Aquanim

Current status

Quitting Mafia for my own good (again). Going to see if I can get myself sitebanned this time so maybe it'll stick.

Played Games

Newbie 1497
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Newbie	Zaicon	Town	Vanilla	Started	Shot N3	Town win
My first game here at MafiaScum. Found scum day 1, couldn't get them lynched, settled for lynching a difficult SE (town, but them's the breaks). I nearly mislynched Thor day 2 since neither of us would back down from an argument, instead mislynched a newbie. The scum shot Thor night 2 which was probably a misplay given how close he'd come to being hanged, one of the scum replaced out and the replacement tried to lynch me, and from there the game was easy.
Lessons learned: few, unfortunately. People who disagree with me or are straight-up daft aren't necessarily scum or even wrong, but I knew that one already. I think I have a better feel for the MS.net meta at least.

Open 580
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Open (Tit for Tat)	BlueBloodedToffee	Town	Vanilla	Started	Survived to D3	Town win
I guess I don't play Mafia very often if a first-game newbie from my first game is moderating my second. Dragged town into a scum lynch day 1 (onto their main power role, no less) and a second mafia was shot by the Vigilante overnight. The more experienced players in the game refused to lynch the remaining scum (TSO) because of a meta read so instead we mislynched a VT I felt did not deserve it more than most (despite the inaccuracy of his reads). Fortunately TSO was checked, jailed and the game was ended.
Lessons learned: the meta reads experienced players have on one another might not be accurate, but that doesn't mean you can do anything about it. People who disagree with me or are straight-up daft sometimes ARE scum.

Mini 1653
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Normal	MonkeyMan576	Town	Vanilla	Started	Endgamed D3	Town loss
All town power roles claimed day 1, one of them got modkilled, we nolynched for no reason, and then I led town into two mislynches. Nearly every other significant contribution to the game was by mafia. About a third of the townies were utterly incompetent and/or played against wincon.
Lessons learned: I need to quit Mafia. Raging at other players, whether they deserve it or not, wasn't what I came here to do.

Blitz 6
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Blitz (Normal)	KittyMo	Town	Bodyguard	Started	Survived to D4	Town win
Having not made enough terrible choices in my life recently I signed up for another game. Fully satisfied said desire for terrible choices with a really questionable day 1 claim (it had some redeeming features, but overall probably not good). This was followed by a good vigilante shot n1 which knocked out a second scum, after which we blundered around lynching lurkier players for a few days until hitting the right one.
Lessons learned: You got lucky this time, buster... but don't push your luck. Never, ever attempt this with a better PR. (Also, I can't even get myself shot n1 by claiming a protective PR d1. :/ )

Mini 1769
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Normal	SirCakez	Mafia	Encryptor	Started	Survived to D4	Mafia win
Looked at my team, looked at the list of players on the town team, and thought "welp we lost". Four days later we won a perfect victory. Mostly, I blame hubris.
Lessons learned: I am capable of playing as scum - and I don't enjoy it.

Open 653
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Open (C9++)	lalaladucks	Town	Vanilla	Started	Survived to D3	Town win
20 pages of toxic garbage, followed by quicklynching the scum team. Not my best effort - my reads were OK (if slow), but I didn't spend any time anywhere near the top of anybody's town list.
Lessons learned: The blacklist grows longer. I can play a weaker game and get carried, but that does come with the risk of getting mislynched, as you'd expect. Mini 1769 is going to come back to haunt me.

I have about half-a-dozen games played on a different site. I rolled vanilla town in every one that wasn't abandoned quickly, so you won't get any usable scum or PR meta out of them anyway; just explains why I might not feel like a total amateur in my first games here. If you want to see them badly enough or find out why I don't choose to play there any more, google is your friend. If I use some odd slang (filter instead of ISO, for instance) it's probably a habit picked up there - or it's an Australian affectation.

Off-The-Record Games

These games are "off the record" in the sense that I had very little to do with their outcome (generally by way of late replacement).

Mini Normal 1744
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Normal	Jake from State Farm	Town	Vanilla Townie	Replaced D3	Shot N3	Town loss
Replaced into a dumpster fire where town had lynched its good power roles in 80 pages of rubbish, and the remaining town was mostly either locked in death tunnels on each other or afk lurking. Lost to a scumteam including the one town-check the cop got off before committing hari-kari. I console myself with having turned a poor slot into a shootable one, and with day 4 at least resembling a game of mafia more than what came before.
Lessons learned: Don't replace into dumpster fires expecting to win.

Newbie 1719
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Normal	SirCakez	Town	Vanilla Townie	Replaced D3	Survived to D5	Town win
Replaced into a game at 5-man LYLO, but one of the scum was effectively outed already, and the most plausible mislynch turned out to be holding town's PR. I moved my own slot from "probably town" to "obvtown" but that was about it.
Lessons learned: Town replacements into a game bringing a fresh perspective can be pretty bad for the mafia - not that it turned out to be their biggest problem. Having PRs alive towards endgame can be *really* bad for mafia too.

Mini 1840: Watch Dogs Blitz
Game Type	Modded by	Faction	Role	Entry	Status	Outcome
Theme (Blitz)	Firebringer	Mafia	Ascetic	Replaced D2	Lynched D4	Scum loss
I don't play themes as a rule but I'm willing to support the Blitz gametype and this game badly needed a replacement. I was kind of hoping for a town slot, though. Unfortunately, scum was beset by multiple forced replacements and the setup swung pretty hard to town, and we got eliminated in short order. Apparently we had a Traitor so my resignation was perhaps a little premature... though I doubt we had outs even then.
Lessons learned: Sometimes you replace into a scum slot. Tried a theme, didn't like.

Hosted Games

Mini 1772
Game Type	Flavour	Outcome
Normal (Semi-Open)	None	Town win
Players: Dierfire, Gale Wing Srock, Lowell, BlueTrin, GuyFawkes, chilledtea, pistachi0n, Almost50, Frozen Angel, Postie, Not_Mafia replacing Creature, lovelygiant, Antihero replacing n_n replacing Terminator
Game summary: Scum inexplicably failed to shoot or roleblock a claimed Macho Tracker for two days running and lost most of their team as a result.
Lessons learned: Including an unconventional role like Universal Backup in the role list can affect the game even if the role isn't used.

About me

You'll have to form your own opinion, I can't imagine mine would be useful to you. You may generally expect to be treated with the same respect you give everyone else, however much that might be. I've been called pleasant, arrogant, condescending, dickish and mentally retarded all in the same game (at least the last was by mafia), so you probably won't even get a reliable opinion out of anyone else, either :)

I haven't been mislynched since my very first game offsite (and even that was under bizarre circumstances), I don't replace out of games by choice and I don't think I would enjoy a hydra. I have occasionally replaced into games, but typically only games that needed a "nightwatchman" to finish the game off.

My trust tell

If I played from the start in your game I rolled vanilla town. It works every time (until the game it doesn't).

EDIT: No longer accurate as of Blitz 6.

Some philosophy on playing town

This is not a comprehensive guide to towning, just a few observations. Be aware that this guide may not leave you any space for a scumgame, couldn't say of my own experience.

EDIT as of Mini 1769: Well, it's good enough to win a non-zero number of scumgames, at least. Being pleasant and respectful to everyone else will take you a long way, no matter your alignment.

Do not be afraid to mislynch. Do not feel too bad about misreading inactive and useless townies. You're far better off lynching a useless null than somebody who is maybe slightly more likely to flip scum, but who is active and will become more readable one way or the other with time. And if you encounter a townie who is making the thread toxic and unplayable... show no remorse. Just because they got handed a town PM doesn't mean they're helping you achieve the town wincon.

(That being said, lynching replacement-bait which has no interaction with any other slots is not ideal, though sometimes unavoidable.)

If you screwed up and lynched a useful townie out of paranoia or something, you should feel bad.

Speaking personally, my hit-rate on scum is only a bit above 50% - and that's still good enough to win most games, because the remaining 50% of my scumreads are often townies that weren't helping all that much.

Playing in such a way that other people can make accurate reads (of both you and other people) is possibly more important than having good reads yourself. There are many players who have the skills to make good reads in a good game - not nearly so many have the skill to turn a bad game into a good one, or stop a game going bad in the first place. Keep the thread moving so there's always something to talk about, and defuse situations which are turning into messy poop-flinging.

If you have been handed a power role in a normal game, your voice and your vote are still far more important. Play accordingly. If you made yourself such a danger in the thread to the scumteam that they had to kill you, you are doing your job regardless of your role. Depending on the setup this *may* not be quite true, but I would err in this direction.

Don't feel the need to be involved in everything that happens in the thread. Watching other people do their thing without showing too much of your own hand is a legitimate town tactic. That being said don't carry it too far, or you'll get lynched for it.

On that note, there are things you may do if you are being strongly read as town by many people that would be perilous otherwise (actively lurk, refuse to answer questions, change vote with no explanation, etc.). Sometimes you may have a reason to do these things. If you have an accurate idea of how much town credit you have, this is safe. Do not overdraw your account - getting lynched because you made one gambit too many would be incredibly silly.

As a VT it helps to dislike playing the game and losing the game in about equal measure, so that you are driven to get yourself killed by scum as soon as possible. This does rather beg the question of why one would play Mafia if one dislikes playing the game. That is quite a good question. You might note I don't play all that often :)