I went back and checked my real first game before I had the doll account recently and unfortunately the posting style was distinctive enough that someone could actually draw the comparison
My first game as doll (P25 or w/e) was still pretty embarassing, it was pretty clear I didn't understand the difference between 'scum' and 'anti-town' so I had no way forward from arguing with bad!town and largely gave up because of it
tbh there's no level of bad that can't be excused by making an honest effort, so long as there's enough life in the game that your activity causes you to slip and clear yourself and the other players can find scum while moving 'around you', so to speak
But yeah, there's nothing I could reccomend more than 'lurk moar' as advice for new players. b12 is archived and even has a guide to games to read (though it's far from perfect) so anyone who has literal personal time to read can get up to a pretty strong level through reading a lot of games and then suffering through one game as a newfag before they get their feet under them
The real struggle is that you can't get experience as scum easily since you're statistically unlikely to roll it and so even otherwise strong players can suffer.
I, for one, have had one single scum game on b12/a forum and it was a dead game where I had to play a town game to keep it alive and I have no third party experience, not that third parties are really anything other than cops