**Risking merge-post again. GoG seems to be not letting me post anything with an embedded quote. 2nd fail here, triple-checked tags and everything. :(

@Wyrm (#482) - on the issue of testing mechanics, personally I think it's at least mostly apparently already. Drealmer is going to let us mess around for part of mid-day. Once he posts a vote count (triggered by time, or x players voting more likely) from that point on non-votes count as no-lynch.

I highly doubt he is going to spring a big surprise on us that ends with us accidentally falling into no lynch (wrote "no lunch" - the horrors!) or even sundown without some caution that it's becoming a potential.

@trent - on the reads list issue, I agree with cristi's response to you.

I know what you're describing is another GoG mafia staple, but like cristi I watched several of the MU games this summer, and while I was already on the fence about the value of holding all one's cards, being careful to not list who looks townie because mafia aren't smart enough to figure out who to kill unless we point it out for them, etc., that observing definitely pushed me to the side of thinking our GoG way is sub-optimal.

Put it out there, and expect others to do the same.

What you're describing is great for a "me-town" game ("Don't want to tip my super awesome read!") but it ignores that the rest of town may not see (or buy) what you're seeing anyway, and the bigger issue is that what you describe ignores the dynamic of what the expectation of posting reads list does to a scum player. scum-you benefits more from low expectations and concealing info than town-you does.

If town is playing even reasonably well, it creates more data to talk about, and sure, it does require town players to tip at least part of their hand, but scum have to put something on record they can potentially be held to later.

Or at least that's the hope.

E.g. imagine a scenario where I am mafia and my reads list is "Wyrm town, Lift neutral" (simplifying). End of day rolls along and the two wagons turn out to be wyrm/lift and I vote wyrm. Someone doing a read can say "wait a minute, explain how you got from A to Z there." Or alternatively I have Wyrm slight scum and then at the end of the day have him as strong town with no explanation.

Someone can then ask me, what was your progression?

There are trade-offs, certainly, but I'm wholly convinced the balance is slightly town-positive, and also, it's activity-positive, which we often desperately need.

Will make a full-ish reads list later, in that vein, probably tonight.

Sure, thanks for asking (I actually almost made a post on it but wasn't sure how helpful it would be).

It's this strong focus on the notion of Iso (I'm guessing isolation?). Sure, okay I can see why it could be a town mechanism to single out a player or three and really parse everything they've said. But at the same time it can quickly turn into a concerted scum tactic to paint a target on a player and put them on the defensive.

It seems like within your group this is much more common practice for town (or at least giving it a name / strategy type) and I'll have to adjust to that - read it more as a different norm / playstyle than I'm used to rather than a pure scum effort.

Of all the behavior I've seen on Day 1 so far I don't like what Ix has shown, I find it scummy and that's why I've voted him. There are others I can see me voting for as well, most notably agent. He has popped on and made some posts but nothing of real substance. Almost feels as if he's posting to post and seem active. For now I have my vote in what I consider a good spot.

My expectation for the game is that we are supposed to know that no-lynching is something that we are supposed to do, then there would be some sort of hint that flavor meant something; "let's no lynch because the flavor hasn't given us a reason to yet" in particular is the type of approach that seems pretty crazy town to me, so I'm moving forward like this part of it is like a typical mafia game until I find hard evidence that it isn't. I didn't get any response to my big strategy post (like I'd expect to if it was something that Drealmer expected us to do), so dropping that for now as well.

Why not? As of this post, you weren't exactly sure where you wanted to vote at the moment but you were bothered by Lift's approach to you same as I was; why not take a leap and put out a vote?

I've been liking cristi's contributions as of late; this is just an example, but she's felt pretty game solvey over the last couple of pages and I know I've seen a couple things from her that I've liked lately.

The reason I'm voting you is for your response to Brasas initially; I'll be perfectly honest for you in that it's been hard for me to sift through your posts to find the content through the roleplay, but just because I placed a vote on you doesn't mean that I won't accept anything other than your head on a platter for today, I just need you to talk through your reads with me a little more.

First of all, why was Brasas voting No Lynch (a move you said you'd typically find scummy) "okay"? Your initial response was that you thought it was because no lynching made sense for flavor reasons, but that doesn't really fit to me since Brasas wasn't really RPing from what I could tell.

This is a little off topic, but I think it's something worthy of talking about.

For me, having transparency as town is important because the more transparent a town is, the easier it is to read that town (it's a hell of a lot more difficult as mafia to fake 17 reads and progressions on those reads than it is to fake two strong townreads and a scumread). It also means that it's a hell of a lot easier to produce content based on different people getting completely different reads on a situation (for example, Tammy getting a more "game solvey sense from yogsloth early game versus me finding that he's underperforming); it's also a lot easier to get someone to talk more when they're transparent about reads, and you can pick on why they're having certain thoughts etc. etc. etc. A group of townies sharing reads with each other is also much more effective than a collection of individuals trying to find wolves and lynch them; one person will see things that you've missed (bler picking up on Yogsloth's trombone post that I missed), and you will have stronger reads with a more complete picture.

I also don't think that it makes it easier for mafia to make the "right" kills. For one, if mafia are choosing their kills properly, they are killing people who are threats to them in thread based on what they've already accomplished. For example, if Bler has 2/4 correct reads, has convinced the town to lynch one wolf and is on the way to lynching a second, he is a bigger threat than lx who has 4/4 correct reads but hasn't convinced the town to go anywhere and who hasn't provided any good reasons for doing so. Secondly, it's not like the mafia are completely incapable of picking out who looks town and who doesn't; even as scum, you're aware of who looks really, really town and who doesn't, so it's not like your strategy is likely to prevent universal townreads from dying.

There are a couple more things but this is long already so I'm ending it here and getting back on track with catching up >.>

Long-ass weekend.

I'm not dead, but my contribution is pretty bad, and I'm still not able to fully be here today.

I'll be in full speed tomorrow.

Most of this seems to be focused on Bookwyrm making a bad claim; I think it's better to leave talk of this behind us since talking about it more is likely to give scum a better idea of whether he is a mason or not and who his partners could be if he is unless you think that he's faking it which doesn't seem to be the case based on this.

Bookwyrm, this is the post that confirmed for me that not voting = no lynching.
47% of the players in this game were not voting No Lynch. Around half of them were either voting no one or voting No Lynch, however.

I expect this is why the first votecount didn't trigger until over half of the players were voting on a wagon (otherwise no lynch would be instantly majority'd at the beginning of the day).

Beardy spending his time focusing on whether bler is contributing or not when he's been one of the most active players in the game (if not the most active) is weird.

What's currently happening in thread is not a "no lynch being achieved on purpose", it's people who aren't voting getting lumped in with people who want to vote for a no lynch. Your reaction to seeing "NO LYNCH IS AT L-1" seems surprisingly non-commital.

This is hilarious, though! :)

I don't remember doing it - can you tell us Stan how you knew to make this joke?

bler Town as hell, btw. I'd love to be wrong. It would make some just desserts.... but after having previous nailed scum!bler in like, one post or less... this isn't it.

Still catching up.

The best way to kill someone quickly is to follow Perky Fergie!
;)

Is there a reason you decided to focus on all of the newcomers specifically?
Are you playing foil to Yogsloth's "don't suspect any newcomers so that they come back forever and ever", or...?
What's cahoots about fox and what on earth does "fox is a bit cahoots" mean?

So Drealmer said that No Lynch is currently at L-1 despite the fact that not even a quarter of the game is voting No Lynch because...?

What ridiculous vote are you referring to re: Quadralien? I remember a recent one on docbear, but I'm not sure what there is before that.

Did you ever find what post you disliked that I made at you?

I think you are taking my stance wrong. I am all about town sharing and discussing, it's the only way we can win. If I see something I feel is off or that I really like I will point it out if someone else has not done so already. Being open with your thoughts on who you really find scummy and why is also something I am for, but I'm not going to make a list of all the players I might have leaning scum at one time. If you want my opinion on anyone in particular ask away and I will answer.

I also would like to say to everyone that voting is something we all should be doing. Whether you want to vote for someone or for no lynch does not matter, just vote. The most powerful tool town has is their vote and it a tool that is very under utilized. Best way to get some discussion going is to put the votes out there and see how people are really feeling.

clarification:

"NO-LYNCH being at L-1" post was meant to TROLL you all (or at least, troll my fellow GOGlins) - I added the "(if L-1 exists)" to remind that it is basically stated in the rules that there is no L-1 because there is no real hammering - at least I thought that much was clear and so I thought the joke would be clear - so I want to make that much clear now

some further clarity:

The stages and lynch mechanics are in place to simulate the actions of this community. This means you aren't just going to suddenly kill someone BAM THEY'RE DEAD. Lynching (or not lynching) is a deliberate and decided action that will be done as a group.

This post might end up being cut in two and finished tomorrow or later tonight, decent chance it's tomorrow.

I still like Bler and Brasas for town. Bler is my strongest townread by far. Brasas I like for town but I don't feel as confident in Brasas town as Bler town.

I'm also leaning towards liking Nacho. I think he'd be giddy as fuck to be scum here and I'm not sure his approach here where he comes in not really knowing where to push and is lost is the way he starts as scum. I suppose he could be trying to fool me and since everyone seems lost it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for him to go that avenue, I'm just not feeling it and I've liked a fair number of his posts. Still in this format of game it takes me a bit longer to feel confident in my read on him. But I'm leaning town. One thing I don't quite get is the push on Lift. Now, lift is difficult to read, but at least his focus on the role-play aspect of the game does feel in earnest and I think it's adorable how committed he is to it (not condescending adorable, I just really appreciate it.) It does make it easy for scum to hide and he could have decided to be in character before the game started and he got his role pm. Anyway, I do get Nacho's suspicion there for the reasons, but he's not also applying similar suspicions to others who also are falling in the realm of not really doing anything productive but being here. (Nacho I know that your initial vote on him was due to the reaction to Brasas and the roleplaying thing. I'll go back and look at that tomorrow probably.)

Nacho what are your thoughts on Agent? or Quad? Both of them feel in that similar vein to Lift, but I don't think you've mentioned them.

lx - when you talk about finding the newcomers suspicious because of iso'ing who are you referring to? The only one that I can remember off the top of my head that is doing iso's is Agent who did that one on Bler. I do agree that sometimes people focus on iso's to look busy and that has come from scum a good portion of the time, but when town do it it tends to balance with other types of investigations and in thread activity.

And dinner is ready and this isn't near what I was hoping to get done before dinner. I will try to come back tonight and finish some more thoughts, if not tomorrow.

Tammy, the difference is that in John Wick I had a strong town group around me and a small pool of zero posters to deal with; I didn't want to lynch a townread, so we lynched in that pool. Here, people are saying that we should vote zero posters instead of looking at anything else.

On phone, really tired. I've probably forgotten some of the questions I've been asked.

@Bookwyrm - I agree, now is the best time to find out.

@Stanari
1. Because I don't have enough time to play. More on that later.
2. Ask drealmer. He thinks I'm always like this.
3. Nope. I was just interested.
4. Yes, I am.
5. Probably not. More on that later.
6. No. I'm too distracted to be suspicious.

@Trent - That's what I'm doing all right. Because I enjoy playing, by I don't have enough time. Once again, more on that later.



It's now later. Bearded man can't take it anymore. I apologize everyone, but I'm gonna bow out and ask for replacement. It's not fair to town that I can't contribute. Yeah, I'm probably breaking a bunch of rules by saying it here, but heck. I'm not going back to reread the OP just to replace out.
I probably won't be back any time soon, tbh. I'm too busy with school and work and sort-of-gf, etc. Again, sorry all. Good luck, and have fun!

Sorry to see you go, brother beard.
Thanks for the elaboration drealmer!

I'll continue reading tomorrow, comfortable sheets and a beautiful woman are calling my name.

Back. Very nice dinner. Sorry for incoming wall of text. Will break into mult.

Re: Agent getting a sub - pretty sure I called that. What do I win?

FWIW, I had agent leaning slightly town just on the derping, but he's proved he can be a hazard to town when this low-activity (Wyrm knows well) so I still kinda had him in my lynch pool. Sub changes the picture.

A few players have shifted for me. cristi moves up to strong town for me - similar thoughts to my own, applying actual analysis. All of that she can fake, but she really didn't need to up the ante by going to a full reads list, at least for me, and certainly not for the regulars and yet she did.

If she's scum, that was just serious stones. Not lock town, but I'm giving her top billing for now. Hope she keeps it up.

+ for upward movement, - for down. R for people I need to re-read.

Townier:
cristi ++

Brasas - we don't always see eye to eye, or apparently even ballpark to ballpark, but looks legit, and is leaving a good trail
Nacho - didn't love the rationale on the Lift vote at first, but actually think I understand the thinking and if not that, at least the move. Also could've latched on to the argument he'd just had me provide as fuel, but didn't (maybe thought it was a sucky observation). No idea how good his scum game is (probably better than mine) but for now he's in the legit-town pile.
Though curious in discussing Ix he seems to talk about "wolves' as a single tier of player - presumably knows well that not all wolves play the same, whether through style or skill?

R Tammy - admittedly, I think I need to watch her more carefully. Like the tone and the approach a lot, and maybe not scrutinizing the details enough. But I like the activity and feels legitimately friendly without being buddying.

Slight town:
trent
yogs - who wants me to talk more about yogs?