The Syndicate

colonialbob wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:44 pm
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:35 pm
Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:08 pm
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:47 pm I would welcome anyone providing an argument in favor of Jack being a civilian. There's been little verbal resistance to his candidacy for badness.
Aren’t you answering your own question?
It’s a crappy argument on its own.
Has anybody else given a reason he's scummy?

Spoiler: show

Also, I refuse to give anyone a break in the game of Mafia simply for an "absence of scummy stuff". To me, an absence of civilian stuff is itself inherently scummy. Neutral does not exist.

"But that's how I play!!!" is a terrible defense and means nothing to me whatsoever.

Elohcin is a civilian.

We don't lynch in this pile:

colonialbob
Elohcin
JaggedJimmyJay
leetic
novaselinenever

We have three mafia members in this pile:

AudreyTheTattleTail
Jackofhearts2005
Lunalee
nutella
reywaS
sabie12
Sloonei
speedchuck

Please help me to narrow it further. Bare it all, civilians.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:47 pm
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:52 pm "But that's how I play!!!" is a terrible defense and means nothing to me whatsoever.
Is it a good town strategy to press players for things you should know are NAI for that player but sound scummy in general?

Is it a good mafia strategy?

It is a terrible town strategy to give people a break for anything less than a clear indication of civilianhood, even if just subjectively clear. "You should be reading me as null" is not a gift you will ever receive from me.

Now, meta reads have value and should be acknowledged.

"This is how ____ looks as a civilian" is a valid read.

"This is how ____ looks as a mafioso" is a valid read.

"This is how ____ looks both as a mafioso and as a civilian" is meaningless.

AudreyTheTattleTail

For ease of access.

AudreyTheTattletail wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:21 pm
leetic wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:47 pm
colonialbob wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:37 pm Who wants to lynch Audrey?
How about a lynch that might actually give us information

Seriously, since when has an inactive lynch ever benefited town
@leetic is defending me because she knows that I am a townie

Hi Audrey!

What does everyone think of this post? I think it's her most easily-assessed content one way or the other. My present inclination is that it looks positive. I'm not sure Audrey would be so eager to attack someone defending her in her very first game if she was a baddie.

AudreyTheTattletail wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:29 pmanother word for mafia and I am goin to school now btw bye

I'm curious what you learned.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:55 pm
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:49 pm
Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:47 pm
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:52 pm "But that's how I play!!!" is a terrible defense and means nothing to me whatsoever.
Is it a good town strategy to press players for things you should know are NAI for that player but sound scummy in general?

Is it a good mafia strategy?
It is a terrible town strategy to give people a break for anything less than a clear indication of civilianhood, even if just subjectively clear. "You should be reading me as null" is not a gift you will ever receive from me.
It’s also terrible town strategy to tunnel on me for doing shit I do regardless of alignment. You’d think after AssClass, you’d know better.

If your deliberate effort is to be viewed as null, then this will happen in every game. I don't do null. It does not exist in my brain. I have destroyed every last seedling of null across all of my Mafia acres and salted the fields.

And you don't do all this shit regardless of alignment anyway. That's bull crap. You're a dynamic character with an immense variance in your capacity to combine words into sentences and sentences into Mafia posts. I have told you exactly what I don't like. Dismissing it as "you shouldn't care about this because I am Jackofhearts2005" is nonsense.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:02 pmYour read is wrong. I’m done defending against it.

Good. Do your thing.

speedchuck wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:45 pmMy estimation of Sloondawg's alignment is currently going south for the winter.

Why?

novaselinenever wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:09 pmI like it. Leetic's one not so much.

He's once again using arbitrary value to something pretty vague "information". I don't necessarily disagree with him that lynching players for for the sole reason that they're inactive is bad and doesn't get town anywhere, however he's being too fatalistic which gives off a disingenuous tone. First, information from a lynch isn't just drawn from the lynchee (is that a word? lol) posts but from the different wagons and votes dynamic as well that lead to the lynch itself. Second, who's to say she wouldn't show up (we still had 24 hours), defend herself and/or contribute which will lead to more "information".

He's trying to give off an engaged/serious vibe that reads fake to me.

I'll allow [mention]leetic[/mention] to respond before I butt in.

Someone tell me why speedchuck is a civilian.

Sloonei wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:54 pm
Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:31 pm I submit that in this game, Sloonei is lacking curiousity common in town Sloonei.

wat

If the lynch deadline was in 20 seconds, who y'all voting for?

colonialbob wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:01 pm
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:59 pm If the lynch deadline was in 20 seconds, who y'all voting for?
Jack because I prefer him to speedchuck.

I prefer speedchuck to Jack, and the gap is widening.

I actually have just seen the faintest flicker of a civilian in Jack.

Am I dumb and stupid and dumb for including any of these people in my "don't lynch" pile? If I am dumb and stupid and dumb, tell me why.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:47 pmWe don't lynch in this pile:

colonialbob
Elohcin
JaggedJimmyJay
leetic
novaselinenever

We need another infusion of motivation. Since the beginning of 2018, this is how civilians have performed on The Syndicate:

Jobs: 2-7
Side Missions: 1-5
Heists: 2-8
Burglaries: 2-4
Special Games: 3-2

Total: 10 wins and 26 losses.

It doesn't have to be this way. It hasn't been about game design. Buck the trend.

Elohcin wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:29 pmDidn't YOU say he was because of his game greeting?

Yep. That was dumb spam to give people something to talk about.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:30 pmI like Nova this game. He’s different but I’m a town way with more (supposed) effort.

Leetic seems mostly town too. Very consensus townread for playing a classic no fear style game as their first game here.

I don’t know how anyone can tell what Eloh’s alignment is except one time i caught her defending my scumreads so I do kinda think it’s stupid to clear her early.

CBob, I don’t know if I buy into your theory of townies being more interested in silly things than mafia. In fact, my favorite thing that Sloonei has done has been to take basically the opposite stance, that scum CBob can be “bold” by pursuing a relatively silly attack on you without fear of being called opportunistic or coasting or whatever. It’s not really strong enough for me to call the two of them not w/w and give credit to Bob for my suspicions of Sloonei.

To be fair regarding leetic, this is actually his third game here (but the first in quite some time). He played in The Office and Attack on Titan as well.

My read on Elohcin is the closest to a pure soul read. There was one small moment that I read and said to myself "okay yeah, she's good to go", for reasons that I suspect won't be easy to communicate or sound convincing:

Spoiler: show

Her handling of speedchuck in that moment looked legitimate to me.

I understand the doubts you and Sloonei have about that single point I made in colonialbob's favor. I think he generally just looks the part across his content though, not just there.

leetic wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:35 pmAlright, since I was asked to respond to this I will. Addressing your first point, yes we get some information from the wagons, but it's difficult to read the people on said wagon when their only reason for voting is "inactive". For the second point, I agree with putting a pressure vote on these players, but a full on lynch wagon is a bit much. Still, this is mostly speaking from my experience, and yours may be different, but for now I am opposed to an Audrey lynch - plus, worst case scenario, assuming Audrey is scum, that would still leave two active scum who would be more pressing targets.

Thanks for answering to that, leetic. Now I'll say my piece:

I think leetic's mindset is the wrong one in terms of strategy. I also understand why he has that mindset, and there was a time when I said very similar things as a civilian. I don't agree with the notion that "information" should be the driving motivation for any lynch decision, but I don't really think it's suspicious that he suggested that. Particularly on this site I think I have seen a few other civilians get themselves into trouble for this.

More posts.

Okay. I guess I'll just ISO every single player or something.

Day 1 ISO of AudreyTheTattleTail

Spoiler: show

Part of me actually views this one with a little suspicion. Perhaps Audrey has learned from her aggressive Mafia player dad how to get her hands dirty as a mafioso and shares his fearless character. This accusation against nutella doesn't relate to game content after all.

(Yes, yes, I know. We have to try to analyze.)

Spoiler: show

You're off to a great start.

Spoiler: show

Like I suggested before, I liked this post. Audrey received some defense by way of leetic, and instead of relishing in his protection she attacked him in her very first game. That sounds genuine to me.

~~~

I think Audrey seems good overall so far. The positive point speaks loudest to me.

Day 1 ISO of colonialbob

Spoiler: show

From the start, bob has received my immediate and total civilian status with wariness. That could either represent healthy skepticism from a guy who hasn't developed a low opinion of my baddie play (

) or it could be an effort to get in the way of process of elimination and a civilian core. The former strikes me as more likely. Follow-up

Spoiler: show

This is extracted from a larger quote pyramid. I think bob's questioning of nutella looks pretty good; it is incisive and relevant to a clear hunting angle.

Spoiler: show

bob explored my rey/nova flub in the moment of its occurrence. I don't have a problem with that, particularly given that he hasn't dwelt on it. He saw a thing and played with it for a bit while it was relevant.

Spoiler: show

He provided his 2/2 reads. One of them was relatively against-the-grain (sabie12 as a civilian). Cool beans.

Spoiler: show

Then four minutes later he voted for someone else. He isn't concerned with consistency. Cool beans.

Spoiler: show

I am inclined to believe bob regarding the Audrey maneuver and his mafia reads stemming from those who GTH'd her as bad.

~~~

I think he looks better than I already thought he looked.

Day 1 ISO of Elohcin

Large catch-up post #1

By the way Eloh: I think it's great that you make an effort to get your thoughts into the game as you are catching up. By all means continue doing that.

What I like about this post: she acknowledged both sides of the read on me and still came to a conclusive stance, that I am very likely a civilian. She poked nutella in a meaningful way. In response to my nova/rey flub she actually prodded rey, which I think is interesting and fun.

What I like less: she dismissed nutella's suspicion of rey too easily.

Spoiler: show

I am just making note that Eloh provided two civilian reads here that I think I had previously missed. Cool beans.

Spoiler: show

She promptly turned her opinion around on speedchuck in response to the above post. I don't object to the progression really. She's working in real-time. I would like to know though, [mention]Elohcin[/mention], why you had read speedchuck as a civilian before this moment?

Large catch-up post #2

This one contains no reads and is instead neutral commentary on a few select thread nuggets. She's right about me here, but it doesn't say much in the way of a read progression.

~~~

This feels less inspiring than I thought it might given my prior confidence. Generally I still lean in the civilian direction, but I am open to dissenting views.

Day 1 ISO of Jackofhearts2005

I am going to skip over much of this given that he and I have already spoken at length. I will cover points that I view as particularly important.

Spoiler: show

That he thought nova's first post was a joke, despite nova having expanded on his very real read with thoroughness only a few posts later, suggests to me that Jack wasn't really reading the thread with any investment. We can argue all day about whether that's due to his natural tendency to take the game less seriously early or due to his lack of an immediate need to develop reads. The latter is bad. I think it's a reasonable possibility.

Spoiler: show

This was a bit lazy, which doesn't have to be a problem but he did participate in the exercise after all. His perceived benefit can then be questioned (participating for the sake of participating isn't a great thing). It having been like 5 posts into Day 1 means little when there had been 200+ previous posts of Day 0 (most of which were game-relevant).

Spoiler: show

I thought rey described this post nicely when he suggested Jack was sprinkling pretty b/s over the commentary to make it sound more insightful when it really just amounted to "Jay is town because he is trying hard". I will grant though that Jack's commentary here was at least quite accurate.

Spoiler: show

I'm a bit bugged that after he finally stopped defending himself against every piece of poop I threw at him, this became the extent of his new hunting effort. Eh?

~~~

Judge for yourselves. I would appreciate outside takes on Jack that aren't clouded by preconceptions.

Day 1 ISO of leetic

Spoiler: show

He didn't seem to care much about my immediate jab. Cool beans.

Comprehensive reads list

I don't agree with many of these reads or the rationale behind them. I think they look believable though within the context of a player who isn't familiar with the majority of this roster. This doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies like one might want from such a large post, but nor does it set off alarms.

Spoiler: show

I'm not sure what to think of you not being sure what to think of that.

Timidness about one's own wagon can sometimes be a bad sign.

Spoiler: show

Outside myself, his 2/2 reads were very much against the grain. They align with his prior reads list. Consistency is worth zero points, but I am again not inclined to deduct any either.

Live-action reads progression #1 and #2

leetic is exploring his prior mafia reads to a greater degree of scrutiny, and I appreciate the transparency of the process. I think he looks like he is genuinely trying to work these players out.

Spoiler: show

I have stated that my intuition here is that leetic means well. I grant though that at face value it's not great. He expanded when pressed about his personal experiences and gave further rationale. Interpret these things as you may.

~~~

Of my civilian reads, he is the one for whom there are the most things to question. I leave the floor open for that. My own read remains more civilian than not.

Day 1 ISO of Lunalee

Spoiler: show

I don't care for the way Luna dismissed sabie's suspicion (whether it was serious or not) of nova and I. A "power show" is a vague thing, and I don't know why it couldn't be attributable to an alignment. There are reasons why mafia members might seek to display power. On expansion, she said she liked our enthusiasm but found the methods harsh. This "harsh" descriptor is like "power show" in that it implies some kind of assessment but still without an actual stance. I wish it came with a stance.

Spoiler: show

I can't help but worry that this outward laziness in a game which has shown some solidly motivated play so far may indicate that she is not aligned with that motivation.

Spoiler: show

Luna's reads here in the 2/2 exercise and also the GTH reads were well against the grain. That's something I tend to view positively, though on review I am concerned that it's instead a result of her lack of familiarity with the content of the game thread. Her suspicion of bob was for something that never happened (bob never suspected me for getting the ball rolling). Her trust in Jack is dubious -- did he actually get down to business quick? She picked a sabie post to compliment; I am not sure she found that inspiration until I asked her for reads.

Spoiler: show

Luna may have been trying to take advantage of an easy target here. Even without her knowing Audrey's age, the read looks a little fake.

Spoiler: show

Fun sentiment and all, but it doesn't help me read him.

~~~

I feel a bit worse about Luna than I did before I bothered with this review.

nutella wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 2:56 am I would say go to bed dude but I just spent like half an hour making a music recommendations post that probably nobody will pay attention to so I shouldn't talk

Winners don't sleep.

Day 1 ISO of novaselinenever

Spoiler: show

I just put the two posts together. I thought his initial jab looked authentic, and the expansion doesn't do anything to take away from that.

Spoiler: show

His suspicion of sabie has persisted through the game so far. In this case one might assert he is buddying me. I don't really care about that, but judge as you may. He continued to press the issue.

Spoiler: show

His 2/2 reads were pretty chalk.

Spoiler: show

He could have done more to answer to leetic's suspicion. He eventually tried to do that when I prodded him.

Spoiler: show

Maybe I'm a sucker, but I believe him.

Spoiler: show

I don't really agree with nova here, but I think his concerns look authentic.

~~~

My read doesn't really change here.

Day 1 ISO of nutella

Spoiler: show

Baseless defense. I know the Socky game and stuff, but, like, we here now.

Spoiler: show

This post doesn't say much.

Spoiler: show

Both sides of this combat seem more severe than the circumstances warrant.

Spoiler: show

nutella taking rey seriously for a reads list that featured such content as "people with bob in their name must be good" is the same infraction as Jack assuming nova was joking in reverse.

Spoiler: show

nutella's 2/2 reads may have been the most chalk in the thread.

Spoiler: show

Meh.

Spoiler: show

I'm glad she didn't tunnel Sloonei with silly crap like her evil self did in Vanilla Mafia.

~~~

I found a number of things to gripe about. They're all small things. I haven't been able to get nutella comfortably into my town pile, and this review helps me to see why. The holistic view of her post history reflects nicely on her, but the detailed look at the individual posts is less ideal. The forest is nice, the trees are less nice.

Day 1 ISO of reywaS

Spoiler: show

rey hasn't spent any time in this game exploring nutella's alignment. He assumed she's okay from the start even as she placed the proverbial pieces of her own poop into his proverbial bowl of Corn Flakes cereal. That's goofy. He explained that here. Eh.

Spoiler: show

b-hole transparency is to be admired.

Spoiler: show

Participation in the 2/2 exercise by a virtually impenetrable code.

Spoiler: show

Yuck

Spoiler: show

To be fair, rey's accusation at Jack here could be leveled upon rey himself to some extent for the previous post I highlighted.

~~~

I don't have a ton to say about 49 posts. I don't have strong mafioso feelings about rey, but I am not calling him a civilian either.

Day 1 ISO of sabie12

Spoiler: show

Dismissing the accusations as silly and then her own as well downplays the entire conversation. That's not my favorite thing.

Spoiler: show

Her expression of pleasure at nova's activity level rings genuinely to me.

Spoiler: show

The assertion that nova voted "with no explanation" is clearly incorrect. There could be a semantic out for her here though given that nova's vote came in an individual post which itself did not feature an explanation.

Spoiler: show

This reads list looks authentic to me too.

~~~

I feel a bit better about sabie than I did before this review. That is tempered by the small quantity of content. The only negative point though is about page 1 crap and means less to me.

Day 1 ISO of Sloonei

Spoiler: show

Sloonei caught plenty of flak for his lack of effort to begin the game. Based on the above series, we can confidently say that Sloonei put himself in that position willfully. That doesn't automatically mean he's a-okay, but it's better than a low-effort Sloonei who looked like he gave a crap about appearing any other way.

Spoiler: show

I like that Sloonei brought this up. I had it in the back of my own mind after having just hosted the Socky game. He's right.

Spoiler: show

I'm moderately bugged here. It's fine that Sloonei might disagree with some dumb read of mine, but I wonder about him trying to throw a wrench in the gears of my early POE progression.

Spoiler: show

This one represented a minor mind-meld with me regarding Jack, which is an interesting thing for such a vague description as Sloonei gave. That it resonated with me despite that suggests authenticity in his mindset.

From this point forward I quite like Sloonei's posts. I don't feel the need to highlight them.

~~~

Sloonei has made great use of the first half of Day 1 to vault from evil doer-of-nothing to a decent civilian read.

Day 1 ISO of speedchuck

Spoiler: show

speedchuck gave me a whole pile of credit from the starting pistol. Then...

Spoiler: show

Okay then.

This stuff looks fake.

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I said earlier that this exchange with nutella looks over-the-top on both sides.

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These were speedchuck's responses to my initial suspicions of him.

Wheake.

Spoiler: show

Since when does speedchuck ask the thread for permission to give reads?

Spoiler: show

He went a bit against the grain with his 2/2. Just a bit.

Spoiler: show

The colors are purely intended for me to reference points; they have no implications for alignment apart from what I actually say:

Yellow - Sloonei has been great under pressure, because he said things like "whacke".

I find this read hard to believe.

Orange - I said the same. The value here is a bit diminished given speedchuck's prominent role in that Socky end game.

Red - Just had to shimmy that dig in there?

Green - I don't take big issue with this explanation, though part of me thinks it looks like b/s in the same way Jack's civilian read on me did.

speedchuck reviews nova's "buddying" of me.

I still think this is hard to buy given speedchuck's own treatment of me. The sign-off "Departure from normal Nova play" is gross too. Who cares? This is no better to me than nutella saying rey was trying too hard. He explained further, and it does nothing for me.

Spoiler: show

Sarcasm is still a bad response to Jack's quite valid assertion.

Spoiler: show

Meh. I asked him this because he'd called Elohcin a civilian in his 2/2 and then a mafioso in his GTH reads. The switch doesn't have to be a problem. I suspected though that he'd forgotten his own fake read and gave her a red in the GTH, because mafia members need reds and she was an easy one given her low post count.

...and he did forget.

~~~

My suspicion holds.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 4:15 am Jay, what are you doing doing ISOs at 2 in the morning? Tell me you are in a different time zone.

I am! It's 3 in the morning here.

Yep I'm finished with everyone anyway. Now y'all better keep the thread moving. Don't let my big scary posts stunt the motion.

I wake up this morning with an urge deep in my spirit to set speedchuck on fire.

People who haven’t voted yet as of 10am EST:

Elohcin
Lunalee
reywaS
speedchuck

I could legitimately see the entire mafia team existing in this set.

I don’t think they’re exactly the same thing [mention]reywaS[/mention]. I do think there are some spiritual similarities. Jack’s post looked inauthentic by way of over-explanation. Yours looked inauthentic by way of [over-]enthusiasm for a reversal from a previous stance.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:25 am @JaggedJimmyJay

What does chalk mean? Example: Nova’s reads are pretty chalk.

Predictable; aligned with typical thread motion and expectations

speedchuck wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:29 am
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:28 pm @speedchuck and @reywaS, I would very much like to know how each of you reads the other with at least some detail.
He has good taste in scumreads and makes funny jokes. I usually read him while drinking tea and chuckling.

Not a read

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:34 am Jay, talk to me about why you find Sabbie’s read list authentic. What is authentic about it?

Her admission that she didn’t feel prepared to take a hard stance on you or speedchuck stood out the most as genuine.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:36 amYour tiredness is showing here.

Sloonei’s accusations of me regarding energy and thread flow are about as authentic as if I voted DDL for having an anime avatar.

I can understand why you might think so. It was vague.

But I agreed with him. His comment resonated with me; it aligned with my own vague, hard-to-describe feelings. Even the most analytical creatures among us have those moments.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:42 am
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:39 am
Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:34 am Jay, talk to me about why you find Sabbie’s read list authentic. What is authentic about it?
Her admission that she didn’t feel prepared to take a hard stance on you or speedchuck stood out the most as genuine.
Why? Especially if Speed (or from your perspective, Jack) is mafia and he’s getting pressure early, isn’t opting out of a read for now to see where the wind blows a convenient thing for scum to do?

You’re talking about strategy; I’m talking about tone.

[mention]Lunalee[/mention], what is your present read on speedchuck?

Lunalee wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 1:10 pm
JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Wed Feb 20, 2019 12:59 pm Lunalee, what is your present read on speedchuck?
I really don't know. The lynch just looks opportunistic, but maybe I've missed something.

What is an example of a lynch right now that would not look opportunistic?

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