EW's Semi-Open Matrix Madness

[Charle]

@PMC, I agree. People seem to hate D1 due to the blind fighting a seeing enemy, but it is very important in hindsight. And, to further embellish what you're stating, a D1 decided no lynch just makes D2 D1 instead (with a few power roles having roamed about in darkness). I'm all for getting at least a claim to see who is for, who is against, and why.

I've found Devante a tiny bit suss from his "don't give away clues to scum...and by the way, I'm not a town power role" post.

@Charle, how do his posts feel different?

Exactly as per your second paragraph above. Talking like that about scum was not his style previously. Also then trying to correct himself after pmc pointed out to him not to claim if it is not necessary, it all together just don't jell with me.

[Votanic]

I worry town is heading for a loss because we have basically no power roles and no discussion.

I'm worried too... but let's not pretend we can substitute for fewer PRs with more 'discussion'.
Talk can never fully replace Action... especially when so much of the Talk is just going to be dishonest and/or disfunctional.

No, the only real replacement for PRs in a game like this is more guessing...
Though by all means, we should definitely 'educate' those guesses with whatever probabilities and facts (I said 'FACTS!') we have at our disposal.
Obviously, lynching confirmed scum is best, but if we are only able to identify bad townies, ...then they also become the the most likely suspects.

Kong's unexplained vote for Swang the post immediately after Vot called Swang out didn't sit right with me either. It felt noobishly coordinated (especially given a scum daychat), but I don't know Kong's level of experience. If it was poor executed coordination, at least we know that Kong is being given a spanking in the scumchat by Vot at this point

Gee, thanks for casting not-so-subtle aspersions on my towniness, Ragian... No, I don't know why Kong voted for swang, but even you now half-admit it isn't such a bad choice, considering swang's obstinant sub-participation.

Indeed, town players that post so little have even been known to be mod-killed in other games, ...though that rarely happens if they're scum.
Also, it occurs to me that if scum really are chatting amongst themselves all day-long, it might leave them too exhausted to post as often in the main game thread...

FPed by Charle...
Yes, Devante does seem different this game. It may be scumminess, or it might just be disenchantment at the sometime 'Existential Hell' quality of a mafia game.
Sartre should have written a play about it ...or maybe he did.

[Ragian]

I worry town is heading for a loss because we have basically no power roles and no discussion.

I'm worried too... but let's not pretend we can substitute for fewer PRs with more 'discussion'.
Talk can never fully replace Action... especially when so much of the Talk is just going to be dishonest and/or disfunctional.

No, the only real replacement for PRs in a game like this is more guessing...
Though by all means, we should definitely 'educate' those guesses with whatever probabilities and facts (I said 'FACTS!') we have at our disposal.
Obviously, lynching confirmed scum is best, but if we are only able to identify bad townies, ...then they also become the the most likely suspects.

Kong's unexplained vote for Swang the post immediately after Vot called Swang out didn't sit right with me either. It felt noobishly coordinated (especially given a scum daychat), but I don't know Kong's level of experience. If it was poor executed coordination, at least we know that Kong is being given a spanking in the scumchat by Vot at this point

Gee, thanks for casting not-so-subtle aspersions on my towniness, Ragian... No, I don't know why Kong voted for swang, but even you now half-admit it isn't such a bad choice, considering swang's obstinant sub-participation.

Indeed, town players that post so little have even been known to be mod-killed in other games, ...though that rarely happens if they're scum.
Also, it occurs to me that if scum really are chatting amongst themselves all day-long, it might leave them too exhausted to post as often in the main game thread...

FPed by Charle...
Yes, Devante does seem different this game. It may be scumminess, or it might just be disenchantment at the sometime 'Existential Hell' quality of a mafia game.
Sartre should have written a play about it ...or maybe he did.

Nothing I've seen from you stands out to me, so I'm not saying that you are either or. I'm saying how I experienced Kong's vote. The rest was speculation based on experience with the game and nothing else. I do like how you take even the slightest shade as a personal affront in a game riddled with allegations, however.

[Kingm]

It's a spelling error due to swiping on my phone.

I think anyone can attest how atrocious it is to swipe on some shitty screen, but I'm hardly gonna go on a rant about it. Shit happens.

I hear you, these phones can drive me through walls as well. My point is, forget how the "we" or the "they" got there, why did you want to change it if it did not read scummy as pmc and Ragian trying to point out above? Just want to understand your thinking why you did it.

Can it be that pmc and Rag are your partners?

That would be the poorest scum play ever, I think, if one scummate tilted on a typo and his scummates rushed to save him D1

Whooops. I'm still voting PMC. unvote

@PMC, why Swang? He's always silent. I've never found it alignment indicative. I find it annoying, however. Also, I never got to play too much with you because scum arseholes killed me off N1 last game. What is your general preference D1 in terms of claims, lynching?

I hate no lynch, I have never played on a no lynch site before. The idea of it poisons everything because people can just phone it in and do nothing if they want. I thought majority lynch might improve things but it's actually made it worse because people are rushing to vote no lynch off the bat.

It doesn't matter too much whether or not we actually lynch someone, but the quality of posting goes down because we are not scared. Last game day 1 was the longest and had very good clues in it, doesn't feel the same in this game. I worry town is heading for a loss because we have basically no power roles and no discussion.

Swang felt similar vibes to last game, I don't remember him being this quiet last town game.

Who do you think is suspicious?

The problem I have is that D1 chatter is just a lot of bs, and really hard to be sus about someone, but I feel with this setup that its probably best to lynch someone D1, so ok lets try this then:

Unvote no lynch

Vote Devante

[Ragian]

@King, Yes, a lot of it is BS and can be hard to decipher as of right now, but come D3 and D4, patterns emerge, and we will be able to use the BS from D1. If we just keep our mouths shut D1, we have nothing D2 and onwards. Why do you go for Devante, though?

That's why it's also nice to have people fill out a list of people they suspect and people they find to be town. One could use the list from the sign-up thread:

1. Strike Wolf - neutral (but always be wary of the skill here)
2. Devante - suss (claimed saying one shouldn't give info to scum)
3. pmchugh - town vibe (I find myself agreeing with PMC a lot)
4. Votanic - neutral (seems to be playing to his M.O.)
5. Swang918 - no read (hasn't contributed)
6. Loose Cannon - neutral (hardlining on his "plan"...actually seems more towny than scummy to do, but then again he did also draw attention to himself in the latest game where he was scum)
7. DirtyDishSoap - suss (usually advocated a D1 no lynch, missed something in the setup that even I understood)
8. Kingm - neutral
9. kongming3 - suss (voted with no explanation...timing was odd)
10. *Pixar* - neutral (hasn't really contributed and claims to be busy)
11. Maxleod - town vibe (always plays like a fanatic when town)
12. Ragian - very beautiful townie <3
13. Charle - town (his stab at DDS felt like town genuinely trying to weed out scum)
14. fusibaseball - slight suss (one post voting for swang for being silent)
15. Trafalgarlaw01 - neutral (hasn't really said much)

[strike wolf]

I think Vot is the mostly weirdly anti-discussion mafia player out there. Discussion and guesswork is over half the game. Especially in a game like this where power roles are limited. I agree with PMC that vibe lists are a good way to spark discussion and see how people's views change as the game goes on. You can gain understanding around if a particular change in attitude towards a player seems artificial or natural given how the game advances and for scum it forces them to put forth artificial reads and/or give info away on a scum buddy that could draw town's attention to something we otherwise might not have noticed.

DDS's edit is interesting. Though not condemning. The they/we part doesn't seem to be indicating scum/town and I don't really see why DDS would want to change the tense. If he was scum then it just feels like an easy way to draw town's attention to him. So it was either very careless or not really alignment indicative. I'm also willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on him veering from his usual "Vote No Lynch" M.O. based on him misunderstanding the rules. As I believe I mentioned earlier, as scum in the past he doubled down on that M.O. He didn't veer away from it.

As far as Kong voting without explanation, it's worth noting that Loose (as scum) did that after PMC (as town) petitioned that his EW case was real D1. Kong seems slightly quiet and I remember he felt a bit wishy washy on how he approached the Loose theory discussion. Will have to review.

Pix comes in and still basically says next to nothing.

I'd be willing to vote Devante/Swang/Pix to push through a claim/lynch (though I guess Dev has already claimed). I mostly agree on the weird claim moment about Dev and I do feel he felt a bit eager to vote Loose, maybe thinking there would be an easy lynch case. Swang and Pix at best are just not helping town with their limited contributions. I am less willing to push a DDS lynch as I don't think the They/we thing is particularly condemning and he's a good player that I wouldn't want to lynch based on something that doesn't feel all that scummy to me. Pix seems scummier than Swang to me but has little chance of being pushed to a claim at the moment and unfortunately, fluff isn't that against his normal M.O. So I'll jump on the Devante train.

Unvote King; Vote Dev

I'd like an updated vibe list from PMC and a first list from others.

[DirtyDishSoap]

Soaps Role Madness Scumster List

Town
I'm the SK

Townish
1. Charle is largely playing the same as a townie would.

2. Vot. Despite his abrasive attitude towards anything with a pulse, it's pretty much in line with how he plays vs The Thing where he more or less tolerated everyone's presence.

3. LC. Our local break the meta magician. I can't see how it's beneficial to paint a giant red lynch mark on yourself day 1 as scum.

Neut
Swang - No posts

FUSI - 1 post, a swell guy

Strike, Rag - Two great players that I'm reluctant to throw them in either side.

Max, Traf - Dead to Deadish weight. Least Traf says something more of value.

Dev - Im hesitant in putting him on either side.

King - The King

Scummy/Amongus
1. PMC - Just don't see how a list of everyone, pg2 is a great move? Just seemed to be a really early attempt to try and gain town cred when none was being handed out.

2. Kong - Less so, but popping into vote and more or less not adding anything of merit.

I also want to add that anyone going after Swang earns an immediate FOS. Its easy, he hasn't posted, and deserves a prod.

[pmchugh]

As far as Kong voting without explanation, it's worth noting that Loose (as scum) did that after PMC (as town) petitioned that his EW case was real D1. Kong seems slightly quiet and I remember he felt a bit wishy washy on how he approached the Loose theory discussion. Will have to review.

Kong also did this as town last game, voting for Loose I believe. He is in the neutral pile for me.

[strike wolf]

As far as Kong voting without explanation, it's worth noting that Loose (as scum) did that after PMC (as town) petitioned that his EW case was real D1. Kong seems slightly quiet and I remember he felt a bit wishy washy on how he approached the Loose theory discussion. Will have to review.

Kong also did this as town last game, voting for Loose I believe. He is in the neutral pile for me.

Did he? I don't recall that. If so then I'd move him back more towards neutral to very slightly scummy.

Also, @DDS: Swang did post once though looking back it was very early. Prod does seem a bit more warranted than a vote looking back now.

[fusibaseball]

I have thought a good bit about this particular Mafia setup with my morning coffee this AM. After reviewing the matrix, we have 12 Townies and 3 Mafia members, and neither coalition has additional kill capabilities, meaning at a maximum one player will die each night.

Last game I argued that no-lynch days were actively unproductive for Town, as when everybody has a power role, Scum cannot hide behind generic Vanilla Townie claims. Actively pressuring players, even on shaky ground, is higher value than in a typical Mafia game. This materialized in the later days when Deg was forced into a somewhat awkward Hypnotist claim that a clever PMC was able to sniff out and Vig kill for the Town win.

Here, though, we have a lot of Vanilla Townies. I believe 6 with 3 power roles, and Mafia's roles seem fairly tame in comparison too. In every row and column, there is one instance of Mafia Roleblocker, so there is certainly one player in the game who is a Mafia Roleblocker (annoying but can be played around with this concrete knowledge). Otherwise, I just see a lot of intel-gathering roles and the odd Doctor here & there.

In these low-grade, "low-violence" setups, I think No Kill days for Town gain more validity. The game isn't ending on us anytime soon...even if we were to actively lynch a Townie every day, we could not lose prior to Day 5 (at which point 8 Townies will have been killed, assuming no Doctor saves if there is one in play), and the ninth Townie being killed would equal 3 Townies: 3 Scum and Scum would win. Giving more time for the social politics to steep in the thread and the guilty players to reveal themselves over time gains credence as this will likely happen.

However, there is a BIG difference between Town settling on a No Lynch day (a strategy I think is good here) and not posting in the thread because nobody is being lynched (a strategy I think is bad).

I've said it before many times and I'll say it again...players who contribute nothing (like actively NOTHING) are being indirectly unhelpful to Town by not participating in the social politics and helping to form impressions. They are as good as dead weight and can never be just "neutral" when submarining so hard. I don't really care what your alignment for now is because, more often that not, I'll be wrong on who I think is Scum Day 1. Lists for Day 1 should be organized into "Value to Town", of which I'd put LC/PMC/Strike/DDS/Charle/Rag all in the top half and the rest in the bottom half. Likely at least 1 of those players is Scum but I personally don't care right now because we are playing a long game and all of these players think for themselves and contribute independent thoughts to the public knowledge base, misleading or not. It's Town's job to interpret and sift through the misleading posts, but when there's no material there, that's not "neutral" anymore, that's just plain unhelpful.

A quick note on the Dev vote: I did read a post of his from the first few days of posting and alarm bells went off in my head immediately. Definitely "sus" vibes in one of his early posts. I see validity in the Dev train but would have to review the thread and re-read his posts. To me, regardless of if he's Scum or Town, he's a more valuable player to Town because he actively contributes to impression-forming in the game, which is more than can be said for Law, Pixar, Max, or Swang at this stage. Max to me is especially suspicious because he seemed really interested in standing on the sidelines and poking holes in the PMC vs. Loose feud and getting something going there vote-wise. Same overriding thoughts though...he has more value to Town than Swang because I can interpret him.

[DirtyDishSoap]

His confirm/question? I wouldn't say that qualifies as even 1 post, the man ain't here!

FPed

[pmchugh]

New vibes list

Town
Ragman - feeling a good connection here

Lean town
Dev
Loose
Strike, given how badly I read him last game, he is probably scum

Neutral
DDS, just feels different from other games
Charle, last game he was the most obvious towny in the world, less so thus game, but the gotcha on DDS seemed honest
Fusi, making less sense than usual while attempting to make sense
Kong

Lean scum
Vot, something isn't right here
Pixar, I just always think this
Swang, no contribution
Traf, who?

Scum
King, I am really feeling this one, but one thing is giving me pause, is it not a bit on the nose for scum to ask how scum kills work in the game thread?

[pmchugh]

I missed max, who is an interesting one. Very sharp, gets straight to the point without giving much away. Don't love the we lynch DDS then LC joke alongside saying DDS isn't taking the game to serious. Bottom of neutral for me.

[swang918]

activity level is not alignment indicative!

I'm most suspicious of devante for same reasons as others have said. Devante has always been town in every game so I can see him fumbling in his first scum game.

Vote Devante

PMC has said something is off about votanic in this game...pmc what exactly is off about votanic? anything articulable or more just vibes?

Max seems to always play with insane confidence as town...I feel he has been around longer than me--what is Max like as scum? any tells?

[Ragian]

Haven't seen Max as scum.

Do you have any reads on anyone else?

[Ragian]

While I agree with you that activity level doesn't indicate alignment, but your stumbling in here jumping on the one and only train available with no reasons apart from "what they said" might do.

[pmchugh]

Has anyone ever seen scum, under zero pressure, claim vanilla townie on day 1? Feels like newbie town to me.

[Votanic]

Has anyone ever seen scum, under zero pressure, claim vanilla townie on day 1? Feels like newbie town to me.

This. This what I'm talking about.
From the same player that believes in the 'townslip' concept.

Every player implicitly wants to be perceived as 'Vanilla Town' on Day 1
Why? because obviously scumminess and PRs are best kept private.

Therefore whether a player explicitly (or only implicitly) claims 'to be vanilla, is only a minor point at best.

Also, @swang: The popular kids will like you better if you don't crib off their nonsense vibe lists.
Instead, make your own. It's easy, you don't need to know anything!

[Loose Canon]

That's the thing. If a kill is stopped we don't know if it's because the killer was roleblocked or the target was protected. Mafia however has more information than we do and could very well deduce whether it happened because they were blocked or the target was protected and in the latter case, they now know who the doc is because of your plan. This is the very point that Charle brought up and you ignored. Now let's say the Doc's number is 2 and the roleblockers is 5. If mafia has a role blocker then Mafia could choose a member who is 5 away from one player to perform the kill, elect a player 2 above them and role block that player to make sure they won't be blocked and their target won't be protected. If the player is vanilla or a role that doesn't receive a role block message which is a strong majority of potential roles then town may never know that the player was role blocked. Mafia could also do it to frame players. They could elect to block player A who corresponds to player B in order to frame it that Player B is mafia.

Jailkeeper is an even worse example as even if we know their action prevented the kill, we don't know if it's because they blocked the killer or protected the target.

Thank you Strike the above is a serious argument and I have been and still am pondering it.
(It is actually difficult to scenario game it out - the matrix is fiendish.)

Yes mafia could attempt to employ a counterstrategy against it - they might not but they might and there would be no way for town to know that they have if they did or actually what any counterstrategy was.
They wouldn't however know until a Power Role (PR) has died if they were hitting or targeting a PR - they wouldn't be able to predict that - correct?
Night 1 with no lynch D1 they would have a 3 in 12 chance of killing a PR.
Night 2 with no lynch D1 or D2 they have a 3 in 11 chance of killing a PR etc etc

(No kill in a night becomes valuable information for Town later in the game if we have traceability back - correct?)

It actually (I believe) all boils down to whether knowing later in the game who a PR performed there action on is worth more than free choice/judgement.
The information is lost if a PR dies before revealing if there is no traceability.

With traceability not tracking a killer is arguably actually a good result.
Tracking a killer only has a 1 in 14 chance of success anyway ok it could be lowered if there is a scum counterstrategy.

There is also a dilemna apart from a scenario where a killer is tracked whether or not to reveal at any point what a PR has done.

My belief is that with traceability knowing who did what either when a PR dies or is exhausted will allow rational logical deductions to be made later in the game, largely by PRs not needing to declare what they did too early.

Mine is an intuitive feel of how the matrix works and therefore how best to work the matrix.
The maths of proving or disproving probably actually would need a specially programmed supercomputer.

At the moment I'm still of the view that the Pros of Traceability outweigh the Cons.

(There are ways of voting on this and so overcoming the we don't know if a PR is following the strategy or not objection that was raised earlier)

[Devante]

Tried to start playing this game a bit different for a specific reason which I thought would benefit town but seems all I've done is bring unnecessary heat on myself lol, so either this will end up being great for town or I'll end up going down into the Sonic pool of bad townie. Either way I'll post my reads so far on everyone now that I've had time to catch up on posts but it's only D1 so I'm sure this will change

Leaning Town
Devante - because I am
pmchugh
Ragian
Charle
fusibaseball

Neutral
Strike Wolf
Votanic
DirtyDishSoap
Loose Cannon - was leaning scum but mainly because of his earlier posts, not so sure now
Maxleod
Trafalgarlaw01 - Would lean scum but not posting much D1 seems to fall in his MO

Leaning Scum
Swang918 - not contributing which is not usual
Kingm - Just a gut sense from his posts compared to the last game he played
kongming3 - similar to king here
*Pixar* - lean scum, but I just always assume he is

[Votanic]

A hypothesis I've developed...

1. I think EW really wanted to run a mountainous/all-vanilla game. He comes off as the kind of person that might equate minimalism with sophistication.

2. However, he knew/suspected that an all-vanilla game would be a tough sell (because having super powers is kewl!!!)

3. So he gave us a game that kinda looks like it has PRs but really keeps Town pretty close to vanilla.

For examples:
• Tracker isn't even close to being on par with cop/seer as an investigative role. There is a good chance a tracker might miss the action every single night.
• And what is even worse than a Tracker? ...a 'Motion Detector'...
• We might have a doctor, but even if we do he will only work 50% of the time (or just once if he's the JOAT!)
• But who might have a cop and certainly does have most of the role-blocking? Scum!
• So scum will probably soon be able to find and neutralize most of Town's already limited PRs. That is assuming they don't just night-kill them....

[Maxleod]

activity level is not alignment indicative!

PMC has said something is off about votanic in this game...pmc what exactly is off about votanic? anything articulable or more just vibes?

Not sure what PMC refers to.
But.
The way I see it, Vot is trying too hard to prove that he's Town.

[b]FOS Vot[/b]

[strike wolf]

A hypothesis I've developed...

1. I think EW really wanted to run a mountainous/all-vanilla game. He comes off as the kind of person that might equate minimalism with sophistication.

2. However, he knew/suspected that an all-vanilla game would be a tough sell (because having super powers is kewl!!!)

3. So he gave us a game that kinda looks like it has PRs but really keeps Town pretty close to vanilla.

For examples:
• Tracker isn't even close to being on par with cop/seer as an investigative role. There is a good chance a tracker might miss the action every single night.
• And what is even worse than a Tracker? ...a 'Motion Detector'...
• We might have a doctor, but even if we do he will only work 50% of the time (or just once if he's the JOAT!)
• But who might have a cop and certainly does have most of the role-blocking? Scum!
• So scum will probably soon be able to find and neutralize most of Town's already limited PRs. That is assuming they don't just night-kill them....

And this theory helps us how? Or are you just pissing and moaning about the modding on this site again?

[DirtyDishSoap]

He's saying I'm the best mod ever. No one can mod like me.


Thank you Vot. Confirmed town. The rest of you can learn by his example.

[DirtyDishSoap]

Speaking of which. Do we get a large communal sword?