Ensemble Mafia - N5

[Ryker]

I am looking forward to tonight where I get to make a super long post.

[🔥YOLOSWAG🔥]

aw sheyit

here we go.....

[Kriemhild]

Before I post my thoughts and reads, I want to make something clear: IT IS NEVER A GOOD TO IDEA TO DRAW ATTENTION TO ANY READS THAT YOU HAVE WHILE CONSCIOUSLY NOT EXPLAINING OR JUSTIFYING IT

(for those of you who understand why this is never a good idea, ignore the following spoiler)

[spoiler=Why it's never a good idea]For a Townie, this is an extremely unproductive thing to do. Of course, if you find someone scummy, you would vote for them in order to pursue a lynch. However, an individual vote alone will not lead to a lynch. If you want the target to be lynched, you'll need to convince other players that the target is lynched. And if you want to convince anyone, you will, of course, have to explain to them why you think your target is scum.

Furthermore, by providing your explanations, you're doing your part in contributing to the activity of the game. If everyone just voted without any explanations, there would be no relevant discussions, and it would be a game of chance where you try to figure out who the bad guys are purely from voting decisions and no discussions whatsoever. Of course, the Mafia would have the advantage if it all boiled to chance, so every Townie should do their part to keep the discussions running and make this an actual proper logical game of deception instead of letting it be a dumb game of chance.

And of course, by explaining your reads and contributing to meaningful discussion, you also allow others to get a better read on you. This is bad for the Mafia, because they might be caught as scum. But a Townie should not have to worry about this. So players who refuse to provide explanations would probably be Mafia, since Town would not benefit from a discussion-less environment.

Now, it's a perfectly normal tactic to wait for someone's reaction first, in order to help solidify your read before revealing your complete reasons. This is quite common too, where scum are baited to slip up by sharp Townies. However, if you want to get someone's reaction, you need to give them something to react to. Even if you don't want to reveal your complete reasons, you should at least convey some reasoning that would incite proper reactions, other than the useless "why are you voting X?" responses.

And finally, if it's a scenario where your reasons are due to information that you possess which you don't want to reveal, such as if you acquired this info from your role or an application of your role, then you should not draw attention to this read in the first place. Drawing attention to it would make players try to guess at your true reasons, and Townies may unfortunately suspect the wrong conclusion. If you're afraid that scum would shoot you if you revealed your info, that may backfire because your blatant declaration might make scum think that you have valuable info that would make you a good scum target and so they'll shoot you anyway. So in general, drawing attention to your reads while not explaining them is a bad thing to do. If you happen to fall in this situation where you have relevant role-related info, then you should either a) declare that the source of the info is from your role, even if you don't claim your full role, or (since this might put you in danger) you can b) subtly try to guide other players to turn against your target, such as by building your own case or supporting someone else's case, without actually exposing that you have other reasons that you're not telling.

Now, on to my actual player thoughts, in no particular order:

Ryker - Strongest scumread. Here are the main reasons why:

- The whole "reads without explanation" already draws red flags. Of course, it could just be unproductive-townplay, so this isn't a strong reason, but that's where the other points come in.

- Forgetting votes. As mentioned above, Refa asked about a Blitzy vote and Ryker was explaining an Irony vote that he never even made. Apparently Ryker forgot he was voting Blitz. This really sounds like Mafia trying to invent reads and slipping up. An actual Townie would not conveniently forget their genuine scumreads.

- Actively sheeping Elemina, and even explicitly admitted that he was sheeping Elemina and had no other reasons for some of his actions. This is an extremely scummy thing to do because it really seems like you're trying to escape responsibility and making Elemina take on the spotlight instead. So you would hope that any issues with his decisions would be lashed out against Elemina instead while he gets away scot-free. Sorry, Ryker, that's not happening, because the sheeping is far more suspicious. You even went as far as explicitly ask Elemina to explain something to Irony instead of doing it yourself; you're doing a terrible job of being a subtle sheep.

- The whole thing with Spinal. Yes, it was Spinal who was tunneling him, but Ryker's stance was basically "I'm not explaining crap, so just shut up and stop calling me out on it", which is basically a clear refusal to address the issues directed at him.

Elemina - While not really a scumread, she also seems to follow the "reads without explanation" thing, which is really frustrating. Unlike Ryker, however, she does provide her reasons eventually and they generally seem to be valid reads that I can see coming from a Townie, even when I don't agree with them. So I don't think she's scummy, but I really wish she would stop with the "reads without explanation" thing. Another thing that really bothers me is that she seems to be getting along well with Ryker. She doesn't question why Ryker is mindlessly sheeping her, she grants Ryker's request to explain stuff to Irony without any hesitation, and also expressed that she liked his Blitz vote (which had 0 explanation). I would like Elemina to explain why she's so comfortable with Ryker.

(also, even if the two of you are Masons or Neighbors or something, you do not get a free pass at sheeping each other or providing reads without any explanation)

Green Poet - Scumreading atm. She was the first one to vote Elemina, and it was because of the "reads without explanation". While I agree with her reasoning for that, what I don't understand is how she supposedly has no problem with Ryker doing the same thing. It's not that she didn't notice it either, because she reacted to Elemina's Blitz vote by asking Ryker about his reasoning. And then she presumably accepted his "I didn't answer" response without any objections because she didn't press the matter further in her next post. Why does Ryker get a free pass while she keeps inquiring about Elemina's unexplained votes? Furthermore, I think her vote on Spinal was really bad. She voted Spinal for tunneling Ryker while not raising an eyebrow on Ryker actively refusing to address any of the issues directed at him. She commented on how Spinal and Ryker have been arguing about semantics and pointed out about how unproductive it is (which I agree with) but conveniently seemed to ignore the issues that started up the whole fight in the first place.

I'm especially suspicious of Green Poet because I admire her for being generally very logical about her Mafia play, so for her to give Ryker this free pass seems really fishy, especially while she catches everything Elemina says.

Spinal - I agree with his frustration on Ryker, but I do think he should drop the tunneling because Ryker made it clear that he's not going to address the issues that were raised. And as Green Poet pointed out, their "discussion" degraded into arguing about semantics and is getting really pointless. As far as my read on him goes, well, even though I do agree with his scum Ryker result, I also feel like it's too easy for him to jump on Ryker because of how blatantly scummy Ryker has been behaving. It may be that Ryker is actually (unproductive) Town, while scum!Spinal discovered what a juicy target Ryker was and started tunneling on him. My read on Spinal is kinda neutral, but I would really like him to drop his Ryker tunneling and express his thoughts on other players and other stuff happening in the game.

Irony - Hard to tell, really. I can see the inexperience manifesting in her posts, and while some of her posts do sound Townish, they also seem realistic to be coming from newbscum as well. I have no strong reads in either direction, but I'm gladh she's making an effort to contribute more and hopefully I'll be able to get a better read on her in the future.

YOLO - I still want to hear the justification on his scumreads for Blitzy and Green Poet.

The rest of you haven't stood out enough for me to have any noteworthy opinions or reads on you.

[Kriemhild]

cut by Ryker

Also, no, I never intended to vote Irony. I intended to say Blitz instead of Irony when asked though.

i.e. when Refa asked you about your Blitz vote

@Refa I voted Irony because he is either scum or town I'm okay with seeing dead at this point. Do you agree with that assessment?

which you answered here

Ryker, I don't think you ever answered Refa on why you voted Blitz?

And then Green Poet asked about Refa's question

Uhh, I think I responded to his post? But I definitely didn't answer. That observation is correct.

Am I the only one who doesn't see a contradiction?

Also, regardless of whether you meant Irony or Blitz, you haven't explained your scumreads on either of them.

Where did Blitz even go? Still waiting on slots like him to weigh in.

##Unvote Blitz Vote Rainbow

ZOMG OMGUS

Rainbow ez scum.

Well... yes, it is a OMGUS because you are literally providing 0 explanation as to why you're voting for me, and you only made this vote after I made a wallpost where I voted for you.

Also, I like the comment that I'm unproductive when I'm responsible for most of the stances in this game.

> does nothing but sheep (and admitting that it was pure sheeping) and declaring reads with 0 explanation

> causes people to take stances about how his unproductivity is scummy

"See, I'm being productive by being the cause behind many player stances!"

lolk

[Elemina]

I disagree with your theory. I like to keep my cards close to my chest. If I let scum know my reasoning as soon as possible they'll be able to adapt their play. My vote on you would serve the purpose of gaining a reaction from you, but you were away so it only helped with getting reactions from others. The blitz vote you see I have some reasoning to as well, and it would help get a reaction from Blitz. I'll tell you that I did not expect Ryker to vote Blitz when he did, but am not as comfortable with him as you think I am. I talked to Irony because it was productive to get him to give opinions, that I was fine with doing. Notice Blitz isn't even here now. You seem to have meta with him, talk to me about him.

[Elemina]

Never mind, he's here. Hello Blitz.

[Elemina]

Refa seems less active than other games.

Interesting. I want Refa back in this thread.

[Ken Masters]

I'm willing to stop (for now) my advances on Ryke, but my vote is not moving. To me there's only once clear lynch candidate today, and its name is Ryke.

Refa dissappearing it's not that concerning to me as Hober Mallow dissappearing.

He posted twice, one of those time justifying Rykes actions with Meta.

[spoiler=On Meta-justification and its valid contexts]

If you say "this player wouldn't do X because a Mafia wouldn't do X" you are transporting the issue to an unwinnable ground called WIFOM .

If you make an assumption of this caliber, it has to be have 2 conditions for me to accept it as a valid argument: It must be a simple, logical assumption (Occam's Razor) ; and it must not be sole base of your proposal, rathe a secondary one.

I think what irks me the most is the assumption that All Mafia are probably the ones who hadn't posted at the time. We already had leads and stances, yet conveniently none of the current ones (at the time) seemed to hold weight to him.

And of course, ther was the Meta - justification.

I imagine that if he were to post again, he would have a different opinion.

[Blitz]

Never mind, he's here. Hello Blitz.

yo Elemina!

I wake up really late in the mourning and I find a whole lot of pages....

anyways,

@GP, your Irony townread just seemed like it was something that wasn't fitting in that post, it is kinda hard to explain, but, it is like it is sandwiched in the middle of two scumreads and doesn't feel like normal thought progression to have that in the middle...

What do you like and dislike about the argument between Ryker and Spinal

As I've said, my strategy isn't to push people. My strategy is to watch people being pushed and see how they react. Only then will I vote on who to lynch.

I am sure I asked you this and I didn't see an answer to this, what do you want to talk about on D1, if it is not the lynch?

As I said, I am only going to take this stance on the first day. After all, I do not want to do something foolhardy and lynch a person who will help us in the long run. I read up on the roles in Mafia games and, I don't know what roles there are in this game, but what if we accidently kill the Doctor or something? That could give the Mafia a huge advantage. An advantage that I do not want to give them. (And yes, I don't want to call them scum. They are bad people, but I do have a sense of manners. ). The edit was because I accidently clicked the post button and realised that I forgot to put my reasoning in. I then added it, forgetting the no editing rule. My mistake, and I will not do so again.

we either lynch mafia D1 or we make up for it by lynching the doctor, we would rather have you pushing a case, that sitting on the fence, even on D1

I trust Spinal. His reasoning makes sense IMO and he at least is trying to defend himself?

what Spinal has been doing is talking about Playstyles, other than talking about Ryker and defending himself. Do you think Spinal would choose not to defend himself as scum?

Spinel and I take a similar attitude to the game, basically. He's not bandwagoning, or basing his votes on gut feelings. My feeling is that, if he were a member of the Mafia, he would have already done so by now, so as not to draw any suspicion?

Also, I kinda want to claim what my role is, but I'm nervous that will make me a target of the Mafia. Is there any way that I can safely do so?

my role could be equally uselessful for town as it is for mafia and should say nothing about my alignment

Not voting unless he wants to lynch might be how Spinel plays mafia as any alignment, no?

why do you want to claim so early?

FIRST OF ALL @RYKER, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD DOES NOT THINK ALIKE AND WHAT MAY SEEM OBVIOUS TO YOU, MAY NOT EVEN BE SEEN BY OTHERS, SO, I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU BACK OFF TRYING TO ACT COCKY AND TRYING TO TROLL OTHERS IN THE PROCESS, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING

Explain that. Why is he less likely to joke post as scum?

because that is how Proto is?

how is GP staying continuing to stay in RVS?

Call me dumb if you want to, but I want a reason, not a quote, behind that vote

Why do you want Elemina to tunnel someone he doesn't find scummy anymore?

Explain

and continue explaining. It is funny that your vote on me is as good as an RVS vote, when you posted trying to continue RVS later on in the phase is scummy. Scum claiming much?

agreed

This makes no sense and Ryker, you need to address the questions thrown at you, or give a reason for avoiding them that is acceptable

When did you even mention Yolo in a post?

Also, I snorted when I had read Spinal imply that I'm not generating content and had to try and explain mafia to a room full of football heads.

pretty sure all you generated was snort and not content

Blitz: Read on Green Poet?

at that point, null leaning scum. Refa's case on her makes sense. Would like her to respond to Ryker vs Spinal first

Explain

On Blitz:

1. He doesn't adddress me when defending Rainbow nor does he ask me why I voted him.

2. His read on you doesn't seem convincing, seems like newb-scum trying to push on some low hanging fruit.

3. He takes too long to respond to Green Poet.

Ryker simply because he's active, producing reads, and I like his Blitz vote. That's it though, null-townie means neutral-townie. Neutral means either or. So neutral-townie is slightly more townie than neutral. Yet I need more from him.

OH COOL, A CASE ON ME, NOW WE ARE TALKING, is what I would like to say, but unfortunately, I can't...

1. you clearly weren't the first person saying what Proto did was scummy and I assumed your reasoning was similar to the others

2. explain why I am not voting Irony then

3. I have a terrible phone and I have more chores than I want to deal with

Explain why you like Ryker's vote

More to say in the next post, stay tuned! (note, I didn't address my main scumreads atm)

[Zkirsche]

Ryker you are not gods gift to mafia, claiming to be responsible for over 1/2 the stances in this game is a bit much. Half your posts are fluff.

I'm too lazy to do ISOs and never got around to downloading the plugin that helps make them.

Spinal's obsession with Ryker is reading town, the reason he is concerned with hallow "disappearing" (more likely going to bed) feels like it's mostly because he defended Ryker.

What an exciting time, we have a/many possible explanation(s) from Ryker (at long last) and Blitz will give his scumreads. Will Yedi and other inactives return with massive wallposts? Will I ever put effort into this game? I'll find out after the break in this exciting episode Mafia Is Not Dead.

[Irony]

yo Elemina!

I wake up really late in the mourning and I find a whole lot of pages....

anyways,

@GP, your Irony townread just seemed like it was something that wasn't fitting in that post, it is kinda hard to explain, but, it is like it is sandwiched in the middle of two scumreads and doesn't feel like normal thought progression to have that in the middle...[

I am sure I asked you this and I didn't see an answer to this, what do you want to talk about on D1, if it is not the lynch?

we either lynch mafia D1 or we make up for it by lynching the doctor, we would rather have you pushing a case, that sitting on the fence, even on D1

what Spinal has been doing is talking about Playstyles, other than talking about Ryker and defending himself. Do you think Spinal would choose not to defend himself as scum?

1) I actually did a couple of reads on people yesterday (i.e. Ryker, Spinal and you) which you may or may not have seen. Apart from that, I've just been looking at how everyone has been acting towards each other. I will say something new about Ryker and Spinal.

I don't think that they are both members of the Mafia. If both of them were members of the Mafia, then I'd highly doubt that they would be trying to make each other look suspicious. Either they are both Townies, Ryker is a Townie or Spinal is a Townie. I could be wrong, but I'm getting that impression. As I've said before, I'm getting used to Mafia.

2) I'd rather sit on the fence than lynch the Doctor. Yes, that is risky, but I don't want to vote unless I'm mostly certain that the person I'm voting for is a member of the Mafia.

3) I'm not sure? It is just that his reasoning sounds sensible and logical, unlike Ryker, who keeps on changing his argument (he said that he was voting for me when he was actually voting for you, which seemed off?)

4) I just want to analyse people , not lynch them.

5) The reason why I was thinking of claiming my role is that Ryker and a couple of other people were reading me as being a Member of the Mafia, and I wanted to show them that I was a trustworthy ensemble member? :)

[Hober Mallow]

I'm willing to stop (for now) my advances on Ryke, but my vote is not moving. To me there's only once clear lynch candidate today, and its name is Ryke.

Refa dissappearing it's not that concerning to me as Hober Mallow dissappearing.

He posted twice, one of those time justifying Rykes actions with Meta.

[spoiler=On Meta-justification and its valid contexts]

If you say "this player wouldn't do X because a Mafia wouldn't do X" you are transporting the issue to an unwinnable ground called WIFOM .

If you make an assumption of this caliber, it has to be have 2 conditions for me to accept it as a valid argument: It must be a simple, logical assumption (Occam's Razor) ; and it must not be sole base of your proposal, rathe a secondary one.

I think what irks me the most is the assumption that All Mafia are probably the ones who hadn't posted at the time. We already had leads and stances, yet conveniently none of the current ones (at the time) seemed to hold weight to him.

And of course, ther was the Meta - justification.

I imagine that if he were to post again, he would have a different opinion.

Unless we have different definitions of meta, nothing about my last post including any meta on Ryke. I said you are turning a blind eye to the intent behind his posts. In other words, you are just looking at the surface content rather than looking deeper into whether or not his actions are coming from a scum player.

[Ken Masters]

Ryker you are not gods gift to mafia, claiming to be responsible for over 1/2 the stances in this game is a bit much. Half your posts are fluff.

I'm too lazy to do ISOs and never got around to downloading the plugin that helps make them.

Spinal's obsession with Ryker is reading town, the reason he is concerned with hallow "disappearing" (more likely going to bed) feels like it's mostly because he defended Ryker.

What an exciting time, we have a/many possible explanation(s) from Ryker (at long last) and Blitz will give his scumreads. Will Yedi and other inactives return with massive wallposts? Will I ever put effort into this game? I'll find out after the break in this exciting episode Mafia Is Not Dead.

Honestly, at this point everyone was involved directly or indirectly with Ryker at some point, so yes, I will use interactions with him as part of my arguments. There's no way to escape "the tunneling" under those conditions.

Refa also dissapeared, but she at least posted and generated content by calling out other's peoples actions and explaining her own.

Hallow just poofed out of existance with nothing but one (real) post at his name. Wouldn't have been so bad had it not been a post I highly disagree with.

[Ken Masters]

Unless we have different definitions of meta, nothing about my last post including any meta on Ryke. I said you are turning a blind eye to the intent behind his posts. In other words, you are just looking at the surface content rather than looking deeper into whether or not his actions are coming from a scum player.

You were asking to use a subjective assumption on his intent over the one displayed and confirmed by him.

I call that meta. If you disagree with that, I will proceed to call it "Justification by possible intent over factual action", which doesn't change the fact that it holds no weight as the sole base of any statement.

Stockpiling on your most recent post, (conveniently appearing as your name appeared on the discussion), you're saying you simply stated something you saw, without taking absolutely no stance or conclusion out of it or further pursuing the issue. That backseat shading, and is not a Townie-like thing to do, especially as your only post of the game for a long period of time.

[Ken Masters]

By the way, excuse my terrible spelling. I'm using a phone, so I understand if it can be hard to read.

[Hober Mallow]

Honestly discussion with you is unproductive, because I don't get the feeling you're capable of looking at things at a deeper level than you are. For this reason, I'm not going to continue defending against your points. I will answer any direct questions that you have though, always.

[Elemina]

I agree that Mallow is being lazy and hadn't really put his neck out, and to call out the inactives as scum. Yet, I don't find that suspicious. I don't think inactive scum would push themselves into activity by saying "Yeah all the rest of the inactives are probably scum." I also agree that your push on Ryker seems surface level, and I have asked you questions that would help me see you think deeper.

I ask you to look deeper into Refa, though. Refa had more content in the beginning and is now missing, this is different than Mallow. I will re-read Refa in a bit.

[Elemina]

Spinal Questions

[Hober Mallow]

I'm not voting Ryker or Rainbow today. I'm not going to read the ensuing wall battle between the two either. The only point I would like to see addressed by Ryker is his confusion between blitz and Irony. I think that's a valid point made by Rainbow. I think we should focus our direction towards Refa and Green Tea and probably get a replacement for Yedi.

[Ken Masters]

Honestly discussion with you is unproductive, because I don't get the feeling you're capable of looking at things at a deeper level than you are. For this reason, I'm not going to continue defending against your points. I will answer any direct questions that you have though, always.

I am very capable of doing so, but I've learnt that most of the times the signs of scum were always on plain sight. It's impossible to held someone accountable over a possible intention, but actions? Actions speak for themselves.

Like yours, for example.

-Posted once to point things without taking a stance or elaborating on'em, effectively throwing shade while still remaining out of the fray.

-Then completely dissappeared until he was called out

-Then decided to no longer present a defense or argue back at my points.

The hypocresy to say "I will no longer defend because it's not productive" (which I heavily disagree with) while being one of the least productive players (both in content and post count) is even more worrying.

At the very least you were smart enough to realize that not answering questions like Ryker does is a sure path to the noose, which is something.

Conclusion? Most likely scum.

[Ryker]

Before I post my thoughts and reads, I want to make something clear: IT IS NEVER A GOOD TO IDEA TO DRAW ATTENTION TO ANY READS THAT YOU HAVE WHILE CONSCIOUSLY NOT EXPLAINING OR JUSTIFYING IT

[Elemina]

Blitz:

1. Just seemed like you only cared to whiteknight Rainbow instead of actually sort slots that were attacking Rainbow, that you felt was leaning more town than not.
2. That's irrelevant. You were questioning him and only gave a scum-read after I asked. That seems more reactive than proactive in my eyes.
3. Alright.

I also realized that you asked me about my scum list in #32. That seems a bit lazy, I would think you would ask about that in the same post or around the same time as you defended Rainbow. Just seems like you noticed that was something you should comment on so you did later on to seem town.

[Elemina]

You were asking to use a subjective assumption on his intent over the one displayed and confirmed by him.

I call that meta.

I'm confused.

[Ken Masters]

Spinal Questions

Are you saying those are my questions, or are you asking me those questions? Genuinely confused here :P

I agree that Mallow is being lazy and hadn't really put his neck out, and to call out the inactives as scum. Yet, I don't find that suspicious. I don't think inactive scum would push themselves into activity by saying "Yeah all the rest of the inactives are probably scum." I also agree that your push on Ryker seems surface level, and I have asked you questions that would help me see you think deeper.

I ask you to look deeper into Refa, though. Refa had more content in the beginning and is now missing, this is different than Mallow. I will re-read Refa in a bit.

I'm okay with you not finding it scummy, your perception, not mine.

However, I'm not fine with your second statement. Assumptions of intentions shouldn't be your only base to determine if a player is suspicious or not.

I'll soon make a post on Refa since you insist.

[Ryker]

Ryker you are not gods gift to mafia, claiming to be responsible for over 1/2 the stances in this game is a bit much. Half your posts are fluff.

Last sentence is true. However, I am responsible for most of the content in this game.

Also, for the record, I do happen to be god's gift to mafia. You're just not aware of that fact yet. It's okay. I forgive you.

Can someone hit me up with an impromptu votecount? I'd appreciate it a lot. I'll swap you a nice big post full of the things people seem so intent on getting from me. ;D