The Game [N]

On March 20 2013 23:29 zarepath wrote:


I want to know why Ace thought WoS was town.

On March 21 2013 01:56 Mocsta wrote:
With the information standing.. this is fuckn suspicious, and whose pushing the VE vote. its ACE

Why cant he be the mirror?

Seriously.. why the fuck would VE out himself like this...

I dont see what layabout posted has anythign to do with it.. OK hes a compulsive claimer..perhaps.. surely thats only as blue roles.. not a claimer as scum/3rd party.. The whole situation doesnt make sense.

On March 21 2013 02:17 DoYouHas wrote:


You are pretty sure town had 2 vig? GreY was a pseudo mason-vig.

On March 21 2013 02:36 VisceraEyes wrote:
What Ace? Just kill me dude, I'm helping you! What's the problem?

On March 21 2013 02:45 VisceraEyes wrote:
Could I not have left that line out if I actually accepted? Like I can't believe this idea is even feasible to town. Why would anyone think I actually accepted being brought into a cult IF I BRING IT TO THE THREAD AND OUT THAT IT EXISTS WHEN THERE'S BEEN NO INDICATION THAT IT EXISTS AT ALL PRIOR?!

Blazinghand in the Obs QT
Mocsta the point is that this town isn't actually incompetent. Town competence is measured in a different way than most people think. Let me explain: During late D1 and N1, when we were discussing NKs, the three NKs I pushed hardest were: GreyMist, Ace, VE, Sandroba, and Mr. Wiggles. I also had a few others I was thinking about, but those guys I really wanted dead. Why? Because right or wrong, these guys are natural leaders.

And although I was initially thinking "I hope scum wins, town doesn't deserve to win this" I really think I've walked back that sentiment. A lot of townies individually played quite well given the circumstances. This strikes me as a pretty average TL town in terms of quality, but a few bad mislynches has deprived the town of leaders. Early in the game, leaders are pretty important. Town is flailing around right now not because this town is incompetent, but because the conversational elements necessary to catch scum have all been lynched or shot before they could really develop.

Zona once mentioned there are different player archetypes and they fit together interestingly. Some players, like me, check the thread a lot and post a lot. Some players check the thread a few times a day, and read the full thread, and post a fair amount. Some players only check in once or twice a day, and post more rarely. Orthogonally, you can also classify town player's skill level / mindset. A small number of townies are actively bad. Not talking about those atm. Another slightly larger group of townies is able to cut through the chaff and find scum, posting excellent cases. These guys, when they roll town, are town leaders. The majority of town players are not town leaders, but can recognize a good and well-founded case when they see one. This is why it's so important as scum to eliminate townies who can lead good lynches.

When we shot VE and Keirathi N1 it was because they are both capable of stabilizing town and leading it. Luckily, VE has a big weakness for pissing contests, so when he survived, I was able to OMGUS him pretty hard and prevent him from being effective at least until I was shot. Our N2 hits were on Vivax and Sciberbia. Normally Vivax wouldn't merit a hit but one of us had gotten a blueread on him. Sciberbia was on our short list of "potential town leaders" along with VE, which is why he was shot. We still weren't sure what the deal was with VE and he was unbalanced enough we were willing to let him live another day. Basically, we were shooting calm guys who were capable of corralling the typical townie, the average player who knows a good case when he sees it but has trouble constantly writing them in the heat of the game. The Lynches D1, D2, and D3 basically helped behead town.

The N3 kills I didn't have input on, being dead, but the VE shot is obvious: the man can't be allowed to gain momentum. All my attempts to fling shit at him died with my flip, which means he was going to be obvious-town leader going into the lategame. The coag shot was more questionable, but we basically shot him because 1) he was gradually catching us all, and 2) some players thought he blueslipped. FWIW I think coag would have been valuable to town at LYLO just because the guy has some good analysis skills, despite what was said.

The N5 kills were a bit funny. We didn't meant to shoot DP/Test, we meant to shoot TPS/Test, but the host accidentally flipped DP and Test and there's no taking that back. TPS because he was gradually calming down, Test since he shot me. DP wasn't the worst accidental NK but not a valuable one either.

You'll note that looking at the list of players alive right now, although it's not like these dudes are obviously bad, there are no leaders to provide direction. Most of the town leaders died via lynch or were really mad when they died, so their last words were not recorded or referenced seriously by the others. I don't think this town was unusually bad, but the leadership was shot out from under them, the thread was chaotic, and a lot of scum players played really well. I'd have been lynched eventually, but town now is rudderless. Ace, Wiggles, VE, Kei, Sandro/Moc, Grey, Scib-- there are a lot of people who might have united town and fought us. Even Ace, for all his follies, at least would have been able to direct the lynch.

On March 30 2013 18:11 RyuSuzaku wrote:


yeah speaking of, I read your post about meta and I disagree to an extent.

Having talked to Foolishness (and having used his ideas) meta is IMO, a lot of the time, really really important. There are a lot of players who play wildly differently based on alignment.

With that said, I can agree with your general sentiment, not because meta is bad, but because it is used badly. I know it's been discussed quite a bit before, but I think the biggest failing is that people associate any change in behavior with a change in alignment. Games are not one to one, and context needs to be considered. Most important obviously though is the motivation for an action, and I think that's a problem with town analysis in general, not just meta analysis.

I think the biggest problem town had this game was focusing on the motivation behind the actions of players, rather than simply looking at what they were doing. I know it's stressed in Ver's guide but I still don't think people focus on it enough. It's hard, but I don't think the conscious effort is always there.

From a scum perspective meta and motivation are important too; it's how we pegged Vivax as a blue. Both kita and myself pegged Vivax as blue day 1 for separate reasons (read the QT for more) and it was primarily based on the motivation behind different posts he made. kita pegged him on a meta-analysis of his games, and I pegged him based on a single sentence he said. Since both of us agreed on it we were pretty confident he was blue, so he became a priority kill on n2 (though on n1 we chose to ignore him)

On March 31 2013 10:37 layabout wrote:
oh and lynching cosmic was silly because for all town new a mafia lynch would have reduced KP, they had a big pool of players that in all likelihood were not mafia (cosmic, VE, test, WoS probably TPS), and lynching him would put them at lylo or, if i was town and the 3p dying killed us both would have given mafia the win then and there.

cosmic's case on kitaman was in my opnion the strongest case in the game and if you overlooked it i would like to know why.

On March 31 2013 10:56 layabout wrote:
The mechanic worked around being masoned for a certain length of time* and whoever was masoned could end it whenever they choose.

+ Show Spoiler [*] +