TL21xx
Very little content here, although in fairness we're talking about a replacement player. Nevertheless, he replaced in D1 and we're nearing the end of D2. Relative fence-sitter, not keen to commit - content to wait for
kingkitty (#739), suspiscious about the
Rest wagon but not actually enough to vote for anyone (#739), and wilfully admits in the same post he's not willing to comment seriously. It doesn't change. By #854, he admits suspicion of
Makai, but still doesn't vote, noting the pile on
Makai. This is a reasonable excuse in some contexts, but there's no explanation of why he thinks it is an excuse in this context. Early game wagons are usually town, because mafia avoids catching obvious suspect like that.
We get a vote (for
Hagi) by #1048, but there's no explanation for why other than "to avoid tying the vote". This is a non-reason, he could also have avoided it by voting for Rest, so there's no comparative explanation for why
Hagi over
Rest.
By #1426, we get a vote for
kgtrep. He states he felt suspiscious of
kgtrep for some time - but there's no reason why. He then said that I persuaded him
kgtrep was Hope - but there's no reason why he found that explanation persuasive. There's been little to no interaction beyond that point, other than explaining to
AbsolutBro why he has been so distant.
Verdict: It's difficult to know what to make of him. Regardless, I'd like to see more content. That doesn't necessarily mean a higher post count, but it does mean content in each post - explaining why he votes for people, why he finds particular arguments more or less plausible. At this stage I'm willing to peg it to "new player" rather than "lurking mafia". Nevertheless, he's a free kill for mafia if he is Hope because he has few interactions with other players.
Ty4on
Another replacement player. We find from #1114 he considered voting
Rest, but not why, and he never actually does vote for
Rest, apparently distracted by
Makai's role claim. This is a plausible excuse, it certainly derailed the end of Day 1. He finds me trustworthy, because of how much content I generate. It's not an indepth argument, but it is again plausible. He finds
CornBurrito suspiscious for picking out three specific people on the
Makai wagon, when there were more than that, and he didn't see why
CornBurrito picked those people.
This is fair, there were seven people who had voted
Makai by that stage (not all at once).
CornBurrito then picks three (me,
franconp, and
Sawneeks) - and he picks
franconp and
Sawneeks because of their association with me,
despite giving me the benefit of the doubt in #955. So, I think that's an observant point from
Ty4on.
He then has fairly weakly held opinions on a number of players
kgtrep,
kingkitty, and
Hagi. Nevertheless, they serve as launching points for discussion. We then get an unjustified vote for
Rest by #1138. This does have the value of being consistent with his earlier opinion about
Rest - although we still don't know why.
However, by #1232, he suddenly no longer trusts me (or not to the same extent). Again, we have no explanation why. In the intervening time we had
kgtrep's argument, but there's no clue as to why that persuaded him - possibly simply because he found
kgtrep towny earlier. Nevertheless, he's still content to play devil's advocate for me, in pointing out a weaker one of
kgtrep's points, so it's at least partially consistent with his earlier play. He's also willing to engage with untouched material even on difficult days like D2, switching to discussion of franconp's death by #1238, and when he does return, it's on lines of analysis that weren't followed earlier that he had been pursuing, like in #1341 where we still haven't found out why
CornBurrito pivoted around the me,
franconp,
Sawneeks group.
There's some mechanic discussion around here, which I think is useful but isn't really a tell because anyone can engage in it without it actually revealing anything about them or how they feel about other people. In fact, I treat it as a mild scumtell, although given that he was specifically mentioned in #1543 by me as a player who mechanics might specifically affect, I can write that one off.
By #1627 he mentions he finds
kgtrep's explanation of why I am Despair unconvincing, but this is interesting because it conflicts with his statement in #1232. These are only consistent if he has some reason to partially suspect me that is nevertheless independent of
kgtrep's reasoning. We don't find out what this is, I'd be interested to hear it.
#1789 involves independent work by
Ty4on in calling out
AbsolutBro, who stated to be suspiscious of those who avoided being in bandwagons of any sort then ended up not being in a bandwagon by being
Makai's sole end of Day 1 vote. This was good.
AbsolutBro has what I consider to be a fair response in #1801, but I liked the pressure put on him, especially when the day was getting stale. I intuitively feel like it isn't in Despair's interests to do that.
Verdict: I think it's very probable Ty4on is town, given he's consistenly acted in town's interests. I do want to know exactly how he feels about kgtrep and myself because sometimes his posts from the early #1200 conflict with later ones from the #1400, and I'd also like to have some more specific details on what he thinks of Rest and whether that remains the case, but that's a matter of his play not his alignment. Having said that, I think his play is mostly very good, as he forced new observations onto the table.
goshujinsama
Votes
Swamped for no real reason in #440, but this is very early, so I don't read much into it. We then get #461 and #466, in which he effectively concedes he has a power role. I find this interesting, for two reasons. Firstly, it just seems improbable that even very new players could not understand this would hint to scum what their role is, and secondly, he's not dead yet. Neither of these are inexplainable - very new, and mafia being aware of protective roles - but they both stand out to me. He then unvotes
Swamped in #477, the unvote also without reason (apparently persuaded by
Terrabyte20xx in some way which is not immediately clear). In #632 we find his accidental claim (which he now *fully* admits to) may not have been as disastrous. This is consistent with his role apparently having been revealed as a switcher, as many switchers can self-switch.
We find out that he thinks
Pau and
Barrylocke are probably town in #656. This is interesting because
Pau and
Barrylocke barely have posts at this stage and are a very odd pair to think "probably" anything of. We do get some shade thrown at
ViviOggi shortly after, though - and a reasoning, being that
ViviOggi had a habit of jumping on bandwagons late. There's definitely a truth to this, although I think there needed to be a stronger argument here - in Day 1, it's very unlikely that town are going to lynch mafia, so why do mafia even need to join the bandwagons in the first place? It just catches undue suspicion. He then backs down immediately in #662. I don't think the backing down in itself is suspiscious -
ViviOggi's defense in #661 was competent - but it does paint a picture of someone keen not to offend or cause controversy.
However, #795 is a good post and really what I want to see from everyone. We get a detail of
goshujin's perspective on every living player. I don't disagree with many of the statements (although they are fairly shallow observations in many cases). What I do find interesting is that
Barrylocke is called out as suspiscious, despite, as noted,
goshujinsama found him plausibly town-y earlier. I don't understand what changed, because in this post
Barrylocke was called out for poor content contribution, but
Barrylocke has been doing that all game long, it wasn't a new thing.
By #817 we get more suspicion on
Makai for not giving reads. I mention this specifically to highlight the fact that
Makai was getting pushed on by multiple people for his bad play, and not just me. It's also consistent with the way he feels about
SalvaPot in that same post. Nevertheless, his vote falls on
AbsolutBro. I'm somewhat wary about this (joining a building wagon) not necessarily because I think
goshujin is scum, but because I think he is struggling to put forth opinions of his own. Many of his posts are derivative, and at the few points he is confrontational, he is made to back down easily.
#1350 commits to me as Hope, but also feels
kgtrep is Hope. This at odds with what he thought earlier -
kgtrep was pegged in #817 as a figure of suspicion to
goshujin. It's not clear what caused this change in mind. He's still content to vote
kgtrep anyway, but for largely mechanical reasons - worrying about the specifics of
kgtrep's role. I am, again, worried by this fence-sitting.
#1728 is another useful post of the sort that we should be seeing more often. It's observant (noticing that
Makai has heavily hinted he has an investigatory power), but I think, again, largely non-confrontational. Everyone's read is either "Hope" or "need to see more", with the exception of
Makai. There's a certain wariness of
CzarTim,
Pau, and
Kalor - but the reasoning is derivative of my post at #1450.
I really like #1806. It's my favourite post from
goshujinsama and has done the most to shape my opinion of him. He's keen to press me on my aggression (more on that later), but that doesn't distract him from the fact that
kgtrep's arguments are weak at best. It's his first real confrontation with someone who, for obvious reasons, has been a major player in the game. It also went *totally* unresponded to by
kgtrep.
Verdict: Probably town. My slight concern is that, even though I suspect he was town, he would be a deadweight player - largely content to mimic the opinions of others. However, as the game has progressed, he's shown a good learning curve. He's certainly very observant, and in a way I think is difficult for mafia to pretend to be. I would like to see that observation harnessed more combatively in the future.
Splitting these up so I don't exceed GAF's words per post limit.