IlluminatiLizard's guide to scumhunting

Scumhunting is the process of trying to identify the mafia by analyzing the words and actions of players. Unless the setup allows broken strategies like follow the cop, effective scumhunting is the only way to win the game, so town should spend most of their time doing this. Mafia must therefore appear to be scumhunting in order to avoid suspicion. This guide will explain the basics of how to do this.

## Difference between Scum and Town

The key difference between scum and town is the difference between a players internal motivation and their external appearance. Town players want to find scum, and they want to appear as though they want to find scum. There is no conflict between their motivations and appearance. On the other hand, the mafia still wants to appear as though they want to find the scum, but in reality, their goal is for them and their teammates to survive and obtain majority over the town. Due to the fact that the mafia have a fundamentally different motivation from the town, they will do things that are not congruent with what they claim their thought process to be. Most scumhunting is centered around finding these discrepancies. The next sections will explain the basics of how to do this.

## Information and Interactions

In order to determine the motivations of a player, they of course need to do something and make choices. Since the mafia aren't likely to voluntarily out themselves by directly playing to their win condition, you need to force them to. Starting votes and asking peoples opinions on those votes is the best way to do this. I will provide an example to demonstrate.

### Example 1

The game has started with 7 players, and 2 mafia. Light, L, Misa, Near, Mello, Gevanni, and Matsuda. L immediately votes Light, and claims he is scum with no evidence. Misa immediately votes L for starting a push without reasoning, but Near decides to vote Light as well, saying that he wants info. Mello says that he thinks Light is suspicious for his poor defense and coasting but doesn't vote on him. Gevanni claims that Near is suspicious for bandwagoning, and votes him. Misa decides that she agrees with Gevanni and votes Near. Mello continues to suspect Light, but never commits to a vote, and eventually he decides that Near is suspicious and gets on his vote. Matsuda has mostly just been doing his own thing, but after questioning players for a bit, he decides to hammer Near. Near turned out to be town.

#### What this example shows

What can we determine from this? Misa and Light are certainly paired, but that doesn't mean that they're scum, and Misa didn't really have any reason to switch to Near as scum. Matsuda is certainly scummy, but he doesn't really have a noticeable partner. He shouldn't be ignored but also shouldn't automatically be scumbinned. So, who is the most likely scum? Mello, with his partner likely being Gevanni. Mello had no true opinions. He suspected Light, but then randomly switched to a person he didn't suspect at all prior to voting. His action of voting Near does not match up with the goal a town would have, which is getting their scumread condemned. Therefore, he is probably scum that just wanted a miscondemn. He is also probably not paired with Light, since he wouldn't suspect his teammate like that on day one. He is paired with Gevanni because they didn't interact at all, and Gevanni made an easy push on a town for bandwagoning. L is probably town because he isn't paired with anyone, was proactive, and continued to vote his scumread from the beginning. A cop should probably check Misa, Light, or Matsuda, as they are the most difficult to read players off this day. This was a basic example of how to analyze votes and interactions between players.

### Basic Tells

There are also several minor tells that demonstrate an anti town thought process.

#### Discrediting town leaders with bad reasoning

Mafia want to avoid the game being solved by process of elimination, so a player who is scumhunting and viewed favorably by the town is very dangerous to them. Because of this, they will often attempt to discredit strong town players using weak reasoning, such as claiming that they were bussing without evidence to show that, or saying that "Mafia like to lead town". Please note that just suspecting a strong town player isn't scummy on its own, as some scum players are very good at appearing town. The bad reasoning is the tell part.

#### Unusual activity

If a player doesn't speak or vote at all except when suspected or when bandwagoning, they are scum or just totally useless, as this is very anti town. Condemn them immediately, since you would never want this kind of player in LYLO.

#### Distancing

This is when a player "suspects" someone but doesn't try to meaningfully push them. An example of this would be voting someone and then dramatically attacking someone completely different. This is done by mafia members who are trying to avoid being seen as a pair. Ironically, it just ends up being an obvious associative tell. Condemn anyone who does this.

#### Vote rationale

Mafia, since they do not actually care about finding scum, often randomly switch votes to whoever they think has become more advantageous to vote and come up with a rationale for the vote on the spot. This rationale, since it is developed so quickly, will often have very little to do with the players earlier line of reasoning. By examining the wording, timing, and congruence with earlier reasoning, you can determine whether a players reasoning is just a manufactured lie or an actual logical reason.

### Things that are not necessarily tells

#### OMGUS

Contrary to popular belief this is rarely actually a tell. There are often completely legitimate reasons to vote someone for voting you, such as that their vote has poor reasoning. Even if the OMGUS is totally irrational and obviously emotional, that does not actually mean anything other than that the player is behaving irrationally, which does not make them scum. In fact, overzealous calling out of an OMGUS is actually probably scummier.

#### Logical Errors

This is simply when a player says things that are not true, such as accusing a confirmed player of being mafia or contradicting themselves in a minor way. This is not actually a sign that the player is scum so long as the basic idea of what they are doing is generally consistent with their previous vision of the game. Town can easily make mistakes as well, and mafia has no reason to deliberately make such errors, as it does not advance their win condition either.