WW48: Melllvar's Grand Competition!

[sunrise089]

Why I am not Scum: an Essay in Four Parts

Part 1: Voting Record



You can see the weights I used here, but most sane weighting is going to have the same result. I voted for as many confirmed scum as anyone except Rowain and I've voted for as few confirmed villagers as anyone except Rowain and Kaiser. Also, for what it's worth, I've never been on a vote which mislynched a villager.

[sunrise089]

Why I am not Scum: an Essay in Four Parts

Part 2: Scum-sunrise's Weird-Ass Day 4

In this part of the essay I'm coming clean that I'm scum*. I'm so much scum that all my actions are plainly the moves of a deep-cover scum mastermind and definitely not a well-intentioned but imperfect villager.

I start by being afk while cases are made on players I don't want any part of, people I've been firmly town on so I fake the afk claim so as to not have to be involved. What cases you ask? One's like this...

Vote Gaspar. Vote often

and

Kaiser / Pind are bottom for me, would be my next lynches.

See what I mean, as scumrise (ha!) I want no part in any safe early day chatter on pindicator and gaspar since they're only my...top surviving scum reads of the game... 

Then I retrieve the car I flew up to get, and after 15 years of ownership comprising almost every important milestone of my life, from where I slept in college the night I was too poor to afford a hotel, to driving my wife and I to our first home together, to picking up the pregnancy test that told us our first child was on the way, I proceed to f*cking total it via a collision with a deer while driving home from my friend's...because I needed to get back to a computer for this werewolf game. And why a deer? What made it bolt into sparse traffic on a clear night? I think it was scared. It was scared there was a predator nearby. A wolf. That's right friends - it sniffed out scumrise and got its revenge the only way it could.

Then I catch up, 1,494. The village is now in two camps, with battle lines drawn. I'm so scummy though that rather than agreeing with either side and voting I offer multiple questions showing a close and careful reading of the text. You know, because as scum I definitely don't want to let trains keep on running but rather want to really dive into the minutiae of the game looking for tells or inconsistencies. You know, scum stuff. 

Here's the thing too - as scumrise, I only fake the close reading. As scum I already know the alignments and so it's hard to fake careful scum hunting, so it's easier to piggy back off other's reads. People sure called me out on that too:

@pindicator, 1413 - what do you mean there about protecting Meiz? Didn’t you protect Rowain?

@pindicator - you talked today about one reason you wanted to die before Lewwyn. I asked you about this late day 3 and you said you’d say the full reason post-game. I know there’s no vote pressure on you now but I don’t love you withholding part of that reason.

1413 i had to go and reread because that didn't make sense. I think I just mixed up my subjects when typing that out. 

For your second question, I don't love it either. Best answer i can give you without upsetting Brick is that I don't want to upset Brick. 

and

@Jabbz - your day is much better than earlier ones, but how does the Kaiser+Meiz interaction make sense if they’re both scum? Why would Meiz claim his ability was stolen? Do you think he just forgot to discuss that with Kaiser in advance?

@pindicator, 1413 - what do you mean there about protecting Meiz? Didn’t you protect Rowain?

Upping these two questions as I think they are both valid.

There I go, lazy scum scumrise.

Next I note surprise that people have abandoned Gaspar. This is scummy since as several people have pointed out I always throw shade at Gaspar but never vote him. After all by voting him I'd be putting my vote where my mouth is. That's so unlikely everyone can probably just assume I'll never vote Gaspar later during this, or any other day. Then, I do some summary of the Meiz/Kaiser role cases, with more laziness just regurgitating arguments:

I really hope the timestamps are there. There was something weird here and I found it when Sunrise pointed out that GrandMaMeiz evil mini Masterplan could have been to frame me.

Finally it's time for my vote. Since my ultimate evil master plan is to nail villager Meiz today I better take advantage of that to vote him, or at least strongly suspect someone rather than trying to use my vote to give the village more info. Couldn't have that.

Kaiser for now to keep pressure up for more of an explanation. Repeat yourself if you have to Kaiser, I promise I won’t always be this tired.

See what I mean?! 

Then after waking up...or returning from hunting...I take a moment to answer a Rowain question of me. Classic scum - responding to an argument that makes me look bad despite no voting pressure on me at all. After that I have an opportunity to vote. There's been more chatter in the night and the Kaiser train has evaporated. Now we all know that my scummy scum wolf goal here is to get Meiz lynched. With having expressed some suspicions of both Kaiser and Meiz, and with my Kaiser vote now being meaningless, and with another vote on Meiz putting him a vote up with the tiebreak on the lynch-Meiz side, I strike! I tense my haunches, bar my fangs, and really let him have it, by...making sure I understand why the village sees Meiz town in the exchange and leave my only unanswered question still on Kaiser. Boom. See, even though I could just vote Meiz here why do that? In fact, I probably knew it wouldn't stick. I probably knew if I voted Meiz someone would just switch. Switches are easy to foresee, see:

I was a very close candidate and Pind would not have been expected to switch his vote away from me.

After that we get one more exchange where definitely-town Meiz decides to not honor his promise to scumrise regarding Jabbz and then asks me about the Bob train. And at that point friends the jig is pretty much up for scumrise. See, scumrise didn't join the Bob train, questioning it's timing and sincerity from the non-Meiz pushers. But with what is certainly not the least bit of hindsight-bias, the Bob train was sincere and well-reasoned all-around:

Bob

While trying to catch up.

sure why not:
Bob

and

Yeah, ok.

Bob

and

No particularly strong feelings on Jerry!, but certainly nothing to suspect he is village either. 

Jerry!

and

Anyway, I said I thought we had a chance to rally around town-Rowain, so Bob

Well there you have it. With cases like those even I, scumrise, would have to agree anyone not unquestionably following the train would be scummy as all get out.

*

this is satire friends, don't go all pindicator+commodore BFF confusion on me

[Meiz]

Then I retrieve the car I flew up to get, and after 15 years of ownership comprising almost every important milestone of my life, from where I slept in college the night I was too poor to afford a hotel, to driving my wife and I to our first home together, to picking up the pregnancy test that told us our first child was on the way,

Congratulations!!

Haven't had time to focus to your posts yet, but besides defending yourself, I would like to see your cases on why is scum and why, in details. Because atm if I'd have to choose if you are scum vs. Gaspar is scum, I would lynch you.

[Meiz]

*who is scum and why

[Meiz]

Ah, my understanding of English is great. Well, late congratulations for your kid anyway!

[sunrise089]

Why I am not Scum: an Essay in Four Parts

Interlude: Screw You Guys

While making that post I was reminded how many times I've seen things this game along the lines of "oh, now that you mention in sunrise, I did misspeak back in post ___," or "as sunrise noticed, ___ was a possibility," or "something had been bothering me and I finally realized it when sunrise pointed out ___ about ___." Look, I may not have the best reads. I may even have crappy reads. And, I'm definitely not in the running for the most posts or words per day, not even close. But I hunt. I don't think anyone aside from Lewwyn has done more close reading, analyzing, and comparing posts for errors, inconsistencies, lies, etc. Meanwhile 4-5 of the remaining players this game take the following strategy:

1. This is a list of scenarios.
   
   
2. Scenario 1: Someone making scenarios is putting in high effort and trying to find scum. After all in a game with over 1,000 meaningful interactions everything can be neatly broken down into 2-4 options which encompass all of the game's actions and future possibilities
   
   
3. Scenario 2: Lists of scenarios simply involve navigating down a decision tree and writing small vignettes about the permutations. They avoid making any firm reads and by definition hedge any reads they do make, but they're so full of words that they seem like super-high-effort to lazy town readers
   
   
4. Gotta be Scenario 1, am I right?!
   

________________________

• This is a list of Pros and Cons for making pros and cons lists
  
  
• +Pro - Lists are based on facts. Just look how scientific my approach to the game is
  
• +Pro - My lean on literally every single player in the game will have a pro-town and pro-scum side, so I can never be totally wrong
  
• +Pro - My list suggests false equivalency amongst the players, letting me weaken the case on any lynch candidates I don't want by visually diluting the attention
  
• +Pro - If anyone even tries to criticize my list the formatting abomination a quoted list appears as will scare them right off.
  
  
• -Con - Almost useless at finding scum
  
  
• Look at that, 3 pros and only 1 con! This is a slam-dunk strategy
  

______________________________________

What happened when sunrise typed line 1 of this summary: This is a summary of the game so far. It's literally taking the forum, which is already a means of laying out and archiving a conversation, and then laying it out and archiving it

An example sunrise then cites: This is a read I'm including as part of the summary. But because it's not MY read I have no accountability!

Some potential motivation. Danger! this is getting close to an actual read based on something other than feel or selectively quoting: If people start questioning the helpfulness of this exercise, just up the level of detail. Heck, at some point you may as well just quote everything.

Exclamation: Wait a minute!

This is a block quote. I'm not actually quoting anything, but you're not going to know that because...

Okay, that's sufficient wriggling for me. Naufragar, Superdeath, attend.

As anyone not spilling tons of ink inventing elaborate theories about THREE scum factions or latching convoluted never-before-heard JOAT bomb abilities can tell, the mysteries are all solved. Superdeath has been playing a hilariously anti-town game, but his quixotic targeting, as bad as it was, follows from his own comments. HE IS BELIEVABLE.

Thus, the sole remaining question I left open in my night-kill speculations, the one that I left open like I left open the silly Jack-of-all-Trades bomber theory, was that of "why did we have a night with just one kill?" Sure, Pindicator, who's been decent-to-middling at scumhunting might have shot Serdoa and I healed him, but there's still the third unexplained kill with SK, wolves, and Superdeath all killing. Except, obviously, that's not a mystery at all. THE WOLVES SHOT PINDICATOR AND HE WAS 1-SHOT BULLETPROOF.

This leads us to a situation where the wolves, worried, are nearing lylo but they have a killer who can target them still on the loose. They rapidly figure out that it's likely a serial killer, because mild bulletproofing is a common power for SKs to have. They can try to kill him again, but wouldn't it be better if they could lynch him?
(Saturday, September 12th, 2020, 11:32 AM)BRickAstley Wrote:
Tally as of post 961:

Lynch votes
5 votes: Rowain (Commodore, Chevalier Mal Fet, Rowain, naufragar, pindicator)
2 votes: pindicator (Serdoa, Charriu)
1 votes: Chevalier Mal Fet (superdeath)
Yes, yes it would. So much better if they didn't have to waste another shot at Pindicator. So much better if they could keep anti-town but actually village Rowain alive (and my fault for turning him against us, I'll cop to it. I was so convinced he was a wolf acting indignant...). Alas, the villager who they've been buddying up to the last could days didn't jump, and so they had to fall back on Plan B: Nightkill Pindicator again and hope the bulletproofing was one-time-only. It worked. And hey, look, Superdeath made himself the mislynch of the day by admitting to mass-murder. But Naufragar, you know darned well that this horrible accidental murder spree is entirely in keeping with Superdeath, just as you know from his character that such an audacious lie isn't in his nature.

So Serdoa and Charriu, well done. It was a good plan. The speculations were fun, and you've played a cautious game. But I think we're done now.

...that was just a big-ass block of text from WW46. Not useful or germane to this game you say? That's okay, neither is any other quote after about one paragraph.

And yet...I'm the one who is going to be mislynched today because, right after sunrise-voters Meiz, Gaspar, and Alhambram get done killing villager Lewwyn, suddenly a single wrong vote is disqualifying from team-town.

[Meiz]

My view on how the last day went.

- You had put me as your stonger townreads previously. The first phase of the day was votes agaisnt me & Kaiser. It is natural for you to vote Kaiser here due to your earlier townread on me. Of course at this point you cannot have knowledge that Bob would become a lynch candidate later, so no mastermind plans can exist at the point. If Kaiser is town as I suspect, the day starts nicely for wolves.

- During the day there is discussions on why Kaiser's claim doesn't make sense for a wolf, and on how Gaspar's D1 doesn't make sense for a wolf. These reads do not seem to affect your views on these players as I don't recall any comments on them.

- My plan to survive the lynch is to find a better candidate, and I end up to vote Bob. Even though the reasons for others to follow on Bob are not detailed, the fact is that these players decide to vote for a scum in a phase where Bob lynch could be avoided.

- You come back online but are hesitant to move your vote away from Kaiser. You cannot justify a vote on me, because of your earlier townread on me. If you are scum, your vote against me would be looked badly the following day. The deadline is closing (probably 20 minutes left or so) and you are still sitting on your Kaiser vote without taking a stance in one way or another, so I start to question it. Only after my questioning you are prompted to vote for Gaspar. What I see is a hesitant play, that IMO fits with you & Bob as scum partners, and you not being sure on how to resolve the situation in your advantage.

[sunrise089]

Ah, my understanding of English is great. Well, late congratulations for your kid anyway!

Better ten years late than never!

[sunrise089]

Meiz, I'd ask you to at least consider 1) that I 100% could justify a vote on you. Hell dude, I was like top 2-3 town for everyone and I'm going to get mislynched today if this keeps up. I could have said I didn't like your claim, thought Kaiser has defended, that you must be a mastermind, and voted you cleanly. Please note you are putting 100x the pressure on me for NOT voting you versus the people that voted you; 2) the downside to voting Gaspar if I'm scum is what's happening here - I (narrowly, for this) look super scummy since it appears I'm trying to save Bob. The upside is...letting you hang when I just could have voted you anyways, had a dead town person (probably with an active vig!), and been able to try to defend by spreading criticism of me across my fellow Meiz voters. Meiz, if you're town, if the pindicator flip was hard to see coming then how does the cost/benefit make sense for me as scum?

[sunrise089]

Also Meiz, why is my townread of you binding when your scum read of pindicator DURING DAY 4 was so non-binding that you stated during N4 that I am scummy for my pindicator vote?