Brainbombs guide to catching scum 101
To begin this is a game of ego’s. Town players have the bigger ego, than scum. Remember that until put on the gallows, scum will rarely be hawkish. Mafia players do not have the aggressive play tilt that a vanilla townie does. You can use this to your advantage. After being a spectator, and a GM I noted some distinct differences in behavior of scum, and the behavior of PR. Here are some common myths and misconceptions to dispel to help us improve day 1.
1) Scum do not fake claim, and make joke breadcrumbs. While this behavior is anti-town, being anti town does not usually make you scum. On day 1, scum try to be as Pro town as possible. Scum rarely try to speculate on what PR’s are in play, and are far more likely to push a lynch on a fake claiming town opportunistically, than they are to fake claim themselves.
2) Joke posts are fair game for all alignments. The more super serious a player gets right away the more it feels like a lesson in over-preparedness and overcompensation. One of the best ways to discern a joke poster from a detriment to town, or scum motive is to see how long this phase of behavior persists. A scum aligned player will rarely continue to joke around deep into a phase. It draws tons of attention and annoys people. The last thing scum want to do is annoy people and attract tons of noise their direction.
3) Scum are most scared of reread guilt by association. They usually practice careful posting habits day 1, and let town destroy itself. The profile of the player you are looking for is not a lurker, not a joke poster, not a fake claimer, but someone who seems to have no interest in organizing and preventing arguments. This is a really difficult criteria to discern for a variety of reasons.
a) It is really difficult, but a popular style, to play scum and attempt to be a peacemaker for disputes. Some players have done it and it works. It isn’t unheard of for scum to say something like “hmm this sounds like a town vs town argument”. You need to look closely when these situations occur because a Vanilla town is much more afraid of applying a hard read of town on 2 people at once than scum is. It is much easier for scum to apply a town read arbitrarily to two people and attempt to claim it is based off reads. Usually this is a veiled form of buddying.
4) Scum will bus day 1 usually. Almost always a member of the scum team scum reads another. One of the reasons scum players love the system of BLAM is because it narrows everyone’s focus of the game and allows them to exclude huge amounts of information they likely don’t want to give.
5) Wagon analysis at all portions of the day reveal a piece of the mystery, not just end of day. Look at any wagon on or before the 20th page of Day 1 “if its that long ;)”, and look for oddities. Compare that to a later vote count wagon and look for discrepencies, look for someone who isn’t excessively voting, but is suspicious in how they travel their vote around (median average for a scum aligned player is around 6-9 vote shifts per phase -From M22). Usually scum fan out on day one, fearful of joining a wagon with their team, but it is also not unheard of for scum to try to drive voters onto a teammate near EOD to look like they are saving someone due to be lynched. In a year of playing mafia I have only seen 2 occasions in any phase ever where the entire scum team voted together on the same wagon by EOD.
6) Knowing this information in point 5, proceed with an eye for how many (1) member wagons there are, the stated reasons, players participation levels.
A) Look for someone who started off strong posting a lot but then dropped off inexplicably.
B) Look for someone who joined a wagon 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. 3rd is a popular number to vilify but occasionally a PR will also join a wagon 3rd, so don’t always focus on who joins 3rd. 2nd and 4th have equal likelihood of being scum. Typically a player who generates a wagon with a stated reason, and accompanies it with questions is a safer bet to be town than a lurker but you cannot hope to read either based on this properly. So if someone is 1st to form a wagon, and that wagon eventually becomes the lynch and flips town, take careful note of this. It is pretty rare that scum would create the wagon, stay on it, ride it out, and not express some apprehension at some point.
7) The profile of the player you are looking for is much more evident in later phases when they are a veteran player. In the early phases look for newer less experienced players who give an excuse for lack of participation (examples: I have an exam, I am working a lot this week, I have family coming over) These excuses aren’t lies, but they do imply that the player is totally unafraid of being night killed (depending on how long they claim they’ll be busy)
8) A newb scum is much easier to catch. And the ONLY thing that can save a newb scum from the gallows is an even scummier looking newb townie who has no information and says all the wrong things. The difference between newb scum and newb town is simple, newb town will make more noise and draw more attention. A newb scum will almost always get bailed out by someone who uses the argument we shouldn’t pick on newbs period. This is problematic because catching scum on day 1 is paramount. It isn’t impossible, but it requires a certain level of precision.
9) Catching veteran scum early is a daunting task. The odds are good that someone among the town will make a startling and seemingly out of the blue accusation of someone that ends up being right. (not to boost his ego here but most often that player has been HR). There are a few others that have been pretty good at this tactic early, including myself, although I tend to have something strongly read only to go back on my own read after a few pages.
10) Stay vigilant, read, you don’t have to post a ton but post enough to show people you aren’t afraid to be read improperly. The best weapon town has is that we aren’t afraid to be misunderstood. Town doesn’t care if they get a few votes on them. Scum lose their ability to manipulate town when town is practicing the self discipline to see their own fights are causing havoc. If you find yourself in a tunnel fight with someone for long enough, it is possible that person is town, and so are you. Remember that recent examples have provided town opportunities to have robust dialogue, M24 ghug, Jamie, guak, chaqa all were town and had opportunities to adjust, xorxes created the Jamie case and from there the game slowly turned into wasting 2 full days mislynching people from this small series of arguments: “a fake claim, a guy who kept pretending to be scum, a bad case, a guy defending him that it was a bad case” end result net loss -4 town aligned players. Hence these small disputes can quickly turn into catastrophic game losing failures.
11) Finally the No Lynch concept is floated every game and it is not an alignment tell. There is always someone dumb enough to think it is a good idea. A no Lynch is not good for scum either, so there is just as little incentive to suggest it as there is town. The more passionate someone is about a no lynch, the more likely they are to just not understand how this game works. Unfortunately, someone has to die. The odds do indicate town will get something wrong. That is part of the game. A No Lynch has its time and place, but never early in a game. If you have to lynch someone, it is far smarter to lynch using some of the theories I have posted above. And of course your reads are your own, and your method of scum-hunting is not inferior to mine. I never get everything right, and never could. Simply put- “a day one no lynch means we all get everything wrong“.
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