Grasslands [Game Thread]

[JaggedJimmyJay]

hally/sloonei actually always contains at least 1 wolf here

no

why was this "no"?

[Sloonei]

How would you feel if Alison flips town?

My first emergent thought would be "I may be wrong about Thunal", and I'd view it as a reason to really reassess you and Hally too. Even if I don't follow or feel compelled by her cases, Alison is a capable player whose reads should be given consideration if they're confirmed as genuine.

What’s the best reason to suspect LC?

There's no reason to call him town.

That's all I have.

Do you care about his alleged “derpclear”?

Also do you have any thoughts on my Big Alison Post above?

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Do you care about his alleged “derpclear”?

No

Also do you have any thoughts on my Big Alison Post above?

I'm consciously avoiding talking about Alison further since I just had a go at her earlier today. I will let her respond to you herself before I butt in again.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I just finished the 26th block in my blind interactions and it's my first orange.

Hype? Are you hyped? Do you absolutely give a shit?

[JaggedJimmyJay]

[mention]Sloonei[/mention] tell me about Nanook.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

[mention]nutella[/mention] what is your read on Alison right now?

[Hally]

page 23

I did some catching up - the above posts are sporadic responses to stuff people were aiming my way as I read up. Here's where I'm at. Hally feels slightly better today, had a plausible explanation for not suspecting LC's triple vote, and my reasoning on Hally being sent to the Grasslands got slightly debunked. I still think Thunal is scum and I think Thunal can be pocketing Hally even if Hally is town.

Sloonei has no original reads and I dislike that. I don't think he's ever expressed an issue with me or engaged with me meaningfully and now I'm his top scum read. Feels opportunistic.

I thought a little more about the timing and context of nanook coming out with a hard townread on nova and I actually think it's really townie. I trust nanook. tutuu and Martin continue to be town.

Here's a note in self-defense. One of the biggest reasons people were suspecting me yesterday was that they felt I was W/W with Carotte. Now that Carotte has flipped town, you should be suspecting me some amount less if you are actually re-evaluating your reads and trying to figure out the game.

I've been reconsidering my nutella read because I feel like she hasn't actually done an awful lot when you get down to it, and one of the reasons I had for suspecting her in Radiohead was a sense of detachment/disengagement. But her ISO is actually pretty townie despite that. I don't townread her as strongly as I do nanook/tutuu/Martin, but I'm comfortable lightly trusting her for now.

Town:
nanook
tutuu
Martin
SPF

Townlean:
nutella
JJJ
LC

Light scumlean:
Hally

Scum:
Thunal
Sloonei

a few things

- you keep saying “lc’s triple vote.” but it was sloonei that did the triple vote, and my explanation was addressing why i didn’t suspect sloonei for it at the time, not lc. did lc also do it? or maybe you’re just mixing up people?

- why am i a scum lean independent of my perceived association with thun?

- i agree with the point about sloonei in the sense that i don’t really know why he scum reads you rn

- can you run your reasoning for scum reading thun and town reading martin by me again? and why is lc a town lean? sorry if you said already, just point me to the posts in that case

From a classical POE perspective, we'd presently need a pool of five. Congruently we'd need five non-self civilians. Can we get there? I have comfortable town reads on:

SPF
tutuu

Well, shit. That's as far as I get right now. If I allow myself to give more generous town credit and trust vaguer instincts, then I would go with Hally and nutella.

I would like your thoughts on Tutuu, if possible.

Most generally I think her play just looks authentic. For example: she has stated that she is capable of emotional play as a mafioso, and I believe her, but there is a specific character to the way her frustration developed here that rings true to me. On Day 1 she made one of her personal charges and contributions to keep track of everyone's reads/phantom votes to help facilitate consensus with eventual team voting decisions. So toward the end of Day 1 when some folks placed their votes [in a way that seemed whimsical and unplanned], it stood against the effort she personally gave and made her feel like her contribution was negated. That's a unique brand of frustration that I wouldn't quite anticipate, at least not in the same form, from someone who isn't being genuine.

i like this take on tutuu

You are town. Jay is town. Spf is town. Nutella is town. Tutuu is town.
I am undecided on Thunal.
LC has yet to do anything that makes me want to town read him. I could say the same about nanook and martin. I felt good about Martin initially but that hasn’t carried over as the game has gone on. But I don’t have any reason to suspect him either.
Alison would probably be my top suspect at the moment.

A POE of Alison, LC, Thunal, nanook, and Martin feels okay right now.

Best I can say for Sloonei is that our reads are in pretty close alignment. Two thoughts emerge:

1) Usually when we're both town we agree on stuff. So cool.

2) If Sloonei is a mafioso, then I get the impression there is at least one significant issue with my reads otherwise and/or with the general consensus -- because he is content to share in that consensus.

All else aside I like that he and I are in lockstep on Alison. She is probably my top suspect too.

i want to point out that sloonei did not develop concerns about alison until well after you did, so to say you’re in lock step with him on alison is not actually an accurate characterization of how/when your respective suspicions on alison emerged. i don’t see why he can’t be mafia who has seen that you sr alison and has decided he should do that too because he knows you’re looking for him to agree with you

Sloonei has no original reads and I dislike that. I don't think he's ever expressed an issue with me or engaged with me meaningfully and now I'm his top scum read. Feels opportunistic.

Sloonei's ISO

Open this and CTRL+F "Alison".

This assertion is just not true. I want to eliminate Alison.

I did. I'm not seeing it. Quote the post where he meaningfully engages with me.

317 -- has a lot to say about you, some of it positive
549 -- directly addresses you
706 -- continues to consider the matter of Alison out loud
769 and 782 -- directly addresses you twice, both with questions for you to engage with
795 -- general query about you
815 -- voices uncertain concern
826 -- makes his concern more specific, quoting numerous Alison posts
827 and 832 -- directly engages two other people about you
840 -- votes for you among two others and makes suspicion clear

You said he didn't engage with you "meaningfully". That looks like hot bullshit to me.

You said he didn't ever express an issue with you. That is objectively false.

Also if you want to get me eliminated, you're going to have to do better than vaguely asserting that my posts are "fake" or full of "bravado" and then saying that you don't believe my case on Thunal for no reason despite not being able to actually rebut any of my arguments.

There you go. This post also serves little purpose beyond discrediting me in a way that does not fairly reflect my treatment of you.

i don’t know that i agree that alison’s assertion that sloonei hasn’t meaningfully engaged with her is bullshit. but i also don’t think it’s accurate to say he hasn’t engaged her at all. i think the truth is more somewhere in the middle

like, since beginning to suspect alison closer to EoD1, i don’t really think sloonei has engaged with alison much? he has that post where he highlights posts that concern him, but his reasons for why the posts are concerning feel... kinda weak to me? i don’t understand why alison doing some pre-flip associations is scummy. it strikes me more as a simple difference in approach. and i know alison does do a lot of pre-flip associations as town too even on D1 (iirc we both incorrectly suspected her for exactly that in jack attack). and then the inconsistency that sloonei points out with alison’s handling of a sloon/thun w/w world is... just not that compelling to me. why is that slight inconsistency scummy? i just don’t get it, and it doesn’t seem like sloonei really believes in it strongly himself from how the post is written

and like, that’s the only post we can look to for why sloonei has alison as his top suspect. it doesn’t feel sufficient to me to warrant her being his top suspect especially given that iirc sloonei actually had a pretty positive stance to alison up until that point, and there hasn’t been anything else from sloonei this day either trying elaborate on his concerns or to engage with alison about anything (although i grant that alison wasn’t around for the beginning of the phase)

so like, i think it’s fair for alison to raise some concerns about how sloonei has approached her? but maybe her characterization isn’t entirely accurate either

———

my shift is starting now so i won’t be able to finish catching up until later

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Her first instinct after the flip is to do the vote quotes (and a few other select posts)......but then 30 minutes later start speculating about Alison?

I'd appreciate it if you could expand on what you think about tutuu's handling of Alison per this post; it is unclear to me.

[nutella]

@nutella what is your read on Alison right now?

That's a good question and I'm not sure I have a good answer. Like i said in the treehouse, I consistently both find some points against her to be compelling and find her posts to feel like they're written by town. Essentially she's in my poe but not my top priority suspect.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Blind Interactions



For those who don't already know, green blocks reflect pairings that I don't think look likely to be mafia teammates. Yellow blocks refer to pairings that I think could be; I have no good reason to say otherwise. Orange refers to a pairing that I found particularly compatible.

I only ended up with one orange, so if you want to be conservative you can just call it yellow and end up with a binary yes/no chart.

As usual I don't have dedicated notes for all of this. I did poke at a tiny bit as I went through it in my previous handful of posts. I don't want to spam the game with mass analysis. If you have questions about any pairing here, ask me. I will try to answer if I have time. I might not. If I can't answer, then dig into the interaction for yourself and see how you feel.

A few notes:

~ Nanook being an ocean of yellow is unsurprising. He has the fewest posts and hasn't done a whole lot in the way of pushing any kind of game solving. So he's compatible with everyone.

~ Long Con and Martin are the only orange in a way that kind of recalls Jack/Michelle in the Finale (Martin in particular made a few mentions of LC that struck me as a bit forced or unnecessary. I realize Jack/Michelle was wrong, but whatever -- it's orange anyway. View it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions.

~ I struggle to clearly remove a POE name or suspect from the pool with this chart as I often want to. The closest I can come is Thunal, who would be compatible per my judgments only with Nanook, SPF, and nutella (which would be a good look overall for Thunal if at least two of those three are town).

~ Most importantly about Thunal, I think he doesn't fit with Sloonei. This should have important implications for Alison's view of the game, and I look forward to hearing what she thinks about that.

~ Sloonei fits precisely with the POE and naught else. So the case against Sloonei can be described as "easy game versus not easy game". Your mileage may vary given what you think of that. Alison is in a very similar position, which makes the emerging "dichotomy" between those two especially important. They don't have to be a dichotomy, but I am kind of feeling that way.

~ For some reason I couldn't find it within myself to clear nutella on numerous interactions even when she had a lot to say about people. I don't know what to make of that. I might not make anything of it. She covers a lot of ground in her solving style a la the rabbits of the world. The same can be said to a lesser degree for Hally.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most important takeaways for me: Thunal might be the best look if anyone is, and her relationship with Sloonei and Alison might be good starting points from which a coherent view of the game can be constructed.

[MartinGG99]

Since Hally (I think? If not someone else) seemed to dislike that I spoilered my responses on D1 in the Grasslands QT, I'm not spoiling them here. I just thought it would've looked nice in terms of aesthetics. That said, I have trimmed down some of the quotes.

Page 21

Ur not insane u just made a wrong read its alright bud

Yeah but I wish I knew which. I am very much eager to try and improve myself in ways that I can, especially as town.

I'm suspicious of this post. I keep having mixed feelings on Sloonei this game but I misread that Sloonei put himself in a bad position with the Carotte elim. If he's scum he tried to put himself in a better position. Here it looks like he was hedging on purpose and not trying to take accountability. He wasn't really pushing Carotte and this "I don't have reason to object" feels like he doesn't want to get his hands dirty.

I don't care about having dirty hands. I want and strive to have a tangible impact on every elimination. I did not have a firm reason to read Carot as mafia, but I also did not have a firm reason to read her as town. As she was the overwhelming consensus suspect, I did not object. I take full responsibility for the votes that I placed, including the one on Carot.

If Sloonei didn't have years of experience playing forum mafia I would 110% town-read this. However I would like to TR it anyways since he did only have a 3-minute gap between this and his last post, which (if my hope is not misplaced) is more likely to be from town, even from very experienced players.
*Watches someone disagree with me here*

Carot is town and SPF is mafia -> better to send second mafia most of the time, makes sure that town dies

Carot is town and SPF is town -> better to send third town, makes sure that town dies


There’s obviously some amount of uncertainty in this cause it’s not immediately clear how many mafia will think about it this way, and there’s some room for playing suboptimally on purpose even if they do/did think about it this way

Makes sense. Although, I wouldn't add much weight to it. A few people (like myself) in the Treehouse QT were quick to give the gun to SPF under the idea that the shooting/execution of Carotenoid was confirmed. So unless SPF is mafia I do feel like trying to determine any sort of pre/post-flip association reasoning here is unlikely to hold much water.

I also would avoid this thought process for night 2 since now the idea/concept has been discussed.

I think the level 1 (no WIFOM) play

Oh so that's what level X means.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

@Martin: A clarification about the post you were confused about. I think it's NAI to feel certain emotions. But I think it's AI to use those emotions as a shield in place of a real defense. I am well known for being harsher than average on AtE defenses, and I think they very frequently come from scum as well. It's fine to feel things, it's even fine to express those things, but when your only response is the expression of emotion and not, like, real reasons why the accusation is wrong, then that is where I get suspicious.

I understood that. I think that is an honest opinion held by you, however I personally don't think it holds as much weight as you probably do. I think the bigger thing to look at is what they do outside of that topic. If they focus on it forever and use that defense, then hell yeah its AI and I would think its scummy.

However, I think JJJ has repeatedly tried to move the discussion away from that, and I find that to be a slightly more town indication.

This isn't a dismissal of your points -- I think they're valid. I just disagree with the valuation of those points and how you've reacted to/with them. You even said that it only makes them seem slightly more scummy.

I also think further discussion over something that has been said to be miniscule in consequences (either finding it for scumminess or towniness in the end) is probably going to be more pointless, but if it must be discussed by the town in general then I suppose we will.

Another note:

I was close to marking Martin/Alison as orange, but downgraded to yellow on the basis of the post above. It kinda looked like an authentic attempt by Martin to dialogue with a player not aligned with him. I'm not super confident about that though and do think there are connections to be considered: primarily Alison's immediate and undying town lock on Martin based on what I would call frivolity, and Martin's tangible struggle to say anything conclusive about her in 639.

[Long Con]

I did some catching up - the above posts are sporadic responses to stuff people were aiming my way as I read up. Here's where I'm at. Hally feels slightly better today, had a plausible explanation for not suspecting LC's triple vote....

What is this triple vote?

I also found this post suspicious:

And we will take out Sloonei and Martin.

Remember I was answering a choice between exactly those two players, and another exact pair. I didn't choose Martin or Sloonei to make that statement about, I did a gun to head on two pairs and chose them.

I didn't see that your post was in response to anything, and I couldn't find much from the immediate context. What was the question you were responding to?

It was this one, it was a bunch of posts back.

[Long Con]

not actually here but uh

what on earth happened in that treehouse

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

Dont tell me u DMd her rofl

No, I just wanted to try a weird trap and see if Hally had access to the treehouse from scumchat.

I did not link it, I wanted Hally to say something like "yeah I skimmed it" so that I could potentially catch them.

Oh was a joke lol soz

Ur like, a dry humor type of gal aint ya? Or how do u call it. Pan faced? Stone faced

Not really a joke either. I just thought I maybe had a 0.001% chance of catching scum!Hally in a small gambit.

I'm doing blind interactions. This bit inspired me to ask a general question to the game:

Are Thunal and Hally compatible as mafia teammates with the above posts in mind?

I liked the gambit. I don't see any inherent wolf linkage because of it.

[Long Con]

How would you feel if Alison flips town?

My first emergent thought would be "I may be wrong about Thunal", and I'd view it as a reason to really reassess you and Hally too. Even if I don't follow or feel compelled by her cases, Alison is a capable player whose reads should be given consideration if they're confirmed as genuine.

What’s the best reason to suspect LC?

Red name, shady avatar, very shady name, general slankiness.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

I liked the gambit. I don't see any inherent wolf linkage because of it.

I agree. I don't think it looks like teammate business.

[staypositivefriend]

a couple of questions i had on my mind while reading through the thread -

[mention]nutella[/mention] - i've noticed that your presence is a lot more subdued today compared to day one, and it does concern me a little bit. is there a particular reason why your presence is diminished today? are your reads still roughly in the same spot they were at the end of day one?

[mention]MartinGG99[/mention] - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

[mention]Sloonei[/mention] - let's say that we live in a world where alison is town; where do you go next? who do u start fos'ing?

[nutella]

You single out thunal, yet tutuu has even more green. Why fail to acknowledge that tutuu should be your most cleared town from the exercise? Did that completely slip your mind, perhaps because you were already taking her towniness for granted?

[staypositivefriend]

not actually here but uh

what on earth happened in that treehouse

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

Dont tell me u DMd her rofl

No, I just wanted to try a weird trap and see if Hally had access to the treehouse from scumchat.

I did not link it, I wanted Hally to say something like "yeah I skimmed it" so that I could potentially catch them.

Oh was a joke lol soz

Ur like, a dry humor type of gal aint ya? Or how do u call it. Pan faced? Stone faced

Not really a joke either. I just thought I maybe had a 0.001% chance of catching scum!Hally in a small gambit.

I'm doing blind interactions. This bit inspired me to ask a general question to the game:

Are Thunal and Hally compatible as mafia teammates with the above posts in mind?

although i wouldn't 100% clear them off of this interaction, i think this is more likely to be non-partner interaction than not

i also have a lot of trouble seeing a world where hally/thunal are partnered, but that's more because of my individual trs on them

[JaggedJimmyJay]

You single out thunal, yet tutuu has even more green. Why fail to acknowledge that tutuu should be your most cleared town from the exercise? Did that completely slip your mind, perhaps because you were already taking her towniness for granted?

She's already among my top town reads, so clearing her doesn't feel like it moves the game forward. But sure.

[Long Con]

Martin has given me the most consistent and vocal suspicion out of anyone, and we're the only pair you find has m-m potential?

[nutella]

a couple of questions i had on my mind while reading through the thread -

@nutella - i've noticed that your presence is a lot more subdued today compared to day one, and it does concern me a little bit. is there a particular reason why your presence is diminished today? are your reads still roughly in the same spot they were at the end of day one?

@MartinGG99 - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

@Sloonei - let's say that we live in a world where alison is town; where do you go next? who do u start fos'ing?

My "presence" always tends to diminish after d1. I enjoy d1s most and usually post a lot more at the beginning, then drop off in later phases as I feel less hyped/less motivated to get into the game -- maybe especially with the discouraging d1 mischop. I was really hoping to just continue my streak of getting n1ed so I wouldn't have to keep solving lol.

[Long Con]

a couple of questions i had on my mind while reading through the thread -

@nutella - i've noticed that your presence is a lot more subdued today compared to day one, and it does concern me a little bit. is there a particular reason why your presence is diminished today? are your reads still roughly in the same spot they were at the end of day one?

@MartinGG99 - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

@Sloonei - let's say that we live in a world where alison is town; where do you go next? who do u start fos'ing?

My "presence" always tends to diminish after d1. I enjoy d1s most and usually post a lot more at the beginning, then drop off in later phases as I feel less hyped/less motivated to get into the game -- maybe especially with the discouraging d1 mischop. I was really hoping to just continue my streak of getting n1ed so I wouldn't have to keep solving lol.

That's the polar opposite of how I play.

[nutella]

a couple of questions i had on my mind while reading through the thread -

@nutella - i've noticed that your presence is a lot more subdued today compared to day one, and it does concern me a little bit. is there a particular reason why your presence is diminished today? are your reads still roughly in the same spot they were at the end of day one?

@MartinGG99 - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

@Sloonei - let's say that we live in a world where alison is town; where do you go next? who do u start fos'ing?

My "presence" always tends to diminish after d1. I enjoy d1s most and usually post a lot more at the beginning, then drop off in later phases as I feel less hyped/less motivated to get into the game -- maybe especially with the discouraging d1 mischop. I was really hoping to just continue my streak of getting n1ed so I wouldn't have to keep solving lol.

That's the polar opposite of how I play.

I know my love of d1s is a controversial stance lol, I get that most people prefer later solving as there is more info to work with. There's definitely a point where I enjoy that too, and I guess it can be more of a U-curve in the somewhat rare event I make it to late game

[MartinGG99]

Page 22

i dont remember the last time i saw a derp clear coming from mafia. just from personal experience ppl are way more paranoid of clearing scum based off of it, than scum actually does fake it

(i do think setup derp clear constitutes as a derp clear for ur alignment nonetheless)

long con town long con town long con town long con town long con town

Last time I saw a derpclear happen it was mafia. It wasn't faked though, they just forgot to join the mafia chat so they had no idea about game mechanics that they would have known if they did join it.

Generally for me derp-clears I tend to find messy or NAI simply because it makes me worry that if they didn't read the setup clearly then by extension they may have not read the setup (or possibly parts of the game). In which case that may mean some of their reads don't account for stuff I thought they may have accounted for. And if that's the case, does that mean my perception of them is wrong, especially if my read of them (or someone else) is based on their reads?

I don't think the derp-clear was scummy at all by Long Con, but I personally can't find it towny on an independent play basis.

martin town cuz he posts a lot and looked genuinely confused about the plan and nonchalantly voted himself after hally already voted him. he had some room to campaign for the doc save, alison wanted him to get it

This "he posts a lot" is something you said 2 or 3 times now.

And the only conclusion I've come to it is that you've been looking at, evaluating, or observing me a lot (which is partially the cause of my paranoia of you).

I literally have one of THE LOWEST post-counts of the living players here in the majority of times, if not at least always the bottom half. If I recall, I only made ~40 posts for day one and yet some people nearly did triple of that.

Also I don't recall having enough room (maybe some) to campaign for the doc save, or at least if I did I would think it would be insanely stupid unless a lot of people had trust in me for the late-game/later-days. I have only 6 games played y'know, what basis do I have to believe that I will be able to compete effectively with the mafia as town if they're all experienced players?

rereading this my read on martin sounds the dumbest. lol. i should maybe move him to the orange tier

And I can't tell if your reads on me were indicative of you evaluating me a lot or were just an honest mistake

[MartinGG99]

@MartinGG99 - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

[mention]staypositivefriend[/mention]

Are you asking literally right now? Or by the time I catch-up to that post?

[nutella]

I guess it's like, d1 is all about the hype, and I can memepost but also make bold assertions and snap reads to generate content and see where it goes, and once d2 hits and we have a couple flips it feels like I have to get more serious which becomes overwhelming and the game fatigue starts to set in.

[staypositivefriend]

here's my attempt at a trustfall:

tutuu - tutuu has consistently exhibited an authentic and genuine tone while frequently outing unique reads and perspectives that i suspect she might have trouble coming up with as mafia (ie: her early townread on long con, her reasoning for tring hally on d1, her paranoia toward me). i have very few concerns about tutuu's game in a holistic sense

hally: hally came into this game with fierce gamesolving energy that is distinctly different from their approach in the season 7 finale. they are constantly trying to drive the game forward by pressuring & outing reads on people with no particular care for the consensus of the town (such as hally outing a fierce tr on nutella on d1 when nutella was coming under some suspicion), and their posts do not feel nearly as "performative" to me as they did in hindsight in the finale

long con: long con feels like they are barely part of this game, and they seem genuinely unconcerned w/the pressure being put on them. they have also outed a couple of reads that looked good in the moment (ie: the scumread on carotte on d1.) i would expect scum to be more concerned with the state of the game

nanook: although nanook's thread presence has been low, he showed some very genuine frustration in the treehouse that i have trouble seeing him come up with as scum. i also think some of his reads today feel authentic

sloonei: sloonei had an apathetic response to the early pressure on him, and he did not let the pressure phase him from scumhunting as he normally would. i would expect that scumsloonei could get a little bit too caught up in how people are perceiving him

spf: mafia

thunal: thunal perhaps has the most "pure" tone in this game - she is constantly outing reads and perspectives that would be boxing herself in as mafia. the way that thunal starts pushing on people (ie: sloonei) and then immediately backs off/changes her mind when presented with new evidence indicates to me that thunal is not particularly trying to play with an agenda

nutella: nutella had an extremely assertive thread presence on d1 and hiveminded with me on a number of reads/thoughts - i have only seen nutella's scum game once, but it looks significantly different from the play that nutella is exhibiting in this game

martin: martin has not pursued a specific agenda or narrative as much as he has holistically laid the game out and considered all of the different possibilities/perspectives - i would perhaps expect the mafia to be more driven by some kind of agenda

alison: there have been a couple of points throughout the game where it's felt like alison has organically re-considered her reads and her perspectives - sometimes poking holes in her own theories that she would have no real motivation to poke holes into as mafia. she has also handled the pressure on her well

jagged: the more effort that jagged puts into this game, the more that i start to see the "townjagged" that i saw in spades in our last couple of games. there is a sense of forward momentum to his gamesolving today that assuages me of my concern that jagged's reads were in a stagnant place

[staypositivefriend]

I guess it's like, d1 is all about the hype, and I can memepost but also make bold assertions and snap reads to generate content and see where it goes, and once d2 hits and we have a couple flips it feels like I have to get more serious which becomes overwhelming and the game fatigue starts to set in.

i actually agree with you btw, i think my d1 tends to be the strongest because there isnt any kind of framework/interactions to work with, it's just chaos and blind scumhunting, and that's sort of where i thrive the best lol

[staypositivefriend]

@MartinGG99 - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

@staypositivefriend

Are you asking literally right now? Or by the time I catch-up to that post?

yeah, i'm asking right now. i'd like to hear where your gut is leading you even if you arent caught up

[Long Con]

I guess it's like, d1 is all about the hype, and I can memepost but also make bold assertions and snap reads to generate content and see where it goes, and once d2 hits and we have a couple flips it feels like I have to get more serious which becomes overwhelming and the game fatigue starts to set in.

LOL more oppositeness. It's Day 1 that's too overwhelming, I feel like I'm in a buzzing beehive or the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I don't really believe much of anything I read on Day 1, because the reads are so shallow and arbitrary to me.

[staypositivefriend]

here's my attempt at a trustfall:

tutuu - tutuu has consistently exhibited an authentic and genuine tone while frequently outing unique reads and perspectives that i suspect she might have trouble coming up with as mafia (ie: her early townread on long con, her reasoning for tring hally on d1, her paranoia toward me). i have very few concerns about tutuu's game in a holistic sense

hally: hally came into this game with fierce gamesolving energy that is distinctly different from their approach in the season 7 finale. they are constantly trying to drive the game forward by pressuring & outing reads on people with no particular care for the consensus of the town (such as hally outing a fierce tr on nutella on d1 when nutella was coming under some suspicion), and their posts do not feel nearly as "performative" to me as they did in hindsight in the finale

long con: long con feels like they are barely part of this game, and they seem genuinely unconcerned w/the pressure being put on them. they have also outed a couple of reads that looked good in the moment (ie: the scumread on carotte on d1.) i would expect scum to be more concerned with the state of the game

nanook: although nanook's thread presence has been low, he showed some very genuine frustration in the treehouse that i have trouble seeing him come up with as scum. i also think some of his reads today feel authentic

sloonei: sloonei had an apathetic response to the early pressure on him, and he did not let the pressure phase him from scumhunting as he normally would. i would expect that scumsloonei could get a little bit too caught up in how people are perceiving him

spf: mafia

thunal: thunal perhaps has the most "pure" tone in this game - she is constantly outing reads and perspectives that would be boxing herself in as mafia. the way that thunal starts pushing on people (ie: sloonei) and then immediately backs off/changes her mind when presented with new evidence indicates to me that thunal is not particularly trying to play with an agenda

nutella: nutella had an extremely assertive thread presence on d1 and hiveminded with me on a number of reads/thoughts - i have only seen nutella's scum game once, but it looks significantly different from the play that nutella is exhibiting in this game

martin: martin has not pursued a specific agenda or narrative as much as he has holistically laid the game out and considered all of the different possibilities/perspectives - i would perhaps expect the mafia to be more driven by some kind of agenda

alison: there have been a couple of points throughout the game where it's felt like alison has organically re-considered her reads and her perspectives - sometimes poking holes in her own theories that she would have no real motivation to poke holes into as mafia. she has also handled the pressure on her well

jagged: the more effort that jagged puts into this game, the more that i start to see the "townjagged" that i saw in spades in our last couple of games. there is a sense of forward momentum to his gamesolving today that assuages me of my concern that jagged's reads were in a stagnant place

some initial observations from doing this:

-i thought that it was the hardest to come up with reasons to townread sloonei and martin

-it was the easiest to come up with reasons to townread tutuu and hally and jagged

[MartinGG99]

@MartinGG99 - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

@staypositivefriend

Are you asking literally right now? Or by the time I catch-up to that post?

yeah, i'm asking right now. i'd like to hear where your gut is leading you even if you arent caught up

I would probably shoot between Alison or Nanook.

Mostly because these flips would (I think) advance my reads on others or have a better understanding of the game state.

I have yet to decide between them, and Alison I need to re-eval soon.

[Long Con]

long con: long con feels like they are barely part of this game, and they seem genuinely unconcerned w/the pressure being put on them.

Someone else (Martin) brought up my lack of concern for pressure/suspicion/votes. I'm just really used to it by now, with how games are played these days with strong early PoE and towncore always forming, I find it better to just plow ahead than worry about the usual suspicion.

[Long Con]

That (Martin) was supposed to be (Martin?). Looks weird without it.

[staypositivefriend]

@MartinGG99 - i've been reading all of your posts but i still do not have a clear sense of who your number one suspect is right now. where is your analysis leading you? if you ~had~ to chop one person right now, who would it be?

@staypositivefriend

Are you asking literally right now? Or by the time I catch-up to that post?

yeah, i'm asking right now. i'd like to hear where your gut is leading you even if you arent caught up

I would probably shoot between Alison or Nanook.

Mostly because these flips would (I think) advance my reads on others or have a better understanding of the game state.

I have yet to decide between them, and Alison I need to re-eval soon.

sorry to keep pressing on you while youre still catching up, but could you expand for me how a nanook flip would advance your reads? and if you could only choose one name out of those two, which would it be?

[MartinGG99]

Coincidentally, I just caught up to this after SPF just asked me about my scum reads lol.

@MartinGG99 can you do an updated sorting/reads list please?

Honestly right now I'm still trying to process some players and my reads for them, especially since I'm catching up.

Its a bit confusing and hard to put it into words, especially since I've been trying a sort of new way of thinking or play where I'm relying a bit more on "gut" rather than methodical play.

That said, here's a screenshot from what is preety much most of my notes (aside from just pure memory):

Spoiler: show

If you say it looks a bit confusing, that's because it was sorta meant to be that way. I just re-used one of my old spreadsheets and kinda re-purposed it for taking notes. I didn't have much time on the weekend prior to the game starting to think of a better way of formatting it and my notes or thoughts.

However, what I can say is that at the moment that's where I am for the most part. Though once I re-eval everyone else I need to re-think about Tutuu.

[MartinGG99]

sorry to keep pressing on you while youre still catching up, but could you expand for me how a nanook flip would advance your reads? and if you could only choose one name out of those two, which would it be?

Alison. If she's town then it kinda feels like the town discussion is being stickie'd on her and isn't going away anytime soon. If she's mafia, well then that's obviously good.

If you look at my last post right now (1-2 minutes ago) you'll see that I kinda associate part of my reading of others depending on how I tinfoil Tutuu. Last I checked, she was town-reading (not town-leaning) Nanook which kinda bothers me a little bit, but that may be because I have play-style differences with them.

[staypositivefriend]

distrustfall:

tutuu: although tutuu has a strong tone and a strong thread presence, she hasn't particularly outed any reads that have advanced the gamestate in a significant way

hally: hally's thread presence has diminished over the last day or so, and they had a slight inconsistency with their attitude toward voting on d1 that rubbed me the wrong way a little bit

long con: long con has not advanced the gamestate in any meaningful way, and his primary push on day one (carotte) ended up being town. i see very little evidence in long con's posts that he is genuinely trying to parse the game

nanook: nanook has been playing a passive & laid-back game, and none of the reads he have outed have been particularly unique or controversial. it's not super difficult to see nanookscum coasting along and just broadly agreeing with the consensus of everyone else

sloonei: sloonei has made very few posts that "feel" like townsloonei to me, and his lines of questioning have consistently left me feeling cold and unclear of where his thought process is going. i suppose there is a lack of fluidity to sloonei's game in general, and even as the pressure on him has wavered, i still do not feel that sloonei has come into his own element in this game

thunal: there is a lack of consistency to thunal's reads/gamesolving that could be scum indicative in theory - it's not impossible to see a world where thunal is frequently changing their mind on reads and pursuing new angles because they're struggling to find a viable push

nutella: nutella has had a low presence since the beginning of d2, and her reads more or less to be in the same position they were at the end of d1 - the lack of change in reads/thoughts does concern me a little bit that nutella is coasting off of the goodwill they established on d1

martin: martin has outed very few clear & direct townreads/scumreads, and the scumreads that he has outed have felt distinctly "off" to me, and like he's more interested in framing a narrative than he is in parsing the alignments of the people he is pushing on

alison: alison's tone has been markedly different from what i expect from townalison, and some of the tinfoils that she has produced (ie: thunal/hally) are so oblique that it's difficult for me to really follow her train of thought or understand her perspective as easily as i have in the past

jagged: jagged has struggled to integrate himself into the game, and i briefly considered that this is because he rolled mafia and wasn't sure what type of approach he should be taking - especially in light of the early pressure on him

[Thunal33]

JaggedJimmyJay do you object to Sloonei being the chop today?

At this point, no I don’t. I can poke holes in accusations rendered at Sloonei, but that doesn’t make him a civilian. I should be more secure about him than I am by now.

Does that mean you think he's suspicious because you're not secure about him or is that more a statement about Sloonei not doing enough for you to get a solid read on him?

[staypositivefriend]

distrustfall:

tutuu: although tutuu has a strong tone and a strong thread presence, she hasn't particularly outed any reads that have advanced the gamestate in a significant way

hally: hally's thread presence has diminished over the last day or so, and they had a slight inconsistency with their attitude toward voting on d1 that rubbed me the wrong way a little bit

long con: long con has not advanced the gamestate in any meaningful way, and his primary push on day one (carotte) ended up being town. i see very little evidence in long con's posts that he is genuinely trying to parse the game

nanook: nanook has been playing a passive & laid-back game, and none of the reads he have outed have been particularly unique or controversial. it's not super difficult to see nanookscum coasting along and just broadly agreeing with the consensus of everyone else

sloonei: sloonei has made very few posts that "feel" like townsloonei to me, and his lines of questioning have consistently left me feeling cold and unclear of where his thought process is going. i suppose there is a lack of fluidity to sloonei's game in general, and even as the pressure on him has wavered, i still do not feel that sloonei has come into his own element in this game

thunal: there is a lack of consistency to thunal's reads/gamesolving that could be scum indicative in theory - it's not impossible to see a world where thunal is frequently changing their mind on reads and pursuing new angles because they're struggling to find a viable push

nutella: nutella has had a low presence since the beginning of d2, and her reads more or less to be in the same position they were at the end of d1 - the lack of change in reads/thoughts does concern me a little bit that nutella is coasting off of the goodwill they established on d1

martin: martin has outed very few clear & direct townreads/scumreads, and the scumreads that he has outed have felt distinctly "off" to me, and like he's more interested in framing a narrative than he is in parsing the alignments of the people he is pushing on

alison: alison's tone has been markedly different from what i expect from townalison, and some of the tinfoils that she has produced (ie: thunal/hally) are so oblique that it's difficult for me to really follow her train of thought or understand her perspective as easily as i have in the past

jagged: jagged has struggled to integrate himself into the game, and i briefly considered that this is because he rolled mafia and wasn't sure what type of approach he should be taking - especially in light of the early pressure on him

some observations:

-it was hardest to come up with reasons to scumread tutuu - like, really hard. i had to sit and think about it for a full minute, and i decided to do the rest of the list and come back to tutuu because i couldn't come up with anything. it was also a little difficult for me to come up with reasons to scumread jagged

-it was the easiest to come up with reasons to scumread sloonei and martin (and alison, to a lesser extent?)

[staypositivefriend]

i'm gonna go on a walk and think things over. these exercises have my brain moving in some interesting places and i want to let them sit in my head for a while and see how they feel

[MartinGG99]

Page 23 (Aside from my response to the post that Hally @ mentioned me)

Some quotes are trimmed.

I would like your thoughts on Tutuu, if possible.

Most generally I think her play just looks authentic. For example: she has stated that she is capable of emotional play as a mafioso, and I believe her, but there is a specific character to the way her frustration developed here that rings true to me. On Day 1 she made one of her personal charges and contributions to keep track of everyone's reads/phantom votes to help facilitate consensus with eventual team voting decisions. So toward the end of Day 1 when some folks placed their votes [in a way that seemed whimsical and unplanned], it stood against the effort she personally gave and made her feel like her contribution was negated. That's a unique brand of frustration that I wouldn't quite anticipate, at least not in the same form, from someone who isn't being genuine.

Okay, thank you for saying that.

Maybe I did make a bad read, out of paranoia (if you believe me).

Sloonei has no original reads and I dislike that. I don't think he's ever expressed an issue with me or engaged with me meaningfully and now I'm his top scum read. Feels opportunistic.

Sloonei's ISO

Open this and CTRL+F "Alison".

This assertion is just not true. I want to eliminate Alison.

Good point, and I hadn't picked up on that yet. I honestly think any town would be quite aware of the posts made on them, and the reasons for it.

Since then she has made cases against Thunal and Hally, and those cases rang hollow to me. They just weren't compelling. I struggle to buy it. Telling me that I am "hedging on nutella" because I expressed basic paranoia is bunk. It's happened enough times now that I have felt this way about her reads, that the holistic picture of her hunt just looks wrong to me.

I don't think this could ever be w/w, if Alison is mafia I'm quite tempted to say that JJJ is likely town.

[Thunal33]

Blind Interactions



For those who don't already know, green blocks reflect pairings that I don't think look likely to be mafia teammates. Yellow blocks refer to pairings that I think could be; I have no good reason to say otherwise. Orange refers to a pairing that I found particularly compatible.

I only ended up with one orange, so if you want to be conservative you can just call it yellow and end up with a binary yes/no chart.

As usual I don't have dedicated notes for all of this. I did poke at a tiny bit as I went through it in my previous handful of posts. I don't want to spam the game with mass analysis. If you have questions about any pairing here, ask me. I will try to answer if I have time. I might not. If I can't answer, then dig into the interaction for yourself and see how you feel.

A few notes:

~ Nanook being an ocean of yellow is unsurprising. He has the fewest posts and hasn't done a whole lot in the way of pushing any kind of game solving. So he's compatible with everyone.

~ Long Con and Martin are the only orange in a way that kind of recalls Jack/Michelle in the Finale (Martin in particular made a few mentions of LC that struck me as a bit forced or unnecessary. I realize Jack/Michelle was wrong, but whatever -- it's orange anyway. View it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions.

~ I struggle to clearly remove a POE name or suspect from the pool with this chart as I often want to. The closest I can come is Thunal, who would be compatible per my judgments only with Nanook, SPF, and nutella (which would be a good look overall for Thunal if at least two of those three are town).

~ Most importantly about Thunal, I think he doesn't fit with Sloonei. This should have important implications for Alison's view of the game, and I look forward to hearing what she thinks about that.

~ Sloonei fits precisely with the POE and naught else. So the case against Sloonei can be described as "easy game versus not easy game". Your mileage may vary given what you think of that. Alison is in a very similar position, which makes the emerging "dichotomy" between those two especially important. They don't have to be a dichotomy, but I am kind of feeling that way.

~ For some reason I couldn't find it within myself to clear nutella on numerous interactions even when she had a lot to say about people. I don't know what to make of that. I might not make anything of it. She covers a lot of ground in her solving style a la the rabbits of the world. The same can be said to a lesser degree for Hally.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most important takeaways for me: Thunal might be the best look if anyone is, and her relationship with Sloonei and Alison might be good starting points from which a coherent view of the game can be constructed.

What's "blind" about the blind interactions? Just curious. It reminds me of an associatives spreadsheet I made last game I played where I gave pairings a number rating based on how potentially teamed they were. Maybe I should do that again this game, but I haven't since it didn't work too well for me accuracy wise the one time I tried it. The teams I can remember I think make sense and I just find this analysis satisfying. Idk I just like reading really analytical playstyles. I felt the same sort of satisfaction from seeing a good analysis when I saw Alison's town game but I'm definitely not feeling it this game which miiiight be AI for Alison or it might be just because she suspects me.

I did some catching up - the above posts are sporadic responses to stuff people were aiming my way as I read up. Here's where I'm at. Hally feels slightly better today, had a plausible explanation for not suspecting LC's triple vote....

What is this triple vote?

I also found this post suspicious:

And we will take out Sloonei and Martin.

Remember I was answering a choice between exactly those two players, and another exact pair. I didn't choose Martin or Sloonei to make that statement about, I did a gun to head on two pairs and chose them.

I didn't see that your post was in response to anything, and I couldn't find much from the immediate context. What was the question you were responding to?

It was this one, it was a bunch of posts back.

Okay that makes some sense at least. Why did you choose me/Martin over Sloonei/Carotte? Do you still think me and Martin are more likely scum than Sloonei?

You single out thunal, yet tutuu has even more green. Why fail to acknowledge that tutuu should be your most cleared town from the exercise? Did that completely slip your mind, perhaps because you were already taking her towniness for granted?

distrustfall:

hally: hally's thread presence has diminished over the last day or so, and they had a slight inconsistency with their attitude toward voting on d1 that rubbed me the wrong way a little bit

long con: long con has not advanced the gamestate in any meaningful way, and his primary push on day one (carotte) ended up being town. i see very little evidence in long con's posts that he is genuinely trying to parse the game

nanook: nanook has been playing a passive & laid-back game, and none of the reads he have outed have been particularly unique or controversial. it's not super difficult to see nanookscum coasting along and just broadly agreeing with the consensus of everyone else

sloonei: sloonei has made very few posts that "feel" like townsloonei to me, and his lines of questioning have consistently left me feeling cold and unclear of where his thought process is going. i suppose there is a lack of fluidity to sloonei's game in general, and even as the pressure on him has wavered, i still do not feel that sloonei has come into his own element in this game

thunal: there is a lack of consistency to thunal's reads/gamesolving that could be scum indicative in theory - it's not impossible to see a world where thunal is frequently changing their mind on reads and pursuing new angles because they're struggling to find a viable push

nutella: nutella has had a low presence since the beginning of d2, and her reads more or less to be in the same position they were at the end of d1 - the lack of change in reads/thoughts does concern me a little bit that nutella is coasting off of the goodwill they established on d1

martin: martin has outed very few clear & direct townreads/scumreads, and the scumreads that he has outed have felt distinctly "off" to me, and like he's more interested in framing a narrative than he is in parsing the alignments of the people he is pushing on

alison: alison's tone has been markedly different from what i expect from townalison, and some of the tinfoils that she has produced (ie: thunal/hally) are so oblique that it's difficult for me to really follow her train of thought or understand her perspective as easily as i have in the past

jagged: jagged has struggled to integrate himself into the game, and i briefly considered that this is because he rolled mafia and wasn't sure what type of approach he should be taking - especially in light of the early pressure on him

Pink: I definitely agree with these. Also Hally isn't posting a billion posts (or bumping up against their post limit) which might actually be slightly scum indicative at least according to one PerC player who looked at the fraction of the thread Hally takes up as town and as scum. Hally is kind of my tinfoil suspect but I'm not ready to go there right now since I find LC and Alison more suspicious. Also what is scum!Alison's tone like? Does she make as much logical sense as town!Alison does?

Blue: If I had a nickel for every time I was suspected for inconsistency, I'd be drowning in nickels. Even though I like to use logic quite a bit I think of myself as an intuitive player first and a logical player second. I get gut feelings and insights from reading the thread (that often change) and then I use logic to justify them, check if they make sense, and find ways to look for more reads.

I find myself mindmelding quite a bit with SPF this game.

[Thunal33]

long con: long con feels like they are barely part of this game, and they seem genuinely unconcerned w/the pressure being put on them.

Someone else (Martin) brought up my lack of concern for pressure/suspicion/votes. I'm just really used to it by now, with how games are played these days with strong early PoE and towncore always forming, I find it better to just plow ahead than worry about the usual suspicion.

I actually brought it up as well. Even if you're not concerned you'll get elimed based on said suspicion, shouldn't you be concerned about where that suspicion is coming from? If you're town, then from the PoV of a PoE town there should be a wealth of information from how people interact with you and how they push you and you haven't tried to make sense of it at all. I know personally I ignore suspicion on me as scum but try to figure out where that suspicion is coming from as town.

[MartinGG99]

Page 24

Some quotes may be trimmed.

When I consider universes where Alison is town, process of elimination leads me to some uninspired places, where I feel like I have to default to the most generic suspicions like Long Con and/or Nanook.

I hope in the future at some point you will realize I had vaguely the same feeling or realization.

Especially since I have to count myself as a miselimination in most people's PoE's. I just don't think there were many wolves in the D1 PoE's...they would all have to playing a bit similarly which goes against the idea that they would be distancing a bit. Especially since Carotenoid was town and one of my D1 tinfoils (Nova) was night-killed. It just looks all...."wrong" to me or something. This isn't to say there isn't a single wolf in the generic suspicions, just maybe at most 1 or 2.

Which is partially why I've been looking/tinfoiling outside of the current conflicts.

My readslist (unordered):

Can we just town-lock Thunal for posts like this and their other posts around this time?

I personally will.

My predominant concern about Alison's Day 1 is that it feels kind of flat. She made her reads and stated them clearly, but felt a bit static and a bit uninspired, for lack of a better word. Take this post, which I previously noted as something I felt good about, or at least did not disagree with:

Okay. Sloonei just used a "post icon" on this post.

Can I town-read him for it?

[MartinGG99]

Her first instinct after the flip is to do the vote quotes (and a few other select posts)......but then 30 minutes later start speculating about Alison?

I'd appreciate it if you could expand on what you think about tutuu's handling of Alison per this post; it is unclear to me.

I actually can't recall much. I had a lot of thoughts at the time (I really do need a better way of writing down my thoughts...).

I think gut-wise I just didn't like the progression somehow. Like somehow it just all fit in an obscure thought.

I would speculate that I probably was so unsure about my thoughts that it was the reason why I brought them up in the first place even if they didn't do much. To see if I was sane or not

[MartinGG99]

Anyways I have to go for dinner. After which I'll come back to read the big recent posts and then look into the sloonei + alison issue more closely (I did skim it).

From my catching up I suppose I was wrongly suspicious of Tutuu, and maybe even JJJ. All else has just warranted a closer look at, or had my read on them solidified (such as Thunal).

[JaggedJimmyJay]

What's "blind" about the blind interactions? Just curious. It reminds me of an associatives spreadsheet I made last game I played where I gave pairings a number rating based on how potentially teamed they were. Maybe I should do that again this game, but I haven't since it didn't work too well for me accuracy wise the one time I tried it. The teams I can remember I think make sense and I just find this analysis satisfying. Idk I just like reading really analytical playstyles. I felt the same sort of satisfaction from seeing a good analysis when I saw Alison's town game but I'm definitely not feeling it this game which miiiight be AI for Alison or it might be just because she suspects me.

I just use the term "blind" to indicate that the associations are being assessed without the players involved having flipped their alignments yet. I don't tend to believe pre-flip associative reads are a good idea unless you do all of them to build a complete framework for solving the game. So these blind charts are a bit of a staple of my methods. My ability to catch mafia this way is limited, but I do think I am generally effective about finding civilians instead. It's a great augment to process of elimination solving, because if someone doesn't fit on a team with anyone else (or near anyone else), then voila -- they're town.

[JaggedJimmyJay]

Okay. Sloonei just used a "post icon" on this post.

Can I town-read him for it?

I am an administrator of this website.

I have been here for about 5.5 years.

Only now do I discover that this feature exists.

It has been there in front of my face all this time and I never noticed.