Fifth Scholar

Sorry-didn’t realise cycle was over, and didn’t see Orlok’s post.

“Thanking the doctor” is a term where a player will praise the protection role for doing their job successfully, and is generally considered an Eliminator tell. In this case, Jondesu’s effusive compliments towards whoever he presumed saved Elandera raised red flags for me.

I concur that the attackers were almost certainly the Eliminators. In respect to the possibility of a WGG, it is worth noting that there would be no clear reason to kill Elandera--however, the elims have hardly been predictable this game, so that doesn't tell us much. I agree that a WGG on Elandera makes little sense for an elim team if she is a Thug-- they would lose the ability to have a person with a passive ability submit the kill every cycle. However, if the Elims did have a Lurcher, eliminator!Elandera's attack and survival by her elim teammates would be more realistic. As I stated before, I don't believe killing Elandera for being attacked is a very smart idea unless we have better evidence than we currently do that her near-death was a WGG. The best solution would be for the Seeker to verify Elandera's claims later if they lack a better target (though there is a good chance she'll be offensively smoked if there's an elim smoker). Though I'd rather not vote with my gut this late in the game, time constraints are forcing my hand. Jondesu, Elandera. This post has a "thanking the doctor" feel to it, and generally sounds insincere and emotionally exaggerated. I wish I had more to go on than this, but this may be my last significant contribution of the cycle, though I'll hopefully be on tomorrow in the morning to react to any developments.

I’m again posting with limited time, though I hope to put something longer up tonight or tomorrow. I did manage a full reread of the earlier cycles, and have general suspicions on Rath, Ark, and Shqueeves, but I don’t have the time to justify voting for any of those yet. I’ll hold off for now, and hopefully find time tonight. As for Elandera, my feelings on her are mixed—I found things I liked and didn’t like in the previous thread, and hopefully (again with more time) I’ll look further into her. Finally, @Orlok Tsubodai, I understand you’re likely trying to compose a very large wall of text that may take some time, but I’d still like to see your justification for voting Itiah, and your response to recent developments.

It interests me that you were attempting to multiquote more than 50 posts, yes. Assuming you’re telling the truth, I find it amusing that you’ve gotten Pewter-related abilities in three straight games set in Scadrial (QF32, LG48, and now this one). More seriously, were you told in PM if you were Lurched or not? (Similarly, Lurchers, did you target Elandera last night?) I would note that although we shouldn’t lynch Elandera based on her survival, it is worth mentioning that C2 is about the sweet spot for WGGs. Early enough to gain trust that will last, late enough that it doesn’t look weird doing it C1, and it doesn’t impair their chances later in the game when they might actually really need to eliminate somebody. It appears our Coinshot made no kill attempt, but whether this was due to inactivity or lack of suspicions remains to be seen. I’ll suspect the former more if there’s no kill next Night cycle. More thoughts after I’m productive with my actual work.

I’m tired and slightly distracted with the election results coming in, but I will address my Soothed vote briefly. I think Rath’s vote was the potential work of an Eliminator, but it very much depends on the composition of the Eliminators. I would be unsurprised if Wyrm had given the Elims lots of Smokers and the village received vote manip (we’ve seen the death of two vote changing roles already), so assuming anything about our mystery Soother is likely overly hasty at this point in time. However, that does mean I was not Smoked last night, and it means that my experiment is completed! My vote indeed was Soothed, and if there wasn’t a motive behind the Soothe related to trying to save somebody, our Soother may just be paranoid of Influentials, and negated my vote for that. Also, if any Seekers did scan me last night, you know any scan was accurate, and if I was scanned I’d like to be contacted. More analysis later once I’ve looked over the end of last cycle’s thread some more, and am less tired.

Here is what you said, @Rathmaskal (I realise I’m quoting myself quoting you, but it was the only way to avoid losing my previous quote): So you did assert that one of the people on CadCom’s bandwagon was an Eliminator, which is looking at a specific group of votes. I understand if you have suspicions of Elandera and Xino from their role in CadCom’s death, but starting with the assumption that one is evil is a bad idea. If you could provide additional evidence as to why you believe they are evil, it would go a long way towards helping your case. Second, your comment on the discussion between Orlok and I; you did not say that it was worthless, true, but saying that it was going “basically nowhere” is functionally similar, and also misleading, I believe. Orlok and I had pivoted away from meta discussion and had begun going back-and-forth with suspicions and defences after our discussion on CadCom (which Orlok had been trying to lynch me for, making it game-relevant, and which really only stretched over four or five posts). What Orlok has said about me is essentially that he has vague suspicions from my tone, which is fine (I’ve certainly voted with less justification than that in the past), but I will be annoyed if that’s the only thing that gets me actually lynched. I would invite those arguing against my tone to please at least say what aspect of it is giving them an “Eliminator reading,” if that’s what will end up killing me. As for my vote on Rath, it’s strongly worded because I believe that his post wasn’t indicative of a villager mindset, and contained several phrases I saw as potentially coming from an elim standpoint. I explained it as best I could already, and I’m sorry if the wording seems too strong, but I wasn’t really looking to analyse all the nuances of his post, simply due to time. I would recommend Seekers choose their targets among those they believe least likely to be Smoked, on the contrary. If “roleless Noble” pops up, don’t take it as an automatic sign of innocence, for sure, but also don’t take it as a signal that the person was definitely smoked. Knowing Wyrm, a good percentage of the people in this game probably are roleless nobles. Also, the Seeker shouldn’t claim until they have a significant number of results, and when they claim they should be lynched or Coinshot to confirm their scans. (Sorry, it’s a tough life. ) Finding people you trust isn’t a great idea for a Coinshot—they’re around to hopefully get rid of people they suspect. If a Seeker can contact a Coinshot, they can work together on different targets every cycle, until at some point the Coinshot kills the Seeker and reveals their results. Regarding Tineyes, protecting them at all costs is a poor strategic decision—first, because they could be elim (which would be awful, but a possibility), and second, because PMs are nice but not essential, especially since they’re Night-only to begin with. Lurchers should very much keep on the down-low—if they claim to anyone, they could be killed on the spot for their role. I’ve run out of time to respond to anything else, or change my vote, and won’t make it back on until after the cycle is over. I’m hoping that I can keep my perfect record of never having been mislynched, but if I am, it isn’t the end of the world. If that does happen, my flip should hopefully be sufficiently informative to the village. Finally, as Steel was saying, starting to look among the lower-profile people that aren’t saying much might be a good idea to catch some of the Elims that are lying low.

That makes more sense then. Regardless, one of the main issues right now that I’ve noticed in recent games is that the village will rarely analyse kills except for the cycle after they happen, as they’re mostly forgotten as new information comes in. Therefore, while I am willing to delay this discussion if you believe it will be more fruitful to bring it up later, I believe forgetting it is a similarly bad idea. Shqueeves, Rathmaskal, Elandera, Elandera. I take several issues with this post; first, the assumption that there must be an Eliminator in a certain section of votes. It is not wrong to look at a group of votes and think an Elim may have made one of them, but looking at a group and deciding “there must be an Elim somewhere in here” is a great way to, as Orlok would put it, go on a wild goose-chase. Perhaps Xino or Elandera are Elims—I will hopefully get a chance to look at both later—but starting with this presumption can only harm the village. LG46 had a similar situation, with a five-vote bandwagon on Araris that the Elims tried to turn into a series of lynches on the perpetrators. Also, I’d refute the assertion that the conversation was going nowhere—the circumstances surrounding CadCom’s lynch were worthy of further discussion, and at any rate Orlok and I were saying a lot of things that can be analysed, especially when I was responding to his particular allegations against me. Dismissing the beginning half of the cycle isn’t wise, in my opinion. A wonderful solution to this is, of course, to simply analyse more yourselves, villagers. Regardless, I appreciate your desire to keep me alive, but think that this is a poor reason to postpone a lynch—the most suspicious player ought to be lynched irrespective of activity if they’re significantly more suspect than the next person. Devotary was also not present on Bard’s list of people that bandwagoned onto CadCom, and her flip makes the bandwagon on CadCom look slightly cleaner than it perhaps did at first, and also eliminates a person who can often be difficult to read. So there definitely could be villager motives for taking her out. That said, your point about Snipexe is a good one, and does make a larger amount of sense as a Coinshot target. (It also assumes our Coinshot was active enough to see and analyse the thread, but that’s most of the living players.) I’d be grateful if you could elaborate on anything “off” you’ve seen from me-I understand if it’s mostly gut, but I’d like to be able to defend myself and can’t if I don’t understand what I’m being accused of. Also, I’d argue that I am taking a leading role, but am doing these long multiquotes because it allows me to focus my limited time, and makes contribution easy by responding to previously made points, and building on them. Nevertheless, I’d say that I’ve contributed a significant portion of original analysis so far, and am curious as to why you believe I am playing in a “reactionary” manner. Reiterating the point I made to Rath; there was game-relevant information inside my interactions with Orlok, and denying the lack of such out of hand is a bad idea. The four or five posts from Orlok at the beginning of the cycle will be of significant use if I later analyse him, and our interaction in general could very much be analysed by others who don’t have my personal bias. Obvious elim moves can be obvious, but are often employed as a kind of double-bluff. Take the entire Mordor team voting as a block in QF27, or STINK’s manipulation in QF25 where he acted so much like a jester people thought he was just an Eliminator trying to escape the lynch, and started an enormous bandwagon on him. (He was an Eliminator Jester.) Clearing people for Eliminator-type behavior, even if it’s of the blatantly obvious variety, is a bad road to go down as the long-term consequences are people adopting obvious Eliminator practices to gain trust, which would be utterly backwards. Ark, you’ll need to add an Assassinate vote along with your Praise vote, or that won’t count.

Very quickly, as I’ve got about three minutes before I’ll not be able to respond for 12 hours: -More people should talk. This thread looks like a PM between Orlok and I with occasional interjections from Itiah. -I looked briefly at the kills but didn’t have enough time to significantly analyse them, which I’ll hopefully do later tonight. From my brief perusal, the Snipexe kill is the stranger of the two, imo.

This is interesting, but I have to question your logic in several ways. First of all, one of your main points is that I am a “main driver of discussion,” a term which may be rightfully applied to you, and a position that is hardly unique for me as a villager (AG4; LG42/43/46; MR29/31). My status as a driver of discussion has little bearing on the Elim kill unless you’re working from the assumption that I’m an Eliminator, which is a bad place to begin analysis. Second, even if I was an Eliminator, there is no indication as to how I would select kill targets, as you have nothing prior to this game to draw on. I’ve been an Elim exactly once, a converted one in MR31, and had no kill to work with other than one that our team was essentially directing mindlessly at the last villager we needed to kill. To add on to this, there are other players who select targets by attempting to starve the village of information, yourself again included. We don’t even know if that’s how the Elims are selecting their targets—one kill is hardly enough to see a pattern. Third, what would you have said if I had dismissed the kills as something that we couldn’t learn anything from? You likely would have (rightly) called me out on trying to stifle information. In addition, I haven’t led anyone on a “wild goose chase” anywhere, but your comment has the effect of colouring any analysis I may perform on the kills from here on, and altogether I’m unsure why you’re taking these steps. Is there any reason in particular you believe analysis should not be performed on last night’s kills?

I...apologise...if I’m setting off your unconscious Eliminator alarms? Regardless, I meant our discussion about policy lynches when I made that statement, not our viewpoints in general. Would you mind expounding upon your suspicions of me? Also, @I think I am here., there isn’t a great way to summarise the past cycle—it was mainly characterised by general lynch discussion that was very spread out which quickly shifted onto CadCom in the waning hours of the cycle, and the Night was mainly reflection on that bandwagon. Something I believe isn’t currently getting enough attention are the two kills from this cycle, with Snip and Devotary both killed. Neither particularly jumps out as an obvious target early on, which makes me think one of them may have said something in-thread, or in a PM, that got them killed, rather than a more generic early target. I’ll be hopefully looking further into their interactions later tonight.

I do agree with you on these points. My objection, as I’ve hopefully made clear, is not to this specific lynch attempt, which I believe was justified (as evidenced by the fact that I eventually added my vote to it), but rather a broader plea to avoid using this same logic to condemn others later when there aren’t the other factors present as well that contribute to a lynch case. I think we can hopefully agree that using an alignment-obscuring strategy in some posts to have a bit of fun is perfectly fine, which (as you pointed out) Stink or Alv often do, but that making it a primary consideration without the light-hearted amusement present beneath it is a more serious matter, and justifies a more serious response from the village if it begins to threaten our ability to analyse. My main point in all of this is simply that we should be careful in applying any logic that relates to playstyles when we’re analysing and voting on others, and avoid creating an “optimal” playstyle that we force others to adhere to. As I think we’ve reached a point of agreement, regardless, I think we could continue this conversation in Meta Discussion once this game is over if we believe there are unresolved points, but for now I’d prefer that this doesn’t overly distract from the lynch discussion for today, which hasn’t really started yet.

First, to respond to something Orlok said: I have expressed opposition to policy lynches, because I believe that killing somebody for acting in a way they find entertaining should not be a mark of this subforum. It is perhaps true that individuals can act in ways that reduces the value of analysis performed upon them, but the selectivity here bothers me. Take, for instance, Alv, whose Zunn the Mad character was nearly impossible to understand, let alone to analyse. Lurkers don’t post much and therefore don’t have much analyseable content; the same applies to those that post mostly RP, or those who tend to give much shorter posts that don’t explain themselves much. Yet you, and others, have defended such behaviour before, and haven’t tried to get others to change their playstyles to accomodate what you believed was an optimal method of play. I believe that principle should stand here; while I acknowledge that CadCom’s stance was detrimental to the village, he may have simply been trying out a newer playstyle, or trying to have fun by being a chaotic neutral, and lynching him for it did not sit well with me. My vote ended on CadCom because I found his analysis suspicious, not because he was making it hard to read. If he wishes it to look cryptic and contrived, he can by all means, but he should not complain if he is killed for it seeming suspicious. He can complain, however, for being killed for utilising a playstyle that was “suboptimal,” as I feel that is a direction that it would be detrimental as a community to lean towards, even if you believe it is justified in this specific instance. I agree that CadCom should have been lynched; I disagree that we should start lynching those players who consciously reduce our ability to analyse, as having fun in different ways is an integral part of SE. TL;DR—It sets a bad precedent of lynching people for playstyles, and impairs players’ ability to try out new ways of playing if they believe they will be lynched for it. In terms of my double-vote, which will likely get manipulated somehow, Shqueeves, you’ve dropped in once to make a completely random vote, but have been following the thread and presumably PMing. Care to comment publicly on recent developments? Second, I’ve gotten a good read on Elandera from PMs, and would like her to contribute her thoughts soon as well.

Orlok isn’t Influential, unfortunately; I am, and would appreciate not being Smoked tonight if that is possible, in the interests of furthering my experiment. I wouldn’t say no to being Lurched, but I think that others are likelier to be targeted, and the Lurcher should exercise their own best judgement in choosing somebody to protect.

I won’t pretend that couldn’t have gone better, but those who might say we got no information are dead wrong. I will be retreating to PMs for a while, but I want to make a public call to all @Smokers to please not target me tonight, in the interest of furthering the experiment I wished to conduct on Orlok, which I’ll have to do on myself tonight.