Bwahaha. My co-mods in Noir are telling me to hurry up and lynch someone here so we can go to night.
I hate multiple scum team Mafia. I feel like a have a vast over abundance of town reads because I can't read disingenuous posting from anybody. If I absolutely had to pick someone right now it would be between four players, I think:
mcmcsalot, Jimmm, Shraeye and Cuzz.
Here's the thing. All of them have done things that make me feel "Hey, that's a townie thing to do." - But I need to remember that scum can have genuine reactions and play in this setup as well. Like... I feel as if I need to disregard my town reads in this setup because the things I normally rely on to indicate town play to me are going to be easily and NATURALLY replicated by scum. Does that make sense?
I'm not saying "Hey, let's lynch all my town reads!" Because that's just stupid - but I do think "townie behavior" is a lot more of a null tell. So I think I need to focus less on identifying things that make me feel a player if town, and more on the things that make me feel a player is scum.
And that brings me back to those 4.
Mcmcsalot: I happen to agree with Jimmm here, based solely on my own personal experiences of being a player who's first game was scum, and second was town. I know as well that I'm not alone in struggling to make that particular transition. I recognize mcmc's defense, and I recognize everybody is different. His defense reads townie to me. But this is something that I think would be easy and natural to fake here as well. So my suspicion remains.
Shraeye: I'm interested in hearing his rebuttal to Theorel's case. I'll admit that I've largely had a town read from him - but that in itself is unusual. I don't want this to become a "he's scummy because he's not scummy!", so I'll disregard that line of thought from any consideration. But his posting HAS been less than I'm used to, and his overall presence in the game is certainly much less than I'm used to. This isn't in keeping with either scum!Shraeye nor town!Shraeye meta's, so I think it needs to be noted for just what it is - unusual. And that for me is largely why he's on this list. His play has just felt off. Maybe it's just that he's busy IRL (he's indicated as such elsewhere), so of the four he's probably lowest on my list. Still, I would consider a lynch here.
Jimmm: I know. Lynching the vocal ones is bad. And vocal is town, right? This is the mindset I'm trying to break away from in this setup. I don't WANT to lynch the big talkers specifically, no. But I think it's a lot easier for people to replicate their town posting meta's as scum in this setup. It isn't something that should get undue town points. Yes, Jimmm has taken a lot of positions and made a lot of cases, and yes that's normally a town trait because it shows a genuine desire to scumhunt - but I don't think in this particular setup that makes him any townier. And if I set aside the "He's posting a lot of stuff" and actually look at the content of what he's posting, I'm left with an overall negative vibe.
Cuzz: I still feel that Cuzz opened the game by making a lot of posts about completely irrelevant things. And not like RVS irrelevant. It felt like he wanted to appear to be contributing meaningfully while not saying anything of value. His early vote on Eevee aside, all his posts were about what the opening post said the setup contained - and they were posted in and around the whole Dsell/Eevee thing. He completely avoided that whole debate while it was happening, even though he had his vote on Eevee from RVS, and was around and posting. It wasn't until much later when I called him out over it that he ever went back and addressed the issue - and that was two days later.
I unvoted Cuzz because I thought his defense read townie to me. I also felt the case that Eevee put together wasn't really much of a case. But as others have pointed out, defensiveness is both a town and scum trait. I'll admit I didn't at all like his OMGUS vote on Eevee. He obviously recognized how weak Eevee's case was, but he got all antsy about the vote. I think that as town he would be much more level headed - maybe voting Eevee eventually if Eevee remains stubborn on a bad case - but not OMGUS voting straight back and claiming he suddenly has good reason to do so. So I'm going to put my Vote: Cuzz back on. Of the four listed, he certainly seems the most "off" if I set aside some of the things that would normally make me lean town.
As for the rest, my biggest town reads are on Eevee and Theorel. Eevee because no matter which way I slice it this isn't a scum!Eevee that I would've ever seen. Could he be scum? Yeah, of course. I just really, really don't think so. Theorel I have a not of a weak spot for reading as town. Everything he posts resonates with me. I may not always share his conclusions, but I always feel like his arguments are made from a town perspective. The only time this wasn't the case, was in the dual-scum M-VI, where I identified him as WW very early D2.
Everyone else kind of falls into the middle. I would be happy to entertain a case on them, but nothing has stood out. Robz and I have had almost polar opposite reads all game, but I'm not sure if I should take from that "Robz is
scum", or "Robz and I really read things differently". Right now I'm leaning towards the latter. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.