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Alright, here's how I feel right now, going from most towny to most scummy.

---TOWN---

Ani: Ani had a slow-ish start without any real contributions until later-on in Day 1. However, they still seemed to try to understand what is going on (in this post), which I found a good first signal: attempting to understand other's reasoning for their claims. Nothing relevant happened (involving Ani) during the rest of the first half of Day 1, besides this post, which I found scummy (and still in the context of the day thus far) for helping out with the mechanics, without engaging in more relevant discussions. Later, they responded that the discussion went over their head, which is reasonable, although I think in disregarding the argument as theoretical, Ani dismissed making reads based on whether it was good the discussion was happening overall and whether the claims made were valid.

Afterwards, they did try to involve themselves (example) and I think the reads presented were reasonable. I do not necessarily agree with all of them (i.e. that OM came off towny from the interaction), but I can see where all of the reasoning came from and do not think it seemed particularly forced. The overall reads weren't strong, but they should not be something that in the grand scheme of things is relatively minor. I was also intrigued by what they said about my deep-dive and although they could've attached a small read to it, I think the sentiment of that my interactions will be useful later on is definitely true*.

Attempting to discuss the other thread overall seems in good faith, but I do not find it very useful yet personally, probably because I am very much focused on the Future as of now.

At the far end of the day, they did not do too much. I get the impression that Ani is a more reactive type of player so far, who wants to react to things happening instead of being part of the things happening. This may be because their confidence as a player in this game is not very large yet, but I want to look out for the future whether Ani develops themselves further towards active plays, as right now their reactive nature could be easy for scum to simply give some comments from the sidelines. An example of further passive play is just asking me why I No Lynched, instead of giving an argument of why we should lynch (as I don't think it was very clear what was better).

So why do I feel relatively strongly about Ani? Whereas they are not the greatest contributor to town, to me their posts radiate a genuine attempt to participate in a game where they do not feel very confident in yet. I think this would be hard for scum to mimic, as their ulterior motives would probably cause the posts to be noticeably directed towards whatever side they feel they "should" push, or to hide themselves. To me, Ani has already shown some development in the game, has become more confident, and has not tried to obscure their reads or themselves by avoiding certain questions, even when they sometimes fail to actively push the game forward. Although they have played the game from the sidelines, it did not give off the idea that they were restraining themselves, and as it all seems genuine so far, this does not convince me right now that Ani would not be town. Though, I would like to see more active play!

*Not relevant to Ani, but I purposefully tried to give as many opinions (and do other stuff...) as I could while I could, so I could further the progress on the game and so people could also discuss the points, the interactions, and me.


Scorrch: Scorrch started the day off lightly, I think just having some fun with the start of the game... and infamously caused the OM vs. AZ saga. Interestingly, he doesn't actually get involved much in this conversation, besides a few posts like this one, that honestly seemed to be of a de-escalating nature in an overreactive discussion, which emphasised the pointlessness of the saga*. Thus far, I did not really have an opinion on Scorrch - although the first impression was good - it did not necessarily mean much.

Scorrch really started contributing at this point, which seemed unprompted as far as I realise, and also seems like a logical place for him to start forming reads, as stuff happened in the saga that could be the basis of real reads (over impromptu early game reads mostly meant to push the game forward). The post discussing the optimal play for the reward was sound, although it is not hard for scum to make posts about optimised static play (although scum could attempt to push the reward onto them, or have insight into what would happen in specific situations that they could push for). When he started posting his perspective on the events prior (like here), the reasoning in this post was short, but in my opinion clear and on-point**. In the next post, and in this post earlier today, he purely stated his opinion without any argument. I would dislike this if he tried to push based on just that, but as they seem to be just indicators of where his mind is at right now, and he has stated his reasoning earlier, I am fine with this, as long as he has the arguments when he goes for a push (or a specific response). This is also what I want to watch out for, as there haven't been many points where he had to give his reasoning, so when someone has to be lynched today, it will be interesting to see where he goes.

I know that I have the tendency to townread players as Scorrch and I'm cautious that I'm caught off guard by the relaxed-style play, but for now I do not believe that Scorrch is scum. To me, he feels like he's been clear in what he wanted to say, said things when he needed to, and has not tried to hide behind fake reasons or off-topicness, which leads me to believe he is town.

*I do not think that discussing this saga is pointless, I think that it was rather weird the events of the saga happened due to the discussion that sparked it being rather pointless.
**Whereas I have the tendency to want to overexplain my points.


Quo: Within the OM vs. AZ saga, Quo seemed like the reasonable third party. He de-escalated OMs harsh read, agreed that AZ said some unintuitive things (example for both) and in general seemed like a good compromise between the two in the early Day 1. Furthermore, he has been open in what he was thinking from the start (example). He continued the line of trying to understand both AZ and OM, instead of blaming them, I think, by asking questions to understand. The questions could be seen as pretending to be involved, without actually making a case. I, however, think that trying to understand people early in the game is something that is very much something a town player should do, instead of making big reads before you know what a player is thinking.

However, through all of the day, Quo has not gotten any FoS onto himself, and he has not been very risky in what he has said by really committing to a certain line of thought. I think it made sense this Day 1 to not have very strong reads, especially with the limited interactions we'd seen for most of the day, but I would like to see him take a stronger stance today and especially whether his argumentation weakens when he is put into a situation where he has to commit (i.e. whether it would become forced). What is interesting, is that OM did say that Quo was the closest to an attack on him. I feel like Quo purely disagreed with OMs stance, not actually suspected OM (or at least did not say so). I do not think this is necessarily a case of committing, as it wasn't an OM!scumread, but I do think it shows that Quo is not necessarily afraid of the confrontation, which I think is a good thing (also considering scum does not benefit de-escalation).

Later on in the day, after my failed attempt to stir up something, Quo actually sided "with" me and also called out Alex. While I agree with the sentiment presented in this post, which I will further explain when I analyse Alex, I do feel like my post kinda reeked too, due to the strong read based on weaker arguments*. Maybe I just think that, because I intended it that way... Either way, I think the point was totally valid, so I do not think the post is scummy, but if scum!Quo, then it was a relatively easy point to hop onto a bandwagon on a weaker town player (assuming Alex is not scum in this case), without putting much FoS onto himself. This is what I'm most worried about with Quo, so I really want to pay attention to his position in the game in the future. So far, it was hard to have stronger opinions, but we will all have to commit ourselves, and it will be important to watch how Quo does that.

Quo is my least strong read in the towny region, but he has been very reasonable so far and has given good arguments, even if they were from the sidelines (so relatively easy to give). However, his explicit de-escalation of OM's strong take on AZ seems like a very town thing to do to me: even when he was not initially involved, he went against an early read, without actually blaming the person for making this read. I feel like Mafia would prefer it if the situation would escalate, as that could allow them to easily lynch someone when either a bandwagon starts forming, or if AZ and OM are both town, the two start potentially tunnelling in on each other. This is also the pitfall, as scum!Quo could definitely want to protect scum!AZ (OM seems less likely). However, I have no reason to believe that they are a scumteam, besides this validating this play from Quo if scum, so I believe it's a town play right now, especially regarding his overall critical thinking during the rest of Day 1.

*I still think it is hard to read Alex, so me pretending I had a big scumread on him was a bit odd I thought.


Neutral / scummy categories coming next post. Gonna make soup now . If I was unclear (really tried not to be, yet still typed up quite a bit...) or you don't understand an argument then feel free to call me out and I'll try to explain