Mid-Range Game 8: Highborn Intrigue

[Mailliw73]

Raven, Kipper got it. Wilson is one of those who has a huge reputation here and is typically attacked early. I guessed she, Alvron, or I would get that vote.

Kipper, it's a mix. Depends on the GM, but it's typically randomized and then adjusted to balance.

Hael, I'll give you props for your PR work.

[STINK]

@SilverDragon, You usually don't want to lynch D1 unless you have a really solid lead.

[Amanuensis]

Was going to post this on Night 1 right before Renegade declared it closed, so I'm just putting it in a spoiler tag so my effort and introduction wasn't wasted.

 

Efrihm, adopted heir of House Valdev, sauntered into the banquet, early as always. Whether it was a product of nobility or Alethi tradition, lighteyes often abided by the overdone notion of being fashionably late. Eager to violate whatever mundane conventions society deemed to be the norm, Efrihm arrived a quarter hour prior to the time on the invitation and nestled himself into the seat best capable of observing the room's entryway. Of course he wasn't alone in the room; darkeyes ran from one island to another to accomplish a variety of tasks in preparation of the event. Efrihm paid them little mind, however. Though when he noticed the King's Wit standing atop a stool, relentlessly harassing the caterers as they worked, he gave him an appreciate nod. In more ways than one, Efrihm found Wit to be rather relatable.

There was once a time where Efrihm was ridiculed for his many disparities. When he was first introduced by Lord Demitre he was shunned for his round eyes, pallid skin and odd accent. Once he became more involved in public affairs, most Alethi began to realize that despite these obvious quirks he really wasn't that different. He was a smooth talker, capable of wordweaving himself out of almost any bad situation and onto nearly anybody’s good side. There were, of course, those who resisted his charm; usually the crueler, more corruptible aristocrats. Highprince Sadeas often made snide remarks towards Lord Demitre after he declared the adopted foreigner to be the heir to his house. Efrihm had only met the man once, and although he did not do more than introduce himself, he could sense the vexation radiating from the Highprince as if it were a tangible force.

Lost in thought, Efrihm barely noticed as the trickle of guests became a torrent. He was approached by several of his friends, but insisted he was in deep meditation and needed to be left alone for a bit. Already wary of his tendencies, they allowed him to remain in his corner undisturbed. And so he stared at the opening on the far side of the room, not entirely sure what he was looking for, but certain he was supposed to be looking for something. He couldn’t help but hear Wit ridicule a man named Brightlord Mallan. Something in the back of his mind suddenly clicked upon hearing his name. How did he slip by me? Efrihm thought as he shifted his gaze, finding the man’s back. It was obvious by his gait that Brightlord Mallan was a… simple man, to put it kindly.

Or is that just what he wants people to think?

Efrihm’s gut feeling told him it was an act, but it was too soon to tell. Could this book really be judged by its cover? He didn’t think so. Suspicious, indeed.

 

Given how little we know of each other so far, I will express my suspicions towards Brightlord Mallan. Perhaps he is genuine, however I think it should be looked into. Old age and the death of a loved one can certainly weaken a person's mind, but it can also warp it to perceive reality differently; nefariously, even. Besides, it's possible memory loss could be a byproduct of insanity, and I'm sure we all know what crazy people are capable of. As Efrihm states, it's too soon to tell, so I'm not necessarily demanding he be lynched already, just considered.

 

I know absolutely nothing of Brightness Katara, or little wilson's past experiences, so I'm afraid I can't weigh in much on that subject.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Alvom

[Haelbarde]

Raven, Kipper got it. Wilson is one of those who has a huge reputation here and is typically attacked early. I guessed she, Alvron, or I would get that vote.

Kipper, it's a mix. Depends on the GM, but it's typically randomized and then adjusted to balance.

Hael, I'll give you props for your PR work.

I can't recall if I was officially hired or not, so playing it safe! I've got a banner that's mostly ready which I should probably put up. 

[RavenRadient7]

I'm kind of wondering what some of the more experienced players are thinking about the role distribution, at the moment. Any ideas about likely mixes might be helpful, even if we can't tell if the roles were completely random or not.

 

I should be back on in about, 10 hours or so, to check up with what's happened. I'll probably add some rp when I sign back on, as well.

 

I'm not going to vote for someone, mostly because I have no idea who to vote for, and I don't want to start a bandwagon.

 

Edit: Color

Edited August 21, 2015 by RavenRadient7

[Herowannabe]

Brightness Wannan stumbled up to the feast, suppressing a yawn. He cringed as he approached the first island- Wit's customary ambush spot. Wannan wondered what Wit would choose to mock him for this time. The bags under his eyes from lack of sleep? His slightly rumpled suit? Surely the man wouldn't make fun of Wannan's new daughter... Would he?

Fortunately, the sarcastic black clad man wasn't there. Thank the storms Wannan thought as he hurried to his table and took his seat.

"Alright then," he said cheerfully, "What have I missed? Am I too late for dessert?"

---

Sorry Ren and everybody, I wanted to do a good RP post for night 1, I MEANT to do a post, but didn't get the chance. Even writing this little one has taken me over an hour as I have only had brief moments here and there to work on it.

Edit: fixed color

Edited August 21, 2015 by Herowannabe

[Mailliw73]

Alvom, I have to say, for a first day lynch, that's one of the best I've seen. Even if it's based off of RP, you explained that better than most, including myself, do.

About Eliminator roles: I doubt they have an Ardent or Artifabrian, as they don't seem paricularly useful, but an Artifabrian is possible, but less likely.

Since they already have a kill role and the corruption, I also doubt they have an assassin, that'd be a lot of kills.

I do think they have a guardsman or shardplate though, and probably a courier and a world singer. Possibly a Con Artist too.

If there are 5, I'd guess two Brightlords/ladies, possibly one with Shardplate, a con artist, world singer, and courier. You could replace one of the Brightlords with Shardplate for a Guardsman.

With 6, I'd give it the same numbers, but with an additional roleless player.

[Emerald101]

@SilverDragon, You usually don't want to lynch D1 unless you have a really solid lead.

 

This is a highly controversial issue. Some people believe the first-turn lynch to be absolutely necessary, and some hold the exact opposite view. Personally, I believe in first-day lynches because "lynch discussion with deliberate intent to kill" is the primary way the village gains information. If we don't lynch  on the first day, then the only thing we have to go off of the next day is victimology, and then if we decide that day that we don't have enough info, then the cycle goes on and on until the Eliminators win.

 

@those discussing role distribution: I truly wouldn't be surprised if the eliminators had an artifabrian. It gives them complete flexibility in their roles, being able to choose either the corrupt or the uncorrupt each turn, and it also holds the potential (along with a PM) for villager manipulation. (i. e. De-corrupt a villager one night, then PM them the next day to try to gain there trust.)

 

On that note, I'd like to tell everyone that I'll be gone for about the next 24 hrs. for a family trip. I may or may not be able to get on about this time tomorrow, but if I do, I'll probably spend that time catching up, so don't expect much from me.

[Alvron]

Wilson is a target always. As are Meta, Gamma, Alvron, Mailliw, Kasimir, Alvron, the list goes on...

Not entirely sure I deserve to be on there twice.

 

 

As for role distributions I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that they have an Artifabrian.  They could corrupt themselves and then use it to spread corruption more.  Sure it's only one night but that can sow a lot of chaos.  They find a Guardsman and then Artifabrian corrupt them, which the Guardsman isn't told about, then the guardsman becomes an assassin for one night and kills someone that's been cleared.  Then they of course think they've been corrupted and go to kill someone the suspect the following night only to end up protecting them instead.  Same for the assassin.  Turn them into a Guardsman then kill them.  Or at least that's what I would do.

 

Shardplate is more likely than a Guardsman as well as that would be a priority corruption for them.  Who could pass up two kills a cycle?

 

Courier is almost a guarantee as it's a good way to gain extra information.

 

Con artist would fit in well as the roles gained are only from lynches and last one full cycle so it wouldn't be overpowered for them to have one.

 

Worldsinger and Brightlord/lady probably make up the rest of the numbers.

 

My guesses:

1 Artifabrian

1 Courier

1 Con Artist

0 or 1 Worldsinger

1 or 2 Brightlords/ladies

1 or 2 Shardplates

Edited August 21, 2015 by Alvron

[Araris Valerian]

@SilverDragon, You usually don't want to lynch D1 unless you have a really solid lead.

 

This is a highly controversial issue. Some people believe the first-turn lynch to be absolutely necessary, and some hold the exact opposite view. Personally, I believe in first-day lynches because "lynch discussion with deliberate intent to kill" is the primary way the village gains information. If we don't lynch  on the first day, then the only thing we have to go off of the next day is victimology, and then if we decide that day that we don't have enough info, then the cycle goes on and on until the Eliminators win.

 

@those discussing role distribution: I truly wouldn't be surprised if the eliminators had an artifabrian. It gives them complete flexibility in their roles, being able to choose either the corrupt or the uncorrupt each turn, and it also holds the potential (along with a PM) for villager manipulation. (i. e. De-corrupt a villager one night, then PM them the next day to try to gain there trust.)

 

On that note, I'd like to tell everyone that I'll be gone for about the next 24 hrs. for a family trip. I may or may not be able to get on about this time tomorrow, but if I do, I'll probably spend that time catching up, so don't expect much from me.

 

Yeah, this is a controversial topic. But, I am firmly in favor of a day one lynch, and in the interests of that I am going to vote for IrulelikeSTINK (is there a way you would prefer this abbreviated?). What exactly are your thoughts on why we should have no day 1 lynch?

[Herowannabe]

Brightlord Wannan listened intently to the buzz of conversation for several minutes before speaking up again. "So, it's to be a trial and an execution, is it? Well then, in that case, I propose we send Caesarae to the chopping block. The diagram clearly states in Paragraph 17, Bottom of the Left Sock Drawer, that 'Those with a deceitful and traitorous nature tend to favor the color green in all things fashion.' And, well, the cape adorning Caesarae's suit clearly speaks for itself."

 

 

So at risk of being stoned for casting the first vote (@Alvom: if you wish to vote for Mallan you need to color your vote red, as I have done), I'm voting for Caesarae (Adamir). I say if we're going to make a day one lynch we might as well go after someone who appears to be inactive. Adamir made a very lengthy RP post before the game began, but hasn't posted anything since. Perhaps his efforts are being devoted to the Eliminator doc?

 

About Eliminator roles: I doubt they have an Ardent or Artifabrian, as they don't seem paricularly useful, but an Artifabrian is possible, but less likely.
Since they already have a kill role and the corruption, I also doubt they have an assassin, that'd be a lot of kills.
I do think they have a guardsman or shardplate though, and probably a courier and a world singer. Possibly a Con Artist too.

If there are 5, I'd guess two Brightlords/ladies, possibly one with Shardplate, a con artist, world singer, and courier. You could replace one of the Brightlords with Shardplate for a Guardsman.

With 6, I'd give it the same numbers, but with an additional roleless player.

I mostly agree with this assessment, but I highly doubt that the Eliminators have a guardsman. That would mean that they would be just one corruption away from having 2 kills per night. The same goes for Antifabrian, to a lesser degree.

 

EDIT: Color. And I see I got ninja'd for casting the first vote while I was typing this up. 

Edited August 21, 2015 by Herowannabe

[Mailliw73]

Ah, you guys bring up good points about the roles I didn't even think of. Ren's enough of a troll that he'd spread like this that aren't immediately noticeable as helpful to the Eliminators. So I'd give them a Shardplate or two, but not a guardsman. Artifabrian, I'm still 50/50 on.

[Amanuensis]

I'm not ready to vote for Mallan just yet; I don't think basing assumptions purely on an RP post is wise, especially so early. I will need to observe the man more before I condemn him to death. Seems too permanent a solution for minor suspicion. On that note, however, I am inclined to agree with Araris. Given that IrulelikeSTINK has 11 posts, I'm under the impression that he has not participated in one of these games before. Seems almost like he is being told to say that Day 1 lynches are bad by a more experienced (fellow) eliminator. Could be he's just well informed, or it could be he's a figurehead / scapegoat sent by Sadeas' more sinister manipulators to get us off their trail... (Again, I'm not going to waste today's vote just yet. I would like to hear more ideas first)

[Adamir]

I had written a long post for Night 1, but there was a power cut and I felt too lazy to start over. I'll get to work re-writing it; as I said in MR7, there is only a 25% chance we will get an Eliminator on Day 1, as it is mostly a random guess.

[STINK]

I may be new to this website, but I'm not new to WW \ Mafia games on forums and I also like to play Town of Salem quite a bit. A day 1 lynch is a tricky area because if an eliminator establishes themselves as someone who can lead the mob then the game becomes that much harder, as well as the fact that we don't want to accidentally lynch an artifab as that would be a bigger blow to the inno's ability to catch the eliminators than just no-one dying.

And you can abbreviate me to STINK.

 

In fact, with everyone talking about the fearkills that happen with the 'pros' and Kipper saying that he doesn't do a D1 vote, your vote for me seems suspicious as you yourself could even be an eliminator, and what better way to start the day than to vote for someone and hope that another eliminator will join the bandwagon? At the beginning of this day, you either know a lot because you're evil or you don't know enough as only one night has happened to collect information, with some roles even collecting information during the day instead of the night (Courier) so not lynching on D1 means that we take no chance with losing an important role or just even an inno. 

Edited August 21, 2015 by IrulelikeSTINK

[TheMightyLopen]

I can't decide what to think about a D1 lynch. In my first game, QF9, we did a Day 1 lynch and killed an eliminator. But in that game there weren't any roles so the only way to get information was from the lynches and we had no risk of killing an important role. I think I'm leaning more towards not lynching anyone today because, as Adamir said we only have about a 25 percent chance to kill an eliminator, and we could end up killing an innocent with a good role. 

 

I don't think I'm going to vote for anyone today as I have no suspicions and not a lot of information to go off of.

 

Cleo was kinda making me nervous sharpening her daggers earlier but she seems to have put them away for now. 

 

Edit: changed "knives" to "daggers" just because. 

Edited August 21, 2015 by TheMightyLopen

[RippleGylf]

Just to be clear, we need two votes to lynch someone? So no one's dead yet? 

[STINK]

Yes, so far three people have had one vote against them, the three being Brightness Katara, Me and Caesarae

[Orlok Tsubodai]

My view on this issue is that whilst I can see why some are worried about lynching an important role, we must take that risk. Without a day one lynch, we are in exactly the same situation on day 2 - no information from who voted for whom, and again only 25% chance to hit an eliminator, yet there will be one less of us. Lynches are what drive discussion, and without discussion, we have little chance of finding the eliminators. Yes, we almost certainly will kill a string of innocents before we can find an eliminator. Once we have succeeded though - we can make serious progress in finding the rest.

[Haelbarde]

Just to be clear, we need two votes to lynch someone? So no one's dead yet? 

That's correct.

 

---

 

In regards to D1 lynches, I think I'm in favour of them. The majority of lynch votes are ultimately guesses. If you are lucky, people might have actually put some thought into it, but at best (for the most part), all you get is an educated guess. I think it's fairly normal for just as many villagers as eliminators to be lynched across the game, so there's not a lot of point shying away from it cycle one. 

 

The other thing is the result of not having a day one lynch. If you don't have a lynch, you don't get any discussion, and as a result you arrive at cycle 2 with just as little information as you did in cycle 1. You have to just start somewhere. 

 

Now that I'm finally home, I'm gonna have a think about potential role distributions, and on what people have posted. There's little point raising the day one lynch banner if you don't participate, is there.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Haelbarde

[STINK]

So it's worth lynching a Noble just so that there is 'discussion'?, if there are no lynches then you can still get information as you give the investigators more time to do their work, and the eliminators goal is to kill the nobles so if we lynch a noble then we are helping the eliminators for little gain. What would the 'discussion' entail? Would it be people going "Sorry we killed you, now we have so much information about the eliminators" and lack of a lynch D1 does not mean that you can't lynch at all or have the threat of a lynch.

[RippleGylf]

While I agree that we need a Day 1 lynch, I don't know how to go about it. Is it better to target inactives who view the page a lot, or those who are actively voting against someone? Yes, we might kill off an innocent, but there is a chance that we won't. If we never lynch anyone, the Conspirators will just start killing people who will assuredly be innocent.

[Herowannabe]

I had written a long post for Night 1, but there was a power cut and I felt too lazy to start over. I'll get to work re-writing it; as I said in MR7, there is only a 25% chance we will get an Eliminator on Day 1, as it is mostly a random guess.

Thanks for responding Adamir. I'll be looking things over and voting for someone else once it's not 5:45AM and I'm not on my mobile. Edited August 21, 2015 by Herowannabe

[Orlok Tsubodai]

STINK, I'm afraid I disagree entirely. We have a single role in the game that can scan players alignment, and they can well become corrupt - rendering the wait for someone else to bring us information useless. The information we glean is from who didn't vote for them, tried to divert the vote, or put the nail in the coffin for individuals. Whilst we don't gain vast amounts of knowledge from the first lynch, those interactions become far more valuable when we do in fact succeed at lynching an eliminator. But if we wait to lynch until we are certain of an alignment, we do not get this wealth of information - which frequently leads to finding other eliminators. For a pertinent example, see LG13 - where I was found as an eliminator due to my interactions with Hero and Ren.

[Haelbarde]

So it's worth lynching a Noble just so that there is 'discussion'?, if there are no lynches then you can still get information as you give the investigators more time to do their work, and the eliminators goal is to kill the nobles so if we lynch a noble then we are helping the eliminators for little gain. What would the 'discussion' entail? Would it be people going "Sorry we killed you, now we have so much information about the eliminators" and lack of a lynch D1 does not mean that you can't lynch at all or have the threat of a lynch.

Sometimes investigators can get on a roll and get some lucky finds (i.e. Macen in the last game) or they manage to get a safety net and survive in public for the whole game (mostly, in the case of Meta in LG12). That's far from guaranteed though. In my first game, QF7, I could scan for roles (though not alignment). I lasted for most of the game, but failed to find a single person with powers (as far as I could detect). So yes, it gives the investigator(s) an extra turn. It also gives the eliminators an extra turn as well.

 

The idea with these is everyone talking. Eliminators often try and hide among the semi-inactives (of course, you get people like Wyrm in one of the last games who lead the discussion the whole game as an eliminator). If everyone's posting and contributing, they have to too. Eliminators have more information than most other players. The more they have to talk, the more likely they are to slip and say something that they shouldn't have. 

 

I think the point is that if people are talking, offering their opinions on what's happening, suggesting things, it allows for everyone to analyze what everyone has been saying, checking for inconsistencies, that sorta thing. Particularly seeing as we have PM's this game, sometimes eliminators can be caught pulling a scam when facts are verified in thread.

 

Put it this way. Eliminators will kill someone this evening. What if they kill the one and only investigator the village has? We have then gained no information. What do we then do in cycle 2? We are slightly less likely to kill an villager by mistake, but only slightly. The whole point of there being so many more villagers than eliminators is so it makes it hard for us to get lucky and kill the eliminators through blind luck.

 

Edit:

You also can look at vote tallies to try and find eliminators attempting to control the lynch.

 

Also, Orlok, that's twice now you've beat me to responding... maybe I should write less...

Edited August 21, 2015 by Haelbarde