Gym Leader Choice Pokémafia 2 - Game Thread

[Negrek]

I went back and read through Mr. Ultracool and Blwiikoon.

Bluwiikoon actually came out looking better to me than when I went in. At first I was thinking only about the fact that he was involved in two kind of "huh" incidents for me, the thing with him/Ultracool/VM and the thing with Tofu, so maybe there was something there. Reading back through, though, he was really very tangentially involved in these incidents. The biggest thing was potentially helping Tofu out by presenting her with a plausible claim, but that does read to me as him trying to figure things out rather than trying to cover for her. At this point I actively do not want to lynch him.

Ultracool continued to puzzle me on the second read-through. His statements about his role seemed to weirdly shift over time, from his initial post where he says that his role gives him essentially zero info, to later posts where he's practically screaming, "I AM AN INFOROLE, PLEASE KILL ME." Weird comments about "well I can't tell alignments," "except oops maybe actually I could," "if I just meet that one condition..." (Maybe another case of misreading the role PM and figuring things out later, but the presentation is very strange to me.) He keeps trying really hard to figure out a way to give information back to Town if he watched himself and was killed by the Mafia even though people keep pointing out what a bad plan that is. I could imagine a (very non-standard) Town role that would fit with his play here, but that is obviously getting wildly speculative. It may just be that he's not familiar with how watchers tend to be effective, it may just be he thought of this Mafia-killing-me thing and thinks it's great and is kind of stuck on it (or was... afraid of being blocked or something if he didn't go with it after people told him not to?), but to me it just looks like he has some other goal in mind than using his ability to help Town. It is tripping me up a bit that his play strikes me as way more 3p than outright Mafia, which... if there are Mafia, we could potentially still have one or maaaaybe two 3p still floating around out there, but it's starting to get a bit weird.

To me, it just feels like I have to work much harder to envision a situation where Ultracool's Town than where Tofu's Town. Unless something dramatic happens, I'm going to go with Mr. Ultracool today. (Although I see votes are shifting, why must this always happen so close to the end of the day.)

I know bruh moment asked me a question earlier. I'll go back and look for that...

 

[bruh moment]

would you mind explaining your progression on jack? i was ¬¬ing him a bit D1 but moved him a couple slots in my tierlist after you got pretty much confirmed and read jack as outside his wolfmeta via tarot

we were kinda doing the same, i think we listed him as an oscillating read last time? i do think he's outside of his meta but that's kind of all that was keeping me townleaning him, didn't like how he talked about the wagons d1 and when we went back to reread noticed that he also never really engaged with the seshas one (despite talking in some depth about ultracool). like, he voiced being worried about a mounting/runaway wagon in concept, but didn't really do anything to stop or rationalize it?

also thought him following onto the negrek suspicions didn't really make sense, but that might be a little bit of a reach because my thought was pretty much "uh, they're both from old meta" + he said that he was pretty much only TRing tofu because of IRL angleshooting but never really engaged with it beyond that. also thought his blu case was like ... weird, he laid out these ideas and then didn't follow them to their logical conclusion; if i'm reading it correctly, it also revolves around reading tofu as a wolf:

these two posts feel almost TMI/openwolfy in how strongly they feel like an attempt to help a teammate cover up a questionable claim that was coming under more scrutiny than expected (which, in this reading, would implicate Tofu as well). There was nothing in Tofu's posts at that time that indicated anything like what Bluwii is suggesting (especially that discongruous "are you saying...?" when that's clearly not what she was saying), but sure enough Tofu ran with it.

and the rest of the evidence given is kind of unconvincing? like he calls these quotes LAMIST but i think they're just, blu,

Spoiler: quotes

That could be handy if we get inspection results on D2 or D3 :D A secondary detective! (needless to say @ anyone reading, don't out yourself yet if you're a detective, we need you!)

No nightkill is fantastic, but I really think trying to get someone to claim healer/roleblocker is counterproductive rn? We gotta keep the powerful town roles safe!! And we gotta all hydrate so we can think good!

I think if Sir Ultracool is town watcher then it's really important we keep him alive today/tonight That way we can definitely see if Tofu gets up to any hijinks

so all of it combined is just sort of. idk.

honestly most likely not really somewhere i'm interested in pushing tomorrow (and there's a handful of people below him who i'd rather look at) but i don't feel that great about him if i discard the metaread, so i feel like i can't put him in the upper half of my list
-m

 

[rari_teh]

i understand how ultracool might look off, but as someone who has wolfed with him before, i can assure you that w!ultracool does not like to drag much attention to himself. v!ultracool, on the other hand, lives to try and be useful to town, even if through crafting plans that wouldn’t work in most worlds (which isn’t too far off his scumgame, only the plans are laid out in scumchat instead). i’ve never seen him as 3p, though.

i’m highly inclined to believe that he’s town here. he might have shifted metas, but i kinda doubt it tbh

 

[Bluwiikoon]

God that reminds me, I'm sad Sir Ultracool did not in fact watch Tofu because I feel like that would have pre-emptively solved some things that happened today :( Theoretically if she's telling the truth, UC would have saw no movement, right?

 

[rari_teh]

God that reminds me, I'm sad Sir Ultracool did not in fact watch Tofu because I feel like that would have pre-emptively solved some things that happened today :( Theoretically if she's telling the truth, UC would have saw no movement, right?

i… think that you’re mistaking watcher for tracker here?

 

[bruh moment]

as someone who has wolfed with him before, i can assure you that w!ultracool does not like to drag much attention to himself. v!ultracool, on the other hand, lives to try and be useful to town, even if through crafting plans that wouldn’t work in most worlds (which isn’t too far off his scumgame, only the plans are laid out in scumchat instead).

this is the read i'm going with as well fwiw

Theoretically if she's telling the truth, UC would have saw no movement, right?

think you're mixing up watcher with tracker

-m

 

[Bluwiikoon]

God that reminds me, I'm sad Sir Ultracool did not in fact watch Tofu because I feel like that would have pre-emptively solved some things that happened today :( Theoretically if she's telling the truth, UC would have saw no movement, right?

i… think that you’re mistaking watcher for tracker here?

Oh gosh!!! I think I am confused about what the difference is tbh

 

[bruh moment]

Oh gosh!!! I think I am confused about what the difference is tbh

if i watch you, i see anyone who targets you
if i track you, i see anyone you target

 

[rari_teh]

Oh gosh!!! I think I am confused about what the difference is tbh

watchers see their target’s visitors, trackers see who their target visited

 

[rari_teh]

lol @ the mutual ninjas here

 

[Bluwiikoon]

That explains a lot!! Thank you mewt and rari! ^^ That also explains why UC didn't watch Tofu N1, if I misunderstood his role completely

 

[Negrek]

Oh, also, people pointed out that badges are mentioned in the sign-up thread and such, so Tofu would have known that dead players distributed them was a thing but wouldn't know how it worked if none of the Mafia had info on it in their role PM's. But... she's literally the first person to bring up badges being given away upon death in the entire thread? Why on earth would she claim that as part of her role do that if she's Mafia, none of the Mafia know how badge distro actually works, and none of the Town players have alluded to it? Trying to fish for more info on it by slipping in a reference there? Odd way of presenting it if so, IMO. I'm not understanding the hypothetical play here.

@bruh moment you wanted me to talk about this theory here?

i'm guessing that she just doesn't have one? also, skylar and i were thinking that maybe she was purposefully avoiding claiming colorful scatter, but then later forgot that she'd omitted mentioning it, and then slipped and said the phrase (considering that she'd at first expressly only claimed a vanilla, unflavored badge distribution thing + her oneshot)
-m

I'm confused, why do you think she would have intended to not mention Colorful Scatter in the first place? Do you think it's something actually very clearly Mafia-aligned she wouldn't want to claim, or...? Or is this not what you actually wanted me to look at?

 

[Negrek]

i understand how ultracool might look off, but as someone who has wolfed with him before, i can assure you that w!ultracool does not like to drag much attention to himself. v!ultracool, on the other hand, lives to try and be useful to town, even if through crafting plans that wouldn’t work in most worlds (which isn’t too far off his scumgame, only the plans are laid out in scumchat instead). i’ve never seen him as 3p, though.

i’m highly inclined to believe that he’s town here. he might have shifted metas, but i kinda doubt it tbh

That's fair. I don't know much about him at all, so I'm just going by what I've observed here. It's not the strongest scumread I've ever had, I'm also just not liking the other options as well.

 

[bruh moment]

Do you think it's something actually very clearly Mafia-aligned she wouldn't want to claim, or...?

in this situation, yep!

But... she's literally the first person to bring up badges being given away upon death in the entire thread?

that's also part of the signup post tbh tbh

if you die, on the phase right afterwards, you choose some players and bestow them Badges; the amount of badges you distribute is determined by your role

-m

 

[bruh moment]

Trying to fish for more info on it by slipping in a reference there?

by the way

So far I'm guessing the badges can only be distributed on someone's death? I kind of doubt there would be an action where it's just like "give a badge to someone once" because that would be a waste of an ability space?

was wondering if this was a possible fish for "can you get badges in non-death circumstances"
-m

 

[Negrek]

that's also part of the signup post tbh tbh

For sure, but why would she be the first to start talking about it once the game actually began? Obviously Mafia play is often not optimal, but it would seem way safer to hang back and wait for more info on this rather than writing it into your claim, when the other people who'd claimed already had felt no need to address it?

 

[Negrek]

Trying to fish for more info on it by slipping in a reference there?

by the way

So far I'm guessing the badges can only be distributed on someone's death? I kind of doubt there would be an action where it's just like "give a badge to someone once" because that would be a waste of an ability space?

was wondering if this was a possible fish for "can you get badges in non-death circumstances"
-m

That's fair! I could see that being general setup speculation or attempting to draw out info.

I will feel pretty bad if Tofu flips Mafia, obviously, but I'm just not convinced.

 

[Bluwiikoon]

I got a low blood sugar right now so that sure explains why my brain feels like a tangle I gotta hop out to consume some sugar, but I'll try to hop back in as soon as I can if I feel better in time! ❤

 

[bruh moment]

Obviously Mafia play is often not optimal, but it would seem way safer to hang back and wait for more info on this rather than writing it into your claim, when the other people who'd claimed already had felt no need to address it?

yeah, i agree that an early claim is on the townier side. we talked about that here though - basically we didn't love that she immediately brought up "but i claimed early!" when she started vaguely coming under fire

we think the early claim is sorta towny on its own, but not, like, especially so. and we're very much of the opinion that whatever town points it did win her were cancelled out and then some by this post, where she points to it as evidence of her own towniness. imo "if i'm mafia, why do i do THIS, huh!?" rarely feels good—very LAMIST vibes and i think these thoughts occur to wolves more often than town.

-m

 

[bruh moment]

I will feel pretty bad if Tofu flips Mafia, obviously, but I'm just not convinced.

hahaha, i understand. most of this isn't stuff that made us push for the lynch - that was pretty much the claim itself, really - just other things that made us already about her
-m