I think that this is Gale trying to make himself heard and get his way, which I think he's doing a little too blatantly to be too scummy.
-Gale refuses to contribute, while UltrasPlot consistently tries to contribute.
Y'see, I don't really get the vibe from his posts that he actually IS trying to contribute. I feel like it's more of a "gotta look good" than a "gotta help the town!" tone when he posts.
-Gale's main defense mechanism (as shown recently) is to default to 'I'm so newbie pls halp me!', while UltrasPlot has continually rejected this line of reasoning, even if it would help him out from a cleanliness perspective.
This isn't indicative of alignment at all. Gale seems more likely to revert to that as town to me, because as scum he would think about it a bit more. Gale isn't actually stupid when he thinks about things, and I think he would think about things more as mafia than as town, just from my experience with him. Ultras just seems like he's trying to gain influence over the town by trying to act experienced, using his time on showdown mafia as a reference, which really doesn't count for much; I used to be active in that community.
Basically UltrasPlot really reads to me like a flailing but confident noobtown. Gale meanwhile has a LOT of weird relations and is playing much less logically then I know for a fucking fact he is capable of (ie I've played games with him before, he is quite bright and a strong up-and-comer in other games, there's no reason that just because this game is NOC he would descend into complete mindlessness without some reason to do so).
This is exactly my thoughts. Of course this is just as much speculation as your thoughts, but I think that Gale would be less mindless as scum. I played closely with Gale in his very first mafia game and he seems as lost here as he did in his first game. That was FFA so we can't really derive reads from it, but interpret it how you will. Personally I think he's town because of it, but there's a case that can be made for the same logic dictating he is scum, and there's really no way to explain it, it's just your thought processes.
With regards to me and the point that the Haunted Diamond lynch would prove telling, that's because at the time I felt it would be. I was quite sure he was mafia and felt that his being mafia would tell us a LOT about other potential mafia. In a sense I am using the information generated by the lynch however, in that I feel that it is further evidence that UltrasPlot is town. However, I don't feel that going after Haunted Diamond is indicative of anything after the fact, because I just cannot reconcile his horrible play as being something a villager WOULDN'T jump on.
This... Totally adds up, actually. Pretty much my thoughts on the situation too, but I wanted to see how you would react.
I'm surprised that you wouldn't have considered a DLE or UncleSam kill Celever, and I'm not sure I buy that you'd kill Walrein or ButteredToast. Similarly, I'm not sure I buy that you wouldn't kill Spiffy either.
So you were expecting me to say you, DLE and Spiffy? I'm not entirely sure why lol. If I was mafia you and Spiffy would have been two of the last I would have thought of killing, I think. I'm not sure, but I don't exactly see the merit in killing either of you, tbh. You were both town reads, sure, but you had also both contributed a lot and made very clear reads, which would generate a lot of discussion the next day. Actually, that's a good point that I didn't think about. I'm going to read over the analysis you guys made about Spiffy and think about it from another angle. As mafia if I were to kill an active player like that, I would want it to instigate discussion pointing towards other users being scum, so the people Spiffy town read could be worth looking into. It's also a hell of a risk to take, because UncleSam and Spiffy were 100% the two likeliest users to be under doc protection.
DLE wouldn't actually be a bad choice, actually, because he didn't contribute that much either. For some reason he didn't really cross my mind, though.
Additionally, out of Pokeguy/Acidphoenix/Walrein, who do you think is most likely to be mafia?
I'd have to say
acidphoenix. I've seen him viewing the thread multiple times since he stopped posting, and so far he's totally skated by (in hindsight I really should have called him out... I have no clue why I didn't). He hasn't posted once today, and he left like half way through Day 1. I actually have a slight townread and a strong townread on Pokeguy, so while it's not the solidest scum read in the world, I don't even have that many, and acid is probably my second-favourite lynch. He didn't contribute much yesterday and only did what he did do after being called out. Then he just left, but he's been totally active on the forums and even in this thread. I don't know what he's trying to pull over our eyes, but I don't like it.
What do you think of Walrein's play this day given he's been called out a few times and you seem to find him towny?
I think it's fairly standard posts. Even after what DLE said I see nothing super wrong with them, but at the same time DLE sort of has a point? I'm undecided on the whole matter, but I think it was a bit of an overreaction by DLE.
What do you think of Cancerous' relative non-contributions?
Cancerous is literally playing his town meta as far as NOC's concerned. I wish that this wasn't his town meta.... but it is. It's impossible to tell if he's trying to imitate town meta or if he is just playing normally at this point, because it would be very easy to imitate. I would like to see more posts from him to help determine this.
Right, the reads list. Great, so looking forward to typing this in this heat >~~~~<
UltrasPlot, Da Letter El, Celever, PokeguyNXB, Gale Wing Srock, acidphoenix, Walrein, Cancerous, Yeti, UncleSam,
acidphoenix: I gave my read further up in this post.
Decent Scum Read.
Cancerous: I gave my read in the above paragraph.
Leaning Town, Want More Contribution.
Celever: Town :v
Da Letter El: I'm not sure on DLE. Honestly he's still pretty much a null read for me. At the end of yesterday he hadn't done much, but was a leaning town read because there wasn't really a reason to suspect him. I think he totally overreacted to Walrein's post earlier and sort of tried to find an early push because discussion was headed in a useful direction, specifically the shade getting thrown over Gale, and I think that there could be something to this DLE+Gale scumteam theory, but it's too early to tell. If I had to lean one way I would say
Leaning Scum because I actually think that of the experienced players he's one of the scummiest, alongside US and Yeti.
Gale Wing Srock: Oh my God am I really meant to read this guy? I'd rather not lol. Yesterday I was convinced he is town. Since then he's sort of calmed down a little bit and got a bit less hyper, which is an improvement on his play. I think that it's entirely likely that he was told overnight to improve his play and seem townier, but to make sure it's not obvious that he's doing so, because his play so far today SCREAMS this. However, this isn't solid enough, and I feel there are better roads to go down.
Decent Town Read.
PokeguyNXB: Probably my strongest town read besides myself. He's playing his town meta and his posts scream genuine. I think that letting the tone of his posts be affected by his mood at the time is a very townie thing to do, and his doing so doesn't seem fake at all. Could he be more useful? Sure, but when he's in the mood to he does try and he's not half bad, he just doesn't care about building cases, which means that his posts seem scummy and his reads weak, even if they have lots of thought behind them in Pokeguy's head. He's definitely not playing optimally or helping us much, but I think he's definitely playing as town.
Strongest Town Read.
UltrasPlot: Shared my thoughts on him already today, don't have much more to say, except that I didn't mention this yet. A couple pages back he made this post (note that I'm not hunting for it, but I'm PRETTY sure I can replicate it word for word, given that there were 3 of them):
UltrasPlot said:
I think that this is a good example of fake contribution. We were never going to give a good response to that, because he didn't give us ANYTHING to talk about. However, it makes him look good.
Strongest Scum Read.
UncleSam: Second hardest read to make besides Gale. I really don't know what he's like in NOC at all, and unlike the new users or Yeti, I can't really imagine it, either. He was strong town for most of Day 1 to me (which is in part due to me agreeing with a lot of what he said) but as the day went on I did think about what some people (like Spiffy) were saying about him, and he is REALLY reminiscent of von's scum play last game. He wants credit for every towny thing he does, and has a habit of making things up to make himself look good (Spiffy was clearly my biggest and strongest supporter yesterday why would I kill him? ;o;). However, this is totally how US plays in OC, so I don't know if this indicates him as mafia. On the other hand, he has undoubtedly been trying to create discussion and get everyone to be a part of it, which is generally a towny ting to do. But of course, I imagine scum US would do this to look towny. At this point I'm totally second guessing any of my reads on this guy, so it's pretty much just a
Null Read for now.
Walrein: I'm leaning town on him for literally no reason other than gut. He hasn't posted enough to make anything solid. One thing I will note that I just thought of is that DLE's overreaction Walrein's post before could well be a buss; I wouldn't rule the possibility out.
Leaning Town.
Yeti: I need to look into her posts more. I've sort of brushed over them thus far if I'm being honest and didn't really analyse them properly, and I'm not entirely sure why. Her whole note taking thing is certainly good if she's a towny, but I don't know if it's INDICATIVE of her being a towny or not. Fairly null read, but certainly
Leaning Town.
So I guess looking at this, right now my four scum are acidphoenix, DLE, UltrasPlot and UncleSam, UncleSam being a null read. I'm fairly OK with a lynch on any of the first three today, but UltrasPlot is obviously my preferred since he's my biggest scum read.
Happy, US? ;(