not talking about post count but rather to posts that bloat the thread without purpose. The posts players make are not just to generate information but also to sort it so demanding a lower post count is not the same as demanding a player generate less information. A perfect example would be the guy who posts all day and then near days end gives a read wall summarizing his thoughts. Yes he posted all day -but- in a post he consolidated the information.
2- We are talking about 2 separate things here. Playing well is one of them but so is enjoying the experience. Having a human connection with the people you are playing with is nice. It does bloat the thread and it does not serve a purpose to help solve the game but you have to ask yourself if you are playing to win or to enjoy playing. I think a balance is important and I do often get irritated when a guy is using the thread like a chat room seemingly throwing out posts to blow up his post count but I also try to throw a tiny bit of banter into the game just for fun.

To what extent do you agree with the following POV?:

"The more a scum talks and the more stances a scum takes, the more likely they are to give away scumtells. The only reason scums do not constantly lurk is for the following reasons:

-They sometimes need to sway the game to prevent their teammates deaths.
-They sometimes need to contribute and/or behave aggressively to earn the town's approval.

Hence, the goal of a scum is to essentially minimize how much they talk and play it safe, with respect to these two caveats and a few other complications. Rocking the boat may make the best scumgames, but it does not make the best scum."

[10 marks]

I totally agree that the more a scum speaks the more potential there is for slips. I would say its a risk reward thing though. If you are good at playing scum the risk is lower while the reward of increasing your influence on the town is great. I think its something players need to consider while they take into account their skill level.

[Marshmallow Marshall]

Sorry for late reply to the thread, I still keep up with it but lacked time to write an in-depth reply.

I like this question.

I always hammer on the fact that your objective as town is not to identify the scum, it is to eliminate them. I would say that I would shift my focus hard to persuasion if I had a mechanically confirmed scum while also seeing if there was a way to set a trap. I usually don't look at it as trying to convince people the slot is scum but rather as convincing them of the lynch. You always have to have your own reads and such to push but I would say if you were only going to do one of the two persuasion is more important than reads.
You can work around this by triangulating reads though. If you are not great at pushing your read but someone who is holds your reads in high esteem they can push the case for you while you focus on gathering information.
I dont consider manipulation as scummy but I do think its viewed as scummy. I am self aware of how I am viewed in games but I look at it as a reputation. Heres some random words from something I wrote a year or two ago along those lines:

Generally when I see manipulation I always ask why because town totally has reasons to lie and manipulate. Intentions are indicative of alignment and not actions kinda thing.

The "eliminate scum, don't just peg them" mindset is indeed something that's lacking on every site I've been on, including this one, and it is also an issue I had to work on myself. While having accurate reads is critical to achieve that goal, I see now that manipulation outside of analysis can be actually towny, with examples coming to mind (Distorted used to do that a lot). It fits what you say.

There also was that MafiaScum article where the author had listed the "three keys to Mafia" or something similar, which were, in order, Obvtownness, Charisma and Accuracy. This article mentions them as well, even though it's not the one I wanted to find, but you get the idea. I was wondering why charisma was put before accuracy, because if you are a charismatic leader with bad reads, you will simply lead the town to its doom; plus, being right helps making others think you're right, even though it isn't necessary to be right to convince them. Do you think the same, or is there something else you think I didn't take in account?

Of course, seeing intention is much, much more informative than seeing the action (the post). It is also much more difficult. How do you actually detect intention behind someone's actions without begging the question by reading the action to attribute an intention afterwards? Is that even possible? I don't see any way, but the last line of your post makes me think you do.

~~

Helz replied before me, but about "the more you're active, the more you're likely to reveal scumtells" :
That is a correct premise, but revealing scumtells isn't the only thing that matters. Very active scum can control the day chat, just like very active liars in real life can control, to different extents, the public's opinion on them and their policies or products, obvious examples being some politicians and company directors.

[Helz]

I was wondering why charisma was put before accuracy, because if you are a charismatic leader with bad reads, you will simply lead the town to its doom; plus, being right helps making others think you're right, even though it isn't necessary to be right to convince them. Do you think the same, or is there something else you think I didn't take in account?

I favor communication over scum hunting because although yes- you need accurate reads to push in your communication you can not get those reads without skill in communication. Without understanding how others communicate your not going to use any scum hunting logic well and without being able to communicate yourself your not going to be able to dig tells out of other players for your scum hunting.
This is to say Communication is needed for scum hunting and then needed again to push your win condition of eliminating scum.
In a word, I think you are not thinking of the necessity of communication in scum hunting.

I will point out that we jumped from your original question of persuasion to charisma and now I am rephrasing it as communication so let me know if something is lost in translation between our posts. Hopefully this will hit what you are interested in.

Of course, seeing intention is much, much more informative than seeing the action (the post). It is also much more difficult. How do you actually detect intention behind someone's actions without begging the question by reading the action to attribute an intention afterwards? Is that even possible? I don't see any way, but the last line of your post makes me think you do.

This is another really badass question.
I do believe its possible and for a surface level answer its all about tells. In poker a guy may raise you 10$ but do it with 10 1$ chips. This is a classic poker tell where players use multiple lower value chips instead of a large chip and I may assume that he is bluffing. Although his action was the raise the way he did it was a tell.
Back to mafia I always hammer on the fundamentals. I very strongly believe that you can identify a difference between a player with a natural read and a fake read because in a natural read the reasoning matches the certainty level while in a fake read the reasoning is created and scum have to figure out how confident they should present their certainty level. This means there could be an observable tell in the gap between the reasoning and the certainty. So although a players action was to scum read player X I now may have reason to believe that the read was manufactured. I can now say with whatever certainty I have in that tell that the intention behind the action of that players read was not genuine.

Thats one example that hopefully makes sense. I will also say that I try to track a players focus when I read them. Players will usually teach you how they scum hunt while they play by the way they read other players which is useful when your scum or town. You can also look to 90% of players meta reasoning. "He is never this aggressive as town so his action of aggressively pushing to lynch player X is indicative of scum intent" kinda thing.

[Ganelon]

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.

Omg that’s why I couldn’t find them

[Marshmallow Marshall]

I favor communication over scum hunting because although yes- you need accurate reads to push in your communication you can not get those reads without skill in communication. Without understanding how others communicate your not going to use any scum hunting logic well and without being able to communicate yourself your not going to be able to dig tells out of other players for your scum hunting.
This is to say Communication is needed for scum hunting and then needed again to push your win condition of eliminating scum.
In a word, I think you are not thinking of the necessity of communication in scum hunting.

I will point out that we jumped from your original question of persuasion to charisma and now I am rephrasing it as communication so let me know if something is lost in translation between our posts. Hopefully this will hit what you are interested in.

This is another really badass question.
I do believe its possible and for a surface level answer its all about tells. In poker a guy may raise you 10$ but do it with 10 1$ chips. This is a classic poker tell where players use multiple lower value chips instead of a large chip and I may assume that he is bluffing. Although his action was the raise the way he did it was a tell.
Back to mafia I always hammer on the fundamentals. I very strongly believe that you can identify a difference between a player with a natural read and a fake read because in a natural read the reasoning matches the certainty level while in a fake read the reasoning is created and scum have to figure out how confident they should present their certainty level. This means there could be an observable tell in the gap between the reasoning and the certainty. So although a players action was to scum read player X I now may have reason to believe that the read was manufactured. I can now say with whatever certainty I have in that tell that the intention behind the action of that players read was not genuine.

Thats one example that hopefully makes sense. I will also say that I try to track a players focus when I read them. Players will usually teach you how they scum hunt while they play by the way they read other players which is useful when your scum or town. You can also look to 90% of players meta reasoning. "He is never this aggressive as town so his action of aggressively pushing to lynch player X is indicative of scum intent" kinda thing.

Charisma could be described, in this specific case, as "external communication". Knowing how to "recieve" communication is part of accuracy in my opinion, so we're actually thinking the same way on that point (at least to my understanding). And yes, it's a bit my fault from sliding between related topics haha.

Hmm, that's fair for poker and the potential mafia equivalents.
However, the issue with the example is that determining the level of certainity a player should have about a specific read requires a literal mastery of the game's events, which is very hard to obtain, even though it works extremely well on paper without taking that into account.
I agree with the part about meta, though.

Thanks a lot for taking so much time to answer everyone's questions deeply, by the way. I think that greatly improves everyone's knowledge of the game's theory, and that it should improve our game quality in the future.

[yzb25]

I'm curious about how you'd determine when it makes more sense to lynch for information than it does to lynch your top scumread.

Also, I'm curious about whether you'd lynch to stifle "entropy". I'm not referring to policy lynches, which have an almost moral aspect. I'm talking strategically.

[Frinckles]

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.

I liked a lot of the systems you created and have thought about expanding them once I get around to finishing this damn patch. Not to mention, you and DR are way better at the data editor than I am. It took me a month to stop the new player models from being killed by Mothership extended because of how reluctant I was to open it.

Hit me up on Discord and maybe we can fix whatever computer issue it was!