WW35: Not Another TPS Report [Game Thread]

[dtay]

Quick response after reading through everything, but gonna be gone for an hour

1) Don't like Qqqqqqq initial hesitance to claim. I agree with Jowy and Gazglum that in general it seems like claiming in general is a pro-town move in this situation since the possibility of being counterclaimed is really high. Uniquely in this game claims, particularly claims by the people who ditched power roles, don’t give much aay to the mafia, since the mafia ALREADY KNOWS the non-mafia players who discarded power roles almost certainly have other town power roles. The information the town gets from such a claim vastly outweighs the information the mafia gets. Therefore, I actually strongly believe there should be an expectation to claim if you discarded a good role. Novice has, and Lew and Qqqqqqq should claim as well.

Qqqqqqq’s general hesitation over this point feels like motivated reasoning, like someone who just wants any argument against claiming to win. IE – someone afraid of being counterclaimed (whoever noted that most/all reasonable claims for Qqqqqq are singletons makes a strong point). I want Qqqqqq to claim. Which apparently he’s going to, so we’ll see when it happens.

2) Showing the purpose of the stats post – (this point is not trying to make a case, just using this to point out bad stat reasoning so we don't fall into that trap) - bob said

Novice absolutely has a better chance of being scum than a cop; 12/35 vs. 2/35. But because he has claimed as a potentially verifiable role, I'm okay with letting him wait for a day. This should not be taken as a sign for other villagers to start dropping role reveals.

Which is faulty. You’re defining Novice’s situation too particularly. You don’t care about the probability this exact situation with novice occurred (Novice dropped doctor claimed cop), but instead the probability that a situation of a similar kind that would cause you to have a similar reaction (so, probability ANY player dropped ANY power role and claimed ANY power role). I actually agree with the conclusions (novice by prior more likely to be scum than power role, but claimed verifiable role so we can check and therefore worth waiting), but using faulty reasoning is a scummy (easier to force bad/not-real args than come up with true ones) In this case though I would grudgingly admit it could be an honest mistake, since it's just a common error people make when thinking abotu probability. Worth pointing out so we don't do it though.

3) Another, Adriend said

In my mind Jowy starts with an advantage because of his "good" discard, but the other points I mention (the good cover part being the least of them) make him lose that advantage. There's also the fact that I had the same vibes about him last game, and he was town there. Basically I'm torn about him, I'll reassess on day 2 if the situation isn't completely changed (it will be of course). I guess I haven't talked enough last game and today, so you can't know I like to present both sides when discussing a topic. And that seems to be considered a scum tell here, bad luck for me.

Don’t think this makes sense if you’re thinking rigorously. Jowy doesn’t have an advantage because of his “good discard”, discarding a mafia is a very poor indicator that someone picked town. It can matter if you have a broader sense or model of how Jowy would think, but this paragraph is pretty scummy to me cause of a) back and forth feels scummy, even if he knows he’s doing it b) the points themselves on each side aren’t persuasive and feel forced or unverifiable

Would put adrien on watch list, but Qqqqqq’s handling of his accusation is the scummiest thing happening in my mind.

4) The “who mentioned godfather” discussion frankly strikes me as weird and I don’t know why it’s a big deal. Slip or rhetorical assumption both make sense and I really don’t think this says anything either way.

5) I don’t have new insight on Jabbz, but registering agreement that the he joined up on Qqqqqq is weird in hindsight (I didn’t notice it at the time). If Qqqqqqq proves innocent then Jabbz would be very high up on the “to pressure” list.

[dtay]

My vote is still on Qqqqqq incidentally, realized I didn't note that in point 1 above.

[Molach]

phøne.

I cannot get over the rejection of being a role blocker, and the fact that the mafia cannot communicate during the day leads me to believe that he was scrambling around for an excuse however he could find it to cover his tracks. I can't explain it much better than it *feels* wrong.

The mafia could talk pre-game. Didn't they discuss what to do about dropped powerroles then? Unless none of them knew about discards...is that even likely?

[Bobchillingworth]

Quick response after reading through everything, but gonna be gone for an hour

1) Don't like Qqqqqqq initial hesitance to claim. I agree with Jowy and Gazglum that in general it seems like claiming in general is a pro-town move in this situation since the possibility of being counterclaimed is really high. Uniquely in this game claims, particularly claims by the people who ditched power roles, don’t give much aay to the mafia, since the mafia ALREADY KNOWS the non-mafia players who discarded power roles almost certainly have other town power roles. The information the town gets from such a claim vastly outweighs the information the mafia gets. Therefore, I actually strongly believe there should be an expectation to claim if you discarded a good role. Novice has, and Lew and Qqqqqqq should claim as well.

Surely though there is substantial value for the scum in knowing exactly who occupies what roles. If I'm scum and know that players A, B and C are almost certainly village power roles, there is still some tension as to who to attack & when. Whereas if I know that A is a Doctor, B is a Cop and C is a Mason, I know that I must nightkill A before B and may want to temporarily leave C alone entirely.

2) Showing the purpose of the stats post – (this point is not trying to make a case, just using this to point out bad stat reasoning so we don't fall into that trap) - bob said

Novice absolutely has a better chance of being scum than a cop; 12/35 vs. 2/35. But because he has claimed as a potentially verifiable role, I'm okay with letting him wait for a day. This should not be taken as a sign for other villagers to start dropping role reveals.

Which is faulty. You’re defining Novice’s situation too particularly. You don’t care about the probability this exact situation with novice occurred (Novice dropped doctor claimed cop), but instead the probability that a situation of a similar kind that would cause you to have a similar reaction (so, probability ANY player dropped ANY power role and claimed ANY power role). I actually agree with the conclusions (novice by prior more likely to be scum than power role, but claimed verifiable role so we can check and therefore worth waiting), but using faulty reasoning is a scummy (easier to force bad/not-real args than come up with true ones) In this case though I would grudgingly admit it could be an honest mistake, since it's just a common error people make when thinking abotu probability. Worth pointing out so we don't do it though.

I am but a humble liberal arts major who barely passed my mandatory undergraduate statistics course, so please correct me if I am mistaken, but why should I factor in the possibility that novice is a villager who dropped an excellent power role, claimed arguably the best village power role, but is actually a different village power role? That sort of play would make absolutely no sense under almost any set of circumstances, especially since the Paranoid Gun Owner role was already dropped, so it wouldn't even work as scum bait.

Unless you meant something else?

[Twinkletoes89]

Right, another re-read and here are some more thoughts on what I picked up this time.

Town Reads

Fenn & Dtay - They feel pretty townish to me right now. I think they are, on the whole, playing a game so far that is trying to help enlighten the village and provide useful information. I've found myself content with their contributions.

Bob - This feels so much like what I remember bob to be like. Its a gut feel but I trust it because it feels familiar and natural.

Scum Reads

Qgqqqqq - On this reread my feelings have not changed at all. His early posts trying to justify dropping the roleblocker feel *too* desperate and I personally don't like the delayed reveal. The way it is set up, he will be revealing at close to the last possible minute, leaving little time to counter it and corral the votes. It behooves him better to buy time while people are having a fish around and hope someone else trips up or makes the vote close. I know early reveals aren't optimal, but I think that this would have been more appropriate.

Lewwyn - This post in particular stood out to me and really confused me

A vote for Qgqqqqq is not a pressure vote at this point. Definitely a lynch vote. Of all the people I think he is most likely scum.

I'm on my phone but I will do a longer post when I am home in a few hours.

Lewwyn, is this coming? You've posted a bit since then, but made no comment on me.

Seems a bit redundant at this point...

That strikes me as distinctly un-village and I'm not sure I buy his explanation of 'everything had already been said'. Why not contribute to the discussion and give his thoughts when he had declared that Qgqqqqq was "most likely scum"? It strikes an almost defeatist tone and this is on Day One. Feels out of place.

Ichabod & Mattimeo - Their proposals that someone rejecting a strong village role is more likely to demonstrate that they took a more powerful village role seems contrary to the odds in my opinion. Qgqqqqq is someone who would benefit from a smokescreen like that, but then it is almost *too* obvious a defence that it would almost be suicidal for a mafia person to do if Qgqqqqq turn out scum. But it does seem conveniently timed and without a private thread to co-ordinate, maybe it was the best they could do?

I also really disagree with and dislike Ichabod's declaration in Post #243 that Fenn was "So wolfy its almost howling at the moon". I don't know enough about Ichabod's style to know if this kind of exaggeration is typical, but I do not like it. That, combined with his rejection of a decent town role, makes me very wary of him.

Matt has contributed a lot more than normal. It sticks out to me but not enough either way for me to get a positive read. I hope he keeps it up though, as either way it is beneficial to the village in the long run.

[dtay]

Surely though there is substantial value for the scum in knowing exactly who occupies what roles. If I'm scum and know that players A, B and C are almost certainly village power roles, there is still some tension as to who to attack & when. Whereas if I know that A is a Doctor, B is a Cop and C is a Mason, I know that I must nightkill A before B and may want to temporarily leave C alone entirely.

There is clearly value in scum knowing that, yes. But that isn't in any sense guaranteed to happen, and the the marginal benefit for scum isn't THAT large, even if it exists (they would target that set of 3 first, getting the doctor pretty quickly). And the claims woould very probably reveal a scum.

I am but a humble liberal arts major who barely passed my mandatory undergraduate statistics course, so please correct me if I am mistaken, but why should I factor in the possibility that novice is a villager who dropped an excellent power role, claimed arguably the best village power role, but is actually a different village power role? That sort of play would make absolutely no sense under almost any set of circumstances, especially since the Paranoid Gun Owner role was already dropped, so it wouldn't even work as scum bait.

Unless you meant something else?

That's not it. It's that, the probability that novice's PARTICULAR situation occurred isn't really relevant. It's instead that probability that a situation that would provoke the same reaction from you would occur. This is commonly called the Wyatt Earp effect, after the wild west gunman. The probability that Wyatt survived all the fights he did was astronomically low. However, there were SO MANY gunmen in the west that the probability that at least ONE gunmen would survive that number of fights was actually reasonable, and whichever gunman survived would be the outlier that we observe and the one labelled a great gunman.

So in our context, we don't care about the probability that novice's exact situation happened (his situation being that the player novice received doctor and cop). We instead care about the probability that ANY player would receive any combination of two power roles, since that is the conditions that provoke our skeptical reaction of novice.

Novice's situation still makes him more likely to be scum than <random other player>, but by less than you'd think at first glance. And notably (as I think you agree with) he claimed cop so we can just use that to verify or get reads, which is a far more powerful tool.

[Fenn]

Jabbz vote: didn't want to vote for Q or especially novice so far away from deadline - perhaps more pressure on Q would have provoked a reveal, but I'm unsure if forcing a second role claim on Day 1 is a good idea in the first place. My other reads dtay, Ichabod and Mattimeo I didn't feel strong enough about to put a vote on - anyway dtay's recent posts have improved my impression of him. Voted Jabbz to encourage him to explain his earlier Q attack.

Dtay I don't agree that Q not claiming yet doesn't make sense - from my view he hasn't been a guaranteed lynch the whole time, and a town power role doesn't want to reveal their role unless they absolutely have to to avoid getting targeted by the mafia (in this I agree with Bob wrt power role claiming). Of course a scum Q also doesn't want to claim in case his claim gets exposed as false or the real role privately knows to vote him, but I don't think his reticence here is definitively townish or scummy behaviour.

Gazglum, could you explain the bad vibes my posts gave you? Leaving it unspecific isn't helpful, both to the village in finding scum/town and to me as a player.

Ichabod your accusation against me is more than little unfair IMO. I have to disagree that I'm the wolfiest player in the game. Yes I posted those small reads after Gazglum prompted me, but I would have done so either way (not that I can prove that). Several people in this thread have given reads after prompting iirc, and I gave my earlier reads on the power role-discarders, thinking those were the most important to give at the time. Of course I will defend myself against you, is putting it in the same post as an accusation a faux pas?

[Fenn]

Cross posted over (with?) dtay's latest post.

[Ichabod]

Ichabod your accusation against me is more than little unfair IMO. I have to disagree that I'm the wolfiest player in the game. Yes I posted those small reads after Gazglum prompted me, but I would have done so either way (not that I can prove that). Several people in this thread have given reads after prompting iirc, and I gave my earlier reads on the power role-discarders, thinking those were the most important to give at the time. Of course I will defend myself against you, is putting it in the same post as an accusation a faux pas?

There's no way to play this game in a "fair" way, because it's based on deception. But anything I say shouldn't be taken in a personal level and should stay only inside the game. Sometimes I like to use a bit of funny (at least I think it is) rhetoric, but it's never meant to offend. I don't want to make anyone feel bad, but it's really tough to play this game without stepping on somebody's toe, someway or the other.

I say this because I could see that post of mine getting to someone's nerves.

[Mattimeo]

Ichabod & Mattimeo - Their proposals that someone rejecting a strong village role is more likely to demonstrate that they took a more powerful village role seems contrary to the odds in my opinion.

Yes. That's the entire fucking point. You're going to get so much flak from ditching a stong town role that it's basically suicide to do so. Thus, if you have any choice in the matter (say, your other role was scum, rather than also strong town) you'd ditch the scum in a heartbeat just so that you're not near the top of the suspicion list every single damn day.

Numerical odds mean jack shit when you're making informed decisions based on how other people are going to respond.

I do think that at least one of Novice, Mattimeo, Lewwyn, Novice and Q are likely to be scum based on their throwaways. Novice most likely, but I think he has bought himself a day.

And yet, no-one seems to bring up that Meiz, Jabbz, Jowy and dtay are actually just as likely, if not more so, to be scum based on their ditch.

And much safer, too, given the options with them are 'random role or scum' rather than 'strong role or scum'. We'd lose less from a mislynch.