I think Nat has been acting disingenuous and has been posting in bad faith. I'll go over a few separate points as to why here.
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I believe Nat's vote on Royal was a bus. Nat has been strongly defending HP his entire time in the game so far. Swinging the vote over to HP would blow his cover. It's very interesting how this exact same scenario occurred in The Thing, where scum!Nat swore up and down that he backed HP on D2, but at EoD Nat voted HP to self-pres and save himself from elimination. This ultimately resulted in his death by vig shot that night. I don't think Nat would make the same mistake twice, so instead here he went for the hard bus on Royal to get some much needed town cred after jman gave him little to work with.
Nat's first defense of HP:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-38#post-74303826
He downplays the possibility of both HP and Blarg being scum. I disagree with him here, because that Blarg wagon seems quite clean and happened very quickly. If LP is town, his claim would not necessarily be expected by the scum team and there wouldn't be enough time for them to react, if they were even around.
More defense denying the possibility of both Blarg and HP being scum:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-39#post-74307492
Then there's this very weird defense of HP based on SD2 that does not hold up under scrutiny. Nat's point is just plain inaccurate. I've already rebuked this point in earlier posts so I will not re-litigate it, but anyone can read the SD2 thread and see that Nat's point on HP's activity is wrong.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-39#post-74308602
Another defense of HP, stating that disinterested players are likely town:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-50#post-74522136
It's funny, because he made the exact opposite argument in SD2 towards HP. Additionally, Geno was a great example of a disaffected scum player in the very same game taking advantage of the same thing. I believe that being disinterested is NAI. People can have trouble in their personal life as town or scum. People can be frustrated with how games are going as town or scum. I think Nat knows this but he's pushing an agenda here.
Another defense of HP:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-50#post-74522412
Comparing Blarg to HP once again and saying how Blarg is just "Built Different (
TM)". I feel like this post is disingenuous, because it completely disregards the possibility that HP is acting up for the main thread but is coordinated and cool in the scum thread. Do I personally believe that is happening? Not exactly, but it's a possibility that Nat conveniently leaves out. When HP claimed he was sick from the covid vaccine sideeffects in Mafioso, he actually was sick, but he still managed to post in scum chat, at least a little. A similar situation here is not an impossibility.
Nat has all these posts defending HP. The two leading wagons D5 were HP and Royal, and Nat was in need of some town cred. Going for HP would revert back on all the defense he has previously made, which would look mighty sus. If HP is town, Nat voting there would look extremely bad for Nat. Nat was basically forced to either bus Royal or vote offwagon, but voting offwagon wouldn't have given any town cred. I think a lot of his arguments defending HP are disingenuous and don't capture the full picture, but I don't think that necessarily says anything about HP's alignment. Scum!Nat could be defending either town!HP or scum!HP.
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Nat whined about the quietness of the game and how nobody is voting:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-47#post-74487186
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-49#post-74516832
However, when I posted attempting to solve, Nat trashed my reasoning:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-49#post-74521368
Additionally as Ephi already said, Nat was sitting there with Vere while whining about this, and was not making any attempts to solve or conversate on his own. I believe Shirou also made a post saying to the effect of "why don't you solve the game if you're so great then?". This behaviour by Nat seems intended to depress town and lower motivation, which is exactly what scum wants. Nat similarly trashed a large post by Ephi which I personally found rather great, and his arguments against it were similarly disingenuous, but I will get to that later.
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The weirdness with the situation surrounding anex is another key point in my case against Nat. I don't want to repeat myself so I will link my prior post here:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-48#post-74515299
Essentially, Nat's arguments against anex felt like he knew he was going to flip town and was doing anything he could to avoid voting for him until he was "convinced" by town.
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There's this weird defense of jman's and his own claim:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-44#post-74410311
If you're going to claim Miller after your predecessor did not, whether that's a fake claim or not, doing it right when you sub in is your best shot. jman is known for wild gambits, so you could absolutely come in as scum and go "Oh that silly jman, gambiting again as town. I'm town tho guiz trust me". I think the claim is completely NAI for the record, I just think this defense of it is suspect.
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Nat downplayed the possible importance of Vere's role:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-43#post-74407107
This game has been really weird so far, with scum flipping with outright town roles and a town flipping with an outright scum role. It's entirely possible that the flavour cop is more powerful than we expect, especially considering the only other confirmed invest role town had was a 1-shot parity cop. Downplaying the potential importance of this role is giving me The Thing vibes, where the scum team downplayed the importance of contact tracing in locating scum. It's possible that Vere's role is just fluff but like I said previously, I have reason to believe it is not based on my role.
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I don't buy that Nat didn't realize it was -1 from turbo when he voted:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-50#post-74522700
I have read many a scum chat featuring Nat from re-reading old games. He is extremely detail oriented when he wants to be. The EoD D5 went by quickly, but it was not that quick. This reads to me like Nat knowing how the flip will go but appearing as an "accidental" very good result. Who cares about a turbo if we kill scum, right?
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Going back to the Ephi post I previously talked about:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-49#post-74517987
I think this post is excellent. Ephi really captures how Nat is being very selective with what he is choosing to read and not read. After reading this post, I was like “okay Ephi is town” and then I looked at the vote tool and realized this could be a very elaborate OMGUS because Nat voted Ephi first
Nat then defends himself following this post by Ephi:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-except-in-mafia.488278/page-49#post-74518512
This defense trashes Ephi's argument for being a "feels" read. Ephi herself has a line in the post at the end that says it is a feels read, but I would personally disagree with both Nat and Ephi herself about her arguments here. This post includes actual examples of Nat's behaviour, they just aren't quoted or linked, such as the references to Nat's postings about jman and anex. Once again I am disagreeing with how Nat is responding to and contextualizing arguments. As a bonus, in this same post he also boils down my reasoning for voting HP into "will solve LP" which is merely one component of that entire post of reasoning. Once again, feels disingenuous. It feels like he's talking down instead of meeting a fellow townie where they are at.
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As a final point of interest, I went back and read through jman's posts in Mario Mini and Fantasy Star (yes I know Fantasy Star was an unconventional game). I did this to try and get a better handle on jman's scum game. I feel like he plays pretty similarly as scum and town, except he posts a bit less as scum and is less prone to gambits. He did not post a ton this game before subbing out, and he did the one, seemingly inconsequential, gambit. I feel like everyone knows jman's propensity for gambits at this point, so I could absolutely see a scum team telling him to throw out a D1 "gambit" for some town cred early. Taking advantage of your own meta is a powerful tool.
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So there you have it. I think Nat is scum because he is floating along and making disingenuous arguments, downplaying other players. His defenses of HP and himself/jman don't really hold up under scrutiny.
