Long Game 44: Shadows of Elantris Redux

[CadCom]

27 minutes ago, TheMightyLopen said:

Edit: @Cadmium Compounder, looks like we both tried to Inspire Drought to vote for different people, which is why it failed. xD I tried to make him vote on Walin and you tried to make him vote on King Cole.

Haha i noticed that! That would be kind of ironic if I had been the one to cause the lynch on salon, then also be the one to save him, only to later be find out I was right

2 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

I’d like to echo Walin’s commendation of @Cadmium Compounder. It was really a shame he started in Elantris, because he skewered the Gyorn, Odiv, and two of the Jeskeri cycles before Seonid scanned them. His analysis was well thought out and accurate, and I think I’ll be keeping an eye on him in any future games I play, especially if I finally get to be an Eliminator

.... 

-I was pretty impressed with all our new players. Looking back at my first game (AG4, *shudder*), you three did much better than I did for your first try. You will all be valuable additions to the community, I’m sure, so stick around and sign up for another game if you have the time! LG45 looks promising. 

While I do enjoy analysis, please just take my being able to guess correct as beginners luck. I probably won't be able to do it that accurately again. Us elantrians just got extremely lucky. Like @Hemalurgic Headshot, who, like you said, suggested all of the right places as soon as he was thrown in!

[Steeldancer]

Yeah I hadn’t realized how useful the pendant would have been that first cycle. 

And yeah, Seonid we’re even. For now. Until next time I’m a SK of some kind. 

I think SK is my favorite role to play. Elim, i play too suspicious, villager I have to put in analysis effort. SK, I just convert or kill or whatever. So much fun. 

Its fun, because I am quite coming up on my year of SE playing. I feel like it’s been so much longer, and I’ve learned a lot. I’m really looking forward to another year of playing. 

I hope all the people who played for the first time stick around!

[little wilson]

So, first, I was extremely upset at the start of the game at being made a lover. It felt like an intentional troll to reference my being the lynchpin of a love triangle in LG12, which wasn't something I wanted to be reminded about, because I spent the two months of that game in a constant state of stress because of the target on mine and both of my lovers' backs. We then died on the last turn for no good reason and lost, so I didn't even have a win to point to as meager solace for all that stress. To compound this, stress is very bad, especially when it lasts for such a long period of time. It can do things to the body. Like cause an autoimmune disease. Or severe iron deficiency. Or in my case, both. (It can also do much more than that, but you get my point). So when I think back on LG12, I don't have the best of feelings about it, yet I acknowledge that it could be a really fun game, so when this rerun came around, I surprised myself by being super-interested in playing it, even though I haven't really desperately wanted to play a game since before November. But I wanted to give this another shot. And then I was made a lover and all of those feelings from LG12 came flooding back, and I was furious (which was amusing to Fifth, for various reasons, and it's mildly amusing to me in hindsight but still).

Anyway. Hero mentioned right near the start that as a Jindo lover, if my lover dies and I save myself from lover-death, I return to my original alignment and win condition. I debated with myself about this for a while. Should I turn on Len and arrange for him to get lynched? Or should I work with Len? For the first cycle, I decided not to make a decision about it. I'd just play things by ear.

Then Steel swore Len as Odiv, and that changed things for me slightly. I couldn't arrange for him to be lynched, since that would hurt the Derethi faction a ton, and I also didn't like the idea of returning to village while knowing the identity of the Gyorn. But I still didn't want to throw all-in with the Derethi since while Len at that point couldn't win with the village, I still could. I just couldn't help the village find the Derethi. But I did what I could about the Jeskeri.

8 hours ago, Seonid said:

I was pretty sure that our discussion on Shu Dereth was being manipulated, and Lopen was actually my original suspect. No better place to hide than to be the one directing the discussion. Then i suddenly got paranoid about Wilson, because I realized that claiming lovers would be a brilliant way to disguise the Gyorn - Odiv PM. So I scanned Len to check Wilson (who i had already scanned before) and the rest is history. But still, very well played, and I feel that we're even now for LG41.

See, it's funny you say this, because after you said that you'd scanned Len, I was worried that it was because of something I'd said to you in that PM. Maybe I'd pushed to hard or....I wasn't sure what. But knowing that it was just the lover claim helps, though it's mildly irritating that it caused a false-positive, since the lover claim was true, yet you still caught the Odiv and the Gyorn because of that one scan (with some masterful manipulation, btw. I was seriously impressed).

Anyway, after Seonid posted in the thread about Steel and Len, I shot him a PM and spilled everything. The Derethi had both been caught and were screwed. I had no intention of going down with them, fun as it had been to lie to Seonid about having a Derethi pendant while trying to help the Derethi. And then Len tried to convince people there was a secret role and he couldn't possibly be the Odiv, and I'm just sitting here going "Oops. Maybe I shouldn't have told Seonid Len was indeed the Odiv?" Sorry, Len.

Which leads me to this:

9 minutes ago, TheMightyLopen said:

Speaking of which, sorry again for revealing you and Len were Lovers Wilson. Thankfully you weren't killed(very kind of you Walin), but I'll still be more careful in the future. Turns out I was correct to be worried about the low amounts of votes on Len, because he was gonna try to get me lynched, but still, I could've pushed the lynch using other reasons.

This is interesting because, yes, there absolutely was a plan. Pyro had given me passphrase (though I'd suspected it was fake), and I passed it on to Len when he was up for the lynch. I assume Len passed it on to Devotary and Jon, because I know the plan was for all of us to vote on Lopen and then Jon would use his Derethi pendant on Len to cancel all the votes of the converts, thereby saving Len from the lynch and lynching Lopen in his stead.

I had no intention of getting involved. There's a reason I was mostly silent in the thread that day, despite Len saying I could verify his story. Len had passed me that pendant, just as I'd said in the thread a cycle or two before, but I wasn't about to make claims that Len hadn't started with the pendant, or anything else. I was going to passively sit back and watch Len get lynched. I didn't want to vote with Len and aggravate the village into killing me after he died, but I also didn't want to vote on Len and betray him. So I'd decided to do nothing.

And then Lopen revealed me as Len's lover (while also making it seem like I would defend Len above all else when I'd already turned my back on him), and put that target back on me, but this time from the village too, because I'm now a lover with the Odiv. I was very much not thrilled about that, and it pushed me to action that turn. There's a reason I worded the end of that post the way I did: "You've just incited my ire. You really shouldn't have done that." See, the passphrase that I'd given Len was a guess based on what I recalled form the Pyro PM. But I went back into that PM after that and checked it, realizing I'd had it a little wrong. I corrected it to Len and then cast a secret vote with it. Had the passphrase not been a fake, pushing me to action would've directly resulted in your death, Lopen. Or at least, it would've if Jon and Devotary hadn't bailed on the sinking Derethi ship (not that I blame them, since I'd basically done the same thing).

All-in-all, I enjoyed this game. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Len. Steel thoroughly amused me when he made a comment in the thread about how he'd never seen how good I am with PMs, but that he was really glad I was on [his] side. I about died of laughter when I saw that. It was fun working with Aman for that short period of time, and also Seonid. And thanks for jousting with me in that PM, @Dalinar Kholin. It was quite fun, and I still say you're wrong to assume everyone experiences horrible suffering that only you can relieve them of by killing them. Additionally, it doesn't seem very Jaist to say that you'll suffer for doing this when I'm pretty sure you're supposed to get happiness in return for your devotion to the Ja and suffering isn't happiness last I checked, so.... 

5 hours ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

And here Wilson and I were SURE it was Drought/Straw...

Thank you Wilson for working with me.  Our PM went on for most of the game.

After talking with Jon, I started to doubt a bit about Drought, actually. Straw was obviously still a suspect, but what I mentioned after rollover was true: last cycle, I'd got this feeling that Walin was voting on himself as a smokescreen, to make people think he couldn't possibly be evil because why would an evil person constantly vote on themselves. Something just felt off to me. And then I thought he'd taken over for Joe, and couldn't possibly be evil, and didn't actually bother verifying that. When I made that post in the thread and was promptly corrected, it took me a little bit to remember that I'd felt off about him beforehand, and then I went back and read his defense and caught his comment about how if he were Jeskeri, there weren't any Jeskeri Elantrians at the time, and I was like "Wait a second. This isn't a hypothetical and doesn't make sense as one. How would you know there were no Jeskeri Elantrians at the time of the scan? Unless you are Jeskeri." And I started writing a post addressing that, with the intention of switching my vote to him, when things got crazy at work and I didn't get another free second until after rollover. Twas sad.

But yes, working with you was interesting, even if you spent most of it trying to get me not to trust you, yet asking me if I did. >>

[Steeldancer]

8 minutes ago, little wilson said:

Steel thoroughly amused me when he made a comment in the thread about how he'd never seen how good I am with PMs, but that he was really glad I was on [his] side. I about died of laughter when I saw that

 I did that on purpose, and was cackling madly as I posted it. 

[little wilson]

Just now, Steeldancer said:

 I did that on purpose, and was cackling madly as I posted it. 

Oh, I know you did it purposefully. I caught the undertones of it, which was why I found it so funny.

[Seonid]

2 hours ago, little wilson said:

See, it's funny you say this, because after you said that you'd scanned Len, I was worried that it was because of something I'd said to you in that PM. Maybe I'd pushed to hard or....I wasn't sure what. But knowing that it was just the lover claim helps, though it's mildly irritating that it caused a false-positive, since the lover claim was true, yet you still caught the Odiv and the Gyorn because of that one scan (with some masterful manipulation, btw. I was seriously impressed).

Thanks. I was equal parts proud of it and apprehensive about it. (I always do feel a little worried about magnificent backstabbing/manipulative plans.)

Well, the scan on Len certainly made a lot of our conversation make more sense, but nothing there specifically gave me the impetus to scan Len. Well, maybe your response to my suspicion of Lopen. That probably cemented my decision, but I'd already been worrying about it because of completely independent paranoia. By the time you answered, I was already planning on scanning either you or Len. I chose Len simply for conservation of actions.

Also, Lopen's attitude towards you was partially my fault, I think. Neither of us processed the whole "warrior protect lasts until the end of the day" effect, and my last conversation with him was about whether or not you would view going for the "protect yourself and turn village" plan as a betrayal of your win con. I didn't get a chance to update him with your post-reveal explanation to me (I don't remember if there was a cycle issue involved or if it was just a me not being active with issue), so he was working on slightly outdated information - in part because I expected it all to work out during the night. So sorry about that.

Anyways, I'm glad things worked out for you. One of my biggest worries was that you would end up as an innocent casualty of my finding Len and Steel.

Also, props to Lopen for putting me onto the idea of a Steel - Len pair. I was still suspecting Wilson for a while before that. Ironically, it was the pendant passing story that put us on to the connection.

Also, drake, your analysis in the Elim doc was spot on. If your team had had me killed instead of Wilson that night, it would have been a very different game.

[The Young Pyromancer]

3 hours ago, little wilson said:

But yes, working with you was interesting, even if you spent most of it trying to get me not to trust you, yet asking me if I did. >>

I actually was doing that so the Priest would scan me.  Then you could finally tell me who they were!

Apparently I am really transparent.  The game when I was neutral I was guessed very quickly.  The game when I was village I don't think I ever got a single vote, not even one that was later retracted.  I was trusted by everyone for almost no reason.

Also, I was roleclaimed to by 3 people, all of which confessed their role to the thread 

Edited May 6, 2018 by The Young Pyromancer

[Steeldancer]

9 hours ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

I actually was doing that so the Priest would scan me.  Then you could finally tell me who they were!

Apparently I am really transparent.  The game when I was neutral I was guessed very quickly.  The game when I was village I don't think I ever got a single vote, not even one that was later retracted.  I was trusted by everyone for almost no reason.

Also, I was roleclaimed to by 3 people, all of which confessed their role to the thread 

 That might not be a good thing when you eventually play as elim. Lol.

[Elenion]

Good game, y'all! I think it was well-played on all sides, and had things gone a little differently at the end it might have ended with you all praising Jaddeth. I might not be able to do much more SE in the future, with work getting busy and me leaving for religious service in July, but if so then this will have been a great last game.

[Herowannabe]

Well I meant to get back here to post some closing thoughts sooner, but life has been busy. Oh well, that’s how it goes sometimes. Anyway, I’m going to try to keep it brief. 

All in all I’m really happy with how this game turned out. Yes, it was a resounding win for Arelon, but that was due to some incredibly luck and skillful plays, not to imbalance issues like LG12 had. Speaking of incredible luck- just, wow. The strokes of luck this game were pretty wild. @Amanuensis and @Seonid practically couldn’t miss with their scans, and the Elantrians restored Elantris in record time- literally.

In LG12 Elantris was restored at the end of Night 8, and this game it was restored after cycle 6. There were 4 areas (out of 19) that they needed to explore in order to restore the city, which means that  they only had two misses before restoring Elantris. And both of their “misses” were the discovery of Aons that they were able to use once the city was restored. They never ran into any of the harmful areas, or even any of the “fun” ones I added in. You can read all the possible areas in the master spreadsheet, but to highlight a few interesting ones:

• One area would have turned two of the Elantrians into lovers with each other. 
• One area would have converted all the Elantrians to Shu-Dereth. 
• One area (the one they were debating exploring when the game ended) would have been an encounter with Hoid, who would have let the Elantrians as a group perform any action possible in the game one time only- even faction specific actions like the cultist kill or swearing a second Odiv- which could have been interesting.

Anyway, moving on. 

It was really fun to watch all the scheming and stuff going on behind the scenes. Shu-Dereth in particular. @Steeldancer managed to recruit both pairs of lovers to his side, and he and @Elenion we’re doing a great job of avoiding suspicion up until Seonid managed to scan El. If they had been able to last one or two more cycles before being caught it probably would have been too late to stop them. With 5 players on their team (one of them a prince) and a Shu-Dereth pendant under their control they could have effectively hammered one or two votes and coasted to victory. 

In closing, I just want to thank everyone again for playing. I had fun and hope you all did, too. And an extra big thanks to my co-GMs, @Elbereth and @Fifth Scholar- I couldn’t have run this game without you. Your aid with the spreadsheets, tallies, writeups, and everything else was invaluable- and also to @Orlok Tsubodai as our Impartial mod. 

Until next time,

Herowannabe

[Orlok Tsubodai]

It’s long past due that we closed this game. I had enormous fun watching it play out, bringing back fond memories of LG12. Much credit is due to the Elantrians, and Hemalurgic Headshot in particular, for the spectacular restoration of Elantris in the minimum possible number of turns. Special mentions should be made of Steel and Elenion for creating a frighteningly effectve Derethi cult, and of Seonid for masterful play in foiling them. 

Many thanks to Herowannabe for running such an iconic game once again, with characteristic efficiency and judgement, and to Fifth Scholar and Elbereth for their significant efforts made to support Hero.

As always, if anyone would like to try their hand at running a game, just get a hold of Seonid, Alvron, Wilson or myself. Not only will we get you added to the list (and the GM PM group), but we'll be more than willing to help out in any way we can.  

You can also post game ideas, ask questions, and get feedback from everyone over in our Art of Game Creation thread too. With all the games that we've run so far, we have plenty of experienced GMs that can help you refine any game you're working on. 

Thanks again to everyone who played, and we look forward to killing seeing you in future games!