Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Twistedarcher]

Well, they're useful if you don't want to run 2/3 people up to a claim on a certain day, which can be really bad for town.

[theorel]

Well, they're useful if you don't want to run 2/3 people up to a claim on a certain day, which can be really bad for town.

I disagree.  Just lynch someone already in that case.  I'm not saying you should never lynch a claim, but you should certainly never lynch without OPPORTUNITY to claim.  That leads to utter stupidity (like lynching an IC).

[chairs]

Well, they're useful if you don't want to run 2/3 people up to a claim on a certain day, which can be really bad for town.

I disagree.  Just lynch someone already in that case.  I'm not saying you should never lynch a claim, but you should certainly never lynch without OPPORTUNITY to claim.  That leads to utter stupidity (like lynching an IC).

Or like lynching your doctor.

[ashersky]

Let's all remember the don't talk about ongoing games rule, shall we?

[EFHW]

Any interest in talking about scumhunting, or does discussing techniques make them useless?

[Twistedarcher]

Any interest in talking about scumhunting, or does discussing techniques make them useless?

It's a really hard thing to discuss without talking about ongoing games. For people who scumhunt in consistent ways and look for the same things, and are usually in a game, it's really tough to walk the line between what you're trying to do in a current game, but not talking about it.

[Twistedarcher]

Here's a great post by Theorel, though, that I think demonstrates a lot of good ways to find scum. (Keep in mind he WAS scum when he posted this.

The goal of scumhunting is to differentiate town players from scum players.  So the question is, how do we differentiate them?  Well, in order to differentiate them, we have to know what's different about them.  So, what's different about them?
1. They have a different goal.
2. They have additional information.

Now, consciously they are trying to hide both of those facts from the rest of us.  But just because they're trying to hide it, doesn't mean we can't look for it.
Those two things are kind of broad, so I break them down a bit.
1. Different Goal:
a. They're trying to lynch town.  Here's where we look for flimsy cases, misdirection, votes on town players.
b. They're trying to survive.  (Note: Town doesn't need to survive as badly as scum).  Here's where we look for things which don't help town, but help the player avoid lynches.

2. Different Information (ultimately this is just knowing who's town and who's scum.  But I'm going to talk about specific situations)
a. They know when they're wrong.  Either trying to direct town to a town-lynch, or defend scum.  They know everything they're saying is false, and sometimes that ingenuineness comes through or they try to find ways to cover their poor reasoning.
b. They know when they're right.  Either when bussing or when defending a town player.  They know that they're right, and so sometimes they show excessive conviction on a flimsy basis.
c. They know who their partners are, and what they're doing.  They can avoid or join wagons accordingly, and often will, because the names of their partners will stand out to them.
d. They know they're scum.  This knowledge can make them act differently from normal.

[theorel]

Yeah, but I think I'd still stand by it.  I wasn't trying to deceive with it (except in that I was trying to appear town).

[sudgy]

Here's something I've just been thinking about:

How do we define "scummy"?  Usually we say that it means someone is looking like a generic scum, sheeping, stretching cases, etc.  This definition seems to work, it's things that would benefit scum, not town.

This definition is HORRIBLY WRONG.

That definition is misleading.  It's saying that everybody plays the same, and will always do the same thing as scum.  It implies that the fact that some are better at hiding them doing these exact things is what makes all the players different.

Just thinking about that for a bit should show you what's wrong:

Being "scummy" is extremely different for different people.

I sheep.  That's not usually scummy, because that's what I do.  If I suddenly start not sheeping at all, and making my own original cases for every vote (not counting RVS), people would be wondering what's going wrong with me (hopefully).  If ashersky was heavily lurking in one game, people would be wondering what's going wrong with him (I know as scum he still posts a lot, you get what I'm saying).  The real definition of being scummy I think is the following:

Being scummy is acting differently than you do as town.

There have been countless times I've played mafia irl or on the forums, and seen people get lynched (and helped them get lynched) for something they do as town.  I think meta-arguments work way better than listing all the things they've done that's "scummy".

The way to find how people act as scum is to carefully see how they've played as scum before.  I've nailed mcmc multiple times with this.  As town, he lurks and has tiny posts.  As scum, he lurks and has big posts.  In all games with him, I've used this identifier and figured out his alignment.  It's a lot harder to do this with some of the players, of course, and that's where the challenge of the game comes in.

One additional note, with newbies, you have to use the normal "scumminess" simply because we don't know how they play.

So, to sum up, being scummy is acting different, not doing certain things which are thought to be "scummy".

[theorel]

I think that's where "lynch mafia not scum" comes from.  Scummy is just a word, it means what you said it means.  Now whether scummy implies scum depends on the player, but scummy play is just play that would benefit a player were they scum.  Town players can be scummy.

This is in contrast to anti-town behavior.  Anti-town behavior may not actually benefit a player as scum (see claiming Vanilla Town previously).

Now if you think that scummy should mean acting like their scum-meta, then you could try to change the definition of the term.  But then you're getting into the whole issue where the term doesn't mean what it sounds like it means.

Scummy means "acting like scum" to me.  That means it applies to people that act like scum, whether that's scummy for them or not.  Hence: mail-mi is always scummy, makes sense.  Under your definition, such a statement would be false (unless his scum-meta and town-meta were the same, which I posit they are not)

[Jimmmmm]

I think that's where "lynch mafia not scum" comes from.  Scummy is just a word, it means what you said it means.  Now whether scummy implies scum depends on the player, but scummy play is just play that would benefit a player were they scum.  Town players can be scummy.

I disagree. I think scummy play is about perception, and scummy players tend to be lynched.

[theorel]

I think that's where "lynch mafia not scum" comes from.  Scummy is just a word, it means what you said it means.  Now whether scummy implies scum depends on the player, but scummy play is just play that would benefit a player were they scum.  Town players can be scummy.

I disagree. I think scummy play is about perception, and scummy players tend to be lynched.

I'm not sure I follow.  Whether any specific play would benefit scum is a certainly a matter of perception, if that's what you mean.  If scummy play is play that's perceived to be scummy then, that's just a circular definition.  The "question" is: what play is perceived as scummy?  I would argue that it's play which is perceived as advancing the scum agenda.  Scummy players are players whose play-style appears to advance the scum agenda.

Scummy players tend to be lynched, yes.  But we don't find players scummy because they tend to be lynched.  I've certainly never thought: "hey that player is about to be lynched, he looks scummy".

Which brings us back to sudgy's original point which is that when looking for scum, the behaviors we consider scummy aren't the best thing to look for.  To be clear, I don't entirely disagree with that point.  Just with the idea that we need to redefine the term "scummy" to fit what's best to look for.  We should indeed look for players who play to their "scum-meta" if they have one.  But not everyone has a scum meta, and some aren't so cut and dry.

That's where scummy behavior comes in.  Play which advances the scum agenda should be discouraged, the best way to discourage it is to lynch it.  Scum-meta is a more useful way to detect scum, yes, but in the general case where scum-meta is not noticed you should lynch players that are actively working against town.  The effect here is to create a town which plays better, and scum that need to avoid doing anti-town things, but must do some to win.

In order to do that effectively though, we need to know what behaviors are anti-town, and which remain anti-town when used by scum.  I gave some examples before, let's talk about less-clear stuff.
-Provoking arguments: completely NOT anti-town.  If someone starts a fight, they're helping town.
-Sheeping: This is less anti-town then it's made out to be.  We need to lynch, and in order to do that everyone can't have their own opinion completely.  Some people just need to vote in trust of other players.  Ideally everyone would have their own argument for why we should lynch someone, because that means the lynch-target is doing scummy things on multiple levels (because multiple players noticed it).  But scum doesn't play like that.  At some point, you have to set down what you want and go with the flow.
-Voting against reads:  Hmm...not sure on this one.  It's a more severe form of sheeping, and might in fact be anti-town.

What other behaviors do we typically find scummy, whether we should or not?  (or you know comment on sudgy's post, I think it's worth talking about, although we've had similar discussions elsewhere)