Anniversary Game 3: The Curse of the Koloss

[Ecthelion III]

Note: This bit takes place still at the end of N1, immediately after Felix's post.

The man clapped Felix on the shoulder as he took a seat from his speech. "Well said, my new friend. These people need hope, and we need to be the ones who give it to them."

Felix did not speak, but the man could hear Felix's voice echoing in his head: "It will take a miracle for us to survive an attack...we will need to make sacrifices...I have seen the danger with my own eyes......"

They sat in contemplating silence. Finally someone spoke: not the old man or Felix, but the steward Herywnbe. He spoke, but the sound the old man heard did not match with the steward's moving lips.  It was a different voice. The voice of the steward's heart. Thank you for bringing light to these people. The man half-smiled, idly fingering Herwynbe's hair which he had found at the scene of the death. The focus's Connection was fading; the man would need to find another soon. But for now, it would do.

The man straightened up and surveyed the others in the room. Lord Tekiel himself was here. What was a lord of great import doing in a place like this at a time like this? He noticed a dishonest-looking person standing oddly close to a one-legged man. Of no import. The man who had, probably drunkenly, declared himself to be Cassius and the woman who had, definitely drunkenly, declared herself to be Matilda were talking about something. He would keep half an eye on them. The man inhaling tacos in the corner was best to be ignored. Carmichael...now he was an interesting one. The man could see through his arrogant persona and noticed something deeper underneath. Something enigmatic. Carmichael had power, whether for good or for ill.

"Felix, Herwynbe, Carmichael, could I meet you all in a separate room for a few moments? Preferably not one too far away. I'm not sure what my legs can handle..."

Edited January 11, 2017 by Ecthelion III

[Elbereth]

12 minutes ago, Elenion said:

This kill looks like a fairly-standard (and apparently predictable) N1 Kill Wilson deal, without giving us much to go on. No suspicions. If the day continues like this I'll vote on Conquestor if he hasn't posted yet.

Does it seem that way to you? I think it tells us a fair amount, actually, though the possibilities are somewhat contradictory. 

Assumption: Wilson is good. 

If this is the case, we can draw one of two things from the eliminators' kill: One, they're from a particular subset of players who would actually be willing to kill Wilson N1. That rules out a fairly significant number (myself, Orlok, Seonid, Joe, pretty much for certain, and I'd place a much lower likelihood on Wonko, Gamma, Stink, Doc, Hero, Nyali, Wyrm as well - I could probably compose a specific list of several tiers of likelihood, but I don't particularly wish to bother right now). Very helpful. 
Corollary: We have an excellent Lurcher on our hands. 

Two, the evil team has a Lurcher and decided to pull a kill-and-protect. Either to implicate Wilson (saying that she's pulled a WGG), or to make people think that the people listed above cannot be evil because of course they wouldn't have attacked Wilson. 

Alternate Assumption: Wilson is evil. 

Only possibility here is that it's a WGG. Which is possible, though gutsy. I... would not place a high likelihood on it, but it's something to be considered. 

So no. I don't think it doesn't give us much to go on. And I'm vaguely curious why you're passing it off so easily, Len. 

---

In the darkness, El dreamed. She dreamed of a tiny blue bird, a bright island on another world, a search. She wasn’t El, in this dream. She was… she was…

First of the Twilight, Trapper, walking through the night that was not night to her. That was right - an Aviar which granted night vision. Tiel. Of course. How could she have forgotten? 

She reached her destination, a camp in which several forms were sleeping soundly. That couldn’t be allowed. Intruders. They would die. 

First of the Twilight drew her dagger slowly, kneeling above the man she was about to kill as El had knelt above the man who had just died. The dagger sunk into flesh - wait. El? Who… what… Her attention was distracted by the little blue Aviar who had just hopped off of her shoulder and into the air. She followed Tiel’s flight, up, up, up, looking for… something important. Something that mattered.

El woke, gasping. What was that? Had she just… killed someone? A dream, yes, but still. And that bird… It was familiar, somehow. It had been searching for something. She wasn’t sure what, but it had felt every bit as desperate as her own search for her parents. It had been so real... 

RP to be continued later, once I figure out some specifics about El.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Elbereth
slight formatting edit

[Arrae]

 

Some tips for the various roles we have:

Quote

Thug: They can survive a single attack. If they are killed during a night or day cycle, they survive and this will be revealed in the write up. If they are attacked again, they die; finally.

 

Stay alive and be more active. The elims can't kill you as easily, so you have every reason to speak up more. An active villager that needs two hits to kill is a fantastic villager.

 

Quote

Tineye: They are messengers and are capable of writing messages to the town while remaining anonymous. Each night, they can send a message to the Game Master. He will then post it within the write up at the end of the night. As long as the Tineye is alive, players can send Private Messages back and forth. Once he dies, he can no longer deliver messages, so no more PMs.

 

If we have a tineye in here, please send a message to the GM so we know how many of you there are. Try to include something that you can later use to identify yourself with later. One thing you can use is a vignere cipher. You would put in something like "IAMRAE" repeated over and over again, cutting off at a random letter. You'd use a key to change it to ciphertext.  Then, if you ever need to confirm your role to someone, you can just PM them the ciphertext.

Quote

Smoker: The Smoker is undetectable and he can extend this power to one other person each night. If scanned by a Seeker, the smoker or the person encompassed within his coppercloud will show up as nothing. Alternatively, the Smoker can turn his coppercloud off. This would allow them to be scanned. In addition to being undetectable by the Seeker, the Smoker and his target are unaffected by emotional Allomancy. As long as the Smoker is using their coppercloud, the Soother and Rioter cannot change their votes.

 

Unless you have good reason to suspect that there is rampant emotional allomancy, it's probably not a good idea to Smoke people. This can interfere with scans, something that benefits the eliminators a lot. If you do think that there is elim emotional allomancy, you should prioritize those who are voting for people at a tie or near a tie. The elims will probably care most about close votes, either because a teammate is on the line or because they just want to mess with the village. You have a better shot at blocking vote manipulation if you Smoke the people the elims will want to target.

Quote

Seeker: The Seeker can sense when someone is burning metals. In fact, he/she has gotten so good that they can tell whether someone is spiked or not! Once per night, the Seeker can target someone to learn their abilities and alignment.

 

Seeker. If you exist, you have a very, very powerful role. Thus, it's in your best interests to stay alive for as long as possible. Only roleclaim to people you have scanned as village. Find a way to announce your scans publicly. Whoever acts as your spokesperson will probably be targetted by the elims, unless they get protection. If you can find a Tineye and work with them, that would be great. Unfortunately, if you ever out yourself as a seeker, I'll want to kill you near the end of the game to confirm that you aren't an elim. Sorry.

 

Quote

Coinshot: The Coinshot does what they do best. They push metals around; specifically into other people's bodies. Once per night, the Coinshot can target a person for death. Unless otherwise disrupted, that person dies.

 

Try not to kill people unless you have a strong suspicion that they're an elim. If not, it's probably not a good idea to randomly kill people. If by the third cycle you have nobody to kill, then you can go for inactives who have been silent or near silent without giving an explanation. Obviously, don't attack people if they've said that they're going to be inactive because of RL circumstances.

 

Quote

Lurcher: Where the Coinshot pushes, the Lurcher pulls. Once per night the Lurcher can target someone and that person will be saved from death.

 

In the early cycles, the people who contribute a lot tend to be offed most often. Active villagers are more useful than inactive villagers, so you probably shouldn't bother protecting them. Later on, protect the people you trust.

 

Quote

Soother: Their ability to dampen emotions puts them and the Rioter in a very special position. During any time during the day round (up until the round ends), they can negate one person's vote. The change will be anonymous, but since I will be posting voting results at the end of each day, those that are observant should be able to tell whose votes were changed.

Soother, please try not to meddle with the vote in the early cycles unless you know that this person is an elim or that person is a villager. Votes are very useful for analysis, but if they've been messed around by a Soother, it's harder to analyze them. Village and elim soothes look the same on a vote tally comparison. If possible, please try to soothe an unimportant vote (such as a lone poke vote) so we know you exist.

Quote

Rioter: The Rioter works in a similar fashion as the Soother, except once during the day round they can change one person's vote. Using this power does nullify their own vote though. They are still capable of voting, but their vote will not be counted. The change itself will be anonymous, but since I will be posting voting results at the end of each day, those that are observant should be able to tell whose votes were changed.

 

Same as the soother, please try not to meddle with the vote in early cycles. You don't have to change an unimportant vote to let us know you're there, because that'll cancel out your own vote, which is a very powerful tool.

Quote

 

Mistborn: The Mistborn have the abilities of all of the above, but will only be able to use one per cycle. At the beginning of every night, the Mistborn will be told which ability they have and it's the only ability they have until the next night.

 

Please read through the above. I didn't type all of that at the expense of homework time for nothing, you know.

Quote

Regular Villagers: You have no special powers, but you still get a vote every day. Who knows? Perhaps you were meant to be the one to save the town! Not all stories are about the strongest people in a group.

 

On paper, you're the most useless. You have no abilities, just your brains and whatever notes you take. In reality, however, you're very important. There are lots of things that you can look for, such as faulty logic, people voting in blocks, changes in behavior, defense of known elims, ignoring the existence of certain players, and much more. Make sure to read up on past cycles as well as the current one to compare information. For example, if Meta defended Alvron and Alvron turned out to be an elim, you should take a closer look at Meta. Was Meta just a hapless villager, or was Meta an elim trying desperately to save his buddy from death? Sudden inactivity with no explanation is another thing to look for. If Amanuensis is an experienced player who has only ever been village and this game suddenly starts lurking, you should wonder what's going on. Sometime new elims go silent because they can't think of what to say.

Additionally, try to make sure that your vote is on someone by the end of the Day. Try to include a reason with it. You don't need a rock solid reasoning -- maybe you just don't like that person's tone. Maybe they feel off. Gut can be more accurate than you think. When more people vote, it's easier for the village to analyze, so it's easier for the village to win. Make sure to vote if you want a village victory.

[little wilson]

For once, Whistler wasn't whistling. He moved around the ashes, silent tears coursing down his cheeks, trying to find anything salvageable. but there was nothing left. Nothing. His home, his shop, his everything was gone. And this...mess... He couldn't fix it. He looked at his hands, blackened with the ash and cringed.

He'd been proud of what he'd built with his own two hands. Proud. And now he'd have to hope Lord Conrad or that Terris Herwynbe's mysterious Lord would allow a charity case to live in their fine manor houses. Whistler shoke his head. Not for long, he swore. Not for long. He'd bet everything he had (or once had) there he would find those who did this to him. And they would pay. Oh, yes, they would pay.

---

Well then. That was enlightening for me. I didn't post at all, only had a single PM, and yet I still got attacked. Thanks for that. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know people so desperately want to kill me.

Right now, the only game relevant thought I have is that I completely agree with Hero about the contribution crusade, especially considering the state of inactives in recent games. So be active, people! Other than that, I have no suspicions, since like I said, I was only in one PM and the thread was mostly RP. I'm hoping the thread discussion today will be more enlightening.

I'm tired though, since I've been sleep deprived the last 3-4 nights (I'd bluetext that but I'm on mobile and feeling lazy), so I'm going to go to bed and I'll be back in the morning. Good night. And good morning? For the game? Whatever. I'm off.

[Elenion]

7 minutes ago, Elbereth said:

One, they're from a particular subset of players who would actually be willing to kill Wilson N1. That rules out a fairly significant number (myself, Orlok, Seonid, Joe, pretty much for certain, and I'd place a much lower likelihood on Wonko, Gamma, Stink, Doc, Hero, Nyali, Wyrm as well - I could probably compose a specific list of several tiers of likelihood, but I don't particularly wish to bother right now). Very helpful. 

I guess any discussion is good discussion. Why do you find these players less likely to kill Wilson N1?

[Metacognition]

15 minutes ago, Arraenae said:

One thing you can use is a vignere cipher. You would put in something like "IAMRAE" repeated over and over again, cutting off at a random letter. You'd use a key to change it to ciphertext.  Then, if you ever need to confirm your role to someone, you can just PM them the ciphertext.

Please remember that you cannot use outside resources for stuff like this though. If you build the cipher yourself then fine, but you would have to build it from scratch. You cannot just go to a website, allow it to build the cipher for you and then give people the key and the website. They would have to decipher the text themselves as well. 

Not saying you were suggesting that, Arraenae. Just making sure that's clear in case anyone was thinking about doing so. 

[Arrae]

I think one thing we can safely assume is that Wilson was picked for a reason. It seems unlikely that a group of people would use the RNG machine and land on her. Thus, the elim team this year probably isn't composed entirely of newbies. They selected her for a reason, which implies that there's probably at least one experienced player on the elim team.

There's a slight chance that a group of complete newbies picked Wilson because she's a mod and therefore must be good, but I think it's pretty unlikely.

[Elbereth]

(space I can't get rid of whee)

23 minutes ago, Elenion said:

I guess any discussion is good discussion. Why do you find these players less likely to kill Wilson N1?

Wilson has expressed multiple times her displeasure at being killed, and killed every. single. time. She hasn't survived a game since LG9. Two years ago. She's practically the only player like that, now - she's so dangerous that she literally never survives games. Even in LG29, when Hael and I were both on the evil team and I didn't want to kill her nor was I afraid of her because of her rep (for the first attempt it was strategic to kill her, but it would've been for anyone in her position; it wasn't exatly a fearkill - for the second attempt I would really have preferred someone else but acceeded to the will of the majority, which I very much regret now), she died. She always does. 

This is not particularly pleasant, as you might imagine. Those players are the ones to whom she's most likely to have expressed her displeasure or to hae picked up on it and been unlikely to kill her - and also, to an extent, those players from a meta in which killing the really experienced players who died constantly was frowned upon until later in the game than N1. (This was around when I joined, I'd say, given that Maill had just died three times in a row C1 and was not happy about it.) So, basically, anyone around enough and conscientious enough to give her a chance to play before she died. 

Rae - that depends on how you define 'newbie'? I don't think the players from... oh, before LG20 or so, would be likely to kill her off the bat like this. Certainly not more likely than a team of newbies. 
Also, Meta did a team of all newbies last time. While it's certainly possible he's done the same thing (which would be amusing, certainly), I'd guess that he did something else this time. 

I'll be watching for hours yet, but I really should not post any more, not if I'm going to RP for every post. I still have a fair amount of work to get done tonight which I have somewhat neglected. >> Someone vote on me if I post again in the next six hours, please. I need the disincentive. 

---

This RP is almost certain to be edited later with more details about the setting and such.

El lay in the softness of her bed, still unwilling to get up. The face of the man who had died flashed before her memory, again. The blood pouring out, the helplessness, the lack of time. Why was everything about time? 

She idly unfastened the locket from around her neck and held it up, dangling it in front of her. It was very simple. A silver chain, holding a small circular pendant. One side was some sort of black stone or metal, too dark to be iron, and the other was white silver. She wasn't even certain it was a locket. It looked like one, but she'd never been able to open it, and she hadn't dared do anything too extreme to it for fear of damaging it permanently. 

How long had it been, now, since she'd been left here, since she'd last felt her parents' touch? How much time had passed? 

El blinked. 

She... didn't know. 

[Gamma Fiend]

Well looks like I haven't been missing much in games, if we're still having this same old debate. I feel like I already did a RP of Grumbles having deja vu.....  

Either way. The possibilities or assumptions have basically all been laid out, of the old, infamous Wounded Gazelle Gambit or it being a team of Spiked trying to get rid of the most "dangerous reputation" players. Any of those can lead to assumptions of at least some sort of veteran player on the team, to be aware of Wilson being a target like that would be this big of a talking point (solely for the sake of it being a large talking point, it seems by now....)

So instead of being completely sucked into that same old debate, over and over again.... (I'm really feeling a theme here, with these AGs......) 
Let's talk about something else to be aware of. So if there was a lurcher that did save Wilson from an attack, that gives them a starting point. Of course doesn't 100% verify her yet, but that gives any possible Seekers a starting point as well for the next cycle, starting with anyone that might've scanned last night. The Lurcher that protected Wilson can continue to do so for now, and any other lurchers continue to use their own discretion I guess. 
We'll see how the vote manipulations go for this cycle, and villagers probably shouldn't meddle too much unless there's a scary pile-on or bandwagon or something. 

Speaking of.....Wyrmhero [Redacted Vote]
_____________________________

Grumbles walked out of his inn, wondering where that so called private detective Wyl Sharpe had gotten off too..... there crazy man had been muttering something about some sort of Promised End no longer being a thing....

Edited January 12, 2017 by Gamma Fiend

[Madagascar]

The night wash long and full of terrorsh, but the day bringsh no more bodiesh than there were before. The complete and utter terror I feel in the withered ancient husk which once held my shoul, however, is unabated. Clearly theesh Shpiked are sho vicioush and mad they will shtop at nothing until they have killed us all and stolen all of me catsh! Come here kittiesh, get in a protective ring around Matilda. I'm going to douse the ground with high proof eye of newt vodka and sit here with a lit torch. If anyone comesh for ush, I'm taking them down in a vasht beautiful exploshion of fire, and alsho angry catsh. All I know ish that my catsh are shtill alive, shumeone's got it out fer Whishler, and there'sh probably a tineye alive since there's talk o' shecret messhagesh goin' around. But that ain't much.

If the cats had a vote, they would vote for all the villagersh/Shpiked pretending to be villagersh that have failed to wake up on the groundsh they at leasht would shlow the Kolossh down a bit.

Unfortunately, thish village is not enlightened enough to grant shuffrage to catsh. I am limited only to the number of catsh I can throw.

If I had a lot of catsh to throw, I would throw them at all the rsht of you caush I hear theesh shpiked are tricky rashcals an' Matilda don't trusht any of you to not shtab an old woman.

However, the catsh do not have a vote, and I have only sho many catsh to throw.

Look I'm an old wommin so shorry if all the cat hair in me ear makesh it hard for me to follow you young'uns talking. I got a nashty shneaking shushpishin not all of youse ish as innocent as you're acting, probably all thinkin' you can pull on over Mad Matillda jusht becaush I'm drunk and have a lot of catsh and am ancient and physically decrepit and mentally unsound. But I ain't got nothin' againsht no one particular yet, sho I shall start by unleashin' cats at a pershon who hash failed to inform ush of his views on the Contribushin Crushade or anything else, Mr. Hoid/Conquestor, seein' ash how Len is too lazy to actually do so.

Thish cat.

But we've got a long day ahead of ush. Any number of thingsh may happen, probably to Matilda. We'll shee.

*drinks more*

Boo! Tempting as it is to change my vote to Gamma Fiend for beating me to first vote of the game.

[TheMightyLopen]

Just now, Arraenae said:

I think one thing we can safely assume is that Wilson was picked for a reason. It seems unlikely that a group of people would use the RNG machine and land on her. Thus, the elim team this year probably isn't composed entirely of newbies. They selected her for a reason, which implies that there's probably at least one experienced player on the elim team.

There's a slight chance that a group of complete newbies picked Wilson because she's a mod and therefore must be good, but I think it's pretty unlikely.

Well, there's 34 players, which means we've got what, 6-8 Spiked and I don't think there's that many new players around. Plus Wilson never posted during the Night. So I think it's safe to say that some of the elims know of her, otherwise why go after her specifically when she's not even been posting or anything.

It certainly is an interesting kill, but I'm not sure exactly what to make of it yet. I kind of agree with Elbereth I guess.

I'm mostly just glad I'm alive. Life is unfair but death on N0/N1 is even worse.

[Silverblade5]

I'm terribly sorry, but Ryth is afraid he'll have to drop out of this game. He requests that he gets targeted by the elims next cycle

Edited January 12, 2017 by Silverblade5

[Ecthelion III]

After supper the previous night, in the old man's room:

The man reached a gloved hand into his deep coat pocket and procured a goblet: the one Felix had been drinking from the night before, which the man had stolen when nobody was looking. He held the goblet for one hand for a time, perhaps hours, meditating. When the time of fate had drawn nigh, the man transferred the goblet to his other, ungloved hand and drank. Immediately there was a thunderclap and flash of light, though it was perhaps only visible to him. And the world dissolved into a memory. Felix's memory.

-

The old man made his way slowly down to breakfast. When he arrived, the discussion was already in full force.

"I am a proponent of using ciphers for just about everything. I used them quite a bit back in my day, heh heh. I can't say Nicki's last post adds much information to the discussion. I'm no probability expert, but I'm pretty sure it's very extremely highly likely in every game that there's at least one experienced player on the eliminator team, and Whistler, being a highly talented member of society, tends to be a high-priority target. I think the much more important fact is how her protector knew whom to protect. I'm not keen on trying to guess whether it was a WGG or just the eliminators wanting us to think it was a WGG, though."

[Madagascar]

2 minutes ago, TheMightyLopen said:

Well, there's 34 players, which means we've got what, 6-8 Spiked and I don't think there's that many new players around. Plus Wilson never posted during the Night. So I think it's safe to say that some of the elims know of her, otherwise why go after her specifically when she's not even been posting or anything.

It certainly is an interesting kill, but I'm not sure exactly what to make of it yet. I kind of agree with Elbereth I guess.

I'm mostly just glad I'm alive. Life is unfair but death on N0/N1 is even worse.

*"accidentally" drops a cat on Lopen the thief's head*

"Whoopsy doodle. But hey, I'm a vicioush, drunk old woman. Can't passh up a chance to remind you how Unlucky you are."

[TheMightyLopen]

15 minutes ago, Madagascar said:

*"accidentally" drops a cat on Lopen the thief's head*

"Whoopsy doodle. But hey, I'm a vicioush, drunk old woman. Can't passh up a chance to remind you how Unlucky you are."

*kicks cat over a house*

"That's the third time this month. Why does everything bad have to happen to me?"

(glad you've finally joined a game )

Edit: Oh, some advice for Seeker(s) that Rae didn't say is that you should be careful about scanning people who have been suggested in the thread. If the Spiked have a Smoker, they could Smoke that person and your scan would be wasted. Other than that, Rae's advice looked good to me.

Edited January 11, 2017 by TheMightyLopen

[Hemalurgic Headshot]

What? No one participated in my little contest? Oh well. This certainly is interesting. Considering the turn of events, the Lurcher is who ever expected Wilson would be attacked N1. Hmmm.... The attacker must also be afraid of Wilson...

---

Joe stopped methodically producing ash tacos for once, and contemplated the previous events. Whistler's shop had burned down, and people were saying it was no accident. He bit into an ash taco and murmured blissfully. Why does everyone keep dissing my ash tacos?

A bit of sun peeked in through the window. Joe looked up and banged his head on the shelf above. Bloody ashes... Seeing that it's morning, Joe began to make breakfast ash tacos, with all of that  good metaphorical bacon, eggs, and cheese. Here's a tip: ash tacos are best cooked with metaphors.

[Madagascar]

1 hour ago, Hemalurgic_Headshot said:

The attacker must also be afraid of Wilson...

Clearly no one's afraid of me though. I shlept through the night shweet as a baby. But when I woke up almost all my catsh were misshing! I'm not sure if it wash the Shpiked what took them away for kebabsh, or if it wash jusht that thief Lopen who shtole'em all and kicked them over houshesh like shum short of reverse Dorothy.

Shumetimes people even tell me, "Matilda, you're drunk, there never were any catsh. Now please, please for the love of the Ja, put down my baby!"

I think it'sh awful how people try to take advantage of an old woman like that.

But anyway, they ran me out of that village with pitchforksh and torchesh. Sho that'sh all in the pasht.

So I'm starting to realize replacing all of the "s"s with "sh"s for my character is rapidly turning into the most annoying accent ever. But it WILL. NOT. STOP.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Madagascar
Formatting.

[Bugsy]

8 hours ago, Arraenae said:

If we have a tineye in here, please send a message to the GM so we know how many of you there are. Try to include something that you can later use to identify yourself with later. One thing you can use is a vignere cipher. You would put in something like "IAMRAE" repeated over and over again, cutting off at a random letter. You'd use a key to change it to ciphertext.  Then, if you ever need to confirm your role to someone, you can just PM them the ciphertext.

This wouldn't be secure. It's possible to construct an encoded message given a key that will decode to whatever the Elims want, or a key that can decode a given encoded message. Tineyes, if you do decide to do this, make sure you have a relatively short key, looping the key multiple times in the message, and tell us a smal range containing the length. Make the range plaintext, preferably. The eliminator will have more difficulty making a key that fits a ciphertext if they must reuse it multiple times. I'd also suggest avoiding loops in your actual message; don't repeat when you don't need to. Also, put filler text unique to you, if possible. I, for instance, could write about Red Rising in mine. That will make it even harder for them, because they'd be forced to find a key that decodes legibly for more letters than they would otherwise. Finally, make sure you spell everything right. The elims could try to construct a key that fits in general with liberal grammatical and spelling errors, and that could be pretty bad. We don't want an elim impersonating a Tineye. I'll be suspicious if I see this if and when you reveal your key, and I don't want to unnecessarily suspect an innocent  

Edit: Didn't want to double post, but I just reread the thread. Honestly, I'm a bit suspicious of Rae. Many of her proposed strategies involve characters with roles revealing their existence with no clear benefit to the village. The Elims begin every game with an information advantage, and the little they're missing will be largely reduced if her advice is followed.  Elims will also frequently put posts of advice as it makes them appear to help the village, and gives them a position of authority/trust. The post by Rae was largely basic information, and while a refresher is always useful and appreciated, I worry that this advice could be a conduit for more nefarious goals. The aspects she elaborated on, such as encouraging anonymous reveals and encoded messages seemed almost more beneficial to the eliminators than to us. It's not strong enough to go on, yet, but I'm planning on watching to see how this develops

Edited January 11, 2017 by Bugsy6912

[Nyali]

I'm not sure I agree with all of those, Rae, though I do like some of them. Here are my thoughts, which I'd like to share before the mistwraiths come for me -

9 hours ago, Arraenae said:

 

Some tips for the various roles we have:

 

Stay alive and be more active. The elims can't kill you as easily, so you have every reason to speak up more. An active villager that needs two hits to kill is a fantastic villager.

 

Agreed.

 

If we have a tineye in here, please send a message to the GM so we know how many of you there are. Try to include something that you can later use to identify yourself with later. One thing you can use is a vignere cipher. You would put in something like "IAMRAE" repeated over and over again, cutting off at a random letter. You'd use a key to change it to ciphertext.  Then, if you ever need to confirm your role to someone, you can just PM them the ciphertext.

I strongly disagree with this. What's the point? Why do we need to know how many tineyes there are? The power of tineyes is that they allow us to talk amongst ourselves without the elims necessarily being privy to that information. The elims don't need tineyes to do that. The only reason to learn the number of village tineyes out there is so the elims know how many they need to take out to stop the town from communicating in private. Also, as stated by another, your cipher idea would create a cipher that's relatively easy to crack.

Unless you have good reason to suspect that there is rampant emotional allomancy, it's probably not a good idea to Smoke people. This can interfere with scans, something that benefits the eliminators a lot. If you do think that there is elim emotional allomancy, you should prioritize those who are voting for people at a tie or near a tie. The elims will probably care most about close votes, either because a teammate is on the line or because they just want to mess with the village. You have a better shot at blocking vote manipulation if you Smoke the people the elims will want to target.

I agree here, but I just wanted to state that just because a seeking failed on someone, it doesn't automatically mean they are an eliminator. They very probably are, but they could also be a villager that an eliminator smoker decided to smoke to confuse the village. But still, if the vote isn't close, Smoking will just mess with the super powerful role of Seeker.

Seeker. If you exist, you have a very, very powerful role. Thus, it's in your best interests to stay alive for as long as possible. Only roleclaim to people you have scanned as village. Find a way to announce your scans publicly. Whoever acts as your spokesperson will probably be targetted by the elims, unless they get protection. If you can find a Tineye and work with them, that would be great. Unfortunately, if you ever out yourself as a seeker, I'll want to kill you near the end of the game to confirm that you aren't an elim. Sorry.

This is good advice. With open PMs, you can create a slowly growing network of known villagers by contacting the people you seek. Once the trust network gets big enough, the we are pretty much guaranteed a win. Open PMs + village Seekers is a very, very, very powerful combo.

 

Try not to kill people unless you have a strong suspicion that they're an elim. If not, it's probably not a good idea to randomly kill people. If by the third cycle you have nobody to kill, then you can go for inactives who have been silent or near silent without giving an explanation. Obviously, don't attack people if they've said that they're going to be inactive because of RL circumstances.

I consider vigilantes to be an extremely powerful role for a villager (and overpowered for an elim). We clearly don't have an elim coinshot or else there would have been two kill attempts on Night 1 instead of  one. Any village coinshot out there, in my opinion, should use their power on the person they suspect the most each night. It's just like the lynch - attempting to kill someone who has a chance at being an elim is how the village wins. It is essentially a second lynch. Use it.

 

In the early cycles, the people who contribute a lot tend to be offed most often. Active villagers are more useful than inactive villagers, so you probably shouldn't bother protecting them. Later on, protect the people you trust.

I'm confused by what you mean here. Don't bother protecting active villagers? Those are exactly the people to protect. I recommend protecting the most active villager OR protecting yourself. The nice thing about protecting yourself is that you are guaranteed to be protecting a villager. You should definitely protect someone every night. While it's possible you could protect an eliminator from a village coinshot, chances are much higher that you will protect a villager from an elim kill OR a villager from a errant coinshot attack.

Soother, please try not to meddle with the vote in the early cycles unless you know that this person is an elim or that person is a villager. Votes are very useful for analysis, but if they've been messed around by a Soother, it's harder to analyze them. Village and elim soothes look the same on a vote tally comparison. If possible, please try to soothe an unimportant vote (such as a lone poke vote) so we know you exist.

I don't understand this one - don't use your powers to manipulate the vote because votes are how we get information? But isn't the soothing/rioting a way of gaining extra information about the lynch? It's not like we can't look up what the votes were before they were manipulated. Also, showing off that you are a soother or rioter only helps the elims by telling them how many village soother/rioters there are so they know by what margin they need on lynches. In my opinion, soothers and rioters should use their powers to protect people they think are innocent (such as themselves) but the rest of the village is trying to kill.

Same as the soother, please try not to meddle with the vote in early cycles. You don't have to change an unimportant vote to let us know you're there, because that'll cancel out your own vote, which is a very powerful tool.

Same as above - what's the harm in meddling? It gives more information and doesn't take any away. But at the same time, don't meddle just for the sake of meddling - meddle to protect people you are pretty confident are villagers, such as yourselves.

 

Also, one last comment regarding Mistborn - because there are likely Mistborn out there, remember that any role you see could be a Mistborn. The Lurcher who protected Wilson might not be able to do so next cycle, for instance, since they could have been a Mistborn who rolled Iron. You seem interested in learning the exact village role spread (which is something I personally find rather suspicious), but the existence of Mistborn make that an almost impossible task. Just something to keep in mind.

That's pretty much all I've got right now, though I do want to say that the kill attempt on Wilson is interesting. It's either the first WGG I've actually seen around here, or it's yet another attempt to eliminate a known strong player before she gets going. Given how often Wilson dies early on, it's completely plausible that someone would protect her (or she could have protected herself).

The later is far more likely, but the former is still theoretically possible. When was the last WGG around here? For now, I personally tentatively trust Wilson, though that's burned me pretty hard in the past (LG20 anyone?).

 

For now, I think I'll put a vote on Rae. Rae, why are you so interested in knowing the role distribution among the villagers?

---

Nyah cautiously entered the manor. She was a little worried by all the people here - she never felt comfortable around so many, especially not noblemen. She didn't know how the lord of this manor took the Lord Ruler's death and the subsequent liberation of the skaa. Would she be killed for joining the rest?

As she approached, she noticed that there were other skaa in attendance, so she thought it would be okay. But then a thought came to mind, and she looked around nervously. The Mistwraiths are out there, somewhere. Unless.... Mistwraiths could take human forms. Did she know any of the other guests in the manor? Any of them could be a Mistwraith just waiting to eat her, body and soul, like they ate her parents! Did the Mistwraiths around here know about that? Were they the ones who did it? Nyah shivered despite the warmth and huddled into a corner where she tried to remain small, close enough to the rest to hear their conversation, but hopefully far enough away that she wouldn't be noticed by too many. It was going to be a long day.

[Stick.]

I think it's likely for Wilson to be on the elim team, asking her team to attack her to gain the village's trust (well, some of it, anyway). She might either be a Tineye, or have been protected by a Lurcher or..hm. Can a Lurcher self-protect? She might be Mistborn, but I guess that's unlikely since she was Mistborn in LG28, but maybe that makes it even more likely. I dunno. I'm not placing any vote on anyone now, but I definitely will towards the end of the turn (unless I forget, which I won't, but the by :-D)

---

Stick was lost. She kept forgetting her way to breakfast, and kept ending up in front of the same old window. It took about two hou- or, wait...all she knew that it took a lot of time.

By the time she reached, she was pretty sure she had missed breakfast, there was a great deal of discussion going on though. Stick stood up and said, to no-one in particular, "I must offer my most sincere sympathies to our dear man, Whisker. Any one of us could have been targeted, and some of us might be feeling lucky of themselves for not having been the one. But good man Whisper lost everything. I know what that feels like...or wait, I actually don't remember...but uh..yeah."

[Kipper]

@Elbereth Disappointed that you wouldn't put me on the list of people who wouldn't kill Wilson N1. I thought we were friends. I thought we understood each other?!

Also, about this whole Wilson thing...it DOESN'T MATTER. And for anyone who thinks that it's "more likely" for Wilson to be a villager or an Eliminator-  no, it's not.

We are in D1. Nothing substantial was said in the Night. We do not know who Wilson PMd, or what was said in that PM. We do know that most people consider Wilson a dangerous person who is likely to be killed (she's really just a teddy bear you guys), so that creates equal motivations for 1. A villager saving her, 2. Her fellow Eliminators doing a WGG to try and clear her, or my favorite strategy, 3. The Eliminators doing the attack/save actions with her as a villager, so when their Lurcher dies later on, she receives suspicion #timebomb (Which, @Elbereth, is totally something an experienced players would consider amusing so pls reconsider your list).

TL;DR: We can't gain any new information from that save, or use it to analyze old information. The save makes sense from both alignments. Wilson remains of neutral suspicion.

[little wilson]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about the paranoia, but seriously? You do realize that I'm aware of the extreme paranoia that's constantly around me, right? The fear? I just got killed by an eliminator team with two people on it who don't like to kill me. If two people who know me are going to be that wary of me/kill me for purely strategic reasons, why should those who don't be any different? No matter my actual alignment, people will be hesitant to trust me. That's just a fact, and it's one I've come to terms with. I'll readily admit that I like WGG's. Pulled one in LG2 and suggested the LG15b one. But guess what? I don't like to pull them on me. I prefer to get teammates in positions of trust. Always have, and that's not something that's changed, or is likely to. I die. That's what I do. I don't have a 15 game death streak for no reason. I'm not irritated about not having survived a game in two years for no reason. I die no matter my alignment. So why would I attempt to gain trust for myself like this, knowing that I am highly likely to die even with that "boost"? And yes, you can spin your I Know You Know theories all you want, saying that I'd do it just because I could say this, but no. I don't operate like that. I operate on strategy. What in the world is strategic about getting everyone to focus on me and be paranoid? If I'm going to do a WGG, wouldn't it be better to do one on a teammate that won't attract this kind of attention?

Honestly, I'm now suspicious of Stick for being so convinced I'm an eliminator. Paranoia I can understand. But it's like Kipper just said. The attack isn't particularly alignment indicative either way, unless you're willing to trust what I say about disliking myself being the target of WGG's, which I'm betting most of you aren't. I know my alignment and I find it interesting that someone is pushing so hard for the idea of the attack being a WGG at the cost of any other possibility. I rather think it's because Stick is Spiked and is hoping to either get me lynched or vig-killed since they failed to kill me. What better way than to get the village to complete the job for them?

[A Joe in the Bush]

I'm a firm believer in Wilson's innocence. I have played with her in many of my past lives. She was attacked by an eliminator team who genuinely wanted her dead. She's wouldn't be willing to fake that reaction if it was a WGG. Unlike EL, I'm not lazy, and will make a list of who wouldn't attack Wilson, even if they knew she was protected:

Seonid, A Joe in the Bush, Wyrmhero, STINK, The Mighty Lopen, Gamma Fiend, Little Wilson, Orlok Tsubodai, Elbereth

Then there are people who probably wouldn't have attacked Wilson, but would if outvoted by their teammates:

Nyali, Herowannabe, Marestar, Drake Marshall and Bugsy.

So, I'm looking for Eliminators in these people:

Assassin In Burgundy, Elenion, Jondesu Manukos, I_Am_Stick, Arinian, Conquestor, Silverblade5, Arraenae, Straw, Doc12, Hemalurgic_Headshot, Araris Valerian, Droughtbringer, Ecthelion III, Kipper, Madagascar, Dalinar Kholin, Sart, Wonko the Sane

 

---

I probably won't be posting more than a single post per 24 hours until after Saturday. The entire extended family is in town or my sister's wedding. I will still be following along and taking notes, but don't expect large attacks on people.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Wilson saying the same thing in a more articulate fashion.

Edited January 11, 2017 by A Joe in the Bush

[TheMightyLopen]

I don't really see any maliciousness in Rae's advice post. From either alignment, I think she'd probably give her honest advice. That's what I always do. Why try to give bad advice in the thread when it's D1 and everyone is looking for reasons to suspect people? It's just not a good idea.

One thought I had for vote manipulators is that if they wanted to do something useful with their powers, but didn't have a strong opinion about the lynch, they could Riot/Soothe random poke votes or whatnot to test and see if someone was Smoked the previous Night. Could lead to some interesting stuff(hopefully good stuff but probably only terrible things that will get me killed for suggesting this knowing my luck. Like, say someone tried to move Wilson's vote and she was Smoked and then the village gets riled up and kills her because of that and then she turns out to be a villager and then someone points out that I was the one to suggest doing it in the first place which obviously means I was trying to get Wilson killed which would end up with me potentially dying and that would just be sad.)

Oh boy, I made it on Joe's list! Woooo! Guess I'm okay then.

[Arinian]

I wanted to start from RP but as I see thought throwing started sooo... I will throw my thoughts. 

Quote

Rae: If we have a tineye in here, please send a message to the GM so we know how many of you there are. Try to include something that you can later use to identify yourself with later. One thing you can use is a vignere cipher. You would put in something like "IAMRAE" repeated over and over again, cutting off at a random letter. You'd use a key to change it to ciphertext.  Then, if you ever need to confirm your role to someone, you can just PM them the ciphertext.

Nyali: I strongly disagree with this. What's the point? Why do we need to know how many tineyes there are? The power of tineyes is that they allow us to talk amongst ourselves without the elims necessarily being privy to that information. The elims don't need tineyes to do that. The only reason to learn the number of village tineyes out there is so the elims know how many they need to take out to stop the town from communicating in private. Also, as stated by another, your cipher idea would create a cipher that's relatively easy to crack.

I'm not gonna go in deep role analysis (cause I'm lazy, I will just say with what of already writen I agree and disagree). In this above I absolutely agree with Nyali there no need in some ciphers or anything else, better for tineyes even not send messages for village cause that can give elims info about close number of tineyes or give them idea who is tineye (send only if you have something really useful to say).

  

Quote

Rae: Try not to kill people unless you have a strong suspicion that they're an elim. If not, it's probably not a good idea to randomly kill people. If by the third cycle you have nobody to kill, then you can go for inactives who have been silent or near silent without giving an explanation. Obviously, don't attack people if they've said that they're going to be inactive because of RL circumstances.

Nyali: I consider vigilantes to be an extremely powerful role for a villager (and overpowered for an elim). We clearly don't have an elim coinshot or else there would have been two kill attempts on Night 1 instead of  one. Any village coinshot out there, in my opinion, should use their power on the person they suspect the most each night. It's just like the lynch - attempting to kill someone who has a chance at being an elim is how the village wins. It is essentially a second lynch. Use it.

Not gonna agree with Nyali if coinshot will shoot whoever he wants that can cost life to tineye or seeker(or coinshot, but I doubt that there more then one). Better to keep your bloodthirsty for later turns where you will have more solid suspiciouns.

Quote

Rae: In the early cycles, the people who contribute a lot tend to be offed most often. Active villagers are more useful than inactive villagers, so you probably shouldn't bother protecting them. Later on, protect the people you trust.

Nyali: I'm confused by what you mean here. Don't bother protecting active villagers? Those are exactly the people to protect. I recommend protecting the most active villager OR protecting yourself. The nice thing about protecting yourself is that you are guaranteed to be protecting a villager. You should definitely protect someone every night. While it's possible you could protect an eliminator from a village coinshot, chances are much higher that you will protect a villager from an elim kill OR a villager from a errant coinshot attack.

I think Nyali you misunderstand what Rae wrote. She said exactly same thing as you. I understood it as "You shouldn't bother to protect inactives".

Quote

Rae: Soother, please try not to meddle with the vote in the early cycles unless you know that this person is an elim or that person is a villager. Votes are very useful for analysis, but if they've been messed around by a Soother, it's harder to analyze them. Village and elim soothes look the same on a vote tally comparison. If possible, please try to soothe an unimportant vote (such as a lone poke vote) so we know you exist.

Nyali: I don't understand this one - don't use your powers to manipulate the vote because votes are how we get information? But isn't the soothing/rioting a way of gaining extra information about the lynch? It's not like we can't look up what the votes were before they were manipulated. Also, showing off that you are a soother or rioter only helps the elims by telling them how many village soother/rioters there are so they know by what margin they need on lynches. In my opinion, soothers and rioters should use their powers to protect people they think are innocent (such as themselves) but the rest of the village is trying to kill.

 Nyali you really cares about hiding existence but recommends to use vote manipulation cause it gives info... by the colours what damnation info you will get from that? There no reasons to vote manipulate if you don't have any solid points to believe in someone innocence or guiltiness. If you village Soother or Rioter do nothing till you will not have enough info(atleast ideas) about who is who, if you will use actions without thoughts you will just mess up information from lynch. Ohh...

Quote

Same as the soother, please try not to meddle with the vote in early cycles. You don't have to change an unimportant vote to let us know you're there, because that'll cancel out your own vote, which is a very powerful tool.

Same as above - what's the harm in meddling? It gives more information and doesn't take any away. But at the same time, don't meddle just for the sake of meddling - meddle to protect people you are pretty confident are villagers, such as yourselves.

Damnation Nyali stop contradict to yourself... Look what you saying "What the harm in meddling?" You just stated that above(and further.. ohh damnation) elims will know close number of soothers\rioters or even can find rioter cause they have MORE information and they know all theyr manipulations with votes. And just look above again, you questioning Rae's state about not using meddling and there you saying same that she said earlier. "Not meddle without reason". That's exactly what I understand Rae tried to say she just added that that can mess up our understanding of vote pattern.

Don't know Nyali but for me looks like you trying to dig grave for someone cause you even not trying accurately understand what she said.

(If there something not undestandable ask me I will try to give understandable answer ).

Edited January 11, 2017 by Arinian