The Syndicate

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 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Day 1 ISO of leetic

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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 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.

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

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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 colonialbob

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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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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 AudreyTheTattleTail

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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.)

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You're off to a great start.

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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.

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

More posts.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Someone tell me why speedchuck is a civilian.

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.

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

Why?

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

Good. Do your thing.

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.

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.

AudreyTheTattleTail

For ease of access.

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.

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.

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.

Elohcin is a civilian.

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

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.

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

sabie12 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:43 pm Despite being ill I will continue to play. well out of the available options of people who have been voted for I'm willing to go with either speed or jack.

I hope you feel better sabie, and I appreciate your willingness to soldier on. :sparta:

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.

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

Each time the lynch has flipped mafia.

(it's not an option that excites me)

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.

colonialbob wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:37 pm Who wants to lynch Audrey?

*prolonged fart noise*

colonialbob wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:34 pm Curious why everyone is townreading Jay so hard. Jack has explained his already.

They think I suck when I'm a bad guy.

[mention]speedchuck[/mention] and [mention]reywaS[/mention], I would very much like to know how each of you reads the other with at least some detail.

Expanding from the previous thing... total number of shared mafia reads with whoever:

Jay = 9
nutella = 8
speedchuck = 7
reywaS = 7
Jack = 6
nova = 6
Lunalee = 5

I might be willing to give Luna a little credit for this. Her reads seemed to emerge from somewhere other than popular opinion, and only one of them strikes me as a convenience (Audrey).

I've just had an idea for a way to use GTH data that I've not tried before. The following is a ranking of the number of shared mafia reads that each set of two GTH participants had in the exercise:

Shared mafia reads for each set of two participants:

speedchuck and reywaS = 4 (Elohcin, Jack, sabie12, Audrey)

Jay and nutella = 2 (Jack, speedchuck)
Jay and Jack = 2 (Elohcin, speedchuck)
Jay and speedchuck = 2 (Elohcin, Jack)
Jay and reywaS = 2 (Elohcin, Jack)
nutella and nova = 2 (reywaS, Jack)
speedchuck and nova = 2 (Jack, sabie12)
reywaS and nova = 2 (Jack, sabie12)

Jay and nova = 1 (Jack)
nutella and Jack = 1 (speedchuck)
nutella and Lunalee = 1 (reywaS)
nutella and speechuck = 1 (Jack)
nutella and reywaS = 1 (Jack)
Jack and Lunalee = 1 (colonialbob)
Jack and speedchuck = 1 (Elohcin)
Jack and reywaS = 1 (Elohcin)
Lunalee and speedchuck = 1 (Audrey)
Lunalee and reywaS = 1 (Audrey)
Lunalee and nova = 1 (reywaS)

Jack and nova = 0
Jay and Lunalee = 0

I'm not entirely sure how to use this information, but I wanted to put it all here so that it's readily visible. It strikes me as something useful.

I screwed up the counts for Lunalee in my figure. Ewps.

I would love to hear thought processes, rationale, or any tiny fragment of what drove everyone's reads (either way) on Audrey.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:21 pmThen there’s nothing wrong with me explaining my reads. As always, I do what I want.

Please talk about nutella.

reywaS wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:20 pmsloonei and nutella were my civ reads in the 2civs2bads read FTR

k

I guessed

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:16 pmThere’s no pleasing you.

I know you're trying.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:16 pmExplained reads are worthwhile. The point of gth is to force townies to try to read everyone and to force scum to say things period.

Of course they're worthwhile in a vacuum. I'm not talking about their worth. I am talking about the mind state of the person providing them under the specific circumstances in which they were provided.

Also, the "purpose" of gun-to-head reads is to be used however the hell anyone wants once they exist. There's no instruction manual.

Sloonei wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:14 pm Voted for jack again

whyzzat

[mention]speedchuck[/mention], I'd be interested to hear about your present feelings on Elohcin, regardless of the GTH read.

I don't care for Jack feeling a need to explain most of his reads in the midst of the exercise. They don't have to make sense; we're spitting shit out in a hurry.

The fact that none of us were willing to call leetic a mafioso despite has having only 9 posts suggests to me that the mafia team (assuming they participated in some capacity in this exercise) is willing to grant him to the civilians.

There is potential for confirmation bias in that, but oh well.

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