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[makeinu]

The main reason that I haven't done much so far is simply lack of time, had a big new years. I've got a bit more spare time now, so I'm going to get out there and scum hunt.

Being busy is fine. Life has a way of doing that. You don't need to tell us you're "going to get out there and scum hunt" now that it's slowed down for you. That's expected. But it's a little late in the game (literally) to be bringing general RVS questions to the table. Re-read the thread.

Who are your top scum leads? Town? What has given you pause yet?

Makeinu- It's day one, and you have narrowed your lynching choices down to 2. One has been acting very scummy, but the other has only posted once. Do you lynch the likely scum, or policy lunch the lurker? Why?

Scum lynch. Always scum lynch.

Policy lynch for lurkers is a last-ditch, I've-got-nothing-else, tactic. Yes, lurking looks scummy, already been over that, but lurking isn't by itself a scum-tell.

You need to bringing more to the game, here. The Town needs you.

[Superblackcat]

Jembot: Do I get a doc? A protector of sorts?

(If yes, I push for the vote, if no, I soft claim).

Also. On forums, I go by the policy to never lurk lynch. Lurkers on forums are rarely mafia if they lurk from the start.

Sinlessmoon: CAN YOU STOP PMing TIRUIN AND POST HERE? OR IS THAT TOO HARD FOR YOU? YOU MIGHT WANT TO TRY SOMETHING ELSE... SOMETHING THAT'S NOT CALLED MAFIA. STOP RUINING OUR GAMES!

[Nerjin]

THe game is not ruined. It's simply spoiled slightly by truancy.

[makeinu]

THe game is not ruined. It's simply spoiled slightly by truancy.

*puts on Drama Queen hat*

No! It's ruined! Just like that cake that got left out in the rain!


I was gonna eat that cake... but now I don't want any!

*dances away*

[mastahcheese]

Superblackcat:

Scum, more often than not, will give the correct reasoning, as opposed to their reasoning. This draws less attention, and scum tries to think how to make it so no one notices them, or dislike their answer. Townies care a lot less, and are much more happy to come out and say what they think. Many times, I've seen players go ballistic about what someone said. When that's what they think. It's not a scum tell, in fact, much more of a town tell.

I think that calling it a "town tell" might be a bit of a stretch, as I've heard that some people literally don't even check their inbox until the 1st night begins, so they have perfect ignorance of their own alignment. If they are scum, even they don't know it, if they have a role, they are completely unaware of it. Some people can gracefully ignore who they are, and just be themselves, as paradoxical as it sounds. I'll even use what Persus pointed out against me, saying that I dislike lynching lurkers, when me two biggest leads seem to be lurkers. Does that make me scummy? Am I a hypocrite? Or is it simply a misunderstanding? Actually, what do you think I am? What read do you get on me, now that I'm thinking of it?

This happened in two BM games so far. Towards d3 and d4 they seemed more scummy, but by then I was dead. >.>

Squill in the earlier BM, and Persus in BM Sprint. Both of them did this. Both of them were scum.

Ok, answer me this, why do you think they acted more scummy later on? Were they slipping up? Did their words start to not add up anymore? Did they get over-confident? What was it?

A big part that I disagree with is the emphasis on 'reasoning'. I don't think we are trying to reason who is scum, we are looking for anomalies, things that aren't human-like. Things that appear weird, or appear weird not appearing weird. This show us scum, because of the amount of pretending a scum person has to do, they start to create an anomaly. For example... On d2 of sprint, I saw an anomaly, Scum would have stacked votes by now, considering top vote was only 2 players, if who we were voting were scum. But instead, nothing happened. I commented on it, I was absolutely correct, but I didn't act on it, and lost.

What this seems to me is that you value someone's "gut" feeling about someone, more so than evidence, at least in the absence of verifiable evidence. If all I have going for someone is my gut feeling, is that as valid as having some sort of "proof" of a scum tell?

makeinu:

Makeinu Why such an interest to what I think about scum hunting? Trying to improve your game? ;P

Ha ha, no.

Ok, then, I'll ask the question for Superblackcat again. Why such an interest to what Superblackcat thinks about scum hunting?

Makeinu, So if you are scum, and given my reasoning, how do you think you will vote? How much wifom would you use off of my reasoning?

-snip-
Turns out, people don't like robots that become too human, because they're close, but not close enough. We react the same way to physical and mental deficits, subconsciously. That's what happens when scum try to come off as Town, instead of just playing the game as they would if they were Town. They seem off because they are off.

With that argument, you could make the claim that a scum-tell is in fact a town-tell due to the fact that real scum would never slip up like that. In that case, we shouldn't be hunting for people who slip up, we should hunt for people who don't, under the concept that they wouldn't allow themselves that slip. What's your opinion of this analysis?

Jembot:

Mastahcheese- You are town and are at L-1, but haven't really done anything particularly scummy. Do you claim or do anything townish, or just hope someone else does something scummy to take attention off you?

Saying I'm town is meaningless. Honestly, I would probably just let myself get killed, but make sure to question the heck out of people's motives before I go. Being vanilla town means that you don't have to survive, sometimes the information gleamed from your death can be used to give the rest of the town a chance. I wouldn't be there anymore, but my impact would be lasting. Which is more important to you? Self preservation, to hunt scum yourself, or knowledge that can be used by your fellow townsmen?

[Superblackcat]

Superblackcat:

Scum, more often than not, will give the correct reasoning, as opposed to their reasoning. This draws less attention, and scum tries to think how to make it so no one notices them, or dislike their answer. Townies care a lot less, and are much more happy to come out and say what they think. Many times, I've seen players go ballistic about what someone said. When that's what they think. It's not a scum tell, in fact, much more of a town tell.

I think that calling it a "town tell" might be a bit of a stretch, as I've heard that some people literally don't even check their inbox until the 1st night begins, so they have perfect ignorance of their own alignment. If they are scum, even they don't know it, if they have a role, they are completely unaware of it. Some people can gracefully ignore who they are, and just be themselves, as paradoxical as it sounds. I'll even use what Persus pointed out against me, saying that I dislike lynching lurkers, when me two biggest leads seem to be lurkers. Does that make me scummy? Am I a hypocrite? Or is it simply a misunderstanding? Actually, what do you think I am? What read do you get on me, now that I'm thinking of it?

This happened in two BM games so far. Towards d3 and d4 they seemed more scummy, but by then I was dead. >.>

Squill in the earlier BM, and Persus in BM Sprint. Both of them did this. Both of them were scum.

Ok, answer me this, why do you think they acted more scummy later on? Were they slipping up? Did their words start to not add up anymore? Did they get over-confident? What was it?

Mastahcheese: I don't have a tell on anyone, much less someone who's posted less than 10 times...

Persus won the game, but he was scummy because the voting action wasn't correct in the last 10 minutes...

Squill was attacked after people realized that he managed to evade attention for such a long time, and in the end... Well I'm not actually so sure what happened in the end. I do believe town won by pure luck, and Imp basically gave up, voted at random, and voted correctly... (I really should read the 50 pages of the BM game).

Gut feeling is valued as much as evidence, role evidence exempt. Role evidence is the best evidence, and will always be... Unless we start adding naive, fool, paranoid, cops and stuff into games.

(Which isn't in this game).

[makeinu]

makeinu:

Makeinu Why such an interest to what I think about scum hunting? Trying to improve your game? ;P

Ha ha, no.

Ok, then, I'll ask the question for Superblackcat again. Why such an interest to what Superblackcat thinks about scum hunting?

Why? Because you don't have any questions of your own to ask?

I want to understand SBC's scum-hunting for the same reason I want to understand everyone's. If I'm stuck in a lynch-correctly-or-lose scenario, I want to know if I can trust him to be able to make the right decision, or if he's going to fly off half-cocked, chasing a whim, because he's been off in NeverNeverLand this whole time.

Makeinu, So if you are scum, and given my reasoning, how do you think you will vote? How much wifom would you use off of my reasoning?

-snip-
Turns out, people don't like robots that become too human, because they're close, but not close enough. We react the same way to physical and mental deficits, subconsciously. That's what happens when scum try to come off as Town, instead of just playing the game as they would if they were Town. They seem off because they are off.

With that argument, you could make the claim that a scum-tell is in fact a town-tell due to the fact that real scum would never slip up like that. In that case, we shouldn't be hunting for people who slip up, we should hunt for people who don't, under the concept that they wouldn't allow themselves that slip. What's your opinion of this analysis?

I think you're over-thinking it.

Here's the thing: Town doing real scum-hunting often look like scum because they're not nice about it. They jump to conclusions, they point fingers at random or with no fact-basiss to back it up, they say stupid stuff, they contradict themselves.

In short: they're human.

What SBC described was perfectly the Uncanny Valley. He described scum being so careful to tend their words and deeds that they did none of those things above, because they know they're scum, and they don't want to look scummy.

But real players don't play that way, unless their new or naive or just bad at playing. Some players have very obvious scum-tells as part of their meta (see, Nerjin, it does play some value, even if it's a terrible thing to assume your fellow combatants are stupid). One player I know refuses to lie. She's horrible scum, feels guilty about it, because the whole thing violates her entire ethos. One game she was an investigator, she got an entire role-claim, in private, and refused to share it with those she actually had cleared and trusted because she promised she'd keep it secret.

Most players aren't that obvious. What looks like a good scum-tell, or a scum-slip, might just very well be them actively engaging in scum-hunting, or it might be a genuine tell, but without a Cop investigation, you'll never know, will you?

So, stop thinking so hard. Just pick a glass and drink the damn wine, because both glasses are poisoned, and the other guy's immune.

And ask your own questions.

[mastahcheese]

Unvote

Why? Because you don't have any questions of your own to ask?
-snip-
So, stop thinking so hard. Just pick a glass and drink the damn wine, because both glasses are poisoned, and the other guy's immune.
And ask your own questions.

Why should I not ask a question that you failed to answer? If it's sitting right in front of me, completely untouched, does that mean I should take it up myself?
What you're suggesting is that I voluntarily limit the amount of weapons and tactics I use to hunt scum with, and not only is that an incredibly bad idea, it's advice that I, personally, would never give to someone.
If you have a weapon, you'd better freaking use it, whether it's someone else's or not. And I can guarantee that I'm not the only one who feels that way, calling someone out on failing to answer a question isn't lazy, it's called scumhunting, where you find where they slip up, and act on it.
So tell me, makeinu, why would you have me limit the amount of weapons at my disposal? Are you trying to make me an ineffective scumhunter? Why are you dodging questions in the first place?

[makeinu]

Why should I not ask a question that you failed to answer?

I fail to see how I failed to answer his question.

Of course, I also apparently fail to see what prompted that question in the first place, except that I questioned why he would go along with the assertion that #2 must be scum in this scenario:

Superblackcat: After a townie lynch, the first and third person to vote for them begin to place accusations on the second, what do you do?

For the second question: I start to become suspicious of all three, but more so of the third person than the second.

Why would you be suspicious of the second person in that scenario, but not the first?

Because scum does not like drawing attention to themselves... Voting first/last draws attention. Sheeping 2nd or 3rd usually draws way less attention, that's why I become suspicious of the 2nd or 3rd.

To my mind, that scenario screams of scum railroading on voter 2. It's a perfect setup scenario, because of thinking like yours here.

And I stand by my reasoning there. Assuming that the first vote is attention-getting and therefore Town is faulty logic and lazy scum-hunting. The players holding scum roles are people too, and people don't do what you expect them to.

[mastahcheese]

Why should I not ask a question that you failed to answer?

I fail to see how I failed to answer his question.

Then how come you didn't mention this before answering my repeat of it?
If you had answered the question in the first place, then you shouldn't have tried to criticize me for repeating it, you should have pointed me to the original answer, but you didn't, because they wasn't an original answer, and you knew that.

Of course, I also apparently fail to see what prompted that question in the first place, except that I questioned why he would go along with the assertion that #2 must be scum in this scenario:

You don't need a prompt, you ask questions to find scum. That's all the prompt you need, and nothing more is needed. Period.
And you even provide an example of a prompt yourself! The assertion in the scenario! You're already contradicting yourself without even a period in-between the points.

And I stand by my reasoning there. Assuming that the first vote is attention-getting and therefore Town is faulty logic and lazy scum-hunting. The players holding scum roles are people too, and people don't do what you expect them to.

You've already outlined exactly how scum should act, according to you, ironically, in your own words, like you say they won't do. You've basically been displaying actions as the polar opposite of how you say scum should act.
You say that scum act like robots, being too perfect and careful, so you make sure to fill your posts with your own writing style, and pump it up with your little smiley face to make you seem friendly.
Quite frankly, you seem to be radiating scummyness to me right now.

[Persus13]

SBC:

Persus won the game, but he was scummy because the voting action wasn't correct in the last 10 minutes...

Actually, I had the correct voting action for scum as I was voting a town player. And I had been consistently voting the two people I had said I believed to be scum (one was my scumbuddy) and got the town one lynched. I think you're blowing the failure of scum to stack bigger than it is. Tiruin and I were focusing on appearing town in that game more than assuring a quick win (it didn't help that I was at school when the day ended). In another game I played, two scum players voted a third scum player at the beginning of the day, and that scum player was eventually lynched. And the scum could've won that day if they had lynched a townie. The scum won two days later because the two players who bussed their teammate lost a lot of suspicion from that, and because a town player sided with a fourth scum player who got counterclaimed, resulting in both getting lynched. The whole point of this is that many times scum will care more about looking town than going for a win. Scum can always play for time, if necessary, in order to appear less suspicious.

That's not to say how people vote doesn't matter, it can. There's a whole thread devoted to whether statistics determine who scum or town players are. But, enerally as other people have stated, you also have to look at the reasons behind the vote. Accounting for RVS votes, or voting someone you want them to answer something or post are uses of votes that shouldn't factor into the equation.

Jembot:

Persus- You are scum, and someone claims cop and calls you scum. What do you do?

It depends on the situation. One thing I'd try to do is distance myself from the other scum players. Then, depending on the setup and how the vote lies, I either counterclaim him or say that since I'm town, he must be wrong somehow, and look for things that are scummy about him.

Makeinu:

But it's a little late in the game (literally) to be bringing general RVS questions to the table. Re-read the thread.

Why are you telling him not to RVS? Last I checked no one really had any scum picks and no one has appeared to be acting scummy. I'd say that now is fine to RVS. I did a similar thing with Jembot and MOWE. Why didn't you have a problem with that?

Some players have very obvious scum-tells as part of their meta (see, Nerjin, it does play some value, even if it's a terrible thing to assume your fellow combatants are stupid). One player I know refuses to lie. She's horrible scum, feels guilty about it, because the whole thing violates her entire ethos. One game she was an investigator, she got an entire role-claim, in private, and refused to share it with those she actually had cleared and trusted because she promised she'd keep it secret.

You keep bringing this up a lot. So this one player was really bad at being scum, as you yourself say, not everyone's like that and no one here is. So why do you keep bringing this one example up?

Mastahcheese:

Mastahcheese:

•Sinlessmoon - Hasn't said a word. I dislike the "D1 policy lurker lynch" as a general principle, but it's wasting out time. I say Lurker.
•Jembot - Hasn't said a whole lot. Hasn't made much of an attempt to ask questions, either. I say slightly scum/absentee.
•

So despite disliking lynching lurkers, you're two top scum picks are lurkers?

I don't dislike lynching lurkers, I dislike the fact that there seems to be a trend in the games I've read where there's always a lurker on day 1 who ends up flipping town. But you can't not lynch them on the chance that they are actually scum trying to go under the radar.
That said, it's a necessary evil, and I dislike necessary evils, particularly when you could get more out of an active player.
I don't think Sinlessmoon is scum, but that's not a chance we can afford to make.
As for Jembot, I don't think he's lurking, as he's participating, just not very much. And even with the very slow pace of the game as it is right now, I tend to find myself barely noticing them. It feels like it's just enough to not be active-lurking, not so low that it draws suspicion, but not enough to be easily remembered. I've seen no attempt from them at trying to scumhunt, even with the most basic of attempts. They've been a very reactive force, and not an active one. I just get a scum vibe from them in general.

If you find someone who is scummier than Sinless, who would you rather lynch?

And I stand by my reasoning there. Assuming that the first vote is attention-getting and therefore Town is faulty logic and lazy scum-hunting. The players holding scum roles are people too, and people don't do what you expect them to.

You've already outlined exactly how scum should act, according to you, ironically, in your own words, like you say they won't do. You've basically been displaying actions as the polar opposite of how you say scum should act.
You say that scum act like robots, being too perfect and careful, so you make sure to fill your posts with your own writing style, and pump it up with your little smiley face to make you seem friendly.
Quite frankly, you seem to be radiating scummyness to me right now.

What's your case on Makeinu besides the fact that he's acting the opposite of what you would expect?

[mastahcheese]

If you find someone who is scummier than Sinless, who would you rather lynch?

Well, I think my new vote on makeinu speaks for itself at this point.

What's your case on Makeinu besides the fact that he's acting the opposite of what you would expect?

He's telling us to do stuff that would make un ineffective scumhunters, he told me not to use other people's questions, you even got on him yourself on his comments about RVS at this stage.
He keeps going on about how scum should act, seemingly to me to draw attention to it. If it looks like you're trying to help people find scum, then you look town, but he isn't helping.
And who in their right mind would tell someone to not think hard in Mafia? He's trying to criticize people for what are very common techniques, and that's not right.

[makeinu]

Why should I not ask a question that you failed to answer?

I fail to see how I failed to answer his question.

Then how come you didn't mention this before answering my repeat of it?
If you had answered the question in the first place, then you shouldn't have tried to criticize me for repeating it, you should have pointed me to the original answer, but you didn't, because they wasn't an original answer, and you knew that.

Incorrect. My answer to his question was what prompted his question, namely that I called him out for lazy thinking in writing off he first lynch vote as automatically Town because it draws attention, without discounting the third, hammer, vote as Town because it actually draws more attention.

Which, the more I think of it, the lazier and more poorly thought out it seems.

Superblackcat, in that scenario, why exactly is #3 a scum vote when it's the most attention getting vote of the three? That violates your own logic in suspecting #2. Explain.

And I stand by my reasoning there. Assuming that the first vote is attention-getting and therefore Town is faulty logic and lazy scum-hunting. The players holding scum roles are people too, and people don't do what you expect them to.

You've already outlined exactly how scum should act, according to you, ironically, in your own words, like you say they won't do. You've basically been displaying actions as the polar opposite of how you say scum should act.
You say that scum act like robots, being too perfect and careful, so you make sure to fill your posts with your own writing style, and pump it up with your little smiley face to make you seem friendly.

I should fill my posts with someone else's writnig style, perhaps? And I'm actually using far fewer smiley faces than I normally would here. I miss the ones I'm used to; they're much better at communicating sarcasm. 


PPE:

Makeinu:

But it's a little late in the game (literally) to be bringing general RVS questions to the table. Re-read the thread.

Why are you telling him not to RVS? Last I checked no one really had any scum picks and no one has appeared to be acting scummy. I'd say that now is fine to RVS. I did a similar thing with Jembot and MOWE. Why didn't you have a problem with that?

I'm asking him to be more specific. There's enough out there that there's no reason at this late in the day to be asking general, vague, questions of everyone.

You keep bringing this up a lot. So this one player was really bad at being scum, as you yourself say, not everyone's like that and no one here is. So why do you keep bringing this one example up?

One, she's my favorite example of meta-failure, and it's use in scum-hunting.

Two, just because you've heard it before doesn't necessarily mean everyone has.

And who in their right mind would tell someone to not think hard in Mafia? He's trying to criticize people for what are very common techniques, and that's not right.

I'm telling you not to over-think, mastahcheese, because over-thinking leads to thinking yourself in circles. It  also leads to bad cases of Confirmation Bias. That's advice to everyone as IC. There's a reason WIFOM is a meta in mafia games.

[mastahcheese]

Why should I not ask a question that you failed to answer?

I fail to see how I failed to answer his question.

Then how come you didn't mention this before answering my repeat of it?
If you had answered the question in the first place, then you shouldn't have tried to criticize me for repeating it, you should have pointed me to the original answer, but you didn't, because they wasn't an original answer, and you knew that.

Incorrect. My answer to his question was what prompted his question, namely that I called him out for lazy thinking in writing off he first lynch vote as automatically Town because it draws attention, without discounting the third, hammer, vote as Town because it actually draws more attention.

Which, the more I think of it, the lazier and more poorly thought out it seems.

Superblackcat, in that scenario, why exactly is #3 a scum vote when it's the most attention getting vote of the three? That violates your own logic in suspecting #2. Explain.

Don't try to change the subject back to the original question.
You say that he asked after you answered his question, and that is your answer? Either you answered his question before he even asked it, or he asked a second question (which HE DID) that you failed to answer, and that's why I brought it up.
And why, once again, would you not have me use someone else's questions, if you failed to answer them? All you say is that it's lazy, so it's better to ignore the fact that you're dodging the question, is what you're saying?

[Superblackcat]

Persus:

Given that we were winning a vote on scum with 2 votes, and there were to scums left.. Would you have changed your vote? (especially on LYLO)

That is inherently impossible. Therefore, whoever we voted could NOT have been scum.

That's what I'm talking about... you felt safe that town was lynched, thus you stopped focusing on the game as much, and did your school and stuff. But if you weren't pretty sure you were going to win... you would always have this nagging feeling to come back to the thread and check if something changed or not.

Makeinu: please quote?