Long Game 25: A Breath of Power

[Bugsy]

 

     Talton ran, sweat dripping down his face. Cross Country season  had just begun in Halladren, and today he had upped his mileage to 6 a day. With a mile and a half left to go, things were not looking well for him. Lost in the recesses of his own mind, he forged his way up yet another hill. He was snapped from his reverie by the sound of footsteps behind him. That would probably be one of the 7 milers on their way back. He futility sped up, hoping that he’d somehow eke out the strength to stay ahead of the approaching runner, but to no avail. “Good job!” the guy called as he moved to pass. Talton vaguely recognized him as a new runner who went by the name of Wit. He hadn’t replied with a sound somewhere between a grunt of pain and a “You too”.  Annoyingly, rather than passing Talton, Wit fell into pace beside him.
     “So, have you heard the rumors?” he asked. Talton made a vaguely negative grunt, peeved that this newbie would add insult to injury by trying to make him talk despite his labored breathing. “Apparently, there are returned in Halladren.” the runner continued, oblivious.
     “Really?” asked Talton, his interest piqued. He had always been interested in the godlike figures, but he had never actually met one. With the recent violence against them by Idris, he wasn’t sure he ever would.
     “Yeah. But apparently they aren’t the benevolent kind like T’Telir. These ones are supposedly stealing breath from the villagers here.”
     “Not possible” replied Talton, using the least air possible.
     “I certainly hope not” said Wit. “Although I do hope this running will give us excellent breath retention.” With that, he jogged off. When Talton got back, a minute before the next 7 miler, Wit was already gone.

So, I just realized I still hadn't done my introductory RP. The QA analysis will be up tomorrow.

[Silverblade5]

I personally don't agree with Bard's plan, for reasons already stated by others.

[Metacognition]

Okay guys, I’m finally back and ready to go! Joe has taken back over his game and other than classes starting tomorrow for me, I’ve got my free time back.

I’m going to address everything that has happened so far today.

First of all, this has been a horrible start! Where is everyone? We’ve only had (not even!) 2 pages of discussion so far? Guys, we’re not going to find the Returned by staying silent…. They’ll gladly sit back and let us do nothing if we don’t force them out of hiding.

As of right now, anyone who hasn’t at least spoken up is partially suspect in my eyes. Granted, I know that some of them are just lurkers, but this is still pretty ridiculous.

Second, like Bard, on the first night, I was trying to come up with a way to use the steal then kill bit to our advantage. My initial idea was to get the person being lynched to give up their breath. When I asked El about it, I found out that breath transference come after the lynch and that’s all the further I went with it.

This “second lynch” idea of Bard’s is just a bad idea to me. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it helps the Eliminators more! First, as others pointed out, we’d be effectively killing someone for what amounts to not even a cleared player! It wouldn’t be all that difficult for the Returned to just attack themselves and then get our breaths that way. It would make them look even more like villagers even! In fact, with how quick you were to come up with this idea, maybe that was the plan from the start…

Next, if people are transferring breaths, then we lose any breaths that they had in any items they’ve created, thus making it even harder for people to create more useful items like Lifeless. This is especially concerning if Ecth is telling the truth about how many breaths he had. If people can start out with that many breaths, they could be incredibly close to getting a Lifeless Rabbit already….

Third, almost all the discussion we’ve had so far has been centered around this plan rather than focused on finding the Returned. Redirecting the Village’s focus is something we’ve seen Eliminators do time and again.

 

12 hours ago, Magestar said:

  Just realized I left this post hanging for about half an hour without ever clicking submit.  I am a little confused as to why either Doctor Or Meta seem suspicious.  Meta seems to be acting like Meta, and Doc does not seem to have done anything.

This bit from Magestar really caught my attention. Thing is, I have been acting differently. I’ve been incredibly busy and so I haven’t been able be around as much as I typically try to be. So if I am acting differently, then why does Magestar think I’m not? Could be that he knows my alignment and is trying to get on my good side.

Not to mention the whole bit about him missing the fact that Ecth’s breath was stolen just feels like it was forced, IMO. It seems like he intentionally tried to misunderstand the rules.

 

10 hours ago, Conquestor said:

Bard, your plan might work with some tweaks and let us not forget the breath lottery as well. If Ecth is telling the truth, we are in a huge amount of trouble. We could have someone get the breath scanner and find people with large amounts of breath, then lynch them. The idea is that the returned will probably have more breaths than villagers, eventually. 

I’ve got to agree with Lopen on this one. It almost sounds like you know exactly how much trouble we’d be in. For all we know, the Returned started with a low amount of breaths and/or already spent their breaths. Beyond that, I think that targeting people with a lot of breaths is just a bad idea in general. Most people are going to be putting breaths into awakening items. This includes the Returned. And we won’t know where those breaths came from in the first place. If someone wins a decent amount in the Lottery or if they reclaim some breaths to make something else, you’re condemning them to death pretty early on here.

Granted, we will want to keep tabs on people whose breath is constantly fluctuating, but you just straight up wanting to lynch them makes me think that you’re trying to keep villagers from building up breaths for stronger awakened items.

 

11 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

I propose whoever is lynched with the primary lynch today gives their breath to Ecthelion 

 

10 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

In my opinion, if you are getting lynched, and are a villager, you can just pass your breath to the person that revealed that their breath was stolen. We don't need to bother with a second lynch to save that player.

As I noted above, since breath transference happens after the lynch, this won’t work. It kind of make me a little suspicious that this kept coming up. A bit of a hivemind idea? Trying to get us to waste time and deaths to find this out?

I’m also wondering why Araris is concerned about the Returned losing potential allies. I mean, I get it from a game play aspect, but it still seems like it’s counter-intuitive.

 

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Seriously though guys, we need to actually get things going from here on in. We’ve practically wasted the entire day!

Edited August 22, 2016 by Metacognition

[Doc12]

In this aged healer's defense,  it is his first time in an Elimination game, and he is watching to see what to do and what not to do. 

[luckat]

I think the problems with Bard’s plan have already been laid out pretty well, so I’ll move on.

There are benefits to someone giving their Breath to whoever lost it: it keeps the Returned from being able to choose who dies, it potentially gives us someone to trust, and it decreases the chance of a Potential Returned joining the Returned. However, as others have said the risk of a WGG or a fake claim (if the actual target is inactive or dies by Rabbit) is significant if the Returned think there is a good chance whoever loses their Breath will be saved--there isn’t even the normal drawback of wasting a kill for them if the kill is effectively moved to whoever gives up their Breath. Also, giving up Breath isn’t something we should expect of anyone. Given the risk of death, it should be entirely voluntary.

As Meta said, whoever is lynched cannot give their Breath away because the lynch comes before giving away Breath. Maybe a potential lynchee could offer to give away their Breath if all the votes are removed in order to keep the Breaths in play and save whoever lost their Breath. If there are no votes at all, no one dies. No one would be able to force a lynch in secret. However, it might take more coordination to pull off than is usually seen in lynches here. It could be a good option for whoever would be lynched otherwise to ask for, but it isn’t something we should be aiming for going into the lynch.

 

I figured I would post some thoughts about actions and mechanics, even though some of it is probably more relevant for night. Any of these might be good for discussion since there hasn't been much discussion aside from Bard's plan.

First, there is no reason not to enter the Lottery if you have an action free. The more villagers in the Lottery, the fewer Breaths the Returned will get from it.

Second, any Breath that is in an Awakened object is Breath that the Returned can’t steal. In addition, Breath stealing is before retrieving Breath from Awakened objects, so retrieving Breath prevents death by Assassin the next night even though it doesn’t stop the initial loss of Breath. For these reasons, I think making use of Breath often and changing what you have Awakened are good ideas if you’re not sure what else to do. However, remember not to make yourself Drab by Awakening objects.

Third, I think it is a good idea for whoever has their Breath stolen to come forward early each day. That gives us useful information to work from that the Returned already have.

Finally, I’ll go through the possible things to Awaken:

• 4-Breath Strawman - Discover how much Breath someone has. This is useful for information gathering and checking. Comparing Breath count to claims is more useful than basing suspicions on raw Breath count.
• 6-Breath Strawman - Discover people’s items. Useful for gathering information and checking claims. Also can be used to find suspicious items (possibly Lifeless Rabbits and Awakened Ropes)
• 8-Breath Strawman - Discover actions. Useful for information gathering, although the fact that it only discovers one of the target's two actions limits its usefulness. It might catch someone using a suspicious action, or even a kill, but it could also catch the less suspicious action the target took.
• Awakened Rope - Roleblock. More likely to hit a villager than a Returned, especially early on. It might stop a Returned attack. It’s something that would be more useful for the Returned since they can coordinate with one another, but it could be useful for village coordination.
• Lifeless - Protects from a kill or Breath stealing. This is very beneficial for the village.
• Awakened Clothing - Blocks a vote. Vote manipulation usually isn’t very helpful early on, especially since it is so visible. Later on, it could be useful to solidify the lynch or counter Returned vote manipulation.
• Lifeless Rabbit - Kills. Villagers should avoid using this early on. A Lifeless Rabbit could be useful when suspicions are firmer, but there’s probably better things to do with Breath. I expect the Returned to make a Lifeless Rabbit if they can. If there’s a string of Rabbit kills, we’ll want to find the culprit.

[Young Bard]

18 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

Ect, your breath count is suspiciously high. I don't want to give an exact number, but I can promise that mine was lower by quite a bit. I doubt the returned would neglect to place a kill C1, however, so assuming there's no counter claim, I propose whoever is lynched with the primary lynch today gives their breath to Ecthelion 

I have the same problem with Meta on this, which I had even before I saw Meta's post. This is mentioned once by Bugsy and once by Araris. The thing is, I also asked El whether the lynch or Breath Passing came first in the PM. When she responded that the lynch came first, that's when I formulated my whole second lynch plan.

The thing is, I find the GM response to this interesting. Usually, GM rules are that they will clarify when there's an innocent mistake made (as El did toward the top of this page.) When there is deliberate misinformation being spread out, they don't say anything. El didn't say anything.

Now, that in itself doesn't mean anything. But I can't think of a reason why a Village!Bugsy (and later a Village!Araris) would lie about that, or how in any way that would benefit a village plan.

I'll try and do some analysis on his posts. Disclaimer: I in no way consider my analysis to be infallible, I merely want to see if something else strikes out at me that an Eliminator might do.

18 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

Ect, your breath count is suspiciously high. I don't want to give an exact number, but I can promise that mine was lower by quite a bit. I doubt the returned would neglect to place a kill C1, however, so assuming there's no counter claim, I propose whoever is lynched with the primary lynch today gives their breath to Ecthelion 

In his first post, he tells us that he doesn't have much Breath, without any sort of provocation or reference to him in thread. 

14 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

Would a WGG work in this game, actually? As part of a QA spree I had with Elb earlier, I confirmed that a returned died immediately following the loss of their divine breath, so of there is a successful breath steal and the target doesn't immediately die, the target isn't a returned. 

Well, Bugsy made a mistake here, which I'll talk about more in the next post. If my plan was going ahead, I'd consider the question about WGG's eliminator-ish as Bugsy could be planning to do just that and downplay it as an idea to the thread, but as it is I don't think that part is alignment indicative.

12 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

1. I suppose that's true, I just wasn't even aware starting breath counts could be that high. I felt like the GMs would probably start people at lower breath counts to keep strong items from existing immediately, instead opting to give the lottery a bigger role. That was poorly expressed on my part, since I'm actually not suspicious of you right now. Sorry for the random thought 

2. Sorry everyone! My question was prompted by Bard's plan, because I was concerned that if a returned were about to be lynched, they'd give their breath away, and wanted to make sure that they would still show up as returned. Elb answered that in the writeup, it would appear that their death immediately followed the loss of the divine breath, so their status as a returned would still be obvious. Somehow I missed the second part of the PM that said the death would actually happen along with drabs to preserve consistency. My bad...

I'm going to start writing a summary of the rest of my QA. I asked quite a few questions, so it might take awhile, but I'll put it up sometime tonight.

1. (see bolded section). This is in response to Ecth saying she had had 8 breath. Why didn't you think Breath could be that high, Bugsy? Surely you couldn't predict how much Breath everyone in the game had just based on your own. Unless of course, you had several people in a doc that you'd exchanged Breath counts with. (I would guess that the average Returned started with less Breath than the average villager, to counteract the fact that they'd have more at the end, like Elodin said. (Sorry if I have the wrong person here, I'm going from memory because I can't be bothered scrolling.)

2. I wouldn't be surprised if this was an innocent mistake, for the reasons I stated at the top of the post - the GM wouldn't clarify if Bugsy were deliberately trying to mislead us. However, the fact that he asked a question about when a Returned dies makes me think that he might have done so because it was directly relevant to him. I'd be curious from anyone who GM'ed a game with Bugsy how many questions they asked you in that game, but I'm not aware of Bugsy asking so many questions in PM's. He could also be asking more questions in his PM 'spree' because he's excited to be an Eliminator.

11 hours ago, Bugsy6912 said:

     Talton ran, sweat dripping down his face. Cross Country season had just begun in Halladren, and today he had upped his mileage to 6 a day. With a mile and a half left to go, things were not looking well for him. Lost in the recesses of his own mind, he forged his way up yet another hill. He was snapped from his reverie by the sound of footsteps behind him. That would probably be one of the 7 milers on their way back. He futility sped up, hoping that he’d somehow eke out the strength to stay ahead of the approaching runner, but to no avail. “Good job!” the guy called as he moved to pass. Talton vaguely recognized him as a new runner who went by the name of Wit. He hadn’t replied with a sound somewhere between a grunt of pain and a “You too”.  Annoyingly, rather than passing Talton, Wit fell into pace beside him.
     “So, have you heard the rumors?” he asked. Talton made a vaguely negative grunt, peeved that this newbie would add insult to injury by trying to make him talk despite his labored breathing. “Apparently, there are returned in Halladren.” the runner continued, oblivious.
     “Really?” asked Talton, his interest piqued. He had always been interested in the godlike figures, but he had never actually met one. With the recent violence against them by Idris, he wasn’t sure he ever would.
     “Yeah. But apparently they aren’t the benevolent kind like T’Telir. These ones are supposedly stealing breath from the villagers here.”
     “Not possible” replied Talton, using the least air possible.
     “I certainly hope not” said Wit. “Although I do hope this running will give us excellent breath retention.” With that, he jogged off. When Talton got back, a minute before the next 7 miler, Wit was already gone.

So, I just realized I still hadn't done my introductory RP. The QA analysis will be up tomorrow.

RP - not particularly alignment indicative. You get an upvote for that, though. I've still got to do mine - I have a whole mini arc planned out in my mind this time, unless it gets cut short...

Bugsy, would you care to clarify this?

On non-Bugsy matters:

Araris is a weak eliminator read to me right now because of this, not so much as Bugsy, because it could just be an innocent co-incidence. If Bugsy is an Eliminator, though, then I'll do a more extensive analysis on his posts.

I'm giving up on my plan, because it does have a fair few holes that I'm not sure how to fix. I partially realized this before I posted, but contrary to what Meta thinks, I've got many more early reads than I usually would Day 1, and for that alone I consider it to be worthwhile. (I'll do a more extensive analysis later, though, because more players do need to speak up.)

EDIT: In regards to what Luckat said before me, I strongly disagree with the Awakened Rope in particular. If a Returned is Roleblocked, we know because it will not be announced in the thread that someone had their Breath stolen. Then, we can suddenly reduce the number of people who could have made the action down to about 2 or 3, which is extremely valuable information, particularly if one of them is under suspicion already, then we suddenly have found ourselves an Eliminator.

Edited August 22, 2016 by The Young Bard
Added response to what Luckat said.

[Mark IV]

Hmm... @Ecthelion III, you still haven't defended your vote against Doc. Mind answering what you find "highly suspicious"? It might help the village.

 

Quote

EDIT: In regards to what Luckat said before me, I strongly disagree with the Awakened Rope in particular. If a Returned is Roleblocked, we know because it will not be announced in the thread that someone had their Breath stolen. Then, we can suddenly reduce the number of people who could have made the action down to about 2 or 3, which is extremely valuable information, particularly if one of them is under suspicion already, then we suddenly have found ourselves an Eliminator.

Yeah... I don't think so really. Given that the chances of hitting the exact returned making the kill on the exact night that they are making it is a slim chance. (More like 1/(no. Of people alive - 1))

Also, have I just missed it or has no one mentioned it before? The returned basically have the ability to make a lifeless rabbit by next day cycle, if they haven't already. Sure, they'd lose all eight breath and an additional one, but I don't think that's really a very disproportionate risk w.r.t. shortening the game to half it's length. So, I'd say we are in huge trouble. 

So, I just got on mainly to say that I'll not be very active until after D2. This is because of RL reasons (Exams, if you're curious) (Exams, if you're not curious). So, I'll not participate fully until then. 

That's all for now, I guess.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Mark IV
Added name tag; Edited some phrasing to be clearer

[Magestar]

Meta, to be fair, I have not played many games.  I think I have played one with you, and, from what I have seen, you seem to be acting similarly to how you did then.  I did not really notice a difference, but I guess, if you feel you are acting differently, then I can chalk that up to poor analysis on my part.  On the point about me misunderstanding the rules, I just got back from a week long vacation yesterday.  I even said as much in the same post as I made the mistake about the how breath works.  Well, I said I had just gotten back, anyway.  I have read the rules now, and will try to keep mistakes to a minimum, as every time I make one someone seems to decide I'm suspicious.  I thought the same about Maill in the first LG I played, but it turned out he was village, so I will reserve judgement on your seemingly unprovoked attack on me, Meta.

As far as what Bugsy said, I think there are definitely suspicious things he has done, but the breath count thing makes sense to me.  It seems weird, at least to me, that the GM would give someone the power to create a lifeless, and an awakened rope, on the first turn.  That's a lot of power(as Mark just said while ninja'ing me). So, while Bugsy might have reached his conclusion by other, more devious means, which is not unlikely;  It could be just that, the same conclusion I reached.  Also, if he did start with low breath, it would definitely be a shock to see someone start with a lot more than you.

I don't see any other good lynch options right now, so I will withhold Judgement, but I think Bugsy might be a good option, just to start evaluating things.  However, I do not think he is suspicious enough for me to put down a vote on him.  I tend to be very cautious with my votes, and would really like to see more discussion, considering how many people are in this game, and how little conversation there has been.

[Bugsy]

The info I got from my QA:

Passing breath and using awakened clothing are the only day actions

You have a total of 2 actions per cycle to distribute between day and night however you like

The only way to tell if you are a potential returned is via self-scan with strawman or getting your breath stolen

Neither winners nor entries in the lottery will be revealed (which blocked my plan of having breath thief targets get sole access to the lottery…)

Awakening is a night action, not a day. (Asked to clarify some seemingly contradictory statements in the main thread)

Higher level strawmen don’t have the powers of their lower-level counterparts in addition to their higher tier powers

The lottery can have multiple winners

---

 

1 hour ago, The Young Bard said:

I have the same problem with Meta on this, which I had even before I saw Meta's post. This is mentioned once by Bugsy and once by Araris. The thing is, I also asked El whether the lynch or Breath Passing came first in the PM. When she responded that the lynch came first, that's when I formulated my whole second lynch plan.

I thought that the lynch would happen between the day and night with any day actions before and any night actions after. Apparently it was an incorrect assumption

The thing is, I find the GM response to this interesting. Usually, GM rules are that they will clarify when there's an innocent mistake made (as El did toward the top of this page.) When there is deliberate misinformation being spread out, they don't say anything. El didn't say anything.

Was Elb even on to clarify at the time? And she clarified my mistake earlier because it was a misinterpretation of an answer she provided rather than a mistaken assumption 

Well, Bugsy made a mistake here, which I'll talk about more in the next post. If my plan was going ahead, I'd consider the question about WGG's eliminator-ish as Bugsy could be planning to do just that and downplay it as an idea to the thread, but as it is I don't think that part is alignment indicative.

Were I an eliminator, wouldn't Elb assume it was deliberate misdirection, rather than an honest mistake?

1. (see bolded section). This is in response to Ecth saying she had had 8 breath. Why didn't you think Breath could be that high, Bugsy? Surely you couldn't predict how much Breath everyone in the game had just based on your own. Unless of course, you had several people in a doc that you'd exchanged Breath counts with.

I just thought the GMs would place more of an emphasis on the lottery to make higher tier items more accessible later in the game

2. I wouldn't be surprised if this was an innocent mistake, for the reasons I stated at the top of the post - the GM wouldn't clarify if Bugsy were deliberately trying to mislead us. However, the fact that he asked a question about when a Returned dies makes me think that he might have done so because it was directly relevant to him. I'd be curious from anyone who GM'ed a game with Bugsy how many questions they asked you in that game, but I'm not aware of Bugsy asking so many questions in PM's. He could also be asking more questions in his PM 'spree' because he's excited to be an Eliminator.

It is directly relevant to me as someone whose goal is to fight the returned. It's essential for me, as a villager, to know when I've killed a returned in order to validate or invalidate my reads

RP - not particularly alignment indicative. You get an upvote for that, though.

I do?  

I've still got to do mine - I have a whole mini arc planned out in my mind this time, unless it gets cut short...

Ooh, can't wait to read it

 

[Elbereth]

Quote

The thing is, I find the GM response to this interesting. Usually, GM rules are that they will clarify when there's an innocent mistake made (as El did toward the top of this page.) When there is deliberate misinformation being spread out, they don't say anything. El didn't say anything.

I will only make clarifications once in the thread. If it's forgotten after that point, that's the fault of the players. How Returned die if they have no Breath had not been clarified before. The Day order of actions had. 

Edited August 22, 2016 by Elbereth

[AliasSheep]

16 minutes ago, Bugsy6912 said:

It is directly relevant to me as someone whose goal is to fight the returned. It's essential for me, as a villager, to know when I've killed a returned in order to validate or invalidate my reads

A minor point, but this seems to me as you're kind of hypercompensating, trying to assure everyone that you are a Villager.  If you were actually Village I wouldn't have thought it necessary to make it clear so overly.  Not neccessarily alignment indicatie, but a point to note down. 

Also, regarding the question you did ask, it seems more relevant to someone who would be at risk of dying due to losing breaths on a regular basis - the Returned.  That being said, in your post you did provide some reasoning for it.  That being said, now that Elbe has amended that, it unfortunately is of less use to us.

[Paranoid King]

This has been a terrible first day so far. 36 hours in and only Meta, Doc, and Magestar have been voted on. I get the feeling that free PMs give people the impression that they don't need to be active in thread because they're still spreading info in their limited circles. But remember, that villager you're in a PM with might be an eliminator. If you have a suspicion, voice it in the thread. There hasn't been much discussion so far, so I'm gonna spread a few votes around to see what happens. Twei, you should vote for someone.

Young Bard, I like your plan, but it requires villagers to be willing to give up their breaths. Very few people are likely to do that, especially since a WGG was brought up. So the orange vote won't really tell us anything.

In addition, this has been brought up in the thread a few times, but I think I need to repeat it: The eliminators almost certainly have a lifeless rabbit. This means 2 kills per cycle. We can't beat them unless we start throwing some votes around to see how people react.

D1 lynches have been brought up before, and here's what I've found:

1. D1 lynches show us how people react in a way that the eliminator kill doesn't.
2. When we lynch someone D1, that gives us control over how the eliminators act.
3. If we don't lynch someone D1, the eliminators kill someone and we're left no better than before.

So let's start lynching people! Get that information flowing!

[Metacognition]

1 hour ago, Magestar said:

Meta, to be fair, I have not played many games.  I think I have played one with you, and, from what I have seen, you seem to be acting similarly to how you did then.  I did not really notice a difference, but I guess, if you feel you are acting differently, then I can chalk that up to poor analysis on my part.  On the point about me misunderstanding the rules, I just got back from a week long vacation yesterday.  I even said as much in the same post as I made the mistake about the how breath works.  Well, I said I had just gotten back, anyway.  I have read the rules now, and will try to keep mistakes to a minimum, as every time I make one someone seems to decide I'm suspicious.  I thought the same about Maill in the first LG I played, but it turned out he was village, so I will reserve judgement on your seemingly unprovoked attack on me, Meta.

That is indeed one possible interpretation. My case is that is exactly what you want us to think was the reasoning behind it. Of course you want us to believe the version that makes you look innocent. Especially if I'm right, that was part of the reason you intentionally made the mistake! Also, it's not an unprovoked attack (although that's an interesting choice of wording for it, if you ask me...). I saw something that I feel is suspicious and pointed it out. 

Then there's this: 

1 hour ago, Magestar said:

I don't see any other good lynch options right now, so I will withhold Judgement, but I think Bugsy might be a good option, just to start evaluating things.  However, I do not think he is suspicious enough for me to put down a vote on him.  I tend to be very cautious with my votes, and would really like to see more discussion, considering how many people are in this game, and how little conversation there has been.

Another good Eliminator tactic is to just voice your "opinions" without putting any weight behind them. Anyone can say anything in these games. Just because you say that you wouldn't mind Bugsy being lynched doesn't mean you actually want to see him lynched. If you two were Returned together, you could easily say something like this in an effort to help make yourself look good if Bugsy does get lynched while doing nothing to get it to that point. It's very Eliminator-ish to be this wishy-washy to me and while it's not just you, you are the one that specifically brought it up this game. I understand not wanting to accidentally lynch a villager, but it's going to happen; probably more often than we'd like and definitely more than we'd like if we don't actually take a stand and take control of the lynch. 

I'd much rather have a read on someone because they tried and made a mistake than a bunch of platitudes of what they might have, could have, done that could just as easily be lies. You're all giving the Eliminators an easy hiding spot where they don't have to commit to anything just so you don't think you look nearly as suspicious. 

[Mark IV]

Hmmm...  I've done some thinking, and I find Magestar to be more suspicious. I was originally going to vote for bugsy, but I find that I would've said almost exactly what he said in most situations. Given that this lynch isn't really in the hands of villagers, I think I should just vote, rather than hesitate. So, there.

Ah.. didn't see meta's post until I finished. Regardless, I think I agree with him to an extent.

But, one thing I noticed was that the reason people called out meta's playstyle this game was not that he was posting less, but rather that he specifically targetted one person. Granted that that's what he does every game, I'm still not convinced behind his reason for voting. But, given that Meta is (or rather is going to be, if he lives) one of the main drivers of conversation, it would be useful if he lived atleast for the start of the game (and until the end if he were villager.)

Now, some of the phrasing might sound suspicious here. It certainly does to me, but I can't seem to express my views any other way. Perhaps it is just the act of accusing someone that I find unusual.

[Magestar]

I don't really like using stuff from previous games to try to prove something, but I feel like it is the best way to defend myself here.  I would really rather not do this, but I would like to say that, as far as voting goes, I did practically the same thing in the last LG I was in. Almost the exact same thing.  And I don't want to see Bugsy lynched.  I have no real reason to want to see him lynched RN, just like with Elenion in LG24.  I am seriously considering putting a vote on Meta, but I feel like that would just be because I am frustrated with what he is doing, so I will hold back for now, even though I do have some bad reads on him.

I would rather not die, but you guys would definitely get some info out of it.  It's kind of weird that in both LG's I have been in, I have been sort of attacked for making what I thought was a simple mistake.  I thought Maill was an Elim in LG24 for that reason, but it turned out he was not, which is one of the reasons I'm confused about Meta.  Also, both players names started with M.   Just random coincidences.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Magestar

[Mark IV]

2 minutes ago, Magestar said:

I would rather not die, but you guys would definitely get some info out of it.  It's kind of weird that in both LG's I have been in, I have been sort of attacked for making what I thought was a simple mistake.  I thought Maill was an Elim in LG24 for that reason, but it turned out he was not, which is one of the reasons I'm confused about Meta.  Also, both players names started with M.   Just random coincidences. 

Yeah... simple mistakes seem to be the worst.

The first time I was good, I simply said I don't really support D1 lynching. Guess what? I was lynched. I don't remember the specifics, but that was the impression I'd gotten.

P.S. your name too starts with M! So does mine! O.o 

[Araris Valerian]

I misunderstood the rules when I posted about the lynchee passing breath; since the game description post says that passing breath happens during the day, rather than after it.

 

I'm going to vote for Bard right now. While I disagree with his plan, the greater reasoning behind this vote is his attack on Bugsy and myself for deliberately misleading people about the rules. Actually, in this case, attempting to follow the suggestions we gave would just have no effect, and everyone would figure that out after a single turn.

I would probably vote on Bugsy as a second choice though, because of what Bard pointed out his statement of breath counts. The reason I'm not voting here directly is that 8 Breath is a rather high amount to start with, based solely on the costs of Awakening, which suggest that 9 Breath is a Lot.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Araris Valerian
Greening vote

[AliasSheep]

I think I'm gonna put my vote on Bugsy.  He's the one I'm the most suspicious of, and I think Bard has made some good points about him, as well as the ones I expanded on earlier.  I'd like to avoid putting too much weight on the rule misinterpretations he has or hasn't made (though discounting them completely is of course a bad idea), though, so keep that in mind.

[Araris Valerian]

@Paranoid King: Twei has already placed a vote.

[Frozen Mint]

I said before that I didn't think we had enough evidence yet to call anyone out, and I still think that, but Paranoid King makes a good point. Not doing anything is just going to help the eliminators. Based on what we do have, I'm going to vote for Magestar, mainly because he missed that Ecthelion's breath was stolen earlier.

I'm on the fence about Bugsy. I don't find the talk of breath count strange. Eight breaths is a lot. You can do some substantial awakening with that. Construing that someone having that much breath at the get go as odd? Fair enough. The thing that struck me is that Bugsy brought up his own breath count. Why would you want to reveal that at this point? As for everything else against him, it's more plausible that his mistakes were just mistakes, instead of an eliminator tactic IMO.

I don't really see how Doctor is suspicious either.

Due to loads of RL stuff coming up suddenly, I'm pretty busy this week.  I'll do my best to stay active. But here's a heads up in case I disappear for a bit.

[Bugsy]

So, it looks like most of the flak against me is for mentioning my own breath amount. Here's the truth: I was surprised at Ecthelion's breath count, and remarked on it. While I was at it, I figured I might as well keep any opportunistic elims from attacking me by lessening their incentive to do so. I certainly wasn't expecting this much backlash  

1 hour ago, AliasSheep said:

I think I'm gonna put my vote on Bugsy.  He's the one I'm the most suspicious of, and I think Bard has made some good points about him, as well as the ones I expanded on earlier.  I'd like to avoid putting too much weight on the rule misinterpretations he has or hasn't made (though discounting them completely is of course a bad idea), though, so keep that in mind.

Anything specific, Sheep? Or will you just give more vague explanations that deflect blame onto other people and allow for easy disavowal? Either give specifics that I can refute or don't vote on me; this half-and-half reeks of an opportunistic eliminator

[AliasSheep]

2 minutes ago, Bugsy6912 said:

Anything specific, Sheep? Or will you just give more vague explanations that deflect blame onto other people and allow for easy disavowal? Either give specifics that I can refute or don't vote on me; this half-and-half reeks of an opportunistic eliminator

Deflecting blame for what?  I said you sound like you're overcompensating on explaining you're not a villager, I think the breath thing is odd, and so far you're my biggest suspicion.  I don't think the claims levelled against Magestar make a lot of sense, thus I'd rather they're not lynched, so I voted for my biggest suspicion.

[Magestar]

I'm going to be honest; I have no idea why people are voting for me.  In the interest of self preservation, I am going to have to put my vote on Bugsy.  I was hoping not to have to do this.  Bugsy, I hope you are an Elim.  Meta, I don't know why your vote is still on me, as I don't really think you have a good reason any more.  Mark, I'm not sure why you put yours on me in the first place.  I hope this gets cleared up before the tonight.  I would love to not die N1, and continue my losing streak.

edit; Bugsy, I'm voting for you completely out of self-preservation.  I have no real reason to believe you are an Elim, and will be rather frustrated if you are village.  Sorry about this.  I don't necessarily  agree with Sheep that the claims against me made no sense, but I think they should have been cleared up by now.  Except for Mint's, which I was slightly disappointed with, to be honest.  That line of thought makes no sense, and it would be just as well to say your bandwagoning as say that.

edit 2; @Metacognition, Do you still feel like I'm an Elim?

Edited August 22, 2016 by Magestar

[Paranoid King]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

@Paranoid King: Twei has already placed a vote.

Huh. Not sure what I'm thinking. Twei. Daniyah.

[Bugsy]

24 minutes ago, AliasSheep said:

Deflecting blame for what?  I said you sound like you're overcompensating on explaining you're not a villager, I think the breath thing is odd, and so far you're my biggest suspicion.  I don't think the claims levelled against Magestar make a lot of sense, thus I'd rather they're not lynched, so I voted for my biggest suspicion.

Deflecting blame in the sense that if/when I'm lynched, you aren't regarded with suspicion for making accusations against a villager, instead saying you were suspicious of me for the points Bard has expressed.

As for the overcompensating, I was merely expressing that saying it was only relevant if I were an eliminator was wildly inaccurate, and wanted to emphasize that it is relevant even though I'm village. When we start saying that defenses are suspicious as well as lack of defense, we enter a positive feedback loop where no matter what the defendant does, the suspicion level just goes up. That seems kinda counterintuitive to me.

I have to go set up an awning with my family, I'll be back when I'm done. Sorry for any incomplete thoughts