Anniversary Game 1 - Classic Syndicate [Day 9]

[Spacedaisy]

Regarding Non-player Blue, I enjoyed the role, but it would require some tweaks to make it work better if I were to ever use it again. It was fun to watch though.

[Quin]

NP Blue was a great trial run, I'm never mad at a role that wants to go outside the box. I think it would have been better thematically not to involve a vote steal and instead just give me passive access to spec chat or something though.

[Vivax]

Big thanks to the hosts obviously. Very dedicated and nice writing, but they may have underestimated the social burnout from this summer in regards to special events. My conscience went downhill when I didn‘t submit a song, but not as much as it would have, had I rolled mafia.

I‘m probably weird cause I appreciate a reasonable amount of creative rudeness when it‘s not angleshooty or crosses red lines.

Best civs were Kate, Scotty, SVS/DH imo
Golden best scum easily
And me best third party without a shred of doubt

[Epignosis]

And me best third party without a shred of doubt

No question.

[Golden]

Big thanks to the hosts obviously. Very dedicated and nice writing, but they may have underestimated the social burnout from this summer in regards to special events. My conscience went downhill when I didn‘t submit a song, but not as much as it would have, had I rolled mafia.

I‘m probably weird cause I appreciate a reasonable amount of creative rudeness when it‘s not angleshooty or crosses red lines.

Best civs were Kate, Scotty, SVS/DH imo
Golden best scum easily
And me best third party without a shred of doubt

You were in that civ group for me. All four of you made me uncomfortable (well Kate didn’t yet but she would have soon enough).

[Spacedaisy]

This is literally the only game I've ever hosted where I didn't hate life halfway through and question why I chose to host. Thank you players for that. You were all very gracious.

[Michelle]

Thank you everyone for playing!
It is a wonderful example of how mafia is an elegant mind game

Thank you my team, you were FEBulous!!!
Thank you Golden, let's town together sometime
I was careless and I didn't talk/mention/quote Quin's posts, even if we weren't in the same time in the thread to force an interaction I should do it on purpose. Lesson learned!
Quin's role was unusual and very interesting, however it wasn't wolves' friendly and exposed for the townies the outside opinion of spectators who, coincidentally, are very good players. This and the rez of town Scotty made this game alot more difficult for us.

I started to play on my homesite in games where claiming was forbidden and, even after playing a lot of claimable games, playing like this shows the play skill more.

Best player from my Pov is @Golden , congrates mate!

Thank you @Epignosis and @Spacedaisy for this game!!!

[Spacedaisy]

Yeah there are tweaks I think the NPBlue role could have used that would have made it less dangerous for you. However, in the end i think the balance worked out because we nerfed you guys a little and realized after the fact that really most of the town power was one time use and the really useful role, you guys shot straight out of the gate. I think if I used NPBlue type role again it would take a fair amount of adjustment. But I really don't think it hurt you guys as much as you thought, it just also didn't help you guys all the time either. it could have potentially hurt you though, so I'm glad that didn't happen. Really, the non-players almost all didn't interact much at all with the exception of the final one with Mata. She approached it as if she was playing the game. The previous non-players didn't engage in BTSC much and just were willing to do whatever their BTSC partner wanted.

[Spacedaisy]

All that is to say, I think the balance worked out in the end since we didn't have a worst case scenario with NPBlue

[Ricochet]

Do I also win?

I know spectator opinions is all talk, but as I gave interest in checking the game during my ghost time with Quin, I had Golden at total wolf. Shoot on sight wolf. Don’t let him talk wolf.

[Michelle]

All that is to say, I think the balance worked out in the end since we didn't have a worst case scenario with NPBlue

I agree, the setup was balanced

I will borrow the curse for not voting when I host a game, it is better than having them self voting like I've done in the past.

[G-Man]

Victory is ours! Wow, what an exciting game and an exciting win. My teammates were terrific and we functioned without any drama, ego, or infighting. I am so proud to have been part of such a chill group of baddies.

I want to know why @G-Man committed suicide.

I had hoped to have something pre-written to post last night when the game ended, but, as with the game when I was alive, real life made plans for me to the contrary.

As has happened too often the last two years for me, real life gets so busy for me that I can't commit enough time to reading the game and keeping current in it with my activity. I fell behind and my ability to manufacture developing reads fell apart completely during D2. When I was able to come back, there were too many pages of content for me to catch up on and digest in order to make any fake reads develop properly, so I become a little too obvious to a few folks. On D3, when it became clear that I was going to be the lead wagon, if not the runaway wagon, I resigned myself to that likely fate without giving up completely.

N2, NP Blue (Quin) targeted Vivax 2.0, and Ricochet was voting in his place. If you go back and look at the votes for D3, you'll see that Vivax was voting for Sloonei, while Rico was voting for me. When you all thought it was 5-4 in the votes, it was actually 5-3. Had I voted for Sloonei, it would have appeared to have been tied, but it still would have been 5-4 in favor of me. Kate was the only one who really picked up on that soon after the fact, but it could have been helpful under the right circumstances.

I knew we were one vote short of actually tying the game. Had I voted for Sloonei, however, I think the civs might have started to wake up more to the fact that the presence of Rico's vote meant that one of the other votes didn't count. I think there wasn't enough thought to that by the civs while Quin was still alive. Keeping the votes close and with only two wagons could have given you guys more to ponder about that role's impact on the votes.

So, not voting for Sloonei was an intentional decision on my part because (in order of importance):

1) The votes weren't there and I didn't believe that we could actually secure a Sloonei mischop if I created the appearance of a tie. It would have created some juicy eod chaos, but there was no guarantee Sloonei would get chopped, and I think my team came out of D3 cleaner than they might have if they had participated in that kind of eod chaos and vote-switching.

2) I am nobody's dancing bear. Yes, the thing that all mafia logic says to do in that situation is for me to vote for Sloonei and hope for the best out of the eod chaos that would follow. But I just didn't care to do the expected thing. I chose to be opaque and mysterious about it, which worked out pretty well this time.

3) I thought it would be fun to watch you guys over-analyze my decision not to vote for Sloonei/self-preservation for a phase or two. I was right. I was also baffled and amused that some of you kept bringing up my D3 vote throughout the rest of the game.


I didn't intend for all that to cause you guys to waste a day mischopping bea so over-confidently or to provide Golden the Coward additional deep cover, but I'm not sorry those things were side-effects either.

[Roxy]

So fun reading and keeping up. Great game play Golden I do understand why you were killing the old school players. Congrats to all baddies you all played together as a team and that is what is needed when you are mafia Wanted to find the spec chat but never quite found the time Cannot wait to play with you all someday Linky w/Gman - wow great game play I also would have been sorry not sorry

[S~V~S]

Spoiler: show

Victory is ours! Wow, what an exciting game and an exciting win. My teammates were terrific and we functioned without any drama, ego, or infighting. I am so proud to have been part of such a chill group of baddies.

I want to know why @G-Man committed suicide.

I had hoped to have something pre-written to post last night when the game ended, but, as with the game when I was alive, real life made plans for me to the contrary.

As has happened too often the last two years for me, real life gets so busy for me that I can't commit enough time to reading the game and keeping current in it with my activity. I fell behind and my ability to manufacture developing reads fell apart completely during D2. When I was able to come back, there were too many pages of content for me to catch up on and digest in order to make any fake reads develop properly, so I become a little too obvious to a few folks. On D3, when it became clear that I was going to be the lead wagon, if not the runaway wagon, I resigned myself to that likely fate without giving up completely.

N2, NP Blue (Quin) targeted Vivax 2.0, and Ricochet was voting in his place. If you go back and look at the votes for D3, you'll see that Vivax was voting for Sloonei, while Rico was voting for me. When you all thought it was 5-4 in the votes, it was actually 5-3. Had I voted for Sloonei, it would have appeared to have been tied, but it still would have been 5-4 in favor of me. Kate was the only one who really picked up on that soon after the fact, but it could have been helpful under the right circumstances.

I knew we were one vote short of actually tying the game. Had I voted for Sloonei, however, I think the civs might have started to wake up more to the fact that the presence of Rico's vote meant that one of the other votes didn't count. I think there wasn't enough thought to that by the civs while Quin was still alive. Keeping the votes close and with only two wagons could have given you guys more to ponder about that role's impact on the votes.

So, not voting for Sloonei was an intentional decision on my part because (in order of importance):

1) The votes weren't there and I didn't believe that we could actually secure a Sloonei mischop if I created the appearance of a tie. It would have created some juicy eod chaos, but there was no guarantee Sloonei would get chopped, and I think my team came out of D3 cleaner than they might have if they had participated in that kind of eod chaos and vote-switching.

2) I am nobody's dancing bear. Yes, the thing that all mafia logic says to do in that situation is for me to vote for Sloonei and hope for the best out of the eod chaos that would follow. But I just didn't care to do the expected thing. I chose to be opaque and mysterious about it, which worked out pretty well this time.

3) I thought it would be fun to watch you guys over-analyze my decision not to vote for Sloonei/self-preservation for a phase or two. I was right. I was also baffled and amused that some of you kept bringing up my D3 vote throughout the rest of the game.


I didn't intend for all that to cause you guys to waste a day mischopping bea so over-confidently or to provide Golden the Coward additional deep cover, but I'm not sorry those things were side-effects either.

G Man, thank you for the detailed explanation. You know this was driving me crazy all game. I would start to civ read Sloonei and *BOOM* "Why TF did G Man just lay down and die?!?!" would pop into my head.

It was very unexpected, and tactically a good move because it kept the game focused on 'other than your team' for a big chunk of the game.

When I got to the point where I realized Golden, Quin and Michelle had had very limited interaction, and HAD to be teammates, logically I knew Sloonei had to be civ if they were bad. But you laying down as you did pretty much derailed me up to the day we started lynching your teammates. And derailing civs is the baddie way.

Super well played FEB move, G. I'm proud of you

[Sloonei]

I vote to have more Classic Syndicate games hosted here in the future.

I’m gonna be the change I want to see in the world. Next game I host will have classic syndicate rules. I don’t know what or when it will be, but it’s happening.

[Sloonei]

But none of that “only survivors can win” nonsense.

[S~V~S]

I vote to have more Classic Syndicate games hosted here in the future.

I’m gonna be the change I want to see in the world. Next game I host will have classic syndicate rules. I don’t know what or when it will be, but it’s happening.

I’ll play.

If TS ran more classic style games I would play more. It’s a different skill set. I think quite a few would filter in and out.

[G-Man]

Various posts that haven't aged well and made me laugh from the great beyond:

Vociferations of G-man: A Study

----------

Hooray for groupings. G-man's "Vote for High-Volume Players" approach means he cannot vote for LoRab (RIP), DF, and Kate. Llama (RIP) gets a town read, and Eloh gets another "I don't see the case" read, but not quite a town read. Vivax1.0 (RIP) gets a pass for being new.
That leaves him with a pool featuring Scotty, myself, Golden, DH/SVS, Bea, Michelle, and NAA/Vivax2.0. That's an awfully wide net, and not a single real suspicion. All of these players are still alive. This list almost certainly includes a teammate or two. By process of elimination, it almost has to. I know it is not me, and I am confident it is not Golden.

Spoiler: show

Voting for Golden the Coward for poopooing on my attempts to sort out game mechanics to the civvies’ advantage. He’s also high post-count, which gives us lots to chew on, right or wrong. His tone is pretty level, but that (along with his posting volume) could be a ploy to place him right at radar level. He’s present, posting, and engaged. At this early stage it’s easy enough to give someone like him a pass for a few days just on those qualities alone.

[VOTE: Golden the Coward] aubergine


I have a meeting tonight that may push right up to eod. I’ll hang around up to the start of the meeting, but I can’t promise that I’ll make it back before the flip.

Confident it's not Golden, you say? Look at G-man over here voting for Golden on Day 1 as if that was a sensible thing to do. I already talked about this post in my previous G-man ISO as one of the main points of suspicion against him. Looking at it now, this looks like an awkward vote where G-man is twisting himself up in knots trying to justify something that has no justification. I think it is a good look for Golden. I would need to look at his reaction to be comfortable saying that, though.

Volume II of my G-man Study (see Volume I here):

Spoiler: show

Variations on a Read List, Part 1
by G-Man

When I left off, I was trying to form a towncore. What I was left with sucks, even for a starter kit:

Towncore:

-bea
-thellama73

That's it, and it is so not adequate enough for this stage of the game. I like the looseness of Llama's play. He gets a little more serious when it matters, but he never gets too srsbsnss to the point that it feels forced. Bea's return to the game had a very good look to it. She spent a day with a posting quirk but her return shows that she didn't just use that as an excuse to take a day off. She showed that she was paying attention. I would expect a baddie at her prior level of activity to use that quirk to coast and just come back apologetic about checking out for too long.

I'd like to take this time to add to the conversation that my initial hunch on Bea's posting quirk had something to do with one of the Socky awards. The Socky has a few awards at their disposal, but we don't know what they do. My guess is that this role is like a Jack of All Trades and has a quiver of 1-shot power uses. The likeliest match would be Best Gambit. We won't know for sure until endgame though. It certainly could be the Vomp role, but I guess LoRab's death means we won't be getting anything more than E out of those tildes.



Civ-Leans:

-Eloh
-Golden
-Scotty
-Sloonei

I still feel like the suspicion of Eloh was overblown on D1. There was some speculation later about a townslip but I have to read back more for that. The other three all sound so darn supatown but I have to confess that I can't keep them straight in my head when reading the thread. ISO's will help. I don't know if it's a processing issue on my brain's part, but all their super-sleuthing voices run together in my head. It is frustrating and I don't know how to break myself of it. It happens in just about every game that I play- voices just merge in my head and I struggle to distinguish them as individuals. ISO'ing these folks is no picnic either, as they have posted an outsized share of the game thread. I still maintain that there's bound to be a baddie among the most talkative players. There almost always is. Otherwise the talkative players would eventually harmonize and the poe becomes simpler. Maybe there's more to distinguish them since this morning.

G-man kicks this post off by naming a towncore of llama and bea. He had been vocal about his "town read" on llama for a while. He had expressed no such read on Bea until this moment, Given that Bea looks not great elsewhere in G-man's post, I am inclined to read this as a bit of opportunism: Mafia G-Man sees that Mafia Bea is receiving town reads from others and hops on board with that. He gets a pass from needing to produce independent thoughts on her and she can continue to skate by. This theory may seem like a stretch, so I can simplify it: It looks weird for G-man to declare Bea as one of only two members of his "towncore" after previously expressing no clear read on her one way or another.

He also lists Eloh, Golden, Scotty, and myself as "civ-leans". This is interesting because he has elsewhere expressed general suspicion of the most vocal players in the game, a group which specifically contains each of Golden, Scotty, and myself, along with DharmaHelper, now SVS. I am inclined to read this in favor of both Scotty and Golden. G-man genuinely seems to be treating the three of us as a unit here. I believe him when he says he is having trouble distinguishing between our voices. If he had a teammate in that trio, he would probably be having less trouble separating them.
The town lean on Eloh is consistent with things he had said earlier in the game, but underwhelming and could potentially be a bad look for her.

-----

Spoiler: show

Vocal players are vocal. Here's my two cents:

-Scotty should be in everyone's towncore. His logic and non-emotional approach is what is needed to win the game. Fight me.

-DH's emotions got the better of him and I just don't see that coming from a baddie DH who wasn't cornered yet. S~V~S (*waves*) made a good point about how DH would use the baddie chat to vent. If you have a chat, that's where one vents to keep you from going all Johnny Fairplay with the AtE. I read DH as town and S~V~S gets a heaping portion of benefit of the doubt as a result. I haven't seen anything tricksy from her yet, and I've witnessed her tricksy firsthand before.

-I said a while back that there's got to be a baddie among the big talkers or else this game would harmonize. That leaves Sloonei and Golden. Since my efforts are already eliciting snickers and eyerolls, I suspect my name is the only real option on the chopping block today. That's fine. Take that and learn from it, but be sure to Thunderdome Sloonei and Golden at some point soon, because one of them has to be bad or this game is whack. Golden got a little emotional right back at DH Night 2, and Sloonei is the inverse- that sort of emotionless Spock thing.

All four of these folks are game-solving (which is what I was going for when I said supatown- don't get hung up on semantics), but there's gotta be a baddie in there. Weeding out Scotty and DH/S~V~S, and that pushes both Sloonei and Golden into the poe for Thunderdome.


Not the POE (because Towncore is apparently too strong a term for casual use):
-Bea
-DH/S~V~S
-Eloh
-Kate
-Scotty
-Sig
-VivAxe


POE:
-DF
-DrWilgy
-Golden the Coward
-Michelle
-Quin
-Sloonei


All names are in alphabetical order. I can parse through my notes in the morning to try to rank them in a more concrete fashion. Right now I need sleep (and a new dehumidifier).

This is where I got the sense that G-man wanted to drive a wedge between the most vocal players by insisting that one of us is bad. He specifically names myself and Golden here. I do not believe Golden is mafia. I believe this was nonsense from G-man.

Hokay. This is long.

......

Spoiler: show

Vanishing for most of the phase was not my intention. Here is a short version of what I have so far:

Several tiers based on participation-

Big Talk- Scotty, Sloonei, Golden coward, DH- I would be shocked if there wasn’t a baddie in that group. Maybe two, but lots of productive chatter for the most part.

Llama in a tier of his own, but I still feel loose llama is good llama.

VivAxe or Viv2.0, Eloh, Michelle, Quin- mixed bag here. Eloh was sussed yesterday, Viv2.0 is a reset and still murky on D1 NAA read, Michelle feels most ambiguous (her posts didn’t make any impression on me), and same goes for Quin. These folks are at radar-level. I need to ISO to see if I detected a skimmer.

Kate, sig, Bea, Wilgy- 1/2 seem off the table today and the sig is less memorable that Wilgy licking everything in sight. Under the radar crew- also need ISOs to find manufactured content.


G-Man, LoRab, DF- low posters. Not ideal to find myself in that camp that must be ‘dealt with’ before too long. I saw points about LR’s evasiveness but I’m not exactly one to harp on that without being a hypocrite just yet. DF… just needs to show up for the weekend and get some content before he becomes an afterthought to everything happening in the present.

I will try to speed read the day and make a vote after I get back from wife’s birthday dinner.

Too many null reads for me right now- not a good look. Need to get my head back in the game and sort out some townclears to help my poe.

“Big Talk- Scotty, Sloonei, Golden coward, DH- I would be shocked if there wasn’t a baddie in that group. Maybe two, but lots of productive chatter for the most part.”

This will become a recurring tinfoil for GMan: the “big posters” theory
Though can it be a tinfoil hat if he is the alien?

GMan is too tinfoily with this theory too consistently for it to be true. I HIGHLY doubt he does this and harps on there being 2 in the group of Me, Sloonei, Golden, DH if there actually is.

Fast forward to more recently:

Spoiler: show

Vocal players are vocal. Here's my two cents:

-Scotty should be in everyone's towncore. His logic and non-emotional approach is what is needed to win the game. Fight me.

-DH's emotions got the better of him and I just don't see that coming from a baddie DH who wasn't cornered yet. S~V~S (*waves*) made a good point about how DH would use the baddie chat to vent. If you have a chat, that's where one vents to keep you from going all Johnny Fairplay with the AtE. I read DH as town and S~V~S gets a heaping portion of benefit of the doubt as a result. I haven't seen anything tricksy from her yet, and I've witnessed her tricksy firsthand before.

-I said a while back that there's got to be a baddie among the big talkers or else this game would harmonize. That leaves Sloonei and Golden. Since my efforts are already eliciting snickers and eyerolls, I suspect my name is the only real option on the chopping block today. That's fine. Take that and learn from it, but be sure to Thunderdome Sloonei and Golden at some point soon, because one of them has to be bad or this game is whack. Golden got a little emotional right back at DH Night 2, and Sloonei is the inverse- that sort of emotionless Spock thing.

All four of these folks are game-solving (which is what I was going for when I said supatown- don't get hung up on semantics), but there's gotta be a baddie in there. Weeding out Scotty and DH/S~V~S, and that pushes both Sloonei and Golden into the poe for Thunderdome.


Not the POE (because Towncore is apparently too strong a term for casual use):
-Bea
-DH/S~V~S
-Eloh
-Kate
-Scotty
-Sig
-VivAxe


POE:
-DF
-DrWilgy
-Golden the Coward
-Michelle
-Quin
-Sloonei


All names are in alphabetical order. I can parse through my notes in the morning to try to rank them in a more concrete fashion. Right now I need sleep (and a new dehumidifier).

Do you see it? The subtle disillusionment and parsing of his big talker theory from Me/Golden/Sloonei/DH > Golden/Sloonei. Scotty (become obvtown), and DH (too emotional to be mafia) / SVS (not tricksy yet) are out of the POE

I’m about willing to say Golden and Sloonei look GREAT for this. Looking less good? DH/SVS for the exclusion.



--------

Spoiler: show

Vigorous day of ISO'ing ahead for me (but I have some work to do as well). I'm starting with the ISO's that are less extensive. Before I get to the first few, I'll be referencing this image for vote analysis, even though there isn't a whole lot to work with yet because of the D1 switch.

Spoiler: show

I'm working from the assumption that the baddies have not NK'd one of their own. Points have been made to rationalize the mafia's kill choices as safe plays. It also makes no sense from a baddie's perspective to diminish your ratio and extend the game so early on.

D1's switch got rid of the 3P, but it also robs us of taking a results-oriented look at the day. Everyone who received votes on D1 is still alive.

Random facts that I saw but don't mean anything yet: 1) three of the four D1 Sloonei voters are all now dead; 2) Quin & Sloonei are the only people whose votes match each other for both days.

I also made an old-school role poe chart, but I don't know if I should share it or if it will be too useful for the baddies as well.

Now then, on to some ISO's. I'm trying to formulate a town core without leaving too many people in the sus pile. Assuming 4 baddies in the game and 14 players left, my goal is to have a poe of no greater than six just because we don't have enough margin for error to consider too wide a poe pool.


BEA:
Overall, her ISO looks pretty good. A little lean on game-relevant content but she was easing back into things. Her worst post looks to be the one where she expressed dismay about not wanting to vote for any of the trains involved in a three-way tie at the time with what she thought was only 30 minutes to go, but her very next post may well be a townslip in which she realizes (via someone's response) that there was another 24 hours left on the poll. Could it be manufactured? Sure. But I don't know that baddies either 1) forget the poll deadline, or 2) try to fake that sort of slip. She spends D2 with letter weirdness but she jumped back into the game strong, showing that she didn't use the phase as a coasting opportunity. Good look there. The only curious thing that stands out to me otherwise is her habit of declaring the OG folks as being 'on point' for their years-ago meta. She used that phrase a few times when evaluating.

Votes: Missed D1, VivAxe D2 (@bea Why VivAxe again? Was it more Viv or more Axe? I don't see your vote declared in your ISO.)



DF:
Posts a promise-to-catch-up post at the end of N0, misses all of D1, has a right (imo) read on Eloh. Also cursed with switched vowels D2. Another promise post, and then a post in which he says that LoRab's tone reminds him of her past baddie tone and he votes for her. That's it. Four posts. @DFaraday Now that you are not cursed, can you point to a few of LoRab's posts that led you to the wrong conclusion about her tone meta? DF is about as inconclusive as it gets. With no real room for null reads at this point, I have to put him in my poe. It's not because I find him suspicious, but because I have no reason to townclear him based on his content thus far.

Votes: Missed D1, LoRab D2


DrWilgy:
He miss N0, which is neither here nor there. The lick thing was cute, but also ISO'ing reveals that it was inconsistent. His first few licks are for people he voted for. Then the licks seem to switch to take on a positive (?) connotation. @DrWilgy Can you please pause the goofiness to explain the licking thing? He makes a comment about Michelle being bad for not having solved things yet; I take this to be a joke. Otherwise it's a conspicuous break in his shtick. There's a lot of explaining what people tasted like when he licked them. I don't know what to make of his comments on how Eloh and Viv tasted. That was his D1. Nothing useful. D2 he seems to latch onto sig but then backtracks. Late in the day D2 he admits to having no conclusions on the game yet. He later seems to enjoy the tension and chaos of eod, but then wasn't keen on letting the moderator break the tie. If this were D2, I'd give Wilgy a null read, but this is D3 and the whimsical nature of his game so far hasn't been very productive. All those licks and he hasn't gotten to the center of a single player's Tootsie Pop yet to form a read? It's enough to leave me unable to townclear him.

Votes: Golden D1, Quin D2


Elohcin:
I still think the D1 sus of her was overblown at best and disingenuous at worst. I hope to source the origin of her train through these ISO's. She was sus of Vivax 1.0 and Sloonei. She continued to be sus of Sloonei D2, and there is the supposed townslip. Despite Sloonei sus, she turns her attention and vote to LoRab for her unhelpfulness and tone. Now she is OT Green for the day. @Elohcin What is the state of your Sloonei suspicion? I still feel good about her. Maybe her vote for LoRab could be read as advantageous, but I haven't seen the 'agreeable tell' like I think I remember.

Votes: Sloonei D1, LoRab D2



Kate:
She spends D1 sus on Scotty. This looks wrongheaded to me now, so I am curious if her read on him changed. @Kate What's your current opinion on Scotty? I feel ashamed to say that I don't remember Kate's playstyle at all. Perhaps it's just been that long. The level of sass took me by surprise, but we were a sassy bunch back in those days. She was OT Green for D2, but she got a few non-OT posts off at the start of the day. This makes me ponder if Kate had an OG townslip here. I understand the tinfoil theory about baddies OT'ing their own to buy them space, but it doesn't seem like Kate was suddenly in danger of falling onto the radar in a bad way. Also, if a baddie is OT'd, I don't think that they make the mistake of rattling off a few non-OT posts like that. The rest of D2 was lost to OT Green. N2 she comes in hot and mixes it up with a few people, DH the most. Overall, there seems to be a fair amount of culture clash and adjustment for Kate. Not surprising for a deep OG player. I can see the difficulty with how different the game is now being a talking point that a baddie could exploit, but her frustration seems genuine and I still doubt that a baddie goofs up on the OT bit at the start of the day. Not a lock, but that possible townslip is more than enough for me to keep her out of the poe.

Votes: Scotty D1, DH D2

GMan intends to condenses his POE down to 6, though vaguely just starts ISOing in alphabetical order. bea, DF, Wilgy, Elo, Kate.

Well we can outright write off bea and Kate, and there’s no way in hell GMan would include all 3 of his teammates here in his POE in one post.
-His DF read was “inconclusive”, and in the POE not because he wants to, but because DF just isn’t giving him a choice.
-His Wilgy read was actually pretty fair and had some critical words about the lack of productivity and lack of desire to sink his teeth into the game. Can’t townclear…but also he doesn’t say that Wilgy is IN his POE like he did with DF. Just noting.
-This is the first time GMan has gone into detail about Elo suspicions and it’s a pretty civ leaning read. In a vacuum that could be suspicious, but I think looking at his posts so far, I think GMan just knows Elo is civ and hasn’t talked about her.
Listing DF as part of the POE and soft spanking Wilgy for not being productive, though not enough to expressly be part of the POE in the same post looks like GMan didn’t want to include both his teammates in the POE while still looking like he had some mean things to say. He DOES end up making those 2 the only ones in his POE, which does put a wrinkle. It is informative to know that GMan was not done with his reads, however, so having your only POE at the time of just your teammates isn’t out of the question if you’re going to continue filling it in.

Spoiler: show

Various read on the other manageable ISO's:


Michelle:
Other than a handful of posts where she posts a stance on a few players with no supporting information, Michelle collects in-the-moment vote counts. I like vote analysis, but I'm not sure I've ever gone so far as to seek out that level of detail. This leaves her D1 as a mixed bag at best. She checks out for D2, which is suboptimal. It doesn't look like she's even shown up for D3 yet. Michelle is more like Mehchelle. There was RL travel, I get that, but she didn't leave much to chew on overall. Not worthy of a town read.

Votes: Eloh D1, Missed D2



NAA/Vivax 2.0:
NAA is a bit cryptic, holds his cards close to the vest, and is punchy-awkward. He stirs the pot and then claims rolefishing. I've grown used to just looking past NAA on D1's that I feel nothing from his ISO. Vivax 2.0, however, is a different story. While I am still trying to get a feel for this ne-to-me player, they're chugging along at their own pace and producing content. Their reads differ quite a bit from mine in places, but it's okay to live outside of an echo chamber in this game. Let's see where this one goes.

Votes: Eloh D1, Quin D2



Quin:
Yikes. His D1 saw him sussing Eloh and Scotty, who are both outside of my poe by a sizeable margin. After circling back to Eloh & Scotty a few times he zags and votes DH. Then there's a lot of posting without much flavor to it, but it's at least stirred some conversation. I'm leery that Quin is more than capable of keeping this kind of dancing around the radar as a baddie. His posts go in and out of focus almost as they need to. I'd say it's not strong enough to evade the poe yet.

Votes: Eloh D1, LoRab D2



Sig:
Sig's ISO feels a lot like Quin's ISO, except that I liked it more. Most of it feels authentic, though his voting record sucks and I agree that it's not comforting to see him appear willing to coast today due to his posting affliction. It's soft, but I'll nudge him up out of the poe.

Votes: sig D1, Missed D2


Running on fumes now, so let me get to the big talkers quick.

And continuing the ISOs in alphabetical order
-Michelle is “mehchelle” (lol) and isn’t worthy of a Townread
-Viv2.0 is still new to GMan, but “let’s see where this one goes”
-With Quin, he starts off with “Yikes” and ends with a softer “His posts go in and out of focus almost as they need to. I'd say it's not strong enough to evade the poe yet.”
-sig “feels a lot like” Quin. This is the second time GMan has made a read of sig and immediately equated his play to someone else (Michelle last). But sig looks better than Quin and isn’t in the POE. Curious.

This looks bad for Quin and not great for sig either

Lastly, I want to point to his last post about big talkers again. GMan routinely comes back to this big talkers steering the thread away from baddies. There’s a lot of WIFOM there, but note this progression in his last big post:

“DH's emotions got the better of him and I just don't see that coming from a baddie DH who wasn't cornered yet.”
>
“I said a while back that there's got to be a baddie among the big talkers or else this game would harmonize. That leaves Sloonei and Golden…one of them has to be bad or this game is whack.”
>
“Golden got a little emotional right back at DH Night 2”
>
“Weeding out Scotty and DH/S~V~S, and that pushes both Sloonei and Golden into the poe for Thunderdome.”

So DH gets a pass because he was over emotional, but when Golden got emotional, it’s just another Tuesday? Huh.

His final POE, expanded from just DF and Wilgy is:

POE:
-DF
-DrWilgy
-Golden the Coward
-Michelle
-Quin
-Sloonei


The constant insistence of the top talkers being suspect in Golden and Sloonei makes me feel like he’s sidestepping. It’s even weirder to continually lump DH/SVS in and out of that category, but exclude them from the POE.
I HIGHLY doubt GMan put all his teammates in his 6 person POE. Which makes me feel like at least one of sig/SVS are bad.



From my GMan observations:
-Sloonei, Golden, NAA/Vivax2.0 look great, Elo
-Michelle looks fine
-SVS/DH and sig are firmly compatible, and at least one of them is most likely bad
-2 of: DF, Quin and/or Wilgy are probably bad.

Just from these interactions alone, I could see a legit individual pairing of DF/Quin/Wilgy/DH or mix and match Quin/Wilgy with sig/SVS without yet looking into these player’s interactive ISOs with each other.

Maybe I cashed a chip or two in through all that, but as a civ, I would have been focusing on the group of big talkers anyway. It's funny how something logical for me to do as a civ suddenly becomes wifom as an outed baddie. In reality, I was being a little on the nose or tongue in cheek with it all while trying not to be so obvious about the fact that I knew more than I ought to.

As for including all three of my teammates in my poe- it wasn't so much that I did that to play reverse-psychology with the civs. I had actually dug myself into a bit of a hole and had to include them all in order to remain consistent with the manufactured reads I had come up with up to that point. Normally, as a baddie, I would try to nestle a teammate into my civ reads. I just couldn't this time. It was a happy accident that it worked out so well, so don't give me too much credit for it.

[Golden]

So fun reading and keeping up. Great game play Golden I do understand why you were killing the old school players. Congrats to all baddies you all played together as a team and that is what is needed when you are mafia Wanted to find the spec chat but never quite found the time Cannot wait to play with you all someday Linky w/Gman - wow great game play I also would have been sorry not sorry

I hated it though! On day one when we killed splints I was sooo sad. I had to toughen up.

[G-Man]

Values and morals are the reason I apologized to DH in the thread like I did. I was trying to draw out his punchiness again and perhaps goad him into death-tunneling me D3 and or D4 (depending on how D3 played out) in an attempt to disrupt the thread for a day. My eagerness got the best of me, and my conscience wouldn't drop the issue afterward. Perhaps it sold me out a little as a baddie and help town-clear DH/SVS, but it was the right thing to do as a person and a player in my mind. If you cross the line, you own it and you apologize. I'd rather lose a game than damage a relationship.



Also, the stuff I wrote about Sloonei being more valuable as a civ than me is true. I would have written that as a civ too (unless I had a super-useful role and/or information on a baddie). Even a two-year semi-retired Sloonei is far more useful to the civs than me on my best day.



@S~V~S I think our whole baddie team butt-puckered in fear when you subbed in for DH (Golden the Coward and I for sure). You always have been and always will be an intimidating and respected opponent.

[Spacedaisy]

I vote to have more Classic Syndicate games hosted here in the future.

I’m gonna be the change I want to see in the world. Next game I host will have classic syndicate rules. I don’t know what or when it will be, but it’s happening.

I’ll play.

If TS ran more classic style games I would play more. It’s a different skill set. I think quite a few would filter in and out.

I mean, if we have hosts to design and run them, we would see more of them. I imagine I will have games in the future with some of the classic syndicate setup, like no role claiming/info dumping.

[Roxy]

@Kate what were the Maps secrets?

[DharmaHelper]

Congrats.

[Marmot]

Congrats.

Hi.

[DrWilgy]

Good stuff Mafia. Well played.

@Golden did I die because you caught me solving Sig?

[Golden]

Good stuff Mafia. Well played.

@Golden did I die because you caught me solving Sig?

Those last few kills felt like me trying to thread the tiniest needle. Every one of them was about improving my win equity as much as I could.

I thought you’d be solved as town, that you could well flip on me at lylo, and that you wouldn’t be Kate breaked on that night… which was pretty much my rationale every kill I made, and I think as a team we had essentially that rationale on the ones before that too. We had a very strong town to defuse.

Having very little solving on the DF day was quite helpful though.

[Golden]

I wasn’t so worried about solving sig… I had a goal of lynching vivax and nking sig or elo at f5 at that point. A sig/Sloonei/me final three might have been where I headed.

[Golden]

I had actually correctly solved vivax before Sloonei did (I finally got one right!) but I thought I could sneak his lynch in based on some in thread stuff he had said.

[Vivax]

I had actually correctly solved vivax before Sloonei did (I finally got one right!) but I thought I could sneak his lynch in based on some in thread stuff he had said.

Hi sig

[fingersplints]

Good game all. Wish I had gotten to play longer but it seemed like a fun time. Congrats to the winners and thanks for hosting SD and Epi

[fingersplints]

Also I loved getting Kate Break as my role. Brought back so many memories

[bea]

I do too. Tbh. The suicide was what made me vote the way I did. Though no one seemed to see it. Also @S~V~S my concern your lynch for the vote switch wasn't ment to be accusing. Between the gman suicide and YOUR vote, which was the only civ I truely trusted - I held my breath and hoped smarter peeps would figure it out.

Amd tbh, in my shoes, what could I have said to defend myself???? Really - honestly - what could I have said?

I tried at day 1 to say golden seemed weird. But I was the only one who felt it.

I was crushed lorab an ld splintsy were gone so soon and svs couldnt read me (not mad - just sad we havent played in so long that what smalll points I tried to make were missed.) And of course Kate went with svs.

Also - I have no idea what it means when someone is in antispew so I had no idea how to even defend that. Also. The timing was fine for me to not be playing mafia again. Like the new job is harder than I could have ever imagined. The sunday after I died - all my assistant managers quit. One of them left me a note on the chalk wall that said "fuck you jen."

The othet 4 people we got to replace the 2 managers - have....not been the help they should be. In 14 days there have been over 30 different scheduled shift call outs. I drove to work today in tears to a mentor because I literally can not do the job I am suppsed to do and I feel like a failure. Lynching was a sweet blessed relief from an obligation I deeply wanted but could not have.

I have adored being around for the fun so much! And I have loved that we all came back for this. And @Matahari you were brilliant! <3

Well played mafia team. And @Golden I no longer feel bad about Donna Meagle. I'd say we are squarzies.

That said - off the thread and one on one - I am very curious about some of the personal info you spoke of in the game. I didn't know you were neurodivergant - I would love to get to know that part of my old friend as well.

[bea]

congratulations Golden. I knew there had to be one or two OGs on the baddie team, because the OG civs were dying off too fast. I guessed you, G-Man, and Michelle, but didn’t guess Quin. Towards the end of the game, I started suspecting Vivax instead of you, because you were posting so many personal reasons for your game play and the old Golden would never have done that. So I dropped my suspicion until Vivax got killed, and then switched back to you. I played the game from the sidelines, and I didn’t do as badly as I’d thought I would. I knew Lorab was civ, and I was wrong about Bea. It was definitely fun playing along, and I really hope there will be some more OG games. Being BTS partners with SVS was so nice, I’m so glad I got to do that. Thanks SVS! It was really fun Daisy and Epi.

Sounds like your reads were very much on point. I’d like to play a game with you one day!

Mata is amazing!

[bea]

I do want to say it was a joy seeing so many familiar folks here who showed up for this thing. You all are wonderful people and a part of my life, however virtually that may be.

Spacedaisy, by the way, rocks as a cohost. She did EVERYTHING- and I mean everything- I don't like about hosting.

Also, the NP Blue role was all her idea, and I thought it was a fun way to bring in some who didn't sign up to play.

I appreciate you all. I appreciate Eloh more.

Like I get to be second best though right? Cuz i quote you in my sig. I mean - eloh is amazing. She does awesome things, raises wonderful children and puts up with you. but i get to be second cuz the quote right?

[bea]

I do want to say it was a joy seeing so many familiar folks here who showed up for this thing. You all are wonderful people and a part of my life, however virtually that may be.

Spacedaisy, by the way, rocks as a cohost. She did EVERYTHING- and I mean everything- I don't like about hosting.

Also, the NP Blue role was all her idea, and I thought it was a fun way to bring in some who didn't sign up to play.

I appreciate you all. I appreciate Eloh more.

Pffft why dontcha marry her?

No, but y’all have both rocked as hosts- very hands on and responsive. No typos or grammatical errors. Which as we know is the most important aspect of hosting

There was at least one. I feel honnor bound to point out. In my vompi role. There was a spelling error for accuracy. Cuz our is that wonderful!

[bea]

Do I also win?

I know spectator opinions is all talk, but as I gave interest in checking the game during my ghost time with Quin, I had Golden at total wolf. Shoot on sight wolf. Don’t let him talk wolf.

Well done sir!

[bea]

Victory is ours! Wow, what an exciting game and an exciting win. My teammates were terrific and we functioned without any drama, ego, or infighting. I am so proud to have been part of such a chill group of baddies.

I want to know why @G-Man committed suicide.

I had hoped to have something pre-written to post last night when the game ended, but, as with the game when I was alive, real life made plans for me to the contrary.

As has happened too often the last two years for me, real life gets so busy for me that I can't commit enough time to reading the game and keeping current in it with my activity. I fell behind and my ability to manufacture developing reads fell apart completely during D2. When I was able to come back, there were too many pages of content for me to catch up on and digest in order to make any fake reads develop properly, so I become a little too obvious to a few folks. On D3, when it became clear that I was going to be the lead wagon, if not the runaway wagon, I resigned myself to that likely fate without giving up completely.

N2, NP Blue (Quin) targeted Vivax 2.0, and Ricochet was voting in his place. If you go back and look at the votes for D3, you'll see that Vivax was voting for Sloonei, while Rico was voting for me. When you all thought it was 5-4 in the votes, it was actually 5-3. Had I voted for Sloonei, it would have appeared to have been tied, but it still would have been 5-4 in favor of me. Kate was the only one who really picked up on that soon after the fact, but it could have been helpful under the right circumstances.

I knew we were one vote short of actually tying the game. Had I voted for Sloonei, however, I think the civs might have started to wake up more to the fact that the presence of Rico's vote meant that one of the other votes didn't count. I think there wasn't enough thought to that by the civs while Quin was still alive. Keeping the votes close and with only two wagons could have given you guys more to ponder about that role's impact on the votes.

So, not voting for Sloonei was an intentional decision on my part because (in order of importance):

1) The votes weren't there and I didn't believe that we could actually secure a Sloonei mischop if I created the appearance of a tie. It would have created some juicy eod chaos, but there was no guarantee Sloonei would get chopped, and I think my team came out of D3 cleaner than they might have if they had participated in that kind of eod chaos and vote-switching.

2) I am nobody's dancing bear. Yes, the thing that all mafia logic says to do in that situation is for me to vote for Sloonei and hope for the best out of the eod chaos that would follow. But I just didn't care to do the expected thing. I chose to be opaque and mysterious about it, which worked out pretty well this time.

3) I thought it would be fun to watch you guys over-analyze my decision not to vote for Sloonei/self-preservation for a phase or two. I was right. I was also baffled and amused that some of you kept bringing up my D3 vote throughout the rest of the game.


I didn't intend for all that to cause you guys to waste a day mischopping bea so over-confidently or to provide Golden the Coward additional deep cover, but I'm not sorry those things were side-effects either.

Nor should you be. That was amazing. Well done sir!

Legit. Golden may have been the last one standing - but that play was amazing!

[bea]

Victory is ours! Wow, what an exciting game and an exciting win. My teammates were terrific and we functioned without any drama, ego, or infighting. I am so proud to have been part of such a chill group of baddies.

I want to know why @G-Man committed suicide.

I had hoped to have something pre-written to post last night when the game ended, but, as with the game when I was alive, real life made plans for me to the contrary.

As has happened too often the last two years for me, real life gets so busy for me that I can't commit enough time to reading the game and keeping current in it with my activity. I fell behind and my ability to manufacture developing reads fell apart completely during D2. When I was able to come back, there were too many pages of content for me to catch up on and digest in order to make any fake reads develop properly, so I become a little too obvious to a few folks. On D3, when it became clear that I was going to be the lead wagon, if not the runaway wagon, I resigned myself to that likely fate without giving up completely.

N2, NP Blue (Quin) targeted Vivax 2.0, and Ricochet was voting in his place. If you go back and look at the votes for D3, you'll see that Vivax was voting for Sloonei, while Rico was voting for me. When you all thought it was 5-4 in the votes, it was actually 5-3. Had I voted for Sloonei, it would have appeared to have been tied, but it still would have been 5-4 in favor of me. Kate was the only one who really picked up on that soon after the fact, but it could have been helpful under the right circumstances.

I knew we were one vote short of actually tying the game. Had I voted for Sloonei, however, I think the civs might have started to wake up more to the fact that the presence of Rico's vote meant that one of the other votes didn't count. I think there wasn't enough thought to that by the civs while Quin was still alive. Keeping the votes close and with only two wagons could have given you guys more to ponder about that role's impact on the votes.

So, not voting for Sloonei was an intentional decision on my part because (in order of importance):

1) The votes weren't there and I didn't believe that we could actually secure a Sloonei mischop if I created the appearance of a tie. It would have created some juicy eod chaos, but there was no guarantee Sloonei would get chopped, and I think my team came out of D3 cleaner than they might have if they had participated in that kind of eod chaos and vote-switching.

2) I am nobody's dancing bear. Yes, the thing that all mafia logic says to do in that situation is for me to vote for Sloonei and hope for the best out of the eod chaos that would follow. But I just didn't care to do the expected thing. I chose to be opaque and mysterious about it, which worked out pretty well this time.

3) I thought it would be fun to watch you guys over-analyze my decision not to vote for Sloonei/self-preservation for a phase or two. I was right. I was also baffled and amused that some of you kept bringing up my D3 vote throughout the rest of the game.


I didn't intend for all that to cause you guys to waste a day mischopping bea so over-confidently or to provide Golden the Coward additional deep cover, but I'm not sorry those things were side-effects either.

Nor should you be. That was amazing. Well done sir!

Legit. Golden may have been the last one standing - but that play was amazing!

[bea]

Congrats.

[bea]

Today is Turnip Head's birthday and that was just a gut punch to see.

They should have played with us. I miss them.

[Spacedaisy]

Today is Turnip Head's birthday and that was just a gut punch to see.

They should have played with us. I miss them.

Agreed. Kind of feels a a bit like they peeked in on the end because of it though.

[Kate]

Also I loved getting Kate Break as my role. Brought back so many memories

It was so funny that as soon as the roles went out, I was sure you were Kate Break. I had no idea why. Lol.

[Matahari]

congratulations Golden. I knew there had to be one or two OGs on the baddie team, because the OG civs were dying off too fast. I guessed you, G-Man, and Michelle, but didn’t guess Quin. Towards the end of the game, I started suspecting Vivax instead of you, because you were posting so many personal reasons for your game play and the old Golden would never have done that. So I dropped my suspicion until Vivax got killed, and then switched back to you. I played the game from the sidelines, and I didn’t do as badly as I’d thought I would. I knew Lorab was civ, and I was wrong about Bea. It was definitely fun playing along, and I really hope there will be some more OG games. Being BTS partners with SVS was so nice, I’m so glad I got to do that. Thanks SVS! It was really fun Daisy and Epi.

Sounds like your reads were very much on point. I’d like to play a game with you one day!

Mata is amazing!

Thank you ma'am! We all know that I have zero skill in figuring out anything on my own in mafia, but maybe my 'feels' are still intact. I hope you'll be playing some of the OG style games coming up, because it looks like there is interest in hosting them again. I miss playing with you!

[Golden]

That said - off the thread and one on one - I am very curious about some of the personal info you spoke of in the game. I didn't know you were neurodivergant - I would love to get to know that part of my old friend as well.

Yes, because I think this has the possibility to explain some of how I was 'off' = or maybe your gut was 100% just seeing baddie me! Really happy to have that convo bea! It has changed how I interact with the world.

[Golden]

Today is Turnip Head's birthday and that was just a gut punch to see.

They should have played with us. I miss them.

I had the same gut punch

[Spacedaisy]

My favorite reaction to a role was how bea reacted to getting the vomps role

[bea]

I was so excited that coders were gonna work on the cod for "vanillia civ"

[Roxy]

@Kate what were the Maps secrets?

I am sorry to be a bother but I must know all secrets lol <3

Spacedaisy maybe you could answer. <3

So fun reading and keeping up. Great game play Golden I do understand why you were killing the old school players. Congrats to all baddies you all played together as a team and that is what is needed when you are mafia Wanted to find the spec chat but never quite found the time Cannot wait to play with you all someday Linky w/Gman - wow great game play I also would have been sorry not sorry

I hated it though! On day one when we killed splints I was sooo sad. I had to toughen up.

You played like the winner you were, no apologies are necessary <3 I remember in the Last Man Standing game Enrique ran, It was so hard killing those that trusted me, but I had to if I wanted to be last one standing.

[Golden]

I was so excited that coders were gonna work on the cod for "vanillia civ"

The biggest sign I was bad was that when I solved this I didn’t immediately tell the whole thread this joke. But I did tell Daisy lol.

[Spacedaisy]

@Kate what were the Maps secrets?

I am sorry to be a bother but I must know all secrets lol <3

Spacedaisy maybe you could answer. <3

So fun reading and keeping up. Great game play Golden I do understand why you were killing the old school players. Congrats to all baddies you all played together as a team and that is what is needed when you are mafia Wanted to find the spec chat but never quite found the time Cannot wait to play with you all someday Linky w/Gman - wow great game play I also would have been sorry not sorry

I hated it though! On day one when we killed splints I was sooo sad. I had to toughen up.

You played like the winner you were, no apologies are necessary <3 I remember in the Last Man Standing game Enrique ran, It was so hard killing those that trusted me, but I had to if I wanted to be last one standing.

During Day 1 phase, you will create five locations to submit to the Hosts. We will need the name and as much detail about the location as you would like. Each location has a specific effect on any who visit it. You will choose which effects will be assigned to which location. These will be put into a night poll for players to vote on which location they wish to visit.

Options include:

All players at this location will be protected the following night.
All players at this location will have +1 Vote on them the next Day.
All players at this location will have -1 Vote on them the next Day.
All players at this location will have their night targets scrambled amongst them.
All players at this location gain BTSC for the following Day.

I'll update it in the OP too.