Long Game 25: A Breath of Power

[Metacognition]

Okay, what the heck guys.We find two of the Returned and now we just roll over and die? We seriously need to be discussing what's going on. 

For example, no one died last night from having their breath stolen. That could mean that we either have another Potential Returned on our hands or someone won the Lottery. I'd really appreciate it if the person who had their Breath stolen would step forward. I understand why they haven't; they'll likely be looked at with some suspicion. But, I think that the benefits to us as a whole outweighs that. It's highly unlikely that the Returned would attack their own to garner trust this late in the game so we'll be able to know that the person is either turned or a Villager. 

Another thing I wanted to point out is that Lopen died with two Awakened Clothings. I think that we might be thinking that there are more Returned than there really are based on their vote manipulation during day 2. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are only two of them left and they tried to inflate the concept of how many of them there are with the vote manip. 

Which brings me to my main suspicion at the moment. As I said before, knowing what we do now, Doctor12 seemed to jump a little too quickly onto my push for Mark's lynch. His continued conviction that Bard must be good because he scanned him, when scans don't reveal alignment or any thing that would actually determine that someone was innocent (unless he scanned for items and saw whether or not Bard had a Rabbit and even that doesn't clear Bard from being a Returned), seems more like someone that knows that they're right than someone making a guess. And finally, while I'm also of the opinion that there's likely an inactive Returned, the fact that he's pushing for an inactive* to be lynched makes me think that he wants us to waste this lynch. 

If I'm right, I'd sort of trust Bard. I think that Doctor12 is latching onto a "true" scan rather than trying to cover for one of his teammates and the way that he went after Maegstar last turn seemed more reminiscent to what happened with me and Mark than an actual attempt to pull votes off of Lopen. 

 

*Speaking of inactives, I'll admit right now that I've had terrible luck with the Lottery. Not that I expected much, since I have horrible luck when things come down to chance like that, but I've only won once so far. My point being that if I'm losing, that means that other people are winning. So if anyone has enough for a Rabbit of our own, now would be a good time to make one. I'd rather we use the lynch to focus on finding the active Returned and we start killing off the inactives during the night. 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Metacognition

[Magestar]

1 hour ago, Metacognition said:

*Speaking of inactives, I'll admit right now that I've had terrible luck with the Lottery. Not that I expected much, since I have horrible luck when things come down to chance like that, but I've only won once so far. My point being that if I'm losing, that means that other people are winning. So if anyone has enough for a Rabbit of our own, now would be a good time to make one. I'd rather we use the lynch to focus on finding the active Returned and we start killing off the inactives during the night.

I've won twice.

I've also entered thrice.  But 2 out of three ain't bad.  I should probably have entered more, but I just forgot.

I'm not super suspicious of Doc.  I'm pretty happy to lynch nearly anyone else, barring Luckat.   I also have almost no PM's running, so I'm not sure how much behind the scenes stuff is going on.  

I'm mainly suspicious of Frozen, Bard, and then everyone else I think is lurking.  I wish we had a list of remaining players, so I'm going to go get a list going.

I'm pretty sure Straw is dead.  I really don't like that so many people are lurking.  Oh well.

edit; Nope, Straw's here.  Huh.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Magestar

[Frozen Mint]

In hindsight, I feel like I was wrong to vote on Magestar on that first day, but if I ever felt kind of bad about that, I definitely don't anymore. 

On a scale of most suspicious to least, right now I have PK, Meta, Magestar (neutral), Doc, Bard, and luckat (I feel pretty confident that these last two are village). I've been having a really bad feeling about PK since almost the start of the game. I'd note that he encouraged us to lynch blindly on day 1 (which he admitted was a bad idea on day 2), and he was very confident that the vote manipulation made Mark guilty and couldn't have been a set up by the elims.

[Magestar]

I think PK is dead.   

Unless there are two PK's.  

Heres the list of those remaining, unless I made a mistake.

1. Luckat (Lularah)
4. Assassin in Burgundy (Burganaa)
5. Magestar (Yulis Zorander)
6. The Only Alex
11. Elodin (Eventeo)
12. Sheep (Kelek)
14. Straw (Pallelae Hominis)
16. Daniyah (Dimsari)
19. Frozen Mint (Shivawn)
21. Meta (Cog)
22. Doctor12 (the Healer)
24. Bard (Brick)

Edited September 3, 2016 by Magestar
Fixing list.

[Frozen Mint]

3 minutes ago, Magestar said:

I think PK is dead.   

damnation. Well isn't that embarrassing. :/ I need to pay closer attention.

[Straw]

Straw says hello.

Notes: Just checked on the accounts of the inactive people. Elodin last visited the shard on Thursday.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Straw

[luckat]

Sorry about taking so long to post. I’ve been busy, and I’ve also been trying to figure out what to do after seeing two Rabbit kills.

So there were two Rabbit kills, and no one died from losing their Breath. The Rabbits probably both belong to the Returned because neither Conq nor Dalinar seemed like the top picks for a villager to kill and the Returned have more opportunities to get enough Breath for Rabbits. We can’t know whether the person who lost their Breath last time won the Lottery or Returned, and without knowing who it is we can’t do much about it except keep in mind that it’s possible that someone who has been a villager up to this point is an eliminator now (although at least they can’t be one of the ones with a Rabbit).

We know from cycle two that there’s at least two more Returned. Only two more players can account for all the actions they’ve taken that we know about, I believe, although it implies they haven’t done much besides what we’ve seen. I doubt that’s all of them because I think they would have been less willing to show so much power if that was all they had and I don’t think Lopen would have been so willing to do something that was so obviously suspicious if he was one of only a few, especially since with his Clothing he could have changed the lynch back to Mark at the last minute without changing his vote. I’m worried that they tried to get us to mislynch Mark because only a few more mislynches would lead to our downfall.

We really need to find who has the Rabbits before they get our numbers down further. I expect that whoever has a Rabbit has been hanging back, trying not to draw attention to themselves.

I started PMs with most of the inactives/lurkers over the last couple of cycles to try to get some kind of read on them:

• I got the impression that Daniyah really isn’t paying much attention to the game, which makes me think she’s a villager, albeit an unhelpful one.
• Elodin got on for the first time in a few turns to respond to my PM. He said he doesn’t have time for SE right now, and he didn’t respond to my followup message. My tabs on his activity show that he can’t be the first Rabbit holder because he was off during N2 and N3 when the first Rabbit holder was active, and he’s really unlikely to be the second one because the second one probably made their Rabbit during N2 or N3. He could have been responsible for some of the vote blocking, but I don’t really think he’s an eliminator this game.
• Alex never looked at my PM, even when he got on to post during the night. That post was really weird, particularly considering he doesn’t appear to be paying enough attention to the game to know who is Returned, and he if he really knew Lopen was Returned, he should have voted. I feel like he fits the profile of someone trying to avoid attention. He wasn’t on at all during Night 2, so he can’t be the first Rabbit holder, but it is possible that he is the second one.
• Sheep started off by saying that he’s been reading the doc. That might have been a slip up, although he might have just had the MR16 spec doc on his mind since we’re both in that and he’s been quiet there too. He also said he’d try to post, although he hasn’t yet. What’s odd is that he was active during the first couple of cycles, but then he stopped posting altogether. I wonder if maybe we should have followed up on Bugsy’s suspicions of Sheep.
• Assassin in Burgundy was the most responsive of those I PMed, not that that’s saying much. He made some weird comments, like that he felt like I might be a Returned trying to find out how dangerous the new players are and that he was pretty sure he wasn’t a Potential Returned even though he’d never had a Strawman to check. I’m not sure if those are really suspicious though. I feel like he’s been paying more attention to the game than his post count implies (but at least he voted last cycle). It could just be that he’s more comfortable talking in PMs, but it could be that he’s trying to avoid attention.
• I didn’t start a PM with Straw, so I don’t have additional comments about him. I probably should try to talk to him...

So of these, my top suspicions are Alex, Sheep, and Assassin in Burgundy. Alex already has a vote on him (and of the three I think he’s least likely to be paying attention), so I’ll vote for Sheep. I really hope they respond so we can get better reads on them.

I’m also going to quickly go over my thoughts on the active players:

• I have a gut trust of Frozen Mint, Doctor, and Bard. It’s possible one of them Returned last night, but I don’t think any of them started out as Returned.
• There’s a few things Meta has said that have made me a bit suspicious, but my suspicions aren’t strong enough to do anything more than watch him more closely, and we really shouldn’t lynch him because he’s trying to lead conversation.
• I’m getting mixed reads on Magestar. Several people have thought he has been suspicious, and I can see where they’re coming from. He has shown that he has Clothing and has openly used it twice recently. He could have been one of the players who saved Mark. If he is a Returned, that puts the public Returned action count for cycle 4 at 5 + the two Lopen used, so there’s have to be at least 3 Returned left who have been Returned all game.

I think Magestar is the most suspicious of the active players. However, I think a lynch on an inactive is best this turn if we can decide on one that is most suspicious.

Vote Tally:
Frozen Mint (1): Magestar
Alex (1): Doctor
Doctor (1): Meta
Sheep (1): luckat

No Vote: Assassin in Burgundy, Alex, Elodin, Sheep, Straw, Daniyah, Frozen Mint, Bard

Edited September 4, 2016 by luckat
fixing vote

[Magestar]

I'm going to ping all of them, to try and get things done before this cycle ends.

@Assassin in Burgundy, @The Only Alex, @Master Elodin, @AliasSheep, @Straw, @Daniyah, @Frozen Mint, @The Young Bard, could you guys do something?  Please?

I'll throw my vote on Sheep, because I don't really care to have this big of a tie.  Seriously.  Frozen.

[Straw]

Solidifying the vote on Sheep.

[Magestar]

Nice.  I will be canceling any votes not on Sheep, up to an extent.  I also will be very unhappy if Sheep is not an Elim.  

I know I am still pretty suspicious, but I have helped lynch several Elims now, and have done not his suspicious since like D2.

[AliasSheep]

4 hours ago, luckat said:

What’s odd is that he was active during the first couple of cycles, but then he stopped posting altogether.

I don't like saying this, but that's not particularly uncommon for me in LGs.  Once the game reaches a certain point, I get kind of lost, and I'm not really able to figure much stuff out, like I said in my PM.  I don't generally post because I don't think my posts would have any value to the village, which may be faulty reasoning, but that's how it tends to go.

I admit that isn't an excuse, however, but that is an explanation.

 

[Magestar]

Unless a lot more people get a lot more active, right now, your probably going to die Sheep.

Sorry.  I hope your an Elim, although I doubt it now.

Also, I'd rather you die than another villager.  Sorry. 

Also, I'm not thinking straight right now;  I've been reading comedic parodies, and my brain is fried.  Sorry.

[Frozen Mint]

I'm going to vote for Alex. His comment about Lopen was strange, and while I think Sheep's acted kind of strangely, he's not suspicious enough for me to vote on yet.

If need be, I'll change my vote to the majority before turnover. 

[AliasSheep]

Despite what I previously said, I do have some comments to make (oh look, if I try something actually appears!).

Luckat:
Contributing a lot to the village, being nothing but helpful.  Very strong village read.

Magestar:
His posts at the moment seem genuine, though just voting on me to get a lynch seems very oppurtunistic.  Then again, he had a specific target in mind beforehand, so this seems less planned than it would be were he an elim.  Mild Village read.

Frozen:
I don't think the mistake she made with PK is the kind of mistake that would be made if she was actually planning with elims in a doc, others probably would have pointed it out to her.  Mild Village read.

Meta:
I don't think I'll ever be able to get a proper read on Meta.  He tends to have an aggressive playstyle, which leans me towards elim, but of course that's more of an unconscious thing and more often than not wrong.  Neutral read.

Straw:
I haven't been able to get a read on Straw either.  Nothing he's done seems to conflict with the way I've seen him play as village before.  Perhaps voting on me, but again that's something I've seen him do as village before. Inactivity hasn't helped (though I can't make any comments about this >.>). Neutral read.

Doctor:
As with luckat, his posts seem to be mostly helpful towards the village.  Village read.

Bard:
Given Doctor's scan of him, I'm more inclined towards him being village than not. Mild village read.

Daniyah:
Hasn't made many, if any posts.  Impossible to get a read on, given it's her first game as well. Neutral read.

Assassin in Burgundy:
Same as with Daniyah.  Neutral read.

And that leaves,

The Only Alex:
Has lurked a lot (which is understandable given it's his first game), but then a comment like the one he made about Lopen seems really out of place.  If he was suspicious of Lopen earlier, why didn't he say anything about it?  It sounds like a ploy to gain favour with the village right after a lynch has happened, and it just went over the top.  Elim read.  

Thus voting for Alex.

 

[Magestar]

Guys, this looks pretty bad.  Frozen, you seem like you are trying to turn the lynch off of an Elim, which is a bad move.  You have voted on other Elims before, but I doubt that there are many left now.  I would not be surprised if you and Sheep are the last two.

@Doctor12, would you mind taking your vote off Alex?  We need to solidify the Sheep lynch.  If I'm wrong, then I'll be very angry, but I think that it's unlikely Alex is an Elim, although that might explain a lot. 

You know what, I'll just leave you guys to it.  But if Alex is a villager, I would suggest lynching Sheep next round.  I know that will kill lynch discussion, but honestly, we have had almost no lynch discussion anyway.

[AliasSheep]

13 minutes ago, Magestar said:

Guys, this looks pretty bad.  Frozen, you seem like you are trying to turn the lynch off of an Elim, which is a bad move.  You have voted on other Elims before, but I doubt that there are many left now.  I would not be surprised if you and Sheep are the last two.

@Doctor12, would you mind taking your vote off Alex?  We need to solidify the Sheep lynch.  If I'm wrong, then I'll be very angry, but I think that it's unlikely Alex is an Elim, although that might explain a lot. 

You know what, I'll just leave you guys to it.  But if Alex is a villager, I would suggest lynching Sheep next round.  I know that will kill lynch discussion, but honestly, we have had almost no lynch discussion anyway.

Can I ask why you'd rather I be lynched than Alex?

[Frozen Mint]

Okay, so first off, Sheep, the fact that the only person you have an elim read on is the same as the person who is most likely to be lynched (not including yourself) suddenly makes you a lot more suspicious. It's like you're trying to save yourself while not making much of a fuss. If you're an elim, saying that you have an elim read on elims might hurt your own and saying that you have an elim read on villagers makes you suspicious and risks exposing you for what you really are. And it looks like you're just avoiding that. Thus, I am changing my vote from Alex to Sheep.

25 minutes ago, Magestar said:

Guys, this looks pretty bad.  Frozen, you seem like you are trying to turn the lynch off of an Elim, which is a bad move.  You have voted on other Elims before, but I doubt that there are many left now.  I would not be surprised if you and Sheep are the last two.

Sheep's explanation of why he wasn't as active later on is fair. He was slightly suspicious, but what that conveyed to me is that we should lynch him if we don't have a better alternative. I thought Alex was a better alternative, because he's been trying harder to stay under the radar, while suddenly posting a random comment to try to come off as village. At least Sheep was active earlier.

But now I feel like we have more evidence against Sheep than we did before.

(If I had to guess, Magestar, you will now interpret this as me trying to look like a villager by being appeasing and because you said my vote on Alex made me look like an eliminator, and I'm trying to cover myself up. I could be wrong, but if I'm not, I'm just saying I called it ) 

13 minutes ago, AliasSheep said:

Can I ask why you'd rather I be lynched than Alex?

I would like to know this as well. Elim or not, rationally this is a good point. 

[luckat]

57 minutes ago, Magestar said:

Guys, this looks pretty bad.  Frozen, you seem like you are trying to turn the lynch off of an Elim, which is a bad move.  You have voted on other Elims before, but I doubt that there are many left now.  I would not be surprised if you and Sheep are the last two.

@Doctor12, would you mind taking your vote off Alex?  We need to solidify the Sheep lynch.  If I'm wrong, then I'll be very angry, but I think that it's unlikely Alex is an Elim, although that might explain a lot. 

You know what, I'll just leave you guys to it.  But if Alex is a villager, I would suggest lynching Sheep next round.  I know that will kill lynch discussion, but honestly, we have had almost no lynch discussion anyway.

How is it bad for Frozen Mint and Sheep to vote for their suspicions when there's still a few hours left in the day? At least they gave reasons, unlike when you and Straw jumped on my vote for Sheep well before it was necessary to solidify the vote. That almost looked like trying to get a bandwagon started on a villager before too many votes gathered on an eliminator.

Also, why do you want to lynch Sheep so much when earlier you said this about Sheep?

1 hour ago, Magestar said:

Sorry.  I hope your an Elim, although I doubt it now.

It's like you inexplicably thought Sheep was the only option for the lynch instead of trying to decide who you thought was most suspicious.

Frozen Mint did bring up a good point about how Sheep was only suspicious of the person other than himself who looked most likely to be lynched, but I'm not sure how much her vote on Alex really could have influenced him when he posted only seven minutes after she did. Also, the fact that he shared his thoughts and explained why he had been silent are points in his favor.

Personally, I now think Alex's strange post is somewhat more suspicious than what Sheep has done so far (and I also think Mage's attempts to get the lynch on Sheep instead are suspicious), so I'll put my vote there. Sheep. Alex. If the village collectively decides to lynch someone else, I'll change my vote before the turn is over.

Vote Tally:
Frozen Mint (0): Magestar1
Alex (3): Doctor, Frozen Mint1, Sheep, luckat2
Doctor (1): Meta
Sheep (3): luckat1, Magestar2, Straw, Frozen Mint2

No Vote: Assassin in Burgundy, Alex, Elodin, Daniyah, Bard

[The Only Alex]

Well I jump back onto the shard again to suddenly find my head on the chopping block. Ok, so to explain my actions, (which I realize that without context look REALLY suspicious) Lopen sent me a personal message to try to reactivate me in the game and get some info on me. I am guessing he saw me as a bit of a wild card but also knew I wasn't returned (obviously). He said we should trade info on how many breaths we have and what items we had. I felt at first kinda nice that he would take the time to talk to the quiet new guy, but then the red flag went up and I became suspicious, perhaps I was just an easy target to get info from. I cautiously traded info with him, knowing that if he was telling the truth, since he was a lot more active than I was I could probably gain a lot more than I could lose from it, having not really done anything yet. So Lopens volunteer to trade information was what made me suspect him, although saying that after he got lynched without contexted seems to have a much greater effect than I realized. It was simply intended as a trivial statement. 

I vote for Sheep, in an effort to save my own skin. Nothing personal and I don't quite know enough to be verys suspicious, due to my own inactivity.

[Metacognition]

First off Alex, you vote in RED, not green. Green is for retracting votes. Like how I'm retracting mine on Doc with this, see? 

Second, I'm not quite sure that I buy your story. Since Lopen was a Returned, I don't see why he'd want to try to draw inactives back into the game when that would make things even harder on them; especially with how many inactives they've been stealing Breath from. Even if he was hunting for information, he wouldn't have needed to get information from inactives. I think last cycle was just a beginner attempt to make themselves seem innocent after the death of a teammate. 

Then there's this: 

8 hours ago, luckat said:

Alex never looked at my PM, even when he got on to post during the night. That post was really weird, particularly considering he doesn’t appear to be paying enough attention to the game to know who is Returned, and he if he really knew Lopen was Returned, he should have voted. I feel like he fits the profile of someone trying to avoid attention. He wasn’t on at all during Night 2, so he can’t be the first Rabbit holder, but it is possible that he is the second one.

If we can trust Luckat, and I see no reason why we can't at this point, the fact that you avoided talking to a fairly confirmed villager, but opened contact with Lopen is suspicious. I've known a lot of new Eliminators that are afraid to talk to reputable players because they're afraid that, in their inexperience, they will give themselves away. 

2 hours ago, Magestar said:

Guys, this looks pretty bad.  Frozen, you seem like you are trying to turn the lynch off of an Elim, which is a bad move.  You have voted on other Elims before, but I doubt that there are many left now.  I would not be surprised if you and Sheep are the last two.

@Doctor12, would you mind taking your vote off Alex?  We need to solidify the Sheep lynch.  If I'm wrong, then I'll be very angry, but I think that it's unlikely Alex is an Elim, although that might explain a lot. 

You know what, I'll just leave you guys to it.  But if Alex is a villager, I would suggest lynching Sheep next round.  I know that will kill lynch discussion, but honestly, we have had almost no lynch discussion anyway.

You accuse Mint of trying to turn the lynch off of someone and then you try to do exactly that as well? Luckat beat me to it, but this is a huge red flag for me. 

[The Only Alex]

Thanks for the correction!

I'm not sure about Lopen's motives either, you're right, though, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I think he may have just been fishing for info and being nice to the new guy, since I had been pretty quiet until then. 

[Frozen Mint]

11 minutes ago, Metacognition said:

Second, I'm not quite sure that I buy your story. Since Lopen was a Returned, I don't see why he'd want to try to draw inactives back into the game when that would make things even harder on them; especially with how many inactives they've been stealing Breath from. Even if he was hunting for information, he wouldn't have needed to get information from inactives. I think last cycle was just a beginner attempt to make themselves seem innocent after the death of a teammate. 

Actually, Lopen PMed me about a breath and items information exchange as well. I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to fish information out of all the newbies.

[The Only Alex]

Also, Sheep, in case that wasn't clear.

 

[Young Bard]

There is way too close a gap between Sheep and Alex right now, so I'll try and distance it. I haven't really seen any red flags from Sheep and Alex's post did seem slightly strange to me - though I wasn't going to make a big deal about it before since he was a new player.

Anyway, I should be on about a couple hours after rollover.

[Elbereth]

Cycle is closed! New one will be up momentarily.