The Syndicate

Don't think I'll ever say my town reads again. I just got pocketed by the entire mafia squad.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:55 pm I have a feeling many of the corpses and neutral observers knew that I was bad. I definitely played this one to my audience -- a game filled with newcomers. To people who don't know me, Diet Supertown Jimmy is still a considerable effort.

dead/spectator chat was tearing its hair out when no one was touching you at the end.

Night action spreadsheet:

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:59 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:55 pm I have a feeling many of the corpses and neutral observers knew that I was bad. I definitely played this one to my audience -- a game filled with newcomers. To people who don't know me, Diet Supertown Jimmy is still a considerable effort.

dead/spectator chat was tearing its hair out when no one was touching you at the end.

You have no idea how much pleasure this brings me. Everyone can have that right friggin' back after my civilian games this year.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:59 pm Don't think I'll ever say my town reads again. I just got pocketed by the entire mafia squad.

you didn't know their metas, so it's hardly your fault! You can show them what's what next game. Thanks for playing; you and Lux and Gemma and Ultra were awesome additions to this game.

I also hope [mention]rundontwalk2[/mention] doesn't ditch us and sticks around to show everyone his true form in a game with less inconvenient timing.

Finals have been sapping all my time as well. It's a good thing I just needed to make a couple posts every three days. 'Tis the season.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:56 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:51 pm They really did bus each other.

It didn't go your way in the end, but you played a super respectable game my dude. You faced suspicion every phase of this game and you were never lynched. That's no easy feat, and you should be proud of it.

The only reason for those lynches being avoided was that I viewed as a scummy town, someone too scummy to be a wolf. What's there to be proud of in there? All of my reads were wrong and I literally town read the entire mafia squad. Even Ultra I leaned more on civ than scum. Kept pushing for the wrong ppl, never voted for a single scum and my play was detrimental and a distraction to town.

There is nothing respectable or to be proud of in my entire play this game.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:08 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:56 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:51 pm They really did bus each other.

It didn't go your way in the end, but you played a super respectable game my dude. You faced suspicion every phase of this game and you were never lynched. That's no easy feat, and you should be proud of it.

The only reason for those lynches being avoided was that I viewed as a scummy town, someone too scummy to be a wolf. What's there to be proud of in there? All of my reads were wrong and I literally town read the entire mafia squad. Even Ultra I leaned more on civ than scum. Kept pushing for the wrong ppl, never voted for a single scum and my play was detrimental and a distraction to town.

There is nothing respectable or to be proud of in my entire play this game.

A civilian who's able to not get lynched is doing something right. And this is your first game in a new environment. You don't know the site-wide meta, or any individual player metas. What matters is that you, as a civilian, put your earnest thoughts into the thread and make a sincere effort to figure things out. I don't think anyone can fault you for not pegging a mafia team comprised of 4 strangers.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:08 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:56 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:51 pm They really did bus each other.

It didn't go your way in the end, but you played a super respectable game my dude. You faced suspicion every phase of this game and you were never lynched. That's no easy feat, and you should be proud of it.

The only reason for those lynches being avoided was that I viewed as a scummy town, someone too scummy to be a wolf. What's there to be proud of in there? All of my reads were wrong and I literally town read the entire mafia squad. Even Ultra I leaned more on civ than scum. Kept pushing for the wrong ppl, never voted for a single scum and my play was detrimental and a distraction to town.

There is nothing respectable or to be proud of in my entire play this game.

While some people may have felt that way, there's a reason they ended up at "too scummy to be scum" instead of just "scum". It was because you never failed to fight for yourself, and you sounded authentic in the effort to do that. And that authenticity outweighed the suspicions people had of you for various little things.

It might not feel like it right now, but trust me: there's more to good town play than just making good reads. Indeed, many townies who make great reads don't actually contribute anything of substance because they don't pursue those reads with any effort. In my opinion, there are three core elements to playing a strong civilian game of Mafia (in no particular order):

1) Make good reads

2) Don't get lynched

3) Be a leader who promotes an environment conducive to productive hunting

You had a bad outing for #1. That happens to everyone. You nailed #2, and I think you were very much on target for #3. You did good things in this game.

I don't understand what was scummy about Jay. Dude provided all these big posts on player interactions and whatnot(albeit, didn't really lead anywhere), actually tried being a leader to some extent and was trying to game solve. The man was straight up powerwolfing. He was busting his ass to become a deep wolf. I'm surprised he didn't get that privilege.

Nah man that's absolutely not the case. You played well, you had legitimate suspicions that you reasoned out and followed with your gut and that is a style of town play that can be extremely crucial. I was mean and criticized your style bc I was trying to manipulate you into looking worse than you really looked, when really you were one of the most productive town players here, had one of the highest post counts and fought til the end for what you believed. You played well and don't let yourself think otherwise.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:08 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:56 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:51 pm They really did bus each other.

It didn't go your way in the end, but you played a super respectable game my dude. You faced suspicion every phase of this game and you were never lynched. That's no easy feat, and you should be proud of it.

The only reason for those lynches being avoided was that I viewed as a scummy town, someone too scummy to be a wolf. What's there to be proud of in there? All of my reads were wrong and I literally town read the entire mafia squad. Even Ultra I leaned more on civ than scum. Kept pushing for the wrong ppl, never voted for a single scum and my play was detrimental and a distraction to town.

There is nothing respectable or to be proud of in my entire play this game.

nah, don't be hard on yourself. We've all had bad games. Playing for the first time on a new website with all new players is never easy. You were appropriately town reading some people, you kept the momentum of the thread going, and you came close to suspecting nutella several times I believe. If you guys had nabbed one of Jay/nutella/Mac, who knows what crumbs you could have followed. So it wasn't as far as you think. You guys came close a lot of times, but never quite there in the end. It was a tough scum team to beat, but you played amazingly well and saved yourself. As a townie, one of your jobs is to not get lynched and you succeeded every day.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:13 pm I don't understand what was scummy about Jay. Dude provided all these big posts on player interactions and whatnot(albeit, didn't really lead anywhere), actually tried being a leader to some extent and was trying to game solve. The man was straight up powerwolfing. He was busting his ass to become a deep wolf. I'm surprised he didn't get that privilege.

I'll have to link you to some of his "town" games for comparison.

No player better epitomized the Town faction in this game than DDL. He had a 1-shot alignment cop ability. He spent the night debating between two targets: Jack and Epi. Both of them were killed on the only night he was eligible to use his shot. In spite of that, his reads ended up being completely on point, but then he was taken out right before LYLO after all the protective roles had been used up.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:13 pm I don't understand what was scummy about Jay. Dude provided all these big posts on player interactions and whatnot(albeit, didn't really lead anywhere), actually tried being a leader to some extent and was trying to game solve. The man was straight up powerwolfing. He was busting his ass to become a deep wolf. I'm surprised he didn't get that privilege.

DDL (and I before replacing in) was just able to identify scum Jay because of extensive familiarity with his town style. The differences are really subtle and you didn't have the privilege of having played with him several times before. And still, he basically was a deepwolf to most of the living town players toward the end.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:13 pm I don't understand what was scummy about Jay. Dude provided all these big posts on player interactions and whatnot(albeit, didn't really lead anywhere), actually tried being a leader to some extent and was trying to game solve. The man was straight up powerwolfing. He was busting his ass to become a deep wolf. I'm surprised he didn't get that privilege.

Believe it or not, what you saw in this game was about 60-70% of what you'd see from me in my civilian body. I feel that I have one of the most difficult civilian metas to match on the entire Internet, and for that reason I often don't even try -- I do enough to stay alive.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:13 pm I don't understand what was scummy about Jay. Dude provided all these big posts on player interactions and whatnot(albeit, didn't really lead anywhere), actually tried being a leader to some extent and was trying to game solve. The man was straight up powerwolfing. He was busting his ass to become a deep wolf. I'm surprised he didn't get that privilege.

This is where meta reading is handy. To an unfamiliar observer, he looks like the town leader. To folks who've played with him before, his play was shortsighted and erratic. He ignored things he wouldn't ordinarily ignore and focused on things he would not normally care about.

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:15 pm No player better epitomized the Town faction in this game than DDL. He had a 1-shot alignment cop ability. He spent the night debating between two targets: Jack and Epi. Both of them were killed on the only night he was eligible to use his shot. In spite of that, his reads ended up being completely on point, but then he was taken out right before LYLO after all the protective roles had been used up.

Defo.

shoutout to [mention]DrWilgy[/mention] too. he was on the right track.

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:17 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:13 pm I don't understand what was scummy about Jay. Dude provided all these big posts on player interactions and whatnot(albeit, didn't really lead anywhere), actually tried being a leader to some extent and was trying to game solve. The man was straight up powerwolfing. He was busting his ass to become a deep wolf. I'm surprised he didn't get that privilege.

This is where meta reading is handy. To an unfamiliar observer, he looks like the town leader. To folks who've played with him before, his play was shortsighted and erratic. He ignored things he wouldn't ordinarily ignore and focused on things he would not normally care about.

I absolutely capitalized on the fact that this game was populated by many people who don't know me as well.

also, lol that I was able to claim that I used the doctor shot on Lux when I really jailed her, even though she made a big deal puzzling out that she was roleblocked. I didn't actually know that Ultra had been the RB, but it's convenient that everyone seemed to just figure there must have been an RB out there and didn't question which JOAT ability I really used

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:17 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:13 pm I don't understand what was scummy about Jay. Dude provided all these big posts on player interactions and whatnot(albeit, didn't really lead anywhere), actually tried being a leader to some extent and was trying to game solve. The man was straight up powerwolfing. He was busting his ass to become a deep wolf. I'm surprised he didn't get that privilege.

This is where meta reading is handy. To an unfamiliar observer, he looks like the town leader. To folks who've played with him before, his play was shortsighted and erratic. He ignored things he wouldn't ordinarily ignore and focused on things he would not normally care about.

Owner was right, he also used wayyy too many smiley faces.

(of course she was dead by the time I claimed, perhaps she would have called it out)

I also think that if I do too good a job matching my civilian meta, it can hurt the rest of my team. I don't want the thread to catch fire. I want it to look like I want it to catch fire, perhaps.

Objective of a mafioso:

Lynch civilians

Not an objective of a mafioso:

Look like civilian self

I've been following this doctrine for years.

dunya wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:17 pm

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:15 pm No player better epitomized the Town faction in this game than DDL. He had a 1-shot alignment cop ability. He spent the night debating between two targets: Jack and Epi. Both of them were killed on the only night he was eligible to use his shot. In spite of that, his reads ended up being completely on point, but then he was taken out right before LYLO after all the protective roles had been used up.

Defo.

shoutout to @DrWilgy too. he was on the right track.

Even if Wilgy came in and got everything wrong he'd deserve some consideration for town MVP. I sent out a desperation PM to a few people when I'd all but given up on finding a sub for MP, and wilgy was the only one to volunteer. When he first jumped in I thought he was about to crack the game open, but it was just a bit too late.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:19 pm I also think that if I do too good a job matching my civilian meta, it can hurt the rest of my team. I don't want the thread to catch fire. I want it to look like I want it to catch fire, perhaps.

Yeah lol. You were so incredibly meticulous about making it look like you were actively discussing while actually not stoking activity and timing things so that the thread wouldn't get too excited about anything. So calculated.

I didn't read anything after I died. All I knew was this:

Epi is dead.
JJJ is alive.
JJJ is bad.
QED

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:11 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:08 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:56 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:51 pm They really did bus each other.

It didn't go your way in the end, but you played a super respectable game my dude. You faced suspicion every phase of this game and you were never lynched. That's no easy feat, and you should be proud of it.

The only reason for those lynches being avoided was that I viewed as a scummy town, someone too scummy to be a wolf. What's there to be proud of in there? All of my reads were wrong and I literally town read the entire mafia squad. Even Ultra I leaned more on civ than scum. Kept pushing for the wrong ppl, never voted for a single scum and my play was detrimental and a distraction to town.

There is nothing respectable or to be proud of in my entire play this game.

A civilian who's able to not get lynched is doing something right. And this is your first game in a new environment. You don't know the site-wide meta, or any individual player metas. What matters is that you, as a civilian, put your earnest thoughts into the thread and make a sincere effort to figure things out. I don't think anyone can fault you for not pegging a mafia team comprised of 4 strangers.

I disagree. A civilian that's only being town read for shit play is doing something wrong. I mean yeah, lack of meta knowledge affects my reads but only to some extent. I can still scum read players for what's in the their posts and stuff that isn't really related to meta. I doubt every scum read on the true scum players had to deal with meta. Ain't nobody knew Ultra's meta except Novas and I to some extent and see how he ended up. On the chopping block D1 lol(though, I guess a bus enforced that).

nutella wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:21 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:19 pm I also think that if I do too good a job matching my civilian meta, it can hurt the rest of my team. I don't want the thread to catch fire. I want it to look like I want it to catch fire, perhaps.

Yeah lol. You were so incredibly meticulous about making it look like you were actively discussing while actually not stoking activity and timing things so that the thread wouldn't get too excited about anything. So calculated.

Every single minute was counted and calculated.

Y'all saw me plotting every corner of this thread in the mafia chat so that it would form in the image I desired. I'm a nerd.

nutella wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:18 pm also, lol that I was able to claim that I used the doctor shot on Lux when I really jailed her, even though she made a big deal puzzling out that she was roleblocked. I didn't actually know that Ultra had been the RB, but it's convenient that everyone seemed to just figure there must have been an RB out there and didn't question which JOAT ability I really used

And if you hadn't jailed her, she would have jailed mac and prevented the kill from going through that night. Things would have been very different if that night had played out any other way.

[mention]Sloonei[/mention] can we publicize scumchat as well?

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:23 pm

nutella wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:18 pm also, lol that I was able to claim that I used the doctor shot on Lux when I really jailed her, even though she made a big deal puzzling out that she was roleblocked. I didn't actually know that Ultra had been the RB, but it's convenient that everyone seemed to just figure there must have been an RB out there and didn't question which JOAT ability I really used

And if you hadn't jailed her, she would have jailed mac and prevented the kill from going through that night. Things would have been very different if that night had played out any other way.

Right, yeah.

We also agonized over the n4 kill -- the classic "surely the doctor will protect the confirmed civ, but then he'd know that we'd expect him to do that, and he is not a great fool etc etc etc" and we went back and forth on that for a bit but we came to the right decision.

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:22 pm

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:11 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:08 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:56 pm

Dragomir wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:51 pm They really did bus each other.

It didn't go your way in the end, but you played a super respectable game my dude. You faced suspicion every phase of this game and you were never lynched. That's no easy feat, and you should be proud of it.

The only reason for those lynches being avoided was that I viewed as a scummy town, someone too scummy to be a wolf. What's there to be proud of in there? All of my reads were wrong and I literally town read the entire mafia squad. Even Ultra I leaned more on civ than scum. Kept pushing for the wrong ppl, never voted for a single scum and my play was detrimental and a distraction to town.

There is nothing respectable or to be proud of in my entire play this game.

A civilian who's able to not get lynched is doing something right. And this is your first game in a new environment. You don't know the site-wide meta, or any individual player metas. What matters is that you, as a civilian, put your earnest thoughts into the thread and make a sincere effort to figure things out. I don't think anyone can fault you for not pegging a mafia team comprised of 4 strangers.

I disagree. A civilian that's only being town read for shit play is doing something wrong. I mean yeah, lack of meta knowledge affects my reads but only to some extent. I can still scum read players for what's in the their posts and stuff that isn't really related to meta. I doubt every scum read on the true scum players had to deal with meta. Ain't nobody knew Ultra's meta except Novas and I to some extent and see how he ended up. On the chopping block D1 lol(though, I guess a bus enforced that).

The most important thing about civilians in my book is that they need to function as a team. No individual player is ever going to solve the game on their own. That is literally impossible. It requires a full team effort, and part of that effort always involves townies who are able to show themselves to be town while working through their thoughts in the thread with other people. You did all of those things. The accuracy of reads in any given game is always going to be the key variable. Getting them wrong on one occasion doesn't mean poor play.

BUT if you do feel you didn't play your best game, I look forward to seeing what it looks like when you do feel you're at your best.

nutella wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:24 pm @Sloonei can we publicize scumchat as well?

I was gonna ask if you guys are okay with that. You're the ones who were posting in it, for the most part. It's up to you whether that gets published or not.

Sloonei wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:28 pm

nutella wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:24 pm @Sloonei can we publicize scumchat as well?

I was gonna ask if you guys are okay with that. You're the ones who were posting in it, for the most part. It's up to you whether that gets published or not.

I don't object.

Hey [mention]novaselinenever[/mention] guess what

This will probably be my last game for quite a while.

Thanks for a great game, Sloonei.

MacDougall wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:29 pm Hey @novaselinenever guess what

lol poor nova

scumchat for the morbidly curious https://www.quicktopic.com/52/H/26LK2KPamm7Az

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:30 pm This will probably be my last game for quite a while.

Thanks for a great game, Sloonei.

All I did was copy & paste a bunch of things from elsewhere and let you guys run it out.

MacDougall wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:50 pm DDL you were amazing.

I don't know what it happened but it happened. I finally learned to scumhunt.

I just need to learn how to convince other people now.

I was 100% certain of Jay and Nutella when I came back at the last second.

Still wouldn't have gotten Mac.

Trying to suspect Jay or Nutella was legitimately annoying. I did not enjoy it.

"I don't think Epi is going to actually attempt to get me lynched. He rarely actually tries to push wagons. He just takes potshots and then complains when people don't agree. " -Mac

This guy.

Thanks again to [mention]nutella[/mention], [mention]MacDougall[/mention], and [mention]Ultra[/mention] for giving a great effort and securing this sucker. I've never had a better set of mafia teammates.

Looking at scumchat.

Wish you guys had just killed me. :P

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 9:55 pm I have a feeling many of the corpses and neutral observers knew that I was bad. I definitely played this one to my audience -- a game filled with newcomers. To people who don't know me, Diet Supertown Jimmy is still a considerable effort.

People need to learn there is a difference between physical and emotional effort.

ISOs and all the other busywork you did take a lot of physical effort. That's why I said I commended you for it regardlessly of your alignment. But what separates the civs from the baddies is the emotional effort. Actually lying and convincing people you are hunting with a straight face. I didn't feel like you were actually connected with the game like I did in the 10 times I played with civ you.

Welp, 2 out of 3 games I was right about lynching Jay. Not perfect but I guess I'm onto something.

speedchuck wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:33 pm Trying to suspect Jay or Nutella was legitimately annoying. I did not enjoy it.

Sorry man, I really gave you a hard time this game and I actually feel kinda bad about it.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2019 10:33 pm "I don't think Epi is going to actually attempt to get me lynched. He rarely actually tries to push wagons. He just takes potshots and then complains when people don't agree. " -Mac

This guy.

Good job on winning this, guys. This wasn't just town missplays, you did a pretty strong effort in looking town.