How to catch Wolves by Metal Sonic
Note: This guide is written with the style of Metal Sonic’s scumhunting. This style may differ or may even be incompatible with your current playstyle. Regardless, this guide aims to be as applicable to a general audience as possible such that as many people as possible can benefit.
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So you are playing a game of mafia but you’ve never been quite accurate with catching the scum. Maybe you’re a newbie who has played only one or two games, and haven’t quite gotten the hang of the game yet. Or perhaps you may be a more experienced player who always had a strength in becoming a consensus townread, but beyond that, have to rely on other strong scumhunters in the town to catch the scum for you. The way that other players catch the scum always seemed like magic to you.
This guide is for you. With this, you can practice catching scum on your own. How other players catch those elusive scumbags will no longer be “magic” to you; whether someone flips town or scum after they’ve been lynched will no longer been a suspenseful coinflip every time. Hopefully you will be able to play the hammer role in 3-player LYLO situations without fear and second-guessing yourself to the point of mania and depression.
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What is the difference between town and scum?
The crucial difference between a player of town and a player of scum, is that:
- Town do not know each other, and also do not know who the scum are.
- Scum know who all the town are, and also who all their scumpartners are (barring exceptions such as Mafia Traitors or 3rd Parties)
This is the fundamental difference between a player who is town and a player who is scum. Furthermore, their winconditions differ:
- Town wins by lynching all the scum available.
- Scum wins by lynching as many town as is necessary to reach LYLO, then, lynch another townsplayer to secure the win.
These are the only two ways that town and scum differ; it is impossible to construct a general rule for anything else, considering that everybody plays differently, and also the fact that different players can have the potential to play town and play scum in different games. Your friend may be town in a game, and be scum in another game. These roles are arbitrarily assigned, and do not change the person who is behind the screen playing them.
With that said, there are some common similarities between town and scum that you may observe in order to identify who the scum are.
- Town need to find scum. Scum do not need to find town.
This is a very basic yet the most important facet of mafia that underlies all forum mafia games. Town can be identified via genuine scumhunting, that is, attempts to identify the scum, while scum are required to falsify or pretend to scumhunt, in order to blend in with the town. These two differing skills are the premise of which one’s alignment can be determined.
Therefore, certain general scumtells can be determined to identify if someone is scum:
- A player is exhibiting less behaviors of scumhunting than either a) other players in the game, or b) their previous performances as town in other games.
- A player exhibits behaviors that suggests that they already know certain players alignments in a way that is excessive compared to a) other players in the game, or b) their previous performances as town in other games.
Let’s go in depth into these two broad areas of scumtells, shall we?
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A player is exhibiting less behaviors of scumhunting than either a) other players in the game, or b) their previous performances as town in other games.
In order to determine a threshold of whether one is exhibiting more or less behaviors of scumhunting as compared to other benchmarks, one must define what scumhunting is.
For this part, common scumhunting techniques include:
- Asking alignment indicative questions to others in other to determine their alignment.
- Giving reads on other players to communicate with the other members of the town on where they stand in the game.
- Making arguments against players who they believe are scum in attempts to get their scumreads lynched.
- Making arguments for players they believe are town in attempts to prevent their townreads from getting lynched.
Thus, from the above premises, we can determine that performing certain behaviors may be indicative of scum, such as:
1a. Asking irrelevant questions that are not alignment indicative.
1b. Asking questions that are alignment indicative but are not followed up upon to obtain meaningful reads.
2a. Having no intention to communicate with other townspeople on where they stand in the game.
2b. Giving reads with no intention to communicate with other townspeople on where they stand in the game.
2c. Not giving meaningful reads or having genuine stances as to who they believe are the scum in the game.
3a. Making no efforts to get their scumreads lynched.
3b. Not making sound arguments against players who they believe are scum in attempts to get their scumreads lynched.
3c. Making less efforts than usual in getting their scumreads lynched.
4a. Making no efforts to prevent their townreads from being lynched.
4b. Not making sound arguments for players who they believe are town in attempts to prevent them from getting lynched.
4c. Making less efforts than usual in preventing their townreads from getting lynched.
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A player exhibits behaviors that suggests that they already know certain players alignments in a way that is excessive compared to a) other players in the game, or b) their previous performances as town in other games.
Scum already know who their partners are, as well as who all the members of the town are. They basically have the answers to the whole game, and have to hide this information. This is only one step of information below the game host, who has the information of all alignments of all players in the game, as well as the knowledge of the identity of town power roles. Town is at the short end of the stick, knowing none of the players’ alignments or power role information. Their only strength is in numbers.
As a result of this information asymmetry, scum must do their best to hide their knowledge that they know the alignments of the other players of the game, while following their win condition by getting to LYLO as early as possible; discouraging (but not outright preventing) the deaths of their teammates.
How can this fundamental difference in town and scum informational advantages hint us as to who is scum? They could be scum if:
- A player acts or exhibits behaviors that indicate that they know a player’s alignment is town.
- A player acts or exhibits behaviors that indicate that they know a players alignment is scum.
Thus, from the above premises, we can determine that performing certain behaviors may be indicative of scum, such as:
1a. Outright stating that a player is town even though there is no evidence to support the fact (consensus scumread who is known through scum knowledge to be town) [AKA “Whiteknighting”]
1b. Behaving or conversing with a player as if he is town even though there is no evidence to support the fact, or while having the subject as a “scumread”.
1c. Behaving or conversing with a player as if he is town prematurely, without reasonable evidence of paranoia or second-guessing that would typically be appropriate in the situation (barring alignment confirmations such as cop clears and masons).
2a. Avoiding contact with a certain player, knowing that player is part of the scumteam and communications could have been done entirely in the scum’s secret communication channel.
2b. Avoiding contact with a certain player, knowing that player is part of the scumteam and foregoing the typical actions of scumhunting on that player because their alignment is already known to be scum.
2c. Awkward contact with a certain player that is not typical of an interaction between two town members who do not know each other’s alignments.
2d. Outright stating that a player is scum even though there is no evidence to support the fact [AKA “Bussing”]
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These are just extremely broad catch-all categories of scumtells that both newbie and expert players alike can use to hunt scum effectively. It is to be noted that these general behavioral tells are to be used on a player’s body-of-work in a game thread; a single random post from any player is highly unlikely to be indicative of alignment, barring exceptional circumstances. You need to examine all of a player’s posts, and, observe if they fit into one of the above categories to determine if they are scum or not.
Hopefully, this guide helped you to learn the differences between town and scum, and gives you knowledge as to what to look out for in future games in order to increase your accuracy in catching scum.
Practice, practice, practice! Nobody became a good scumhunter in a single day, or a single game. Many of the world’s best mafia scumhunters have had years of experience perfecting their techniques and memorizing their tells by heart, such that they can tell you in a single minute of reading a player’s posts if that player is more likely to be town or scum (I certainly can!). With this guide, and sufficient practice, you too can be a brilliant scumhunter!
Go catch them all!