Grasslands [Game Thread]

[Hally]

realistically i think the n1 kill is basically ~always going to be spf or me, and we can’t send both of us. but i’m happy with spf going instead

[Thunal33]

This post from Hally has stuck with me:

Spoiler: show

not actually here but i thought of another question i have for @Sloonei

your response to the pressure on you in the wall you posted focused on try to find bad faith pushes. but im also curious to hear your takes on who is not pushing you. specifically, what do you think of carotte’s reaction to the pressure on you? what about jay’s? or anyone else who is noteworthy iyo

ime when a villager (and particularly a very strong player like yourself) is getting early heat, scum is often not in the early pushers but is instead found in those that don’t take a stance/try to have it both ways or those who tr the suspected person/try to white knight or pocket them. if you’re a villager you have a very unique and valuable pov on that and i’d like to see you explore that angle too

if you’ve already done this since i last posted, disregard and i’ll see it later

I have not gotten around to digging into this, but it's stayed on my mind over the last ~24 hours. Not actively; I'm not scouring the thread looking for opportunism directed at me. But it's been in the back of my mind. And there is a little siren going off back there when I see Thunal's progression on Sloonei.

Early on she's not quite there yet, but appears to be leaving the door open.

Later on, however, when the Sloonei pressure feels (to me) like it's becoming more viable, Thunal hops on board:

Spoiler: show

sloonei's tone is just wrong, I wish I could explain it better. it's like his posts are stilted, though that's not quite the right word. and it kind of feels like he's throwing out townreads to counteract it and look like he's solving. I also didn't like his hedge on LC

Yeah, I think Sloonei seems defensive and I dislike the fact that he took issue with not being one of JJJ's townreads despite him not doing much at that point. His "case" on me doesn't feel right either. Yes, I got confused and thought there was a player in the game that actually didn't exist (a player with the username Carotte here). I gave that nonexistent player a null read because I thought they posted almost nothing, that's not inconsistent.

To be fair, this does come shortly after I stated my previous concern with Thunal re: her treatment of Carot. Thunal's response to that can be found here. It's short, but I don't object to it. That's a believable explanation for the slip up. But that still doesn't tell me much about Thunal's alignment.

From here on, though, Thunal feels like she becomes much more critical of me:

Spoiler: show

Thunal is a she. And I think you're overblowing the weirdness of that, I just assumed she hadn't realized about the name and didn't particularly remember anything from Carotte hence not having a townread on her lol. It's not the type of inconsistency I'm concerned with. Do you think there's something scum indicative about it?

Sorry Thunal!

I am wary of the progression and want to highlight it. I could see it coming from scum, but it doesn't need to. I want Thunal to respond to it before I say more.

You are either in a tunnel or pretending to be. If you want me to prove that I am town, let me do my thing.

how is there so much linki in a light game?

"or pretending to be"? Can you elaborate on your read on Nutella?

My PoE is LC, Jay, and Sloonei with a low confidence level in that PoE. I know I've been asked before when I had a PoE the same size as the actual mafia team whether I think I've solved the game, and I definitely do not believe I've solved the game here.
Martin and Carotte are sort of in my outer PoE.
My strongest TRs are nutella, Hally, and tutuu.

Phantom votes:

Town: nutella
Scum: Sloonei

Earlier you said that you also don't really get all the scumreads on Sloonei for his nutella read. What made you change your mind to vote him now?

His recent posts look scummy, his earlier ones look null. I dislike that he's making a case on me for thinking Carotte was a different player than you, I feel like that's a really easy thing for scum to grab onto. I also dislike that most of his posts have been responding to suspicion rather than solving. It feels a bit like self-pres minded scum. However I understand JJJ's point, I won't push Sloonei hard until he's had more of a chance to show his alignment.

There's a few points in particular I could address as feeling a bit like opportunistic misconstructions:

Spoiler: show

Re: read on Sloonei, I dislike that he said he would contribute more last night and never did. I actually don't scumread him based on his early posts and I think his read on Nutella looks okay, but we gave him more of a chance and it really feels like he cares more about self-pres than solving and his content has been underwhelming.

Where did I say the underlined bit? And the bit about me being caring "more about self-pres than solving" is bogus. This is the same argument I had with Phighter in Champs. Sometimes I solve through people's reads on me. It's a comfortable foot hold for me early in games especially. There was more sustained suspicion against me than I like in this game, but I am not responding to these things purely from a defensive or "self-preserving" posture: I am trying to read people's reads of me. That is an offensive move, not defensive. This is me solving the game, Thunal.

Spoiler: show

I had the same thoughts as SPF here. This post feels careful and forced somehow, and Sloonei never did his thing and tried to prove he was town. The read also seems hedgy "I could see it coming from scum but it doesn't need to" and I can definitely see the point of Sloonei not wanting to get his hands dirty on any wagon. He's not taking a whole lot of stances in general either. I tried to give him some space but he still hasn't done anything towny, in fact he only looked more scummy when he posted more.

This is the first time Thunal and I have met, and I've certainly been misread in this light by players unfamiliar with my style before. But the underlined is just Thunal suspecting Sloonei for being Sloonei. I stated a concern, not an outright suspicion, about her earlier, and she has been regarding that as if it was supposed to be something more firm than it was. My original post on Thunal was meant as a conversation piece, not a "case". I am not the kind of player who will avoid "getting my hands dirty" as either alignment.

Spoiler: show

Also to anyone who knows Sloonei's meta, does he take pride in his scum game? Does he have more motivation as town or as scum when he's a candidate for a chop?

This also felt a bit icky, but it's another thing that I do not necessarily need to see as bad (I am reminded of Dizzy's Final Day concern about my emotional state in Champs). Thunal sees my relatively deflated posture in this game and prompts the thread about it. That's not an unfair observation, but I still am wary of the person who brought it in.

At this point, however, the Sloonei wagon seems to be dying down. I do not know how tightly a wolf would cling to it at this point. This could be Mafia Thunal trying to take one last swing at it to see if it'll go anywhere.

To be fair to Thunal, the flip side of this is that her suspicion against me started in earnest after I became critical of her, and it is not at all unreasonable for something like that to cause a civilian to become more focused on the player in question. This post right here is Exhibit A for that argument. But Hally's question has resonated with me, and Thunal's arrival on the Sloonei Wagon was relatively late and, in my view, at least a little bit unfounded.

this post took longer to compile than I hoped. I have just over an hour to figure things out. I'll take a quick look at carot, but I'd prefer to spend most of my remaining time in the present.

In response to this and in response to some of Alison's concerns, yes I am biased this game towards people who are townreading me and against people who are suspecting me. However I have good reason for that. Being a stranger to most of the people here makes me an easy mischop or target to go for since people don't know my playstyle and some are naturally distrustful of me, and I think scum are more willing to jump on that distrust and get people to vote me.

[Hally]

[mention]nutella[/mention] where are you at with your reads generally?

[Hally]

mafia should send jay to the grasslands so that it’s jay/spf/carotte. g6 reunion

[Hally]

the most annoying thing about this setup is you don’t see the flip until after the night phase

[JaggedJimmyJay]

i fuckin hate grad school

[JaggedJimmyJay]

should i vote for the non-SPF 1-vote people to get her alone at 1?

[nutella]

@nutella where are you at with your reads generally?

spf
tutuu
nova
thunal
jay
hally
martin
lc
nanook
sloonei
alison
carotte

ish

[Thunal33]

So far I feel like Thunal is really reserved. There's a kind of weirdish balance between very specific reactions and general agreeing/bouncing off that feels a bit like ~blending in.

Spoiler: show

I also think I can town-lean Thunal33 so far.

His explanation didn't match what I think a scum would be possibly inclined to say.

What do you think a scum would be inclined to say?

I also think I can town-lean Thunal33 so far.

His explanation didn't match what I think a scum would be possibly inclined to say.

can you expand on this a little bit more? how would you expect scum to react to your question, and how did her answer differ?

I think a scum would point to my aforementioned level of experience in FM games with regards to my comfort level in response. As in, that would be the easy argument to make; a new player who's scum may be more uncomfortable than most players.

Instead, Thunal33 starts talking about themselves in comparison, and that's why they think my comfort level can be AI at the moment.

As to whether that's something they can do as part of one's "scumrange", I don't know and time will tell.

For the moment though, I think that process of thought or reasoning was more likely to be from town than scum.

That makes sense, I don't think I would talk about how I'm often nervous at the start as scum if I'm nervous scum.

The second post (it's the answer to post #1) feels really weird. It's like, acknowledging it for the sake of acknowledging it and the way Thunal is agreeing with the townread on her doesn't feel super natural, especially since the initial question was not answered.

While this point is wrong, it doesn't feel like she had an agenda with it. I think the way this post is worded is somehow towny? I can't really explain it.

I don't get the commotion about Sloonei tbh, I believe that he believes in his read. :P

I felt the same way at that point so I'm inclined to think this is >rand town.

where did carotte switch to tr’ing thun? did i miss that? why did that happen @Carotenoid?

I said that I liked them more today here
It's not really a townread though. I... don't actually remember what I liked but there was some posts I liked.

I actually think this sort of doubting reevaluation without any explanation feels towny. Mafia could easily grab some fake reasons but this seems like risking suspicion to voice thoughts that aren't fully formed yet.

Carotte did drop off but honestly I'm not seeing that as AI. I still feel like we're making a mistake with Carotte. I'll look at Alison's ISO, she might be a better suspect. To a lesser degree I also suspect LC and Sloonei (although he's been trending up with his recent posts).

[Hally]

should i vote for the non-SPF 1-vote people to get her alone at 1?

she’ll be sent regardless because she has the lowest post count of the people with one vote, so it’s not necessary

[Thunal33]

[VOTE: Thunal33] aubergine

[Hally]

@nutella where are you at with your reads generally?

spf
tutuu
nova
thunal
jay
hally
martin
lc
nanook
sloonei
alison
carotte

ish

awesome ty

[Hally]

im pretty content with this gamestate. i think we have a generally solid consensus

[JaggedJimmyJay]

realistically i think the n1 kill is basically ~always going to be spf or me

why

[Thunal33]

Martin has already pocketed me.

tutuu is physically incapable of randing scum as usual.

Sloonei is scum for making stuff up.

Alison did nothing like this in her SK game which is the only time I saw her D1. I town leaned her for it but now I'm seriously wondering if I should scumlean her for it since rereading it it looked very different from the rest of the threadstate and SK on D1 should make reads mostly like town would, not like mafia would fake.

Martin has already pocketed me.

tutuu is physically incapable of randing scum as usual.

Sloonei is scum for making stuff up.

why do u tr tutuu?

There's the usual energy coming from her that she displays when she's town. She could be mimicking it as scum but I think it's not easy to forge and will fall apart eventually if she's faking it. I felt kinda good about #51, #53, #76, #93. Individually taken they're just mildly townie, but all four of them combined + pretty decent energy means that I'm happy to give her an early game townread.

i was wondering if you were going to bring up #93 - that's actually the strongest towntell i've seen from tutuu so far too. i feel like scum would be searching for viable targets to push on in a game with as many strong players as this, and i very much like that tutuu is willing to throw out a townread on someone for what is an admittedly tiny/small reason. it feels completely contrary to how scum have a tendency to avoid boxing themselves in - it feels like tutuu is literally doing that to her self

also, hey jagged! i'm stoked youre here

That's not the reason I townread 93. I don't really think tutuu is the type of player who takes playerlist that strongly into consideration when trying to plan out her scumplay; her playstyle doesn't strike me as being that competitive or control freak-y. I liked 93 because giving out a townread for a reason that doesn't super make sense logically but that she vibes with emotionally is something that town tutuu does a lot. I think LC's slang stuff has endeared him to tutuu, and gives off a pretty "chill" vibe that she's gut townreading. It's pretty on brand for town tutuu to express a gut townread + "I like this person so they're town" sentiment with a post like 93.

This looks okay from Alison and I think tutuu is always town if Alison is scum, that would be a pretty justified read to make on a teammate (but tutuu is town anyway).

No I think Sloonei made up the whole thing about getting a towntell from nutella because she clarified her position or whatever in order to look like he's sorting her.

Also townreading me for making logical sense is a new approach. I like it.

Still not really getting what the whole "made up reads" thing comes from. I don't see why Sloonei's read can't be genuine sorting here.

I think Sloonei's behavior absolutely has warranted a "I think he's making this up". That was the thought I (and a few others) had when reading his posts, so I don't know why it's inappropriate to write it down in text. The reason I said Martin has already pocketed me is because he plays in a way that I find pretty textbook and relatable, which makes it easier to vibe with his mindset and townread him (which I do).

I think Thunal is null. Carotte's point about Thunal is interesting and it makes me go up on her slightly. I still have her as a slight scum lean on the balance of probabilities, but it's a point in her credit. I have mixed feelings about JJJ.

At that point I had already made the "self-serving" reads on SPF and Carotte. What changed between this post and when Alison was suspecting me? It's inconsistent.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

[VOTE: Hally] aubergine
[VOTE: nova] aubergine
[VOTE: Thunal] aubergine
[VOTE: nutella] aubergine

not super comfortable relying on the tiebreaker so there

[Hally]

realistically i think the n1 kill is basically ~always going to be spf or me

why

a combination of being widely tr + generally considered strong players that scum would probably kill n1

[Thunal33]

I'm caught up. Okay with the idea of giving Sloonei space to breathe. If he doesn't produce results I'm going to end up voting him anyway and I think the other people who currently suspect him will as well.

I think Thunal is very likely a wolf. They were making super surface-level reads and were never paranoid that the reads were being manipulated. eg. "Alison is town because she's confident", "Carotte is town because she re-evaluated on me". We all scumread Sloonei because he gave a baseless townread on nutella for something that was very likely NAI. Same logic applies here: I think town Thunal would hesitate a bit more and wonder if Alison/Carotte was faking these things to pocket her. Doubly so if she feels intimidated by the playerlist.

Scum Vote: Thunal

I feel like not much changed between the post where Alison had me as "a slight scum lean because of probabilities" to here where I'm "very likely a wolf." Also nothing I said actually made Alison doubt her read at all or consider me being town.

[Thunal33]

[VOTE: Alison] aubergine

[Hally]

thun never w/w with carotte btw

mafia does not see carotte headed for certain death and go “ill make a post about how carotte isn’t scummy”

that probably just comes from a villager even independent of carotte’s alignment

[Long Con]

I just voted everyone who still had 2 so SPF is more separated.

[nutella]

see you in the treehouse friends. I'll bring monkey bread

[Dyslexicon]

Day has ended!


You have made your choice.
By the wisdom of this collective,
we send to the Grasslands.


[mention]Carotenoid[/mention] gained the most votes.
[mention]staypositivefriend[/mention] gained the least votes.
[mention]Hally[/mention] was spirited away.


Only two will return.

And I walk naked and fearless into the night...

Night 1 begins.

[mention]tutuu[/mention]
[mention]Long Con[/mention]
[mention]NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME[/mention]
[mention]Sloonei[/mention]
[mention]novaselinenever[/mention]
[mention]Thunal33[/mention]
[mention]nutella[/mention]
[mention]MartinGG99[/mention]
[mention]Alison[/mention]
[mention]JaggedJimmyJay[/mention]

[Dyslexicon]

Day 2

Two silhouettes approaches the Tree House as the sun rise in the east.
One was left behind.

[mention]staypositivefriend[/mention] and [mention]Hally[/mention] survives.

[mention]Carotenoid[/mention] was left behind.

Spoiler: show

She was a seeker (town).

There has also been another murder.

[mention]novaselinenever[/mention] was found with a knife in his back.

He was a seeker (town).

[mention]tutuu[/mention]
[mention]Long Con[/mention]
[mention]NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME[/mention]
[mention]Sloonei[/mention]
[mention]Thunal33[/mention]
[mention]nutella[/mention]
[mention]MartinGG99[/mention]
[mention]Alison[/mention]
[mention]JaggedJimmyJay[/mention]

Countdown Timer

[nutella]

oh no im not dead


oh no carot was town???


ugh


well at least im pretty dang sure sloonei is mafia

he basically lolcatted in night chat

[nutella]

oh fuck the thread is still locked dizzy pls dont punish me

[tutuu]

oh no!

[tutuu]

[VOTE: Sloonei] aubergine

[Hally]

not surprised at all

here’s our chat: https://www.quicktopic.com/53/H/8ewu5a49uY8NC

will be around later

[nutella]

night chat was toxic af and im sorry for my part in that


we will link it for you tho spf/hally but after others check in

[tutuu]

Doesnt let me vote

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Lame. Sloonei can be mafia.

[nutella]

reading grass chat. hally sounds genuine and is making me doubt my tr of thunal bc it makes sense that she'd send hally based on prior experience

[tutuu]

Sloonei + Thunal + Jay/SPF

[Thunal33]

I would just kill Hally if I was scum (yes I know that's a WIFOMy thing to say). Btw the ISO on Carotte was because I was still deep in solving and didn't think through how useless it was.

[Thunal33]

Also in the time me and Hally played the setup I was town, so I wasn't actually making any decisions to send Hally that game.

[Thunal33]

not surprised at all

here’s our chat: https://www.quicktopic.com/53/H/8ewu5a49uY8NC

will be around later

When did you make that transition to thinking Carotte was town? You pushed to get her in the grasslands and you were pretty confident she was scum, but the second you got in the QT chat you suddenly felt she was town. Why didn't you look at Carotte's scum game before you were in the grasslands together? I feel like there's a bit of a disconnect in your thought process on Carotte.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I wish Carotte had engaged me more directly on Day 1, because some of those gripes she presented in the Grasslands chat might have helped me to understand her. Oh well doesn't matter now. I think it's important we don't collectively fall in love with the view of the game we developed on Day 1 given that Carotte-as-mafia played a significant role in those perspectives. I'll rethink stuff.

[tutuu]

[VOTE: Thunal33] aubergine

Pre-emptive response to anyone who gives me crap for voting multiple ppl after what happened yesterday: kiss my ass

[JaggedJimmyJay]

[mention]tutuu[/mention] you wanted my head on a pike in the tree house. What inspires your snap vote on Sloonei instead?

[tutuu]

@tutuu you wanted my head on a pike in the tree house. What inspires your snap vote on Sloonei instead?

He is extremely scummy and i was sure carotte was mafia which would clear him. Well she aint, sheriff. Also i never scunread u proactively i just townread everyone else. Maybe ill still find myself scumreading u but not rn

[Hally]

not actually here but uh

what on earth happened in that treehouse

[nutella]

man i still just find thunal trustworthy and her point about hally's convenient timing on the carotte realization is intriguing


thunal v hally tdome i guess?? lol



tutuu had super weird and aggressive vibes in the treehouse and is trying to push a narrative pretty forcefully. i can't decide if that makes me wary she's scum or if that's silly paranoia, but it makes me uneasy.


jay do you still want to wait a bit before linking the chat?

[tutuu]

not actually here but uh

what on earth happened in that treehouse

We took turns dipping each other in mayonnaise

[Thunal33]

reading grass chat. hally sounds genuine and is making me doubt my tr of thunal bc it makes sense that she'd send hally based on prior experience

I actually think Hally looks less genuine in the grasslands (and them suspecting me has nothing to do with it). In one of Hally's scum games they put in lots of emotion and were very dramatic but it was coming from a place that didn't make sense. They faked a derp that game and pretended they literally didn't look at the flip because they assumed the flipped was scum and then went "WAIT WHAAAAT HOW ARE THEY TOWN" and was very dramatic. I feel like Hally's sudden flip on Carotte and saying she looked very different from her scum game might not come from a place that makes sense. Why didn't Hally actually evaluate this beforehand?

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I looked over nova's posts. Check your wifom worries if you like, but it's still worth a glance. They specifically chose to kill him instead of [some other consensus town read]. His stances as far as I can tell:

tutuu - good
hally - unclear
LC - bad
nanook - unclear
sloon - good
spf - unclear
thunal - unclear
nutella - unclear
martin - love/hate
alison - bad

I didn't concern myself with his first-post reads here, because I tend to doubt any mafia team chooses its kills with those in mind. nova's reads weren't super developed. I'm just gonna stick them here for now and think about it.

[Thunal33]

I looked over nova's posts. Check your wifom worries if you like, but it's still worth a glance. They specifically chose to kill him instead of [some other consensus town read]. His stances as far as I can tell:

tutuu - good
hally - unclear
LC - bad
nanook - unclear
sloon - good
spf - unclear
thunal - unclear
nutella - unclear
martin - love/hate
alison - bad

I didn't concern myself with his first-post reads here, because I tend to doubt any mafia team chooses its kills with those in mind. nova's reads weren't super developed. I'm just gonna stick them here for now and think about it.

So this looks slightly good for Sloonei and bad for LC if it's a level 1 kill. How obvious do the NKs on this site tend to be? Is it within site meta to kill people for their reads often?

[JaggedJimmyJay]

jay do you still want to wait a bit before linking the chat?

Let's share Alison's gripes first and see what happens before linking.

The following comes from [mention]Alison[/mention], not me, and is for [mention]Hally[/mention]:

- I've explained my case on Thunal in the thread already. Extra stuff at EOD was bad: moving to a full on scumread on me (from "uncertain") in a very opportunistic manner, right after I went to bed and can't defend myself, and right after other people voiced suspicion of me.

- Many people were unmoved by my push on Thunal, but Hally seems to take it surprisingly personally and lashed out at me for it. Notably, Hally's attack on me felt more like a chainsaw than the other suspicions on me. (compare JJJ's "I think Alison's read is fake" to Hally's line, which was more like "Thunal is a villager and you are scummy for senselessly attacking her!")

- Here's the big one. When LC triple voted the scummiest players in the game, Hally had no objection and went along with it. But at the start of the game they mentioned that they thought only voting one person and not diluting votes was important; and that the last time they played this setup, scum triple voted all the top wagons to deny themselves accountability. From that point of view, it's extremely suspicious that Hally did not raise any issue with Sloonei (someone she was scumreading earlier in the day) doing so.

[Thunal33]

not actually here but uh

what on earth happened in that treehouse

Did you look at the chat yet? I just linked it.

[tutuu]

not actually here but uh

what on earth happened in that treehouse

Did you look at the chat yet? I just linked it.

Linked where?