Quick Fix Game 26: Stop the Madness

[Lemonelon]

The Doll might be triggered by lynching. What could go wrong??

[Mark IV]

I want to say something, but it seems that the day has ended. Perhaps next cycle. 

[Darkness Ascendant]

2 hours ago, Mark IV said:

I want to say something, but it seems that the day has ended. Perhaps next cycle. 

*was about to say something....

[firstRainbowRose]

"You know what I've heard," someone said the next day over their breakfast. "I've heard there's a doll of some sort."

"Yeah," his friend nodded. "I don't like it."

"We should kill it," the first man said. His friend nodded, and they both set off in opposite directions to convince the other patrons of their plan. Most people were too exhausted by the emotional strain of the last couple of days, but they did get a couple of extra hands to help.

Starting with those of the tap room they searched each satchel and anywhere there could possibly be a doll. They got a nasty shock when they got to the room of Steeldancer because instead of finding a doll, they found a body.

"Uh," the first man said, eyes wide. "What killed him?!"

---

Steeldancer was killed! 

Player list:

1. Haelbarde - Horatio Heatherlocke
2. Darkness Ascendant - Necrosis Jones
3. Sami - Aleta Nebrask
4. Straw - Straw
5. Lemonelon - Adelaide
6. Flash - SteelDancer
7. Eternum - Nero
8. Julio - Taklon Nalkot
9. Roadwalker - Lawrence "Silver" Arthur
10. _Stick_ - Stick
11. King Cole - Turtle
12. Megasif - Shaa Locke Haums
13. Droughtbringer -
14. Sony - Sony
15. Majestic - Lion Shadow
16. A Budgie - Budge
17. Seonid - Erodaan Qadri
18. Alvron - Jace Blood-Axe
19. Little Wilson - Temperance Owen
20. Arinian -  Irvin Thyme
21. Mark IV - Mark
22. Herowannabe - The Heron
23. Jondesu - Remart
24. The Young Bard - Shadow
25. BrightnessRadiant - Rani
26. Dani - Yiferian
27. RippleGylf - Ripple
28. TheMightyLopen - Usopp
29. Ecthelion III - Cyrus
30. Rebecca - Jayne
31. Amanuensis
32. Rubix

[Haelbarde]

So I forget. Did we know who had the doll? Could this be a doll kill, or is this likely just a Elim kill?

Edit: @firstRainbowRose

Is it possible to get official vote tallies? Or do we have to keep track of things ourselves and just speculate about any vote shenanigans?

Edited September 12, 2017 by Haelbarde

[TheMightyLopen]

2 hours ago, Haelbarde said:

So I forget. Did we know who had the doll? Could this be a doll kill, or is this likely just a Elim kill?

Edit: @firstRainbowRose

Is it possible to get official vote tallies? Or do we have to keep track of things ourselves and just speculate about any vote shenanigans?

I don't remember there being any votes at all though(except those on the doll, which I don't expect were counted as valid votes), which means that Aman should have died, since he claims to have the Scapegoat role. Not sure how Steeldancer was killed, unless maybe vote shenanigans? 

[firstRainbowRose]

I can do vote count for the future! This time the only votes we're the doll, which didn't count as a valid vote for anyone.

[Lemonelon]

Just had a though.. Cupid had to pick 2 lovers. What if those who were picked were randomly given scapegoat/the doll instead and we have to unite them? If there is a Lover, can you confirm your role?

[Amanuensis]

4 hours ago, TheMightyLopen said:

I don't remember there being any votes at all though(except those on the doll, which I don't expect were counted as valid votes), which means that Aman should have died, since he claims to have the Scapegoat role. Not sure how Steeldancer was killed, unless maybe vote shenanigans? 

Scapegoat only dies if the vote is a tie. Not if there's no lynch.

[TheMightyLopen]

That's not what Wilson told me in our PM. She said the Scapegoat was lynched if there was no lynch or the vote was tied. I just checked it.

[Amanuensis]

1 hour ago, TheMightyLopen said:

That's not what Wilson told me in our PM. She said the Scapegoat was lynched if there was no lynch or the vote was tied. I just checked it.

Well that's not what my PM says  

[Alvron]

Whoever has the Doll, please consider passing it to me.  After a great deal of thought I have decided that I really, really want an Evil Doll in my Collection.  Once I get it, I will happily be lynched to test the theory that we need to lynch the Holder to end the Deaths.

On second thought, if the Doll is Chucky, then please do not pass it to me.  Even the Collective wants nothing to do with that Doll.

[Julio]

So... does that mean that nobody was lynched or eliminated last round? Because only one person died, it must've been the scapegoat... 

So, why was nobody eliminated? I still think it's possible that it's because there were no legitimate lynching votes. 

[Ecthelion III]

This discrepancy bothereth me. Aman.

[Amanuensis]

28 minutes ago, Ecthelion III said:

This discrepancy bothereth me. Aman.

Lol.

[Herowannabe]

3 hours ago, Alvron said:

Whoever has the Doll, please consider passing it to me.  After a great deal of thought I have decided that I really, really want an Evil Doll in my Collection.  Once I get it, I will happily be lynched to test the theory that we need to lynch the Holder to end the Deaths.

On second thought, if the Doll is Chucky, then please do not pass it to me.  Even the Collective wants nothing to do with that Doll.

Do we know if the doll even can be voluntarily passed? As best as I can remember, the only thing concrete we know about the doll is this, from @Rebecca a few cycles ago:

 

Quote

About the doll. I can confirm that it's real. Last cycle, I got a PM from fRR that told me I had a doll, and that it would only stay in my possession for two cycles. I asked her what it did, and she told me it would just stay with me until passed to another player. She also said the doll had it's own win con, and that she'd tell me if it was "triggered." 

That's makes it sound like the passing happens automatically and the players have no control over it. 

 

Anyway, I feel like as a group we still know very little. I would urged players to strongly consider revealing what items/roles you have. If you want to play it safe then pick someone who trust and PM them and have them reveal it to the group to keep your identity secret. But I worry about the players that are dying and what info we may be losing with each additional death. So let's share what we know and try to figure this puzzle out, because we sure as Braize aren't going to figure it out by staying quiet. 

 

Also, it's interesting to learn that @Amanuensis the scapegoat survived when there was no lynch. So our first step towards stopping the deaths should be to stop voting for people, at least for now. @Ecthelion III I urge you to withdraw your vote.

 

[Alvron]

51 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

Do we know if the doll even can be voluntarily passed?

No we don't but I'm hoping it can be and even if it can't, I tend to have some luck in getting what I ask for like when I said I wanted to be taken by the Shaod in LG12 and was taken the very next rollover.  The Gods of Luck and Chance are known to smile upon me and I hope they continue to do so.

[Amanuensis]

1 minute ago, Alvron said:

 

No we don't but I'm hoping it can be and even if it can't, I tend to have some luck in getting what I ask for like when I said I wanted to be taken by the Shaod in LG12 and was taken the very next rollover.  The Gods of Luck and Chance are known to smile upon me and I hope the continue to do so.

You should ask to be the new scapegoat then

[Alvron]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

You should ask to be the new scapegoat then

I wouldn't dream of taking such a coveted role from you dear Aman.  An Evil Doll is enough for me.  Although I do now wonder what would happen if the Scapegoat ended up with the Doll.

[Haelbarde]

@firstRainbowRose does a no lynch where there were no valid votes count as a tied vote?

[Herowannabe]

3 minutes ago, Haelbarde said:

@firstRainbowRose does a no lynch where there were no valid votes count as a tied vote?

That is exactly what happened last cycle (unless there was a secret vote on Steelrunner that we didn't know about) and Aman didn't die. So either a no-vote does NOT count as a tied-vote, our our esteemed GM made a mistake and forgot to kill off Aman (in which case shhhhhh, don't bring it to her attention). 

[Haelbarde]

I did actually PM her the question last cycle because I was curious about what would happen with a scapegoat if the doll votes weren't valid. I didn't get a response till this cycle, and she said it doesn't count as a tied vote. It'd be nice to get confirmation in thread though.

[Seonid]

Hmm...in that case, seems like Wilson was either mistaken, or deliberately lied to us.

If the former, there's not a lot of useful information to gain from it. But if it's the latter, then she may well have been trying to incentivize a lynch. Something worth considering. When she told me about the scapegoat role in our PM, she did it with the explicit intent of trying to persuade me to back a lynch at a time when I was publicly anti-lynch. She claimed that a no-lynch would lead to her death.

If anyone has an ability to scan dead people to determine their alignments, Wilson would be a decent target.

[BrightnessRadiant]

What.....is happening? xD There's an evil doll on the loose??? I really shouldn't have gone inactive, sorryyyyyyyy. I was just really not feeling well for the past week, and really didn't feel I could mentally keep up with SE. I'll try to get caught up soon. If anyone just really really wants to be awesome and fill me in, I mean, that'd be fine too.  

Edit: Apparently when I'm really tired, I overuse the word really. xD

Edited September 13, 2017 by BrightnessRadiant
really using the word really too much

[Young Bard]

4 hours ago, BrightnessRadiant said:

What.....is happening? xD There's an evil doll on the loose??? I really shouldn't have gone inactive, sorryyyyyyyy. I was just really not feeling well for the past week, and really didn't feel I could mentally keep up with SE. I'll try to get caught up soon. If anyone just really really wants to be awesome and fill me in, I mean, that'd be fine too.  

Edit: Apparently when I'm really tired, I overuse the word really. xD

Heh. I'm also an inactive that's just come back. You can read through my notes below if you like, but they're basically just a confusing mess of me saying "I have no idea what's going on" over and over again. Anyway, here you all go - my annotated notes of the entire game so far.

*groans* I wrote in OneNote, which has single line spacing, and posted it to the Shard, which has double line spacing. I'm debating whether I want to fix it now, because I have other stuff I want to get onto... Eh, may as well. But that will probably delay me posting this even more. Never mind.

---

OK. I've just come back from inactivity - sorry it took so long. I've been stressing over a big exam coming up, and that's just finished, so I should be reasonably active from now on. I'm really sorry - I hadn't anticipated when I signed up how much this exam would affect me.

Right. So, this is my thoughts and impressions as I catch up. (Note: I'd read up through up towards the end of Cycle 2 a little while ago, I just hadn't gotten the chance to collect my thoughts and post until now. I decided to do a reread from the beginning of the thread anyway, because I had time (for once) and the thread wasn't too long.)

Cycle 1

Hero's claim - I trust Hero. It would be a big bluff to claim and break the trend so early if they were an Eliminator. Apparently they didn't get their alignment, but I don't know whether fRR would have sent a doc link to the Elim team - if they had, then that probably would have given Hero a clue as to his alignment. So, Hero's my strongest trust at this point of reading through the thread. Hopefully they don't die on me.

Re: Is Rubix dead? My inclination leans yes. fRR had a *very* specific number of maximum players - I'm not sure if this is for balance or RP purposes, but either way, I think fRR intended to hold to that. Bit of distrust on Arinian for potential fearmongering and misdirection, though a villager could have honestly said this as well, so it's not a strong read.

Slight suspicion of Drought through association with Roadwalker - Road immediately jumps in to defend Drought when a vote accrues on them. Their overall manner seems suspicious to me.

For the first time ever, my trust read of Alv is overriding my natural paranoia of him. Although, the fact that Alv is more than capable of leading me to trust him when they are an Eliminator, and have a better reason to try to do so when they're an Eliminator is itself a source of paranoia, so I'd still probably put them just on the village side of neutral. Please don't kill me now, Alv… *quivers*

Lopen - I'll trust them for now for trying to promote activity and useful discussion. (*looks around guiltily* - I am really sorry about my activity…) (I also trusted Hero because of their claim, and that hasn't changed because of their contribution crusade.)

Megasif - (Page 8 for those trying to keep up with my references - sorry I haven't been better at mentioning this) There is no way that there are 7 or more Eliminators in this game - that would be broken. There would be at most 6, and I think it would be more likely to be 5. Still, the natural inclination I've found when I'm an Eliminator would be to play down the number of Eliminators rather than play up the number, so I'm putting a weak trust on Megasif. Also, this is a blackout game, so I wouldn't put multiple neutral/elim teams being in the game past the realms of possibility.

Julio - Uhhh… Moderate suspicion. That post feels off, like they're arbitrarily picking someone to vote on rather than trying to actually find an Eliminator or encourage contribution.

Aman - Mark summarised my first thoughts perfectly - "What?" - but… interesting. I think I can follow Aman's thinking here - they're not at risk of the lynch, and because it's a blackout game, there could be some special mechanic surrounding the lynch that he's trying to test. I suspect Aman had more specific thoughts that this, but for now I'll put a slight trust on Aman - I think Eliminator Aman wouldn't draw attention to themselves that way, while village Aman would be more willing to experiment. Then again, I'm notoriously bad at reading Aman, so… who knows.

Cycle 2

Wilson dies - I don't know if the meta's changed in the period I was away, but this makes me suspect a newer player team, because the meta was very much against targeting experienced players, especially so early in the game before they got a chance to actually enjoy the game, due to their high death rates. So, slight suspicion on the new-ish players? (I started trying to list them, but I'd come back a few minutes later when I realised I missed someone, and I'm not 100% sure who is actually new, and who has been playing for a little while/since I went on hiatus, so I'm not going to try. I can look up Wilson's spreadsheet later if I want to try and lynch someone in particular.) Although, this could partially be to do with Wilson's ability to read the GM as well, so I'm slightly less certain of this than usual.

Lopen - There's a lot here, so I'm splitting it into a couple parts, based on what the information can provide. I don't feel like Lopen would take such a massive risk with the infodump they just gave the thread as an Eliminator, so the analysis part of my brain is telling me village, but my gut is telling me something's off, and that Lopen's an Eliminator, so… I don't know. At the moment, I'll leave Lopen where they are.

Wilson's roleclaim - So, they're a scapegoat, and someone else now has this role. I feel like this might be fRR trying to promote activity, although, I don't see how effective that would be in a blackout game.

Doll - Ok… This is… interesting. I feel like I'm missing something super obvious about the doll, but I don't know what. So, the doll owners need to do… something… in order to trigger the doll while it's in their possession in order to win? If their win con returns to normal at the end of their possession of the doll, then how is that not broken? Wouldn't people not follow the win con of the doll until they lose it again? Unless they keep some sort of alignment factor from forming. I agree with Lopens conclusion that this is some sort of secondary Elim… thing (group seems like the wrong word), though I'm not absolutely certain. Also, how did Wilson know about the doll? Did someone claim to them? Is Lopen lying about their source? I just don't know.

Ecth - trust on Ecthelion for pointing out what I said above. Probably in a much clearer way as well. Good to know the meta hasn't changed on that.

Julio - where on Threnody did you get the impression that the Shades were killers? Is this speculation based on anything?

Cycle 3

No elim kill - interesting. Was someone roleblocked? Or was someone inactive? Maybe the doll can kill after all?

Hero - Ooooohhh… I hadn't seen that quote until now. I don't know whether that was a response to your questions in PM's, or whether it was in the thread and I somehow missed it, but that does pose a fresh view on things, and change how I might analyse the game from now on. Not having an Elim team is more likely in my mind now. And the doll is wrapped up in it somehow, I'm pretty sure, I just don't know how… Hmmm…  So, so far, the kill that we don't know how they happened were Rubix's and Wilson's - there may have been an attempted kill Cycle 2 but it clearly failed. Rubix's was GM trolling, pretty sure… With Wilson's… Was it random? I don't think so - Wilson seemed to know the most about the game as a whole, as well as being possibly the most experience player in the game, so I wouldn't put it down to coincidence. Someone (or multiple someones) did something that led to Wilson's death, whether it was deliberate or accidental. But… I have no clue what that could be, other than 'something to do with the doll'. If I didn't know Rebecca had it, and is still alive, I'd say it's possible that the doll kills people as it leaves, seeing as Wilson knew about the doll. Except, maybe through claiming that they had the doll, Rebecca averted their death, and therefore that was why there was no death at the end of Cycle 2? Gah. The only way to find out would be for the person who has the doll to claim, and I doubt that's about to happen. Still, it's worth a shot. Whoever has the doll, I promise that on my part, I will not attempt to lynch you if you claim the fact that you have the doll. You may die at the end of this cycle otherwise. I'd also really like to find out what the holders of the doll know - if they die after owning the doll, it might explain me thinking about the balance of the game before, and mean that the owners of the doll have some information the rest of us don't. I know I'm about to PM Rebecca after I finish this, anyway…

Hero pt. 2 - Split up because it's a new point, and my previous paragraph was getting kind of long. My current theory is that the scapegoat is to ensure that the game will end eventually - we've just seen that there doesn't always have to be a kill. This way, with a guaranteed death per cycle, fRR can be assured that the game won't last too long. I can't see how it's directly relevant to the game in its own right.

I feel like I should understand something about the number 31? Why 31? We know there are normal villagers - if it were a role madness game, I could justify that fRR only created 31 roles. It could be a balance thing, but that seems like an oddly specific number - why not set the cap to thirty, a more round number? With Rubix, it's 32 players - that's more round, and it's 2 x 16 in a Cosmere game, is that significant? I could see fRR potentially getting Rubix to do a bit of playacting for the sake of the game in the same way Kas did for LG28… But that would still suggest that everyone had a link of some kind to a Shard, or *something*, which they don't. Gah. If, when the game ends, fRR reveals she chose the number 31 arbitrarily deliberately to stymie people like me, I'll be either very amused or very annoyed. Both, probably.

Lopen - thanks for pulling the quote about flavour - I was going down a rabbit hole on the significance of dolls on Threnody, etc., but it seems like that's pointless, which is nice and timesaving.

Cycle 4

Woo! Finally up to date!

Flash took on the Scapegoat role from Aman, and immediately died, I'm guessing? I hadn't thought lynching the doll would work, to be honest. Too easy. EDIT: Nope. Aman's still a Scapegoat, apparently. That's not it. A secret vote is certainly possible, though the flavour doesn't sound like it to me. Hmmm… I'll say I distrust Aman slightly because of this, but not too much. I really don't know what to think. I doubt the Scapegoat is itself related to the mystery, though, just a feature that ensures the game will end in a somewhat timely fashion.

---

Right. So, we're left with a mystery, by the looks of things, which we're expected to solve, according to the quote Hero's pulled out. Possible clues, possible red herrings - I feel like we are supposed to work this out, particularly since fRR's writeups contain mention of stuff like "How is this happening" in the final line - I feel like this is what we're supposed to be focusing on:

The Doll - an item - probably evil, that is likely relevant to the killings. I wish I knew more about this - I'm about to PM Rebecca and spam them with questions.

The non-lynch Deaths - So far, Rubix died Cycle 0 (for want of a better word - also, I'll see how fRR reacts to my question below), Wilson died Cycle 1, no-one died Cycle 2, and Flash died Cycle 3. What did these players have in common? Was it chosen by an Elim team? Were they former holders of the doll/dolls? (This is my current running theory, though I don't know why Rebecca didn't die.)

31 Players - This is really grating at me. I don't know why. I feel like there's something here that I should understand, but don't. Why 31, of all numbers? Should it be 32, with the addition of Rubix? FRR, was Rubix's signup in any way done with the attempt to provide a clue or add flavour to the game, or was it done against your wishes? Eh, while I'm here, may as well... Is there any significance for the purposes of the game that there had to be exactly 31 players at the start of the game?