[[I want to do some not-really-part-of-the-game responding to the new players who've been expressing their frustration, because I really don't think any of you have been as bad at this game as things have been making you feel like you are! I gather there's some kind of discussion about Chappie going on right now but let me just do this first and then I'll get to looking at that.]]
Normally, I’d wait until EoD to bring this up but it has come to my attention that some people have considered my reads inadequate due to a lack of elaboration (even though several others in this thread have done the same thing with even less but I digress). So during the 48 hour night period, I sat down and typed out all my reasonings for listing my readings as such. First, my D2 list since it’s a more refined version of my D1 list. D2 was a mess all around, with a general lack of new information regarding most players, so my reads and reasonings have remained mostly the same:
[...]
Yes, I am a little grumpy because my attempts to help out by combing through the thread and bringing new information to the table is being waved off for no apparent reason. All of my effortposts have been active attempts to theory craft and dig up new info—which I wouldn’t consider “uncontroversial” or without “specific reasoning”. I thought I was doing a decent enough job when I managed to parse out IFBench’s gambit and even called out the possibility that he was Backup before he even confirmed it but clearly, that’s not the case. Thanks for making me feel like I wasted my time. Appreciate it.
[[I at least don't think there's anything wrong or suspicious with the fact that you didn't post reasoning for your reads - most of us didn't! Anyone who thought that was inherently scummy in this game's environment, I'd be side-eyeing. Not necessarily in an I-think-they're-mafia way, but just in a yo-that's-kinda-rude way.
And for what it's worth, I think your posting and theorycrafting and attempting to bring new ideas to the table has been perfectly reasonable, especially for a newbie. I may slightly suspect you of being mafia right now, but on my end that's not because of your general posting but pretty much entirely because of the voting thing last night. If you're innocent, that's basically just you being in the wrong place at the wrong time to happen to look bad, and if you're mafia, then that's just one tiny subtle slip-up that I wouldn't have even noticed without Dragonfree's insight. I think you're doing pretty well for your first game, either way!
...And now for me to go back to the game for just a second and throw just a tiny bit of shade at you, no hard feelings.]]
Additionally, I just straight up didn't have the time to make anymore posts after I made my last OOC post, which is why I didn't change my vote even after Arctozolt fell down to one vote. If I had the time to make an additional post, I would've abstained after Arctozolt was confirmed to be safe. I just didn't want to take any chances and wanted to widen the gap. In hindsight, it was a pretty hasty decision and one that doesn't reflect well on me but it was also one I would not have made if I wasn't Town because of the bandwagon accusation.
[[If you'd had the time, you'd have changed your vote to
abstain? Not to Wes, even though he's on your null pile?
...I suppose that could just be that you felt that no-lynch is better than potentially mislynching an active townie. (It isn't, I don't think, and I believe the experienced players would agree with me. We're not always going to be super-sure of our suspects, so we
have to sometimes lynch people we're only feeling vaguely null about if we want to get anywhere. And it's a lot more likely to work on Day 2 than Day 1 once everyone's had time to form some significant reads.) That's a possibility - some of the other newbies also went for no-lynch, including one I believe is definitely town - but, hm. I dunno. I'm definitely the least sure about you out of all of my suspects. (Barring Spark/Braixen, who's only a suspect because of mechanical logic and is only going to become a point of contention if Chappie flips mafia.)]]
[[ Again, color me surprised. I'm definitely curious as to why (considering everyone else seems to read me as null at best) but I'm not going to ask your reasoning unless it actually becomes necessary. ]]
[[It's not even anything that complicated! I can come up with more specific reasons why I don't believe things other people find you scummy for are actually that scummy if it ever looks like you
do need defending from a lynch, but really it's just that I am genuinely, completely reading you as
inexperienced but trying. I can tell that you want to enjoy this game and you want to be helpful and contribute, and next to that, the fact that your theories or plays are sometimes a little off-base doesn't matter to me when I can see your
intent. So I, for one, think you're doing just fine for your first game, and I can understand why you'd be so frustrated that nobody else seems to be able to see what I can.]]
[[ Honestly, it would kind of make sense that, if they were mafia, Wes triggered the vote-against-Lance train only after someone (in this case, Alexander) already picked out a scapegoat for them. That doesn't mean that I think Alexander is mafia, either, simply that all the mafia agreed, once a suitable target was voted on by someone else, to all target them, too, and had to come up with reasons why it made sense to target an inactive, while also trying to cover for why they ignored the *other* inactives. They didn't have to come up with reasons for anyone else once one person was singled out.]]
[[See, this is also basically my reasoning for thinking Wes could have deliberately got the Lance wagon rolling, and it looks like you came up with this entirely separately from me! Look at you having good thoughts about things and figuring possibilities out.]]
[[Lol I am...kind of on the verge, tbh. I know I’m a crappy player but it feels like no matter how hard I try to explain myself, it’s still not enough to convince people, and I kind of feel like I’m constantly getting flack for not writing a 2k word post to explain my every action. I literally do not have the energy for that.]]
[[I know I'm massively suspecting you of being mafia right now and almost certainly planning to lynch you today - but I don't really think any of that is significantly
your fault! You made one small blunder (it'd have been a blunder as mafia
or town, really) when you threw some sus on me yesterday morning, and because of that you got my attention. But in the end, I only left my vote on you because you were null - I really wasn't that sure if it was the right vote but I didn't have any better ideas. The main reason I'm so sure you're mafia now isn't even necessarily because of your voting - everything you did could easily have been done by an innocent in your position - but more because of how your hypothetical teammate, who's now flipped mafia, behaved. All of it just happened to snowball from that one small mistake in ways that were mostly just circumstance and nothing you could really be expected to control or undo. Even though I'm sure you're mafia, I really don't think you've been playing
that badly. It was more just bad luck that your one slip-up happened to lead to this.
And for what it's worth, I've been really enjoying your Wes RP! I'll miss it.]]
[[I will be honest, the epithets and excited syntax made it hard to follow at times...]]
[[Haha, yeah, I completely sympathise with the complaint that Tefiren can be hard to parse. He can be hard to
write in such a way that I hope comes across as at least somewhat clear while staying in-character. (It is a very significant part of his character that he almost never remembers people's names, which is unfortunately inconvenient for things like this.) If there's ever anything he's talking about that you want to understand better, I'm happy to provide a translation if you ask.]]